by Oliver Tidy
‘How did he die, then?’
‘His neck was broken, Mr Booker. There was no fluid to speak of in his lungs, indicating he was already dead before he went in the water.’
That was a jolt. ‘You’re saying he was murdered and then thrown into the sea?’
‘It’s difficult to see how he could have ended up in the water without help and with a broken neck. It might also tell us two things. Whoever did it was trying to confuse us about the way he died and that same person enjoys a very poor understanding regarding forensic science and what an autopsy would reveal.’
I couldn’t speak.
‘Maybe they didn’t expect one to be performed,’ continued Sprake. ‘Or maybe they were just desperate.’
‘How do you mean?’ I said.
‘Before we go into that let me tell you the second thing the autopsy revealed.’
I was listening.
‘Your uncle had only been dead for a matter of hours. The pathologist has determined he died sometime Friday night.’
I felt the blood drain out of my face. It had ebbed away to regroup somewhere I might find it more useful. Friday night. I arrived on Wednesday night. Forty-eight hours.
Sprake said, ‘I’ll remind you that your aunt...’
‘I know when my aunt died. You don’t need to remind me.’
‘Settle down, Mr Booker.’ It was a gentle warning. ‘Obviously, we need to find out where he was in the meantime. Any ideas?’
That could have been a test. I didn’t rise to it and he looked like I’d let him down. But I was thinking about his question. Forty-eight hours, then his neck was broken, then dumped in the sea. I felt sick and tasted my bile.
I swallowed hard through a dry constricted throat and broke the silence. ‘I have no idea where he could have been. If you still suspect me of having a hand in my relatives’ deaths then remember your people had a good look around here on Friday.’
‘I know. Mind if I have a look around myself while I’m here?’
I shook my head. I wouldn’t have cared if he’d invited the station football team in. Maybe he indicated to Cash to wait with me. He left and I heard his heavy tread going up the stairs.
‘Think hard,’ said Cash. ‘Somewhere local he could have been held for forty-eight hours.’
‘Does he still think I’ve got something to do with it?’
‘He doesn’t say, but I don’t think so.’
I sighed heavily and rubbed at my face. I needed a shave.
‘I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would have wanted to hurt either of them, let alone kill them. If he was being held for that long, were there any other injuries to his body. Had he been tortured?’
‘What makes you ask that?’
‘Why keep him alive and locked up for forty-eight hours and then kill him? Why do that unless you want something from someone?’
‘You never received any sort of ransom demand?’
‘What? Of course I didn’t.’
‘Just asking. So we can rule out kidnap.’
I remembered something. ‘What was on his feet when he was found?’
‘He wasn’t wearing anything on his feet. I checked at the scene.’
‘A coat?’
She shook her head for reply.
‘So neither of them was dressed for being out in the weather of Wednesday night. And they were both old people. Old people don’t go out in the cold and wet in their slippers without a jacket on. Maybe they were surprised here and just taken, quickly, no ceremony, no messing about.’
‘You’re suggesting it could have been a robbery that went wrong?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Is anything missing?’
I breathed out heavily. ‘I wouldn’t know. I didn’t see any evidence of a disturbance when I arrived.’
She left me alone for a minute. The news was too terrible. Forty-eight hours. Where? Why? I remembered the image of my aunt in her slippers and asked her if she’d like to see it while she was there.
‘Go on then. Maybe the boss would like to see it too.’
Cash followed me through to the computer in the back room. We waited for it to boot up and settle down. The sounds of Sprake descending the stairs echoed through the walls. He wandered through and I showed them the picture. Cash gave me another of her cards with her email address on it and asked me to send it to her.
I waited until both of them were paying attention. ‘You know my aunt was found snagged on the railings at the outfall?’
‘Yes. It’s in the report.’
‘Has anyone looked into that?’
Sprake was indignant. ‘What do you mean? The constable at the scene noted it. Why would he lie?’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean how she came to be caught on the metalwork.’
He gave me an empty look. Cash gave me a look that said ‘I told you to stay away.’
‘I was down there yesterday. Those railings are there to protect people.’
Sprake took up the slack. ‘What’s your point?’
‘Those railings don’t have a sharp corner on them. They are well secured and in a good state of repair. They have to be. If people were injuring themselves on them the Environment Agency would be paying out in lawsuits. According to the fireman who pulled my aunt out of the channel, her clothing had been hooked up on the railings. I have a hard time understanding how that could have happened. I tried to get myself hooked up on the railings yesterday and it was impossible.’
‘And what conclusion have you drawn, Mr Booker?’
‘Someone wanted her found. Her body wasn’t meant to drift off into the sea and be lost without trace.’
‘And why would someone want that?’
I shrugged. ‘Perhaps to implicate my uncle: her body is found, his isn’t.’
‘But now his body has been found. So how does that fit in with your theory?’
I thought about it, but had no answer.
‘You like detective fiction, do you, Mr Booker?’
‘As much as the next person.’
‘Perhaps you just allow some of the fantastic plots you get caught up in to cloud your judgement. This is Dymchurch, not Chandler’s New York.’
‘It was Los Angeles, actually. Chandler wrote about Los Angeles.’
‘Whatever. Listen to me. Detective Constable Cash has already warned you about sticking your nose into our investigation and now I’m doing the same. Interfering with police matters is, in itself, a criminal offence. Make myself clear?’
I nodded because he expected me to. ‘Perfectly, Inspector. But all the time you continue to consider me a suspect in my relatives’ deaths I feel I have a right to do something about proving you wrong.’
He didn’t pursue it. ‘We’ll be making some house to house enquiries of our own now your uncle has turned up, Mr Booker. Let’s hope they can tell us something we don’t know. Anything else you want to tell us?’
I mentioned my exchange with the lady from the Chinese take-away. Cash made a note.
***
19
With what the police had told me, I couldn’t face persevering with the books. I was upset and I needed diversion. My pragmatic side took over. Contacting my relatives’ solicitors with a view to starting the ball rolling on what must be done came to mind. I went upstairs to look for the phone number.
I was put through to a senior sounding gentleman whose dulcet educated tones could have made a shopping list recital worth listening to.
He surprised me by seeming to take news of the deaths particularly badly. He said that as well as being my relatives’ legal counsel in all things he had been a customer of their business and a friend. He offered to shuffle his appointments for the afternoon so that I could go in and see him that day if I wished. I wished.
*
Mr Chapman, it transpired, was a senior partner in a Hythe law firm. He enjoyed a comfortable, light and airy office at the front of the building. The decor hinted at old-fashioned values and efficien
cy. The view wasn’t so great: a variety of angles, gables, ridges and tiles of the old high street’s rooftops, all covered erratically with lichen, moss and seagull shit.
I experienced a twinge of regretful embarrassment that I hadn’t made more of an effort with my clothing; jeans, a V-neck jumper over an old T-shirt and walking boots made me feel conspicuously underdressed for the occasion. Mr Chapman was far too much of a gentleman to show if he held that opinion himself.
He welcomed me by coming around from behind his desk and taking the hand I offered in both of his before looking searchingly into my eyes and expressing his sincerest sympathies for my losses. I noticed his eyes were quite moist, but that could have had many explanations.
When we had arranged ourselves either side of his desk, he ordered tea to be brought. It duly came with a neat fan of expensive-looking biscuits arranged on an attractive plate. It was very civilised.
He was a good listener and I heard myself unloading on to him just about everything that had happened since my return. He listened without interruption.
When I had finished, he allowed his features to adopt a look of concern. ‘So you feel the police suspect you in some way?’
‘The Inspector in charge isn’t making much of a secret of it.’
‘Then my advice is that you have no more dealings with the law without legal representation present. That is no longer my particular area of expertise but we have good people here for whom it is.’
‘But I’ve got nothing to hide. Wouldn’t it look bad for me if I started attending interviews with a lawyer present?’
‘I appreciate your sentiment, David.’ Using my first name was a touch I appreciated. ‘However, one can’t and shouldn’t be too careful about these things.’
I nodded, but I didn’t like it. He was just doing his job, I supposed: looking after a client, which I now was.
‘I took the liberty of digging out your aunt and uncle’s last will and testament after you called.’ With his well-manicured fingers, he gently brushed a document sitting on the desk between us.
I had been in no hurry to discover the details of this and it must have shown on my face.
He smiled kindly at me. ‘I know that what you stand to inherit will not be uppermost in your mind just now, but still, while you are here...’ He left the sentence unfinished. ‘I am the executor of their estate and you are their sole heir.’ He paused and looked at me quite seriously from beneath the bushy eyebrows that come with old age if not checked. ‘You knew that, I suppose?’
I nodded that I did.
‘Then you’ll probably also know what to expect?’
I reeled off the things I knew about, the things I had reeled off to Sprake that morning in the shop.
When I had finished, he said, ‘And then there are the stocks and shares.’
I had forgotten about stocks and shares and, again, I must have indicated my ignorance with my expression.
Mr Chapman opened the file in front of him and read from a list that could have come straight out of the Financial Times. When he had finished, he said, ‘At present your aunt and uncle’s portfolio of investments has a not inconsiderable value attached to it.’
I asked him how much and he gave me an approximate figure. With the kind of funds I had been surviving on all my working life, a not inconsiderable value was a contender for understatement of the year. It was a small fortune. If I didn’t suffer a fit of extreme philanthropy and donate the inheritance that I suddenly felt unworthy of to a deserving cause, my future had just been altered beyond comprehension – assured and secured.
‘I can see this is something of a surprise to you.’
‘That’s one way of putting it. I had no idea.’
‘I hope you will not interpret as insensitive in any way what I’m about to say but, regardless of my position as a friend of the family, I have an obligation, a duty, to perform as the executor of your aunt and uncle’s estate. Naturally, when the legalities of the will are formalised you will be free to do with the portfolio as you see fit, even to liquidate it, take the money, if that pleases you. However, if you should wish to continue to have the assets professionally managed, naturally, we will be happy to ensure this. They have provided a reasonable return and income and there is no reason to believe they will not continue to do so. But that is all I will say on the matter for now. I have apprised you of your future. Now we must focus on your present. Is there anything that I, or the firm, can do for you professionally or personally at this time?’
‘Thank you. I can’t think of anything. I really just wanted to inform you of the situation.’
‘Remember what I said about legal representation if the attentions of the police become problematic.’
I studied him for a moment. ‘We’ve never met but, unless I’m mistaken, you appear not to suspect me of complicity in their deaths. With all they had and all that I stand to gain, why is that?’
He treated me to a look of benign sufferance. ‘David, I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t have something of a sense for these things. I credit myself with having a nose that can sniff out guilt and there isn’t a hint of it in here today.’
I stepped out on to the pavement feeling a little better. For something to do, I crossed the narrow road to look in the window of a charity shop opposite. In the reflection of the big plate glass window I noticed the solicitor at his upstairs office window. He had a mobile telephone to his ear and a deep frown fixed to his face. He was staring intently in my direction. I resisted the urge to turn and acknowledge him.
I walked the length of the pedestrianised Hythe high street. I was still reeling from the consultation and its implications. I wondered about the wealth and why my relatives had never mentioned any of it. And then I thought that it had never been anything to do with me. It was quite possible they had seen the investments as something they were intending to live off in their old age and retirement.
I stopped in at one of the pubs and had a meal and a pint in the secluded rear beer garden. It was a little suntrap and the high walls and surrounding buildings kept the breeze off me. There was no one else outside and I spent a blissful, peaceful half an hour before retracing my steps to the car and driving home.
***
20
Each time I returned to the property my sense of proprietary familiarity increased. This was not something I was deliberately fostering; it was a natural inclination that I couldn’t shake off. It left me feeling callous and cold-hearted. My relatives had not been dead a week and already I was getting used to the idea that everything that had belonged to them now belonged to me. And I couldn’t kid myself that I didn’t want it. I didn’t like myself for it.
I went into the shop, not with any intention of continuing with the packing of the books but to assess the space for its potential.
The discovery that I’d come into money had altered my perspective. I was only human. I would be in a position to take life a little slower, decide my own direction day to day. I had decided in the car on the drive back from Hythe that my days of working for other people and organisations had come to an abrupt and not unwelcome end. I wasn’t even forty and I would never have to do a day’s work again if I didn’t feel like it.
In truth, it felt as though someone had laid my chains of economic bondage across an anvil and with one powerful blow of something appropriately irresistible severed my ties with the life of a wage slave.
I went upstairs to make coffee, my freshly-mixed cocktail of emotions leaving me equally shaken and stirred.
Waiting for the kettle to boil, I gazed out of the kitchen window at the hills in the distance at Lympne. Movement closer to home caught my eye. In Flashman’s yard the plumber – according to the sign-writing on the van – was visiting the blue container in the far corner. I ignored the kettle as it clicked off – boiled – and went down to speak to him.
The rusting iron gates to the yard – a pair of tall ornate affairs, probably reclaimed from
some stately home – had been left open. I walked in, having a good look around. It was a chaotic mess.
With the money my relatives’ had tied up in investments, my uncle must have looked out over this with a quite miserable eye knowing that they would have had the financial resources to have realised his dreams here. The blot on their outlook that the place had been allowed to become would have been an insult to the injury of his gazumping.
The plumber was a woman. First impressions were she could probably have bent me into a figure of eight like some narrow bore of copper tubing without too much trouble.
She was engrossed in searching for something at the rear of the storage space and seemed not to have noticed my arrival. I coughed for attention. She stood up quickly and banged her head, swore quite well and gave me a look that made me wish I’d whistled as I’d approached.
I tried a smile. ‘Afternoon.’
She regarded me coolly. My attempt to defuse her clear displeasure at my appearance was to explain who I was and where I had come from. It seemed to have a positive effect. She no longer looked like she was going to run me out of the yard for trespassing. She came out into the light to speak with me.
‘I heard about what happened to your folks. I liked them. I did some work for them a couple of months back. Nice people. What made them do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘A suicide pact. That’s why they’re dead, isn’t it?’ She must have caught my look of surprise. ‘That’s what people are saying at any rate.’
‘No one knows. I’m trying to piece together the last hours they were alive. I was wondering if you were around here last Wednesday evening. That’s the time they went missing.’
She gave it some thought and started to shake her head. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t in here at all on Wednesday.’
As I was thanking her for her time a vehicle approached up the shared track off the high street. I turned to see an expensive, shiny, big, black four-by-four bouncing up the way. The vehicle swung in and came to a stop in front of the yellow container with a crunch of skidding gravel. No one got out and because of its tinted windows I couldn’t make out the occupants. The engine idled.
