by Joyce Cato
‘When was the last time you saw your husband?’ he asked next.
‘The day he left to come down to Oxford.’
‘Did he seem normal in his manner? Worried about the up-coming conference perhaps?’
‘No, he seemed the same as usual,’ Laura said.
‘He never mentioned any threatening phone calls, or that he’d made an enemy of someone in the society perhaps?’
‘Good grief, no,’ Laura said, again sounding clearly astonished.
‘Did he mention to you anything about Mrs Voight, or the finances of the society? Did he voice any suspicions about anyone?’
‘No. But then Maurice wouldn’t, even if that was the case,’ Laura assured them. ‘He was the sort of man who liked to handle things himself.’
For a moment that thought hung in the air, and all three people in the room were clearly thinking the same thing. Namely, this time, Maurice Raines had taken on more than he could handle.
Trevor broke the silence with a small sigh. ‘All right, Mrs Raines, that’s all for now. I take it that you’re going to be staying on in Oxford for a while?’
‘Yes, I’ve taken a room at the Randolph.’ She named the famous, first-class hotel in the centre of town.
Trevor saw Peter Trent take a note of it, and nodded. ‘We’ll be in touch again soon,’ Trevor said. ‘Perhaps you could give my sergeant the number of your new mobile phone, so that we can remain in contact?’
Laura Raines did so, rose steadily, gave a brief smile to each of the men, and left.
When she was gone, they were silent for a moment. Then the sergeant stirred.
‘Formidable woman, that,’ he remarked at last.
‘Yes,’ Trevor agreed thoughtfully.
‘She was hiding something,’ his sergeant remarked.
‘Yes,’ Trevor again agreed thoughtfully. ‘Get on to the hotel in Hayling Island. I want her alibi confirmed.’
The sergeant nodded, snapped his notebook shut and left.
Trevor continued to sit in the empty interview room for some little time, tapping his forefinger thoughtfully against his lips. For all her apparent frankness, calm equilibrium and her smooth co-operation, the experienced policeman was convinced of one thing: Laura Raines was a woman desperately afraid.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next day, the two policemen drove through the college gates almost in tandem. Trevor parked first, then waited for his sergeant to join him before turning and heading towards the incident room. As they walked, they caught up on yesterday’s findings.
‘You’ve got the last of the uniform reports in on any sightings around the college of anyone acting suspiciously, right?’ Trevor asked, nodding at one of the scouts who looked vaguely familiar and who scuttled past them pushing a laundry trolley.
‘Yeah, no real joy, though,’ Peter Trent sighed. ‘Just the usual – a few troublemakers who wanted to make life difficult for someone they’ve got it in for. One even claimed that he saw his neighbour walking past the college with a machete! Nothing in it, of course. We’re thinking of doing him for wasting police time.’ The sergeant snorted in disgust. ‘We had two reports of a street person, who turned out to be well known to the locals, and who’d spent the morning of the murder sleeping it off in the cells before being released just before eleven. Apparently, the bottom end of the college grounds was a regular begging spot for him. But his clothes were clean – well, not clean obviously,’ the older man said with a wide grin, ‘but free of any blood spots anyway.’
‘And nobody reported seeing any dark-haired, thirty-something man leaving the college at any of the exits or entrances wearing bloodstained clothing, I suppose,’ Trevor interrupted the woeful listings wearily.
‘Sorry, guv, no. Nearest we got was one bloke of Oriental appearance, who seemed to be wearing a dark, stained T-shirt. Turns out he was a cook at a local Chinese takeaway, and the stains in question were mostly soy-sauce. Gave the lucky plod checking that one out a free meal, apparently.’
Trevor snorted. ‘Right.’ He filled in his sergeant on the latest forensic findings, which were equally unhelpful. There had, of course, been a lot of fingerprints and trace evidence found in hall around Maurice Raines’s body, but then there would be. Half the college and all the conference-goers had been in hall at some point.
‘We also heard back from the victim’s solicitor,’ Trevor concluded. ‘Seems the will is straightforward enough. Some gifts of various stuffed creatures to people in the Taxidermy Society, and the bulk of his money left to his two kids.’
Trent frowned thoughtfully. ‘Nothing to the wife then. Significant, you think?’
Trevor shrugged. ‘Not really. According to the solicitor, Maurice Raines’s estate wasn’t that big. Although he lived in a big house, ran a nice car and owned his own business, the bulk of the money in the marriage belonged to the wife. Her money’s tied up in trusts. The house is in her name, the cars likewise. Insurance policies, ditto. She even owns half his taxidermy business, since it was her money that financed it, and Daddy’s solicitors made sure she wasn’t ever shortchanged. So Maurice himself had very little in real assets to leave. No, I don’t think we can argue the case that the widow had any financial reasons for having him bumped off.’
‘Well, let’s hope something breaks today,’ Peter said philosophically. ‘And speaking of the widow, do you want to tackle the lady about her hotel-mate today?’
Trevor pushed open the door to the incident room and thought about it. ‘Possibly.’ On the face of it, the fact that Laura Raines had spent the time of her husband’s murder on the south coast with another man was definitely a meaty morsel to get your teeth into; on the other hand, she’d already admitted in her initial interview that she and her husband had pretty much lived openly in a dead-end marriage. So, presumably, each partner felt able to stray without worrying too much about what the other thought of it, or any nasty little consequences that might ensue.
Also, it had been confirmed by the management and staff that Laura Raines had been checking in at the time of the crime, and had shortly been joined by her lover so there was no hurry to confront either one of them yet.
‘The fact that she kept quiet about him might mean there’s something there, guv,’ Peter said thoughtfully.
‘Possibly. Mind you, there needn’t be anything in it for us just because she was being cagey about him, either. She struck me as a private sort of person. And not volunteering information isn’t the same as lying: she might just have seen keeping quiet about him as a good idea at the time. Still, we need to speak to them both at some point. You’ve got people running him down?’
‘Yes, guv. I ran a computer check last night: he’s got no record, not even a speeding fine. He’s younger than her by a fair bit, and a good-looking bloke as you might expect according to his driving licence photo.’
Trevor grunted, but said nothing. At his desk, he took off his jacket and reached for the laptop to check his emails. ‘Well, let’s see what today brings. I can’t help but wonder what that damned cook’s up to,’ he muttered quietly, so that none of the others working in the office could hear him. So far, word hadn’t seemed to have spread amongst the troops about her, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Peter grinned. ‘I know what you mean. Sharp, isn’t she?’
Trevor smiled grimly, but said nothing as he opened his first electronic message.
Peter Trent decided to prod him gently. ‘And she has been useful, sir,’ he added mildly.
‘Oh yes, she has been that,’ Trevor agreed flatly.
At that moment, the Junoesque cook was being helpful to the police investigation once again. Or rather, a scout named Dorothy Greening was being helpful, and Jenny was listening closely.
Jenny had just overseen the breakfast rush, and was sitting in a quiet corner of the vast kitchens enjoying a much-needed cup of tea, when a white-haired, slightly nervous woman in a pink overall slid inside and glanced around timidly. Since most
of the kitchen staff were busy washing up, the scout was able to pick out the woman she needed easily, and she approached quickly.
Jenny watched the sixty-something woman approach and smiled her friendliest smile. The woman, who was barely five feet tall, had the petite person’s brisk way of walking, like she had energy and more to spare for everything that she did. But she was looking uneasy, and Jenny wanted to reassure her. So, as she arrived, Jenny pushed out another chair.
‘Hello, have a seat. Want a cup of tea?’ she offered amiably.
‘Oh, er, no thanks,’ the older woman said, a little wrong-footed by the offer. ‘You are the cook, right, that Mavis said we needed to see? About the phone?’ She sounded uncertain now, as if she doubted that this large, young but friendly woman could possibly be the liaison between the college staff and the coppers.
Jenny nodded, although she had no idea who Mavis was. She’d asked Debbie Dawkins’s mother to spread the word around the scouts, asking if a mobile phone had been found or discarded since the taxidermist’s conference had started. No doubt she had passed that message on to the mysterious Mavis, amongst others.
‘Yes, that’s me. Found it, have you?’ she asked casually.
To her surprise, the older woman looked abruptly miserable. ‘I don’t want to lose my job, miss,’ she said, whispering it so that none of the others in the kitchen could hear. Not that they were paying any notice. ‘I didn’t mean to do nothing wrong, honest. Only it were in the bin, see. Obviously, nobody wanted it. If it’s been chucked out, it isn’t stealing, is it? Not if it was in the bin,’ the scout reiterated in a nervous, sibilant rush.
Jenny instantly twigged. ‘No, of course not. If it was in a bin it was rubbish, and discarded. You just found it and decided to recycle it, instead of just tossing it away, and why not? A perfectly good mobile, was it?’ she asked sympathetically.
The older woman looked relieved. ‘Right. I thought at first it must be broken, see, otherwise why chuck it?’ Her little head tilted a bit to one side, reminding Jenny of a curious bird contemplating a worm. ‘But when I turned it on, it lit up and everything. And had a dial tone. Not that I know much about them – I never use ’em myself. But my Sheila said she needed a new one, but couldn’t afford one, so I thought, why not? It doesn’t matter, not if someone’s thrown it away, like you said.’
‘Oh absolutely,’ Jenny agreed, with another reassuring smile. ‘It’s amazing what perfectly good stuff people throw away nowadays, isn’t it? By the way, what’s your name?’
‘Oh, Dotty. Dorothy Greening, that is,’ she said, suddenly remembering that the bursar himself had told everyone that they had to tell this woman anything that they might know. ‘I work over there.’ She pointed through a small side window out across the quad towards one of the residential buildings where the majority of the conference-goers were being housed. ‘Cleaner, see? I found it in one of the big wastepaper baskets in the entrance hall, underneath the pigeonholes. Where they picks up their mail and messages and whatnots.’
So saying, she reached into the pocket of her voluminous pinafore and brought out a smart-looking, up-to-the-minute mobile in a dark plum colour. ‘A beauty, ain’t it?’ Dotty said admiringly. ‘Luckily, I hadn’t got around to seeing Sheila yet, so I hadn’t given it to her. So she won’t even know she might’ve been able to have it. If you see what I mean.’
Jenny did. She glanced at the phone, wondering if she should try and get a napkin to preserve any fingerprints that might be on it, but then realised that Dotty had probably handled it thoroughly. Even so. She reached for a paper napkin, and held it out to the older woman. Not surprisingly, Dotty’s eyes widened in dismay.
‘Oh crikey, you really think it’s important then? To do with that poor sod what got done in?’ she asked unhappily, as she dropped the mobile gingerly into the big cook’s now protected hand.
‘It’s possible, Dotty, yes. We need to get it to the police. Don’t worry,’ she added quickly, as the older woman reared back. ‘You don’t have to do it alone; I’ll come with you,’ she soothed, guessing that the other woman had probably never had anything to do with the police in her life. ‘And we needn’t say anything about you taking the mobile phone home and maybe giving it to Sheila, hmm?’ she encouraged brightly. ‘We’ll just tell them where you found it and that you handed it over to me when you heard that the police were looking for it. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?’
The old scout looked relieved at this, if not much happier, but she nodded glumly and gamely, and, with a resigned slump of her shoulders, followed the cook out of the kitchen.
Peter Trent was the first to spot them as they entered the incident room, and nudged Trevor on the arm. Trevor took one look at the glum-faced and clearly nervous older woman, and read the situation in a nano-second. As they approached, he asked Peter loudly to go get them all a nice cup of tea, whilst at the same time feeling a distinct sense of déjà vu.
This was the second time that Jenny Starling had brought one of the scouts to them with something interesting to relate. He wondered what it would be this time.
It took little time for Dotty to tell her – slightly amended – tale about finding the mobile phone in the wastepaper basket. Gentle questioning by the patient Peter Trent produced the information that Dotty emptied the bins every day, and that the phone had been found on the morning that the ‘poor man had died’, around her usual time of doing the hall, which was between half past ten and eleven, which meant it could have been dropped in there at anytime from the same period the day before.
Trevor thanked her, took the napkin-wrapped gift with enthusiasm and told the relieved old woman that she could go.
When Dorothy had all but skipped like a spring lamb from the room, he stood for a few seconds staring down at the mobile, then looked at the cook curiously.
‘I take it from all that, that you’d actually asked the scouts to search for a discarded mobile phone?’ he asked calmly. Very calmly, he thought, since this was the first he’d heard about it.
‘Yes,’ Jenny agreed, not liking the very patient tone of his voice much. Rather belatedly she realized that she’d managed to get into the inspector’s bad books. Again.
‘And just what made you do that? I mean, what made you think that there’d even be one in the first place?’ he demanded, still with the same tone of dogmatic patience.
‘Well, it seemed to me that there might be one,’ Jenny said cautiously. ‘And if there was, I thought it best to find it before the dustbin men came.’
Peter Trent, sensing that his superior’s blood pressure was probably rising too much for everyone’s good, reached for the phone and, using the napkin to keep his own prints off it, turned it on and began to explore.
‘Yes, but what made you think—’ Trevor persisted through gritted teeth, when he heard his sergeant suddenly draw in his breath.
‘Bloody hell,’ Peter whistled under his breath. Then, looking up, said excitedly, ‘Guv, do you know who’s phone this is?’
Trevor scowled. ‘Obviously not, Sergeant, since you’re the one looking at the log of its calls,’ he pointed out with heavy sarcasm. Then he shot an equally none-too-friendly look at the cook. He’d have bet a month’s salary that this bloody woman not only knew whose phone it was, but probably knew what it had been doing in a wastepaper bin in the first place and who had put it there.
‘Miss Starling, I want a word with you, and I think—’ he began aggressively, when once again his sergeant interrupted him.
‘Guv, it’s Laura Raines’s phone!’ he said, the excitement in his voice making several heads turn their way. Including the inspector’s.
‘The widow’s phone? That’s right, she told us she’d lost it just recently,’ he said, then quickly walked behind Trent and stared down at the mobile over his shoulder. ‘What was the last call made on it?’ he demanded abruptly.
Peter fiddled with it, a shade clumsily since he was still using the napkin to preserve prints.
He read it out.
‘That’s Simon Jenks, guv, I recognize the number. That’s the bloke she was staying with in Hayling Island.’
‘And the time and date?’ Trevor pressed.
‘Hold on, I’ve got to go back to the menu … here it is … The night before Maurice Raines died. It was a text message.’
‘Well, pull it up,’ Trevor barked.
His sergeant did so and both men’s faces went tight with excitement as they read it. ‘At last,’ Trevor hissed. ‘Finally, we’re getting somewhere. Right, let’s get the widow Raines back in. This time she has some real explaining to do.’
Jenny said nothing as she watched both men leave hurriedly. She sighed heavily, then got up and made her way back to the kitchen. She had the evening menu to prepare.
She wanted to start with a nice watercress and Stilton soup. Except her budget wouldn’t stretch to Stilton, so she’d sourced a locally produced blue cheese that was a fraction of the cost but would be, almost, equally delicious.
Now she needed to think of a good main course to go with it.
But, as she worked, her mind kept going back to Laura Raines and the two policemen. She knew what they were thinking of course – and she was almost sure that they were wrong.
It would be pointless trying to tell them that at this stage, though. She needed much more proof than mere theories, no matter how well they fitted with all the evidence.
She sighed, and decided she’d better get on with it. She’d already got a few odds and ends sorted out to add weight to her working hypothesis, but she was still a long way from producing anything like the proof needed to convince the police.
There was someone though who might just be able to help her out.
Leaving the kitchen and her menu only half-planned, the cook made her way to the same residential building where Dotty had found the mobile. She’d had the list of room numbers from Art, which showed where everyone was staying, but so far she’d avoided bearding anyone in their den, so to speak. Now she had no choice.