Jam and Jeopardy (6 page)

Ronald frowned. ‘Take no notice of Flora. She’s been tippling, I’m afraid.’

Lucky bitch, thought Barbara. The Bakers were rolling in it already, and now they’d be sharing the old bat’s money as well, when they didn’t really need it. She assumed a
suitably sad expression. ‘It’s horrible to think she died there on her own.’

‘We’ll have to hope she didn’t suffer,’ Ronald said, equally sadly. ‘Now, Stephen, do you want to arrange the funeral?’

‘You’d better do it, I couldn’t face having to speak to any undertakers. But won’t we have to wait till the police release the body?’

‘We can have it all planned out anyway, and we’ll have to look through her papers for . . .’

‘They said nobody would be allowed in yet.’

‘I meant as soon as we can.’

Barbara butted in. ‘I’d think her solicitor would have her will, so he’ll be attending to that side of things.’

‘I suppose so.’ Ronald looked thoughtful. ‘You’ll have to tell him about the twenty thousand you got from her, Stephen, so everything can be fairly divided.’

‘Who told you about that?’ Barbara barked.

‘Janet told us herself, so you’ll have to come clean with Martin Spencer.’ Ronald gave a low laugh.

‘You greedy devil!’ Barbara burst out. ‘You don’t really need her money. You’ve got plenty already.’

‘That’s not the point.’ It was better not to mention his pressing need for capital, Ronald reflected. ‘Fair’s fair.’

‘He’s right, Barbara,’ Stephen said, quietly. ‘I’ll tell him about that loan, Ronald, so you won’t be done out of anything.’

‘Well, I like that!’ Barbara stopped at Stephen’s glare.

‘There’s no sense quarrelling about it,’ he said. ‘The old woman has just died of a heart attack, and we’re at each other’s throats already.’

‘She didn’t die of a heart attack.’ Flora’s voice rang out loud and clear.

Her husband gripped her arm. ‘Never mind what she’s saying. I told you, she’s drunk. Come on, Flora, it’s time to go.’

He shepherded her towards the door, turning as they reached it to say, ‘I’ll contact the undertaker in George Street in the morning, Stephen. I’ve heard he’s quite good,
and quite reasonable. I’d better choose a fairly decent coffin, though, seeing she’s our last relative. We’ll leave the actual date open, but I suppose she’d want to be
buried beside her father and mother?’

Stephen shrugged. ‘Whatever you think.’

‘No problem about expense, anyway. There’ll be plenty to give her a decent send-off. Cheerio, and I’ll let you know the arrangements.’

‘Hang on.’ Barbara held up her hand. ‘Flora, what did you mean when you said she didn’t die of a heart attack?’

‘Did I say that?’ Flora considered for a moment, then her hand flew to her mouth, and she glanced at her husband. ‘I’m sorry, Ronald, I didn’t mean to . .
.’

‘Don’t say anything else, you’re absolutely pissed.’ He pushed her through the door. ‘She’s speaking rubbish, Barbara.’ He followed his wife out and
closed the door.

‘That’s dashed funny. How could she know it wasn’t a heart attack? It floored me that they knew about the twenty thousand, but that . . . and you let them walk all over
you.’ Barbara spat it out.

Stephen sighed. ‘The workings of Flora Baker’s mind, and yours, too, for that matter, have always been a closed book to me, and I’ve had to knuckle down to Ronald all my life.
Now, don’t start any more arguments with me, Barbara. I’ve had enough of them – and your nagging.’

The astonishment on his wife’s face made him feel quite proud of the way he had stood up to her, and he realised, in a flash, that things had turned out very well for him after all. Once
he received his aunt’s money, he meant to be master in his own house, and Barbara may as well start getting used to it now.

After having spent half the night with police from Thornkirk General Enquiry Department, Sergeant Black was feeling rather ragged. They’d searched Janet Souter’s
cottage thoroughly, but had found nothing suspicious, apart from the bag of arsenic in her shed. They’d pounced on that, happily assuming that this had been used to murder the old woman,
although Doctor Randall had been outraged at his word being doubted.

‘I know heart failure when I see it,’ he’d said indignantly, when he was called back to the cottage. ‘She didn’t die from the effects of poisoning, and that’s
definite.’

‘Did she have a history of heart trouble, Doctor?’ Sergeant Watt of Thornkirk had looked at him questioningly.

‘No, she hadn’t, but it often happens like that. Nothing at all, then poof! A massive coronary. I’ve seen it before. Death by poisoning’s different altogether.’

Watt had smiled sarcastically. ‘If I’d a pound for every time a doctor’s been proved wrong, I could have retired a wealthy man long ago.’

James Randall had turned puce and picked up his bag. ‘I’m going home. I’ve got to get up early in the morning. I’ve my living patients to consider.’ Then he’d
slammed out of the house and left Sergeant Watt looking uneasily at John Black.

The Grampian men had recorded everything they found, and had made a list of all the foodstuffs in the cottage before packing them in boxes and sending them off to Aberdeen to be tested for
contamination, along with the little plastic bag from the shed. The public analyst would be delighted with all the extra work, the local sergeant had thought, wickedly, when he left them just after
three in the morning.

Now it was half past six in the evening, and he was standing at his own front desk, half asleep, and thanking his lucky stars that the buck had been passed to somebody else.

He looked up as Sergeant Watt walked in. ‘Found anything?’

‘Not a damned thing!’ The Thornkirk sergeant sounded disgruntled. ‘You know, I’d have been quite happy to have found some proof that the old woman had been murdered so I
could hand the whole thing over to Regional Headquarters. There’s something definitely fishy about this case.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ Black looked pleased.

‘It’s this story of Mrs . . . Wakeford’s that puzzles me. I can hardly believe that any woman in her right mind would do what she says the dead woman did. But maybe the old
biddy wasn’t in her right mind?’

‘She never gave any indication that she wasn’t, but I’m beginning to wonder about it myself.’

‘Or maybe it’s Mrs Wakeford that’s got delusions?’ Watt sat down on the bench when Derek Paul handed him a mug of tea.

‘No, I think Mrs Wakeford’s telling the truth.’ John Black stepped back to let the constable deposit another mug on the counter in front of him. ‘What happens
now?’

‘There’s really nothing we can do until we have the result of the post-mortem, but I left word for them to ring straight through to here. They’re taking a heck of a long time,
though.’ Watt took a sip of tea, and willed the telephone to ring. ‘Maybe he
has
found something.’

It was only two minutes later that the telephone made them all jump up expectantly. ‘Tollerton Police. Sergeant Black speaking.’ He held out the receiver.

Sergeant Watt stood up. ‘Watt here . . . No traces? . . . What’s that?’ He listened for a few minutes. ‘Oh, so it’s definitely murder? Thanks.’ He laid the
phone down. ‘Well, so that’s it!’

John Black waited, rather impatiently, for him to explain, but Watt sat down and took another gulp of tea first.

‘That was the pathologist. Apparently, the doctor at Thornkirk found no traces of arsenic in the body, but he did find the mark of a hypodermic needle on the back of the dead woman’s
neck. So he sent her off to Aberdeen, with the details of the discovery of the body, etcetera, etcetera.’

‘So it wasn’t the arsenic?’ Black made a face. ‘Was our doctor right, then? Was it heart-failure?’ Randall would be cock-a-hoop if it was.

‘No, it wasn’t heart failure either. The Aberdeen pathologist discovered that she was full of insulin, injected into her system through her neck.

‘I didn’t know that insulin could kill.’

‘He says it can, if it’s introduced into the system of a person not suffering from diabetes.’

‘Well, well!’ John Black was impressed. ‘There’s never been a murder in Tollerton before, as long as I’ve been here.’

‘There’s always a first time. But that’s it taken off our hands now. It goes to Grampian CID, and the procurator fiscal has already been notifed. He has to receive reports of
all murder investigations in his region.’

He straightened his tie and put on his hat. ‘I’ll go and call off my boys at Honeysuckle Cottages. It’s up to the Homicide boys from Aberdeen now, though I don’t expect
you’ll see them till tomorrow. I wish them luck, they’re going to need it. Mind you, I think Mrs Wakeford’s probably right. Not about her being poisoned with arsenic, but about
the nephews being the ones who disposed of the old woman. So long.’

Sergeant Black was left with only his young constable with whom to discuss this extraordinary new development. ‘Fancy her being killed with insulin. That’s a new one on
me.’

Derek Paul nodded sympathetically. ‘You’re always learning. Who could have done it, though? It must have been somebody with medical knowledge, and access to insulin and a needle, but
there’s only Doctor Randall in the village, and you surely don’t think he did it?’

‘Thank God we don’t have to figure it out, Derek. That’s what the CID are paid for. The trouble is, they’ll likely be real whizzkids, setting the whole place’s
teeth on edge with their efficiency.’

The constable had been thinking. ‘There’s old Mary Lawson, of course, the district nurse. Health visitor, she’s called now.’

‘Eh?’ John Black’s mind had to be jerked back from the horrifying prospect of the CID men upsetting his villagers. ‘What are you on about now?’

‘The health visitor from Thornkirk, Mary Lawson. She’d know about hypodermic needles and insulin.’

‘Oh, aye,’ the sergeant sneered. ‘She’s just the one to kill an old woman around midnight. Mary Lawson’s an old woman herself, nearly retiring age, if not past it.
Have some sense, Derek, for God’s sake.’

‘I was only trying to think of somebody in the medical line. There’s nobody else, is there?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Black said, testily. ‘And get on with typing that report.’

Saturday 26th November, morning

When the street door opened, twenty-four-year-old Derek Paul looked up impatiently from the
Courier
crossword and wondered idly who the two strangers were.

One of them looked like a rugby player gone slightly to seed. At least six feet four, with broad shoulders and a broken nose. His shirt collar was creased, and the old tweed jacket and corduroy
trousers wouldn’t have looked out of place on a scarecrow. His grizzled hair was cropped quite short, and, although curly, would have been all the better for a good brushing. On the other
hand, maybe a good brushing would’ve had no effect. Some people’s hair was like that.

Derek shifted his sights to the other man. Younger and not quite so tall, he was immaculately dressed in a navy suit, pale-blue shirt and striped tie. His reddish-fair hair was well cut, not too
long, not too short, and the constable wondered how much he paid his hairdresser. It certainly wasn’t a barber’s cut. A proper business gent, this one.

Derek hoped that they were only after directions, but civility cost nothing after all. ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

The older man, perhaps around forty, could even be nearer fifty, stepped right up to the counter and fixed the constable with dark-brown eyes, severe under their bushy eyebrows. ‘I hope
you can.’ The voice was gruff and carried on, ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector McGillivray of Grampian CID, and this is Detective Sergeant Moore.’

Before the second sentence was half finished, Derek Paul had straightened up, almost to attention, and was looking at the two men with respect. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Chief Inspector. I
didn’t realise who you were. We didn’t expect you here quite so early.’

‘Obviously,’ McGillivray said, dryly.

‘You’re booked in at the Starline Hotel, sir, a few doors up the High Street.’

‘Thank you, Constable. Give my sergeant a hand with our bags, and I’ll hold the fort here.’

‘Yes, sir.’

McGillivray leaned against the counter and extracted a flattened pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. This shouldn’t take long, he reflected, as he flicked a battered lighter. An
eighty-something-year-old woman, in a little place like Tollerton? No hardened criminals could be involved, so it would be a piece of cake to break the guilty person’s alibi. Just a matter of
asking the right questions at the right time.

He took a crumpled envelope out of his breast pocket. The superintendent had handed it to him that morning before they left. They’d been three hours on the road – with only one stop
for a quick snack – and hadn’t had time to look at it yet, but he knew that it contained the known details of the murder. He ran his forefinger under the flap, and had just finished
reading the report when the other two returned.

‘What’s your sergeant’s name, Constable?’

‘Black, sir.’

‘Is he anywhere about?’

‘He’s waiting for you up at the murdered woman’s cottage in Ashgrove Lane, sir. Oh,’ Derek reached under the counter. ‘Here are the details of Miss Souter’s
nephews and their wives, as far as we have been able to ascertain from Mrs Wakeford, who lives next door.’

‘Thanks. Did you know the woman yourself?’

‘Miss Souter, sir? Oh yes, everybody knew her, and nobody liked her very much. She was a regular besom, sir.’

‘What was the state of her finances, would you say? Was she well off?’

‘Absolutely loaded, sir, but she wasn’t a free spender. She knew the right side of a penny, sir.’

Callum McGillivray smiled. ‘Most people with money do, lad. That’s why they
have
money. And money makes more money – the more you have, the more you get. Not fair, eh?
Well, if you tell us how to get there, we’ll be on our way to . . . Ashgrove Lane, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir. Your car’s facing in the right direction, so it’s just straight up the High Street and third turning on the right. You can’t go wrong, sir. If you go any
farther, you’ll be out of the village altogether. There’re three houses at this end of the Lane, that’s Honeysuckle Cottages, and Miss Souter’s is the middle one. If you
leave your car in the parking place in the Lane, you’ll be going in by her back door.’