‘Have a look around, Paul, see if there’s a back door,’ Hubbard said.
‘Sure thing, Boss.’ Butcher turned the collar of his jacket up and headed off to the right, disappearing around the corner of the house as Hubbard sheltered in the entrance porch, cupping his hands together trying to see through the stained glass panels on either side of the front door. Moments later, the door swung open and Butcher appeared, his normally cheerful demeanor gone. ‘Better come in and have a look at this Boss,’ he said ominously.
Hubbard followed him into the house and immediately saw why Butcher had lost his sense of humor. He skirted around the body being careful not to disturb anything, then looked up towards the galleried landing above. ‘Looks like he’s come down from up there,’ he said.
‘Who is he?’ Butcher asked. ‘Webley?’
‘No, too young for a start. I suspect we’ll find this is the secretary, Crawford.’
‘Nasty,’ Butcher grimaced.
‘Let’s have a quick look upstairs, then we’ll have to call the local boys in,’ Hubbard said.
Upstairs, they found things just as Philippe had left them, and it didn’t take Hubbard long to get the picture. ‘Looks like an S&M session that’s got a bit out of hand,’ he said.
‘You reckon Webley was involved?’
‘Almost certainly. I’ve heard he likes a bit of that sort of thing. Anyway,’ he said, looking at the wet patches on the bed, ‘There’s enough DNA here to float a battleship.’
‘What do you reckon happened then?’ Butcher asked.
Hubbard thought for a few moments then replied, ‘Judging by the whip and the noose, I reckon Webley gets his kicks out of torturing then pretending to kill his playmates. The gun is just an extension of the same game, but this time he went a bit too far.’
‘Then he panics and scarpers hoping no one is going to find matey down there until he’s out of the country,’ Butcher offered.
‘Exactly, but we’re going to have a little welcome committee waiting for him at the airport.’ Hubbard led the way downstairs saying, ‘Get on your phone to the local CID. Tell them what we’ve got and tell them to get their best men up here with a scene-of-crime team. We’ll wait out in the car until they arrive.’
Philippe got back to the hire car panting, climbed in, and handed Alice her sandals. She took them from him without a word and dropped them onto the floor at her feet. He was glad to see she was sitting in her seat normally, rather than the fetal position she’d been in when he’d left her. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked
‘Numb,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve decided I’m going to go to the police. If I tell them it was an accident and explain what happened, I’m sure they’ll believe me.’
Philippe looked at her incredulously. ‘You must be joking,’ he said. ‘You and I both know it was an accident, but the police will never believe it. If you hand yourself in you will be put in prison, maybe not for murder, but certainly for manslaughter. Is that what you want?’
‘Of course I don’t,’ she cried, ‘but a man is dead, there will be an investigation. Sooner or later when they find out I’m alive, they’ll figure I had something to do with it, they’re not stupid! I don’t want to live the rest of my life waiting for a knock on the door!’
‘Maybe you will not have to,’ Philippe said softly. ‘If we can make it look like you have been in France all this time, there is no way they can prove you were there at the house at all.’
Alice thought about it for a few moments then asked hopefully, ‘Do you think that would work?’
‘I’m sure it would, provided it is what you want.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘As you said, a man is dead. How are you going to handle that? Are you going to be able to live with the fact that you were involved?’
‘How well you know me already,’ Alice said, reaching for his hand. ‘You’re right, of course. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be able to go on without doing the honest thing… but this is different.’ Her voice hardened as she spat out her next words. ‘He was a disgusting little pervert who’d already helped try to kill me once… and I’m pretty sure he would have tried again if he’d managed to get that gun off me. He caused the accident and he got exactly what he deserved!’
Philippe squeezed her hand and said, ‘I agree, and we can talk about it more later, but now let’s get out of here. What is the quickest way to the Eurostar station at Ashford?’
‘Back down onto the A27 then turn left,’ she said as he swung the car around and headed back the way they had come.
The local CID arrived with an ambulance and uniformed backup to seal the house and surrounding area, fifteen minutes after being called. Hubbard collared the most senior man, Detective Superintendent Mike Potter, showed him around and gave him a run down whilst the forensic team donned their white overalls and got to work.
‘So you reckon Sir Ross Webley is our perpetrator,’ Potter asked, once he’d heard all the facts.
‘That’s who my money’s on,’ Hubbard replied.
‘And you think he’s about to leave the country?’
‘So I’m led to believe.’
‘Then we’d better get an alert put out for him at all the airports and ferry terminals,’ Potter said decisively.
‘Already done,’ Hubbard said, ‘I called it in while we were waiting for you to arrive. I’ve got a team watching his house in London too. If he shows up there, they’ll grab him.’
Potter looked a little miffed, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t like the glamour boys from Scotland Yard interfering on his patch.
Hubbard was speaking again, ‘I don’t think he’ll try to get away tonight though. He’s due to fly out in the morning, and it’s my bet he’ll stick to that. He’s got no reason to think anyone is going to find out what’s happened down here straight away.’
‘Do you know what flight he’s booked on and which airport?’ Potter asked.
‘Not yet, but I’ve got a couple of my staff phoning around the airlines. We’ll know soon enough.’
Whilst they had been talking, the forensic biologist, Hugh Donaldson, had been examining the body. Now he came over and addressed Potter. ‘Dead less than an hour,’ he said, peeling his latex gloves off and dropping them into a plastic bag. ‘Shotgun wounds to the chest inflicted from below at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Looks like he was actually holding the end of the gun when it went off.’
‘Holding the gun?’ Potter said with surprise, ‘Could be a suicide then?’
‘I don’t think that’s likely,’ Donaldson replied. ‘Judging by the injuries up the insides of the arms, he was holding it by the end of the barrels. He’d have had no way of pulling the triggers.’
‘Maybe not,’ Potter mused. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, there are a number of fresh injuries on the back and buttocks, caused by a whip I’d say. And some fresh bruising and friction burn marks around the neck. Looks like someone tried to strangle him before he was shot.’
‘That ties up with what we’ve found upstairs,’ Potter said.
As they were speaking, Donaldson’s assistant approached them. ‘All right to kill the lights for a few seconds?’ she asked. ‘We’re ready to use the ultra-violet.’
Potter nodded his approval and they all moved over towards the staircase to watch. At the command, the lights were switched off and Donaldson’s assistant stepped forward holding an ultra-violet hand lamp on the end of an electrical flex. The lamp bathed the area with an eerie purple glow, which was designed to show blood and other bodily fluids that were invisible under normal lighting conditions.