Once Too Often

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll get it back,’ said Thanet. ‘Here’s a receipt.’

  She snatched it from him. ‘And what have you got there?’ She made a grab for the scrapbook but Lineham held it out of her reach. ‘That’s not Kevin’s! I’ve never seen it before!’ And then, illogically, ‘You’ve no right to take his things away!’

  ‘We’re very sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs Barcombe.’ Thanet edged past her in the narrow hall. ‘We’re leaving now.’

  It was a guilty relief to escape from her anxiety and frustration.

  Outside he cast an anxious glance at the sky, which had clouded over. ‘I hope the weather forecasters haven’t got it wrong again. They promised us a fine weekend.’ As soon as they got back to the car he radioed in to give the order for Kevin to be picked up.

  Earlier Lineham had dispatched two women detectives, new but very capable additions to the team, to interview Kevin’s natural mother, with strict instructions to be tactful and not to proceed if she were married and her husband or family were around. Back at the office, while they were waiting for Kevin to arrive, WDC Tanya Phillips gave them a verbal report. She was in her mid twenties, a stocky girl with an engaging smile and a mop of unruly dark curls.

  ‘She wasn’t too pleased, needless to say, when she found out we’d come about Kevin. Tried to show us the door. Fortunately we were inside by then and as there didn’t seem to be anyone else around we decided it was worth persisting. When she discovered that all we wanted was verification (a) that Kevin is her son and (b) that he had contacted her recently, and that that really would be the end of the matter as far as we were concerned, she gave in.’

  ‘And he was and he did?’

  ‘Yes. About a month before Easter. She went on and on about what a shock it had been and how he had ruined her subsequent holiday in Majorca, turning up out of the blue like that.’

  ‘She’s married?’

  ‘Yes, with two children, a boy and a girl.’

  ‘What’s she like?’ Though Thanet could guess, from the little Tanya had already said.

  WDC Phillips pulled a face. ‘I must say I didn’t take to her, sir. A bit of a hard-faced bitch, if you want my honest opinion.’

  Poor Kevin. What a disillusionment. No doubt he had woven all sorts of elaborate fantasies about what his mother would be like. ‘What does her husband do?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. Should I have?’

  ‘No, don’t worry. It really doesn’t matter.’

  ‘They’re quite well off, I should think. Detached house, car of her own, nice clothes, spends a lot on her hair and makeup . . .’

  ‘I get the picture.’ She hadn’t wanted her nice cosy set-up disturbed. And, in a way, who could blame her?

  Except that he did. He did. ‘Anyway, I gather she sent Kevin packing.’

  ‘In no uncertain terms, I should think. She just didn’t want to know.’

  ‘Right. Thanks, Tanya. About a month before Easter,’ he said to Lineham when she had gone. ‘That’s interesting, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

  ‘That he substituted one obsession for another? It does seem likely, doesn’t it? It must have been a pretty shattering disappointment. He must have expended so much emotional energy in tracing her, spent so much time thinking about her . . . When all that was suddenly taken away from him he might well have needed something else to take its place.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that Jessica Manifest was a sort of mother substitute, sir?’

  ‘No, not at all. Well, not necessarily. Just that nature abhors a vacuum and an interest in another woman would fill his mind, prevent him from brooding on his disappointment.’

  ‘Interesting that he should choose someone so much older than him, though.’

  ‘Yes. The question is . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, if Ogilvy did leave the door open that night and Kevin did go in . . .’

  ‘She’d be frightened, seeing a strange man in the house.’

  ‘Yes. But how would he see her reaction?’

  ‘You mean, would he take it as another rejection?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘In which case, it might have made him flip.’

  ‘It’s a possibility, isn’t it?’

  The phone rang and Lineham answered it. ‘Kevin’s here.’

  ‘Good.’ Thanet sprang to his feet. He felt eager, buoyed up with optimism, certain that at last they were about to learn what had actually happened in that quiet country backwater on Tuesday night. He tucked the scrapbook under his arm. ‘Let’s see what he has to say for himself.’

  Kevin was slumped at the table in one of the interview rooms, arms folded protectively across his chest, his expression a mixture of sulkiness, fear and defiance.

  Thanet had decided that the time for pussyfooting around was over. The hard edges of the scrapbook pressing against his side were a comforting reassurance that this time he had some powerful ammunition. He marched into the room and slammed the book down on the table.

  Kevin jumped and as he recognised the scrapbook his face became the colour of tallow, the freckles standing out against his sudden pallor.

  ‘Right!’ Thanet snapped as he and Lineham sat down. ‘A quiet country walk, you said, didn’t you, Kevin? That’s why you were in Charthurst on Tuesday night?’

  Silence. The boy’s eyes were riveted to the scrapbook.

  ‘We don’t like it when people lie to us, Kevin, not one little bit. It makes us suspicious, very suspicious indeed. And when they lie to us more than once, as you have . . .’

  Kevin opened his mouth, then shut it again.

  ‘Because you have, haven’t you? First of all you lied to us about not going to Charthurst at all on Tuesday night, and now we find you’ve been lying to us again. You assured us that as far as you were concerned Jessica Dander was only another customer, and not one that you’d had much to do with at that. But now, what do we find carefully hidden away in the loft above your bedroom where you thought no one would ever find it?’ Thanet opened the scrapbook. ‘An article about Jessica Dander. Articles by Jessica Dander. Photographs of Jessica Dander, lots of them – private photographs, taken by you.’ Thanet nodded at Lineham and the sergeant held up the camera.

  ‘Yours, I believe,’ he said.

  Kevin leaned forward for a closer look, opened his mouth then closed it again, clearly torn between denying that the camera was his and losing an expensive object if he did so.

  Cupidity won. ‘What if it is?’ he muttered. Then, ‘You’ve got no right to take my things away! Stealing, that’s what it is. I want to make a complaint.’

  ‘Your mother has a receipt for the camera,’ said Thanet. ‘But in fact you can have it back right now, once Sergeant Lineham has removed the film.’

  Lineham did so, then put the camera on the table.

  Kevin snatched it up and examined it, as if looking for damage.

  ‘We’re looking forward to getting that film developed, aren’t we, sergeant? So.’ Thanet sat back and folded his arms. ‘What have you got to say for yourself now?’

  Silence. Then Kevin laid the camera carefully down and fished in the pocket of his anorak for his tin of tobacco.

  ‘No!’ snapped Thanet. ‘Put that away. This isn’t a cocktail party!’ He leaned forward. ‘I don’t think you quite realise the seriousness of your position, Kevin. We’re talking about murder here, the worst crime in the book. Believe me, we won’t be so easily fobbed off this time. You are not going to walk out of here unless and until we know the truth – and who knows? Maybe not even then. So you’d better get on with it.’

  Kevin lifted his chin and shrugged. ‘OK’

  Thanet found it difficult to hide his astonishment and he sensed Lineham stir beside him. He certainly hadn’t expected Kevin to cave in so quickly.

  ‘Get me off the hook, won’t it? Anyway, there’s no point in keeping mum any longer, is t
here, not now you know about, well . . .’ He nodded at the scrapbook. ‘I ain’t done nothing wrong,’ he added defiantly.

  ‘Really.’ Thanet tapped the scrapbook. ‘You don’t call following a woman, spying on her, frightening her, something wrong?’

  ‘Not really. It ain’t a crime, anyway, is it?’

  ‘It soon will be.’ At last there was going to be legislation to make stalking a statutory offence. Not before time, in most people’s opinions. ‘So tell me exactly what happened on Tuesday night.’

  And out it all poured. It was as if Kevin had been longing to tell somebody his story and until now had been denied an audience. It is not very often, after all, that the average person has so dramatic a tale to tell.

  Kevin had, as his mother originally stated, left the house on Tuesday evening at around 7.45. By the time he had walked to where his father’s car was garaged and driven to Charthurst it was just after eight o’clock. He parked at the Green Man and, having checked that there was no one about to notice him, took up his usual position behind the hedge. As he hurried past the end of Willow Way he noticed that Jessica’s front door was open.

  Thanet interrupted him for the first time. ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Certain.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, I’d only been behind the hedge a coupla minutes when this geezer comes out. He hesitates, like, on the doorstep, as if he was trying to make up his mind about something, then he hurries off down the road towards the pub and a minute or two later an engine starts up and I hear a car go off.’

  ‘It was definitely a man?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Did you recognise him?’ If Kevin had been watching Jessica for months he must by now know most of the people in her life by sight if not by name.

  But if he had, he was not yet ready to say so. ‘I think he was trying to make up his mind whether or not to close the door behind him.’ He leaned forward eagerly. ‘I been thinking about it, see. And I reckon he thought, if I leave it open, perhaps someone else’ll get in and that’ll muddy the waters.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Thanet was non-committal. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, I waited a few minutes and then I thought I’d better go take a look. Well, I mean to say, it was a bit funny, wasn’t it, the front door being open like that, specially at night, in the dark. Anybody could’ve just walked in. And I got to thinking perhaps there was something wrong, perhaps something had happened to her . . .’ His voice tailed off. ‘Can I have a fag now?’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Go ahead.’ Thanet was interested to note the tremor in Kevin’s hands as he rolled his cigarette. He made a bad job of it too and the loose paper flared up as he struck a match to it. He guessed that despite the apparent ease with which the boy had told his story until now, Kevin was dreading the next part. ‘Go on,’ he said gently.

  Kevin spat out a loose shred of tobacco then gave him an assessing glance. ‘So I went across, didn’t I? It was all quiet in the house, no radio or telly on. It was like in them films, when you’ve got this terrific build-up to what’s going to be on the other side of the door.’ He stubbed out his cigarette viciously.

  It was a gesture of anger and of something more. Repudiation? But of what? Thanet wondered. Of reality, perhaps. Until the moment when Kevin had pushed open that door he had been keyed up, excited, playing a part in a drama which had no real emotional impact because it was unrelated to his feelings. But if the boy, for whatever reason, had for months been focusing his thoughts, his hopes, his aspirations perhaps, on Jessica, what a shock the sight of her lifeless body must have been.

  He was right. Kevin had put his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. ‘And there she was,’ he said in a muffled voice. ‘It was horrible. She was all – crumpled. Broken. I never seen a dead person before. And she was always so alive.’ His head came up suddenly and Thanet experienced a powerful pang of compassion at the pain in the boy’s face. ‘Did you know her?’ he said.

  Thanet shook his head. ‘Only by sight.’

  ‘She was great,’ said Kevin. ‘Really great. I always used to wash her hair, you know – beautiful hair, she had, long and thick and that amazing colour . . . And we’d talk. You know the great thing about her?’

  Thanet shook his head.

  ‘She made you feel you had . . . what’s the word? Potential. Yeah, that’s it. Potential. As though you could do whatever you wanted to do, if you only wanted it enough and were prepared to work hard enough. She had a pretty bad time of it herself when she was little, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘And look how she ended up! It’s not fair! It’s bloody well not fair!’

  ‘You really liked her, didn’t you, Kevin?’

  ‘Yes I bloody did! She was . . . She was . . .’ He shook his head, as if Jessica’s qualities defied description. ‘ . . . great,’ he finished.

  ‘It must have been a terrible shock for you.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Now that the worst was over Kevin’s bravado was creeping back.

  ‘Did you touch her at all, move her?’

  ‘No!’ He was horrified. ‘What would have been the point? Anyone could see she was dead, with her eyes all staring like that.’ He shuddered. ‘All I could think of was to get out of there, quick.’

  ‘Was it you who rang for an ambulance?’

  ‘Yeah, it was.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, as you said, she was obviously dead, nothing could be done for her.’

  ‘But I couldn’t just walk out and do nothing, leave her there like that, could I?’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you could.’

  ‘And I remembered to pick up the receiver in my handkerchief,’ said Kevin proudly.

  Police procedurals on TV had much to answer for, thought Thanet.

  Lineham shifted restlessly beside him. Thanet knew why. There was one burning question which as yet remained unanswered.

  ‘Kevin,’ he said, ‘I asked you just now if you recognised the man you saw come out of Jessica’s house, but you didn’t reply. Did you know who he was?’

  Kevin nodded and now his face was grim. ‘He’s some sort of relation of hers. Farm manager at Hunter’s Green Farm, over at Nettleton.’

  Thanet and Lineham looked at each other. ‘Bernard Covin!’ said Lineham.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘That’s a turn up for the book!’ said Lineham, when Kevin had gone. The boy could not be shaken. The man he saw come out of Jessica’s house that night was Bernard Covin, and his description of him certainly matched. His interest in Covin had first been aroused when he saw him talking to Jessica in Sturrenden High Street one day. It was obvious that they knew each other well and a couple of weeks later, after seeing Covin in a pub, he had decided to follow him home. He had eventually discovered that Covin had in fact been married to Jessica’s sister, now dead.

  Thanet guessed that Kevin had originally suspected that Jessica might be involved with Covin and had followed him out of jealous interest. He wondered what the boy had thought of her affair with Ogilvy. ‘We’d better take another look at Covin’s statement,’ he said. Though he could remember perfectly well what the man had told them: Covin and his daughter had had supper together before she left to drive to Reading. She had asked him to give her aunt a ring to apologise for not having managed to visit her to say goodbye before leaving for the new term and he had done so, about 7.30. When he got Jessica’s answering machine he had rung off and had then spent the rest of the evening watching television.

  They both read Covin’s statement through again, but found nothing new or ambiguous in it.

  ‘Presumably, having failed to get through on the phone, he then went round instead,’ said Lineham.

  ‘But why? It was scarcely an urgent message, was it? And how did he get to Charthurst anyway?’ said Thanet. ‘Karen had taken his car. He must have borrowed a farm vehicle.’

 
; They looked at each other in sudden comprehension.

  ‘That white pick-up parked at the Green Man!’ said Lineham.

  ‘A bit slow on the uptake, weren’t we?’ said Thanet. ‘We really ought to have followed that up before. We knew about Kevin’s father’s Nissan and Ogilvy’s Mercedes but we just didn’t follow up on the Ford.’

  ‘I suppose that was because Covin told us his daughter had borrowed his car, so we just assumed he’d be without transport.’

  Will I never learn, thought Thanet? ‘Just shows how dangerous assumptions can be. And of course we’re making another, in assuming it was Covin who was driving that Ford.’

  ‘It does seem likely, though, doesn’t it? He must have got there somehow.’

  ‘We really should have made an effort to trace that pick-up before, then we might have made the connection with Covin, if there is one. Anyway, assuming it was Covin that Kevin saw come out of the house, why on earth do you suppose he left the door open?’

  ‘Maybe Kevin’s right, sir. Maybe Covin did just want to muddy the waters.’

  ‘Which waters? Nobody even knew he was there.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t want to ring for an ambulance himself because he didn’t want to get involved, but thought that if he left the door open someone else might notice and go to investigate – which is, in fact, what happened.’

  ‘But why bother? Presumably he knew that sooner or later her husband would come home and find her. And in fact, if she did die as the result of a quarrel or whatever, I’d have thought he’d prefer to delay the discovery of the body rather than hasten it. No, it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Perhaps he hoped that when the police heard the door had been left open they might think it was a burglary that went wrong.’

  ‘The last thing a burglar would have done is leave it open, surely, and draw attention to the fact that something was amiss? And it was the fact that the door was open that alerted us to the possibility that it hadn’t been a straightforward accident.’