by Joyce Cato
‘Oh hell,’ Carole Anne muttered in despair.
At that moment, Marc looked up.
His jaw dropped.
And Angela began to screech like a banshee.
Monica was listening to Vera Gant describe, in meticulous detail, her interview with Jason, and how she’d bested him. She barely recognized the description of Jason who was by turns, ‘shifty-eyed’, ‘snide’, ‘a know-it-all smarty pants’, and a ‘bully boy of the first order’. After her fury at the way he’d treated her poor helpless Ernie, she garrulously went on to describe how the mallet had been found in the field. All horrible and covered with blood and gore, apparently, and how her poor Ernie had come to be so unfairly under suspicion just because everyone knew he was the handyman. And what man in his right mind would so much as dare to think that her Ernie would go around knocking people over the head with a mallet?
Monica soothed her ruffled feathers as best as she could, but carefully filed away the information Vera had provided.
So, it now seemed almost certain that Gordon Trenning had been killed with the mallet behind the tea tent sometime after the flower show judging had started. It was all very interesting and perplexing, but before she began mulling it all over in earnest, there was something she really had to do first. She wasn’t looking forward to it, because it was risky, but… .
‘I’d best be off,’ Monica said and then slowly, and very sneakily, made her way towards the flower show tent. Now that the body had been removed, and SOCO would be finishing up in there, it was, she hoped, going to be largely deserted. There was something she just had to look at inside. Something she had to find out about. It was important.
All afternoon she’d been worrying about Malvin Cook’s secret visit to the tent. She was almost sure now that she knew what he’d gone in there to do, and why, but she needed to be certain. After all, for those mixed up in it, murder was a deadly serious business, and she had to be absolutely sure of her facts.
Luckily, with the field rapidly emptying now, she managed to get to the side of the tent with nobody noticing her. She didn’t realize it, but she spotted the same gap in the side of the tent as Sir Hugh’s old gardener had done a few hours before, and just like him, she managed to duck and wriggle lithely underneath.
Even as she did it, she wished she hadn’t. It was just asking for trouble to cross police lines and actively seek clues. If Jason found out, he’d be furious with her.
As she crouched on the grass under the cover of the nearest table, her heart beat sickeningly as she watched a pair of constable’s boots walking about. She swallowed hard, finding her lips and mouth and throat as arid as the Sahara. In fact, she wanted to cough!
She quickly clapped a hand to her mouth and, with some difficulty, strangled the sensation. She could just slither back out again, of course, but even in her panic she’d counted only one set of feet. Just a token man to make sure nobody (like herself) interfered with the crime scene. And she was so close. The table she wanted to look at, in fact, was only a few feet to her left.
And now that she was here, she thought, she might as well make the best of it. Calling herself all sorts of a fool, she duck-walked to the neighbouring table and took a deep breath. Warily, she lifted her head. The constable was over by the vegetable stands, eyeing the beetroot. Perfect. Slowly, Monica shuffled along to the display she wanted, checked the constable again (he seemed to have a fetish for beetroots, seeing as he was now holding them up against the light) and, her heart in her throat, quickly half-rose and began to count.
She was right!
She now knew exactly what Malvin Cook had been doing.
‘Hey! You!’
The surprised, squeaky voice had her heart almost skyrocketing into her throat.
Monica jerked upright and stared, aghast, at the constable. He was still holding a bunch of beetroot in one hand. For a second, the two of them simply stared at each other. It was hard to say which of them was the most surprised or dismayed.
For a wild instant, Monica had an almost irresistible urge to flee. Her whole fight-or-flight instinct nearly had her going up on her toes, ready to race for the exit.
Then the constable flushed. And in a few seconds he was beside her, and was holding her arm in a very firm grip.
Monica found herself wishing heartily that Graham was there.
Outside, the second ambulance had arrived to remove the remains of Dr Gordon Trenning. The dwindling crowd watched with continued morbid interest.
Jason and Flora were also watching the white-shrouded figure being removed, when Brian Gilwiddy sidled up to them. ‘Sir, we found an intruder in the tent. You’d better come.’
Jason nodded curtly, following quickly on his heels.
Inside the tent, Monica was looking as miserable as she felt. Her upper arm was still being held in a worryingly firm grip, and her head swung to the front of the tent as the light was blocked out temporarily. Three figures marched in.
Her heart sank as she met Jason’s furious icy-blue eyes.
‘Sir,’ the constable said with some excitemen, ‘I found her tampering with one of the exhibits.’
‘Oh now, really.’ Monica felt compelled to defend herself, ‘Tampering surely isn’t the right word?’ she gushed. ‘I never touched or moved a thing.’
Well, that at least was true.
By now Jason had reached her, and she could swear she could feel the fiery heat of his anger scorching the air between them.
‘I suppose we should be grateful for that, at least, Mrs Noble,’ he said flatly.
Monica went pale and Flora Glenn began to smirk. She was rather enjoying seeing the pretty, normally oh-so-composed vicar’s wife put out. In fact, it was quite making her day.
‘What are you doing here?’ the sergeant asked snappily, lest anyone forget that she was there.
‘I just wanted to check my memory,’ Monica began, only half lying. ‘I needed to be sure of something before I came to you with it,’ she added cunningly, and turned back to Jason, who, unfortunately, didn’t appear to be in any mood to be mollified.
‘If you have information for me, Mrs Noble,’ he gritted, ‘all you have to do is give it to me. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that I would have gladly escorted you in here to “check your memory” if you’d simply thought to ask me?’
Monica swallowed. ‘Well, no it didn’t,’ she admitted honestly. Besides, after the dressing down he’d given her, she hadn’t really wanted to have to go cap in hand to him with such a simple-sounding request.
But before Jason could think of how to reply, another constable came rushing in. ‘Sir, there’s a disturbance in the car park,’ the young man panted.
‘Not now!’ Jason barked.
‘But sir, there’s a woman down there demanding that a teenager be arrested for indecent exposure.’
‘What?’ It was Flora who asked for a repetition, her voice rising incredulously.
The constable nodded, glancing down at his notebook. ‘It’s a Mrs Angela Linacre, Sarge. She’s insisting that a Miss Carole Anne Clancy be arrested for exposing herself.’
‘WHAT?’ This time the yell of anguish came from Monica.
Jason swore graphically.
The scene at the car park was one of amusement (on the part of the police), outrage (on the part of Angela Linacre), cringe-making embarrassment (Marc Linacre) and feigned bored indifference (Carole Anne).
When Jason, Monica, and Flora arrived at a brisk trot, Carole Anne was once more decently dressed in her blouse, which she’d cunningly done up in the normal way, and thus was now looking the picture of innocence. Well, almost. Jason shot her a killing look; it was almost as withering as the basilisk-like glare of her mother. And in the face of this dual assault, Carole Anne’s lower lip began to tremble. In some deep dark part of her she knew she’d been stupid, and she had to fight a childish instinct not to cry.
Marc Linacre suddenly started and stared at the teenager. For an instant ther
e, he’d seen the shadow of child-over-woman. The same gamine and yet gorgeous quality that had made Olivia Gee so sought after. If only he’d had his camera! Then he caught his wife’s eye, and withered.
‘Now then, what’s going on?’ Jason demanded coldly. The last thing he needed was a distraction like this!
‘This … this … creature,’ Angela began, pointing at Carole Anne imperiously, ‘is a menace.’
Monica stiffened. Her hackles rising, she turned on the other woman with a look so furious that even the redoubtable Mrs Linacre quailed. ‘That’s my daughter you’re talking about,’ Monica warned her quietly. ‘So be very careful what you say.’
Angela sniffed, but sensed, in the other woman, a force to match her own. ‘Yes, well, your daughter was draped, half naked, over my husband’s car,’ she hissed.
A constable tittered.
Monica looked grimly at Carole Anne. ‘Is this true?’ she asked flatly.
Carole Anne shrugged nonchalantly. ‘I wasn’t to know that she was such a prude, was I?’ she challenged uncomfortably.
This, Monica took for a ‘yes’. She heaved a huge, long-suffering sigh. ‘Would you care to tell us why? I’m sure we’d all be most interested,’ she added grimly.
Carole Anne tossed back her long blonde hair, but she was beginning to look chastened now. ‘I wanted Marc to photograph me,’ she mumbled, looking down at her feet.
‘He doesn’t do that kind of photography any more,’ Angela snapped. ‘He’s been telling her that all afternoon! She’s been stalking him. That’s what it amounts to. And there are laws against that kind of thing now. I want her arrested.’ Her voice had risen to a hysterical yowl by the time she’d finished.
Monica shot Jason an agonized look, and despite everything, he felt himself responding to her unspoken plea for help.
‘Are you sure about that, Mrs, er, Linacre?’ he inquired mildly.
‘Yes.’ Her eyes flashed in vindictive determination. Jason cast a quick glance at her husband, who looked as if he was praying, most diligently, for the ground to open and swallow him up.
‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully, and then he smiled, suddenly enjoying himself. ‘That, of course, is your right,’ he said smoothly to the irate photographer’s wife. ‘But I would have thought, myself, that you’d find the negative publicity attached to such a course of action a little hard to take,’ he added craftily.
For the first time, Angela’s spiteful face seemed to sag. ‘I’m sorry?’
Jason shrugged. ‘Well, it’s the kind of thing the tabloids would find very funny, isn’t it? They’re bound to make both of you something of a laughing stock. And, of course, once other young hopeful models read about it … well, young girls being what they are,’ and here he shot Carole Anne another killer of a look, ‘you’ll probably find your husband being inundated with wannabe models. Still, you know best,’ he said brightly, ignoring Angela’s appalled face. ‘Sergeant, take down the particulars, and arrest Miss Clancy.’
‘No, wait!’ Angela yelped, just as Monica got ready to let rip.
Angela looked at her husband, and bit her lip. Visions of beautiful nymphets camping out on their doorstep day and night flashed before her eyes. ‘Perhaps it might be better just to … overlook this incident. Just this once! But I want an apology from her!’ she jabbed a pointing and imperious finger once more at Carole Anne.
Carole Anne bristled. ‘Now wait just a min—’
‘Carole Anne,’ Monica interrupted harshly. ‘Apologize. At once.’ She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t scowl. She didn’t even grit her teeth, but Carole Anne took one look at her mother’s face and ducked her head, and, blushing beetroot red, she muttered a painful apology.
Angela nodded grudgingly, then sniffed, grabbed her husband by the scruff of his neck, quite literally, and marched him away.
Another constable tittered.
Monica stared at her daughter. ‘I want a word with you, young lady,’ she said ominously, and took a step forward.
‘And I want a word with you,’ Jason growled, but under his breath. He supposed that the explanation for whatever she’d been doing in the flower show tent could wait.
Besides, it was high time that he had a word with the last of his primary suspects: Malvin Cook.
CHAPTER 17
Jason was still in an unsettled mood as Malvin Cook was led in. He’d deliberately saved interviewing the gardener until more or less last, in the hope of having received more information on his movements by now. Unfortunately, if anyone other than Pete Drummond had seen the old man in the tent when he shouldn’t have been there, they weren’t saying. Or at least, not yet.
The moment Jason saw the small, wizened man walk in and sit firmly down in the chair, he knew that he was going to get nothing out of him. He was, Jason realized at once, the kind of individual who would stick to his guns, come what may, with a stalwart pig-headedness that no amount of reasoning or threat could budge. Still, he had to try.
‘Mr Cook. You’re Sir Hugh’s head gardener, I believe?’ he began with the easy questions first.
‘Yus.’
‘And you were in the flower show tent for a while after Sir Hugh cleared it for judging?’
‘Yus.’
‘Why was that?’
Malvin shrugged. His face, the colour and texture of walnuts, creased up in thought. ‘Just wus,’ he said flatly. ‘I was checking our glads,’ he added, as an apparent afterthought.
Jason blinked for a moment, then nodded. ‘Your gladiola entry?’
‘Yus. We wus gonna win it this year. The cup.’
Jason vaguely remembered seeing a monster of a silver cup on the top table of the tent, and accurately surmised that this was the prize in question. ‘I see. Tell me, did you see Sir Hugh sniff the display of Peace before you left?’
Malvin scratched his pepper-and-salt head and shrugged. ‘Twasn’t paying him particular attention. I had my eye on what the competition had entered, didn’t I?’
Jason sighed. ‘Who was judging the roses this year?’
Malvin’s face solidified. There was no other word to describe it. It was as if he had suddenly turned to stone. ‘Ferris,’ he said flatly.
‘So were you surprised to hear that it was the Reverend Davies who actually began to judge the roses this year?’
Malvin’s small, deep-set eyes widened in evident surprise. ‘Did he, then?’ he said, but more to himself, softly, than as a question for the policeman.
Jason shifted on his seat. He had a feeling that still waters were definitely running very deep indeed with this old man, and he was frustratingly aware that he had no idea how to navigate them. Somewhat desperately, he tried to unsettle him. ‘I understand that you lost your son last year?’ But if he hoped for an expression of shock or outrage, he was to be disappointed.
Malvin merely shrugged once more. ‘Never know what life’s gonna throw at you, do you?’ the old man said flatly.
‘But you blame Mr Ferris for his loss?’ Jason, feeling like a bully, was forced to persist.
‘So did the courts,’ Malvin snapped back quickly.
Jason nodded. At last – some sort of emotional response. ‘You’d like to see Mr Ferris dead, I think,’ he said softly.
‘Yus.’
Jason saw Flora Glenn shift on her seat, caught off guard by the simplicity of the man’s reply.
‘If I told you that one of the scientists working at the lab had devised a perfect murder weapon, what would you say?’ Jason was genuinely curious to see his reaction now.
Malvin shrugged. ‘Don’t have nothin’ to do with anyone in that place,’ he said flatly, and without any apparent curiosity. And Jason believed him. To a man like this, it would be the same as fraternizing with the enemy, he could see that at once. Besides, to a life-long son of the soil, anything to do with science or modern technology would be anathema. So, how likely was it that Malvin would allow Dr Gordon Trenning to become an ally?
H
e couldn’t imagine this stone-faced little man even letting Trenning do so much as talk to him, let alone convince him that in Ross Ferris they had a common enemy and should join forces. But just suppose he had… . Could he then have killed Trenning afterwards, not so much simply because he was an accomplice who had to be shut up, but also because he worked at the lab as well? And thus, he was one of them and therefore part of the company that was responsible for the loss of his boy – temporary ally or not?
It all sounded rather far-fetched and yet he couldn’t altogether discount it. He’d certainly be strong enough to wield the mallet, Jason judged. For all his stooped, small size, this man had years of hard manual labour behind him to give him plenty of strength in his upper arms.
‘You were seen in the flower show tent after the judging had started, Mr Cook. What were you doing there?’ he asked sharply.
Malvin stiffened, then shrugged. ‘I wusn’t there then,’ he denied flatly. But his gaze refused to meet that of his interrogator.
‘You were seen,’ Jason contradicted him flatly, his voice becoming hard.
‘I wusn’t there,’ Malvin Cook repeated. He crossed his arms across his chest.
It was just as Jason had predicted. He knew that the old man would now never budge from that position, and if, in the end, it boiled down to Pete Drummond’s word against Cook’s, it wouldn’t be enough for a jury. Not by a long shot. Hell, it wouldn’t even be enough for his own bosses, let along the Crown Prosecution Service. No, he was going to need much more than this.
He hid a defeated sigh. ‘You’re not planning on leaving the country anytime soon, are you, Mr Cook?’ Jason asked.
Malvin snorted in true scorn. ‘Nope. Never been abroad before in my life, and don’t intend to start now. Me and the wife are happy enough with Weymouth.’
‘Good. We’ll probably want to talk to you again,’ Jason said ominously, but the little man barely acknowledged this sally with so much as a flicker of an eyelash. Instead he rose and trudged out as patiently as he’d trudged in, with that energy-saving lope that a lot of men of his generation had learned to cultivate.
