The Cold Hand of Malice (39 page)

Peggy was shaking her head violently from side to side. ‘I have never seen that key before in my life,’ she declared. ‘Someone must have put it there. Someone who—’

But Paget cut her off by saying, ‘No one planted that key in your handbag, Miss Goodwin, as you well know, and I’m tired of listening to your lies and evasions.’ He nodded to Tregalles, who took out his phone and entered two numbers as Paget continued.

‘I believe that you and Simon Holbrook conspired to kill Laura Holbrook, and I believe that it was you who did the actual killing. I also believe that when you finally realized how he had used you to get rid of his wife, while carrying on a liaison with Susan Chase, and making a secret deal with Drexler-Davies, which would make you redundant, not only as an employee, but as a lover, you killed him and did everything in your power to incriminate Miss Chase.

‘Margaret Diane Goodwin, I am charging you with the murders of Laura and Simon Holbrook. You are not obliged to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something you wish to rely on later in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

The lines in Peggy’s face might have been carved in granite as she slowly shook her head. ‘You’ll never prove any of this,’ she began, but stopped when the door opened and a young woman entered the room and advanced to the table. Her name was Gwen, according to her name-tag, and she carried a small metal tray, partly covered by a cloth. ‘Please open your mouth; Miss Goodwin,’ she said. ‘I need a swab for DNA purposes. It will only take a minute.’

Peggy Goodwin shot a malevolent glance at Paget as she got to her feet, then turned to face the young woman. ‘And you can go to hell!’ she grated as she snatched the tray from her hand and flung it straight at Paget.

‘You should have seen it!’ Tregalles said as he and Audrey sat down to a late dinner. ‘It’s all swollen around the eye. Blood was streaming down his face and all over his shirt, but he still didn’t want to go to A&E to have it seen to. I finally managed to get him there, and it’s a good thing I did, because it took four stitches to get it stopped. God! You should have seen that tray go! She just flicked it like a Frisbee. Wham! Caught him just above the eye.’

‘He could have been blinded,’ Audrey said reproachfully, ‘but you sound as if you almost enjoyed seeing him bleed.’

‘’Course I didn’t, love,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound that way. It’s just that, well, it was pretty spectacular.’

‘So what were you doing, apart from watching him bleed all over his shirt?’

‘Trying to get Peggy Goodwin calmed down,’ he said. ‘It’s funny, but she’d pretty much kept it all together until Gwen came in to take a swab from her. But something must have snapped; I think she finally realized that she was going down for what she’d done, and she just lost it. Took all three of us on, fighting, kicking, screaming about Simon, how it was all Susan’s fault and she should be dead as well. And you wouldn’t believe how strong that woman is,’ he continued. ‘Tracy Woods was on the door, and she’s no lightweight, but it took her and me and Gwen to wrestle Goodwin down. But she wouldn’t give up even when we got the cuffs on her. She ripped Gwen’s blouse, kicked me on both shins –’he paused to lift the legs of his trousers to display grazes and swellings that were turning a nice shade of blue – ‘and she got a handful of Tracy’s hair. Tracy was furious! You know how particular she is about her appearance. I thought she was going to kill Goodwin.

‘Gwen never did get the swab. The way Goodwin was going on, there was no way she was going to try. After all that fighting we had to call the doctor in to examine Goodwin, so Gwen left it for him to get the swab. Fortunately, the tapes were still running, so she can’t claim it was us who started it. Pity we don’t have video in there, though,’ he chuckled. ‘It would’ve been better than championship wrestling on TV.’

Later, as they were getting ready for bed, Tregalles showed Audrey the bruises again. ‘I’ll be lucky if I can walk tomorrow morning,’ he muttered.

‘Oh, stop your moaning,’ Audrey told him. ‘Wear your blue shorts to work tomorrow. Go nicely with those legs, they would. You’re lucky it was only your shins she kicked. Mr Paget could have lost an eye. It’s a wonder . . . Aaahhh!’ she gasped as Tregalles came up behind her and put his arms around her. ‘Your hands are ice cold! Get them off me, you lecherous devil, and warm them somewhere else.’

‘Sooner warm them where they are,’ he told her. ‘Like you said, it’s lucky nothing else was damaged beside my shins. I hope you weren’t planning on going to sleep for a while.’

Thirty-Four

Friday, March 27

Paget winced, squinting against the sun as they emerged from the courtroom where Peggy Goodwin had been remanded in custody. The eyelid and the flesh around the eye was dark and swollen, and the eye itself was streaked with red and sensitive to sudden changes in light.

‘We have to find the weapon,’ he told Tregalles. ‘I had a word with Starkie about Susan Chase’s head wound, and he feels confident that it was made by the same weapon as the one that killed Laura Holbrook. And if that is the case, I want Goodwin charged with that assault as well.’

‘Or murder if Chase doesn’t make it,’ Tregalles said soberly. ‘The thing is, she could have hidden it where we’re never likely to find it or thrown it away in a field or a ditch somewhere. It could be anywhere.’

‘There are no fields or ditches between the flower shop and Goodwin’s flat,’ Paget pointed out, as they left the building and made their way to the car, ‘and I’m betting she would get rid of it as soon as possible after leaving the shop. She wouldn’t want to be caught with it in her possession, so chances are she dumped it in the lane. She couldn’t go up the lane, because the police were milling about, attending an attempted break-in, so I suggest you start by looking for the weapon at the lower end between the back of the shop and Tyndall Street.’

They found what they were looking for in one of the drains in the alley behind the Basket of Flowers. Tregalles could see it quite clearly on the screen even before the video snake they’d borrowed from the town touched bottom. Half submerged in a few inches of water, it had been impossible to see from above, even with the aid of a strong light.

‘That’s it!’ the sergeant told the town engineer, who had been the one to suggest that they use a video snake in the first place. ‘Now, the next thing is how do we recover it?’

‘We fish for it with EMPART,’ the man said. ‘Electro-Magnetic Probe and Recovery Tool,’ he explained. ‘It’s new. We just got it this year. Shouldn’t be a problem if we’re careful and don’t get it caught crossways in the pipe.’

‘It’s the murder weapon all right,’ Tregalles told Paget, producing the evidence bag with a flourish. ‘Found it in a drain behind the Basket of Flowers. And, brilliant detective that I am, I had a brainwave and pursued the matter further. I found out where it came from.’

The sergeant paused, as if waiting for applause, and for the first time that day, Paget found himself smiling. ‘I can hardly wait,’ he said, settling back in his seat. ‘Tell me, where did it come from, Sergeant?’

Tregalles grinned. ‘Thought you’d never ask,’ he said. ‘It’s an old tyre lever,’ he continued as he slid the bag on to Paget’s desk, ‘and it made me think of that mobile workshop Arthur Johnson runs from the back of Goodwin’s mother’s shop, so I took it round to ask him if he’d ever seen it before. Turns out he had; in fact it belonged to him.’

Now that he had Paget’s full attention, Tregalles moved back and sat down. ‘It’s the largest one of a set of three he inherited, along with some other tools, from his father. They don’t use them any more, of course, but he said he first realized it was missing around the middle of January, which ties in with when the burglary took place in Abbey Road.’

The smile left the sergeant’s face. ‘Shook him up pretty badly, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘He didn’t know what he was going to say to Goodwin’s mother. He said she still refuses to believe that her daughter could kill anyone, and he didn’t know how she would react when she found out that the murder weapon had come from his workshop.

‘Anyway,’ he said briskly, ‘it ties Goodwin into the attack on Susan Chase, so they should be able to add that to the charges.’ He stood up and picked up the bag. ‘Any news on how Chase is doing?’

‘As a matter of fact, Ormside just called to tell me that she’s conscious, and they are cautiously optimistic that there will be no permanent damage to the brain. We won’t be able to talk to her for a day or two, but all the signs are hopeful.

‘Also, it appears that Peggy Goodwin must have done those burglaries herself, because according to Simon Holbrook’s appointments diary, he was always with someone who could vouch for his whereabouts on the nights the burglaries occurred, and that as good as tells me that he and Peggy Goodwin planned this together. I don’t know, but my guess is that it was Peggy who read about the Dunbar Road burglary, and decided to copy what they’d done. She used this tyre iron to pry the doors open and batter some of the furniture, and probably used a piece of pipe on other pieces to make us think two people were involved. And she carried that idea through by taking food away or making it look as if two people had stopped for a meal. And it worked – at least until she made the mistake of using the bloodied weapon to pry open the back door of Holbrook’s house. As for the killing of Simon Holbrook, we have all the evidence we need, despite Goodwin’s attempt to frame Chase. Forensic tells me that what we were supposed to believe were Chase’s bloodied prints on the taps and wardrobe, were existing prints with Holbrook’s blood smeared lightly over them. In fact, the prints were all but obliterated anyway.’

‘Looks good, then,’ Tregalles said. ‘And I’m glad to hear that Susan Chase is going to be all right. Pretty woman, and she’s had a rough time of it lately. Hope she makes it. Fingers crossed then, eh?’

Paget smiled. Tregalles had always had an eye for a pretty face, and he’d been quite smitten with Susan Chase from the very beginning.

‘How’d you think you got on, yesterday?’ Tregalles asked Molly, referring to the sergeant’s exam.

‘It’s a tough exam, but I
think
I did all right,’ she said. ‘But whether I did well or not, at least the first part’s over. As for the next step, only time will tell.’

‘You could’ve told me you were going for it, you know,’ he said. ‘I mean it isn’t all
that
long ago that I went through it myself, so I might have been able to give you a few pointers.’

Molly shook her head. ‘It was nothing personal,’ she told him, ‘but you know what it’s like round here if they know you’re trying for something like that, especially if you’re a woman. It’s hard enough trying to compete as it is without having to put up with that while I was trying to study.’

‘But I wouldn’t have . . .’ The sergeant’s words trailed off and colour crept into his face when he saw the way Molly was looking at him. ‘Yeah, well, I suppose I might have sort of teased you about it,’ he conceded. ‘Same as everyone else. Not that we would’ve meant it.’

‘You never do,’ said Molly, ‘but you do it just the same, don’t you? And the not so subtle put-downs get pretty tiresome after a while. I know,’ she said as Tregalles started to protest, ‘you may not be as bad as some, but it becomes a habit and you play off one another. Women are supposed to take the snide remarks as a joke, but it doesn’t work the other way if we make remarks about you men, now does it, Sergeant?’

Later, as Tregalles stood in the kitchen doorway while Audrey was preparing dinner, he told her of the conversation. ‘I didn’t know what to say,’ he ended. ‘I mean Molly knows I respect her; she’s a damned good copper, and I’ve always thought of her as a friend as well as a colleague, and I don’t have any objection to her wanting to get ahead. All sorts of women do these days, and—’

‘And you just proved her point,’ Audrey cut in tersely as she turned to face him.

‘I don’t see how?’

‘You don’t even know you’re doing it, do you, love?’ Audrey wiped her hands on her apron. ‘You just said, “all sorts of women do these days”. You just set us apart right there. You talk of it as if it’s something unusual; something to remark on, and something to make jokes about. Oh, I know, love,’ she went on as he tried to break in, ‘you don’t do it deliberately, but it’s there just the same, so I don’t blame Molly one bit for not telling anyone. I wouldn’t have told anyone either if I’d been in her shoes.’

‘But I didn’t mean anything by it,’ Tregalles protested.

‘So why say it, then, love?’ A hint of a smile touched her lips. ‘Try thinking of us as people. We really are, you know.’