Death of a Friend by Rebecca Tope Read Free Book Online Page A

becauseshe couldn’t find anybody good enough for her on this side of the country.’
    ‘How did she manage for money?’
    ‘Hasn’t anyone told you this story?’ Gerald stared at Den, turning sideways in the car. Den shook his head. ‘When she was eighteen, her parents sent her to London for the society season. I don’t know how it happened, but she was taken up by some film agent chap and given a star part in a big American film. Paid her very generously, took her to California for a year or two – real fairytale stuff. She met Monroe, Ava Gardner, Cary Grant – the whole shooting match. But she only ever made the one film – which was a big success – and came back in about nineteen fifty-five with her pockets full of cash.’
    ‘What was the film?’
    ‘Can’t remember now. I suspect she was cast for her looks, not her talent. But she made the money work for her and it saw her through when she needed it. Mind you, living at that place, before they sold off most of the land, can’t have been easy. I remember they cut down acres of fine oak and beech, to use on the open fires that were all they had for heating.’
    Den dropped his passenger outside his own impressive house, built from old, mellow stone with a creeper covering the façade. Stables, offices, a large stone-built barn and an open-fronted shedhousing two gleaming new tractors formed three sides of a muck-free yard. For some people, the vagaries of contemporary agricultural politics hardly seemed to impinge at all.
    He drove back to the police station thinking about the Cattermole inheritance, which may or may not still exist. High Copse had struck him as being in decline and not at all the home of people living on substantial private means. Had the daughters squandered it, or had there never been as much as local rumour believed?
    One note found its way into his jotter before he went on to the next job: Gerald Fairfield was once in love with Eliza Cattermole . It seemed to be a small detail that was unlikely to be substantiated by any of his forthcoming interviews.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Back at the station, Smith called Den in for a talk about Fairfield.
    ‘He talked about the Cattermoles in the car,’ Den reported, and summarised the handful of facts he’d gleaned.
    ‘Interesting. Now let me try this one on you, just off the top of my head.’
    Den leant back against the table behind him. It made him appear less tall, a wise move when face to face with DI Smith, who stood a full five inches shorter. ‘Okay,’ he invited.
    ‘Imagine the disgruntled Gerald is out for a ride – probably on one of his hacks and not the ill-fated beast that killed Mrs Nesbitt. He heads towards High Copse, either out of curiosity orbecause it’s as good a route as any. Meets Grattan, who starts abusing him, calling him a murderer, being thoroughly provocative. With me so far?’
    Den nodded. ‘Sounds like the Charlie Grattan I saw last week.’
    ‘After a bit of this, he sees red, charges after Charlie, and the horse tramples him, maybe by accident. But nobody’s going to believe that, are they? So he puts on the act we’ve just witnessed, and bloody good it was, too. He persuades his sister in Penzance to give him an alibi – we’ve phoned her by the way, and she backs his story. What d’you think?’
    Den examined a worn patch in the vinyl floor covering, trying to find the right response. ‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘Except—’
    ‘Yes? Except what?’
    ‘Well … would he have gone to High Copse, after what happened? He doesn’t strike me as the sort of horseman who goes out for a casual trot along a bridle path. He’s got enough land of his own. And if Charlie had yelled and screamed at him in that field, someone from the house would most likely have heard him. It’s not very far away.’
    ‘Interesting,’ said Smith again. ‘Thanks, Cooper. You’re coming along, you know.’
    Den watched in vain for a smile to accompany the words.
    * *