‘I still don’t know the terms of Cedric’s will,’ said Tim.
We had just ordered. I’d gone for the Roasted Partridge Breast starter, followed by the Pan-Fried Fillet of Salmon. I don’t believe in that stuff about only white wine with fish and said I’d rather drink red, ‘a Merlot or something’. Tim upgraded to an Argentinian Malbec which, when it arrived, was extremely good.
‘Really? Isn’t that odd, if you’re the executor?’ I asked.
‘Not that odd. As I explained before, I just agreed to be his executor as a favour and never expected to have to take on the job myself. I assumed he’d predecease Flick and she’d sort out the estate. I also assumed that everything would be left to Roy – or Roy and Michelle.’
He paused. ‘Are you saying,’ I asked, ‘that that is not the case?’
‘No. As I say I have, as yet, no knowledge of the will’s contents,’ said Tim with a grin. ‘But I’d be interested to see Michelle’s reaction if everything wasn’t left to them. You may have noticed her lording it around the place when we were at Seacrest Avenue.’
‘Yes, I did.’ I was tempted to mention the fact that she’d swanned off with over two thousand quid in Cedric’s briefcase, but didn’t think it was the moment. ‘So, there was no dramatic “Reading of the Will Scene”, so beloved of melodramatic screenwriters, when you went to the solicitors yesterday?’
‘No. That can’t really happen properly until a Grant of Probate has been made. I’m afraid the meeting was a bit of a damp squib, really. All that was agreed was that, when we needed the help of a solicitor in sorting out the estate, they were the solicitors we would instruct. Though I’m not actually sure why. I wasn’t impressed by their efficiency. Although it was with them that Cedric and Flick had drawn up their will, they couldn’t immediately put their hands on a copy of it. Came up with a feeble excuse about having recently moved offices. But they promised they’d find it within twenty-four hours.’
‘So, have you had another meeting with them today? Did Roy and Michelle stay over?’
‘No. They didn’t change their plan. Went back to Worcester yesterday afternoon, as originally intended. Their garden called to them. Actually, they left in high dudgeon. I arranged to pick up a copy of the will this afternoon, because I was staying down here …’ he grinned ‘… not least because I had a rather attractive dinner date set up for this evening.’
It was a potentially cheesy line but Tim’s ironic tone stopped it from being cheesy.
‘So, presumably you’ve read the will?’
‘No, I haven’t. That’s what’s so frustrating. The bloody solicitors still haven’t found it. Well, they swear they now know where it is and I can get it tomorrow morning. Which is annoying because it means I’ll lose another full day’s work. I’d been intending to start back for Oxford first thing.’
At that moment our starters arrived. Before I embarked on my Roasted Partridge Breast, I said, ‘And when you have seen the will? As an executor, are you not allowed to tell other people its contents?’
‘“Other people” being you, perhaps?’
‘Well, all right, yes.’ He grinned sardonically. ‘Sorry, Tim, it’s just that I got so caught up in Cedric’s life in his last months. And I am a naturally curious person.’
‘Are you?’ he teased.
‘Yes. But I’m fully prepared to accept that it’s not my business.’
‘In spite of the fact that you’re desperate to know?’
‘You sum up my position very accurately.’
Tim took a teasing mouthful of his Goat’s Cheese & Basil Mousse before saying, ‘I don’t think there’s anything in the rules of being an executor which prohibits me from discussing the contents of the will with anyone I choose to discuss them with. So, I’ll be happy to let you know the will’s contents, though probably not before I’ve given the information to the people who might be most closely involved.’
‘You mean Roy and Michelle?’
‘I do.’ He took another pause and another mouthful of mousse. He was enjoying his control of the narrative. But then he seemed to lose his nerve. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t talk about it, though,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Sorry. Thinking about my role as executor, I don’t think I should really be talking about the details of the will to anyone until we’ve got the Grant of Probate.’
‘If you think that’s the right thing to do.’
‘I do, I’m afraid. Sorry. I’ll tell you the details as soon as Roy and Michelle know.’
Which, I suppose, was fair enough.
Fortunately, once the conversation moved away from the affairs of the Waites family, the evening got much more relaxed.
And enjoyable.
We talked more, talked very easily, about ourselves. A bit of background. I told Tim I was a widow but didn’t go into details of how Oliver died. Time enough for that when we’d spent more time together. If, of course, we did spend more time together.
And Tim told me a bit about his past. There had to be one. No man as attractive as him was going to get to his fifties without some kind of emotional backstory.
As I’d rather suspected, the move from being a GP in Chichester to being a research scientist in Oxford had coincided with a change in his domestic circumstances. A divorce, inevitably perhaps. The only detail he supplied was that it had saddened him. No mention of his ex-wife’s name and the strong suggestion that they’d seen nothing of each other since the official ending of the marriage. But I think most men say that about their ex-lovers when they meet someone new.
Not, of course, that I was ‘someone new’ in Tim’s life. Not in that sense.
The meal was good, the conversation – as I said – easy, and the Malbec did its stuff. When we left Purchase’s, we both felt very mellow.
Tim was staying at the Chichester Harbour Hotel, the other side of the road from Purchase’s. He offered to walk me home, but it wasn’t fully dark and I was used to being around Chichester on my own. Also, I didn’t relish the prospect of awkwardness on my doorstep.
He was going back to Oxford the next morning. He said he’d inevitably have to be back at some point to deal with the legal stuff. And he’d be in touch with me about the clearance of 14 Seacrest Avenue.
So, with the gentlest of pecks on my cheek, Tim Goodrich went his way. And I went mine.
I felt good. It does a girl good to be pampered occasionally.
And it was a very long time since this particular girl had been pampered.
When I got home, there were a couple of messages on my landline answering machine.
The first one was from Fleur, asking if I could join her for lunch the next day at the spa attached to the Goodwood Hotel. It’s her place, where an extremely minimal workout in variegated Lycra, to her mind, justifies a very boozy lunch. She knows I can rarely go midweek, because I am actually running a business called SpaceWoman. Which, she knows full well, is not a cleaning service.
As an appeal to my guilt, in her message Fleur adds that she wants to talk about Jools. She’s worried that it’s been so long since she heard from her favourite – and indeed only – granddaughter.
I will call her in the morning to say I’m not free for lunch.
The second message was from a Detective Inspector Bayles. He would be grateful if I could give him a call on the Wednesday morning.
He didn’t say what it was about.
I’m a businesswoman, so I did my SpaceWoman calls before I got back to the police.
I rang Gerry Cullingford’s number and he confirmed that he was Lita’s husband. I asked if he was missing his golf clubs and he said no. He didn’t enquire what I had done with them and cut me off when I started to tell him about Grant’s charity initiative.
‘I wonder if you could come to the house again, Ellen.’
‘Well, I could, but what for?’
‘It’s a surprise I want to organize for Lita. For our wedding anniversary.’
‘Oh? You do know that what I do is decluttering.’
‘Yes, I’m fully aware of that. There’s something I’ve been promising to get cleared out for Lita for a long time.’
‘A clearance firm could do that.’
‘No, no, the stuff needs sorting. A lot of it could be recycled.’
The appeal to my principles – not to mention a degree of curiosity – persuaded me. I suggested I should go back to Halnaker the next day. No, Gerry wouldn’t be there then and Lita would. Then he was away on business. Have to be the following week. The Wednesday worked for both of us. We fixed a time. Two thirty in the afternoon.
I would ring Fleur later to say I couldn’t do lunch. Later, while she was actually in the Goodwood gym doing her leisurely work-out. With a mother like mine, you get very good at knowing the times when she won’t be able to get to the phone and you can safely just leave a message.
I rang Detective Inspector Bayles.
He could only be described as ‘jolly’. Or perhaps ‘avuncular’. A large man in brown corduroy trousers. A dark grey zip-up fleece open to show a beer belly straining against a distended tattersall check shirt. Tousled hair, ginger fading to auburn. His image was more of a friendly publican than a policeman.
He arrived at my house on his own, which suggested to me that his inquiries would be relatively casual. My viewing of television police dramas implied that for more important evidence-gathering excursions, they worked in pairs. (Or maybe it was just that two of them could use dialogue to explain the plot to each other and, conveniently, to the viewers at the same time.)
Bayles accepted my offer of tea and casually joined me in the kitchen while I made it. He talked local things, like the increasing problem of parking in central Chichester. Chatty, relaxed. But when he was sitting down with his cup in my sitting room, his manner became more focused.
‘What the general public don’t seem to realize about police work is that we often start on an investigation with absolutely no information. OK, sometimes we’re dealing with known criminals, guys who’ve been on our radar for years, but in most cases we have nothing more than a name on the electoral register. We don’t know the financial circumstances of the characters involved, their family set-up, nothing.
‘So, we begin by making a list of people who might have had recent dealings with the deceased and asking them questions. And, because we’re starting from nothing, we have to ask some very basic questions, which sometimes have the unfortunate effect of making us sound stupid.’ He grinned. ‘The image of the police in fiction rarely projects us as the sharpest knives in the drawer, does it?’
‘Not very often,’ I agreed. ‘Certainly not in Golden Age whodunits.’
‘No. That Agatha Christie has a lot to answer for.’ He grinned again. I wondered whether he talked crime fiction with all his interviewees, of whether he’d intuitively found the right level for conversation with me.
‘So,’ he went on, ‘I really know nothing about Cedric Waites. The first time I heard the name was when I got news of his death. Ellen, perhaps you could explain to me how you came to be involved in his life?’
I did as he asked. He instantly got the differences between decluttering, house clearing and cleaning. Behind his easy manner there was a sharp intellect.
‘And you get the impression that Cedric Waites shut himself off from all company from the time of his wife’s death?’
‘I think it was probably a gradual process over a few months, but yes, her death seems to have been the trigger.’
‘And is that common in the … er, decluttering world?’
‘Not uncommon. Bereavement can lead to strange behaviours.’
‘Right. So not only did Cedric Waites not go out, he also wouldn’t let anyone from outside into his house?’
‘That seems to have been the case, yes.’
‘But he made an exception for you?’
‘It took a while, but yes, he did eventually let me into the house. He didn’t actually have a lot of choice in the matter. If he hadn’t let me in, he would have been rehoused by the social services.’
‘Mm.’ The detective inspector ran his hands ruminatively over his substantial stomach. ‘And then, I gather, once he’d allowed you in, he also let in workmen to sort out his central heating and other stuff that needed doing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe I’ll need to talk to them as well as you.’
‘I can give you their contacts if you need them.’
‘Thank you.’ But there didn’t seem to be any urgency about the follow-up. ‘I was just thinking … it must’ve been difficult for the old boy to organize food deliveries … if he never went out and he wouldn’t let anyone else in.’
‘He seemed to have got that sorted. Deliveries from Ocado, paid for online. A few friends and neighbours might sometimes cook for him, leave little containers of food by his back door.’
‘And he’d keep those in the freezer to eat as and when he needed something?’
‘That seemed to be the way it worked, yes. The freezer was pretty disgusting, but he must’ve known how to defrost it. If he hadn’t done that from time to time, it would have seized up completely, like his central heating boiler.’
‘Hm. So … do you know if Cedric Waites kept a close watch on the use-by dates on the stuff in his freezer?’
‘I don’t actually know, but I would have thought it was unlikely.’
‘Not a very healthy lifestyle then?’
‘No.’
‘Did you ever cook for him, Ellen?’
‘Once or twice, when we were first getting to know each other … you know, if I’d over-catered. Say I’d expected my son to be home for a meal and then he wasn’t.’ There had been an increasing number of occasions like that since Ben had got together with Pippa. ‘So, I’d popped the extra into a container for Cedric and he’d put it in the freezer and, I don’t know, ate it at some point.’
‘And do you know how Cedric Waites disposed of the containers his food had been in?’
‘That was an issue when I first came to the house.’ I told the detective inspector how much time I’d spent clearing the debris of containers in the early days.
‘And what did you do with them?’
‘I took them to the dump. Most were recyclable.’
‘Right.’ Another thoughtful, double-handed stroke of the stomach. ‘You may be wondering, Ellen, why I’m so interested in the dead man’s food containers.’
‘I’m sure you’ll tell me in time.’
‘Hm. Yes. Yes, I will.’ He luxuriated in a long pause. ‘The fact is, Ellen, because he hadn’t seen a doctor recently, an autopsy was performed on Cedric Waites’s body.’
‘I’d assumed there would be one. It was done quite quickly.’
‘Yes. Very efficient they are down there, doing … what they do.’ Another pause. ‘What the autopsy revealed was that what killed him was poison.’
‘Oh? What poison?’
‘Hasn’t been confirmed yet. There are a few possibilities. They’re doing further tests.’
‘Well …’
The detective inspector looked straight at me. ‘You don’t seem very surprised, Ellen.’
‘No. I’m saddened, obviously. But the way Cedric shovelled everything into that freezer … let’s say it didn’t meet the highest health-and-safety standards. And, as we were discussing, I don’t think he was very systematic about use-by dates. So, for him to have eaten something that was off … well, the surprise really is that it hadn’t happened earlier.’
‘Hm. Yes. Well, that’s a point of view … if, of course, the poisoning was accidental.’
‘What? You’re not suggesting—?’
‘We’ll know when the test results come back. Since we got the result of the autopsy, we have inspected the premises where Cedric Waites lived. No evidence of any food containers for the last meals he ate.’
‘No. I took them.’
‘Did you, Ellen? Why would you do that?’
‘Well … It’s what I’d done with the previous ones and, in my line of business, you develop an instinct for tidying things up.’
‘I’m sure you do, Ellen. So, where are the containers now? In your bin here?’
‘No. I took them to the dump.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes. Only on Monday. Surely, if you needed to check them out, it would be easy to retrieve them from …’
My words dried up as Bayles slowly shook his head. ‘Yes, they do that all the time on television shows, don’t they, go through all the jettisoned rubbish? And then they find the vital piece of evidence just before the commercial break. Have you any idea what mounting a search like that through a huge municipal dump … any idea what that costs?’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘No, our budgets are stretched tight enough as it is.’
He looked straight at me again. His expression was hard to read.
‘What are you saying, Inspector?’
‘I’m just saying that to an outside observer … like, to take a random example, me … taking those food containers to the dump so quickly … looks like rather unusual behaviour.’
There was no doubt about the nature of his expression now. It was one of suspicion.