Death of an Old Git (The Falconer Files - File 1) (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

Tuesday 21st July – morning

I

Tuesday had dawned overcast and humid, a dull day that had lost none of the heat of its predecessors, but was airless and oppressive, with a depressing atmosphere that suited Harry Falconer’s mood, as he tried to come to terms with the collapse of his case. He felt crushed by the thought that he was right back to square one, and was sitting moodily at his desk staring balefully into space, when Carmichael made his appearance.

‘Where the hell have you been, Carmichael?’ he snapped, venting his spleen on his subordinate. ‘Have you seen the time?’

‘Sorry, sir.’ The younger man apologised, walking carefully towards his desk. ‘Not feeling quite a hundred per cent.’

Falconer looked up, at the hollow tone of his sergeant’s voice. He did not look a hundred per cent either. His clothes were the same as he had worn the day before, but his skin seemed to have changed tone in sympathy with his bright apparel, and his face had a greenish tinge, his eyes were hollow and dark ringed, and a slick of sweat covered his forehead.

‘Whatever’s wrong with you?’ Falconer barked, still sulking. ‘You look like a crock of shit!’

‘Thanks, sir. That’s just about how I feel. I had a kebab last night from Mickey the Snack’s van. Must’ve been a dodgy one. I’ve been up all night. If it’s not been one end, it’s been the other. Shat through the eye of a needle, I have,’ he finished descriptively.

‘OK, OK. Thanks for painting a picture for me. Are you sure you’re up to being here?’

‘I’ll be fine. I managed a cup of tea this morning, and I haven’t chucked since about seven. Anyway, I’ll feel better keeping busy.’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘I’m OK. I’ll just sit down for a while, though. My head’s going round a bit, but I’ll be better with something to do.’

Falconer left him to it and lapsed back into his brown study for the best part of a quarter of an hour, coming to terms with the fact that he would have to go back to Castle Farthing and start doing the rounds all over again. His nagging instinct that he had missed something seemed to have been right, and he would just have to poke, pry and question until he discovered the missing piece of the puzzle.

II

Falconer drove slowly and carefully that morning, using Carmichael’s face as a barometer. The last thing he wanted in his car was the sort of pollution that the sergeant had been producing, courtesy of Mickey the Snack, whoever he might be.

With a conscious decision to distract his under-the-weather companion, he decided that they would start their enquiries at Jasmine Cottage, as the sight of Kerry Long always seemed to have a cheering influence on him. Their knock, however, brought no response and, checking his watch, Falconer muttered a silent curse. How stupid of him. It was mid-morning on a weekday. She would be at work of course.

‘Come along, Carmichael. She’ll be at Allsorts. Let’s get ourselves over there.’

‘OK, but don’t walk too fast, sir.’

‘In this humidity? Do you think I’m mad?’

There was a queue in the shop and Falconer joined the end of it, as there seemed to be no sign of Kerry long, just Rosemary Wilson ringing up goods at the till and stopping for a chat with each of her customers.

Carmichael shuffled dejectedly round the shelves, once more examining the extraordinary mix of goods on display. One short length of wall alone held babies’ dummies, staples, cocktail sticks, fire-lighters, shoelaces in a variety of colours, hairnets, and sealing wax. The walrus and the carpenter would have had a field day in here. Occasionally the sergeant stopped as his stomach cramped and a wave of nausea washed over him. The hot, airless interior was beginning to make him feel dizzy again.

Falconer, meanwhile, working his way to the head of the queue, had searched in a bored manner through his pockets, hoping to surprise an uneaten mint, and finding instead that odd coin that had been found by Carmichael in the back garden of Crabapple Cottage, something that he had still not remembered to add to the evidence bag for Reg Morley’s murder. In a distracted manner he took it out and began to flip it over in his hand as he finally reached the counter.

‘Good morning, Mrs Wilson. Is your niece about? We’d like a word, if possible.’ And right this minute, he thought, having already wasted enough time listening to enquiries about relatives, ailments, relatives’ ailments, the state of the country, and garden pests.

‘She’s not here I’m afraid, Inspector.’

‘Well, she’s not at home. We’ve already tried there.’ Really, this case was just one wild goose chase after another. Making any headway was proving as difficult as trying to nail jelly to the ceiling, or knit fog.

‘No, I know she’s not there. There’s been a bit of trouble.’

‘What sort of trouble?’ asked Falconer, continuing to play with the coin, one eye on Carmichael who had found a few bare inches of wall and was drooping against it looking very unhappy.

‘It started with Buster – you know, old Morley’s dog that Martha Cadogan took in. Well, he must have got out somehow first thing this morning, and come trotting on down to his old home out of force of habit. Kerry’s two kiddies had finished their breakfast and gone out with their toast crusts for the ducks – they’re quite safe outside their own home, and it gives Kerry a few minutes to herself to clear away the dishes and get herself ready for work,’ she added defensively, daring him to question her niece’s maternal devotion.

‘Of course, once they saw the dog that was it; they were all over him, patting him and stroking him and making a right fuss of him. He must have got all over-excited at so much attention and nipped young Kyle. He didn’t mean no harm, I’m sure. He was just playing, and he didn’t break the skin or anything, but how that child howled. Frightened, I suppose. Luckily the Brigadier happened along then, out for his “early morning constitutional” as he calls it. He grabbed Buster, delivered the children home, then took the dog back to Martha, who would’ve been frantic with worry if she’d realised he’d got out.’

This could prove to be a long day, thought Falconer, as he tried to hasten things along. ‘So where is your niece? Has she gone to the doctor’s or the hospital?’

‘Good heavens, no. I said there was no real harm done. Both kiddies went into school as usual – it’s the end of term and they didn’t want to miss out on any of the fun – although Kyle insisted on a big bandage to advertise his mishap.

‘No, Kerry had been that cross about the whole thing – she’s never liked that dog as you know – and when she came into work she just worked herself into a right old state about it; how it could’ve been much worse, and how she thought the animal was a danger to children. She said it ought to be put down before it really hurt someone, and she was going to give Martha a piece of her mind for letting it get loose in the first place. All wound up like a spring she was, and in the end I could do nothing with her and had to let her go and have her say. She won’t get anywhere, though. Martha Cadogan won’t have a bad word said about any animal, let alone her beloved Buster. Why, she’s more fond of animals than she is of people, if you ask me. Might even account for her still being a spinster, I suppose.’

Falconer was beginning to get a fuzzy feeling in his head, like bad reception, but it had stirred his policeman’s instinct, and he let the rest of her outpouring flow over him, his hand still unconsciously flipping the coin. He did not even notice Lillian Swainton-Smythe enter the shop, her eyes immediately becoming glued to the disc of metal that turned over and over in his hand, and it was not until she spoke that he became aware of her presence.

‘Oh, I see you’ve found Auntie’s lucky coin. She will be pleased. Where on earth was it? She’s looked everywhere for it, even had Bertie send up a prayer to St Anthony for its safe return.’

At these words, what he had been missing clarified for Falconer and, as the mental penny dropped, so did the physical coin, his hand misjudging the catch in his realisation of what must have really happened.

‘This is your Aunt Martha’s coin?’ he asked as he bent to retrieve it.

‘Yes. She calls it her lucky coin. She’s been awfully upset at losing it. It’s an old co-operative coin she’s had for donkeys’ years. One of those Anglesey pennies. Always keeps it in her bag.’

But Falconer had stopped listening.
Animals!
That was what this case was about, and had been all along, not people. Animals had been the thread that had run through both murders, and he had been too blind, or too stupid, to see it.

He had even said himself that the old lady was obsessed with animals, had helped her pick up her shopping when she had been buying food for the feral cats, the hedgehogs and the birds in her garden. He had listened to her wittering on about wildlife in general, and had heard her harsh words for both Reg Morley and his great-nephew. And none of it had sunk into his stupid, stupid brain.

Good grief, he had even been there as an eyewitness when the woman was mending her trellis with wire – the wire which had choked the two victims, probably cut from the same roll! – and he had been too blind to see what had, literally, been right before his eyes.

Reg Morley, apart from being a despicable specimen of humanity, had treated Buster harshly. Mike Lowry had shot and poisoned rats and stray cats, then he had foolishly decided to take his temper out on Buster and kicked him. That must have been the last straw for the old lady, as far as she was concerned.

Martha Cadogan had admitted that she had phoned the vicarage on the night of the latter’s murder to see if all was well. What if what she had been doing, in reality, was making sure that Lowry was on his own and out cold. It must have been she who was responsible for doping them both, though at this point he had no idea how, and no time to ponder on it.

These deaths had nothing to do with greed, or adultery, or any of the number of possible motives that he had pursued so avidly in his blind, blundering quest for the truth. The real motive was so simple, it had gone straight over his head. That sweet little old lady had killed because of what two men had done to dumb animals, and one dumb animal in particular, and now Kerry Long had gone to see her to tell her she thought Buster ought to be destroyed. If he was right about this, that young woman was in real danger.

III

Pausing only to grab a whey-faced Carmichael, he asked if there was a gate from the back of the shop to the rear access road. Receiving an answer in the affirmative, he pushed his way through the stock room without explanation, practically dragging Carmichael in his wake. There was no time to take the car. They would have to go on foot and hope they were in time.

As they ran, Falconer explained his revelation as briefly and as succinctly as he could, and the sergeant’s face contorted with worry as he put on an extra spurt of speed, despite his indisposition.

It was with little difficulty that they found the gate at the back of The Old School House, the very same one that Martha Cadogan had used to put out her rubbish the night she had caught Reg Morley fleeing from spying on Rebecca Rollason.

‘What if we’re too late, sir?’ Carmichael looked frantic.

‘And what if we’re not,’ Falconer rationalised. ‘Now, let’s take this calmly when we get to them. If nothing’s happened yet, we don’t want to spook the old dear. We’ll let her think this is just another routine enquiry and see how things go.’

‘And if something’s already happened?’ Carmichael swallowed convulsively and closed his eyes. He was already feeling dreadful, and the thought that something might have happened to Kerry made fresh waves of nausea wash over him.

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now, I’m going to open the gate, and let’s just be nice and calm, completely normal, until we can see what we’re dealing with.’

As they entered the garden they could see two figures sitting at the white wrought-iron table on the lawn. Between them was a tray holding a half-empty jug of lemonade and two full tumblers.

‘Hello, gentlemen,’ Martha greeted them, looking up. ‘Have you been ringing the bell and I haven’t heard you?’

This was a much better scenario than Falconer could have hoped for, and they approached the two women slowly, outwardly at their ease. Martha Cadogan sat upright, as was her custom, her capacious bag by her chair, and smiled as they walked towards her. Kerry Long was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, but Falconer only had eyes for the twin tumblers on the tray. Carmichael’s attention was, to his dismay, split between concern for the younger woman’s welfare and his own deteriorating physical condition. He was sweating freely now and dizziness almost overwhelmed him.

They were within a few feet of the table when Kerry reached out a hand for her glass of lemonade and Falconer was galvanised into action. With a cry of, ‘Don’t drink that!’ he lunged forward and dashed the glass from her hand.

Martha Cadogan’s actions were just as fleet. In one fluid movement, unexpected in one of such age, she had reached into her bag and now stood before them, holding, at chest height, a venerable service revolver. Falconer and Carmichael froze; Kerry looked on appalled, her hand still outstretched, reaching for the glass that now lay on its side on the grass beside her chair.

‘Don’t move, any of you,’ Martha commanded. ‘This is my father’s gun from the Great War. It may be old,’ she explained, ‘but I’ve kept it well-oiled and in use all these years.’ Her voice had the same quiet, reasonable tone that she must have used in all those years of teaching, just making the situation even more bizarre.

‘I often carry it in case I come across a creature in the woods that needs an end to its misery. They still set traps around here, you know,’ she continued almost conversationally. ‘On one occasion I even found a wounded deer. You can’t just knock a creature of that size on the head with a stone. So I’ve kept Daddy’s revolver in good condition and I’ve used it when necessary. Don’t be foolish enough to think that I will be afraid to use it now.’

Carmichael had heard her clearly up to the mention of the deer, and then his own body had turned on him. His bowels cramped viciously as another wave of nausea swept over him. His dizziness heightened, he heard as if through cotton wool, and the scene before him bleached of colour, until it was monochrome and beginning to blur.