by David Beard
Tiley grinned and Smalacombe decided to put him right. ‘The legend is that the fire never goes out.’ Tiley raised his head in acknowledgment.
‘Ban’t tourists.’ The two detectives smiled. ‘Coppers id’n ‘ee? Both of ‘ee,’ Eli observed.
‘Does it show that much?’ asked Tiley.
‘Tell ‘ee a mile off.’ He paused and took a long drink. ‘Trouble down the village?’
Smalacombe acknowledged there was, with a nod of the head and a long blink. People who recognised coppers so readily usually had some experience of them he reasoned and he made another mental note to do some checking out.
‘Eli has told me there’s a woman dead in the river,’ the barman chipped in. Smalacombe never ceased to be amazed how quickly news travelled in the sparsest of communities.
‘News travels fast.’
Eli realised immediately what the policeman was getting at. He knew they were never off duty. ‘I seed all the fuss when I passed through jus’ now,’ he said in his almost incomprehensible Devonshire accent. ‘Jan Crocker was up to the bridge an’ ‘ee tol’ me what’s what. ‘Twas on the wireless anyway.’
Smalacombe seemed satisfied. There was a pause in the proceedings as he studied the pumps.
‘No wonder, with all they bloody goin’s on up the big ‘ouse,’ Eli started up again.
‘What ‘ouse… house?’ asked Tiley with some urgency.
‘Oh, he’s talking about Longtor Manor. New people, well, been here two or three years,’ the barman began to explain. ‘That’s new down here’
‘Forty years is new down here,’ Smalacombe interjected.
‘Bloody film stars or sumpin. More money than sense,’ Eli butted in. ‘Bloody comins an’ goins. I tell ‘ee, ‘tis like a bus station down there sometimes. An’ women? Caw bugger, you’ve never seen nort like it.’
‘What, young women?’ Tiley prompted a bit more
‘Who wants to know?’ asked Eli.
Smalacombe and Tiley looked to one another; they knew what was coming.
‘Whose round is it then?’ asked Eli emptying his cider glass. Smalacombe gave a long audible sigh and put money on the bar. The barman smiled broadly, ‘Brian Constance at your service, gentlemen.’
‘One for Eli, one for yourself, a pint of Old English for each of us and what’s on the menu?’
‘It’s on the board, sir,’ Constance said and pointed to a chalkboard standing by the door. Smalacombe wandered across to study it.
‘The bugger what done it, shouldn’t be that difficult to find,’ Eli called over, raising his glass to the chief inspector and then taking a considerable draught from his new pint.
‘What do you mean? It might have been suicide,’ Tiley interjected.
Smalacombe walked back to the bar. ‘We’ll have ham egg and chips.’
‘And beans,’ Tiley interjected, followed by an irritated glance from his superior.
As the pair walked across the car park feeling replenished after their meal and a pint of real ale, Smalacombe was considering his next move.
‘Is Longtor Manor worth a visit, Dexter, now we’re here?’ Tiley asked as they approached the car.
‘May as well. The sooner we get to know the locals the better and we’ve got to start somewhere.’ It seemed a good idea to Smalacombe and he was annoyed that he had not instigated the move himself.
‘You reckon it’s a local thing then do you?’ Tiley asked as he waited for his superior to unlock the car.
‘I don’t reckon anything at the moment but you’re not going to drive all the way from Plymouth say, and then dump the body in the river where it will be easily found. Would you? I mean, what’s the point of all that effort? He may as well have left it in the middle of Union Street.’ He stopped and then realised he could reinforce this point of view even more. ‘There’s a hundred square miles of bugger all just over there,’ he said, pointing north with his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Nobody would come across a body up there for years.’
Smalacombe plipped the key and opened the driver’s door. Tiley leaned on the car’s roof and talked across it. ‘The same could be said of the locals.’
‘I know, but think on this. Why does someone make considerable efforts to remove the identity of the victim and then leave it where it can be found?’ Smalacombe belted up and reversed the car before driving out on to the road. ‘Why not give it to the sheep up in the wilderness somewhere? Why did he go down river with the body, where all the tourists’ routes are, and not up river where nobody goes? No need to remove anything then.’
‘I see what you meant about the tattoos now.’ Tiley reflected and then he added, ‘perhaps he went down river because he didn’t know that’s what everybody does. That would mean he wasn’t local.’
Smalacombe knew that such conjectures were pointless. So far they had virtually no information to go on so he fell into silence as he drove back towards the scene of the crime.
Longtor Manor was set back from the village, up a long unadopted track, which it shared with a few other small cottages. Smalacombe remembered it well, although he had not been there for more than thirty years. The track was well maintained up to the point of the manor’s entrance but from there on it descended into serious disrepair. The grounds were concealed from prying eyes by huge leylandii trees that had been planted in the nineteen thirties by the family of the previous owners. A pair of wrought iron gates that were either new or refurbished, Smalacombe could not decide which, fortified the entrance. They towered above them, their tops rising in the centre to form a parabolic arch.
‘They must have cost a bob or two,’ Tiley commented, in keeping with his usual observations when dealing with the haves.
Once they had walked through them onto a gravel path that cut through a verdant lawn they could see the house set back. It had recently been redecorated on the outside to protect it from the vicious Atlantic storms that swept in from the southwest bringing with them the rains, collected over the ocean that had fed the grass and promoted the luscious greenery now growing in summer abundance. The house looked modest from the front but he recalled that it was a very deep building with many bedrooms and a back door that opened out to a court yard surrounded by stables. A granite façade had been carefully restored and the portico of granite pillars, fashioned roughly from the local stone, guarded the front door. Smalacombe lifted the wrought iron knocker and brought it down onto the plate. The sound reverberated throughout the house.
The heavy oak door, studded and panelled, opened marginally, and half of the face of a good-looking woman peered out. From what he could see, she looked familiar to Smalacombe but he couldn’t place her. In any event he had little time to acquaint himself with her appearance because as soon as she saw the two men she immediately slammed the door shut and shouted from behind it. The detectives could hear the sound of a chain lock being put to good use.
‘You know full well, we don’t see the press without prior appointment.’ A familiar voice penetrated the woodwork.
Dexter Smalacombe talked to the door. ‘We’re not the press, madam, we’re police officers. Could we have a word please?’
The door opened as far as the security chain allowed. The lady peered over it. The chief inspector showed her his identity card and they were let in.
‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, but in our business we have a lot of trouble with the newspapers.’
She showed them through the hall and into a front room. She was in her early thirties, casually dressed in a navy blue tracksuit and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked tired and it was evident she had paid little attention to her appearance, probably on the basis that she had not anticipated entertaining anyone that day. She was nevertheless still strikingly attractive. Sergeant Tiley recognised her immediately. ‘Excuse me, madam but aren’t you Rebecca Winsom?’
‘Yes I am. Now, please don’t say you barely recognise me without my nurse’s uniform.’
‘Are you a nurse then
?’ Smalacombe asked, pretending to be confused. He knew full well who she was, after Clive’s prompt, but he had no intention of massaging her ego.
‘In a way…’ she began
‘Miss Winsom plays Nurse Forder in Twenty Four Seven, sir,’ Tiley explained.
‘Oh, so if it’s Miss then, there is no Mr Winsom I take it.’
‘My husband is Nigel Hillman.’
‘Makes cars does he?’ asked Smalacombe, showing his age and knowing once more it would bring a reaction.
‘Come on, sir. He was in “All in a Day” and “Love Forever” with…’
‘Well, I haven’t seen him on the tele,’ Smalacombe interrupted.
‘No, Chief Inspector, he’s in films, not television. Surprisingly, there is a difference,’ Miss Winsom explained.
‘Miss Winsom, is your husband in?’ Smalacombe asked with a little more authority.
‘No, he’s away in Spain, filming,’ she answered.
‘Will he be away long?’
‘The schedule is six weeks, but you know the film business….’
‘I don’t I’m afraid,’ Smalacombe interjected.
‘Well, it could be longer. Things rarely go to plan.’
‘When did he leave?’ Clive asked.
‘Oh, just this morning. He left at about five. He had to be at Bristol Airport for eight.’ She paused and decided to explain why she had dressed down. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t get much sleep last night. We went to bed late and I had to get up so early.’ She studied both men carefully and saw Tiley making notes.
He smiled, like a schoolboy caught doing something naughty, ‘Just routine, madam, we don’t want to ask the same questions all over again at another time.’
The three remained standing in a triangle in the centre of the room. Rebecca Winsom suddenly realised the incongruity of it and looked embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen I haven’t offered you a seat.’ She unclasped her hands and proffered them chairs.
‘It’s of no consequence, madam, we won’t keep you long.’
Rebecca Winsom was well aware from the start that the police never made social calls out of the blue but it came as a shock to her to see the sergeant recording her responses. ‘Why are you here, Chief Inspector?’ she asked, as she glanced a look from one detective to the other.
‘We’re just making preliminary enquiries, madam. We’ll be speaking to everyone in the village shortly. We’re beginning to do the rounds so to speak. A body was found in the river this morning.’
‘Oh, I see; which river?’
‘Here. The Dart. Just down the road, not far from the bridge.’
‘That’s terrible. Anyone you know?’ she asked.
‘A young woman, that’s all we know at this stage,’ Tiley advised.
‘Tell me, Miss Winsford,’ Smalacombe began, deliberately getting her name wrong.
‘Winsom,’ she corrected.
‘I’m sorry. Tell me, have you had any visitors recently; say, this week for instance?’
‘Well no! Nigel has been busy preparing; studying the script and so on. He likes to be quiet when he’s preparing for a job.’
‘It’s going to be a bit lonely for you here isn’t it whilst he’s away?’ Smalacombe probed.
‘Not really, I have lots of friends and when you live somewhere as beautiful as this they all want to spend a summer holiday here. I shall be fine.’
‘Are you working at the moment, Miss Winsom?’ Tiley asked.
‘I’ve got a nice long rest. The next series isn’t being filmed until September. So, I shall enjoy the summer. We’ve spent a lot of money doing this place up, gentlemen and I want to take full advantage of it.’
‘It looks pretty good to me. Have you been here long?’ Tiley asked.
‘About three years.’ She paused. ‘Look, as you won’t take a seat perhaps you would rather like to look around?’ It was the one offer Tiley had been waiting for. It was the first time he had been inside a celebrity’s home. He was surprised to note how ordinary the room was; the furnishings were anything but grand, the three piece suite was well worn and not in as good a condition as his own. He noticed some bills behind the clock on the mantelpiece. Well, well, well, he thought, how the other half live? Just like the rest of us it would seem!
Tiley’s observations were radically re-adjusted when she gave them a guided tour. The rear of the house was unrecognisable to Smalacombe. The courtyard and stables had disappeared and the whole area was covered in and had been converted into a large indoor leisure area with a swimming pool as the centrepiece, its water still and reflective. Above it was a mezzanine running around the perimeter, with a bar and a snooker table at one end and a gymnasium at the other. Along the sides were seats and tables, where guests could associate and watch a huge television screen suspended in one corner or the swimmers in the pool below.
A thermometer at the poolside registered twenty-six degrees centigrade. Tiley did a quick mental calculation; it was the one formula he remembered from his schooldays. Just about eighty degrees Fahrenheit he reckoned; that’ll cost a mint to heat and it must be like taking a bath in there, he mused. The three walked through into a passageway.
‘It’s very impressive!’
‘Thank you,’ she acknowledged. ‘We have had a terrible time with the planners. The National Park has been pretty obstructive.’ She was ahead of them now, keen to show them her indulgences. ‘This is our best bit, gentlemen,’ she called over her shoulder as she guided them into a private cinema with a large wide screen framed with heavy red velvet curtains and about ten rows of seats, which to Tiley’s untrained eye appeared to be covered in the same material. ‘Nigel is passionate about the movies. We spend a lot of time in here.’
‘You have a lot of facilities for just two people, Miss Winsom.’
‘We have a steady stream of friends around Sergeant. We like to share it with them. They all come down and we party, have a good time.’
‘Do you party often?’
‘Every few weeks or so. A lot of our friends love to come down here to get away from it all. It gets pretty intense in London. This is where we keep our sanity. It does get pretty crowded sometimes, I can tell you.’
As she escorted them through the gardens, which were little more than large areas of mown moorland grass, she explained that this would be the next grand project. ‘I want a garden that will take your breath away, Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘I want a water feature tumbling down from the top over there to a grand pond in the front of the house. And, leading from that, there will be a formal Italian area here and steps here,’ she pointed to her left towards the front of the house and then beyond to the right, ‘leading to a terrace with a pergola over there covered in wisteria.’
As they continued to the gates so she pointed out many more facets of her home. ‘We’re very proud of what we have done here, Chief Inspector. The place was almost derelict when we bought it five years ago. It was two years before we could move in, but I think you would agree, it’s been worth it.’
‘It’s a lovely place, Miss Winsom,’ Tiley concurred. Smalacombe said nothing but wondered why two actors could have a place like this, whereas a successful copper would barely be able to afford the wrought iron gates that protected it.
‘Just one more thing, Miss Winsom,’ Smalacombe began with a phrase that reminded him of Columbo, ‘would you be kind enough to tell me where you were last evening and until this morning?’ He sensed her hesitancy. ‘It’s just routine; I shall be asking everyone I speak to the same question.’
Rebecca Winsom smiled broadly and looked down at her toes as she continued to stroll across the grass towards the gates. ‘I was here all night, Chief Inspector. I helped Nigel pack last evening and we had an early night because we had to be up with the lark this morning.’
‘Thank you for that and thank you for showing us around. We can see ourselves out.’
As they drove back down the lane they watched Mrs Cooper and Billy go
into one of the cottages. ‘Next door neighbours it would seem,’ Dexter Smalacombe commented. He looked to Tiley and pulled a face. ‘We’d better go down to the hall and see how things are progressing.’
‘What do you think of Rebecca Winsom?’ Tiley asked.
‘She tells lies.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Come on, Clive, wake up. She first told us she had a late night and then, when I asked her what she was doing, she said she went to bed early.’
Much to Smalacombe’s surprise and relief, things were going very well in the village hall. Officers had already bagged their spaces, tables were laid out, and the back kitchen had already been converted into an interview room. There was one great problem however, the mobile phone reception was inconsistent and the only place they could get even an intermittent signal was outside in the car park. If the base was to work efficiently they needed a land line.
Once they were back on the main road, Tiley hoped he would not be subjected to another local history lesson. He checked his watch; it was four fifteen. He took his mobile and rang Avril. Fortunately, he had reception. To his relief, he found that after her early traumas were over, she had had a good day and was now just entering the house and would soon be preparing tea. He closed the phone and put it away.
‘Pork chops tonight....can’t wait.’
‘You’ve just had a cooked meal. Is that all you bloody think about, your stomach?’
‘You know it isn’t.’
‘That’s a fact. I saw you eyeing up that bloody nurse,’ Smalacombe said, referring to Rebecca Winsom.
‘Yea! In the pool, eh? In at the deep end.’ He paused for a moment, ‘Oh, come on! You were young once.’
‘You’re bloody disgusting you are,’ Smalacombe retorted.
The two fell silent as they made their way back to the headquarters. Each pondered their day.
‘What have we achieved so far, Clive?’
‘At a guess, boss, I’d say sod all. Let’s hope that your friend Angela can come up with something tomorrow. You seem to know her very well, if I may say so.’
