by Carola Dunn
All Eleanor had wanted was a clarification.
“You said you killed ‘him.’ Do you mean the man known as the Sandman?”
“The Sandman. Victor Stone. I told you there were too many stones, but now there’s one less. My brother-in-law.”
“Good gracious! Mrs. Mason was really Mrs. Stone?”
“She changed her name when she ran away. She could at least have switched back to Carpenter—that’s the family name. I’d have had half a chance of finding her. It’s been deuced inconvenient not knowing where she was. Not that I blame her for getting away while she could. He’s—he was a nasty man.”
“He was sent to prison?”
“Yes. She seized her chance while he was in quod. Plenty of time for the trail to go cold. He got fifteen years.”
“For manslaughter?”
“He was lucky; he got a soft jury. But there were several counts of GBH, too.”
“GBH?”
“Grievous bodily harm. He was a muscle-man—”
“A bodybuilder?”
“He had plenty of actual muscle, though he didn’t need it often because he got to be expert with the sandbag.” Carpenter’s disapproving tone turned to admiration.
It dawned on Eleanor that she was learning some of the ins and outs of criminal activity from a man with a public school accent very like Nick’s. How odd!
He went on: “The Sandman knew exactly where to hit and how hard to lay out the opposition for a couple of hours without doing too much damage. The only thing he was ever any good at, but he was really good. The most successful burglary and holdup gangs don’t want anyone killed, you know. They sometimes get away with robbery, but when it’s a matter of murder, the coppers descend like a horde of locusts. Especially if it’s a copper who’s killed.”
“Stone had a gang?”
“Not him. Nowhere near bright enough. He worked for anyone who needed muscle, for a share of the loot. He always did pretty well, but I don’t know how much work he’d have got after killing that bloke. Not that he meant to.”
“What do you mean? He killed a man by accident?”
“He had a thin skull, apparently, poor chap. Vic meant to knock him out, like the rest, but of course if you deliberately hit someone over the head and he dies, it’s murder. He had a sharp brief, though—”
“Brief?”
“Lawyer. A smart lawyer my father recommended. He persuaded Vic to confess to a couple of other jobs he’d done where he’d given a few people headaches. It set a pattern and made the jury believe that he hadn’t intended to kill anyone. So, as I said, he got sent down for manslaughter, with several counts of GBH added on. That’s why he was put away for a good long stretch.”
“Are you saying he didn’t mean to kill Mrs. Mason?”
“That’s right. He lost his temper and slapped her. Rosie offered to pay him everything Dad owed him, on the spot, but he wanted to rummage through her things. She tried to stop him, and it made him suspect she was hiding something more valuable. That’s when he sandbagged her, just to put her out for a couple of minutes. Or so he claimed. And what if she was hiding valuables? That was my business, not his. Dad left everything to her so Vic wouldn’t get his filthy paws on it.”
“Your father left you nothing?”
“Not a penny. I was livid all right, but Rosie promised me an allowance, and she always sent it, spot on, once a month. I’m not saying I didn’t come down here with Vic to cadge a bit extra, as well as just to see her.”
“Why did your father cut you off?” It was none of her business, but the more information she was able to pass on to the police, the better, and besides, she was curious.
He was in a confessional mood. “Because I’d have lost it all at roulette. It’s his fault. He sent me to a public school to learn the lingo and then to Monte Carlo to get in with the nobs. It’s easy to meet people casually there. He wanted me to make friends and be invited to stately homes. The trouble was, I could fit in nicely in Monte, but staying at a country house wasn’t at all the same thing. It was hellish.”
“He wanted you to rise in the world,” Eleanor said encouragingly. She was so fascinated, she suddenly realised the automatic count in her head had reached a hundred and twenty. She blew her whistle vigorously.
“He wanted me to find out where they kept their valuables.”
“Oh dear! Was he a burglar too?”
“What do you mean, ‘too’?” In his indignation, Carpenter started to push himself up. Teazle yipped and Eleanor tightened her grip on his wrist. He subsided again, limp as a dead fish. “I never burgled a house in my life. Nor did Dad, come to that. As far as I know. I didn’t do anything illegal, not then. You can’t blame me for how my father used the information I gave him.”
“Did he pay you for it?”
“Not exactly. He bought me a couple of new outfits and a ticket to the Riviera, and told me it was time I proved I could make my own way. Well, I did. You’d be surprised how many well-off widows and divorcées like to gamble but feel uncomfortable placing their own bets. They’ll happily give a presentable young man half the winnings to do it for them.”
“And the losses?”
“Most of them are sporting old birds who know the odds favour the house. You learn to steer clear of the others. The trouble starts when you have a run of bad luck. Word gets round, and soon no one wants you touching their money. You just have to move on. At that point, you can recoup. It’s when you can’t resist betting with your own money that the end is in sight. To pay my debts, I had to pawn my signet ring and—”
“You had a signet ring?”
“Solid gold, with a crest.” With a pitiful remnant of pride, he boasted, “It was a brilliant idea. Only for Americans; I didn’t try it on the English.”
“I don’t understand. Try what?”
“That’s just it: I didn’t try anything. I waited until they asked me—they always did in the end. Then I told the sad story of how my father was the black sheep of a noble family and this was the sole memento that remained to him. He’d passed it on to me as my only inheritance, on condition that I never mentioned the name of the noble family. They lapped it up, I can tell you, all sympathy and unsatisfied curiosity.”
“Misrepresenting your family origins isn’t a criminal offence, though, is it? Unless you try to extort money from the family you’re pretending to descend from.”
“Certainly not.”
“But you said you didn’t do anything illegal then, implying that you did at another time.”
“I don’t see why I should tell you,” Carpenter said fretfully, and proceeded to do just that. “If you must know, I forged a cheque. They can’t get me for that again. I served my time. I’m freezing, and I’m getting a crick in my neck. Can’t I turn over on my back?”
Eleanor blew the whistle while she considered his request. She, too, was cold and getting stiff. She wouldn’t at all mind standing up and stretching. He didn’t seem to be suicidal still. If she was on her feet, she could counter any attack he might attempt. He was not at all fit, as she had discovered when she tackled him.
“All right. Move slowly.”
“I can barely move at all,” he whined. The public school accent was fading in favour of what Eleanor thought might be the forces of South London. “Tell the dog to get off me.”
“She’ll jump off as soon as you stir.”
Teazle gave a warning bark as she hopped off his back—unless it was a complaint that she had lost her warm spot.
“Hey, dog, she said I could!”
“It’s all right, girl.”
With a great deal of effort and a groan or two, Carpenter pushed himself up on hands and knees. “Do I have to lie down? The ground’s cold.”
“Yes, you do. You should have considered the possible consequences before you embarked on this venture.”
“It’s not my fault.” With more groans, he turned over and subsided on his back. Teazle sniffed at him suspic
iously, then decided he’d do equally well as a cushion in this new position. She sprang up onto his abdomen, eliciting a grunt, and settled on his stomach.
Carpenter continued to justify himself. “All I wanted was to talk to Rosie, explain that she wasn’t sending me enough to live on, with inflation sky-high. She had plenty; she would have agreed. And even if she hadn’t, I would never have harmed her. She’s—she was my sister. We grew up together.”
“Assuming for the moment that you’re telling the truth, why on earth did you take the Sandman with you? You knew he was violent.”
“Me take him with me—that’s a laugh! I didn’t know where she was, did I. I wrote to her bank, but she never wrote back. I even went there once. God, how humiliating, begging a stuffed-shirt bank manager to give me my own sister’s address! Vic had contacts who could find her, and did. He didn’t need my help, except as a driver.”
“You did all the driving?”
“After the years inside, he wasn’t too sure about driving. But he could have found someone else. He didn’t depend on me. And after all, it was him she was hiding from in the middle of nowhere.”
To Eleanor, it sounded as if poor Rosie Mason had been hiding from her cadging, whining brother as well as from her brutal husband. She was beginning to understand a lot of things, but a lot was still obscure. “Do you honestly believe Stone didn’t mean to kill her when he hit her with his sandbag?”
“Dunno. It’s not as if I could have stopped him. Even if I was strong enough, he moved fast. She was off-balance, went over backwards and hit her head on the hearth. It must have cracked her skull.” He covered his face with his hands. “It was horrible, horrible!”
Eleanor nearly told him that his sister had been seriously ill and might have died from the shock of being hit. She decided the knowledge might abate his horror and guilt, and he deserved to suffer both. If he was really feeling those emotions, she didn’t want to ease them by so much as a jot. He’d find out soon enough—at the inquest, if not before.
She wondered if he felt any remorse for Nick’s and Freeth’s predicament—or deaths. How could she have let her curiosity about other matters make her forget them even for a moment? They weren’t dead, she told herself. Why tie them up if they were dead?
“What about the two you kidnapped? Did Stone sandbag them?”
“They barged in and saw Rosie,” he said sullenly. “He hit them both in just a couple of seconds and they both went down like logs. He only wanted to put them out for a couple of hours, but he couldn’t be sure if he’d hit ’em hard enough and in the right spot, being out of practice. That’s why we had to tie them up and bring them with us, in case they came round before we’d got away.”
“So that they wouldn’t give the alarm too soon?”
“Yeah. The idea was to head straight back to the Smoke, dropping them off halfway, somewhere in the country. Vic would give ’em another tap on the head to keep them quiet, and we’d untie them and dump them. It’s easy to lie low in London.”
“But this isn’t anywhere near halfway to London. We can’t be more than twenty miles from Tintagel as the crow flies.”
“Didn’t have much choice, did we. The car chasing us had to be coppers; then we saw the blue light on and off in the distance, getting closer. You can see them a long way off. Vic panicked and said we had to get rid of the evidence in a hurry.”
“Get rid…?” Eleanor’s voice quavered. “You killed them?”
“No, that would be murder.” Carpenter sounded indignant. “Vic reckoned he had a chance of another manslaughter verdict for hitting Rosie. Fat chance. I wouldn’t have let him get away with it.”
“You’d have testified against him?”
“I knocked him off, didn’t I? I should’ve known better than to go along with any plan of Vic’s in the first place. He reckoned the fog was a bit of luck, but that was what did for us. There’s a reason he was always hired muscle, following orders. He couldn’t plan his way out of a cardboard box,” Carpenter said bitterly.
“He must have had some redeeming qualities. Your sister married him.”
“He was a business crony of Dad’s. I don’t know the details. He never told me anything.”
“What on earth was your father’s business? You said he wasn’t a burglar.”
“He had a pretty successful antique shop, but the real money came from fencing.”
“Fencing?” she said dubiously. Building fences didn’t sound like the kind of business that would lead to violence. Not by a competitor, at least, though the Ramblers Association were sometimes a bit stroppy in defence of ancient rights-of-way.
“Buying and selling stolen goods. That’s why he wanted me to cosy up to the nobs. He’d pass on the gen I collected and they’d offer him first choice of the best of the loot. A high-class operation. And somehow he managed to keep it completely separate from the antiques. He was a fly one, my pa.”
“Was your sister involved in the … the fencing business?”
“Never. She helped out in the shop now and then, but that was legit, like I told you. She never even knew Pa was a fence, not till—” He grunted as Teazle stood up, whining, on his stomach and launched herself into the air with a volley of furious barks. She scurried off behind the tor.
“Teazle, hush. You remember Kali.” Megan appeared with the little dog in her arms. “Aunt Nell? What on earth are you doing here?”
The big Alsatian followed them, then Jay, holding her leash. Kali nosed at Carpenter. She gave a short, sharp bark and stood leaning over him. She had found her quarry, who lay rigid with terror. “Good girl! Hello, Mrs. Trewynn.”
“Mrs. Trewynn!” That was Tariro. “What minnow have you caught here?”
Eleanor sat down, suddenly aware of how weary she was. “I’m very glad to see you all, though I still have several questions for Mr. Carpenter that I haven’t had time to put to him.”
“He’s been talking?” Megan sounded astonished.
“Like anything, dear.”
“Confession and absolution,” pronounced Tariro in mock solemnity.
“No absolution for this one.” Megan nudged the captive with her toe. “You, get up. What’s your name? Your real name.”
“Don’t let it bite me!”
“She’s not going to bite you,” said Jay disgustedly. “Unless you misbehave. Answer the sergeant.”
“F-F-Frederick Carpenter,” he stammered, scrambling stiffly to his feet.
“Frederick Carpenter, you are under arrest.” Megan gave him the judges’ warning. “You’ll be informed of the charges later, but they may include assault causing grievous bodily harm, and homicide.”
Eleanor’s heart stood still. “Megan, Nick’s not dead?”
“No, it looks as if he’ll be all right. Alan Freeth is in pretty bad shape, though. The doc isn’t sure he’ll make it.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Megan, Jay, and Kali escorted Carpenter down from the Cheesewring, leaving Tariro to give Eleanor a hand. Her tiredness was more emotional than physical, she decided, the aftereffect of listening to Carpenter’s horror story. Being cold didn’t help. The southeast wind funnelled between the tors had thoroughly chilled her.
Whatever the cause, she was happy to accept Tariro’s support over the steep and rocky bits she had managed perfectly well earlier. Teazle, after her warm nap, scampered ahead.
Exercise warmed Eleanor, but she was glad to get out of the wind when Tariro suggested she should sit in Megan’s deserted car while he went to find out what was going on. Especially as the alternative was to join Megan, who was reporting to DCI Scumble. Sooner or later, she knew, she’d have to face him and listen to just what he thought of her “interference” with police matters. Give him time to cool down!
She would have liked a word with Nick, but the ambulance had already left.
Tariro solicitously draped the tartan rug over her. Teazle, unfazed by all the unorthodox activity, jumped up on her lap, turned roun
d three times, and went to sleep. Eleanor rested her head against the seat back and started to drowse off.
She dreamed Nick was standing on top of a huge tor, about to jump off. Eleanor, at the bottom, was desperately trying to work out how to stop him, when a massive, hideous figure plastered with mud materialised behind him, arms outstretched to push.
“Aunt Nell!” said the mud man, whereupon she woke up and saw Megan’s face. “Sorry to disturb you, but the guv’nor wants to talk to you.”
“Mr. Scumble? Can’t he wait till tomorrow, when I’ve got my thoughts together?”
“He’d prefer to hear what Carpenter told you before he questions him.” She opened the door and Eleanor followed Teazle out. They walked down along the queue of cars.
“Is he furious?”
“Furious? Good lord no, happy as a sandboy. We’ve bagged two villains, though it’s a pity one is dead, and we’ve found the hostages alive. It’s only a few hours since Mrs. Mason was killed. Murder cases more complicated than simple domestics are rarely cleared up so fast.”
“I’m afraid it actually was a ‘simple domestic,’ though dressed up with a lot of frills.”
“What?”
“Didn’t he tell you?”
“He said he’d explain everything, but not till he has a solicitor present. Here, you’re going to have to tell Mr. Scumble. I’ve got to go back to Tintagel with Tariro. Apparently Sir Edward is having kittens.”
“Good luck, dear. I presume someone will take me back?”
“If you want to.”
“I think I’d better. And is someone going to ring up to tell Mr. Bulwer about Alan Freeth?”
“He’s not next of kin, Aunt Nell. Officially, we’re not responsible for notifying him.”
“Oh rubbish! Well, if you can’t ring him, can you ring Joce, as the vicar’s wife? Ask her to tell Mr. Bulwer.”
“We-e-ell … Yes, all right.”
“Thank you, dear. Hello, Mr. Scumble.”
Megan softly and silently faded away.
“Mrs. Trewynn.” His voice was carefully neutral. “I gather the man we have detained spoke to you at some length. If you wouldn’t mind joining me in the car, Dawson will take notes so that a statement can be prepared for you to sign.”
