The Nine Bright Shiners (12 page)

The man shook his head, his startled eyes meeting Webb's.

‘Radio for an ambulance,' the doctor said over his shoulder. ‘We can't get him to a car without a stretcher.'

‘What is it, Doc?' Webb asked urgently. ‘Has he been attacked?'

‘It's hard to tell.' The sergeant was already using his pocket radio. ‘The Royal Broadshire's only just down the road. In the meantime, get some rugs and blankets, and something to keep the snow off him.'

The two sergeants went stumbling back across the snow and Webb said tensely, ‘How bad is he?'

‘Not good. We'll know more when we can examine him properly. I've finished upstairs, so I'll go with him. There's nothing you can do.'

But Webb still hesitated, his anxiety underlaid by a feeling of guilt. He hadn't particularly liked Bates, had been abrupt with him this last week. Now, he'd be glad of the chance to make amends.

The sergeants came floundering back, laden with blankets pulled off one of the beds. As they were draped round the prone body, Partridge put up a large black umbrella and held it over the group on the ground. Suddenly, in the cold silence, came the welcome wail of a siren, and minutes later blue, flashing lights could be seen at the gate.

‘We'll leave you to it, then,' Webb said gruffly. ‘You'll keep me informed?'

‘Of course.'

With an effort he wrenched his mind off the injured man and returned to more immediate duties. ‘I want the grounds searched immediately. It seems unlikely any attacker would be hanging about in this weather, but we have to make sure. Tracks in the snow might help, but it's coming down so hard they wouldn't last more than a few minutes. I'll send out some reinforcements. In the meantime, Sergeant Jackson, we'll have a word with Mrs Coverdale. No knowing, now, what she told Inspector Bates.'

Had that information led to an attack? Back in the warm house, he crisply detailed more men to join in the search. Then he tapped on the library door and went inside. The woman detective rose to her feet, but Janis Coverdale and her children, huddled together on the sofa, simply looked up at him mutely.

‘Detective-Sergeant Lucas, sir.'

‘I remember you, Miss Lucas. I noticed the Incident caravan outside; would you be kind enough to organize coffee and sandwiches all round?'

Jan said automatically, ‘Could the children have milk, please?'

Mary Lucas nodded and left the room. Webb would have preferred not to have them there at all, but there was no way they would leave their mother at the moment. The little boy, pale beneath his fading tan, asked anxiously, ‘Is Lily really dead?'

‘I'm afraid so, sonny.'

‘Then it's my fault!' The child looked stricken, and Webb raised his eyebrows at the woman.

‘Ben left his window open, because the cat was outside. It had been pushed farther up, so presumably –'

‘You can't blame yourself, Ben,' Webb said gently. ‘If someone was set on getting in, he'd soon have broken a window.'

‘There's an alarm,' Jan said. ‘Lily would have put it on before she left.'

‘I'm sure she would.' She was as much in need of reassurance as the children. ‘Now, I know this is painful for you, Mrs Coverdale, but I'd like you to tell me exactly what happened when you got back from London.'

She looked bewildered. ‘But I've been through it all with Inspector Bates.'

‘He's – been called away,' Webb said. No point in adding to her alarm, if you wouldn't mind telling me?'

This particular result of murder hadn't occurred to her before, the endless repetition of it all, with everyone needing to be told the same story over and over. That's how it had been last time, with the other body. God, how many of them was she to be called upon to see?

Fighting down imminent hysteria, she forced herself to meet Webb's eyes and their calm, patient gaze steadied her. Slowly and carefully, omitting nothing, she repeated her story.

‘And Mrs – I'm sorry, I don't know her name?'

Jan stared at him, her hand to her mouth. ‘How
awful
! Neither do I! Rowena never mentioned it.'

‘Don't worry, we'll find out. Lily, then. She didn't say how long she'd be here?'

‘No, just that she'd one or two things to finish.'

‘And she didn't seem worried or on edge?'

‘Not at all.'

Mary Lucas came back with a tray. Jan realized, with a sense of guilt, that she was ravenously hungry. She watched with a growing sense of detachment as the woman officer set out food and drink and quietly left the room.

It was bizarre, unreal, to be eating sandwiches with the detectives, while Lily lay upstairs with her head bashed in. With an intensity that disturbed her, Jan longed to be taken in someone's arms and held very closely, as she had held the children. But Roger was twelve thousand miles away, and no longer cared for her anyway.

Sensing that her control was faltering, Webb said, ‘The Scenes of Crime officers will be here for some time, Mrs Coverdale. Is there anywhere you and the children could go?'

‘I'm sure Lady Peel would have us – my brother's mother-in-law.' So she needn't sleep in this house after all. Oh, thank God!

A knock on the door interrupted them, and one of the police officers put his head round the door.

‘Telephone for you, sir.'

Bates! Webb hurried to the phone in the hall. ‘Yes?'

‘Roscoe here, Chief Inspector. There's no need to look for an assailant; your man's suffering from a perforated ulcer.'

‘Good God! Is he all right?'

‘It's a messy one. He's still in the operating theatre.'

‘But he will make it?'

‘Stands a fair chance. Any idea of his next of kin?'

Shame flooded over Webb. He'd never bothered to inquire. Come to think of it, he'd never had any kind of personal conversation with Stan.

‘I can find out.'

‘Better get on to them.'

Webb depressed the receiver rest, lifted his hand and dialled again, leaving instructions with Carrington Street. Then he turned to the constable on the door.

‘Call off the search, would you? It was a false alarm.'

What bloody timing! he thought, as he went back to the library. But the man hadn't been well since he joined them; all those pills he'd kept taking.

Jackson looked up quickly as he entered the room. Webb gave him a quick nod. Ken would have to wonder a bit longer; he didn't want to add more drama to the interview.

‘Now, Mrs Coverdale, will you cast your mind back to before Christmas – the eighteenth of December, in fact. Can you remember how you spent the day?'

‘As it happens, I can. It was our first day here.'

‘Was your brother at home?'

‘No, he was making the final arrangements for his trip.'

‘Here, or in London?'

‘I'm not sure. Is it important?'

‘It could be.' So it was technically possible for Langley to have murdered Marriott. But since there was no doubt he'd left the country – Passport Control having confirmed it – he couldn't have killed his housekeeper.

Webb nodded towards a photograph on the bureau, is that him?'

‘It's their wedding photo, yes.'

He walked over and studied it with interest. Though the face of a younger man, it wouldn't have changed that much; and there was indeed a resemblance to Marriott in the broad, slightly protuberant forehead, the low-growing hair and deepset eyes. Webb wondered again how significant that similarity was.

He said, ‘Have you heard from him since he left?'

‘No, but I wouldn't expect to. There's no postal service in the jungle.'

‘So there's no way of contacting him?'

‘Do you need to?' Alarm sounded in her voice. ‘Why?'

‘Because,' he said gently, ‘this is the second death directly connected with him. The wallet could have been coincidence, but not this.'

She stared at him, her blue eyes brilliant with fear, and the little girl, sensing her mother's tension, pressed closer against her and began to whimper. There was another knock on the door.

‘Excuse me, sir, the Chief Constable and Detective Chief Superintendent Fleming have arrived.'

He'd been expecting the top brass. In the light of a second murder, police authority would have to be in evidence.

‘I'll be with you in a moment, Constable.' He turned back to the woman, ‘I must report to my senior officers, Mrs Coverdale, but I still have some questions for you. Miss Lucas will drive you round to – Lady Feel, did you say?' (As if he'd not enough on his plate, without a bloody handle to contend with.) ‘Then, in a couple of hours or so, when you've had time to settle in and the children are in bed, we can resume our talk.'

Chief Constable Sir Frederick Arthur Soames was, Jackson thought, very much as one would expect him to be. Which is to say he was tall, stout, and prosperous-looking, his size now emphasized still further by a cashmere overcoat with beaver collar. Beneath it, Jackson caught sight of a bow tie, which explained his late arrival. An interrupted function, no doubt. He had a protruding stomach, a couple of chins, and a pale and piercing eye. Beside him, the Detective Super looked as small and dapper as a sparrow, but Jackson knew Fleming and was more comfortable with him. Not, thank goodness, that either of them took any notice of him. He watched sympathetically as Webb went with them into the now empty library.

‘Devil of it is, Webb,' the Chief Constable was rumbling, ‘the connections of this particular family. No chance of playing it down. The press were arriving in droves as we came in. Damn it, I used to play golf with Reggie Peel, and his daughter's married to Langley.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Was anything taken, Spider?' Fleming cut in.

‘We've no way of knowing, sir. Mrs Coverdale isn't familiar with the house any longer, so the only person who could have told us is the victim. The silver hasn't been touched, though.'

‘Since she was found in the study, she must have caught him in there. In which case, it wasn't silver he was after.'

‘Then what, Phil? Have you anything in mind?'

‘Nothing specific, sir. But since we must assume these deaths are connected, perhaps he was looking for whatever he'd hoped to find in the wallet.'

‘By George, that's a thought,' said the Chief Constable admiringly.

‘So what does one keep in a wallet or desk drawer? Money and credit cards aren't the answer – the killer left them with the body. Driving licence? Hardly. Safe-deposit box number, valuable stamps? Private papers of some kind?'

Webb said, ‘I've a strong feeling that whatever it is, is related to Mr Langley being an explorer. The bandage on the first body is a pointer. Both Mrs Coverdale and Mr Cody thought so.' He explained the mummy theory, while the senior men listened attentively.

‘There were also some sequins. Any ideas on those?'

Webb shrugged. ‘Jewels? It's all I can think of. The trouble is, it's a three-sided case – Langley, Marriott, the killer. So far we haven't established any connection between them. Still, we should be receiving copies of Marriott's papers tomorrow. There may be something in them which links him to Mr Langley.'

‘What we need,' said the Chief Constable crisply, ‘is something linking him with his killer. In the meantime, we'll stop pussy-footing about and get the lab boys to turn this place over. If they can find what the murderer was looking for, we might get somewhere. Now you'd better go and placate those newsmen outside. They've got a personal stake in this, remember.'

‘A press conference is already arranged, sir, for the morning. They know that.'

‘But we now have not one body, but two.'

The Chief Constable had a distressing habit of stating the obvious, ‘Indeed, sir,' Webb agreed blandly, and caught Fleming's sharp-eyed glance. He got to his feet, ‘If you'll excuse me, then, I'll go and have a word with them. As you say, they won't like hanging round in this weather.'

The past two hours had been a continuing nightmare. Lady Peel's voice on the phone, faint with shock – though she'd been able to supply Lily's surname, Carr – and the police handing down their nightclothes because, suddenly, they couldn't go upstairs; and the ride to Cajabamba in the police car, with Lotus loudly yowling her protests from her lidded basket on Ben's knee.

The children, though dropping with weariness after their long day, had been difficult to settle in the strange surroundings, and finally Lady Peel offered to read them a story. ‘About Peru!' they'd pleaded, in need of the comfort of familiar ritual, though Peru was the last thing Jan wanted to think about, reminding her as it did of Edward and his possible role in what had happened.

And now here she was, by the resurrected fire in Lady Peel's drawing-room, with the still-nervous cat on her lap, and the policemen, their own faces drawn with tiredness, sipping at yet more coffee and awaiting her cooperation.

She attempted a smile. ‘How can I help you, Mr Webb?'

He put down his coffee cup. ‘It's possible your brother's occupation has a bearing on the case – the mummy, perhaps also the sequins. Is there anything valuable that he could have brought back with him, which someone might want to get his hands on?'

‘I doubt it. Inca graves have been plundered for hundreds of years – there's no chance of finding a Tutankhamen's tomb. Even when my father discovered Cajabamba, it was the temple and shrines and the architecture generally which were important.'

‘And what exactly is Cajabamba?'

She smiled, ‘I'm sorry – I'm so steeped in it all, I forget everyone else isn't. It was a “lost city” of the Incas. People knew of its existence, but not its location. Several expeditions set out to look for it, and the one my father went on with Laurence Cody and Reginald Peel discovered it. The jungle growth had almost completely buried it.'