Fraser was looking slightly stunned. ‘Is all this relevant?’ he asked. ‘We seem to be wandering a long way from the point.’ I was surprised that he expressed himself so mildly. It was a confused tale but I was trying to pack a maximum of information into a minimum of words.
‘I think you’ll see that it is,’ I said, hoping against hope that I was right. ‘The dog had rabbit fleas.’
Fraser was looking so bemused that I felt almost sorry for him. ‘How in hell do you know a rabbit flea from any other sort of flea?’ he demanded.
I gave thanks for Isobel’s expertise. ‘Rabbit fleas are black,’ I told him. ‘Cat fleas are brown. Ninety-eight per cent of fleas on dogs and cats are cat fleas but if a dog picks up a myxied rabbit the fleas take the opportunity to transfer onto a living host until they get a chance to get back onto a rabbit. Mrs Horner’s cat has been boarded with us since the evening of the day she died and it had rabbit fleas when it came in. Mrs Kitts, my veterinarian partner, had examined the cat that morning and it was clear. That may not be enough to satisfy you that that dog and that cat came into contact on that day, but it’ll do for me.
‘So Bovis paid a call. Mrs Horner then dropped her bombshell. She had a fondness for Bovis but Bovis’s wife had just left him for his partner, Mrs Horner’s nephew, Ian Shute. Mrs Horner took Bovis’s part against her own nephew and she told him that she was going to cut her nephew out of her will.
‘This would have been disaster. The partnership is in need of money. Mrs Horner had nothing to leave but the house and contents, but there is an overlooked remnant of the family heirlooms in the dining room, a very valuable painting which Bovis has just described as comparatively worthless. If anybody should have known its value, he should. Another painting by the same artist sold recently for a quarter of a million. That sort of legacy to his partner would save both their bacons and it was about to slip out of reach.
‘Thinking very quickly, he snatched her earring. At a guess, I’d suggest that he pretended to be swatting at a wasp. The earring went into the water butt and, when she peered or groped in after it, she followed it in.
‘After the deed, he’d only have to set the scene – fetch the tongs from the house, position the box, exit by her back gate, collect the dog-crap and one of Mr Branch’s cigar butts, put them in place, deposit a little ash on the dead woman’s back and go home by the way he came.’
Fraser was frowning in thought. ‘I was told that he was at an auction that day.’
‘I’m afraid not. Inspector Blosson should have checked with the auctioneer. I’ve just been told that Bovis left his bids the day before.’
We had quite forgotten that Mrs Guidman was there. When she spoke softly, I think that we both jumped. ‘He was hame a that day,’ she said. ‘When he taks oot his car, I aye hear the motor on his garage door. It maks an awfu noise on my wee radio.’
DS Parkes coughed discreetly. ‘Mr Blosson saw Mr Bovis’s receipt from the auctioneers, sir,’ he said. ‘He took that as enough confirmation of his alibi. Of course,’ he added apologetically, ‘he knew nothing of any motivation.’
‘I think I want a word with Mr Bovis,’ Fraser said. He left the room and after a second or two I followed, out of sheer, inexcusable nosiness.
‘Where is he?’ Fraser was asking Bruce.
‘He went home to fetch something,’ Bruce said. ‘He’ll be back.’
‘He will, will he? Could he have heard what Mr Cunningham and I were saying to each other?’
‘I suppose he could,’ Bruce said slowly. ‘He was looking at that tapestry picture just inside the door and then he went out into the hall. A minute or two later he put his head round the door and said that he wanted a reference book.’
Fraser said a word which is not supposed to pass the lips of a police officer on duty. ‘Sergeant,’ he then called loudly. ‘Come.’
*
The two officers moved with surprising speed, gathering up Sergeant Morrison as they went. I almost managed to keep up with them but Bruce who, from some lawyerly instinct, had lingered to lock up the house, was left behind. Mrs Guidman, I learned later, was nearly locked in the house but caught Bruce’s attention just in time.
Ahead of me, as I emerged, I saw Fraser try Bovis’s side gate, find it bolted and move on round the corner into the village street.
The garden wall was too high to see over, but the front gates were lower and of wrought iron. Fraser paused in front of them, puffing slightly. ‘You’d better be right,’ he told me grimly as I caught up with him. ‘We’ll look a right bunch of gowks, arriving like a . . . a posse in the Wild West, if he really has only come to fetch the Dealer’s Guide to Commodes or some such thing. The case against him’s no less circumstantial than the case against Alistair Branch. Fleas, for God’s sake!’
‘And motivation,’ I said, ‘and trying to cloud the issue of where he was that day. And flight.’
‘If he walks out of there—’
‘With the Dealer’s Guide to Antique Chamber Pots or some such reference work,’ I said, ‘you’ll have your head in a sling. I know that. But it won’t happen. He’s guilty. I can feel it in my water.’
Fraser said something terrible about my water.
Bovis’s exit was somewhat more dramatic than we had been envisaging. I heard the sound of an electric motor and then that of a starter. The garage door was going up and I saw that Bovis was already backing his car out of the garage. He had a remote control, because the heavy metal gates suddenly began to open. Fraser grasped them and the safety cut-out checked the motor. Bovis had turned the car on the gravel in front of the house and accelerated towards us. I could see him stabbing with his finger at what I took to be the remote control for the gates. The motor repeatedly started and checked but Sergeant Parkes, thinking quickly, had produced a pair of handcuffs from somewhere under his jacket and linked the two gates together. Even if Bovis rammed the gates, the impact would disable his car.
The car slid to a halt just short of the gates. Bovis slammed the car into reverse and spurted back up the short drive, looking over his shoulder and aiming for the garage doorway. There was the sound of metalwork crumpling and then the car was inside. The gates were only half the height of the wall and the three policemen hurdled them and ran, but the door was already descending and it shut with a clang before Fraser, the fleetest of the three, could get near. He turned and darted to the front door but it was securely locked and bolted. I followed on. I had entered with great reluctance into the investigation but now I was sharing in the thrill of the chase.
‘You two,’ Fraser gasped out. ‘Round to the far corners. Watch the back and sides. But don’t take any risks.’ The two Sergeants vanished. Fraser sounded a long peal on the doorbell. He was beginning to recover his breath. ‘Come out, Mr Bovis. We only want to talk to you.’ No reply came from within. ‘You’ve nowhere to go. The house is surrounded.’ Which I suppose it was, after a fashion.
The centre of the garden was mostly taken up by a raised bed of flowers, meticulously tidy as in Mrs Horner’s garden, but shrubs had been allowed to form jungle at either side, to provide the necessary facilities for an ageing dog I supposed. Blitzen, the old Airedale, roused himself and hobbled out of a clump of broom. He sniffed us both, decided that he had met me before and that Detective Superintendent Fraser was harmless, and lay down on a patch of lawn, awaiting events.
There was a bow window to our left. I only had to take a few paces sideways and I was looking in. I could see Bovis moving around in what seemed to be a well-furnished sitting room. His face was so distorted by conflicting emotions that I could have expected an attack of apoplexy at any moment but his movements were controlled. From glass cases and off the walls he was assembling a collection of weapons which would have done credit to a mediaeval fortress. While I watched, he placed a formidable battleaxe upright beside the door, drew a beautiful samurai sword from its sheath and made a few whistling passes in the air.
‘Is th
at real?’ Fraser asked softly beside me. He seemed to have accepted my presence as a sort of honorary member of the team.
‘They used to test them on the bodies of criminals,’ I said. ‘They were expected to slice right through at one stroke. And that won’t be a fake. He’s an antique dealer, remember.’
Bovis saw me through the window and his face darkened further. He made a slash in my direction with the sword and, although I knew that there was glass between us, I stepped back involuntarily.
‘That does it,’ Fraser said. He pulled me by the arm towards the front door, out of Bovis’s sight. ‘He’s gone round the bend. I’ve seen it before.’
Fraser had a small personal radio in his hand. He gave a code word and started speaking. He was asking for back-up and I could hardly blame him. If Bovis was preparing for a siege, it might well be a long one. There would be plenty of food and water in the house and it would be a brave officer who broke in to face a maddened man and that collection of weaponry.
I was not paying much attention to what Fraser was saying but was looking towards the small gathering of interested spectators at the gate, Bruce and Mrs Guidman among them. But when Fraser finished his call, his concluding words were still in my ears. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, ‘you don’t want an Armed Response Team.’
‘Believe me,’ Fraser said, ‘I do. That man is armed. Take a look.’
I looked. Bovis was sitting with the samurai sword within reach. On the coffee table in front of him he had opened a neat wooden box with fitted compartments and he was using a small copper powder flask to load the cylinders of an elaborately engraved, mid-nineteenth-century Tranter revolver.
‘I’m going to talk to him,’ I said.
‘For God’s sake don’t interfere. He has a revolver.’
‘He hasn’t had time to load it.’ I said. ‘I may be able to save you from having to fight a small war.’
‘I can’t forbid you to talk to a neighbour. Be quick, then,’ Fraser said wearily. ‘And watch out for yourself. There was a crossbow on the wall. And just be damn sure you don’t get taken hostage.’
I rang the bell and, for good measure, rapped with a neat antique knocker of a satyr’s head. ‘Bovis,’ I called. ‘Come to the door. It’s me, John Cunningham.’
My voice brought him to the other side of the door before I was ready for him. ‘You bastard!’ he roared.
‘I’m trying to help you,’ I said.
‘You’ve helped me enough already.’ A faint, metallic sound at the letter box gave me a tenth of a second’s warning and I jerked aside. A spear came through the letter box at waist height with great force, missing me by a centimetre. My instinct was to make several more backward leaps in case the next thing to emerge was a crossbow quarrel, but my earlier training and experience in hand-to-hand combat came back to me. Before he could recover his balance, I grasped the polished wooden shaft and pulled with a violence matching his. The spear came easily then checked. He must have hurt his fingers against the inside of the letter box because I heard a thud and a yelp. The spear came clear but in the process the shaft snapped. The metal tip was like a knife blade and it was sharp as a thorn. I dropped both halves on the ground.
Blitzen got to his feet and barked. His tail was thrashing, almost pulling him off his old feet.
‘No!’ Bovis’s voice wailed. ‘That was an original Zulu assegai.’
I forced down my rising temper and wiped a sudden sweat off my face. Fraser had joined me. We were standing with our backs to the wall beside the front door, out of Bovis’s sight for the moment, but not if he made a sudden sortie or came to the bay window. At least, I decided, he was still thinking like an antique dealer. There was hope yet. ‘Now you’ve got two of them,’ I said. ‘And if you try it again with that sword, I’ll tie it in a knot. What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
‘I’m not playing.’
‘He’s right,’ Fraser said. ‘He isn’t playing. You have guns at home, don’t you?’
‘You know I do. And they’re staying there,’ I said.
‘It could be an hour before armed officers get here. Suppose he makes a sortie, takes a hostage and another car?’
‘I don’t think his mind works that way. If I fetched my guns and he did break out, who would do the shooting, you or me?’
‘I could authorize their use.’
‘Thanks very much.’ I could visualize myself being ordered to shoot and then having my firearms confiscated during the legal processes leading to a public inquiry and another round of legislation constricting the gun owner. The police do not have a good record of playing fair when it comes to firearms legislation.
Fraser was interrupted before he could make any rash promises or produce more arguments. His personal radio made electronic noises at him. He answered impatiently. The sound reproduction was not very clear but I could make out the message. Back-up, with armed officers, would be on the way shortly. And there was a longer message from Records. Blosson, when a constable, had been the subject of a complaint from Alistair Branch, supported by four other motorists, arising from an occasion when the officer had attempted to prosecute Alistair for speeding. He had made a formal statement that he had followed Alistair for more than a mile but the other motorists, who included a magistrate and a professor of Scots law, supported the complaint that the panda car had only come out of a side road a few yards before the derestriction sign. The incident, and the fuss that Blosson made while refusing to admit that he had erred, resulted in a black mark on his record which he only left behind by taking the Criminal Investigation course.
‘Give it up,’ Fraser said softly beside me. ‘Come away. We’ll bring in a trained negotiator.’
I nodded, but I rather resented his lack of faith in my powers of reasoning. I decided to have one more shot. I rapped on the door again, keeping well to one side.
Instead of coming to the door, Bovis suddenly slid up the lower sash of the window. He was still nursing the Tranter revolver. I could see the brass percussion caps on the nipples. He was only a few feet away and there was no longer the illusion of a protective glass pane between us. Fraser moved with amazing speed. One moment he was beside me, the next he had taken several quick strides and dived through the roses into safety behind the raised flower bed. It was too late for me to move. Fraser’s flight would have prepared Bovis and he would be ready to take a snap shot at me. It is not easy to hit a moving target with a handgun, especially for a novice, but I was not going to take any chances on beginner’s luck.
Bovis was glaring at me from the window. ‘You betrayed me,’ he said. The revolver was pointing somewhere in the vicinity of my navel. I could see the spherical balls in the chambers. So he had had the necessary components available.
I could have debated the question of betrayal, but he was in no mood for a discussion of semantics. I wished that I was grovelling in the grass beside Fraser but I was committed now. Sweet reason might be my only weapon. ‘If you hadn’t tried to frame it onto Alistair Branch,’ I said, ‘I’d never have become involved at all.’
Bovis may have been expecting apology or bluster. The intrusion of logic into our dialogue caught him unprepared. He frowned and then spoke more reasonably. ‘He’d have been all right. They’d never have got a conviction on that evidence.’ He sounded more calm, now that the effort of thinking was forced on him.
‘And that made it all right?’ I asked. ‘He could have spent longer in the jug, waiting to come to trial, than he’d have served if he’d kicked somebody’s teeth in.’
There was a long silence. He had lowered the revolver to his side. At least he was starting to think. If he was still capable of feeling guilt, there might be a chance. ‘Where were you going to go?’ I asked.
‘I’d have found somewhere.’
‘I doubt it. What do you hope to gain by fighting off the whole police force now? They’d be watching for you to pop up in the world of antiques. Do you intend to make a fresh car
eer in crime? Or will you look for work as a labourer?’
There was another long pause. ‘Once I’ve given up,’ he said, ‘it’s over.’
With a slight sense of guilt I found that I could almost sympathize with his view. Once he was in custody, he would be a prisoner, a number, a man with a huge gap in his future. Until then, he could hope for a miracle, an inspiration, a thunderbolt, a deus ex machina, something, anything, to keep putting off the moment of arrest. He was in much the same position as the man who fell off the tall building; as he passed the second floor he was heard to say, ‘So far so good!’
‘I’ll stick it out,’ he said. ‘I’ll hold out as long as I can. Then . . .’
‘You’ll do something stupid?’ It was the universal euphemism for suicide.
‘Not so stupid. Better than the other thing.’ He had raised the revolver again, this time laying it on his shoulder and almost against his ear.
‘You’re only making it worse for yourself.’
‘How?’
Once again, he had a point. In the long term, not much could be added to a life sentence and there has never been a convincing deterrent to suicide. I have no moral objection to suicide and I would certainly have preferred that he shot himself rather than me, but on the whole it seemed that it would be a wrong but irreversible action taken in the haste of the moment. I groped for an idea. Bovis had not given a damn when his wife left him but there was one being he still cared for.
‘Don’t you mind what happens to Blitzen?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked sharply. ‘What about him?’
Dead Weight (Three Oaks Book 11) Page 16
