By a Narrow Majority Page 3

  Over on her left, shut up and dark now, was the narrow-boat yard where she’d gone to interview a witness on her first murder case. She slowed down as she approached a small turn-off into a road simply called The Lane and found herself facing a beautiful village square, lit up from the lights spilling out of The Bell pub. A huge oak tree stood in pride of place, watching over thatched cottages and what had once been the village school.

  Dispatch had given her directions to the crime scene, however, so she followed the road around the bend, then past an old-fashioned red-painted telephone box and round another steep curve. She peered ahead, looking for Mill Lane, which should be off to her left, found it, and turned down the narrow lane. Off to her right was a converted chapel, gleaming pale in the bright moonlight. The sky had cleared again, and once more a frost was in the air. At the bottom of the lane, Hillary found herself facing a metal drawbridge, and she drove over it gingerly, looking out of her window to the flat, dark expanse of the Oxford canal below. Right in front of her were a set of wooden gates belonging to Mill House, but leading off to her left was a muddy stone-paved road that followed the course of the River Cherwell. A few yards down, another set of gates, sandwiched between the two water courses, signalled that she’d arrived at her destination.

  She parked behind an empty patrol car and climbed out. She didn’t need a torch to read the words ‘Tangent Hall’ glittering in gold-painted letters on a slate-grey sign. She could hear the river gurgling away under a flat wooden bridge, and for a moment took in the quiet, dark night. Tangent Hall was not so much a hall as a big, fairly modern-looking bungalow. Worth what, half a million, given today’s market prices? As a woman about to sell a house, she supposed she should be pleased that properties in the area were worth such small fortunes. But she couldn’t help but feel sorry for the families of the native villagers who were being priced out of their own homes.

  She sighed and straightened her shoulders as a figure at the entrance to the large wooden gates suddenly stepped out and a torch beam found her face. Hillary instinctively held up a hand to ward off the intrusive beam of light.

  ‘Police, madam. Can I help you?’ The uniformed constable stepped closer as Hillary got out her ID.

  ‘DI Greene. I’m the senior investigating officer,’ she said simply, as he lowered the torch. ‘I take it I’m the first to arrive?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He was young but didn’t seem all that overawed. ‘The doc’s on his way. Forensics too.’

  Hillary nodded and got out her notebook as he made his preliminary report. It was concise but left out no relevant facts, and after five minutes of rapid shorthand, she had the beginnings of the Murder Book.

  The Murder Book was usually assigned to one particular officer who kept it updated with all the relevant facts, so that any member of the investigation could consult it to check on facts and keep him or herself updated. It was usually Janine Tyler who took on this task, but Hillary thought it was time that Tommy Lynch had the responsibility and made a mental note to give it to him when he arrived.

  ‘So, the victim is a Mr Malcolm Dale, resident here, who was found by his secretary, Marcia Brock, at roughly nine o’clock tonight,’ she recapped, just to make sure she’d got it right. Mistakes made at the very beginning of a murder investigation could bugger it up for weeks to come. ‘Mr Dale’s wife, Valerie, is absent, believed to be playing bridge at a friend’s place, a regular Monday night occurrence. Mrs Brock called 999 and remained on the premises. After a brief search to ascertain there was no-one else in the house, you called it in.’ Hillary glanced up at the dark figure in front of her. ‘Where’s Mrs Brock now?’

  ‘In the living room, ma’am, with my partner.’

  ‘And the body was found in the kitchen?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And he’s definitely dead?’ she asked quickly. She could still remember being called out, as a DS, to a ‘murder’ scene where her governor had taken one look at the so-called corpse and radioed for an ambulance. The victim had later died in hospital, as it turned out, but it just went to show that it wasn’t always easy for an inexperienced person to tell the difference between dead and alive. And it always paid to make sure. Especially when the families of victims could sue you and the department if you didn’t.

  ‘No pulse, ma’am.’

  ‘And you only touched his wrist?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Didn’t want to touch anything else. He’s a bit messy. Looks to me as if he’s been hit over the head a fair few times.’

  In the darkness she heard him gulp. Obviously, he was not quite so hard-headed as he sounded. ‘If you want to be sick, Constable, please go over there and do it in the grass.’

  ‘I’m fine, ma’am.’

  Hillary nodded, and looked up as another car rattled over the metal drawbridge, the sound echoing hollowly and eerily in the night. She recognized Doc Partridge’s nifty little MG at once. ‘All right, Constable. Stay out here and direct personnel as they come in. You’ve started a checklist?’ It was standard procedure for everyone’s arrival and departure to be noted down. ‘Yes, ma’am. I’ve already got you in.’

  ‘Fine. This is Doctor Steven Partridge,’ she added, as the police pathologist walked gingerly across the muddy road to meet her. His shoes, she guessed, would have cost her at least a month’s salary. Married to an ex-opera singer, Doc Partridge’s sartorial elegance was well known to the cops at HQ.

  ‘Hillary, glad to see you as always. Got something interesting for me?’ he greeted her, cheerfully enough.

  ‘Don’t know; haven’t been in yet.’ As a general rule, she tried not to contaminate the scene too much before the men in white overalls arrived. It tended to piss them off.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to let the dog see the rabbit,’ he murmured, and Hillary hid a smile as she followed the doc inside.

  Tangent Hall was as modern inside as out, decorated in minimalist style, in muted, neutral colours. She saw Steven grimace as he looked around. With all the instincts of a peacock, she doubted it would appeal to him. For herself, she hardly paid the décor a second glance. Since living in a narrowboat, things like tiles and fireplaces weren’t something that particularly mattered in her world.

  ‘In the kitchen,’ she said, glancing around for signs of disturbance. There were none. She could hear a woman and man’s voice off to the left – obviously the second uniform and the finder of the body. She nodded to a door that, logically, should lead to either a dining room or kitchen, and followed the medical man through.

  The kitchen, unsurprisingly, was big, open plan, and had the latest in gizmos and gadgets. But as well as a hanging set of expensive woks, an aga, electric oven, microwave and genuine Welsh dresser complete with blue-and-white plates, there was a man’s body stretched out on the terracotta-tiled floor. Darker patches of red at his head oozed between the cracks in the tiles. That was going to be a bugger to get clean.

  Doc Partridge stepped gingerly around the prone figure and knelt down carefully. She was sure this had more to do with keeping the soles of his shoes and the knees of his trousers clean, than it did his desire not to disturb the forensic evidence. Still, Hillary had a lot of respect for the small, dapper man. He knew his business, and she knew she wouldn’t have to wait long for his report. Most pathologists liked to hum and haw for days. At least Doc Partridge was more sensitive to a copper’s need to get started with at least a well-informed guess as to cause and time of death.

  The victim, she knew from the constable’s initial report, was thirty-five years old. He was thickly built, but not yet running to fat, although his dark hair seemed to be already thinning. He was dressed casually in designer jeans and a chunky-knit cream-coloured sweater that was stained with his blood at the shoulder, where it was pressed down on to the floor. From what she could see from where she was standing, there were no obvious defensive wounds or bruising on his hands. Probably hit from behind then, in situ which probably indicated that he knew his attac
ker, although that was not necessarily so.

  ‘Well, he’s dead,’ Doc Partridge said flatly, making a note of the time and writing it down in his own notebook. ‘Not more than two hours, I should say. And, strictly as a preliminary finding, death occurred due to a blow or blows to the head, delivered with what appears to be a smooth, probably rounded object.’

  Hillary nodded, looking around. There was no obvious sign of the murder weapon left behind. Smooth and rounded. If she was in one of those American cop shows, she’d immediately say ‘baseball bat’. And, sure enough, she knew some villains who, lacking an imagination of their own, had taken to using baseball bats as their weapon of choice. So could Mr Dale have surprised a burglar? But it was a bit early for thieves, surely? Or was he usually out on a Monday night as well? Did he usually join his wife at her bridge game? Already she could feel the need to gather information itching away at her.

  She watched Steven get carefully to his feet and peel back the thin rubber gloves he was wearing. ‘I’ll see if I can post him tomorrow – but I doubt it. Probably won’t get around to him until the day after.’

  ‘From what I hear, he was a politician – or about to become one or something. You might get pressure to do it fast.’

  Steven grunted, unimpressed. ‘Well, I must get back. My better half was beating me at billiards when I got called out.’

  Hillary blinked at the mental image this conjured up and followed him out. Outside she told the constable at the gate to keep everyone but forensics out of the kitchen, and to make sure that her team, as they arrived, stayed on the rolls of polythene sheeting that he’d already put down.

  Just then she saw Janine Tyler’s car, a classic Mini, arrive, with Tommy Lynch not far behind her. Of Frank Ross there was no sign, so at least she was having some luck tonight.

  ‘Constable, has anyone contacted Mrs Dale yet?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I wasn’t sure that that was advisable.’

  Hillary nodded. It was good thinking. Sad fact though it undoubtedly was, whenever a spouse was found dead, the remaining spouse was firmly in the frame until eliminated. And she herself wanted to see Valerie Dale’s face when she was informed of her husband’s death.

  ‘You have the address of this friend where she’s playing bridge?’

  He didn’t. He radioed his friend inside, who asked the secretary, and then relayed the information back with an address in Adderbury, a large village not far from Banbury.

  Hillary nodded and started back towards her car. Normally she wouldn’t leave a crime scene so early, but until forensics had been and gone, there was little she could do here but hang around and get impatient. She greeted Tommy and Janine, who crowded round her, and filled them in.

  ‘Right, Tommy, I want you to keep the Murder Book on this one. Janine, you can appoint the evidence officer. Doc’s been and gone, so you can get the body removed when all the photographs have been taken and SOCO give the all-clear. Janine, get a preliminary report from this secretary, Marcia Brock. What was she doing here at this time of night, whether there was any argy-bargy going on – you know the drill. I’m off to inform the wife.’

  ‘Boss,’ Janine said briefly. Unlike most coppers, she balked at calling anyone ‘guv’ and had come up with her own title for Hillary, who didn’t seem to mind. Janine walked up to the uniform and had a few words, then disappeared inside. Tommy Lynch watched Hillary climb into her car, an ancient Volkswagen Golf that she’d nicknamed ‘Puff the Tragic Wagon’, and watched her back up towards the drawbridge. He wished he was going with her.

  He sighed and headed towards the house. ‘Has a DS Frank Ross checked in yet?’ he asked the constable at the gate, who shook his head. ‘Good,’ Tommy said succinctly, making the younger man smile. Frank’s fame tended to go before him.

  Valerie Dale’s bridge-playing friends lived in a large property across the village green from the pub, that looked to Hillary as if it had once been two or maybe even three terraced cottages, now converted into one. It had an uneven grey slate roof, and had been newly whitewashed. Even in the dark she could see latticed woodwork climbing the walls, and suspected that in the summer it was awash with climbing roses, clematis and maybe even wisteria. Very nice. She appreciated gardens – mostly because her own needs in the horticultural department stopped and ended with a few tubs of pansies slung on to her roof.

  She knocked on the door and waited. The curtains were all closed, but light glowed behind most of them, and when the door was finally opened, she could hear the muted voices of several people coming from inside. The woman facing her looked to be about forty, with a neat pageboy blonde cut and carefully treated wrinkles at the sides of her eyes and mouth. ‘Yes?’

  Her pale grey eyes widened as Hillary held out her ID. Is there a Mrs Valerie Dale here, Mrs Babcock? It is Mrs Babcock?’

  ‘No, I’m Celia. Celia Dee. Gale’s inside. I’m dummy.’

  Hillary, who knew a little about bridge, wasn’t too disconcerted by this somewhat candid revelation. If she remembered right, Celia Dee wasn’t commentating on her own intellectual shortcomings, but referring to the fact that she wasn’t playing the card game for this particular rubber.

  ‘Please, come inside.’ Although she wasn’t the hostess, she was too polite to leave her standing on the doorstep. Besides, if Hillary knew people –and Hillary did – Mrs Dee was too busy wondering if her tax disc on the car was up to date or if any of her tyres were bald to worry about upsetting any of her fellow bridge players with her usurped hospitality.

  Inside, the country cottage theme was being done to death, with the owner even going so far as to hang bunches of dried flowers from the genuine wooden beams. Brass wall clocks ticked ponderously from thick and bulging lime-washed walls, and Laura Ashley was being worshipped wherever the eye settled. She was led to a large, knocked-through lounge, where a real log fire was roaring away in the fireplace, surrounded by horse brasses, naturally. Sets of four people, seated at two individual round tables, turned to look at her.

  ‘Four no trumps,’ a small, grey-haired woman said in the sudden silence, then looked up and blinked, wondering why nobody was paying attention to her. At another table, a tall, dark-haired woman dressed in black slacks and a black silk blouse with a Chinese collar, slowly stood up. She looked not to Hillary, but to the woman standing beside her, an obvious question in her eyes.

  ‘Oh, Gale, this is … er …’

  ‘Detective Inspector Hillary Greene, Mrs Babcock,’ Hillary said, walking forward. Although the house and company screamed ultra-respectable upper middle class, Hillary didn’t feel one whit intimidated. She’d taken an English literature degree from Radcliffe College, and although it wasn’t one of Oxford University’s affiliated colleges, hardly anyone knew that, and back at HQ she was known to be an OEC – an Oxford Educated Cop. Her own upbringing had been as middle class as anyone’s here. OK, her suit was probably the cheapest article of clothing in the room, and she worked for a living because she had to and not because she needed a hobby, but who the hell cared? She had a badge. That trumped even a Range Rover.

  She smiled to reassure everyone, and said firmly, ‘I’m looking for a Mrs Valerie Dale? I was told by Marcia Brock that I might find her here?’ As she spoke she glanced around, instantly dismissing all the men, and the grey-haired woman. That left two possible contenders – an elfin-faced redhead, and a tall skinny blonde. It was the tall skinny blonde, looking nonplussed, who rose hesitantly from the table.

  ‘Yes? I’m Valerie Dale. Is anything wrong? The children?’ Her voice rose sharply.

  Hillary mentally cursed. This was the first she’d heard about children. She took a step forward and smiled. ‘I’m sure your children are fine, Mrs Dale,’ she lied. The truth was, she had no idea whether they were or not. ‘They’re back at your home, Tangent Hall?’

  ‘No, no. Jeremy’s at boarding school and Portia’s with my mother for the night.’

  Hillary nodded, relieved. Not at the house t
hen. That explained why no-one had mentioned them. Children at a murder scene were a nightmare scenario.

  ‘But what’s wrong? Why are you here?’ Valerie Dale suddenly demanded, her voice rising just an octave. Either she was a very good actress or she was genuinely alarmed. Naturally pale, her thin face seemed to go a milky colour and the pinched look that tightened her cheekbones couldn’t be faked.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Dale, but I’m afraid I do have bad news. Would you prefer to talk outside?’

  Even before she’d finished speaking, she noticed Gale Babcock take a step closer, and from her position beside her, Celia Dee also moved forward, coming to stand the other side of the distressed woman. Obviously Valerie Dale had friends. Protective friends. And she was going to need them in the months to come.

  ‘What? No, no, just tell me what it is. Is it Mother?’ Valerie asked. ‘I know she’s not been well, but I thought she was over it. It was only a tummy bug, wasn’t it?’

  Hillary took a deep breath. There was never a right way of going about this, and after years of having to deliver bad news, she’d never found any way that was easy. In the end she chose simply to state the truth as clearly and calmly as possible.

  ‘I’m afraid your husband, Malcolm Dale, has been found dead at your home, Mrs Dale.’ She was sure she was safe in stating this so certainly, because Marcia Brock had formally identified him as such. ‘We’ve launched a murder enquiry,’ she added quietly, and saw a blank dullness suddenly darken Valerie Dale’s pale eyes. What colour were they exactly? Not blue. Green, perhaps.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Celia Dee said sharply, ‘Bloody hell!’, and grabbed Valerie Dale’s wrist. But it was Gale Babcock who took control.

  ‘Come on, Val, sit down. Jim, get a glass of brandy, will you?’ One of the men peeled off obediently from the table and went to a drinks cabinet. Hillary said nothing as her witness was led to one of the black leather sofas grouped around the fireplace, and was pushed down. The man returned with a snifter glass and pushed it into Valerie Dale’s shaking hand. She took it, and raised it automatically to her lips. Hillary wondered if she was even aware of what she’d done.