BLIND SPOT - AND TWO OTHERS

THE OXMARKET ASPAL MURDER MYSTERY - EPISODE 1

PROLOGUE

  “Can we talk?”  The caller asked.

  “Of course,” I replied. “Where?”

  “Your office?”

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”  I said.

  I had taken the call on my mobile while I was discreetly tidying up a minor case in the village store that was situated in the main street of Oxmarket Mountfitchet. This ran, like the bar on a capital T, across the top end of Church Lane.  A note on the door informed children that their presence was welcome one at a time.

  This stern directive had cut down petty pilfering considerably but there was still a certain amount of stealing.  The proprietor, Mr Ronald Lawes, who watched his young customers as would a hawk a fledging dove, could not understand this.  It had never occurred to him or Sylvia, his ‘good lady wife’ that the culprits might have grown until I presented them with the photographic evidence.

  The shop was very reminiscent of Tudor times.  The price tickets were written in Olde English, as was the notice behind the till: Pray Do Not Ask for Credit as Ye Refusal Oft Offends. Originally all the s’s had been f’s which was, as Mr Lawes tirelessly explained, authentically correct.  But no one was impressed by this conceit.  Customers kept winking and asking for ‘a pound of foffage’ and ‘fome tomato foup’ so, after a while, Ronald and Sylvia reluctantly reverted to more contemporary Elizabethan.

 While putting my small fee in my wallet and commenting pleasantly on the weather, I declined to spend my earnings on some reduced Jamaica ginger cake, and made my way to my car parked just down the road.

  The road from Oxmarket Mountfitchet to Oxmarket wound its way through green countryside, rain washing the windscreen of my Peugeot 208.  Every so often, hamlets of no more than a dozen houses would appear unexpected.  The square, weather beaten houses, most made grimy by the elements, all faced the sea. All the better, I supposed, to see the next wave of weather that would come to torment them.

  There were no people.  Not one single soul on or by the road.  I saw sheep, though, plenty of them.  I saw seabirds.  I saw horses.  I even saw the brown flash of a hare scampering across the lower slopes of a glassy hill.  I just didn’t see any people.

  Suddenly, the road dipped past a landscape that was a battlefield for opposing forces; earth and water colliding, with casualties of war everywhere you looked.  There was barely a piece of hillside that didn’t carry the scars of the North Sea.

  Against this backdrop, the first hints of near-urban sprawl came rudely into sight: a shop; a flurry of direction signs; houses packed together in rows; the floodlights of the small football stadium; industrial units; zebra crossings and offices.  I followed the ring road, came to a roundabout and turned left before being confronted by concrete canvas which was painted the drizzly shadows of a small fishing village. 

Welcome to Oxmarket

  From here, I got caught up in the Oxmarket one-way system, crept around the market square, which was crammed with stalls covered in bright awnings and traders shouting out impossible never-to-be-repeated bargains. I turned right and pushed aggressively into a traffic jam inching along the High Street before pulling onto a large asphalt parking area at the rear of Handful Investigations.

   I let myself in and made myself a coffee which I had just finished when I heard the deep double chime of the bell in the reception-room of my office and the sound of hinges creaking.  ‘RING AND ENTER’ the legend on the corridor read and someone was doing just that. Ringing and entering.  I had just risen to my feet when the knock came at my inner door.

  A big, burly, red-faced (and with the jowls of a bulldog and one of the few people in the world I could call a friend) entered my office.  DI Silver of the Suffolk Constabulary crossed the cold linoleum floor and sat down in the padded leather armchair on the other side of my desk.

  “Hello, John,” he said cheerfully.  “You’ve got anything on at the moment?”

  “Even if I did have,” I smiled.  “The fact that the Suffolk Constabulary are paying a retainer will always put at the front of the queue.”

  “There is that,” he smiled back.

  “How can I help you?”

  “Have you read about the Faith Roberts case in the Oxmarket Echo?”

  “It was an open-and-shut case wasn’t it?”

  DI Silver shrugged his shoulders.  “She was hit on the back of her head with some sharp, heavy implement.  Her savings, about nine thousand pounds in cash, were taken after her room had been ransacked. She lived alone in a small cottage in Oxmarket Aspal except for a lodger.  Man named Marcus Dye.”

  “Ah yes, Marcus Dye.”

  “The cottage wasn’t broken into. No signs of any tampering with the windows or locks.  Dye was skint, lost his job, owed rent and has credit card debts.  The money was found under a loose stone at the back of the cottage.  Dye’s coat sleeve had blood on and hair and forensics matched it with Faith Roberts.  According to his statement he never went near the body – so it couldn’t come there accidentally.”

  “Who found her?”

  “The postman called with a parcel from sss.  Marcus Dye opened the door to him and said he’d knocked at Faith’s bedroom door, but couldn’t get an answer.  The postman suggested she might be ill.  They got the woman next door to go up and see.  Faith wasn’t in the bed and hadn’t slept in the bed, but the room had been ransacked and the floorboards had been prised up.  Then they thought of looking in the en suite bathroom, and she was lying there on the floor and the neighbour screamed her head off.  The police were called immediately.

  “And Dye was eventually arrested and tried?”

  “Yes.  As you said earlier, open-and-shut case. The jury were only out for twenty minutes yesterday morning.  Verdict:  Guilty.”

  I nodded.

  “And now the day after the verdict you have come to my office. Why?”

  DI Silver sat forward in the chair. “Because, I don’t think he did it.”

1

  There was a moment or two of silence.

  “I can’t give a reason, a concrete reason.  To the jury I dare say he looked like a murderer – to me, he didn’t – and I know a lot more about murderers than they do.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “For one thing he wasn’t arrogant.  Not arrogant at all and in my experience they usually are.  Always so damned pleased with themselves.  Always think they’re stringing you along.   Always sure they’ve been so clever about the whole thing.  And even when they’re in court and know they’re almost certainly going down for their crime, they still get a kick out of it. They’re in the limelight. They’re the central figure. Playing the star part – perhaps for the first time in their lives.  They’re-well-you know-arrogant?”

  DI Silver brought out the word with an air of finality.

  “And Marcus Dye wasn’t arrogant”

  “No.  He was-well, just scared stiff.  Scared stiff from the start.  And to the jury that would make them think he was guilty.  But not to me.”

   “What is he like?”

   “Thirty-three, medium height, wears glasses-”

  I held up my hand and arrested the Detective Inspector’s flow.

  “I meant his personality.”

  “Oh, I see.”  DI Silver considered.  “Unprepossessing sort of bloke. Nervous, who never seemed to be able to look you straight in the face. He has a sly sideways way of looking at you.  The Worst possible sort of manner for a jury.  Sometimes cringing and sometime truculent.  Blusters in an effectual sort of way.”

  “Has he any friends?”  I asked. “Someone who could give him a character reference?”

  “No,” DI Silver shook his head.  “It was obvious he had no friends.  Nobody could like him.”

  “But he doesn’t deserve to go to gaol for a crime he didn’t commit because nobody likes him.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I expect you’ve got a pretty good idea of what I’m going to ask you?”

  “The scent will be cold.”  I informed him. 

  “I know, but if anyone can pick it up it’s you.”

  I smiled at his obvious attempt at flattery before asking, “When was Faith Roberts killed?”

  “1st of November, last year.”  DI Silver replied.  “I’ve got my case notes which I can let you have.”

  “Good,” I said.  “But for the moment let’s look at the bare bones of the case.  If Marcus Dye didn’t kill Faith Roberts, who did?”

  DI Silver shrugged his shoulders and said heavily:  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “Every murder has a motive.  What in the case of Faith Roberts is the motive?  Envy, revenge, jealousy, fear, money?  Who would profit from her death?”

  “Nobody very much. She had twenty thousand pounds in an ISA.  Her niece gets that.”

  “That’s not very much.  Did you consider the niece?”

  “Of course,” DI Silver said with a hint of annoyance.  “But she doesn’t need the money.  Her husband is loaded.  She’s a pleasant enough woman, who was quite fond of her aunt.”

  “What about the cottage?”

  “It was rented.”

  “What did you find out about Faith Roberts?”

  “Well, she was forty-six. Widow.  Husband was in data analysis at a local logistics firm on the industrial estate in Oxmarket.  He died        about seven years ago.  Cancer.  Since then, Faith had been going out daily to various houses round about. Domestic chores.  Oxmarket Aspal is a small village which has become largely residential.  One or two retired people, one of the partners in an engineering firm, a doctor, that sort of thing,  There’s quite a good bus and train service to Oxmarket which is about three miles away but Oxmarket Aspal itself is beautiful and rural – about a quarter of a mile off the main Ipswich to Oxmarket road.”

  I nodded, listening intently.

  “Faith’s cottage was one of four that form the village proper. There is the post office, the village shop, a small pub and two couples live in the others.”

  “And she took in a lodger?”

  “Yes.  Before her husband died, it used to be summer visitors, but after his death she just took one regular.  Marcus Dye had been there for some months.”

  “So we come to – Marcus Dye?”

  “Dye’s last job was with a chilled food supplier in Oxmarket Magna.  Before that, he lived with his mother in Ox upland.  She was an invalid, and he looked after and never went out much.  Then she died and left him nothing.  He sold the house and found a job.  Well-educated man, but no special qualifications or aptitudes and, as I say, an unprepossessing manner. Didn’t find it easy to get anything.  Anyway, they took him on at Anglia Meats.  Rather a second-rate firm.  I don’t think he was particularly efficient or successful.  They cut down staff, and he was the one to go.  He couldn’t get another job, and his money ran out.  He usually paid Faith every month for his room.  She gave him breakfast and dinner and charged him a hundred and twenty pounds a week – quite reasonable, all things considered.  He was two months behind in paying her, and he was nearly at the end of his resources.  He hadn’t got another job, and she was pressing him for what he owed her.”

  “And he knew that she had nine thousand pounds in the house? Why did she have such an amount in cash in the house, by the way, since she had an ISA?”

  “She was about to book a cruise of a lifetime.  It was under a loose floorboard in her bedroom - a very obvious place.  Marcus Dye admitted he knew it was there.”

  “Very obliging of him,” I said sarcastically.  “And did the niece and husband know that too?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Then we have now arrived back at my first question to you.  How did Faith Roberts die?”

  “She died on the night of November 1st. Dr Reed put the time of death between 7 and 10 p.m.  She’d had her dinner – stuffed chicken breast with garlic potatoes and salad, and according to all accounts, she usually had that about half-past six.  If she adhered to that on the night in question, then the post-mortem put her death about eight-thirty or nine o’clock.  Marcus Dye, said he was down the pub till about nine and then came home and let himself in with his key and went straight to his room.  He had his own en suite bathroom. He read for about half an hour and then went to bed.  He heard and noticed nothing out of the ordinary.  Next morning he went downstairs and looked into the kitchen, but there was no one there and no signs of breakfast being prepared.  He said he hesitated a bit and then knocked on Faith’s door, but got no reply.”

  “And he never thought to ask if she was okay?”

  “He did, but obviously still got no reply.”  DI Silver replied.  “He thought she must be sleeping in, so he didn’t continue to carry on knocking.  Then the postman came and Marcus Dye went up and knocked again, and after that, as I told you, the postman went next door and fetched in the next door neighbour, Gemma Bowman, who eventually found the body and went off the deep end.  Faith Roberts had been hit on the back of the head with something with a very sharp edge.  She’s been killed instantaneously.  Drawers were pulled about and things strewn about, and the loose board in the floor in the bedroom had been prised up and the money gone.  All the windows were closed and locked on the inside.  No sign of a forced entry.”

  “Therefore,” I said, “either Marcus Dye must have killed her, or else she must have admitted her killer herself while Dye was out?”

  “Exactly.  It wasn’t any hold-up or burglar.  Now who would she be likely to let in?  One of the neighbours, or her niece, or her niece’s husband.  We eliminated the neighbours.  Niece and her husband were at the cinema in Oxmarket watching the new James Bond film. It is possible – just possible, that one or other of them left the cinema unobserved, drove the three miles to the cottage, killed the woman, hid the money outside the house, and got back into the cinema unnoticed.  We looked into that possibility, but we didn’t find any confirmation of it. And why hide the money outside Faith’s house if that was true?  Difficult place to pick up there with the SOCO’s all over the place.  Why not somewhere along the three-mile journey?  No, the only reason for it to be hidden where it was -”

  I finished the sentence for him.  “Would be because you were living in that house, but didn’t want to hide it in your room or anywhere inside.  In fact: Marcus Dye.”

  “You see?”  DI Silver said exasperated.  “It comes back to Marcus Dye all the time.  And then of course there is the blood and hair on the cuff of his shirt.”

  “It gets worse.”  I commented.

  “He tried to explain it away by admitting that he had gone into her room that night after he come back from the pub and found her dead on the floor.  He bent over her and touched her to make sure she was dead and then at the sight of so much blood he went to his room and more or less fainted. In the morning he couldn’t bring himself to admit he knew what had happened.”

  “The man sounds like an idiot.”  I commented.

  “I agree, but,” DI Silver said thoughtfully, “it might well be true.  I’ve come across people like him before.  People who are confronted by a demand for responsible action and who simply can’t face up to it.  Shy people.  He goes in and finds her.  He knows he ought to do something – get the police – got to a neighbour – do the right thing whatever that is and f***s it up.  He thinks he should just go to bed and everything will sort itself out in the morning.  Behind this thinking there is a fear – fear that he may be actually suspected of having a hand in it.  But he thinks he’ll keep himself out of it as long as possible, and so the tosser goes and puts himself deeper in the mire.”

  DI Silver paused.

  “It could have been that way.”

  “It could,”” I said thoughtfully.

  “Or it could have been just the best story his defence counsel could think up for him.  But I don’t know.  The waitress in the café Julie’s Place in Oxmarket where he usually had lunch said that he always chose a table where he could look into a wall and not see people.  He was that kind of bloke, just different.  But not different enough to be a killer.”

  DI Silver looked hopefully at me, but I did not respond.  I was frowning because I couldn’t offer him any hope.

  We sat in silence for a while.

2

  I roused myself eventually with a sigh.

  “We’ve exhausted the motive of money,” I said.  “Let us move to other theories. Did Faith Roberts have any enemies?  Was she afraid of anyone?”

  “No evidence of it.”

  “What did her neighbours have to say?”

  “Not very much, but they wouldn’t to the police, but I don’t think they were holding anything back.  She kept herself to herself, they said.  Faith passed the time of day with the neighbours, but they weren’t intimate.”

  “How long had she lived there?”

  “Matter of eighteen or twenty years, I think.”

  “And before that?”

  “There’s no mystery about her.  Farmer’s daughter from Norfolk.  She and her husband lived near East Dereham for a while and then moved to Ox upland.  Had a cottage, but found it damp, so they moved to Oxmarket Aspal.  Husband seemed to have been a quiet, decent man, that didn’t go to the pub much.  All very respectable and above board.  No mysteries anywhere, nothing to hide.”

  “And yet, she was murdered?”

  “And yet, she was murdered.”

  “The niece didn’t know of anyone who had a grudge against her aunt?”

  “She says not.”

  I rubbed my nose, exasperated.

  “You do realize, Paul, that it would be so much easier if Faith Roberts wasn’t Faith Roberts, so to speak.  If she was a woman with some baggage, then this might be easier to solve.”

  “Well, she wasn’t,” DI Silver said stolidly.  “She was just Faith Roberts, who led a simple life and had simple needs.  There are hundreds of them all over Suffolk.”

  “But they do not all get murdered.”

  “True.”

  “So why did Faith Roberts get murdered?  The obvious answer we do not accept.  What remains?  A shadowy and improbable niece? Facts? Let’s stick to the facts.  What are the facts? A middle-aged cleaning lady is murdered.  A shy and unassuming young man is arrested and convicted of the murder. Why was Marcus Dye arrested?”

 DI Silver stared at me impatiently.  “I told you the evidence against him.”

  “Yes, yes. The evidence.  But tell me, Paul, what if I told you the evidence was so contrived it is unbelievable.”

  “Excuse me?”  DI Silver considered.

  “The money was taken and hidden outside the house in a place easily found.  To have actually hidden it in his room would have been a little too much even for the Suffolk Constabulary to believe.” 

 DI Silver frowned but I continued.

  “The murder was committed when Marcus Dye went for his regular daily jaunt down the pub.  What if the bloodstain on the sleeve of his jacket came from someone brushing against him in the pub or on the way home in the darkness?”

  “That’s a bit far-fetched, John.”

  “Is it?  Maybe that’s the route I’m going to have to take because Faith Roberts was so ordinary. Which means the murderer must be extraordinary.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The answer is not to be found in studying the life of Faith Roberts. The answer is to be found in the personality of the murderer and whether they wanted to strike down Faith Roberts or Marcus Dye.”

  DI Silver looked at me incredulously.  “You really think someone would murder a perfectly inoffensive cleaning lady to get someone else charged with murder?”

  “What else can you tell me about Marcus Dye?”

  “Nothing much.  His father was a doctor who died when Marcus was nine.  Normal school education, tried to get into the Army, but had a weak chest.  Lived with a possessive mother.”

  “There are certain possibilities there.”

  “Do you seriously believe what you are suggesting?”

  “What else have I got?”

 “How are you going to go about this, John?  Is there anything else I can do?”

  “First, I should like an interview with Marcus Dye.”

  “That can be managed.  I’ll get on to his solicitors.”

  “After that and subject, of course, to the result, if any – I am not hopeful – of that interview, I shall go to Oxmarket Aspal.  There, aided by the case files, I shall, go over them as quickly as possible.”

 “In case the Suffolk Constabulary have missed anything,” DI Silver said with a wry smile.

  “No,” I said.  “Some circumstance my strike me in a different light to the one in which it struck you.  I will stay in the village, so that I can get a feel of the place.  Is there somewhere of moderate comfort you could recommend?”

  “There is the Bellagamba Guest House in Oxmarket Aspal,” he said.  “It’s not really a Guest House, just a rather decrepit country house where the couple who own it take in paying guests.  I don’t think that it’s very comfortable.”

  “I don’t want to go over budget,” I told him.  “I take it the fee is the usual standard rate.”

  “Of course,” DI Silver eyed me doubtfully.  “But is it really a good idea to stay in the village?”

  “I think it is essential.  I am staying in the village because I am not satisfied about the verdict in the Faith Roberts case.   I have a shrewd suspicion of what really happened.”

  “You want to provoke a reaction?”

  “Exactly.”

  DI Silver looked at me uneasily.  “Is this wise?”

  “It will prove beyond doubt whether Marcus Dye is innocent or not!”