Cat Among the Herrings (8 page)

Greylands House was, if not a short walk from Ethelred’s, then closer than he had led me to believe. When I had dropped hints over breakfast that I might help him in his enquiries he had looked at me suspiciously and said that Catarina’s residence was some way off.

‘On the edge of the village, then?’ I had asked.

‘I wouldn’t say it was in the village at all,’ he had grunted, through a mouthful of toast and Oxford marmalade.

‘But drivable?’

‘Sort of. It’s not that easy to find.’

‘But you could describe it to me?’

‘It’s not that easy to describe.’

‘But you are – please excuse me if I am misremembering – a writer. Describing things, using words, is what you do for a living. A foggy evening in the fictitious and slightly improbable town of Buckford flies from your pen. A
description of the wounds inflicted by a serial killer is meat and drink to you. A criminal cleverly avoiding Sergeant Fairfax’s questions – this is skilfully worked so the reader has no idea what lies are being told. But telling me how to recognise a turning off the Birdham Road stretches you too much?’

‘I don’t use a pen. I haven’t used a pen for years.’

‘No? Let’s just cut to the chase then. Is the house before or after Sheepwash Lane?’

‘After.’

‘Is it before or after the Lamb and Flag?’

‘Before.’

‘Then I’ll find it.’

‘There’s a tricky fork in the road after you turn off.’

‘Do I go left or right? I’m assuming those are the only options?’

‘Left. I think you’ll find the track a bit bumpy in that Mini of yours.’

‘I probably will. But into every Mini’s life a little rain must fall.’

‘Any more rain and it will fall apart with all that rust.’

‘I’ll make sure I get there before it rains.’

‘Catarina may be going out.’

‘Do you have her number? I’ll phone and check.’

The lie that had followed was so convoluted and unlikely that I shall not even begin to describe it. It deserved the response I gave.

‘Fine.’ I said. ‘Your superior male logic has finally defeated me. I won’t even think of going there.’ I picked up and placed a piece of Ethelred’s toast in my mouth. The butter did not melt.

‘OK,’ he said, actually believing me. ‘I’ll be back at lunchtime.’

Up to a point, though, Ethelred was right. The first two drives I turned down were interesting but (according to the owners of the houses concerned) I had no business to be where I was. In each case I was ordered to depart at once. I contented myself with making very, very slow three-point turns, while they gave me increasingly frantic instructions. Men always assume that, because you are a woman, you have no idea how to manoeuvre a car and that you have just demolished their herbaceous border by accident rather than design. Which was fine by me.

Still, third time lucky. I parked very carefully in front of an olde worlde farmhouse and rang the bell. The lady who opened the door was clearly Catarina – certainly there was nothing in her attire or demeanour that hinted at a life spent cleaning and polishing for others. I was in no danger of mistaking the home help for the lady of the house. She, for her part, looked at me suspiciously. Well, obviously a well-dressed and attractive, if slightly plump, woman pitching up just after the death of her fiancé … I could have been some young girl on the make. Young-ish anyway.

‘I not buy anything from gypsies,’ she said. ‘Goodbye.’

‘I’m not here to sell you anything,’ I said.

‘No?’

‘No. I’m a friend of a friend.’

‘What friend?’

‘Ethelred.’

‘You come here in that?’

We both looked at my car.

‘The garage said the tyres should last until the next MOT,’ I said. ‘At least, as long as I didn’t do more than twenty or thirty miles on them. The track to your house won’t have helped, of course.’

‘No point new tyres. Too much hole in bodywork, I think. Is death trap.’

‘To be fair, the garage said that too. Still, it gets me from A to B if I change gear carefully. But I didn’t come here to talk about the conservation of classic cars. I came to talk about Robin.’

‘So Ethelred can help? He change mind?’

‘Absolutely. He change mind. But maybe we should discuss this inside? I’ll leave the car where it is?’

‘Yes, I not like that flower bed anyway.’

Those familiar with my previous investigations will know that it has been necessary for me to tell the occasional fib and claim to be Ethelred’s assistant in order to gain access to people or things that Ethelred had forgotten to tell me about. I have to stress that this time I did not stoop to any such deception.

‘So Ethelred works for you?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ I replied. ‘I have a number of people under contract at my agency.’

‘Like Ethelred?’

‘Not exactly like Ethelred, I’m pleased to say, but similar in some respects.’

‘This is proper detective agency you run? You talk me straight answer.’

I gave her a straight answer. Had she asked for a straight and truthful answer it might have been slightly different, but it was straight enough.

‘So, Cat,’ I said, ‘tell me a bit more about the day Robin died. These are very good cakes by the way. Do you have any more?’

‘No. You have eaten them all.’

‘Have I? Well, they were very good. What’s in them – honey and what …?’

‘Sesame seed and some almond. Flour. Egg. Orange. Other things.’

‘Could you let me have the recipe?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Or if you were making more, I could just drop round.’

‘Tomorrow, perhaps.’

‘Tomorrow. Excellent. Maybe with just a touch more honey next time, Cat? Or chocolate, maybe. Chocolate would be good – but you’ll need the Belgian version, not the basic cooking one. Where were we? Oh yes, the murder … what was the weather like that morning?’

‘In morning, sunny. But you cannot launch boat in morning – low tide. Must wait until midday. Then it start rain and wind.’

‘But Robin went out?’

‘He not mind rain. Wind good for sailing boat. Rain just water like all round boat.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. What time?’

‘He say he will go eleven or half past eleven.’

‘But before he went, somebody came to visit him?’

‘Yes. For coffee.’

‘And Robin delayed going out?’

‘I think so. I go to Chichester half past ten. So visitor arrive after. That is strange.’

‘What is strange?’

‘Here, can launch boat only at high water – three, maybe four hours a day. Bad weather coming. Robin would want to go sail. He would not want stick in the mud. He would tell visitor, I go sail – you piss off – come back another day.’

‘So, you’re saying that this must have been an important visitor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Important and unexpected?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, he saw this person, then went down to the sailing club?’

‘Yes, I think.’

‘Later you came back from shopping – saw the car was gone …’

‘No, car still here. I think maybe he not go.’

‘But he had gone.’

‘Of course. That is why dead.’

‘So, you thought it odd that the car was still there?’

‘No. His car like yours. Sometimes it go. Sometimes it stay where it is.’

‘OK, how does he get to the sailing club with a broken-down car? Does his visitor give him a lift?’

‘At first I think he cycle. But later I find bike here too. So, maybe lift or maybe bus into village.’

‘There’s a bus?’

‘Every half hour. End of lane. Get off at church.’

‘Did he often cycle or get the bus?’

‘Sometimes. Bus not so much – I think he does not like use bus – is for peasants and old people. But cycle good.’

It was a point of view I was familiar with. Catarina was clearly one of those brought up to believe that blessed
are the ostentatious, for God shall say unto them: wow, I saw that on
Top Gear
last week – is it the 3.5 litre petrol or the 2.7 litre diesel model? But a really flash bike costing a couple of grand is OK too. The streets of London are full these days of cyclists who could afford a modest little four by four but prefer two wheels. There is, as my father would say when somebody asked at his fruit and veg stall for one of these new-fangled courgettes, no accounting for taste.

‘And he sailed alone?’ I asked.

‘Yes. It is just small boat. One person can sail.’

‘Did you ever sail with him?’

She shook her head. ‘If I want get cold and wet, I can stand in garden in rain. Not seasick in garden and can come in any time I like.’

‘Would anyone have seen him at the sailing club? A barman or a steward or something?’

‘No bar. Just parking for boats and hut to store things in.’

‘So, he leaves here and simply vanishes from the map? And the last person that we know sees Robin before he dies is this mysterious stranger, who possibly gives him a lift to the club because his car has broken down. Then, nobody sees him again until he and his boat … sorry, this must be tough for you, having to go through it all again.’

Catarina glared at me. ‘You think I not tough? I go through it as many times as I need to. I want killer found. I want killer found and hanged.’

‘We’ve stopped hanging people,’ I said.

But maybe she didn’t mean hanged legally.

On the way out I suddenly had a thought.

‘Do you have the keys to Robin’s car?’

‘He leave them in car, always.’

‘Have you used it?’

‘No. I have my own car. BMW. Purple. White leather. Has much class.’

So, just out of interest, I went to the garage and tried to start Robin’s Saab. The key was in the ignition, as Catarina had said. I turned it. The engine burst into life straight away.

Of course, that proved nothing on its own. Still, it was interesting all the same.

‘That was what was bothering me,’ I said. ‘Tom’s father had collected the boat and towed it back to Greylands. But nobody had said they had driven Robin’s car back. It wasn’t still parked at the sailing club, so what had happened to it? Of course that is the obvious answer – he never took it there in the first place.’

‘But why?’ said Elsie. ‘It was working perfectly well. Instead, he apparently accepts a lift from this mysterious stranger who has dropped by for coffee. Maybe he wasn’t in a fit state to drive?’

‘I told you: the coroner’s report says no alcohol – anyway, it would have been a bit early even for Robin. And he wouldn’t have gone sailing if he was drunk.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Robin stopped that years ago. Sophie thought not, but I believe Tom. He knew Robin right up to the end.’

Elsie looked doubtful, but I did believe Tom on this and most other things.

‘OK, then,’ said Elsie, ‘why do they drive down together? Not to enjoy the facilities at the sailing club, which are apparently zero.’

‘Yes, it’s very basic at Snow Hill – just a place to store your boat and equipment. In the summer they sometimes have parties there, but at this time of year it’s pretty deserted. Maybe Robin was keen to get down to the water but they still had something to talk about on the way? So somebody came to him to discuss something that wouldn’t wait.’

‘Who might that be?’

‘Possibly Barry Whitelace,’ I said.

‘Who’s he?’

‘He’s somebody who is very concerned about a wind farm Robin was planning to build – somewhere near the Herring Field. He was very keen to talk to Catarina after the funeral … so, he’d have been keen to talk to Robin too. But that’s only a guess. I don’t know that.’

‘You don’t? No shit? We’d better cancel the arrest warrant for Barry Whitelace, then. Why did Robin want to construct a wind farm, anyway?’

‘Money,’ I said. ‘It seems that, contrary to what everyone thought, Robin was always short of it. He certainly wasn’t getting much from acting.’

‘But then he decided not to build it?’

‘So Tom says.’

‘Because he suddenly had another source of funds?’ asked Elsie.

‘That’s a logical conclusion. It would certainly explain the facts as we know them.’

‘In which case, how else would he make some easy
money? Even if he’d stopped taking drugs, he’d have still had contacts, wouldn’t he?’

‘You mean he was dealing?’ I asked.

‘Could be. All these trips out in his boat.’

‘It’s not big enough to get over to France,’ I said.

‘He wouldn’t need to. He just has to rendezvous with a bigger boat and bring the stuff back with him. There are no customs officers at Snow Hill, are there? There’s nobody much around to see him come ashore. Anyway, with all that stuff sailors carry backwards and forwards – sails and rudders and life jackets and sheets or whatever – who’s going to notice a modest little package wrapped in heavy-duty plastic? He was pretty keen to make sure Catarina was out of the way that day. So, somebody turns up at the house – they have coffee together, drive down to the sailing club and pick up the drugs from wherever they’ve been stashed. He does the deal. Then, he sails off to another appointment with a boat somewhere off the Isle of Wight, but this time something goes wrong. There’s an argument over the price, perhaps. He gets knocked on the head and dumped in the water. Later his body is washed up in Bracklesham …’

‘Very good,’ I said. ‘You should be the crime writer.’

‘Crime novels? Piece of piss,’ she said.

‘Maybe we should focus on what really happened,’ I said. ‘I mean something remotely possible that fits the facts as we know them.’

‘Fine, do it your way, then,’ she said.

Still, unlikely though her smuggling scenario was, she had a point. Robin had been strangely keen to ensure that Catarina was out of the way. And there had been no need,
on a wet and windy day, to accept a lift to Snow Hill, knowing that he would need to walk or catch a bus back. If I didn’t know sailors, I’d have said there was no need to go out at all in that weather, but Robin liked a challenge.

I’ve mentioned this before, I know, but there are strange similarities between solving crimes and crossword puzzles. Often you will look at a jumble of facts and they seem no more than that. Then suddenly you will see a pattern and you cannot believe that you had not made the connection before. Sometimes – I am talking about puzzles now – I will find a word, any word, that is the right length and happens to fit the letters I already have. It may not be the correct answer, but it gives you a better feel for what other words might also go there. Often the real answer is only a letter or two different. Elsie’s solution might be far-fetched, but maybe what really happened was only a minor truth or two away from it. Could Robin have been dealing drugs? He would have had all the connections. He had the boat. He lacked the sort of conscience that would have told him that it was wrong, or indeed inadvisable. And if you wanted to bring contraband of any sort ashore, then this was the place to do it. But nobody had even hinted before that Robin would do that sort of thing, however badly he needed the cash.

Nor was I sure that Barry Whitelace would murder to prevent a wind farm overlooking Chichester Harbour. On the face of it, it was at least as unlikely as the drug dealing. But it was quite possible that he was indeed the visitor who had drunk a cup of coffee and continued their conversation all the way to the sailing club. I suspected he was not an easy man to shake off.

‘The fact that he sent Catarina off to Chichester suggests Robin knew something out of the ordinary was going on,’ I said. ‘And the fact that he got a lift to Snow Hill means there is somebody out there who knows about his final hours and who has not come forward to tell the police what they know. But I can’t see Barry Whitelace withholding material evidence.’

‘A woman, then,’ said Elsie. ‘Robin packs his girlfriend off to the shops. An old flame shows up. Maybe the activities planned for the afternoon included more than sailing. And you can see why the other woman might choose not to identify herself even after the body was found – she might be married.’

‘Robin was engaged to Catarina,’ I said. ‘There wasn’t anyone else.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Elsie with the charitable compassion for which she is known throughout the publishing world. ‘And pigs might sodding fly.’

Knowing that she was staying almost next door to the post office, I was not surprised to run into Sophie Tate again when I was buying some milk and a couple of packets of biscuits. (The packet that I thought I possessed had mysteriously vanished. Elsie denied any knowledge of them.) But we expressed surprise at the apparent coincidence.

‘How long are you down for?’ I asked.

‘About a week in total. I go back tomorrow.’

‘Sorry you haven’t had better weather.’

‘I’m used to it. I more or less lived down here for six months.’

‘You worked down here?’

‘I’m an HR consultant. Sometimes I have to be in a particular place, but most of the time I can do my work from anywhere.’

‘You said that you wanted to talk to me if I was investigating Robin’s death.’

‘And are you?’

‘No.’

‘Then I suppose that eventuality does not arise.’

‘Mere curiosity on my part isn’t enough?’

‘Got it in one,’ she said. ‘What I know probably isn’t important, but it also isn’t entirely to my credit that I know it. If you’re not investigating, it won’t be of much use to you or me to expand on that.’

I wished her a good trip back. She said that maybe we would meet when she was next down. I agreed that that was likely rather than otherwise. It was not a large village. And she left. I took my goods to the counter to pay for them, wondering whether I shouldn’t have accepted the inevitable and bought half a dozen assorted packets of biscuits. I had no doubt that, with only two, I would be back tomorrow.

‘I met Sophie at the funeral,’ I said as I dipped into my pockets for change. ‘She used to know Robin quite well.’

‘Of course she did,’ came the reply. ‘They were engaged.’

‘Really?’ I asked, remembering what Tom had told me. But Josie knows pretty well everyone in the village, so her pronouncements on matters such as that were regarded as definitive. ‘You mean officially?’

‘Absolutely officially. I really thought she and Robin would get married, but it didn’t work out, as you probably know.’

Clearly I didn’t know, so I waited for her to explain.

‘I suppose it doesn’t matter any more, not with Robin being dead, but she had a bit of a fling with that Tom Gittings.’

‘That’s why she and Robin split up?’

‘So I heard. Of course, the thing with Tom didn’t last long, but Robin had moved on too by then. Robin and Sophie stayed friends, I think. She always saw Robin when she came down here. Not so much since Catarina came on the scene, of course. No, maybe not so much lately. But before that she did.’

‘And Tom knew all that?’

‘That Sophie and Robin were engaged? He was at the engagement party. It would have been difficult not to notice.’

‘Tom never mentioned he went out with her.’

‘Maybe he’s not too proud of what he did.’

‘I’m surprised at him, anyway.’

‘The quiet ones are always the worst. As for the quiet, good-looking ones like that Tom Gittings … Do you want another packet of those chocolate digestives? They’re on special offer.’