Suspicious Death

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it. Crisis over now, then, is it?’ Draco was visibly deflating, leaning back in his chair and steepling his hands beneath his chin.

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘I see. Good. Good. Well, I’ve made it clear, I hope, that I don’t expect this to happen again.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Abundantly.

  It had already been decided during the briefing, earlier, that the Salden investigation was to continue. The fact that Marcia had been dead before she entered the water had ensured that. With relief, Thanet escaped. Outside in the corridor he rolled his eyes in despair. It looked as though Draco was becoming his daily cross.

  Upstairs he cast a longing glance at the sanctuary of his room. The decorators had finished the woodwork and were now painting the walls. Tomorrow, they assured him, by tomorrow afternoon at the latest, he should be able to move back in.

  Spirits rising, Thanet returned to the CID room. He and Lineham had already discussed the timetable for the day and there was one interview, later on in the morning, that he was especially looking forward to. Meanwhile, another visit to the Hammers was indicated. Enquiries had established that Hammer had indeed been in the Crooked Door most of Tuesday evening, for the last hour or so muttering incomprehensible drunken complaints about some bitch who had stolen what was his by right. The landlord had assumed he was referring either to wife or girlfriend. There was one interesting discrepancy, however: soon after ten the landlord, judging that Hammer had had more than enough to drink, had refused to serve him any more and had ‘chucked him out’. Which could have placed Hammer in the vicinity of the bridge around the time when Marcia was crossing it.

  ‘And his wife says he didn’t get home till around half-past,’ said Lineham.

  ‘Yes, interesting, isn’t it? Twenty-five minutes to half an hour to walk a couple of hundred yards.’

  ‘Wonder what he was up to?’

  ‘If only we could get some more precise timings,’ Thanet sighed as he and Lineham set off for Telford Green.

  ‘I know. They all say “around such and such a time”, don’t they? Not surprising, of course, not many people go around checking the exact time for no particular reason. But it does mean you have to allow five or ten minutes either way … The one thing that does seem certain is that they were all in the right place at approximately the right time. Salden claims to have been sitting on a bench only a couple of hundred yards away, Edith Phipps was posting her letters, Josie’s mother was on her way home from the Manor, Councillor Lomax was on his way to the pub and now we find Reg Hammer was around too.’

  ‘What did you think of him, Mike?’

  There hadn’t been time, yesterday, to discuss their visit to the Hammers.

  ‘I bet she didn’t get those bruises by walking into a door.’

  ‘A wife-beater, if ever I saw one,’ agreed Thanet.

  ‘I can never understand why women put up with it.’

  ‘It’s a very complex matter, as you well know. Straightforward fear, in a lot of cases, I imagine, that they’ll have to suffer even worse violence if they leave or take legal action. And we both know how justifiable a fear that is. The number of cases you hear of, where a woman is harassed or beaten up or even killed by a violent ex-husband who won’t leave her alone. And it’s well known that some women just seem to go for violent men, repeating the same pattern over and over again.’

  ‘Is this Mrs Hammer his first wife?’

  ‘That was the impression I had, from Edith Phipps.’

  ‘Anyway, it did occur to me, a man like that, who’s used to hitting women around … We did say we thought that was probably how Mrs Salden died, when someone just lashed out at her during a quarrel …’

  ‘It’s a distinct possibility, I agree.’ Thanet wound down his window. It was a sparkling April day with a frisky wind chasing puffy white clouds across a sky the colour of the forget-me-nots in the cottage gardens.

  ‘In fact, the only suspect who doesn’t seem to have been around at the right time is Harry Greenleaf.’

  ‘The way things are going, I shouldn’t count on it.’

  They drove in silence for a while, then Lineham said, ‘Sir …’

  ‘Yes?’ An uncharacteristic diffidence in the Sergeant’s tone alerted Thanet to the fact that this was nothing to do with work.

  ‘I just wanted to say … Well, Louise and I had that talk, and you were right … I didn’t realise just how bored and frustrated she is. As I said, it’s not that she doesn’t love the kids, it’s just that … Well, we said it all the other night, didn’t we? Anyway, I think we’ve got something sorted out. She’s going to look around for a part-time job in September, when Mandy starts playgroup.’

  ‘And no more talk of you leaving the police?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Excellent.’ Thanet couldn’t help feeling a self-congratulatory glow.

  The old grey van was drawn up in front of Mrs Hammer’s cottage. Hammer and his wife were struggling with the base of a divan bed.

  ‘Having problems?’ said Thanet pleasantly.

  ‘Nothing we can’t deal with. Hold that leg up higher, Dor, and twist it a bit to your left. To your left, you stupid cow, not to your right! Now pull!’

  Pull?

  The bed slid out like a cork out of a bottle and Mrs Hammer went down on one knee. She had exchanged the black skirt for some faded jeans, the red sweater for a collarless man’s shirt rolled up to just below the elbows. Hammer glowered impatiently at her and she scrambled up, putting up a hand to lift the bush of hair out of her eyes. The wide sleeve of the shirt fell back, revealing fresh bruises in the tender flesh of the upper arm. She saw Thanet noticing and flushed, quickly lowered her hand.

  The van, Thanet realised, was crammed with household goods.

  Hammer picked up one end of the bed. ‘Come on,’ he said to his wife. She stooped to lift the other end and they started off up the short path to the open front door.

  ‘Moving in?’ said Thanet.

  He and Lineham followed the Hammers up the path.

  Hammer dropped his end of the bed with a crash and straightened up, turning to face Thanet with a belligerent expression. ‘What if we are?’

  ‘Rather pointless, in the circumstances, isn’t it? I imagine Mrs Salden was very careful to make sure the legal agreement over the purchase of the cottage was watertight. You’ll only have to move out again shortly.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it! Yesterday I got to thinking. What is the point in clearing the house out and leaving it empty? I’d just be handing it to them on a plate. I ought to be on the spot, defending my right to my property.’ Hammer cast a proprietorial glance over his shoulder. ‘No, if they want a fight, they can have it. I’m going to make that pouf Basset’s life hell until we find a way around that agreement.’ He took a dog-end from behind his ear and lit it, blowing smoke into Thanet’s face. He grinned. ‘Anyway, you know what they say, about possession being nine points of the law.’ He turned to pick up the bed again. ‘So now, if you don’t mind …’

  ‘Just one or two questions, Mr Hammer,’ said Lineham quickly.

  Hammer turned. ‘What now?’

  ‘It’s about Tuesday night,’ said Lineham. ‘Mrs Hammer, you said your husband arrived home at …’ He pretended to consult his notebook. ‘At about half-past ten.’

  She darted an uneasy glance at Hammer. ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘But according to the landlord of the Crooked Door, Mr Hammer, you were asked to leave soon after ten.’

  ‘Was I?’ Hammer shrugged. ‘If he says so. I can’t remember a blind thing about it. I was blotto.’ He folded his arms across his chest and a smug, self-congratulatory smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

  Presumably he thought it was macho to get drunk, thought Thanet.

  ‘We were wondering how it could take you nearly half an hour to walk a couple of hundred yards.’

  Hammer lifted his shoulders again. ‘Search me. Can’t rememb
er the first thing about it.’

  ‘Uh …’ said his wife.

  All three men looked at her and she shifted uncomfortably. ‘I was only going to say … I think someone brought Reg home, on Tuesday.’

  Of course! Thanet remembered the two men Lomax had seen in front of these cottages on his way to the pub that night. Why hadn’t he realised before that Hammer must have been one of them? But in that case, who was the other?

  Hammer and Lineham spoke together.

  ‘You never said …’

  ‘You didn’t mention this before …’

  She ignored Lineham, answered her husband. ‘You never asked me.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  Thanet wondered if Hammer ever addressed her in anything but that rough, almost brutal tone.

  ‘Dunno, do I?’

  ‘Stupid bitch,’ muttered Hammer as Lineham said, ‘When you say you think someone brought your husband home, what do you mean?’

  ‘Someone knocked at the door. When I opened it, Reg was sitting on the doorstep, leaning against the doorpost. And a man was walking away. He was disappearing around the bend by then, on his way to the bridge.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea who it was?’

  But she didn’t reply. She was staring at her husband.

  Hammer was gazing fixedly into the middle distance, mouth slightly agape, eyes narrowed, as if a thought had just struck him.

  ‘Mr Hammer?’ he said.

  Mrs Hammer clutched at her husband’s arm. ‘What’s the matter, Reg?’

  He shook her off. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But you …’

  ‘I said, it was nothing!’

  ‘Remembered something, have you?’ said Lineham.

  Hammer’s gaze focussed on the Sergeant. ‘If you think I’ve remembered shoving Marcia off the bridge, you’ve got another think coming. Look, we’ve still got a lot to do here. If you’ve quite finished …’

  ‘You must realise that things don’t look too good for you, Mr Hammer,’ said Thanet. ‘If you remember anything, anything at all, that you might have seen or heard on your way home from the pub that night, please let us know, immediately. It could be in your own interest.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m a lot more interested in saving my neck than you are.’

  ‘I hope you’re not thinking of leaving the area at the moment.’

  ‘If you want me, you’ll know where to find me.’

  ‘I should think Mrs Hammer’s mother is down on her knees praying he gets that cottage,’ said Lineham as they drove away. ‘Imagine having a son-in-law like that! Especially living in the same house!’

  ‘Don’t! It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  But Thanet sounded abstracted. His mind had already moved ahead to the next interview.

  This was the one he was looking forward to.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘He’s in the garage.’

  Mrs Pringle, wife of the former headmaster of Telford Green primary school, was a little dumpling of a woman with sausage-like curls and cheeks as rosy as a Spartan apple. She was leaning on an aluminium walking stick with a fat rubber tip.

  Thanet was intrigued by her expression as she told them where her husband was: a mixture of resignation, indulgence, and yes, he was certain of it, amused anticipation.

  What could Pringle be up to in the garage?

  ‘I’ll take you across.’

  ‘There’s no need, I’m sure we’ll find him.’

  But she insisted and Thanet and Lineham followed her slow but determined progress along the concrete path in front of the bungalow. Whatever Pringle did in his retirement, it wasn’t gardening. The small patch of grass in front of the house was raggedly mown and any flowers in the weed beds which surrounded it had long ago given up.

  They saw the long, low pre-cast concrete structure as soon as they rounded the corner of the house. It was at least twice as long as any normal garage. On the side facing the back garden was an unusually large window and Thanet was interested to see that steel shutters similar to the type used to protect lockup shops had been fitted to roll down over both this window and the sliding entrance doors.

  What could Pringle keep in there?

  Possible answers flicked through Thanet’s mind: a vintage car of exceptional value? Only the other day he had seen a photograph of a 1925 silver-plated Phantom Rolls in the paper. Bought for £2,000 in 1970, it was now worth £100,000. But here, in the garage of an old-age pensioner in Telford Green? Or perhaps Mr Pringle was one of those zany inventors who spends all his days engaged in working on some hopelessly impractical Icarus-style prototype, valuable only in his fevered imagination.

  ‘Gerald?’

  Mrs Pringle was struggling with the heavy door and Lineham went to help.

  She stood back, steadying herself on her stick as the door slid back, watching their astounded expressions with a mixture of triumph and amusement.

  Lineham gasped.

  The entire garage was taken up by a waist-high, landscaped model railway layout of incredible size and complexity: hills and valleys encircled a small town of houses, shops, hotels, pubs and car parks; there were tunnels, bridges and viaducts; stations and sidings; row after parallel row of rails; and, above all, dozens of exquisitely fashioned goods and passenger trains, many of which were racing around the tracks in dizzyingly impressive patterns of movement. In the centre space, supervising all this frantic activity with an expression of blissful absorption, stood a tall, crane-like elderly man with sparse grey hair and benign blue eyes which swivelled now in the direction of his wife as she spoke.

  ‘Someone to see you, Gerald.’

  Lineham had forgotten about work. Like a man in a dream he stepped forward, eyes devouring the wonders laid out before him. He shook his head in amazement. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he breathed.

  Pringle recognised genuine enthusiasm when he saw it and within seconds he and the Sergeant were involved in a conversation larded with technical terms Thanet never knew existed. Amused, he waited patiently. It would be easy this time to get the witness to open up to them; Lineham was preparing the ground beautifully.

  ‘D’you hear that, sir? Seven hundred and fifty feet of track!’ Lineham turned a dazed face towards Thanet, his expression changing as he registered the look on Thanet’s face. He glanced back at Pringle, then at the layout. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he muttered. ‘Got a bit carried away.’

  ‘And why not?’ Thanet smiled at Pringle. ‘It’s not every day one sees something like this. To someone keen on model railways it must seem like one of the Seven Wonders of the World.’

  Pringle was beaming with pride. ‘It’s taken me thirty years to build.’

  ‘And the Inspector’ll be standing here for another thirty listening to you talk about it if you have your way!’ said his wife, her tone that of an indulgent mother addressing a wayward child. ‘It’s half-past ten, time for elevenses. Come into the house, Inspector, you’ll be more comfortable there.’

  Pringle ducked out of sight and a moment or two later crawled from under the layout.

  ‘Getting a bit old for this,’ he grumbled as he slowly stood up, unfolding his angular frame as if it were hinged rather than jointed. He took his wife’s arm, adjusting himself to her pace as they set off along the concrete path, looking for all the world like Jack Sprat and his wife after an especially amicable meal.

  ‘Didn’t know you were keen on model railways,’ said Thanet to Lineham in an undertone.

  Lineham looked a bit sheepish. ‘I don’t actually collect any more. Can’t afford to. But I will again one day, when the children are off our hands. I’ve got all my stuff packed away in boxes.’

  ‘You start the questioning,’ Thanet said hurriedly as they approached the front door. ‘After that, we’ll play it by ear.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘You go in there and sit down,’ said Mrs Pringle, ‘and I’ll make some coffee.’

  ‘There’ was a cosy book-
lined sitting-room overlooking the wilderness of a back garden. The three men sat down in comfortable chintz-covered armchairs, leaving a conspicuously orthopaedic chair for Mrs Pringle if she chose to join them. Despite the warmth of the day the gas fire was full on and the room was uncomfortably hot.

  ‘It’s about Marcia, I suppose.’ Pringle leaned sideways to take a pipe out of his pocket and began to scrape it out, tapping the dottle into a thick glass ashtray on the table beside his chair.

  Thanet immediately began to wish he could smoke as well, but it was too early in the interview, the atmosphere was not yet sufficiently relaxed for him to suggest it. Besides, two pipes in one room … Lineham would hate it.

  ‘I gather you’re not satisfied it was an accident.’ Pringle was looking at Thanet.

  ‘Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘We’ve heard the rumours, of course. You can’t have secrets in a place the size of Telford Green.’

  ‘What rumours exactly?’ said Lineham.

  Pringle blew through the stem of his pipe to make sure it was clear and flicked a mischievous glance at Thanet. ‘That Marcia was variously shot, strangled, stabbed or – most mundane and therefore probably true – pushed off the bridge.’

  Lineham raised his eyebrows. ‘By …?’

  ‘The most popular choice is her husband.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  Pringle shrugged. ‘Not really. Because he was closest to her, I suppose, and therefore the obvious person. But there have been one or two outsiders coming up on the rails over the last twenty-four hours. Reg Hammer, for instance. Old Mrs Hammer was as good as a public-address system and she made no secret of the fact that she’d applied to join Mrs Salden’s house-purchase scheme. Everyone was wondering what Reg would do when he found out, and the fact that you’ve been to see him has not passed unnoticed. Then there’s Edith Phipps, because Marcia apparently gave her the sack that afternoon. Don’t ask me how that whisper started. And there’s Grace Trimble, too. Rumour has it that she went up to the Manor that night breathing fire. Perhaps she doesn’t approve of the amount of time Josie seems to be spending up at the Manor …’