by Ann Granger
Copyright © 2017 Ann Granger The right of Ann Granger to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2017
by HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
First published as an Ebook in 2017
by HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library Cover illustration © Lucy Davey eISBN 978 1 4722 0461 5
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Praise
Also by Ann Granger
About the Book
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Discover more novels from Ann Granger
About the Author
Ann Granger has lived in cities all over the world, since for many years she worked for the Foreign Office and received postings to British embassies as far apart as Munich and Lusaka. She is now permanently based in Oxfordshire.
Ann Granger is the author of three other hugely popular crime series: the Mitchell and Markby novels; the Fran Varady series; and the Victorian mysteries featuring Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ben Ross and his wife Lizzie.
Praise for Ann Granger’s crime novels:
‘Her usual impeccable plotting is fully in place’ Good Book Guide
‘While Ann Granger’s novels might be set in the familiar mode of traditional country crime stories, there is nothing old-fashioned about the characters, who are drawn with a telling eye for their human foibles and frailties. Granger is bang up to date’ Oxford Times
‘Characterisation, as ever with Granger, is sharp and astringent’ The Times
‘A clever and lively book’ Margaret Yorke
‘Lovely characterisation and a neat plot’ Yorkshire Post
‘The plot is neat and ingenious, the characters rounded and touchingly credible’ Ham and High
‘This engrossing story looks like the start of a highly enjoyable series’ Scotsman
‘For once a murder novel which displays a gentle touch and a dash of wit’ Northern Echo
‘Entertaining and lifelike characters . . . a satisfying and unexpected twist’ Mystery People
By Ann Granger and available from Headline
Campbell and Carter crime novels
Mud, Muck and Dead Things Rack, Ruin and Murder Bricks and Mortality Dead in the Water
Rooted in Evil
Inspector Ben Ross crime novels
A Rare Interest in Corpses A Mortal Curiosity A Better Quality of Murder A Particular Eye for Villainy The Testimony of the Hanged Man The Dead Woman of Deptford Fran Varady crime novels
Asking for Trouble Keeping Bad Company Running Scared
Risking it All
Watching Out
Mixing with Murder Rattling the Bones Mitchell and Markby crime novels
Say it with Poison A Season for Murder Cold in the Earth
Murder Among Us
Where Old Bones Lie A Fine Place for Death Flowers for his Funeral Candle for a Corpse A Touch of Mortality A Word After Dying Call the Dead Again Beneath these Stones Shades of Murder
A Restless Evil
That Way Murder Lies
About the Book
When the body of Carl Finch, with his brains blown out, is found in a Cotswold wood it looks like suicide. But looks can be deceptive and it doesn’t take long for the police to identify that there’s more to Carl’s death than meets the eye.
People’s stories don’t add up and when Superintendent Ian Carter and Inspector Jess Campbell start probing it becomes clear that Carl had ruffled more than a few feathers in this close-knit community. His stepsister, Hattie, had been bailing him out of his financial troubles – much against her husband’s wishes – but, with his money worries still mounting, Carl had become a desperate man . . .
As Jess and Ian dig deeper and deeper into the case, a cover-up is exposed and bitter resentment rises to the surface to reveal a killer.
This book is dedicated to Eileen Roberts, Kate Charles (Carol Chase) and all who have made the first twenty-three years of the St Hilda’s College Crime Fiction Conference in Oxford so memorable. Also to all the friends from across the world I have met there over the years, all of them crime-fiction lovers to their fingertips!
It is also in fond memory of my agent for twenty-six years, Carole Blake. She was always so full of enthusiasm and encouragement; and so suddenly taken from us all. God bless, Carole.
‘For the love of money is the root of all evil.’
– Epistle of St Paul to Timothy, King James Bible
Chapter 1
It was raining in Oxford, as it was in most of the rest of the country. Would-be passengers scurried along the row of bus stops in Magdalen Street, scanning the listed numbers on the metal flags beside each one. A hopeful violinist was serenading the pedestrians, but they didn’t care about him. His own decision to seek shelter in a covered gap between shops didn’t help, because he was hidden in the shadow. The plaintive notes drifted out of his retreat, but no one stopped to drop a coin in his violin case open on the ground.
Carl Finch saw him. But Carl didn’t pause to give him any money, either. Carl was particularly short of cash himself. He appreciated the busker’s attempt to earn a crust, even though the scrape of a fiddle had never appealed to him. But, he thought grimly to himself, unless he got his hands on the money to which he was entitled – and Carl did not doubt he was rightly so under any natural law – he’d be reduced to desperate measures himself.
He was in his early forties, solid in build, with long, tawny-blond hair and fair skin. Scowling as he was now, he suggested a Norse warrior who had just leaped from a longship and was splashing through the water towards the undefended shore, sword in hand. People got out of his way.
But Carl was a worried man. He was not the attacker. He had more in common with the terrified monks of some storm-battered abbey who had received news of invaders. No monk could have prayed more fervently than Carl did for a deliverer.
A bus drew into the stop he was passing and he saw that it was going up the Banbury road, so he jumped on. No seats were available. He stood, pressed in unwished familiarity against the other rain-soaked passengers: old women with plastic carrier bags, young mums with infants, bewildered tourists and one elderly man with the air of having had something to do with the University at some time and who now seemed as angered by the world as Carl felt.
He jumped down at Summertown, set off briskly past the shops before turning off into one of the
side roads and, some five minutes later, arrived at his destination, a trim Victorian terraced cottage. It was set back from the pavement by a low brick wall and a tiled forecourt. The curtains were already drawn because, although it was still technically afternoon, the light was failing. A lamp had been turned on within, its mellow glow escaping through a chink. Edgar Alcott valued his privacy. But he also liked to peep out and see who was at his front door demanding admission.
He had recognised Carl, opened the door and was ushering him inside. ‘My dear fellow, what a dreadful day. So good of you to come.’
Carl divested himself of his wet Barbour, hung it on a hook in the narrow hallway, and followed his host into what Edgar liked to call his ‘drawing room’, even though it was postage-stamp sized. But Edgar was a meticulous sort of person and liked things ‘right’.
He was a living example of this dictum. At any time of day he was always smartly turned out: clean shirt, carefully knotted tie (selected to go with the shirt of the day), trousers with knife-edge creases, highly polished shoes. There was something highly polished about Edgar himself, too. It was impossible to tell his age. He had the fresh, unlined skin of a much younger man and his hair, though silver, was thick and bouncy.
Carl did not believe that the other man had always had the name Edgar Alcott, not even half of it. No doubt there were plenty of people with the surname, but Carl didn’t know any. He seemed to recall that his stepsister, when young, owned a book called Little Women by a woman called Alcott, but that was it. He also suspected that ‘Edgar’ was an adopted moniker. He had no reason for thinking this other than it didn’t suit the man, somehow. At any rate, Edgar Alcott never gave any information about himself and, somehow, one couldn’t ask. He was beaming at Carl and politely enquiring whether the visitor would like a cup of tea – or perhaps something stronger? Strangers passing him in the street probably judged him a harmless old fellow. But Edgar wasn’t harmless. The pale blue eyes beneath the arched silver eyebrows glinted like steel.
Carl asked for a whisky, because he needed it. Edgar poured it for him, but not a tumbler for himself.
‘Too early for me, old chap. Soda? Or water, perhaps? A terrible fellow once asked if I had any ginger ale. Naturally, I never did business with him again!’
Carl replied, thank you, but he would drink his whisky neat. Edgar shook his head slightly but did not otherwise object. Watching him, Carl thought resentfully that his host was a past master at controlling people and situations. Carl always had to make the journey to Oxford to discuss business with him, however urgent, because Edgar, who did not drive, claimed he abhorred train journeys as ‘unhealthy’. Besides trains, Edgar also abhorred cats. This had given rise to the one and only occasion on which Carl had seen him lose control. A friendly moggy had perched on Edgar’s low wall. Carl was stroking it when Edgar had burst out of the house in a rage, face flushed red, eyes popping, screaming at the animal to ‘get away!’ The cat had wisely fled. The incident had lasted a few seconds and then Edgar was his old-maidish self again.
‘Such unhygienic creatures,’ he’d said to Carl, leading the way back indoors.
Now Edgar, having politely handed the glass to Carl, sat down on a Victorian hooped-back chair, crossed his ankles, folded his very white hands, and asked, ‘And have you brought me glad tidings? Better still, something tangible? I do hope you have. It’s been such a dreary day, and I do need something to cheer me up.’
‘I haven’t brought any money, Edgar, sorry. It’s just been impossible to raise that amount of cash. I’ve tried everything.’
Edgar sighed. ‘I had such confidence in you. Yet you have let me down quite unforgivably. My dear chap, whatever went wrong?’
If Carl had replied honestly, he’d have said, ‘Just about everything!’ But he knew it was important to remain outwardly confident. ‘You’ll get your money, Edgar. But it will mean waiting rather longer than we first thought. The company had not anticipated local opposition. But it is being sorted out and if you’ll just have patience . . .’
‘Have I not been patient?’ Edgar asked, in that mild way that always sent a shiver down Carl’s spine.
Carl flushed and drew a deep breath. He had to sound calm and self-assured. His whisky glass was empty and he desperately needed another tot. But Edgar showed no sign of refilling it. ‘I have lost money, too,’ Carl went on. ‘Please understand that I simply haven’t—’
But Edgar interrupted. ‘Enough is enough, Carl. I really must have my money, you know. I am a businessman, not a charitable institution. However, I am not unreasonable. You can pay me in two instalments, but the first must be paid before the end of the month.’
In desperation, Carl blurted, ‘Look, I’m setting up a meeting with my sister—’
‘You have mentioned your stepsister before. She’ll advance you the money?’ Edgar’s eyes glittered like icicles in a ray of winter sun; and the emphasis was a reminder that the speaker liked accuracy.
Carl flushed. ‘No, not straight away. The fact of the matter is, there is the property, the Old Nunnery. I may have mentioned it to you before. It’s becoming a burden to Harriet and I do believe she’ll listen to what is a very sensible plan. Sell the whole damn lot, house and land. It’s the obvious thing! She’d share the proceeds with me! I’m sure of it. After all, there would be enough to see us both right. I know I’m asking a lot of you, Edgar. But let me talk Harriet round. Eventually, you’ll get the lot back, believe me.’
‘My dear Carl, perhaps you are being optimistic?’ Edgar was shaking his head. ‘Grasping at straws, as they say? Yes, you have mentioned this property before and I have made enquiries. But you don’t own it! You wouldn’t be the vendor, dear boy, if it came on the market. Even if it made very good money, none of it would be yours.’
‘But it should be!’ Carl insisted passionately. ‘My stepfather never intended to cut me out of his will and leave me with a measly few thousand! He raised me as his own kid! And he left a fortune, Edgar, a fortune!’
‘But you weren’t his child, were you?’ Edgar still spoke in that unrelenting mild voice. ‘Not his flesh and blood? As I understand it, he merely married your mother when you were already a little boy.’
‘He regarded me as a son! He always treated me as such. He paid the school fees. He bought me my first car. We did everything together as a family, he and my mother, Harriet and me. When my mother died, he was there for me in every way. But he was a very sick man in his last years and he was influenced. Somehow, he was persuaded to cut me off with the proverbial shilling. Not by Hattie, my sister – she wouldn’t have done that to me. It was her husband, Guy. I see his hand in it!’
‘Nevertheless, your stepfather did not leave you a share in the property and you cannot be sure of persuading your stepsister, especially if, as you say, her husband would be strongly against any idea of sharing any profits with you.’
‘I can talk Hattie round,’ Carl insisted. ‘We were always close. She won’t let me go to the wall. She doesn’t want to end up bankrupt, either, and the way Guy is behaving, they will be. Yet the money is sitting there in the shape of a valuable asset. She’ll agree, Edgar. It would be the best thing for both of us.’
Edgar rose to his feet and went to peer through the chink in his front window curtains. ‘I really don’t like violence, Carl. Truly I don’t. But I dislike being taken for a ride even less.’
His back was turned to Carl, who, for a split second, was tempted to leap up and brain the old devil. It wouldn’t help. Someone would have seen him arrive here, or would see him leave, perhaps a neighbour also peering through the curtains. His fingerprints were probably all over the place. He didn’t have that kind of luck, the sort that let you get away with murder. Nor did he have that kind of nerve. Anyway, the paper trail would lead the police to him.
‘As I was saying, I’ve been in touch with Hattie.’ He tried to keep his voice under control. ‘She’s agreed to meet and discuss it. We’re brother and sister
– all right, not by blood, but we were brought up together and we are very close, especially since my mother died. Anyway, she’s not as besotted with Guy, her husband, as she was. She’ll listen to me this time. I can get her to sell, I know I can, and once the house and the property are sold, believe me, Edgar, she won’t say no to divvying up the money.’
‘I do hope so, dear fellow. How dark it has got; and it’s raining again.’
Carl left the house feeling a desperation he would not have imagined possible. He had to win Hattie over, and it had to be soon. Not only because he didn’t want his legs broken but also because that cuckoo-in-the-nest, Guy Kingsley, would talk Harriet into another of his hare-brained schemes. The Kingsleys would eventually go bust; Harriet knew that. She wasn’t a fool. All that money the old man had left would go down the drain, and the house and property would be sold to meet their debts. Carl could kiss goodbye to seeing even a penny. It just wasn’t fair. Harriet and Guy’s marriage was on the rocks. Everyone knew that. Carl was family; he had sound business sense, unlike Guy’s loopy ideas, even if, lately, luck had run against him. Dad would never have cut him out of his will like that if Guy hadn’t been there to influence him all those months he lay sick; and to influence Harriet, too.
‘I need,’ muttered Carl, ‘to get rid of blasted Guy Kingsley.’
Chapter 2
The mud-splashed Range Rover turned through the weather-worn pillars flanking the entrance, sending up spectacular twin sprays as it jolted through a deep puddle in the gravel. Small stones rattled against the bodywork. Harriet Kingsley, gripping the wheel, progressed noisily to the top of the drive and stopped before the house.
She put up her hands to push back her thick, dark blond hair and her fingers brushed the moisture pearled on her forehead. She had to get control of herself before she went indoors, before Guy saw her. He wasn’t the most sensitive of men, goodness only knew, but even he would see that his wife was badly upset about something.