The Edge: A Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mystery (Superintendent Mike Yeadings Mysteries)

by Clare Curzon

  ‘I’m serving Irish coffee downstairs,’ she told him. ‘Come and join us when you’re ready.’ In the doorway she turned back. ‘Oh yes, I’ve almost run out of reading matter. Can I look through your bookcase for something to fill the gap?’

  He let her request hang in the air, then shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

  She knelt to review the titles she’d been through before. ‘Aleister Crowley; that’s a bit old hat. The Exorcist, m’m. Might try that, I suppose. There was a film in the Seventies, which I missed.’

  ‘Load of rubbish,’ he muttered. ‘They’re not mine; they’re hers.’

  ‘Jennifer’s?’

  There was a pause before he grunted. Anna took it for yes. He scowled, stabbing the desktop with one end of his pen. ‘D’you think the hulk would let me try out the Harley?’

  ‘With your track record? And then this afternoon’s performance? What do you think?’

  ‘What a bloody waste, though, on a loser like him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t write him off as that.’

  ‘No?’ He was looking superior, implying that she had been nowhere, seen nothing, was no judge of character. She decided to walk out before the desire to box his ears put her on the wrong side of the law.

  ‘I noticed a snooker table in the gun room,’ she mentioned, again at the door. ‘Maybe DC Barley would give you a frame or two if you’ve nothing better to do.’

  ‘Better? Like sprinting starkers down to the front gate and making their day for the paparazzi, you mean? God, I wish something would happen! I can’t stand being penned in, and all this farting about over nothing.’

  Nothing, Anna considered, going downstairs. How could he see all that had happened as nothing? One moment he seemed chillingly detached. The next he was almost in a cold sweat with fear. And then mocking everyone. Were his attitudes all accountable to the aftermath of shock? You’d think the boy was growing up a monster. Jennifer had made an even worse job of mothering than herself. Small wonder Freddie had been so worried about the boy.

  She cheered herself with the thought that Rosemary Zyczynski would be dropping in later. She was young, attractive, hadn’t the drawback of a family connection. Maybe he would play along with her, open up, start to get things off his chest.

  ‘It’s still not clear who’s behind the scam,’ Yeadings remarked as he took over the drive homewards. It had begun to snow by the time he dropped Z off by Fordham minimarket to pick up something for supper. When she emerged she saw Mrs Pavitt getting into her car at the pavement edge. She bent to say hello through the lowered window, sticky little snowflakes feathering her hair and the shoulders of her sheepskin coat.

  ‘You on foot?’ the housekeeper demanded.

  ‘My Ford’s in dock. I’ve a hire car booked at the station.’

  ‘Best jump in then, or you’ll get soaked. It’s coming on fast. Snow in October! We don’t need winter this early.’

  She appeared in a chatty mood, clearing the passenger seat of bulging carrier bags and swinging them back behind her on the car’s floor. Z stepped in and clipped on her seat belt.

  ‘Poor old Huggett,’ Mrs Pavitt said, inviting comment.

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘It’s what’s been done to him. A brick through his front window. They told me in the post office. I guess that’d be Animal Rights nutters.’

  ‘Why them?’ Z asked.

  ‘Oh, the badger thing, don’t you know? Nobody ever made a fuss about him poaching, but baiting with savage dogs turns the stomach for most people.’

  Z said nothing, wondering how word had got around about Anna Plumley’s brush with the man. Huggett himself would be unlikely to broadcast it and Anna hadn’t been out to the village earlier.

  Mrs Pavitt’s smile had a sly little twist to it. She could have picked up the story while waiting at table, and Z wouldn’t put it past her to enjoy gossiping by phone. There were plenty agog for any titbits of news from the stricken manor house and Anna Plumley’s arrival would have stirred up curiosity.

  ‘I’ll be calling on Mrs Plumley later.’

  ‘Right. I’ll tell her. I’m heading back there now.’ For some reason she seemed suddenly uneasy.

  Z glanced sideways, alerted by a change in the woman’s voice. There seemed nothing to account for it. She was staring ahead, brushing steam from the windscreen with the back of one hand, then shot out into the evening traffic flow.

  At the station yard she drew up alongside the courtesy car. Z thanked her, getting out. Some elusive half-observation disturbed her about the short encounter. Something Pavitt had said or done? Whatever, it wasn’t coming through. It would remain one of those itchy little half-memories that wake you in the night and then you never get off to sleep again until morning.

  Best to change gear mentally and allow it to surface in its own good time. There was enough to chew over in the update Yeadings had just given her. For the present she must visit Mrs Plumley and see how Daniel could explain his behaviour of the afternoon.

  ‘Why that?’ Yeadings asked Salmon, echoing Z’s curiosity about the brick through Ben Huggett’s window.

  ‘Bit of lowlife flexing its puny muscles,’ the DCI offered as his opinion. ‘Must be plenty of folks have a grudge against the man. Done someone down over his poached rabbits, I’d guess.’

  Yeadings rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘More likely some connection with our having him in for questioning. It might be supposed he was grassing on someone. Maybe it’s a threat to keep him stumm about something he’d observed on his nightly prowls.’

  ‘Because he might try blackmail?’ Salmon queried.

  ‘Blackmail or pure spite. Anyway, it’s worth having another word with him. Last time his wife came along too, as his ruling conscience. So, better if Beaumont runs into him in the pub when the man’s relaxed, alone and more inclined to talk.’

  ‘And the balloon incident; do we drag the canal?’

  ‘The rusted ironmongery retrieved wouldn’t cover the cost of divers over a matter of days. No, the boy says it was his mobile phone he dropped and his grandmother agrees. Barley is more ready now to accept their word for it. For the present we’ll leave it there. Daniel Hoad has enough to answer for on the Ascot end, and I guess it’s time I saw Fallon about our enquiries at the foundry.’

  Bertie Fallon was seething. ‘For God’s sake,’ he greeted Yeadings when he materialised, ‘what right have you lot to keep me hanging about like this? A whole working day wasted over some daft idea old Freddie had buzzing in his head. And what the hell did you need to go down to Bristol for? I could have told your man anything you needed to know right here.’

  ‘You were free to leave at any time,’ the Boss told him. ‘You’re not under arrest. Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘I went to the canteen for lunch and they’ve brought me tea since, but that’s not the point. I demand an explanation.’

  Yeadings took the empty seat opposite and nodded Beaumont alongside. ‘For everyone’s convenience we are taping this interview. You will receive a copy at the conclusion and be asked to sign a receipt.’

  Beaumont switched on the recorder, stated date and time, and they identified themselves for the tape.

  Yeadings resumed. ‘Now, Mr Fallon, I will repeat my colleague’s question. What was the nature of Mr Hoad’s phone conversation with you on Wednesday, October 18th?’

  ‘I’ve told your Inspector Salmon ten times over. Freddie ordered a meeting for the following Monday. As you know, we never made it. He’d been dead two days by then.’

  ‘Did he mention any agenda for this meeting?’

  ‘It wasn’t to be that formal. We’d have lunch together at a pub midway, where we’ve met before. I booked a table for twelve-thirty.’

  ‘To discuss what?’

  ‘God knows. Finance, I guess. He saw to the business side. My line’s production.’

  ‘You must have been curious. This seems to have come out of the blue.’

 
Fallon’s forehead puckered. ‘I did wonder. He asked me to bring records from Personnel. Well, Human Resources they call it now. He wanted it kept quiet that I was removing them from the office. I wondered whether …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If he was running short of capital; was he going to put on a squeeze, demand wholesale sackings.’

  ‘Did you have any reason to think he had money troubles?’

  ‘Not till then. He’d always seemed to be rolling in it. Whenever we needed to expand he’d usually look the plans through, ask a few questions, then OK them right away. Easy about further outlay. Then I thought — what if the family … Well, his wife was spoilt, always demanded the best of everything. Only she was supposed to have private income from her arty stuff. But I know that a couple of months back Freddie had removed his son from an expensive school and sent him to a local one as a day boy …’

  ‘You were worried.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be? Freddie had sounded tense, not a bit like himself, and he wouldn’t give me any inkling over the phone. There’s a long list of orders we’re part-way through, and a good-sized workforce who could be thrown on the market if the firm goes bottom up.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that. In fact, Mr Hoad’s worries concerned something going on at the Bristol end. You’d no hint of that yourself?’

  ‘My end? God, no. Is that what your Inspector was getting at? Hang on, man. You mean Salmon was simply keeping me out of the way while you served a search warrant!’

  Yeadings leaned back in his seat, head tilted as he suffered the man’s explosive rage. Fallon’s astonishment seemed genuine enough, but there was a lot to clear up before he could be let off the hook.

  ‘I’ll level with you, Mr Fallon,’ he said. ‘From what we discovered, it appears Mr Hoad was right to be concerned. He had received an anonymous letter suggesting there were irregularities at your factory, if not criminal activity. This is what we found …’

  Fallon boggled at him. ‘And you think I was behind this!’ he shouted as Yeadings finished. ‘As if eleven hours a day overseeing production isn’t enough, without you’d have me falsifying other departments’ paperwork!’

  Yeadings sat back and waited.

  ‘It involves a bit more than paperwork,’ Beaumont challenged. ‘Somebody’s raking in a fortune channelling salaries for fictitious staff. Small wonder Hoad wanted a word with you. And very convenient he got killed when he did, wouldn’t you say, Mr Fallon?’

  Fallon’s jaw sagged. ‘Oh my God? You’re not thinking I …? Me harm old Freddie? You’re bloody stark staring mad! Who the hell was the informer, and why didn’t he come to me about it?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Beaumont suggested, ‘because he, or she, was pretty sure you were involved in the scam yourself.’

  Yeadings returned to his office to pick up his hat and coat. From a drawer he took out a copy of SOCO’s report on findings at the hut. He scanned it again rapidly, grunting at the described mess of smudged prints, the only recognisable latents being those of the housekeeper, young Daniel and his dead mother.

  So had the boy broken into the hut in the woods, curious about what went on there? Or had Jennifer invited her adolescent son to her funky partying? Even involved him as a novice in occult rites?

  Daniel’s dabs were clearest on one of the gilded masks, that of the ram. The goat head, with its prominent, slitted, pale eyes, revealed Jennifer’s fingerprints overlaid by Alma Pavitt’s. Whatever had gone on in that part of the woods began to look less innocent than orgiastic.

  Several items had been in contact with cocaine, and smoking apparatus had been unearthed from below the floorboards. A few minute pieces of white grit appeared to be from prepared ‘rocks’ of crack; which suggested that the pure drug’s mixture with bicarbonate of soda, and the microwave baking, had taken place there.

  Pavitt and the boy, sole survivors of the Manor’s carnage, would need to give an account of themselves, whether it was relevant or not to investigation of the deaths.

  How deeply was the boy involved in the drug scene? Yeadings asked himself. Had Jennifer used him as a teenage distributor to a local outlet? And would that be a further motive for his ditching his mobile phone, if it contained incriminating contact numbers?

  All those questions were for tomorrow, Yeadings decided. He’d have Daniel brought back to Area nick, to face himself and Rosemary Zyczynski, with the grandmother present as responsible adult when the boy was questioned. All softly, softly, and strictly according to the book. Certainly not an occasion to risk Salmon’s bigoted impatience or Beaumont’s black humour.

  And he’d have Dr Abercorn, as profiler, watch from the observation room with radio hook-up to his own ear-piece.

  Half-way home he remembered. Tomorrow, at midday, was the Hoads’ funeral. There could be no questioning until that was over. Angela and her parents were to be buried together in Fordham churchyard. A service for the other child, Monica, would take place at Ashridge on the following day. Although there was bound to be a great turnout of villagers at the church, both interments were for family only, with press and sightseers excluded. But not the police. Yeadings, as Senior Investigating Officer, was to attend, plus the Deputy Chief in full dress uniform.

  Chapter Twenty

  Anna Plumley, told in no uncertain terms by Daniel that he’d have nothing to do with arrangements, had called on the Vicar of Fordham, borrowed a Book of Common Prayer, checked on The Order for the Burial of the Dead, and decided that the full works went a bit over the top.

  Freddie, like many a decent and unimaginative man, hadn’t had a lot of time for formal religion. Nor she in her younger days. She remembered Jennifer’s confirmation as a formality of white dress, costly gifts from the godparents and little else. For the youngster herself the sacrament had been water off a duck’s back. As a married couple, Jennifer and Freddie had put in a church appearance at special festivals and times of national crisis and, according to the Reverend Piers Farrier, Freddie had covenanted generously. The children, although christened, had seldom attended church and never Sunday School.

  ‘Something comforting,’ Anna requested, ‘and not excessive. But I still prefer the language of 1662. And a couple of hymns with tunes everyone knows, so we can roar any lumps out of our throats.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ the Reverend Piers promised. He had made it tolerable.

  There was a modest buffet lunch arranged for afterwards at the Manor. Yeadings asked Z to drive him there. It would be a good time to buttonhole the housekeeper and Daniel.

  In the event he found that the invited guests included Fallon, both Huggetts and the Bartons.

  ‘By Graham Dent’s request. On account of Freddie’s will being read this afternoon,’ Anna Plumley explained.

  So my little diversion can wait until later, Yeadings decided.

  At a sign from Anna, Graham Dent, the solicitor from Aylesbury, moved off towards the dining room where extra chairs had been brought in, and in twos and threes the others drifted after him.

  He looked at them over his half-moon spectacles and gave a little nervous cough. ‘I must explain that normally when a married couple are involved in any unwitnessed disaster it is assumed that the older of the pair has predeceased the younger. That would mean that Mrs Jennifer Hoad, outliving her husband by however short a period, would benefit from any provisions made by him, rather than vice versa.

  ‘In this case it has been established by the police forensic experts that Mr Frederick Arthur Hoad was indeed the first of the family to be killed in the early hours of Saturday October twenty-first. It is his last will and testament that I am now about to read to you.’

  He began with announcing minor legacies to the Parish Church, the Samaritans, Oxfam, old friends, workers at the Bristol foundry, then summarised. ‘Provision has already been made for the future of the firm, all shares in the company passing to the only other member of the Board of Directors, Mr Norbert Fallon, by a se
parate deed which does not concern us here.

  ‘I will not trouble you with complicated measurements and rights of way at this moment, only to explain that the estate and grounds of Fordham Manor House and Fordham Manor Farm have already been divided by conveyance into two private residences and a separate agricultural unit.

  ‘The will continues thus, “To my trusted friends and employees Edwin (Ned) and Constance Barton I bequeath the freehold property of Fordham Manor Farm with its surrounding five acres as designated by deed of conveyance dated February twentieth in the year two thousand and two to be theirs in common absolutely and without impediment.”

  ‘There is also a condition of sale on the agricultural land which requires further limited acreage to be sold at market value to Edwin Barton upon his request.’

  He looked round at the amazed couple. ‘This is something we might well pursue together at some later date.’

  ‘Oh lordy,’ Barton said, turning to Anna. ‘When you mentioned the will, ma’am, I thought maybe a coupla hundred’d be nice. But this …!’

  Graham Dent controlled a smile and continued with ‘the property known as Fordham Manor;’ which to further amazement was bequeathed, together with fifty thousand pounds yearly for life “to my dear friend and mother-in-law Anna Plumley in the hope that she may long enjoy it and maintain a second home for her grandchildren, Daniel and Angela”.’

  Anna’s gaze swept to Daniel who sat with mouth agape, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Dent waited for the murmurs to be stilled before continuing. “‘To my relentless poaching friend and more recent gamekeeper Benjamin Huggett I give thanks for his comradeship and worldly wisdom. And I bequeath that part of Fordham Woods delineated in the relevant deed of conveyance dated February twentieth in the year two thousand and two for his absolute use maintenance or destruction as shall be his will”.’

  There followed details of a trust fund for the two children, with ‘the remainder of the estate whatsoever and wheresover bequeathed to my wife Jennifer Suzanne Hoad in the knowledge that this was all she ever expected of her inadequate husband.’