Murder Most Frequent: three more Inspector Constable mysteries (The Inspector Constable Murder Mysteries Book 5)

by Roger Keevil

  “Sir?”

  “She's moved it all, hasn't she? All the distillation equipment that I caught a glimpse of when I was here before. She knew I'd seen it, and realised that I would probably put two and two together, so she's stashed it all away carefully out of sight.”

  “So that puts a spoke in that wheel then, guv.”

  “Not necessarily.” Constable thought swiftly. “Right. Here's what I want you to do. First, get things under way to organise a search warrant for this place. If the pub was as busy as she says it was last night, she won't have had time to do anything complicated. Second, check that things did go on here yesterday as she says they did. Don't bother to talk to that girl Anna – for all we know, she's just as involved as Adelaide Knight. Come down here later and have a casual chat with some of the regulars.”

  “And if that all pans out, sir? What if we find she's got a motive for both murders but an alibi for each of them?”

  “Then, sergeant, we may well be back to square one.”

  “I do hope you've found everything you were looking for, gentlemen.” The light in the room dimmed slightly as the figure of Addy Knight darkened the doorway, her expression smug, her tone sarcastic.

  Constable whirled and switched a smile on to his face. “Indeed, Miss Knight. Sergeant Copper here was saying how impressed he was. As, indeed, am I … by your organisational skills.”

  “I try to keep on top of everything, inspector,” replied Addy. “And I hope you don't mind, but I would like to lock up again. I don't like to leave this place open to casual passers-by – there is quite a lot of value tied up here.”

  “I imagine there would be.” Constable tired of the verbal fencing. “Come along, sergeant. We have matters to attend to.” His face set, he headed for the car and climbed in.

  Back at the library, the doctor was finishing packing his equipment away.

  “How goes it, doc?” enquired the inspector.

  The doctor shook his head. “I'm not happy, Andy.”

  “Unusual for you, doc. Normally, nothing cheers you up like a nice mysterious death.”

  “Not in this case, Andy. I can't so far find anything consistent with an attack. No defence wounds – no sign that her hands were in a protective position. In fact, the only thing they were holding on to was that damn great dusty book.”

  “I remember, she had that in her hand when we found her, guv,” remarked Copper. He picked up the book which lay nearby on the floor and opened it to reveal page upon page of photographs of village life. “Look – it must be that photo album she was going to look out for me – the one she thought might have a picture of Mark Lowe in it.”

  “That answers a question,” said the doctor. He dropped his voice. “Look, Andy, far be it from me to tell you or SOCO how to do your job, but I've got a theory. For a start, look at those shoes of hers. Rubber soles, right? The sort of rubber that tends to leave scuff marks on a wooden floor like this one. See?” It was true. At many places on the library's parquet floor, small black scuff marks could be seen. “Now look here.” The doctor drew the detectives' attention to a similar mark on the front edge of the third shelf from the floor of the bookcase which had been lifted off Phyllis Stein. “I think she was standing on that shelf. Now look again here.” He pointed to the top surface of the bookcase, thick with dust. A rectangle clear of dust was plainly visible. “You check that photo album against it, but I think you'll find it a perfect fit.”

  “So what are you saying, doc?” Andy Constable had a feeling that he knew what was coming.

  “Your victim wanted to get hold of that book, which was on the top of a large heavy bookcase, and had been for some time. Goodness knows why, and it's probably not relevant. But in order to get it, she decided to clamber up the front of the bookcase – perhaps she thought she could just reach it, instead of having to go and get a ladder from somewhere. But as she did so, her additional weight was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Basic physics – the principle of moments, or some such thing that you probably have a vague memory of from your schooldays. The bookcase toppled over, crushing her beneath it. I don't think you've got a murder here. It looks to me like an accident.”

  *

  Andy Constable and Dave Copper stood watching the doctor stow his bag in his ancient Volvo.

  “That's chucked a spanner in the works, hasn't it, guv?” remarked Copper. “If Mark Lowe is out of it because of his school parents' evening, and Adelaide Knight turns out to be telling the truth about being in the pub all last night, and Phyllis Stein wasn't killed anyway, surely we're back to square one with Rex Hope?”

  Constable had no time to reply. As he drew breath to do so, his attention was distracted by the approaching siren of an emergency vehicle. Stepping into the lane, the detectives could see an ambulance, lights flashing, draw to a halt on the forecourt of the Three Blind Mice, and the swift progress of one of its paramedics into the building.

  “What the hell …? Copper, you'd better go and check what that's all about.” As the sergeant trotted round the corner, Constable made his way to where the doctor was just closing the boot of his car. “If I were you, I wouldn't go anywhere just yet, doc. You never know, this might be another instance where your professional skills are needed.” The tone was half-jocular, although the inspector was by no means certain that humour was in order. “Let's see what Copper can find out.”

  He did not have long to wait. After a few minutes, Dave Copper reappeared round the corner and, puffing slightly, approached his superior.

  “It's Sam Booker, guv,” he reported. “He's been poisoned.”

  “What?!”

  The doctor looked askance at Constable. “And you thought you were joking, Andy. I suppose I'd better get my bag out again.”

  “No, it's okay, doc,” said Copper hastily. “This isn't one for you. At least, not yet. The paramedics reckon they've got it all under control. They're just getting ready to bung him in the ambulance to whip him into hospital.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I've only got the bare bones, guv. Apparently he was working in the bar, going to and fro between there and the cellar. According to what he told the paramedic between groans, he'd made himself a coffee, which he'd left out back in the kitchen and then half-forgotten about. But then he came up from the cellar, remembered it, and went and took a swig. Didn't much like the taste – thought it was a bit off, so he swilled it down the sink. Two minutes later, he's chucking up. Managed to call for help from his kneeling position over the loo, and Bob Farmer phoned for an ambulance.”

  “And where had Mr. Farmer been all this time?”

  “Doing the books in the other bar.”

  “And Mrs. Farmer?”

  “Upstairs on her own.”

  “So nobody can account for anyone else? Great!” grunted Constable.

  “There's worse, sir,” said Copper. “The coffee was standing on the worktop by the back door, which was unlocked and open. And there's a cut through from the car park to the lane.”

  “So anybody could have got to it? Just what we need. Copper, you'd better stay in touch with the hospital. I want to be kept informed of Sam Booker's condition. Most specifically, assuming they pump him out, I want to know what he's taken in.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  As the doctor once again prepared to take his leave, there was a sudden flurry of activity, as two officers who had attended in one of the local patrol cars suddenly emerged from the library building, leapt into their vehicle, and accelerated, siren blaring, up School Lane in the direction of Blaise Copse. “Lively round here, Andy, isn't it?” commented the doctor. “Not so much your peaceful rural idyll.”

  “Probably just crossed wires, with a bit of luck,” said Constable hopefully. “I expect somebody in the control room has doubled up on this thing at the Three Blind Mice, and sent them off in the wrong direction into the bargain. They'll be back soon enough, no doubt.”

  He was swiftly pr
oved wrong, as a young WPC, one of the incident room officers, appeared in the doorway of the building. “I thought you'd want to know, sir. There's just been a call. Someone's discovered a dead body.”

  Constable sighed. “Well, you can just call them back and tell them we know all about it. And you can tell them he's not dead, fortunately, and that the whole situation at the Three Blind Mice is all in hand.”

  The WPC shifted uneasily. “Um … it's not the Three Blind Mice, sir,” she said. “This is something else. One of the local farm workers was coming into the village down School Lane. And he found the body of a man, just by the path leading out of Blaise Copse. He phoned 999 straight away.”

  “Do we know who it is?” Constable's voice was heavy with foreboding.

  “Yes, sir. The chap recognised him. It was the man you were interviewing here earlier on, sir. Mark Lowe.”

  There was a long pause, during which Constable stood, head thrown back, staring blindly at the sky, while Copper and the doctor exchanged mute looks. Eventually the inspector spoke. “Doc,” he said quietly, “I wonder if you would be so kind, if you can spare the time, to come and take a look at the body.”

  “I knew I should have got out of here while the going was good, Andy,” rejoined the doctor. “You know, for some reason, I'm reminded of that scene in 'Death On The Nile' – you know, the one where Bette Davis says 'This place is beginning to resemble a mortuary'.” The impression was surprisingly accurate. “And I should know. If you rustle up many more customers for me, I shall have them queueing up in the corridor.” He opened his car door. “Well, back to the rock face. You lead the way, I'll follow.”

  Copper parked his car on the verge of School Lane, under the shade of the last trees of Blaise Copse as they overhung the road, while the doctor drew in behind. As Constable approached the scene, he could see the body of Mark Lowe slumped on the stile – to a casual observer, he might have been taking a breather during his run, except for the large and clearly visible bloodstain on the front of his T-shirt. The two officers from the incident room stood flanking the body, while a little way off, standing holding his bicycle alongside the patrol car, was a very shaken-looking young man in overalls.

  “So what happened?” asked Constable without preamble.

  “Chap over there was cycling into the village,” reported one of the officers. “Saw the guy, and called 999. He's stayed here with the body ever since.”

  “Copper, go and have a word with him,” instructed Constable. “Doc, over to you.”

  At that moment, the doctor's mobile rang. “Hello … Yes, well as it happens, I'm looking at him now … Don't be silly, when did you ever know me to joke? … Is the van on its way to the Old School? … Well, you'd better get in touch with them and tell them to come up here afterwards. We've got a double load for them.” He opened the boot of his car and pulled out a bag. “You know, Andy, I don't think my people and I are geared up for the conveyor-belt nature of death in this part of the world. Perhaps we'll all put in for a transfer to a nice quiet war zone.” He slammed the boot. “Right … let's take a look at your latest offering.”

  “At least I don't need to ask you about time of death,” remarked Constable, as the doctor stooped over Mark Lowe's lifeless form. “Or the cause of it, by the look of it.”

  “Probably not,” said the doctor, donning a pair of surgical gloves. He pulled up the front of the T-shirt gingerly. “Hmmm. Stabbed. Single blow to the chest – major trauma to heart or lung, I'd say, if not both. And don't quote me, but I shouldn't be surprised if the knife used was the same, or remarkably similar, to the one used on your first victim. So, same method? Same killer?”

  “Except,” Constable pointed out, “that Rex Hope was stabbed in the back and this one was stabbed from the front. And if he was sitting here, which it appears he was, since he's quite relaxed and there doesn't seem to be any sign of a struggle, then it looks as if he knew the killer and had no reason to fear anything from them.” He grunted. “He was probably dead before he knew it.”

  “Maybe,” said the doctor. “But as for the rest of it, that's rather more your department than mine. I'll just carry on doing my usual once-over, if that's all right by you.” He produced a pair of overalls.

  As Constable turned away, Copper approached. “Not that much to tell, sir,” he reported. “Chap's a cowman on the local farm. He was cycling into the village when he noticed Mr. Lowe sitting on the stile. Knows him from the pub, although this guy usually drinks at the Dagger. Just said 'hi' in passing, but no reply. Didn't think anything much of it, but then he looked again and saw the blood. Nearly fell off his bike, he says. But he took a closer look, realised he was dead, and got on his phone straight away.”

  “Thank goodness for mobiles,” commented Constable. “I don't suppose there's the remotest chance that he saw anyone else, is there?”

  “Sorry, guv. He says not a soul. I don't think there's much more he can tell us, but I've got all his details, just in case.”

  Constable took a decision. “Doc, I'm leaving all this to you. We're going back to the library.”

  “Reports in due course, Andy,” replied the doctor absently, busy with his examination. He looked up. “At least there is one good thing about the situation.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “The more bodies we cart away, the fewer suspects you have!”

  *

  “Guv, I'm a bit confused.” Dave Copper's brow was furrowed in thought.

  “Only a bit? You're lucky.”

  “We've got four bodies … well, no, three, actually, because the paramedics were looking fairly hopeful that they'd got to Sam Booker in time. But let's include the attempt in the reckoning.”

  “Go on.”

  “I just think we've got too many motives, and half of them seem to point in the wrong direction. Look at the Farmers – you could say that Bob Farmer might have had a motive to kill Rex, Sam, and Mark because of feelings of jealousy over his wife. Except that nobody seems to think she's the sort of woman to give him any justification. But if he thought there might be anything going on, he could certainly have got at the last two today – it would have taken some doing, but it's possible – but he was at the Three Blind Mice at the time of the training run, so that rules him out as regards Rex Hope. And pretty Penny? I reckon she's up to fending off any attentions she doesn't want, and there's no way she could have killed Rex anyway. Now, just in case the doc is wrong and Phyllis Stein's death wasn't an accident, we've got a couple of decent motives to kill her, which all come down to the fact that she was spreading the dirt. Mark Lowe had a reason because of this rumour about him and a pupil, but he says nothing ever came from that. Adelaide Knight could have been … probably now is … in trouble over this illicit alcohol business. Except that those two are both accounted for when she died. And in fact, you could look at it the other way round … Phyllis could have wanted to murder Mark in some fit of spinsterish humiliation and jealousy over the New Year's Eve party and the fact that he fancied Penny, except that by the time he's killed, she's lying safely dead on the library floor. And Sam? Well, that takes me back to where I started.”

  “Let me add to your confusion, sergeant,” said Andy Constable, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip of the tea which one of the incident room PCs had just brought the detectives. “No pattern. If, lord help us, there's some sort of homicidal maniac stalking the lanes of Blaston Dammett … even to hear myself say it makes it sound ludicrous … then there's no coherence of method. Let's rule out Phyllis Stein for the sake of argument. The doctor is a remarkably clever man, which he mostly succeeds in concealing behind that bluff 'oh look, another dead body, how amusing' exterior, and I'm inclined to take his suggestion seriously. So we'll assume that her death is accidental, to be confirmed once he gives us his full results. That leaves us with two stabbings and a poisoning. Two different stabbings, I should say. One furtive from behind, and one from the front. So did the second victim kno
w and trust his killer, but the first victim not?” Constable shrugged. “At the moment, your guess is as good as mine. And no weapon, so nothing to point us in any direction.”

  “Are you sure, guv? What about that nice collection of weapons on the wall at the Sword and Dagger? Adelaide Knight said that they'd lost one or two over time.”

  “So we have to check around all the customers of the Dagger, just to see whether any of them might have abstracted one of Adelaide's trophies at some time, in the hope that it might just be the weapon we're looking for? I don't think so. We may be in farming country, but I don't think we need to go diving into that particular haystack.”

  “And the poisoning, sir?”

  “Well, it doesn't exactly fit with the other murders. And we know that anybody could have got to the drink to spike it.”

  “Except Mark Lowe, sir. He never got that far. And until we know what it was in the coffee ...” Copper frowned in thought. “Hang on, sir. I've just remembered. Anna, the girl who works at the Dagger … didn't she say she was studying chemistry?”

  Constable laughed. “So let me see if I've got this right. You are advancing the proposition that, for some reason, somebody from the Dagger wishes to put Sam Booker out of the way? Addy and Anna in cahoots, perhaps? So they swiftly dig out the distillation equipment from its hiding place, concoct some foul poisonous witch's brew, and then come sneaking up the back lanes of the village on the off-chance that Sam might be taking his coffee break at that particular moment?”

  Copper smiled ruefully. “When you put it like that, sir, it does sound daft.”

  “No dafter than some theories I've heard peddled in my time.”

  “So we're back where we started. In fact … hang on, sir. Maybe we ought to be doing exactly that, and starting all over again with Rex Hope. And I'll tell you one thing we haven't followed up, and that's what Phyllis Stein told us about him losing all Barbara Dwyer's money. Okay, I can't see any sort of link between him, Mark, and Sam, other than that they were all running together, but they were running past her cottage, and she's got a thoroughly plausible reason to hate Rex. Who's to say she didn't see him go running past on that day? Maybe he made some smart remark as he went by. And she could have snapped, nipped into the kitchen, got hold of that veg knife that we saw her doing such a good job with, chased after him, and stuck it in him in revenge.”