No Accident (The Kent Fisher Mysteries Book 1)

by Robert Crouch

  I switch on my head torch and spot Adele's feet, clad in navy blue court shoes. The trousers lead to a loose jacket, open to reveal a pale blouse. Adele's skin is warm, her pulse steady. There a soft swelling on her temple where the skin is red. Did she trip and bang her head? It's impossible to say. I ease her into the recovery position.

  Then I realise that the lid of the chest freezer isn't fully closed. The hinges groan as I raise the lid. I stare at the rust coloured spikes of hair, now frozen white. David Cheung's head rests at an unnatural angle, wedged into the corner. He's cold and frozen. It looks like he's been in the freezer since Thursday afternoon.

  I'm about to close the lid when I spot something glinting at the bottom of the freezer. I slide my hand past the body and retrieve a set of keys. They must have fallen from his pocket as he was bundled in. I count off the front and back door keys to the hovel, which leaves one unaccounted for. Does it open the back door of the barn? If I sneak in that way I can surprise Carolyn.

  "Stay chilled," I tell him, slipping the keys in my pocket.

  At least I know why he didn't report for work. He must have been on his way to meet Carolyn at Collins' house when Gemma and I bumped into him. Unaware of where we'd come from, he took us back to the hovel so we wouldn't stumble on Carolyn. She must have killed him to stop him talking.

  But what brought Adele here?

  I check her pockets for a mobile phone, but find only tissues. Her bag's missing too. Women don't go anywhere without their bags, in my experience, even if they sneak around at night. Then the familiar smell of cheap perfume reaches my nose. The hairs on my neck tingle.

  "Carolyn," I say, keeping my back to her as I rise. "Sorry I'm late. I was on my way to the barn when I found Cheung, stuffed in the freezer."

  "I'd given up on you, Kent. Then I saw your head torch in the woods."

  So much for the element of surprise. I'm not sure what to do now. If I can keep her talking, hopefully Gemma will call the police. With any luck, she's already called them.

  "I was watching a security video of Thursday morning," I say, still not turning. "You got here fast, I must say."

  "I live quite close, Kent. Did you see the killer?"

  "Killer? What are you talking about?"

  "The killer you told me about. I checked the video before I came here and you'll never guess what I found. Collins' killer left Tombstone about half an hour before we arrived. Can you believe it? Talk about cool."

  "Who was it?"

  "Birchill. Who else? Luckily, I lured him here under a pretext and now he's trussed like a chicken in the barn. Shall we join him?" Something hard pushes between my shoulder blades. "Switch off your head torch. Good, now turn slowly. Any tricks and I'll blow your head off."

  Carolyn also has a head torch, which almost blinds me when I turn. As my eyes adjust, I stare into the barrels of the shotgun. I'm reminded of Mike's sanity gallery and the photo of the man with the back of his head missing. 'Michael wanted to get ahead' the caption said. If I'm not careful, mine will say, 'Kent lost his head'.

  "Black suits you," I say, looking her over. While I can't see her eyes, I'm confident she's not about to shoot me. She wants to tell me how clever she is first. "We also share similar tastes in headwear."

  "Put your hands on your head and interlock your fingers." Her voice is cold and mechanical, like a robot. Maybe she'll warm up when she sets fire to the barn.

  I do as she says. "Aren't you going to kill Adele before we leave?"

  "Do you ever stop talking?"

  Naturally, I remain silent.

  She backs away and gestures me out of the lean to. "Get moving!"

  She falls in behind me nudging me along with the shotgun. I stop at the front gate. "I can't call you Carolyn Montague now I know you're a Maynard."

  "You're smarter than you look, Kent, but I became Carolyn Montague a long time ago. Now, let's head for the barn."

  "It must have been devastating, finding the farm burnt down and your parents dead."

  "Not at all," she says. "I started the fire."

  Twenty-Seven

  "You killed your parents?"

  I can't keep the surprise and disbelief from my voice. She speaks as if it's an everyday event. I can remember wanting to kill my mother on numerous occasions, but I never got past planning it in my head. That helped me deal with the anger, frustration and the sheer helplessness of my situation.

  "What else could I do?" she asks. "They sold the farm to Miles Birchill. My father said he'd rather die than let a dyke squander his money. So, I filled him full of vodka and granted his wish."

  She prods me with the shotgun. "You like to think you're hot stuff, Kent. I can grant your wish too. And don't get any bright ideas," she says, prodding me with more venom. "Cheung had an attack of conscience before he chilled out."

  If she cracks any more puns, I might have to make a dash for it.

  Not that I can escape into the woods without using my head torch. The clouds have all but extinguished the light. That leaves me a couple of choices. I can disarm her if a chance presents itself, but I need her to stumble on a tree root or bang her head on a branch. Or I wait till we reach the barn.

  In the meantime, she's walking in silence behind me, completely in control.

  "I'm guessing your father didn't approve of your sexual preferences," I say, wondering if I can get her talking. "That must have been tough."

  She doesn't answer for a good thirty seconds. "My parents were strict Catholics. Not in the going to church sense, as they only went Christmas and Easter, but they believed the doctrine. Homosexuality was a worse sin than murder."

  When she pauses, I'm tempted to say something, but I remain silent, wishing I didn't have to rely on the beam from her head torch. I'm casting a shadow on the ground in front of me and I've stubbed my toe twice already.

  "My father called me an abomination," she says. There's no resentment or anger in her tone. If anything, she finds it amusing. "I was sixteen when he walked in on me doing it with my biology teacher, Evelyn Farmer. She freaked, worried she would lose her job, but he didn't care about that. No, he fetched some tools from the shed and made us dismantle his double bed. We took it down to the garden piece by piece. Then he tossed our clothes on top and set fire to the lot."

  She chuckles at the memory. "He left us naked in the garden in the middle of November and told me never to return."

  I can't believe a father could do that to his daughter. I don't know what to say. I'm not sure there's anything to say, but I need to keep the conversation going. "Just think how different your life would have been if your father hadn't found you."

  "But I wanted him to find us," she says.

  For someone who intended to use surprise to his advantage, I've failed dismally today. I'm already reeling from several unwelcome surprises without Carolyn's masterclass. In fact, my only success so far was to tell Gemma I was hopelessly in love with her. And I'm not sure which of us was more surprised.

  "I tried to tell him several times," Carolyn is saying, "but I dried up when he looked at me. That made me angry at how feeble I was. So I started making plans. I was rather good at them," she adds, nudging me with the shotgun. "I seduced Evelyn and set her up. I couldn't believe how simple it was once I had a plan.

  "Stop!" She pushes the gun into my back. "Did you hear that?"

  The ground goes dark as she turns to scan the woodland. I follow the beam, but it doesn't travel far enough to penetrate the trees. I listen, but there's only the background whisper of invisible insects and small mammals in the undergrowth.

  While she's scanning, I'm tempted to spin and knock the shotgun from her hands. Only I'm not sure if I need to jump around or swivel from the waist. No, I have to jump and spin in one movement, I decide, picturing the action in my mind. Had I joined a karate club as a teenager instead of writing poetry and situation comedies in my bedroom, I'd know exactly what to do. Now, all I can do is record it in my blog if I survive.
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  She turns off the head torch.

  I stand there, listening, wondering what's spooked her. I look from side to side, but I can't see anything. I lean back slowly. The shotgun isn't in my back.

  "Stay where you are!" Her voice is no more than a whisper, but it's close. "I grew up in these woods. I know my way around them blindfolded."

  "I have a handkerchief in my pocket if you wish to try."

  "What's it like, being a smartarse? When you sauntered into the clearing on Thursday morning, you thought you were better than me. So, Lord Snooty, tell me which one of us has the gun."

  I turn to face her. "A gun doesn't make you superior. You must be deluded if you think you can get away with this. The police are already closing in on you."

  She switches on the head torch, blinding me. As I recoil, she thrusts the shotgun under my nose, forcing my head back. Too late, I realise my chance to disarm her came when she took one hand off the gun to switch on her head torch.

  "Now who's deluded," she says, pushing me back. "You're not even a Fisher. Your father shoots blanks, but this shotgun's for real."

  My heels catch on some roots and I'm falling. I land among some brambles and finish prostrate, staring up at Carolyn. She adjusts her aim and points the shotgun at my groin. If she's hoping to intimidate me, she's succeeding. Only my sweat glands seem to be working.

  "I could sterilise you too," she says. "Then you'd understand why William hit Mandy Cheung so hard when she told him she was pregnant."

  "I guess you got all this from Collins."

  "Yes, he thought I was writing his autobiography. Now, get up and let's get to the barn."

  I disengage myself from the brambles and get to my feet. "It was a clever diversion, Carolyn. It had me fooled for a while."

  "You've been duped from the start," she says with contempt. "Now get moving."

  "What do you mean, I was duped?"

  "I told your boss I wanted you to investigate because you were the only one who could stand up to Birchill."

  "You set me up?"

  "You should be flattered, Kent. Without you, my plan could have gone off the rails. I spent a long time putting it together."

  "You mean I've just ruined five years' work?"

  "Hey, I had a career," she says, her tone sharp. "While you were setting up your sanctuary, I went from constable to detective sergeant in three years. I would have made detective inspector too, but...."

  "But what?"

  "I burnt out," she replies, her tone defiant.

  "You had a breakdown, you mean. That's why they moved you into scenes of crime and then to the Coroner's office. You couldn't handle the pressure."

  I tense, half expecting her to either shoot or beat me with the shotgun.

  "You won't be so cocky when the flames are all around you," she says. "Just think, no one will know you solved Collins' murder. So, what gave me away?"

  "The cheap perfume you wore on Thursday morning. You had to mask the shower you took after killing Collins."

  "I wore it to mask the smell of cigarettes."

  "Why hide the fact you smoke?"

  "What did you find on the ground? Cigarette stubs. The one you put into a specimen bag was mine. I nearly died when you picked it up."

  "But the other cigarettes were filter tips," I say.

  "Collins and I spent hours here, smoking his cigarettes, talking about his fence post business. That's how I got the idea for a work accident. If the police had investigated as the protocol demands, they would have crawled all over the scene."

  "And found cigarettes with your DNA on them."

  "Fortunately, DI Briggs is an idle sod. He couldn't wait to pass the case to you. But all your hard work has been for nothing, I'm afraid. In a few minutes, you'll be toast. You know too much."

  "I know you'll struggle to explain Cheung's death."

  "I'll think of something," she says, sounding bored.

  I almost walk into the bench saw as we head up the slope. I detour around it and continue to the top, where light streams out of the open barn doors. On the far side, tucked in the shadows, I make out William Fisher's Jaguar and Birchill's Mercedes.

  I turn to face her. "Birchill worked it out. I bet you weren't expecting that."

  She sighs. "How can you be so smart, yet so dumb? Birchill came to buy the autobiography for an obscene amount of money."

  "The autobiography that doesn't exist."

  "I wanted to humiliate him before I killed him. I can do the same for you."

  She raises the shotgun to her shoulder. She pulls back the hammer on both barrels and slides her finger over the trigger.

  "If you want me to beg, forget it."

  "Credit me with more finesse than that," she says. "You visited Birchill earlier. Why do you think he locked you in?"

  "Amaze me."

  "To protect you," she replies. "For someone who can solve a murder based on a whiff of perfume, you're so dense. Think of all the hassle and grief you've given Birchill over the years. Think about the money you've cost him. Didn't you ever wonder why he never sued you for damages?"

  I have wondered this from time to time, but I never found an answer. "He took out an injunction against me."

  "Do I have to spell it out?" she asks, losing her temper. "William's sterile. He throws you and your mother out of Downland Manor. Why? Because she had an affair with a groom."

  This can't be true. She's goading me out of spite. Yet despite my denials, I know she's not making it up. I go numb with disbelief. Of all the people who could be my father, why is it him? The thought sickens me.

  "Isn't it just the most delicious irony? The person you hate most in the world turns out to be your father." Carolyn smirks. "You couldn't write this stuff. But thanks to me, you'll die together. So, don't keep Daddy waiting. In you go."

  Just when I don't think things can get worse, I spot movement behind Carolyn. Gemma emerges from the shadows, carrying the Maglite. While she's come to save me, she's no match for Carolyn.

  "You'll have to shoot me," I say, stepping forward to distract her.

  "Or the lovely Gemma," she says, turning. She points the gun and beckons her over. "Drop the flashlight and come where I can see you."

  Gemma does as instructed. "Sorry," she says.

  "Oh it wasn't entirely your fault. Kent has an expressive face. And you made enough noise following us. Still, Kent's less likely to be heroic now that he knows I can hurt you."

  Carolyn grins at me as she points the gun at Gemma's chest. "In you go, Kent."

  If I go into the barn, I may never see Gemma again. If I don't, Carolyn might kill her.

  The light from the barn blinds me at first. I turn away. "At least let her join me."

  "I have plans for this little beauty."

  Squinting until my eyes adjust, I walk into the barn. Birchill's perched on a jerry can of petrol, his hands tied together above his head. The rope goes over a beam and back to a tractor behind him. He looks tired and defeated. We might have the same colour hair and eyes, but otherwise we're from different planets. I spot William Fisher, slumped on the concrete floor near the door to the kitchen.

  "His heart gave out." Birchill's voice is low and tense. "I'd check his pulse, but my hands are tied."

  It appears we also share the same sense of humour.

  "That's fine." Carolyn bends, never taking her eyes off me as she unscrews the cap from one of the jerry cans by the door. "Gemma, darling, be a sport and take off your blouse."

  Gemma's trembling fingers struggle with the buttons, but one by one she undoes them. She looks beaten as she slowly removes the blouse.

  "Good girl. Now tear off the sleeve and dip it in the can."

  While Gemma follows instructions, I notice an axe on a workbench a few feet away. With great care, I inch towards it.

  Carolyn takes the sleeve and tells Gemma to slide the door across. It's a struggle to get it moving, but once she does, the door slides smoothly. Carolyn kicks ove
r the jerry can. Petrol pulses out and seeps across the concrete floor like a creeping stain. She lights the sleeve and swings it around her head as she backs up to the door.

  For a moment, time freezes. The burning sleeve flies through the air. The petrol vapour catches fire. Flames rise up and roll across the floor towards us. The sliding door slams shut.

  "Legs up!" I tell Birchill. I grab the jerry can and drag it out of the way of the advancing petrol.

  "Cut me down!" he cries as he dangles, legs kicking the air.

  The flames are already curling up the sides of the barn. They ignite anything flammable in their path, swooping over lawn mowers, surrounding the remaining fuel cans on the floor. The heat is so intense, the whole building seems to be melting.

  It takes three blows from the axe to sever the rope. Birchill drops, staggering when he hits the floor. Fortunately, his momentum takes him away from the flames. I grab his arm and pull him across the room. We hurry to the back of the barn, ducking as rogue flames roll along the underside of the roof. In a couple of minutes, the smoke will overwhelm us.

  Crouching low, we hurry along the back of the building to William. I feel for a pulse, but I can't find one. "Nothing," I call above the roar of the fire.

  Birchill tugs at my sleeve. "Leave him! We can't do anything for him."

  I fish Cheung's keys out of my pocket and hand them to Birchill. "There's a key on the ledge above the door. This one should open the door to the outside."

  While he heads into the kitchen, I turn William so his back faces the door. With my hands under his arms, I take the strain and drag him across the floor. It seems to take forever, but once inside I slam the door. Immediately, smoke creeps under the door and around the edges. Feeling a draught, I notice the door to the outside is open. Birchill has bolted.

  Once more, I slide my hands under William's arms and pull. He seems to have doubled in weight. All around me, smoke is pouring in. Gloss paint swells and blisters. Another explosion shakes the walls. Ceiling plaster tumbles around me.

  "Wrap this around your face."