Death at Burwell Farm

by Betty Rowlands

  Sukey tried to scream, but her cry was stifled as a hand pressed her face into the pillow. For a few seconds she could barely draw breath; then the pressure was released and a cloth thrust into her mouth. Her wrists and legs were bound and a blindfold placed over her eyes. ‘Right!’ Serena hissed in her ear. ‘We’ll teach you to poke your nose into our affairs, you bloody snooper!’

  ‘What do we do with her now?’ It was Freya seeking instructions. Clearly, the daughter had taken command.

  ‘In there for the moment. We’ll decide later how we dispose of her.’

  Sukey felt herself being lifted bodily, carried a short distance and dumped on what felt like another couch. Hands seized her ankles; something hard encircled them and she heard a metallic click. Serena’s mocking voice taunted her. ‘These are external shackles. I don’t suppose you’ll enjoy them as much as some of my clients do, but you’ve got plenty of time so you might as well make the best of them.’

  ‘What about her car?’ Again it was Freya speaking. ‘Josie’ll be back soon and—’

  ‘Good thinking. I’ll find the key.’ Hands rifled the pockets in Sukey’s denim jacket. ‘Got it. We’ll put it in the barn – let’s get a move on.’ There came the sounds of a door closing and a key being turned in the lock, followed by total silence.

  For several minutes Sukey lay motionless in her prison, almost overcome by shock and despair. Whatever plans the two women might be hatching for her, she had little hope that they included allowing her to survive. Calculating that they could hardly dispose of her in broad daylight, with Josie expected back shortly from her errand and the afternoon’s initiates due to arrive within an hour or so, she might stand some chance if she could at least free her arms. The shackles round her ankles were another matter but… ‘First things first,’ she muttered grimly and began straining against the material that bound her wrists. It felt soft and, after a few minutes of determined struggle, she felt it give a fraction. Thanks to regular work-outs at her fitness club her arms were strong and muscular and little by little the bonds loosened until, with a muttered exclamation of triumph, she managed to extricate one hand. She tore the gag from her mouth and the bandage from her eyes, sat up and looked around.

  She was lying on a narrow bed with metal bars at the head and foot. The room was small and windowless. Hanging on the walls was a bizarre range of garments in a variety of materials and styles from leather tights and thongs to filmy see-through creations of lace and chiffon, together with abbreviated versions of nurse’s, housemaid’s and school uniforms. On a shelf was a collection of canes and whips; glancing down at the floor, Sukey observed that it was tiled rather than carpeted. No doubt some of the more sophisticated activities resulted in a certain amount of body fluids being spilled. Seized by an uncontrollable wave of nausea, she rolled over to the edge of the couch and vomited. Then she lay still for several moments before sitting up again and unwinding the torn length of bandage still hanging from her arms – no doubt taken from the props for some erotic ‘nurse and patient’ game, she reflected grimly as she threw it to one side and set about freeing her legs.

  She slid forward to the end of the bed and inspected the shackles. They appeared similar in style to police handcuffs and were securely locked. She tussled with them for several minutes in the hope of finding some hidden quick-lease catch, but without success. She thought of shouting for help; then reflected that if it was Serena who heard her cries, she would end up in a more helpless position than before. Her eye fell on the whip that Serena had wielded to such devastating effect and left lying on a chair beside the bed. She rolled over as far as the shackles on her ankles would allow, reached out and just managed to grasp the thong. At least, when they came for her, she might be able to give them a taste of their own medicine. She glanced at her wristwatch; it was a quarter past two. She should have signed on at the office fifteen minutes ago. When she did not appear, George Barnes would call her, first on her mobile – which so far as she knew was still lying on the floor in the next room – and then, receiving no reply, he would try her home number. But Fergus – the only person who knew where she was – would quite possibly be out. There was little hope from that direction, so she lay back, stared at the ceiling and prepared to do the only thing left to her – wait for Serena and Freya to return. At least, she now had a fighting chance – albeit a slim one – where before there had been none.

  How much time passed before she heard the sound of the key turning in the lock she had no idea, but she was immediately on the alert. Her heart thumping and her eyes on the door, she seized the handle of the whip and sat bolt upright, grimly determined to do whatever damage she could before being once more overpowered, then gave a cry of mingled astonishment and relief as DS Andy Radcliffe burst into the room. He stood for a moment transfixed with amazement, then clapped a hand to his mouth and uttered a strangled snort. ‘Well, get Miss Whiplash of the Millennium!’ he exclaimed in a voice that wobbled with suppressed laughter.

  ‘Not funny!’ Sukey retorted through her teeth. ‘Just get me out of this lot, will you!’

  Twenty-Four

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ said Sukey, ‘is why I never heard a sound until Andy unlocked the door and came bursting in. I suppose I must have dozed off or something…’

  ‘I doubt it.’ DC Lisa Crombie handed Sukey a fresh mug of tea and sat down opposite her at the table in the interview room where she had been taking her statement. ‘For obvious reasons, that room was sound-proofed.’

  ‘Of course – why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you wore your lungs out screaming for help.’

  ‘As it happens, I deliberately kept quiet because I didn’t want to advertise the fact that I’d partially freed myself.’

  ‘So you very wisely waited for DS Radcliffe to come to the rescue.’ In spite of herself, Lisa could not suppress a smile at the mental picture conjured up by Sukey’s account of the way her ordeal had ended.

  Sukey responded with a shaky laugh. ‘You should have seen his face when he saw me chained to that bed! Not that I saw the funny side of it at the time – to be honest, I’ve never been so scared in my life.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  Sukey picked up the mug and drank half the contents before putting it down again. ‘I must be dehydrated – this is the first time I’ve enjoyed seconds of vending-machine tea. Tell me, how did Andy know where to look for me? That room’s pretty well concealed.’

  ‘Aha, thereby hangs a very interesting tale. The so-called Rejuvenation Suite was given a quick once-over immediately after the murder, just to make sure no one was hiding there, but it didn’t occur to anyone that there might be a fourth room – it’s quite small, there aren’t any windows and there was no reason at the time to make a more detailed check.’

  ‘Then what…?’

  ‘We have a bright young schoolboy called Timmy Tritton to thank for your deliverance – and for solving the puzzle of why Oliver Drew killed himself.’

  Sukey’s jaw dropped. ‘Now you’ve completely lost me. Who’s Timmy Tritton and what did he do that was so clever?’

  ‘It wasn’t so much cleverness on his part as curiosity. It was his mum who had the wit to contact us, with very surprising results.’

  ‘I do wish you’d stop talking in riddles.’

  ‘Sorry, I just wanted to fill in the background.’ Lisa gestured at Sukey’s by-now empty mug. ‘Want another?’

  ‘No thanks, just get on with the story.’

  ‘Right. Well, Timmy was playing with his new toy – a metal detector – and by a stroke of amazing luck for us he happened to be working on the edge of the field where Oliver Drew was found dead in his car. He struck oil – or rather, metal – and thought he’d found treasure trove, but all he unearthed was a small garden trowel buried under the hedge. Because it looked nearly new he thought he might as well take it home and give it to his mum, so he picked it up…’ Lisa paused for dramatic effe
ct before continuing, ‘and guess what he found buried underneath it.’

  ‘Oliver Drew’s signed confession?’ Sukey suggested sarcastically.

  ‘Not so far wide of the mark as you might think.’

  Lisa was obviously enjoying spinning out her tale, but Sukey was becoming increasingly impatient. ‘If you don’t stop beating about the bush—’ she began.

  ‘OK, OK!’ Lisa raised her hands in mock surrender. ‘What Timmy found was a cassette from a camcorder. He realised what it was because he’s got a camcorder of his own. He’s also got one of those adaptor things you can plug into your video to watch what you’ve filmed on your TV screen, so he decided to take the cassette home to see what was on it. And it wasn’t Postman Pat or the Teletubbies.’

  Recalling the use for which her temporary prison had obviously been designed, Sukey’s brain had clicked into action while Lisa was speaking. ‘A highly explicit sex show starring Oliver Drew?’

  ‘Got it in one. With Serena as co-star,’ Lisa added. ‘I haven’t seen it myself but I gather the boys in CID found it pretty strong stuff.’

  ‘So Jennifer was right after all.’ Sukey’s mind went racing ahead. ‘I imagine the trick was to film the proceedings with a concealed camcorder, show the results to the victim and threaten to send copies of the cassettes to wives or partners if they didn’t cough up some pretty substantial sums.’

  ‘Something like that. They must have chosen their victims pretty carefully. Serena’s being held in connection with Percy’s murder and Edith Burrell on a charge of assault and false imprisonment. We’ll get round to their other activities in due course.’

  ‘Did the boys find the camcorder?’

  ‘They did – disguised as a smoke detector immediately above the bed,’ said Lisa. ‘It was all set up,’ she added mischievously.

  Sukey covered her eyes in horror. ‘You don’t mean…?’

  ‘Just kidding,’ Lisa said cheerfully. ‘The cassette was blank – the thing hadn’t been activated.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that. Can you imagine what the lads in CID would have said if I’d been filmed doing my Houdini act and then brandishing one of Serena’s whips – I’d never have lived it down. By the way, you said Timmy’s mother was somehow involved.’

  Lisa giggled. ‘She walked into Timmy’s room while he was getting the sort of sex education they don’t give in school. The poor lad had quite a job to convince her that he hadn’t bought it with his pocket money. She didn’t know anything about the Oliver Drew case, but she decided it was a matter for the police and came straight down to the station to hand it in – the trowel as well. Drew’s prints are on both… and Serena’s are on the cassette.’

  ‘Well, good for Mrs T.’ Sukey’s stomach contracted at the thought of what might have happened to her without Timmy and his metal detector.

  ‘I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that you owe your life to the Trittons,’ said Lisa soberly, as if she had read Sukey’s thoughts.

  ‘I wonder why Oliver didn’t destroy the cassette instead of burying it,’ Sukey mused.

  Lisa pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘Search me. A man who’s about to take his own life isn’t going to be thinking too rationally. Maybe he thought that if he tried to burn it or break it up, it could still leave some sort of trace that Jennifer could find and start asking questions. I don’t imagine it occurred to him for a moment that anyone would dig it up. Timmy would never have found it if the metal trowel hadn’t been thrown in on top of it.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Sukey, it’s nearly five o’clock and I think it’d be a good idea if you went home and got some rest. I’ll drive you.’

  ‘Thanks. What about my car? I heard Serena say something about hiding it in a barn.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of that and get someone to recover it for you.

  Shall we go?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘By the way,’ Lisa added as they made their way to the station car park, her voice unconvincingly casual, ‘so far as I know, DI Castle hasn’t been given any details of the arrests yet as he’s been out of town all day on another case. No doubt he’ll want a full report in due course.’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ Sukey said drily. And I’m going to get the telling-off of a lifetime, she added mentally.

  ‘What in the world am I going to do with you, Sook?’ Jim Castle released Sukey from the bear-hug in which he had enfolded her the moment she opened the door to him and gave her a gentle shake. ‘You do realise you broke nearly every rule in the book, don’t you?’

  ‘How do you work that out? All I did was to enquire about a complimentary treatment I thought I’d missed out on—’

  ‘You know very well what I’m talking about: The minute you twigged what was going on you should have bolted from the scene and called for back-up, instead of which you—’

  ‘Prevented another killing,’ Sukey interposed as he dried up, evidently too exasperated to continue.

  ‘You damned nearly precipitated one – your own,’ he reminded her grimly. ‘George Barnes says he’ll be afraid to send you to a break-in at a playgroup after this.’

  ‘Tell George that some of the kids who go to playgroups can be pretty scary – and so can their mums.’

  ‘Will you be serious for once?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Sukey did her best to look suitably humble. She wound her arms round his neck and looked up at him with a smile of contrition. ‘Don’t be cross with me,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve had one hell of a day.’

  He held her close for a long time. Neither of them heard the key turn in the lock of the front door. ‘Sorry, am I interrupting something?’ said Fergus blandly as he stepped into the hall.

  ‘Jim’s just forgiving me for stealing his thunder by clearing up one of his most difficult cases for him,’ Sukey explained as she disengaged from the embrace.

  ‘You don’t mean—?’

  ‘The RYCE mystery is solved – and guess who cracked it?’

  ‘My brilliant mother?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Clever old you!’ It was Fergus’s turn to give Sukey a hug. ‘So who dunnit?’

  ‘Jim will tell you the denouement while I go and have a bath and change my clothes.’

  ‘Yes, you do look a bit scruffy.’ Fergus took in his mother’s dishevelled appearance with a disapproving eye. ‘Did you have to go through a hedge backwards to collect the evidence?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Later, when the three of them were relaxing after a takeaway meal – Sukey having refused point blank either to cook or eat out – Fergus said, ‘Do you suppose Anita’s Auntie Vera got wind of what the RYCE people were up to? Could that have been the shock that brought on her heart attack?’

  Sukey shook her head. ‘All we know for certain is that she turned up on the wrong evening and went away looking put out. It’s possible that someone had been careless enough to leave the place unattended for a few minutes so that she was able to wander in and see all the sex aids on display – or the door might not have been properly closed during a performance so that she got some inkling of what was going on. She wasn’t expected there that evening, remember. We’ll never know the answer to that one.’

  ‘Perhaps one of them saw her and went after her, maybe with the idea of shutting her up…’ It was evident that Fergus was seeking a dramatic explanation for the old lady’s death, but Jim was quick to discourage the notion.

  ‘Unlikely. Jarvis saw Vera drive off in a hurry, but according to your mother’s statement he never mentioned anyone attempting to follow or stop her. I’d forget about that if I were you.’ Jim’s tone made it clear that he was giving an instruction, not a piece of advice.

  ‘Anyway, Adrian will be happy to know that RYCE is no more.’ Fergus got up and went to the phone. ‘Is it all right if I call Anita and tell her the news?’

  ‘OK, but no details,’ said Jim sternly. ‘You can just say RYCE has been closed down and the police will b
e issuing a statement to the press tomorrow.’

  ‘And no mention of the part your mother played,’ said Sukey.

  Fergus grinned. ‘Trust me, I’ll be the soul of discretion.’

  As the door closed behind him, Sukey said reflectively, ‘I can’t help feeling sad about the way it’s ended. Xavier was totally sincere; he trusted those two scheming bitches to support him in his work and literally gave his life for it. Some of his teaching might have been a little bizarre – well, unconventional, shall we say – but there’s no doubt he brought comfort to a lot of people.’ She sat fingering the stem of her empty wineglass. ‘Me among them,’ she added after a long pause.

  Did you love the twists and turns in Death at Burwell Farm? If so, don’t miss Sukey Reynolds’s first case, Death at Hazel House. When Sukey’s photography work for the police puts her in danger, can she get a picture of the killer before it’s too late?

  Get it here!

  Death at Hazel House

  Available now!

  Meet Sukey Reynolds: proud mother, wonderful cook… and police photographer turned amateur detective.

  Years ago, Sukey was hoping to become a detective but life took a different turn. Now she’s happy to be involved with the local police force, as long as she still gets to work the occasional murder case...

  When Sukey arrives to photograph the body of Lorraine Chant, the beautiful wife of a wealthy businessman, she’s baffled. At first, it looks like a botched burglary, as the huge family safe has been left wide open and empty. But why does Lorraine’s rich husband claim nothing was taken? And what is he not telling the police?

  Deciding to do a little investigating of her own, things take a darker turn for Sukey when she is set upon by a shady figure. What do they think she knows? As Sukey finds herself in the firing line, can she expose the true killer before it’s too late?