‘Jealousy requires some kind of close personal relationship,’ said Hitchens. ‘Miss Shepherd doesn’t seem to have had any of those. Not recently, anyway.’
‘What about this Eric Grice?’
‘Grice, the handyman? What about him?’
‘He seems to be the only person who was allowed into Bain House, the only one who had any contact with Miss Shepherd. I wonder if there was more to their relationship than a bit of odd-jobbing.’
‘Well, they were both unmarried, so that shouldn’t have been a problem. A bit on the mature side, perhaps, but I’m told that doesn’t necessarily make any difference.’
‘Judging by her obsession with keeping herself to herself, she would probably have rejected any attempts at intimacy out of hand. For all we know of Grice, he might not be the type to take that calmly,’ said Fry.
‘But if he crossed the line in some way, Miss Shepherd would have kicked him out, surely. Yet she let him keep coming to the house, didn’t she?’
‘Did she? How do we know that?’
‘Only from Grice himself,’ admitted Cooper.
‘When does he say he was last at Bain House?’
‘Three weeks ago, to clear the guttering and sweep up dead leaves.’
‘Well, we know for a fact that he had contact with Rose Shepherd, which puts him in a very small minority for now. And he must have known which room she slept in. What sort of vehicle does he drive?’ said Hitchens.
‘He has an old Land Rover that he carries his tools around in.’
‘Four-wheel drive?’
‘Of course. But Grice says he was always restricted to certain parts of the house. It sounded convincing,’ said Cooper.
‘Maybe,’ said Fry. ‘But that just means he was limited to one area per visit. How many times did he go to Bain House?’
‘Five or six times, he says.’
‘Enough opportunity to work his way through the whole house?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Besides, we only have his word for how restricted his movements were. Miss Shepherd isn’t available to confirm his story.’
‘Right,’ said Kessen. ‘Let’s take a closer look at Mr Grice. Get a detailed account of his last visit to Rose Shepherd. And check whether the tyres on his Land Rover are a match for the tracks from the field.’
‘We don’t actually have any evidence against Grice,’ pointed out Cooper.
‘If he isn’t implicated in the shooting, he won’t mind co-operating, will he?’
‘It doesn’t always work like that.’
‘His other clients won’t feel happy about the police asking questions. He must understand that co-operation is in his own best interests.’ Kessen seemed to think this settled the problem. ‘All right, I want Grice to list every single room he’s visited in Bain House. Then we can match up his account with the prints we lifted. In particular, I want to know whether he was ever in that master bedroom.’
Before he could move on, the phone rang, and Hitchens took the call. A smile came over his face.
‘It seems Mr Grice’s fingerprints were found in two of the bedrooms at Bain House, including the one where the victim slept. So if he says he was never in those rooms, he’s lying.’
Kessen looked around the group. ‘DS Fry. I know you’ve got a lot on, but perhaps you’d like to have a go at our Mr Grice this time.’
‘With pleasure.’
‘And who the heck are you?’ said Eric Grice, winding the orange cord around the handle of his power drill.
‘Detective Sergeant Fry.’
‘Oh, aye? Reckon you can get more out of me than your mates did? I don’t have anything more to tell, you know.’
‘Well, let’s see, shall we?’
‘You might have time to waste, but I haven’t. There’s work to do.’
‘Mr Grice, you’ve given us a list of the rooms you visited in Bain House. Are you sure this is a comprehensive list? You haven’t left any rooms out?’
‘No, it’s right,’ he said. ‘A lot of the work I did was on the outside, like.’
‘So the only room upstairs that you were ever present in is the bathroom — is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘In that case, Mr Grice, how do you explain the fact that we recovered your fingerprints from two of the bedrooms?’
‘The bedrooms?’
‘The master bedroom, where Rose Shepherd slept, and the second bedroom, just along the landing, where she kept her desk.’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘You never did any jobs for her in those rooms?’
He shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t have wanted me going in her bedrooms. Like I told you, she was a very private person, Miss Shepherd. She kept me at arm’s length, so far as she could. I always knew the house was out of bounds, except for when I had to be somewhere to get a job done. I never even went upstairs to use the bathroom. She had a downstairs cloakroom, you know.’
‘I don’t think you understand, Mr Grice. I’m telling you that we found your fingerprints in two of the bedrooms at Bain House. Are you still denying that you went into those rooms?’
‘Well, like I said — ’
Fry could feel herself starting to get impatient. Did the man think that he could alter the facts just by continuing to deny them? She leaned across the table, startling him in mid-sentence.
‘What were you doing in Miss Shepherd’s bedroom?’ she said. ‘And before you answer, think about this, Mr Grice: a murdered woman’s body was found in one of those bedrooms, and you’re the only person whose presence we can prove there. If you don’t have any explanation, how do you think that’s going to look when we charge you and prove to a court that you’re lying?’
Grice blinked. He seemed bothered to be scrutinized so closely. But Fry waited, not moving or relaxing her stare while she gave him time to process the implications. Finally, his eyes flickered to the side to avoid her gaze.
‘It was my sister, Beryl,’ he said.
Fry frowned. ‘What was?’
‘There’s always been a lot of talk in the village about Miss Shepherd, you know. Nobody knew anything about her, but that didn’t stop them talking. You know what it’s like — everyone had their own ideas.’
‘In other words, it was all speculation?’
‘Well, yes. There were a lot of half-baked stories. None of them were true, of course. You know what it’s like — a lot of biddies who watch too much telly.’
‘So what relevance is this?’
‘Beryl kept on and on about it. She knew I was the only person who Miss Shepherd let into Bain House, so she thought I ought to know all about the woman. I told her I didn’t know a thing, but she kept pestering me. Pestering and pestering. Of course, she wanted to show off to her pals in the village, and tell the other biddies that she knew the proper facts, all the stuff they didn’t.’
‘The inside information.’
‘Yes, that’s it. She wanted to show off, like. I thought it was a lot of daft nonsense. I told her they all ought to find something better to talk about. But she wouldn’t let up. So next time I was in Bain House, I took a chance to have a bit of a nosy about. To see what I could see. Just to find a bit of something to keep Beryl quiet, that’s all.’
‘So you managed to get into the bedrooms?’
‘Yes. Only for a quick look round. To see if she had any dead bodies or mad relatives hidden away in there,
