by David Beard
‘So, your worst suspicions were well founded. It did open Joan up to blackmail.’
‘Joan told me Anna wanted another two thousand every month, which wasn’t in the original agreement. Well, it was a nightmare, I mean, with all the trouble Horry was in and everything; it was quite crippling under the circumstances but Joan decided to go along with it.’
‘She paid in cash, in May and June, Mrs. Cooper. Did you know that?’ asked Tiley.
‘Yes, I did, but of course, it was too late to be cautious and I wondered when it would end. Then Anna rang on the Thursday to say she was coming down on the Sunday to collect July’s payment but that the price had gone up; this time to four thousand a month. Well, I ask you, that was just a step too far for Joan.’
‘So, the only solution was to get rid of her,’ Smalacombe said with solemnity.
Mrs. Cooper ignored Smalacombe’s inference and carried on. ‘Joan said she couldn’t afford four thousand a month. Anna said that was her problem and she would have to sort it out. The girl assumed that Joan and Horry were rolling in it.’
‘Well, they were both very high earners, Mrs. Cooper,’ Smalacombe reasoned.
‘That’s true and they were rolling in it, as you say, but Horry had made some terrible business mistakes. He lost it all. All the capital had gone and they were relying on their cash flow. It may be huge amounts of money for each job but it is all so intermittent. When you are relying on it, it is very difficult to wait.’
‘I understand. Let’s get back to the Sunday afternoon. Anna and your daughter had a row over this blackmail?’
‘They were screaming at one another. I was really quite frightened.’
‘Not without good reason as it turned out,’ Tiley commented.
‘After a while it all subsided; a sort of truce, a breather, I suppose, whilst they gathered their thoughts again. And then, Anna said she felt really unwell and could she have a bath. I just felt it was time for me to leave them to it, Mr. Smalacombe, so I took Billy for a walk; a long walk. When I came back I was met with chaos.’
‘Anna was dead.’
‘Yes,’ she answered quietly.
‘In the bath?’ Smalacombe never took his eyes off the suspect. He knew it discomfited her but it was all part of the technique.
Mrs. Cooper took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ she answered, this time in a whisper.
‘What happened then?’ asked Tiley.
Louisa Cooper paused to gather her thoughts and to make sure her story was correct; after all, she reasoned it was at this point that she became an accessory. ‘Joan was hysterical when I first arrived back. She was downstairs and covered in blood. She was screaming at me and saying things like, “what else could I do? She was bleeding us dry,” all that sort of thing. I finally got her to calm down. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Then she took me upstairs.’ Mrs Cooper stalled and looked blankly ahead. Her lips quivered and she was close to tears. ‘I’m not sure I can go on,’ she said. The detectives sat silently. Their experience had told them that prompting was not the best action in such circumstances.
It was Shields who eventually broke the silence. ‘Perhaps we should adjourn for a while, Chief Inspector. This is extremely difficult for my client.’
Mrs. Cooper waved a hand in front of her with some frustration. ‘No, I must get through this. Just give me a moment.’ She cleared her throat and blew her nose. ‘You’ve no idea what I was met with,’ her voice faltered, she broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. Smalacombe looked to Shields who nodded.
‘We’ll take a short break, Mrs. Cooper to give you time to compose yourself.’
Mrs. Cooper again raised her hand in a motion that signalled her disagreement and Smalacombe’s voice seemed to bring her to her senses. She straightened up, sniffed loudly, and wiped her tears. ‘I must go through this,’ she repeated and took a deep breath. After another pause, she restarted her evidence almost as if she had never been overwhelmed by it. ‘God, I couldn’t believe what I saw. There was blood everywhere; even on the ceiling and this unrecognisable mess in the bath.’ She paused and looked straight at Smalacombe for the first time. ‘You were right, Chief Inspector. It was the warming pan. She had left it in the bath at the side of Anna.’ She sighed and thought for a moment. ‘We just had to clean it all up. We had to do something; I mean we couldn’t just stand there staring at it, screaming, “What have I done”. I had to get Joan working, she was trance like. We set to work, which was good therapy for her. It changed the focus of her concentration. I can’t tell you the mess she was in herself, let alone the bathroom. We removed all of her clothes and burnt them in the wood burner in the kitchen, together with Anna’s of course.’
‘That confirms the forensic report sir,’ Tiley interrupted.
‘I really thought I was going to pass out when I first saw the corpse. It was positively the most horrendous thing I have ever seen in my entire life.’
Smalacombe considered whether it was necessary to ask her to enlarge upon it but decided that it would be counterproductive and not imperative at that moment. He let her continue.
‘We tidied things up to start with. Temporarily you understand.’
She paused and saw both policemen’s intent expressions and she felt the need to justify herself. ‘Well, what was I to do? She was my daughter for goodness sake. Would you turn your back on your daughter in a moment of extreme crisis?’
It was a good point and Smalacombe momentarily reflected on how he might have reacted in similar circumstances. It was something he preferred not to dwell upon.
Mrs. Cooper continued. ‘Then, we decided to wait until the early hours and take the body down to the copse by the river where we could bury it. I knew exactly where it could be done. I go there regularly when I walk Billy. The ground is soft in places, always damp and very easy to dig. If we had succeeded, I doubt she would ever have been found.’
‘Then why didn’t you?’ Smalacombe asked.
‘Because, we couldn’t; we were just not strong enough. We managed to get her and my wheelbarrow and a spade in the back of Joan’s car and we took her down to the bridge. We had difficulty getting her from the car into the wheelbarrow; you have no idea how heavy and difficult to manoeuvre a body can be. We eventually began to wheel her down the path by the river but it was unbelievably awkward because the body wasn’t balanced in the barrow properly, it was hanging over the side, which made it all lopsided. We hardly had the strength to keep it upright to get along. And then, Joan tripped and the body fell out into the river. We were just not strong enough to pick her up again. We tried but it was hopeless. We needed help but that was absurd, so, we just had to leave her there.’
‘Weren’t you afraid that someone might see you?’ Tiley asked again.
‘Well, of course we were, but what could we do? Fortunately, it is pretty quiet out at Longtor at three in the morning.’
‘Did any cars pass by whilst all this was going on?’
‘Thankfully, no! Not a soul. We hurried back home and spring-cleaned the place. We had done a great deal beforehand but we were too shaken to make a good job of it. When we came back, we were…’ She hesitated, as she looked for the right words, ‘...more resolved,’ she said. ‘In the bathroom, it was terrible. Blood everywhere.’
‘What about the morning?’
‘Well, we talked that through and we decided I should walk Billy as usual, which would mean I would find the body. We realised it would be even more suspicious if I didn’t report it because everyone knows I go down there every morning, often before daybreak in the winter. I was a bit panicky because we needed to clear things up pretty well before then in case someone like you came visiting. We never got to bed and at the appropriate time I showered and changed and freshened myself up and, well, you know the rest.’
‘So, why did you remove her earring, Mrs. Cooper?’ The damned earring continued to bug Smalacombe. It was so incongruous; so much in conflict with what he would have expecte
d from such an enquiry that he couldn’t leave it alone. It was like a signature and who the hell would leave such a clue at a murder scene? Most of what she had told him he had already deduced.
‘Earring? We didn’t take an earring. Why would we want to do that? It would serve no purpose. Would it?’
‘Well, you tell us. It was a very expensive earring.’
‘Maybe it was. Everything she wore was expensive, but,’ she thought for a moment, ‘you said earring, singular.’ Smalacombe nodded. ‘What on earth would we want with one earring, Mr. Smalacombe? If we had wanted her jewellery we could have taken her other rings as well.’
At that point Mrs. Cooper appeared to have exhausted her information and Smalacombe felt it was time to wind it up.
‘You have been very helpful, Mrs. Cooper and of course I can make no promises but it would appear you were placed in an impossible position in this matter which may aid your defence.’
Smalacombe and Tiley left the room in silence and walked back to the chief inspector’s office. He indicated with a jerk of his head for Tiley to follow him in. They sat facing one another, Smalacombe as usual, with his feet on the table. It was some time before either of them spoke. After the usual ritual of passing around the triple X’s they sat and sucked conscientiously.
It was Tiley who finally broke the silence. ‘Who wanders around in the middle of Dartmoor at three in the morning pinching bloody earrings?’ Smalacombe didn’t answer. He crunched his peppermint and swallowed it. He pulled the tube from his pocket and took another one. He threw the rest across to his colleague. Tiley busied himself pulling down the paper cover and extricating one for himself, which he then held in his hand whilst he finished the first one. Instead of clearing things up, the interview had simply embellished what they had worked out for themselves and raised more questions than answers.
‘Whoever it was knows who killed Winsom,’ Tiley surmised as he popped the extra strong in his mouth.
‘So you keep telling me. Or, he is the killer,’ Smalacombe corrected. ‘But, one thing, Clive, I reckon whoever it was, saw the two women leave the body in the river.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because, why would the bloody earring turn up again at the scene of Winsom’s murder?’
‘You mean, he pinched it as some sort of insurance, or perhaps he saw it as an opportunity for blackmail?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it was a cock up.’
‘That’s always the best theory to fall back on, Dexter.’
‘I mean, perhaps it was to confront Winsom with, in order to blackmail her as you suggested. Perhaps she called his bluff; after all she had already learnt the harsh way that giving in to blackmail doesn’t work. Then, in exasperation he threw the bloody thing in the deep end and found he couldn’t retrieve it.’
‘So, we look for somebody who can’t swim?’
Smalacombe snorted, ‘What do you reckon? We check to find out who possesses a pair of water wings or a fucking noodle thing?’
They fell into silence again and both agonised over the information that Louisa Cooper had just given them. Suddenly, Smalacombe took his feet from the table and leant forward, his forearms resting on his thighs. He was no longer relaxed but animated. ‘We’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle, Clive. Why didn’t I see this before?’ he said with great conviction and with much irritation in his voice. ‘It isn’t the bloody earring we should be thinking of; it’s the other fucking rings on her fingers. Cooper said they didn’t take them. They’re the ones that haven’t turned up and they’re the ones that will lead us to the killer.’
‘You mean he might have sold them on?’
‘Not might, will have sold them on. Why else would he take them? If it was only blackmail he was interested in he wouldn’t need to take the whole bloody lot would he? I mean, you can’t sell one earring, so that would have been sufficient. Anything that that girl had was the best; she was a bloody expensive habit for a lot of wealthy guys. I bet those rings are worth more than a few beers. Get those photos we have of her and get the lads to blow up the hands as best as they can, so we can see what she was wearing. I want a team out, going to every bloody jeweller, pawnbroker, and fence from Penzance to Bristol. We’ve got to find them.’
CHAPTER 12
Friday July 7th
It was early on Friday afternoon and Smalacombe and Tiley were in the incident room at Longtor. Smalacombe was peeling the wrapping back from another tube of triple X peppermints and lounging, as always in his chair with his legs crossed and feet on the desk. He threw the tube to Tiley, leant back with his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling for no good reason whatsoever.
‘You know, Clive, police work is possessed by London buses syndrome.’
‘Yea. Nothing happens and then three come along at once.’
‘We can but hope,’ he mused.
Smalacombe was in a good frame of mind as the morning had brought a piece of valuable information, but as always, asking more questions than providing answers.
Tiley had received a call from the Newton Abbot police to confirm that they had found a jeweller in Queen Street who had bought the missing rings.
‘Did he give a description of the man?’ Smalacombe asked.
‘Yes, he said he was a man of about fortyish with a London accent.’
‘Oh, bloody terrific, so we’ve narrowed it down to about three million then. How many rings did he buy?’
‘He bought the three on offer and a bracelet.’
Smalacombe leant across the desk and retrieved a file. From it he removed, once more, the photographs of Anna Turle in happy times. He studied them closely and then passed them across to the sergeant. ‘In both of these photos she is wearing four rings,’ he said.
‘And a bracelet,’ Tiley added. ‘So, one is missing,’ he concluded with a dismissive air, as he was not sure where his boss’s observations were leading them.
‘Did he say anything about a diamond earring?’ Smalacombe asked.
‘No, could be with the other ring I suppose.’
Whilst the two were mulling this over, DC Sheldon interrupted to explain that an old man had appeared at the door and wanted to see them. He had introduced himself as Peter Harvey.
Peter Harvey shuffled forward with the aid of a walking stick and asked politely, ‘Gentlemen, can I speak to you in private?’ Tiley nodded and they led him through to the back kitchen.
He eased himself very carefully into the chair that Tiley had offered him and slowly rested his stick against the table. ‘I’ve had another thought about that dreadful Sunday night.’ The two detectives did not respond but they let him continue. ‘As you will probably recall, I’m up and down all night. Damn prostate thing you know.’
‘I hope it misses me out when I get older,’ Tiley opined with feeling.
‘Yes, it’s a bit of a bugger,’ the old man said, his words seeming at odds with his refined accent. ‘The boss upstairs picks us off one by one and there’s no telling what he has in store for us. Anyway, my bathroom windows aren’t frosted so I can see out. They didn’t bother with them in the older houses out here. Well, in those days there was no one to look in, I suppose. That’s why I saw the Cooper woman. Well, you know that anyway. Now, I’ve been thinking.’ At this point Tiley suppressed a yawn, verbosity seemed to be the local disease. Perhaps, he considered these old people are just lonely and welcomed the contact. ‘There was more I saw that night: much more.’ Unlike his subordinate, Smalacombe remained alert; something told him that what the old man had to say was going to be useful.
‘You see, I’ve been preoccupied with this damn hospital thing,’ Peter Harvey explained apologetically, ‘and when your chap came to see me last weekend, it was all a bit of a surprise. I mean, I thought it was all done and dusted by the time I returned home. As a result I didn’t have time to collect my thoughts and I realise now there was something else I should have told him.’
‘Does this i
nvolve Mrs. Cooper, Mr. Harvey?’ Smalacombe asked gently.
‘Well no, it doesn’t. This was something quite different. Sometime in the early hours of that night, about three or perhaps later I would say I was up with the usual trouble and looking out of the toilet window. I mean, it takes ages to pee, but you don’t want to know about that,’ he added as an afterthought. Tiley stifled another yawn and suppressed a sudden urge to tell him to get to the point. ‘I saw a car, a big vehicle, come down the road and stop on the other side of the bridge by the footpath.’
‘Going towards Princetown?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you recognise the car, Mr Harvey?’
‘Well, no, not exactly because it was still dark you see, but I could see the outline and by the layout of the rear lights I would say it was the sort of vehicle Mr. Hempson drives. You know, one of those four wheel drive Range Rover sort of things. I must say, it looked like his car.’
‘How long did he stop?’
‘Oh, not that long.’
‘Was it long enough to walk down the river and back?’
‘Oh no, it was just a few moments; he didn’t switch the engine off or turn off the lights or anything like that. He just stopped and both front doors opened. I could see movement around the vehicle.’
‘Are you saying that he was not alone then?’
‘Yes, I suppose I am. Both doors shut at about the same time, almost with one bang, and then he drove off. But look, I must emphasise I don’t know that it was Mr. Hempson, but this is all so serious I felt I ought to tell you about it.’
‘Well, you did the right thing, Mr. Harvey and you’re right, it does seem to be pretty important. You’ve been a great help.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t remember at the first interview but when you’re my age you need a bit of time to collect your thoughts. I’m eighty-six, Sergeant and what with all the other business with the Cooper woman, it just slipped my mind. That’s another thing you’ll find out when you get ancient. It wasn’t until yesterday when I sat down and really thought it all through again that I realised what I had seen. It’s been a very difficult week for me, gentlemen but I’m feeling much better today. They gave me a bit of a re-bore you know.’