Grave Stones (11 page)

‘Yes. Some of the money came from the sale of a field earlier on this year. I spoke to Grimshaw’s solicitor. Guess who bought it?’

She couldn’t deny the detective his moment of fame.

‘Catherine Zeta Jones,’ she said.

Hesketh-Brown grinned, unfazed by Joanna’s sarcasm. ‘Richard Mostyn. According to the solicitor he bought the field off Grimshaw for £8,000 – well over what it would be worth as farming land but a good investment if…’ He crossed to the board and pointed to the map. ‘This is the field,’ he said. ‘Beyond the farm. It has no other access except through the farmyard. Its far side is bordered by a stream. The neighbouring fields belong to another farmer, who has two strong sons
who farm with him. They’re not going to sell up. No, the field was virtually worthless unless…’

‘Grimshaw sold his farm,’ Mike chimed in.

‘Interesting,’ Joanna mused. ‘And it’s the little Mostyn girl who rode the pony. Mmm.’ She looked at the officer. ‘What else?’

‘Pretty predictable,’ he said. ‘Grimshaw died intestate.’

‘What?’ Joanna was surprised. Farmers, in general, were very careful how and where they left their money. This was another puzzle. ‘Well, his daughter will probably inherit.’ But even saying it she was dubious. ‘Or his wife. Were they divorced?’

Hesketh-Brown shook his head slowly. ‘Not that I can see.’

‘Well, well,’ Joanna said. ‘And she’s a nurse?’

‘Yes.’ Korpanski answered.

‘Wouldn’t that give her access to barbiturates?’

Both detectives were watching her mind tick away. ‘Perhaps I was a little hasty and unsympathetic this morning,’ she said, ‘in my dealings with Mrs Wilkinson. Maybe I should get to know her a little better. What do you think, Mike?’

Korpanski wedged his thick thighs between the two desks and made his way to the door. ‘Even Judy Grimshaw looks a bit more of an attractive proposition with all that dosh behind her,’ he said. 

WPC Bridget Anderton was a competent police officer. Born and bred in the Staffordshire Moorlands, she understood the workings of the natives’ minds, their prejudices and attitudes. She drove out to Cheddleton, passing the Flint Mill and the Caldon Canal. Farrell’s Animal Suppliers was a cluster of Dutch barns where the feeds were stored and a small, square office. It was an extensive concern; their lorries were to be found right across Staffordshire, and parts of Derbyshire too, supplying plenty of hungry animals throughout long winters.

She focused on the red-faced director, who was grumbling noisily. ‘I can’t think what any of this has to do with us,’ he said. ‘We’ve nothing to do with poor old Grimshaw’s death.’

Bridget was short and dumpy with stubby legs but her beauty was in her smile. Wide, warm and friendly, it usually disarmed people, made them feel welcome and confidant. Her hair was toffee-coloured and naturally
shiny, swinging to her shoulders, and her eyes were another good feature. Warm brown, with a direct gaze. WPC Anderton was blessed in another way – with an optimistic nature – which she needed as her husband suffered from chronic depression and had spent time in hospital. He had trouble keeping a job and flittered from one to another between bouts of the sad disease.

WPC Anderton was using all her charm on Robert Flaxon, manager and company director of Farrell’s Feeds, but it was having little effect.

‘We need to know which driver delivered to Prospect Farm,’ she said.

Flaxon tried to stare her out, failed and tightened his lips. ‘Bradeley,’ he muttered. ‘Tim Bradeley covers that area. But he’s a sound chap.’ Flaxon was scowling at her now. ‘There’s no way he’d be up to any monkey business.’ He raised tired eyes to hers. ‘He’s a family man. He’s worked here since leaving school.’

‘I just want to talk to him,’ Bridget Anderton said, unruffled. ‘We need to ask him some questions.’

‘Well, you can’t,’ Flaxon snapped. ‘He’s out on his rounds.’

‘When will he be back?’

Flaxon gave a quick look at his wristwatch. ‘In an hour,’ he said, ‘or so.’

‘Then I’ll return in an hour,’ Bridget Anderton said sweetly. ‘Please tell him we need to talk to him, will you?’

Flaxon gave no answer but stared fixedly into his computer screen while she left the room.

She sat in the car, wondering. Was Flaxon
naturally
rude? Did he consider helping the police with their inquiries wasting company time? Or did he have something to hide? Did he resent the police sniffing around his premises? If so, why?

Interesting.

But she didn’t want to wait around so she headed back to the station.

Joanna and Mike were holed up in their office. ‘I think it would be a mistake to focus solely on the inhabitants of the estate,’ Joanna was saying. ‘Let’s look at that list Hannah Beardmore compiled of other villains in the area.’

Mike tapped a few computer keys on the PNC, gave a grunt and leant back in his chair so that Joanna could see the result of his search.

‘Kenny Roster’s gang robbed some farms,’ he said, ‘a couple of years ago. They never resorted to murder, though.’ Joanna stared at the screen. ‘Well, they’ve been banged up in Walton jail anyway,’ she said, ‘since March of last year, so they’re out of the picture.’

‘There’s always the Whalleys,’ Mike said. ‘Lovely family business of burglary and helping themselves to other people’s stuff.’

‘Haven’t they retired?’

‘We haven’t heard anything from them for a while,’ Mike said. ‘I think I picked up a rumour that they’d headed off to Spain. I’ll ask around.’

Joanna smiled. She knew who he’d ask. Like most
police forces, they had their old lags who would swap a bit of information for twenty fags and/or a bottle of whisky, depending on how valuable the information was. Legitimate expenses that could save pounds on a major investigation. And Melvin Grinstead was theirs – about as seamy a character as it was possible to imagine. Long grey hair, scruffy, always dressed in the same smelly clothes: an ancient tweed coat, saggy brown trousers and grubby trainers. But he was also sharp-eyed and at times unobtrusive to the point of invisibility.

‘Anyone else?’

Korpanski shook his head. ‘Not unless some minor criminal is maturing.’ He swung his chair round, his blunt features screwed up in concern. ‘But murder, Jo? Poisoning the dog? Letting animals die of thirst? I don’t think so.’

She stood up, suddenly frustrated, and crossed the room to the window. It was her bad luck that the office assigned to her was no more than three feet from a high, brick wall. It was an uninspiring view for a senior investigating officer. All too often it simply reflected the progress of an investigation. She turned around to face Mike. ‘So who then? One of the neighbours? His daughter? Or someone else? And why? Why kill a harmless old farmer? Why poison the dog? Was he aggressive? Would he bark? Was it a robbery? Why not wait until Grimshaw was out for the day?’

‘He virtually never was,’ Korpanski answered.

‘Why the sustained attack? Why murder, Mike?’

She wandered back to the computer, practically
willing
the screen to spew something out. Anything that would give their investigation some direction. The early days of an investigation were always bad – worrying that it would join the Unsolved Cases folder.

‘Mike,’ she said in a low voice, and he knew what was coming next.

‘Time I left for the mortuary.’

Korpanski nodded.

‘No need for you to come, Mike.’

‘OK.’

It was a slow drive into the Potteries, crawling down the A53 Leek road and threading through the city. Traffic was practically stationary in parts and there were the usual road works in Endon. She bit her lip, drove patiently, and finally arrived at the mortuary.

Matthew met her at the door. ‘Jo?’

She gave him a warm, intimate smile. There was something about wearing this ring, that he had chosen and bought for her, that made her feel extraordinarily close to him. It wasn’t her way to belong to anyone, to become a man’s property. She had always prided herself on her independence, but she knew she was as close to Matthew Levin as she ever could be to any human being. She brushed his cheek with her lips, smelt the spicy tang of his aftershave, felt the bony prominence at the back of his neck under her fingers and wondered how long she would feel like this towards Matthew. Would this passion, this strength, this weakness continue for
ever? Even the word ‘fiancé’ spread warmth throughout her. It was a different status. One she had not known before. No wonder engaged women looked so
smug
. If being affianced brought this, how would she feel when she was married?

‘Matt,’ she said, as they walked along the corridor. ‘Do you know
all
the post-mortem findings? Or do I need to talk to Jordan?’

‘I think I know most of it. Everything you need.’ He looked at her fondly. ‘If you ask me a question that stumps me, I’ll get hold of Cray. OK?’

She nodded, already knowing that he would know all the answers she needed. Matthew took great pride in his thoroughness.

They’d reached his office. The door was ajar and they wandered in to sit at the desk. ‘So, Jakob Grimshaw’s injuries,’ she began. ‘Were they the result of a gang attack or was there one assailant?’

Matthew thought for a minute. ‘There’s no evidence,’ he said carefully, ‘that it was a gang attack. We’re working on it being a single killer. There weren’t that many injuries and it’s easy to trace what happened. It began with a full frontal assault with a weapon similar to a baseball bat, during which he sustained his defensive injuries – the broken arm, bruising etcetera.’

‘And would it have to be a male? Did it require strength?’

Matthew shook his head. ‘Grimshaw was frail,’ he said, ‘almost emaciated. He weighed only eight stone. A relatively fit female could have attacked him. And he
finally collapsed against the wall. Jordan found traces of moss on the back of his sweater. It only took our assailant to topple the stone on him. It just happened to be there.’

Joanna fixed her eyes on him knowing that he disliked coincidence as much as she did. ‘Just happened?’

Their eyes met. ‘I think so.’

‘I see,’ she said.

Matthew shifted in his seat. ‘I suppose you want to view the body?’

She nodded slowly, reluctantly. ‘I think I ought to.’

He led Joanna into the room with its tiers of chilled drawers. He selected one then pulled it out.

The old farmer was neatly wrapped in a shroud, a tag looped around his toes. Matthew untied the shroud and pulled it back, allowing her to look, for the first time, at the subject of her murder investigation.

He was skinny almost to the point of emaciation and looked older than his years. His waxen face was, considering, surprisingly peaceful. The damage to his skull was easy to see, also the bruising to his arms, the misshapen right limb.

‘Fractured ulna,’ Matthew supplied. ‘And the radius was dislocated. They used to call it the swordsman’s injury.’ He held his own arm up in a defensive pose. ‘Like this. That appears to be the initial injury. It would have hurt like hell and winded him.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Head injury, fractures of the cervical spine, extensive bruising on the shoulders, probably from the assault
as well as the stone as it dropped, a rose thorn in his hand,’ Matthew finished. ‘Poor chap.’

He waited a moment, then said gently, ‘Have you seen enough?’

‘I think so.’ She looked at him. ‘It hasn’t brought me any nearer to the killer though, Matt. I thought it would, but it’s done nothing.’

He slid the body back into the fridge. ‘So what next?’

She made a face. ‘Much as I don’t want to, I’m going to have to speak to Grimshaw’s daughter again. She’s an unpleasant thing but I have a feeling there’s something there that I’ve missed. Something important. But first,’ she said cheekily, ‘I wouldn’t mind being taken for lunch.’

Matthew’s eyes sparkled. ‘Hospital fare?’

She linked her arm in his. ‘Just as long as it isn’t tripe and onions.’

He drove her to the restaurant in the City General Hospital and they shared gammon and onion rings. Then they returned to the mortuary, Matthew to complete his afternoon’s work and Joanna to pick up her car and drive back to Leek.

She found Mike speaking to Richard Mostyn.

‘Great, Jo,’ he said. ‘Mr Mostyn brought himself in to make a statement.’

‘Very thoughtful,’ she said.

Now why would Mostyn volunteer information? She looked at the pale, soft man with a permanently worried look on his face. ‘Shall we go into the interview room?’

Mostyn was nervous. ‘I thought I’d better come in,’ he began, ‘because I was worried you’d get the wrong end of the stick.’

Joanna raised her eyebrows.

‘You see…’

Joanna waited.

Mostyn gulped in a lungful of air. ‘I didn’t know whether you knew…’ his voice trailed away. His eyes darted from Joanna to Korpanski and back to Joanna.

‘I own some of the farm land.’

Silence.

‘A field,’ he said, ‘beyond the farm.’

He started to relax and babble. ‘It doesn’t have planning permission,’ he said. ‘It’s just grazing land.’

Joanna lifted her eyebrows and let him prattle on.

‘You see – I’d hoped to buy the pony, Brutus, for my daughter as a Christmas present. As a surprise. Grimshaw said we could keep it in the stable.’

‘Very nice,’ Joanna commented. ‘She’s a very lucky girl.’

Mostyn’s face changed. ‘She would have been. I don’t think the farmer’s daughter’s keen on me having Brutus. I don’t know why,’ he said peevishly. ‘It’s far too small for her.’

He looked at Joanna out of the corner of his eye and she felt a tingling in her toes. This might be Mostyn’s story but it
was
a story. A plausible one but she didn’t believe it for a minute. A man in his straightened circumstances wouldn’t have paid over the odds for a piece of land for sentimental reasons. He’d paid double
the price for grazing but if it got planning permission it would have worked out a bargain. She gave him a bland smile. No. It was much more likely that he had bought it as an investment.

But she let the matter pass.

‘Just out of interest,’ she said, ‘where were you on Monday and Tuesday?’

‘Work all day,’ he said quickly. ‘I work in Macclesfield. It’s an easy commute.’

‘And in the evenings?’

Mostyn thought for a minute. ‘I was at home on the Monday,’ he said. ‘I arrive back at about seven-ish. Tuesday I was with a client from Holland. We were out in a restaurant until around eleven.’

‘I see,’ Joanna said. ‘Have you anything more to add?’

Mostyn shook his head, keeping his pale eyes firmly fixed on her.

She let him go after that.

Joanna arranged to speak to Judy Grimshaw and prepared herself to be more patient, more civil this time around. After all, the woman had just lost her father in violent and upsetting circumstances. She had a right to be brusque.

Judy lived in one of the older terraced houses with a front door that opened straight out onto the pavement. Her face appeared at the window in response to Joanna’s knock. Moments later she pulled opened the door and led Joanna inside without a greeting.

Inside, it was small but homely, tastefully decorated with magnolia walls, a cream carpet and black leather suite.

She sat down opposite them. ‘Are you any nearer to finding out who killed my father?’ she demanded.

It had taken Joanna less than a minute to decide that she didn’t like Judy Grimshaw any better the second time she met her.

There was something smug about the woman – something too self-possessed, as though she held the key to all the problems of the world.

Joanna spoke formally. ‘Judy, we’re trying very hard to find out who killed your father.’

‘I should think so,’ she said tartly.

It wasn’t helpful.

‘The trouble is that we don’t even know for certain
when
he died. Not only the time but the date, even. He was a very solitary person.’