by Frank Smith
‘You might check with Lambeth to see what this man, Conroy, drives,’ Paget suggested.
‘Thought you’d never get round to it,’ Ormside said, sounding smug. ‘Conroy drives – or used to drive – a two-year-old silver Jag, but he reported it stolen last Friday. He said he wasn’t exactly sure when it went missing, but it could have been the night before. Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?’
‘Coincidence indeed,’ Paget agreed. ‘I suppose it’s too soon to expect anything back from Forensic on the paint the car left on the water tank?’
‘Nothing yet, no, but I’ll keep after them. But there is one other thing before you go. I don’t know if you’ve been up the track beyond the barn where Toni Halliday was found, but there’s a caravan in a field up there. It’s owned by a woman by the name of Vanessa King. Makes pottery and jewellery and stuff like that and sells it at the local markets. Mid-thirties or thereabouts, and a bit of a free spirit, according to local gossip, if you know what I mean. Seems to have a few men friends who stop by fairly regularly.
‘Anyway, when one of my men stopped in there to ask if she knew anything that might help us find Gwyneth Jones, she happened to mention that Farnsworth had been with her the evening of the murder. Seems he was a regular, but she didn’t like him very much. She said he was a cocky bastard, boasting about going to meet his new “little beauty” when he left her that night, but he wouldn’t tell her who she was. Miss King said he told her he’d arranged to meet the girl at eight, but he deliberately stayed on until after half past, saying that she’d be all the more ready for it if he kept her waiting.’
‘Charming fellow,’ Paget observed, ‘but true to form by the sound of it.’
‘So,’ Ormside continued, ‘I reckon he must have been on his way down to the barn when he was hit by a car backing into the lane from the barn, which would explain why he was found where he was.’
‘Good work, Len,’ said Paget, and was about to hang up when he paused. ‘I was going to wait for the results from Forensic before sending someone up to London, but if they’re that keen to help us, perhaps we should get someone up there straightaway. So I’d like you to set something up with this DS McLean, then have Tregalles call me. You can tell him he’s won a free trip to London, all expenses paid . . . within reason, of course.’
‘Let’s leave the washing up and take our wine outside and watch the sun go down,’ Grace suggested when they’d finished dinner. ‘The nights are pulling in so fast, I don’t know where the summer’s gone.’
The sun was warm on their faces as they settled into lawn chairs, content to enjoy the quiet of the evening while they watched shadows deepen in the valleys and hilltops turn to gold.
‘You were very quiet during dinner,’ said Grace. ‘I take it you still don’t know what’s happened to Gwyneth Jones?’
Paget shook his head. ‘We’ve had any number of so-called sightings,’ he said, ‘but nothing solid, I’m afraid.’
‘You don’t think she’s run away, do you?’
‘I keep trying to convince myself that she has, but from what we know of her and what her mother tells us, she had nowhere to go. She’s always lived at home; never travelled to any degree, and there are no close relatives or special friends she might go to. She has a small savings account, which hasn’t been touched; she has two credit cards, neither of which have been used in the past week, and she has little if any money. So, if she was in the barn when Toni Halliday was killed, and the killer found out . . .’ He didn’t finish the sentence, but the bleak look in his eyes more than expressed what he was thinking.
‘I should have pushed her harder,’ he said tightly, annoyed with himself for not having done so. ‘I knew she was holding something back; I knew she was lying when I asked her why she’d been crying, but I thought it best to come back to that later when we knew more.’ He sipped his wine. ‘And now it may be too late,’ he muttered angrily.
‘Or not!’ Grace said, ‘so don’t go blaming yourself for something that isn’t your fault. You did what you thought best at the time, and Gwyneth Jones made a conscious decision to withhold vital information.’ She left her chair and squatted down beside him to slip an arm around his shoulders. ‘I know how you must feel,’ she said softly, ‘but it really isn’t your fault, Neil. We make decisions as best we can with the information we have, but we can’t get it right every time. It’s a fact of life, love, so stop beating yourself up over it and move on. The girl may be fine – scared, perhaps, but all right.’
But even as she spoke the words of reassurance, Grace couldn’t avoid the feeling that Neil might well be right. And if he was . . .? That was something she didn’t want to think about.
‘At least we have a lead to the man Toni Halliday’s been meeting each week,’ he said, and went on to tell Grace about his conversation with Ormside. ‘So I’m sending Tregalles up to London in the morning to talk to this man Conroy,’ he concluded.
‘You’re assuming that since Toni’s last call was to Conroy, he was the one she was expecting to pick her up?’
‘Right.’
‘So the next question is: was she alive or dead when he got there?’
‘And if she was alive, did he kill her?’
Grace thought about that. ‘I’d be inclined to say no,’ she said. ‘I think she was dead when he got there, but he may have been the one who searched her things.’
‘Reason?’ Paget prompted.
‘It’s just an idea,’ Grace hedged, ‘but if Toni was stealing her mother’s jewellery, she had to be passing it on to someone, and that someone could have been Conroy. And if she’d told him she would be bringing more with her, he wouldn’t have wanted to leave without it.’
‘But he didn’t find it,’ Paget pointed out.
‘Because he was either fussy about digging into Toni’s dirty laundry, or he was frightened off before he found it.’
‘Then took off in such a hurry that he ran Farnsworth down.’ Paget supplied. ‘But why do you say you don’t think Conroy killed Toni?’
‘Because of the green paint,’ Grace said. ‘There was green paint on the handle of the sickle, and that could have only come from inside the house, which is where I believe you will find your killer.’
‘I agree,’ he said with a sigh, ‘but proving it may be difficult. Brock almost has a fit every time I talk to a member of the Bromley family. Between that and our chief constable having friendly chats with Charles Bromley, it won’t be easy.
‘However, enough of that,’ he concluded firmly. ‘Take a look at this.’ He drew a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Grace.
She unfolded it and scanned the contents, then began to read aloud.
‘Interviews for the position of Detective Superintendent CID, A Division, Broadminster, will take place Tuesday, thirteenth of September, beginning at ten a.m. in Conference Room Two, Westvale Police Headquarters, Twelve New Street, Broadmins—’ She stopped short. ‘That’s tomorrow for heaven’s sake!’ Frowning, she scanned the page more closely. ‘It sounds as if there are other candidates, but it doesn’t give any names, except yours, and you’re first up at ten tomorrow morning. What’s going on, Neil? Who are the other candidates? And when did you get this?’
‘No idea,’ he said. ‘And it came in just before four thirty this afternoon. Faxed over from New Street. In fact if it had come in a few minutes later, Fiona would have been gone and I might not have seen it until tomorrow.’
‘So what’s Brock playing at?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Haven’t a clue,’ he said. ‘As for the other candidates, I expect old Tom Rudd from B Division will have put his name in as he has on just about every other posting, but he’s just looking to boost his pension before he goes, and everybody knows it. Apart from that, I’ve heard nothing.’
‘So the job should be yours – assuming you still want it?’
‘I’ve been in two minds about it, as you know,’ he said, ‘but I’ve dec
ided to go for it. To be honest, Grace, I’m still not thrilled about some aspects of the job, but at least at that level I would have more authority than I do now, and there are a lot of things I would like to see changed.’
Grace tugged on his hand to pull him to his feet, then held out her glass. ‘In that case, good luck to you, love,’ she said. ‘I think you will make a marvellous superintendent, so let’s drink to it.’
NINETEEN
Tuesday, September 13th
Wearing his visitor’s badge, Tregalles was escorted through the corridors of the Kennington Police Station to the desk of DS George McLean, a balding, ruddy-faced man, who looked surprised to see him.
‘You’re an early bird,’ he said as he got up to shake hands, then waved Tregalles to a seat. ‘I didn’t expect to see you until later in the day.’
‘I came up last night to give myself more time here,’ Tregalles told him. ‘Why, is it a problem?’
It had been a spur of the moment decision. Not thrilled about the prospect of having to get up at five in the morning, he’d decided it would be simpler to leave that evening, so he’d driven to Birmingham and caught the 20.10 train out of New Street.
‘Not for me,’ McLean assured him. He grinned. ‘But I doubt if Conroy will be too pleased. He doesn’t usually leave the casino till two or three in the morning, and he’s rarely up before nine or ten, so perhaps we can catch him off guard.’ He leaned back in his chair and joined his hands behind his head. ‘Funny how things work out, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘As I told you on the phone yesterday, we don’t have anything on Conroy himself, but we do know that it was Aaron Webb who put up the money for the casino. We’ve wondered how we might get at Webb through Conroy, and now here you are from the back of beyond saying Conroy could be a murderer. This could be just what we’re looking for.’
‘I’m not sure we can go quite as far as that,’ Tregalles said cautiously. ‘We think we can put him at the scene, and we think he was at least partly responsible for the death of an ex army officer. But whether he killed Toni Halliday or not is still open to question.’
‘But more than enough reason to bring him in for questioning,’ McLean said decisively. He got to his feet. ‘And there’s no time like the present, so let’s have him in.’
‘I told you before, I don’t need a solicitor, because I haven’t done anything wrong,’ Conroy said when McLean asked him for a second time.
Slightly taller than Tregalles, Simon Conroy was a slim, lean-bodied man, but judging by his upper arms, he was into lifting weights in a serious way. Tanned and wearing a T-shirt, slacks, and sandals, Conroy looked younger than the thirty-seven years McLean’s fact sheet on the man showed him to be.
‘And I still don’t know why I’m here,’ Conroy continued as he took his seat facing the two sergeants across the table. ‘I told you, as far as Toni Halliday is concerned, she’s past history. Yes, we lived together for a while, but she took off months ago, and that’s the last I’ve seen of her.’
‘Or spoken to her?’ Tregalles asked.
Conroy hesitated. ‘She did ring me once or twice,’ he admitted, ‘but it was nothing—’
‘Why’d she ring you, then, if it was nothing?’ McLean broke in quickly. ‘There must have been a reason.’
Conroy looked pained. ‘She . . . she wanted us to get back together again,’ he said, ‘but I’d had enough of her tantrums and wild behaviour when we lived together, which is why I finally kicked her out. I couldn’t take it any more, so I told her I didn’t want to see her again until she was off the drugs and straightened herself out. Why, what’s she done, and why are you asking me all these questions?’
‘When was the last time she rang you?’ Tregalles countered.
‘Sometime last week. Wednesday, maybe Thursday, I don’t remember exactly. She was rambling; I’m sure she was high, so I cut her off.’
‘How long was that before you killed her?’ McLean demanded, jumping in ahead of Tregalles once again.
‘Killed . . .?’ Conroy pulled back, eyes narrowed as he looked at each of them in turn. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, ‘but if Toni is dead, this is the first I’ve heard about it. I told you, I haven’t seen her since—’
‘Last Thursday when you went to pick her up at Bromley Manor,’ Tregalles broke in with a warning glance in McLean’s direction. No doubt McLean thought he was being helpful, but he was pushing too hard, and his role was supposed to be that of an observer, even if they were on his patch.
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Conroy scoffed. ‘As I’ve told you several times already, I’ve had phone calls from her, but I have no idea where she is . . . or was, if she really is dead. And if she is, I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Then let me show you these,’ Tregalles said as he took a couple of pictures from an envelope and held them up. ‘Copies of these pictures of you and Toni Halliday are being shown to the manager and staff of The Latch even as we speak. It’s an inn just off the Bromyard Road near Worcester,’ he explained for McLean’s benefit, ‘where you and Toni Halliday have been meeting every couple of weeks since she left London. And we know that Toni rang you to ask you to pick her up the night she was killed. So why don’t we start again, Mr Conroy? But let’s have the truth this time.’
TWENTY
Wednesday, September 14th
Paget had been hard at work for more than an hour, when he looked up to see Tregalles standing in the open doorway. ‘Clearing out the desk, then, are we?’ the sergeant asked with a nod toward the stack of folders on Paget’s desk. ‘For the move upstairs,’ he elaborated when Paget looked puzzled. ‘That is what the interview was about, wasn’t it?’
‘I thought you were in London all day yesterday,’ said Paget, avoiding the question.
‘I was, but I don’t think I was more than ten feet inside the door this morning before I heard they’d been doing interviews in New Street yesterday for the super’s job, and I half expected to find you upstairs this morning – sir!’
Tregalles moved into the office and sat down. ‘Seriously though, boss, how did it go?’
Good question, thought Paget. The board had consisted of Chief Constable Sir Robert Wyckham, Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Drummond, and Chief Superintendent Morgan Brock. Ordinarily, the third seat would have been occupied by a superintendent, but there had been no one available, so Brock was sitting in instead.
At least that was what they had told him.
Sir Robert, a lean, athletic-looking man, whose iron-grey hair and chiselled features always showed well on TV, opened the interview by asking Paget about his experience in the Met before coming to Broadminster, and went on to comment favourably on his clear-up rate since joining the Westvale Regional Constabulary. He’d asked why Paget felt he was qualified for the job, and what he would like to see changed or improved if he were given free rein, and seemed satisfied with Paget’s answers.
DCC Drummond had grilled him on everything from the way he’d handled specific cases in the past, and what he might have done differently in retrospect. He’d been asked for his thoughts on police policies and regulations. He and Brock between them had quizzed him on his knowledge of the law; PACE and the rules pertaining to the questioning of suspects and witnesses; rules of evidence, as well as his thoughts on what the relationship should be between his department, the public, the media and the CPS. There had even been questions on what his response would be, as Detective Superintendent – Crime, to a variety of situations involving terrorists, ethnic groups, and hostage situations.
Inevitably, Brock had concentrated on the importance of records and documentation; the use of civilian staff to cut costs; minimizing overtime; in fact all things financial so dear to the chief superintendent’s heart.
It had been a gruelling morning, and he was glad it was behind him.
‘I have no idea,’ he said in answer to Tregalles’s question. ‘I’ll just have to wait and see.’
Tregall
es frowned. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘I mean, who else is there besides you? Did Rudd go for it again? Not that he’d stand a chance with his record, so was there anyone else?’
‘Honestly, Tregalles, I really don’t know,’ Paget told him, ‘so let’s leave it there. How did you get on in London? Local police helpful, were they?’
‘Couldn’t have asked for better,’ Tregalles told him. ‘I don’t think I was there more than five minutes before DS McLean had Conroy brought in for questioning, he was that keen.’
‘And Conroy?’
‘Denied everything at first, then changed his story when he realized we knew about The Latch and his visits there, and the phone calls, but he insisted that the reason he came down here to meet with Toni Halliday was because he felt sorry for her, and he was trying to help her.’
‘By keeping her supplied with drugs?’
‘Just the opposite, according to him. To hear Conroy tell it, he was there to save her. He said Toni went to stay with her mother to put herself as far away as possible from the temptation of drugs. But she found she couldn’t manage it on her own, and she kept calling for him to come and help her through it.’
‘How very noble of him,’ said Paget. ‘What did he have to say about the series of calls Toni made to him right up till the time she died?’
‘Oh, he had an answer for that as well. He admitted that she’d called him; he even admitted that she wanted him to come and get her and take her back to London, but when she told him about the accident and the reason she was running away, he told her she would only make matters worse if she ran away, and refused to help her. Besides, he said he was back in London by that time, and his staff at the casino would testify that he was there from seven o’clock on that night. Unfortunately for him, his story fell apart when I told him the record showed that the last calls recorded between him and Toni showed they were both in the same area. That’s when he decided not to say any more without his lawyer present.’