Death at Beacon Cottage

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘Mrs Reynolds is not a member of the police force, she’s a—’ Castle began, but Patterson interrupted.

  ‘Hell, I know what her function is. I left her and her partner giving my place the once-over and I want to know what they found there.’

  The DI cast a slightly helpless glance at Sukey and said, ‘Do you mind staying on for a few minutes?’

  ‘No problem,’ she assured him, secretly delighted that she was about to witness part of the next act in the drama. She was particularly anxious to see how Fiona reacted to the news of Lockyer’s death, and she had not long to wait.

  Castle began by running over the events that had occurred during the days immediately following the break-in at Bussell Manor, beginning with the raid on the home of Crowson – an employee of Rodriguez – and the subsequent discovery not only of Crowson’s body but of that of his close associate and colleague Jack Morris. During the recital, Patterson, who appeared to be still simmering after his outburst in Reception, sat chewing his lower lip and glowering. After pausing for a few moments to allow time for what he had related so far to sink in, Castle said, ‘I’m afraid you won’t like what I have to tell you next, sir, as I know you have complete faith in your friend’s honesty, but we have reason to believe that Miguel Rodriguez was directly involved in the burglary at your home.’

  ‘Never!’ Patterson exploded. ‘I can’t believe it of him – you got evidence?’

  Castle glanced at Sukey, inviting her to speak. ‘I found black fibres on the frame of the window in your office, a thumbprint on the catch and the imprint of a trainer in the sand beneath that window,’ she said. ‘All have been subjected to very thorough tests and all have been traced back to Mr Rodriguez. We actually found the trainers and a black tracksuit in his car.’

  ‘And when we went to interview him, we found he had left home in a hurry, in rather peculiar circumstances.’ Castle took DC Hill’s report of his visit to Miriam Prendergast from the file and read out the salient points before describing the fruitless attempts to locate Rodriguez at the clinic mentioned in the mysterious faxed message. As he listened, Patterson’s florid features registered mounting dismay. ‘Hell, you don’t reckon he’s been croaked, do you?’ he said without a trace of his earlier truculence.

  ‘For the moment, we have no reason to believe that he’s come to any harm,’ said Castle.

  Patterson sat back in his chair, shaking his head and wiping his face with a silk handkerchief. ‘And is that it?’ he asked. ‘No sign of any of my property being recovered?’

  ‘We found a fragment of a picture frame in Crowson’s garage that we think may have come from your collection. It was our intention, after it had been subjected to tests in our laboratories, to ask Mr Lockyer for his opinion. Unfortunately, that has not been possible.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve not been able to reach him either,’ said Patterson irritably. ‘I’ve been trying his home and his office since yesterday and getting no joy.’

  Castle appeared to ignore the comment. Instead he turned to Fiona, who had been sitting a little behind her employer, her pale face expressionless. ‘Miss Mackintosh, do you happen to have with you the complete list of the stolen items?’

  Fiona looked slightly taken aback. ‘I’m afraid not,’ she replied.

  ‘But you can probably remember them – or most of them?’ She did not reply, but merely waited. Sukey noticed that this time she had a slightly wary look in her lead-grey eyes. ‘Was there, for example,’ the detective continued, ‘a little Victorian brooch in the shape of a lovers’ knot, set with amethysts?’

  ‘There might have been something like that in that collection of Victoriana Stuart Lockyer persuaded me to buy a couple of months ago,’ Patterson interposed. ‘I don’t recall seeing it; period jewellery isn’t really my scene, but Stuart insisted there were several pieces there that would appreciate in value so I told him to go ahead. What about it anyway?’

  ‘I found a brooch answering to that description this morning, on the floor in the cellar of an isolated cottage near Painswick Beacon,’ said Sukey in response to a glance from Castle. She wondered whether he had spotted the flicker of recognition that had passed over Fiona’s face as he described the brooch; he could hardly have missed her nervous start at the reference to the cottage.

  ‘So where is it?’ Patterson demanded. ‘Fiona logs every addition to the collection – she might recognise it even if I don’t.’

  ‘It’s at present undergoing tests in the laboratory—’

  ‘What kind of tests? Why didn’t you show it to me right away?’

  ‘The brooch was covered in blood,’ said Castle quietly. ‘It was found beneath the body of a murder victim.’

  ‘Hell’s teeth, another murder!’ Patterson’s gaze showed incredulity as it travelled between Castle and Sukey. ‘Who is it this time?’

  ‘A man who was known in the village of Parkfield as John Smith,’ said the detective, and Sukey noticed that he was looking not at Patterson, but at Fiona. ‘However, we have now positively identified him as Stuart Lockyer. Catch her!’ he shouted, as with a sigh that was almost a moan, Fiona slid sideways from her chair.

  Twenty-One

  ‘I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. He said it was a chance in a lifetime to lay our hands on some real money. He said there was no risk to us, we’d simply be riding on the back of that Spanish Casanova, as he called him—’

  ‘I take it you’re referring to Miguel Rodriguez?’ DI Castle interrupted.

  ‘That’s right. Stuart hated his guts; he caught him once making a pass at me and said if it happened again he’d smash his face in.’ Fiona’s voice faltered at the recollection and she wiped her eyes with a handkerchief that was already moist. ‘I told him not to be silly, there was nothing in it, but he said he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else so much as looking at me. Stuart thought the world of me, we thought the world of each other, we were going to be so happy in the cottage…’ Her voice failed altogether as fresh tears poured down her cheeks.

  After a night spent under observation in hospital following her collapse on hearing of the death of Stuart Lockyer, she was sitting, white-faced and trembling, in an interview room in Gloucester City police station. Opposite her sat DI Castle and DS Radcliffe and beside her was Wilbur Patterson, who had threatened to call in his lawyer and ‘raise Cain’ if he was not allowed to be present. ‘It’s my property that’s been hijacked and I’ve a right to hear straight from the horse’s mouth exactly what went on,’ he had insisted and, after referring the matter to Superintendent Sladden, Castle had reluctantly agreed. ‘But I must ask you to remain silent during the interview, and to keep any questions of your own until later,’ Castle had warned, only partially reassured by Patterson’s impatient, ‘Sure, sure, can we just get on with it?’

  The two detectives allowed Fiona a few moments to collect herself before Radcliffe asked, ‘What exactly did you try to talk Lockyer out of?’

  ‘Robbing Bussell Manor, of course.’ She looked vaguely surprised at the question.

  ‘He told you he was planning to rob your employer?’ She nodded without speaking. ‘Did he tell you how he planned to set about it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did he propose to get into the house Without activating the alarm?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Patterson broke in. ‘She gave him the combination, the double-crossing little—’

  ‘Please, Mr Patterson, you promised to leave the questioning to us,’ said Castle with a frown, and the big American sat back in his seat, muttering and glaring at the woman who had been his trusted secretary. The inspector turned back to her. ‘Is that what happened?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head violently. ‘That’s what I thought he had in mind when he first mentioned it and I said straight away that I wouldn’t do it because the police would know immediately that it was an inside job and we’d be found out in no time. “I’ve worked out a much clevere
r scheme than that,” he said. It was clever too,’ she added with a flash of pride. ‘And it worked, didn’t it? You’d never have suspected—’

  ‘But someone else obviously did,’ Castle pointed out grimly and then continued in a gentler tone as the young woman’s eyes filled again. ‘You mentioned Mr Rodriguez a moment ago. Do I take it that he was part of the plan?’

  ‘He was the most important part.’ A faint smile flickered over Fiona’s wan features. ‘He was going to open up the place for us – he was to be our “Open Sesame” as Stuart called him.’

  ‘Are you saying that in spite of Stuart’s hostility towards him, he conspired with him to rob your employer?’

  ‘Oh no! Roddy didn’t have a clue about what we were planning. That was what made it so clever.’

  Castle felt his patience wearing thin. ‘I suggest you stop talking in riddles and tell us exactly what happened,’ he said.

  It was a weary but quietly triumphant DI Jim Castle who parked outside the little semi in Brockworth and sank with a hefty sigh of relief into the comfortable sofa in Sukey’s sitting room. ‘Phew, what a day!’ he exclaimed after drinking deeply from the glass of cold beer that she handed him. ‘Thanks, love, I needed that.’

  ‘Have some crisps, Jim?’ said Fergus.

  ‘No thanks.’ Castle waved away the dish with a smile. ‘Something in the kitchen smells wonderful and I don’t want to spoil my appetite.’

  ‘It’s chicken casserole and raspberry trifle… and I made the trifle,’ Fergus said with a hint of pride.

  ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘Never mind the food for the moment,’ said Sukey impatiently. ‘We want to know what’s been happening since yesterday’s drama at the station. I came straight home after you sent me to get medical help for Fiona and I haven’t had a word from you since… you never called me yesterday evening, I’ve been out of the office all day and when I got in this afternoon there was no one in CID who could tell me anything. I know you’ve got a result – you’ve got that look about you, like a cat that’s been at the cream,’ she added as he cocked an eyebrow at her over the rim of his glass.

  ‘We got a partial result, yes,’ he said guardedly.

  ‘Well go on, spill it.’

  ‘OK.’ Jim put down the empty glass, declined with a gesture the offer of a refill and glanced across at Fergus. ‘All this in the strictest confidence, young man. Not a word to anyone, not even the girlfriend.’

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ the lad assured him solemnly.

  ‘OK. Well, for a start, we’ve recovered the Turner.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Sukey exclaimed. ‘Where was it? No, let me guess. Henry Greenleaf had it?’

  ‘Clever girl. It was in his office safe.’

  ‘So that was what was in the parcel that Lockyer was carrying,’ she said reflectively.

  ‘Do I take it that Greenleaf hung on to it, maybe promising to find a buyer, and then advised the police?’

  Jim gave an ironic chuckle. ‘That’s what he’d have us believe, but we’ve made it quite clear that we’re not buying that story.’

  Fergus looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Do you mean you just went to see this Greenleaf bloke and asked to see what was in the parcel that Lockyer brought him? Surely, if he owned up straight away, he must be on the level.’

  ‘It wasn’t quite as simple as that. We had a warrant to search the place. Look, I’d better begin at the beginning. How long have we got before the food’s ready?’

  ‘About twenty minutes,’ said Sukey.

  ‘That should be enough.’ Jim held out his glass. ‘I think I’ll have that refill after all.’

  ‘I’ll get it, but don’t start till I get back.’

  As Fergus hurried from the room, Jim leaned across to Sukey and gave her a quick kiss. ‘All right, love?’ he said gently.

  She brushed his cheek with her fingers. ‘Fine,’ she whispered.

  Fergus returned with a second can of beer which he opened and handed over before settling down in his chair again. ‘Carry on with the story, Jim,’ he urged.

  ‘Right. Well, the FME – that’s the Forensic Medical Examiner – happened to be at the station and we got her to attend to Fiona. It was quite a while before she came round, and when she did she started babbling something about having told him it wouldn’t work and they’d be sure to be found out. The FME wouldn’t let us question her, said she was in shock and insisted on getting her into hospital for observation. We sent a WPC to keep an eye on her and when she woke up this morning she said something to the effect that with Lockyer dead she had nothing to live for and she might as well make a full statement about the robbery at Bussell Manor.’

  ‘Now I’m really baffled,’ said Sukey. ‘Are you saying it was Fiona and Stuart who did that job, and not Roddy?’

  ‘In a way.’

  ‘But the evidence we found… the prints, the fibres from the tracksuit… and Roddy’s disappearance…’

  ‘Oh, Roddy was in it all right, but he wasn’t responsible for the actual robbery. They simply used his expertise to get them into the place. It was a brilliant plan, and so breathtakingly simple. They’d almost certainly have got away with it if Lockyer had gone to any fence in the county but Henry Greenleaf.’

  ‘What made him choose Greenleaf?’

  ‘Fiona didn’t know, but she supposed it was because he reckoned he was the one with the contacts who’d know who was most likely to be interested in what was on offer.’

  ‘Lockyer would meet all sorts of people through his job with the auctioneers, wouldn’t he?’ said Sukey thoughtfully. ‘And I imagine there are some pretty dodgy characters in the art world.’

  Jim nodded. ‘It’s well known that not every dealer – or every collector, come to that – is over-fussy about the source of the stuff that’s offered to them. Word soon gets around about who’s likely to be interested in what. It seems that our Stuart had built up quite a thriving little business on the side, advising wealthy collectors when any items of particular interest were coming on the market. If a purchase was made on the strength of his advice, there’d be a commission for him.’

  ‘The way he did for Wilbur Patterson?’

  ‘Exactly. So long as the stuff was clean it was perfectly legitimate, of course – there are probably any number of people in his position making a bit of extra cash in the same way. Whether he fiddled the commission, as the widow hinted, is something that ought to be looked into. Some quite substantial sums could be involved that should be returned to—’

  ‘Never mind that now,’ Sukey interrupted impatiently. ‘Tell us about this breathtakingly simple plan.’

  ‘Sorry, I was digressing. The plan was to lie in wait in the gardens – which contain several convenient little arbours that might have been designed especially for the purpose – for Roddy to come and open the place up for them. Once he was out of the way with whatever he was planning to steal from the collection, having deactivated the alarm so that all they had to do was let themselves in through the front door using Fiona’s keys, they were to nip in and help themselves from whatever was left. Lockyer was familiar with the collection – after all, a lot of the items had been bought on his advice – and he knew exactly what would fetch the highest prices. And the best part of it from their point of view was that, to their astonishment, Roddy didn’t take a thing. He was in and out in less than five minutes, empty-handed so far as they could make out – he certainly wasn’t carrying anything. He even left the front door on the latch. They simply couldn’t believe their luck; Lockyer reckoned the Turner alone was worth several million, even on the black market.’

  ‘A handy way to launder drug money?’ suggested Fergus, who had been hanging on every word.

  ‘It’s possible. A chap DS Radcliffe spoke to in the village mentioned that he thought drugs might be involved.’

  ‘I’m having a job to take it all in,’ said Sukey. ‘I imagine that the plan – Roddy’s plan, that is
– was for Crowson and Morris to go in and pick up what they wanted later on during the night, after he’d opened the place up for them?’

  ‘That seems to have been the way they’d operated in the past. I suspect that much of what our two amateurs got away with was on their shopping list. When they found out it had gone, they probably thought Roddy had double-crossed them.’

  ‘D’you reckon it was one of them who fingered Roddy, out of revenge?’ Sukey suggested.

  ‘It might have been – or maybe it was Lockyer, out of spite because he thought Roddy fancied his girl. We’ll never know for sure, of course, but—’

  ‘What I don’t understand is, how did Stuart and Fiona know Roddy was planning the robbery… and when?’

  ‘They didn’t know for certain; it was a piece of inspired guesswork on Stuart’s part after he’d observed certain factors common to a number of burglaries from private collections. I have to admit he was way ahead of the police from that point of view.’

  ‘But you spotted the connection as well,’ Sukey interposed. ‘That was why the undercover agent was brought in – the one who looks like me.’

  ‘Yes, but much later. To be fair, we were only working on the basis of similarities between break-ins within our own area. Lockyer had contacts, and Roddy’s firm supplied customers, all over the country.’

  Sukey glanced at her watch. ‘Supper in five minutes,’ she warned.

  ‘Right, it won’t take long to tell the rest. It all started when Lockyer, who had several wealthy clients in Gloucestershire and the neighbouring counties, met Rodriguez at the home of one of them. He’d been supplying wine to the client for some time and like Lockyer was looked on almost as a personal friend. Shortly after that first encounter, the house was burgled in the owner’s absence on holiday by someone who had the expertise to deactivate quite a sophisticated alarm system. It didn’t occur to Lockyer at the time that Roddy might have been responsible – why should it? Then a similar robbery took place several months later at the home of another of his clients and he learned from a casual remark by the victim that he too bought wine from Roddy’s firm.’