*
Eventually Lizzie disentangled herself from Audrey and got on with her shopping. Once back at Silver Cottage, she unloaded her purchases, made herself a cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee, which was vastly superior to the one she’d had with Audrey, then sat outside in the sunshine on her small terrace to have her lunch. However, she couldn’t relax. She kept thinking about the pale woman in the yellow jacket, and began to worry. Was there something wrong with the woman that she’d missed?
On impulse she decided to pay her patient, Amelia Villiers, a visit later that afternoon. There was no need, she was not on duty, but Lizzie hated loose ends, and in her opinion, Amelia Villiers was a loose end. There was definitely something wrong with her; was it a medical problem or was it connected to the murder of her niece? Sympathy and not a little curiosity drew her back to Avon Hall. Of course, she would never have admitted her curiosity to anyone; certainly not to Audrey Merryweather or Adam Maguire. The question was, why did Mrs Villiers look so worried, and why hadn’t her husband come rushing back to his family when he’d heard of the murder of his niece? Didn’t he care? Or had no one told him?
*
Back at the station, Maguire sat with Steve Grayson and Kevin Harrison listening to the recording of their interview with Simon Villiers. The table before them was littered with polystyrene coffee cups, brought in by Kevin who kept them continually refreshed.
‘Do you know,’ Maguire said, ‘the only time I really felt that he was one hundred percent honest was when he said, I loved her. I think he was going to say more, but something stopped him.’
‘Perhaps the family disapproved,’ said Kevin. ‘People are still funny about first cousins having relationships.’
‘Do you mean sleeping together?’ enquired Maguire testily. ‘If you mean that, say that. I hate all this relationship business.’
Kevin and Steve looked at each other. Sometimes Maguire was so old fashioned it wasn’t true. Kevin took the bull by the horns. ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘sexual relationships, not necessarily leading to marriage.’
Maguire didn’t respond, so Kevin reached into a folder on his lap and passed a sheaf of photos over to him. ‘This is the list I’ve drawn up of small red cars, all of which are registered in this area. There’s only one English car that fits the bill, an old mini, the rest are foreign, Italian, Japanese and French, and none of the owners have police records or anything else interesting.’
Maguire didn’t bother to look at it. ‘The car could have come into our area from anywhere and disappeared by now.’ Kevin looked disappointed. ‘But thanks anyway, we’ll keep an eye open.’
The phone rang and Steve Grayson picked it up. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘He’s here.’ He handed the phone across to Maguire, ‘it’s Phineas.’
‘About time,’ said Maguire, cheering up. He slotted the phone on to speakerphone so that the other two could hear. ‘I hope you’ve got some fresh evidence.’ He said to Phineas. ‘We’re getting nowhere fast at the moment.’
‘First things first,’ said Phineas cheerfully. ‘Don’t be so impatient. The first thing is that although she wasn’t actually killed in the icehouse, the murder took place not far away. Moreover, we know how she was killed; nothing elaborate, not even particularly violent, maybe even unintentional.’
‘Get on with it, Phineas,’ muttered Adam. ‘Don’t pontificate, give me facts.’
‘I am giving you facts. Her death was caused by a blow from a large flint, similar to those you see piled up at the side of the fields around here. It must have been a particularly sharp flint, because a long, thin, piece of the flint, like a dagger, detached itself and stayed embedded in her brain. I doubt she knew much about it even though she must have been facing her murderer. I think she would have blacked out immediately. I also think that she knew her attacker, because she had no scratches on her face or arms, nothing under her fingernails, no signs of a violent fight. It’s almost as if she just stood there and let her attacker hit her.’
‘No chance of finding the murder weapon I suppose,’ said Maguire.
‘Doubt it. The roads and fields around here are littered with piles of flints. When the farmers dig them up, they just chuck them to the side of the fields. We can’t look at all of them.’
‘Why do you say she wasn’t murdered far away?’
‘Because of the blood pooling, hypostasis, as we call it in the trade. Her face was…’
‘Yes, I know all about hypostasis. Get on with it,’ grunted Maguire. He hated too many gory details, which Phineas relished.
‘Well the lividity forming the patches on her skin was pale pink, not dark purple, which is more usual. Plus, it was all on her front, where she’d been laying when she was found. The murder was on Friday night, and I think she’d only been there a few hours before she was found. She was placed there very soon after death.’
‘Any ideas on how she got there?’
Don’t be so impatient, Adam. I’m coming to that,’ said Phineas. ‘There are several clues, none of which, I’m afraid, add up at the moment. First, there are traces of turpentine and paint on her clothes, and we found microscopic particles of rusty iron, as well as dark red carpet fibres on her hands and feet as well.’
‘Can forensics determine the type of carpet?’ Maguire’s mind immediately conjured up a scenario of a room with a dark red carpet.
‘Give them time and they’ll find the source. Oh, and by the way, her stomach contents consisted of alcohol, bits of smoked salmon, crab, and cheese. The usual stuff one gets when eating canapés.’
‘Thanks,’ said Maguire. ‘That makes sense; we know she was working at the perfume function, so she must have had some supper there before she left.’
‘One last thing,’ said Phineas. ‘There was no sign of any recent sexual activity. I would say it was definitely not a sexually motivated crime. And before you ask when you’ll get the report, I can tell you that I’m getting it all written up now, and emailed over to you asap. I won’t be around tomorrow. Audrey and I are sailing over to the Isle of Wight for the Sunday and having a barbeque with my daughter and her family. I’ll be back in circulation on Monday.’
‘He dotes on those grandchildren of his,’ said Steve, adding rather dolefully, ‘not like my father who prefers playing golf to being with his grandchild. He says our boy is too young to be interesting, although my mother dotes on the baby.’
‘I expect he’ll change his mind when your little George can talk,’ said Maguire. Talking of other people’s grandchildren always made him realize how lonely his own life was. No wife, no children and no grandchildren, no extended family at all. He and Rosemary had both been only children of parents who had been only children, so that the line of their families had just withered and died out. Rosemary had died before they’d had time to have children. They’d put off having a family so that they could enjoy their time together. Rosemary was younger than he was; she thought she had plenty of time. But time was the one thing she didn’t have. Cancer came and took her away, and now fine weather and people planning barbeques with their families for the weekend made him feel depressed.
He looked at Steve Grayson and Kevin Harrison sitting before him. No point in keeping them from their friends and families. ‘It’s a lovely day,’ he said, ‘What’s left of it, and according to the forecast it’s going to be another lovely day tomorrow. There’s not much more we can do today, so why don’t you two shoot off and enjoy the weekend weather. We can start afresh on Monday morning.’
Neither needed a second bidding and Maguire, left alone in the office, decided to take another, longer look around Avon Hall and the gardens. He’d take Tess with him. She’d enjoy a ramble out in the fresh air, and so would he.
*
Having decided to visit her patient, Lizzie wasted no time and set off for Avon Hall in the early afternoon. Derek Thompson was still on duty when Lizzie arrived at the gates of Avon Hall. He came out and opened up the gates as soon as he saw her. ‘
Mrs V still poorly?’ he asked as he waved her through.
Lizzie nodded in what she hoped was a non-committal way. She couldn’t very well say that curiosity was the main motive for her visit. Derek was in a chatty mood. ‘Nothing much doing down here,’ he said, coming round to the driving side. He leaned on the side of the car and Lizzie wound down her window. ‘The SOCO team are busy though,’ he said. ‘They’ve been told to investigate the icehouse thoroughly. Apparently, it’s very deep inside. Who knows, they might find another body!’
‘I sincerely hope not,’ said Lizzie. ‘Inspector Maguire wouldn’t be very happy about that.’
‘He’s never very happy,’ replied Derek. ‘That’s what my Nan says, anyway, and she knows everything about everyone in Stibbington. She says he needs a woman in his life, clears the blood she says.’
‘Really,’ said Lizzie. ‘I’ve never heard that before.’ She felt uneasy talking about Maguire’s personal problems, and wound the window up, putting an end to Derek’s gossip. She was beginning to find out that it was true what was said about small towns and villages. Everyone did take an unhealthy interest in the lives of their neighbours. In London, one hardly knew the names of the people next door, let alone any intimate details about them.
Leaving Derek to close the gates behind her she drove on along the winding gravel path leading up to the house, and this time parked her car at the side, not in front of the main door. She parked beside a row of old brick buildings, which looked as if they might be garages, or sheds of some kind. There was an alleyway at the side, which led to two large greenhouses, full of plants. Lizzie had started taking more of an interest in her own garden now, although she hadn’t actually planted anything herself yet, but seeing the rows of wooden boxes packed with green shoots poking their heads above the sides aroused her curiosity. Opening the first greenhouse door, she stepped inside and walked down the centre aisle, then promptly fell over a wheelbarrow parked beneath the end bench just out of sight. She went crashing down, taking the contents of the wheelbarrow with her. The heavy shovel which hit her was sharp and grazed her leg, and a large claw hammer managed to land on one of her toes. If she’d had shoes on it wouldn’t have mattered, but she had changed into flimsy sandals as the day was hot, and so had no protection whatsoever and three of her toes were now bleeding.
Struggling to her feet, Lizzie looked around guiltily. She had no business to be in one of the greenhouses; it was just luck she hadn’t broken a pane of glass when she fell. Making a hasty exit seemed the best move, so she left, sliding the heavy glass door shut behind her, and began hobbling to where she thought the entrance to the front of the house was. Except that it wasn’t. She ended up at the back of the house; obviously the tradesmen’s entrance in days gone by, judging by the various faded notice boards on the wall, but now it was obviously where the workers and garden volunteers came and signed on for duty. There were long lists of names, and days and times.
There was nothing for it, she would have to backtrack to her car to find the front of the house. She’d just started on the return journey when Simon Villiers came round the corner. He was carrying a tray of glass bottles and test tubes.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here? And what have you done to your leg?
Lizzie looked down. Her leg was now bleeding heavily. ‘Oh, I…er, I tripped over when I got out of my car,’ she lied. ‘But I didn’t realize I was bleeding.’ She fished in her jacket pocket and found a small pocket-handkerchief.
‘That won’t be any good,’ said Simon eyeing it. ‘You’d better come with me. I’ve got plenty of tissues and things in my lab. Follow me.’
He didn’t ask what she was doing or why she was there, and Lizzie didn’t volunteer any information. She followed him through a small green wooden door in the ancient wall that led to another garden, at the side of which was a single storey wooden building, with large picture windows. ‘My laboratory,’ said Simon by way of explanation. He threw open the door. ‘Go in.’
Lizzie remembered him talking about researching for new antibiotics from the plants at Avon Hall. ‘This is a very well set up lab,’ she said, looking around at the gleaming equipment; the chromatography equipment alone she knew must have cost a fortune. ‘Do you work here alone?’
‘Mostly,’ said Simon. ‘I have a couple of university students who come in when I’m running an experiment and need assistance. Sit down.’
He proved to be a very efficient first aider and cleaned Lizzie’s leg and toes. Then he put some antiseptic on the cuts, ‘my own cocktail,’ he said, before finding a large plaster which he stuck firmly on her leg, and then did the same to her bloody toes.
Lizzie picked up the small bottle containing the antiseptic. ‘Are you going to market this?’ she asked.
Simon shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But I need to be able to prove it can be produced on an industrial scale, and that it really works as an antibiotic. There are a multitude of tests I need to run, but I haven’t had time to do anything about that because I’ve been concentrating on Black Velvet.’ He paused, then looked at Lizzie and said, ‘Do you know about my cousin, Jemima, being murdered?’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Lizzie, ‘and I’m very sorry. She was so young.’
Simon sat down suddenly and heaved a heavy sigh. ‘We quarrelled you know. I wish I hadn’t quarrelled with her that last evening. I feel so guilty now.’
Lizzie felt sorry for him. ‘There’s no need to feel guilty about a quarrel,’ she said. ‘Quarrels happen between people, especially in families. You didn’t know you were not to see her alive again. That’s the trouble with quarrels, we all wish sometimes that we could say sorry, and then find out that it’s too late.’
‘But if we hadn’t quarrelled she could have had a lift with me, instead of riding that silly old bike she borrowed. She had a puncture, you know, so dumped the bike and then someone picked her up and murdered her.’ Simon shook his head miserably. ‘I think the police suspect me. But it wasn’t me. I would never have hurt her. Never,’ he added emphatically.
Lizzie wondered if the police had asked him what kind of car he had. They hadn’t released any details of the small red car yet, not that Lizzie had given them much to go on. Only that it was small and red and had picked up Jemima and driven off. Apart from the police, she was the only person who knew that at the moment. Lizzie supposed Adam was hoping that the driver of the red car would be lulled into a false sense of security and use the car, and then they could pick him, or her, up. But looking at Simon sitting on the lab stool opposite from her, Lizzie was certain that he was not the murderer, even if he did have a red car. She reached across, took his hand in hers, and squeezed it. ‘I believe you,’ she said, ‘and I also believe that Detective Inspector Maguire and his team will find out who did murder her.’ She squeezed his hand again. ‘Now,’ she said briskly, ‘I must find my way to your mother, and take her blood pressure again, which was the real reason I came here, before I got distracted by the gardens.’
‘I’ll take you into the house the back way. She’ll probably be in the living room with Ruth.’
‘Who is Ruth?’ asked Lizzie.
‘My youngest sister. She’s only just found out about Jem being murdered. So she’s pretty upset, especially as she was waitressing at the perfume launch as well. She went back to her digs in Salisbury in the mini bus hired for the casual staff that night, and just assumed that Jem had gone to stay with friends in Stibbington.’
Lizzie followed Simon towards the house, and wondered whether Maguire had yet interviewed the girl Ruth.
*
Simon led Lizzie into the living room opposite the office. Amelia Villiers was sitting on a chaise longue beside a large, blonde girl. She was holding her hand, and the girl had obviously been crying.
‘What are you doing here?’ Amelia Villiers looked annoyed to see Lizzie.
‘I came to see you, because I’ve been a little bothered by your volatile blood pressure,’
lied Lizzie, feeling very guilty. She’d never done anything like this before; using excuses about the health of a patient to snoop on them.
But her false concern worked. Amelia Villiers suddenly smiled, and turned to Ruth. ‘This is my new GP, Dr Browne,’ she said. ‘I must say it’s nice to have such a caring doctor. I never thought that Dr Burton cared much, and I had to pay him.’ Ruth looked from her mother to Lizzie with a puzzled expression.
‘I’m strictly NHS only,’ said Lizzie hastily. ‘I’m not allowed to take payment; however that doesn’t mean to say my care is any less efficient.’
‘But you can’t bring people back to life,’ muttered Ruth, tears welling up again in her eyes.
Amelia hugged her daughter. ‘It’s no use weeping, darling. The police will find whoever did this awful thing.’
Ruth shook her head. ‘No they won’t. How can they?
Amelia Villiers nodded. ‘They will, don’t worry about it.’
Ruth shook her head again. ‘All I know is that there is no one alive who would want to kill Jemima.’
‘Somebody did,’ said Lizzie. ‘I’m sorry but you have to face that fact.’
Ruth and her mother looked at each other and lapsed into silence, and Lizzie felt sorry for them both.
She moved across to the chaise longue and sat the other side of Ruth, who leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. ‘Detective Superintendent Maguire and his team are very efficient,’ said Lizzie. ‘ If anyone can find the guilty person, they will.’
But this didn’t comfort Ruth or her mother at all. They both sat with slow tears trickling down their cheeks. ‘I think it has something to do with that awful boyfriend of hers,’ said Amelia Villiers. ‘Fergus Garrick,’ she sniffed. ‘ He thinks he’s God’s gift to literature, although he’s never had anything published. And he hasn’t got any money. I’ve always thought he was after Jem for her inheritance.’
The Dead Girl's Shoes Page 6