MURDER IN THE GARDEN a gripping crime mystery full of twists Page 9

  Hillary nodded. ‘It sounds like a mutually beneficial arrangement.’

  Martha nodded. ‘It is. Sorry, was.’ Her mop of dyed auburn curls bounced around as she shook her head. ‘I just can’t believe Eddie’s dead. I just can’t seem to make it real somehow, do you know what I mean?’

  Hillary did. She’d been hearing statements like that from the victims of violent crime throughout her long career. The wording might change, but the meaning was always the same. Sheer disbelief.

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Saturday night, as usual. Saturdays and Wednesdays were “our” nights. Not that he ever stayed overnight, you understand. I think he was rather keen not to upset his daughter. Although why Rachel would be upset by her father staying out all night beats me. As I told him, she was a married woman with kids of her own. It’s not as if she doesn’t know what he gets up to when he calls in here. And why would she care?’ Martha laughed abruptly. ‘Silly sod he could be, sometimes.’ She stared miserably at her canvas and then let her eyes drift back to Hillary. ‘Do you have any idea who did it?’ she asked.

  Hillary smiled briefly. ‘Our enquiries are still ongoing,’ she said, her standard phrase whenever asked that question by a member of the public. ‘Did your last meeting with Edward Philpott go as usual?’ she asked casually. ‘Did he seem agitated or upset, for example. Preoccupied, maybe?’

  ‘Oh no. Nothing like that,’ Martha shook her head vigorously. ‘He was just the same as ever.’

  ‘He didn’t confide in you that he had anything on his mind, something worrying him, maybe? An argument with a friend, family troubles, threatening letters or phone calls. Anything of that kind?’

  Martha looked genuinely astonished. ‘Eddie?’ she squeaked. ‘No. No, if you knew Eddie, you wouldn’t ask that. The man was always the same. Used to drive me nuts, sometimes. You know, I’ve known that man all that time and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him really lose his temper, or laugh with sheer joy. He just always plodded along, same old Eddie, day in, day out.’

  Hillary could see how the more volatile nature of the artist would chafe against something like that.

  ‘Of course, he was worried about his daughter,’ Martha mused thoughtfully. ‘And I have to say, the last time I saw her she wasn’t looking well.’ Hillary nodded. So the very serious nature of Rachel Warner’s illness wasn’t in the public arena yet. She wondered why not. For all that Martha and Eddie had been an item for more than two decades, her lover seemed to have been unusually reticent.

  ‘Did you go to Eddie’s place last Monday morning, Mrs Hepton?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘Miss. And no, I didn’t. I never went to Eddie’s place, he always came here. Like I said, he could be a bit old-fashioned. And what with his grandkids living with him, I expect he’d have been a bit embarrassed at having to try and explain me to them.’

  There was just a touch of bitterness there, Hillary mused, catching the pain behind the smile. But not too much. Martha was a woman who obviously knew when she was well off, and had no intention of letting any injured feelings that she might have lead her into rocking the boat.

  ‘Did you kill Eddie?’ Hillary asked casually.

  Martha Hepton blinked rapidly. ‘Me? Why would I kill Eddie?’

  Hillary smiled blandly. Why indeed?

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Hillary and Frank walked away from Honeysuckle Cottage and went back to her car.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Hillary asked routinely, and Frank Ross shrugged.

  ‘Seems unlikely, guv. She gets to live rent-free, and he got to have his bit of no-hassle rumpy-pumpy twice a week. Like she said, why would she kill the old sod off?’

  Hillary nodded. It was very much what she’d been thinking too. ‘Of course, something might have changed. Perhaps with his daughter about to die, he might have told her the arrangement was off. Social services would have been keeping an eye on the kids after Rachel was gone, and he might have been frightened that they’d see him as an unfit guardian if they found out about Martha.’

  ‘The social wouldn’t give a toss,’ Frank Ross snorted, opening the door and slipping inside.

  ‘I agree,’ Hillary said, getting behind the steering wheel herself. ‘But Eddie might not have known that. You heard his mistress — he had old-fashioned ideas.’

  ‘Huh. So he gives her the elbow, and in a fit of passionate rage, she offs him?’ Ross laughed. ‘Don’t think so, guv. She’s a comfortable middle-aged body, who was probably bored stiff with the old goat anyway. Hardly the sort to get into a tizzy over spurned love.’

  Hillary felt her spirits drop. Ross’s summary was identical to her own feelings on the matter. Which meant, in all likelihood, that another promising lead had just gone west.

  To cheer herself up, Hillary reached into the back seat and handed Ross a slim A4 beige envelope. ‘Here, these are for you. Sign them and get them back to me.’

  Ross opened the envelope and pulled out the papers. Hillary started the car, checked her mirrors, and pulled out.

  ‘Are you having a laugh?’ Ross asked a few minutes later, as they cruised down the narrow country lane. The ash trees lining the road were just beginning to turn, giving a faint tinge of orange and a hint of russet to the unrelenting green.

  Hillary concentrated on her driving. ‘Nope. You’re eligible to retire on a full pension, and that’s what you’re going to do.’

  She felt the man tense beside her, and ignored the colourful curse he came out with. She reached the main road, indicated, and turned right, heading back towards Kidlington.

  ‘And what if I don’t want to retire?’ Ross asked, slapping the offending papers down on his knee with a resounding thwack.

  Hillary took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot him a quick glance. He looked flushed with anger and his jaw was clenched so tight she could actually hear his teeth grind.

  She sighed heavily. ‘Come on, Frank, what do you care? You don’t give a shit about the job, and we both know it. Even if you ever did care, you’ve just been going through the motions for years now. You’re barely in the office, and when you are, your paperwork is sloppy and always late, and more often than not you smell of a brewery. So why not just make it official?’

  ‘I’ve still got bills to pay, the same as everyone else,’ Ross snarled. ‘And a full pension doesn’t go far in this day and age.’

  ‘Then get a part-time job, like everyone else,’ Hillary snarled back. ‘Hell, a night watchman’s job is a doddle. Or you can sit in a car park all day on your fat arse and check vehicles coming and going, right? You and I both know there’s plenty of firms about who hire ex-coppers for a show of security. Even you can manage that.’

  Ross swore again. By the time they reached HQ Ross was still raging. After she’d parked in the lot and got out of the car Ross was still effing and blinding beside her, ranting about how she wasn’t going to push him out.

  In no mood for his histrionics, she shouted him down. ‘You’re going,’ she yelled across the roof of the car at him. ‘You can either go with a bit of dignity and save some face by going quietly, or you’ll get pushed out by the brass anyway. Both Danvers and Donleavy are behind me on this.’

  Frank paled, finally understanding that she meant business. They both knew that no sergeant could stay in the force if enough people wanted them out. And of course both the men she mentioned would back her up. Danvers wanted to get into her knickers, and Donleavy, for some reason, had always rated her.

  ‘You bitch!’ he said at last.

  ‘I expect those papers on my desk by the end of tomorrow,’ Hillary said flatly. When she turned and headed across the car park, she was aware of two uniformed officers smartly stepping out of her way. No doubt they’d heard everything she’d said, and the news would spread through the station like wildfire.

  Hillary nodded at them grimly, without breaking stride.

  She was stil
l feeling tight-faced as she crossed the lobby, and for once the desk sergeant, sensing the atmosphere, didn’t call her over for a chat.

  Upstairs, she went to her desk and sat down. She’d barely put her bag away under the desk, however, when the phone rang.

  ‘DI Greene.’

  ‘Hill.’ The desk sergeant’s voice filled her ear. ‘Thought I’d better warn you. DI Mallow’s in the building. I just saw her go past.’

  Hillary bit back a groan. ‘Thanks, Sarge,’ she said, and hung up.

  Since her husband’s murder, Janine had only been to HQ to give her interviews with DCI Evans, and everyone had felt both relieved and ashamed of their relief at not having to face the bereaved widow. Now, when the door to the office opened and Janine walked in to her old stamping ground, Hillary felt every eye go to her. The noise, always at a certain level, dropped audibly.

  Hillary got up quickly and moved to the centre of the room to intercept her. She smiled as Janine approached and held out her hand. ‘Janine. Good to see you,’ she lied. ‘Come and sit down.’

  She saw Paul Danvers standing up behind his desk, a look of enquiry on his face, and with a discreet hand signal that the entire room of officers noted, she indicated for him to sit back down. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘You got decaf?’ Janine asked, sitting down somewhat ponderously in Barrington’s empty chair. ‘The doctors are nagging me about my hypertension levels.’

  Hillary gulped and reached for a jar of decaf that was Gemma Fordham’s personal stash. Janine glanced around the empty desks and smiled grimly. ‘Got all the troops out in the field, then?’

  Hillary nodded. ‘Milk and sugar still?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  Hillary made the coffee and handed it over. She sat down in her chair warily. Janine smiled wryly. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t bite,’ she said grimly. ‘It’s just that I’m going insane at home. My boss in Witney has given me a week’s leave, whether I want it or not, and I can’t just sit at home, staring at the walls.’

  Hillary nodded. Mel Mallow had lived in a very desirable residence in the Moors area of Kidlington, an acquisition from his divorce from his second, extremely wealthy wife. And Hillary well remembered how much Janine Tyler, her young blonde sergeant at the time, had coveted it.

  Now it had become somewhere she wanted to escape from.

  Hillary felt the familiar mix of bile and helpless rage begin to assail her whenever she was forced to think about her old friend, and quickly pushed it back down.

  ‘I need something to do,’ Janine said, the appeal in her voice cutting Hillary to the quick. ‘And by that I mean something useful. Something that could help. Don’t tell me to take up bloody Scrabble or something. I’ve got enough well-meaning do-gooders in my life as it is.’

  Hillary smiled briefly. She knew just what Janine was asking for, but it was almost impossible to give her. She eyed the pregnant, wan-faced woman with some apprehension.

  Never having experienced much illness herself, Hillary didn’t know about hypertension, but it didn’t sound good. What Janine needed was something to take her out of the house and make her feel good about herself. Which meant helping out on her husband’s case. But anything of that kind would instantly rile DCI Evans and the top brass for miles around.

  ‘You could always go and do a bit of house-to-house,’ Hillary said slowly. It was a fine day now and some gentle exercise would probably help. ‘You know, do the rounds of the houses out there.’ She turned and pointed out of the window. The sniper who’d shot Mel must have been holed up in one of the ordinary run-of-the-mill residences that surrounded Thames Valley police headquarters.

  Janine snorted. ‘Oh come on, Hill. Evans had his team scouring those houses for weeks after Mel died, and came up with absolutely squat. No witnesses to put Myers or anyone else at the scene, and they never found any indication of where the bastard had set up his nest. You know that as well as I do.’

  Hillary did. It was one of the reasons why she’d suggested it. Even if word did get back to Evans about what Janine had been doing, nobody would much care. She wouldn’t be standing on anyone’s toes or doing any damage.

  But she had to convince Janine that the idea had some merit. Even if it didn’t. But Janine was wily. She’d have to play it carefully. ‘Sure, he had uniforms up and down the streets, making a right pest of themselves,’ Hillary agreed airily. ‘People probably got fed up with seeing them and being asked the same damn thing, over and over.’

  Janine opened her mouth to say something sarcastic, then remembered just who it was she was dealing with, and closed her mouth again. In all the years she’d worked under Hillary Greene she’d never known the woman to do something without a good reason.

  ‘So what’s the point in going over old ground?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘You know as well as I do that memories can be jogged after a certain amount of time has passed,’ Hillary said, then held up her hand as Janine prepared to blast that down. ‘Yes, I know it’s a long shot, but it’s still a shot. But that’s not the main reason I’m suggesting it.’

  Janine subsided back in her chair, but she was still looking suspicious.

  ‘Just stop for a minute and think,’ Hillary said softly, slipping back into the old teaching mode she’d used with Janine when she’d been a raw green recruit. ‘It was early clocking-off time, just gone five,’ Hillary said, having to force the words out now.

  Briefly her mind went back to that afternoon. How they’d all spilled out into the car park, and the pervading feeling of celebration and good-natured camaraderie. Mel still alive and smiling. And then the shot and Mel’s body hitting the ground. The stunned silence that followed. And then . . . Hillary forced her mind to stop right there and concentrate on the living instead.

  ‘Who would be at home around that time?’ she asked Janine, who frowned in puzzlement for a moment, then shrugged.

  ‘Anyone who’d clocked off work early, I suppose. Young mothers with kids home from school. Nannies looking after kids. The retired. People making last-minute deliveries.’

  ‘OK. Now who, out of that lot, would be the most likely to lie about anything they saw that day?’ Hillary pressed.

  Janine shrugged. ‘Anyone with a record, or a reason to be wary of the cops.’

  Hillary nodded patiently. No doubt Evans had put any such individuals under a microscope long since. ‘And who else?’ she pressed gently.

  Janine blinked and then sighed, suddenly catching on. ‘The elderly. Especially if they live alone.’

  Hillary nodded. Most old people tended to act like ostriches whenever trouble came knocking at the door. ‘OK. So say you’re an old man or woman, living alone. A knock comes at the door, which immediately makes you wonder what’s up. You go to the door and, horror of horrors, there’s a man or woman in uniform standing at your door. Asking you questions. What’s your first reaction?’

  Janine began to look more interested now. ‘Three wise monkeys, boss,’ she said, using her old title for Hillary without thinking. ‘Saw nothing, heard nothing, say nothing.’

  ‘OK. So you do your helpless old man or woman act, and the copper goes away. Next day you read about Mel in the papers. How do you feel?’

  ‘Shocked and scared,’ Janine said promptly, slowly nodding. ‘A man’s been killed right on your back doorstep. You might even have seen this man out and about. It’s too close to home. You hunker down and batten down the hatches.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘OK. So, the next day, or the day after that, another uniform lands on your doorstep, asking you the same things again.’

  Janine nodded. That was standard. You always covered the same ground twice, just in case.

  ‘What do you do?’ Hillary pressed.

  ‘Batten down the hatches even more. If you’ve lied already, you just keep on telling the same lie, until it’s set in cement.’ Janine, who’d seen that particular phenomenon often during her days in uniform, grimaced.

  ‘OK.
Now months go by. It all seems to be dying down. You start to feel safe again. And then someone comes knocking on your door. But it’s not some faceless copper in uniform this time. This time it’s the widow herself. The brave, pregnant heroine of the day. Asking you if you saw anything on the day her hero husband was shot. What might you be tempted to do then?’

  Janine slowly began to smile. ‘Confess.’

  Hillary got slowly to her feet. ‘Do a few houses at a time. Concentrate on the old or those living alone. Wear something that shows off that bump. Hell, Janine, you know what signs to look for as well as I do.’

  Janine’s smile widened. ‘I’ll do it. Thanks, boss.’

  And Hillary, feeling about as low as a worm’s belly, watched her go off on her wild goose chase, and sighed heavily.

  * * *

  Whilst Hillary Greene watched her one-time sergeant set off on her mission, Clive Myers crossed the border into Wales.

  The ex-soldier had set off at 3:30 that morning, a time which his stint in the army had told him was the optimum time for catching people unawares. He’d found it easy to give his watchers the slip, and then he’d walked for two miles out of Thame to a deserted country barn where he’d stashed a dented old van, days before shooting and killing Superintendent Philip Mallow.

  It had only taken him a few hours to service the van and give the batteries a bit of a charge before taking it on the road. He doubted the coppers back at his house were even aware that he’d gone yet, and wouldn’t be for some time, especially with his usual car still parked harmlessly in front of the house.

  Nevertheless, he’d kept off the motorways and taken the winding, scenic route into Wales.

  It was such forward planning that had earned him the praise of his instructors and superior officers in the army. And it was that mentality that had enabled him to get so many things in place beforehand, ready for the time when they’d be needed.