A Racing Murder (The Ham Hill Murder Mysteries)

by Frances Evesham

  ‘I agree,’ Dan said. ‘I’m wondering if there's a bullying problem in the yard. It could be Pat upsetting the women, perhaps. Callum might have been telling the truth but I wonder what Belinda’s tears were really about. By the way, I think I left that photo at the yard. I can’t find it in my pocket. Do you think it matters?’

  Imogen laughed. ‘Not really. It’s not as though we were going to tell tales to Leo.’

  The earlier tension between them had lifted, and they turned to more personal matters, easier to broach in this quiet pub, tucked away several miles from The Streamside and The Plough. It was good to be free from the ever-watchful eyes of Lower Hembrow. There was only one other couple here, seated on the other side of the room, and neither Imogen nor Dan knew them.

  As they tucked into gammon and pineapple, they caught up on their life stories. Imogen knew Dan had an ex-wife and son, but he rarely mentioned them. ’Tell me about Pierre,’ she said. ‘Does he ever come to England?’

  Dan shifted in his chair. ‘Hardly ever. I used to get over to France two or three times a year to see him, but I haven’t been for the past year. He’ll be starting university in Paris soon.’

  ‘Why don't you ask him to come over and stay with you?’ Imogen asked.

  Dan thought about that for a long time. ‘Not sure he'd want to do that. We didn't part on good terms last time we met. I'm afraid I was a thoroughly bad husband and father. Too self-centred, and, as you’ve seen, too wrapped up in my painting.’

  ‘I'm sure he understands now he's grown up. Is he artistic, too?’

  ‘He's keen on photography. Talented, I think, and he writes as well. He’s planning to study psychology. He's a little like you. He understands people.’

  Imogen's heart lifted at the unexpected compliment. ‘You could ask him to come for the summer. Though the weather won’t be quite up to South of France standards.’

  By the time the meal ended, Imogen felt as warm and happy as if she'd drunk several glasses of champagne, although she’d swallowed no more than a single small glass of wine.

  Dan drove them back to the studio, and Imogen’s car. She wondered how the evening would end. What did she want from it? Coffee, of course. Wine, perhaps, and then what? If she drank more wine she wouldn't be able to drive home.

  She sat back, enjoying the ride through the night, the sky clear and speckled with stars. Her thoughts were hopelessly muddled. Did she want to stay with Dan, or keep him at arm's length? She breathed in the citrus smell of his aftershave and her heart accelerated.

  They rounded the last muddy corner and parked by the donkey field. She followed Dan to the door of the studio.

  He stopped. ‘That's funny.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The door’s not shut.’

  ‘It must be,’ she said. She thought back to when they'd left the studio. She could remember Dan locking the door and dropping his keys in his pocket.

  Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Someone's been here,’ she hissed in his ear.

  ‘Go back to the car,’ he said.

  She ignored that. ‘Call the police,’ she whispered.

  He shook his head and pushed the door gently with his elbow. Silently, it swung inwards. He took a step across the threshold and flicked on the light switch.

  Imogen gasped. The room was a wreck. Pictures lay higgledy-piggledy on the floor, an easel had fallen on its side and the drawers of a cabinet had been pulled wide open and left hanging, their contents in a mess of paper on the floor.

  Imogen bit her lip. Dan stood stock-still, shocked. She couldn’t even hear him breathe. ‘We definitely need the police.’ She dialled 999.

  Dan started to gather up the paintings from the floor as she talked.

  As she finished the call, Imogen laid a hand on his wrist. ‘Don't touch anything.’

  ‘Are the police on the way?’ Dan asked. His voice sounded odd, strangled.

  ‘I'm afraid not. They said if the burglars aren’t here any more, they’ll leave it till the morning. They said we should try not to touch things.’

  Dan swore once, sharply.

  Imogen moved her hand to his shoulder. ‘They’ll come tomorrow. They said there's been a whole series of burglaries in South Somerset.’

  She felt helpless. Dan’s face was ashen. In two long strides he crossed the room and lifted a canvas that lay, face down, on the floor. The oil paint had been wet and it was smeared across the floor.

  ‘Do you keep money in here?’ Imogen asked. He shook his head. ‘I don’t have a safe, or anything. I don’t own anything of great value.’ He gasped. ‘Except my laptop, of course.’

  Imogen followed his gaze to the table. The laptop had been perched at one end.

  It had gone.

  ‘What about the rest of the house?‘ Imogen murmured.

  Dan gave a sudden exclamation. ‘The bicycle.’

  ‘What bicycle?’ asked Imogen.

  Dan said, ‘I saw it. On the way in, when the light came on. It didn’t register, but Mrs Hammond rides a bike when she comes to clean. It must be hers.’

  He was already on his way out of the door, into the darkness. The single bulb near the front door came on, as it had done when they arrived. She’d barely noticed it then. A movement sensor must turn it on.

  In the sudden blaze of light, she could see the bicycle, leaning up against the wall of the studio.

  ‘Why’s it still here?’ Dan murmured.

  Imogen swallowed. ‘Your Mrs Hammond.’ She followed him back into the house. ‘She must be here as well.’

  Imogen felt the dull ache of dread in her stomach as she followed Dan out of the studio, through a hall into the kitchen, which was part of the large open-plan area forming much of the barn conversion.

  The room was empty.

  ‘I’ll try the bedroom.’

  He opened the door on the other side of the living area. Imogen had an impression of a very masculine room, with a black-and-white quilt, dark furniture, and sheepskin rugs on the floor. She looked under the bed as Dan jerked open the wardrobe and thrust aside the clothes hanging inside.

  Imogen opened the door that led from the bedroom into a bathroom. ‘Where on earth can she be?’ The knot of anxiety grew tighter. ‘Maybe she walked home?’

  ‘Not likely,’ Dan said. ‘She lives in the next village. It’s too far for her to walk. She’s over seventy.’

  Imogen swallowed. ‘Maybe someone came and collected her in a car? Someone from her family?’

  ‘She's a widow, but she lives with her brother, I think.’

  ‘Have you got his number?’

  He shook his head. ‘But I've got hers, of course.’

  He pulled out his phone and jabbed at the buttons.

  As they listened, Mrs Hammond’s phone rang and rang, finally switching to voicemail. ‘Sorry, I'm not available at the moment. But, do leave a message.’ The voice was rural and friendly, and Imogen imagined a rosy-cheeked, cheerful elderly lady, happy to make a few pounds with a spot of light cleaning in an artist’s house.

  Dan said, ‘We’re going to have to call the police again.’

  ‘Wait. What's that?’ Imogen had heard something. A sound, far away,

  Dan's eyes met hers. They each held their breath and listened.

  ‘Outside.’ Dan ran back into the living area, and out through a door that led to the back garden. It was dark on this side of the house, with no outside light.

  Imogen switched on the light on her phone and waved it in an arc. ‘There she is,’ she shouted, but Dan was already running along the gravel path that led along the wall of the house.

  Mrs Hammond was trying to struggle to her feet, half leaning against the wall. ‘Help me up, my dear.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  She put a hand up to her head. When she brought it down Imogen saw blood.

  ‘Someone hit me,’ Mrs Hammond said, in a surprised voice.

  She made it to her feet, leaning on Dan. ‘Take it e
asy,’ he said.

  ‘I’m quite all right,’ she insisted.

  Imogen rang for an ambulance, insisted on talking to the police and made sure they were on their way. Breaking and entering had turned into assault, or even grievous bodily harm, and there was no question of waiting until the next day.

  Dan helped Mrs Hammond inside. She was still protesting, ‘It’s just a little bump, nothing to worry about. I don’t need an ambulance.’

  Dan lowered her gently onto the sofa. ‘Now, Dan,’ she said. ‘I'll get blood all over your lovely white sofa.’

  ‘I don't care about that. Can you remember what happened?’

  He looked at Imogen. ‘Should we give her something to drink?’

  Imogen shook her head. ‘I don't think so. We should wait for the ambulance.’

  Mrs Hammond was feeling carefully around the back of her head. ‘Not much damage done,’ she said. ‘It knocked me out for a few minutes, but there's only a bit of a bump there now. I don't even think it's bleeding any more.’

  ‘We'll let the paramedics decide,’ Dan said.

  Mrs Hammond said, ‘You asked me what happened, my dear, but I can't really remember much of it. See, I came over on my bike, like I always do.’ Her eyes were half shut as she remembered. For an elderly lady, Imogen thought, she was remarkably calm.

  ‘Then, I opened up the door at the front – the one that goes into your studio, dear, and walked through into the kitchen. I was just filling my bucket with a bit of Flash and some hot water, when I heard a noise, back in the studio.

  ‘At first, I thought it was you, popped back to get something.’ She smiled, rather weakly, at Imogen. ‘He's always forgetting things, I expect you've noticed.’

  Imogen laughed aloud. This lady was a tough old bird.

  Mrs Hammond went on, ‘Well, I was on my way to the studio when I thought about my brother, Pete. You see, Pete tells me I'm too impatient. “Think before you act, Lily,” he always says. So I stopped and thought, and I could hear this banging and crashing in the studio. I thought, that's not Dan. If it was, he'd come and say hello to me. Very polite, is Dan,’ she said to Imogen, with a watery smile.

  ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘instead of going back into the studio, I went out through the doors into the garden. It was dark, so I crept along beside the house. I thought I’d take a look through the studio windows. See what was going on.’

  She shook her head at Imogen. ‘How he manages with bare windows and no curtains or blinds, I don't know. It would give me the chills, it would. But there, we’re not all made the same, are we, and Dan is an artist after all.’ She said the word ‘artist’ in the same hushed tone of voice she might use to say ‘the Queen’.

  ‘Anyway, I'd just about got to the window when something hit me on the back of the head. And that's all I remember, until I heard you shouting my name just now.’

  Dan’s face was ashen. ‘If I get my hands on whoever did this, they'll be sorry…’

  A hammering on the door heralded the arrival of a pair of paramedics in an ambulance and in the blink of an eye, the room was the centre of action, as one sat beside Mrs Hammond on the sofa and asked gentle questions, while another pulled out equipment from a case, taking her blood pressure, oxygen levels and temperature and peering into her eyes and ears, all the time chatting in a quiet voice as though this was the most ordinary situation in the world with no need to worry at all.

  By the time the police arrived, Mrs Hammond was lying in the ambulance, still insisting there was nothing wrong with her apart from a ‘little knock on my head’, and that she really would rather go home.

  The police took a short statement from her, along with one from Dan and another from Imogen. ‘I'm afraid this is a crime scene, now,’ they pointed out. ‘Is there somewhere you can stay?’

  ‘Come back to the hotel,’ Imogen suggested.

  One of the policemen, an older man with a haircut that, long on top and shaved at the sides, would have looked silly even on a man of half his age, peered closely at her, tapping his teeth with a pen. ‘I recognise you, ma'am. Mrs Bishop, isn’t it?’ He glowed with self-congratulation. ‘Trouble seems to follow you around.’

  Imogen bit back a retort. It seemed she’d never escape the fallout from her husband’s murder.

  As Dan was now shut out of his home, which seethed with forensic investigators, yellow tape, white suits and gloves, she drove back to the hotel, Dan at her side.

  ‘Finding poor Mrs Hammond like that put everything else out of my head,’ she said. ‘but I wonder what the burglar was after.’

  ‘It's very odd,’ Dan agreed. ‘Why would they attack an old woman, just for a laptop? It’s not as though there are any secrets on the machine.’

  Imogen shivered and gripped the wheel tighter. ‘What if you'd been at home?’ she said.

  He half-turned in the passenger seat. ‘I’d fight them off, of course.’

  She scoffed. ‘A likely story.’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘I’d rather the burglar attacked me than Mrs Hammond, poor soul. I feel terrible about her. I hope she’ll be all right.’

  ‘At least she’s in good hands, and safe in hospital.’

  They drove on in silence, both lost in thought.

  At last, Imogen said, ‘Do you think this has anything to do with Alex Deacon's murder?’

  ‘That’s what I’m wondering,’ he said. ‘But I can't see any connection. I’m inclined to think my place is just a gift to burglars, stuck out in the middle of nowhere. I’ve been meaning to get an alarm, but I hadn’t got round to it. Maybe they saw my car was gone and tried their luck.’

  ‘But my car was parked there. I don’t think it was just a spur-of-the-moment burglary. I think you were deliberately targeted.’

  ‘But, why?’

  ‘That’s the big question. What do you have on that computer? And, why did they ransack your studio but not the rest of the house? I think your burglar knew exactly what he was looking for.’

  ‘But I can’t imagine what it was.’

  They drove into the village and parked at the hotel. Dan said, ‘If this burglary is linked to Alex’s death, things are getting even more serious, and maybe DCI Andrews’ misgivings are right and she really was murdered.’

  ‘I think,’ Imogen said, ‘we need to talk to Adam as soon as possible. He’s the one with experience. The rest of us, you, me and Steph – we’re just amateurs bumbling about. We might be making matters worse.’

  There was silence in the car. Then Dan heaved a sigh. ‘You’re right, of course.’ A note of sarcasm crept into his voice. ‘Let’s ask the expert – though, don’t forget, he took early retirement after a disastrous case. Maybe he’s not the investigative genius everyone imagines.’

  And with that, he elbowed the car door open and they made their way into the hotel. Imogen, unsettled by Dan’s display of antagonism toward Adam, booked him into an empty room, on a different floor, well away from her own private rooms.

  23

  New Plans

  At eleven o'clock the next morning, Adam, Steph and Dan congregated in the Hawthorn Room, summoned by an anxious Imogen for an urgent conference.

  Steph's eyes were like dark pools of horror. ‘You mean,’ she said to Dan, ‘someone broke into your studio, stole your laptop, and attacked your cleaning lady? They mean business, don't they?’

  Adam said, ‘Alex Deacon's murder and Dan's burglary may be entirely unconnected, but we can’t assume that. Someone is willing to stop at nothing, and that includes beating up an old lady.’

  Imogen nodded, thoughtfully. ‘Do we know any more about the syndicate?’

  Adam said. ‘So far, I haven’t managed to winkle out any motives for them, and it seems to me this case is all about motive. Alex’s murder – I’m willing to call it that now – seems unplanned. There were plenty of people – jockeys, stable hands, trainers, owners – all of whom had the opportunity to drown her in the trough, but it would be almost impossible
for them to know when she would be unobserved. Whoever killed her seems to have acted impulsively when they found her alone. I wondered whether the drugs in her system were part of a murder set-up, but that doesn’t make sense. Giving her a dose of coke wouldn’t guarantee she’d fall into a water trough. It’s too long a shot. No, she had a circle of young friends, any one of whom might share drugs with her. There’s no evidence of anything sinister, like date-rape drugs – the cocaine in her system was probably taken after the race. While she was celebrating, I suppose.’

  He shook his head. ‘But I’d like to hear more about Laura Collins’s father’s sudden death.’

  Steph gasped. ‘Surely you don't think that has anything to do with this business? He was an elderly man, a farmer. He’d been fit all his life, and wouldn’t accept he was getting frail. He probably pushed himself far too hard and his heart gave out. It happens all the time. What do you think, Imogen?’

  Imogen traced patterns on the table with her finger. ‘On the face of it, there's nothing suspicious about his death. He'd been up all night, lambing. As you say, he was in his eighties, and his wife said he’d suffered from heart problems for several years. The heart attack – and it seems likely that’s what killed him – was going to happen one day. If so, the only suspicious element is the timing, because it happened so soon after Alex died.’

  Dan said, ‘We need to be sure of the cause of death.’

  Adam grunted. ‘That’s not too easy. I'll call James, but the chances are Ed Collins won't have had an autopsy. If he'd seen his doctor recently and had a diagnosed condition the police wouldn’t think it necessary. Budgets are too limited.’

  Disappointed, they sat in silence for a while.

  Imogen said, ‘Maybe we ought to concentrate on Dan's laptop. It was the only thing the burglar took. What did it have on it, Dan?’

  He shrugged. ‘Correspondence and social media stuff, of course; emails, Facebook, Twitter and so on. A few saved contracts for painting commissions. Photos, plenty of music and e-books which I can access on another device, so they’re not lost. In fact, I can retrieve most things on my phone, which wasn't stolen. I had it in my pocket.’