Shades of Murder Page 26

  But life is full of surprises. When Meredith marched briskly into the office, ready to reel off her prepared account, she was stopped in her tracks by an unfamiliar sight.

  At Adrian's desk sat a young woman with long black hair and a frown on her face as she sorted through the contents of what appeared to be Adrian's in-tray.

  Meredith cleared her throat. The other woman looked up.

  'Hello,' she said. 'I'm Polly Patel. I've replaced Adrian.'

  'When?' Meredith heard herself say.

  'As from yesterday, but you weren't in then, so you wouldn't know.'

  Meredith set down her briefcase and extended a hand. Polly shook it. 'Er, what happened to Adrian?'

  Polly grinned. 'Nobody really knows. There's a rumour, of course. They say he was discovered snorting a line in the gents' loo. He's been relegated to something routine and harmless until they decide what to do about him.' She raised her eyebrows. 'Sorry if he was a friend of yours.'

  ANN GRANGER

  'He wasn't,' said Meredith with feeling. 'Quite the reverse. I'm very glad to see you, Polly.' She went to the window and stared out for a moment at the pavement below. 'You know,' she said, 'I was wondering how I could get rid of him and in the end. I hadn't to do anything. He did it himself.'

  'There you are, then,' said Polly cheerfully. 'Why worry? That's what I always say. Half the time problems sort themselves out. If Adrian was anything like what people have been telling me he was like, he was heading for a fall.'

  Meredith turned slowly to face her, hands stuck in her jacket pockets. 'Yes ... yes, he was.' She contemplated Polly for a moment, then, with sudden movement, grabbed her briefcase.

  'Polly, sorry to do this to you, but can you hold the fort alone for another day? I have to go back to Bamford.'

  'No problem.' Polly didn't ask why. She'd started work on something and spoke absently.

  Meredith hastened out of the office. It was so obvious. It was so damn obvious! Anyone could work it out. She could work it out - well, not all of it. But one bit of it, for sure.

  'What,' asked Alan Markby, 'are we doing here?'

  He asked this question not in the context of man's place in the universe but of his own presence with Meredith in a lay-by. He had parked his car behind hers and joined her, taking the front passenger seat. Now he peered through the windscreen at a battered transit van parked ahead of them both. 'Not,' he went on, 'that it isn't very nice to see you again so soon, but as I remember, you went off to London this morning on the train and you were not due back until this evening. What's happened?'

  T have to talk to you, Alan, and trying to do it on the phone would've been impossible. You see, I've—'

  'There must be other places to talk. What do you suppose he's got in that van?'

  'I have no idea,' said Meredith crossly. 'Alan, I've come haring back from London because I need to talk to Minchin, but first I wanted to talk to you. That's why I asked you to come from Regional HQ and meet me here, half a mile away. Then we can go together to Minchin.'

  'You talked to Minchin yesterday,' he said, scarcely paying attention, still squinting at the van ahead. 'If you've remembered something, why not just call him up and ask to see him again? Why bring me into it?'

  'Because I want to workout with you first what I'm going to say. I'm

  SHADES OF MURDER

  pretty sure I'm right, you see, but I haven't got the whole thing, in a nutshell. I wish I had. I've got half of it. I thought you might come up with the other half.'

  'All right, let's hear your half.'

  'It's about the arsenic,' she said. 'I know who took it from the shed.'

  'Do you?' He sounded discouraging.

  'Yes. It's blindingly obvious. Jan did.'

  'And committed suicide with it? I don't think Minchin will buy that. It would get everyone else off the hook, but I think you're going to have to do better than that.'

  'If you'd listen? Honestly, Alan, sometimes you're really exasperating.'

  'I am?' He looked offended. 'Am I the one who's left her office and brought me from mine to sit here listening to an ingenious explanation for Jan obligingly swallowing arsenic?'

  Ahead of them, the van drew away and rejoined the flow of traffic.

  'Now I'll never know what he'd got in that van,' Markby said.

  'You'll never know what I've worked out if you don't listen. Jan didn't intend to swallow the arsenic. He wasn't out to commit suicide. He was out to commit murder.'

  He turned his head to look at her. 'Go on.'

  'Right.' She pushed back a troublesome lock of brown hair and got down to the business of explaining her theory. 'This has always been about a will - or wills. Jan came to this country in the first place because he'd come across his great-grandfather's will and he thought he could use it to make himself some money. But when he got here he discovered there was no money, only a rambling great house sitting on a big piece of ground. That wasn't cash in hand but it would become cash in hand if and when it was sold. Right, so far?'

  'No one's arguing with that.'

  'Somehow he'd found out that Dudley Newman was interested.'

  'Newman told him himself,' said Markby. 'He thought Jan might be an obstacle.'

  'Did he? Well, Jan had started out by making an obstacle of himself, but he changed his mind when he heard there was a definite buyer in the offing. He wanted the house sold. But he'd realised that Damaris and Florence weren't just going to hand over half of the proceeds to him. They didn't like him. You and I, Pam Painter, Juliet, Laura, anyone who knew the Oakleys, we'd ganged up to prevent him talking the sisters round or pressuring them. But then he did a very simple bit of reasoning.

  ANN GRANGER

  The only Oakleys left in the world were the sisters and himself. If they were to die . . .'

  'Ah,' said Markby. 'The wills in the desk.'

  'Exactly. If both sisters died, he'd be in a good position to claim the estate, provided they hadn't left it to anyone else. So he took the opportunity to search the desk and he found what he was looking for, the wills. What's more, when he read them, they were just what he'd been hoping for. Each sister left everything to the other. They'd drawn up the wills some years ago when both had been younger. Jan decided quite cold-bloodedly to kill them - and he had the means."

  Meredith paused for comment but Markby said nothing. He was watching her with a thoughtful look on his face.

  The question of who took the arsenic from the potting shed wasn't really so hard to solve. Ron knew it was there but it had slipped his mind. Why had it done that? Because just as he found it. who should turn up but Jan himself, newly arrived. Ron was distracted. He didn't know who this person was and when he found out, the information filled his mind to the exclusion of all else. The shed was left unlocked. Neither Damaris nor Florence would have any reason to go in there. They didn't even know Ron had unscrewed the hasp. It was Jan, prying and poking around everywhere, who went in there and found it. He realised what it was and thought that he might have a need for it if his original plan didn't work out."

  Meredith's enthusiasm wavered. T can't prove it, I know. But I'm sure I'm right. Jan meant to poison the Oakleys and he chose to do it by spiking that savoury spread they like so much.'

  'Everything in the kitchen cupboard was tested, including that spread.* 'Oh, that jar was all right.' said Meredith. Tt's the other one, the one Jan tampered with we've got to find. He swopped jars, you see. All he had to do was wait until later and then swop them back again.'

  'So how did he end up being poisoned himself?'

  'Because in the first place, Jan overestimated how much arsenic was required. Didn't Geoff Painter tell you he'd died from a massive dose, far more than would've been necessary? Jan must've realised the arsenic preparation found in the shed was a very old bottle and he may have thought it had lost some of its potency over the years and decided to compensate by being generous with it. Secondly, somehow the exchange of jars got confused. The
sisters ate the spread in the cupboard and were none the worse for it. Jan thought they'd eaten the adulterated one. He let them go off to bed. believing they'd be taken ill during the night with

  SHADES OF MURDER

  what he hoped would appear to be acute gastro-enteritis. I don't think he meant them to die straight away. He planned them to be ill over a period of days. While he waited for the first attack to strike his victims, he fancied a snack. Perhaps it was a sort of gallows humour which made him decide to have some of the spread from the safe jar he'd just replaced in the cupboard. Damaris found a knife smeared with spread in the kitchen sink after she'd called the ambulance. But he'd muddled them up. The sisters ate from the safe jar and Jan ate from the tampered one. We've been looking at everyone, asking who did it. But he did it himself, just like Adrian.'

  'Adrian?'

  'I'll tell you about that later. What do you think, Alan?'

  Markby shifted awkwardly in the cramped space. 'I think the blood supply to my feet has been cut off. I think it's an ingenious theory but only that. It can't be proved. Most of all, I can't see how a man who has hatched such a plan could then be so careless as to muddle up the jars. If he did, where is the adulterated jar of spread now? It ought, by your argument, to have been replaced by Jan in the kitchen cupboard. But the police took the jar from the cupboard and it was fine. If we go to Minchin with this, he'll rightly laugh us out of—'

  Markby stopped speaking but still stared at her.

  'Alan?' she prompted.

  'Kenny Joss . . .' he said slowly. 'Kenny Joss was in that kitchen. Dave Pearce got the feeling he was holding something back. We will talk to Minchin. We'll talk to him right now. Well, come on then, let's

  go.'

  'Your car's parked back there,' she reminded him.

  He scrambled out of her car with a muffled curse and ran back to his own. She let him pull out in front of her and lead the way. It seemed more tactful.

  SHADES OF MURDER

  'And I trust Mickey Hayes's.' Minchin matched his display of confidence. 'He talked to Joss after Dave had had a go and told me he also thought Joss was hiding something. I was counting on Mickey getting it out of him. I thought Joss'd be bound to crack, but I was wrong. He only repeated what he'd told Dave Pearce.'

  Like Pearce before him, Markby tried not to look too pleased at the thought of Hayes becoming unstuck.

  'Mickey reckons, Joss put up a good front but underneath it, he's shit-scared. If we keep working on him, he'll crack eventually.'

  Minchin finished on a comfortable note which made Markby a little uneasy. The man from the Met might well be right, but how long was he prepared to wait for Joss to speak up? Though the visitors had not caused the disruption in the office Markby had feared, he was still looking forward to the day they declared their enquiries closed and took themselves off.

  'As for the rest of Meredith's ideas . . .' he began.

  'Nice of her to come in,' said Minchin easily, 'but she didn't have anything new to tell us, did she? I mean, I'd pretty well worked all that out for myself already and I dare say you had. too.'

  This took Markby's breath away for the moment and all he could think was, thank goodness Minchin didn't say this to Meredith's face. He could imagine the probable reaction.

  'I'd formed no opinions,' he said at last, hoping he sounded dignified, rather than just pompous.

  Minchin shook his massive finger at him. 'Who stands to benefit? Cui bonol That's the Latin for it, isn't it? Comprehensive-school boy myself, so I don't have any Latin, but you're a public-school man. You'll know all these phrases. That's what I asked myself. Cui bonoT

  Again Markby was left bereft of speech, or at least of the ability to make an intelligent reply. How much research had Minchin done on him before coming here?

  'Whoever took the poison from the shed, did it because he had murder in mind,' Minchin went on. 'So it was someone who'd benefit from the death of at least one other person. I considered the old ladies. They'd be heartily relieved if Jan dropped dead. But they'd got everyone including their solicitor on their side so really, they were probably capable of seeing off Jan without resorting to lacing his grub with arsenic. On the other hand, when you have two elderly people and one younger relative who's strapped for cash and thinks the old folk are sitting on a pile, well, there you do have a motive,' Minchin concluded appreciatively. 'One of the

  ANN GRANGER

  oldest in the world. The heir who can't wait.'

  'He wasn't named in their wills,' said Markby. feeling he ought to lodge at least one objection to this feasible but annoyingly complacent explanation of events.

  'No, but he was the only member of the family left, wasn't he? Any court would be sympathetic to his claims. So I reckoned Jan helped himself to the poison but somehow or other, muffed everything when he came to use it. What I haven't worked out yet is quite how - but there Joss could well provide the key.'

  Minchin slowly became aware of Markby's stunned expression and had the grace to look a little apologetic. 'Look, I appreciate your girlfriend's input. I wouldn't have wanted to hurt her feelings by saying all this to her, but best leave the detection to the professionals, eh?'

  Though Markby had frequently made similar observations to Meredith himself, he knew he couldn't agree now without feeling traitorous, so he contented himself with a nod and returned to the safer subject of Kenny Joss.

  'It's your show,' he said carefully to Minchin. T would just like to make a suggestion.'

  Minchin gave an unexpected grin. 'If I thought this was my show, I'd be a fool. You're the gaffer here and everyone's very keen to let me and Mickey Hayes know it! What's your idea?'

  T know the Joss family. We all do. They're a mix of petty crooks, wheeler-dealer traders and the fairly legit. Kenny, as far as we know, has kept his nose clean. However, the same can't be said of his relatives and if we bring Kenny in for questioning, he'll know the drill. He'll ask for a solicitor straight away and then sit there, refusing to speak a word.'

  Minchin rubbed his chin with his thumbnail in the habit he had, and asked, 'They've got a regular solicitor?'

  'Oh yes, indeed they have! Bertie Smith. Bertie has represented the Josses for years. They're the type of client in which he specialises, if I can put it like that. He's a familiar face in interview rooms around the county, is Bertie. No client is too seedy. A string of convictions as long as your arm won't prevent Bertie insisting that his client has been framed. Bertie's skill at finding loopholes in the law is unmatched.' Markby spoke with the bitterness born of experience.

  T know the type,' said Minchin in gloomy sympathy.

  'I'm sure you do. Under Bertie's guidance, Kenny Joss will keep his secrets as effectively as the Sphinx. So what I'd suggest is that, instead of bringing him in here, we go to him. Yes, I know he's had other visits

  SHADES OF MURDER

  from the police and has seen them off. But we can turn that to our advantage. He'll be congratulating himself on having outwitted both Dave Pearce and Hayes. Maybe he'll have got a tad complacent? On his home ground, where he thinks he did so well before, we'll stand a much better chance of getting him talking before he decides he ought to phone Bertie. And as we know, the more often someone has to repeat a fabricated story, the greater the chance he'll start to contradict himself or slip up.' Markby smiled apologetically. 'I'm saying "we", but I should, of course, be saying "you". You and Inspector Hayes, I mean.'

  Minchin was silent for a moment or two, tapping his broad fingertips on the desk. Then he said, 'Why don't you and I go together? It's unusual, I know that, but it might work. Faced with the two of us, he might just be overawed enough to lose his presence of mind and cough up the truth. How does that sound to you?'

  'It sounds good,' Markby said promptly. 'After all, he's lied to Dave Pearce and he's lied to Mickey Hayes. But he hasn't lied to us, not to our faces. It'll make it easier for him to change tack if we can persuade him it's in his interest.'

>   But Kenny Joss was at work, somewhere in Bamford, driving his taxi. That was clear from the empty garage.

  'What do we do?' asked Minchin, staring morosely through the windscreen of Markby's car. 'Go in and ask his wife, or whoever it is he's got manning the phone, to call him up?'

  'If we do, the second person she'll call will be Bertie Smith. No.' Markby backed the car into a convenient gateway and turned back the way they'd come. 'I've got a better idea.'

  He drove them back into town and turned into the car park of The Crown Hotel.

  'Going for a pint?' asked Minchin, raising his eyebrows.

  'Going to make a phone call.' Markby took out his mobile phone. 'Hang on, I need Directory Enquiries first. Hello? Yes, Bamford, please, a taxi firm - K. Joss ... Right...' He scribbled the number on a notepad. 'Stage One,' he said to Minchin. 'Now for Stage Two.' He punched in Kenny's number. 'Hello? Yes, we need a taxi to pick us up from The Crown, to go to the railway station. How soon can he get here? . .. Fair enough. We'll wait by the hotel entrance.'

  Markby put down the phone. 'Concepta Joss - she's his teenaged daughter not his wife - has called him on their radio link and her dad'11 be here in ten minutes.'

  ANN GRANGER

  'Concepta? Blimey,' commented Minchin.

  'The Josses like names that roll off the tongue. Kenny was lucky.'

  They wandered round to the front of the hotel and positioned themselves by its pillared porch.

  'It don't look so bad, this place,' observed Minchin, glancing up at it.

  'It's all right but it isn't home from home. I thought you'd be more comfortable in Meredith's place.'

  'Nice little cottage, that. She says you're going to sell up both places and buy a house somewhere. You ought to get something pretty good with the money from both sales in your pockets.'

  'It's not so easy, though,' said Markby. 'Good property costs the earth. A lot of people fancy living in this part of the world. That's why Dudley Newman is so anxious to get his hands on Fourways.'