Legacy of Lies

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘That’s very precise,’ Naomi commented.

  ‘That’s the way he was. I hadn’t realized the list was still here. He sat at this desk just a day or two before he … before he died and added his colours. That’s why I recall so vividly. I assumed he’d taken it with him, but here it is, together with some of his notes. I found them in the back of the day book. Or rather, Emma did when she was writing up a sale yesterday.’

  ‘Day book?’

  ‘Oh, it’s what we call the little ledger we use to record daily sales.’

  ‘Can you show me?’

  ‘Of course.’ Marcus sounded surprised. He left the room and came back a few minutes later. He placed the book on the desk in front of Alec and something else on the floor near Naomi. She could hear the crinkle of heavy paper and knew that inside would be Rupert’s effects from the day he died. Paper allowed the contents to breath, which was important if the fabric was damp or bloody.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘We record what is sold and the details of the buyer so we can send out mailshots, that sort of thing. Most people are happy for us to do that but, of course, some don’t want more junk mail. There’s the sale price and any comments we might deem useful such as here, look, this buyer wanted us to keep an eye out for similar items. Later, Rupert would enter whatever was relevant on a spreadsheet. He could cross-reference with original cost and source and all manner of things.’

  Marcus sighed. ‘I don’t frankly know how I will manage.’ He laughed uncertainly. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever thought of a career change?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Alec told him. ‘But I know someone who could probably help out with this side of things. He’s very young, but he’s a real … whiz … with computers.’

  ‘You’re thinking Patrick,’ Naomi said.

  ‘I’m thinking Patrick. I’m also thinking we don’t have the evidence to call in a forensic computer expert. Not unless we can really prove foul play.’

  ‘You think we need it?’

  ‘I think Rupert was more attached to the twenty-first century and its technology than I ever thought. We can’t find his laptop, but it’s entirely possible he might have recorded something on the shop computer.’ He stood up. ‘Marcus, I won’t take up any more of your time now. We’ll arrange to go out to Fallowfields tomorrow, if that’s all right.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Why not today? I could be free right now if you like.’

  ‘No, I want to talk to DS Fine again and call Patrick and take a look at Rupert’s mobile. Marcus, where would the day book normally be kept?’

  ‘Oh, in the shop, beside the till.’

  ‘And the notes Rupert left? They were where?’

  ‘Inside … I’m not sure where. Emma didn’t say.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll ask her on the way out. Look, Marcus, I’m sorry for doubting you,’ Alec said. ‘It’s beginning to look as though Rupe’s death is more complicated than we first thought. And I’m sorry Marcus, but there’s also the possibility that Rupe was involved in something … well something …’

  ‘Something not quite kosher,’ Marcus finished. ‘Look, Alec, I’d rather know. Rupert was a good friend and I think we all need to know the truth, don’t you?’

  Twelve

  ‘Are you serious about asking Patrick to help?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘I am, why?’

  ‘Harry might not like it. Alec, we don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t want Patrick involved in any more drama because of us.’

  ‘If necessary I’ll take the hard drive to him. I don’t think Harry could object to that.’

  Harry, Patrick’s father, probably wouldn’t, Naomi mused, but in the last couple of years Patrick had been forced to cope with a great many things, the latest being the suicide of a close friend. It was a lot for a seventeen year old to cope with, but then again Patrick had helped out before with computer-related stuff.

  ‘I suppose his exams are over and his school has broken up now for the summer,’ she conceded.

  It had rained while they’d been chatting to Marcus and the air smelt fresh and clean. Napoleon snuffed and snorted at the freshly revealed smells and hoovered at the pavement as they wandered slowly back to the hotel.

  ‘What do you make of the notes Rupe left in the book? It sounds odd.’

  ‘It sounds as though he hid them in a hurry,’ Alec said. ‘Or is that allowing my imagination to run away with me?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Naomi frowned. ‘Marcus was rather eager to get out to Fallowfields. Or is that just me being over imaginative too?’

  She felt him shrug. ‘I think we’re both a little guilty of that,’ he said. ‘Blame Marcus, he got us seeing foul play where no one else did.’

  ‘Marcus didn’t imagine the men that came to the house.’

  ‘No,’ Alec agreed. ‘I wish he had. I wish Rupert’s death had been just due to a stupid mistake on his part but …’

  ‘Looks less likely now.’

  ‘Much less,’ Alec agreed.

  The phone rang and Marcus hesitated before picking up.

  ‘They’ve left then,’ the voice on the other end said.

  ‘Clever of you to state the obvious.’

  ‘Don’t try to be smart Marcus, or pretend you’re not shit-scared. What did they say?’

  Marcus sat down heavily. ‘Not a great deal,’ he admitted. ‘They’ve been out to where Rupert died and they still can’t find his laptop.’ He heard the man swear and then turn away from the phone to mutter something he could not quite catch.

  ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’ the man said.

  Marcus sighed. ‘I’m going out to Fallowfields with them tomorrow. They want me to help out, see what you and your friend might have taken, I mean,’ he continued, a sudden surge of anger momentarily overcoming his fear. ‘What were you thinking of, threatening Naomi like that. I could have gone there at any time, quite legitimately.’

  ‘My friend is impatient,’ he was told. ‘Anyway, you had your chance and you didn’t deliver. My friend also gets impatient with people who let him down.’

  The phone went dead and Marcus replaced the receiver with a hand that shook so much the plastic rattled against the cradle. He sat very still, staring at it, afraid it might ring again. He should have told them he had given Alec the mobile phone and the notes, he thought, though he had no idea if either would be relevant anyway. ‘Not good to hold things back though,’ he said softly. ‘Oh Rupert, what a mess you’ve got us into.’

  Back in the hotel room Alec began to lay out the contents of the bags he had taken from the shop. The only area big enough was the floor and Napoleon wanted to help, sniffing loudly at each object as Alec extracted them.

  ‘Sorry, old man, but you’re going to have to shift,’ Alec said, shoving the large black dog away. ‘This is evidence, don’t you know, not a feast for canine senses.’ Napoleon snorted and flopped down in the patch of sun beneath the window.

  ‘Maybe we should give him something to sniff and take him back to the crime scene,’ Naomi suggested half seriously. She sipped at the tea Alec had ordered and felt for the plate of biscuits he had placed on the dressing table.

  ‘If I thought it would do any good I’d do that,’ Alec told her.

  ‘So, what do we have?’

  ‘Well, nothing unexpected. A pair of grey flannel trousers, shirt, shoes and socks. Contents of pockets are: keys, pocket change, a wallet …’ He opened it. ‘Money and cards still there,’ he said in surprise.

  ‘’Course they are. Whoever he was with wanted an accidental death not a robbery.’

  ‘True. I wasn’t thinking. Small pocket diary,’

  ‘Anything for the day he died?’

  ‘No, nothing. Odd appointments for the week before. I’ll have to cross-check with his notes and ask Marcus about them later. Flicking through there’s nothing that seems to turn up regularly and most of the entries are just times and initials.’

  ‘Maybe he kept more details
elsewhere. Or maybe they were such regular meetings he didn’t need more detail.’

  ‘Um, well, we shall have to just slog through, see what we can find out.’ He continued with his inventory. ‘Folded pocket handkerchief, comb. That would seem to be it.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ Naomi said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Well, the amount of stuff he had with him. There’s too much there for trouser pockets and he wasn’t wearing a jacket.’

  ‘You may have a point,’ Alec said. ‘I’ll talk to Fine, see where these things were actually found. Not that it tells us much, just adds a level of mystery.’

  ‘What are the keys?’

  ‘There are three, on a ring that has a fob for a local garage. Probably where he had his car serviced.’

  ‘Car keys?’

  ‘No, but it makes me wonder if someone took his ignition key from the ring. There’s one here that looks as though it might be to a desk drawer. It’s like the one back at Fallowfields. No door keys, at least …’ He got up and Naomi heard a metallic jangle as he took his own set of keys from his jacket pocket so that he could compare the two sets. ‘I’m making a guess that one is the garage key, it looks as if it would fit a padlock, and I never did find that back at the house. Then there’s an old fashioned looking thing that might open the side gate. Nothing for the house.’

  ‘Why not just take the lot?’

  ‘Well, as you pointed out, it wasn’t meant to look like anything but a tragic death.’

  ‘Then why take the car key?’

  ‘Presumably so they could get away. They needed the car.’

  ‘But wouldn’t that kind of give the game away. I mean, wouldn’t people then start to ask how he got out there?’

  ‘Well, no one but Marcus did, did they? DS Fine was saying they all assumed he’d parked up at some other point and walked on to the Peatlands trail from there. They were surprised, he said, but everyone they interviewed attested that Rupert was his own man, did his own thing, and still loved to walk. Everyone knew about his research and the assumption was he was out there soaking up the atmosphere.’

  ‘Soaking up the rain, more like.’

  ‘He never minded the rain,’ Alec said. ‘But …’ He fell silent and Naomi could sense the sudden tension even across the room.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Fine said it rained all day, didn’t he? All the more reason for wearing a coat.’

  ‘Yes. He said the ground beneath Rupert’s body was still wet. Alec, what is it?’

  ‘They weren’t looking so they didn’t see,’ Alec said. ‘They didn’t see.’

  ‘See what?’ Naomi demanded.

  ‘His shoes, Naomi. There’s no mud on his shoes. Just a smear on the heels where he’d been lying on the ground, but there’s no splashed mud on his trousers. Nothing. Just a pattern consistent with him lying on his back on wet ground. I’ll lay odds Rupert didn’t walk there or even drive himself. He died elsewhere and his body was dumped up there on the moor.’

  Derek sat in his car about a mile from the barn and called Sharon on his mobile. He needed to hear a friendly voice and Sam Kinnear certainly didn’t qualify. Sam had been furious at Marcus’s failure to turn up the goods and at the way the woman had behaved that morning. But then, Sam Kinnear was always furious.

  But he had really disgusted Derek that morning, although it had been a little thing, he supposed. It was the jacket Kinnear had worn, the Harris tweed, lightweight for the summer, but still too hot in Derek’s opinion. But it wasn’t that, it was the fact that it had belonged to the old man.

  Derek thought with a shudder of how the rapidly cooling body had felt as he’d crammed Rupert’s possessions back into the pockets of his trousers. Some had fallen on the ground as he’d laid the body down, but he didn’t have the nerve to pick them up for a second time and shove them back into the old man’s pockets.

  ‘I like his coat,’ Kinnear had said and stripped it from his body, emptying his pockets out and dropping everything on to the floor.

  The little plastic pot with his tablets inside had rolled under the car and Derek had only found them a few days later. Not knowing what else to do, he’d dropped them into the door pocket in his car and thrown them from an open window later in the day. Then he’d worried about kids picking them up.

  Kinnear had worn the jacket that morning. Worn it like it was his own.

  Sharon answered after what seemed like an age. ‘Sorry, love, in the shower.’

  Derek relaxed a little visualizing her, damp and soapy clean. ‘Tell me more,’ he said.

  Thirteen

  Alec was studying the post mortem. ‘No indication that his position was changed after death,’ he said. ‘Haemostasis is consistent with him having been laid on his back after death and not moved again.’

  ‘Which means,’ Naomi mused, ‘that he was moved very soon after. Within an hour or so, before the blood settled to the lowest point. If he was then laid out in more or less the same way, there’d be no obvious inconsistency.’

  ‘And the PM just showed massive heart failure,’ Alec added. ‘Nothing surprising or out of place.’ He sighed and Naomi could hear the frustration in his voice as he continued. ‘I don’t blame the local police for not looking further than the obvious but …’

  ‘Would you have handled it any differently?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. No sign of foul play and you can just bet that when someone first called Marcus and told him Rupe was dead he’d have assumed it was his heart and probably said so. I’d probably have handled it the same way, and that’s supposing I’d been involved. Likely this didn’t get further up the chain than uniform and the local beat bobby.’

  ‘Did Fine give you a copy of the police report?’

  ‘Yes, he did. The first officer on scene was DC Steven Hythe. He got the call and went straight to the place the body was found. The male hiker, John Armstrong, had stayed there. Said he was worried about kids coming by and maybe seeing something they shouldn’t. Anyway, it seems Hythe is a local, born and bred, and his report comments that in his opinion all marks on the body were consistent with the work of the indigenous wildlife. PM confirms that: crows, badgers and probably a fox. Not pleasant but certainly not suspicious.’

  ‘And the constable was able to come to that decision straight away; that the damage was all done by animals?’

  ‘I guess you get used to knowing what to look for. Down our way you find a body that’s been in the sea, you can make a fair guess which injuries were caused by rocks and breakwaters and which look suspicious.’

  ‘I guess so.’ She could hear how hard Alec was finding it to remain detached. After all this body had been a man he’d loved, admired. ‘You want to talk to this Detective Hythe?’

  ‘Gone on leave, apparently. I already asked Fine. He’s somewhere in the Canaries.’

  ‘There’s always the phone.’

  ‘And I would ask him what?’

  ‘You don’t have to snap.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. Look, let’s have a recap. Rupert was found in a place where he most likely didn’t die. He appears to have died of natural causes, which begs the question why move the body. And why there. It sounds like someone who knows the area.’

  ‘True and Rupe could not have died far from that spot either. No sign of earlier haemostasis so the body must have been moved very soon after death and moved no great distance. Pity he was cremated. A second PM would very likely reveal any inconsistency.’

  ‘Right. We can probably plot some kind of search parameters. The chances are too that he wasn’t transported in his car. There’d be some fairly obvious indication if he’d been propped up in a car seat, no matter how quickly they’d moved him. No, he was laid out, maybe in a van or something similar, then carried and placed on his back.’

  ‘Which suggests whoever did it had either thought through the process or they’d just got lucky.’

  ‘My bet
is on lucky. But why move the body.’

  ‘Because they didn’t want Rupert linked to the place he died.’

  ‘Right. What else. The car. Still no sign. But the key is missing which suggests they either moved it or are anticipating the need.’

  ‘OK, so, as Fine said, it’s either under cover somewhere or it’s under water. Both equally possible round here.’

  ‘What else do we have?’

  ‘Rupe’s treasure hunt,’ Alec said. ‘No, I can’t see this being about buried treasure, satisfying as that would be somehow.’

  ‘Satisfying?’

  ‘You’d have to have known Rupert, I think.’

  ‘OK, but it’s still worth following up on the list. He may have said something, hinted at something, even behaved oddly. And there’s the boy that came to the antique shop. We’ve still not figured out if he belongs to “buried treasure” or “men at house”.’

  ‘True,’ Alec agreed. ‘And there’s the mobile phone and the shop computer to examine and the laptop still to search for.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s at Fallowfields. My guess is it’s wherever the car is. But you’ve not looked at the disks yet or the USB drive.’

  ‘Damn, I forgot to ask Marcus about using his computer. Though there might be a shop in town where I can get an external disk drive for my laptop.’

  ‘You’d rather not ask Marcus?’

  Alec hesitated. ‘I’d rather do what we can on our own,’ he said.

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘Just a feeling.’

  ‘I’m not sure I like your feelings. They usually mean trouble.’

  Alec pulled up a chair and sat down beside her at the dressing table. She heard him help himself to a biscuit. ‘Tea’s cold,’ he complained. ‘I have a feeling,’ he continued, ‘that this time it’s big trouble.’