by J M Gregson
Hartley nodded slowly. ‘He liked to know everything he could about people. I expect he’d have said that was just part of his job. The more he knew about people, the more accurately he could assess whether they were suitable employees. He’s responsible to the Trust for everyone who’s employed here. None of us has a job for life. Even the most senior of us are on two- or three-year contracts.’
‘But you need continuity, especially in jobs like yours.’
Jim Hartley smiled. ‘Of course you do. And personally, I don’t feel in danger of being made redundant. But any organization which depends on subscriptions for its income can see it decline rapidly in times of recession, so the Trust has to be prudent.’
‘Did Mr Cooper threaten people with dismissal if they didn’t toe the line?’
There was a long pause, during which Hartley seemed to find the curator’s carpet deeply fascinating. ‘He didn’t threaten me. I can’t speak for other people.’
‘You mentioned the head chef, Mr Wilkinson. Were he and the curator at loggerheads?’
‘No. I just gave that as an example of how Dennis Cooper wanted to know everything that went on here. I suppose the chef sprang to mind because of something which happened a week or two ago. Hugo shouted words he shouldn’t have used in the kitchen. Everyone got to know about that. But Mr Cooper had dealt with it. I don’t think there was any residual animosity between the two of them.’
A good phrase. Unusual for a gardener, even a head gardener, Lambert thought. But perhaps he was being patronizing. He nodded to Hook, who said, ‘Where were you last night between six and midnight, Mr Hartley?’
‘That’s easy. I was in my cottage. It was a pretty foul evening, with a thunderstorm which took a long time to rumble away and heavy showers as it went. Not the weather to tempt you out.’
‘So you didn’t leave the cottage at all between six and twelve?’
‘No. It was the kind of weather where you’re glad to have a roof over your head.’
‘Is there anyone who can confirm this for us?’
He hesitated for a moment before he smiled. ‘Well, there’s the boys. I read Oliver a story – Sam reads his own nowadays. They were asleep by about nine, but of course Julie could vouch for me after that.’
‘And you for her, I suppose,’ said Lambert with a humourless nod. Husband-wife alibis were notoriously suspect, but always difficult to break.
‘Surely Julie can’t be one of your suspects? She hardly knew the man.’
‘We shall be questioning everyone who lives on site. At this stage, we cannot think in terms of suspects. We gather information and try to eliminate as many people as we can from the enquiry as we do so. But it is important that we speak to everyone here. They may have seen something or heard something significant. They may know things about the victim, about his likes and dislikes, his friends and enemies, which give us pointers. It is often people on the fringes of an investigation who give us vital information.’
Hartley’s tanned outdoor features clouded as he nodded. ‘I can see that. I hadn’t thought about it before. I still don’t think Julie will be able to help you.’
‘So who do you think did this, Mr Hartley?’
He was shocked by the directness of the challenge. ‘I’ve no idea. You shouldn’t just consider people on the site. There are a lot of people who come in here every week to help us. It could be one of them. Or it could be someone else entirely – someone connected with Mr Cooper’s private life.’
‘It could indeed. Do you know of any such person?’
‘No. I’m just making the point that we don’t live in a vacuum. Even for those of us working in the gardens all day and living on the site, there has to be life outside Westbourne Park.’
‘I take your point. But can you suggest anyone who doesn’t live on the site who should have our attention?’
Jim Hartley studied the carpet in Cooper’s office for several long seconds as he forced himself to go further. ‘There’s Lorna Green. She’s a voluntary worker who probably comes in more frequently than any of the others. She knows more about the history of the gardens than anyone. She gives talks to visitors and answers questions.’
‘And you think she also knows quite a lot about the man who was responsible for Westbourne? You think we should talk to her quickly?’
‘I’m not saying she had anything to do with this. She’s not that sort of woman. But something she said one day made me think she’s known Dennis Cooper for a long time – longer than any of us who work here. She might be able to tell you the sort of things about his past that you were speaking of.’
‘Members of our team will be speaking to all the voluntary workers here. But we’ll make Ms Green a priority. Thank you for the thought. We may need to see you again, when we know more about what happened last night.’
That was merely routine, Jim told himself. It was just his own confusion which made it sound like a threat.
Twenty-four hours after its curator had been murdered, a strange, uneasy quiet lay over Westbourne Park. Monday had been a fresher day after the storm, but cloud had covered the skies in early evening, so that the long summer day darkened earlier than might have been expected.
This was normally a quiet place in the evenings, after the visitors had left. But it seemed unnaturally so tonight. The birds had ceased singing early and it would be an hour or two yet before the first cry of the screech-owl was heard. The few children on the site had departed indoors as the daylight dimmed. Silence and stillness were natural here. But what had happened on the previous evening was known now to everyone who lived on site, so that the quiet seemed extreme and unnatural.
One man who lived here had been waiting impatiently for the twilight. The figure in leathers and helmet looked scarcely human as it moved stiffly through the gloom; the silhouette might have been some biped from another planet. Once the gauntleted hands dropped upon the steel of the handlebars, it took shape as a motorcyclist and became less threatening.
But the silence held, because the rider did not want to be discovered. He wheeled the small machine awkwardly from the shed and turned it towards the gates. For the last fifty yards, he slipped astride it and pushed it along awkwardly with his feet, anxious to be gone from here, but also to escape detection, though there seemed to be no one else abroad in this still and brooding place. Once he was through the staff entrance and on the lane, he kicked the machine into life.
Its small engine roared unnaturally loud through the silence, its lights blazed sudden and dazzling in the summer darkness. Then the rider was away through the lanes, a succession of moths flashing briefly in and out of the long beam of his headlight. All other concerns disappeared beneath the concentration needed to control his bike on this journey through the night.
The presence of the steel frame beneath him, responding to the movements of his body, was as reassuring as the surge of power when he reached a straight stretch of road and opened the throttle. You heard nothing but the sound of your engine, felt nothing but the rush of the cool wind past your ears. You saw nothing through your goggles save what your headlight gave you on these unlit roads. You were in your own world, master of your own fate, on a motorbike. Whilst you rode it and controlled it, it shut out all other concerns which had set you on this journey.
Alex Fraser settled low over the fuel tank for his long retreat through the darkness.
ELEVEN
‘Thank you for coming in here so promptly.’
‘It was no trouble. The rota has me on duty on most Tuesdays in any case.’
Lorna Green looked round Dennis Cooper’s office, at the battered filing cabinet in the corner, at the long wood-framed window with the under-eaves of the thatch just visible at the top, at the big picture on the wall of the original owner’s other great garden in the south of France. She wondered if she should pretend that she had never been in this room before. That would surely distance her from the crime. She reminded herself that as far as these men wer
e concerned she was only an unpaid part-time worker and thus scarcely worthy of much attention.
She was torn between wanting to know exactly what the CID men were thinking and trying to prove she was quite remote from it. It wasn’t in her nature to play down her importance, she thought wryly. You got to know yourself better as you grew older. Even the tragedy which was threatening to overwhelm her at home had taught her things about herself. She looked at the tall, intense man with the grizzled hair and keen grey eyes who had said he was Chief Superintendent Lambert, then at the burly figure with the weather-beaten face who sat quiet and observant beside him. She said, ‘The other part-time workers and guides are being interviewed by members of your team. May I ask why I merit the top brass?’
Lambert pursed his lips, decided not to tell her that she was here to answer questions rather than to ask them. This exchange was voluntary and unpaid, like the rest of her work here. ‘We were told you know as much about this place as anyone. That made you a good starting point.’
‘But you’re interested in a man who died here, not the place itself.’ Some men thought they could get away with any sort of bland explanation, so long as they were speaking to a woman. And perhaps they succeeded, if they threw in a little flattery; she acknowledged to herself wryly that she’d been pleased when the chief superintendent had said she was the leading authority on Westbourne.
This man seemed to appreciate finding a woman worthy of his steel. He smiled at her as he said, ‘We don’t know yet whether this death is connected with its setting. But I can tell you that we were also told that you might know more about Dennis Cooper than most of the people who work here.’
‘I’m sure that won’t be true. This place is all about plants and gardening. As head gardener, Jim Hartley must know more than me about Mr Cooper, for a start. He was in almost daily contact with him, I think. Indeed, I’m sure all the staff who live on site have had much more contact with him than people like me, who come here two or three times a week to act as guides and give our little talks to the public.’
‘You underestimate yourself, I think. The people who work here tell me that you are both enthusiastic and very knowledgeable. They turn to you when they have questions they cannot answer about the history of Westbourne Park.’
Lorna was pleased, despite her resolution to be low-key. ‘People exaggerate. But it’s true I’ve always been interested in the history of National Trust properties. When you work here and talk to the public, there is every incentive to find out all that you can about Westbourne.’
‘And in doing so you must have come to know the curator quite well.’
She wondered if her tendency to correct Cooper in public had been noticed and reported by others. Perhaps they knew about her recent confrontation with the dead man. She looked hard at Lambert, but discovered nothing from that lined, enquiring face. ‘I think you exaggerate the importance of what I do here. I am part of a large group of voluntary, unpaid workers. We enjoy what we do and we make our contribution, but Mr Cooper had far more important issues to deal with than what we do.’
‘Nevertheless, his files show that he was well aware of the vital part you play here. You knew Mr Cooper for a long time, I think. For many years before either of you worked here.’
It was dropped in almost casually, as if it were a matter of small importance. The shock was all the greater for that. She wondered how they knew, who had told them, whether Dennis had left behind some record of their time together. For an absurd moment, she even wondered if she might be mentioned in his will. She tried to force her racing mind back to what she should do now. She heard herself saying in a low voice she could scarcely believe was hers, ‘Perhaps I should have told you that. I expect I would have, eventually. But one guards one’s privacy. What happened many years ago had nothing to do with Dennis’s death.’
‘I think you should tell us all about it, rather than leave us to prise it out of you by questioning. If it proves to have nothing to do with this crime, as you say, there is no reason why it should go any further.’
She fixed her gaze upon the picture of the Riviera garden on the wall; it was important to her concentration that she should not look at these two strangers who were about to hear about the most intimate relationship of her life. ‘Dennis Cooper and I were lovers, twenty years ago and more. It wasn’t the only serious relationship I’ve had. It was quite certainly the most important.’
‘Did he also feel that?’
‘You’d have to ask him about that. But you can’t now, can you? He said it was important. He behaved as if it was important, at the time.’ She took a deep breath, determined to be the modern, detached woman she was, rather than the woman desperate to be a wife she might sound. ‘I think for a while we both thought we’d marry, but that never happened.’
‘And why was that?’
He was as quiet and sympathetic as a therapist, she thought. And no doubt just as anxious to have her speak frankly, but for his sake, not for hers. ‘I can’t give you a convincing answer to that. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t want to commit myself, because at the time I did. It was Dennis who shied away from the bond of marriage. That’s what he called it, the bond.’
She kept her tone even and her gaze on the picture, even at this moment when she had most reason to sound bitter. It was left to Lambert to prompt quietly, ‘That must have been a time of great emotional stress for you. Perhaps for both of you.’
‘It was for me. I can’t speak for Dennis. There was nowhere else for our relationship to go, once we’d considered marriage and rejected it. We broke up and moved on. We didn’t see each other for a long time. Not until he came here, in fact.’
‘You were here before him?’
‘Yes. But only just. I took early retirement – it was offered to me when my firm was taken over by an international company and I was quite happy to take a generous package. I’ve always loved this place, so I grabbed the chance to offer my services and come to assist here on two or three days a week. I’d been here for about six months when Dennis was appointed. It meant I had the man I’d thought I’d never see again as my boss.’
She’d got through it, more quickly and with less emotion than she’d feared. She took her eyes from the painting and looked back at the keen grey eyes of Lambert and at the stolid man making notes beside him. She wondered what they were thinking. She’d been too preoccupied with her own account to take much notice of their reactions. Lambert said, ‘Would you have come here to work, if you’d known he would be in charge?’
‘I can’t answer that, because things happened the other way round. I felt established here when I heard about Dennis Cooper’s appointment. I didn’t immediately resign, did I? I could have done that quite easily, as a voluntary worker.’
‘Indeed you could. Perhaps you wanted to have access to your former lover.’
How gently he inserted his daggers! The grim smile she gave him surprised her quite as much as it did him. ‘So that I could revenge myself on the man who had refused to take me to the altar, you mean? That’s a pleasantly old-fashioned idea. I like to think I’m more a twenty-first century woman than that. I can assure you that I’d put my two-year relationship with Dennis Cooper well behind me and got on with the rest of my life once he was gone. I’m still not sure whether I welcomed his appointment here or not. I think at the time it seemed an interesting diversion.’
‘So how did you get on with him, when he arrived?’
She smiled a small, private smile. She was going to consider her answer. She wasn’t going to be stampeded into indiscretions by their directness. She felt in control of this. ‘In public, we behaved as if we’d never met each other before.’
‘And in private?’
‘There was no “in private”. That was the way Dennis wanted it. He was probably right: he didn’t want to compromise himself or affect his position here.’
Lambert caught the tiny whiff of contempt; perhaps she was repeating his phrases r
ather than her own. ‘But it must have been a temptation for you to do that. Or at least to have a little fun at his expense.’
It seemed a strange phrase to come from this very serious man. She would take it as a warning to her not to underestimate him. ‘There were in fact very few opportunities to do anything other than act out our very different roles here. He was the most important person in a thriving enterprise; this is one of the NT’s most profitable properties, with many thousands of visitors each year. I was an enthusiastic, unpaid, voluntary helper. We were at opposite ends of the pecking order.’
‘So you didn’t resume any private relationship?’
Again she paused, reviewing her options, deciding just how much she would tell him. ‘No. There were few opportunities and it wouldn’t have been appropriate. Dennis was as far as I know a happily married man, with his wife living with him on site.’ She paused on that, so that they wondered for a moment if she would offer something more. But she said only, ‘Both of us are different people now – sorry, I suppose I should say that Dennis was a different person. We had different lives and different responsibilities.’
‘So you scarcely acknowledged to yourselves that you had a previous history, let alone to those around you.’
He made it a statement, and she saw DS Hook making a note of some kind. She could have left it at that, but her inclination to have things exactly right tugged at the edge of her mind. She smiled to show them how relaxed she was. ‘I suppose it coloured our behaviour a little. I know a lot about the history of Westbourne and it is a place I have come to love. Dennis could be a little careless with his generalizations and he was never good with dates. I’m afraid I felt the need to correct him, on a few occasions.’
‘In public?’
‘I’m afraid so. It was rather naughty, I suppose.’
But this staid, fifty-five-year-old woman looked younger and more mischievous with the thought. She’d obviously enjoyed putting the man right in public. Lambert grinned conspiratorially at her. ‘Did it go any further than that?’