A Colourful Death_A Cornish Mystery

by Carola Dunn

  While wrestling with the concept of summer-time, Megan had missed a couple of questions. At least, her conscious mind had missed them, but a different brain circuit, going straight from her ears to her fingers, had taken them down in shorthand. She could read it later.

  Scumble had moved on to the events of the previous evening. He took Rosevear’s typed statement to Pearce from his pocket and proceeded to go through it thoroughly.

  And he found discrepancies. Rosevear had said he had time for a pint at the pub because he had finished haying.

  “So you decided to go down to the village?” Scumble pointed to the tankard at Rosevear’s elbow, now empty, its sides coated with drying foam. “Even though you keep beer in the house and you’d had a hard day?”

  Rosevear was disconcerted. After a moment’s thought, he said, “Naw, it was Marge said we’d go, right when I came in from the field. Stella was worried about Nick giving Clark a basting, and Marge said we ought to go to support her. I said it was rubbish, Nick wasn’t the sort to pick a fight. Then they told me what Clark had done. I reckoned he deserved whatever he got, but it wasn’t worth arguing, so I went along.”

  This answer appeared to please Scumble, though Megan wasn’t sure why. Margery Rosevear had told them much the same.

  “Did you happen to notice the time?”

  “I looked at the clock to see was the pub open. Just on quarter past five it was, so by the time we got down to the village, it’d be opening. Just gave me time to get out of my work clothes, they did, and off we went. I don’t know why you’re asking all these questions. Marge says you know Nick didn’t kill him.”

  Rosevear was a slow thinker, but by no means thick, Megan decided.

  “Just making sure we’ve got it all straight, sir. Suppose we hadn’t bothered to check on Miss … Weller’s statement that she saw Mr Gresham stab the victim? Very unfortunate, that would’ve been. Now, you say here,” he tapped the statement, “you were hungry for your supper. You telephoned the local police at six twenty-five—it’s in the police log—and we’ve been told Mrs Rosevear usually serves supper at seven o’clock.”

  “She allis gives me a bite to eat to-wance when I come in.” He pushed aside his plate, now holding nothing but a few crumbs. “Yesterday, with Stella chivvying, they rushed me off without.”

  Scumble crossed off a question mark he’d written in the margin of the statement. Megan had done the same on her carbon copy, and scribbled a few questions she couldn’t now remember. Nor had she thought to bring it with her. In fact, once Stella’s all-important statement had proved false, Megan had more or less dismissed her statement and both the Rosevears’ from her mind as being next to useless.

  “As we now know, Clark had by then been dead for some time.” Scumble straightened the papers, folded them, and stuck them back in his pocket. “Do you—”

  “Doug, I’m worried about Leila.” Margery Rosevear came in from the courtyard. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw the detectives. “Oh, I didn’t know you were still here.”

  “Still here,” said Scumble. “Why are you worried about Miss Arden, Mrs Rosevear?”

  “She should have been back long ago. She went to collect shells and the tide’s come in and gone out again since she left.”

  “Ivers, Margie, she’s a grown-up! She can take care of herself, and she won’t thank you for keeping an eye on her comings and goings.”

  “She always lets me know if she’s not going to be in for supper. They’re all supposed to,” she explained to Scumble, “though some of them are pretty erratic. Leila’s usually pretty reliable.”

  “But not always,” Rosevear muttered.

  “What happened to Geoff has made me nervous,” Mrs Rosevear went on, ignoring him. “Is it possible—You’ll probably think I’m crazy—I was wondering if he could have been killed by some maniac who has it in for artists? Or even for those of us who live here. We’re not really a commune, but that’s what people call us, and people get funny ideas about communes.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” said Scumble, “and theoretically possible, of course. Be that as it may, I’d like to know where Miss Arden’s got to. I think it’s about time we did something about finding out. I’ll just have a word with DS Pencarrow, and then you can maybe give me some tips about where to start looking.”

  He went over to the door and stepped out, Megan following.

  “Do you really think Arden killed him?” she asked.

  “Could be. There’s another possibility.”

  “That she saw or heard something—”

  “Or someone thinks she saw or heard something. If the murderer got to her before I did, it’s going to make that bastard very happy.”

  “DI Pearce?”

  “DI Pearce. But you let me worry about Pearce. We still haven’t talked to Stella Whatsit. You get over to the hospital right away and see what she has to say for herself. There’s no need to let on we’re perfectly happy that she misled Pearce.”

  “You don’t think she might be in danger, too, sir?”

  “In danger? She’s in a bloody nursing home, not wandering about the countryside all on her lonesome. I need Wilkes. Somehow I’ve got to fit in finding out whether Polmenna’s come up with anything useful in the village. You can take Lubbock, though he won’t be much help for anything but driving. Don’t come back here. Radio the Bodmin nick. I’ll probably be there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Off you go, now. If you happen to come across that lazy bugger Wilkes, send him here.”

  Wilkes and Lubbock, a strange sight in dungarees and sandals, were leaning against the 1100, chatting. Lubbock saw Megan first. He straightened and saluted. Wilkes turned.

  “We were just discussing the case, Sarge,” he said, glibly but unconvincingly. Either cars or cricket, she guessed, or perhaps even hurling, an ancient Cornish sport recently making something of a comeback.

  “You can go and discuss it with the gov’nor in the house. Constable, you’ll be driving me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lubbock reached to open the door of the 1100.

  “In the panda. Mr Scumble will be needing his car.”

  Obviously disappointed, he went to the black-and-white Mini and opened the passenger door for her.

  As they bumped down the track, she asked, “Did you come to any conclusions about the case?”

  “Uh?”

  “You were discussing the case with DC Wilkes.”

  “I … um … we … No, um, not exactly.”

  Which was a touch of revenge for all the male conversations she’d been shut out of because she had little knowledge and less interest in cars and sports. It was a bit unfair to take it out on the boy, though.

  Boy? When had she started seeing new-fledged police officers as boys? What an alarming thought!

  “What I wondered,” Lubbock said eagerly, “is, could they all be in it together? I mean, I don’t know much about it, but from what I’ve heard, they none of ’em’s sorry he’s dead.”

  “That’s an interesting theory.” And not only highly unlikely, given the variety of personalities involved, but unnecessary. A single hand had sufficed to stick the dagger into Clark’s back.

  An uncertain method of dealing death, now she came to think of it. A knife thrust in the back was liable to glance off a rib or two. Dr Prthnavi had said Clark died virtually instantly. Did that indicate luck or anatomical knowledge? Not that the latter would narrow the field of suspects much. Megan didn’t know much more about art than she did about cars and sport, but she did know art students usually, if not always, studied anatomy.

  She had no time to follow the idea. She had to concentrate on remembering exactly what Stella had said in her statement.

  When she had first read it, she had known very little about the case, only what was in Douglas Rosevear’s statement. In hindsight, she realised how little Stella had added to his story. Pearce hadn’t bothered to ask her a single question about
the earlier part of the day, the incident in Nick Gresham’s shop that had set in motion the whole chain of events. He must have been in an almighty hurry to get home to his impatient totty.

  On the other hand, she had to sympathise a little. According to a note added by the ubiquitous Wilkes, the witness had cried throughout the interview.

  Still, even if Stella had been in no state to provide useful answers, Wilkes would have recorded everything Pearce said. The inspector, after swallowing whole her mistaken impression of what she’d observed without even taking a look at the scene, had simply failed to ask almost all of the obvious questions. There could be no excuse for such sloppy work.

  It left Megan a clear field. Anything she found out would be fresh information, and she had the advantage that Stella had had time to get over her hysterics. Hadn’t she?

  Perhaps not. Maybe that was why Scumble had sent Megan to talk to Stella instead of organising the search for Leila Arden, which she was perfectly capable of doing. Or maybe he just didn’t expect Stella to have anything useful to say.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “This looks like the place, Sarge.” Lubbock swung the panda left into a drive leading downwards. “Riverview Convalescent Home.”

  “That’s right.” She was being ridiculously paranoid, she told herself. If the gov’nor had an ulterior motive for sending her, it was just the old “sympathetic female touch” nonsense. Stella was an important witness, the third on the scene, and there was a good chance she would have noticed something Gresham had not. With any luck, she’d have calmed down enough to remember.

  The car pulled up in front of a largish, well-kept house. The grounds were well-kept, too. Obviously plenty of money here.

  “Move the car to a less conspicuous place, will you? Then you can wait in it.”

  Lubbock’s face fell. Another disappointment: no 1100 to drive, no helping with questioning a suspect. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Come on, in that get-up, you’ve got to stay out of sight.” Megan looked at the large young man squeezed in behind the wheel and took pity on him to the extent of saying, “You can get out to stretch your legs. Don’t go farther than you can hear our call signal on the radio.”

  The door of the house stood open to the still-warm evening air. She stepped inside and looked around. Gleaming parquet, a big bowl of roses, delicious food smells emanating from somewhere beyond, all confirmed that there was no dearth of funds. There was, however, a dearth of people. Megan rang the bell on the table.

  Nothing happened. She waited a couple of minutes and rang again.

  A woman came out of a room to the left and asked impatiently, “Yes? What is it?”

  Megan didn’t answer for a moment, studying her. She had red hair, the kind that might lead to the nickname “copper-knob” but couldn’t possibly be called carroty, done up in a careless-seeming chignon. She wore a no-nonsense white blouse with a paisley print ankle-length skirt in greens and blues and high-heeled sandals over nylon tights. Her face was striking—and vaguely familiar.

  Holding out her warrant card for inspection, Megan introduced herself: “Detective Sergeant Pencarrow. I’d like to—”

  “Oh!” She clapped a hand to her mouth and shook her head. “I can’t talk to you here,” she whispered. “I’m trying so hard not to let the guests—our patients—see how upset I am. And my employer…”

  “Of course. I can see it might set the cat among the pigeons. We’ll go over to the Wadebridge police station.”

  “I can’t leave. I’m on duty.”

  “You must want us to find your … friend’s murderer as quickly as possible, I’m sure.” Megan kept her voice calm and friendly. The last thing she wanted was more hysterics, for her own sake, regardless of the patients. “You have a private room here, don’t you? We can go there, no problem. You’ll be close enough if you’re needed. Ought you to tell someone where you’ll be?”

  “No. No, if they want me they’ll ring through.”

  They went upstairs. Several doors led off the landing. One was a solid affair of polished oak, more like a front door than an interior door.

  Stella noticed Megan looking at it. “That’s Dr Fenwick’s flat. The owner. He’s downstairs chatting with the guests before dinner. This is my room.” She unlocked a door.

  No Indian bedspreads and cushions on the floor here. The bedsitter was very comfortably, even luxuriously furnished in the blues and greens that a redhead would naturally favour. Megan remembered Margery telling her that Stella was well paid because of the difficulty of getting weekend staff.

  A couple of fashion magazines lay on a table, a third on the floor, half covering a pair of flat sandals, but no books were visible. Nor was either a wireless or a record-player, an odd omission in these days of ubiquitous music. What was it Shakespeare said about people who didn’t like music? Megan couldn’t remember.

  On the wall hung a portrait in oils of the occupant. That was why she seemed familiar, Megan realised. At the scene of the crime, her image was everywhere. Megan glanced back at the subject of the painting. It was a good likeness, the colour looking somehow more natural than the touch of lipstick and dusting of rouge that Stella was now wearing.

  Stella turned away, head bowed. Her voice trembled. “He’ll never paint me again.”

  “I’m sorry. Let’s get this over with.” They sat down. Megan’s chair was almost too soft, like the Mama Bear’s, wonderful for lounging, but all wrong for conducting an interview. Taking notes was going to be difficult. She did her best to sit upright. “We’ll go back to yesterday morning.”

  “Morning? But Geoff was killed in the evening!”

  “I’m afraid I have to fill in all sorts of nit-picking details for my report. You were in Padstow, you told DI Pearce? How did you get there, and what time did you arrive?”

  “I don’t know the time. A bit late for opening the gallery, if you want to know the truth, but it’s no good trying to hurry Geoff. He took me in his MG, because he was going to Tintagel to pick up that horrible, horrible dagger from the ironsmith. How I wish he’d never had the idea of getting the damn thing made! Just because he thought the light would reflect differently than from the sword.”

  “You disagreed?”

  “About the light? I expect he’s … oh, he was right. But who cares? A waste of money, if you ask me. And effort.”

  “Did you go to art school?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I’m just trying to understand,” Megan said soothingly. She wasn’t quite sure why she had asked, but it linked somehow with something in the back of her mind.

  “I took a few classes. Painting bored me, but sculpture was more fun.” Once she got going, she talked readily. “I love the feel of the stone when I’ve polished it really smooth. I see people in the shops fondling my seals and porpoises. They sell quite well. In fact, I sold one yesterday morning, at Nick’s shop.”

  “That was before Geoffrey Clark returned?”

  “Yes. He got there just before Nick phoned from London. I wasn’t expecting him so early. Usually when he goes to Tintagel he moons about the castle for ages, ‘catching the vibes,’ he says. Used to say. But he wanted to show me that damn dagger. He was unwrapping it when Nick rang. Of course I told him Nick’s news. He started spouting about how unfair it was, so I told him not to get his knickers in a twist. I guessed he was probably hungry—he wouldn’t answer when I asked but he tends to skip breakfast—and it was making him irritable. So I went across the street to pick up a couple of pasties. When I came back … Well, I’m sure you know by now what he’d done.”

  “He wrecked several of Mr Gresham’s paintings.”

  “I was horrified. I decided we’d better make ourselves scarce. I wrote a note to Nick and cleared out my stuff while Geoff fetched his car from the car park. Then I closed the shop and we drove to Padstow. The bastard was in such a hurry to have a go at painting the dagger, he wouldn’t drive me up to the farm, so I
hitchhiked.”

  “Why did you clear out your sculptures?”

  “Well, obviously, Nick was going to be so furious he wouldn’t let me go on selling there. It wasn’t till later I started worrying that he’d be mad enough to beat up—”

  Megan held up a hand to stop her. “We’ll get to that in a minute. Where did Clark park in Padstow?”

  “The Strand. Hell, I suppose it’s still there!”

  “Did you go to his gallery with him?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t far out of the way to get to the Wadebridge Road to thumb a lift or catch a bus. I still hoped to talk him into taking me.”

  “What time did you get there?”

  Stella shrugged. “No idea.”

  “Did you go in?”

  “Just for a minute. I wanted to take off my tights for hitching. I wear them for work—here and in the shops, not for sculpting—but I hate them, hate nylon on my feet. And I got a drink of water.”

  “Presumably the closedsign was up when you arrived. Did Clark flip it to open?”

  “I … I don’t remember.”

  “Never mind. Why did you hitch a lift, rather than phoning for someone at the farm to pick you up?”

  “I couldn’t do that. Doug lets us have the bus if it’s arranged in advance, but he uses it on the farm, too, and he gets shirty if you push it. Besides, I like hitching. You meet some interesting people, though sometimes hereabouts you’re on the back of a haycart. Yesterday I was picked up by an Aussie tourist who took me all the way to the beginning of the track. He had a hired car and he wouldn’t risk it on the potholes. Luckily I was wearing flats.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “Bert? Pete? Mike? Something utterly unmemorable.”

  She hadn’t noticed the make or colour of the car, hadn’t really listened when Bert or Pete or Mike had talked about his plans.

  “To tell the truth,” she admitted, “I was still a bit rattled by what Geoff had done. I was thinking about what on earth I was going to say to the others.”