Dick Francis's Bloodline (9781101600931)

by Francis, Felix

  I went upstairs to have a quick check around and then went back out to Angela.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “There’s no one here and nothing seems to be missing, not even Clare’s trophies. Perhaps the burglar was disturbed as soon as he broke down the door.”

  “Maybe someone heard the noise,” Angela said, “and investigated.”

  Possibly, I thought, but the bangs made by a sledgehammer on Clare’s front door could have easily been mistaken for a horse kicking the wooden wall of his stall not ten yards away. Racehorse stables were never silent places even in the dead of night.

  “Do you think we should still call the police?” Angela said.

  “What for?” I asked.

  “If only to get an incident number for the insurance.”

  “But nothing is missing.”

  “The front door will need replacing and that must cost something,” Angela said. “When we got burgled two years ago, we needed a police number before the insurance company would pay for anything.”

  “Much too complicated,” I said. “The insurance will be in Geoff Grubb’s name, and there’ll probably be an excess on it that’d be more than the cost of the door anyway. Much easier if we just fix it ourselves without involving the police. For a start, we’d be here all day waiting for them to turn up.”

  Angela shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose you’re right.”

  We went inside.

  “It’s really strange being here,” Angela said, standing in the middle of the sitting room. “You know, without Clare.”

  I suppose I’d become a little used to it. I went over and gave her a hug while she sobbed gently on my shoulder.

  The tears also welled in my eyes. First Clare and now Emily. Was there any limit to grief?

  —

  I SAT at Clare’s desk, making some phone calls on the landline, while Angela cleared out the kitchen. I tried to tell her that she didn’t need to bother, but she’d simply said that being busy would help take her mind off Emily.

  I suppose she was right, but a renewed lethargy had come over me. That feeling of What’s the point? had returned.

  After a while, I pulled myself together and rang DCI Coaker.

  “Any news about my phone and computer?” I asked him. “I’m desperate for them.”

  “They’re here at police headquarters in Huntingdon.”

  “Can I come and collect them?” I asked.

  “I’m just waiting for clearance from my superintendent,” he said. “He may decide that they are evidence.”

  “How come?”

  “Computers are routinely investigated for evidence in all crimes.”

  “You won’t find much on mine,” I said. “I only use it to access horseracing data as part of my job. And occasionally for making bets.”

  “Nevertheless, it will need to be checked.”

  “How about my phone?” I asked. “I need one of the numbers on it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Call me back in twenty minutes.”

  I spent the time using the Yellow Pages to find a local builder who could send someone around as soon as possible to fix the broken door, and then I called a Newmarket rental company and arranged for them to deliver a car to the cottage.

  I didn’t know yet how I was going to replace my old Ford, but, in the meantime, I urgently needed some wheels, not least to get to Brighton races the following afternoon and Kempton Park on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, not that I really felt like going back to work.

  I was completely wrung out, both physically and mentally.

  “What shall I do with all the pots and pans, and the crockery?” Angela asked, putting her head around the door. “Were they Clare’s? Or did they come with the cottage?”

  “I’ve no idea.” I sighed, dragging myself reluctantly to my feet. “I’ll go and ask in Geoff Grubb’s office. I need to go in there anyway, and they might know.”

  Better than that, Geoff’s secretary had a full inventory of what was in the cottage when Clare had moved in.

  “Don’t worry too much if it doesn’t match what’s in there now,” she said, handing me a printed list. “It’s been years since Clare moved in.”

  I gave the list to Angela, who eagerly disappeared with it back into the kitchen.

  I checked that twenty minutes had passed and then again called DCI Coaker.

  “My super says you can have all your stuff back.”

  “Great. How do I collect it?”

  “The forensic computer guy is just finishing examining your hard drive.”

  I thought it was a gross invasion of my privacy and I said so.

  “Sorry,” he said, “but the items were in Mrs. Lowther’s possession at the time of her death and therefore they have to be checked.”

  “So when can I collect it?”

  “Where are you now?” he asked.

  “Newmarket,” I said.

  “I’m going to Cambridge shortly. I’ll take everything with me. You can collect it anytime after one o’clock from Parkside police station on the eastern ring road.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  “And I’ve got your phone here for that number you need.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said. “I need the number for Detective Sergeant Sharp. It should be in my contacts list under S.”

  I could hear him pushing the buttons of my phone.

  “Here you are.” He read out the number and I wrote it down. “Can I ask why you want to speak to DS Sharp?”

  “He’s the Metropolitan Police officer who’s investigating my sister’s suicide. She fell to her death in London last month.”

  “Clare Shillingford,” he said almost to himself. “Of course, the jockey. Now I recognize the name. I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s not been a great couple of weeks.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  “What news of your investigation of last night?”

  “None that I can give you, I’m afraid. How are you feeling?”

  “Rather sore,” I said, “but I’ll live.”

  Unlike Emily.

  —

  I USED the number DCI Coaker had given me to call Detective Sergeant Sharp, but he was unavailable. I left a message on his voice mail asking him to call me back as soon as possible. “I’ve got some fresh evidence about my sister’s death,” I said, “from the hotel.”

  Angela brought me in a cup of coffee.

  “I’m afraid we’ve only got powdered milk,” she said.

  I smiled at her. “Fine by me.”

  Angela sat on the arm of the sofa, the same sofa where Emily and I had snuggled down together on Saturday evening.

  “Oh God!” I said, sighing again. “Life is so bloody at times.”

  “You really liked Emily, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And I feel it was my fault she was killed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t take enough care. I should have seen the car sooner.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Angela said, trying to comfort me.

  “But I do.”

  “Have the police any idea who was driving?” Angela asked.

  “Not that they’ll tell me.”

  “Maybe it was Emily’s ex-husband. From what I hear, he has a fiery temper. Perhaps he didn’t like her going out with somebody else.”

  “She told me at Tatiana’s party they were divorced,” I said, “but they weren’t quite. No decree absolute, apparently. Technically, she was still married to him.”

  “So he will still inherit her house. Now, there’s a motive for murder if ever there was one.”

  Angela, I thought, was also guilty of watching too mu
ch television, but it made about as much sense as anything else.

  “I am sure the police will have interviewed him,” I said. “Or, at least, they will have inspected his car. There must be some damage to the roof where I hit it.” And some blood underneath, I thought, where Emily had gone.

  “How are you getting on in the kitchen?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Done,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’ve thrown away the food that was spoiled, and stacked up on the counter everything that wasn’t on the inventory. But we need some boxes to pack it in.”

  “I’ll get some,” I said, “just as soon as the rental car arrives.”

  “Do you need me anymore, then?” she asked, getting to her feet.

  “Not if you’d rather get off,” I said, also standing up. “Thank you so much for coming to get me. It’s made a huge difference.”

  We both hugged each other again, neither of us seemingly wanting to be the first to pull back. I felt closer to my elder sister at that point than I had ever before.

  “Is everything all right in your world?” I asked, perhaps sensing something.

  “Oh, yes and no,” she said with a sigh. “We’re just desperately short of money, like everyone else, and that was not helped by that damn party. And then the bank keeps talking about making Nick’s job part-time, or even nonexistent altogether, and where would he get another job at his age?”

  “But you and he are all right?”

  “We seem to argue a lot more these days, mostly about money, but I think we’re fine.” She didn’t sound too convinced. “Though I don’t know how we’re going to afford Tatiana’s university fees next year.”

  It was she who was now close to tears.

  “How about a student loan?” I said. “Get her to apply now.”

  “But it would saddle her with so much debt for the future.”

  “Better for her to have a debt in the future,” I said, “than to have her parents split up in the present due to worries over money.”

  “You make everything sound so simple.”

  “I’d happily talk to Nick if you would like me to.”

  She laughed. “We always said that you couldn’t arrange the proverbial piss-up in a brewery, but now you’re more organized than the rest of us.”

  Was I? I didn’t feel like it at the moment.

  The telephone rang and I picked it up.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Mr. Shillingford?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Detective Sergeant Sharp.”

  “Oh, right. Thank you for calling back. Can you hold a second?” I put my hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s the policeman dealing with Clare’s death,” I said to Angela.

  “I’ll go,” she mouthed at me. “Call me later.”

  She gave me a peck on the cheek and left.

  “Sorry about that,” I said to the detective sergeant. “Someone was just leaving.”

  “You said in your message that you have some new evidence?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It would seem that one of the Hilton Hotel staff believes that there may have been a man in my sister’s room when she fell from the balcony.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line.

  “Did you actually interview any of the hotel staff?” I asked. “It seems that my sister’s arrival at the hotel caused quite a stir because she had no luggage.”

  I could tell from his continued silence that the answer to my question was no, he hadn’t interviewed anyone at the hotel.

  “But the suicide note,” he said.

  “I don’t care about the note,” I said angrily. “I want to know why my sister died.”

  “The inquest will establish that in due course,” he said formally.

  “But not if no one investigates anything first.”

  “It’s the coroner’s staff who are responsible for investigating the death,” he said. “The police would be involved only if a crime had occurred.”

  “But I think a crime might have occurred,” I said. “And anyway, the coroner’s office hasn’t been in touch with me. I haven’t even had a copy of the report of her autopsy.”

  “I did discuss the cause of death with your father, as next of kin,” he said somewhat defensively. “And it would not be usual for copies of an autopsy report to be issued to the family prior to the inquest. That’s when the coroner will deal with any matters that might have arisen during the examination of the body.”

  “What sort of matters?” I asked.

  “Any medical conditions that might have been present.”

  “And were there any medical conditions present?” I asked.

  “Nothing pertinent to her death.”

  “Hold on a minute.” I took in what he’d just said. “So there was something, then, but it didn’t have anything to do with her death.”

  “There was nothing,” he said, “other than her being pregnant.”

  21

  What did you say?” I asked him in astonishment.

  “I said there was nothing else, other than her being pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” I almost shouted it into the phone.

  “I assumed you knew,” DS Sharp said. “Miss Shillingford was six or seven weeks pregnant when she died.”

  I was flabbergasted. I sat there staring at the wall above the desk not really knowing what to think.

  “But surely you might have thought that being pregnant could have been pertinent to her death,” I said.

  “In what way?” he asked.

  “Well, for a start it might have affected her state of mind, to say nothing of the hormone changes that must accompany pregnancy.”

  He said nothing.

  “And,” I went on, “it would have been nice to have known at her funeral. Prayers could have been said for the unborn child.”

  “As I said, I assumed you knew. Your father had been informed.”

  Bloody hell, I thought.

  Why hadn’t the stupid old bastard said something? Probably because he was embarrassed by the fact that his unmarried daughter was pregnant.

  God save me from my parents and their old-fashioned opinions.

  “I’m sorry,” DS Sharp said finally, “I should have told you.”

  “Yes, you should have,” I said, “but at least you’re telling me now. And there is something else I’d like to know.”

  “Fire away,” he said, clearly relieved that I hadn’t shouted at him more.

  “Is there any CCTV footage from the hotel? Maybe for when Clare arrived and checked in? I’ve been to the hotel lobby, and there are cameras all over the place, and also some on the elevators. She must have been filmed by lots of them.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I have copies of all the hotel’s CCTV recordings for that evening. I suppose you want to see them?”

  “You suppose correctly,” I said. “Where are they?”

  “At Charing Cross police station.”

  “Can I come and have a look?” I asked.

  “I can’t think that it will do any good,” he said, “but I suppose so.”

  “Later this afternoon?”

  “I’ll be here until about six,” he said. “Come to the main entrance on Agar Street and ask for me.”

  I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to one, and it would take me a good two hours to get there, especially as I had to go via Cambridge to collect my bag.

  And there were a couple of other things I had to do first.

  “I’ll try and be there by five.”

  —

  THE MAN FROM the builder’s arrived soon after one o’clock, followed closely by a woman from the car rental company with a shiny new navy blue Honda Civic.

&n
bsp; Suddenly I felt I was back in business. I could now leave the cottage secure and also get around.

  I left the builder’s man tut-tutting about the state of the door and how he would need to replace some of the framing, as well as the lock, which was bent beyond repair, and drove the Honda out of Newmarket along the Bury Road and into Austin Reynolds’s driveway.

  I didn’t bother with his front door, which I assumed would be locked. Instead, I drove down the side of the house to his office, and then I simply walked in.

  There was racing that Monday at Pontefract in the north and Windsor in the south, and Austin Reynolds didn’t have any runners at either meeting. I’d checked in the Racing Post when I’d been in Geoff Grubb’s stable office collecting the inventory for the cottage.

  And just to make sure he was home, I’d called his house earlier and he’d answered, although I’d hung up without speaking.

  I hoped he might be in his office and I was right. He was sitting in a leather armchair, watching RacingTV’s coverage from Windsor.

  “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he blustered, standing up. “Walking in like this without so much as a by-your-leave?”

  “At least your door was unlocked,” I said, “so I didn’t need to use a sledgehammer.”

  That shut him up and he sat down again.

  Austin Reynolds would have made the world’s worst poker player. Every thought and emotion was readable in his face. And he was suddenly scared, shrinking back into the armchair like a small child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  I shouted at him. “Do you think I’m an idiot or something?”

  He shook his head slightly, although I did think that it had been pretty stupid of me to leave the money and the blackmail note in the cottage.

  “Where is it?” I asked, drawing myself up to my full six feet two inches and purposefully standing over him in a menacing manner.

  “Where is what?” he asked back.

  “The blackmail note you took from Clare’s cottage.”

  “I burned it,” he said with an air of triumph in his voice. “In the fireplace in the drawing room, along with the other one.”

  I bet he hadn’t burned the money, but I did expect that the envelope had gone the same way. Without the envelope, and the words written on it, the money was meaningless.