‘Yes, Sir.’
‘There’s no need to bother with that,’ said Dixon, when Mrs West began putting on her seatbelt in the back of the patrol car. ‘We’re just sitting here to get out of the rain and for a bit of privacy.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘There’s no easy way to say this, Mrs West, so I’ll just come straight out with it.’ He turned in his seat to face Pannell’s daughter. ‘I’m afraid your father’s been murdered.’
‘How? Why?’ She started to cry, as quietly as she could.
‘The pathologist hasn’t been in yet, I’m afraid, but I can tell you that he’s been stabbed.’
‘Who would do such a thing? An old man, sitting in his chair.’
‘You may have seen on the news we’re investigating a series of murders, and all of the victims were members of the Somerset bridge team that went to the Regional Qualifier in 2003. There was a fire at the Palace Hotel, Torquay, which was the venue for the tournament.’
‘I do remember that,’ said Mrs West, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. ‘I was at uni and was home for the holiday. Dad was really into his bridge. Good at it too. He was county champion the year before, I think it was, and that qualified him and his partner for the regionals the following year. Something like that anyway. His bridge partner was a woman and that was always a source of tension between my parents, if I’m being honest. Weekends away in hotels, you can imagine what my mum thought.’
‘Was anything going on between your father and his bridge partner?’
‘I don’t think so.’
The car door opened and a mug of tea was handed in, first to Dixon, then across to Mrs West. ‘Betty at number 6 says you’re welcome to sit with her when you’ve finished, if you want to get out of the rain,’ said the uniformed officer, before closing the car door.
‘Can’t I go in the house?’ asked Mrs West, turning to Dixon.
‘It’s a crime scene, I’m afraid, and it’ll be tomorrow before Scientific have finished. Do you know Betty?’
Mrs West nodded. ‘I suppose he could have been having an affair,’ she said.
‘With Judith Bolam?’
‘That’s her. You never really know what your parents are getting up to, do you? You see old people and you tend to forget they were young once, getting up to much the same stuff we get up to these days.’
‘Did he say anything when he got back from the qualifier?’
‘Not really. There’d usually have been a row, a few plates broken and what have you, but I don’t remember any of that. He did mention the fire, and we’d seen it on the news anyway, of course, but after that, nothing. He never played bridge again either, which was odd now I come to think of it.’ A sip of tea. ‘I bought him a book of bridge puzzles that Christmas, but I don’t think he did any of them. He never touched it; cancelled his membership of the bridge club. There’s an address book somewhere and he’d put a line through all of his bridge contacts. All of them. Never sent so much as a Christmas card to any of them again.’
‘And he never said what happened during the fire?’
‘Not to me.’
‘Did your mother ever mention anything?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t suppose your father kept a diary or anything like that?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware. If he did, he never showed it to me. I do remember some photographs, though. He had one of those old cameras where you took the film into Boots to get it developed, although he used to send them off somewhere by then, I think, and get them back in the post.’
‘Photographs of what?’
‘The fire.’ Mrs West was watching Scientific Services setting up a gazebo in her father’s front garden, the scene lit by an arc lamp. ‘It was a green wallet thing, with photos in it; I’m sure there were some of the fire. I wouldn’t be surprised if he destroyed them, though. I remember he got very upset when we were watching the news and it said three people had been killed.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Dixon saw the clipboard first, the pathologist waiting patiently under the gazebo to be allowed into the cottage.
‘I can’t let you in as well. Sorry,’ said Hari Patel to Dixon as he approached. ‘There are too many people in there as it is. They haven’t even got the stepping plates down yet.’
‘Who’s the senior scientific officer?’
‘Donald Watson.’
‘I need a word with him.’
‘You’ll have to wait until he comes out.’
‘I’ve been in there already.’
‘What?’
‘I found the body.’
Hari was scribbling on his clipboard. ‘You still can’t go in,’ he said.
Dixon turned to the pathologist. ‘Would you be kind enough to ask Donald to come out here?’
‘Of course.’
