Once Too Often Read online

  ‘Where he’s seen by Desmond –’

  ‘Who can’t understand why he was there instead of with Jessica.’

  Thanet laughed. ‘Do you realise we’re doing a Barton?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Finishing each other’s sentences.’

  Lineham grinned. ‘So we are. We’ll have to watch it or we’ll be standing on our heads next.’

  SEVEN

  The distinctive purple and green ‘For Sale’ boards of Ogilvy and Tate were a familiar sight in the area. It was an old-established family firm with many branch offices in the larger villages around. Its main premises, in Sturrenden, occupied a prime site in the High Street, not far from Snippers. Thanet glanced into the hairdressing salon as they passed by but without actually stopping and peering in he couldn’t make out if Kevin was inside or not.

  The estate agent’s double shop front was crammed with photographs of houses for sale. The property market had had a rough ride since the heady, hectic days of the eighties, when houses sold like hot cakes and the scramble to buy pushed prices higher and ever higher. The subsequent collapse, in 1988, had resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being left to suffer the trauma of ‘negative equity’, a bland-sounding term for the harrowing situation of having bought a property which was worth far less than the mortgage taken out to purchase it. During the long stagnant period which followed estate agents were forced to tighten their belts. Branch offices closed, staff were made redundant and even the giant Prudential Insurance Company decided to pull out of the property market. Things had picked up over the last year or two, especially in London and the South East, but many firms were still licking their wounds.

  ‘I wonder how badly affected he was by the recession,’ said Thanet as they paused to look in the window.

  ‘Look at that one!’ Lineham was admiring an imposing modern house ‘newly completed and in a select, tranquil environment’.

  ‘Bit out of your price range, isn’t it, Mike?’ Thanet peered more closely. ‘I don’t know, though. It has got a granny flat.’

  Lineham hastily moved away and pushed open the door.

  Inside there were fitted carpets and four little islands of desks where negotiators sat talking into telephones or busying themselves with paperwork. One of them slipped on his jacket and rose to greet them. He was in his late twenties, neatly dressed in pinstriped suit, white shirt and discreet tie. His look of eager welcome faded at the sight of Thanet’s warrant card. ‘Mr Ogilvy is out, I’m afraid.’

  ‘When will he be back?’ said Lineham.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll be coming back into the office this afternoon.’

  ‘Where is he, exactly?’

  ‘Visiting a prospective client, near Ashford.’

  Must be an important client, thought Thanet, for the boss himself to visit him.

  ‘Will he be going straight home afterwards?’

  ‘I imagine so, yes. I’m not sure.’

  Reluctantly he handed over Ogilvy’s home address.

  At the door Thanet glanced back. The young man was already dialling. Ogilvy’s mobile, perhaps?

  ‘So, what now?’ said Lineham.

  ‘We’ll wait. Go and see him at home. Meanwhile we might as well catch up on some paperwork and save time later.’

  Thanet took advantage of the open air to light up. Apart from a few puffs in the car on the way to work this morning he hadn’t had a pipe all day. To his disgust Sturrenden Police Headquarters had recently become a smoke-free zone. Smokers had first been relegated to a designated smoking area (i.e. the bar) and then, when the bar closed, found themselves ousted altogether. In the face of gentle nagging from Joan and Lineham’s aversion to tobacco smoke in any shape or form he had in any case cut down substantially on his smoking but he resolutely refused to give up altogether, partly because he enjoyed it so much, but also because a core of stubbornness in him refused to be emotionally blackmailed into doing so.

  Back at the office there was a message to say that the landlord of the Harrow had been out when the officer called and another attempt to interview him would be made later.

  ‘Better get him to check if Ogilvy was there last night too.’ Thanet lowered himself carefully into his chair. Over the last hour he had become increasingly conscious of the dull ache in the small of his back and now he again thought that he must try to fit in a visit to the chiropractor. Like millions of other people Thanet had suffered from back trouble for years. None of the treatments he had undergone had had any lasting beneficial effect until a year or two ago, when he had given in to Joan’s urging and, without any expectation of relief, had gone to a chiropractor. To his amazement she had worked wonders for him and treatments were now very rarely necessary. This, however, he decided, especially with the wedding coming up, was one of those occasions. He glanced at his watch. Three-forty-five. Perhaps he ought to take advantage of this brief lull and give her a ring now, just in case she might be able to fit him in. He reached for the phone. He was in luck. She had just had a cancellation for four o’clock. If Inspector Thanet could come along straight away . . . ‘I’ll be there,’ he said. A quarter of an hour later he was submitting himself to Janet Carmel’s expert ministrations. She was in her thirties, tall and slim with very direct blue eyes and long fair hair braided into a thick plait. As usual she was wearing a tracksuit and training shoes.

  ‘You’ve been doing very well,’ she said, as she followed her usual routine of testing for the vulnerable area. ‘It’s five months since your last visit.’

  ‘Amazing!’ said Thanet. ‘I never thought I’d go that long without needing to see you.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Yes. That’s it. Turn on to your right side, please.’

  Fifteen minutes later Thanet emerged, feeling as if he were walking on air.

  ‘That woman is an absolute miracle,’ he said to Lineham. ‘She is just incredible.’

  Lineham, who had worked with Thanet in the days when he had been severely incapacitated, grinned. ‘She certainly does wonders for your temper.’

  ‘Temper? Me? Nonsense!’

  ‘While you were out I checked on that prowler business. Jessica did file two complaints, one on September 28th, one on October 4th. Uniformed branch investigated but with no results.’

  ‘I wonder if it was Kevin,’ said Thanet. ‘Say he’d developed a thing about her, from seeing her at the salon. She was a very attractive woman.’

  ‘Bit long in the tooth for him, though, wasn’t she? He’s only, what, twenty, twenty-one?’

  ‘Oh come on, Mike, don’t be naïve. Older women and younger men are all the fashion these days. And in Victorian times it was considered quite the thing, I believe, to be initiated into the mysteries of sex by a woman with a bit of experience.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that’s what happened here?’

  ‘No, not necessarily, especially if she was already having an affair with Ogilvy. Let’s face it, there’s no doubt he would have been a much more attractive prospect. It does sound as though wealth was something of a magnet for her and a hairdresser’s apprentice doesn’t exactly fall into the right category. On the other hand, open admiration is always flattering. She might quite innocently have smiled on him a little too warmly, fed his fantasies with false hopes.’

  ‘But surely, if it was Kevin who was following her she would have recognised him?’ Lineham shrugged, answered his own question. ‘Not necessarily, I suppose, if he was careful not to get too close. Well, if you’re right, and he was there last night . . .’

  ‘Who knows what he might have seen? Exactly. Which is why I want to go gently on him at the moment, until we have a clearer picture. Now, if there’s nothing else, I must try and get some of these reports done before we go.’

  It was a quarter to six when they turned in between the stone pillars at the entrance to the drive of Ogilvy’s house.

  ‘Wow!’ said Lineham.

  ‘Stop drooling, Mike!’

  But
Thanet had to admit, it really was a lovely house. As Goldilocks would have said, it was neither too big nor too small, but just right, a Georgian gem of perfect proportions, with two tall sash windows on either side of the porticoed front door and five above. Its elegance was enhanced by the simplicity of its setting, a wide straight gravelled driveway flanked by young copper beeches and terminating in a perfect turning circle in front of the house.

  ‘I suppose in his position he had the pick of the market,’ said Lineham.

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘Doesn’t exactly look as though he had to tighten his belt too much over the last few years, anyway.’

  ‘Quite.’

  As they reached the circle Thanet saw that the drive branched off it, left and right, maintaining the symmetry imposed by the house, and he glimpsed outbuildings behind and a car parked in front of them beside a horse box hitched to a Land-Rover. Lineham pulled up near the front door and they got out.

  ‘Just a moment, Mike,’ said Thanet with a jerk of the head, and they walked back to the corner of the house. ‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘It’s a red Polo.’

  They looked at each other, remembering the red Polo a neighbour claimed to have seen parked near Jessica’s house the night she died. ‘Mrs Ogilvy’s?’ said Lineham. ‘I wonder if it’s the same one.’

  ‘Bit too much of a coincidence, if it’s not.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

  The door was opened by a girl in her late teens. The perfect oval of her face was emphasised by the way she wore her dark hair, sleeked back into a pony-tail. She was casually dressed in jeans and sweatshirt and was carrying a little dark-haired girl of about two who stuck her thumb in her mouth when she saw the two strangers. Had Ogilvy taken a child bride?

  ‘Mrs Ogilvy?’ he said.

  The girl laughed, showing teeth of the degree of perfection normally seen only in toothpaste advertisements. She shook her head. ‘I am Chantal.’

  Even in those few syllables her nationality was obvious.

  ‘And this is Daisy,’ she added, giving the baby a little bounce and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

  ‘Hullo, Daisy,’ said Thanet, smiling. The child was enchanting, with huge brown eyes and a tumble of curls tied up in a bright red ribbon.

  She turned her head away and buried her face in the girl’s shoulder.

  ‘Is Mr Ogilvy at home?’ Thanet thought he might not be. There was no sign of the silver Mercedes. If not, he was prepared to wait.

  But Ogilvy must have put his car away because Chantal stood back and invited them in. ‘I will fetch him. Wait here a moment, please.’

  They were in a wide hallway with a generously proportioned staircase running up the right-hand wall. Oriental rugs glowed on polished floorboards and framed prints hung on the walls above the dado rail.

  Chantal disappeared through a door on the left and they heard a murmur of voices. A few moments later she emerged with two boys of about eight and five beside her, closely followed by a man. She went off up the stairs with the three children and Ogilvy came forward to greet the two policemen. He was in his early forties, with brown hair that was over-long at the back and already thinning at the temples. He had discarded his suit jacket and his trousers were held up by braces decorated with Rupert Bears, a fun present from his wife or daughter, Thanet guessed. Despite the déshabille he still contrived to look well groomed: shoes highly polished, blue-and-white-striped shirt still crisp, discreetly patterned tie firmly knotted. Introductions over he led them back into the drawing room which was as beautifully proportioned as the house and elegantly furnished with a large Persian carpet, swagged and tailed curtains at the tall windows, and comfortable sofas and chairs complemented by carefully chosen pieces of antique furniture.

  A woman rose and switched off the early evening news as they came in.

  ‘My wife, Inspector. Penny, this is Inspector Thanet and Sergeant . . .?’

  ‘Lineham.’

  Mrs Ogilvy acknowledged them with a nervous nod and an attempt at a smile before returning to her seat on the sofa. She was a good ten years younger than her husband, with long straight blonde hair and speedwell-blue eyes. Thanet liked her at once. Despite her obvious anxiety there was a candour about her, an openness of expression which appealed to him. She was dressed for riding in well-cut breeches and Puffa waistcoat.

  ‘Sit down, Inspector, please,’ said her husband.

  ‘May we have a word in private, sir?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary. My wife and I have no secrets from each other.’

  Thanet glanced at Mrs Ogilvy but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She was hating this, he could tell. ‘It’s up to you, of course.’ He and Lineham sat down.

  Ogilvy stood looking at Thanet, waiting for him to speak.

  Deliberately, Thanet allowed the silence to prolong itself.

  Ogilvy shifted from one foot to the other, then cleared his throat. He had a high colour which Thanet thought looked distinctly unhealthy and was slightly overweight too, not drastically so but enough for his belly to bulge over the waistband of his trousers.

  ‘How can I help you, Inspector?’

  ‘I expect you realise why we’ve come.’

  Ogilvy glanced uneasily at his wife who refused to look at him. She was plucking nervously at a loose thread on the arm of the sofa on which she was sitting. ‘It’s Jessica, I suppose,’ he said. ‘We heard about it on the news this morning. Though I don’t quite understand why the police are involved. The report said she had fallen down the stairs.’

  ‘That’s right. But there are one or two circumstances which make us question whether it was an accident.’

  Mrs Ogilvy made an inarticulate little sound and pressed her hand against her mouth.

  ‘Such as?’ said her husband.

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say.’

  Mrs Ogilvy spoke for the first time. ‘Inspector . . . are you saying someone might deliberately have pushed her?’

  ‘Let’s just say we’re keeping an open mind at the moment.’

  Her eyes flickered to Ogilvy and back to Thanet. ‘But . . . but that would mean . . .’

  Thanet and Lineham exchanged the briefest of glances. She’s wondering if her husband did it.

  As if she had tuned in to their thoughts she said, with more spirit than she had shown before, ‘You’re surely not suggesting my husband had anything to do with it?’

  ‘Mr Ogilvy’s car was seen in the vicinity of Mrs Manifest’s house around the time she died,’ said Lineham.

  ‘And so,’ said Thanet softly, ‘was yours, Mrs Ogilvy.’ Not strictly accurate, but worth a try.

  They stared at him but did not deny it.

  ‘All right,’ said Ogilvy, ‘I was there. I admit it. But I only stayed ten minutes, then I left. And I assure you that she was certainly alive and kicking then.’

  ‘What time did you arrive?’

  ‘Seven-thirty.’

  And Manifest had left at 7.20. That made sense, if he had wanted to avoid Ogilvy. ‘And you left ten minutes later, you say. At 7.40, then.’

  ‘Approximately, yes.’

  ‘Why did you stay such a short time?’

  Ogilvy shifted uncomfortably. ‘I had come to a decision.’ He stopped.

  Thanet waited.

  Ogilvy glanced at his wife. ‘We . . . my wife and I . . . we’d discussed the matter and I had decided to end my – er – relationship with Mrs Manifest.’

  Translation: his wife had found out what was going on and given him an ultimatum.

  ‘You verify this, do you, Mrs Manifest?’

  ‘Of course.’ She compressed her lips and folded her arms across her chest as if to contain the distress which this conversation was clearly causing her.

  ‘Could we go back a little then, sir. Would you tell me exactly what happened, from the moment you arrived at the house.’

  Ogilvy shrugged. ‘I got there about half seven, as I said. There was a bloo
dy great hole in the road so I couldn’t park outside. I parked at the pub instead and walked back.’

  ‘Why not park a little further up the road into the estate?’ said Lineham.

  ‘I didn’t want to attract too much attention. People always notice if you park in front of their houses. They seem to think the road belongs to them. And my car isn’t exactly unobtrusive.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There really isn’t much to tell.’

  ‘Presumably you didn’t walk straight in, tell Mrs Manifest you wouldn’t be seeing her again and walk straight out again?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Well then. In detail, please.’

  ‘I knocked at the door,’ said Ogilvy. ‘She opened it. I went in. Is this enough detail for you?’

  Thanet ignored the sarcasm. ‘That’s fine. Do go on.’

  Reading between the lines of Ogilvy’s no doubt heavily edited account Thanet imagined the conversation must have gone something like this:

  ‘Adam! It’s lovely to see you.’

  ‘No, not upstairs, Jess. Let’s go in here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ’I can’t stay tonight.’

  ‘Why not’

  ‘I . . . Look, let’s sit down for a minute, shall we?’

  ‘What’s up, Adam? There’s something wrong, isn’t there?’

  ‘No. Yes. Yes, there is. Penny’s found out about us.’

  ‘So? That’s wonderful! Terrific! I’ve hated all this hole-and-corner stuff. Now we can be together at last.’

  ‘Hang on, Jess. I never said anything about splitting up with Penny.’

  ‘But that was what you intended, wasn’t it? Eventually?’

  You don’t understand. I simply can’t afford to run two households. The last few years have been hell in my business. But we’ve managed to survive and now, at last, we’re starting to pull out of it –’

  ‘Well, that’s fine, then, isn’t it? I can wait a bit longer.’

  ‘But it’ll be ages before we’re properly on our feet again. Years, maybe. I have to put the business first. It’s what we all depend on.’

  ’I haven’t exactly noticed you going short. You still have your house, your cars, your horses, private schools for fames and Henry and no doubt Daisy in due course.’