‘Why can’t we go back to the house?’ demanded Jeremy.
‘You’ve already covered that,’ I reminded him.
‘And you dodged round it. Why not?’
‘They’ll want to see you — you in particular, Jeremy — about why you had to come up here, and this early in the morning, with two heavy suitcases.’ I made a gesture. He interpreted it as: get on your feet. This was what I’d intended. He stood, and at a further gesture, moved away a yard or two.
I went over and stood between the two cases, bent, seized a handle in each hand, and picked them up. As I’d guessed — I reckoned I had half a hundredweight in each hand. I would have bet I was stronger than Jeremy, though perhaps not so fit. I’d not have wished to carry them far, and certainly not up a slope, one that had had me breathing heavily with no weight at all to carry about but my own.
I put them down again. ‘That,’ I said, ‘is why we’ve got to wait here. We can’t take these cases away from here. Get it? They’re evidence of why we’re here at all, this time in the morning.’
I stared Jeremy in the eyes until he looked away, almost in shame. Oh yes, he could well be ashamed of himself now, sobered by the chill fact of a sudden death.
‘I don’t see that it’s got anything to do with...’ He made a gesture. ‘With what’s happened here.’
‘Jerry,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to realise how things stand. This isn’t just a case of Pinson getting in the cottage here, and dying a nasty and sudden death. I didn’t want to say so, with Jennie here, but Pinson was murdered.’
‘What!’ snapped Paul.
‘His head’s bashed in. He didn’t do that by slipping and falling. So you’d better get to terms with it pretty damned quickly, and realise that from now on everything’s got to do with the police. And they’ll be very interested to know why you, Jerry, did such a damn-fool trick as carrying these two cases up here. And try...try, Jerry, to make it sound convincing.’
‘I wanted ‘em out of the house!’ Jeremy burst out, though only after a slight hesitation for thought. ‘Out of that gallery.’
‘Then, they will ask, why not simply into the hall? That would be out of the gallery. Why not in another room? Why not in your own bedroom upstairs? That would’ve been less of a physical strain than this.’ I gestured, embracing the cases and the slope up which he’d brought them.
‘Why’re you asking all these questions?’ demanded Jeremy heatedly. ‘You’re not a copper. Might’ve been, but you’re not now.’
‘I’m not asking questions, Jerry. All I’m doing is rehearsing you. It’s a favour. You ought to be thanking me. Now you’ll know what to expect.’
‘I wanted ‘em outa there!’ shouted Jeremy wildly, and something heavy did stir, somewhere amongst the trees.
‘But why here? They’ll ask you that. Why here? And why now? There was no hurry, surely.’
‘It’s sorta Paul’s place.’
‘Unconvincing,’ I said. ‘D’you know what they’ll think? They may not say it, but they’ll think it.’
Jeremy eyed me suspiciously. ‘What’s that?’
I flung a wild idea at him, an unprepared possibility that I hadn’t had time to consider. But it was necessary to jerk him into the realisation that the police weren’t going to look at Pinson’s body, ask a question or two, and conveniently disappear. They would dissect every scrap of information, relevant or not, from everybody even marginally involved, until something came together with a click. I shrugged.
‘They could say you’d arranged to meet Charlie here, with that load, and hand ‘em over for him to hide...’
‘What the bloody hell...’ Jeremy began, and Paul whirled round and stared at me blankly.
‘And then you’d be able to claim that you’d left ‘em here and they’d been stolen,’ I went on firmly, giving them a taste of what they might have to face from officialdom. ‘You knew this place wasn’t secure—’
‘You can keep your bloody mouth shut!’ Jeremy shouted.
I smiled at him, but this did little more than make his face even redder. ‘I am only preparing you for every possibility, however wild. And that’s no more wild than the reality.’
Jeremy was silent, turning away and almost choking with rage.
Paul said, ‘And what d’you know about it?’
I shrugged. I’d been here — I knew as much as they did. But Paul took it up. I’d given him ideas.
‘I know you, Jerry. You’ve convinced yourself the watercolours are yours as well as the oils. You wanted the masks out of the way, ‘cause you know they’re mine, and there’s no argument about that. Then you could get your man in — wave your hand around — and say: everything in this room. And you’d borrow money on what he’d see, including my watercolours. Then...could anybody say you’d sold what was mine? Oh no. You’re deep, Jerry. Too deep. One of these days you won’t be able to climb out. You’d raise money on what’s not yours, and wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But it’d be fraud. Isn’t that so, Mr Patton?’
I nodded. ‘It would be fraud.’
But why had I seen a sudden flash of satisfaction in Jeremy’s eyes, and why did he turn away so that I wouldn’t see it pleased him?
Paul laughed aloud, throwing his head back. ‘So now where’ve you got to, Jerry? Explain why you brought this stuff up here, with the truth, and you’ll be admitting to a planned fraud.’
Jeremy took a step forward, throwing his head back. Paul mockingly held up his palms in defence, still laughing. I said, ‘Behave yourselves. They’re here.’
At once, they were very still. Reality was now to the fore.
A police patrol car had pulled in from the lane. I walked round the cottage and went to welcome them, making a gesture that told Paul and Jeremy to remain where they were. There were two men in the car, the driver and a sergeant, both in uniform. The sergeant got out as I pushed through the gap in the hedge.
‘What’s this then?’ he asked. ‘A dead man, I’m told. Why send for us?’ His eyes were running over the cottage beyond me. It was plain that he’d expected a natural death, an old lady or a man living on their own, perhaps.
‘It’s not at all straightforward,’ I told him. ‘This is an empty cottage, and there’s a dead man inside. His head’s been smashed in. Come and see.’ His eyes ran over me. I went on, ‘I touched the back of his hand. Stone cold. I touched nothing else.’
‘Hmm! Yes.’ He eyed me with his head on one side. ‘Ex-police?’
‘Yes. My name’s Patton. Ex-Detective Inspector.’
‘Just as well, perhaps. Show me.’
I gestured. ‘This is what you’d call the back. I forced the door open. You’ll realise, I did it with witnesses.’
‘These witnesses — where are they now?’
‘Two of them, waiting around the other side of the cottage. You’ll see. And a third person. I sent her back to the house to phone. Ah...here she is now.’ I nodded towards the Granada, which came to a halt facing their car.
‘That woman getting out now?’
‘Yes. We’re all from the house down there.’ I gestured. ‘Penhavon Park.’
‘I know what’s down there.’
For a moment he stood and watched as Jennie got out of the car. I called out, ‘Go round and wait with the others, Jennie.’
‘You’re personal friends?’ asked the sergeant, having noted my use of her Christian name.
‘We’re staying here at the moment. My wife and myself.’
‘This her now?’
Amelia was just getting out of the Granada. ‘Yes. My wife, Amelia.’
‘And you say you’re staying here?’
‘Yes. We came over for the day, yesterday, but we’ve been detained.’
He gestured towards the cottage. ‘Show me.’ He didn’t waste one word.
Amelia was standing by the car. I indicated that the rest were round at the front, and she nodded. Then I led the sergeant to the door.
‘I had to break in. Th
ere were suspicious circumstances. I have three witnesses to the fact that this back door was fastened.’
‘What suspicious circumstances?’
I thought that this was too complicated to go into at the moment, so I said, ‘I thought somebody had locked themselves inside, possibly illegally, and I could detect no movement.’
We stepped into the kitchen cautiously, not even disturbing the two rusty hasps lying on the floor. ‘Through here.’ He followed me, and I stood back, well clear.
‘Is the electricity connected?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I touched nothing. You can see well enough without.’
He didn’t answer, but went down on one knee, examined the head without touching it, put a finger on the hand, as I had, and noted the chunk of rock lying there. Then he stood up. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Outside, he said, ‘I’ll just call the station. If you’ll go and wait with the others, please.’
He didn’t call me sir, because I was not exactly a civilian. Strange, that. With my former rank, I’d have been sir, as a civilian I’d have been sir. But he couldn’t decide what that made me now, so he’d compromised with: please. I was a nonentity, suspended between official procedures and civilian exclusion.
While he went back to his car, I walked round to the front. They were silent, in an awkward group, there being nothing to say. Amelia had her arm round Jennie’s shoulders. Jennie had found a padded anorak of her own. She seemed lost and frightened.
‘Richard,’ said Amelia. It was a gentle reprimand for my having involved myself with sudden death.
‘Does Mary know?’ I asked.
‘Yes. She was there in the hall.’
‘What did she say?’
Amelia shrugged. ‘Nothing. Just shook her head. It’s hard to say what she was thinking. I expect it’ll take her a while to decide her attitude on it.’
‘And Tessa?’
‘She fainted right off. We left Gladys trying to bring her round. All Gladys said was “Good riddance.” She’d had dealings with Charlie Pinson, I’d guess.’
Jennie slipped herself free from Amelia’s arm, and went to whisper with her brothers. I had felt she’d not wished to meet my eyes.
Then the sergeant came round the cottage, and stood still while he counted us. A squirrel, which had come lolloping along, quickly scooted up a tree, no doubt at the sight of a uniform.
‘There’s a team on the way,’ he told our small group, his gaze running across us and back, but impersonally. ‘I’ll just take a few details while we wait,’ he decided. ‘Perhaps you’d help me with this, Mr Patton.’
It wasn’t really a question, though he raised one hairy eyebrow. He’d decided on my title, I noticed.
I gave him a list of names, addresses, reasons for being at the house, though not, fortunately, reasons for being at the lodge. That could come later.
‘Pinson?’ he asked, when I mentioned Mary. ‘Any relation to...’ He jerked his head towards the cottage.
‘Sister,’ I told him. ‘Mary Pinson. We drove her here.’
‘You live...’
‘Forty miles away.’
I had given him our address. He should have known its location, if he knew his county. I saw him write in Bridgnorth, and put brackets round it.
Then there was an awkward silence. He dared not trespass with any more questions into territory his superior would want to explore himself. We dared not speak amongst ourselves, and in any event nothing but banalities would present themselves, when we were all bursting to express wildly exciting and improbable theories.
In the end, I said, ‘It’s cold here. We’ve all dashed out without dressing properly, and, if the others are anything like me, they’ll be thinking about a cup of tea and some breakfast.’
He stared at me blankly.
‘I was suggesting,’ I explained, ‘that there’s no point in us staying here.’
He gnawed over this proposition. Then: ‘The Chief’ll want to see you.’
‘I’ll stay,’ I told him.
Amelia made a gesture, but I shook my head. Whatever the others did, I would have to stay.
He frowned heavily over that. Then at last he nodded. ‘All right. But you’ll all have to hold yourselves prepared—’
‘Nobody’s going anywhere,’ I cut in sharply, annoyed with his lack of initiative.
‘I suppose not. Very well. But the Chief’ll want to see you.’
He stood aside, though there was space for a regiment to stream past him.
I nodded. Paul and Jennie made a move towards the Granada, but Jeremy was hesitant, eyeing the suitcases.
‘Leave them,’ I said. ‘It’s all evidence.’ I didn’t say what they were evidence about, but I knew the senior officer would want to see it all.
Then I had a quick word with Amelia. ‘There’ll be a senior officer in charge, love, and I could get held up here. Try to keep them all from arguing.’
‘You’ve had nothing to eat since...’ She shook her head worriedly.
‘I’ll be all right.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘If you don’t turn up in half an hour, I’ll be back with a flask of coffee.’
I kissed her on the forehead. ‘Do that, love, and thanks. But I’ll be back before then, anyway. Sure to be.’
She pouted, then followed the other three to the car. They were very subdued now, because officialdom had descended like a damp fog all around them. Jeremy led with a stride intended to convey confidence; Paul and Jennie whispered together, their heads close.
I stood and watched them leave, the patrol car having to reverse into the lane to allow the Granada to back round. Amelia waved, and I signalled back. Then there was silence, the sergeant not venturing a word, me not feeling like talking.
Then the car we’d been expecting arrived, a plain dark Toyota. Two men got out, one taller than the other. The shorter one was stocky, broad-shouldered, and walked with his head forward as though intending to demolish a barrier with it. I knew him — recalled him, rather, a constable in my days, now presumably a detective sergeant. Graham Tate. But his tall and lanky companion I had never met.
I saw the recognition in Tate’s attitude. His head came up. He said something to his superior, who nodded. They came and stood in front of me, ignoring the uniformed sergeant.
‘I’m told you’re an ex-officer of police...’ said the tall one.
‘Detective Inspector,’ I said.
‘Right. Well. You’ll be mister to me, you realise. Chief Inspector Phillips.’ He didn’t offer a hand. ‘We’ve never met — I transferred, in from Nottingham. I hope we’ll have no trouble, Mr Patton. I do hope so.’
Trouble? I thought. Did he mean opposition from me — that I was so firmly placed as a civilian that I was not to be trusted?
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ I said equably.
‘Then tell me, in as few words as you can — the background to this.’
His expression had been unchanged from the moment I’d set eyes on him. Bleak. His voice had been hoarse, a tense whisper, as though he was forever containing his impatience, and with difficulty. And...gaunt, that would be the word for him. Three inches taller than me, but not much more than two-thirds of my weight, I guessed. His neck reared from between bony shoulders, like a fluted column supporting a choice example of sculpturing, which had turned out as a haggard bust, though during the carving of this the chisel had repeatedly slipped, chipping out a hawk-like nose above thin lips, and beside it declivities where cheeks might usually be found. His forehead was wide and craggy, his hair wild, and his ears might have been tacked on as an afterthought.
And white as marble, his face appeared, contributing to the imagery, a drawn white. I wondered whether he was well. He gave the appearance of being drained, his body held erect only with the greatest of effort. And yet, throughout the time I knew him, he seemed to be burning energy every concentrated second of intense activity. Mental, not physical. Certainly not phys
ical; this seemed to be against his principles.
I told him, gesturing first towards the two suitcases. ‘The elder son, Jeremy, brought those up here, almost as soon as it was light, with the intention of locking them away inside this cottage. There’d been some family dissension about that.’
He brightened slightly at that. ‘I’d like to hear what—’
‘Let me tell you, first. D’you see that flowerpot, by the door? There was a key under that. I saw it there yesterday. It wasn’t there when he got here...Jeremy, that is...so he couldn’t get inside. I, we, three of us got here, perhaps a minute or two after he managed it. He was sitting exhausted on one of the suitcases.’
‘Exhausted?’
‘He’d carried them up from the house.’
His eyes were intent on my face. He didn’t question the reference to exhaustion.
I went on, ‘Because the key wasn’t there, and the door was locked, I thought it might mean that somebody had used it to get in, and that they hadn’t left. There was no sound from the cottage — which, by the way, is not lived in, though the younger son, Paul, uses an upstairs room as a studio. He’s an artist.’
He nodded. Said nothing.
‘So I broke in by way of the back door, round the other side. Three people witnessed that. I went inside and found a dead man with his head bashed in. I believe, though I’ve only seen him once, that his name’s Charles Pinson. I touched nothing, but left the house and sent someone to phone.’
He waited. I had nothing to add.
‘And that’s it?’
‘Yes. The basics.’
‘And what’s so special about the suitcases?’
‘They’re full of stone Olmec masks.’
He stared at me as though I was mad. ‘Of what?’
I didn’t answer. Let him see for himself. He walked over and stared at the cases. Then, deciding that touching them in no way destroyed any evidence, he reached out to pick one up. It didn’t move.
‘What the hell...’
He took a more purposeful stance, and heaved again. It lifted. He tried the other. It was just as heavy. He shrugged, and glanced at me.
‘And he carried these up from the house? You did say up?’
‘Yes. It’s a steady slope. You could walk it from there, briskly, in under a quarter of an hour.’
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