Murder in the Cotswolds

by Nancy Buckingham

  MURDER IN THE COTSWOLDS

  Nancy Buckingham

  Chapter One

  Not even the dog scented danger. As its mistress climbed over the stile it wriggled its sleek back under the bottom rail, then obediently came to heel to cross the lane. After several days of rain the May evening was fine and balmy, with scarcely a whisper of breeze. A clump of beeches on the hill crest stood out as a dark silhouette against the last pale gleam of daylight in the western sky. Woman and dog both revelled in the clean earthy scents of the cooling countryside.

  Somewhere very close at hand a car engine burst into life; at the same instant headlights flashed on. Startled, the woman spun round, only to be blinded by the glare. She froze in panic, the dog beside her, as the car came hurtling towards them. Instinctively, uselessly, she raised her hands against it. Too late she tried to throw herself out of its path.

  The violent impact knocked her down and the front near-side wheel lurched over her chest. Metal protrusions on the underside of the chassis rolled and dragged her along the lane’s rough asphalt surface, ripping her clothing and tearing into her flesh. With a final roar of triumph the car shook off its victim, swayed as a rear wheel jolted over her thighs, and vanished round the bend.

  The golden cocker spaniel had been catapulted into the hedgerow, its right eye spiked by a hawthorn twig. Mortally wounded, whimpering in agony, it dragged itself inch by inch to the lifeless body of its mistress and started to lick her hand.

  * * * *

  Less than two miles away, on the far side of Chipping Bassett, Detective Chief Inspector Kate Maddox was relaxing with a glass of whisky in the chintzy living room of her aunt’s cottage.

  “Just what I needed,” she said appreciatively. “Today has been a real bitch, Felix.”

  Felicity Moore, a large, ungainly woman with a mass of grey hair loosely bundled on top of her head, was flopped in an armchair opposite. She looked more amused than sympathetic.

  “Blame yourself for that, girl. You know what they say ... the higher you climb, the harder the wind blows. Still, it’s a shame you were kept so late on your very first day at Marlingford.”

  “Fair’s fair. Staying late was my own choice. I thought it would be a smart move to spend time at my desk getting wised up on the current divisional caseload. So tomorrow I can dazzle one and all with the brilliance of their new DCI.”

  “Those poor men! They won’t know what’s hit them.”

  “Hey, whose side are you on?” Kate pulled a face. “Of all the damnedest luck, I got off to a miserable start this morning. Would you believe, I burst a radiator hose on my way over, so I was late arriving at Divisional HQ. Which handed dear Superintendent Joliffe the chance to insert snide little cracks about women and cars and timekeeping into his welcoming spiel. He kept harping on about it throughout the conducted tour, making sure that all the lads enjoyed a giggle at my expense.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Not to worry, I got a giggle myself from the dismay and horror behind their smirks. A bloody woman to boss them around. The end of the civilised world as the sweet darlings know and love it.”

  “They feel threatened, of course,” said her aunt. “That’s the trouble.”

  “Threatened?” Kate ran impatient fingers through her short black hair. “By one solitary female DCI? I’ve got no illusions. It’s going to be a long, slow haul for women officers to batter down the barriers of male prejudice in the police. Oh God, I’m getting solemn.”

  “You’re also mixing your metaphors.”

  “So obviously I need another whisky.” Kate held out her glass. “Hey, steady on, Felix, you’ll have me legless.”

  Up until yesterday Kate Maddox had been one of three female inspectors on the strength of the South Midlands Force. A rarity, but not unique. Now, with this latest promotion that had brought her fifty miles across country to the Cotswold Division, she was pushed out front on her own. It was a challenge that Kate accepted eagerly, but not without a few qualms.

  She took another sip of her refill. “It’s great of you to let me stay here with you, Felix. It’ll give me breathing space to look around for a place of my own. I won’t leave it too long.”

  “Don’t rush on my account. If I could put up with your visits as a child, I dare say I can now.”

  But even the warmest of welcomes could wear thin. Now sixty-six, and all he an independent and self-sufficient woman, Kate’s aunt didn’t take easily to changes in her domestic routine. And why should she? Felix had already done more than enough in helping Kate through the traumas of her life ... starting from the time when, at only thirteen, she’d lost her mother. The day would come, Kate mused, when she’d have to repay her debts and be the supportive one. But Felix had no plans as yet to retire from her work as a free-lance equestrian photographer, for which she was much in demand. Right now, though, Kate thought in amused affection, she looked more like an amiable English sheepdog in her shaggy home-knit jumper, with her hair spilling from its pins, than a successful career woman.

  Kate drained her glass and stood up, rubbing the muscles of her neck that ached from too much deskwork.

  “I think I’ll get my head down, ready for the fray tomorrow. If I know anything, it’s going to be another heavy day. But heavy.”

  Kate spoke truer than she could have guessed.

  * * * *

  The persistent ringing of the telephone woke Kate from deepest sleep. Ten past six by her bedside alarm. It had to be for her, of course. Who’d want to phone her aunt at this ungodly hour? She swung her legs out of bed and reached for her dressing gown, but Felix had beaten her to it.

  “Kate,” she called up the stairs. “You’re wanted.”

  “Coming.” Barefoot, Kate hurried down the narrow, boxed-in staircase. “Sorry you were disturbed, Felix. This sort of thing is likely to happen now and then while I’m staying here.”

  “Oh well, it’ll do me no harm to be up early for once.” Her aunt vanished into the kitchen as Kate dived into the living room and picked up the phone.

  “Chief Inspector Maddox here.”

  “Good morning, er ... ma’am. Detective Sergeant Boulter speaking.”

  Kate’s mental radar scanned rapidly, and homed in. “You’re stationed here in Chipping Bassett? What can I do for you, Sergeant?”

  “It’s a fatal Road Traffic Accident, ma’am, on the outskirts of town. A Fail to Stop.”

  “Oh.” Kate felt the familiar jolt of pain. Of all crimes, hit-and-run was the one she hated most; the one that too closely touched her own personal experience. She asked briskly, “Has the victim been identified?”

  “Yes, it’s a well-known local lady, Mrs. Belle Latimer. The body was discovered by a cowman on his way to early milking, and he made a treble-nine call. A patrol car’s at the scene, and they don’t like the way it looks.”

  “You mean, it could have been with intent?”

  “That’s how it appears to PC Farrow. So I thought, ma’am— knowing you were staying right here in Chipping Bassett—that you’d want me to contact you immediately rather than wait till I’d had a look-see myself.”

  “You thought correctly, Sergeant.” Kate rubbed sleep from her eyes with her free hand. “I suggest you come and collect me. Stonebank Cottage, do you know it?”

  “In Mill Lane?”

  “Yes, just past the sharp bend. Give me ten minutes.”

  “Okay. I mean, very good, Chief Inspector.”

  Felix came to the kitchen door as Kate hurried for the stairs. “Time for a cuppa?”

  “I guess so, just about. I’d better get dressed first.”

  “I’ll bring it up, then.”

  By the time Kate returned to her room from t
he bathroom, her aunt was sitting on the bed with two cups of tea on a tray beside her.

  “What’s the panic, Kate? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “It’s a fatal hit-and-run accident.”

  There was a small silence. Felix could guess all too well what such an incident would mean for Kate. “Do you have to attend personally? It won’t be easy for you.”

  “No, it never is, but I have to attend.”

  At her wardrobe, Kate passed over the smart navy suit and red blouse she’d planned to wear today and chose instead a denim skirt and zipper jacket more suitable for a possibly blood-spattered scene of crime. When she turned back to Felix, her voice revealed no emotion.

  “I don’t have any details, but apparently there are suspicious circumstances.”

  “Suspicious circumstances? What does that mean?”

  “It means that it might not have been a pure accident.”

  “But that would make it murder, wouldn’t it? I can’t believe it, Kate, not in Chipping Bassett. The person killed ... do you know who it was?”

  “A woman named Latimer. Mrs. Belle Latimer.”

  Felix’s hand flew to her throat. “Belle Latimer? How dreadful! It was only last week that I was talking to her on the phone. Who on earth would want to kill Belle Latimer?”

  Kate gulped down half the cup of tea before applying lipstick. As she slipped on her wristwatch, she glanced at the time. “I have to leave in three ... no, two and a half minutes. The fact that you knew the victim could be helpful, Felix. What can you tell me about her?”

  “Well, she’s a sort of lady of the manor round these parts. She owns Hambledon Grange ... owned, rather.”

  “Hambledon Grange? That rings a bell. I seem to remember a rambling old Tudor house with lots of land attached.”

  Felix nodded. “Lots of land is right. The estate runs to nearly a thousand acres all told.”

  “You said she owned it. Was Mrs. Latimer a widow? Divorced?”

  “No, her husband is still around, but Belle Latimer owned the place. She inherited the estate from her father, Sir Peter Stedham. That must have been about fifteen years ago.”

  “What would her age have been?”

  “Forty-three or-four, somewhere around that.”

  “Children?”

  Felix shook her head. “I believe she couldn’t.”

  “How about the husband? Does he run the estate? Or what?”

  “No, Matthew Latimer owns a small plastics factory in Marlingford.”

  “Doing well?”

  “I don’t know about that. There was a rumour a short while ago that his wife had to bail him out when Precision Plastics nearly went bust. Actually, Mrs. Latimer employed a manager to run the farming side of the estate. Her main interest in life was breeding and schooling horses for dressage competitions ... you know, not just doing all kinds of clever things on a horse, but doing them stylishly. She often commissioned me to take pictures for one or another of the horsey magazines, or to send to a prospective buyer or whatever. That was the reason she phoned me last week. She wanted photos of a horse that she’s entering in the European Championships at Goodwood in July, and I was going to take them next week.”

  Another ninety seconds gone. Kate had no intention of keeping the sergeant waiting. The story of her late arrival at DHQ would be all over the division by now, a bad start to live down. Getting anywhere on time had never been one of her strong points, but where the job was concerned she’d drilled herself to be meticulous. That was why yesterday’s cock-up galled her so much.

  “Quickly, fill me in on what the local grapevine has to say about the Latimers. Did they get along together?”

  “I never heard different. Why? You surely aren’t thinking that he ... ?”

  “Nope, just asking. Anything else you can tell me about them?”

  “Well, let’s see. He’d be several years younger than she was.”

  “Would he, now? Oh damn, that sounds like the car already.”

  Detective Sergeant Tim Boulter had clearly not been expecting the chief inspector to emerge, all set to go, before he’d even walked to the garden gate. Embarrassed, he hastily swallowed down whatever it was he’d been chewing. He took the hand Kate proffered with a certain wariness.

  “How do you do, Sergeant? I was planning to visit the Chipping Bassett station later on today and meet you then. But this has thrown out my schedule.”

  “Sorry about that, ma’am, but—”

  “No need to apologise. It comes with the job.”

  Sergeant Boulter was a stockily built five foot ten, closing up on thirty, at a guess. Not a man for a villain to tangle with. He had sandy hair and a pleasant open face, pink and squarish. But just at the moment it was as if he’d lowered a blind and was peering through the slats trying to sum her up. Even so, Kate could read him like a book. Must be tough as old boots to have got where she is. Or who did she sleep with to get her promotion? Not a bad bit of crumpet, really, if I was ten years older.

  In his car, as they moved off, Kate blanked out everything except the case in hand.

  “Has the victim’s husband been informed?”

  “Not yet, ma’am. The lads at the scene report that it seems Mr. Latimer went to London on business yesterday, and he’s not expected back till this afternoon.”

  “He’ll have to be contacted wherever he’s staying.”

  “We don’t know where that is, ma’am.”

  “Has anyone asked at the house?”

  “There’s no one there.”

  “A big place like that? No staff?”

  “Not live-in staff. There’s an estate manager who has his own place nearby, but he can’t be found. The only people contacted so far are the senior groom and his wife. She works as a daily help at the Grange. They both say they’ve no idea where Mr. Latimer might be staying in London.”

  “Well, we’ve got to find him. And fast.”

  Kate used the car radio to contact the Information Room at Marlingford. “About this Chipping Bassett Fail to Stop fatal RTA. The husband is said to be in London on business, but we can’t establish where he can be contacted. See if you can raise one of his employees at Precision Plastics who might know. The keyholder, perhaps. And another thing ... I want whoever breaks the news to Mr. Latimer to take careful note of his reactions. There’s his car, too—that must be looked at. We may need to have it held for forensic examination.” She clipped back the handset. “Why are you looking so amazed, Sergeant?”

  “How did you know that Mr. Latimer has a factory in Marlingford?”

  Score yourself a point, Kate. “We all have our sources, don’t we?” she said lightly.

  Unimpeded by traffic, they slid quickly through the wide main street of the small town. On either side stood an unbroken line of shops and houses, no two alike, but all built of the tawny-grey limestone of the Cotswolds, glowing golden now in the early-morning sunlight. Reaching the outskirts, they took a left turn into a country lane that plunged through new-leafing beech trees as it snaked down into a lush green valley. Another left turn into an even narrower lane brought them within sight of Hambledon Grange, which Kate remembered. Seen across a stretch of parkland studded with graceful trees, it looked magnificent, a happy hotchpotch of architectural styles that spanned the centuries.

  Round the next bend, a police patrol car was parked on the grass verge. Sergeant Boulter pulled in behind it. Twenty yards along the lane, two uniformed PCs stood guard over a dark huddle on the roadway. One of them came hurrying up as Kate and the sergeant got out of the car.

  “PC Farrow, ma’am,” Boulter introduced. “Jack, this is Detective Chief Inspector Maddox.”

  He greeted her gravely, touching his cap. A copper of the old breed. What was a woman doing at an incident like this? All wrong.

  “Nasty business, Chief Inspector.”

  “Hit-and-runs always are, Constable.”

  Hang on to yourself, Kate. It was forever the same, this sense of s
welling panic, which had never grown any easier to cope with even as she’d risen in rank. Each and every hit-and-run incident she’d had to attend came as a brutal reminder of that summer afternoon fourteen years ago when a recklessly driven car had mounted a pavement and shattered Kate’s life, robbing her of the husband she loved dearly and their three-year-old daughter. That the car’s occupants had been three men escaping from a bank hold-up had added bitter anger to her grief. The bitterness remained; hit-and-run was a disgusting crime in any circumstances.

  Kate took deep, calming breaths as she walked towards the body. Accompanying her, PC Farrow raised an arm as if to shield her from the gruesome sight.

  “It’s a horrible mess, ma’am.”

  His intentions were good; but her male colleagues on the division would have to learn that Chief Inspector Maddox was ready to face up to whatever came her way.

  “It won’t be the first horrible mess I’ve seen,” she said crisply. “Nor will it be the last.”

  Mess was an understatement. Kate felt the inevitable upsurge of nausea. And compassion. And a fury that almost choked her. The body was hardly recognisable as human, just a mangled heap of flesh and bone lying in a pool of congealed blood. Poignantly, the body of a golden cocker spaniel lay with its muzzle resting on the woman’s grotesquely twisted arm. As if, before dying, it had been trying to lick the hand of its mistress.

  “Jesus bloody Christ!” muttered Sergeant Boulter, then shot Kate a sideways glance. “Oh ... sorry, ma’am.”

  “Is the doctor on his way?” She needed all her self-control to keep her voice steady.

  “He should be here any minute, ma’am,” PC Farrow told her.

  Kate nodded. “A cowman reported this, I gather?”

  “Terry Haynes, on his way to Reedbank Farm for the early milking,” said Farrow.

  She glanced around. “Where is he now?”

  “We let him go, ma’am. The cows couldn’t be left waiting, you see. He’ll be there now, or at his cottage later. Hope I did right?”

  “Yes, of course. What time was the message received?”