by Oliver Tidy
‘Then open the door and invite us in.’
Price looked from one to the other and folded like a poorly erected deck-chair. He unlocked the door and stood aside. He seemed reluctant to enter the space where only a couple of days before a man had been found horribly hanging by the neck, dead.
‘Thank you,’ said Romney, as he passed him. ‘Right then, Simon. Where’s this invoice?’
Simon Draper, too, seemed temporarily disturbed at revisiting the scene. Romney wondered fleetingly if he might suddenly refuse, but he cast his eyes down, found some courage and went through into Masters’ office. He slid open the draw of a filing cabinet, thumbed some files and extracted an A4 computer printout. He handed the piece of paper to Romney. Attached to it with a staple was a scribbled handwritten note that turned Romney’s day around.
There’s no one here and I can’t wait. I’ve taken four golf clubs. Please book to Phillip Emerson’s account. He’ll tell you what they are. LW.
Romney had the youth identify the exact same clubs as detailed on the printed invoice. Three were metal-bladed, one a huge-headed wooden driver. The driver was painted a glossy black with a fine red stripe across it.
‘Mr Price,’ said Romney, stepping outside. ‘I’ll need to take the paperwork with me and this, if you’ve no objection.’ He indicated the driver.
‘What on earth do you want that for? Do you know how much something like that costs?’
‘Don’t worry. You’ll get it back. I’ll sign for it of course.’
‘But you haven’t got an account.’
Romney could feel his headache returning. ‘So open me one.’
*
After dropping the driver off at forensics Romney went in search of Marsh. She was at her desk engrossed in report writing. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes tired.
‘Give you a hard time, did they?’ said Romney.
‘You were right, sir. They took some convincing that my presence in the next street was purely coincidental. I’m still not sure that they believe me.’
‘They will,’ said Romney.
‘You look pleased about something.’
‘I might have a right to. We’ll have to wait and see what forensics says.’ He gave her the potted version of his trip to the golf club and then placed the handwritten note in front of her.
‘LW? Lillian West?’ she said.
‘That’s what I’m thinking. How long are you going to be?’
‘I’ve just started.’
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘Maybe you could call upstairs and get me an extension.’
‘I think I might have to. I need you to come out to Lillian West’s with me.’
‘She’s going to love that.’
‘I’m counting on it.’
*
Tall, ornate iron gates hung from imposing stone pillars barring the entrance to the West’s very private residence and leaving only the stupidest of casual callers ignorant to the idea that uninvited visitors should not expect a warm welcome. A woman who wasn’t Lillian West answered the intercom. The police were forced to wait several minutes while Lillian West was located and brought to the device. Romney doubted she’d hurried herself.
Sounding distinctly unhappy, she said, ‘What do you want, Inspector?’
‘To speak with you, Mrs West.’
‘Couldn’t you have phoned me? Must you come to my home?’
‘Open the gate, please.’ Romney released the button terminating the connection. An electronic buzz, a click and the gates began to slowly open inwards with a purr of electrics and well-oiled engineering.
As they crawled up the curving block-paved driveway, Romney said, ‘I’ll be happy to make some trouble for that woman.’
The grand mansion revealed itself as they rounded a mature and expertly maintained yew hedge.
‘Very nice,’ said Romney. ‘Welcome to how the other half live.’
‘This isn’t the other half, sir. This is the one percent.’
A brace of matching Audis with private number plates completed the scene which could have been a contender for a Homes and Gardens front cover. Lillian West stood in the open doorway, arms folded, looking unwelcoming. Despite the impression she gave of having been dragged from her bed, she still managed to look composed and striking. Her unbrushed blonde bed-hair contrasted sharply with her decoratively embroidered, crimson Kimono that shimmered in the glare of the glorious sunshine as only truly expensive natural fibres can. Her feet were bare. She didn’t move or alter her expression as Romney and Marsh narrowed the distance between them.
It was a clear sign of her irritation and anxiety at the police presence that, although she couldn’t have missed Romney’s disfigurement she ignored it. ‘This is not convenient, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I thought we had an arrangement, an understanding.’ She glared at Marsh.
‘Well then, Mrs West, let me take the opportunity to disabuse you of that misconception and remind you that we are investigating a brutal murder. If we want to speak to you, you are expected to make yourself available, wherever and whenever. Is that clear enough for you?’
Romney’s direct abrasiveness visibly subdued the woman. When she replied it was with some composure and a degree of reasonability. ‘Perfectly. All I’m saying is, I would rather have met you away from my home. At the police station if you prefer.’
‘We don’t have time to play games, Mrs West.’
‘What is so urgent then, Inspector?’
As she didn’t look like extending an invitation for tea and biscuits in the drawing room, Romney continued, glad it was nice weather for standing around on front steps. ‘How well did you know Elliot Masters, the professional at the golf club?’
Although there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, something darkened Lillian West’s features. ‘I knew him a little. Our paths crossed.’
‘That it?’
‘I saw him in the shop, the clubhouse and around the course from time to time. Why do you ask?’
‘So not a close friend?’
‘No.’
‘What do you know about some golf clubs that were taken from the pro-shop and later charged to Phillip Emerson’s account?’ If Romney was hoping to catch his quarry out with a quick attack, he was to be disappointed.
‘Phillip asked me to pick them up for him. He was in a hurry for them.’
‘Why didn’t he get them himself?’
‘He was busy.’
‘What was the hurry?’
‘It was his son’s birthday the next day.’
‘Why did he ask you to get them?’
She smiled without warmth. ‘Phillip was a last minute person.’
‘What exactly did he ask you to get?’
‘A selection. He left it up to me.’
‘Tell us about the day you picked them up.’
‘What is so important about them?’
‘We’re not sure there is anything important about them, yet.’
‘Then why are you standing on my doorstep at this ungodly hour discussing them, Inspector?’
‘Because you won’t invite us in.’
She took a deep breath and exhaled signalling her continuing displeasure at the situation. ‘I called into the shop. I was in a bit of a hurry myself. There was no one around so I took them. I left a note. I told Phillip he should get in touch with them and let them know what I’d taken.’
‘What did the note say?’ asked Romney, as though he didn’t have it in his pocket.
‘I can’t remember exactly. Something brief and explanatory. Why is that important?’
Romney ignored the question. ‘Then what happened?’
‘I took the clubs to the flat in Waterloo Crescent and left them there. That’s what he asked me to do with them. He was at a business function, or something. It was William’s birthday the following day. He wouldn’t have made the course shop before they shut that evening. Look, Inspector, I’m really having trouble understanding the point of
all this.’
‘Nearly finished. Was that the end of it?’
‘No, actually. They didn’t see my note and Phillip didn’t call them till the day after. By then they thought that they’d been robbed. Phillip sorted it out.’
Romney was disappointed. He’d hoped that she might have lied as she should have done if she’d had something to hide.
‘I take it you’re no closer to catching Phillip’s murderer then?’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t say that, Mrs West. Bits of the puzzle keep turning up.’
She looked like she didn’t believe him. ‘Is that all, Inspector, or do you have anything else you’d like to ask me? What I’m having for breakfast, perhaps?’
‘That’s all for now. Thank you. Is your husband at home?’
Her instant alarm chased her confidence away with its tail between its legs. ‘Why do you ask? Surely you don’t need to speak to him? I told you, he’s an old man. He’s also very sick.’
‘Mrs West, I’m sure you can appreciate that with your lover clubbed to death your husband becomes a natural suspect. Suspects are something that we are a little short of.’
She looked over her shoulder into the house and pulled the door almost shut behind her. As she turned back to them, the gossamer fabric of the Kimono – missing its belt – wafted open to reveal an idea of a negligee and a lot of tanned flesh. Seeing Romney’s attention drawn to her exposure, she pulled the garment tightly back around her.
‘My husband is confined to his sickbed. He is semi-permanently attached to a dialysis machine. He did not kill Phillip Emerson, he is physically incapable of causing anyone physical harm, and if you come barging in here with all sorts of wild unsubstantiated accusations it could prove dangerous to his health.’
‘And your position, of course,’ said Romney, refusing to be intimidated by her bluster and reminding her gently of the advantage he had over her.
Her eyes flared briefly at him for that. ‘Yes, as I’ve already told you. Look, Inspector, would you let me have my husband’s doctor speak with you. Could that satisfy you?’
‘All right, Mrs West. For now it will. Give me his number.’
*
‘What happened to you?’
‘Hello, Maurice.’
‘Looks painful.’
‘I’ll live.’
‘What brings you across to the chamber of horrors?’
‘Wonder if you would do me a favour.’
‘Go on. Anything for the fuzz.’
‘I want you to speak to a doctor for me.’
The pathologist raised an eyebrow. Romney passed across the finely produced business card Lillian West had given him. The pathologist put on his glasses and a smile played around the corners of his mouth.
‘Know him?’ said Romney.
‘Of course. As a professional body doctors are closer than most others. We all need to know who to call to cover up our mistakes and misdiagnoses with sympathetic second opinions. Why is the long arm of the law interested in Felix Evans?’
‘He is the personal physician of a man who, I am assured by his wife, is physically incapable of harming a fly. I’d like to know if it’s true or not.’
‘Why don’t you call him yourself?’
Romney snorted and winced. ‘Come on, can you imagine how he’d confuse me with all that jargon? Medic to medic he might even be tempted to tell the truth.’
‘Who ripped your world up?’ chided the pathologist gently. ‘Anyway, aren’t you forgetting about patient-doctor confidentiality?’
‘The wife has spoken to him. I’m confident she’ll have convinced him to shoot straight with us.’
‘All right. No problem for me.’ Romney made himself comfortable in one of the chairs across from the medical man. ‘I’ll do it now then, shall I?’ said the pathologist.
‘I was hoping you would.’ Romney picked up and flicked through a glossy medical journal as the pathologist went through the performance of introduction, re-acquaintance, catching up and then into the reason for his call. He questioned and listened, chuckled and gasped, doodled and tutted, thanked his peer and rang off with easy promises of a drink when next their paths crossed.
Romney threw the copy of Medical Monthly back on to the pile. ‘I hope your call was more interesting than that.’
‘If he’s a suspect you’re going to be disappointed. I’m afraid your Mr West is indeed a sick old man. Has been for some time. In my learned friend’s professional opinion, he is certainly incapable of strenuous physical activity. Heart, kidney and respiratory problems, and not long for this world,’ said the pathologist. Romney looked disappointed, but not surprised. He had believed Lillian West the first time she’d told him. ‘Felix doesn’t like the wife. She’s quite a bit younger than the old man – a gold-digger, apparently. Felix may have been a little indiscreet with me. He always did like to gossip. He says she’s just waiting for him to expire in order that she can inherit.’ This wasn’t news to Romney. ‘He also says that the old man was under no illusions about her motives for marrying him and that he safeguarded his wealth by stipulating in a pre-nuptial agreement that if she’s caught in another man’s arms while he is still alive, whatever his state of health, she gets absolutely nothing.’
‘How romantic.’
‘As I remember, aren’t you rather fond of quoting some character called Dutch Schultz? Something about the world being a whore-house?’
‘I might have to revise that,’ said Romney. ‘Nut-house would be more accurate. If you ask me, we’re living in one giant asylum.’
*
A message on Romney’s desk confirmed that the paint from the driver he had taken from the pro-shop that morning was a match for paint flakes discovered in Phillip Emerson’s broken head. He called Marsh in and shared the news with her.
‘So, given that the range of injuries caused aren’t all consistent with blows from one weapon, it’s likely the other clubs were used in the assault,’ said Marsh.
‘That’s reasonable. What else does it tell us?’
Marsh chewed her pencil for a think. ‘If Emerson was beaten to death with the clubs that came from the pro-shop then either Lillian West is lying and never delivered them as she claims, or she did and Emerson never received them, or he did but never gave them, or Emerson did receive them and gave them to his son. It also seems more likely we are looking for more than one assailant.’
‘I think we need to have another word with William Emerson, don’t you?’ said Romney.
‘I think we could really do with finding those clubs,’ said Marsh.
***
15
They found William Emerson at home. His mother was also there. She showed them into the kitchen and asked them to wait while she fetched her son. She had aged in the past week. Dark circles ringed her eyes and her skin had the look of someone who wasn’t sleeping. Her shoulders sagged under the weight of responsibility or worry, uncertainty or secrets.
William Emerson, scruffy and untidy, could have been wearing the same T-shirt of five days ago. It might not have been washed. He showed little change at all in his bearing, but then the only other time Romney had seen him was the day he had received news of his father’s murder. It wasn’t much to compare him with.
The four of them arranged themselves around the big farmhouse table. Mrs Emerson did not offer refreshments. As a protective mother, a single parent now, she had no intention of leaving her son alone with the police. Romney would rather she had.
‘How are you bearing up?’ he asked.
‘We’re fine,’ said Mrs Emerson, but her delivery lacked conviction. That the presence of the police made her nervous was clear.
‘We’re trying to get a better idea of Mr Emerson’s movements leading up to the night of his death. What can either of you tell us? Work back from the night in question.’
‘As I told you on your previous visit, Inspector, he wasn’t here at all the night he was killed. He left home in the morning to
go to work. I never saw him again. He’d spent the previous night here. It was William’s birthday and we ate out together.’
‘Just the three of you?’
William said, ‘No, my girlfriend was there too.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘The Italian restaurant in the high-street.’
‘So, neither of you saw him again after the following morning. Is that right?’ They nodded in unison. ‘Did either of you speak to him during the day?’ They both shook their heads adding to the impression that this had not been a close family. ‘How did Mr Emerson seem on the night you were out together?’
‘His normal self: loud, confident, extravagant,’ said the widow.
‘No indication that he may have had something on his mind?’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘You say he didn’t come home at all the night he died, and that happened often?’
‘There were nights he didn’t come home,’ said Mrs Emerson, ‘but then he treated the place more like a hotel than a home, so it was nothing unusual.’
‘Do you know where he was when he didn’t?’
Mrs Emerson smiled thinly. ‘I do now. Of course, I had my suspicions. William and I have had a frank chat. I told you the last time you called, Inspector, something of the arrangement that existed between Phillip and me. I had to suspect there might have been other women. I thank my husband that he kept that from me. I don’t bear him a grudge for it either. He was a man.’
Whatever that was supposed to mean, thought Romney.
Mrs Emerson’s reasonableness, as a woman whose husband was cheating on her, regardless of their ‘arrangement’, struck both officers as extraordinary.
‘Is there anything either of you can tell us that might help in finding whoever killed him? Anything that might have occurred to you now the dust has settled, so to speak?’
Again they shook their heads. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. Naturally, we want to see whoever did this brought to justice, but we don’t know anything more than we’ve told you.’
