Glass House (The Falconer Files Book 11) Read online

  He was dressed in a sober navy suit with a very discreet narrow stripe, with a pastel pink shirt and lavender tie, and looked every inch the young country solicitor.

  Having presented their credentials, the two detectives took a seat in the chairs on the other side of his desk, usually occupied by the firm’s clients, and began their questioning.

  Mr Dingwall confirmed that he and Robin Eastwood had been business partners for approximately five years; that he was aware of Mr Eastwood’s sexual orientation, and that this did not bother him one bit. It was his ability as a solicitor that was pertinent to his job and that was the only criterion he used when he was choosing a partner.

  About his visit to the house the previous day, he admitted that he had driven over on a whim, about someone he was seeing this morning, and about whom he just wanted a word with Robin.

  As there had been no answer to the door, he wondered if he might be in the garden, it being a fine, light evening, and let himself in with his emergency key.

  He had realised at once that there was something seriously wrong, and had first searched the downstairs, even going as far as to see if the householder might have fled and taken refuge in the garden shed, but to no avail. There had been no sign of him.

  Re-entering the house, he had gone upstairs rather gingerly, fearing that there may be an intruder still on the premises, and had discovered Robin’s body in the first room he had entered.

  Ascertaining that he was the only living person in the house, he then alerted the police to the situation, but had had to beg to be let go, as his wife had got to go out that evening, and he had promised to babysit when he got back from Fairmile Green.

  ‘I noticed yesterday evening when we were there, that there were movement sensors in the house. Did Mr Eastwood have an alarm system, or were they just dummies?’ asked Falconer. This sort of bluff was quite common now with householders not really wanting the expense of a real system, and believing that the dummies would deter potential burglars.

  ‘No, they were real enough. Robin had some very valuable antique furniture in his house.’

  ‘Had the alarm gone off when you got there and let yourself in?’

  ‘Now you come to mention it, it hadn’t. I never thought about it at the time, then later I thought he’d probably gone upstairs to have a soak in the bath or something, so it wouldn’t have been set, would it, if that had been the case?’

  ‘We’ve now discovered that he died sometime yesterday morning. I think that alters things a bit, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Morning? I say, that puts a whole new complexion on things. If he’d just got up, the alarm would have been set from the night before.’

  ‘Quite so, sir, so how did whoever it was get in without setting the thing off?’

  ‘That’s a real puzzler, and I’m glad it’s not me who’s got to find the answer to it.’

  ‘Quite so, sir.’ Falconer could quite understand his position. He just wished it wasn’t him, either, who needed to solve the mystery of how the murderer entered the house.

  With nothing else to question the solicitor about, and having ascertained that he and the deceased had enjoyed a very amicable professional relationship, although they did not socialise, naturally, the two policemen got up to take their leave of him, and he solicitously saw them to the outside door himself.

  Getting back into their single car which, as usual, was Falconer’s Boxster, as he now refused to travel in the ruin of Carmichael’s venerable – and probably dangerous – old Skoda, they set off down the road to Glass House. How the Skoda got through its annual MOT, the inspector couldn’t understand, but unless Carmichael was using a bent garage – and this was unthinkable, considering how upright the sergeant was – it must be basically sound.

  After pressing their way firmly through the representatives of the press and television, they finally made their way to the front door and rang the bell with a hunted feeling, looking back over their shoulders in case they had been pursued by reporters with digital recorders and microphones.

  When McMurrough opened the door to them, he had only just got in, but he had a look about his eyes that said he hadn’t been sleeping well, and that he’d not had such an easy journey through the encampment more or less on his doorstep.

  ‘Come in,’ he invited them, then immediately followed this up with, ‘I’ve heard. Isn’t it ghastly? Poor Robin. Did they take much?’ He made no comment at all about the media presence outside, but then to him, publicity was publicity. It may not be pleasant at the moment, but it was all, in the end, grist to his machine of keeping in the public eye.

  ‘Give us a chance to get in first, Mr McMurrough.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just that I was so excited. I’ve got to tell someone or I’ll burst. I went to see the head of casting first thing this morning about a possible part in Allerton Farm – you know, the soap opera – and they said I’d be perfect for what they want, and they’re going to send me a contract. Isn’t that just fab? And she – the head of casting – drove all the way down to Market Darley just to interview me – a concession because of my tragic loss.’

  ‘Congratulations, Mr McMurrough. You must be very pleased.’

  ‘Then I find out about poor Robin.’ His face fell, melodramatically. ‘Who could have done this filthy thing?’

  ‘We don’t know yet, sir. We’re still trying to figure out whether Bailey’s murderer was after him, or whether you were the real target, as you seemed to be with the other attempts.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve just remembered something I meant to tell you. You know when I was nearly electrocuted? Well, Bailey had left his dressing gown in my bathroom. I can’t remember why, just now, what with all the excitement, but if someone got into the house to set up that electrical trap and the trip wire, maybe they thought it was his bathroom, and he was the real target after all.’

  ‘That’s a very interesting theory, sir. We’ll give it due consideration.’

  ‘Do, because the trip wire, the great lump of stone on the gate, and the electric shock could have been for either of us, couldn’t they?’

  ‘The spiked drink was a little more specific, though.’

  ‘I’d left my glass on the table by the barbecue. It could easily have been assumed to be Bailey’s, if whoever it was didn’t see me put it down before I went into the house.’

  ‘That’s true. It’s an aspect of this case that we’ll have to think about very carefully, Mr McMurrough.’

  ‘Would you two like a glass of champagne? I know Bailey’s dead and Robin’s been murdered, too, but I really must celebrate my being offered this part in Allerton Farm. It could be a real launch pad for me.’

  ‘Not at this time of day, sir, and not given the current circumstances, but thank you very much for the offer.’

  ‘Before we go back to the station, I just want to go and see how Darren Worsley is, after his ordeal yesterday. I still feel like a heel for arresting him, even if Jelly insisted I did it.

  ‘We’ll drive down. The weather’s not so good today, and I should have brought a jacket,’ he said to Carmichael. ‘Then we’ll get straight back to the station and see if there are any more reports in for us. We could do with a bit of a chin wag about this – try to put some of the pieces of the jigsaw together, to see if we can get an idea of what the picture is, on the box lid.’

  Darren Worsley opened the door to them, somewhat closer to the state in which they were now used to seeing him. ‘Come on in and have a drink,’ he invited them, with all the alcohol-induced bonhomie of a drunk.

  ‘Not just now, sir, but thank you for the offer.’ People only seemed to want to shove alcohol down their necks today. ‘I only wanted to see if you were all right after what happened yesterday.’

  ‘All part of life’s rich tapestry, Inspector, and it was about time I had a few hours sober, if only to check that I hadn’t completely addled my brain with the booze. And it would seem that, stone cold sober, I am in perfect control of all my f
aculties, although God knows why, the way I abuse my system.

  ‘And I must have some friends left. I found a bottle of rather nice wine left on my doorstep not long ago, with a label attached saying “Drink and enjoy”, which I intend to do when I throw together something to eat for my evening meal, even if I have left it a bit late for that – must put a lining on the stomach, you know.’

  ‘We’ll leave you in peace, then. I just wanted to check up that you were all right.’

  ‘I’m as right as ninepence, as my old granny used to say, whatever ninepence is.’

  Falconer and Carmichael got back into the car, both mulling over different aspects of recent events, to try to sort out if there was any connection between the deaths, and who had been the intended victim in murder number one.

  Falconer was also perplexed at why he had felt so relaxed in Carmichael’s busy, chaotic household, when the thought of sharing his own home, even temporarily, with just one other person, filled him with trepidation, and brought him out in a cold sweat.

  He had not even made a murmur earlier, when the younger boy had run his toy cars up and down his arms and across the back of his head and his shoulders, and the older one had urged him to try playing Angry Birds on his game machine.

  Even the little one, Harriet, had got in on the ‘let’s play with Uncle Harry’ game, and had played happily for quite some time with the bows in his shoelaces, at one point even leaning down to chew them, and he had been as cool as a cucumber.

  He would need to ponder his mental attitude towards his home, and why he shied away from letting anybody into it. He suddenly felt like a snail, a creature that had a shell for only itself, and would not – could not – tolerate any visitors.

  And that reminded him: he had not phoned Heather yet to arrange their next meal together. If he didn’t do it soon, she’d get the hump, and he didn’t want to be in her bad books, did he?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tuesday

  Market Darley

  Halfway through the afternoon, Harry Falconer received an internal telephone call from Bob Bryant on the front desk, that there had been a call from the ambulance service, that they had been called in by a woman to an address in Fairmile Green to what had been described by her as an unconscious man.

  He also warned them that there was a substantial media presence outside the station, and that he might be well advised to use the back entrance, if he wanted to avoid any chance of someone wanting him to make a statement. It would also make it easier for him not to let out the fact that there was something else deadly afoot in the same small village.

  The paramedics had realised almost immediately that the man who had been reported as unconscious to them was, in fact, dead. As he was a young man for whom they could do nothing further in this life, they had immediately alerted the police to the situation, and the Force, thereby, had yet another corpse on its hands.

  Alerting Carmichael that they were about to go out with a movement of his head, he took down the address: Lane House, Old Darley Lane, Fairmile Green. That was Darren Worsley’s address; surely the man couldn’t have drunk himself to death since they had last seen him, but the member of the ambulance crew said that there were no obvious wounds on the body.

  ‘Worsley’s dead,’ he said simply, getting up for his desk and heading for the door.

  ‘Any idea what happened?’ asked Carmichael, as he folded his great length into Falconer’s car.

  ‘None as yet. Bob said he’d get Doc Christmas on his way, but the ambulance crew can’t find any injuries obvious to the naked eye. Apparently it was his mother who found him.’

  ‘Nasty for her,’ commented Carmichael.

  ‘Very. I shouldn’t relish finding a member of my own family dead, no matter how little contact I have with them, and for it to have been her son must have been a devastating shock.’

  ‘It’s not right, a child dying before its parents; it’s against nature.’

  Fairmile Green

  The ambulance had been moved back to the main road when they arrived, presumably to allow easy access down Old Darley Passage for other vehicles. The crew had remained at the house with the bereaved mother until they arrived.

  Having handed Worsley’s mother over to another service, the ambulance crew took their leave, free once more to pursue their professional duties. Mrs Worsley they found in an armchair, sobbing into a handful of tissues and moaning softly to herself, while the lifeless body of her son lay sprawled on the settee, a pathetic sight at which she was determinedly avoiding looking.

  ‘Mrs Worsley,’ began Falconer, after the two detectives had introduced themselves, ‘Is there another room where we could talk? This feels very unsuitable and cruel. You should not have to sit in here with the evidence of your loss in full view.’

  ‘There’s a table and chairs in the kitchen,’ she informed them in a broken voice, before resuming her helpless sobbing.

  ‘Come along, and we’ll go there, because we do need to talk about how you found your son.’

  She went with them docilely, and made a visible effort to pull herself together, once they had all taken a seat at the old pine table that took up so much floor space in the small room.

  ‘He had to have a table in here,’ she said, as if an explanation were necessary. ‘There’s no dining room, and he didn’t have a lot of work surface in here for food preparation – that’s a laugh. How much room do you need to pour a drink?

  ‘Everything’s such a mess. His father’s never spoken a word to him, you know, since he told him what he was – one of those, you know. He took right against his own flesh and blood and cut himself off completely from him.

  ‘He’s a hard man, and he just didn’t understand that it wasn’t something that Darren had chosen for a lifestyle. He was born that way, or that’s what I believe, anyway.

  ‘I don’t work Tuesday afternoons, so I always popped over with a bag of groceries for him. He wasn’t much of a one for shopping, and he’d live off crisps and chocolate if I didn’t bring him some meals for the microwave, because he couldn’t cook at all, and I just can’t see him being bothered to put a sandwich together.

  ‘I know he used to drink far too much, and it looks like it’s done for him now. He just didn’t know when he was well off, with that Radcliffe bloke and a nice house and everything.

  ‘He just had to blow it, and when the house was sold, he just spent the money on more alcohol, with no thought of putting a deposit on a little flat, so he still had a foot on the property ladder, even if it was just on a lowly rung.’

  At this point, she seemed to have talked herself out, and she sat there staring at the table top, quite out of breath. She was a bulky woman, dressed in an unsuitable horizontally striped cotton frock and a washed-out blue cardigan, her hair already mostly grey, and scraped back into a tiny unattractive bun at the base of her neck.

  ‘How did you get here?’ the inspector asked her, realising she was in no fit state to drive.

  ‘I came up on the bus from Carsfold,’ she told him, blowing her nose in a most unladylike way.

  ‘I don’t think you should use public transport to get home. I’ll call one of our cars for you. You don’t want people staring at you and trying to guess what’s upset you.

  ‘I’ll get one of my men to give you a lift in a vehicle where you won’t be an object of curiosity. My sergeant and I will have to go back into the other room, but we’ll be back, and I’ll finish up any further questions I have while we wait for a car to arrive.’

  Falconer assured her that they would return in a few minutes, and he and Carmichael went back into the living room to take a better look at the latest victim of what he was beginning to think of as ‘The Curse of Fairmile Green’.

  Darren Worsley looked perfectly at peace where he lay, as if he had just fallen asleep or slid into drunken unconsciousness, with not a care in the world. On the overcrowded coffee table sat a wine bottle with still a couple of inches of red win
e left in it.

  ‘Didn’t even finish it off,’ observed Carmichael. ‘Look, there’s a label round its neck.’

  Falconer leaned down and twitched the label so that he could read it. ‘It just tells him to drink and enjoy. No name. And I remember now!’ he exclaimed, clapping one hand to his forehead, and pulling a rueful face.

  ‘When we called round to see if he was all right yesterday, he said he must still have friends because one of them had left a bottle of wine on his doorstep. He said something about there being a message on it, and neither of us thought anything of it.

  ‘Well, you’ll remember. You were with me. He even asked us in for a drink, and if we’d agreed and entered the house, we’d have actually seen this label: or maybe if we’d just listened a bit more closely to exactly what he was telling us, we might have come in and confiscated the wine because the label looked suspicious, with no sender’s name on it.’

  ‘You can’t think like that, sir. Neither of us is in any way responsible for what he drank. Apart from his own co-operation in actually necking the stuff, the person responsible is whoever put what they did into that wine bottle, obviously intending him harm.

  ‘And if they put so much of whatever it was in it, that it did for him before he’d even emptied the bottle, then I’d say the intention was homicidal.’ Carmichael was feeling very protective of his superior officer.

  ‘But he’d probably had lots of other booze before that. That’s what probably tipped him over the edge.’

  ‘That’s still not your responsibility, sir, and we can’t be sure of anything until after the post-mortem. That’s what you’d tell me if I had said what you’ve just said. I don’t feel personally responsible for what he chose to drink, and neither should you.’

  ‘All I can say,’ retorted Falconer, ‘is, given all that’s happened, including this latest death, if it is one of the neighbours, then we’ve got a homicidal maniac living in the village. The only connection between the three men is their sexuality, and I’m praying that’s not the reason they were killed.’