At that moment there was a loud knocking at the front door, which made Vicky clap her hand over her heart.
15
Rob opened the front door to find Sergeant Billings standing in the porch, as well as a tall man in a brown trilby hat and a long brown raincoat.
‘This is Detective Inspector Holley, from Plymouth CID,’ said Sergeant Billings. ‘He’d like to have a word, if he may. Not about your Timmy, I’m afraid to say. We’re still out looking.’
‘Of course, come in.’
DI Holley stepped into the hallway and looked around it, this way and that, like a prospective buyer. He had a large bony nose like a hawk and glittery, close-set eyes. Even though Rob didn’t have the keenest sense of smell, he could tell that DI Holley was a smoker.
‘And you’re Mr Robert Russell, I presume?’ he asked Rob.
‘That’s right, and this is my wife, Victoria.’
DI Holley gave Vicky a peremptory nod, as if he had been asked to put a price on a Dartmoor pony but really couldn’t be bothered.
‘Could you call Martin, please, Vicky?’ Rob asked her, and Vicky went through to the library, where Martin was still hunched over his laptop, making Skype calls to his investors.
Rob led DI Holley and Sergeant Billings through to the drawing room and they all sat down. The wind had changed direction so that the fire was sulky and subdued and kept puffing out little clouds of fine white ash.
Martin came in, looking irritated. ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Is this about Dad?’
‘Detective Inspector Holley,’ said DI Holley. ‘And you’re Mr Martin Russell?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is indeed regarding your late father, Mr Herbert Russell. Earlier this morning I received the final results of the autopsy that was carried out to ascertain the cause of his death. There is no question at all that he was struck a severe blow on the back of his head by a hammer. This fractured his skull and caused a fatal cerebral haemorrhage.’
‘I see,’ said Martin, although he still didn’t sit down. ‘We thought it was something like that.’
‘As you’re aware, a hammer was located in the back garden of this house and forensic tests have shown beyond doubt that it was indeed the same hammer that was used to kill your father.’
Rob said, ‘My God. Do you have any idea yet who might have killed him?’
‘We’re working on several theories, Mr Russell. The front door of the house was open when your father was found. His car was unlocked and there was an overnight bag in the boot, and we know that he was booked in to stay for three nights at the Marine Hotel in Paignton.’
‘Yes. He did that every month, without fail, although we never knew why.’
‘It’s possible that he could have been about to leave but returned to collect the accounts book and receipts that were found scattered on the staircase, as if he had dropped it. An intruder could have followed him into the house and attacked him. If he was attacked in the hall, however, it’s hard to understand how he could have dropped the accounts halfway up the stairs.’
‘Yes. I see the problem.’
‘In my opinion, Mr Russell, it’s far more likely that his assailant was already on the premises and attacked him at the top of the stairs, after which he fell down and dropped his accounts during his descent.’
‘I see what you’re getting at, yes. Do you have any idea who that might have been?’
‘He was governor of Dartmoor Prison for nineteen years. I imagine there are quite a few former lags who might bear a grudge against him, for one reason or another. We’ll be visiting the prison and going through their records to see who the most likely suspects might be. Perhaps it was somebody he shut up in solitary confinement, something like that. If it was a former lag, though, it’s questionable that your father would have invited him into the house voluntarily. And our examination of the doors and windows on the premises showed no indication of a break-in.’
‘So where do you go from here?’ asked Martin.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but a considerable percentage of homicides are committed by relatives. As a formality, we’re going to ask both of you and your sister to take DNA and fingerprint tests. Only to eliminate you, and so as not to confuse any other tests that we might be carrying out.’
‘Rather pointless, don’t you think?’ said Martin. ‘None of us were anywhere near here when Dad met his Maker.’
‘It’s only a formality,’ said DI Holley. ‘But we have to make sure that we’ve covered every possibility. Even the remotest possibility.’
‘I understand,’ Rob told him. ‘I’ve no objection to that.’
‘A forensic team will be here shortly to carry that out. Meanwhile, do you have any questions you want to ask me? Or has any further information occurred to you that might conceivably be of use to us in this investigation?’
‘I was going to call you about this anyway,’ said Rob. ‘When we were searching the house we found a number of suitcases in the attic, maybe as many as a dozen, all of them packed full of clothes. Every one of them was tagged with a label with the name of a Dartmoor prisoner on it.’
‘Really?’ said DI Holley, and then he turned around to Sergeant Billings. ‘Your officers searched the house, too, didn’t they, sergeant? Didn’t they see these suitcases?’
‘We didn’t check the attic, sir, on account of there was no way that a five-year-old boy could have climbed up there and shut the trapdoor after him. Not without leaving the stepladder under it, anyway.’
‘Fair enough,’ said DI Holley, and turned back to Rob. ‘But – Mr Russell – do you have any idea why your father would have been storing all those prisoners’ suitcases?’
‘No idea at all, I’m afraid. They weren’t up there when my brother and sister
