by Clare Curzon
She looked up and saw Yeadings looming square in the doorway. She stood, thanked the solicitor and walked across to the detective. ‘You heard all that? I get the impression you’re not in any way surprised.’
‘I came across his rough copy for this revised version,’ he admitted. ‘It was made less than three weeks ago. Almost as though he knew things were coming to a head.’
‘But not the way they did.’
He nodded. ‘Thank God for that, at least.’
The visitors began slowly to disperse while Yeadings and Z made themselves inconspicuous in a corner of the drawing-room. Neither missed Ben Huggett’s departing gesture towards young Daniel. He patted one bulging pocket of the straining dark blue suit, withdrew a keyring and shook it meaningfully. They heard the jingle of metal across the room.
The boy flushed and started forward, fists clenched, then, realising he was observed, turned back. His gaze flickered towards the two detectives and after a moment’s hesitation he made for them, chin defiantly out-thrust.
‘What was that about?’ Yeadings asked amiably.
‘As if you don’t know! He’s got access to some of the outbuildings. We’ll see what Gran thinks about that.’
‘He has a key to the hut in the woods?’
‘The rave cave, yeah. That’s where the will’s reference to “destruction” comes in.’
‘Maybe he’ll just return it to its original use, and raise pheasants for future shoots.’
‘Who cares? It’s the house that matters. You heard. It goes to my grandmother. I shall dispute it. As legally adopted son I’m his heir. The way he’s set it up I’d be tied to her even after I come of age. And I’d have nothing but the trust fund.’
‘Including your late half-sister’s share, unless that automatically reverts to her natural grandmother.’
‘You bet it will. She’s got it all sewn up. She’ll have been manipulating him for years on the quiet.’
‘One thing I find interesting,’ Yeadings pursued. ‘Your housekeeper, Mrs Pavitt, wasn’t present, apart from serving refreshments earlier. And no mention of her in the will. That’s unusual.’
‘Because he’d sacked her. She’d be going at the end of the month.’ His voice was full of contempt.
‘I see. So she was irrelevant, because your father wasn’t expecting the will to be activated so soon.’
‘It’s all a bloody mess,’ the boy broke out. ‘And the Bartons getting the farm. That won’t stand, will it, when it’s disputed?’
‘Are you sure you want recourse to the law? Haven’t you a few matters to settle yourself before you go so far?’
Daniel closed his eyes. From flushed, he had gone sickly pale. ‘I have to get out of here.’ He plunged away.
Yeadings caught Z’s reproachful glance. ‘You think I was hard on him? He has worse coming. He needs to face up to the truth. All the truths. But we’ll leave him until later. Let’s round up the unfortunate Mrs Pavitt. She still has a few questions to answer before she departs.’
Nevertheless it was towards Mrs Plumley that he steered first. ‘Did you have forewarning of the will’s contents?’ he asked.
She looked thoughtful. ‘Not specifically. I knew he aimed to convey the farmhouse and a few acres to the Bartons, but as a deserved retirement home. As it stands, coming so soon, they’re still fit enough to continue working, so I imagine the proviso for taking on further acreage will interest them.’
‘If they can afford it.’
‘Whoever takes on the working farm will still need someone experienced in everyday control. In that case Ned could still be earning.’
Yeadings regarded her keenly. ‘You’ve got it all worked out. You intend buying into the farming estate yourself, don’t you?’
She smiled ruefully. ‘You’re too sharp, Superintendent. I haven’t considered any details, but I’ve always regarded retirement as dangerous to the health. And I feel the Bartons might agree. I’d no idea the Manor was coming to me, but Daniel will need a home, even if he returns to boarding-school. Also I can see dear old Plum pottering around, scratching the pigs with a stick, getting excited about calving and milk output.’
‘And the housekeeper, will you be keeping her on?’
It was Anna’s turn to face him shrewdly. ‘I rather thought to ask your advice on that. I can’t overlook how in playing up to Jennifer’s irregular lifestyle she’s contributed to the corruption of my grandson. And I don’t care for the woman. But I think there’s something yet to be resolved. Have you further interest in her yourself?’
Instead of answering, he put his own question. ‘You knew she was due to leave at the end of the month?’
Her eyebrows shot up. ‘So soon? I knew Freddie was advertising for a replacement, but he hadn’t been in touch with me recently. Did she give notice or was she sacked? No, obviously, if she’d chosen to go she’d have mentioned it to me. There are only a few days left.’
‘Daniel knew.’
‘They don’t get on. I get the impression …’
Yeadings waited.
‘ …that it’s personal chemistry. Mutual distaste. No, it’s something more than that. I just don’t know. You haven’t said if you need to question her further.’
‘I’m about to do that now. Daniel seems reconciled to our knowing about the goings-on in the woods. She may be less so.’
He found that Z had run Mrs Pavitt to earth in the kitchen quarters where she was stacking used crockery in the dishwasher. As he came in she slammed its door, seized a sponge cloth, squirted cleaner over the work surface and began vigorously polishing. Since this enabled her to keep her back turned, he walked round to confront her.
‘I’m sure that can be left for the present, Mrs Pavitt,’ he suggested mildly. ‘We need to talk with you for a moment. In particular about your future plans.’
The woman bent to squint along the surface she had polished, appeared satisfied and straightened. ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly leave them in the lurch now, could I? How would the poor old lady manage? And Danny, he needs someone around he’s used to. Don’t worry. I’ll be staying on. Auntie is all right for the present in her nursing home. By spring she’ll be walking as well as ever and won’t need any looking after.’
‘I imagine some choice will rest with Mrs Plumley.’
‘No problem. We’ll rub along fine. If she doesn’t make any unreasonable demands.’
‘One hopes not. Meanwhile my sergeant would like to ask you a few questions about your position here in Mr Hoad’s employment.’
‘Jennifer’s.’ The contradiction was immediate. ‘She was the one took me on. He had little enough interest in household matters. Well, being a man, he wouldn’t care, would he? Mind, we got along fine, and Jennifer was more like a sister to me than a boss.’
‘Daniel seems to think differently.’ Z wondered aloud. ‘Why would that be then? He says Mr Hoad sacked you.’
Mrs Pavitt set her fists on her hips and leaned forward confidentially. ‘He’s a strange child. Between you and me, I think this awful business has sent him right round the bend. Bit of a mummy’s boy, so he’s not been brought up to accept hard facts. And ever since Granny moved in he’s been really on edge, against everybody.’
‘Crack cocaine can’t have helped.’ A laconic suggestion.
For the first time a flicker of some emotion crossed the woman’s face. ‘Drugs? You mean he’s into the hard stuff? Where does he get it? Maybe that manicurist girl he went out with the other day …’
‘Get your coat on, Mrs Pavitt,’ Yeadings broke in. ‘We’ll do this properly down at the nick. Our time’s too valuable to waste on watching you play the innocent.’
There was more concerning the cocaine source awaiting them on their arrival. A Sergeant Batts from the Met had faxed in a report on Justin Halliwell’s girlfriend who acted as his drugs ‘mule’. A surgeon, fighting against time, had removed twenty-eight packages of pure cocaine from her intestines. Only one had split but i
t could yet prove as fatal as the entire load. She was still comatose in intensive care at Hillingdon Hospital with a forty-sixty chance of recovery.
The woman’s purse was found to contain counterfoils for her flight ticket Orlando-Heathrow and for hire-car travel Miami-Orlando. She had been scrupulous about retaining details of expenses. Her main luggage had been opened and examined when passing through both airports.
It seemed that on-flight she had avoided suspicion by ordering normal meals, and then contrived to dump the food in her cabin bag. Its unlovely mishmash had been more securely sealed to protect the fine leather lining than the plastic bag which now threatened her very life.
Examination of flight records for three major transatlantic airlines showed she was a frequent traveller between Florida and various cities in mainland Europe or the UK. At each eastern arrival point she had been met by her ‘fiancé’ Justin Halliwell and provided with shared accommodation booked in his name.
This last fact destroyed the man’s credibility as an innocently deceived and caring friend. In hope of lessening the charges against him, the Met had persuaded Halliwell to admit that Jennifer blackmailed him into organising that vital part of her import business. He claimed that revealing an undercover set of accounts for Miradec Interiors would exonerate him as principal in the drugs dealing. It had been Jennifer’s own speciality, using the decor business as a means of laundering profits.
Which solved the whole shebang in one fell swoop, declared Acting-DCI Salmon. His knobby-potato face glowed with Damascene revelation. This maniac case suddenly made sense. Halliwell, impatient at ranking as number two, had dreamed up a fantastic scenario to take over the entire operation. Jennifer must be eliminated.
And, in achieving this, somehow or other the rest of the family got caught up in it. A simple explanation for a complex outcome.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘One or two small matters to clear up,’ Yeadings told Salmon, excusing his return with Alma Pavitt to the Area nick.
‘We can leave those to Zyczynski, then.’
‘As you say.’
Never having seen Salmon so near a state of elation, the Boss was loath to prick his bubble. He also secretly admitted to a slick of malice in not sharing his own preferred intelligence.
‘If you’re off to see the Met I may as well sit in on this with Z.’
Acting-DCI Salmon grunted agreement, patting his many pockets in a version of crossing himself. Spectacles, testicles, watch and wallet, Beaumont had once described the procedure.
‘Who’s got my pen?’
It was retrieved from an ashtray alongside assorted paper clips and drawing pins, then the CID office settled to comparative peace with his departure.
In Interview Room 1, Mrs Pavitt was offered a choice of tea or coffee, both of which she refused.
‘Probably just as well,’ Z remarked comfortably. ‘They’re from a vending machine. I can never tell the difference myself. Now, about this hut in the wood. Just what was it for, Mrs Pavitt, and how were you involved?’
The woman was clearly prepared for the question. ‘It’s been there for donkeys’ years. Keepers used to raise game chicks in incubators. Mr Hoad didn’t go in much for shoots, so when it fell out of use Jennifer thought she’d take it over for — well, for fun really. Crazy parties. She’d have friends down from London, and sometimes local people too who liked to act bohemian.’
‘And where did you come in?’
‘I did the catering, prepared the food at the house and reheated it at the Cave. We had a microwave oven there and a small fridge. There was music laid on too.’
‘Cave. Is that what everyone called it?’
‘The Rave Cave, yes.’
‘And what kind of raving went on?’
‘Oh, just like kids do. Only sometimes grown-ups want to let their hair down too, play the fool a bit. OK, so there was a bit of wife-swapping now and again. No real harm in it.’
‘And dressing-up?’
‘Jennifer got some costumes made, yes.’
‘Animal faces and so on?’
‘Things like that, yeah.’
‘For rituals which included flaring torches and dancing outdoors in a circle? Almost witchcraft, would you say?’
‘Only playing at it.’ Her tone was contemptuous.
‘But for you it was different?’
‘I’m not a witch.’ She sat straight, dark eyes fixed on the woman detective. ‘I’m gifted. I tell the cards. I can see into the dark ahead. When she got to know that, she relied on me. I warned her: of something terrible coming that she couldn’t escape. It seemed to excite her.’
Z shifted in her seat, not daring to glance sideways at the Boss. Things were moving too fast, important points omitted.
‘When did Daniel start to join in?’
Mrs Pavitt sat silent, head bowed. Eventually she looked up. ‘He must have sneaked in. We discovered him hidden behind a curtain. Jennifer was a bit doped up and she let him … Well, we all …’
They’d all been stoned out of their minds and the boy had joined the rout, wore a ram’s head, been bestial with the rest of them. High on drugs.
‘There were photographs,’ Z claimed. None had been found, but surely, sometime, one of the revellers would have brought a camera. There had to be a record somewhere, and Pavitt must know that.
The woman started to shake. She brushed the back of one hand under her nostrils. It shone wet.
‘Jennifer provided crack cocaine,’ Z claimed. ‘You were all out of your minds. Where did you think it would end?’
‘Not like it did! Never like that!’ Her voice was a shriek. She fought to regain control. She closed her eyes and ground out the words. ‘Someone must have come back that weekend. Found the stuff in the house. Went right over the edge! Don’t ask me who. I wasn’t there.’
Yeadings nodded to Z.
‘Thank you, Mrs Pavitt. That will be all for now. If you wait a moment I’ll arrange for a patrol car to take you back.’
But was that all for now? Z asked herself, shocked at the Boss’s cutting short the flow. Silently she followed him back to his office and, uninvited, sat while he refilled the coffee-maker. Her distraction wasn’t lost on him. If she was troubled by some half-realised theory he could wait for it to surface complete.
Beaumont knocked at the door and looked in. Yeadings pointed to a vacant chair. The DS slid on to it, picking up on the prevailing mood.
After a moment’s hesitation, ‘I think I know …’ Z ventured slowly, and became aware that the others were waiting for illumination.
‘ …know why Jennifer wasn’t raped,’ she ended lamely.
Beaumont nodded. He knew too, of course. All that bloodletting came from frustration. The killer was struck impotent. When it came to the climax — couldn’t get it up; hadn’t the balls. Hence the broom handle.
‘Lack of the wherewithal.’ Z felt obliged to finish her thesis. It left no impression on Beaumont. But the Boss was a step ahead. ‘What you mean is that her killer …’
‘Is a woman. Yes.’
At the Manor Anna had felt obliged to put together an evening meal in the housekeeper’s absence. Daniel was out walking with Barley. This time downhill towards the river. When the phone trilled she had taken it for her own mobile. But it wasn’t.
She followed the sound and unearthed the thing from a window-settle in the study.
‘Hi,’ Camilla greeted her, ‘got over that sick do, Danny?’
‘It’s his grandmother,’ Anna said. ‘Thank you, Camilla, he is better. But when did he give you this new number?’
For a few seconds they were at cross purposes until it struck Anna this must be the same mobile he claimed to have dropped from the balloon. She explained that Daniel was out: Camilla should try again later to reach him, and curtly rang off.
Twenty minutes later the men returned. She heard them talking in the gun room, then Daniel came through to the kitchen, unimproved by his taste of
fresh air, and still grumbling about his father’s feckless handling of the bequests.
‘Maybe it is a little hard on you,’ she eventually allowed.
But was that actually true? Hadn’t he started out as the golden boy, with everything showered upon him before he even knew any need? Yet the essentials had been missed out: a constant standard of care, back-up discipline.
Jennifer had been useless, so ambitious, and forever flaunting her sexuality. Only Freddie was present to listen, but the boy wouldn’t have opened up to him; Freddie not his true father. That other man had long ago shrugged him off and gone his way. Early rejection followed by careless pampering were an unholy mixture for a child to take.
She tried again. ‘Daniel, there’s so much anger in you. You need to get it out. Can we try to deal with it?’
‘Anger?’ His voice was bitter. He turned away and rested his head on his arms, bent over the work surface. She thought the single strangled word that reached her was ‘guilt’.
Her heart beat fast in her throat. Would he talk now about the poor girl whose death he’d caused? At last show some regret, even compassion?
She wanted to believe that. There were times when she’d thought he wasn’t capable of any feeling for others; always glibly charming and shallow, half-way to a casebook sociopath. Perhaps now that image was breaking down.
But instantly his mood changed again. He slouched over to observe the carrots she was chopping into batons and took a handful to chew.
‘Camilla rang,’ she told him. ‘On the phone which you did not drop in the canal.’
‘I’ve got two. This is the new one.’
‘No,’ she told him evenly. ‘I recognised the scratch on its cover.
‘So?’
‘So what did you drop from the balloon?’
He sauntered round the room, very beau jeune homme and mocking. ‘D’you know. Grananna, I think I’ll tell you the terrible truth. I did have two mobiles, just for a while. Because I needed to send myself a message. Yes, the melodramatic threat: “U NEXT!”
