‘Oh, I know, but not Doug. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree there. A lot of people in Tollerton hated the old sod, for she was always interfering and causing trouble.’
‘Can you think of anyone in particular?’
‘There’s the two old dears next to her, for a start, the sisters. She made their lives an absolute hell. She even poisoned their dog. Oh!’ May looked regretful. ‘I don’t think they’d have killed her, though. They’re very gentle ladies. Mrs Grant’s under her sister’s thumb, of course, but I can’t picture even Mrs Skinner poisoning anybody.’
‘No? Maybe you’re right.’ McGillivray considered for a moment, filing away the information about the poisoned dog. ‘Can you think of anyone else?’
‘What about the nephews? I’d imagine they’ll come into her money, and it’s often the nearest and dearest who kill the rich old lady, isn’t it?’
The inspector smiled. ‘In some cases, yes. We’ll be going to see them tomorrow. There’s no one else?’
May shook her head. ‘Most of the old biddies round here think I’m a proper tart, but I wouldn’t cast suspicion on any of them out of spite. No, I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
McGillivray drained his glass and laid it down, then he rose to his feet. ‘It was worth a try, but, by the look of things, we’ll be interviewing people till Kingdom come.’
‘Is there nothing else I can do for you?’ She looked at him invitingly from under her sweeping lashes.
‘No, Mrs White. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’
‘It was no trouble, believe me. I’m always glad of male company.’ She winked at David Moore when she showed them out, making him blush to the roots of his reddish fair hair.
He followed the inspector up the Lane until the older man slowed down enough to let him catch up.
‘Phew!’ Callum McGillivray let out a long sigh. ‘I think we’re lucky to have got out with our trousers on. She’s a proper man-eater, that one.’
Moore groaned. ‘I’ll say! But I don’t think she’d anything to do with Janet Souter’s murder.’
‘Probably not, but she’s got nerve enough.’
When they neared the cottages, McGillivray said, ‘Why didn’t Mrs Skinner tell us the truth about their dog’s death, I wonder? Could she have something to hide, for all her seeming honesty? I think we’ll pay them another visit, on the pretext of finding out more about young Pettigrew and Madam White. I trust Mrs Grant’s recovered from her fainting spell. It was most peculiar, happening at the precise moment I mentioned that the dead woman thought somebody was trying to poison her.’
Moore passed no comment. He was rather disappointed that the inspector had such a suspicious mind.
When Mrs Skinner took them in, her sister was sewing, but as soon as she saw the callers, Violet jumped up in alarm, letting her embroidery slip from her fingers onto the floor.
‘Sit down, Violet!’ Grace almost barked it out. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ She turned to the two men. ‘My sister’s always timid with strangers. She has a very nervous disposition.’
McGillivray smiled. ‘No need to be scared, Mrs Grant. I just want to discuss a little matter with you both, that’s all.’ He pulled a chair round and sat down, leaving his sergeant to watch the reactions of the two women; one poised and seemingly perfectly at ease, but the other biting her lip and casting pleading glances at her sister.
The inspector assumed his most apologetic manner and leaned forward to speak confidentially to them. ‘You see, ladies, in all murder investigations facts come to light which, although serious to the persons concerned, have no bearing on the crime in hand. Do you understand what I mean?’
‘Of course.’ Grace Skinner nodded her head graciously.
‘Yes,’ whispered her sister, one hand clasping and unclasping at the worn upholstery of her chair.
‘It has come to light that Miss Souter uncovered a clandestine love affair between Douglas Pettigrew, the chemist’s son, and a Mrs Gilbert White.’
‘Oh that!’ Grace laughed. ‘Everybody knew about it except the Pettigrews. It’ll peter out in a few weeks.’
‘Oh yes, May’s affairs usually do,’ put in Violet, her anxiety gone now that the reason for the visit had proved to be nothing to do with them.
‘That’s as may be,’ McGillivray said. ‘But Miss Souter took it upon herself to inform the boy’s father, and caused much ill feeling between them.’
‘That old busybody!’ exclaimed Grace. ‘I’ll never understand why she couldn’t keep her nose out of other people’s business.’
‘Maybe she thought it was her duty,’ Violet ventured.
‘Duty my foot! She was an interfering old . . . I’m sorry, Inspector, but bitch is the only word to describe her, and I’m not given to profanity.’ Grace looked incensed.
‘Quite.’ McGillivray let a smile play across his craggy countenance. ‘We have also been informed that she’d approached the young man himself, earlier.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember now.’ Violet looked quite animated. ‘I was passing along the street at the time and he told her to mind her own b— business, and he said the word right out. Then he threatened her. ‘I’ll get you yet, you old . . . Violet couldn’t bring herself to repeat the word.’
‘You never told me,’ her sister accused.
‘I forgot about it, till the inspector reminded me.’ Violet looked contrite. ‘It was the day you got that letter from Marilyn, telling you Terry’d got promotion, and you were so full of it, the other thing went right out of my head.’
The inspector carried on. ‘So young Pettigrew had reason to be furious with her before she told his father, and this second interference may have kindled a strong enough feeling for him to . . .’ He stopped short as Mrs Grant bounded to her feet again.
‘But Douglas didn’t poison her!’
‘Violet!’ Grace’s curt reprimand made her sister colour and become confused.
‘Oh, Grace, I never said . . . I didn’t mean . . .’ She clapped her hand over her mouth, and her eyes were staring.
The silence which fell could have been cut with a knife, but, in a few seconds, and much to Moore’s surprise, McGillivray stood up. ‘Thank you for your help, ladies.’
When the two detectives arrived at the police station, John Black took them into the small, back room which he’d allocated as an incident room. ‘Have you found any leads yet, sir?’
‘A few things have cropped up.’ McGillivray pulled out his cigarettes, tried his lighter unsuccessfully several times, then accepted the box of matches the sergeant handed him. ‘Did you know about the row between the chemist and his son, caused by the dead woman?’
Black smiled. ‘It caused a row between the Pettigrews and the Falconers as well. That’s May’s father and mother, and now the two families don’t speak to each other. Sydney blamed May for leading Douglas on, and Bob Falconer said it was Douglas’s fault.’
‘Whichever, Miss Souter had thrown a spanner in the works by telling his father, and the lad had been told to stop seeing the married lady. Would he be unstable enough to commit murder because of that?’
John Black thought, then frowned. ‘No, not Douglas. He’s quite a nice boy really, and I think May turned his head with her attentions. Her carryings on are well known and it would just have been another conquest to her, so she wouldn’t have had any reason to kill Miss Souter, either. No, Inspector, I’m pretty sure you can count both of them out.’
McGillivray sighed. ‘I don’t know. A youth in the throes of his first sexual experience might just . . . Perhaps not, in this case. Unfortunately, Moore didn’t turn up anything else promising. Just a whole lot of nastiness on the part of Miss Souter, but fairly trivial, eh Moore?’
The young sergeant was glad to be consulted. ‘Yes sir, and I don’t think any of the shopkeepers would have killed her for complaining about their prices or their service. And they all mentioned the arsenic quite freely, so there must be someone else who h
ad reason to poison the old lady that we haven’t come in contact with yet.’
The inspector winked to John Black. ‘I think it’s time we put him wise, isn’t it?’
As Black nodded, grinning from ear to ear, Moore asked, ‘Have you been keeping something from me?’
McGillivray adopted his praying hands position and laughed. ‘Janet Souter didn’t die as a result of arsenic poisoning, lad.’
‘Didn’t what? What did she die of, then?’ The young man’s face was full of righteous indignation.
‘A large dose of insulin had been injected into her bloodstream.’ McGillivray leaned back smugly.
‘God! You’re a crafty bugger! . . . sir.’ Moore’s voice had risen angrily, but he checked himself. ‘How long have you known?’
Callum McGillivray and John Black were laughing hilariously at Moore’s outburst, and it was a minute before an answer came.
‘It was in the report the Super gave me this morning before we left Aberdeen.’ The inspector wiped his eyes. ‘I’d a gander at it when you and the PC were taking the bags to the Starline.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before? God, I feel a proper pillock, questioning all those folk without knowing the truth myself.’
‘I’m sorry, lad, but I wanted you to listen to their stories about the arsenic first, without anything else cluttering up your brain. It’s definitely part of the picture – no smoke without fire – and we’ll have to get to the bottom of that before we’ll get at the truth. They’ve all assumed it was the arsenic, but only the murderer knows what really killed her.’
Black picked up the telephone at the first small tinkle. ‘Tollerton Police . . . Yes, he’s here.’ He passed the receiver over to McGillivray.
‘Yes? . . . Good! Let’s have it.’ The inspector listened intently for a few moments, then said, ‘Thanks.’
As he laid the instrument back on its cradle, he looked at John Black. ‘That was the report from the public analyst at HQ, on the items of food they’ve been testing.’
Moore’s resentment evaporated, and he turned round to learn what the results were.
‘Everything’s quite clear. And he said he’d made a double check on the flour and the sugar because he’d been told that was where the stuff probably was.’
The local sergeant raised his brows. ‘So the nephews hadn’t put arsenic in her bins after all?’
‘If Janet Souter’s story was true, she must have disposed of the contaminated goods. Of course, Mrs Wakeford may have invented the whole thing herself, because the bag from the shed, supposedly containing the arsenic, held only ordinary self-raising flour. God, what an involved business this is turning out to be.’ McGillivray scratched his chin.
‘Sir,’ David Moore began, ‘if the old woman was expecting her nephews to try to poison her, maybe she hid the arsenic and laid out the flour for them to use. The arsenic has maybe nothing to do with the case?’
McGillivray snorted. ‘It has nothing to do with her death, but it sure as eggs is eggs has something to do with the case. I’d think that whoever actually killed her started the story about the nephews, etcetera, to throw suspicion off himself, or herself, and the only person to speak about that was Mrs Wakeford, who says she got it from the victim herself.’
Sergeant Black looked worried. ‘You can’t possibly suspect Mrs Wakeford. She’s a proper, genteel lady, in the true sense.’ He stood up and pushed in his chair.
‘We’ll stop on for a while, Sergeant. I’d like to go over what we’ve got already.’
‘Yes sir. This room’s at your disposal whenever you need it.’ Black’s voice was rather cold. ‘I have to get back to my own duties.’
‘Of course. Moore and I’ll manage fine. Thanks.’
Ignoring the near slam of the door, McGillivray turned to his sergeant. ‘I think I’ll make a list of suspects. It helps my old brainbox when I see things written down in black and white. See if you can find some paper, lad.’
David Moore started opening the drawers in the desk, and was successful at his second attempt. ‘There you are, sir.’ He took out several sheets of paper and laid them down.
‘I’ve been thinking. If the old lady had filled a plastic bag with flour, and the nephews had used that, thinking it was the poison, it would explain why there was only flour in her flour bin, but . . .’ McGillivray screwed up his face, puzzling over it, ‘in that case, there should have been flour in her sugar bin. At least, according to what Mrs Wakeford told us about the crumbs of toast.’
‘Mind you,’ he said, after a while, ‘if the ironmonger hadn’t vouched that this Davie Livingstone did give her some arsenic, I’d have thought it was pure fabrication on somebody’s part. But she told all and sundry about it, so it must be true enough. But if she’d hidden the real stuff, where is it now?’
He stood up. ‘I think I’ll get the bobby to turn her shed inside out, to see if he can unearth it. I don’t like the idea of arsenic lying handy.’ He went to issue his instructions, and returned almost immediately.
‘Now, let’s see what we’ve got, so far.’ Pulling his pen out of his pocket, he drew a sheet of paper towards him, and jotted down his headings. ‘Sus . . . pects and Mot . . . ives.’ He lifted his head again, beaming. ‘All ready to begin.’
‘We haven’t many suspects yet, have we?’
The inspector tapped his nose with his pen. ‘Never say die, lad. We could surprise ourselves with what we come up with. Number One. Mabel Wakeford. Too vehement in her denials of any friction with the deceased. Extremely flustered. Was first to mention arsenic and practically accused nephews before it was even found out that the old woman had been murdered. The question is, why? And what reason would she have had to kill Janet Souter? Circumstantial evidence, but unknown motive.’
‘I don’t think she could have had anything to do with the murder, Inspector, and you offended Sergeant Black by suggesting it. But things look bad for her, I must admit.’ Moore added the last few words reluctantly.
‘Number Two,’ McGillivray continued. ‘Grace Skinner. Seemed altogether too sure of herself, and omitted to mention their dog had been poisoned, presumably by deceased. Why? She was quick enough to tell us other things Janet Souter had done to annoy them – little things, she kept emphasising. Now, I’m positive their dog’s death would not have been a little thing to them, so – so that might be her motive for the murder.’ He scribbled down a few more words, ending up with a question mark.
David Moore shook his head, but said nothing.
‘Number Three. Violet Grant. Scared out of her wits, and knows something she’s not telling.’
‘She would have told you, if her sister hadn’t stopped her. And she might have cracked if you’d carried on questioning.’
McGillivray clicked his tongue. ‘No, I wanted them to feel safe for a little while longer. When the pressure’s off, people sometimes get careless and come out with more than they mean to. Whatever it was that Mrs Grant wanted to say, it was probably just conjecture on her part.’
‘I suppose so, but she was positive Douglas Pettigrew didn’t kill Miss Souter. How could she have known anything about that?’
‘It’s been what she wanted to think, no doubt, knowing the boy quite well, but, if there’s more to it than that, we’ll sniff it out eventually.’
The young sergeant twisted his mouth. ‘And her motive would be the same as her sister’s – the dog?’
Nodding his head, the inspector continued with his list. ‘Number Four. Mrs May White. That young woman may be forward, flighty, and a nymphomaniac, but I don’t think she’s a killer. She didn’t seem all that upset about the end of her affair with young Pettigrew. Still, one never knows.’
Moore laughed. ‘I’ve heard you saying, sir, never discount any suspect until they’re proven innocent.’
‘Right, lad. We’ll make a proper detective of you yet. On with the motley. Number Five. Young Douglas Pettigrew himself. We’ll need to have a chat with him soon. On t
he face of it, he’s the most likely one so far, with his passion having been knocked on the head – or wherever.’ McGillivray grinned impishly. ‘And his father’s a chemist.’
‘So he could easily have got hold of a hypodermic syringe and insulin.’ Moore looked enthusiastic.
‘Good lad. You’re on the ball. Number Six. Ronald Baker, the nephew. I did a bit of telephoning while you were out before lunch. His engineering firm’s on the verge of bankruptcy and he’s in urgent need of a few thousand to buy equipment for a contract he hopes to land.’
Moore’s eyes lit up. ‘He had a motive, then. He’ll likely get all the money he needs now his aunt’s dead.’
‘Yes, I checked on that, too. Her estate is divided equally between the two nephews, and Martin Spencer, the old lady’s solicitor, told me that a considerable amount is involved. He couldn’t say exactly how much, but he’s going to find out as soon as possible.’
‘Did he give you any idea of how much it would be?’
‘When I pressed him, he said it would probably run into five or even six figures.’
‘Wow!’ The sergeant was impressed. ‘And murders have been committed for a lot less than that.’
‘True, but it doesn’t automatically follow that Ronald Baker’s a murderer because he’s in desperate need of capital.’
‘No, sir, of course not, but he looks promising.’
McGillivray smiled sadly. ‘Number Seven. Stephen Drummond, the other nephew. His grocery shop is in none too healthy a state either, so he’s every bit as promising.’
‘Oh.’ Moore sounded crestfallen.
‘He was in worse straits some time ago, but he’d produced £20,000 from somewhere, and cleared himself. He said he inherited it from an old uncle in Canada, but there’s no trace of them having any other relatives. The Thornkirk police checked up on that. And Ronald Baker didn’t receive any money at the time, which would seem odd.’
A puzzled look appeared on the young sergeant’s face. ‘But if Stephen Drummond got all that money, and put his shop back on its feet, he wouldn’t need to kill his aunt for more, surely?’
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