Deadly Stuff (12 page)

Trevor, who hadn’t missed the significance of the witness’s answer either, sighed gently.

‘Do you think you’d recognize the man if you saw him again, Mrs Dawkins?’ Trevor asked. ‘Think carefully now,’ he cautioned.

Debbie sighed and frowned and then shrugged. ‘I dunno, do I? I mean, how can I say? I was down close to the ground, being three or four stairs down, like I was, so I was sort of looking along the floor at him at a funny angle. And he was a fair bit away, but on the other hand, I got a good look at him in the sunlight. I might,’ she said cautiously, ‘but unless I do see him again, how can I tell?’ she pointed out reasonably. ‘Look, I’ve got to get off to work now. My manager won’t like me being late, even if it is to help out you lot. Can I go now?’

Trevor smiled charmingly. ‘If, after work, you were to sit down with a police sketch artist, do you think you could come up with a likeness of this man that you saw?’

Debbie Dawkins looked doubtful. ‘Well, I could give it a go,’ she said at last.

Trevor told Peter Trent to make sure that all the conferencegoers who fitted her description were dining in hall that night, and then to pick up the witness from her home and make sure she got a good look at them all. If that produced no joy, than he
was to baby-sit her through the e-fit process.

Jenny, her job done, managed to murmur something and slip away from their makeshift office before the inspector could remember that he had a bone to pick with her about her role as intermediary for the college staff.

She’d just stepped outside, intent on finding out where James Raye was, and asking him to join her later on for lunch, when she heard her name being called.

She looked along the side of the pleasant, rose-brick building that she’d just exited, and saw a young man hurrying towards her. His mop of red-hair and excited, freckled face, were instantly recognizable.

‘Hello Charlie.’ She greeted the young reporter with a careful but polite smile. She was not happy talking to members of the Press, even if they were as young and inexperienced as this one: she was savvy enough to know that the fact that he was barely a stringer for the local papers meant nothing. Just because he was small fry, didn’t mean that he didn’t have big ambitions, and he would be less than human if he didn’t see being in on a story as big as this as his shot at career advancement. He’d be desperate to make his mark, and Jenny Starling had no intention of becoming anybody’s ‘source in the know’.

‘I was hoping to catch you again,’ Charlie Foster said with a grin. ‘The plods won’t let me in to the buildings. They’ve even stopped the rest of the media mob from coming into the grounds by closing the place to the public. They only let me in because I’ve got the paperwork from the taxidermy society inviting me to do the article on them.’

And how long would it be before Inspector Glover insisted that Vicki Voight rescind her permission for that, Jenny wondered, and smiled to herself? ‘And, of course, you’re going to restrict your interviews solely to the topic of how best to set about stuffing a peacock, right?’

The youngster grinned. ‘Right! So, word has it that you
found the body. Care to comment?’ he asked eagerly, trying to check surreptitiously that the small tape recorder he had running in his top shirt pocket was working.

Jenny, who had really good hearing, could tell from the minute whirling sound it was making, that it was.

‘On how to stuff a peacock?’ she asked guilelessly. ‘I haven’t a clue. But if you want to see a really good example of the taxidermy art for your readers’ delectation, there’s a stuffed bear still in hall that’s a prime example. Oh sorry, you can’t go inside, can you?’ she said sweetly.

‘Oh come on, give us a break,’ Charlie whined. ‘If you tell me something, I’ll tell you something. Something interesting,’ he wheedled.

‘About the murder?’ she asked sharply.

‘Even better – about your boss. I’ve been talking to the cleaners here, and I’ve come across a nice little bit of gossip. Come on, doesn’t everyone need a little bit of dirt on their boss?’ he winked.

Jenny sighed. ‘I can’t imagine Glover-Smythe having a speck of dirt on him,’ Jenny said flatly.

Charlie Foster blinked. ‘What? Who? I’m talking about your boss, you know, the little nervous guy. Fat, bald.’

‘Art McIntyre?’ Jenny said. ‘What about him?’

‘Well, according to the cleaners here, he’s a bit of an office joke. They all run rings round him. And they say that this Maurice Raines guy was having a right go at him about something the night the Yorkshire lot arrived. Called him incompetent, and all sorts. He wasn’t happy about the way he’d allocated the rooms for a start, and that he’d ignored something really serious and important about the ventilation needed in one of the lecture rooms, or something along those lines.’

Jenny, who didn’t want to start wondering about why an exhibition of taxidermy might need a specific amount of ventilation, said quickly ‘I hardly think that constitutes gossip,
Charlie. You run a big place like this, you’re bound to get customers with a gripe about something. So what?’

‘Ah, but it’s not just that, is it?’ Charlie said, looking around and then leaning closer to her and lowering his voice dramatically. ‘According to the cleaners, Raines threatened to take his complaints to the bloke’s boss – the bursar himself. Again, according to the cleaners, it’s common knowledge that the bursar is just itching to come up with a good reason to sack him.’

‘They’re called scouts, not cleaners,’ Jenny said absently. And wondered. Was Art McIntyre’s job as vulnerable as Charlie’s ‘sources’ were making out? Or were they just indulging in some malicious gossip? Or even stringing the youngster along? She could imagine some of the middle-aged, world-weary comedians around here spinning the eager young pup a line, just for the entertainment value alone.

On the other hand, there might be something in it. As a motive for murder it was weak, but then, as she well knew, worse crimes had been committed for less.

Jenny sighed. ‘You’d better come with me,’ she said.

‘What? Where?’ Charlie asked, as she turned and headed back to the door.

‘To see Inspector Glover. What, don’t you want the opportunity to speak to the officer in charge?’ Jenny smiled, as the young man suddenly paled.

Instantly, he straightened his shoulders and the glint of battle came into his eyes.

‘Of course I do.’

‘Well, come on then.’

Jenny led the way back to the incident room. As she pushed open the door and held it open for the youngster to precede her, she saw Peter Trent look up and, from the way his eyes narrowed warningly, she knew that the sergeant was well aware of Charlie’s profession.

As she walked towards their desk at the back, she saw Trent lean down and say something urgently to his boss, who reared up and shot them a blistering look. Consequently, even before she’d reached his desk, she got her two-pennies-worth in first.

‘Inspector Glover, this is Charlie Foster, a reporter for the local papers. He has information that might help your investigation,’ she added firmly. Then as she reached the inspector, whispered a warning about the tape recorder in the young man’s pocket.

‘Is that right now?’ Glover said, both in response to her warning, and to her news. ‘So, what can you tell us, Mr Foster?’ he asked blithely.

It was then that Charlie showed his youth and inexperience, by telling the inspector what he’d heard without first trying to use it to barter for a few usable quotes. It was, in fact, a testimony to Glover’s tact and skill that when Foster left, he was feeling as if he’d done rather well out of it, although the inspector had, in fact, let slip not a single thing that the rest of the media pack didn’t already know.

Back in the incident room, Trevor, Trent and Jenny were discussing the young reporter’s information. Trent had just picked up something from the floor and was looking at it with interest.

‘You know these people better than I do,’ the inspector said to the cook. ‘Does it sound likely to you?’

Jenny smiled ruefully. ‘I know them better than you do by about twenty-four hours,’ she pointed out with some exasperation. Then she sighed. ‘I did get the feeling that the bursar is the big Indian chief around here though,’ she conceded. ‘And I have to say, when Art interviewed me, I wasn’t exactly quaking in my boots. He’s a nice man, but I got the impression that he was, if not exactly in over his head here, then at least not really happy in his work. But then, he’s one of those people with a nervous disposition anyway, so having someone like
Glover-Smythe undermining you at every turn….’

She trailed off and shrugged helplessly.

‘Right then, we’d better get him in and have a word then,’ Trevor said. ‘See what this argument was about and see how serious it was, if nothing else. If McIntyre’s job is looking as dicy as they say, and if Raines did threaten to go over his head to his boss, then things might have turned nasty.’

‘Right, guv, I’ll go get him,’ Trent said. And it was then, when Jenny turned to look at him, that she realized just what it was that the sergeant was handling.

Seeing her notice, the older man smiled and held out his hand. ‘I’ve been coming across these things all over the place,’ he said, holding out the exhibit for their inspection. ‘It must be the conference-goers forgetting about them and leaving them lying about. It was a stuffed mouse this morning. Sitting on a table out near the JCR. Gave me a start, I thought the damned thing was real at first, but it was a white one. Some old dear with a blue rinse and glasses like Dame Edna came rushing in, looking for it. Apparently small mammals are her thing,’ Trent mused indulgently.

‘I know what you mean,’ Trevor said. ‘I came across a stuffed red squirrel on one of the window ledges not so long ago. For a split second I thought the poor blighter had somehow got inside and was trapped.’ Trevor looked down at the offering in his sergeant’s hand. ‘That’s the first reptile I’ve seen though. Apparently, they’re hard to do because their skin is so fragile, or so some old duffer was telling me just after breakfast.’

Jenny looked down at the familiar, small green chameleon sitting on the sergeant’s palm. Norman swivelled around one conical eye to look at her questioningly.

‘Er, Sergeant….’ Jenny said.

When she got back from delivering the escape artist known as Norman to one very relieved James Raye, Art McIntyre was
already in the incident room. That he’d only just arrived, Jenny could tell, from the way he was arranging himself carefully on the seat.

‘Ah, is there something I can help you with?’ Art was saying. If he noticed Jenny’s silent approach and continuing presence, he pretended to ignore it.

‘If you could just clear up one or two points for me, sir,’ Trevor said amiably. ‘Is it true that you had an argument with Mr Raines on the night that the taxidermy society first arrived in college?’

Art McIntyre froze in his place for a second; then his shoulders slumped just a little in defeat. ‘Dear me, word does get around here, doesn’t it?’ he said mildly, but Jenny, and no doubt the others also, could clearly hear the underlining tinge of bitterness in his tone. ‘Yes, there was a minor disagreement,’ he agreed flatly.

‘About, sir?’ Trevor prompted gently.

‘Mr Raines wasn’t happy to have so many of the society staying in one residential house – over half of them in one building, in fact. He had requested that they be more widely scattered throughout the college campus. He said something about not wanting them to form cliques, and that it made for a better dynamic.’ Art shrugged. ‘It all sounded like psychobabble gobbledegook to me.’ Art sighed. ‘But it’s just easier for the scouts to clean rooms if college guests aren’t scattered far and wide. But Mr Raines wouldn’t see reason, but I didn’t take it personally. It was nothing, believe me,’ Art tried to reassure them, looking from one policeman to the other and smiling ingratiatingly. ‘You should hear some of the non-consequential things some of our conference-goers complain about.’ He gave a short, pitifully unconvincing laugh.

Jenny’s eyes narrowed in sudden thought. Now just why would Maurice Raines want his people to be scattered about here and yon? Unless it was because he wanted to make sure
that they weren’t all congregated under his feet, of course. The inspector’s theory that maybe he was conducting an affair during the conference, and wanted room and privacy in order to do so, was looking more and more likely.

Unless…. Jenny frowned and began to think. Hard.

‘And that was all, was it, sir?’ Trevor carried on the interview smoothly, letting the scepticism show in his voice. ‘There was nothing else?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. He made some comment about one of the windows in the lecture room being stiff, I think,’ Art said vaguely.

Trevor nodded. That might be interpreted as inadequate ventilation, he supposed, with some amusement. ‘And did Mr Raines threaten to take his complaint to the bursar himself?’ Trevor persisted, again in that mild, amiable way that was so clever at luring the unwary into a sense of false security.

Art flushed. But whether in remembered anger, or because he was embarrassed by the question, it was hard for either policeman to tell. ‘Oh, they all do that, Inspector,’ Art said, waving a hand dismissively in the air. ‘I never take it seriously. The bursar knows what clients can be like. I wasn’t in the least worried. I’m sure Mr Glover-Smythe would have backed me to the hilt, if it had ever come to it,’ Art lied magnificently. And if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was sweating uncomfortably, and looking rather like a disconcerted bullfrog, his feigned nonchalance might have been even halfway believable.

Trevor decided to let that show of bravura go, and nodded instead. Now might not be the best moment to push it. ‘All right, sir,’ he agreed with a small smile. ‘Just for the record, you were in your office all morning yesterday, isn’t that what you said?’

Art instantly went pale with fright. ‘Yes,’ he said feebly. He’d never before had to account for his whereabouts at the time of a murder, and the experience was making him feel distinctly
faint. He wondered, with a hint of hysteria, if he was going to be sick, and swallowed convulsively.