‘It seems to me that you’ve deliberately recreated Butterfield Farm here, even down to the well.’
‘The well was already here, Inspector,’ Timony said severely. ‘It belonged to the cottage that was here before. It was its water source.’
‘But the farm itself is a faithful copy,’ Joanna persisted.
‘Yes.’ Timony appeared to feel the need to defend her actions. ‘My childhood was special and wonderful. I was happy then. When I was settling for my autumn days it was natural to want to return to those memories.’ But Joanna detected a glimmer of uncertainty, as though she was trying to convince herself. Had Timony remembered something from her past?
‘Quite so.’ Joanna avoided mention of the fact that all the windows faced north-east keeping watch over the approach.
She had one more avenue she wanted to explore. ‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘that it’s possible the two farmers whose land borders yours might want you out of here?’
‘Why ever would they?’ Timony looked genuinely surprised at the suggestion. ‘I don’t own much land and they couldn’t afford Butterfield.’ There was hint of snobbishness about her. ‘It would be out of their league.’
Joanna rose. She hadn’t really learnt anything that would help either explain or put an end to the events surrounding Butterfield Farm.
She had one last request. ‘I wonder,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Would you mind?’
Timony looked up, puzzled.
‘My chief superintendent’s sister is a fan of yours. I wonder … would you mind signing an autograph for her?’
With a practised hand Timony fished a photograph out of the drawer, turned it over and looked up. ‘What’s her name?’
FIFTEEN
Wednesday, March 14, 8 a.m.
‘She’s been shot.’
Sergeant Alderley did a quick double take. ‘Sorry?’
‘She’s been shot,’ the female voice repeated, distressed and irritated.
‘Sorry, ma’am, who is it speaking?’
The voice got angrier and louder. ‘I’d have thought you’d have recognized my bloody voice by now.’
Unfortunately Sergeant Alderley did – only too well. ‘Who’s been shot, Mrs Tong?’ He paused. ‘It is Mrs Tong, isn’t it?’
‘Ye-es.’ The voice cracked with emotion. ‘I blame myself. I left her late last night at Butterfield because I needed to go home. But when I woke this morning I had a dreadful feeling. I tried to ring her first thing but there was no answer so I came round straight away. I thought she was asleep at first. Maybe just tired. I tried to wake her. And then I realized.’ She gulped. ‘She’s dead. Please, please, please send someone round. Now.’ There was a quick gasp of a sob. ‘Please come. Hurry.’ She was panicking now, falling off the edge. In freefall, a scream only microseconds away.
‘Are you sure she’s dead? Shall I call an ambulance?’
Diana Tong was quickly regaining her composure. ‘She’s dead, poor lamb. But please, do hurry. I’m frightened.’
Alderley’s finger was already on the button, his mind working furiously to make sense of this latest development. She’s been shot, she’d said. Not she’s shot herself. Been shot could only mean one thing. Timony Weeks had been murdered. The stalker had finally got to her. The thought sobered him up quickly as he took stock of the situation. There had been the teasing threats, the gentle reminding of her vulnerability, the intimidation. And now this. ‘Are there signs of a break-in?’
‘I – I haven’t looked around. I came straight upstairs. Please hurry.’
The hairs on the back of Alderley’s neck began to prickle. ‘Is it possible someone is still in the property?’
‘It’s possible.’ There was a stiff, sudden pause as Diana Tong considered the possibility. ‘At least …’
Alderley could imagine her glancing behind her, looking over one shoulder then the other. Checking around the room, seeing her own face palely reflected in the mirror. Another face behind it? But he had something else to consider. ‘You say she’s been shot. You’re absolutely sure she’s dead?’
‘I – I think so.’
‘Do you know where to look for a carotid pulse, Mrs Tong?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll stay on the line. See if you can feel it.’
There was silence. Alderley heard footsteps padding across a thick carpet, each step a muffled tread. Then—
‘I can’t feel a pulse.’ She snatched in a sob. ‘She feels cool.’
‘And she’s not breathing?’
‘No.’ Another noisy gulp. ‘I’m quite sure she’s dead.’
‘Right. Listen carefully.’
‘Yes.’
He could hear her nervousness bouncing off the walls, a frightened voice in an empty room in an isolated house, empty apart from a corpse. Alderley could practically feel the mounting terror and was glad he wasn’t there. Knowing the location of Butterfield Farm, he was aware that she couldn’t exactly ‘pop’ next door and wait for the emergency services over a cup of hot, sweet tea with the neighbours. He felt chilled. ‘I want you to leave the house,’ he instructed. ‘Get into your car and drive to the top of the track.’ He was all too familiar with the geography of the place from descriptions the officers had fed him after their numerous wasted attendances. ‘We’ll send someone round straightaway with an ambulance.’
He felt he should add some more practical advice to focus her mind, keep her thinking rationally. ‘Don’t touch anything. Don’t disturb anything or move anything. Someone will be with you as soon as possible.’ Alderley was shaken himself. He felt a measure of responsibility. He’d spoken to both women, living and dead, on numerous occasions. He knew just how much of a nuisance the pair of them had been. He’d managed to put them off once or twice. Now he felt guilty for the dismissal that must have come across.
‘OK.’ She was recovering herself. ‘Thank you.’
‘Right you are.’
Alderley quickly called for an ambulance, then looked at his watch: 8.05 a.m. His problem was the word shot. The police had a rigid protocol for everything, particularly incidents where firearms were involved. Luckily for him, because of the number of shotgun licences held by farmers both Timmis and McBrine had both been through firearms training. And they were due in any moment now. Should he summon them? He was in a quandary. Then the door opened and Detective Inspector Piercy walked right in. An answer to his prayers.
‘Good morning.’ Joanna gave Alderley a wide smile until she realized he wasn’t returning it. Her face stiffened.
‘Mrs Tong’s just rang,’ he said. ‘She says Mrs Weeks has been shot.’
There is a moment when catastrophe flaps towards you on big ugly, black wings. You hear its harsh caw and hope it is a nightmare and that you will soon wake up, your head burrowed into a soft pillow but then it flaps its filthy feathers and gory beak right into your face. There would be no relieved waking moment because this was no nightmare but reality. The worst had happened. She half closed her eyes, gave a tiny shake of her head as though to block it out. ‘What?’
Alderley didn’t need to repeat his information but he did anyway.
‘Timony Weeks is dead?’
‘According to Mrs Tong.’
Then she picked up. ‘Shot, you say?’
‘Timmis and McBrine are due in.’ Right on cue, the pair arrived. Alderley briefed them and Joanna gave a nod of consent. She’d broken the rules once and got away with it under Chief Superintendent Arthur Colclough’s indulgent eye. She couldn’t afford the same mistake again, particularly with Rush taking over. The two officers fastened their Kevlar jackets and prepared to leave in the armed response vehicle.
‘OK. Good, so far. Have you called an ambulance just in case?’ Both knew it was a forlorn hope. From what Diana had said, Timony was dead.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Is anyone else is on their way?’
‘I thought Hesketh-Brown. He’s been on nights, ma’am.’ Alder
ley knew she would excuse the forbidden epithet – if she’d even heard it.
‘Anyone else around?’
‘Jason, ma’am.’ This time he did correct himself. ‘Inspector.’
Joanna couldn’t stop herself from smiling. Jason (bright) Spark. With his carroty hair, prominent ears, bouncy enthusiasm and boundless energy. What would they do without these willing specials who were so keen to join the Force that they gave up their time for nothing? Nothing except the feathery promise that one day there might be a vacancy so one day they would be true and proper, fully paid up, real live coppers. Unlike many in the Force Joanna had respect for these ambitious and generous wannabe policemen. ‘Don’t bother Hesketh-Brown,’ she said to Sergeant Alderley. ‘Let him get home. He has enough broken nights with little Tanya. We’ll take Jason. And he’d better be kitted out with a bulletproof vest. Is Korpanski in yet?’
Mike swaggered in, grinning from ear to ear, only stopping when he saw Joanna and Alderley’s faces, their expressions mirrored. After years in the Force he could read the signs only too well. ‘What’s up?’
‘Have a guess,’ she said slowly. ‘Butterfield.’
Korpanski began with a, ‘Not ag …’ then searched her face and drew in a long, deep breath. ‘I’ll drive,’ he said.
It was a measure of how well Sergeant Mike Korpanski knew his inspector that he didn’t ask what was happening or whether he really needed to be there. He simply pulled his car keys out of his jacket pocket and trotted by her side, Jason following so terrier-close he nipped their heels a time or two.
Ahead of them they could hear the police siren of the armed response vehicle, driven crazily through the moorland, as alien a sound as a burst of Hawaiian Aloha music.
As Korpanski drove Joanna filled him in on the little detail she knew. His face was initially grim, then worried. He knew the implications as well as she did. Unusually, in this murder case, they had been involved well before the crime. And it didn’t take much imagination to anticipate the recriminations – that good policing would have prevented this tragedy. Mike chewed over the knowledge as he drove fast, blue light and siren carving the way through the early morning traffic.
When they arrived Timmis and McBrine had already entered the house, checked there was no hidden gunman and, with their weapons, returned to the ARV. It stood at the gate, its blue light still strobing, brightening up the dingy panorama. The ambulance was behind them, its blue light shining impatiently into the car’s interior. Ahead of them the door was open, exposing a bright interior. Mike Korpanski did a spectacular handbrake skid right in front. Diana Tong had walked ahead of them back down along the track to the farm. She met them in the hall with an unhappy, accusatory look. Her face was haggard, the features sunk so she looked ten years older than at their last encounter. ‘I told you. I warned you,’ she said bitterly, her hand gripping Joanna’s arm so hard it would surely bruise. ‘I knew something bad would happen. It’s been building up. Getting worse. I could feel it inching closer. We could sense that …’ she paused, ‘even if you couldn’t.’ Her eyes were wide and staring. ‘I know I was sceptical at first but even after poor Tuptim was murdered you still didn’t believe us. You just thought we were making the whole thing up. Lying. A pair of histrionic old bags. And now?’ There was something uncontrolled in her features. A sort of mania. ‘Now it’s happened, Inspector.’ Her gaze went from Joanna to Mike Korpanski’s stolid and reassuring figure before sliding over Jason Spark as though wondering who the hell he was. ‘All our nightmares manifested,’ she said, her face uncomfortably close to Joanna’s. Joanna gritted her teeth. She’d expected this. ‘So who do you think is behind this, Mrs Tong?’ she asked coolly. ‘You haven’t given us any idea of either motive or perpetrator. We’ve had no constructive help from either of you – only a series of minor and repeated call-outs.’ She changed her voice. ‘The scent of smoke, the toilet seat left up, a watch magicked from a grave, a dead mouse, a dead cat. A dead badger. People supposedly watching you, things moved, things turning up.’
‘There was the cat,’ Diana Tong cut in. ‘If nothing before that had warned you surely that should have? And the burglary.’ Her voice was furious. ‘Did you think we imagined that? And then Timony’s wig,’ she said tightly, but grief almost turning the words into a wail. ‘Down the well with a dead animal. Did you not think these were warnings, Inspector? Warnings.’ She drew breath – at last. ‘Well,’ she said, in a tone half of triumph and half of resignation, ‘now you can see. Come and have a look for yourself. At the damage.’ She led the way up the oak staircase, each step a hollow sound, turning back only once to accuse Joanna again. ‘You should have prevented this. You should have protected her.’ Joanna blew her cheeks out, giving a half smile of encouragement to Jason Spark, who was still, puppy-like, at her heels. She didn’t want him to be put off joining the force by this altercation. He may as well get used to the public’s complaints. They were becoming ever more common.
The paramedics were standing respectfully back from the bed, hands folded in front of them, their contribution over – not that it had ever begun. They watched silently as Joanna and Mike entered. One of them gave her a slow nod of recognition; the other had queasy eyes fixed on the central figure on the king-sized bed, queen of the tableau. Joanna looked down with pity. Timony Weeks looked so tiny, the duvet folded down to her waist. She must have been shot while asleep. She lay on her back, pools of blood staining her pink silk nightdress, one small bullet hole torn through the silk, a neat black scorch mark ringing the wound.
Joanna was no weapons expert but even she knew that the gun must have been held right up against the material. There was one such mark to her chest and another to her head – a neat, red bindi in the centre of her forehead and a stream of dried blood which meandered across it, passing her eyelid, down her cheek, towards her ear. It was – it had been – a neat execution with, at a guess, a small bore gun, probably a pistol. There were pools of blood beneath her on sheets which were quite unruffled, her head looking comfortable on the pillow. Her eyes were not quite shut so she looked as though she might be peeping out from beneath her lids. Her mouth had dropped open, in a round ‘O’ of surprise. Or perhaps she hadn’t woken but had slept right through and the open mouth was a snore. She looked young, even younger than in real life, girlish almost, small as a child and definitely dead. Without a doubt. Joanna looked around her. The bedroom was neat, clean and ordered apart from the stained figure in the centre. There was a pleasant but not overpowering scent of a sweet floral perfume which overlay the equally sweet and sickly scent of fresh blood which, like putrefaction, is instantly identifiable. The paramedics shifted their weight. Korpanski was standing still as a statue. Jason Sparks’ mouth was open, his eyes round and fixed on Timony Weeks. And Joanna had the strangest sensation of complete unreality – that Timony Weeks was playing her final and most famous part.
They heard steps bounding up the stairs and a second later Mark Fask was peering around the doorway. ‘Got a doctor coming, have we?’ he asked, businesslike. Then adding as though to justify his matter-of-fact words, ‘We’ll need to get her certified and the coroner’s permission before we can move her. Then we can get started.’ He spoke with a certain amount of relish for the job ahead of him. Diana Tong put her hand to her mouth but Joanna would have sworn the word ghoul had already escaped her lips.
‘Alderley’s been dealing with it,’ she responded to the SOCO. ‘He’ll have contacted someone. They’ll be on their way over, though there isn’t much room for doubt here. Even I can tell you she’s dead all right. And unless anyone can spot the weapon and work out how she managed both the chest and the head wound we’ll be looking at murder with a firearm, probably a handgun.’
Korpanski’s eyes flickered in her direction, a nod of agreement, while Jason Sparks’ face went red with excitement.
Fask practically rubbed his hands together. ‘Right. OK. We’ll be getting a move on downstairs then.’
> In spite of the stillness of the central character in the opulent bedroom, Joanna knew there was a lot of work to be done here. Fask was right. The sooner they got started the better. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Take Jason with you. Give him some instruction on the preservation of crime scenes and basic evidence collection, will you?’ Sparks’ face lit up like a high-voltage lamp. He was thrilled. It was a reward for all his hard, unstinting work. He trotted at the SOCO’s heels. Joanna listened to them clop down the stairs then looked across at Mike. She knew that his brain, like hers, would already be filing through the list of potential suspects. It was a long enough list. Ex-husbands x 3, crazy fan, long-lost sister, jealous colleague, covetous neighbours. And then there was …’ Her gaze swivelled around to Diana Tong, who stood, paralysed, in the doorway, fingers combing through her hair in a gesture of panic while her eyes darted around the room, evaluating. Unless she was a better actress than her mistress, this was, surely, nothing to do with her? She looked grief-struck. Genuinely. Her mouth was working, her face stricken. Two deep lines of sorrow scored either side of her mouth, which sagged miserably. Her eyelids looked heavy and two frown lines corrugated her forehead. Heartbroken. Bereft, as though anticipating the bleakness of her life ahead.
Joanna eyed her for a minute or two then went downstairs to don a forensic paper suit, snap on a pair of latex gloves, paper overshoes and finally the hat. It was a most unbecoming outfit which billowed out unflatteringly over her rear. No policewoman in such a suit would ever dare to ask the, ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ question. There was only one truthful answer.
But at least no one wearing this uniform could sully a crime scene with so much as a stray hair. So, like most unbecoming outfits, it was … practical. Suitably garbed, Joanna returned to the bedroom and continued looking around for anything that might help, Korpanski mirroring both her clothes and her actions. They looked like a pair of spacemen wading around the scene. A photographer was already recording it before anything was disturbed.
The Final Curtain Page 19
