Reckless Endangerment(15)

‘I told him you’d probably want to interview him this afternoon,’ said Dave.

‘I wonder what this intruder was searching for?’ I said, turning back to Kate. ‘He certainly tore the place apart, but he doesn’t appear to have taken any of the things I’d’ve expected a burglar to take. The TV is still here and so is the DVD recorder, albeit both chucked on the floor. And there are some easily portable items around the house that he could have fenced without raising too much suspicion.’

‘She did say that her jewellery was missing,’ said Kate.

‘Yes, but why turn out all the cupboards and drawers and throw CDs and DVDs about the place? And why overturn tables and lamps? Any housebreaker worth his salt would probably go straight for the bedroom if all he wanted was jewellery. Of course we shan’t know whether he took anything else until Mrs Gregory’s had a chance to see what’s missing.’

‘There’s something else, too,’ Kate said. ‘This bit about her wandering around the house completely naked with Miller, the man from next door. Seems a strange thing for a woman to do, if what she said is true. Unless,’ she added, ‘she’s having a fling with him.’

‘Or he was the accomplice,’ said Dave cynically.

‘Perhaps she likes to show off her body,’ I suggested lamely.

‘But only if there’s a man around to admire her,’ responded Kate cuttingly. ‘You’re not going soft on her because she’s a good-looking bird, are you, guv?’

‘She’s not my type,’ I said. ‘Although I could understand a lot of men being taken in by her. Sharon Gregory is certainly a woman who oozes sex appeal.’

‘To repeat what I said before, in my opinion it’s a put-up job,’ said Kate. ‘I reckon that this intruder, if he exists at all, was an accomplice. And, as Dave said, it might’ve been Miller. I haven’t worked it out yet, but I reckon Sharon’s scared of this guy, whoever he is, in a different way than she expressed. But if that’s the case, what was the motive?’

‘The murder of Sharon Gregory’s husband,’ said Dave bluntly, as usual encapsulating a valid reason in a few words. ‘The classic elimination of one side of the eternal triangle.’

‘Maybe,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Let’s assume that the mysterious intruder is having an affair with Sharon and they jointly decided to get rid of boring old Clifford. But we’ll need a lot more evidence before we’ve got enough to arrest Sharon for conspiracy to murder. And it would be useful to know if she was cheating on her husband. And if so, with whom.’

‘There’s another thing,’ said Kate. ‘I had a look in the master bedroom and there wasn’t another robe in there. So the one Sharon was wearing wasn’t kept in the second bedroom. What’s more, there was a pair of trainers in the bottom of the wardrobe that were exactly the same as the Nikes that she said the intruder was wearing.’

‘The intruder wouldn’t have taken them off and put them in there, surely?’ I said.

‘No, but for want of a description, Sharon probably decided to describe her husband’s trainers just to bolster up her story.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ I said reflectively, ‘she’s lying, but I’ve yet to work out the reason.’

Leaving Kate to get DI Tom Watson’s account of what he’d found when he’d arrived to do his preliminary survey, Dave and I began a detailed examination of the downstairs rooms. The result was much the same in each: the place had been thoroughly ransacked. And the more I saw of it, the less I was convinced that it was a professional job.

The study on the ground floor was clearly where Clifford Gregory had worked. A state-of-the-art computer was on the workstation, along with all manner of hi-tech equipment – far more than seemed necessary for an accountant. A small filing cabinet stood next to it, but it appeared that Gregory had tried to keep paper to a minimum in his office. I don’t think our dear commander would have taken to him at all. It was mildly interesting that there were at least twenty model aeroplanes suspended from the ceiling, most of which were warplanes of the two world wars. I certainly spotted a Sopwith Camel and a German Fokker dreidecker among them.

‘Looks like Clifford Gregory’s into making model aircraft,’ said Dave, stating the obvious. ‘A bit of an anorak as well as a computer nerd, if that equipment of his is anything to go by.’

We finished touring the house, but learned little more that was likely to be of use to our investigation.

‘It seems very strange that this intruder took the place apart, Dave,’ I said once again, ‘but apparently only took the jewellery. And then left it in the garage.’