All Passion Spent - Bergotte (top 5 ebook reader txt) 📗

to go back to sleep. Tommy Mattheson had found life quite luxurious in custody compared to his living accommodation when at liberty. He was the undisturbed, sole occupant of the heated room. It was warm enough for him to stay in bed longer than he would normally. Furthermore, he was being served food and drink. There were therefore, distinct advantages in being a criminal. Whether he would enjoy being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure for a much longer period was another question, but it was not a question that Mr Mattheson was asking on this early Friday morning.

At nine o’clock Tommy was brought from the cells to be questioned by Gerrard and Rossi. When he appeared in the interview room and had sat down, Gerrard carefully laid out a watch and a mobile phone on the table in front of him. Tommy looked expressionless as Gerrard, pointing to the items said, “These were handed in to us. They both belong to one person, Mrs Laura Fellingham. How did they come to be in your possession?” “I’ve never seen them before.” “Your girlfriend Samantha handed them over. So, don’t waste my time,” said Gerrard patiently. “I found them,” replied Tommy “Where?” “I can’t remember,” persisted the young man. “I told you not to waste my time. These items were removed from Mrs Fellingham either shortly before she died or just after,” replied Gerrard. “She’s dead, then?” “Yes, and the evidence points to the conclusion that you killed her.” “No, I didn’t.” “How do you know if you can’t remember?” “I wouldn’t kill anyone.” “Start remembering,” said Gerrard firmly.

“I had been drinking all day but I knew I needed money for food. I had no money. I thought I’d try walking up Pultney Street. I thought I might ask some people for money.” “You were going to try begging?” “Yes.” “Carry on. What did you do?” “I crossed the road, walked past the museum and saw this car coming down the hill, hit a woman.” “Outside Sydney Gardens?” “Yes. The car didn’t stop though; it just kept going. It was travelling at quite a speed. The driver didn’t brake, didn’t swerve, didn’t seem to take any avoiding action. As I said, it just kept going.” Now for an important question. Gerrard swallowed hard and asked, “Were there any other witnesses to this accident?” “No,” replied Tommy, “there was no one else there as far as I could see.”

“What happened next?” “She was thrown across the road and landed on the pavement. She was half on the pavement, half in the road. I picked her up and carried her into Sydney Gardens. I laid her down behind some bushes. She wasn’t making any sound but I was sure she wasn’t dead, just unconscious.” “How do you know she wasn’t dead?” “Her body was warm.” “Well it would be wouldn’t it if she had only just been run down?” “I suppose so,” said Tommy weakly. “What did you do then?” “I thought she might have something worth taking. I was desperate to get some money. I took a watch off her wrist, some credit cards and a mobile phone out of her bag.” “Her handbag?” “Yes, her handbag.” “Anything else?” Tommy paused and then decided to tell the whole truth. I took some cash from her bag as well.”

“How much?”
“I can’t remember. Some notes. Three tens I think it was.”
“And then what did you do?”
“I went through the park and came out of the main entrance… I went to a nearby pub to see if I could sell any of the things I’d got.”
“Have you any idea of the time that these events took place?”
“Yes, it was 7.33 p.m.”
“How can you be so specific?”
“When I looked at the watch it said 7.33 p.m. It wasn’t working, so I assumed that a woman like that wouldn’t go around with a watch that was broken and that it must have stopped when she got hit.”
“It seems reasonable,” said Gerrard.
“Is there anything else you want to add to your statement?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“How did you carry her, face up or face down?”
“She was lying on her back when I found her and I laid her on her back when I put her down.”
“Now, let’s go over some of this again. Why did you move a seriously injured woman? Why did you not get help, call an ambulance?”
“I saw it as an opportunity to pinch a couple of things from her bag. I thought it best to hide her so I would have more time, if nobody found her for a day or so.”
“She did not die of her injuries in the road accident,” said Gerrard. “She died as a result of a stab wound to the back of the neck, from something like a nail file,” he continued.
“I don’t carry a nail file,” said Tommy.
“But Laura Fellingham did and you might have killed her with it,” suggested Anna.
“No I did not.”
“You didn’t find a nail file in her handbag when you went through it?”
“No.”

Gerrard sat back in his chair and thought hard. After a few moments he said, “I don’t know whether you killed her or not. Until we have evidence to the contrary, you are our chief suspect. You haven’t helped yourself by running away, either,” said Gerrard. “Why did you run away?”
“I got frightened. Sam told me that she’d heard on the news that the lady had died. I thought I would be blamed for hiding her and letting her die. I didn’t want this to happen. I never thought it would turn out like this.”

Tommy was put back in the cells until his appearance at the inquest. “I don’t think he is a killer,” Gerrard told Anna. “Neither do I,” replied his colleague, “it hardly seems worth killing someone for a phone and a watch and a bit of cash. We need to find the nail file and get some finger prints from it so that we can eliminate Tommy from our inquiries.” “Yes,” said Gerrard, “the area round the body has been thoroughly searched of course. We ought to search right the way back along the path to the main entrance to the gardens. If Tommy ever had it and used it he could have thrown it anywhere in the vicinity. I doubt that he would take it into a pub with him. It would have been covered in blood. I’ve got the inquest to go to. You get his statement signed and printed up and we’ll meet together after the inquest."
“Yes sir,” said Anna.

The inquest, commencing at 11.30 a.m. was a desultory affair, with both Phil and Tommy giving what was, to Gerrard’s ears, very familiar evidence. It did give Gerrard the chance to think about it with these two key witnesses in front of him, listening to their testimony. Three key words kept going through his mind, means, opportunity and motive. If Dickinson really did what he said he did and kept going he had no opportunity to kill, except on impact with the deceased. He certainly had no motive, but the evidence the police had so far suggested that Dickinson and Mrs Fellingham were unknown to each other.

Tommy’s case was trickier. He possibly could have found a nail file in Mrs Fellingham’s handbag and therefore had the means to commit murder. He also had the opportunity to commit murder, if, as he said, he was responsible for moving the injured woman. The stumbling block was the motive. He was not a stupid youth, quite intelligent really. It was unreasonable surely to suppose that he would kill someone for the sake of a couple of almost valueless stolen items. Second hand mobiles and watches are as cheap as chips.

Gerrard emerged from the inquest deep in thought, oblivious to his surroundings. He was awoken from his reverie by the sound of a familiar voice, calling his name. He turned round to see an old friend. “Peter, how are you?” “Not so bad.” Andrew Thorpe was a detective with the Wiltshire Constabulary. Gerrard had forgotten that he was going to be at the inquest. It was an idea that had been cooked up by Chief Superintendent John Tresillian and his counterpart from the Wiltshire Constabulary. Gerrard had received a communication from Tresillian, which had been languishing in his in-tray for some time. When he found the time to read it he skimmed through it, ticked his initials at the top and passed it on to the next recipient. Now he recalled reading it, a new initiative in co-operation between police forces. The practical outcome here was that Tommy Mattheson would be kept in custody in Trowbridge by the Wiltshire police and charged with the offences connected with car theft. They would oppose bail being granted because he had tried to avoid Bath police. In the event of Gerrard not being able to find any other suspect, Mattheson could be charged with murder and satisfy the demands of Tresillian.

“Had you forgotten about me?” D.I. Thorpe asked Gerrard. “No,” he replied, “but I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment. I was thinking of the issues involved in the inquest. Have you come to collect Tommy?” “Yes, it’s our Chief Super’s idea. He told my D.C.I that he wanted me to come. So here I am.” The two returned to the police station where they met Anna in the canteen. Gerrard made the introductions as they sat down together. They had not been sitting together long when a uniformed constable strode into the room with a message for D.C.I. Gerrard. He read it quickly. “Thank you constable,” he said, “please tell him I’ll be there as soon as I am able.” “Yes sir,” replied the young man and promptly left the canteen to make the phone call.

Gerrard made his excuses saying he had to go to an address in Queen Square where Laura Fellingham’s solicitor had called the family together for the reading of the last will and testament of the deceased. Andrew Thorpe was delighted to be alone with Anna and almost said so, but then thought better of it. Instead, he asked her how she was getting on working with Peter Gerrard. She was rather evasive in her reply, a point that was not lost on the policeman from Wiltshire. “How long have you known him?” she asked. “We were at school together, so we go back a long way.” Anna was glad she had been guarded in her remarks about her chief. She felt sure that whatever she said about Gerrard would eventually get back to him and she wanted to remain on good terms with him. Although it was a bit frustrating at times, she was very happy to be working with the likes of Peter Gerrard and she did not want to jeopardise any opportunities of working with him in the future by any off the record remarks she might make to D.I. Thorpe.

“It’s a pity I’ve got to go back to Wiltshire today, otherwise I would ask you out to dinner,” he said. “Trowbridge is only down the road from here,” said Anna brightly. “I don’t live in Trowbridge, I live in Marlborough… it’s a fair way and we’ve got a big case on at the moment.” “Ah, I see,” said Anna, noticing the slight frown he gave her when she did not ask him about the big case. That can wait, she thought.

Meanwhile, Gerrard had found his way across the Abbey courtyard to the elegant Queens Square. This boasts a lovely park at its centre where the visitor can sit at his leisure for as