Cold Coffin (12 page)

“Are you saying there was more to it than that? Something I don’t know about?”

“No. You’re twisting my words. I had nothing at all to do with those murders. Nothing whatsoever.”

“Then we ought to be able to prove that fact.” She surveyed him closely. “Where were you when Sir Noah was killed?”

“You mean Friday evening?”

“Was
he killed on Friday evening?”

“Well, naturally, I thought ... I mean, that’s when he disappeared.”

“So tell me how you spent Friday evening.”

“Sandra and I went to a disco in Marlingford. The Friars’ Cellar.”

“You were there from when until when?”

He thought. “Round about eight-thirty till one
A
.
M
.”

“Were you there the whole of that time?”

“Yes, we certainly were.”

“Were you with friends? Is there anyone who could vouch that you didn’t leave the hall for any appreciable time?”

“Sandra could.”

Kate veered off at a tangent. “Can Sandra drive?”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Barlow asked, staring at her in bewilderment.

“Just answer the question, please.”

“Well, she hasn’t taken her test yet. But I’ve been teaching her in my car.”

“How’s she getting on?”

He still stared, sensing a trap. “All right, I suppose.”

Perhaps still at the stage of crashing the gears in a strange car?

Kate noted that Roger’s pugnacity had vanished. By now he was looking as scared as hell, but she was accustomed to that in people questioned after a serious crime. The very knowledge that one was under suspicion could bring out all kinds of uncontrolled emotions—anger, hostility, fear. To her, Roger Barlow was just one of several suspects, with a not particularly strong motive. She gauged that he was a hot-tempered young man, who might conceivably kill in the heat of the moment. But
two
murders, was that conceivable? Unless the second had followed as a direct consequence of the first, made necessary to avoid detection.

She jotted a few notes on her pad while these thoughts ran through her mind. Looking up at him suddenly, she asked, “Have you ever visited Milford Grange?”

“You mean, where ... where Sir Noah’s body was found? No, of course I haven’t.”

A slight flicker in his eyes made Kate ask, “You’re quite sure about that?”

He started to nod confirmation, then thought better of it. “Well, last Christmas my girlfriend persuaded me to join a carol singing group to raise money for charity, and it was one of the houses we went to.”

“That was Sandra?”

He coloured a bit. “No, another girl. I don’t see her now.”

Kate nodded. A changing love-life was only par for the course at his age. “Did you go inside the house?”

A slight hesitation came before the admission. “We did, as a matter of fact. The judge’s wife asked us in for mince-pies and hot punch. We didn’t stay long, though.”

Long enough, perhaps, for a man with a scientific bent to suss out the burglar alarm system?

“You knew that the Tillingtons were away for a long period?”

“What if I did? So did most people around here.” A touch of pugnacity was returning.
He knows you ‘re scratching in the dark, Kate.
Best to terminate the interview for now. Once she established the time of Kimberley’s death—if ever!—she could really put the screws on Roger Barlow for a precise alibi.

* * * *

Just a measly cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee! Tim Boulter marvelled that the guv could keep going on so little. He’d take a bet it was the first sustenance she’d had since breakfast, which, he’d also take a bet, was only the muesli and black coffee variety. He himself, since his bacon and eggs and toast and marmalade, had snatched a couple of doughnuts with his elevenses. Even so, Boulter felt faint with hunger by now. He restored his metabolic balance at the dive bar of the Half Moon before driving to Croptech to interview Sandra English.

“The Chief Inspector has a few more questions to put to you, Miss English, and she was intending to send for you. But I pointed out to her that as I was coming this way I could save you the trouble of having to go to the police station. I expect you must be very busy this afternoon.”

She smiled at him nervously. “Thank you. But I’m not very busy, actually. Everything’s at sixes and sevens here, you see, and I don’t really know what to get on with. We’re all of us most dreadfully upset about Sir Noah.” She was looking pathetic, wan, totally unnerved. “Er ... you can’t seriously think that Roger ... well, had anything to do with ...”

“No more than we think
you
did,” Boulter assured her ambiguously. “The only way we’ll ever get to the truth is to ask lots and lots of questions and gradually build up a picture of what happened.”

“Oh, yes, I see.”

“That’s why we want you to tell us everything you know that could possibly be helpful. By the way, while I think of it, do you drive?”

She looked puzzled, as well she might. “Drive?”

“Drive a car,” he explained. “Can you drive a car?”

“Well, not really. I ... I’m still learning. Roger’s teaching me.”

Boulter jotted down a note. “Now, Miss English, to get this out of the way, you’ve already told us what you were doing on Wednesday, the night Dr. Trent was killed. But what about last Friday evening?”

She said at once, “I went out with Roger that night. To a disco at Marlingford. The Friar’s Cellar. We were there all evening, until well after midnight.”

Very pat. Boulter had a feeling it would precisely match the alibi that her boyfriend would most probably by now have given to the guv.

“Is that what Roger told you to say?” he asked in a conversational tone.

Sandra seemed totally at a loss to understand him. She wasn’t such a bad looker, Boulter conceded, if only she hadn’t been so insipid. What did she have that attracted a guy like Roger Barlow? Had he found the trigger which could turn her into a hot number? It was hard to imagine.

“Listen,” she said, as if suddenly galvanized, “really and truly Roger had nothing at all to do with Sir Noah and Dr. Trent getting killed. He ... he just isn’t the sort of person who could do something wicked and horrible like that. Besides, he was with me both times. Honestly.”

Boulter gave her a smile that was warm and friendly and understanding; what Kate Maddox called turning on his sickening charm. “You’re in love with Roger, aren’t you? You’ve told us that already.”

“Yes, but ...”

“So maybe you’d tell lies to protect him.”

She was silent, staring at him in dismay.

“Do you two plan to get married?” Boulter persisted.

He caught a glint of tears before she looked down at her lap. She was hoping like hell they would be getting married, but she felt none too sure about the depth of Roger’s feelings for her. She, poor girl, would do anything for Roger. She’d lie and perjure herself for him if the need arose. He could make use of her all he wanted, just so long as he loved her back. Loved her a little bit.

Risking a technique he’d seen Kate Maddox use so often, Boulter lobbed in a chancy remark designed to throw Sandra into a panic and hopefully give something away.

“It’s time you told us about it, Sandra ... the thing you’re trying to hide.”

She looked back at him dumbly, her pink and white complexion turning the colour of pallid dough. “I ... I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. You’re covering up for Roger, aren’t you?” He paused a moment, and added weightily, “It’s a very serious matter, you know, impeding the police in their enquiries.”

Sandra shook her head, wildly, vehemently. “Leave me alone. I haven’t done anything. Nor has Roger. Just leave us alone.”

“Is he really worth landing yourself in deep trouble for?”

Her look of tormented love-at-bay hit Boulter like a smack on the jaw. Then Sandra burst into tears, and he found himself going to her embarrassedly, patting her heaving shoulders to try and comfort her. Why did he feel like a heel? He was only doing his bloody job, for Christ’s sake.

* * * *

“Is the guv’nor free?” Boulter asked, walking into the Incident Room at Aston Pringle nick.

A WPC looked up from her table. “Sure. And here, Tim, you can take these in with you.” A bundle of yet more reports. Boulter scanned them quickly so as to be
au fait
with the contents before entering the DCFs office.

“How’d it go, Tim?” she asked, as he went in.

They traded stories, concluding that Roger Barlow and Sandra English were no more in the clear, and no more suspect, than they’d been before.

“They’re hiding something, all the same,” said Boulter doggedly.

“But is it murder? A great many people have unsavoury secrets they’d hate to come out.”

“But what, in this case? It can’t just be that they hit the sack together. Roger was more or less boasting about that yesterday.”

Pointing to the reports in Boulter’s hand, Kate asked, “What’s come in, Tim?”

“There’s one thing that’s going to please you, guv. The forensic on that tree branch by the lake, and the couple of little wood splinters found in Trent’s neck. They match exactly. So you were spot on about how he was done in. Held under until he drowned.”

Noting her sergeant’s triumph at this result, Kate recalled wryly that when she’d first mooted the idea, he’d thought she was off her trolley.

“And another bright idea of yours seems to have paid off,” he went on breezily. “That one about trying to account for what money Kimberley spent after going to the bank on Thursday. For starters we had a stroke of luck. Just after lunch he had his car filled up, and when he went to pay he mentioned to the
garage
man that he was down to his last fiver. Then later that afternoon, after he’d drawn the three hundred, he put a twenty towards a wedding present for one of the garden hands at Croptech. On his way home that evening he stopped off at the florist’s in Little Bedham for a bunch of roses. Fifteen quid, they cost. Then on Friday morning he called in to pay a bill at the hardware shop on his way to work. Another eleven quid went on that. So there we are, down to the two hundred and sixty pounds in his wallet when you found the body. Which is a definite pointer to his having been killed on Friday night.”

Kate mused, “Do we know who the flowers were for?”

“Oh, his wife. He said so in the shop. They also mentioned that buying her flowers was a regular occurrence. Seems he was that kind of husband.”

It fitted. Kate remembered having seen a vase of long-stemmed white roses at the Kimberley house that had clearly come from a florist rather than from the garden.

“I wish we could get something really definite on the time of death,” she said. “Where the hell is Kimberley’s car, Tim? What’s being done about tracing it?”

“We’ve already had an intensive throughout the South Midlands area. Now we’re widening the search.”

Kate nodded. “Good. I’ll ring Richard Gower and ask him if he can get the registration number printed in some of the national papers tomorrow.”

“That ought to help a lot, guv. A Saab isn’t one of your two-a-penny motors. Unless it’s been taken off the road and hidden away, somebody’s sure to spot it.”

* * * *

In a leafy suburban road in Cardiff, Detective Constable Elwyn Williams stopped his clapped-out Austin Allegro a few yards along from the neat little house, the end of a terrace of four, that had once been his pride and joy. Walking in at the gate, he surveyed the patch of front garden critically. Megan was letting it go, sod her. She’d rather spend her time dashing around with her new fancy-man in his flashy red MG. There the bloody thing was now, parked bang outside for all the world as if he was the one who paid the mortgage. Got it jammy, he had, the lucky bleeder. All the fun and none of the responsibility. It was Elwyn Williams who had to keep the place going as a home for the kids. Elwyn Williams who had to feed and clothe them, plus having to cough up the rent of a bed-sitter for himself.

The front door opened before he reached it, and Gordon and Kim bounced out to greet him fondly. A fondness that was partially bought, Elwyn acknowledged ruefully, with the money that he couldn’t really afford but that he nevertheless splashed out on them during his access days—Saturday one week, Sunday the next. Megan stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb with her arms folded, watching him sardonically as he bent to kiss the children.

“You actually managed to make it today, El, for a change.”

“Last Sunday wasn’t my fault,” he protested. “Something came up at work that I couldn’t get out of. I explained all that.”

“Oh yes, bloody work always comes first with you, doesn’t it? It didn’t worry you that all my arrangements were messed up. Garry was furious. Had to take the kids along with us, didn’t we?”

“You’ll have me crying my eyes out,” said Elwyn savagely, and spoke more sharply than he intended to the children. “Stop messing about, you two, and get in the car.”

He had to slam the door twice before the latch held. Gordon, eight years old to his sister’s six and a half, said cheerfully, “Why don’t you get a super car like Uncle Garry’s, Dad? It doesn’t half go. Vrmmm, vrrnmm!”

His father didn’t deign to reply as he eased his ancient Allegro away from the kerb. To think that once upon a time he’d been happy, in love with his wife and thinking that life was great. God, what a laugh.

“Where’re we going, Dad?” asked Kim.

“I thought we’d try the airport.” It was getting harder and harder to find things to interest them. Things that didn’t cost too much.

“Will we go up in an airplane?” she asked excitedly.

“Well, no. Not today. But you’ll find there are heaps of things to do and see.”

“I want to see Concorde,” declared Gordon.

“Concorde won’t be there. It doesn’t fly from Cardiff.”

They both lost interest, and started squabbling amiably about who was cleverest.

Twenty minutes later Elwyn Williams found a vacant space at the airport’s short-stay car park. On one side was a bloody great Merc. Sod-all chance of him ever owning a motor like that. On the other side was a more attainable-looking car ... a Saab, wasn’t it? On his income as a DC, if he hadn’t been lumbered with bloody maintenance payments, he could almost afford a motor like that. Not a new F reg. like this one, but maybe a Y or an A. What a sodding rotten deal he’d had out of life, with Megan turning out to be such a bloody bitch.