Murder on Page One (8 page)

‘Everyone’s too busy filling in forms to do proper police work. Sir.’ Osborne found himself copying Fortune’s way of insulting a superior.

‘Keep me in the loop, Palfrey. And remember, Osborne, I want a good record kept of this investigation. That’s all.’

While Palfrey made soothing noises, Osborne simply got up and left. Years ago a bastard like Jumbo would have scared the shit out of him. Now he saw him as an arse-licking barrel of dripping with a squeaky voice. It had been a laugh to get Baggo’s name wrong. He had twisted Palfrey’s tail and Jumbo’s trunk in one go. It was after knocking-off time. Before Palfrey could catch up and give him a bollocking, he headed for his favourite Indian restaurant.

9

‘Even if he can walk, he couldn’t drag a body.’ Flick was definite. After Osborne had told the team that the top brass wanted an arrest, she and Baggo debated whether Wallace was a real suspect.

‘I’m not so sure, Sarge. Gov, please may I stage a re-enactment?’

‘As long as I’m not the bloody corpse,’ Osborne growled.

‘Danny, could you play dead, please?’ Without waiting for a reply, Baggo took Peters’ arm and led him to the far wall. He placed his chair in the middle of the room and sat on it. ‘I am Wallace,’ he explained. ‘My chair has castors, so it is my wheelchair. I am waiting in the driveway of the garden where Burke was found. Danny, Mr Burke, walks by without paying attention to me. Go.’

Obediently, Peters walked by Baggo. As he passed, Baggo raised his right hand and aimed his extended index finger.

‘Bang, bang. Note the upward and leftward trajectory of the bullets. Please fall down dead.’

Peters lowered himself to the floor.

‘You will win no Oscar for that,’ Baggo commented. ‘Now lie still and face down, a dead weight.’ He got up, turned Peters on to his back and, gripping under his armpits, lifted and dragged him until he was sprawled across the chair, which, using a foot, Flick kept still. Baggo lifted Peters’ legs so they were off the ground then wheeled the chair a short distance. With the gothic exuberance of a dentist in a silent movie, he mimed the tongue-forking. Then, with Flick acting again as the handbrake, he pulled Peters off the chair and sat him on the floor, his arms by his side. He gently manipulated him into the position in which the body had been found.

‘It could be done,’ he said.

‘With difficulty, and depending on his disability,’ Flick said.

‘Well, we can’t eliminate him,’ Osborne said. ‘Danny, you get in touch with the army and find out what happened to him. Did you learn anything yesterday afternoon?’

Peters brushed himself then sat down. ‘Just that our killer planned it beautifully. 32 Kitchener Crescent, where the body was found, is owned by Mrs Hazel Montgomery. She’s ninety-two, deaf and half blind. She refuses to go into a home. The house is a tip, and it’s a real curtains-on-the-window-no-sheets-on-the-bed job. Maybe fur-coat-no-knickers as well, but I didn’t go that far.’

Osborne muttered, ‘Thank God for that. Jumbo would explode.’

‘The bottom line is, she sat at the back of the house all Friday evening, as she usually does. And even if she’d been at the front, she wouldn’t have seen much. The next door house is a repossession. It’s been empty for three weeks. There were lots of different footprints in the front garden. Our killer knew Burke’s route home and selected a great place to ambush him then hide the body. After work, the deceased went for a drink with colleagues. A pub in St James’s Street. He left them just after six and would have got to Kitchener Crescent between half past and quarter to seven. Oh, and there’s nothing useful from the lab as of this morning.’

‘So, Felicity, are you going to see the sexy lady?’

‘Today.’ She nodded at Baggo. ‘She lives in a village near Peterborough, so we’d better get going.’

‘We need a break, Sergeant. Let’s hope you learn more than how to rid the world of nasty men. How many more suspects have you got from your competition?’

‘One or two. The entries closed this weekend, so we’ll get the rest of the stuff very soon.’

Osborne shook his head.

* * *

Brankton Hollow was a picture-postcard English village, south-west of Peterborough. The houses were mostly old and substantial, and the gardens had a tidy winter look that promised an explosion of colour in a few months’ time. There were two traditional-looking pubs and half a dozen shops. At the north end of the narrow Main Street stood a small, grey Norman church. It had a neat graveyard whose weathered stones reflected the age of the community. Saxon Walk lay behind the church. It comprised a single row of cottages, many of which had been knocked together to make larger properties. The numbering was consequently erratic. Number 11, which had swallowed up number 10, was opposite a black wooden gate leading to the rear of the graveyard.

‘Remember that Candy Kissin’s real name is Candice Dalton,’ Baggo said as Flick parked on the grass verge beside the graveyard wall. ‘Shall I lead this time? I expect she reacts better to men than women.’

‘Good idea,’ Flick said. She imagined a blousy, over-made-up tart who would flirt with men and ignore women.

The front garden caught the sun. It was sprinkled with crocuses and small, blue hyacinths. The wooden outer door was open and through the glass inner door, a cramped hallway could be seen. The bell gave a strong, musical chime.

A small, thin lady with short, wiry hair that made Baggo think of a Brillo pad answered. She peered at them through brown-framed spectacles. ‘Yes?’ she snapped, her forced smile only marginally more welcoming than her tone of voice.

‘Are you Mrs Dalton?’ Baggo asked.

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘Candice Dalton?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you sometimes write under another name?’

The effect was immediate and dramatic. ‘Who are you? What do you mean coming here?’

‘We are police officers, Mrs Dalton. Sergeant Fortune and DC Chandavarkar. We’re investigating a series of murders. We’d be grateful if we could come in and ask you some questions. If you are embarrassed to talk here, we could go somewhere else. These are routine enquiries. There’s nothing to worry about.’ Baggo produced his warrant.

Mrs Dalton inspected it, then glanced past them at the unmarked car and seemed relieved. After a moment of indecision, she opened the glass door fully and let them in. She led the way past a bicycle into the sitting room. It was dusty, cluttered and homely, with brown wood furniture and faded chintz. The mantelpiece alone was devoid of dust. Family photographs, all black and white, were precisely arranged, exactly parallel to the wall and equidistant, those with the largest frames in the middle. The subjects posed formally in an old-fashioned way.

Mrs Dalton sat on the edge of an armchair. ‘My husband’s out at the moment. I should explain, he has no idea about …’

‘Don’t worry, Mrs Dalton. We have no wish to embarrass you. We shall use our discretion.’ Flick sounded reassuring.

‘I don’t know how long he’ll be. The funeral’s on Friday. One of our oldest parishioners, but it’s always a shock when they go.’

‘Is your husband …’ Baggo said.

‘The vicar?’ Flick finished his question.

‘Why, yes. Didn’t you know?’ Mrs Dalton smiled. ‘Obviously not,’ she added.

‘It is a bit surprising, given what you write about,’ Flick said.

‘Look, I’ll answer your questions, but if my husband comes back, I’m going to pretend you’re here about some poor girl that’s missing. I do voluntary work at a homeless unit. You won’t let me down, will you?’ She looked appealingly from one to the other. Taking their silence as affirmation, she added brightly, ‘So I’ll make a nice pot of tea.’

After Mrs Dalton had left the room, her movements quick and bird-like, Flick inspected the bookcase. The lower shelves contained religious works. Higher up, Stevenson, Bronte, Austin, Dumas and Dickens were arranged, some in better condition than others. Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo were held together by sellotape. The top shelf held faded paperbacks by Conan Doyle, Christie and Sayers as well as newer books by McDermid and Walters.

‘My husband and I both love books,’ Mrs Dalton said as she returned, carrying a tray of tea and a pile of griddle cakes.

The officers sat on the sofa. Mrs Dalton poured the tea into Old Chelsea cups and handed round the cakes. Flick noticed slight stains on her jumper and trousers, both brown and well-worn. She put her age at about fifty.

Mrs Dalton took a mouthful of cake and a sip of tea. ‘Well,’ she said, as if they were about to discuss the church flowers.

‘Did you ask Jessica Stanhope to represent you?’ Flick asked, before Baggo could say anything.

‘Why, yes. I did as a matter of fact. She was murdered, wasn’t she?’

‘I’m afraid so. Did you resent the way she turned you down?’

‘I did. She said she’d seen promise, and asked to see the whole book, but after three months I just got a two-line letter, and she didn’t even send it back.’

‘Did you try Lorraine McNeill as well?’

‘Yes, but she was pretty small-time.’

‘Were you upset by the way she rejected you?’

‘I don’t think she looked at it properly, but that’s life, I’m afraid. Do you like the griddle cakes? I made them this morning.’

‘Delicious,’ Flick said, as Baggo reached for a second.

Mrs Dalton beamed. ‘They’ve won Best Baking in Show at the Harvest Festival for the last three years.’

Baggo said, ‘I’m not surprised. Is there much competition?’

‘Mrs Cardew, two doors down, thinks hers are better, but she uses a food processor to make the dough. There’s nothing like elbow grease, don’t you agree?’

‘Definitely,’ Flick said quickly. ‘Did Denzil Burke turn you down too?’

‘He turned everyone down,’ she spat.

‘How did that make you feel?’

‘Disappointed, of course. No different from anyone else, I imagine. But we can’t always have our prayers answered.’

‘We got a warrant to recover the entries for the Debut Dagger, and I couldn’t help noticing that revenge was the motive in your entry.’

‘It’s a good motive for fictitious murders. You can keep the reader guessing before you reveal it. But you can’t think … Oh dear, no. Not in real life. Not for this. It’s just not important enough.’

Flick turned to Baggo and nodded. For a moment he looked blank then smiled.

‘There is a lot of sex in your book,’ he said. ‘That is perhaps strange, as you are the vicar’s wife.’

Mrs Dalton sat forward and looked earnestly at Baggo. ‘We are all born with the desires that God gave us. Some societies function better when that side of life is kept private. This village, for example. But keeping such things suppressed, in day to day living, does not eliminate them. People, most people, like to read racy literature. Look at the best-sellers. I don’t think it does any harm. Perverted, abusive practices don’t come from sexy books.’ She smiled. ‘A bishop once told me that human sexual behaviour shows us that God has a sense of humour. I think that’s right. It’s a mistake to take sex too seriously.’

Trying to appear non-committal, Flick asked, ‘How many books have you written?’

‘I’ve completed eight, with several unfinished. I’ve been writing in my spare time for ten years, until recently all clean and pure. And not short of admirers. But no one wanted to publish my work. Three years ago, I decided to give myself a new name and let it flow, so to speak. I really want to get published, and I’ve promised God that I’ll give my first advance to Hopeful Homes. It’s the charity I work for.’

‘Yet your husband does not know about this?’

‘He knows I write. Of course he does. But I admit I’ve kept the nature of the last few books from him. I will tell him. But in my own time. When I get published.’

‘Do you have family?’

Mrs Dalton’s left shoulder twitched. For a second, Baggo thought she would tell him to mind his own business, but she closed her eyes and said, ‘The Lord has not blessed us with children.’ There was a note of regret in her voice.

‘Do you go up to London often?’ Flick asked.

‘Once a week, for a couple of days at a time. Helping the homeless.’

‘Do you have regular days?’

‘Generally Monday and Tuesday, returning Wednesday morning. I wanted to be in London last Friday. There was someone who needed support that day. So I swapped with a friend. I wouldn’t normally be here today, as it’s a Tuesday.’

‘Where do you stay?’

‘At the hostel. It’s on Mile End Road.’ She went to the desk and, after some searching, found a leaflet which she handed to Flick.

‘How do you travel?’

‘Train from Peterborough. It’s an excellent service. Can I ask, are you clutching at straws?’

‘Our enquiries are progressing, Mrs Dalton,’ Flick said. ‘Thank you for your time.’

Mrs Dalton showed them out without fuss. Flick drove to the end of Saxon Way to turn. As they joined the main road, a tall, wiry man wearing a dog collar approached the junction on foot. He aimed a vague, toothy smile at the unmarked pool car as he turned into his street.

‘She was in London on the date of each murder,’ Baggo said, putting to the back of his mind the thought of the vicar and his wife in bed together. ‘Is she a saint who writes about sin or just too good to be true?’