by Frank Smith
‘What about his car?’
‘Still missing,’ Tregalles said. ‘He still insists that it was stolen. We know he’s lying, but it’s impossible to prove.’
‘What about the jewellery? Did you get anywhere with that?’
‘No.’ Tregalles grimaced in disgust. ‘In fact,’ he said sarcastically, ‘Conroy said he was horrified to think that Toni would stoop so low as to steal jewellery from her own mother, probably to be used as payment for drugs, especially when he was doing his best to help her break the habit.’
Tregalles spread his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘So I had to leave it there,’ he said. ‘We didn’t have enough evidence to justify a warrant to search Conroy’s flat and business premises for stolen jewellery, but if they can find his Jag and we can match the paint on the car to the paint on the water tank, we’d have a better chance. However, McLean promised to keep looking for the car, and he’s going to keep in touch.’
‘Why is McLean being so helpful?’ Paget asked. ‘I’m sure they’re not short of work in the Borough of Lambeth, unless things have changed a lot since I was in the Met.’
‘Oh, he has his own agenda all right,’ Tregalles said. ‘He made no bones about that. The man they really want is Aaron Webb. According to McLean, Webb is into smuggling, human trafficking and prostitution, but they haven’t been able to lay a finger on him, and they see this as a chance to get at him through Conroy. They need leverage, and if we’re successful in nailing Conroy, they want to make a deal with us to drop the charges if Conroy agrees to become their informant.’
Paget grunted. ‘I can’t say I’m not sympathetic,’ he said, ‘but they’ll have to sort that one out with the CPS if we ever get to the point where we can charge the man. But don’t discourage McLean. We can use all the help we can get.’
He looked at the paperwork piled up on his desk, and sighed. ‘Meanwhile, let’s concentrate on what we have here,’ he said. ‘I’d like to go back out there myself, but I can’t ignore this lot any longer. So I want you to go out to the manor and have another go at Paul Bromley. Len phoned me last night to say he’d managed to track down this man Williams. Remember him? The client Paul Bromley said he was with last Friday in Oxford?’
Tregalles nodded. ‘What about him?’
‘Williams says Paul did show him some property, but it wasn’t last Friday. It was last Tuesday.’
Tregalles scowled. ‘Didn’t he think we would check? The man must think we’re idiots.’ Then, ‘Okay,’ he said wearily, ‘I’ll talk to him again. I can hardly wait to hear what his explanation will be this time.’
‘Better take someone with you,’ Paget told him. ‘Mr Brock told me again yesterday that the Bromleys aren’t very happy about our continued presence at the manor, and he would prefer that we leave them alone. I told him we would as soon as they stopped lying to us, and I’m convinced that they had nothing to do with the murder of Toni Halliday. There’s been no formal complaint from Charles Bromley, but I think it would be best if there were two of you out there in case he does, so take Forsythe with you.
‘Just one more thing while you’re out there this morning,’ he continued as Tregalles got to his feet. ‘Grace realized last night that her steel measuring tape is missing from her kit, and she remembers leaving it on the seat of the old tractor in the barn. She was planning on going out to look for it this evening, but since you are going out there, perhaps you could pick it up it and save her a trip?’
‘No problem,’ Tregalles told him. He paused in the doorway. ‘I don’t suppose there’s been anything new on Gwyneth Jones while I was away?’
‘Afraid not,’ Paget said soberly. ‘We put out another appeal last night, but . . .’ He shook his head, stopping short of putting into words what was in both their minds.
Tregalles drove out of Broadminster under lowering skies. It had rained during the night, and the sky couldn’t seem to make up its mind whether to clear or not. But it was a relief from the on-again, off-again heat of the past few days, and for that he was grateful. In a strange sort of way it reflected his mood, because he couldn’t help thinking about what could happen if Paget did get the super’s job. Where would that leave him, he wondered? And who would he find himself working for?
He ran over the possibilities in his mind, but none of them held much appeal. Come to that, if another DI or DCI came in, he might bring his own sergeant with him, and where would that leave him?
He should have listened to Paget when he’d first suggested that he give some thought to promotion. That was almost a year ago, he thought guiltily, and things might have been different now if he had taken Paget’s advice seriously. But he’d balked at the idea of having to devote what could amount to hundreds of hours of study on his own time, when he was spending little enough time with Audrey and the kids as it was, and the kids were growing up fast.
On the other hand, did he really want to remain a sergeant for the rest of his working life? Because the longer he put it off, the more likely it was that notes such as ‘lacks ambition’ would start showing up in his annual reviews, and he would end up working for some smart-arsed youngster who had leap-frogged over him on his way to the top.
Len Ormside had done it. He’d remained a sergeant and was quite content doing the job he was doing. In fact he’d made a unique niche for himself, and was respected for it. But Ormside was an exception, and Tregalles couldn’t see himself in that sort of role. In the end, of course, it was down to him, and the one thing he couldn’t afford to ignore was the effect his decision would have on his pension. What with the mortgage on the house, the kids growing up, and probably going on to university, he wasn’t putting much by for the future, and the way David Cameron was going on, he’d be lucky if there was any old age pension left by the time he needed it.
Tregalles sighed heavily as he pulled up outside the church hall in Hallows End. The sun broke through the clouds; the sky was clearing, but the thoughts inside the sergeant’s head were anything but clear.
Molly Forsythe was waiting for him when Tregalles entered the church hall. She looked very smart in her plain white blouse, navy jacket and skirt. He studied her as she slung her handbag over her shoulder and came forward to meet him, and it struck him that there was something different about her. It wasn’t so much in the way she was dressed – Molly had always been well groomed and neatly dressed – as it was in her manner. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but somehow she was no longer simply DC Molly Forsythe, nice girl, willing worker, dependable, good figure, great legs. The woman walking toward him so confidently was soon-to-be-Detective Sergeant Forsythe. Still a nice girl and all those other things, but somehow sharper. In fact, very sharp indeed!
Perhaps a bit too sharp, he thought disconsolately. He knew that Paget had had his eye on Molly for some time now, and when he put that together with Paget’s ‘suggestion’ that it might be time for him to tackle the inspectors’ exam, he couldn’t help wondering what would happen if Paget didn’t get the superintendent’s job. Would Molly Forsythe become Paget’s first choice as sergeant?
‘Well, Sergeant?’ said Molly as she came up to him. ‘Why do I have the feeling that I’ve just been through an airport body scanner and come up short?’ She looked down at herself, checking to make sure that everything was as it should be, then cocked a quizzical eye in Tregalles’s direction. ‘Is there something wrong?’ she asked seriously.
He shook his head. ‘Just admiring the outfit,’ Tregalles said glibly. ‘New, is it? To impress the new boyfriend, the doctor without borders?’
‘The answer is no to both questions,’ Molly told him. ‘And a real detective would have remembered that I’ve worn this very same combination at least twice in the last few weeks. Anyway,’ she continued quickly before he could respond, ‘I was told to drop whatever I was doing and wait for you. Is this about Paul Bromley lying about where he was last Friday? Sergeant Ormside said he’d been caught out, but he also said something abo
ut my being needed at the manor as a witness? Witness to what? I don’t understand? Are you going to arrest Paul Bromley?’
‘I’d like to arrest the lying bastard,’ Tregalles said darkly, ‘but it seems the Bromleys are “disturbed” by our continued presence there. We’re disrupting their ordered lives, so Paget wants someone else there as a witness so it won’t be just their word against mine if they do decide to make a formal complaint.
‘And speaking of Paget,’ he continued as they got in the car, ‘Grace Lovett left her steel measuring tape on the tractor seat in the barn the other day, and he wants us to pick it up for her. So I’ll drop you off at the entrance to the stable yard and you can nip over to the barn to look for it. But don’t waste time looking for it if it isn’t where she thinks she left it, because I want you with me when I talk to Paul.’
The smell of freshly turned earth hung in the air as Molly walked up the lane. She paused at the beginning of the track leading to the barn where Toni Halliday had been killed. She had not visited the crime scene itself before, although she’d driven past the track leading to it several times in the past few days. With the sound of birds chunnering softly in the background, and the distant thrum of a tractor going about its work, the place was so peaceful and serene, it was hard to believe that a cold-blooded murder had taken place in such a beautiful spot. Molly tried to visualise the scene at night in the pouring rain, but it just wouldn’t come into focus at all.
Except for patches of trampled grass and weeds around the door of the barn, all signs of a police presence were gone. The door swung open to her touch and she stepped inside, pausing for a moment to give her eyes time to adjust to the dim interior. Gradually, she became aware of light filtering through cracks where time and weather had warped the wooden walls. She wrinkled her nose at the odd, rancid smell of the place. It smelled like wet hay that had been left to rot.
The barn was cavernous, and it took her a moment or two to spot the tractor. It was half buried beneath a jumble of bits and pieces of farm machinery, and as she walked toward it she could see the tape measure on the seat. Molly picked it up and slipped it into her handbag, but as she started to turn away she became aware of a low buzzing sound close to her feet. She stepped back. It seemed to be coming from beneath a rusted sheet of corrugated iron. It sounded like a child’s electric toy, but that made no sense. Puzzled, she pulled at the heavy sheet. It didn’t budge. She pulled harder and suddenly it came free and she was surrounded by a cloud of flies.
And with the flies came the sickly smell she’d detected when she’d first entered the barn. Except now, it was ten times worse . . .
TWENTY-ONE
The crime-scene tapes were already in place by the time Paget arrived. Tregalles, who had been summoned from the manor by an urgent call from Molly, met Paget as he got out of the car.
‘No doubt about it,’ he said in answer to the DCI’s first question. ‘It’s Gwyneth Jones all right. Starkie’s still with the body. He believes she’s been dead for at least four or five days. It looks as if she was killed here in the barn, then dragged over to the side and covered with a sheet of corrugated iron. No sign of a weapon yet, but Starkie reckons she was hit several times by something flat and heavy like a metal bar.’
‘And it was Forsythe who found her?’ said Paget as they entered the barn.
Tregalles nodded. ‘While she was picking up the tape measure,’ he said. ‘She rang me straightaway and I came over and called you.’
Paget nodded absently as he took in the scene.
Dr Reg Starkie was sitting on the floor, back braced against a piece of farm machinery, while he filled in a form on a clipboard propped against his raised knees. In front of him, just inches from his feet, lay the body of Gwyneth Jones. She lay on her side, her face partly hidden. Blood, dark and crusted, matted her hair, and there were more dark stains on her clothing.
‘She was killed over there,’ said Starkie, pointing, ‘then dragged here. Cause of death, unless the post mortem proves otherwise, was by blunt force trauma, and if it’s any consolation, she died quickly. I suspect the first blow killed her, and the rest of the blows were delivered as she lay on the floor. I imagine the killer simply wanted to make sure that she was dead before dragging her over here. As for the weapon,’ he continued with a sweeping look around the barn, ‘it was a flat metal bar three to four centimetres in width, and judging by the bits and pieces I see lying around here, the killer had plenty of choice.’
Paget continued to stare down at the body. ‘Any bruising or signs of a struggle?’ he asked.
Starkie shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I’d say she was taken completely by surprise.’
‘The question is,’ said Paget slowly, ‘how did she get back up here?’ It was a rhetorical question, and the others remained silent as he continued the line of thought. ‘She was last seen near the bottom of the hill by WPC Short, who told her that Farnsworth was dead, and that must have shaken her up. But why would she come back up here?’
His eyes swept over the jumble of abandoned equipment stacked against the walls. ‘And where is her bike?’ he asked, turning to Tregalles. ‘It may be a long shot, but it might tell us something. If the body was hidden here, why not the bike? And I want you to talk to WPC Short again,’ he said as they moved away. ‘Find out what Gwyneth was wearing when she saw her on Friday night, and let’s see if it matches what she is wearing now.’
Molly lingered behind. She found it hard to tear her gaze away from Gwyneth’s face. So young, so . . .
‘Would you hand me my case, please, Molly? It is Molly, isn’t it?’
It took her a moment for the words to sink in. The pathologist had never called her by her first name before, in fact she couldn’t remember him calling her anything at all.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said. She handed him the case. Starkie nodded his thanks, and Molly was about to turn away when he spoke again. ‘I was wondering,’ he said hesitantly, ‘if you’d heard anything from David? We haven’t, you see, and Ellen, my wife, was wondering this morning if he might have rung or emailed you. He’s talked a lot about you these past few days. Mind you, considering he only left yesterday, and between the time difference and jet lag et cetera, I don’t suppose he’s had much chance to call anyone.’
Time difference? Jet lag? ‘I’m sorry, Doctor,’ Molly said, ‘but I don’t know what you’re talking about. When I saw David the other night, he didn’t say anything about going away. In fact, we’d arranged to go out tomorrow night. You say he left yesterday? And there’s a time difference? Where did he go?’
The pathologist grimaced apologetically. ‘Sorry,’ he said brusquely, ‘but since he had mentioned going out with you again this week, I thought he might have let you know. But then, everything was done in such a rush, so he probably didn’t have time. He’s gone to Hong Kong.’
‘Hong Kong?’ she repeated dazedly. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Why hadn’t David said something? Had he been offered another job? Or called back to his old one? Molly suddenly felt cold. She’d only been out with David Chen a couple of times, but she’d felt a spark there, and she had been almost sure that he’d felt the same. Now she didn’t know what to think.
Starkie scrambled to his feet and dusted himself off. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I should have explained. I don’t know how much of his past life David’s told you, but it’s Meilan, his ex-wife. She lives in Hong Kong. She was cycling to work the other morning when she was knocked down by a van. She’s in hospital, and her condition is critical, in fact she’s not expected to live. Which is why David left in such a hurry. And if that does prove to be the case, he may be away for some time while he sorts out what is going to happen to their daughter, Lijuan. She’s going on fourteen, so it won’t be an easy task.’
Molly drew a deep breath and said, ‘I see.’ But she didn’t see at all. Ex-wife? Hong Kong? And a teenage daughter? None of this had come up in conversation, and Molly c
ouldn’t help wondering if David had ever intended to tell her about them.
‘Is he . . .?’ she began, only to be interrupted by Paget raising his voice to say, ‘If you’re finished over there, Forsythe, you’re with me at the manor.’
‘Right away, sir,’ Molly called back. With an apologetic shrug toward Starkie, she turned to leave, but Starkie stayed her by putting a hand on her arm. ‘You will let us know if you hear from him, won’t you?’ he asked anxiously. ‘David has been more like a son than a nephew to us since his parents died, and we’ve always got on well with Meilan and Lijuan.’
‘I will, of course,’ Molly assured him, then almost ran across the floor to join Paget and Tregalles.
‘You were deep in conversation over there,’ Paget observed. ‘Did you learn anything new?’
Anything new? Molly had the wild desire to laugh out loud, but smothered the impulse with a cough before saying, ‘No, sir, I’m afraid not.’ To cover her confusion, she opened her handbag and handed him the metal tape.
Paget thanked her, but his mind was on other things as he looked around the barn. ‘No point in wasting any more time here,’ he said, ‘so let’s move on.’ He led the way out of the barn and set off at a brisk pace down the track with Molly and Tregalles trailing along behind. ‘What’s happening?’ Molly asked Tregalles with a nod toward Paget. ‘I thought you and I were supposed to be at the manor.’
Tregalles made a face. ‘Apparently Mr Brock thinks the Bromleys should be interviewed by someone of a higher rank than a mere detective sergeant, so I’m being sent off to break the news to Gwyneth’s mother and talk to WPC Short, while you get to go to the manor with the boss.’ He sounded bitter.