The Work of a Narrow Mind

by Faith Martin

  ‘But the autopsy confirmed that a small ornamental brass poker would have fitted the bill?’ Sale asked.

  ‘Yes. The battering to her head was consistent with a heavy, rounded, thin metal implement. So it was probably the missing poker, but even though there was a fingertip search made in the garden and surrounding area, it was never found, and it was assumed that her killer took it away.’

  ‘And did Mrs Perkins’s house have a working fireplace sir?’ Hillary asked, always careful to use Steven’s title around anyone else.

  ‘No, her house was mainly oil central heating. She lived in a little hamlet called Caulcott, about five miles from the market town of Bicester,’ he added for Sale’s benefit. ‘Sylvia married her husband, a farm labourer called Joseph Perkins, not long after the war. They lived there all their married lives – nearly fifty years of it – and together they raised three daughters. Joseph worked on the local farm, but died out in the fields of a heart attack in …’ – he turned a page and consulted the information there – ‘June 1998. As I was saying, the house is now oil-heated – or was at the time of her death – but there would originally have been an old fireplace and working chimney of course. Like a lot of people, Sylvia kept an arrangement of dried flowers there’– he pointed out some more scene-of-crime photos ‘and decorated it with the brass fire screen and the fireplace set.’

  ‘Sounds like the killer didn’t necessarily come prepared then,’ Hillary said, speaking her thoughts out loud, again for the benefit of her new boss. ‘Selecting a murder weapon from the immediate vicinity usually indicates an unpremeditated crime, – unless, of course, it was meant to look that way, and the killer is trying to be clever.’

  ‘On the other hand, do the elderly usually make someone so angry with them, that after a furious argument, someone picks up a poker and brains them with it?’ Sale asked. He didn’t sound, Hillary noted, adversarial, but rather genuinely interested. She knew from what Steven had learned about him that he hadn’t handled that many murder inquiries in his career, and none as the senior investigating officer.

  ‘It’s not usual, certainly,’ Hillary conceded. ‘But just because you’re senior in years, doesn’t necessarily mean that all the old motives don’t still hold true.’

  ‘Money, sex, revenge, power,’ Steven quoted drily.

  ‘So who did get her money, sir?’ Hillary asked, going straight for the most likely on the list.

  Steven smiled. ‘Ah yes, that would be her eldest grandson, and the original SIO’s best bet. Robert ‘Robbie’ Grant.’ Steven shuffled some more papers, and sighed. ‘Sylvia’s eldest daughter, Mary Rose, had two children, Robert and Julie. Julie apparently is doing well, married, kids, and works in a Boots store in Oxford. But Robbie has a sheet as long as your arm. And started early.’ Steven held out a piece of paper, then hesitated visibly about which of the two people seated opposite him he should give it to. ‘Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to make duplicates.’

  ‘Please, give it to Mrs Greene,’ Roland Sale said at once. ‘She’s the SIO.’

  ‘Call me Hillary,’ Hillary said at once. Whilst she’d never had any trouble in being called DI Greene, being called Mrs Greene always made her feel like screaming.

  Still, perhaps someday she could be called Mrs Crayle instead, a voice popped up mischievously in the back of her head. With an annoyed mental flick she kicked the thought aside and reached for the paper Steven was handing her, giving it a quick once over.

  ‘Started young, with shoplifting,’ she read out loud. ‘A bit of aggravated assault, time in Juvie, before heading up the scale a bit.’ She checked the dates. ‘At the time of his grandmother’s death, it was still petty stuff. Now he’s serving time for robbery. Held up a shop with a mate with a shotgun. Charming. And you say he was Sylvia’s main legatee? What are we talking about exactly? Did she own the house?’

  ‘No, the Perkinses were strictly working class, and always rented. But he had all her life savings, the contents of the house, and her car. All told, about twenty-five grand, I suppose. That’s a lot of money for a kid like Grant.’

  ‘And I dare say he went through it like water?’ Sale put in grimly. He was thinking that the nest egg had probably represented years of hard work and scrimping and saving on the part of the hard-working grandparents. But it wouldn’t take a scrote like Robbie Grant much time to blow the lot.

  ‘Within six months,’ Steven confirmed. ‘He wrecked the car during a race with some of his mates, and bust his leg pretty bad. The rest went on booze and probably his drug of choice.’

  ‘And the original SIO liked him for it?’ Hillary repeated. ‘Just who was that, sir?’

  ‘DI Linda Jarvis. Know her?’

  ‘Heard of her,’ Hillary said, thinking back. ‘Tall woman, dark hair, I think I’ve seen her around the station house. Heard she was good. I’d like to catch up with her and compare notes.’ She turned to Sale and smiled. ‘When you investigate cold cases, the original senior investigating officers can sometimes take it personally. You know, it can often feel as if you’re second guessing them, or that opening their case sends the message that you don’t think they were up to the job, or that you think you’re better than they are, that kind of thing. Needless to say, that’s hardly ever the case. I’m sure Linda Jarvis did a first class job. And I always like to get the original SIO on board if I can.’

  ‘Afraid you can’t this time, Hillary,’ Steven said quietly. ‘DI Jarvis died last year. Car crash the other side of High Wycombe. One of those multi-car smashes in fog. Some stupid idiot was going too fast behind her and….’ He shrugged graphically.

  ‘Shit,’ Hillary said simply.

  ‘Yes. Will that be a problem?’ Sale asked, again with what sounded like genuine curiosity.

  ‘Not necessarily, sir,’ Hillary said. She liked it that Sale was prepared to ask questions when he didn’t know something, instead of making out like he knew it all. She was beginning to agree with Steven’s favourable impression of the man. ‘Although it’s easier to have the original SIO to refer to, it’s not as if opening a cold case is merely a process of repeating what they’ve already done. What would be the point of that? The forensics people are the ones to go to if it comes to going over old evidence with new, improved techniques. What we do here, is reinvestigate the old-fashioned way, using a different pair of eyes. I try and winkle out any lead, no matter how small or insignificant, that the original team might have missed, or dismissed as being too tenuous. As you know, in any fresh murder inquiry, the first forty-eight hours are crucial.’

  She turned a little in her chair, glad to see that Sale was listening attentively. ‘As you yourself know, in the rush and need to get results fast, you always have to prioritize what’s important and what’s less so. Also, as time goes by, an investigation that’s stalled or not going anywhere, starts to bleed personnel, and then being allocated enough time becomes a problem, as the department gets other cases piled on top of their workload. There’s always only just so much that you can realistically do. That’s where investigating a cold case is very different and comes into its own. For a start, both my team and myself will be dedicated to the Perkins’ case exclusively. What’s more, there’s no rush, and no pressure; we can take our time and check things out in a way that DI Jarvis and her team never had the luxury of doing. There’s bound to be T’s she didn’t cross, and I’s she didn’t dot. And you never know when one little detail might prove crucial.’

  Sale nodded. ‘Yes. I can see the advantages of that. But surely, after the passage of time, aren’t things always that much harder? In this case, 2010 isn’t that long ago, but I know you’ve closed cases where twenty years or so have passed.’

  ‘Yes, but sometimes, having that distance can be a good thing as well,’ Hillary pointed out. ‘Witnesses who were too scared to speak at the time, can feel more sanguine about opening up now. After all, “years ago” can seem like another planet away. Also things can become clearer with the pas
sage of time that weren’t so obvious then. For instance if someone kills a victim for money, they lie low before taking advantage of it. Then, years later, when we reopen the case, and find they’re living the life of Riley without any adequate explanation for it, they suddenly stand out like a sore thumb. It’s rarely as simple as that, obviously, but there are signs to look out for. So, like most cases, it’s a matter of swings and roundabouts.’

  Sale nodded, then glanced across at Steven. ‘Sorry to interrupt. You were saying Robbie Grant was the number one suspect? I take it that DI Jarvis wasn’t able to bring it home to him though?’

  ‘No. He had the motive all right, but Jarvis couldn’t put him at the scene of the crime. His alibi was so-so, but there were no witnesses who saw him at his grandmother’s house that day, and no forensic evidence placing him there,’ Steven carried on. ‘Not that he visited the old lady all that much. But it seems that he was the apple of her eye nonetheless. Who can say why?’

  ‘She had all daughters, sir,’ Hillary pointed out philosophically. ‘And Robbie was her first male grandchild. It’s perhaps not surprising that she’d have a soft spot for the boy.’

  ‘And besides, she was of the generation that would have thought the oldest male relative should get everything anyway, I suspect,’ Sale added pragmatically.

  Hillary nodded and caught Steven’s eye and smiled slightly. Yes, the new super might not be all that experienced in their particular field, but he was on the ball all right.

  ‘So, was he the only suspect?’ Hillary asked, pushing on.

  ‘No, there were others. Linda Jarvis found someone with a motive other than money,’ Steven admitted, with a small grin. ‘Care to guess which on the list it was?’

  ‘Sex,’ Hillary said promptly.

  Sale blinked.

  ‘Right,’ Steven said. ‘Or rather jealousy, which stems from the same thing. Like a lot of senior citizens, Sylvia was a member of a social club for the elderly. Small rural communities especially rely on them to organize day trips and outings, provide a Christmas dinner, entertainment nights, bingo, fetes, what-have-you, anything to stave off the dreaded disease of loneliness.’ He waved a hand in the air. ‘Four of the local villages clubbed together to form the Forget-me-not Club. According to witnesses, Sylvia and a woman called Ruby Broadstairs were both interested in the same man: one Maurice Ritter.’

  ‘A bit of a silver fox, huh?’ Hillary asked with a grin.

  ‘Apparently. A widower, seventy-six, with all his own teeth, one presumes. He was much sought after on dance nights it seems,’ Steven said. Like all coppers, he knew that sometimes you needed levity to brighten a grim and ghastly situation.

  ‘His cha-cha-cha was legendary?’ Sale put in with a smile of his own.

  ‘More like his tango, if it got Sylvia and Ruby all steamed up,’ Hillary riposted.

  ‘Whatever,’ Steven said, with a grin. ‘Again, according to what Jarvis’s team found out, Ruby and Sylvia genuinely generated a good bit of ill-will and ill-feeling between them over this Maurice character.’

  ‘Not coming to blows, surely?’ Sale said, sounding aghast.

  ‘Nothing that physical, I think,’ Steven agreed.

  ‘But again it came to nothing?’ Hillary pressed. ‘Did Ruby have her own transport for instance?’ she added.

  ‘Yes, and no,’ Steven said, answering her questions in order. ‘She lived in one of the neighbouring villages and relied on her son to run her around. Nobody saw Ruby or her son’s car around Caulcott at the time of Sylvia’s death. Don’t forget we’re talking about a small rural hamlet here, so an unknown car would stick out, even in this day and age.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ said Hillary, determinedly playing devil’s advocate, ‘if it’s that small a community, most potential witnesses were probably out working on the farm, or had commuted to London, or wherever. Most rural places around here nowadays are a mixture of the relatively wealthy white-collar workers who motor up to London or Birmingham, but like to actually live in a country retreat. And people who still actually work the land and rely on tied cottages. So what are the chances that anybody would be in their homes, and nosy enough to see which car passes by, or who’s visiting who?’

  ‘True,’ Steven said. ‘But luckily for DI Jarvis, there were several people of Sylvia’s age living nearby who were a good source of reliable information. Unfortunately most of it was negative.’

  Hillary, sighed. ‘So, nobody could put the scarlet woman at the scene?’

  Steven’s lips twitched. ‘No.’

  ‘Anyone else in the frame?’ Sale asked.

  Steven lifted his hand in the air and rocked it gently from side to side. ‘Iffy. It seems that Sylvia Perkins didn’t get on with one of the local farmers and landowner, Randy Gibson. And since he’s always going to be around, with or without a tractor and/or a sheepdog trotting at his heels, nobody would have particularly noticed his comings and goings anyway.’

  ‘This is the same farmer that her husband worked for?’ Hillary asked, sitting up a bit straighter.

  ‘Yes, it is. And therein, as they say, lies the rub. According to family and friends, Sylvia always blamed Mr Gibson for her husband’s death.’

  ‘But you said it was a heart attack, right?’ Sale asked, a little confused.

  ‘Anything dodgy about it, sir?’ Hillary put in.

  ‘No, not as such. Doctors were happy, and there were witnesses. But Joseph Perkins was nearly seventy at the time of his death. He was one of those who never retires, apparently. But it seems Sylvia had wanted him to do so for some time. She complained bitterly to her daughters that Gibson was pressurizing him to keep on working long hours, and again, according to Sylvia, the pay wasn’t what it should be.’

  Hillary leaned forward slowly. ‘What did the farmer have to say about it?’

  ‘Oh, he maintained that he had just been doing Joe a favour. Keeping him on, even though physically he was long past his best. Said he did it because Joe was always nagged at home and needed the excuse to get out of the house. Says he didn’t give him any of the more strenuous jobs to do any more.’

  ‘And did he admit to paying him low wages?’ Hillary asked.

  ‘Yes, eventually. But he claimed that was because Joe wasn’t worth full wages anymore anyway. He maintained that Joe had no problem with it.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Hillary said, then did a bit of mental arithmetic. ‘But her husband had been dead twelve years or more by the time she was killed.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So it all seems a bit tenuous. Why did it take so long for things to come to a head between them? If, in fact, it did?’

  ‘ DI Jarvis thought that too, but she mentioned it in her report because everyone kept telling her that the victim had a “running feud” with Gibson. Always bad-mouthing him, and going out of her way to attend council meetings to vote against him when he asked for some small bit of planning permission, that sort of thing. She even wrote to a Ramblers Association, urging them to use some defunct footpath across Gibson’s land just to inconvenience him.’

  ‘Ah,’ Hillary said. ‘So the thinking is, she might have come up with some other piece of harassment that finally hit home. Makes sense. After years of putting up with her, he might have confronted her and then just lost his rag.’

  ‘It fits in with the unpremeditated argument,’ Sale agreed. ‘He calls on her, trying to either make peace or talk her out of whatever it is she’s up to. They argue, it gets heated, he loses his temper, looks around for something and … whack.’

  They were all silent for a moment, thinking about the awfulness of it.

  ‘Just how many blows were there to her head?’ Hillary asked quietly.

  Steven leafed through to the autopsy report and scanned it. ‘There were no other bruises to the body, apparently, but the pathologist reckons there were eight blows to the head, two of which he reckons were delivered to the back of the head when the victim was standing. Three more when she was
in a kneeling or in some sort of semiprone position, and the rest when she was probably collapsed on the floor.’

  ‘So, not quite frenzied,’ Sale said, ‘but hardly a single blow either. Nobody could claim that it was “an accident” or’ – he made more speech marks in the air – ‘that “I only hit her a couple of times before I knew what I was doing”. Which tells us what, exactly?’

  ‘Well, whoever did it, be it Gibson or someone else that she’d made angry, they certainly meant to make sure that she was dead,’ Hillary took up the argument. ‘Nothing else really fits, like you said. If it was someone who went literally berserk, they’d have rained down fifty, sixty, maybe even a hundred different blows on her, and they would have attacked her body as well, not just the head area. We’ve all heard of cases where someone seriously off their head simply can’t stop striking the victim.’

  Sale winced, and Steven paled slightly.

  ‘But in this case, it seems as if whoever killed Sylvia hit her enough to make sure that they’d done the job, but not enough to suggest they were out of control whilst doing it. Unless there was some other reason why they confined it to just the eight blows. It might be that whoever did it, simply didn’t have the stomach for more,’ she said flatly.

  ‘So no question of it being borderline accidental,’ Steven said. ‘I agree. That’s why I want you to work on it, Hillary. Whoever killed Sylvia Perkins has had nearly five years to think that they’ve got away with it. I don’t like that. And I know DI Jarvis didn’t like it either. She fought hard to keep the case open longer, but was overruled by her DCI. As usual, I’ll have the rest of the case files sent up to you, and I’ll copy this summary for both of you. Any questions?’