by Frank Smith
Tregalles, already looking forward to spending what was left of the night in a nice warm bed, made a face. ‘It is the middle of the night,’ he reminded his boss. ‘Can’t it wait till morning?’
‘I think we’ll have more than enough to do at the manor in the morning,’ Paget replied, ‘and the sooner we talk to Nash, the better. Silver Street, wasn’t it? I’ll meet you there; it shouldn’t take long.’
Fifteen minutes later, Paget was already out of the car and examining the gouges in the wall adjoining the shop by the light from his own headlights when Tregalles joined him. ‘Careful where you put your feet,’ he warned the sergeant. ‘Whoever cleaned up didn’t make a very good job of it. There are still bits of glass around.’
The lettering on the window of the shop said, G. L. NASH – Plumbing and Heating Supplies. Installation – Repair – Maintenance, and there was a similar sign on the double wooden gates leading to the yard next to the shop. The shop itself was in darkness, and a CLOSED sign hung crookedly in the window in the door. Tregalles stepped back into the street and looked up. ‘No lights on,’ he said, preparing to return to his car and head for home and bed. ‘Gone back to the hospital, I expect. We can catch him in the morning.’
‘Then, why are the gates unlocked?’ Paget asked, pushing one of them open. ‘His van is here and the bonnet’s still warm. And there’s a light on over the door to the house at the back of the shop.’
Tregalles sighed as he followed his boss into the yard. He stumbled in the dark and banged his knee against the bumper of the van. Muttering beneath his breath, he limped after Paget, who was already knocking on the door. He knocked again as Tregalles caught up with him.
The door opened, and a pale, stocky young man, dressed only in cut-off shorts and sandals, eyed Paget suspiciously. ‘Yeah?’ he said cautiously.
‘Police.’ Paget held up his warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Paget, and this is Detective Sergeant Tregalles, and we’d like to talk to George Nash. Is he here?’
‘Dad!’ the boy called without taking his eyes off Paget. ‘Dad!’ he called louder. ‘It’s the police. They want to talk to you.’
A sinewy, gaunt-looking man appeared beside his son. Dressed in work clothes and a long plastic apron, he was wiping his hands on a towel streaked with what looked like blood. His face was pale, his eyes deep-set and dark, and he looked exhausted. ‘Police . . .?’ he said, looking from one to the other.
Paget repeated the introduction.
‘Bloody hell!’ Nash said softly. ‘A chief inspector and a sergeant in the middle of the night? Old Bromley must have really thrown his weight about. I suppose the lord of the manor wants you to throw me in jail for disturbing his dinner, does he?’ He seemed to be trying to make light of it, but there was an undercurrent of unease in his voice.
‘May we come in?’ asked Paget.
Nash hesitated, then turned to his son. ‘You go back and see to Ginger,’ he said. ‘I think she’ll be all right now, but best stay with her for a while.’
The boy hesitated, but a look from his father sent him off down the corridor. ‘It’s our dog, Ginger,’ Nash explained. ‘She’s just given birth to eight pups. The first one died. Head got stuck and Mickey was here on his own and he couldn’t get it out. Fortunately, I was able to get back here in time to save the rest.’
He opened the door wider and stood back. ‘You’d best come in, then, and get it over with,’ he said with weary resignation. ‘The wife rang from the hospital to say the police had been asking about me, but I hardly expected you to come round in the middle of the night.’ He shut the door, then led the way into an old-fashioned kitchen.
‘Sit yourselves down, then,’ he said, ‘but if you think I’m going to say I’m sorry for what I did, you can think again. When one of your lot at the hospital told me that bitch had been let go, I couldn’t believe it. But that’s the way it is, isn’t it? They all stick together, that lot. So what sort of story did they give you up at the manor? I’ll bet it was a good one.’
‘I’m more interested in what you have to say about it,’ Paget told him as he opened his coat and sat down. Tregalles pulled a chair away from the table and followed suit.
Nash eyed Paget warily for a long moment before settling into a chair at the end of the table himself. ‘I don’t know what they told you up there,’ he said, ‘but that woman ran our Tracy down. Came right up on the pavement and . . .’ Nash swallowed hard. His voice disappeared into the back of his throat, and he had to swallow several more times before he was able to continue.
‘Driving like a madwoman, she was. She wasn’t just drunk, she was way over the top. Your own blokes told me. They tested her. There were witnesses who said she was going like the clappers when she tried to make that turn. She hit the wall, and Tracy . . .’
Nash lowered his head. ‘She could die!’ he said huskily, ‘but does that bitch up at the manor care? Not her! Sitting there stuffing her face while Tracy . . .’ His voice broke and he blinked back tears.
He looked up to meet Paget’s eyes. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘I went up there and told her. I told them all what I’d do if anything happens to Tracy, and, by God, I meant it at the time. Is that what you came to hear, Detective Chief Inspector whatever-your-name-is?’
‘What I came to hear,’ said Paget patiently, ‘is your side of the story. I’m well aware of how painful and difficult this must be for you, but it is important that you answer my questions. So tell me, what prompted you to leave the bedside of your critically injured daughter to drive all the way out to the manor to threaten Miss Halliday?’
Nash eyed him stonily for a long moment, then looked away and shook his head. ‘It was a stupid thing to do,’ he said tightly. ‘The wife begged me not to go, but when I heard that the woman who’d run our Tracy down had been let go, I wanted to see her pay for what she’d done. I really did want to see her dead!’ He looked away. His eyes were moist. ‘Except I lost my nerve when I got there,’ he ended bitterly.
‘So you didn’t kill her?’
‘Kill her? Nash stared. ‘Don’t be daft. Of course I didn’t kill her – not that I didn’t want to, mind, but I think I knew all along that wasn’t going to happen. What I did want was for her to be as shit-scared for her life as I was about our Tracy’s.’ He lowered his head to stare at the floor. ‘I must have looked a right fool to them up there,’ he muttered as much to himself as to the two detectives.
‘Tell me where you went when you left the manor.’
‘Where do you think I went?’ Nash demanded, clearly both puzzled and annoyed by Paget’s question. ‘I went straight back to the hospital, and I went over the speed limit, so you can have me for that as well while you’re at it.’
‘Are you quite sure you didn’t stop anywhere?’
Nash sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know what it is you’re after,’ he said, ‘but like I told you, all I wanted to do when I left the manor was to get back to see how Tracy was doing.’ He glanced at the kitchen clock. ‘Like I should be doing now.’
‘Do you remember what time it was when you got to the hospital?’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake! How the hell should I know what time it was?’ Nash snapped. ‘Why do you want to know that?’
‘Because Miss Halliday was found dead last night,’ Paget said quietly. ‘Slashed and cut down not long after you threatened to kill her. So you see, Mr Nash, it is important that we establish where you were and what you did after you left the manor.’
Nash eyed Paget suspiciously. ‘Slashed?’ he repeated. ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t know what your game is, but—’
‘It’s no game, Mr Nash. Antonia Halliday was murdered after you had threatened her in front of witnesses.’
Nash continued to stare at him. ‘You’re serious?’ he said at last.
‘Extremely serious,’ Paget told him.
Nash sucked in his breath. ‘Well, it wasn’t me,’ he said flatly, ‘and you can check all yo
u like, but I went straight back to the hospital when I left the manor, and I never left there until I had to come back to see to Ginger. They’ll tell you; just ask them.’
‘Oh, I will,’ Paget assured him as he rose to his feet. ‘Tell me, do you have another vehicle other than your van?’
‘There’s the wife’s car,’ Nash said cautiously. ‘Why?’
‘Just wanted to make sure we didn’t leave you without transportation,’ Paget told him, ‘because I’m afraid you’re going to have to do without the van for a day or two while our forensic people have a look at it.’
‘But you can’t,’ Nash said desperately. ‘I need the van for business. I don’t see the point to any of this.’
‘The point,’ Paget said, ‘is that, not only was Miss Halliday killed, but a man was struck down by a car, or possibly a van, very close to where Miss Halliday was killed, and he is now in hospital.’ He held out his hand. ‘So, the keys, if you please, Mr Nash. Oh, yes, and please leave the gates unlocked until someone can come out to collect it. I should be able to get someone here within the hour. In the meantime, Sergeant Tregalles will remain here until they arrive.’
SIX
With less than three hours sleep behind him, Paget was in the office by eight o’clock. Even so, there was a message waiting for him on voice mail to call Chief Superintendent Brock ASAP. He picked up the phone.
‘But if Nash couldn’t have done it, then who?’ Brock demanded when Paget finished his verbal report. ‘You said yourself the man admits to going out there with the intention of killing the girl, so he could be lying about where he was, and if this Dr Price was busy, he may not have realized that Nash was missing. It has to be him.’
‘It is still possible,’ Paget agreed, ‘and we’ll be following that up with Dr Price and the hospital staff, but it’s also possible that Antonia Halliday was killed by whoever was going to pick her up, or even by Major Farnsworth, for that matter. Unfortunately, he can’t be questioned yet, but there are things we can do on site, so I’d like to get an incident room set up as close to the crime scene as soon as possible.’
‘You’re not suggesting the manor?’ Brock said sharply. ‘That’s out of the question.’
Paget smiled to himself. ‘No, sir, not the manor. Sergeant Ormside tells me there’s a church hall we can use in Hallows End at the bottom of Manor Lane. He’s looking into it now.’
‘How are you doing with OSPRE?’ asked Paget as he settled into the passenger’s seat and snapped his seatbelt on. He was referring to the Objective Structured Performance-Related Examination programme, or OSPRE for short, which he was encouraging Tregalles to take.
‘I know you say you’re happy in your present job,’ he’d told the sergeant when he’d first suggested it, ‘and I’d be sorry to lose you, but perhaps it’s time to move on. If you leave it too late you could find yourself overtaken by some of these youngsters with a fistful of degrees who are being fast-tracked these days.’
That might be, but it seemed like only yesterday that Tregalles had spent countless hours studying for the sergeant’s exam, and the prospect of buckling down to more months of hard studying didn’t appeal to him at all. ‘I am giving it some thought,’ he’d hedged, ‘but what with the workload the way it is, this may not be the best time.’
‘There may never be a “best time”,’ Paget countered, ‘and the sooner you start . . .’ He’d left the rest unsaid, but as far as Tregalles was concerned it was more than a suggestion, and he didn’t like to be pushed.
Deep down, he knew Paget was right; he wasn’t getting any younger, and already there were a couple of inspectors in the division who were younger than he was by several years. But it would mean months of hard slogging on his own time, learning and memorizing things he would have to know for the exam but would probably never use on the job. And with the way things were at work, he could see himself spending almost every waking hour away from the job, either on the computer or with his head stuck in a book, and he just wasn’t ready for it. He was seeing little enough of his family as it was. Olivia and Brian were growing up fast, and as for Audrey . . . it seemed they hadn’t had time for a decent conversation in months.
He wished Paget wouldn’t keep asking. It was almost as though his boss wanted to be rid of him, and with Molly Forsythe well on her way to becoming a sergeant, he couldn’t help wondering if Paget was looking for a change himself. Certainly he’d been using Molly more and more on jobs Tregalles felt should have been his. He liked Molly; she was sharp, and they’d worked well together in the past. But she was ambitious, and he knew Paget thought highly of her, so perhaps she saw herself as his successor.
But when he voiced his suspicions to Audrey, she’d scoffed at the idea. ‘Now you are being silly,’ she told him flatly. ‘You know as well as I do that Molly Forsythe is as straight as they come. She’s a bright girl; you’ve said so yourself, and it’s only natural she wants to get on, but she isn’t the sort to go behind your back. And as for Mr Paget wanting to be rid of you, that’s ridiculous. What he’s telling you is that he thinks you are ready for promotion, and like he said, you don’t want to leave it too late. So you can get those conspiracy ideas out of your head for a start and think about what he’s saying.’ Audrey had put her arms around him. ‘I’m not saying you ought to do it just because he suggested it, love, nor should you do it if you really don’t want to, but if Mr Paget moves into Mr Alcott’s old job, who will you be stuck with then? Could be Parsons or someone like that, and you know what he’s like. But if you became an inspector, there’s a good chance you’d still be working for Mr Paget.’ She sighed. ‘But no matter what he says or what I say, you must do what’s right for you.’
And that was the trouble – he didn’t know what was right for him, and he still hadn’t done anything about it. And now, just as they were setting out for Bromley Manor on a bright and sunny September morning, Paget had to spoil things by bringing it up again.
He tried to keep his voice light. ‘Schedule’s been a bit tight, lately, I’m afraid, boss,’ he said. ‘What with the way things have been at work, and with the kids home for the summer holidays, and Audrey’s part-time job at the book shop, it’s been a bit hectic around the place. Still, now the kids are back at school, I’ll be taking another run at it.’
The drove in silence for the rest of the journey. Both men were tired after a night of little sleep, and with the warm sun in his face, Paget found himself fighting hard to stop himself from drifting off.
‘Gates to the manor are open,’ Tregalles observed. He slowed to a crawl and turned in. ‘Let’s see what the place looks like in daylight, shall we?’
The lawns on either side were neat enough, as were the flowerbeds, but tufts of grass and weeds were poking through the gravelled surface of the driveway, and the edges needed trimming. Not neglected, exactly, but it would soon look that way if not attended to.
But the manor itself was a different story, thought Paget as it came into sight. No sign of neglect there. Built of local stone and timber, it looked fresh and clean after the rain, with its long mullioned windows gleaming brightly in the morning light.
‘Nice looking place,’ Tregalles observed, breaking into Paget’s thoughts, ‘but I bet it’s a bugger to heat in the winter. And that’s the chapel I was telling you about last night.’ He pointed to the west side of the house, where a small, church-like building was all but concealed behind scaffolding draped in a dull green mesh and topped by heavy blue tarps.
‘Doesn’t look like they’ve made much progress, does it?’ he commented. ‘It must be three or four years since the tree came down on it. I should have thought they’d have had it done by now. Can’t say it does much for the look of the rest of the place.’
‘There are twelve bedrooms,’ Charles Bromley had told them on their way to Toni’s room earlier that morning. ‘Six at the front of the house, and six at the back. Then there are the servants’ rooms of course – or what used to be the
servants’ rooms – in the attic, but they haven’t been used for years.’
A grey-haired woman, dressed only in a nightgown, stood framed in the open window of the corner bedroom at the east end of the house. Her face was lifted to the morning sun, and she seemed unaware of their approach until she heard the crunch of gravel beneath the tyres. She looked down, then drew back and closed the window. Mrs Bromley, Paget wondered?
They continued on, following the narrow driveway between the house and the high stone wall separating house and grounds from Manor Lane, to the stables behind the manor. They were stables in name only now, the stalls having been replaced by a row of blank-faced garages.
‘At least they don’t have to be shovelled out,’ Tregalles observed, ‘but they don’t really go with the rest of the place, do they? Out of sight, out of mind? A bit of penny-pinching there, I’d say.’
A gate between the yard and Manor Lane was open, tied back with rusted wire that looked as if it had been in place for years. Tregalles drove through, turning back up Manor Lane to park next to one of SOCO’s white vans.
‘You might as well go in and get things organized for the interviews,’ Paget told Tregalles as they got out of the car. ‘I’ll be along after I’ve had a word with Charlie.’
Charlie wasn’t there, but one of his men helped Paget into a coverall before allowing him to proceed. Two more of Charlie’s people were inside; one, a man named Felix, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, filling in some sort of form, while the other was Grace.
‘Charlie phoned to say he was taking to his bed with a bottle of rum,’ she told him. ‘And knowing Charlie, he’s probably done exactly that. What would you like to know, Neil?’
‘Everything,’ he said. ‘As I told you this morning, with this man Nash pretty well ruled out, we’re back to square one, so what do you have?’