by Faith Martin
The tirade had been spoken more and more quickly and now she had to pause to take a deep breath. She also took the opportunity to take another half-hearted sip of her coffee and give a rueful smile. ‘Not that I like to speak ill of the dead, or anything, but really, Sylvia could be the limit. And don’t go thinking that Randy was the only one she had it in for either,’ she warned them, all but shaking a finger under their noses. ‘There were plenty of others as well. That poor woman who went to the same old folks’ club for a start. Ruby … something or other. Sylvia accused her of trying to get her claws into this man she was seeing. Really, she was quite vitriolic about it. I mean, how ridiculous, at their age, fighting over some ageing Casanova!’
‘Yes, we know about Ruby,’ Hillary said gently.
Vanessa Gibson flushed, as if sensing Hillary’s censure, and her eyes glittered a shade malignantly. ‘Then there was Maureen Coles. I know they’d been arguing, because my cleaning lady lives down the road from them, and she heard them and told me all about it.’
‘Oh?’ Hillary said. This was new. ‘Did she overhear what the argument was about?’ she asked curiously.
‘Oh, her cat, I expect. With dotty old Maureen it was always about her cat,’ said Vanessa unkindly. Then she held out a finger. ‘Yes! That was exactly what it was about,’ she nodded, in sudden remembrance. ‘She was upset and accusing Sylvia of poisoning the poor thing because it kept going into her garden and stalking around her bird-feeders. Either that, or it kept scratching about in Sylvia’s vegetable plot, unearthing her carrots or something. I know for a fact that Sylvia did complain about the dratted cat, because the postman used to tell me all about it. A regular old woman for gossip he was. We’ve got a new one now. Postman, that is. Nowadays they don’t have time to chat.’
Hillary sighed, but kept on doggedly. ‘And did you ever get on Sylvia’s bad side?’ she asked casually. ‘It sounds as if almost everyone did, at some point or other.’
But for once, Vanessa was not quite so forthcoming. ‘No, not really,’ she said, a shade sullenly. ‘I rarely saw her, especially after Joe died.’
‘Did you get on with Joe? Was he a nice man?’ Hillary switched tactics.
‘Old Joe? Oh, he was a sweetheart,’ Vanessa said, her voice warming up noticeably. ‘Not much up top, maybe,’ – she tapped her own forehead significantly, seemingly genuinely unaware of the unkindness of it – ‘but he was the salt of the earth. Adored those girls of his, and had a gentle sense of humour about him, that just made you like him.’
‘So you got on well with him?’ she prompted.
‘Oh yes. I get on well with all the farmworkers,’ Vanessa said, as if surprised by the question. ‘When you’re a farmer’s wife, you have to, don’t you? Besides, I do the accounts, see, so I’m responsible for doling out the wages. And it’s usually me who deals with any little piffling problems that come up. It helps Randy if I take as much of the load off his shoulders as I can, so I’m like the personnel manager around here. So it pays to get on well with the lads.’
‘I expect you feed them too?’ Hillary said with a smile. ‘I mean, they drop in for cups of tea and cake.’ She nodded towards the fruitcake still lying on the table.
‘Oh yes. Like feeding the five thousand it is sometimes. They all eat like horses, but we regard it as being part of their wages, I suppose. Mind you, it depends on the time of year, how often they’re popping in and out for grub. And where on the farm they’re working.’
She sounded confident of herself now that they’d got off the subject of Sylvia Perkins, and Hillary thought that, probably, Marigold hadn’t really had any reason to worry, all those years ago. Now that she’d met the lady, she couldn’t really see Vanessa Gibson bedding her husband’s farm labourers. Just enjoy making them wish that she would.
‘Where is your husband, Mrs Gib— sorry, Vanessa?’
‘Oh, probably ploughing somewhere. He’ll be putting in winter barley I expect,’ she said vaguely. ‘Or mending the fencing. Something, anyway.’
Hillary nodded. She didn’t particularly fancy traipsing around the fields trying to find him, so she knew they’d have to come back and hope to catch him another time. ‘Do you know what your husband thought about Sylvia? I mean, about who might have killed her?’
Vanessa Gibson flushed again. ‘He had no idea. Why should he?’ she said defensively. ‘Just because they didn’t get on, it means nothing. Oh, I know there were some who pointed their fingers his way,’ she said hotly, ‘but I don’t think it’s fair to still be picking on him now. People think that running a farm is easy, and that we’re sitting pretty, living in a big house and with all that land. But if you knew anything about farming, you know that it’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet. Poor old Randy’s been working his fingers to the bone for the last twenty years or so to keep this place going, and Joe Perkins and the rest of them know it. That’s another reason why Joe kept on working, I think. Out of loyalty. Not that that wife of his would know anything about it. So for her to accuse poor old Randy of being responsible for him dying … I tell you, it shook Randy, when old Joe died. He felt guilty enough about it as it was, even though he didn’t have any reason to, without Sylvia going on and on about it. Pouring poison into the ear of anyone silly enough to listen. Not that many did,’ she finished, smugly.
Hillary wondered what had triggered that particular diatribe, but thought that until she’d had a chance to interview Randy Gibson, now wasn’t the time to explore it.
But there was definitely something worrying the beautiful, uptight farmer’s wife, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what it was.
‘Well, I think that’s all for now, Mrs Gibson,’ Hillary said, pushing her empty coffee mug aside and getting up.
Vanessa looked slightly surprised that it was all over so soon, and rose a shade uncertainly. ‘You won’t go talking to Randy, will you?’ she asked urgently.
‘We’ll have to interview him, Mrs Gibson,’ Hillary said firmly.
‘Oh yes. I know you have to do that. I mean, you won’t go upsetting him with nonsense, will you? I mean, it’s not as if he knows who murdered Sylvia. None of us does.’
Hillary smiled, but didn’t offer any promises.
‘None of you?’ she echoed hopefully.
‘I mean the village. It wasn’t us. It simply couldn’t have been one of us,’ Vanessa insisted.
‘Oh I see,’ Hillary nodded. ‘Well, it’s mainly all a matter of routine,’ she lied reassuringly. ‘And, as I said, we’ll be talking to all of Sylvia’s friends and neighbours in the village. Your husband is just one of many on our list.’
‘Oh. I see.’ Vanessa Gibson nodded and gave them a reluctant smile as she showed them out, but she didn’t look, it had to be said, particularly reassured.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Once in the car, Hillary buckled up her seat belt, and turned to Jake as he slotted the key into the ignition. ‘So what did you make of all that?’ she asked him, curious to see how much he’d picked up.
Jake, realizing that he was being tested, paused before starting the engine and thought about the last half-hour or so. This was a chance to show Hillary Greene that she wouldn’t be wasting her time in taking him under her wing, so he couldn’t afford to blow the chance to impress her.
‘She seemed uptight and nervous,’ he began cautiously.
‘Yes. Go on.’
Jake stared through the windscreen thoughtfully. ‘She seemed to be a bit all over the place. One minute talking a mile a minute, most of it clearly of no use to us, so why bother saying it? Then the next minute being very careful about what she said, whilst trying not to let on that she was. Once or twice, she seemed genuinely nervous about something – something that went beyond a mere case of nerves, I mean.’
‘What do you conclude from all that?’ she encouraged, amused by his obvious anxiety not to give her a wrong answer.
‘I think she was hiding something,’ Jake finally committe
d himself to an opinion.
Hillary nodded. Finally. ‘Did you notice that she was contradictory as well?’
‘Guv?’ he frowned. What had he missed?
‘One moment she was saying that anyone might have done it – Sylvia’s family, the old lady with the cat, Ruby Broadstairs, hell, at one point I was even expecting her to dob the postman in it, if she’d thought about pointing the finger at him in time. And yet, as we were leaving, she was insistent that it couldn’t be “one of us” who did it – that nobody in the village or close to Sylvia could be in the frame.’
Jake slowly nodded. ‘Yes. I see what you’re getting at. She needs to make up her mind. What do you think it all adds up to?’ He turned to look at her, his eyes sharp and shining with a glint of excitement. ‘Do you think that she did it?’
Hillary smiled wryly. ‘I’m not psychic, you know. I can’t just look at a suspect and know if they’re guilty or not. Or very rarely anyway,’ she added with a laugh. ‘You have to take the stance that anything’s possible and work from that.’
‘Come on, guv,’ Jake cajoled. ‘Everyone knows you’ve got the experience needed to make good guesses.’
Hillary grunted, and tried to imagine all her bosses’ faces, if she’d ever gone to them with just her best guess. ‘I’ve been known to play my hunches from time to time,’ she admitted carefully. ‘But a hunch is nothing without evidence, proof, or witness testimony to back it up. Remember that.’
‘Yes, guv,’ Jake said with mock humility. Then shot her a grin. ‘But if you had to guess?’
Hillary’s lips twitched. ‘If I had to make a guess, I’d say that she thinks, or at least suspects, that her husband did it.’
Jake glanced back up at the house, his lips rounded in a silent whistle. ‘So that’s why she was acting like a cat on hot bricks. Well, you would, wouldn’t you, if you thought your old man had killed someone?’
‘Or she could just be the nervy type,’ Hillary pointed out laconically. ‘But until we know more, it doesn’t really get us any further forward, does it?’ she mused, more or less speaking her thoughts out loud now, rather than in any attempt to educate Jake. ‘It depends, really, on just why it is that she suspects him. Was it something specific, for instance? Did he come back that day with some bloodstains on his clothes, telling her that he’d cut himself on some barbed wire or something? Or had he told her that morning that he was going to call in on Sylvia to give her a piece of his mind, and Vanessa got scared that they’d had a slanging match that had escalated out of all control?’
‘In other words,’ Jake said, ‘something that would provide us with some actual proof. Or, at the very least, some solid conjecture – if there is such a thing.’
‘Right,’ Hillary agreed. ‘And, by the way, there is no such thing.’ She looked over at the farmhouse pensively. ‘Or was it more nebulous than that for her? Had she just got the feeling that he’d had enough, or that something had set him off, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Did she just sense a change in his behaviour and put two and two together to make twenty-two instead of four? In which case it might mean nothing at all. He might just have been in a bad mood that day, or had indigestion.’
‘You mean she might have been worrying all these years for nothing?’ Jake said, and shook his head. ‘Man. As the Yanks would say, what a bummer.’
A bummer indeed, Hillary thought. ‘Like I said before, anything’s possible.’
‘So do you think she had an affair with Sylvia’s husband?’ Jake asked, changing the subject slightly. ‘I certainly got the feeling that she wouldn’t have said no if I’d offered. I swear, once or twice, I could feel her foot, nudging against my calves under the table.’
Hillary glanced across and looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Naturally you’re irresistible to all women, Jake.’
Jake laughed, but was clearly a little annoyed. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice?’
‘So what do you think?’ She put the ball firmly back in his court. ‘If you had to guess, that is? Did she or didn’t she sleep with Joe Perkins, and any number of others for all we know?’
Jake turned the key in the ignition and, as the engine purred into obedient life, he snorted. ‘No chance, I reckon, guv. That woman’s all bark and no knickers, if you ask me. Or rather, she keeps her knickers very tightly pulled up.’
‘What a charming way with imagery you have, Jake,’ Hillary complimented him.
They were still laughing when they finally pulled out of the farmyard. It didn’t, however, stop either of them from noticing that Vanessa Gibson watched them leave from behind one of the curtains, her face a pale, anxious oval against the glass.
That afternoon Hillary had a meeting with Rollo Sale, since Steven was still at St Aldates, and she briefed him on the case so far. She was pleased that he seemed to grasp all the salient points quickly and didn’t feel the need to put his oar in pointlessly, just for the sake of making a suggestion. Instead he’d simply indicated that she should get on with things and wished her luck.
Wendy and Jimmy reported back on their interviews with the muggers who targeted old folks, both of them thoroughly disgusted with the state of humanity, but also convinced that none of them was in the frame for Sylvia’s death.
She told them to keep at it and file their reports in the murder book, then, after five o’clock had come and gone, hung around the station for a while longer, until it was clear that Steven wouldn’t be back any time soon. Then, she left reluctantly and drove back to her narrowboat, which was now permanently moored in the nearby village of Thrupp.
Once on board the Mollern, she made a salad, big enough for two, and put a bottle of white wine in the fridge to chill, but in truth, she didn’t know if Steven would be coming over that night or not. They hadn’t made any firm plans, and she found the uncertainty unsettling.
As Hillary Greene restlessly attempted to read a Hardy novel, Jake Barnes, who’d left HQ dead on time, most definitely had plans.
Standing in front of the full-length mirror in the dressing-room of his spacious master-bedroom suite, he scrupulously checked his appearance. It was important, because tonight he needed to make sure that he’d got his image just right.
But, for once, it was not a woman that he was dressing to impress.
He was aggressively dressed in designer-everything, from the Calvin Klein jeans to an Armani jacket. The watch on his left wrist was gold, huge and about as in-your-face as it could get, as was the diamond pinky ring on his left hand. As if that wasn’t enough a thick rope of gold chain was just showing through the silk shirt, where he’d left two buttons undone, just for that purpose.
Privately, he thought that the bling made him look like an escapee from one of those disco-dance films of the eighties. Even the Gucci loafers looked as if they could tap out a John Travolta dance step on their own.
But everything about him screamed one thing: money.
He looked like a man with more money than sense – and certainly taste. But then, Jake supposed with an apprehensive shiver, subtlety would be lost on a man like Darren Chivnor.
According to his PI’s report, the Dog and Duck was just one of the many pubs on the edge of the notorious estate where Medcalfe’s employees (for want of a better word for them) liked to hang out. Although the man himself had long since left Blackbird Leys behind him, and lived in a very upmarket, mock-Tudor des res well to the north, his workforce seemed to remain fairly loyal to the place.
Jake was very well aware that his car looked distinctly out of place in this area. Not that he’d brought his beloved E-Type, of course. Instead, he was driving a near-classic Porsche, painted in metallic sky-blue. It was the car he used when the Jag was in the garage for any reason, and was well insured. Although it was, in its own right, still a very desirable automobile indeed, he didn’t have the emotional attachment to it that he had for the E-Type, so if it was nicked, he could live with it.
He parked the machine in the rear car-park
and walked casually inside. The pub was a pleasant enough sort of place, right on the outskirts of the estate, and therefore practically rubbing shoulders with a neighbouring area that was fast gentrifying. So, along with the criminal element, there was a mix of recent locals who didn’t know better and a few lost tourists. Most of the pub’s customers, however, were the local regulars, consisting of old-timers who knew who Medcalfe’s boys were, but had nothing particularly to fear from them, since they kept well out of their way, and their own law-abiding lives seldom overlapped or clashed with theirs.
Three such were sat supping beers at a table, from time to time warily watching a young lad in baggy jeans and a hoodie, who was playing a slot machine, and swearing viciously but without any real anger, every time he inevitably lost.
A young obviously married couple were seated at a table laid for food, and were perusing a menu, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. The bar was pleasant enough, clean, but not well lit.
Jake felt his shoulders tense as he spotted Darren Chivnor through an open archway to the left, leaning over a billiard table with a wooden cue.
So he’d got lucky first time. He’d been prepared to keep coming to the pub for as long as it took, but he was glad that he didn’t have to. Being so far outside of his comfort zone, he’d never felt so vulnerable, and he didn’t like the sensation one little bit.
He made his way to the bar and ordered a vodka and orange juice. Making sure that when he opened his wallet, the barman would notice the wad of cash inside it. Like most people now-adays, Jake usually used plastic, but whilst flashing an American Express Platinum Card about might actually say more about how truly wealthy he was, it just didn’t have the impact of cold, hard, sterling.