Too Much of Water

by J M Gregson

  The occupant could surely not be far away.

  Lambert resisted the temptation to make an unofficial search of the few drawers and cupboards in these cramped living quarters, where any evidence of the occupant’s guilt could surely not be concealed for long. There would be ample time for that when they had the man under arrest.

  ‘He can’t be far away,’ he said unnecessarily to Bert Hook as he levered himself back down the steps and into the last of the evening light.

  ‘I expect he’ll be back in a few minutes,’ said Hook, feeling his comment equally fatuous.

  ‘It’s almost as if he knew that we were coming here for him tonight,’ said Lambert, looking back towards the road and the car he had left below him.

  They were superfluous comments between men who did not normally waste words. But it was so still in that quiet place that each of them felt a need for speech, a desire for some sound to break the silence, which seemed suddenly too profound, as if the deepening of the warm twilight was making the quiet ominous rather than merely peaceful.

  They kept close together as they moved up the slope and beneath the deepening shadows of the tall oaks, not from any sense of danger, but from some unvoiced sense of the smallness of humanity beneath these mighty sentinels, which had presided over this scene for two centuries and more.

  Everything below them they could see. Even the sheep were lying quiet now, as if they too recognized the need to be part of the prevailing silence. Lambert turned upwards, away from the road and the caravan, not because he knew that that was where his quarry had gone, but because it seemed the only possible place where anyone might conceal himself.

  The sun had dropped behind the ridge above them half an hour and more ago, and with its going the last of the birds had ceased to sing. The hush beneath the trees seemed tangible, like a living, waiting thing. They exchanged a few nervous, meaningless words as they moved, speculating on where Walker might be, reassuring each other with the sound of human voices in the brooding quiet.

  It was beneath the tallest of the oaks that they came upon him.

  He was lying on his back, with his right arm and leg twisted unnaturally beneath him. The white of an open eye glinted crazily at them, catching the very last of the light from the west. A single eye only, for more than half of the head which had contained it had been blown away.

  A dark pool and then an awful splattering of grey and red, with large blue flies moving unhurriedly across it, stained the grass beyond the corpse. The shotgun had fallen across the left ankle, its muzzle pointing crazily at the men who were moving in upon the scene.

  There would be no arrest of Ian Walker.

  Eighteen

  It was a quiet spot where Ian Walker had died, but by nine o’clock on Tuesday morning the news of his sensational death was passing quickly around the towns and villages of the Forest of Dean.

  The rough square of the scene of the crime, defined by the blue-and-white-plastic ribbon which the police used to cordon it off, was visible from the road below the caravan. Even those commuters using this winding route to make maximum speed on their journeys to work in Gloucester and Cheltenham and Chepstow could not fail to notice the police cars parked by the road.

  In Coleford and in Cinderford, the old mining towns of the Forest, people nodded their heads sagely in the shops and public houses, and reflected upon the sensational wickedness of the modern world. Sheep-badgers were not highly regarded residents in the Forest of Dean. The violence which this man had perpetrated was certainly extreme, but no more than what you might expect from one of those people.

  The conclusion of this sorry saga with a suicide was shocking, but there was a certain logic about it. There was even an agreement among those discussing the local melodrama that there was justice in this latest death. Ian Walker had killed that poor woman in Gloucester who had made the unfortunate mistake of marrying him and divorcing him. It was a mercy really that the man had at least had the good sense to acknowledge his guilt and kill himself. By his final action, he had saved the public coffers from an expensive trial and then an even more expensive incarceration of the poor woman’s killer.

  In the CID section at Oldford police station, the satisfaction was more muted. No one liked to miss an arrest, and there would be questions asked from outside the police service about why they had not got to Walker before he could kill himself.

  Nevertheless, Detective Inspector Rushton could not disguise a sense of achievement. He had spotted Clare Mills’s killer, from the moment when he had journeyed into the forest and confronted her ex-husband. He felt now that he had known who the murderer was from the moment when he had insisted on throwing open the back doors of that white van and revealing its spotless interior. Subsequent events had only illustrated the accuracy of his insight.

  And Ian Walker, too, must have known from that moment that his game was up. He had pretended to be confident, even truculent, because his van had been cleaned out so thoroughly, but he must have known in his heart of hearts that the hunt was over, from the moment when Chris demanded that he open up his van for inspection.

  It was a pity that they hadn’t got their man and completed the process. If John Lambert had moved more quickly when Chris had offered him the capture, they might have had Walker under lock and key at this moment. Even after forensic had confirmed the presence of sheep hairs upon the clothing of the dead woman, the chief had wasted precious hours in setting up the back-up for an arrest before moving in on Walker’s caravan.

  It was true, Chris allowed reluctantly, that Ian Walker had scarcely seemed the suicidal type. And Lambert had pointed out the absence of any suicide note in the caravan. That was surely sour grapes: the superintendent would have to admit eventually that Chris had been right all along about the identity of Clare Mills’s killer.

  Apparently the pathologist hadn’t said much at that lonely spot beneath the oaks of the Forest of Dean. He’d taken a few measurements, a rectal temperature from the corpse, let the police photographer shoot off a round of film, and had the body removed to the forensic laboratory at Chepstow for a full post-mortem.

  The Scenes of Crime team had found the cartridge from the shotgun and identified the weapon. It belonged to Ian Walker and was kept in his caravan. No doubt it hadn’t been stored as securely as it was supposed to be nowadays, but that would have been no more than par for the course with a man like Walker. There was a certain symmetry about the way he had arranged his death and the conclusion of the story. Good riddance, the public would say, and like most policemen Chris Rushton couldn’t help nodding a silent agreement with them.

  It was almost midday when the news came in. What John Lambert had felt from the moment when he had stood over the shattered body was confirmed by a preliminary call from the forensic laboratory. The nature of the wound and the position of the shotgun confirmed that Ian Walker hadn’t killed himself.

  They had a second murder on their hands.

  They saw Roy Hudson at home this time. He had seemed strangely anxious to be seen separately from his wife, when most couples would have been looking to give each other mutual support. But Hook had announced firmly that they were coming to see him at his house, that no doubt in view of the circumstances Mr Hudson would not wish senior CID men to meet him again at his place of business, and thus set the tongues wagging anew among his employees.

  When Lambert and Hook arrived at nine o’clock as arranged, Hudson had already reversed the big Mercedes out of the garage and left it prominently on the drive, signifying that he was a busy man who was cooperating with them but could scarcely afford the time to do so. He carried this briskness into his curt greeting and his enquiry as to the nature of their business.

  ‘Ian Walker,’ said Lambert, equally laconically.

  ‘That waster.’ Hudson sighed theatrically. ‘What’s he been up to now?’

  ‘He was brutally murdered last night.’

  ‘Good heavens!’

  Was the expression a l
ittle too conventional, the surprise a little too theatrical? Lambert had been watching his man closely, trying to see whether the information was genuinely news to him. He could not be sure. Hudson seemed perfectly confident of himself, depressingly so from the point of view of his visitors. ‘Detective Sergeant Hook and I went out to his caravan last night to question him further in connection with the death of Clare Mills. We found that he had been killed with his own shotgun. The first estimate is that he died at around nine o’clock.’

  ‘I know that shotgun. A well-worn double bore. But he kept it in good condition. Used to get himself a few illegal pheasants with it, during the winter. You’re sure that he didn’t despatch himself with it?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Because I was coming round to the view that it was probably him that murdered Clare. He might have killed himself in a fit of remorse.’

  Lambert didn’t say that a senior police officer had offered exactly the same view. ‘He may have killed Clare. That seems unlikely, in view of what’s happened to him. Unless of course you take the view that this is a revenge killing. That someone who knows that Walker killed Clare took the law into his own hands and turned a shotgun on him.’

  ‘You sound as if you don’t buy that theory.’ Hudson was curiously relaxed, as if determined to treat this as some intellectual puzzle in which he had no direct involvement.

  Lambert found himself resenting the man’s air of superiority, his confidence, even his tan and the neatly styled brown hair above the deep-set, mocking eyes. He said slowly, ‘I don’t accept the revenge theory. Anyone who knew that Ian Walker had killed Clare Mills had only to bring the information to us to have him arrested. Far more sensible than risking a life sentence for a revenge murder.’

  ‘So who killed Walker?’ Hudson was almost truculent now, knowing that if they knew the answer to that there would have been an arrest by now.

  ‘Where were you last night, Mr Hudson?’

  Hudson smiled, showing how unshaken he was by the sudden question. ‘You surely can’t believe that I—’

  ‘You have no clear alibi for the time when your stepdaughter was killed. Can you account for your movements last night, at the time of this second murder?’

  Roy Hudson paused, making even the silence a sort of insolence. ‘I suppose if I object to this sort of questioning, I shall be told that this is merely routine, that you are just completing the formalities of eliminating me from your list of suspects.’

  ‘You may object to my questioning if you think it out of order. There are channels of complaint which are well established. In the meantime, I require an answer.’ For the first time since they had entered the house, Lambert found that he was enjoying the exchange. Yet he always told his juniors that they must not get involved, that they must eliminate personal feelings from any interrogations they conducted. He must be getting old, to let this suave businessman get under his skin like this. ‘Where were you last night, Mr Hudson?’

  ‘I was here. At home with my wife. Enjoying a quiet domestic evening at home. Mrs Hudson will confirm this, if you find that necessary.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Fact, Superintendent. Can’t alter that.’ The deep-set eyes seemed to mock his questioner as he gazed steadily at him.

  ‘Indeed you can’t. It’s another fact that criminals offer their wives to provide a convenient alibi whenever they can provide no other witness to their whereabouts. Of course, in a small minority of cases, the information is perfectly genuine, whatever the police suspect.’

  ‘And this is one such case. I think that if I had killed Ian Walker, I should have taken care to provide myself with a better alibi. Or perhaps I should say with an alibi which would be more acceptable to suspicious policemen.’

  ‘Indeed? You could, of course, have employed someone else to kill him for you. That would have been the safest method of all.’

  ‘It would have brought someone else into the affair, though, wouldn’t it? Someone who would have had a hold over me for ever afterwards.’ Hudson wrinkled his well-tanned forehead, considering the notion. ‘If I were going in for such things, I don’t think I should like that.’

  ‘You would probably have employed a contract killer to do the job. Swift, efficient and anonymous. A man for whom silence is part of his trade, who takes his payment for a killing and moves on.’

  ‘How intriguing. And how logical. I’m glad to hear that you are speaking quite hypothetically.’ Roy Hudson allowed himself a small, mirthless grin, in recognition of a tiny point scored.

  ‘Who do you think killed your stepdaughter?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Ian Walker, I should have thought, as I said a few minutes ago. But then I’m not privy to your investigations and what your extensive and expensive team have discovered, am I?’

  ‘And who do you think shot Mr Walker last night?’

  ‘This time I’m happy to say that I’ve no idea. Knowing a little of that man and the circles in which he moved, I should think there would be a wide range of suspects.’

  Lambert reflected as they drove away that Roy Hudson certainly knew more than he was telling them. And if that was true, he’d moved from being blandly unhelpful to being positively obstructive. And once again he had met them without his wife at his side.

  Back at Oldford police station, DI Rushton was filing a new set of information about this second murder into his computer. Deciding that the deaths were almost certainly related, he enjoyed setting up an elaborate system of cross-referencing between the two crimes. When he was able to show some obscure but significant connection among the people involved in the investigations, that would show that old dinosaur Lambert the benefits of modern technology.

  He was disappointed with the early information coming in from the routine enquiries. A call from the pathology laboratory confirmed that Ian Walker had probably died some forty to eighty minutes before Lambert and Hook had found the corpse. That was hardly news, since Bert Hook had already told him that the body was still warm when they discovered it. Some time around nine o’clock, then. Probably just after sundown on that long summer day.

  But there were as yet no reports of cars seen parked in the area or leaving it hurriedly at that time. Chris had hoped that enquiries made in the region by the uniformed officers would have come up with a vehicle already familiar to them, perhaps belonging to one of the people involved in the Clare Mills enquiry. He would have liked to be able to wave a registration number triumphantly in the face of the chief when he came back from seeing the dead woman’s stepfather.

  The inspector worked away quietly, recording the information, most of it negative, which was now coming in rapidly from the house-to-house and other enquiries being made around the spot where Ian Walker had died in the Forest of Dean. Chris still clung to his notion that the sheep-badger had killed his former wife Clare Mills, but he was having to accept that his death wasn’t a suicide, in view of what forensic said about the death-wound and the position of the shotgun.

  The man who came to the desk in the early afternoon would normally have had to deliver his thoughts to the station sergeant, but when he said he wanted to speak to the man in charge of the Clare Mills murder investigation, he was shown through to DI Rushton immediately. Murder opens many doors.

  He was a man in his early fifties, Chris reckoned, tall and lean, with his hair cut short and a tan which suggested he worked abroad, perhaps in Africa. Rushton was surprised to find him speaking with a local accent, more surprised to find that he was a resident of South Canterbury, in New Zealand.

  He was even more surprised when the man announced that he was the father of Clare Mills.

  Nineteen

  Denis Pimbury had grown used to his new name. It had seemed a strange and difficult name when he had decided to adopt it. Now other people seemed to have accepted it, and it sat more happily on his sinewy shoulders than he would ever have expected.

  Everyone at work knew him now as Denis, and if they weren�
��t even aware of his surname, he couldn’t see how that mattered. He felt more at home on the farm with each passing day. He was on the official payroll now, and he gave value for money. That was the best way of bedding yourself into this new life, which was so very different from what he had known in Croatia. Even his employer seemed to trust him now to get on with the job without supervision. As he worked his way along the long, back-breaking rows of strawberries, the farmer appeared less often at his shoulder. There had even been a suggestion from his employer yesterday that Denis Pimbury would be here many months ahead, that he might be given responsibility for other, more temporary, workers.

  It was a mark of his new status that he was taking an official day off. Mr Martin had insisted upon it, now that he was an official employee. Because Denis didn’t mind working at weekends, enjoyed it indeed, he was taking his day off on a Tuesday. And much to his surprise, he was rather enjoying it.

  He had been here many times before, but only during the hours of darkness. Wandering round the familiar streets of Gloucester when everyone else was at work was a new experience for him. He was able to enjoy the sun of a balmy afternoon without the grinding toil which characterized most of his days.

  For the first time since he had slipped into this strange, exciting new country, Denis felt relaxed, very nearly at ease with himself and the world around him.

  There had been brief half-hours of happiness when Clare had been alive, snatched interludes when she had managed to convince him that all would be well for him. But he had known even at the time that they were transitory, that once he was out of her presence he would become a creature of the underworld again, a man watching his back and steering clear of any official recognition.