[DCI Neil Paget 01] - Fatal Flaw

by Frank Smith

  ‘If that was their game, they’d have gone farther up the lane beyond that bend,’ he said, pointing. ‘There’d have been no chance of being seen up there. No, sir, he was watching the road, all right.’

  The man was very likely right. But why? Why would anyone want to sit here night after night watching the entrances? ‘You keep saying “he”. Do you know that for certain, or is that just a figure of speech?’

  The man pointed to a tree some little distance from the track. It, too, had been marked, and a slice of the trunk had been cut away. ‘That’s where he got out to take a piss,’ he said. ‘We stripped the bark and it’s gone into the lab as well. And we have a partial footprint. A man’s boot by the look of it.’

  As he walked back to the driveway leading to the stables, Paget was passed by a Cavalier Estate driven by a woman. In the seat beside her was James. The boy spotted him and waved as the car turned into the driveway leading to the house. The woman, he assumed from Tregalles’s description, was Georgie Lucas. He waved back.

  Paget entered the barn and was making his way to the office within when he heard voices.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sally. I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he heard Jane Wolsey say. There was a quaver in her voice; she sounded hurt - or petulant; it was hard to tell which. ‘I was just out for my walk and I thought I’d pop in to see...’ He heard the scrape of a chair as it was pushed back.

  ‘No. Jane, I’m sorry.’ Sally sounded contrite, and yet Paget thought he detected an edge to her voice. ‘I didn’t mean to be short with you, but as you can see...’

  They both caught sight of him at once as he approached the open door.

  The housemistress was on her feet, making for the door, and Sally stood behind the desk. Jane Wolsey looked far from well; her face was gaunt, her hair in disarray, and she looked to be on the verge of tears. As for Sally, the look on her face was strained as she reached out in a futile gesture to halt her friend’s departure.

  ‘Chief Inspector,’ said Miss Wolsey as she sidled round him. She bobbed her head in an old-fashioned way and scuttled out of the door.

  Sally, whose arm had remained extended, dropped it to her side. ‘Poor Jane,’ she said. ‘She seems so lost.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘She still blames herself for Monica’s death, you know. I just wish...’ Whatever Sally wished was lost in a deep sigh as she brushed the tears from her face.

  Her hands, he saw, were trembling. Something had upset the girl; something more than the recent murder, he was sure of it. ‘Has something else happened?’ he asked. ‘You seem upset.’

  Sally Pritchard put her hands to her head and closed her eyes. ‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘It’s just...I’m tired, that’s all.’

  He didn’t believe her.

  She dropped her hands and returned to her seat behind the desk. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized, ‘but I’m afraid all this is getting me down. I haven’t been sleeping too well, lately. What was it you wanted?’

  ‘I want to make quite sure that nothing was taken from the office, now that you’ve had time to have a good look round,’ he said. ‘I know you said you keep nothing of value in here, but have you come across anything at all that struck you as odd?’

  ‘No. And I did go through everything as you asked. Nothing seems to be missing, that is unless you count a ball of twine.’ She forced a smile to indicate she wasn’t serious.

  But Paget asked her what she meant.

  ‘Well, you did ask if anything was missing,’ she said, ‘and there was a ball of twine here in the office. It usually sits up there on the shelf.’ She pointed to a shelf level with his head.

  ‘When I went to get it this morning, it had gone. I asked everyone if they’d seen it, but no one admitted taking it.’

  ‘This morning was the first time you missed it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you see it last?’

  Sally thought for a moment. ‘Last Thursday, I think it was,’ she said. ‘Yes, it would be last Thursday.’

  The barn door banged open, and they heard the sound of running feet. James Lucas appeared in the office doorway, and he stopped dead when he saw Paget. ‘Hello,’ he said, and turned to Sally. ‘Can I have my swing down, please, Sally?’ he asked.

  ‘The chief inspector and I were talking,’ Sally told him sternly. ‘You know better than to interrupt, James.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said perfunctorily. ‘But can I, Sally? Please?’

  She looked at Paget. ‘Inspector Dobbs said they were finished in here,’ she said. ‘Can James have his swing down now?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Paget.

  ‘Oh, good!’ The boy turned to go, but Sally called him back. ‘James, you haven’t changed into your old clothes since you got home from school,’ she said sternly. ‘Does your mother know you’re down here?’

  ‘She didn’t say I had to,’ the boy countered.

  ‘That’s probably because you were gone before she could,’ said Sally. ‘I’ll get the swing down. You’re sure to get your clothes dirty if you climb up there, and your mother won’t be pleased about that.’

  All three left the office. The swing had been pulled up out of the way beneath the open rafters by means of a long cord looped over a beam and tied to a large nail hammered into one of the posts.

  ‘Here, let me,’ said Paget as Sally went to climb up on a broken piece of farm machinery to undo the cord. He reached up quickly.

  ‘Watch out for that...’ Sally began, but her warning came too late.

  The jagged edge of what looked like part of an old mechanical grass-cutter caught the side of his hand and made it bleed. It was not serious, and he undid the cord and let it out to allow the swing to come down.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sally said as he climbed down. ‘I should have warned you sooner. Is it bad?’

  ‘Just a scratch,’ he said, dabbing at it with a handkerchief.

  James unhooked the cord and climbed aboard the swing. ‘Will you give me a push to get me started?’ he asked, but Sally told him she had better things to do, and not to be a such a nuisance.

  ‘Come on,’ she said to Paget, ‘I’ll put something on that cut. It could turn septic.’ She began to move towards the office, but Paget called her back. He reached down behind the machine, stretched, and came up with something in his hand.

  ‘Is this what you were looking for?’ he asked her, holding up a ball of twine.

  Sally looked puzzled. ‘How did that get over there?’ she said. ‘James? Did you have the twine?’ The boy shook his head emphatically. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said, mystified, as she led the way to the office.

  Paget stood frowning at the ball of twine in his hands. ‘Do you mind if I take this with me?’ he asked.

  Sally Pritchard shot him a quizzical look, but said, no, she didn’t mind; there was lots of twine about the place. She clucked her tongue as she brushed at the sleeve of his coat. ‘That’s a rust mark on your coat,’ she told him, ‘and I don’t think it’s going to come out. Now, let’s have a look at that hand.’

  Despite his protests that it was nothing, she brought out the first aid kit and began to clean the jagged cut. ‘You can’t be too careful with that rusty old metal,’ she told him sternly. ‘I remember when Monica cut her leg...’ She trailed off into silence and seemed suddenly intent upon what she was doing.

  ‘You were saying?’ he prompted gently.

  ‘Nothing. It was nothing. I don’t know why I even mentioned it.’ She began to put things back into the first aid kit. Her hands were shaking, and she wouldn’t look at him.

  ‘You said that Monica cut her leg,’ he persisted. ‘What happened?’

  Sally Pritchard shook her head impatiently as if annoyed with herself for bringing the subject up. ‘It was nothing,’ she repeated. ‘She cut her leg on one of those old machines out there.’ Her words were clipped, grudging. ‘She refused to let me treat it and it turned septic, that’s all. It took a month for it to hea
l. She was like that; impulsive; she would never listen to...Oh, God!’ Her hand flew to her mouth, as she stared wide-eyed beyond him. ‘Oh, God!’ she said again.

  Paget whirled to see what she was staring at. A figure stood in the office doorway; dark-haired, pale-faced, and wearing a long blue coat. The late-afternoon light had almost gone from the room, and the figure was silhouetted against the overhead lights in the main body of the barn.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Sylvia Gray, ‘but can I have the keys to the shed? I can’t seem to find mine.’ She stepped inside the office. ‘Is anything wrong, Sally?’

  Sally Pritchard took a deep breath to steady her shaking voice. ‘No. No, of course not, Sylvia,’ she said. ‘You just gave me a start, that’s all.’ She passed a hand across her brow and began to rummage in the desk. She found the keys and tossed them to the girl. The young groom thanked her, apologized again, and went on her way. As the outer door closed behind her, the only sound that could be heard in the otherwise silent office was the monotonous creaking of the swing.

  Sally Pritchard sank into her chair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘For a moment I thought...’ She shook her head as if to rid herself of a bad dream.

  ‘You thought it was Monica,’ he guessed.

  She nodded slowly. ‘The hair, the face, the coat - she was on my mind at the time, I suppose, and when I saw...’ She forced a nervous laugh. ‘Silly of me, wasn’t it? Would you mind turning on the light?’

  Paget found Maurice Blake talking quietly to a fresh-faced young woman in the tack room. They were standing close together. His right arm was draped loosely around her shoulders, and her hand was on his arm. Paget judged her to be no more than eighteen, if that, and she was hanging on Blake’s every word.

  When Paget spoke, she jumped nervously and moved away from Blake, and colour flooded into her young face.

  ‘Th-thank you, Maurice,’ she said breathlessly as she turned to leave. ‘I - I’ll see you tomorrow, then?’

  Blake looked amused. ‘Ten o’clock,’ he said. ‘I shall look forward to it, Cynthia. You won’t be late, will you?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ She sounded shocked at the very suggestion. She brushed past Paget with barely a glance.

  Blake followed her with his eyes. ‘That girl shows a lot of promise,’ he said, and left it to Paget to guess his meaning. ‘What can I do for you. Chief Inspector?’

  Paget asked him about Friday evening. ‘I’m told it was your turn to do the rounds that night. Who asked for the change? You or Palmer?’

  ‘So his name was Palmer,’ said Blake. ‘I thought they’d got it wrong in the paper this morning. Anyway, whatever his name was, he offered to do it, so I let him. I can always find better ways of spending my time than doing evening rounds.’

  ‘Like watching television and going to bed early?’ Paget said.

  Blake eyed him levelly. ‘If there’s nothing better, to do, yes,’ he said.

  ‘Did Palmer offer any explanation? Did he say why he wanted to do rounds that particular night?’

  Blake shrugged. ‘Not that I recall,’ he said. ‘He said perhaps I’d return the favour sometime if he needed time off. I assumed he must have something coming up when he would need someone to cover for him.’

  ‘Had he ever done that before?’

  ‘No. In fact this was the first time he’d done the evening rounds. He’d only been here a week or two, so I was going to give him another week before putting him on the rota.’

  ‘Why didn’t you mention that you’d swapped with Palmer when I spoke to you on Saturday?’ he asked.

  Blake thrust his hands deep into his pockets. ‘I didn’t think it was important,’ he said.

  ‘Didn’t think it was important? Or were you afraid that the pitchfork was intended for you?’

  Blake stared at him. ‘Why would anyone want to do that to me?’ he countered.

  Why, indeed? Paget had no answer. But the question refused to go away, and it was still with him as he left Glenacres for the day. What if Blake had been the intended victim? It would shift the focus of the investigation entirely.

  And wasn’t that exactly what he wanted? Wasn’t he looking for something - anything - that would help Andrea McMillan’s cause?

  As he passed the entrance to the driveway leading to Sally Pritchard’s cottage, he glanced in. The rusting green Fiesta was still at the stables; he had seen it as he left, but there was another car parked beside the cottage. He recognized it as one he’d seen before. It was the same Range Rover he’d seen outside the school; the one belonging to Lady Tyndall.

  It reminded him of the missing picture, and he wondered whether Miss Crowther had solved the mystery of its disappearance.

  His thoughts switched to Sally Pritchard, and the way she’d looked when she saw Sylvia Gray standing in the doorway. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost, and had said as much. There was something about that scene that bothered him, and it kept niggling away at the back of his mind. Sally Pritchard knew something; something to do with Monica Shaw’s death; he was sure of it. He had sensed it when he first talked to her on Christmas Day.

  And why, he wondered, did he keep coming back to the idea that the death of Monica Shaw was in some way connected with the death of Victor Palmer?

  20

  Tuesday, 5 January

  ‘Paget. Just the man I want to see.’ Inspector Tom Cooper came out from behind his desk in the incident room. He was a stocky, balding man with a round, pockmarked face. His expression, as always, was earnest.

  ‘Forensic have identified three sets of prints on the pitchfork handle,’ he said. ‘Palmer’s were there. He must have grabbed at it when he was struck because they were near the ferrule and reversed as you might expect. Sally Pritchard’s prints were also on there, and so were Bob Tillman’s, but they both say they use the pitchfork all the time, so that may not mean much. There were other prints on there as well, but they were too smudged to identify. And there were several fibres caught in a section of rough grain in the wood. They’re looking at them now, but I’m not exactly holding my breath for the results. Fibres on a pitchfork in a barn could come from anywhere.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry, Neil, but that’s all they’ve got so far.’

  Paget nodded, his face a mask. At least Andrea’s prints weren’t on the weapon that had killed Palmer. Thank God for that. ‘Can’t be helped,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Tom. And keep after them, will you? We don’t have a hell of a lot to go on, and Alcott is not going to be happy with those results.’

  The telephone rang on Cooper’s desk, and he picked it up.

  ‘That was DI Martin,’ he told Paget when he hung up. ‘He says they have a match between the tyres on the stolen motor bike that Palmer was using and the impressions they took at the Craddock murder scene, so it looks as if you were right. Palmer could have killed Craddock to get in at Glenacres.’ He grimaced. ‘He must have been a cold-blooded bastard. No wonder Dr McMillan wanted to keep him away from her daughter. Pity she had to use a pitchfork to do it, though.’

  ‘You believe she killed him?’ said Paget. Cooper had taken Andrea’s statement himself.

  Tom Cooper looked surprised that Paget should even pose the question. ‘No doubt about it in my mind,’ he said firmly.

  ‘What about her claim that she was driving down to her friend’s place on the other side of Bath?’ Paget persisted.

  Cooper dismissed that with a shake of the head. ‘That time of night?’ he said. ‘New Year’s Day when there’d be almost nothing on the road? Piece of cake. She had more than enough time to get out to the stables, kill Palmer, then get down to Bath more or less by the time she says she did. Don’t you worry. When Tregalles gets back, we’ll have it locked up.’

  Traffic was light, and Tregalles made good time until he got down as far as the M4 and the Severn Bridge. He lost a good ten minutes there, but traffic thinned out again after he took the Bath exit on to the A46. From there, he made his way across country to the
village of Wickston, which lay somewhat closer to Chippenham than Bath.

  He had to stop and ask directions twice, and on the second try an old man tending a bonfire said he would find the place he was looking for about a quarter of a mile down the lane.

  To have called it a farm would have been an exaggeration, but there were pigs and goats and chickens, at least one cow, and a couple of enormous dogs that met him at the gate and kept him there. Their furious barking brought a response in the form of a tall, wiry-looking woman dressed in a leather jacket, jeans, and unlaced boots.

  ‘Storm! Lady! Quiet!’ The stentorian command almost rattled the gate.

  The two dogs paused, then each gave a final bark before turning and trotting back towards the woman. She strode across the muddy yard and came to a halt on the other side of the gate, but she made no move to open it.

  Tregalles said: ‘Good morning. Miss Ferris? My name is Tregalles; Detective Sergeant Tregalles from Broadminster.’

  ‘May I see some identification?’ The pleasant tones and diction spoke more of Oxford than of the woman’s present rough surroundings.

  Tregalles showed her his warrant card.

  ‘I’m Kate Ferris,’ she said. ‘And you’re here to ask me about Andrea.’

  ‘Partly,’ he said.

  Kate Ferris eyed him calmly. She had a strong face; weathered and creased, but when it wasn’t being stern, as it was now, Tregalles suspected it would be a pleasant face.

  ‘Ah, yes, I see,’ she said. ‘You want to make sure that Sarah is actually here. Otherwise all this could have been done by telephone.’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Tregalles.

  ‘I hope you didn’t come with the idea of taking Sarah back with you,’ she said. There was a warning in her words she made no attempt to conceal.

  ‘Nothing like that,’ he assured her, ‘but I would like to ask you about last Friday night.’

  ‘You’d better come inside, then.’ Kate Ferris glanced down at his feet and smiled faintly. ‘Andrea must have warned you,’ she said. ‘I see you came prepared.’