The handbag, by its contents, belonged to one Sadie Winner. The driving licence in that name gave an address of Dovecote Cottage, Lesser Listlea, North Yorkshire.
‘I wonder what sort of car she drove?’ Markov pondered. ‘She wasn’t without money. Lesser Listlea is a wealthy village, it’s not far from here…and this handbag alone…’
‘She drove a Beemer,’ said Carmen Pharoah.
Markov smiled at her. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Ah…’ Pharoah grinned. ‘And I also know the colour. It’s silver. German racing silver, as you’d expect of a BMW’
‘How -?’
‘Because it’s there.’ She pointed to a road bridge over the canal about fifty yards away. The car was not fully visible, just the roof, but sufficient to be able to identify it. A BMW in German racing silver. Stationary, where a car would not be parked.
Markov placed the handbag in the self-sealing production bag and he and Carmen Pharoah walked yet further along the canal, to the bridge, to the steps from the towpath to the road. They examined the car. The doors were not locked, the keys were still in the ignition.
‘The only reason this is still here is that its location was not known to the car thieves,’ Markov said softly, more to himself than to Carmen Pharoah. ‘So, did she fall or was she pushed?’
‘Oh, pushed, I expect,’ Pharoah replied matter-of-factly, but with tongue in cheek.
‘I expect so as well.’ He reached for his radio and pressed the Send button. He reported the location of the car and its possible relevance to the incident, requesting a constable and a roll of blue and white police tape. ‘She didn’t commit suicide… The police surgeon believes that she was not breathing when she went into the water. It’s not a suicide spot anyway… So if she was attacked, the attacker had no interest in her possessions…the motive wasn’t robbery. Her handbag, her jewellery say so.’
‘Didn’t want the car, either,’ added Pharoah. ‘He or she or they had to have had a personal motive, unless it was a random attack.’
‘It’s not the place for a random attack,’ Markov said. ‘On the one hand it’s isolated, but on the other, there’s quite a lot of traffic down the road. My money is on a personal motive.’
Leaving a constable on duty by the BMW which had blue and white police tape fastened round it, Markov and Pharoah drove to Dovecote Cottage, Lesser Listlea. They found that Dovecote Cottage was a cottage in the same sense that the chapel at Kings College, Cambridge, is a ‘chapel’ despite being as large as a small cathedral; and in the same sense that York is a city despite the fact that in terms of its area, it could fit within the confines of a housing estate in a major city. Dovecote Cottage revealed itself to be a half-timbered Elizabethan manor house, built in an L shape in front of a gravelled courtyard in the middle of which stood a stone fountain belonging to a later, possibly Victorian era… So thought Markov as he slowed the car to a halt beside the Bentley which stood near the front door. The door of the house opened as Markov and Pharoah stepped out of their car.
‘Yes?’ The man was well built, fifty-something. A dark-blue towelling dressing gown covered silk pyjamas.
‘Police.’
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Winner?’ Markov approached and showed his ID.
“Tis I.’
‘We have a few questions…’
‘You’d better come in.’
Winner received the police in the hallway of his house, where they sat opposite each other on benches which stood alongside walls of ancient beams.
‘Oh my,’ he said when Markov revealed the reason for their visit. ‘Oh my…’
‘Do you know what her car would be doing on the bridge over the canal?’
‘The bridge in question…it’s on the route that she favours to get from the village to York. She drives it daily. I prefer the main road, but she likes the rural route. But I’ve no idea why she should have stopped where she did. Which way was the car pointing?’
‘Towards the village.’
‘So she was coming home. She was very cautious…she wouldn’t have stopped, not unless it was because she knew someone…someone she recognised.’
‘What time did you expect your wife to return home?’
‘Last night? About nine-thirty, ten. She went to visit her sister, she lives in York. The two of them, once they get their heads together, at my expense…calling up all my past misdeeds and indiscretions. She was about to take me to the cleaner’s… They would have spent the evening planning my ruin.’
‘So, you’d benefit from your wife’s death?’
‘Oh yes… In fact, I’m just beginning to realise just what a great weight might have been lifted from my shoulders…just what a shadow I am escaping from, if it is my wife.’
‘We’ll have to ask you to accompany us to York District Hospital to identify the body…if you can.’
‘The car, the handbag, the clothing you describe – it’ll be her all right. But yes, formality has to be observed.’
‘Before we go, could you tell us where you were at about nine-thirty last night?’
‘Here.’
‘Alone?’
‘Alone. I was working. The industry is in a bad state at the moment.’
‘The industry?’
‘Electronics. I am the Winner of Winner Electronics, the factory on the industrial estate.’
‘Ah yes,’ Markov nodded.
‘I’m asking my managers to put in unpaid overtime to avert collapse. I can’t do that if I’m not prepared to do the same.’
‘Of course.’
‘I made a few phone calls…sent a few faxes… They could be confirmed. I have itemised bills. The people to whom I spoke will be able to confirm that ‘twas I who spoke.’
‘This was at nine-thirty?’
‘No… No, earlier. I was reading reports at about that time…then I went outside. I enjoy the dusk at this time of year – that would have been about nine-thirty, ten, just outside in the garden – but I was alone.’
‘Your wife, was she depressed of late?’
‘No… Just the opposite, in fact. She was enthusiastic in a vindictive sort of way…burning up with determination to fleece me in a divorce settlement.’
‘But she was living here?’
‘All part of the Great Plan to ruin me. Can’t bring a lady friend home while she’s in the house, can I? And she knows it. We sleep separately, but it’s still the one roof… Makes things very difficult for me.’
‘Not the sort of person to take her own life, then?’
‘Hardly.’ Winner smiled. ‘My wife take her own life, I hardly think so… No…not a chance. She had everything to live for, i.e, my total ruin. She was poised to take half of what I possess, plus a massive amount of maintenance. She had a lot to live for. She and her sister had their knives out for me.’
‘So you really have benefited from her death? If it is she?’
‘Oh yes, only the collapse of my business empire to worry about now. A minor headache by comparison. I make no secret of it. I have no feelings for my wife now. I haven’t for a long time. I was angry about the possible divorce settlement because she wasn’t very supportive of me while I was building up…more of a hindrance. I really did it despite her, not because of her.’