It was just eleven o’clock when they drove into the tree-lined avenue where Peter Preston lived.
Building land had been readily available in the nineteen thirties, when these tall, mock-Tudor houses had been built, so that the plots were spacious enough to show each house to its best advantage. The gardens had matured around them over the years, so that each residence had acquired the privacy from its neighbours which had always been envisaged. In May, the foliage and the late spring blossom were at their most abundant, so that the front elevation of the house was not visible until Hook had swung the car between the high gateposts and into the drive.
They had not phoned ahead to arrange a meeting, as was their usual practice. Lambert had preferred to surprise this patronizing self-appointed guardian of culture, in the hope of shaking his self-confidence. There was no reply when Hook pressed the bell, which they could hear ringing faintly in the interior of the big house. He knocked hard on the oak door, but the place sounded very empty. With a habit bred by years of police work, they walked to the side of the house to look for any sign of a human presence. There was a garage at the rear of the house, but the ageing Ford Granada stood outside it. A man’s car, almost certainly Preston’s; they did not need to voice the thought.
‘There’s a window open upstairs,’ said Lambert. ‘He shouldn’t be far away.’
They walked to the rear of the house. A long garden, with an unkempt lawn but carefully tended borders with a variety of shrubs and perennials, ran away for forty yards of level ground to a rose bed where the stems were swelling with promising buds. The nearest grass was carpeted with the pink blossom which had fallen from a flowering cherry. A blackbird shrilled its song and blue tits shot in and out of a nesting box in the bole of a tree. There was no sign of a human presence.
They took in this pleasant vista for a moment, then looked up at the rear elevation of the house. There was another window open on the upper storey. ‘Some people invite burglary, then complain when we don’t catch the culprits,’ said Hook. He walked automatically to the back door of the house and turned the handle.
The door opened easily to his touch.
They glanced at each other, then moved softly into the house. Lambert called, ‘Mr Preston, are you there? It’s Chief Superintendent Lambert.’
There was no reply. He went into the lofty hall and called out again, looking up the stairs. The echoing house sounded very empty. He looked at Hook, who was sniffing the air. ‘His study’s upstairs somewhere. He went up to it to bring his letter down when we were here yesterday. Probably one of the rooms with a window open. You have a look round down here.’ Lambert climbed the stairs. It was obvious which room was the study because its door was wide open. It was empty, with the chair at the desk pushed back as if the occupant had just left it. He went across and shut the window. He was looking at the old-fashioned metal filing cabinet in the corner when Hook called softly up the stairs. ‘You’d better come and look at this, John.’
His voice carried easily in the silent house, but his tone was quiet, almost reverential. Lambert descended swiftly and followed him into the room at the front of the house where they had talked to Preston yesterday.
They stopped abruptly just inside the door of the room. You didn’t contaminate a crime scene. There was no need to feel for carotid arteries in this case. Peter Preston lay on his back, with his legs slightly apart, in front of the easy chair where he had sat whilst they had perched incongruously upon the elegant chaise longue. His eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. His features had relaxed in death into an expression of surprise rather than horror.
The dark crimson patch around the wound in the middle of his chest was almost black at its centre. The lips which had been so active would patronize no more.
ELEVEN
Three hours later, Edwina Preston drove home slowly. It was only thirty miles, thirty-five at the most, so there was no need to hurry. She had no wish to get home quickly; she preferred to reflect on her experiences overnight.
It had been a good time, as usual. Once again it had underlined how inadequate her relationship with Peter was. She hated him again for refusing to talk to her about it. She drove slowly through Oldford. She had always liked the town and the area, but now the very thought of Peter and his airs and graces seemed to be discolouring it for her. She needed time to prepare herself for what she would find at home. She was moving from a new and exciting world to a familiar and depressing one.
Her little Citroen seemed to have a will of its own, however. Every traffic light she slowed for changed obligingly in her favour, every heavy vehicle that might have slowed her pulled obligingly into a parking lay-by to facilitate her progress. All too soon, she was turning into the wide avenue with its tall trees that she had liked so much when they had moved in sixteen years ago.
It was because of the trees that she did not see the policeman until she swung into the drive. He looked very young and quite disconcerted as she indicated and turned. He held up his hand before her like an old-fashioned traffic cop. ‘Mrs Preston?’
‘I am she, yes.’ She cursed herself for adopting the phrase her pedantic husband had always insisted upon.
The young policeman looked even more disturbed. ‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Mrs Preston.’ He looked behind him desperately and she glimpsed blue and white plastic ribbons between hastily erected stakes. His uniform was very new and beautifully pressed; she wondered how long he had been wearing it. He called towards the open door of the big house, ‘Would you ask PC Jeffries to come out here, please? Tell her it’s urgent.’
Edwina said dully, ‘What is going on here? Why are these people in my house?’
He said nothing, but the relief on his face was palpable as a woman police officer, who was only a little older than he was, came reluctantly down the drive. She smiled nervously at Edwina and said, ‘I am PC Alison Jeffries. Would you switch your engine off please?’ She looked back at the big house and decided that there was no way in which she could allow the woman who was now a widow to breach the scene of crime barriers. ‘I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad news, Mrs Preston. Could you let me into your car for a few minutes, please?’
When you’re nineteen, you may not have a clear view of reality. The distinction between the possible and the impossible may be clear to you, but the line between the possible and the unlikely is much less clear. Cloudy judgement leads to bad decisions. Bad decisions can have all kinds of unforeseen repercussions.
Wayne Johnson was nineteen. Last night he had made a bad decision. He was now at Oldford police station, enduring the unforeseen repercussions.
Wayne was one of the young petty criminals who loomed larger by the year in the crime statistics. His school career had been dominated by truancy. He had been designated an under-achiever until he was twelve; from then on his continual absences had determined he should be reclassified as a non-achiever. He had acquired a certain grudging admiration from his peers as a successful shoplifter, the most experienced and gifted amongst his group. He had been absent far more than present in his last year at school, so that the end of his educational career was welcomed by his teachers almost as heartily as it was received by the young man himself.
There was no employment for him, of course. He joined the swelling ranks of those ‘on the social’ with a weary resignation which should have been alien to a sixteen-year-old. He graduated from shoplifting to petty burglary. Like many adolescents of his background, Wayne had no very clear idea of right and wrong. It was definitely not done to torture babies and old ladies, and young men shouldn’t hit women — well, not unless they’d done something really bad to deserve it, anyway. Beyond that, moral distinctions were very hazy. If people were foolish enough to leave things lying around, then they were really very silly; it was only sensible that you should remove such things. It would teach them a lesson; you were rendering them a service, really.