by Clare Curzon
There was little more Yeadings could do for them, except take them downstairs again to wait until such time as Mott was through with the questioning. Then, he promised, they should see Neil for a few minutes.
In the hall, waiting on the same bench they’d used, was a large ungainly figure in overalls who rose at sight of them.
‘Why, Ben,’ Waites said, ‘what are you doing here, man?’
‘Young Mr Neil, sir, is he all right?’ The man was distressed.
‘He’s with the police now, Ben. They’re having to talk to him.’
‘But he’s done nothing wrong!’
Waites’ face twisted bitterly. ‘They think they have enough to charge him.’
‘What with?’ Ben Carter looked at Yeadings. He shook his head.
Bitterly Waites opted to list the alleged offences as he understood them. ‘Abduction of a young person and murder of a woman by strangulation. The police have found a length of the woman’s hair in Neil’s room. Also - although it’s impossible - he’s suspected of attempted murder by running two other women down with my car. It’s being examined now, apparently for traces of blood.’
‘No,’ Ben Carter exploded. ‘He never did and it wasn’t your car. They’ll be able to tell, won’t they, that the blood’s not human?’
‘If it isn’t,’ said Yeadings quietly, ‘what is it?’
‘A deer’s. My boss went out poaching and brought back a young one to cut up. You’ll find some of the venison in the fridge at Sir Arthur’s.’
‘Who is your boss?’ Dr Parrish demanded. ‘Did you know, Arthur, what was going on under your roof?’
‘Not the half of it, apparently. You mean Piggott’s been illegally shooting game?’
‘But how did its blood get on the car?’ Yeadings wondered aloud. ‘Did someone run a deer down?’
‘No, it was put there, so the police wouldn’t look elsewhere for another Merc.’
‘I think,’ Yeadings decided firmly, ‘this needs sorting out.’
Chapter 25
Mott was confident they needed to look no farther for Leila’s killer. In a written statement Neil had wretchedly agreed that a woman wearing a bird mask and ‘Chloë’s dress’ had visited Havelock House on the night of the Venetian carnival. He was less clear what had happened to her subsequently.
A blood sample taken from him by the duty police surgeon had proved to be of the same general group as the second type found on the mask. DNA would later determine whether the two samples were identical. Neil admitted that he had somehow cut his left hand on a broken mirror that night but seemed not to understand that this had any special significance.
It remained now to find witnesses who had seen Leila in his company. For this Mott referred to the Boss, who was involved with interviewing both of Piggott’s men alternately in separate rooms.
After his first outburst about the blooding of the Merc, Ben had clammed up. While he was eager to exonerate Neil, he wouldn’t point the blame elsewhere. Pimm was uncooperative from the start, snapping out, ‘No comment!’ cockily after each question. Both had declined the offer of a brief, but Pimm had used his permitted phone call to contact Piggott, who arrived half an hour later with Paddy Mellor in tow. The lawyer pleaded non-involvement for his client and Pimm was allowed to leave.
Recognizing the solicitor as an age-honoured opponent, Mott decided to sit in on the recorded interviews.
‘We haven’t had a lot of assistance from your employees so far,’ Yeadings greeted the bookie sweetly. ‘So it is good of you to volunteer your help.’ Which is how Piggott came to be requiring the brief’s support for himself.
He blusteringly denied poaching deer. He had no idea how venison came to be in Sir Arthur’s fridge. He had done nothing whatsoever to Sir Arthur’s car, not having been near Havelock House since overseeing the tables at the previous Friday’s gaming. He had a cast-iron alibi for last night. He’d attended a Rotarian dinner, arrived back at his flat at 2am and allowed a buddy to kip in a sleeping-bag on his sitting-room floor.
Reassured by so much denial, Yeadings assumed an air of innocent surprise. ‘Then if you didn’t interfere with the car, who did?’ he asked.
Paddy Mellor requested a moment to consult with his client and the pair were left together to concoct a suggestion.
As Yeadings had expected, Piggott opted to cover himself by sacrificing another. ‘Pimm borrowed my gun a week back,’ he claimed. ‘I didn’t know what for until he dumped all this meat on me and said he’d buried the animal’s head, feet and offal in the woods. And I still don’t know anything about any-bloody-body’s Merc except my own.’
‘Which had bodywork repairs carried out during the night of this Sunday-Monday.’
The man’s indignation wasn’t feigned. He roared denial and accused the police of stitching him up.
‘Then to prove your point, you won’t object to forensic examination of the vehicle?’
Piggott, aglow with anger, was forced to concede the point.
‘One down; two to go,’ Z murmured as Piggott left, to be replaced by Carter. ‘Not getting Pimm back, sir?’ Z queried.
‘We’re saving him for the sweet course.’
Ben Carter was shaken at having - however briefly - seen the inside of a police cell. He knew it shouldn’t happen to a law-abiding person like himself.
‘That’s what comes of keeping bad company,’ Yeadings said sadly. ‘Though it’s hard to avoid when you’re obliged to work together.’
Ben considered this and decided the Superintendent was referring to Walter Pimm.
‘It’s all right, Ben. Mr Piggott has been in with his solicitor and made a full statement. Your partner Walter Pimm will be charged later today. All we need now is your confirmation of what he’s been up to.’
The big man’s face lost all its puckered lines. ‘That’s a relief, Mr Yeadings. I wouldn’t want to grass on him, but if my boss says so, I will.’
‘Right. The deer’s blood first then.’
‘Well, we had all this meat Mr Piggott had shot, see? So he said let Sir Arthur have a load. Then last night, after young Mr Neil had run his dad’s car into the wall I saw Walter smearing venison blood on it out of the fridge. Not a lot, mind. He wiped some on and then he wiped it off. Left a bit round the broken headlamp.’
‘Why do you suppose he did that?’
‘He wanted it found with blood on. So Neil would get into trouble. There’d been a hit-and-run Sunday night. I heard it on local news. That’s when Walter had brought back Mr Piggott’s Mercedes from London. And it was away until the evening after. It came back all shiny-bright and new. I knew I hadn’t polished it. I reckon Walter knew sommat about that accident.’
‘What if I told you we don’t think it was an accident?’
Ben shook his head in disbelief.
‘Two women were the victims. A Mrs Hetty Chadwick - know her? No? And young Chloe Knightley.’
‘Chloë!’ The word exploded from him as if he’d been stung. ‘That’s young Mr Neil’s friend. He’ll be that upset.’
‘So why should Walter Pimm deliberately want to hurt a nice girl like that?’
‘So she wouldn’t talk.’ He seemed to have answered without thinking.
‘Exactly,’ Yeadings agreed, still uncertain but bluffing like mad. ‘And we all know what about, don’t we?’
Ben looked puzzled. ‘But Mr Piggott can’t have told you that. He didn’t know about what Walter was doing on the side. Walter said he’d slit my gizzard if I said anything. And he would, if his job was at risk. He can be savage when his blood’s up. I guess he uses as well as deals. He goes crazy sometimes. That’s how I think -’
‘Yes?’
‘- how the other one died.’
‘The other one?’
‘In the mask. She was all right when Mr Neil left her to get his fix. He won’t use a needle when anyone’s there. Then Walter went into his room and I heard them shouting, the woman and him. She sounded a bi
t drunk-like, talking about some white powder her daughter had been given. I moved off a bit so I couldn’t hear. Then Walter came storming out and said he wished he’d left her gagged, because when he tore the tape off her mouth she gave him an earful, threatening him. So he’d shut her up.’
‘You never actually saw her?’
‘Not then.’
‘So when?’
‘A bit later. Some guests had started to arrive for the party. Walter said we had to get rid of her before she upset everyone. So he closed the door on the gaming room and we walked her out between us. She’d passed out by then. He was going to leave her in the spinney to sober up, only then we found her car under the trees and he put her inside. He said he’d drive her home later and that’s the last I saw of her.’
‘When did you realise she was dead?’
‘When I heard it on the news. “The body of a woman …” I started to wonder. Then yesterday, in the Star it said about a bird mask. So I knew for sure it was her. Poor lady, she’d had all her lovely hair cut off. Walter said Neil had done that in a temper.’
‘And he couldn’t let her live to tell about what he’d done to her stepdaughter? I see.’
‘No! Not Mr Neil. He wouldn’t kill anyone. It had to be Walter, because she’d guessed he was dealing.’
‘So where was Neil when you both took the woman away?’
‘He’d jumped out the window. I found him crying in the shrubbery when I came back from putting her in her car.’
‘The car’s still missing. A red Volvo. So will Walter have destroyed it?’
Ben thought a moment. ‘No. He wouldn’t waste it. He’d want to sell it on. He knows some car dealers.’ Who would do a repaint job, swap licence plates and have it on the continent within hours, Yeadings appreciated.
‘Thank you, Mr Carter. This young lady will take you to the canteen now for some lunch, while I get the recording typed up for you to sign. And we’ll need your signature there too on the tape, with the date. And here’s your copy.’
Ben stood up, still a little uneasy. He pocketed the tape. ‘There won’t be anybody there as I know, like? In the canteen?’
‘Don’t worry. Walter Pimm will be closeted with me. We’ll use separate doors.’
Z enjoyed watching Ben eat. He put the food away as if a great burden was off his mind. There was only one piece of information she pursued with him between mouthfuls.
‘I expect they’ll have cancelled the gambling for tonight.’
‘Yes. Because of Sir Arthur’s wife, poor soul.’
‘All those preparations for nothing. You probably enjoy dressing up for these party nights. Where do you keep your posh gear?’
‘We use a gardener’s room out at the back for changing, Walter and me. So we always leave our dinner jackets there and Sir Arthur has them valeted for us.’
Right, Z marked up invisibly: one item of concrete evidence to be picked up asap. The large suit would be Ben’s made-to-measure. The smaller one, cut down from one of Piggott’s, so probably of superior quality, would be the one which Pimm had worn when he garrotted Leila. And, almost certainly, it would also provide fibre identical to that found under her nails.
‘Oh, one other thing,’ she remembered to ask. ‘What was Neil wearing that night, when you found him in the shrubbery?’
A flood of red travelled up Ben’s neck and suffused his face. He avoided her eyes to answer. ‘Nothing. He was as naked as the day he was born.’
Mott too was now on the track of evidence. Interviewing Pimm along with Beaumont, his eyes narrowed. ‘Are you a religious man, Mr Pimm?’
Walter’s reply was blasphemous by any standard. Then, ‘Why?’ reeking with suspicion.
‘I thought you might be wearing a cross round your neck.’ Pimm’s hand darted to the grubby cord barely discernible at the edge of his open collar.
‘What, this? I carry me key there. Ben Carter and me share rooms, see? And I get to hold the key. Wouldn’t trust it to a numbskull like him.’
Understandably he would want to keep control. That was the sort of him. Mott rasped a hand over his chin. ‘One moment.’
Beaumont murmured for the tape, ‘DI Mott is leaving the room. Interview suspended 14.40.’ He switched off the recording. ‘You want a mug of tea or something. No?’
Andrew Beale was custody sergeant. He nodded as Mott gave his instructions. ‘Is this kosher, sir?’
‘It will be, if the Super’s on the right line. We’ll hold Pimm until the lab has checked. If it’s spot on then his stay could be more permanent.’
Beaumont ushered out a protesting Pimm wild at the idea of being ‘banged up’. He emptied his pockets with a bad grace.
‘Rings, watch, money, jewellery,’ Beale intoned, not looking up. ‘You get a receipt and can check when your stuff’s returned.’ He reversed the pad for Pimm to sign the form. ‘What’s that round your neck?’
‘Me bloody key. You’re not having that.’
‘Believe me, Mr Pimm. We are. Let’s have your shoelaces too while we’re about it.’
Pimm was assigned to Cell 4 and his name chalked up on the slate outside. Then Beale returned to inspect with distaste the greasy knot he was obliged to undo. An inch of the cord would be enough for the lab, Mott had said. Then DS Beaumont was to borrow the key for a quick shufty round the man’s rooms when the search warrant came through.
At a little after 4pm a trace came in on Beryl Ryder and her mother. Dublin Gardai faxed through that the two women sought as witnesses had booked into the Phoenix Park Hotel there.
‘We need Beryl’s angle on what happened when she handed Chloë over to Neil Waites on that first occasion,’ Yeadings told Mott. ‘If you suddenly turn up at her hotel when she’s holidaying on Knightley’s handout it could be shock enough to squeeze the truth out of her. I’ll authorise your flight. You can team up with an Irish WPC at the other end.’
Which left only the Knightleys to speak with before he settled to building up the case on paper. Beaumont had relieved Z of Ben Carter’s company and was taking him as witness to his search of the rooms he shared with Pimm. The hoped-for object of this was a drugs cache, but if they also turned up a length of cord identical to the sample held, and tallying with microscopic marks on Leila’s neck, then that would be a bonus.
Through the drawing-room window at Knollhurst, Charles Hadfield saw Yeadings’ Rover draw up, and went himself to let the detective in.
‘Superintendent, what news?’
‘We’ve arrested a man on suspicion of attempted murder, but he’s not yet been charged.’
‘Attempted? I don’t understand.’
‘Concerning the hit-and-run. We believe now that Chloe was the intended victim but she was nippy enough to get clear. Nearly pulled Hetty free too, brave lass.’
Hadfield looked appalled, then disappointed. ‘That’s splendid, but I was hoping you’d got someone for killing Leila.’
‘Between ourselves, Mr Hadfield, we’re hoping to press more serious charges when material evidence is substantiated. Rest assured; it’s all in hand. How is Chloë now?’
‘I’m all right,’ said a cool voice from the doorway. ‘I’ve had another session over the phone with the Gregorys’ mother in Montreux and that’s helped a lot. She’s a shrink, you see.’ She pulled a childish face. ‘Must’ve cost the earth but I don’t care any more about running up huge phone bills.’
‘A sense of proportion,’ Yeadings agreed, beaming. ‘That’s what a quiet life’s really about. I was hoping to have a word with you if you felt up to it. There are one or two missing patches in your story that I might be able to fill in now.’
‘I’d like that. The blanks have been bugging me. Once it’s all properly come back I want to forget it entirely this time.’
‘Did you ever meet Neil Waites before that night? He said he’d seen you first in the public library.’
She shook her head. ‘He used to leave messages there later. That’s when I felt I
was being stalked.’
‘It won’t happen again. He’s going voluntarily into a nursing home for treatment, though it’s doubtful he’ll ever completely recover. The drugs have damaged his brain irreversibly
‘If he comes out, and if you wish it,’ Yeadings suggested,
‘he can be charged with abducting and holding you without your consent, and sexual assault. That would mean your having to give evidence in court and live through it again.’
Chloë shuddered. ‘No. I want it to be over. It’s enough living with what happened to Leila. I’ll never get over the awful gap she’s left. She was my real mother, you know; no matter who birthed me.’
Janey stayed with the girl while Hadfield saw him out. ‘D’you remember,‘the older man said on the doorstep, ‘once calling Janey Mrs Hadfield? I’ve decided it’s time I put that right. It’ll make a better case for claiming the children. Actually Chloë’s the only one underage, and it’s unthinkable leaving her with her father. Then when Eddie comes back from America he’ll want to share a home with his sister.
‘Knightley’s had a sort of breakdown; confessed to me this Beryl girl was blackmailing him to marry her. Claimed she was pregnant, but he had his doubts. He had to buy her off, on top of gambling debts. It leaves him short of cash, so I’ve offered to buy the house. Leila liked it and that’s good enough for me. Can’t go uprooting the child any more, eh?’
Yeadings grasped the man’s hand. ‘I wish you all the best.’
He found Beaumont and Zyczynski had taken over his office and presumed to get the coffeemaker going. ‘We saw your car drive in,’ Z said in excuse.
They were both grinning like monkeys. There was nothing like success to give the team an infusion of goodfellowship. Jeffrey Piggott had just been charged with illegal slaughter of a deer.
