A Well-deserved Murder (Trevor Joseph Detective series) (9 page)

‘And you’ve been doing this for how long?’

‘About eighteen months.’

‘And the Howells built their deck, when?’ Trevor continued to monitor Alan’s reactions.

‘Three – four years ago.’

‘Do you ever throw your rubbish into the Howells’ garden?’

‘Never,’ Alan was emphatic. ‘The last thing I wanted was the situation between us to escalate. My wife and I suffered enough from the Howells’ anti-social behaviour. If we’d given them an excuse I’ve no doubt they would have behaved even worse than they did, although it’s difficult to see what more they could have done to us.’

‘There was blood on the tissue – your blood,’ Trevor added so there’d be no mistake. ‘Can you explain how it got there?’

‘I get the occasional nose bleed, graze and cut finger like everyone else.’

‘Any recently?’

‘Not that I can recall. But I don’t make a note of every little cut, scrape and minor injury with a view to being interrogated about them by police officers.’

Trevor sat back in his chair. Alan’s fingerprints on the axe that was used to kill Kacy Howells coupled with his DNA being found on the gum and tissue on the deck and his lack of a corroborated alibi was damning, but not damning enough to hold up on its own in court before a judge and jury. ‘Tell me more about your quarrel with the Howells?’

‘I gave the community police the diary I kept of the Howells’ thieving, stalking and anti-social behaviour.’

Sarah scribbled a note. ‘I’ll ask the community police for a copy, sir.’

‘If they’ve lost it, I can give you one,’ Alan volunteered. ‘I have the file on my computer. I still update it occasionally.’

‘How soon can you get it to us?’ Trevor asked.

‘I’ll run one off when I return to the office this afternoon.’

Trevor scanned the report again. He looked at one highlighted section and read it twice before pointing it out to Sarah, she nodded. Trevor stopped the tape. ‘If you’ll excuse us, Mr Piper, we need to confer with our colleagues.’

‘There’s no need to be quite so formal when the tape is switched off,’ Alan complained. ‘I maybe a suspect but I’m also human.’

‘I’d prefer to keep everything on a formal footing at this stage of the enquiries. I would also like to search your house. But it will take time to get a warrant.’

Alan pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. He singled one out, removed it from the ring and handed it to Trevor. ‘Be my guest.’

Trevor pocketed it. ‘Would you like another coffee?’

‘I have nothing better to do. Although I could go and get that diary if you want it?’

‘Not at the moment. Thank you,’ Trevor refused.

As Trevor expected Peter was outside. Trevor led the way into the incident room. After ordering a constable to take Alan coffee, he closed the door.

‘Why didn’t anyone pick up on the sighting of Alan Piper outside his house at four thirty on the day of the murder until now?’ he asked Sarah in particular and the room in general.

Sarah answered, ‘Because Mrs Walsh only gave us the notes she made on the afternoon of the murder this morning.’

‘You said you’d taken her diary after interviewing her on the morning after the murder,’ Trevor reminded her.

‘She updates it every day. We took her diary the morning after the murder but she hadn’t updated it with the afternoon’s notes from the day before. This morning, I noticed that the entries stopped at midday on the day of the murder, I rang Mrs Walsh and asked her if she had taken any more notes. She said she had, we visited her and she showed us her rough book …’

‘What rough book?’ Peter broke in.

‘A cheap exercise book she makes her notes in. She rewrites them in her diary later, sometimes at midday which she did the day of the murder, sometimes in the evening “if there’s nothing on television” and sometimes in the early hours if she can’t sleep.’

‘She trying to rival Samuel Pepys?’ Trevor asked.

‘Samuel Pepys?’ Peter repeated.

‘Stop trying to wind me up,’ Trevor snapped. ‘And Mrs Walsh definitely saw Alan Piper return to his house at 4.14 p.m. on the day of the murder?’

‘It’s in her rough notes and the notebook we gave her to replace her diary after we took it.’

‘Why does she update them?’ Trevor questioned.

‘Because she uses shorthand to make notes. I asked her for a couple of sample pages.’ Sarah retrieved a file from her in-tray and handed it to Trevor.

Trevor studied it. ‘This is shorthand?’

‘Her own, sir. She did explain it. The inverted V is Mr Piper, the A the paperboy, the square Mr Howells, the circle Mrs Howells.’

‘You do understand that some poor soul is going to have to go through all these rough notes, decode them and match them to Mrs Walsh’s final transcript.’

‘Yes, sir.’ There was resignation in Sarah’s voice.

‘Get a couple of constables to take over the inputting of evidence into the computers while you concentrate on the decoding. But first, give this key to the forensic team.’ He handed it to Sarah. ‘Ask them to search Alan Piper’s house and garden.’

‘You can’t be serious,’ Peter protested.

‘Alan handed me the key when I told him I was going to apply for a warrant. If you think he should have objected, feel free to talk to him.’

Peter shook his head.

‘And if the forensic team ask me what they’re looking for, sir?’ Sarah questioned.

‘Tell them they’ll know it when they see it. I’m going to interview Mrs Walsh. You did say she was house-bound?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Ring ahead to let her know we’re coming.’

‘We?’ Peter left his chair.

‘Chris will come with me.’

Peter was clearly disappointed but he didn’t argue. ‘And Alan?’

‘Give him another coffee. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

CHAPTER TEN

Chris drove slowly up the cul-de-sac. The midday sun was strong, the temperature high, the street deserted. Trevor opened the car window on the passenger side. There were no sounds coming from the gardens behind the houses. Only the distant roar of a helicopter engine and the whine of a lawnmower.’

‘Spring’s arrived and Mrs Walsh’s son is cutting the lawn,’ Chris remarked as he pulled up outside the house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

Trevor left the car, turned his back to Mrs Walsh’s house and looked down the street.

‘I wonder if she chose this house because she wanted to watch her neighbours.’ Chris locked the car.

‘Either that or it became her hobby after she became house-bound.’ Trevor turned and nodded to Mick Walsh who’d recognised Chris and switched off the lawnmower.

Mick spoke slowly with the hesitant articulation of the brain-damaged. ‘Hello, Constable Brooke.’

‘Hello, Mr Walsh. It’s a fine day for gardening.’

‘It is.’

‘But strenuous work, in this heat.’

‘Since the accident my doctor has been telling me that I have to do all I can to keep fit. She says that moderate exercise helps strengthen my muscles.’

‘And is it?’ Trevor asked. Mrs Walsh’s son may have had the slow speech and gait of the mentally incapacitated, but he had the physique of a body-builder.

‘I think so.’ Mick Walsh flexed his biceps proudly. ‘We had a telephone call to say that you wanted to speak to my mother again.’

‘That’s right. Is she inside?’ Chris asked.

‘She hasn’t slept much since they found Mrs Howells. I think it’s too much excitement for her weak heart.’

‘I’m Inspector Trevor Joseph, Mr Walsh,’ Trevor introduced himself. ‘I won’t keep your mother long; we just need to clarify a few points that she put in her notes.’

‘So Mum’s diary is useful then?’

‘Every witness statement is useful to us, Mr Walsh. If only to eliminate people from our enquiries.’

‘Mum always said that it would be useful one day, if only to tell people how we managed to carry on after the accident.’ Mick Walsh opened the door and shouted, ‘Mum! The police are here,’ but Trevor had already seen Mrs Walsh sitting in her recliner at the window of her living room. He didn’t doubt that she had already noted down his and Chris’s arrival complete with time and car number.

‘You know where to find Mum?’ Mick asked Chris.

‘I do.’

‘Would you like tea and biscuits? I always make my mum a cup of tea around this time.’

‘That would be nice, thank you,’ Trevor answered for both of them.

Trevor noticed that Mrs Walsh’s reclining chair had been placed to give her the optimum vista of the road and a panoramic view of her neighbours’ houses and front gardens. He also spotted a pair of miniature binoculars on a side-table next to her chair.

‘Mrs Walsh, thank you for your assistance with our enquiries into the murder of Mrs Howells. I’m Inspector Trevor Joseph.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Inspector.’ She turned her head slowly as if it pained her to move her neck. When she focused her bespectacled dark eyes on Trevor, he was glad he had opted to buy a house in a terrace fronting the sea. One of his balconies overlooked the public beach, but it was easier to spot someone standing on the sand for any length of time, than a peeping Tom or Tomasina concealed behind vertical blinds that had been carefully adjusted to conceal them from the view of anyone looking in from the street. ‘You are the officer in charge of the search for Mrs Howells’ murderer.’

‘I am.’

Mrs Walsh’s blue-tinted lenses made it difficult for Trevor to read the expression in her eyes. But his knowledge of her voyeuristic habits made him uneasy.

‘That nice young lady who came to see me …’

‘Constable Merchant.’

‘That’s the one; she came with this young man.’ Mrs Walsh pointed to Chris. ‘They seem very dedicated to their job.’

‘As I hope everyone on my team is,’ Trevor answered.

‘Sit down, Inspector, Constable. Mick,’ she called through the open door. ‘You’re bringing the best Belgium chocolate biscuits for the officers, I hope.’

‘I am, Mum.’ Mick wheeled in an old-fashioned pink and white trolley, set out with a silver tea-service, porcelain cups and saucers and a silver salver that held a meticulously arranged selection of luxury biscuits.

‘Milk, sugar, Inspector?’ Mick asked.

‘Neither, thank you.’ Trevor didn’t like tea and rarely drank it, but he was fascinated by the way Mick Walsh, all clumsy six feet four inches and twenty stone of him was obeying his mother’s commands like a trained parlour maid. Peter, who didn’t give a damn for political correctness, would have called him “a biro short of a refill,” yet he snapped to attention whenever Mrs Walsh spoke and did what she asked him, to the best of his lumbering ability.

‘Don’t fill the inspector’s cup too full, Mick; it will slop in the saucer. Now hand him a plate and offer him the biscuits.’

Trevor took the tea but shook his head at the biscuits.

‘Are you sure, Inspector? They are very good. Harrods’ best. We have a hamper sent down every month. Constable, you take your tea with milk and two sugars, am I right?’

‘You have an excellent memory, Mrs Walsh.’

‘At the risk of sounding conceited, I do,’ she agreed.

‘Your memory and your diaries are the reason we’re here, Mrs Walsh.’ Trevor set his cup down on the silver coaster Mick Walsh had placed on the highly polished mahogany side-table next to him. The room was beautifully decorated in a traditional way with Persian rugs, wood-block floor and antique furniture. The paintings on the wall appeared to be originals, not prints and he wondered what the absent Mr Walsh had done to house his family in this luxury.

‘Take your tea into the kitchen, Mick,’ Mrs Walsh ordered her son as he moved towards a chair. ‘I don’t want you dirtying the upholstery in here with your gardening clothes.’

‘Yes, Mum.’ Mick walked meekly out of the door.

‘When the officers leave, you can clear away the tea tray. The weather’s too warm to leave milk out of the fridge and chocolate biscuits on an open salver.’

‘I can take the tea things out, Mrs Walsh,’ Chris offered.

‘No need, Constable, no need at all. Now, Inspector,’ she turned to Trevor as if she were the one conducting the interview. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I saw the entries you made for the day of the murder, Mrs Walsh. Constable Merchant explained to me that you update your diary from the rough notes you make?’

‘That is correct, Inspector. If I left them in the rough form no one would be able to read them.’

‘You intend them to be read?’ Trevor wondered if the woman had delusions about publishing her notes.

‘Some day, perhaps. I’m not a celebrity or politician, but my diary provides a record of our here and now. How difficult it is to come to terms with an accident that was caused by a truck driver who hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours and wasn’t even insured. In addition to struggling to overcome our physical injuries which have severely impacted on the quality of our lives by causing my son and I permanent and severe disabilities I had to fight for minimum compensation. If it hadn’t been for my husband’s insurance policy – he was killed in the accident –’

‘I’m sorry,’ Trevor sympathised.

‘Mick and I would have been in dire straits. But, it happened a long time ago, Inspector. To get back to my diary, anyone who reads it will discover what it is like to live as a disabled person in a cul-de-sac in suburban Britain in the twenty-first century. Sadly we, as a town and a country, no longer have anything remotely resembling community spirit but since I lost the use of my legs, it helps pass the time. Occasionally when it’s quiet in summer and my neighbours are away on holiday, I even while away an hour or two reading my past entries.’

Trevor looked down the deserted street and wondered if there had been more excitement in the street in previous years.

‘It was busier and livelier when most of the houses had young children living in them, Inspector. But all the children have grown up and moved away, except my son, Mick, poor boy. And, believe it or not, in the past my diaries have helped solve many small mysteries.’

‘How interesting.’

‘Small crimes by your standards. But ten years ago I saw a boy break the windscreen of number 8’s new Audi. And eight years ago I was able to identify the boy who picked the sunflowers from the front garden of number 12. I telephoned my neighbours and gave them the names of those responsible.’

‘No doubt they were grateful.’

‘The parents of the boys concerned were sufficiently embarrassed to pay compensation to the victims of their sons’ hooliganism.’

‘There would be less crime if there were more people like you living in our suburbs, Mrs Walsh.’ Trevor took a pen and notebook from his top pocket. ‘But to return to the day of the murder. In your diary, you state that Mr Piper returned to the street at four thirty.’

‘Four fourteen, I believe.’

Trevor checked the file Sarah had given him and discovered the time was, indeed, four fourteen.

‘Mr Piper parked his car outside his house and went across the road to Judy Mason’s house. He let himself in with a key. I believe she gave him one after Joy Piper’s funeral. While Joy was still alive he used to ring Judy Mason’s doorbell. He hasn’t since. I remember being surprised when he went into Judy’s house that afternoon because it was her day for the hairdresser. She has a facial and a manicure at the same time.’

‘How long was he inside the house?’ Trevor had the feeling that Mrs Walsh would give him the names of the products the hairdresser used and Judy Mason’s final bill if he asked her.

‘Five minutes. He shut Mrs Mason’s front door, tested it to make sure it was locked and crossed the road to his own house. This is all in my diary notes.’ Mrs Walsh added.

Trevor continued to look at Sarah’s highlighted extracts. ‘Can you recall what he did after he returned to his own house?’

‘Obviously I couldn’t see what he did when he was inside his house, but he left it at twenty minutes past five, locked the door and drove away. Oh – and he was carrying something.’

‘Could you see what it was?’

‘No, but it was wrapped in a bundle of cloth. He’d tucked it under his arm.’

‘And while Mr Piper was in the street did you see Mrs Howells?’

‘No. She spends very little time in her front garden as you can see from the state of it; there are as many weeds there as flowers and the grass always needs cutting. Mrs Howells spends all her time out the back messing with the trees behind her garden which don’t belong to her.’

‘You see her?’

‘Occasionally when Mick takes me out to use the exercise pool and Jacuzzi in the back garden. The doctor recommended I get one to try and use the muscles in my paralyzed legs. Not that it does much good. But although I spend most of my time here or in my bedroom, I hear her. It’s whirring electric saws and chop, chop, chop from early morning to late evening. I generally make a note of what time she starts and what time she finishes. I’m sure it’s illegal to make the noise she used to make. There have been times when she started before six in the morning and, often on light evenings she didn’t stop until ten o’clock.’

‘Did you hear her working on the day of the murder?’

‘Yes. I had a headache. If you look at my notes I think you’ll see she started at eight o’clock in the morning.’

Trevor recalled George Howells saying that he had left with the children at around half past seven, so within half an hour of him leaving, his wife was out on the farmer’s land at the back of her house cutting down his trees. He looked at the notes again. ‘The sound of sawing and chopping stopped around one o’clock.’

‘When a post office delivery van drew up outside her house. It was parked there for three-quarters of an hour.’

‘The sawing started again at three.’ Trevor was relieved that the window of the time of Kacy Howells’ death was finally narrowing.

‘And didn’t finish until three fifty-five,’ Mrs Walsh complained.

‘At last.’

‘That means something to you?’

Trevor glanced up from Sarah’s notes. ‘Until this moment all we knew was that Kacy Howells had been killed some time between midday and eight o’clock in the evening. Your evidence has been most helpful in narrowing the gap. Are you sure that you didn’t hear Kacy Howells chopping or sawing wood after three fifty-five?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘And you heard no other noises?’

‘None, other than the arrival and departure of Alan Piper’s car and various other neighbours. And a taxi that turned at the head of the cul-de-sac. The driver either spent a long time turning or dropped someone off. I couldn’t see who it was because the taxi parked out of my view.’

‘What time was that?’

‘Twenty-two minutes past seven, I believe, it’s in my notes.’

Trevor checked, as before, Mrs Walsh was accurate. ‘You didn’t see anyone approach the Howells’ house?’

‘If the taxi had dropped someone off in the Howells’ drive I wouldn’t have seen them until they left – and no one did. Not before it grew too dark to see out of the window. The post office van delivery driver was the last person to knock on the Howells’ door.’

‘No one else went near the Howells’ house,’ he reiterated.

‘Alan Piper went next door. But there’s a high fence between him and the Howells. He had it erected and I don’t blame him. In my opinion Kacy Howells was mentally ill. No normal person would have behaved the way she did.’

Trevor found Mrs Walsh’s declaration ironic given her own voyeuristic activities.

‘Your nice Constable Merchant is walking up our garden path, Inspector. I saw a team of white-suited officers enter Alan Piper’s house eighteen minutes before you and the constable arrived here. Did Mr Piper kill Kacy Howells?’

‘Everyone who knew Mrs Howells is a suspect until we make an arrest, Mrs Walsh. We have to keep an open mind. Thank you for the tea.’

Yes, thank you, Mrs Walsh,’ Chris echoed. ‘I’ll go and see what my colleague wants.’ Chris went to the front door where Sarah had been waylaid by Mick Walsh.