Cherringham - Murder on Thames

by Costello, Matthew; Richards, Neil

  He laughed, and then she led him away from the chairs and over to the relative safety of the empty hut.

  “I said I’d call you Jack — you didn’t need to come up here,” she said. “How did you find us anyway? Of course, you’re a cop — how could I forget?”

  “Whoa,” he said. “Sarah — I know what you said. But I also know this couldn’t wait — okay?”

  “Go on,” she said, in no mood to forgive him for breaking into her family time. Especially when she’d been doing such a good job of wrecking it herself …

  “So listen. I went through the CCTV footage down at the toll booth.”

  For a second Sarah forgot how angry she was.

  “You did what?” she said. “With or without the Buckland girls’ permission?”

  “Those two pussycats?” he said. “They even gave me one of their secret recipes.”

  “Let me guess — eye of newt quiche?”

  “Hey, don’t mock. I think they just helped us crack this case.”

  “Seriously?” said Sarah.

  Jack nodded. He took out his smartphone and held it out.

  “We went through Monday’s CCTV — the whole evening, from five that afternoon to one the next morning,” he said. “And guess what we found.”

  He scrolled through the photos on the phone.

  “Nice one of Riley,” she said.

  “Huh? No — this one.”

  Sarah looked at the screen.

  “These are just photos of their screen. The quality’s not great — but that’s not actually the phone’s fault, it’s the dirty cameras they’ve got running there. Anyway — you see the two frames. First one — just after eight in the evening.”

  Sarah peered at the fuzzy image.

  “Range Rover Sport.”

  “Correct,” said Jack. “And the plate is Williams’. Now look at this — one in the morning, going the other way.”

  Sarah stared hard. It was the same car — no doubt about it.

  “But do you see the difference between the cars?”

  Sarah flicked the images back and forth. And suddenly understood.

  “It’s clean — shiny, even — in this one at eight. I can see that clear enough, even with a dirty camera. But coming back — it’s covered in mud!”

  “Remember when we went and saw him, the kid was cleaning it?” said Jack. “You remember that, Sarah …?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “So Williams lied about being in London?”

  “That’s possible,” said Jack. “At the very least — we got enough reason to go back to him and ask him. Don’t you think?”

  “Shame we can’t see who’s driving,” she said.

  “Yeah. Back home, we had guys could enhance a picture like this, get a clear image.”

  “Hang on. That’s not a problem,” said Sarah. “I know people who can do that.”

  “You do?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised. This is my world — remember? Tech? Just text me the photos and I’ll get someone on it.”

  “Terrific,” said Jack. “So what are we waiting for? Let’s go talk to Mr Williams, shall we?”

  “It’s going to have to wait, Jack,” said Sarah. “We’ve got at least an hour’s play here.”

  “Oh,” said Jack.

  “So unless you want to watch the cricket — maybe we revert to the original plan, and I call you when I’m ready?”

  Jack shrugged.

  “Sure,” he said, turning to head back to his car. “I don’t think me and cricket are quite ready for each other yet. Know what I mean?”

  Sarah watched him go. And felt bad that she’d taken it out on him. Luckily he didn’t seem to notice.

  No, she thought — he notices. He just chooses not to be bothered by it.

  19. Keep it in the Family

  Jack carefully wound the silver wire round and round the hook then snipped it off with his pliers.

  All he had to do now was go back over the length with thread, then varnish the whole thing — and he’d have his first fishing fly.

  He could have just bought a ready-made fly from the local tackle shop — but this was way more satisfying. He sat back in his office chair, took a sip of coffee, gave his eyes a rest.

  Not by nature a hobbyist, he was beginning to value this new craft: it gave him time to think things through.

  This case for instance. Though it seemed they were on the very edge of cracking it — the thing was full of holes too.

  There was no shortage of suspects — or motives. Sammi’s dad clearly hated her. But would he kill her just for coming home, maybe asking for more money? Robbo had a violent temper — and it was the kind that Jack had often seen spill over into murder. But Robbo didn’t smell guilty to Jack.

  If Williams was Sammi’s lover — and she’d turned on him, threatened to tell his wife, perhaps — then he certainly had a strong motive for getting rid of her. Jack hadn’t liked him, but over the years he’d learned not to let that cloud his judgement. And, so far, they didn’t have much to connect him to Sammi apart from the car being seen near the weir.

  It came down to one thing — was Williams the sugar daddy?

  His phone rang. He looked at the number on the screen. London.

  Was this call going to give him the answer?

  ***

  Jack sat patiently in the front passenger seat of Sarah’s car while she dropped the last boy off.

  “You got everything, Harry?” said Sarah. “Well played, love. Say hi to your mum for me, won’t you …”

  Jack leaned round as Harry pulled his cricket bag off the back seat and slammed the car door.

  “Bye Mrs Edwards. Thanks for the lift.”

  Sarah waited until the boy had gone into his house, then pulled out into the traffic and picked up speed.

  “Well, that was a mighty interesting little tour of the neighbourhood,” said Jack.

  “Sorry Jack, didn’t have any choice,” said Sarah. “Some of the parents have to leave early so it’s just luck of the draw who ends up taking the players home. And today I got short straw.”

  “No problem.”

  “Saturdays get kind of busy.”

  “I can see.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” said Sarah.

  “I think we put the squeeze on Mr Williams. See if he bends a little.”

  “Didn’t we already do that? What’s different now?”

  “Ah well,” said Jack. “I’ll tell you what’s different. Pal of mine in the Fraud Squad in London did a little digging into some phone payments for me last night. And he’s come back with some very interesting information.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” said Sarah.

  “I prefer the word ‘questionable’. Bit of a grey area. Especially these days.”

  “So go on — tell me what he said.”

  “Our mystery texter: ‘meet me by the weir’. Well that phone was topped up using a Barclay’s credit card registered to a certain Mr Gordon Williams, address Imperial House, Lower Runstead. He also confirmed that the phone from the car was registered to Sammi.”

  “Wow. So isn’t that what we need? The proof?”

  Jack shrugged.

  “It’s good. Very good, since it proves Williams and Sammi were communicating with each other on the night she died. It proves he suggested meeting her by the weir.”

  “But it doesn’t prove he killed her?” said Sarah.

  “Correct. It doesn’t even prove they met.”

  “So why are we going to talk to him?”

  “Because he lied to us. And when people get caught out in a lie, they tend to offer up other stuff too. You just never know what.”

  “We’ll soon find out,” said Sarah, as she stopped the car at the entrance to Imperial House.

  ***

  Jack watched Sarah as she pressed the gate buzzer again.

  “Nothing?” he said.

  Sarah shrugged.

  “It’s a trade-off,” said
Jack. “You want to surprise the bad guys — and sometimes the bad guys aren’t in.”

  “Or they’re about to arrive home …” said Sarah, gesturing behind them.

  Jack turned in his seat. A silver Mercedes glided next to them and stopped. At the wheel was Gordon Williams.

  He slid the window down.

  “You again?” he said. “What now?” Then: “You’d better follow me.”

  Ahead of them, the automatic gates opened and the Mercedes purred away up the drive towards the house.

  Sarah let off the brake and they followed.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” said Sarah.

  “Yep.”

  “We kinda assumed that was his only car, didn’t we?”

  “We did,” said Jack. “Seems I’m a little out of practice.”

  When they reached the front of the house, Williams had already parked the car and was heading into the house.

  Sarah followed his lead.

  “Guess we’re invited,” said Jack and he strolled through the front door, Sarah right behind.

  ***

  Jack looked around the grand hallway. Two semi-circular staircases rose ahead, lit by a tall stained-glass window. A massive chandelier hung from the high ceiling above the gleaming parquet floor.

  Williams was checking post laid out on a beautiful carved table.

  He turned and faced them.

  “This is going to be quick — all right? And when we’re finished, I don’t expect to see either of you again. Am I clear?”

  “Mr Williams, I think that depends on what you’re going to tell us,” said Jack.

  Jack saw Williams take a quick look around, as if checking to be sure nobody else was in earshot.

  “Okay. Right. When you came the other day — I wasn’t entirely accurate. There was something going on between me and Sammi. Not an affair — God forbid. But … an arrangement. She liked the high life, did Sammi. But she never earned enough to afford it. So we’d go out together, when I was in London.”

  “So you were sleeping with her, Mr Williams?” said Sarah.

  “Er, yes. Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” said Sarah.

  “Anyway that wasn’t good enough for Sammi. She wanted cash too. I said no — I didn’t use prostitutes. That seemed to upset her.”

  “I’m sure it did, Mr Williams,” said Jack, straight-faced.

  “So she tried to blackmail me. Said she’d tell my wife. Tell the board of Imperial too.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Sarah.

  Jack watched her and remembered how she’d asked him to stop her from hitting Robbo that time. He could see her fists clenching, in just the same way.

  “Too right it was terrible. Anyway — I tried to reason with her. But she wouldn’t listen.”

  “So that’s why you sent her the texts,” said Jack, just wanting to tease him along.

  Like trout fishing, he suddenly thought. And here’s the fly — the phone …

  But Williams didn’t jump for it.

  “What? What texts?” he said.

  “The ones you sent her on the day she died,” said Jack.

  He was aware of Sarah’s eyes on him. And aware too that Williams’ surprise seemed genuine.

  “I didn’t send her any texts,” said Williams.

  Jack took out the phone he’d found in the car, and scrolled to the texts. He showed it to Williams.

  “Really? How about these?” said Jack.

  Williams peered at the texts and scrolled back through them.

  “The ones from a couple of weeks ago — yes, I sent those. But not these. I’ve never seen these before.”

  “That’s rather convenient, isn’t it, Mr Williams?” said Sarah.

  “Convenient and true. As it happens, I lost my phone about ten days ago, the one I used to text Sammi. Bloody good thing I thought at the time — stopped her bothering me.”

  “So who sent the texts?” said Jack.

  “How the hell should I know?” said Williams. “Presumably whoever found my phone. Or stole it.”

  Jack looked at Williams and then at Sarah. He was thinking fast. But whichever way he cut this, Williams was suddenly looking innocent.

  Innocent of murder at least.

  So the texter could still be the killer — but who was it? Someone who worked with Williams? And why? Jealousy?

  A horn sounded outside. Jack saw Williams check his watch.

  “Interview over. I’m late. And you’re leaving.”

  He grabbed a jacket slung over the back of a chair and took them to the front door.

  Jack felt himself being propelled — albeit politely — through the front door and out into the gravel parking area in front of the house.

  Behind him he could hear Sarah’s phone ping with a message.

  Outside in the bright sunshine, the black Range Rover Sport was waiting. Standing next to it was Kaz in black skinny suit and expensive white shirt.

  “Come on, Dad,” said the young man, climbing into the driver seat. “We’re late already.”

  Williams walked around the car to get into the passenger seat.

  Jack’s brain went into overdrive.

  The son was going to drive.

  The son had been on the cruise with Williams and his wife.

  The son had been cleaning mud off the car.

  The son had access to his father’s phone.

  Jack looked to Sarah for help, but she seemed pre-occupied by her phone.

  And before Jack could re-arrange the whole case in his head, she stepped in front of him and leaned down to the driver window.

  “You heading into Cherringham?” she said, smiling at Kaz.

  “Yeah.”

  Jack frowned — what the hell was Sarah doing?

  “Let me guess,” she said. “You’re going to the Operatic Society?”

  “Right,” said Kaz. “Mum’s singing.”

  “Should be good,” said Sarah. “I’m supposed to be there, too. Gosh, it starts in half an hour.”

  Williams leaned across his son to the driver window.

  “So if you don’t mind — we need to go now.”

  Jack saw Sarah smile at Kaz. He smiled back, obviously trying to make up for his father’s rude tone.

  “Mum’s singing the lead,” he said proudly.

  “Let me guess,” said Sarah. “Soprano?”

  “That’s right,” said Kaz. “How did you know?”

  Jack heard Sarah’s tone, flat.

  “Oh, my mother’s in the choir too.”

  Right, Jack thought, and Sarah’s mum had mentioned that their lead soprano had missed the rehearsal.

  The night Sammi died.

  Williams tapped his son on the knee and motioned impatiently to him to get going.

  “The gate will stay open for a couple of minutes,” said Williams through the open window. “You’d better be quick.”

  And with that the Mercedes pulled away, spinning gravel.

  Jack watched it go. He wasn’t surprised when Sarah held out her phone to him and flicked open the photos.

  He looked down at the enhanced CCTV shots from the Cherringham Toll Bridge.

  Driving into Cherringham in the black Range Rover Sport, then driving out again four hours later …

  Maureen Williams.

  The soprano who’d called in sick for rehearsal on the night that Sammi died. Cherringham’s own ‘Nedda’, who cheats on her clown-husband, ‘Canio’.

  Maureen Williams.

  The murderer.

  20. It Ain’t Over ‘Til …

  Jack stood beside Sarah at the back of the small village-hall theatre, all the seats taken as the grisly tale of infidelity and murder played out on stage.

  Pagliacci was one of Jack’s favourites, and he thought that — for a small village with a chamber-sized orchestra — the Cherringham Operatic Society wasn’t doing too badly.

  And now, as Leoncavallo’s lone masterpiece neared its bloody c
limax, the audience sat up straight, attention focused, as everyone knew what must inevitably happen on stage.

  He looked at Sarah.

  If she hadn’t seen this before, she was in for a shock.

  On stage, Canio, the leader of the roving troupe of players, sang full out, a bit of wobbly tenor but chilling as he demanded the ‘name’ — the name of his wife Nedda’s lover.

  Now, in the opera’s last moments, Nedda continued to protest her innocence, refusing to name names as Canio became more and more incensed, the tenor’s pitch even more shaky as it gained — what Jack had to admit — was a gripping dramatic power.

  Nedda — terrified by her husband’s madness — started to flee, only to be grabbed by Canio, his hands tight around her neck, before he pulled out a knife and stabbed his cheating wife.

  The singer playing Nedda’s lover began rushing to stop Canio — only to be stabbed himself.

  Ah, Opera. The body count growing, Jack thought.

  Canio took the knife from where it was embedded in the lover’s body and, arms down and tears in his eyes, spoke the last, always chilling words of the opera.

  “La commedia è finite!”

  And the full-house of Cherringham residents erupted into applause, unaware that the real drama was only moments away.

  Jack felt Sarah touch his shoulder and, with a nod, indicated that they should wait outside.

  ***

  Sarah stood between Jack and Alan, whom she had called as they went to the theatre, filling him in quickly in the car.

  He’d had a lot of questions, and was more than dubious, but in the end he had to recognize that they had solved the mystery of Sammi’s death.

  When the performance ended Sarah had given her mum hugs and congratulations, then packed her off with her dad, Daniel and Chloe to the Old Pig where she’d meet them later for dinner.

  Just got something important to sort out, Mum, won’t be long …

  Now, with the rest of the audience gone, retiring to other pubs and restaurants, the three of them stood there in Cherringham’s old square, awaiting one singer.

  Maureen Williams. The cheating Nedda, unaware of what awaited her outside.

  Funny, Sarah thought, how in one moment your life can change. Just as it had for Sammi.