by Faith Martin
Claire, quickly realizing that she wasn’t going to win the argument, assured them that Hillary wouldn’t be left alone for the next twenty-four hours, and they all watched the medical professionals leave.
Hillary leaned back in the chair and sighed.
‘I take it that DI Farrell came crashing in like the cavalry?’ she said to Gareth, who was also sitting down now, looking quiet and composed.
‘Ma’am, I owe you my thanks.’
‘Do you?’ she said, vaguely surprised.
‘Yes, ma’am. Philpott was about to shoot me with the taser, but you distracted him and took the hit instead. My leg gave way . . . I’m not fit to do this job. I could let you down again and—’
‘Oh shut up,’ Hillary said. ‘You did fine, and I’d go out in the field with you again any day of the week.’
‘Me too,’ Claire chipped in.
‘Now, give me a full report. Where was I? Oh yes, DI Farrell?’
Gareth looking both touched and relieved, visibly pulled back on his poker face, and stiffened a little.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he barked. ‘DI Farrell must have heard your shouted warning about the suspect having a weapon, because less than a minute later he broke the door down. By then I had Philpott on the ground and disabled, and the DI cuffed him and took him away.’
‘Damn,’ Hillary said. That meant that even now Farrell was probably making the formal arrest and charging him. And would no doubt bag the right to do the first interview. Even if she got there as fast as Claire could drive them, she doubted that her superintendent would agree to her muscling in on the interview anyway. He’d say she was in no fit state.
And he was right, damn it. She felt very much as if all she wanted to do was go home to the Mollern and take a nice long nap. Under a warm soft duvet.
She sighed. ‘OK. Back to HQ.’ She got her feet under her and stood up, experimentally. Her legs felt about as substantial as her arms, but at least they held her weight. Claire, without a word, came to one side of her and waited to see if she needed someone to lean on.
Gareth Proctor followed on behind as the two women walked slowly out of the house. In the hallway he found a set of keys resting in a bowl on a small console table and locked up carefully behind him. He was sure that a team must be on the way to process the house and the last thing they needed was to find burglars had been in and had a feeding frenzy.
* * *
Back at HQ they all trooped straight to Rollo’s office. There, the superintendent told them that Robin Farrell was indeed interviewing their witness. Since Kevin Philpott had been stupid enough to attack them, he had been charged with assault, which meant they could take their time dealing with him and gathering the evidence for further, more serious charges.
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose,’ Hillary grumbled. ‘DI Farrell is only going to be interested in what Philpott has to say about his dealings with Spence. Once he’s got that out of him, it’ll be our turn.’
‘You mean my turn,’ Rollo Sale said flatly. ‘You’re going to go home and rest.’
Hillary nodded, but didn’t actually say out loud that she agreed to go.
Claire shuffled in her seat. ‘Are we saying, then, that Kevin Philpott killed Michael Beck?’ she asked tentatively.
Rollo, realizing only then that the two younger members of the team hadn’t been filled in, glanced significantly at Hillary, who sighed wearily.
‘Yes, that’s our belief,’ she said. ‘I think it probably went down something like this. We know from his own mouth that Michael Beck and Kevin were best mates, and that even after Michael left to go to university, they’d still meet up whenever he came home for the holidays. And that they’d hang around together, indulging Michael’s hobbies, whatever the latest hobby was, and generally hang out. We also know from the Becks and his own father that Kevin was a bit of a dreamer and a moocher who probably wasn’t ever going to amount to much.’
She sighed again and leaned back in her chair. ‘So, on the day Michael left his home for the last time, he was on his bike, without his metal detector, which led his parents to think that he was probably heading into Oxford. But I don’t think he was. I think Kevin (who had an old work van that he used for his various business ventures) had agreed to meet up with Michael that day for a spot of treasure-hunting, probably at a site not far from Woodeaton. It would make sense for Kevin to have charge of the equipment, since Michael only had his bike. Also, I suspect Kevin probably “borrowed” the metal detector on a regular basis in the hopes that he might strike it lucky while Michael wasn’t using it.’
Rollo nodded. ‘I have a friend with one of those things. He says that using it can get to be very addictive — a bit like gambling. Especially if you make one or two finds. It doesn’t take much, he says. Finding someone’s lost wedding ring, maybe, or a broken gold chain. It’s that thing of making money without having to work for it.’
Hillary thought that he was probably right. ‘Anyway, that day, I think he and Michael met up and finally found that significant find that Michael had always been looking for. Just how big or significant it was, we can’t say unless or until we find out where Kevin’s hidden it. But I think we can be fairly certain that it was something well worth finding. Now, from what we’ve learned about Michael so far, what do you think his reaction would be?’
‘Jubilation,’ Claire said at once. ‘His research was vindicated, and he’d just given himself a real leg-up on the academic ladder if he wanted to teach either history or go into archaeology in any big way. Being the one to make a big discovery was almost a guarantee that he’d be able to forge himself a successful career. Not to mention the kudos of having the collection named after him or whatever.’
‘Right,’ Hillary agreed. ‘But as a young man who’d grown up in a well-to-do family and had always known that he’d never have to worry about money, the fact that he’d hit gold, literally, probably wouldn’t have mattered to him so much, from a purely monetary point of view.’
‘Oh, he would have been happy about that as well, though, surely?’ Claire objected. ‘Who doesn’t dream of coming into your own money when you’re in your twenties? Or at any age, come to that!’
‘Of course, I’m not saying it didn’t matter to him at all. Just that it wouldn’t have been his primary consideration. As you pointed out, a great deal of his jubilation would have come from his research being vindicated and the prestige that came with it. However, shift that focus to Kevin Philpott. Kevin came from a working-class background and had no financial security net underneath him. He didn’t have Michael’s brains either. We know from what the Becks said that his own father didn’t rate him very highly and never thought he’d do well for himself. That sort of thing has to hurt, and must have affected him psychologically, no matter how much he probably laughed it off. Nobody’s ego can take that sort of constant knocking without it getting to you. Now, on top of that, say that at this point in his life, he’d been trying and failing to earn enough from self-employment. Which meant he was going to have to admit he was no entrepreneur and get a “proper” job. Which for someone with no particular skills or qualifications probably meant going from one sort of dull, boring job to another. Thus fulfilling his father’s contention that he was a good-for-nothing. But here he suddenly was, in a field, with a fortune literally at his feet. How does he feel?’
‘It’s the best day of his life, ma’am,’ Gareth said quietly. ‘He would be picturing his father having to eat crow, and could see his whole life changing from there on in.’
‘Exactly. He wouldn’t have to work for a living at all! The good life beckoned. Holidays abroad. A fancy car. Pretty girls, the whole lottery-winner fantasy. No more business venture failures for him. Nobody laughing at him when his get-rich-quick dreams bit the dust.’ Hillary sighed again. ‘No more being the loser, the fat, lazy, useless kid. He’d be someone.’
She paused, and thought about his modest home in Headington. ‘Even if the stash
didn’t turn out to be worth actual millions, maybe, say only a quarter of a million, it still meant a life of relative ease and comfort for a working-class lad. And then Michael starts talking about calling in the coroner’s office. Letting the landowner know, so that he or she could get their share. Calling the academics, who’d maybe make a case that it should be donated to a museum. Who knew what might happen then?’
‘He wouldn’t like it,’ Rollo said, in massive understatement. ‘He’d go from the high of thinking he was set for life, to the gut-wrenching fear that he might get nothing at all.’
‘Bad psychology,’ Gareth muttered.
‘Yes. So he loses his head. We know he’s prone to do that,’ Hillary said ruefully, still feeling the soreness in her chest from the taser. ‘His first instinct would be to try and talk Michael round, and persuade him to keep the gold for themselves. Sell it on the black market maybe.’
‘But Michael wouldn’t wear it,’ Claire said, as caught up in imagining the scenario as everyone else.
‘They argue, and the argument gets more vociferous,’ Hillary nodded. ‘Until, eventually, in sheer frustration, he lashes out.’
‘With what?’ Claire asked. ‘The forensic pathologist could never find a murder weapon that quite matched his head wound.’
‘I think he hit Michael with a spud planter,’ Hillary said.
‘Huh?’ Claire blinked. ‘What the hell’s one of those?’
Hillary grinned. ‘What it sounds like. It’s a device for digging a divot out of the ground into which you can plant a spud. Or, in Michael and Kevin’s case, a device for digging out potential finds. It’s smaller and less cumbersome than a spade, requires less hard work because you wouldn’t have to dig out a big area. And because it’s basically a big tube at one end, it would leave an unusual-shaped wound.’
She explained what she’d found out on the internet about its use by nighthawks.
‘So Kevin loses his rag, bangs his best friend over the head in a fit of frustration and then, what? Dumps his body in the river?’ Claire asked.
‘Why not? He knows the area around Woodeaton and Islip. He knows the river is there and available, and that the fields are often lonely and little used, and mostly out of sight of the road. He had the van. He could easily use it to cart Michael’s body to the dump site. All he’d have to do is use the detector to make sure he got every last artefact, then load the loot, Michael’s body, the equipment and Michael’s bicycle in the back and who would be any the wiser?’
For a moment, all of them considered this in silence.
‘He then dumps his friend in the river, goes into Oxford and leaves his bike somewhere unlocked where it’s almost guaranteed to be stolen, and there he is. Free and clear with a fortune in ancient gold artefacts,’ Hillary concluded.
‘It was only once we knew that Michael’s latest hobby had been treasure-hunting that it gave us the actual motive at last. And once I’d considered the possibility that he’d actually found a genuine hoard of treasure, it wasn’t hard to see who was the most likely candidate to be his killer. Who hung out with him and might have been on hand when he found something? Not Mia — they’d split up. Not his tutor, who would have been as fascinated by the find as Michael, but who was, by then, in disgrace and the last person he would have confided in.’
Rollo nodded. ‘It all hangs together all right, and I’m not saying you’re wrong, but this is all sheer speculation.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hillary agreed readily enough. ‘But let’s go on anyway. We have Kevin now in possession of a small fortune. He has enough intelligence to wait until it’s clear that the investigation into his friend’s death is going nowhere, and that he’s safe and unsuspected. He now needs to sell some of the items if he’s going to start living the good life. He might have been smart enough to realize that he couldn’t just sell a whole lot of stuff at once and buy himself a house without attracting unwanted attention. So he decided to sell a bit now and then — just enough for him to indulge himself and rent a decent place without being too ostentatious about it. What does he do?’
‘He needs a fence, guv,’ Claire said promptly.
‘Enter Simon Newley,’ Gareth put in.
‘Right. He asks around, someone points him to Newley being his man, contact is made, and the deal is done. And for nearly ten years, all goes well,’ Hillary said. ‘Every now and then, Kevin took him an item to sell on, and Kevin lived on easy street. His needs were relatively few, and I think he lacked the imagination needed to really fly high. I can see him just loafing around, making it clear to his family that he was “doing all right for himself” and that his imaginary business ventures were providing him with a nice little income, thank you. That alone must have been very satisfying for him. Seeing his relatives slogging away at regular jobs while he never had to.’
‘So what went wrong?’ Gareth asked. ‘Why did he kill Newley? Because you think he did, don’t you?’
Hillary nodded. ‘Yes. I think we’ll find that the head wound for both Newley and Kirklees will be a close match to that of Michael Beck.’
‘But he won’t have kept the murder weapon all these years, guv!’ Claire immediately objected. ‘He’d have ditched that the first chance he got!’
‘Yes, I’m sure he did,’ Hillary agreed amiably. ‘But don’t forget, Kevin isn’t a professional crook,’ she pointed out. ‘As a killer, he’s nothing but a rank amateur. So when he needed to kill Newley and Kirklees, he’d want to go with something that he knew worked — something that he was familiar with. And he knew for a fact that a sturdy spud planter would get the job done. It was both innocuous and easy to handle. Also, he wouldn’t know where to buy a gun, and using a knife isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Too much blood, and too big a chance that your victim might get the better of you, and turn the tables with it! Besides, getting caught carrying a blade wouldn’t be very clever. But he could buy a spud planter at any garden centre, and if it was ever found on him, so what?’
She paused, imagining Kevin thinking things through. ‘But the last time he’d killed had been a totally unpremeditated affair, a spur-of-the-moment thing, done in a white-hot rage or a moment of burning frustration. Michael was hit almost on top of his head, so he was probably kneeling down at the time, presumably examining the ground. In any case, he wouldn’t be expecting to be attacked. But killing someone else in cold blood — especially a hardened crook like Kirklees — well, Kevin would have quickly realized that he’d need something else other than the spud planter. After all, Kevin was overweight, unfit, and hardly used to physical fighting. He’d need to come up with something significant to help tilt the odds firmly in his favour.’
‘The taser,’ Gareth said grimly. He still hadn’t got the image out of his head of Hillary Greene stepping in front of that thing to take the hit.
‘Yes. Like I said, he wouldn’t know where to buy a gun — and probably wouldn’t have had the guts to use it, if he had — but tasers are far easier to get your hands on,’ Hillary was saying. ‘Plus, it had the added advantage of not being as noisy as a gun either. And once again, if he was ever caught with it on him, although still an offence, he almost certainly wouldn’t be looking at doing jail time over it. He would just claim that he felt safer having it for personal protection.’
She paused, rubbed a finger thoughtfully across her chin, and sighed. ‘So, his MO was simple. Take them by surprise at a carefully chosen spot that he’d decided on beforehand, fire the taser before they knew what was happening, then bang them over the head when they were down. Then instantly run away. Leaving behind no murder weapon, no witnesses, and very little — if any — forensics. So long as he chose his time and place well — and he did, you have to give him that — it was as neat, if unconventional, as you could ask for.’
‘But why? What went so wrong that he had to kill his fence? And where does that vicious slug, Kirklees, come into the picture?’ Claire demanded.
Hillary sighed. ‘Sorry, Clai
re, but at the moment, we’ve no idea. We’re going to need to go through Simon Newley’s racket with a fine-tooth comb and see if we can come up with anything. Unless we can persuade Kevin to tell us, that is,’ she added.
For a moment there was another silence as everyone debated the likelihood of that happening. Right now, DI Robin Farrell was grilling Kevin about the events of the past few hours, but none of them knew, as yet, how it was going. It made Hillary want to spit. Being shunted aside when it came to closing her own case was galling, to say the least.
It was at that moment that there came a knock on the door. Rollo Sale called out for whoever it was to come in, and a constable stuck his head around the door.
‘Sir! A Dr de Salle has come in, demanding to speak to DI . . . er . . . Mrs Greene,’ he said smartly.
‘Has she now,’ Rollo said dryly. ‘In that case, you’d better have her shown to an interview room then.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hillary felt her heart sink a little. Any chance that she might have of going back to her boat and having a nap was now no more than a pipe dream. On the other hand, it beat sitting around here waiting for Robin Farrell to do her job for her.
‘I can talk to her on my own, Hillary, if you’re not feeling up to it,’ Rollo offered, but Hillary was already shaking her head.
‘Believe me, sir, you don’t want to do that. She’s an odd one.’
‘You can say that again,’ Claire said with a grimace, and put a finger to her temple and made a twirling motion. It was very politically incorrect, but everybody knew what she meant.
‘All right. But I need to sit in on the interview at least,’ Rollo pointed out. He was, after all, the only one present with any official standing.
* * *
Mia de Salle looked up fiercely as Hillary walked into the room and she started to open her mouth. Then her gaze flickered towards Rollo as he appeared behind her, and her shoulders slumped a little.