Ann Granger

by That Way Murder Lies

  She realized that her visitor was aware Meredith was studying her. In return, Jess was watching her hostess and waiting patiently for Meredith to make up her mind. Meredith said, ‘Sorry. But I did tell you I look at people. They interest me.’

  ‘No sweat,’ Jess said casually. ‘Did Mr Smythe tell you he’d been thinking of proposing marriage to Fiona Jenner?’

  ‘Yes, he did tell me that.’

  ‘You weren’t surprised?’

  ‘Why should I be surprised?’ She had been surprised, but she wasn’t going to admit it to Jess. It wouldn’t do to suggest that Toby had started acting out of character. Meredith eyed her visitor. ‘He didn’t know then she had a partner in London. He told me that last night on the phone, too.’

  ‘She was a cousin. People do marry cousins, I know,’ Jess observed. ‘But I think it’s fairly rare these days.’

  ‘But not illegal!’ Meredith said tartly, pushing away her own reservations which she had expressed to Alan. ‘In any case, she wasn’t a first cousin. Her father and Toby’s father were cousins. Would that make her a second cousin, or a cousin once removed?’

  This gained a faint smile from Campbell. ‘Not such a close relative, as you say. Did he strike you as very upset over her death?’

  ‘Yes, he was – is!’ Meredith said firmly. ‘But Toby’s not the sort of person who mopes around. He has a very positive attitude.’

  Jess didn’t look altogether persuaded, Meredith thought, so she added, ‘People react to shock or tragedy in individual ways. What you see is Toby’s way. It doesn’t mean it hasn’t hit him hard. He’d known her all her life, remember.’

  Jess leaned forward and switched off the little tape recorder. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve not been very helpful.’ Meredith grimaced.

  ‘Everything helps.’ Jess hesitated. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question which is nothing to do with this investigation?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘What kind of price are you hoping to get for this place?’

  A little taken aback, Meredith told her. Jess thought about it for a moment. ‘I know this is a frightful cheek.’ She sounded almost shy. ‘It’s extremely rude to ask to view a property without making an appointment …’

  ‘You want to look round?’ Meredith grinned. ‘Sure, why not? Oh, I’ve eaten the fruit.’

  ‘Fruit?’ Jess looked puzzled and gazed round her as if expected to see a pile of apple cores and orange peel.

  ‘The decorative display of fruit in the kitchen, as recommended to impress prospective buyers. But I have washed up.’

  They both laughed.

  While Jess Campbell was talking to Meredith, Markby was holding an interesting conversation of his own with ex-Chief Inspector Alec Barnes-Wakefield. At the end of it he put down the phone, his expression thoughtful. About an hour later, a long e-mail arrived, also from Barnes-Wakefield. At the end of that, Markby was not merely looking thoughtful; he’d begun to look worried.

  He found his way to the operations room and asked if Campbell was back yet. She wasn’t. He asked for a message to be given to her to come along and see him as soon as she arrived. Shortly before twelve, she did.

  ‘You want to see me, sir? I’ve been out to interview Miss Mitchell.’ She’d have been back earlier if she hadn’t lingered to be shown the house but, unless he asked, she saw no point in telling him that now.

  He wasn’t interested, in any case. ‘I’ve been talking to Barnes-Wakefield,’ he said.

  Jess trawled rapidly through her memory. ‘Oh, the investigating officer in the Freda Kemp case.’

  ‘Yes, sit down.’ While she was doing this, Markby ran briefly through his prepared speech. It wasn’t going to be an easy one. The conversation with and ensuing e-mail received from Barnes-Wakefield had both been illuminating, though perhaps not surprising.

  Though his acquaintance with the man was of the briefest, and he had never actually set eyes on him, he had quickly recognized the type. Barnes-Wakefield had certainly been a hard-working and reliable officer, tenacious and determined to get his man, or woman. So far, so good. The flaw came with an inability to be deflected from his own interpretation of events. This had become evident in the opening sentence of what had sounded like a lengthy and at times aggressive self-justification. Barnes-Wakefield had not only been willing to talk about the Kemp case. He was thirsting to put his view of it, a view which hadn’t changed an iota in twenty-five years.

  The first thing he had insisted upon was the correctness of his initial interpretation of the scene. It was, Barnes-Wakefield had decided and still believed, the scene of a murder. Once he had decided that, he had to find a killer. Alison had fitted the bill.

  In fairness, thought Markby, she was the most likely suspect. Alison had borrowed money from her aunt and Alison was named as her aunt’s heiress. Motive a-plenty in the book of someone like Barnes-Wakefield, who had worked hard all his life for every penny and never borrowed a cent, apart from his mortgage. Thereafter, Markby suspected, the chief inspector’s approach had been that of a man finding facts to fit his theory. Inconvenient objections were ruthlessly pushed aside. Alison’s alibi had not been checked as it should have been. Not surprisingly, when the case came to court, the whole thing blew up in his face.

  It was typical of such a man that he still clung to his belief in Alison’s guilt and saw the failure to get a conviction as a deeply personal affront. Markby explained this as tactfully as he could to Jess Campbell. She sat listening in silence, her pale face tense beneath its cap of dark red hair. She understood. What was worse, more awkward, was that she had grasped what he hadn’t said.

  ‘We have here an officer with an unblemished career who probably retired respected by everyone,’ Markby said, placing emphasis on the last words. ‘OK, he made the occasional mistake but we all do that. Unfortunately for his own peace of mind, Barnes-Wakefield appears still to be raging over the fact that things didn’t work out as he wanted them to in the matter of the Kemp case.’ He fell silent.

  Jess asked quietly, ‘Do you want me to add him to the list of possible poison pen writers? He’s waited twenty-five years, if he did write them.’

  ‘What’s twenty-five years when you have a bee in your bonnet?’ Markby muttered. ‘With every passing year it gets stronger. The sense of injustice grows. He was severely criticized by the press after the trial. That obviously hit him hard and he hasn’t forgotten it.’ He walked to the window; his hands clasped behind his back, and stared out.

  ‘So, if he was going to kill anyone, he’d kill Alison,’ Jess said unwisely.

  It gained her a quick put-down. Markby spun on his heel to face her. ‘Is that a joke, Campbell? It’s in poor taste if it is. Barnes-Wakefield isn’t a killer. He spent his working life chasing and catching killers and other violent types. He wouldn’t join them.’

  ‘But he might write the letters?’ Jess persisted, despite the cold anger in the blue eyes boring into hers.

  She saw the look in his eyes falter and he turned his gaze away. ‘I was thinking aloud just now,’ he said stiffly. ‘I didn’t intend you to draw any conclusion from it.’

  She didn’t press the matter any further. He hated the idea of a policeman going wrong, whether it was a serving officer or a retired one. They all did. But his own dogged honesty meant he had to mention the possibility. His anger wasn’t directed at her. It was directed against himself. He felt disloyal because he even thought this of a one-time fellow officer.

  ‘Is that all, then, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s all,’ was the curt reply.

  The postman drove his van down the bumpy lane past the Stebbings’ cottage (he seldom delivered any mail there) and turned through the gates of Overvale House. The sun was pale this morning but the air dry. The horses had been moved from their usual pasture and it had been occupied by a number of large birds which looked to him like seagulls. If they were, he didn’t know what they were doing the
re. They ought to be by the sea, following fishing boats, at least so he understood. These were patrolling the centre of the paddock, round and round one small area, occasionally pecking at the ground.

  When he reached the house, the postman saw that another vehicle had got there before him. It was a taxi and from it had climbed a small, neat female with the shortest hair he’d ever seen on a woman. He wondered whether it was the result of chemotherapy, a first tentative regrowth after losing the lot, but it appeared more a fashion statement. Women did weird things with their hair, he told himself, but he hoped his girlfriend never decided to trim hers down to stubble. Despite that, the taxi passenger looked really sexy, even though she wasn’t that young. A large suitcase stood on the drive by her feet and she had just finished paying off the driver.

  The postman pulled over to one side to give the taxi turning space and got out with the assorted mail in his hand.

  ‘Morning!’ he said cheerfully to the small woman, trying hard not to stare at her strange haircut.

  ‘Good morning,’ she returned. ‘Will you ring the bell or shall I?’ She had a foreign accent. She was French, he guessed.

  In the event, neither of them had to. The door was opened suddenly by Jeremy Jenner.

  ‘There you are, Chantal,’ he said, not sounding very enthusiastic. ‘I thought I heard the taxi. Oh, post, thank you.’ He held out his hand.

  The postman gave him the letters; then, although he would dearly have liked to linger and find out what all this was about, he had no option but to get back in his van and follow the taxi down the drive.

  Jeremy carried his first wife’s case into the hall and set it down. As he did, the dining room door opened and Alison came out. She moved forward to greet her guest with an outstretched hand.

  ‘Chantal? How nice to meet you. Have you had breakfast?’

  Chantal gripped the outstretched hand briefly and cast a rapid glance over her hostess. ‘No, they make terrible coffee at that hotel and the bed was lumpy. Affreux.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Alison sympathized. ‘Do come and sit down. Jerry will take your case upstairs and I’ll get Mrs Whittle to bring you some fresh coffee and some toast.’

  She ushered the visitor into the comfortable sitting room which Jess had seen and returned to the hall on her way to the kitchen. She was just in time to see her husband, who had obviously been riffling through the morning’s post, stuffing a small white envelope into his pocket. He looked up guiltily.

  Alison’s heart seemed to stop beating and then give a great lurch. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing, darling, just circulars and business stuff.’

  ‘No, I mean, what was that one you put in your pocket?’

  ‘From the bank,’ he said easily, moving away towards the study.

  ‘It’s not the right size or shape for a letter from the bank,’ Alison said. ‘It’s another one of those letters, isn’t it?’

  He turned back and saw that she had held out her hand towards him. ‘Look, Ally …’ he began.

  ‘It’ll be addressed to me,’ she said calmly. ‘May I have it?’

  ‘Best to let me deal with it,’ he urged.

  ‘I have to see it, Jeremy,’ she said. ‘You know I have to see it and then we’ll take it to the police.’

  He pulled the now-crumpled envelope from his pocket but still held it fast. ‘It might not be what you think.’

  ‘Then it won’t matter.’ With a slight edge to her formerly calm tone, she added, ‘I’m not a child, Jerry.’

  Reluctantly he handed her the envelope. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘We ought not to open it, just give it straight to the police as it is.’

  ‘As you said, it might not be what I think it is. Then we’d look silly. I have to open it.’ She tore it open as she spoke, took out the single folded sheet and spread it flat.

  Her husband saw the colour drain from her face. He moved to her side so that he could read the letter. Her hand shook but the printing was clearly decipherable.

  NOW THERE IS ANOTHER ONE. JUST LIKE AUNT FREDA, FOUND IN WATER. DEATH FOLLOWS YOU AROUND, DOESN’T IT, ALISON?

  Jeremy took it gently from her hand. ‘Leave it to me. I’ll go and phone the police from the study. You just sit down quietly.’

  She shook her head. ‘No – no, I’ve got to see about Chantal’s coffee …’

  ‘Then you do that. I’ll see about this.’ His voice was gentle but firm.

  She looked up at him desperately. ‘Jeremy?’

  ‘Go on, now.’ He touched her arm.

  Alison turned away, walked in an awkward, disjointed robotic fashion down the hall and disappeared through a door at the far end.

  Jeremy Jenner folded the letter and was slipping it back in the envelope when a faint sound caught his ear, that of someone breathing.

  He looked up sharply. Chantal had come out of the sitting room and was leaning in the open doorway, her arms folded across her chest and her polished nails pressed against her forearms.

  ‘Trouble, Jerry?’ The voice was all innocence but her eyes gleamed with spite.

  ‘Family business!’ he said angrily. ‘Nothing to do with you, Chantal!’

  ‘Oh, I’m not family any longer, is that it? I’m not still your only child’s mother?’

  ‘Don’t start,’ he said wearily. ‘It was Alison’s idea to invite you to stay, not mine. At least don’t make trouble while you’re here.’

  ‘I thought,’ she said in a voice which quivered with suppressed rage, ‘there was trouble here already. My child, your child, has been murdered! That isn’t trouble? It isn’t a problem? We’re going to sit around here and make conversation about the weather as the English love to do and we are not going to mention Fiona? Don’t be foolish, Jeremy. I’m here precisely because of the trouble. This is what we’re all thinking about, isn’t it? And what we’re all going to be talking about. But it seems there is something else. Why must you give that letter to the police?’

  ‘I told you!’ he shouted and then, as his voice rang round the hall, he made an effort to speak quietly. ‘I told you, it’s private to me and to Alison.’

  Chantal shook her head and the hoop earrings swung. ‘No,’ she said, cool now, her own moment of unveiled anger conquered and the rage put back in its box. ‘No, my dear Jeremy, it isn’t just private to you and to her. It is of interest to the police. That suggests to me it has a bearing on the death of my daughter. That means it is of interest to me. May I see it?’

  ‘No,’ he retorted, breathing heavily. ‘You certainly may not.’

  ‘Then let me guess at it.’ Her voice was unrelenting. ‘It is an anonymous letter. Am I right?’ When he didn’t reply, she went on, ‘Let’s see, it’s addressed to Alison, yes?’

  ‘Why should it be addressed to her?’ Jeremy’s voice appeared to have been forced from his throat through a constricted opening. The sounds were distorted and barely audible. ‘You’re wrong, it’s addressed to me.’

  She shook her close cropped head again. ‘You are being silly, Jeremy. No, it isn’t. It’s for Alison. She is the one with the past.’

  He moved towards her threateningly. ‘Past? What do you mean?’ His voice rose. ‘Stop all this nonsense, Chantal, at once!’

  ‘You can’t bully me, Jeremy. I’m not your wife any longer. I’m not some underling in your office. And you are the one who is being silly. I know about the murder trial and I know about the other letters, too.’

  He gaped at her and croaked, ‘How?’

  ‘Because Fiona rang me and told me about it, naturally, as soon as you told her.’

  He looked stunned. ‘She had no right—’

  His ex-wife interrupted him briskly. ‘You always have to be the person in control, don’t you, Jeremy? You give the orders and no one does anything without asking you first. No one else has the right to act independently no matter how important it is to them. Of course Fiona told me. It wasn’t only right, it was necessary. You had presented this woman to her as h
er stepmother. Then she learned you’d replaced me with a woman who had been charged with a murder. She was shocked. I’m her mother, so she picked up the phone and talked to me. It was the most natural thing to do. What’s the matter? Did you tell her to keep it a secret?’

  He shook his head in a dazed way. ‘No, no … I thought she would do that, anyway. It was a family matter.’

  ‘And I’m not family now. We’re back to that. But I am, and I was then, Fiona’s closest relative, her mother. Do you think I shouldn’t have been told? You yourself should have told me! But you kept your sordid little secret, you and Alison; because you knew I would insist Fiona cut all her links with you.’

  ‘Why the hell should she do that?’ he shouted at her. ‘You talk about people making up their own minds. In the next breath, you say you would have insisted Fiona cut herself off from me.’

  ‘For her own safety!’ she threw back at him.

  ‘Alison was innocent of that charge! She was cleared by the court! Fiona was safe!’ Jenner broke off and gave what sounded a strangled sob.

  ‘No!’ Chantal snapped viciously. ‘She wasn’t, was she, Jeremy? She wasn’t safe and now she’s dead!’

  ‘Get out of this house!’ he ordered, panting, his face suffused with blood.

  ‘Oh, I’m not suggesting Alison killed her, Jeremy. Naturally not. But neither am I convinced her actions had nothing to do with it. First poison pen letters come to this house. Then my daughter is murdered here. Do you think the police have made no connection? Do you think the police aren’t wondering about Alison? After all, one doesn’t meet people who have stood trial for murder every day. You can’t just, what’s the English expression? You can’t just sweep it under the carpet.’