Who Saw Him Die?

by Sheila Radley

  Quantrill acknowledged her suggestion with a half-scornful, half-rueful nod. The fact was that he found himself considerably relieved that she hadn’t taken him up on his rash proposal. What would Molly have said, if he’d had to go home and tell her that he wanted a divorce? What would Alison have thought of him? And what kind of trouble would Peter have got into, without a resident father to keep him under control?

  Besides, there were all the practical problems that he hadn’t contemplated until this minute. What would it all cost? Where would he have lived while his divorce was going through? And who would have kept him supplied with clean shirts and socks and underpants?

  All the same, he was still in the prime of life and he wasn’t going to succumb tamely to a life-sentence of grandfatherhood. If Hilary thought him attractive, then other young women must, too. Dammit, they did! There was that witness he’d interviewed a few weeks ago, the smartly dressed blue-eyed businesswoman whose husband was working on an oil rig in the middle of the North Sea. She’d definitely given him a look … He hadn’t been able to follow it up because he was so set on Hilary at the time, but there was nothing to stop him from going back for another interview. And if Hilary disapproved – or better still, showed any sign of jealousy: good.

  Vigorous, resolved, he fastened his seat belt, switched on the engine, and positioned the car to re-enter the narrow road.

  A tractor, chugging along in the opposite direction at fifteen miles an hour towing a trailer laden with sugar beet, was causing a temporary traffic hold-up. Behind it crawled a large container lorry, its air brakes snorting impatiently. On Quantrill’s side of the road, an approaching car kept him stationary, and prevented the lorry from overtaking the tractor and trailer.

  As he waited for the road to clear, half a dozen 2-stroke bikes following each other from the direction of Breckham Market came up behind the container lorry and held back, spluttering like demented motor mowers. All of the riders were young, and the last two were displaying L plates.

  Quantrill watched them, glad to see that they had the sense not to try to cut in between the tractor and the approaching car. Then he drew in his breath sharply. ‘That last one – look at that last one!’

  Leaning forward, he wiped the windscreen with his fist. The rider bringing up the rear of the small procession of bikes was helmeted and visored like a medieval knight. It was impossible to identify him visually, but although Quantrill recognised both bike and helmet as the property of Peter’s friend Darren Catchpole, he had a closer acquaintance with the rider’s navy blue windcheater and dark red cord trousers.

  ‘It is – it’s Peter! Blast the boy –’

  The approaching car passed them, spraying their bonnet with puddle-water. The road was now clear for the container lorry to overtake the tractor, and for the bikes to follow the lorry. In a minute Peter would be away.

  Intent on putting an immediate stop to his son’s escapade, Quantrill wrenched open the door of his car. He rose to his full height, shouted the boy’s name, and flung out his hand as though by doing so he could physically detain him.

  Peter saw his father. Quantrill had no doubt about that. The helmet turned towards him, and for a few seconds the boy’s body stiffened.

  It was something that Quantrill was going to have to live with for the rest of his life: the fact that Peter saw him, knew that he’d been caught disobeying orders, and knew too that retribution wouldn’t be long in coming. Not that Quantrill would have carried out his threat to give his son a good hiding – for God’s sake, Peter would have known that. The boy had never had more than three or four serious smackings in his life, and the last of those was before puberty. Peter had no reason to be afraid of his father’s anger. They’d always been a basically happy family. Yes, all right, Quantrill had bawled the boy out often enough, had been sarcastic with him, had despaired over him … but God knew it was only because he loved him.

  He stood watching helplessly as his son frantically revved the borrowed machine. The container lorry had overtaken the tractor, and the other bikes had begun to follow, but Peter couldn’t wait to fall in at the tail of the small procession. The boy shot away, trying to overtake his mates. His wheels slid on the greasy road. The machine skidded, and fell, flinging its rider under the sugar beet trailer.

  As though in slow motion, videoed for perpetual mental replay, Quantrill saw his son slide across the road. He saw the boy’s borrowed, ill-fitting helmet bang on the asphalt and come off. He saw Peter disappear under the trailer, and he watched the vehicle bump, as if it had run over some fallen globes of sugar beet, before it came to a stop.

  Then Quantrill ran. Arms flailing, heart pounding, his shoes seemingly leaden-soled, he willed himself towards his son. Peter lay sprawled on a blanket of mud and wet beet leaves, colouring both with his blood. His trouser legs were ripped in several places, revealing the shocking whiteness of protruding, jagged bone. His long eyelashes, soot-dark against the sudden pallor of his face, were closed. But he was still alive. His body twitched, and every now and then he moaned.

  Quantrill dropped on his knees beside his son, holding his hand and calling his name, in an agony of self-recrimination. Anything he had ever learned about first aid deserted him, but almost immediately he was joined by Hilary Lloyd and he remembered thankfully that she had been a nurse. And that was all he felt towards her, as she did what she could for Peter: a great thankfulness for her support. Sick with dread, he knew that the person who really mattered to him was his son.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Not good. Let’s hope the ambulance comes soon – we need to get him on a drip.’

  ‘His legs –’

  ‘It’s not his legs we need to worry about.’ She felt the boy’s pulse, and shook her head dubiously.

  ‘Can I – will it hurt him if I hold him?’

  ‘I should, if I were you.’

  Douglas Quantrill knelt on the muddy road in the rain, cradling Peter’s dark head in his lap. First, he offered frantic, guilty prayers for the boy’s survival. Then, as his son’s pulse grew weaker, he abandoned hope; weeping, he bowed his head against the onslaught of his own personal nuclear winter.

  Then the ambulance arrived.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  During the first forty-eight hours when Peter Quantrill lay critically injured in the intensive care unit of Yarchester General hospital, his father scarcely left his side. Quantrill’s colleagues throughout the county were sympathetically concerned; but the job had to go on, and in DCI Quantrill’s absence the Detective Chief Inspector from the neighbouring Saintsbury division was sent to Breckham Market to take over the murder investigation.

  In the opinion of county headquarters, this was an ideal solution: Chief Inspector Tait had once worked as Quantrill’s sergeant, and therefore knew his way round the town already. In the opinion of the members of Breckham Market CID, however, the solution had no merit at all. They had been thankful to see the back of Martin Tait, a young graduate entrant to the force, on his rapid promotion to Inspector. It had been bad enough when he had subsequently reappeared at intervals in his role as a member of the regional crime squad, but at least Chief Inspector Quantrill had been there to slap him down when he became too effortlessly superior. But now, in charge, he was bound to be insufferable.

  ‘Good to be back!’ said Tait, a slight, sharp, impeccably suited, fair-haired man, four years younger than Hilary Lloyd. He looked about Quantrill’s office with satisfaction before taking his seat, for the first time, behind the Chief Inspector’s desk. ‘And it’s good to see you, Hilary. No promotion yet?’

  She ignored the question. She and Tait had once been sergeants together at Yarchester, and she intended to take no gratuitous aggravation from him. ‘You mustn’t expect much of a welcome from any of us, in the circumstance,’ she said. ‘We’re all very anxious about Mr Quantrill’s son.’

  ‘It’s a traumatic time for the whole family,’ Tait agreed seriously. ‘I saw Doug yester
day evening and he’s really anguished, on the quiet. Almost as cut up about it as his wife is. I hadn’t expected him to be as distressed as that …’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t know all the circumstances.’

  ‘Oh, I think I do. I’m a close friend of Alison, after all: she got in touch with me immediately, and of course I’m doing everything I can to give the family my support.’

  In her concern for Douglas Quantrill and his wife, Hilary had temporarily forgotten their daughters. ‘How is Alison?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s taking it harder than I’d have expected, too,’ said Tait. ‘Peter used to tease her a lot, and she always seemed to regard him as nothing but a pest. But now his life’s in the balance she’s recalling their childhood – apparently she adored him when he was small.’

  ‘I think his father did, too … I do hope this accident draws the Quantrills together, whatever the outcome. But I’m rather afraid that without Peter, Douglas and Molly would drift apart.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Tait. ‘I believe Doug’s taken quite a shine to you, Hilary, hasn’t he?’

  ‘If he ever did,’ she said, ‘it was a long time ago.’ She handed Tait the bulky folder she was carrying. ‘Here you are, then, sir: John Reuben Goodrum, deceased.’

  ‘Ah!’ Tait took it eagerly, then looked at his watch. ‘Right – the best thing I can do for Doug Quantrill is to get this case wrapped up as soon as possible. Give me a very quick briefing, will you?’

  Sergeant Lloyd did so. Breckham Market CID were still working, she added, on the burglary at The Mount and the theft of Jack Goodrum’s shotgun, as well as through the long list of his disaffected former employees and associates. Goodrum’s unofficial partner, Dave Wheeler, had been a strong suspect and still couldn’t be eliminated; but the lab’s test-firing had shown that his shotgun hadn’t been the murder weapon.

  ‘And what’s your own theory?’

  ‘I’m not satisfied that Jack’s first wife was telling us the truth. I think she knows something. And though I caught only a glimpse of her younger daughter, Tracey, I’m sure the girl was wearing a nose-stud. I’m going back this morning to find out whether Tracey has a boy friend who’s a bit of a punk with a gold stud in one ear – that’s the description of the bloke who was in the Coney and Thistle on the day of the burglary, asking where he could find Jack Goodrum.’

  ‘I see. Well, don’t go out until I’ve had time to read this through and reach my own conclusion. I may well decide that I want you to concentrate on something else.’

  Chief Inspector Tait gave the sergeant a dismissive nod, but as she reached the door he called her back. ‘Oh, Hilary –’ He favoured her with a charming smile: ‘I like your shorter hairstyle. It suits you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you still make that excellent coffee …?’

  ‘Frequently,’ she said, with a very cool smile in return. ‘But your best bet will be to ask one of the lads to fetch you some from the canteen.’

  Less than an hour later, Sergeant Lloyd was summoned to the Chief Inspector’s office. Tait was leaning back in the swivel chair, his feet up on the desk, a look of satisfaction on his face.

  ‘I’m disappointed in you, Hilary,’ he reproached her. ‘In you and Doug Quantrill, both … This case has an obvious solution!’

  ‘Has it?’ Having been prevented from continuing her enquiries, she had immersed herself in the tedious job of checking and cross-checking statements. And when you were doing that, it was always difficult to see the wood for the trees. She sat down, trying not to let Tait’s attitude irritate her; unfortunately, he had a nasty habit of being right. ‘What have I missed?’

  ‘Didn’t you ever ask yourself’, he said, ‘why the theft of the shotgun and the murder were both carried out on a Saturday?’

  ‘Yes. We decided we were looking for someone who lived some distance from Breckham Market, and who was working during the week.’

  ‘I see. A reasonable assumption, I suppose. But didn’t you ask yourselves why the person who stole the shotgun hadn’t stayed to do the murder later that same night?’

  Hilary explained, patiently, what their theories had been.

  ‘It didn’t occur to you, then,’ said Tait, swinging his legs off the desk and sitting forward in his chair to emphasise his words, ‘that the person who stole the shotgun couldn’t wait for Goodrum’s return to The Mount because he himself had to get back by a certain time? And that he had to wait a whole week before returning to Breckham Market for the murder because Saturday was the only day he could get away from his boarding school?’

  Sergeant Lloyd stared at him. ‘Felicity’s son – Matthew Napier?’

  ‘Of course. He’s the one with the overriding motive.’

  ‘I don’t agree. If he’d loved his own father, and resented his parents’divorce, yes. But he didn’t – in fact it was Matthew who suggested Austin Napier to us as a suspect.’

  Tait gave her a patronising smile. ‘Don’t you see what he was up to? He wanted to draw your attention away from himself – and he succeeded, didn’t he?’

  ‘But we’ve no evidence that he disliked his stepfather. He said Jack Goodrum was very generous to him.’

  ‘That might have been so. Goodrum probably tried to buy popularity. But Matthew could still have hated his guts! This is something I can tell you from my own experience, Hilary, because my father died when I was sixteen, and after a decent interval my mother began seeing another man. There was nothing much wrong with the fellow, I suppose. But I couldn’t stand the idea of him pawing my mother about.’

  ‘Did they marry?’

  ‘Certainly not. I made things so unpleasant for him that he took himself off.’

  ‘That was arbitrary of you. Didn’t you consider your mother’s feelings?’

  ‘Oh, I’d acted in her interests as much as my own. It wasn’t even as if the man had any money to recommend him. She didn’t particularly care for him, and I think she was quite glad, in the end, that he’d gone.’

  Hilary made no comment. ‘Felicity Goodrum loved Jack, though,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I can see that Matthew might have felt excluded and hurt about that. And it could have occurred to him that a murder, besides getting rid of his step-father, would also provide his mother and himself with all Goodrum’s money … Yes, all right, Martin, I’ll buy the motive. But Matthew Napier is at school at Saxted, twenty miles away. How do you suggest –’

  She remembered, and gave herself the answer immediately. ‘Of course – his father told us that he’d just bought Matthew a motor bike. But it could only be a low-powered one, at his age. Saxted to Breckham Market and back, especially at this time of year, would be too long a journey.’

  ‘No it wouldn’t, given his motivation. And you’ll be interested to hear that I’ve telephoned his school, and discovered that Matthew Napier is known to have gone out on his motor bike, alone, on both Saturday 15th and Saturday 22nd. On each occasion he was back in his study bedroom at the required time, 10.30 p. m. But as he’s a sixth-former, and is allowed some degree of independence, the school can give us no information about where he went.’

  Hilary thought about it. ‘So your theory is that Matthew rode to Breckham Market on the 15th. He’d kept in touch with his mother, so he’d have known that she and Jack planned to be out that day. Then he broke into The Mount to steal one of the shotguns he knew his stepfather kept there. He intended to return the following Saturday and kill Jack, but he disguised his plan by stealing various other items to make it look like an ordinary burglary … Yes, that all fits. But you didn’t see the state the house was left in, Martin. The boy loved his mother, I’m certain of that, and I can’t believe that he’d have deliberately offended her by fouling the house while he was about it.’

  ‘I can,’ said Tait.

  Sergeant Lloyd took a deep breath. ‘And there’s another thing,’ she said obstinately. She knew she was going to lose the argument, because Martin Tait
wasn’t a man to put forward a theory without having thought it through; but she wasn’t going to let him make any unchallenged pronouncements.

  ‘Nothing very bulky was stolen from The Mount,’ she went on. ‘But even so, how do you suggest the boy removed it? There was far too much loot for him to have carried away on his bike, as well as the shotgun.’

  ‘According to Goodrum’s statement after the burglary,’ said Tait, ‘the shotgun was in a waterproof carrying bag. His stepson could have hidden it somewhere in the gardens –’

  ‘We searched the gardens.’

  ‘– somewhere just outside the gardens, and picked it up the following Saturday. As for the rest of the loot: did you think to search the house for it? Did you think to search the boy’s own room?‘

  Hilary seethed, quietly. Then she said, ‘We have no evidence that Matthew Napier knows how to handle a shotgun.’

  ‘But I’ve found out that he’s a member of the Saxted College combined cadet force, and that he knows how to fire a rifle. I have no doubt he’d be lethal with a shotgun at a range of eight yards. And then of course,’ Tait continued, enjoying himself at his former colleague’s expense, ‘Matthew knows his way round the outside of The Mount. He’d have had no trouble in finding the best place to fire the gun from. Oh, and the footprint that was found in the downstairs cloakroom after the burglary – what size was it?’

  ‘You know perfectly well it was a nine …’

  ‘Ah yes. The headmaster of Saxted College thought it an odd question for me to ask, but he found out from the matron that Matthew Napier does take a size nine. And as it happens, the boy does possess a pair of training shoes with a ridged composition sole –’

  Hilary looked at him. ‘Do you know something, sir?’ she said. ‘You really are sickening.’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ said Tait modestly. ‘But that’s how I came to be a Chief Inspector while you’re still a sergeant, Sergeant …’ He laughed, and stood up. ‘Oh, come on, Hilary, don’t be miffed. We’re old friends, aren’t we? In fact I don’t mind telling you that I took quite a shine to you myself, at one time. Get your coat on, love, and come with me to Saxted to pick Matthew Napier up.’