Fatal Legacy (25 page)

‘It’s not gossip, Joe Willett, as well you know. There’s no smoke without fire, and there was
plenty
of smoke, believe me.’

Joe Willett eased himself up out of his chair and grabbed at his pipe and jacket.

‘Where’re you off to?’

‘Pub.’

Millie shrugged and grinned at his receding back.

‘Lift’s out!’ she called after him as he slammed the door.

Cooper and Nightingale stared at her warily, but she seemed completely unconcerned.

‘It’s not the gossip ’e minds, it’s the,’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘talk about sex. It’s embarrassing for him. Isn’t that nice?’

Neither of the police officers could think of an appropriate reply, so they nodded and waited for the final chapter in Millie’s never-ending story.

‘Well, it’s true that Mr Wainwright was pleased with his nephew’s work, but Alexander was too much of his own man for his uncle’s liking. The old man would summon ’im into the study at the Hall sometimes, and you should’ve heard the shouting – the old man’s, that is. Alexander would answer mild, but his eyes – ooh, you could see rebellion in them.

‘Which is where Miss Sally came in. Always the pacifier, meek and mild as you could wish. As soon as Alexander left the
study she’d be in like a ferret after rabbits. And she’d stay in there too, for ages.’

‘How long, for example?’ Cooper had at last opened his own notebook and was making a few jottings of his own.

‘Half an hour – nearly an hour once. And when she came out it was like the cat with the cream, her face. Saucy and
self-righteous
.’

‘That all seems innocent enough, Mrs Willett. She sounds like a natural peacemaker to me.’

‘Met ’er then, have you, Sergeant? She has that effect on most men, saving poor old Joe. Well, it wasn’t as innocent as all that. I saw things. Speak to Irene’s mum – she walked in on them at it once. I started to suspect something wasn’t quite right when I found her earring under his desk. How’d it get there? Then there was that time I went to clear his supper tray without realising she was still in there. I just walked in,
natural-like
, and there ’e was, bright red in the face, sitting behind that big desk of his, gasping.’

‘And Sally?’

‘Oh, no sign of her, miss,
none at all.
’

‘So where was she then?’ Cooper looked confused.

‘Behind the desk on her knees, if you want my opinion. There wan’t anywhere else she could be – you check it out yourself, it’s not that big a room.’

‘But that’s pure speculation!’ Cooper’s cheeks had taken on a ruby hue and he couldn’t bring himself to look at Nightingale, who calmly asked Millie Willett the obvious question.

‘So you believe that Alan Wainwright and Sally were having an affair?’

‘Bingo. Less than three months afterwards, he changes his will and then goes and kills hisself, and guess who becomes mistress of Wainwright Hall! Even if he’d been minded to leave
something
for Alexander, there’s no other explanation, to my mind, for his disinheriting his own son from the family home.’

She had nothing more to say. Cooper and Nightingale said their goodbyes and left Millie Willett to her cold tea and the sweet taste of revenge.

As he parked in the drive of the late Arthur Fish’s much-extended house, it occurred to Fenwick that Mrs Fish might not even be living at home any more. He was in luck, however. She was there, in the charge of a full-time nurse, who explained that arrangements for her patient’s care had been set out explicitly in the late Mr Fish’s will. There were funds to ensure that his wife could die without ever leaving her home. The nurse whispered to him whilst they were still in the privacy of the hall.

‘She is a very poorly lady, Chief Inspector. And she only communicates through blinking. Would you like me to stay and interpret?’

Fenwick declined, but asked for a reminder on how to read the invalid’s feeble eye movements: one blink for good or yes, and three for no or bad.

She was lying just as she had been when Fenwick had first seen her, head propped up and turned as if expectantly towards the door; eyes open but unfocused. He sat down next to her and, on an impulse, took her hand. The watery blue eyes became more intent and moved fractionally in his direction.

‘Mrs Fish, it’s DCI Fenwick, Harlden CID. Do you remember, we met a few days ago.’ There was no response.

‘I came to tell you that we are making every effort to close the investigation into your husband’s murder, but progress has been hampered by some important loose ends.’

The flicker of her blonde eyelashes was so faint Fenwick almost missed it. He decided to take it as a sign and carry on.

‘Part of the problem is that we can get nowhere with Wainwright Enterprises, and I believe there could be a
connection between his work and his death.’

A definite blink this time; that meant ‘yes’. Was she agreeing with him?

‘You think I’m right?’

Blink.

‘The problem is that his employers are giving nothing away.’

Her expression didn’t change – how could it; her muscles had long been paralysed – but Fenwick felt again the intense anger on top of her grief at her husband’s death. Then the intensity passed, and he was beginning to think she had dozed off when her eyes opened suddenly again and stared at him.

‘Do you know something, Mrs Fish? Something that could help us?’

Blink.

She had finally agreed to help him. Fenwick spent the next five painful minutes asking questions in an attempt to unlock Mrs Fish’s knowledge. He could feel her frustration grow with his own, and her desperate fight against exhaustion was terrible to watch. Even blinking her eyes became too much of an effort eventually, and she closed them in despair.

Fenwick looked at the ravaged face and wondered what kept the spark of life alight within her. With bitter irony he thought of his own wife, and of how her youthful, healthy body was a carrier for a mind her doctors were now calling vegetative; while here in front of him was a woman with an active mind, a warm character and intelligence, but virtually no means of expression because her body had failed her.

He moved to stand and started to let go of her hand. The fingers twitched and her eyes opened in alarm, their expression close to panic.

‘I have to go. I’m due back at the station.’

She was definitely pleading with him not to leave. If only he could think of the right questions!

‘You’re saying that there’s more for me to learn here, but my men have searched this house thoroughly.’

Three definite blinks – she was disagreeing with him.

Fenwick thought hard. They’d looked everywhere. Why was she so certain there was a clue here to her husband’s death? Then it struck him.

‘Did they search this room, Mrs Fish?’

Three blinks, then one. No. Yes. It didn’t make sense. He tried one last question.

‘Should they search in here again?’

Blink.

At last! Her eyes closed gratefully and he left her in peace.

Progress on the Fish case was good enough – especially as it allowed him to keep the investigation alive – but it wasn’t Fenwick’s main concern. He was dissatisfied with the pace of the inquiry into Graham Wainwright’s death. Blite was
struggling
in his search at the Hall. He suspected it was because Sally’s presence, and Blite’s desire to avoid doing anything that would upset her, just in case her husband called the ACC, were hampering him. He had called the inspector as soon as he left Pendlebury’s house because they could now put any doubts about cause of death out of their minds, and he had been unimpressed with the man’s response.

It was Sunday and Fenwick was keen to see his children, yet he couldn’t bring himself to turn the car towards home. Instead, he drove out into the country and towards Wainwright Hall. He wanted to shake things up, and push Blite to close as many of the loose ends as possible before Monday when he would have to provide yet another report to the ACC. He phoned Cooper at home and told him to join him at the Hall, and wasn’t in the least surprised to find that his sergeant had brought Nightingale with him.

Blite was not a happy man when he and his team assembled in the library to brief Fenwick on their progress. He resented the Chief Inspector’s presence, suspecting, rightly, that it signalled discontent with his lack of progress. His team of over fifteen had found nothing, and one of them, PC Shah, had managed to lose her warrant card in the process. When Fenwick told them they had conclusive proof that it was murder, he felt the ripple of excitement that passed through them echoed in his own adrenaline rush. They were hunting now.

‘What about the medicine cabinet?’

There were a few raised eyebrows at Fenwick’s question and some puzzled looks but Blite understood. The Chief Inspector
had asked him to find out, without Sally realising, the nature of the prescription that she was taking under doctor’s orders.

‘Well, it was difficult to search because she’s always there watching us like a hawk. In the end I pleaded a call of nature, so she had no option but to leave me alone!’

There was a smattering of laughter at his comment. Blite wasn’t a popular officer and the story of him poking around in the lady of the manor’s boudoir under the pretence of relieving himself would be around the station within minutes once the briefing was over.

Blite ignored them. He was enjoying his moment in the limelight. ‘I found some regular sleeping pills and, get this, some barbiturates! Very unusual these days.’

‘Sir!’

‘Yes, Nightingale.’

‘The drug which Alan Wainwright took when he killed himself was a barbiturate. If we could match the samples taken from his body with Mrs Wainwright-Smith’s prescription
and
with the samples taken from Graham Wainwright …’

‘… It could be an interesting coincidence. Well done, Constable. Inspector, see to it, would you, and make absolutely sure that our rights of search and seizure are watertight. Is there anything else of interest?’ Blite shook his head.

Fenwick took in the mood of the team. It was only day two after the murder, and they should be fresh and ready for the hunt, yet they looked resigned, not hungry. He had never rated Blite as a leader, and there was no point having a large team if they were unmotivated.

‘It may be that there is nothing here to be found, but being sure of that is key,’ he told them. ‘We are dealing with a clever and manipulative murderer, someone who almost tricked us into thinking that this death was an accident or suicide. Well, it’s not. It was cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder, and it may not have been the first. Remember Arthur Fish? On the way here, I heard from DS Gould that forensic tests have confirmed that Fish visited Amanda Bennett before he died. They’ve matched wood fibres from his body to a birch in her cupboard and some very distinctive carpet fibres on his shoes, coat and trousers to a rug in her house.

‘We now know where Arthur went on the night he was killed. The fact that the woman he visited was murdered immediately after his visit, adds weight to our belief that he was not killed by a random mugger. So why was he killed? And why was Graham killed less than a week later? Both murdered in a way to throw us off the scent. We don’t know if this is the last killing, and until we discover the motive, we cannot be sure that other lives are not at risk. Motive is vital. Keep your wits about you. A clue may not be obvious. Look for anything out of the ordinary – even coincidences could count. I’m banking on you, and so is the Superintendent. Now you’d best get back to it. You’ve had enough of a break!’

The team left the room with straighter backs and Fenwick watched them go with relief. This wasn’t going to be easy, but he was convinced there was evidence out there, perhaps under their noses, if they only had the brains to spot it.

‘Cooper, Nightingale, come on, we might as well have a bite of lunch. There’s a pub just down the road which does good food.’

Cooper spooned a large helping of horseradish on to his plate and picked up his knife and fork with an anticipatory sigh. It was a while since he’d had Yorkshire Pudding with his roast beef and his mouth was watering. They had found a table in a corner meant for two, but large enough for the three of them as Nightingale was only eating a sandwich. A boisterous family group next to them was making so much noise that Fenwick was comfortable they could talk freely without being
overheard
.

‘Did you mean what you said about other lives being at risk, sir?’ Cooper’s expressive face radiated concern.

‘Yes. If there is a link, then somebody is being ruthless to make sure we don’t find it. Graham told Jenny he was going to see us after some sort of meeting but he was murdered before he could. What did he know and why was it enough to cause him to be killed?’

‘And we still don’t know where the missing tape is, sir, number ten that Fish supposedly dictated on the day he was killed,’ Nightingale put in. ‘He might have left it at Amanda’s.’

‘Good point. Why don’t you go to Brighton with Sergeant Gould tomorrow since you attended the original scene? See what you can find. Cooper can come with me to the Fish house, there might be something there. What else don’t we know?’

‘You had your suspicions about Sally, sir, early on – do they still exist?’

‘Very definitely. We need to find out much more about her. She just suddenly turned up here in Harlden and the private investigator Graham hired could find out nothing of her past.’

Cooper made a note in his book. That was something Nightingale could get on with once she had finished in Brighton.

‘Who benefits financially from Graham’s death? That could be a motive.’ Cooper talked as he mashed the last of his roast potatoes into the puddle of gravy on his plate, causing Nightingale to turn her eyes away.

‘Alexander Wainwright-Smith. Blite tracked down Kemp at the golf club first thing this morning and he confirmed it. The residual estate reverted to the survivor should either Graham or his cousin die within twelve months of Alan Wainwright. On this half of the estate, though, Sally Wainwright-Smith doesn’t get a look in. It all goes to Alexander.’

‘I wonder who would benefit if
he
died?’

‘Good question. When Blite asked Kemp he professed ignorance – said he’d never drafted a will for him. It’s another thing worth checking on. And who is finding out more about James FitzGerald? I know it’s not a priority but he was definitely disconcerted by our visit, so we mustn’t lose sight of it.’

Cooper made another note.

The family at the next table departed in a noisy rush, leaving an empty silence behind them.

‘That’s our signal to go, I think. I’ll see you tomorrow at 8.30, Sergeant, at Mrs Fish’s house.’