Plots and Errors

by Jill McGown

  ‘And why was he trying to do that?’ said Case. ‘Because some clever-dick copper put the idea into his head! After the Copes were dead.’

  Oh, yes. That was true. ‘All the same,’ said Lloyd, not the most telling phrase he had ever come up with, but now he was not at all sure quite what was what. He was as certain as ever that the Copes had been murdered, but Paul hadn’t killed them; he hadn’t known anything about them, had no reason in the world to kill them. Neither, as Case had just pointed out, had Josh. And neither had Elizabeth Esterbrook, even if she had had the means, which she didn’t. She couldn’t hold her breath for minutes on end, not like Josh. She didn’t have ready access to IMG’s industrial gases, not like Paul. But he wasn’t giving up on Kathy, not yet. ‘It’s not close of play yet, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve all day to go before the final over.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Case, with a sigh. ‘When did you ever not?’

  SCENE III – BARTONSHIRE.

  Friday, October 3rd, 10.30 a.m.

  Lloyd’s Office.

  Lloyd went back down to his office, a deep frown furrowing his brow. He still wouldn’t accept that Kathy had killed herself, and yet there seemed no earthly reason for anyone else to have done it. He sat down, and picked up the files, the witness statements, the results of the various tests, as though re-reading them would make them resolve themselves into a solution that left no puzzles, no pieces of the jigsaw unaccounted for.

  And that was when Judy knocked and came in. ‘Lloyd, have you got a minute?’ she said.

  Lloyd looked up, saw his gundog pointing, and smiled broadly. ‘All the time in the world,’ he said. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘You can answer me something,’ she said. ‘Something I can’t make sense of. I thought I must be wrong, because I don’t see how he could have done it. Well, not that, but all the other stuff. Well, she could have helped him, but not on Saturday night. Still – I’m sure I’m not wrong.’

  ‘I don’t expect you are wrong,’ said Lloyd. ‘You rarely are when you become incoherent.’ This time, even Judy wasn’t sure what she was pointing at, but she was pointing, and that was good enough for him. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

  ‘The Copes,’ said Judy, sitting down.

  ‘They’re my problem too. I don’t see why they had to die.’

  ‘I think I do,’ said Judy. ‘But I have to go it through it bit by bit before I can make sense of it.’

  Lloyd tipped his chair back. ‘Shoot,’ he said.

  ‘If Angela Esterbrook employed them to catch Josh out, why were they booked into the room directly above Paul Esterbrook’s in the hotel?’

  Lloyd thought about that. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Josh knew he was going to hole the boat that weekend, and that he was going to suggest that Paul use the cottage. And he usually stayed on the boat, didn’t he? Billy could have known that he and Josh would be using Paul’s hotel room if Paul wasn’t using it, and he would have happily told Angela Esterbrook that, once she waved enough money at him.’

  ‘But the rooms had to have been booked together, in advance, right?’

  ‘Obviously. It was a holiday weekend.’

  ‘So how would Billy know the room number?’

  Lloyd thought about that, too. It was a simple enough question, but it didn’t have a simple answer. There was no reason in the world for Billy to know the room number, no reason, even if he knew himself, for Josh to tell him until they were actually going to use it. Lloyd rocked back and forth, but it didn’t help. ‘He wouldn’t,’ he said.

  ‘So who would know Paul Esterbrook’s room number in advance?’ asked Judy.

  ‘Paul Esterbrook himself,’ said Lloyd. ‘But he couldn’t have put the Copes on to Josh – for one thing, that report was sent to Mrs Esterbrook at Little Elmley, and for another, he didn’t know Josh was going to hole the boat and produce the situation in the first place.’

  ‘Agreed. So who would know the room number, and that Josh was going to hole the boat?’

  Lloyd shook his head. ‘Certainly not Angela Esterbrook,’ he said.

  ‘How about Alexandra Esterbrook?’

  ‘Sandie?’ said Lloyd.

  ‘Sandie. Who freely told us that she opened the Cope Detective Agency’s report when it arrived. But she didn’t show it to Angela Esterbrook, because Angela had nothing to do with it – she never knew it existed.’

  ‘Sandie?’ said Lloyd again. He couldn’t see why she would.

  ‘Sandie. Who else knew about Josh’s plan for the boat? Who but Paul’s personal assistant would book his hotel rooms for him? Sandie Esterbrook’s the only person who could have employed Kathy Cope, who could have got her into the right hotel room and primed Billy to do what he did.’

  Lloyd frowned. ‘But why would Sandie want to connive with Billy to set Josh up?’

  Judy smiled. ‘She didn’t set Josh up, Lloyd – she was arranging his alibi. The Copes’ report was going to prove that Josh couldn’t have been switching the tapes at Little Elmley at half past nine that morning, because he was with Billy in Plymouth at half past six. But he wasn’t with Billy. He was at Little Elmley.’ She tapped her notebook. ‘It was when Tom said the plan was worthy of an Esterbrook that I began to realize,’ she said. ‘It was worthy of an Esterbrook because it was an Esterbrook who devised it. And it’s even more devious than you think.’

  Lloyd stopped rocking, and frowned.

  ‘You were right, Lloyd. All along. It was Josh Esterbrook who masterminded this whole thing. But he wasn’t Billy’s boyfriend – he wasn’t with Billy at all. Not ever, and certainly not on the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend. He was at Little Elmley. He could – and did – switch the tapes.’

  Lloyd’s frown grew deeper. ‘But that tape was used to make us think Paul had rung his mother with that message the day she died,’ he said. ‘So whoever switched them had to send the fax to Paul, and make that call from the cottage, last Saturday. Sandie couldn’t have done it – she was outside the cottage, having a cigarette. Josh couldn’t have done it, because he wasn’t there – he was giving diving tuition at Little Elmley. So if Elizabeth Esterbrook didn’t send the fax and make the call, who did?’

  ‘Billy,’ said Judy.

  Lloyd’s eyes widened.

  ‘Billy was in Josh’s pay all along. He knew he was helping to set up Paul Esterbrook, I’m sure – perhaps even knew he was setting him up for murder. What he didn’t know was that he was going to be the corpse.’ She smiled grimly. ‘Billy sent the fax. Then left his bike and ran along the shoreline to the rear of Angela’s cottage, and hid in the treehouse for about thirty seconds.’

  ‘Then what?’ said Lloyd.

  ‘Then Paul Esterbrook let him in, like I said.’

  Lloyd stared at her. ‘You’re saying that Paul was involved with both Billy and Sandie?’

  ‘Yes. But Paul told Elizabeth that it was Josh who was involved with Billy, and she believed that, told us. Josh knew she would, once Billy had been found murdered, and he used that to incriminate her. Because once we found out about Paul and Sandie, we’d start believing it too, and as long as we believed that it was Josh who was with Billy, that would mean that only Elizabeth Esterbrook had had the opportunity to switch the tapes.’

  ‘Do we have any proof of this?’

  ‘No, but we have evidence. Go back to the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend, and just accept, for the moment, that it was Paul who was with Billy.’

  ‘OK,’ said Lloyd.

  ‘At half past six that morning, Billy was with Paul, in his hotel room,’ she said. ‘Who made certain Billy would be with him there, rather than on the boat, as usual?’

  ‘Josh,’ said Lloyd. ‘By holing the boat, and making Paul’s usual arrangements fall through.’

  ‘Who have we just worked out must have employed Kathy Cope to walk in on him?’

  ‘Sandie,’ said Lloyd, nodding slowly.

  ‘Who made certain Kathy could gain access to the hotel room, and
that she saw something worth seeing?’

  ‘Billy.’

  ‘Then later on, at half past nine, Paul was with Sandie, and he made that call to his mother’s answering machine. Who told him about this letter his mother wanted?’

  ‘Josh,’ said Lloyd, watching with a smile as she ticked off notes in her book.

  ‘Who told him that he had to leave a message for his mother about that letter?’

  ‘Josh.’

  ‘Who offered her mobile phone for him to make the call?’

  ‘Sandie,’ said Lloyd, obediently.

  ‘And who was at Little Elmley, waiting for that call?’

  ‘Josh?’

  ‘Josh. Elizabeth didn’t get there until fifteen minutes after that call was made, and she found the machine exactly as she says she did, with the message-light flashing, but unable to be played. She didn’t switch the tapes, Lloyd. Josh did.’

  Lloyd nodded slowly.

  ‘And then Paul brings the letter back, but he doesn’t take it to his mother, does he? Oh, no. Because Josh turns up and takes it from him, with some other cock-and-bull story. He told Tom that himself. And why? Not to help his brother out, as he said, but because Angela Esterbrook knew nothing about it, so Paul had to be waylaid before he gave it to her. There never was a phone-call from Angela, there never was a letter from Angela’s solicitors – that letter was planted there by Josh and Sandie. And Paul’s message to his mother’s answering machine was no accident – no one overheard it, devised a plan round it. This plan was devised round the original letter from Angela to Paul senior about his bigamy, and the circumstances were produced to fit it, including the phone-call, and Sandie’s ministrations during it.’

  ‘You’re saying Sandie did that on purpose?’ said Lloyd. ‘To make Paul sound as though he was overwrought?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But she couldn’t know he would say what he did!’

  ‘They didn’t need him to say what he did. They knew he’d be angry with her if she did that, and he would sound angry. That was all they wanted.’ She glanced up from her notebook. ‘And it worked,’ she said. ‘In fact,’ she said slowly, ‘I think it worked better than they meant it to.’

  Lloyd watched, fascinated by seeing the process in action for once, as she leafed through her notebook. Usually by the time he was being presented with her logical deductions they had already been made, but this time she was arriving at them as she spoke.

  ‘Because,’ she said, ‘we took Paul in for questioning, didn’t we? And he told us that he had made that call from a mobile phone. But we weren’t supposed to know that until after we had found out about Sandie being with Paul at the cottage. And she was supposed to tell us.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that way they would be telling us that the tape was a fake, apparently in all innocence. And we had to know that the tape was planted before their plan could work. But in the event, we checked Billy’s mobile, and when we didn’t find anything, we just assumed Paul had been lying. And there was nothing they could do about it.’

  Lloyd frowned. ‘But we only found out about Paul and Sandie because Paul Esterbrook happened to open the curtains while Foster was videoing him,’ he said. ‘Josh Esterbrook didn’t know anything about that, and even if he had, he couldn’t have made Paul open the curtains when he did.’

  ‘No, Josh didn’t know about that at all. That was a stroke of luck, as far as he was concerned.’

  ‘Then how were we supposed to get on to it?’

  ‘Think about it, Lloyd. Why did they employ Henderson?’

  ‘To blackmail Paul, according to them.’

  ‘Why do it that way? Why not have someone walk in on them, like Kathy Cope? That would be much stronger evidence.’

  It would. Lloyd nodded. ‘Then why did they employ Henderson?’ he asked.

  ‘I think,’ said Judy, ‘that if Paul Esterbrook hadn’t beaten up Sandie, that would have been the first we knew about her having been at the cottage that day. We would have gone to the cottage, found Billy, and seen a prima facie case for saying that Paul had been there with Billy, had murdered him, then his mother, then killed himself. Sandie wouldn’t have come into the reckoning at all. But then we would get Henderson’s surveillance reports. Sandie made sure that we would – that’s why she picked someone with a spotless reputation, and got him to check out Billy first. That way, they knew he’d give the police what he’d got as soon as he found out that it was Billy who had been murdered. And we would have found out that Sandie had been there with Paul on Saturday, that she had lied to us about her whereabouts that day. And we’d start believing what Elizabeth believed. That Josh was Billy’s client. That Paul had been set up.’

  ‘They wanted us to suspect them?’

  ‘Oh, yes. As it was, Paul did beat her up, and Elizabeth guessed that he had. So Sandie came up with this decoy story, which was never believable, because it wasn’t meant to be. But they hadn’t reckoned on Foster having an arrangement with Paul which made us think that she was lying about the whole thing, that she had never been at the cottage at all. So Henderson’s evidence, instead of implicating her, cleared her of suspicion. Which wasn’t what they wanted at all. They wanted us to start checking up on Sandie. They wanted us to find the call to Little Elmley on her mobile. Then she would tell us what she did tell us. That they had wanted to blackmail him, that holing the boat and getting him to go to the cottage had been a dummy run for that. And – most importantly – that he had left a message for his mother about a letter, and had been swearing, not at his mother, but because of what she was doing while he was trying to make a phone-call, which was why he seemed to be under something of a strain. Open. Truthful. Nothing to hide. Why would they tell us all that if they had planted the tape?’

  ‘So that when we realized,’ said Lloyd, slowly, ‘thanks to the Copes, and Henderson, that apparently neither Josh nor Sandie could have switched the tapes, and we knew for a fact that neither of them could have made that call, or sent the fax, we would begin to think, as we did, that Elizabeth had overheard that message, and used it to incriminate not her husband, but Josh. That Josh and Sandie were innocent victims.’

  Judy nodded. ‘If we hadn’t got there ourselves, you can be certain that one of them would have prompted us. And we would think that she had framed Josh in order to inherit the entire Esterbrook Trust. But it’s the other way round, Lloyd. Josh framed her. And I might not be able to prove it, but we might have some evidence, of sorts.’

  Lloyd smiled. ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘That call to Little Elmley on Saturday was made from the phone in the bedroom. I’ve seen Foster’s video, and there isn’t a phone in the bedroom – that’s why Paul used Sandie’s mobile. They took the phone out so that he would. So that she was ideally placed to do what she did.’

  As usual, it was inconclusive, thought Lloyd. ‘There might not have been a phone in the bedroom a month ago,’ he said. ‘Angela could have put one in since then.’

  ‘She could,’ said Judy. ‘But come and have a look.’

  SCENE IV – BARTONSHIRE.

  Friday, October 3rd, 11.30 a.m.

  The IT Room at Stansfield Police Station.

  Lloyd went and had a look, and watched as Esterbrook sat on the bed, and looked in the bedside cabinet drawer. The bedside cabinet which did not have on it the radio-alarm-telephone that had subsequently been there. The camera began to draw back, and Judy paused the tape. ‘There’ she said. ‘Look. That’s a telephone socket on the wall, isn’t it?’

  Lloyd nodded. ‘But it’s still inconclusive,’ he said, as Tom came into the room. ‘She might have had the socket put in because she was getting a phone for the bedroom.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d want to watch mucky videos, guvs,’ Tom said, as he called up a file on the computer.

  ‘But it’s possible that the phone was there before,’ said Judy, ‘and I’d really like to know if it was. I wish there was one person we cou
ld trust to tell us the truth.’

  ‘There is,’ said Tom. ‘Ian R. Foster, Enquiry Agent. He gave himself a crash course on making videos by doing shots of all the places he might have reason to video Paul Esterbrook. He says he’s still got them.’

  Judy turned to look at him. ‘Tom,’ she said, heading for the door with Lloyd in pursuit, ‘I could kiss you. I want you to get on to Penhallin police – ask if they’ve found Billy’s motorbike yet. If they haven’t, tell them to try Penhallin public library.’

  Of course, thought Lloyd. He had to leave his bike somewhere other than the cottage, so that Henderson’s men didn’t see it. For Josh Esterbrook’s great plan to work, it had to look as though Billy had never had anything to do with Paul Esterbrook. The police had to believe, along with Elizabeth, that Josh was the one having the relationship with Billy.

  ‘That’s why the Copes had to die,’ said Judy, as they walked to the car. ‘Because they would have told us that it wasn’t Josh who was with Billy that morning, and his alibi would have been blown. But Sandie Esterbrook murdered Billy, and Josh Esterbrook murdered his stepmother and Paul, I know they did. I don’t have the faintest idea how Josh Esterbrook murdered his stepmother, which is why I thought I must be wrong. But he did. Somehow.’

  ‘Oh, I know how Josh did it,’ said Lloyd. ‘It’s another thing we can’t prove, but I know how, all the same.’ He deliberately didn’t tell her; he liked irritating Judy.

  SCENE V – BARTONSHIRE.

  Friday, October 3rd, 12.10 p.m.

  Foster’s House.

  The office was closed; a TO LET sign was stuck up in the window. The girl in the bookie’s said that Foster had told her he was packing in private investigation. But they ran Ian R. Foster to earth at his house.

  ‘Hello, Lloyd,’ he said.

  Ian Foster was someone else that Lloyd hadn’t seen for twenty years. Though some years younger than Lloyd, he had been the experienced officer to whom he had been attached in his probationer days, and the first bent police officer he had known. Fortunately, he hadn’t known many. Foster was surrounded by packing cases, and carried on filling the last of these as Lloyd and Judy followed him into the sitting room.