Deadly Petard (11 page)

‘You’re right. But if I don’t get away from here very soon . . .’

She picked up a book from the bedside table and hurled it at him. It missed.

He chuckled. ‘We got called out last week to a woman who had a badly swollen eye and bruised cheeks. But when we wanted to charge the man, she wouldn’t give any evidence: said it was only when he beat her up that she could be certain he really loved her. Now I understand what she meant!’

Divisional HQ consisted of a small central building, built sixty years before, to which had been added a number of extensions: since there had never been any overall coherent architectural plan, the complex now resembled a rabbit warren. Everyone agreed a new HQ should be built; no one was prepared to finance this.

Rifle worked in a small, draughty room on the second floor of one of the oldest wings. He looked up from his battered, work-covered desk and saw Cullon yawn. ‘Overworked and tired?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s what I like to hear.’ He stared at a point deep in space, to the right of Cullon’s head. ‘Do you remember Gertrude Dean?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘The report’s come through that she’s just died. Apparently it was a case of suicide.’

Cullon whistled. ‘Conscience! It finally caught up with her that she’d saved that bastard by giving him a false alibi.’

‘It happened in Mallorca, where she’s been living for some time now, as you know. Have you ever been to the island?’

‘Never had enough days off together to go anywhere.’

Rifle smiled sardonically. He leaned back in his chair. ‘I went there for a week, a few years back. The weather was perfect and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky for a whole week. On the first day I got so badly sunburned I had to stay indoors for the rest of the stay. Still, the drink was incredibly cheap . . . The Spanish police report a problem. Did she in fact commit suicide or was she murdered?’

Cullon spoke excitedly. ‘West! We heard he’d moved there. For some reason she was going to recant on his alibi and he killed her to keep her mouth shut.’

‘Before you let your enthusiasm run too far ahead, all we know for certain is that there’s a query over the nature of her death and the Spanish police have asked for some help. They want a full resume of the facts surrounding the death of West’s wife and evidence on what kind of a person Miss Dean was—was she neurotic, given to fits of depression, did she ever threaten to commit suicide . . . Who can help us there?’

‘As far as I could ever make out she knew very few people . . . But she did mention once that she had a daily in to do the housework because she loathed dusting and cleaning. The daily might be able to help. Only thing is, I’ve no idea who she was. Shall I tell Mac to make enquiries?’

‘It’ll be best if you handle everything.’

Cullon, remembering what Tina had said that morning, cleared his throat. ‘I’ll have my hands full preparing the resume . . .’

Rifle jerked himself upright, picked up a single sheet of paper, and read what was typed on it. After a while, Cullon left. There were many aspects of his work which Tina didn’t really understand.

Cullon drove out to Queenswood Farm and parked in front of the garage. As he climbed out of the car, he noticed that the drive had recently been resurfaced, the sides of the shed had been tarred and the windows and corrugated tin roof painted, and the five-bar-gate into the front paddock was new. The garden had been altered and now there were geometrically shaped and placed flower-beds and the lawn was immaculate, looking like a bowling green. All the house doors and windows had been painted an interesting shade of puce. He was not surprised to be greeted at the front door by a woman who was dressed as if off to a cocktail party in Hampstead.

She did not ask him into the sitting-room, but kept him standing in the hall. Her voice was drawling, high-pitched, and condescending. ‘Yes, I know the woman you mean. As a matter of fact, she worked for me for a while after we moved in, but she really was rather too . . . too familiar, even for this day and age.’

‘Can you give me her name? And have you any idea where she lives?’

‘Her name’s Randall and she lives somewhere in Nearington: I’ve no idea exactly where. Perhaps in one of the council houses.’

‘Thanks a lot for all your help.’

She nodded.

He returned to his car and drove away. Gertrude Dean would surely have been very bitter to learn exactly what kind of people had bought her house, which she had so plainly loved and cherished.

Nearington was a village which had quickly expanded when the main line railway had been electrified to bring it within commuting distance of London: as it had grown it had lost its character and now it was a sprawl of modern houses and bungalows, grouped around the few original homes which looked out of place with their bowed, peg-tile roofs and inaccurate walls.

He stopped outside the general store, now a mini supermarket. The woman behind the till told him that Mrs Randall lived up the road at Cherry Tree Cottage. He drove a couple of hundred yards further on, then turned off to the right and went down the second of three access roads which served the housing estate. Cherry Tree Cottage was the last bungalow on the right and because the land beyond sloped away, there was an attractive view over the surrounding and well wooded countryside.

Mrs Randall was a solidly built woman in her middle fifties who had the determined, though not aggressive, manner of someone who always knew her own mind and was quite ready to express it.

‘I don’t know whether you’ve heard that unfortunately Miss Dean has died?’ he said.

‘Dead?’ She stared at him with shocked surprise. ‘But she was no age.’

‘It seems she may have committed suicide.’

‘Poor woman,’ she said softly.

‘What I’d like to do is have a word with you about her—if you wouldn’t mind?’

If she realized that the circumstances of Gertrude’s death could not be completely straightforward, she gave no indication of this. ‘I liked her and was sorry when she went to live abroad. Worked for her for over two years: ever since my youngest started at the mill and I didn’t know what to do with myself all day long. Many’s the time she and me have had a joke together.’ She paused, then said abruptly: ‘How’d you like a cup of tea?’

‘Very much indeed.’

‘Won’t mind having it in the kitchen, will you? But I’m half way through doing the front room.’

The kitchen was spotlessly clean and tidy. She told him to sit at the table in the small eating area while she prepared things. After plugging in the electric kettle, she put a tin of biscuits on the table. ‘They’re home made, which is why they’re all different shapes, but my Bert says they taste all right for all that.’

He ate one and told her it tasted delicious, much to her obvious pleasure.

The tea made and poured out, she sat opposite him.

She began to nibble at a biscuit with the guilty hesitation of someone who was breaking a self-imposed diet.

‘I wonder if you can describe what kind of a person Miss Dean was?’ he asked.

‘Nice,’ she replied immediately. ‘You know, friendly and never putting on airs because she was paying me for the work.’

That, he thought, was a reference to the new owner of Queenswood Farm. ‘Would you say that generally she was a cheerful person?’

‘Sometimes she was, sometimes she wasn’t. To tell the truth, I used to wonder if she suffered from something like migraine, but she never mentioned it.’

‘She was sometimes depressed?’

‘That she was. But as she once said to me, if you’re an artist you get depressions. She reckoned it was just part of creating.’ In a fit of absent-mindedness, she picked out another biscuit from the tin. ‘I remember one day when she hardly spoke all morning. I told her, she ought to see a doctor. Only time she was ever rude. Thing is, she didn’t have much time for doctors and no one can blame her for that. Treat you like you’re just a nuisance, if you give ‘em half a chance.’

‘So as far as you know, she never sought medical advice over those bouts of depression.’

‘Wouldn’t think she ever did.’

‘Tell me, did she have lots of friends?’

‘No, she didn’t, and if you want my opinion that’s half the reason for her being the way she was. Stands to reason you get to feeling depressed if you never see anyone. Leastwise, that’s how I see it.’

‘She knew Mr and Mrs West, though?’

‘That’s right.’

‘They were good friends?’

‘If you was to ask me, I’d say anyone’s a good friend of his when he wants something.’

‘One last question, Mrs Randall. Did you ever hear her talk about committing suicide?’

She shook her head. ‘Never. And what’s more, if you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. I’d’ve said she was too . . . don’t quite know how to put this, but even when she was depressed, she was still fighting.’

‘So you wouldn’t ever have expected her to commit suicide?’

‘That’s right. But I mean, how can you tell for sure? There was Mary, what lived in one of the old cottages. Always smiling, helping out: hanged herself one night and from then until now no one understands why. As I always say, there’s never any knowing how the other person’s going to act . . . How about some more tea? There’s plenty in the pot.’

Rifle was still at his desk, working at papers. ‘Dug up any pay-dirt?’ he asked, without bothering to look up.

‘Not really,’ replied Cullon. ‘I found the daily woman, name of Randall, but she couldn’t help except to suggest that even though Miss Dean suffered from depressions, she wasn’t the kind of woman to commit suicide.’

‘Who can judge?’

‘That’s just what Mrs Randall said.’

‘I’m grateful for the confirmation.’ Rifle finally looked up. ‘Your wife phoned me earlier on.’

‘Is something wrong?’ Cullon asked with immediate concern.

‘That depends on your definitions. The call was to accuse me of grossly overworking you during the past weeks.’

‘Oh!’ said Cullon weakly.

‘She said I was criminally careless about exploiting you.’

‘I . . . I’m afraid, sir, she’s been rather upset recently.

You see, I keep telling her I’ll be back at such and such a time and then overrun by hours because something crops up.’

Rifle stared through the window at the rain-washed world outside. ‘It’s hell on the wives and it takes a special kind to survive. Tina will survive. Tell her from me I solemnly promise that the moment work eases up I’ll see you get all the leave that’s due to you.’

‘Perhaps if I could give her a definite date?’

Rifle smiled sardonically. Then he said: ‘Have you drawn up the resume for the Spanish police?’

‘I’ve hardly had time . . .’

‘Don’t take all week.’ He stretched his arms, then stood and began to pace the floor. ‘You know, when we couldn’t land West for the murder of his wife, I’d have liked to take the laws of evidence and shove them in front of all the judges and ask them if they were happy with a murderer getting away with a fortune because, although the truth was obvious, there just wasn’t the legal proof of it that they would demand . . . I’d feel a whole lot happier now if I knew that West was sweating out a life-sentence in a Spanish jail because of a second murder. But we know he’s a cunning bastard and from what I saw of the island, everyone on it is three-parts asleep. So there’s no reason to imagine the police there will begin to pull their collective fingers out. If West was too smart for us, he’ll be ten times too smart for them.’

‘There’s not much we can do about that.’

‘How’s your work load?’

‘Twice as heavy as I can possibly cope with.’

‘I want you to go out to Mallorca.’

‘Do what?’ said Cullon, voice high with surprise.

‘Work with the police. Show ‘em the ropes, jolly ‘em along, but make certain that if it’s humanly possible they land West. Just one word of warning. They’re full of that machismo lark so you’ll have to let ‘em think they’ve had all the bright ideas, even if you’ve had to lead ‘em by the hand and solve the case from beginning to end.’

The plane landed on the single runway of Aeropuerto de Son San Juan and then followed an open jeep to its parking bay. The passengers disembarked and two buses drove them the short distance to the arrival area of terminal A. They filed through immigration—one bored man who didn’t bother to look at the immigration cards he collected—into the arrival hall. Cullon, with only an overnight bag, didn’t need to wait for the luggage to come through on the carousel and he walked towards the exit doors where a Customs officer sat on one of the search tables and stared moodily into space.

Cullon walked past the Customs officer and through the doorway, then eased his way past the waiting relatives, friends, and couriers, to come to a stop as he looked around for the uniform policeman he had been assured would meet him.

‘Señor Cullon?”

He turned, to face someone older than himself, considerably shorter and plumper, who had the sad, disillusioned face of a man who had long since learned to expect little from life. He was dressed in a crumpled shirt, crumpled linen trousers, and a pair of sandals.

‘It is indeed a pleasure to meet you, señor. I am Enrique Alvarez.’

‘Inspector Alvarez?”

That is right. We had a conversation on the telephone.”

God Almighty! Cullon thought. When Rifle had called them sleepy, he hadn’t known the half of it.

‘Let me take your case?’

‘That’s quite OK, thanks. It’s no weight.’

‘If you’re sure . . . Shall we go out to the car?’

Cullon pulled his thoughts together. ‘There’s one thing I ought to do before we leave and that’s book my return flight—I thought it better not to do that until I’d had a word with you to find out how long we’re likely to be tied up on the case. I want to return to work as soon as possible.’

Alvarez showed his surprise. It seemed an extraordinary thing to want to do.

‘Is the evidence complicated?’

‘In a way, I suppose it is. And yet it appears it is not.’

So what in the hell did that mean? At all costs, be tactful. ‘Perhaps it would be better if I left the booking just for the moment?’