Cold Coffin
Page 7
The other woman was in her mid-fifties, Mrs. Violet Sneddon, and Boulter remembered her by name as being something of a colourful character from the days when his wife had worked at Croptech. She was a little round tub of a woman, with dead straight greying hair chopped off short just below the ears. Her plump wrinkled face was defiantly devoid of make-up. One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, she said piously to Kate, but it hadn’t been a change for the better when Dr. Lintott had gone off to America and Dr. Trent was appointed in his place. Very fussy, Dr. Trent was ... had been. A bit over-fussy, if she told the honest truth. All the same, though, who’d want to kill him? It gave you the shivers to think that someone around these parts—possibly someone you actually knew—was a killer. Nobody deserved to be brutally murdered, not even a bad-tempered man like Dr. Trent had been.
“Bad tempered?” Kate prompted.
“Oh, well ... he could be. Only now and then, mind. Most of the time he was just sort of standoffish, as if he thought you were beneath him. Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, he’d sort of explode and start shouting. Mind you, in the past it had never been as bad as it was last Monday.”
“What happened on Monday?”
“He’d been a bit odd all morning, from when he first arrived. Specially odd, I mean. He hardly spoke a single word to anyone, and when he did it was only to snap at them. Then just before lunch time I was helping Roger ... Roger Barlow, to set up some equipment for a new experiment, and one of those big glass retorts got smashed. It was a pure accident, I was carrying the thing and Roger turned suddenly to speak to me and knocked it flying right out of my hands. It smashed to smithereens on the floor. Dr. Trent went nearly berserk, screaming at Roger and calling him a great clumsy oaf. It was horribly unfair, because it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Just one of those things that happen now and then in a lab.”
“What did Roger Barlow say?”
“Not much. He started to, then he gave a shrug and walked away. Showing his contempt very plain, you know, and I didn’t blame him one bit. Poor Roger had an awful lot to put up with from Dr. Trent. For one thing, he never got the credit for developing a new technique for testing for toxicity which will save the firm thousands ... well, he reckons it will. He went and complained about that to Sir Noah, but he seemed to side with Dr. Trent. I don’t know the ins and outs of it all, but it did seem very hard on poor Roger. He’s a nice lad. A bit of a devil, but young men always are at that age, aren’t they? I know my two sons were. Still, when they meet the right girl they usually settle down. I’ve got three lovely grandchildren now, and another one expected any day.”
“When did this occur, about Roger developing the new technique? How long ago?”
“I can’t rightly say. It must be some weeks ago now, and Roger’s been grumbling about Dr. Trent ever since. And Sir Noah, too, about the unfairness of it all. Mind you, on Monday, I think Dr. Trent realized afterwards that he’d gone too far about that broken retort, because he muttered a sort of apology to me later on. He said that he’d had a bad migraine over the weekend, and it had left him feeling washed out.”
“Did he suffer regularly from migraine attacks?” asked Kate.
“Well, not that often. But now and then we’d see the signs, Rachel and me, and we’d take special care not to upset him. Once or twice he even felt so bad that he had to pack up early and go home.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Sneddon, you’ve been extremely helpful.”
Her heavy features registered alarm. “Oh ... I do hope I haven’t been talking out of turn. I mean, I wouldn’t want to get Roger into trouble.”
“Don’t worry. If everyone spoke as frankly and truthfully to the police as you have, our job would be a great deal easier.”
Before heading for home, Kate looked in at the newly set up Incident Room at the Aston Pringle station. A preliminary report from Scenes of Crime was on her desk concerning their investigation of Gavin Trent’s cottage. She and Boulter scanned it together, he reading it over her shoulder. Fingerprints other than Trent’s own had been found which were as yet unidentified. A notable fact, though, was that the whisky bottle and the glass on the table were devoid of prints. They’d been wiped clean. As had the back door handle, both inside and out.
“What are we to make of that, Tim?”
He scratched his ear. “The killer had handled those things, so he made sure we wouldn’t find his prints.”
“But see what it says, no sign of a struggle at the cottage. I reckon we were on the right track in thinking that Trent had a visitor that night who drank whisky with him, then somehow persuaded him to walk with him to that pond in the woods. After the killing, the assailant then returned to Trent’s cottage to remove any evidence of his previous visit.”
Boulter was looking excited. “So the guy had it all worked out in advance, even to slipping the bolt on the kitchen door so he could get back in without having to take the keys off Trent’s body.”
“It’s a theory that fits the evidence, Tim. Do we know if Trent had a woman to do his household cleaning? Have you sorted that out yet?”
“Yep.” Boulter flicked through a sheaf of papers, then handed one to Kate. “He used one of those domestic cleaning services. Apparently they send in a pair of cleaners to give the whole place a thorough going over. Not necessarily the same ones each time.”
Kate ran her eye down the report. “Last cleaned on Tuesday. Get the two cleaners interviewed to see if they can come up with anything useful. And you’ll need to get their prints to eliminate them. The same goes for everybody else who’s been sent there to clean. Now, what about Trent’s sister? Has she been informed of his death yet?”
He shook his head. “The Lancashire police tell us she’s away on holiday with her family. Caravanning. They’re trying to track her down.”
“This’ll put a damper on the holiday. Anything else?”
He was checking through the reports once more when the door opened and a PC looked in.
“Just to let you know, ma’am, that Mr. Richard Gower has been trying to contact you all day. He wanted to know where you were.”
“Huh! It’s not my job to feed information to the press. He’ll have to be content with official handouts, the same as the rest of them.”
As the door closed again, Boulter glanced at Kate curiously. He hesitated a moment, then ventured, “Maybe he just wants to make a date, guv. You could do with a relaxing evening after a day like today.”
“And you could do with minding your own business, Sergeant.”
You bloody idiot, Kate! Why the hell did she have to slap him down like that when he was just being friendly? Admit it, you like it when Tim fusses over you a bit.
Although the burly sergeant had initially been resentful about acting sidekick to a female—and probably still was, deep down—Boulter had reconciled himself to the inevitable, and he worked with her conscientiously. He was a fine detective and together they made a good team. Once, she walked in on one of those “that bloody woman” harangues at the Chipping Bassett nick. It had instantly dried on her entry, but she’d known that Boulter had been defending her. Exactly as he might loyally have sprung to the defence of his guv’nor, if male, but with maybe a touch of chivalry, too. And she hadn’t minded that. In her daily work she demanded (and was rarely granted) total equality with her male colleagues. But she was a woman, for God’s sake, not some tough-as-old-boots unisex creature.
“Sorry, Tim. But Richard Gower is after getting a story out of me. He still acts as a stringer for the national daily he used to work for, and he’d pick up a nice fee for any inside info on the Trent murder.”
“Well then, d’you feel like having a drink with me instead? I reckon we both deserve one.”
She could certainly use a drink; but more than that, it was good strategy to accept the well-intentioned invite from her sergeant.
“Okay, just the one. And then it’s off home for us both. Tomorrow’s going to be another heavy day.”
“Well, you’re in luck this time. She’s just walked in the door.” Felix held out the phone to Kate. “It’s Richard. The third time he’s rung in the past hour.”
“Damn! Tell him I can’t talk now.”
“Tell him yourself, girl.”
“Oh, all right.” Kate took the phone. “Now look here, Richard, it’s not a bit of use your pestering me. I haven’t anything to tell you.”
“I suppose it never occurred to you, Detective Chief Inspector Maddox, that I might have something to tell you.”
“Oh? Well then, out with it.”
“Where do we meet?”
“No, Richard. If you’ve something to tell me concerning the Trent case, get on with it. Don’t play about.”
“It’s nothing to do with Trent. Remember the piece I printed in today’s Gazette about Sir Noah Kimberley going a’missing?”
“What about it?”
“It’s borne fruit, that’s what.”
“How?” She felt a mixture of both excitement and dread.
“Meet me at the Wagon and Horses in ten minutes and I’ll reveal all.”
“No, I—”
“See you,” he said, and hung up.
“Bloody man,” Kate muttered darkly.
“What’s up, girl?”
“He says he’s got some information, and he wants me to meet him at the pub.”
“Nothing wrong with that. Have you found time to eat this evening?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, they do nice bar meals at the Wagon. I’ll contain my curiosity until you get back.”
Richard was at the bar, chatting to the landlord. “Whisky?” he queried as he turned to greet Kate.
“Just a small one. I’ve already had a drink with Tim Boulter. Now then, what’s this all about, Richard?”
“I shall want a quid pro quo.”
“What you want and what you get are two different things.”
He grinned at her. “Wait till you hear. This’ll soften your hard police person’s heart. I had a call this lunchtime from Giles Lambert. He’s a car dealer in Marlingford. I know him quite well. He’s a regular advertiser in the Gazette.”
“Get on with it.”
“Have patience. Giles read my piece about Kimberley and it jogged his memory. Last Friday night, sometime after midnight, he and his wife were driving home from some trade do or other. The roads were pretty deserted, but at that T-junction where the road from Great Bedham joins the main Marlingford road, he came up behind another car. Taking the turn, the driver ground the gears horribly, which made Giles look more closely. He couldn’t see a lot, but his headlights showed it was a woman at the wheel.”
“So?”
“It was Noah Kimberley’s car, Kate ... the dark green Saab that Giles had sold him only three months ago.”
“How could he be sure of that? One dark green Saab is very like another.”
“The number plate told him. It was one of the batch of registration numbers allocated to his firm.”
“I’ll buy that. Was the woman alone in the car?”
Richard nodded. “Not a vestige of Sir Noah.”
“Have you told Lady Kimberley this?”
“No. I thought you should be the first to know. And if you hadn’t been dodging me all day, you’d have known it hours ago.”
Chapter Five
First thing Friday morning Kate went to see the car dealer. Checking by an early call to his home that he’d be at his showroom by nine o’clock, she drove straight to Marlingford and managed to arrive on the dot.
The showroom was immaculate. Selling both new cars and quality used cars, Giles Lambert had built himself a reputation in the district. A sleek young salesman who’d been alerted to look out for Kate’s arrival escorted her directly to the boss’s office.
Giles Lambert was a smooth businessman, but not so smooth as to make her doubt his honesty. His dark grey suit was discreetly expensive, his shirt and tie total perfection. He was maybe ten years older than Kate. A slightly thickening waistline was kept in check with, very likely, energetic games of squash. She found herself liking him. As they shook hands, he met her gaze with a pleasing candour, with no hint of the male condescension she encountered so often in her job.
“Good morning, Chief Inspector. Do please sit down. You drive a Montego Mayfair, I noticed. Quite a nice motor car. I trust you’ll be coming to me for its successor.”
“I’m not in the Saab bracket, Mr. Lambert. Not yet.”
He smiled at that, then became serious. “You want to talk to me about my seeing Sir Noah Kimberley’s car on Friday evening?”
“Mr. Gower passed on to me what you told him, but this could turn out to be very important so I’d like to hear it from you myself.”
“I understand.” He leaned forward attentively from his executive chair, fingers laced together on the desk top. “A wretched business about Sir Noah. And now this murder of his top scientist.”
Kate took him through the details of his sighting, establishing the exact spot at which it had happened, the time as precisely as possible. “You said it was a woman driving. It was dark, so how can you be sure?”
“It certainly wasn’t Sir Noah. At the time I took it to be Lady Kimberley. I remember thinking he’d be horrified at the way she’d crashed his gears. It was only yesterday, when I read in the Gazette about her staying in London the night he went missing, that I realized it couldn’t possibly have been Lady Kimberley.”
“You’re quite positive it was a woman?”
“Oh, yes.” He spread his hands apart in an assessing gesture. “How is it one can be positive of such a thing? She had longish hair, quite a lot of it, though I can’t say as to the colour.”
“This may sound silly to you, but is it possible it could have been a man wearing a wig? Or a man with long hair, come to that.”
Lambert shook his head. “There was something more than just the hair that conveyed the feminine to me. The set of the shoulders, perhaps, the way she held her head. I don’t know exactly, but I am sure it was a woman.”
“You said she was alone in the car. But if there’d been a passenger, are you certain you’d have seen him? Or her?”
“Unless they were deliberately hiding, I would have.”
“I know your headlights would have helped you, but you could only have got a fleeting glimpse.”
Lambert ruminated a moment, running his thumbnail along his lower lip, then he nodded with conviction. “There’s an illuminated traffic sign at that point. As the Saab passed it the light shone clean through the car’s side windows. I saw a silhouette of the driver, and no one else.”
“Your wife was with you, I understand. Would she be able to confirm any of this?”
He smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid not. When Barbara and I go out for an evening, we take turn and turn about to either drink or drive. In my trade I’ve seen the result of too many accidents to think it’s possible to do both —as doubtless you have too, Chief Inspector. It was quite a party we went to that night, someone’s retirement, and on the way home my wife was ... well, let’s say inclined to be dozy.”
Corroboration would have been useful. All the same, Kate felt sure that Lambert was a reliable witness. He’d told her what he’d seen, and what impression it had given him, without any embroidery.
“Thanks very much, Mr. Lambert,” she said, making to rise.
“Won’t you stay for a cup of coffee?”
“I’d love one, but I can’t afford the time.”
Lambert escorted her out to her car. “You’re quite a subject of conversation, you know, in the local watering holes.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Come, come.” He wagged a finger at her. “A woman, and a damned attractive woman if I may say so without offence, in
such a high-ranking position. You’ve put more than a few noses out of joint, I hear, and it’s whispered that you’re running rings round some of your male colleagues. Sides are being taken, Mrs. Maddox.”
“And which side are you on, Mr. Lambert?”
He threw back his head and laughed at her. “My wife, whom I love most dearly, is no old-fashioned hausfrau herself. She runs her own business, and a thriving concern it is, too. I daresay you’ve noticed her shop here in town, Acme Office Supplies. In addition to the retail sales, she handles typewriter servicing on a contract basis—including, in fact, for the local police. The motor trade has its ups and downs, but with Barbara there’s only one way—up. I think you and she must be two of a kind, Mrs. Maddox, so there’s no need to ask me which side I’m on.”
Kate looked in at divisional headquarters on her way to Aston Pringle, to see what had accumulated on her desk there. She dealt quickly with a couple of routine matters, and then, as she was on her way out of the building, she bumped into Superintendent Joliffe in the corridor.
“Mrs. Maddox.” He sounded suspiciously jovial. “Just the person I wanted to see. Come into my office.”
Inside the spacious room with windows overlooking the municipal gardens, he indicated that she should be seated. He didn’t, on this occasion, ring for tea to be brought.
“I have a little job for you,” he said. “Milford Grange was broken into this morning. You probably don’t know the place, as you haven’t been working long in this division. It’s a large rambling house on the outskirts of Milford belonging to Mr. Justice Tillington and his wife.”
Kate waited in silence, reserving judgment.
Jolly Joliffe rubbed his hands together, a rare sign of nervousness in him. “You’re aware, of course, that Judge Tillington has considerable influence. He’s renowned for speaking his mind, and his quotes get a good deal of media attention. Anyway, he and his wife are away just now on a lengthy visit to their married daughter in New Zealand. The judge is convalescing after major heart surgery.”
“Whom have you sent there to handle things, sir?” Kate could scarcely believe the way things were pointing.