table booked for three.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘They know Edson well there. He dines with us often, they said. So I asked who else was in the party. The head waiter sounds the sort of bloke who clocks everything.’ Murfin laughed. ‘A bit like an upmarket Barry Gamble, I suppose.’
‘Yes, Gavin.’
‘Anyway, there was no third person. A table was set for three, but it seems the third person never arrived.’
26
At Riddings Lodge, Cooper found only Glenys Edson at home. In the room packed with antiques, he saw that the glass table was damaged. A jagged crack ran right across it from one edge, shattering the perfect reflection.
‘An accident,’ said Glenys Edson, before he had even asked.
‘What a shame.’
‘These things happen.’
Cooper glanced at the tapestry, remembering his conversation with Gavin Murfin. You can’t just sit and do nothing for hour after hour, day after day. You’d go mad. You’d start tearing up the furniture.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know when Russell will be back,’ she said. ‘He’s taken the car for a spin.’
‘The Jaguar? No, of course not. The MG convertible.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Do you know where’s he gone?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Mrs Edson, I need you to talk to me about your son. And about Tuesday night.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not telling you anything. Not without Russell here. You’ll have to speak to him.’
‘On Tuesday night, you visited Bauers at Warren Hall. You were dining in the restaurant there. Who else was supposed to be with you?’
Mrs Edson drew herself up as stiffly as she could. ‘I’m afraid that I’m not going to be answering your questions.’
‘You know this is a murder inquiry?’
But he could see that meant nothing to her.
‘You’ll have to arrest me then,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, Detective Sergeant, I’ll ask you to leave.’
Frustrated, Cooper peered through the gates of Riddings Lodge as he used his phone to call the office. He got through to Gavin Murfin.
‘How are they getting on with the slurry pits, do you know?’
‘They’ve got two pumps set up to remove the liquid, but there are several inches of thick mud at the bottom, which is slowing the job down. I’m told the smell is appalling.’
‘Oh, I can imagine.’
‘In fact, we’re starting to get complaints from the residents in Riddings,’ said Murfin. ‘I guess the wind must be blowing in the wrong direction.’
‘I hope to God they find something,’ said Cooper. ‘Otherwise they’re going to throw me into one of those slurry pits.’
‘We’ve found the van, though.’
‘The gardener’s van? AJS Gardening Services?’
‘That’s the one. Dumped in a lane behind Riddings. No sign of the owner, Mr Summers. Luke Irvine is there.’
Cooper was at the location within a couple of minutes. The doors of the van had already been opened. In the back, among the gardening tools, he found a small pile of stainless-steel posts, each measuring over three feet long. They were the kind of thing used for preventing parking on grass verges. Very popular in Riddings.
He picked one up and slapped it against his palm.
‘These must weigh about eight pounds each.’
‘Good enough for the job,’ said Irvine.
‘A bit unwieldy, I would have thought. But if that was what came to hand… a thing this size would certainly strike fear into your victim.’
‘What are they exactly?’
‘These are the posts they embed in the ground to stop people parking on the grass,’ said Cooper.
‘So they are. I tripped over one the other day.’
‘And I parked up against one. I don’t know if these are the exact posts used in the attack on the Barrons. But somewhere in Riddings, there’ll be at least one with traces of Zoe Barron’s blood on it.’
Since Edson had left the Jaguar behind at Riddings Lodge, Cooper called in and asked for the search to be extended to the car. He remembered the thorough cleaning it had received earlier in the week, a handyman in waterproof trousers working away on the bodywork under Edson’s eagle eye. If any evidence was available to be found, the interior was likely to provide more traces.
Cooper thought about the handyman. He had been checked out, like everyone else. But every job here was contracted out. Someone came in to do the cleaning, the gardening, to wash the car. There was a man to fill the swimming pool, and another man to rake the gravel. And teams of small, soot-blackened children to sweep the chimneys, too.
Well, maybe not the last one. But it was a close-run thing.
Gavin Murfin turned up among a team of officers who were arriving to begin a search of the grounds. This could be a long job, unless they had a stroke of luck.
‘It’s amazing,’ said Murfin. ‘I suppose Mr Edson didn’t think we would check his alibi. He just couldn’t imagine us going to Warren Hall and asking about his dining arrangements. It took them completely by surprise when I phoned.’
‘I don’t think he’s been living in the real world,’ said Cooper. ‘Some of these people in Riddings have probably been used to it all their lives. Being comfortably off, I mean. But something happens to people when they suddenly have unimaginable amounts of money. It seems to be too much for the mind to take.’
‘You know what? I think I might lose touch with reality too, if I woke up one morning and discovered I’d won millions of pounds.’
‘I agree,’ said Cooper. ‘I’ve often thought winning the lottery was the worst thing that could happen to anybody. Buying a ticket every week is like playing Russian roulette.’
‘Well, it didn’t do Mr Edson much good, in the end.’
Cooper looked back towards Riddings Lodge. He could only see the roof from here, the late-afternoon sun reflecting from the dormer windows. He was reminded of that glimpse of Chatsworth House a few days ago. Some properties looked magical from a distance. But not so good close up.
‘Actually, it’s an older story than that,’ he said.
Murfin took no notice of the comment, as he often did. If it was too difficult to think about, he didn’t bother. It was a sensible attitude, one that had probably helped him get through life so far without going mad.
‘This Russell Edson,’ said Murfin. ‘I was always a bit troubled about him, like. He gives off the airs and graces, but everyone knows his situation. All fur coat and no knickers, my old mother would have said.’
‘What?’
‘It means all show. Outward appearance, with no substance underneath. Someone who pretends to be wealthy or important, when actually all they’ve done is learned how to present themselves. What you find underneath doesn’t match what you see on the surface.’
‘All outward appearance. You think so?’
Murfin was warming to his subject now. For once, he wasn’t eating, or even chewing. Cooper realised that he was serious, might even be excited about the job now that things seemed to be going their way.
