by Frank Smith
‘Oh, no!’ She seemed shocked by the suggestion.
‘But there have been other women?’
‘Yes.’ Mrs Farnsworth struggled to her feet to busy herself with the teapot, refilling first his cup and then her own. It was a familiar routine and it gave her time to think and compose herself before settling back in her chair.
‘I don’t know how I can explain this, to you,’ she said at last, ‘but Adrian needed . . . reassurance. He needed other women, Chief Inspector, and, terrible as it may sound, I had come to accept that. We never spoke of it, you understand. In fact in his own way he tried to be discreet about it.’
Harriett Farnsworth smiled sadly.
‘He wasn’t very good at it. I had thought – hoped, perhaps is a better word – it might end when we came down here to live. Living in the country; not knowing anyone. It’s different when you’re in the army. It can be a dreadfully dull existence for wives, and there are always some who . . . Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what it’s like.’
Harriett Farnsworth sighed wearily. ‘But it didn’t end, you see. When he started going for these two-, three-, and four-hour walks in the evenings, I knew it was all a nonsense, and nothing had changed. Walking the dog was just an excuse.’
‘Did you ever actually see him with any of these young women?’ Paget asked.
‘No. But I didn’t have to see them. Adrian was not a clever man; not really. It never seemed to occur to him that I would notice the smell of cheap perfume on his clothes – he always bought them perfume; always the same cheap brand, and lipstick.’
She shuddered. ‘I hated doing his laundry. In fact I didn’t in the end. I sent it out. Told him I couldn’t do it because of my arthritis.’ Tears glistened in her eyes.
‘You don’t know who your husband was seeing that night?’ Paget said.
‘No. I knew he was seeing someone because of the way he got himself up. It was a sort of ritual with him. I could always tell.’
‘Do you know Gwyneth Jones? She’s a maid up at the manor.’
Mrs Farnsworth frowned at the question. ‘Yes, I think I know the girl you mean. She lives in the village. I’ve seen her riding her bike back and forth to work.’
‘Did you happen to see her last night, say just after eight o’clock?’
‘No, that would be about the time the car came for me . . .’ She stopped, her eyes suddenly focussed intently on his face. ‘Are you saying that she was the one he was seeing? That young girl?’
‘We believe so, based on the evidence we have so far,’ Paget said. ‘We think that Gwyneth Jones and the major were in the barn when Toni Halliday was murdered.’
‘But they said he was hit by a car outside on the track. I saw him there myself.’
‘That’s right, he was,’ Paget agreed, ‘and we’re not quite sure why, unless he ran out and tried to stop the person from getting away.’
‘I doubt if he’d do that,’ Mrs Farnsworth said, ‘not if he was with a young woman. He’d try to stay out of it. What does the girl have to say?’
‘That’s the problem I’m afraid,’ said Paget. ‘Gwyneth Jones has disappeared.’
‘Disappeared? You mean she’s run away?’
‘We don’t know, Mrs Farnsworth. That’s what we’re trying to find out. We know she left the manor about eight last night. One of the cottagers up the lane saw her go by, but she never arrived home.’
‘Oh, dear. I am sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you. I think I’ve told you everything I know.’
He rose to his feet and thanked her. ‘If you should think of anything else, you will let me know?’
‘Of course. I shall be gone for a few days next week,’ she said. ‘Adrian’s parents live in Worthing and he will be buried there, but I’ll be back by the end of the week.’
Paget felt uncomfortable about leaving her. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’
Mrs Farnsworth smiled. ‘You’re very kind,’ she said, ‘but I shall be all right here by myself. I’m quite used to it.’
Having no transport of his own, Tregalles asked Molly for a lift into Clunbridge for his appointment with Dr Lockwood. ‘In fact, you might as well sit in,’ he told her, ‘and you can give me a ride home when we’re finished.’
Dressed in a white shirt, baggy shorts and trainers, Dr Steven Lockwood was not quite what Tregalles had expected. He’d pictured a bigger man, tall, good looking, dark hair, a ladies’ man, but Lockwood couldn’t have been more than five seven or eight. Sandy hair, thinning slightly, pale skin and faintly freckled face, in appearance he was a lightweight. But there was a vibrancy and quiet confidence about the man that went beyond his otherwise rather ordinary appearance.
‘Playing mixed doubles at four, so I am a bit pressed for time,’ he explained after introductions had been made and they had their drinks in front of them. A pint of Wood’s Special Bitter for Tregalles, a lager for Lockwood, and an orange juice for Molly, the designated driver. ‘So how can I help?’
Tregalles took the doctor through the events of Thursday evening at the manor. There were no surprises; Lockwood’s account tallied closely with that of Charles Bromley and the others. ‘So what did you do once Nash was off the premises?’ he asked.
‘I went to see a patient in the village,’ Lockwood said.
‘A bit unusual, wasn’t it?’ Tregalles asked. ‘I mean, it was in the middle of the evening.’
Lockwood shook his head. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘At least not for me. Mary Catchpole is ninety-three and dying. She should really be in care, but she refuses to leave her cottage, and she still manages to take care of herself with the help of a very good neighbour. It was the neighbour who rang to tell me that Mary had cut herself on the door latch when she was letting the cat out, and she asked me to come. Mary’s on blood thinners, you see, and the cut was rather a bad one and wouldn’t stop bleeding.’
‘So what time did you leave there?’ Tregalles asked.
Lockwood thought. ‘Must have been close to nine,’ he said.
‘And Mrs Catchpole will be able to verify that, will she?’
The corners of Lockwood’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘She was asleep when I left her.’
‘You came back up Manor Lane, did you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did you see anyone or anything out of the ordinary along the way?’
Lockwood shook his head, then stopped. ‘I saw young Julian just before I got to the Clunbridge road. He was coming down while I was going up. At least, I’m pretty sure it was Julian. He was running, trying to get out of the rain I expect.’
‘Are you quite sure you didn’t see or meet anyone else, Doctor?’ Molly asked gently, speaking up for the first time.
Lockwood eyed her speculatively as if trying to decide how much she might know, then sighed. ‘I assume you are asking if I saw Margaret,’ he said, ‘and the answer is yes, I did. As I’m sure you know, she’d sprained her ankle, she was soaking wet and hobbling, so I stopped and gave her a lift. I offered to come in with her and attend to the ankle when we got to the manor, but she insisted that I drop her at the entrance to the stables. She said she could manage that short stretch on her own, and Charles would take care of it. I didn’t like to do that, because she was clearly in pain, but she insisted. Does that answer your question, Detective?’
‘Yes, it does . . . but why didn’t you mention it when Sergeant Tregalles asked if you had seen anyone on your way up Manor Lane?’
‘I think you will agree,’ Tregalles cut in before Lockwood could frame a reply, ‘that it does seem a bit of a coincidence that you and Mrs Bromley just happened to be in Manor Lane at the same time. And, despite a severely sprained ankle, she was prepared to hobble from the stables to the house rather than risk the chance of being seen getting out of your car.’
Lockwood sighed. ‘I can see now why Margaret insisted on getting out of the car when she did,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t take much
to set tongues wagging around here, and it sounds to me as if you’ve bought into the local gossip, so I doubt if anything I have to say will make any difference.’ He drained his glass and put both hands on the table as if about to rise.
‘Try me,’ Tregalles said. ‘How would you describe your relationship with Mrs Bromley?’
Lockwood started to shake his head, then changed his mind. ‘All right,’ he said, settling back into his seat. ‘First and foremost, Margaret Bromley is a patient I am trying to help under somewhat difficult circumstances. She is also a friend, as is Charles, so I am more than willing to spend as much time as it takes to find the cause of her problem.’
The doctor eyed them both for several seconds before leaning forward and lowering his voice. ‘Look,’ he said earnestly, ‘I’m not in the habit of discussing my patients’ problems with others, but I want you to understand why I spend as much time as possible at the manor. Margaret suffers from severe headaches, and brief lapses of memory, which I’m sure you will have observed if you’ve spent any time with her. When she appeared to have suffered a mild stroke six months ago, we got her into the Brideshill Clinic immediately. They did all the tests, but found nothing to confirm that, nor could they find anything physically wrong with her, so they sent her home, and Charles and I have been working together ever since, trying to find an answer to these odd symptoms.’
‘But there must be more tests that can be done,’ said Molly. ‘Aren’t there specialists Mrs Bromley could go to?’
Lockwood nodded. ‘There are,’ he said. ‘In fact, there are several options, but Margaret refuses to have anything to do with any of them.’
‘Why not?’ Tregalles asked bluntly.
Lockwood hesitated. ‘I think it’s because she’s afraid of what they might find,’ he said, ‘and if you want to know any more I suggest you ask Mrs Bromley. However, I should warn you that it is a very touchy subject with her, so unless it is really relevant to your investigation, I suggest you avoid it.’
‘And this has been going on for six months?’
‘The first occurrence, attack, or whatever it was happened then,’ Lockwood said, ‘but then there was a lull. In fact we thought it was just a one-off aberration. But then it started up again a couple of months ago, and it’s been happening on and off ever since. It’s erratic. Sometimes Margaret will go days at a time and feel perfectly fine, then suddenly it’s back again.’ Lockwood looked at his watch and got to his feet. ‘And now I’m afraid I really must be off,’ he said. ‘I hope I’ve been of some help’.
EIGHTEEN
Monday, September 12th
The day did not start well for Paget. He spent the morning in court waiting to give evidence in a particularly brutal grievous bodily harm case that had taken more than six months to come to trial, only to see the case dismissed on a legal technicality. Hundreds of hours of police work down the drain because of a series of mistakes that, individually, wouldn’t have mattered very much, but, collectively, they were enough for the defence to argue successfully for dismissal.
Which was why he was not in the best of moods when he returned to the office to find a fax from Morgan Brock on his desk, telling him that a meeting, which had been scheduled for later in the week, had been brought forward to this afternoon. The subject – the examination of the new rules proposed by the Home Office on the treatment of members of identifiable ethnic and/or religious groups before, during, and after arrest – did nothing to improve his sour mood.
Muttering beneath his breath, he crumpled the message and tossed it in the bin beside his desk, then looked up to see a young policewoman standing in the doorway.
‘Yes?’ he said curtly.
The WPC hesitated, momentarily put off by his abrupt manner.
‘Well, Constable . . .?’ he prompted.
‘WPC Short,’ she said crisply. ‘I have information regarding the bulletin on Gwyneth Jones, sir.’
Paget looked at her blankly for a second, then, as what she’d said sank in, his face relaxed and he motioned her to come in. ‘Sorry,’ he apologized, ‘but it’s been one of those days. What’s this about Gwyneth?’
‘It’s just that I saw her on Friday night while we were on our way to pick up Mrs Farnsworth. Gwyneth was in the lane outside Mrs Farnsworth’s house.’
‘On Friday . . .?’
The girl caught the implied criticism in his voice. ‘I was away camping on the weekend,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know Gwyneth was missing until I saw the bulletin just now. I came over straightaway, sir.’
‘Are you a friend of Gwyneth’s?’
‘We used to knock about together after we left school,’ she told him. ‘Then I moved away and we lost touch. Friday was the first time I’d seen her in several years.’
‘I see. Right. Tell me everything from the beginning.’
‘There isn’t much to tell, really, sir,’ Valerie said, and went on to describe her brief encounter with Gwyneth in Manor Lane.
‘Did she give you any idea – any indication at all as to where she was going?’
Valerie shook he head. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve told you everything she said.’
Paget tried not to look disappointed. ‘You say she was coming from the direction of the manor when you saw her? What time was that?’
Valerie Short already had her notebook out. ‘We arrived at the house at twenty fourteen,’ she said, ‘so it was two or three minutes before that.’
‘Did you see her leave?’
‘No, sir. She was still standing there when I got back in the car. It’s funny, though; she seemed quite shaken when I told her why we were there. She never used to be like that. Took everything in her stride. Funny how people change.’
It made perfect sense, though, if Gwyneth and the major had been lovers, Paget thought. He questioned Valerie Short closely, asking about mutual friends, places they might have visited together in the past, in fact anything at all that might give him a clue to Gwyneth’s present whereabouts, but she could add nothing of value to what she had already told him.
He looked at the time, then at the mound of paper awaiting his attention. ‘I want you to call Sergeant Ormside at the incident room in Hallows End,’ he said, ‘and tell him exactly what you’ve told me. And if there is anything, and I do mean anything you think of later, make sure you let him know. All right?’
‘Right, sir.’
‘Good. And thank you, Constable.’
In his mind’s eye he could see the entrance to Lower Farm, picture Gwyneth standing there, shaken by the news of Farnsworth’s death. God knows what thoughts were tumbling through her head as the police car disappeared from view. But what would she have done?
The answer most likely hinged on the answer to other questions, such as: had she been in the barn when Toni Halliday was murdered? If so, had she seen the killer? Because if she had, and the killer realized it . . .
He would have dearly loved to go out to Hallows End to look for the answer himself, but one look at the stack of papers awaiting his attention served as a sharp reminder that he no longer had that choice. It was a sobering thought, and one to consider seriously if he was to consider taking on Alcott’s old job.
After hearing from Valerie Short, Ormside and Tregalles were asking themselves the same questions, because they, too, thought it more than likely that Gwyneth Jones had been in the barn at the time of the murder.
‘So why didn’t Gwyneth simply tell us and save us all a lot of trouble?’ Tregalles grumbled.
‘And let everybody know she was having it off with a married man old enough to be her father?’ Ormside said. ‘To say nothing of becoming a suspect herself, since Toni Halliday had threatened to have her sacked.’
‘We didn’t know that until she told us herself though, did we?’ Tregalles objected.
‘On the other hand, she didn’t exactly volunteer the information, did she?’ Ormside countered. ‘According to what you told me, it was more or less dragged out of her.
And if she was in the barn when Toni Halliday was killed, and the killer knows it, I hope we find her before he does.’
Paget had just finished lunch at his desk, a ham-and-cheese sandwich from the cafeteria downstairs, when Ormside rang to say he’d received records of Toni Halliday’s mobile phone calls, and the last call she’d made before she died was to another mobile number registered to a man by the name of Simon Conroy, who lived in London. ‘In fact,’ Ormside said, ‘most of the calls she made while she was at the manor were to the same number. The Lambeth Borough Police say he has no form, but he is known to them. He first came to their notice when his name appeared on a licence for a casino called The Deep Six in Kennington. I spoke to a DS McLean in the Kennington nick, who told me that Conroy is acting for a man by the name of Aaron Webb, who is very well known to them. He said they’ve never been able to pin anything on Webb, but they’re sure he’s involved in smuggling and human trafficking, and if they could get something worthwhile on Conroy, they might be in with a chance on Webb. So McLean says they would be only too happy to work with us.
‘Toni Halliday also made a call every other Wednesday, to an inn called The Latch on the outskirts of Worcester, so I rang the manager there. He told me that she’d called to reserve a table for two in the dining room for Thursday lunchtime, and a room for two the same night.’
‘She stayed there overnight?’
‘Apparently not, because Mrs Lodge tells me that Toni always came back the same day, usually in time for dinner at seven.’
‘So the room was for . . .?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Ormside said, ‘but I wouldn’t mind betting we come up with the same answer.’
‘Did the manager know who the second person was?’ asked Paget.
‘Her husband,’ Ormside said drily. ‘He says she always booked in the name of Mr and Mrs Halliday and paid by credit card.’
‘Any description of the man?’
‘Pretty vague. Tallish, dark hair, that sort of thing,’ Ormside said, ‘but Lambeth is faxing us a picture of Conroy, so I’ll have someone show the pictures to the manager and staff of The Latch to see if we can jog a few memories. But the manager did remember one thing. He said the man drives a silver-coloured Jag, and I seem to remember Julian Bromley telling you that he was passed by a Jag in Manor Lane on his way back to the house the night the Halliday girl was killed.’