by Oliver Tidy
*
Romney returned from the pathology department with his own personal crusade occupying his thoughts. It seemed that the DI had made Lillian West’s prosecution for something – anything – the primary goal of his immediate professional future. From the way he covered the distance between the department door and his office, Marsh got the impression things had not gone well.
‘He basically suffocated. Oxygen starvation. The canister which provided his supply had run out. It should have been changed but wasn’t.’
‘Whose responsibility was that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Romney sounded tired and defeated. ‘Maurice suggested it would be a very difficult thing to prove negligence on the part of anyone. As everyone keeps telling me, he was a weak, sick old man. They could all swear that the responsibility was the old man’s and I couldn’t disprove it.’
‘I might have some good news.’
‘Really? That would be a novelty. Let me enjoy it. I’ll buy you a proper coffee across the road if we can sit outside.’
*
Romney insisted that Marsh delay her good news until the sun was on his face, a steaming mug of black filter coffee was in front of him and his cigarette was smouldering between his fingers. Expelling a lungful of smoke, he eventually said, ‘Off you go then. Let’s hear your idea of good news. I don’t suppose you’re going to provide me with irrefutable evidence that Lillian West killed Emerson then Masters and is hatching a plot to assassinate the Mayor of Dover?’
‘No,’ said Marsh. ‘I think I have a good idea of why Elliot Masters committed suicide.’
‘Blimey, is that what passes for good news these days? We can’t even prosecute him.’
‘I also have a suggestion for who might have killed Phillip Emerson, assuming he wasn’t already dead when Lillian West left him.’
‘Could this mystery person have planted the clubs in Masters’ golf bag?’
‘Quite possibly.’
‘What are you waiting for then?’
‘Masters’ and Emerson’s business plan was very ambitious and very expensive. It involved purchasing property from the golf club, developing it and making a killing – if you’ll forgive the expression. They needed to invest heavily to finance it. They had also already ploughed a lot of money into the project to get where they were with it. Masters had put up the marital home as security. Emerson’s death effectively ruined him. It might have tipped him over the edge into suicide.’
‘OK. I’ll buy that but only because we have nothing else to offer.’
‘The property lies alongside the golf course. All of the cottages are let on short term leases, except one: Bill Thatcher’s, the head green-keeper. He has a legal right to stay in the cottage he currently occupies at a peppercorn rent for the rest of his life – whether he’s working for the club or retired – providing the property is still owned by the golf club. The day the property ceases to be an asset of the White Cliffs Golf Club, Bill Thatcher loses that right. How old do you think that he is?’
‘Mid sixties.’
‘Does he strike you as a wealthy man?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither. I doubt very much he has earned enough over the years he has been with the club to provide for an expensive old age. It’s the way it was in the days he was hired. Accommodation was the part of the package that enabled the club to pay workers peanuts. Back then no one could see the day when that land would be considered prime development land and worth a potential fortune – something to be sold off.’ Even though she couldn’t fit Lillian West in anywhere, she was sure that Romney was liking it. ‘If the club sold the property on, especially to people looking to develop it, Thatcher would likely find himself with notice to quit and maybe he has nowhere to go.’
‘It’s a strong motive. I’ll grant you that. Remember him on the days we found both men’s corpses? He wasn’t taking the news of either very badly was he? Tell me how it happened?’
‘Perhaps he sees car lights stopping at the course from his home and goes out to investigate. Perhaps it’s a habit of his to walk the course at night. I wouldn’t be surprised. In fact, in his position I would probably do the same myself. It must be beautiful up there on a summer’s night.’ Romney gave her a strange look. ‘He sees what’s going on, maybe just watches them and then Lillian West knocks Emerson out as she says and drives off in his car. The answer to Thatcher’s uncertain future is literally laid out in front of him. All he had to do is act, finish the job. He didn’t just kill him. He took out all his anger, frustration, hatred on the man who was proposing to put him out of his home, a place he had occupied for decades.’
‘And the clubs in Masters’ bag?’
‘Easy. After he’s staved Emerson’s head in, he washes them off in one of the water hazards on the course and hides them. When Masters does away with himself, he thanks his good fortune and seizes the opportunity of the perfect place to get rid of them and implicate someone else, someone who can’t defend themselves. He’s been a fixture around the course for a long time. I’m sure he would have had no trouble getting into the pro-shop unnoticed to shove the clubs in Masters’ bag.’
‘It makes a kind of sense. How do you propose to prove it?’
‘We should wait and see if forensics finds any prints on the clubs that don’t belong to either of those two from the pro-shop.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘We could get a warrant and search his home.’
‘Looking for what? There’s nothing missing.’
‘He might have a garment that he wore on the night that could give us some evidence. You said yourself it would be difficult to imagine someone doing that to a body and not getting something on themselves.’
Romney looked dubious. ‘If he did do it, do you think he wouldn’t have disposed of anything like that? Anyway, he was one of the first on the scene; he could always claim that he went for a closer look and that’s how anything we might find got on his clothing.’ Romney thought and smoked. ‘Maybe we should bring him in and sweat him, but he’s a tough old bird.’
*
By the middle of the afternoon CID received news that the only clearly discernable prints found on any of the clubs were those of the new golf professional and Simon Draper. A partial unidentified thumb print was also found on the shaft of one of the irons. Whoever had wiped the clubs off before secreting them in Masters’ bag had been quite thorough, even if they had left traces of evidence of the devastation they had caused in the slits of the clubs’ blades.
With time to ruminate over Marsh’s theories, Romney had gradually come around to grudgingly accepting that maybe Lillian West was not the assassin and that Marsh could just be right about the head green-keeper. With little else for it, he decided to have Thatcher brought in for some bluff and bluster and finger-printing.
Marsh was sent in a noisy patrol car with two shaven headed uniformed officers who looked more like football hooligans than those dedicated to the upkeep of law and order to invite Thatcher to come voluntarily to the station to answer a few questions. Marsh had instructions to arrest him and bring him forcibly if he declined. Marsh would report that Thatcher proved a cool customer, only smirking slightly when the invitation was extended. He strolled to the police car flanked by the towering constables apparently unconcerned at the turn of his day’s events.
This description would go some way to explaining the relaxed and confident man who sat opposite Romney and Marsh in the oven-hot interview room of Dover police station. While the DI had his collar undone and tie loosened for the heat the head green-keeper, although tie-less, wore a collared shirt buttoned to the neck and what looked like a pure-wool jumper. Romney would have bet money on him wearing a vest underneath it all. He looked the type. His one concession either to the heat or the occasion was to remove his hat and place it on the table between them. Romney’s eye drifted to the band of grime that indicated where it fit the man.
‘Am I under arrest
then?’ said Thatcher.
‘What for?’
‘You tell me, you’re s’posed to be in charge aint yer?’
‘Maybe we just want you to help us with our enquiries, Mr Thatcher,’ said Romney.
‘Oh aye. I’ve heard that one afore. When do the rubber ‘oses come out?’
‘They don’t let us do that anymore,’ said Romney, ‘unfortunately.’
Without obvious nastiness, Thatcher said, ‘That’s right. You strike me as the type who’d get a kick out of hitting a defenceless old man.’
‘You’ll probably have heard,’ said Romney, ‘that two days ago some clubs were discovered in a golf bag at the pro-shop which belonged to Elliot Masters and that they weren’t his. They were the clubs that were used to kill Phillip Emerson. We found bits of him in the slits of the face of the blades. Whoever tried to wash them clean didn’t do a proper job of it. They also left a few nice finger prints for forensics to find.’
Bill Thatcher sat still and quiet. His bright beady eyes stared out from beneath his untrimmed eyebrows and contrasted starkly with his summer-stained leathery skin.
‘Do you know anything about those clubs, Mr Thatcher?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know how they came to be in Elliot Masters’ golf bag?’
‘No.’
Theatrically, Romney made a confused face and then leaned forward on his elbows. ‘Can you think of any reason why your fingerprints would show up on the shaft of one of the golf clubs that had bits of Phillip Emerson’s head stuck to it?’
Thatcher showed no visible reaction to the half-accusation. He stared levelly back at Romney, his eyes penetrating the policeman’s, seeking out the truth. Finally, he said, ‘No.’
Romney changed tack. ‘How well did you know Phillip Emerson?’
‘Not very. He were just a big bag of wind. Like to strut around trying to be assertive. Full of bright ideas. Always thinking up something to make work for us.’
‘You didn’t like him, then?’
‘He were an arsehole.’
‘How about Elliot Masters, what did you think of him?’
‘Another arsehole.’
‘Do you like anyone at the golf club?’
‘Couple of the lads who work the course are all right.’
‘Were you aware that Phillip Emerson and Elliot Masters were planning a property development of land that belongs to the club? To be precise the row of cottages you live in and the land alongside it.’
‘I heard something.’
‘What would your position have been, if they had managed to buy the land?’
‘I suppose I’d have had to move out, wouldn’t I?’
‘Why is that?’
‘I reckon you know, or you wouldn’t be asking.’
‘Where would you have gone to live?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘You’d never find anywhere as cheap as the cottage, would you, Mr Thatcher? It’s expensive, property these days. You wouldn’t find anywhere to rent in Dover for less than a hundred a week, I’d guess. Could you afford that in your retirement? There are always those bedsits down by the dock, of course. You might get one of those for seventy-five a week. Not much of a view though. And I shouldn’t think the neighbours are too savoury. And you wouldn’t have the golf course on your doorstep and to yourself to wander around at night, would you?’
Thatcher set his jaw at Romney and refused to allow the policeman to rile him. ‘You remind me a lot of Emerson,’ he said, breaking the silence that had fallen once again. ‘You’re an arsehole, too. You can charge me for that if you like. I’ll happily plead guilty to it.’
‘No need,’ said Romney, ‘just tell us where you were on the night that Phillip Emerson was battered to death?’
*
‘He didn’t deny that he was in the habit of walking the golf course at night. That was something, I suppose.’
‘We can’t arrest him for that though, sir. He denied everything else. If his prints were on the club, why did we let him go?’
‘I never actually said they were, did I?’ In response to Marsh’s look he added, ‘I was just seeing if I could get a reaction out of him.’
‘You got that all right, sir.’
Romney grunted at the memory. ‘Is it worth checking his alibi? If he says he was at home with his wife all night she’s bound to back him up. If she’s lived with him for however long they’ve been married she must be as tough as old boots.’
***
18
Romney was toying with the idea of opening another can when his mobile began trilling, flashing and vibrating around the coffee table. It wasn’t something he could ignore. He glanced up at the clock as he closed in on it. Work or play. The appealing possibility crossed his mind that it was Julie Carpenter, changed her mind about coming over, and he felt an erotic tingle. The illuminated display extinguished that prospect and his rising ardour, unless, of course, she was calling from the station.
He listened with one eye on the football still, then with two eyes on the wall and finally as he was moving hurriedly to get changed. He said, ‘Get hold of DS Marsh and tell her to meet me up there.’
It wasn’t the first time Romney had been turned out of his house late at night in the line of duty. With practiced swiftness, he changed into something respectable, killed the television and the lights, snatched up his keys and phone and hurried from the house, slamming the door behind him. He thanked his lucky stars his car was back on the road. His adrenalin flowing, he strapped himself in and turned the key in the ignition to a barely audible click followed by an engulfing silence, which was only broken by his outburst of profanity and the noise of the impact of his fists on the steering wheel.
*
By the time the patrol car had collected him and given him a fair-ground ride to his destination, Romney was just in time to be fashionably late. With two cans of fizzy lager and warmed up Chinese leftovers – a meal that had been pushing its consume by date – sloshing about inside him, he also felt a little queasy.
Up on the cliffs where the land was closest to the sky the air was heavy, pressured from above by the weight of a thick blanket of cloud. Six weeks of rain waiting for an excuse to fall. With nothing other than darkness to hinder the view across the channel those gathered on the heights of the White Cliffs were treated to intermittent explosions of energy behind the cloud screen over the northern coast of France. The extended summer had finally broken across La Manche and for the present all those exposed on the golf course hoped it would stay there.
Temporary spotlights were in the process of being set up and two boiler-suited figures, reminding Romney of paramedics hunched over a coronary victim, fussed over a generator trying to bring it back to life. Real paramedics stood idly by waiting to do their job.
In the pitch black of the country with no moon to reflect an idea of the sun – and so far out of town as to make light pollution an irrelevance – torch beams were the only source of light and illumination. In so many uncoordinated hands the spectacle reminded Romney of an impromptu pyrotechnic display as the beams of light cut narrow channels out of the darkness. Voices called out to each other rolling across the open ground, noises that would have been, for the most part, unnecessary in daylight.
Romney borrowed a torch from a uniformed constable and went in search of Marsh. He located her, part of a select huddle and concentrated battery of torchlight, at the lip of an artificial hump on the fairway just off the green Phillip Emerson had been found dead on. As he arrived the generator chugged into life behind him, sounding like some old warplane, and an artificial sun lit up the circus.
Directing the torch beam down into the sandy hollow Romney located the body. A woman with short blonde hair lay face down in the bunker. As the torch beam played around her, Romney caught the impression of a dark stain spoiling the finely raked golden sand. He guessed she had emptied most of her blood supply where she lay.
‘Do
I recognise her?’ said Romney.
‘It’s Lillian West,’ said Marsh. ‘Evening, sir.’
‘Damn,’ said Romney, though why he did, Marsh couldn’t be sure. ‘I suppose she’s dead?’
‘Very.’
‘How?’
‘It looks like her jugular has been punctured by the bunker rake. It’s possible that she landed on it.’
‘How did we find out about it?’
‘Follow me, sir, and I’ll take you to them.’
Marsh led the DI back towards the little community which had formed. She stopped in front of two teenage boys who were sitting on the damp grass. One was shivering, although there was nothing cold about the night.
‘These two were here when it happened.’
Romney’s mind boggled. ‘What were you doing out here?’
The fatter of the two, the one who wasn’t shivering said, ‘We come out here on our bikes now and again to look for balls.’
‘In the middle of the night?’ said Romney, incredulous.
‘Yeah,’ said fatty. ‘It’s illegal. And if the old git catches you he calls the police and pinches your balls.’
‘What?’
Fatty took a deep breath preparing to spell it out for an idiot. ‘We come out here at night to look for golf balls. We go through the water hazards. They’re just ornamental, not deep. If you time it right, like after a competition or something, you can get dozens, if the green-keepers haven’t had a look through them lately that is, which they do from time to time. They sell them in the pro-shop as second hand balls and keep the money. That’s why they don’t like anyone else doing it. You can make a few quid on a good night, just for getting your feet wet.’
‘Right,’ said Romney. ‘So tell me what happened tonight.’
‘We was over by the thirteenth in the little pond off the fairway. We see a car’s lights coming up the road by the course and it stopped. We thought it might be old bill. Sorry, the police. Thought maybe the old git had seen our torches and called you lot. So we turned them off and hid. Someone got out, climbed over the fence and went to the thirteenth green.’
