Brenda recalled what Joe had always said about dealing with the police. Maintain the initiative. Throw questions back at them. Clearing her throat again, she put the principle into practice. “What does that have to do with me?”
“If we’re dealing with a murder, and I stress ‘if’ then we need to think of a motive,” Hoad told her. “You had a hell of a row with Ursula a couple days ago.”
“Wednesday evening,” Brenda agreed. “She goaded me once too often.”
“And there was, as the chief says, a blazing row,” Rahman reminded her.
“There was an argument. I told her where to get off. Not only her but the men, too, and the idiot who plays Master Spy.”
“Do you often get angry, Mrs Jump?”
Brenda shook her head. “I’m like anyone else. Even tempered, easy going, but I do come to a point where I can lose it. Ursula reached that point on Wednesday evening.”
It was another of Joe’s canons. Answer the question they ask don’t supply answers to those they haven’t asked.
“I’ve had a brief look at some of the footage,” Hoad told her. “After tearing a strip off Master Spy, you stormed out of the living room and went up to the Romping Room. Ben called on you afterwards and you told him to clear off, too.”
“I was angry. I needed to be on my own to calm down.”
“I can understand that,” the chief inspector admitted, “but I have to ask, Mrs Jump, did you sneak into the men’s dorm, take the cord from Marc’s dressing gown, and keep it to one side.”
“No.”
“And did you then sneak into the Romping Room the following night after Ursula had gone there, and strangle her with it?”
“No, I did not.” Brenda felt a rush of anger sparked by fear, running through her. She drank again from her bottle of water. “If you’re so smart, you’d check the footage. I didn’t leave my bed last night.”
“We did,” Rahman told her, “and we would agree. But your friend Mr Murray, doesn’t. He admits that he doesn’t yet know how it was done, but he insists that it was murder, and right now, Mrs Jump, you are the only suspect we have.”
“Then in that case you’re wrong, and so is Joe Murray.” Brenda sucked on the bottled water again. “And when I see him, he’ll wish he’d been suspended on the end of that rope.”
***
After trying the solid wooden, rear gate and finding it locked, Joe raised his eyebrows at Katy.
“There’s an entry call system,” she told him. “Controlled from the security office. When we want access, we push the buzzer, security lets us in.”
“And of course they have CCTV so they can check on your identity.”
“Correct.”
They moved on, circling the paved paths until they came to the high fence that separated the Housies’ half of the garden from the production crew’s access.
It was built of six-foot by six-foot waney lap panels, but they had been doubled up, one on top of the other, supported by a high, trellis-like framework.
“As a part of their contract, the Housies can have no contact with anyone outside the house,” Katy explained. “To ensure that, and also to ensure that they can have access to the gardens, we need to put in a temporary divider. Rigging this up as we do provides the perfect answer.”
Joe pointed to the rear wall. “That’s not particularly high, though, and I noticed on the security cameras that it runs the length of the house at the rear and sides. What’s to stop a reporter or a friend of one of the Housies getting over it?”
“CCTV for one thing,” Katy said, “and have you tried getting through the woods to the back wall? We checked it out when we first arrived. It’s like the Burma jungle out there.”
Passing a piece of topiary shaped like a double-decker bus, they turned for the house once more.
“I’m surprised at you referring to the Burma jungle. Most people wouldn’t know of it. Did you do world war two history at university?”
Katy laughed. “No. I took media studies. My great grandfather was in Burma during World War Two.”
“Ah.” Joe took a final drag on his cigarette and crushed it out in a planter. He stopped, turned and faced her. “Did you murder her?”
Katy did not appear surprised by the question. After a moment’s pause, she slowly shook her head. “No, Joe, I didn’t. I was simply pointing out that if she was, indeed, murdered, then there are plenty of candidates, and I’m only one of them.”
“I’ve seen all I need to see here,” Joe told her. “Let’s go back inside.”
While they walked on, Joe asked, “The access hatches? I notice some rooms had as many as two or three.”
“Technical access,” Katy explained. “Our technology is good, but it’s not perfect. Cameras do break down now and then. The kitchen camera has been a bloody nightmare this week. Always breaking down. Technicians can access the cameras through the hatches and remove and replace them as and when we need to. And of course, the lenses have to be cleaned daily.”
“Cleaned?” Joe was surprised.
With a pleasant giggle, Katy gestured up at the clear, Cheshire skies. “It’s summer, Joe. Hot weather and enclosed rooms like those in the hall? What does that produce? Dust, of course. Especially in areas where you have electrical equipment on the go, and that’s just about every room because the lights are on twenty-four seven. The camera lenses are cleaned hourly throughout the transmission day. Eight in the morning until ten in the evening.”
“So someone comes to the hatch, reaches in and gives the lens a quick once over with a tissue?”
“Specialist, static-free dry wipes to be really accurate,” Katy corrected him. “We also use a dab of lens polish once a day. Not a lot. That stuff can create flares if you overuse it.”
Joe paused at the entrance to the hall. “So how come I’ve never noticed this when I’ve been watching?”
“We have what are known as stock feeds,” Katy explained. “We were here a month or six weeks before the Housies turned up, positioning cameras, putting up the partitions to create our technical areas. When the cameras were in place, we ran them and stored the footage. We can cut that stock footage in at any time during transmission. So when a technician goes to attend to a camera, or even just clean the lens, we run the relevant stock footage until the job is done.”
“And us viewers, we don’t notice?”
“It’s done when there’s no activity,” Katy assured him, “and the process is seamless. No. You wouldn’t notice. We would if we studied the recording closely enough, but you, the viewer, wouldn’t.”
“And how long could you run these stock feeds?”
Katy shrugged. “As long as you wish. We’ve been transmitting stock feeds since Ursula’s body was discovered this morning.”
“Now that is interesting.”
He followed Katy back into the house, and paused at the security lodge. “Could you contact Chief Inspector Hoad and tell him Joe Murray would like a word?”
“No problem,” agreed the security officer, and reached for the phone.
While he spoke to the police, Joe studied the CCTV coverage of the exterior. “Do you get this same footage?” he asked.
Katy nodded. “Security record it on their own database, but we take a recording of it, too. If there was anyone hanging around outside, there’s a greater chance that we would spot it because we’re studying monitors all the time. Security have other duties to perform…” she nodded at the security man talking quietly on the phone. “…like contacting the cops for you, and there’s always a danger that they may miss something.”
“Good,” Joe said.
“Chief Inspector says he’ll see you in their cabin at the main gates in a few minutes, Mr Murray.”
“Yeah. Right. Thanks. Oh, hey, while I think, were you on duty last night?”
The security man shook his head. “I’m days, guv,” he reported. “The night people are Ernie Bexley and Rebecca Driscoll.”
�
��The same crew every night?”
“For the entire week, yes.”
“Cheers.” Finished with the security man, Joe faced his guide. “Well, that’s been enlightening, Katy.”
“I hope I’ve managed to persuade you that no one could have got in to kill Ursula.”
He grinned. “Oh no. Exactly the opposite, in fact.”
***
Hoad scratched his head. “You want to bring someone else in?”
“Just for a couple of hours, yes. See, I think I know how it could be done; I’m not fit enough to prove it, but I know a man who is.”
“And who would this be?”
“An ex-army man. If I’m right, he’ll show you what I mean, and it’ll count for an awful lot more than me telling you. I promise, Hoad, he will be here for less than an hour.”
“And how much evidence will he disturb?” the chief inspector demanded.
“None,” Joe replied. “In fact, he doesn’t need access to the Housies’ side of things. Only to this room and the rear garden… the techs’ side of the garden, not the Housies’.”
“All right, if you think it’ll help. But I’ll want to see and speak to him before he does anything.”
“Right.” Joe checked his watch. “It’s half past twelve. I’ll have to go back to Chester and collect him. I should be back by two. What price I can take Brenda with me?”
Hoad shook his head. “Sorry, Joe. For the time being, the Housies stay put.”
“Come on, man, Brenda didn’t kill her.”
“I don’t think any of them did,” Hoad retorted, “but if I’m wrong, Mrs Jump is my prime suspect.”
Chapter Nine
“You want my help?” Les Tanner guffawed uncharacteristically. “If you were on fire, Murray, I wouldn’t call the Fire Brigade.
Sat opposite him on the bar terrace, Joe fumed. Guessing that Tanner and his lady friend, Sylvia Goodson, would be out and about in Chester, Joe had rung Sheila while he waited for the taxi at Gibraltar Hall. By the time he got back to the Victoria Hotel, Sheila, Sylvia and Tanner were enjoying a drink in the sunshine.
The location was almost idyllic and did much to lift Joe’s spirits. A view of the boat station across the river, where cruisers prepared to take trippers on a short journey along the River Dee, and on the river bank were hundreds of people simply enjoying the summer sunshine. Downstream, they could see the slow moving waters gather pace where they frothed over a weir. Beyond the river, in the background, was the city centre, with its streets of shops, many housed in buildings that were hundreds of years old, reminding Joe that two millennia back, this area had been a Roman fortress.
But if the view both relaxed and inspired him, Tanner’s cynicism had exactly the opposite effect.
Not that there was any serious basis to their mutual antagonism. Back home in Sanford, aside from spending some of his free time as a soldier, Tanner worked full time for the local authority, supervising the clerks in the Payroll Office at the Town Hall. Joe, a taxpayer and a businessman, had long been a thorn in the town council’s side, complaining about everything from street lighting and cleaning, to the exorbitant (in his opinion) local taxes. Everyone at the town hall knew him; most of the elected councillors went out of their way to avoid him, and men like Les Tanner took great delight in each and every opportunity to snipe back.
Twice in the past, Tanner had challenged Joe for the Chair of the Sanford 3rd Age Club. Twice he had lost; something which Joe was never slow to mention, but Tanner was equally quick to remind the membership in general, Joe in particular, of the many and various inefficiencies which resulted from what he claimed was Joe’s weak organisational skills.
“When it comes to organisation,” he would often say, “Murray is a classic example of the famed booze up in a brewery.”
Most of the time, Joe ignored it just as much as Tanner ignored his gripes at the town hall, but now was not the time for obduracy. Not with a mutual friend, Brenda, trapped at Gibraltar Hall by police procedures.
Tanner, on the other hand, saw it as the perfect time to see Joe grovelling.
“It’s not for me,” Joe complained. “It’s for Brenda and the other Housies.”
“Not interested, Murray. I’m sure the police will release Brenda as and when they realise she could never be party to murder. My only regret is that it is she who took part in this farce, not you. I’d love to see you wriggling on the end of the police hook and line.”
Joe’s temper began to get the better of him. “Listen, you brainless sod, I’ve already worked out how it could have been done. If I’m right, Brenda will be free to join us tonight, not cooped up in that house for another twenty-four hours. The trouble is I need someone who can help me prove it and heaven help me, that someone is you.”
Sylvia touched Tanner’s arm. “Let’s hear him out, Les.”
The Captain tweaked his moustache. “All right, Murray. I always knew there’d come a day when you couldn’t handle reality. So tell me what is it you want?”
“You’re ex army. Even if it is only as a toy soldier…”
“Joe, that is not fair,” Sheila warned. “I’ve told you before, the Territorials receive the same training as regular soldiers and in an emergency they’re called up first.”
“Sheila is right, Murray. I’d give my right arm to have you under my command. You wouldn’t be half so slovenly or loudmouthed.”
“And you’d be crying in your pink gin in a week,” Joe retorted.
“Joe,” Sheila admonished him again. “You say you need Les’s help. Insulting him is not the right way to go about it.”
“All right, all right. I’m sorry.” Joe chewed spit on the words. “Now for crying out loud, just shut up and listen, will you? That girl, Ursula, she was murdered. I know she was. Chief Inspector Hoad won’t have it because he insists that there is no way anyone could get in the house without being seen on the CCTV cameras. I think there is, but you’re the only person I know who might be able to demonstrate it.”
Tanner gloated. “Well you’re out of luck, Murray. Sylvia and I are planning an afternoon of shopping and a leisurely stroll round the city before dinner.”
“Wait a minute, Les,” Sheila said, suddenly swinging to Joe’s aid. “This isn’t just about salvaging Joe’s pride or helping him solve a puzzle. It’s also about Brenda. She’s trapped in that house. The police won’t let any of the Housies leave until the investigation is complete. She could be there for days, yet.”
“And who was it that got Sylvia off the hook that time?” Joe pressed.
It was a reference to the killing of a young disabled woman named Kimberly Lowe. As one of Kim’s unofficial carers, Sylvia had been amongst the last people to see the girl alive, and had been arrested by the Sanford police on suspicion of the killing. It was Joe who had proved she did not do it.
“Sheila and Joe are right, Les,” Sylvia said. “If it hadn’t been for Joe, I could have been in serious trouble over Kim Lowe. For Brenda’s sake, we have to forget our own plans for this afternoon. Sheila will stay with me, just to ensure I don’t have one of my turns, won’t you Sheila?”
“Yes, of course,” Sheila agreed. “And if you like, we could find an old-fashioned tea room where they serve proper toasted teacakes. Chester must be wallowing in them.”
Tanner capitulated. “All right, Murray. Where do we go?”
“I’ll get us a taxi from here to the hall. It’s only about ten miles. Sheila, keep your phone on. I’ll need to catch up with you when we get back.”
***
There was no sign of Hoad, or Rahman when they arrived back at the I-Spy house, but the policewoman on duty at the end of Gibraltar Hall Lane allowed them access after speaking with the detectives via the radio.
Walking past the shed commandeered by CID as their headquarters, they carried on to the corner of the retaining wall, and turned left along the rear. Here the lane was even narrower, lined on the left by the redbrick wall, and on the right
by dense thickets, the edge of the Gibraltar Hall Wood.
As they made their way to the rear gate, Tanner cast an appreciative eye over the wall, studied the CCTV cameras, and then ran his eye over the trees and bushes on the right.
“The immediate problem I can see is getting here without being picked up by the security cameras,” he said, “but if there’s a way through the woods from the entertainment field, I think it could be done. We shall have to investigate.”
“What about getting over the wall?” Joe asked.
Again, Tanner ran his eye over it. Twin CCTV cameras at either end turning on their axes. As the eastern camera turned away, so the western one turned with it to cover the ground it was leaving behind.
“But you’ll notice,” Tanner said, “that there’s a slight delay between the eastern one turning away and the western one following suit. Only a matter of a second or two, but provided the intruder was fast and sufficiently agile to get over the wall, it would be enough.”
Joe stroked his chin, thoughtfully. “He’d have to be young and nippy to do that, huh?”
“Nonsense,” Tanner argued. “I could do it.” He cast an imperious stare over Joe. “You couldn’t. You’re too short. It needs someone tall, fit and active, Murray. Not a shortarse fed on meat pies.”
“Steak and kidney pies, not meat,” Joe corrected him. “I’m a Yorkshireman, not a Lancastrian. What happens when he gets over the wall?”
Tanner shrugged. “I’d need to see the garden to judge. But my impression from the TV coverage I’ve seen this last week is that there’s sufficient shrubbery and ornamentation to give him cover right up to the house. Especially if he were familiar with the place.”
Joe looked around them. “Plenty of cover here, too, so he wouldn’t be seen waiting for the cameras to turn.”
“Ample,” Tanner agreed. “But like I said, it would depend on finding a route through the woods from the field beyond. Now, is that all? Only I’d like to get back…”
“No,” Joe cut him off. “If I can arrange this with Hoad, would you be prepared to give it a go?”
“Murray, I came here for a relaxing weekend, not to play commandos on a garrison house.”
The I-Spy Murders Page 11
