Worthless Remains (29 page)

‘The urn that nearly flattened Mr Middleton?'

‘What do you take me for, young man? Can you see me climbing around on the roof in a thunderstorm? Mr Middleton is a revolting specimen by all accounts but I wouldn't risk catching cold just to break his head.'

‘By all accounts? Whose accounts?' Needham said sharply.

‘There's no casual chatting with you, Inspector, is there? Every female who has had the misfortune of having been left alone with him, I should think.'

‘Any more sabotage attempts? The
ballista
?'

‘Didn't go near it.'

‘Hitting the cameraman over the head?'

‘No, that's not where I would have hit him.'

‘The food poisoning?'

‘Not my style. Try the boy who helps his aunt in the catering van. I saw him picking herbs that day along the stream near the tents and not all of them make good eating.'

‘The drawing with the horse's head?'

‘Guilty. I was hoping that if I could scare the presenter away that might make them give up.'

‘Eerie green torch light on a stick?'

‘You found that?'

‘I was hiding in the pantry.'

She sighed. ‘We used to have such fun in this house. You can get into Mr Middleton's room from the servant's stairs and through the back of his wardrobe. My grandparents were great practical jokers. They liked to pretend there was a ghost. I carry on the tradition.'

Needham looked unimpressed but didn't say anything until we were once more on the lawns below the hall. ‘If you would like to get your things, Mrs Cunningham, I'll drive you to the station. I'll be waiting by my car.'

‘What things, Inspector?'

‘I don't know, jacket, keys, handbag, those kind of things. It might take some time. We'll arrange for transport back.'

‘You're a confounded nuisance,' she said and crossed the verandah towards her end of the house.

‘You do realize,' I told Needham when she had gone, ‘that if she doesn't show up in the car park it could take you days to find her in that house if she doesn't want to be found?'

Needham shrugged and walked off. ‘I'm not even sure I'd want to.'

I
stepped through the French windows and could hear that there was a lively discussion in progress in the dining room next door. I went to join it. Nearly the entire crew was sitting around the table, minus camera operator and sound man, who were outside, filming every move the police made from the top of the cherry picker. The assembly barely gave me a glance as I entered. Stoneking sat at the top of the table, looking like he was once more enjoying himself. The crew were discussing dates, delays, insurance, as well as airing their grievances. Cy's hand now sported a theatrical bandage where I was sure a sticking plaster might have sufficed. Middleton sat quietly and morosely, staring at something in his hand. He looked dishevelled, as though he had given up looking after himself. He also looked drunk. ‘It's the ghost,' he whined when there was a lull in the discussion. He held up a little glass phial, the ghost bottle from the library. Middleton had checked on the imprisoned ghost and had found it gone. ‘Look.' He sought my eyes and held up the bottle in evidence. ‘It really was a ghost in my room. Look, someone let it out.'

‘Put it in the recycling box, Guy,' I told him. ‘There's no ghost. The old lady did all that to spook you.' I then told the rest of the room what I had learned from Olive Cunningham.

Cy was delighted. ‘It makes a fabulous story, a real
Time Lines
special; we must interview the police, the old woman, people in the village. And there is still all that mystery about who shot Morgan with the
ballista
and who hit Paul over the head. It could end up a two-parter, with a cliff-hanger at the end of part one.' There were groans around the table and Andrea was resting her head in her hands in a gesture of despair.

When I left the room to find Annis and share the news, Stoneking came with me. ‘I must admit I was getting bored with archaeology but maybe I'll take up an interest in forensics. But seriously,' he said, looking worried, ‘do you think they'll charge Olive with anything?'

‘Don't know. “Preventing the rightful burial of a body” springs to mind. I'm sure they could make her life difficult but I doubt the Crown Prosecution Service will see much chance of a conviction.'

‘They won't put her in jail, or anything?'

‘I doubt it. Not if she's been telling the truth.'

I was about to open the door to the pool house when it was opened from the other side. It was Annis in her multicoloured, be-spattered painting gear. ‘Oh, there you are. I was just coming to find you.' She held up the local newspaper, the
Bath Chronicle
. ‘Mark here gave me a few papers to wipe my brushes on. Look at this article.'

MOTORCYCLIST CRITICAL AFTER TRACK DAY CRASH was the headline. I read it out for Mark's benefit. ‘A motorcyclist who crashed his superbike on the way home from a track day is in intensive care at the Royal United Hospital. Thomas Dealey, 36, is in a critical condition after crashing his Hayabusa motorcycle, the fastest production bike for sale in the UK, after having attended a public track day at Castle Combe race track. No other vehicle is thought to have been involved.'

Annis tapped the picture. ‘That's your wheelchair man's brother, isn't it? It was the make of the bike under the picture that caught my eye.'

‘Yes, the family are bike nuts,' I agreed. Stoneking looked mystified so I quickly explained who the Dealeys were. ‘I watched him drive a car and thought afterwards that if he rode his bike like that then he'd come a cropper.' There was a picture of the mangled Hayabusa; it was unrecognizable. ‘Nothing fake about this chap's injuries, I expect. His brother will want to be at his bedside.'

‘Might be a good opportunity to get close to him,' Annis said.

‘Yes, I think I can feel a hospital visit coming on.' I left Stoneking to tell Annis all about Olive's dead lover and made for the car.

The RUH car parking charges looked challenging, to say the least. I did quite enjoy the ‘up to twenty minutes FREE' challenge to visitors and wondered if anyone had yet managed to get to a loved one's hospital bed and back to the car in that time. I didn't really want to visit Tom Dealey in intensive care and listen to his life support bleep. I doubted they would let me, and what would be the point? But I had spotted his brother's red Honda in a ‘disabled' space, so I hung around near the exit for a while. I was good at hanging around, half a lifetime of watching paint dry had prepared me well for it, though my boredom threshold had begun to crumble a little with age. Wasn't there something more meaningful I might do with my life than stand behind a concrete pillar and wait for Mike Dealey to show up and do something even remotely interesting?

Apparently not. It took him forty minutes to make an appearance. I had to sprint to my car since his was parked close to the exit and he was well-practised in getting into it from his wheelchair. I caught up with him just as he turned right out of the car park into the main road. I hung back a little but never let the red car get out of my sight. One problem with hanging back a little is that traffic lights can throw a serious spanner in the works and lose you your target for good if you're unlucky. But my luck held as I squeezed behind Dealey across a junction just as the light changed and he drove his car west out of town. It soon became clear that he was driving to his brother's house in Paulton, perhaps to check that nothing needed doing or securing at the house. Since I was pretty sure where we were going I could let a couple of cars get between us and relax. By the time we got to Paulton and near his brother's house the other cars had peeled off so when Dealey turned into his brother's street I carried on out of sight and parked, then walked back. But I had left it too late – by the time I had sight of the house the front door was just closing behind him. I carried on nevertheless and strolled past, holding my mobile against my ear as though engaged in a phone call and thus obscuring part of my face, until I got to the next corner. Then I looked back at the house and seriously regretted having given Dealey all that breathing space. In front of his brother's front door sat a big fat doorstep, at least eight inches high. Who had helped him up across that with his wheelchair? I
had
seen the front door close, though only just. Was someone else in the house who had helped him up that doorstep? Maybe. Was I going to stand here all day and wait until he came out? Unlikely. I had a good squint at the step and decided that he would probably be able to come down it unaided; it was just how he had gone up it that was the mystery. Next time; I would catch him next time. I took a picture of the house and car on my mobile and sent it to Haarbottle, which might brighten his gloomy life. On my way back to the car I called PC Whatsisname and left a message for him:
Could he give me any information on Tom Dealey who had just crashed his Hayabusa?
Then I drove back to Tarmford Hall.

Annis was making progress with her mural, a vast eruption of painterly energy across the expanse of the pool house wall. She was excited by just how different working on a large scale was. She needed litres of oil paint, much larger brushes and much longer arms. Brushstrokes that before would have been the result of a sweep of the arm now had to be executed at a run. Several times a day Annis ended up in the pool, surveying the progress from a watery distance. Stoneking was no longer bored; he was now torn between watching Annis at (and in) the pool and following the progress of police and archaeologists outside. I found him beside the pool and Annis in it. While she tread water I told her how I had just missed Dealey's miraculous ascent.

‘I hope that won't turn out to be the moment when seven grand slipped through your fingers. Why don't you come in? The water is lovely . . .'

‘I might at that. My shorts are still in the changing room.'

I was still climbing out of my street clothes when rapid footsteps approached down the corridor and the door to the changing room was flung wide. Guy Middleton. He was flushed and breathless. His earlier depressed state had now given way to agitation.

‘Bloody hell, there you are. I've been all over this damn pile looking for you. Where have you been? And what do you think you're doing? You're supposed to protect me, not swan about elsewhere. Your car wasn't even here so presumably you weren't even in the grounds when you should have been right here keeping an eye on me; it's what you're getting paid for. They're going to kill me, Chris, they've decided to finally do it. It wasn't Paul they were after; everyone knows it was really me. And here.' He whisked a piece of notepaper from his jacket and held it out to me. In its centre I read the laconic statement:

We will finish it here.

I read it and thought I shared the sentiment. I stepped into the shower cubicle and turned on the water.

‘What the hell do you think you're doing?' he asked querulously.

I snapped. ‘I am going for a swim in yonder pool, Guy. Stand next to it if you want to be protected or lock yourself in the loo until I'm done. Alternatively do what normal people would do, go to the police and tell them everything. The nasty notes, the blackmail, the pranks and why you think everyone wants to kill you. Excuse me.' I dripped past him out of the changing room and marched righteously down the corridor towards the lovely blue wetness shimmering at the end of it.

‘Mr Honeysett!' A different voice this time but I didn't care, I marched right on into the pool house. ‘Chris Honeysett!' Just as I reached the edge of the pool the place suddenly got crowded. Not just Middleton but Needham's Airedale terrier, DI Reid, a huge uniformed PC wearing a stab vest and Carla were all bearing down on me. ‘Chris Honeysett,' DI Reid said again. He added: ‘I'm arresting you on suspicion of attempted murder; you do not have to say anything . . .'

The rest of the caution was lost in a spray of water as I bombed into the pool. ‘You what?' I asked when I surfaced. A satisfying amount of water had landed on the DI's trouser legs, though he didn't look well-pleased. He started rattling off the caution again so I dived.
Suspicion of murder
? Had everyone gone mad? From under water I watched Annis swim across. I surfaced next to her.

‘Who did you try and kill, hon?' she asked, unconcerned, while above us by the edge of the pool the Airedale terrier had another go at arresting me, starting the whole litany again with ‘Chris Honeysett . . .'. Of course, until he had completely read me my rights I wouldn't legally be under arrest, so I waggled my fingers at him in a friendly goodbye and dived. I can hold my breath for quite a while but even so this couldn't go on for much longer, yet at the moment it seemed like fun. I was wondering what he would do next. Would he go and get his cozzie? I found out when I surfaced again. ‘Constable, get in there and haul him out!' he said with precisely the voice a Bond villain uses when he says: ‘Release the sharks.' Now Stoneking was standing up there too. He began to berate the DI for the intrusion but was cut short. ‘Shut up!' Reid bellowed. ‘You're out on bail, Mr Stoneking, best to remember that.' He turned to the constable. ‘Well? What are you waiting for?'

The constable looked reluctant. ‘Couldn't we, I don't know, drain the pool?'

‘Don't be daft, that'll take forever. Get in there.'

The constable pulled a doubtful face but started unlacing his boots. Suddenly Carla spoke up. ‘
Nobody
is going into that pool without first having a shower! The changing room,
Constable
, is over there!' She pointed and glared menacingly at the officers.

DI Reid took a deep breath but I got there first. ‘Shut up, Reid, I'm coming out.' I swam to the side and heaved myself up. ‘Stand back,' I growled at Reid, ‘or I'll shake myself like a dog.'