Murder in the Valleys

by Pippa McCathie

  “Cecily, who did this to you?”

  “No-one,” she said breathlessly. “I fell. It’s nothing.”

  “Was it Murray?” Fabia asked.

  “No. No, of course not.” She sounded terrified now. “I tell you I fell over, stupid of me.” Cecily said, her voice a frantic whisper now. “It doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t.” And then she let out a little shriek and cowered back.

  Fabia hadn’t heard the door open. She didn’t realise he was there until she heard his voice. “Good evening, Fabia. How nice of you to visit us again. But I think it’s time for you to go now. Cecily is tired, and she needs her rest, don’t you, my dear?”

  This was a different Murray Cole. All the charm and caring wiped away to be replaced with a look of cold contempt. He stood halfway across the room, his eyes travelling from one woman to the other, as if calculating his next move.

  His wife didn’t answer his question. She cowered back, whimpering now and staring with terrified eyes at her husband as he made the rest of the way to the side of the bed. Fabia felt his hand grip her elbow. The fingers were steely as he pulled her unceremoniously to her feet.

  “Would you please let go, Murray?” she said as calmly as she could.

  “No. Not yet.” He pulled her towards the door and she went, unresisting, not wanting to agitate Cecily any more, or to make things worse for her. When they were out on the landing, Cole, keeping his grip on Fabia’s arm, leant back into the room. “You settle down now, dear. I’ll be back to deal with your pills as soon as I’ve seen Fabia out.” He closed the door firmly and propelled his captive irresistibly down to the hall.

  Fabia’s mind was racing. Should she try to pull away from him? No, she was sure that would only make things worse. Instead, she went with him, desperately trying to think of some way to distract him sufficiently to loosen the excruciating grip on her elbow. The lower part of her arm was beginning to throb and her heart beat heavily in her chest. She made herself breathe slowly and deeply as she tried to dredge up the techniques of her self-defence lessons.

  “It’s not like you to miss a practice, Murray,” she said as calmly as she could, thinking perhaps a pretence at normality might help.

  “You must have a strange idea of me to think I’d go out singing at a time like this, Fabia.” He opened a door and pushed her into a small room that looked like a study. Bookcases lined two walls and there was a desk in the window with a computer on it, along with filing trays and other office paraphernalia. Closing the door behind him, he stood against it and looked coldly at Fabia where she now stood in the middle of the room, her back up against the desk. She rubbed at her arm to try to bring some life back into it.

  “Now you can tell me what the hell you’re doing snooping round here yet again,” he asked. “Isn’t one visit a day enough for you?”

  “No, not when a friend is in distress,” Fabia said, still trying to sound as calm as possible. “And I wasn’t snooping. I was listening to Cecily talk about Amber–”

  “Crap!” The crude word sounded all wrong from Cole. “You were digging for information. Your sort can never leave well alone, can you? Once a copper, always a copper, is that it?”

  “Perhaps,” said Fabia, with a flash of anger. But that was no good. She must keep calm, find a way out of this. “Anyway. I must get home now, I’ve friends arriving this evening.” She hoped the lie would worry him. It didn’t.

  “I don’t think so, Fabia.” His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he was disagreeing with her choice of wallpaper design, but when he spoke again the tone was very different. “You’re not going home. I’ve disposed of one inconvenient middle-aged woman, I can dispose of another.”

  Fabia felt a chill crawl over her skin. She looked quickly round the room. There was only the one window behind her. The door, her best means of escape, was blocked by Cole. She looked behind her. Anything on the desk she could use as a weapon. Nothing. Stupid, stupid woman! Why couldn’t she have left well alone, or told Matt of her suspicions and let him deal with it? Thinking of Matt made controlling the rising panic inside more difficult, so she thrust him from her mind. Must concentrate. She’d been in tight corners before and got out of them, she could get out of this one. Just keep calm, talk to him, that was best. What was it she’d often told new recruits? The arrogance of many criminals was often their downfall, and appealing to their vanity could produce results. She’d just have to keep him talking until she could decide what to do. But all she found herself asking was, “Why Amber, Murray? What harm could she do to you?”

  He stood staring at her. Every vestige of charm had left him now. The expression on his hawk-like face was as cold as the bird’s would have been.

  Fabia felt anger rise inside her. The arrogance of the man! For a moment the anger blotted out her fear. “Did she find out you were beating her mother, was that it?”

  Immediately she knew that was the wrong thing to say. The blaze in his eyes warned her she’d gone too far. Her heart beating fast, she braced herself. She gripped the edge of the desk. Waited. But he didn’t move.

  “You’re all the same, you independent women. You think you know it all. Cecily is my wife, and I am master in my home and I have every right to chastise her.” He sounded like some Dickensian patriarch. “She knew what would happen if she didn’t obey me. I will have order in my house. Surely a simple timetable is easy enough for anyone to follow? But no, after a gruelling drive I arrive home to an empty house, no meal on the table, nothing! And as for that child from hell!” The throbbing anger and disgust in his voice echoed round the room. “She dared suggest she’d report me to the police. Me, who’d done so much for her. Me who, in spite of her defiance, her disgraceful disobedience, had treated her as my own.”

  He was breathing heavily now, but made an effort to calm himself, passed a hand across his face, then went on more quietly. “When she was younger she was controllable, but once she got involved with people like you, leading her astray, encouraging her to defy me, that’s when the rot set in. Art school for God’s sake! A crass waste of time and money. She would have ended up as useless a specimen as her father.”

  Fabia couldn’t stop herself protesting. “But she was so talented.” It was another mistake. His eyes came back to rest on her face.

  “Don’t talk nonsense, woman.” He said calmly, and this very calm was far more frightening than his agitation had been. “When she stopped me on the bridge that night I told her she’d have to leave. There was no way I was having her back under my roof. And do you know what she said? She actually had the gall to tell me it was I who would be leaving. She actually threatened me! Said she had to protect her mother from me. Can you believe it? Of course, her falling into the river was an accident, but a fortuitous one, don’t you think? And entirely her own fault. She should not have defied me. She brought it all on herself.”

  He pushed himself away from the door and took a step forward. “And now you’re in the way, just as Amber was, just as that stupid woman Rhona Griffiths was, dressed up like a Barbie doll and thinking I’d make love to her.” Disgust throbbed in his voice.

  “But why kill Rhona?” Fabia asked frantically, trying to distract him, but it didn’t work. Fabia braced herself as he strode towards her.

  Chapter 30

  Dilys was considering calling it a day. She’d been at work since seven in the morning. It was definitely time for home, a hot bath and some mindless TV, she thought. She tidied up the mess on her desk, switched off her computer, and was about to put her coat on, when she heard footsteps pounding up the stairs and someone shouting, “Sarge! Sarge!” A moment later Chloe Daniels erupted into the room.

  “What is it, Chloe? Calm down.”

  “In the suitcase – I’ve found–”

  “Sit down. Get your breath back, then tell me.”

  Chloe subsided into a chair, took a few deep breaths, and as she did so waved a large manila envelope under Dilys’s nose. “Look! Look–” She took
another deep breath, “inside that.”

  Dilys took the envelope from her and very carefully shook out several pieces of lined paper, the sort with a margin and two holes punched at one side. They were covered with small, neat copperplate writing, so small that it was difficult to read. At the top of the first page was a date and a time, underlined, ruler straight.

  “Not that page,” Chloe said, leaning over her shoulder. She’d recovered her breath. “The next one, halfway down. You see the date? Thursday 3rd April. That’s the day the girl was killed, and she’s put a time too, 11.15 p.m. Now read what she’s written.”

  “She?”

  “Rhona Griffiths. Yes, yes! Read it,” Chloe urged.

  Dilys read aloud. “I saw them on the bridge. They were just below that street lamp, so I could see quite clearly with your lovely telescope, Da. It was frightening, but exciting too, and it was just as well I was there to witness her disgraceful behaviour. I’ll be able to protect him, Da, won’t I? Everyone must know he had good reason. I think she was threatening him, pushing her face up near his and shouting. How dared she! No respect, and him her step-father and a man of standing, importance. Then …” Dilys read on to the end of the page, disbelief and consternation in her face. “Lord God almighty!” she said when she got to the end. “Where did you find this?”

  “In the lid of that suitcase. The lining was a bit loose, and it had come away on one side, so I felt around it and realised there was something behind it. I eased it away, the lining I mean, and this fell out. Roberts must have missed it.”

  “How the hell? Well, I suppose he was preoccupied, what with his wife and all, but the chief’s going to go ballistic. We’ve got to get hold of him, the chief I mean.” Dilys thrust her hand into her pocket, scrabbled for her mobile and clicked away until she came up with Matt’s number. “Just pray that damn machine of his works,” she said to Chloe.

  * * *

  An early dusk was creeping across Gwiddon Park as Matt slowed to cross the bridge, turned right into Parc Road, and drove along past the playing fields where some schoolboy rugby players, plastered in mud, were just finishing a game. He hardly noticed them as he turned left into Morwydden Lane. The meeting with Rees-Jones had gone on and on, but he’d finally managed to escape. He’d not heard from Dilys and presumed she’d managed to pass his message on to Fabia. If she hadn’t, surely she would have let him know.

  Matt parked outside Fabia’s house and his phone rang. At least it’s working, he thought, looking at the screen. Dilys. As he listened, his eyes widened in disbelief, swiftly followed by grim satisfaction.

  “This is just what we needed. I’ll never be rude about hunches again. I’m at Fabia’s. Did you manage to get through to her?”

  “No. I tried to let you know, but there was no response.”

  “Damn! Still, I’m here now. I’ll just pop in and speak to her, then I’ll be back. Tell Chloe well done.” He pressed cancel and got out of the car.

  Outside Rhona’s door the constable stamped his feet, obviously bored and feeling the growing chill of the evening. As he walked up Fabia’s path the man spoke.

  “Evening, sir. If you’re looking for Miss Havard, she’s gone out.”

  Matt felt a cold chill of apprehension. “Do you know where?”

  “Said she was going to visit the dead girl’s Mam, neighbourly like. Good of her, I thought.”

  Matt stared at him, fear creeping down his back. Right into the lion’s den. How could she? But she wasn’t to know, or was she? After all, it had been her hunch. Oh God Fabia, what are you up to? He punched Dilys’s number into his phone. It seemed to go on ringing forever. Come on, come on! At last he heard her voice.

  “I might be over-reacting,” he said, “but get a team out here pronto, four or five, and come yourself.”

  “To Miss Havard’s?”

  “No. To Well House. Haven’t got time to explain. I’ll see you there.” He turned to the constable next door. “What’s your name?”

  “Watkins, sir.”

  Ah yes, the youngster in the organ loft, the one with the gallows humour. “Right, you can come with me.” They both climbed into Matt’s car. “We’re going up to the Coles’ place. Might be a false alarm, but there could be trouble.”

  “How come, sir?”

  Matt smiled grimly to himself. “Call it a hunch, Watkins.”

  * * *

  Fabia had fought hard. Dazed now, half-conscious, through the throbbing pain in her head, she desperately tried to think clearly. Her wrists were strapped together behind her, her shoulders ached abominably. He’d used some kind of strong sticky tape. Used it to silence her as well. She could feel it across her open mouth.

  He’d gone out of the room now, left her lying on the floor by the desk. There’d been a high-pitched voice calling. Cecily. That was it. A long time ago she’d been upstairs, sitting on the edge of the bed talking to her. If she could make enough noise Cecily would know she was still here, down in the study. But then she would have heard enough noise already and she hadn’t come down, or had she? Fabia couldn’t remember. She tried to lift herself. It was a mistake. Her head swam, and she felt herself falling, down, down, back into that dark place again.

  She had no idea how long it was before she came to again. The room was darker now, just a sliver of light shining in from the cracks round the door. Slowly, her eyes became accustomed to the gloom and she realised she was still on the floor by the side of the desk.

  Why, oh why had she been so stupid? Curiosity, and that old feeling that had got her into trouble before, the conviction that if she didn’t solve a problem it would stay unsolved. Matt would be so angry. He’d always told her she’d go too far one day. Well, he’d been proved right. Thinking of Matt made tears spring to her eyes. She blinked them away. No good breaking down now, mustn’t give up, must try to think.

  Head still throbbing, but not quite as groggy as she’d felt before, she made herself take deep, steady breaths. One, two, three. There was a sharp pain in her side. A cracked rib, perhaps. But her head cleared a little, in spite of the pain, and the ache in her arms wrenched behind her back. She flexed her legs, only to discover that her ankles were strapped up too. So, little chance of getting up from here. She tried to wriggle into a more comfortable position, but the movement made her head throb and swim, and the pain in her side stabbed again. She gave up, but only for now, she told herself.

  There was a disgusting taste in her mouth. Very carefully she slid her tongue between her lips. It touched the sticky tape. That’s what it was. More deep breathing. One, two, three ... Footsteps! Oh God! He was coming back. Clamping down on the panic, she forced herself to go limp. Better if he still thought she was unconscious. In her mind was some vague idea that that way she could take him by surprise. She had to believe she was going to get out of this. She had to.

  Opening her eyes fractionally she saw a triangle of light appear as he opened the door. He didn’t turn the light on in the room. Slowly he walked up to her where she lay beside the desk. He put out a foot and kicked at her. Pain radiated up her back from the point where his shoe made contact. She knew she’d grunted, but kept her eyes closed tight, feeling tears squeeze themselves from below her lids. Nausea rose in her throat, she swallowed it down. Don’t move. Play dead. Dead? Don’t like that word. What was he going to do now?

  Earlier, he’d talked about a well. This was Well House, he’d said, and did she know why? Because, down in that secluded spot in the corner of the garden was an old well, hidden by long grass, nettles and brambles. He’d muttered away, seemingly uncaring whether she heard or not, as if he was organising things in his own mind as much as anything else. Everyone thought the well had been capped, that it was safe, but he knew better. All he had to do was clear away the brambles and there it was. And down she would go, never to be found again. All muttered into her reluctant ears while she was trussed like a chicken.

  The kick had obviously been a test, which she see
med to have passed. He must think she was still unconscious. He bent and picked her up, settled her over his shoulder like a sack of coal. She never would have thought he could be this strong. Christ how it hurt! She mustn’t moan or cry out. Mustn’t make a sound. Please, God help her. Her breathing was restricted by the pressure of his shoulder on her stomach and her head swam and throbbed, swam and throbbed... the black void came up to envelop her once more.

  * * *

  Matt knocked on the front door of Well House. No response. He knocked again, harder. Still no response. He stepped back and looked up at the first-floor windows. No lights on, and none on the ground floor either. He banged again, this time with his closed fist. Nothing.

  “Go round and check if the back door’s open,” he said to Watkins as he lifted his hand once more, but now they could hear footsteps approaching. Watkins came quickly back to stand beside Matt.

  The door opened to reveal Cole. There was no light on in the hall, but it wasn’t completely dark yet and Matt could see he was frowning, but when he saw them, his face cleared and he smiled. As he did, a cut on his lip began to bleed a little.

  “Good evening, Chief Inspector,” he said, his voice a little muffled as he dabbed at the cut with a handkerchief he had in his hand. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve just been trying to deal with this, annoying how lips bleed, isn’t it?” He held the door half open, stood in the gap, a questioning look on his face.

  “How did it happen?” Matt asked.

  “Stupid really. I bent over and hit the corner of the kitchen table. What can I do for you?”

  Matt made no comment, but he didn’t believe him. “Could we come in and have a word, Mr Cole?”

  “Well, it isn’t really convenient at the moment. I’m in the middle of trying to persuade my wife to eat something. She’s very distressed, but she must eat. I’m sure you’ll understand. Perhaps tomorrow?”