Deadly Stuff (15 page)

‘Yes, we notified your children as soon as we could,’ Trevor agreed. ‘But we had trouble locating you. Your children tried your mobile number but couldn’t get an answer.’ His tone made it more of a question than a statement, and she gave a slight grimace.

‘Oh, no they wouldn’t,’ Laura said vaguely. ‘I’m afraid I’d
just lost the damn thing. Only a matter of a day or so, but it meant I had to buy a new one, and I hadn’t given them the new number yet. I daresay the old one will turn up at home down the back of the sofa or something; they usually do, don’t they?’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose I should have phoned them to tell them I’d arrived safely, but I just didn’t think of it at the time.’

She cleared her throat and then looked Trevor squarely in the eye. ‘They told me he’d been found dead in the college where the conference was being held. At first, I thought it must have been a heart attack, or stroke or maybe some kind of an accident. But they seemed to believe, that is, they had been
led
to believe by one of your people, that that wasn’t the case.’ Unconsciously she leaned forward a little against the table. ‘But is that really true, Inspector? Isn’t it possible there has been some kind of bad accident? Maybe something freakish, and unusual, but accidental nonetheless?’ Her voice, although still even and calm, had a hint of wild hope in it.

‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Raines. It’s a clear case of unlawful killing,’ Trevor contradicted gently but firmly.

Laura swallowed once, then nodded. Yes. She expected as much. Simon had been very clear on that. Even so, she’d been hoping against hope, all the way on that hellish drive over here, that he’d got it wrong - that there must be some other explanation, no matter how bizarre.

‘I see,’ she said flatly.

Trevor saw her shoulders sag infinitesimally, and sighed. He never knew how people were going to react to the loss of a family member, and he’d been prepared for floods of tears, anger, disbelief, shock or a combination of all three. But he’d seen at once that Laura Raines was a member of the old-fashioned breed who still believed in maintaining a stiff upper lip.

Whilst that could be useful in some ways, in getting a coherent and logical statement, for example, a bit of honest,
spontaneous emotion often told you a lot more, but he was well aware that he’d be getting no such helping hand from the lady in front of him now.

‘When did it happen?’ Laura asked.

It was a reasonable question, but Trevor hesitated before answering it. Would it give her a chance to concoct an alibi? If she were his number one suspect, he’d be inclined to give out as little information as possible, but at the moment, he had no real reason to suspect her any more or less than anyone else. On the other hand, he would have to find out where she was at the time anyway, so there was little point in keeping it from her.

‘Yesterday between eleven-thirty and twelve noon, Mrs Raines.’

Laura nodded, without any sign of emotion. No relief, no anger, and no fear, which surprised Trevor Golder quite a bit. Of course, she could just be numb, or going into shock, he surmised. In which case, he needed to push the interview on.

‘May I ask where you were at that time?’ Trevor asked, as delicately as he could.

Laura nodded slowly. ‘Yes, of course. I think I was arriving at the hotel about then. It must have been, as I remembered thinking it was still a little too early for lunch, and that I should have time to unpack before….’ Her voice trailed off. ‘So it was then that he … went. Funny, to think that I was blithely unpacking. You’re supposed to have premonitions, or something, aren’t you, when something bad’s happening to an important member of your life? But I hadn’t a clue.’

Her voice had become softer as she spoke and, as if suddenly realising that she was in danger of sounding maudlin, she seemed to give a mental shake, and her voice rose back to its normal, no-nonsense volume again. ‘You’ll be wanting to know the name of the hotel, I expect. To confirm what I’m telling you?’

She said it without resentment, but it was clear that she was
not particularly happy about it either.

‘I’m afraid so.’

Laura nodded once, and recited the name and address of the hotel. She wondered how long it would take them to question the staff and learn about Simon. Not long, she was sure. An hour or so? She’d signed them both in under her name, and using her credit cards, so they wouldn’t have Simon’s details. But she’d have to tell them, when asked.

But Laura was in no hurry.

‘Do you have any leads, Inspector?’ she demanded briskly. ‘I find it impossible to think that anyone would want to kill Maurice. Oh, I know that he could be a bit of an autocrat at times, and many people in that awful little society of his probably wanted to throttle him from time to time, but not literally.’

She paused and sighed. ‘Was it someone at the college itself? Or a random thing? How, exactly … I mean, can you tell me what happened?’ Her tone was somewhere between a demand and a plea.

Again, Trevor hesitated. He was certain that Laura would be too intelligent to supply him with a false alibi that could so easily be checked, which meant that she was certainly not the killer of her husband. On the other hand, she was not altogether in the clear yet, and he needed to know much more about her movements and the state of her marriage before he started giving away details.

He was also aware that the woman’s husband was dead, and that she was entitled to certain human dignities.

‘I’m afraid your husband was killed with a weapon in the hall of the college where he was staying,’ Trevor said carefully. ‘As of yet, we’ve found no witnesses to the crime, and have uncovered no reason why anyone would want him dead.’

Trevor watched her carefully, but the pale, composed face, remained pale and composed.

‘I see,’ Laura said. Then she took a long, slow breath. ‘I suppose, in questioning the other people in that silly little society, that they must have told you something of Maurice’s reputation. With women, I mean,’ she said with total aplomb, and again, looking him squarely in the eye.

Trevor, who hadn’t been looking forward to bringing up just this subject, felt a small spurt of gratitude to her for easing the way.

‘It had been mentioned that he was something of a man with the ladies, yes,’ Trevor said cautiously. ‘Although no one was able to say with any authority that it amounted to anything more than his manner and some flirting.’

Laura smiled slightly. ‘I see. Nice of them to be so discreet.’ Again, she and Simon had discussed how much and what she should tell the police, and they’d agreed that keeping Maurice’s affairs a secret would be counter productive. Indeed, when it came time to admit to their own love affair, it could only help them to have laid the ground in their favour.

‘I have to tell you, Inspector, that the rumours were true. Maurice and I … our marriage, that is, was, well, to all intents and purposes, more or less over.’

Trevor nodded. He showed no signs of excitement or suspicion and Laura was to some extent reassured.

‘Yes. Once the children were well into their teens, things between us just seemed to peter out,’ she explained simply. ‘Oh, it was nothing dramatic. There were no big scenes, or recriminations, or anything like that.’ She smiled briefly. ‘It was just a question of a gradual widening of the gulf between us, I suppose. Maurice had always had his outlandish work, which seemed to make him happy, and I had my hobbies and interests too. My family has always had money, you see,’ Laura said matter-of-factly. ‘It was my money that started up Maurice’s firm, and I’ve kept up my own social circle of friends and activities. Art, mainly. I’m on the board of several galleries. Anyway,
you don’t want to know all about that,’ Laura said practically. ‘You want to know about the other women.’

She leaned back in the seat and sighed. ‘Maurice’s women,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I was inclined, looking back, to think that he started with them when the children were almost fully grown, but I think it more likely now that they’d always been there, more or less right from the start; I was just too busy to notice. When I finally did … well, they just didn’t seem to matter much.’

Laura paused and looked at the two policemen thoughtfully. ‘Of course, I have no way of proving that’s true. For all you know, I might be one of those pathologically jealous women who are desperate to keep their men, and react violently to any woman who tries to steal them.’ She stopped, thought about it for a while, and then shrugged. ‘I imagine you can ask our mutual friends and neighbours and what-have-yous. If they’re honest with you, they’ll probably paint the same picture that I am. I mean,’ – and here she gave a sudden bark of laughter that was not exactly lacking in irony – ‘I suppose Maurice and I were a common enough, trite little story. A marriage slowly dying on its feet out of boredom and indifference. It would have ended in divorce, sooner or later,’ she said sadly, then added vaguely, ‘They always do, don’t they? It was just that neither one of us had got around to making the effort yet.’

She reached for the jug of water on the table and poured herself a glass. It was dry in the little interview room and she suddenly felt thirsty. She felt drained and tired, and longed to go to Simon and have him hold her and tell her that it would be all right, even if he was lying.

This feeling of constantly walking a tightrope was taking it out of her, and she hoped the interview wouldn’t go on much longer.

‘Thank you for your candour, Mrs Raines, we appreciate it.
Now, just a few more facts, if you don’t mind,’ Trevor said.

‘Of course. Whatever you like,’ she forced herself to say with a grim smile.

‘Do you have much contact with your mother-in-law?’

Laura stared at the policeman for a second, looked totally nonplussed and then smiled uncertainly. ‘Not really, no. She’s not very well, and I think Maurice was thinking of arranging for her to go into a home soon. But we got on all right, as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law I mean. I’m sorry, but I don’t quite see how that’s relevant?’

Trevor nodded. ‘Just bear with me a bit, Mrs Raines. When was the last time you visited her at her home?’

‘Yonks ago. Maurice called on her regularly, and sometimes we’d have her over to our home for Sunday lunch. But not so much recently, as I said, since she’s getting rather frail.’

Clearly, Laura Raines seemed to be struggling to see where this line of questioning was going, and Trevor didn’t want to push it. If the lady had had access to her mother-in-law’s heart medication, she wasn’t going to give the game away easily. If she was somehow responsible for that poisoned coffee cup, he didn’t want to alert her to her danger unduly.

‘When was the last time you saw your husband?’ he asked next.

‘The day he left to come down to Oxford.’

‘Did he seem normal in his manner? Worried about the up-coming conference perhaps?’

‘No, he seemed the same as usual,’ Laura said.

‘He never mentioned any threatening phone calls, or that he’d made an enemy of someone in the society perhaps?’

‘Good grief, no,’ Laura said, again sounding clearly astonished.

‘Did he mention to you anything about Mrs Voight, or the finances of the society? Did he voice any suspicions about anyone?’

‘No. But then Maurice wouldn’t, even if that was the case,’ Laura assured them. ‘He was the sort of man who liked to handle things himself.’

For a moment that thought hung in the air, and all three people in the room were clearly thinking the same thing. Namely, this time, Maurice Raines had taken on more than he could handle.

Trevor broke the silence with a small sigh. ‘All right, Mrs Raines, that’s all for now. I take it that you’re going to be staying on in Oxford for a while?’

‘Yes, I’ve taken a room at the Randolph.’ She named the famous, first-class hotel in the centre of town.

Trevor saw Peter Trent take a note of it, and nodded. ‘We’ll be in touch again soon,’ Trevor said. ‘Perhaps you could give my sergeant the number of your new mobile phone, so that we can remain in contact?’

Laura Raines did so, rose steadily, gave a brief smile to each of the men, and left.

When she was gone, they were silent for a moment. Then the sergeant stirred.

‘Formidable woman, that,’ he remarked at last.

‘Yes,’ Trevor agreed thoughtfully.

‘She was hiding something,’ his sergeant remarked.

‘Yes,’ Trevor again agreed thoughtfully. ‘Get on to the hotel in Hayling Island. I want her alibi confirmed.’

The sergeant nodded, snapped his notebook shut and left.

Trevor continued to sit in the empty interview room for some little time, tapping his forefinger thoughtfully against his lips. For all her apparent frankness, calm equilibrium and her smooth co-operation, the experienced policeman was convinced of one thing: Laura Raines was a woman desperately afraid.

T
he next day, the two policemen drove through the college gates almost in tandem. Trevor parked first, then waited for his sergeant to join him before turning and heading towards the incident room. As they walked, they caught up on yesterday’s findings.

‘You’ve got the last of the uniform reports in on any sightings around the college of anyone acting suspiciously, right?’ Trevor asked, nodding at one of the scouts who looked vaguely familiar and who scuttled past them pushing a laundry trolley.

‘Yeah, no real joy, though,’ Peter Trent sighed. ‘Just the usual – a few troublemakers who wanted to make life difficult for someone they’ve got it in for. One even claimed that he saw his neighbour walking past the college with a machete! Nothing in it, of course. We’re thinking of doing
him
for wasting police time.’ The sergeant snorted in disgust. ‘We had two reports of a street person, who turned out to be well known to the locals, and who’d spent the morning of the murder sleeping it off in the cells before being released just before eleven. Apparently, the bottom end of the college grounds was a regular begging spot for him. But his clothes were clean – well, not clean obviously,’ the older man said with a wide grin, ‘but free of any blood spots anyway.’

‘And nobody reported seeing any dark-haired, thirty-something man leaving the college at any of the exits or entrances wearing bloodstained clothing, I suppose,’ Trevor interrupted the woeful listings wearily.

‘Sorry, guv, no. Nearest we got was one bloke of Oriental appearance, who seemed to be wearing a dark, stained T-shirt. Turns out he was a cook at a local Chinese takeaway, and the stains in question were mostly soy-sauce. Gave the lucky plod checking that one out a free meal, apparently.’

Trevor snorted. ‘Right.’ He filled in his sergeant on the latest forensic findings, which were equally unhelpful. There had, of course, been a lot of fingerprints and trace evidence found in hall around Maurice Raines’s body, but then there would be. Half the college and all the conference-goers had been in hall at some point.

‘We also heard back from the victim’s solicitor,’ Trevor concluded. ‘Seems the will is straightforward enough. Some gifts of various stuffed creatures to people in the Taxidermy Society, and the bulk of his money left to his two kids.’

Trent frowned thoughtfully. ‘Nothing to the wife then. Significant, you think?’

Trevor shrugged. ‘Not really. According to the solicitor, Maurice Raines’s estate wasn’t that big. Although he lived in a big house, ran a nice car and owned his own business, the bulk of the money in the marriage belonged to the wife. Her money’s tied up in trusts. The house is in her name, the cars likewise. Insurance policies, ditto. She even owns half his taxidermy business, since it was her money that financed it, and Daddy’s solicitors made sure she wasn’t ever shortchanged. So Maurice himself had very little in real assets to leave. No, I don’t think we can argue the case that the widow had any financial reasons for having him bumped off.’

‘Well, let’s hope something breaks today,’ Peter said philosophically. ‘And speaking of the widow, do you want to
tackle the lady about her hotel-mate today?’

Trevor pushed open the door to the incident room and thought about it. ‘Possibly.’ On the face of it, the fact that Laura Raines had spent the time of her husband’s murder on the south coast with another man was definitely a meaty morsel to get your teeth into; on the other hand, she’d already admitted in her initial interview that she and her husband had pretty much lived openly in a dead-end marriage. So, presumably, each partner felt able to stray without worrying too much about what the other thought of it, or any nasty little consequences that might ensue.

Also, it had been confirmed by the management and staff that Laura Raines had been checking in at the time of the crime, and had shortly been joined by her lover so there was no hurry to confront either one of them yet.

‘The fact that she kept quiet about him might mean there’s something there, guv,’ Peter said thoughtfully.

‘Possibly. Mind you, there needn’t be anything in it for us just because she was being cagey about him, either. She struck me as a private sort of person. And not volunteering information isn’t the same as lying: she might just have seen keeping quiet about him as a good idea at the time. Still, we need to speak to them both at some point. You’ve got people running him down?’

‘Yes, guv. I ran a computer check last night: he’s got no record, not even a speeding fine. He’s younger than her by a fair bit, and a good-looking bloke as you might expect according to his driving licence photo.’

Trevor grunted, but said nothing. At his desk, he took off his jacket and reached for the laptop to check his emails. ‘Well, let’s see what today brings. I can’t help but wonder what that damned cook’s up to,’ he muttered quietly, so that none of the others working in the office could hear him. So far, word hadn’t seemed to have spread amongst the troops about her, and he
wanted to keep it that way.

Peter grinned. ‘I know what you mean. Sharp, isn’t she?’

Trevor smiled grimly, but said nothing as he opened his first electronic message.

Peter Trent decided to prod him gently. ‘And she has been useful, sir,’ he added mildly.

‘Oh yes, she has been that,’ Trevor agreed flatly.

At that moment, the Junoesque cook was being helpful to the police investigation once again. Or rather, a scout named Dorothy Greening was being helpful, and Jenny was listening closely.

Jenny had just overseen the breakfast rush, and was sitting in a quiet corner of the vast kitchens enjoying a much-needed cup of tea, when a white-haired, slightly nervous woman in a pink overall slid inside and glanced around timidly. Since most of the kitchen staff were busy washing up, the scout was able to pick out the woman she needed easily, and she approached quickly.

Jenny watched the sixty-something woman approach and smiled her friendliest smile. The woman, who was barely five feet tall, had the petite person’s brisk way of walking, like she had energy and more to spare for everything that she did. But she was looking uneasy, and Jenny wanted to reassure her. So, as she arrived, Jenny pushed out another chair.

‘Hello, have a seat. Want a cup of tea?’ she offered amiably.

‘Oh, er, no thanks,’ the older woman said, a little wrong-footed by the offer. ‘You are the cook, right, that Mavis said we needed to see? About the phone?’ She sounded uncertain now, as if she doubted that this large, young but friendly woman could possibly be the liaison between the college staff and the coppers.

Jenny nodded, although she had no idea who Mavis was. She’d asked Debbie Dawkins’s mother to spread the word
around the scouts, asking if a mobile phone had been found or discarded since the taxidermist’s conference had started. No doubt she had passed that message on to the mysterious Mavis, amongst others.

‘Yes, that’s me. Found it, have you?’ she asked casually.

To her surprise, the older woman looked abruptly miserable. ‘I don’t want to lose my job, miss,’ she said, whispering it so that none of the others in the kitchen could hear. Not that they were paying any notice. ‘I didn’t mean to do nothing wrong, honest. Only it were in the bin, see. Obviously, nobody wanted it. If it’s been chucked out, it isn’t stealing, is it? Not if it was in the bin,’ the scout reiterated in a nervous, sibilant rush.

Jenny instantly twigged. ‘No, of course not. If it was in a bin it was rubbish, and discarded. You just found it and decided to recycle it, instead of just tossing it away, and why not? A perfectly good mobile, was it?’ she asked sympathetically.

The older woman looked relieved. ‘Right. I thought at first it must be broken, see, otherwise why chuck it?’ Her little head tilted a bit to one side, reminding Jenny of a curious bird contemplating a worm. ‘But when I turned it on, it lit up and everything. And had a dial tone. Not that I know much about them – I never use ’em myself. But my Sheila said she needed a new one, but couldn’t afford one, so I thought, why not? It doesn’t matter, not if someone’s thrown it away, like you said.’

‘Oh absolutely,’ Jenny agreed, with another reassuring smile. ‘It’s amazing what perfectly good stuff people throw away nowadays, isn’t it? By the way, what’s your name?’

‘Oh, Dotty. Dorothy Greening, that is,’ she said, suddenly remembering that the bursar himself had told everyone that they had to tell this woman anything that they might know. ‘I work over there.’ She pointed through a small side window out across the quad towards one of the residential buildings where the majority of the conference-goers were being housed. ‘Cleaner, see? I found it in one of the big wastepaper baskets
in the entrance hall, underneath the pigeonholes. Where they picks up their mail and messages and whatnots.’

So saying, she reached into the pocket of her voluminous pinafore and brought out a smart-looking, up-to-the-minute mobile in a dark plum colour. ‘A beauty, ain’t it?’ Dotty said admiringly. ‘Luckily, I hadn’t got around to seeing Sheila yet, so I hadn’t given it to her. So she won’t even know she might’ve been able to have it. If you see what I mean.’

Jenny did. She glanced at the phone, wondering if she should try and get a napkin to preserve any fingerprints that might be on it, but then realised that Dotty had probably handled it thoroughly. Even so. She reached for a paper napkin, and held it out to the older woman. Not surprisingly, Dotty’s eyes widened in dismay.

‘Oh crikey, you really think it’s important then? To do with that poor sod what got done in?’ she asked unhappily, as she dropped the mobile gingerly into the big cook’s now protected hand.

‘It’s possible, Dotty, yes. We need to get it to the police. Don’t worry,’ she added quickly, as the older woman reared back. ‘You don’t have to do it alone; I’ll come with you,’ she soothed, guessing that the other woman had probably never had anything to do with the police in her life. ‘And we needn’t say anything about you taking the mobile phone home and maybe giving it to Sheila, hmm?’ she encouraged brightly. ‘We’ll just tell them where you found it and that you handed it over to me when you heard that the police were looking for it. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?’

The old scout looked relieved at this, if not much happier, but she nodded glumly and gamely, and, with a resigned slump of her shoulders, followed the cook out of the kitchen.

Peter Trent was the first to spot them as they entered the incident room, and nudged Trevor on the arm. Trevor took one
look at the glum-faced and clearly nervous older woman, and read the situation in a nano-second. As they approached, he asked Peter loudly to go get them all a nice cup of tea, whilst at the same time feeling a distinct sense of
déjà vu.

This was the second time that Jenny Starling had brought one of the scouts to them with something interesting to relate. He wondered what it would be this time.

It took little time for Dotty to tell her – slightly amended – tale about finding the mobile phone in the wastepaper basket. Gentle questioning by the patient Peter Trent produced the information that Dotty emptied the bins every day, and that the phone had been found on the morning that the ‘poor man had died’, around her usual time of doing the hall, which was between half past ten and eleven, which meant it could have been dropped in there at anytime from the same period the day before.

Trevor thanked her, took the napkin-wrapped gift with enthusiasm and told the relieved old woman that she could go.

When Dorothy had all but skipped like a spring lamb from the room, he stood for a few seconds staring down at the mobile, then looked at the cook curiously.

‘I take it from all that, that you’d actually asked the scouts to search for a discarded mobile phone?’ he asked calmly. Very calmly, he thought, since this was the first he’d heard about it.

‘Yes,’ Jenny agreed, not liking the very patient tone of his voice much. Rather belatedly she realized that she’d managed to get into the inspector’s bad books. Again.

‘And just what made you do that? I mean, what made you think that there’d even be one in the first place?’ he demanded, still with the same tone of dogmatic patience.

‘Well, it seemed to me that there might be one,’ Jenny said cautiously. ‘And if there was, I thought it best to find it before the dustbin men came.’

Peter Trent, sensing that his superior’s blood pressure was
probably rising too much for everyone’s good, reached for the phone and, using the napkin to keep his own prints off it, turned it on and began to explore.

‘Yes, but what made you think—’ Trevor persisted through gritted teeth, when he heard his sergeant suddenly draw in his breath.

‘Bloody hell,’ Peter whistled under his breath. Then, looking up, said excitedly, ‘Guv, do you know who’s phone this is?’

Trevor scowled. ‘Obviously not, Sergeant, since you’re the one looking at the log of its calls,’ he pointed out with heavy sarcasm. Then he shot an equally none-too-friendly look at the cook. He’d have bet a month’s salary that this bloody woman not only knew whose phone it was, but probably knew what it had been doing in a wastepaper bin in the first place and who had put it there.

‘Miss Starling, I want a word with you, and I think—’ he began aggressively, when once again his sergeant interrupted him.

‘Guv, it’s Laura Raines’s phone!’ he said, the excitement in his voice making several heads turn their way. Including the inspector’s.

‘The widow’s phone? That’s right, she told us she’d lost it just recently,’ he said, then quickly walked behind Trent and stared down at the mobile over his shoulder. ‘What was the last call made on it?’ he demanded abruptly.

Peter fiddled with it, a shade clumsily since he was still using the napkin to preserve prints. He read it out.

‘That’s Simon Jenks, guv, I recognize the number. That’s the bloke she was staying with in Hayling Island.’

‘And the time and date?’ Trevor pressed.

‘Hold on, I’ve got to go back to the menu … here it is … The night before Maurice Raines died. It was a text message.’