A young blonde, whose nametag announced her to be Dorinda, spoke for the rest of them. “If you’re a variety agent, you’re more than welcome.”
“No. I’m a cook and I own my own café. I might be looking for kitchen staff.”
A red haired young man, one of the dancers, laughed. “You’re about as funny as Charlie.”
“Talking of whom, where is he?”
“Sleeping it off,” Dorinda said.
“Is he on split shifts this week, too? Like your boss, Eleanor?”
Dorinda’s brow furrowed. “Eleanor’s on split shifts every week. She prefers it that way.” As quickly as she had made the announcement, she changed the subject. “What is it we can do for you, Mr Murray? Is it about Winnie?”
Joe nodded and pulled the seat to join them. “But for a couple of exceptions, I can’t find anyone with a good word to say about her.”
“You won’t find anything different here, either,” Dorinda assured him. “She was selfish, egotistical, over-ambitious, and had a voice like a foghorn.”
Joe suppressed his irritation at the observation. “Professional jealousy?” he asked.
Dorinda laughed harshly. “She had nothing I needed to be jealous about, other than maybe the size of her bosom.”
There was a general murmur of agreement around the table.
“Is there a hierarchy in place?” His question met with blank stares. “A pecking order? And was she at the top of it?”
Dorinda took a drink from a glass of what looked like lemonade and Joe remembered Winnie telling him that they were not allowed to drink when they were on duty (a rule that obviously did not apply to Charlie Curnow).
She put the glass down, and said, “Officially, there is no pecking order. We’re all on the same, crap wages, and we answer to Charlie, but Winnie got it into her head that because she was the solo singer, that she was more important than us.”
The others again agreed, and chipped in with examples, such as Winnie’s refusal to help with the preparation of scenery, or her tantrums when their routines moved too fast for the tempo at which she was singing.
Joe realised he would learn little from these people, and he concluded, “None of you will be too worried about what happened to her, then?”
Dorinda again spoke up for them. “Nobody here would have hurt her. We’re not like that… Well, Flick maybe, but the cops have arrested him, haven’t they? The rest of us, we’re mates, and we look out for each other. I’m sorry she’s dead, but I have to say, I’m not sorry that she’s no longer part of our team. Good riddance is what I say.”
***
Brenda was busy in their shared caravan when Joe got back. Rather than face her, he climbed into his hired car, took out his smartphone and called Hattie O’Neill.
She sounded tired and irritable, and she could offer no news on those items stolen from 3rd Age Club members.
“I’ve no sympathy for them, Hattie,” Joe replied. “Anyway, that’s not what I’m ringing about. You have Flick Tolley’s fingerprints on Winnie’s neck. Which hand?”
“That’s a strange kind of question, Joe. Does it matter?”
“Yes. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s vital.”
“Hang on a minute, and I’ll check.”
There was a bump as she put the phone on the desk, and he could hear the clack and clatter of keys as she interrogated the computer. While he was waiting for her to come back to him, the caravan door opened, and Brenda marched past stiff-backed and ignoring him as she had done for most of the last thirty-six hours. He scowled after her, and was strongly tempted to let down the window and shout something, but he refrained. It would be childish, and anyway, Hattie was about to come back on the line.
“I’ve got it. His right hand. Now tell me what difference it makes.”
“It might not prove him innocent, but I have a witness who saw the argument between them, and the witness insists that Flick was facing her when he grabbed her by the throat.”
Hattie was silent for a moment. “If that’s so, it would be difficult for him to stab her under her rib cage below the left breast.”
“Yes, but not impossible. If he pushed her to the ground first, he could still have done it. Do you know whether she was standing or lying on her back when she was stabbed?”
“No. We don’t. I can ask our pathologist for his opinion. Who is this witness, Joe? We need to speak to him.”
“Quint Ambrose. Proper name is Quentin. He’s a barman here at Gittings. I told you about him. He was besotted with Winnie, and to be honest, he has just as big a motive as Flick. Maybe bigger.”
“We’ll be out to speak to him tomorrow morning. Thanks for this, Joe. It’s one I owe you.”
“Remember that when I call the favour in.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You’re saying that Flick might be innocent?”
Eleanor was understandably concerned for the welfare (or otherwise) of one of her staff members, and while Joe again prepared toast for them, she had asked about the state of the investigation, deferring to his superior knowledge of police methods and his own investigative ability.
Joe felt quite flattered by it. Throughout Yorkshire in general, Sanford in particular, he was known as an astute observer, a man who missed nothing, moreover a man who could string arguments together to lead to a logical conclusion… even if that conclusion was wrong. But he wondered how much further Eleanor’s interest went. Three nights in a row he had passed time in her bed, indulging their passion to a mutually satisfying conclusion, and when he considered that in conjunction with the excommunication many of his old friends had heaped upon him, he began to wonder whether his earlier conclusion was the right one. Maybe it was time to start afresh somewhere other than Yorkshire.
“I don’t say it proves him innocent,” he insisted, “but it does place a question mark over his guilt.” He handed Eleanor a plate containing two slices of toast and butter, and helped himself to a second plate, before sitting at the table with her. “You see, Eleanor, when these things come to court, guilt and innocence don’t always enter into the argument. It’s all about the jury on the day, and the guidance the judge gives them in his summing up. Under the law, if there is reasonable doubt, then a man cannot be found guilty, but ‘reasonable doubt’ has never been defined. I could stand up in court as a witness, and say that Flick could not possibly have murdered her, but if the prosecution have evidence that she was thrown to the ground first, then the jury would have to weigh that against my evidence, or rather, Quint’s evidence.”
She swallowed a mouthful of toast. “You’re very passionate about this, aren’t you, Joe?”
“With good reason,” he replied, and went on to detail the two cases in which he had been charged with murder. “It’s a terrible crime,” he concluded. “No one has the right to take another’s life, and I’ve always held the view that anyone who does, should forfeit his or her life, but in a prison cell and not necessarily at the end of a rope. By the same token, the system is supposed to ensure that no innocent man or woman should spend time in prison.”
“It goes wrong, though, doesn’t it?”
“More so these days than in the past, or so it seems.”
He was about to press her and the possibility of moving from Yorkshire to Cornwall when she forestalled the question. “So, did you find anything worthwhile in Penzance?”
“Pretty boring to be honest. No different to Sanford or Leeds. How about you? Were you looking for anything special?”
“I was thinking of treating myself to a new iPad or something similar, but the prices are outrageous.”
“Tell me about. I was looking in that second hand shop on Market Jew Street, but even they—”
The caravan door burst open, cutting Joe off, and Charlie Curnow stepped in.
He reeled drunkenly, stared around, concentrated on them, and with a hiccup, laughed. “Oops. Sorry, Ellie. Wrong caravan. ’Night, luv, ’night, Murray.” H
e staggered out again.
Eleanor clucked impatiently. “Plastered. Again.”
“So much for discretion.” Joe was in a hurry to finish his tea and toast. “Does that happen often?”
“A few times every season. When he’s seriously drunk. And thank God he is smashed out of his brains.” She chuckled gleefully. “Don’t worry, Joe, by tomorrow morning, he’ll have forgotten that you were here.”
“I wasn’t thinking of me. My reputation’s in the gutter right now, so I don’t care what anyone thinks or says about me, but you have a position to maintain.” He checked his watch and read midnight. “I’d better get moving. Tomorrow night? Or would you like to cry off?”
“Let’s play it by ear, eh?”
Joe stepped out into the chilly night, and made his way along the lines to his caravan, which (mercifully) was in complete darkness. When he let himself in, he soon learned that he was alone. Not that he was afraid of a confrontation with Brenda, but things would likely be said which he (or she) would later regret.
He spent half an hour bringing his notes up-to-date, during which he once again recalled he had seen Eleanor in Penzance, which reminded him (as if he needed it) of his ‘exercises’ with her earlier, and his appointment with her tomorrow evening. Just before one in the morning, he took to his bed, but as before, sleep only came with difficulty. His mind turned and whirled with developing events, the problem of Wynette Kalinowski’s murder compounding with the trouble between him and the people he had always considered his friends, and it seemed to him that he was living through a nightmare, and he was at the mercy of events, able to do nothing but wait to wake up.
***
When he climbed out of bed a little before eight in the morning, the sun was shining once again. The bus was scheduled to leave for Tintagel at nine, and Keith had assured them that it would take about an hour and a half to get there.
Over a bowl of cereal and a cup of strong coffee, he considered the prospect of ninety minutes on a bus full of people, most of whom would ignore him, and decided he did not want it. He rang Alec Staines, and told him, “I’ll make my way there in the hire car, and catch up with some of you in Tintagel. Let Keith know, will you? It’ll save him waiting for me.”
Alec agreed, and at ten o’clock, Joe, wrapped in his fleece against a cold wind, climbed into his rental, fired the engine, and set off after them.
He was pleased to find that the A30 running north from Hayle was a broad, high-speed, dual carriageway, and the same could be said of the A39 when he came off near Columb St Major, but a mile further on, when it turned north for Tintagel, it was reduced to a single carriageway, and despite its official classification as a trunk road, it was, like the road from Penzance to Land’s End, often narrow and awkward to negotiate. Overtaking a tractor pulling a large trailer loaded with bales of hay was a work of art, and to Joe it felt like he had followed it for miles, even though it was actually less than five hundred yards.
One and a quarter hours after leaving Gittings, he finally pulled into Tintagel village, slotted the car into a free space on the pay-and-display car park, climbed out and breathed in the fresh, ocean air. After the confines of the little car, it seemed fresher than that in Hayle. A trick of the mind, he diagnosed. The air in Hayle was festering, but that had more to do with human nature than meteorology.
The day would not be much more exciting than Wednesday in Penzance. Tintagel had little to offer other than souvenir shops, and some spectacular views from the cliff tops. He took photographs of the Old Post Office, which allegedly dated back to the fourteenth century, and the more recent King Arthur’s Hall, and in one shop he found CDs of instrumental folk music from the south-western peninsula. After listening to samples from some tracks, Joe decided that they were worth the better part of £20, and bought them.
He had lunch with the Staineses in one of the many little teashops, but he flatly refused to accompany them on the walk down to the Beach Café and the subsequent climb up to the ruins of the castle. Instead, when they left him, he bought a visitor’s guide book and several postcards.
By two o’clock he was seriously losing interest, and he returned to his car for the journey back to Hayle.
Keith was already standing by the bus, waiting for the passengers to return, and as Joe got to his car, Sylvia Goodson detached herself from the little clutch of people which included Tanner, Dalmer and Brenda, and came to speak with him.
“Don’t you think this ridiculous farce has gone on long enough, Joe?” she asked.
“I didn’t start it. Les did, and Brenda supported him, and so did other people.”
“They were looking for you to help, Joe.”
“No. They were looking for someone to slag off the management at Gittings, when in fact, the problem was theirs. They were warned about the thefts on that site.”
Sylvia took his hand. “Please, Joe. You are one of the stalwarts of this club. We don’t want to lose you.”
He modulated his anger. “You’re very kind, Sylvia. You always have been. But you should be telling Les that, not me.”
And with that, he climbed behind the wheel of his hired car, started the engine and set off on the return journey. Although she had only the best of intentions, Sylvia had inadvertently triggered the anger in him again, and the further he was from them, the better he felt.
Six miles from Tintagel, he picked up the A39 south of Camelford, turned right, settled his speed at a conservative fifty, and then checked the time on the dashboard. It was too early to go back to Gittings, and he tossed the idea of Newquay or Perranporth around his head. He had almost decided on the latter when his phone rang. Ever cautious, he pulled into a layby, picked up the instrument and checked the menu. Hattie.
He applied the handbrake, and made the connection.
“Afternoon, lass, what can I do you for?”
“Just touching base, really, Joe. We’re still questioning Flick and Quint, and both of them are denying any part in Wynette’s murder. I wondered if you had anything for us?”
“No. Sorry. Have you had the full post mortem results?”
“Funny you should mention that. I’m at the hospital in Truro now. I’m with Wynette’s mother. She’s given us formal identification, and obviously, she’s very upset.”
A surge of interest shot through Joe. “Tell you what, Hattie, can you get her to wait until I get there? I’d like a word with her.”
“Well, I can ask her. Where are you now?”
“On the A39, a few miles south of Camelford.”
“It’ll take you about three quarters of an hour to get here. Just program your satnav for the hospital in Truro. I’ll meet you either outside or in the cafeteria there.”
Joe killed the call, carried out Hattie’s instructions and programmed Truro hospital in to his satnav, then started the engine, and set off.
As he was so fond of saying, the best witness in any crime was always the victim, and that held true even in a case of murder where the victim could no longer speak for him, or her, self. He had spent the last five days on the periphery of this appalling crime, and had learned very little of the woman herself. That was largely thanks to Howell’s surly and uncooperative approach. In the past, he had always delved into the victim and the suspects from the off, but the inspector’s recalcitrance coupled to Joe’s problems with the 3rd Age Club had seen him make little headway. Sure, he’d spoken to Flick, sure he’d spoken to Quint, Curnow, Eleanor, and even Winnie’s fellow performers, but none of them confessed to knowing too much about her, and with the exception of Eleanor and possibly Quint, each had painted a derogatory picture of her. What he needed now was the other side of the coin, even if her mother’s opinion was rose coloured.
The hospital was easy enough to find, opposite an industrial estate on the road leading into Truro. Finding a parking spot was a different proposition, and when Joe finally managed to grab a space, he was stunned by the cost. Putting aside his natural niggardliness, he p
aid the fee and made his way towards the entrance, where he found Hattie perched on a bench with Janet Kalinowski, Wynette’s mother.
Hattie introduced them, Joe shook hands and sat alongside her.
“Allow me to offer my condolences, Mrs Kalinowski,” he said. “I don’t know how much Hattie’s told you, but I’m a private investigator from the North of England, and I’m down here on holiday. I ended up involved in this business purely by accident, and I’d like to ask you about Wynette.”
Aged somewhere in her fifties, she was withered and drawn, pale-faced, and played constantly with a handkerchief, knotting and twisting it between her agitated fingers.
“I already told the police everything,” she said. “And I don’t care what everyone says, my Winnie was a good girl. She had the voice of an angel, and when she told me she wanted to be a singer, it was the proudest moment of my life. And she shouldn’t have been wasting her time on that holiday camp. She was better than that. She could have been a star, she could.”
Having heard the girl sing on Saturday night, Joe reserved his opinion, which was completely the opposite of Janet’s.
“You say you don’t care what everyone says? What were they saying?”
“They said she was a…” Janet struggle to get the words out. “A tramp.”
She burst into tears, and Hattie made an effort to calm her. Joe felt guilty. Women who cried always did that to him.
Eventually, Janet gained some control over her emotions, and went on. “She was always short of money, but when she went to Gittings, she was suddenly flush. Well, I know they don’t pay that much in wages, and for a little while I thought she was… you know…”
Janet trailed off again, and Joe was left to fill in the blanks. It was obvious that the woman thought her daughter was prostituting herself.
“I get the picture,” he replied. “Did she tell you how she really came by the money?”
Janet nodded tearfully. “I don’t like to say, cos she’s no longer here to defend herself, but she told me she was working with other people and they were stealing from the campers and selling the stuff on. I don’t mind telling you, Mr Murray, I played the merry hell with her, and she was sorry. Crying, she was. Well, she was brought up properly, see. She was always taught never to steal from anyone.”
A Cornish Killing Page 13
