Found Guilty at Five (4 page)

S
IX

L
OIS WAS BACK HOME JUST IN TIME FOR
N
EW
B
ROOMS’
weekly meeting. She had made a big effort to put thoughts of her son’s relationship with Akiko out of her mind, but decided to tell the whole team about the theft. Her girls, as she called them, though some were way past girlhood, came from several surrounding villages, and could possibly have heard or seen something revealing.

Sheila Stratford was first. She greeted Lois cheerfully, as always, and said how much she and her colleagues had enjoyed the wedding. “Josie looked so beautiful,” she said, “and that young policeman, he’s a real catch!”

Lois smiled. “Derek thinks Matthew has made the real catch. You know fathers and daughters! Matthew is a very lucky chap, according to Derek. He stressed the point a bit too much in his speech, didn’t you think?”

The door opened, and the rest of the team filed in. They had met outside the house, exchanged greetings and all arrived at Lois’s front door together.

“Ah, good. Now we can get on,” said Lois. She knew how they gossiped together, and was not in the mood for joining in. “Now, first of all, before we talk about the work schedules, I’d like your help on an urgent matter. I expect you all noticed Jamie with a new girl at the wedding. She plays the cello, with him accompanying her, and they give concerts an’ that.”

“Yeah, we noticed, Mrs. M. She’s a little bobby dazzler!” said Dot Nimmo. “Looked a bit shy, though. They make another good pair for you, Mrs. M!”

Trust Dot, thought Lois. Straight in with both feet. “It’s just a working partnership. He accompanies other musicians besides Akiko,” she replied.

“She looked like a foreigner to me,” Hazel whispered to Andrew Young, who alongside cleaning and handyman jobs, was a qualified interior designer and combined the two jobs successfully.

Lois, who prided herself on her acute hearing, said shortly that Akiko was indeed from another country, but this had nothing to do with anything. Then she told them briefly about the missing cello, and asked if they could keep their eyes and ears open for any clues as to its disappearance or its present whereabouts.

“Sunday night, did you say?” Andrew asked.

“Yep. After about one o’clock, early Monday morning in fact.”

Andrew shook his head, but said he’d keep a lookout. The others were quiet for a moment, and then Hazel said that as it happened, her farmer husband, John, was around the village at that time, cursing and swearing, chasing a sizeable calf that had somehow escaped and led them a merry dance all evening. “I could ask him, Mrs. M, but he came straight to bed from the barn.”

“Never mind about calves,” said Dot dismissively, “why would anyone want to steal a boring old instrument thing? My hubby, Handy, used to say it was the sound of a cat’s innards scraped across . . .”

“Maybe,” interrupted Lois, unable to repress a smile, “but it is serious, Dot. Akiko’s cello is very valuable, and she’s in a dreadful state without it. Anyhow, I know you’ll all do your best. Now to work. I’ve asked Gran to bring me a sandwich, so you’ll have to forgive me while I munch. I have to skip proper lunch, as I’ve a lot to do this afternoon.”

*   *   *

“N
O NEWS SO FAR?”
L
OIS HAD FINISHED THE MEETING EARLY,
and went into the kitchen as Derek and Gran were about to start eating. The mood was grim. Derek said that he had had a good look round the garden and outbuildings of Meade House to make sure nobody had put the cello away for safety, then forgotten it. But even allowing for the excitement of Josie’s wedding day so recently, and minds in general being taken up with the marvellous event, it was still extremely unlikely. A cello was a large instrument, as Lois reminded him impatiently.

“You’re wasting time on a useless idea,” she said. “As if someone would lug that great thing out of the car and into a shed and then forget about it! No, we should be looking for signs of a stranger in the garden, sometime in the middle of the night.”

“The police have already done that. And with much more expertise than we have.”

But the police hadn’t seen the shadow moving round the front. Jamie had mentioned it to Lois just before they left for London. A cello had been hired for Akiko and would be waiting for her. She had wailed that with only a few hours to become accustomed to it, she would not be able to play her best. Jamie had tried hard to reassure her, but nevertheless knew that she was right. It would be like asking him to play a Beethoven sonata on a cottage piano in the Albert Hall.

Now, Lois went quietly out of the front door into the garden. Jamie had asked her if all her chickens were safe, and she had been surprised that he was worried about such a small matter compared with the drama of the stolen cello. Then he had told her about the shadow and said it must have been a fox on the prowl. She had agreed, knowing that a vixen came round regularly in the hope that she had failed to shut up the henhouse.

But was it a fox or a swiftly moving person? A flower bed ran alongside the narrow drive, all the way down to the gates. If the car had been parked next to it, anyone trying to open a door would have had to tread in the exposed earth. Derek had recently dug out a spreading collection of lupins, saying they were smothering everything else, and the soil was loose.

It was difficult to remember exactly where the car had stood, but she spotted a small puddle of oil. Jamie had said his old Cortina had an oil leak, which he planned to get fixed. From that tiny patch, Lois could imagine fairly accurately the position of the parked car. She walked very carefully and kept a lookout for prints in the grass. A couple of steps from the oil, she stopped and stared down into the flower bed. She could see a tiny flash of blue, a thread caught on a rose thorn. It could easily have been from Derek’s jeans, torn out as he was digging. But from memory she could not be sure it was the same blue. She gingerly lifted the thorny stem and pulled gently. A single thread, faded blue. She found a dog bag in her pocket and delicately inserted it. Then she folded the bag and returned it to her pocket.

“Afternoon, Lois! Enjoying the garden, I see. Well, it’s good to make the most of this lovely weather. Have you got five minutes?”

It was Cowgill. Of course it was Cowgill. He was a genius at turning up at the wrong moment. How much had he seen of what she was doing? Nothing, she guessed, to give him an opportunity to mock her ferretin’ methods.

“Yes, I can give you five minutes. I’m due up at the hall for yet another conference with the Norringtons. He’s bursting with new ideas, and she tries to put the brake on all the time. I feel like pig in the middle. Still, it’s all good business for New Brooms.”

“Shall we go inside, or do you want to talk out here?”

“Oh, let’s go into my office. This village is full of nosey parkers. It’ll be all round the gossips that Lois Meade is about to be arrested.”

“Right,” said Cowgill, when they were safely in Lois’s office. “I won’t waste your time but come straight to the point. How much do you know about Akiko Nakamasa?”

Lois sighed. “I thought it would be that. The answer is not a lot. We met her for the first time at the weekend. Jamie had told us about her, of course, but only that she was playing the cello, with him on the piano. I guessed from her name that she was Japanese, but until Saturday I had no idea what she looked like.”

“She looked like a very pretty girl, what I saw of her,” Cowgill said. “Did she tell you where she came from? I mean
exactly
where she is living?”

“I asked her, natch, but she just said she was living in London. North London, I think it was. I didn’t want to quiz her and annoy Jamie.”

“Mm. We are having trouble tracing anything to do with Miss Nakamasa. She is supposed to have been a student at a music college, but there are no records of her attending any of the main ones in London. We are still checking smaller colleges in a wider area. How did Jamie meet her?”

“He was giving a piano recital somewhere, and she was in the audience. She buttonholed him afterwards, I reckon, and that’s when it started. Our Jamie has an eye for a pretty girl. Did you notice her hands? Very small and delicate. It’s amazing she can get to grips with that big old cello. They’re both playing at the Wilmore Hall tonight. You could go along and talk to her there. After the concert would probably be best. She’ll be keyed up enough beforehand, what with losing her precious cello and having to play a strange one with not much time to practise.”

Cowgill was silent. He was thinking about Jamie Meade. The lad had always been the odd one out in Lois’s family. Very talented, but modest and charming with it. He knew Lois adored him, and so far as he was aware, there had never been any lapses in his reputation for being a hardworking, honest young man. Girlfriends?

“Are Jamie and Akiko an item?” he asked now. Lois shook her head firmly. “No, they are not!” she said. “It’s like saying that just because your assistant Christine spends a lot of time with you, you must be having it off together. The way some people’s minds work, honestly!”

“Sorry, sorry! It’s a policeman’s job to ask questions, as you very well know. So if Akiko is not his girlfriend, is there someone else in his life?”

“I have no idea! He’s away for months at a time, and we hardly ever see him. Obviously he wanted to come to Josie’s wedding, but I don’t suppose we’ll see him again until Christmas. If then. Anyway, what are you suggesting? Is he gay? He’s had plenty of casual girlfriends. Sometimes, Cowgill, it’s hard to see why you’re supposed to be such a supercop.”

“Semiretired supercop,” Cowgill ventured.

“Oh, all right. I give in. Jamie had a perfectly normal adolescence, had a number of girlfriends, none of ’em serious, and now when he sends us photos, there’s always a girl hanging on his arm. His dad says he can tell that Akiko is in love with him, but I think that’s just to annoy me. I can’t be sure. Satisfied?”

“I merely wanted to know if you had been told anything about her background. As I said, we have failed to trace anything about her musical training up to now, but they’re still checking the smaller colleges in a wider area. We’ve traced her father’s business. He has offices in Japan and London, and a slightly unsavoury assistant named Parsons. But if she has a serious relationship with Jamie, then he is likely to know a bit about her private life. Could be a grudge theft. That’s all, Lois. I mean no harm. At least, not to the innocent.”

Lois looked at her watch. “There’s still time for you to get a train to London and go to the concert. You might enjoy it.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t like to come with me?”

“You suppose right,” Lois replied, and then softened. “Maybe some other time,” she said.

*   *   *

W
HEN
L
OIS WENT BACK INTO THE KITCHEN,
D
EREK WAS STILL
there, rewiring the plug from Gran’s iron. As he bent over the kitchen table, Lois noticed a snag in the back of his jeans.

“Derek, stay there a minute.” She pulled the plastic bag from her pocket and found the faded blue thread.

“Hey! What are you doing? This is neither the place nor the time, Lois!”

“Don’t be silly, Derek. I am just seeing if this thread matches. And it does, unfortunately.”

“I hope you know what you’re talking about, me duck,” he replied, straightening up. “Because I certainly don’t. That’s a thread from my jeans, which I snagged when I was digging out marauding lupins.”

“Right, so that was a blind alley,” said Lois, and threw the thread into the bin.

S
EVEN

T
HE RAIN WAS STEADY, SPLASHING INTO DEEP PUDDLES IN
the side streets off Oxford Street in London’s West End. A heavy thundercloud hung over the city, and Cowgill found it impossible to hire a taxi. He walked along, fortunately with an umbrella, but with his feet now sloshing about in his thin shoes. He had acquired a ticket for the recital to be given by Akiko Nakamasa and James Meade, starting at seven thirty. With time to walk the whole way from Euston station, he stepped out, hoping that he would spot a vacant taxi before his trousers were wet to the knees.

“Hop in, sir,” a smiling taxi driver said, drawing up beside him. “What a night, eh? Where to?”

“Wilmore Hall, please. I’m supposed to be going to a concert, but they may turn me away like an old tramp, too wet to sit down.”

“Don’t you worry. If you’ve paid for your ticket, they’ll let you in. We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

Safely inside the elegant interior of the concert hall, Cowgill was pleased to find that he still had time for a warming whiskey at the bar. He perched on a stool and looked around. Chattering crowds were gathering, and he could see that the concert would be well supported. Some of the young people were obviously students, probably friends of the performers.

“Hunter Cowgill! Well, I’ll be blowed. Haven’t seen you for years, and you haven’t changed a bit!”

Cowgill turned quickly, and his heart sank. He would have recognised his police college chum anywhere. Big-boned, red-faced, bright blue eyes and a mouth full of teeth—more teeth than any normal person, surely. It was Pearson. Now, what was his Christian name? Gareth, that was it. Done well in the Metropolitan division. Ah well, he
was
an old friend.

“Gareth, how nice to see you! Didn’t know you were a fan of classical music? How’re you doing, you old sleuth?”

“Retired, Hunter, retired three years ago. I couldn’t stand the pace, with all these young lads wanting my job. I come here all the time. Graduated, you could say, from the Beatles to Bach.”

All this was said as if for the hundredth time, which it probably was, and polished up in the telling. Pearson insisted on buying Cowgill another whiskey, and carried on a monologue until the bell rang, warning that the concert was about to start. Cowgill had chosen a seat in the balcony, well out of sight, and he saw with relief that his cheerful friend marched straight down to the front row of the stalls.

A hush fell in the hall, and then a minion took away the sign reminding the audience to switch off their mobiles. Another pause, and then on came Jamie. He waved to the audience and went straight to sit at the piano. Three more seconds, and then Akiko walked in, carrying the cello as if it was a dead dog. She looked very pale, and Jamie smiled at her encouragingly.

Cowgill settled down in his seat and relaxed. He remembered that Lois had said Akiko would not be at her best. He wished he could communicate to her that she should not worry. She was pretty enough to command a round of applause even before she started to play. And anyway, he was sure most of the audience were tourists visiting London who would have no more idea of the finer points of cello playing than he had.

After a very tuneful first half, the musicians retired, the lights came up, and Cowgill waited until the rest of the balcony audience had gone down the wide steps to the bar. He had other plans, and the main obstacle to these was good old Gareth, who would be keen to seek him out and continue the story of his life so far.

There were two doors leading from the side aisles to where Cowgill presumed were dressing rooms behind the stage. He noticed that a few people from the stalls were now walking away from the main entrance to the hall and disappearing through these doors. He intended to follow them, and set off at speed with his head well down. There was no sign of Gareth Pearson, and once through the door Cowgill relaxed. Walking confidently, he found himself looking at a spiral staircase, and could hear laughter and conversation coming from above. He guessed it was a room behind the stage for entertaining family, friends and groupies.

Looking around, he saw behind him a cupboard, with its door ajar. With practised stealth, he slid inside, avoiding large brooms and a clutch of fire extinguishers. There he settled, eyes and ears wide open.

After a few minutes, he began to realise what a ridiculous sight he would be to anyone discovering him. He was too old for this game, and wished he had, like jolly Gareth, retired and taken up a harmless hobby. But before he had time to return to his seat, he heard quick, light steps coming down the spiral staircase. He peered out and saw Akiko, even paler in the half-light. Then, in seconds, she was out of sight.

He heard her footsteps stop, and her voice, very low and quick. Who was she speaking to? As far as he knew, nobody had followed him in. But then a similar route to the upper room existed on the opposite side of the stage, and there would be a way through. Now a man’s voice, nasal and urgent. Cowgill could hear him clearly, and carefully pushed the door a little wider. Akiko’s answer sounded close to tears, but he could hear her last words clearly. “Wait outside, Parsons!” she said, and it sounded like an order.

Then she was returning, and as Cowgill eased open the door a fraction more, he saw her ascend the spiral staircase, stumble halfway up and carry on with what sounded like a cry of pain.

The bell for the second half rang, and Cowgill made his way back to the balcony safely. Gareth Pearson had obviously given up on him. He threaded his way past a dithering couple to the end of the row. In the seat next to his, he saw a familiar figure.

“Ah, there you are, Cowgill,” a whisper reached him. “I thought you’d done a runner. I was quite late, but sat at the back until the interval. Hush, now. They’re on again.” It was Lois Meade, dressed in her best, and looking irresistible.