Design for Murder (18 page)

Whether he attributed it to my gender, my social class, or
my character, he patently thought that I was stark raving
mad.

“You do as you please, miss,” he said with a sniff. “I got work to get on with.”

I hurried across to the studio, unlocked the door, and ran upstairs. Picking up the phone, I dialled the number of the
Gilchester police headquarters, and impatiently counted off
the seconds that I had to wait.

“Detective Inspector Grant, please.”

“I’ll see if he’s in, madam. Who’s speaking?”

“Tracy Yorke.”

Neil came on the line immediately. “What’s new, Tracy?”

“Something important. The magazine has turned up.”

“That’s something I didn’t expect. Where was it?”

I explained briefly, and Neil asked several questions until
he had extracted everything I knew myself. Then he said, “
I’m coming straight over. I suppose you’ve handled that
cover page, Tracy?”

“Well, yes ...”

“And Billy Moon’s prints will be plastered all over it, too. I
don’t expect there’s a hope in hell we’ll find anything useful, but you never know.”

This time, while I waited for Neil to turn up, it wasn’t in
the same mood of nervous trepidation as before. This was not
just guesswork on my part, but solid fact. Could it be that my discovery would unlock the answers to everything
...
the
sender of the anonymous letter, Oliver’s killer and—if Neil
was right—Ursula’s killer, too?

Neil arrived like a whirlwind. “Okay, where’s this magazine
cover you found?”

I pointed to it on my table, and he studied it thoughtfully
for a moment. Then, touching only the edges, he slid it into a polythene bag he took from his jacket pocket.

“Now, Tracy, I’m off to see Billy Moon. But I want you to
stay here by the phone, because I’m hoping for a call to say
that the remnants of the magazine have been found. If it
comes through, then take the message and come down and let
me know at once.”

I gaped at
him
in surprise. “But how can you hope to find the rest of that magazine?”

“Luckily the council here doesn’t incinerate its rubbish,”
Neil explained. “Instead, everything is dumped in an old
quarry. And as the magazine in question was only in yesterday’s collection, it won’t be buried too deep. Chief Superintendent Blackley has sent a gang of our chaps to start sifting through the tip.” He grinned. “Not a very savoury job for a summer’s day, I’m afraid, but necessary. Let’s hope, for their sake, that they find what they’re looking for quickly.”

It was very silent in the studio as I waited. Unable to settle
to work, I wandered through into the flat and gazed down through one of the windows overlooking the courtyard. I wondered what was happening in the stable. I had a feeling
that Neil wasn’t often defeated, but I doubted if he’d often
met up with anyone as stubbornly unresponsive as Billy
Moon could be when he felt so inclined.

Fifteen minutes later, back in the studio, I heard Neil’s footsteps on the staircase. He looked gloomy as he came in
and threw himself down on one of the red leather chairs.

“No phone call yet, I presume?”

I shook my head. “How did you get on with Billy?”

“He’s a right awkward old cuss, isn’t he? He seems to take a positive delight in being as bloody-minded as possible. I
threatened him with unnamed horrors, cajoled him, appealed
to his sense of civic duty, even appealed to his vanity as being
the clever chap who had found the clue that could solve the
whole case for us. Useless. He just repeats, “I’ve telled you ev
erything I knows, and I can’t tell you nothing more.””

“Doesn’t it occur to you that this might be the truth?”

Neil scuffed the carpet with the toe of his shoe. “Oh yes,
Tracy, it occurs to me. Maybe it damned well is the truth.”

“But that detective’s nose of yours says not?”

He nodded. “Quite a strong whiff, I’m getting. Still, we’ll have to try other directions. Let’s hope that the magazine provides us with a clue when it’s dug out of the garbage tip.”

“You’re hoping to find fingerprints, are you?”

“With any luck. Or there might be something else to help
us identify whose copy it was.”

“What, for instance?”

Neil shrugged. “A scribbled marginal note, maybe. Something underlined. Or something missing.”

“Something missing? What would that prove? There will be
lots of bits of it missing.”

“Yes, but it’s a matter of
which
bits,” he said mysteriously.

As if on cue, the phone rang. I grabbed it up quickly.

“Miss Yorke? This is Detective Sergeant Willis. Is Mr. Grant there, please?”

“Yes, one moment.”

I handed Neil the phone. The sergeant’s voice crackled,
just below the level of audibility.

“That’s splendid,” said Neil, after a moment. “Exactly
what have you got, and what’s missing?”

He jotted down some figures on an envelope lying on the
table, then said, “Okay, Dave. Get things moving, will you? I’ll meet you back at the station in half an hour.”

“Well?” I demanded, as he hung up.

“They’ve found the magazine, as you’ll have guessed. It had come apart at the staples, which isn’t surprising after going through garbage disposal. Luckily, though, they’ve
managed to unearth all of it except for one sheet. Give me
that copy of yours, will you? I want to have a look.”

I fished out the magazine from a drawer and handed it
over.

“Let’s see now,” said Neil, flipping through. “Pages seven
teen and eighteen, and then fifty-seven and fifty-eight.” He found the pages concerned, which together formed a single sheet, glancing at each in turn. Then he passed the magazine back to me. “Thanks, Tracy.”

“Did you spot anything significant?”

“Could be,” he said.

“What is it, then? Or aren’t you going to tell me?”

“You won’t like it much if I do.”

“Oh, come on,” I said impatiently.

“Okay. Take a look at page fifty-eight.”

I did so, and I didn’t need to ask him any more. It was the
page that carried the advertisement for Cotswold Vintage.

Chapter Eleven

I forced myself to get down to work after Neil’s departure,
but for all I achieved I might just as well not have bothered. I
made a thorough botch of preparing some rough visuals for the simplest of jobs, a playroom/bedroom for twin girls aged seven. Pushing this aside in despair, I tried to do the costings for another enquiry we’d had—the remodelling of a former tobacconist’s shop that was reopening as a boutique—but the figures refused to make any sense.

I heard a car entering the courtyard through the archway,
and stirred myself, wondering who it might be. The sound of
Tim’s voice calling up the stairs jolted me. I’d forgotten all
about our arrangement to go riding, and I wasn’t ready to
face him yet. If I ever would be again.

“Tracy? Are you up there?”

I went to the head of the stairs. “Hallo, Tim.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked, looking puzzled. “The sta
bles are all shut up, and you’re not even changed.”

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I...”

He came on upstairs, frowning. “Did old Billy Moon turn
curmudgeonly or something and refuse to let us have the
horses?”

I shook my head, too confused to know what to say.

Tim grinned at me lopsidedly. “I do believe that you clean forgot about our going for a ride this evening.”

“Yes, I’m afraid I did. It went completely out of my mind.”

“Not very flattering to me.”

“Sorry,” I said again, helplessly.

Tim stepped closer and put a hand under my chin, giving
me a hard, penetrating look. “There’s something wrong, isn’t
there? Aren’t you feeling well, Tracy?”

“I’m okay. It’s just that all this business is getting to me.
Oliver and Ursula and ... and everything.”

“Everything?” Tim’s mouth went taut. “Are you still bothered about that anonymous letter?”

I looked away from him, unable to find an answer.

“I reckon you need to get out in the fresh air,” he said,
“Like I’ve been all afternoon. It’s a marvellous tonic after a
gloomy funeral. If we can’t have a ride, let’s go walking on
the hills. How about driving over to Painswick, and climbing
the Beacon there?”

I hesitated. Part of me frantically wished Tim gone, yet I
knew that I still wanted to spend the evening with him.
Should I allow Neil Grant to sow seeds of suspicion in my mind, when I
knew
that Tim had nothing to do with that
anonymous letter? The best thing was not to think about it at
all, not to allow the insidious seeds any space to sprout.

“All right then,” I agreed. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”

When I returned, having slipped on my black velvet jacket,
I said yet again, “Sorry about messing up our ride, Tim. It was stupid of me.”

“Don’t give it another thought.” There was a pause, then he said, “Seen anything of Neil Grant lately?”

I felt like telling him no, but I could so easily be caught out in such a silly lie.

“Well, yes
...
as a matter of fact he was here this afternoon.”

“Isn’t the bloody man ever going to leave us alone?”

“Us? Has he been to see you again, too?”

Tim nodded. “Yesterday afternoon.”

In Tim’s estate car, we headed out of the grounds by way
of the Home Farm gates. A few moments later, I realised that we were at the crossroads where Grace had seen Sebastian driving a Volvo. I gave a little shudder, wondering whether it
really was Sebastian who had killed Oliver. The idea didn’t bear thinking about, but it was infinitely preferable to the
thought that Tim was involved.

Tim flicked me a glance, and saw my downcast face.
“Cheer up, Tracy. Shall we stop off for a drink somewhere?”

“If you like.”

He chose a little dormer-windowed pub where the beer was
drawn from the wood. The two or three other customers
gathered in the bar made it the hub of this lost little Cotswold
hamlet almost totally buried in a wooded dell. Tim and I
carried our drinks outside and sat together on a rustic bench
in the full flood of evening sunshine.

“On a fine summer evening in the heart of rural England, what better than a tankard of good honest beer?” he said.

I felt myself slowly relaxing. The alcohol was smoothing off
the edges of my anxiety and the sun was drenching me with
warmth. Tim’s shoulder touched mine, and I could have
stayed there for a long time, dreamily content.

It was several minutes before Tim broke the silence, and
his words shattered my mood.

“What was it that Neil Grant wanted to see you about this afternoon?”

“Just routine questions,” I said, shrugging.

For a moment or two he fiddled with his glass tankard.

“I think you’re holding out on me, Tracy. Have the police formed any new theories yet?”

“I told you before, Neil wouldn’t tell me if they had,” I
said, forgiving myself the lie.

“What does he have to say about Ursula Kemp’s accident?”

I felt cornered and it must have showed in the spikiness of
my voice. “Why should you suppose Neil has
anything
to say
about it?”

“No reason. Come to think of it, he probably wouldn’t deal with traffic accidents. When’s the inquest?”

“How should I know? You seem to be very interested.”

He tilted his head. “I just wondered.”

Why did Tim have to thrust to the forefront of my mind
what I’d been trying to dismiss as irrelevant ... that on the
night of Ursula’s death, when he was supposed to be at home
working on his tax return, he hadn’t answered when I phoned
him, though I’d held on for ages. I hadn’t dared to reveal this fact to Neil.

Should I challenge Tim now? I decided on a sideways approach.

“Did you get your VAT return finished on Monday eve
ning?”

“Eventually. I’m not the world’s greatest bookkeeper, even with the aid of a calculator.”

I kept my voice carefully casual. “It must seem unfair, hav
ing paperwork to do after a hard day’s slog in the vineyard. I
expect you felt like chucking the whole lot into the waste-bin
and saying to hell with it.”

Tim laughed. “I was tempted, I don’t mind telling you. Es
pecially when it got to midnight and the wretched columns still wouldn’t tally.”

I felt my skin prickle. “You mean to say that you worked through the entire evening, without a break?”

“It’s not my style, Tracy, I agree. But I’d hate to have the Customs and Excise people descend on me. I’d be a marked
man for ever more.” He drank down the last of his beer.
“Shall we go?”

But then Tim couldn’t find his keys, and he fished around
in each of his pockets. I finally retrieved the bunch from a tuft of grass beneath the rustic bench.

“You’ll lose them completely one of these days, the way
you’re always leaving them around.” My eye was caught by a
little chased-silver medallion attached to the ring, shaped a
bit like a spade. “What’s this meant to be?”