A Species of Revenge (23 page)

Later, Mayo was to wonder why the connection hadn't occurred to him earlier, but it was only in the dawn reaches of a sleepless night, the hour between wolf and dog, when everything seems suddenly clear and simple, that a sudden flash of the obvious came to him, illuminated his mind for a single moment and then drifted foggily away as sleep came at last.

A busy day crowded in on him, and it wasn't until later events had brought things to a head that the idea came back to him.

In another part of the town, while Mayo was consuming his Chinese won ton, Vic Baverstock was struggling with his conscience, aided by a pint of bitter in the Black Bull.

The Black Bull wasn't his first choice – in Vic's opinion, a low-class dump if ever there was one – but if he'd gone to the Saracen's, Mandy would've been there, at her part-time job behind the bar, and he wasn't exactly flavour of the month with Mandy just now.

He stared gloomily into his beer, trying to shut out the sounds of the jukebox. He wasn't the sort who lied to the police on principle and it bothered him that he'd had to, out of necessity. It had been his rotten bad luck for that bloke to have got himself killed when Vic had been parked on the bit of spare ground in the allotments. Just when he was getting well away with Mandy. Not that he'd known then that the bloke had snuffed it, he hadn't stayed long enough to see. When he'd realized that a serious struggle was going on, he'd got the hell out of it before the police arrived, though he knew Mandy would blame him for choosing a spot like that in the first place, so near the town centre, and he'd been right, she had. To say that she was pissed off was an understatement.

He knew he ought to go to the police and admit he'd lied when he said he'd been out practising with the choir that Saturday night. They'd find out, of course, if they bothered to check, but so far they hadn't seemed to think it necessary. He wasn't in their line of suspects, he'd convinced them that he hadn't known the dead bloke from Adam, and he'd a bomb-proof alibi for the time Patti had been killed. But the other one – the one who'd done it – well, Vic knew who he was, all right. He'd seen him clearly, though Mandy hadn't, being in no position to be able to, at the time.

But, Mandy apart, Vic had his reasons for keeping stumm about knowing. Tina, chiefly. All the same, he hadn't reckoned with that terrible thing that had happened to poor little Patti having had anything to do with what he'd seen.

Upset, he looked down at the evening paper again, folded small on the table, so that the last paragraph about her murder was uppermost. He'd sweated blood – though he wasn't the only one to be questioned – wondering what interest the police had in
his
whereabouts that Saturday night, why they'd wanted to know if he'd known this bloke Ensor. Now, the paper said they were working on a theory that Patti being killed like that might have some connection with the dead man found in the Colley Street allotments ten days ago ... Vic took a long swallow of his beer. Gawd.

The thought of an anonymous letter or telephone call crossed his mind, but not seriously. That wasn't his style. Then he remembered DC Deeley, Pete Deeley, used to live across the road when they were kids. Good sort, Pete, a word in his ear and maybe he'd be able to make sure that Vic's name was kept out of it – that was what they said, didn't they? Any information will be treated in the strictest confidence. What they meant was, if you'd been out having it off with the neighbour's wife, they wouldn't let on.

Near enough.

He needed to sleep on it, though.

By eight o'clock the next morning, there was a coffee pot with two china cups and saucers on Mayo's desk, not thick white canteen pottery or nasty plastic cups from the machine. The coffee was real, too. A rich aroma of freshly ground Arabica rose between them as Abigail poured two cups and pushed one across the desk towards Mayo, ready for when he'd finished telephoning. The shot of caffeine felt good, jolted her system into full wakefulness. All the same, she swore she'd lay off it for the rest of the day. She'd drunk too many cups yesterday and her mind had been jumping around all night like a Scud missile.

She was tapping her teeth with a pencil, looking thoughtful, when he finally put the receiver down. ‘Right, where were we? Dermot Voss and his car, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, but I've been thinking about those Belgian francs in Ensor's pocket.'

‘He travelled to Belgium in the course of his business. There only a few weeks ago, wasn't he?'

‘That's right, and Imogen Loxley was living in Brussels until very recently.' She stopped, looking down at her notes. ‘She's married to Tom Loxley, the Euro M P ... The marriage is on the rocks, by all accounts.'

‘Like a lot more,' he commented drily, but his glance was interested. ‘Any ideas why, in this particular case?'

She shook her head. ‘Not for certain. But Loxley's been acquitting himself very well in Brussels, making quite a name for himself over the Common Market Agricultural Policy, working hard. Perhaps too hard, leaving her too much to her own devices.'

‘Par for the course, in that sort of job. Women like Imogen Loxley, they cope, better than their husbands sometimes. What did you think of her and Voss, dining together last night?'

‘Interesting. I gathered we came as something of a reprieve, rather than an interruption. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife when we joined them.'

He nodded. ‘My impression, too. And Alex's. So, what are you thinking?'

She frowned. ‘I don't know what Voss can have to do with this, if anything. It's a long shot, but it's possible, I suppose, that Imogen could have met Philip Ensor in Brussels and had an affair with him, which broke up her marriage. Supposing she blamed Ensor for it and finished with him, came back to Lavenstock, but Ensor was still pestering her. She arranged to meet him, Patti saw them struggling – remember, she appears to have been unsure at first about the attacker, and this could have been because she wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman, say if she was a tall woman like Imogen Loxley and was wearing trousers. She'd ample opportunity to watch for Patti and follow her into the wood ... T-L didn't rule out the possibility that a woman could have wielded the murder weapon, if she'd had the bottle for it. And there's the pen, too. A woman's sort of pen –'

‘Has it been traced yet?'

‘To the manufacturers, yes. But they can't give us the specific retail outlet – Deeley's sifting through all the people they supplied that type of pen to. The makers say the engraving was done after it was bought.'

‘Mm.' He brought his gaze back from the Town Hall clock, checked it by his own watch. Two minutes slow. ‘She's a bit of a dark horse altogether, Imogen Loxley,' he murmured absently, draining his coffee.

‘But you're not sure you can see her as a double murderess.' She sighed. ‘Well, neither can I, not really.'

‘We should see her again,' he temporized. ‘But let's get down to this business of Dermot Voss, first. He says he left his car outside Patel's while he went in for his cigarettes, about seven forty, came out five minutes later and it was gone. That young toe-rag – what's his name? Oh yes, Mitchison – says he didn't nick it until ten to eight – if he's telling the truth for once in his life.'

‘He's no reason not to. He nicked it on the way to work, because his own wouldn't start and he was late, would you believe?'

‘I believe it. So what was Voss doing between say, twenty to eight and ten past, when he came back home? Plenty of time for him to have followed Patti into the Close and killed her.' He frowned. ‘Voss hadn't moved into Edwina Lodge when Patti saw the fight at the allotments, so she wouldn't have known who he was, then. But she could have recognized him when she did meet him – and very likely put two and two together.'

He poured himself more coffee and needlessly stirred the black, sugarless liquid. Abigail declined one for herself and waited for him to carry on. He'd had the faraway look of a man with something at the back of his mind ever since they'd begun to talk.

Mayo felt as though he was suddenly on to something.

That mention of meeting Voss in the Chinese restaurant had reminded him of how Voss had been enthusing about the advantages of the modern house, specially designed for energy-saving, that he'd left behind in Milton Keynes, and in the way these things do, his own pre-dawn flash of insight had come back to him. His subconscious, though possibly not entirely unrelated to the stimulation of a couple of stiff, late-night drams, had been working for him while he slept, gone on working and was now coming up with some interesting conclusions of its own.

Milton Keynes. A place Mayo knew nothing about, a new town, a railway-station sign flashing past the window on the journey to and from London: Milton Keynes, Bletchley ... He said slowly, thinking as he spoke, ‘There had to be a reason for Ensor being in Lavenstock that night, for meeting the man who killed him. Milton Keynes isn't a million miles away from Bletchley, where Ensor worked. If he and Voss had known each other before ...'

That encompassed a whole load of suppositions, and he knew it. But hell, wasn't that where it started from, a ‘what if' that led on to the truth? Thousands of people lived in each place. The odds on them knowing each other were so long as to be hardly worth considering, without any other connection. Yet he had an irrational certainty that he'd somehow – God help him, he didn't know how – stumbled on to something ...

He reached out for Ensor's file. ‘We know he worked in Bletchley, but where did he live before he moved to Solihull? Let me have another look on what we've got on him, while you find out his previous address.'

Abigail picked up the phone and made the request for an outside line, while Mayo began to read. A glowing report on Ensor had been received from his employers. His business life had evidently been as exemplary as his private one. CL Freightlines had been more devastated to hear of his death than any of his relatives had, including his wife. He'd started in the firm as a trainee salesman at the Bletchley headquarters and had moved up the managerial ladder until he was chief salesperson, or whatever, next stop sales director. Moving house to Solihull had surprised his employers but, although it was less convenient from his point of view, it hadn't made any difference as far as his work was concerned. Solihull was within commuting distance – if you didn't object to getting up that much earlier in the morning – and he was out of the office a good deal, working elsewhere, often abroad, anyway.

The MD to whom Abigail had previously spoken had said, regarding his move to Solihull, ‘Gave it out that his wife was missing her family – as if we're in Outer Mongolia here! Still, no telling with women, after all. He did have to leave her on her own a good deal, must admit – all part of the job, though.' He admitted that he'd only met Mrs Ensor a few times, at social functions connected with the firm, but she'd obviously made a hit. He remembered her very well. ‘Did him credit, damn good-looking woman,' he said admiringly.

He was elderly, white-haired. The sort to take it for granted that a man would have the sense to choose a wife who looked the part.

‘Thanks very much.' Abigail finished her call and put the receiver back. ‘Ensor
did
live in Milton Keynes.'

They looked at each other. ‘So they both moved, Ensor and Voss. Why did Dermot Voss come here? I can see why he couldn't have carried on with his other job – it would've meant wishing his children on to relatives – not that he seems averse to that! – or sending them to boarding school, I suppose. If that's the reason he gave it up, then I'll hand it to him. But why buy that damned great house – he's surely got enough problems without that? I daresay it would work for somebody like that Mrs Whatsername who used to run it – somebody there on the spot, doing nothing else, but –'

‘He says it's a paying proposition. Pays his mortgage and a bit over. Maybe he's strapped for cash.'

‘That wouldn't surprise me.'

Abigail said slowly, ‘Avis Walker, Ensor's sister-in-law, said something, when we were talking about Ensor lending her husband money, which has stuck in my mind. Folks don't like to be beholden, she said. Assuming Ensor and Voss did know one another, and say Voss had been in difficulties and Ensor had bailed him out –'

‘And Ensor was dunning him to pay it back? They met, had this argument, things got out of hand, and Ensor ended up dead?'

‘I was going to say maybe being obligated to Ensor had stuck in Voss's craw to the point where he'd grown to hate him – but yes, it's more likely to be as you suggested.'

‘Anyway, at this point we're not concerned with why. Motivation's a slippery notion at the best of times. Find out who and we'll know why. But the night Ensor was killed,' Mayo said, warming to his theme, ‘Voss was staying at the Saracen's. Twice he's gone out of his way to mention that alleged food poisoning he got there – which could have been an excuse to leave Sarah because he had an appointment with Ensor he didn't want her to know about, for whatever reason. Colley Street is only round the corner from the Saracen's. Based on the assumption, of course, that Voss and Ensor did know each other. Whatever, Ensor is the key to all this. We have to find out more about him. When someone's life is so damned tidy, I worry about it. It's not natural. Abigail, I want you to get over to Solihull again. Have another talk with Judith Ensor. Put pressure on her, if needs be, bring her over here if necessary.'

‘I'm not sure how she'd respond to pressure – she struck me as being very stubborn, the type just to dig her heels in more. But the softly-softly approach didn't get me anywhere last time, so it has to be worth a try.'