Murder in the Cotswolds

by Nancy Buckingham

  Kate accelerated past the derestriction sign as they left the town.

  “Then let’s do some more guesswork and see where it leads us. Let’s have a stab at finding what’s eluded us all along so far— a motive for murder.”

  “Jealousy? No sign of that. Money? Revenge? Envy? Okay, everyone’s envious of the filthy rich, but we don’t all go around knocking them off. Money? How the hell could Alison Knight benefit financially from Mrs. Latimer’s death? And why revenge? What had the Stedhams ever done to her, except to pay her mother more for her farm than they paid old Sam Wilkes for his?”

  “Remember what you said about that, Tim? I know I bawled you out at the time, but maybe you were on to something after all.”

  He screwed his face up. “You mean, when I tossed in the thought that an attractive widow might have more to sell than just the farm?”

  “Right. And Mrs. Axfield was a very attractive woman. I saw her photograph. Moreover,” she added on a sudden recollection, “her husband looked a rather feeble sort of character.”

  “So enter the lecherous squire? But would Alison Knight be likely to know about her mother’s little frolics? And even if she did, why should it make her hate Sir Peter Stedham’s daughter?”

  The next stage of Kate’s reasoning was a major leap of supposition. “Alison would hate her all right if she was his daughter, too. His illegitimate and unacknowledged daughter.”

  “Hey, hold on, guv. If that’s true, it’d mean Alison’s mother had been Stedham’s mistress years back. When her husband was still alive.”

  “Don’t sound so shocked, Tim, it happens.” Kate was pulling the sergeant along reluctantly. He was still fighting over every inch of ground, and that was the way she wanted him to be. In this situation, a yes-man would be worse than useless.

  “So what you’re suggesting,” Boulter said slowly, “is that Alison Knight hated Belle Latimer for years, and finally got around to killing her.”

  “Not necessarily for years. Maybe Alison only found out quite recently that she was Belle’s half-sister. I remember something she said to me once which didn’t mean anything in particular at the time. We were discussing Belle Latimer being a difficult person to work for, and Alison said, ‘Just because she had the luck to inherit a huge estate, she seemed to think it gave her the right to queen it over lesser mortals.’ Or words to that effect.”

  “That’s something anyone might say. Me, for instance.”

  “But she said it with real venom in her voice. It was more than common or garden envy, I’m sure.”

  Boulter was still not particularly impressed. “It isn’t much of a motive, guv. Even if she was as envious as hell over the Stedham inheritance, well, it wouldn’t help her any to dispose of Belle. She wouldn’t get a penny herself.”

  Next big leap. “She must have reckoned Belle’s husband would inherit. That’s a natural assumption, isn’t it? It’s what Matthew Latimer himself reckoned, too.”

  “They hatched the plot together, you mean?”

  “Why not? We’ve never excluded the possibility that Latimer was involved in his wife’s murder.”

  Kate sensed the change in Boulter. He was warming to her theory.

  “So Latimer dreamt up this plan to get his hands on Belle’s money, somehow found out that Alison Knight was Stedham’s illegitimate daughter, and wheeled her in on the promise of a big pay-off?”

  Here we go again, Kate. “Maybe they had a closer relationship than just collusion in a plot to kill his wife.”

  Boulter’s head shot round. “You think Alison Knight is the mystery woman? The one seen with Latimer in the pub?”

  “Yes, Tim, that’s what I think. And, my God, if we’re on the right track, what a superb case of poetic justice.”

  “Poetic justice, guv?”

  “It was the two of them being spotted together, and Belle hearing about it through Sylvia Carstairs, that caused Belle to disinherit her husband.”

  “Hey, that’s right. But ... how does Prescott fit in with all this?”

  “His death is connected somehow, that’s for sure. And Alison Knight had a better chance than almost anyone to slip poison into his drink. What’s more, one of the firms she does the books for is Radleys of Great Bedham. They’re pest-control people, aren’t they? And cyanide is often used as a fumigant. Maybe Prescott somehow found out about her affair with Latimer ... maybe he suspected they’d connived to kill Belle, and started to blackmail them. But one step at a time. If we can get Belle Latimer’s death sorted, I think that will lead us to the answer about Prescott.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “That depends on what Frank Massey has to say when we get back.” Kate didn’t add that she was sweating on the office manager’s answer to her query.

  The blue copy of the Action report on the name Axfield was waiting on Kate’s desk. Yes, yes, yes. Alison Knight was Mrs. Kathleen Axfield’s daughter.

  Frank Massey had done a superb job in the limited time available. Asked by Kate for anything and everything concerning the Axfield family, he’d come up with quite a lot. The mother, shortly after being widowed, had sold Bramble Farm to Sir Peter Stedham and bought the freehold of Old Toll-House Cottage, where she’d lived comfortably on the proceeds of an annuity she’d purchased at the same time. The daughter, Alison, had left home several years before this to pursue a stage career, was married and divorced, then returned to Chipping Bassett when her mother died and took up residence at the cottage. Frank had also dug out the interesting snippet that, while at school, Alison had worked part time as stable girl at Hambledon Grange, looking after the three ponies belonging to the slightly-older-than-herself Belle Stedham.

  “Tim, we’re in business,” Kate said exultantly.

  “We sure are, guv.”

  “But putting together a case that will stick isn’t going to be easy.”

  “What’s first on the agenda, then?”

  First on the agenda was a phone call, but she didn’t want Boulter listening in.

  “It’s going to be a busy day,” she said, “so hadn’t you better feed the inner sergeant? Those doughnuts aren’t going to sustain you for much longer.”

  He grinned sheepishly. “How did you know?”

  “Elementary, my dear Boulter,” she said, but left him guessing.

  As soon as she was alone, Kate dialled the number of the Gazette and spoke to Richard.

  “Couple of questions for you,” she said without preamble. “Straight answers, please, not questions tossed back at me.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “That phone call you had, the one that started it all. You said it was a man. Are you totally certain of that?”

  “You mean, could it have been a woman?”

  “A woman who, let’s say, was skilled at changing her voice.”

  “Who d’you mean?” Then, immediately, “I know, that woman in the Troubadours. What were the names ... Alison Knight, Alison Axfield. I knew you were on to something, Kate.”

  “I told you to forget about that. Just answer my question.”

  She waited while Richard considered. “Just possible, I suppose. The caller sounded a bit furtive, which in the circumstances didn’t surprise me. It was a whispering voice, a bit muffled.” He thought some more. “Yes, I guess it could have been a woman.”

  “Question number two. That day you lunched with Belle Latimer. You drove to the Grange, I take it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, think. Think hard. Is it possible that you left your keys in the car while you were in the house?”

  “Highly unlikely. I’m pretty careful, with the spate of car thefts there’ve been around here lately.”

  “Take your mind back. Try and picture exactly what happened when you drove up to the house.”

  “Let’s see ... I arrived very much on time, and ... yes, Belle Latimer must’ve heard the car coming up the drive, because she was standing on the front steps to greet me. Nice touch
that, I always think.”

  “And?”

  “I’m not a chap to keep a lady waiting. I nipped out of the car pretty sharpish.”

  “But pausing long enough to take the keys from the ignition and lock the door?”

  Silence for three seconds. “Now you throw it at me, Kate, I’m none too sure. I just see myself leaping out and walking across to her.”

  “Did you notice anyone else around at the time?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Okay, thanks. That’s all I wanted to know.”

  “Don’t I get a reward for coming up with the answers you wanted?”

  “Now, just you listen to me. It’s not a matter of getting the answers I want. It’s getting at the truth that—” Kate stopped. He was laughing at her. Damn him!

  “Why the hell am I wasting my time talking to a journalist about truth?” She crashed the phone down on his comeback just as Tim Boulter returned, carrying a small tray.

  “I brought you a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee, guv,” he said, sliding it onto her desk. “You ought to get something inside you.”

  “Oh, Tim, how thoughtful!” Food was the last thing on Kate’s mind, but she made an effort to eat just to prove she wasn’t on a high of excitement. In between bites she related to Tim the gist of her conversation with Gower. “The day he went to lunch was a Friday, and that was one of the mornings Alison Knight worked at the Hambledon estate office. My guess is that from the office window she’d get a slantwise view of the front of the house, and could easily have seen Gower’s hurried arrival. So, if Alison had been planning to kill Belle and was on the lookout for a suitable car to use for the hit-and-run, this must have seemed like a heaven-sent chance. She’d have known that Gower would be in the house for some time lunching with Belle. It was made so easy for her. A quick ‘borrowing’ of the bunch of keys he’d left in the ignition as she was on her way out, and a duplicate of the car key cut somewhere in town ... with luck we’ll track down the actual shop. Then she drives back to Hambledon Grange, ready with the excuse that she’d left something in the office if anyone noticed her return, and the keys are safely replaced in Gower’s car before it could be noticed they were ever missing.”

  “A right calculating bitch, that one,” said Boulter.

  “That’s Alison. She’s proud of the fact that she plans things ahead. It’s part of the reason I homed in on her as our killer.”

  It was a bad slip-up on your part, Kate, not considering her as a suspect long before this. But she knew why she hadn’t. Because, in Alison, she seemed to have found a simpatico friend in the district. Someone who understood the problems faced by a career woman in a man’s world. But Alison’s hand of friendship to the senior investigating officer on the case had been just another product of her fertile, scheming mind.

  “That was an inspired bit of deduction on your part, guv.” Boulter said it half reluctantly, half admiringly.

  Kate laughed. “I hate to admit it, Tim, but I have that cocky young DC Aldwich to thank for the keys bit.”

  “Him?” Tim sounded resentful.

  “Quite unwittingly. He doesn’t get a commendation for it. Yesterday, when he drove me to Hambledon Grange to interview Stedham, he got out of the car and walked away, leaving the key in the ignition. I tore him off a strip, and Aldwich had the nerve to ask who’d pinch a car that far off the road.”

  “Cheeky bastard. Still, he’s a meeker lad now. As per your instructions he’s been well and truly booted up the arse.”

  “Good,” said Kate feelingly. “Now, Tim, I’m going to nip off home for a short while. Meantime, I have a couple of little jobs for you.” Taking the Troubadours’ programme from her bag, she showed Boulter the picture of Alison Knight. “Get someone to go and see that friend of Mrs. Carstairs’s I told you about, Mrs. Marjorie Sayers.” She flicked through her notes. “This is the address; it’s over near Cheltenham. I want her to confirm what Sylvia Carstairs told me, and to identify this woman as the one she saw in the pub with Latimer.”

  “You’re that certain it’s her, guv?”

  “I’d stake a year’s salary. I want whoever you send to get his skates on. If she’s not at home, he’s to find her. And he’s to phone in his report right away.”

  “The second job?”

  “Get Jack Farrow back here for a briefing. There’s something that needs delicate handling, and he’s exactly the right image for it.”

  Tim raised his eyebrows. “Any good me asking you what you’re up to, guv?”

  “Waste of breath, Tim. All in good time.”

  * * * *

  Felix was mowing the lawn. She spotted Kate and switched off the motor. “Hello, you didn’t say you’d be home for lunch.”

  “Would it have made any difference? You’d have forgotten. Actually, it’s not lunch I’m after. I need a favour. Something you’re very good at, Felix.”

  “As a child, you used to try and get round me with flattery. Still at it, I see.”

  “Wait till you hear what I want you to do. It’s fakery I’m after. A small piece of photographic fakery.”

  “And what makes you think I’d do a thing like that, girl?”

  Kate grinned at her aunt. “Come on down, Felix. I caught you in the act, remember?”

  “Oh well ...”

  From her handbag Kate took out the photograph Felix had taken one very wet day of Belle Larimer arguing with the horse show organisers about cancelling the event. Pointing to one of the rain-soaked spectators, she asked, “Recognise her?”

  Felix took the picture and squinted at it. “I seem to know the face.”

  “It’s Alison Knight.”

  “The woman in the Troubadours who’s getting you the tickets?”

  “Correct. I want you to blow her up nice and big, say, an eight-by-five. Then I want her to be wearing a deerstalker hat. Most of her long hair is tucked up inside the sou’wester she’s wearing, but I want those curly bits around her cheeks deleted so it looks as if she’s got a man’s-style haircut. Can do?”

  Felix pursed her lips. “No great problem. But you owe me a why.”

  “Sorry, not poss.”

  “I can be awkward, too, girl.”

  Kate took the photograph back from her. “Okay, if that’s how you feel, I’ll have to give the job to a police photographer.”

  “Who wouldn’t do it half as well as I can.” Felix snatched the picture from her niece’s hand. “I suppose you want it yesterday?”

  “No rush. This evening will do.”

  “Oh good.”

  “Five o’clock this evening.”

  “Don’t push your luck. Well, off you go, girl, I’ve got work to do.”

  Boulter had pulled in PC Farrow by the time Kate got back to the Incident Room. She took the two men into her office.

  “We’re interested in Mrs. Alison Knight, Jack. She was employed by George Prescott to keep the Hambledon estate books, and she’s still doing it pro tem on the solicitor’s instructions. She lives at Old Toll-House Cottage on the Marlingford Road. Know it?”

  “I do, ma’am.”

  “Mrs. Knight won’t be there this time of day, she’ll be at work. Which suits what I want you to do.”

  PC Farrow listened gravely, aware that he was being entrusted with a specially sensitive mission. Boulter stood back, trying to look as if he already knew all about it.

  “I’m considering her as a possible suspect in the Latimer killing. Now, it was a cleverly planned crime, and if Alison Knight did it she’ll have cleverly covered herself for that evening. She claimed she was at home and offered no corroboration, so there was nothing for us to check. But my guess is that it’s a bit more complex than that. She only has one neighbouring house, and I want you to call on whoever lives there and see what you can find out. This is how I want you to tackle it, Jack....”

  * * * *

  PC Farrow parked his car in the lay-by opposite Old Toll-House Cottage, checking with an idle glanc
e that Alison Knight’s car didn’t happen to be parked on the patch of gravel just inside the gate. Thirty yards along the road was the entrance to a bungalow which lay well back, almost lost among the trees. Farrow headed in that direction, his uniformed figure presenting a solid, reassuring image. He carried a clipboard on which was a mock-up of names and addresses, with handwritten notes beside the first few.

  The door was opened after an interval by an elderly, rather stooped man wearing rimless glasses. From his grubby clothes, it looked as if he’d been gardening.

  “Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. ...” Farrow consulted the clipboard. “Mr. Bertram, but this won’t take long. It’s in connection with the death of Mrs. Belle Latimer ten days ago. Nothing to alarm you, it’s just that we’re conducting a house-to-house enquiry to see whether any little bits of information anyone can give us will be helpful. What it amounts to really is a process of elimination.”

  “I see.” The man took off his glasses and began to polish them. “How can I help?”

  “Well, sir, for a start, perhaps you and your wife could tell me your movements on the evening in question, just to get that cleared out of the way.”

  “You’d better come in, then.” He led the way to a small sitting room with French windows open to a patio. A woman in a wheelchair was seated out there. “This is my wife. This, dear, is er ... ?”

  “PC Farrow, madam.”

  Invited to sit down, Farrow ledged his peaked cap on his knee and explained his mission all over again. Mrs. Bertram, a white-haired, rather aristocratic-looking woman, whose joints were sadly malformed by arthritis, smiled at him ruefully.

  “What we were doing on any evening is a very easy question to answer, Officer. Henry and I were at home. He can take me around a bit in the car during the day, but by teatime I’ve had enough. I’m always in bed by nine-thirty, and thankful to be there.”

  “It must be a very painful condition, madam,” Farrow said sympathetically. He warmed to her, reminded of his grandmother whom he’d once caught weeping from the pain of her arthritic hands. Ashamed of such weakness, the old lady had sworn the ten-year-old boy to secrecy, and it was a solemn pledge Jack Farrow had never broken.