Remains to be Seen

by J M Gregson

  Nigel sensed that the worst was over. He had this information at least ready to deliver, though his tongue felt like dry leather against the roof of his mouth. ‘Young. Aged about twenty, I’d say. Caucasian. Height about five feet eleven. Weight difficult to assess, because he was wearing a loose-fitting navy anorak and lighter blue tracksuit trousers, but I’d say around a hundred and sixty pounds. Maybe a little less, because he was slightly built. Dark hair. He didn’t come close enough for me to see the colour of his eyes or the shape of his features. No visible distinguishing marks.’

  Peach regarded him balefully until he was sure there was nothing else to come. Then he said, ‘If you forget something as important as this again, lad, you’ll be on your bike and looking for other employment. You can get your arse out of here now.’

  PC Jeffries was only too ready to do that. He blurted a hasty, ‘Thank you, sir!’ and turned so rapidly upon his heel that he almost fell over. He had his hand upon the door handle when the voice behind him said, ‘You were right to come in here and confess your sins, lad. You got one thing right, at least.’

  Nigel Jeffries bolted to the male officers’ washroom and followed a rapid and copious evacuation of his bowels with a series of deep breaths in the privacy of the cubicle.

  In his office, DCI Peach looked up Lucy Blake’s account of the interview she and DC Northcott had conducted at Brunton Golf Club. He decided that it looked as if Ben Freeman, cocaine user and former assistant to their murder victim, had visited the scene of his former employment at Marton Towers on the day after the fire.

  Eighteen

  Sally Cartwright had always had the capacity to look calm when her inner emotions were in turmoil. It had been a valuable asset to her in a rather chequered working life. It had certainly helped to get her the housekeeper’s post at Marton Towers. The capacity to remain calm, or at the very least appear calm, when domestic arrangements failed was a most valuable thing in one responsible for ensuring that the daily arrangements in the great house went smoothly. Neville Holloway had recognized and rewarded this capacity to remain composed and dispassionate while others panicked in a crisis.

  It was a virtue which did not fail Mrs Cartwright even now, in this most extreme of crises. She had never been in a situation like this before, and she was feeling her way, but no one would have known that to look at her. She sat with her hands in her lap in an armchair covered in a crimson which matched the two sofas at the edges of the comfortable, low-ceilinged room. The window was open on the wall which faced the low March sunshine, but all traces of the scents of wet charcoal and fireman’s foam which had been evident on their last visit had now disappeared.

  She offered them tea, which Peach refused. Lucy Blake complimented her upon the decor of her sitting room, and she accepted the comment with a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘I was lucky, being in this end cottage of the stable block, I didn’t have to move into new accommodation like some of the others.’ She knew they had things to raise with her; she found that she wanted these harmless preliminaries to be over and out of the way as soon as possible.

  As if he read her thoughts, Peach said bluntly, ‘You weren’t completely frank with us when we saw you on Saturday.’

  Sally had already decided that she wouldn’t deny it if he opened with something like this. She would let them make the running. See how much they knew and not give away anything that she didn’t have to. She said obliquely, ‘I was a newly bereaved widow. I expect I am allowed a little leeway for that, even by the CID.’

  ‘Indeed you are. I have to say that you haven’t behaved like the bereaved widows we usually see.’ It was bold, almost insulting, but Peach was nettled by the self-possession of this blonde woman with the blue eyes and pleasantly plump physique. She was into her forties and her pale skin showed a few lines around her sharply intelligent eyes; she was anything but the dumb blonde still beloved of Hollywood.

  Sally Cartwright assessed him and his words for a moment, wondering whether to offer him any reaction at all. She glanced at the wedding photograph on the top of the television in the corner of the room and said quietly, ‘There will be a time for grief, in due course. At the moment, I still feel stunned by Neil’s death. When you are able to tell me who killed him, when you release his body for a funeral, I might be able to allow myself the luxury of grief.’

  It was too composed, too much a clever argument, for a woman in her position. Peach said abrasively, ‘If you want us to discover who killed him, you shouldn’t conceal the reality of your relationship with him.’

  This time she said nothing, acknowledging the challenge of his statement only by the slightest widening of those observant blue eyes. Without the assistance of a denial, Peach was forced to develop his theme for himself. ‘When we saw you on Saturday, you didn’t tell us about the breakdown in your marriage. You withheld all mention of your husband’s sexual relationship with Michelle Naylor.’ He thought he caught the first hint of anger in her features with the mention of that name, but it passed in a flash and he went on, ‘That is hardly conduct which is calculated to help us find out who killed him.’

  She transferred her hands slowly from her lap to the arms of her chair, then looked down at them for a second or two before she spoke, as if congratulating herself on the fact that her fingers were so still and relaxed. ‘I object to your word “breakdown”, Mr Peach. You should not assume that a marriage is at an end because of an affair. Such things do not help many marriages, but nor do they necessarily destroy them.’

  She sounded as if she was debating an interesting proposition which had no personal application for her. Peach tried not to let his irritation show as he said sourly, ‘Are you now trying to argue that it was helpful to conceal this affair from us when we came here on Saturday?’

  ‘No. That would be absurd. I can see that in your position I should want to know all the facts. But a little imagination would tell you that it was natural I should conceal this rather sordid interlude from you. It does not enhance Neil’s memory, and an affair with a younger woman is scarcely flattering to me. I submit that it is something which few wives would wish to enlarge upon.’

  ‘Maybe. But you are intelligent enough to realize that in a murder enquiry, things change. Important facts cannot be concealed.’

  She gave him a small smile, which was a mixture of acknowledgement and denial. ‘Perhaps concealing the sordid detail of his tumblings with Michelle Naylor was the last service I could render to a dead man.’

  Peach had had enough of her calm prevarications. ‘That might be the case if this was an ordinary death. It is emphatically not that. So why did you elect to deny us this knowledge – in effect, to lie to us about important aspects of your husband’s final days?’

  Sally Cartwright felt her pulses quickening at what she knew she must now deliver, but she remained as outwardly poised as ever. ‘I didn’t see any reason to make myself more of a suspect. I know perfectly well that the spouse of a murder victim is always a leading suspect. Telling you about Neil’s squalid love life would have informed you also that I had a strong motive for wanting to dispatch him.’

  Lucy Blake had so far contented herself with studying this remarkable widow. She felt a reluctant admiration for the woman’s self-assurance in the face of Peach’s annoyance, but she knew also that such aplomb was admirable equipment for a murderer. Lucy said quietly, ‘The fact that you lied about this, or to put it charitably held things back, now makes it seem more likely that you killed Neil. You must see that.’

  ‘I do. I did what seemed to me right at the time. Since you seem to be making notes of this conversation, I should like you to record my formal declaration that I did not kill my husband.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘I told you that on Saturday. He was supposed to be visiting his sister in Scotland for a few days. I watched him drive his car out of here at about one o’clock on the Sunday when he appears to have died.’

  Peach said
, ‘We needed to ask you that, in case you had chosen to modify that information also. Neil’s car was found this morning.’ He threw the fact in suddenly, watching for a reaction from this obstinately calm woman.

  There was none that could be read in the open, unworried face. ‘And where was it found?’

  ‘On an unpaved road leading to a disused quarry near Clitheroe. It was under overhanging trees. A farmer out lambing noticed it earlier in the week. He didn’t report it until two hours ago.’

  ‘Does it take you any nearer to solving the mystery of Neil’s death?’

  ‘It may do. The forensic people are giving the vehicle the most thorough examination known to man at this very moment.’ He looked again for apprehension in her, and saw none. ‘I’m very hopeful that clothing fibres or hairs will tell us who drove the vehicle to that isolated spot.’

  ‘Then let us hope that your optimism is justified.’

  He thought he detected the faintest note of ironic amusement in her comment. Controlling his own reaction to that, he said tersely, ‘We’ve been examining various bank accounts since this death. It’s quite usual for us to be given access which wouldn’t normally be accorded to us, when we’re investigating a crime as serious as murder.’

  ‘And no doubt you’ve found more than you expected in Neil’s account.’

  She was ahead of them, even here, controlling the tone of these exchanges, anticipating the revelation with which he had hoped to shock her. ‘We did indeed. Mrs Cartwright, how did you know that we would discover this?’

  A little shrug of the broad shoulders above the nicely rounded breasts. ‘I didn’t know. But I suspected that you might find something like that. We had a joint account into which our salaries from our work here were paid. This would be a separate individual account of Neil’s. Probably with a different bank.’

  It was so accurate that Peach wondered if it was knowledge rather than speculation with which she was teasing them. He did his best to appear unruffled as he said, ‘There is a sum of over forty thousand pounds. Most of it seems to have accrued over the last eighteen months.’

  She shook her head sadly. ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘In that case, please be good enough to tell us where this money came from.’

  She shook her head again, this time with the ghost of a smile, and in that moment Peach and Blake knew that she was relishing this, enjoying the little game of ploy and counter-ploy which she had done so much to introduce and control. ‘I can’t do that. I’m surprised that you don’t already know the source of this money.’

  ‘We have our own ideas about it. I think you have too.’

  Sally nodded. This didn’t threaten her: she could indulge herself a little with these two now, secure in the knowledge that this particular line of investigation wouldn’t compromise her. ‘Drugs, I should think. That wouldn’t surprise you, in view of the raid you conducted here last Wednesday night. You must have been in possession of a lot of information, to swoop on Richard Crouch and his cronies like that.’

  ‘You knew that the owner of Marton Towers was heavily involved in trafficking illegal drugs?’

  She smiled more openly now. ‘Suspected, Detective Inspector Peach. Not knew. In my opinion, practically everyone who was a full-time employee at Marton Towers must have had a fair idea of where the money to run all of this was coming from. But we had jobs and prospects which we wouldn’t have had without Richard Crouch, so most of us were sensible enough not to ask many questions.’

  That reflected exactly what Peach thought himself, but it did not improve his mood to find it voiced by this unflappable adversary. He made it sound as ominous as he could as he said, ‘You’re telling me that you think your late husband was himself involved in the sale of illegal drugs, that this is where this forty thousand pounds came from.’

  ‘I suppose I am, yes. But if you’re asking me to supply you with concrete evidence to support that view, I can’t provide it. It’s merely my opinion – honestly delivered, as you requested.’

  ‘So who else around here was involved in the trafficking of drugs?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. No one, as far as I know, but I decided long ago that ignorance was the best policy.’

  ‘How would you describe your relationship with Michelle Naylor, Mrs Cartwright?’

  She took her time, well aware that this was the area where she might give herself away. ‘With my husband’s mistress? I think “strained” might be the best word for it. You would hardly expect it to be better than that, would you?’

  It was typical of this imperturbable woman to respond to his most embarrassing question with one of her own. He said, ‘It can’t be easy, living on the site together and working together, in these circumstances.’

  ‘But it’s in our mutual interest to do so. We both have jobs that we don’t wish to jeopardize by behaving like fighting cats. You’ll find that Mrs Naylor is well aware of which side her bread is buttered on.’ There was something waspish in this aside; it was the nearest she had come to revealing her hatred of the younger woman. As if she felt that she had shown a little too much of herself, she quickly asserted her habitual control. ‘I expect that the tension between us will slacken a little, now that someone has removed Neil from the scene. How long we shall both continue to work at Marton Towers remains to be seen.’

  ‘As do a lot of other things. It’s almost a recurring theme, in this case. Who do you think killed your husband, Mrs Cartwright?’

  ‘I don’t know. James Naylor would have the same motive that you imputed to me, having been cuckolded by Neil.’ She paused for a moment, as if to relish the old-fashioned word. ‘I’d say he was a man who might resort to instinctive violence more readily than I would, but I can hardly be seen as unbiased in the matter, can I? And of course Michelle Naylor herself might well have fallen out with her lover. I know my husband well enough to think that he wouldn’t consider his coupling with Michelle as a long-term thing; perhaps she did. I should think that under that kittenish exterior there is probably a little tiger when she’s annoyed, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘What do you know about Neil’s assistant, Ben Freeman?’

  ‘The lad who left last week? Practically nothing. I know that Neil was satisfied with his work on the estate and in the gardens. As my work was wholly in the mansion itself, I saw very little of the outside staff. And Ben wasn’t resident on the site.’

  Peach nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. He said abruptly, ‘And what can you tell us about Mr Holloway?’

  She smiled at him openly, relaxing as the attention turned away from her. ‘He’s my boss, Mr Peach. I’m hardly likely to be indiscreet about him, with my job at stake. But as a matter of fact, there’s nothing I can tell you. He’s an efficient manager of the mansion and the estate, and he’s been good to me, in that he’s given me more and more responsibility and several pay rises. But I have nothing beyond a professional relationship with him.’

  ‘You say you’re not surprised to find that your husband was making large sums from an involvement in the illegal drugs trade. Who else among the staff at Marton Towers do you think was involved in drug dealing?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I told you, we tend not to ask many questions, partly because most of us have things in our own backgrounds that we should like to conceal, partly because we know that the unwritten law here is that we don’t pry into things beyond our work.’

  She saw them off the premises, watched the pretty, red-haired girl whom she had found so irritating drive the police Mondeo until it passed out of sight. Then she went back into the cottage to digest the implications of this second meeting with the CID.

  She wasn’t a woman given to complacency, but she thought it had gone well. She had decided before they came that she wouldn’t play the grieving widow, and she congratulated herself that it had been the right decision.

  More importantly, she thought she’d managed to conceal quite how delighted she was that the bastard who
had slept beside her for sixteen years had burned to a black cinder in last week’s fire.

  Nineteen

  Percy Peach climbed the stairs towards Chief Superintendent Tucker’s penthouse office without the usual deadening of his spirits. He felt unwontedly cheered by the knowledge that he had something tangible with which to taunt the Head of Brunton CID.

  Tucker waved a wide arm at the chair in front of his huge empty desk. ‘Sit down and let’s get down to business. I was wondering quite how long it was going to be before you deigned to come up and brief me on the latest developments.’

  ‘Yes, sir. The team has been very busy this week. As I expect you have been yourself.’ He let his gaze travel slowly from end to end of the large empty working surface in front of his chief.

  Tucker said tetchily, ‘If I am to give you my overview, I need to be fully acquainted with your findings.’

  You’ve been fully briefed each day, if only you would trouble to read the documentation and my memos, Percy thought, without any relaxation of his inscrutable features. ‘No doubt you will be wishing to keep the Chairman of the Police Authority fully in touch with developments in the Neil Cartwright murder case, sir. In the interests of good public relations, which are so important in the modern police service.’ It pleased him to quote Tommy Bloody Tucker’s phrases back at him; it was always a reliable method of maximizing the man’s embarrassment.

  ‘No, Peach, I shall not.’ Tucker’s glare was lost on a man who seemed suddenly lost in contemplation of the ceiling.

  ‘Charged with eleven counts of indecent assault, sir.’ Peach spoke like one in a pleasant dream, his voice rising in wonder.

  ‘I’m well aware of what has happened to Henry Rawcliffe, thank you, Peach.’ Tucker strove hard to terminate the subject by the sternness he injected into his tone.

  ‘Blow for you, sir, it must have been. You being a close mate of his and all that.’