Ashes to Ashes

by Margaret Duffy

  ‘Murder,’ James Carrick had said over the phone to Patrick, having given him this information the morning after the find. ‘Do you happen to know if she had any children? Officially identifying the remains will be hellish difficult if we don’t have a DNA sample to compare them with.’

  ‘No, sorry,’ Patrick had said. ‘No idea.’

  ‘It looks as though she finally made an official complaint,’ the DCI had then remarked with typical Scottish pragmatism. ‘I’m away to the scene of the crime if you’re interested in meeting me there.’

  ‘Why did the killer advertise it as murder?’ I said to Patrick once he had told me the news. ‘Why shoot the woman when all they had to do was strangle or smother her before setting the house on fire?’

  ‘And was the explosion caused by the gas bottles we know she used or something a bit more meaningful?’ Patrick responded. ‘Coming?’

  SIX

  I found myself gaping at the devastation, the twin chimney stack, three outer and a couple of interior walls the only things left standing. The road was closed while investigations continued, police incident tape everywhere. It would have had to be closed to traffic anyway as it was covered with torn-off branches and vegetation, together with the slates, bricks and other masonry that were not piled up on the tattered remnants of the front hedge, which appeared to have taken the full force of the blast. I fervently hoped that the black cat did not belong to Mrs Peters and had been safely somewhere else at the time. Somehow I thought it had another home – it was too well fed, its fur too silky to be hers. Anyway, she hated cats, didn’t she? I agonized a bit over this.

  Carrick, whose presence signified the seriousness with which the crime was being regarded, was with a couple of members of the fire brigade investigation team, standing just outside what had been the front door. Having introduced us to the others he went on to say that, following a change of mind due to the state of the building, no one was permitted to re-enter the blackened ruin until a structural surveyor had examined it. He apologized for calling us out for nothing.

  ‘It looks OK but there’s nothing supporting that wall over there,’ Carrick finished by saying, pointing. Then, to Patrick in particular, ‘First impressions?’

  ‘Explosives,’ was his instant verdict. ‘Probably plastic, like Semtex.’

  ‘There’ll be not a crumb of evidence,’ Carrick said, shaking his head.

  DI David Campbell came down the path at the side of the house, followed by DS Lynn Outhwaite, Carrick’s assistant. The latter gave us a big smile, while Campbell merely nodded in our direction. He’s like that.

  ‘Nothing to see,’ Campbell reported with a shrug. ‘Just a shed with a broken window at the far end of the garden. The poor woman and her house were blasted from the face of the earth and I guess the only possible way she can be identified is from her dental records.’

  ‘I’ll try and find out who her dentist was,’ Lynn offered, and, as no response came from Campbell, Carrick thanked her and asked her to make a start.

  There seemed to be no point in commenting that as Mrs Peters’s husband had not bothered with dental treatment she might not have done so either. Also, I had an idea Campbell didn’t know the tale of the dodgy cremation, and it was not my business to enlighten him.

  ‘And there are some flattened plants under a window at the back,’ Campbell went on to say. ‘As though someone tried to get in that way.’

  ‘I’ll take a look in a minute,’ Carrick promised.

  Patrick asked if we could have a look round at the rear of the house.

  ‘Go ahead,’ the DCI said. ‘Just don’t lean on that wall.’

  The shed near the house was a just a pile of wood ash, the air flowing down the narrow path blowing it on to the overgrown, now scorched and littered with detritus, grass that had once been a lawn. A window catch was visible in the still-smouldering heap, together with one of the hinges from the door.

  ‘Our cop friends are right,’ Patrick said quietly. ‘There’ll be precious little evidence left on this bombsite. The answers will lie elsewhere.’

  ‘What about those damaged plants?’ I queried. ‘You noticed those on our first visit.’

  We went over and had a look.

  ‘It’s not firing me up,’ Patrick concluded as we stared at some squashed greenery, mostly weeds. ‘I don’t think anyone got in this way as there weren’t any marks on the window ledge or frame here and none inside. No muddy marks on the carpet either. Surely, if there had been she would have left them there as evidence.’

  ‘But she’s insisting it all happened somewhere else,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Why though?’ He straightened. ‘This whole place gives me the creeps.’

  Our shoes crunching on broken glass, we made our way down the path past a hedge that separated the wreck of what had obviously been a vegetable garden from the area nearer the house. As Campbell had observed, one of the windows of the shed was broken but the flames had not reached this far.

  ‘Were you wearing gloves the other night when we came here?’ I asked in a whisper.

  Patrick turned. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Only it would be a bit embarrassing if your fingerprints were found here.’

  ‘I’m not sure that scenes of crime people have got this far yet.’ He donned a pair of evidence protection gloves – we always carry them – and opened the door the same way that he had previously, saying, ‘I’m wondering why only one window’s broken, and only part of the pane at that. Perhaps something small and heavy like a stone or piece of slate came over the hedge. But it’s quite a way from the house.’ He bent down. ‘On the other hand …’

  ‘This only happens on TV detective shows!’ I exclaimed when I leaned over and saw what he was now looking at.

  ‘When the ex-MI5 hero outwits all the cops and finds the murder weapon,’ Patrick said with a chuckle. ‘God, they’ll hate me. Shall I shut the door again and say nothing?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I’m not serious.’ He smiled reflectively. ‘No, this is a once in a lifetime thing and I’m going to enjoy it.’

  We returned to the others, Lynn having left, the other four still talking.

  Patrick said, ‘Gentlemen, you might like to consider as evidence the Beretta M9 lying on rubbish on the floor of the shed at the far end of the garden. As you must know, they’re issued to US forces, so it’s most probably stolen.’

  They wouldn’t know.

  Keeping our faces straight and leaving at least two gaping mouths in our wake, we said goodbye and went in the direction of our car. As we passed the bungalow that was for sale a woman called to us from the front door.

  ‘Excuse me, are you the police?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Patrick responded.

  ‘May I have a word with you?’

  We made our way around there.

  ‘I’m very worried about the damage to my house,’ she continued as we walked up the front path. ‘I shall have to take photographs to send to my insurance company but how do I prove anything?’

  Patrick said, ‘The police will give you an incident number – the number the case will be known by, and also the name of the investigating officer. You quote those on your claim. That’s all you need to do when you fill in the form and send it with the photos.’

  ‘Do I have to talk to someone else at the police station – phone up?’

  ‘No. I’ll make sure you receive the relevant information.’

  ‘Thank you, you’re really kind. I was very lucky as the broken windows are in the utility room and spare bedroom. There was glass everywhere in there.’

  ‘Those are the windows on the side of your house.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You called the fire brigade, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. There was black smoke coming from a window over there. I saw the smoke first rising over the hedge and had to walk round to see where it was actually coming from.’

  ‘So which window was it?
’

  ‘The one to the left of the front door. The top window, you understand, not a bigger lower one.’

  ‘Were there any lights on indoors?’

  ‘Not that I could see at the front and I didn’t go round the back. It was only just starting to get dark so she might not have needed one, although I have to say the house always looked very dim and gloomy. Does anyone know if Mrs Peters was there at the time?’

  ‘Not officially. But human remains have been found.’

  The woman, in her fifties perhaps, plump and kindly looking, clapped both hands to her face. ‘Oh, dear, how terrible.’ She went on: ‘I know it’s a daft thing to say but I had a horrible feeling about that smoke. I ran back here to the phone and Henry dashed in and hid under my bed just before the explosion. He spends a lot of time in that garden as it’s like a jungle over there.’

  ‘Your cat?’ I queried.

  ‘Yes. He’s black so it must have brought him luck. He could have been killed!’

  ‘Had you seen or heard any cars there prior to all this happening?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘I didn’t notice any. But I’d heard voices about half an hour before. Oh, and a couple of bangs, but there was often banging going on over there. Fred, next door, said he reckoned she threw things in a temper. Someone told me – not idle gossip mind – that she used to throw things at Archie.’

  ‘These voices … were they men’s? Did you hear anything that was said?’

  ‘Yes, men’s. A bit of shouting but I couldn’t make out anything and it could have been the TV for all I knew. I was bringing a blanket off the washing line, you see, and anyway, I don’t try to overhear what the neighbours are saying.’

  ‘No, of course not. Did Mrs Peters have a car?’

  ‘They had one when Archie was alive but she must have sold it as I haven’t seen it lately. Perhaps she couldn’t drive. The bus service isn’t that good so, personally, I’d hate to have to rely on it.’

  ‘I take it that you didn’t really know this lady.’

  ‘I didn’t, for the very good reason that she kept herself to herself and made it perfectly plain she had no time for anyone.’

  ‘Did she have any friends?’

  ‘Not that I know of. You could ask Kenneth, the new curate at the church. He might be able to help you with that.’

  We thanked her and left.

  ‘Result,’ I murmured. ‘We found what is probably the murder weapon and Henry’s all right.’

  ‘Why chuck it in the shed, though? It was bound to be discovered.’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  We decided to leave questioning anyone else locally to the investigating officers.

  ‘It’s reasonable to assume that Mrs Peters is dead,’ Patrick said when we had called in back home for some lunch. ‘It’s also fairly safe to think that she endeavoured to blow the whistle on someone and they’ve shut her up. As the only people she spoke to about it, as far as we know, are the curate, Dad and us, how did whoever it was know she’d blabbed?’

  ‘She could have told them she was going public,’ I hazarded. ‘But started in a very small way.’

  ‘Which means, if you’re right – and I have to say you’re very consistent on this – that she was part of some scam or other and was threatening to tell all for some reason or other. You’ve already suggested it was about money and, let’s face it, crime nearly always has money in there somewhere. What else should we factor in?’

  ‘The fact that we and Kenneth might be next on the death list, for a start. Not to mention your father.’

  After a short pause while he thought about it, Patrick said, ‘I’m of the view that she didn’t tell them exactly who she was going to inform, or had told. If she’d said she was going to the local church about it they would have laughed in her face. If she’d mentioned the police they’d have just got very angry. They did.’

  I had to admit that there was some logic in this. And right now, Patrick’s excellent grasp of the criminal mind – male, that is – was all I had by way of reassurance. It would have to suffice. But, nevertheless, the woman had told someone respectable, a handy detail to have in the bag in the event of having to appear in a court of law.

  As it stood right now, nothing really made sense.

  To keep him in the picture, Patrick emailed Commander Greenway with the latest developments, without comment, and we went back to living everyday life. The explosion at a quiet hamlet in the West Country made the national media, provoking a dialogue on the safety of using gas bottles. Avon and Somerset Police, meanwhile, and for the time being, did not provide the general public with details about the finding of any weapons, or the fact that the investigation was now a murder inquiry, keeping their thoughts to themselves.

  Until, that is …

  ‘It’s not her,’ said James Carrick’s voice one evening several days later when I answered Patrick’s mobile in our bedroom, he being in the shower.

  ‘Not Mrs Peters!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘No. Lynn managed to track down her dentist and he was sent photos of the upper and lower jaws of the skull found in the kitchen area. It’s definitely not her. Not only that, it’s the skull of a male. I won’t bother you with all the scientific stuff about measurements and ratios. But it’s that of a bloke, elderly, with very poor teeth. He had suffered from abcesses in them that had eaten right into the bone.’

  ‘Yuck,’ I muttered.

  Carrick continued, ‘Having finally been able to get into the shell of the building, forensics have come up with something interesting too. Some bod on the team, ex-military, reckons that the explosives were actually placed on the deceased either before or after he was shot, and detonated there. Although there were fragments of scorched human remains everywhere in what had been the living room, the fact that the head was on its own in the kitchen area bears him out, as when suicide bombers who have explosives attached to their bodies blow themselves up the head can end up as much as forty yards away.’

  I was beginning to wish Patrick had taken the call.

  ‘Are you still there?’ the DCI asked anxiously.

  I told him I was.

  ‘This is beginning to sound like one of your plots,’ the DCI went on. ‘And David’s gone off on a week’s course to HQ. As you were involved with this first, would you and Patrick be interested in giving me your thoughts on it tomorrow morning at the nick, or have you something else planned?’

  ‘One moment,’ I said, observing Patrick just emerging from the shower, a bathrobe not quite wrapped around himself. The state-of-the-art replacement for the lower part of his right leg is not designed to get really wet so he was, of necessity, hopping on the other and steadying himself by holding on to things. I relayed the suggestion and he readily agreed.

  ‘I simply can’t believe he’s actually asking for our opinion when the case isn’t officially anything to do with us,’ Patrick said with a laugh when the call had ended. ‘It’s a first. I shall have a tot to toast all proud Caledonian cops.’

  I gave him the rest of the information.

  ‘So who the hell was in the bungalow?’ he responded, staggered, which was unusual for him.

  ‘An old man with bad teeth?’ I said. ‘It could have been Archie.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Ingrid!’

  ‘This bangs quite a few theories on the head – if you’ll forgive my choice of words,’ said James Carrick. ‘There appears to be only one set of human remains in the house, something that initial DNA findings have confirmed. The skull is that of an elderly male, identity unknown and, I’ve a nasty feeling, likely to remain that way. We can ask for a reconstruction to be done but as you know it’s very expensive and I think that should only be done as a last resort.’

  He had provided coffee in his office on the top floor and we now shifted our chairs slightly to make room for Lynn Outhwaite, who had just arrived.

  ‘The Beretta M9 handgun found in the shed had no fingerprints on it,’ she said to Patrick.
‘And as you may have noticed, there was no magazine – it was empty.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he replied. ‘Have any ejected cartridge cases been found inside the ruins of the house? On second thoughts, it’s unlikely they’d have survived as they would have probably melted in the heat.’

  ‘Not yet. It’ll take a while to sift through all the debris – there’s tons of it because of the roof slates. They had to wait until a contractor erected scaffolding so that a builder could stabilize that dangerous outer wall.’

  Patrick said, ‘How a weapon issued to US Armed Forces ended up there is baffling and one can only assume that, originally, it was stolen. The manufacturer might have no bearing on the case at all and it’s simply a gun purchased from an illegal supplier.’

  ‘How easy is that around here?’ Carrick asked him.

  ‘No idea, and I think you’re fishing in case I know more than you do,’ Patrick answered with a smile. ‘I can only speak with regard to London, where it’s very easy indeed.’

  ‘This was research you were carrying out?’ Lynn enquired, all innocence. It is important to point out here that Lynn, in her late-twenties, dark haired and petite, is very clever. Carrick is pushing for her promotion; partly, I know, because he wants to get rid of Campbell as, in this instance, two Scots a bannock didn’t bake.

  Patrick wagged a finger at her. ‘Actually, no.’

  She did not ask any more questions, which was perhaps just as well.

  ‘Any ideas, Ingrid?’ Carrick asked.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t appear that, ding, dong, the witch is dead,’ I replied. ‘Unless the man who was blown up was her boyfriend, she’d just popped out for something and they shot her with the remainder of the fifteen shots in the magazine when she got back, planted the explosives on the boyfriend, having shot him too, and left, taking her blooded-boltered corpse with them.’