In The Shadow of Evil

by Frank Smith

  Paget continued to examine the hat. ‘Do you have any idea when this might have been put there?’ he asked Thorsen.

  The old man scratched his head. ‘Hard to say,’ he said slowly. ‘It was sort of stuffed underneath, down near the bottom, but it could’ve been any time.’

  ‘What would normally happen to the pile if you hadn’t had to move it?’

  ‘It’d be burnt come November,’ Thorsen told him.

  ‘Good job you were looking at it now, then,’ Paget said gratefully. ‘But please don’t do any more out there until I can arrange to have someone go through it to see if there is anything else to be found.’ He turned to Mrs Lodge. ‘Is Paul Bromley still in the house?’

  The corners of the housekeeper’s mouth turned down. ‘I think you might find him using Mr Charles’s computer in the library,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘You don’t approve, Mrs Lodge?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say, now is it, Chief Inspector?’ the housekeeper replied primly. ‘It’s just that I know Mr Charles doesn’t like him using it when he’s not here. I did mention it, but I might as well have saved my breath.’ She turned to leave.

  ‘Just one thing before you go, Mrs Lodge,’ he said. ‘Do you think you could find me a clean bin bag for this hat and coat? I’m afraid the bags I have with me aren’t quite big enough.’

  Paul Bromley looked up guiltily when Paget opened the library door without knocking, and walked straight in. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘I thought it might be Charles back early.’ His fingers slid across the keyboard and the screen went blank. ‘So what do you want this time? And what’s that in the bag? Your laundry?’

  ‘Something belonging to you, I believe,’ said Paget. He opened the bag and took out the hat and coat.

  ‘Looks like my hat,’ Paul agreed, ‘and I suppose it could be my coat. Where’d you find them?’

  ‘Under the pile of rubbish in the kitchen garden where you hid them,’ Paget told him.

  Paul shook his head. ‘I didn’t hide them anywhere,’ he said as he examined the coat more closely. ‘I thought I’d lost them. I’ve been looking everywhere for them.’

  ‘Since when, exactly?’

  ‘Since last Thursday night. I know I had them when I came down here that day, because I had to put them on to come from the car to the house when I arrived. It was a scorching hot day, but just as I arrived this squall came out of nowhere. Charles will tell you.’ Paul went on to say he remembered hanging both hat and coat on a peg in the passageway, not realizing at the time that the paint was still wet.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about paint,’ he said, visibly annoyed by Paget’s open scepticism. ‘I had too many other things on my mind.’

  He said he couldn’t remember seeing his hat and coat after that. He hadn’t put them on when he left the house after his argument with his sister-in-law, because it wasn’t raining then. Which, he said, was why he’d remained in the car waiting for the rain to ease before returning to the house.

  ‘So they were still there, hanging on the peg when you left the house around eight o’clock that night?’ Paget said.

  Paul shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I can’t say I noticed, but I know I didn’t take them.’

  ‘What about later when you left for London? Was it still raining then?’

  ‘Not as heavy, but yes it was, and I could have used them. But they weren’t there. It was annoying; I couldn’t think what I’d done with them, but I was in a hurry, so I carried on without them. The coat wasn’t much of a loss, but the hat was expensive. Now, of course, I can see what happened. Someone took them off the peg and used them. Probably the person who killed Toni.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Paget looked at his watch. ‘I don’t know if there’s much point in waiting around for Mrs Etherton,’ he said. ‘I have things that need attention back at the office, and I would like those shorthand notes of yours transcribed as soon as possible, so they will be ready for tomorrow morning’s briefing.’

  Molly sneaked a look at her own watch and sighed inwardly as she pictured herself sitting at the computer well after everyone else had gone home.

  Pausing only briefly to take a look at the pile of rubbish in the garden, Paget and Molly made their way back to the car just as Charles Bromley drove in and parked beside them.

  ‘Chief Inspector,’ he said tersely as he got out of the car. ‘So now it’s young Gwyneth, is it? Terrible! Poor girl, and all because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I’m told.’ He shook his head sadly.

  ‘Told by whom, sir?’ asked Paget.

  ‘Your chief constable, Bob Wyckham,’ said Charles. ‘I happened to be talking to him about another matter, and he told me. Why?’ he asked sharply when he saw the look on Paget’s face. ‘Is there any reason why he shouldn’t tell me? I have a right to know what’s going on when people are getting killed, quite literally on my doorstep. And while we are on the subject, I might as well tell you that I am not altogether happy about the slow pace of the investigation. As I told Wyckham, it seems to me that you are spending far too much time here at the manor, when you have a prime suspect in a friend of Toni’s; some casino owner from London, who came out here to pick her up the night she was killed.’

  ‘You did have quite a chat with Sir Robert, didn’t you, sir?’ Paget said, his voice ominously low. ‘Did he also happen to mention that we might have spent far less time out here if some of the members of your household hadn’t chosen to waste our time by lying to us? And when challenged, they tried to cover up with more lies? Even Gwyneth would have been alive today if she’d told us the truth. Now, of course, we need to trace her movements from when she left the manor last Friday evening, to when and how she got back here to the barn where she was killed. So, would you mind telling me where you were and what you did that evening, Mr Bromley? As a magistrate, even as a friend of the chief constable, I’m sure you will recognize the need for us to eliminate you as a suspect from our enquiries.’

  Charles’s eyes were cold as he looked at Paget. He might recognize the truth of what Paget was saying, but it was clear he did not like the chief inspector’s tone.

  In clipped words, he confirmed what his wife had said about taking a tray up to her room. He said she was completely exhausted, had a terrible headache, so he had given her something to help settle her nerves, and remained with her until about seven thirty when she went to sleep. He went on to say that he had spent the rest of the evening in his study. No, he hadn’t seen or spoken to anyone, except Mrs Lodge.

  ‘What time would that be?’ Paget asked.

  ‘It must have been shortly after eight. She mentioned that Gwyneth had just gone, and said she was off to her room for an early night. She’d been up half the night before, if you recall.’

  ‘So you didn’t go out at all that evening?’

  Charles began to shake his head, then paused. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I did,’ he said. ‘I think it must have been about nine when I heard the side gate banging. The wind was getting up a bit, and I could hear the thing banging away, so I went out and shut it.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how it came to be open, sir? Did you see anyone out there?’

  ‘No. But then, it doesn’t always close properly, especially after a rain. It probably didn’t latch when Gwyneth left for the night.’

  Or someone could have been returning to the manor after killing Gwyneth. Perhaps, in their haste to get back inside undetected, they had failed to make sure the gate was securely latched. But the question still remained: how did Gwyneth get back to the barn from where she was last seen at the bottom end of Manor Lane? And what would draw her back there? Was there something in the barn she needed to retrieve? Something she’d hidden, perhaps?

  Paget dismissed that idea. Gwyneth had been on her way home when she met Valerie Short and learned that the major was dead. Which meant that she was on her own, and it would only be a matter of time before the police would match her fingerprints to th
ose in the barn. But returning to the barn would probably be the very last thing she would want to do.

  Paget took Paul’s hat and coat from the bag and shook them out for Bromley to see. ‘Have you ever seen these before?’ he asked.

  Charles looked down his nose at the rumpled hat and coat as he might have looked upon a dead fish. ‘That looks like Paul’s hat,’ he said. ‘What happened to it? It looks as if the dog’s been at it.’

  Paget explained how Thorsen had come to find it.

  ‘So what has it to do with the murders?’

  ‘I’m hoping that Forensic will be able to tell me that,’ Paget said. ‘When was the last time you saw them?’

  ‘Paul was wearing a mac and that hat when he arrived last Thursday afternoon,’ Charles said. ‘It was raining and the wind was blowing hard, and I remember thinking he was going to lose the hat in the wind.’

  ‘What about later? Did you see the hat and coat hanging up in the back passageway?’

  Charles shook his head. ‘There was nothing hanging there that day as I recall. Everything had been moved into the wash-house because of the painters.’

  ‘Apparently, your brother didn’t realize the paint might still be wet, so he hung his coat on a peg when he came in. As you can see, some of the paint stuck to it.’

  Charles eyed the coat but remained silent.

  ‘You told me that you saw your brother come in sometime after nine that evening,’ Paget went on. ‘Do you recall whether he was wearing the hat and coat then?’

  ‘He wasn’t wearing the hat,’ Charles said promptly. ‘I remember his hair was plastered down with the rain. As for the mac . . . no, I’m sure he wasn’t.’

  The quiet of the afternoon was broken by the sound of an approaching vehicle, and a moment later Mrs Etherton’s white Ford Transit swung into the stable yard and stopped.

  ‘Oh, good, you’re still here,’ she said to Paget as she got out. ‘I came back as fast as I could.’ She squinted curiously at the hat and coat in Paget’s hands. ‘What have you got there?’ she asked. ‘Looks a bit the worse for wear.’

  Once again, Paget explained. Mrs Etherton grimaced. ‘I doubt if he’ll want them back in that condition,’ she observed, referring to Paul.

  She spread her arms wide and wrinkled her nose as she looked down at herself. ‘God, but it was hot and humid down there in the valley,’ she said. ‘I was sweating like a pig by the time I’d finished heaving stuff out of the van and carrying it into the shop.’ She turned to Paget. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I clean up a bit before I talk to you,’ she said. ‘I swear it will only take me ten minutes, so come with me up to my room, and you can have a cup of tea while I take a quick shower, and then we can talk. All right, Chief Inspector?’

  Elizabeth Etherton didn’t wait for a reply, but set off toward the house, then paused. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘I almost forgot, Charles. I ran into Bruce Hayden in town. He said he’s been trying to reach you. Left several messages. He’d like you to give him a call as soon as possible.’ She turned on her heel and strode off.

  Bruce Hayden . . . The name was familiar to Paget. It was the name of his bank manager.

  Elizabeth Etherton’s room was quite large. Situated on the north-east corner of the first floor, the windows at the front of the house looked out over the heath between the road and the river valley a quarter of a mile away. The windows on the east side overlooked the narrow driveway beside the house, and Manor Lane. More like a suite than a bedroom, it had a separate sitting area with comfortable chairs grouped around a small table, a small dressing room, en suite, and an alcove containing a sink, a cupboard, and small table.

  ‘My sister, Helen, bless her, felt I should have something more than a bedroom of my own when it was decided that I would be staying here permanently,’ she explained as she ushered them inside. ‘She had the wall taken out between this room and what used to be another bedroom next door, and had the whole thing remodelled. Would you like some tea? I can put the kettle on.’

  ‘Thank you, but no,’ Paget said quickly. Time was ticking away, and he couldn’t rid himself of the image of the pile of work awaiting him back at the office.

  ‘It’s stuffy in here,’ Mrs Etherton said as she headed for a doorway in the far corner of the room. ‘You can open the windows if you like; let some fresh air into the room and enjoy the view. I won’t be long.’

  The windows were, in fact, double French doors made to look like the original windows from the outside. Molly pulled them open. There was no balcony, but there was a low sill and a waist-high wrought iron railing across the lower half of the opening to prevent anyone from falling out.

  Paget crossed the room to join her and watch the people and their dogs out on the heath, no doubt enjoying what could be the last few days of the summer.

  ‘Peaceful, isn’t it?’ Molly said. She leaned over the railing to look down, then stepped back. ‘We’re quite a bit higher than I thought,’ she said, ‘and I’m not sure I would trust that railing very much either.’

  ‘Do heights bother you?’ Paget asked.

  Molly shook her head. ‘Not really, but on the other hand you won’t find hang gliding or rock climbing among my hobbies either.’

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ Mrs Etherton re-entered the room, wearing a flowered housecoat and a towel wrapped turban fashion around her head. ‘And do sit down.’ She waved them to a seat and sat down herself.

  ‘Now,’ she said firmly, ‘I know you are here to look into the death of poor Gwyneth, and I wish I could help, but I can’t. I have been racking my brains all afternoon, but I can’t think of anything she said or did that might be of any value to you. But there is something that’s been bothering me. It will probably sound silly to you, Chief Inspector. In fact I had almost made up my mind not to say anything, but when you mentioned earlier that Gwyneth might still be alive if she had talked to you, I decided it would be better to speak out and be thought a fool, rather than have something dreadful happen because I’d remained silent.

  ‘It concerns what happened to my sister, Helen, seven years ago. I don’t suppose you know this, Chief Inspector, but she died in a fire in the stables. There was a paraffin lamp – the lights in the stables weren’t working properly; the wiring was old, they said at the inquest, and the fuses kept blowing, so she was using the lamp. No one knows what happened. It was assumed that either Helen or her horse, Broker, knocked the lamp over and the whole place went up in flames. Helen was trapped. Her death was ruled an accident, mainly, I suppose, because there was no reason to believe otherwise.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that it might not have been an accident?’ asked Paget.

  ‘Well . . . it was only later that I began to wonder, and even then it was little more than a feeling that something wasn’t right. I finally told myself that I was just looking for someone to blame, and I pushed it out of my mind. In fact I’d all but forgotten about it until the other night when Toni was killed, and I suddenly found myself thinking about it again. And now Gwyneth is dead . . .’ She stopped. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said with a shake of the head, ‘but I’m beginning to feel a bit foolish for what is probably a waste of your time.’

  ‘No need to be,’ Paget told her. ‘But now that you have started, perhaps you should let me be the judge of that, so please go on.’

  Molly sighed softly as she flipped to a new page.

  Except for Lenny Braithwaite, the one-man evening shift, who had his feet up on the desk while he struggled with the Guardian’s cryptic crossword, Molly was alone in the church hall in Hallows End. Notebook propped up beside the computer, Molly’s fingers had been flying over the keys. She’d finished transcribing the shorthand notes taken earlier in the day, condensing them in the way she knew Paget preferred. But now, pausing to look over the pages of notes she’d taken in Mrs Etherton’s room, she couldn’t help wondering how much of it was really worth transcribing. Much of what the older woman had had to say was interesting, even infor
mative as background information, but whether it was relevant to the investigation was open to question in Molly’s mind. On the other hand, Paget had taken the time to hear Mrs Etherton out, and he’d been quietly thoughtful on the drive back from the manor.

  Molly looked at the clock and sighed. DCI Paget had a very good memory, so, condense where possible, but make sure she didn’t leave anything out.

  Mrs Etherton had begun by explaining the situation leading up to Helen’s death. She said Helen was fond of friends and a social life, and had found it difficult to adjust to the comparative isolation of Bromley Manor. She loved Charles, and so she had tried, but with Charles away in London from Sunday evening until Friday afternoon almost every week, it left her alone a lot of the time. And when he was home on the weekends he spent much of the time dealing with things to do with the manor and the estate.

  Molly recalled how Mrs Etherton had looked at each of them intently to make sure she had their attention as she said, ‘I know Helen would have preferred to live in London, but a place like this needs to be occupied, because there is always so much to be done.’ Her voice softened. ‘Charles loves this place,’ she said. ‘It’s the only home he’s ever known, and he’s worked very hard to maintain it throughout the years.’

  Molly paused to scan the notes ahead. Mrs Etherton had launched into an account of the history of the manor and the estate in general, from the time it was acquired by James Bromley in 1785 to the present day, describing in some detail the fortunes and misfortunes of the manor.

  She said that Charles’s grandmother, Ellen Schofield as she was then, was just a girl when she first visited Bromley Manor with her parents in the early twenties, and she’d fallen in love with the place. In fact, she said, Charles had once joked that he’d often wondered which had been the greater attraction when his grandfather, Robert Bromley, proposed to Ellen in 1933: being married to Robert or living at the manor?

  Molly flipped another page to where Mrs Etherton had gone on to describe the state of the manor after years of neglect in the thirties, followed by its occupation by military personnel during the war. Paget had done his best to get Mrs Etherton to come to the point, but, once started, she was determined to make sure he had the full picture. There was more, but Molly moved on to where Mrs Etherton had finally returned to the events leading up to the death of her sister.