Ann Granger (28 page)

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Authors: That Way Murder Lies

BOOK: Ann Granger
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As he spoke another picture appeared on the monitor screen. Markby recognized it as the track beside the woodland where he’d spoken to Harry Stebbings. A white van was parked on it and standing by the van, deep in conversation, were Ted Pritchard and Fiona Jenner.
‘That’s it!’ Markby snapped. ‘We need to talk to Ted Pritchard at once! Come on, we’ll drive down to Rusticity now!’
It was lunchtime and Markby called by the Feathers first. It was situated on the way from Regional HQ to the Watersmeet trading estate and they knew Ted sometimes drank there at lunchtime. But he wasn’t there today and Dolores Forbes hadn’t seen him. Her whole person quivering with curiosity she offered them a drink, on the house. They declined it. She looked half disappointed and half relieved. She wanted to know why they sought Ted Pritchard, but she didn’t believe in handing out free drinks as a matter of principle.
They drove on to the trading estate. At Rusticity they found Ted’s business partner, Steve Poole.
‘Ted’s lunch hour,’ said Steve, his pale gaze inquisitive. ‘What do you want him for?’
‘Just to check something,’ Markby said vaguely. ‘Where might he be?’
‘You could try the Feathers. He goes over there for a pint and a sandwich some days.’
‘We’ve already called in. He’s not there.’
Steve scratched his thinning hair. ‘Then he’s probably out on his bike.’
‘His bike?’
‘Oh, keen cyclist, is Ted.’ Steve nodded wisely. ‘Keeps himself fit that way. He’ll have gone home to collect his bike and cycle miles before he comes back here to work.’ Steve pointed down the road towards the open countryside beyond the trading estate. ‘He’ll be out there somewhere.’
Meredith and Toby had made better time on the return journey from Cornwall, leaving very early in the morning and arriving on the outskirts of Bamford at lunchtime. They were now heading for Overvale House so that Meredith could drop Toby there. As they travelled they had spent the time in urgent discussion as to what Jeremy Jenner was to be told.
‘There isn’t much, is there?’ Toby said morosely. ‘Poor old Jerry will be waiting, hoping we’ve turned up something interesting. But we didn’t even manage to find Mrs Travis. Luckily we did find Barnes-Wakefield and I’ve definitely got my eye on him!’
‘But we don’t tell Jeremy that!’ Meredith said firmly. ‘Not until we’ve spoken to Alan. We don’t know what Jeremy might do. Alison’s been afraid he’ll do something irrational. I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to tell Jeremy we drew a blank.’
There was normally little traffic on this lonely road but now, suddenly, a police car swept past them, driving in the opposite direction, towards Bamford.
‘Did you see that?’ Toby asked incredulously. ‘Harry Stebbings was in that car.’
But Meredith was overtaking a cyclist who, head bent, helmeted and goggled, was pumping his legs up and down again the increasing incline. She hadn’t seen the passenger in the police car. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, when she had negotiated the obstacle.
‘Of course I’m sure.You can’t mistake Stebbings. What’s going on? Could they have arrested old Harry?’
‘If they have, Jeremy will know,’ Meredith told him, still not really believing it.
They reached the gates of Overvale House and turned in. As they drew up before the front porch in a swirl of gravel chips, Jeremy Jenner came hurrying out to greet them. There was an expression almost of panic on his face and when he saw who had arrived he looked momentarily bewildered and then relieved.
‘What’s going on?’ Toby asked, scrambling from the passenger seat. ‘We’ve just seen Stebbings in a police car, heading for Bamford. Or I saw him, Meredith didn’t. It was definitely Harry.’
Jenner put a hand to his forehead. ‘Yes, it was Harry.You won’t know it, but there’s been another death.’
They stared at him in horror.
Toby whispered, ‘Who? Not – not Alison?’
‘Alison’s safe. No, not her, thank God.’ Jenner shook his head as if to clear it of a haze. ‘One oughtn’t to be grateful for being spared if it means someone else has suffered. But of course I am. The death is of Harry’s boy, Darren. He’d gone missing and this morning he turned up dead.’ Jenner waved a hand in the general direction of the countryside. ‘Mike Fossett found him. It’s a hell of a business. It just keeps getting worse. Come in, come in …’ He gestured towards the door.
‘I won’t, if you don’t mind,’ Meredith said hastily ‘I need to go home and unpack. I’ll call back later, if I may.’
The news had shocked her deeply. Stebbings wasn’t a likeable man and his actions had been consistently obstructive, but how had this happened? How did Darren, of all people, fit into the scheme of things? She had a mental image of the youth as he’d arrived at the lakeside where they’d surrounded Fiona’s lifeless corpse. Pale, scrawny, acne-plagued, wearing well-worn jeans and a much-washed T-shirt, he’d been scared out of his wits at the sight of the body. Above all, he hadn’t appeared to be any threat or even likely ever to become one. He was just a youngster going through that awkward age between boyhood and adulthood when your hormones are treacherous and the world generally seems to
be against you. It’s an age of self-obsession. That Darren could play any part in any of this just seemed so unlikely as to be unbelievable.
She wanted to get back home and hear what Alan had to say, although she might not be able to contact him until the evening. With this new death to add to present inquiries, he’d be busy all day.
Toby was giving her a reproachful look which said she was abandoning him in his hour of need. She steeled her heart against it. Toby could tell Jeremy about the Cornish visit without her help. To be frank, their journey west now took on the appearance of supreme self-indulgence. What had they hoped to achieve, she and Toby, on their amateur fishing trip? Here, at Overvale, was where the mystery lay and the answer to it. Toby was looking glum. But he was going to have to cope on his own. Echoing Alan’s opinion on the subject, she found herself thinking: Toby doesn’t need me. He’s perfectly capable.
The same could hardly be said of Jeremy Jenner. The man looked ill, his face gaunt and grey. He was already a shadow of the confident man she’d met for the first time only recently. Had the general strain done this, or was it Darren’s death coming so soon after Fiona’s? Two bodies found on his land. That wasn’t something Jenner’s long years in the business world had equipped him to cope with.
Meredith’s eye caught a movement at an upstairs window and glimpsed a face before the person up there stepped back out of sight. Chantal was still present. That couldn’t be helpful. But
it’s not my problem,
Meredith told herself.
I’m not a member of this family. If Jeremy is breaking down, it’s for Toby and Alison to take care of him.
She drove out of the gates and turned on to the rough road which led to the main road. It took her past Stebbings’ cottage and she slowed to look at it. It appeared deserted, despite the fact that washing flapped on the clothes line. She remembered the woman they had seen pinning it up on their first visit to Overvale.
Mrs Stebbings, the bereaved mother, where was she? What awful effect must this have had on her? The person who has done these things, Meredith thought, is very wicked. Yet this stretch of countryside was so beautiful and appeared so peaceful it seemed that evil deeds must be an anachronism, some sort of historical mistake. That, though, failed to take account of human nature which can also appear serene and at peace but, at the same time, harbour violent emotions.
She had reached the main road and pressed her foot on the accelerator. Almost at once, however, she was forced to brake. There was an obstruction in the road ahead. A bicycle lay on its side, wheels spinning. There was no sign of the rider. Meredith drew up and got out.
As she neared the spot she could hear muffled groans coming from the roadside ditch. She hurried towards the sound and peered down into the tangle of hedgerow plants. The cyclist was sprawled in the bottom among the dank nettle roots and rotting debris. With his helmet and goggles he looked like some sort of spaceman who’d made an unscheduled earth landing. Seeing a concerned face looking down at him, he gasped, ‘Give us a hand!’ and reached up as he spoke.
His voice was familiar. Meredith scrambled into the ditch and began to assist him to rise. He scrambled out and got unsteadily to his feet. As she watched he unbuckled the helmet and took off the goggles. It was Ted Pritchard.
‘Ted?’ exclaimed Meredith in astonishment. ‘What are you doing out here? What happened?’
‘Bloody bird!’ muttered Ted. ‘I was riding along, enjoying a bit of fresh air, and it came swooping down right in front of me. Sparrow-hawk, I reckon. It saw something in that ditch and just dived for it like they do. It skimmed my nose, I felt its wings.’
He was dusting himself down as he spoke. His solid muscular frame was clad in cycling shorts and figure-hugging Lycra jersey but didn’t appear to have suffered any grazes or cuts despite lack of any protection. Landing in the ditch had at least been a soft
landing. He picked up his bicycle and began to examine it anxiously for damage.
‘What are you doing out here at this time of day?’ Meredith asked him again. ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’
‘It’s my lunch hour, isn’t it?’ Ted defended himself. ‘I don’t go cycling every lunch hour, mind. But sometimes, when it’s a nice day like today, I go home, get the bike out and just ride round for a bit. Otherwise I don’t get fresh air at all, you know. Steve and me, we work round the clock at the business. You’ve got to, when you’re working for yourself. There’s no one else to do it. I spend the best part of my day breathing in sawdust, stuck inside the workshop.’ He gave the bicycle an experimental push back and forth. ‘Something’s buggered,’ he observed gloomily.
‘Look, where do you live?’ Meredith asked. ‘We can put the bike in the boot of my car, tie it in somehow, and I’ll give you a lift home with it.’
He brightened. ‘Thanks, that’s nice of you. I appreciate that.’
To get the bicycle in the boot they had first to take out Meredith’s suitcase and put it on the back seat. They then struggled to wedge the bicycle in the boot and secure it with the tow-rope Meredith kept in there.
‘Expensive bike, this!’ gasped Ted as they finished the job. ‘I’ll have to strip it down completely.’
‘Where do you live?’ she asked, when they were both in the front of the car.
She expected him to give an address in Bamford, but instead he said, ‘I’ll show you. Easier that way. I’ve got this place out in the country here. I bought it cheap, pretty well a ruin, and I’m fixing it up. Go on down here about a mile and turn left.’
Turning left took them on to a dark, tree-shadowed track worse than that which led to Overvale. Nobody but himself lived down here, said Ted, which Meredith could well believe as they made bumpy progress along it. The cottage, when they reached it, was a single-storey stone building, one end of which had crumbled into a heap of blocks. Trees and undergrowth had encroached on the
premises until leafy fingers scraped at the walls. It would have been easy to assume no one lived here if one end hadn’t been restored after a fashion, curtains at the window and the door freshly painted. Rusticity’s white van was parked at the cottage’s side.
She helped Ted unload his bicycle from the boot. He pushed it to the side of the road and propped it against an untrimmed hedge. With his back to her, rummaging in the saddlebag, he called cheerily, ‘Come on in and a have a cup of tea or something!’
‘Thanks, but I’ve only just got home after a couple of days away. I need to unpack. I won’t, if you don’t mind.’ She moved back to the car.
But Ted had turned towards her and advanced a few steps, his round, imp’s face still wearing a cheery smile. Automatically Meredith paused and waited.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to come in. I insist.’
That was when she saw the sharpened screwdriver in his hand.
 
The inside of the cottage was uninspiring. Ted’s work of restoration hadn’t got beyond the exterior walls and roof. The room they were in served both as living room and kitchen. There was a rusting wood-burning iron range in the hearth, long disused. A simple gas cooker fed by a butane gas bottle provided Ted’s needs. Nor did he appear to have electricity. There was a paraffin lamp on the rickety pine table. The impression was not so much that he lived here as that he camped out. He had, however, made a partial effort to brighten the place up with pictures. They were a mix of sketches and watercolours, carefully framed in pine, and dotted haphazardly about the walls.
‘I haven’t got round to doing anything much in here,’ said Ted, still affable and smiling. ‘I want to get the outside of the place fixed up first. So if it’s not quite
Homes and Gardens
, you’ll have to excuse it.’
‘Yes,’ said Meredith, not knowing quite what else to say. He was still holding the screwdriver pointing towards her. She didn’t
want to look at it but her eye was drawn to its dull gleam and wickedly sharpened tip. She asked carefully, ‘What’s all this about, Ted?’
‘Oh, you know what it’s all about, I think,’ he returned. ‘Because you’re the bright sort and you hang around with a top-notch copper. A working man like me is good with his hands. Not that I haven’t got quite a good brainbox of my own. But I’ve always said, if you want really smart, look for a woman. Women can’t knock a nail in straight or fix a bit of electrical wiring, but give them a problem to chew on and they’ve got it solved in no time at all. Sit down, why don’t you? That chair there is the best.’ The screwdriver wavered as it was used to point at the piece of furniture.
Meredith obediently sank down into a worn armchair. It wasn’t very comfortable. She could feel the springs beneath her. But that was the least of her worries. Ted pulled up a wooden chair and sat down before her. The sharpened screwdriver was steady again in his hand.
‘I saw it was you when you overtook me in your car. You had that fellow with you, the one who’s been staying at Overvale, and I reckoned you must be headed there. So, when I heard a car coming towards me, I thought I might be in luck, you’d just dropped him off and you were coming back. There’s never much traffic on that stretch. I put the bike on the road and jumped in the ditch. You’ve been on a little trip with your gentleman friend, have you?’ he went on in his friendly way. ‘Been down to Cornwall, I hear.’
‘Hear from whom?’ snapped Meredith.‘I’ve only just got back.’
‘George Melhuish, he gave me a call. He said you and the other chap were down there poking around. Staying in the old Kemp cottage and asking about Miss Kemp. George hadn’t told you anything but he knew you were still asking other people. I wasn’t worried about the other chap but I was worried about you. You’re the bright one and you’ve got that copper boyfriend. You and he might go talking over what you’d heard in Cornwall. That’s why I
threw the bike in the road to stop you. I just don’t want you and that copper putting your heads together.’

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