Witchmoor Edge (6 page)

Millicent parked her car in the walled car
park and went straight to her office to see whether anything more
had landed on the desk, before going to see Chief Inspector Cooke
to get his approval for her decision. Waiting for her when she
walked in her office was a preliminary report by the scene of crime
team staff on the picnic area, Joe Davis's statement already signed
and DC Goss's report, Mrs. Evans's statement (not yet actually
signed) and DC Hammond's report.

She read Tommy's report with interest and
agreed that Wayne Sansom had probably died in the fire. She had
encountered Koswinski before. He was a young thug who was well
known to be behind a lot of trouble - a knifing, a gang rape,
several muggings and burglaries and some car thefts. The trouble
was finding proof that would stick in court - so far he had just
managed to stay uncharged, mainly by intimidating potential
witnesses.

Millicent drummed her fingers absently on the
desk. There was little point in going to Koswinski's house, or
talking to him on his own territory. He clearly hadn't murdered
Hunter, but if he was picked up on a pretended suspicion of
murdering both Hunter and Musworth there was just the slimmest
chance he could be shaken into talking and giving the details about
what had really happened. Tommy was quite good at bluffing he knew
more than he did, so he could see to picking him up for questioning
later in the day. She had something else for him first.

There wasn't an autopsy report on the body
from the fire yet, so that could wait, and Gary Goss could check up
with the East Witchmoor Youth Centre and see if Koswinski, Musworth
and Sansom had been there Saturday night. Hampshire had a feeling
they must have been somewhere else between the Centre and the
burned out building at Cartwright's Wharf, unless they'd been in
the building for two or three hours before the fire started, and
that seemed unlikely.

Millicent got up and went in search of Cooke.
She found him in his office, as she hoped to do first thing.

"The fire, the bodies in the canal and the
murder of Hunter all seem to be connected somehow," she said. "It
looks like being a substantial investigation, so I'd like to use
the Incident Suite."

Cooke nodded. "I glanced through a copy of
the autopsy report on the main victim," he said, "Blows to the
head, various injuries, an overdose of morphine, then thrown in the
canal for good measure. You think its related to the fire?"

"The drowning victim was with a missing boy
and Koswinski on Saturday evening, and we have a probable
identification of Koswinski by the woman who reported the fire. It
was probably him climbing out of the canal at half past midnight,
dripping wet." Millicent said.

"It sounds involved and does look to be connected. I
think you'd better go ahead." Cooke decided. "Who have you in mind
for the team?"

"I thought DS Turner and DS Gibbs, DC
Hammond, DC Goss and maybe DC Bright," Millicent suggested.

Cooke nodded again. "Don't take more uniform
staff than absolutely essential," he ordered, "God knows we're
short staffed as it is. Use the new girl, Gail Downing, on your
reception the experience will be good for her - but take a civilian
secretary and a civilian IT person."

"Okay," Millicent agreed, "Now, what about
the press. They'll only just be onto it, of course."

"Hmm. But this murder victim will probably
catch the attention of the nationals in the silly season. I can
just see the headlines - poisoned, battered, drowned!"

Millicent took his point.

"Well," Cooke said, "The Witchmoor Argus
carried the fire as a story last night, but it only mentioned the
deaths in passing. By tonight they'll have the autopsy report, so
the nationals will pick it up tomorrow. I'll stonewall them for a
day or so, but we may need a press conference by Thursday."

"Okay," Millicent said. "We'll need some
progress by then, so I'd better get on with it."

Cooke nodded again as she left.

On the way back to her office she went via
the canteen to collect a coffee and then put her head round her
secretary's door and reminded her about the figures for the Chief
Inspector's report and told her to assemble her little team in the
incident suite in a quarter of an hour. Then she went with her
folders on the case and coffee to the suite and settled herself in
the tiny office reserved for whoever was in charge. Her coffee was
only half drunk when the team started arriving.

"Morning Lucy," she said, looking up as DS
Turner walked in.

Lucy looked around. "This must be bigger than
an elephant's ass if we've got a separate incident room," she
remarked.

"It’s big," Millicent agreed. She was just
going to add a quiet word about the cross examination of Shirley
Hunter the day before, when Tommy Hammond and Gary Goss wandered
in, so she left it.

When everybody had gathered, Hampshire filled
the team in with the position as it stood. "Okay," she said,
looking up from the folder she was reading. "The preliminary report
from the scene of crime staff on the picnic area is in already.
They found a jar of jam, a jar of pickles and two full yogurts
amongst the undergrowth round the picnic site, all lending some
support to the story, to judge from the locations in which they
were found. They’re all being fingerprinted still, but the story
looks as if it might be essentially true."

"The wide wheeled vehicle which left tyre
imprints at the site is almost certainly the Porsche. It went much
further into the picnic area than the other vehicles, but there's
no evidence either way as to whether the accident took place as
described. For now we'll very cautiously assume that it probably
did."

"There was no sign of a tablecloth or any
picnic gear, so they must have gone back into the Porsche assuming
they were there as stated, but SOC confirm that the two other
vehicles left before Simon Hunter's car."

"Any ideas from them about the other
vehicles?" Tommy asked.

"They think one was a substantial, perhaps
sporty, saloon and the other probably a light commercial vehicle.
They confirm my own quick impressions but suggest no solution to
the puzzle."

Inspector Hampshire closed the folder.
"Tommy," she said, "This afternoon you can pick up Koswinski on
suspicion of murdering Hunter and Musworth, and try and scare some
further information out of him. You can come with me for the
morning and do that later. DC Goss, you go to the Youth Centre now
and try and find out what Koswinski, Musworth and Sansom were up to
and anyone else associated with them. Follow up the question of
what time they left and where they went, but report back after
lunch. Look for anything that will help DC Hammond. This afternoon
you can work with him in trying scare Koswinski."

"Lucy, I want you to look into the background
of Ellen Barnes and the alibi. Take one of the uniformed women with
you and go easy at first. The story may be entirely true, but I
want it checked out. "

"Right-O. You'll have your answers."

"Sergeant Gibbs. Tony. I'd like you to spend
an hour or so making sure everything's in place in the incident
room. After that I want you to go and snoop around the hospital.
See if you can find out how tightly they control access to morphine
and anything you can about the personal affairs and background of
Shirley Hunter, but be discreet. I want to avoid word getting back
and putting her on her guard if I can. She may be an innocent
victim or she may have been provoked into murder. Get me anything
to will help me make up my mind. DC Bright, you familiarise
yourself with the story so far, then keep DS Gibbs company this
morning. This afternoon I want you to go door to door around the
Hunter's house and see if any neighbours saw anything to support
the story."

Gibbs and Bright just nodded.

"This morning, Tommy Hammond and I will visit
Hunter's place of work and try to find out something more about
him," Millicent added.

As they walked out to the car park, Millicent
said to Tommy, "According to Mrs. Hunter. Simon Hunter worked for
an Investment company in which he's a partner. The senior partner
is her brother, Bernard Knowles. I need somebody to bounce
impressions off."

"Whereabouts?"

"Bradford. Just up from Foster Square
Station. Why?"

"Nothing really, but we might be best off
with a marked patrol car, since we might have trouble parking."
Tommy grinned.

"Good idea," Millicent agreed.

Cowper Street was a dead end street which
should have led off Cheapside, except that it had been closed off.
Tommy drove into the bottom end of Westgate and turned left and
left, to enter it from the other end.

KHS Investments occupied only one floor of
number 16 Cowper Street - a five-story building - but they were
pleasant enough offices and it was a good location with a
prestigious sounding address.

Shirley's brother was senior partner, of
course, and Millicent asked for him by name, but he was clearly
expecting them. Millicent was not surprised: Shirley Hunter would
naturally have phoned her brother the previous night to pass on the
news.

The receptionist stood up from her desk and
showed them into a roomy office and Bernard Knowles rose to greet
them. He was older than his sister, slightly built and greying. He
was in shirt sleeves and tie and the trousers from a dark suit, the
jacket of which hung over the back of his chair.

"Sit down," he said. "I usually have a coffee
mid morning, so I assumed you'd want a coffee yourselves and asked
Mrs. Waite to bring three."

He sat down again. "I'm aware of what you've
come about. On Monday, when Simon wasn't here, I rang Shirley and
heard he was missing. She phoned last night to tell me he’d been
found murdered."

"Then I'll come straight to the point. Who,
apart from Shirley, might have wanted Simon Hunter dead?" Millicent
asked.

Bernard Knowles sighed and put his hands
together. "I should think there would be a long, long queue."

Millicent was interested and intrigued. "Go
on," she said. "Explain!"

"Quite apart from his treatment of Shirley,
the man was an obnoxious scoundrel who was involved in some schemes
of doubtful morality A few things he did were, I suspect, outright
illegal. He was a liar and a cheat and he wanted to take over this
perfectly respectable little firm as a front for his fraudulent
activities."

"You sound as if you'd be in the queue
yourself," the inspector observed.

"Oh yes," Knowles said. "I didn't kill him,
but I easily could have. He was leaving me no option to report him
to the regulatory bodies and starting a process which might have
brought this whole company down."

"Okay," Millicent said, "Let's have some
specifics."

"We handle investments for trusts and
individuals. He was borrowing money from client accounts and
speculating on the futures markets. So far we were considerably in
the black, but you will recall the whole banking crash and the
various individuals who got their companies into trouble. I only
found out last week, during a snap audit, so the murder couldn't
have happened at a more opportune moment from my point of view,
before we lost millions. As I said, I didn't do it, but I'm
grateful to whoever did."

"You said Hunter was up to other immoral or
illegal things," Millicent reminded him.

"He was, or at least had been, supplying
something nasty, hard drugs I think, to a woman IT specialist at
one of the investment banks, in exchange for insider information. I
think he was having an affair with her but either taking drugs or
passing information got her the sack a week or two back and he just
dropped her, now that she was no use to him."

"Do you know her name?" Millicent asked,
thinking that she might be hurt and angry enough to add to the list
of potential murderers.

"Rosie something or other. I remember him
remarking on the information he got from her smelling just as sweet
by any other name. I don't think I ever heard her last name, but
you could try Sheldon Shields, he may have heard it."

"Anything else about our nice friend?"

"I've hardly started yet," Knowles said.
Tommy was watching in silence and making notes, and he didn't think
Knowles was joking.

"On the basis of some insider information,"
Knowles continued, "Simon landed Shields and a friend of his in a
multi thousand pound loss. I think it was deliberate because, in
exchange for bailing him out, Hunter wanted some of his shares.
Between his own shares, the ones he got from Shields and Shirley's,
he owned half the shares in the company and was all set to start
making the corruption institutionalised by blocking any internal
investigation."

At this point the tirade was interrupted by
the receptionist bringing in the coffee, and Millicent had a few
seconds to organise her thoughts and decide what specific line to
take. Clearly, the first thing was to check what Knowles had been
doing on Saturday afternoon and evening.

By the time Mrs. Waite had left them and the
coffee, milk and sugar had been passed round, Bernard Knowles had
cooled down somewhat, though he didn't attempt to play down any of
his earlier remarks.

"Can you account for your movements on
Saturday?" Millicent asked.

"I'm not sure about the morning," Knowles
replied thoughtfully. "I had some work to do at home, so my wife
took the car to get the tank topped up. That would be around eleven
thirty or twelve. After lunch, say two o’clock or so, we set off
for Herefordshire and had an overnight stay at a hotel in Ludlow.
You could ask them what time we checked in, because I'm not
sure."

"What kind of a car do you drive?" Hampshire
asked.