A Very Private Murder (26 page)

It wasn’t Motty’s day for fleecing the old ladies at whist or bingo, so he answered my knock after a while and invited me in. He’d been outdoors all his life and hated being cooped up, so when I suggested we sit outside he readily agreed.

We exchanged pleasantries about the weather and he called me Charlie and appeared genuinely pleased to be with someone who made an effort to communicate with him. It was hard work, though, and I took short cuts, jumped to conclusions that I paid for later. I suggested he let me take him to the Alice for a snifter, but he was content to sit in the sunshine. I studied him and noted that he was below average height, about five foot three at a guess, even before the curvature of his spine became permanent.

‘I’ve been talking to Jonty in the Alice,’ I said, ‘about the fire. He says it was a bad business. He was living in France at the time, but his dominoes pal knew about it. He told me that you phoned the fire brigade.’

‘Aye. Phoned brig … brig … brigadeer.’

‘Brigade,’ I told him. ‘The fire brigade.’

‘Aye. Them.’

‘And the boss?’ I suggested.

‘Aye. Phone boss.’

‘Did the boss come quickly?’

‘No, not quick. Long time … long time coming. After brig … brig …’

‘The fire brigade. He came after the fire brigade? I was told that you let all the horses out except Peccadillo, which had broken its leg. Is that right, Motty?’

‘Aye. Pecc’dillo. Leg bad.’ He rubbed his own shin to illustrate the point.

‘Did the boss come before Peccadillo was shot?’

‘No. Not before.’

‘So you had the humane killer?’

‘Aye. Kept in house. Motty kept it.’

‘Who took it away?’

‘Not sure. Boss. Think boss.’

‘You think the boss took it away. Mr Threadneedle. You think Mr Threadneedle took the gun away.’

‘Aye. Him.’

‘But you shot the horse?’

I thought I’d lost him again as he remembered a bad time that he believed was forgotten but which could come back to overwhelm all the good times he’d experienced. He shook himself back into the present and said: ‘Aye. Motty,’ making a gun barrel with his forefinger and firing an imaginary bullet into the lawn.

‘Just you.’

‘Aye. Just Motty.’

Twenty minutes later I was sitting in the waiting room of Martin Chadwick’s veterinary practice, wondering what was wrong with the evil-looking Persian cat that the lady opposite me was coo-cooing to through the bars of its carrying box. Ten minutes later she came out of the surgery carrying the box, which was now empty. Chadwick said goodbye to her and ushered me in to his inner sanctum.

‘What was wrong with the cat?’ I asked, assuming that the rules on medical confidentiality didn’t include cats, even if they were aristocratic.

‘She’s through there,’ he replied, ‘having her nails clipped,’ and a feline shriek of disapproval confirmed what he’d said.

‘Oh. I assumed she’d had her put down.’

‘Her husband, possibly, but Fatima, never. What can I do for you, Inspector?’

I told him about my talk with Motty, about how he’d said he was the person who’d pulled the trigger. I confessed that I didn’t know much about horses but that I’d noticed, in the last few days, that they were big – very big – and bad-tempered. ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘could you determine from the way Peccadillo had fallen whether it had been standing or lying down when it was shot?’

‘It had been standing; no doubt about it. Its legs were folded under it.’

‘Where exactly would you put the gun if you were killing a horse?’

Chadwick unhooked a calendar advertising foodstuffs from the wall and turned the months over until he reached October. The picture showed a horse in full gallop towards the camera, the jockey perfectly balanced as he urged his mount onward, his extended whip arm capturing the tension of the moment. ‘There,’ he said, indicating with the tip of his ballpoint. ‘Draw two diagonals between its eyes and its ears and place the muzzle of the gun about five centimetres higher than where they cross. Lift the back of the gun until it’s pointing in line with the horse’s neck, come back another five centimetres or so and pull the trigger. Bingo! One dead horse.’

He made it sound simple. An actual killing would be different. The horse would be in agony and scared; tension and tempers would be high. Where was the humane killer? Who was licensed to use it? Had anybody done it before? Was it the right thing to do? What would the owner think? How much was the horse worth?

‘Right,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t help noticing that Mr Dermot is not very tall. He says he killed Peccadillo before anybody else came. Could he have done it by himself, even if he’d stood on a box?’

‘Good question. On one side, Motty can handle horses. If anybody was capable of doing it, it would be Motty. On the other side, Peccadillo was a thoroughbred, which, roughly translated, means neurotic. He was also only a two-year-old. Most thoroughbreds of that age are as mad as snakes. And if that wasn’t enough, the stables were burning down around them. In other words, Inspector, my opinion now, in the light of what you’ve told me, is that he couldn’t have done it by himself, box or no box.’

‘So who is he protecting, and why?’

‘Loyalty, Inspector. Motty is a simple man with old-fashioned virtues. Perhaps he’s saying he killed the horse because he was licensed to do the job, as per the Welfare of Animals, Slaughter or Killing Regulations. Maybe somebody who wasn’t licensed helped him do the deed then left the scene.’

‘Somebody like Threadneedle?’

‘You said that, not me.’

‘No, but you were thinking it and you’ve been thinking about it for ten years. I’m an informal sort of bloke; can I call you Martin?’

‘Of course. It’s Charlie, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right. Truth is, Martin, I’m not too concerned about the fire and who killed Peccadillo. My remit is to apprehend whoever it was who murdered Threadneedle, and one route to his killer is via the gun. We can’t be sure, but it looks as if the same gun killed them both. It appears to have vanished after Motty used it. You didn’t happen to put it in your bag, did you?’

‘Sorry, Charlie. Not guilty this time.’

Superintendent Wood answered the phone when I rang the office. ‘What are you doing there?’ I asked. ‘I thought you were off for another week?’

‘You know how it is, Charlie,’ he replied. ‘Difficult case like this one, constantly on your mind, gnawing away. It was bothering me and I thought you’d appreciate some help, someone to take a bit of the responsibility off your shoulders.’

‘The fish weren’t biting.’

‘Um, now you mention it, things were a bit slack. Too much colour in the water after all the rain.’

‘Does this mean that the multi-talented Miss Kent is off the case?’

‘That’s right. She’s been relieved of her duties in the field and pulled back to the Reichstag.’

‘Yippee! You’re a toff, Gilbert. So what’s happening?’

‘Well, in your absence, Maggie and Dave have filled me in and Maggie’s been collecting search warrants. Finding the missing son is today’s problem, it would appear. The lab has told Serena that they might have something for her tomorrow. What are you up to?’

I told him about my talk with Motty, said we’d had a slight breakthrough in that Motty must have had some assistance to shoot the horse and was covering for someone, probably the recently deceased Arthur George Threadneedle. It was looking as if they’d planned an insurance scam that went wrong and faithful old Motty had been left to carry the can.

‘Are you coming back or are you staying in East Yorkshire?’ Gilbert asked.

‘I’ll come back.’

I needn’t have bothered. His flat in students’ quarters was a one-roomed stinking pit with galley kitchen that wasn’t much more desirable than the dumpsters nearby that we’d emptied over the weekend. The assistant residence manager let us in, so we were denied the pleasure of kicking his door down. The man himself was nowhere to be found and there wasn’t a gun under the mattress. We grade houses on a scale of one to five on how much the carpets stick to your soles as you walk across them. This was a two with patches of four where he’d spilt his beer. The manager person expressed his disgust and said Oscar was a candidate for eviction. Dave nodded towards the Greenpeace poster on the wall and said: ‘But his heart’s in the right place.’

‘His arse’ll be in the right place – on the end of my toe,’ the manager person assured us. ‘What do you want him for?’

‘Murder,’ I said, ‘so watch how you go.’

Things were different at his mother’s sixth-floor riverside apartment. First of all, we had to arrange to meet her there and I had the pleasant duty of telling her about her son’s alfresco birthday party and the trashing of Laura Curzon’s grave. She believed us, which made a change. Mothers usually defend their detestable offspring to the death, even in the face of twenty-seven reliable witnesses and four hours of CCTV footage. Carol McArdle turned grey when she learnt about the gun and quivered with rage.

But it didn’t help us. There was a crispy clean duvet on his bed and two Peter Scott prints on the walls, but no gun under his pillow or beneath the Calvin Klein underpants in his shreddies drawer. We had to be thorough, so I took Miss McArdle to one side and suggested she make herself a coffee. She nodded and blew her nose. I almost felt sorry for her.

Barry Sidebottom had conveniently gone to the wine shop when we visited him, so we had a chat with his lady friend while we waited. She smoked incessantly, and had a voice like a milkman’s van crossing a cattle grid. The ashtray was at my side of the coffee table that stood between us, but she preferred reaching over rather than pulling it closer, so every three inhalations I was treated to a view through the gates of paradise.

‘Are you Mr Sidebottom’s partner?’ Dave asked.

‘I suppose so. We’re not married.’

‘Do you live with him in Portugal?’

‘Yes.’

I didn’t want to hear about her complicated domestic life, so I said: ‘Have you ever met Oscar, Mr Sidebottom’s son?’

‘No, poor little sod, saddled with a name like that. No wonder he left home.’

We were prevented from asking any more questions by the arrival of the Peugeot. I was treated to one more glimpse of boiling dumplings as she stubbed out her cigarette before Barry Sidebottom burst into the room with his indignant head on. We stood up and showed him the warrant, explaining that we wanted to get to his son before he blew off his own or somebody else’s head. He put on a show for his girlfriend then calmed down.

It didn’t do us any good. Oscar hadn’t visited and hadn’t contacted his father again. We had a debriefing at the nick which confirmed that we’d had an unprofitable day and all went home. With luck, we’d have some DNA results tomorrow. I’d had cottage pie with broccoli and carrots and was putting out my M&S bread-and-butter pudding when the phone rang.

‘It’s me: Superintendent Kent,’ she said.

‘Well …’ I began, knocked slightly off guard and speaking through clenched teeth, ‘this is a surprise. How can I help you, Miss Kent?’

‘The Threadneedle case,’ she said. ‘Have the DNA results come back yet? I’d like to follow it through.’

‘No, not yet,’ I told her, ‘but possibly tomorrow.’

‘Would you like me to have a word with them; jolly them along?’

Like hell, I thought. Her jollying along would put at least another three days on the job. ‘Oh, that’s helpful of you,’ I said, ‘but can we leave things as they are? If they don’t come up trumps tomorrow I’ll let you know.’

‘Right. Can I hear music playing?’

‘Um, yeah, it’s a CD.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Right. Perhaps I’ll hear from you tomorrow.’

Not if I can help it, I thought as she rang off, and skipped the CD back to the beginning of the track. It was Leonard Cohen,
Alexandra Leaving
, and I didn’t want to share it with her.

* * *

A motorcyclist brought the news, late the following morning. It was what we expected. Whether it was what I wanted I didn’t know. I read the report six times, propped it against my telephone and went for a sandwich. I had a feeling it was going to be a long afternoon. I listened to the midday news, my feet on the desk, and had a snooze until my head fell forward and woke me with a start. The weather pattern had settled again and some warm days were promised. I unhooked my jacket and trudged out to the car.

Janet Threadneedle answered the door, a look of welcome on her face until she saw my expression and realised I was bad news. ‘Can we sit down, please?’ I said.

‘Shall I make some coffee?’

‘Not just yet.’ I stepped round the low table we’d sat at three days earlier so that this time the sun would be on my back but on Janet’s face. God’s spotlight, I thought, and slid the report from its envelope. ‘This is a report from our lab at Weatherton,’ I began, when she was seated opposite me. ‘Last Friday certain items of clothing were found in a dumpster in the York university campus, near some students’ accommodation. They were sent to the lab for forensic examination and analysis, and this is a statement of the lab’s findings. I won’t read you the technical stuff, but what it says is that analysis of fibres found inside a green velour jogging suit are a DNA match with hairs from a hairbrush on your dressing table, assumed to be your hair. We’ll be asking you for definitive samples, either of hair or mouth swabs, but I imagine you know what the result will be.’

Mrs Threadneedle sat quietly, leaning forward, her feet together and her hands in her lap. I noticed they were trembling and she’d stopped wearing her wedding ring.

‘Bloodstains were also found on the suit,’ I continued, ‘distributed in a way consistent with it being in close proximity to a gunshot wound. DNA tests show this blood to be a match with DNA obtained from your late husband. Chances of these DNA tests being false matches are a billion to one.’ I didn’t tell her about the bloodstained shoes and socks, the gloves and the scarf. She’d wrapped herself well before doing the deed, all of which indicated a big measure of premeditation.