The Thirteenth Coffin (21 page)

Edwards smiled. ‘People see what they want to see, and often they don’t think the problem through. The police would have said it was a tragic accident; it looks like the rubber bung has worn out and stopped the gas being turned off. Combine that with an overworked, underpaid, underappreciated lab technician who is looking for the obvious and finds it. Happens all the time: you should know that by now, Mark.’

‘I should, you’re right.’

Edwards continued: ‘So what now, you announce you have another murder?’

Lapslie shook his head. ‘No, not yet. The Coroner has opened and adjourned the inquest for further inquiries to be made, so I have time before we have to give an official cause of death. Let’s let our killer think he’s got away with it.’

‘You think that might help?’

Lapslie shrugged. ‘No idea. I get the impression that he is trying to finish the job he started quickly. I’m not sure why, but he is. If he thinks we are on to him he might disappear for a few years and I’ll miss catching him. If he thinks he’s got away with it, he just might
aim to kill the next one on the list: the teacher. That means there is a chance I can get him.’

‘And put the teacher’s life in danger?’ Edwards asked shrewdly.

Lapslie looked at him. ‘No more than it is right now. I have no idea who the killer or the next victim is. If my instincts are right then I need to find one or the other or both quickly. If he does get to our teacher before me, I want to make sure it is his last murder.’

*

Failing to plan is planning to fail. It was a now clichéd SAS and regiment motto, but it happened to be true. It was the main reason he had been killing for so long and getting away with it. Meticulous planning, and some divine assistance, had lured the police up many false trails, all leading nowhere.

But now Lapslie was beginning to worry him. He was good, and instead of his synaesthesia debilitating him as it should have, it seemed to have increased his deductive powers. He had known that Lapslie might become involved at some stage, which was why he’d chosen the bunker close to the lavender field to hide the dolls; but its overpowering scent would only go so far in throwing Lapslie off. The other thing which might throw Lapslie would be finding that he was the thirteenth doll in the thirteenth coffin – though that wasn’t the reason for its choice;
Lapslie’s presence as a doll was for the same reason that all the others had to die.

He’d had to change the order of things because of some obstacles, but while Lapslie and the police knew at least the profession of his next intended victim, they didn’t know specifically whom. There were hundreds, possibly thousands, of teachers in the area. How on earth were they going to watch all of them? All he needed to do was to come up with another unusual but not uncommon accident. One that would be tragic, but not obvious. They had focused on the sniper at the church and the links to Stowell, as he suspected they would. That had left him free to arrange his accidents.

It sometimes felt like he had been killing for most of his life. He was tired of it. Sometimes he wanted to stop, but he knew that God wouldn’t want him to do that. God wanted him to stay the course, complete the set of murders. He knew that because earlier on, when he had returned from another fruitless reconnaissance of the Teacher’s house, he had turned on the radio. A heartbeat later he had heard the beautiful warm voice of a young woman, singing ‘Don’t give up!’ It was the chorus of a pop song, but it was as if she was singing to him, just to him. Nobody else out of the thousands or hundreds of thousands of people listening to that radio station was the object of that message. Only him.

He couldn’t give up now. Not when God was expecting him to see it through to the end.

*

Lapslie’s next stop was Major Thomas’s widow, Jill Thomas. Bradbury had contacted her to arrange the meeting.

Lapslie had learned early on in his career to always try and take someone with you when you were dealing with bereavement. If it was a woman you were breaking the news to, try and take another woman – a friend or relative if possible, or, failing that, a WPC.

He met Bradbury outside the house. It was like a small mansion. Sitting back from the road, its sweeping, circular driveway led to a double-fronted house with a large porch and door. It must be several hundred years old, and Lapslie’s guess was that it had been in the same family just as long.

The two detectives walked up to the imposing oak door and pulled the bell handle. They both heard it ring inside. This set off the sound of what seemed to be at least a hundred dogs barking, causing a cascade of vegetable flavours inside Lapslie’s mouth. He could taste every type of vegetable he had ever eaten and a few he hadn’t.

Bradbury looked across at him. She could see from the look on his face what was happening. ‘You okay, sir?’

Lapslie nodded. ‘Yes, fine. Dogs. Very noisy. That’s why I don’t have one.’

After a few moments a voice penetrated though the great door. ‘Can you hang on for a moment while I put the dogs away?’

Bradbury replied: ‘Yes, not a problem. Is that Jill Thomas?’

‘Yes, I’ll only be a mo’.’ Her voice was cultured, refined, and flavoured with mint and cardamom.

After a few moments the two detectives heard the metallic sounds of bolts being pulled back and a large key being turned. The door opened. Standing before them was a tall, slender woman in her late thirties. She had an attractive face, green eyes and a crop of brown hair tied tightly into a bun at the back. She was wearing jeans, a red checked shirt and a green hacking jacket. Her feet were encased in tall leather boots which extended to her knees. She looked every inch the upper-class lady.

‘Sorry about that. Meant to put them away before, but got busy. You know how it is.’

She put out her hand to Bradbury. ‘I’m Jill Thomas, and you must be Detective Sergeant Bradbury?’

The formality felt stilted, of a bygone age. ‘Yes,’
Bradbury replied. ‘And this is my boss: Detective Chief Inspector Lapslie.’

Jill pushed her hand out towards and he took it. She had a very firm grip, probably the strongest he had ever experienced from a woman. She continued: ‘Please come inside; the dogs are in the kitchen. They won’t bother you again.’

The two detectives followed her into the house, once she had closed and locked the thick oak door. She led them into a large sitting room with a huge stone open fireplace and directed them to a large sofa, while she sat in a comfortable armchair opposite. Without asking if anyone minded, she lit a long black cigarette. It was her house, after all, Lapslie supposed. After drawing in a large mouthful of smoke and blowing it out with a heavy sigh, she looked across at her visitors. ‘I take it you are here to talk about poor John?’

Lapslie nodded. She didn’t seem that cut up about her husband’s death. ‘Yes. If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem to be too upset about it.’

She smiled. ‘I’m not. Well, that’s not quite true – I’m sorry he’s dead. I wouldn’t have wished any harm to come to him, but, you see, John was a total bastard, and had been for most of our married life. He had
weaknesses
, you see . . .’

Lapslie was intrigued. ‘Such as?’

‘The usual: gambling, drink and women. Shagged my bridesmaids on our wedding day. Both of them – separately, not together, of course. He wasn’t a total cad.’

Bradbury couldn’t quite understand. ‘So why did you stay with him?’

She smiled. ‘Nowhere else to go, to be honest, and besides, I’m a lesbian. He tolerated my other women and I tolerated his. Sometimes we even shared. Divorce is an expensive business and I wanted to keep the money in the family, not give it to some University of Paddington lawyer, if you know what I mean?’

‘So it was really a marriage of convenience?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. We considered making the effort and having children, but it never really worked. I think his plumbing was up the spout. The bloody lot will go to my nephew when I join John in the great unknown.’

Lapslie was intrigued. ‘Was he insured?’

‘Oh God, yes: we both are. Or were. We knew that if one of us popped off then the other would need a pretty penny to keep this place going.’ She straightened up in the armchair. ‘If you think I killed John to get my hands on his money, you can think again. He was good to me,
in his own way. There are more marriages like ours than you would believe, Chief Inspector. They’re odd, but in their own way they work. Like Vita and Harold.’

‘Neighbours?’ Bradbury ventured.

‘The Sackville-Wests,’ Lapslie murmured.

‘Oh,’ Bradbury acknowledged. She paused, thinking. ‘Neighbours?’

Jill nodded. ‘Distantly related.’

‘So who had the money in the family?’ Lapslie asked.

‘Well, such as it was, me. Not that there was a whole lot left. Death duties cripple us, like so many other families.’

‘If I told you that we thought your late husband’s death wasn’t an accident and might have been murder, would you be surprised?’

She shook her head. ‘No, not really.’

‘Why?’ Lapslie asked, intrigued at her brazenness.

‘Because I am reasonably sure that a detective chief inspector and his sergeant wouldn’t be coming around to see me and asking me questions about money and insurance if it had been an accident.’ She frowned, and glanced into the fireplace. ‘To be honest, I did wonder. Johnny was pretty careful about things like gas bottles and the like. Years in the Army taught him that at least.’

‘I don’t suppose you do any camping yourself?’ Bradbury asked pointedly.

Jill shuddered. ‘Certainly
not
. I refuse to holiday anywhere that doesn’t have air conditioning and those two essentials of life, a spa and a bar.’

‘When did Major Thomas leave the Army?’ Lapslie asked her.

Jill Thomas leaned back in her chair thoughtfully. ‘Mmm, now let me think. August 2012? No, no, I tell a lie, it was September. I remember because he had only been out a short while and we were just getting stuck into the work on the house when I was called away for jury service and was gone for two weeks. Bloody jury service, there seems to be no way to get out of it except for feigning madness. Just what we needed. He’s away for years and then I have to go away.’ The smile slipped from her face, and her eyes suddenly became very bright and wet. ‘I make it sound like I wanted us to spend some time together. Which I did. He was a bastard, but he
was
charming.’

‘Why did he leave the Army?’ Lapslie asked softly.

‘To help me. I was finding it difficult to cope on my own. House was too much, needed a hand. Couldn’t afford servants, and, to be honest, couldn’t afford workmen
too often. Johnny was a dab hand at DIY. Saved us a fortune in the long run and made a good job too.’

‘Do you shoot?’ Bradbury asked.

She threw her head back and laughed. ‘Of course I do. The bloody rodents you get around here, you have to. My father taught me.’

‘What kind of weapons do you use?’

‘Shotguns. They’re in the cabinet in the gun room. Want to see them? I have a licence and all that.’

Lapslie put up his hand. ‘No, that won’t be necessary. Tell me, when Major Thomas was in the Army, did he have any enemies? Other soldiers he perhaps fell out with?’

Jill shrugged. ‘I’m bloody sure he did. The Army is a place where you can make enemies very easily, just by doing your job. But do I think they would have murdered him? No, I don’t.’

‘And does the name Michael Stowell ring any bells? A fellow Army man, until recently stationed in Afghanistan.’

Jill reflected for a moment. ‘I’m afraid not. But then I knew only a handful of John’s Army friends, so I’m probably not the best person to ask about his broader circle of contacts in the ranks.’

Lapslie nodded. ‘Now this might sound like an odd question, but it
is
important. Were any of his uniforms damaged?’

She smiled broadly. ‘All of them. It’s a soldier’s lot. If they’re not crawling about on the earth then they’re wrestling each other and riding motorcycles in the officers’ mess. That’s one of the main expenditures we had in this household: repair bills for his bloody uniforms.’

Lapslie realized he wasn’t explaining himself very well. ‘Sorry, I didn’t quite mean that. Were any of his uniforms deliberately cut up or slashed? Bits of them ripped away and taken?’

She thought for a moment. ‘Well now you come to mention it, one of his sets of fatigues was damaged when it was out on the washing line. Thought it was kids, or maybe peace protesters.’

‘When was this?’

‘Eight years ago. Is it important?’

Lapslie nodded. ‘Yes, very. Are you sure of the date?’

‘Pretty much. It was when I was called to do jury service. Alex was bloody furious.’

‘Why?’

She laughed loudly. In fact Lapslie had never heard a woman laugh quite so loudly before. ‘He was jealous!’

‘Jealous?’

‘He had always wanted to do jury service and was never called. His father did it a couple of times: sent one poor sod to the gallows, apparently. I think Alex had ideas of doing the same.’

Bradbury cut in. ‘I think capital punishment was abolished in the sixties.’

She laughed again, her voice echoing around the room. ‘I know, I know, but try telling him that!’ Suddenly realizing what she had said, she calmed down. ‘You know what I mean.’

Lapslie looked at her and nodded sympathetically. ‘Sorry – the mutilated uniform?’

She coughed awkwardly. ‘Yes, sorry. Anyway, I came home to get the stuff of the line and there was his uniform in tatters.’

‘Which part of the uniform?’

‘Jacket. Great chunk at the back missing, just cut out. Felt sure it had to be bloody kids.’

‘Did you report it?’

She shook her head. ‘What was the point? I wouldn’t want policemen traipsing around the house and grounds for the sake of some damaged clothing.’

Bradbury cut in. ‘Do you still have it?’

She shook her head. ‘No, sorry. Only good for rags, so I burnt it.’

It didn’t really matter, Lapslie thought. Everything was now confirmed. The reason their killer had been getting away with it for so long was that he was making the murders look like accidents.