“Because they needed the cash?” said Goodwell.
“No. Because they didn’t have homes to go to. They were from Syria, Mr Goodwell. They’d fled their homeland. The old man knew it and decided to let them stay so they could hide from the authorities and try to build a new life here.”
“Those men could have been bloody terrorists, the silly old fool.”
“But Mr Grave had faith in them. Like he had faith in his son.”
“Where are you going with all this officer? I don’t need a lesson in how to be a pillock. You know we couldn’t have done it.”
“Yes. Your alibis all stack up. But now I’m seeing more than the alibis.”
Goodwell stuck his hands on his hips. A faint sneer crossed his face. He glanced at his wife then turned to Hogarth.
“And in your world where watertight alibis don’t mean a thing, what do you see, Inspector?”
“At the moment I’m seeing two sets of people who got worried that their window of opportunity to bag the farm was coming to an end. They were worried if they did nothing, they were going to lose it forever.”
“Opportunity?”
“The land, Mr Goodwell. Farms are all well and good, but making food produce is hard work. And it’s a cutthroat business. It’s all over the news. Milk loses money. Supermarkets pay a pittance for vegetables. Livestock poses risks, gets TB, prices go up and down. And then there’s the investment, and the costs. It’s a bad racket. But one thing which doesn’t cost is land you already own. And because the land is already here, it’s just waiting to be turned into cash, isn’t it?”
“Now, hold on a minute,” said Goodwell. “We proposed to keep this as a farm. We said Crump would come in as partners, not buy the damn thing.”
“That’s what you say now. But when that old woman dies – and once she signs that will over to you, you’d be free to make up your mind all over again. All that dead land, Mr Goodwell. And all that money. It’s prime real estate too. Someone smart like you could even play off Crump against Gillespie Homes. You could start a Dutch auction. You’d be free to do whatever the hell you liked to maximise the value of that land and screw the legacy that Nigel and his son cared about so much.”
Trevor Goodwell’s face turned stiff and serious.
“Why do you mention Susan’s will?” Hogarth looked hard into the man’s eyes and saw the lie.
“Do you need to ask, Mr Goodwell?” said Hogarth.
“The property isn’t ours. Everything you’ve said just now is supposition, pure and simple.”
“I can assure you it’s not, Mr Goodwell. You’ve made all the running you think necessary to get the farm sewn up for you. So, come on. Tell me, Mr Goodwell. I’m keen to know… what prompted all this? What made you panic and kick-start your little takeover right now?”
“Takeover? What are you on about, man?” said Goodwell.
“You saw your window of opportunity and you got all your plans in place. Meeting Crump’s top people takes time to arrange. That much is obvious. And you worked so hard to persuade Mr Grave to see your way of thinking. You’ve also worked very hard to discredit Neville Grave in all kinds of ways. It’s a comprehensive business strategy and you are a businessman, aren’t you, Mr Goodwell?”
“There’s nothing wrong with business,” said Marjorie. “Businesses make money. Neville doesn’t get it. He would almost certainly cause this farm to fail.”
Hogarth’s eyes narrowed. “But what made you panic?”
“Nothing? We didn’t panic about anything. That horrible thing happened to Nigel, and we were here…” said Trevor Goodwell.
Hogarth shook his head.
“Yes, you were, weren’t you? The idea of the lunch announcement made you panic. It was a new uncontrollable factor. You didn’t know what Mr Grave had decided because he always kept his cards so close to his chest. It was the habit of a lifetime. And you knew Neville had been on at him about the future…”
“On that little witch’s behalf,” said Marjorie. “If you think we’d sell the farm for profit, then why do you think she’s here? You should be talking to Neville, not us.”
“Neville doesn’t have the motive. I’ve looked at it. I’ve searched high and low. To me, Neville Grave looks like the second victim in this tragedy.”
“Then Neville’s taken you in, Inspector.”
“No one takes me in for long, Mr Goodwell. Then there was Venky, the vet. All these people had their own ideas about the farm and were trying to sell them to old Mr Grave for different reasons. Then came this big lunch with the grand announcement and you panicked. What if everything you had been working towards was done in vain. What if the old man had gone against you? It was unthinkable, wasn’t it? You had to act. You had to win, Mr Goodwell. This land is gold, after all. Nancy Decorville knows it and so do you. And Neville would have squandered it, because you are a businessman and he is a wastrel. Am I right?”
“Of course, you’re not right! How can you be right?! You can’t fit us up – I have an alibi, Inspector. And no matter what fantasy world you live in, my alibi would certainly hold up in court. No matter how much you dislike me or how much you might be jealous of my hard-earned success, I worked for it. I deserve everything I have. That doesn’t mean I killed Nigel, does it? Not even if you wanted it to. My alibi is real, and it will stick. Come on, Inspector. After all those forensics, have you even got any evidence telling you that I did it? Because, frankly, I don’t think you have. If you did, you would have arrested me by now.”
Hogarth smiled and nodded slowly.
“But you still think I did it, don’t you?” said Trevor Goodwell.
“Maybe I don’t, Mr Goodwell. Maybe I was just playing devil’s advocate. I’m a police officer, after all. I do that kind of thing from time to time. And sometimes, when I’m having a bad day, I might even do it just to get a rise…”
Goodwell’s face darkened.
“But I think it gave us all something to think about, don’t you?”
“I think at the end of this case, you’re going to offer me an apology, DI Hogarth.”
Hogarth looked down at the man’s neat tan shoes. They were brogues, not unlike his own. But they had a lustre to them which said they had probably cost five times what Hogarth had paid for his on the high street.
“Nice shoes, Mr Grave. Size nines, by any chance?”
“Are we done, Inspector?” said Goodwell.
“I think so, for now. And thanks for putting me in my place, Mr Goodwell.”
Goodwell wrapped his arm around Marjorie’s shoulders and led her away from the barn back towards the house.
Hogarth waited a minute before he turned to Palmer.
“What do you think?” said Hogarth.
“I think he’s right, sir. At least about the alibi and the evidence.”
“Yes, it is a bit of a problem that,” said Hogarth, with a grimace. “But I’m working on it, Palmer. He outed himself in there. It’s him. He’s got it all. Motive. Means.”
“Opportunity? He’s got a cast iron alibi, guv…”
“One thing at a time. Now we need to focus all our efforts on the evidence. It must be there somewhere…”
Hogarth started walking away along the track, but Palmer stayed where she was. She looked at the dark empty barn for help. Palmer was beginning to believe the case – and DI Hogarth – were heading for serious trouble.
Chapter Seventeen
“DI Hogarth, I’d like a word with you please.”
Hogarth had only just dropped his backside back into his chair in the CID room when Melford’s lanky frame leaned around the door. Hogarth looked at the man and nodded. “Yes, sir.” As Hogarth stood his eyes tracked towards Palmer, and he found a hint of sympathy in her eyes. He offered her the acknowledgement of a single raised eyebrow in response. With all these tellings-off, coming back to the police station was beginning to remind him of his school days, with Melford in the role of his vicious old headmaster. Hogarth
hoped he’d seen the back of those days but as they trudged into Melford’s office and he stood before the desk and the old-fashioned clock Hogarth felt a grim sense of déja vu. “Well? Any progress?” said Melford, as he arranged his long limbs behind the desk.
“There’s little more to report than before.” So why don’t you let me get on with the bloody job?
“I think I have a good idea of who has done it, sir, but I need a bit more time to get the evidence together before we can make the arrest.”
“Ah. And would I be correct in assuming your suspect would be Trevor Goodwell?”
Hogarth frowned. Not good.
“Not a friend of yours, is he, sir?”
“Of course not. But Goodwell called the station with allegations of police harassment. You know how the climate has changed in recent years. In the nineties the criminal justice act meant we could do what we damn well liked…”
“It was easier to do the job then, yes, sir.” And easier to get all kinds of prosecutions, including the wrongful ones, thought Hogarth.
“But those days are over,” said Melford, wistfully. “From the Lomax inquiry onwards, every other bloody conviction seems to have been called into question on account of weak evidence or bad policing…”
“Bad policing, sir?”
“Hold your horses, DI Hogarth. No one has accused you of anything…”
Hogarth nodded. But it was coming – whatever it was.
“The police are in the dock more than the bloody defendants. Which means?” said Melford.
“Which means someone made a complaint against me and the Super is panicking?”
“Enough of the attitude, Hogarth. It means the rules of our game have changed.”
But the rules of Melford’s game seemed to be changing by the hour. Hogarth held back a sneer and kept his face blank. Just like in the headmaster’s office at school.
“Trevor Goodwell made the complaint,” said Melford, telling him what he already knew.
“He did that bloody quickly. He must have someone’s ear around here.”
“You know how it goes,” said Melford. “These days, if someone makes a complaint using the right keywords, it shoots to the top of the warning list. Harassment, Hogarth. Goodwell says you took him and his wife out by the murder scene to question them. You questioned him by the bloody woodchipper, Hogarth. If you were trying to induce their family to suffer a collective PTSD I’d say that was a pretty good way to start. What were you trying to do, encourage them to start a lawsuit against us?”
“Of everyone I’ve interviewed, it has to be those two, sir. It must be. They have the motive. They’ve manipulated the old woman to sign over the farm to them and write the son out of the will to their eventual gain, and with the amount she’s boozing, it won’t be too long before Mrs Grave carks it and follows her husband. They’ve done all that in just two days since the old man went into the mincer. I don’t have them down as the kind who grieve too much. I took those two there by that barn because I wanted to see their reaction. I wanted them on the spot.”
“You put them on the spot alright,” said Melford. “But from what I hear you don’t have a shred of evidence against them. You barracked them, and accused them of murder without having any real evidence to back it up. If it turns out you’re wrong, I’d say you’ve just given them a cause of grievance. Enough to cause us all problems. When Trevor Goodwell made his complaint he mentioned solicitors, Hogarth. That’s the last bloody thing we need.”
“I didn’t barrack them. I questioned them. And I didn’t accuse the man of anything. I said I was playing devil’s advocate.”
“Devil’s advocate? Bloody brilliant. You could use that line come the court case. I was only playing devil’s advocate, your honour. How do you think that’ll go down? Like a sack of the proverbial, and no mistake.”
“With due respect, if I am not allowed any leeway to question suspects I don’t rightly see how I can do my job at all.”
“It’s all about the right questions for the right people. Wouldn’t you say, Hogarth?”
“Sir?”
“Goodwell complained that you haven’t looked at those migrants thoroughly enough.”
“Sir… respect, should one of our main suspects really be allowed to dictate the course of the investigation? I questioned those migrant workers, alright. It wasn’t them. And Marris hasn’t found anything to prove otherwise.”
“But did you check their recent history?”
Hogarth’s eyebrows dropped low over his eyes.
“Recent history?” said Hogarth. “How recent are we talking?”
“Exactly,” said Melford. “Goodwell told me there was a massive row between the two migrant workers and old Nigel Grave shortly before Christmas. Now, any guesses as to where the argument might have taken place?”
Hogarth shook his head. He saw the question was another of Melford’s rhetorical beating sticks. Offering a reply would only worsen the beating.
“In the barn where Grave was killed,” said Melford. “And guess what… they argued about the woodchipper, no less. The whole row was about that bloody woodchipper, how it worked, how expensive it had been, how terrible it would be if they broke the damn thing. If the scale of that row was anything to go by, I’d say you should have looked at those foreign boys much more closely.”
Hogarth’s face darkened, but he kept his voice level.
“Goodwell reveals this now? But not to me? Not when he had the chance? This argument probably never even happened, sir.”
“I believe it did. Goodwell reported it to us, but he wasn’t the one who saw it. Peter Venky saw it happen.”
“Venky the vet? Venky never mentioned it, either,” said Hogarth, with annoyance
“The right questions at the right time, Inspector. It’s called due diligence. Goodwell implied you’re not checking your facts and that you’re making wild accusations, giving him grounds to claim harassment, Hogarth. On the one hand he implies incompetence, on the other he suggests you’ve got a grievance against him. Harassment was the word they used. And that’s not good at all considering your recent activities.”
Hogarth stiffened and swallowed before he replied. “Sir?”
“You were seen – again – outside the MP’s house. Specifically, you were seen confronting a stranger in the street. The confrontation was abrupt and aggressive – and I’m told you were the aggressive one… is it true?”
Hogarth waited and narrowed his eyes.
“Sounds like a case of mistaken identity, to me, sir. In this town there are plenty of scallywags itching for a fight.”
Melford’s eyes stayed on Hogarth. They were unrelenting, like lorry headlights on full beam.
“So, it wasn’t you stomping around near their family home last night? And it wasn’t you threatening members of the public?”
Hogarth coughed into his fist and shook his head. “No, sir.”
Melford shifted in his chair. Hogarth couldn’t decide if it was DCI Melford’s chair or his backside which creaked the most.
“No, sir,” said Hogarth, his thoughts already elsewhere. So, someone was watching the property. A private security firm perhaps? Maybe James Hartigan was spending some of his hard-earned salary on protecting his wife after all. But protection may not have been what he had in mind. And what if the stalker had been the one watching the house? What if the stalker called it in?
“If I request CCTV footage for North Lane, Shoebury, what will it show me, DI Hogarth?”
“A lot of big posh houses. Apart from that I couldn’t tell you, sir. I wasn’t there.” Hogarth’s heart thudded along like a freight train. He felt his armpits begin to drip.
“Very well, Hogarth. I have no real cause to doubt you… the MP’s people must be getting a bit paranoid. Understandable, I suppose. And you did well to deliver on the Club Smart case. But now I’ll need you to deliver again, and quickly, to prevent these allegations getting out of hand. That’s two sets of people o
n your case, and no matter what I say to the top brass, they’ll tell me that there’s no smoke without fire. You playing fast and loose is not helping you at all. Please, play this one by the book for the rest of this case – and bring me that killer.”
“Playing by the book, sir? Shame the criminals never want to play along.”
“Very dry, Inspector. That’s all, we’re done here. You can go.”
Hogarth loosened up. He’d won on his bluff, but he still couldn’t be sure that the DCI believed him. Hogarth opened the door into the corridor and made to leave.
“Just a final thought,” said Melford.
“Sir.” Now Melford fancied himself as Jerry Bloody Springer.
“You have accused Trevor Goodwell of the crime, so you’d better be right. If you are, then these legal threats of his are nothing.”
Hogarth waited for the next pearl of wisdom with bated breath.
“And whatever problem you’ve got with our local MP, DI Hogarth, now is the time to let it go. Is that understood?”
“Understood, sir.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want to see the word ‘harassment’ used as the epitaph on your policing career. I don’t suppose you would, either.”
Hogarth let Melford’s final thought go unanswered. He closed the door and sighed. Hogarth hoped that now he’d be able to get on with the job, if there was enough time between bollockings from the DCI.
Hogarth hung his head as he walked through the open police office. The uniforms who’d watched him from their desks went about their business. Hogarth knew some of them smiled and nudged their companions at the sight of his downcast face. Some of the buggers loved it when he was having a bad day. But others, like PC Dawson, had a sense of the bigger picture.
“Problems, sir?” said Dawson, as he passed the big constable’s desk.
“That obvious, is it?” said Hogarth.
“Melford,” said Dawson.
“Saying a word against Long Melford is like committing hara-kiri round here, Dawson, so I’ll keep schtum if you don’t mind.”
The Darkest Lies: A Gripping Crime Mystery Series - Two Novel Boxed Set (The DI Hogarth Darkest Series Boxed Sets Book 1) Page 44