A Meeting of Minds Page 16

  ‘Vanessa, you rang me,’ he reminded her patiently. ‘You sounded uncertain. I’ve come back specifically to discuss what I told you then on the phone.’

  ‘The discussion is over,’ she declared, like a quotation from some play.

  Of course, Miss Barnes reminded herself, the woman had been some kind of actress. It was understandable that parts she had played were still locked in her mind. It was the same with literature: passages you’d admired and loved, even found formidable, surged up and escaped when similar situations recalled them. One was looked at askance when colleagues failed to recognize the source of what one quoted; those in the sciences particularly.

  The man – not Mrs Winter’s personal physician after all; from his title perhaps an academic like herself – did not appear dismayed. It was as though his patience increased and he addressed his ex-wife more slowly.

  ‘Vanessa,’ he said, ‘believe me, I’m pleased and relieved that Sheila has made provision for you. And I’m sure that following wise advice you will find it more than adequate for your reasonable needs.’

  ‘Whose advice?’ she demanded. ‘Yours, I suppose. Not in a million years.’

  ‘I mean professional advice. I’ll admit I’ve never been outstandingly successful with money myself. Nor interested in it. But if you’ll consult Sheila’s accountant I think you’ll find him reliable in protecting your interests. Have you taken thought yet what you’ll do with your shares in the garden centre?’

  Vanessa stared at him. She could counter his attacks until the cows came home, but demanding answers of her was unfair. He wanted to know what she would do with Sheila’s business? Well, sell it, she supposed. On first sight it had quite impressed her, decked out with Christmas glitter. She had almost been carried away with the heady sense of ownership. But it was only tat after all; and all those eager assistants were just gardeners and shopgirls. They meant nothing to her. Yes, she’d sell it and use the money to – to what? Back a play? A shiver of excitement went through her. She’d be what the profession called an ‘Angel’. She could hire a theatre, entertain exciting young dramatists, choose a new production. Star in it.

  Dr Fenner watched her recede into some inner world, and sighed. He raised his eyebrows at Miss Barnes, shook his head and reached for his gloves and briefcase. It was useless trying to help. He might as well have stayed on in Cambridge, for all the effect his efforts had produced.

  Miss Barnes showed him through the hall to the outer door, unsure quite how the score stood between the two of them, but aware that they were combatants and no less so because of his well-intentioned visit. ‘Goodbye, Dr Fenner,’ she said, and couldn’t truthfully add it was nice meeting you.

  He looked sombre. ‘I shouldn’t have come. She can’t understand. It has yet to hit her.’

  She supposed he meant her daughter’s death as well as the situation she found herself in as a result. It was going to be difficult. Miss Barnes wished she hadn’t been brought into it. But to whom could she hand over the poor woman now? She had less responsibility for her than an ex-husband had. Did he expect her to offer to do more than at present? It was unreasonable: she had a full-time job which took all her energy and patience. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, make promises which she’d never be able to fulfil. Instead she said simply, ‘I’m sorry,’ and shut the door on him.

  Pursued by an awareness of duty avoided, Dr Fenner pulled off the motorway and, as soon as a convenient space presented itself, ran the car on to the grass verge and pulled up. This was his second attempt to get back to normality and Cambridge, but, as ever after coping with Vanessa, he felt he’d been batting at thin air. It took a little while to get his thoughts reassembled.

  Going back to confront her again was out of the question. If he was tactful, maybe he’d get what he needed from the kindly Miss Barnes. It meant first demanding her number from the directory service and, thankfully, he found it wasn’t a withheld one.

  On answering, she sounded a trifle distracted, which didn’t surprise him. Anyone coping with is ex-wife could very soon …

  ‘It’s Fenner again, Miss Barnes. I apologise for disturbing you, but did Vanessa’s doctor turn up?’ he asked in concerned voice.

  ‘Oh yes, Dr Fenner. He’s just left. He’s given her a prescription for her high blood pressure and a repeat of the sleeping pills she had before.’

  ‘And there’s no real damage from the tumble she took?’

  ‘He said there would be a little bruising to the upper arms and knees, but nothing serious.’

  ‘Good. You didn’t mention his name, Miss Barnes. I wonder if you would give me his phone number too. I’d like to make sure she has every care possible.’

  ‘Dr Barlow’s number?’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t know that I … I mean, I don’t know it. Someone else got in touch with him for me. Maybe Mr Chisholm, or the police …’

  The woman was lying, and not very good at it. Vanessa must be listening in and making signs of refusal. What had the wretched woman been telling her about him that suddenly made her so disobliging?

  ‘No matter,’ he said casually. ‘I’m sure it’s in the book. Thank you, Miss Barnes, for your kindness to her.’

  ‘It’s no more than anyone would do,’ she disclaimed.

  But more than many would care to, once they knew Vanessa, he thought grimly. It was bitter that Sheila should have had to spend her short life yoked to such a demanding harridan, but there had been no alternative after the divorce. All those years ago, in a court battle, any judge would have given custody of an eight-year-old girl to the child’s mother.

  Even at that time Vanessa acknowledged no family. She had chosen to outgrow their modest existence when she took to the stage.

  He wondered if the superintendent knew that she wasn’t actually alone in the world. Someone would need to take her on now. I seemed sensible, advantageous even, to ring the man and let him know. Somewhere in an inner pocket was a card from Yeadings with a note of the police station he was at present working from.

  Fenner switched on the car light and read off the number, rang through and was answered by Detective-Sergeant Beaumont.

  Superintendent Yeadings sat slumped behind the wheel while the car warmed up. Walking back through the overheated hospital corridors the whim had seized him to rebel against his wifely-imposed diet; but not here. The café in Outpatients was half full with arthritic pensioners and youngsters with splints and bandages, or on crutches. Any of them, or the middle-aged, middle-class do-gooders who voluntarily staffed the place, might recognize him and try to strike up an inquisitive conversation. Besides, he specifically needed real, black espresso and a darkly crisp doughnut sparkling with sugar, but soft inside and oozing rich seedless raspberry jam.

  He relished them mentally, almost drooling, then sighed and stoically dismissed the dream.

  His Rover was parked at the extremity of the ever-increasing acreage for which he was expected to fork out more than the price of the snack he’d denied himself. One comfort was that the car parking money went back to hospital services.

  Over to his right, uphill, extensions were continuing. He watched a mechanical digger at work, a long-necked dinosaur scrabbling at the stony soil; and nearer, its upper floors catching the last of the evening light, rose a stylish red-brick block, new since he was here last time. Ahead, as he sat at the wheel, was a temporary fence and a monochrome view down the valley which disappeared into the ever denser mist as dusk came on. Along the fence’s wires, and scabbing the rough wooden posts, frost was returning, sparkling like the sugar on his dreamed-up doughnut. And in stark close-up, harshly sentinel, stood teasel flower heads in stiff, black silhouette.

  It struck him that the scene summed up his present situation, the lack of definition to this murder case – appropriately Winter case – and in the foreground the abrasive presence of the man he resented.

  He had tried to avoid prejudice, admitting that anyone appointed in Angus Mott’s place would be a letdo
wn; but the new DI’s bull-at-a-gate performance over Barry Childe had sounded alarms. To be fair to the man, by now he’d let second thoughts switch him on to other tracks, but at present – to mix the metaphors thoroughly – he was spinning on his axis and firing wildly from the hip.

  Yeadings grunted. What wouldn’t he give for Mott’s subtle approach and steady touch? Small wonder that his own mind was demanding comfort food! However, with Angus gone, helping to police the post-war chaos in Kosovo, Serious Crimes must make do with what was on offer. The onus was on himself to make good any deficiency, steer Salmon off the rocks – God, he was punning as badly as Beaumont now! (Beaumont, who’d gone as spiky as a porcupine over the new appointment) – soothe said DS and ensure that Z didn’t return to work before she was really fit.

  With his prize team in disarray, he had to rally it while accepting the unwelcome outsider and his unsubtle approach. He reminded himself that within the system’s limits everyone had his, or her, own way of taking up a challenge.

  Somewhere under his overcoat the mobile phone was vibrating. He pulled it out. It showed Beaumont calling.

  So, what now? When the DS had rung him directly before, it was to report that Z had been injured. Yeadings switched to Receive, prepared for more bad news.

  ‘Sir,’ the DS began, ‘can we talk?’

  ‘Now is convenient, or in twenty minutes in my office.’

  ‘It’ll keep till then.’

  Not urgent, then; but clearly important. Yeadings slid into gear and reversed out of the parking space.

  Beaumont arrived only two minutes behind him and he came in carrying a computer printout. The espresso machine was already hissing under pressure. ‘There’s no fresh milk,’ Yeadings warned him, ‘so you’ll not be getting a cappuccino.’

  ‘Black’s fine,’ the DS assured him. ‘I’ve been talking to Silver.’

  ‘He’s dealing with the CCTV film, isn’t he?’

  ‘Was. Now I’m in overall charge of that. Among other odds and ends.’ Beaumont sounded gritty. ‘Silver’s been churning out stuff from Sheila Winter’s laptop, but hasn’t had time to go through it. Instructions were to print everything out.’

  ‘Sounds thorough,’ Yeadings commented.

  ‘But a massive job, and nobody allocated to do the reading. So I picked over a few bits of her correspondence and guess what I found?’

  The superintendent passed a full mug. ‘I’m waiting.’

  ‘Copies of a letter thanking one Nat Baker, who had apparently known of Childe in prison and recommended him to Miss Winter as “suitable for the purpose”.’

  ‘That sounds interesting.’

  ‘Except that I got straight on to Pankhurst Prison governor’s office and in the last forty years they’ve never had any inmate of that name. Bakers galore, but no Nathaniel or anything like it. So maybe the two of them were stringing her along.’

  ‘But why should anyone pretend to be an old lag if he wasn’ t?’

  ‘Because she needed someone at the garden centre who wouldn’t be above a spot of criminal malarkey, and what better recommendation than one from someone she already knew who claimed to be in the same line of business?’

  Yeadings agreed that that had a certain kind of logic. ‘It makes her enterprise look more than a trifle dodgy.’

  ‘That’s why I asked Silver to pull out every reference to Baker or Nat elsewhere in the files. It seems that was the only letter she ever wrote him.’

  ‘Ever wrote on that laptop,’ Yeadings corrected him. ‘There may be something on the hard disk of the office computer. And it’s not entirely impossible for her to have written by hand from home. Check the name against her personal address book. If she didn’t write, maybe she saw him on a regular basis. See if anyone at the garden centre knows him or can come up with a description. But don’t approach Childe on this. At least, not for the present.’

  ‘Right, sir.’ He sounded anything but chuffed. Clearly he was feeling overworked, and that his responsibility had been discharged by passing that much info on.

  ‘So what are the other odds and ends you mentioned?’

  ‘I have to chase up Fenner, for the day and evening of the murder. Also for any contacts he made when he came across from Cambridge to see you.’

  Reasonable areas for investigation, Yeadins considered. Salmon had been thorough ordering that. But the work should have been more widely distributed. ‘Fenner, yes. He was a major shareholder, of course. He could have been involved.’

  ‘I’ve just had a call from him. It seems that Vanessa Winter has a sister, Kathleen Patterson. She seems to have been a bit of a black sheep according to the parent’s strict way of thinking. She’s four years younger, which now makes her fifty-three. She left home, or was turned out, at the age of seventeen, made pregnant by an unknown, “had an irregular lifestyle” – that’s Fenner’s expression for prostitution – produced two more children and eventually married a butcher. None of her activities endeared her to her sister who, in her Cambridge years, was persuaded to pay her to stay away. Since then, Fenner claims not to know what’s become of the fair Kathleen.’

  ‘What’s his motive in coming up with her now? Does he think it’s relevant to the murder?’

  ‘He seems to think Vanessa won’t be happy all alone in the world. I guess he welcomes any alternative to himself to be held responsible for her. It’s none of our business in any case. We’re not social workers.’

  Yeadings considered this. Perhaps Dr Fenner still had enough feelings for his ex-wife to pity her aloneness, yet kept a cool eye out for self-preservation. To judge by their attitudes earlier, there would be no chance of them getting together again.

  ‘Another thing,’ Beaumont complained. ‘He’s just been back to see her. Miss Barnes rang to tell us. She sounded a little put out. He wanted Vanessa’s doctor’s number so that he could discuss her condition. She thought it better not to supply it.’

  ‘Vanessa’s condition, or situation? He could be genuinely concerned for her.’

  ‘Miss Barnes seemed to suspect his motives.’

  ‘A cautious woman, more used to wily youngsters than adults, I imagine. Well, no harm in our contacting the medic. The doctor is a man? Right. I wonder if he was the daughter’s GP too. He won’t have had a great deal to do with either of them since they came here from London only a couple of months ago; but their records will have been sent on. He should certainly be put on the list for interviewing.’

  He regarded Beaumont’s stiffly glowering face and relented. ‘I’ll mention it to DI Salmon myself and suggest someone to take that on. Your coffee’s gone cold by now. Slop it into the Swiss cheese plant, and I’ll pour you another.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Detective-constable Hugh Fanshawe wasn’t getting far in checking on the residents of Ashbourne House. He found only the oldies at home when he called next morning.

  Major Phillips, a widower, was champing at the bit, impatient to be whisked off by a civilian driver he addressed crisply as ‘corporal’. He claimed he had barely known the dead woman and denied ever having visited any of the upstairs flats at any time.

  ‘In fact,’ he claimed, ‘the only resident I ever catch sight of is my next-door neighbour, Miss Barnes. I am pleased to find that, after the one dinner at which we were all introduced, it is possible to live in decent seclusion. And now I really must be on my way.’

  He had described himself as retired, which shouldn’t prove difficult to confirm from army sources; and the business he was in such a hurry to be about was obvious. The rear of the car was stacked with golf clubs, rugs and a large wicker hamper. The Major himself wore an old-fashioned pepper-and-salt pair of plus-fours, and under a checked hacking jacket several woollen garments, the top one of which was mustard yellow. All his clothes appeared to be of good quality but well worn. Fanshawe, a martyr to family shopping sprees, rightly guessed that since the late wife’s much earlier departure Major Phillips had seen no reason to extend
his wardrobe.

  As for golf, Fanshawe, a non-player whose only interest in sport was attending Wycombe Wanderers’ home matches, accepted that the game might be a relaxation for some, but he was worldy-wise enough to know that it didn’t rule out profitable dealing in, or on, the course of nineteen holes.

  He bravely dared to demand a list of the parties Major Phillips was accustomed to play with, and stood hangdog but persistent until given the name of his club, any of whose par-level players the gentleman found acceptable for a scratch game.

  Fanshawe made a note to consult his cousin Derek who occasionally played at the same club at a time and day of the week set aside for artisan members. Women also were segregated, with one afternoon’s freedom on the greens. The DC, passionately opposed to any form of apartheid, scorned to drink his beer anywhere his company was likely to be held in question, but he wasn’t above tapping for information others with less social conscience. Derek was a great gossip and would happily pass on any current info the bar staff might exchange for the price of a double.

  Fanshawe looked through his notes. That much, or little, would have to satisfy the new DI. Padded out and printed double-spaced, it should look more impressive.

  The next resident he tackled was Miss Beatrice Weyman, Z’s ex-landlady who’d apparently inherited a fortune, bought the old, failed nursing-home and had it converted into flats. He glanced at his watch and was pleased to see that it showed ten forty-five, a favourable hour for elevenses. Beattie’s reputation for hospitality had reached him via the canteen grapevine.

  He caught her working over a floured board, kneading and slapping down dough as though she had some personal grudge against it. He watched her shape the loaves and rolls, set them out on greased baking sheets and commit them to the Aga which gushed out a further burst of heat on the already cosy kitchen. ‘I’ll jest rinse me ‘ands,’ she told him, ’then we’ll ‘ave a nice potta tea.’

  She performed a fussy little job over setting out the tray, where he observed three cups, saucers and plates. When the kettle was switched on she spent a moment patting her bright, burnished-copper hair and inspecting herself in a little mirror over the draining-board. Apparently satisfied, she looked expectantly at the clock.