Suspicious Death Read online

  Inside, the house was in good repair, freshly decorated and comfortably, even luxuriously furnished, with a thick new fitted carpet and new dralon-covered three-piece suite. Presumably Marcia would have taken over the maintenance of the fabric of the house and Mrs Hammer would have been able to afford to indulge herself in the choice of furnishings. The curtain poles were bare and the room stripped of ornaments. Several overflowing cardboard boxes stood by the door, waiting to be taken away.

  Mrs Hammer stood in the middle of the room, arms hanging loosely at her sides, clearly uncertain as to what should happen next.

  Thanet gestured at the chairs. ‘May we sit down?’

  She shrugged. ‘Help yourself.’

  She dug a hand into her pocket, brought out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, inhaling the smoke greedily.

  ‘I believe your mother-in-law died earlier this week.’

  ‘So?’ She perched on an arm of the other chair.

  Expressions of sympathy would evidently be pointless. ‘You’ve been busy.’ Thanet nodded at the boxes.

  ‘Nothing wrong with that, is there?’ She was very much on the defensive.

  ‘Of course not, no. Not a very pleasant job, though.’

  She shrugged, drawing on her cigarette. ‘Got to be done, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Have you nearly finished?’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘Surprising how much people accumulate, isn’t it, even in a small house like this? How long has it taken you?’

  She gave him a puzzled glance. ‘We started yesterday.’

  ‘You arrived here yesterday morning, then?’

  ‘No, Tuesday. Tuesday morning.’

  If Mrs Hammer had died on Monday they certainly hadn’t wasted much time moving in on what they must have thought of as Reg’s inheritance. ‘And on Tuesday afternoon you went to see the solicitor.’

  She frowned. ‘Yeah. So what?’

  ‘And discovered that your mother-in-law had sold the cottage to Mrs Salden, without telling your husband.’

  She was scowling heavily. ‘Senile old bitch. Going behind Reg’s back like that …’

  So this woman’s resentment was directed at her mother-in-law, not at Marcia. Predictable, perhaps. And her husband’s? ‘I understand your husband went up to the Manor to speak to Mrs Salden about it on Tuesday evening?’

  That look of surprise was genuine, he would swear to it. ‘You didn’t know?’

  She shook her head. ‘He didn’t tell me.’ There was a long grey worm of ash on her cigarette and she looked around vaguely for an ashtray. Failing to see one, she tapped it into her cupped palm.

  ‘You knew he was out that evening.’

  ‘He said he was going to the Door.’

  The local name for the pub, Thanet assumed. ‘What time did he get home?’

  Her cigarette had burned down. ‘Excuse me. Must go and put this out.’

  She went into the next room, leaving the door open, and they heard the brief hiss of a tap being turned on and off. ‘About half-past ten,’ she said as she came back in. Her eyes turned to the window as an old grey van pulled up outside. A man got out.

  ‘There’s Reg now.’ Her hand went up to her cheek again in that unconscious gesture.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll explain,’ said Thanet hurriedly as the key sounded in the lock. He and Lineham rose as the door opened.

  Hammer checked on the threshold, glancing from the two men to his wife and back again. ‘Who the hell …?’

  He was a big man, well over six feet and a good eight or nine inches taller than his wife, with a drooping grandad moustache and a belly which hung over the waistband of his trousers. Thanet disliked him on sight.

  Quickly, Thanet introduced himself.

  Hammer looked accusingly at his wife.

  ‘Don’t blame your wife for letting us in. She had no choice. We would have found you sooner or later anyway.’

  Hammer’s expression changed to wariness. ‘What d’you want to see me about?’

  ‘Mrs Salden.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Shall we sit down, Mr Hammer?’

  He, too, was smoking and needed an ashtray. He flicked a glanced at his wife and without a word she got up, went to one of the cardboard boxes by the door and rummaged about until she found a saucer. She put it into his outstretched hand and he took it without word or look of acknowledgement. He sat down in the second armchair, balanced the saucer on the arm and folded his arms belligerently. ‘Let’s get on with it, then.’

  Thanet glanced at Lineham and the Sergeant took up his cue, opening his notebook and glancing down at some imaginary notes. ‘We understand you went up to the Manor on Tuesday night, to see Mrs Salden.’

  ‘What if I did?’ He stubbed his cigarette out, lit another.

  ‘Would you mind telling us why?’

  ‘Why should I? It was private business.’

  ‘Reg,’ said his wife.

  ‘Keep your nose out,’ he flung at her.

  ‘But Reg …’

  ‘I told you. Shurrup.’

  ‘Mr Hammer,’ began Lineham.

  ‘Reg, they know,’ said his wife, desperately.

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘Know what?’ he said to her.

  ‘About your mum signing the house over.’

  He gave Lineham a venomous glare. ‘Trying to catch me out, were you?’

  ‘Merely trying to give you a chance to tell the story in your own words.’

  Hammer gave a mirthless shout of laughter. ‘Want a story, do you?’ He ground out his half-smoked cigarette in the saucer and leaned forward, fixing Lineham with a basilisk stare. ‘OK, I’ll tell you one. Once upon a time there was an evil bitch who got her kicks out of making money. She got her biggest kicks of all when her victims was poor and downtrodden. She really rubbed her hands with glee the day she hit on a scheme for taking away the very roof over their heads. Now, there was one poor bloke who’d lost his job, through no fault of his own. His firm closed down, see, and he was made redundant. And he just couldn’t find work ’cos unemployment was sky-high because of the bloody Conservative government what was in at the time. In the end the DHSS wouldn’t go on paying his mortgage, so the building society took his house back and him and his wife and kids had to go and live with her mother in a poky little two-bedroomed flat. The council waiting list was as long as your arm, so it looked as if this situation would go on for ever. Then, unexpected-like, his mum dies. He was sorry, of course, he thought she’d go on for years, but looking on the bright side he thinks, at least I’ll now have a home for my family. And what does he find? He finds that that bitch, that bloody bitch has snatched the house away from under his very nose with some crooked scheme what no one in his right mind would have taken on … Do you realise,’ he went on, stabbing the air with his forefinger to emphasise the point, ‘exactly how much Mrs Salden paid for this cottage? £5,000 down and half the first annual instalment of £3,500 – £1,750, that is. In other words, £6,750 in all! 6,750 quid! And do you know how much the cottage is worth? £50,000!’ He clutched his hand across his stomach and groaned, as if the thought gave him physical pain.

  As well it might, thought Thanet. ‘We’re not here to discuss the rights and wrongs of the scheme, merely to …’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Hammer. ‘The police force is no longer interested in justice.’

  ‘In this instance, what you need is a solicitor, not a policeman.’

  ‘Bloody solicitors! Fat lot of good that stuffed shirt Bassett is.’

  Oliver Bassett, precise, prissy, conventional and well-tailored, had been a suspect in one of Thanet’s cases. He and Hammer would be chalk and cheese.

  Hammer was still fulminating. ‘They’re all the same. Make you pay through the nose just to say good morning to them. Carrion crows, that’s what they are.’ The phrase seemed to please Hammer and he repeated it, nodding emphatically. ‘Carrion crows, picking over the leavings of the de
ad.’

  Thanet glanced around the stripped room.

  Hammer had the grace to flush.

  ‘You haven’t quite finished your story,’ said Thanet.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘On the night the poor honest labourer discovered the way in which he’d been cheated of what was rightfully his, the wicked witch died.’

  ‘And good riddance, too.’

  ‘But unfortunately for him, there was some doubt about her death.’

  A brief silence, then ‘Doubt?’ said Hammer. He glanced at his wife, but she was staring at Thanet as if mesmerised.

  It was interesting, Thanet thought, that the Hammers hadn’t heard the rumours flying around the village. Perhaps it was a measure of Reg’s unpopularity with neighbours who might have resented his neglect of his mother. ‘That it may not have been an accident.’

  Hammer gaped at him for a moment, then leapt to his feet. ‘Now look here!’ he shouted. ‘What you getting at?’

  In such a tiny room the effect was overpowering and it was difficult not to shrink back from the towering figure looming over them. ‘Nasty temper you’ve got there, Mr Hammer,’ said Thanet quietly.

  Hammer glowered down at him then, without a word, returned to flop down into his chair. He lit another cigarette.

  ‘Now, if you’ve calmed down, perhaps we can get this over with. All I want is a brief, factual account of your movements on Tuesday evening.’

  Hammer’s story was that he had left the house just after eight and had gone to the pub for a drink before going up to the Manor to see Marcia.

  Dutch courage, no doubt, thought Thanet. ‘One drink? Or two? Or more?’

  ‘May have been two.’ Hammer was sulky.

  ‘Beer? Whisky?’

  ‘Whisky.’

  ‘Singles or doubles?’

  Aware no doubt that all this could be checked, Hammer muttered reluctantly, ‘Doubles.’

  He had then driven up to the Manor and had asked for Marcia. He used her Christian name this time, Thanet noticed. Of course! He was the right age. They might well have been at school together. He wanted to think about this and signalled for Lineham to take over the questioning again. They knew that Marcia and Edith Phipps had both attended the village school. Now there was Reg. How many other people still living in the village had shared their childhood and adolescence with her? Marcia had lived at home until she got married, at eighteen. Was it possible that the roots of this present tragedy went deeper into the past than Thanet had so far considered?

  Listening with one ear to what Hammer was now saying, Thanet gathered that, denied entry by Mrs Pantry (‘rotten bitch’), he had resorted once more to drink, going directly back to the Crooked Door and staying there until closing time.

  They would check at the pub, of course, but meanwhile … ‘I suppose you knew Mrs Salden well at one time, Mr Hammer?’

  He looked taken aback. ‘Pretty well, yes. We was at school together.’

  ‘Yes, I thought you might have been. What was she like, then?’

  He gave a cynical sort of laughter. ‘A prig and a swot, if you must know. Always did have her sights set upwards, did our Marcia.’

  Mrs Hammer stirred.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Hammer?’ said Thanet.

  ‘I was only going to say,’ she said with a nervous glance at her husband, ‘that she wasn’t snooty, though, was she? I mean, you told me she …’

  ‘Never mind what I told you,’ snarled Hammer.

  She subsided with a little shake of the head.

  ‘What was the name of the headmaster at the village school in your time?’ said Thanet.

  The unexpectedness of the question brought an immediate response. ‘Mr Pringle.’ A brief pause, then, ‘Why?’

  ‘Just wondered. He’d be retired now, I suppose.’

  ‘I suppose,’ echoed Hammer.

  ‘D’you happen to know where he’s living?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  Thanet’s beeper went and Mrs Hammer jumped. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I’ll have to get to a phone, that’s all.’ They’d finished here, anyway. He glanced at Lineham, raising his eyebrows. Any more questions? Lineham shook his head.

  He used the phone box outside the Crooked Door. There was a message for him to ring home. What could be wrong? He felt slightly sick as he dialled the number.

  Joan answered on the first ring.

  ‘What’s the matter, darling. What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Bridget. She’s not home yet.’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s only half-past five. She could have gone to Amanda’s house. Or Sheila’s.’

  ‘I’ve rung around, and she’s not with any of her friends. And she hasn’t been at school today, remember. She could be anywhere. Oh Luke, I’m sorry to fuss, but I can’t help worrying, in the circumstances. I mean, she knew I was seeing the headmaster this afternoon … What if she’s afraid to come home?’

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  TWENTY

  All the way home Thanet’s unruly imagination ran riot. He was fully aware of the growing problem of runaways who, unable to cope at home, make their way to the nearest big city and end up by being sucked into prostitution or worse. And there was no point in telling himself that it couldn’t happen to a girl like Bridget, from a stable, loving home. It was true that most of these youngsters ran away because of irreconcilable differences with either father or mother, but Thanet himself had dealt with at least two cases where the parents were just like himself and Joan, and completely bewildered as to what had gone wrong.

  And in one of them, the child, a boy of thirteen, had never been seen again.

  The very thought brought an uprush of panic and he took a deep breath and told himself to calm down. Like Joan, he was overreacting, of course. It simply would not, could not happen to them. Bridget wouldn’t have expected her mother to be home before a quarter or ten to six, so there was no reason why she herself should turn up before then. After all, she wasn’t a baby any more. At fifteen she shouldn’t have to account to them for every minute of her time. He and Joan had always striven to strike a sensible balance between being over-protective and allowing too much freedom. No, by the time he got home she would have arrived, safe and sound.

  But she hadn’t. Joan came out to meet him and it was immediately obvious from her face.

  ‘Tell me I’m blowing things up out of all proportion,’ she said with an attempt at a smile when they had kissed.

  He put his arm around her. ‘Come on. Let’s go inside.’

  Joan had rung everywhere she could think of and it was pointless to consider requesting official help from the police at this stage. Thanet knew that in similar circumstances he would expect a girl of Bridget’s age to be a minimum of three or four hours overdue before mobilising his men, and probably much longer. And in any case, if Bridget were making an innocent visit somewhere, she would justifiably be furious if she discovered that an official search had been organised just because she was a couple of hours late getting home from school. Thanet said so.

  ‘I know that. But if ever she’s going anywhere, she always lets us know.’

  ‘There has been the odd occasion in the past when she hasn’t.’

  ‘But not in these circumstances. I’m just worried in case, guessing why Mr Foreman wanted to see me this afternoon, she feels she can’t face us. After all, she must have felt she couldn’t confide in us up to now, if things have got so bad that she’s been driven to playing truant.’

  ‘Did Ben know about that?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. He says not, and I believe him. He says he knew something was wrong, but thought it was just exams.’

  They were in the kitchen. Thanet sat down heavily on one of the chairs. ‘He’s right, in a way, of course. There’s no doubt that it’s the prospect of GCSEs looming that’s done the damage.’

  ‘But we’ve done everything we can to stop her getting too worked up about it.�
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  ‘I know, and let’s face it we’ve failed dismally, haven’t we? Just look at the way she’s been going on! Sitting up till all hours sweating over her books, and if you dare suggest she ought to give up and go to bed you either have your head bitten off or she dissolves into floods of tears … D’you know, the night before last she was still working at midnight and when I went along I just didn’t have the nerve to tell her it was time she stopped, in case it upset her!’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I suppose if we had any sense we’d have seen this coming.’

  ‘But what could we have done about it, even if we had?’

  Thanet shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She’s too conscientious, that’s the trouble. Takes things too much to heart.’

  ‘But she didn’t do impossibly badly in her mocks at Christmas.’

  ‘She felt she had. She only had reasonable grades in two subjects out of seven.’

  ‘But all her teachers said she had a fair chance of achieving considerably higher grades in the summer, if she worked hard.’

  ‘Which is precisely what she’s been doing, of course. Honestly, Luke, I sometimes think it would have been better if the results had been so appalling that she’d given up hope of doing any better.’

  ‘You don’t really mean that.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘After all, under this new system, her continuous assessment is supposed to be equally important, and that’s been quite good.’

  ‘Let’s face it, average, at best.’

  ‘Well, all right, average. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘One thing’s certain, we’re going to have to try and work something out. If she goes on like this for another couple of months, we’ll all have nervous breakdowns!’