Shades of Murder Page 27

  Minchin searched in his pocket before taking his hand out empty and giving a mutter of discontent.

  'Given up?' asked Markby sympathetically, recognising the reflex action of the recently reformed smoker.

  'Trying to. I was starting to wheeze. Mickey Hayes smokes like a chimney. It doesn't help.'

  Markby pointed. 'Here comes our man. Stage Three.'

  The taxi drew up and Kenny Joss got out. He looked across the car roof at the two men by the portico and his expression became first puzzled, then wary.

  'You call for a taxi?'

  'That's right,' Markby said.

  He opened the rear door and slid on to the back seat. Minchin walked round to the other door and joined him. Kenny, even more unhappy, clambered back into the driver's seat. He looked into the mirror, seeing their reflected faces.

  'You want the railway station, right? That's what our Connie said.'

  'Actually, we've changed our minds.' Markby leaned forward and reached his ID over Kenny's shoulder. 'How about we go somewhere private, Kenny?'

  Kenny twisted in his seat aggressively. 'Am I being fitted up here or what?'

  'We just want to talk, Kenny. Anywhere you like. Here, if you want.'

  'We're not going back to my place,' Kenny told him. 'My missus would hit the roof if she found out the fuzz had been there again. "Police coming round all the time, Kenny, what you been up to?" I've been getting enough of that. And I'm not going with you to the nick, neither!'

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  He considered the situation. 'We'll go down by the river, OK? Not that I've got anything to say to you.'

  He let in the clutch and they lurched forward.

  Markby thought Kenny had chosen the spot cleverly. There was a path along the riverside, a popular stroll in summer and at weekends, but deserted now except for the occasional dog-walker. At intervals there were benches interspersed with wooden tables with fixed seating for the use of summer picnickers. The aspens rustled above their heads and from time to time, out on the water, a spreading ring of concentric circles marked the spot where a trout had surfaced briefly. A pair of swans glided past. On the further bank beyond another line of trees, lay pasture land grazed peacefully by black and white cattle. It was a scene straight from a Constable painting and one in which it was difficult to pile on serious pressure, not when everything around them soothed the eye and lulled the senses.

  They settled themselves at one of the picnic tables, Kenny on one side, Minchin and Markby facing him. Looking at the empty space beside Kenny, Markby wondered how long it would be before Kenny suggested it was filled by Bertie Smith. One of the swans, seeing people settling down in an attitude it associated with food, changed direction and paddled closer to the bank. When no lump of sandwich came its way, it paddled away again in clear disgust.

  Either letting Kenny choose the place of their talk or the peaceful nature of their surroundings had already resulted in the man looking more relaxed than he had while driving. He was possessed of distinctive looks and probably cut a dashing figure among his associates. His complexion was swarthy and his thick black hair overlong but carefully tended. A regular Jack-the-Lad, thought Markby, and wondered whether, born two hundred years earlier, Kenny might have been a highwayman holding up travellers, rather than driving them about as now. As he watched, Joss leaned his forearms on the table and his dark gaze met Markby's.

  'Go on, then,' he invited. 'What do you want to ask?'

  'We want to go through Saturday afternoon with you,' Minchin said. 'I'm speaking of the day Jan Oakley died.'

  'You've got all that on record. I drove the old girls into town and I brought them back. I've got nothing else to do with it.'

  'When you came back with the women—' Minchin began.

  Kenny interrupted. T went through that with the copper who came to

  ANN GRANGER

  my place. Not the London feller, the local chap. Then the London feller came and took me through the whole bleedin' lot again. I can only tell you what I told them. I carried the shopping round to the kitchen and then I left.'

  'And you saw Jan Oakley?' Minchin prompted.

  Markby fancied Kenny's confident attitude slipped a degree or two. He clasped his hands, unclasped them, looked from Minchin to Markby and said, T saw him as I was taking the shopping into the kitchen. We passed. We exchanged a word or two in greeting, that's all. I never saw him again.'

  Very few people saw Jan again, thought Markby. He glanced at Minchin and took up the questioning. 'Kenny, we need to know every single thing Jan did that day. We're questioning you because we think you can help us fill in details which might not seem important to you, but may be to us. Now, when you returned from the shopping trip with the Oakley sisters, you told Inspector Pearce that they entered the house through the front door, whereas they'd left it through the kitchen door at the rear of the premises.'

  'Ye-es,' Kenny agreed, his eyes cautious.

  T know that house quite well,' Markby said. 'If the front door is open, the quickest way to reach the kitchen is simply to walk through it and down the hall. The inner kitchen door is at the far end of the entrance hall. But you, so you claim, chose to walk all the way round the outside of the house to reach the outer kitchen door at the back, despite the fact that you were carrying heavy bags and the front door was wide open.'

  'They weren't that heavy,' muttered Kenny sullenly.

  T think,' Markby said, 'on your return from the shopping trip, you went to the kitchen through the house. You didn't go round it to the back entrance as you did when you called for the fare. I can check quite easily. Either Damaris or Florence Oakley will remember.'

  There was a silence. Kenny said, T may have gone through the house. Perhaps I misremembered. I wasn't paying that much attention. Look, I didn't know it was going to be important, did I?'

  'It is important, Kenny. This is a murder investigation. It's not a question of stolen goods or counterfeit designer wear - it's murder. We never close the file on an unsolved murder. It stays open and we stay with it, year in and year out, until we're satisfied. We're not going to leave you alone. We're going to keep coming back and we're going to have this conversation over and over again until we're satisfied. And I,' added Markby, 'am very far from satisfied and I doubt Mr Minchin is.'

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  Kenny said sulkily, 'I remember now. I went down the hall. I carried the stuff through the front door and to the kitchen that way, through the house.'

  'So you didn't meet Jan coming out of the back door, as you told Inspector Pearce.' It was a statement, not a question.

  Kenny accepted it as such but sought to split hairs. 'No, well, not exactly. I did see him go out of the kitchen. That's right.'

  'Where were you when you saw him?'

  T was - ' Kenny looked from one to the other of them. 'I had nothing to do with his death, right? I didn't touch anything. I didn't do anything.' He waited but whatever kind of reassurance he was hoping for, didn't materialise. 'Bloody hell!' he snapped. 'Why should I kill him? I didn't even know him. I'd heard about him. Dolores told me - that's my cousin, Dolores Forbes at The Feathers. He used to eat there in the evening. She reckoned he was a bad lot and Dolores, she knows a thing or two about that. Her husband, Charlie Forbes - well, it don't matter. The thing is, she reckoned that Jan was up to no good.'

  Kenny drew a deep breath and leaned forward, suddenly anxious to tell his story. T was carrying a couple of supermarket bags, the old girls' shopping. Damaris and Florrie, they were in the hall, taking off their hats and coats and generally messing about. I squeezed past them and went down the hall to the far end. I hadn't got a hand free to open the kitchen door but it was ajar, so I just gave it a push with my foot. It swung open, but not enough. It's one of those big heavy old doors. I was going to give it another shove when I saw him, that Jan. I could see him through the open crack of the door. He was on the far side of the kitchen, reaching up into the cupboard.'


  Kenny paused and added in explanation, 'It's one of those old-style kitchen dressers, if you know the sort of thing. It's got cupboards below, then an open shelf and more cupboards above. It was the upper bit he was reaching into. Nothing odd about that, you'll say. But there was something odd about the way he was doing it. Furtive, that's the word. He'd got something in his hand. He reached up and put it in the cupboard. Then he took something else down. Just at the moment, one of the women said something and he must have heard the voice and thought they were coming. He looked round quick, guilty-like. I nipped back behind the door. When I took another look, he was straightening up. He'd been bending down by the bottom of the dresser, at the back of it. When he stood up, he wasn't holding anything. I reckoned he'd pushed something out of sight behind the dresser.

  ANN GRANGER

  Then he went into a sort of cloakroom that opens off the kitchen. I've been in there and a narrow old staircase starts there and runs up at least as far as the first floor. I don't know how far it goes after that. The old dears don't use it. They don't use the cloakroom really, except to keep Wellington boots in and a pile of old newspapers and junk like that. The only reason I know what's in there is because they asked me to carry a sack of sand in there for them once. It was winter and they wanted it to sprinkle down outside the door - so's they wouldn't slip, you know. Anywhere, that's where Jan went and I guess he went upstairs that way. Leastways, he wasn't hanging about in the cloakroom because I checked when I went into the kitchen.

  T put the shopping on the table. A couple of the frozen things I put in the freezer compartment of their fridge. They've got no proper freezer. I keep telling them to buy one. Then I took a quick look behind the dresser and sure enough, there was this little jar.'

  Kenny made a round shape with his hands. 'It looked like the stuff you spread in your sandwiches, got a beefy taste.' He jabbed his finger at his interrogators. 'Marmite - that's what it's called. I can't tell you for sure that Jan put it there, because I didn't actually see him do it. So it's no use you trying to get me to say I did. But he held something very like it in his hand before he heard voices and took fright. When I looked again, he didn't have it and he was straightening up, like I say, as if he'd been bending down. Then he took himself off up those back stairs. He didn't want to be found there, red-handed.'

  Minchin heaved a sigh. 'So what did you do next?'

  Kenny shrugged. 'To tell you the truth - and it is the truth! -1 didn't know what to do about it. I went back into the hall and looked for the elder sister, that's Damaris, but she was just on her way upstairs. Florrie was still in the hall, fluttering about. I had to make up my mind quick. I'd rather have told Damaris because she's the one who makes all the decisions, but she wasn't there, so I told Florrie - I call her that. She don't mind. I said something like, she ought to watch out for the foreign chap. He'd been messing around in the kitchen cupboards. It looked to me as if he'd hidden something behind the dresser.'

  Kenny gave wry smile. 'She listened, peering up into my face like a little bird. She said, "Did he, Kenny? How very strange. I'll have a look." So I thought that was fair enough. She knew. I didn't really want to worry her so I said something to make her laugh, don't ask me what. Then I left.' Kenny sat back. 'And that's it.'

  Markby said. Thank you, Kenny. You'd have saved us a lot of time

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  by telling us straight away at the beginning. I think I know why you

  didn't, but you were wrong. We have to know.'

  'Yeah,' said Kenny. 'Well, I'm fond of the old girls.'

  Minchin spoke. 'You'd better drive us back to the hotel so's we can

  pick up our car.'

  'Here,' said Kenny, 'is all this on the clock? I mean, I've been sitting

  here twenty minutes with you at least. More like half an hour. I'm a

  working man, you know. I don't drive that taxi for my health.'

  'So,' said Minchin, as they drove out of Bamford, 'Jan Oakley swopped the jars. He put the contaminated one in the cupboard and hid the safe one behind the dresser when he was disturbed. Then Florence Oakley, tipped off by Kenny Joss, switched them back again. Is that what we think happened?'

  They were driving towards Fourways. Markby had turned the car in that direction without comment and Minchin had been sitting silently beside him until now.

  'Funny,' Minchin continued, 'I'd have said the other sister was the more likely one. You know, more a woman of action.'

  'Florence couldn't have known for sure that there was anything wrong with the jar in the cupboard,' Markby said. 'But she may have been suspicious enough to swop them back, yes. That's not murder. I'd call that no more than a tragic error of judgement.'

  'We can decide what it was when we can prove she did it,' said Minchin sourly. 'Anyhow, assuming she did, when she and her sister ate some of the spread in the evening, they were unaffected. But later, when Jan retrieved the jar behind the dresser, be believed it was the safe jar. He decided to have a snack using it and poisoned himself. So far, so good,' Minchin said. 'But when the police took ajar of spread from the cupboard to test it, there was nothing wrong with it and if there had been a jar behind the dresser, we'd have found it.'

  'Things have been overlooked before,' said Markby. 'SOCO isn't infallible. For all we know, it's still there.'

  'No, no,' said Minchin, 'that's not my point. Look, this is how it goes, assuming we're right. Jan puts bad jar in cupboard, good jar behind dresser. Kenny sees him and tips off Florence. Florence replaces good jar in cupboard, bad jar behind dresser. Sisters eat from good jar, no problem. Later that evening when they've gone to bed, Jan nips into the kitchen. He puts the good jar (which he thinks is the bad jar) back behind the dresser, right? He puts the bad jar (which he thinks is the good one)

  ANN GRANGER

  in the cupboard. Then he decides to make himself a sandwich with some of it and poisons himself. So why wasn 't the bad jar still in the cupboard where he'd put it, the next morningV

  'Because,' Markby said, 'someone, either Damans or Florence, realised what must have happened when he was taken so ill and switched them back again - or at least replaced the good jar in the cupboard for us to find and disposed of the bad jar. We don't know whether Florence told Damans what Kenny had seen. If she didn't, then Florence is the one who realised Jan had been poisoned by some substance intended for her and her sister. But because he was poisoned as a result of her switching the jars, she panicked. She thought she'd be accused of deliberately poisoning him. She replaced the good jar and I don't know what she did with the other one.'

  'You realise,' Minchin said, 'that proving all this will turn on finding the bad jar?'

  They had passed The Feathers and the house came into view. Markby turned in the gateway and for some reason, perhaps prompted by distant memory, braked. They sat looking down the drive at Fourways.

  T used to come here as a kid,' he said.

  'I'll do the talking when we go in,' offered Minchin quietly. Til go in alone, if you like. You don't want to be asking awkward questions of the old women. I can understand that. That's why I'm here, after all'

  'No, I'll come with you,' Markby told him absently. 'It'll calm them to see me. I was just thinking of when I first saw this place, as a nipper. It looked like something out of a story book to me, especially with that tunet up there. I thought an ogre must live here and I wasn't far wrong. Old Mr Oakley was a man of strong personality, a domestic tyrant.'

  He contemplated the house, glowing like honey in the evening sunshine. It looked its best at this hour of the day. Its unhappy history was disguised by the warmth which seemed to emanate from it. Even its gargoyle waterspouts looked playful. For good or ill, Fourways had been a landmark for a hundred and fifty years. He was sorry to think its days might be numbered.

  Then something very strange happened. As from nowhere, thunder filled the air. A huge clap followed by a roaring, rumbling swell as if some great monster were indeed on t
he loose. The car shook as if struck by an unseen balled fist. The whole east wing of the house rippled and swayed, then ballooned outward. One side of it vanished in a cloud of smoke and dust, through which could be heard the crash of falling masonry. The cloud grew, enveloping the whole structure until it was

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  completely lost from sight. From out of the swirling mass flew the turret, all in a piece like a giant rocket. It splintered its way through the trees and fell with a mighty rending and cracking on to the old stableblock and more smoke and dust swirled up into the sky. Scarlet streaks of flame spurted up and darted through the whole in a tangle of red, yellow, grey and white like a giant witchball.

  Minchin gasped, 'It's bloody blown up!'

  But Markby was already calling for help.

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  For a moment Pam looked as if the interesting possibilities opened up by this scenario might distract her. Regretfully she put her matchmaking plans for Juliet on hold. 'But Florence? I heard she was badly hurt.'

  'Trapped in the wreckage,' Doug Minchin put in unexpectedly. 'They dug her out alive but things don't look good.'

  Mutterings from the barbecue took their attention. Rather a lot of smoke seemed to be coming from it. The chef, splendidly attired in a scarlet apron and armed with what looked like an assortment of medieval weapons was making feints and stabs at the enemy in the shape of pork chops and sausages.

  Pam whispered, 'We've never had a barbecue before, but when we moved here Geoff got it into his head it would be just the thing for the patio.'

  'Won't be long!' cried the chef optimistically as another balloon of black smoke wafted skyward.

  'It's not,' continued Pam, 'as if he were a cook normally. He never goes in the kitchen, never has. Now he's got this new toy

  'You've seen her, haven't you, Doug?' asked Alan, taking up the previous subject. 'Meredith's hoping to go to the hospital tomorrow.'