Murder on Page One (15 page)

Peters handed over a thick sheaf of paper.

Osborne groaned. ‘Give us the short version, will you?’

‘Well, gov, the poison was aconite, from Monkshood. They must have squeezed the juice out of a lot of plants, because what was injected was a very strong dose. That’s the main thing. The syringe was common-or-garden, there were no fingerprints on anything. Pretty professional, I’d say. Are we going to have a look at that South Ossetian restaurant? Chapayev was on the phone earlier, looking for you.’

Osborne said quickly, ‘Not today, Danny. We’re all off to Dogfield.’

‘Dogmersfield,’ Flick corrected, her voice icy.

*
*
*

‘Nice place,’ Baggo said to Peters as they drove through the village, homely and attractive, even on a gloomy, damp afternoon. In front of them, Flick, grim-faced, drove while Osborne snored. The M3 had been unusually quiet and Flick had ignored the speed limit. She and her two backseat passengers wanted the awkward journey to end as soon as possible.

The sat-nav proved helpful, and Flick located Lawson’s address without difficulty. She parked on the verge, got out and slammed her door.

‘Do you think he’s been drinking? Look at that eye,’ she muttered to Baggo as Osborne shook himself and slowly clambered out of the car.

Baggo shrugged. He suspected the boss had been drinking and fighting, but he didn’t want to say so.

Osborne pushed open a squeaky gate and headed up a sloping path to the front door. It was a solid door, weathered, slightly warped, and pitted with metal studs; a door to repel enemies. The house was detached, with a mature wisteria covering much of the stone frontage. The pitched roof dipped in the middle. One slate had detached itself and sat perilously on the gutter above a sash window.

The bell sounded loudly with two rings. A full minute passed before the door was opened and a man peered out. He had a full head of white hair and a pale, lined face.

‘Mr Lawson?’ Osborne demanded.

‘Yes.’ The voice was mellifluous, upper middle class.

‘Mr R. Lawson?’

‘Yes. Who are you?’

Osborne thrust his warrant under Lawson’s nose. ‘We are police officers, and we have some questions for you. We’d like to come in.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Lawson opened the door and shuffled across a dusty, cluttered hall, dominated by a huge, dark Welsh dresser. The officers followed him to a small, cosy room where a TV crime series was blaring from an old-fashioned television. ‘Sit down,’ he said, although Osborne had already occupied the most comfortable armchair.

It took a few moments to turn off the TV and for everyone to find seats. Lawson, a small, neat man, perched on a hard chair which Peters placed in front of the television, facing Osborne.

‘I believe you write?’ Osborne asked.

‘Why, yes.’

‘About crime?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘What else do you write about?’

Lawson looked puzzled. ‘All sorts of things, but you must be here about crime.’ He smiled and touched his right eye.

Osborne smiled back. ‘We just need to have the full picture, Mr Lawson. Have you tried to get your writing published?’

‘Oh yes. But you must know that.’

‘Do you have an agent?’

‘No.’

‘What do you think of literary agents?’

‘From the little I know of them, I do not like them one little bit.’ His voice shook as if he was unused to expressing himself as forcefully.

‘Why not?’ Osborne leaned forward and gestured to Baggo to take notes.

‘I am sure that there are some very nice, honourable ones, but some are just stinkers.’ He pursed his lips and his eyes blazed.

‘And what have you done about it?’ Osborne asked quietly.

‘Nothing. They don’t even have a professional body worth complaining to. Toothless. I think it’s deplorable.’

Osborne looked triumphantly at Flick.

Afraid of what he might say next, she shook her head.

He was not going to be put off. ‘Before we go any further, Mr Lawson, I should tell you that you are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be taken down, and used in evidence. If you fail to answer a question, that failure may be founded on in court. I ask you again, what have you done about literary agents? Four have been murdered recently, as I’m sure you know.’

What little colour there was drained from Lawson’s face. ‘I … I haven’t, wouldn’t …’ he stammered, then fell forward and sideways, striking his head on the brass fender.

Flick produced a clean handkerchief, which she used to staunch the gash on Lawson’s temple. Meanwhile Baggo rushed to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. By the time he returned, Lawson was sitting on the floor, groaning. A minute later, the door burst open and a large woman, several years his junior, with a bust that would have graced the figurehead of a galleon, screamed then retreated to the hall.

Peters needed to hold her wrist to stop her dialling 999. ‘We are the police,’ he repeated as Baggo waved his warrant card in front of her.

Twenty minutes later, Lawson was resting in another room and the woman, Mrs Lawson, was listening, stony-faced, as Osborne tried to explain what had happened.

‘How on earth did you make Inspector?’ she asked when he finished. ‘He is R for Robert Lawson. I am R for Rachel, L for Laura Lawson. I am a retired solicitor, and I have tried my hand at writing crime fiction. My husband is older than I am, and he is not as sharp, mentally, as he used to be. In his prime, he had more brains than the lot of you put together,’ she spat out angrily. ‘He has taken to writing to the local paper about all sorts of things, but mostly about crime, burglary in particular. He had a letter published yesterday, and no doubt thought you were here to talk to him about his theories. So of course it came as a shock when you practically accused him of being a serial killer. I go out to enjoy an afternoon’s bridge and come back - to this!’ She put her face close up to Osborne’s, wrinkled her nose and drew back. ‘Now listen very carefully, Mr Osborne, I want you and your lackeys out of my house within one minute. I don’t want to see any of you ever again, and I shall be complaining to your superiors. I shall take my husband to hospital now, and when he is feeling better, I shall strongly encourage him to sue the pants off you. Now GET OUT!’

Heads down, the officers left.

‘I’m very, very sorry,’ Flick said before Mrs Lawson slammed the front door.

‘Well, she could be a killer,’ Osborne said after they had driven several miles in silence. ‘You’d better be the one to question her, Felicity, but maybe leave it till next week.’

14

Richard Noble’s breathing was laboured as he passed the bottom gate of Hardcliffe’s field. He looked at his watch and cursed; he was still off the pace. This was the third half-marathon he had run in the last two months, and unless he improved he would be lucky to beat four and a half hours. The London Marathon was nine weeks away. Parker was evasive about how his training was going. Typical. He had always played his cards close to his chest. Years after they had first met, how well did he really know Lionel Parker? The stake in their personal race, £500 to Marie Curie, would not bother Noble, but his partner would milk the bragging rights, and that would be insufferable. Why, oh why had he risen to the challenge? Drink, pride and braggadocio. That was a good word; one of his authors had used it recently, a woman with a feel for the richness of the English language.

He tried to keep his stride rhythmical as his route took him along Hardcliffe’s farm road, and into the tulgy wood – that was what he called it. As the dark-trunked, skeletal trees dimmed the late afternoon light, and the pot-holed road rose steeply ahead, he recited Jabberwocky to himself, and wished he might whiffle through the tulgy wood as the Jabberwock had done.

Uphill, he slowed almost to a walk, but kept going. On the brow, he resisted the temptation to stop and recover his puff. Downhill, his stride lengthened. Just round the bend at the bottom, he would turn down the footpath leading past his garden gate. He had less than half a mile to go – for today.

To his right, a deep trench ran along the verge. Hardcliffe was putting in new drainage pipes, but the men were slow. The trench had crept up the side of the road over several months, leaving an untidy, raised trail of infill like the slime left by a snail.

Something caught his right ankle, then his left. As he fell forward, his outstretched hands took the impact with the ground. Suddenly, a shock went through him. He felt excruciating pain and he could not move. Something pushed him to his right. He scraped across the road until he fell and landed on the damp, cold earth at the foot of the trench. The charge of electricity stopped and he tried to move, but a second burst hit him and a boulder landed on his back. Then heavy lumps of clay soil began to fall on top of him. Remorselessly, they covered his head and body, weighing him down. He could do nothing to save himself. Face down in crushing darkness, he tried to scream, but knew that all his killer would hear would be a muffled, agonised animal noise. He realised that he was about to die and thought desperately of Vanessa, and Gill and Jenny. Then he repeated to himself The Lord’s Prayer. He automatically asked for his daily bread, sincerely begged forgiveness and grudgingly forgave those who had trespassed against him. Then he blacked out. After a lifetime of fine dining, the last thing Richard Noble tasted was earth.

* * *

‘Wallace is one hell of a man,’ Danny Peters told the rest of the team, meeting on Monday morning to discuss progress, or the lack of it. Peters had spent Friday in Bracknell, observing Ralf Wallace’s block of flats in the hope of assessing his incapacity. Unobtrusively parked on the road, he had a good view of the flats. It had been early afternoon before he had glimpsed Wallace, who had emerged in his wheelchair and started to propel himself up and down the car park as fast as he could. But he was not the only observer; three hoodies sat on a wall, swinging their legs and nudging each other.

‘Hey, Spazzy!’ one called.

‘You need a fucking motor for that thing,’ shouted another.

Wallace ignored them and continued his exercise. The hoodie who had called out first jumped down and came behind Wallace. He got hold of the handles at the back of the chair and pushed down, lifting the front wheels and taking control. For some minutes, he steered the chair about the car park in a crazy, zig-zag manner, Wallace shouting at him to stop. Peters was on the point of intervening, but did not want to destroy his cover. As it looked as if the hoodie was going to ram the chair into a corner, Wallace reached down and pulled on his left brake. The chair flew round, causing the hoodie to lose his balance and his grip. Having regained control of his chair, Wallace backed into the corner.

‘You bloody little coward,’ he yelled.

The hoodie reached into his pocket, produced a flick knife and advanced towards Wallace. Peters was half way out of the car when Wallace grabbed the hoodie’s right wrist, pulling and twisting it. Off balance, the hoodie dropped the knife and yelped, but Wallace was not finished with him. He continued to twist the arm until the hoodie’s back was half lying on him. He pushed the arm up while holding the boy’s left shoulder down then another twist had the arm up his back. The boy was now face down. Holding the arm up his back with the right hand, Wallace used his left hand to grasp the back of the hood and smash the boy’s face into the arm of the chair. He did this a second time then paused. Using his left hand to keep the arm twisted, he pulled on the boy’s low-slung jeans until he was bent over his left knee. Then he tugged down, lowering both jeans and pants easily.

Peters finished his account: ‘So he laid into the little scrote for a bit then tipped him off his knee. The scrote shuffled back to his mates, who were laughing at him, his face as red as his arse, blubbing and holding his wrist. Best entertainment I’ve had in months.’

Osborne and Baggo grinned. Flick asked, ‘What happened to the knife?’

‘Wallace picked it up and put it in the bag at the back of his wheelchair.’

Flick asked, ‘Did he get up?’

‘Yes. He stood up, all stiff-legged, and started to walk up and down the car park as if nothing had happened, pushing his chair in front of him.’

Baggo asked, ‘A bit like a zimmer?’

‘Right. He didn’t go too fast, but he seemed quite stable. He went up and down a few times then walked back into the building. He’s got some nerve, I’ll tell you, and his upper body must be very strong. Once he had a hold of the little scrote, he did exactly what he wanted to him.’

‘Which is what a lot of people will have itched to do,’ Osborne said. ‘Well done for not intervening, Danny. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be our man. He’s a bloke after my own heart.’

‘But he’s just moved up the suspects’ ladder,’ Flick said.

‘Well what have you got to report, Felicity? Do you have anything to show for your film-watching? Apart from empty bags of pop-corn.’

Flick and Baggo had spent several hours trawling through CCTV footage from Harvey Nicks and the surrounding area in the hope of spotting one of the suspects.

‘One or two possibles, but the quality’s awful.’

‘Who are the possibles?’