Ruling Passion

by Reginald Hill

  Backhouse dealt with them kindly but firmly. No, there were no developments yet. They were looking for a man who might be able to help them with their inquiries. Mr Colin Hopkins, yes, that was him. A photograph and description might be issued if it was felt to be necessary.

  Pascoe had dropped behind as the questioning proceeded. When Backhouse and his interrogators stopped in front of the cottage, he found himself, deliberately blank-minded, looking up the side of the building between the garage and the wall. There was activity in the back garden and beyond. They would be looking for the weapon. Everything they found would be carefully scrutinized, of course, but it was the weapon they were hoping for. It made a difference if you knew the man you were searching after didn’t have a shotgun in his possession.

  He doubted if they’d find it so near. Hurled in panic into the woods over the stream, it would have been found by now. Whereas if the killer were cool enough to make a more deliberate attempt to hide it, he would surely wait until his car had taken him a safe distance from the village.

  The killer. He tested himself gently from the vantage point of disembodied objectivity he had scrambled on to in the last two hours. Was he ready yet to consider whether Colin … why Colin …

  No. He wasn’t quite ready. He walked up to the garage and peered in. What he saw surprised him.

  ‘Sergeant!’ Backhouse called authoritatively. Pascoe instinctively obeyed the summons and had joined the superintendent at the threshold before he started wondering about the tone of command. A new step in the psychology of their relationship perhaps. A reminder of his official subordination.

  Or perhaps his service with Dalziel had made him too suspicious of all detective-superintendents’ motives. Perhaps all Backhouse was doing was using his police rank as a red herring to divert the interest of the newspapermen from him. Clearly, as they moved off in a friendly, almost light-hearted, little group, they had no suspicion that the discoverer of the crime was so close.

  In the cottage, much had changed. No effort had been made to tidy up after the rigorous search and fingerprinting examination which had taken place. Why bother when there was no chance of an irate householder turning up to complain?

  Backhouse thought differently.

  ‘For God’s sake, Hamblyn,’ he said to the ginger-moustached detective who came to greet him, ‘get this place tidied up. And those cars outside. If I want a road-block here, I’ll ask for it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Hamblyn unemotionally.

  ‘Anything new?’

  ‘Nothing useful, sir. Not as far as I can see. Anything on the car yet, sir?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  Pascoe spoke lowly, diffidently.

  ‘There’s a car in the garage,’ he said. It sounded daft as he said it but, hell, he had to say it. Not that it was possible they wouldn’t have looked. Was it?

  ‘Yes, yes; I believe there is,’ said Backhouse. Then he laughed.

  ‘Oh, I see your dilemma. Yes it’s true the Hopkinses’ car is in the garage. But it’s the other one we’re interested in. Royal blue Mini-Cooper according to best report. The one Mr Rushworth and Mr Mansfield arrived in.’

  Pascoe was abashed. Hamblyn was looking at him with faint distaste.

  ‘Let’s step into the garden,’ said Backhouse, like a kindly host desirous of stirring his guest’s digestive juices before lunch.

  They went through the dining-room, passing the chalked body-outlines and ringed bloodstains, and out of the french window into the garden, halting near the sundial.

  I’m really getting the treatment, thought Pascoe. What does he expect from me? Colin’s present address?

  ‘The Hopkinses’ car was in the garage, the visitors’ car on the driveway,’ said Backhouse. ‘This is the arrangement you’d expect and this is what the few people we’ve found who passed early last evening saw.’

  ‘They couldn’t see into the garage,’ objected Pascoe.

  ‘True,’ said Backhouse. ‘Now, here’s what happened, or what possibly happened supported by a strong scaffolding of what did happen. There was a lot of broken glass scattered around here. Did you notice? From a whisky bottle, that was easy enough to establish. Were they hard drinkers, your friends?’

  ‘Only on occasions,’ answered Pascoe, recognizing the start of interrogation. ‘And the occasion rarely merited the expense of scotch. But that was years ago. Things change.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. Well, we’ve got a thorough house-to-house on now, but the first place my men called was the Eagle and Child, the second the Queen Anne. That’s where she bought it.’

  ‘The whisky?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Backhouse pensively. ‘At about quarter to nine last night. Curious that. The Eagle and Child’s nearer. No matter. The landlord’s wife, who sold it to her at the off-licence counter, didn’t see the car, but heard it drive away. She reckons it sounded more like the Mini-Cooper than the Hopkinses’ Cortina.’

  ‘A good ear,’ commented Pascoe, watching a pair of thrushes which had decided the policemen were harmless, and were drilling for worms.

  ‘No doubt we’ll find someone to corroborate it,’ said Backhouse. ‘As things stand, it seems likely that they started drinking after dinner. When the scotch began to get low, Mrs Hopkins volunteered to fetch more; she used her visitors’ car as it would have to be moved anyway to get her own out. On her return she either walked straight into the garden or went through the front door into the lounge, then the dining-room and out of the french windows.’

  ‘And then she was shot,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘It seems likely. Very soon after she came back. She was still holding the full bottle, you see. We found the cap with the seal complete. She must have held the bottle in front of her, either to ward off the shot or to use as a weapon. The blast from the shotgun went right through it. There were splinters of glass embedded deep in the wound. Would any of your friends own a shotgun, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know,’ said Pascoe irritably. ‘I’ve told you, Superintendent, this was a kind of reunion. I hadn’t seen these people for years. How should I know what they were likely to do now?’

  ‘Do people change that much?’

  ‘They change all right. When someone’s put a couple of ounces of lead pellets into your face, you change!’

  Pascoe realized he was nearly shouting. Jesus, he thought, I should be back there too, lying on one of Constable Crowther’s comfortable beds with some of Doctor Hardisty’s comfortable pills inside me.

  ‘Sir!’ It was Hamblyn from the french window. Behind him stood two men.

  ‘It’s Mr French, the coroner, sir.’

  ‘Hello, Superintendent,’ said the taller of the two men who now stepped into the garden. He was over six feet, rather gaunt of feature, well tanned, his nose showing the pale indentations left by a frequent wearing of spectacles. His companion was a good nine inches shorter, less dramatic in every way, but his pale oval face was intelligent and far from weak. Both men wore casual, sporting clothes, French going in for bright colours, his companion much more subdued.

  ‘Sorry to take so long. You must have thought I’d be first on the spot, living on the doorstep so to speak. But I was half-way round the golf-course with Culpepper here. Dreadful business, this. Dreadful. You’d better tell me what I need to know.’

  Culpepper, thought Pascoe, as Backhouse and the coroner moved back into the cottage together. The committee secretary – Marianne Culpepper. Her husband?

  The man spoke to him and his words seemed to confirm this. His eyes were taking everything in. Despite his air of quiet authority, he felt a need to explain himself.

  ‘Excuse me, could you … You are with the police, I’m right?’

  ‘Pascoe, sir. Sergeant Pascoe.’

  ‘It’s not just morbid curiosity that brings me here, Sergeant. I live close by. I knew these people, the Hopkinses, I mean. When Mr French told me why he had to come back, I couldn’t be
lieve it.’

  He fell silent.

  ‘How close do you live, sir?’ asked Pascoe. It was easier to fall into the policeman role than explain his true position.

  ‘About half a mile. Round the side of the hill.’ He gestured vaguely towards the rising ground which lay to the south of the village.

  ‘What happened here, Sergeant? Is it true they are all dead?’

  ‘Mrs Hopkins is dead, sir,’ said Pascoe evenly. ‘And Mr Mansfield and Mr Rushworth, two guests who were spending the night with them.’

  ‘Oh, my God. What about Colin, Mr Hopkins? And the other guests?’

  ‘Other guests?’ said Pascoe sharply.

  ‘Yes. I ran into Mrs Hopkins in the village yesterday evening when I got back from the office. About five o’clock. It seems impossible … anyway, I asked them round for a drink tonight, but she explained they would have a houseful of guests. Four, she said. At least.’

  It had been five-thirty when Pascoe had rung to say he and Ellie couldn’t make it that evening. If only that case hadn’t come up … or Dalziel hadn’t insisted … another two made the odds very strong against anyone trying anything with a double-barrelled shotgun. What an adaptable thing blame was; so easy to shift or attract.

  ‘Had you known Mr and Mrs Hopkins long, sir?’ asked Pascoe, evading the question about the guests.

  ‘Not long. Two or three months only, since they bought Brookside, in fact. They have worked so hard on it. The place was not in a good state of repair when they acquired it, you know. And they did wonders, wonders.’

  He tailed off into silence.

  ‘Mr Pelman sold them the cottage, I believe,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Something in his tone made Pascoe pursue this line.

  ‘Did he live here himself before he sold the place?’

  Culpepper smiled without much humour.

  ‘No. The cottage stands at the boundary of the land he bought when he came here five years ago. His house is the other side of the woods, his woods. That’s what he really wanted, of course. A place where he could pit his wits against the intelligence of various small beasts and birds. A most uneven contest, I fear.’

  Am I supposed to be too thick to get the double irony? wondered Pascoe.

  ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, that the chairman of the Village Amenities Committee should let such a property fall into disrepair?’ murmured Pascoe.

  Culpepper raised his eyebrows at him.

  ‘You glean your information fast, Sergeant.’

  ‘We spend our working life amidst the alien corn, sir.’

  Culpepper suddenly nodded twice, as though something had been confirmed.

  ‘You’re the Hopkinses’ policeman friend, aren’t you? One of their week-end guests.’

  Clever Mr Culpepper.

  ‘Yes. I am. How did you know?’

  ‘Mrs Hopkins, Rose, said something about you, when we talked yesterday.’

  So I was an object of interest, worth a special mention. Like a literary lion. Or a two-headed man. What now, Mr Culpepper? wondered Pascoe. Indignation at my mild deceit?

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. This must be an unbearable situation for you,’ said Culpepper with apparently unforced sympathy. ‘Were you here when it happened?’

  ‘No,’ said Pascoe shortly. ‘I found them this morning when we arrived.’

  ‘How terrible. You say we?’

  ‘A friend. She’s resting now. It was a shock.’

  ‘Terrible. Terrible. Such things are a puzzle and a torment to the mind.’

  Backhouse and French appeared.

  ‘Are you ready, Hartley?’ called the coroner.

  ‘Two-thirty this afternoon then, Superintendent. I hope you find your man quickly.’

  He looked sideways at Pascoe and shook his head slightly, but didn’t speak. Culpepper held out his hand.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Pascoe. I’m sorry we had to meet in such circumstances. Your friends were delightful people to have in the village. We counted ourselves lucky that they came here.’

  Pascoe shook his hand. There was nothing to say in reply except perhaps that Rose would scarcely have counted herself lucky in coming here; nor Colin, wherever he was.

  That was the only thing really worth talking about. Where Colin was. And why. Backhouse must be ready to get round to it now.

  He was. French and Culpepper had scarcely disappeared from the garden before Backhouse asked the big question.

  ‘You’ve had time for reflection now, Sergeant. So tell me. Why should a man like Colin Hopkins take a shotgun and kill his wife and two close friends?’

  Chapter 4

  He had been expecting the question and had felt reserves of angry indignation building up inside him, ready to explode when it was asked. But for some reason the spark did not catch.

  ‘We don’t know he did,’ he protested weakly.

  ‘You’re a policeman,’ answered Backhouse. ‘Suppose this were your case. What assumption would you be working on?’

  ‘It’s all circumstantial. If you knew Colin, you’d know that it’s just impossible.’

  ‘I’ve encountered quite a few murderers,’ said Backhouse patiently. ‘I dare say you’ve met one or two yourself. One thing they nearly all had in common was a handful of close friends willing to attest with the most vehement sincerity that the accused was quite incapable of such a crime. Am I right?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Good. In any case, as you told me before, a few years can change things. Situations certainly. People as well, though to a lesser extent. So tell me what you know, what you remember. Is he a quick-tempered man?’

  ‘What the hell does it matter?’ said Pascoe. If he was going to be questioned as an ordinary witness, he would assume some of the privileges of an ordinary witness. Such as the unnecessity of politeness towards questioning policemen.

  ‘You’re going after him anyway. You’ll track him down, question him. If there’s enough evidence, you’ll put him in court. So why waste time talking to me?’

  ‘You know why, Sergeant,’ said Backhouse coldly. ‘Of course we’re going after him. And of course my men – your colleagues – will assume it’s very likely he has committed a triple murder. They’ll also assume he has a double-barrelled shotgun which he is willing to use. I want information, all the information I can get. I want to know the best way of dealing with him, which way he’s likely to jump. I thought I was lucky when I learnt you were in the force. A professional first on the scene. It was your bad luck. I thought it was my good luck.’

  ‘Every point taken,’ said Pascoe with tight-lipped emphasis. ‘Only, I cannot believe that he did it.’

  ‘Fair enough. Then why so antagonistic? Tell me things to prove his innocence. Was he a jealous man, do you think? Would his wife give him cause?’

  ‘Unlikely,’ said Pascoe with a frown. ‘At least they seemed set up for life. Ask Ellie, Miss Soper. She’s seen them much more recently. But we’ve talked a lot about them and she would certainly have mentioned any signs of a rift.’

  ‘There were two single men in the house last night,’ said Backhouse casually. ‘Old friends. Going back to before she married.’

  Pascoe laughed now.

  ‘I see it! The triangle. Or even the quadrilateral. It’s a non-starter, Superintendent. Timmy and Carlo were, if anything, even more devoted than Rose and Colin.’

  ‘I see,’ said Backhouse softly. ‘I see. But things do change, as you say. Even … tastes. What kind of thing was it that would put Mr Hopkins into one of his terrible wraths?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘In the letter you showed me,’ said Backhouse, ‘he says something about his wrath being terrible if you don’t turn up, and adds that you know just how terrible his wrath can be. A figure of speech merely?’

  Pascoe walked slowly forward and came to a halt on the edge of the bank which sloped steeply down to the brook. All the police activity
was in the woods on the other side now. A slow, methodical and, as yet, completely unproductive search. Despite the warmth of the sun, many of the policemen were wearing waterproof overtrousers as the undergrowth was still soaked from the previous night’s torrential rain. It would have obliterated any sign of human passage, but it couldn’t wash away a shotgun.

  ‘No, not a figure of speech,’ said Pascoe. ‘He had a quick temper. Not a violent temper though, it never led him into violence against people. Certainly he never got anywhere near the kind of fury which could make a man pick up a shotgun, kill two of his friends, reload, and shoot his wife. What about the gun, by the way?’

  ‘A 410, we know that from the cartridge cases. But that’s it. There’s no sign of a licence anywhere in the cottage. Was Hopkins the kind of man to want to do some shooting? Game, I mean.’

  ‘Never knew him express an interest. Though he wasn’t an anti, like Carlo and Timmy.’

  ‘And his wife? Was she anti also?’

  ‘Rose? Hell, no. Rose grew up in the country, was used to the idea of birds tumbling from the tree-top straight into the pie-dish.’

  ‘So the presence of this’ – Backhouse waved at the woods – ‘in his back garden may have been a temptation?’

  ‘Why not ask Pelman? He’d be sure to know who was shooting on his land.’

  Backhouse grinned.

  ‘Oh, he’s being asked, never fear. And we’re checking on all shotgun licences issued locally in the past three months. Mr Dalziel would be proud of us. So you reckon there was no chance of his doing it in a blind rage?’

  Pascoe was beginning to adapt to the man’s questioning technique. He answered without pause.

  ‘No chance of his doing it. Period.’

  ‘In a blind rage. So, how about doing it in cold blood? What kind of thing might make your high-tempered extrovert friend consider shooting someone dead in cold blood?’

  ‘That’s even less likely than the other!’

  ‘So it’s more likely he did it in a blind rage?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ protested Pascoe.

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought you said it was less likely that he would do it in cold blood?’