Under Orders

The following day, Monday, Marina decided not to go in to work. We had both become rather obsessed with security and decided that, for the foreseeable future, I would take Marina to work and collect her every day in my car. I told the reception staff downstairs that on no account were they to allow anyone up to my flat without calling up on the internal phone system first to check with me that they were welcome. Absolutely, Mr Halley, they had said. They never would, anyway.

I called Harrow School and asked to speak to Frank Snow. They were sorry, they said, but Mr Snow is only in his office on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Would I like to leave a message or call back? I would call back. Fine.

I phoned Archie Kirk to give him an update on my lack of progress with the internet gambling. I had a few questions still to ask and would get back to him soon, I said. Good, he replied, and hung up. Never trust anyone, not even a telephone.

I sat for a while in my office tidying up my e-mail inbox. I was restless.

Marina came in and caught me playing cards on my computer.

‘For goodness sake, Sid, go out and investigate. I thought we’d been through all this. Yesterday you were gagging to find the killer so why this change of heart all of a sudden?’

I shrugged.

‘I told you,’ she said, ‘I want the same protection as you, I want the same reputation.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Now get a bloody move on and stop wasting time.’

‘Right,’ I said standing up. ‘Action stations.’

I decided to go and see Kate Burton and the children, and Marina came with me.

I had telephoned Daphne Rogers to find out if Kate was still staying with her. No, she’d said, Kate and the children went home two days ago. So I had called Kate at home and she was delighted that we were coming.

I drove into the familiar driveway and pulled up outside the back door. Immediately the children came running out to greet us. Life seemed to be back to normal, deceptively normal.

The children dragged us both into the kitchen where Kate was waiting. She looked little better than when I had seen her last. Her eyes showed the signs of a great deal of crying and she looked thinner, almost gaunt.

‘Sid, how lovely to see you.’ She gave me a kiss.

‘Kate, this is Marina — Marina, Kate.’

‘You poor thing, what happened to your face?’

‘A car accident,’ said Marina.

‘How dreadful,’ said Kate. ‘Come and have a coffee.’

The children went out to play in the garden while the three of us sat in the same kitchen at the same table where, just a week previously, a mere seven days ago, I had sat with Bill. It seemed like a lifetime since. It was.

‘I thought you might still be with your mother,’ I said.

‘I wanted to come back here as soon as possible. The police wouldn’t let me in until Saturday. They were doing tests or something.’

And clearing up, I thought.

‘How about the horses?’ I asked.

‘All gone,’ she said, tears welling up in her eyes. ‘The last ones went yesterday. Nothing else for it.’

I took her hand. ‘How’s the house?’

‘Oh, fine. Have to sell it now, I suppose. I don’t really want to stay here any more, not after what’s happened. I wanted to come back to feel closer to Bill, but I haven’t been into the den, and I don’t think I want to. Just in case there’s…’

In case there’s a mess, I thought.

There was a long pause.

‘I was brought up in this house. Only for the first three years after getting married have I ever lived anywhere else. Bill and I moved in here together when Daddy retired. It will seem strange to sell the place and leave permanently.’ She paused again. ‘How could he have done this to the children?’ said Kate. ‘I’m so bloody angry with him that I’d shoot him myself if he was still here.’

She started crying so I put my arms round her and held her close.

‘Kate,’ I said into her ear, ‘I am absolutely certain that Bill didn’t kill himself. And I’m sure he didn’t kill Huw Walker either. And I intend to prove it.’

She pulled away from me and looked into my eyes. ‘Do you really mean that or are you saying it to make me feel better?’

‘I really mean it. I am sure that Bill was murdered.’

‘Kate,’ said Marina, touching her arm, ‘I’m sure Sid will find out who did it.’

Kate smiled. ‘I do so hope you’re right. At first, I couldn’t think why Bill would have killed himself. I am sure he would never leave the children in that way. It must have been a mistake or an accident but the police have kept telling me that he did it because he couldn’t stand the guilt for having killed Huw.’ She hung her head in her hands. ‘How I so wish that I hadn’t got involved with Huw.’

‘Would it be all right, Kate,’ I said, ‘if I were to have a look in the den?’

‘What for?’ she asked, raising her head. ‘I never want to go in there again. I locked the door when we got home and none of us have been in since. But, yes, I suppose it’s all right. I mean, the police haven’t said we can’t go in.’

‘I want to go and look for something.’

‘What?’

‘Something that might show that Bill didn’t kill himself.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Go on, then.’ She got up and took a key from the top shelf of the Welsh dresser and gave it to me. ‘But I’m staying here.’

‘Fine.’

‘And I’ll stay with you,’ said Marina.

‘I may be a while,’ I said.

‘That’s OK,’ said Marina, ‘take your time.’

I left them making themselves another cup of coffee and went through into the hallway, and then into the den.

It was much the way I remembered it. A leather sofa lay along the wall next to the door and the far end of the room was filled from floor to ceiling with bookcases containing racing books of all sorts, together with one shelf absolutely crammed full of videotapes. A large flat-screen television sat in one corner with video and DVD players beneath.

There was only one armchair where there used to be two. The other, I suspected, had been removed for forensic testing and then had probably been disposed of. Quite apart from the blood staining from the back of Bill’s head, there would have been a pooling of fluids in the seat due to the natural processes that occur at death. I shivered, whether from cold or from the thought of too much knowledge, I wasn’t sure.

There was a paisley-patterned rug covering about half the dark wooden floor and a few occasional tables dotted about.

I looked at the wall where I had seen the blood last Wednesday morning. Someone had done their best to get rid of the redness from the cream paint but thorough redecoration would be needed to remove completely the brown deposit that remained.

I looked carefully at the stain. I could see, near the top, where the police must have dug the bullet from the plaster. It had passed right through Bill’s skull and embedded itself in the wall, but not very deeply.

If Bill had not shot himself, then how did the gunpowder residue get on his hands? His hand had to have fired the gun. On the assumption that the gun wasn’t forced into his mouth with his finger on the trigger, then there had to be a second shot. In my opinion, this would have had to have been fired after Bill was dead. The murderer would have put the gun into Bill’s hand and used his dead finger to fire it.

So where is the second bullet?

I moved the remaining armchair into the place where I had seen Bill sitting when he died. I sat down on the