Plots and Errors

by Jill McGown

  ‘I am really very sorry,’ Inspector Hill said, as she took them out, and glanced at Josh. ‘The apology is for both of you. You must have been very worried, Mr Esterbrook.’

  ‘Why did you think I was lying?’ Sandie asked.

  DI Hill looked a little uncomfortable. ‘We had received information which we believed was sound, but which turned out not to be,’ she said.

  ‘What sort of information?’ Josh asked.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you. I can only apologize.’

  Josh looked angry. ‘Information that you thought was more reliable than my wife’s?’ he said, unlocking the car.

  ‘No,’ said the inspector. ‘Just more objective.’

  Sandie smiled. ‘Your independent witness wasn’t so independent after all, then?’ she said, as she got into the car.

  ‘Apparently not,’ said Inspector Hill.

  Josh got in, and put his arms round her, held her close. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Why did they arrest you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said indistinctly, and disengaged herself from him. ‘I only know what she just told you.’

  Josh smiled. ‘At least they’ve let you go,’ he said. ‘But I can guess why. We’re going to have to talk about that.’

  She nodded. ‘Take me home, Josh. I want a shower before we discuss anything. I’m sure I smell of that place.’

  He reversed out of the little car park. ‘No, you don’t,’ he said. ‘You smell just fine to me.’

  SCENE XIII – BARTONSHIRE.

  Tuesday, September 30th, 10.00 a.m.

  Foster’s Office.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Foster’s secretary. ‘I just don’t know where he is. He left right after you did yesterday, and I haven’t seen him since. Why are you looking for him, anyway?’

  Tom sighed. This was his second visit of the morning. He had been to Foster’s house, which still had the For Sale sign and was just as empty as it had been on Sunday. He leant over the desk. ‘He gave me duff information,’ he said. ‘And I hope you’re not doing the same thing.’ She looked totally unimpressed, and Tom stood up straight again. He could usually alarm people quite effectively.

  ‘My ex is with your lot,’ she said. ‘He does all that macho stuff too. It might work with the villains, but it doesn’t work with me.’

  Tom ran a hand over his hair, then checked it. Lloyd did that when he was frustrated, and he was bald. ‘Do you really not know where Foster is?’ he asked.

  ‘Really. It’s not that unusual. He often doesn’t come in for days.’

  Tom frowned. ‘Well, do you know where I’d be likely to find him?’

  She smiled. ‘A dog-track, a race-track. Did you try the bookie’s downstairs?’

  Yes, he had. They hadn’t seen him. Tom sat down. ‘Look, er . . .’

  ‘Debbie,’ she said.

  ‘Look, Debbie,’ he said. ‘That report that you photocopied for me – have you still got Foster’s original notes?’

  ‘No,’ she said, looking puzzled. ‘That was funny, that. I said did he want me to type up the report for the client, and he said no, and just tore them up. Mind you, he didn’t half go pale when you said about the shootings, so maybe he just doesn’t want her business any more.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tom, thoughtfully. ‘What did he say, after I’d gone?’

  ‘Nothing much. He just tore up the report, and went into his office again. Then he came out, said he didn’t know when he’d be back, and that was the last I saw of him.’ Her mouth opened. ‘Oh, my God, you don’t think he’s dead too, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Tom grimly. ‘I don’t. If he shows up, tell him I want to see him.’

  SCENE XIV – BARTONSHIRE.

  Tuesday, September 30th, 10.20 a.m.

  Judy’s Office at Stansfield Police Station.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Judy said, when Tom told her that Foster had gone underground. ‘But the DCI wants us to keep on with the enquiry into this story that Paul told Sandie Esterbrook, just in case he really did get a fax from someone. How’s the check going?’

  ‘We’ve moved on to libraries now,’ said Tom. ‘Anywhere that’s got a public fax in Bartonshire’s being checked out. Not all of them are checkable, though.’

  ‘Do your best – oh, and Tom. Don’t forget Penhallin public library. If there really was a fax, it could have been sent any time last week, and have been sitting there waiting for Paul to find it.’

  ‘Right, guv.’ God, he thought, as he left her office. All this for a fax that didn’t exist.

  SCENE XV – BARTONSHIRE.

  Tuesday, September 30th, 11.00 a.m.

  Elizabeth’s House.

  Elizabeth sat down. ‘What exactly do you mean, worthless?’ she asked.

  Chief Inspector Lloyd looked at her a little sadly. ‘Your husband had colluded with Ian Foster,’ he said. ‘His report means nothing.’

  Paul had colluded with her private detective. She should have known. She should have realized that she was wasting her time trying to catch him out. He had always been several steps ahead of her, and would have remained several steps ahead of her until their silver wedding. And even from beyond the grave he was going to cheat her out of the enormous wealth that his death should have brought her.

  ‘Does this mean Paul is a suspect again?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Elizabeth shook her head. ‘He took such elaborate precautions not to be caught out in adultery,’ she said. ‘And all they’ve done for him is to brand him a murderer.’

  SCENE XVI – BARTONSHIRE.

  Tuesday, September 30th, 5.00 p.m.

  Lloyd’s Office, Stansfield Police Station.

  By the end of the second full day of his investigation into the happenings of the weekend, Lloyd had been summoned to Case’s office once more. But first, he was having a team-talk. He needed Judy and Tom on his side if he was going to get to the bottom of this.

  They had amassed a great deal of evidence, and it all pointed one way, at Paul Esterbrook. But now there were far too many clues for Lloyd’s liking, and he felt that overwhelming though it seemed, the evidence was a touch on the inconclusive side.

  The post-mortem on Angela Esterbrook had revealed that she had died from the effects of three bullet-wounds to the head and the first bullet had almost certainly killed her; the other two were unnecessary. She had been shot in the first instance through the head at close range, probably by someone standing outside on the terrace. The items found on the worktop suggested that she had been standing there when she was shot. The next two bullets had been fired point-blank, after she was dead, perhaps to make certain, perhaps to mutilate the body.

  Paul Esterbrook had died instantly from one bullet in the right temple. The wound was a contact wound, and was consistent with suicide. He had been wearing driving gloves when he was found, and the right-hand glove had had powder-burns on it.

  The post-mortem on Billy Rampton, carried out in Plymouth, had revealed him to have died instantly from one bullet that had passed between the eyes and out the back of his head. He had been shot by someone standing on the landing while he stood in the bedroom, from a distance of about six feet. The accuracy of the shooting could have been accidental, but suggested someone with a good aim.

  That was inconclusive, according to Lloyd. Paul was a good shot, but so, according to her husband, was Sandie Esterbrook. And Lloyd had been skip-reading Angela’s diaries, back from the most recent, in the hope of finding a past reference to Josh’s sexual preferences, and according to an entry in one of them, Elizabeth Esterbrook had also at one time had the benefit of Paul’s tuition, and was ‘quite a good shot with a revolver’ according to what he’d told his mother. The accuracy of the shooting meant nothing, in Lloyd’s opinion.

  The bullets which had been recovered had been shot from Josh Esterbrook’s revolver; it had had no prints on it, but guns rarely yielded prints anyway, so that didn’t mean much. The silencer fou
nd in the Range Rover’s glove compartment and the cartridges still in the chambers of the revolver, had had Paul Esterbrook’s fingerprints on them. The cartridges had been matched to the recovered bullets.

  Josh Esterbrook had offered an explanation for his half-brother’s prints being on the silencer and the cartridges; Paul always cleaned the gun after it had been used, and he, Josh, had insisted that he leave it loaded. They had used the silencer when Paul had given Sandie shooting lessons, and he had always put it on and taken it off. The prints on the weapon could, therefore, just about be said to be inconclusive, but they certainly didn’t preclude Paul having broken into the boat and taken it, so Lloyd wasn’t very hopeful of arguing his case on that.

  The examination of the boat had definitely proved inconclusive, prints had been found in the wheelhouse belonging to all members of the Esterbrook family except Angela Esterbrook, and Billy Rampton’s prints had been found in both the cabins, but not in the wheelhouse. Paul’s prints were, however, on the wheel-house doors, and on the lock of the wheelhouse, and the only other set of prints there were found to be those of the man who had brought the boat back to Penhallin harbour.

  The examination of the cottage had produced Paul Esterbrook’s prints on the front door-handle, the back door, and on the sideboard. Billy’s prints had been found on the banister, on the bedroom door-handle, and in the treehouse, along with a set of less recent unidentified prints. There had been no prints on either of the phones. Billy’s motorbike wasn’t found at the cottage, and seemed to have gone missing. That was, Lloyd thought, another little puzzle, but possibly one for Penhallin police rather than Stansfield. And he couldn’t see that it helped to clear Paul Esterbrook.

  Paul Esterbrook had been found still to have Sandie Esterbrook’s cigarette-packet and throwaway lighter in his pocket, and partial prints of his were on both of them. Since there were no matches in the cottage, it had to be assumed that he had used Sandie’s lighter to burn the letter. But thanks to Arthur Henderson’s operatives, they knew that Paul had taken her cigarettes and lighter from her, so his prints would be on them anyway, that wasn’t entirely conclusive.

  Lloyd was a little puzzled about that lack of matches; Angela Esterbrook hadn’t been a smoker, and didn’t carry matches or a lighter as a matter of course. What had she used to light those emergency candles? A little puzzle with a bit more potential, he felt, though he was hard pressed to see how it would help.

  A check on Billy’s mobile revealed no call to Little Elmley on the Sunday of the August Bank Holiday. A check on every fax machine available to Josh, Sandie or Elizabeth Esterbrook was ongoing, and had so far revealed no fax to Penhallin. Lloyd had had Foster’s fax number checked out too, since he and Paul Esterbrook were obviously in league with one another, and this whole thing could have been some devious scheme of Paul’s which had gone hideously wrong, but there was nothing.

  Elizabeth Esterbrook denied ever having said to anyone at all that she was going to the diving club, and had been issued with a ticket for her concert overprinted with the date and time of issue: seventeen forty-six hours on Saturday.

  And Paul Esterbrook had arranged an alibi with Foster, who had disappeared off the face of the earth. Lloyd tried to see how that could be regarded as inconclusive, with little success.

  Judy agreed that Paul Esterbrook had been very generous with clues for someone whose army days had been spent avoiding detection and capture, but his brother Josh had said that Paul had not been a quick thinker, had needed to plan ahead, and when Lloyd had talked to Elizabeth Esterbrook she had said much the same thing, despite her insistence that her husband had not done any of the things of which he was suspected.

  Tom thought that Paul Esterbrook had planned ahead as far as he was able, and there was a great deal to be said for that point of view. That he had traced the Copes from the hotel registration, discovered that they were private detectives, and knew that Billy had to have set him up. Only the letter from his mother had been unexpected; up until then, Esterbrook had believed that the Copes had been working for his wife. His initial reaction, with his notoriously short fuse, had been to ring her up and abuse her, but then he had realized that she had to die too if he was to be safe, and she had to die before his wife went to dinner there, in case she told her. His arrangement with Foster meant that he could do all this in the knowledge that an apparently unbiased alibi would, in due course, be produced.

  ‘And he thought up the fax on the spur of the moment?’ said Lloyd. ‘To give himself a reason for turning round and going straight back? All that business about Sandie having to do the night-dive, exactly how she should accomplish arriving there before Elizabeth, all to stop Sandie asking questions? Thinking on his feet is precisely what everyone says he couldn’t do.’

  ‘But he might not have had to, guv,’ said Tom. ‘He had to get Sandie away from the cottage if he was going to blow Billy away, hadn’t he? So he might have thought up a reason for the quick exit before he ever took her there, before he found the letter from his mother.’

  ‘And managed to forget that there was an incriminating message on his mother’s answering machine?’

  ‘He said she got a lot of calls – I think he would assume that she’d played it, and it would have got recorded over. It was only because the machine was faulty that his message was still there.’

  Lloyd looked at them both. ‘Do you think I’m wrong?’ he asked. ‘Being unhappy with Paul Esterbrook as the answer?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Judy. ‘I’m sure there’s more to this than meets the eye. I just don’t know if we can prove it.’

  ‘But we’ve not finished looking yet, have we?’ said To m .

  Lloyd smiled. He had his team backing him even though their answers owed more to loyalty than to truth; Tom would beat every bush he came across until something flew out for Lloyd to shoot at, and Judy would eventually start sniffing the air, and home in on whatever Lloyd had, usually unknowingly, bagged. But they all had to be pointing in the right direction before that could happen, and they needed time to be able to work out which direction that was.

  He knew he had a battle on his hands to get that time, as he once again went up to account for himself to Superintendent Case.

  SCENE XVII – BARTONSHIRE.

  Tuesday, September 30th, 5.55 p.m.

  The Superintendent’s Office.

  Lloyd listened for twenty minutes while Case chewed him out about his profligate use of manpower and resources. Case didn’t know that he was having the burned paper analysed, thank God. He’d have stopped it.

  ‘No more, Lloyd,’ he said. ‘This enquiry’s over.’

  ‘At least let me get that letter checked out by a handwriting expert.’

  ‘I don’t see the point.’ Case sat back in his swivel chair, swivelling.

  ‘Why would Angela Esterbrook spend money having twenty-four-hour surveillance on her cottage if she was already so certain that Paul was using it that she left a letter there for him?’

  ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care. Perhaps something happened between when she hired Henderson and when he actually began work that made her certain. She had money coming out of her ears, Lloyd. She probably forgot to cancel him, like you or I might forget to cancel the papers.’

  Lloyd shook his head. ‘I don’t think you can dismiss it like that. If Paul Esterbrook is held to have murdered his mother, Josh Esterbrook could possibly stand to gain under the will.’

  ‘And if he did gain under the will? How much are we talking about?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Lloyd. ‘How much are entire villages with en suite reservoirs worth?’

  ‘They’re not worth anything unless someone wants to buy them,’ said Case.

  ‘He regards that place as his birthright.’ That sounded like a motive to Lloyd, and it did make Case look a little less sceptical, but he still shook his head.

  ‘I fail to see how Josh Esterbrook could have carried out these murders,’ he
said. ‘He was hundreds of miles away when Rampton died, and diving with a whole lot of other people when his mother died. And if he didn’t kill them, then he didn’t kill his brother.’

  Lloyd conceded that those facts were hard to get over, but there was undoubtedly something rotten in the state of Little Elmley, and he wasn’t going to let it go.

  ‘Josh Esterbrook told us he got that gun because his partner in crime would be out of prison any day. He’s dead. He’s been dead for five years.’

  Case shrugged. ‘He didn’t necessarily know that,’ he said.

  ‘If you were in fear of your life, isn’t his release date something you would try to find out?’ asked Lloyd. ‘Don’t tell me he hasn’t got contacts. And Sandie Esterbrook’s been learning how to shoot that revolver,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t hundreds of miles away when Billy was shot. But she could have been six feet away – she’s good enough. She was alone in the cottage with him.’

  ‘And how do you know that she can handle a gun? Because her husband told you she could. And that she was alone in the cottage with him? Because she told you, for God’s sake! Long before Mr Henderson’s report turned up. And she was diving with her husband when Mrs Esterbrook died. Paul Esterbrook, on the other hand, was at the cottage with Billy, and at Little Elmley with his mother, when they both just happened to get shot dead. He had arranged an alibi with this Foster character! What more do you need?’

  ‘But the alibi could have been for his wife, not for us.’

  ‘And why did he go and see his mother? Because he was worried about his brother? Do me a favour. They hated one another’s guts.’

  It had sounded less than convincing to Lloyd as well, but then, it had been a lie whatever way you looked at it. Either he’d lied to the police because he’d murdered his mother, or he’d lied to his mother because he was covering his infidelity. He said as much to Case.