Monday cont.
Cleo and Dorothy drove to Kelly’s farm, inevitably
passing Hilda Bone’s house on the way. Hilda was a retired housewife since her spouse
was a retired business man of some ilk or other. Hilda was invariably at a
loose end when she had finished cleaning and cooking while her spouse nodded
his life away in an easy chair. Dorothy could not help looking at Hilda’s front
window and was not surprised to see the net curtain move.
“Hilda is controlling the road again,” Dorothy
announced. “She’s wishing for exotic animals in baskets, I expect.”
“It’s a thought,” said Cleo. “We’ll keep it in mind.
“Hilda fancies herself as a sleuth,” said Dorothy.
“I met her in the street a few days ago and she wanted to know if there was a
case she could work on.”
“She asks me that every week and if she doesn’t ask
me, she asks Robert at the shop. What did you tell her?”
“I told her to watch out for more wild animals,”
laughed Dorothy. “She pretended not to know what I was talking about, but she
might have been putting on an act," said Dorothy. "I wonder if she
already knows what has happened at Kelly's farm.”
“How could she? The news can’t have got around yet.”
“Let’s hope she doesn’t find out too soon, Cleo.
The fewer people get involved, the better.”
“I’ll second that,” said Cleo.
From the bumpy potholed road up to the farm they could see
that Paddy Kelly was sitting hunched up on the wooden bench next to the front door
of his farmhouse. Cleo drove as fast as she could up the neglected road leading
from the main road to the farm. It was part of the estate property, so Kelly
was responsible for its upkeep. But he did not get many visitors and his
bone-shaker of a car would have bone-shook anyway, was his argument. Dorothy
remarked that a few loads of gravel would make all the difference. She would
tell Kelly as soon as the opportunity arose, though he would ignore advice offered to him for the umpteenth
time.
***
“This is a dreadful tragedy, Mr Kelly,” said Cleo
as she got out of the car. “Can you take us to Mrs Coppins?"
"What was she doing here?" asked Dorothy.
Kelly stood up.
"You aren't invited to this party, Miss
Price," he said.
"Now, now, Mr Kelly," intervened Cleo.
"You know we work together."
Kelly grunted.
"I'll take you to the pond," he said.
“No, Mr Kelly. You must wait here for Dr Mitchell
and Mr Hurley. “We’ll find our way alone.”
“Hurley? Is that the arrogant guy who dealt with
Magda’s accident?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Cleo. “He’s the boss of
homicide. The pond is just behind the barn, isn’t it?”
Kelly nodded. Cleo did not think Kelly would admit
to having a relationship with Betty Coppins, especially to Gary, who came
crashing up the drive as Cleo and Dorothy were setting off for the pond.
Gary was shouting expletives because the drive up
to the farm was full of puddles after a heavy fall of rain and his car looked
like a motor-cross candidate. Life would be difficult for Chris and his team,
too. Rain was the friend of felons and the fiend of any forensic scientist
looking for clues.
***
Gary extricated himself from his low-slung red sports
car and went up to Kelly.
“Morning, Mr Kelly. What have you done now?”
Cleo turned round and winced. Gary could not have
got off to a worse start.
Kelly scowled.
Cleo tried to indicate to Gary that he should be a
little gentler in his approach.
“I haven’t done nothin’ except pull a poor lady out
of the pond,” he replied.
“A lady, was it?" said Gary.
“Come with us to see what’s happened,” said Cleo, frowning
at Gary and sending him gestures to the tune of ‘pack it in or the guy will not
cooperate’.
“When the paramedics or the forensics van arrive, send them
to the scene of the crime, Mr Kelly,” Gary instructed.
“What crime?”
“People don’t just drown in strange ponds, Mr Kelly,” he said.
“Betty Coppins did,” retorted Kelly.
“Can you also send Dr Mitchell round when he arrives, Mr
Kelly?” said Cleo.
“Yes, do that, Mr Kelly,” Dorothy said in the same quiet
voice as Gary’s, which she thought was more
appropriate for the occasion. Kelly was not himself. She hoped Dr Mitchell
would give him a sedative before proceeding to the pond.
“I agree,” said Gary. “He’ll need to examine the corpse
before issuing a death certificate.”
Kelly winced.
“Shut up, Gary,” Dorothy said. “Can’t you see that Mr Kelly
is upset?”
“He has guilt written all over his face,” hissed Gary as he
turned in the direction of the old barn, which had already been the scene of one
crime he had had to deal with, but in the end Cleo had solved. The pond was behind
that barn.
***
Gary thought that Kelly might have tried to hide the corpse
in the pond and it not sunk. Then Kelly got twinges of conscience and tried to
pull the woman out again. Or maybe it was just swept under except for the head.
***
“The pond is not tidal, Gary,” Cleo said. “And please don’t treat
the guy as if he’s guilty of something.”
“Well, isn’t he?” Gary retorted.
“That remains to be seen,” said Dorothy. “You don’t usually
jump to conclusions, Gary.”
***
Gary always felt vulnerable in the presence of the two lady
sleuths and was hell-bent on asserting himself, but tact was not one of Gary’s strong
points. His petulant conduct now was typical for him in a situation involving
Cleo’s agency. He wished he could ditch his fascination for her so that he
could be more objective about amateurs beating him at his own game.
***
Cleo released herself from Gary’s protective arm, which had
slipped casually round her waist, but his gesture had not escaped Dorothy’s
eagle eye. She drew Cleo aside.
“He’s still in love with you,” she whispered.
“Rubbish,” said Cleo.
“I’m never wrong about these things,” hissed Dorothy.
“You’ll have to be. I’m married to Robert.”
“Since when did that make any difference? You adore the guy,
judging from your reaction to him a minute or two ago. Don’t do what I did and end
up on the wrong shelf.”
***
“What are you two ladies up to?” called Gary over his
shoulder.
“I’ve got the wrong shoes on,” said Dorothy.
“Typical woman,” retorted Gary. “It’s a farm and it rained
all night. You should know better.”
***
Gary wanted to take a good look at the corpse of Mrs Coppins
and the pond before the forensic crew and paramedics arrived. He wondered if
Cleo and Dorothy were planning something he was not to know. He did not
complain about his beautiful hand-made Italian shoes getting muddy, but Dorothy
pointed it out to him and was rewarded with a scowl.
***
Cleo was glad Dorothy had found a reason for the whispering.
Was Gary’s and her mutual infatuation becoming so obvious? Cleo had told Gary
that she was not going to enter into a serious relationship with him, but wanting
to do just that made life so much more complicated. Things would be easier if
he just got on with his job and she could say no to his advances. She would
have to try harder not to care about him. She would blank him out of her
thoughts.
***
Thinking instead about the Coppins family, left high and dry
by a father who was in prison and now a mother who had met an untimely death,
Cleo stepped aside and rang the Edwards garage on her mobile. Jack, the eldest
of the Coppins family, worked there. She broke the news about his mother. Jack
was shocked. He said he would square things with Mr Edwards and take time off
to come home.
“Thanks, Jack. Call me if there’s a problem.”
“Should I tell the kids, Miss Hartley?”
“I think you’ll have to. The news is better coming from you
than from me or the police.”
“And should the kids go to school?”
“Yes. Let them live normal lives as far as possible.”
“Thank you for being supportive, Miss Hartley.”
“I’m glad I can help, Jack. Do you have any relatives who
could step in at short notice?”
”Mum had a sister, but she’s in Australia.”
“Maybe you should call her.”
“I haven’t got her phone number, Miss Hartley.”
“Look among your mother’s papers, Jack. She must have made a
note of the number. Siblings don’t usually completely lose sight of one
another.”
“Thank you, Miss Hartley. That’s a good idea, though I don’t
think my mum got on very well with her.”
Cleo thought about the tragedy that had befallen the family,
and most of all about little Joe Coppins, who had wanted his father back so
badly that he had hired her to find him. What a tough childhood he was having. Separating
those kids now would not be a good idea. She would have to wait till Jack found
out where his aunt was and hope that she would offer to come back and look
after the family.
***
Dorothy’s mobile phone rang. It was Hilda Bone. She had seen
a patrol car passing her front room window. Where was it going? Was something
going on at the Wellness Centre down the road? Knowing the Centre was right next
to Kelly’s farm estate, Dorothy did not want to advise Hilda to go and look.
But Hilda fancied herself as a sleuth and Dorothy had to
remind herself that Hilda’s observations from behind the net curtain in her
living-room had sometimes been useful, though her wish to tag along with the
Hartley Agency had been regularly refused by Cleo. Dorothy decided that Hilda
was now hoping to get onto the agency books through the back door.
“You know, Hilda,” Cleo had told Mrs Bone, “the more people
there are officially on my staff books, the harder it gets for them to work
incognito, so it’s better if you work alone and keep me posted.”
Hilda had thought that was a reasonable argument at the
time, but now she was not so sure since she dearly liked being informed about
local goings-on. It was not surprising that she turned to Dorothy for insider
information. Hilda did not care much for Cleo and the feeling was mutual. There
was nothing to stop her having a quiet look round, however, was there? She
would not mention that to Dorothy.
Dorothy avoided the subject of the Centre or Kelly’s farm by
talking about Hilda’s new next door neighbours. Did Hilda know them? The
descendants of the former owners had wanted nothing to do with a house where
one relative had been buried secretly in the garden and the other one murdered.
The new owners, strangers to the neighbourhood, had landscaped
the garden to make it look like a corner of Disneyland, complete with gnomes
and LED-lit plastic flowers. The house had been renovated and re-fitted to
match photos out of the current IKEA catalogue. Hilda Bone knew all that since
she had been next door ostensibly to borrow sugar and asked a lot of questions.
She had then spread the information widely.
The house was soon sold again, but two women and a man had
moved in, and she had not yet found a way of making worthwhile personal contact,
let alone finding out how the threesome arrangement worked.
“I think it’s a married couple and her sister,” Hilda told
Dorothy when she had finally whittled down the various explanations that had
occurred to her. “I think it’s a strange setup. The sister has dementia and
needs constant looking-after. Nice of her married sister to take responsibility
for her.”
“Or it’s the wife who has dementia and the sister is caring
for her, Hilda.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way round,” said Hilda. “So the
sister is living in sin with her sister’s husband, I expect.”
”That’s not what I said, Hilda,” protested Dorothy who was
afraid that Hilda might quote her on that.
The version that one man had two wives had not occurred to
either of them, but it was only a matter of time.
Dorothy claimed to hate the kind of tittle-tattle in which
Hilda Bone indulged, though anyone listening in would have said she was
enjoying herself. It was at least getting her off the subject of the morning’s
tragedy.
“You’ll let me know anything you find out, won’t you?”
continued Hilda.
“Find out?”
“About anything.”
“Of course, Hilda. Don’t I always tell you everything?”
Dorothy said, her fingers crossed firmly behind her back.
Cleo called to Dorothy to stop talking with Hilda Bone
before she gave something away and Hilda unfortunately heard that, too.
“Where are you, Dorothy?” she called. “Didn’t I hear Miss
Hartley’s voice?”
“I’m in my kitchen, Hilda. That must have been the radio. Hadn’t
you better get back to doing some observing?”
“I suppose so. I’ll be in touch.”
***
Hilda slammed down her
handset and went back to her front room window and her opera glass. However, before
an hour had past, curiosity overcame her and she slipped out of the house
taking with her digital camera Cleo had once given her. She was determined to
get one up on the Hartley Agency.
***
“What was that about?” Gary asked, having noticed that Cleo
and Dorothy were again talking quietly.
“Dorothy talked to our favourite hobby helper about the
passing-by of a patrol car,” said Cleo. “You know she hardly misses a trick
from behind that net curtain of hers.”
“That’s all we need,” said Gary.
“She’s speculating about her new next-door neighbours. No
doubt we’ll hear something more soon because I suggested that there was funny
business going on,” said Dorothy. “She now thinks we are in my kitchen, so we’d
better make tracks here, Gary.”
“I’m disappointed,” said Gary, who was wondering how he
could engineer a tryst with Cleo.
“If Hilda Bone turns up, tell her we’re at my cottage,” said
Dorothy.
“We’ll drive the roundabout way, through Lower Grumpsfield
and Huddlecourt Minor,” said Cleo. “We don’t want her to see our car.”
“I’ll call in for a coffee, shall I?” said Gary.
“Do that, Gary. I’d like to hear what you think about all
this.”
***
The two sleuths had not been gone long when Chris Marlow
arrived at Kelly’s farm with a forensic team. They had driven their van as near
to the pond as they could. Dr Mitchell arrived almost simultaneously and gave
Kelly a sedative. The doctor did not like or trust Kelly. A nasty piece of
work, he thought. The man did not pay his bills on time, either, he had heard.
What a good job the National Health Service took care of layabouts and rotters
at least on a basic level. Corpses got preferential treatment, he thought.
Dr Mitchell had often wondered about Kelly’s origins. He
remembered having to write death certificates for the parents. He could not
prove that they had not died accidentally and the coroner decided it was death
by misadventure, so Kelly inherited everything.
Dr Mitchell took a closer look at the body of Mrs Coppins,
which Chris and a colleague had dragged completely out of the pond and laid out
on a metallic blanket.
“No point in trying to warm her up,” Dr Mitchell diagnosed.
“She’s as dead as a doornail.”
“I agree,” said Chris. “I wonder if she was drunk and just
wandered or fell into the pond.”
“Your blood test will reveal that,” said Dr Mitchell. “I’ll
write ‘accidental death’ on the certificate. I have no reason to think it
wasn’t and you forensic chaps can state otherwise at the inquest, if necessary.”
Chris was happy to go along with Dr Mitchell’s decision.
“Mrs Coppins has no bruising on her face, so she can’t have
fallen into the pond front-ways,” the doctor said. “She doesn’t look as if she
drowned, does she?”
“No, she doesn’t,” replied Chris.
This wasn’t the first corpse he had pulled out of water.
Kelly had presumably only had the strength to pull her half out. Was this
supposed to be a perfect murder that had gone wrong? Chris thought he would
write a book on perfect murders that were not quite perfect, though he surmised
that it would be like a manual for murderers, especially relatives wanting to
be rid of unwanted family members. He would emphasize that going unnoticed was
the whole point of the perfect murder and therefore a dangerous road to go
down.
“No sign of her having been attacked,” said the doctor. “You
have a mystery on your hands.”
“So you both think she was dead before she went into the
pond,” said Gary. He surmised that if the woman had not gone into that pond of
her own accord.
“Yes,” said Chris.
“In other words, it was murder.”
“Or suicide while the balance of mind was disturbed, though
that would depend on the blood analysis and whether there was any water in her
lungs. There are no visible symptoms of the woman having drowned.”
“Betty Coppins was never a candidate for suicide,” remarked Dr
Mitchell. “She was a resourceful and determined character.”
“So let’s ask who would have a reason to kill her,” Gary said
thinking that Dorothy might have a hunch. He would definitely ask her as soon
as he could get away. Always assuming the killer was not Kelly, of course.
***
Paddy Kelly came round the corner of the barn and Hurley turned
his attention to him.
“You weren’t responsible for this, were you, Mr Kelly?”
“No. Why do you think I would I be?”
“I’m asking the questions,” said Gary.
Dr Mitchell came to the rescue.
“Leave Mr Kelly out of this for the time being,” he told Gary,
and to Kelly he proposed going into the farmhouse.
Kelly nodded. Whatever his relationship had been with Betty
Coppins, he was now genuinely upset.
Kelly was led into the house by Dr Mitchell. Forensics would
get on with the technical part of the investigation. There was nothing more
Gary could do. Next stop would be Dorothy’s kitchen, he decided, jumping into
his car and driving full throttle down the bumpy access road.
***
Later, Dorothy was to comment that Kelly had had enough time
to get over his wife’s accident, so he must have gone back to Betty Coppins,
for whom he had presumably still carried a torch. Whatever those two women had
represented to the outside world, they had been important in Kelly’s life.
Cleo thought Gary would be wasting his time if he tried to
pin Mrs Coppins’ death on the guy, quite apart from Kelly being as slippery as
an eel. She and Dorothy agreed that the farm had made an unhappy, neglected
impression on them. It would be a mistake to leave Kelly completely off the
list of suspects, but they should find a more likely one.
***
Gary was glad of the coffee and looked pointedly at Dorothy,
mainly so that he would not have to look into Cleo’s eyes and let her see what
he really wanted to do next.
“Do you know what went on at the Kelly farm?” Gary asked
Dorothy.
“We don’t keep tags on
everyone,” she Dorothy, indignant that Gary should assume they would. “But Betty
Coppins carried on with several husbands and sons up there in Huddlecourt
Minor. Maybe one of the wives or mothers put an end to her little games.”
“But that would mean questioning them all,” said Gary, who’d
been hoping for an open and shut case.
“The Hartley Agency is good at that sort of thing,” Dorothy
volunteered, and was rewarded with another scowl from Gary.
Fortunately, before he could comment on Dorothy’s
suggestion, Cleo interrupted the altercation that was developing.
“I’ve no idea what was really going on,” she said, and
Dorothy looked from Cleo to Gary and back again. Dorothy knew a lot about Cleo,
but only suspected the intense love affair she and Gary were having, and if she
could sense the electrically charged atmosphere, she was not going to comment.
On the way back to Dorothy’s cottage, the two sleuths had
called in at the shop for some of Gloria’s sausage rolls. Robert was relieved
to see Cleo, who told him briefly what had happened so far. Gloria was all ears
and sworn to secrecy.
To Dorothy’s intense irritation, Hilda Bone phoned again,
but this time she phoned Dorothy’s house phone, checking that the sleuths
really hd gone to Dorothy’s cottage.
“Is Miss Hartley still there?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“I can’t see why not,” said Dorothy, handing over the
handset.
“Why do you need to talk to me, Hilda?” said Cleo.
“Dorothy Price did not tell me the whole truth.”
“About what?”
“About the Kelly farm.”
“Really? What is the truth?”
“I just happened to walk past and saw a police car there.
Was the patrol car the one that had passed my house a few minutes earlier?”
So Hilda had decided to investigate. Blast the woman.
“I wouldn’t know that, Hilda. I went to get some fresh eggs
earlier.”
“And did you get them?”
“Of course.”
“From ghost chickens, I suppose!”
“I saw three running about.”
“So he must have started up his little trade again.”
“Or he buys them cheap and sells them as farm fresh at a
profit,” said Cleo. She wanted Hilda to get off the line so she hurried the
conversation along. “What did you want to talk to me about, Hilda?”
“I walked up the road and someone told me a woman had
drowned in the pond. I knew immediately who it must have been, Miss Hartley.”
“Who was it?”
“You already know, Miss Hartley. Kelly has been playing
around with Mrs Coppins for weeks. Why are you and Dorothy playing games with
me?”
“What makes you think that, Hilda?”
The phone speaker was turned on loud, so Dorothy and Gary
had heard the dialogue. Dorothy scribbled a note on one the steno pad she kept
handy for such occasions.
“Get rid of her!” she had written.
Cleo nodded a yes and told Hilda firmly that she had
business to do and when there was something really interesting to report, she
would do so and expect Hilda to do the same.
After Hilda Bone had rung off, Cleo turned to Dorothy.
“We have a choice, Dorothy. Either we let her in on what we
are doing, or we have her pestering us all the time. Which is the lesser evil?”
“Tell her enough to keep her mind occupied, I should think,”
said Gary.
“But only when she asks,” added Dorothy, “and we must all
agree about what to tell her.”
“Are you serious, Ladies?” Gary asked. “You can’t tell that
woman anything about the case.”
“So what do you suggest, Gary?” Cleo asked. “I’m leaving
now, Dorothy. Thanks for the coffee. I need to go shopping.”
“Wait for me, Cleo. I’m leaving, too,” said Gary.
“Do you need to go shopping, too, Gary?” said Dorothy.
“No. I have a job to go to.”
“A meeting, I expect,” she retorted.
“I suppose you could call it that,” said Gary, looking into
Cleo’s eyes. Her almost imperceptible nod was all he needed.
“Well,” said Dorothy, “if you can’t be good, be careful! I’m
going to play some Beethoven.”
Dorothy found it hard not to interfere, but she conquered
that urge and went back into the cottage while Cleo and Gary walked wordlessly
to their cars.
“Where are we going, Cleo?” Gary asked.
“We could drink more coffee at my cottage. Robert is out
till late tonight. He plans to win a table-tennis competition somewhere miles
away.”
“I’d like that coffee, Cleo.”
“I should not take advantage of Robert not being at home,”
said Cleo.
“I will,” said Gary. “I’ll park my car out of sight, Shall
I?”
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