When I got out to the corridor he was turning right, into the street. I hurried. In the direction he was taking was the nearest car park, on an open patch of ground. I broke into a run. As well as his other attributes, he was younger and more active than me. I was panting when I reached the car park entrance, just in time to see a car door slamming shut, and a Metro swinging out towards me.

  I could have stood there and he wouldn’t have been able to get past me. But I saw the grim determination on his face and heard the harsh acceleration. There was a possibility that he was prepared to drive over me. So I stood aside.

  At the last second he changed his mind. The car skidded to a halt and his window slid down. His face, distorted by an emotion I couldn’t identify, stared up at me.

  ‘Accident!’ he spat in disgust.

  Then he was away, and this time it was Melrose who had to stand aside.

  ‘What was that all about?’ he asked, strolling up.

  I was wondering exactly the same thing. There’d been no apparent reason why Burns would not want to speak to me. How’s your wife? That sort of thing.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘He’s the enquiry agent who traced my wife to the hospital.’

  ‘Oh?’ His eyebrows lifted, but he made no comment.

  It was then that I remembered I’d wanted to catch Donald before he left. Now it was too late. We walked rapidly back, but the building was empty, and Donald was probably on his way back to The Beeches.

  ‘Were you thinking of eating before we make a start?’ Melrose asked.

  ‘I was. Now I’m not sure. I should really try to corner Donald, somehow.’

  ‘Lunch is on me, and The Dun Cow’s only along the street here.’

  In this way, wrong decisions are provoked. I looked at him for a moment. He looked back at me, smiling with his head tilted. The lunches would also go down on his expenses sheet.

  ‘Might as well,’ I said. ‘I want to get as long as possible at the hospital.’

  We drove out of Boreton at a little after one o’clock. I negotiated the wriggles the other side of the river, and once on open roads started moving fast. I wondered how Melrose, who’d probably left his hatchback in the hotel car park, proposed to get back to it. But I didn’t ask.

  It’s useful to have a companion on a long journey. Stops you dozing off. He appreciated that he could not expect any answers to his idle chat at moments when I was negotiating tight corners fast, or overtaking faster, as I was using all my concentration. In fact, during these times he fell strangely silent himself. It was only gradually that he turned the empty talk into serious conversation, and began to discuss the case. His case: the death of Nancy Rafton, and how it related, possibly, to the death of Walter Mann.

  Delicately, he picked my brains. I retained sufficient of my mind to steer clear of any mention of Heather and Chad and Leyton, as related to Tolchard’s death. He did not seem to realise that all three deaths could be connected. Or if he did, he was keeping it to himself.

  We were well into Wales before he mentioned the inquest. ‘Interesting verdict,’ he said.

  ‘It was what I expected.’

  ‘I mean, it just about puts a stopper on my interest in the Boreton side of it.’

  Then why had he left his car there? ‘I’ll be sorry to see an end to our association,’ I told him, eyeing the back end of a trailer wagon and an approaching car. He was silent as I made the decision, and we’d scraped through.

  ‘I mean,’ he explained a little later, ‘how can I justify going on, when I’ll have to convince my chief super that there’s still something in it? The whole point was that Nancy Rafton’s death might have been intended for your wife, if the motive for it could be related to Walter Mann’s murder. Now it’s an accident verdict, not murder.’

  ‘Hmph!’ I said.

  ‘You don’t go along with that?’ he asked with interest.

  I glanced sideways at him. He seemed mildly amused. ‘Since when were the police forced to go along with a coroner’s verdict?’ I asked.

  ‘But you’re not in the police, now?’

  ‘We were talking about you dropping it. Not me.’

  ‘You’re still plugging for murder, then? What about the locked door? What about the dog?’

  As I had no answer to these questions I was silent for a mile or so. Say a full minute. Mountain roads were ahead, and I had to ease off.

  ‘There’s the window, you see,’ I explained. ‘It was open.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’m convinced Walter would’ve shut it as soon as Mary Pinson left. I can see no reason why he’d open it again.’

  ‘Any more than he would the door.’

  ‘Even if he’d open the door to an unexpected visitor. That in itself would have been exceptional. But to open the window, with a visitor there—I just can’t imagine a situation that’d bring that about. No social and friendly reason. That open window suggests violence to me.’

  We swept down a road flanked by a low stone wall, sharp left over a hump-backed bridge, and touched down just in time to negotiate a sharp right-hander. After a minute he asked: ‘You’re forgetting the dog? She wouldn’t have stood for violence.’

  ‘I’ve got ideas about that dog.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Locking her away in the bathroom.’

  ‘Before this bout of violence you mentioned?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Would Walter allow that, seeing that she was there as a kind of protector?’

  ‘It’s all I’ve got.’

  I rushed a traffic signal in Lampeter. He pursued the subject stubbornly.

  ‘The only way Walter Mann would allow anybody to lock away his dog…’

  ‘Or do it himself.’

  ‘Or do it himself,’ he agreed, ‘would be if he’d opened the door to a stranger, or a friend.’

  ‘Or somebody he thought of as a friend. Or somebody he knew was scared of dogs.’

  ‘All right,’ he agreed placidly. ‘You can ease off now, you know. We’re almost there.’

  I did, but only in order to concentrate on what he was saying. There was a point he intended to make.

  ‘But if,’ he went on, ‘it was a friend or somebody he knew—say Mary Pinson or Kenneth Leyton—why did he die just at that time?’

  ‘Are you asking?’

  ‘Wondering. You see…he’d locked himself away for the past two months. If he let in somebody he had no reason to be afraid of, he would probably have done the same at any time during those two months.’

  ‘An interesting thought.’

  ‘So why wait? It was known Walter was intending to alter his will, and that he was trying to trace your wife. It would have been so much more simple to kill him before he located her, and before he changed his will. Why wait? It only made the whole operation more complicated.’

  The hospital was coming up. I’d noticed he thought of it as a ‘whole operation’. I changed down. ‘I see your point.’

  ‘I’m glad of that. So you’ll see the odds are that Walter Mann wasn’t killed. He died from an accident. It just happened at that time.’

  I swung round into the parking area and cut the engine.

  Three hours and seventeen minutes. Best yet. I reached for my pipe.

  ‘You’re trying to make a point,’ I decided.

  ‘Are you still insisting he was killed?’

  I nodded, the pipe bobbing in my teeth. ‘There’s the open window, you see.’

  ‘That’s my point. Why are you persisting in this attitude? You’ve got an inquest verdict. Nobody would be surprised if you dropped it, and accepted that verdict. But you persist. I can see it could have been a useful blind, covering your real intentions—’

  ‘What the hell’s this?’

  He sighed. ‘And still you don’t budge! Consider the sequence. The woman, Nancy Rafton, came to Wales to trace your wife, on Walter’s instructions. She succeeded—otherwise, why would she have chosen plot 13 to park in? Now…we have no evidence that she hadn’t spoken to your wife, or to you.’

  ‘She had not.’

  ‘But she could have done. You would then have known that a will was being altered in your wife’s favour. I’ve seen no evidence that you’re already well-endowed with money.’

  ‘We’re not.’

  ‘So such a will would have been of interest to you. Then Nancy Rafton died. It would occur to you that her death had been aimed at your wife. During the week following that, you were supposed to be searching for rented accommodation…’

  He stopped and waited. If necessary I could probably substantiate that. I said: ‘Go on.’ Very quietly.

  ‘But perhaps, instead of doing that, you travelled to Boreton and back once or twice. The way you drive, you wouldn’t have been missed! Perhaps you discovered that Walter Mann had already changed his will, but that there was a distinct chance he would change it back—’

  ‘So I killed him?’

  ‘I have to consider that possibility.’

  ‘But you’ve just been trying to prove it couldn’t have been murder.’

  ‘But you say it could have been done, perhaps because you know how it was done. No! Wait! I haven’t finished.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, you have.’ I unlatched the car door. He touched my arm. ‘If you had gone to Boreton, you’d have seen what a prize was coming your wife’s way, and you’d have discovered, by that time, that there was every chance your wife would reject it.’

  ‘How d’you know that?’

  ‘Your wife is excited about it. She talks. Women do.’

  I objected to the generalisation. Men talk too. He was talking, and I didn’t like what I was hearing.

  ‘She could have been indiscreet,’ I admitted cautiously.

  ‘Distinctly so. Because, if she died now, then you would get it all. I’ve had to consider the necessity of putting a guard on her.’

  ‘You what!’ Then I realised. ‘So that’s why you’ve been to Boreton. Easier to do it by keeping an eye on me, is that it?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Was he smiling? I couldn’t tell. But it had to be a leg-pull, surely.

  ‘I’m going in to see her now. What’re you going to do? Sit the other side of the bed?’

  ‘I’m going to visit my wife, and then my chief super. But don’t get too cocky, Mr Patton. I’ve got a WPC in there, dressed in nurse’s uniform.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Then try spotting which one.’

  He got out of the Volvo. I wondered how he intended to get from there, but he walked straight to a dark car, behind the wheel of which a young woman was sitting. He’d had it all laid on. All worked out.

  My respect for Melrose’s brain rose a few notches. My trust in him sagged. I went in to see Amelia.

  I had a lot to tell her, and not enough time to do it in. I’d certainly advanced the position regarding Tolchard’s death, but had produced no evidence connecting it with Walter Mann’s. Amelia, however, seemed more interested in Heather and Chad.

  ‘You were too hard on those two young people, Richard.’

  ‘When people tell me lies, when I’m supposed to be helping them, then I get rough.’

  She pouted at me. ‘I remember.’

  ‘And somehow…d’you know…I feel there’s something not quite right about the rigmarole they told me.’

  ‘In what way?’ she asked.

  ‘If I knew, I’d know,’ I said profoundly.

  She sighed, and poured herself a glass of orange squash. ‘I went for an X-ray this afternoon.’

  ‘Everything going as it should?’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s my arm, though. I don’t think they’re happy about that. Certainly, I’m not.’

  I frowned. Away at Boreton I’d been too immersed in the grim realities surrounding the Mann family. I felt that I’d been neglecting my duties by not worrying enough about Amelia’s arm. That could have been the reason it wasn’t coming along as it should.

  ‘But you were right about the dog,’ I said, to cheer her up.

  ‘Wasn’t I!’ She reached out a forefinger and pushed the end of my nose. ‘So it can’t have been murder.’

  ‘Locked in the bathroom—’

  ‘Nonsense. She’d have had to be let out. Then what? Richard, your mind’s going stale.’ She eyed me severely. ‘Or have you been spending too much time worrying about me?’

  ‘That must be it.’

  I received further instructions. I was to discover exactly what trouble Donald was in, then see Philip Carne about getting him out of it.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said. ‘That was what I had in mind.’

  It was time for me to leave. I kissed her and we dragged our fingers apart. I paused. ‘Oh…that nurse over there—she doesn’t seem to be doing anything.’

  ‘D’you fancy her? I think she only supervises. You can tell by the colour of the hat band. She’s been talking to me quite a lot.’

  ‘Has she?’

  ‘She tells me she wants to be a policewoman.’

  I left, winking at the nurse. She seemed startled.

  There seemed time to call in at the caravan site, to ask about Cindy. It was late evening, and the family had just returned from a day’s trip in the car. The little girl was walking Cindy again. They both knew it was only a game. Cindy recognised me, but her welcome was restrained. The little girl watched us with anxiety. Her father caught my eye, shrugged, and pouted.

  I drove away. Melrose was standing at the site entrance. He waved. I felt like waving back and driving on, but I stopped and reached over to unlock the door.

  ‘Guessed you’d come here,’ he said, reaching for the seat belt. ‘Aren’t you lucky!’

  I drove off. Up in the mountains I needed full headlights. He was silent. To test whether he’d dozed off, I said: ‘I’ve discussed it with my wife, and we’ve decided I’m not trying to kill her.’

  ‘That takes a load off my mind. It just shows how dangerous theories can be.’

  And perhaps that was intended as a warning.

  15

  I dropped him outside The Dun Cow in Boreton. It was well after midnight, as we’d stopped on the way for a meal, and I was tired right through to the bones. Three hundred fast miles in a day, cross-country, was more than I could take, especially when the intervals had been filled with intense mental activity. My brain refused to switch off. Even now, slowly weaving my way through the dark country roads, it was tossing around ideas, offering them for inspection before I rejected them. My eyes wouldn’t stay in focus, and my ears, humming from the thud and whine of tyres and the roar of the engine, were playing tricks with me.

  It could have been the fanbelts, I decided as I turned into the drive at The Beeches…slipping belts whining.

  The car nosed around the final bend to the garages, and my bed beckoned alluringly. The dipped headlights shone on an indistinct bundle of locked humanity, and when I cut the engine the whining, instead of ceasing, became agonisingly clear. It was human, but it contained such a quality of animal suffering that it could have been any primitive creature howling from the past.

  My knees stiff from so much driving, I staggered forward.

  ‘Mary! Mary, is that you?’

  I crouched beside her. She raised her stricken face, abruptly silent, lower lip quivering and now unable to speak.

  She had been trying to support Donald’s head on her knee, whilst attempting to control the blood from his face with a wet towel. I couldn’t tell how long she’d been at it, but the towel was soaked with blood.

  At first I didn’t think he could be alive. He was curled around a ball of agony, holding his body together. His face was torn and barely recognisable. They’d concentrated on the head. I’d seen something like it before, twice. Boots. I knew that the arms would probably be broken, as the instinct is to wrap them round your head. The ribs, too, would have received treatment. It’s the only way to persuade the subject to remove his arms from his head. Then you can start on the head. It usually required two sets of boots, in case one of the operatives was so unfortunate as to sprain an ankle.

  I bent low. How to find the artery amongst all that ruptured flesh? As my head came close, an eyelid fluttered. I looked up. ‘The phone, Mary. Ambulance.’

  She was staring at me blankly.

  ‘The phone!’ I snapped.

  She forced herself to her feet and stumbled away, feeling with her hands along the wall.

  I didn’t know how long ago it had been. No vehicle had passed me going the other way since I’d left Boreton. Trying to hold his head steady, I slipped one arm, and then the other, out of my jacket, fumbled it into an awkward pillow, and worked it beneath his head.

  Then Mary was back. I glanced up. ‘They’re coming.’ She knelt on the hard surface and took his hand.

  ‘How long ago?’ I asked quietly.

  She shook her head, teeth clenched to suppress the chattering. There’d been no awareness of time. I tried again. She would go, I knew, with the ambulance. I’d not be able to prevent that. So there was little time.

  ‘They came?’ I asked. ‘Two men?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You were…where?’

  ‘Kitchen,’ she sobbed. ‘Donald…cup of cocoa…his usual.’ Now her voice was more steady, but no stronger than a whisper. ‘They f-forced their way in. I tried to stop them. Dragging. Tried to stop them, but they hit me. I don’t remember.’

  They’d knocked her out. ‘You found yourself alone, and you came looking for him?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. He was here.’

  ‘Did they say anything?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Only one word. Funny. It meant nothing.’ She drew a shuddering breath. ‘Luke. Or Lucas.’

  I could hear the ambulance siren. I said: ‘It won’t be long, now.’

  ‘Yes.’ She tried to stand, straightened herself, and ridiculously patted her hair, which was already covered with blood. She moved to the corner of the house, to indicate where we were. I got to my feet and stood watching.

 

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