More Deaths Than One

by Marjorie Eccles

  “Driven in from the Lavenstock end by the look of it,” Kite remarked.

  “And only one set of tyre marks – so either somebody had a long walk back or there was another car. Nothing immediately apparent in the vicinity.”

  “We’ll spread the search out in the morning,” Kite promised. “Who was it found him?”

  “A Mrs. Salisbury. Lives at Fiveoaks Farm over yonder.” Mayo gestured in the direction of the entrance to the woods. “She’d been riding when she found him – so she carried on home and telephoned us from there. They’ve told her to stay where she is until we’ve seen her, which’ll be midnight at this rate. He stamped his feet again and looked impatiently across the clearing. “Trouble with these bloody medics, they think we’ve got nowt else to do but wait till they’ve done their stuff,” he said unreasonably. “Let’s give ’em a poke.”

  But it was some time before the pathologist was ready to talk to them. At last he beckoned them over, still kneeling by the body, which had now been lifted out of the car. He heaved himself to his feet as the three policemen approached, all taller men than he – Mayo big and formidable, Kite with his long whipcord thinness and Atkins, bigger than either, large, solid and dependable. “Doubtless you had a good look before I arrived so you’ll not be surprised when I tell you it wasn’t suicide.”

  Mayo looked at Ison, who nodded at this confirmation of what they’d thought. Timpson-Ludgate went on, “Couldn’t have done it ... not unless he had arms four feet long. To make that sort of mess of his face, the shot would have had to be fired from two, two and a half feet away. At a rough estimate. If it was self-inflicted, I’m a Chinaman. No contact wound. Very little spread of pellets.”

  “Can you hazard an opinion about the direction of the shot? The angle?”

  “From the right, getting him full in the face. The exit’s on the back of the skull and most of the loose matter and damage to the car’s on the far side, not towards the back. Angle of entry ... from slightly above.”

  “So he must’ve been looking towards his killer, then, through the window?”

  “I’ll say nothing so definite as ‘must’ at this stage. I’d prefer to reserve certainties until I’ve had him on the slab. And until ballistics have had their say.” He relented. “All right, work on the assumption that he’s been murdered. For the rest – probably somewhere in his thirties, apparently in good condition, though what his lungs are like is another matter,” he said, indicating the stained fingers, “and you’ll have to wait for the post mortem to find that out. Not that it’ll make any difference to him now, poor bugger,” he finished cheerfully. “I’ll fit him in tomorrow, get the full report to you as soon as possible.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “I’m not prepared to be too specific about that either at the moment, with the weather as it is. Say, eighteen to twenty hours.” Mayo did a quick calculation. “Some time late last night then, or early this morning? Hm. And what’s the other thing anyone might be doing out in this God-forsaken spot at that time on a cold and frosty night like last night? Can’t see this as a crime of passion.”

  “Me neither,” observed Kite, shivering.

  “Well, that’s your problem, you’re the investigating officer. Myself, I’ve nearly done, here at any rate. We’ll have him away in two ticks, but as far as I’m concerned you can get at the car now.”

  As they waited for the jacket to be lifted from the passenger seat, Mayo warned the other two, “We’ll keep what T.-L. says under wraps for the present. If someone’s been at pains to fake this as a suicide, we’ll go along with that until it’s confirmed otherwise. Say nowt, both of you, but keep your ears and eyes open. All right, Martin, let’s see what we’ve got.”

  The jacket handed over, Kite began on the pockets. “Looks as though we’re in business.” A brown leather wallet, with the initials R.G.F. stamped in gold across the corner. In the wallet a driving licence, issued to Rupert G. Fleming of 22, Baxendine House, Lavenstock.

  “So it was his own car,” Mayo said. “Baxendine House next port of call then, after we’ve seen Mrs. Salisbury at the farm. It’s one of those new blocks of flats by the river.”

  The wallet was also found to contain a chequebook, one five-pound note, the usual selection of credit cards, a ticket stub from the local theatre for a performance a few weeks earlier and a snapshot tucked into one of the compartments. From the trouser pockets had come a handful of small change.

  “Where’s his keys, Nick?” Mayo asked Spalding.

  “Here. They were in the ignition, sir.”

  “I don’t mean the car keys, he must have had house keys and so on.”

  But no others had been found.

  Mayo held the snapshot by the corner under the lights and saw a young couple with two children, probably under school age. Before tucking it into a plastic envelope and then into his own wallet, he studied the photo, particularly the face of the man he took to be Fleming. An unusual, arresting face, high-cheekboned and with a full, sensual mouth that had something of arrogance about it, a touch of the Florentine princeling, the sort of face that looked out haughtily from the chiaroscuro background of a Renaissance portrait. The young woman was plump and dreamily smiling, with a mass of dark hair falling to her shoulders. The picture had been taken in spring – there were daffodils in the background – and she was wearing flat, open sandals, a long flowered skirt and a grey shawl. One of the children was hugging a stuffed toy kangaroo. A moment of family happiness. A man, you’d have said, with everything to live for.

  A pattern of stars and a new moon showed through the black lattice of the bare branches, cold and remote, investing the bizarre scene with even more unreality. Mayo swore softly to himself. At this point in an investigation he was always painfully aware of his need to come to terms with his own feelings of inadequacy. How to explain the eruption of violence into ordinary family life ... how to justify the trust put in him to bring the perpetrator to justice? No answer to that but to pitch in, muck or nettles.

  The murder weapon was being lifted carefully into the S.O.C. van. A twelve-bore, double-barrelled shotgun, both barrels of which had been fired, it had now been photographed from every possible angle in relation to the body and its position on the floor of the car, measurements had been taken, sight lines established and the weapon carefully lifted, labelled and wrapped.

  “What else have we got, Dave?” Mayo asked the fingerprint man.

  “Definite set of dabs on the steering wheel and the gear lever, sir, and on the gun, but nowhere else at all, not even on the door handle.”

  Which seemed to indicate the murderer had been too anxious to get rid of his own prints and had neglected to impose the victim’s on the door handle as well as the other places Dexter had mentioned.

  “I’d be a lot happier,” Dexter said, “if it didn’t appear to have been gone over with a nit comb, wiped over inside and out – and been through a car wash as well, I shouldn’t be surprised. Not much else we can do until we’ve got the body bagged up and moved, sir. The forensic lads might get more after they’ve been over it at the garage. Looks as though they’re taking him away now.”

  The man’s hands had already been encased in polythene and the head treated with similar care in case there should be lost any more of what remained of the victim’s shattered flesh and bone and brains, what the pathologist had so delicately termed “loose matter.” Now, what remained of Rupert Fleming was zipped up and carried into the waiting mortuary van.

  As the van was driven off, Mayo handed the dead man’s jacket over to Dexter. Curiously, it hadn’t absorbed that taint of corruption which had been so overwhelming in the car. It smelled rather pleasant in fact, of soft supple suede and a masculine whiff of expensive aftershave. Something was puzzling Mayo about the smell of that jacket, but for the moment, since he couldn’t think what it could be, he was obliged to be content with making a mental note of it, pigeon-holing it for further reference in a mind that rar
ely forgot anything completely.

  THREE

  “How lovely now dost thou appear to me!

  Never was man dearlier rewarded. ”

  UNDER THE MOON, snowdrops glimmered palely in great drifts beside the path to the front door of Fiveoaks Farm and a breath of their cold honey scent wafted towards the house as Mayo and Kite waited for an answer to their ring.

  The door opened, revealing an entrance hall that was large and low-ceilinged, with an agreeable air of having been furnished and cherished and comfortably lived in ever since the house was built, three or four hundred years ago. The unsmiling young man with the ruddy, outdoor complexion, conservatively dressed in a soft blue woollen sweater and cords and who said he was Tim Salisbury, had been expecting them but didn’t appear to be overjoyed about it. A vague mutual antipathy passed between him and Mayo as Mayo’s own brand of instant shorthand summed him up: Thirtyish. Archetypal prosperous young farmer. Young Tory. Features reminiscent of the young Duke of Kent. Maybe not a lot in the upper storey, but sharp and wary.

  “I suppose you’d better come through,” he said, “Susan’s in the other room,” adding, in what Mayo thought a decidedly patronising manner, “I hope you realize what a terrible shock this has been to her ...”

  “We’ll do our best not to upset her, Mr. Salisbury.”

  Prominent blue eyes stared back with patent hostility. “Let’s hope you won’t.”

  He led them across the stone flags, past a Jacobean open carved staircase, and turned the door-knob of a warm, lamplit room, where a big log fire burned on the hearth. A Christmas card sort of room, old oak furniture gleaming with a patina of age and polish, brass and copper shining, apple logs and beeswax scenting the air. It was big and low-ceilinged, running almost the full width of the house, and though it was not noticeably tidy, with books and magazines scattered around, and children’s toys forming an obstacle course to the chairs they were offered, it spoke of the care lavished upon it, and nothing was lacking in the way of modern comfort and amenities.

  The young woman who sat up with a start as they entered and swung her legs to the ground from the broad, chintz-covered sofa seemed unlikely on the face of it to be the one directly responsible for the upkeep of the room. She looked like no farmer’s wife Mayo had ever seen. Not by any stretch of the imagination could you see her getting down to it with polish and Brasso, not even in rubber gloves. Those white hands with their pearly-pink nails looked as though they’d never lifted a duster in her life. He was well aware that he might be doing her an injustice and stereotyping her in a way that would have infuriated his daughter Julie – but the conclusion was inescapable, looking at her.

  She was a beauty – and there weren’t many you could honestly say that about, the human race being on the whole a pretty undistinguished lot in Mayo’s opinion. Mrs. Salisbury was the exception that proved the rule. Not simply good-looking, but beautiful in a delicate, ethereal way that owed much to her colouring. She had that dazzling fairness of complexion which, though the English are supposed to be a fair-skinned race, is rarely seen on these shores. A yellow sweater that might have made many women look sallow gave a radiance to her skin like a light shining through alabaster. Her hair was a pale silver-gold and fell in loose shining waves to her shoulders. He thought of Curly Locks in the nursery rhyme, who was invited to sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, and feed upon strawberries, sugar and cream. Then he met a disconcertingly appraising gleam in the luminous blue eyes trained on his face and admitted wryly that Julie would have been right to criticise him for jumping to conclusions. There was intelligence there, astute enough to preclude any suggestion of vacuousness.

  “This is Detective Chief Inspector Mayo, darling, and Sergeant Kite.” Tim Salisbury was looking at her as though he couldn’t believe his luck in having married her. “If you think you can manage it ...”

  “Oh. Oh yes, they said someone would be along. Sorry, I must have dropped off. That brandy you gave me, Tim ...”

  She excused herself for not having changed from her riding clothes. She’d been too shattered. The boots had been removed but she still wore her jodhpurs and the high-necked yellow sweater. Lifting her hair with the back of her hand, a gesture that revealed the contours of her breasts under it and only just escaped being theatrical, she exclaimed, “Goodness, is that the time? The children ...”

  “It’s okay, they’re in bed and asleep. Katie saw to them before she went.”

  Susan Salisbury smiled wanly at her husband, subsided back onto the sofa and stared at Mayo. The huge eyes suddenly brimmed with tears that didn’t, however, spill. The small straight nose quivered slightly but didn’t even turn pink. Her husband sat beside her and put his arm protectively round her slim shoulders.

  “This hasn’t been a very pleasant experience for you, Mrs. Salisbury, but I’m afraid there are some necessary questions I must ask,” Mayo began.

  She clasped her hands together with slightly conscious courageousness. “I shall have to face them sooner or later, I suppose. Is there, do you think, Tim lovey, a smidgin more brandy?”

  Salisbury leaped to refill the glass she extended, which she accepted back as homage due to her. Kite shifted on his chair. He wouldn’t have said no to a heartening smidgin himself, but none was on offer, either because Salisbury had heard and believed that police officers weren’t supposed to drink on duty, or because he wasn’t drinking himself and didn’t see why they should. Kite consoled himself with the scarcely less-satisfying spectacle of Mrs. Salisbury disposed on the sofa instead.

  “Would you like to tell me in your own words what happened?” Mayo was asking.

  “Well, I was on my way home –”

  “At what time?”

  “The time when – when I saw the car, you mean? It was half past four, within a few minutes either way. Katie, the girl who looks after the children for me, usually leaves at ten to five to get the bus home, so I was keeping an eye on the time. As I passed the clearing, Magister dug his heels in, in fact he nearly threw me ... he was trembling and refused to go any further. So I turned him round to take the other way home and then I noticed the car was still there.”

  “Still? So you’d seen it before?”

  “I thought it had to be the same one I’d seen from the top of Merrett’s Hill. There’s strictly no driving through the forest but people do, you know, on the bridle-paths ... Well, anyway, I was curious to know why it was there and I was prepared to tell them off ...”

  He could believe it. The attractive, husky voice was quick and educated, she had an imperious manner not all that far underneath her present distress. “Then” – she took a gulp of brandy – “well, that was when I realized whose car it was.”

  “You recognised it?”

  “Oh yes, didn’t I say? Yes, I knew it was Rupert Fleming’s Porsche as soon as I reached the clearing. And when I looked in, I – oh God, it was only a second, but I recognised him straightaway.”

  Mayo said sharply, “How did you know it was Rupert Fleming?” She stared at him and then as she slowly comprehended the meaning of his question she became ashy pale, whiter even than the natural pallor with which Nature had endowed her. She began to tremble. Mayo knew this was how it took witnesses sometimes, when they actually began to realize the import of what they’d seen. Delayed shock, but genuine, he could have sworn. There was no playacting this time. And he had just been thinking – God forgive him – that she had almost begun to enjoy the drama of her part in the tragedy.

  Tim Salisbury threw an angry glance at the two policemen. “Sue darling, you don’t have to go on with this.”

  “Better get it over with, Tim.” She swallowed, blinking back tears, determined to be brave and show herself as cooperative. She was being a much better witness than Mayo had at first feared. Pretty sharp, really. “Well, look,” she said now, “you don’t recognise people simply from their faces only, do you?”

  Mayo conceded the point to a certain degree. But how w
ell had she known Rupert Fleming – if she’d been able to know instantly who he was from such a quick appraisal of general build, hair colour, even from that fairly distinctive suede jacket of his? On the other hand, she’d known the car. She would have expected, if anyone had been inside it, for it to have been him.

  He said, the blunt Yorkshire copper he chose to be on certain occasions, “I’m a bit behind you, ma’am. Who is – was – Rupert Fleming, apart from being a friend of yours?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say a friend.” A little colour had come back into her cheeks. “It’s his wife Georgina that we know, isn’t it, my love? And she’s not exactly a friend either, just someone my sister went to school with. Someone I’ve known for ages. She was Georgina Culver.”

  She spoke as if the name was too familiar, or well-known, to need explanation and Mayo searched his mind, wondering where he’d come across it before. Kite helped him out, speaking for the first time from the unobtrusive position he’d assumed to take his notes, and with the advantage of his local upbringing. “Culver’s Haulage, ma’am?”

  It was Salisbury who answered. “That’s right, only John Culver’s sold out now. Pity, it wasn’t a bad sort of business, I suppose,” he added, looking down his high-bridged nose, “but I heard Culver did well enough on the deal and, after all, there are no sons to carry it on, only Georgina ...”

  Husband and wife didn’t look at one another, or speak, but something was being said between them. Salisbury finished, rather quickly, “I don’t think he stirs much out of that old barn of a place where he lives now that he’s retired.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “Next door to us.” Mayo wryly acknowledged this was not meant in the suburban sense, since there was not, to his knowledge, any other dwelling within half a mile either side of Fiveoaks Farm. “His property marches with ours. He used to let out a few acres to my father but then he suddenly decided he was going to start farming himself when he retired. As far as I know he’s never even begun.” Salisbury’s tone had become more truculent as he spoke, his already ruddy outdoor complexion intensified, his collar appearing suddenly tight. He had the short, thick neck and the high colour that indicated he’d have to watch his weight and his blood pressure as he got older, a stiff, guarded young man with that sort of bluster and uptightness that often conceals a basic uncertainty. “I’ve offered to buy the land,” he went on, “but he’s absolutely not interested, not at any price, stubborn old fool.”