A Very Private Murder (16 page)

‘Peccadillo,’ I said.

‘That’s right. Peccadillo. He was a magnificent animal. Only a two-year-old but they had great hopes for him. It was a terrible shame.’

‘Who was the owner?’

‘Threadneedle was the registered owner but I believe he headed a syndicate.’

‘That’s interesting,’ I said. ‘How do I find out who else was in the syndicate?’

‘I’m not sure. He’d be the syndicate manager, registered with the BHB, but back in those days I imagine the actual syndicate would be run solely by him. It’s much more regulated now.’

‘BHB?’

‘British Horseracing Board, formerly the Jockey Club.’

‘Of course. What happened to the carcass?’ I was thinking DNA.

‘I’m not sure, it was a long time ago, but the usual thing would be to give it to the hunt, to feed the hounds.’ He saw the distaste on my face and said: ‘That’s the country way, Inspector. There’s little room for sentimentality.’

‘I suppose not. Tell me, how well did you know Threadneedle?’

‘Hardly at all. In those days I did some work with horses and ponies, but not much. He kept a dog. There’ll be a file somewhere in my archives. I could probably find it …’

‘I don’t think that will be necessary. In the days after the fire was there any gossip about how it started? I’ll be talking to the fire brigade, but did you hear any suspicion of arson or anything untoward?’

He thought for a while before saying: ‘I had a chat with the fire chief, or whatever he’s called. He said something about it starting in more than one place. Can’t remember the jargon …’

‘More than one source of ignition?’

‘That’s it, or something like it, and something had been used. Petrol, I imagine he meant.’

‘An accelerant?’

‘That’s it. An accelerant.’

‘Who discovered the fire?’

‘Motty did. He lived in the head lad’s cottage adjacent to the stable block. He did his rounds last thing, then went to bed. Saw the flames from his window and called the brigade. He managed to release all the horses except Peccadillo. He’d broken a leg so they had to shoot him to save him from the flames.’

‘They?’ I queried.

‘Um, not sure. Perhaps it was just Motty, but presumably Threadneedle would be there, too. He lived in the big house, of course, so he’d be soon on the scene.’

‘That’s very useful, Mr Chadwick,’ I said. ‘Thank you for your time. Did you ever hear if the insurance company paid out?’

‘Word has it that they did for the stable block but not the horse, but it was just talk. You know what it’s like in a village.’

I didn’t, but I was learning. 

The weatherman on the car radio told me that they were having thunderstorms in the south and localised flooding could be expected. Serves them right for living there, I thought, and hit the button for Classic FM. I made it back in time for lunch, but didn’t get the opportunity to have any. Jeff Caton was sitting at my desk with a smug smile on his face and half of one of my Kit Kats clutched in his fist. ‘What’s new?’ I asked, hooking my jacket behind the door and flopping in the spare chair.

He swallowed twenty-five-pence-worth of chocolate biscuit and said: ‘We may have had a small breakthrough at the Curzon Centre. Fancy a ride there to test it out? I’ll explain on the way.’

‘Let’s go,’ I said, unhooking my jacket again, ‘and bring me a bicky, if there’s one left.’ My mileage was sky-high so we went in Jeff’s buzz-box. He was carrying a wire coat hanger as we walked out to his car and I expected him to hang his jacket on it, but he handed it to me.

‘What’s this for?’ I asked.

‘It’s for hanging a jacket on.’

‘Specifically a jacket?’ I asked. ‘Couldn’t you hang, say, a pair of pyjamas on it?’

‘I suppose so, but don’t most people keep them in a drawer?’

‘Do they? I’d have thought they’d get creased that way.’

‘And you wouldn’t want to go to bed in creased pyjamas, would you?’

‘Of course not.’

According to Einstein time passes more slowly the nearer to the speed of light you travel, so we arrived at the Centre several seconds younger than when we set off. According to me, Jeff drives like a lunatic. Whenever I’m in his car I cinch up my seat belt, brace my feet against the bulkhead and pretend it’s a fairground ride. He took the coat hanger off me and I staggered to my feet with all the grace of a newborn gnu.

Jeff led the way through part of the shopping centre, past the bare wall where the plaque had been situated and dived suddenly down a passage between the Ellis Brigham outlet and Country Casuals. He’d phoned ahead and Maggie and Serena were waiting for us.

‘The security here is not as state of the art as we’ve been led to believe,’ Jeff was explaining. ‘The fire doors are supposed to be monitored but there’ve been so many false alarms most of the audible warnings are switched to the mute position. If a warning flashes up on a VDU the chances of someone noticing it without an audible signal are slim.’

We’d arrived at a pair of emergency fire doors, designated West 14, which led, I presumed, out into the car park. Jeff was saying: ‘According to the CCTV these doors are on the route taken by Graffiti Boy on the night before the incident. We found the coat hanger in a flower bed, earlier this morning, and in the next bed we found these.’ He pulled a pair of trainer laces, tied end to end, out of his pocket. ‘And now my assistant Serena will demonstrate just how easy it is to break into the multimillion-pound Curzon Shopping Mall and Conference Centre.’

Serena leant on one of the panic bars that stretched across each door and half of it swung open. No bells rang; no sprinkler system soaked us with foam; no U-boat klaxon told us to
crash-dive
. She stepped outside and pushed the door shut behind her.

Jeff knotted one end of the laces around the panic bar and let the rest of it dangle on to the floor. ‘Ready when you are,’ he shouted.

We stood looking at the bottom of the door. After a few seconds the bent end of the coat hanger worked its way through the gap and moved from side to side. It was a tight fit, but Serena soon hooked the lace and, with a struggle, pulled it under the door at her side. With a good yank the panic bar was disengaged and the heavy fire door swung open again. The glow of Serena’s smile rivalled that of the sun.

We called in Thornton’s for a coffee and a discussion. The coat hanger and the lace had been swabbed for DNA but the chances were slim. ‘They said we’d have to take our turn,’ Maggie told me. ‘We’ve used up all our goodwill and now we’re at the back of the queue.’

‘But they’re working over the weekend on our other case,’ Serena said. ‘They’ve promised to have something for us Monday morning.’

‘The pit bulls?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Good. So what have we learnt from today’s escapade?’

‘Not a great deal,’ Jeff admitted, ‘except how it was done. I’d say it’s an inside job, though.’

‘Anybody could have left that lace dangling.’

‘True, but anybody wouldn’t know that most of the alarms are disabled.’

‘Or which specific alarms were disabled. That would narrow it down a bit.’

Maggie said: ‘You mean, did he make a lucky guess or did he know all the time that emergency exit West 14 wasn’t alarmed?’

‘Cor … rect.’

I popped the free chocolate truffle that came with the coffee into my mouth and let it melt there, my eyes half closed and a smile playing about my lips. Serena said: ‘So how was your visit to Curzon House?’

I swallowed and cleared my mouth for a few seconds, before telling her that my visit had gone well.

‘Did you see her?’

‘Who?’

‘You know who!’

‘I saw lots of people.’

‘
Her
! Did you see
her
?’

‘Are you referring to Miss Curzon?’

‘Yes!’

‘Oh. Right. Well I don’t expect you to believe this, but at about one o’clock this morning I was enjoying a moonlit stroll through the grounds of Curzon House, hand in hand with a certain Miss Curzon.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

I gave a rough approximation of the Boy Scouts’ salute and said: ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

Jeff said: ‘Ah, so that’s why you were worried about the creases in your pyjamas.’

‘Eggsackley,’ I replied.

Serena shook her head and Jeff never noticed Maggie pinching his chocolate.

Back at the nick I called in the ground floor toilets for a pee. I was just finishing when I heard the door go and a few seconds later the shadow of big Geordie Farrell, one of the traffic cops, fell across me. He took a quick peek over the porcelain barrier that separated the stalls we were using and said: ‘Flippin’ ’eck, Mr Priest, for a minute I thought you were being attacked by a one-eyed albino boa constrictor.’

For the second time in a few hours I was lost for words. I could have said: ‘An easy mistake to make, George,’ but I was halfway up the stairs by then.

Mr Wood had left me a note. It said he’d asked for some help for me and the ACC had suggested that a certain Superintendent Kent might be gainfully employed taking an overview of the murder enquiry. ‘Great!’ I hissed as I crumpled the sheet of paper and hurled it into the basket. Karen Kent looking over my shoulder was just what I didn’t need.

I brought the crime diary and logbook up to date and wrote the mileage in my personal diary. The report reader’s summary was there for me. Identifying the spectators at the Curzon Centre opening was progressing and a good few had been interviewed. I took the report and left it in Jeff Caton’s in tray. He could deal with that. We now had a list of Threadneedle’s cronies that he played golf and drank with and there was a note saying the inquest had been opened and adjourned. I found the number for Janet Theadneedle’s sister and picked up the phone.

They lived in a big pre-war semi with bay windows, on the Knaresborough road out of Harrogate. I parked in a side street near the football ground and walked back to the house. Sister June made us tea and introduced me to her husband, Mike. He’d taken early retirement from a managerial post with the NHS after a heart bypass operation and was now looking for a part-time job with no responsibilities.

‘Lollipop man,’ I suggested. ‘That’s what I’m going to do. Helping all the young mothers across the road.’

‘That might aggravate my condition,’ he said, earning a ‘Huh!’ from his wife.

I tactfully asked if I could talk to Janet in private and they took their teas into another room. We made small talk about the inquest and the investigation until I told her about the humane killer and steered the conversation back to when they lived in East Yorkshire and owned the stables.

‘Mr Curzon asked how you were and sends his condolences,’ I told her. ‘I said you were being remarkably strong.’

‘That was kind of him. Tell him “thank you” if you see him again.’

‘He spoke very warmly of you and your playing. “Magical” was the word he used. He also told me about the fire. Do you remember it?’

‘Of course I do. It was something you’d never forget.’

‘I have to ask: where were you and your husband at the time?’

She was wearing a fine woollen cardigan the colour of tinned peaches and was fiddling so much with one of the buttons that I expected it to come off in her hand. ‘I was in bed.’

‘And your husband?’

‘He told me he’d gone to a club in York. A nightclub.’

‘You don’t sound too sure.’

‘I know. He said none of his pals were there so he just sat by himself, having a drink, watching the dancer. Next morning, while the fire brigade were clearing up and the police were asking questions, he said it might be better if I said he’d stayed in all evening. He said it could look suspicious when he made an insurance claim if he had no witnesses.’

‘And did you?’

‘Say he’d stayed in?’

‘Hmm.’

‘No. Nobody asked me.’

‘Did he make an insurance claim?’

‘Yes, but I’m not sure if it was successful. All I know is that he was like a bear with a sore head for months afterwards. We had to tighten our belts for the first time in our marriage and eventually moved to a smaller property in Heckley. That’s when …’ She stopped in mid sentence.

‘Sorry. That’s when …?’

‘That’s when I started enjoying a drink. Or two.’

‘How are you coping now?’

‘Just about.’

‘Well, stick at it. It can’t be easy.’

I asked about the gun but she’d never seen it, neither at the stables nor in Heckley. Our forensic people were still looking over the house, I told her, and asked if we could stay there until the following Tuesday. I didn’t mention that we’d be doing a reconstruction of her final supermarket trip on the Monday, round all the counters she’d bought from, to the same checkout she’d used and out to a Day-Glo orange Focus just like the one outside her house.

The husband, Mike, walked me to the door after I’d expressed my thanks, and I gestured for him to come outside. He pulled the door closed behind him and stood close to me like a fellow conspirator.

‘How did you get on with your brother-in-law?’ I asked.

‘Not very well,’ he admitted. ‘He thought I was a bit of a failure because I opted for security and a steady income while he was a gambler. He claimed that his father left him a run-down business with lots of debts, but I suspect he was OK. Arthur played his cards close to his chest where money was concerned. He’s done well, though. I have to give him that.’

‘Did he ever talk to you about his horse racing exploits?’

Mike grinned at the memory. ‘Oh yes. He certainly did.’

‘Go on.’

‘Ha ha! The Shergar conspiracy. June and I have had some good laughs over that one.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Well, it was a horse he bought. We went over to see it at his stables, at Arthur’s invitation, and it certainly was a magnificent animal. He showed us some photos of a horse just like it winning various races and parading in the winner’s enclosure with lots of posh people hanging on to it. Women in big hats, the men in toppers, that sort of thing. It looked exactly like Arthur’s horse, quite distinctive, with a white stripe down its nose and four white socks on its feet. Turns out the horse in the photos is Shergar, the Derby winner kidnapped by the IRA, and the implication – nudge nudge, wink wink – is that Arthur owns one of its pups. And guess what? For the trivial sum of fifteen grand I could be a joint owner, with a dozen other suckers. We politely declined and the invitations to visit ceased after that, which upset June but not me. Is that what it’s all about?’