Dave Slater Mystery Novels Box Set One

by Ford, P. F.

  They hurried through the archway and into yet another courtyard. Norman knew enough about these old houses to know this would have been where the carriage and horses were kept many years ago. There was a larger building off to one side which would have been the coach house and now appeared to serve as the garage. On the opposite side was another large outbuilding. The door was open and from where they were looking it seemed to now serve as some sort of office.

  Norman walked across to the office, the PC following closely in his wake. There didn’t appear to be anyone around, so he stepped inside and took a look around. It was a rather grand, well-equipped office, with old fashioned wood and leather furniture. Norman thought he would have been very happy to have an office like this.

  He stepped behind the desk. A drawer was just slightly open and Norman eased it open a bit further to reveal a collection of rather expensive jewellery. He was sure he recognised a couple of the pieces from the descriptions Lady Maunder had provided after the break-in.

  ‘Get this jewellery bagged up for me, please,’ Norman told the PC.

  As he made his way back out to the courtyard, he wondered how Slater was getting on interviewing Gordon ‘Dougal’ Ferguson. Absently he looked at his watch. It was coming up for nine-twenty.

  Norman wanted to confront Sir Robert, but he also wanted to know what was on that fire. Maybe Maunder was destroying evidence from the past. It had to be just around this next corner. He crept up stealthily, half expecting to find Maunder stoking a fire, but all he found was an old, wire-cage style garden incinerator. As he approached it, it seemed as though it was just garden rubbish smouldering away.

  But then, as he got closer, he could see there was a bit more to it. The garden rubbish was just being used to keep the fire going. To one side of the incinerator, he could see some photographs and what appeared to be letters. They had slid from the top of the fire, and although they were singed and charred around the edges, it looked as though they might be salvaged, if only he could get them out quickly.

  Kneeling down, Norman gingerly fished the assortment of charred photographs and letters from the incinerator. As far as he could make out, the photos seemed to show Sir Robert with an assortment of scantily clad women, but there was nothing to suggest Maunder was interested in children. Suddenly, he heard footsteps and started stuffing the documents hastily into an evidence bag.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ Lady Maunder’s voice came in a shrill cry. ‘Taking rubbish from a bonfire? Is there no limit to how far you’ll go?’

  ‘No there isn’t,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘Not if it means I catch the bad guys.’

  ‘Well, you won’t catch any bad guys here. This is an outrage. You will be hearing from our solicitor, I can promise you that.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I’m sure we will,’ said Norman as he climbed slowly to his feet.

  ‘What have you got there?’ she demanded. ‘Let me see.’

  ‘I’m not sure what I’ve got yet,’ said Norman, keeping the bag well out of her reach. ‘But maybe if you come and see what we found in your husband’s office, you’ll understand why we’re here.’

  ‘You’ve been in his office?’ she shrieked. ‘How dare you? Even I’m not allowed in there.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ said Norman, beginning to tire of her ceaseless yelling and complaining. ‘The thing is, I have a search warrant. That means nothing’s private. If you just stop yelling long enough to read it, you’ll see it gives me permission to go anywhere I want. Now just follow me.’

  Ignoring her continuing protestations, he led her round to the office.

  ‘Show her the jewellery, Nugent,’ he ordered the PC.

  The PC held out the clear plastic bag so she could clearly see what was inside.

  ‘Do you recognise any of those pieces?’ asked Norman.

  ‘Well, yes,’ she said uncertainly, peering at the bag. ‘But I don’t understand. They were stolen. What are they doing here?’

  ‘Okay, you can take it over to the house, now,’ Norman said to PC Nugent.

  Lady Maunder was looking genuinely confused, and Norman realised she wasn’t putting on all this indignation. She really did think her husband was some sort of saint.

  ‘They were in the drawer of your husband’s desk,’ he explained. ‘I’m afraid it looks as though they never were stolen, ma’am. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her face screwed up. ‘But that man left his card...’

  ‘I’m afraid your husband staged the whole thing,’ explained Norman. ‘I’m pretty sure we’ll find he printed the card on that printer over there.’

  He pointed to the printer. As he did, his sleeve slid back to reveal his watch. It was nine-thirty.

  ‘There must be some mistake,’ she said again.

  ‘I don’t think so, ma’am,’ said Norman. ‘Now. Can you tell me where your husband is?’

  ‘He, err, I thought he was out here,’ she said, uncertainly. ‘Or he’ll be out in his Rolls Royce somewhere. He loves that car.’

  For a split second they stared at each other in silence, almost as if they were expecting something to happen.

  And then it did.

  The unmistakable boom of a shotgun being fired rang out from the garage on the opposite side of the courtyard.

  This was followed by a stunned silence, and then the sound of running feet as the PCs in the house reacted to the sound. Norman felt his innards turning to water as his mind raced through the possibilities. But it couldn’t have been that, he thought. Could it?

  ‘What was that?’ cried Lady Maunder. She was still standing face to face with Norman, looking into his face.

  ‘Err, I’m not sure,’ said Norman, carefully. ‘Does your husband have a shotgun?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But he’s got a licence for it.’

  It was almost as if she was trying to ignore the possibility, but Norman’s face told her what she already knew.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said, and then she was off and running and screaming. She was surprisingly sprightly for a woman in her mid-seventies.

  ‘Sir! Over here, Sir,’ a voice called to Norman, from the garage.

  A female PC intercepted Lady Maunder before she could get to the garage, and after a brief struggle managed to cajole her into moving away from the garage and back towards the house. The PC’s face told Norman all he needed to know.

  ‘Are you happy now?’ Lady Maunder screamed at Norman, as she was led away. ‘This is all your fault, Sergeant Norman. You did this!’

  ‘Ambulance is on its way,’ said another PC as he reached the garage.

  Norman rushed into the garage. As he had feared, Sir Robert was in the driver’s seat of his beloved Rolls Royce. He had even put the seat belt on. When he had pulled the trigger, the blast had spread most of his brains across the interior roof and across the back seats. Released from his grip, the shotgun had slipped down to the floor and rested between his legs.

  Norman felt numb, and he clutched onto the door frame. He forced himself to look away from the awful sight. Holy crap, he thought. I have to tell Dave about this.

  Chapter 34

  At nine o’clock, just as Norman was saying hello to Lady Maunder, Slater was composing himself, having spent the previous hour working his way through his full repertoire of swear words. There had been an accident on the A3 on the way down to Portsmouth and, as a result, the busy rush hour traffic had quickly become a ten-mile long queue. It had taken almost an hour of crawling along at a snail’s pace to clear the bottleneck.

  He knew it was just one of those things, and nothing could be done about it, but he hated being late. Swearing didn’t get him there any earlier, of course, but it helped cope with the frustration. As he climbed from his car and made his way across the car park at The Belmont Nursing Home, he consoled himself with the thought that being late didn’t really make that much difference in the grand scheme of things. He would still get Gordon Ferguson�
��s statement, so it wouldn’t change anything.

  Ferguson was propped up in his bed against a pile of pillows. The transformation in his appearance from when Slater had last seen him, less than twenty-four hours previously, was quite remarkable. The feisty, obstinate old devil from yesterday had been replaced by a pale shadow of a man who looked as though he wasn’t going to be around much longer.

  ‘I dictated a statement last night,’ the old man wheezed as Slater pulled a chair up to his bed. He pointed to a large envelope at the foot of the bed.

  ‘I wasn’t sure I’d be here this morning. I’ve signed it myself and it’s been witnessed by two of the nurses.’

  ‘I still need to ask you some questions,’ said Slater.

  ‘Read that first, then if you have any questions you ask away.’ Ferguson let out a gasping breath. ‘I’ve got a matter of days now, so I’ve nothing to lose.’

  It was ten minutes past nine as Slater opened the envelope, unfolded the statement, and began to read. He read slowly and deliberately, making sure he took it all in. Ten minutes later, he looked up at Ferguson.

  ‘You murdered your own wife?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye. I’m not proud of myself. It was a true crime of passion,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘She was the love of my life, and then I caught her in bed with him. I should have killed him, of course, but I wasn’t thinking straight. And he was no hero. He ran away with his tail between his legs while I took it out on her. If he was a real man he woulda stayed and protected her.’

  ‘And then you buried her in the garden.’

  ‘That’s when they saw me. I was caught in a trap of my own making. After that I had to do what they said.’

  ‘And the dead children you buried? You knew about the abuse, and what was going to happen to the kids when they were finished with, yet you said nothing, and became complicit by burying the bodies.’

  Ferguson looked deeply ashamed.

  ‘I’m as bad as him, right?’ he said. ‘Maybe even a bigger coward when all’s said and done.’

  ‘How come you didn’t have to bury Florence?’ asked Slater.

  ‘I was supposed to. But she wasn’t dead when they brought her to me. I couldn’t kill a child, so I hid her in my cottage in the grounds and nursed her back to health. I kept her hidden for two years, then the boss saw her in my garden. I told him she was my niece, come to stay for a few days. But he knew. That’s why he took the photograph, so he could be sure. But when he came back for her, I’d managed to send her away to my sister. Then, not long after that the place closed and we all had to move out.’

  ‘So why did Florence end up back there, on her own?’

  ‘I went to my sister’s to look for her after Hatton House closed, but she’d run away. I had no idea she’d end up back at Hatton House. But she loved that garden, and especially that roundabout.’

  They were both quiet for a couple of minutes until Ferguson spoke again.

  ‘Are you gonna charge me?’

  ‘It doesn’t look like you’re going to be around long enough,’ said Slater. ‘So there doesn’t seem much point. Anyway, I’m much more interested in catching the person who murdered Florence and her brother. It’s the same person who organised all the child abuse, isn’t it?’

  ‘Without a doubt,’ agreed Ferguson. ‘But I’m not telling you who that is.’

  ‘Sir Robert Maunder,’ said Slater. ‘We already know that, we just need a bit of solid proof.’

  Ferguson looked at Slater in amazement.

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘What?’ said Slater, doubtfully. ‘He knew all about-’

  ‘Oh, he knew about it,’ interrupted Ferguson. ‘But by the time he found out he’d become a regular visitor to Hatton House. Only he wasn’t coming for the kids, he was coming to have sex with my wife. He couldn’t resist a pretty lady, you see, and they knew it. But once he’d been photographed in bed with her, then got dragged into her murder what could he do? One word out of place and his dirty little secret would have been all over the place. And being a regular visitor it would be easy to implicate him in her murder, abusing kids, and anything that was going on there. He was well and truly buggered.’

  Somewhere, not far from where they sat, a clock chimed the half hour. It was nine-thirty.

  ‘So he wasn’t involved in the child abuse at all?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Och, no way,’ said Ferguson. ‘He’s a philanderer alright, but he’s no pervert.

  Holy crap, thought Slater. I need to let Norm know about this.

  ‘Err, will you excuse me a minute, Mr Ferguson,’ he said, pushing the statement into his pocket and rushing for the door. ‘I need to make a call…’

  Slater rushed outside to make his call, but before he could get the phone from his pocket, it began to ring. He fumbled the phone from his pocket and looked at the caller display. Whoever it was would have to wait. Then he saw the number. That’s weird. Why’s he calling me? He took the call.

  ‘Norm? That’s weird I was just going to call you.’

  ‘Are you psychic, or something?’

  ‘What? What’s going on?’

  ‘You go first. You said you were just gonna call me.’

  ‘I’ve just been talking to Ferguson. He tells me Maunder wasn’t one of the child abusers. He knew about it, but that’s all,’ said Slater excitedly.

  ‘That’s not going to be much consolation to his widow,’ said Norman, grimly.

  Slater carried on, not really paying attention.

  ‘Apparently, he knew about it but didn’t blow the whistle because… What? What did you just say? His widow?’

  ‘Err, yeah. I think it would be fair to say we have a major problem,’ said Norman quietly. ‘Maunder just blew his brains out with his shotgun.’

  Slater felt as if he’d just been punched hard in the guts. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘I shoulda rounded him up,’ said Norman. ‘But his wife said he was out and I believed her. By the time I realised he was around he must have already been ready to kill himself.’

  ‘I would have called earlier,’ said Slater. ‘If you’d known earlier you could have stopped him, but I got held up by an accident on the way down here.’

  ‘Are you gonna be long down there? Only I could do with a bit of help up here.’

  Slater patted his pocket to make sure he had the statement.

  ‘I’m on my way, Norm,’ he said. ‘We’ll sort this out, don’t worry.’

  Chapter 35

  It was after five o’clock by the time Slater and Norman got back to the station. Now, once again, they were stood in front of DCI Bob Murray’s desk. Slater thought this was becoming a bit too much of a habit – and it was a habit he could happily live without.

  The bollocking had been raging for a good ten minutes so far.

  ‘You got it wrong?’ raged Murray, his voice rising an octave. ‘I’ll say you got it bloody wrong! You’ve hounded a man to death. He’s blown his own brains out because two of my officers wouldn’t listen to their superiors and let it lie. Well? What have you got to say for yourselves?’

  ‘All the evidence-’ began Slater.

  ‘All the circumstantial evidence, Sergeant Slater,’ Murray said, pounding on his desk with each syllable. ‘Because, that’s all you had, wasn’t it? Hearsay is not proof. Surely you don’t need me to tell you that.’

  He sat back in his chair, his chest heaving.

  ‘The CC’s going to go ballistic when I tell him, you know that don’t you? He was a good friend of Maunder’s. He’ll be looking for someone to blame, and as you two went and accused him of child abuse, we’ll all be in the frame. It’s possible we’ll all be suspended and those bloody vultures from Internal Affairs will begin an investigation into our investigation.’

  ‘But we found the jewellery in his office,’ said Norman. ‘There’s nothing circumstantial about that.’

  ‘No, there isn’t. But that just proves he was try
ing to get away with an insurance fraud. It doesn’t give you the right to accuse him of child abuse.’

  ‘Err, with respect, Guv. We never accused him of child abuse,’ said Slater.

  ‘You didn’t?’ asked Murray in surprise. ‘But I thought you said he was your number one suspect-’

  ‘He was,’ agreed Norman. ‘We had him down as prime suspect for Mr Winter’s murder because we know Winter sent him a letter accusing him of child abuse. And if we’re right about all that, it would also put him in the frame for murdering Florence. And, if the letter was the catalyst, it gives us good reason to believe he was involved in child abuse back in the sixties.

  ‘But we’ve never told him as much, and we’ve certainly never accused him, because we know we don’t have any proof. As a matter of fact, until this morning, I’ve only ever spoken to him about the fake jewellery theft.’

  ‘I asked him if Winter had sent him a letter,’ volunteered Slater. ‘But I swear I have never accused him of child abuse.’

  ‘So what are you saying? That there’s another reason, and it’s not our fault?’ asked Murray.

  He was still red, but Slater sensed he was calming down slightly.

  ‘For a guy in his position, being guilty of fraud could be enough to tip him over the edge,’ said Slater.

  ‘When I was talking to Maunder’s wife,’ added Norman, ‘she said he’s been getting phone calls from someone. She said he was worried about the calls, but he was keeping it from her. Maybe someone’s been blackmailing him. That would explain why he’s broke, and why he needed the insurance money, and if he knew we were onto him, and it was all going to come out, maybe that’s why he shot himself.’

  ‘And you’re quite sure you haven’t accused him of child abuse?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ said Slater. ‘We suspected him, but we never said as much to him.’

  ‘And now you’ve got a witness who confirms he wasn’t,’ said Murray. ‘Are you sure he’s telling the truth?’