Bricks and Mortality: Campbell & Carter 3 (12 page)

‘I’ll find out where Petra Stapleton lives now and go and talk to her,’ Jess said. ‘Also to find out if she’s still in a wheelchair. She’d be the obvious suspect, wouldn’t she, or one of her family or a close friend?’

‘Are we working on the attacker and the fire-raiser being one and the same – or are we now assuming we are looking for two people?’ Morton asked. ‘I’m getting confused.’

‘Keep an open mind, Phil,’ advised Carter kindly.

Morton looked at him.

When the car drew up before Monica Farrell’s cottage at the end of the working day, Millie came bouncing out of the door in greeting. She stopped short when she saw that her father wasn’t alone. For the brief moment her mouth opened in astonishment and then snapped shut. Jess found herself subjected to an intense and critical scrutiny.

On the way there, Jessica had remembered to ask Carter if Millie knew her father was bringing someone with him.

‘I left it to Monica,’ he’d said evasively.

Monica, obviously, had left it to Fate.

‘This is a friend, a colleague from work, Millie,’ Carter was explaining now, none too happily.

Jess felt a spark of annoyance. She felt she had been dropped in it. Either Carter or Monica should have prepared the ground before a newcomer burst on the scene.

‘Her name is Jessica Campbell – and she knows Monica,’ he added lamely.

‘Yes,’ said Millie in acknowledgement of the information.

‘Hi, Millie,’ said Jess. ‘Nice to meet you.’

Millie made no reply but subjected Jess to close scrutiny head to toe. She opened her mouth but, to Jess’s relief, Monica appeared in the doorway at that moment and called out, ‘Do come on in! The place gets cold so quickly when the front door is left open. The heat just flies out.’

Millie disappeared indoors behind Monica. Jess caught at Carter’s sleeve and held him back long enough to mutter, ‘You should have warned her!’

‘I did work out something to say, but it went out of my head,’ he defended himself.

Then they hurried after the other two and Jess found herself in the remembered comfortable, old-fashioned, rather cluttered sitting room. Neither of the cats was to be seen.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Monica. ‘Millie and I made sausage rolls today. I hope you’re hungry because we made rather a lot, and I seldom eat in the evening, and never after six, so will probably only nibble at one or two.’

‘Have you found the murderer?’ asked Millie, not bothering with domestic trivia. She had clambered into a chintz-covered armchair where she sat, cross legged, clutching some sort of toy bear with beady black eyes. Jess noticed it wore a tartan beret on its head. Millie held the toy in front of her as though a barrier against the stranger’s intrusion.

Monica gave her the sort of look teachers give a child speaking out of turn. But Millie was proof against looks.

Monica said apologetically to Carter and Jess, ‘It’s been reported on the local news. They said the death was being treated as murder now.’

‘Well?’ urged Millie impatiently. ‘Have you caught him?’ The bear echoed her mood, giving a little jump in her hands.

‘Not yet,’ Carter admitted. ‘It takes a little time, you know.’

‘He might murder someone else,’ said Millie with relish. The bear nodded its tartan beret as if giving sinister agreement.

‘That’s enough of that!’ Monica said firmly. ‘Come and carry in the tea-tray for me, would you, Ian?’

That was blatantly getting him out of the room so that Jess and Millie could strike up an acquaintance. Carter wasn’t sure the strategy would work. He muttered his excuses to Jess and followed Monica, knowing Jess watched him go with a gleam in her eyes MacTavish would have envied.

In the kitchen, Monica said, ‘Don’t worry about her asking about the murder. It’s not real to her, you see. It’s the same as some detective series she’s seen on the television. She’ll expect it all to be tidied up in an hour.’

‘If only …’ Carter grimaced. ‘I hope it wasn’t a bad idea to bring Jessica Campbell along. I don’t think Millie quite understands. I should have prepared the ground better.’

‘You have your friends, Millie should understand that.’ Monica was apparently intent on stacking the tray with plates and cups.

Somehow her indifference made Carter feel even more unsure about the wisdom of turning up here with Jess.

Back in the sitting room, Jess, sure of the mistake, wondered how to begin a conversation now Carter had departed.

She needn’t have worried. Millie began it.

‘Are you my father’s girlfriend?’

‘No,’ said Jess honestly. ‘He’s my boss. I’m a police inspector. I have met Monica before when we were – your father and I – working on a different case.’

‘Was that a murder?’ There was note of hope in Millie’s voice. The bear perked up, too, or seemed to.

‘Yes, it was.’ The kid seemed obsessed with murders.

‘Did you catch that murderer?’ Millie leaned forward.

‘Yes, we did.’

Millie seemed suddenly to lose interest in the progress of the investigation. She flopped back against the chair cushions and held up the bear. ‘This is MacTavish. He comes from Scotland. That’s why he’s wearing tartan. He used to have a shield and a sword but Mummy took them away. She doesn’t believe that toys should mimic the violence of the real world.’

Mimic the violence of the real world
… That was surely a direct quote from her mother. Perhaps that was why Millie was so interested to hear about the murder. It was a novel and forbidden subject. As such, it held a special fascination.

‘I had a stuffed cat who was a special friend, when I was young,’ said Jess. ‘He was called Stripes.’ Millie said nothing so Jess added lamely, ‘He was striped.’

‘What colours?’ asked Millie in the nit-picking tradition of examiners worldwide.

‘Brown and white.’ Thanks goodness the toy hadn’t been striped blue or pink. That would not have gone down well, Jess suspected. ‘I took him everywhere with me.’ So she had, she remembered now. Whatever had happened to Stripes? She must ask her mother next time they spoke on the phone. It was possible Stripes lurked in a box in the attic in her old home. But her mother would ask why on earth Jess wanted to know.

‘
Have
you got a boyfriend?’ asked Millie now in a complete change of subject.

Thrown off-balance, Jess spluttered, ‘I, no, I haven’t at the moment.’

‘Why not?’

Jess’s wish, that she’d declined the invitation to accompany Ian Carter here this evening, was strengthening by leaps and bounds. The child had all the tact of the Spanish Inquisition. It was time to make a stand. Millie would run rings round her, if allowed to.

‘That’s not really something you need to know,’ she said in as kindly a tone as she could.

‘I’ll find out,’ warned Millie. Her tone and the look in her eyes sharpened. She had inherited her father’s eye colour, hazel, sometimes appearing more brown and sometimes more green.

‘Go ahead.’ Jess knew all about dealing with threats, whether they came from crooks or from Millie.

‘I knew about Mummy and Rodney long before Dad did.’ There was satisfaction in Millie’s voice.

‘Did you? Well, that would be none of
my
business. That’s private to your father and family.’

‘Things can’t be private,’ objected Millie, ‘if everybody knows about them.’

Jess had a moment of insight. The divorce of her parents must have shattered Millie’s secure world and with it one aspect of her innocence. If she really had known that her mother had found another man, long before her father found out, that had put a burden on shoulders too young to bear it. You couldn’t say the child had become cynical, that was too adult and too strong a term. But she had suddenly acquired a brittle veneer to protect herself against any further shocks. MacTavish, still clutched to her chest, was that veneer made visible.

‘It doesn’t mean everyone talks about it,’ explained Jess. ‘Some people can be embarrassed at having something private talked about with strangers.’

‘That’s just pretending,’ argued Millie. ‘It’s not like a secret. If nobody knows, it’s a secret. If everybody does know, it isn’t.’

Luckily Carter and Monica were back, bearing between them the makings of a snack tea. Besides the sausage rolls there was a plate of assorted cupcakes iced in somewhat lurid colours.

‘We didn’t make
those
,’ said Millie disparagingly.

‘No,’ agreed Monica. ‘We have a lady in the village who runs coffee mornings, with bring and buy, to raise funds for our church. There are always a lot of cakes on sale. These cupcakes are very nice to eat. The baker got rather carried away with the food dye.’

Over tea, the atmosphere relaxed and became quite jolly. Even the two cats returned, one at a time, and sat at a safe distance, watching.

As they got ready to leave, Carter drew Monica aside. ‘Thanks for taking care of her,’ he said quietly.

‘A pleasure. She’s a splendid little girl.’

In the narrow hallway, Jess had stooped to stroke the nearer cat, the black one. ‘Nice to meet you, Millie,’ she said cheerfully as she did, looking up at the child.

Millie was casting a shrewd eye over her. ‘I’ve told Dad to get a cat. He needs company. He hasn’t got a girlfriend, you know. You could—’

Jess interrupted. ‘Millie,’ she said, ‘a word of advice. Don’t try and fix your father up with a girlfriend! These things happen naturally or they don’t happen at all.’

‘All right,’ said Millie placidly. ‘Would you like to say goodbye to MacTavish?’

Jess shook MacTavish’s paw solemnly. She was rewarded with a sudden brilliant smile from his owner.

The following morning Jess crunched across the gravel forecourt of the property called The Barn and made for the cottage. The barn itself still existed but, she saw, had not been turned into a fashionable country home, as had so many other old barns. She wondered about its use now.

She wasn’t the first visitor. There were two cars parked before the cottage already, one with a blue badge in the windscreen. That could be Petra’s, and the other belonged to someone else, which was a pity. She’d hoped to find Petra alone. She rapped at the brass horseshoe-shaped knocker.

The door was opened almost at once by a very fit-looking woman in her mid to late thirties. She wore her thick dark-blond hair bobbed; and was dressed seasonably and country-fashion in a quilted navy body-warmer, peacock blue sweater and jeans.

‘Petra Stapleton?’ asked Jess cautiously. If so, this was not what she’d been expecting.

‘No, I’m Petra’s sister, Katherine, usually called Kit. Who are you?’ Kit Stapleton assessed Jess rapidly. ‘Journalist?’

‘No, I’m a police officer, Inspector Jessica Campbell. I’m leading the enquiries into the death and fire at Key House.’ Jess produced her warrant card.

Kit glanced at it and then stood to one side. ‘You’d better come in, then. I don’t know what you think we can tell you about it. I suppose this has to do with Gervase Crown, somehow or other?’

‘You’ve seen Mr Crown recently?’

‘No,’ Kit replied in a brusque voice. ‘And don’t want to.’

‘I’ve seen him,’ a quieter voice said from the window.

Kit spun round, horror printed on her face. ‘You have? He came here, Petra? Why didn’t you say? I told you to ring me—’ She broke off to glance at Jess.

It was time to take charge of this conversation. Jess walked towards the window where another woman sat on a padded semicircular settle.

There was a likeness between the sisters, but it wasn’t close. Katherine, apparently known in the family as Kit, burst with energy and good health. Beneath it bubbled something else. Anger for Crown’s temerity in calling on his victim? That the family was to be dragged into a police inquiry? No one liked that. Or could it be sorrow for what had happened to her sister? Even fear?

In contrast, there was an inner stillness about Petra Stapleton. Perhaps it was the years of suffering that had taken the bloom from her, but she was still a very attractive woman. She had the sort of pale, delicate features the Victorians liked so much. Certainly her long hair and the calm oval of her face would have inspired the Pre-Raphaelites to paint her. Jess noticed that two crutches were propped against the settle. She had passed by the wheelchair as she came in.

‘Please sit down, Inspector,’ Petra invited, indicating the settle. ‘Kit, love, could you pop the kettle back on? Then we can all sit round with a brew, like the three witches.’ She smiled at Jess and then threw another smile towards her sister.

There was something both placating and warning about that second smile. Kit had already struck Jess as impetuous. The news that Crown had been here had come as an unwelcome shock. Was Petra already warning her sister to be careful what she said?

‘We’ll speak about it later!’ Kit promised her sister grimly, marching towards an area set up as a kitchenette.

‘Kit’s my bodyguard,’ said Petra quietly to Jess. ‘She gets upset at mention of Gervase. He came here yesterday, late morning, just after checking out what was left of Key House. I think he was horrified at the amount of damage and wanted to talk to someone. He didn’t actually come in here …’ She waved at the spacious living area around them. ‘He came into the barn where I was working. I’m an artist, you know. The barn is my studio.’

‘I didn’t know,’ said Jess. ‘Were you surprised to see him?’

‘I was astonished. Kit had only just left. She’d come to warn me he was around so I knew he was somewhere nearby. I hadn’t expected he’d want to see me.’

And she must have been relieved that Kit had left, thought Jess. Had that been good luck? she wondered. Or had Gervase realised Kit was visiting her sister and had hung about somewhere out of sight until he was sure Kit had left?

‘How did you feel about seeing him? Other than surprise?’ Jess was aware that her question might be deemed tactless and fancied that Kit, over by the kettle, threw her a look. But that was being a police officer. You had to charge right in there where angels feared to tread.

‘Relieved,’ said Petra unexpectedly. ‘Because, although Kit had assured me the dead man – so awful to think of it – wasn’t Gervase, it was still good actually to see him alive and well.’