Two Feet Under (Lindenshaw Mysteries Book 3)

by Charlie Cochrane

  “You didn’t attempt to stop her?”

  “Can you imagine what it’s like trying to stop her doing anything? Anyway, she realised she could get her hands on Sian’s money, and she really liked that. Sian had made it too easy for people to access it.” Warnock stared into his empty glass, then set it down. “The most I could manage was splitting up with her, a couple of weeks after it happened. Pippa didn’t mind that—she’s never found it hard to get a bloke.”

  Like Jerry, who seemed to have a thing for forceful women.

  “Was Howarth one of them?” Pru asked, voice barely hiding her disdain.

  “He wanted to be, but she wasn’t having it. Said the only favour she’d do for him was covering up.”

  “Why did you keep coming back, if you’d split?”

  “I wanted to make sure I knew what they were up to. She blows hot and cold on me, though.” Warnock sneered. “Sometimes when I get back she isn’t that pleased to see me. Considering all I did for the pair of them . . .”

  Robin noted that accorded with what the neighbours had said, and with the overall impression Warnock had created. The rest of Warnock’s story largely matched what they knew, with the addition of Howarth’s involvement. He admitted he’d “come across” a key at Culford and kept it by accident, an explanation they didn’t believe but let ride for the moment. If Howarth was involved, site access wouldn’t have been a problem. Pippa had taken a job at the library because it seemed in keeping with what Sian would do, and had volunteered at Culford so she could keep an eye on things there.

  “Howarth had kittens when he found out, but he wasn’t going to make trouble. Not given what we knew.” Warnock seemed increasingly proud of what they’d done. “We tried everything we could come up with, like writing to the papers to scare people off exploring the site, but then that bloody university dig came out of nowhere.”

  “And you panicked again?”

  “Yeah.” Warnock blanched. “None of us fancied dealing with a half-rotted corpse.”

  “Okay. So let me get this straight.” Robin spoke slowly and calmly. “Howarth killed Sian by accident, while protecting Pippa, and he forced you to help cover up the death. You came up with the impersonation idea, and Pippa found she enjoyed it so carried the deception on.”

  Warnock grinned mockingly. “Yeah. Got it in one.”

  “So why,” Pru cut in, “did Pippa insist that you were the one who killed her.”

  “What?” Warnock shot out of his chair and leaned over the table before the solicitor, taking his arm and muttering about not making matters worse for himself, guided him back into his seat. “No. I’m not a murderer.”

  “That’s not what Pippa says.”

  “Pippa can go to hell. Lying cow.” He slumped back in his chair, crossed his arms, and glared defiance at all present. The solicitor, laying his hand on Warnock’s arm in a cautionary gesture, had it swiftly shaken off.

  “She says you’d got a defence agreed between yourselves that it had been an accident involving just her and Sian. That’s what she told us first off, but then she changed her tune and said that story had simply been covering for you. No mention of Howarth anywhere.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what she’s like.” Warnock pressed his crossed arms closer to his chest; maybe he was trying to look threatening. “You don’t want to believe a word she says. She lives in a fantasy world most of the time. Always bigging herself up to be more than she is. No wonder she got involved in talking up fakes. Ideal job for her.”

  And with that, Warnock told his solicitor he wasn’t prepared to answer further questions. They left him to be admitted to the cells, and headed off for another coffee in the canteen, Robin muttering that he wasn’t prepared to discuss anything until he’d had a chance to think.

  “Bloody hell, sir.” Given the amount of sugar Pru was spooning into her drink, she must have been feeling the stress too. “That came out of left field. I assumed he was going to blame her.”

  “So did I.” Robin stared bleakly into his mug. “Could what we’ve just heard be the truth? I know you don’t see Howarth as a murderer, but I can imagine him causing an accident and then making sure it was covered up.”

  “Should we ask Cowdrey to get him back in?”

  “Not yet. I’ll appraise him and get tabs kept on our Risca Romeo, but I’m not jumping to conclusions.” He sipped his drink but found little pleasure in it.

  Pru took a swig, wincing at either the heat or the sweetness of the coffee. “What if Howarth has got to Pippa? Put the fear of God up her so she’s desperate to turn attention elsewhere. I didn’t believe the tears and the ‘poor Sian’ stuff for a moment.”

  “Yep. I assumed she was just deflecting attention from herself. Never thought there could be a third person involved. I’d give all the tea in China for some hard evidence. Shame that walls don’t have ears—and a tongue—because that hallway at Merritt’s End could tell us a tale.”

  “That’s the rub, isn’t it? Unless we can pin it down on one of them, we’ll run the risk of convicting none of them.”

  There was the rub indeed. The Crown Prosecution bods would shake their heads and say that joint enterprise was a complex enough area, and when you added in a potential plea of self-defence, there might be no strong grounds for prosecution. Lesser charges could stick, but that would put one or all of the three back out onto the streets sooner than anyone would want and maybe with an axe to grind; the thought of a vengeful Pippa Palmer on the loose wasn’t a pleasant one.

  Robin pushed his coffee away. “No jury would believe any of them for a moment. I suspect Warnock would testify like a shot, but a decent brief would rip him to shreds in the witness box. Same goes for Becky Bairstow. Serial liars, the lot of them.”

  “It’s a shame your mate David didn’t see anything. He’d be impressive giving evidence.”

  “But they weren’t living there at the time. And he’s not ‘my mate,’ just because he’s gay. We don’t all hang out together in one big gang.”

  “Sorry, guv.” Pru looked suitably abashed.

  “Common misconception, but I don’t expect you to peddle it.” Robin rested his elbows on the table and then put his head in his hands. “There’s got to be something.”

  “Mr. Bright?” A deep female voice sounded at his back.

  “Yes?” He forced his head up.

  “Telephone call for you at the front desk. Chap called David, says he’s from Merritt’s End. The Abbotston station gave him the num—” The message bearer almost got bowled over as Robin leaped up from his chair.

  “Thanks, Constable. You might have brought me the best news of the day.”

  “Don’t count your chickens, sir,” Pru reminded him.

  Robin gave her an old-fashioned look but didn’t respond. He wouldn’t tempt fate.

  They had the call transferred to an empty office; Robin couldn’t quite shake off the memories of the untrustworthy desk sergeant at Abbotston.

  “David. Sorry to keep you waiting. They had to find me.”

  “I understand. And it’s not me who wants to talk to you, it’s George, but he felt it would be best if I introduced him. All rather Jane Austen.” David chuckled. “Anyway, here he is.”

  “Chief Inspector.” A deep Scottish burr came down the line. “Sorry I missed you when you called. Family business.”

  “Is everything well?”

  “As well as it can be. But it’s not my mother you’ll be wanting to hear about.”

  No indeed. “I’m assuming this is about Pi—sorry, Sian?”

  “It is. I believe David referred to my little joke about her having a dark secret? He didn’t believe me, of course, because I’m one for making up ridiculous stories about people.”

  “Then one day you find out the ridiculous story is true?”

  “Aye.” George harrumphed. “When David said you’d been here, and that a forensic team had been all over the house, I remembered what had started this whole ‘dar
k secret’ nonsense off. It was at a party, last Christmas. She’d been really down in the dumps. I ended up taking her into the conservatory for a paternal heart to heart. She’d mentioned about how her father had died, so I expected she’d want to let her grief out, but she barely touched on it.”

  That was no surprise. “What did she want to talk about?”

  “Men, mainly. How they were all swine, even the ones who seemed nice, and how lucky I was to have found Mr. Right.” Robin could imagine George’s eyes rolling. “I said that she must have found one good apple in the barrel, at which she nodded and got sniffly again. I’d brought a bottle, so I topped up her glass, and then she said that Jamie was the best of a bad bunch.”

  Robin nodded encouragingly.

  “That glass must have sent her one over the eight. She confessed she’d done something bad, in the past, and that her bloke Jamie—he’ll be the one with the scar who comes round—had helped her cover it up.”

  Robin forced himself not to get overexcited. This was what he’d expected to hear from Warnock, but if Pippa had made a confession of murder to George, surely he’d have been sensible enough to have flagged it up already? “Go on.”

  “I was trying to dig a little deeper when a horde of folk came in. Sian bucked herself up and started leading a conga, of all things.”

  Robin repressed a snigger. That bloody conga was going to have to get a mention, wasn’t it?

  “I didn’t talk about it to David, not at the time, because I wanted to find out more.”

  “Very sensible.”

  “Two days later she asked me in for coffee. She said she’d been a bit drunk and a bit silly and that she didn’t want me getting the wrong end of the stick. She’d only—only!—been involved in an incident when driving the boyfriend’s car, and he pretended he’d been driving as she already had points on her licence for speeding. They hadn’t realised he’d end up doing community service for it.”

  “Did you ask her to report it to the police?”

  “I did.” George harrumphed again. “But she said she’d already confessed it to her priest and he’d given her penance, so it was all dealt with. She asked me to respect that. I hadn’t realised she was a Roman Catholic.”

  “No.” And Robin would put money on that being another part of the story she was weaving.

  “Anyway, I decided not to mention any of the details to David, just made the ‘dark secret’ joke, so he’s hearing this for the first time too. I hope it’ll be of help.”

  “It will.” Robin promised to get one of the constables round to take a full statement, ended the call, then briefed Pru.

  “Sounds like it could be a case of in vino veritas, sir.”

  “Yep. We know she wasn’t behind the wheel for that dangerous-driving offence, because Warnock was captured on CCTV. She must have almost let the cat out of the bag about Sian, then had to backtrack furiously.”

  “I wonder if she’d have told George everything, if that conga hadn’t happened.”

  “Maybe.” Robin shivered. “And maybe George would have ended up as another victim before he could spill the beans. And we still don’t know exactly what she nearly admitted.”

  His phone vibrated, indicating an incoming text. Adam, whom he’d messaged briefly earlier, probably replying with a bit of affectionate banter. He was about to leave it until later, when he decided he deserved a touch of light relief.

  “I’m off to the loo.” Robin headed for the relative peace of one of the cubicles and once inside read the text in full. Adam wanted him to ring if he got the chance, but he’d left a message on the answerphone if that wasn’t an option. Nothing to worry about, just some useful information related to Abbotston nick. Robin, both intrigued and suddenly longing for the comfort of his partner’s voice, went straight through to his message service. “Hi. Got a name, two actually, for you. The local radio people who’ve been trying to get all the inside info on your case. A woman called Pringle—I think she’s the reporter—and a young guy called Lewington, who’s in production and looking at moving into front of house. Mean anything to you? Speak soon. Love you.”

  A young guy called Lewington. How bleeding obvious. The desk sergeant with that name at Abbotston had a son who was something to do with the local media. And as the sergeant had been first point of call when Becky Bairstow rang, he’d have been the first to be able to pass the information on to his lad. Why would he take that risk of jeopardizing both career and pension, though? Sick and tired of getting nowhere, maybe, and that was in line with what Robin had heard about the bloke. He quickly messaged Cowdrey to say he’d report back on the Culford case later, but here was a hot potato for him to get his teeth into in the meantime.

  He’d have to show proper thanks to Adam, especially as he’d been so ratty at him about his “obsession” with the media. That was one problem solved; if only Palmer and Warnock and Howarth could be sorted out so easily.

  Pippa Palmer, with the same solicitor—and his same poker face—seemed slightly less at ease during the second interview.

  By some careful timing of movement of witnesses between rooms, Robin had managed to engineer her and Warnock being in the same corridor at the same time. Once she’d seen he was in custody, Robin left her to fester with her own thoughts before calling her in for further questioning. Hopefully she’d be worrying over what Warnock might have already told the police.

  “Pippa, there are several things you didn’t mention in the last interview,” Robin said, watching her face but observing nothing more than a narrowing of the eyes. “Was Charlie Howarth present when Sian died?”

  “Howarth?” Pippa’s surprise smacked of ham acting. “No, of course he wasn’t.”

  “We need the truth, Pippa.” From the tightness around Pru’s mouth, it was costing her to be so compassionate. “If he’s put you under pressure to cover up for him, then we’d view that sympathetically.”

  “The truth?” Pippa’s gaze moved from Pru to Robin and back as she apparently weighed up her options. “The truth is it was Jamie’s idea to come up with a story fingering Howarth to cover up what he did. He’s clearly sticking to it while I’ve decided not to.”

  Head throbbing like a drum, Robin wished he’d grabbed a side order of ibuprofen with his coffee. “But you said that the agreed story was that you’d killed Sian by accident.”

  “That was my suggestion, but Jamie wasn’t impressed with that, probably because he hadn’t come up with it. Jamie thinks Howarth is so up himself he’s coming out the other end. You want to hear him ranting on about Howarth’s flash car and how he acts like he’s God’s gift to women. Jamie knew you’d been on Howarth’s case, so that seemed an obvious direction to send you in.” The handkerchief which had featured in the last interview made an encore. “I didn’t want to get him into trouble; that’s why I decided I’d say it was me.”

  “So, what was the story you agreed between you?”

  “That I panicked—as if I would—and then Sian started haring round the place. Jamie came in and tried to drag me to safety, because he always enjoys the idea of being the hero, even in a made-up story. Then Sian attacked us again, at which point Howarth came steaming in. Sian went for him, and he fought her off and then went apeshit. Killed Sian and made us cover up for him.” She blew her nose. “Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  Ridiculous was exactly the word for it. But the account matched precisely what Warnock had said. Before Robin could respond, Pru said, “You told your neighbour that Jamie Warnock took the blame for a driving offence you committed.”

  “Yes.” Pippa’s face, which had momentarily clouded, was soon back under control. “I know it was the wrong thing to do, but Jamie was so kind about it. He wanted to help. We thought he’d have his knuckles rapped, not end up doing community service. I was mortified. That’s why I said I’d help him cover up the murder. I only wish I’d been as strong at keeping his secret as he was with mine.”

  That wasn’t how her previous inte
rview had come across, but Robin had become used to her changes of story. “Well, there’s a problem with all that, isn’t there? Jamie was driving the car at the time of his offence. The witness statements and CCTV are conclusive.”

  “No, that’s not right!”

  “I’m afraid it is.” Robin produced an envelope from the file he’d brought in. “I’m showing the witness CCTV pictures taken of Jamie Warnock driving the car the night he was arrested. You’re not with him, are you?”

  “I was, earlier.”

  “But not at the time the offences were committed,” Robin persisted, to no response from the witness.

  Pru broke the silence. “What did you really get upset about that evening, when you were crying on George’s shoulder?”

  “What? What’s George been saying?” Pippa’s alarmed expression was unmistakable. From the recesses of his memory, Robin remembered what Adam had said about phones and dealing with unwanted callers. How you could send them into a panic by calling their bluff. It was worth a punt. “You know that as well as I do.” Robin raised a hand. “We’re going to go and check over some of the things you’ve alleged. Interview suspended.”

  Before Pippa or her solicitor could respond, Robin pushed back his chair and left the room, with Pru in tow, while the suspect went back to her cell.

  “What was that for, sir? I thought we were going to use what George said?”

  “I changed my mind.” Robin glanced over his shoulder, in case Pippa was within earshot. “One of those three is dangerous. They’ve killed one person, whether it was murder or manslaughter, and gone to enormous lengths to cover the crime up. Now Pippa knows that George has said something that we’ve picked up as important, even if she doesn’t know the details.”