A Killing Resurrected

by Frank Smith

  ‘He is a slippery bastard,’ Tregalles agreed once they’d sat down to enjoy their ice creams, ‘and he was ready for us. He was even smart enough to volunteer the information that Jessop was trying to blackmail him, so he must have been aware that she was still alive and talking.

  ‘But I don’t believe that stuff about him waiting in the Green Man for Sharron Jessop because he wanted to see her again. The minute Sharon told him she remembered him as the man who had held her during the robbery at the Rose and Crown, he would see her as a threat that had to be dealt with. There’s no way that man would stand for an attempt to blackmail him, especially if what the blackmailer said was true.’

  Tregalles shook his head in a bewildered sort of way. ‘Didn’t Sharon see that?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘I can’t believe the woman could be so stupid.’

  ‘I think it was more a case of desperation than stupidity,’ Molly said. ‘Sharon’s been beaten down over the years, trying to make ends meet, while her husband robs her of what little she has every chance he gets, and on top of that she loses her job. She simply wasn’t thinking, and when Chadwell realized how naive she was, he pretended to want to help her and she fell for it.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Tregalles said without conviction. ‘But I still don’t understand why he didn’t kill her outright when he had the chance.’

  ‘Perhaps he thought he had. The problem we have now is, how are we going to prove it was Chadwell who beat her up?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tregalles said, ‘but your mentioning his attitude towards women reminds me I never did get round to talking to his wife after I saw him in his office the other day. He tried to put me off talking to her then, much the same as he did today, so let’s see if she’s in.’

  The Sergeant consulted his notebook, then dialled a number on his mobile phone and waited. ‘Oh, sorry,’ he mumbled gruffly, when a woman answered. ‘Must have dialled the wrong number. Sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘She’s home,’ he told Molly as he closed the phone, ‘but I didn’t want to tell her we were coming in case she decided to alert Chadwell, and I don’t want him around when we talk to her.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Molly’s first impression of Amy Chadwell was of someone who had just got out of bed. She wore no make-up, her hair was frizzy, and her slim body was draped in a shapeless short-sleeved dress that could almost be mistaken for a nightgown.

  ‘Sorry to call on you at lunchtime,’ Tregalles said, ‘but we happened to be in the area and thought we’d take a chance. Do you mind? Just a few questions. It won’t take long.’

  ‘No . . . no, it’s all right,’ Amy said hesitantly. Her slender fingers fluttered to her neck, touched her face, touched her hair as if to assure herself that she looked all right before opening the door wider for them to enter. ‘In fact I don’t have a set time for meals during the holidays,’ she explained. She lowered her voice as if afraid of being overheard. ‘Except for dinner, of course,’ she confided. ‘John is such a creature of habit, and he does like his dinner on time.’

  ‘You’re a teacher?’ Molly said as Amy Chadwell led the way into the front room and turned to face them. ‘Primary school, is it? What ages do you teach?’ Molly knew the answers to her questions, because she’d read the background material on John Chadwell and his wife, but felt a few non-threatening questions might help put the woman at ease.

  ‘That’s right.’ The lines around Amy’s mouth softened. ‘I get them when they’re first starting school,’ she said. ‘Four- and five-year-olds. They’re such a delight at that age, and so eager to learn. Do you have children, Miss . . . er . . . I’m sorry, Detective Constable . . .?’

  Molly smiled. ‘Constable Forsythe,’ she said, ‘and, no, I don’t have children.’

  Amy looked away. ‘Nor do we,’ she said wistfully. ‘But then, as John says, with both of us working full time it would hardly be fair, and he’s right, of course.’

  Tregalles cleared his throat. ‘If I may . . .?’ he began.

  He was interrupted by Amy saying, ‘Would you like tea?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Chadwell,’ Molly said quickly before Tregalles could speak, ‘but we won’t be here long, so thank you, but no. May we sit down?’

  ‘Oh! Oh dear, yes, of course. I’m sorry . . . I should have . . . Yes, please do sit down.’ Amy indicated well-worn armchairs on either side of the bay window that overlooked the street. She waited until they were settled, then sat down facing them, hands clasped tightly around her knees.

  ‘This is about poor Roger, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Yes, yes, of course, it must be. John told me a detective had been to see him in his office, but I never expected anyone to . . . I mean all I did was answer the phone; John was the one Roger wanted to talk to, and I could barely make out what Roger was saying anyway. John went down to the Unicorn to try to help Roger, but he was gone by the time John got there. He did try to get hold of Kevin, but he couldn’t, so he went down there himself, and that’s about all I can tell you,’ she ended breathlessly.

  ‘Why, exactly, was Mr Chadwell trying to contact Kevin Taylor?’ Tregalles asked.

  Amy shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ she said guiltily, ‘but, to be honest, John never cared much for Roger.’ She laughed nervously. ‘Couldn’t stand the man if truth be told – with good reason,’ she added hastily, ‘because Roger could be quite . . . quite difficult at times. But Kevin has always looked out for Roger, so John thought it would be best to have Kevin talk to him.’

  Molly said, ‘Do you happen to remember what time the call came in, Mrs Chadwell?’

  ‘When Roger called? Oh, yes. It was a few minutes after four. Five past, perhaps? John came home early that day. He had some work to do before the council meeting that night, and he’d said he would be home by four, and he’d just come in when Roger phoned. John is always punctual.’

  ‘I know you said it was hard to understand Mr Corbett, but did he say why he was in such a state?’

  Amy frowned in concentration. ‘It sounded to me as if he was saying something like “everything is coming apart”,’ she said slowly. ‘But John said I must have been mistaken; he said it was nothing like that, so I was probably mistaken. Roger was slurring his words quite badly.’

  ‘Anything else you remember?’

  ‘No. I turned the phone over to John at that point.’

  ‘You say your husband had a council meeting that evening,’ Tregalles said.

  Amy grimaced. ‘That’s what made him so annoyed,’ she said. ‘He’d brought work home to prepare for the meeting, and it upset him to have to leave it to go into town. And he really did try hard to find Roger, because he was gone a long time, and barely had time to eat his dinner when he got back before he had to go back into town for the meeting. Upsetting for both of us, actually, because he went off in such a hurry that he took my car instead of his own, since it was already in the street and his was in the garage, and I was beginning to think he wouldn’t be back in time for me to go to the end-of-term party at the school, and I didn’t want to miss that. The teachers and staff usually get together for a bit of a do to celebrate the end of the school year,’ she explained.

  Tregalles looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You say Mr Chadwell’s car was in the garage, and yet you told us he’d just come home?’

  ‘Oh, he always does that,’ Amy said. ‘John doesn’t like to leave it out in the hot sun because it does something to the finish, so he puts it in the garage as soon as he gets home.’

  While yours sits out in the blazing sun, thought Molly as she and Tregalles exchanged glances. ‘Just to make sure I have the times right,’ she said, making a show of writing something in her notebook, ‘would it be fair to say that Mr Chadwell left within ten or fifteen minutes of taking the call from Mr Corbett?’

  Amy frowned into the distance. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said firmly. ‘As I said, he had hoped to get K
evin to go, but since Kevin wasn’t around, Stephanie talked John into going himself.’ For the first time since they’d arrived, Amy smiled. It was a secretive sort of smile, and she sounded almost pleased as she said, ‘John tried to persuade Stephanie to go instead, but she wasn’t having any, and I don’t blame her. Roger could be quite a handful when he was drunk.’

  ‘I’d like to ask you about another phone call your husband received,’ Tregalles said. ‘Last Saturday morning.’

  Amy Chadwell’s eyes underwent a subtle change. ‘Last Saturday?’ she repeated vaguely. ‘What does that have to do with poor Roger?’

  ‘Perhaps nothing,’ Tregalles told her, ‘but it is of interest to us. Mr Chadwell received a call from an old friend, I believe . . .?’

  ‘But why do you want to know about that?’ Amy persisted.

  ‘Perhaps we can deal with that later,’ said Tregalles. ‘Do you remember the call?’

  ‘Not the call itself, but John told me he’d had a call from an old friend who was in town for a short time, and he was going to meet him for a drink later that night.’ Amy Chadwell’s voice was strangely flat.

  ‘Did he tell you the friend’s name?’ Tregalles persisted.

  ‘No, he just said a friend had called.’

  ‘You say your husband said he was going to meet him for a drink. Is that right, Mrs Chadwell?’

  She nodded, but remained silent.

  ‘Which wasn’t true, was it?’ Tregalles said gently, ‘because it was a woman who rang him that morning. But then, I think you knew that, didn’t you, Mrs Chadwell? Did you know, or at least suspect, who the caller was?’

  Amy looked down at her hands and shook her head. ‘As you say,’ she said in a voice barely above a whisper, ‘I thought it might be a woman, but I had no idea who she was.’

  ‘So this sort of thing has happened before?’

  Amy raised her head. ‘Yes, if you must know,’ she said defiantly, ‘but I don’t know why it is any of your business. Why are you asking all these questions?’

  ‘I’m asking these questions because the woman who made that call and arranged to meet your husband was severely beaten shortly before she was to have met him in a local pub. She was left unconscious on her kitchen floor, and wasn’t found until the following morning. She was rushed to hospital, but it’s only by the grace of God she’s still alive.’

  What little colour there had been in Amy Chadwell’s face drained away. ‘You’re surely not suggesting that John had anything to do with that?’ she said. Her voice was strained and she had trouble getting the words out.

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ Tregalles told her. ‘But I am trying to piece together the movements of anyone who might have been in contact with this woman. Do you happen to remember what time your husband left the house that night?’

  ‘Just before ten,’ she said quickly. ‘I remember that distinctly because I go to bed at ten, but John usually stays up and watches television till midnight, but that night I switched it off before going to bed, because John had left by then. And he was back here again before midnight.’ Amy looked pleased with herself. No doubt she thought she was proving their suspicions false, thought Molly, while in fact she might have just tightened the noose around her husband’s neck.

  ‘And he was extremely annoyed,’ Amy continued, ‘because the person he’d gone to meet hadn’t turned up, and they hadn’t so much as sent a message to say they couldn’t be there, so the whole thing was a wasted journey. So, if this woman was attacked in her home, I don’t see how you can think John had anything to do with it or why she’s saying that he did. Who is this woman anyway?’

  ‘Sorry, but we’re not at liberty to tell you that,’ Tregalles said. ‘Although I can tell you that she was someone your husband knew quite well some years ago.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure she’s wrong, and there’s been some terrible mistake. What possible reason would John have for doing such a thing anyway?’

  ‘Perhaps because the woman was attempting to blackmail him,’ Tregalles said. ‘Threatening to expose him.’ The words were spoken quietly, but their impact on Amy Chadwell was clearly visible.

  ‘Blackmail?’ she said with an effort. ‘Oh, no. No, you must be mistaken. I can’t believe that. John of all people would never stand for anything like that. He would have gone straight to the police and have them deal with it.’

  ‘Unless the blackmailer’s allegations were true.’

  ‘Allegations . . .?’ Amy drew a deep breath to steady herself before attempting to speak again. ‘What allegations?’ she asked faintly.

  ‘That your husband belonged to a gang that took part in several robberies and a double murder thirteen years ago,’ Tregalles said bluntly.

  Amy swallowed noisily several times before she was able to speak. ‘I can’t believe you’re saying this,’ she said faintly. ‘I don’t know where you are getting your information from, but it’s completely—’

  ‘From the woman herself,’ Tregalles cut in, ‘and your husband confirmed that she did ask him for money when we spoke to him earlier today. He denied attacking her, of course, but it seems more than a coincidence to me that the woman, who had asked him for money in the morning, was beaten and left for dead later that same evening.’

  He leaned forward. ‘So tell me, Mrs Chadwell,’ he said, ‘does this really come as a surprise to you? You knew, or at least suspected, that your husband was lying when he referred to his “old friend” as a man, and this wasn’t the first time he had done this sort of thing, was it? Yet you didn’t challenge him? You didn’t object?’

  Tregalles settled back in his chair. ‘So what did you do, Mrs Chadwell?’ he asked softly. ‘Go quietly off to bed while your husband went off to see this woman? Or did you follow him to the house where this woman lived, and watch from a distance while he went in and—’

  ‘No!’ Amy Chadwell was shaking her head violently from side to side. ‘That’s not true! None of it is true. I never left the house, and John wouldn’t . . . He couldn’t . . . He didn’t even meet her because she didn’t turn up. He told me she didn’t turn up when he came home. He said—’

  ‘She . . .?’ Tregalles broke in quickly. ‘He told you at that point it was a woman he’d gone to meet?’

  ‘No, no, you’re confusing me,’ Amy said desperately. ‘He didn’t say it was a woman. He said his friend hadn’t turned up, and he was annoyed because he hadn’t so much as tried to contact him at the pub to let John know he wouldn’t be coming.’

  ‘And you weren’t even curious enough to challenge the fiction that the friend was a man? I must say I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘Well, it’s true. As I said, John was annoyed and he was tired . . .’

  ‘And it doesn’t pay to ask questions when John’s annoyed,’ Tregalles said quietly. ‘Isn’t that right, Mrs Chadwell?’

  Amy refused to look at him. ‘I want you to leave,’ she said shakily. ‘I don’t have to listen to this, so please go and leave me alone.’

  The two detectives got to their feet, but Molly paused to look out of the window. ‘Is that your car out there in the street, Mrs Chadwell?’ she asked.

  Amy eyed her suspiciously, clearly puzzled by the question. ‘The silver Hyundai,’ Molly elaborated. ‘Is it yours?’

  Amy nodded. ‘Yes, that’s mine,’ she said cautiously. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Just curious,’ Molly said as she followed Tregalles to the door. ‘And thank you, Mrs Chadwell. No, please don’t get up,’ she said quickly as Amy started to rise. ‘We can see ourselves out.’

  ‘So what was that all about?’ Tregalles wanted to know as they got in the car. ‘Looking for a new car, yourself, are you, Molly? Spending that Sergeant’s pay ahead of time, are you?’

  ‘Take a look at the back of her car as we go by,’ said Molly. ‘See there? Just above the bumper, driver’s side. Isn’t that a Welsh flag? And I think you’ll find there’s a scratch along the side just as Mr Whit
field described.’

  The knife slipped out of Amy’s nervous fingers and clattered to the floor. She bent swiftly to retrieve it, and found her husband’s eyes focused on her when she straightened up.

  ‘First you burn the potatoes, though God knows how even you can manage to do that,’ he said softly. ‘Then you slop the tea, and now you can’t even handle a knife? So what’s going on, Amy. Tell me, what have you been up to?’

  ‘Nothing. Honestly, John, it’s just the heat. You know how it disorients me, and the kitchen gets so hot with the sun coming in, and with the oven on . . .’ She stopped. It was no use. He would sit there staring at her in that way that made her feel so utterly useless and inadequate until she told him. Amy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Better to get it over with now, because it would only be worse if she tried to lie.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Friday, July 24th

  They were gathered in front of the whiteboards for the morning briefing: Paget, Ormside, and Molly Forsythe, waiting for Tregalles to finish writing.

  He turned to face them. ‘I think that’s everything,’ he said with a quick look at Molly for confirmation.

  ‘So,’ he continued, ‘if his wife is to be believed, Chadwell lied about the time he left the house after Corbett rang him, which means he had more than enough time to drive Corbett home and drown him in the fish pond. He must have gone back to the Unicorn after killing Corbett to ask if anyone had seen him so it would be assumed that he had only just got there from home.’

  ‘And,’ Molly added quickly, ‘he used his wife’s car, a Silver Hyundai Santa Fe with a decal of the Welsh flag on the back and a scratch down the side, which matches the description of the vehicle Judge Whitfield saw coming out of the Corbetts’ driveway shortly after five o’clock the day Corbett was killed.’

  Paget said, ‘Didn’t the judge say there was a woman in the car as well? Could that have been Mrs Chadwell?’

  Tregalles and Molly looked at each other. ‘I suppose it could have been,’ Molly said doubtfully, ‘but she told us her husband had taken her car when he went to see Corbett, and she was afraid he wouldn’t have it back before she had to go out. I suppose she could have said that to throw us off, but that wasn’t my impression at the time.’