Murder at the Old Abbey

by Pippa McCathie

  It was a long time before she managed to sleep again.

  * * *

  In the morning, the nightmare lingered in Fabia’s mind, she couldn’t shake it off. The first thing she did was to read through the notes she’d made in the middle of the night. She wasn’t as sure of her suspicions now as she had been, but she still wanted to speak to Matt as soon as possible. She tried his mobile but got no response – he had probably let the battery run down again – so she plucked up her courage and phoned police headquarters. Usually she avoided doing so if she possibly could, there were still people who thought of her as someone who’d left the force under a cloud and that made her angry. Resentment at the injustice of it all still lingered.

  There was no need to look up the number, she knew it by heart. She tapped it out and listened to the messages that told her all calls would be recorded, etc. Finally, she got through to a human being. Taking a deep breath, she said firmly, “Could you put me through to Chief Inspector Lambert please?”

  “Can I say who’s calling?”

  “Fabia Havard.”

  There was a small pause, then the voice said, “Of course, Superintendent Havard, I’ll find out if he’s available.”

  Fabia was taken aback. That was not the reaction she’d expected. “Not superintendent anymore, I’m afraid. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Oh, we’ve not met, I’ve just read– sorry, ma’am. I’ll put you through.”

  For some reason Fabia felt cheered by this interchange, until she heard the curt, “Chief Inspector Lambert,” when Matt picked up.

  Oh dear, she thought, he sounds stressed. She hoped he wasn’t going to be difficult. She reminded herself that she was the one doing him a favour.

  “Matt, it’s Fabia.”

  “Hallo.” At least he sounded pleased to hear her voice. “How are you this morning?”

  “I’m okay, worried about the Prices, obviously,” she rushed on, “but anyway, I wouldn’t normally phone you on the landline, but I had no luck with your mobile.”

  “Oh lord. I should have put it on charge first thing. I’ll do it now.”

  A moment later he was back with her. “Have you had time to do those notes?”

  “I have, they’re on my laptop.” She desperately wanted to ask him about Garan but was afraid she’d be snubbed if she did. “The thing is, Anjali’s going up to London. I’m taking her to the station to catch the 10.30. What I thought was, I could bring my laptop with me and pop into your office – if you think that would be a good idea.” She was annoyed with herself for sounding hesitant.

  “Let me just check what Dilys has got lined up.”

  Fabia could hear a muttered conversation in the background. He was back within a couple of minutes.

  “That’ll be fine. Why don’t you come into the office immediately after you’ve dropped her off and we can go through your notes?”

  “Okay, I’ll– I’ll see you in about an hour.”

  Fabia ended the call and sat for a minute, her teeth gripping her lower lip. This would be the first time she’d been back to the building that had once been such a large part of her life. It was hard to believe that, in spite of being so closely involved in Matt’s work six months ago and, once again, in the last couple of weeks, she hadn’t set foot in the place for nearly three years. She took a deep breath. Onward and upward, she told herself, a phrase her father had used whenever life presented him with obstacles.

  * * *

  Having dropped Anjali off, Fabia made her way along the familiar route to police headquarters. She had to make herself relax her hands on the steering wheel. “Stop being such a coward,” she muttered, “pull yourself together.” She made her way into the building and gave her name. There was no reaction from the officer on the desk and she was shocked by the wave of relief she felt about this.

  Matt came down to greet her in reception and led her upstairs. As they made their way through the main office, Fabia was conscious of curious glances from people craning round their computer screens to have a look. Some she recognised, but many she didn’t. Dilys got up from her desk to greet her. “Hallo,” she said, sounding slightly awkward and Fabia wondered if Dilys disapproved of her presence.

  “Do you want me to get some coffee for you, sir?” Dilys asked Matt.

  “Ask Simon to get it,” he said, referring to one of the clerical assistants.

  “No worries, he’s busy, I’ll do it,” said Dilys.

  “Thanks, that’d be good.”

  “How do you like yours, Fabia?”

  “White, no sugar please.”

  Matt ushered Fabia to a chair and, as she sat down, Fabia said, “I don’t think Dilys approves of me coming to see you here.”

  “Why would you think that?” Matt asked, frowning.

  “I don’t know. I just got the impression she’s not happy about it.”

  “I think you’re being oversensitive. It’s more likely that she’s worried for you. She knows it’s the first time you’ve been here since you left.”

  “Oh, maybe that’s it,” Fabia said, feeling a bit of a fool.

  “For goodness sake, Fabia, stop worrying. She’s a great fan of yours, you know?” He sounded irritated.

  She wanted to ask him how he knew that, but she didn’t pursue it. It would seem so self-obsessed.

  “Anyway,” Matt said, sitting forward in his chair, business-like now, “what have you got for me?”

  Fabia placed her laptop on the desk, while Matt pulled his chair round to sit beside her.

  “I’ve done what amounts to a biography and personality analysis of each member of the family,” she told him, “as much as I know, that is. Then I’ve made some notes of times I’ve met up with them, mainly to do with Megan and the book. I’ve also made a diary of the weekend I was there in as much detail as I could remember, you know, how they interact, and stuff like that. Now, this is a conversation I had with Delma about the horses, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say she’s obsessed with them. I managed to ask if she had private money that she could use to maintain the stables.”

  “Fabia!” Matt exclaimed, impressed. “How’d you manage to do that?”

  “Well, I said it must be very difficult for her needing money for the horses and running the stables when the rest of the estate was so expensive to run, but then I added that perhaps she had her own money and that would help.”

  “And what was her reaction?”

  “She went very pink and said, rather bitterly, that she had no money of her own and she had to rely entirely on what Caradoc and Rodric would let her have, other than the money she gets from giving riding lessons. Then she added, well, sort of muttered, ‘but that’s going to change soon’. I asked her how come, but she clammed up.”

  “You know I told you about the silver that disappeared?” Matt said.

  “I do.”

  “Well, when we did the full search, we made an inventory of the contents of the house which we matched up with the one they had done for insurance purposes. It shows several things missing, mostly small artefacts, but also a painting by your favourite Welsh impressionist.”

  “Wystan Jones?”

  “The very same. It’s a large landscape and it was marked down as being in ‘the small sitting room’. Dilys said it looked as if the room isn’t much used, very dusty and a bit damp, she notices that sort of thing, does Dilys. So, they possibly hadn’t realised it was gone. One of the team’s been checking the net to see if it’s turned up.”

  “On the National Mobile Property Register?” Fabia asked, just to make sure he knew she was still on the ball.

  Matt grinned. “Yes Fabia, on the NMPR, well remembered.”

  Fabia said crossly, “Don’t be patronising.”

  “Sorry.” But he was still grinning. “Ah, here’s Dilys. Thanks,” he added as she put three lidded cups down on the desk.

  “I went over the road to the coffee shop. I know you can’t stand the stuff the machine
produces. That one’s yours, Fabia.”

  “You’re a star,” Matt said. “Have they found anything more on the Register?”

  But Dilys had no news on that front. “We’re still searching, though. But I do have more from Aidan Rogers, he’s one of our techies,” she said. “They’ve been working hard on all the devices and they’ve turned up a few interesting bits and pieces. The records on the computer in the stables’ office are clear as day. Delma Mansell seems to have been researching auction websites on that. And her phone produced a few odds and ends, including some texts back and forth with Stewart Parker, the vet.” She turned to Fabia. “The tone and the content bear out the fact they were having an affair.”

  “Oh dear. Poor Rodric.”

  “As to him,” Dilys went on, “his laptop turned up some recent research into animal tranquilisers, but that was after his father died, so he could simply have been checking up on it after we told him. We also found similar research done by whoever used the computer in Caradoc Mansell’s study, that goes back a couple of weeks, so it seems more than one person was interested in the drug.”

  “That could have been any of them,” Matt pointed out.

  “True.”

  “Incidentally, Fabia,” Matt said, “the keyboard to that computer, its screen and case had been wiped clean as a whistle, which we found interesting, as the rest of that room was pretty dusty, and all the other keyboards were full of dust and had all the appropriate fingerprints still intact.”

  “That’s interesting, why just that one?”

  “You may well ask,” said Matt. “Maybe whoever murdered the old man was using it rather than their own.”

  “But wouldn’t that indicate the person was aware how difficult it is to get rid of information on a computer?” asked Fabia.

  “Not necessarily, but it’s worth thinking about. What do you think, Dilys?”

  “It’s a good point. I’ll go and have a word with Aidan,” Dilys said.

  “Thanks for all that,” Matt said as she left the room.

  Fabia sat back, wondering whether to ask the question that had been nagging at the back of her mind. She decided to take the plunge. “What’s happening about Garan?”

  Matt frowned across at her. “We’ve not charged him with anything. There is no evidence he had anything to do with drugging coffee, which he firmly denies having made. We might have to do a search of the pub, but if he did have any of those sleeping tablets hanging around, I’m pretty sure he’d have got rid of them by now.”

  “Do you think he’s lying?”

  “I’m not sure. They couldn’t shake him, but we’ll be keeping an eye.”

  “What a mess.”

  “It is rather.”

  “Did you get any more out of Delma?”

  “Ah yes, I haven’t told you about that, have I? Luckily, when we got there yesterday, she was on her own. She categorically denied giving her brother anything to sell, said he was probably just boasting to his friends. We couldn’t shift her on that. Dilys got the impression there was no love lost between brother and sister, and so did I.”

  “Do you think she might be responsible for drugging him?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” Matt said, “but obviously she denied it. She told us he drank quite heavily, and she said he used to take drugs when he was younger, but he’d given that up when he took up bodybuilding. The alcohol I can believe, there’s evidence of that, what with the flask and all, but I’m not sure about the drugs. I wouldn’t put it past him to deal in them, that’d go hand in hand with people trafficking?”

  “What?” Fabia exclaimed.

  “Oh yes. One of our chaps went undercover with this fascist group Cotter had contacts with in Swansea, that’s how we found out he’d been getting valuables to sell from his sister, and they were talking about bringing in some ‘tasty toms’.”

  “It gets worse and worse with that ghastly man, doesn’t it?” Fabia said, looking disgusted. “Once you find out who drugged him you should give them a ruddy medal!”

  “I wish,” said Matt. “Anyway, I don’t think he’d be into taking drugs, except perhaps steroids, given the bodybuilding, but nothing else.”

  “Did Delma say anything about the vet?”

  “Oh, she admitted to having a fling, but insisted that it was over at the end of the summer, but that’s not what Marsden told us.”

  Eyebrows raised, Fabia asked, “Ted Marsden? What’s it got to do with him?”

  “He told us he overheard her and Stewart Parker, as he put it, being ‘intimate’ together when he went to the stables to complain about her horses encroaching on his land.” Matt grinned. “He got quite embarrassed having to tell us about their activities, I think Dilys cramped his style. And he also said something about hearing her ask Parker for more tranquiliser.”

  Fabia’s eyes widened. “That’s pretty incriminating.”

  “You could say so, but it doesn’t mean she was the one to use it on her father-in-law,” Matt said, playing devil’s advocate, “it just means that it would have been available to whoever did.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Anyway, Delma said she’d told her husband about the affair and he’d forgiven her.”

  Fabia frowned. “I don’t believe that.”

  “She was adamant.”

  Fabia still looked doubtful.

  “What about,” Matt suggested, “say, Megan, found out and threatened to tell him?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that, there’s no love lost between Megan and Delma, but Megan isn’t malicious,” Fabia said, frowning. “And what about the tranquiliser, did Delma admit to having any of it in the stables?”

  “No way. She insisted she wasn’t qualified to use it and would never dream of doing so. She admitted that it had been used on one of her horses and that it had been Stewart Parker who’d administered it, but that it had been completely above board. We also asked about her veterinary science degree and she said she’d given up on it three years into the course, when she and Rodric got married. She seemed to think that proved she couldn’t have used the tranquiliser, which, of course, it doesn’t.”

  “What other interviews have you got lined up?”

  “We’ve got to speak to Rodric Mansell again, and Mrs Giordano, although she’s a bit of a clam,” Matt said.

  “She’s such a mother hen that I don’t think she’d ever tell you anything that would damage the family. They’re all far too important to her, particularly Megan and Rodric.”

  “Talking of your friend, Megan, we need to speak to her again, particularly as she was there when the Prices found out about Cotter’s accident. And I need to have a word with Anjali Kishtoo.”

  “What for?” asked Fabia, then thought what a silly question that was.

  “That should be obvious, Fabia.”

  She didn’t say anything else but felt the colour rising in her cheeks.

  “We want to find out if Caradoc Mansell told her anything when they met that could help us untangle this mess.”

  “She should be coming back Monday morning – give her a ring then.” Fabia changed the subject. “If you’ve got a memory stick, I can copy these notes on to it.”

  “That’d be a good idea.” Matt too seemed relieved to get on to more practical matters. He went around his desk and rummaged in a drawer. “I know it’s here somewhere,” he muttered.

  Fabia’s smile was a little malicious. Matt had never been the tidiest of people. “Looks like it’s still a case of chaos reigns,” she said.

  “It may look a mess, but I know where everything is,” Matt insisted.

  “No, you don’t, you wouldn’t be rummaging in that drawer if you did.”

  “Shut up, Fabia.” And a moment later he handed the memory stick across the desk. “There, see?”

  She grinned at him and slotted it into her laptop.

  “Thanks for doing that, Fabia,” Matt said, serious now.

  “No problem.” After copying
the files, she said, “I’ll get going then.” But she didn’t move immediately. “I had another of those nightmares last night,” she told him.

  “You poor thing, I thought they’d stopped,” Matt said, looking worried.

  “So did I.” She frowned. “There was something about it that I thought was, well, relevant. I wrote it down, and you’re not to laugh at me.”

  Fabia rummaged in her handbag for her notebook. She described the dream to Matt. “It was more specific this time. Before there was just a threatening atmosphere, just me, on my own, trying to escape something terrifying but imprecise. This time it was, sort of, peopled.”

  The dream, still vivid in her mind, was easy to describe to Matt.

  “Maybe your subconscious is going back to the second murder six months ago,” he said, “what with balconies and all that.”

  “Perhaps. But one thing really worried me, the body on the floor was wearing a coat very like one of Anjali’s creations.”

  “That’s an easy connection for your subconscious to make,” Matt said.

  “I suppose. But the person I felt was behind me, I think I identified who it was.”

  “In your dream?”

  “Yes,” Fabia said, exasperated as she glanced at Matt and saw he was trying not to smile.

  “Take that smirk off your face,” she told him. “I know you don’t believe in premonitions or any of that, but still–”

  “So, who was it?”

  Fabia told him.

  His smile grew. “Fabia, I don’t think that’s very likely.”

  “You’re probably right, it’s just that I have this sort of hunch.”

  “That’s par for the course with you.” He was no longer trying to hide his amusement.

  “Sometimes I don’t like you at all,” Fabia said, glaring at him.

  “Ah, but you know you love me really,” Matt said, then the smile disappeared, and an arrested look came into his eyes. For a moment they stood facing each other, neither spoke, but there was tension in the air that hadn’t been there before.