by Amy Myers
We left it at that, but I wasn’t happy about it. Louise picked that up right away when I explained. She grimaced too. ‘Must we?’
‘No must, but I suppose I should. We’ll just set our minds at rest and have dinner in the pub on the way back.’
‘Done.’
Dining out at pretentious restaurants has to be the norm for Louise in her working capacity, but it’s not her personal choice. What pleases her best are the quiet tucked-away pubs and restaurants where we can either be alone or if that’s not possible those not dogged by her peers in the film world or the press. The Piper’s Green local suits us splendidly in this respect – provided that Pen isn’t hiding under the table.
I rang Sam back to say we’d be over shortly and he was almost hysterical with gratitude. ‘What with Geoffrey’s murder and everything else, I tend to get overwrought,’ he apologized.
‘No problem. We’ll pick you up on the way,’ I told him.
As we drove to Monksford, Louise listened without saying much as I explained as best I could why Sam might justifiably be worried. She was as glum as I was – so I suppose it was a good test of our relationship, even if it was one I could do without.
‘The woman’s probably celebrating with her next sugar daddy – or whatever you call them when you’re as old as Wendy,’ Louise said crossly.
I didn’t reply. I bore in mind that Louise was no great admirer of Wendy’s but even so her set face began to grate on me. She was usually so calm and understanding. Not now. Or was it me? Or both of us?
Sam was ready and waiting for us at his door. He slid into the Focus’s back seat with more expressions of gratitude to which both Louise and I tried to reply politely. It was hard though.
‘Did you try Wendy’s number again?’ I asked him as we set off.
‘Yes. No reply.’
The drive to her home was a short one from where Sam lived but there were few lights along the way. Wendy’s barn conversion was close to the road but the farmhouse was set some way back, so it was unlikely that her neighbours would be aware of her every movement. I didn’t get the impression they were great chums. As Louise turned off the road to approach the house I could see no car standing outside Wendy’s home nor any lights although a security light flashed on as we turned in.
‘She always puts her car in the garage,’ Sam said when I pointed out that her Astra was missing. ‘It might be in there, but it’s more likely that she is out or away. You’d think that she would have made alternative arrangements for the café, wouldn’t you? That’s what worries me.’
Me too, I thought, as I climbed slowly and painfully out of the car after Sam. Louise elected to stay in the car which was a relief. The house curtains were drawn across from what I could see and there were no lights on inside. Nor was there any reply to the bell. My initial reluctance to come here was giving way to concern and perhaps this was mutual because Louise decided to join us after all. She had brought a torch from the car so we picked our way round to the rear of the house, where another light flashed on. No sign of life there either. Sam then volunteered to climb up to peer in the high rear window of the garage.
‘Her car’s in there,’ he cried out. ‘Shall I call the police?’
‘No. I will,’ I told him. At least I knew who to speak to, which is often vital. I hoped and hoped it wasn’t in this case.
At first I received a cool reception from Uniform, but my mention of Brandon and that Wendy was a major witness in the Philip Moxton case provided the hook for instant action. Shortly, not one car but two drew up. The first contained an inspector and a constable, the second held Brandon and a detective sergeant. We were briskly questioned and Louise’s face and name caused a short furore. Brandon shot me a puzzled look – or so I interpreted it. What was a clown like me doing with Louise Shaw?
We watched as they went through the obvious procedure and then conferred, while Sam grew more and more jittery. I could understand why. Wendy could have gone out with a friend who had picked her up in her own car – but why leave the curtains drawn? She could have gone away for some days. She could have done this or that – but perhaps she hadn’t. Perhaps she was inside.
Since there was no woman PC present, some bright spark suggested that Louise should go into the house first as being the least likely to cause alarm if Wendy was merely in a deep sleep. I vetoed this immediately, even before seeing Louise’s horrified expression. I insisted that she should return to the car and I would go into the house myself, as Wendy knew me. Either Brandon or his sergeant could follow on. Both did so and Louise stayed with Sam. Full marks to her.
I led the way after the door was forced, a position I didn’t care for despite the stalwart company. Each room I looked into on the ground floor was empty of Wendy, so I gritted my teeth for what I feared I would find upstairs. Stairs were hard enough to climb for me at the moment without added torture.
There was no one in the first bedroom when I pushed the door open calling out her name and the thump of my heart died down a little. The second was a different matter. I’d prepared for the worst, but when I saw it I couldn’t take it. I could see Wendy apparently deeply asleep, but I knew she couldn’t be. No way. Perhaps I was still weak from my hospitalization but I felt close to tears, unable to move.
‘Wendy,’ I called in a voice I didn’t recognize as my own. Then again: ‘Wendy!’
It was Brandon who had to push me gently aside when there was no reply. He went up to her, touched her, turned round and nodded to his sergeant. It was obvious that no Wendy now lay there. The body was cold.
The chill communicated itself to my own body as I retreated to the doorway and Brandon and his sergeant went into action. There was nothing I could do at this scene. I was a double intruder both on a woman’s private life and on her death. I had to leave it to the police and very shortly afterwards to the forensic management team to go about their business.
It was one o’clock in the morning by the time Louise and I reached home. Sam had been released much earlier. Neither Louise nor I were hungry by that time but I heated up some soup for us. It was difficult even to take that. Our earlier discord had vanished, both of us too tired and shocked by what had happened to want to stake out our own emotional boundaries.
‘You’ve got to work tomorrow,’ I said to her, appalled at what I’d put her through. Her schedule takes no note of weekends.
‘I’m not due in until ten,’ she told me. ‘Anyway –’ she tried to look cheerful – ‘it’s good practice for us.’
‘Practice for what?’
‘Our future, on the presumption that your life is always like this.’
Her words ‘our future’ were an instant cement. The chill disappeared, warmth spread through me and we clung to each other as though this were a parting not a beginning. We were beginning, with a new ‘us’ based not on fairy-tale reunions but on something far more tangible.
‘My life isn’t always like this,’ I assured her. ‘Sometimes it’s a whole lot better.’
It took some time before she stirred in my arms. ‘Did Wendy mean a lot to you, Jack?’
‘There was no time even to call her a friend. I misjudged her though, so I feel bad about that and for not seeing things clearly.’
‘You thought she killed Philip Moxton?’
‘It was one scenario, but that’s now discounted.’
‘Is it?’
I stared at her, not understanding at first. ‘Someone murdered her, sweetheart.’ Then belatedly I saw her point and wondered how on earth it could have eluded me. ‘You mean it could have been suicide. I haven’t been thinking straight. You’re right, she could have killed herself. I’ve been too focused on Philip’s murder to see that angle. Theoretically Wendy could have killed him, seen the pace was hotting up and taken her own way out.’
‘Theoretically? So don’t you believe that’s what happened?’
I had to be honest. ‘No.’
‘So you think that poor woman wa
s murdered.’ Louise began to shake. ‘And I was so horrible about her.’
I saw tears running down her face. I’d never seen her cry before and it frightened me. I had a lot to learn. Perhaps we both did. I held her in my arms until the sobs subsided. ‘I’ll never let that happen again,’ I vowed.
‘Never let me cry?’ She managed to laugh.
‘No. Go through another ordeal like that.’
‘Perhaps it’s good for me. I read too many scripts, Jack. I need to deal with real life.’
Brandon was on the case with a vengeance, which wasn’t surprising. Even though there was no proof yet as to the cause of Wendy’s death or to its possible connection to Philip Moxton’s death, he would have a clear field with no Met involvement. Yet. He made it clear to me that I was hired as part of his team and sick leave was cancelled. Full stop. So that meant I was back at Monksford on Saturday morning, thanks to Zoe at the wheel of my Alfa. She and Len had come in specially having heard the news. I had been bent on driving myself to Monksford, but Zoe had other ideas. Officially I still had a few days to go. Some car detective, I growled to myself. I can’t even drive.
At least Wendy’s body was no longer there, which meant I could try to convince myself that this was simply an objective crime scene with no personal connection. It did help – a little. Zoe said she would hang out in Monksford village while I was doing my duty, and I braced myself for what lay ahead.
‘Still think she stuck a knife into Geoffrey Green?’ Brandon asked me, when I was duly logged in and kitted out.
‘No, but I think she suspected who did.’
‘And that was who?’
‘I can’t be certain because she didn’t name names, but Timothy Mild fits the bill.’
Brandon tried this one out for size. ‘That would make the Met scream,’ he said with pleasure. ‘Did she have any evidence?’
‘Not that she told me.’ Then I forced myself to ask, ‘What killed her?’
‘The usual. A hefty dose of sleeping pills.’
‘Self-administered?’
‘Could be. There was nothing by the bedside or anywhere else though. No suicide notes, no signs of preparation, so it doesn’t look likely. The lab is going through the remains of a nice cup of comforting cocoa left downstairs.’
‘Any evidence of a companion over the cocoa?’
‘None so far. Her nearest neighbours in the farmhouse heard a car or two pass that night, but whether they stopped or came here or drove on is a moot point. Is there any reason she would have killed herself apart from this Moxton case?’
‘None that I know of. On the contrary, the legacy he was leaving her would have enabled her to lead an entirely different way of life.’
‘She seems to have stirred up a hornets’ nest with the Moxtons and Herricks. Enough to cause this result?’
I hesitated over this one. My inclination was to say no. It would be easy to say no. Annoyance over the will could hardly have led to this – if ‘this’ was murder. But there were elements of the game as well as Philip Moxton’s murder that were still missing. If I threw in the attack on me for good measure I couldn’t answer ‘no’. So that’s what I told Brandon.
He nodded. ‘My reasoning too.’
I came home to a barrage of messages. I’d switched my mobile off deliberately, so now I had two lots to deal with, both on that and my landline. Bad news spreads. What was happening? Timothy wished to know the situation from my own lips. Gwen wanted to know more than the radio had provided. Joan insisted on hearing all about it. Len, who’d hung on in the Pits until Zoe and I returned, was more easily dealt with – certainly more easily than Pen who had turned up at the scene of the crime just as Zoe and I drove away from it. One glimpse of her outraged face told me I’d be hearing more shortly. She wasn’t here, thank heavens. Probably still terrorizing Monksford. There was also a message from Dave Jennings to say Brandon was emailing me the Packard logbook info to give me the registered ownership details at last. With Wendy’s death the Packard had slipped to the back of my mind, so I went straight to the computer. I was still working out the implications of what I read when the doorbell rang.
Moira was standing on the doorstep with a very grumpy Len, who couldn’t wait to offload her and stalk right back to the Pits. She’d been ringing the bell for ‘ages’ she told me in a pained voice and this nice gentleman (Len) had assured her I was in.
‘I heard the terrible news,’ she explained. ‘You weren’t answering calls, so here I am. I want to know what’s going on. Did Wendy kill herself?’
‘The jury’s out on whether or not she was helped to do it,’ I replied truthfully.
Her eyes glistened like halogen headlights. ‘Murder? Nonsense. She was as guilty as hell of killing Philip and couldn’t face the consequences.’
‘As I said, the jury’s out,’ I repeated, disliking this woman more and more. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, but I’ll come in. You look rather shaky.’ She peered closely at me.
‘I am.’ Go away, go away, go away! I silently begged.
I thought she’d catch the implication of the ‘I am’, but no. She still came in, following me through to the living room. ‘She killed herself. That’s obvious,’ she repeated. She looked more agitated than I had ever seen her.
‘Why should she?’ I asked wearily. ‘She’s due to inherit a wad of money, and there’s no evidence that she was guilty of anything at all.’
‘I suppose her family will inherit now,’ Moira continued crossly, with no sign that she’d heard me. ‘Although perhaps not if the police can prove that she killed Philip. It makes no difference to us of course,’ she added hastily.
Charming of you, I thought. Time for pointing out a few home truths.
‘Quite. It means they’ll be on your doorstep again.’
She sat down rather suddenly. ‘Why? We’ve told them what little we know, and we’d no reason to kill Philip or Wendy.’
‘Monetary reasons,’ I pointed out less than gently, ‘make for powerful motivation.’
‘That was the game,’ she said uneasily. ‘And that’s over. We’re entitled to our share.’
I pounced. ‘The quarter share you all agreed at university?’
She leapt too eagerly at this. ‘Yes.’
‘You told me Nancy Herrick wasn’t involved in the game, so this quarter share stems from what Gavin had demanded from Philip.’ I was blazing a trail into unknown territory, but with interesting results.
‘What on earth do you mean?’
Somewhere I had hit a nerve. The trouble was that I didn’t know what I meant, so I plunged further.
‘Somehow Donald and Gavin fixed that 1938 robbery on Randolphs Bank between them.’
Her relief was obvious, but she made a good stab at hiding it. ‘Are you implying that they were thieves? I can’t speak for Donald Moxton, but Gavin had nothing whatsoever to do with the theft, other than being present.’
‘But Donald did.’
‘Perhaps.’ She was very flushed now. I had her on the run.
‘Tell me, Moira, or tell the police. Whichever.’
‘It has nothing to do with Wendy’s death. Besides, Timothy would kill me if—’
‘Timothy?’ I repeated when she broke off ‘Or Tom?’
‘If the truth got out,’ she finished sullenly, ignoring my question.
‘Which of them?’
‘Timothy,’ she yelled at me. ‘And it had nothing to do with Gavin. It was Donald. Gavin realized he was involved in it, so Donald eventually had to cut him in.’
‘Gavin blackmailed Donald?’
‘Not for money.’ Moira looked shocked.
‘Then what for?’
‘I don’t know. I think it was just the Packard.’ She burst into tears, but they moved me not.
Here we go again, I thought. ‘Forget the Packard,’ I said patiently. ‘First, it was Donald who carried out the theft?’
‘Well, yes, in a way—’
‘No.’
‘Then who?’ If there really was a villainous masked man and Gavin was standing outside by the boot with the bank owner, then the villain couldn’t have been him. Nor Donald. If Donald was involved in any way with the theft, however, the villain had to have been someone he knew. My mind produced from its archives an interesting fact. Gavin and Donald had both been brought up in Biddenford which was very close to Hatchwell. Donald’s father had a shop there, a greengrocery. Donald had stayed at Randolphs until the war and returned to the bank after it. So if Donald wasn’t the villain himself, it could have been—
‘His father,’ I said. ‘He was the masked robber.’ One look at Moira and I knew I’d scored a bullseye. She was white in the face, either with terror or fury.
‘It was his plan, not Donald’s,’ Moira burst out. ‘Donald admitted it to Gavin. His father had always wanted to better himself, because he had little formal education, and thought up this scheme. He was very clever over the disguise, and Donald knew what was going to happen of course. His father invested the money and after the war it had increased so much that by ten years later he was able to buy the bank in stages and put it in Donald’s name, so that they could play bankers together.’
At last! Something which made some sort of sense and threw a whole new light on investing in one’s child’s future. ‘Why didn’t you tell us earlier for heaven’s sake?’
‘Timothy said if these rumours were substantiated, it would ruin the merger because it smeared the Moxton name. Philip always ignored them because he was a good chess player. Eyes on the target and how best to get there. Besides, Donald’s father was a greengrocer. That wouldn’t have looked good in the City, not in those days anyway. Moxtons would have been a laughing stock and now it probably will,’ she ended despairingly. ‘Timothy will never forgive me.’
I ignored her social comment. ‘So Gavin blackmailed the Moxtons for a share of the loot?’
‘No! I already said that he didn’t,’ she shouted.
‘Then why did you all think you were entitled to split Barney’s fortune for him?’
