by Ann Granger
‘Well,’ said Jess, ‘that all sounds very noble, Captain Kingsley, and it is good of you to shoulder the blame. However, had a witness not seen your wife driving away from the woods earlier, she and Mrs Briggs would have successfully put a spoke in the wheel of police investigations into what now we know to be a murder. That’s a very serious matter.’
‘I was worried about that driver, the one I nearly forced off the road,’ Harriet admitted. ‘I thought he might remember me.’
‘He certainly did,’ Jess told her. ‘He also went on to find the body.’
Harriet looked briefly at her hands, clasped in her lap. ‘I didn’t go to the inquest this morning. It wasn’t because I was afraid of seeing that driver there, and of his seeing and recognising me. It was because I was afraid they’d describe Carl’s injuries in some horrible post-mortem report. I apologise again for being so silly and not admitting I’d been to the woods when you first came here.’
‘All right,’ Jess said. ‘We’ll leave that for the moment. We need to move on. But you must tell me everything, Mrs Kingsley. When there is a family tragedy of this kind, our enquiries inevitably dig up the dirt, to put it bluntly. There are always details families want to hide: things that are embarrassing or may cause more trouble. But I’m afraid that kind of privacy goes right out of the window when we, the police, become involved. Now then, is there anything else you could tell me that might give us a lead to finding your stepbrother’s killer? Who else knew you were going to meet him in Crooked Man Woods? That’s a vital missing piece of the jigsaw.’
‘No one!’ Harriet burst out. ‘I hadn’t told Guy, as I explained, and I didn’t tell Tessa. She is the only one I might have told. I didn’t because, like Guy, she would have made a big fuss and told me not to go. She’d have insisted I get in touch with Carl and cancel the arrangement. Or else, she would have insisted on coming with me, which would have been even worse. So I told no one.’
‘Could someone have found out? For example, did he write to you? Send a text message, or an email someone might have seen on screen?’
‘No! I mean, he didn’t write letters. He did send emails and he did ring my mobile occasionally, until I told him to stop, after he rang once when Guy was with me and –’ She broke off and glanced at her husband. ‘Guy was upset.’
‘Yes, I was!’ snapped Kingsley. ‘But I had no idea he was going to come down from London and meet Hattie that morning, in the woods. If he sent emails, I didn’t see them and my wife didn’t tell me!’
Harriet got up and went to the nearby desk. She slid open a drawer and returned carrying a closed laptop computer. ‘I send and get emails on it and, yes, I corresponded with my brother – stepbrother – via this. But I always deleted them afterwards. Anyway, you don’t know my password to get into my email account, do you, Guy?’
‘No!’ said Guy. He was looking very angry and clearly suppressing a desire to burst out in a torrent of speech.
Oh, dear, thought Jess. I’m afraid there’s going to be a serious row about all this between the Kingsleys when I’ve gone. Perhaps there already has been. She felt sorry for Harriet, who had clearly been living for some time with an impossible situation. Her stepbrother had been feckless and a leech, but she must have loved him as a brother. Her husband couldn’t stand Carl Finch. There must have been massive arguments, probably threats. Harriet’s intention first and foremost had been to keep Carl and Guy apart, a wretched tug of war for her to be in the middle of.
Aloud, she said, ‘Have you any idea at all why your brother needed money urgently?’
Kingsley answered. ‘He gambled. He also invested in hare-brained get-rich-quick schemes. Of course, he lost his money, at cards and in business. He’d probably borrowed money. He must have been up to his eyes in debt.’
Jess nodded but turned back to Harriet. ‘Mrs Kingsley?’
‘As Guy says, Carl gambled and risked money on stupid ventures. I don’t know exactly how he got through so much money. He didn’t confide in me to that extent. If you want honesty, then I can tell I didn’t really want to know the details of how Carl got into such difficulties. I used to tell him that, whatever kind of life he was leading, he ought to stop it. But the more details I knew, the more I’d have to worry about.’
‘Did you feel that, this time, he was more than usually worried about being in need of a bail-out?’
‘Yes,’ Harriet admitted. ‘He was very worried, scared. I don’t know whom or what he was frightened of. But he’d got himself into a really bad situation and he couldn’t get out of it. That much I could tell from the tone of the emails, and the occasional call he did make to my mobile.’
‘Did your father own a shotgun, Mrs Kingsley?’ Jess introduced the new subject deliberately, not giving Harriet time to control her reaction.
But Harriet looked genuinely bewildered. ‘No, why would he? He didn’t go in for country sports. Nancy wouldn’t have allowed it. She was all about being at one with nature, you know. She would stand out in the countryside with her arms outspread and eyes shut, absorbing the Earth’s force. She looked rather beautiful when she did that.’
‘Barking mad!’ said Guy tersely. ‘At least she didn’t do it in the nude, I hope!’
‘Well,’ confessed Harriet, blushing, ‘when she first came, she did. But Dad really put his foot down and said, no way!’
Kingsley rolled his eyes. ‘Well, I never saw a gun about the place, other than my own. That’s kept locked away, and your superintendent inspected it. We never found so much as an old air pistol when we were going through stuff up in the attics, and we hunted through pretty thoroughly.’
Harriet said in explanation, ‘Guy and I had a go at running an antiques business. Because this house has never been really cleared out in a couple of hundred years, things have accumulated and, as they became unneeded, they were put up in the attics, as Guy says. I can confirm we didn’t find a weapon of any kind up there when we were antique hunting, just a lot of furniture and some musty old clothes and books. We soon found out the furniture wasn’t worth anything.’
Kingsley slapped his palms on the arms of his chair and made a decisive statement. ‘Clearly, Carl’s trouble was in London. Someone either followed him down here or, more likely, someone there had learned of his proposed meeting with Harriet in the woods. He might have told someone. Or someone saw the emails he sent her, or her replies. Whoever killed Carl, you need to look in London.’
‘Mrs Kingsley.’ Jess turned to Harriet. ‘Can we borrow this computer? You may have deleted Carl’s emails, but our expert might be able to retrieve them. There could be some clue in them. We will return the machine to you in good order, of course.’
‘All right,’ said Harriet meekly.
‘One other thing. Have you any photos of your stepbrother? The more recent, the better. We – er – need to have a photograph we can show potential witnesses.’
‘Yes, of course, I’ll bring you what I have.’ Harriet stood up and walked out of the room.
When they were alone, Guy Kingsley said, ‘Look here, Inspector Campbell, you may be thinking I’m some kind of a monster whose wife is afraid of him. But I’m not, and she isn’t. But you can have no idea what a powerful personality Carl was. That was the reason I banned him from the house. I knew he could always persuade Harriet to do what he wanted. He was a big chap, as you’ve seen, and in life he looked pretty impressive. I’ve seen the effect all that long blond hair and those film-star looks had when he walked into a room, especially on people who didn’t know him from Adam.’ Guy gave a kind of growl. ‘Also, he had a pretty good opinion of himself. He thought he was the “bee’s knees”, as they say. Most of all, he knew how to bear a grudge. Oh, yes, he knew that!’
‘You never got along with him? Not at first, even?’
‘Never!’ said Kingsley firmly. ‘When Harriet brought me here and I met him – in this room, as it happens – we took one look at each other, and that was it. Mutual dislike. We were r
ivals, you see. He wanted to dominate Harriet, be the only other man in her life, other than her father.’
‘Her husband, perhaps? There wouldn’t have been a legal impediment, would there?’ It was a question that had to be asked. Jess wasn’t surprised to see Kingsley’s face turn first white and then red.
‘For God’s sake,’ he said thickly, ‘never mention anything like that to Harriet!’
There was a footstep outside in the hallway and Harriet returned, holding an envelope. ‘I’ve put some snaps of Carl in here, but they were taken a few years ago. There is one taken here, with my father, not long before Dad died. That would be the most recent one I have.’
She held out the envelope. She looked very pale.
I wonder, thought Jess, if she overheard my question?
‘I do understand Harriet’s problem,’ Jess told Carter later. ‘I have a brother. We’re very close. If he came and asked me for money, I’d do my best to give him what he needed, even if I was angry with him. But I’m not married. I don’t have to consider anyone else.’
‘Would you go on giving your brother money, if he kept coming back, as Carl Finch did?’ Carter beat a rapid tattoo with his fingertips on the desk.
‘I wouldn’t be able to, because I don’t have it, and Simon would know that. Nor would Simon just turn up and ask for funds without explaining exactly why he needed them so urgently. I’d expect him to have a serious reason, one he could tell me. To be honest, I can’t imagine a situation arising with me and Simon that would be anything like the wretched tangle Harriet Kingsley was in.’
Carter grunted and began to roll a ballpoint back and forth across the top of his desk. ‘Finch thought he was entitled to money, that was the top and bottom of it. He had misunderstood his position in the family. He had persuaded himself that John Hemmings saw him in the same light as he saw his daughter by blood. He was wrong. Hemmings had no intention that the family home and the bulk of his wealth should go anywhere but to his blood child. As to the other thing – the situation you mentioned to Kingsley and which he didn’t like one bit.’
‘About there being no impediment in law to Carl and Harriet marrying?’ Jess grimaced. ‘Kingsley didn’t like that idea at all!’
‘You can’t be surprised! We have no reason to suppose that was ever Finch’s intention. In any case, it couldn’t have been in Harriet’s mind, because she married someone else.’
He replaced the pen tidily in a tray. ‘Tessa Briggs wanted to protect Harriet; she seems very fond of her. Hence the theatre about pretending Harriet hadn’t found the body. The explanation is plausible.
‘While Phil was at the Briggs’ place, he heard firing from the clay-pigeon range. If you recall, Mrs Briggs said in her original statement that she wouldn’t have noticed a shot if there had been one in the woods. Phil disagrees. She would have done so, because such a shot would have come from the other direction. So let’s assume she didn’t hear a shot. We now know for certain that the body was moved, but we don’t know how far. Not a great distance, because he hadn’t been dead that long. So, where the devil was he killed? And where is that Renault he was driving?’
‘There’s a lot of open countryside around there,’ said Jess. ‘Could be anywhere.’
The following morning, Carter and Jess set off for London. They might strike lucky, said Carter to her. There could be something of interest in Finch’s home and, in any case, removing oneself physically from the scene of the crime could help.
‘Clears the mind,’ he said. ‘Puts things in perspective.’
Finch had lived in a pretty mews. The former stables had been converted into cottages on the townhouse principle. The main residential part was upstairs, over the street-level garage and front door. There were two cars parked in the mews when Carter and Jess arrived, and a reception party consisting of two men, standing together and engaged in desultory conversation.
The younger one was slightly built and of mild appearance. Perhaps for that reason, he sported a distinctive hairstyle. The hair was clipped close to both sides of his skull, but on the top it had been allowed to grow longer and been teased into flame-shapes, pointing in varying directions. The general effect was of a palm tree in a tropical storm. Incongruously, given the unconventional nature of his coiffure, he was wearing a suit and carried a briefcase.
The other man was sturdily built and wearing a leather jacket. He had close-cropped hair, an alert expression and, Carter had to admit, had ‘POLICE’ written all over him.
‘Sergeant Mullins, sir,’ said the latter, adding with a nod towards Jess, ‘Ma’am. Good journey up from Gloucestershire?’ He gestured at his companion with the wild haircut. ‘This is Mr Loveday. He represents the letting agency. He’s got the keys.’
‘That’s helpful,’ said Carter, shaking the hand Mr Loveday nervously held out. ‘We won’t have to break in.’
Mr Loveday’s nervousness increased and his expression became as distraught as his hair. ‘The last thing we want is damage! That’s why the agency keeps a set of all the keys to all properties. Tenants go on holiday, you see, and there’s an emergency: a burst pipe, a flood coming through the ceiling from the property above, that sort of thing. Or there’s an’ – he swallowed – ‘an accident,’ he said, ‘like, er, this time.’
‘Quite,’ said Carter. ‘Lead on, then, Mr Loveday.’
Loveday glanced at Sergeant Mullins, who urged, not unkindly, ‘Get on with it, the superintendent hasn’t got all day.’
‘Oh, er, yes,’ stammered Loveday, and produced a set of keys with a paper label attached. His letting agent’s training kicked in and he announced with some assurance that they would find an entry hall and stairwell, with a downstairs toilet.
‘We’ll take a look in the garage first,’ ordered Mullins.
Loveday’s fragile confidence shattered. ‘Er, yes, of course . . .’
Under Loveday’s mournful eye, they checked the garage to be sure Finch’s Renault wasn’t there. It wasn’t, and neither was anything else, except a small collection of the usual handy tools and a stepladder. They then all four squeezed into the minuscule downstairs lobby. They glanced into what Loveday now described as the ‘downstairs facilities’. That proved to be an icy-cold, oddly shaped cubbyhole with a child-sized lavatory bowl at one end and a tiny hand-basin fixed to the wall.
‘You’ve got to be joking,’ observed Mullins.
Perhaps because of the Munchkin-sized proportions of the property, or because of the temperature, Finch had stored his wine bottles here, installing a tall rack in what little space remained. The visitors stuck their head through the door, but no one attempted to enter. Finally, they clattered noisily up the narrow stairs to the flat itself. At last they were in Carl Finch’s home.
‘These are compact properties, as you see,’ said Loveday, unnecessarily, to Carter and Jess, as if they were a pair of prospective tenants. ‘But not cramped, and there is plenty of light and access to a roof garden.’ He pointed to a hatch in the ceiling.
Mullins, behind the group, was heard to mutter something about the impossibility of swinging cats.
Loveday defended the agency’s interests energetically. ‘I can assure you a property like this is eagerly sought after in this part of London. Having a garage is rare, and so is not having neighbours above or beneath. The party walls to the properties on either side are solid. The properties are very quiet. Only residential traffic uses the road below. Now that the flat is, or about to become, vacant and on the market again, the agency will let it overnight, believe me! We have a list of people wanting something like this.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Carter politely.
Loveday, encouraged, went on: ‘Could you give me any idea when the property will be cleared of Mr Finch’s effects? This is a furnished let, but all clothes, personal items, electrical goods belonging to the late tenant, and so on, will have to be removed very soon. The agency cannot act as a storage facility. We also need to turn off and drain the re
maining heating and inform the utility suppliers. The owner will want us to get this property available for relet—’
‘This is a murder investigation, old son,’ said Mullins, in his kindly way, which did not, second time round, sound quite so kindly as it had at first.
Loveday flushed brick red. ‘I know, the agency is aware . . . Dreadful thing, of course. The murder didn’t take place here, on the property, I understand? Is that right? We hope not, because it would put some people off.’
Jess began: ‘This isn’t the scene of the crime, Mr Loveday, as far as we know. We might, of course, find evidence suggesting it was – traces of blood, something like that.’ (Loveday looked as if he might faint.) ‘We need to take a good look round and, if there is nothing here for us, the flat should—’
‘Who the hell are you?’
The voice, crisp and female, came from the door. It caused all four of them to spin round, to see a tall, slim woman in her thirties glaring at them. She was dressed in a figure-hugging red jacket and a short, tight skirt. The outfit was completed, Jess noted with some envy, with a chunky necklace of natural stones in silver settings. Her long, curling, tawny hair was brushed back and secured with a band. She had a large and very expensive-looking bag slung over her shoulder.
Carter, for his part, and with memory of Sophie once admiring a similar bag on the shoulder of some celebrity, dredged up the name ‘Birkin’. Well, well, Mr Finch, he thought, if this lady is your girlfriend, no wonder you never had any money!
So taken aback had they all been by her sudden appearance, no one answered her for a moment, allowing her to steam on while they gawped.
‘What are you doing in Carl’s flat? Are you bailiffs? If you are, you can clear off! This is a furnished flat, very little here belongs to Carl, but you need him here to identify which items. I want to see your authority!’