Cold Coffin Page 9

  “Good God! Are you saying that the burglars had killed him and put him there?”

  Kate glanced uneasily at Lady Kimberley. She had shed no tears but was sitting still and utterly quiet, leaning her whole weight against Lord Balmayne. Kate couldn’t decide whether or not she was taking in any of this conversation.

  “No, sir, that isn’t possible. The break-in occurred only this morning, but the body had been in the freezer for some while. Long enough to be totally frozen.”

  “Some while?” he repeated dazedly.

  “We can’t establish for how long, I’m afraid, until it’s possible to conduct a post-mortem. In the circumstances, this will be somewhat delayed.”

  “I see.” Lord Balmayne nodded his head gravely and went on nodding for several seconds, as if forcing himself to accept this fearsome knowledge. Then he said slowly, “Have you no clues as to who it might have been, whoever put Noah there?”

  “We are pursuing our enquiries, sir.”

  His handsome features darkened with anger. “For heaven’s sake, spare us your officialese. Can’t you give a plain answer to a plain question? Do you have any idea who the perpetrators may have been?”

  “At this stage, none.”

  Was it relief in his face? Or just acceptance of the bald fact?

  Addressing Lady Kimberley, Kate went on, “Just before leaving to come here, I had a telephone call from Mr. Aidan Kimberley. I told him the news about your husband, and he promised to come and see you straight away. He and his wife should be here later today.”

  She raised her head, and turned a tragic face to Kate. Speaking with grave dignity, she said, “Thank you, Mrs. Maddox. It will be a comfort to have Aidan and Paula close at hand.”

  Lord Balmayne looked slightly pained. “You have me, my dear. You know that I will not desert you at a time like this.”

  With her free hand Vanessa Kimberley patted the veined hand that still held her right one. “Oh, my dear Gerald, of course I know that. I do so appreciate having you here. And,” she added, “my poor darling Noah would have been glad to know that you were with me at this terrible time.”

  Hmmm! thought Kate. She said, rising to her feet, “I’ll be going now. But later, Lady Kimberley, when you’ve had a chance to recover a little from the shock, I’d like to talk to you again.”

  A hand lifted and flapped weakly, signifying agreement to anything. Anything that was demanded of her.

  Back at the Incident Room, Kate found that extra recruits to the murder squad were already beginning to assemble. The small police station seemed to be bursting at the seams as more space was demanded. Kate had another short conference with the office manager, fixing to hold a general briefing of the squad at the end of the afternoon. Then she closeted herself with Sergeant Boulter.

  “The only possible starting point, it seems to me, is to assume a direct link between the two murders. So the chummy we’re looking for had a reason for killing the two men. That ought to narrow down the field, but I doubt if it’ll make our job that much easier. Let’s run through everybody we can think of who knew both Kimberley and Trent—or had some kind of connection with both of them—and we’ll check their alibis closely. We know there was a woman involved in some degree, since a woman was seen driving the Saab, but I don’t think that a woman alone could have manhandled Kimberley’s body into the freezer cabinet. Any more than it’s likely that a woman on her own drowned Trent.”

  “Which means that we’re looking for two people acting together. A man and a woman.”

  “Or it could be two women. There’s no definite evidence of a male being involved, as yet. So who do we have? Relatives first. For the moment I think we can leave out Trent’s sister, but we must certainly look closer at Lady Kimberley ... and Lord Balmayne could fill the role of accomplice. Then we’d better check on the nephew and his wife. There could be a strong financial motive there. Aidan Kimberley is supposed to have been out of the country when Sir Noah disappeared, of course. That’s easily verifiable. Then there are the people at Croptech who had dealings with both the victims. First, George Jessop ... with his record he’s got to be a major suspect. Plus a female accomplice. Roger Barlow and Sandra English—they’d make a team. As for McEvoy, he could have enlisted his wife. Cheryl Miller mustn’t be left out—together with some mystery man or woman. Is there anybody else?”

  “I suppose we can forget about those two lab assistants, Violet Sneddon and Rachel Pye?”

  “Oh, I think so. There’s another point we’ve got to consider, Tim. Who was on such familiar terms with the Tillingtons’ house as to be able to switch off the alarm system before going in and dumping Kimberley, and then resetting it. And how did they make their entry without leaving signs of a break-in as our chummies of this morning did? And when? The body had obviously been there for some time before we discovered it, to have become so completely hard frozen. Specially remembering that the freezer wouldn’t have been on to start with, and it takes quite a few hours to bring the temperature down. We’ll have to await the post-mortem before we get any clear information about the timing of his death. Even then, I doubt if it’s going to be very precise.”

  Boulter pulled a long face. “This case is going to be a tough one, guv.” Damn, she’d been letting her own uncertainty show. Part of her job was to maintain morale in every member of the murder squad.

  “We’ll crack it, Tim,” she said briskly. “I want you to put someone onto re-interviewing all the men or women who did cleaning at Trent’s cottage. See if they come up with anything useful about Trent’s manner of life, and evidence of callers—that sort of thing. Then there’s the landlord and customers of the local pub he frequented, according to Roger Barlow. And the people working in the shops where he bought his food. The filling station he used, news agent, dry cleaners, whatever. And every single person on the payroll at Croptech. We’ve got to start building up a picture of how the lives of those two men interreacted. Mutual friends, mutual acquaintances. And especially, mutual enemies.”

  * * * *

  George Jessop had been fetched by car from Croptech. Kate held the interview in the cold severity of an interview room. She sat facing him across the small table, bare apart from a tape recorder, with Boulter just visible to him from the corner of his eye. Kate went through the preamble of time and place for the sake of the recording, then plunged in.

  “Mr. Jessop, we are now investigating the murder of Sir Noah Kimberley, in addition to the murder of Dr. Gavin Trent.”

  He was surly, his fleshy face set against her. “I heard about it.”

  “What did you hear?”

  He shrugged. “The rumour flying around is that you found him in the freezer of some big house over Milford way. Belonging to a judge.”

  If only, Kate thought ruefully, this sort of leak could be avoided. She’d likely have learned a lot more if she could have confronted Jessop with a surprise. Or a nasty shock. As it was, he’d come prepared.

  “You want to nail me for this one, too, I suppose,” he groused. “That’s the way the police mind works, isn’t it? Just because I’ve got a record.”

  “Did you kill Dr. Gavin Trent and Sir Noah Kimberley?”

  “No I did not.”

  “Then you should have no difficulty accounting for your movements at the relevant times.”

  Jessop shrugged again, and waited. Kate, having little idea what the relevant times were, made a stab; meanwhile watching the man’s eyes for a betrayal of ... something. Joy that she’d got it wrong, perhaps? “So will you tell me where you were last Friday evening, Mr. Jessop, from say eight-thirty onwards.”

  “That’s easy,” he said promptly. “I was at the pub. The Holly Tree. I always go there on Fridays for a couple of pints and a game of darts.”

  “When did you arrive at the pub,” asked Boulter from the sidelines, “and when did you leave?”

  “I set out round about half-past eight, I suppose, and I left the pub at closing time. Just afte
r eleven. You ask them.”

  “We will,” Kate said. But it would answer nothing. If only she knew with some exactitude when Kimberley had been killed. And when he had been placed in the freezer. “You went home and spent the night alone? Is that right?”

  “What else?”

  Thinking of the woman seen driving Kimberley’s car at past midnight on Friday, Kate suggested, “You might have had a ... friend with you.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “We’ve only your word that you went home.”

  “You could always ask the dog,” Jessop said facetiously. He was getting too sure of himself.

  “What was your opinion of Sir Noah Kimberley?” she asked.

  He spread his palms. “He was my boss.”

  “You’ve worked at Croptech for some two and a half years. How did you get the job in the first place?”

  “The usual way. I applied for it, and got taken on.”

  “You used to live in Leicestershire. How did you get to know there was a caretaking job going in this part of the country?”

  “I ... I heard about it.”

  “From whom?”

  He hesitated. “I can’t remember.”

  Kate let that pass. “Did Sir Noah know about your prison record?”

  “Yes, he had to know.”

  “And yet he took you on for a job that included security duties. That was very trusting of him, wasn’t it? Very public spirited, giving employment to an ex-convict.”

  “There are a few decent people around.”

  “So you liked Sir Noah Kimberley? You had no reason to feel any antagonism towards him?”

  “He was always all right with me.” But there’d been a slight hesitation before he spoke, plus an emphasis on the final word.

  “Who wasn’t he all right with?”

  “Listen, I don’t know. He was the boss and I’m only the lowest of the low at Croptech. We only ever spoke when he gave me instructions, or just to pass the time of day.”

  “Very well, Mr. Jessop. You’ll be taken to another room now where you’ll be required to give a detailed statement to one of my officers about your movements from last Friday up until this morning.”

  He glared from beneath his tawny brows. “I thought you said Kimberley was killed on Friday night.”

  “I didn’t say that. And aren’t you forgetting Dr. Trent?”

  Jessop departed, and Kate and Boulter returned to her office, where a PC brought her a sheaf of various reports. Of the numerous fingerprints found at the Tillington house there were three sets of very recent ones. Two men were reported as having been seen in the burglars’ getaway car, so who did the third set belong to? A couple of other items—a footprint on a flowerbed outside the window through which entry had been gained, and some fresh spots of blood which doubtless came from a hand cut on the broken glass—would be useful in nailing the thieves when they were tracked down. The freezer cabinet had been carefully wiped clean, so no help there.

  The body of Sir Noah Kimberley had by now been eased out of the freezer, and the clothing had thawed sufficiently to extract his wallet, which contained two hundred and sixty pounds in banknotes. That, plus the expensive Rolex watch and gold signet ring he was wearing, ruled out theft as the motive for the killing.

  “Tim, I want you to gather all the information you can about what cash Sir Noah spent on Thursday and Friday after drawing three hundred pounds from the bank. I’ve got a hunch we might learn something useful from that.”

  The door opened and a PC looked in. “Roger Barlow has just been brought in, ma’am, as you instructed.”

  “Right, thanks. I’ll see him in a minute. Tim, I want you to shoot straight off to Croptech and talk to Sandra English. We must make sure those two don’t have a chance to put their heads together again so she can adjust her story to fit anything Barlow may have let slip to me. Go easy with her at first. Try a spot of your famous charm on her before you play it heavy.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said with a grin. “But she’s not my type.”

  “Oh, and Tim, on your way out tell someone to fetch me a sandwich— cheese will do—and a cup of coffee.”

  She kept Barlow waiting while she rapidly consumed her snack. When he was brought in, he looked pugnacious; a cover, Kate surmised, for extreme nervousness.

  “What do you want me for? I know nothing about what happened to old Kimberley. How could I?”

  She regarded him calmly. “Sit down, please, Mr. Barlow. I want to discuss your reasons for feeling bitter towards the Croptech management.”

  He looked startled. “Who told you that?”

  “Never mind who told me. As I understand it, you claimed to have developed a new laboratory technique, and you felt that you hadn’t been given due credit for it by the firm. Is that correct?”

  “Suppose it is?”

  “What were you expecting? A large rise in salary?”

  “Wouldn’t you?” he demanded. “The firm is saving thousands through me.”

  “I am informed that Dr. Trent didn’t agree with that view. And that when you appealed to Sir Noah, he referred you back to Dr. Trent.”

  “The mean old bastard wouldn’t even hear me out,” he said sourly, and then did a double take. “Listen, you aren’t seriously suggesting I’d kill the two of them just because I felt cheated out of a pay rise?”

  “Are you saying there was more to it than that? Something I don’t know about?”

  “No. You’re twisting my words. I had nothing at all to do with those murders. Nothing whatsoever.”

  “Then we ought to be able to prove that fact.” She surveyed him closely. “Where were you when Sir Noah was killed?”

  “You mean Friday evening?”

  “Was he killed on Friday evening?”

  “Well, naturally, I thought ... I mean, that’s when he disappeared.”

  “So tell me how you spent Friday evening.”

  “Sandra and I went to a disco in Marlingford. The Friars’ Cellar.”

  “You were there from when until when?”

  He thought. “Round about eight-thirty till one A.M.”

  “Were you there the whole of that time?”

  “Yes, we certainly were.”

  “Were you with friends? Is there anyone who could vouch that you didn’t leave the hall for any appreciable time?”

  “Sandra could.”

  Kate veered off at a tangent. “Can Sandra drive?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Barlow asked, staring at her in bewilderment.

  “Just answer the question, please.”

  “Well, she hasn’t taken her test yet. But I’ve been teaching her in my car.”

  “How’s she getting on?”

  He still stared, sensing a trap. “All right, I suppose.”

  Perhaps still at the stage of crashing the gears in a strange car?

  Kate noted that Roger’s pugnacity had vanished. By now he was looking as scared as hell, but she was accustomed to that in people questioned after a serious crime. The very knowledge that one was under suspicion could bring out all kinds of uncontrolled emotions—anger, hostility, fear. To her, Roger Barlow was just one of several suspects, with a not particularly strong motive. She gauged that he was a hot-tempered young man, who might conceivably kill in the heat of the moment. But two murders, was that conceivable? Unless the second had followed as a direct consequence of the first, made necessary to avoid detection.

  She jotted a few notes on her pad while these thoughts ran through her mind. Looking up at him suddenly, she asked, “Have you ever visited Milford Grange?”

  “You mean, where ... where Sir Noah’s body was found? No, of course I haven’t.”

  A slight flicker in his eyes made Kate ask, “You’re quite sure about that?”

  He started to nod confirmation, then thought better of it. “Well, last Christmas my girlfriend persuaded me to join a carol singing group to raise money for charity, and it was one o
f the houses we went to.”

  “That was Sandra?”

  He coloured a bit. “No, another girl. I don’t see her now.”

  Kate nodded. A changing love-life was only par for the course at his age. “Did you go inside the house?”

  A slight hesitation came before the admission. “We did, as a matter of fact. The judge’s wife asked us in for mince-pies and hot punch. We didn’t stay long, though.”

  Long enough, perhaps, for a man with a scientific bent to suss out the burglar alarm system?

  “You knew that the Tillingtons were away for a long period?”

  “What if I did? So did most people around here.” A touch of pugnacity was returning. He knows you ‘re scratching in the dark, Kate. Best to terminate the interview for now. Once she established the time of Kimberley’s death—if ever!—she could really put the screws on Roger Barlow for a precise alibi.

  * * * *

  Just a measly cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee! Tim Boulter marvelled that the guv could keep going on so little. He’d take a bet it was the first sustenance she’d had since breakfast, which, he’d also take a bet, was only the muesli and black coffee variety. He himself, since his bacon and eggs and toast and marmalade, had snatched a couple of doughnuts with his elevenses. Even so, Boulter felt faint with hunger by now. He restored his metabolic balance at the dive bar of the Half Moon before driving to Croptech to interview Sandra English.

  “The Chief Inspector has a few more questions to put to you, Miss English, and she was intending to send for you. But I pointed out to her that as I was coming this way I could save you the trouble of having to go to the police station. I expect you must be very busy this afternoon.”

  She smiled at him nervously. “Thank you. But I’m not very busy, actually. Everything’s at sixes and sevens here, you see, and I don’t really know what to get on with. We’re all of us most dreadfully upset about Sir Noah.” She was looking pathetic, wan, totally unnerved. “Er ... you can’t seriously think that Roger ... well, had anything to do with ...”