Fate Worse Than Death (28 page)

‘The will was made some years ago,' continued Quantrill. ‘I understand that apart from a few minor bequests, her nephew Martin Gregory Maitland Tait – that is you, isn't it? – will cop the lot.'

Colour flooded back into Tait's face at such a speed that Quantrill almost expected it to extend into his fair hair. His eyes had a hard, bright shine. ‘Glory hallelujah!' he muttered fervently.

‘You may well say so,' agreed Quantrill. ‘Lucky for you that your aunt didn't do as she intended, wasn't it? Lucky for you that she didn't make another will after all. Perhaps she did, of course, and we haven't been able to find it …'

Tait's colour began to ebb. He said nothing.

‘My information,' the Chief Inspector went on, ‘is that you were seen in this garden on Wednesday evening burning some of your aunt's private papers. You admitted at the time that you were doing so without her knowledge or consent.'

‘Oh, I see.' Tait sounded almost relieved. ‘Someone's suggested to you that having quarrelled with my aunt, I waited until she went next door to the Websdells and then burned her new will in public view on a bonfire! I know where
that
idea came from – Mrs Bloody Braithwaite again. I wouldn't have thought you'd take such an allegation seriously.'

‘We don't dismiss any allegations where an unexplained death has occurred,' Quantrill reproved him. ‘You know that perfectly well. But it isn't just your aunt's will that's in question. It's her actual death.'

Tait stared, his face white again. ‘You don't mean –? Good God, surely you don't suspect me of having
killed
her? But that's crazy – I loved her. I would never, ever – for God's sake –'

The Chief Inspector let him talk himself into silence. Much as Tait had annoyed him over the years, often as he'd longed to slap the blasted boy down, he wasn't enjoying this. Odd, though, he thought in passing, that when it came to this crisis point, every suspect, villain or cop, used the same words of denial.

‘We have to consider that possibility,' Quantrill said. ‘Someone who knows the ropes could have sedated Mrs Schultz or confused her with alcohol, and then arranged her in the car so that her death would look like suicide. The circumstance that all the neighbours were out yesterday evening looking for Mrs Yardley would have made it that much easier. And the fact that you took your aunt's car to the local garage on Wednesday morning and asked for the engine to be adjusted to a reasonably fast tick-over –'

‘At my aunt's
own
request! I didn't think it significant at the time, but she was obviously preparing for her death.'

‘And that your fingerprints appear on the bottle of brandy that was inside the car –'

‘My prints? Oh, then I know who the investigating detective was,' said Tait with disdain. ‘That malicious oaf, Ian Wigby! He was furious that I was in at the beginning of the Sandra Websdell enquiry, and he's probably been looking for an opportunity to get back at me. Well, his allegation's ridiculous. If a detective commits a crime, he's hardly likely to leave his own dabs at the scene.'

‘Not unless he's being extra clever,' said Quantrill. ‘Doing a double bluff, perhaps? Your prints were also found on the tape-recorder in the car, by the way, and on the cassette.'

‘But I can explain that. There's a perfectly straightforward explanation for everything.'

‘I hope you're right. The ACC wants to see you at nine-thirty on Monday morning. Explain it all to him.'

Tait looked anguished. ‘I didn't destroy my aunt's will,' he said in a low voice. ‘And I most certainly didn't kill her. I realize that because the allegation's been made we have to go through the whole official procedure, and I'm prepared to put up with that. But you do believe me, sir, don't you?'

‘You know better than to ask me that, Martin,' said Quantrill wearily. ‘Oh, one thing. When you go before the ACC, you're entitled to have a solicitor present. Make sure you get yourself a good one.'

‘You look,' said Sergeant Lloyd, ‘as though you could do with a beer.'

‘Chance'ud be a fine thing,' grumbled Quantrill, sitting down heavily in the caravan and mopping his forehead.

Hilary handed him a can of Carlsberg. She was in sole charge of the incident room, all the other police officers having gone out to search for Mrs Yardley; it had been – was still being – a very difficult week, and she had decided to get in a supply of something stronger than tea.

‘How did the interview with Martin go?' she asked, opening a Carlsberg for herself. Doug Quantrill was swigging straight from the can, but Hilary found it less messy to use a cardboard cup. ‘He had an explanation for everything, no doubt?'

‘Of course.' Quantrill told her what Tait had said. Had the two of them been civilians, they would have exchanged opinions on whether or not he had destroyed his aunt's latest will and caused her death. As they were police officers, what they discussed was whether or not the allegations were likely to stick.

‘It'll all come out at the inquest on Mrs Schultz,' said Quantrill. ‘The coroner will call Mrs Braithwaite as a witness because she found the body, and so she'll repeat her allegations in public. But an inquest isn't a trial, even if the coroner decides to sit with a jury. Mrs Braithwaite can't be cross-examined. And unless the coroner decides to call him as a witness, Martin will have no opportunity to defend himself.'

‘I suppose a lot will depend on the pathologist's finding,' said Hilary. ‘As long as Mrs Schultz died of carbon monoxide poisoning, with no evidence of anything in her blood other than that and a small quantity of alcohol, the coroner may be satisfied that it was a straightforward suicide. If any traces of sedative are found as well, though, it could look suspicious.'

‘Let's face it,' said Quantrill, ‘the boy's got himself into a hell of a mess. Even if things go well for him at the inquest, we all know that his future life in the force isn't going to be worth living.'

‘No sign of Annabel Yardley, I suppose?' asked Quantrill when he had drained his can.

‘None. Though Martin did say something interesting,' remembered Hilary, ‘before I mentioned his aunt's death. He told me that when he was bringing his aeroplane in to land this afternoon, he saw a number of private vehicles travelling across a stretch of heathland about six miles north of here. He wondered whether they were anything to do with our searches, but they're not. We haven't been out as far as that. He couldn't see where the vehicles were bound for because of smoke from burning straw, but it seems to me that they were on a road that no longer goes anywhere.'

She pointed out the location on the incident-room map. The northern area of the forest had been appropriated for army battle training in the Second World War, and was still closed to the public. The heathland that Martin had referred to adjoined the battle area, and the road that had once crossed the heath was now a disused track that petered out at the Ministry of Defence boundary wire.

‘I'd have driven over to take a look,' said Hilary, ‘if I hadn't been stuck here. It certainly seems odd, as Martin suggested, that about twenty vehicles should all be heading for the remotest part of the forest in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.'

‘Perhaps that's the explanation,' said Quantrill. ‘That it's Saturday afternoon, I mean. Some kind of sporting fixture, maybe – motor-bike scrambling, something like that.'

The two detectives studied the map. The whole area had once belonged, at a time when it was useful for nothing but game shooting, to the Fodderstone Hall estate, and the old names on the map were evocative: Earl's Ride, Countess Covert, Brandon Heath, Prince Albert's Plantation; and Black-rabbit Warren, Fowlmere, Woodcock Hill, Curlew Lodge.

‘This Curlew Lodge place,' said Quantrill, pointing with a pencil to an isolated black dot on the map. It was just outside the battle area, on the northern edge of the heath that Tait had referred them to. ‘It can't be much of a dwelling, or its shape would be outlined on the map. Possibly it was built out there just as a place where the old shooting-parties could have a warm-up and eat their grub. It's probably in ruins now – but if those vehicles Martin saw were making for anywhere, that must have been it.'

He chewed the end of his pencil. ‘I wonder … how many vehicles, did you say? Hmm. Twenty isn't much of an attendance at any sporting fixture – unless of course it was by invitation only … Some form of indoor entertainment, perhaps?'

Sergeant Lloyd looked at him quickly. ‘First Sandra Websdell, now Annabel Yardley?'

‘It's worth investigating. Get someone in uniform to take over this incident room, Hilary. I'll call in a couple of cars to follow us, and we'll go and take a look at Curlew Lodge.'

The un-signposted side road they turned on to, about five miles north of Fodderstone, had once been metalled. Grass was now growing along the middle of it. On the left was the heath, a relic of the original Breckland wastes, rusty with heather and thinly scattered with hawthorn bushes and birch trees. On the right was a harvested field, blackened by fires from which smoke was still drifting.

A belt of Scots pine at right angles to the road marked the boundary of the arable land. Once they were through the trees there was heath on either side of the road, which had now deteriorated into a dusty track. Half a mile ahead, a dark stand of conifers on Ministry of Defence land blocked the way completely.

But on this side of the conifers, with their windscreens setting up a dazzle as they caught the late afternoon sun, stood the vehicles the detectives had come to find. A piece of heathland had been levelled and hardcore had been put down to provide an all-weather parking area. It was completely full, with more than twice the number of vehicles Tait had seen.

Quantrill stopped his car across the track, blocking the escape route of everything except Land Rovers and motorbikes. He got out. Hilary followed, carrying a clipboard, and they searched among the vehicles for the makes and registration numbers they wanted.

They were all there: Howard Braithwaite's nearly new Rover 2600, Phil Goodwin's rusting Cortina, the Japanese pick-up trucks owned by Stan Bolderow and Reg Osler. Of the Flintknappers Arms regulars, only Charley Horrocks was wheelless; but that didn't mean he wasn't there too.

‘They couldn't have chosen a more isolated place, if this is where they kept Sandra Websdell,' said Hilary, looking at the building on the far side of the car park. It was an old single-storey barn, its flint walls solid, its pantiled roof showing signs of recent repair. The heavy wooden door, now wide open, looked brand new. ‘And perhaps it's where they're keeping Annabel Yardley now … but what in God's name are they
doing
?'

Curlew Lodge seemed to be throbbing with noise. The emanation was so powerful that Quantrill almost expected to see short straight lines radiating from the building, as in a cartoonist's sketch. The basic source of the throb, he decided, must be a diesel generator somewhere on the far side of the barn. But coming from the building itself was the roar of excited masculine voices, urging something or someone on.

‘You'd better get back in the car, Hilary,' said Quantrill. ‘Whatever it is, it's a stag event. I'll try to go in as a punter, and if they see you they'll immediately be suspicious. Call up the other cars, and – quick, get down, there's somebody coming out.'

A heavily built man had just erupted unsteadily from the barn doorway. Quantrill hurried towards him. ‘Not too late, am I?' he called. ‘It's not over, is it?'

‘No – got to go for a leak, I'm bursting!' The man was sweating copiously, his jowls dripping, his shirt saturated, whisky on his breath. His bloodshot eyes glistened with excitement, and there was a stupid grin on his face as he made his way round to the back of the barn.

The Chief Inspector kept him company. A young man was already there, crouched on the ground vomiting, but the two older men ignored him.

‘Worth coming all this way, then?' said Quantrill.

‘I'll say! I've come up from Essex – used to do business with Howard Braithwaite, and he gave me the word. God, the money that's flying about in there!'

‘High stakes?'

‘I'll say! But all properly organized, with a bookmaker Howard's roped in. The whole set-up's first class. Local pub landlord's got a bar going, pricey of course but well stocked. A tenner to get in, mind, but what the hell – it's only money.'

Quantrill agreed, hoping that he had that much in his back pocket. He'd left his wallet in his coat in the car, and he didn't want to lose contact with his new acquaintance while he fetched it.

‘First time you've been here?' he asked as they walked back round the building.

‘No, I came on Tuesday evening for the trial run. I was in Breckham Market on business, so I thought I'd see whether it would be worth coming up again today. And it was! The wife thinks I'm playing golf, o'course …'

‘Many people here on Tuesday?'

‘Mainly Howard and the locals – Phil who runs the bar, and a few others.'

‘Can you remember who they were?'

The florid man lurched to a stop, putting a hand against the flints of the barn wall to support himself. He looked at Quantrill with suspicion, squinting against the sun. ‘What's it to you?' he asked with slurred aggressiveness.

The Chief Inspector showed him his warrant card. The man peered at it, trying to focus. Then he slumped back against the wall. ‘Oh my God …'

‘You're small fry,' said Quantrill. ‘I'm not interested in you. Just tell me who was here on Tuesday – if you don't know their names, describe them.'

The florid man mumbled brief descriptions. Two of the men Quantrill didn't recognize; but the others were unmistakably Charley Horrocks, Stan Bolderow and Reg Osler.