Murder on Exmoor (The Ralph Chalmers Mysteries Book 11)

by P. J. Thurbin

  “So that’s just about it, Jones,” Inspector Fletcher said as the Sergeant made a few last minutes notes on the computer. “Quite a busy couple of months, but you can be proud of your team over at South Molton, they’ve done some first rate police work. I expect the Chief Superintendent will be down to show his appreciation.”

  Inspector Fletcher had spent the morning making sure that the file was up to date and had even indulged in a few ‘spins’ in his chair. He was pleased at having resolved a complex case in record time.

  “That Professor Chalmers was a great help,” Jones remarked. “He’s an action man, alright. Could have got himself killed a couple of times, Sir.”

  The Inspector made no comment. He knew from what his friend Inspector Linham had told him, that at times Chalmers took matters into his own hands. He admired it, in some ways, but years of having to play it by the rule book had slowed him down. It might be time to have a chat with his wife as the early retirement option had been hinted at after his last medical. Some of his former colleagues had got jobs serving summonses for the courts, and there was always the possibility of setting up a private detective agency. “The thing is, Sergeant, it turned out all right this time, but someone like that’s in danger of interfering in police work. Now the excitement is over, we’ve still a lot of paperwork to tidy up; and there’s the trial, not to mention the coroner’s inquest for Joe Minton. Did the search team ever find that gun he used?”

  “Not yet, Sir. We think he might have dropped it or thrown it over the cliff when he tried to jump onto that carriage. Or maybe some local picked it up and decided to keep it.”

  “Clear it through your Superintendent first, and then release a statement to the local paper; say that there’s a one week amnesty for turning in unlicensed weapons. If some local does have it, they might get scared and hand it in. Then we’ve got Mr. Bishop to deal with. I expect that some fancy lawyer will try to argue that he never intentionally set out to kill Daniel Kaminsky. I imagine they’ll go light on any drugs’ charges since he gave us the names of his suppliers in Ireland.”

  “James Bradley must be happy to be a free man, Sir. And if Marion Watts is lucky, the lawyers may not drag those photos out for everyone to see.”

  “Don’t bet on that one, Sergeant. The papers and the media have already gone to town on it. Pity we never found the camera at Kaminsky’s place. Professor Chalmers had a hand in that, I reckon, Marian Watts being a friend and all.” He grunted. “Although my guess is that Ann Bishop got there first and got rid of the camera. It was her way of standing by her man.”

  “What happens to the gold and silver we recovered from Minton’s garage and the pieces in the rucksack, Sir? Will we have to wait until the Australian police have located Minton’s partner Bruce Ansell to do anything about it?”

  “I think it all reverts to Crown property, Sergeant. But what’s odd is that Bruce Ansell is back. When we put his pictures out, a number of people came forward and said they’d seen him around Lynton and thought he was staying up at Minton’s place; now it’s like he’d disappeared off the face of the earth.”

  “Maybe he knew all about it and is just laying low, Sir.”

  “Maybe.”

  “We put out an alert, but nothing so far. We’ve searched Minton’s and we’ve still come out with a big fat zero; not even a note or an address, Sir.”

  “You’re right, Sergeant, he must have known what Minton was up to. We’ll find him eventually, and when he does, he’ll have some questions to answer.”

  “What happens about that file with all the names of overseas bank accounts and the name that Lord Farleigh had penciled in against it that the search team found at Minton’s place, Sir?”

  “The Chief Constable is handling that one, Jones. Lord Farleigh’s a close friend of the Chief Constable and I expect there’s a simple explanation. Minton had a place up there before he struck lucky.”

  “Not so lucky in the end,” Sergeant Jones remarked.

  “I’ve got a meeting with our Professor Chalmers at eleven and I’d like you to sit in, Sergeant,” Inspector Fletcher said. He ignored Jones’ comment. “Just take a few notes; it shouldn’t take long.”

  He rang down and the clerk at the desk told him that his visitor had arrived.

  ***

  While Ralph had been waiting, he had gone over in his mind what had happened at Joe Minton’s garage. He had made a statement to a police constable while he was in the hospital, but since then he had been thinking about Minton’s missing friend, Bruce Ansell. He had seen the photo in the local paper and remembered that Joe Minton had told him that Ansell had gone back to Australia.

  The constable on duty showed Ralph into Inspector Fletcher’s office. From what he recalled, it had not changed since the last time he was there. Whitewashed 1930’s style décor, metal-framed windows that probably had never been opened, battleship grey filing cabinets, and an oak desk. A large painting of the Queen dominated the room. But his first impression was that the Inspector had changed. He was no longer the slightly over-weight, blustering man who had been preoccupied with partnering the Chief Constable in a golf tournament. Now he faced a slightly haggard and tired man who looked like he could do with a nice long holiday.

  “Professor Chalmers, come on in. How’s the shoulder?”

  Ralph offered his good hand.

  “Much better, thanks, apart from having to rely on my wife to do the chauffeuring for a couple of more weeks.”

  “And why not, sir. I hear some women aren’t too bad at driving a car these days.” They all laughed. Even though maintaining the male supremacy imagery was a nonsense, it was what men did. It was what Katie referred to as ‘a boy thing’. Ralph suspected that there were equivalent ‘girl things’, but that was a mystery world into which he would never dream of venturing.

  “Professor Chalmers, this is Sergeant Jones. He runs the station over at South Molton.”

  “I’ve met one of your constables, Sergeant, he managed to diffuse a potentially dangerous situation the other week,” Ralph said as the two men shook hands.

  “Professor Chalmers kindly made a report, Sir. Those farm vehicles can be a hazard at night. Especially with their headlights.” He half smiled. Ralph decided to leave it there.

  “I think you saw him again over at Long Acre Farm with Mr. Bishop. We have your statement on that as well, sir.”

  “Now that everyone is acquainted, how can we be of help, Professor?”

  “There are two matters, really,” Ralph said. “The first one’s about Seth Raines.”

  “Hit and run. We’re still looking for the vehicle,” Sergeant Jones interjected.

  “Well, I think Joe Minton was the driver,” said Ralph.

  He explained what Megan had said about Seth possibly being involved in blackmailing Minton over the gold and silver that he had not turned in. He told him what she had said about the five hundred pounds and also about what had happened when he had confronted Minton in his garage about his having killed Seth Raines to stop him blackmailing him.

  “He effectively admitted it, Inspector.”

  “If Minton had given Seth Raines the money that the publican at The Bell said he had on him that night, that would explain it, Sir,” Sergeant Jones said.

  The Inspector sat back and placed his hands on the desk. “Agreed, Sergeant. But we have no proof. No disrespect, Professor but as you know, there’d only be your word, and hearsay won’t fly in Court. Of course we can always check his truck. If it was him, our forensics boys should be able to find some blood or scratch marks. The lab boys took impressions of the tire marks at the accident site, and we can check them against Minton’s for a match. And we’ll have to speak with Megan Raines again. But you said that there were two things, Professor.

  “Another hunch, I’m afraid, Inspector; no real proof.”

  “Hunches have been good friends to me in the past Professor. Let’s hear it.”

  “When I went in to collect my
car up at Minton’s garage, there was something not quite right.”

  “We know about you stumbling on him trying to get away with the treasure; we found the rest in the safe. We turned the place over quite thoroughly,” said the Inspector.

  “No, it wasn’t the gold or anything. It’s just that when I first went there a while back to get the Morgan fixed, there were two inspection pits. Then the other day when I was there, there was only one.”

  “Couldn’t you be mistaken?” Inspector Fletcher asked.

  “No; I remember distinctly. The first time he had a Bentley over one and got Katie to drive her Morgan over the other. Then this last time, a blue Railton was on the only remaining pit, and he looked under the Jag with one of those sliding trollies.”

  Inspector Fletcher stood up.

  “Bruce Ansell. I’m the one with a hunch now, Professor. I wonder if those two had a falling out over the treasure. I thought it a bit odd that they had a joint account for Ansell’s share of the reward money. I’d stake my pension on it, Sergeant Jones. Get the boys to dig up that pit and we’ll find out if I’m right.”

  He just stopped himself from clapping Ralph on the shoulder.

  “We need to celebrate. The tea in the canteen is pretty rough but they have steak pie on the menu and to hell with my diet and the doctor’s advice. This is on me.”

  Ralph made his excuses and explained that Katie would be back with the car in just a few minutes and that they had arranged to meet with Bob Wyman.

  “All of this is off the record, Professor. I know you’ll be discrete, but that Bob Wyman is quite a sleuth in his own right.”

  “I’ll say nothing about any of this, Inspector. We’ll just stick to sailboats and the Devon countryside. Oh, by the way, I’m almost positive that the revolver that Joe Minton shot me with was an Enfield MK 1; we had them in the Royal Navy Reserve. They pack a nasty punch; I can vouch for that.” They all laughed.

  ***

  Ralph had only been back on his feet for a couple of days, but insisted that he was fine. He wanted to go to Sherracombe Ford to observe the dig that Mary Richardson had told them about. Katie had fussed at him and only agreed to go if he let her drive him in the Morgan.

  The dig turned out to be more fun than either of them had expected. Mary was true to her word, and Katie had the honour of finding the first coin of the day. Ralph had joked that she might want to hide it in her pocket as it could be worth a bit. She settled for having her photo taken, and Mary promised to put it in the next month’s newsletter.

  That evening Katie had a call from her cousin in Australia who worked for Fairfax Media as a reporter on the Sydney Morning Herald. She had talked about a headline story they were running where a crate of gold and silver had been found by the customs officials in Shanghai. It was from a container ship that had arrived from Brisbane. She told Katie that The British Museum had flown one of their curators over to check out the haul and that he had confirmed that part of it contained gold coins that were Roman dating from 350 AD; and that it also contained silver platters and bowls. She said that the police had linked it to a Toyota truck that they found in Sydney, and that they believed it was one that had been shipped from England a couple of months earlier.

  When Katie told Ralph, he had agreed to leave it to the police. His guess had been that it was all tied to Bruce Ansell and Joe Minton. He told her that he felt that they had done their bit. Katie could not have agreed more.

  Cynthia called them at the cottage later that week to wish them bon voyage and to tell them that the British Museum’s initial valuation of what the police had recovered from the garage was 2 million pounds. She said that it would likely turn out to be the largest find in the UK since the MildenHall discovery. She had heard from her friend Michelle Willows that the Museum planned to give Ralph a 25,000 pound reward for his part in its recovery.

  When she rang off, Ralph and Katie talked about the reward and decided that they would split the money between the Exmoor National Park and the North Devon Archaeological Society.

  Samantha Tulle had gone to France and the cottage was all theirs for three glorious weeks. They spent their days walking the cliff path, Katie rode her horse, Majestic, and Ralph went out on daily runs on Gypsy Lady. His shoulder had taken longer than anticipated to mend, but Bob Wyman had been happy enough to crew for him until he could handle her again on his own. It was about as perfect a way to wind down from all of the previous weeks’ drama as they could have hoped for.

  ***

  They packed up and made the cottage secure before they drove down to Bridport Marina. Gypsy Lady was ready to sail in the Round Britain and Ireland Race and everything was set. It was raining, and rather than sit around on the boat all evening, they decided to go to the Arts Centre in Bridport. The film was an old classic with Katie’s favourite actors, Humphrey Bogart and Walter Houston. Treasures of the Sierra Madre. Later that night as they sat back checking their race plan and drinking cocoa Ralph checked his mobile which he had switched off while they were at the cinema.

  There was a text message from Marcel Raveaux’s secretary at the University. After he read it, he sat back and looked at Katie.

  “What?”

  “It’s a text from the VC’s secretary.”

  “So?”

  “Granger’s been taken ill and is in hospital. The VC wants me to cancel everything and take over Granger’s post for a semester or until he’s fully recovered.”

  “Does it say what’s wrong with him? Is it serious?”

  “That’s all it says. I’ll text back now, and then telephone them in the morning.”

  They sat there and listened to the rain as it beat down on the cabin roof and the wind whistled through the halyards.

  “Right. I’d better get a hat for Marian’s wedding. Looks like our escape will have to be delayed, Dean Chalmers.”

  “Wasn’t it Woody Allen who said, ‘If you want to make God laugh, just tell him about your plans?” Ralph said. They both laughed.

  _______________________