In The Shadow of Evil

by Frank Smith

  Julian stared at him. ‘You can’t be serious . . .? Oh, for Christ’s sake, man . . .’ Words failed him.

  ‘Oh, but I am very serious, Mr Bromley,’ said Paget. ‘So, unless you can produce a witness, someone who can confirm where you were and what you were doing during the time you claim to have been out walking, then I’m very much afraid you are the prime suspect. Is there anything you wish to tell me?’

  Julian swallowed hard. ‘I didn’t,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I couldn’t! I swear, Chief Inspector, I had nothing to do with it. I was out walking where—’

  ‘Where no one saw you,’ Paget broke in.

  ‘There was Lockwood. He must have seen me in the headlights. And Margaret. You can ask them.’

  ‘Mere yards from the barn where Toni Halliday lay dead?’ Paget countered. ‘Hardly a cast-iron alibi, is it, Mr Bromley?’

  ‘But I couldn’t!’ Suddenly, Julian Bromley looked more like a frightened schoolboy about to burst into tears. ‘Honest to God, I swear the last time I saw Toni was when I left her room.’

  Tregalles looked up. ‘You also told us that the last time you saw her was at the bottom of the stairs just after dinner,’ he said. ‘And that was a lie, wasn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Yes, but that was before . . .’ Julian sucked in his breath. ‘What I’m telling you now is the truth, I swear to God!’

  Paget and Tregalles exchanged glances. Tregalles shook his head.

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Paget said. ‘Meanwhile, please don’t leave the area without speaking to me first, and do let us know if you remember seeing anyone else while you were out . . . walking.’

  The look on Julian’s face was almost comical. ‘You mean I can go?’

  ‘For now,’ Paget told him as he got to his feet. ‘Has anyone taken your fingerprints this morning?’

  Julian shook his head.

  ‘They will,’ Paget assured him, ‘so please stay close to home until they have.’

  Before Paget had a chance to call the next person on his list, there was a light tap on the door, and Gwyneth entered the room.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, but a Chief Superintendent Brock would like you to ring him at this number.’ She handed him a slip of paper, then scuttled out of the room as if afraid he might start to ask her more questions.

  ‘Ah, Paget,’ Brock said when he rang. ‘I need you back here straightaway. I have a meeting with my opposite number in the West Mercia Force at two thirty this afternoon. It’s regarding this combined training schedule and exchange of junior officers starting next year. Alcott used to take care of all that, but I know you were involved as well, so I need you back here so we can go over some of the details before the meeting. In fact, since there can’t be much more for you to do out there, you might as well sit in on the meeting with me this afternoon as well. I’m sure DS Ormside and DS Tregalles can run things from the incident room in Hallows End once everything is set up.’

  ‘We are in the middle of taking statements,’ Paget pointed out, ‘so—’

  ‘Statements?’ Brock asked sharply. ‘From whom?’

  ‘Family members and . . .’

  Something like a heavy sigh came down the line before Brock spoke again. ‘I thought I had made myself clear last night,’ he said. ‘This is a very difficult time for the family, and I don’t want you making things even harder for them by intruding on their grief. After all, it’s not as if you’re going to find the girl’s killer there, is it? So, the sooner you and DS Tregalles are out of there the better. DS Ormside can run things from Hallows End, and he can start with this man, Nash. I’m not entirely satisfied that he’s in the clear, despite what you told me this morning. He did threaten the girl in front of witnesses, so I want his alibi checked again.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir, I’m afraid it’s not quite as simple as that . . .’ Paget began, only to find himself speaking into a dead phone. Brock had hung up.

  ‘Problems?’ Tregalles asked.

  ‘Mr Brock seems to think that our presence here might upset the family, and we are wasting our time and theirs, so he wants us to start looking elsewhere for our killer.’

  Tregalles made a face. ‘Pity he wasn’t here to listen to some of the rubbish we’ve been listening to this morning,’ he said. ‘So, what do we do now?’

  ‘We carry on here and treat them the same as anyone else,’ Paget told him. ‘At least you do. Mr Brock wants me back in the office, and it looks as if I’ll be gone for the rest of the day. But I think we should go down to the village and find out how Ormside is getting on and bring him up to date before I go back to town. After that I want you to come back here and finish the interviews, regardless of what Mr Brock seems to think.’

  TEN

  They found Len Ormside in the parish hall surrounded by boxes, desks, filing cabinets, computers, trays, chalkboards and easels, and all the paraphernalia needed to support the team who would spearhead the investigation into the death of Toni Halliday.

  Stepping over cables, Ormside led them to a corner of the room where he’d set up his own desk, then dragged up a couple of metal chairs for Paget and Tregalles to sit on before settling comfortably into the padded swivel chair that always managed to accompany him no matter where he was asked to set up shop.

  ‘We’ll have things organized by the end of the day,’ he said with the quiet assurance of one who had been through this many times before, and Paget didn’t doubt it, despite the seeming chaos. Sergeant Leonard Ormside, grey-haired, long, lean, and sharp-featured, had been on the force for almost thirty years, and Paget had come to rely on the man and trust his judgement.

  Between them, Paget and Tregalles spent the next half hour bringing the grizzled sergeant up to date. Chair tipped back, Ormside sat with his eyes half closed while he listened. From time to time he would lean forward to make a note, then resume his position once again.

  ‘I can add one bit of information to that,’ he told them when they’d finished. ‘I’ve had Molly Forsythe at the hospital chasing down the evening and night staff and getting their statements, and unless they’re all lying, this man, Nash, is in the clear.’

  ‘Good,’ said Paget. ‘Nice to have that out of the way, although I doubt if Mr Brock will be any too pleased.’ He glanced at the time. ‘And he won’t be too pleased with me if I hang about here much longer, so I’ll be on my way. Has there been any word on Farnsworth’s condition?’

  ‘Last report was that he is recovering,’ Ormside said. ‘His injuries aren’t as bad as they first thought. The doctor said he’ll take another look at him this afternoon, and let us know if he thinks Farnsworth is up to talking to us today. Otherwise it will be sometime tomorrow.’

  ‘Right,’ said Paget, ‘but whenever it is, I want to be informed immediately. And let’s get Forsythe back out here to assist Tregalles with the interviews with Mrs Etherton and Mrs Lodge. Oh, yes, and I want someone to follow up on Paul Bromley. His brother seems to think he’s gone back to London, but we can’t be sure of that. We have his address.’

  ‘I’ll get someone on it,’ Ormside promised. ‘What was he driving?’

  ‘According to Mr Bromley, it’s a white or possibly cream sports car, and Paul Bromley claims he borrowed it from a friend,’ Tregalles said.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it, I’m afraid,’ Tregalles told him.

  The phone on Ormside’s desk rang. He picked it up, then shot a warning glance at Paget. ‘Yes, Chief Superintendent,’ he said as Paget rose quickly and made for the door. ‘Yes, sir, he’s on his way. Yes, sir, that’s right, he left some time ago . . .’

  With introductions made, Mrs Etherton sat facing Tregalles, hands lying loosely in her lap as she waited for him to begin. She reminded Molly of an aunt of hers, who lived on a farm. Same straight back, same weathered features, and the same no-nonsense set to the mouth, but younger by about ten years.

  ‘Just to keep things straight in my mind,’ Tregalles said, ‘do you live here at
the manor, Mrs Etherton?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Her voice was clear, precise, and pleasant to the ear. ‘Bromley Manor has been my home for the past twelve years. After my husband died, Charles and Helen – Helen was my younger sister and Charles’s first wife – invited me to stay here for a while. It was to be a temporary arrangement to give me time to sort things out, which was extremely kind of them under the circumstances, because it was only after Lionel died that I discovered he’d gambled away virtually everything we owned, leaving me with nothing but debts. I say “gambled” because that was more or less what it was. He was an investment broker, and a very bad one as it turned out, and what was worse, he took his own advice. I quite literally had no home, and only a small income of my own.’

  ‘I see,’ Tregalles said, ‘so—’

  But Mrs Etherton wasn’t finished. ‘As I was about to explain,’ she continued firmly, ‘with Charles away so much of the time, working in London, and only coming home on weekends, Helen was left here on her own throughout the week. Julian was away all day at school, so Helen and I were company for one another, so she asked me to stay on. Charles didn’t mind. In fact I think he was rather pleased that he wouldn’t have to feel guilty about leaving Helen by herself so much, and since I had started to do a bit of secretarial work for him while he was away during the week, it meant he wouldn’t have to ask Helen to do it.’ Mrs Etherton leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘You see, Helen didn’t really like the manor all that much, and she thought Charles was wasting his time and money on trying to maintain what she called “a great barn of a place” that would bankrupt him in the end. Helen had money of her own, of course, and I think she might have let Charles have some of it in a pinch, but Charles is a very proud man, and knowing how she felt about it, he wouldn’t take a penny from her.

  ‘So it was something of a relief to both Helen and to Charles when I offered to take on the job of dealing with the steady flow of jobbers and tradesmen coming through the place almost every week, and keeping a record of everything that had gone on during the week, so it would be available to Charles when he came home on the weekend.

  ‘Of course, things changed a bit when he gave up his practice and wasn’t going up to London every week, but by then I was so used to dealing with the local people, that I continued on, which allowed him time to do some consulting work at the hospital, and to take on the job of local magistrate.’

  Quickly, before she could say any more, Tregalles asked her to take him through the events of the previous evening, and, as expected, Mrs Etherton’s version differed little from those he’d heard before. ‘And when I last saw Toni,’ she concluded, ‘she was going up the stairs ahead of me. She went to her room and I went to mine.’

  ‘Did she say anything to you?’

  ‘No. She went straight to her room. She’d been very vocal at dinner before Mr Nash came in, but I don’t think she said a single word while he was there or after he left.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I went to my room for a while, then, at about half past eight, I went down to the kitchen to look for something to eat. We’d only had soup at dinner before Mr Nash came in, so I was getting a bit hungry.’

  ‘Did you meet anyone while you were out of your room?’

  ‘Mrs Lodge was in the kitchen. Then Charles came in looking for something to drink. He said he was dry because of the smell of the paint.’

  ‘How long were you in the kitchen?’

  ‘Perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes. Mrs Lodge helped me make up a tray, and I took it back to my room.’

  ‘I’d like to talk about Miss Halliday,’ Tregalles said. ‘We get the impression that she was not very well liked, but can you think of anyone who might have hated her enough to kill her?’

  Mrs Etherton shook her head. ‘Toni took pleasure in antagonizing people, but I can’t think of anyone who would actually want to kill her. Except George Nash, of course, but since you’re still here asking questions, I have to assume you are not convinced that he did it. Sensible of you, too. The man wouldn’t hurt a fly, though Lord knows he had reason enough to hate Toni.’

  ‘Do you know where Miss Halliday lived, and what she did for a living before she came down here?’ Tregalles asked.

  ‘No. She never talked about where she’d been or what she had been doing before coming here. At least not to me. The only reason she was here was to try to persuade Margaret to give her more money.’

  ‘Do you know if she succeeded?

  ‘I know Margaret was tempted at first, but I don’t think she gave in. I hope not. I know I wouldn’t have if I were in Margaret’s position.’

  Molly looked up. ‘Why was that, Mrs Etherton?’ she asked.

  ‘Because it would be throwing good money after bad,’ Mrs Etherton said. ‘You see, Toni literally wasted her life. She had the best education, and she was clever in many ways, but she frittered everything away. She was a professional dabbler. She would flit from one thing to another, and never stick to anything. She spent six months in Paris, where she was supposed to be studying art. Then it was Spanish – she was going to be an interpreter at the UN or some such thing, but that didn’t work out. Then it was dance and then acting, all pie in the sky. She couldn’t stick to anything for more than five minutes. Then she disappeared for several months, and Margaret was convinced that something terrible had happened to her. Then she turned up here.

  ‘She talked a lot of rubbish about having taken courses in self-analysis or self-awareness, or whatever, and said she’d come to realize how wrong she had been in the past, and she wanted to make amends.

  ‘The girl was as transparent as that window. It was obvious to me what her game was, but Margaret bought her story, at least at first, because she so wanted it to be true.’ Mrs Etherton wrinkled her nose. ‘To give the girl her due, Toni did manage to play the part fairly successfully for the first couple of weeks, but she couldn’t keep it up, and I think even Margaret realized in the end that Toni was never going to change.’

  ‘Do you know if Toni had any friends? Did anyone ever come here to the manor?’

  ‘If she did, I never saw them, but I know she used to talk or text a lot to someone on that phone of hers.’

  ‘Just one more question, then,’ Tregalles said when Molly remained silent. ‘Did you know that Paul Bromley planned to leave here last night? Did you see him, perhaps talk to him at any time after dinner?’

  ‘We exchanged a few words about what had happened at dinner, but he didn’t say anything to me about leaving. And I heard his voice in the corridor later on when I was getting ready for bed, but that’s all.’

  ‘Do you remember what time that was?’

  ‘Ten or thereabouts. I like to retire early and read,’ she explained, ‘and I was just settling down with a new book from the library when I heard him.’

  ‘Do you know who he was talking to, or hear what was said?’

  Once again, Mrs Etherton shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not, Sergeant. It was just a few words, and I didn’t hear anyone else speak.’

  ELEVEN

  Mary Lodge sat up ramrod straight on the very edge of her chair as she faced Tregalles. Her sharp, bird-like eyes followed his every move, and her slight figure remained poised as if ready to dart away at any moment.

  To put her at ease, Tregalles began by asking her about herself. She told him she had come to the manor almost forty years ago when she married Sid Lodge, the Bromleys’ butler at the time. They’d met, she said, in hospital when he was a patient and she was a nurse.

  ‘I hated to give up nursing when I got married,’ she confided, ‘but you didn’t have any choice in those days. Then, when Mrs Inkster broke her hip – she was the housekeeper before me – I filled in for her. Then, later, when she had to give up the job altogether, I took over and I’ve been here ever since.’

  It took Tregalles several tries before he managed to steer the conversation to the events of the previous evening, but it
soon became clear that the housekeeper knew nothing of what had happened in the dining room beyond what she had learned from Gwyneth. She confirmed the stories of those who said they had visited the kitchen throughout the evening, but she was hazy about the times.

  He tried another tack. ‘I believe you went upstairs to see Mrs Bromley after dinner,’ he said. ‘What time was that?’

  ‘That’s right, I did. I wanted to know what Mrs Bromley wanted me to do about dinner. I thought she might want me to put out a bit of a buffet supper, because all they’d had was some soup, so . . .’

  ‘It would help us a great deal if we knew when you went upstairs,’ Tregalles said gently.

  ‘It must have been shortly before eight,’ she said, ‘because when I got back, young Gwyneth had gone off without taking the broth out to the wash-house like I’d asked her to. Young devil! Had a date, I’ll be bound. Oh, I know, she can deny it all she likes, but I know the signs. Couldn’t wait to be off. Been wool-gathering these past few weeks, she has.’

  Her voice softened. ‘Not that I minded, really. She’s a good girl, is Gwyneth. Does her work and doesn’t have to be told twice. It was just the broth. It’s my back, you see. It’s always been a bit weak, and that big bowl is heavy. Had to carry it to the wash-house myself, and then it was all for nothing.’

  Tregalles was about to go on, but Molly spoke up before he could ask the next question. ‘You say it was all for nothing, Mrs Lodge. Why was that?’

  ‘Well, somebody had been in and slopped it all over the table, and the cloth I’d put over it had fallen in,’ the housekeeper said indignantly. ‘Found it first thing this morning. And water on the floor as well. I could have slipped and killed myself on those wet tiles.’