Ann Granger (24 page)

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Authors: That Way Murder Lies

BOOK: Ann Granger
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He stopped and looked back at them. ‘If it’s groceries you want, you can find shops at Polzeath. We’ve a post office down the road here. That sells a few things. If it’s a supermarket you’re after, you’d do best to drive to Wadebridge.’ He nodded and carried on his way.
‘He knows about Freda Kemp!’ Toby said fiercely as they got back in the car. ‘He just wasn’t going to tell us.’
‘It’s understandable,’ Meredith pointed out. ‘We’re staying in the cottage. It might spoil our holiday to know an unexplained death had taken place there.’
‘Well,’ Toby mused. ‘At least it shows we didn’t come down here on a complete fool’s errand. People do remember Freda Kemp living there.’
‘One person,’ she corrected him. ‘That’s all we’ve found so far. He’s probably telling the truth, too. It was almost before his time. He’d have been a young boy twenty-five years ago. He wouldn’t have known much about it.’
‘A possible murder?’ Toby exclaimed, turning to her.‘In a place like this? You bet they talked about nothing else, young and old! When I was ten years old I’d have been there, hanging round the police at the scene of crime, snapping them with my camera, keeping a scrapbook. Little boys are ghouls.’
‘That’s why I was hoping there would be a local shop,’ Meredith sighed. ‘We could have asked there and found someone with a long memory. Let’s try this post office.’
But the woman in the post office, though affable, couldn’t help. She had only been there a couple of years.
They went back to the cottage, drank coffee and wrangled over what to do next. As it was after midday by then, they decided to walk to the pub and see if they could get some lunch.
‘And some information,’ said Toby hopefully. ‘Good places for that, pubs. You know, all the old inhabitants gather there. They like to gossip and if we buy them a pint or two …’
Sadly it didn’t work out like that. The pub didn’t do lunches, only sandwiches. Like the postmistress, the people who ran it had
only been there for two years. They had come from Basingstoke to live in Cornwall. No oldest inhabitant obligingly showed his face, only a pair of tourists and a tough-looking young man with an earring and tattoos.
‘No use talking to him,’ whispered Toby. ‘Once he realizes we want information, he’ll tell us anything we want to hear in return for fifty quid, and all of it straight from his imagination.’
‘We’ll try again this evening,’ Meredith suggested, as they left. ‘Perhaps more people will be there. After all, you can’t expect the locals to turn up at lunchtime. They’re probably all working somewhere.’
They ended up walking along the clifftop path above the beaches below. The tide had receded so far that there seemed to be only a strip of water left between them and the far side of the estuary where they could make out the roofs of Padstow. They had run out of conversation and ideas and mostly walked in silence, buffeted by a stiff breeze from the sea. Meredith was aware how much she missed Alan. Perhaps, when all this was over, and after they were married, she and Alan could come here and spend some time just relaxing and walking. But that wasn’t what she and Toby were here to do now. There had to be some other way of getting back to what happened twenty-five years earlier.
‘Alan hasn’t dropped any hints, I suppose,’ Toby asked wistfully. ‘You know, to give us a lead.’
‘No, not a thing. He hasn’t said a word about the investigation since you and I decided to come to Cornwall. He didn’t say a lot before, except to tell me they’d found Fiona’s hairband.’
Meredith stopped walking. ‘But I have just had an idea!’
‘What?’ asked Toby, taking off his shoe to shake out the grit and small stones.
‘There is one person we may well be able to find and who would know all about Freda Kemp. The police officer in charge of the case at the time.’
‘He’ll be retired, he must be,’ said Toby.
‘He may be retired but he could still be around. If you worked in Cornwall, would you retire somewhere else? What’s more, I know his name, Barnes-Wakefield. How many people will there be in the telephone directory for the area with that name? What we need is a public library.’
The idea appealed to Toby, who cheered up considerably. They drove to Wadebridge and sought out the library where, as Meredith had hoped, there was set of telephone directories. There was only one Barnes-Wakefield.
‘That has to be him,’ said Meredith firmly. ‘See, he still lives in Cornwall. I’ll phone him now.’
‘What do we tell him? We’ll need an excuse to go asking him about Alison.’ Toby eyed her hopefully, trusting she’d have the answer.
‘We tell him near enough the truth,’ she said simply. ‘You’re Alison’s cousin, or more or less her cousin. After all these years, she’s still anxious to clear her name. She feels the court verdict didn’t entirely do that. She was very fond of her aunt and she wants to know the truth about how she died. Barnes-Wakefield will buy that, believe me. You’re appealing to him for help, for his special knowledge. That flatters him. He might not want to help Alison, but he’ll still meet you and chat about it. It gives him a chance to show off. Look, it’s human nature. He won’t refuse to see us.’
 
The retired Chief Inspector Barnes-Wakefield lived in an immaculately presented bungalow on the outskirts ofNewquay.The front garden was largely taken up with a rockery and a minute fish pond. Two small brightly painted figures hunched by the pool with tiny fishing rods.
‘Gnomes!’ exclaimed Toby. ‘I don’t believe it. People really still put those things in their gardens!’
‘Toby,’ said Meredith. ‘You have got to look upon DCI Barnes-Wakefield as you would a senior member of the diplomatic staff of a not very friendly nation. Watch every word you say, right?
You love his garden. You particularly like the gnomes. Tell him about your happy childhood holidays in the area. Get him on our side.’
‘You don’t have to tell me!’ replied Toby huffily.
Barnes-Wakefield had warned Meredith on the phone that he might not answer the doorbell and, if he didn’t, to try the back of the property. They walked down the path beside the bungalow and found themselves in a neatly tended garden. At the far end was a greenhouse and they could see a figure moving about inside it.
Toby strode forwards, leaving Meredith in his wake, and put his head through the open greenhouse door. ‘Chief Inspector? My name is Toby Smythe. I understand you’re expecting us? I’m really very grateful to you for agreeing to see us.’ He stuck out his hand.
Barnes-Wakefield was a wiry, grey-haired man with the tanned skin of someone who spent most of his time out of doors. His eyes had probably been quite dark once, but age had faded the irises to a milky brown. His gaze, beneath his bushy eyebrows, was nonetheless sharp. He was treating Toby to a very comprehensive assessment.
‘And this is Meredith,’ Toby surged on, ‘a friend and Foreign Office colleague of mine.’
‘You have a lovely garden here,’ she told him promptly.
The old man smiled and his expression became marginally less wary. ‘Yes, it’s very nice, isn’t it? The air carries a lot of salt here and one has to be careful to choose plants which tolerate it. The garden was always my hobby and has pretty well been my life since my wife died last year.’
Meredith and Toby both expressed their regrets.
Barnes-Wakefield heard them out, staring into the distance. When they had finished speaking, he said. ‘Would you like to go indoors and talk or stay out here?’
Toby glanced briefly at Meredith. ‘I think it would be nice to sit out here. It’s quite warm. I spent a lot of time in Cornwall as
a kid and it’s really nice to be able to just sit and breathe Cornish air.’
‘Then make yourself comfortable on the garden seat over there. I’ll just go and wash my hands.’
They watched him amble across the lawn and disappear into the house.
‘He seems quite willing to chat,’ said Toby. ‘I don’t suppose he gets many visitors.’
‘It’s sort of sad,’ Meredith said. ‘He’s lost his wife and his hobby is all he’s got. I hope Alan doesn’t end up like that.’
‘Look on the bright side,’ Toby urged. ‘You’re not married to the guy yet. Don’t make him a widower.’
Barnes-Wakefield was coming back, carrying a tray with three mugs on it. He set it down on a small wooden table.
‘I made us coffee. You do drink it? I brought sugar separate. I take three spoonfuls myself.’
When they were all three settled with coffee Barnes-Wakefield sat back and fixed his deceptively milky gaze on his visitors. ‘Now then, you want to ask me about the Kemp case.’ It wasn’t a question but a statement.
‘It’s as I tried to explain on the phone—’ Meredith began.
‘Alison Harris, as she was, is now Alison Jenner and married to a cousin of mine,’ Toby interrupted. ‘She’s been getting some poison pen letters.’
Barnes-Wakefield sipped his coffee. ‘You won’t want to hear me say this of a member of your family, but I thought then, and I think now, we had enough evidence to support the case. The jury thought otherwise. I was disappointed we lost it.’
‘Look, sir,’ Toby said frankly. ‘I don’t want to get into a discussion about that. We obviously differ in our opinions as to whether my cousin’s wife was responsible for Miss Kemp’s death. By the way, she thinks it may have been an accident.’
Barnes-Wakefield shook his head slowly. ‘No, it wasn’t an accident. A murder set up to look like an accident, that’s how it looked to me then – and now. We live in a country where we
accept a jury’s verdict. But I’ve not changed my mind and I’ve spent quite a long time during my retirement mulling over the Kemp case. No investigating officer likes to lose one.’
There was something frighteningly implacable about this nice old gentleman, thought Meredith. He had made up his mind early in the case that Alison was guilty. He still believed it. His investigation had probably been overshadowed by his determination to charge her. He wouldn’t have wanted to hear any counter-arguments. He didn’t want to hear them now. Thank goodness Alan isn’t like that, she told herself. Whatever the circumstances of the case, Alan always tries to keep an open mind.
‘The person who has been writing to Alison knows about the case,’ said Toby. ‘But it was twenty-five years ago. Do you know if there were ever any books written on it?’
Barnes-Wakefield shook his head. ‘None that I ever heard of. There was a lot in the newspapers at the time.’
‘Especially around here?’ Meredith prompted.
The pale sharp gaze moved to take her in. ‘Oh yes, the local press had a field day.’
‘I understand,’ Toby said, ‘that the housekeeper had rather a lot to say at the time.’
‘You’ll mean the cleaning woman, Mrs Travis?’
For the first time Meredith sensed a slight loss of confidence in Barnes-Wakefield’s voice and demeanour. Her own antennae tingled.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That was the name. Alison felt that she had never liked her.’
‘Travis …’ said Barnes-Wakefield slowly, giving himself time to think, thought Meredith. ‘Yes, I remember her. She had a lot to say and I agree, she didn’t like Alison Harris.’
‘Have you any idea why?’ she asked.
Barnes-Wakefield was definitely avoiding her gaze now. ‘Well, she was fond of the old lady, I think, protective, you’d call it. Miss Harris was a city girl, a bit brash in her ways. Whenever she
turned up, it unsettled Miss Kemp. Mrs Travis, she was the old-fashioned type, a local woman.’
Meredith was thinking rapidly. Mrs Travis would have been unlikely to have had any transport other than a pushbike. She must have lived very locally in order to work for Freda Kemp. Aloud, she asked, ‘Did she live in one of those cottages just before you get to the Kemp cottage?’
Now the milky gaze swung round to her. ‘I fancy she did. But we didn’t rely on her testimony, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ He turned back to Toby. ‘I wish I could help you. I’m afraid I can’t. I had a long chat on the phone with a chap in your part of the world, a Superintendent Markby, about the case. I answered his questions to the best of my ability and followed it up with an e-mail setting out my reasoning at the time. Briefly, I pretty well told him what I’ve told you. I don’t think you’ll find the answer to Miss Harris’s – Mrs Jenner’s – present troubles down here.’ The milky gaze assessed Toby again. ‘Some people court trouble. When you’ve had as much experience as I’ve had, you’ll find that out. I’m not surprised your cousin’s got herself into another spot of bother.’
‘E-mail?’ Toby sounded surprised.
Barnes-Wakefield looked a little smug. ‘Oh yes, got to keep up with the modern ways of doing things. The computer has been very useful to me. I browse the Internet.’ He put down his mug and stirred in his chair. ‘As far as these letters are concerned, I don’t think there’s anything I can say that’d be of any use to you.’
The implication was clearly that they had reached the end of the interview.
Meredith plunged in. ‘We would like to speak to Mrs Travis.’
‘Would you now? I wonder where you think that would get you. You’ll have a job finding her. I doubt she’ll live in the same place. You’ll have to knock on doors, like the police do. Old-fashioned investigating.’ He smiled at them but the faded brownish eyes weren’t amused.

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