Cursed Inheritance (38 page)

‘Max went off and Gran never saw him again and Ted, my real granddad,- picked up the pieces. Can’t have been easy for him, bringing up another man’s kid in those days. I know it happens all the time nowadays but … ‘ His voice trailed off and he sat in silence. ‘I got so carried away with meeting my biological grandfather that I forgot about how Ted must have felt. I’m just glad he never knew. ‘

Wesley didn’t really know what to say. Neil had never talked this way before and he had never seen him so subdued.

‘If Max was a Selbiwood, that means you have a family connection with Potwoolstan Hall.’

‘I suppose I have.’ He didn’t sound too pleased about the idea. ;. ˇ

Wesley suddenly remembered something that had been nagging at the back of his mind, something he’d intended

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to tell Neil but had forgotten all about till that moment. ‘There’s an old portrait of two men in Jacobean costume in the owner’s office at Potwoolstan Hall. Exactly the right date for your Edmund Selbiwood. It might be worth looking at.’

Before Neil could answer, Pam entered the room bearing a tray. On it were not only the wine and glasses but an assortment of biscuits and savoury snacks. Neil’s absence had transformed him from a friend who dropped in frequently to honoured guest. This was Pam’s version of killing a fatted calf.

‘So what are these documents you’ve found,’ Pam said as she sat down.

‘Edmund Selbiwood, - Max’s ancestor, met a woman called Penelope who was married to another settler called Joshua Morton. She went over on the Nicholas with her husband and his brother, Isaac.’

‘Women went over?’ Pam sounded surprised.

‘On some expeditions, yes. The aim was to set up a colony, I suppose. Sir WaIter Raleigh set one up on Roanoke Island in the late sixteenth century. The first baby to be born in the New World to English parents was born there in 1587 but three years later all the settlers vanished and nobody knew why.’

‘Penelope must have had guts, sailing into the unknown like that,’ Pam said admiringly.

‘She had guts all right. She started an affair with Edmund Selbiwood - probably knew he came from a rich family. Then Joshua Morton was shot by his brother, Isaac, who claimed it was an accident. Then it appears that Isaac shot himself out of remorse. But I kept asking myself whether Penelope knew how to handle a musket.’

‘You should have my job,’ Wesley said. ‘What happened to her?’

‘She married and had a son who seems to be an ancestor of mine. She was a social climber and she kept trying to persuade Edmund to go home and claim his inheritance.

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Or, failing that, to get on the ruling council of the colony.’

‘An ancestor of yours?’ Pam looked puzzled and Neil felt

obliged to give her a brief summary of the facts.

‘Oh,’ was the only thing Pam could think of to say as she . poured the wine. Neil didn’t sound too pleased about the

discovery of his long-lost family. Quite the reverse.

Neil took a long drink of wine. ‘Hannah gave me some

other records. I’ll leave them with you and let you read them

for yourself. No reason to spoil a nice evening. Cheers.’

Neil didn’t mention Virginia again, except to say that he

planned to email Hannah Gotleib the next day. He only

drank one glass of wine and left at nine thirty, pleading

tiredness and a need to get back to Exeter.

When Pam went to bed, Wesley stayed downstairs to

study Neil’s photocopied sheets. He sensed that something

Neil had discovered in Virginia had disturbed him. And he

wanted to know what that something was.

He began to look tI:u”ough the documents, stopping only

when his eyes began to ache. Then he read some sections

again, with dawning understanding, before placing them

carefully on the sideboard.

Pam called down to him but he told her he’d be another

ten minutes. This was the first time that day he’d found

himself alone. And he wanted some time to think.ˇ

He shuffled out into the hall and picked up his briefcase.

He took out the crime scene photographs of the massacre

and spread them on the coffee table. Something was bothering him, some tiny detail he must have noticed

subconsciously but hadn’t yet been able to bring to the

surface. He stared at the brutal images for a while before

he realised what it was. There was something he wanted to

check and he had to go back to the station to do it.

When he reached the front door he hesitated, wondering

whether to tell Pam he was going out. But he decided

against it. He wouldn’t be long. And the last thing he

wanted was a row.

He drove down to the police station. The place looked

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different at night: the windows had become rectangles of white fluorescent light and the car park was bathed in the sickly yellow glow of the street lights. After pulling up in his usual parking space, he rushed to the door, where he pushed the button and answered the duty desk sergeant’s disembodied voice. The door was unlocked automatically and he hurried in, suddenly aware that he was dressed in jeans and T-shirt rather than his smarter working clothes. The desk sergeant looked him up and down. He was a thin man with hair to match, quite unlike the large, bearded Bob Naseby who usually held the fort.

‘This is a bit beyond the call of duty isn’t it, Inspector,’ the man said slowly. ‘Doing a bit of overtime, are we?’ .

Wesley smiled. He thought it was expected of him. ‘There’s something I have to check in the CID office. I’ll be five minutes.’ He didn’t want to hang round and exchange pleasantries so he rushed up the stairs. A couple of cleaners looked up, startled as he muttered an apology and switched on the main light.

He made straight for Owen Madeley’s portraits of Nigel Armley and Dylan Madeley and stared at them for a while, aware that the cleaners had stopped work and were watching him, curious.

He drew one of the crime scene photographs from the pocket of his jacket and looked at it, then at the portraits. Then he spun round to face the cleaners and smiled. ‘Thank you, ladies.’ One gave an embarrassed giggle.

He gave the desk sergeant a cheery wave as he left the station and he drove home, avoiding the merrymakers recently ejected from Tradmouth’s many pubs. He almost felt like joining them. But he still had to be sure.

When he crept back into the house, all was silent. Pam must be asleep - or pretending to be. But Wesley was wide awake now. He took off his jacket and flung it over the banisters before turning his attention once more to Neil’s documents.

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Account of Captain Ralph Radford, President of the

Council, set down at Annetown, December 1605

Mistress Selbiwood, who was Mistress Morton

before her late husband’s untimely death, hath

offended much my goodwife who doth complain of her

arrogant manner. She hath airs above her station and

liketh not the harsh life here now that we have not

found the gold and wealth her late husband and his

late brother did expect.

Mistress Selbiwood’s new husband is elected to the

Council, though he would not be of my choosing. It

seems he doth not conduct himself with the.devotion of

a bridegroom even though his new wife is with child.

Rather I came upon them and heard them quarrel, they

being quite unaware of my presence. The quarrel

became so violent that I feared for the lady’s safety. If

her husband treats her roughly it may be that I should

offer her my protection for she is defenceless in this

strange land.

Wesley bounded into Gerry Heffeman’s office and placed a photograph on his desk beside one of Gwen Madeley’s -portraits. ‘Have a look at those. Tell me what you see.’

Heffeman looked puzzled. ‘What should I see?’

‘I’ve been wondering why Nigel Armley was the only

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one to be killed with a shotgun. Why use two weapons?’

‘Martha Wallace didn’t know how to reload the rifle and hedged her bets.’

‘But the rifle took ten bullets - more than enough.’

‘Perhaps she didn’t trust her aim.’

‘If she’d managed to load it once she could do so again. What if the shotgun was used because it could make a body unrecognisable. What if it wasn’t Nigel Armley who died but the killer wanted us to think it was.’

‘So who was it?’

‘Victor Bleasdale. He was the same physical type as Armley. Armley applied for the job up in Yorkshire and took his place. The gardener up there said he was useless at the job. The real Bleasdale had been head gardener down here and there’ d been no complaints about his work.’

‘Maybe the Harfords gave him glowing references because they wanted to get shut of him. I’ve heard of that happening plenty of times. There was this DC over in Neston…’

But Wesley wasn’t listening. ‘Have a close look at the hands in both pictures. What do you see?’

Heffeman screwed up his eyes and looked from one picture to the other. ‘The rings. He’s wearing a ring on his middle fmger in the painting and it’s on his little finger in the photo. Maybe he’d put on weight. Or his fmgers had swelled for some reason.’

‘Or it’s a different man. We should run further checks on every man involved. in this case as a matter of urgency. Starting with Jeremy Elsham.’ He picked up the photograph of Armley in his naval uniform. ‘He’ll have changed in twenty years: he could even have undergone plastic surgery.’

Heffeman grinned. ‘Don’t you think we’re getting into the realms of fantasy here, Wes?’ Heffeman picked up the picture. ‘1 suppose it could be Elsham. Different nose, grey hair, bit of work on the chin. Did Armley have any family?’

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‘I’ve checked. He was an only child and his parents had died in a boating accident when he was in his late teens. I’d like to check on that accident. If a man can murder all those people then he could easily bump off his mum and dad to get his hands on his inheritance.’

Heffeman scratched his head. ‘This is all speculation, Wes. We’ve no proof. And if your theory’s right, how did Armley get Bleasdale to put on his clothes?’

Wesley didn’t have an answer for that one. Perhaps Heffeman was right. Perhaps he had let his imagination run away with him. Perhaps there was some perfectly reasonable explanation for why Armley wore a signet ring on’his middle finger in Gwen Madeley’s portrait and on his little fmger on the night he died. But he was sure he was on to something.

They’d told Jocasta Mylcomb they’d be there by eleven. It was just over the border, not far from the River Tamar, and Wesley found himself wondering why, if Arhel had kept in touch with Gwen Madeley, she hadn’t kept in touch with Jocasta, who didn’t live that much further away. Jocasta had been at boarding school with her and, presumably, had come from a wealthy family; a far more. advantageous contact for a woman married to a Member of Parliament. But then perhaps they had lost touch through sheer laziness and the swift passage of time rather than through any hostility. It had happened to Wesley himself so many times. In fact when he worked in London, he had almost lost touch with Neil.

According to Jocasta’s local police station, she lived at Monkey Puzzle Cottage in Trecowan, a village of approxi-mately three thousand souls, about two miles from the coast between Plymouth and Looe. The name was pretty but the reality was a run-down dump with dirty-grey pebbledashed walls stained with green mould and a rusting caravan in the overgrown front garden. Not a monkey puzzle tree in sight and hardly what they’d expected of an old school friend of Arhel Harford’s.

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As they parked outside, a large brown dog of very mixed ancestry bounded round the side of the cottage barking loudly. It didn’t sound friendly. The beast was followed closely by a middle-aged woman with long, greying hair who wore baggy black trousers and’ a pale blue sweatshirt that had seen better days. She had a turned-up nose, an unhealthy pallid complexion and her movements were slow’ and deliberate.

‘Looks like the sun passed over the yardarm early this morning,’ Heffernan whispered.

Wesley stared at her. Gerry Heffernan was obviously better at recognising’ the signs than he was.

‘Rascal,’ she shouted to the dog. ‘Come here, you bugger.’ Her voice was well bred but slightly slurred.

The dog obeyed reluctantly.

Wesley got out of the car. ‘We’re looking for Jocasta Mylcomb.’

‘You’ve found her. You the policemen from Tradmouth?’

Wesley and Heffernan stood for a moment. Jocasta Mylcomb wasn’t what they’d expected. She looked considerably older than her schoolfriend, Arbel Jameston, for a start.

She led the way into the cottage. Wesley sniffed. The place smelled of animals, alcohol and decay. A mess of old newspapers and off-licence carrier bags littered every surface.

‘Drink?’

‘Not for me, thanks,’ Wesley said quickly.

‘Or me,’ Heffernan echoed.

‘Suit yourselves.’ She picked up a bottle of vodka and poured a large measure into a dirty glass. ‘Sit down. Don’t make the place look more untidy than it already is.’ She spoke tersely, like someone who’d forgotten the social niceties she’d once learned - or just didn’t care any more. ‘You wanted to talk about Arbel?’

‘That’s right,’ said Heffernan. ‘She’s had a bit of a bad

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time recently. A friend of hers was killed. Have you ever met Gwen Madeley?’

‘Arbel and I don’t mix in the same circles any more,’ she replied bitterly.

‘Perhaps Arbel mentioned her when you were at school together? She’d known her since they were small.’

Again Jocasta shook her head. ‘Can’t say I recall the name. ‘

Wesley knew this wasn’t going to be easy. ‘Your name was on a list of people a man called Patrick Evans wanted to talk to about the murders of Arbel’s family. Did Mr Evans contact you?’