More Deaths Than One (2 page)

“Stuck on the dash. Take a look.”

Mayo handed Kite a small plastic envelope through which could be seen a leaf torn from a yellow self-stick memo pad. The handwriting, though far from illiterate, was disjointed and difficult to decipher. Resembling a kind of shorthand, it looked like the hand of one whose thoughts ran faster than his pen, possibly made even more illegible in the present case by haste or despair. The message was brief:
I've had enough. I'm packing it in. Sorry it didn't work out.
It was signed,
R.

Poor devil, had been Mayo's first thought on seeing the note.

What hopelessness and anguish brought anyone to this mess? But that had been before he'd really looked, before Ison had spoken.

Kite seemed to pick up his thoughts. “Doc Ison been yet?”

Mayo informed him, his breath coming cloudy on the freezing air, that the doctor had been and gone. “He left an emergency at the Cottage Hospital when he got the call to come here and he's slipped back to see how things are while we're waiting for Timpson-Ludgate.” Not that he needed to come back. He'd certified death and that was all that was strictly necessary, and some would have been content to leave it at that, packed their bags and been off, sure of their fee. But Ison was cut from a different cloth.

Timpson-Ludgate was the pathologist and the significance of his being sent for wasn't lost on Kite. “Not suicide, then?”

“Somebody wants us to think so.”

“What about the note? Not easy to fake a fist like that ... hello, here is the doc. And talk of the devil, His Nibs an' all.” Kite had spotted another, very recognisable car arriving close behind the police doctor's sedate blue Vauxhall, the elderly gleaming Rover belonging to the pathologist.

“About time. We've hung about long enough.” The doctor climbed stiffly out of his car and approached the Porsche. “Everything all right at the hospital, Doc?”

“Nothing to worry about now. Mother and baby both doing well.”

Funny job, his. Violent death one moment, birth the next, in its way just as violent but concerned with all that mattered, really, the essentials of life, its beginning and its end.

“Evening, Mayo, evening young Martin!”

This was the pathologist, following close on Ison's heels, scattering greetings around like largesse, eminent enough to be affable with everyone, especially those not in a position to contradict his pronouncements. “Bit nippy for this sort of thing, but at least it'll keep the flies away, eh? Hm, more than an hour or two since
he
shuffled off this mortal coil!”

The last part of this was muffled, issuing from inside the Porsche, into which he had already plunged his head, clearly not expecting a reply, which was perhaps just as well in view of Mayo's expression.

They didn't come better than Timpson-Ludgate when it was a question of his job. Moreover, anyone prepared to tackle one like his could be forgiven a lot in Mayo's opinion ... but he found this morbid humour, peculiar to doctors, pathologists and policemen, hard to take at times. All right, it was one way of coping with the vile and sordid muck they all had to deal with, but God, there were limits!

He suspected Ison was another who didn't care much for it either. A sensitive and humane man underneath the reticent medical exterior, he lifted a shoulder before turning away to begin a token grumbling to Kite about the inadequacy of the lighting. “Can't expect us to examine him very thoroughly in these conditions, Sergeant. A few more lights wouldn't come amiss.”

“I'll see the D.I. about it.” Kite went off to find George Atkins.

“Cheer up, we'll do our best, Henry, as always,” Timpson-Ludgate answered the doctor breezily, withdrawing his head to address Napier. “Finished with your photographs, sonny? Okay, but don't go away, I shall need you.” Turning to Mayo, he said, “If you've anything else to be doing meanwhile, I should get on with it. We shan't be finished here in five minutes.”

“I know, I know, but I need a statement from the woman who found him and I'd like to have a look at that jacket before I go, as soon as you've finished with the body. I want to confirm who he is.”

“No problem, you can have it once your man's got some photos of it for me and I've had a dekko. Not going to be easy, the state he's in, you know.” The pathologist nodded to Napier, who adjusted his lens and began flashing the video camera again. Atkins, walking with his elephantine tread, came across with a couple of technicians and started superintending the erection of more lights. Mayo thrust his hands into his pockets and counselled patience to the inner self clamouring to get on with the job.

“Thanks. If you want me, I'll be over by the S.O.C. van but I'm going to take a look round the back first. Martin?”

The sergeant accompanied Mayo as he walked round to the back of the Porsche, following the delineated access path, keeping clear of the taped-off area. There had been heavy rain the previous week, which had left soft mud under the frost of the last two nights, but the springy layer of beech mast covering it had precluded the possibility of finding any footprints. The weight of the car, however, had sunk clearly visible tracks.

“Driven in from the Lavenstock end by the look of it,” Kite remarked.

“And only one set of tyre marks – so either somebody had a long walk back or there was another car. Nothing immediately apparent in the vicinity.”

“We'll spread the search out in the morning,” Kite promised. “Who was it found him?”

“A Mrs. Salisbury. Lives at Fiveoaks Farm over yonder.” Mayo gestured in the direction of the entrance to the woods. “She'd been riding when she found him – so she carried on home and telephoned us from there. They've told her to stay where she is until we've seen her, which'll be midnight at this rate. He stamped his feet again and looked impatiently across the clearing. “Trouble with these bloody medics, they think we've got nowt else to do but wait till they've done their stuff,” he said unreasonably. “Let's give 'em a poke.”

But it was some time before the pathologist was ready to talk to them. At last he beckoned them over, still kneeling by the body, which had now been lifted out of the car. He heaved himself to his feet as the three policemen approached, all taller men than he –  Mayo big and formidable, Kite with his long whipcord thinness and Atkins, bigger than either, large, solid and dependable. “Doubtless you had a good look before I arrived so you'll not be surprised when I tell you it wasn't suicide.”

Mayo looked at Ison, who nodded at this confirmation of what they'd thought. Timpson-Ludgate went on, “Couldn't have done it ... not unless he had arms four feet long. To make
that
sort of mess of his face, the shot would have had to be fired from two, two and a half feet away. At a rough estimate. If it was self-inflicted, I'm a Chinaman. No contact wound. Very little spread of pellets.”

“Can you hazard an opinion about the direction of the shot? The angle?”

“From the right, getting him full in the face. The exit's on the back of the skull and most of the loose matter and damage to the car's on the far side, not towards the back. Angle of entry ... from slightly above.”

“So he must've been looking towards his killer, then, through the window?”

“I'll say nothing so definite as ‘must' at this stage. I'd prefer to reserve certainties until I've had him on the slab. And until ballistics have had their say.” He relented. “All right, work on the assumption that he's been murdered. For the rest – probably somewhere in his thirties, apparently in good condition, though what his lungs are like is another matter,” he said, indicating the stained fingers, “and you'll have to wait for the post mortem to find that out. Not that it'll make any difference to him now, poor bugger,” he finished cheerfully. “I'll fit him in tomorrow, get the full report to you as soon as possible.”

“When did it happen?”

“I'm not prepared to be too specific about that either at the moment, with the weather as it is. Say, eighteen to twenty hours.” Mayo did a quick calculation. “Some time late last night then, or early this morning? Hm. And what's the
other
thing anyone might be doing out in this God-forsaken spot at that time on a cold and frosty night like last night? Can't see this as a crime of passion.”

“Me neither,” observed Kite, shivering.

“Well, that's your problem, you're the investigating officer. Myself, I've nearly done, here at any rate. We'll have him away in two ticks, but as far as I'm concerned you can get at the car now.”

As they waited for the jacket to be lifted from the passenger seat, Mayo warned the other two, “We'll keep what T.-L. says under wraps for the present. If someone's been at pains to fake this as a suicide, we'll go along with that until it's confirmed otherwise. Say nowt, both of you, but keep your ears and eyes open. All right, Martin, let's see what we've got.”

The jacket handed over, Kite began on the pockets. “Looks as though we're in business.” A brown leather wallet, with the initials R.G.F. stamped in gold across the corner. In the wallet a driving licence, issued to Rupert G. Fleming of 22, Baxendine House, Lavenstock.

“So it
was
his own car,” Mayo said. “Baxendine House next port of call then, after we've seen Mrs. Salisbury at the farm. It's one of those new blocks of flats by the river.”

The wallet was also found to contain a chequebook, one five-pound note, the usual selection of credit cards, a ticket stub from the local theatre for a performance a few weeks earlier and a snapshot tucked into one of the compartments. From the trouser pockets had come a handful of small change.

“Where's his keys, Nick?” Mayo asked Spalding.

“Here. They were in the ignition, sir.”

“I don't mean the car keys, he must have had house keys and so on.”

But no others had been found.

Mayo held the snapshot by the corner under the lights and saw a young couple with two children, probably under school age. Before tucking it into a plastic envelope and then into his own wallet, he studied the photo, particularly the face of the man he took to be Fleming. An unusual, arresting face, high-cheekboned and with a full, sensual mouth that had something of arrogance about it, a touch of the Florentine princeling, the sort of face that looked out haughtily from the chiaroscuro background of a Renaissance portrait. The young woman was plump and dreamily smiling, with a mass of dark hair falling to her shoulders. The picture had been taken in spring – there were daffodils in the background – and she was wearing flat, open sandals, a long flowered skirt and a grey shawl. One of the children was hugging a stuffed toy kangaroo. A moment of family happiness. A man, you'd have said, with everything to live for.

A pattern of stars and a new moon showed through the black lattice of the bare branches, cold and remote, investing the bizarre scene with even more unreality. Mayo swore softly to himself. At this point in an investigation he was always painfully aware of his need to come to terms with his own feelings of inadequacy. How to explain the eruption of violence into ordinary family life ... how to justify the trust put in him to bring the perpetrator to justice? No answer to that but to pitch in, muck or nettles.

The murder weapon was being lifted carefully into the S.O.C. van. A twelve-bore, double-barrelled shotgun, both barrels of which had been fired, it had now been photographed from every possible angle in relation to the body and its position on the floor of the car, measurements had been taken, sight lines established and the weapon carefully lifted, labelled and wrapped.

“What else have we got, Dave?” Mayo asked the fingerprint man.

“Definite set of dabs on the steering wheel and the gear lever, sir, and on the gun, but nowhere else at all, not even on the door handle.”

Which seemed to indicate the murderer had been too anxious to get rid of his own prints and had neglected to impose the victim's on the door handle as well as the other places Dexter had mentioned.

“I'd be a lot happier,” Dexter said, “if it didn't appear to have been gone over with a nit comb, wiped over inside and out – and been through a car wash as well, I shouldn't be surprised. Not much else we can do until we've got the body bagged up and moved, sir. The forensic lads might get more after they've been over it at the garage. Looks as though they're taking him away now.”

The man's hands had already been encased in polythene and the head treated with similar care in case there should be lost any more of what remained of the victim's shattered flesh and bone and brains, what the pathologist had so delicately termed “loose matter.” Now, what remained of Rupert Fleming was zipped up and carried into the waiting mortuary van.

As the van was driven off, Mayo handed the dead man's jacket over to Dexter. Curiously, it hadn't absorbed that taint of corruption which had been so overwhelming in the car. It smelled rather pleasant in fact, of soft supple suede and a masculine whiff of expensive aftershave. Something was puzzling Mayo about the smell of that jacket, but for the moment, since he couldn't think what it could be, he was obliged to be content with making a mental note of it, pigeon-holing it for further reference in a mind that rarely forgot anything completely.

“How lovely now dost thou appear to me!

Never was man dearlier rewarded. ”

UNDER THE MOON, snowdrops glimmered palely in great drifts beside the path to the front door of Fiveoaks Farm and a breath of their cold honey scent wafted towards the house as Mayo and Kite waited for an answer to their ring.

The door opened, revealing an entrance hall that was large and low-ceilinged, with an agreeable air of having been furnished and cherished and comfortably lived in ever since the house was built, three or four hundred years ago. The unsmiling young man with the ruddy, outdoor complexion, conservatively dressed in a soft blue woollen sweater and cords and who said he was Tim Salisbury, had been expecting them but didn't appear to be overjoyed about it. A vague mutual antipathy passed between him and Mayo as Mayo's own brand of instant shorthand summed him up: Thirtyish. Archetypal prosperous young farmer. Young Tory. Features reminiscent of the young Duke of Kent. Maybe not a lot in the upper storey, but sharp and wary.