‘She was there, was Fiona. I chatted to her, friendly like. But she was a real stuck-up piece. Thought I was nothing, just a workman. So, to take her down a peg or two, I said I knew something about her stepmother that none of the Jenners would want revealed. I was fairly sure Fiona wouldn’t have heard about it already. For all I knew, old Jenner himself hadn’t. It was something Alison would want kept quiet. Her husband was a rich man. They’d got posh friends and Alison was enjoying swanking around playing lady of the manor. “What?” says Fiona, all hoity-toity, but dead curious. So I told her. “Your stepmum got away with murder.”You know what?’ Ted sounded bemused.‘She didn’t react at all the way I thought she would. She didn’t turn a hair. I had to admire her for it. She just asked how I knew and how could I be sure? So I told her and she was tickled pink.’
Ted paused and reflected. ‘She didn’t like Alison, see? So she, Fiona, she says to me that, for a joke, we’d send the letters. She’d tell me what to say and I’d print them out. She liked a joke, Fiona. That’s why I put in her the lake, smashed her head first, just like old Miss Kemp. I thought, if Fiona could see me do it, she’d appreciate the joke.’ Ted smiled but it wasn’t his normal cheerful grin. His eyes were cold.
‘But,’ whispered Meredith. ‘Alison has always believed Miss Kemp’s death was an accident. The police were wrong.’
‘It was meant to look like an accident!’ snapped Ted. ‘That bloody interfering copper with the double-barrelled name …’
‘Barnes-Wakefield?’
‘That’s him: Ted nodded. ‘Mum said he’d think it was an accident.’
‘Your mother killed Miss Kemp?’ Meredith forgot that mentioning Mrs Travis wasn’t wise.
‘Of course she didn’t!’ Ted shouted furiously at her. He leaned forwards and jabbed the screwdriver at her face.
It grazed her cheek as she threw herself to one side. ‘There wasn’t anyone else!’ she gasped.
Ted chuckled. It was an unexpected sound and it chilled Meredith’s blood. ‘Wasn’t there, eh?’
There was a moment’s frozen silence as the words hung in the stuffy air.
‘You …?’ she gasped. ‘But you were a ten-year-old boy …’
‘I was a ten-year-old boy who had to go to school all winter in wellington boots because my mum hadn’t the money to buy me leather shoes. Miss Kemp, she never gave my mum a bit of extra money so that she could buy me proper clothes, did she? She had money, too, more than an old woman like her needed. Do you know how she made it, her money? She ran an agency in London that found domestic staff for people. That’s how she always treated my mother. A servant, that’s what she was. Do this, do that! That’s all Mum heard from Miss Kemp. Never a “thank you” or a “would you mind?”
‘And that old bike I had to ride! I found that bike in a skip. Someone had thrown it out, it was that rubbishy. But I got it out and cleaned it up. The other kids laughed at me because of it, and because of the wellington boots and all the rest of it! You know what being poor is?’ Ted’s eyes glowed. ‘No, of course you don’t. I’ll tell you. It means everyone despises you, even snotty-nosed school kids.’
There was blood trickling down Meredith’s cheek. She could feel it but she dared not put up her hand to wipe it away.
‘What happened?’ She had only minutes now to get out of here now. How?
Ted shrugged. ‘I didn’t mean it. You could say it was a sort of accident. It was Sunday. I was fed up with hanging round the house and went out just walking. I was by Miss Kemp’s cottage and I saw Alison drive off in her nice car, going back to London. Then the old lady came out and began pottering around her garden. She liked her garden. She’d left the door open. I thought, no one’s there. Mum didn’t work there on a Sunday, see? I could slip in and see if Miss Kemp had any money lying about anywhere. It was because of the bike. I wanted to buy a proper bike and I was saving up. I thought, I bet Miss Kemp has agreed to give Alison some more money to buy things in London. It’s only right I should have some, too. If she wouldn’t give it to me, mean old biddy, I’d take it. I slipped in and started looking round. Some people had stopped outside the cottage and were talking to her, a pair of cyclists, it was. I saw them from the window, so I reckoned I was safe. I was looking in a desk drawer when she came back in and caught me at it. I was terrified. I was only ten years old and I didn’t think. I just grabbed a paperweight on the desk and jumped at her, striking out. She was very old, frail. She went down like a ninepin and lay there, not moving. I ran home and told Mum. She came running to Miss Kemp’s cottage. She said Miss Kemp was dead. We’d make it look like an accident. We’d put her in the pond and they’d think she’d drowned. So we did that. It was awkward carrying her. She was only little and thin but she weighed more than you’d have expected. That’s what they mean when they talk about dead weight. It was the same when I moved Fiona but I had the car that time. Mum cleaned off the paperweight and put it back on the desk because she said it might be missed. Then we went home.
‘But that old Barnes-Wakefield, he wouldn’t have it was an accident. He said there was no water in Miss Kemp’s lungs. He couldn’t see anything by the pond she’d hit her head on so he couldn’t explain the wound. He reckoned it was murder and Mum and me, we were scared stiff. So, we had to give him a murderer, didn’t we? Mum told him it must be Alison. He listened to Mum.’
‘Yes,’ Meredith said. ‘He did. He still believes Alison killed Miss Kemp:
‘Yes, we made a good job of it’ Ted stood up. ‘I always make a good job of things.’
Now … thought Meredith. He’s going to kill me now.
‘I can’t go driving all over the countryside on the off chance I’ll see him!’ Markby said crossly.
Steve Poole stared at him. ‘You want him that urgent, do you?’ He squinted suspiciously at Markby and Jess. ‘What’s he done?’
‘Should he have done anything?’ Jess asked.
‘No, we got a good business here.’ Steve looked round him and his expression grew anxious. ‘We’ve got a good business,’ he went on, sounding worried. ‘He’d better not have bloody screwed it up!’
‘Has he been in trouble before?’ Markby asked.
Steve’s gaze swivelled back to him. ‘Well,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Not for years. He and I, we both got into a bit of trouble when we were kids. Pinching things, you know, just casual, from unlocked cars mostly. Or we’d watch for people leaving a door open and nip in and just grab what was to hand. We both got sent to one of those young offender places. That’s where we met. But we set up the business when we got out and we’ve gone straight since. Never even fiddled the books.’ He sounded aggrieved.
‘You can’t give me any better information about where he might be?’ Markby snapped. ‘Come on, think, man!’
‘Well,’ Steve stared miserably at him and then at Jess before returning his gaze to his chief tormentor. ‘To get the bike, he’d have to go home first. He took the van. He’ll take the bike back to his house when he’s finished, pick up the van and come back to work. So you could go to his place. If the van’s still there, that means he’s not come back yet and all you’d have to do is wait for him.’
‘Right!’ Markby said. ‘You listen to me. You are not to contact him the moment we leave, understand? I don’t want him to know we’re on our way.’
‘He’s got no telephone at his place,’ Steve said defensively. ‘Right dump, it is. Part of it’s falling down. He hasn’t even got electricity.’
‘I expect he’s got a mobile phone. I don’t want you using that.’
Poole was shaking his head again. ‘He lost his. Although, the other day, I saw he had a new one. Not that I’ve ever seen him using it. He leaves it in the office.’ He grinned briefly.
‘What’s funny?’ Jess asked him.
Poole shrugged. ‘Nothing. Just that it’s a fancy thing, not like you’d expect him to have at all. It’s got flowers on it. I joked about it when I asked him for the number. He wouldn
’t give me the number. He said it was one of those phones where you prepay for calls and all the credit was used.’
‘Show me!’ Jess was already moving towards the boarded-off area which marked Rusticity’s office.
Inside the cramped area papers were lying around in untidy stacks, box files formed unsteady towers, elastic bands and pens were housed in washed margarine tubs and, among this sea of office equipment, Jess spotted a computer and monitor. Neither Poole nor Pritchard, it seemed, was good at office management.
But Steve Poole seemed to know where to look for anything. He pulled open a drawer and produced a small mobile phone with a decorative cover, blue, patterned with daisies.
‘We’ll take that!’ Jess said.
‘More like a woman’s thing isn’t it?’ said Poole.
‘I wish we’d known about that pair having a criminal record!’ Markby said angrily as they drove out of Bamford.
‘If this mobile turns out to be Fiona’s, he’s got to be number one suspect,’ Jess said. ‘But I don’t understand what motive he could have to kill her.’
‘The poison pen letters,’ Markby said tersely. ‘Fiona must have met Ted when he and Poole delivered the garden furniture to Overvale. Meredith suspected Fiona from the first of being the letter-writer. But I think we’ll find Fiona used Pritchard to write the letters at her dictation and to post them. When I appeared on the scene, Fiona got cold feet. She wanted the letter-writting to stop. She forgot that, while money wasn’t a motive for her, it might be one for Ted. He’d no intention of giving up something which he hoped, eventually, could turn out highly profitable. They quarrelled and he killed her. When Darren approached him with his photos showingTed and Fiona together, Darren became the next victim.’
Jess had been consulting the rough road map sketched for them by Poole and now said sharply, ‘Here’s the turning!’
They drove slowly down the track until the cottage came into view.
‘There’s the white van, sir,’ Jess pointed ahead.
‘And there’s Meredith’s car!’ he replied. ‘Damn! Pritchard’s ahead of us. He’s been ahead of us all along. We’ll stop here and continue on foot, but call in for back-up first. I’ve a bad feeling about this!
When Jess joined him a few minutes later he was observing the cottage from behind an overgrown hedge.
‘No sign of life,’ he whispered. ‘We can wait until back-up gets here. But time might not be on our side.’
‘The others are on their way. But if you think we can’t wait, I could go round to the back,’ Jess returned in the same low voice. ‘You kick in the front door, I kick in the back door or smash my way in by the window.’
‘Easier said than done! We need to know that Meredith is in there—’
There was a crash of breaking glass and something flew through the window by the front door and landed in the garden.
Meredith’s panicking gaze had flickered round the squalid room and found the paraffin lamp on the table. Fear sent the adrenalin pumping through her. She leapt up and lunged towards it, her fingers closing on the base.
Perhaps her previous quiet manner had deceived Ted into thinking she wasn’t going to move or perhaps he had been caught up in his own narrative. Now he swore and dived towards her. She threw the lamp at him with full force. He dodged aside. The lamp carried on and smashed through the front window, flying out into the garden. Ted, off balance, stumbled back and staggered as he came up against the side of the armchair. The screwdriver flew out of his hand, described an arc through the air and clattered to the stone-flagged floor.
Meredith ran for the front door. Ted was behind her. She could feel the heat of his body. As his hand gripped her shoulder, her fingers wrestled with the door handle. The door opened, the material of her shirt ripped, loosening his grip. She threw herself through the narrow gap out into the overgrown garden. As she did, she heard a shout, but not from Ted. Here, outside. Her fleeing body cannoned into another and, with the breath knocked out of her, she fell to the ground entangled with the other person.
‘Come on!’ Markby shouted.
He and Jess rushed towards the cottage as the paraffin lamp shattered on the ground. It had been some years since Markby had been required to kick open a door. It occurred to him as he ran that he might not be able to do it. Fortunately he wasn’t called upon to try.
Before Markby could act, the door was jerked open by an unseen hand. Meredith hurtled from the darkness inside, crashed into him and sent him flying. Ted leapt over their prostrate bodies and sprinted towards the white van. Struggling to disentangle himself, Markby yelled at Jess. Ted had almost reached the van when Jess caught up with him, flung her arms round his legs and brought him crashing to the ground.
By the door, Alan and Meredith had both managed to achieve sitting positions.
‘All right?’ he demanded.
‘Yes!’ she gasped.
‘I’ve got to help Jess!’ He scrambled to his feet and headed for the white van.
But Ted was lying face down beside it with Jess Campbell kneeling on his back. ‘Got him, sir!’ she said, turning a flushed triumphant face towards the superintendent.
When the overpowered Ted Pritchard was safely in the hands of the back-up team which had just arrived, Markby observed, ‘That was a splendid flying tackle, Campbell.’
‘Thank you, sir. I used to play women’s rugby!’
‘Women’s rugby?’
She grinned at his appalled expression. ‘I think Meredith’s waiting for you, sir.’
‘Lord!’ exclaimed Markby. He hadn’t forgotten her, he’d just been busy. He hurried to where Meredith was waiting, sitting on a rustic bench by the front door. She looked pale and shaky.
‘Sorry to dash off. I saw you were OK,’ he said, still breathless and attempting to smooth his hair. ‘I had to lend Jess a hand. I’m getting too damn old for this.’
‘She seemed to be doing rather well by herself.’ Meredith managed a wry smile.
‘She plays women’s rugby.’ He returned the smile and then said soberly, ‘This isn’t funny. He’s killed twice already. I thought we might be too late.’ He pointed at the shattered remains of a paraffin lamp lying by his feet. ‘Is that what you threw through the window?’
‘It wasn’t my intention to throw it through the window. I didn’t know you and Jess Campbell were out here. Back in there, I thought my last moment had come. Ted was all set to finish me off the same way he killed Fiona Jenner. I lunged for the paraffin lamp on the table, grabbed it and hurled it at him. I wanted to make him drop the screwdriver!’
‘What screwdriver?’ he demanded. ‘What’s that blood on your face?’
‘The sharpened one … He did drop it but the lamp went straight on through the window.’ She wiped away the blood. ‘It’s nothing, a scratch.’
‘Murderous little monster,’ said Markby bitterly. ‘They were writting the letters between them, I suppose.’
‘Oh, yes, I was right about Fiona. It was all her idea, he says. He wrote them but she thought the idea up.’
‘I wonder,’ Markby mused, ‘how she found out about Alison’s trial and why she decided to use Ted to do the letter-writing:
‘Because he’s Edmund Travis,’ Meredith told him.
Chapter Fourteen
‘She’s expecting you.’
The warden of the Lewisham retirement home smiled in welcome at Jess and Sergeant Ginny Holding, but her eyes were watchful. She was a middle-aged woman, stout in build, bearing a name shield on her breast, and wearing her spectacles slung on a cord round her neck.
The retirement home was a pleasant, if nondescript, modern building with large windows letting in plenty of light and a view of a scrap of dusty lawn between it and the busy road outside. There were flowers in vases and, on the walls, pictures of distant landscapes which probably meant little or nothing to the residents. A large notice pinned to a cork board in the entrance reminded them that the travelling library would visit
them today and please to have ready any books they wanted to exchange. The whole was permeated with a smell compounded of floor wax, disinfectant, memories of yesterday’s boiled vegetables and that indefinable odour of sickly old age.
‘It’s not the proper travelling library,’ the warden explained to Ginny, who had been looking at the notice on the cork board. ‘One of the local librarians brings a selection of suitable books, large print, you know, and sets up shop for an hour in the residents’ lounge.’ She turned back to Jess. ‘If I could just have a quick word with you in the office before you see Dorothy?’
The office was like offices everywhere: cluttered desk, fax machine, computer terminal, filing cabinet. The warden pulled out a couple of uncomfortable-looking chairs and offered them to the two police officers.
‘Dr Freeman and I have discussed your visit.’ She paused as if expecting some comment on this. When none came, she appeared a little disconcerted. ‘Dr Freeman is in charge of the medical care of our residents.’ The words were emphasized and accompanied with a minatory look.
‘We’ve cleared our visit with your local police station.’ Jess was not to be outdone in the matter of references. They had also cleared it with the Devon and Cornwall constabulary, whose case the murder of Freda Kemp had been and on whose files it still remained open. She saw no reason to tell the warden that.
‘Oh?’ The warden appeared not to know what to make of Jess’s answer. After a brief consideration she dismissed this counterclaim of authority. ‘Indeed?’ Outside these walls the police might have some jurisdiction but inside them Dr Freeman ruled the roost.
‘I gather,’ she began again briskly, ‘you want to talk to Dorothy about her son. Is he in some kind of trouble?’
‘He’s involved in our inquiries,’ Jess said carefully.
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