Classic in the Dock

by Amy Myers

  ‘There’ll be work for me to do here,’ he replied – if this could be termed a reply.

  I could hear police sirens now and cars drawing up nearby. We stopped talking, Nan and I, as we watched the police approaching through the hundred yards of woodland towards us, calling out to us. Then they were with us. Two at first, then more.

  Whatever work Nan had in mind, it wasn’t yet needed as the police went into action and we withdrew as indicated to the far side of the pond, as they put up their cordon. It didn’t take long for the whole caboodle to assemble at the distant roadside, judging by the row of vans I heard drive up, crime scene officers, forensic personnel, paramedics and more. It was obvious this was a suspected major crime incident, as the proximity to Plumshaw Manor would have been obvious.

  And so it all began. The invasion that a death such as this brings in its wake seemed all the more incongruous in its woodland setting. We were ushered back into the trees with the cordon taping off the path I had travelled along, but we could still see the tent over the body, and the white-suited forensic team moving around. As I had expected, DCI Brandon was very much in charge as the Senior Investigating Officer. He and I are well acquainted, verging on being cautious and temporary partners when it suits him, and if we need a bridge between us, Dave Jennings in the Car Crime Unit supplies it.

  The question was, assuming this was indeed Hugh Compton’s body: was his death one of those cases for partnership or not? At the moment I sincerely hoped not, but the issue hadn’t yet arisen and in any case my personal friendship with Giovanni (although currently wavering) would rule it out.

  Nan and I remained onlookers until the PC guarding us was detailed to detach himself along with Nan. They were replaced by Brandon. He’s quiet, of medium height and size, in fact a medium everything sort of man, until he turns his policeman’s eyes on you. They didn’t seem to be on me yet, thankfully, as he spoke professional to professional. Once upon a time it would have been a suspicious ‘You again?’

  ‘Here on Dave’s case, are you?’ is what he in fact asked me.

  ‘Yes. Just begun. Nothing of relevance to this – yet. Could well be though. One strange thing, don’t you think?’ I’d refrained from discussing this with Nan, but it had struck me immediately.

  Brandon glanced thoughtfully at me. ‘The clothes?’

  He doesn’t miss much. ‘Yes. Hugh Compton went missing immediately after a formal dinner, so the Comptons’ statements read. Corduroys unlikely then.’

  ‘Slow down, Jack. Early days. He could have changed before he went to the barn.’ He looked over at Nan. ‘Did he find the body or did you?’

  ‘He did. Just before I came up that path. He was on the opposite side of the pond.’

  ‘Did you hear anything as you approached?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What were you doing here?’

  ‘Looking for Nan. He’s a village character.’ I decided to keep the word ‘witch’ to myself.

  Brandon doesn’t do characters, only witnesses. ‘Right. Later, Jack. Both of you. Can you hang on here?’ It wasn’t really a question and I hoped it was leading to a request to keep on poking my nose in, but report to him.

  I nodded. ‘Hugh Compton, I presume?’

  ‘Looks like it. I’m going to the manor now.’

  Nan and I were detailed to be fitted out with scene shoes, give our details for the scene attendance log, and then to return to his cottage with his faithful PC, to await our turn for official interview. To my relief, the PC indicated he’d stay outside Puddledock Cottage although he hinted that a cup of coffee would go down nicely. I welcomed the chance to talk to Nan alone.

  It was as weird walking with this six footer rippling with muscles under the black T-shirt and heading for a fairy-tale cottage as it had been to see a corpse in that peaceful little duck pond, a calm now vanished amidst the paraphernalia of suspicious death.

  The cordon took in all the paths leading to and from the pond, so we crunched our way through the woodland itself. What was Nan’s story? I wondered, to take my mind off that body. And why was Nan deemed a witch? This business of looking and seeing didn’t quite add up to witchcraft. The outside of the cottage and garden were immaculate and that didn’t sit easily with the abode of a wicked witch in the wood. Early roses were coming into bloom, clinging to the walls of the house with lattice windows peeping in their midst. Once, the cottage would probably have been thatched, but now it had a well-weathered tiled roof.

  Nan carefully removed his boots as I did my loafers for shoe-printing and we padded our way in scene shoes into his cottage. The door was unlocked, and there was probably no need to lock anything with a reputation and physique such as his. Inside, the house was as neat as a shiny pin, although it struck me as empty of atmosphere, which suggested he lived here alone. I followed him into the kitchen, where he proceeded to make ground coffee in a jug, which smelled wonderful. This task accomplished and a mug duly delivered to the PC, Nan brought our two mugs into the ‘parlour’. Its comfortable chairs, sofa and watercolour landscapes adorning the walls demanded the use of this old-fashioned word. It told me nothing of the man, however. I could see only one photograph and that was of a middle-aged woman smiling somewhat grimly at the onlooker. The style of her hair and clothes suggested she would now be in her eighties.

  ‘My mum,’ Nan told me, as I looked at it. ‘Died three years back.’

  ‘Did she come from the States or was that your grandparents’ origin?’

  He shrugged. ‘British as far as I know.’

  ‘You were born here?’

  I had had a vision of a birth aboard a whaling ship, owned by his grandparents. It was a big jump from whaling to Puddledock Cottage.

  ‘Lived here fifteen years or so. Mr Compton said they had this place going. Dad and Mum liked it. Puddledock, see? House by a muddy pool.’ He didn’t seem disposed to go on talking and we sat quietly for a while. This wasn’t the time to question him further about his family. He’d have enough to face from Brandon.

  He eventually broke the silence himself. ‘How come that body got in the pool, eh? What would Mr Compton be doing there? I’m up to date with my rent, so he weren’t coming here.’

  I had no idea how much was generally known about Hugh Compton’s disappearance or Giovanni’s part in it, but I had to produce some kind of answer to keep the conversation alive. ‘Tripped and fell, perhaps.’

  This was deservedly dismissed. ‘Water not deep enough. Not in Puddledock pond. Two, three feet maybe. I’d have seen him there.’

  ‘When did you last go by it?’

  ‘Policeman asked me that. Maybe four days back. Been too busy at work.’

  As a witch did he mean? ‘What line are you in?’

  ‘Handyman. Work at The Larches Hotel. And at the pub. And at the church. I like that.’

  ‘Both Makepeace and Compton territory. A foot in both camps,’ I observed.

  He looked at me as though I had disappointed him. ‘I can do a lot that way. Make … peace,’ he added. ‘That’s my other job.’

  He then cut off my instinctive reply of ‘how do you do that’ by asking, ‘What else are you here for, mister?’

  Fair enough. ‘I’m a classic car restorer and do odd jobs for the Kent Car Crime Unit. Peter Compton’s Land Rover has been stolen from the manor.’

  ‘Police,’ he said to himself more than to me, I thought. ‘What can they do, eh?’

  ‘They try.’

  ‘Can’t see inside a man, they can’t.’ He didn’t seem hostile but added abruptly, ‘I’m good at putting things right.’

  Careful, Jack, I thought. ‘Inside people or outside?’ I kept it as matter of fact as I could.

  ‘Mum was more outside. I’m best inside or maybe they’re both the same. Unless you see inside how can you deal with outside? I can do my bit outside too though. Want to see?’

  See? Was I going to be a guinea pig? Hypnotized? I followed him uneasily but I went – partly
through curiosity and partly because it would take my mind off Hugh Compton.

  He led me back through the kitchen, opened a door to an adjoining room and I followed him inside. Once again I was taken by surprise. This could have been a pharmacy with its white cupboards, worktops, spotless jars all neatly labelled, and distilling apparatus.

  ‘Mum’s still room,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘I do a bit now and then. When wanted. I’m good at rosemary bruise ointment and itches and things. Mum was keen on freckle remover and honey face cream so I picked up a lot of that too.’

  I decided not to press too far into this. The idea of Nan dabbling in facial products fascinated me though. ‘Did your father help?’

  ‘Years back, maybe. He liked it here. Safe in Puddledock, he said, and then he died. Just Mum and me then,’ he added.

  The son looking after the widowed mother. It was a familiar pattern, and yet something wasn’t familiar about it. This gentle giant must have seen the battle between the Makepeaces and the Comptons at close quarters and must be tough himself. He worked for a living, so what had he been doing out by the pond in mid afternoon on a working day?

  I walked back to the crime scene when Brandon’s sergeant arrived to interview Nan and to tell me I was wanted there. I had a connection with this case on three counts: first, because I had been so early on the scene; secondly because of the Dave Jennings job and thirdly because of Giovanni. It was the last that made me want to run like hell. If, however, the clothes Hugh Compton had been wearing had not been those he had on in the barn, that was surely a big plus in Giovanni’s favour.

  When I arrived, there was no sign of Brandon, only the forensic operators going about their work. I announced myself to the PC in charge of the scene attendance log and, by the time I was properly equipped with a scene suit, I could see Brandon walking back with a woman PC, but not with Paul Ranger, as I had expected. Instead, Hazel Compton was with him. I was appalled. She was Hugh’s mother, so was this identification task by her choice? I couldn’t believe it would be Brandon’s. Underneath the wooden face he’s reasonably sensitive.

  Brandon indicated that I should join them, and reluctantly I did so. It was not a time for conversation. Hazel Compton didn’t even register my arrival and looked glassy-eyed with shock.

  ‘It’s some mistake,’ she kept repeating. ‘It can’t be Hugh. It can’t.’

  She seemed to regain some composure as she went into the tent with Brandon and the PC, but that quickly changed.

  Everyone heard that scream. It must have chilled more than me to the bone. Then there was another one, and another. I stepped away as she was supported out of the tent and the first-aider rushed over to help. He was pushed aside as she clung to Brandon, partly for support but it seemed more like an attack as she pummelled him with her fists.

  ‘It’s him,’ she was screaming. ‘Hugh!’

  ‘She insisted on coming,’ Brandon explained, when eventually he was free to talk to me. ‘She didn’t want anyone else with her, not the stepdaughter and not the husband.’

  ‘It’s natural enough for her to take it badly.’ Badly, yes, I thought, but even so there was something unexpected about her collapse that I couldn’t define. I wasn’t going to forget that scream for a long, long time.

  ‘He’s been missing for nearly a week, but it’s the shock,’ Brandon said soberly. ‘People don’t conform to the norm under pressure.’ He looked shaken himself.

  ‘Do you know yet how long the body had been in the water? All the time he’d been missing?’

  Brandon shot me a look, as it must have been clear that I had Giovanni on my mind. ‘The provisional verdict is about two to three days, judging by the skin condition. Beginning to detach itself. He’d been stabbed several times in a fairly frenzied attack, although there wasn’t much blood left on the clothes.’

  ‘Giovanni’s been free since Saturday afternoon.’ I knew he wouldn’t have spent time carting bodies around but Brandon wasn’t going to think that way.

  ‘Staying with you, is he?’ He looked sympathetic.

  ‘Only until yesterday morning; he’s now in the village with Len Vickers. His wife’s come over to keep him company.’

  Brandon said nothing. No better way to rile me.

  ‘Is the theory,’ I asked, ‘that Giovanni hid the body, then crept over on Saturday or Sunday by dead of night to remove the body from its hiding place and plonk it in the pond? Not possible.’

  Then I remembered Giovanni had told me he was going out on Sunday – and that I hadn’t told Brandon that, so I had to add, ‘He has the use of a BMW rental car. He picked it up before he came to Frogs Hill on Saturday and used it on Sunday.’

  ‘So that line’s possible,’ he said. ‘Too risky where the body was and there are no signs yet of a struggle here.’

  He was wrong – I was struggling hard. ‘And a darn sight more risky to lug bodies around. Pointless too, since it eluded your searches the first time.’

  He let me off lightly. ‘Not looking good for Donati, Jack. The DNA results of the blood on the front and back seating and the car door, as well as in the barn, show it’s Compton’s all right and there’s plenty of it. That plus the trace evidence looks more than enough. He was drugged, certainly, but easy enough to do that himself.’

  Just as Giovanni had predicted. I tried another tack. ‘But the clothes. Giovanni wouldn’t have had a change of clothes ready for Hugh. Have you checked them yet?’

  Brandon looked even more sympathetic. ‘Sorry. Mrs Compton says the family saw him after he changed his clothes that night and he has the same shirt on now. Seems to have dressed in a hurry though.’

  My last hope snapped in two. Brandon was right. It wasn’t looking good for Giovanni.

  ‘This Land Rover job for Dave,’ I managed to say more reasonably. ‘Are you going to tell him he’ll have to fire me?’ To me it was a foregone conclusion.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it. You’re personally involved: black mark. On the other hand, I’ve known you long enough to know you’ll turn in anything you find out impartially. You’ve just told me about that rental car for a start. Sometimes you turn up results, so I’m willing to give you a long leash, if you keep a low profile.’

  I handed in my scene suit and walked through the woods towards my car, still parked at the manor. I was mentally reeling from what had happened and what might happen now that the body had been discovered. Add the super-heavy layer of my personal turmoil about Giovanni and Louise and I was completely thrown. Did I want Brandon’s ‘long leash’? Think of it another way. Did I think Giovanni guilty? No. I clung to the fact that Giovanni could have no possible motive for killing Compton. Sudden row? What row could have broken out that was so serious as to demand physical attack? At least Louise was not part of that conundrum. She had never met the Comptons as far as I knew. It began to dawn on me, however, that perhaps as far as I knew was not as far as I had hitherto believed.

  I forced myself to concentrate on the situation itself, not to think about Louise. Put that way, I’d no choice. I was going on with the case, whose ingredients were:

  One dead body.

  A grieving family – which for nearly a week had had to face the fact that Hugh might be dead. Nevertheless some of that family might have their own reasons for wanting Hugh dead.

  Feuding villagers with their own reasons for wanting Hugh out of the way.

  One Italian who had never met Hugh until the day he died.

  Which out of the latter three was the most likely to be behind Hugh’s death? On statistics alone, the family. But in this case? And if it was a family-based murder was it just coincidence that Giovanni’s visit had been timed for the day it happened? It would be an elaborate murder plan, involving drugging Giovanni, putting Hugh’s body in Giovanni’s car, and driving him off to wake up without a clue as to what was going on. The rear seat of that Ferrari Daytona is hardly big enough for a third person to fit in both a deadweight Giovanni and a dead body
, yet to drive them separately would require the use of another car. Too cumbersome a scenario.

  Next: why the need to make another journey to pick up the body and transport it to the duck pond? Why such an elaborate plot to frame Giovanni when, if Hugh’s death was the object, he could have been killed at any time and in a much less risky way? Would any guest have served their purpose or was it Giovanni in particular? He was a stranger to them so perhaps he filled the role of unsuspecting visitor. No way, I realized. As a celeb, he would be a very bad choice in that role because the eyes of the world press would be focused on the case.

  Or, I wondered, was I looking at this pyramid the wrong way up? Was the central factor not Hugh or the family but the Alfa Romeo? With Hugh’s murder it would attract world attention and would be worth way over a million, if not several. Could that be a linchpin factor?

  Great thinking, Jack, I told myself crossly. How could it be? Hugh Compton didn’t own the car. His father did. I felt there was something to this theory, unsatisfactory though it was overall, but I couldn’t quite shake it into working.

  Then an insidious little voice inside me asked: are you trying to get away from seeing Giovanni as the central factor? That’s how the police doubtless saw it.

  I knew I should get back to Frogs Hill, find Len and then break the news of Hugh’s death to Giovanni, but I realized I was manufacturing reasons not to return until forced to do so. I knew all too well what the central core of that problem was: Louise. She was colouring every aspect of Frogs Hill, including its now problematic visitor, Giovanni.

  I convinced myself that there was work to do here in Plumshaw village before I returned, as Hugh’s death could equally be down to the status quo of the feud, one side of which I had never met – the Makepeaces. First, I gave way to temptation when I saw the barn door was open. My mission could wait.