Suspicion Points Read online

  At the back of the house Ethel led us into the biggest kitchen I’d ever seen. I counted twenty chairs around the square table which was painted in daffodil yellow gloss. Two high-chairs stood along one wall. A young woman was tidying up and a man was sweeping the floor. Other people drifted in. Given the time their party had ended I expected everyone to look half asleep, but they were more alert than I felt. Coffee and tea were made, fruit juice, sandwiches, quiches, and slices of cake left over from last night’s party, were offered. I had a glass of apple, ginger and rhubarb juice. It was cloudy and refreshing. I decided to buy some next time I went to the supermarket.

  Half of my mind was on the case. The other half was on how I could explain myself if Robert reported me. I hadn’t meant that he had sexual feelings for children. It’s more that his expression surprised me. He was normally so neutral.

  A woman called him Inspector. He didn’t correct her. Neither did I.

  We left Pengelly House with the confirmation that Phoebe and Stuart had arrived at the party at around eight on Friday night and left sometime after four on Saturday morning, no one was sure of the precise time. It could have been four-thirty or later. The party had been to celebrate the publication of Phoebe’s first novel. People had been asked to bring along their favourite book or poem to read. Phoebe had read two extracts from The Thorn Birds. One where a child is beaten by nuns on her first day at school and the other where her father dies in a bush fire. Stuart had read the war poetry. How morbid. Why couldn’t they read something funny?

  Robert strode ahead of me. I tried to think what to say to him.

  ‘A good idea to turn it into apartments, isn’t it?’ I said as I caught up with him. ‘Much fairer than just a few people living in a huge house.’

  Instead of going towards the car he marched through the gate.

  I hurried after him. ‘We can’t let our differences interfere with the investigation. You got my meaning wrong. What I meant was . . . ’

  He broke into a run. I couldn’t keep up so I went back to the car. By the time I caught up with him he’d almost gone a mile. I slowed down and said through the open window, ‘Get in. You can’t walk all the way home.’ He stared straight ahead and kept on walking. ‘Robert, we need to discuss the case.’ He ignored me. I gave up and drove away.

  To completely eliminate Phoebe and Stuart from the list of suspects I checked the mileage on the car and drove to Farrier Way. The distance was five miles and there were some steep hills. Even cycling at full speed either one of them would have been away from the party so long their absence would have been noticed.

  As soon as I arrived home, I went into the second bedroom that I used as a study. I turned on the computer and wrote the e-mail I’d composed on the way back in the car. Apart from being genuinely sorry, I was worried that he’d refuse to work with me. Superintendent Venning, who’d had so much faith in me, would want to know why. My behaviour would disappoint him, and give ammunition to those who felt I’d got promoted instead of Robert because of political correctness. I doubted that Robert would snitch, but I wondered if I’d pushed him too far.

  Robert,

  What I said came out wrong. You’re usually so solemn that I meant it’s a little girl that makes you smile. I didn’t mean your reaction was sinister. It was a throwaway comment that I meant as a joke. I know I’d be in serious trouble if I went round accusing people for no reason.

  There’ll be a team briefing on Monday morning. Could you fill us in on the set up at Pengelly House, please? How many live there etc.

  I spell-checked it, put Apology in the subject box and sent it. I was about to switch off the computer when I had an idea. On Google Earth I zoomed in on Pengelly House. Hardly daring to believe that I’d got a breakthrough so early I stared at the screen, just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. I felt a thump of excitement. It was almost five o’clock.

  I studied my ordnance survey map and drove to the front gates of Pengelly House and parked on the road. I got out of the car and followed the wall, which turned off the road into the forest. There was a path, but no access for cars. At the back of Pengelly House, there was a high wrought-iron gate leading into the forest. I could see an orchard and some greenhouses, but trees and bushes blocked the view of most of the house.

  I turned away and followed the path through the forest. It took me half an hour to reach the wall separating the back gardens of Farrier Way from the forest. In each wall was a high wooden gate.

  I needed a bike. I ran back through the forest and drove home. On Sunday morning I borrowed a bike from the old man who lived opposite me. He was excited about lending me his bike in the course of a murder investigation. It took me ten minutes to cycle to the back gates in Farrier Way. That was at a sedate pace. I started to cycle back to Pengelly House at full pelt, but the bike hit a tree root and I fell off. Even in daylight the forest was quite dark. I went back to the start and began again. Fast, but not too fast. It took five minutes.

  5

  ROBERT

  Saturday Evening

  I’d intended to be ready so that whatever time Sharon arrived we could leave immediately, but I’d overslept. Fortunately, I’d remembered to put away all the photos before I’d answered the door. I decided to pack them away for the duration of the investigation. I didn’t want Sharon prying and asking questions. Her knowledge of Laura Ashley fabrics surprised me. She never wore patterns and told me she’d decorated her house in neutrals. I thought she would have loathed Laura Ashley. Her attitude toward life was unforgiving, hard, and clinical.

  Judith had adored Laura Ashley. Not just the furnishings, but the clothes. She’d once said if she had a thousand pounds to spend in Laura Ashley she could spend it in an hour. We’d chosen the fabric for the curtains and upholstery together. I’d left the curtains in the house in St Margarets when I sold it.

  The long walk from Pengelly House had tired me, but not enough. Raw from Sharon’s words, I went up to my bedroom and stared at the sea. There were two boys fishing on the pier. I knew them both. One caught a fish. Yesterday I would have gone and bought it from him. We would have talked. Now I decided to stay away till they’d gone.

  Angry with myself for allowing Sharon’s insinuations to change the way I lived, I picked up my wallet and went onto the beach. But all I did was buy the fish from the youngsters. I didn’t stop to chat and ask them about school as I usually did.

  ‘When are you getting your boat out, Robert?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Not yet. Too cold,’ I said before walking off. Once I would have invited them to go out to sea with me when the weather warmed up.

  Back in my cottage I grilled the fish and ate it without tasting it. I tried to think about the case. I went into my study and switched on the computer. I checked my e-mails. I deleted the one from Sharon without opening it. There was one from my Grandmother who was enjoying her holiday in Italy. She’d taken the digital camera I’d bought her for Christmas and had attached photos of Lake Como.

  After switching off the computer I roamed restlessly round the cottage. I turned on the television. There was extensive coverage about the fire at Farrier Way. Alice, speaking on behalf of all the neighbours, said they were shocked and how dreadful it was that a baby was one of the victims. When asked about Bridget and Declan she said they had not lived there long, so no one knew them very well. The reporter did not press her. The old lady was in the background, but Craig, Fleur, Yves, Kate, Phoebe and Stuart were nowhere to be seen.

  Then he asked, ‘What’s the feeling about this?’

  This type of question always infuriated me so I was pleased when Alice snapped, ‘Naturally, we’re not thrilled about it. Innocent people have been murdered. What a stupid question.’

  He recovered quickly. ‘I mean, are you all worried about an arsonist being around? Are you fearful about your own safety?’

  Alice looked apologetic. ‘I’m sorry. I misunderstood your question. I hope most of us have smoke al
arms. I have – in every room, so I’m not worried about myself.’ She turned to the old lady. ‘Have you got smoke alarms?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said.

  ‘Then we’ll get you one first thing on Monday. Until then you’ll have to borrow one of mine and put it in your hallway. You can have the one from one of my spare bedrooms.’

  I watched the rest of the coverage, which ended with a lecture from a fireman about the importance of smoke alarms. I turned off the television. Alice had expertly parried the questions about Bridget and Declan. No one watching would have suspected that the neighbours had disliked them.

  If the weather had been stormy I would have been tempted to take the boat out and lose myself in the wildness of the sea. I didn’t care if the boat overturned and I drowned. I sat on the bed and put my head in my hands. I would have rung my cousin Vanessa, but she had gone to Yorkshire for a wedding and was staying the night with friends. My parents lived in London and a phone call from me in this state would worry them. On a Saturday evening my London friends would be getting ready to go out or having dinner parties. Something ruptured inside me and tears flowed like blood from a severed vein. I tried to stop, but couldn’t. I fell asleep fully clothed.

  When I woke on Sunday it was dawn. I was cold, hungry and thirsty. I sat in the dining room and drank two glasses of water. I made coffee. The phone rang at eight o’clock. I looked at the caller number. It was Sharon. I switched off the phone and considered my future. I’d never expected to be one of the innocents who suffered because of the suspicion that there were paedophiles lurking everywhere. Did I want to live in a world when a man’s motives were misinterpreted when he looked at a child? Her comment reignited my thoughts of suicide. Was I brave or cowardly enough to end my life? I’d choose sleeping pills, painless and not messy. I’d write to Vanessa then go to bed and never wake up. But I was her only cousin and we were close. However great the temptation I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t do it to my parents or grandparents.

  I was on my way to have a shower when the doorbell rang. Thinking it was Sharon I waited for her to go away. It rang again. I heard the rattle of the letter box.

  ‘Robbie!’ It was Vanessa. She sounded agitated.

  I ran downstairs and opened the door.

  She looked at me in alarm. ‘Oh, Robbie.’ She came inside and put her arms around me. ‘Ethel left a message on my phone. She saw you yesterday – something about a fire you’re investigating, and she said you looked a bit distraught.’

  I told her about seeing the little girl and what Sharon had said. Then I began to sob again. Vanessa ran into the kitchen and came back with a whole roll of kitchen towel. She thrust it at me and started crying. By the time we had cried ourselves out, most of the roll lay crumpled on the floor. Vanessa put them into the bin, washed her face and made coffee and toast. She put butter, marmalade and honey on the table.

  ‘Robbie, resign and join me. I’m so busy I need help and I’d rather it was you than someone I don’t know. Please say you will.’

  ‘What are you working on now?’ I asked.

  ‘Looking for someone’s natural mother. It looks as if she went to Australia in the fifties with that forced child immigration scheme. She had a baby out of wedlock. I’m doing work for a solicitor in Truro who’s searching for an heir. And I’ve just been asked to investigate what might be a miscarriage of justice in the 60’s. A man was jailed for murder and was killed in prison. His daughter, who was only two at the time, thinks he was innocent. I’ve got to go to The National Archives and root through dozens of Metropolitan police files. It would be fantastic if we joined up together. Going to London would be easier with two of us to share the driving and we could halve the time it takes going through the files.’

  ‘As he’d been killed in jail I’d hope that I’d find nothing to prove him innocent,’ I said.

  ‘Difficult to work out which would be better,’ Vanessa said. ‘Being the daughter of a murderer, or knowing he’d suffered for something he hadn’t done.’

  Our expenses would be minimal. Whenever we went to London we stayed with our parents. Mine lived in Hampton and Vanessa’s lived in Chelsea.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘As soon as this case is over I’ll resign and join you.’

  I’d just poured the coffee when the doorbell rang.

  ‘Do you want me to go?’ she asked.

  I nodded. ‘If it’s Sharon tell her to go to hell.’

  I listened as she opened the door. I heard Sharon’s voice. ‘Oh, hello.’ She sounded surprised. ‘Is Robert in?’

  ‘Are you Sharon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to see you.’

  The door slammed.

  On Monday morning I arrived at work at the usual time.

  ‘Morning, Sergeant,’ said Sharon. Her smile was confident with no hint of apology, although she did look slightly wary. ‘There’s a team briefing in half an hour.’

  I nodded and went into the incident room. Sharon had obviously been there for a while. The locations and the houses in Farrier Way were sketched on the whiteboard in green. Bridget and Declan’s house had an orange cross through it. I was puzzled by a map of Google Earth projected onto the large screen.

  After briefing the team about the fire she continued, ‘People living on the opposite side of Farrier Way have been questioned, but no one saw anything. Last night, Sunday, Bridget turned up. She’d been in Bodmin for the weekend visiting her mother who was unwell. Otherwise she too may have been a murder victim. She’s naturally deeply distressed and has been sedated, and is staying in Bodmin with her mother. Sergeant Trevelyan and I will interview her this afternoon.

  ‘There are fingerprints on the door, brass letterbox and knocker, but, unless the murderer was especially stupid or careless, we expect these will belong to Bridget and Declan, the postal workers and any visitors they had. Forensics found a thread of material stuck in the letterbox, which may have caught when the arsonist pushed the material though, and the flap snapped shut. There’s a slim chance that it may contain DNA. The murderer may not have worn gloves when they were handling the fabric or soaking it in accelerant. I’m not anticipating a positive result, but we can always hope.

  ‘In the meantime,’ she pointed to the screen of Google Earth, ‘to begin with it seemed that Phoebe and Stuart Harris, who live next door to Bridget and Declan Murphy, had alibis because they were at a party at Pengelly House. Sergeant Trevelyan will fill you in about the set up.’

  Taken by surprise I hesitated, annoyed that she hadn’t warned me. ‘You mean about the living arrangements?’ I asked, forcing myself to sound courteous and trying to remember the details about Pengelly House.

  She nodded. ‘It was in the e-mail I sent you. Didn’t you read it?’

  Her expression told me she knew I’d deleted it. Feeling caught out I said, ’I didn’t receive it.’

  I stood up and went to the front. ‘Pengelly House was an early Victorian stately home that fell into disrepair during the nineteen-eighties when the owner died without children. The closest relative was believed to live in New Zealand, but couldn’t be traced. A group of writers, artists and poets bought it. They divided the rooms on the first and second floors into individual apartments. The largest has three bedrooms the smallest has one. All the rooms on the ground floor are communal and consist of a kitchen, formal dining room, drawing-room, music-room, library and several smaller rooms which are used as studies – mainly for the children.

  ‘The ethos is that each family, although four single people live there, have their own private space, but with the advantage of doing whatever they want, whenever they want, with the others who live there. It appears to work very well. Originally there were six workers’ cottages on the estate, but some of the land containing two of the cottages was sold when the group bought it. Three of the remaining cottages have been converted into holiday homes, which provide income. A gardener and his wife live in the fourth cot
tage. His wife cleans the cottages and does the laundry between lettings.’

  ‘How many acres?’ asked Sharon.

  ‘Fifty.’

  ‘Do any of the people go out to work?’

  I nodded. ‘Most of them. The ones that are retired do voluntary work.’

  ‘Are they professional writers, poets and artists or just dabbling at it?’

  ‘Some are published, but even those that are have to have a day job.’

  ‘So most of them are dabblers,’ she said dismissively. ‘Do you know what their occupations are? Just a few examples?’

  ‘A landscape gardener, an architect, a journalist, one is a property developer so he knew reliable builders, plumbers and electricians – a couple are nurses, I think there’s a doctor, and a retired engineer. The architect drew up the plans – ’

  ‘Thanks, Sergeant. Sixty people were at the party on Saturday night. Not all of them arrived and left at the same time. Phoebe and Stuart didn’t leave till sometime after four in the morning. No one is sure of the exact time. They don’t have a car, they have bicycles.’

  She recounted her cycle rides through the forest and I wondered if I would have thought of that. I should have. I knew Pengelly House had a back gate leading into the forest, but hadn’t known that it led to the backs of the gardens on Farrier Way. It was a good piece of detective work and something I should have been part of. I felt a stab of unease. I knew I shouldn’t feel like this, but I wanted Phoebe to be innocent. Sharon would say that it was because she was beautiful and well dressed and had class. Was it true? Would I have this gut feeling if she’d been plain, with a harsh speaking voice and bad grammar?