An Unholy Whiff of Death

by Joyce Cato

  Ross grinned wolfishly. ‘Hardly. She signed a pre-nup and I’m not letting her out of it. She’s wild with fury.’

  And she’s right here at the fete, Jason thought, with ample motive and opportunity; yet one more contender for the role of Gordon Trenning’s accomplice.

  Wonderful.

  CHAPTER 14

  Monica spotted Pete Drummond standing by the coconut shy, sipping warm beer and watching the white-suited members of the SOCO team to-ing and fro-ing around the tea tent. It made her pause, and fight a brief inner battle with herself. On the one hand, she was dying to have a nose around to see what she could find out about what was happening. On the other, she was inclined to think that having been involved with one murder should be enough for anybody. And she really had no justification for going around asking questions.

  ‘Hello Pete.’ She greeted her fellow judge with a weak smile.

  ‘Mrs Noble.’ Pete straightened up a bit as she approached, and looked around for a place to hide his beer bottle. Monica pretended not to notice.

  ‘Well, none of us thought the day was going to end like this, I’m sure,’ she said sadly and Pete sighed heavily. He was a well-padded man of middle age, and worked in insurance somewhere over Cirencester way.

  ‘That’s a fact to be sure,’ he said grimly.

  ‘You did well to get Doctor Clarke so quickly,’ Monica said, sensing the other man’s very real depression, and trying hard to think of anything positive to say.

  ‘A bit of a football fan, is Doc Clarke, so I went to the field first off, and there he was.’ He seemed almost childlike in his desire to be praised, and Monica smiled encouragingly.

  ‘It’s not everyone who can think clearly in a crisis,’ she said approvingly.

  The coconut shy man, an older villager that Monica didn’t know, nodded wisely. He made no effort to hide the fact that he was blatantly listening in, and seemed to take it for granted that he was invited to join in the conversation. Monica could have kissed him. Well, hypothetically speaking, of course.

  ‘It comes to something when you’re not even safe in your own village,’ he said, tossing a hard, white round ball casually in the air.

  ‘It all feels very strange, doesn’t it?’ she murmured, as she looked around. The sun was on its downward slide into evening, and the shadows were slowly elongating. The football pitch was deserted now, and the stalls were slowly winding down. People were milling about, laden with their purchases and prize winnings. Even so, the evening had an odd, unreal feel to it – as if they were all having a communal dream.

  ‘I feel as if I’ve been wrong-footed somehow. The world just doesn’t feel right or as it should, and the worse thing is I just don’t know what to do about it,’ Monica sighed.

  Both men nodded, relieved that someone else had put into words their own sense of unease. And Monica was wise enough to know that being a vicar’s wife gave her a certain amount of authority. She was also well used to encouraging, and being the recipient of confidences, and Pete Drummond was no exception.

  ‘It’s not just that, though, is it?’ he said, rather ambiguously. ‘I mean, I’m beginning to think things. Really stupid things.’ And he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, trying to assess her reaction to this overture.

  Monica was careful not to look at him too quickly, or too curiously.

  ‘You all know about that nasty affair of our own last year, of course, over in our village?’ she began craftily, referring to the murder they’d had there, and noticed how the two men cast quick looks at each other.

  ‘Ah. Most upsetting,’ the older man said profoundly, still casually tossing his ball up and down. Everyone and his mother knew that the Nobles had had a murder up at their place, which put Monica and Graham in the unique situation of being ‘experts’ now.

  ‘It was really strange at the time,’ Monica went on, anxious to capitalize on it now that she had their full attention. ‘After the body was found I began to go over and over things in my mind that had seemed perfectly ordinary before, but then, afterwards, had become somehow sinister. And it only got worse; suddenly, everything anyone did or said seemed suspicious. But it was mostly in my mind, of course,’ she added with a light little laugh. She glanced at Pete to see if she was on the right track, and found him staring at her intently.

  ‘Right. That’s exactly what I mean,’ he said. ‘Take that business with old Malvin Cook for instance,’ he blurted. Then abruptly stopped, looking a bit like a wild-eyed horse suddenly confronted with a fence it wasn’t sure it could jump.

  Monica felt her heartbeat quicken, but merely nodded. ‘Let me guess,’ she said, seeing that Pete was beginning to look as if he was having second thoughts about carrying on. ‘It meant nothing to you at the time, whatever it was,’ she mused, ‘and it seemed innocuous enough then, but now, with everyone talking about murder and things… .’ She trailed off tantalizingly and looked at him openly.

  ‘Just so,’ Pete agreed, with barely concealed relief. ‘I never thought nothing about it before. Old Malvin’s always treated the flower show tent like it was his own private property. Him and Sir Hugh both. So I never gave it another thought, like. I just smiled, and thought to myself, “Old Malvin’s got something up his sleeve,” and never thought no more about it.’

  Monica took a careful but surreptitious breath. ‘Yes, I image both Sir Hugh and Malvin feel like they have special privileges. After all, the show wouldn’t be the same without them, would it?’

  ‘That’s a fact,’ the coconut man said dryly.

  ‘Thing is, I could have sworn I saw Malvin in the tent after it had been cleared of the general public, like, but that probably doesn’t mean a thing, right?’

  As Pete suddenly blurted out what had been worrying him, a little nubbin of worry in the back of his eyes as he looked at Monica made her wonder exactly who was using who here. She might well be treading carefully, scared that she might do or say the wrong thing that would put him off talking. But she was beginning to think that Pete was just as anxious to offload what he knew onto her shoulders, as a way of avoiding his responsibility by approaching the police directly. In which case she was more than happy to be a buffer zone for him.

  ‘I’m sure it probably means nothing,’ she agreed obligingly. ‘I daresay he does it every year. Just to have a last check, or something, when nobody’s watching.’

  ‘Probably. He and Sir Hugh were really keen to win the gladiola cup this year,’ the coconut shy holder chipped in.

  ‘Yes, I’d heard that,’ Monica said mildly. What she was doing wasn’t a totally selfish act on her part. She knew he’d feel a lot better once he’d got it all off his chest. ‘So, what time, approximately, did you think you saw him?’ she probed gently.

  Pete hesitated for just a moment, and then shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I think it was when Sir Hugh got us all up to the top end to deliver his annual speech.’

  ‘I dare say Malvin just forgot something, and didn’t want to bother anyone,’ she said airily.

  Pete sighed. ‘Most likely he only wanted to give one of his displays a last-minute check over, like you do,’ he agreed quietly.

  Monica smiled and brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. ‘Well, I’d better go and find that daughter of mine before she gets into any mischief,’ she mused, and caught Pete Drummond’s eye as she turned.

  He looked both guilty and relieved.

  No doubt about it, Monica thought wryly. She’d been had. Pete didn’t want to drop Malvin Cook in it himself, but he felt obliged to tell someone what he’d seen, knowing, no doubt, that it was bound to get back to official ears at some point. But by then at least the cops would be asking him direct questions and, as an honest man, he couldn’t be expected to lie, could he? Thus his conscience could remain clear.

  As she set off to find Carole Anne, Monica tried to remind herself about just what it was that curiosity did to the cat. But she knew that she wouldn’t be able to resist talking to som
e others, and seeing what else she could find out from them. And then, of course, she’d have to pass all the information on to Jason.

  James had been a dear friend, after all, and just like everyone else, he deserved justice.

  In the fortune-teller’s tent, Jason watched the man who’d been judging the carrots that year get up and go. The vegetable judge had also confirmed that Sir Hugh had taken a sniff of the Peace rose, just as the squire had admitted, but, like all the others, he hadn’t seen a man in a suit anywhere near the flower show tent.

  It took them no further forward, but at least it confirmed the other interviewees’ stories, and it was looking more and more as if Gordon Trenning hadn’t done the actual planting of the capsule himself.

  The reports on the scientist had been coming in to Jason all afternoon, allowing him to build up a solid mental picture of Gordon Trenning. The impression he was getting of the man was that of a clever, isolated, bitter, and rather lonely figure – his romance with a local village girl notwithstanding.

  ‘Right, who’s next?’ he asked Flora. Just then a uniformed man came in, trying to look professionally detached, but with an unmistakable air of suppressed excitement about him.

  ‘Sir,’ he said smartly, ‘we’re getting several accounts coming in of a near-physical fight between one of the victims and a man here at the fete.’

  ‘Not the vicar, surely? I can’t see him resorting to violence,’ Jason replied drolly.

  ‘No sir, the other victim – the scientist. Apparently he and one of the locals, a Mr Sean Gregson, had a very loud argument. According to some, they very nearly came to blows.’

  Jason sighed. ‘Right. Well, let’s have this Gregson in, then, and get it sorted.’

  ‘Sir,’ he said smartly, and left.

  ‘Another twist, sir?’ Flora asked. Even in the hot tent, her boss looked good enough to eat. She’d really have to make a few overtures, very tentatively of course, and see what happened.

  Monica found Carole Anne standing in front of the sports pavilion, looking at herself in the window glass. As she approached, Carole Anne turned to one side, and checked her profile in the glass, one hand resting on her extremely flat stomach.

  ‘Mum, do you think I’ve got the figure for art shots?’ she asked, seeing Monica’s reflection appear next to her own.

  Monica, as might be expected, promptly lost her head. ‘No,’ she said flatly.

  Carole Anne turned slowly around. ‘Oh? Do I look fat?’

  Visions of anorexic girls flashed quickly across Monica’s inner eye, and she paled even further. ‘No, you look lovely and slim,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s just the point. Women who get asked to do “art” shots are more like those women you see in paintings by Rubens,’ she lied shamelessly. ‘You know, plump.’

  Carole Anne’s big blue eyes narrowed in thought. ‘Oh. You mean my boobs aren’t big enough?’

  Monica, caught on the horns of a dilemma, wanted to kick herself. ‘You don’t need a boob job, Carole Anne,’ she said, struggling to keep her voice even. ‘I think you’ve got the perfect figure for fashion modelling just as you are now,’ she temporized craftily. ‘If you start tinkering around with it – either trying to put on weight, or take it off – you’re probably not going to wind up with the right look to do anything.’

  She held her breath as her daughter mulled this over.

  ‘Besides, if your exam results are good enough, you’ll be going to college. Right?’ She tried not to sound too desperate, she really did, but even Monica could hear the tinge of hysteria in her voice now.

  Carole Anne turned back to the glass, and put a hand on her flat tummy again.

  Hastily, Monica changed the subject. ‘Mr Davies is dead,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ Carole Anne said flatly. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum. I know he was your friend. Are you all right?’

  ‘Thanks, sweetheart, I’m fine,’ Monica said, even if she wasn’t quite so sure that she was. ‘They’re saying now someone else is dead too.’

  ‘Really?’ Carole Anne looked at her mother with troubled eyes. ‘Who?’

  Monica wasn’t sure, but the consensus of opinion had more or less agreed on the identity of the second victim. ‘I don’t know his name, but he’s one of the scientists from the nearby lab.’

  Carole Anne’s eyes flickered. ‘Not the man in the suit? The one who kept going behind the tea tent to have a crafty pee?’ As she finished speaking, both mother and daughter turned to look at the tent in question. No doubt about it, there was a lot of action from the men in white overalls around the back of the tent now.

  Monica felt her blood begin to freeze. This was an afternoon for shocks all right. First her daughter was threatening to pose in the nude; now she seemed to have knowledge about the murders.

  ‘What makes you think it was him?’ Monica asked, a little confusingly, but Carole Anne understood her at once, and shrugged a shoulder.

  ‘He just looked like a scientist type. Thin, wearing a suit. You know the kind.’

  Monica wasn’t so sure that she did. ‘What made you think he went behind the tent to pee?’ she asked, curious in spite of herself.

  ‘Well, what else would he be going behind there for?’ Carole Anne snorted, and wrinkled her nose.

  Monica went even colder. If someone had been killed there, as it was now beginning to look, then… . ‘Carole Anne, did you see anybody follow him? Behind the tent, I mean?’

  ‘Yeah. The big cheese.’

  ‘The big … you mean the countess?’ Monica squeaked.

  Carole Anne heaved a massive sigh. ‘No, not her. The other one – the bloke. The one who walks around as if he owns the place.’

  Monica felt her heart sink. ‘You mean Sir Hugh?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  Carole Anne began to turn towards the glass again, but Monica quickly headed her off.

  ‘Look, I think we should go and talk to Jason about this,’ she said, missing the way her daughter’s eyes suddenly lit up. ‘It might be important. I’m not saying that Sir Hugh killed him, of course but—’

  ‘Oh, Mum, of course he didn’t,’ Carole Anne sighed. ‘When he went around there the second time I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t followed. At least, I didn’t see anyone.’

  Monica blinked, thoroughly confused now. ‘What do you mean, the second time?’

  Carole Anne shrugged. ‘The second time,’ she repeated carefully, ‘I saw the man in the suit go around the back of the tea tent twice. That’s why I thought it must be some sort of a make-do, open-air gentleman’s lav! The first time Sir Hugh followed him, but the second time all you lot had already gone into the tent to start judging the flowers.’

  ‘All us lot? You mean, the judges,’ Monica clarified. ‘Don’t be cheeky, Carole Anne,’ Monica admonished her.

  ‘Sorry.’ She had the grace to apologize. She knew she was being a bit of a cow, but her inability to pin Marc Linacre down had begun to get on her nerves.

  Monica nodded, mollified by her daughter’s obviously genuine remorse. ‘OK. But this is important. We have to get this right, Carole Anne. So concentrate! You say that the second time the man went behind the tent he wasn’t followed?’

  Carole Anne began to look unsure. ‘Well, I don’t think so. Not right away he wasn’t, anyway. But I was … talking … to someone at the time, so I wasn’t really paying that much attention. So, someone could have gone around after a while, and I might not have noticed.’ She sounded rather doubtful now. And she was worried that she was going to have to spill the beans about hassling Marc Linacre to take photos of her. Her parents would be sure to stop her pocket money for a week, then. Or maybe even two.

  Monica, unaware of her daughter’s angst, shook her head as she mulled over this latest evidence. It didn’t make much sense to her. But one thing was for sure.

  They needed to talk to Jason. And fast.

  Flora Glenn looked up as a second policeman poked his head around the tent flap.
>
  ‘That was quick,’ Jason said. ‘You’ve got this Gregson chap?’

  The constable looked puzzled. ‘No sir. But there’s a lady out here who says she needs to speak to you. Urgent, like.’

  Jason sighed. There was always someone who wanted to get in on the act. The last thing he needed now was some busybody matron bending his ear with a thin story and a useless piece of gossip, trying to pump him for information.

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Flora looked back down at her notes. ‘Sir Hugh had the motive and opportunity. All we need is for someone to link him to Dr Trenning …’ she trailed off wistfully.

  ‘Sir?’

  Jason’s head snapped up to spear the constable again, who already looked miserable. Jason’s furious gaze did nothing to improve his plight.

  ‘She says to tell you that she’s Mrs Noble, sir, and that she thinks her daughter may have some vital information.’ He relayed the message in a rush. ‘She’s most insist—’

  ‘Show her in,’ Jason said quickly. ‘And if the others return, keep them outside until we’ve finished.’

  ‘Sir!’ The relief in the constable’s face was almost comic. A moment later, Flora watched the dark-haired vicar’s wife come in, a striking, leggy blonde princess beside her.

  Jason rose. ‘Mrs Noble,’ he said, his mouth just a shade dry.

  Monica smiled, a little uncertainly, Flora thought. ‘Chief Inspector. You remember Carole Anne?’ Beside her, her daughter tossed back her mane of long blonde hair and looked at him boldly.

  Jason took a deep breath. ‘As if I could forget,’ he said, half amused, half wary.

  ‘Carole Anne, tell the Chief Inspector what you just told me,’ Monica prompted.

  Carole Anne, who didn’t appreciate being told what to do as if she were a 5-year-old, deliberately moved forward and took the seat in front of Jason, crossing her long, long legs conspicuously. Monica, glaring at her offspring, took the second chair and cast an apologetic glance at Jason.

  ‘Well, it’s about the man in the suit,’ Carole Anne said, instantly gaining the two police officers’ attention. Nonchalantly, Carole Anne described Gordon Trenning’s two trips behind the tea tent. When she was finished, Flora’s notebook was crammed with shorthand.