‘How did your family react when you told them you were going to join the boys in blue?’ Toby asked suddenly.
‘My mother was bewildered. My father was worried. My brother laughed his head off.’ Jess smiled at the memory.
‘Is he an older brother or a younger one?’
‘He’s older by three minutes. Don’t ask what it’s like to be a twin, either, will you, please?’
‘He’s not a policeman, too, is he? I mean your brother. Or your father, come to that? Yours isn’t a police family?’
‘No, I’m the first one. Simon, my brother, works for a medical charity. He’s overseas most of the time.’
Toby looked interested. ‘Where is he based now?’
‘In the Congo. But he’s been home on leave just recently. You know, Mr Smythe, I’m the one who’s supposed to ask the questions.’
‘That means you’re not going to answer any more,’ Toby replied.
‘You can ask me about myself if you want. But you probably don’t want to. I wish I could tell you more about Fiona but right now I feel I knew as little about her as you do.’
‘There is one thing you might be able to confirm,’ Jess said.
‘Can you cast your mind back to when you saw Fiona jogging away from the house on Saturday morning? Describe to me again exactly what you saw.’
Toby expelled breath in a long soundless whistle. ‘I was in the bathroom and it had got steamed up, so I opened the window. There was Fiona, with her back to me, running away at a gentle jog-trot. I just saw her briefly because it was pretty chilly standing at the open window wearing nothing but a towel.’
‘But you’ve no doubt it was Fiona? What was she wearing?’
‘It was Fiona, no doubts about that at all. It couldn’t have been Alison, could it? Because she’s shorter and her hair’s different.’
‘Ah,’ said Jess. ‘Her hair. How did Fiona’s hair look that morning?’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ Toby said in some exasperation. ‘You’re like old Jeremy. You don’t tell people what you’re thinking and yet you expect them to come up with the right answers!’
‘I’m trying not to lead a witness,’ Jess defended herself.
‘Well, she had long blond hair. In the morning sun it looked very pale. She’d got it tied up in a ponytail’
‘You’ve got no doubt about that?’ Jess stopped and turned to face him. ‘Could you see the ribbon or whatever it was fastened the ponytail?’
‘No. Not at that distance. Why, is it important?’ Toby broke off and thumped one clenched fist into the palm of his other hand and Jess prudently grabbed her plate. ‘Of course it is,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘When we saw her down by the lake, her hair was loose.’
‘Mrs Whittle saw her leave the house, too. She says Fiona’s hair was tied back with a red satin scrunchy.’
‘I remember that thing,’ Toby said. ‘Not on that morning but on other occasions. She used it to fix her hair back when she went riding. Now it’s missing?’
‘Now it’s missing,’ agreed Jess.
They rode the light railway back to Waterloo where they parted. ‘I’ll just go for a bit of a wander round,’ Toby said. ‘Clear my head. I’ll probably walk up Concert Hall Approach and round the Festival Hall, over the Hungerford Bridge and pick up the Tube on the other side of the river.’ He looked at her hopefully.
‘I have to go straight back,’ said Jess, not taking the bait. ‘I’ll pick up the Bakerloo line Tube here.’
Toby stood silently before her for a moment, his hair ruffled and his face set in despondent lines. ‘When you tell Markby about this,’ he said. ‘He’ll probably have a bloody good laugh.’
Toby was upset now but when he’d calmed down, he might want to continue his own investigations. Jess decided to put down a marker.
‘Don’t deceive yourself, Mr Smythe. When he hears all this, I expect the superintendent to be a very angry man. Laughter, I think, is going to be very far from his mind!’
Chapter Eight
‘So, where’s Alan?’ James Holland asked. ‘Making sure we can all sleep peacefully in our beds?’
‘He’s working, if that’s what you mean. Would you believe it, he’s been working all over Easter?’ Meredith shook her head.
The vicar cleared his throat and said mildly, ‘So have I.’
‘Sorry, James.Yes, of course it’s one of your extra-busy periods. But Alan and I were hoping for some time together. That Alan’s working isn’t by choice, of course, and, what makes it worse, I feel it’s my fault.’
‘Ah,’ said the vicar, scratching his bushy black beard and fixing a quizzical eye on her.
‘Originally, I asked him to talk to a friend of a friend, as a favour, but it sort of escalated. Serve me right.’
‘Mighty oaks from little acorns grow. Would you like another cup of coffee?’ When they both had mugs of coffee, James went on, ‘It’s a great pleasure to see you but I thought that on Tuesday after Easter the civil service managed to drag itself back to work?’
‘I should be back at work. But I rang in and arranged to take the rest of the week off. It didn’t make me popular but I explained that the police wanted to interview me at some point, I didn’t know when.’
‘They do?’
‘Yes, Inspector Jessica Campbell is apparently keen to talk to me. I thought she might choose today but she’s gone out of town. Besides that, this friend I mentioned needs moral support. I felt I should be around.’
The vicar sipped his coffee and fell silent.
‘James,’ Meredith asked. ‘What are you planning to do with all this?’ She indicated their general surroundings.
They were sitting in the normally roomy kitchen of the vicarage, but today they were hemmed in on all sides by packing cases and stacks of newspaper. Every worktop and ledge was piled high with assorted pots, pans and crockery.
‘I thought,’ he said, ‘I ought to start packing up my stuff so that I can move out and you two can move in with your paint pots. The new vicarage is ready for me.’
‘Are you taking all this? Where will you put it? The new place is half the size of this one and its kitchen won’t hold a tenth of this stuff.’ She gazed round in disbelief. ‘Where did you get it all?’
‘I inherited it,’ said James, looking slightly abashed. ‘My predecessor died in harness here in this house. His personal effects were removed but no one cleared out his domestic possessions. I inherited the housekeeper, Mrs Harman, from him, too. She liked cooking with the pots she knew and so we left it at that. Just carried on. If you see anything you like, please feel free. Take your pick.’ James picked up a blackened frying pan the base of which had become unaccountably rounded so that it wouldn’t stand flat on any surface. He gazed at it thoughtfully.
‘Thanks, and all that. But I don’t think so.’ Meredith lifted a teapot with a chipped spout. She took off the lid and peered inside. ‘This hasn’t been used in ages. It’s got an old bus ticket in it.’ She set it down. ‘James, honestly, have you thought of just putting the lot in a jumble sale?’
‘I might, eventually. Tell me, this police business that necessitated Alan working over Easter, it wouldn’t be the death of Jeremy Jenner’s daughter?’
‘Yes. I feel really bad about it all. I mean, I feel very sorry for the Jenners and, of course, for the girl herself. But well, it’s difficult to explain. In fact, I can’t explain, it’s confidential. It’s a terrible thing to happen. At the moment no one has any idea why, that’s what’s so awful. Alan isn’t actually at his desk. He’s gone to see the Jenners. He asked me if I wanted to go with him but I said no. I wasn’t copping out, exactly. OK, I was, to an extent. But Alan thinks Jeremy Jenner might say things to him he wouldn’t say to other investigating officers.’
‘I won’t press you for details, naturally. I dare say the reason for her death will come to light eventually. Things have a way of working themselves to the surface. On a general note, ever
since I came to Bamford, it’s struck me that people hereabouts are adept at keeping secrets. On the surface, all looks calm, workaday, normal. But the stories I hear, you’d hardly credit.’
‘Alan spends his time finding out about people’s secrets, too.’
‘Indeed. The astonishing thing,’ James added in sudden earnestness, ‘is how long memories are. Something happens today and the root of it goes back years. It’s a sad fact that many people are what Robert Louis Stevenson described as “wonderful patient haters”.’
Markby wasn’t sorry to find, when he got to Overvale House, that Alison Jenner was out walking the dog. Jeremy, wearing old corduroy trousers and a disreputable sweater, received him with a kind of resigned civility. It told the visitor Jenner had had more than enough of police officers of all ranks and both sexes enquiring into his private affairs, but accepted it as an unpleasant necessity. Jenner, in his professional life, had learned leadership, self-command and how to keep a clear head in an emergency. It stood him in good stead now. Markby thought the man was like a once-great singer who can no longer quite make the difficult notes but who can rely on training and experience to carry him through a role.
‘I’m still sure you should be looking for the blighter who wrote the letters,’ he said.
‘We are looking for him.’
‘Don’t play silly buggers,’ Jeremy said irritably. ‘You know I mean you should be looking at him for the murder of my daughter.’
‘We have him in mind. But we’d be making a mistake if we closed our minds to the possibility of someone else being responsible.’
‘Whoever killed her, first stabbed her. He knew she was dead!’ Jeremy’s eyes blazed with sudden fury. ‘He didn’t need to do anything else. Logically he ought to have left her where she was and got out of there before someone came along and spotted him. But he didn’t do that. He took time to strike her on the head and dump her body in the lake. That was deliberately done to let us know he’d done it. How many people know about Freda Kemp’s death? It has to be him.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ Markby said. ‘Just how many people do know about the death of Miss Kemp and Alison’s trial.’
Jenner leaned back in the chintz-covered armchair. They were in the comfortable drawing room where Jess had spoken to the Jenners. The fire smouldered in the hearth despite the sunny day. Markby thought Jenner’s complexion looked unhealthily grey.
‘I know this is stressful,’ he said carefully. ‘I’d like to suggest that both you and Alison call your doctor if it gets too much.’
‘I’ve got pills,’ Jenner said testily. ‘I’m not going to keel over, if that’s what you think.’ He made a gesture of waving aside some inconvenient object. ‘I want this fellow found, Alan.’
‘We’re doing our very best. Inspector Campbell is in London visiting your daughter’s flat today. I understand you weren’t happy at the idea of your daughter’s possessions being searched, but it might well turn up a clue.’
To his surprise, Jenner looked positively shifty. ‘Harrumph!’ he said. ‘Quite so.’ He got up and went to the fire. Seizing the poker from the companion set in the hearth, he rattled it energetically in the ashes before taking another log from a basket and adding it to the flames. When he stood up and turned back to Markby, the effort and the heat of the fire had reddened his pale complexion. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘If she’s been poking round the flat today, there’s something I ought to tell you.’
‘Yes?’ Markby raised his eyebrows. Mentally he had heaved a sigh of exasperation. It was not an unfamiliar situation. People in possession of information didn’t yield it up until they had to. Even when keeping something back would hinder an investigation they wanted carried out as quickly as possible, they hugged their secret facts to their chests and watched the police struggle on without them. What had Jenner hoped would remain hidden but was now to be revealed?
‘I asked Toby to pop up to London today and go there, to Fiona’s flat.’
‘May I ask why?’ Markby’s tone had hardened. He had sympathy for the Jenner family but not towards anyone who sought to confuse a police inquiry, even with the most innocent of motives.
‘I want to tell you something in the strictest confidence, Alan.’ Jenner paused, obviously awaiting confirmation that his information wouldn’t be passed on. He didn’t get it.
‘I’m a police officer,’ Markby said wearily. ‘This is an investigation into murder.’
Jenner appeared all at once deflated. He sank back into the armchair. ‘Stupid of me. You’ll report everything, you have to. The thing is, I don’t have facts. All I have is what may turn out to be a mere suspicion. My daughter was a very beautiful girl and a wealthy one. I had expected that, by now, young men would be queuing up wanting to marry her, or even, in the modern way, she’d have set up house with some chap. She never told me if anyone was hanging round. Of course, she’s – she was quite entitled to keep such matters private. We have never been close, Fiona and I. I’m sorry about that but it couldn’t be helped. She was brought up by her mother, largely in France.’ Jenner rubbed his hands together nervously. ‘I want you to understand, Alan. My intention was simply to protect my daughter’s reputation. That’s why I asked Toby to go to London today. I didn’t actually tell him exactly why, which was probably unfair, but I thought, if it should all turn out to be my fevered imagination, it was better I didn’t start a rumour.’
‘A rumour of what?’ Markby asked patiently.
‘Some weeks ago, I was in London and I had the idea of calling on Fiona, just to see how she was getting on in the flat. I rang the number to let her know I’d be coming over and a young woman answered. I didn’t say who I was. I just asked, was Miss Jenner there? She replied, “Fi’s out. This is Tara. Do you want to leave a message?” I said I didn’t and I made an excuse for the call. I said I was her bank, just routine.You know how banks ring up these days, wanting to sell you everything from home insurance to health plans. I didn’t say anything to Fiona about it. But I began to think things over. She used to ring someone up on her mobile phone when she was here, and receive calls. She was always very secretive about them.There was the total absence of close men friends. I have to say, I was pleased that she seemed to get on so well with young Toby. But I’m afraid the idea had lodged itself in my brain that she preferred women. There, I’ve said it.’
‘And you wanted to know for sure, so you sent Toby to the flat today, ahead of the police, as you hoped.’ Markby shook his head. ‘That was foolish. It’s put Smythe in a difficult position.’
‘It’s my fault entirely,’ Jenner said vehemently. ‘Toby’s a decent chap. He didn’t want to let me down.’
‘Well, then,’ said Markby. ‘Let’s hope Inspector Campbell got there before he did.’
Markby left Overvale House and hesitated by his car for a moment. He was angry with Jeremy Jenner for withholding information and letting Jess Campbell go up to the London flat unprepared. He was even angrier that Jenner had sent Toby there and that Toby had agreed to go. If Toby got a bit of a shock when he got there, serve him right! Markby felt he wanted fresh air. He began to walk across the lawns in the direction of the lake.
It was deserted when he reached it. Signs of the police presence remained, strips of blue and white tape which lay trampled in the mud or still encircled the trees. He wondered that Stebbings hadn’t removed it but perhaps Stebbings was avoiding the spot. Markby had found that there were two main reactions to a murder scene. Either people were drawn there by a dreadful fascination or they walked a mile out of their way to get round it. The corpse had long been removed but remained as an unseen presence, an unquiet spirit. Even now Markby felt as though he were being watched. He shrugged away the notion as fanciful.
The mini-tent which had been erected over the impression of the tyre tread had been taken away. It didn’t look as if the tyre tread impression would be of any use to them. The divers had turned up nothing in the lake. They were looki
ng in the wrong place. The girl’s body had been dumped here. No, not dumped, he thought. Artistically arranged in the lake, according to Stebbings. They had only the gardener’s word for it. No one else had seen her there. By the time the family arrived at the scene, the body was lying on the ground by the water’s edge, dragged from the lake by Stebbings, and by the time the police had got there the body had been manhandled even more.
Markby sighed. This had not been how he’d planned to spend the Easter holiday with Meredith. Nor had Meredith planned all this disruption. It had just happened, as these things did. Only this time, of course, they had both been drawn into it by Toby Smythe’s request. There had been a time, Markby recalled, when he’d occasionally felt a twinge of jealousy with regard to Toby Smythe. It had been groundless because, as he now knew, that wasn’t the way Meredith felt about her FCO colleague. She liked the chap to a degree Markby couldn’t understand. But that’s as far as it went. She also appeared to be prepared to forgive Smythe any amount of difficulty he caused. Sometimes, Markby had wondered if some sort of latent maternal instinct prompted this. It was not something he’d ever had dared to suggest to her. But she did always seem to think she had to damn well look after him.
There was a further dimension to Markby’s discontent. Now he’d reached senior enough rank, the inconveniences of his chosen calling ought not to intrude quite so often into what was supposed to be his private life. But they still did and still would. He was unhappily aware it had been one of the reasons behind the collapse of his first marriage. There had been other reasons why he and Rachel hadn’t lasted but the constant interruption of official matters, disrupting their social life and leading to endless upsets on the home front, had been one of the first to make itself felt. Only too well, he remembered Rachel, her face puckering in disappointment, wailing, ‘But I’ve arranged …’ Disappointment had eventually turned to anger and then to resentment. ‘Honestly, Alan, I think you do it on purpose …’ That won’t happen this time, he told himself. I’m not called out so often now they’ve stuck me behind a desk and, in any case, Meredith isn’t like that.
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