‘So the proposal for the three hundred houses is not totally secret.’
‘Selwood’s wife knew, although she wasn’t pleased with it. As far as she was concerned, the Selwoods are the custodians of the land, and it was sacrosanct.’
‘The low-cost housing?’
‘She didn’t like it, but she was willing to go along with it. It was in the village, and not on her land. According to Selwood, the farm was struggling to stay afloat.’
‘That’s not what we’ve been told,’ Tremayne said.
‘I’m not saying they couldn’t pay the bills, but farming is fickle, one good year, and then a succession of bad. Claude Selwood was more than willing to diversify, and the land up at the top of the hill was ideal for what we wanted. We had plans to expand it later on.’
‘Would knowledge of this have been enough to raise the anger of the people in the community?’
‘You’ve been there. What do you think?’
‘I’d say yes, but killing someone is excessive.’
‘Selwood wasn’t murdered, it was an accident. I read that in the local paper.’
‘His death was accidental, and we have someone in custody for taking shots at Selwood.’
‘The local vicar, Walston. What a fool,’ Dowling said.
‘You knew him?’
‘Selwood felt that the vicar should be told. I don’t know why, as the men did not appear to like each other.’
‘If the vicar knew, then so did some of the locals. Walston was a talker, no doubt he would have informed others.’
‘Regardless, we meet, all three of us. I make a speech, so does Selwood.’
‘What did the Reverend Walston do?’
‘He sat there and listened to us.’
‘When you’d finished?’
‘Walston was upset, more than you’d think.’
‘Walston would have told the church committee.’
‘Molly Dempsey, the local busybody.’
‘She’s hardly likely to be a murderer,’ Tremayne said. ‘It’s Old Ted that concerns us. What else are you not telling us, Mr Dowling?’
‘Not a lot. There are always further development plans. Land rezoned for housing is at a premium in the area, and we could have kept the price reasonable. There would have been no difficulties in selling the plots of land, and then, there’s the deal with the building companies. Some people have lived in Coombe for generations, and change comes slowly to them.’
***
Marge Selwood, still embittered by her eldest son’s treatment, took all that her two youngest sons had collected, along with her DNA samples, and that of Nicholas and placed them in the bag supplied by the laboratory. She then got William to falsify his name on Gordon’s samples. Once done, she closed the bag and posted it. There was a degree of illegality with what she was doing, the reason she posted it to an address overseas.
If the result came back in the affirmative in that Gordon wasn’t Claude’s son, then she would apply for a court order to force Gordon to allow another check to be conducted with an English laboratory.
Marge wasn’t sure of the outcome, only hopeful. It was unfortunate that both Nicholas and William were barely talking to her, but, in time, they would understand; she knew they would.
Life was not about regrets, only opportunities. She had made mistakes when she had been younger, so had Cathy. No doubt Nicholas and William would.
Chapter 17
‘It’s the best motive we’ve got,’ Clare said, as she and Tremayne sat in the office at Bemerton Road. Outside the weather had taken a turn for the worse, torrential rain instead of the usual drizzle, and Tremayne was standing near to a heater.
‘What do you reckon, Yarwood?’
‘There are the developments in the village and up at the farm. That opens the possible murderer up to being anyone in the village, even the wider community. If the development at the top of the track is as big as Dowling says, then it would need some big investors.’
‘Failing any additional information, let’s focus on who we know.’
‘Financially, whoever owns Coombe farm would benefit from the larger development. It’s hard to see a reason to kill people just to lose money.’
‘Villagers?’
‘They may well be opposed, but those we’ve met don’t seem to be capable of murder. It’s one thing to sound off in the village, even to make a representation at a council meeting, but killing requires a different mindset, and both deaths had been premeditated.’
‘Old Ted’s would have been, as someone would have had to go up the track well in advance.’ Tremayne said. ‘I can’t see Dowling as the murderer. We know this man from before. His wife was having an affair, and he did nothing. He sounds tough, but he’s ineffectual. Discount him for the moment.’
‘Agreed. If it were his wife, she’d be capable.’
‘The lovely Fiona. You’re right, she could do it, and if Old Ted had seen her husband and Selwood up the top of the hill, knew something, she’d do anything to prevent the deal being scuppered.’
‘The other farmhand that I went horse riding with. He knew about the men meeting.’
‘Which makes him a possible victim.’
‘Or a possible murderer.’
‘What about the Selwoods? Who in that family would not want the deal to go forward?’
‘Marge probably.’
‘We need to talk to your farmhand,’ Tremayne said. ‘I hope you’ve got an umbrella.’
***
Molly Dempsey held court in her cottage on the outskirts of the village. She was a small woman, not up to the shoulder of most of the people in the living room. In front of the six assembled, a spread of sandwiches, cake, and tea – a knitting circle it was not.
‘I’m afraid I’ve not handled the police as well as I should have,’ Molly said.
‘Why?’ another of the group asked.
‘They’ve been here, asking all sorts of questions. We should not have defended the vicar the way we did.’
‘But he was only doing good. Freeing us from the enslaver.’
‘Claude Selwood was an evil man. He deserved to die. We couldn’t let him destroy our village.’
‘It was only meant to scare the man.’
‘How were we to know that the horse would kill the man.’
‘I prayed for it.’
‘So did I.’
‘The vicar, he’s not mentioned our part in this.’
‘He’s a good man. A man to be trusted,’ Molly said.
The Coombe Action Committee was in session. The item for discussion: the Selwood family and their attempts to destroy the tranquillity, the harmony, the peace of the village. The death of Claude Selwood, accidental as it had been, had been opportune. The languishing in jail of the Reverend Walston was unfortunate.
‘But why Old Ted?’ a man in his late-seventies said. He was the only male in the room, a situation that did not concern him.
‘It wasn’t us,’ Molly said.
It was a group of people who should be retired, enjoying their time without the demands of a nine to five job, not a group of people discussing anarchy, breaking the law if needed to protect the life they had always known. Molly Dempsey had been born in the village, remembered a time before television, the internet. She even remembered the first time a telephone, black and plastic, had come into her home. It had seemed like fun then, the ability to phone her friends, even though they were no more than a bike ride away. Back then, she would ride into Salisbury at the weekend, but now the road to Salisbury was full of trucks and cars moving at speeds unknown before. Her father had had an old Austin Seven. The family had loved the car, even though it could barely make it up a steep hill.
Now everyone had a powerful car, and she had seen Gordon Selwood with his Jaguar in the village. Molly remembered the young Gordon, slim and attractive, but now he was verging on fat and slovenly. He had been a polite young man, and his mother, a decent woman, even if she could be o
verbearing. As for the father, Claude; he rarely deemed it appropriate to talk to the proletariat. ‘Up himself, that one,’ Molly’s father had said, although she had not understood at the time, other than to know it was derogatory.
She had married in the local church, given birth to two children, one, a son, the other, a daughter, but they were both married and elsewhere.
The Action Committee had come about when Claude Selwood and Len Dowling had started buying up old properties in the village. The initial rejection of their planning application had caused the two of them to make a presentation in the church hall, outlining the benefits to the community, downplaying the negatives.
There had been some who had been swayed by the elegance of the two men’s arguments, especially that of the young Dowling. She remembered that he had a smooth tongue, but he preached progress and change and new people into the community. And one thing Molly Dempsey did not want was change. The Action Committee had formed that night; a collection of locals who agreed with her.
Every time another of Selwood and Dowling’s applications for Coombe was up for discussion with the Salisbury City Council, the committee would make representations opposing it. Not that it had achieved much, Molly knew that. The development in the village had been approved, but Claude Selwood was dead, although Len Dowling was not.
‘What are we going to do?’ Molly said to her committee.
‘We wait and see. If Dowling approaches Gordon Selwood, then we will reconsider.’
Molly Dempsey knew she would be prepared.
***
After Cathy Selwood’s funeral, there was a lull in the village of Coombe. It was as if everyone was taking a breather for the main event. Clare thought that Tremayne was cynical in his belief that something was stirring; not that it stopped her taking the first Sunday off in weeks. It was a chance to catch up on some reading, some sleep, and to clean her cottage. Her mother was coming down, and she was always critical. Not that she didn’t love her mother, but sometimes they did not see eye-to-eye. The last visit to the cottage had resulted in her mother leaving in a hurry. Clare did not want a repeat.
Tremayne had Jean, his former wife, down for the weekend; his wife regretting the years apart, but Tremayne knew that back then she had wanted him at home more often, and he had wanted her to be more understanding. It was easy to reflect back when they had both mellowed, but Jean had had a tendency to go off on a tangent occasionally; he had a tendency to slam the door on his way out. ‘I’m never coming back,’ he would say. But now, they were just happy to sit together and watch the television or even go down the pub. Jean even attempted to be interested in his attempts to pick the winning horse, although it irked Tremayne that she’d pick the prettiest, not the racing history of the assembled horses.
It irked him more when she won more races than he did. They were a good pair, he knew that, and although she had married another, and had since been widowed, he had not found anyone else to equal her.
The next get-together with Jean, he was going to stay with her eldest son and his family. He had met them already, got on well. He knew it would be fine. He and Jean had discussed remarrying, and the idea appealed. They thought in the next couple of months when the weather was better, a honeymoon in Cornwall, maybe the hotel they went to after their first wedding.
In another part of Salisbury, Len Dowling was giving Gordon Selwood an update on his plans for Coombe. ‘Your father, he was all for it. We build some houses down in the village, good quality, make us plenty of money. After that, we’d use those as the precedence for the other development on your land.’
‘My father kept quiet about it.’
‘Your mother knew.’
‘She keeps a lot to herself. Have you taken her into your confidence?’
‘Your father said to be careful. It was your mother who was the stronger. Are you?’
‘I can be,’ Gordon said.
Len Dowling looked across at the man. He did not see the strength that he had seen in the father, and nowhere as near that of the mother’s. ‘Great. Then we go ahead with the one development, demolish the first building in one week’s time.’
‘How long to complete?’
‘You’ve seen the plans. I’m pushing for the first building to be erected within four months. We’ll make that an exhibition home. After that, we can sell the other as a house and land package.’
‘And the villagers?’
‘What do we care about them. We’ve got planning permission. It’s up to us.’
‘Very well. I’ll sign the documents.’
Len Dowling pushed the papers across the table that would transfer the name from Claude to Gordon. Dowling sat back, knowing that Claude’s death had only been a minor encumbrance.
The two men concluded the arrangement with a bottle of champagne.
‘Dowling, you’re a rogue, I know that.’
‘Maybe, but fortune favours the brave, and tonight, you’ve been brave.’
‘I hope so. My father probably died because of this, Old Ted as well. Did you kill my father?’
‘Your father’s death was an accident.’
‘An accident because Walston was trying to scare him from dealing with you.’
‘That’s possible.’
‘And Old Ted, he knew what was going on, didn’t he?’
‘He had overheard us once.’
‘Did my father know?’
‘He did. Old Ted didn’t say much, but he was still smart enough to know what we were up to.’
‘What are we up to, really? Are we doing this for the benefit of Coombe?’
‘Don’t be naïve. It’s all to do with money, lots of it. Doesn’t that excite you, Selwood? The chance to make your mark, out of the shadow of your father, away from your mother’s apron strings.’
‘You’ve a foul mouth, Dowling.’
‘That’s why we’ll make a good team. I know you for what you are, the spoilt son of a wealthy family. Me, the son of a nobody.’
Chapter 18
The first time a bulldozer started the demolition work at Len Dowling and Gordon Selwood’s development project in Coombe, there was a sit-down demonstration by the Coombe Action Committee.
Tremayne and Clare were not informed as it was a local matter. In the end, a team of uniforms came and lifted the protesters from their seated positions and moved them to one side.
Len Dowling and Gordon Selwood could see a halt to the day’s operation; Gordon keeping his distance, Len down at the site.
After the situation had calmed, Dowling drove up to see Selwood. On the way, he saw Marge Selwood walking up the street. He stopped his car and wound down the window. ‘Can I give you a lift?’
‘I see you’ve started. There’ll be trouble.’
‘We have permission. If they want to protest, that’s their right, but the police will intervene.’
‘They’ll be a nuisance.’
‘For a few days. It’s factored into the development’s cost.’
‘And Gordon? Is he with you on this?’
‘Yes. How about you?’
‘It’s nothing to do with me now.’
‘I wouldn’t know. Gordon’s the signatory for the Selwood family, the same as Claude was. If you’re not involved, then there’s not much I can do for you.’
‘And if I was?’
‘We’d make a deal. Claude wanted to diversify.’
‘We would have come to an arrangement.’
Dowling had to admit the mother was smarter than the son and she would drive a harder bargain. If she regained authority – he knew she would try – then he would convince her of the worth of the housing development at the top of the hill. The costing showed that a fifty-fifty division would nett each party ten million pounds.
‘Don’t mention our conversation to Gordon,’ Marge said as she walked away.
***
The Coombe Action Committee met again. The bulldozing of the first of the houses had been completed,
the second was in progress. Molly Dempsey, the stalwart of the committee, a woman who remained passionate for the village of Coombe, even though her advancing years meant she would not see it for much longer, knew that passive resistance would not work. A visit into Salisbury, a last-minute attempt at an injunction to halt the degradation of the village, had come to nought.
‘We need to continue to resist,’ Molly said to the committee. It surprised her that she had the energy and the drive. Until Dowling had shown up in the village and had convinced Claude Selwood to go in with him, she had spent her days baking or tending to her garden. She enjoyed the thrill of what she was doing; she knew the others on the committee did as well, but none as much as she did. She opened the window of her cottage. In the not so far distance, the sound of demolition. ‘Listen to that. There was a time when the only sound was a bird. This is our present and our future, and what will happen when they build on Coombe Farm? I want to spend my remaining days in peace and serenity, not bombarded by noise.’
***
Gordon Selwood walked around the two houses being built in the village. He could see others at work, as well as the curious onlookers.
‘You’re meant to wear a hard hat,’ one of the construction team shouted. Gordon had studied the plans, seen the costs for the project, understood there was an element of risk. Dowling had schooled him well in the benefits to them both, benefits that he was willing to accept. Cathy had been the person who would have taken control of the farm; he was confident that she would approve of what he was doing. He knew that he missed her, and whereas Rose was back in his life, the bond between the two of them was no longer there. Cathy was fun, even if her past had been turbulent; Rose was dependable, but she was a woman who looked and acted as if she were a lot older.
‘You’ll not get away with this,’ Molly Dempsey shouted from the other side of the barrier.
‘Mrs Dempsey, it’s progress,’ Gordon said.
‘It’s vandalisation. You’re only interested in money, the same as your father.’
The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set Page 84