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Authors: Marjorie Eccles

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: Echoes of Silence
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Whiteley and Horsfall had promised to keep Richmond informed of any suitable accommodation which became available, and with Saturday morning's post came details of one of the flats at Roydholme, as the converted mill by the river was now to be called – Roydholme, without the Mill. Early viewing for this desirable, much sought after property was strongly advised.
Pity about that, it sounded interesting, he thought, swearing roundly as he banged into the kitchen table yet again while preparing his breakfast; the smallness of this place was getting seriously on his nerves and his landlady driving him nuts. Breakfast was the only time she wasn't likely to pop her head round the door, if it wasn't locked, or shout through the letter box if it was, that it was only her, come to do the hoovering, or the brasses, leave that washing up, I'll do it, Mr Richmond, and did you hear about so and so and how are you getting on finding out who's done that there murder?
Not so well that he could afford to take time off to go viewing property, Richmond thought sardonically now, angling his legs under the table and pouring himself some coffee. He read on: the owners were not in residence at the moment but a neighbour would be pleased to show prospective buyers around by appointment, weekends and evenings. Ring E. Graham, Steynton Fine Art.
It was a moment or two before he made the connection and saw a way he could in fact fit in a viewing of the flat, after all. He would check, but he was certain that E. Graham must be Elvira Graham, since he knew she lived in one of the flats at Roydholme. She had to be seen about the appointment she'd had with the murdered woman, and Richmond had no doubt he could arrange to conduct the interview himself, as he'd always intended.
When he got to the office, he rang the number given. She had a clear voice and a decisive way of speaking. ‘Tomorrow morning? I have a lunch date, but I can give you half an hour,' she
told him, quickly setting her own limits to the time of his visit. He agreed and gave her his name, omitting his official status.
 
 
Later that morning he sat in Jackson Farr's office, listening with him to the recording of Eddie Nagle's second interview, which Jacks had thought it circumspect to conduct personally.
The bastard didn't sound quite so cocksure this time, despite the fact that nothing had been discovered from a forensic examination of his clothes, that his car had been found to be clean as a whistle – unnaturally so, with not even the slightest trace of the mucky slush that was being tramped inside everyone else's car. Not even the normal, expected traces of himself and his wife. Perhaps he'd been less cocky due to the fact of being interviewed by the detective superintendent himself. Perhaps he was just intimidated by that impressive bulk.
After further questioning about the night of Wyn Austwick's murder, which had got him no further, Jacks was returning to the events of 5th January, ten years previously. ‘I'd like you to listen to this,' he told Nagle, switching on a tape.
Into the office came the sound of Nagle scraping his chair back, his cough as he listened to the statement he'd recorded at that time.
‘I last saw Beth, just before twelve, when she was going upstairs for her music lesson with Mr Denshaw before the midday meal. My wife had made sandwiches for the family but we always have fish and chips Saturday dinner time, and I'd been down into Steynton to fetch them. I knew Beth would rather have had chips, so when I saw her I asked if she'd like one, and I opened the parcel and let her have a few. She was a lovely little girl and I was very fond of her. I never saw her again. I had a sleep after we'd eaten, and didn't wake up until my wife woke me and told me Beth was missing. I helped to look for her, took the car out and drove it round for several hours, but nobody ever saw her again
.'
‘I'm giving you the chance to amend that statement if you want to, Mr Nagle,' Jacks said after the tape was switched off and the new one substituted.
‘Why should I? Case is closed, far as I know.'
‘We've reason now to think Mrs Austwick's murder may throw further light on it.'
A massive creak that could only have been Jacks, shifting his weight, nearly obliterated Nagle's next few words.
‘That's it, is it? You're trying to pin that on me, an' all! You better fink again, mate! Her mum confessed, didn't she? Mind, I can understand how you want to get somebody else for it, him being her dad an' all.' He paused. ‘Richmond, I mean.' There was an unsubtle warning there of trouble ahead, of allegations of conflict of interest coming clearly across from the recording. Then the voice changed, became maudlin. ‘How can you fink that, Mr Farr? I wouldn't've harmed a hair of that child's head! She was a little sweetheart.' He blew his nose loudly.
Richmond stood up abruptly, shoving his hands into his pockets, walked the length of the room and back. Times like this he wished he hadn't given up smoking. Or hadn't taken a vow never to use violence against a suspect. Christ!
Jacks's hand hovered over the machine, ready to switch off. He flicked a glance at Richmond but was apparently reassured enough to let it carry on playing. ‘Leave it out, Eddie,' he was saying. ‘CI Richmond's dealing with the murder of Wyn Austwick.' Silence for a moment, then: ‘How long have you worked at Low Rigg?'
‘Since I married Dot. 1977.'
No hesitation there. His memory had improved since Richmond had asked him that question. ‘That was the date you - er – left the Marines, I see,' Jacks said. ‘Still a young man! I'd have thought you'd have wanted something to stretch you, use your intelligence a bit more, like. Looking after an old woman's car, piddling around the house, not much job satisfaction there. Must've paid well to compensate.'
‘Don't know about that. Like I told Richmond, I've another source of income.'
‘Oh right, yes, I'd forgot, you must be rolling in it, part-time job at the health club, an' all! Unless you get a lot of winnings on the bow-wows.'
‘I do all right. I'm not what you'd call greedy.'
Jacks let the silence go on. Sounds of Nagle fidgeting, blowing his nose again.
‘Why did Mrs Denshaw keep you on, Eddie?' Jacks asked at last. ‘We have it on good authority that you and she didn't get on all that well together.'
‘She had to have a man around the house. Who told you we didn't get on?'
It had, in fact, been Polly, spoken to by Richmond himself over the telephone. Her voice cool at first, then warming as the conversation proceeded, its natural lilt returning. She wasn't a person, Richmond thought, who could stay angry for long, though she hadn't been entirely pleased with him when they'd last parted company. People rarely were when they were caught at a disadvantage, but he'd had no choice, had felt constrained to treat her as he would any other witness. Hadn't wanted to leave it like that, though. Which was one of the reasons he'd rung, with a question which he knew couldn't have a ready answer, which he could have made a stab at answering, anyway. But Polly hadn't needed long to think.
‘I used to wonder myself why she tolerated him, because she clearly loathed him and didn't care how obvious it was. Could only have been that she suffered him on account of Dot,' she'd said, which had been how Richmond had figured it until his reading of that incriminating paper. ‘Otherwise he'd have been out, long since. I think she knew that if she tried to get rid of him, Dot would go, too. Dot's very fond of Eddie, in spite of -' She'd stopped herself, then added quickly, ‘in spite of him being such a dead loss.' Which wasn't what she'd been going to say in the first place, he was sure. But you could never be one hundred per cent certain over the telephone, when you couldn't see the face of the person you were speaking to, it was why he didn't like using it unless he had to.
‘Somebody took Beth away from Low Rigg that day,' Jacks was reminding Nagle on the tape as it whirred on. ‘If not the person that killed her. Somebody put her under that bandstand. All right, it was eventually assumed it was her mother who'd come and picked her up. But without anybody seeing her? Without her saying a word to anybody? You know what? I find that hard to believe.'
‘Please yourself what you believe.'
‘I'll repeat, somebody took her away. There's a difference,' Jacks went on, ‘between committing murder and being an accessory after the fact, but you don't need me to tell you even that's a very serious matter. Enough to put anybody who's convicted of it away for a very long time.'
‘I answered all these questions once before. You haven't got no right to go harping on what's over and done wiv.'
‘We've every right, lad, if we think it has a bearing on what happened to Mrs Austwick, and if we think you know a hell of a lot more than you're letting on about both murders. Which we do. Make no mistake about that.'
‘You're wasting your time! You know I didn't kill Wyn, I couldn't of. Not when I was playing darts wiv a pub full of blokes – including one of your lot.'
‘That where you got that cut lip? Punch-up after losing, was it? You want to watch it, Eddie. Seeems to me you're too often in the wars for your own good.'
‘I walked into a door.'
Jacks had kept him as long as he could, but Nagle knew when he'd got his teeth into a good alibi and clung on like that pit bull terrier he'd once owned.
It was going to be a long haul. But Richmond was in no doubt now as to what he believed: that Nagle had been guaranteed employment for getting rid of Beth's body; Austwick had found this out and was holding it over Freya, who believed the killer to be Peter. This would scarcely have bothered Nagle – what
would
have bothered him, though, was Austwick holding incriminating evidence of the part he'd played. So much so that he'd disposed of her. Or maybe the person who had killed Beth – whether this was Denshaw or not – had made it worth his while to do so.
How he'd done this when he was playing darts under the eye of a pub full of people, including a policeman, was still a mystery.
 
 
‘I have the manager from the NatWest on the line, returning your call, sir,' Richmond was informed by the switchboard operator.
‘Put him through, please.'
‘Cranwell here, Chief Inspector,' said a clipped, guarded voice. ‘I believe I'm at liberty now to divulge the information you requested about Mrs Austwick's affairs.'
And not before time, Richmond thought. These people had no sense of urgency in these matters. Nor was it in the nature of banks to appear too ready with information, never mind that it
was at their fingertips nowadays, easily available at the tap of a few computer keys. It would have looked too easy, as if anyone could become a bank manager. ‘Go ahead, Mr Cranwell, I'm listening.'
‘Ahem, well … I hope you have time to spare.'
Ten minutes later, Richmond put the phone down, bemused but much enlightened, and within a very short time, he was back in Jacks's office.
‘So she did leave a will, after all,' Jacks interrupted, grinning, when Richmond had scarcely begun. ‘That little scrote Trev's not going to come in for it after all.'
‘Not a bean. She made the bank executors to her will and left everything to her brother, presumably the bloke on the motorbike in that photo. Not that he's likely to benefit, poor sod. He was involved in a near-fatal motor accident about twenty years ago, leaving him paralysed and with permanent brain damage.'
Jacks hunched his shoulders, tut-tutted. ‘No use telling 'em, these young lads. But if they knew what a motorbike accident can do
'
‘It wasn't a motorbike accident. He was in the car she was driving. She was drunk and piled it into a lorry.'
‘Bloody hell! That's some guilt to be carrying around for twenty years.'
‘Isn't it? Those banker's orders represent what she's been paying to a small private nursing home ever since, run by a woman called Enid Brentdale, place near Leicester. She's left enough to keep on paying the bills for as long as he's likely to last – which they don't anticipate will be long. Anything left goes to Mencap.'

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