Witchmoor Edge

by Mike Crowson

Millicent wove through the traffic to the accompaniment of the driving country beat of Mi Vida Loca, driving like the singer's boyfriend - as if she were herself a little mad. She behaved as if there was a blue flashing light on her car, turned across the oncoming traffic with far too little room to spare, roared into the secure yard behind Witchmoor Edge Police HQ, with a careless abandon which would have made her wince in a more normal mood and screeched to a halt.

  She slammed the car door behind her and triggered the self-locking from the key fob with complete lack of attention and mounted the back stairs of the station two at a time to enter the interview room before any but Gail Downing had arrived.

  "Anything new?" she asked as she bustled past.

  PC Downing was just saying, "Just the autopsy report you asked me to chase, and one from the Fraud Squad", when she realised that Millicent wasn't listening - she was already on the phone to CDI. Cooke.

  "Sorry to catch you in such a rush," she was saying, "but I wanted you to do me a favour before you got started on anything else ... Yes, it's in connection with this enquiry and it's urgent, and sort of delicate."

  "Explain!"

  "Someone in Bradford Division has either just pulled a raid on a suspect garage and car sales place, or is about to. I have reason to believe that's where the Porsche is."

  "How do you know?"

  Millicent swallowed. "Err ... Let's say I've tapped some fairly unusual sources."

  "Why can't you ask around yourself?"

  "It may not have actually happened yet. I thought it might be easier for you to get wind of it."

  Cooke sounded a bit reluctant. "I could try, I suppose. No harm in asking."

  Hampshire took a breath and added. "If it hasn't happened yet, I'd like to join it, and I thought you might be able to pull it. Favour to you from some other senior officer."

  Cooke snorted, but he had already more or less agreed by not refusing outright earlier in the conversation. "All right, I'll ask around," he said. "But you owe me. And have you got that analysis done for the Divisional Commander?"

  Millicent smiled to herself: after Tobias NDibe had left the night before, she had stayed up late finishing it.

  "Yes," she said. "I'll send it through with PC Downing immediately. ... Gail! Take this file to the Chief Inspector right away."

  She held out the folder for Gail Downing to take and tried to imagine Cooke's face - she was usually pretty tardy in dealing with matters like that.

  "Must rush off to read through the latest reports on the canal murders," she said sweetly, "I want to be bang up to date for your press conference this afternoon." She rang off before he had time to comment.

  Next she glanced at the folder PC Downing had been referring to: the body that did not appear to be that of Sansom or Barker after all. It had apparently been that of a fully grown young adult male, whose skull had been fractured by a blow to the left side of his head and neck broken. Time of death not known but almost certainly before the fire.

  Unless this new corpse had nothing to do with the murder or arson or the doings of Koswinski, it just complicated the whole story. Had Koswinski lied? Quite possibly! Had the arsonist killed as well as trying to start a fire to hide a murder? That was possible too. Was the arsonist a very clever murderer or was the fire an afterthought? No way to tell yet. Of course, if there was no connection with case there was an even more difficult identity problem.

  The report from the Fraud Squad said that some potentially fraudulent dealings had been uncovered, but these were mainly between KHS Investments and Hunter and were the subject of an internal audit. As regards a murder investigation, there didn't seem to be anything helpful.

  DC Bright came into the office at that moment.

  "Found 'em," he said triumphantly as he approached Millicent.

  "Sansom and Barker?"

  "And Uncle Olu," Bright agreed. "I got an address in Leeds from Mrs. Sansom. Leeds Division picked them up and did some preliminary interviews. We got them last night. I took statements and let them go to their families. I hope that was all right." He added.

  "What were their stories?"

  "I've got the full statements here," he said, waving a folder, "But they've not a lot to add. They say Koswinski and Musworth started kicking the tramp around and they took off scared. They don't know anything about the body in the canal, except that Koswinski was talking about dumping it in there. They claim he threatened them with the canal too, which is why they ran off to Uncle Olu."

  "The reverse of how Koswinski told it, but it's much the same story," Millicent mused. "Tommy Hammond did wonder whether Koswinski was putting a gloss on it all. No mention of anyone else or another body, I suppose?"

  "No. They knew about the fire and got even more scared, though," Bright said. "They heard of Musworth's death on the TV news and were convinced that Koswinski did it."

  Millicent frowned but shook her head. "Possible," she said, "But there was no evidence of foul play in the autopsy, so I think the chances of proving it would be zilch."

  She changed the subject. "While you're here, get your notes on the door to door around the Hunters. We need more than ever to throw some light on the times the Porsche left the house."

  DC Bright fetched his file of typed notes and handwritten sheets and handed them over. Millicent started to flip through.

  "I can't make sense of these," she complained. "What order are they in?"

  "The handwritten notes are in the order I saw the witnesses," Bright said, "Sort of, anyway. The typed notes are a type-up of the handwritten notes, but I wasn't finished before you sent me chasing after Sansom and Barker."

  This was true, Millicent thought, but she still found the notes only semi-coherent. In particular, a lady on the other side of the road had been watching her husband washing the car and had seen the Porsche leaving with one person in it around twelve thirty. She hadn't seemed absolutely sure about either the time or the vehicle and Bright hadn't typed up the note yet.

  "If this Mrs. Hutchins is right about the time and the vehicle, It shoots even more holes in Shirley Hunter's story," Millicent remarked.

  "She wasn't sure about anything," said Bright, "but it might be worth trying Mr. Hutchins. Trouble is he's away until tonight at a conference. She said he'd be back late Thursday, off work tomorrow and home over the weekend as well."

  "I think I'll visit him this evening, then," Millicent said, flipping through the papers. "Where does it say he'd be back Thursday night?"

  "I didn't write that down, I don't think," Bright answered, "I remember her saying it though."

  "For goodness sake include a written note of things like that. If you carry important information like that in your head and the killer bumps you off with a morphine overdose, at least someone else can follow it up."

  The idea that anyone should try to bump him off seemed to startle Bright and Millicent was mildly amused by his expression. She hadn't exactly meant that Bright was at risk - he was more likely to be run over by a bus than poisoned. As she'd made her point she didn't pursue the matter.

  "Finish typing these up," she said, handing back the notes. "Well done about Sansom and Barker, though it doesn't bring a solution to the crime any closer or make it any simpler. I'll have to talk to Mr and Mrs Hutchins myself and, if Leverett tells the same story as Shields, we're going to have to do a door to door around Knowles' place as well."