‘So the dogs were stolen that same night. To their credit, the brothers did not destroy the dogs. Perhaps they intended to arrange for their return once memory had faded. They have just been found, in a boarding kennels in the middle of Fife. Of the various kennels in the Yellow Pages for Edinburgh, it is the remotest one. Unfortunately the proprietor is colour-blind and couldn’t say whether the man who left the spaniels for safekeeping was red-haired or not. Another of my phone-calls determined that Mr Leo Colebrook owns a diesel Land Rover which agrees with the noises that a neighbour heard that night.’
She fell silent and waited for derision to fall on her head.
It takes time to assimilate a new and radical concept. Ideas had to be turned inside-out. There was silence while minds turned over facts and theories. It was left to DS Bryant to break the silence by asking the awkward question. ‘It’s still not quite seven years since the gifts to the sons. Why would the sons kill their father before the period of seven years was up?’ he asked, with an air of helpfulness that did not fool Honey for a minute.
It was a question that had been troubling her. ‘Heavens,’ she said lightly, ‘you can’t expect me to do all the hard work. You must do a share of the guessing.’ Mr Blackhouse decided to laugh so everybody laughed. ‘The seven years were almost up. The tax burden would be quite small and the business well enough established to bear the cost. But there’s a lot we still don’t know. If Professor Mannatoy’s right about the petechiae, somebody smothered Henry Colebrook. Possibly one of the sons – there could have been a quarrel and a sudden loss of temper. Mr Blatt, would you really say that it’s impossible for a man to turn over in bed, perhaps have a heart attack, breathe in a feather and choke?’
‘Nothing is totally impossible,’ Blatt said. ‘I think that it’s highly unlikely. I don’t believe that it could possibly have happened in this case but I’ll take advice.’
‘I’m not convinced,’ Honey said, ‘that Mr Colebrook was murdered by one of his sons. I have no more to go on than a feeling that any son ruthless enough to kill his father and do the rest would certainly be quite ruthless enough to terminate a couple of spaniels. And in all the comments that witnesses have made about the family there has been no suggestion other than that they were all on excellent terms.’ Honey paused and looked round the intent faces. They did not look disbelieving. She hurried on. ‘Whatever had happened, whoever did the deed, they decided that their father must not die, officially, for another seven years, or however many were left out of the seven. So one of the sons was elected to take over and play both roles. That would be Vernon. Neither of the others is so perfect a match for his father.’
‘The housekeeper would have to be in on the plot,’ Ian said.
‘That’s for sure. This is all speculative – I’m mostly going by how I’d do it if I were in their shoes along with whatever supporting circumstances come to mind. Vernon, if he was the substitute, lived a withdrawn but quite credible life. It was simply given out that his father, now retired, was enjoying his very secluded existence and preferred to keep it that way. The father need only be seen, very occasionally, in the distance. His dogs accepted that going for walks with the housekeeper was now quite normal. As purchasing director, Vernon seldom if ever visited the factory – his function was to be out and about, striking deals with estates, shoots and game dealers. His dealing with the office staff and with the suppliers could mostly be by phone and email.
‘When the seven years were almost up, they decided that their case might be helped and any later doubts assuaged if their father were to be seen around more often, but preferably not by anybody who had known him too well. So the impersonator went on a cruise and found himself placed at the same table as the Carpenters. He got on well with them. They invited him to their inaugural shoot. This was a safe distance away from Moonside House, yet they were a respectable group who could swear that Henry Colebrook was alive and well at that time.’
The room was flooded with silence as the men digested the story. There was some nodding. DS Blackhouse was on the point of speaking when the phone on Ian’s desk rang peremptorily.
‘Leave it,’ the DS said, but Ian lifted the instrument and listened. ‘Well done,’ he said. He looked around the room. ‘Forensics has moved swiftly. They put the feather under the microscope. It comes from a duck but not a duck ever seen in Britain outside a zoo or a special collection. It is oriental in origin, possibly mandarin or a close relative, strongly suggesting a pillow imported from Asia. It couldn’t possibly have come off any bird being processed in the factory.’
‘Or killed on the Tinnisbeck Castle shoot,’ Honey said.
This time, Mr Blackhouse managed to pre-empt the discussion. ‘We need all three sons in for questioning,’ he said. ‘And the housekeeper. Better get on with it straight away.’
‘Before that,’ said Ian, ‘or simultaneously, I suggest that we need to search all four houses. An impersonation like that could never have been carried off without leaving traces. And we want fingerprints and DNA of the impersonator to compare with those of the real Henry Colebrook.’
‘We also need to know what went wrong with the dental evidence,’ Honey said. ‘That is, if I’m not right up a gum-tree. That’s one for you, Sergeant.’
DS Bryant sighed deeply.
‘Simultaneously is the word,’ Mr Blackhouse said. Honey recognised his change of attitude. His sole strength was as an organiser. ‘Move against one of them and, if we’ve guessed wrongly, the guilty one could be far away or covering his tracks before we get round to him. This is going to take a lot of skilled searchers. Spend today thinking up the questions you want answers to. I’ll drum up enough bodies to bring in four people to Edinburgh HQ and search four houses simultaneously.’
‘I had assumed,’ Ian said stiffly, ‘that we would bring them here. This is the area in which the body was found.’
DS Blackhouse was not one to loosen his grasp on a case that seemed near to a solution. ‘The probability is that any killing was carried out close to Edinburgh,’ he said. ‘All that happened in your territory was the dropping of the body into the water. Your team can go on looking for witnesses. But you, Inspector Fellowes, could come through and sit in on the interrogations if you insist.’
‘Oh, I insist,’ Ian said. ‘I insist all right.’
Chapter Fourteen
Detective Superintendent Blackhouse, now that he had impressed his authority on the whole case, departed back towards Edinburgh in order, as he said, to drum up his teams for the morrow. There was a general air of relaxing, of sitting at ease or even undoing buttons.
Ian led them through other reports but without adding anything immediately identifiable as useful evidence. Casts and photographs had been taken of the area where the body had presumably entered the water, but only after the first officer to reach the scene after Sam Wylie’s phone-call had backed his panda car to and fro over any previous tracks. Ian promised Honey the offending constable’s head on a silver salver. No witnesses had so far turned up to provide any useful sightings at all. The secretary of the angling club had faxed in a long list of members entitled to fish the loch in season, but none of the names were so far known to have a connection with Henry Colebrook, his sons or any of their business interests. The nearest addresses were never less than ten miles from the loch, ten from Edinburgh and fifteen from Tynebrook village. If the immediate enquiries bore no fruit, a long road lay ahead – of visiting every member and asking who had been taken to the loch as a guest.
‘Will the super be arranging any identity parades for tomorrow?’ Honey asked. ‘He was only talking about house searches.’
‘Good point.’ Ian’s hands made a convulsive gesture as if to clutch his brow but he checked himself in time. A senior officer must never let his juniors see that he is fallible. ‘I’d jog his memory, only I don’t want my head bitten off if he’s already put them in hand.’
‘I could remind him for you,’ she said. ‘O
n the other hand, HQ is back on my territory. If I find that it’s slipped his memory I’ll arrange them myself. If it isn’t practical to bring the kennel proprietor to Edinburgh, he’ll have to pick out the man who left the spaniels from photographs.’
Ian looked happier. ‘Right. Once we’ve hauled in the suspects, we’ll have to move quickly or charge them. The disinterested and available witnesses who saw most of the spurious Mr Colebrook would be the Carpenters. We’ll need formal statements from them anyway. You and the sergeant go through tomorrow morning, take their statements about meeting him aboard the ship and inviting him back to Tinnisbeck. Stay in touch by mobile, but unless we get a confession I’d expect to want them in Edinburgh by mid-afternoon. Hannah Phillipson might also be able to pick out the false Henry Colebrook, so bring her along. Stay the night again tonight.’
‘Thank you. I’ll arrange to meet the witnesses tomorrow morning. Then I’ll spend the rest of today tidying up the paperwork.’
‘Fine.’ He hid a smile from the subordinates present. ‘You could include whatever it is you’re not telling me about the Blakelove robbery.’
‘I could,’ Honey said. She never told him that she would.
‘Fine,’ Ian said again. He fanned himself with a blank report form. ‘There’s a hell of a fug in here. Somebody open a window.’
Bright threw open one of the centre-pivot windows just as McFadden opened the door. The ensuing hurricane blew papers all over the floor. Some of them even made it along the corridor.
*
The next day was Friday and Honey had every intention of spending the weekend with her husband, who was due home on the late train. She packed up her chattels with care, thanked Deborah for the hospitality, discussed a few minor points with Ian over breakfast and got on the road in good time with Pippa in the back and DS Bryant sitting at her side, nursing a small holdall and a grudge. It was another bright, crisp morning.
Bryant was emitting waves of disapproval. ‘I thought you wanted me to check out the dentist’s evidence,’ he said.
‘I wanted you to do that yesterday,’ Honey retorted grimly. She postponed asking him what he had been doing instead, preferring to keep that up her sleeve. ‘Do it as soon as we’ve finished here.’
On their previous journeying she had shown the sergeant that she could drive at speed. This time, she decided to let him see that she could drive more slowly without letting her attention wander. She stayed well within the speed limits, signalled meticulously, cornered with care and gave other drivers more than their due share of courtesy and consideration. The sergeant showed no sign of relenting in his fervid disapproval of women drivers and could be seen to tense every time another vehicle appeared around a distant corner.
As a result of this caution, they were slightly behind their intended time when they reached Tinnisbeck Castle. She decided on a short cut. ‘They’re expecting us,’ she said. ‘You go in and take a formal statement. You know exactly what we want. I’ll go and collect Hannah Phillipson.’
He looked less sure of himself. ‘You’re the one who knows the ins and outs of it,’ he said. ‘I could go to fetch Miss Phillipson.’
She had no intention of letting him drive her treasured Range Rover again. ‘They’ll tell you the ins and outs,’ she said. ‘You’d never find the place.’
‘You could give me directions.’
‘I could not. I’m none too sure of finding it first time myself. You’re supposed to keep abreast of the ins and outs. This will give you a chance to catch up.’
She turned the Range Rover and drove off before her temper could get the better of her. Pippa made small sounds of displeasure at being carried away from one of her favourite places. Honey, still seething, stopped at the gates and let Pippa out to stretch her legs and have a pee.
The smallholding seemed to be dozing in the sunshine. It looked deserted until Gemma Kendal appeared suddenly around the end of the building. She was dressed workaday, in jeans and a baggy sweater, and she seemed nervous. ‘Come to the sewing room,’ she said. ‘Hannah’s expecting you.’
Honey shouldered her bag and followed. The garden, she noticed, was becoming depleted as the vegetables were consumed or preserved. The big workroom was comfortably warmed by bottled gas heaters. At the far end, Hannah Phillipson was seated at the sewing machine. Despite the unhandy nature of the treadle machine she was running seams with confidence and mastery. ‘One minute,’ she said. ‘Then I’m with you. I don’t know that I can help you much. I hardly spoke to the man. Thank you, Gemma.’ She finished her seam and cut the thread with a small pair of scissors.
‘She does lovely work, doesn’t she?’ Gemma said grudgingly. She had ignored the implied dismissal in Hannah’s words and retired only as far as the doorway.
‘She certainly does.’ But Honey spoke absently. She was taking in what she was seeing and not quite believing it. The material was a superfine cream silk with an unusual pattern woven into it but barely visible. The exquisite French panties in the machine were undoubtedly to the design that Julian Blakelove had picked out of the encyclopaedia. Another part of her mind was recalling that Pippa had recognised a friendly scent at Hollington House. She felt the prickling up her spine that came whenever she sensed the arrival of a breakthrough. ‘How many of these sets have you made?’ she asked.
‘This is only the third,’ Hannah said. She covered the sewing machine. ‘A lady I know – who shall be nameless – brought back a length of the material from Thailand, folded in the bottom of her suitcase. She was given it as a special favour by one of the local nobility but —’ Hannah winked ‘— she wouldn’t tell me what she did to earn the favour. She also provided the paper patterns. I made it up for her in return for the rest of the length and the patterns. This is almost the last of it – it’s for a lady in Hawick. The length ran to three sets and there’s enough left for one more. Gemma got the second set. I owed her for nursing me through a really bad bout of flu last winter.’
‘So there won’t be any other sets to match, anywhere?’
‘Only the ones I’ve just mentioned. It would have to be a hell of a coincidence, this silk and this design. I repeated the designs for a lady in Newton Lauder, but that was in pale green nylon. And I can’t think where you might get some more of this silk, except back in Thailand.’
Honey turned towards Gemma, but she had vanished. Honey cursed herself. Unlikely though it might seem for exotic lingerie to be recognised, and from a description by a man, there would be no other obvious explanation for her own sudden interest and Gemma might have taken fright. Honey darted out of the building. The back door of the house was bolted. She blessed herself for having locked the Range Rover. She had not seen any other car around. Presumably Cruikshank was away with the Land Rover. As she came near the house she could hear Gemma’s voice somewhere, but too muffled for her to make out the words. The front door was unlocked.
The sitting room was very dark after the brightness outside. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that Gemma was just putting down the phone. Gemma turned defiantly.
‘Who were you calling?’
Gemma shook her head.
Honey fished a pair of handcuffs out of her bag. They were not very ladylike handcuffs but they would do. Honey had no intention of putting her baby at risk by allowing the other space to fight. Gemma struggled but she was no match for muscle and long practise. She was soon firmly attached to the arm of a heavy chair.
Hannah arrived, panting. ‘What on earth’s going on?’
‘Listen and you may find out,’ and to Gemma, ‘I’m arresting you on a charge of being concerned in a robbery.’ She added the statutory warning. As she spoke, she was keying Last Number Redial. A voice came on the line, saying something about not being available. She pushed the phone at Hannah as the voice continued, inviting the caller to leave a message after the tone. ‘Whose voice is that?’
Gemma was trying to signal warning messages but the bemused Hannah failed, or perhaps re
fused, to register them. ‘That sounds like Pat Kerr,’ she said.
‘I thought so.’ The voice had definitely not been that of Johnny Cruikshank. ‘Now stand back and don’t interfere. That isn’t my only pair of handcuffs. Your friends seem to have been indulging in a little robbery. In fact, this charmer seems to have used the pretty things you made for her to seduce a wealthy householder while her lover entered his house.’
Hannah collapsed into another chair. ‘Never!’ she said.
Honey did not bother to reply. She keyed her mobile phone but without result.
‘You won’t get a signal here,’ Hannah said. ‘Too many hills round about. You’ll have to use the landline phone.’
‘I thought you were my friend,’ Gemma said bitterly. ‘Whose side are you on?’
Hannah looked at the other without affection. It seemed that an early friendship had not survived the stresses of sexual rivalry. ‘It isn’t a matter of sides,’ she said sadly. ‘I hope I never have to choose between friendship and law and order. At the moment I’m only being helpful to the police. If being helpful to the police means that I’m being unhelpful to you, that’s too bad. I’ve no sympathy for anyone who can’t abide by the law. If you don’t like the rules, don’t play. I’m sure the inspector will pay for the call.’
Honey was already on the phone and speaking to Newton Lauder. She gestured to Hannah to sit down and stay there. With the whole strength of Newton Lauder CID scattered, it seemed quickest to speak to the uniformed Superintendent. ‘I need some backup,’ she said. ‘I have one of the couple who robbed Julian Blakelove QC here. The other is a Pat Kerr of Tynebrook village. He’ll be out driving the baker’s van at the moment and I want him pulled in before he gets home and listens to his answering machine in case the haul disappears again, if it hasn’t already been fenced. And somebody should listen to the messages on the machine. I want one or more woman officers to take this prisoner off my hands. And I want two houses searched. We don’t have time for warrants; this is urgent if we want to recover some very valuable jewellery and paintings.’
Cold Relations (Honey Laird Book 1) Page 14