A Killing Resurrected (24 page)

‘Molly Forsythe,' she said in return. ‘Detective Constable Forsythe,' she elaborated, ‘and thanks, but I have my own lunch in the car.'

The man grunted. ‘Didn't think you were selling,' he said. ‘Didn't look the type. So what can I do for you?'

‘You live here, do you Mr Whitfield?' Molly asked with a nod towards the house.

He smiled. ‘Think I was the gardener, did you?' he asked, then laughed. ‘Can't say I blame you, looking at these old clothes. Oh, I live here all right, but I don't know for how much longer. The place is too big for me to look after since the wife died, even with help. But that's got nothing to do with why you're here,' he continued, ‘so what is it? About that business up the road? The Corbetts? All those police cars coming and going? Is it true he drowned in that pond of his?'

‘I'm afraid so. And you're quite right, that is why I'm here. I'm looking for anyone who might have witnessed Mr Corbett, or anyone else for that matter, coming or going last Tuesday afternoon or evening.'

‘Why do you want to know that?'

‘We're trying to establish exactly when Mr Corbett returned to the house after leaving his office last Tuesday afternoon, and if anyone was with him. Were you out here by any chance last Tuesday?'

Fred Whitfield squinted into the distance. ‘Tuesday,' he repeated slowly, then nodded. ‘Come to think of it I did see him, well, not Corbett himself, but I saw his car while I was taking Lizzie for a walk.' He nodded towards a hawthorn hedge on the far side of the lawn, where a small dog Molly hadn't noticed till now, lay asleep in the deep shade.

‘Half blind and getting old, I'm afraid,' he said sadly, ‘but she still likes her walk every day, sometimes twice a day.'

‘Do you remember what time that would be?'

‘Four thirty, five o'clock, not exactly sure of the time,' Whitfield said. ‘Always take Lizzie out then, and we walk up past the Corbetts under the shade trees when it's hot like this. Go up to the fields at the top where Lizzie used to like to run, but she isn't up to it any more, so we have a bit of a rest, then come back. Corbett's car passed me on the way up and turned into his driveway.'

‘I don't suppose you saw any activity up at the house as you went by the end of his driveway?' Molly asked hopefully.

But Whitfield shook his head. ‘Can't see the house properly this time of year,' he told her. ‘Too many trees and shrubs in full leaf. But there was another car in there as well. Saw it come out on the way back.'

‘What other car, Mr Whitfield? Have you seen it before? Can you describe it?'

Whitfield thought about that while he took another drink. ‘Can't recall seeing that particular one up here before,' he said, ‘but it was very much like the Honda CR-V Jack Reynolds drives – he lives just down the road – except his is dark red and the one I saw was silver. It might not have been the same make, but it was similar in size and shape, and quite new by the look of it except for a scratch along the side. It looked like the sort of mindless thing the kids do with a knife or a coin these days, and I remember thinking the owner must have been pretty peeved to have that happen to his car. Oh, yes, and there was a small decal of the Welsh flag just above the back bumper, driver's side. I'm afraid that's about all I can tell you, except there was a man and a woman in it. I only caught a glimpse of them as they came out on to the road.'

‘Which one was driving?'

‘The man.'

‘Can you describe him?'

Whitfield shook his head. ‘I wasn't paying that much attention, I'm afraid. Sorry, but it didn't mean anything to me at the time.'

‘What about the woman? Can you describe her?'

Whitfield frowned in concentration, replaying the scene in his mind. ‘Sorry,' he said again, ‘but there was no reason to pay them any attention.'

‘Could the woman have been Mrs Corbett?'

‘Could have been, but she had a sun hat on and I only caught a very brief glimpse of her, so I really don't know. But why not ask her yourself?'

‘I did ask her,' Molly told Ormside later when she phoned in, ‘but she said she had no idea whose car it might have been or who would be calling at the house. It certainly wasn't her car Mr Whitfield described, and she reminded me that she didn't arrive home until midnight on Tuesday. So I asked her what time she and her dance partner left Scarborough, and she told me they left there on
Monday.
She spent the night and following day with Ramon – or Ray Short, if you like – before coming home.'

Ormside grunted. ‘You mean . . .?'

‘I mean she “spent the night”,' said Molly, emphasizing the words. ‘She was quite open about it.'

‘What kind of car does Mr Short drive, I wonder?'

‘A ten-year-old Ford Transit,' Molly told him. ‘White and rust – genuine rust according to Mrs Corbett. And the driver of the car Whitfield saw was white. Ray Short is black.'

She was about to hang up when Ormside stopped her. ‘Did you say the name of the man you spoke to is
Fred
Whitfield?' he asked. ‘Tallish, white hair, thin face?'

‘That's right. Do you know him?'

‘In a way,' said Ormside drily. ‘I think you've just been talking to retired High Court judge, the Honourable Mr Justice Fred Whitfield, and you couldn't have a better witness if this ever comes to trial. Nice one, Forsythe.'

T
he whey-faced man behind the bar only had to glance at the photograph before he said, ‘Yeah, that's him. Corbett. He's a regular. Afternoons, mostly. Why, what's he done?'

Tregalles ignored the question. ‘Was he in here last Tuesday afternoon?'

The man scratched his head. His yellow hair was pulled back into a ragged ponytail held in place by a rubber band. It looked more like a wig made of fine straw than the man's natural hair.

‘Could have been Tuesday,' he said slowly. ‘Yeah, probably was, 'cause I haven't seen him the last couple of days. Came in about half three or quarter to four. Sat over there drinking doubles and making phone calls,' he continued, pointing to a corner seat by the window.

‘Did you talk to him? Did he say anything to you?'

The man shook his head. ‘Just took his drink and sat down and started making phone calls on his mobile.'

‘Was that something he normally did?'

‘Not like that. I mean he might make the odd call now and again like everybody else these days, but he must have made at least half-a-dozen of them one after the other when he first came in. Seemed to be working himself up into a bit of a state.'

‘Drinking much, was he?'

Instead of answering the question, the barman moved away to serve a middle-aged couple, who had attracted his attention by raising their empty glasses. Tregalles looked around. There weren't many in. Apart from himself and the two at the bar, there were only five other people in the place. Two men with briefcases beside their chairs were enjoying a leisurely drink; a young woman had her nose in a book; and two grey-haired ladies with shopping bags were fanning themselves on a bench seat near the window.

Somewhat reluctantly, the barman drifted back.

‘I was asking how much Corbett was drinking,' Tregalles reminded him.

‘About the same as usual,' the man said, suddenly cautious.

‘The usual? I don't know what that means,' Tregalles said sharply. ‘You said he was drinking doubles, so how many of those did he have?'

‘Don't remember exactly,' the man hedged. ‘A couple maybe.'

‘Look,' Tregalles said, ‘I'm not after you for serving him drinks when he was probably pissed when he came in, but I do need to know what his condition was when he left. You've already told me he was drinking doubles and he was in a bit of a state, so, how many?'

The man eyed him. ‘Could have been four or five,' he admitted, ‘but I'll deny it if anyone else asks.'

‘Just watch it in future,' Tregalles warned, knowing full well he was wasting his breath. ‘So, he made a lot of phone calls. Did you hear any of the conversation?'

The barman shook his head. ‘I just took him his drinks when he gave me the sign and left him alone. Anyway, he stopped talking whenever I was close by.'

‘What did he do after the phone calls?'

‘Just sat there by the window looking out every few minutes as if he was expecting somebody.'

‘How long was he here?'

‘Dunno, exactly. We got a bit busy and the next time I looked over there he was gone.'

‘About what time would that be?'

‘Half four. That's when some of the regulars start coming in, so I didn't see him go.'

‘Did you see anyone else come in? See anyone talk to Corbett?'

‘No. Like I said, we were busy, so they could have done.'

‘So he was here for half to three quarters of an hour?'

‘Give or take, yeah, something like that.'

‘You say he's a regular in here. Does he ever have anyone with him?'

‘There's this woman, although she doesn't come in very often. Orange juice, that's all she ever drinks.'

‘Are you talking about his wife?'

The man shook his head. ‘Don't think so,' he said, ‘at least she doesn't wear a ring, and he does.'

‘Can you describe her?'

‘Good looking woman,' the man said with more animation than he'd previously displayed. ‘Looks like she's Chinese or Japanese or something like that, except she has red hair. He told me once she's an actress.'

‘Thank you very much, Mrs Draper,' said Molly Forsythe. ‘You've been very helpful, and I appreciate your cooperation. I don't think I will need to trouble you again.' She put the phone down and sat back in her chair to think about what she'd been told by Rachel Draper – or Rachel Kiechle as she had been thirteen years ago, when she and Sharon Grady had chummed around together.

Based on what Sharon had told her about Rachel and her parents, it hadn't taken Molly long to discover that there used to be a mission called The Only Way down by the river in an area known as the Flats. It was run by a Reverend Peter Kiechle and his wife, and they had a daughter named Rachel.

Where the Kiechles were now, Molly hadn't been able to find out, but she was able to track Rachel down. Married now, she had two children, and she and her husband ran a bed and breakfast in Brighton.

Rachel had been reluctant to talk about her past at first. ‘It's not a period of my life I'm proud of,' she said, ‘and I've tried hard to put it behind me. As for Sharon, I haven't been in touch with her since I left Broadminster, so I don't know how I can help you.'

It had taken Molly some time to talk Rachel round; to convince her that her only interest was in the names and background of the young men she and Sharon had dated, and not in anything the two girls had done themselves.

Rachel responded cautiously at first, but once she started talking the floodgates opened, and Molly found herself listening to aspects of Rachel's life that she'd kept bottled up for years.

‘It's funny,' Rachel said at last, ‘but I don't think Sharon and I hung out together for more than six or maybe eight weeks at the most, and yet it seems much longer than that when I look back.'

Rachel told Molly that she'd been brought up to believe that almost anything even remotely enjoyable was sinful, and any deviation from the ‘right path' would lead inevitably to hell and eternal damnation. She said rebellion had been bubbling up inside her throughout her teenage years, but she'd been too afraid of her father to do anything about it. But when her parents left for East Africa, she felt as if she'd been set free, and she was determined to do absolutely everything her parents were against. But she didn't know how to set about it until, by chance, she met Sharon Grady.

‘Sharon was going through a rebellious stage herself,' she said. ‘Her mother had died suddenly the year before; she'd never been close to her father; and she was mad at the world.' A long sigh drifted over the line, and Rachel sounded incredibly sad when she spoke again. ‘We tried everything,' she said. ‘We went to parties; we drank ourselves silly; we experimented with drugs; and we had sex with the boys.'

‘Who were the boys you went with?' Molly asked. ‘Sharon tells me that she had a feeling that one of the men in the robbery I mentioned to you was someone she'd met before. She implied that it could have been someone she'd slept with, so when exactly, did all this partying take place?'

‘Let's see, now. You say the pub was robbed at New Year? Then it would have been the July or August before that, because the boys we went with were all from university, and they went back in September, and that's when I moved to Tenborough.'

‘They were all university students? Do you remember which university?'

‘Leeds, most of them, I think, although some could have been from somewhere else.'

‘So what about their names?'

‘Ah, yes, the names. Sorry. Didn't mean to run on like that; I must have been boring you to tears with—' She stopped abruptly. ‘Oh, God!' she breathed. ‘You haven't been recording this, have you?'

‘Absolutely not,' Molly told her – which was true in the narrowest sense, but she had been taking shorthand notes. ‘The names, Mrs Draper?' she prompted again.

‘Yes, of course,' Rachel said. ‘Funny, though, Sharon not remembering, because she used to keep a notebook – her scorecard, she called it – and she used to rate each boy according to how good the sex was, with notes on what she thought of him. I remember that well enough, because she always made a point of telling me all about it in lurid detail afterwards. Which reminds me, what's Sharon doing now? Not that I want to get in touch with her or anything like that. I just wondered, you know.'