Who Saw Him Die? (16 page)

Jack strode masterfully through the conservatory. Felicity, too anxious to think of obeying him, stood hovering. He unbolted and flung open the garden door. Standing with his back to the light, he bellowed into the gathering mist.

‘Who's there? What the hell do you think you're doing?'

Felicity Goodrum watched as the reply came roaring at her husband out of the darkness, and blew away his head.

From the extent of the wounds in the dead man's head and the diameter of spread of the pellets in his neck and shoulders, a forensic expert estimated that the shotgun had been fired at a range of not more than eight yards.

The incidental damage caused by the shot was extensive. Some pellets had bypassed their target and cut a swathe through the camellias. Some had shredded the bamboo furniture. Some, having ricocheted off the cast-iron pillars of the conservatory, had smashed glass. Mrs Goodrum, who had been standing in the doorway that led into the house, had sustained cuts from flying glass and flesh wounds from stray pellets.

She had also been hit by debris from her husband's skull. Fragments of scalp and flesh and bone and brain had been blown all over the conservatory. The budding camellia trees that had escaped destruction appeared to have burst into unusually early crimson blossom.

Splattered with blood, not all of it her own, Felicity Goodrum had turned and ran. Too shocked to use the telephone, or to close the front door of The Mount behind her, she had staggered down the drive moaning, her arms outstretched in a plea for help.

She was incapable of thought. The fact that there was a gunman out there in the dark garden, and that he might be waiting to kill her, never entered her mind. What she feared – what she was running from – was the scene in the conservatory … Her husband lying on his back on the tiled floor, with blood gurgling out of what remained of his head. The horror that dripped from the camellias.

In the dank grey first light of Sunday November 23rd, a team of policemen began searching the walled garden of the Goodrums' Georgian house.

Chief Inspector Quantrill, on the advice of the forensic expert, established the approximate spot where the gunman must have been standing. It was on a slope, slightly above and directly overlooking the garden door of the conservatory. The slope had been made into a rockery, brightened at this time of the year by winter-flowering ericas, and the gunman had stood on a partly paved, partly gravelled path that traversed the rockery. His probable firing position was marked by some scuffed gravel, but the daylight failed to reveal any identifiable footprints, either there or elsewhere.

‘He must have known the layout of the garden,' said Quantrill, pausing on his way back to the house to survey the rockery from the paved terrace outside the conservatory. ‘He'd picked his spot in advance, there's no doubt about that. If he hadn't, he couldn't have made his way there in the dark without first treading on a flowerbed and providing us with a footprint. So we're after somebody who's been here before – though not necessarily by invitation.'

‘I suppose you mean last week's burglar,' accepted Sergeant Lloyd. She turned away from the garden and went back – though not by way of the conservatory – to the room they were temporarily using as an office. She felt unusually despondent: it was vexing enough that she had failed as yet to catch the burglar, without having on her conscience the possibility that he had used the stolen gun to commit murder. And whatever Jack Goodrum's past crimes – himself a murderer, even? – Hilary was saddened that his death had put an end to what had so evidently been a happy middle-aged marriage.

‘No need to jump to the conclusion that Goodrum was killed with his own gun,' Quantrill protested as he followed her. ‘Good grief, there're enough shotguns in Suffolk to provide one for every third household in the county – and that's only the legally owned ones! If the fellow who stole the gun last week had wanted to kill Jack Goodrum with it, he could have hung about and done it later that evening. Couldn't he?'

‘Not if he was doing the burglary – getting hold of the gun – on behalf of somebody else …'

Quantrill had never before seen Hilary so downcast. She was tired, of course; they'd both been working at the murder scene until the early hours, and had returned after only a brief snatch of sleep. And then, too, she must have been distressed – though she'd been too professional to do more than close her eyes tightly for a few moments and gulp – by the sights and smells in the conservatory. Longing but knowing better than to offer her a shoulder to lean on, he wondered for a moment whether he could get away with some minor physical contact, like putting a sympathetic hand on hers. But he decided not to risk it.

‘Look,' he said vigorously, instead: ‘Jack Goodrum's stolen gun was a 12-bore, we know that. But there's a wide variation in shotgun calibre: four-ten, 28, 20, 16 – even 10 and 8, as well as 12. So the chances are that he was shot with a gun of a different bore, anyway. And if the searchers can find the spent cartridge case, that'll prove it.'

Some minutes later, a message came from the garden that the cartridge case had indeed been found. It was an Eley GP 12-bore.

‘Proves nothing!' asserted Quantrill briskly. They had just been informed that the mobile police canteen had arrived at The Mount, and he was looking forward to biting into a bacon roll. ‘Unless we can recover Goodrum's stolen shotgun and send it to the forensic lab for a test firing, a cartridge case proves nothing either way.'

‘It begins to look significant, though, doesn't it?' Hilary had been making use of the Goodrum's downstairs cloakroom to rinse the persistent abattoir-taste of the conservatory out of her mouth, and now she was beginning to feel more detached and positive. A mug of coffee – even canteen coffee – and a couple of Anadin, and she'd be back to normal.

‘The shotgun was stolen on Saturday 15th,' she went on. ‘And we know now that the burglary took place just after enquiries had been made in the town about where Jack Goodrum lived.'

Information had started to come in as soon as the news of the murder had percolated through Breckham Market the previous evening. Jack Goodrum had not been a customer of any of the town's pubs, but as a rich newcomer he was known by name and sight by many more people than he knew. When one of the barmaids at the Coney and Thistle heard about the murder, she had told the landlord – who had immediately telephoned the police – that a stranger who had called in for a drink during the previous week had asked where he could find Mr Goodrum.

A second report had just come in. A detective making enquiries in Mount Street had called at the home of the owner of the principal newsagent's shop. The newsagent had seen and heard nothing suspicious in Mount Street on the evening of the murder; but he remembered that a stranger who had made a token purchase in his shop the previous week had asked if he delivered newspapers to Jack Goodrum, and at what address.

According to the descriptions, the stranger in the pub had been a bit of a punk, with one gold ear-stud, and the stranger in the shop had been middle-aged, bespectacled and well-spoken. The middle-aged man had made his enquiry during the afternoon of Wednesday 12th, the punk at lunch time on Saturday 15th.

‘The fact that two men wanted to find Jack Goodrum doesn't mean that either of them intended to rob him, let alone murder him,' said Quantrill. ‘There could be a perfectly legitimate reason for their enquiries. The older man might well be an inspector from the Inland Revenue, or the VAT-man, chasing Goodrum for unpaid taxes and catching up with him at last. If either one of them had come here intending villainy, he'd hardly have taken the risk of advertising his presence by asking where to find his victim.'

He paused, rubbing his chin. ‘All the same,' he added, ‘bearing in mind that the shotgun was stolen that same Saturday evening, –'

‘– we've got a useful lead on the burglary, at least,' concurred Hilary. ‘And since it's possible that Jack was murdered by his own gun, we need to set up a search for the partial punk with the ear-stud.'

The detectives'more immediate concern was to interview the dead man's wife.

Felicity Goodrum had been found, staggering distraught and bleeding out of the gates of The Mount, at approximately 8.25 the previous evening. Mount Street was usually very quiet at that time in the winter, but fortunately for her some near neighbours were returning home after a visit to Ipswich, and had picked her up in the headlights of their car.

They had immediately helped her into their house and called the police. Too shocked to give any coherent information, Felicity had been taken by ambulance to Yarchester Hospital. There, a number of shotgun pellets were removed from her arms and upper body, and fragments of glass from her face; her wounds were dressed, and she had fallen into a merciful, sedated sleep.

Detective Chief Inspector Quantrill and Sergeant Lloyd arrived at the hospital shortly before ten on Sunday morning. Hilary, who had begun her working life by qualifying as a nurse, went in search of the ward sister.

The sister, busy and warm, clearly regretted the detectives' intrusion. ‘Mrs Goodrum? Physically, her condition's satisfactory. She'll be fit for discharge in a couple of days. But she's had a shattering ordeal, you know. I suppose you couldn't leave her in peace for a bit longer?'

‘I only wish we could,' said Sergeant Lloyd.

Mrs Goodrum had been put into a private room. As the sister led the way there, she said, ‘You'll find her son with her. A nice boy, and obviously fond of his mother, but the situation's more than he can handle.' She paused. ‘It wasn't his
own
father who was killed, I take it?'

‘No – his new stepfather.'

‘Ah, that accounts for his lack of emotion. Pity, in a way, that he wasn't fond of his stepfather. Better for him, of course. But it'd help his mother if they could grieve together, and it'd give her an incentive to keep going for the boy's sake … Well, there you are, m'dear – second door on the right, please don't stay too long, and I hope you soon catch the bastard who fired the gun.'

PC Barry Brown, a porky young constable from the Yarchester division who was officially on duty outside Mrs Goodrum's room but in fact loitering by the nurses'station and doing his best to waste their time, got a whiff of CID as soon as he saw the plain-clothes couple and hurried to intercept them.

‘Mrs Goodrum's son arrived about half an hour ago, sir,' he reported to the Chief Inspector. ‘One of the masters drove him over from his school. The hospital notified the headmaster last night, but they agreed there was no point in telling the boy and bringing him here until this morning.'

‘Fair enough,' said Quantrill. ‘Has anyone else wanted to see Mrs Goodrum?'

‘No, sir. But her parents are expected from Northamptonshire later today.'

‘Thank goodness for that,' said Hilary. She knocked and went in, followed at a discreet distance by the Chief Inspector.

A tall adolescent sat beside the bed, with his back to the door. He stood up and moved to the window as the sergeant went in, but she gave the whole of her attention to Mrs Goodrum. Felicity, huddled in a hospital dressing gown, was sitting up on the bed, propped against a pillow. With her prematurely grey hair and grief-ravaged face, she could have been mistaken for the boy's grandmother.

Her forehead was marked by cuts and abrasions, livid against her pale skin. Hours of crying had swollen the rest of her features, and they had now stiffened into immobility. She made no attempt to raise her heavy eyelids as her visitors approached.

‘Hallo, Mrs Goodrum,' said the sergeant gently. ‘D'you remember us – Hilary Lloyd and Chief Inspector Quantrill?'

The bereaved woman's hands, lying limply on her lap, opened and closed in a gesture of indifference. Hilary sat on the bed and took one hand in her own. It was cold and unresponsive. She pressed some warmth into it, and as she did so a remnant of moisture seeped out from under Felicity's lowered lids and, too weak to form tears and fall, dampened the puffy skin immediately below her eyes.

‘I'm glad your son's with you,' Hilary went on. ‘Matthew, I think you said.' She looked up and gave the boy a friendly grin: ‘Hallo, Matthew.'

His brown eyes were, she recollected from her visit to The Mount, those of his mother; but his high-browed, fine-boned features and the downward curve of his mouth gave him a haughty look quite unlike hers. By way of reply to the sergeant, he mumbled with embarrassment. He was patently relieved when the Chief Inspector suggested that, while they talked to his mother, he might like to go out and chat to the duty constable.

‘And I believe you're expecting your parents. Do they have far to come?' Hilary continued, trying to coax Mrs Goodrum into speech. Quantrill stood well back, content to watch and listen. This was one of the occasions when he was operationally thankful that his CID sergeant was a woman.

Mrs Goodrum's voice, when it emerged, was a bleak whisper. Hilary encouraged her halting words about her parents, at the same time disengaging her own hand so that she could take her notebook from her bag. But as soon as the notebook appeared, Felicity's voice faltered to a stop.

‘I'm sorry,' said Hilary. ‘I hate to do this but I'm afraid we have to take a statement from you about what happened last night, I really am so very sorry …'

She hesitated, momentarily speechless herself. Grief was an old acquaintance of hers; ten years ago, she had watched the man she loved waste and die.

That had been terrible enough. Even having known for months that Stephen's disease was terminal – having accepted that he would die, having prayed for an end to his pain, having rationally contemplated and planned for a future without him – she had found herself totally unprepared for the finality of his death and for the emotionally disabling effect of bereavement.