‘They killed the others, and now they're after me.’
Clare could see inconsistencies. However, she couldn’t see any flaws in what the woman was saying, and if, as had been stated, the Woodcocks were being evicted, then why had they not mentioned it. Someone wasn’t telling the truth, and dislikeable as the woman was, Margaret Wilmot was nobody’s fool. She would have employed a lawyer to deal with her legal affairs, the Woodcocks probably hadn’t, or possibly didn’t understand the consequences of what was to occur.
‘I believe that you and your group’s harassing of James Baxter led to his death, and that Barry Woodcock has been lambasted for no other reason than a group of men-haters decided that the two men were not worthy, or maybe they rejected you and Gloria, possibly even Sheila.’
Over at the bar Tremayne drank his beer, his ears pricked, waiting for someone to say something.
‘I didn’t hate men, nor did Gloria,’ Margaret said.
‘Nor do I,’ Desdemona said, the first words she had said. Her husband leant over and put his arm around her.
‘I think you’ve gone a little too far, Sergeant,’ Hamish Foster said.
‘Not far enough. Someone took a chainsaw from the Woodcocks. We’ve got our crime scene team down there looking for proof of who it was. Does anyone here want to own up to the crime, throw themselves on the mercy of the court, turn Queen’s evidence, implicate one of the others?’
‘My wife is not involved.’
‘She wouldn’t have had the strength to lift or pull Gloria Wiggins close up to the pulley, and wielding a chainsaw and cutting through human flesh and bone requires strength and a strong constitution, and Desdemona doesn’t possess either in great measure,’ Clare said.
‘She doesn’t, although I do. Are you about to accuse me?’ Hamish Foster said. ‘You’ve insulted Margaret, derided my wife as a weak woman, and devalued the good name of Gloria Wiggins.’
‘You’ve not mentioned Bert and Sheila Blatchford,’ Clare said.
‘I will defend them if I must.’
‘Hamish is a good man,’ Margaret Wilmot said.
‘We’ve never doubted that, but why does he sit here with you now, and before that, Sheila.’
‘He’s here because of me,’ Desdemona said.
Chapter 13
Bemerton Road Police Station was hectic, with Superintendent Moulton noticeable around the building in his drive for budgetary control, a new set of key performance indicators to follow up on, a need to ensure that all reports were in and on time. The bane of the man’s existence, Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne, sat back on his chair in his small office. The investigation into the murders out at Compton was at a crossroads. The necessary interviews had been conducted, but none too revealing in themselves. And then the crime scene investigators had been at every murder site, every place of interest, and had not found much, apart from proof that the person who had murdered Gloria Wiggins had been of sufficient physical strength to lift the woman free of the ground, and that Bert Blatchford’s knife wounds were either frenzied or hurried, or possibly both.
The murder of Sheila, Bert’s wife, was more perplexing. Pathology had confirmed that she had been dead before being sliced up with a chainsaw, the work so expertly done that parts of her could have been wrapped in plastic and sold at the supermarket in Salisbury as prime cuts of meat. It was clear that she had died in the barn where she had been found. The quantity of blood confirmed that death and dissection had occurred within five minutes of each other, and that the murderer would have been covered in as much blood as the chainsaw. That person’s clothes had been found jammed in a crevice between two bales of hay nearby. Forensics had confirmed that they were overalls, not untypical in a farming community, and that the wearer had been a person of average height, and not overweight. The one unknown was how the murderer had removed the overalls, cleaned themselves up, and then left the farm. The noise of the chainsaw was not a significant consideration, as the murder had occurred during the hours when there would have been tractors in the fields and vehicles on the road, and the noise of the saw would not have necessarily warranted concern.
Clare focussed on her report, Tremayne longed for a cigarette. As he raised himself from his chair to go outside the building to light up, Superintendent Moulton came in.
‘They’re piling up again,’ Moulton said. An uneasy truce existed between the degree-educated superintendent and his most experienced police officer. No mention had been made of Tremayne’s enforced retirement for two months, a relief for him, a matter of concern for Moulton.
‘I’ll agree that it’s a puzzle. No obvious clues, no evidence that points in one direction or the other,’ Tremayne said. While the superintendent’s efforts to make him retire had been annoying, Tremayne had to admit that the senior officer was a decent man, and a begrudging acceptance, almost a friendship, existed between the two men.
Moulton left as there was no more to be gained from his detective inspector, knowing full well that the man was the best he had, and he had no further input into the case that would help.
Outside the building, Tremayne lit his cigarette. Clare stood close by. ‘We’re not getting anywhere on the latest murders,’ she said.
Tremayne could only agree. Three deaths, no concrete evidence, and a fractious community which appeared to say one thing and do another.
As much as Tremayne and Clare did not want to admit it, the most likely culprits were still the Woodcocks: the benign Barry, the earthy Gwen.
‘Nothing from Jim Hughes and Pathology,’ Tremayne said. The lack of evidence was disturbing. Amateurs invariably make a mistake, leave a clear sign as to whether the murderer was male or female, tall or short, right- or left-handed. The consensus with the chainsaw was that the person had been right-handed, an observation from Pathology based on the direction of the cutting action.
For once, Clare enjoyed the benefit of an early night at her cottage in Stratford sub Castle, her cat sitting on one side of her as she read a book, although not focussing on it as she should. Her life was troubled for two reasons: the murders in Compton, and the boyfriend, the good and decent Doctor Warner.
She did not sleep well that night, so much so that Tremayne felt the need to comment on her appearance the following day. For him, he had slept well, Jean by his side.
‘What’s for today?’ Clare asked. It was still early in the office, and whereas many of the administrative staff were not in the police station, Tremayne and Clare were. They had established a routine of long hours during a murder investigation, not so long when there was not a case, although that was rare. A two-week break before the current murders had allowed Tremayne and Jean to head off down to Cornwall for a short break, and for Clare to visit her parents in Norfolk, with the usual probing into her personal life by her mother, the attempt by her father to defuse her mother’s prying. Three days had been long enough in Norfolk, and since then Clare had been in the office on a daily basis, dealing with reports and studying for promotion.
Tremayne, a man who did not like being in his office, with a laptop before him that required attention, attention he did not want to give, raised himself from his seat. ‘Back to the scene of the crimes,’ he said.
Clare closed the lid of her laptop, grabbed her handbag and followed; the first stop, just outside the building, for Tremayne to take a few puffs of a cigarette before he settled himself into the passenger seat of his sergeant’s car.
‘Any ideas what to do first?’ Clare said.
‘Stephanie Underwood. She found the body, and so far she’s the only half-sane person we’ve met.’
‘Is she? She’s hardly left the village in years.’
‘A gossip, I’ll grant you that, and maybe she’s a little strange, but she has no perceivable motive.’
‘Neither does Margaret Wilmot, but we’re suspicious of her,’ Clare reminded her senior, whose breath still reeked of stale cigarette smoke. She turned the fan of the car’s heater to high to dissipate the smell
and opened the top of her window a little. Outside the weather was chilly, but the occasional blast of cold air to her right was preferable to the smell in the car.
‘The Wilmot woman’s unpleasant and there are more than one or two who don’t like her. Maybe Gloria Wiggins was another person who didn’t, or she could have had a hold over her. We’ll not find out by sitting here.’
‘I’m driving as fast as I can.’
‘Well, drive faster, and you can wind up that window. If my cigarette smoke disturbs you, you just need to say so.’
‘It does.’
‘Stop at the next shop and I’ll buy some mints. What with you and Jean, you’ll both be the death of me, and then what will the two of you have to talk about?’
‘We’ll find something else,’ Clare said.
‘No doubt you will. But getting back to the matter in hand, I don’t trust Margaret Wilmot, and Hamish Foster sits there and lets his wife, Desdemona, be controlled by whoever’s in charge of the group in the corner of the pub.’
‘Unusual. Any other man would have ensured his wife did not come under negative influences.’
‘He could be a closet fire and brimstoner,’ Tremayne said.
‘Do you still want to talk to Stephanie Underwood first?’
‘Swing by her cottage. If she’s there, we’ll talk to her. Otherwise we’ll pay the Fosters a visit.’
On entering the village, Clare turned to the right at the first road and drove up the slight incline and parked outside the neat and tidy cottage. In the house, a light burnt. Clare sensed that something was not right. She switched off the engine, removed the key and hurried up the path to the front door; it was ajar. She suppressed the desire to shout out and adopted a defensive mode as she pushed the door to open it further. Thankfully it did not creak on its hinges. Tremayne, not far behind Clare, moved to the rear of the house, signalling to his sergeant to be careful, and that he would come into the cottage from another direction.
Clare eased forward. The cottage was quiet, save for a television, the woman’s lifeline to the outside world, blaring in the main room. Clare looked through a crack in the door. She could see the television screen, and the back of Stephanie Underwood’s head. Clare relaxed at the sight of her, just before a heavy blow landed on the back of her head. She collapsed onto the hall floor, the noise sufficient to prompt Tremayne to move forward to assist her; the back door of the cottage had been open, allowing him to enter.
‘Yarwood,’ Tremayne said as he knelt down beside her. He had his phone in one hand, on speed dial for police backup and for the Emergency Services.
‘What happened?’ Clare said. She looked around her, not sure for one moment of her bearings.
‘Someone hit you hard.’
‘Did you see who?’
‘I was in the kitchen. All I saw was a figure rushing out. I would have taken chase, but you were out for the count.’
‘I’ll be alright. Miss Underwood?’
‘No need worrying about her.’
‘Dead?’
‘I’ve only looked briefly. Someone came in as she was watching the television, garrotted her with an electric cable. It’s not a pretty sight.’
Clare slowly rose from her crouched position as a medic came in. She took over from Tremayne who had been struggling to lift his sergeant. His knees hurting from kneeling, another sign that he was getting older, but he didn’t want to admit to it.
‘She’ll be fine,’ the medic, a fresh-faced woman in her mid-thirties, said. ‘We’ll take her to the hospital just in case of concussion, delayed shock.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Clare said. ‘Just put on a bandage, give me an injection or whatever. We’ve got a killer on the loose. I’m needed here.’
‘You’ll be wasting your time arguing with Sergeant Yarwood,’ Tremayne said.
‘Suit yourself, but I’ll need a signature that the young woman is not following medical advice,’ the medic said.
‘Whatever you want,’ Clare said. ‘There’s another woman in the other room. According to Inspector Tremayne, she’s dead, but you’d better check.’
The medic entered the room, took one look and came back. She was ashen-faced. ‘I’ve seen enough dead bodies in my time, but not one that’s been murdered.’
‘It’s always a bit of a shock the first time,’ Tremayne said. ‘The crime scene investigators will be here soon. You’ll need to stay till they arrive, so they can take your finger and shoe prints.’
‘Fine by me, although I’ll wait outside.’
Two police officers arrived in uniform. ‘We’re establishing the crime scene,’ one of them, a tall long-faced man with a Yorkshire accent, said. ‘Anything else?’
‘We need the roads in and out of the village sealed.’
‘We’ve already started on that. There are only two roads anyway.’
‘Do you reckon that someone’s made it out?’ Clare said to Tremayne.
‘They’ve probably had time to leave. It’s a long shot, but my money’s on someone in the village. We need to interview as many as possible, and as soon as we can.’
‘I’ll get onto it,’ Clare said. She did not feel well and her head throbbed. She knew that the medic had been correct and that she needed a day in a hospital bed, just in case, but now was not the time. The assumption that the murderer or murderers were focussing on the fire and brimstoners was dashed with the death of Stephanie Underwood. The woman was definitely not a zealot, and apart from her idiosyncrasies, there seemed to be no reason for her to have been murdered. But whatever the reason was, it possibly had a bearing on the other deaths in the village.
Jim Hughes and the crime scene team arrived. Hughes took one look at the body, and came back to where Clare was sitting, no longer on the floor, but on a chair that Tremayne had brought in from the kitchen. Tremayne had already left and had moved down to the pub. Interviews needed to be conducted, and people were required to account for their movements.
‘One to two hours,’ Hughes said.
‘We’ve been here for nearly forty minutes, so whoever hit me is probably the murderer,’ Clare said. She was feeling better for the rest and thanked the medic on the way out.
‘Are you still going out with Doctor Warner?’ the medic said.
‘I’m not sure,’ Clare said, knowing full well that she had said more than she should have. ‘Personal, you’ll understand,’ she said by way of an aside, as she moved towards her car.
‘Sorry, just making conversation. What I saw in there upset me.’
‘Maybe you could do with the rest more than me.’
‘You’ll have a nasty bump, and a throbbing head. Do what you have to, and then go home. Give me a call, and I’ll drop in later and check on you at home.’
‘Is that what medics do?’
‘No, but I don’t live far from you, and I know where you live. Regardless, I’ll give you a call later on to check. And no driving. Your inspector will have to drive for today.’
‘Thanks. I’ll tell him,’ Clare said as she sat in her car.
‘Sorry, you’ll have to get someone else to drive, even now.’
‘Fine. I can walk from here.’
The Reverend Tichborne appeared. ‘Miss Underwood?’ he said.
‘She’s been murdered,’ Clare said. She had met the vicar on a couple of occasions and had not been impressed on either. To her, he was an unimposing figure, with a monotone voice that grated after only a short time.
‘Is it possible to see her, say a prayer for her?’
‘You can ask, but it’s a crime scene. I’m afraid you’ll have to say your prayer from the other side of the crime scene tapes. Afterwards, could you please come to the pub. We’re interviewing everyone in the village. Whoever it was who did this, they were in the cottage when I was there.’
Clare left and walked down to the pub. It was only a five-minute walk, and the fresh air helped to clear her head. Inside the pub, a wood fire in one corner. Tremayne had se
t himself up in a small room off to one side of the bar. The usual crowd were in the bar, even though it was just after midday. No one looked shocked or upset. Margaret Wilmot maintained her usual impassive countenance, the Fosters looked as they always did, the wife, Desdemona, in yet another summery dress, this time a pattern of flowers in bloom on it, although outside the pub was not the weather for flowers or anything else much. Her husband, Hamish, sat by her side. Gladys Upminster had her head down and did not look happy, but that was not out of the ordinary for the singularly despondent woman, Clare decided. Her husband had a pint of beer in his hand.
Behind the counter in the bar, Rupert Baxter stood. ‘Fancy a drink, Sergeant Yarwood?’ he called over to Clare.
‘I could do with something stiff, whisky under normal circumstances, but for now, an orange juice.’
‘Nasty bump on the head from what I hear,’ Baxter said. Regardless of the death of another villager, he still maintained his cheerful demeanour.
‘Someone in this pub more than likely gave it to me,’ Clare said loudly, looking for a reaction. She cast her eyes around the pub, but nobody shifted uneasily in their seat, no one averted their gaze.
Tremayne came out from where he had been sitting. ‘Send them in, Yarwood. One at a time and round up those who are not here. Hughes is keeping me updated from the woman’s cottage. His team have found some clues, especially relating to who hit you. Head hurting?’
‘Like hell,’ Clare responded, which was true. The fresh air outside had done some good, but inside the pub, it was too hot. She felt her eyes wanting to close, her mind wanting to shut down. She knew she should have gone with the medic, but she knew her place: it was with Inspector Tremayne. Now was not the time to say she was too unwell to continue.
Chapter 14
Eustace Upminster was the first to be interviewed in the pub.
One of the uniforms came into the bar with the Reverend Tichborne. The uniform confided to Clare that the man had been a bit of a nuisance about wanting to see the dead body and to say a prayer.
The DI Tremayne Thriller Box Set Page 124
