A Colourful Death: A Cornish Mystery (28 page)

By this time, Baraclough, Jeanette, and Lennox had come out. They stood at a safe distance, all grinning.

“I can let you have a bag,” said Lennox. “A bit of clay dust isn’t going to make much difference to that lot. But only Quentin’s big enough to rig you out. He should be home soon.”

“I’ll get you something,” Jeanette offered. “Quent won’t have locked up. His work dungarees, I should think. The amount of work he does, he won’t miss them for weeks. And a pair of sandals. I’ll bring them to the house.” She crossed the courtyard to Quentin’s studio.

“Let this teach you, young man,” said Baraclough, “never to tangle with a pig farmer. You won’t want to go to the front door of the house in that condition. I’ll show you round the back, if you like, and go in to warn Marge.”

“Sergeant?” Lubbock appealed.

“Aren’t you supposed to report to DI Scumble?”

“Not like this! Please, Sarge…”

“Oh, all right.” The artsy types had rallied round, the least Megan could do was follow suit. “I’ll tell him you had an altercation with a pig, and you’ll just have to hope Mr Rosevear won’t accuse you of assault and battery.”

As Megan turned towards Oswald Rudd’s studio, Baraclough and the unhappy constable headed for the house. Hearing raucous laughter, Megan looked round. They had met DC Wilkes coming away, and Wilkes was having a hearty laugh at his colleague’s expense.

“Wilkes!”

“Coming, Sarge. What happened to sonny-boy?”

“I’m sure you’ll hear the whole story sooner rather than later. What about Leila Arden?”

“She hasn’t come back and no one’s heard from her. Course, the only phone’s in the house and Mrs Rosevear was back in the garden some of the time. She said she’s prob’ly stopped in to see a friend, but I could tell she’s dead worried. You reckon the Arden woman did it and she’s scarpered, Sarge?”

“I have no idea,” Megan told him. “What I do know is that the gov’nor is not going to be happy.”

“Never is, is he?” Wilkes retorted, as she turned back to Rudd’s open door.

DI Scumble was anything but happy when he emerged from Oswald Rudd’s lair a couple of minutes later.

After one glance at his face, Megan said, “No luck, sir?”

“The stupid bugger!” he snarled. “Says he didn’t kill Clark but he’d like to buy a beer for whoever did, and he’s not going to answer questions without a lawyer present and he hasn’t got a lawyer and hasn’t the money to pay one.”

“We could take him in for obstruction,” Megan suggested dubiously. It was a tactic Superintendent Bentinck frowned on—though perhaps they were now under the jurisdiction of Egerton, whose views on the subject were unknown.

“I did just happen to think of that, Pencarrow.” Scumble’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “I warned him, and he said if Gresham can survive a night in the cells, so can he. Snarky sod! We’ll hold that option in reserve. Waste of time right now.”

“You don’t think he did it, then.”

“Who knows? He was in Padstow all day. He had the opportunity and the victim provided the means, but unless you’ve dug up a respectable motive…?”

“Only that Clark told Rudd his paintings were third rate. Given the artistic temperament—”

“Don’t give me the artistic temperament! I’ve had it up to here with the artistic temperament.”

“Right, sir. What about Baraclough?”

“No arty nonsense about him,” Scumble said with something approaching enthusiasm. “He’s a businessman. Calls himself a designer. I might,” he added casually, “take the wife to their shop in Padstow to pick out one of his cardies for her birthday. Just the sort of thing she likes.”

Flabbergasted by this sign of humanity, Megan merely murmured, “Yes, sir.”

He reverted quickly to normal. “I know what you’re thinking, Pencarrow. No, he did not offer me a discount!”

The gov’nor might be a pain in the arse, but he was an honest pain in the arse, Megan knew. “No, sir,” she murmured, and added, “Lennox said he has a thick skin.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“Just that Clark had insulted Baraclough as he insulted everyone, apparently, but it rolled off Baraclough’s back. Or so I imagine. I didn’t pursue the matter.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because there were more useful lines to follow, sir. In my opinion.”

“All right, tell me about it, but make it quick. That oaf Lubbock must have brought Rosevear in by now.”

Megan told him about Lubbock’s misadventures. A snicker behind her added to the difficulty of keeping a straight face, as well as informing her that Wilkes had joined them at some point, presumably after the business about Mrs Scumble’s cardigan, or the gov’nor would never have mentioned it.

Scumble glared at Wilkes. “Well?”

Wilkes hastened to report on his interview with Quentin Durward, skipping the fancy language and not adding significantly to what he’d told Megan. Leila Arden still hadn’t come home or phoned.

“We’ll give her a bit longer. Pencarrow?”

She gave a recap of her interview with Lennox.

The response was a grunt. “Let’s go see Rosevear.”

“You want me along, sir?” Wilkes asked.

“The more the merrier,” Scumble said sourly. “Yes, you’d better come, in case he has to be hauled out of his bath. There’s still an occasional job a woman officer’s no use for.” He swung round and headed for the farmhouse.

As they followed, Wilkes raised enquiring eyebrows at Megan. She shrugged. It was awfully hard to tell the difference between the gov’nor’s everyday manner and his bad moods. If he was suffering the latter, once again she fervently hoped it was not because his plan to show up DI Pearce was unravelling.

A man who was obviously Douglas Rosevear was seated at the kitchen table putting away a hunk of brown bread and yellow cheese and a mug of beer. He looked spotless, in a check shirt and jeans, the fringe of greying hair round his sun-freckled pate still damp from the bath. Nevertheless, a porcine odour hung in the air.

He glanced up when Scumble knocked on the open door. Gesturing to come in, he went on chewing.

Scumble introduced himself and Megan.

Rosevear nodded, swallowed, and said with a straight face and a slight Cornish accent, “Not a bad worker, your lad, once he got
into
it.”

“Glad to hear he’s good for something.” Refusing the bait, Scumble sat down uninvited at the table. Megan followed his example, taking out her notebook, while Wilkes discreetly disappeared before some other task could be assigned to him. “Have any help haying yesterday?”

“Naw. The machine does it all.”

“Did you speak to anyone? See anyone?”

“I saw Durward, heading off to the southeast. Hiking to the Nine Maidens, likely. He goes up there a lot. Got nothing better to do than look at a row of stone pillars.”

“Did he see you?”

“Couldn’t hardly have helped it, could he. Hearing the tractor, leastways. No matter, he waved.”

Quentin Durward had told Wilkes he saw no one on his hike. No, Megan recalled, he’d said he didn’t
speak
to anyone—and at the time he’d been teasing the detective constable with his choice of words. Wilkes had reported to Megan pretty much verbatim, she was fairly sure, whereas he greatly abbreviated what he told Scumble. Hadn’t he said Durward didn’t
meet
anyone?

Scumble would not have forgotten, but he rolled on without a blink. “Can you put a time to it, Mr Rosevear?”

“Well, now, let’s see. Clock-time, naw. Panch-time, it’d be maybe an hour and some after dinner.” Was he being deliberately difficult with his use of the dialect word for stomach, or was it just the word he usually employed? If he was trying to irritate the inspector, he failed to evoke any visible reaction. “Sun-time,” he went on, “half twelve or thereabouts. Mebbe quarter to one. That’s sun-time, mind, not government time.”

Not summer-time, still much resented by farmers because their animals, particularly cows waiting to be milked, refused to conform to the government’s edict. Megan tried to work it out and got confused, as always, but if it was after his dinner it must be quarter to two, not quarter to twelve.

While wrestling with the concept of summer-time, Megan had missed a couple of questions. At least, her conscious mind had missed them, but a different brain circuit, going straight from her ears to her fingers, had taken them down in shorthand. She could read it later.

Scumble had moved on to the events of the previous evening. He took Rosevear’s typed statement to Pearce from his pocket and proceeded to go through it thoroughly.

And he found discrepancies. Rosevear had said he had time for a pint at the pub because he had finished haying.

“So you decided to go down to the village?” Scumble pointed to the tankard at Rosevear’s elbow, now empty, its sides coated with drying foam. “Even though you keep beer in the house and you’d had a hard day?”

Rosevear was disconcerted. After a moment’s thought, he said, “Naw, it was Marge said we’d go, right when I came in from the field. Stella was worried about Nick giving Clark a basting, and Marge said we ought to go to support her. I said it was rubbish, Nick wasn’t the sort to pick a fight. Then they told me what Clark had done. I reckoned he deserved whatever he got, but it wasn’t worth arguing, so I went along.”

This answer appeared to please Scumble, though Megan wasn’t sure why. Margery Rosevear had told them much the same.

“Did you happen to notice the time?”

“I looked at the clock to see was the pub open. Just on quarter past five it was, so by the time we got down to the village, it’d be opening. Just gave me time to get out of my work clothes, they did, and off we went. I don’t know why you’re asking all these questions. Marge says you know Nick didn’t kill him.”

Rosevear was a slow thinker, but by no means thick, Megan decided.

“Just making sure we’ve got it all straight, sir. Suppose we hadn’t bothered to check on Miss … Weller’s statement that she saw Mr Gresham stab the victim? Very unfortunate, that would’ve been. Now, you say here,” he tapped the statement, “you were hungry for your supper. You telephoned the local police at six twenty-five—it’s in the police log—and we’ve been told Mrs Rosevear usually serves supper at seven o’clock.”

“She allis gives me a bite to eat to-wance when I come in.” He pushed aside his plate, now holding nothing but a few crumbs. “Yesterday, with Stella chivvying, they rushed me off without.”

Scumble crossed off a question mark he’d written in the margin of the statement. Megan had done the same on her carbon copy, and scribbled a few questions she couldn’t now remember. Nor had she thought to bring it with her. In fact, once Stella’s all-important statement had proved false, Megan had more or less dismissed her statement and both the Rosevears’ from her mind as being next to useless.

“As we now know, Clark had by then been dead for some time.” Scumble straightened the papers, folded them, and stuck them back in his pocket. “Do you—”

“Doug, I’m worried about Leila.” Margery Rosevear came in from the courtyard. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw the detectives. “Oh, I didn’t know you were still here.”

“Still here,” said Scumble. “Why are you worried about Miss Arden, Mrs Rosevear?”

“She should have been back long ago. She went to collect shells and the tide’s come in and gone out again since she left.”

“Ivers, Margie, she’s a grown-up! She can take care of herself, and she won’t thank you for keeping an eye on her comings and goings.”

“She always lets me know if she’s not going to be in for supper. They’re all supposed to,” she explained to Scumble, “though some of them are pretty erratic. Leila’s usually pretty reliable.”

“But not always,” Rosevear muttered.

“What happened to Geoff has made me nervous,” Mrs Rosevear went on, ignoring him. “Is it possible—You’ll probably think I’m crazy—I was wondering if he could have been killed by some maniac who has it in for artists? Or even for those of us who live here. We’re not really a commune, but that’s what people call us, and people get funny ideas about communes.”

“That’s an interesting theory,” said Scumble, “and theoretically possible, of course. Be that as it may, I’d like to know where Miss Arden’s got to. I think it’s about time we did something about finding out. I’ll just have a word with DS Pencarrow, and then you can maybe give me some tips about where to start looking.”

He went over to the door and stepped out, Megan following.

“Do you really think Arden killed him?” she asked.

“Could be. There’s another possibility.”

“That she saw or heard something—”

“Or someone thinks she saw or heard something. If the murderer got to her before I did, it’s going to make that bastard very happy.”

“DI Pearce?”

“DI Pearce. But you let me worry about Pearce. We still haven’t talked to Stella Whatsit. You get over to the hospital right away and see what she has to say for herself. There’s no need to let on we’re perfectly happy that she misled Pearce.”

“You don’t think she might be in danger, too, sir?”

“In danger? She’s in a bloody nursing home, not wandering about the countryside all on her lonesome. I need Wilkes. Somehow I’ve got to fit in finding out whether Polmenna’s come up with anything useful in the village. You can take Lubbock, though he won’t be much help for anything but driving. Don’t come back here. Radio the Bodmin nick. I’ll probably be there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Off you go, now. If you happen to come across that lazy bugger Wilkes, send him here.”

Wilkes and Lubbock, a strange sight in dungarees and sandals, were leaning against the 1100, chatting. Lubbock saw Megan first. He straightened and saluted. Wilkes turned.

“We were just discussing the case, Sarge,” he said, glibly but unconvincingly. Either cars or cricket, she guessed, or perhaps even hurling, an ancient Cornish sport recently making something of a comeback.

“You can go and discuss it with the gov’nor in the house. Constable, you’ll be driving me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lubbock reached to open the door of the 1100.

“In the panda. Mr Scumble will be needing his car.”

Obviously disappointed, he went to the black-and-white Mini and opened the passenger door for her.