by Frank Smith
The vicar was not yet fifty, so what ‘really old’ meant was open to question. Tregalles decided to try for a better description in the morning, but he knew how hard it was to get adults to describe someone, let alone children. Still, if Olivia had likened the man’s age to that of the vicar, it was just possible that the man might resemble the vicar in other ways.
‘Did you phone the school?’ he asked.
‘Molly did. She talked to the headmaster, and she talked to a couple of the teachers. None of them saw anything, but they are very concerned, and I’m sure they will have the patrols on alert tomorrow.’ Tears welled up once more, and Audrey pressed her knuckles to her mouth. ‘It’s just the thought, love,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just the thought.’
EIGHT
Thursday 4th April
‘WELL, if it’s not Merrick, who the hell is it?’ Alcott crushed out a cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and lit another. ‘What the hell am I going to tell Mr Brock?’ Morgan Brock was the chief superintendent, CID, and Alcott’s immediate superior. ‘And what’s he going to tell the chief constable?’
‘I’m afraid it caught us all by surprise,’ Paget said. ‘I had no reason to believe that Foster wasn’t telling the truth when he identified the man as Merrick. It made sense; the man’s portfolio was there, so it never occurred to me to question it. Sorry, but there it is.’
Alcott puffed furiously on his cigarette. ‘And what does Foster have to say about it?’
Paget spread his hands. ‘He claims that he honestly believed it was Merrick. He says he was so shaken by the sight of him lying there naked in the bed with his face shot away, that he just assumed it was Merrick. And having seen the portfolio at the bottom of the stairs, and having had trouble with him before, he was expecting to see Merrick.’
‘What about the man’s belongings? His clothes; his wallet?’
‘He says that he just wrapped everything up in a sheet without looking at any of it, then threw it all on the fire.’ Alcott’s expression was one of patent disbelief. ‘There is some support for that,’ Paget went on. ‘Forensic found evidence of quite a large sum of money having been burned along with the wallet, so it looks as if he did throw everything on the fire without looking at it too closely. It’s not proof by any means, but as I say, it does tend to support his story.’
‘What about credit cards and that sort of thing?’ Alcott asked shrewdly.
‘There were several, but they were very badly mutilated in the fire. Forensic hopes to raise enough numbers to give us a lead.’
‘And the body?’ Smoke trickled into Alcott’s eyes, and he brushed it away impatiently. ‘What about dental records?’
‘That is about all we have,’ Paget confessed, ‘and they are checking that now. We do know that the man broke his arm fairly recently—by that, I mean about six months ago. Otherwise, he was about the same height, colouring, and build as Merrick.’
‘And Lisa Remington? Where do you think she is?’
Paget grimaced. ‘I’m leaning more and more to the idea that she is dead, sir,’ he said. ‘In fact I’m obtaining a warrant to expand our search, and Sergeant Ormside is bringing in another crew to dig up the rest of Foster’s garden. I think it is just possible that Lisa is buried there. Perhaps Foster didn’t think the water in the well would be high enough to cover two bodies, and felt forced to bury the other one.’
Alcott sighed, and swung his chair around to face the window. He remained there for some time, staring out across the playing fields. ‘You could be right,’ he said at last. ‘Better have a word with the Press Officer and work out what you want released.’
Paget rose to go, but Alcott swung back to face him. ‘What’s this I hear about Tregalles’s girl being approached?’ he asked. ‘What’s being done?’
‘It’s in hand, sir,’ Paget told him. ‘Fortunately, the man only talked to her, but he may be back.’
‘How is she?’
‘Apparently she’s taking it all very calmly, but John and Audrey are worried sick.’
Alcott butted out his cigarette. ‘I don’t blame them,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll have a word downstairs. Tell Tregalles we’ll do all we can.’
‘I already have, sir,’ Paget told him.
* * *
GRACE LOVETT finished typing up her report. It was a long one, and it dealt as much in hypotheses as it did in fact. There was little in it that would stand up in court, but she had felt sure enough of her ground to talk to Charlie about it.
To be fair, Charlie had given her a hearing, but she could tell he thought that she was reaching, and reaching pretty far at that. ‘We deal in facts, Grace,’ he reminded her. ‘Facts we can back up with solid evidence. I’m not saying that you’re wrong; I’m merely pointing out that everything you’ve suggested there could be interpreted in several different ways. Stick to the facts, Grace. I know it’s nice to play around with possibilities, but leave that to Paget. He’s got the whole picture. We haven’t. Just give him bare-bones evidence. I’m sure he’ll know how to use it.’
Now, as Grace stared at the screen before her, she made up her mind. Her ‘bare-bones’ report had been faxed to Paget already, but now she pressed PRINT and watched as page after page of material came off the printer. When it was done, she picked it up and put it in her briefcase and snapped it shut.
‘There are a couple of things I’d like to check out personally at the murder site,’ she told a colleague. ‘Tell Charlie I should be back by lunch-time, if he asks. I’ll be on pager.’
As she drove out of the car-park, she wondered whether she was doing the right thing. How would Chief Inspector Paget react to her ‘deductions’? Would he welcome her thoughts? Or would he simply see her as an interfering female who fancied herself as an amateur detective?
She almost turned back. Paget was a bit daunting, with that austere, almost remote look about him that set him apart from other men. But, she thought with quickening breath, there was something fascinating about the man, and she realized she was looking forward to seeing him again.
She carried on determinedly, but the closer she came to Bracken Cottage, the more she began to doubt the wisdom of her venture.
* * *
‘NEITHER FOSTER nor Lisa Remington seem to have mixed much with the locals,’ Ormside said. ‘They were known, of course, but Foster has only owned Bracken Cottage for about eighteen months, and Miss Remington has been here less than a year, so they were still very much newcomers.’
Paget leaned back in his chair. ‘They may not have mixed with the locals,’ he said, ‘but I’ll lay odds that the locals know a lot about them. They always do in these small places.’
Ormside nodded. ‘They tend to keep their distance,’ he agreed, ‘but they watch and they listen. It’s just a matter of getting them to tell us what they’ve seen and heard.’ He picked up a sheet of paper. ‘And speaking of what they’ve seen, the lad from the farm up above the cottage saw a black Volvo turn into Bracken Cottage on the Monday, March 11th, which confirms what Merrick told you, Tregalles. And he says he heard what sounded like a shotgun go off just before the Volvo drove away. Said the Volvo was weaving all over the road when it left.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Tregalles said. ‘Merrick said he didn’t believe Lisa when she threatened him with the gun. He claims, of course, that it’s all lies about his beating her up; says he just wanted to talk to her and show her his new designs. But he says she began screaming at him for no reason at all, and shoved the end of the barrels in his face. Literally. He still has the marks under his nose. He said he was leaving peacefully when she followed him out and blasted him. She got him in the buttocks and the right leg, mainly. Fortunately, he had on a long anorak because it was cold that day, so the wounds were relatively superficial.’
Paget turned to Ormside. ‘Didn’t it strike the lad as odd when he heard the gun go off and saw the car driving erratically?’ he asked.
‘He says he didn’t connect the tw
o things,’ Ormside said. ‘It never struck him as odd at the time because he’s used to young Eric firing off his gun. It was only when we started asking questions that he put them together.’ He paused and scratched his chin. ‘Which reminds me,’ he went on, ‘speaking of Eric. He was there in Foster’s garden when I arrived this morning, but he took off when he saw me. Doesn’t like uniforms, I suspect.’
‘What was he doing there?’ asked Tregalles.
‘Just standing there picking blooms off the rhododendrons, as far as I could see,’ Ormside said, shaking his head. ‘Strange lad, but harmless enough—if you don’t mind losing your rhodos.’
Paget frowned. ‘I suppose he is,’ he said slowly, ‘but I wonder … The shot from the cartridge I took from him matches the shot taken from the dead man. But so does that taken from the cartridges in Foster’s gun, for that matter, so I’m not sure whether it’s relevant or not. Has Eric ever been in trouble? Real trouble, I mean.’
‘Mosely had him up for discharging a firearm too close to a roadway, or some such thing,’ Ormside said, ‘but then, Mosely would have his mother up if he thought it would help his arrest record. Tom Tyson keeps a pretty close eye on the boy, and he’s never been a scrap of trouble to anyone as far as I know.’
‘Tyson lives on the farm down by the river, doesn’t he?’ said Paget. ‘He must be able to see the cottage from his place.’
‘That he can,’ Ormside told him. He scratched thoughtfully at his ear once again. ‘As a matter of fact, if there’s anyone round here who has cause to dislike Lisa Remington, it’s Tom Tyson. Not that he would do the lass any harm, mind, but according to local gossip, he was pretty upset at the time.’
Paget waited. He’d learned long ago that it didn’t pay to rush Ormside.
‘See, Tom had almost got Foster to sell him this bit of land we are sitting on. It only amounted to about twenty feet or so, and they had approval for it, but that was about the time that Lisa Remington came to live with Foster, and she persuaded Foster to keep the land as it was. Said it would spoil the look of the place if Tyson fenced it off.’
‘But why would Tyson want it in the first place?’ asked Tregalles.
‘For access to the road,’ Ormside said. ‘Right now, the only access to the farm is by the old river road, and it would cut off half a mile if he had this bit of land. The story is that he came up to the cottage and had a flaming row with Foster over it, and said some very nasty things about Miss Remington.’
‘How long ago was that?’
‘Well, it was shortly after she came, so that would put it around last spring or early summer.’
‘Any confrontations since that time?’ Paget wanted to know.
‘Hard to say. The story goes that Tyson hasn’t spoken to Foster since, but I couldn’t swear to that.’
‘Might be worth looking into,’ Tregalles said, and made a note. ‘What else have you got for us, Len?’
‘Not much, except the bread man—he delivers bread twice a week along here—said he saw a blue car tucked away in Foster’s driveway on several occasions when he knew Foster was away.’
‘Tucked away?’ said Paget. ‘What did he mean by that?’
Ormside shrugged. ‘He reckons it was tucked in there out of sight because whoever owned it was having it off with Miss Remington, since her car was in the driveway, too.’
‘Do you have any dates? Especially around March 11th, 12th or 13th?’
‘No, no such luck. And I wouldn’t put too much stock in what he said, either. I think he saw the car all right, but he admits he didn’t see the driver, so it could have been anybody.’ Ormside grinned. ‘As for this person, whoever it was, having it off with Lisa Remington, I think that was more his imagination than anything else. Makes a better story to tell on his rounds. Still, we are asking everyone around here if they have ever seen a car like that in the neighbourhood.’
‘At least this is beginning to tie in with what Merrick told me, and to some degree with what Jane Lansing told me about Lisa,’ said Tregalles. ‘Seems like Lisa was becoming a bit desperate about her career, and was sneaking off to London every chance she got. She’d always tell Foster she was with Jane, that is if she told him anything at all. He didn’t like her leaving the cottage when he wasn’t there. Very jealous; very possessive. Jane said Lisa was getting fed up with it, and she’d talked of leaving him.
‘She also said she didn’t like having to lie for Lisa, especially when she realized that Lisa was sleeping with anyone with influence in the trade who might help salvage her career. But it wasn’t only that. Lisa let drop that she’d taken another lover; someone much closer to home, and he was coming round when Foster was away. Jane said she told Lisa not to be so stupid; that Foster was bound to find out, but Lisa seemed to think there wasn’t any danger.
‘Could be the bloke with the blue car,’ Tregalles went on. ‘Maybe the bread man had it right after all.’
* * *
‘I DON’T KNOW what you expect to find,’ said Foster sullenly as he watched the men digging up his garden. ‘You’re wasting your time, you know. How many times do I have to tell you Lisa wasn’t there when I came home that night?’ He stood there just inside the door, his face pale and puffy from lack of sleep, and his hand shook as he brushed uncombed hair out of his eyes.
‘I told you where I buried the clothes,’ he went on. ‘You found the mattress where I said it was; what more do you want? I even came straight round to tell you about Lisa’s car when the garage rang yesterday.’
‘It was that point as much as anything that makes us wonder whether Miss Remington ever left here at all,’ Paget told him.
‘But, don’t you see?’ said Foster desperately. ‘Lisa was in town. Her car was wrecked, so she must have gone on to wherever she was going from there. She couldn’t get back here without transport.’
Paget shook his head. ‘Come, now, Mr Foster. Lisa’s mother came out here in a taxi. Lisa could have done the same, and we’re checking that possibility now. The man at the garage says she used their telephone to ring someone. He thought she was asking someone to pick her up, because when she left the garage, she went out on to the street and stood there as if waiting for someone. That someone might even have been you, sir.’
‘But I wasn’t here that day,’ Foster protested. ‘I was in Chester doing a brochure layout for British Rail.’
‘Taking pictures of various parts of Chester and the surrounding countryside, I believe,’ said Paget. ‘Yes, you did tell us that, sir, but it is so very difficult to prove where you were at any given time, you see, and Chester is not exactly on the other side of the world, is it?’
Dark colour suffused Foster’s face. ‘Do as you bloody well please,’ he muttered, and slammed the door in Paget’s face.
Grace Lovett was getting out of the car as Paget was making his way back to the mobile unit. ‘Do you have a minute, Chief Inspector?’ she called as she locked the car door. ‘I’d like to show you something.’
‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Come on inside.’ He led the way to the mobile unit, and held the door for her. ‘Down here,’ he told her, edging past a WPC feeding material into a fax machine. ‘We’re a bit cramped for space, I’m afraid,’ he went on, indicating a chair, ‘but we’ll be out of everyone’s way here.’
Now that she was here facing Paget, Grace felt even less sure of her ground, and she began to wish she hadn’t come. But the chief inspector was looking at her, waiting politely. Almost unwillingly, she took her bulky report out of the briefcase and set it on the small table between them.
‘I don’t know whether this will be of any help to you,’ she began apologetically, ‘but it seemed important when I was putting it together back at the office.’ She smiled self-consciously. ‘Now that I’m here, I’m not at all sure.’
Paget’s face was enigmatic. ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ he said. He eyed the report that lay between them. ‘Did you want me to read all of this?’ he asked her.
Faint colour tinged her face, and she swallowed nervously. ‘I—I thought you might want to skim through it when you have time,’ she told him, ‘but I can give you the outline now if you can spare me about ten minutes.’
Was that amusement in his eyes? Was he laughing at her? she wondered, and the colour in her cheeks became more pronounced.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Go ahead,’ he said.
She’d practised this in her head on her way out to the cottage, but now every carefully thought-out phrase deserted her, and she hardly knew where to begin. And he was waiting.
‘I don’t think Lisa Remington was sharing the same bedroom with Mr Foster at all,’ she burst out. ‘I think they were sleeping in separate rooms.’ That was not the way she’d planned to say it, but it was out now, and the only thing she could do was go on. ‘He said that back bedroom was only used as a guest room, but I think Lisa was using it, and he moved things to make it look as if they were still together.’
Paget’s expression remained unchanged. ‘Go on,’ he said.
Grace glanced down at the report. Her reasoning seemed so flimsy in the clear cold light of day, and she could see what Charlie meant when he’d told her to stick to the evidence and the facts. But Paget was waiting, and she had little choice but to carry on.
‘You see, I began to wonder at the very beginning when I looked inside the wardrobe in Foster’s bedroom. If you remember, Lisa’s clothes were packed in like sardines in a tin. I could hardly get my hand through between them, and Lisa Remington would never do that to her clothes. So, I began to wonder why they were packed in so tightly.’
Paget had tilted his chair back and closed his eyes. Was he concentrating on what she’d been saying? she wondered, or was he just bored?
She plunged on. ‘When I checked the wardrobe, the dressing-table, and the tall-boy in the back bedroom, I found they all smelt of Lisa’s perfume, and there were traces of other cosmetics. So, I took all of her clothes from the front bedroom and put them in the wardrobe in the back bedroom, and spread them out as they should be.’