Hung in the Balance (Simpson & Lowe Detective series Book 1)

by Ormerod, Roger

  Oliver was already there, with a torch in his hand. He shone it on me.

  ‘Do something,’ I whispered. ‘Get me out of here.’

  ‘Hold on.’ He handed the torch to Jennie. He seemed to be taking an eternity to work it out.

  Then he lay on his side, clasped one hand round the end of the gatepost, and reached. Our fingers were six inches apart.

  ‘No good,’ he said.

  Where was his blasted length of rope now? But of course — that’d been in his friend’s car.

  ‘Hurry.’

  ‘For Chrissake, hold on,’ he said.

  He conferred with Jennie. They worked something out. My jaws were aching from clenching my teeth. Then Jennie lay behind the gatepost. Slowly, he lowered himself beside her and eased himself downwards, until she could lock her arms round behind his bent knees. He reached again. He now had six inches to spare.

  ‘Don’t let go till I tell you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Hurry.’

  He reached past my hand and I felt his fingers around my wrist. The touch of his fingers was an ecstasy in itself. We were in contact. ‘Now,’ he said. I released the gate and aimed for his wrist. The torch, which he’d lain on the ground, glanced across his face. It was seamed, his jaw muscles standing out.

  ‘Now,’ he hissed. ‘The other one.’ And with his one arm slowly bending he drew me upwards. I allowed my elbow to slide free of the stave and slapped at his free, reaching hand, and again we locked together.

  And it began. I could do nothing to assist. Any thrashing of my legs would have been a positive danger to our security. He did it by bending his body, stomach muscles and back muscles, and Jennie behind him groaned as she took the strain of both of us, stretching her tight, digging the gatepost into her calves and the back of her thighs.

  Then it was over. With a shout he released me, and Jennie uncurled, and we lay on our backs in the blessed mud of the lane, panting up at the stars, linked now by the glorious feeling that we’d shared the effort, and triumphed.

  We sat up. My foot caught the torch and it swivelled. All three of us were muddied from toes to shoulders, Oliver and me our faces as well.

  ‘Welcome back,’ he said solemnly, and he kissed a portion of the mud from the end of my nose. ‘You look terrible, love.’

  Then he kissed Jennie on the end of her nose, though it didn’t need cleaning, and he didn’t say she looked terrible. Because she didn’t, flushed and elated, I assumed from the effort and success.

  ‘Come on,’ he said briskly. ‘In the car. You’ll get a reaction soon. There’s a rug. Can you stand? Here, I’ll give you a lift up.’

  ‘I can stand, thank you.’

  Which wasn’t strictly true, but whatever staggering I did was in the darkness behind the headlights. It hid my tears, which I couldn’t explain, even to myself.

  They got me in the front to give me the full benefit of the heater. Oliver said solemnly, ‘I don’t think I’ll try backing into the gateway.’ If you ask me, it was he who was in shock. So we had to go all the way up to the entrance to the farmhouse drive in order to turn round.

  ‘We got a radio message that you’d driven into the lane,’ he explained. ‘I didn’t like the sound of that, so we went to the cottage, and there was your car and the cottage dark and empty. We went inside. A handkerchief with blood on it, and your shoulder bag. So we had to drive up here to see where you’d got to. Now we know. What we don’t know is how, which’ll keep till we’ve got you back to the hotel.’

  ‘No it will not,’ I said, and I told them, which kept both of them silent until we parked outside The Carlton. Here, Oliver used his car radio to get a squad out to the quarry pool.

  The receptionist, who’d previously seen two of us covered with mud, but had survived the experience, now had to cope with three. The same man, he saw, but now with two women. I nearly had to snap my fingers in order to get the key.

  Oliver said, ‘Will you have brandy sent up and beer, and…and…’ He glanced at Jennie. He didn’t know.

  ‘And everything,’ I added.

  It was clear that we all needed cleaning up. Jennie and I used the bathroom first, me in the bath, she in the shower. We emerged draped in towels, inadequately perhaps because there weren’t really enough of them, but we could then shoo Oliver in there while I offered Jennie what clothes I could in her size. We were therefore shining and new and relaxed when he emerged. Not having anything he could change into, he’d managed with a quick wash.

  The drinks were there. We helped ourselves. I didn’t seem to be able to stop talking.

  ‘So Fellowes and Maguire killed your partner, Cornel,’ Oliver cut in. ‘And I can see they’d probably need to kill Graham — though that’s a bit vague. But Costello… I can’t see that at all.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Oh no, no, no,’ having already drunk too much brandy to stave off the shock. Which didn’t seem to be coming on. ‘Nel, yes. They thought he knew too much, when he knew nothing, and most likely he went for that stupid gun of his, and they simply took it from him and shot him. Heavens knows what he might’ve said to them, but Nel, when he got going, would provoke an angel to violence. Nel yes, they killed Nel. But no one else.’

  ‘Then who did?’ demanded Oliver. ‘You know, don’t you?’

  Lower lip held between my teeth, hardly able to contain myself, I nodded.

  ‘Do tell,’ said Jennie, who’d been alternating between gin and sherry.

  ‘Anna told me,’ I said.

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘It was the last thing she did say.’

  ‘Somebody,’ said Oliver heavily, ‘is surely going to kill you, and it could well be me.’

  So I sat on the stool because my legs were still a little shaky, and began with the watch and the ring.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Jennie. ‘Nobody tells a mere WPC anything.’

  ‘Graham’s watch and Graham’s ring were on Costello’s body,’ I explained. ‘Graham wore them on his left wrist and his left third finger, but Costello had them on his right wrist and his left pinky.’

  ‘Pinky?’

  I glanced at Oliver. ‘Little finger,’ I explained.

  I went on, ‘And that’s been the big snag in all this. I mean, if somebody other than Costello killed Graham, and put them on him, they surely wouldn’t have made a mistake and got them wrong — not if they wanted to fake the body as Graham’s. Both of them from one hand with Graham, distributed between both hands with Costello. No — it couldn’t have been. And Costello, if he killed Graham — even if he didn’t and only discovered the body — he was too experienced an ex-cop to run the risk of wearing them in public for something up to five days.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, staring fixedly at her glass. ‘Yes, I suppose.’

  ‘But the fallacy in that reasoning,’ I told her, ‘is that we assumed he’d been wearing them in public and for several days. In fact, I now believe it was only once he wore them, and then only for an hour or so, and even then not in what you’d call public.’

  ‘Since when,’ demanded Oliver heavily, ‘have you worked this out?’

  ‘Since Anna told me.’

  ‘Anna did? What did she tell you?’

  ‘Nothing direct, Oliver. The rest I’ve had to work out myself. And only in the last hour, you could say.’

  ‘Hanging on to that gate?’

  ‘I had to think of something, to take my mind off that blasted slope. Do listen, Oliver, please. Think of Costello. He found Graham’s body. It’s almost definite he did, otherwise nothing makes sense. Don’t ask me how he came to find him. But Costello was in the district, doing his investigating. Perhaps he investigated the farm, perhaps he’d intended to take the back lane from the Mattock road to the cottage — he was staying in Mattock, after all — and took the wrong turn up to the farm. But he found Graham. Now…here was a man who was over in England investigating a possible embezzlement involving a lot of money. And investigating Graham’s part
in it. That was what my partner, poor Nel, had sent him over here to do. And here was that same Graham — he’d know what he looked like — dead, and in very strange circumstances. He was an ex-cop, he’d see it as murder, you can be sure. And so — he would sit down and give it some thought. There was plenty of time for that. And then what?’

  He smiled. ‘Tell us.’ Because he knew I was going to, anyway.

  ‘Well…there he was at the farm. This was a murder faked as a suicide, so there could be something in it for him. And because he’d been investigating the disappearance of a large sum of money, he assumed the murder had been done for the money. Admit it, we’ve all assumed that. No Oliver, let me go on, please. If it was for the money, then, he’d ask himself, who would benefit? And the first name that came to mind would be Anna’s. What would he do then? Why — this chauvinistic pig of an ex-NYPD policeman would go and confront her. Try to bluff her into believing he had the proof, by showing her he’d found the body. He would go to her wearing Graham’s watch and signet ring. Guess where I found these? That sort of thing. To give her a bit of a jolt.’

  ‘Confronting a murderer?’ asked Oliver. ‘That’d be a bit of a risk, surely, although she was a woman. And he wouldn’t know she’d be alone.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘All right. Be as difficult as you can! He had a good idea she’d killed him. So he would scout the place first, checking the layout. Perhaps he walked down from the farm. Yes, I think he’d do that. He’d have had difficulty driving as far as he did, but he couldn’t have known what the rest of the lane would be like, so he would walk down to the cottage and spend a few minutes checking what the opposition was like. And Anna would seem to be an easy mark. So he’d walk in on her, flashing the watch and the ring as proof of his credentials. Anybody but Anna would probably have folded up and promised him anything. She would’ve done, if she’d killed Graham just for the money. She’d have offered him a cut. But she hadn’t. Her motive was entirely different.’

  I was warming to it now, seeing it spread out clearly before me.

  ‘Anna?’ said Oliver. ‘She killed him? I don’t get that — I don’t see what you’re getting at.’ And he sat down on the bed beside Jennie, the police lining themselves up against me.

  ‘I mean,’ I said carefully, ‘that Anna, if she’d killed Graham purely and simply for financial gain, would have had to do it coldly and callously. In which case, going along with Costello would seem to be the easiest way out. But she killed Graham in a hot passion, and now she’d be cold and terrified, and desperate.’

  ‘A hot passion?’ asked Jennie with interest. ‘How nice to get away from sordid money.’

  ‘Exactly my thoughts on it,’ I agreed. ‘It was a bit of a relief to realize the truth, I’ve got to admit. But just imagine the position she’d been in with Graham. She had gone to live with him. She told me she adored him, and maybe she did. Too passionately, perhaps. But she’d made him, you could say. He was her creation. She’d come on him as an aimless and unmotivated genius — and don’t forget I know him — and she had put her own force of character behind him. It was a matter of finding out what he could do, and wanted to do. So…with Anna pushing him, he found he could be a good painter. One good enough to sell his stuff. Then all of a sudden it grew and grew, and he began really earning good money. She didn’t know he’d started off with illegal money, she’d only see it that she was making something of him.’

  ‘I’m with you,’ said Oliver.

  ‘She was very naïve,’ Jennie commented.

  ‘Yes. And she accused me of being naïve!’ I tried to laugh that away, but it sounded terrible. ‘She also told me I’d been a jealous fool over him, walking out on him like I did. She said I ought to have fought back. As she did in the end, when along came Catriona Steele into his life. By that time he’d been getting out and about, doing his act as five collectors buying up Graham Tonkin paintings. Knowing Graham — he was good-looking, charming, all the rest of it — it was inevitable he’d meet somebody. And when that somebody was looking for him, and was observing evidence that he had a lot of money to spend, well, the poor devil was lost again.’ I realized I hadn’t put that very objectively, and paused.

  Jennie pounced in. ‘Hadn’t he got any mind of his own? Did he have to fall for every woman who came along —’

  ‘He wasn’t like that,’ I heard myself supporting him fiercely. ‘But you mustn’t forget, he was changing. He was somebody, a painter, much sought after. Lord, how ironic that is! I hadn’t thought about it. He’d created that himself, an illusion that he was a fine and collectable painter! Poor Graham, he never did figure out his own weaknesses. But you can see how flattering he would find it. Didn’t he realize who Catriona was, and what she was after! At first he might have wondered. But you can reckon he’d be dazzled by this attention from a beautiful young woman, and he’d forget it was Anna who’d really done it all. She’d created him. He was hers. And being the fool he was, absolutely open but insensitive and unimaginative, I wouldn’t have put it past him to have calmly informed Anna that he was going away. With another woman. As though Anna was a live-in housekeeper who was being given notice.’

  ‘He’d do that?’ Jennie asked, almost breathless, as though she’d been doing all the talking.

  I couldn’t say what I believed, not with any attempt at modesty, but I believed, now that I really understood him, that he’d always loved me, and had been clinging to it still. Any other woman would have been an interim stop-gap, until I returned to him.

  ‘He’d do it,’ I said, nodding to myself. Yes, he would. ‘And you can imagine what Anna would make of that. She’d made him, and nobody, just nobody, was going to have the finished product. In that situation, the obvious person to have removed was Catriona, but Catriona wasn’t within reach when Anna blew her top. Graham was the one who was to hand. There, in front of her, saying those things. So she hit him hard with something heavy. Maybe harder than she intended. We can’t know. But she then had a body on her hands, and she had to find a way of disposing of it.’

  Oliver was looking at his palms, I thought doubtfully. But Jennie knew what I meant. She knew what jealousy could do to you. She said, ‘So she took him up to the farmhouse…’

  I was shaking my head. ‘Not with that purpose, I don’t think. This would be the day Graham and the car disappeared. She said it wouldn’t start. Not true. It would. But I’d suggest she had a dead body, and simply wanted to get rid of it. Looking like suicide if possible. The quarry would seem a good place…but she would take one look at that slippy slope, and decide not to risk it. That was what you said, Oliver, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘So…she went on to the old farmhouse, maybe simply thinking of leaving the body there. But then she saw how it could really be made to look like suicide. As it did, by the time she’d finished with it. She had all the time in the world to do it, and in the end it didn’t come out all that badly. From her point of view.’

  ‘All right,’ said Oliver, looking up at last. ‘So now…she had Costello to deal with. What about that?’

  ‘Costello,’ I said. ‘Just imagine Anna, confronted by that tough baboon. She would have to pretend ignorance. “I don’t believe it. He’s been away a few days. Show me.” That sort of thing. Playing for time. So he said he’d show her. And being a great big pig of a New York copper, he’d naturally get behind the wheel of the Volvo, she directing him. She’d be desperate by that time, and she’d get only one chance of getting rid of him. She directed him through that open gateway.’

  I gave them a more explicit description of how it’d been with Fellowes and Maguire. ‘She’d tried it once with Costello, you see, and it’d worked then. “Turn left. Left here, you fool.” Maguire did it, and Costello knew even less about the lane, so he did it too.’ I was getting tired now. ‘She threw herself out. The first time lucky, and second time not. And that was the reason she reported only Graham missing, when she went to
your station, Oliver, because at that time the Volvo was at the farmhouse. When she spoke to me about it, she said car and Graham disappeared together, because Costello had gone into the quarry with it.’

  I sat on that little stool, my glass empty now because I’d probably shaken it all out on the carpet. I tried to get up to refill it, but somehow my legs wouldn’t work. Oliver got to his feet and went to look out of the window. Jennie examined her nails for traces of errant mud.

  Then Oliver made up his mind, came over to me, and kissed me solemnly on the lips. He said, ‘Philipa, my love, your father would be proud.’ He laughed. ‘Philip Marlowe would be proud, too.’

  Jennie made fussing motions, even though she wasn’t carrying a bag to fuss with. She got to her feet. They had to leave. There would be reports to be made, Grossman to be informed that it was all over. I wondered whether he would accept that, or still pursue his efforts to involve me.

  I found I could stand. Oliver was too close for comfort, while Jennie was there.

  There was a knock on the door. We glanced at each other and I went to answer it.

  Harvey Remington was standing outside. He advanced and I stood back. He was not in any sort of a sunny mood.

  ‘What’s this, Philipa? I’m told you’ve given important papers to those damned police…ah, hello Inspector…Constable. I just came round —’

  ‘You shall have them,’ said Oliver solemnly.

  Harvey grunted, and nodded his head. To me, he went on, ‘And they’re pressing me over death duties, my dear. Oh, I forgot — there’s somebody else to see you.’

  The small quiet man had remained in the background. I might not have noticed him, might have closed the door in his face. I gave him an indeterminate smile, and stood back.

  He, too, had one of those black briefcases. It seemed too heavy for such a frail person. I noticed that it had a gold crown embossed on its flap.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said, looking round, apparently pleased to find company. ‘You’re Ms Philipa Lowe? Widow of the late Graham Mark Tonkin? I’ve been in conference with Mr Remington. It has come to my department’s notice that a considerable number of large payments have been made to your late husband, for paintings the galleries sold to him. There’s a question of unpaid taxes, you understand. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. Inspector from the Inland Revenue. How do you do.’