Witchmoor Edge

by Mike Crowson

  * * *

  DCs Hammond and Goss picked up Leverett early and had him in the interview room by not much after nine o'clock. Hammond started the tape in the usual way and began the interview.

  "We need to have an account of your movements between eleven and two last Saturday," Tommy said. "In particular, how you and Shields came to be in the same place as a murder victim around two o'clock."

  "If you mean Hunter, he might have been murdered, but I doubt if he was a victim," Leveret said bitterly.

  "You wanted him dead?" Tommy asked.

  "I don't know about dead, but I wanted my money back. He'd ripped me off for fifteen thousand and Sheldon for a lot more than that."

  "How had he ripped you off? Was he guilty of some kind of fraud?"

  "No. Well, not on us. It was our own greed, I suppose. He just led us to believe information he knew full well was untrue. He was out to get Sheldon's shares, I think, and I was just caught in the crossfire."

  This sounded to Tommy like common sense. He couldn't see any gain in it for Hunter, the shares aside.

  "What did your wife think?" he asked.

  "My wife was not best pleased with any of us," Leverett answered.

  Tommy thought that was probably an understatement, but it didn't take him any closer to gauging her reaction. He changed tack.

  "When did you decide to hang around his place and follow him?" he asked.

  "Friday evening Sheldon phoned me," Leverett said. "He told me how he'd overheard Hunter on the phone telling someone that he'd got enough shares now and how they were to meet at two on Saturday in the usual place."

  "So you agreed to follow him?"

  "Not right off. Sheldon said that he was going to try and get to the bottom of this and would I keep him company. I'd had a row about it with my wife and it was getting me down so I thought 'Why not?' and agreed."

  "Where did you meet?"

  "Sheldon picked me up at about quarter to twelve."

  "In the BMW?" Tommy asked.

  Leverett nodded. "Yes," he agreed.

  "Can anyone verify the time?"

  "Pardon."

  "Any witnesses? Your wife for example."

  "Gwen has a Saturday morning surgery and doesn't get in until about one."

  "All right. Shields picked you up. Then what?"

  "We drove to Hunter's house and we'd only just pulled up against the kerb: I don't think Sheldon even had time to switch off the engine, when Hunter shot out of his driveway, driving like a maniac. Sheldon turned the car and followed him, but we had a devil of a job keeping up with him."

  "Where did he go?"

  "To Knowles's place in Guiseley."

  "You knew the house?"

  "Actually no. I don't know Knowles's or Hunters' car or house. I know Hunter, of course. No I went by what Sheldon said, but there’s no reason to doubt him."

  Tommy didn't think there was either, but it was important to verify his story as far as possible.

  "Hunter was driving the Porsche?"

  "Yes."

  "Was anyone with him?"

  "No, I don't think so."

  "What time did you get to Knowles's house?"

  "Around quarter to one, I'd say. We weren't watching the time exactly."

  "What did you do next?"

  "We sat and waited. It must have been half an hour or more. I suggested to Sheldon that it looked like Hunter and Knowles had cooked something up together. He said no way. He thought that maybe they were arguing or something. Anyway, a woman that Sheldon said was Mrs. Hunter pulled out of the drive. About five minutes or so Hunter's Porsche came out of the drive and turned away from us. Sheldon started the car and we followed."

  "It was Hunter driving?"

  "A bloke on his own, wearing Hunter's straw hat and sunglasses and driving Hunter's car? Who else would it be?"

  That, Hammond thought, like Millicent before him, is a very good question. Maybe the story was essentially true with just the times wrong. And maybe it wasn't.

  Gary Goss had not said anything at all since the start of the interview and, as Tommy seemed to be doing all right, didn't see any point in joining in. He was listening, though, and wondering whether Tommy was going to follow up the red car Mrs. Hunter was driving when she left Knowles’s. Was it the same red car seen later?

  "So you followed the Porsche again. Where did it go?"

  "From Guisley down towards Shipley then right, up through Baildon and onto the moors."

  "And you had it in sight all the time?"

  "No. We saw it turn up towards Baildon, but we were held up by the lights. By the time we got up the hill we'd lost it completely. We drove around the centre for a few minutes then Sheldon decided to check the moor top road. From the crest of the hill we saw it in the distance, turning towards East Morton. We'd have lost it for sure, except that I saw it again from the top of the next rise, turning onto the track to the picnic site."

  "You followed it there?"

  "Sheldon stopped the car a little way down the track and we went in on foot."

  "What did you find?"

  "The Porsche was there, on the grass with the front thingummy open I don't know whether you still call it a bonnet when the engine's at the back. Anyway, the luggage compartment was open and Hunter was inside. It didn't take much medical skill to see he was dead."

  "You checked his pulse?"

  "Yes."

  "Was there any sign of injury?"

  "He'd been bleeding a bit from a cut head, but that didn't look to have killed him."

  "What did you do next?"

  Leverett snorted. "What do you think?" he said. "We'd had it in for him and here he was dead. There was nobody about so we beat a hasty one."

  "You didn't see Mrs. Hunter?"

  "No one."

  "Or her red car?"

  Leverett opened his mouth to say no, then hesitated. "Just as were leaving the area, a small red car pulled away from the grass verge, but a bloke was driving. Anyway I don't even know if it was the same make." He paused. "Similar shade of red, though."

  "Could it have been Knowles?"

  "I didn’t recognize him. Maybe Sheldon noticed him. You'd have to ask him."

  Tommy recalled Sheldon saying that he didn't see the driver of the red car. That might not have been true, of course, but it was at least temporarily a dead end. "What happened then?" he asked.

  "We drove straight to my place. Sheldon dropped me off. I mowed the lawn and then had a shower and changed before Gwen and I went out with Sheldon and his wife Janine for the evening."

  "I think," Tommy said, "That we'll get all that typed up into a statement and as soon as you've signed it you can go."

  He stood up, scooped up the papers and the tape in his right hand, flicked his jacket casually over his left shoulder, nodded to Goss to join him and went outside.

  "Get someone to sit with him and offer him a tea or something, while I get this lot typed."

  "It'll take you ages," Goss objected.

  "No problem," Tommy answered. "That civilian secretary they've borrowed for the incident room. She's just getting over a difficult divorce. I'll simply smile sweetly, chat her up a bit and then ask her nicely."

  "She's a bit old for you, isn't she?"

  "Listen, me ole mate, if I chat up a woman and she's a pretty young thing, it makes me feel good. If she's not so young and not so pretty, it makes her feel good. Anyway, Donna's all right, all she needs is her ego boosting, so I'm about to boost it in a good cause. See you in the canteen in ten minutes!"

  Back in the incident room Lucy Turner had arrived on her day off and Millicent was reading through her report.

  "I still think Alice Dent was involved in dumping Hunter's body in the warehouse and starting the fire," Millicent said, "but you're right to say there's no evidence, because there isn't any."

  "As soon as Tommy and Gary have finished with Leverett I'm going send everybody out to do a house to house around Knowles's p
lace. All I want is some independent verification of times."

  "Inspector Hampshire, ma'am!" PC Downing called at that point.

  "What is it?" Millicent called back.

  "The Chief Inspector would like you to drop into his office for a moment."

  Millicent got up. "I was just going to go to the canteen anyway," she said to Lucy. "I can call in on my way."

  "I tracked down your raid," Cooke said as Millicent entered. "It was planned for tonight about sixish, but it was very hush hush in the planning stage, so they want to know your sources."

  For obvious reasons Millicent hesitated - she wasn't keen on admitting to remote viewing.

  "Come on," Cooke said. "Who's been talking out of turn?"

  "Nobody has," Millicent said.

  "Don't come that," Cooke said. "Have you been taking advantage of your ethnic background again?"

  Millicent bristled, but she bit her tongue. On the whole Cooke was a good boss and they worked well together.

  "Sorry," Cooke apologised, seeing her face. "But how did you know?"

  "I don't think you'd believe me if I told you. I'm not sure I believe it myself."

  "I'm waiting, but you're making me curious."

  Millicent still hesitated, searching for the words. "Last night," she said at last, "I concentrated on the Porsche and put myself into a sort of trance. I came up with a dodgy car sales place in Bradford about to be raided."

  There was a silence.

  "And you led me on with no more than a lucky guess?" said Cooke.

  "Half of the guess, as you call it, was right. Let's see if the other half was."

  "Well," Cooke said, "I used up a lot of Brownie points to get you included in the raid, so you'd better be right. Be at Divisional HQ in Bradford at five forty-five tonight and ask for Superintendent Walker."

  "Thanks for your help," Millicent said, rather humbly.

  "Hmmf!" Cooke snorted. "How's it going otherwise?"

  Millicent brought him up to date with the latest developments.

  "You're ready for the Press Conference?" Cooke asked.

  "As soon as I've eaten," Millicent replied. "I was on my way down to the Canteen for lunch."

  "See you in an hour then," said Cooke.