Stone Dead

by Frank Smith

  ‘When do you expect Miss Remington back?’

  ‘Actually, I’m not sure,’ said Foster. ‘She’s working in France at the moment. She could be gone for some time. But you can’t think that she had anything to do with this? I mean, it’s ludicrous.’

  ‘Does anyone else have access to your house while you are away?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who else would know about the well?’

  ‘One or two friends, perhaps,’ Foster said slowly, ‘but I can hardly imagine that they…’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘No, it’s too far-fetched.’

  ‘In which case, since you say you know nothing about it, it is rather important that we talk to Miss Remington. Where can she be reached?’

  ‘I’m not sure that she can,’ said Foster slowly. ‘You see, she’s on location, and that could be anywhere the photographer chooses to be.’

  ‘But there must be a base of some sort,’ said Paget. There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. ‘She must be staying somewhere. What happens in the event of an emergency? How would you contact her?’

  Foster shook his head stubbornly. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘This job came up unexpectedly. She left while I was away myself, and she didn’t say where she would be. The note just said, “Off to France—good job. I’ll ring.” Something like that.’ He finished off the brandy and set the mug on the floor beside his chair.

  ‘You see,’ he went on, ‘Lisa is—well, something of a free spirit. She becomes involved with her work. Time means nothing to her, so she can go on for days, weeks, even, without ringing. I don’t know where she is.’

  ‘You’re saying you haven’t heard from her since she left?’

  ‘It’s not unusual for Lisa,’ Foster insisted. ‘She’s probably rushed off her feet. It gets like that in her business, you know.’

  ‘Do you still have the note?’

  Foster shook his head. ‘Sorry,’ he said apologetically.

  The sound of heavy footsteps could be heard in the passageway, and a man stuck his head inside the door. He was shorter than Paget, compact, and his face had a sort of rumpled look about it that made him appear older than he was. His dark hair and complexion bespoke his Cornish ancestry, but his accent was that of a Londoner, much like Paget’s own. ‘Could I have a word, sir?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Of course,’ Paget told him. ‘Mr Foster, this is Detective Sergeant Tregalles. If you will excuse us for a moment…?’

  The two men acknowledged the introduction with a nod, then Tregalles stepped back and Paget followed him out and closed the door behind him.

  ‘They’ve brought the body up,’ Tregalles said quietly. ‘Male, thirty to fortyish, no obvious distinguishing marks. Dr Starkie says the body is remarkably well preserved due to the cold water, but it’s still—’ he took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly ‘—a God-awful mess. The face is gone, blown away by a shotgun, according to Starkie. He says he can see some of the pellets. And the skin—’ he blew out his cheeks ‘—it’s sort of sliding off in places.’

  Paget felt his stomach churn. This was the one part of the job he hated. ‘What about clothing?’

  Tregalles shook his head. ‘Naked, except for being wrapped in a sheet,’ he said. ‘Whoever put him down the well went to a lot of trouble to make sure he didn’t come up again. He was weighted down with large stones wrapped in sheets tied to his neck and feet, then more stones were dropped on top of him.’ Tregalles flicked his head toward the closed door. ‘Even if Foster didn’t do it himself, he has to know who did,’ he concluded.

  Paget was about to reply when the door opened and Foster came out into the passageway.

  ‘Look, Chief Inspector,’ he said, ‘I’ve had a long day; I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’ve had about all the questions I can take. I’m going to get something to eat.’

  ‘Right,’ said Paget. He turned to the uniformed constable. ‘Please accompany Mr Foster to the kitchen and give him a hand,’ he said. ‘And, with your permission, Mr Foster, perhaps a cup of tea or coffee for the men in the yard?’

  Foster, already moving toward the kitchen, hesitated. ‘I suppose so,’ he said ungraciously, and moved on. Paget watched him go for a moment, then turned back to Tregalles.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

  * * *

  ‘AT A ROUGH GUESS, I’d say he’s been dead two or three weeks,’ said Dr Starkie, ‘but that’s a very rough guess. I might be able to tell you more tomorrow after we’ve had a closer look, but I wouldn’t put money on it. There’s nothing more I can do here.’

  ‘What do you say, Charlie?’ Paget looked to Inspector Dobbs, the Scene-of-Crimes Officer, who hovered like a grey spectre at the edge of the pool of light surrounding the body. He was a tall, thin, gloomy-looking man, and now he came forward into the light, lips pursed, head shaking.

  ‘We can find nothing to suggest that the killing took place here,’ he said. He eyed the cottage speculatively. ‘The body was stripped, wrapped in a sheet, and weighted down with stones before it was dropped into the well,’ he went on, ‘and I can’t see someone doing all that out here in the yard, can you?’

  Almost against his will, Paget glanced at the body once again, and felt the sting of acid in his throat. ‘No,’ he said softly, ‘I’m sure it wasn’t. I think I’ll have to have another word with Mr Foster.’

  * * *

  NONE OF THIS should be happening, Foster thought petulantly as he watched them move from room to room. He might as well not be there for all the attention they paid to him. He could have refused them permission to search, of course, but as that Chief Inspector bloody Paget had pointed out so reasonably, there were more than enough grounds for a search warrant, and he could get one, if necessary. But there might be those who would think Foster’s refusal to co-operate was significant. ‘And we wouldn’t want that, would we, sir?’

  Bastard! Seemed like a nice chap at first. Very polite. Came on smooth as silk. But questions … Christ, he never stopped! And when he did pause for breath, that other one, Tregalles, was in there right behind him.

  Do you own a shotgun, Mr Foster? Ah, yes, thank you, sir. A twelve-bore; double barrel. Interesting. And loaded. A bit dangerous, don’t you think, tucked in here behind the coats beside the front door? Use it often, do you? Rabbits? Do a lot of damage to the garden, do they? Of course, it’s a bit early in the year for that, isn’t it? Do you recall when you last used the gun, Mr Foster? Oh, yes, just one more thing: may we have the keys to your van?

  On and on and on until he’d wanted to scream.

  * * *

  IT WAS GOING ON for eleven o’clock by the time Paget left for home. Charlie had called his people off at ten, telling them to be back there bright and early in the morning. A PC was assigned to stand watch throughout the night, and Foster had grudgingly agreed to allow him to use the kitchen. Foster himself had grown more sullen as the search progressed, and when Charlie told him he was free to go to bed, now that they were finished in the bedroom, he had gone in and slammed the door so hard that a picture had fallen off the wall.

  Paget found it hard to believe that Foster did not know the whereabouts of Lisa Remington in France, and he found it more than a little strange that the man seemed to have no interest in where she was. When Paget had suggested that Lisa’s agent might know how to contact her, Foster had tried to dissuade him from ringing the agent, saying that Lisa hated to be disturbed when she was in the middle of an assignment.

  Was she actually in France? Paget sincerely hoped so. Because if she wasn’t … He saw again in his mind’s eye the decomposing body beneath the glare of the portable lamps, and quickly shut it out.

  If there was anything to be found in the house, Charlie’s people would find it; of that Paget had no doubt. Neither did he doubt that Foster was responsible for the body in the well. It was too much of a coincidence that the man should be dropping huge stones into the well immediately after
someone else had put the body there. But whether or not they were dealing with a murder, or an accidental shooting and subsequent cover-up, remained to be seen. The search for the missing coins would continue tomorrow, and the rest of the stones would be removed from the well. He hoped that was all they would find down there.

  He thought briefly of stopping at the office in Broadminster on his way through, but decided he’d had enough for one day. A light drizzle began to fall as he left the lights of the town behind, and he switched the wipers on. They thumped away hypnotically, and he found it hard to keep awake. Not for the first time, he wished he lived closer to town.

  Perhaps it would be for the best if he sold the house and moved into town, he thought. Certainly it would cut his travelling time down. And yet, was it really all that much? Twenty minutes either way? That’s all it was, and he liked the house. He liked living in Ashton Prior. The village was small, quiet—dead, some said—but he liked it. Besides, what would Mrs Wentworth do if he sold the house?

  The house he now called home had once belonged to Mrs Wentworth and her husband. But when Bert Wentworth died she couldn’t afford to keep it on, so she had moved into a maisonette and put the house up for sale. Paget’s father saw it; fell in love with it and bought it, ignoring completely the fact that it was far too big for one person. A dentist, he had just recently left the London rat-race to join a clinic in Broadminster, where he would be working three days a week. It was his first step toward retirement, and toward his dream of retiring in the country after a lifetime in the city.

  While negotiating for the house, he’d realized how hard it was for Mrs Wentworth to part with it, so he had asked if she would consider becoming his housekeeper. He would need someone to look after the place, and it would allow her to spend her days in the house that had meant so much to her. He even offered to make over part of the upstairs into a granny flat for her, but she had said no to that.

  ‘It’s ever so kind of you,’ she told him, ‘but it wouldn’t be right, would it, Mr Paget? I mean, not living under the same roof like that. But I will come to work for you. It will be like I’ve never really left the house, won’t it?’

  The arrangement had worked well. Unfortunately, it hadn’t lasted long, for Paget’s father had suffered a massive heart attack and died within the year.

  Paget had inherited the house, and in a sense he’d inherited Mrs Wentworth along with it. Up to their ears as he and Jill were at work in London, he kept putting off going down to Ashton Prior to deal with the disposal of the house. Mrs Wentworth had agreed to stay on and look after the place until he and Jill could get time off together, but the days kept drifting on, and Mrs Wentworth, not unreasonably, wanted to know where she stood.

  ‘It’s the garden, you see, Mr Paget,’ she told him on the telephone. ‘I don’t mind looking after the house, but I can’t manage the garden as well, and I hate to see it left.’

  Busy or not, he and Jill would have to make time, he decided. They couldn’t go on like this. ‘Next Tuesday,’ he told her. ‘We’ll both be down. Could you book us into that pub by the church? Two nights should do, I should think.’

  ‘Lord, bless me, there’s no need for that, Mr Paget. Not when the house is empty. Don’t you worry about that. I’ll have everything ready.’

  But next Tuesday never came. At least, not for Jill.

  He felt the sting of salt behind his eyes as he relived once more those dreadful days. The explosion; the fire; Jill’s torn and mangled body. The memories stopped abruptly, and no matter what he did, he could not recall a single thing for—what was it? Four weeks? Those weeks were gone, erased from his memory as if they had never been.

  They said he’d carried on at work as if nothing had happened for almost three weeks before he collapsed at his desk. He remembered nothing until a week later when he found himself in hospital, and was horrified to learn he was in the psychiatric wing. Rest, they said. Get away for a while; time would heal.

  He’d sought sanctuary down here in the country; fleeing from the memories he could not bear. Mrs Wentworth had stayed on to look after him; coaxing him to eat; bullying him into taking walks when, left to his own devices, he’d have tried to lose himself in sleep.

  An oncoming car came round the corner, headlights high, almost blinding him. ‘Bloody idiot!’ he growled as the car swept past. But the spell was broken and he was thankful, for his face was bathed in sweat.

  FOUR

  Tuesday 2nd April

  GRACE LOVETT stood in the middle of the back bedroom of the cottage and looked around. There was something not quite right about it, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She was still standing there when Tregalles put his head round the door.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked, seeing her puckered brow.

  She shook her head, still frowning. ‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly. ‘Mr Foster did say this room hadn’t been used since Christmas, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right. His girlfriend’s mother came down for Christmas. “She’s the only one who ever uses the guest room,”’ he quoted, mimicking Foster’s public school voice. He came further into the room. ‘Looks just like an ordinary back bedroom to me.’

  ‘Philistine.’

  ‘Phyllis who?’

  ‘Point made.’

  Tregalles wandered over to the window and stood looking out. To the right were trees, and beyond them the road to Clunbridge, while to the left was a large field sloping gently down the hillside to another band of trees beside the river. To the left of the trees was a farmhouse, a barn, and several outbuildings, all built, as was the cottage he was in, of local stone. As Tregalles watched, a tall, fair-haired young man came out of the barn and made his way to the house.

  Beyond the river, the rolling hills lay snug beneath a patchwork quilt of fields aglow with morning sunlight. It was a beautiful view, and the kind of morning that made you want to be out there doing something. Tregalles wasn’t quite sure what, for he was a city man at heart, and too much open space made him nervous.

  Grace Lovett had opened the double doors of the large oak wardrobe, and had her head inside when Tregalles turned round. The wardrobe was empty, and when Grace sniffed loudly several times, it amplified the sound.

  She withdrew her head. ‘Stick your head in here and tell me what you smell,’ she told Tregalles.

  ‘Probably moth balls,’ he said facetiously, but the expression on the young woman’s face was serious. He did as she asked and sniffed several times. ‘Smells like soap,’ he said. ‘Or perfume.’

  Grace nodded. ‘Perfume,’ she said. ‘Expensive perfume at that. Now come over here and tell me what you smell.’ She led him out of the room, across the tiny landing at the top of the stairs, and into Foster’s bedroom where she opened the double wardrobe there.

  The wardrobe was filled with clothes. Some obviously belonged to Foster, but more than half of the space was taken up with female clothing. Tregalles leaned forward hesitantly.

  ‘Get in there and take a good sniff,’ Grace told him sharply.

  ‘It’s the same,’ he said. ‘At least, it smells the same to me. So what?’

  ‘It is the same,’ she told him.

  ‘Perhaps she used the other wardrobe to hang some of her clothes in,’ he offered. ‘The ones she took with her. Or perhaps her mother uses the same perfume. Pinches it off her daughter, if it’s that expensive.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Grace, ‘but Christmas was three months ago. I doubt if it would be that strong. It’s a very delicate fragrance. But there’s something else, too. Take a look around you. What do you see? What sort of bedroom is it?’

  Tregalles surveyed the room. ‘It’s a woman’s room,’ he ventured cautiously. ‘Lace curtains, fancy duvet and those pillow cover things, and…’

  ‘Shams,’ said Grace. ‘Those pillow cover things; they’re called shams.’

  ‘Oh.’ Tregalles shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know what it is you want me to say.’
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  ‘Would you say this was done on the cheap?’

  ‘Not my cheap, and that’s for sure,’ Tregalles said. ‘There’s more money in this room than there is in my whole house.’

  ‘Exactly. Feel those sheets.’

  Grace pulled back the duvet and Tregalles ran his fingers over the sheet beneath. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Care to slide under?’

  ‘In your dreams, Tregalles. Now, come in here and try these.’

  Tregalles meekly followed her into the back bedroom once again. She pulled back the coverlet and held up a corner of the sheet. Dutifully, he ran his fingers over it. ‘Not a patch on the other one,’ he declared, ‘but then, this is only the guest room.’

  ‘And yet everything else in here is just as good as in the other bedroom,’ Grace pointed out. ‘And, if you remember, Foster told us that it was Lisa who had all the redecorating done when she moved in. He sounded quite proud of her and the result.’

  ‘What is it, Grace? What are you getting at?’

  ‘Lisa Remington would never put sheets like that on this bed,’ she said. ‘They’re cheap, they’re shoddy, and they’re as stiff as boards. I doubt if they’ve ever been used. They don’t fit, Tregalles. They simply don’t fit. And look at that wallpaper.’

  ‘It looks all right to me,’ Tregalles said. ‘Don’t you think you’re getting a bit carried away, Grace? I mean, there could be any number of reasons why these sheets are different. And what’s wrong with the wallpaper? It looks very like the one next door.’

  ‘It’s like it, yes. But look at the quality. That’s not a Lisa Remington wallpaper.’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Grace. Anyone would think you knew her personally.’

  ‘I know her tastes,’ Grace told him sharply. ‘Look at her clothes, her shoes, the other bedroom, the curtains downstairs. Lisa wouldn’t tolerate these things for a second. Besides, I saw the sheet the body was wrapped in, and it was top quality. I’m willing to bet a week’s pay that it came off this bed.’