Guilty as Sin

by Judith Cutler

  I’ve always been able to run fast, and this time I ran very fast. I needed somewhere, someone, safe. Now.

  And found it in the form of Phil and Angus, out for a gentle stroll. Angus carried his lead in his mouth, which gave the impression he was grinning with pleasure. At arm’s length, Phil carried a full poo bag.

  ‘Are you all right? That didn’t look like a quiet jog to me – it looked as if you were pursued by the hounds of hell.’ He didn’t sound very happy, but why should he if he thought I’d preferred a run to his company?

  ‘Pilates night,’ I gasped, breath coming harder than I liked. I supported my hands on my thighs. ‘We always have a girlie get-together afterwards. This time it was at the edge of the Glebe Field estate. And I was quietly padding home when another jogger tried—’ What had he tried? What could I tell the police? ‘Let’s just say I didn’t want to wait to see what he wanted to try.’

  ‘Have you got your phone? Well, dial nine-nine-nine. Please.’

  I shook my head. ‘Actually, I don’t want the police to know I retaliated in a way I shouldn’t.’

  ‘You kicked him in the balls? Well, why not?’

  ‘Uh, uh. I was on the ground at the time. I put my hand in something when I slipped. Oh, it was in a bag like Angus’s. But I don’t know that you’re supposed to use dog mess as a weapon.’

  Without a word – was one necessary? – he peeled a wad of sanitized wipes from a sachet he produced from his pocket, going up at least sixteen points in my estimation. The tissues went into a convenient poo bin, along with Angus’s donation.

  ‘Did you see enough of your pursuer to identify him?’ he asked, as he wiped his own hands.

  I shook my head. And then stopped. Was there something? But it wasn’t a strong enough suspicion to mention to anyone else. And not to a man with a record for losing his temper, who might be tempted to deal with the offender himself, assuming he could find him, of course.

  By now Phil was speaking urgently. ‘But you will report this to the police, won’t you? This man might try to hurt other women. And he might succeed with someone who couldn’t find a suitable weapon—’ despite himself his face cracked ‘—or run impressively fast.’ Then he started to laugh. We both did. It was very hard to stop. He succeeded first. ‘Do you think Griff’s back from his theatre trip yet? I wouldn’t want you to be on your own after that sort of incident. Come on, Angus and I will walk you back to your cottage.’

  And they did, Angus circling me and looking up from time to time with a bit of a whine and an encouraging wag of his tail.

  ‘I’ll be all right now. Thanks for coming with me.’ I hoped my voice had a note of finality. Apparently it didn’t.

  ‘Look, you’re still trembling.’

  I was. I couldn’t fit the key in the lock. ‘Too much exercise after too much MSG, maybe,’ I said with a grin, passing the key to him. But I felt awkward. Would I feel safer or less safe if I asked him in? Angus solved the problem for me: the moment Phil succeeded in opening the door, he dashed in. I had to get in quickly too so I could deal with the alarm, capable of rousing the entire South East if provoked. Which left Phil standing on the step, yelling to Angus, who had taken an immediate liking to Griff’s favourite chair and was already falling asleep on it. Or so he pretended. He was certainly genuinely snoring by the time I’d equipped Phil and me with a glass of wine that was decent enough but not in the same league as Honey’s so-called plonk.

  ‘You really should call the police, you know,’ Phil said firmly. ‘Now. In case the guy tries to strike again tonight. Just omit one salient detail.’ Any moment now we’d be hysterical again. ‘Go on.’ He got up and passed me the handset, at which point Griff appeared, so I withdrew to the kitchen, passing my untouched glass to Griff with a resigned sigh.

  It took me seven minutes to get through on 101, and the despatcher was actually yawning as she repeated the details. ‘OK. I’ll ask our patrols to be extra vigilant. I suppose you could ask the council for any CCTV footage of the area. That sometimes helps.’

  ‘CCTV in a village the size of Bredeham?’

  ‘And I’ll get one of our officers to call you,’ she added, in what sounded remarkably like an afterthought.

  ‘Would you rather I dial nine-nine-nine?’ I asked tartly.

  ‘If it had been a genuine emergency I’d imagine you’d have dialled that in the first place.’

  Which, if not exactly good PR, was hard to argue with.

  Griff insisted that he’d told me about a forthcoming trip to London to catch up with some old theatre pals over lunch: ‘Before the next funeral, dear heart. I know I told you; your brain must have been clogged up with other things, and why not?’

  Since that was the excuse I always made for Griff when things slipped his mind, it was unanswerable. He didn’t even tell me how worried he was about leaving me on my own, setting off in what he considered his Town clothes (somehow you sensed the capital letter) at a jaunty pace. He’d got an open day return, on the grounds that his boozy lunch might extend into the evening.

  It wasn’t until he strode off that I became suspicious. Of course I’d had a lot on my mind, but it wasn’t as if he’d just jogged my memory. I was certain I knew nothing of his plans. Which suggested to me he’d not told me, and when he was secretive it was usually for a reason. Sometimes it was because he wanted to give me a nice surprise; sometimes he knew I’d deeply disapprove. The pit of my stomach told me it was the latter.

  He was going to see Noel Pargetter, wasn’t he?

  And even if I grabbed the van and hurtled to the station, I’d not get on the London train. I simply couldn’t stop him.

  Unless he’d left his phone on?

  Of course he hadn’t.

  ‘Noel Pargetter?’ Pa repeated stupidly, his voice tinny and distant. ‘What do I know about Noel Pargetter?’

  ‘That’s just what you’re going to tell me,’ I said through gritted teeth. It was a good job I was phoning him, or I’d probably have had my fingers round his throat choking the information out of him. ‘If you don’t know anything, Titus does, and I bet he’s just across the room from you waving his hands around and putting his finger to his lips to shut you up. Right? OK, put me on to him.’ There was a pause while the handset was dropped – by Pa – and picked up – probably by Titus.

  ‘Griff’s gone off to see Pargetter,’ I said. ‘Should I be afraid?’

  ‘Dartmoor or London?’

  ‘London.’ Except he’d have to go to Paddington to get a train west. And he had warned me that he could be late home. All the same, London to Devon and back in one day, with all the changes involved if he wanted to get to Shepdip Farm, was pushing one’s travelling luck. ‘I think,’ I added, less certainly.

  ‘What does he want to sell?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Griff, of course.’

  Not those Russian objets d’art! ‘Nothing, as far as I know. Why?’

  ‘Because that’s how Pargetter makes his money. As a high-class fence. Not stolen objects, oh no, wouldn’t soil his lily-whites for them. Just iffy things that he’ll sell to a mate who doesn’t ask too many questions. And he’ll take a big cut.’

  ‘By iffy you mean …?’

  ‘Second World War stuff that’s never found its way back to the original owners’ families. Odds and ends that may just have dropped off the back of a lorry in Afghanistan. Good things, no provenance.’

  Or maybe even the odd netsuke stolen from a widow in Bredeham? No, small beer, surely.

  ‘Can you give me back to Pa? Thanks. Pa, has Griff been in touch with you about anything recently?’

  ‘What sort of anything?’

  ‘Any sort of anything? Russian, for instance?’

  ‘Only to talk about you. He’s got some hare-brained scheme to stop you paying inheritance tax when he pops his clogs. Told him I didn’t like it; told him you wouldn’t wear it.’

  ‘I want you to swear on anything you might believe in t
hat it was nothing to do with Fabergé. Or icons.’

  ‘Why should it be?’ He sounded genuinely puzzled.

  ‘Titus, please.’

  A growl. ‘What now, doll? Really busy.’

  ‘Pargetter. Is he dangerous?’

  ‘You mean physical? Himself?’

  ‘Too ill for that, surely. What about heavies?’

  ‘Nah. Murders reputations, not bodies. Him and that posh mate of yours have had a bit of a falling out, I hear tell. The one your Pa here loathes. Don’t know why.’ He cut the call.

  And with that I had to be content, even though I’d have given a tooth to know what had caused a rift between two men I didn’t even know knew each other: Harvey and Pargetter? I’d probably never solve that problem but at least I could put my mind at rest over the icons. Telling Mary and Paul I was slipping out, I confess I nipped up to the self-store. To find everything was exactly where it should be. So should I worry less – or a great deal more?

  I’d hardly got back and locked the car away, promising myself I’d try, no matter how hard it was, to concentrate on painting a cherub’s hair, when the doorbell announced an inconvenient caller. It was none other than the tiny police community support officer who’d been sent to tackle the gang raiding the church: Ann Draper – that was it. Taking her through to the office and offering her the most uncomfortable chair – there were all those curls to give individual attention to – I gave a succinct account of what had happened, omitting the missile I’d had to hand, as it were. Truthfully I told her I couldn’t identify the face lurking in the balaclava, but had been afraid for a moment that it was one of the church gang.

  Rolling her eyes, she agreed that scarpering had been the best move, but lamented the absence of any hard evidence, of course.

  ‘You’re not talking about the sort of DNA you’d get from a physical attack, are you?’

  ‘Skin under the fingernails is always useful. But without evidence, all I can say is that you should avoid ill-lit streets at night, even though I’ll try to get a couple of colleagues to drive round and establish a presence. Stick to the main roads.’

  Which would have meant never emerging from the cottage after dark. ‘The trouble is – if you check police information on that natty little tablet of yours – that a guy with a big black car has already made me feel unsafe on streets big enough for cars: the Mercedes driver who assaulted one of my employees in order to threaten me.’

  She checked. Her eyebrows, already higher on her forehead than you’d expect, because she’d tied her hair back tightly in an Essex facelift, struggled even further north. ‘I think I need to report this to my superiors, don’t you?’

  ‘I’d be really glad if you would,’ I said, with no irony at all. ‘By the way, do you know a guy called Conrad Knowles? CID?’

  ‘Oh, he’s gorgeous, isn’t he? I always imagine him in sequins on Strictly Come Dancing.’

  I had a horrible feeling a penny might be about to drop in the deepest recesses of my brain. ‘I’ve been trying to get in touch with him,’ I said. ‘About the assault on me in Dockinge, for a start.’

  ‘Oh, do you need Victim Support? I can put you in touch with them.’

  ‘Actually I don’t. But I do need to contact Conrad. And he’s not responding to my texts or voicemail messages.’

  ‘You wouldn’t expect him to. He was overdue his annual leave and Human Resources said use it or lose it. He’s in France, I think, staying with a mate.’

  And I would bet that balding cherub I knew which mate. ‘Can you do that? In the middle of a case?’

  ‘Oh, someone else will take over his urgent caseload. We do have lives, Lina.’

  ‘I nearly didn’t have mine,’ I said. ‘How would I know who’s taken over?’ I’d ask Freya, of course. But Ann didn’t need to know that.

  She shrugged. ‘His DI, probably.’

  ‘Who is …?’

  She checked her notepad, tapping a couple of times and sucking her teeth. ‘Well, Springer’s on maternity leave and Black’s long-term sick. The new acting DI’s in court all week. And there’s a big push on desk-solvable crimes. They sit in rows glued to computers. The most effective use of resources,’ she said glibly, and quite without irony herself.

  ‘And leave people like you to do the dirty work.’

  She blinked. ‘There’s no need to put it like that. Except,’ she said slowly, ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When I picked Griff up at the station I found him in the company of Spencer; apparently they’d travelled back together. Griff seemed quite happy to wave him goodbye without trying to drag me into any conversation, and sank into the car with a sigh.

  ‘Plays his cards close to his chest, doesn’t he?’ he observed, nodding at Spencer’s retreating back. I’d offered him a lift but he’d rather curtly declined. Sauce for the goose time, no doubt. ‘All those questions. And he never wants to give any answers.’

  ‘Sounds familiar,’ I said. ‘Honey’s the same. If only we knew what they wanted to hide.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ he agreed without interest.

  He was clearly in need of a restorative something or other by the time we got home. He might have been a bit disappointed when he found a cup of jasmine tea on the table beside him.

  ‘And how were your fellow thespians? Or should that be in the singular? Oh, Griff, what have you been up to?’

  He put his head in his hands. ‘Yes, I did talk to Noel Pargetter. He and I go back years, as you know. And he’s dying, though he didn’t admit it in so many words. He got completely the wrong end of the stick about our relationship, dear one, and thought I’d in some way betrayed him by returning to the closet, as it were.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever mention Aidan while you were having lunch with him?’

  ‘Indeed I did. But Noel deduced that it was your presence in my life that stopped me doing what I always meant to do – dancing off into the sunset with Aidan. And in a way it did. The way that Aidan reacted to you – continues to react to you – worries me deeply. He’s become such a snob, hasn’t he, the poor old dear? I can’t think what he’ll make of that miniature of your unknown ancestor, by the way. One day I must research her and find who she is. He’ll be torn in two – desire to have an excellent addition to his collection and irritation at having to see your features. I shall have to give him something else as well – one isn’t seventy-five every day.’

  ‘Surely he’ll be having a huge party?’

  ‘To be honest, although he has loads of concert and theatre and opera-going acquaintances, he doesn’t have very many close friends. The Grim Reaper, my love, took a lot of our contemporaries way before their time.’

  ‘And is that all you talked about – you and your relationships?’ I removed the empty cup and poured him a G&T which he sank with alarming speed. ‘Or did his fencing activities come into the conversation? I was so worried I pumped Titus and Pa for information,’ I added, almost but not quite too embarrassed to confess.

  ‘As a matter of fact they didn’t. I’d meant to explain my fear that the Inland Revenue would get hold of all the money needed to keep things going when I die; I meant to ask him to help.’

  ‘The Russian stuff? Griff, no! You mustn’t. All your principles—’

  ‘It’s all right, my love. I didn’t. I thought of the look on your face if I did. And actually, the look on his face. So I still have to find a way round this, dear one.’

  ‘Not an illegal one. Not after all the morality you’ve drummed into me. Please.’ I’d have loved to ask about the suggestion he’d put to Pa, but decided against it. I managed a smile that felt weak and pale. ‘One way is to live a long time.’

  ‘I’ve already done that. And I hope and trust I have more years to come. But one never knows, dear one. I want us to expedite this sale. Lina, you’ve not even read Paul’s proposal, have you? Shame on you. Child, we have to do something or you’ll have nothing left. You have to own the s
hop; you have to buy me out of the restoration business. Even this cottage, if possible. When the local authority sells this place to pay care home fees, where will you live? Business premises too – capital gains tax! I rarely do this, but I’m setting you a deadline: I want that contract drawn up properly and signed by this time next week. Do you understand?’

  My brain did. But some part of me certainly didn’t. And was very worried.

  ‘Good. Meanwhile, I also spoke to Noel about your bête noir, Habgood. There’s no doubt they know each other. Professionally, if that isn’t too high-flown a term. Who supplies whom I wouldn’t know. He certainly didn’t like you going public with your accusations against Habgood.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. They make a lovely pair, don’t they? Handling stolen goods … Titus thinks Afghan artefacts have passed through his hands. Iraqi, too, and Syrian, I should imagine. And Egyptian, after all the chaos there. A lot of thefts from underprotected Greek museums … How about antiquities from closer to home? From historic churches, for instance?’

  Griff shook his head slowly. ‘He was outraged by the damage inflicted on those churches – I’ve already forgotten their names, dear one, to my shame. And I think it was genuine anger at the thought of places he knew being horribly violated. It’s almost as if his head is in some sort of cultural, perhaps empire-building, time warp: somehow it’s all right to steal from Johnny Foreigner? And he clearly believes some items are safer over here than at the mercy of religious extremists who want to destroy what they believe are idols. Who can argue with that?’

  Perhaps this was a night when I should ease his alcohol ration: bringing a plateful of olives, I also topped up his glass.