Ring of Guilt Read online

  Harvey!

  ‘Darling Lina! I’m so sorry! I haven’t had a moment to call you all day. A crash on the M4; meeting; endless lunch; meeting. And someone who really did not like my valuation and tried to tell me – well, you know what they’re like, when they think they’ve got a swan and it’s hardly even a goose. Now, tell me about your day.’

  It didn’t sound any more exciting when I recounted it than it did while I was living it. ‘But it’ll be fun going over to Bossingham Hall tomorrow,’ I said, trying to sound upbeat.

  ‘Bossingham Hall? Rings a bell somewhere.’

  I gave him a text book description of the place, without going too much into my personal connections.

  ‘No, it’s not its architectural merits,’ he mused. ‘Something else. It’s dancing round the back of my mind . . . But it won’t replace you . . .’ From that point the conversation was the sort that’s nice for the people taking part but either boring or embarrassing for anyone else.

  Eventually, hugging a huge smile to me, I wandered into the living room. To find Will Kinnersley occupying the sofa. To be honest he looked no more pleased to see me than I was to see him. But he stood up politely, so I nodded politely. When I sat, he did too.

  ‘This is a strictly unofficial visit, Lina. I’d get into ten types of shit if anyone found out. But I thought you ought to know that the skeleton wasn’t that of your body. So you shouldn’t be beating yourself up about not doing anything that could have led to the death of whoever it was. Or maybe not his death, since we’ve still not found his corpse. If you see what I mean.’

  I felt dizzy with relief. ‘So whose bones were they?’

  ‘Almost certainly a woman’s and probably a thousand years old, give or take.’ He continued anxiously, ‘Not that this should make any difference to your calling in the rubber heel brigade.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Well, there are two things you could do. Complain to the IPCC – and their website tells you how to do that. Or you could complain specifically about me or someone to a senior officer, and that’s where our own Professional Standards people come in. Though only if there’s obvious wrongdoing by someone you can point to.’

  ‘Which isn’t you, Will. You don’t run the Evidence Store, do you?’

  ‘No, thank the Lord. I can think of only one thing worse – being a custody sergeant on a Friday night.’

  ‘But someone does. And has messed up big time. Or,’ I added, more charitably, ‘someone has messed up for him. Fancy a coffee?’

  ‘I’m not supposed to be here. Under new guidelines I’m supposed to be chaperoned if I come and see you. Well, not just you. Any female.’

  ‘Griff’s in the kitchen. Come on through.’

  More painkillers! Caught in the act. But though I gave him a hard look, I didn’t say anything. Will updated him while I got the kettle on.

  By the time it was boiling, however, Griff had produced some wine. ‘Since this isn’t an official visit, have a sip.’

  ‘Not on an empty stomach, thanks – especially since I’m driving.’

  ‘The emptiness of the stomach can easily be remedied. I have food here for an army – or more to the point, for Lina’s father. I’m sure he can spare some.’

  Will looked anguished. I would have done in his position – Griff’s chicken dopiaza is to die for.

  ‘Will, you think you came to bring me some news. I think you came because I asked you. You and no one else. There’s something the police should know about, and there’s no way I’m talking to Winters. OK? I’ve seen someone who looks remarkably like the body. And the guy in the 4x4 who tailed me.’ To cheer him up a bit, I added, ‘And it’s thanks to those clever computer thingies you showed me. Why don’t I call your mobile now, so you have the call on record?’ Without waiting for a reply, I speed dialled him. Then stopped. ‘Will they be able to tell we were in the same room? Go and drive for ten minutes, just to work up an appetite, and I’ll call you . . .’

  ‘And meanwhile,’ I added to Griff, ‘if you’re popping those tablets, no wine for you. At all. I don’t want you to wake up and find you’re dead. Understand?’

  This time when Will arrived, he brought in his laptop. Had he really left it in his car before? What an idiot. And we’d already tried his standard set of mug shots and found no one on it, facial recognition system or no facial recognition system.

  He put it on the kitchen table, which Griff was just laying for supper, caught Griff’s eye, and took it off again. ‘Your office?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother even opening it,’ I said flatly. ‘The thing is, Will, I’m dead sure he won’t be on there. Not unless you can access your Human Resources database. The man I recognized is one of your colleagues. A policeman.’

  Griff raised a hand. ‘Only she’d better not have said that until after supper, or I’m sure you’ll be on the phone to your superior and have to go hungry.’

  While we ate, Will demolished my theory just as I’d done myself. Even the half glass of wine he allowed himself with the cheese and bikkies didn’t shake his conviction that I must be wrong.

  ‘It isn’t as if you had a name,’ he protested.

  ‘I might just have one, actually. But this is pure speculation, and I don’t want to slander anyone. I know how mud sticks, remember.’

  Griff said, ‘I wonder if this isn’t the time to call one of your superiors, Will. An accusation against a fellow officer’s a lot for a young man to deal with. Is there someone you can trust? Really trust? No, don’t start to bluster. We don’t know who this policeman is – he could be your boss, even.’

  ‘Not if she’s DCI Webb – it wasn’t her,’ I said.

  Griff tutted: I must have made a grammar mistake. ‘It could be her boss even,’ Griff said. ‘If a man has killed once, he can kill twice. And, if she fingers him – I believe that’s the correct term? – Lina is likely to be his next target.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Will pushed his glass away and sat, elbows on the table, pressing his temples with his fingertips. ‘Hang on. There’s something weird going on I can’t get my head round. Lina sees a body, which disappears. She then sees a live person, who chases her. Finally she sees another live person, and you’re afraid this person will now be after her. Forgive me, Griff, but have I missed something?’

  ‘My assumption, of course, is that the body wasn’t dead. The media, our only source of information, never made anything of it, as I assume they would have done – unless there was some sort of news blackout? Come to think of it, there’s been nothing about Lina’s skeleton, either. My deduction, for what it’s worth, is that you’re trying to protect the archaeological site she says is nearby. Would that be the case, Will?’

  ‘It would. If we had found a body, then things would have had to be done differently. If it’s still a crime scene, I don’t know why. Maybe someone’s just forgotten to take away the tape.’

  ‘So it could be that someone’s made a good recovery and has got up and is driving a 4x4 and walking round Police Headquarters . . . I suppose that’s what my fog of a mind was trying to work out all along,’ I said. ‘Or maybe I dimly thought there might be twins. I don’t know.’ I hung my head in shame. Woolly thinking. Griff had worked so hard on my brain, and this was all he got.

  ‘The thing is, none of us followed it through, Lina,’ Will said. ‘My case load is so huge I can’t see across my in tray – well, you saw, didn’t you?’

  Now he was contrite, I could be generous. ‘Your job is chasing history, Will, not following up present-day cases.’

  ‘Well, actually, Bernie’s on sick leave. Some virus.’

  ‘But he must have a boss, the equivalent of DCI Webb. Someone who’s in charge of “my” case.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Do you know an officer called Pargetter?’ I caught Griff’s eye.

  He nodded, wincing as the movement joggled his tooth. Dentist or die tomorrow for him.

  Meanwhile, Will was shaking his head emphatically.
‘But then,’ he conceded, ‘I can’t know everyone in the service. Do you want me to ask around?’

  ‘Absolutely not. You could find out very discreetly.’

  ‘You might tell me why.’

  ‘I gave you a copy of the receipt for one of those rings.’

  ‘Dilly Pargetter.’ His memory made me even more ashamed of my own.

  ‘Her husband beats her. He’s a policeman, which might explain why he gets away with it. He beat her after she sold me that ring. Am I making too many connections?’

  Will went pale. ‘I’m out of my depth here.’

  ‘You and me both. But if it’s not your job to chase wife-beating coppers, it’s certainly not mine. Especially as I have to get Griff to the dentist first thing in the morning.’

  Will took the hint and got up, thanking Griff for the meal. Griff tried to wave away my suggestion, but Will peered at his swollen jaw. ‘Abscess, I should think. My dad’s a dentist,’ he explained with a flicker of a smile. ‘I’ll be in touch the moment I have anything to report.’

  I’d just seen him out when something ambled into my brain. I turned to Griff, slapping my forehead but only very lightly. Just like anyone would, really. ‘Pargetter. What if Dilly uses her own name, not her husband’s?’

  Griff said, ‘I’m sure the lad’s got plenty of sense. And so have you, my love. I think I must be down in the village when the dentist’s surgery opens, don’t you?’

  To my amazement, the receptionist found a cancellation for Griff. Equally surprising, he emerged, clutching a yellow prescription form, before I’d done more than skim one of the old glossy mags. I wanted to look a little more closely at some of the photos, but that’s not exactly why you go to the dentist’s. Leaving him in the van, I nipped into the pharmacy. At least I’d get to read the instructions that way – and sure enough, the label on the antibiotic tablets said AVOID ALCOHOL in big red letters. Well, I’d better take notice for him, because I knew he’d manage not to see even a warning like that.

  He insisted he was well enough to come to Bossingham Hall with me, probably because he wanted to bask in the glory of having done all the cooking. I took the precaution of taking fizzy water and some elderflower cordial, which can make a nice fake drink. I might even get my father to try some.

  Just as we were about to set out – Griff was already in the van – our fax rang and hummed into life, churning out a message from Harvey I quickly pocketed and a sheet with several photos on it. According to the more public part of his message, spurred into action by our conversation, he’d gone hunting in the box full of his great aunt’s memorabilia that he’d never quite got round to sorting out properly. He’d found these photos. Each had the letters BH pencilled on the back, with thirty-seven, thirty-eight or thirty-nine alongside, he said. Could these refer to Bossingham Hall?

  The quality was very poor – old photos, a dirty scanner and our ageing fax paper. But they turned me hot and cold. Could that little boy with the outsize cricket bat really be my father? I put them in a folder and joined Griff, who forgot to be in pain and shoved his reading glasses on.

  ‘Uh, uh. Driving glasses for you. I need to text Harvey a few questions,’ I said. ‘Like the name of his great aunt.’

  ‘That’s just one,’ Griff objected, but he swapped places with me anyway, and drove while I tapped away, losing all sense of time. He stopped at the foot of the track to my father’s wing. ‘If you want this van up there, you drive,’ he said firmly. ‘As for me, I’d rather walk, thank you very much.’

  Despite the potholes I got there first. Why hadn’t Harvey responded to my texts? By now I had the most dreadful feeling I couldn’t voice to Griff that maybe the only reason Harvey had taken me up was my connection with Lord Elham. He’d sworn he hadn’t known I was a divvy, but had taken me along to a sale; he’d sworn that Bossingham Hall had only rung a bell. Another man using me. I felt like . . . But I didn’t accelerate as hard as I could and run the van into the side of the building. I parked as carefully as I always do, reached out the boxes of food and managed a mocking smile as Griff eventually joined me.

  It turned out that Lord Elham had been watching a TV programme about antibiotics, and, having checked the name on Griff’s pills absolutely refused to let him so much as taste any champagne. He might have been watching another programme too, because he condescended to taste the brew I’d brought. He didn’t add it to the list of essentials I was to bring next time though.

  As usual, he took Griff into his living room, so I could have a root round. He was happy enough for Griff to see my spoils, and even value them, but he seemed to like to keep my little hunts a family matter. Talk about skewed logic.

  Griff turned over the Wedgwood plates I produced, nodding as I told my father how much champagne they should bring in.

  ‘Good girl.’ Then he dropped his voice, leaning confidentially towards Griff. ‘Trustees get a whiff of any of this stuff, they’ll want it, the sniffling weaselly bastards. Look at the state of that drive – will they put their hands in their pockets and have it resurfaced? Will they buggery!’

  The two chewed over the pothole situation for longer than I thought possible.

  At last, when they’d talked the subject to death, I screwed up my courage. ‘Have you made any progress tracing Nanny Baird’s descendants?’ My voice was a bit funny. I hoped they wouldn’t notice.

  He pulled a face. ‘I’ve let that slide a bit, to be honest.’ What a surprise. ‘What would I say to anyone if those chappies found them? “Some woman who died sixty years ago, years before any of you were born, was kind to me, and you lot, to whom she meant not a snap of the fingers, should have some loot.” Some loot. You mark my words, as soon as they got their paws on some, they’d want more. And I’m not having that.’ He pointed to a brown envelope near the TV zapper. ‘That’s what I’ve got so far. Nothing and a big bill. Just a trace of someone in Australia who may be her second cousin. Go on, open it.’

  He was right. I was tempted to say nothing about the photos Harvey had sent. On the other hand, Harvey was a living person who would value a memento. Possibly. What would a trinket mean to a man with the latest Beamer? But then, of course, I could hardly describe a Cartier watch as a trinket.

  I had a feeling my father was watching me, and when Griff drifted off to the loo he raised a finger. ‘Griff’s the one with the toothache, but you’ve got a long face too. Don’t think I don’t notice these things, Lina, because I do. And don’t tell me you’re just worried about him, because I can tell you that those antibiotics’ll knock that abscess of his on the head, he’ll have a nice little root-canal filling and be as right as nine pence within a week.’

  Goodness knows what programme he’d been watching. Daytime dentistry? I knew there was a pub channel but I’d never found that.

  I managed a smile. ‘Where are your reading glasses? I’ve got something you should look at.’ I patted the folder with Harvey’s fax.

  ‘Let’s see.’

  ‘I was wondering if these were pictures of you,’ I said baldly. ‘With Nanny Baird.’

  ‘Why on earth should you think that?’

  ‘Right years. And the photos have the letters BH on the back. And they were sent to me by someone who thinks he might have a connection with Bossingham Hall.’

  He peered, holding the paper this way and that. ‘You’ll be telling me I need to get my eyes tested,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Griff goes to a very nice lady in Canterbury,’ I said, glad of the diversion – I think. ‘Do you want me to make you an appointment? We could get you some new leather slippers at that men’s outfitters you like. And get you that mobile that takes photos you’ve been hankering after.’

  He picked up the fax and looked again. And then he did something he never did. He took my hand and held it. ‘I really can’t tell, Lina. But I promise you this. Even if the person who sent this lot turns out to be Nanny Baird’s first born son, he’s never going to mean to me what you do. Understand?�
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  Apparently Griff and my father had decided we should stay to lunch. No point in arguing, especially as we’d brought so much. I was just heating some of Griff’s wonderful creamy soup when a text arrived for me. Harvey. His great aunt had been a Florence Nugent. But he understood she’d got into trouble, and might even have pretended to be married. No one knew what had happened to the child, assuming it had survived.

  Heavens, his thumb must have been getting tired by this point, despite all the abbreviations he’d used and which I expanded when I wrote it all down so my father could read it. I didn’t add the lots of love and the kisses.

  Before I could respond, another text came through. He’d have the photos digitally enhanced and email the results as and when. That was it.

  We’d eaten and I’d washed up. Griff had retired to the loo, so my father was on his own when I told him about the text message. He stared at my handwritten trans . . . transp . . . translation? Near enough, maybe.

  ‘Florence? Flo? Flossie? I’ve no idea. She was only ever Nanny to me. And I’d have thought she was a bit old for “getting into trouble”. It was always tweenies and gatekeepers’ daughters who got in the club when I was a kid.’ He gave me a lopsided grin. ‘At least I had better taste than that with your ma.’ He looked at the photos again. ‘Digitally enhanced? Does that mean a spot of fakery? Not having that.’

  I explained, and promised to print them off and bring over the results. It was time for us to leave – my father had a programme he had to watch.

  So where was Griff? I went into the hallway and shouted. No response. My father must have heard the panic in my voice. Emerging from the living room he strode off towards the loo. When there was no response to his rattle at the door, he reached on to the lintel, producing a filthy key.

  Griff was standing at the wash basin, staring at his arms and hands, which were covered in a bright pink rash. ‘My legs are like this too,’ he said, in a thin little voice. ‘And I feel very strange. Do you think you could get me home, sweet one?’