A Perfect Death (36 page)

‘That was the fire investigator,’ he said as he put the receiver down. ‘They’ve found some unusual things at the seat of the
fire in the Brights’ garage. He thinks the smashed bottle was to make us think that a Molotov cocktail had been used again,
the same as in the shed.’

‘So what were these unusual things? What does it mean?’

Gerry grinned as though he was enjoying keeping his colleague guessing. ‘You’ll see. We’ve got Jem Burrows here on the premises
and I’m going to have Sheryl Bright brought in.’

The phone rang again. As Gerry spoke his smile widened, showing a set of uneven teeth. If the fire investigator had brought
good news, this was even better.

‘Guess what, Wes,’ he said when the call was over. ‘I asked someone from Forensic to take a look at Jem Burrows’s computer.
It seems he’s been looking at some interesting websites – one of them telling you how to make a device that delays the start
of a fire, using a plastic bottle full of petrol suspended above a couple of candles.’ He paused, the storyteller building
up to the punch line. ‘Traces of melted plastic and candle wax were found in the Brights’ garage and I reckon that once Sheryl
had knocked her husband over the head and set that little lot up, she’d have had plenty of time to go off painting and chat
up the neighbours before the place went up, apparently because the killer chucked a Molotov cocktail through the window. Clever.
Only she made one very bad error. The glass from the broken window was all over the ground outside.’

‘Which means she broke the window on the inside when she was setting it all up.’ He shook his head. ‘Silly mistake.’

‘Conspiracy to murder.’ Gerry savoured the words. ‘When we’ve brought her in, we can charge them.’ He suddenly frowned. ‘Can’t
have our usual celebratory drink tonight though. We might have cracked this one but there are two more to go.’

Wesley knew the boss was right. Once Jem and Sheryl had been interviewed again and charged, there was still the matter of
who killed Nadia Lucas and Denis Wade.

It had all started with Nadia’s death. Death by fire.

The charges had been made but Sheryl and Jem were sticking to a policy of ‘no comment’ as suggested by their respective solicitors.
They had witnesses who’d swear that they were elsewhere when the garage caught fire and it would be up to the police to prove
otherwise.

‘It’s just a matter of waiting for the forensic reports,’
Gerry observed as they walked down the corridor away from the interview room. ‘And I’ll bet that Sheryl set fire to her own
summer house and all. All an elaborate smoke-screen,’ he added with a grin.

But Wesley’s mind wasn’t on the Bright case. ‘I’d like another word with Ian Rowe,’ he said.

‘Well, he’s on the premises. Help yourself. But he’s been over what happened in that cottage I don’t know how many times.
No inconsistencies as yet.’ He put a large paw on Wesley’s shoulder. ‘Look, Wes, why don’t you get someone else to question
him? Fresh approach? How about Rach and Trish? The female touch. Rowe looks the type who’d respond to that,’ he added with
a wink.

Wesley saw the wisdom of Gerry’s suggestion. Besides, he’d had enough of Rowe capitalising on their tenuous student relationship.
But something Rowe had said the night before was baffling him and he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head. ‘She told
me she didn’t die. It was the other way round.’ What was? And who didn’t die? Only Ian Rowe could enlighten him.

Twenty minutes later he was back in the interview room. Gerry had decided to keep him company and sat back on his chair, completely
relaxed, with an ‘all’s well with the world’ expression on his face, like a man who’d just enjoyed a good dinner.

Rowe seemed nervous, as if the reality of his situation had just hit him. He wore a blue disposable jump suit which made him
look thinner than when Wesley had met him in Carcassonne. And he looked deflated,
as though the fight had gone out of him.

When the tape had been set running Wesley started the questioning, keeping it formal. ‘Why did you return to England from
France?’ he asked.

‘I’ve told you.’

‘Tell me again.’

‘I wanted to see Crace. I’d managed to get an appointment with him. I was going to confront him once and for all with what
I knew about him and my mum. I was going to ask him to take a DNA test.’

‘Is that why you went to work with him in the first place, because your mother talked about knowing him?’

‘You know all this. I’ve told you.’

‘So remind me, how did you make the appointment?’

‘I told you. I wrote a letter. But when I arrived I phoned up and Eva answered. I told you about it last night, Wes. Remember?’

‘Did you talk to Sir Martin?’ Gerry asked.

‘No, only to Eva. I couldn’t resist teasing her. I hinted that I knew something really bad about Crace … something he’d done
in his past that I knew he’d pay good money to hush up. I said my mother had left papers that contained some interesting facts,
that sort of thing. She’s got no bloody sense of humour, that woman. But she’d have treated me a bit different once Crace
had taken the DNA test and it came out who I really was.’

‘You’re sure Crace is your father, aren’t you?’

‘Of course.’ There was a hint of desperation in
Rowe’s voice, as though he was trying to convince himself as much as the two policemen sitting opposite him. ‘Once it’s all
sorted, I’ll be out of here,’ he said, looking at Wesley defiantly.

‘What about Nadia?’

‘I called her to tell her I was hoping to get an appointment with Crace and I asked if I could borrow her car when I came
over. Must have been the day before she died.’

‘Did she talk about her mother?’

‘Yeah – really heavy stuff. She’d hired a private eye but I don’t think he was much use and she said she couldn’t afford to
keep him on for much longer. She’d started talking to some people who knew her mum and she was getting in really deep, I could
tell. That’s why I wanted you to see those e-mails she sent me. I was worried about her.’

Wesley leaned forward, as though he was about to share a confidence. ‘You said something when you were arrested. Something
about someone not dying and it being the other way round. What was all that about?’

Ian shrugged. ‘It was just something Nadia said when I called her about the car.’

‘What exactly did she say?’ Wesley asked patiently.

‘I can’t remember the exact words but it was something like. “I don’t think she died – it was the other way round.” A while
ago she said she’d been wondering whether her mother might still be alive so that’s probably what she meant. Her body was
never found, you see. And people have been known to fake their own
deaths by leaving their clothes on a beach, haven’t they? I wonder if she went off and started a new life.’

‘And abandoned her daughter?’

‘That’s what bothered Nadia. She said her mother wasn’t like that but that could have been wishful thinking on her part. After
all, she’d left it to her ex-husband to bring Nadia up, hadn’t she?’

‘Did Nadia mention a letter she’d found? Something her dad had failed to destroy before he died?’

‘She did as a matter of fact. But she didn’t say what was in it. She said she’d show it me when she saw me.’

‘You think she could have been on to something when she said it was the other way round?’

A smile spread across Rowe’s lips. ‘Maybe. Who knows?’

Sir Martin Crace was at Bewton Hall that morning. Eva Liversedge had told Gerry on the phone that he wasn’t receiving visitors
but then Gerry had pointed out that he wasn’t a visitor, he was the police. And Sir Martin would receive him whether he liked
it or not.

Wesley, who would have put it more tactfully, listened to the one-sided phone call with creeping embarrassment but the DCI’s
straightforward approach seemed to work and Eva yielded without much argument. But when they arrived at the hall she had a
face like a gorgon with a bad hair day as she showed them into Sir Martin’s presence, enough to turn any man to stone.

However, Sir Martin himself seemed almost welcoming, eager to help the police with their enquiries. Last time they’d met,
Wesley had sensed
that he’d been annoyed at their persistence, but now all seemed to have been forgiven as he invited them to sit and ordered
tea.

Sir Martin arched his fingers and assumed an expression of polite enquiry. ‘How can I help you, gentlemen? I assure you, I’ve
already told you everything I know and I really don’t think—’

‘You’ll know that one of your security staff was murdered. Denis Wade.’

‘I know all about it, I’m afraid. Everyone here has given statements and I assure you that his death, regrettable though it
is, has absolutely nothing to do with me.’

‘Strange though,’ said Wesley. ‘How all these people who used to work for you seem to be either dying or disappearing.’

‘Ian Rowe and Nadia Lucas hadn’t worked for me for some years. And I understand Rowe has been found alive. I don’t want to
teach you your job, Inspector, but perhaps you ought to be making enquiries into his activities.’

‘That’s already in hand,’ Wesley said quickly. ‘In fact he told us something rather interesting. He told us that he thinks
you might be his biological father. He says that’s why he wanted to see you. You did know his mother many years ago, I understand?’

Sir Martin smiled. ‘I knew her slightly but there was never anything between us because she was only fourteen at the time
and I must have been about nineteen or twenty. She worked in my parents’ shop. Saturday girl. She got into trouble, as they
used to
say – delightfully old-fashioned phrase that, don’t you think? – but I assure you that she didn’t tell me who the father was.
I understand she married later so all’s well that ends well, I suppose.’

‘The marriage didn’t last and she became an alcoholic. Died six months ago,’ Wesley said quietly.

There was a slight pause. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that but I’m not sure what it has to do with me if someone mistakenly thinks
I’m his father.’

‘Would you be willing to take a DNA test?’ Gerry asked.

Sir Martin shot him a hostile glance. ‘I really don’t see why I should. My word should be enough.’

‘It would settle the matter once and for all.’

‘It would but—’

‘So you’re willing?’

Crace hesitated. ‘I’ll think about it. Now if that’s all—’

‘Not quite,’ said Wesley. He wasn’t going to be dismissed until he’d learned everything he came to learn. ‘I’ve been looking
at your website. I understand you were adopted yourself.’

‘I make no secret of it.’

‘Have you ever tried to contact your biological mother?’

‘Yes. But I’m afraid I discovered that she’d died a few years ago. Cancer. It’s one of the great regrets of my life that I
never met her, Inspector. I’m sure you can understand that.’

‘Of course. Do you happen to know her name or any details of her life?’

There was a long silence, as though Crace was making a decision. ‘Her name was Elizabeth Crowley and she was a university
student who got pregnant and gave me up for adoption. She thought it was for the best. She went on to marry and have two more
children. And before you ask, I haven’t contacted my two half-sisters. Perhaps I will one day but … but when I found out Elizabeth
had died, it just didn’t seem appropriate somehow, intruding into their grief.’

‘But you must have contacted her family or you wouldn’t know how she’d died or …’

Crace gave Wesley a knowing smile. ‘If you must know I employed a private detective. I didn’t wish to make the initial approach,
if you see what I mean.’

‘Quite. The detective wasn’t called Forsyte Wiley, was he?’

Crace shook his head. ‘No. Why? Who’s Forsyte Wiley?’

‘Just someone Nadia Lucas employed to find out what happened to her mother.’

‘Really? I employed a man from London who’s well known for his discretion. I’m afraid I’ve never heard of this Mr Wiley.’

‘What about your adoptive parents?’

‘Both dead, alas.’

Wesley watched Crace’s face carefully. It was time to test the waters and see the reaction. ‘You’re quite sure that your biological
mother’s name wasn’t Maggie March?’

But there was no tell-tale sign of recognition. Crace merely looked puzzled. ‘No. I’ve told you. It was
Elizabeth Crowley. You’re barking up the wrong tree, Inspector, and if I were you, I’d go home and check my facts. Ian Rowe
is obviously a fantasist. I’m afraid, like all people in the public eye, I attract that sort of attention from time to time.’

Crace wore an expression of irritated innocence. The man was either a good actor, Wesley thought, or he was telling the truth.

‘Can you give us the name of the private detective you employed to find your mother, sir?’

Crace hesitated before taking his wallet from his inside pocket and extracting a business card. ‘I’m afraid you won’t be able
to contact him. He left that agency and now he’s working in the States.’

He said the words apologetically but Wesley was sure he could detect a tiny note of triumph.

‘And you can’t tell me what your security guard, Denis Wade, was doing in the cottage where Ian Rowe was staying?’ Gerry asked
unexpectedly.

Crace looked a little startled by the sudden change of subject. ‘I assure you I’ve no idea.’ He leaned forward and looked
Wesley in the eye. ‘He certainly wasn’t there under my orders if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘I never said he was,’ said Gerry innocently. ‘But your staff are very loyal, aren’t they? I’ve noticed that. You must be
a good boss,’ he added. A spot of flattery never went amiss with powerful men.

‘I try to be,’ Crace replied with what sounded like humility.

They took their leave, shown off the premises by a
silent Eva Liversedge. If Sir Martin Crace was involved in any way with the deaths of Nadia Lucas and Denis Wade, it wasn’t
going to be easy getting him to admit it.

As they drove away, Wesley found himself feeling quite depressed.

Eva Liversedge watched from the office window as the policemen departed. They’d asked her why she hadn’t mentioned that Ian
Rowe had telephoned her when he arrived in England. She said it had slipped her mind and she was certain they’d believed her.
After all, she couldn’t be expected to remember every phone call she’d fielded over the past few weeks, could she?