Fatal Legacy (34 page)

‘Here, you’ll like this one.’ FitzGerald handed her a glossy black-and-white photograph of the beech tree, with two figures beneath it. It had been taken with a powerful telephoto lens from some distance, and the faces were less than the size of her fingernail. However, she had no doubt that with modern equipment it would be abundantly clear who it was in the picture.

‘Why haven’t you taken this to the police? I’m sure they’d be interested.’

‘Oh, they’d be more than interested, particularly in this one.’ He handed her another. ‘That really was very ingenious, Sally, but it still must have been very hard work. I decided that these would be of more use to me than to the police. This way, you and your hard-working but stubborn husband will have to behave. Wainwright’s is very important to me, and to my business partners, and it must be run smoothly, just as it was by dear old Alan. If I went to the police with these they would immediately meddle in our affairs – and anyway, with the photographs in my back pocket, your independent-minded husband will have to behave.

‘Whether you tell him what I’ve got or simply use your influence, I frankly don’t give a shit; I just want him to be good. Understood?’

He squeezed her wrist hard, and she began to feel her
self-control
ebbing away. She made as if to leave.

‘Don’t. That would be dumb, Sally, and you know it.’

‘I don’t want to see any more.’ Her voice was barely a whisper.

‘That’s fine, you don’t have to, but you do need to know that I have these. And you needn’t worry about the photographer; he’s worked for me for years and has seen worse – though not much worse, come to think of it.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I told you: complete and assured control of Wainwright’s and, of course, a small contribution to my pension fund.’

‘How much?’

‘Three million pounds.’

‘What!’ The figure appalled her.

‘It’s a fraction of what you and Alexander have inherited, and it’s much better than losing it all.’

‘Don’t you have enough already?’

‘Ah, well, no, it’s impossible to have enough, surely
you
realise that. I want more.’

‘But three million! How can I get that much together?’

‘You’ll think of something. I don’t need it all at once. A few hundred thousand up front to show we have an understanding, and then the rest over the next year or so. I know you’ll be able to do it – how is up to you.’

A teacher and a group of children stormed into the keep, bombarding the old stones with high-pitched laughter and corresponding calls for quiet. The teacher saw Sally and FitzGerald standing together and mistook their meeting for a lovers’ tryst, the blush of embarrassment showing bright in her cheeks.

FitzGerald held on to Sally’s forearm in a grip that was not to be denied and walked her out of earshot, smiling benignly at the teacher, who promptly blushed again and shooed the children outside.

‘How long do I have to think about it?’

‘You don’t. It’s non-negotiable, Sally. All you need to do is work out how you’ll pay me. As I say, the first instalment should be easy to raise and I expect to see that within the week. Liquidate some of the trust fund; it should be easy.’

‘Graham’s estate isn’t settled yet.’

‘But Alan’s is, and I know exactly how much he left you. As for Graham’s, as soon as the letters of administration are granted, you can liquidate his assets and pay me the balance.’

Sally seemed to capitulate suddenly. Her shoulders slumped and her head drooped.

‘I might need some help to realise the money.’

He doubted that. Knowing Sally, there was bound to be a
fortune in cash stashed away in the Hall.

‘Jeremy Kemp can help. I’ll let him know that you may call, but it is essential he knows nothing about the money coming to me. That’s our little secret.’ He gave her wrist a squeeze as a reminder of the alternative.

‘I’ll talk to Jeremy, and as soon as I’ve worked it out, I’ll call you and we can agree how you receive the money.’

‘Splendid!’ He sounded almost avuncular, delighted. ‘I knew you’d be a sensible girl. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.’

‘No thanks, I need to think. You go on down. We’d best not be seen together anyway.’ She sounded low, defeated.

‘Very well.’ He planted a moist kiss on her cheek and ignored her shudder. ‘Well done!’ he said, as if she had just passed a difficult test, and then waved as he strutted off down the path.

Sally watched him go, her eyes as cold and empty as the windows of the keep. Her mouth jerked, then twisted. She bit her lip and chewed at the skin until it was raw. When FitzGerald reached the bottom of the hill, he turned and blew her a silent kiss from the shadow of the gate. Seconds later he had disappeared back up the High Street. As soon as she was sure he had truly gone, Sally threw back her head and let out a terrible wail. Her cry bounced off the walls, rising higher and louder with every echo. It seemed to go on forever.

Below the keep, on the grass, the children looked up from their drawings, wide-eyed and scared, and then carefully crayoned in the ghost they expected to appear any minute from above the walls of the ruined castle.

Whilst Sally prowled in Harlden Park, her solicitor, Michael Ebutt, started to earn his extortionate retainer. At precisely nine thirty, his customary time to commence the day’s work, he opened the file on his latest high-profile client. Had anybody been studying his face in an attempt to discern how serious was the case against her, they would have noticed a deep frown line form between his immaculately groomed eyebrows, then the corners of his mouth turn down into the margins of his closely trimmed beard. By ten o’clock they could have been forgiven for deducing, from the expression on his face, that Sally’s predicament was bleak. But at 10.14 precisely, his clouded demeanour cleared and a sudden, triumphant smile broke out before being smothered again in an expression of grim
satisfaction
.

Fenwick was in his office, rereading the latest reports of the interview with Sally the previous day and checking on the preparations for the identity parade, which had been arranged for lunchtime, when his secretary interrupted to tell him that Mrs Wainwright-Smith’s lawyer was on the phone. He decided to take the call and was momentarily surprised to hear Ebutt’s name. He had a national reputation and was regarded by police forces throughout the country as a fearsome criminal lawyer. This was the first time that Fenwick had ever spoken to him.

‘Chief Inspector, I have been retained by Mr Wainwright-Smith to represent his wife, and within half an hour of reading your supposed evidence against her, I can see at once why you haven’t dared to arrest her. You simply don’t have a case!’

Fenwick was surprised that the man had called to tell him
this over the phone when he could have taken the opportunity of expressing his opinion face-to-face later in the day. It seemed an odd tactic for such an experienced practitioner, but the reason became clear within seconds.

‘I suggest you cancel this intended identity parade today, or I shall be forced to advise my clients to allege harassment by you and your team.’

If Ebutt was trying to annoy Fenwick, then he had failed, but he had made the policeman curious to know what weakness it was about the case that made him so confident, and Fenwick asked him to explain.

‘I understand that the method you say was used to murder Mr Graham Wainwright was ligature strangulation, after which he was strung up in an attempt to make it look like suicide by hanging.’ Fenwick said nothing, and after a pause Ebutt was forced to continue. ‘Perhaps you can tell me, then, Chief Inspector, how a young woman of one hundred and eight pounds managed to lift the dead weight of a man weighing ten and a half stone, balance him whilst she attached a noose to his neck and then run around to the other side of the tree and tie the rope to a branch on the far side?’

Fenwick felt the blood drain from his face. He had
specifically
asked Blite to test whether hanging as a means of killing would stand up, and he had been told, categorically, yes. And Blite had known Sally was their prime suspect. He had relied on Blite’s judgement as SIO, and he had let him down. Ebutt was talking again, and he forced himself to concentrate.

‘Until you can answer my question, I strongly suggest that you suspend all further interviews with my client. And before you compound your mistake by suggesting that she was working with someone else – say her husband – I must tell you that I have this morning received a statement from one of the helpers at the Hall that confirms he was in his room, fast asleep, all morning. She has kindly provided us with the times at which she had to enter his bedroom, and I can assure you that they mean he has a robust alibi.’

Fenwick remembered Irene’s eyes, how he had identified her immediately as a casual breaker of the law. He wondered how much she had been offered to change her story. There was only
one way for Fenwick to manage a man like Ebutt if he wanted to keep in control of this investigation: firmly, and with complete confidence. Ignoring the questions and doubts that were now crowding his mind, he toughened his tone into one of polite insistence that brooked no denial.

‘On the contrary, we will still expect her to be at the station at one o’clock for further questioning and to attend the identity parade. I suggest we suspend further conversation until then, Mr Ebutt.’

As soon as he was off the phone, he called in Blite and Cooper and explained the problem. Both men looked ashen, and he could see Blite already thinking how he would move the potential blame from his own shoulders and on to Fenwick’s. He forestalled any prospect of blame-throwing by moving at once to concentrate their minds on solving the problem instead.

‘We need to consider two options: she was either working with an accomplice who helped her lynch Graham’s body after he was dead or unconscious. Or two, she was working alone and somehow did manage to string the body up. Cooper, I want a reconstruction. Talk to George Wicklow; see if between the two of you you can find a tree of similar proportions to the beech on the Wainwright estate. It shouldn’t be too difficult, given the number of woods we have in the county. And Inspector, you continue to prepare for the interview and talk to the
identification
officer about the parade. Despite what Ebutt said, as far as Sally is concerned we’re going to continue as if nothing has happened. This is a technical difficulty, understood?’

Blite looked uncomfortable.

‘Shouldn’t we tell the Superintendent and the ACC?’

‘They’ll be receiving my report this evening as usual, and until then I don’t think
any of us
need trouble them.
Understood
?’

Both men left, and Fenwick forced himself to go back to the papers he had been studying before the phone call. There was nothing he could do until the reconstruction started, and in the meantime, he was determined to check every last possible avenue for a connection between Sally and Arthur Fish.

‘Are you sure this tree is a match to the old beech, Cooper?’

‘As close as we could get, sir. This branch here is within three inches of the height off the ground, and there are roots over there that we can attach the rope to.’

Cooper had spent an hour finding a suitable tree, and then a further twenty minutes persuading an irascible farmer to allow them the use of his field. It was obvious that the man didn’t hold with having the police on his property, and his mood hadn’t been improved by the fact that he had been interrupted in the middle of a delicate manoeuvre to lift the engine block out of an old tractor. He had agreed eventually, wisely deciding that Sergeant Cooper was a man to keep on side.

Now they had an hour and ten minutes before Sally was due at the station for her next interview, and the tension in the team was making them all short-tempered. Nightingale had
assembled
what they would need for the reconstruction: a long sandbag the same weight as Graham Wainwright’s dead body, a rope and a stool. Fenwick had decided to attend, as well as Blite and Cooper, leaving Nightingale the only junior officer present. She was fractionally taller than Sally but almost the same weight, so much of the physical work was going to be hers.

‘We need to time all this. Inspector, you keep a record.’

‘What do you want me to do, sir?’

‘Watch, Sergeant; make notes and feed back your conclusions at the end.’

The first challenge was for Nightingale to knot a noose, and she made heavy weather of it. After fifteen minutes Cooper took over, and they all agreed that Sally could have brought the rope, ready prepared, to the scene, so they would start the count all over again. It was 12.13 p.m.

By 12.18, Nightingale had attached the noose to the sand bag, creating a floppy ‘head’, and had managed to drag the weight of it ten feet to lie underneath the branch. She was sweating and panting with exertion, and both Fenwick and Blite were looking worried. They watched as she positioned the stool and took a deep breath before throwing the free end of the rope up and over the branch. She was successful the first time, and by 12.24 had secured the loose end to a far root. The next part of the reconstruction was the most challenging; she had to pull the body upright and over the branch. For ten long, exhausting
minutes she struggled alone, but the weight wouldn’t budge. They called the station and had them postpone both interview and identity parade by an hour. Fenwick wanted them all confident of Sally’s guilt, Blite most of all, before their first encounter with Ebutt.

‘Sergeant, act as the accomplice; go and lift the bag up so that it creates slack in the rope.’

Cooper tried to do as he was asked, but at the end of a further fifteen minutes, all he and Nightingale had succeeded in doing was to haul the body upright so that its weight rested against Cooper. It was ten to one, and Fenwick ordered a break. Nightingale and Cooper leant back exhaustedly against the tree. Blite lit a cigarette and kept repeating, ‘Shit, shit, shit’ under his breath.

Fenwick walked away from them, trying to ignore Blite’s carping in the background. He needed to think. So much of the evidence pointed towards Sally as the murderess, but now it looked as if it had been physically impossible for her to lift the body, even with help.

He replayed the details of the case in his mind, walking distractedly far away from his team. He was wearing wellington boots, but the field and track were so muddy that he had already wrecked his trousers with splashes of mud.

‘Oi! Watch yourself!’ An angry voice broke his concentration and he looked up to find himself in the middle of one of the farmer’s yards. A combine harvester was being overhauled by a farm mechanic to his left, whilst the farmer and one of his labourers were repositioning a repaired engine into an old tractor. He had almost walked right under their block and tackle, and pulled back quickly, aware of the weight of gleaming metal swinging a mere foot away from his head.

‘Sorry.’

‘Daft bugger.’

Fenwick ignored the man’s justified remark and turned back towards the track that led to the field and their doomed reconstruction. He was opening the gate before the full significance of what he had seen finally hit him. He ran back towards the yard, his excitement making him fresh and
sure-footed
despite the slime beneath his boots.

‘Well, this is a cock-up on a grand scale, isn’t it?’ Blite’s tone implied that it was anybody’s fault but his, and Cooper had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from reminding the inspector that
he
was the SIO on the case after all. ‘He should have realised from the beginning that it was physically impossible for her to lift the dead weight of a man’s body. Thank God we didn’t arrest her, is all I can say.’

Cooper and Nightingale looked at each other in shared misery. They still had absolute faith in DCI Fenwick, despite their failure during the past hour. Both of them had laboured to breaking point to prove him right, so much so that small blood vessels had broken in Cooper’s cheeks and Nightingale was quite concerned for him. There was nothing they could think of to say in reply to Blite’s criticisms, so by tacit agreement they wandered off further into the field to commiserate with each other in silence. Nightingale was trying to identify something that they might have missed which could explain everything when she heard a shout from behind her.

‘Back to work! Come on, you lot, we have to be back in Harlden by one-forty-five. Hurry up!’

They turned as one to see Fenwick striding purposefully towards the tree, closely followed by a farm worker. His obvious confidence and determination lifted Nightingale’s spirits. She saw a slow grin form on Cooper’s face and heard him mutter:

‘The old bugger’s done it again, I’ll wager! What is it this time?’

‘Right, listen up, the gentleman with the package over there is Pete. He has kindly agreed to help us with our experiment.’

A look of nervous confusion crossed the man’s face, but he held his silence and merely nodded a greeting to the three police officers, who were staring at him with open curiosity. ‘Off you go, Pete.’

The man walked over to the branch and stood on the stool, then secured a wide canvas strap with a metal hook attached to it around the branch and buckled it tight. Next he took a block and tackle from the bag he had been carrying and attached it to the hook. He spent a few minutes straightening the links in the chain that ran through it and then tied a loop of rope from the
chain and around the sandbag. He stepped down from the stool and pulled on the chain; the ratchet jerked up about six inches. Another pull and it rose a further foot in the air, the block in the pulley preventing the chain from sliding back between pulls. The sandbag was vertical and swinging free of the ground within two minutes. Fenwick went over to the rope where it had been tied to a root and pulled up the slack until it was taut. Pete released his rope from around the sandbag and they watched in silence as it turned very, very slowly in the air.

The grin on Cooper’s face was in danger of splitting it in two, but it disappeared in an instant as Blite spoke.

‘So the murderer was a farm mechanic who knows how to work a pulley system. Well, that narrows the field, doesn’t it?’ He didn’t even try to hide his sarcasm.

Pete went pale; he hadn’t reckoned on becoming an
immediate
suspect. Nightingale gave the man a reassuring smile that made him blush, and spoke quietly.

‘Sally’s father was a farm mechanic, Inspector. She must have seen him at work many a time.’

‘And remembered how to rig a block and tackle system from when she was eight years old!’

‘It’s possible, yes. Anyway, there’s an easy way to find out.’

‘Which is, Constable?’

‘Let me try it. I’ve just watched Pete once. If I can do it, I don’t see why Sally couldn’t if she saw her father at work all the time.’

Fenwick nodded his approval. He went and untied the rope, allowing the bag to fall, and Pete passed her the block and tackle. Nightingale repeated every one of his steps methodically, not rushing but with no hesitation either. She made it look simple and straightforward. Cooper timed her. The dead weight of the sandbag eventually started to move, and although it was obvious that it took her more effort than it had Pete, she finally managed to lift it clear of the ground. As she tied off the rope, Cooper called out: