‘Did he admit to his guilt?’
‘He had almost killed a man once before. He had seen Gavin in the woods, seen Tony come and go. He then went into the woods and found Gavin. O’Connor, a man who was plagued by nightmares, snaps. He always carried a knife with him. He killed Gavin. No doubt he’ll be consigned to a psychiatric facility for the remainder of his life, or until he’s deemed fit to re-enter society.’
‘But why?’ Moulton asked.
‘The man had drunk himself into a stupor the night before. He had woken with a blinding headache and decided to walk it off, still badly hungover, not cognisant of who and what was around him. In the back of his mind, he knew that if Lord Linden saw him in that state, he’d be off the estate within the hour. Linden’s an easy person to deal with, but he can’t abide public drunkenness.’
‘And Tony?’ Betty asked.
Tremayne could see that everyone was wilting. ‘Five minutes, get yourselves a drink or visit the toilet.’
‘You’re enjoying this,’ Clare said as she handed Tremayne a mug of tea.
‘Do you realise that O’Connor went back to Longmore Park on our say-so. The man could have flipped again, killed anyone. What if he had murdered Lord and Lady Linden?’
‘He didn’t, just be thankful.’
‘Are the uniforms ready?’
‘They are.’
***
Tremayne knew that he was flying blind on this one. He was confident he knew the reason and who, but the proof was not as tight as he would have liked.
‘Here’s what we know about Tony Mitchell,’ Tremayne said when the group had reassembled. ‘We know that he had fought in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. We also know that he was awarded a medal when his unit came under fire. Selwyn Cosford was there with him at the time. That’s the connection between two men of vastly different lifestyles. I’m sure that everyone knows this. We also know, courtesy of Serious and Organised Crime, and a few strings being pulled, that while in Malaya, both Mitchell and Cosford were involved in another skirmish. This is not in the official records, and neither man would be proud of what happened. I mentioned the possibility to Selwyn once in the past. He never admitted to it, but now we have proof.’
‘It’s not something to be proud of,’ Cosford said.
‘Do you want to tell everyone, or shall I?’
‘Carry on. We have both spent our lives forgetting.’
‘Very well. There was a village, Selwyn and Tony are on patrol. A shot hits one of their unit full on. One man is down. Sensing an ambush, the unit tightens ranks. Tony takes over the leadership, seeing that the dead man was the senior officer. The unit encircles the village. They’re convinced the place is full of communists. The instruction is to wait and see, but Tony’s keen to show his metal. He’s forced to make a decision. It’s either attack the village, attempt to subdue it or retreat and wait for backup.’
‘I’ll tell it,’ Selwyn said. ‘The sun’s blazing down, the mosquitoes are driving us crazy. One of the men was suffering from dysentery, and the rest of us are worn out. We’ve done our bit and are in need of a rest. In the village, there’s a well and some shade. Tony decides that we move in. After all, they’re only communists, not worth worrying about. That’s what we had been told, what we believed. The sun is relentless, and we’re kitted up in gear more suitable for a colder climate, plus we’re hungry, and chickens are walking around. Tony gives the command.’
‘You could have phoned for backup,’ Marcia said.
‘We’re in a war zone, decisions are split-second, and we know that backup will take two hours at least. We move in, Tony’s at the front, I’m not far behind. The shooting from one of the huts starts again. We spray it with bullets. The shooting stops.
‘I go in first, vomit at the sight of it.’
‘What was it?’ Betty said.
‘It was a young boy, no more than ten. He had been shooting at us. With him are five other children, two girls, three boys. We had killed them all. We had followed the rule book, we had done our job, but we had killed children. Our superiors, aware of how this would be perceived, covered it up, gave us counselling, and sent us back to England, honourable discharges. None of us dealt with it well, but Tony, as you know, was more sensitive. In time I moved on, never truly forgot, but it was war, these sorts of things happen.
‘But Tony, he became reclusive. Before that, he was into all the dens of iniquity we could find in the Far East. We were young lads out of England for the first time, and the lure of the Orient was irresistible. After our return to England, we kept in touch. I would have done anything for him, but he didn’t want it. But there was a bond, forged not in battle, but in disgrace.’
‘That is what killed Tony Mitchell,’ Tremayne said.
‘He was getting old. It was a secret he no longer wanted to keep. He came and saw me. He told me what he was going to do,’ Selwyn said.
‘And what was that?’
‘He was going to tell the Mitchell family, give an interview to the local newspaper, whatever television station would take it.’
‘But it was sixty years ago,’ Maggie, Cosford’s granddaughter, said. ‘Surely no one’s interested anymore. These things happen.’
‘You’ve seen the photo I have of us in Malaya,’ Selwyn said. ‘Who did you see.’
‘I saw you and Tony Mitchell.’
‘How did you know it was Tony?’ Tremayne said.
‘Grandfather said it was him.’
‘Why did you come to Emberley?’
‘I was curious. I came out here and knocked on Mitchell’s door.’
‘What happened?’
‘He invited me in. I told him who I was. He was very kind to me, asked if I’d look after his dog when he was gone.’
‘How did you interpret that?’
‘I thought he was an old man feeling his age.’
‘Did he tell you who else was in the photo?’
‘No, but one of them seemed familiar.’
‘He’s a politician now, Cabinet Minister,’ Selwyn said.
‘Did you contact him?’ Tremayne asked Selwyn.
‘I did. We agreed that Tony could not be allowed to talk. Sixty years it may have been, but mud sticks.’
‘How much did Tony know about the gold bullion?’
‘Nothing from me.’
‘Maggie, why did you kill Tony Mitchell?’ Tremayne said.
‘How did you know?’
‘I didn’t, Devlin O’Connor did. He was a man who knew more about what happened in the village than anyone else. You shouldn’t have parked your car in the lane that Gavin had used. When O’Connor confessed to murdering Gavin, he also revealed that he had seen you. He is a man who has spent his life keeping secrets. He was not about to reveal that he knew you to be the murderer of Tony Mitchell, but with nothing more to lose, he told us everything. He was not far from the cottage when you shot Tony. He will be a witness at your trial.’
‘I had to. I couldn’t let my grandfather suffer. Such a great man brought low by something that happened such a long time ago. I came out to Mr Mitchell’s place, listened to what he had to say.’
‘And then?’
‘I left him and went back to my car. It was some distance away. I then returned, spent a few more minutes with him and then I shot him. I was sorry, as I had liked the man, and he was important to my father.’
‘Maggie, it wasn’t necessary. There was no way the government was going to let a Cabinet Minister be lambasted in the press. They would have dealt with it,’ Tremayne said.
‘I did it for you, Grandfather.’ Maggie rushed over and flung her arms around the neck of the man she loved more than any other. Her mother sat quietly crying. Betty went over and gave her a hug.
Superintendent Moulton sat back in his chair, stunned. The other officers from Bemerton Road looked over at Tremayne in admiration. Clare sent a message to the doctor. This Saturday, 8 p.m.
Tremayne did not feel any s
atisfaction in what he had just done. Good and decent people were suffering, would continue to suffer. He wondered if he was ready for retirement.
The End.
Death in the Village
Phillip Strang
Chapter 1
One minute, Gloria Wiggins was there in the main street making idle gossip, her passion as well as her hobby, and then the next, she was dead, a rope around her neck and hanging from a beam in the garage of her house.
There were some that said it was poetic justice, retribution for the malignancy that she had perpetuated for too long. And some still blamed her for the death of the previous vicar after she had stood up in the church one Sunday and denounced him.
The vicar, justifiably distraught, had left the church and headed out of the village on his motorcycle, only to slip on a patch of ice and go headfirst into a tree, cracking his helmet as well as his head.
Mrs Wiggins – no one remembered her husband, and believed him to be a figment of her imagination – saw it as the hand of God, and that her outburst was only the Lord talking to her to denounce the sinner. And now, the evil-mouthed woman was dead, and Stephanie Underwood, her next-door neighbour, along with virtually everyone in the village was not sorry to see her go.
Salisbury wasn’t that far away, only twenty-two minutes if the traffic on the main road two miles away was flowing, forty-five if it wasn’t, but Stephanie Underwood wasn’t bothered either way. For the last twenty-eight years, she had not left the village, except for the occasional emergency: root canal surgery, a touch of gout, an irregular heartbeat, and shortness of breath.
Out there was a world of people and motor cars and exciting things to see and do, but not for her. She had completed her schooling, done well, five O levels, three A levels, and there were some, her parents included, who had thought she would go on to university, but never her. The village gave her what she wanted, and after her parents died, she had, at the age of nineteen, the cottage and their life insurance. Her days were routine: up at six in the morning, a walk around the area, and then back to her television. At ten in the evening, she would raise herself from her favourite chair, and go to bed. The only movement during those hours would be to feed herself and to commit to her ablutions. Now, the presence at her door of two people she did not want to see, and her favourite programme on the television as well.
‘Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne, Sergeant Clare Yarwood, Salisbury Police, Homicide,’ the man said. Stephanie saw a man in his fifties, not too fit, a belly that covered the upper part of his belt. Alongside him, a woman in her thirties, neatly dressed in a fitted jacket, a white blouse, and a skirt that was too short, knee-length.
‘We understand that you found the body of Gloria Wiggins,’ Tremayne said, momentarily talking to the back of the woman’s head as she strained to look at the television.
It was Clare, Tremayne’s sergeant for over four years, who moved into the house and turned off the television. It was one of her favourite programmes as well, but she’d watch it on replay later that evening, or whenever she had some spare time.
Stephanie Underwood, initially distracted by the police sergeant, focussed back to the question. ‘Yes, I found her.’
‘We need to sit down and take a statement from you,’ Tremayne said. He could tell from how the woman dressed that fashion had passed her by and her clothes had a worn look about them. As if they had been purchased in a charity shop or retrieved from a clothing bin somewhere.
‘If you must.’
‘I’m afraid that this must be a distressing time for you,’ Clare said, ‘but we need to apprehend whoever committed this crime.’
‘Distressing, I don’t think so. I hated the woman, just an old busybody and a gossip.’
‘Why such dislike, Miss Underwood?’
‘She was always going on about God’s damnation, and how those who did not give themselves wholeheartedly to God were condemned to burn in the fires of hell.’
‘Were you one of those?’ Tremayne said.
‘I’m a regular church worshipper and a believer in the Lord, but Mrs Wiggins, she didn’t hold with the modern world, and certainly not with television.’
‘You do?’
‘I’ve not left this village since I was a teenager, except a handful of times maybe. Not that I couldn’t have succeeded out there, but I never wanted it, and besides, what do you have out there that I don’t? Peace of mind, comfort, a stress-free life?’
The two police officers had to concede her point. A succession of murders, a health scare for Tremayne, an indeterminate love life for Clare, and a superintendent at Bemerton Road Police Station who wanted results, as well as Tremayne’s retirement, had left both of them jaded and not in the best of spirits. However, a good murder always seemed to bring something to them, a focus away from the realities, and the village of Compton had all the ingredients for intrigue, as well as people who professed one thing but believed in another. And here, in the front room of a thatched cottage, was a woman who pretended to be normal, yet had rarely left the village in decades. It was ten minutes by car to the outside world, thirty to forty if someone was willing to walk across the fields, yet normality for Stephanie Underwood was a cottage with a television, her window to the world. She had all the makings of an eccentric, possibly a murderer, considering the woman hanging from a rope next door. Yet Stephanie Underwood was coherent and able to converse intelligently.
‘Let’s come back to when you discovered Gloria Wiggins,’ Clare said. She was conscious of the woman looking at her skirt riding up her legs. She adjusted it and pulled the hem down. Stephanie Underwood clearly did not approve of legs and cleavage, or any attempt at enhancing the female form by the use of makeup and deodorant, her hair matted as if it was a bird’s nest. Not one creature moved around the house, no dog, no cat, no fish in a tank, apart from a field mouse that scurried across the floor.
‘She lived next door. We used to speak, even though we hated each other.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not? Just because I hated her doesn’t mean I had to ignore her, does it?’ It did to the two police officers, but it was not for them to comment.
‘Do you make a habit of looking in the woman’s garage?’
‘Sometimes. And sometimes, she would be looking around here.’
‘You’ve said you hated her, but it sounds as though you were friends.’
‘You’d not understand.’
‘Try us,’ Clare said.
‘The woman was frustrating, bigoted, a zealot who never had a good word to say about anybody or anything, but she was entertaining. I used to tease her relentlessly, but she never knew it. Not too bright was Gloria.’
‘Whereas you are.’
‘I was, still am. Sometimes when I’m not watching the television, I get out my laptop and surf the net, learn new things, visit new places.’
‘Yet you’ve never been to any of them.’
‘France once, a school excursion, but apart from that, no.’
‘Coming back to Gloria Wiggins,’ Tremayne said.
‘I was over there looking around. One of my plates was missing out of the kitchen.’
‘And you thought she could have taken it?’
‘She was a kleptomaniac, not that she could help it, but she’d take anything that wasn’t secured. She even once took a cross off the altar in the church, not that she intended to sell it.’
‘What did she intend?’
‘Nothing. It was just an affliction.’
‘And your affliction?’ Clare said.
‘I’ve no interest in what happens beyond this village.’
‘But you watch it on the television.’
‘That’s not the same as being there, is it?’ It was to Clare.
‘Gloria Wiggins, what happened when you found her?’ Tremayne said.
‘I looked in the house, it’s always unlocked. I couldn’t find anything of mine there, so I walked around the garden, looked in the
garage. She was hanging there.’
‘It’s murder.’
‘Plenty will be glad she’s dead, not so sure that any would have wanted to kill her.’
Once free of the police officers, even escorting them as far as the front gate, Stephanie Underwood returned inside and switched on the television again, cursing them for interrupting her routine. She looked out of her window at the house next door. She could see the people in their coveralls and their gloves, as well as the masks they were wearing. Also others who were looking for fingerprints, knowing as Stephanie did that they would not find any.
Chapter 2
Tremayne and Clare walked through the village; a small river ran to one side of the narrow road, several small fish darting over the stones at the bottom, hiding in the reeds. A man stood in the water, fishing. He was dressed in neoprene waders, his net ready on the river bank. Tremayne thought he was ambitious, judging by the size of the net and the fish in the river.
‘Not much of a feed,’ Tremayne said by way of idle conversation.
‘It’s relaxation,’ the man said, the casting of his line affected by the interruption.
‘Police, have you got a moment?’
‘Gloria Wiggins?’
‘You knew her?’
‘You never said who you are,’ the fisherman said, putting his fishing rod to one side and returning to the riverbank.
‘DCI Tremayne and Detective Sergeant Yarwood, Homicide.’
You’re Tremayne, I take it,’ looking at the older of the two.
‘I am. What did you reckon of the woman?’
‘She’ll not be missed.’
‘That’s a bleak view of her. Most people feign sadness at the passing of another, especially if they’ve suffered a violent death.’
‘The vicar who died. You’ve heard about him?’
The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set Page 116