Beside a Narrow Stream (6 page)

‘Clever, isn’t it?’ Madge Eaverson said admiringly. ‘It’s an ecological statement as well as a stunning, visual work of art. Cars and petrol, our obsession with travelling in comfort, is actually poisoning the air. Plants breath in carbon monoxide, and give out oxygen as a waste product? Did you know that? I didn’t, until Wayne told me.’

Hillary, who
had
known that, blinked again. The whole effect managed to be somehow both hideous and eye-catching at the same time. She didn’t like it, but she could tell that some art critics might rave over it, whilst others vilified it.

‘I understand you’re the owner of 18 Westside Court, Mrs Eaverson?’ she said, turning her back firmly on the mural.

‘What? Oh, Weeping Willow Cottage. Yes. I used to live there, before I got married. Then I had it done up and rented it out. But it got a bit down-at-heel after fifteen years of tenants, and when the last lot left, I was going to sell it. Then I met Wayne, who was living in a caravan outside his parents’ house, for Pete’s sake, and so I let him have it instead.’

Hillary, forced to stand simply because there was only the one lounger, scribbled somewhat awkwardly into her
notebook
. ‘You say you “let him have it”. Do you mean he paid no rent?’

Madge laughed. ‘Oh, peppercorn only. Wayne, like most real artists, was always short of cash.’

Hillary somehow rather doubted that. She’d read Keith Barrington’s report, and when he’d visited Wayne’s home, he’d found expensive stereo equipment, the latest
wide-screened
digital television, and a wardrobe full of designer gear. Even the bathroom cabinet was full of the most expensive toiletries.

‘How long had he been living there, Mrs … Madge?’

‘Oh, who knows. Time has a way of getting away from you, have you ever noticed that? Must be, what, two years by now. Maybe even more.’

‘And can you tell me what you were doing two nights ago? Say between six and midnight?’

Madge Eaverson rose one, artfully plucked eyebrow and smiled. ‘Am I really a suspect?’

‘We’re asking anyone who knew the victim the same, standard questions, Mrs Eaverson.’

‘Madge, dear, please. I insist. It makes me nervous to have a copper keep calling me Mrs Eaverson. Especially since I don’t have an alibi. I was alone here all evening, I’m afraid.’

‘So your husband wasn’t home?’

‘Good grief no,’ Madge snorted. ‘He practically lives at the office. Don’t know why, when he doesn’t exactly get paid
overtime
. Still, he’s a manager, as he keeps on telling me, and has to set an example for the junior execs who want to rise to the same giddy heights.’ She shrugged as if to say, ‘what-can-
you-do
?’

‘And your husband works where?’

‘Collings. Out by Cropredy. Largest agricultural supply company in five counties.’ She rolled her eyes, ‘As I’ve been told, every day for the last fifteen years of marriage to the man. What I don’t know about tractors and combine harvesters isn’t worth knowing. Can I get you a drink?’ She reached for her own glass and gave it a shake, making the little paper umbrella dance.

‘No, thank you. Did you have any callers that night, or speak on the phone with anyone?’

‘Don’t think so. Look, seriously, why on earth would I want to kill Wayne?’ Madge Eaverson said, sucking on the straw in her drink and leaning back on her lounger. ‘He was a sweetie pie.’

Keith Barrington, after six months in Oxfordshire, was
beginning
to know his way around the county, and being told that Marcus Lyman lived in a small village called Souldern worried him not at all.

Now, parking under a magnificent red-flowering hawthorn, he paused to smell the air and could even identify the
predominant
scent as belonging to wallflowers, growing, not surprisingly, beside a nearby wall.

He’d first come to the countryside from the bright lights of the city in the depths of winter and, at first, the grey overcast days, and the monochrome scenery had depressed him. But with the spring had come a rejuvenation, and now he wasn’t so unnerved by mile upon mile of green fields, or the surprises that Mother Nature threw at you, all of which were so much more apparent out here than in the capital. And when a hovering kestrel in the field nearby suddenly plummeted to earth, he didn’t even wince as he imagined some small rodent being dispatched.

Marcus Lyman lived in a compact, neat and modern little house, with a spick-and-span, unimaginative garden. Keith instantly put him down as a more ‘Ale’ than ‘Arty’ member of the club. So when Mr Lyman answered the summons to his door a few moments later, Keith wasn’t surprised by the rather broken-veined red nose or large beer belly.

‘Mr Lyman? DC Barrington. I’d like to talk to you about the Ale and Arty Club? You may have heard in the local press that one of its members, Mr Wayne Sutton, has been murdered?’

‘Oh ah, right you are. Yes. Come on in.’ Marcus Lyman was a grey-haired man, pear-shaped, and moved in a rolling walk. He led Keith to a small, neat front room, that was musty and obviously little used. He instantly opened a window, then sat down in an armchair, indicating to Keith to do the same.

‘Wayne Sutton. He’s the good-looking one, always going on about honesty in art whilst ogling the ladies, yes?’

Keith Barrington nodded. ‘Probably, sir.’ He showed him a photograph of the victim, and when the witness nodded in
recognition
, carried on smoothly, ‘So, what can you tell me about him?’

‘Not a lot, really. I didn’t like him much, truth to tell. But then, I wasn’t in his gang.’

‘His gang?’

‘Yes,’ Lyman said, then frowned. ‘How to explain it? The club’s a bit of a mish-mash really. I do calligraphy,’ he paused, to see if Keith knew what that was, and when the red-haired youngster nodded his head, carried on brightly, ‘and there are others in the group who throw pots, some who do creative knitting, one chap who does metal sculptures for garden centres, that sort of thing. More arts and crafts, you might say. Then there’s the paint crowd. They see themselves as the real “artists” as it were. Anyway, we all have a love of good booze to create a sort of bond between us, and we all take it in turns to “find” a good pub, and every two weeks we all troop to this pub for a booze up and talk art.’

Keith nodded, to show he understood the set up.

‘But, like I said, somehow the painters have formed a sort of splinter group, within a group. As if painting canvases is the only one true art, and the rest of us are just artisans. And that Sutton was the worst of the lot. Bit of an artistic snob if you ask me. Not that he ever bothered to bend my ear much. I was the wrong sex. Wayne was only interested in something if it wore a skirt.’

Keith nodded. That certainly sounded like their victim all right. ‘And can you tell me the names of any of the “skirts” he was particularly interested in, sir?’

Hillary smiled at Tommy Eaverson’s secretary, and waited whilst she slipped through a door to the boss’s inner sanctum to give him the bad news. She doubted that the woman had ever had to tell the MD of Collings International that a police officer wanted to talk to him before. Unless, of course, it was about security arrangements, or pranged cars or lost wallets.

‘You can go right through,’ the secretary, a twenty-
something
with dyed red hair and an eye-catching diamond ring on her engagement finger, said brightly. Hillary murmured a thanks and slipped past her, into a fairly modest-sized office
with a large window overlooking a carefully landscaped cluster of yellow-bricked buildings.

‘Mr Eaverson?’

‘Yes. Please, sit down. What can I do for you, Detective Inspector?’

‘I’m heading the Wayne Sutton murder inquiry, Mr Eaverson,’ Hillary said, sitting down, but never taking her eyes from his face. He was a thickset man, wearing a well-cut grey suit. His hair was silver, rather than white, and his somewhat small grey eyes were almost the exact colour of his suit. She saw him wince slightly at the mention of Sutton’s name, then he shrugged.

‘Then you should be talking to my wife. He’s her friend, rather than mine.’

‘I’ve just come from your home, Mr Eaverson,’ Hillary replied, not missing the antagonism implicit in his choice of words. ‘I need to confirm where you were on the night of the thirtieth. That’s not last evening, but the evening before.’

‘Oh?’ Eaverson said flatly.

‘It’s purely routine sir. Your wife tells me she was home, alone. Is that true?’

‘I expect so. I was here,’ Tommy Eaverson said, a shade reluctantly. ‘There’s always a lot of work to be done, this time of year. Winter can be a bit slow. Then, just when it’s needed the most, farmers discover that their machinery has broken down, or they need new seed drills or whatever, and suddenly there’s a massive rush.’

‘Did your secretary work late too?’

‘Of course not. She keeps regular office hours.’

‘So you were here alone?’

‘More or less. Young Greenstock was here for a time. I think he left about seven, seven-thirty. Look, I can assure you I didn’t kill the man, Inspector.’

‘Your wife tells me he paid only a peppercorn rent on Weeping Willow Cottage.’

Tommy Eaverson flushed. ‘Nothing to do with me. That’s Madge’s property. Always was. Now, if there’s nothing else, as I said, I really am busy.’

Hillary nodded, but on the way out, got the full name and address of ‘young’ Greenstock.

She got the distinct impression that Tommy Eaverson hadn’t liked Wayne Sutton. That he hadn’t liked him at all.

Gemma Fordham visited the first two art club members on her list, a Mike Armstrong and a Nancy Bates, and found them both absent from home. She could chase them up at their places of work, but instead she decided to drive to the small market town of Bicester.

There she made her way to the large, newly-built nick on the outskirts of town, where she had an old acquaintance, put out to grass in the evidence locker.

Sergeant Pete ‘Fit me up’ Glover was the same age as Ronnie Greene would have been, had he lived, and looked both surprised, but pleased, to see her. It was Ronnie, of course, who was responsible for her knowing Glover at all. They’d met during those long ago nights spent going from the pub to the betting track, and then on to a curry house, when Ronnie had briefly worked out of the old Bicester nick, the one up near the sports centre.

She explained that she was newly arrived to Kidlington, but carefully didn’t mention that her new boss was Hillary Greene, no less. The old days were well and truly given an airing, with Pete vociferously defending his old, dead friend.

‘You ask me, those charges against him were trumped up,’ he continued belligerently. ‘I’d bet anything that it was Frank Ross, that skanky git, who was behind it all. Ronnie was a good bloke, would give you the shirt off his back. Well, you know, luv,’ he mumbled, not quite meeting her eyes.

Gemma smiled gently. Oh yes. She knew.

‘Don’t suppose he ever got back here much?’ she asked
sadly, and wasn’t surprised when Pete shook his head. A big, rambling shaggy-haired man, he looked as if he should have been tossed out on to the scrap heap a long time ago.

‘No, never saw him after he got transferred. First I heard he was dead was when I clocked in for my shift. Seen his son, though.’

‘Gary?’

‘Right. He came here a couple of years back now. He’s working out of Witney nick. Or he was. His dad had left a bit of gear behind. Not a lot. Just a cardboard box full of stuff, left over from his locker. He’d asked me to keep it for him, like, until he came to pick it up. Well, when I heard he’d gone, I thought his son should have it.’

Gemma felt a flicker of excitement bolt through her. At last. A solid lead! It would have been just like Ronnie to keep
something
important hidden in plain sight. And why would any internal investigation team be interested in his six-month stint in Bicester all those years ago? Besides, Ronnie had always said Pete was trustworthy, simply because he had no
imagination
. It simply wouldn’t have occurred to him to go through his old mate Ronnie’s left-over locker leavings.

‘So you gave it to Gary,’ Gemma said thoughtfully. ‘That’s nice. How is he, these days?’

After a few more minutes reminiscing, Gemma left.

As she walked back to her car, her steps were just that bit lighter. At some point in the very near future, she was going to have to ‘run into’ young Gary Greene.

K
eith Barrington glanced across the largely empty pub and spotted Gemma Fordham immediately. He wasn’t sure whether to feel pleased by her phone call to join him for a drink and a catch-up or not. On the one hand, she was his new sarge, and he needed to get to know her, and keep on her good side. On the other hand, he was somewhat wary of her reputation as a ball-buster. So far, he’d found her cool and wary, but perhaps he should put that down to first-week blues. When he’d first come to Thames Valley, he hadn’t exactly been all sweetness and light either. But he had the feeling that Hillary Greene was also wary of her, and that made him feel deeply uneasy. Over the last six months working with the DI, he’d come to respect and trust her judgement.

He moved past two men, who were sitting at widely spaced intervals at the bar, nodding towards the landlord to indicate that he’d be ordering a drink soon. It was nearly three, and the pub looked to him to be one of those that kept to the old-style opening hours.

Gemma pushed a plate away that had the remains of an uninspired ploughman’s and made room for him at the table. ‘I thought it made sense to meet up and compare notes before we did any more interviews,’ Gemma said, by way of greeting. ‘What you having?’

‘Mineral water, thanks, Sarge, but I’ll get it.’

Gemma rose firmly and walked to the bar, ordering two Evians, and paying. When she got back to the table, Keith Barrington was rereading his notes.

Gemma knew a little of his background and history, but was only mildly curious. There seemed little point in getting to know her team-mates well, when she didn’t intend to stay long.

Still, it paid to be friendly. And you never know what titbits you could pick up. ‘I hear you’re settling down at Kidlington well. There was some that thought you’d be out on your ear by now,’ she said, letting a small smile soften the statement.

Keith glanced at her sharply, met the large grey eyes without looking away, then slowly nodded. ‘Yeah. If the guv had made it hard for me, I dare say I’d be out of the force by now. But she’s all right.’

Gemma nodded. ‘Yeah, she seems pretty straight to me too. She’s got a good record. Well, apart from that old trouble with her husband.’

‘That was all about him. Not her,’ Keith said flatly.

Sensing his withdrawal, she instantly backed off. ‘OK, about the art club. I’ve only interviewed two so far, but the vibe I’m getting is fairly standard. Wayne Sutton, and a bloke called Colin Blake, seem to be the “stars”. You getting that?’

Keith Barrington took a sip of his water. ‘Oh yeah. There also seem to be two schools of thought regarding them. Our vic is more experimental, and prized originality above talent. Colin Blake seems to be a more traditional, but finer artist. A craftsman, like.’

Gemma laughed, a husky, sexy laugh that made both the men at the bar – and the barman – turn and look at her. ‘Very intellectually put. The last woman I interviewed had a more down to earth approach about it. How did she put it.’ She checked back a few pages in her notebook and grinned. ‘Oh yeah.
If I wanted to hang a painting on my walls, I’d buy a Blake. If I wanted to impress a philistine, I’d buy a Sutton.’
 

Keith nodded. ‘Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. Seems that this Colin Blake fellah could paint the kind of things that you could show your mum, and not have her screw up her nose. But our vic liked to shock.’

‘I get the feeling Wayne Sutton wasn’t as good, though. I mean technically. I was chatting to this man out Bloxham way, a retired lecturer. He seemed to rate Blake far higher than Sutton,’ Gemma said thoughtfully. Although she didn’t think the relative artistic merits – or otherwise – of the murder victim were going to mean much to the investigation. Unless an irate art critic bashed him over the head and drowned him because he couldn’t stand the way he handled his gouache.

‘Think that made our vic jealous?’ Keith asked curiously.

‘Bound to,’ Gemma said firmly. ‘A guy like Wayne Sutton needed to be praised and petted. He’d have wanted top spot in the limelight. But I just can’t see anyone committing murder over jealousy about who painted a better landscape.’

Keith shrugged. ‘I dunno, Sarge. Artists can get fairly het up, I reckon. Rage and jealousy can fester.’ He took a sip of his own drink. ‘Might be a good idea, from now on, to find out just how much resentment between the two actually existed.’

Gemma shrugged. ‘Couldn’t hurt. Although I think our boss is looking more at the female angle. And he could certainly put it about a bit, our Wayne. I got the feeling he was boffing the old gal I talked to, even though she wouldn’t have hung one of his paintings on her walls.’

Keith grinned. ‘So, how have your first few days at the new job worked out? Enjoying it?’

‘Sure. Getting a murder case right away was a bit of luck.’

Keith grunted. ‘Tell me about it. I did too. So, you found a good place to shack up? I’m still in a cramped bedsit in Summertown. Bit of a dump, but accommodation in Oxford is a nightmare. You’re from Reading, originally, right?’

Gemma took a sip of water. ‘Right, yeah, but my fellah’s from Oxford, so when things started to get serious, I just
stopped commuting and moved in with him. Saved me a lot of hassle. Plus, he’s got this really nice place on the Woodstock Road.’

Keith Barrington whistled silently. The north Oxford suburb surrounding the Woodstock and Banbury Roads consisted mostly of large, detached semi-mansions, and was very des res.

‘He’s a don,’ Gemma said, as if reading his mind. ‘St Bede’s. He’s the master of music there. Holds one of those fancy
international
chairs. Always off to Vienna or Salzburg.’

And totally blind. But Gemma didn’t mention that.

‘Are you musically minded?’ Keith asked curiously, and Gemma laughed.

‘Two tin ears. Well,’ she drained her drink, ‘back to the grindstone. I was going to wait to catch Colin Blake at home this evening, but after this, I think I might take a shufti to his place of business. Scope him out.’ She got up, riffling through her notes for his business address, then raised one slender, plucked brow. ‘Well, well, the Michaelangelo of the Ale and Arty Club is a butcher no less. What would Freud have made of that?’

Keith Barrington dreaded to think.

The pub where they’d chosen to meet was in Adderbury, about mid-way between their locations when she’d called, so Gemma drove the short distance north, towards the old market town of Banbury, whilst Keith, about to interview a
mother-and-
daughter team in the village of Wootton, took off in the opposite direction.

Gemma’s car was a 7-year-old Fiesta, which she kept immaculately clean and polished, but when a grey-haired man in a classic E-type Jaguar pulled up beside her at the traffic lights, she cast a long, covetous look at it. She’d always dreamed of driving a sports car – something that would have made James Bond drool. She’d been leaning towards
something
more modern and kick-ass, but the long, sleek lines of the classic 1960s icon surely did look good.

Her attention drifted to the driver, who, sensing eyes on him, glanced her way. No doubt he was used to his car turning heads. But when his eyes met the large grey eyes of the striking-looking, spiky-haired blonde woman, they widened slightly in appreciation.

Gemma gave him the long, slow, sexy smile. The smile that was so meaningless to Guy. Had she been so attracted to Guy Brindley, the blind maestro, solely because she couldn’t use her killer smile on him? Had he represented more of a challenge solely because he couldn’t admire her long, lean, grace? Her bony, intriguing face? But then, it had been her own damaged, gravelly voice that had first caught his attention, so perhaps her seduction of him hadn’t been much different from her seduction of other men.

He was still attracted to the physical. Only the specifics had changed.

The driver of the E-type was still staring at her when the lights changed to green, and it was Gemma, her foot already poised over the clutch, her hand ready on the gearstick, who raced away first. Uninspired Fiesta or not.

She smiled in triumph, but as she headed into the suburbs of Banbury, she felt a hard, hot, familiar glow spread into her stomach.

One day, she was going to have that sports car. That villa in the sun somewhere. That designer wardrobe, the jewels, the expensive perfumes that had been specifically made up for her by her own ‘little chemist’ in Paris.

And they wouldn’t be provided for her by a lover, either.

Well. Not technically.

Keith Barrington turned off the main Oxford-Banbury road a mile or so south of a little spot on the map called Hopcroft’s Holt, and found himself driving down a narrow country lane.
On all sides of him, pungent May blossom was in bloom, and the roadsides frothed with cow parsley. In all his explorations of the countryside surrounding Headquarters, he’d never made it to this particular village before.

A narrow bridge over a twisting river led him to a small but pretty enough place, and as he pulled up on a grass verge, he heard ducks fighting.

He found Number 23, Laburnum Terrace, after a bit of searching. A modern-build, with neighbours crowding in all around, it still managed to look pretty and cottage-like, and he wasn’t surprised to see the garden host to not one but two, spectacularly flowering laburnum trees. He eyed the dangling, grape-like clusters of yellow flowers with a vague sense of unease. Weren’t they supposed to be poisonous or something?

He walked up a garden path bordered by all sorts of
flowering
things, stopping now and then to let ponderous bumble bees have the right of way. By the time he reached the tiny upside-down V of a porch, smothered in flowering clematis montana, the door was already opening. Obviously, his arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Marion and Judy Druther, according to the last Ale and Arty club member he’d talked to, were specialists in stained-glass. Now, Keith found himself showing his ID card to Marion Druther, a pleasant-faced forty-something with a large mass of curly dark hair and slightly small, button-like dark eyes. Her fingers were stained a funny yellow, he noticed, as she reached to draw his card nearer her face. Whether that was due to the nicotine stains of a heavy smoker, or something to do with the mysterious process of creating stained-glass, he wasn’t sure.

‘Sorry, haven’t got my proper glasses on,’ Marion Druther said, and from the behind her, she heard a younger voice laugh.

‘You haven’t got
any
glasses on, Mum! They’re still hanging around your neck.’

They were too, on a black silken cord. Keith tried not to look
at them as Marion Druther made a tutting sound and slipped them on to her nose. ‘Oh yes. Of course, you’re that nice policeman who called earlier. Well, come on in.’ She stood to one side and let him pass. Keith thanked her and stepped into a small hall. From there she led him straight through into a small lounge. Dried flowers in a vast arrangement stood in front of an empty grate. Large lampshades, all made of stained-glass, stood atop tall stands at strategic points around the room. In the window, several small, stained-glass mosaics had been hung, catching the light and reflecting a rainbow of colours on to the plain white walls.

A tall young woman, also with masses of dark curly hair and small dark eyes, was just folding her length into a
comfortable-looking
chair.

‘Oh, yes, please sit down,’ Marion said. ‘This is my daughter, Jude. Her real name’s Judy, but she refuses to answer to it. Don’t know why. It isn’t even as if she likes the Beatles,’ Mrs Druther said, without pausing for breath, making her daughter scowl at her fondly.

‘Don’t worry, Sergeant, she’s not mad. Just scatter-brained. Now, what is it we can do for you? Mum, stop hovering.’

Marion Druther sat down, smiling vaguely.

‘It’s Constable Barrington, ma’am,’ Keith corrected her with a smile. ‘And I’m part of the investigation into the murder of Wayne Sutton. I take it you’ve heard about that?’

Mother and daughter swapped looks. ‘Yes. Millie phoned us last night. Millie Fairweather. She used to be a member of the club, but she dropped out last year. Couldn’t afford the price of real ale anymore, or so she said,’ Marion began, then subsided as her daughter cut in.

‘I’m sure the constable doesn’t want to know about Millie’s problems, Mum,’ she said, just a touch of warning in her voice. ‘Millie always has her ear to the ground, so she’s our source of all information really,’ Jude Druther carried on. ‘We tend not to watch too much telly, and we never get the papers. Far too
depressing. And when we’re in the workshop we only have the radio on Classic FM, so without her we’d be totally out of the loop. But yes, we know about Wayne. It was a shock, wasn’t it, Mum?’

‘I’ll say. You don’t expect anyone you know to be murdered do you? I mean, you know it happens, but you don’t think it’ll ever be someone you actually
know
.’

Keith, who’d come across this reaction often in the past, nodded his head sympathetically. ‘So, what can you tell me about him? You must have known him well?’

‘Well, yes and no, really,’ Jude said, when her mother cast her a rather helpless look. ‘The club meets every fortnight, at some pub or other, and we have a drink and swap success stories. Some of us have small businesses, others just sell the odd commission here and there. Wayne … well, Wayne was almost the only professional artist amongst us. Even Colin has a day job.’

‘This would be Colin Blake?’ Keith clarified.

‘That’s right.’

‘I’ve been hearing good things about him,’ Keith said craftily. ‘A lot of people seem to rate his work.’

‘Oh yes, he’s good,’ Marion said at once, and pointed to a small watercolour. In it, a dilapidated, crumbling red-brick river bridge spanned a small stream at the height of summer. The water was low and translucent, the river weed almost lime green in colour and flowering with tiny white flowers. A large stand of bulrushes, in the foreground, added a velvety contrast. Tiny drifts of gossamer seeds floated in the air. It was charming – well painted and almost brought the sound of gently flowing water into the room.