Jack Sprat could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between the two of them,
They licked the platter clean.
With the Fosters, though, the position of husband and wife was reversed. Desdemona was small with an almost childlike body; her husband robust, the sort of man who’d eat a large steak at one sitting and then come back for more. The affection between the two was noticeable, although Desdemona listened to Margaret speak. The woman had a commanding voice with an air of authority, a sergeant-major’s voice, Tremayne thought, although Margaret Wilmot would have considered herself a commissioned officer, not an NCO.
Rupert Baxter toiled behind the bar arranging bottles here and there, fiddling with the cash register, checking that the pumps for the beer on tap were primed. A general malaise existed, with no one saying more than necessary.
Barry and Gwen Woodcock came in through the door. Gwen looked over at Margaret and smiled; Barry headed for Baxter and a pint of beer.
‘What’s it with your wife and Margaret?’ Tremayne said after Barry had propped himself up on a stool close to the bar.
‘Complex. It would take time to tell you the story.’
‘I’ve got the time. Why does Margaret hate you? Why haven’t you told us before? We thought there was an animosity between the two women, but that’s not the case. The issue is you.’
‘Someone in here is a murderer, aren’t they?’ Barry said.
‘That’s what we believe. Eustace and Gladys Upminster could be the murderers. What’s the truth about them?’
‘There’s not that much to tell you. Eustace’s a good man, always has been, and Gladys was always easy to get on with. But their lives have been troubled, and now they’re separated. They won’t like that.’
‘Gladys should have thought about that before she knifed her husband.’
‘Can’t you just say it was an accident and let bygones be bygones.’
‘That’s not how the law works. Gladys admitted to the crime, even said that Eustace was conducting an adulterous affair with Gloria. What do you reckon? True or false?’
‘Eustace wouldn’t have been near her, although he used to meet up with a woman two villages from here.’
‘Since their son died?’
‘It’s been going on for years. I only know because I’m sometimes over there, and I’ve seen him on more than a few occasions. A decent-looking woman.’
‘Why haven’t you told us this before?’
‘There was no reason to cause trouble.’
‘She’s known for some time, not that she liked it, but she accepted the status quo.’
‘Any chance that Eustace’s girlfriend is involved?’
‘It seems unlikely, and what would she have to do with this village?’
‘No harm in checking,’ Barry said as he thrust his empty glass in front of Tremayne.
‘Three pints of beer, one for yourself,’ Tremayne said to Baxter.
‘He’s right about Gloria. There’s no way that she was involved with Eustace. I’m not so sure about her apart from that, but she’s been platonic in this village. If Eustace has been putting it about, it wasn’t in Compton, and Gladys may have stabbed him, but she’s a disturbed woman. You can’t lock her up in jail for that.’
‘We’re conducting psychiatric tests to determine whether the woman is fit to stand trial or whether she should be confined to an institution until she’s deemed fit to return to society.’
‘Let her back with Eustace. We’ll make sure that no harm comes to either of them.’
‘You didn’t do such a good job before,’ Tremayne said.
‘We weren’t looking. Now we’ll be more vigilant.’
‘You should all be concerned as to who’s next.’
‘Do you think there’ll be more?’ Woodcock said. He had downed the last pint that Tremayne had purchased for him in record time. His conversation came at a cost.
Tremayne looked over at Clare, gave her a nod: time to move on.
‘The name of this woman? Tremayne said to Woodcock.
‘Linda Wilson. The first house on the left as you enter the village. It’s white, two-storey. There’s a fountain in the garden at the front.’
***
Two villages away, the village of Fitzhampton. Not the bleakness of Compton with its post-war architecture, its red-brick cottages, where the only buildings of some appeal were the pub and the church. Fitzhampton was thatched cottages and a stream flowing through the centre, ducks swimming, a couple of youths with fishing rods. Realising that they had missed the house, Clare turned the car around and headed back towards Compton.
‘Over there,’ Tremayne said.
‘I was looking for something more modest,’ Clare had to admit.
On the high side of the road, and behind a solid fence, stood a detached house of exquisite beauty.
‘It must be two to three hundred years old,’ Tremayne said.
‘Georgian possibly, although it could have been built later.’
Clare parked the car, and the two of them walked up the path. On the front door, a large brass knocker. Tremayne used the knocker as well as a bell to the side. After five minutes, the door opened. A woman in her mid-forties, elegantly dressed, stood before them.
‘I expected you to turn up at some time,’ she said.
Tremayne and Clare showed their warrant cards, the woman checking them in detail.
‘Come in, please. Make yourselves comfortable. I won’t be long, and then you can have my undivided attention.’
The two police officers looked around where they were sitting. On the walls, paintings and posters, the furniture a combination of contemporary and antique. The room, as did the house, oozed affluence, yet the woman who had opened the door had had a mischievous look about her as if she somehow did not belong.
After what seemed an eternity, Linda Wilson reappeared. ‘Sorry about that, but you can’t hurry these things.’
‘What things are that? Clare asked.
‘We’ll come back to that later. Is this about Eustace?’
‘It is,’ Tremayne said.
‘Dear Eustace, one of my regulars.’
‘Regular what?’
Clare thought that Tremayne was obtuse in asking.
‘Client. I’ve got bills to pay the same as everyone else.’
‘Prostitution?’
‘Nothing as sordid as that. Lonely men that I approve of, and can afford their time with me. I’ve known Eustace for years, and he comes over every few weeks for a few hours. We’re discreet, although everyone in the village must know, not that I care.’
‘You’re an escort?’ Tremayne said.
‘High-class, and sometimes I’m here, sometimes I’m overseas. Eustace is an exception in that he’s not as wealthy as the others, but I genuinely like the man, not so much the others, not always.’
‘This house?’
‘It belongs to a benefactor, although he doesn’t come here, and please, don’t ask his name. I won’t tell you, confidentiality is paramount.’
‘Like a doctor,’ Clare said.
‘That’s what I am, a healer. I’ve no shame about it, although if you weren’t the police, we wouldn’t be discussing the matter.’
‘Your relationship with the other people in the village?’
‘Some won’t talk to me, but most will. A scarlet woman adds allure to the village, and my being here gives them an edginess to their lives. Some of the women probably envy me, and their husbands often try out their charms on me.’
‘Any success?’
‘Not on your own doorstep, isn’t that the saying?’
‘Something like that,’ Clare said.
Both Tremayne and Clare warmed to the woman and her stark honesty. It was not for them to pass moral judgement, only to find out how she tied in with Eustace Upminster and his wife, and if she knew the others that had died in Compton.
‘Were you shocked by
what happened to Eustace?’
‘Yes, I was. I know that Gladys had become strange after her son died, but attempting to kill Eustace came as a shock. I phoned the hospital, they told me he was going to survive.’
‘He’s been discharged. He’s more concerned about Gladys than himself.’
‘That’s Eustace. He was always devoted to her, more so than to me.’
‘It’s clear that you’ve known Eustace for a long time,’ Tremayne said. ‘It may be best if you explain how.’
‘Call me Linda. No doubt you could both do with a cup of tea.’
‘We could,’ Tremayne said.
After a few minutes, the interview resumed.
‘I grew up in the area, the childhood friend of Gladys’s younger sister. There’s a fifteen-year age gap between the sisters. I’ve known Gladys from back then, and then Eustace. I was sixteen, precocious and well-developed for my age. Eustace was married to Gladys by then, and it was a rough patch for them. Most married people have rough patches, not that I’d know, not from personal experience, that is. One night, we were alone somewhere or the other, and we ended up in bed together. It didn’t seem to worry either of us, and there was no guilt. I fell for him, but he wasn’t interested in me, not as a long-term proposition, and besides, he had Gladys. He was right, of course. I wasn’t the sort of a person to settle for one man and one place. I was ambitious, wanting to see the world, wanting to be rich. We met up a few times over the next couple of months, and then I left the area, went overseas. Eventually, I came back to the area, an attempt to re-establish my roots, an attempt at normalcy.
‘I met Eustace in Salisbury one day some years back, and our casual get-togethers continued, interspersed with my other obligations.’
‘Eustace is not a client?’
‘Not with me. He’s my tenuous hold on what could have been a normal life, but now, with Gladys in prison and Eustace almost killed, it may present a complication.’
‘It won’t,’ Clare said. ‘He intends to stand by her.’
‘Miss Wilson, does your relationship with Eustace Upminster have any bearing on the murders in Compton?’ Tremayne asked.
‘Gladys knew about me, although I’ve not spoken to her for many years. Certainly not in the last twenty. I don’t think she was ever an affectionate woman, always a little sullen, but Eustace needed her, not me. Eustace is a tactile man, but he needs a strong person to control him. Gladys was that person. And if she’s in prison, he’ll be there every day doing what he can to make her life more comfortable.’
‘This house?’
‘As I said, a benefactor.’
‘Have you been to Compton in the last few years?’
‘When I was younger, but I preferred the bright lights of London back then. Apart from Eustace and Gladys, I don’t know anyone else in Compton apart from those I know from my school days. Of those that died, I vaguely recollect meeting Gloria Wiggins.’
An interesting interlude in the murder investigations, Tremayne would have admitted, but not a lot had been gained by meeting Linda Wilson. Unless advice and investigation to the contrary revealed otherwise, she was just a minor player, and not involved. Clare intended to do some research on the good-natured and vivacious woman who purveyed her body to men of wealth with no moral compunction.
Chapter 22
A lull in the murder count in Compton, not that there were many of the core group left alive, gave Tremayne time to reflect. He had to admit to himself that he felt a weariness in his body and that he walked slower than before. There was a time when he could have worked from dawn to dusk and often much later, then downed more than his fair share of pints of beer at the pub, and then repeated the process day in, day out. But now, any attempt to emulate that meant a stay in the hospital to recuperate, a berating from Jean and accusing glances from Yarwood. He determined that the next offer from Superintendent Moulton would be met more receptively than previously.
Tremayne knew it was not what he wanted as he had been a policeman all of his adult life, from when he had been a cadet up to inspector, and it had been a vocation, not a nine-to-five ordeal. He knew that retirement would not be endless rounds of golf, or pottering in the garden, both of which left him cold, but an inevitable decline to nothingness. He was not a happy man the day after meeting Linda Wilson.
Tremayne and Clare were in the office, a rare occurrence in the middle of the day. Outside the rain was torrential and it made driving difficult and policing almost impossible. At least Tremayne’s idea of policing. Clare could still continue to work, her laptop indispensable, and at night in her bed, she had an iPad and a cat for company.
She had phoned Doctor Warner the previous night, the doctor who had told Tremayne to ease up or it’d be an early grave for him. The relationship between the police sergeant and the doctor was back on, but whether it would last or not, Clare did not know, only that occasionally the cat was not sufficient in her bed.
Doctor Warner qualified as he was enamoured of her, having professed love on more than one occasion, a feeling she could not reciprocate. She felt a fondness for him, but it wasn’t love. That was reserved for Harry Holchester, but he was long dead and buried.
Even though it had been two in the morning, the previous night she had felt the irresistible urge to visit his grave in the village of Avon Hill. Apart from the rustling of the leaves in the trees to one side of the churchyard, a light in the upstairs window of the rectory and the hooting of an owl, it was just her and Harry, his grave still tended by some of the locals. She placed some flowers that she had had in a vase at her cottage and stood there with just the light from her iPhone.
There had been many attempts at closure after Harry had died violently, and even though she hadn’t visited his grave in over six months, the bond still existed. She determined that this would be the last time, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be. Clare had walked away from the grave, sobbing profusely, but she would still see the doctor, and if he wanted to share her bed, then he would be welcomed.
‘You’re not your usual irascible self,’ Clare said to Tremayne in his office.
‘New Year's resolution,’ Tremayne replied.
‘It’s not the new year, and you’re not into resolutions.’
‘The inevitable passing of time. A reflection of what I’ve achieved in life.’
‘The premise of an old man, and you aren’t old yet. You’re still the best police officer at Bemerton Road Police Station.’
‘That may be the case, but my time is drawing to a close. Even if I delay Moulton, there are only a few more years before my retirement is mandatory. I can’t stop the ticking of the clock, any more than you can.’
Clare knew what he meant. Her biological clock was ticking, faster than ever, and the need to have a child persisted. ‘It’s no use worrying about it,’ she said.
‘The occasional twinge, the ache in the knees, the sore back. It’s not something I can stop, only ignore. Jean would want me to be with her so that she could fuss, but if I were there every day, I’d drive her mad.’
‘Tell her, see what can be done to alleviate the conditions. Who knows, medicine may help.’
‘Enough of the heart-to-heart,’ Tremayne said, reverting to type. ‘What did you find out about Linda Wilson?’
‘Her story checks out. She was a friend of Gladys’s younger sister. I even found a school photo of the two of them when they were eleven, and then another when they were sixteen. Linda Wilson was, as she said, well-endowed, and not afraid to show it. There’s a history of promiscuity, and she has been to Compton more than a few times. Even a photo of her with Gladys, although it’s a dated photo.’
‘Where did you find that?’
‘Instagram. Linda’s an avid user of social media.’
‘I liked the woman,’ Tremayne said.
‘I thought you did.’
‘Not in that way. She had a refreshing honesty about her, something sadly lacking in Compton. Any black mark
s against her?’
‘None that I can see. She’s obviously well-travelled, her trips overseas show that, and her story about Eustace holds up, although he would have been in his thirties when she was sixteen. She was over the age of consent, but only just. However, a thirty-one-year-old man and a sixteen-year-old woman, even if she looked older, would not have been readily accepted by most people. We need to check who knew and if it’s relevant.’
‘Would it be?’
‘Do you have any better ideas? We’re running out of potential murderers. We could do with a few more, and Linda, regardless of how refreshing she was, is suspect, and she must have been around some unsavoury characters over the years. No doubt she picked up a tip or two on dishonesty, criminal intent, even murder.’
***
Rupert Baxter stood knee-deep in the river. He was wearing waders as he flicked his fishing rod, the hook landing in the same area every time. It was one of the few times when he was at peace with the world; one of the few times when his prodigious mind stopped to rest. He had seen the fish that he was after on a few occasions and had even snagged it once, only for it to drop off his hook as he had tried to wrestle it to the shore. He was determined that day to succeed, having seen it swimming through the reeds not far from where he was standing. The fish, Baxter was sure, was smarter than it looked, the fish equivalent of him in intellect. It was a battle between two minds, and if he caught it, it wouldn’t be tasty, and Baxter knew that he would not deprive the fish of its life.
On the shore, a couple of people wandered by. They were not locals, and Baxter took no notice of them, only to give them a cursory nod of the head. One of the onlookers reciprocated but spoke no words. They moved on, leaving Baxter to his fish and his peace.
A fish broke the surface of the river not far from where the elusive fish lurked. Up above, the sky was clear, and the temperature on the shore was crisp, while in the water it was even colder. Baxter knew that he would devote another thirty minutes to the fish, and then declare it the victor that day.
The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set Page 131