Choked off (The Falconer Files Book 2) Read online

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’ Falconer asked Peregrine, conscious that, for the second time that day, he was being eye-balled in a rather strange way.

  ‘Sorry, Inspector, I couldn’t say. She did call something. I think it was something to do with her brother, but Tarquin was squawking some Lady Gaga number, and I didn’t catch it clearly. Yes, it definitely sounded like she was off to see her brother – something like that.’

  ‘Would you like to have a coffee before you go, Inspector?’ Tarquin breezed into the bar from the back room, his movement checking for the merest fraction of a second as he espied Falconer’s fancy dress. ‘Only, we’ve been gossip and news collecting – such busy little bees we are, aren’t we? – and we thought you might be interested in what we’ve found out, didn’t we, Perry?’

  ‘Absolutely! Now, sit yourselves down, Tarquin and I will fetch a tray of coffee, and we can all have a lovely little chat.’ Both were a bit less butch than their ‘mine host’ personae when in private, and it made Falconer and Carmichael squirm slightly in their seats in discomfort. Neither of them was particularly broad-minded, due in both cases to their upbringings, diverse as these had been.

  When the coffee had been served, Peregrine opened the proceedings. ‘We’ve heard word on the grapevine that there’s a deep dark secret in the bosom of our spiritual adviser,’ he began. ‘He – the Reverend Ravenscastle, that is – has been doing the rounds comforting everybody about anything that takes his fancy at the moment, but he’s never let on about his and his wife’s own personal tragedy.’

  ‘And it’s directly concerned with Willoughby,’ Tarquin interrupted, eager to be a part of the story-telling. ‘His wife’s sister’s kid was killed crossing the road, by a drunken driver and …’

  ‘And that drunken driver was Marcus Willoughby,’ Tarquin interrupted again.

  ‘Ooh, who’s telling this story, me or you?’ Peregrine asked, bitchily.

  ‘Both of us!’ Tarquin declared, then added, ‘Now what do you think of that then, Inspector? Is that a motive for murder, or is that a motive for murder?’

  ‘Don’t be obscure, Tarka,’ Peregrine admonished him, and took over the question himself. ‘It’s not a half-bad reason though, is it, Inspector? It’s enough to drive anyone to kill, knowing that a little kiddie died just because someone didn’t know when to stop pouring the stuff down his throat, isn’t it?’

  Mentally filing this juicy snippet away for further scrutiny, Falconer asked if there was anything further that they wished to tell him. He wanted to get out of this hole, away from the smell of stale booze, and the smell of long-ago smoked cigars which trickled through from the room at the back of the bar. He needed some fresh air, but was further delayed from satisfying this need by Tarquin, who whipped a newspaper from an adjacent table and thrust it at him. ‘Page twenty-two – the letters, hot off the press this morning.’

  Falconer shuffled the pages until he arrived at Letters to the Editor, and found a trio of contributions, from Mesdames Carstairs and Solomons, and a Mr Lionel Fitch:

  ‘Sir, – presumptuous, as the editor – the editor in place – is in fact a Mrs Betty Sinclair, the actual editor being away on his annual holiday – I wish to express my extreme dissatisfaction at the behaviour of Mr Marcus Willoughby, towards those hard-working (and unpaid) members of Stoney Cross who took part in the recent Arts Festival. I take exception to such rudeness and ignorance …’ Falconer read, out loud. ‘And two more almost identical offerings. I say, Willoughby didn’t make friends easily, did he? First the vicar, now these three, and goodness knows how many more, after that programme of his. Quite impressive, in its way.’

  ‘It’s no wonder somebody killed him, Inspector. It wanted doing!’ Peregrine seemed to have an axe to grind, but, to mix metaphors, he was keeping his powder dry.

  Getting his drift, but also keeping the lid firmly on his temper, Tarquin twitched back his newspaper and said that they mustn’t keep them any longer, as they no doubt had a lot of ‘important investigating’ to do.

  Taking the hint, and eager to be gone from their present company, Falconer and Carmichael fairly fled outside, glad of the opportunity to get away, and get on with something else. Deciding to leave the vicar until last, they headed off for their second, and they hoped more successful, call of the day.

  II

  The first words that greeted them at The Old School made Falconer’s stomach flip over, and his heart beat faster.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve done something very stupid …’ Sadie Palister told them, a forlorn expression on her face.’ Had they found their killer so soon, so easily? The two men followed her into her kitchen, and the three of them settled down round the large wooden table, in silence.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve come. I didn’t think I had such a persistent conscience,’ she began, ‘In fact, I didn’t think I had a conscience at all. But, ever since the word got out that the old bastard was dead, I’ve been able to think of little else.’

  ‘Take your time, tell us slowly (a necessity, since Carmichael would be taking notes, and he didn’t write very fast) about whatever it is you’ve done, and let us be the judges as to whether it’s stupid or not.’ Falconer had experienced a frisson of excitement at the thought of an easy and swift solution to the case, and was almost holding his breath as Carmichael moved his chair slightly out of Sadie’s sight-line, and discreetly removed his notebook and pen from his inner jacket pocket.

  ‘It’s just that I’ve had a run-in before with Willoughby, when he was the arts critic for the local paper. It was a couple of years ago now, but he was pretty negative – well, pretty vicious, if the truth be known – about my work.’

  Falconer did not try to hurry her, knowing that she needed to tell her story in full, if she was going to tell it at all. She continued, gesturing for them to follow her into her studio. ‘After he’d given me such a filthy review, I kind of got my secret revenge, and made this.’ At this point she pulled a covering from her statue ‘Art Critic’ and just stood there, awaiting their reactions.

  Carmichael slipped both notebook and pen into one hand, and used the other to cover his mouth. Falconer merely goggled for a second or two, cleared his throat, and asked, ‘Is this supposed to represent our victim?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sadie admitted.

  ‘Would you explain it to us, please?’ Falconer could see what it represented physically, but needed some help to interpret what he was looking at.

  Sadie made a breathy sound of inhalation, and began to enlighten them. ‘The base of the, uh, work, you notice, is upright and firm. This area represents what the, uh, subject, uh, sees himself to be: strong, hard, with obvious sexual overtones to represent his womanising, because he really was an old lecher. The, er, upper part, represents his weaknesses, which is, uh, obvious from the shape.’ Sadie was being uncharacteristically coy in her explanation, which Falconer could only attribute to her sense of guilt.

  ‘You may have noticed,’ she continued, lowering her gaze to the appropriate level, that there are no, uh, testes …’

  ‘But you’ve done the hair really great,’ Carmichael interrupted, not at all embarrassed now, and giving the sculpture a very close scrutiny.

  ‘Thank you, but I digress. The lack of, uh, bollocks, if you’ll excuse my language, gentlemen, is because the subject has – had – as it were – no balls. He found it easy to criticise and malign other people’s efforts, either in print, or on the radio, as you will have heard recently, but he was too much of a coward to say anything face-to-face.’

  ‘Did he see this, Ms Palister?’ asked Falconer, now biting his own lip in amusement at what Willoughby would have thought, coming face to face with something that made such a devastating comment on his character.

  ‘He did! Last Sunday, when he was on the Artists Trail. He came here in the morning, and I could see him making surreptitious notes on his little recording device, no doubt just a few little snippets of spite – his usual modus op
erandi. Then he walked over here, I presume. I was in the kitchen at the time, so I didn’t see his face, more’s the pity, but I certainly heard him yelp. He sounded like a kicked puppy, and I came back to see – well, I knew he’d seen it. I just wanted to see his face. He’d caused me enough grief in the past, for me to want to see what it felt like for him, to be so harshly judged.’

  ‘Did his previous public criticism cause you any problems with your work?’

  ‘It certainly did! Trade slackened off, and prospective clients who were about to agree to a commission suddenly backed off too, saying that they had changed their minds, or would need to think about it a bit longer. It took the best part of a year for business to pick up, and it was just ticking along nicely when he showed up. I couldn’t have been more horrified if the Devil himself had turned up to review our little Festival.’

  ‘And what happened when you did see his face?’ Falconer prompted, anxious now to get to the nub of the story – confession, whatever this was.

  ‘He winged it! By the time I got in here, he was standing in front of a completely different exhibit, and when I asked him if he was OK, he said he’d stubbed his toe, the lying bastard. He’d seen it all right, and understood it. His face was all sort of mottled, as if it couldn’t decide whether to go white with shock or purple with anger. He left shortly after that, but I knew I was in for it when he recorded his programme. I was in for a grand slating, make no mistake about that. And I got it, didn’t I?’

  ‘And?’ Falconer frowned at her. ‘Is this statue the “something stupid” that you’ve done, or is there something else we should know about?’

  ‘Oh yes, there’s something else,’ Sadie confirmed, her face flushing a little with embarrassment. ‘I’m afraid there is. I’d been in a bit of a stew since I knew he would be coming here, and after we’d all gone to the pub on Sunday night, I got a bit tiddly, went home, and got even more tiddly, and then, I’m ashamed to admit … I went up to his house, terrified he’d come out and find me, but just brave enough, because of the booze, to do it anyway. The mist gave me a kind of false courage as well. You did know it was misty, didn’t you? If he’d come outside, he wouldn’t have been able to recognise me with the poor visibility so, what with the booze and the mist, I had a fair chance of not getting caught.’ Catching sight of Falconer’s face, she continued, ‘Yes, I’m just getting to the point. I’m afraid to say that I slashed all his car tyres, then slunk home like an animal, feeling just a tiny bit guilty.’

  Falconer sighed with disappointment. ‘You’re absolutely definite that this was Sunday night?’

  ‘Absolutely, because it was the day of the performances in the village hall, and I knew the next week was going to be hell until Friday, when his programme was broadcast. The anticipation of his venom was driving me to distraction, so I thought I’d get him back first, before he got me, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘I understand. And I suppose you didn’t try to see through any of the windows of his house?’

  ‘No way, Inspector. There was a light on round the side of it, and I didn’t want him to come roaring out with threats of the police and a charge of criminal damage.’

  ‘What time did this actually happen?’

  Sadie took a moment or two to think about this. She had been bladdered. She had even fallen asleep for a while when she got back from The Inn, but she finally settled on about one-thirty a.m.

  ‘Then you didn’t realise that he might already have been dead when you arrived, his killer, perhaps, still on the premises?’

  ‘You what?’ Sadie stood with her mouth open, both hands rushing to cover it in her surprise. ‘When was he killed, then?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose that information, for the time being,’ Falconer answered, pompously and somewhat irrelevantly, as he had already spilt the beans, ‘but you may take my word for it. Although I should be grateful if you would keep this to yourself, for you may have been in a very precarious position. If you had been recognised, the killer still in the house … Well, I should be very careful for the time being. Don’t go out alone after dark, and keep your windows and doors locked. This could be a lot worse for you than just slashing a few tyres.’

  Falconer thought that the odds on his surmise being true were several thousand to one, but he had wanted to put the wind up her. She was a little too assertive for his liking and, truth be told, he found her just a bit intimidating.

  Sadie had the grace to blush at this mention of her misdemeanour, and gave her word of honour most prettily. ‘When, exactly, did you last see Mr Willoughby alive?’ Falconer queried, looking unconcerned as he waited for her answer.

  ‘Not since he was asked to leave the pub, on Sunday night.’

  ‘Why was he asked to leave?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure someone else would get much more enjoyment out of telling you about that. Anyway, it was so distasteful that I really don’t want to talk about it at the moment. If no one else says anything, feel free to come back, but I’m sure you’ll get as many versions as you could possibly want from this gossip-ridden little community. I’m here for the fantastic accommodation I’ve got for my work, but my only real friend is Minty – Araminta Wingfield-Heyes, that is. She and I get on like a house on fire, and it’s worth all the petty jealousies and back-biting just to have a laugh with her now and again.’

  Falconer and Carmichael took their leave, and used the time between visits to indulge in a little speculation. ‘Well, Carmichael, what do you think?’

  ‘It sounded all right to me, sir, certainly sounded as if she was telling the truth.’

  ‘But she’s an intelligent lady. What if she killed him – Sunday late to the early hours of Monday morning, the opinion is now – and then slashed the tyres to give her an excuse for being there? We’ll have to see if Forensics turned up anything on her. It could just be a red herring.’

  Falconer was furiously trying to think. He’d need to get his mind tuned-in for his usual game of ‘Grass Thy Neighbour’, but his concentration was constantly interrupted by visions of Serena’s face, and the thought that he must find a good – or even a bad – excuse to see her today or he’d go mad.

  ‘What was that, Carmichael?’ He’d only been half listening. ‘Don’t be so daft, man, of course there’s no connection with fish in this case. Surely you know what a red herring is? You don’t? Well, look it up then – I suggest you look at the titles of the books by Miss Dorothy L Sayers. You’ll find a whole bunch of them there.’

  III

  They were greeted at The Old Mill by a woman in floods of tears and in a state of extreme distress. After ascertaining that she was, indeed, Araminta Wingfield-Heyes and introducing themselves, her first words to them were, ‘I’m afraid I’ve done something very stupid!’

  ‘We’d better come in, Miss Wingfield-Heyes, and then you can tell us all about it.’

  As they settled themselves in armchairs, Minty blew her nose trumpetingly, regained a little of her composure, and commenced to stare at Falconer with puzzlement. Rapidly checking that his flies were in order, he gave her a quizzical look, and asked if there was anything the matter.

  ‘No, no,’ she denied, then added, ‘it’s just that you remind me of something – I think it’s your clothes. Oh yes, of course. I used to have a stuffed clown when I was little. Frightened the bejesus out of me, as I remember, but his outfit was the same colours as yours.’ Seeing his face, she rapidly added, ‘No offence, Inspector, but it’s funny, the things you remember when you’re a bit over-emotional.’

  Falconer frowned in astonishment. He’d chosen every garment very carefully – they were his favourite items of clothing. Whatever was the woman talking about?

  ‘You said you’d done something very stupid. Would you mind telling us about it?’ he asked kindly, deciding not to hold a grudge, as Serena’s face floated, once more, before his mind’s eye. He was becoming obsessed.

  ‘It’s about that horrible old man
…’ she started, then trailed off, not knowing what to say next.

  ‘Go on. If you’re going to tell anybody, it might as well be us,’ the inspector encouraged her.

  ‘Well, if I start at the beginning, you’ll maybe understand why I did what I did.’

  ‘A very good place to start, now off you go, Miss Wingfield-Heyes,’ Falconer prompted, glad to see that he had been right in assuming an unmarried state, and that she had not flown off the handle at being addressed as ‘Miss’ rather than ‘Ms’.

  ‘OK! It all started over a year ago. I’d put some of my works in an exhibition – I’m an abstract artist, you know – and I was selling paintings, and doing, I thought, reasonably well. Then that old beast, Marcus Willoughby, gave me a stinking review in the local rag. I was so humiliated I didn’t know what to do.

  ‘There was no way I could see to fight back. It affected sales for months – and I did nowhere as well as I thought I would from the exhibition, because his review came out the day after it opened. I could have killed him with my own bare hands … Oh, no! I didn’t mean that literally, it’s just an expression. Of course I couldn’t have actually killed him. I’m not that sort of person at all, and here I am rambling, making an utter fool of myself, as usual…’ She was threatening to dissolve, once more, into tears

  ‘Not at all, not at all!’ Falconer had decided to be soothing, but it was Carmichael who did the most to restore her power of speech.

  Getting up from an armchair, he walked over and sat down next to her on the sofa, gently putting an arm round her shoulders and patting the hand that lay between them on the leather. Although this would not have been a particularly sensible move if the witness was likely to bring an assault charge, Falconer did not think so in this case, and wondered why he hadn’t thought of doing so himself.

  Carmichael stayed on the sofa, but shuffled along to the end of it, so that his presence would not cramp her when she spoke, and she continued her story in a quiet, almost whispering voice.

  ‘I hated him, from that time on. I couldn’t believe it when Fiona – that’s Fiona Pargeter. She lives at The Haven in Dragon Lane – when she asked him to come to review our efforts for his new radio show. He’d only done a few before that, but they were pretty poisonous – about people who moved to the country and converted old buildings,’ she used one hand to count, on the fingers of another, counting off the first.