Grave Stones (The Falconer Files Book 9) Page 8

Lettice’s mortal remains were as Florrie had found them, the face slightly cleaner, now that the rain was just a drizzle, and not violent enough to make dirty splashes on her features. The softer rain had cleansed her face and at her left temple and clearly visible was a clean-washed depression, her wispy, wet hair fanned across the wound. She had no outdoor clothes on, and her arms did seem to be reaching out for the rough surface of the old, weather-worn grave stone.

  ‘It’s almost as if she were trying to leave us a message, isn’t it,’ asked the vicar, her forehead creased into a frown. ‘I wonder if she was actually trying to tell us something.’

  ‘It is a thought,’ agreed Falconer, as the sound of other vehicles became discernible, approaching them up the muddy access road, then added, ‘Here comes the cavalry. By the look of it, that’s Doc Christmas’ car, with the SOCO van just behind. I’ll just have a quick word with them, and perhaps we could go inside the house and take a look round. Something must have alarmed the old lady considerably, for her to rush out in last night’s weather with no coat, hat, or umbrella.’

  ‘And was she attacked inside or outside the house?’ The voice of Carmichael startled Falconer as if the living dead had spoken.

  ‘You’re back in the land of the living, then, are you?’

  ‘I think so, sir.’

  ‘I apologise for my sergeant, but he was sick on the journey over,’ he explained for the benefit of Florrie, who was looking puzzled as to why a man in this condition should be on active duty.

  ‘Oh, you poor man! I’ll just nip back to The Rectory and make you a sandwich and a flask. There’s nothing worse than trying to work on an empty stomach, especially if you’ve actually been sick. Perhaps it was something he ate,’ she concluded, getting back into her car and looking for somewhere to turn round, hoping that she could squeeze past the other three vehicles on the road.

  ‘Or something he drank,’ muttered Falconer, giving Carmichael a murderous glance. If his sergeant wasn’t fully recovered in the time it took for them to take a look round the premises, and possibly get the names of some of the residents for interview, he’d have to call in Roberts, and then his day would be completely spoilt. It wasn’t that he resented working on his day off, rather that he’d prefer not to have an impudent young pup bouncing round his ankles, continually barking and whining – and that’s exactly what Roberts reminded him of.

  Once inside the rather gloomy hall, Carmichael’s voice sounded in a sepulchral tone, echoing slightly in the uncarpeted space. ‘Do you think I might sit down somewhere, sir? Now I’m standing up, I feel rather dizzy.’ One look at him revealed him to be now rather whey-faced, and Falconer permitted him to sit down on the stairs. There was no way he was going to let him sit on a chair, or any other item of furniture, till the SOCO team had been over the whole place.

  ‘You stay there a moment, while I see if I can get through to Roberts. You’re in no fit state to be out of bed. Kerry never said you were this bad.’

  He eventually got a signal by standing out in the back garden of the property: not a good one, but good enough to indicate to DC Roberts that he was needed at the scene of the crime. He hadn’t dared use the house’s landline, in case there was any sort of forensic evidence to be gathered from it which he would have destroyed or contaminated just by lifting the receiver, for the victim still had a venerable telephone with a dial, and no removable handset.

  Roberts did, indeed, sound as eager as a puppy that has just been let off the leash for a run, and Falconer ended the call with a heartfelt sigh. He’d love to have booked Roberts in for some canine obedience classes, but he didn’t think they accepted human pupils.

  When he got back to the hall, Doc Christmas was just entering, the inevitable blue disposable ‘nappies’ over his shoes, so as not to transfer anything alien and compromise the integrity of the scene. ‘Good day to you, Philip. How goes it?’ called Falconer, pleased to see someone official who was competent and sober, and might be able to convey positive information to him.

  ‘Hello there, Harry, and you, Davey. One of us doesn’t look too bright. Not going to be needing my services again, later in the day, are you?’ he asked, catching sight of Carmichael’s miserable figure hunched on the stairs.

  ‘I don’t think it’s terminal. Just a bit of a hangover after wetting two babies’ heads last night, with his family. The man’s a lightweight like myself, not being much of a drinker, and he fell afoul of those brothers of his, out for a night of merry-making.’

  ‘And Imogen,’ Carmichael confirmed. ‘She could drink any bloke I know under the table. And Juliet’s nearly as bad.’

  ‘What a charming family you must have,’ commented Christmas, more eager to pass on his finding than to indulge in small talk. ‘I’ve had a look at our stiff, and the wound was definitely inflicted ante-mortem, so somewhere, there’s some blood to be found, which will tell us roughly where she was when she was hit.

  ‘Trauma with a blunt instrument – the usual story. This blow didn’t kill, however, and must just have stunned her temporarily, although I’m surprised she could get herself all the way out here. Must have been a very determined old lady.

  ‘Come on; let’s have a little look round for where it happened. I’ve got nothing official on after this, and the wife’s mother’s staying, so I’ve got no reason to rush back. I wouldn’t mind spending a bit of time gumshoeing around in these delicious disposable paper slippers.’

  ‘You can stand in for Carmichael, then. I don’t think he’s going anywhere fast. He perked up in the car when I opened the windows, but since he got himself upright, he’s definitely gone downhill again.’

  ‘Been Uncle Dick, has he?’

  ‘Enviable diagnostic skills, Philip,’ replied Falconer, only to have his compliment pricked with the reply,

  ‘I didn’t suppose you usually appeared in public with such a mess down the side of your car. I then see the sergeant looking like Banquo’s ghost and, QED, the lad’s obviously been fighting a losing battle with his insides. Pushed his head out of the window, did you?’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Falconer, with a slight smirk at his own ingenuity, ‘Got it in one, Doc! You take the dining room, which I believe,’ he stated, pushing a door to his left open, ‘is in here, and I’ll go stake out the living room.’

  It wasn’t long before Falconer called out to the doctor that he’d discovered where the blow had been delivered. There was blood on the back and arm of Lettice’s favourite armchair, and then a thin trail led out through the French windows. Any evidence outside had been washed away by the rain, but at least they knew where she had exited the house.

  ‘Can’t see anything she could have fallen and hit her head on, and been able to get back into her chair,’ commented the doctor, slightly nonplussed as a cat began to insinuate itself round his ankles.

  His head behind the chair, Falconer called, ‘Bingo!’ and returned himself to an upright position with a bronze statuette in one gloved hand. ‘This looks like what the blow was delivered with; blood and hair still there for our convenience. Whoever did it didn’t think to take the weapon with them.’

  ‘And at least we know there was someone else here, and she hadn’t just fallen somewhere, got back to her chair, then decided she ought to get some help,’ Doc Christmas gave as his opinion.

  ‘Surely she’d have made for the phone first, if that had been the case,’ said Falconer, following logic.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ replied the doctor. ‘When someone’s been knocked silly, there’s no end to the daft things they’ll do, like crawling outdoors on a filthy night to try to find help. Lucky you found that statuette. It’s the right weight to have done the job, and it’s got ‘leftovers’ on it. Good job, Harry!’

  ‘I’ll get it bagged, then the SOCOs can come in and get this photographed, and take their samples. I’ll give them a shout, and we can wait in the hall until that vicar returns, so that we can find out something about the victim.’


  Outside, there was a screech of brakes and a slight crunching sound, followed by a word that Falconer would never use himself and, a minute or so later, Roberts bounced into the hallway, feet properly covered, and the statement, ‘Just had a bit of a bish with the SOCO wagon, but I’m sure that can all be sorted out without any fuss. What’s going down, guv?’

  ‘Inspector!’ thundered Falconer.

  ‘What, there are two of you here?’ Roberts chirped back, still smiling.

  ‘You’ll call me Inspector or sir. I don’t mind which, but I will not be called guv. Do you understand me, DC Roberts?’

  ‘Perfectly – Inspector – and there’s no need to shout. You can call me Chris, if you like.’

  ‘I should prefer to call you DC Roberts, for the time being, and don’t be insubordinate.’

  ‘I wouldn’t even know how to spell that – sir,’ he replied, still with an irrepressible grin on his face. ‘How’s tricks, Doc? Turned any lately?’

  ‘Roberts!’

  ‘Sorry, Inspector. Just being sociable.’ Falconer found Roberts a bit of a trial, and was now feeling rather sulky that he’d had the man’s company thrust on him today by circumstances completely beyond his control.

  ‘Go and wait in your car until I’ve got something definite for you to do. And don’t speak to anyone else. I’ve got enough on my plate without having to deal with complaints about your manner of address. And don’t say anything about your address being in Market Darley, either. I’m learning how to read you. Back to your car, and don’t get out again until I come to get you.’

  Thus dismissed, DC Roberts exited the house and sauntered over to his car, whistling, irrepressible as usual. He had recovered very well from a bad beating he had suffered on his first case at Market Darley, even though he had been left for dead at the roadside in freezing temperatures overnight, and he was just glad to be alive and back on the job.

  He had had little contact with either Falconer or Carmichael before he was sent undercover, but now had the chance to acquaint them with his unique and unquenchable approach to life. He’d bring them round to his way of thinking, eventually. DC Roberts was an eternal optimist.

  Shortly after his departure, the vicar returned bearing a plastic sandwich box and a medium-sized vacuum flask with a spare plastic cup. Brandishing this latter at Falconer, she said, ‘I thought you might be in need of a bit of internal warmth, as well. I don’t know if either of you takes sugar, but I’ve got some sachets in my pocket, which I always take, as my right as a paying customer, whenever I have tea or coffee out.’

  That was just as well, thought the inspector, as Carmichael took six sugars in his drinks, but out loud, thanked her for her kindness, and watched as Carmichael sniffed the contents of the plastic box suspiciously. ‘Only cheese and pickle,’ Rev. Florrie informed him. ‘Nothing too adventurous for an upset stomach.’

  Carmichael must have been feeling a bit better, for he set about the sandwiches like a man who hadn’t eaten for a week. While he ate, Falconer drew her to one side and asked her if she had any idea if Miss Keighley-Armstrong had had any company the previous evening.

  ‘I’ll say she had. We had a parish party, for which I picked her up and dropped her home afterwards but, in between, she must have conversed with half the village. She had a jolly good time, and I’m heartbroken that she should have ended up like this, after such a lovely evening.’

  ‘At least she had the lovely evening beforehand. She might have stayed in alone, and just been knocked off without a last happy memory.’ Falconer knew this was sentimental tosh, but it seemed to cheer the vicar up a mite.

  ‘That’s true,’ she agreed. ‘I suppose you want me to tell you the names of everybody she spoke to, now, just in case she upset someone, and they came after her, no matter how impossible and bizarre that sounds.’

  ‘Good woman. That’s exactly what I’d like you to do, and the names of anyone she might have been on bad terms with,’ he replied, getting out his own notebook, slightly thrown off kilter by the fact that Carmichael wasn’t by his side doing this part for him, and Roberts had been confined to his basket until it was safe to let him off the leash again.

  ‘Can we do it a bit later?’ she requested. ‘I’d like to go back to The Rectory, and get away from all this official business. I knew Lettice well, and it’s rather upsetting to see her being treated as just another victim.’

  ‘You get off,’ agreed Falconer, ‘and we’ll call round to see you when we’ve finished here. And thanks for the coffee and sandwiches; that was very kind of you.’

  Carmichael must have been feeling better, for there was a call from him, from behind a door Falconer had not yet investigated, due to Doc Christmas’, the SOCO team’s, and Roberts’ arrival. ‘In here, sir. I think this must have been an office or study, at some time or other.’

  Falconer followed the sound of his sergeant’s voice, and found himself in a smallish but business-like room, lined with bookshelves, a desk to the left-hand side of it and, on the right, the gaping door of a safe, miscellaneous papers scattered all over the floor, these proving, on inspection, to be share certificates and property deeds, with a copy of the deceased’s will. ‘Hang on a minute,’ he exhorted Carmichael, and raced from the room to call back the vicar.

  When he caught up with her at her car, he asked immediately, ‘We’ve just gone into what looks like a study, and there’s a safe in there, door wide open. Did you know about it, and what might it have contained, that might be of sufficient value for someone to do that to an elderly woman who had no way to defend herself?’

  ‘I’d forgotten all about that, because I’d only been told about it, not actually seen it – it was her father’s study – but it’s easy to explain. Lettice – Miss Keighley-Armstrong – had a collection of very valuable jewellery pieces in there. They had belonged to her mother, for whom they were commissioned by her father, who was a gem dealer in South Africa when she was a child. She didn’t come to England until she was a teenager.’

  Falconer whistled softly. ‘So that proves motive, and a very profitable one at that. There was no sign whatsoever of jewellery in the safe. Just a lot of paperwork scattered on the floor. Did a lot of people know about what her father did?’

  ‘Poor Lettice, knowing she was being robbed of her inheritance, and not being able to do anything about it,’ she mused. ‘She may have been a bit reclusive herself, but her parents moved here with her, donkey’s years ago, so even if she never mentioned it, her mother or her father might have been a bit free with the information. Anyway, that’s a moot point, as I heard her myself telling all and sundry about it at the party.’

  ‘That blows the field wide open, then,’ retorted Falconer with gloom in his voice. ‘Never mind: I’ll just have to do CRB checks on the lot of them. Thanks for the information. It should prove very helpful.’

  Chapter Seven

  Sunday afternoon – Shepford St Bernard

  An hour later found the three detectives in The Druid’s Head, Carmichael’s stomach having been sufficiently settled by the sandwiches to allow him to tolerate the smell of stale ale and pub grub. In fact, so recovered was he that, although they only ordered three coffees to drink, lunch was to consist of three ploughman’s. His appetite had recovered, taken the sandwiches to represent breakfast, and was now clamouring for lunch, the hour being past noon.

  After a succinct summing up of the information he had obtained from the vicar, Falconer concluded his monologue with, ‘So, we need to check the village’s residents for any criminal record for jewel theft, receiving or handling stolen goods, or fencing of same. There’s no telling who someone living here might have passed that information on to, or who might have overheard her talking about it.

  ‘It could be a long-term resident who’s fallen on hard times, and decided to do something positive with their knowledge, either personally, or using an accomplice. It could be a newcomer who had decided to take advantage of newly acquired knowledg
e, and net a nice little profit for themselves. Whoever is responsible for this crime, it’s possible we’ll need to do a great deal of digging, and maybe in some very grubby places.’

  ‘What have you got for us to deal with for now, sir?’ asked Roberts, placing great emphasis on the last word.

  ‘A list of names to be divided up between us for initial interviews,’ he replied, hoping that Roberts wasn’t expecting a doggy treat for his unusual cooperation with mode of address.

  Two notebooks appeared from pockets, and two eager faces gazed at him across the table. Things were looking up; Carmichael appeared to be back to his normal self and Roberts wasn’t playing the clown for once.

  ‘Do you mind interviewing on your own, Roberts?’ he asked, ‘Only Carmichael and I are in the habit of working in tandem.’

  ‘Not at all, Inspector,’ the DC replied. ‘We didn’t always have the luxury of sufficient officers where I come from, so it was necessary to do lot of stuff without a partner.’

  Not quite finished playing the goat, then. He’d heard that emphasis on the word ‘inspector’. Ignoring it, he continued, ‘I’d like you to take the east side of the village. You can start with the landlord here, then go on to,’ he proceeded, using a comprehensive list he had obtained from Rev. Feldman, ‘Coopers Lane, where you will find a Ms Gwendolyn Galton at ‘Carpe Diem’, a Mr Toby Lattimer at ‘Tresore’ and a Miss Maude Asquith at a place called ‘Khartoum’.

  Roberts made as if to speak, but Falconer held up a hand. ‘Then you can go on to ‘Sweet Dreams’, here on The Green; family by the name of Yaxley, and finally, on to see Mr and Mrs Jasper Haygarth at ‘Three-Ways House’ on the junction of The Green with the Downsway Road. When you’ve finished that lot, we’ll meet you back at the office.’

  ‘Sometime tomorrow morning, I presume,’ replied Roberts, looking put-upon.

  ‘Sometime later today, Constable. And make sure you find out everything you can about the householders in question, as well as what they can tell you about the victim, and what social contact they had with her yesterday evening. Got that?’