Remains to be Seen (30 page)

Peach thought that other people at the Towers had probably known all about the relationship between Neil Cartwright and Michelle Naylor: lovers were usually absurdly optimistic about their liaisons remaining secret. ‘So you took him back to Marton Towers.'

‘Yes. I had Neil's keys. I thought I could put his body in his office and lock the door on it. It's not much more than a box room, but he kept his bits of paperwork and a few bags of fertilizer in there. No one else but Neil and Ben Freeman ever went into that room, and Freeman didn't have a key. I had the idea that if I waited for a day or two, I'd be able to take him out and dump him somewhere where he would never be found; in the sea perhaps, or in a lake somewhere, with weights on the corpse. So I put his body into the boot of my car. I moved Neil's car on to an unpaved road leading to an old quarry, so that it wouldn't be easily found. Then I locked it up and took the keys away with me. It was still quiet when I got back to the Towers. I left him in the boot for an hour or so, until it was dark. Then I transferred him to his office, locked the door and took the key away. That gave me time to think.'

‘But the body was still there three days later.'

‘Yes. We were too busy at the beginning of the week for me to get away for any lengthy period, because of the guests who were coming in on the Wednesday. I was busy ordering food and preparing menus, and I had to be around for Mr Holloway to consult me.' For a second, he was proud of his importance in that vanished system, of the Head Chef status which was now gone for ever.

‘The police raid on Wednesday night must have come as a shock to you.'

‘Yes. It was a shock to all of us, but to me more than anyone else. The place was suddenly swarming with police. I thought it was only a matter of time before they went through the stable block and found the body. I don't know much about fingerprints – about what surfaces you can take them from and so forth – but mine must have been all over him. I was panicking when I saw Mr Crouch and the others being taken away in handcuffs.'

‘So you set the place on fire.'

‘Yes. I knew that there were cans of petrol for the estate machines in Neil Cartwright's shed. I still had his keys. Once Ben Freeman had left, no one needed to get into that shed. So I got a couple of cans from there and set up the fire under Neil's office, where the body was.' He paused for a minute, as if the pleasing irony of raiding the dead man's province to destroy his remains had just struck him for the first time.

Then he ran his fingers vigorously through his tousled fair hair, as if the gesture was necessary to his concentration. ‘I made sure that no one was in the area at the time before I threw a match into the room and set things going. All the residents were in the main house, discussing the arrest of Mr Crouch and his visitors and being questioned by the police. The flames had got a good hold before some passing motorist set up the alarm.'

Peach nodded to his colleague, and Lucy Blake stepped forward and pronounced the formal words of arrest. James Naylor smiled at her, trying to catch her eye as she spoke the words carefully and clearly, as if he was glad that it was DS Blake and not that grimmer dark-eyed presence beneath the bald pate which was ending his freedom.

He said only, ‘Michelle had nothing to do with this, you know. I want you to record that. Whatever she might say to you, I want you to remember that I did this on my own.'

As DS Blake drove slowly over the gravel and on to the now familiar drive between the twin lakes of Marton Towers, Peach sat beside the passive handcuffed figure of James Naylor in the back of the vehicle. The DCI looked up the steps and at the window of Neville Holloway's office beside the impressive stone entrance to the mansion, where faces at the window were following every yard of their exit.

A single white-faced figure stood between the pillars at the top of the stone steps to the entrance. Michelle Naylor was as motionless as a marble statue as she watched her husband's departure.