“Oh no, Mr. Prescott handles it personally. He’s the honorary secretary for the Leisure Centre fund, you see, so he wouldn’t be able to charge them for my services.”
Kate put the question as if casually. “As far as you know, was everything harmonious between Mr. Prescott and Mrs. Latimer? No disagreements of any kind?”
“Disagreements? I don’t understand.”
“We know that Mrs. Latimer could be an impetuous woman. I just wondered if ... well, if she ever made criticisms of the way Mr. Prescott handled her business affairs. Or the Leisure Centre funds.”
Alison’s brown eyes were reproachful. “Now you’re asking me to discuss my employer with you.”
“I only want to get at the truth, Alison. Even if Mrs. Latimer did make criticisms of Mr. Prescott, it could easily be that she was mistaken.”
But Alison refused to be drawn. “All I can say is that I never heard anything about them disagreeing.”
Kate allowed a pause before asking, “You’ve been keeping the Hambledon estate books for some time, haven’t you?”
“For nearly three years now, from soon after I came here to live after my mother died. I had to find a job of some kind, and I heard that Mr. Prescott was planning to start up a bookkeeping service to farmers and small businesses. It suits me just fine. I’d hate to be stuck in the same little office day after day. This way, I get to travel around and meet people.”
“Was Mr. Prescott the accountant for the Hambledon estate even before he offered the bookkeeping service?”
“Oh yes, for years, from way back before Mrs. Latimer took over.”
“So presumably everything went smoothly?”
“I wouldn’t say smoothly.” Alison gave a quick, unamused laugh. “You were right about Mrs. Belle Latimer, Kate. She could be a real bitch, always ready to find fault. Just because she had the good luck to inherit a huge estate, she seemed to think it gave her the right to queen it over lesser mortals. Mind you, I always kept my head down and let it all wash over me. But I don’t think a day passed without her ranting off at someone or other.”
“But not at Mr. Prescott, you said?”
“Well, only about trifling things. Nothing serious.”
“What about her husband? How was she with him?”
“How was she with him? Well, I can’t really say. I hardly ever saw them together.” Alison shrugged, seeming at a loss. “Mr. Latimer’s a pretty easy-going sort of man. At least, that’s how he’s always struck me. Er ... can I offer you a drink, Kate?”
“I’d better not, thanks, I’ll be driving in a minute.” Kate returned to her questioning. “I was talking to Mrs. Latimer’s senior groom, Ted West. He seems very bitter about the way she treated him.”
“I’m not surprised. I’ll tell you something, just between the two of us. One morning when I was working at the estate office —it must have been last Friday—I heard raised voices outside. It was her and Ted West having a real set-to. I couldn’t hear what it was all about, except that she seemed to be accusing him of stealing something. Either him or his wife, that is.”
“Are you sure you didn’t hear anything more specific?”
A shake of the head. “No, I didn’t. Even though she was shouting at him, they were way across the yard. Bruce McLeod might be able to tell you more.”
“The estate manager?”
“Yes. He came through from his own office with some time sheets he wanted me to check, and he sort of raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say ‘Just listen to her!’ But we didn’t discuss it.”
“I see. Did you ever overhear West and Mrs. Latimer quarrelling before?”
“Oh, often. But never quite as bad as that time.”
Kate stood up. “Well, thanks a lot, Alison. You’ve really given me something to think about.”
“You won’t tell ... I mean, I wouldn’t want everyone knowing what I’ve just told you.”
“Not to worry, I’ll be very discreet.” At the door, Kate paused. “If in your travels you get to hear of a flat or small house coming on the market, remember me. I really do need to find somewhere to live. I’m staying with my aunt temporarily, but I mustn’t impose on her for too long.”
“Right, Kate, I’ll keep it in mind.”
* * * *
Roses round the door and a cherubic old couple sitting outside enjoying the evening sunshine. Idyllic picture-postcard stuff, thought Sergeant Boulter as he opened the garden gate. He was soon to be disillusioned about that.
Boulter had cunningly stopped off at the Shamrock Inn on his way past for a flagon of best bitter and a bottle of milk stout. These vocal lubricants he held before him on display as he approached the cottage.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wilkes?” he enquired politely.
“Aye.” The old man’s eyes homed on the bottles. “And who might you be, young ’un?”
Boulter introduced himself. It took him no more than three minutes to be on such chummy terms that, having been invited to step into the parlour and fetch three glasses from the sideboard, he was sitting on the doorstep beside the ancient pair and yarning away over drinks. Deftly, he brought up the subject of Belle Latimer’s death.
“Best news I’ve had in years.” Sam Wilkes chortled, his honest ruddy face suddenly alive with malice. “Serve the bloody bitch right, and I’d like to shake the hand of the bloke that ran her down, I would.”
“You didn’t like her, then?”
“Hated her stinking guts, I did. That bloody Stedham lot are all the same ... greedy, grasping bleeders.”
Mrs. Wilkes, having quaffed milk stout, delicately dabbed froth from her upper lip with a handkerchief. “Now then, Sam,” she admonished. “Mind your language.”
“Why don’t you like the Stedhams?” asked Boulter.
“Why don’t I? I’ll tell you why I don’t. Cheated me out of my farm, that’s what that bleeder Sir Peter bloody Stedham did.”
The story emerged, embroidered colourfully. Sam had owned fifty-eight acres of arable land, but following a couple of disastrous harvests on the trot he was badly strapped for cash. On the say-so of Sir Peter Stedham, he insisted, the bank had refused him any further credit; consequently, Stedham was able to buy him out for a fraction of what the land was worth.
“Your son would’ve been running the farm now if you hadn’t been forced out?” Tim suggested probingly.
“Didn’t have no son, did we? Just our Alice, and she went off to Canada thirty year ago and got herself married.”
Boulter nodded and took a swig of beer. “I heard tell, Mr. Wilkes, that you set fire to one of the Hambledon estate’s barns to get even with Stedham.”
A veined lid dropped over a rheumy eye. “Ar, did you now?”
Boulter proffered the flagon. “Might as well finish this while we’re about it. I bet you’re not the only one round these parts to hate the Stedhams’ guts, eh?”
That stoked the old man’s venom. “Bloody lot o’ crawlers, touching their caps to the gentry. Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir! Even that stupid cow he done down like he did me, she wouldn’t make no fuss. Said she were only too glad to sell up and get all the worry of the farm off her hands.”
“Who was this, Mr. Wilkes?”
“Widow-woman, name of Axfield. She’m bloody dead now, too,” he added, with an evil smile of pleasure. “Had a stroke, she did. Serve the sodding cow right for being so bleeding stupid.”
“Language, Sam!”
“Daft bleeding cow,” he muttered defiantly.
The conversation and beer ran out together. Sam’s head drooped onto his chest. “The poor old chap can’t help nodding off these days,” Mrs. Wilkes apologised.
“That’s all right, I quite understand.” The sergeant rose to his feet. “Well, I’d best be getting on my way. Goodbye, Mrs. Wilkes.”
Boulter was still grinning to himself when, ten minutes later, driving past Old Toll-House Cottage, he spotted his chief inspector emerging. He pulled up his Escort behind
her silver Montego, where it was parked in the lay-by opposite the cottage.
“Pick up anything useful from Mrs. Knight?” he asked, getting out to meet her.
“Could be. She said that last Friday she overheard Belle Latimer and Ted West having a violent argument. No details, but it sounded as if she was accusing him or his wife of theft.”
“What, them? Straight as a pair of bent corkscrews, they are.”
“You could be right. Criminal Records came up with nothing known against them, though.” Kate had a thought. “Get someone to dig out Linda’s maiden name, and see what that produces.”
“Hey, that’s worth a try.”
“I’ll be wanting to talk to McLeod again,” she said. “Apparently he overheard the quarrel, too. What have you been up to, Tim?”
“Just seen that old chap Sam Wilkes, haven’t I?” Boulter licked his lips with relish. “A real character, Sam is. The way he was blaspheming about the Stedham family you could imagine him strangling Belle Latimer with his bare hands. But he’s physically incapable of running her down with a car. He’s badly crippled these days. Arthritis. He only gets to the pub when someone takes pity on him and gives him a lift.”
“So what makes him so vicious about Mrs. Latimer?”
Tim recounted the story, not omitting any of the vivid language. He paused, then said, “Care to stop off for a noggin at the Keeper’s Arms on the way back, er ... Kate?”
“Mind if I say another time, Tim? It’s been quite a day and I just want to get home and put my feet up in front of the telly. Come to that, shouldn’t you take the chance to get home to your wife at a civilised hour for once? We don’t know what tomorrow may bring.”
“I’m off for a pint first. I reckon I’ve earned one.”
He resented her interference and wasn’t troubling to hide the fact. And he had every justification, Kate rebuked herself. As long as Boulter did his job properly, what business was it of hers what he did in his private life? You’re a copper, Kate, not a bleeding social worker. She grinned to herself. The language of old Sam Wilkes seemed to be catching.
Tim Boulter watched her drive away. Moodily, he kicked a loose stone at his feet, then, with a sigh, he returned to his own car. When he came to the Keeper’s Arms he slowed, hesitated, then pressed his foot down and drove on.
In the town centre a supermarket was still open, Friday being late-night shopping. Tim pulled up and went inside. After a lot of soul-searching at the drinks counter, he paid nearly a fiver for a bottle of Asti Spumante.
At home he produced the wine with a flourish. But it didn’t work the magic he’d confidently expected. It didn’t instantly bridge the widening gulf between him and Julie.
Bloody women!
Chapter Six
As things turned out, Kate talked to Ted West again before she’d had a chance to question Bruce McLeod about the quarrel between the groom and Mrs. Latimer, as reported by Alison Knight. It was Saturday, and she learned from one of the farmworkers that the estate manager had driven off somewhere and wouldn’t be back until later in the day. So Kate told Tim Boulter to drive round to the Wests’ cottage, but they got no answer there, either. A girl taking a horse for exercise said they’d find Ted in the tack room.
The stable yard smelled sweet and fresh, still damp from a hosing-down. A chestnut horse, its sleek head protruding above the half door, observed them with interest. Kate went to stroke its velvet muzzle, taken back to childhood days when she’d helped out at a stable near her home in exchange for frequent rides.
“Watch that the thing doesn’t bite you,” Boulter warned.
“The thing? And you a countryman born and bred!”
The sound of a radio led them to the tack room, where West was soaping a saddle fitted over a wooden saddle horse. He scowled when Kate and her sergeant appeared in the open doorway.
“You again?”
“Afraid so, Mr. West,” said Kate. “I want to talk to you about the quarrel you had with Mrs. Latimer last Friday.”
She sensed a sudden tension in him, though he carried on working without noticeable pause. “What’s so special about that? Like I told you before, she was always on at me about some bloody thing or other.”
Kate stepped inside. “What was she on at you about that time?”
“Just the usual. My work, and how she reckoned I didn’t do it properly.” But that answer hadn’t been immediate. West had taken a couple of seconds to think.
“Are you sure it wasn’t something more personal on this occasion?”
The steady circular movement of sponge on leather slowed. “What gives you that idea?”
“Information received, Mr. West. Would you like to tell me about it?”
He tossed the sponge into the bucket of water and wiped his palms on his jeans. His face was closed against her. Then finally he muttered, “It was that bastard McLeod, right? He’s a fine one to talk.”
“Meaning?”
“Work it out for yourself.”
“Not when you can work it out for me. Explain, please.”
There was a half-triumphant sneer on his face as he looked up at Kate. “I’ll bet McLeod tried to make out that him and the boss-woman got on just great, eh? He was always sucking up to her in his smarmy way. Got away with it, too, till she found him out.”
“Come on, West,” said Boulter, “let’s be having it.”
The sneer was even more pronounced. “You don’t even know that she sacked him, do you? Caught him out and fired him on the spot. He’s just finishing up the last bit of his contract. Then he’s out on his ear.”
“How do you know this?” asked Kate, concealing her surprise.
“Heard ’em, didn’t I? In his office across there.” West jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “That bookkeeper woman wasn’t there that day, and they thought they were alone. Only I happened to be in the outer office. I’d gone in there to fetch something, and I couldn’t help hearing.”
“What had Mrs. Latimer found out about McLeod that caused her to sack him?” asked Kate.
“Only that he’d been on the fiddle—right, left, and centre. Buying all the farm supplies through his bloody crook of a brother-in-law. They must have made quite a packet between them, considering the amount of stuff that has to be bought for this place. All at bumped-up prices, of course.”
“I see.” But if West imagined that he’d drawn her fire away from himself, he was out of luck. “You were about to tell me the reason for that bad quarrel you had with Mrs. Larimer.”
He shrugged in defeat, “She was a crazy woman, always suspecting people of something and making accusations.”
Often with good reason, too! Maybe that was an inevitable hazard of being rich.
“And what was it she accused you of, Mr. West?”
“It was all lies. She’d lost a ring, a valuable one—emeralds—so she straightway reckoned that Linda must have pinched it.”
“And had she?”
A look of fury came into his face. “Here, you’ve got no cause to say that. I tell you, that bloody woman would accuse anyone of anything just for the hell of it.”
“Maybe that was what she was doing with McLeod.”
“That was different. In his case she had the proof. He didn’t even deny it when she threw it at him.”
“But you did deny her accusation?”
“Course I did.”
“How could you be so sure it wasn’t true?”
“Listen, I know my own wife, don’t I?”
Kate couldn’t share such touching faith in Linda’s innate honesty. Not after her strangely defensive manner the other morning concerning the ring she’d been wearing. As if Kate had accused her of stealing it. But that ring had been sapphires, not emeralds, pretty rather than valuable, so it couldn’t be the ring in question. All the same, Linda West was a woman with an untidy conscience.
“All right, Mr. West. Thank you.” Kate signed to Boulter to come outside with her.
“
I’m going over to the big house now to have a word with Mr. Latimer, if he’s in. I want you to go straight back and get a statement from West about his movements on the evening Mrs. Latimer was killed. When you’ve done that, bring the car to the house. Linda West should be working there now, and you can take her off to the kitchen or somewhere for a cosy chat. No need to tell her that we’ve been talking to Ted.”
“You want me to question her about the emerald ring?”
Kate nodded. “No need to be too gentle, though I won’t blame you if you choose to turn on your charm.”
“My charm?”
“Want me to spell it out, Tim?”
It gave Kate a peaceful, out-of-this-world feeling to be walking through the grounds of Hambledon Grange. The smooth green lawns were neatly mown in wide stripes, a perfect foil for the massed banks of rhododendrons that were in magnificent blazing bloom. A giant cedar of Lebanon spread its black branches against a duck-egg sky.
Linda answered the door. Seeing who it was, she looked apprehensive until Kate said, “I’d like to talk to Mr. Latimer, if he’s at home.”
Linda’s expression changed to relief. “Okay, I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Kate waited in the hall while she vanished into the drawing room, shutting the door behind her. Above the large stone fireplace hung a portrait in a heavy gilt frame. The man was wearing a modern lounge suit. Stepping forward to read the inscription plate, Kate confirmed that it was Sir Peter Stedham, Belle Latimer’s father. She studied the aloof, aristocratic face, trying to judge whether he was a man who would cheat local farmers out of their land in order to enlarge his estate. Maybe. Maybe not. Any big landowner probably needed a streak of hardness. Like Belle.
Linda reappeared. “He’ll be with you in half a mo,” she said, and vanished again through a green baize door behind the stairs.
The half a mo was all of three minutes, then Matthew Latimer emerged. He’d been drinking, had been drinking steadily, from the look of him, since the death of his wife. For one reason or another.
“Good morning, Chief Inspector. Sorry to have, er ... to have kept you waiting. I was just ...”
Murder in the Cotswolds Page 8