A Murder to Die For

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why should things be any different for me just because I’m famous? Yes, we got off on the wrong foot. Well, a weird foot anyway. You weren’t yourself and, after what you’d been through, I can’t say I blame you. But once you had become the real you again, I liked what I saw.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. I spend my life being chatted up by men who want to get into my knickers because I’m off the telly or because I’m worth a few bob. Everyone I meet is either shallow, self-obsessed or desperate for a leg up in the industry. And a leg over with a celeb helps, especially if you sell the story afterwards. So where do I get to meet nice guys? I can’t go to the pub or a club because I’m too recognisable. I can hardly join a dating website either. Why do you think celebs nearly always marry other celebs? But then you turned up, literally delivered to my room.’

  Savidge frowned.

  ‘Don’t frown, you’ll get wrinkles. And, okay, to begin with you weren’t very nice. But that wasn’t your fault and you got better. And do you know what the best thing was? No interest in my money. And no interest in my body.’

  ‘That’s not strictly true. I am only human, after all.’

  ‘Yes, but you did nothing about it, did you? And you didn’t take advantage of me on the boat either, even though I was three sheets to the wind. You were, despite your appearance and threats, a gentleman. And I like gentlemen.’

  Shunter arrived at The Rushes. Decoratively painted houseboats lined both banks of the canal and, here and there, stands of tall bulrushes and assorted reeds had been planted to give this part of the Oxbow Deviation a more natural, river-like ambience. Coots and moorhens paddled about happily, and the air was filled with damselflies and the noise of a powerful outboard motor being revved as a big man in a dirty vest repaired a small motor cruiser. The hull had been painted in a swirl of vibrant colours, which made it look a little like John Lennon’s famous psychedelic Rolls Royce. Someone somewhere was playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on a ukulele. On the cabin roof of the narrowboat nearest to the road, a black cat soaked up the sun and washing waved lazily in the warm breeze. An older woman was sitting at the rear of the boat crocheting. She wore a hand-knitted beanie and her chin was covered with wispy hair that caught the sunlight.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Shunter.

  The woman turned slowly to face him and he could see that she was smoking – or vaping – an electronic pipe. As she drew on it, the fake embers glowed incongruously blue and a wisp of liquorice-scented vapour escaped her flaring nostrils.

  ‘Yup?’ she said.

  ‘Did you happen to see a white van pass by here earlier?’ asked Shunter. ‘It would have come from the old boat works. Around the same time as that big fire started.’

  The pipe lady sat back and contemplated a passenger jet making white lines across the sky. A buzzard soared high above on the warm spring thermals.

  ‘You police?’ she said.

  ‘Ex-police. My name’s Frank Shunter. I’m trying to track down some people who may have been kidnapped. Did you see a van pass by here?’

  ‘Yup,’ she said.

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Shunter. ‘I don’t suppose you remember any part of the registration number, do you?’

  She cupped her pipe and gently removed it from her mouth. A thin bridge of spittle connected the mouthpiece to her lip. It snapped and fell as a droplet on to her rainbow-coloured fishing smock. She peered down and wiped it away with her crochet. ‘Nope,’ she said.

  ‘Damn,’ said Shunter.

  ‘Can show you, though,’ she said, passing over her smartphone. ‘Bugger killed a duck and didn’t even stop. Took a photo of him. Already told the police an hour back. That’s why I thought you was here. Don’t know about no kidnappings, though.’

  Shunter looked closely at the photo on the screen. As he’d expected, it was a white Transit-style box van.

  ‘Dent in the front offside of the over-cab box. Probably hit a tree branch,’ said Pipe Lady. ‘Needs a good wash.’

  ‘This is excellent,’ said Shunter. He scribbled the registration number down in a notebook and then used the phone’s zoom facility to focus in on the cab. It was impossible to see the driver but there was no mistaking the person in the passenger seat. He recognised him immediately from the festival brochure as Andrew Tremens.

  ‘You goin’ after him then?’ said Pipe Lady.

  ‘I don’t have a car,’ said Shunter.

  ‘Borrow one of my brother’s,’ said Pipe Lady, throwing him a bunch of keys and pointing at a crowd of vintage vehicles. ‘He does ’em up as a hobby. They all work. Oy! Merlin! Can this here copper borrow a car? He’s after that duck killer.’

  ‘Ex-copper,’ said Shunter.

  The man working on the cruiser engine raised a thumb in the air.

  ‘The old Cortina GXL is the fastest,’ said Pipe Lady.

  As Shunter drove off she took a deep drag on her e-pipe. ‘Go get that duck killin’ bastard,’ she growled and returned to her crochet.

  Helen Greeley had insisted on taking Savidge by taxi to Bowcester Police Station to collect his belongings and then on to his little house so that he could get showered and changed. She had persuaded him to be her production guest at the 8 p.m. performance of Evil Company Corrupts.

  As he showered upstairs, she looked around the lounge. The room was entirely anonymous and gave no clues to the identity of the person who lived there. His furniture was mismatched but it was all good quality; probably bought at auctions or car boot sales, she guessed. There were no framed certificates, no trophies and no family photographs. What ornaments there were had a charity-shop feel to them: plaster cats, china dogs and glass fish. These were not the kinds of things that people bought as presents for others, which meant that Savidge had probably bought them for himself. Even though she’d only known him a short time, Greeley could see that here was a man with a troubled past who found it difficult to make friends. The room seemed to be a sad testament to that fact.

  Savidge picked out his best jeans, a lumberjack-style shirt and a pair of brown faux-leather shoes to wear to the play. They were, he realised, his best clothes but they seemed to be wholly inadequate for someone that the glamorous Helen Greeley thought of as . . . what? Their relationship was only a kind of friendship born of shared adversity. He wondered if he dared to hope that it might be something more one day. But why would an internationally famous TV star be even vaguely interested in a burger van man? Or, more probably, an unemployed ex-burger van man.

  He sprayed on some unbranded aftershave and went downstairs. Greeley was waiting for him with two glasses of Scotch.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind that I helped myself,’ she said, handing him a glass and downing her own in one. She walked to the fireplace and examined her face in the mirror that hung over the mantel. ‘God, I look haggard. I have a tricky balancing act to pull off tonight, Troy. I’m playing a vision of Miss Cutter’s Aunt Pie, so I have to look sort-of ghostly but still glam enough for the fans.’

  ‘You’ll look fine,’ said Savidge. ‘You always do.’

  ‘Ugh. I look half dead already, which will help. And every year that passes, it gets harder to hide the wrinkles.’

  ‘You don’t need all that make-up. I could understand it if you had something on your face like a scar or pockmarks or a birthmark or something to hide. But you don’t. You’re okay as you are.’

  Greeley smiled and put her arms around Savidge’s neck. ‘Anyone else would have told me that I look gorgeous or fabulous. But you said that I look “fine”, that I’m “okay” as I am. You’re the first honest man I think I’ve ever met, Troy.’ She kissed him on the lips and then inhaled deeply.

  ‘Mmmm. You smell cheap,’ she said. ‘Totally unpretentious. I love it.’

  ‘So where are we?’ asked Esme Handibode between bites. Andrew Tremens had removed her gag and was feeding her a chocolate bar.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘He
made me curl up in the footwell out of sight. I’m as stiff as a board.’

  ‘You should try being in the back,’ said Mrs Handibode. ‘We’re being thrown around on plywood floors and walls. I’m black and blue.’

  ‘Is she any better?’ asked Tremens, nodding his head towards Brenda Tradescant who seemed to be staring vacantly into space.

  ‘Not a peep out of her for hours,’ said Mrs Handibode. ‘Anyway, why aren’t you in the back with us? What’s so special about you?’

  ‘He says it’s in case we get stopped by the police. Because I’m a solicitor they’ll be less inclined to ask questions,’ said Tremens. ‘Plus, he says that, as a man, I’m less likely to be hysterical.’

  ‘Sexist pig,’ said Mrs Handibode.

  ‘Yes, and he obviously doesn’t know me very well,’ said Tremens. ‘It’s all I can do not to burst into tears. Every time he puts that balaclava thing on I want to scream.’

  ‘I don’t see any obvious landmarks,’ said Mrs Handibode, looking around. ‘One bit of the canal looks much like the next without landmarks. Have you really no idea at all where we are?’

  ‘None. After we left the boat works, we drove around for a while and I was in the footwell. You can’t see out of the windows down there. We eventually stopped in a car park in some woods and he told me to get out because we were going for a walk. But then some cars turned up and he sort of panicked and pushed me back down on to the floor again. I’ve been scrunched up there ever since. We’ve stopped at a few other places but only briefly. I never got to see where.’

  ‘I imagine that he’s looking for somewhere nice and isolated where he can do us in,’ said Mrs Handibode.

  ‘Oh god, do you think so?’

  ‘Is that what he’s planning, Brenda?’ asked Mrs Handibode.

  Brenda Tradescant said nothing. A small trickle of drool escaped the corner of her mouth.

  ‘I think we’re somewhere near Sherrinford,’ said Mrs Handibode. ‘I heard a distant clock chime a few minutes ago. It sounded to me like the chimes of St Uncumber’s. What’s the time now?’

  Andrew Tremens looked at his watch. ‘Just after six. Dear god. That means we’ve been missing for more than a day. Why hasn’t anyone found us yet? Surely Dallimore must have called the police by now?’

  ‘You said it yourself, no one knows where we are,’ said Handibode. ‘And I have the most horrible premonition that, wherever we are, it will be our final resting place.’

  ‘We really ought to be heading back to the village. You’re onstage soon,’ said Savidge.

  Helen Greeley snuggled into his bare chest and sighed. ‘I suppose so. I just want to stay here, though. In your bed. With you.’

  ‘But the play . . .’

  ‘Fuck the play,’ said Greeley, biting him cheekily on the nipple.

  ‘I thought this sort of thing only happened in films,’ said Savidge.

  Blount parked his car behind the Herewardshire Hog pub and walked out into the tiny main street. There was very little in Spradbarrow: just the pub, a scattering of cottages, a village store and a hairdressing salon. The church of St Cunigunde dominated the end of Chapel Street and seemed overly large for such a small hamlet, but it had been built to cater not only for the spiritual needs of the villagers, but also for the many pig farmers and their families who made up the larger proportion of the parish. Standing next to it was the smallest building in Spradbarrow, a tiny red-brick two-up–two-down cottage that served as the vicarage. It was towards this that Blount ambled as nonchalantly as any man who was one ‘Uncle Brian’ tall could be said to amble. As he walked he took photos on his phone and tried desperately to look like a tourist.

  Shunter had come to a junction where the muddy track met the main road and looked for any clue – fresh mud or tyre marks – that might tell him whether the van had turned right towards Sherrinford or left towards Nasely. But there was nothing. He stepped out of the old Cortina and used the extra height this afforded him to peer over gates and hedges in search of farmers out in the fields who might have noted a white van pass them by. But the fat Herewardshire hogs were all alone and regarded him with indolent disinterest.

  Shunter sighed. There was nothing more he could do. He checked his phone and, finding that he had a weak but operable signal, he dialled Bowcester Police Station to report that the van involved in a reported duck killing earlier was also the van sought in connection with the murder of Shirley Pomerance. The operator thanked him for his information and asked if he could attend the station to make a statement. Shunter gave the operator his details and assured them that he would.

  He wondered whether to follow one more hunch before he went to the police station. There was more fresh mud on the road towards Sherrinford than towards Nasely. And, despite claims to the contrary in crime thrillers, not many murderers returned to the scene of the crime. Arsonists maybe, as many had an almost sexual obsession with fire. And burglars often did because they had the advantage of knowing the layout of the premises and just what pickings were on offer second time around. But not murderers. Not unless they got a kick out of seeing the chaos they’d caused. Shunter had dealt with a lot of homicides and this didn’t feel like the work of such a person. It had been brutal, yes. Frenzied, even. But the killer had taken steps to cover their tracks and that smacked of sanity tinged with panic. Having convinced himself, he climbed back into the car, put it into first gear and turned right.

  ‘Mr Savidge?’ said Quisty.

  Savidge and Greeley were about to call for a taxi when the doorbell rang. To their surprise, on the doorstep stood two plain-clothes police officers presenting their warrant cards as ID. One was tall and rather dapper; Savidge couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone under forty wearing a cravat. The other was a slight woman, possibly of Chinese descent, with jet-black hair cut in a bob not dissimilar to that worn by Miss Cutter in the TV shows.

  ‘What am I supposed to have done now?’ said Savidge, frowning.

  ‘Nothing at all, as far as I know,’ said Quisty. ‘We just wanted a brief chat. May we come in?’

  ‘Actually, we were just about to book a cab,’ said Greeley. ‘We need to get to Nasely. I’m taking part in a play at eight and we’re already later than we should be.’

  ‘Then allow us to give you a lift,’ said Quisty. ‘We can chat on the way.’

  Blount peered surreptitiously through the vicarage’s front window. The room was dark but, as his eyes adjusted, he could see a man asleep in an armchair, his face sporadically illuminated by the light from a TV set. It was the Reverend Savidge; the likeness between him and his brother was striking. Perhaps they actually were twins? He looked unkempt, unshaven, and had no trousers on. He also appeared to have a spear lying across his lap but, more alarmingly, Blount saw that the wall beyond the sleeping clergyman was covered in primitive but deadly looking weapons: spears and pikes, cudgels and clubs, whips, longbows and swords.

  ‘He has a bloody arsenal in there,’ muttered Blount. He looked again at the assegai that lay across the man’s lap. ‘And the bugger looks like he’s expecting us.’

  He walked back towards his car, snapping a few photos of a pretty thatched cottage to satisfy the curiosity of an elderly man walking his dog, and called Sergeant Stough on his mobile. It was best to keep this kind of conversation private.

  ‘Tell me about your maternal grandmother,’ said Quisty.

  Savidge stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you trying to solve a crime or psychoanalyse him?’ asked Greeley.

  ‘As surprising as it sounds, I believe the question is pertinent to our homicide investigation in Nasely,’ said Quisty. ‘Was your grandmother called Millicent?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Savidge. ‘I was adopted. What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘If I’m right, everything,’ said Quisty.

  Shunter had driven barely half a mile along the Sherrinford road when suddenly, through a farm gate that afforded a gap in the
tall country hedge, he caught a glimpse of something white. He stepped on the brakes and slowly reversed back to the gate. The view looked out on to the relentlessly flat countryside. And there, parked beside the meandering canal and bathed in the warm evening sun, was a white box van with a dent in the box above the cab. Shunter picked up his phone.

  ‘A signal!’ he said triumphantly.

  ‘So you don’t know who your biological mother was?’ asked Quisty.

  ‘No. And never wanted to,’ said Savidge. ‘She dumped us all at the first opportunity she could. She didn’t want her boys. So I don’t want her.’

  ‘How sad,’ said Quisty.

  ‘My brother, the vicar, might know. But, if he does, he’s never told me and I haven’t asked. A few years back, he went through a phase of wanting to track her down. He said he wanted to forgive her. Personally, I think he was just after money.’

  ‘He has money problems?’

  ‘He’s a vicar. And he drinks. Of course he’s got money problems.’

  Quisty’s phone suddenly began to chirp and he answered it.

  ‘It’s HQ,’ he explained, hanging up. ‘Shunter’s found the van near Sherrinford and the suspect is still with it.’ He looked over his shoulder at his passengers. ‘Do you mind if we take a detour?’

  Before they could answer, Kim Woon had wrenched the steering wheel around hard and stamped on the accelerator.

  Blount gathered Stough and his TRU officers around him in the pub car park. Two of them were looking very much the worse for wear with bloodshot and puffy eyes.

  ‘I hope this isn’t another wild goose chase,’ said Stough. ‘We were just about to knock off. My lads are tired and they’ve had a difficult day.’