A Reason to Kill (9 page)

Simple.

Mac tried not to imagine the degree of fear she must have felt when she heard the splintering wood and knew that someone was forcing their way inside. Why, he wondered, didn't she have one of those alarm necklace things she could wear around her neck? His aunt had had one, although Mac remembered that getting her to keep it around her neck was another matter, and she was forever knocking it off her bedside table at night.

He bent down and studied the door more closely. There was an old bolt fitted low down, but when Mac tried it, he found it stiff and tight and so ingrained with dirt he doubted it had been shifted in years. A second bolt had been inexpertly fitted higher up. Shiny and chrome, it stood out against the grubby paintwork and though this moved more easily Mac doubted she would have bothered. She would have found it hard enough to turn the key without then struggling with a bolt, Mac thought, seeing in his mind's eye the difficulty Mrs Freer had in filling the kettle and inserting the plug into the socket on the wall.

He left the kitchen and returned to the hall. Blood drops had been found at the bottom of the stairs, dripped on to the painted wood of the skirting board and the carpet on the last tread. Drops, not spatter, the report had said, so not from Mrs Freer, even though the blood group happened to be the same. Someone had stood there and bled. The killer? Who else? Unless a visitor had cut themselves, and that seemed improbable. A visitor who had been upstairs, cut themselves and then bled on the way back down? More likely the blood belonged to that second person who had searched the upstairs rooms.

Why hadn't the killer used a knife? Mac wondered. It was something that had been troubling him since he had first seen the body, and the report now confirmed that the injuries were all blunt-force trauma, weapon as yet unknown. Looking again at the slashing wounds inflicted upon the sofa and the chair and even the mattress, Mac was struck again by the fact that the killer hadn't used a knife on Mrs Freer. Flicking through the photographs, relieved that he was, at least, managing to distance himself enough not to want to throw up, he was forcibly reminded of just how brutal and how frenzied the attack had been. Whoever had done this had really lost all sense of proportion or restraint. The injuries spoke of fury and frustration and out-and-out rage. Somehow, a knife would have almost been too precise, too considered. Whatever the killer had used to beat the old lady to death had been brought down again and again, harder and harder and with no thought or purpose to it other than to inflict more punishment and pain.

Most people backed off when their victim went down. Most creatures stopped attacking when their prey stopped moving. Whoever had done this had not been so merciful.

Glancing out through the front-room window Mac noticed a red-haired boy standing on the opposite pavement. He could have passed for a younger brother of Andy, the red-haired probationer back at the station, and Mac called to mind a comment made on the day of the murder. The police officer on watch had noted the red-haired teenager who'd got off the school bus and then stood as though stopped in his tracks by the sight of the activity.

Not that it was unusual for people to rubber-neck at a crime scene. But it was unusual for them to come back and to stand so obviously waiting to be noticed. Glancing at his watch and noting that it was almost time for him to talk to the waiting press, Mac got his things together and left the scene.

The boy still waited, trying to look nonchalant, but succeeding only in looking scared.

Mac crossed over the road. ‘Hi,' he said.

The boy shrugged, then replied, ‘Hi.' He shuffled his feet, staring down at them. His shoes were old, Mac noted. Scuffed and cheap and regulation black, the sort you had to wear for school and not something a kid would choose to wear on a weekend.

‘Did you know her?' Mac asked. ‘The old lady that was killed?'

The boy shrugged again, more eloquently this time, one shoulder rising as the other fell. It was, Mac thought, communication of sorts.

‘Well, if there's anything you can tell me …'

The boy glanced up, briefly meeting Mac's gaze, then he looked away and a look, half relief, half irritation, crossed his face. Relief won out and Mac followed the direction of his gaze. Another boy, this one taller and with dark hair, had come out of a house three doors down from the murder scene. He stood uncertainly, staring at Mac and obviously reluctant to come over while he was there.

‘See ya,' the red-haired one said and went off to join his friend. Mac watched as they went back inside the house, noting as the dark-haired boy shot a final look in his direction that his face was very badly bruised, one eye almost swollen closed. Two boys, Mac thought, thirteen or fourteen years old, and they would certainly know that Mrs Freer lived alone.

He walked down to where two uniformed officers kept the press at bay behind a very informal cordon. They all knew one another, Mac noted, hearing the chat and banter whipping back and forth across the invisible line. He had been going to ask about the boys he'd just seen but thought better of it, aware that he did not yet know which of the officers on loan to Frantham could be trusted to be discreet and which might let something slip. Andy had lived somewhere round here, Mac remembered, his family moving to Dorchester only the year before. He would probably know the boys and, of course, Rina would be able to tell him even if more regular sources could not.

The uniformed officers had noted his arrival and fallen silent and the journalists had come to expectant attention, taking their cue. Mac, the new boy, knew he had to set his parameters here and now. This meeting would establish the pattern for future conduct, define his later relations. He turned on the smile, aware that it was not a particularly brilliant one. ‘DI Sebastian McGregor,' he introduced himself. ‘Pleased to meet you all. Maybe you could tell me who you all are and I'll fill you in on what little we know …'

Tim, alias The Great Stupendo, had never been too sure he even liked kids and this afternoon had done little to change his mind.

Tim knew he didn't make a particularly convincing clown and this really wasn't the kind of gig he liked to do anyway. Truth was, he had been sort of press-ganged into it, the parents paying for this horrendously expensive sixth birthday bash being friends of one of the Montmorency twins. Tim had found himself well and truly volunteered and the only consolation was that, for a clown magician act, it was extraordinarily well paid.

Now, at three forty-five and almost at the end of his hour-long slog, Tim felt he had earned every penny of it.

‘Funny time for a party,' Rina had commented. ‘In my day, we had tea parties that began at four, not finished then.'

‘Apparently they're having a family lunch at the hotel,' Tim told her. ‘Then a party for other guests with a buffet. Then there's some kind of evening do but fortunately I'll be long gone by them.'

Rina snorted. ‘I've been to less extravagant weddings,' she declared. ‘And all that for a six-year-old who should be satisfied with a cake and a few friends.'

‘Times are a-changing, Rina.'

‘Hmm, and not for the better, in my opinion. Think about it. If you're throwing this extravaganza when the child is six, what will it expect when it hits eighteen?' Looking at the cars that had been parked outside of the hotel when he arrived, Tim figured that it would be a Mercedes at the very least.

Tim was losing his audience. Three small children sat on the floor in front of him, giggling. Another two little brats were playing tug of war with the string of fake sausages he had produced from his magic frying pan, and three more seemed engrossed in the problem of just how much iced cake and egg sandwich they could grind into the Axminster carpet.

Desperately, Tim glared down the length of the room, wondering just what it would take to attract the attention of the dozen or so adults ranged around the bar. A full-scale food fight? Right now strangulation by sausage looked a little more likely. Tim hopped off the improvised stage and grabbed the string of pink, sawdust-filled bangers from the reluctant hand of one small boy and sought to untwine the rest of the links from around the neck of his increasingly red-faced twin. The resultant howl from the first child and the choking sounds emitting from the second finally elicited a slight response from what Tim assumed must be the mother as she glanced their way, scowled at Tim and then turned her back once more.

‘I know how you did that trick.'

‘What?' Tim slipped fully out of clown mode now. His magic frying pan was being inspected by the oldest child at the party, a supercilious pre-teen who had previously sneered at Tim's make-up (‘you don't look nothing like a proper clown'), his costume (‘your trousers are too short, ha, ha, and you're wearing odd socks') and his magical prowess (‘my dad could do better than that').

Tim hadn't worked out which of the absent parents was father to this particular little horror, but at this point he was past caring. He had been given his cheque in advance; let them cancel it. He snatched his magic frying pan from the child and stalked back on to the stage, then abruptly he wheeled round and peered hard at the boy, leaning in so that their noses almost touched, before recoiling as though in horror.

‘What?' the boy demanded.

‘Oh, probably nothing,' Tim told him. He snatched his gaze away from the child and turned the full beam of his clown smile back upon his much diminished audience, inviting a little girl of about three or four to come and see what he had in his magic hat. A sticky little hand poked about inside the black silk and she giggled up at him with her chocolate mouth.

‘Nothing? Oh, we'll have to see about that.' Stupendo made several passes with his white-gloved hand then dipped into the seemingly empty hat. ‘And what do we have here?' More chocolate seemed superfluous considering just how much the kids had already consumed, but that, Tim figured, was their parents' look-out. Sticky fingers reached out, still giggling for her share. Other hands joined hers and suddenly Tim found himself with an audience again.

‘I know how you did that,' the older boy announced. ‘It's a false bottom. That stuff was in the hat all the time. It ain't magic.'

Tim said nothing, his clown smile at odds with the look of real concern he leaned towards the boy again, swaying slightly as he examined him closely before sighing and turning away once more.

‘What?' the boy demanded. ‘I'll tell my dad.'

Stupendo turned his gaze back to the boy, the look of extreme pity in his eyes now unmistakable. The boy took a single step back and cast a swift, nervous glance over to where the adults sat at the far end of the room.

Sweets poured from the hat now, far more it seemed than could have been concealed in the entire depth of the hat, never mind a secret compartment. Tim selected one from the rest, bright purple wrapping that crinkled beneath his touch. He held it out towards the older boy, the broad smile he had turned upon the other children fading into sadness as he did so. Somewhat reluctantly, the child took it from him.

‘Careful you don't choke,' Stupendo said solemnly.

R
ina was waiting in the car park as Tim emerged from the hotel. He had changed his clothes and stowed the clown costume and props in two large orange carrier bags but traces of the make-up were still smeared across his face and his hair stood up at angles from where he'd pulled off the purple wig.

‘Hello. What brings you up here?'

‘Oh, a little project, let's say. How did it go?'

‘Oh, it went. There was a small choking incident towards the end, but nothing serious.'

‘A choking incident?'

Tim shrugged. ‘I think one of the kids tried to cram in too much chocolate,' he said blithely. ‘You know how it is. Parties.'

Rina pursed her lips suspiciously. She watched as Tim bent down to peer in the wing mirror and scrub ineffectually at what was left of his make-up. ‘Oh, for goodness sake,' she said, producing a pack of wet wipes from her capacious bag. ‘You'll ruin your skin. Here, let me.'

‘Yes, Mother.' Tim stood obediently as she scrubbed.

‘If I was your mother you wouldn't be doing children's parties,' she said. ‘I'd have taken your career in hand long since.'

‘You can always adopt me.'

‘I'm not sure I'm old enough for that responsibility. Did they pay you?'

Tim patted his pocket.

‘Well, I suppose that's something.'

‘It's something, but seriously, Rina, I think I hate kids.'

She shook her head. ‘Come along. We've got more interesting fish to fry.'

‘Fry? You can fry kids? No one told me that. OK, OK, I'll behave, it's just post-traumatic-party disorder.'

‘You'll get over it. We've all played bad gigs.'

‘I suppose. So what's this project then?' he asked as she led him across the car park and towards the cliff path that dipped and curved across the headland. He shivered. He'd driven up here in his ancient clapped-out Ford Escort and hadn't bothered with his coat. The sweater and jacket he wore were no match for the biting wind that whipped across the open land behind the hotel.

‘It'll be warmer down on the foreshore,' Rina told him. ‘More sheltered, and the sun's lovely when you get out of the wind.'

‘The foreshore? You mean you want to get down on to the beach? From here?
Is
there a beach down there?'

Rina sighed. ‘How long have you lived here, Tim?'

‘A couple of years, off and on.'

‘Then it's time you explored more than the pub and the promenade.'

‘I shop as well.'

‘Occasionally,' Rina conceded. ‘Look, just beyond that gate, there's a path down on to the under cliff just before it peters out, then from there you can get down into a small cove. That's where we're headed.'