A Very Private Murder (30 page)

‘Are you enjoying it?’

‘No. It’s a bit heavy going. She says wearing her boots will help me understand it.’

I turned to Aspen. ‘And what literary masterpiece has Toby passed on to you?’ She held it towards me and I said:
‘Harry Potter and the Giblets of Fire.’

Toby fell over sideways, laughing, and Aspen spun the book round in disbelief. ‘It’s “
Goblet
of Fire”,’ she asserted.

When Toby had recovered and was back with us, I asked her if her father was at home. She produced a handset from her pocket and said she’d find him.

‘This is Mr Curzon’s number one personal assistant,’ she told him when he answered. ‘There’s a Mr Priest to see you. No … No … Yes … No. I haven’t, honest.’ Then, to me: ‘He’s on his way.’

Curzon shook my hand with vigour and took me into a room I hadn’t seen before. I’d call it the gentleman’s study. Leather, deep-buttoned easy chairs, a huge desk, more bookshelves than the village library and portraits of ancestors and various other pampered animals on the walls. Only the flat-screen computer monitors added a note of incongruity. He invited me to take one of the easy chairs and I managed to sit down without shooting off its highly polished cushions.

He told me my visit was an unexpected pleasure and made the usual offer of coffee. I declined, saying I had places to go, had called in to tie up a few loose ends and answer any questions he may have.

‘Toby’s in fine fettle,’ I said, ‘back to her old self.’

‘For the moment,’ he replied, adding, ‘Aspen has come round for her tea. They make a good double act.’

‘I had noticed. Does the CF go into remission or does its severity vary day to day?’ It wasn’t the most diplomatic question I’d ever asked, but hiding from Toby’s illness, as if it didn’t exist, wasn’t doing her any good, and I earned a reaction.

Curzon sat up straight, folded his arms and planted his feet firmly on the carpet. ‘Yes,’ he replied.

Yes, what?
I thought.
Try harder
. ‘It goes into remission?’ I suggested.

‘It’s difficult to say,’ he told me, relaxing a little. ‘There are so many variables, like pollen count, humidity, cold weather. Even Toby’s state of mind appears to have an effect. It’s a terrible illness, Charlie. Terrible. I wouldn’t wish it upon an enemy.’

‘Is a heart and lung transplant an option?’ I’d done my research and Google said it was.

‘Just about the only option for the foreseeable future, but she won’t entertain it. It’s her complaint, she says, and she’ll deal with it her way. We’re respecting her wishes.’

‘What about the genetic approach? Is anything happening on that avenue?’

‘Not really. You know how it goes. Lots of teams all over the world claiming to have made a breakthrough, but they’re all chasing funding from the same pot of money.’

I wanted to talk to him about genetics, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. After an awkward silence I jumped in with: ‘I understand it’s a single-gene disease, whatever that means.’

He didn’t flinch. A fly landed on the table in front of him and he wafted it away. ‘That’s right. What it means, basically, is that only one of a pair of genes is healthy and the other is wonky. We can live with that, but it’s possible to pass on the faulty gene. If you inherit a good gene from one parent and a faulty one from the other you will have no symptoms but will be a carrier. Laura and I were carriers, although we didn’t know it, until … until poor Toby drew the short straw and inherited a bad gene from each of us.’

‘But the disease skipped Ghislaine.’

‘That’s right, but she hasn’t had the tests so we don’t know if she’s a carrier.’

I wondered what the royal family would make of it. They’d bred out haemophilia and the Hapsburg lip and now they had a sporting chance of introducing cystic fibrosis into their illustrious gene pool. I said: ‘No, I don’t think I’d have the test, either. Not until it became an issue.’

The fly found me and flitted around my head. I took a few swipes at it and it flew off to find somewhere more welcoming. ‘One of my reasons for coming was to tell you about Janet Threadneedle. I’m not sure how well you knew her, but if you could call yourself a friend I think she’d be pleased to hear from you.’ I told him that she’d been arrested and charged with the murder of her husband. I didn’t go into detail about the bloody clothing we’d found, or mention the affair with her teenage pupil.

‘Thanks for that,’ he said. ‘I’ll write to her. Is it conclusive that she did the deed?’

‘I think a court will find the DNA evidence overwhelming.’

‘Ah, DNA again. It must have made your job much easier.’

‘In some ways,’ I agreed, ‘but it works both ways.’

‘Certain criminals must be cursing its discovery.’

‘I know.’ I’ve always felt a little sorry for Dr Crippen. He committed what he thought was the perfect murder and boarded a ship to the United States. When it set sail he must have thought that he was in the clear, but what he didn’t know was that Mr Marconi had been busy perfecting his radio machine, and the law was waiting for him on the other side. That was bum luck in anybody’s book. Since the invention of DNA profiling in the late 1980s cold cases are being resurrected almost every day. Old men, barely able to walk, are standing trial for rape, while others, now found to be innocent, are finding a kind of freedom.

I said: ‘Did your new knowledge of genetics help with your horse racing exploits?’

He looked uncomfortable, took a swing at the fly, then stood up to find a newspaper, which he fashioned into a fly swat. ‘Help with the horse racing?’ he repeated, giving himself time to think. ‘Is this what it’s all about? Are we talking about Peccadillo?’

‘I believe you had a share in him.’

‘Are you wearing your policeman’s hat, now, Charlie?’

‘I’m always wearing it, James. You’re under no obligation to answer my questions.’

‘But if I don’t you’ll invite me down to the station for an interview.’

‘I doubt if it will come to that. So did you?’

‘Yes, if you must know. I was a member of the syndicate. I fell for Threadneedle’s promises. I blamed my wife, Laura, but I was as enthusiastic as she was.’

‘What did a share cost?’

‘Fifteen thousand pounds, plus my share of vets’ fees, training fees, entry fees. It goes on and on.’

‘It was a drain on your income.’

‘You can say that again.’

‘But you were hoping to recover your money by winning races and putting the horse to stud, riding on the doubtful rumour that it was descended from the legendary Shergar.’

‘Got it in one, Charlie. Put nothing in writing, Threadneedle told us. Just show them the photos, mention Shergar, nudge nudge, wink wink, and let them know it came from Ireland. Leave the rest to their imaginations.’

‘Who’s us?’ I asked.

‘Me and Motty. He was sucked in, too. Threadneedle was his boss so the poor man didn’t have much choice. He put his life savings into it. I felt guilty about that, afterwards.’

‘Anybody else?’

‘Not that I know of. I didn’t sell any shares and I’m sure Motty didn’t. I think Threadneedle brought one or two of his cronies into the syndicate, but I don’t know who.’

‘Didn’t you have reports or a balance sheet? You sound to be very trusting.’

‘He was a smooth talker, Charlie, and events eventually overtook us.’

‘What events? What brought them about?’

‘I think you know the answer to that, Charlie. I think you’ve suspected all along. Toby brought them about, or her illness did. Ghislaine and I read everything we could about the complaint. It didn’t help Toby one iota, but I came away with a decent grounding in elementary genetics. Unfortunately for us some, veterinary students had taken samples from Shergar and his DNA is on record. There was talk of all thoroughbreds having to have passports. I realised then that there was no way we could pass Peccadillo off as a descendant of Shergar. I could run as fast as he could. He was a liability. This house was costing a fortune – I looked like losing it – and I didn’t know where to turn. I told Threadneedle about the passports and he said to leave it to him. I think he was attracting some heat from the other people he’d sold shares to. They wanted their money back and so did I. Next thing I knew, the stables had burnt down and Peccadillo was dead.’

‘Did the insurance pay out?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

The fly landed on the table in front of me. My hand came down like a striking cobra and squashed it flat. I brushed the corpse on to the floor. Curzon, lost in his own world, didn’t notice.

‘That just about coincides with what Motty told me,’ I said.

Curzon jerked himself awake, back to the here and now. ‘Motty?’ he echoed. ‘You’ve talked to Motty?’

‘As much as it’s possible to talk to him, yes. I’m going back there now, to get a final statement from him about the gun. That should wrap it up.’ I stood up and we shook hands. I asked him to say goodbye from me to his daughters and said I’d try to get over for the village fete in August, when his dolls’ houses would be launched. He walked me to the door but didn’t come outside. I strolled to the car, parked in the middle of nowhere, and took in my surroundings. The sun was dropping and flocks of swifts – I’d decided they were swifts – were screeching overhead, gorging themselves on the clouds of midges that towered into the sky. As I swung the car round I saw his face at the window, watching me leave.

Motty had been to one of the functions that pensioners fill their days with: dining club; bingo; card games or line dancing, so he was smartly dressed and alert. The evening was warm but the light was fading, so I accepted his invitation to step inside. Once again he was pleased to see me, and when we shook hands he clung to my fingers for a few seconds longer than I felt comfortable with. His bungalow was tiny, the living room just about big enough to qualify for that description, with a bedroom and galley kitchen visible through half-open doors. It must have been heartbreaking, moving here after all those years in the head lad’s cottage attached to the stables. But it was warm and comfortable, and monitored by a warden who lived nearby. No doubt other professional carers were on hand to help him through his declining years without having to bother the rest of us. I wondered how often the undertaker’s hearse visited the little precinct.

I did most of the talking. I told him that Threadneedle had kept the gun and his wife had found it. She’d probably shot him with it and her boyfriend had assisted her. Motty listened,
wide-eyed
, and nodded in appropriate places.

‘We’ve done some measuring,’ I told him, ‘and come to a conclusion. We’ve decided that you couldn’t have shot the horse by yourself, Motty. You’re just not tall enough.’ His dark complexion grew even blacker, and he sat there, nodding slowly, rocking backwards and forwards.

‘You had some help,’ I said.

‘Some help,’ he agreed.

‘Your loyalty to your employer is admirable, Motty,’ I told him, ‘but the time has come to tell the truth. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Tell truth,’ he replied.

‘I think the
meister
was there when Peccadillo was killed. Am I right?’

‘Aye,’ he confirmed, not looking at me.

‘The horse was standing up,’ I said. ‘You’d need some help to shoot it. Somebody to hold it steady while somebody else used the gun. You’re the expert,’ I told him. ‘You’re the horse whisperer. I suspect you held his head, calmed him down, while the
meister
pulled the trigger. Is that about how it happened?’

‘Aye.’

I stood up and walked over to the window. I’d led the witness, no doubt about it, but he was an honest man and I believed him. The lady who lived across the lawn was watering her pansies and Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’ could be heard faintly playing next door. A car drew up two doors away and a man and a small boy carrying a bunch of flowers got out, visiting grandma. I said: ‘I don’t suppose it matters now. You were the legal owners of the horse and you, Motty, were licensed to use the humane killer, so I don’t suppose the law was broken. The
meister
may have pulled the trigger but it was under your supervision. We’re checking if he made an insurance claim but if he did we think it was unsuccessful. As he’s dead now there’s not much point in pursuing it.’

I turned to face Motty, expecting him to be relieved that the case was as good as solved and he could go back to his memories, but his eyes were wide and his mouth hung open. ‘Who … dead?’ he asked. ‘Who dead?’

‘Threadneedle,’ I replied. ‘Arthur George. He’s dead. Have you forgotten?’

‘Not the
meister
,’ Motty came back at me. ‘Threadneedle … he not
meister
. He not … shoot. He not shoot.’

Now it was my turn to be shocked. ‘Threadneedle is not the
meister
?’ I echoed. ‘Is that what you’re saying? So who is? Tell me, Motty, tell me who was there when you killed Peccadillo. Tell me who pulled the trigger.’

It was nearly dark when I rang Gilbert to tell him that the cases were solved and his number one detective would probably call in sometime tomorrow morning. ‘I told you it was a private murder,’ he said, ‘and as for all this gallivanting off to East Yorkshire… just a waste of resources. Nothing much ever happens over there. It’s the sticks. Sleepyville. Get yourself back here and do some real detective work.’

After that I rang Phyllis Smith to book whatever she could rustle up at short notice, with a bed for the night, but she wasn’t answering her phone. I tried one of the Dunkley numbers but a woman with a can’t-be-bothered voice told me she had no vacancies and put the phone down on me. It looked like it would have to be a curry in Driffield and my cell at their nick. I’d driven away from Motty’s at Dunkley somewhat aimlessly and parked in my usual place, facing Curzon House. I don’t know why. It was one of those habit things. After a few visits we become possessive about seats in restaurants, or coat pegs, or urinals. I always use the second one from the left at Heckley nick; feel I’ve been cheated if someone beats me to it. So there I was, in the middle of an acre of block paving, while the night grew darker around me.