Thanet was tempted to say, ‘Victor?’, but restrained himself. If Draco had a failing it was that he lacked a sense of humour where work was concerned.
‘Motorway construction!’ said Boon triumphantly.
Draco snapped his fingers. ‘That’s right! On the trucks and diggers.’
‘Probably has a plant-hire business,’ Boon added.
‘Something like that, I imagine,’ said Draco. ‘Right, well, I think that’s it for today. We’ll look forward to hearing how things develop, Thanet. Sounds as though it’s the sort of thing that’s right up your street.’
As they left the room he had already picked up a piece of paper from his in-tray and was reaching for the phone.
‘What did he mean by that?’ said Thanet to Boon when they were outside.
‘Right up your street, you mean? Messy, I should think.’ Boon’s hands described knots in the air. ‘Tangled family relationships.’
And Draco was right, of course, thought Thanet as he hurried back up to his office. As usual.
Lineham had got everything organised in his absence and was ready to leave. It was a pleasure, outside, to drive through empty streets instead of sitting in the traffic jams which invariably built up in Sturrenden during the week.
‘Hope you hadn’t planned anything special with the children today,’ said Thanet as they passed a family piling into an ancient Vauxhall which looked as though it might just make it to the end of the road.
‘Not really. We were going to the in-laws for lunch, that’s all. Louise’ll still take the kids.’
‘Talking about Richard, how did you get on at that demonstration on Friday evening?’
Lineham’s son Richard was now a bright, lively nine-year-old. A couple of years ago, after considerable learning and behavioural difficulties at school, he had been diagnosed dyslexic. When the problem had been identified Lineham and Louise had had high hopes that now, at last, something could be done to deal with it. The difficulty was that although, theoretically, help was available, in practice specialist teachers were so thin on the ground that Richard had been receiving only twenty minutes special tuition a week. Consequently he had fallen further and further behind in his schoolwork and had become more and more convinced that he was incapable of learning. Lineham and Louise had made every possible effort on his behalf, but had got nowhere. Recently, however, Louise had read an article about the Denner system, a computer-based teaching method which was said to achieve astonishing results. On Friday the Linehams had gone to a demonstration in Folkestone.
Lineham’s face lit up. ‘Of course, I haven’t had a chance to tell you. It was fantastic!’
‘Really? You think it might be of some use?’
‘Oh, definitely. In fact, Louise was so impressed – well, we both were, but this will show you how keen she was – she’s thinking of doing a course and setting up a unit.’
‘So what was so impressive about it?’
‘The results it achieves! They claim – and there’s loads of documentary evidence from delighted parents that the system really does work – they claim that on average a young pupil will catch up three to four months for every one month of study and once he has finished the course he doesn’t slip back but keeps pace with his class!’
‘That sounds amazing! So how does it work?’
‘Well, the children work alone with a talking computer, using multi-sensory principles – touch, sight and hearing are all involved. They talk into a microphone, a voice answers, and they learn to touch-type commands. The software is individually designed for each pupil. Once they are happy about spelling – which sounds absolutely astounding, doesn’t it? Imagine Richard, happy about spelling! Anyway, the claim is that their confidence then spills over into using a pen. Honestly, sir, for the first time we really do feel there’s a ray of hope!’
‘No snags?’
‘Well, there is one – the cost. The Denners have set up a centre in Devon, but across the country the way the system works is to set up small units which have to be individually funded – you have to buy the computer and the software, for a start. We’re hoping to get together with some of the other parents to set one up but if we can’t, as I say, Louise is seriously considering doing it herself. It would be worth it, to be able to help Richard after all this time, and we’re sure people will be clamouring to use it once the good news gets around.’
‘I’m delighted, Mike, I really am.’ If this system really worked, as it apparently did, it would be a major advance in an area which until now had proved an intractable problem for hundreds of thousands of frustrated parents and children.
‘It just goes to show you should never give up, doesn’t it?’ said Lineham. ‘We almost had, you know.’
‘Do parents ever?’ said Thanet.
The Jeopards lived a mile so beyond Donnington and Thanet and Lineham were out in the countryside now, driving through lanes where a haze of green was misting the hawthorn hedges and young lambs bounced about as if on trampolines. At times like this Thanet wondered why on earth he lived in the town.
Suddenly trees closed in on either side and a stone wall appeared on the left. Lineham was peering ahead. ‘This is it, I think. The entrance is just along here, I’ve passed it before. Ah, yes. Here we are.’
He signalled and turned in between two tall stone pillars linked by a stone archway. Inside the drive swung sharply to the left and Lineham drew up in a gravelled parking area in front of an ancient wooden barn which was obviously used as a garage; the tall doors were open and there were a couple of cars parked inside, a newish Volkswagen Golf and an F-registration Vauxhall Astra.
‘I expect the Golf is Hartley Jeopard’s,’ said Lineham as they got out. He was always interested in cars. ‘And the Vauxhall is probably his aunt’s.’
They walked back to the path which led up to the front door, a wide path of massive stone slabs flanked by narrow beds which in summer were no doubt ablaze with colour. Halfway along they paused to admire the beauty of the old house which slumbered before them, its Tudor façade of ancient beams, leaded windows and cream-washed plaster complacent in the spring sunshine. The place had a very different atmosphere from the Sylvesters’ house – old money as opposed to new. Thanet wondered what Mrs Jeopard had thought of her son’s proposed marriage.
Lineham inhaled deeply as they approached the massive front door, as if he could smell the affluence in the air. ‘Oh yes, ve-ry nice,’ he said.
There was no doorbell, only a heavy cast-iron knocker in the form of a twisted rope. Lineham let it drop twice, the sound unnaturally loud in the hush which lay over both house and garden.
‘Should be someone in,’ he muttered, ‘with two cars in the garage.’ He knocked again.
At last brisk footsteps could be heard approaching and the door opened.
‘Ah, Inspector.’ Hartley Jeopard loomed over them, a mournful heron in jeans and sweatshirt. ‘Good morning.’ He stepped back. ‘Come in.’
FIVE
Inside the house it was cool and dark after the warmth and brightness outside and it took a few moments for Thanet’s eyes to adjust. They were in a broad stone-flagged passage and Hartley led them through a door on the left into a square, spacious hall which stretched right up into the exposed roof rafters. A staircase led up to a railed gallery which ran around three sides at first-floor level. Heavy linen curtains in a jacobean design hung at the windows and there were comfortable chairs and sofas and a couple of really beautiful pieces of antique oak furniture glowing with the patina of centuries of polishing. The wide oak floorboards were bare of either rugs or carpet, Thanet noticed, probably to facilitate the movement of Mrs Jeopard’s wheelchair.
Hartley waved them into armchairs but remained standing. ‘Sorry I had to duck out last night, but I felt I really had to get my mother home.’
‘We quite understood. How is she this morning?’
‘Pretty well devastated, as you might imagine. And she looks very tired, I do
n’t think she slept too well. But she’s bearing up. She’s always been fairly tough. Anyway, she insists that if you want to see her, you can.’ He raised his eyebrows.
Thanet nodded. ‘We would like to, if she’s up to it.’
‘Right. I’ll just go and make sure she knows you’re here. Do sit down.’ He left the room through a door beneath the gallery.
‘I imagine her room’s on the ground floor,’ said Lineham. ‘It’d be difficult to install a lift in a house like this.’
In a minute or two Hartley was back and this time he sat down too, stretching out his long legs and steepling his fingers beneath his chin. ‘I’m afraid she’ll be at least another twenty minutes or so yet.’
‘Fine,’ said Thanet. ‘Meanwhile, is there anything you can tell us about the party last night which might help us?’
‘Such as?’
‘Anything at all. Did you, for instance, notice any unusual incident involving your brother? Any quarrel or disagreement?’
There was something, obviously. The expression in Hartley’s eyes had immediately become guarded and he lowered his hands and looked down at them, began to massage one thumb with the other. Then he glanced up. ‘Do I gather that you have decided my brother’s death was not an accident?’
‘It’s very difficult to see how it could have been. So at the moment, yes, we have to treat the death as suspicious.’
‘You mean . . . murder.’ He blurted the word out as indeed most people do, when referring to the death of someone close to them. It is incredibly difficult to relate such an appalling crime to a husband, wife, brother, sister, or child, and putting it into words is a stumbling block which many find impossible.
Thanet nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
Hartley was shaking his head. ‘It’s all right. We – my mother, my aunt and I – have already discussed this. And we agreed it was extremely unlikely that it could have been an accident. Even if he had fallen in, he could swim like a fish, did you know that?’
‘Yes. Mr Sylvester told us.’
‘I suppose there is just the remotest possibility that he could have slipped, or tripped, banging his head and knocking himself out as he fell in, but we all thought it extremely unlikely. It wasn’t as though he was drunk, and there was nothing to trip over, or to slip on, for that matter. And what was he doing in the pool house in the first place? That’s what we’d like to know.’
‘And so would we,’ said Thanet. in fact, these are all questions we are asking ourselves. Which is why I’m also asking if you noticed your brother having any argument or disagreement with anyone last night.’
Once again Hartley’s eyes fell away from Thanet’s, and again he failed to respond. He obviously wasn’t going to volunteer the information.
‘For instance, we understand there was an incident involving a friend of Miss Jeopard, a Miss Greenway,’ said Thanet.
Hartley sighed and pulled a face. ‘I suppose it was unrealistic to suppose you wouldn’t hear about that. Yes, it’s true. I wasn’t going to say anything because I genuinely do not believe that Anthea – Anthea Greenway – could possibly have had anything to do with Max’s death.’
‘She slapped his face, I understand. In public.’
Hartley nodded.
‘Why, do you know?’
A shake of the head this time. ‘No. I was across the other side of the room.’
‘She used to go out with your brother, I understand.’
A flash of fierce emotion, so quickly suppressed that Thanet might almost have imagined it. But he hadn’t, he was sure.
‘That was years ago!’
‘When, exactly? Can you remember?’
‘The summer of ’92, as I recall.’
The answer had come immediately, which was astonishing. How many people have precise and instant recall of dates, especially if they are two or three years ago? Unless, of course, they have a personal reason for remembering. By now Thanet had a strong suspicion that Hartley was keen on Anthea himself.
‘Before your brother went away on his last trip, in fact?’
‘That’s right. He came home in May of that year, for the publication of his first book. And he went away again in October.’
Hartley’s tone was neutral but again Thanet had the feeling that he was keeping his real emotions well out of sight. ‘I see.’
Max, Thanet learned, had always had itchy feet, ever since, in his gap year between school and university, he had spent the time back-packing alone around the Far East – chiefly in Thailand.
‘Before he went away he was like the rest of us – didn’t have a clue what he wanted to do for a living. It was more or less taken for granted that if we could get into university we’d go, but Max was determined to do some travelling first. And by the time he came back he’d made up his mind he wanted to be a travel writer. He was all for throwing in his place at Oxford but Ma somehow managed to talk him around, God knows how. Probably by offering to finance more travel during the vacations and even afterwards, for all I know. Anyway, he was always taking off somewhere and the minute he finished at university he left for China, this time with the specific purpose of gathering material for a book. He was dead lucky in a way, in that he arrived there at a very interesting time, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre.’
‘That would have been in – let me see -1989, then?’
‘That’s right. The Western world was very keen to find out what was going on over there and don’t ask me how, but Max managed to interest one of the national dailies in what he had to say. Before we knew where we were we were reading his reports over our toast and marmalade. They were very good, really gave you the feel of what it was like to be caught up in it all, and more importantly for him, they got his name known. As a result, he managed to interest a publisher in his book well before he’d even finished writing it.’
‘How long was he away?’
‘Almost eighteen months. He got back a few weeks before Christmas the following year, and spent the rest of the winter holed up here, writing.’
‘As a matter of interest, what was the book called?’
‘Peephole into China.’
Thanet made a mental note to try and get hold of it. Books reveal much about their writers and travel books more than most, relying as they do on the author’s quirks, attitudes and viewpoint to give them their individuality. ‘Was it successful?’
‘Oh yes, very. Astonishingly so.’
‘Enough to buy him a flat in London, I assume? That’s where he now lived, I understand.’
‘Yes. But the flat was actually bought with money Max inherited from Dad. It had been held in trust until he was twenty-five.’
And the same applied to Hartley, Thanet discovered. He worked as an accountant with a firm in the city, but often came down to Kent at weekends.
Max, he learned, had finished the book in June ’91 and almost at once was off on his travels again, this time to South America, returning for its publication the following May.
‘That was presumably when he started going out with Miss Green way?’
Again the shutter came down. ‘That’s right.’
Thanet probed a little deeper. ‘Was this a long-running affair? Had he been out with her before?’
‘Oh no. Until then it had always been Tess. But she got fed up with him always taking off at every possible opportunity.’
‘So on this occasion, the summer of ’92, when he came home Miss Jeopard didn’t want to have anything to do with him?’
Hartley was shaking his head. ‘She was away herself, then. I imagine she thought it might teach him a lesson, if she wasn’t always here waiting for him every time he came back.’
‘Where was she?’
In the States, I believe. Look, Inspector, I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but is all this relevant? What possible connection can there be between Tess’s trip to the United States and Max’s death?’
‘I’m not saying there is one. But
one thing that experience has taught me is that you can never judge any piece of information irrelevant until the case is over. You simply never know what is going to prove significant and what is not, and you therefore have to try and gather in as much as you possibly can. As his brother you must know more about his life than most and know him better personally, too. So bear with me, will you?’
Hartley shrugged, if it’ll help.’
‘Anyway, perhaps we could now go back to the party last night. I believe there are some questions Sergeant Lineham wants to ask you about that.’
This was prearranged and Lineham took over smoothly, it’s merely a question of trying to place people, sir. You’ll appreciate that with so many guests present it’s rather difficult to get a clear picture of who was where and when. Now so far the last sighting we have of your brother is at twenty to ten. Apparently he and Tess settled your mother and aunt at their table and then went back for their own food. That was the last anyone saw of him. According to Tess he said he was going to the toilet. Did you see him after that, by any chance?’
Hartley was shaking his head. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘You weren’t sitting at the family table?’
‘No. It was just Tess, Max and the parents. My aunt was included, of course, but I had supper with Anthea and another friend of ours.’
‘Would that have been Mr Gerald Argent, by any chance?’ asked Lineham innocently. ‘Miss Jeopard’s former fiancé?’
A gleam of reluctant admiration appeared in Hartley’s eyes. ‘You don’t waste much time, do you? Yes, that’s right.’
An uncomfortable trio, thought Thanet. If he was right, they had a lot in common: unrequited love – Hartley carrying a torch for Anthea Greenway, Gerald for Tess and Anthea herself perhaps for Max. Very interesting.
‘So you all queued up together, collected your food and sat down to eat it?’
Hartley shifted uncomfortably. ‘More or less.’
Lineham raised his eyebrows.
‘While we were queuing Anthea went off to the loo.’
Day for Dying Page 5