Blood Sinister (34 page)

‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. It would make more sense for her to encourage the relationship.’

‘Anyway, I don’t see that it helps us. Even if there were a file missing, and even if that was it, the only person who knew about it was Mrs Brissan—’

‘According to her.’

‘Quite. But Agnew hadn’t even told her dear old mate Josh who the subject of her biography was, so it seems likely she
did
keep it secret. And why should it provoke anyone to murder her anyway?’

‘You’re right. In any case, it doesn’t look as if that’s the thing that was worrying her,’ Slider said. ‘She said to Josh she had a problem that would make his pale into insignificance, and that he was the last person who could help her with it, and it’s hard to see how her research for a biography could fit either of those categories.’

‘So what next?’ Atherton asked.

Slider leaned back and put his hands behind his neck to stretch it. ‘God, I don’t know. There ought to be something in her papers, or somebody she knew or worked with ought to have known what this problem was. If she’d been worried and drinking more heavily for the last few weeks, you’d think she’d have told someone.’

‘Maybe it was just the menopause after all,’ Atherton said. ‘All in her mind.’

‘And she was murdered by telekinesis?’

‘By a random lunatic.’

‘Thanks. That’s helpful.’

‘Lunchtime, guv,’ Atherton said. ‘Give yourself a break. Feed the brain cells.’

‘Yes, you’re right. I am hungry, now you come to mention it,’ Slider said, shoving his chair back and standing up. ‘I fancy a big plateful of—’

Of what, Atherton was never to know – though he suspected chips – for the phone rang.

Slider picked up. It was Detective Inspector Keith Heaveysides of the Essex Constabulary. He was sorry to have to tell Slider that Piers Prentiss had been found dead in his shop this morning, and in view of Slider’s recent interest in him, Mr Heaveysides wondered if he’d like to come along and pool information, hopefully to their mutual benefit. Pardon? No, it certainly wasn’t natural causes, and there didn’t seem to have been any robbery, either from the person or the premises. Yes, certainly. Not at all. They were all on the same side, weren’t they? Not a problem. His pleasure entirely.

Slider liked Heaveysides straight away. He was one of those tall, full-fleshed, fair men who go bald right over the top very early in life, but keep a boyish face as if in compensation. He seemed a genuinely nice person, but yet to have survived in the Job with a name like his, he must have had a toughness, or at least an inner serenity, to survive the teasing.

He took Slider and Atherton into his office and gave them coffee (from his personal filter coffee machine, so it was drinkable) and biscuits while he filled them in on the story.

‘It was his cleaner who found the body,’ he said.

‘Marjorie Babbington?’ said Slider.

‘Oh, you know her, do you?’

‘We met her when we interviewed Prentiss at his house. She must be pretty upset.’

‘She’s holding up well. You know the sort – stiff upper lip. Anyway, she was doing the cleaning in the house this morning when someone comes knocking at the door. It’s a local chap, name of Hewitt. He’s gone past and seen the lights are on in the shop, tried the door and found it’s locked, so he’s called at
the house in a neighbourly way to say did you know you’ve left the lights burning.’

‘Was the closed sign up?’

‘Yes, and he’s a regular customer of the shop, so he knows it’s usually shut on a Monday. That’s why he wonders. So anyway, Babbington answers the door, Hewitt says blah-di-blah-di-blah, she says Prentiss isn’t there. He says it’s an awful waste of electricity so she says all right I’ll get the keys and come and turn ’em off.’

‘Where did she expect Prentiss to be?’

‘Well, Monday being the closed day, he could be anywhere. She wasn’t worried. If he was going away for any long time he always told her so she could look after the dogs, but as it was she thought he’d just popped out. So she gets the spare keys and goes in by the back door, and there’s Prentiss lying dead behind the counter.’

‘How did he die?’

‘It looks as if someone knocked him down from behind with a blunt instrument, and then strangled him,’ said Heaveysides. ‘The ligature’s been removed so we’re no wiser about that, but the police surgeon said it was a smooth band, maybe a silk tie. Prentiss must have been groggy from the blow because he hardly struggled – just a couple of broken nails.’

‘Break-in?’

‘No, both the shop doors, front and back, were locked.’

‘You said spare keys. What other sets were there?’ Atherton asked.

‘I was just coming to that,’ said Heaveysides. ‘Mr Prentiss had his own set on his own key-ring, which he kept in his pocket, and they were missing. We’ve had a bit of a search of the house, and immediate environs, but they haven’t turned up yet.’

‘I doubt if they will,’ Slider said. ‘And you say there was no sign of any robbery or theft?’

‘Nothing as far as we can tell. Of course, in an antiques shop like that you don’t know what was there to begin with, but everything looks all right. And Prentiss’s money and credit cards were still in his pockets. It’s a bugger,’ he added feelingly. ‘He was a nice old stick. Everybody liked him. You know that in places like this you can get a lot of prejudice and queer-bashing,
but it never seemed to touch him. And this is a quiet community. We haven’t had any violent crime here in years, leave aside the odd fight outside the pubs of a Saturday night.’

‘Yes, it’s a miserable business,’ Slider said. He remembered his long talk with Piers, the shadow Prentiss, the B-side brother; conjured up the charm of his rare smile, the wry intelligence, the humour. Now it was all stopped, just like that, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. His corruptible must put on incorruption: but no-one had asked him if he was ready. His life, stolen from him, just like Phoebe Agnew’s – and for what? What was the connection?

Heaveysides raised anxious eyes to Slider’s. ‘You’ve got something going on with Prentiss’s brother, haven’t you? Do you think the cases could be connected?’

‘I have a nasty suspicion that they almost certainly are,’ Slider said. ‘But the brother’s been cleared of our murder. It seems likely, on what you’ve told me, that whoever did this did our job as well. But I’m afraid we haven’t a clue yet who that might be.’

‘Ah, well, it goes like that sometimes,’ Heaveysides said wisely. ‘Would you like to talk to Babbington?’

‘Thanks, that would be helpful.’

‘I’ve got to get back to my own lads – but you’ll let me know if you get anything that’ll help me?’

‘Absolutely. I’m grateful to you for letting me in on this. There’s a lot wouldn’t.’

‘In my view, we’re all on the same team,’ Heaveysides said.

‘I wish everyone thought like that,’ said Slider.

Marjorie Babbington was white, rigid, and red-eyed, but she wasn’t giving in.

‘I’m sorry to put you through it all over again,’ said Slider, ‘but I’d be grateful if you would tell me what happened. I’ve had it from Inspector Heaveysides, but I may hear something slightly different from you, or you may remember a detail you didn’t tell him.’

She said, ‘I understand. I don’t mind how often I tell it, if it helps catch whoever did this awful thing. How could anyone hurt someone like Piers? Do you think’, she asked, meeting his eyes bravely, ‘it was the same person that killed Phoebe?’

‘I think it very likely.’

‘Well, I hope you get them,’ she said fiercely, ‘and I wish we hadn’t abolished hanging.’

‘So, tell me, when was the last time you saw Piers?’

‘Yesterday afternoon, when he was walking the dogs. He went past along the lane, and I waved to him from the kitchen window.’

‘What lane is this?’

‘The lane that runs behind our houses. You know I live a few doors down from Piers?’

‘I do now.’

‘Oh. Well, there’s a lane that runs along the back of the whole row. Just a narrow mud track, really, too narrow for a car, but it gives access to our backyards. Anyway, he went by about, oh, half past three or thereabouts, walking the dogs. He waved back to me quite cheerfully. And that was the last time I saw him – until—’ She couldn’t finish it.

‘All right,’ said Slider soothingly. ‘Tell me about this morning. When did you come to the house?’

‘It was about half past nine. I came along the lane and let myself in at the back door—’

‘Was it open or shut?’

‘Oh, it was locked. He used to leave it open in the old days, but we had a spate of burglaries a few years back and I made him get into the habit of locking the house when he went to the shop. But in any case, the shop’s closed on a Monday, so when I found the back door locked I knew he must be out. So I let myself in with the key.’

‘What keys do you have?’

‘Of Piers’s? Only the back door. I always come in that way.’

‘And what about the shop?’

‘I don’t have a shop key. Piers gives me the spare set if he wants me to look after it for him.’

‘All right, go on. You let yourself in. How did the house seem?’

‘Well, just as usual really. I didn’t notice anything out of place. Oh,’ she remembered, ‘except that the dogs seemed unusually hungry.’

‘They were in the kitchen?’

‘Yes, on their beanbag. They rushed to me and jumped up and down, just as they always do, but then they went to their bowls and barked like mad and pushed them with their noses, the way they do when they want to be fed. Naturally I assumed Piers had fed them before he went out, so I just gave them each a Bonio. It’s very wrong to overfeed dogs. Of course, now I think of it, they probably hadn’t been fed since last night, poor things, but how was I to know?’

‘You weren’t, of course. So what happened next?’

‘Well, I let them out to do their tiddles, and started my cleaning, as usual. Then Mr Hewitt came to the door and asked for Piers, and when I said he’d gone out, he said he’d left the lights on in the shop. I thanked him for telling me and said I’d go in and turn them off.’

‘How come you didn’t notice when you came past?’

‘There are no windows to the shop at the back. The back door lets onto a sort of lobby with coat hooks and fuse boxes and the cloakroom, so you wouldn’t see any light walking past at the back. Anyway, I got the spare set of keys—’

‘Where are they kept?’

‘In the bureau drawer in the drawing-room. I took them and went out the back way, to the back door of the shop, let myself in, and there was Piers lying behind the counter.’ She stopped and drew a shaky breath. ‘Of course, he couldn’t be seen from the front door, or Mr Hewitt would have raised the alarm.’

‘I’m sorry to put you through it, but how was he lying?’

‘On his front. His – his face was turned sideways a bit. It was – swollen – and—’ She stopped and put her face in her hands. ‘I could see he was dead,’ she said, muffled by her fingers.

‘How was he dressed?’

She was a long time answering. At last she lowered her hands, in control again. ‘Fully dressed. In his cord trousers and tweed jacket,’ she said briskly.

‘Did he look as if he had struggled? Were his clothes disarranged? Was anything knocked over?’

‘No. The rug was rucked up a bit under him, but that was all. If anything had been knocked over, it must have been put straight again. And nothing seemed to be missing – except his keys, so they tell me.’ She stared unhappily at her hands. ‘I
hate to think of him lying there all night like that, while the poor doggies waited and waited for him to come back.’

‘Why do you think he was there all night?’

‘Well, the police said – said he’d been dead for about twelve hours. And of course there was a light on in the shop last night.’

‘Ah, you didn’t mention that before,’ said Slider. ‘How come you saw that?’

‘Oh, I didn’t. It was Mr Hewitt. He said he’d taken his dog for a walk last thing last night – about half past ten – and he’d passed the shop on the way back and saw the light on then. Naturally he didn’t think anything about it – why should he? But when he came by this morning and saw it was still on, he thought he’d better tell Piers he’d forgotten it.’

She looked enquiringly at Slider, who had lapsed into thought. Eventually he roused himself and said, ‘You didn’t notice anything in the house missing or disturbed?’

‘Not really,’ she said apologetically. ‘I might have if I’d been looking for it, but of course I wasn’t.’

‘What keys were on the key-ring that Piers kept in his pocket?’

‘The shop front and back and the house front and back.’

‘So whoever took them could get in and out of the house without leaving a trace.’

‘Yes, I suppose so – if the dogs would let them.’

‘Are the dogs fierce?’

‘Well, quite,’ she said. ‘If they don’t know you. I mean, if Piers is there, or I am, they wouldn’t hurt a fly, but if someone broke in – I know they’re small, but with two of them they could be a real nuisance to a burglar.’

‘And they were in the kitchen, but with the run of the house?’