by Granger, Ann
‘My school has asbestos in the roof,’ said Millie now, obviously expert at picking up thought waves.
‘Yes, your mum told me. I’m surprised. I thought all the asbestos had been taken out of buildings.’
‘They didn’t know about it,’ Millie explained. ‘They’d got a false ceiling in the hall and it was discovered when the decorators came to paint it. You have to do special things when you remove asbestos. So we can’t use the school because we might get ill. They’re taking the asbestos away this week. Then we can go back.’
‘So I understand.’
‘Mummy and Rodney couldn’t put off the trip to New York—’
‘Millie,’ Carter interrupted. ‘I’m very happy that you’re here. I’d like to see you more often … It’s a bit of luck, your school finding the asbestos and Rodney having a business trip to New York and – and all the rest of it. It gives you a chance to visit me here.’
MacTavish’s black, shiny eyes were fixed on him. His embroidered smirk suddenly appeared more a snarl. Can’t you do better than that? he seemed to be asking.
‘Am I going to Auntie Monica’s again today?’ Millie homed in on the weak point of his defence.
‘Yes. I have to go to work, I’m afraid. We have investigations underway. I could’ve arranged some leave if I’d had more notice—’ He broke off. ‘You like staying with Auntie Monica for the day, don’t you?’
‘Oh, yes, she’s got two cats. You ought to get a cat.’
‘I wouldn’t be here all day to look after it.’
‘Auntie Monica’s back door has a cat flap in it, so her cats can go in and out by themselves. So if it’s sunny and they want to sit in the garden, they can. And if it rains and they want to go inside, they can do that, too. She’s my great-aunt, you know. She’s Mummy’s aunt, so that makes her my great-aunt. But she doesn’t like to be called that because she says it makes her feel old. She is old, isn’t she?’
‘Oldish. I’ll go and make us some porridge; it’s just about breakfast-time. Why don’t you and MacTavish lay the table?’
‘What are you investigating?’ asked Millie moments later as she rattled the cutlery in his untidy knife drawer. Ten year olds are not deflected from a topic that interests them, however unsuitable. He was finding that out.
‘There was a big fire yesterday, at an old house in the country, an old empty house,’ Carter emphasised quickly from his place at the porridge pan. No need to trouble her young mind with thoughts of a dead body.
MacTavish had been propped up on the draining board alongside the stove and was watching him in the way a Scottish bear could be expected to watch an Englishman make porridge. Listen, MacTavish, I’m not putting salt in it, just to satisfy you!
‘Did someone start it on purpose? Will you find out who it was?’
‘I hope we shall.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
MacTavish’s smirk mocked him. Watch it, MacTavish, or I might drop porridge on that tartan pancake on your head … and then you’ll have to go in the washing machine again!
‘They might have been playing with matches,’ said Millie censoriously. ‘You shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t play with fire.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ said her father.
After breakfast he drove her, with MacTavish, to Weston St Ambrose where his former wife’s Aunt Monica lived. She was a retired primary school headmistress and pleased at having a child around the place again, if only for a few hours.
‘Don’t worry about us, Ian,’ she assured him. ‘I have plenty of things planned for us to do. I’ll give her lunch and her tea, and then you can come and pick her up tonight when it suits you.’
Carter glanced to where Millie was introducing MacTavish to a pair of suspicious cats. Millie was wearing a white fake fur gilet. It struck him the cats were a tad suspicious of that, too.
‘I really appreciate it, Monica. I’d have taken some time off if I’d known.’
‘It’s fine, Ian, really. Off you go.’
So he kissed Millie and left. MacTavish, manipulated by his owner, waved him goodbye.
I can’t communicate with my child, he thought sadly. She probably finds it difficult to communicate with me. That’s why MacTavish has been brought along. He’s our intermediary.
The reason he had to go in to work today was because Tom Palmer, the pathologist, had conducted his examination into the body found at Key House and was ready to come up with his conclusions. The luckless Sergeant Phil Morton had attended the procedure, but it was Carter and Jess Campbell who later found themselves in Tom’s tiny office, down at the morgue.
The pathologist rustled papers and eventually, giving up finding what he sought, scratched his mop of black hair and announced, ‘This one was a challenge.’
‘Too badly damaged?’ Carter asked.
‘Badly damaged, certainly. But I like a challenge. Let’s see … Deceased is male and about thirty years of age. I’ve got it on my tape recorder but it’s not all up on the computer yet. You’ll have it all nicely printed out for you eventually but we’re short handed here.’ Tom gazed at them as if they were somehow responsible.
‘We’re all of us operating short handed!’ said Carter, riled.
‘Just tell us,’ Jess invited hastily, ‘what the cause of death was and whether it’s suspicious.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Tom, ‘cause of death was suffocation from inhaling the smoke. That’s straightforward enough. Lungs clogged up with soot.’
‘Would he have been unconscious at the time? Asleep? Drugged?’ Carter asked.
Tom’s manner changed and grew suddenly cautious. ‘Tests couldn’t trace any drugs in him so no, not drugged. The arms were raised in a defensive attitude. I suggest that’s almost certainly due to the effect of the heat, not because he was in a fight. Perhaps confusingly, however, in my opinion he was attacked shortly before the fire started. The back of his skull is fractured and that is suspicious. I don’t think that happened in the fire. I think someone walloped him, laid him out flat, unconscious. I believe he was struck at least twice. The first blow might have knocked him to the floor, perhaps stunned him. The second blow would have rendered him completely unconscious.’
‘But it didn’t kill him,’ Carter murmured, more to himself than to the other two. ‘Did the assailant think he’d killed him? Is that why he started a fire?’
Jess replied anyway, ‘The fire was started at night. The electricity, I was told, was disconnected. If all the attacker had to examine his victim was a torch, he could have believed he’d killed him.’
‘Or, having laid out his victim, he could have counted on the smoke and the fire finishing the job,’ Carter said.
A moment’s silence followed. All three of them were acquainted with the aftermath of violent death. But it was always chilling to face the calculated cruelty lying dormant in the most civilised of men.
‘Other injuries?’ Jess asked briskly, breaking the moment’s introspection.
Tom seized on her question and began to talk quickly. ‘Other than the head wounds, there’s no sign of trauma from injuries inflicted before the fire that I can find. The body …’
The corpse was no longer ‘the victim’; it had become ‘the body’, an object. Tom hesitated as if he realised this before continuing. ‘It was shielded, I understand, by the way the beams burned on the outside but remained solid enough not to disintegrate. When they fell they cracked apart, but in chunks, some pieces landing propped on others, making a sort of wigwam over him. So I repeat that in my opinion falling debris did not cause the skull fractures. The wounds are just not consistent with that sort of accidental damage. Both wounds are pretty well textbook examples of a powerful blow with a blunt object, concentrated in a small area, causing a dent in the skull. Some other damage is consistent with fire. The skin has split in places on the body, for example –’ he spread a hand dismissively – ‘the fire would do that. There are no tr
aces of any substances, legal or illegal, that would have caused him to pass out. He was knocked out deliberately. One thing may help you in confirming his identity. The arm muscles contracted due to the heat of the fire, as I said. But when they did, the fists clenched, protecting the inner surface of the hands to a certain extent. The backs of the hands are badly damaged. The palms, though scorched by hot ash, are less so. The underlying area of skin might still yield a print or two.’ He looked up at them. ‘Have you had a report from the fire investigators yet?’
Jess shook her head and said, ‘From what you say, and from we both think –’ She glanced at Carter, who nodded his agreement – ‘this fire was almost certainly started deliberately in an attempt to destroy the body and/or other evidence. If the fire inspectors find an accelerant was used that would confirm it. Even without that, we’re looking at unlawful killing.’ She turned to the superintendent, still silent beside her. ‘You agree, sir?’
Carter, too, had become brisk in manner. ‘Yes, that’s pretty well what the coroner will rule. Then it will be up to us to find the how and why. Thank you, Tom. We’ll leave you in peace to write up your findings. Thanks for doing such a quick and efficient job.’
Tom opened his mouth to reply but at that moment his mobile phone rang. He gave them an apologetic glance instead and took the phone from his pocket. Jess and Carter indicated they were leaving.
As they went out of the door, they heard Tom’s voice, speaking to the caller. ‘Oh, hi, Madison! Sorry I didn’t call you earlier as I promised, darling, but I’ve been rather busy …’
Outside the building, Carter said awkwardly, ‘Sorry if you and Palmer have broken up.’
She stopped in her tracks and spun round to glare at him, a small, red-headed, truculent figure. ‘We haven’t broken up because we were never an item. Tom and I have been – we still are – friends! Friends only, right?’
‘Sorry again, I mean, sorry for putting my foot in it!’ Carter hastened to recover from the obvious gaffe.
She subsided like a boiling pot that someone has removed from the stove. ‘I should be the one apologising, sir. I didn’t mean to fly off the handle. It’s just that, well, Tom and I used to eat out occasionally or go for a drink when both of us were at a loose end. Only Tom isn’t free, not any more, not now he’s met Madison.’
‘That’s her first name?’ Carter asked incredulously.
‘That’s it. Tom’s a keen rambler and Madison joined his club, or group, or whatever. I know some people got the impression that he and I had a thing going, but we didn’t, never did, never likely to.’ Jess managed a grin. ‘It’s been my nightmare that my mother might find out and get the wrong idea. My mother … Oh well,’ she shrugged, ‘families, you know.’
‘I’ve got my daughter staying with me for a few days,’ he heard himself say.
Her initial surprise quickly turned to interest. ‘That’s nice for you, sir.’
‘It would be better if we hadn’t just found out we’ve got a murder on our hands. I was hoping to take a couple of days … Her school has asbestos in the roof. I don’t know how they didn’t find out about it before now. So the place has closed until the stuff’s removed. Her mother and—’ He stopped and began again. ‘Sophie and Rodney, her now husband, had arranged to fly to New York. Difficult to change. Yes, it is nice to have Millie here but I don’t feel I’m making the most of it.’
‘We could probably manage.’
‘It’s all right. Millie is spending the day with Monica Farrell. You remember Monica?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
Carter heard himself say, ‘I’d like you to meet Millie, and I know Monica would like to see you again. Perhaps you could come with me when I go to pick Millie up, either today or tomorrow.’
Jess concealed a moment of pure panic. She liked children well enough, but had had little to do with them. Moreover this wasn’t any child: it was Carter’s daughter. She was still struggling with the idea of him as a doting dad. Besides, her arrival at the cottage with him might be misinterpreted by Monica, or worse, by the little girl. But she couldn’t refuse. She sensed his vulnerability on the subject. That wasn’t her problem, she told herself. It was his! She ought to tell him frankly that it wasn’t a good idea. But to refuse would at the very least be uncivil.
So what she said was, ‘Yes, I’d like to meet Millie and see Monica again. Tomorrow, then, to give you a chance to warn Monica that I’ll be turning up with you.’ She tried to put a decent amount of enthusiasm into her voice.
‘Great!’ Carter said.
They’d reached his car and both got in. ‘Well, let’s go and set up a murder investigation!’ Carter said, turning the ignition key. He spoke much more cheerfully than the occasion warranted. But he was feeling suddenly more cheerful, murder or no murder.
Earlier in the morning, about the time Ian Carter had been cooking up the breakfast porridge under MacTavish’s disapproving eye, Alfie Darrow had returned to check his snares. He first surveyed the scene of devastation that was all now left of Key House. Blue and white police tape cordoned it off. There were notices warning visitors to keep away as it was a crime scene, and also requesting them to give any information they might have about the fire to the police. Alfie would have liked to forage in the blackened ruins for souvenirs. But even now the latent heat from the fabric of the building made it too hot to go poking around in there. Besides, as the debris settled, it echoed with sound, crackling and rustling in sinister fashion. It was as if the wreckage was talking to itself, or unearthly beings whispered terrifying truths. Alfie had heard by now – they all had in Weston St Ambrose – that a dead body had been recovered from the scene. An atavistic dread of spooks and spirits, encouraged by his other favourite type of entertainment, films featuring haunted houses and bandaged mummies staggering out of their tombs, overcame him. He scurried off across the fields to the rabbit warren, out in the open where you weren’t likely to encounter a spectral form or risk a skeletal hand laid on your shoulder.
There were rabbits everywhere, nibbling at the scarce tough winter grasses and wild plants. Most scattered as Alfie approached but some ignored him, if they thought him far enough from them to be no danger. He was out of luck. His prey had eluded him. Moreover, one of the snares was missing. This happened from time to time. Something, perhaps a fox, had passed by and dislodged it. It would not be far away. Alfie climbed over the fence into the copse, not a difficult thing to do as it was partly collapsed anyway, and began to poke about in the undergrowth seeking to retrieve it.
He didn’t find the snare, but he did come across something else. At first he thought the discovery meant he was not alone in the copse. He first looked around and, seeing nothing, stood listening. He had a sharp ear for the small sounds of the countryside that told you so much if you knew how to interpret them. The tree branches creaked softly in the breeze but he caught no snap of a twig or sudden rustle of disturbed undergrowth. To make sure, he called out, ‘Hello?’ No one replied. Alfie gave a little smile. He approached the unexpected discovery still cautiously and prowled round it, examining it.
‘Well,’ he murmured to himself at last. ‘I’m not leaving that here.’
Jess had barely returned to her desk. She had just told Sergeant Phil Morton, ‘It’s a murder.’ Morton had just replied, ‘All the evidence has gone up in flames, I suppose.’ Then the phone rang. Jess picked it up.
‘A call for you, ma’am. A Mr Foscott who says he’s a solicitor. It’s about the fire where the body was found. Shall I put him through?’
‘Yes, go ahead,’ she replied, thinking, Well, well, Reggie Foscott, who’d have thought it?
An image of the man formed in her head, gangling, pale, formal, and wily. What on earth did Key House have to do with him? But Roger Trenton had spoken of writing to Crown’s solicitors. Morton had interviewed both Roger Trenton and Muriel Pickering in the early evening of the previous day following the discovery of the body. Somewhere in his
notes must be Foscott’s name.
‘Inspector Campbell? Forgive the intrusion …’ Foscott’s voice echoed in her ear.
‘Not at all, Mr Foscott. I understand you have rung about the recent fire at Key House?’
‘Ah …’ Foscott never approached anything directly and didn’t now, even though he was the caller. ‘Yes, indeed, a most unfortunate occurrence. I understand the building is very badly damaged.’
‘Yes.’ Jess spoke curtly. Get to the point, Reggie.
‘I also understand, although perhaps this is rumour, that a body was found in the – um – wreckage.’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Do you perhaps …’ Reggie was growing even more cautious. ‘Do you have an identity for the unfortunate victim?’ Hurriedly he added, ‘If you do, then of course I understand that you would have to inform next of kin first, before releasing any name.’
‘We’ve not identified the body yet, Mr Foscott.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Foscott dolefully. ‘Have you any reason to believe the – ah – deceased may be the owner of the property, Mr Gervase Crown? My firm represents his interests in this country, hence my enquiry.’
‘Not as yet. Anyway, I understand,’ said Jess, ‘that Mr Crown lives abroad.’
‘Indeed he does. Mr Crown has a home in Portugal near Cascais, on the coast about half an hour’s drive from Lisbon. He is a keen surfer, when conditions are right. I must stress that I’m not aware that Mr Crown is visiting this country. When he does, he usually calls by my office to, ah, touch base, as they say. Naturally, when we heard of the fire, we thought we ought to get in touch with him. Damage to his property, insurance and so on.’
This time Jess waited and didn’t prompt him. Foscott was obliged to continue.
‘We have emailed him but so far not received a reply. Again, I should mention that Mr Crown does not always reply to emails at once. He does generally reply eventually. We – ah – also tried to phone him, but the answerphone picks up at his house. His mobile number is also switched off. I have left a message on his voicemail.’