by Bill Kitson
‘Kathy King is dead. We found the body. She had a hole through her chest. Right the way through.’ The description, though short, was brutally graphic.
All three of them looked shocked beyond measure, a reflection perhaps of how we’d looked earlier. Like us, they seemed too shock to respond. ‘By the look of it,’ I told them, ‘I’d say the weapon was the same as the one used to kill Stephen. I’ve seen more than my share of bullet holes, shrapnel wounds, sword cuts, and stabbings, but this was totally unlike anything I’ve ever come across.’
As they still seemed reluctant to take in what we’d said, Eve explained why we’d gone to Kathy King’s flat, and what we’d found. ‘We wanted to ask her about the missing set of keys for the manor, but someone beat us to it.’
‘It looked as if she’d been dead a couple of days at least,’ I added. ‘The blood had congealed and dried by the time we got there. It may well be that her keys were taken when she was murdered. We’ll know more when DS Holmes reports his findings. In the meantime I think it would be prudent to have the locks changed and to invest in an alarm system. Apart from the killer on the loose it would make sense anyway. There appear to be some extremely valuable antiques in the house, which would make it a prime target for thieves,’ I tried to lighten the mood slightly by adding, ‘not to mention you’ll probably get a substantial discount on your contents insurance.’
‘Actually, that’s already in hand,’ Robert told us. ‘Even before your news, I wasn’t happy about the lack of security, so Frank and I had a word with the glaziers. They recommended a reputable local company. We rang them and they’re sending someone out to change the locks and give us an estimate for fitting the alarms. The problem is, it’ll be a few days before they can get to us.’
I glanced around. ‘Where’s Frank?’
‘He’s gone to Barton-le-Dale to collect my friend Tammy,’ Alison explained. ‘She rang me this morning soon after you’d left. She’s handed her dissertation in and caught the train from Leeds. We rang the police station to ask if you’d mind picking her up but they told us you’d already left.’
Mary, who had been waiting patiently, asked if we’d like a cup of tea. We accepted gratefully. As she poured it, Alison told us, ‘We were trying to sort out the mess in the study but when the glaziers removed the plywood and the broken window pane it got too cold. We plan to start again when they’ve left.’
‘We’ll give you a hand if you like,’ Eve volunteered. ‘We might get an idea about what Stephen Pengelly was up to that got him killed. Of course it could have been someone who was jealous because of his affair with Kathy King.’
We made a start on rectifying the damage to the study, which principally involved trying to sort papers into some semblance of order, plus collecting fragments of broken glass from the paintings, ceramics from the smashed ornaments, and splintered wood from the desk drawer and a couple of side tables that had been wrecked.
‘It would be useful to know what this was originally,’ Robert said. He was staring at an untidy heap of broken china I had swept to one edge of the carpet with a stiff brush I’d borrowed from Mary.
‘I’m not sure, but they look a bit like vases, and fairly old ones at that,’ I replied.
Eve, who along with Alison was on her hands and knees collating paperwork, looked up. ‘If that’s the best you can do, Adam, I wouldn’t apply for a job as an expert on The Antiques Roadshow.’
‘At least they have whole objects to value,’ I retorted, ‘not a twenty-four-piece dining set that’s been turned into a three-hundred-piece jigsaw.’
‘Do you two always go on like that?’ Alison asked.
‘Not always,’ I told her. ‘Sometimes Eve is asleep.’
‘Hah! At least I don’t talk in my sleep, like some people around here.’
I was still trying to think up a suitably witty response when the crunch of gravel outside heralded the arrival of a car. I wondered briefly if the detectives had left the crime scene to visit us, but when the vehicle came into sight I recognised it. Even senior police officers didn’t get to ride around in a Mercedes, let alone detective sergeants.
‘That’ll be Frank with Tammy,’ Alison said. She jumped to her feet and hastened out into the hall, closely followed by Robert. We heard the indistinct greetings being exchanged before the couple reappeared with the latest house guest. Alison performed the introductions.
‘This is my friend Tamara Watson, but everyone calls her Tammy.’
She explained who we were and then took the new arrival off to show her the rest of the house and the bedroom she had been allocated. I resumed my rather depressing task, but was interrupted almost immediately by Eve. ‘This might be of some help to Robert,’ she said, holding a large piece of paper. It was crumpled but intact, unlike a lot of the contents of the room.
‘What might help me?’ Robert asked as he appeared in the doorway.
Eve handed it to him. ‘It looks like an inventory of some of the house contents,’ she explained.
Robert ran his eye down the list. ‘There’s one way to find out. I’ll ask Mary if she recognises the items.’
He returned from the kitchen a few minutes later, a puzzled frown on his face. ‘I don’t know where these are from, but they’re not part of the manor contents. Mary says she’s never seen any of the things on here.’
‘Hang on, I’ve had an idea.’ Eve began flicking through one of the piles of paperwork on the floor around her. After a moment she extracted a page which looked, from where I was standing, like an invoice. She passed it to Robert. ‘See if any of the items on that list match what’s on here.’
He compared the two and after a moment said, ‘Yes, there’s one item, a vase, that appears on both.’ He frowned, then added, ‘I’m sure it’s the same, because the description is identical, but the value is a whole lot different. On Stephen’s list the vase is valued at three-hundred pounds, but according to the invoice he only paid twenty-five for it.’
‘That’s a huge difference. Perhaps the seller didn’t know what it was worth.’
‘I doubt that, Adam,’ Eve told me. ‘The vendor is an antiques dealer, who must surely have had a good idea of what it was worth. Maybe we should look for more invoices. There are lots more items on that inventory.’
When Alison and Tammy joined us a few minutes later they found all three of us on our hands and knees. The neat stacks of paper were no more, having been transformed into a haphazard mess as we searched for invoices. Robert explained what we were doing, and the girls joined in, which shortened the search time considerably. Nevertheless it was almost half an hour before we had gone through all the papers, by which time we had extracted a sheaf of invoices. We compared their contents with the items on the inventory, and managed to match all but two of them. Robert tallied the figures up.
‘The total price Stephen paid for the goods on those invoices was just short of four thousand pounds. The sum for the same items on that sheet’ – he indicated the inventory – ‘is nearer nineteen thousand.’
‘That’s some bargain,’ Tammy exclaimed.
‘Maybe so, but it doesn’t make sense. Why would an antiques dealer, who presumably knows the value of these things to within a few pounds, sell them for a fraction of what they’re worth? I could understand it if there was only one item, and it was outside his field of expertise, but there are pieces of furniture, ceramics, and an oil painting among the stuff Stephen bought, so the vendor must have known the value of most of them.’
‘Perhaps the business was strapped for cash, or was closing down,’ Alison suggested.
‘The other puzzle is what happened to these things. They’re not in the house, that’s for certain. Mary could have overlooked a couple of vases, although I doubt it, but she certainly wouldn’t have missed the furniture. She didn’t recognise any of them, which means that not only are they not in the house now, but they’ve never been here.’
‘If your brother didn’t keep them, perhaps
he gave them to his girlfriend, Kathy King,’ Alison said.
I shook my head. ‘No chance. I didn’t have time to look closely at the contents of her flat, but most of what I did see looked as if it had come straight out of a Habitat catalogue.’ There was one notable exception to this, but it didn’t seem at all relevant. It certainly wasn’t an antique. I thought for a moment, before adding, ‘This might have no bearing on why Stephen and his mistress were killed, but it might be worth mentioning to DS Holmes. He could check out the business better than us. Where is it based?’
Robert read the details aloud. ‘Graeme Fletcher Antiques, The Old Coach House, Market Place, Barton-le-Dale. I could ring Holmes and tell him, I suppose.’
‘Why not leave it until he comes here. He’ll want to take statements from Eve and me at some stage.’
That evening, over dinner, Eve suggested that our efforts that afternoon had been pretty much in vain.
‘I think we’ve already worked that out,’ I replied. My flippant remark earned me a high-wattage glare.
‘What’s more,’ Eve continued as if I hadn’t spoken, ‘I think the intruder here was also risking arrest for nothing.’
‘How do you work that out, Eve?’ Alison asked the question quickly, obviously attempting to forestall another remark from me.
‘The study is vulnerable. It has three large windows that face out onto the grounds at the front of the house. No more than fifty or so yards away on the left is dense woodland. To the right there are those huge shrubs. Either of those could conceal someone. If they wanted to, they could stand there in perfect safety and with a half-decent pair of binoculars read the newspaper at the same time as anyone in that study.’
I smiled at Eve’s analogy, but remained silent. I thought I could tell where Eve was heading and wanted to give her chance to develop her theory. Obviously, Robert hadn’t followed Eve’s line of reasoning. ‘That may be true, but what would be the point?’
‘I know you detested your brother, and by what we’ve heard so far, that opinion was shared by most of the people who live around here, but nothing I’ve heard so far suggests he was either dim-witted or naive.’
‘I’ll grant you that.’
‘Only a fool or someone incredibly trusting would keep anything of great value in a room without defences of any sort. The study had no alarms, its contents were highly visible, and it offered a thief easy access, even without front door keys. It stands to reason that he’d choose somewhere far safer to keep anything worth stealing.’
‘That’s an extremely good point,’ Robert said. He turned to Alison. ‘I think your brother Jeremy was right to recommend Adam and Eve. They work together so well.’
‘Perhaps we should test Eve’s theory out on Frank and Mary,’ I suggested. ‘I’m sure there must be a secure place, and they’ll know where it is if anyone does.’
‘Oh, good, if they don’t know then we can have a treasure hunt,’ Tammy said. ‘I could enjoy my stay here.’
When Frank appeared a few minutes later bearing coffee, Robert put the question to him. ‘Of course there is, Mr Robert. There’s a large safe in the wine cellar. Mr Stephen often went down there.’
I nudged Eve’s leg under the table, giving it quite a hefty shove. Even that failed to remove the complacent grin from her face. Tammy however looked quite disappointed.
After breakfast next morning the five of us followed Frank Jolly to the wine cellar, which filled only one room of the basement. ‘The other part is only used for storage nowadays,’ Frank explained. ‘I believe in the past it was where they hung game and meat, but Mr Stephen wasn’t interested in shooting – or in farming for that matter.’
‘More fool him,’ Robert said. ‘That will certainly change.’
Frank Jolly smiled approval. ‘Tony Bishop, the estate manager, will be glad to hear that. He despaired of getting your brother to show more interest in managing the farms. As for the pheasant shooting, he allowed Tony to let the rights out on a season-by-season basis, but wouldn’t pay for a stocking or breeding programme. Nor would he allow stalking or vermin control on the land. That also used to irritate Tony, especially when your brother complained that crop yields were below expectations. Bishop told him straight out a month or so ago, “What do you expect when the place is overrun with deer, rabbits, pigeons, and lots more besides, all helping themselves to free meals on a daily basis?” To be honest, I think Tony was close to handing his notice in.’
‘Where is he?’ Robert asked. ‘Why haven’t I met him?’
‘He’s away on holiday.’ Jolly smiled. ‘He and Emma, his girlfriend, have gone to Scotland. He had an invitation to a grouse shoot there, and he’s also been promised a few days’ deer stalking.’
We had passed long rows of wine racks, which stretched from floor to ceiling. I noticed that they seemed well-stocked. One thing Stephen Pengelly obviously wasn’t against was alcohol. We paused in front of a large cupboard, about the size of a wardrobe. ‘Is that it?’ Alison asked, ‘It doesn’t look very secure.’
Jolly smiled, and by way of explanation, opened the twin doors. The cupboard housed a large, heavy-gauge steel safe, the sort that would not have looked out of place in the vault of a bank or building society. ‘There you are, Mr Robert. I’ll leave you to it.’
Frank turned to walk away, but Robert stopped him. ‘Hang on, Frank, what about a key?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Robert, I can’t help you there. I thought you had it.’
‘Perhaps it’s on your brother’s bunch, along with the house keys,’ I suggested.
‘Good idea. Would you fetch them, please, Frank? They’re on the desk.’
Frank returned several minutes later and passed the bunch of keys to Robert. One glance was sufficient to tell me that a large safe key was not amongst those on the ring. Robert had obviously reached the same conclusion. He stared at the collection, his expression one of dismay..
We all trooped dispiritedly back upstairs, our hopes of discovering something meaningful dashed, and sought solace in the kitchen. Mary, who was soaring in everyone’s esteem with every passing day, had baked a batch of scones and these, washed down with tea, were devoured by all. As solace for our disappointment, they were spot on. We had just finished eating when the doorbell rang.
Robert went to answer it, accompanied by Frank. A few seconds later, Frank returned. ‘Mr Robert has asked you to join him in the drawing room,’ he announced, taking on the temporary role of a butler. ‘Detective Sergeant Holmes has arrived.’
We filed into the large, airy room, which I think was probably my favourite part of the ground floor. It came as no surprise to learn later that it had been decorated and furnished to the wishes of Robert’s mother. Holmes was seated on one of the twin Chesterfield sofas with his new sidekick Johnny Pickersgill alongside him.
Alison introduced her friend Tammy, who shook hands with both officers. I saw Holmes’ eyes light up as he looked at Tammy. That’s more than professional interest, I thought. Tammy wasn’t exactly pretty, rather more pleasant-looking than a raving beauty. If I’d had to choose a word to describe her, I think it would have been wholesome.
In turn, Eve made Johnny Pickersgill known to everyone, explaining that he was a good friend as well as our local bobby. As I glanced from Holmes to Pickersgill, I noticed that they seemed well pleased with themselves, and ready to impart what they thought would be good news to us.
Holmes’ opening words confirmed this. In fact it exceeded it by a country mile. ‘We believe we have identified the man who killed your brother and Miss King,’ he told Robert. If Holmes was trying to learn the art of shocking an audience to silence, he still had some way to go.
‘Really?’ Robert responded immediately, ‘That is quick work. Can you tell us who the suspect is, or is it sub judice or whatever the expression is?’
‘I can tell you our suspicions, but that’s as far as it goes for the moment. The man we believe committed the murders isn’t in custody, unf
ortunately. However, we have a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence and we believe we have established the motive for the crimes.’
‘What might that be?’ I asked.
‘We think the suspect was seeing Miss King, and was jealous when he found out she was also sleeping with Stephen Pengelly. We talked to the other tenants of the building where Miss King lived, and they were most helpful. The lady who occupies the other first floor flat across the landing from Miss King’s told us she encountered a man on the stairs a couple of times. The lady was able to describe him in some detail. She also told us that Miss King sometimes had a visitor who stayed overnight, although she was unable to confirm that it was the same man.’
Holmes allowed us to ponder that for a moment before continuing. ‘One of the ground-floor tenants also provided some very useful information. He recognised Miss King’s visitor as the owner of a shop in Barton-le-Dale marketplace where she worked. We visited the premises this morning but the shop was closed. We spoke to the manageress of the laundrette next door and she told us the shop has been closed all week. She thought the owner might be on holiday. Her description of the shop owner matches that given by the tenant in Miss King’s building.’
He paused again, and if his intention was to provide a dramatic revelation, Eve stole his thunder. ‘Was it an antique shop, and was the owner a man called Graeme Fletcher?’
Holmes and Pickersgill stared at Eve, plainly astounded by her question. They didn’t answer; their silent amazement confirmed the accuracy of Eve’s guess.
‘How on earth did you know that, Eve?’ Johnny Pickersgill asked eventually.
We explained what we’d found in the study, and when we finished, Holmes had recovered sufficiently to tell us more. ‘When we couldn’t find Fletcher at the shop we visited his house. That was also locked up. A neighbour told us they’d seen Fletcher load his car with suitcases a couple of days ago and drive off. They remembered thinking it was a strange time of year to be taking a holiday. Fletcher hasn’t returned. We’ve put a nationwide alert out to all forces, warning them that this man could be armed and highly dangerous. We’ve also applied for a search warrant for Fletcher’s house and the shop. There’s no way he could have carried out those crimes without getting covered in blood.’ Holmes looked at me. ‘You saw the Kathy King crime scene.’