[DCI Neil Paget 01] - Fatal Flaw

by Frank Smith

  ‘James,’ he said, ‘why were you sitting up beside the window when you should have been in bed?’

  The boy half turned to face him, and for the first time since he’d entered the mobile unit, he appeared to be at a loss. ‘I - I like looking out of the window,’ he said, but he wouldn’t look directly at the chief inspector.

  ‘In the dark, James?’

  Colour rose in the boy’s face. ‘The moon...’ he began, but his mouth dried up and the words were lost.

  ‘When Sergeant Ormside asked you what you could see from the back window, you said you could see the back gate. Who were you expecting to see at the back gate?’

  The colour deepened in the boy’s face, and his eyes darted around the room as if seeking a way out.

  Paget leaned forward and took the boy’s hand. ‘Do you know why we are here?’ he asked.

  James nodded but his eyes were guarded.

  ‘Tell me so that I know you understand.’

  ‘You’re here to find out who killed Victor.’

  ‘That’s right. And we don’t want that person to get away, do we? So, if you saw someone that night. I’d like you to tell me who it was. It could be very important.’

  ‘But it wasn’t - wasn’t anybody like that,’ the boy protested. ‘I didn’t see anybody.’

  ‘Then why were you watching the gate?’

  James looked down at the floor. ‘I was waiting,’ he mumbled. ‘But I went to sleep in the chair.’

  ‘Waiting for...?’

  ‘Mummy to come home,’ said the boy miserably.

  Later that evening, Paget settled down to read the forensic report on Monica Shaw. Its pedantic style made heavy reading; there seemed to be nothing in it that he hadn’t heard already from either Starkie or Charlie Dobbs, and his eyes began to close. In fact he was half asleep when something he’d just read brought him awake again.

  ‘...shards of glass ranging in length from 2mm to 8mm.’ It went on to describe the type of glass, listing a range of uses - including that commonly used in picture frames.

  He was fully awake now. He carried on reading but the only other thing he found of interest was a comment regarding the cotton wool found in the wastepaper basket. The cotton wool, it said, contained a concentration of lipstick that matched both the tube of lipstick found on the dressing-table and that worn by Monica at the time of her death.

  Midnight. The clock in the living-room chimed the hour softly.

  Sally Pritchard heard it; heard it as she’d heard every other sound since she’d gone to bed at ten. The sleep she sought so desperately eluded her as it had since she’d learned of Monica’s death more than a week ago. She’d taken a sleeping pill, but she might as well have saved herself the trouble. It wasn’t working, and she was afraid to take another. ‘Be careful,’ her doctor had warned her. ‘They may seem harmless, but they can become addictive.’

  She lay there staring at the ceiling. What was she going to do? What was she going to do? The question went round and round inside her head until she thought it would explode. It was her fault. No matter what anyone said, it was her fault! She was the one who had started the chain reaction, but she’d never dreamed it would come to this.

  ‘Oh, God!’ she breathed aloud. ‘Help me. Please help me.’ She buried her face in the pillow already wet with tears.

  22

  Wednesday, 6 January

  Penny Wakefield shivered and pulled the bedclothes tighter around her shoulders. Outside, the wind was getting up and it was cold in the tiny room she shared with Sylvia Gray. Beneath her, she could hear Sunday’s Girl shifting restlessly in her stall, while from across the yard she heard the rattle of one of the box-stall doors. Number 14, probably. Shalimar’s stall. That one always rattled in the wind. She began to drift off to sleep again.

  Outside, the night was black, the moon obscured by cloud. The high pressure system that had kept the clouds at bay throughout the day had moved off to the east, and the forecast was for gusting winds with showers overnight and scattered showers on Thursday.

  A spattering of rain swept across the yard before the wind and dashed itself against the red barn, rattling the door. Inside, the dark figure beside the bench froze, snapped off the torch and stood poised for flight. The wind rattled the door again. There was an audible release of breath as the listener recognized the cause of the sound. The pale circle of light reappeared and the task was resumed.

  Penny Wakefield came awake and started up in bed. She was cold, yet her face was bathed in sweat. She’d been dreaming, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what the dream had been about. There’d been a noise...

  A rasping sound came out of the darkness. Syl must be lying on her back again, snoring. That must have been what woke her. And yet...

  The cot beneath her shook as Sunday’s Girl screamed and crashed heavily into the side of the stall below.

  It was twenty minutes to six, according to the digital clock beside his bed, when Paget was roused from a deep sleep to be told by the duty sergeant that there had been a fire at Glenacres.

  ‘Anyone hurt?’ he asked, still blinking sleep from his eyes. He had visions of the bam and perhaps the stalls going up in flames. ‘The horses...?’

  ‘One person dead, sir. Didn’t stand a chance according to the firemen. A chap by the name of Blake. Maurice Blake. It was his caravan that burned. Completely destroyed. They reckon the fire was set.’

  Paget was fully awake now. ‘I’m on my way,’ he told the sergeant. ‘Better ring Sergeant Tregalles and tell him I’ll meet him out there.’

  By the time Paget arrived, the caravan was nothing more than smoking embers, stirred every now and then by gusting winds. Tregalles, who didn’t have as far to come, was already there, and Charlie’s people were busy setting up their lights.

  Starkie arrived a few minutes later. Blake’s body had been pulled out by firemen, and now lay on the grass, charred, still smoking, and quite unrecognizable. Against all his better instincts, Paget forced himself to look, and gave silent thanks that he’d not had time to stop for breakfast. He turned away. The sight was bad enough, but the smell was something else.

  ‘Petrol,’ said one of the firemen. ‘You can still smell it. And with this wind the whole thing went up like a torch.’ He nodded towards the stables. ‘Good thing the wind was blowing away from them,’ he said grimly, ‘or we’d have had a right mess on our hands.’

  Paget spoke to one of the constables who had been first on the scene, a man by the name of Bell. ‘It was a Miss Wakefield who rang for the fire brigade,’ he told the chief inspector. ‘She says the horses started acting up, and when she went to see to them she saw the fire. She said it was well alight by then and she couldn’t get near, so she ran down to the barn to phone. It’s that big red barn over...’

  ‘Yes, I know the one she means,’ said Paget. ‘I don’t suppose she saw anyone else?’

  ‘No, sir. She said she ran back to the stables and got everybody else up. She sent one of the lads up to the house to tell the owner, a Mr Lucas, while she and the others went back to see if there was anything they could do. But there’s no water back here. Apparently this chap, Blake, got his water from a tap at the back of the stables. Even if there had been, she said the heat was so bad they couldn’t get near. She said all they could do was wait for the fire brigade.’

  ‘Sounds as if she kept her wits about her,’ Paget observed.

  ‘Yes, sir. Not like the other one.’ The constable consulted his notebook. ‘A Miss Gray. She was so upset they sent for the doctor. Went to pieces good and proper. Screaming, she was.’ The constable nodded towards the still smouldering body of Blake, and grimaced. ‘Not that you could blame her,’ he said. ‘It’s not a pretty sight.’

  Paget thanked the man, then he and Tregalles took another look round while they waited for Starkie to finish his examination. Not that there was much to see; virtually everything that was not made of metal had been destroyed.

/>   ‘You might be interested in this, sir,’ said one of Charlie’s men. He used an instrument resembling a large pair of forceps to lift something from the still smouldering debris, and held it up for Paget’s inspection.

  It was part of the door handle of the caravan, and it was joined to a larger, similarly shaped handle by several strands of heavy wire. The second handle had been mounted beside the door as an aid to getting in and out of the caravan. Paget remembered grasping it himself as he’d climbed the steps.

  ‘Somebody wanted to make damned sure he stayed inside,’ the man observed. ‘They wired the door shut. Nice people.’

  Starkie finished his examination and came over to them. ‘I can’t tell you much at all until we get him on the table,’ the pathologist said as he stripped off his gloves. ‘I wouldn’t even want to try to estimate the time of death, and I can’t say for certain whether he was alive or dead before the fire started. Sorry, Paget, but you’ll have to wait for this one. I’m afraid.’

  Starkie fell silent as he watched the activity around the site. ‘Is it true the door was wired shut?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I heard someone say...’

  ‘That’s what it looks like,’ Paget said.

  Starkie slowly shook his head. ‘I just hope you find this bastard soon. I’m assuming it’s the same person who stuck the fork into Palmer. I’d hate to think there are two of them running around out here.’

  ‘So would I,’ said Paget fervently. The thought was chilling.

  But, even as he spoke, it occurred to him that this latest killing could have nothing to do with Andrea. In fact, it was beginning to look as if Blake had been the intended victim all along, and Palmer had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The thought cheered him, but he wasn’t allowed time to dwell on it.

  The site of the caravan was behind the stables, and the path leading to it ran through a dense grove of birch and poplar. Now, emerging from the trees was a constable, one hand firmly grasping the arm of Sally Pritchard as he pushed her forward none too gently.

  ‘I found this young woman down by the bam,’ he said as he stopped in front of them. ‘She says she works here, sir. She was about to get rid of these.’ He displayed a bundle of dirty rags. ‘They’re soaked in petrol, sir.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to get rid of anything!’ Sally protested. ‘I didn’t even know what this man was talking about when he stopped me.’ Although she was speaking to Paget, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from the smouldering caravan. Starkie excused himself and went over to direct two men who had begun to move the body and carry it to a waiting van.

  ‘Maurice?’ she said, wide-eyed, and Paget nodded. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’d like you to tell me what you were doing with those rags, first,’ he said.

  She stared at him, and then at the remains of the caravan, and an expression of horror crossed her face. ‘Are you saying someone set the fire? You can’t think that I...’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘Oh, God!’

  If it was an act, it was a damned good one, Paget thought. He pulled the collar of his mac up against the wind. It seemed to be getting stronger as daylight forced its way across the cloud- filled sky. ‘Let’s hear your side of it, then. Miss Pritchard,’ he said quietly.

  Sally Pritchard lifted her head defiantly. ‘I used those rags to mop up the mess on the bench in the barn,’ she said. ‘I was going to take them out and burn them when your man grabbed me and started asking questions.’

  ‘From the beginning, please,’ said Paget patiently. ‘What time did you get to work this morning?’

  Sally looked at her watch. ‘Just a few minutes ago,’ she said. ‘I was a bit late this morning because I had no water. The pump from the well packed up again, so I had to get it going before I left.

  ‘There was no one about when I got here, and I couldn’t understand it. I went into the barn and there was this smell of petrol; it hit me as soon as I opened the door. I turned on the light and I could see someone had been messing about with the petrol on the bench. So I set about cleaning it up, and when I went to take the rags out, this policeman...’

  ‘Are you saying you knew nothing of the fire?’ Paget looked at her in disbelief.

  Sally shook her head. ‘How could I?’ she countered. ‘You can’t see this place from the yard.’

  She was quite right, of course. Not only were the buildings in the way, but there was a knoll between the stables and the caravan. With the wind blowing the smoke away from the stables, it was just possible that she wouldn’t have known.

  ‘You didn’t hear the fire engine earlier on?’ he said. ‘It must have gone right past your house.’

  Again she shook her head. ‘I took a sleeping pill last night. I didn’t hear a thing.’

  ‘What about the petrol? You keep it in the barn?’

  Sally nodded. ‘Two five-gallon tins,’ she said, and he remembered seeing them there. ‘It’s for emergencies - for when someone forgets to fill the tractor; things like that. And one of the tins is missing.’

  Paget turned to Tregalles. ‘Better give these to Charlie,’ he said, indicating the rags, ‘and tell him about the bench so he can have his men go over it. And get a search organized for the missing petrol tin. Chances are it’s not too far away.’

  ‘On my way,’ Tregalles said.

  Paget turned back to Sally. ‘How well did you know Maurice Blake?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘As well as I know most of the people I work with,’ she said. ‘We weren’t friends, if that’s what you mean, and to be honest, I can’t say that we always got along, but this...It’s horrible!’ She hugged herself and shivered.

  He saw little point in detaining her further, especially standing out there in the biting wind. What he needed to do now was to talk to the others as soon as possible. ‘Take Miss Pritchard down to the mobile unit and have someone there take her statement,’ he told the constable.

  ‘And see if there’s a cup of good hot coffee going. I think Miss Pritchard could use one.’

  Sergeant Ormside, who had arrived there not long after Paget, came over to talk to him as Sally Pritchard left with the constable. ‘My people are taking statements from the grooms,’ he said, ‘and we should have them in some sort of order by mid-morning. But I haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone at the house, yet, nor Sylvia Gray because the doctor’s with her.’

  ‘I’m going over to the house myself in a few minutes,’ Paget told him, ‘but you might see what you can find out from the doctor before he leaves, then talk to Sylvia if she’s all right.’

  Ormside grunted. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘But there’s something else you should know if you’re going to see Lucas. There was a report on the fax machine when I came in this morning. They’ve identified the impressions they took from the bridle-path as matching the tyres fitted on the new Mercedes line. Lucas owns a new Mercedes. I’m having casts taken to see if they match, but I’m betting they will.’

  ‘Watching his own stables?’ Paget mused. ‘I’ll have to see what he has to say about that.’

  ‘There was something else, too,’ said Ormside. ‘You sent a ball of twine over to Forensic the other day?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Ah! Well, they say the fibres from that match those found on the handle of the pitchfork, whatever that may mean.’

  ‘I’m not sure myself, yet,’ said Paget. ‘But thanks. I’ll work on it.’

  Lucas appeared to be genuinely shaken by Blake’s death. ‘He was a good man,’ he said. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Good with horses and good with women, and that’s damned important in this business, Paget. God knows what we’re going to do around here now he’s gone.’

  Lucas looked grim as he swung slowly back and forth in his swivel chair beside the desk.

  Paget looked round. ‘Is Mrs Lucas about?’, he asked. ‘I’d like to talk to her as well.’

  ‘What for? She can’t tell you anything. Anyway, she’s upstairs
looking after the boy; keeping him out of the way.’

  ‘I’ll speak to her as soon as we’re finished here, then,’ said Paget. He had no intention of being fobbed off by Lucas. ‘Now, then, Mr Lucas, what can you tell me about Maurice Blake?’

  Blake, Lucas told him, had been at Glenacres a little over four years. He was divorced. His ex-wife, who had remarried, and his two children, now lived in Hull. As far as Lucas knew, the divorce had been by mutual consent, and Blake had been in the habit of visiting his children every four to six weeks. Blake’s parents were both teachers living in Dublin. He’d never heard Blake speak of any brothers or sisters.

  ‘How did he get on with the staff, here?’ Paget asked.

  ‘He was well respected. He knew his job.’

  ‘But was he liked?’

  Lucas’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve been listening to young Penny, haven’t you?’ he accused. ‘She never did get on with him. Said as much when she handed in her notice the other day.’

  ‘Do you know why she didn’t like him?’

  Lucas shrugged. ‘She said she didn’t like the way he chatted up the women,’ he said. ‘Thought it degrading or some such thing. More like jealousy on her part, I should think.’

  Paget shifted ground. ‘You went over there to the fire, I believe,’ he said.

  Lucas gave a curt nod. ‘Penny came and got me. I went over but there was nothing I could do. Nothing anyone could do. The fire had too good a hold. You couldn’t get near it. If there’d been any way to get Maurice out...’ He shook his head and butted his cigarette.

  ‘You must have smelt the petrol,’ said Paget quietly.

  Lucas shot him a glance from beneath his heavy brows, but he didn’t answer.

  ‘Someone wanted Maurice Blake dead, Mr Lucas. Someone who wired the door shut, then doused the caravan in petrol before setting it alight. Do you have any idea who that might be?’

  Lucas lit another cigarette and squinted at Paget through the smoke. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting it was me,’ he said thinly.