by Jill McGown
“You hold the license in order to shoot pest animals on a neighboring farm,” Judy said. “What sort of animals?”
“Foxes, rabbits. Gray squirrels. That sort of thing.”
“Do you like shooting animals?”
“Not particularly. Jack taught me to shoot, and he did it, so I did it. But they cause a lot of damage, and shooting’s better than poison or traps or gas. And much better than foxhunting. So it doesn’t bother me.”
“And your rifle is usually kept in the gun cabinet in the storeroom of the Tulliver Inn?”
“It’s always kept there.”
“Who else has access to the gun cabinet?”
“Jack. He keeps his rifle in it.” Stephen looked anxious. “What happened to him? Is he all right?”
“He wasn’t shot, but he was seriously injured. He’s had an emergency operation to relieve the pressure on his brain, but he’s still in a coma.”
Stephen’s concern seemed genuine enough, thought Tom. “Why does he keep his rifle in your gun cabinet?” he asked.
“Because a couple of years ago they tightened up on security, and Jack’s cottage wasn’t burglar-proof enough for them. It would have cost a lot of money to make the changes they wanted, so they agreed that he could keep his rifle at the pub. That’s when Mr. Waterman gave me the gun cabinet—it complied with the new regulations, and mine didn’t.”
“Does Jack Shaw have a key to the cabinet?”
“Yes.”
“When did he use it last?”
“Last night—we were out shooting, and he put the guns away while I made us some coffee.”
But Shaw couldn’t confirm that, not at the moment, thought Tom. “Was anyone else there?”
“No—they’d gone to bed.”
“So you could be lying, couldn’t you?”
Stephen frowned. “What about?”
“Putting your rifle away. Maybe you left it in the summerhouse at the Grange, ready to use this morning.”
“Of course I didn’t!”
“So how did it get there? Does anyone else have access to it?”
“Not officially, but well—my mum, I suppose. And Tony, now. I mean—they live there, so they know where the keys are kept.”
“Does Tony Baker shoot?” asked Judy.
“Yes. I think he goes deerstalking.”
“You said earlier that you heard a shot when you were on your way to the summerhouse. Were you worried, when you heard it?”
“No. You hear shots all the time at this time of year. People shoot birds with air rifles. It’s all properly organized and legal.”
“What time was it?”
“I was about halfway along the path to the summerhouse, so I suppose it was about five to eleven or so.”
“Which path did you use?”
Stephen looked puzzled. “I didn’t know there was more than one,” he said. “Ben just said to take the path nearest to the public car park, and it would bring me out at the summerhouse.”
“But if you had run,” said Tom, deliberately making his voice hard, “you could have gone to the summerhouse, picked up the rifle, taken the shortcut through the woods to the other path, and you’d be there well before five to eleven, wouldn’t you? You would have had plenty of time to get into position and wait for your mother to come along. Is that what you did, Stephen?”
“No! Why in the world would I want to do that? I love my mum!”
Tom was finding this difficult. It was his usual style of interviewing: accusatory, disbelieving. He did it simply to see if he could shake the interviewee or not. And he hadn’t shaken Stephen; his reaction had been simply that he had no desire to shoot his mother, rather than saying again that he didn’t know of the existence of the other path. That suggested, in Tom’s experience, that both statements were true. As an interview style, it had worked for him in the past, and it was working for him now, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Stephen still reminded him of Bobby. It was something about the care he took with his hair and clothes, and his skin, and his teeth. Everything had to be in perfect condition. Bobby might only be eleven, but he was a follower of fashion too, and spent hours grooming himself. Tom just kept seeing Bobby in Stephen, and he simply didn’t believe he had killed anyone, never mind tried to kill his own mother. But to conduct the interview in his usual style, he had to behave as though he did, and he didn’t like doing that.
“Well—that’s the problem, isn’t it? You love your mother. Your father left her, and you had to become the man of the house when you were thirteen years old. For seven years, it was only you and your mother. And then along comes a man who your mother falls in love with—you didn’t like that, did you, Stephen?”
“I—I just don’t like him very much.”
“But it was your mother who let you down, wasn’t it?” Tom insisted. “By falling for this man you don’t like very much. You were angry, weren’t you? Angry with her?”
Stephen’s face grew red. “No! I—I just . . . I wouldn’t—” He shook his head, and stared down at the table. “I just hoped she wouldn’t get involved with him, that’s all. I wasn’t angry with her. I was just a bit fed up.”
Every time Tom had spoken to Stephen, he had been pleasant and polite, and open about everything except where he’d been the night Mrs. Fenton died. But Judy believed that Keith Scopes had been telling the truth when she saw him that morning, and that he had been badly frightened when he encountered Stephen at the summerhouse, because Stephen had threatened him with the rifle. Why would he do that? Tom thought about that one area in which Stephen was less than forthcoming. Had he been with Ben on the night of Mrs. Fenton’s murder? And if so, why didn’t he tell them? Because Ben was a secret lover? Scopes could be going in for a spot of blackmail—that wouldn’t surprise Tom at all. Keith Scopes would do anything that he thought might make him a few quid. Blackmail would be par for the course. So perhaps Stephen was keeping his sexual orientation a secret from his mother.
“Does your mother know you’re gay?”
“Yes.”
So much for that. Well, maybe he was keeping Ben a secret from her, for some reason. “Does she know about Ben?”
“Yes.”
He wasn’t really winning here.
“Did she know you were going to meet him in the summerhouse today?” asked Judy.
“No—no one knew.”
In that case, thought Tom, why did Keith Scopes go there? And what had made Stephen threaten him?
“Does Michael Waterman know about you and Ben?”
Stephen flushed.
At last, thought Tom. “Was Keith Scopes blackmailing you and Ben?” he asked.
Stephen shook his head. “No,” he said. “Nothing like that.”
“Why did you point the rifle at him?”
“I didn’t.”
“He says you did. He says you had it at your shoulder, ready to fire.”
“I just forgot I had it. I turned away from the window toward the door when it opened. I was just holding it like that.”
Just holding it like that? Tom visualized what Stephen was telling him. He had been holding the rifle, in the firing position, while looking out of the window. Seconds before Scopes got there. And that was when Tony Baker was in the car park, waiting for Mrs. Halliday. He didn’t like the way this was shaping up, but he had to carry on.
“Is that the way you usually hold a gun that you aren’t actively firing?”
“No.”
“Then why were you holding it like that?”
“No reason.”
“No reason,” Tom repeated. “Never point a gun at anyone unless you intend to shoot them—isn’t that what you’re told? You pointed your rifle at Keith Scopes. Did you intend to shoot him?”
“No. It was jammed. It wouldn’t fire.”
“Then why did you point it at him?”
“I didn’t mean to point it at him! And I wouldn’t have been pointing it at anyone if it hadn’t
been jammed.”
He had slipped up, as Tom had hoped he would, when he started the rapid questioning. “So who were you pointing it at?”
“No one.”
“Someone you could see through the window?”
“No.” Stephen looked uncomfortable.
“Someone waiting in the car park, maybe?”
He didn’t answer.
“Waiting for your mother?”
Stephen went red.
“You were pointing it at Tony Baker, weren’t you, Stephen?”
Stephen looked resigned. “Yes,” he muttered. “But it isn’t how it sounds. It was—it was just . . .” He sighed. “Like when someone’s annoying you, and you pretend to shoot them—point your fingers at them, pretending you’ve got a gun.”
“But you did have a gun.”
“It was jammed! It might just as well have been my fingers! It was stupid—I just wasn’t thinking what I was doing.”
“What were you thinking about?” asked Judy.
Stephen turned to her, his face relieved, now that she had interrupted Tom’s constant flow of questions. With another interviewee, that might have irritated Tom, but he felt almost as relieved as Stephen, because he didn’t like doing this to him.
“I was looking forward to seeing Ben. I was worried because I didn’t understand why my rifle was there, and who’d been shooting with it. I was annoyed by Baker pacing up and down because he didn’t think my mother should be keeping him waiting. I was wondering if two people could actually live in the summerhouse—I was thinking about a dozen different things.”
“And when Keith Scopes came to the door?”
“I thought it was Ben—I just turned from the window, that’s all.”
Judy shook her head. “No,” she said. “That wasn’t all, Stephen. I accept what you say about pretending to shoot Baker, and that you forgot you were holding the rifle when you turned to the door. But if it had been Ben, you would have lowered the rifle as soon as you realized what you were doing. And you didn’t lower the rifle, did you?”
Stephen shook his head.
“What you said was intended to make Scopes leave, wasn’t it? You did threaten him, in effect, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Stephen’s face burned a painful red, and he looked down at the table.
“Why?”
“Because I was scared.”
“Why? What were you scared of?”
He looked up. “Keith Scopes isn’t just a security man. Mr. Waterman uses him to beat people up.”
“How would you know that?” asked Tom.
“He was in the pub one night about eighteen months ago, getting drunk and buying drinks for all his mates. He doesn’t very often drink, and when I asked him what he was celebrating, he said he’d had a win on the horses. But when everyone else had gone he told me Mr. Waterman paid him to sort people out for him. He’s got a cosh—a real one. It’s old. He showed me it. It’s a leather thing with a plaited handle, and a heavy lead ball inside it.”
Judy glanced at Tom, frowning slightly.
Tom knew what she was thinking, because that sounded remarkably like whatever had caused Mrs. Fenton’s injury, but Keith Scopes couldn’t have killed her—he was miles away when it happened.
“It’s the truth!” Stephen said, misconstruing the look. “I didn’t want to be on the wrong end of that. So yes, once I realized I could, I got rid of him.”
“What made you think he was going to beat you up?” asked Judy.
He looked down again, and spoke in a low voice. “Because Mr. Waterman had one of Ben’s boyfriends beaten up really badly, and told Ben he’d do that to all of them until he stopped having boyfriends. That’s why I couldn’t tell you where I was the night Wilma died. Because I was with Ben, but if I told you, his dad would find out from Ben’s uncle.”
It took Tom a minute, but then he realized that Ben’s uncle was DCS Yardley. He decided to leave the details of the belated alibi for the moment. For now, he was more interested in what Stephen was saying about Waterman senior.
“Did Ben tell you that his dad had had his boyfriend beaten up?”
“Yes. I thought it must just have been a coincidence that his friend got beaten up after his dad had threatened to do that, but then when Keith told me what he did on the side . . .” He shrugged. “I realized Ben was probably right. His dad must have got Keith to do it.”
Were Ben and Stephen out to get revenge on Keith? Had Stephen simply got mixed up in something Ben had arranged? Had Grace Halliday been shot at by accident? Was Keith the intended target? Tom didn’t know which question to ask first, so he asked the obvious one.
“Did you tell Ben that it was Keith who beat up his boyfriend?”
“No. Because Ben and Keith used to be best friends when they were kids—I couldn’t see how it would help to tell him. It would just upset him. I knew who to avoid, and that was all that mattered. And I did avoid him until recently.”
Tom leaned forward. “How do you mean?”
“He wouldn’t dare do anything to me in the village, and he was only in Malworth on Sundays, so it was easy to keep an eye out for him. But now . . . well—we’re always working in the same towns. I’m getting moved about all the time, and it’s always to where he’s working. So I began to wonder if Mr. Waterman knew about me and Ben after all. And when he came to the summerhouse, I thought he’d—” He sighed. “But I was probably imagining it. Because I think he was surprised to see me there.”
No, thought Tom, I don’t think you were imagining it. I think he was there to beat you up, and he was surprised to see the rifle.
“Is Scopes often in the pub?” he asked.
“Quite often. Lunchtimes, and on his evenings off. There’s nowhere else to go in Stoke Weston.”
Tom’s next question clearly surprised Stephen a little, but Tom really wanted to know the answer.
“Does he smoke?”
“Stephen was with me in the flat until half past nine. That was when I left to get my train. I called a cab, and Stephen took it with me as far as the bingo club, then went home on his bike.”
Which was why Jerry Wheelan hadn’t seen Stephen coming back, thought Lloyd, sitting back. In as much as it could be checked, the story checked out.
“Which cab company did you use?”
“I don’t know. I just hailed one on Waring Road.”
Damn. They could have proved it one way or the other if he’d known the company. Was that just bad luck, or careful lying? Ben Waterman impressed him; he had made his statement about the night of Mrs. Fenton’s murder clearly, calmly, and without a hint of evasion. But if Ben was quite happy to discuss it now, why not before? That smacked of a newly wrought alibi. Lloyd sat back, and regarded him, his head slightly to one side. “Why has it taken you two and a half months to come forward with this information?” he asked.
“Because I knew nothing about it!”
“It’s been all over the national press,” Lloyd said, shaking his head. “Even if the Scottish papers didn’t cover it, the TV news did. And presumably you do occasionally contact someone here.”
“I knew about the murders, of course I did. But I had no idea Stephen was a suspect. The first I heard of it was when my father told me he’d been arrested. It’s ridiculous.”
“Why wouldn’t Stephen have told you?”
“He wouldn’t want to worry me in the run-up to the exams. That’s what he’s like.”
“But if he had an alibi for the first murder, why didn’t he tell us?”
“I imagine it’s because he knows that it would get straight back to my father through my Uncle Ray.”
Lloyd raised his eyebrows. “Your uncle being Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Yardley?”
“Yes—and before you tell me how the police don’t pass on information to unauthorized persons, forget it. Ray tells my father all sorts of things. I wasn’t surprised to hear that he’d been taken off this inquiry if you thought someone at
Waterman Entertainment was involved. I just never imagined it was because you suspected Stephen.”
“That’s quite a serious complaint you’re making.”
“I’m not making a complaint. I’m simply stating facts.”
Lloyd thought about that. And played over in his head Ben Waterman’s answer to why he hadn’t come forward before. That the first he’d heard of it was when his father told him that Stephen had been arrested. And Ben did know that Stephen had been arrested when the duty inspector called there to give them the all-clear. But how did Michael Waterman know? The only people who knew at that point were those present and Yardley, once Judy had phoned him. Even the duty inspector hadn’t known. It wasn’t conclusive, but it did suggest that Stephen might have been right to worry about Waterman finding out, and presumably he disapproved of the relationship.
“All right,” he said. “I won’t argue with you. But even if your father did find out—why would that matter to Stephen, compared to being suspected of murder?”
“Because he hadn’t murdered her. He hasn’t murdered anyone. Why should he put himself in danger by giving you an alibi that will almost certainly get him beaten senseless, when he knows that he has nothing to do with these murders?”
Lloyd frowned. “How would it get him beaten senseless?”
“That’s what my father would do to scare him off, and Stephen knew that, because I told him. It happened to a previous boyfriend of mine, four years ago. Someone put him in hospital for ten days on my father’s orders, and he said then that anyone I took up with would get the same treatment. Stephen’s the only other person I have taken up with, so fortunately it’s only happened once.”
“That’s another serious complaint.”
“It’s another fact. I knew he meant it—even though the last time was years ago. I knew he would have Stephen beaten up if he found out about us. And today I discovered that it would have made no difference if Stephen had told you where he was that night, because my father already knew.”
“But Stephen’s still all in one piece.”
