“How did Ivan and Jonny know about your payments to Eddie?” Cummins asked.
Sarah laid accusing eyes on her husband. “Men talk. And not only when they’re in bed, but certainly when they’re drunk.”
Joe nodded his understanding. “How come I saw you and Ivan coming out of the Star Inn the other day looking like best friends?”
Sarah stared sourly at him. “How come I offered to sleep with you the other night?”
Joe understood at once. “Throwing him off guard. Pretending that old wounds were healed. Sarah, you would have been great working for the Allies during the war.”
“We were enjoying a little joke at Eddie’s expense,” Sarah agreed. “How we had managed to stitch him up between us. Got him to sell his pride and joy, the Land Rover, for next to nothing.”
“If all this had come off, what would Eddie have done?” Cummins asked, bringing the discussion back on track. “He might have been a hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds richer, but he’d have lost his navy pension, and he couldn’t live anywhere under his real name.”
Sarah sighed. “He may have been a drunk, but he was no fool, Chief Inspector. He knew he was on borrowed time. Cirrhosis of the liver. At best, he probably had three or four years to live. He would have moved somewhere where no one knew him, and drunk himself to death. I don’t know, and I didn’t care, as long as he was away from me and my hotel.”
“And that’s where it all went wrong, isn’t it?” Joe asked. “He changed his mind when he got here, didn’t he?”
The barest incline of her head told them Joe had hit the mark again.
“Everything was going according to plan,” she said. “He went to Jonny Irwin’s shop, picked up the fishing gear and brought it back here. Then on Friday night, after we closed up, he came to our room. He’d seen a better solution, one that was not illegal. He would stay here, we would employ him as a cook, and everything would be rosy. He was a trained chef, you know.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “He was drunk, of course. We told him, no. He wouldn’t have it. An argument developed. It got out of hand, and I hit him with a bedside lamp. He fell, hit his head on the wall and he was dead.”
Cummins shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs Pringle, but that doesn’t tally with the coroner’s report. There were traces of red paint around the wound.”
“From a fire extinguisher? Joe asked.
The Chief Inspector agreed with a surprised nod. “How did you know?”
“Saturday morning I was woken in the very early hours by a terrible argument on the floor below. That argument came to an end with a loud clang, as if someone had dropped a metallic, er, something. But it was the noise of a fire extinguisher hitting the back of Eddie Pennig’s head.” Joe gave Sarah a half-sympathetic smile. “You don’t lie very well, lady. You told me that the engineer had probably left the fire extinguisher in the back yard, yet you forgot again that I’m in the catering business too, and I know about these people. They never leave premises without cover. If your extinguisher was taken for service, they would leave a replacement. If they don’t, they leave themselves as well as you wide open to prosecution. The extinguisher was a replacement, but it was probably Billy or Kieran who left it there and forgot to bring it in.”
Kieran stepped from the bar doorway. “Tell him the truth, Mum.”
“Kieran…”
“They know it all,” Kieran argued. He rounded on Cummins and Joe. “I hit him, not Mum. We were all together in Mum’s room, the argument got out of hand. He stormed out of Mum’s room swearing he’d force her into selling the hotel, if he couldn’t have his way. I followed him, tried to talk him round, but he turned on me and pushed me away. He called dad and me some really vicious names and he cursed Mum even worse. I tried to stop him again and he hit me. I fell and bumped my head against the fire extinguisher. I just saw red, snatched the extinguisher from the wall, ran after him and hit him with it.”
Sarah sighed. “When we realised he was dead, we knew we couldn’t just carry the body out through the front door. Ivan and Kieran carried Eddie out through the window of room 102.”
“Eddie’s room,” Joe commented. “Hence the need for the ladders. But that doesn’t make sense. Eddie left his flat key on the windowsill. You’d have knocked it off.”
“I left the flat key there, Mr Murray, not Eddie,” said Kieran. “Mum said you’d want to clear his room when you learned of his death. I realised we’d need the key and I found it on his dresser. I didn’t want to take it with me because I might lose it while we were disposing of Eddie, so I left it on the windowsill thinking it wouldn’t be found.”
“And you forgot all about it when you got back.” Joe said, and Kieran nodded. “I was right about you. You’re like my nephew. Thick as a brick. Why did you need the key in the first place? Oh, I know, you needed to dig out the insurance policy.”
“Wrong, Mr Murray,” Sarah declared. “I have the insurance policies. We needed to check Eddie’s flat over to ensure that the damn fool hadn’t left any incriminating evidence in Sanford. That’s all.”
“And that was you dressed as Eddie throwing yourself in the sea off the Brigg, and you who tried mugging Brenda in Scarborough, wasn’t it, Kieran?” Joe demanded and the young man agreed. “So when you couldn’t get the key, you went to Sanford last night to burgle Eddie’s place, didn’t you?”
Again Kieran nodded.
Silence fell over the table. Cummins cleared his throat, but before he could speak, Joe got there first.
“Just one thing, Mrs Pringle. Friday night in the disco. I saw Eddie pass something to you. You told me it was the money for his packed lunch, but I’m not stupid. People don’t behave like that. People pass keys to each other under the table, like Les Tanner and Sylvia Goodson did the other day, and that’s what I think Eddie was passing to you: the key to his flat. So why –”
Sarah cut Joe off. “As detectives go, Mr Murray, you’re probably better off running a café. You notice everything, misinterpret too much and still come to the right conclusion, but for all the wrong reasons. Eddie didn’t pass me anything on Friday night. He was broke, so I passed him something: twenty pounds to pay for a few beers.”
Chapter Eighteen
Keith eased up and slipped into the nearside lane, ready to leave the motorway at the Sanford intersection. Over to the right, the dormant floodlights of the moribund Sanford Main Colliery struck into the cloudless, afternoon sky. To Joe it was a welcome home sign.
Sat behind him, Sheila skimmed the pages of a magazine while beside her, Brenda dozed. From behind him came the hum of low chatter, punctuated occasionally by raucous laughter. The Sanford 3rd Age Club winding down after another successful weekend outing.
Sheila looked up from her magazine as the bus braked. “Hadn’t you better whip round with the hat, Joe?”
He pointed to a basket on the driver’s console, to the left of the dashboard, where a small, wicker basket sat. “What century are you living in, Sheila? People drop coins in as they get off these days.”
“Then remind them, Joe. And they should be dropping paper in, not coins. These drivers serve us well all weekend.”
“Ask ’em to put paper in, and that’s just what they’ll do,” Joe grumbled as he took the microphone from her. “Old raffle tickets, till receipts, anything.” He switched the microphone on and blew into it to ensure it was working. “Okay, folks, about five minutes now, and we’re back at the Miner’s Arms. Can I just remind everybody that the weekly disco will be on Thursday this week instead of Wednesday. It gives you all an extra day to get over the excitement of Filey.”
His announcement was greeted by a few laughs.
“I’m sure you all want to show your appreciation for Keith as you get off the bus, and there’s a basket where you can drop him a few quid. We all know our driver. He’s a bit choosy. He can’t spend old menu cards or cardboard library tickets. Coins and notes only. And no foreign coins, either. Hope you all enjoyed your wee
kend and we’ll post notices on the website when we have the next one arranged. Thanks everyone.”
He received a smattering of applause, some of it sarcastic for his announcement.
“Well done, Joe,” Sheila said as Brenda stirred beside her. “We’ll make a human being of you yet.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it.”
Gazing beyond Keith, Joe watched as Sanford town centre grew large in the windscreen.
“Been a funny old weekend.”
“It’s been absolutely crazy,” Brenda said with a yawn. “And you, Joe, scoring with Sarah Pringle.”
He sneered. “I did not ‘score’ with her, as you put it. In fact, it was her interest in me that made me suspicious in the first place. I’m not totally gormless. I know I’m no catch for any woman; especially one so vain she’ll wear a wig to cover the grey hair. I told her, James Bond, I’m not. I’m 55 years old and I stand five feet six, not six feet five.”
“You’d make some woman a good husband, Joe,” Sheila said.
“If you ever learned to open your wallet,” Brenda agreed.
Sheila, too, stared sadly through the windows. “That poor woman.” She looked from Joe to Brenda and back again. “Sarah Pringle, I mean.”
Joe spluttered. “What? What about Knickers-off? What about Eddie Dobson?”
“Eddie Pennig.” Sheila corrected him. “Yes, Joe, it’s tragic, particularly for Nicola. Eddie was to be pitied, but so too was Sarah Pringle, and her husband and son. They never set out kill Eddie and he never set out kill Nicola. They were simply trying to protect their interests. It just goes to show you how sour things can turn when relationships go wrong.”
“It may have escaped your attention,” Joe said as the coach turned right onto the broad, dual carriageway of Doncaster Road, “but they all set out to fiddle Eddie’s insurance company out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. That cost Nicola her life. Eddie too. And if they’d got away with it, who pays? Honest businessmen like me. My insurance rates go through the roof when people like them take the companies to the cleaners.”
Brenda pointed through the right hand window. “Right now, Joe, I think it’s your nephew who’s putting up your insurance rates.”
Joe’s head snapped to the right. Across the road, the door of the Lazy Luncheonette was still open, and he could see his nephew, Lee, clearly visible through the large windows, shovelling broken crockery into a black bin bag.
“Stop, stop,” Joe urged Keith. “Let me off here.”
The bus came to a halt and Joe hurried down the steps, onto the pavement. “I’ll catch you all later,” he shouted and hurried towards the rear of the coach and out of sight.
“What about his bags?” Sheila asked as Keith closed the door and pulled away again.
“We can take them in tomorrow morning,” Brenda said with a grin. “If Lee’s smashed that many plates, Joe won’t even notice his suitcase is missing.”
THE END
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