Cold Coffin (17 page)

“Come along in, Kate.” His hand just brushed her shoulders as he ushered her inside. “Let’s start with a drink. Have I got it right that you’re a lady who’s not averse to a spot of the malt?”

“Well, just a very small one,” she said, not to sound unfriendly. “I’ll be driving again in a minute.”

The flat was nice, no question. A large living room with a bay window overlooking the garden at the rear, plus a side window giving a glimpse through trees to the river. Don had furnished it macho-man style—black leather upholstery; the walls, carpet and curtains in tones of cream and brown. State-of-the-art stereo and TV. Leading off this room was an adequate kitchen. The bedroom and bathroom made a separate unit across a small hallway.

“You don’t have a second bedroom?”

Don grinned at her. “I don’t need a second bedroom, Kate. One serves
all
my needs.”

She ignored the sexy innuendo. “What about the flat above yours? Does that have a second bedroom?”

“No, just the one, same as this.”

Her spirits took a dive. “That’s a real pity. I’d certainly want to be able to accommodate the occasional guest, so I’m afraid it knocks the whole idea on the head. Sorry, Don, I should have checked that point first and saved you the trouble of showing me round.”

“No trouble, Kate, far from it. Hey, you’re not leaving?” he protested as she moved towards the door. “You must at least stay and finish your drink first.”

“Well ... okay.”

“Come and take the weight off. By the way,” he went on, as Kate took a seat on the leather Chesterfield, “thanks for letting me be the one to tell Jolly about wrapping up the Tillington break-in. He was delighted, and it’ll help towards me getting my extra pip that much sooner.” Don gave a slow, appreciative smile. “But that’s you all over, isn’t it? You’re such a generous, warm-hearted lady.”

“It’s the first time ever another cop has called me that,” she said dryly.

“Shame! You deserve it, and more. You’ve got everything, Kate. Charm and personality, and terrific looks.” He perched on the arm of the Chesterfield and laid his arm along its back behind her. “You really turn me on, you know that? I could go for you in a big way.”

With a derisive laugh, she put her glass aside and stood up. “Your dialogue stinks, Don. You’ve been watching too many old movies.”

He wasn’t in the least affronted. Rather the reverse, as if he appreciated her style. Smilingly he reached for her glass.

“Refill, darling?”

Darling! Time to depart, Kate, or the guy will really get ideas.
But as she reached for her handbag to make a move, he quickly jumped to his feet and laid his palms on her shoulders.

Kate sidestepped and shook herself free. “I don’t want a refill, Don. I’m leaving.”

“Sweetheart, you can’t walk out on me like this. It would be too cruel. Don’t you see how I feel about you?” He moved to stand between her and the door.

“Drop it, will you?”

“Come on, sweetheart, you can’t mean that,” he said coaxingly, and once again laid his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry if I came on a bit fast for you.”

“Just take your hands off me, Inspector Trotton, and get out of my way.”

It took a mini-second for her words to register. Then his expression froze and his hands dropped away.

“Pull rank, would you?”

“You made a big mistake, Don. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we? Good night.”

His face twisted with anger. “This is the way you get your kicks, is it?”

Maybe she should have left without another word. As it was, Kate swung back to face him. “Why can’t you grow up, Don? Just accept the fact that here’s one woman you couldn’t persuade to jump into bed with you.”

“You’re frigid, I suppose,” he sneered.

“My God, you’re pathetic.”

She exited in a seething rage, slamming the door behind her. The rage was mostly against herself, for being such an idiot as to walk into Don Trotton’s unsubtle trap. But as she drove home, the target of her anger switched to include men in general and their bloody arrogance. How dare they regard a woman as just a lump of female flesh for the use of.

Within minutes Kate was pulling up on the grass verge outside her aunt’s cottage. There was another car parked there, which she recognized with a fresh blaze of fury.

“What are you doing here, Richard?” she demanded as she marched into the living room and found Felix and Richard Gower companionably chatting over a drink.

“Hey, what’s eating you?” Richard got to his feet in the awkward movement dictated by his stiff leg.

“I’ve had a hard day,” she stormed at him, “and I’ve just about had my gutful of men. Which is why I could have done without finding you here.”

With admirable mildness, he said, “For your information, Kate, I dropped by tonight just on the off-chance that you might feel like coming for a drink and forgetting work for a couple of hours.”

“Huh! You mean you wanted to see what juicy little morsels you could pick up from me about the case. There’d still be time to get something in the late editions of the Sundays.”

“That’s crap and you know it.”

Kate didn’t observe her aunt’s apologetic jerk of the head towards the door. Richard took the hint and departed, saying over his shoulder, “See you sometime when you’re in a better mood. ’Night, Felix.”

When the two women were alone, Felix poured a stiff peg of whisky for them both, then began to chatter undemandingly about a Natural History programme she’d watched on television earlier.

She understood how Kate was feeling, having had a large hand in her upbringing since her mother died when she was only thirteen. She’d watched with pride as her niece had determined on a career and applied to join the police, following in her father’s footsteps. With even greater pride she’d watched as Kate had overcome the shattering blow of losing both husband and young daughter in a horrifying accident, when they were struck down by bank robbers’ getaway car. Detective Chief Inspector Kate Maddox was a well-balanced, dedicated and extremely capable police officer. But there were times when the build-up of pressures brought her to snapping point.

“Another couple of fingers, Kate? It’ll help you get a good night’s sleep.”

Inspector Massey followed Kate into her office when she arrived at the Incident Room on Sunday morning.

“You’d better see this right away, Kate. It was dropped through the letterbox during the night.”

The note was short, typed (very neatly) on an otherwise plain square of white paper.

Why don’t you stop hounding honest, God-fearing people when there is a vicious killer right under your nose? A man with a record of unspeakable villainy and depravity! Ask Jessop what he and that woman were up to at midnight last Wednesday.

“I wonder who the hell it’s from,” mused Frank Massey, re-reading the note over Kate’s shoulder.

She didn’t need to ponder the question for more than thirty seconds.

“My money’s on McEvoy, the chief clerk at Croptech. Among the people we’ve questioned he’s the only one I can think of who’d write this sort of crap. I’ve got him pegged as a narrow-minded type, all prissy virtue. You can almost
feel
the quivering outrage in this note, can’t you?
Jessop and that woman.
But the clincher to me, Frank, is who else at Croptech is likely to know about Jessop’s prison record? Duncan McEvoy would have access to all the confidential staff records.”

Frank Massey dug into his index-file memory. “Didn’t he claim to be at home that night? And this was corroborated by his wife when DC Andrews visited her yesterday. So what was McEvoy doing observing Jessop at midnight?”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to find out, Frank. Where the hell is Boulter? I told him to be here sharp at eight-thirty this morning.”

“And it’s still only eight twenty-nine and thirty seconds, guv,” said Tim Boulter cheerfully as he walked in the door.

“Don’t try to be clever, Sergeant. I want McEvoy brought in for further questioning, and I want it done now. Go and see to it. You can read this afterwards.”

Kate was aware of Boulter’s silent exchange with Frank Massey over her head, though she pretended not to be. Yes, she was in a foul mood this morning. A restless night had left her with a headache which coffee and aspirin had failed to shift. It was totally irrational to allow the episode with Don Trotton to nag at her. Once having landed herself in that absurd situation last night, she hadn’t really handled things too badly. But the aftertaste was still acid in her mouth. Damn the man, damn him to hell!

Honest, God-fearing people like the McEvoys wouldn’t be Sunday morning lie-abeds. Kate wasn’t surprised, therefore, that when Duncan McEvoy was brought in to her some forty-five minutes later, he was soberly dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and tie, with well-polished shoes. He looked perplexed, all of a fluster. But then, dropping his eyes from her hard stare, he took in the note lying before her on her desk. He turned pale. So, she’d been right.

“Sit down, Mr. McEvoy. This interview will be tape-recorded. Two tapes will be used, one of which will immediately be resealed and retained as evidence in any court proceedings that may follow. Sergeant!”

Boulter loaded the machine, pressed the Record button, and performed the necessary preliminaries ... time and place, those present. He then informed McEvoy of his legal rights, and cautioned him. “You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence.”

“Now, Mr. McEvoy,” Kate began, “I want you to tell me why you sent this anonymous letter about George Jessop.”

“L—l—letter?” he stammered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. Of course, if you want to waste police time by forcing us to go through the tedious process of a forensic examination of the letter, then that is what we’ll have to do. It won’t be difficult to prove authorship.”

This was a bluff. The likelihood of a forensic examination incriminating McEvoy beyond any doubt was far from certain. But luckily the bluff worked.

“It’s true,” he insisted on a high-pitched note of defiance. “Every single word is true.”

“So you admit that you wrote the letter?”

He shrugged and looked sullen. Boulter said, “Please answer the Chief Inspector’s question.”

“I don’t seem to have much choice, do I? All right, then—yes, I wrote it. But I don’t see why you’re treating me like this. You ought to be
grateful
to me, for putting you onto the murderer.”

Kate fixed him with a direct look, and said, “When I interviewed you before, on Thursday, you stated that you’d spent the previous evening at home, except for going out to fetch one of your daughters from guides at around seven forty-five. Yet in this letter you refer to the activities of Mr. Jessop at
midnight.
How do you explain the discrepancy?”

He thought about it, while his gaze was held trapped by Kate’s. Then he decided to bluster. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

“That is your right, of course, but you’d be well advised to give me an explanation.”

More time for thought. A hand came up involuntarily, the thin fingers hovering around his mouth as if to guard incautious words. Finally, he muttered, “I ... I had to go to the office for something I’d forgotten. I didn’t mention it before, it seemed unimportant.”

“What was it you’d forgotten, Mr. McEvoy?”

“Really, how can that be relevant? Surely it is what I
saw
that matters.”

“Answer the Chief Inspector’s question,” came from Boulter again. “Remember that this is a murder enquiry, sir.”

McEvoy still looked stubborn. Kate said, quietly but persistently, “If you refuse to answer, I’ll be forced to extend my enquiries. Do you really want my officers interrogating your wife again, and your daughters, your neighbours, and all kinds of people who might conceivably help us to get at the truth?”

McEvoy’s frame shook with panic, and Kate felt a momentary compassion for him. She watched his inner struggle, saw his realization of defeat. Each word was brought forth slowly, kicking and screaming with reluctance.

“I’ll have to tell you everything, I suppose. There’s nothing else for it. I am deeply ashamed to have to admit it, Chief Inspector, but I went to Croptech that night for an illegal purpose. In point of fact, to steal.”

Kate stifled down her surprise. “To steal what, exactly?”

He sighed, a deep, juddering sigh. “A few months ago an old barn standing within the Croptech grounds was demolished as being surplus to requirements and not worth the expense of repairing. The stone blocks were stacked for possible future use as walling material. My wife and I had often talked of building a decorative wall across our garden to divide off the vegetable plot, and these blocks of weathered Cotswold stone seemed ideal. As we should only require a relatively small amount and as the firm had no plan in mind for it, I ... well, I regret to have to tell you that I helped myself to a few stones from time to time.”

Kate heard a stifled gurgle from Boulter, and she had a job not to burst out laughing herself. She asked incredulously, “Are you saying that you made a number of trips to Croptech in the dead of night for the purpose of removing some blocks of building stone?”

“Yes.” He said it in a whisper. “You see, it’s very expensive to buy, Cotswold stone, and ...”

She wanted to ask him why the hell he hadn’t just requested permission from Sir Noah to help himself to the stuff. But that wasn’t relevant to her enquiry.

“And you went there on Wednesday night this week, the night that Dr. Trent was killed?”

“Yes. I didn’t know about that then, of course, or I—”

“Tell me exactly what happened. Tell me what you saw.”

“Well, I left home about half-past eleven and drove to Croptech. There’s a side gate along the lane near Jessop’s bungalow. On Wednesday night his lights were still on and I didn’t want to risk his hearing me. So I parked my car a little way off, and waited for him to go to bed. But then his front door opened and the dog ran out, followed by Jessop and a woman. They were laughing.” He said that as if it were the final obscenity. A man and a woman
laughing
together.