No Laughing Matter

by Dorothy Simpson

  She registered the absence of lights and straightened up, stood for a moment thinking, then with set face crossed the room and opened the door.

  Fester must have moved fast. He was outside, waiting.

  Thanet wished that he could see their faces as they looked at each other in the light of their new knowledge. He felt sorry for Fester, and guilty over the pain he must have caused him. On the other hand it was not he but Fester who by eavesdropping had brought about this situation and it was perhaps just as well that the man’s illusions about Elaine should have been destroyed. Nothing but heartache would have awaited him along that road. Perhaps now he would be free to look for a more worthwhile relationship. Remembering Kari, Thanet thought that Fester might not have to look far.

  Lineham was looking puzzled. ‘What’s going on?’ he whispered.

  Thanet shook his head. ‘Tell you later,’ he murmured as Elaine moved away in the direction of the main office and Fester rolled forward into the doorway, blocking their path. ‘Could I have another word, Inspector?’

  ‘By all means.’

  This time, by unspoken mutual agreement, they arranged themselves around the low table.

  Fester gave Thanet a searching look. ‘Am I right in thinking you know what I did just now?’

  Thanet nodded. ‘I heard the click at the beginning of the interview. And from where I was sitting I could see the light come on. But I’d better just explain to Sergeant Lineham. He wasn’t as well placed.’ Briefly, Thanet did so, watching Lineham take in all the implications.

  ‘I assure you I don’t make a habit of it,’ said Fester, ‘and I can’t pretend I’m proud of myself. Quite the opposite, in fact.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I suppose I deserved all I got. They say that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, don’t they?’

  ‘You didn’t hear anything bad.’

  ‘It depends what you mean by “bad”. Nothing derogatory, no, but it was a bit of an eye-opener, as I’m sure you realised.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, you’re not the first to be taken in by an attractive woman, and you won’t be the last. And Miss Wood does seem to be something of an expert. Look how she deceived Mr Randish.’

  Fester gave a shamefaced grin. ‘Thanks. Anyway, I think I owe you an explanation. Before, I was prepared to lie. Now, I’m not. Not that I have any great revelation to put before you, don’t think that. I’m not about to confess and hold out my wrists for the handcuffs.’

  ‘I didn’t think you were,’ said Thanet smiling. ‘In fact, I think I can guess what you’re going to tell me. So, to save you the humiliation of actually doing so, let me see if I’m right. On Friday evening, suspecting that Miss Wood was not telling you the truth – that in fact she had a date with someone else, you decided to keep an eye on her. Am I right?’

  Fester gave a resigned nod.

  ‘You couldn’t own up the last time we spoke to you because she was present and you didn’t want her to know you’d been watching her.’

  ‘Yes. I left here about 7.15 as your witness claimed, drove to the car park behind Elaine’s block of flats and parked where I could see both her garage and the entrance to the flats. I stayed there until around ten, then came home.’

  ‘So you’ll be able to tell us for certain whether or not she went out that night,’ said Lineham.

  ‘Quite,’ said Fester. ‘And she didn’t.’

  ‘You’re sure of that, sir?’

  ‘Positive.’

  That seemed to be that. There was nothing more to be learned here.

  Back in the car Lineham said, ‘If he’s telling the truth, they’re both in the clear. And you believe him, don’t you?’

  Thanet nodded. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lineham reluctantly. ‘So where does that leave us?’

  Thanet sighed. ‘Back at square one, I’m afraid.’

  NINETEEN

  They drove in silence for a few minutes and then Thanet banged his knee with a clenched fist in frustration. ‘What a waste of time!’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Lineham. ‘We’ve done some eliminating, if nothing else.’

  Small consolation.

  Silence again. Thanet was sunk in gloom. He’d thought he was so clever, with his ingenious theory of revenge for past wounds! He was only thankful that he’d said nothing of all this at the morning meeting. He could imagine Draco’s reaction now.

  Yes, well I’m not surprised. We have to keep our feet on the ground, you know, Thanet, not allow ourselves to be carried away. Perhaps it would be as well to remember in future that good police work is always based on fact, not fancy.

  Thanet realised that he was close to grinding his teeth. Had he been doing so? He glanced at Lineham, but the sergeant was concentrating on his driving. Thanet gazed moodily out of the window. Even the weather was being perverse; now that they were equipped for rain, the sun had come out and the roads were already almost dry.

  Lineham pulled up to allow a stream of schoolchildren to cross the road. The lollipop lady, as the traffic controllers on such crossings are invariably called, smiled her thanks at him as she waved him on. The school day must be over already. Thanet glanced at his watch. Yes, it was half past three. He groaned. What a waste of time, he thought again.

  ‘Come on, sir. Cheer up. You were right, after all.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About the connection between Elaine and Randish’s former landlady. Honestly, I don’t know what you’re looking so gloomy about.’

  ‘Hurt pride, I suppose, Mike, if the truth be told. It’s always a blow when it turns out that you’re not as clever as you thought you were. Serves me right.’

  ‘Well, if you ask me you’re over-reacting. I don’t know what you expected. That Elaine would say, “Yes, it’s a fair cop, guv. I done it because of what he did to my mum”?’

  Thanet gave a shamefaced grin. ‘If I’m absolutely honest then yes, I suppose I did rather hope for something like that. I certainly thought I’d cracked it. As it is, well, I suppose I should just be thankful my hunch proved right. I could have been way off beam, after all. We could have found that Elaine had absolutely no connection whatsoever with old Mrs Wood.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Not that it gets us very far to find out that she did. I suppose that’s why I’m so angry with myself. I feel I’ve been self-indulgent, and wasted the best part of a day. I just wanted to prove that my theory was right and to hell with everything else.’

  ‘What else, for example?’

  ‘Well …’ Thanet thought, but couldn’t come up with anything.

  ‘Exactly. You could only say you’ve wasted the time if we could have been usefully employed elsewhere and as you said yourself this morning there wasn’t really anything else to follow up – apart from the fact that Fester had been lying about not having gone out that night, and we’ve dealt with that anyway.’

  Lineham was not only right, but in view of his reluctance to go to Plumpton today, was being very generous. Thanet glanced across at the sergeant’s familiar profile and experienced a surge of gratitude and affection. ‘Thanks, Mike. What would I do without you?’

  Lineham went pink. ‘I dare say you’d survive, sir,’ he said.

  They had arrived. Back in the office they checked on messages and information that had come in while they were away.

  ‘Nothing in the least bit promising,’ said Lineham despondently.

  ‘Never mind.’ Thanet was brisk, spirits restored. ‘It’s obviously time to do a rethink. After all, it’s not as though we haven’t got any suspects. If anything we’ve got too many.’

  Lineham sat back, stretching out his legs and folding his arms across his chest. ‘So who would you put your money on, sir? Reg Mason?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘He’s the one who Randish was hurting most, after all. From the way Mrs Mason reacted the other night it’s obvious that she can’t put up with too much stress. If you ask
me, Mason might well have ended up losing his wife as well as his home. But now, well, I should think it quite likely that Mrs Randish will at least pay off the original sum agreed for the work done and Mason’s problems will be over.’

  ‘It’s true that he probably benefits most in the short term.’

  ‘And a man in his position is bound to have a pretty short fuse. Let’s face it, he had motive, means, opportunity, the lot. He really does fit the bill.’

  ‘Maybe. But what about Landers? He was pretty browned off with the way Randish was treating Alice, wouldn’t you say? I know how I’d feel if I discovered Bridget’s husband was not only knocking her about but regularly being unfaithful too. It’s all very well for him to protest that he couldn’t have killed Randish because Alice would be heartbroken to lose her husband. I should think he could pretty easily convince himself that she’d get over it in time, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Are you saying you think Landers went up to the lab that night deliberately to kill Randish? I thought we’d agreed that this murder was unpremeditated.’

  ‘No, I’m not. But he’s obviously fond of Reg Mason. It’s much more likely that after hearing about the repossession and despite his decision to offer Reg a cottage if the worst came to the worst, he went up to the winery to make one last attempt to persuade Randish to pay up at least a part of the disputed sum. Randish could have been dismissive or rude or just plain insulting, and all Landers’ grievances against him could suddenly have rolled together and erupted.’

  ‘But you said you thought Randish must have been killed by someone much weaker or smaller than he was, because of the way it happened. If Landers lost his temper with Randish he wouldn’t have started throwing things at him, surely, he’d have gone for him.’

  ‘True. Unless, as you suggested yourself, whoever killed Randish – let’s just assume it was Landers – was so angry with him that he was afraid that if he started a fight he might completely lose control.’

  ‘And lost it anyway, you mean?’

  ‘Perhaps. Yes.’

  ‘It’s possible, granted. But personally, if we’re going to discount Reg Mason, I’d go for Vintage. If anyone’s living on a knife edge, it’s him, and he had the best opportunity of anybody. He had the whole evening at his disposal.’

  ‘True. But you could say the same of Alice Randish. She not only fits the bill perfectly as far as motive, means and opportunity are concerned but statistically she’s the most likely suspect. In fact, the more I think about it, Mike, the more I wonder if we’ve been pretty remiss in not looking at her more closely.’

  Lineham considered the idea. ‘If Randish had been unfaithful once too often … Maybe she found out about Elaine. Maybe her father told her, hoping to disillusion her! Yes! What if Landers hoped that by telling her about Elaine she could be persuaded to divorce Randish? Landers would just love to have her and the children under his control again, wouldn’t he? Actually, sir, if you think about it, that’s an added motive for him, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘What if he told her about Elaine that evening, when he came over to see her about Reg Mason? And then, after he’d gone, she felt she had to know, she had to find out if it was true. She couldn’t bear the prospect of waiting until her husband came back, he was always so late at harvest time, so she decided to go up to the winery and tackle him then and there. And suppose he admitted it but refused to stop seeing Elaine – or worse, laughed at Alice, asked her what she proposed to do about it … Those are exactly the circumstances in which she might have lost her temper, picked up the nearest thing to hand to throw at him and then, having started, found she couldn’t stop.’

  Thanet was nodding. He could see it all too clearly. ‘There’s just one snag, though, isn’t there? If Alice did do it, why did she insist on going back up to the winery with Vintage, to look at the body? And would she have been sick if she’d seen it before?’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t realise he was dead. Maybe she threw everything she could lay her hands on at him and then turned and ran just before he went through the window?’

  ‘She’d have heard the crash, surely,’ said Thanet. ‘And gone back to investigate?’

  They were both silent for a while, thinking, then Thanet stirred. ‘Well, all this speculation isn’t getting us very far. In fact, I don’t suppose we are going to get much further unless we can come up with some concrete evidence. Still, we ought to go through the motions, so …’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Lineham, pulling a face. ‘We ought to go through the files.’

  They both hated this stage in a case, when there was no obvious way forward. Equally, they both knew how valuable it could be to stand back and take a fresh look at what had already come in. Details which may have seemed unimportant when they first emerged could later on, in the light of new information, prove significant. And as their knowledge of the people involved in the case became more extensive, discrepancies in behaviour initially dismissed as irrelevant could stand out as being worthy of further scrutiny.

  The phone rang and Lineham snatched it up eagerly. ‘Yes? I see. Right, Sister. Yes, of course. Certainly. We’ll come along right away.’

  He put the phone down, beaming. ‘Saved by the bell.’

  ‘Sister?’ said Thanet.

  ‘Sister Benedict. No she’s not a nun. She’s the sister in charge of the ward where Randish’s nephew is recuperating after that motorcycle accident.’

  ‘Jonathan Redman.’

  Lineham’s eyebrows went up. ‘I didn’t know you knew his surname.’

  ‘It’s a long story. I forgot to mention this before, it didn’t seem relevant. But to be brief, he and his twin sister – the girl who died – are friends of Bridget’s. She’s been to visit him in hospital.’

  ‘Well, apparently he’s asking to see you.’

  ‘Me, specifically?’

  ‘Well, the detective in charge of the Randish case.’

  ‘I wonder why.’

  As they hurried down the stairs like schoolboys excused from a particularly tedious piece of homework, Thanet told Lineham the little he knew about the boy.

  ‘And Bridget says he doesn’t remember anything about the accident?’

  ‘When she saw him yesterday he hadn’t even remembered his sister was dead. Bridget said his mother was dreading breaking the news to him all over again.’

  ‘Poor kid. I can imagine. So perhaps his memory has come back. Perhaps, before he had the accident that night, he’d been driving along the road past the vineyard and saw something significant – someone leaving, whatever …’

  ‘We’ll soon find out. But I shouldn’t get too excited, Mike. I don’t suppose it’s anything very important.’

  ‘Anything’s better than nothing,’ said Lineham.

  In the hospital Lineham set off briskly along the corridors with the air of someone who knows where he is going. He had become familiar with the sprawling, labyrinthine mass of Sturrenden General Hospital in the days when Louise had been working here full-time. Thanet trailed along behind.

  Sister Benedict was evidently on the look-out for them; the moment they set foot in the entrance to the ward she appeared and asked them to step into her office. She was young and pretty, with a shining cap of hair the colour of burnished copper, a sight to gladden the heart of any sick person, Thanet felt. Her manner was brisk, businesslike, but there was no doubt about her concern for her patient.

  ‘You might as well know that I don’t think this is at all a good idea,’ she said sternly. ‘Jonathan had a really nasty motorcycle accident a couple of days ago and was unconscious for the first twenty-four hours. He didn’t come out of intensive care until yesterday, so I really do not want him upset.’

  ‘I do understand,’ said Thanet. ‘I know a bit about him, as a matter of fact. He’s a friend of my daughter’s and she’s been in to visit him.’

  ‘The pretty girl with fair hair?’

&nb
sp; Thanet nodded, with the small inner glow of satisfaction he always experienced when anyone paid Bridget a compliment.

  ‘Well, you’ll know what I’m talking about, then. But he seems so determined to speak to the police I didn’t think he’d settle until he had.’

  ‘What does he want to see us about, do you know?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘When did he start asking for us?’

  ‘After his mother left, about an hour ago.’

  ‘She’s been here all day?’

  ‘No. I understand she didn’t leave his side for the first forty-eight hours. Then last night we managed to persuade her to go home and try to get some rest. I don’t think she did, though. Poor woman, she’s having a terrible time … There’s this awful murder, for a start and then … But, of course, you’d know about her daughter, Karen, Jonathan’s twin?’

  ‘Yes, Karen and my daughter have been good friends for years.’

  ‘You’d know that Jonathan and his sister were very close, then. He was with her when she died, apparently, and his mother thinks that it was because he was so upset, afterwards, that he was driving carelessly and had the accident. Your daughter may have told you that he has partial amnesia, which is quite common, of course, after an accident, but the awful thing is that in this case it also extended to the period just before, and he had forgotten that his sister was dead. His mother was absolutely dreading breaking the news to him again.’

  ‘You’re using the past tense. I gather he’s now been told?’

  ‘She told him this afternoon. She came back late this morning and we had to tell her that as he was feeling so much better, Jonathan was urging us to put him in a wheelchair and let him go and visit his sister. In fact, that’s the reason he’s still in bed. We felt that the minute we allowed him up it would be difficult to keep on finding excuses for not letting him do so. But that situation couldn’t be allowed to go on indefinitely, obviously, and although we very much sympathised with Mrs Redman we felt we had to make this clear to her. We did offer to break the news of Karen’s death to Jonathan for her, but she said no, she’d rather do it herself.’