Witchmoor Edge (16 page)

"The reverse of how Koswinski told it, but
it's much the same story," Millicent mused. "Tommy Hammond did
wonder whether Koswinski was putting a gloss on it all. No mention
of anyone else or another body, I suppose?"

"No. They knew about the fire and got even
more scared, though," Bright said. "They heard of Musworth's death
on the TV news and were convinced that Koswinski did it."

Millicent frowned but shook her head.
"Possible," she said, "But there was no evidence of foul play in
the autopsy, so I think the chances of proving it would be
zilch."

She changed the subject. "While you're here,
get your notes on the door to door around the Hunters. We need more
than ever to throw some light on the times the Porsche left the
house."

DC Bright fetched his file of typed notes and
handwritten sheets and handed them over. Millicent started to flip
through.

"I can't make sense of these," she
complained. "What order are they in?"

"The handwritten notes are in the order I saw
the witnesses," Bright said, "Sort of, anyway. The typed notes are
a type-up of the handwritten notes, but I wasn't finished before
you sent me chasing after Sansom and Barker."

This was true, Millicent thought, but she
still found the notes only semi-coherent. In particular, a lady on
the other side of the road had been watching her husband washing
the car and had seen the Porsche leaving with one person in it
around twelve thirty. She hadn't seemed absolutely sure about
either the time or the vehicle and Bright hadn't typed up the note
yet.

"If this Mrs. Hutchins is right about the
time and the vehicle, It shoots even more holes in Shirley Hunter's
story," Millicent remarked.

"She wasn't sure about anything," said
Bright, "but it might be worth trying Mr. Hutchins. Trouble is he's
away until tonight at a conference. She said he'd be back late
Thursday, off work tomorrow and home over the weekend as well."

"I think I'll visit him this evening, then,"
Millicent said, flipping through the papers. "Where does it say
he'd be back Thursday night?"

"I didn't write that down, I don't think,"
Bright answered, "I remember her saying it though."

"For goodness sake include a written note of
things like that. If you carry important information like that in
your head and the killer bumps you off with a morphine overdose, at
least someone else can follow it up."

The idea that anyone should try to bump him
off seemed to startle Bright and Millicent was mildly amused by his
expression. She hadn't exactly meant that Bright was at risk - he
was more likely to be run over by a bus than poisoned. As she'd
made her point she didn't pursue the matter.

"Finish typing these up," she said, handing
back the notes. "Well done about Sansom and Barker, though it
doesn't bring a solution to the crime any closer or make it any
simpler. I'll have to talk to Mr and Mrs Hutchins myself and, if
Leverett tells the same story as Shields, we're going to have to do
a door to door around Knowles' place as well."

* * *

DCs Hammond and Goss picked up Leverett early
and had him in the interview room by not much after nine o'clock.
Hammond started the tape in the usual way and began the
interview.

"We need to have an account of your movements
between eleven and two last Saturday," Tommy said. "In particular,
how you and Shields came to be in the same place as a murder victim
around two o'clock."

"If you mean Hunter, he might have been
murdered, but I doubt if he was a victim," Leveret said
bitterly.

"You wanted him dead?" Tommy asked.

"I don't know about dead, but I wanted my
money back. He'd ripped me off for fifteen thousand and Sheldon for
a lot more than that."

"How had he ripped you off? Was he guilty of
some kind of fraud?"

"No. Well, not on us. It was our own greed, I
suppose. He just led us to believe information he knew full well
was untrue. He was out to get Sheldon's shares, I think, and I was
just caught in the crossfire."

This sounded to Tommy like common sense. He
couldn't see any gain in it for Hunter, the shares aside.

"What did your wife think?" he asked.

"My wife was not best pleased with any of
us," Leverett answered.

Tommy thought that was probably an
understatement, but it didn't take him any closer to gauging her
reaction. He changed tack.

"When did you decide to hang around his place
and follow him?" he asked.

"Friday evening Sheldon phoned me," Leverett
said. "He told me how he'd overheard Hunter on the phone telling
someone that he'd got enough shares now and how they were to meet
at two on Saturday in the usual place."

"So you agreed to follow him?"

"Not right off. Sheldon said that he was
going to try and get to the bottom of this and would I keep him
company. I'd had a row about it with my wife and it was getting me
down so I thought 'Why not?' and agreed."

"Where did you meet?"

"Sheldon picked me up at about quarter to
twelve."

"In the BMW?" Tommy asked.

Leverett nodded. "Yes," he agreed.

"Can anyone verify the time?"

"Pardon."

"Any witnesses? Your wife for example."

"Gwen has a Saturday morning surgery and
doesn't get in until about one."

"All right. Shields picked you up. Then
what?"

"We drove to Hunter's house and we'd only
just pulled up against the kerb: I don't think Sheldon even had
time to switch off the engine, when Hunter shot out of his
driveway, driving like a maniac. Sheldon turned the car and
followed him, but we had a devil of a job keeping up with him."

"Where did he go?"

"To Knowles's place in Guiseley."

"You knew the house?"

"Actually no. I don't know Knowles's or
Hunters' car or house. I know Hunter, of course. No I went by what
Sheldon said, but there’s no reason to doubt him."

Tommy didn't think there was either, but it
was important to verify his story as far as possible.

"Hunter was driving the Porsche?"

"Yes."

"Was anyone with him?"

"No, I don't think so."

"What time did you get to Knowles's
house?"

"Around quarter to one, I'd say. We weren't
watching the time exactly."

"What did you do next?"

"We sat and waited. It must have been half an
hour or more. I suggested to Sheldon that it looked like Hunter and
Knowles had cooked something up together. He said no way. He
thought that maybe they were arguing or something. Anyway, a woman
that Sheldon said was Mrs. Hunter pulled out of the drive. About
five minutes or so Hunter's Porsche came out of the drive and
turned away from us. Sheldon started the car and we followed."

"It was Hunter driving?"

"A bloke on his own, wearing Hunter's straw
hat and sunglasses and driving Hunter's car? Who else would it
be?"

That, Hammond thought, like Millicent before
him, is a very good question. Maybe the story was essentially true
with just the times wrong. And maybe it wasn't.

Gary Goss had not said anything at all since
the start of the interview and, as Tommy seemed to be doing all
right, didn't see any point in joining in. He was listening,
though, and wondering whether Tommy was going to follow up the red
car Mrs. Hunter was driving when she left Knowles’s. Was it the
same red car seen later?

"So you followed the Porsche again. Where did
it go?"

"From Guisley down towards Shipley then
right, up through Baildon and onto the moors."

"And you had it in sight all the time?"

"No. We saw it turn up towards Baildon, but
we were held up by the lights. By the time we got up the hill we'd
lost it completely. We drove around the centre for a few minutes
then Sheldon decided to check the moor top road. From the crest of
the hill we saw it in the distance, turning towards East Morton.
We'd have lost it for sure, except that I saw it again from the top
of the next rise, turning onto the track to the picnic site."

"You followed it there?"

"Sheldon stopped the car a little way down
the track and we went in on foot."

"What did you find?"

"The Porsche was there, on the grass with the
front thingummy open I don't know whether you still call it a
bonnet when the engine's at the back. Anyway, the luggage
compartment was open and Hunter was inside. It didn't take much
medical skill to see he was dead."

"You checked his pulse?"

"Yes."

"Was there any sign of injury?"

"He'd been bleeding a bit from a cut head,
but that didn't look to have killed him."

"What did you do next?"

Leverett snorted. "What do you think?" he
said. "We'd had it in for him and here he was dead. There was
nobody about so we beat a hasty one."

"You didn't see Mrs. Hunter?"

"No one."

"Or her red car?"

Leverett opened his mouth to say no, then
hesitated. "Just as were leaving the area, a small red car pulled
away from the grass verge, but a bloke was driving. Anyway I don't
even know if it was the same make." He paused. "Similar shade of
red, though."

"Could it have been Knowles?"

"I didn’t recognize him. Maybe Sheldon
noticed him. You'd have to ask him."

Tommy recalled Sheldon saying that he didn't
see the driver of the red car. That might not have been true, of
course, but it was at least temporarily a dead end. "What happened
then?" he asked.

"We drove straight to my place. Sheldon
dropped me off. I mowed the lawn and then had a shower and changed
before Gwen and I went out with Sheldon and his wife Janine for the
evening."

"I think," Tommy said, "That we'll get all
that typed up into a statement and as soon as you've signed it you
can go."

He stood up, scooped up the papers and the
tape in his right hand, flicked his jacket casually over his left
shoulder, nodded to Goss to join him and went outside.

"Get someone to sit with him and offer him a
tea or something, while I get this lot typed."

"It'll take you ages," Goss objected.

"No problem," Tommy answered. "That civilian
secretary they've borrowed for the incident room. She's just
getting over a difficult divorce. I'll simply smile sweetly, chat
her up a bit and then ask her nicely."

"She's a bit old for you, isn't she?"

"Listen, me ole mate, if I chat up a woman
and she's a pretty young thing, it makes me feel good. If she's not
so young and not so pretty, it makes her feel good. Anyway, Donna's
all right, all she needs is her ego boosting, so I'm about to boost
it in a good cause. See you in the canteen in ten minutes!"

Back in the incident room Lucy Turner had
arrived on her day off and Millicent was reading through her
report.

"I still think Alice Dent was involved in
dumping Hunter's body in the warehouse and starting the fire,"
Millicent said, "but you're right to say there's no evidence,
because there isn't any."

"As soon as Tommy and Gary have finished with
Leverett I'm going send everybody out to do a house to house around
Knowles's place. All I want is some independent verification of
times."

"Inspector Hampshire, ma'am!" PC Downing
called at that point.

"What is it?" Millicent called back.

"The Chief Inspector would like you to drop
into his office for a moment."

Millicent got up. "I was just going to go to
the canteen anyway," she said to Lucy. "I can call in on my
way."

"I tracked down your raid," Cooke said as
Millicent entered. "It was planned for tonight about sixish, but it
was very hush hush in the planning stage, so they want to know your
sources."

For obvious reasons Millicent hesitated - she
wasn't keen on admitting to remote viewing.

"Come on," Cooke said. "Who's been talking
out of turn?"

"Nobody has," Millicent said.

"Don't come that," Cooke said. "Have you been
taking advantage of your ethnic background again?"

Millicent bristled, but she bit her tongue.
On the whole Cooke was a good boss and they worked well
together.

"Sorry," Cooke apologised, seeing her face.
"But how did you know?"

"I don't think you'd believe me if I told
you. I'm not sure I believe it myself."

"I'm waiting, but you're making me
curious."

Millicent still hesitated, searching for the
words. "Last night," she said at last, "I concentrated on the
Porsche and put myself into a sort of trance. I came up with a
dodgy car sales place in Bradford about to be raided."

There was a silence.

"And you led me on with no more than a lucky
guess?" said Cooke.

"Half of the guess, as you call it, was
right. Let's see if the other half was."

"Well," Cooke said, "I used up a lot of
Brownie points to get you included in the raid, so you'd better be
right. Be at Divisional HQ in Bradford at five forty-five tonight
and ask for Superintendent Walker."

"Thanks for your help," Millicent said,
rather humbly.

"Hmmf!" Cooke snorted. "How's it going
otherwise?"

Millicent brought him up to date with the
latest developments.

"You're ready for the Press Conference?"
Cooke asked.

"As soon as I've eaten," Millicent replied.
"I was on my way down to the Canteen for lunch."

"See you in an hour then," said Cooke.

* * *

The Press Conference was in a meeting room
next to the incident suite. Witchmoor Edge Headquarters had been
purpose built and the architects had been relatively true to the
purpose, so the room was fairly suitable.

In the event, there were reporters from the
regional dailies, the regional Radio and TV stations but only one
national daily was represented, which was a relief. Millicent began
by going over the main points of the fire and bodies.