It was a far different looking Claire Hammond who greeted Paget and Superintendent Alcott the following morning when they entered the house Claire still thought of as Aunt Jane’s home. Today, she was wearing a headscarf, a pair of rumpled slacks, trainers, and a T-shirt bearing the words: Save a tree – eat a beaver; a gift, she explained, from a cousin in Canada.
‘I’m afraid the place is in a bit of a mess,’ she said apologetically as they stood in the narrow entrance hall. ‘When you phoned and asked me to meet you here, I decided to come early and start sorting through some of the cupboards and drawers, but it’s hard to know what to do with so many things. Aunt Jane hated to throw anything away, so you can imagine what it’s like.’
‘I can indeed,’ Paget told her, having gone through a similar process himself when his father died. In fact, there were still things in the house for which he had no use at all, but he’d kept them because they’d had meaning for his father. ‘Will you be moving in yourself, or will the house be sold?’
Claire ran a hand through her hair. ‘I really haven’t made up my mind. I’d like to move in, more for Aunt Jane’s sake than anything else, but it’s really far too big for one person. I’ll have to give it more serious thought when I’ve had time to sort things out. Anyway, I’m sure you didn’t come here to listen to my problems, so what was it you wanted to see, exactly?’
Alcott had asked Paget the same question when the Chief Inspector had persuaded the Superintendent to accompany him to the house, and he gave Claire the same answer. ‘To be honest, I’m not quite sure myself. But after hearing what you had to say the other day, and reading the old reports, it seemed to me that it might be useful to learn more about Barry himself.’ He glanced at Alcott. ‘And, since Superintendent Alcott was directly involved at the time of Barry’s death, I’m hoping that revisiting the scene might stir a helpful memory or two.’
Alcott had balked at the suggestion that he accompany Paget to examine the place where Barry Grant had died. His first reaction had been to say he couldn’t spare the time. Marion was undergoing more tests today and he should be with her at the hospital. But he’d changed his mind, not because he wanted to revisit the scene of a young lad’s suicide he still remembered vividly, but because it would be a welcome distraction from his personal situation.
‘So, Miss Hammond,’ Paget said, ‘if you would lead the way, perhaps we could begin by taking a look at what used to be Barry’s bedroom.’
‘Of course.’ Claire started towards the stairs, but Alcott stopped to examine a picture on the wall.
‘That’s him,’ he said, tapping the glass. ‘That’s a better picture of him than we have on file.’
‘Yes, that’s Barry,’ Claire agreed. She stepped back to allow Paget to see the picture.
Barry Grant was sitting in the driver’s seat of an old Vauxhall. The window was down and he was leaning out, grinning and waving at the camera. Long fair hair that fell below the shoulders framed a narrow face.
‘He looks pretty proud of himself there,’ Paget observed. He looked at Claire, but she remained silent. ‘How old would he have been when that was taken?’
‘Seventeen, maybe eighteen. I don’t know exactly.’
‘Any idea whose car that was?’
‘Not the slightest.’
‘Do you mind if we take this picture with us when we leave? I’d like to see if Forensic can tell us anything about the car. It might have belonged to one of his friends.’
‘Of, course, if you think it will help.’
‘Thanks. Do you know if there are any group pictures of Barry and his friends?’
Claire frowned in thought. ‘Not that I can think of,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t think Aunt Jane owned a camera, but if I come across any pictures, you’re welcome to them.’
‘Thank you.’
Alcott, who had moved on to study other pictures on the wall, said, ‘Do your parents still live next door, Miss Hammond?’
‘No. They moved to Southampton about ten years ago. My father’s in insurance. He’s general manager there.’
‘But they were still living next door when Barry died?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did they ever talk about what happened?’
Claire shook her head. ‘Not really. I think as far as my dad was concerned, the less said the better when it came to Barry.’ She cast a furtive glance at her watch.
Alcott took the hint. ‘Right,’ he said briskly, ‘best get on, then.’ He stood back to allow Claire to lead the way. ‘It was the back bedroom, if memory serves,’ he said as they reached the landing at the top of the stairs. He pointed to a closed door.
‘That’s right,’ said Claire. ‘Aunt Jane would never let anyone else use it after Barry died, so you’ll find it virtually the same as it was then. She cleaned and vacuumed in there as she did throughout the rest of the house, and she took the sheets and pillows off the bed, but otherwise it’s pretty much the way Barry left it.’
‘Are you saying she kept it as some sort of shrine?’
‘Oh, no, it wasn’t like that,’ Claire assured him. ‘She simply had no reason to change it, so it’s remained as it was.’
Alcott opened the door and stood there for a moment before moving inside. Paget followed, while Claire hovered uncertainly in the doorway. The room smelt musty, suggesting that neither the door nor the window had been opened for some time.
It was as Claire had said: the room looked as if Barry Grant might return to it at any time. There were clothes in the wardrobe; there were books and papers on his desk, and magazines stacked neatly on the floor. Yellowing posters featuring cars and scantily clad girls were still pinned to the walls, and a guitar with broken strings stood in the corner.
The temperature outside was already climbing rapidly, but Claire shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘I don’t know why,’ she said, ‘but this room always gives me a funny feeling.’
‘You searched this room yourself, did you, sir?’ asked Paget.
Alcott nodded. ‘Looking for a note,’ he said, ‘or anything at all that might explain why the boy felt compelled to end his life in such a violent way, but there was nothing. Now we know why: Mrs Grant had taken the notes away.’
Paget turned to Claire. ‘I doubt if we will find anything in this room after all this time,’ he said, ‘but I would like to have someone come in to search the house for anything that might tell us who Barry’s friends were – old photographs, letters from university, perhaps, things that Mrs Grant may have kept locked away. With your permission, of course.’
Claire hesitated. ‘It’s not that I mind,’ she told him, ‘but I have quite a lot on at the moment. Do I need to be here?’
‘I think you should be,’ Paget told her. ‘And the sooner we do it the better. Do you think you could be here Monday morning? Say about nine? It shouldn’t take too long.’
Claire frowned as she mentally rearranged the plans she’d had for Monday, then nodded. ‘I can do that,’ she told him. ‘In fact it will give me a chance to sort a few things out myself.’
‘Then that’s settled,’ Paget said, ‘and thank you.’
Alcott was shaking his head as he moved towards the door. ‘It’s uncanny,’ he muttered as much to himself as to the others. ‘Nothing’s changed. After all these years, it looks exactly as I remember it.’
‘Does it trigger any memories that might prove useful to us in this new enquiry?’ asked Paget hopefully.
‘Memories? Oh, yes,’ said Alcott soberly. ‘But useful . . .?’ He shook his head.
‘I believe you wanted to see the packing shed as well,’ Claire said as she led the way to the head of the stairs, then started down without waiting for an answer. At the bottom, they followed her down and along the hall towards the back of the house. ‘The key to the shed is in here,’ she said, pausing beside an open door leading to the conservatory. ‘You go ahead and I’ll catch up with you.’
Alcott continued on his way to the back door, but Paget followed Claire inside. ‘Now this is a surprise,’ he said as he looked around. Over twenty feet long and perhaps twelve or thirteen feet wide, and all windows down one side, the conservatory looked out on a narrow strip of lawn and a vegetable garden, both woefully overgrown and in desperate need of water, and beyond that was the orchard where Claire had told them she’d played as a child. ‘Very nice indeed,’ he said. ‘I’ve often thought I’d like something like this on my house. Is it a recent addition?’
‘Compared to the rest of the house, I suppose you could say that,’ she said. ‘Uncle Arnold had it done a couple of years before he died, which would be about fifteen or sixteen years ago. He designed it and helped build it, but it was Aunt Jane who chose the colour scheme, the rattan furniture and the colourful cushions. But, as you can see, she was rather over fond of ornaments.’
Paget couldn’t help but agree as he looked around the room. There were ornaments of every description on almost every flat surface in the room. There were a few nice pieces, but they were all but lost amid the clutter of small, glass animals, paperweights, crystals, odd-shaped stones, and seashells.
‘And these aren’t the only ones,’ Claire told him as she took a key from the drawer of a small desk near the door. ‘There has to be at least another fifty tucked away in drawers and cupboards. If it shone or sparkled, chances were Aunt Jane would buy it. Uncle Arnold used to say she must have been a magpie in a previous life.’
‘And coins as well?’ Paget said, indicating a large jam jar almost full of pennies.
Claire laughed. ‘No, that was Uncle Arnold’s,’ she said. ‘He used to throw all his pennies in the jar until it was full, then take them down to a little shop off the market place where they collect them for some charity or other. I remember several years ago asking Aunt Jane if she’d like me to take the money down there for her, but she said to leave it because it wasn’t full yet.’
‘She never added to it herself?’
‘Oh, no. That was Uncle Arnold’s jar. In a strange sort of way, I think it was as if he wasn’t really gone as long as the jar still needed pennies to fill it up.’
Paget caught sight of Alcott through the window. ‘Better be going,’ he said with a nod towards the window. He held out his hand out for the key, but Claire closed her own hand over it.
‘I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I haven’t had a chance to go out there myself since Aunt Jane died, so I’d like to see what sort of state the shed is in. It’s been years since I was inside it; in fact, I think the last time I was in there was while I was still at school.’
The orchard was long and narrow, bordered on either side by high wooden fences that showed signs of neglect. The grass was brown and dry in the summer heat, crackling beneath their feet as they made their way between the trees towards the shed at the far end of the orchard. The trees themselves were old and gnarled, and long overdue for pruning. But it would take more than pruning to save these trees, thought Paget, with leaves already brown and curling, and apples the size of walnuts withering on the stem.
‘I’m afraid it’s not much of an orchard now,’ Claire said as if reading his thoughts. ‘It was far too much work for Aunt Jane after Uncle Arnold died, and the man she hired to help her didn’t know much about orchards. It’s a good job she didn’t have to depend on it for an income. These trees should have been replaced years ago, but I doubt there would be any point in doing so now. Too much competition for small growers, to say nothing of EU rules and regulations that have to be met these days.’
She ducked beneath a low branch as they emerged from the trees. ‘This is the packing shed,’ she said unnecessarily. ‘It used to be a busy place in the late summer when I was small. It was a packing house, garage and workshop all rolled into one back then, but I doubt if anyone’s been inside now for years.’
‘What’s on the other side of the back fence?’ asked Paget.
‘Pettigrew Estates,’ Claire told him. ‘Here, I’ll show you.’ She led the way to a high wooden gate. ‘I don’t think this has been opened for years, either,’ she said, tugging at a rusty bolt. The hinges screeched in protest as she pulled the gate open. ‘The carriers used to come down the lane to pick up the fruit from here and from other orchards farther along,’ she explained when Paget followed her outside, ‘but the orchards are all gone now. Too much work and not enough money in it to make it worthwhile. This was all open fields when I was growing up, just a mass of buttercups and daisies in the summer, but then the builders moved in so now we have Pettigrew Estates instead.
‘But that’s not what you came here to see, is it?’ she said as she caught Alcott’s impatient glance. She closed and bolted the gate, then moved to the shed. ‘Mind the sill,’ she warned as she unlocked the door.
They followed her in, pausing for a moment for their eyes to adjust to the gloom. The sun was shining outside, but inside the cavernous shed the light lay flat and lifeless against the windows above the bench, barely able to penetrate the layers of grime and tangled cobwebs that filled the corners.
Claire tried several switches before a strip of fluorescent lights above a long wooden bench flickered into life.
The shed was huge. Cobwebs were everywhere, and there was a musty smell in the lifeless air. As Claire had said, it hadn’t been used for years.
A rusting, chain-driven lawn mower stood in one corner beside a pile of old tyres, and large wooden crates with faded lettering were stacked against the walls. There were ladders, long-handled pruning shears, baskets, buckets, a bundle of sacks, and on the floor at the far end of the bench, lay what looked like spraying equipment. The bench itself was cluttered with empty boxes, rusting tools and more cobwebs.
There were dark patches on the floor, where oil had stained the concrete, and tracks made by countless vehicles leading to the two large doors at the far end of the shed were still clearly visible.
This, Paget reminded himself, was where Barry Grant had worked with David Taylor on a clapped out Hillman Minx all those years ago – and where Barry Grant had died.
Alcott walked over to the bench and stood looking down at the vice.
‘I should be getting back to the house,’ Claire said tentatively, ‘so unless you need me for anything, I’ll leave you to look around.’ She handed the key to Paget. ‘You will lock up when you’re finished here, and bring me the key?’
‘Of course, and thanks again, Miss Hammond.’
When Claire had gone, Paget walked over to stand beside Alcott. ‘Something interesting about the vice, is there, sir?’ he enquired.
‘Gun barrels,’ Alcott said cryptically. ‘This is where he sawed about a foot-and-a-half off the shotgun before he used it on himself. Stuck the gun under his chin, pulled both triggers and blew his head off. Couldn’t have reached the triggers otherwise. The sawn-off pieces were still in the vice when I arrived, and the hacksaw was beside it on the bench.’
‘I’ve always thought it would be extremely hard to saw through the barrel of a gun,’ said Paget. ‘Don’t you need a special blade?’
Alcott shook his head. ‘The steel isn’t all that hard,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter of the tensile strength of the metal rather than hardness. A decent hacksaw blade will go through both barrels in fifteen or twenty minutes. At least, that’s what Forensic told me at the time, because I thought the same thing.’ He moved along the bench to a tall cupboard at the end. ‘The gun was kept in here,’ he explained, ‘together with the shells. No lock on the door, of course. Mrs Grant told me her husband used the gun to shoot the odd rabbit now and again, and to scare off the birds when they became too much of a nuisance in the orchard. I asked her why it wasn’t locked up, and she said she’d simply forgotten it was there after her husband died.’
‘I know this can’t be very pleasant for you, sir,’ Paget said, ‘but I would like to get the picture straight in my head. Where, exactly, was Barry when he pulled the trigger?’
Alcott closed the cupboard. ‘Over here,’ he said, walking to the nearest corner, where a pair of overalls hung on one of a row of wooden pegs. Beneath the pegs were two metal folding chairs and a pair of heavy boots, cracked and broken. ‘This was where the workers hung their gear,’ he explained. ‘There was a lot more hanging on these pegs back then, which may be why no one heard the gun go off. Tucked himself in the corner among the clothes before he pulled the triggers.’ The Superintendent looked up. ‘You can still see where some of the shot hit the wall up there.’
‘Was he standing or sitting down?’
‘The chairs were pushed aside, and as far as I could tell, he was standing in the corner among the clothes.’
Paget stood looking at the corner, ‘Curious,’ he said. ‘I wonder why he came here to end his life?’
Alcott shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ he said. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, then suddenly realized what he was doing and pinched it out.
‘It’s just that it strikes me as odd,’ Paget persisted, ‘that a boy who, by all accounts, went to great lengths to be noticed, would come in here in the dead of night, spend fifteen minutes or more cutting the shotgun down to size, then go and stand in a corner among the clothes to shoot himself. It doesn’t seem to be in character.’
Alcott snorted. ‘I doubt if staying in character is a consideration when you’re about to kill yourself,’ he said, ‘and to be honest, Paget, I don’t see the point of this exercise of yours. I told you everything I know about what happened, and there’s nothing inside this old shed that is going to help you solve this case.’
Nothing, thought Paget as he followed the Superintendent out of the door, except, perhaps, the ghost of a boy who had blown his head to pieces thirteen years ago.