Plots and Errors

by Jill McGown

  ‘Lucy – did your dad have more than one wheelchair?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Just the folding one.’

  That suggested that Andy Cope had never left the car. Lloyd frowned, as the young couple left, and the probationer came back. ‘Anything?’ he asked.

  ‘They said they’d noticed that there wasn’t any yelling on Friday night, sir. The Copes had had very loud rows all the time for the past few weeks, apparently. It was his voice they heard, mainly.’

  ‘Did they happen to hear what he was yelling at her about?’

  ‘Money. And possibly another man, they thought. I asked if they’d heard any names mentioned, but they couldn’t remember.’

  Another man was interesting, and much more in keeping with what Lloyd remembered of Kathy Cope than suicide was. He went through to the front room, where Mary was searching through Andy and Kathy’s financial papers, most of which were in an old cardboard box, rather than the gleaming new filing cabinet. She had found nothing at all to account for the office equipment, and nothing else of any note.

  Lloyd looked round the makeshift office at the desk, the filing cabinet, the computer with all the multimedia bits and pieces, the photocopier, all brand-new. Why would she buy all that stuff? And why was there no paperwork of any sort to account for them?

  Lucy said that her father had been very angry about it; he might have lost his temper, accidentally killed his wife, then tried to make it look like a suicide pact, but how, if he had never got out of the car? Kathy would have had to go and get the hose and the sticky tape and all the rest of it. He could hardly have forced her to do that. So, perhaps she had been a willing participant. And, if she had been contemplating suicide, she might not have noticed where she was putting the shopping.

  But that still left his other puzzle. Why had they locked the main garage door, and all four of the car doors, but left that little door unlocked?

  He opened the filing cabinet, and took out a couple of files. Small jobs, for small money. The most recent job was six weeks ago, and the file was fairly cryptic: Mrs A. Esterbrook, Little Elmley, Barton, was the heading. There were no reports or copy letters, but there were copies of receipts. She’d done a job for Mrs Esterbrook in Plymouth in August; no details, but Kathy and Andy Cope had had a stay at a very expensive hotel thrown in. The actual fees weren’t any better than the others, though, certainly not enough to account for all the office equipment.

  Esterbrook – he knew that name. Oh, yes, of course. The Esterbrooks owned IMG Limited. In the late fifties, their choice of Stansfield for their head office had been the jewel in the then very new town’s crown, and the family-owned firm had just got bigger and bigger since then, with plants in every major town in the UK. They were far and away the richest family in the county, and one of the richest in the country.

  Now, thought Lloyd, why would someone with that sort of money to spend employ an untried, underfunded, two-man operation run from a semi-detached in Stansfield to carry out an investigation in Plymouth for her? Another little puzzle.

  Freddie appeared at the door. ‘I’ve arranged for the bodies to go to the mortuary,’ he said. ‘I can’t see anything suspicious, Lloyd. It looks like a suicide pact.’

  ‘I know what it looks like,’ Lloyd said wearily, as he walked with Freddie back to his car. ‘Call it a hunch.’

  Freddie looked back at the garage, and the people going in and out. ‘You’re spending an awful lot of money on a hunch,’ he said.

  SCENE II – BARTONSHIRE.

  Saturday, September 27th, 4.00 p.m.

  A Semi-detached House in Barton.

  Detective Inspector Joe Miller had just spent an awful lot of money on a hunch of his own, and then had watched it limp past the post sixth out of a field of seven. The bookie had cleaned him out again, and he drove home in disconsolate mood, letting himself into the empty house with a sigh.

  He should have been beginning his early retirement this weekend, but instead he was at a loose end, because he was working on the Assistant Chief Constable’s pet project in Barton, ahead of the rest of the team. He’d been there six weeks; he was enjoying setting everything up, but sooner or later the others would be joining him, and he was not looking forward to that at all.

  For one thing, he was going to have to share an office with his boss; it was bad enough having to do the job at all without that. He was, in part, the technical support, and he didn’t mind that bit; he had embraced the computer age with zeal, surprising everyone, not least himself, with the expertise that he had very quickly acquired. But two months ago the job had been going to be a part-time advisory civilian post purely concerned with the technical aspects, and he had put himself forward for it the moment he’d heard about it. It was perfect – a couple of days a week playing with computers to supplement the pension he’d receive when he got early retirement, which he had been convinced he was going to get. Gambled on getting, you might say; no one had told him officially.

  A week after that he’d been told that the post would be full-time, involve some administration work, and would be a police appointment, starting immediately. That he would not be getting early retirement after all, but would be seconded to the project, if he still wanted the job. It was either that or a uniformed appointment out in the sticks, and he had decided to go to HQ, as the lesser of two evils. But it was nine to five, Monday to Friday, no travelling expenses, no perks, no nothing.

  And he would be working for Judy Hill. She’d been a detective sergeant when she had come to Bartonshire Constabulary, eight years ago. He’d found that quite hard to take, since she was five years younger than he was, and female into the bargain, and he had been struggling to pass the sergeant’s exam. It seemed he had no sooner caught up than he was passed again, rather like his hunch in the three-forty.

  Judy was all right, he supposed. They had worked together for years before his transfer as sergeant to Force Drugs Squad, and again when he had returned to Stansfield, having at last got promotion to inspector, working on computer fraud, thanks to his knowledge of information technology. But he hadn’t even been considered for the so-called supremo job; no one had. She had just been given it. And no prizes for guessing why, in Joe’s opinion. Judy Hill was very fanciable, and Joe didn’t suppose he was the ACC’s type.

  Not that Joe had fancied her himself; she was too brisk and efficient for him. Too cool and collected, with her short dark hair always looking as though she had just washed it, and her clothes never looking as though she had spent all night in them even when she had. Too worldly-wise; there was a look in her brown eyes that always made Joe feel as if she knew something he didn’t. Too capable, always appearing to have everything under control, which she usually had. His preference was for someone a little less astute, a little less independent, a little less superior. Like Kathy.

  But taking up with Kathy again after all these years had been a costly mistake he still wasn’t sure how to put right. He had thought she could light dark corners, fill empty spaces, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t her fault; it was his. He had hoped, perhaps, for more weekends like the one he’d had with her, but with her it was all or nothing, so nothing it had to be. And the weekends were the worst part of this job. Once he’d made his Saturday donation to the bookie, he had too much time to think, to reflect on the mistakes he had made in his life, to give in to regrets.

  He was glad when the telephone interrupted his morose self-examination, and answered it to Mary Alexander. He listened in shocked, uncomprehending silence, as she told him what had happened.

  ‘I just thought you ought to know,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Thanks, Mary.’ Joe hung up, still trying to make himself believe what he had just been told.

  A suicide pact? That was ridiculous. That was nonsense. Wasn’t it? Money worries, Mary had said. Yes, sure they had had money worries. But Kathy hadn’t been suicidal. Andy Cope might have given up on life, but Kathy certainly hadn’t, and if he had made her do that,
then it wasn’t suicide, not as far as Kathy was concerned; it was murder. There would be a postmortem, of course, but force of will didn’t show up in post-mortem examinations, and that was almost certainly the weapon Andy Cope had used.

  He wondered, guiltily, if his actions had contributed to that final breaking of Kathy’s own will, which had reasserted itself briefly when he had taken up with her again, and might have deserted her altogether when he had finished it. He took out the whisky, and a glass, and spent the evening drinking steadily and earnestly, reviewing his own actions, wishing that he had done some things differently and others not at all. Wishing that his conscience had begun to bother him about what he had done a little sooner than it had.

  Maybe then, just maybe, Kathy would still be alive.

  SCENE III – BARTONSHIRE.

  Saturday, September 27th, 11.05 p.m.

  A Second-storey Flat in Stansfield.

  Judy was wondering if it would be possible for her to retire without offending Lloyd. There was no point in trying to entice him to bed with her womanly wiles; he was much too wrapped up in this suicide to be interested in that sort of thing. She had spent the entire evening with the Copes, and was horribly aware that Lloyd was quite capable of continuing to discuss it until three in the morning.

  He had told her his little puzzles, and while she knew that it was foolish to dismiss the things that struck Lloyd as odd, in this case they did seem a little nebulous. But it wasn’t the misplaced groceries, or the unlocked door, or any of the other little niggles that had made him so certain that it wasn’t suicide. It was that he wouldn’t accept that Kathy Cope would do that, however much under her husband’s thumb she had been, and Judy began to wonder if she had meant more to Lloyd than she had realized.

  ‘Did . . .?’ She hesitated. She had always made it very clear to Lloyd that any relationships that she might have had in the past, other than her ill-considered and ill-fated marriage, were not open to discussion, and she ought to accord him the same privacy. But it might help her understand. ‘Did you know her very well?’ she asked.

  Lloyd smiled, obviously hearing the mixture of sympathy and suspicion in her voice. ‘Not like that,’ he said. ‘In fact, I didn’t really even like her all that much.’

  Judy frowned. ‘Why the crusade?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Is that what it is?’ He nodded. ‘I suppose it is,’ he conceded. ‘But you get to know someone very well, don’t you, walking a beat with them, manning a car? And yes, she was easily led. Yes, she could be bullied, because she always felt that someone else – anyone else – was in charge, especially a male person. That was why she got herself into situations that she had never meant to get into, because people could intimidate her, sway her.’ He gave a short sigh. ‘But she was . . . I don’t know . . . she was used to being in trouble. She always looked for an escape route. And I can’t believe she would kill herself because she owed people money, Judy. People don’t change fundamentally, not even in twenty years.’

  Judy smiled. ‘I should save that speech for Case,’ she said. ‘Do you realize how much money you’ve spent trying to prove that she didn’t commit suicide?’

  ‘That’s what Freddie said. And I know it’s just a hunch. But I don’t care how much of a doormat you are, you don’t just sit there and die because someone’s told you to. Self-preservation would take over as soon as the stuff started coming into the car.’

  ‘Maybe he gave her something to knock her out,’ Judy said. ‘The post-mortem should show it, if he did.’

  He shook his head. ‘That doesn’t explain the door or the groceries,’ he said. ‘Besides, it looks as though he didn’t get out of the car.’

  Judy frowned. ‘But if he didn’t get out of the car,’ she said, ‘Kathy must have been a willing participant, surely?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lloyd said slowly. ‘Or . . . perhaps the shopping was put away by someone who simply didn’t know where things were kept. Perhaps the door had to be left unlocked, because whoever did it had to leave the keys in the ignition, and then make good his exit. Perhaps neither of them was a willing participant.’

  ‘You think they were murdered?’ She sat back. ‘Lloyd, you don’t have any evidence to support—’

  ‘I know.’ He smiled again. ‘But what about this job that she had in Plymouth?’ he said. ‘How do you explain someone like Mrs Esterbrook employing someone like Kathy?’

  Judy’s mobile phone rang; it had to be work, at this time of night; she was on call. She picked it up, listened to what her caller had to say, said that she and Lloyd would be there in thirty minutes, then put down the phone and looked at Lloyd.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  He was always claiming a sixth sense, second sight, Welsh wizardry, that sort of thing. She had often had reason to believe him. But this was his finest hour. ‘There’s been a fatal shooting,’ Judy said. ‘At Little Elmley. A Mrs Angela Esterbrook.’

  She had thought she had seen him look smug before when he was proved right, as he was with irritating regularity, but she hadn’t seen anything, she realized. This was Lloyd at his very, very smuggest.

  SCENE IV – BARTONSHIRE.

  Saturday, September 27th, 11.30 p.m.

  Little Elmley, a Private Estate near Barton.

  Little Elmley was entered through massive wrought-iron gates, and the house itself was reached by driving along a tree-lined road; it was the sort of building in which Judy found it hard to believe that people really lived. How did you live in a place like that? What did you do with all the other rooms?

  The uniforms were already searching the house, and the duty inspector filled them in with as much as he knew. Angela Esterbrook had lived there with her stepson Josh, but he was at the Little Elmley diving club; officers had been dispatched to fetch him. Her daughter-in-law Elizabeth had found her when she arrived for dinner; she was married to Paul Esterbrook, Angela Esterbrook’s own son and Josh’s half-brother. He was on his way over from Barton, where he and his wife lived.

  ‘There’s no sign of the gun in the house. If it’s out there somewhere we aren’t likely to find it until we can search in daylight,’ the inspector said. ‘But I doubt it’s here at all. The body’s in the kitchen – the daughter-in-law says that the back door was open when she found the body, but that Mrs Esterbrook kept the door open in warm weather like this when she was working in there. The FME’s here, and the pathologist is on his way.’

  He led the way round the outside of the house to the open back door. Angela Esterbrook lay across the doorway on the tiled kitchen floor, in the pool of gore which had seeped from several wounds in her head. Judy was not fond of dead bodies, even unmutilated ones, and one of the more interesting aspects of her interesting condition was her readiness to throw up at the best of times. She retreated to a safer distance, out on the terrace.

  ‘She’s not been dead long,’ said the FME. ‘A couple of hours, I’d say.’ She looked up. ‘You’re keeping me busy today.’

  ‘I don’t actually kill them myself,’ said Lloyd, as Tom Finch arrived.

  ‘Guv,’ he said to Judy, with a nod of his blond curls by way of greeting, and glanced into the kitchen. ‘Nasty, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ah, Tom,’ said Lloyd, coming out of the kitchen. ‘I want you to look through Mrs Esterbrook’s personal papers for a report from the Cope Detective Agency.’

  ‘Right, guv,’ said Tom. ‘I’ll check out the study. The daughter-in-law’s in the dining room, and her husband’s just arrived.’

  ‘I think you should have a word with her now that she’s had a chance to recover,’ said Lloyd, and Judy reluctantly made to go into the kitchen, where the FME was making notes for the pathologist.

  ‘You don’t have to cross the crime-scene, guv,’ said Tom. ‘All the rooms at this side of the house have patio doors on to the terrace.’

  Tom was protecting her, as Lloyd often did; under the guise of keeping the crime-scene uncontaminated, he was making sure sh
e didn’t have to look at the body again. Her belief in equality ought to make that offensive, she supposed, but her squeamishness made it very welcome. She smiled. ‘Good,’ she said, as Tom went off to the study. ‘Thanks, Tom.’

  The sound of a high-performance engine on the road up to the house heralded Freddie’s arrival; he would like the body whatever condition it was in. His sports car screeched to a halt on the road, and he jumped out. ‘Are you going for some sort of record?’ he asked Lloyd. ‘Good evening, Judy, how nice to see you again. Lovely as ever.’

  She happily left Lloyd and Freddie to it, following the paved terrace round to find a lawn area fringed with trees, garden tables and chairs, and a large window standing open in the warm night, leading into what she would have called a dining hall, rather than room.

  The end of a long, heavy, deeply polished table was set for two, and an opened bottle of red wine sat between the two settings, beside a small vase of early autumn flowers. Elizabeth Esterbrook, mid-thirties, blonde, designer-labelled and good-looking, sat on one of the dining chairs, pulled slightly away from the table so that she didn’t look as though she was expecting dinner. A man of roughly the same age, perhaps a couple of years older, dark, well-built, handsome, his casual weekend clothes equally expensive – her husband, presumably – sat a few seats down from her. The scene looked to Judy like one in a glossy hotel brochure; they looked like models playing a couple.

  The introductions were barely over when another man came in from the terrace, flanked by two uniformed constables; there was a distinct family resemblance, and he did indeed turn out to be Josh Esterbrook. He sat at one of the many chairs round the table, barely acknowledging the other two.

  Elizabeth Esterbrook looked pale and shaken, her husband looked suitably and, Judy felt, studiedly shocked, but Josh Esterbrook sat back with a would-be air of indifference. His fingers tapped lightly on the table, though, so perhaps he wasn’t as relaxed as he wanted to appear.