by Faith Martin
‘Never mind, forget that,’ he corrected himself testily, waving an impatient hand in the air. ‘Just tell me exactly what you’ve been up to whilst my back’s been turned,’ he gritted, ‘and don’t leave anything out, no matter how insignificant.’
Trudy took a deep breath and filled him in. As ordered, she went into close detail on all the interviews, as well as the conclusions that she and Dr Ryder had drawn from the facts they’d unearthed so far. She couldn’t tell if he was pleased by their thoroughness or not, but as she talked, his face certainly grew darker and grimmer. When she’d finally finished, he sat in silence for a moment or two and then drew in a slow breath and let it out again.
She’d made it clear that both she and Dr Ryder believed that something untoward had happened at Millie Vander’s New Year’s Eve party, and that everyone’s original assumption that Terrence Parker’s death was the result of an unfortunate accident due to bad weather conditions was now in serious doubt. But whether or not her superior officer agreed with her, she was about to find out.
Inspector Jennings watched her sardonically. He saw a young police officer tensed for a well-deserved rollicking, and for a moment he was seriously tempted to just let rip. But he was tired, stressed out with the weather, overworked, and, most of all, mindful that Dr Clement Ryder had a lot of friends in high places. Even this lowly WPC had her admirers now among some of the senior echelons.
There was no denying she and the old vulture had pulled a few rabbits out of the hat over the past two years or so, and who was to say this wasn’t another bunny to add to the collection? And if they had uncovered something sinister, he’d look a right fool if he didn’t handle it properly.
So he simply sighed, swallowed his anger and weariness, and sorted out what needed doing. ‘As I understand it, the autopsy on Parker is being performed even as we speak,’ he began heavily, glancing at his watch.
When he’d found the report (after having patiently worked his way through the pile of paperwork that had somehow accumulated on top of it!), the first thing he’d done was phone Dr Douglas Carey to confirm his findings and ask when the post-mortem on Mr Parker was due.
His phone call, it turned out, had been very well timed, since the doctor himself had just been on his way out the door to start that very procedure. Jennings had also extracted a promise from him that once that was done, he’d call the police station and give a preliminary verbal report, so he wouldn’t have to wait for the paperwork to come through. Because who knew how long that would take?
‘Once we’ve got the results of the post-mortem, we’ll be in a better position to know what’s what,’ he informed Trudy. ‘And if we are looking at a suspicious death – and the way things are shaping up, I think that’s a high possibility,’ he grudgingly admitted, ‘then we’ll have to open a more robust and official investigation. I’ll assign Sergeant O’Grady to head it. He’s still feeling a bit ropey from his bout of illness but he rang to say he’d be back in the office today. Since the blasted weathermen are saying there’s going to be no let-up in sight from all this snow, and we’re still having trouble getting staff into the city, he’s just going to have to bite the bullet and take it on.’
He sighed heavily.
Trudy, at this litany of woe, felt the first blossoming of hope flutter in her chest.
Jennings, sensing it, scowled at her, but without any real venom. She had ambition, this one, which wasn’t a bad thing in an officer, he supposed. ‘Since you’ve got the best grasp of this case, you can work under the sergeant from now on, keeping him firmly in the frame, understand?’
‘Yes, sir!’ Trudy said smartly.
‘Be his right-hand man whilst he’s not at his best,’ the inspector ploughed on grimly. ‘You’ll have to work hard, since I don’t know how many other officers I can spare for this investigation.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Trudy said happily.
Looking at her glowing, happy face, Harry Jennings tried to remember the last time he’d felt so keen and eager to do his job. And couldn’t. It made him feel vaguely depressed.
‘I take it you and the old … Dr Ryder have plans for today?’ he swept on.
‘Yes, sir. And I’m sure Dr Ryder will be happy to continue to help us out,’ she said daringly, ‘especially since he knows how stretched we are.’
Jennings sighed heavily as he contemplated the old vulture’s glee on hearing that he was going to be allowed to continue to poke his nose in police business. ‘No doubt he’s feeling very dutiful and patriotic,’ he grunted bitterly. ‘All right. I’ll fill in Sergeant O’Grady when he comes in, and give him time to sort things out. In the meantime, until he’s ready to start assigning you duties, you can carry on with what you’re doing. By the end of the day we should have something organised so that you can report to the sergeant from now on. And you report instantly any significant findings you might come across today, understand?’ He jabbed a pointed finger adamantly in her direction. ‘So far, this had all been so much speculation and theory and flim-flam.’ He indicated her reports with a derogatory wave of his hand. ‘From now on, we do it by the book. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir!’ Trudy agreed. She didn’t care that soon Sergeant O’Grady would be taking over, because she’d finally been assigned a significant and official role in a police murder investigation! And wouldn’t it be great if she could just get a break and lay something significant and worthwhile before the sergeant that would really make him sit up and take notice?
But, she thought with a small dip in her spirits, realistically, that seemed unlikely. They’d been working for days now and they couldn’t really claim to have even a prime suspect. And what, really, could she expect would happen in just the next nine hours or so?
*
Clement was philosophical about having their case subsumed when Trudy called at his house half an hour later. After all, they still had a toe in the water, didn’t they? He instantly invited her to share breakfast with himself and Vincent, who obligingly popped some extra bread into the toaster and put on another egg to boil.
As he set about making another pot of tea, Vincent watched Trudy covertly. He’d approached his father about Duncan Gillingham last night, and hadn’t much liked what he’d heard. Especially when his father had explained how the reporter had helped rescue Trudy and himself from a potentially very nasty situation during their last case. Naturally, the reporter had got a very good story out of it, even earning himself an award! Vincent had, however, been very heartened to hear that in spite of the good-looking reporter’s slightly spurious heroics, Trudy Loveday was sensible enough to want to have nothing to do with him.
Now he watched her and his father happily and eagerly discussing their plans for that day with a growing sense of anticipation of his own. Even though he’d only been on the fringe of the case for barely a day, he could already see why his father was so energised. This sleuthing business really was addictive.
His ears pricked up when he heard his own name mentioned, but he felt a little deflated when he realised that he was still stuck with library duties.
He’d been hoping he could spend the day with Trudy.
*
Patsy Arles was feeling more and more desperate. Ever since the accident, and the subsequent visit of Jasper and Juliet Vander to her house, her nerves had begun to stretch tighter and tighter.
What had once seemed such a great and fantastically sophisticated adventure had now taken on the aspect of a nightmare.
Although Juliet had said that the trick they intended to play on Terrence Parker was something that he’d thoroughly deserved, how could she be so sure now that that was even true? She’d felt the tension in the air that night they’d come to her and told her to keep quiet about things, which meant they were nervous and unsure, and that, as much as anything, had really spooked her.
Juliet and Jasper had always been a law unto themselves. Superbly self-confident and untouchable, they’d struck her as beings who lived on
a different plane to other, lesser mortals such as herself, and to see them acting almost, well, scared had jarred her.
And the fact that even they were rattled was frightening her most of all, because everyone knew how scary Jasper could be when he was crossed or felt under attack. Hadn’t he got poor Lionel Willis expelled from school that time Lionel had dared beat him at that silly old cricket match? Everyone knew Jasper got up to all sorts of things, but the teachers couldn’t touch him. He was far too clever for them, and everyone was too scared of him to snitch on him. All her friends at school had fancied him rotten, whilst at the same time being terrified by his bad-boy reputation.
And Juliet, Patsy knew, was no less intimidating. Whilst being utterly fabulous and beautiful and chic and witty, she could be as dangerous as a viper.
And why had they given her all that money? If the trick they’d planned to play on Terry James was so harmless, why all this concern that she didn’t talk to the police investigating the accident?
Patsy was not so gullible that she hadn’t learned, in this life, that when things went wrong, it wasn’t the well-heeled and well-connected people like the Vanders who ended up paying the price, but those much further down the food chain. In this case, one Patsy Arles!
Once again, Jasper and Juliet had cleverly arranged things so that if anything went wrong, they could deny any wrongdoing – a typical trademark of theirs.
For when all was said and done, it was she who’d driven off into the night with Terry Parker – not Juliet. It was she who’d been in the car when he’d slumped over the wheel and drove them into a snow ditch – not Jasper. It was she who’d run off into the night, failing to report it – not Mrs Millicent Vander.
And she’d read the piece in the papers, saying that the police were still investigating the crash, and asking for people with knowledge about it to come forward. Was she breaking the law in not saying anything? She’d been to the pictures once, when one of the leading ladies had been arrested for being an accessory after the fact, or some such thing.
What if they came for her? What if she was arrested? Her mother would be … But here, Patsy’s imagination failed her for once. She was simply unable to imagine the shame and scandal.
Which was why, over the last thirty-six hours or so, her nerves had gradually stretched and expanded to breaking point. She’d now reached the point where she simply couldn’t stand it any longer.
What if, even now, the twins were already telling the police lies about her? Covering their tracks and dropping her right in it, as was their wont? She’d have no chance to defend herself! Who would the police believe, after all? The oh-so-respectable Vanders, or a nobody like herself?
Surely it was far better that she looked out for herself and got her version of events in first. So it was that she slipped out of the house early that morning, taking a copy of the Oxford Tribune with her, and walked to the nearest phone box.
There she called the number given out by Duncan Gillingham and asked to speak to WPC Trudy Loveday. The very act of finally doing something to relieve the pressure she’d been living under made her lean against the icy glass of the phone booth in weak-kneed relief.
She almost cried in frustration when she was informed that WPC Loveday was unavailable. She’d worked herself up to the point of confession, and now there was no relief in sight after all.
Nevertheless, she managed to hold it together long enough to leave a message.
‘My name is Patsy Arles.’ She recited her address quickly, and in a rush, before her courage could desert her, said quickly, ‘Can you asked WPC Loveday to call on me as soon as she can? I have information about that man who died in a car crash on New Year’s Eve.’
She hung up before the police operative on the other end could ask for more details.
*
If Juliet and Jasper Vander had been aware of what she was doing, then Patsy Arles would indeed have every reason to be even more afraid than she already was. But right then, they had other fish to fry. And the name of this particular piscine individual was Phyllis Raynor – although they only knew her as ‘Irene’.
They’d had enough presence of mind last night to scramble into their outdoor clothes and follow her back to a B&B a half-mile or so away, so they knew where she was based. And then they’d spent most of the night discussing their options.
It was truly sickening, they’d both agreed indignantly, to have one threat to their pampered lifestyle eliminated, only to have another raise its ugly head just days later.
‘It’s typical of that gold-digging, low-class pig to still be causing us trouble even after he’s dead,’ Juliet had raged, pacing up and down her room, fulminating with rage. ‘Now his dirty little lowlife wife – of all things – is trying to get her grubby hands on our inheritance. I won’t tolerate it, Jasper, I simply won’t,’ she’d all but shouted at her twin.
Not that Jasper was arguing with her. If anything, he was even more beside himself with rage than his sister.
Eventually they’d calmed down and agreed that they needed to tackle the situation head on. They couldn’t rely on their mother not to lose her head entirely, and actually start paying the woman. They were both aware of how much Millie liked being queen bee in her own social set, which had, hitherto, always been a cause of merriment between them. But now it was no laughing matter. The idea that she might be exposed as having nearly committed bigamy with a low-class con man would be unthinkable for her – and she’d almost certainly end up doing anything to avoid it.
And once she started paying, the blackmailing bitch would never let up, Jasper and Juliet had both agreed. Which meant they had no choice but to nip the matter in the bud, before their mother made the first payment.
It was fortunate that their unwanted visitor had given Millie until tomorrow to think things through. No doubt she’d wanted to give her victim time to stew and get more and more anxious about the cringe-making consequences of being made a public laughing stock. It made good psychological sense, the twins had grudgingly admitted, but luckily for them, it also gave them enough time to do something about it.
And the only action they could take right now, they’d concluded after hours of debate, was to be fast and brutal. Given time, they might have come up with a more refined and subtle plan – as they had for dealing with Terry Parker – but time was a luxury they didn’t have on this occasion.
As Jasper had said, the only thing they could do was make it clear to the gate-crasher that Millie Vander wouldn’t be the easy mark she thought. And that blackmailers could themselves become very vulnerable to retaliation.
So now, as they approached the Raven’s Rest, they were both roiling with a dangerous mixture of fear and rage.
‘Remember, we’ve got to put the fear of the devil into her,’ Juliet hissed to Jasper as they approached the front door of the respectable former Victorian villa.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Jasper snarled. ‘I’ll be happy to actually throttle the cow!’
Chapter 27
As the twins enquired about their mother’s ‘friend’ and described her to the landlady (apparently having foolishly forgotten her surname,) Geoffrey Thorpe was also on a mission.
He arrived at the police impound yard with an expression of outward calm, but feeling truly sick inside.
The yard, where the police regularly housed stolen and recovered cars and motorbikes, or where lorries and other vehicles had, for various reasons, been taken out of the hands of their owners and searched, was practically deserted.
This didn’t surprise Geoffrey. In fact, he was counting on it. What with most roads still being all but impassable, the impound yard was hardly doing a roaring business. No lorries carrying contraband cigarettes or alcohol were likely to be out and about on their nefarious business these days, when the chances were very high they might get stuck in a snowdrift.
He approached the main wooden double gate, which was firmly closed but thankfully not padlocked, and with a l
ittle difficulty managed to get it open far enough to be able to slip through. Even this simple act was hard, given the weight of the snow lying across the entrance, impeding the movement of the doors.
Inside, he could see the impound yard was protected on all sides by ten-feet-high chain-link fencing, and that a small portable cabin, which had probably once been used by the military in the last war, had been bought in and put to use as an ‘office’.
Set in one back corner, the flat felt-top roof was looking a little precarious under its layer of thick snow, and the wooden steps leading up to the front door looked as if they might have begun to sag long before the bad weather had hit.
He glanced at it quickly, but could see no movement behind the two square windows that sat either side of the central door.
A quick look around revealed that the yard was only half-full. A Foden lorry stood closest to him, its massive tyres sunk in accumulated snow, and he walked quickly towards it before slipping behind it out of sight. His heart racing, he glanced around, seeking out the Riley that he knew Terry had been driving the night he was killed.
He couldn’t see it at first, but then all of the cars and vans were blanketed in a thick layer of snow, disguising their colour and shape somewhat.
Crouching down, he dodged from car to car, seeking the colour and number plate he was looking for. He found it eventually, on the far left-hand side of the lot, and his heart lifted. It couldn’t have been better placed, he realised with a quick lift of his heart, being furthest from the office, and at a kitty-corner to the cabin. This meant that anyone who happened to be in the office would be unlikely to crane their neck so far around that they’d see him, if they just happened to be walking past the window.
He reached into his pocket for the set of master keys he had taken from the office – and which could be used on almost any make of car they sold – and began searching for the right one that would fit the Riley.