by J M Gregson
‘And saw exactly what, Mrs Moss? The detail may be important.’
She looked him full in the face, heard herself saying almost aggressively, ‘The detail I remember was the blood. It seemed to be everywhere, to be still running. It was the blood which seemed to dominate everything. I didn’t even know who it was, for a moment. Then I looked at the face and saw that it was Patrick Nayland.’
‘The PM report says that he was certainly dead at that moment. Did you realize that he was dead?’
‘I’m not sure what I realized. I thought I was going to faint. I can remember having the absurd idea that I didn’t want to fall into that pool of blood, get it all over the new dress I’d bought for the evening. I can’t remember beginning to scream, can’t remember anything else until everyone was around me. I think Chris Pearson spoke sharply to me to stop me screaming. I think he gave me a slap, but I’m not even sure of that. Anyway, that was the moment when I knew that this wasn’t a nightmare, that I wasn’t going to wake up and find everything back to normal.’
Lambert nodded slowly as Hook made more notes. Then he said an odd thing. ‘You hadn’t arranged to meet Mr Nayland down there?’
‘No. Why on earth should I have done that?’
‘I’ve no idea, Mrs Moss. We need to be clear about these things, that’s all. We’re still getting to know things about the murder victim and the people who were around him when he died. We don’t know much yet about their various relationships with each other.’
‘Relationships?’ She repeated the word stupidly, as if this were something she had not considered until now.
Lambert said patiently, ‘It is almost certain that it was their relationship, probably with Mr Nayland but possibly with someone else there on that evening, which caused someone to kill your employer.’
She tried not to be startled by that word ‘employer’. An employee was what she was, after all, as far as these two were concerned, though she had long since ceased to regard herself as merely that. ‘Yes. I suppose that must be so. You just don’t like to contemplate such facts, when you know the people involved.’
‘Since the subject has come up, I will ask you directly now. Do you know of any relationships which might have a bearing on this death? I need hardly tell you that you have a duty to be perfectly frank with us.’
She took her time, tried to give the appearance of giving due thought to a difficult question. She even furrowed her brow a little before she spoke: she was rather pleased with that little bit of acting. ‘No, I can’t. Patrick was a good employer, and most of us had reason to be grateful to him. Equally, I think most of us gave him good value for our wages as Camellia Park developed over the years.’ She nodded with what she hoped was due modesty. ‘I can’t speak for any relationships in his private life, away from work, of course. You’d need to ask his family about that.’
Lambert’s scrutiny of her face, his weighing of her every word, was disconcerting, but she thought she was doing rather well. He now made a sudden switch and said, ‘You say that the door of the gents’ cloakroom was slightly open when you came out of the Ladies, that this is what alerted you to the fact that something was wrong. Is it possible that it was already open when you came down the stairs three or four minutes earlier, before you went into the Ladies?’
She tried to look as if she had not thought of this possibility before. ‘I – I really can’t be certain, one way or the other. I suppose it’s really quite likely that the door was slightly open then. I had eyes only for the door of the Ladies at that point. When I came out of there a few minutes later, I was more facing the door of the Gents and in less of a hurry, so the fact that the door wasn’t quite shut must have been much more obvious.’
Lambert studied the well-groomed face for seconds that seemed to stretch endlessly. ‘You realize the importance of this? If that door was shut when you went down to the basement, it almost certainly means that Mr Nayland was murdered behind it during the three or four minutes whilst you were in the Ladies. He may not even have cried out very loudly, if the first blow he received was the fatal one. If on the other hand he had been killed before you got there, it stretches the possible time of his death and gives us a larger range of suspects.’
‘Yes. I see that. But it’s only now that you point it out that I see it.’ She wondered why she suddenly seemed only capable of monosyllables, made herself take a deep breath. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t be certain. At the time it didn’t seem important.’
Lambert smiled, acknowledging a phrase he had heard a thousand times before. ‘You said you saw Michelle Nayland coming back up the stairs as you went down.’
‘Yes. That doesn’t mean anything, though, does it? I just happen to remember her. The evening was pretty boisterous by that time, with a lot of laughter and shouting. There may have been other people around, without my noticing them.’
Lambert’s slight frown conveyed how unlikely he thought that was. ‘Are you quite sure that you didn’t see anyone else, male or female, whilst you were down in the basement?’
She gave the matter due thought. ‘No, I’m sure I didn’t. No one came into the Ladies whilst I was in there, I can be definite about that. Michelle was the only one I saw on the way down. And I didn’t go back up the stairs, did I? I found the body and screamed. The next thing I remember is everyone being around me, and me fighting for my breath.’
Joanne watched Hook making notes in his round, deliberate hand, wondered exactly what words he was writing, what was left for them to investigate with her. Then Lambert said quietly, ‘How would you describe your own relationship with Patrick Nayland, Mrs Moss?’
She made herself take her time. She had known the question would come, in some form, though perhaps she had thought it wouldn’t be as direct and calm as this. ‘I’ve already told you the gist of it. He was a good employer; I think that I was a good employee, even if that sounds immodest.’ How odd and formal that word ‘employee’ sounded! She could hardly believe that she was applying it to herself. Just for a second, a second which might have been disastrous, she found that she wanted to laugh at herself, at her grave delivery of these sentiments.
Then she reminded herself of how dangerous was this charade she was playing out and strove to put a little detail upon it. ‘The catering at Camellia Park has developed from an original concept which was very modest into something more ambitious.’ That sounded like a publicity brochure, she thought. She summoned up a smile and said, ‘I’m the one who’s developed it. My wages have gone up, but I think the club has had good value for what it’s paid me.’
If Lambert had noticed her transferring his question from Patrick to the more impersonal matter of the club, he gave no sign of it. The grey eyes studied her for a moment before he said, ‘Do you know of anyone else, within the club or outside it, who had reason to wish Mr Nayland dead?’
She kept her face serious and unrelaxed; it wouldn’t do for him to see the lightening of the tension she felt with this more general question. ‘No. I’ve thought about that since Wednesday night. I expect everyone who was there has been thinking about it, once they got over the first shock of the death. But I haven’t come up with anything which could be a motive for murder. I don’t know the family, of course.’
Lambert spoke almost as if she hadn’t given him this carefully planned reply. ‘You see, someone must have been very desperate or very disturbed, to kill him at that time and in that place.’
Joanne nodded slowly, digesting the thought. ‘It was a complete surprise to all of us. But isn’t that a good thing, from a murderer’s point of view?’
‘Possibly. But a killing in a more private, more anonymous place would have left a wider range of suspects.’
She nodded. ‘I suppose so. It’s not something I’ve ever had to think about before.’ She gave a small, involuntary shudder. ‘I’m a murder suspect, aren’t I? I’ll have to come to terms with that idea.’
‘Only until such time as we make an arrest. Te
ll me what you can about the relationship between the victim and Mr Pearson.’
How abrupt he was! They didn’t go in for small talk, these people. Even the tea hadn’t led to any introductory chatter. She wondered if this manner was natural to Lambert or part of a technique he adopted to throw people off balance. ‘Chris Pearson? He’d been involved in the enterprise from the start, before the golf course even had a name. He was around for two or three years before I came on the scene.’
‘It was his relationship with Patrick Nayland that I asked about.’
He was like a prosecuting counsel bringing her back to the point. ‘They seemed to me to get on very well with each other. Chris is ambitious for Camellia Park, has lots of ideas about its development. It was he who saw the potential in the catering, as soon as the place had a clubhouse. I think it was Chris who brought me in. I was part-time at first. Chris asked me to take on the job full-time after about a year.’
‘But it was Patrick Nayland who made the decisions?’
‘In the sense that he controlled the purse-strings, yes. I don’t doubt that Chris Pearson had discussed the matter with Patrick fully before he offered me full-time work. But it was characteristic of Patrick to let Chris make me the offer.’
‘They got on well together, then, the two of them?’ Lambert brought her patiently back to the question.
‘Yes. Very well, as far as I’m aware. Of course, Patrick was the one with the money, the one who took the ultimate decisions about everything.’
‘And that led to tensions?’
How quick the man was to latch on to things. She wondered what he was asking other people about her. ‘No, I’m not saying that they fell out over it. Chris knew what the situation was and accepted it. I just think that occasionally he must have felt a little frustrated, when he didn’t see things moving as fast as he’d have liked them to.’
‘For instance?’
‘Well, Chris wanted to take in more land, to make the course an eighteen holer. A proper golf course, he called it. Patrick said it was a business enterprise. That he’d plough the profits back, in due course, but that the place must generate enough money to pay for its own expansion.’
‘You seem very well informed, Mrs Moss.’
It sounded like a dig, but she refused to let it ruffle her. ‘We’re a small organization at Camellia Park. You get to know what’s going on pretty quickly. And Chris Pearson talks to me from time to time.’
He looked at her sharply, as if he suspected some sort of liaison with Chris, but she returned his look without embarrassment. Then he said, ‘What about the people who work on the course?’
‘Alan Fitch is deeper than people think he is. I don’t see a lot of him, but he comes in from time to time. He’s proud of what he does on the course, and I’ve no reason to think he had anything against Patrick Nayland. I know he was pleased to get extra staff. He was delighted when young Barry Hooper was made permanent.’
‘And what do you make of Mr Hooper?’
She shrugged, feeling the moments of danger were past, almost enjoying playing her part now. ‘He seems a nice enough lad. Thinks the sun shines out of Alan Fitch, who’s rather a father-figure to him. I suspect he thinks we’re all quite ancient, the permanent staff. As we are to Barry, of course. He told me he loves working in the open air, but once he’s away from the course he’s more interested in motorbikes than anything else. He’s just got a new one: you know when he’s coming and going by the noise it makes.’ She smiled in recollection of the lean young black body, crouched earnestly low over the fuel tank of his bike.
It was Hook, looking up unexpectedly from his notes, who said, ‘Do you know the model? I used to ride a fast machine myself, twenty years ago.’
She managed to stifle a smile at the thought of this burly, almost portly, figure as a tearaway boy racer. ‘No. I’m afraid I’m not into motorbikes.’
Hook nodded. ‘And how was he on the night of the murder? Did he seem to be behaving normally?’
And she’d thought for a moment that they were going to be diverted into a little small talk! ‘Barry? Well, he was rather on edge, particularly in the early part of the evening. I think he was a little overawed by the restaurant and the company. I don’t think he’d been to anything like that before.’ She wondered if that sounded a little patronizing. ‘Well, I know he hadn’t, because Barry chatted to me for a few minutes at Wednesday lunchtime, and he was quite apprehensive about the evening.’
‘But not about Mr Nayland?’
‘Not about his employer, no. I think he was just glad to be taken on to the permanent staff of Camellia Park. I remember seeing him talking to Michelle Nayland on Wednesday evening.’ She wasn’t going to say he was a little out of his class there, because she wasn’t going to talk the lad down. Let them make their own discoveries.
‘And did you notice anyone who was behaving out of character? Or any disputes?’ Hook had his ball-pen poised over his notebook.
It almost tempted her into a little mischief. Instead, she said demurely, ‘No. As I say, quite a lot of decent wine was drunk during the evening. People were letting their hair down, and there was a lot of boisterous fun, but I didn’t see any serious arguments.’
They stood up to go then. Lambert looked closely at the sideboard, and then at the shelves from which she had swept things into the dustbin bag in her clear-out. For a moment, she fancied that he was going to run his fingers along the almost bare mantelpiece. Instead, he said, ‘Keep thinking about that evening. However unpleasant the idea may be, one of the people at that table killed Patrick Nayland. Things may still come back to you. Sometimes quite small things can be significant, in the context of murder. I think you’re quite a shrewd observer, so I’d appreciate anything you come up with.’
And with that last little piece of flattery, they were gone. Joanne Moss found that it was some time before she could bring herself to be still. She walked up and down the familiar room, then gathered and washed the tea things. She kept going over everything they had said, searching for the subtext beneath the questions, examining the replies she had given to those observant men.
When she finally sat down in the big winged chair and picked up the morning paper she had still not opened, she allowed herself a smile, which she then found she could not wipe away.
It seemed to have gone quite well.
Eleven
A hundred miles north of Camellia Park, in a village high in the Derbyshire Peak District, it was even colder on Saturday morning than in Gloucestershire.
There was a light dusting of snow on the upper slopes of the hills, and a hard frost in the valleys. The woman detective constable flapped her arms in defence against the cold, which hit her suddenly when she got out of the car. Just routine, they’d said, it just needs checking out. Go and see the first Mrs Patrick Nayland and make sure that she can’t throw any light upon this death.
So no glory to be gained, then; just the possibility of a good rollicking and a career setback if you missed anything which might later emerge as significant. Wonderful! Just the assignment for a Saturday morning she had planned to spend in bed with her boyfriend! DC Ros Tebbit rang the bell of the detached stone house, blew into her cupped hands, and turned her back upon an east wind which was no doubt coming straight from Siberia.
It was a man who opened the door. Around fifty, which was ancient to Ros, but trim and fit for his age, she thought, with dark, well-trimmed hair and humorous brown eyes. He was not in a dressing gown, as Ros had half-expected, but fully dressed in casual clothes. When she apologized for calling so early, he laughed. ‘After nine now, isn’t it? Been up for hours. You aren’t allowed a lie-in when you keep Labradors!’ A belated barking from the rear of the house endorsed that view.
DC Tebbit explained that it was the lady of the house she needed to see, that it almost certainly wouldn’t take very long. ‘A routine enquiry, in connection with an investigation into a serious crime in Gloucestershire,’ she expla
ined, rolling the syllables out carefully, but trying to imply that she had much more serious local concerns to fill the rest of her day, that only her professionalism protected him from the yawn she felt was appropriate to this enterprise.
The former Mrs Nayland, now Mrs Calvert, took her into a large square room at the front of the house and shut the oak door, stilling the interchange between her husband and the dogs at the other end of this solid, comfortable residence. She had been told two days earlier of Patrick Nayland’s death, and a little of the manner of it, so Ros was spared the ordeal of breaking the news.
In all truth, the first wife of the victim did not seem much affected by this death. She had kept an excellent figure, even if she was now slightly overweight; her face was lightly made up, even at this hour; her grey hair was attractively styled, without a trace of the tinting Ros would have expected. Her first words confirmed what her appearance suggested. ‘I was shocked rather than grief-stricken when I heard about Pat. We haven’t been in touch for years, but you don’t expect a man to be struck down like that, do you?’
‘Indeed you don’t, Mrs Calvert. And that’s really why I’m here. As a small part of a full-scale murder inquiry. No more than a cog in a very large machine, but a necessary cog, nevertheless.’
Mary Calvert smiled into the earnest young face, which had lit up despite itself at the mention of the word murder, with its curious, slaughterhouse glamour. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to assist you much. I’d like to help – no one wants a murderer to get away with it – but I won’t be able to tell you much.’
Just as she had feared, Ros thought. And she’d left a grumpy lover in bed for this. She said in a determinedly official manner, ‘Can you think of anyone who had a grievance against Mr Nayland? Anyone who might have wanted him out of the way?’
‘Only me, at one time! I’d cheerfully have seen him off, around the time of our divorce! Except that I don’t suppose I would have, would I, given the chance? We say these things, but not many of us mean it, or there’d be a lot more killings than there are. Ten years later, I can’t think why I got so excited about things. The parting of our ways was a blessing in disguise, really.’ She looked contentedly round at the well-furnished room, with its Persian carpet and its antique mahogany cabinets.
