An Unfinished Murder

by An Unfinished Murder (retail) (epub)

  He paused, before continuing. ‘There’s quite an age difference between Wallace and Stokes,’ he added. ‘Were they friends, back then? Would Stokes involve Wallace in this sort of caper? Oh, and by the way, Dilys now claims to remember smelling cigarette smoke in the spinney, but the twenty-year-old memory of someone who was then eight years old isn’t going to carry much weight in court!’

  ‘We – you – won’t get any further,’ Markby pointed out, ‘until you go and see Wallace and hear what he’s got to say.’

  ‘All right,’ agreed Barker. ‘I’ll pay a social call on the man. As of this moment, he hasn’t done anything criminal that we can prove – at least, not in this matter. It’s a big jump from smuggling tropical pets to arson. Do you want to come along?’

  * * *

  Wallace, they discovered, lived in a street lined either side with Edwardian brick terraced houses of the sort that had started out as homes for upwardly mobile tradespeople and clerical workers. The street had gone down socially but was still clinging, here and there, to its former respectability. In some places efforts were being made to reverse the decline. Some houses, perhaps the first homes of younger couples, had fashionable blinds. On the other hand, some, perhaps rented or even squats, had lace curtains varying between dingy and torn. Some woodwork hadn’t been painted in years. Some was painted in alarming colours – fire station red or a bilious lilac.

  Wallace’s door and window frames were egg-yolk yellow. Almost every house had a vehicle parked outside it. Outside Wallace’s home stood his white van.

  ‘Well, at least he’s in!’ said Barker, adding mistrustfully, ‘What’s the betting he’s got a pit bull terrier?’

  ‘He’s not going to set it on the police, Trevor,’ said Markby.

  ‘You hope!’

  Wallace was, indeed, at home – and he wasn’t alone. The door was opened to reveal not a snarling pit bull terrier but an equally fierce-looking woman with improbably orange hair, wearing a tight black sweater and purple leggings.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, suspiciously, looking from one to the other. She had large gold-coloured earrings hanging from her ears and the loops bounced around as she moved her head.

  ‘Police,’ said Barker briskly, producing his ID.

  ‘What do you want?’ was her next question.

  ‘We’d like a word with Mr Wallace. Is he at home?’

  This question was answered by a shout from the rear of the house. ‘Who is it, Samantha?’

  ‘Coppers,’ shouted back Samantha. She eyed them again, concentrating on Markby whom she subjected to detailed scrutiny. ‘And one of them is getting on a bit.’

  ‘What do they want?’

  ‘To speak to you!’ yelled Samantha over her shoulder, earrings swinging madly. She turned back to the visitors. ‘They’re all legal.’

  ‘What are?’ asked Barker.

  ‘His pets. I know he was daft enough, two or three years ago, to try and bring in that lizard thing. It was only because a bloke had it in a sack and come up to us in the street to ask if we were interested. I told Mickey at the time, don’t touch it. He couldn’t resist it, of course. But everything he’s got now is legal.’

  ‘Bring them inside, then, don’t stand telling the entire street our business!’ came a roar.

  Samantha stood aside to allow the two visitors to enter and slammed the door behind them.

  ‘He’s in the back. Go through!’ she snapped. She stamped up the stairs on platform soles and left them to find their way.

  They found Wallace sitting in a crowded room full of glass tanks. The room seemed overheated, and the tanks supplied the reason.

  ‘Snakes!’ exclaimed Barker in undisguised horror. ‘I should have expected it!’

  ‘It’s my hobby!’ said Wallace. ‘And you know it, don’t you? All that fuss they made over the iguana I brought back from my holidays, and them little tortoises before that. Anyhow, all this lot is legal, like my wife was telling you – and telling the whole street.’

  He was slumped in a chair, clad in a turquoise-and-yellow shell suit, and clasping an opened can of lager. He didn’t rise to greet them. His small dark eyes surveyed them beadily, moving from one visitor to the other.

  ‘Do you ever let them out?’ asked Barker, giving each tank a quick check to make sure it held its occupant.

  ‘Not often. Some of them move pretty quick,’ said Wallace. ‘Sit down, if you want. What’s it about, then?’

  ‘You’ve heard, I expect, about the fire at Fred Stokes’s home?’ Barker asked, taking a chair furthest from a tank. ‘You know Mr Stokes has died.’

  ‘Of course I know!’ Wallace sipped from the can. ‘He was an old mate of mine. I’ll miss him.’

  ‘He’d apparently drunk a whole half-bottle of whisky and fallen asleep in his armchair.’

  ‘Daft old bugger,’ said Stokes.

  ‘Did you buy the whisky for him, by any chance, Mickey?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Your fingerprints are on the bottle.’

  The room had gone quiet. Even the reptiles appeared to be paying close attention. Snakes can’t hear in the way mammals do, Markby seemed to recall from school biology lessons. They don’t have ears. They go by vibrations in the bones in their heads, or something of that sort. And they may have poor eyesight but they have an excellent sense of smell.

  Policemen also learn to substitute one sense for another, he thought wryly. When words aren’t spoken, they pick up other signals. He was picking them up now. Wallace was deeply shocked. His broad, stolid face didn’t show it. The dark eyes were still. The hand holding the beer can didn’t quiver. The turquoise shell suit was still slumped in an ungainly way, like a collapsed bell tent. He hadn’t moved. But he’d begun to sweat. Markby could smell it. Wallace was reeling. He hadn’t been expecting to see the police in his home so soon after the death of Stokes. The man shifted his considerable bulk in the chair. Markby thought that the shell suit did him no favours.

  ‘So what if I did? I was doing him a good turn. He was old and he never went out, except when I took him for a couple of pints of an evening. He sat there watching telly all day, and he didn’t understand half of that.’ Wallace was gaining confidence. ‘And he’d been sent round the bend by all those lights and digging down in the spinney. It’s down to your lot, that is.’

  ‘It was very good of you to take Mr Stokes out for a drink,’ said Markby. ‘He’s very fortunate to have you as a friend.’

  Wallace transferred his attention to Markby. ‘Thought you’d retired,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I have!’

  ‘What you doin’ here, then?’

  ‘I’m here as an observer only. You and Mr Stokes had been friends for some time, I’d be right in saying?’

  ‘You would.’

  ‘How did you first meet him?’

  Wallace considered the question for some time. ‘We were in the same line of business, you might say. Transport.’ He put down the can on a nearby occasional table. ‘You want tea or anything? I’ll give Samantha a yell.’

  ‘Please don’t trouble her!’ Barker said hastily. ‘We’re fine.’

  Markby glanced at him. Barker drew a deep breath and gave him a slight nod.

  ‘It’s like this, Mickey,’ Markby picked up the questioning. ‘As you know, I’ve been helping out with the investigation into the death of Rebecca Hellington. You and Mr Stokes were in the crowd watching the police work in the spinney.’

  ‘We were,’ agreed Wallace. ‘But you’d already found the body, hadn’t you? What had you gone back for?’

  ‘Just making sure we hadn’t missed anything!’ said Barker. ‘We’re very thorough!’

  ‘So are the ruddy Customs and Excise! How they found that iguana… I had it tucked away in the suitcase, really snug. It wouldn’t have come to any harm, you know. I’d have looked after it properly. And if the bloke who sold it hadn’t sold it to me, he’d have flogged it to someone else!’
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  ‘Mr Wallace!’ Markby drew the conversation determinedly back to the body in the spinney. ‘We are not here about an iguana. Rebecca’s father is still alive and desperate to know what happened to his daughter.’

  ‘Dare say he is,’ said Wallace.

  ‘At the moment we don’t know, and neither do the Gloucestershire force, how she died. But we do know she was buried in the spinney. We also know when, because two children saw her body prior to the act. So that’s the first thing we have to clear up: how she came to be buried there.’ He drew a deep breath and glanced at Barker again. ‘No one at the present time is suggesting that either you or Stokes killed her.’

  The shell suit heaved. ‘What?’ yelled Wallace. ‘I should bloody think not!’

  ‘Mickey,’ Trevor Barker asked, quietly, ‘did you help Fred Stokes bury her body? If you did – and you could have had reasons for doing that which have nothing to do with her death – you might well be able to give us important information that could lead to finding out how and when she died and, indeed, if her death was the result of a deliberate act, or came about because of an accident of some kind.’

  Wallace was silent for a moment. ‘Can’t you tell nothing from the body, about how she died?’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ said Barker. ‘We only have the bones. Although they are intact, examination of them has told us nothing.’

  ‘You know, Mickey,’ Markby told him, ‘when I was investigating at this end, twenty years ago, my chief purpose was to find out whether Rebecca had come home that weekend. We tried everything we could think of, spoke to everyone, but no one had seen or heard from her here. So I told my colleagues in Gloucester that she hadn’t come home, or there was no evidence that she had. Yet now we know – I know – that she was here. I’d dearly love to know how she got to the spinney. I do think you could tell us. So, I’d like you to consider it very carefully.’

  Wallace shifted in his chair and the material of his shell suit rustled. ‘There ain’t nothing to consider. I’m sorry for the family, course I am. But I can’t help you.’ His expression hardened. ‘You dress it up very nice, but however I look at it, it seems to me you’re saying we killed her, Fred and me!’ Wallace narrowed his eyes and gave Markby a resentful stare. ‘And we didn’t.’

  ‘But if you didn’t kill her, then helping us find out who did can only help you – and Fred’s memory.’

  There was a long silence, broken by a rustling from one of the tanks as its occupant moved across the sandy floor. Barker glanced apprehensively at it and then leaned forward. ‘Just tell us what happened, Mickey.’

  The shell suit heaved again like an eruption on the sea floor, a mass of turquoise and yellow on the move, as the wearer hauled himself to his feet.

  ‘All I did,’ he said firmly, ‘is buy old Fred a bottle of whisky. Not my fault if he drank it all at once and passed out… and then the place caught fire. He was always leaving lighted fags around. Now then, if you two have said all you’ve got to say, I know I don’t have anything more to add.’

  As they walked out of the room into the hallway, sounds of rattling and scrabbling could be heard from upstairs, to the background of Samantha demanding, presumably to an empty room, ‘Where the hell are they? Mickey!’

  Wallace opened the front door and stood aside to allow the visitors to leave. As soon as they stepped outside, he began to shut the door, but not quickly enough to cut off the sound of his wife’s voice.

  ‘Mickey!’ The sound was louder and echoed around the hallway, suggesting that Samantha was leaning over the upper banister. ‘Mickey! Have you moved my sleeping pills? I can’t find them!’

  Wallace slammed the front door. On the pavement his visitors looked at one another and then Barker reached up to ring the bell. The door remained shut but, through it, Wallace could be heard shouting and Samantha giving as good as she got.

  Barker rang again, then stooped and lifted the flap of the letter box. ‘Mr Wallace! Open the door, please!’

  There came the sound of confused mutterings. Then the door opened halfway and Wallace’s unlovely countenance scowled at them through the gap. ‘If you want to come in again, get a warrant! I’ve said all I’ve got to say!’

  ‘Oh, we don’t want to talk to you just now, Mickey,’ said Barker genially. ‘We’d like a word with Mrs Wallace.’

  ‘What about?’ demanded Mickey.

  There was a clunk of platform soles on the staircase. A form could be seen dimly behind Wallace.

  ‘Mrs Wallace? Samantha?’ Barker called out. ‘Do I understand you’ve mislaid some sleeping pills?’

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ demanded Samantha.

  ‘Want us to tell her, Mickey?’ asked Barker.

  Chapter 17

  Carter put down the phone. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said to Jess Campbell. ‘But Trevor Barker believes he knows who buried Rebecca. The culprits are the old man, Fred Stokes, who lived near the spinney, and a friend, Mickey Wallace. Unfortunately, Stokes is dead, after drinking whisky laced with sleeping pills. Wallace bought the whisky and his prints are on the bottle. He doesn’t deny that. But Wallace’s wife is missing some prescription sleeping tablets, issued only days ago by her doctor. A fire was later started in Stokes’s house, but failed to destroy the evidence. The bottle, with traces of alcohol and the drugs inside it, survived the fire. Barker thinks Wallace will cough to burying the body. They are confident he will eventually also admit to lacing the whisky with crushed pills and starting the fire.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Jess asked him, after a moment’s thought.

  Carter got up from his chair and walked up and down his office a couple of times before going to his favourite place to think, by the window, gazing down on the car park. ‘Barker’s asked me if I want to drive up to Bamford and sit in on the interview with Wallace. I’m banned from going anywhere near Mrs Malone. In fact, at the moment I can’t see where I can go except to Bamford. I’ve hit a solid wall here. What’s more, if it helps find out the truth about Rebecca, I have to go.’

  ‘Do we know how Caroline Malone is? Obviously very distressed, but is she being treated by a doctor?’ Jess asked.

  Carter grimaced. ‘Mrs Malone can handle things without medication. She’s consulting her lawyer.’

  ‘You didn’t harass him to the point where he threw himself into the canal!’ Jess protested hotly.

  ‘Try telling her that.’ Carter turned to face her. ‘Well, in the absence of any communication yet from her legal representatives, or from the police complaints service, I’m left in limbo. I can’t deal with Mrs Malone directly now. However, Jess, you can. So, you take over here while I drive up to Bamford.’

  ‘You want me to go and see the widow?’ Jess asked, unable to disguise her dismay.

  ‘No, no! Not right away. Just check over everything we’ve done so far. Something might strike you.’

  * * *

  ‘I would ask Caroline to come here and stay with us,’ said Cassie. ‘But she might find the children a bit of a strain.’

  ‘Yes,’ said her husband, simply. ‘She can’t stand… children.’

  ‘It’s such a pity,’ Cassie sighed. ‘If she had any of her own, she’d feel differently.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said her husband. ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

  ‘But just sitting in that house and thinking about Pete… she must be very shocked and depressed. She ought to get away somewhere. Perhaps she’d like to go down to St Ives and stay at the cottage for a bit?’ Cassie frowned. ‘But it would be a little lonely for her there on her own.’

  ‘Look, leave it to me,’ her husband told her. ‘I’ll take care of it. I’ve booked a few days’ compassionate leave. I’m the executor of Pete’s will, apart from anything else. Plus, Caro is hell bent on involving the police complaints system. I’m trying to talk her out of it. I want a word with the solicitor about that. I’m hoping he’ll advise her there isn’t a case. Depends how
he feels about the police, I dare say.’

  ‘I suppose she feels she wants to blame someone,’ Cassie pointed out. ‘It’s quite natural…’ She paused. ‘Nick, when Pete phoned you that evening, you know, when he phoned you very late, from his garden?’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d remember that!’ he returned in surprise. ‘You were half asleep when I told you.’

  ‘Not that much asleep – and not deaf, either! Are you sure Pete didn’t say anything that might suggest he was thinking of… of suicide?’

  ‘Suicide? No. I realised he had a lot on his mind and he was finding it very difficult to cope with it all. I mean, for twenty years he’d been able to put Rebecca’s disappearance out of his mind. Then, up pops a skeleton and all cards are on the table again. Of course he was struggling to cope with it. But that’s not the same as being suicidal . . .’

  Nick paused. ‘We’ve all been struggling to cope with it – Caro, me… You know, Cass, when I think back to that party, the one I threw while my people were away, I remember how I thought it had all gone swimmingly, a really good bash.’ He rubbed a hand over his skull. ‘I suppose his mind must have been drifting towards suicide. I should have realised it.’

  ‘It’s not your fault!’ said Cassie, shocked.

  ‘The fact is, in a way it is all my fault—’

  ‘You can’t blame the fact that you gave a party, darling!’ insisted Cassie. ‘And you couldn’t stop him walking into the canal, if he’d decided to do that.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean there aren’t other things I could have done, should have done! But the years went by; the Rebecca business seemed over and forgotten. Pete and I never talked about it. I should have done more to talk to Pete.’

  ‘Therapy!’ said Cassie firmly. ‘He needed professional therapy. You couldn’t have supplied that, Nick.’