Murder in the Cotswolds

by Nancy Buckingham

  “It isn’t right and proper at all,” Latimer burst out, his face flaming with temper and booze. “I was her husband, damn it.”

  “She left you adequately provided for.” Stedham’s voice was frosty.

  “Adequately? You call a few miserable thousands a year adequate?”

  “Gentlemen, please!” Forget collusion between these two, Kate! Their display of mutual loathing was the genuine article. “Mr. Stedham, will you and your family be moving to England now, and taking over control of the Hambledon estate?”

  “My plans are not yet finalised. I have a number of commitments in Kenya, so it isn’t easy to ...” He waved an expansive hand.

  Kate turned to Latimer. “May I enquire what your immediate plans are?”

  Before Latimer could answer, Stedham intervened. “I’ve already told, er ... Matthew that he is free to remain at the Grange for as long as he finds it convenient.” Kate’s surprise at this touch of generosity was instantly quenched when he added, “I’m in no hurry for a week or two.”

  “He’s already beginning to sell off bits of the estate,” said Latimer, his voice slurred.

  “I am not.” Stedham sounded outraged.

  “What about the stables, then?”

  “The horses are a different matter—not that it’s any of your damn business, Latimer.” Stedham switched off his scowl and smiled at Kate, inviting her support. “The horses and stables were my cousin’s hobby. They’re not a cost-effective operation, so changes will need to be made. What those changes will be I haven’t yet decided. The girls will no doubt want ponies, and my wife and I may well take up riding again. But in any case I need someone competent to supervise the stables for the time being, and Lady Heyshott has kindly agreed to come to my assistance.”

  Latimer snorted in disgust. “Belle always used to say that Alicia Heyshott didn’t know a forelock from a fetlock.”

  “Will you be keeping on the present estate staff, Mr. Stedham?” Kate hoped the changes he spoke of wouldn’t be too sweeping before she’d wound up the case.

  “For the most part,” he said largely. “As long as they do their jobs properly.”

  “Will you be reinstating the estate manager, Mr. McLeod?”

  “Good heavens no. The man can’t be trusted. In any case, my cousin had already appointed his replacement.”

  Kate returned her attention to Latimer. “Before I leave, there’s just a small point to cover. Now that we’re investigating Mr. Prescott’s death, too, we need to enquire into the movements at the relevant time of everyone known to him. So perhaps you could cast your mind back to what you yourself were doing on Monday evening.”

  Latimer’s face sagged in dismay. If the man was innocent, Kate thought compassionately, his safe, comfortable world had suddenly collapsed around him in a most cruel way. His wife murdered, and he himself suspected of having plotted her death ... the loss of the fortune he’d expected to inherit, which also meant finding himself thrust out of his home by a triumphant Stedham cousin. And now, to cap it all, realising that he was under suspicion of murdering a man he’d scarcely had anything to do with.

  If he was innocent.

  “I ... I’d have been here, at home,” he stammered. “I haven’t been out of the house. I just don’t feel up to it these days. Yes, I was here, Chief Inspector. Here in this room.”

  And drinking yourself into a daze. Kate believed him. The fact that he hadn’t prepared a better alibi for himself was proof enough to her that Latimer was not the murderer. The killer they were searching for was a man who meticulously planned his crimes.

  * * * *

  That afternoon Kate spent time at her desk running through the list of people to be interviewed in connection with the Prescott killing. She jotted her own initials against the name Major Hugo Carstairs. As a client of the accountant’s—styling himself an insurance consultant—Carstairs might conceivably have had a motive for murder. It might also be supposed that he could have arranged to meet Prescott at his office late in the evening without this seeming unduly odd.

  “I’m dealing with Major Carstairs myself,” she told Boulter, when he returned from court, cursing because the plainly guilty Post Office robber had got off scot free on an obscure technical point of law. “I’ll call on him this evening,” Kate added.

  Boulter looked surprised. “One of the lads could handle that, I’d have thought. Carstairs can’t be a serious suspect. His alibi for the time of the Latimer death has been checked and confirmed.”

  “I know all that, but I want an excuse to drop in on the Carstairses. I’ve a feeling that if I can get Mrs. Carstairs talking, she might let slip something useful about the Latimers.”

  “What are you hoping for?”

  “I don’t know that yet. Just hoping.”

  Boulter put on his sulky look. “I don’t see how you’ll get any more out of the Carstairses than I did last week.”

  Now she’d wounded his pride. He didn’t like the possibility of being bettered by her. Too bloody bad.

  “By the way, Tim,” she said cheerfully, “a boot up DC Aldwich’s backside wouldn’t be out of place. That lad’s a shade too casual in his approach to the job.”

  * * * *

  The manor house at Larksworth was a delightful example of Queen Anne style, a neat rectangle, its hipped roof pierced by five triangular-pedimented dormer windows. It was spoiled, though, by the insensitive addition of a concrete double garage, a desecration from pre-planning-law days.

  Major Hugo Carstairs answered the door himself. Balding, with a ruddy face and bulbous eyes, he was helped along in his military bearing by a brass-buttoned navy blazer and a regimental tie. Kate put him at sixty, give or take.

  She identified herself. “My sergeant phoned to make an appointment.”

  Carstairs held out his hand to her. “Yes indeed, Chief Inspector, though he didn’t seem to know what it was you wanted to see me about. Come on through, will you? My wife and I are in the snug. Sorry to be so informal, but one has to live simply these days when resident staff can’t be found at any price.”

  “Quite so.”

  Mrs. Carstairs, ten years younger than her husband, was rake-thin and plain. Ugly women, Kate reflected, often had style; plain women rarely did. But with this one, at the moment, there was more than a lack of style. Sylvia Carstairs was scared about something. What that something was, Kate would have to dig out.

  Politely refusing the offer of a drink, she began, “The reason I wanted to see you, Major Carstairs, was in connection with the death of Mr. George Prescott. You were a client of his, I believe?”

  “That’s right. Ghastly business, isn’t it? I gather you people think it was another murder, not suicide.”

  “I’m afraid that’s true. In your dealings with Mr. Prescott, did you have any reason to think that he was deeply worried about something?”

  Carstairs shook his head. “Not that I had much to do with the chap. He just handled my tax affairs.”

  “It was in the professional sense I meant.” Kate was treading carefully. “Could he, for example, have been worried about some shortfall in money that he handled for his clients?”

  Major Carstairs’s eyes hooded. “If in plain English you mean was he swindling me, forget it. I’m not an expert in financial matters for nothing. What Prescott might or might not have done with other clients’ money, I’m in no position to say, of course.”

  “It doesn’t sound as if you had a specially high opinion of Mr. Prescott.”

  He harrumphed. “The man was competent enough, I dare say, in his small way.”

  “Yet Mr. Prescott’s list of clients did include some notable people, Major. Yourself, for instance. And Mrs. Belle Latimer.”

  At the mention of that name, Mrs. Carstairs visibly flinched. Kate addressed them both with her next remark. “You were friends of Mr. and Mrs. Latimer’s, I know. Her death must have come as a great shock to you.”

  “Terrible, terrible,” the
major concurred. “Don’t know what the world’s coming to.”

  “You’ll miss Mr. Latimer when he leaves the Grange,” Kate continued. “Unless he’s planning to remain in the locality.”

  “Shouldn’t imagine so. There are rumours floating around that he’s thinking of selling up his plastics firm and getting the hell out. Haven’t seen him myself, of course, not since we heard about Belle’s new will. Messy business. Don’t like to get involved, y’know.”

  “Involved. I don’t quite follow, Major.”

  He gave her a veiled look, a difficult feat with eyes that protruded the way his did. Mrs. Carstairs was gazing down fixedly at her thin hands.

  “To my way of thinking,” he said, “Matthew was a damn fool and brought it all on himself. Belle wasn’t the sort of woman to stand for that sort of carrying on.”

  “But, Hugo, there’s no proof Belle changed her will because of that.” His wife’s voice was agitated.

  “Of course she did, Sylvia. Stands to reason. Don’t know why the thought has been upsetting you so much. Once Belle found Matthew out, there was nothing you could have done to persuade her to go easy on him.”

  “Once Mrs. Latimer found out her husband in what?” Kate wanted to be absolutely clear.

  Carstairs’s head swivelled to her. “Good God, didn’t you know? Thought you must do, took it for granted.”

  Kate stepped up the authority in her tone. “Major Carstairs, please just answer my question. To what are you referring? What is it that you presume Mrs. Latimer had learned about her husband?”

  He hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “Suppose it doesn’t really matter now, anyhow. Belle’s dead, and Matthew has lost the estate. Nothing can alter what’s happened. So if you must know, Chief Inspector, a friend of my wife’s who lives near Cheltenham was in a country pub over in that direction one evening and she saw Matthew Latimer there with another woman. Evidently the affair got back to Belle somehow.”

  His wife caught her breath in a strangled sob. Kate switched the pressure to her. “Do you know who this woman was, Mrs. Carstairs?”

  She shook her head wretchedly, avoiding Kate’s attempt at eye contact.

  “Tell me everything you know about the incident, please.”

  “It ... it was my friend, Marjorie Sayers. She and her sister dropped in for a drink at this pub one evening. I don’t know which one it was, exactly. And Matthew was there with this woman—someone Marjorie didn’t know. But she recognised Matthew, you see, because I’d pointed him out to her in Chipping Bassett once when she was visiting us here. She hadn’t a doubt it was him, and anyway the woman called him Matthew.”

  “When was it your friend saw them together in the pub?”

  “About ... about a month ago.”

  “Did she describe this woman to you?”

  “Well, Marjorie didn’t take that much notice. Just that she was dark-haired and tallish. Very demonstrative, she said.”

  “Demonstrative?”

  A flush spread over Sylvia Carstairs’s pale plain face. “She was all over Matthew. You know, touching him and calling him darling.”

  “I see.” Kate considered for a moment. The description didn’t fit the woman in London, Mrs. Monica Sissington, who had been spoken of as fair and petite. “Your husband thinks it’s evident that Mrs. Latimer somehow found out about this woman. Have you any idea how that could have happened?”

  “I ... I haven’t a clue.” Agonised evasion was in every syllable.

  With great insistence, Kate asked, “Did you tell her, Mrs. Carstairs?”

  “Now, just look here,” the major blustered, “I won’t have you accusing my wife. She and I agreed that nothing should be mentioned to Belle about that damned unsavoury business. Best to keep well out of it.”

  Ignoring his intervention, Kate repeated, “Did you tell Mrs. Latimer?”

  “I suppose I may have mentioned something.”

  “Sylvia! How could you?”

  “Please, Major Carstairs.” They could fight this out later. “I suggest to you, Mrs. Carstairs, that you related to Mrs. Latimer everything you heard from your friend. Isn’t that so?”

  The thin hands in her lap were writhing and twisting together, as if one was trying to subdue the other. “I only wanted to ... to warn Belle. I thought it was better that she knew.”

  A word of warning from a dear friend to a wronged wife. Like hell! It was easy to visualise the delight with which this nasty revelation had been dropped into Belle Latimer’s ears. If Sylvia Carstairs was suffering remorse now for the catastrophe she felt responsible for bringing upon Matthew, then three bloody cheers.

  “What did Mrs. Latimer have to say about it when you told her?”

  “Belle was very upset. Very angry.”

  “Did she take the matter up with her husband? Accuse him?”

  “I don’t know. Belle wasn’t one to, well ... confide. I suppose she must have had it out with Matthew, though.”

  “Give me the address of your friend Marjorie Sayers, please.”

  Mrs. Carstairs looked appalled. “But you don’t need to go to Marjorie. She won’t be able to tell you any more than I have.”

  The major intervened again. “Look here, Chief Inspector, we don’t want this matter gossiped about all over the district. Tales of that sort get enlarged in the telling, and it could do immense harm to people in our position.”

  Cry your eyes out for them, Kate! “The address, Mrs. Carstairs, please.”

  Having jotted it down, Kate rose to her feet. “Before I leave, there’s just one other point. I need to have details of your movements on the evening Mr. Prescott died. Last Monday.”

  Sylvia Carstairs seemed too dazed to take in the implication, but her husband reacted with an explosion of horrified rage. “What the devil are you suggesting now?”

  “I’m suggesting nothing, Major. We are asking the same question of everyone having any kind of connection with Mr. Prescott.”

  “I see.” He was partially mollified. “As a matter of fact, my wife and I were attending the twenty-first birthday party of one of her nieces. At Bristol. We stayed over on Monday night.”

  Which satisfactorily ruled them out—though a check would still have to be made as a matter of course.

  Driving back to Chipping Bassett, Kate did a mental recap. Matthew Latimer had been emphatic that his wife hadn’t known about the woman in London. Kate was inclined to accept this as true. According to the woman herself, when interviewed by the Mets, the relationship had been going on for some while; yet there was no evidence that Belle had tried to stop his visits to London. So it seemed likely that Belle had remained in blissful ignorance of the affair. But Kate couldn’t believe that Belle would have acted the role of complaisant wife once she’d learned about this other “other woman”—who, presumably, lived more locally. (In the vicinity of Cheltenham? Or nearer to home, and he’d taken her to a pub some distance away to cut down the risk of their being seen together?) From her assessment of Belle’s character as a woman who wouldn’t stand for being cheated in any way, Kate felt sure she would have challenged her husband face to face about his infidelity. Even so, Latimer might not have guessed that she’d go so far in her wrath as to alter her will and disinherit him. Maybe, Kate pondered, Belle hadn’t intended to change the will permanently; after all, she hadn’t informed Alexander Stedham of his coming good fortune if by chance she predeceased him. Matthew might therefore have been on probation, so to speak, with the chance of being reinstated in due course of time if he proved to have mended his ways.

  Kate found it easy to imagine that Belle Latimer, proud of her elevated position in the community, would have dreaded the publicity of a divorce. Have dreaded the inevitable snide comments about her husband, younger by several years, needing to go elsewhere for sex. But at the same time she’d have found it an intolerable thought that in the event of her premature death Matthew would get his hands on the vast Stedham wealth and squander it on his
mistress. Or, horror of horrors, actually marry the woman and install her as the new lady of Hambledon Grange.

  You could write a book, Kate, a steamy best seller.

  But did these interesting speculations get her any nearer to solving the problem of who killed Belle Latimer and George Prescott? Questions churned in her mind. Whom did it serve, or protect, to have those two people dead? Who had been friendly enough with Prescott to persuade him, unsuspectingly, to swallow a poisoned drink in his office? Who’d had access to a key that fitted Richard’s car?

  The nearest they’d come to an identification of the killer was Fred Winter’s sighting of a man making a call from a phone-box opposite his cottage. Shortish, and wearing a shapeless mac and a deerstalker hat. It could possibly fit Prescott, which would lend weight to her theory—tossed out defensively to Tim Boulter—that Prescott had murdered Belle Latimer in collusion with her husband, who had then decided that Prescott must be silenced. Richard had said that the voice on the phone, fixing an appointment to see him at his flat that evening, had been whispering. As a disguise, perhaps. So ... the voice of someone Richard might otherwise have recognised. Matthew Latimer? George Prescott?

  Kate had had more than enough for one day. She ditched her plan to put in another couple of hours at the Incident Room and headed for home.

  * * * *

  A leisurely breakfast for once. A nice piece of finnan haddie, smothered in butter and liberally peppered. Kate’s favourite.

  “You should eat like this every morning,” Felix scolded.

  “I should be so lucky. This morning, Tim Boulter isn’t collecting me till nine-fifteen. I have an appointment with the superintendent and the ACC at ten.”

  “On your tail, are they?”

  Kate laughed. “I guess chasing me makes them feel they’re doing something positive.”

  “You’re mighty chipper for the middle of a murder enquiry.” Felix’s glance was shrewd. “Floating on air, are we, now that Richard Gower’s in the clear?”

  “Oh, leave it off.” Kate was vexed to find that she was actually blushing.

  “I’m glad for you, girl, really glad. It’s more than time you found—”