MURDER ON THE OXFORD CANAL Read online

  She headed for her car and opened the door, sighing as a wave of heat came blasting out at her. She left the door open for a while, and reached in for her waterways guidebook. Finding the lock, she let her finger run up the waterway to Banbury, then back down, pausing at the village of Lower Heyford, where there was a boatyard. No doubt it did a roaring trade hiring out boats for the summer, but that aspect of it didn’t concern her. Where there was a boatyard there were facilities. Water. Loo-emptying opportunities. Repair shop. Somewhere, in fact, where a boat with propeller damage could call.

  She slipped in behind the wheel. Only one way to find out. She turned on the engine, looking speculatively at Janine Tyler’s new Mini. It was smart. Red. It suited her.

  She wondered who Janine had found to chat to. She certainly wasn’t walking the streets of the vast metropolis of Northbrook, that was for sure, because Hillary would have seen her.

  She buckled up, turned around and began driving past the few houses and back to the B road. She knew that a lot of constables and sergeants back at the Big House wouldn’t approve of her being out and about interviewing witnesses. It was the growing conviction among a lot of them that anyone over and above the rank of sergeant belonged behind a desk, giving orders, doing paperwork and answering the phone.

  But who the hell wanted to be doing that if they could be doing something else? Hillary grinned to herself, feeling, for the first time in what seemed like years, a boost to her spirits. With a bit of luck, she could string this case out for a good while yet. At least until those plonkers back at HQ got fed up with sniffing round Ronnie’s very unsavoury leavings.

  * * *

  Curtis Smith smelled fear.

  Frank Ross was dirty. He just knew it.

  Unlike a lot of cops who ended up investigating their own, Curtis wasn’t in this for a promotion or an easy working day. Regular nine-to-five appealed to some, but he wasn’t married so it held no particular advantages for him anyway. Nor was he masochistic or one of those hotheads who actually enjoyed being universally loathed. No. Curtis Smith just didn’t like bent cops. As far as he was concerned, one bad apple ruined the whole damned barrel, and if nobody else wanted to root them out, he sure as hell had no objections to doing it.

  He was nearly fifty, and had been doing this job for nearly ten years now. He was good at it. And his bosses, glad to have a capable man in the position, and moreover, one who showed no obvious signs of restlessness, were more than happy to let him get on with it. Occasionally, like now, they assigned him a high-flyer, someone in to do his time and learn some of the tricks.

  Curtis didn’t mind being a combination babysitter and teacher. In fact, he quite liked DI Danvers. The guy had brains, which was always nice, and ambition, which was less nice but at least untainted.

  On one memorable occasion, Curtis had had to bust one of the members of his own team for corruption, when he’d found him trying to take over as main beneficiary for a call-girl ring being operated by a bunch of coppers up Dundee way. But he had no such worries about Paul. The man was a straight arrow, and getting good too. He’d already come to the same conclusions about Frank Ross, he was sure, as well as picking up on the faint tint of woofter. Not that that was relevant — not in this case.

  No. What Curtis really wanted to know about was the wife.

  ‘So, tell us about Hillary Greene,’ Paul said, as if reading his mind. In truth, he’d done nothing of the kind. They’d already mapped out their strategy long before setting up this interview.

  Frank shifted on his seat. His face tightened just a fraction.

  Uh-oh, Curtis thought. Here we go.

  ‘What about her?’ Frank said.

  ‘Do you get on?’ Paul asked mildly.

  Frank shrugged. ‘She’s my best friend’s wife.’

  ‘Was.’

  ‘Eh? Oh, yeah, right. Was.’

  ‘Now she’s his widow.’ Curtis made it seem as if he thought Frank didn’t have the nous to figure out what they meant.

  Frank snorted. ‘Only technically.’

  Curtis looked, very obviously, at Paul, who looked, very puzzled, at Frank.

  ‘They were getting divorced, weren’t they? Ronnie didn’t give two figs for her. It won’t stop her getting her widow’s benefit, though, will it?’ Frank said nastily.

  Curtis nodded. The gossip — what little of it filtered down to them — had it right then. Frank Ross wasn’t exactly Hillary Greene’s number one fan.

  ‘So we understand. In fact, there was a lot of rancour in their marriage, wasn’t there?’ Paul said.

  Frank gave him a dirty look. ‘Oh yeah. Very rancorous.’

  ‘That’s why Ronnie wasn’t letting her live at the house. And was in no hurry to sell it himself,’ Paul carried on smoothly. ‘Also he was contesting the divorce. Making her wait, wasn’t he? Generally being a right pain in the neck?’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t hoping she’d come back, that’s for sure. He just didn’t want the bit— didn’t want her to have things all her own way. Women do, don’t they? In divorces. Expect to keep the house, the kids, the car, the lot. Well, Hillary sure learned different with Ronnie.’ He smiled, some particular memory seeming to come to his mind.

  ‘So it isn’t likely that he’d have let her get her hands on any dosh he had hidden away then?’ Curtis watched the other man’s face fall at this unassailable piece of logic, before he hid it with a masterly shrug.

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought so, mate,’ Frank said.

  ‘Still, before things went sour,’ Paul put in smoothly, ‘it wouldn’t have been the same, would it? When it was all lovey-dovey. After all, Ronnie was at it for years, wasn’t he?’

  Frank opened his mouth, as if about to say yes. Then he grinned and rubbed his chin. ‘Don’t ask me, mate,’ he said. ‘I would have sworn up and down that Ronnie Greene was as straight as they come.’

  Paul leant slowly back in his chair. He smiled amiably. ‘Of course you would, Sergeant Ross.’ He was bitterly disappointed. They’d almost given the sod enough rope for him to hang himself there.

  They played with him a bit longer, but eventually had to let him go. Frank Ross slammed the door behind him.

  ‘I’d have bet you a tenner he was a slammer,’ Curtis said mildly. Interviewees, they’d invariably found, either slammed out or very gently shut the door behind them.

  Paul grinned. ‘I wouldn’t have taken you up on it. So what do you think?’

  ‘I think he fancied you.’ Curtis smiled as the DI scowled at him and shuddered.

  ‘Shit, don't,’ Paul said. ‘I mean, is he dirty?’

  ‘Course he is.’

  ‘You think him and Greene were in it together?’

  ‘Yeah. But as very uneven partners. Our Frankie boy lives above a dry cleaners here in town, doesn’t he? Whereas Ronnie managed to get himself a nice little detached in a quiet cul-de-sac. And you can bet he’s got the bulk invested and hidden somewhere.’

  ‘And you can’t see him trusting Frankie with a bigger share of the proceeds?’ Paul had to ask, but it was more or less a rhetorical question.

  Curtis shook his head. ‘Nope. He’s the kind to like his share in cash that he can spend. Wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t blow it all on booze and gambling, and rent boys in good ol’ Amsterdam.’

  ‘He doesn’t like the wife, does he?’ Paul said, with masterly understatement. ‘Jealousy?’

  ‘Could be. Or it could be that she was getting a bigger cut than him. Or, now Ronnie’s gone, she inherits more than just a widow’s pension.’

  Paul sighed. ‘The wife next, then?’

  Curtis nodded. He was looking forward to checking out Hillary Greene.

  * * *

  Janine Tyler accepted a digestive and sat forward a little. She sipped her tea, sighed and listened to the seventy-two-year-old lady telling her all about how much the canal had changed in the last few years.

  ‘You get a lot of foreigners now that you never used to get
. You can hear ’em as they go through the lock. Strange words they use. Then of course, there’s them teenagers. They don’t know how to use a lock, half of them. And the language!’

  * * *

  DC Tommy Lynch was also drinking, but in his case it was a nice cold illicit beer, while the chap doing the talking watched his fishing line.

  Tommy sighed happily. You never knew with members of the public. Mostly you could rely on the middle-aged and older generation to offer you a cuppa, or at least talk to you with some kind of respect. And you could rely on the young to treat you like something on the bottom of their shoe that they wanted to wipe off quick.

  But there were exceptions. Take the owner of the Babbling Brook, for instance. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and was dressed in a black T-shirt and khaki shorts that revealed comically pale and hairy legs. He’d been sitting on the top of the boat, dangling a fishing rod over the side, when Tommy had come calling, fully expecting a curt “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” response.

  Instead, here he was, sipping beer and watching a scarlet float bobbing about on the water.

  His host sucked on his bottle of beer. ‘Like I said, I only moored up yesterday afternoon, so I don’t know the site. You usually get regulars, though, moored up at village sites. You know, those who aren’t into travelling as such. You should find out which boats have been here longest. They’ll know the most.’

  Suddenly he leaned forward, all alert. Tommy, who was no fisherman, couldn’t see anything different about the float. There it still was, bobbing about.

  ‘So you don’t remember any speeding boats? Anybody arguing as they went by?’ he persisted.

  ‘Nope. We’re a peaceable lot, for the most— Gotcha!’ He yanked on the rod and Tommy looked forward, expecting at least a ten-pound trout.

  Instead, he caught sight of a half-ounce silvery thing that wriggled about on the end of the hook most unhappily.

  ‘Gudgeon,’ his host said, with evident satisfaction.

  Tommy nodded, less than impressed, but far too pleased with his cold beer to say so.

  * * *

  Hillary almost missed the turnoff to the boatyard, situated as it was at the bottom of a steep hill and an all but blind turning.

  She parked in the shade of a sumac tree and saw three golden-haired dogs and one big, long-faced black glossy dog frolicking about in the next field. She sauntered into the shop. It specialised in ice cream, basic staples such as milk and bread, and tourist-related items like postcards, ornaments, and boat memorabilia.

  She found the manager working on a boat called King Alfred. All the barges were smart, their colours being predominantly royal blue, gold and maroon, with a white piping.

  After identifying herself, she informed him of the fatality at Dashwood Lock and asked if he’d noticed anything suspicious the previous evening or early that morning.

  The manager stepped lightly onto terra firma and shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Nothing specific. But it’s bad, isn’t it? I’ve been working here nearly all my life, and this is the first death I’ve ever heard about. Course, people fall in the cut all the time, but it’s not deep, so unless it’s a nipper there’s never any real danger. And there’s usually so many people about that somebody always notices and fishes them out. It happened in a lock? Well, that might explain it then. But still . . .’

  Anxious to avoid giving any details, Hillary quickly prompted him. ‘Did any boats tie up here overnight and then move on this morning? Did you notice any dents or scratches to the paintwork?’

  ‘Not specifically, but then I wouldn’t. I work on the boats here most of the time. And the water tap is under the bridge over there.’

  He pointed to the elegantly curved stone canal bridge, overshadowed by a big slate-blue iron railway bridge above it. Railways often ran parallel to canals, so her uncle had said, for the very obvious reason that the canal builders of a century or so before had already picked out the straightest, flattest route, so all the Victorian railway engineers needed to do was follow their lead.

  ‘So I wouldn’t see anyone taking water or such on board. And I don’t work at night. No need,’ the manager explained.

  Hillary nodded, but she was already looking at the long line of privately owned boats. No doubt Tommy Lynch would be getting around to questioning them later today, when he got this far. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to do a quick check.

  She thanked the manager and retraced her steps, following a narrow tarmacked path to the top of the canal bridge, and then down the very steep slope at the other end. She struck lucky almost at once. A woman sitting on a deckchair beside a freshly painted red and green barge looked up from her book as she approached. She expressed the usual dismay and shock at a fellow boatie’s death. When Hillary asked whether she’d noticed anything unusual the previous night, she nodded vigorously.

  ‘Sure did. A boat come through, oh, it must have been nearly nine. It was practically full dark. Probably couldn’t read the signs.’ She pointed to a British Waterways sign that asked passing traffic to please travel slowly past moored craft.

  ‘Going more than the speed limit, huh?’ Hillary asked, with heartfelt sympathy. She’d lost count of the times in the past few months when she’d felt her boat being rocked as some Hooray Henry passed by on a speedy little river cruiser. It usually happened when she was dishing out soup or trying to pour a cup of coffee.

  It was yet another thing she couldn’t seem to get used to. Your home rocking under your feet.

  The woman grimaced. ‘Hell, yes. I don’t know how they could see where they were going. There’s a narrowing up ahead. I was half-expecting to hear them hit it, but they didn’t.’

  Hillary nodded, trying not to let excitement get the better of her. She’d originally thought the victim had fallen off the back unnoticed, and the rest of the people on board the boat had just carried on, none the wiser, but this sounded as if somebody was actually in a hurry to get away.

  If you could use the word hurry when referring to a canal boat, that is.

  Which implied at least knowledge, didn’t it? If not, by implication, guilt.

  ‘Don’t suppose you saw the name of the boat? Or who was steering?’ she asked hopefully, but her witness shook her head.

  ‘Too dark. Mind, I did get the impression it was an older man at the tiller. I think because his hair looked pale. Although it might have been a young fair-haired man, as opposed to a grey or white-haired man.’

  Hillary nodded and sighed. ‘I expect a constable will be along some time this afternoon. Would you mind making sure you don’t leave before giving him a statement?’

  ‘Sure. We’re staying here for another week or two before heading up to Stratford anyway.’

  Hillary smiled and walked on, only to pause a few minutes later when she saw someone walking a spaniel.

  Of course! Their body might not have come from a boat at all. It could have been a walker.

  She retraced her steps to the manager of the boatyard. He described several regular walkers, from a tall, thin, grey-haired man who walked a handsome Dalmatian, to a woman with a pretty sheltie and several owners of assorted Labradors and collies.

  None even remotely resembled the corpse.

  * * *

  Tommy peered into the boat’s open door. ‘Hello! Anyone home?’ He felt like calling, ‘Ahoy on board!’ but manfully restrained himself. The beer had put him in a good mood, but humble PCs never forget their station in life. Or the station they belonged to, to whom members of the public could, and often did, complain about the behaviour of flatfoots.

  He was glad he had restrained himself. A nervous-looking, middle-aged woman stuck her head up from the depths of the well-appointed narrowboat and regarded him with anxious eyes.

  Big, black Tommy Lynch didn’t like it when people, especially women, looked at him like this.

  He felt belittled.

  He smiled widely and quickly reached for his ID. ‘Detec
tive Constable Lynch, ma’am.’ He watched the fear fade out of her eyes, which was good, to be replaced by curiosity, which could be even better. ‘I’m investigating a fatality that occurred sometime last evening at the next lock.’ He paused, waiting for her to make the usual noises — which she did — then continued. ‘I’ve been asking all the other boat owners in the vicinity if they noticed anything strange last night. The gentleman on the Babbling Brook suggested I ask those who’ve been moored here the longest.’

  It was a roundabout way of putting her at her ease, but it seemed to be working.

  ‘Have you been here long, madam?’

  ‘Oh, a few weeks, yes. But you should really speak to the man on the Flier. He’s an artist. He notices everything.’

  Tommy took her through the usual routine, but she was the sort who saw little and noticed even less.

  And cared least of all.

  He thanked her and, with some relief and a little bit of trepidation (he’d never met any artists before), made his way along to the Flier, a small but conspicuous boat, since every inch of it was painted with elephants.

  Nothing else. Just elephants.

  He saw at once that the windows were all shut and the door padlocked, and reminded himself to call back later. No doubt the artist had taken advantage of the good weather and vamoosed with his paints and easel to paint the English countryside.

  Though Tommy doubted he’d find many elephants in it.

  CHAPTER 4

  Janine walked up the wide concrete steps towards the offices, aware that the two uniformed PCs below were watching her. Both looked like babies, and she gave her bum an extra wiggle as she reached the top, just to give them a treat. She was wearing her standard office gear — dark blue skirt, white blouse and black knitted cardigan, a Christmas gift from her mother and therefore a “must wear” garment.

  So she wore it to work.

  It did, in fact, offset her pale blonde hair to perfection, and it clung to her wrists and shoulders, adding to her misleading air of fragility. Sergeant Tyler was quite simply one of those much-envied women who looked good in anything.