Bruce was nodding before I had finished. ‘I’ve telephoned Swansea,’ he said. ‘That car belongs to Jacobsen’s, the car-hire firm in Dundee. I’ve phoned their office but there’s nobody there today outranking the girl who makes the tea and nobody’s prepared to divulge the names of clients. So that particular line of enquiry will have to wait over.’ He squinted at the papers in front of him. ‘If I’m reading her simply awful writing correctly, which is a bit of a long shot, she intended to leave a legacy to Bovis as compensation.’
‘Providing both men with motives?’ I suggested.
‘I wouldn’t hang your hat on that,’ Bruce said. ‘Apart from both having alibis, which I presume have been checked for what they’re worth, the legacy to Bovis would hardly have changed a pauper’s lifestyle and what Mrs Horner had to leave wouldn’t have made the nephew rich. She had almost nothing but the house itself, which isn’t as big as it looks, the rooms are small and it needs a great deal of money spent on it. It doesn’t even have central heating. So far as I can tell the old will stands. But I have to hunt for a holograph will or codicil, just in case she decided to do it herself, to the certain ultimate benefit of my profession. We make more revenue as a result of testators making their own wills than almost anything else.’
Except, I thought, defending the clearly and indefensibly guilty. I repeated Audrey’s description of what Alistair had been wearing when Mrs Horner died but Bruce was unimpressed. ‘A young girl may be a useful supporting witness but she’s hardly “best evidence”,’ he said. ‘If you want to be helpful, you could go and ask Mrs Branch about clothes.’
A moment’s thought satisfied me that even conversing with a weepy grass widow would be preferable to being dragooned into helping to inventory Mrs Horner’s tawdry possessions. I went out again into the mild sunshine and walked past two houses. Who else, I wondered, was holding the keys of the absent McIntoshes? Had somebody hidden in the empty house, watching the comings and goings, emerging at the perfect moment to slay the dragon and frame St George . . .? Somebody, perhaps, who was supposed to be sailing in the Adriatic, who had arrived and would depart by night? I shook my head at my own fevered imagination. I was finding it hard to picture any of these respectable, ordinary people picking up a waspish lady by the backside and shoving her head first into a water butt.
Alistair’s sister-in-law was a small but determined lady who took me at first for a journalist or some other person trying to profit from her sister’s trouble. She left me standing on the mat while she went to enquire about my bona fides and then led me through the house with a murmur of apology and left me with Mrs Branch.
Alistair’s wife was bearing up better than I had expected. She was no longer the panic-stricken waif who had run all the way to Three Oaks. She had lost weight and her eyes were hollow, but she was in command of herself. I found her seated in the garden in the company of another lady, darning an obviously masculine sock as though absolutely confident that Alistair would be home, if not tomorrow then within a few days. I could only hope that her faith would not prove misplaced. June, Alistair’s spaniel, lay unmoving at her feet, watching us with miserable eyes. I noticed that she was attached by a lead to the leg of a chair. Evidently, one lesson had been learned.
Mrs Branch’s companion was a lady of around forty. Her hair was unashamedly grey, cut and styled with simple severity. She wore a plain cotton dress over her slightly full figure. Her face was round, friendly and still pretty in an innocent and virginal way. I was startled when Mrs Branch introduced her to me as Mrs Dalton. Her handshake was firm and absolutely platonic. I tried not to picture her in the exiguous underwear described by Mr Pelmann. The image came unbidden into my mind but failed to excite me.
There was a spare, flimsy garden chair beside her, evidently vacated by the sister-in-law, and I lowered myself carefully into it.
Answering my polite enquiry, Mrs Branch said that she was managing very well and her sister was a great comfort. People were being very kind. Any neighbour going to Cupar would offer her a lift so that she could visit Alistair or do some shopping. But there was word of Alistair being transferred to Perth, in which case things would become much more difficult until the police came to their senses.
‘It won’t be for long,’ Mrs Dalton said in a softly musical voice, ‘and you know that I’ll drive you any time you like.’
Mrs Branch thanked her huskily. ‘It was all spite, of course, on the part of that Detective Inspector,’ she said. ‘I’ve begun to remember, in bits. I seem to see him in uniform, which always makes it so difficult to recognize people when you meet them again in mufti. I think he was arguing with Alistair, and if I’ve got the right occasion it must have been the only time in his life that Alistair was made really angry. Not shouting angry but a cold rage. What it was about I don’t remember, something to do with the car, I think. I’m sure the details will come back to me.’
‘If they do,’ I said, ‘you must let Mr Hastie know. It could be useful. We’re doing our best to find out the real facts.’
She put aside her darning and patted my hand. ‘Bless you both!’ she said. ‘But do be as quick as you can. I can stick it out for however long it takes, but Iris can’t stay for ever and June misses him terribly.’ She looked down at the ageing spaniel. June had not even reacted to mention of her name. ‘They’re very close. I could almost believe that . . . But dogs don’t die of broken hearts, do they?’
I had known several dogs who gave up the will to live when a beloved owner was taken from them, but it would have been cruel to say so.
‘I’ve come to make an inquiry on behalf of Bruce Hastie,’ I said. ‘He’s tied up at the moment.’
As I spoke, thinking that Mrs Branch might prefer to keep our talk confidential, I glanced at Mrs Dalton. She flushed and jumped to her feet. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want to intrude.’
I could see that I had unintentionally hurt her feelings and hastened to try and put matters right. ‘You’re not bound to go –’ I began.
She turned away with a small gasp, but not before I had seen tears in her eyes. ‘People are so cruel,’ she said shakily and disappeared into the house.
Mrs Branch looked at me curiously. ‘You do know about the way that Mrs Horner behaved towards her?’ she asked.
I looked back at her blankly. ‘I’m not on the mainstream for local gossip,’ I said. ‘Hardly anybody tells me anything, but I’ve just heard that the Daltons had a terrible row with her.’
Mrs Branch lowered her voice. ‘You know about that? I’m not sure that I should be spreading gossip. It would lower me to her level.’ But the strain in her face had lessened and the imp of mischief, rather than pure malice, was behind her eyes. I knew that she was dying to tell all.
‘Any of the quarrels that she had with neighbours might be relevant,’ I said. ‘Or at least they may show that plenty of people other than Alistair would cheerfully have drowned her in a water butt.’
‘That’s certainly true. I wouldn’t have blamed Hector Dalton one little bit if he’d lost his temper with her.’
‘Hector Dalton?’ I said. ‘Not his wife? I heard something about Mrs Horner snooping through their house and taking her friends with her.’
She picked up her darning again and seemed to be speaking directly to it. ‘That was how it all started,’ she said. ‘Mrs Horner had the Daltons’ key and she went through their house and let her friends go poking through the drawers and cupboards. And Beatrice Dalton may look very sweet and prim, and he may look quite . . . passionless, but people aren’t always the way they look, are they?’
‘Definitely not,’ I said and, after a pause, ‘Do go on.’
‘Oh. Very well. Almost everybody for miles around heard all about it anyway. For a start, she dresses very modestly – never a trace of cleavage or a split skirt – but, from what we all heard, her underwear was from a very different shop. Artificial silk and frills and very, very provocative. Also, th
ere was a long, blonde wig, so they said. And then –’ Mrs Branch paused and pursed her lips ‘– it seems that Hector – such an unsuitable name – how shall I put it? – needed a little more help with his marital relations than just a little dressing up. Medical help. You know what I mean?’ she finished.
‘Viagra?’
‘I’d guess that Viagra’s too expensive for them. They know the value of money. Apparently it was something that he had to inject into himself. With a hypodermic needle. In the you-know-what. There!’
Mrs Branch picked up her darning again and set to work. Her face was pink but her expression was placid. Apparently she had found comfort in the recollection of somebody else’s humiliation. I decided that if somebody had spread such a tale about me, true or not, I would definitely have resorted to violence.
I remembered what I had come for. ‘Can you tell me what Alistair was wearing, that Saturday morning?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘It was hot, wasn’t it, that day? Alistair had white trousers left over from his cricketing days and a pale blazer, a sort of buff colour.’
‘He never wears shorts?’ I asked.
‘No, never. He says that his knees are too knobbly.’
That seemed to cover the matter of Alistair’s garb but there was one other question in my mind. ‘What did I say that upset Mrs Dalton so much?’ I asked.
Mrs Branch kept her head down over her darning but I was sure that I could detect barely suppressed amusement in her voice. ‘After telling you so much I may as well tell you the rest. According to the rumours that circulated,’ she said, ‘there were several lengths of rope in their bedside locker along with the syringe and things.’
It took me a few seconds to get the implications. Then, ‘Oh my God!’ I said.
‘You weren’t to know. But just in case you feel like putting your foot in it again, perhaps I should tell you this. It all blew up again about ten days ago. As it happened, I was present, so I can vouch for what was said, if not for the truth of what was said. I was invited to tea by a lady in St Andrews. I don’t know whether she did it on purpose, but she invited Mrs Horner and Beattie Dalton as well as several other ladies.
‘Well, as you can imagine, it was very awkward. But Beattie couldn’t leave without calling a taxi and it was soon obvious that she wasn’t going to exchange a word with Mrs Horner. In the end, after a lull in the conversation, Mrs Horner said loudly, “Are you still not speaking to me?” Beattie kept her temper and just shook her head. And Mrs Horner said, “Well, when you are, you’ll have to tell me how your Hector looks in all those pretty things.”
‘You can imagine the sort of silence that followed.
‘That was the first suggestion there had ever been that Hector had . . . transvestite tendencies. And it may not have been true – how would Mrs Horner know? Beattie turned white but she kept her dignity. She just asked her way to the toilet and stayed there until her husband came to pick her up again. Nobody else said much but Mrs Horner chatted away about everything else under the sun, obviously as happy as Larry.’
I excused myself and departed as gracefully as I could. My face felt very hot and I was uncomfortably conscious of my hands and feet.
Chapter Six
My shortest route would have been along the back lane but the back gate to Mrs Horner’s house would still be bolted, so I returned by the way I had come. As I walked, I was wondering how on earth I could convince Mrs Dalton that I had been quite unaware of her bedroom secrets, without increasing her embarrassment by letting her know that I knew them now. Perhaps I could persuade Mrs Branch to tell her that I had spoken out of, and remained in, total ignorance. I tried, but failed, to think of something that I would have liked less than to have some such secret noised abroad. I was still flushed and probably muttering to myself.
Outside Mrs Horner’s gate, a police Range Rover stood gleaming in the sunshine. I felt a twinge of apprehension. Fraser had kept his word. This would be make or break time. On the other hand I felt a simultaneous sense of relief that my mind would be distracted from my appalling faux pas. I knew only too well that from that day on I would often wake up in the small hours, hot and squirming with embarrassment, and, worse, it would be impossible to explain to Beth why I was so afflicted.
I approached with caution in case Inspector Blosson was waiting within, ready to pounce, but Sergeant Morrison was sitting at the wheel, alone in the vehicle, in uniform now but in shirtsleeve order. He looked hot and singularly fed up.
I came to his half-open window. ‘Who’s inside?’ I asked.
‘Detective Superintendent Fraser, DI Blosson and DS Parkes.’ His likes and dislikes were clear from his tone. Towards the Detective Sergeant, he was neutral.
‘When did they arrive?’
‘Maybe ten minutes ago. The Super took a look around the garden. They’ve just gone inside, maybe a minute ago. Mr Blosson was looking ready to explode,’ the Sergeant added with relish.
‘Do they know about the rabbit yet?’
He shrugged. ‘I wrote a report to DI Blosson, copied to Mr Fraser. If they’ve been into the office, they’ll have seen it. Neither of them said anything.’
Bruce would certainly want my support. He might even now be phoning for me at Alistair’s house, so my time was limited. ‘Did you manage to get a copy of that photograph?’ I asked softly.
He nodded. He looked at the house but a flowering hedge hid us at least from the ground floor windows. ‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ he said. ‘I could be hung, drawn and quartered. But . . .’ He slid an envelope from his side pocket and passed it through the gap in the window. ‘I’ll want it back straight away.’
I extracted the photograph, which had been cropped from a larger print. It was sharp and had been taken at very close range. I studied it and returned it to the Sergeant. Not every man has been moved to pleasure by a photograph of a dog-turd in fine focus, but I was smiling inside as I handed back the envelope with a heartfelt word of thanks and went to the front door. Seeing it again, I noticed that the posts were both beginning to rot, down at the step. Serious maintenance was overdue.
The front door had been left off the latch, presumably for my benefit. I could hear voices from the sitting room so I knocked and looked in.
Fraser, now Detective Superintendent although I had last met him before he attained that lofty rank, was standing with his back to the fireplace in the attitude normally adopted by one who has every intention of staying in command of the proceedings. His ginger hair was thinning and becoming rather less gingery and he could now afford a better suit and a Carnoustie Golf Club tie, but otherwise he was as I remembered him. And it seemed that he remembered me and my foibles. ‘Come in, Mister Cunningham,’ he said. ‘Mr Hastie was very anxious to have a word with me but he’s been very reluctant to begin without your support.’
Bruce turned slightly pink. I was in no doubt that he resented the mild reproof. He was in sole occupation of the settee. ‘Mr Cunningham made most of the discoveries that I want to bring to your attention,’ he said stiffly. ‘He can explain them and answer questions better than I can.’
‘So you told me.’ Fraser nodded to one of the easy chairs upholstered in synthetic leather and I seated myself.
‘What’s more,’ I said, ‘quite a lot of information has been handed to me since I last spoke with Mr Hastie.’
Detective Inspector Blosson was sitting very upright in the chair opposite, with an expression such as I had previously seen only on Isobel’s face on an occasion when she had been examining the tail of a dog when the spaniel had suddenly passed wind in her face.
‘I must protest,’ Blosson said gruffly. ‘With all due respect, this is not a proper investigation and it bears no resemblance to the official procedures.’ In his perturbation, he was in great danger of tripping over his tongue.
Fraser looked towards the other man, presumably his sergeant, who was seated at the desk and taking what appeared to be competent shorthand. ‘You
may note the Inspector’s protest,’ he said, ‘but Mr Cunningham has been helpful to us in the past and if he can help us to a better understanding of the facts I shall be grateful.’
Blosson’s mouth tightened but he was not going to give up without a fight. ‘Sir, I have made a thorough investigation and I have ascertained the facts,’ he said. ‘I have made an arrest. It only remains to complete the preparation of the case. I can do that without the interference of officious, bumbling amateurs. We’re not living in a TV drama.’
There is seldom anything to be gained by making enemies. It must have been gall and wormwood to the Detective Inspector to have his superior picking over his recent work in front of laymen and I had been wondering how to speak out while saving his face, but that consideration suddenly went by the board. After being referred to as a bumbling amateur, I was quite prepared to see the Detective Inspector’s face in close contact with the dog-poo which had contributed to the arrest of Alistair Branch. I was careful in choosing words which would certainly sting. ‘I’m sure that Detective Inspector Blosson has carried out the investigation to the utmost of his ability,’ I said gently. ‘I can only tell you that I have been making very little effort in that direction. Most of the information I have picked up came to me simply because I listened to anyone who wanted to speak to me and thought about what they told me. Their information was all available to the investigating officers. Following it up, I took a cursory look around with the help of a . . . friend. That’s all. And yet I have come up with indications that what little evidence exists against Alistair Branch was fabricated and I have found several other people with just as much opportunity and stronger motives.’
‘Motives don’t make cases,’ Fraser said warningly.
‘Obtaining hard evidence is your business, not mine. Even so, I have some. And if, as I can show, the evidence against Alistair Branch was tampered with, you have nothing against him but the motive of a quarrel over a dog-turd. How do you fancy bringing that up in court?’
Dead Weight (Three Oaks Book 11) Page 13
