Cursed Inheritance (20 page)

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The two men strolled slowly up the short path to the front door. The tiny garden was paved over, not a budding flower in sight. Perhaps Gwen Madeley was no gardener, which was something Wesley could sympathise with. Sometimes a few slabs of concrete are the only solution.

Wesley pressed the doorbell but the sound of the bell ringing inside the cottage was followed by silence.

‘Looks like she’s out.’ Heffeman began to stroll back to the car.

Wesley walked round to the back of the house, shielding his eyes and staring into the windows. But he saw no sign of life.

The back garden was more of a courtyard, paved over like the front. At the back stood a wooden outbuilding that resembled an over-large garden shed. Wesley peeped in the large picture window and saw that it was an artist’s studio: Gwen Madeley’s place of work.

Wesley studied the cottage, looking for any telltale move-mentin the upstairs windows. He tried the handle of the back porch and when the door swung open, he stepped back in surprise. He was more surprised when he found the inner door unlocked and thought it strange that Gwen Madeley was so cavalier with her home security. As he hesitated on the threshold, he felt a knot of dread in the pit of his stomach.

Welsey decided to return to the car to report his findings and he found the chief inspector slumped in the passenger seat listening to a discussion about Liverpool’s prospects in the football league on the car radio. ‘She’ll have gone out and forgotten to lock up, Wes,’ he announced with authority. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘But Anthony Jamesion said she’d talked to Patrick Evans. And Evans is dead.’

Reluctantly, Heffeman switched off the radio and heaved himself out of the car, saying that he supposed it would do no harm to check, just in case. But if he shared Westey’s misgivings, he hid it well. He was going along to humour his over-anxious colleague, like a parent checking under-144

neath a child’s bed to make sure there were no monsters lurking there.

When the two men reached the back porch, Wesley drew a pair of plastic gloves from his pocket and pulled them on before opening the door. Heffernan rolled his eyes and followed him over the threshold. Once they were inside, Wesley stopped and the chief inspector almost collided with him.

Wesley looked around, noting every detail of the low-beamed, open-plan room with its inglenook fireplace at one end and its shabby rustic pine kitchen at the other. The place was clean and tidy but a pine dining chair lay on its side next to a smashed white mug with brown liquid oozing from its base. He bent down to examine it. Judging by the state of the cottage, Gwen Madeley was house proud. Surely she would have cleaned up the mess. Unless something had stopped her.

Upstairs, there were two bedrooms and a small, neat bathroom with clean, white-tiled walls. The smaller of the bedrooms contained a double bed, a chest of drawers and wardrobe but no visible detritus of habitation: a guest room. The bed was freshly made up with a blue and white gingham qUilt and there was a vase of fresh daffodils on the windowsill.

The second, slightly larger, bedroom was obviously Gwen’s own. The door of a large stripped pine wardrobe stood slightly ajar to reveal a colourful collection of clothes, floaty floral prints mainly. An array of bottles and lotions stood on the antique dressing table, arranged with neat preci-sion in order of size. Bright beads hung from the mir:ror and a trio of old flower prints hung on the wall above the bed. It was a pretty room, a feminine room. And Wesley found himself wondering whether there was a man in Gwen Madeley’s life. Apart from Anthony Jameston, that is.

‘Nothing up here,’ Heffeman said, making his way down the stairs. ‘What about the shed at the back?’

‘Studio,’ Wesley corrected. ‘She’s an artist.’

Heffeman grunted.

‘I looked through the window. No sign of her.’

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They trailed across the back garden and Wesley tried the studio door. It was firmly locked.

Unexpectedly, Heffernan produced what looked like a set of keys from his pocket: or rather a set of long thin metal instruments of varying shapes and sizes. Wesley recognised them at once.

‘Where did you get those?’

‘From a burglar I arrested once. I said I’d look after them for him till he finished doing time. Funny how he never came and asked for them back.’ He grinned and began to work away at the lock on the studio door, trying one after the other, jiggling the metal in the lock until it turned with a satisfying click.

‘You’ve missed your vocation, Gerry,’ Wesley said as the studio door swung open.

They stepped into the spartan, whitewashed space, well lit by a skylight and the large window that faced out on to the courtyard. There was a portable Calor Gas heater in the corner beside a paint-stained steel sink. Canvases, both finished and bare, were propped up against the walls.

A fmished canvas stood on an easel in the centre of the room. The style was Impressionist, with bold brush strokes and indistinct images. The two policemen recognised the subject immediately - Jeremy Elsham seated on his black leather executive chair like a king upon a throne. Gwen worked at the Hall and the intimate style of the painting suggested that she knew Elsham well. She had captured the essence of the man.

Wesley wandered over to a large cupboard. It was locked but the chief inspector obliged with his skeleton keys. There were more Canvases stacked inside. Wesley drew one out and his stomach lurched with shock. It was a vivid image of a woman slumped across what looked like a kitchen table, surrounded by the detritus of food prepara-tion; broken eggs, flour, baking trays and wooden spatulas. Her face was turned sideways and her eyes were wide open but they were dead eyes; eyes that no longer saw. The large

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scarlet wound on the woman’s white throat had been lovingly depicted in various shades of red oils and a long black object lay on the table by her hand. A rifle.

It was an image he’d seen before in the scene of crime photographs from Potwoolstan Hall. This was Martha Wallace … dead. He glanced at the others. More portraits of the dead, the most horrific being the depiction of Nigel Armley, the Harfords’ elder daughter’s fiance, whose face had been blasted away with the shotgun.

Wesley was just about to hand them to Heffernan when he heard a voice.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Wesley swung round to face Anthony Jameston, who had the grace to blush. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, I didn’t know it was you.’

Heffernan shielded Wesley from view as he pushed the pictures quickly back into the cupboard and shut the door.

‘Where’s Ms Madeley?’

Heffernan opened his mouth then closed it again, lost for excuses.

Wesley came to the rescue. ‘We found her door unlocked. We were concerned so we thought we’d better have a look round.’

The. woman standing behind Anthony Jameston stepped forward. She was probably around forty; slim with brown hair swept back off her long face in a neat ponytail. She wore an expensive leather coat over jeans and a cashmere jumper which matched her watchful blue eyes. She had aged about twenty years but Wesley still recognised her from photographs. The doe-eyed vulnerability he had noted in those old images hadn’t diminished with the years.

‘This is my wife, Arbel,’ Jameston said, rather formally. ‘We’ve come to see Ms Madeley. She’s not at the Hall so we thought we’d find her here.’

Wesley shook Arbel’s hand. It was soft and warm .and her grip was firm. ‘You and Ms Madeley are old friends, I believe?’

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‘That’s right. I’m supposed to be staying with her for a few days.’ Arbel looked anxious, as though she sensed . something was wrong.

Wesley hesitated, wondering how to phrase the next question. T.his woman had lost her entire family under bizarre and tragic circumstances and he didn’t want her to catch sight of the gruesome pictures in the cupboard. He wondered why Owen Madeley had painted them in such bloodthirsty detail.

‘I’m sorry to resurrect painful memories, Mrs Jameston, but we’re investigating the death of a man called Patrick Evans. He was writing a book about the murder of your family. Your husband met him, I believe. And I’m told that he talked to Ms Madeley.’

Anthony Jameston stepped in, the protective husband. ‘I really don’t think we should be raking this up again, Inspector. ‘

But Arbel interrupted, placing a firm hand on her husband’s arm. ‘The police have a job to do, Tony. Patrick Evans wanted to see me but Tony put him off. I’m quite willing to help the police but talking to someone who wants to rake up the whole thing again to make money is a different matter. I didn’t want to see Evans and I never met him. End of story.’ The uncertainty in her eyes didn’t match the confidence in her voice.

‘Did your friend, Owen, mention his visit?’

‘No. She probably didn’t want to upset me.’ The confident mask slipped and her voice wavered a little.

‘Have you any idea where Ms Madeley might be?’

‘I expected her to be here. Is her car in the garage?’

Wesley glanced at Heffernan. They hadn’t thought to look.

The garage was a rickety wooden structure, about ten yards away from the cottage, standing next to the entrance to a field. Wesley left the studio, leaving the boss to lock it up, hoping the Jamestons wouldn’t notice his unorthodox set of keys.

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There was a dusty window in the side wall of the garage and it didn’t take long to discover that it was empty. Wherever Gwen Madeley had gone, she had gone there in her car.

The Jamestons had followed him out to the garage and were standing there expectantly, awaiting the verdict.

When he said the car was gone, Arbel looked relieved. ‘She’s probably gone shopping. Anthony insists on finishing his course of therapy up at the Hall.’ She didn’t sound pleased about her husband’s stubbornness. ‘But I couldn’t bring myself to stay there so Gwen offered me a bed.’ She looked Wesley in the eye. ‘You’ve got to understand, Inspector Peterson, that my husband needs privacy and … ‘

‘You must be upset by the recent press intrusion.’

She pressed her lips together and didn’t answer.

‘I understand, Mrs Jameston, I really do,’ he said with unfeigned sympathy. Nobody who had lost her family like Arbel Harford had could come out unscarred by the tragedy. For all her apparent self-possession she must live with demons.

‘Is it all right if I take my things into the cottage? I’m sure Gwen will be back soon.’

Heffernan spoke. ‘We had a look in there, love. There’s a mug smashed on the floor and … ‘

Arbel looked worried.

‘Perhaps she had to go out in a hurry and didn’t have a chance to clear up,’ said Wesley. He looked at Gerry Heffernan, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his large shoulders.

Arbel put a hand on Wesley’s arm, her touch gossamer light. He noticed her hands were small and pale and she wore three rings set with large diamonds that seemed too heavy for her slender fingers. ‘Would you like me to look round to see if Gwen’s left any hint of where she might have gone or … ?’

‘Thank you. That would be helpful.’

As they walked back towards the cottage, Wesley noted the new black Mercedes convertible parked outside. Arbel’s

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presumably. And there was a small car parked behind it, a little red Fiat with the driver still behind the wheel. As soon as they came into view, the driver of the Fiat emerged from the car and Wesley recognised her immediately.

Serena Jones almost ran over to them, small tape recorder in hand and eager as a hound on the scent. ‘Mr and Mrs Jameston. Could 1 have a quick word … 1’

But Gerry Heffeman had other ideas. ‘Look, love, why don’t you leave these people alone?’

Serena ignored him. ‘Just a quick statement, Mrs Jameston. Did you meet the murdered man? Did you meet Patrick Evans?’

Arbel Jameston hurried away, her eyes fixed ahead. Anthony Jameston’s face was like thunder as he linked his arm through his wife’s. It was a protective gesture. Wesley found himself wondering whether the pair had children. Somehow he thought not.

Wesley left the chief inspector to deal with Serena. He would soon get rid of her. There were times when Wesley wished he possessed Heffeman’s bluntness.

He followed the Jamestons into the cottage. ‘Sorry about that. It must make it very difficult for you.’

‘You can say that again,’ Arbel said. ‘Tony’s been under a lot of stress recently. There’s that immigration enquiry and … The last thing we needed was this Evans business. ‘

‘I understand,’ Wesley said, wondering how Arbel really felt about her husband’s choice of bolt hole. And how Jameston had felt when he had to tell her where he was.

‘They’ll lose interest soon,’ Jameston said confidently, sounding as though he believed it.

Wesley hoped he was right but he suspected that a juicy story like a Member of Parliament using a false name and turning up at the very place his wife’s family had been murdered had a lot more mileage in it yet.

He looked at Arbel. ‘If Ms Madeley doesn’t turn up by tonight, where will you stay?’

‘I’m sure she’ll turn up soon.’ She suddenly looked

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worried. ‘I booked into a hotel last night so I could always stay there.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps I’d better take her spare keys, just in case there’s a problem. I noticed them hanging in the kitchen. But I should stay around: if Gwen comes back and I’m not here … ‘ She hesitated. ‘Tony wanted me to stay at the Hall. He reckoned it would do me good to lay a few ghosts but I couldn’t face…’ A spasm of pain passed across her face.

Looking around Gwen Madeley’s cottage for the second time, Wesley began to notice things that had eluded him on his first inspection: fresh flowers in the vases; the bright postcards pinned to the fridge with twee magnets. Wandering through into the kitchen area he noticed that a huge steel pan - the type used in restaurant kitchens - stood on the worktop. Arbel, standing behind him, saw him looking at it.