Killing Me Softly (10 page)

‘The bridge,' Amy managed, and swayed gracefully into her brother's arms.

Abigail Moon rapidly surveyed the scene. In sunshine it would be as pretty as an idealized Victorian picture on a birthday card: the old weatherboarded mill with its hipped roof and huge wheel, the rustic bridge, the river rushing between the red sandstone boulders and thence into the race. Now, at the fag end of the afternoon, with the white-overalled police personnel going matter-of-factly about their allotted tasks, their footsteps muffled, moving like ghosts through the opaque, thickening layers of dusk and fog, under the corpse-light from the emergency lighting, it was creepy and shrouded as a Gothic horror movie.

The man's body, clad in classic country gear of cords, green wellies, wax jacket and tweed cap, was slumped in a half-sitting position against the bridge handrail, one arm dangling. His shotgun was wedged between his knees. His face was not a pretty sight.

Abigail had been caught just as she was leaving the office after the frustrating meeting with the Drugs Squad men had wound to an unsatisfactory conclusion, and had rushed over here. She now knew that the dead man was Timothy Wishart, aged forty-four, who lived at Clacks Mill with his family, and that he'd been found by his daughter Amy, who'd looked out of her bedroom window and, seeing his figure huddled on the bridge, had run down to see what was wrong. That was tough on her, poor kid, something a girl of sixteen wasn't ever going to forget, never mind any amount of counselling or whatever therapy was fashionable at the moment.

‘When was he last seen?' she asked Carmody.

‘Went out late this morning to do some shooting with the farmer who lives over yonder, name of –' the big sergeant consulted his notes – ‘John Fairmile. Didn't get much, apparently, seems he'd only bagged a few wood pigeons and a couple of rabbits.' Carmody's long, basset-hound face lugubriously contemplated the game bag a few feet away from the dead man. ‘Don't care for ‘em much myself, wood pigeons or any other sort. Not much more than a mouthful when they're plucked.'

He was a big, gloomy Liverpudlian, and never took an optimistic view of anything, but Abigail didn't care for eating small birds, either, for other reasons. Especially pigeons. They were too much associated in her mind with the scavenging, streetwise creatures that hopped in and out of the traffic and roosted in dismal rows on ledges of the ugly Town Hall which overlooked her office, leaving her with a permanent view of what they left behind.

She could hear wood pigeons now, cooing softly, motionless smudges of grey in the leafless trees above the mangled body on the bridge and the dead animals in the bag. She wished she were somewhere else. There was altogether too much death around here, all too horribly reminiscent of the opening scene from that Renoir film – that shooting party, the scene of bloody carnage when birds fell from the sky like rain. She pulled her coat collar closer round her neck. ‘Did he leave a note, Ted?'

‘As good as. Some letters, screwed up in his pocket. A dunning one, threatening prosecution, another from the bank. An overdraft like that, you don't need any better reason for ending it all.'

The portly figure of Professor Timpson-Ludgate, the pathologist, was still bent over the body. He drew off his latex gloves as he struggled to his feet and looked around for Abigail. When he saw her he crooked his finger. ‘Spare me a minute, m'dear, will you?'

She ground her teeth. Why not Inspector, if he didn't like Abigail? M'dear! The nice little woman, playing at being a nasty policeman. Then she decided to forgive him – it wasn't worth the expense of adrenalin, and he probably didn't know any better, at his age.

The Prof's well-known vintage Rover had scarcely disappeared before Mayo put in his official appearance. When they saw who it was, a ripple ran through the men, a smartening up and focusing of attention, they became more purposeful. It was an effect he had, but not because they were afraid of being caught out – he picked his men carefully, drew them together as a team and there were few who didn't pull their weight, out of a consequent sense of self-respect. But he could put the fear of God up anybody found wanting, and there was no telling when he'd be on the warpath, especially nowadays. He was sharper lately, something was worrying at him, either the responsibilities of his job, or personal worries intruding into the demands of a crowded professional life. Abigail didn't think it was work.

The constable with the clipboard recorded his approach, as he had with everyone else. Mayo ducked under the tape and walked across to where she stood waiting for the SOCO team to give her the nod that it was OK for her to take a closer look at the body on the bridge. She wasn't falling over herself to do so, she could smell blood and maybe cordite, and the vomit of the youngest PC, who could be forgiven for being sick, since it was his first death by shotgun. She searched in her pocket for a Polo mint. It sometimes helped.

‘Tim Wishart? Should I know him?' Mayo asked, joining her.

‘He married Sam Nash's daughter.'

‘
The
Sam Nash?'

‘U-huh. He's with her now. Wishart's father was Freddie Wishart. The England cricketer,' she added, before realizing that such an explanation was probably unnecessary to a Yorkshireman.

‘Good God.' Mayo searched his memory. ‘Didn't he blow his brains out, too?'

‘Yes. Only ...'

‘Only what?'

‘Only T-L thinks he didn't ... the son, I mean. He's pretty sure someone else shot him.'

The Super let out his breath between his teeth.

Someone had attempted to make it look like suicide, only not very successfully. Someone knew enough about the manner of suicides to have propped the twelve-bore shotgun between the victim's knees, to have crooked his finger around the trigger, but the pathologist had been of the opinion that it was an amateur attempt. For one thing, the spread of the pellets as they entered the face suggested the gun had been fired from more than arm's length. Would-be suicides made sure by putting the barrel under their chin, or even in their mouth. This was only a preliminary hypothesis, he'd been quick to add, which would need to be confirmed by the autopsy, and backed up by the ballistic report, but T-L wasn't a man to make wild guesses, only educated surmises based on long experience. He was more often right than wrong, but he was human, and therefore fallible. However, he was also an expert and a respected authority, at the top of his profession, and he didn't expect them to doubt him for a minute.

‘How long's he been dead?' Mayo asked, looking around. Apart from the chimneys of a farmhouse faintly visible some distance away across the river, presumably the Fairmile dwelling, there was no other habitation in sight.

‘Not long – possibly not more than an hour.'

‘Nobody heard anything?'

‘The house has been empty most of the day. The family – there's his wife, and a boy and a girl in their teens – had all been out separately, but arrived home more or less at the same time, within the last hour. It was his daughter, young Amy, who found him. She was upstairs changing, and happened to look out of the window.'

‘Strewth. Any thoughts so far, Abigail?'

‘It seems he was in trouble financially, according to some letters in his pocket.' She thought back to her earlier conversation with Ellie, to Ellie's oblique, but what she now saw as loaded, references. ‘I have the impression his marriage wasn't any too happy, either,' she said cautiously. To say so felt dangerously like gossiping about her friends, but that's how it was as a police officer. It was one of the reasons why you became cautious about making personal relationships, you didn't have any choice, when it came to the crunch. ‘It's only hearsay, but I believe the source was reliable. I've met his wife a few times, she runs that business near the market, called Miller's Wife, with someone else I know, a woman called Ellie Redvers.' She hesitated. ‘To be honest, Ellie's my source. I don't
know,
but I suspect she's been having an affair with Wishart.' It wasn't a pleasant thought, but if it was so, it might well have precipitated this situation. She made up her mind and took a deep breath. ‘If my knowing her's any problem –'

Mayo raised an eyebrow. ‘How well
do
you know her?'

‘We haven't known each other long enough to have got close, not yet. I do know she's been having an affair, but I have to say, it's only my intuition that it was with Tim Wishart. We, er, we had lunch together at my place today.'

He took time to consider what she'd said, noting the slight strain in her voice. ‘You asking to come off the case? Feel you're too close?'

‘Not unless I'm instructed to. If not, there'll be no conflict of interest. I can cope.'

Requesting to be taken off a case was the last thing she needed, career-wise. Plus, a heavy case-load was just what her personal life needed at the moment. The less free time she had to brood, the better.

‘Fair enough, I believe you.' But watch it, his eyes said. ‘Well, what about him, then, Wishart, what did he do for a living?'

‘He called himself a financier,' she answered, relieved to have got that out of the way. ‘Also dealt in the property market, I think, but other than that, I don't yet know. I need to talk to his wife and family, if they're up to it, or at least with Sam Nash.'

‘Sam and I are old sparring partners, in a manner of speaking. I'd like to come along with you and have a word or two with him before I leave you to get on with it,' he said, brisk once more. ‘All right?'

The question was rhetorical, an offer Abigail couldn't refuse, nor was she expected to. Every inquiry was ultimately the Super's responsibility, and Mayo was unorthodox in his approach, choosing to be in on some cases more than was strictly necessary by the book. In this instance, Abigail saw his intervention might be useful. A previous acquaintance with Sam Nash, even if it was only through Sam's position as a past chairman of the police committee, could smooth down a few raised hackles. Though perhaps they met socially as well, for all Abigail knew.

In this last assumption she was wrong. The two men's acquaintance had arisen merely through Sam's service on various community liaison projects, and had never extended to social encounters. But Mayo knew a lot about Sam. He made it his business to learn as much as he could about anyone he was officially associated with, but Sam interested him, anyway.

The old man had a lot of popular support locally. A member of the town council, he was one of that rare breed who could be relied upon not to put his own interests first. There had been talk of him becoming Mayor at one time, but nothing had come of it. That kind of recognition wasn't the sort Sam went in for, but he was a force to be reckoned with, however you looked at it: a self-made man who had quietly but relentlessly built up a little empire, a man who cared enough about the town where he'd been born and bred to spend most of his leisure time on council business, and a good deal of his own money on public causes. He was a native of the Holden Hill side of the town, the scruffy end, which in parts still bore ugly scars and grim relics from the Industrial Revolution – the criss-cross of disused canals and redundant railway lines, the subterranean mine workings and claypits that had brought industry to Lavenstock. No one knew their local history better than Sam, or was keener in keeping its traditions alive, but he was also ruthless in his pursuit of a clean-up-and-sanitize campaign for the whole area. Sam didn't suffer fools gladly but then, neither did Mayo. He had rather a soft spot for the old man.

‘Let's go and talk to him,' he said.

Sam was, for once, looking his age. He'd driven over as soon as he heard the news. He was alone in the big first-floor sitting-room that stretched from front to back of the house when they entered, a wiry, white-haired man of middle height. He turned from where he'd been standing by the window, with his hands in his pockets, looking out over the river.

The converted mill house was very simply furnished, with good, country pieces and colourful soft furnishings in a thrown-together look that nevertheless gave an effect that was far from haphazard. Mayo recognised the curtains as being the same pattern as those acquired in the recently enforced refurbishment of his own flat. He wondered if Lois French, Alex's sister and partner, had had a hand in the decorating of this, too, and concluded that it was more than possible. It definitely bore her stamp.

Sam waved them to sit down, explaining that Clare was still upstairs with Amy. The child had been hysterical, and Clare was staying with her until the sedative the doctor had given her took effect. Richie had shut himself in his room.

‘Well, we can see them later,' Abigail said. ‘As soon as Mrs Wishart feels able.'

Sam, however, was ready to talk. ‘You won't get much sense out of Amy, poor child, Richie neither, for a while, but Clare will cope,' he said with grim pride, ‘as she's coped with everything else.'

What he meant by this last was evident when he began to tell them what he knew about Wishart's activities. He made no bones about it, any distress he was feeling wasn't for his son-in-law. As far as Sam was concerned, he was wasting no tears on Tim Wishart. He'd always been a bad lot, he said contemptuously, never had any backbone. Typical that he'd simply opt out and leave others to sort out the rotten mess he'd left behind him. He stood up and went to kick down the logs on the big open fire, threw another on top, and with his hand resting on the mantel, watched the wood crackle and splutter as it caught.

He was obviously fiercely angry with Wishart, and yet ... He finds it hard to accept, Abigail thought, watching Sam narrowly as he resumed his seat, he can't believe Wishart had the guts to take his own life. One, at least, who'd find it easier to believe in murder.