Unlucky For Some (35 page)

“Two things. Stephen couldn’t get the afternoon off, and my father wanted me to meet Tony Baker—he invited him and Grace Halliday to lunch, and I was the guest of honor, more or less, so I couldn’t get out of it.”

“Did anyone else know of your arrangement to meet in the summerhouse?”

“No. Unfortunately, my father found out because I had to tell DI Finch where Stephen was when he said that they were cordoning that area off. That’s when everything came out. We had a furious row, and then I found out you’d arrested Stephen.”

Lloyd nodded slowly. He had a lot to digest from this interview. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for being so frank. I take it you will be available, should we want to talk to you again?”

“Yes—but I won’t be at the Grange.”

“Oh?” Lloyd raised his eyebrows.

“He’s gone too far this time—he knew Stephen was too scared to tell you where he was that night, and he would have let him be suspected of murder sooner than say anything. He tried to stop me talking to you.”

“Even so,” said Lloyd, “is that what you really want? To cut yourself off from your father altogether?”

“No. But he’s left me no choice. I’ll be staying at the Tulliver until this nonsense about Stephen is sorted out.”

Lloyd was sorry that the young man’s relationship with his father had been damaged to that extent, but he would sleep a little more soundly tonight knowing that Ben Waterman was at the Tulliver.

The young man leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and looked Lloyd straight in the eye as he spoke, quietly and firmly. “Stephen is quite simply the most levelheaded, straightforward, caring person that I’ve ever known. The idea that he’s going around killing people for any reason at all is ludicrous.”

Gary was in the office with Alan Marshall, DI Finch and Acting Superintendent Hill, discussing Halliday’s interview, when DCI Lloyd came back and told them what Ben Waterman had said about his father.

“That’s what Stephen said, too,” said Finch. “Doesn’t mean it’s the truth, though, does it? They could have cooked it up between them.”

“I thought you were on his side.”

“I am. But just because I want to believe him doesn’t mean that I should. I’m playing . . . what is it you call it?”

Lloyd smiled. “Devil’s advocate,” he said. “But he was probably right that it would get back to Waterman if he gave us his alibi. So if we assume, for the moment, that Ben and Stephen are telling the truth, and the consensus seems to be that we should, then where does that leave us?”

“Someone’s framing Stephen,” said Finch. “And my money’s on Michael Waterman. He knew that Stephen had an alibi for the first murder that he was afraid to give us, he can have him working wherever he wants, he can arrange for Scopes to hurt people, and now he’s saying he can just as easily have them killed. And I know Scopes—he wouldn’t think twice, if the price was right.”

Lloyd looked doubtful. “Ben says his father knew nothing about the assignation in the summerhouse until after the incident. I think whoever it is knew Stephen was going to be there.”

“And why would he go to all that trouble?” asked Marshall. “If he can arrange murders, why not arrange for Stephen to be killed?”

“Because Ben would know that he’d done that, and would never forgive him,” said Lloyd. “He does what he does because he loves Ben—however cockeyed that seems.”

Finch looked thoughtful. “Waterman gave Stephen the gun cabinet,” he said. “He could still have a key to it, couldn’t he?”

Gary’s eyes widened when he heard that. “He was in the pub this morning, sir, on his own. If he has got a key, he could have got hold of the rifle and given it to Scopes.”

“As your acting superintendent, I would caution against rushing out and arresting them.”

Everyone looked at their acting superintendent.

“I would remind you that neither of them could have killed Davy Guthrie,” she said. “They were both in the casino from when we know he was alive until well after he was found dead. The firearms officer says whoever fired that gun was an experienced shot, and Scopes seems to have no interest in guns whatsoever. Circumstantial evidence is what’s landed Stephen where he is, so let’s not jump to conclusions about anyone else.”

Gary smiled. The DI had said that she could demolish what seemed like a perfectly good theory in two seconds, and she just had.

That was when Hitchin came back from the hospital. “You’re not going to believe this, ma'am,” he said.

“Try me.”

“I was just leaving the hospital when a nurse comes running after me. She said that in the rush to get Shaw to the theater, they had forgotten to tell me that when they undressed Shaw, they rolled down his white stockings and took off the crêpe bandage to see how bad the sprain was, and what they found was a load of cotton-wool padding to make his ankle appear to be swollen. There was nothing wrong with it at all.”

“You’re right, Hitch,” she said. “I don’t believe it.”

Gary loved working on this team—it wasn’t like anything else he’d done at all. After the first few days, they hardly even bothered with ranks, or anything. You could say what you wanted to anyone, and if they thought it was rubbish, they’d tell you. But if they didn’t, they would listen. It was like being at home with your family, and it was the best job he’d had, in or out of the police. From having longed to get back to normal CID duties, he now found himself wishing he never had to go back to them, and half hoping that the inquiry into the Anonymous Assassin would go on forever.

“And then there’s the bells,” said Lloyd. “Which have just become even more of a puzzle.”

“The bells?” said Superintendent Hill.

“Jack Shaw’s would-be murderer used one set of bells to weigh down the money. But the other set wasn’t still round his leg—it was in his pocket. Now, I can’t see his assailant bothering to remove both sets and put one of them in Shaw’s pocket, so I think Shaw must have removed them himself beforehand.”

She frowned. “What’s odd about that? Would you go round with bells on your legs if you didn’t have to?”

“No, but Shaw did, didn’t he? He must have had to take them off in order to prepare his fake sprained ankle, then put them back on again, just to take them off again later. Why?”

The idea of removing bells was reminding Gary of something. When he realized what it was, he thought he might have solved that little puzzle. “We’ve got a cat,” he said. “When he was a kitten, my mum got him one of those flea collars, and put it on him. And he sat there pulling at it with his teeth, and we thought he didn’t like the feeling of it round his neck. But my mum said to leave him for a while, and he’d get used to it. He was pulling at it for about half an hour, and when he stopped, the bell was lying on the floor. He couldn’t have cared less about the collar—he just didn’t want his prey to hear him coming.”

Lloyd beamed at him. “The boy’s a genius—of course that’s why! And it’s why Grace Halliday didn’t know he was there. He was stalking her, and in order to do that, he had to get out of the Morris dancing, so he faked a sprained ankle.”

“And he made sure that he was with Grace Halliday from the moment she got there, by going home and getting a lift back up there with her,” said Marshall, slowly, then frowned. “But if he wanted to stalk her, why wear the costume at all? If I wanted to merge into the background, a Morris dancing costume wouldn’t be my first choice of camouflage.”

Sergeant Hitchin smiled. “I think camouflage is more or less exactly what it was. I mean, let’s face it—Morris dancers look a bit silly, don’t they? So Stephen and his mother wouldn’t spend too long wondering why he hadn’t stayed at the Grange, if that was where he wanted to be—they would just indulge him. He turns up in his silly costume, jingling wherever he goes, hobbling about on crutches, wanting to go back to the May Day festivities. It obviously means a lot to him, so they just humor him.” He shrugged. “No questions asked.”

Lloyd went into a sort of reverie then, and everyone looked at him, waiting for an inspired theory.

“No,” he said, after a moment or two. “I have tried very hard to produce a scenario in which Jack Shaw somehow managed to shoot at Grace Halliday at the same time as apparently saving her life.”

Finch laughed. “Not even you, guv.”

“Oh, don’t be too sure. If it had ended there, I might have suggested that he and Stephen had devised it between them to make Shaw seem more glamorous in Grace’s eyes, but it didn’t end there, did it? Because someone then hit him so hard with his own crutch that he’s in a coma.”

“Shaw must have known that Grace Halliday was in danger,” Finch said. “But knew that she wouldn’t listen to him if he warned her. That means that she was in danger from either Stephen or Tony Baker. She would surely have listened to him about anyone else.”

“I think so,” said Lloyd. “And I think you’re right—he was following her to be on hand if she needed him. And she did need him. He saved her life.”

“And almost got killed himself in the process,” said Marshall.

“Yes,” said Lloyd. “He almost got killed. And that’s the real puzzle. Why isn’t Jack Shaw dead?”

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

The next morning, Stephen, looking slightly crumpled, was waiting in the interview room when Gary and DI Finch got there. Things weren’t looking good for him, thought Gary, as they confronted him with the evidence gathered by the scene-of-crime officers.

His prints had been found on the rifle, of course, and the bullet in the tree had been fired from that rifle. Ballistics had done their homework on the bullet’s trajectory, and had marked on a photograph where they thought the gunman had been when it was fired. Stephen could easily have been there in the time at his disposal, and then run along the path to the summerhouse. The crutch found by the lake had inflicted Jack Shaw’s head wound, and the other had been lying in the undergrowth near where Shaw had been found. Stephen Halliday’s prints had been found on both of them. The only other fingerprints were Jack Shaw’s own.

Add to that the facts that he had admitted threatening Keith Scopes with the rifle and had at first refused to surrender to the police, and that seemed to Gary to add up to evidence of attempted murder.

On the plus side, as far as Stephen was concerned, the test done on his hands was inconclusive; there were traces on the skin of the residue left when someone fired a gun, but he had been shooting the night before, and it could have remained there even after he’d washed, so that would probably be thrown out. Gary tried in vain to find something else in his favor that was less damning than that.

Halliday explained that he had handled Shaw’s crutches that morning when he and his mother had taken Shaw up to the Grange, and Gary was sure that his mother would confirm that, but Shaw’s confirmation would be needed to make it entirely believable, and Shaw was in a coma.

But if Halliday was their man, they had to get him for more than just attempted murder. DI Finch opened the file in front of him and took out six photographs, two from each murder scene, placing them silently in front of Stephen one at a time.

Stephen looked down at them, and frowned. “I didn’t know he did that with the money,” he said. “What’s that all about?”

“We thought you might tell us.”

Stephen sighed.

“Did you kill these people, Stephen?”

“No.” He frowned. “I thought you said Ben had confirmed that I was with him when Wilma was killed. Why are you showing me her photograph? Do you still think I did it?”

“Well—you and Ben could have made all that up about being in his father’s flat, couldn’t you?”

Stephen nodded. “I suppose we could,” he said. “I can’t win, can I? If I do have an alibi, you don’t believe it.”

He looked at all the photographs, and reacted in exactly the way everyone who looked at them did. They weren’t horrific; Gary had seen much worse even in his short time in the police. But it was never nice to look at photographs of dead bodies, and Stephen wasn’t looking at them any more closely than he had to. But if they had been hoping that he would somehow give himself away, then they had been wrong.

Finch nodded, and Gary picked the photographs up again to put them back in the file.

“Hang on,” Stephen said. “Can I see that one of Wilma again?”

Gary handed him the photograph.

“No—the other one. The one showing how the money was all spread out like that.” Gary found it, and Stephen took it, this time looking at it carefully. He shook his head. “That isn’t the money I paid out to Wilma,” he said. “I gave Wilma three tens and eight fifties, because I thought she’d probably prefer to have smaller denominations. That photograph shows four twenties and seven fifties.” He sat back, looking as puzzled as Gary felt. “But that’s what I paid out to Tony Baker, not to Wilma.”

Finch stared at him. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure, but you don’t have to take my word for it. We log the numbers of the fifties, so you can check—the numbers go on the computer against the name of the winner. Mr. Waterman’s got a thing about it.”

Michael’s heart ended up somewhere near his boots when his secretary told him DI Finch was on the line.

All night, Josephine had haunted him—not in the guise of an actual ghost, but as good as. Ben had walked out on him, she had told him, walked out of his house, walked out of his life, because of his refusal to accept him the way he was, and the vicious, brainless way he had reacted. Ben had forgiven him once for that brutal behavior, but he couldn’t forgive him again. Michael had learned nothing in the four years since that previous incident, she had said. He had accepted Ben’s forgiveness as his due, and hadn’t thought twice about ordering the same treatment for Stephen, had been glad when Stephen had come under suspicion of murder because he was too afraid to give the police his alibi. And now Michael felt foolish, sad, and indescribably guilty.

As a result, he really couldn’t follow what Finch was saying, because it seemed to have nothing to do with anything. Finally, he understood that he wanted to know about the cash payouts for some reason. “Yes, we do keep a record of the numbers,” he said. “I once got taken for a lot of money by someone who had a big win and asked us to change the fifties for twenties, and when I paid the money into the bank, I discovered that I had been landed with five hundred quids’ worth of counterfeit money. So now I make sure that won’t happen again.”

“Could you ask your office to confirm the numbers of the fifties paid out to Wilma Fenton and Tony Baker?”

“I can confirm it now—it’s all on the computer. What’s all this about?”

“I’m afraid I can’t discuss that, Mr. Waterman.”

“Is it going to help Stephen?”

“I really couldn’t say.” Finch’s voice was cold.

Of course, he thought. Ben had been telling them everything, and why not? Who could blame him? Finch would think he was a monster. And Finch would be right, he could hear Josephine saying. His behavior had been utterly despicable, and he deserved the contempt.

He took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t know if this will help or not, but on the night Mrs. Fenton died, I came home in the early evening and overheard Ben arranging to meet Stephen in one of the flats at half past eight. He told Stephen he’d be quicker going through the alley on foot than taking his bike round the one-way system, and that’s why Stephen was going through the alley rather than just going to get his bike. When I told Chief Inspector Hill that I’d seen him following Mrs. Fenton, I . . . I may have given her the wrong impression.”

There was a silence before Finch spoke. “Oh, right. Well—thank you for telling me.” He sounded a little surprised, as well he might.

He couldn’t tell the police everything, though, not without landing Keith in trouble, and that wouldn’t be right. Keith had never let him down, and he wasn’t going to let Keith down. But at least that would strengthen Stephen’s alibi. It was all his fault that the boy hadn’t just given them it in the first place.

He called up the information on the payout, and gave it to Finch, who thanked him for being so helpful. And that just made him feel worse than ever.

“But why would Baker switch the prize money?” said Lloyd.

“Search me, guv. But he did.” Tom sat down. “I knew all along that his story about Wilma was iffy.”

He had indeed, thought Judy, making a note of this latest little puzzle, adding it to the list. At least this one told them something concrete: Baker hadn’t simply witnessed a murder. At the very least, he had interfered with the scene of a crime, but she would much rather know why he did before she had him arrested.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s use logic, and we will assume that Baker is our man. Dr. Castle says that he does nothing without a reason, so what reason could he have had for switching the prize money?”

“No reason,” said Tom. “It makes no sense.”

“Logic dictates that if there was no reason to switch the money, then he didn’t switch it.”

“But he did,” said Tom.

“No,” said Lloyd. “We only know that he left his own money on Wilma’s body. That doesn’t mean he took Wilma’s money in exchange.”

“But then Wilma would have had both lots of money.”

“And she
didn’t
have both lots,” said Lloyd. “Therefore someone other than Baker
did
take it. And Baker replaced it with his own money.”

Tom’s eyes widened. “You mean it really was just a mugging that went wrong? Someone did steal Wilma’s prize money? But why would he want to make it look as though it hadn’t been stolen?”

“Who knows?” Judy shrugged. “To make it look less like an opportunist mugging, and more interesting to his news editor? To make our job practically impossible because he wanted the police to fail? To give himself a head start in the hope that he could catch the killer before we did? Possibly all three.” She tried to think logically about what happened next. “He brought us a letter that was supposed to be from Wilma’s killer,” she said. “And the next day, the newspaper got one, too.” She looked at Lloyd. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “I’m sure he did get a letter, but not the one he gave us.”

“So do you think he
was
trying to carry out his own investigation?” asked Lloyd.

“Possibly, but for the moment, I’m making the assumption that he is the serial killer.”

Lloyd looked a little doubtful. “But if Castle’s right that the killer does everything for a reason, that kind of lets Baker out, doesn’t it? What reason could he have for committing random murders in some pointless duel with himself? As Castle pointed out—he might be enjoying the publicity, but he certainly didn’t need it, not that badly.”

Judy’s eyebrows rose. Castle had said that if they could work out the reason for the duel, they could find their man. She looked down at her notebook, and at last she could see that this final puzzle of the prize money revealed a cause that had produced an effect. She worked through the puzzles, crossing them off as she accounted for them. If she was right, then everything that had happened was all
because
Baker had replaced the stolen money. It went round in a circle, and it worked out. She sat back. “The duel wasn’t pointless,” she said. “And it wasn’t with himself.”

Lloyd smiled. “I spy a gundog.”

“Maybe—but I can’t prove any of it.” She leafed through her notebook. “Dr. Castle’s snapshot,” she said. “He described the perpetrator as ‘someone—perhaps, but not necessarily, a Waterman employee or customer—who works or engages in recreation in the evenings, in all three towns, who is literate, with a knowledge of killing, possibly as a participant in field sports, and with what amounts to an obsession with Tony Baker.’ I think that’s a picture of two people, not one.”

Lloyd nodded slowly. “One is someone who spends time in the evening in all three towns, and has the local knowledge that Castle rightly pointed out that an outsider wouldn’t have had time to acquire . . .”

“. . . and the other is Tony Baker himself,” said Judy, finishing the sentence for him. “Who is literate, with an interest in field sports, and is obsessed with Tony Baker. I think he was being blackmailed about interfering with the scene.” She turned to Tom. “You said that the knife in the Jiffy bag looked like a blackmail drop. I think that’s exactly what it was meant to look like. We weren’t supposed to find it—the blackmailer was. Baker was trying to frame the blackmailer for Davy’s murder by dressing up the murder weapon to look like the payoff.”

Lloyd frowned. “Being blackmailed by whom?”

“I think there’s only one person who could have blackmailed him. Wilma’s murder was all over the paper the next morning, and the report said that her winnings had been left intact. Only one person besides Baker knew that they
hadn’t
been left intact, because he knew he had stolen them.”

“Wilma’s killer?” said Tom. “But how could he tell anyone what Baker had done without confessing what he’d done?”

“At the time, it would have been relatively easy,” Lloyd said. “If someone had come to us and said that he’d witnessed the whole thing, but had been frightened to come forward straight away—it would have been his word against Baker's, and the tables would have been turned, because Baker couldn’t expose
him
without incriminating himself.”

Tom looked disbelieving. “But are you saying that Baker murdered people to frame the blackmailer rather than pay up?”

“Yes,” said Judy. “As Dr. Castle said—we’re dealing with a disturbed mind. And an ego the size of a house. Someone who had already murdered was threatening to expose him as a cheat and a fraud—his reputation would go down the drain. He would go to prison. He’s the one who saw it as a duel, and he upped the stakes. A murder would be committed when the blackmailer could have no alibi, because he would be all on his own, and would be in the vicinity, looking for his payoff.”

“But how would that help?” asked Tom.

“Baker wrote the letter that he brought to us, establishing a would-be serial killer, so that when it happened, we would connect it immediately with Wilma’s murder. We would even half-expect Baker to be in the vicinity, because the letter said that he’d killed Wilma right under his nose, and we would think the killer was simply doing that again. I imagine Baker thought that turn of events would be too rich for the blackmailer’s blood, and that would be the last he’d hear of him, but it clearly wasn’t, because he got another letter, and now he was being blackmailed about Robert Lewis’s murder.”

“The duel had begun in earnest,” said Lloyd, still swaying gently as he thought. “So next time, Baker went a step further, leaving the murder weapon where the blackmailer would be looking for his money. The blackmailer would open the envelope, pull out what was inside, and would find himself holding a knife with blood on it. He’d have to decide what to do with it. Drop it back in the bin? Keep it? Either way, he’d be running a risk.”

“But because Tony Baker was held up as he was leaving the casino, the blackmailer had been and gone before he ever put the knife in the bin.” Tom smiled grimly. “Headless wasn’t some concerned citizen putting his rubbish away—for one thing, he was wearing gloves on a very warm night, and you don’t wear gloves to put something into a rubbish bin. But you wear gloves if you want to take something
out
of one. Gertie said he was rummaging, and she was right.”