Cursed Inheritance (45 page)

‘On the contrary, what he told us was very interesting. He said you left the party immediately after your friend, Jocasta, saying that you intended to drive down to Devon right away. He reckons you left around eleven. He had the impression you were trying to avoid going home with Jocasta. He watched you from the window. He saw you get into your Mini and drive away. Why the crows, Arbel?’

She was staring at him, her eyes wide. Wesley found it impossible to read her expression.

Anthony Jameston stepped forward and put his face close to Gerry Heffernan’s. His breath smelled of mint. ‘This is outrageous, Chief Inspector. What you’re implying is nonsense. My wife has just been the victim of a dreadful crime.’ Jameston’s voice had become louder and he was bristling with indignation. ‘I’ve a good mind to put in a complaint to your superiors.’

‘You do that, sir.’ He turned to Arbel, who had just risen from her seat. ‘When you stabbed Emma Oldchester you didn’t finish the job, did you, Mrs Potts? Emma fought back. That’s how you came by those cuts and bruises, isn’t it? Dylan Madeley never tried to rape you, either yesterday or twenty years ago. It suited your purposes for him to be a likely suspect if your original plan failed, didn’t it?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Arbel muttered.

‘Dylan was weak and he was addicted to drugs but he was no rapist. And he didn’t have a particular grudge against your family, only against you for making false allegations that he couldn’t disprove. In fact, I’ve asked for his body to be tested for tranquillisers. I bet you gave him a

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massive dose - just like you gave Owen - the ones from her bathroom cupboard, were they? He was probably lying there all night before you decided to kill him, getting the timings right to fit in with your story. Ripping out the phone wires. Messing the place up.’

Arbel stared at him.

Wesley took over. ‘You might be interested to hear that Emma Oldchester saw a psychiatrist this morning and with his help she’s remembered everything about the night your family died.’

He watched her face for a reaction but saw none.

‘She saw Nigel Armley drag Victor Bleasdale into the hall and shoot him in the face. Was Bleasdale drugged? Is that how Armley was able to change his Clothes? Pity about the’ ring being on the wrong fmger. When Armley killed them all he was dressed in the gardener’S clothes. Whose idea was it to swap places with Victor Bleasdale to make everyone think he was dead?’

Arbel smiled. ‘Nigel and Vic were quite alike: Nigel must have decided to take on his identity. But I knew nothing about it.’

‘If Nigel took on Bleasdale’s identity it must have taken a lot of planning: the application for the job in Yorkshire for instance. Why Oristhorpe Hall? Is there any connection? We can fmd out.’

Arbel said nothing. She turned back to the mirror and carried on brushing her hair while Anthony looked on in horror, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

‘A witness up in North Yorkshire saw you with Nigel Armley.’

She snorted. ‘It was twenty years ago.’

Wesley didn’t argue. He didn’t want to mention that the witness who had seen Nigel Armley with the young, brown-haired woman who fitted Arbel’ s description - and that of a thousand other girls of her age - had been an old lady, lonely, anxious for company and anxious -to please. It was

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hardly evidence. And besides which, the witness was dead and couldn’t give evidence in any court. But Arbel wasn’t to know that.

‘Emma saw you nailing the crows to the door. Why did you do that?’

‘She’s imagining things. After all she’s been through she must be mentally unstable,’ Arbel said lazily, as though she was bored by the whole thing.

‘You couldn’t stick to the agreed plan, could you? You were supposed to stay the night in London but you couldn’t wait to see if everything had gone to plan. And you couldn’t resist the crows, could you? The old legend of the curse. A little theatrical touch. What did Nigel Armley think of that? Did you know his body has been found in the grounds of Potwoolstan Hall?’

There was no mistaking it. Arbel was genuinely surprised. ‘I heard something about a skeleton. What makes you think it’s Nigel?’

‘Dental records, medical records. It’s him all right.’

For the first time the cool mask slipped. Arbel looked stunned. If Wesley hadn’t been so certain that she had used Nigel to dispose of her family so that she would inherit the wealth of the Harfords, he might have believed in her innocence.

Wesley took a deep breath. ‘I think we should continue this down at the station.’ He spoke the familiar words of the caution but something told him this one wouldn’t be easy.

Hannah Gotleib had sent a photograph of herself by email, dressed in a check shirt tied at the waist and skimpy shorts, smiling as she stood astride a trench, brandishing a trowel. Neil handed it to Pam.

‘Couldn’t she find any longer shorts?’ Pam said, regretting the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. She sounded like a jealous bitch. .

But Neil hadn’t seemed to notice. He sat on the

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Petersons’ sofa, sipping from a mug of tea. ‘Has Wes had a chance to read those old records 1 lent him?’

<1 don’t know.’ She wandered over to the sideboard and picked up some photocopied sheets. ‘But 1 have.’

‘What’s your conclusion?’

‘That Penelope’s ambition and desire for status turned her into a ruthless, manipUlative killer. She got her brother-in-law to kill her husband - paying him in kind as it were - then she persuaded Edmund to get rid of him. Edmund had already killed: he’d raped and murdered a girl in Devon and let his father take the blame. That’s why he fled to Virginia. Penelope wanted him to return to Devon and dispose of his brother so he could inherit the estate but when he refused to go along with it, she poisoned him. She’d hit on a plan to marry Lord Coslake and make him president of the colony so she poisoned the old president and other members of the Council and got what she wanted.’

‘But not for long because she died in childbirth.’

Pam glanced at Amelia, who was attempting to crawl towards the fireplace. ‘She deserved to be hanged.’

‘They do say women are particularly hard on other women,’ Neil observed with a grin. ‘And she was an ancestor of mine, don’t forget.’

‘Well, none of us can choose our families, can we?’

Pam swung round to see Wesley standing in the doorway. She felt her face going red.

‘1 wasn’t expecting you home.’ She was aware she sounded guilty.

‘Obviously. Sorry to interrupt. 1 thought 1’d grab some lunch. We’ve made an arrest in the Patrick Evans case.’

‘Who?’

‘Arbel Harford. She persuaded her sister’s fiance to kill her family so that she could inherit everything.’

Pam’s mouth fell open. ‘The mercenary bitch.’

‘1 don’t think she did it just for the money. Something Jocasta Mylcomb said about her relationship with her

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family bothered me. Apparently, her brother, Jack Harford, had taken great delight in telling her that she was adopted. She probably never felt she really belonged and when she was sent away to school she interpreted it as a rejection. It must have eaten away at her until … ‘

‘Have you arrested the bloke?’ Neil asked.

‘I’d have a job. She killed him after he’d outlived his usefulness. ‘

‘The female of the species is deadlier than the male,’ observed Neil, giving Pam a meaningful look.

Wesley looked at his watch. ‘I’ll grab something to eat and I’ll be going. Might be late tonight.’

‘So what’s new?’ Pam muttered under her breath.

Wesley picked Amelia up and cuddled her, kissing the top of her head. He hesitated, as though reluctant to go. Then he placed her gently on the sofa beside her mother, who glanced up at him resentfully.

When the front door had closed Pam went upstairs with Amelia, sending the papers flying on to the floor as she left. The baby was tired and she hardly complained at being put down in her cot. Once her daughter was settled, Pam hurried downstairs. When she entered the living room Neil was squatting on the floor, picking up the photocopied sheets, trying to get them into some sort of order. Pam knelt down to help him and they reached for the same sheet of paper, their hands meeting. Neither made an effort to pull away.

‘I missed you when you were in the States.’

Neil didn’t answer. He leaned towards her and she stayed quite still. Then he kissed her, first tentatively on the cheek, then on the lips, gently, slowly.

‘I think you’d better go,’ she whispered.

Neil Watson didn’t move for a moment. Then he stood up.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly before taking his leave.

‘Prove it,’ was Arbel Jameston’s only answer to their accusations.

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‘I must say, Inspector, your evidence is purely circum-stantial.’ The solicitor from London spoke with a lazy drawl, as though the whole process was boring him. But Wesley suspected he was as sharp as his pinstriped suit. ‘And the testimony of this…’ He consulted a sheet of paper. ‘Emma Oldchester would never stand up in court. It could be pure fantasy. There have been many recorded cases of false recovered memory, particularly in abuse cases. And. this case…’

Gerry Heffeman glanced at the whirling tape machine and leaned forward. ‘You might be interested to know that the postmortem on Dylan Madeley showed up something interesting. Your statement says he hit his head on the hearth but the pathologist thinks his injuries were caused by a blunt instrument of some kind. And he’d taken enough tranquillisers to floor an elephant.’

‘The pathologist is wrong. I’ll demand a second postmortem. And of course there were drugs in his system. He was an addict. He’d take anything he could lay his hands on.’

‘You had plenty of time to arrange the scene and destroy evidence before we arrived. Was he lying there unconscious while you drove to Neston to stab Emma Oldchester? Or did he arrive at the cottage later?’

‘This is outrageous,’ interrupted the solicitor. Heffeman ignored him.

‘I must say you put on a good act. All that hysteria. It was a bit out of character though. When you found your family slaughtered, reports say that you were remarkably calm. Did Dylan suspect you’d killed his sister? Is that why he came calling?’

‘I told you. He wanted money for drugs and he attacked me.’

‘I thought he tried to rape you,’ Heffeman said.

‘Look, I was the victim. I have the cuts and bruises to prove it.’

Heffeman shook his head. ‘I’m told Emma put up quite

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a fight. You told us some porkies, didn’t you, love? You said Gwen Madeley had been the one who was having it off with Nigel Armley in the potting shed. But it was the other way round, wasn’t it? She saw you. And you had to make sure she didn’t tell. She knew what really happened, didn’t she? She was at the crime scene before the police. Did she just wander in on it or did you and Nigel let her in? Did you know she’d painted what she saw? She knew what you were, didn’t she, Arbel? She knew the truth. That’s why you killed her.’

Wesley looked Arbel in the eye. A two-pronged attack. ‘It must have been a terrible shock to you when you found out that Patrick Evans was writing a book about the case. Did he tell you what he’d discovered when you met him?’

She pressed her lips together then she looked at her solicitor, who shifted uncomfortably.

Wesley repeated the question. ‘Did Patrick Evans tell you what he’d discovered? You did meet him, didn’t you?’

She took a deep breath. ‘OK, I met him. He said he knew Martha Wallace was innocent. He’d been up to Yorkshire to find Bleasdale and suspected something was wrong. He even found out I had a link with Gristhorpe Hall: I was at school with Sophie Pickrington, the Earl of Pickrington’s daughter. ‘

‘Is that how you found out they had a vacancy for a gardener?’

She smiled. ‘Sophie’s favourite bedtime reading was Lady Chatterley’s Lover. She kept saying she hoped they’d get someone gorgeous. I think his Lordship’s other gardeners were a bit of a disappointment.’

‘So Evans was getting close?’

‘He kept visiting Gwen, trying to wheedle things out of her. But she told him nothing.’

‘And you had to make sure she never talked, so you killed her.’

‘Nonsense. ‘

‘Evans told you what he knew. He was very thorough.

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He even tried to find the boy you were with on the evening of the massacre, something the police never thought of. If Gregory Parkes had been interviewed they’d have found that his story didn’t match the one you told at the time. If Gwen had told Evans what she knew … ‘

‘Gwen wouldn’t have talked to Evans.’

‘No, she probably wouldn’t. She had her own agenda, didn’t she? Her own interests to protect. She was blackmailing you, wasn’t she?’ said Wesley, watching her eyes.

‘Of course not.’

‘Then why did you deposit large amounts of money in her bank account? And, if you were such bosom pals, how come she never mentioned you were coming to stay to any of her colleagues at the Hall? And I’ve checked Gwen’s will. You’re not her executor at all: Dylan was, blood being thicker than water, so they say. Gwen’s solicitor said Dylan had been disinherited by their parents and Gwen felt bad about it and tried to do her best for him. She kept trying to give him a.new start but he kept blowing it, His addiction was stronger than he was. And I don’t suppose you helped the situation by making poisonous accusations. There was no reason for you to stay in that cottage and go through her things. You were looking for anything that might incriminate you. Did she tell you she’d kept evidence of your involvement?’

There was no answer.

‘If I could have a word with my client … ‘ the solicitor said warily.

Wesley kept his eyes on Arbel. ‘You killed Patrick Evans. You searched his hotel room and took his files and notes on the case. I presume you’ve destroyed them. Then you killed Gwen.’ It was a simple statement rather than a question. ‘You were in Devon last weekend. Your husband was at the Hall and he thought you were still in London. But you arranged to meet Evans at Gwen’s cottage.’