A Death Left Hanging (17 page)

‘I . . . er . . . I think Philip may be giving you the wrong impression,' Bliss told Rutter.

‘Are you saying there was no snobbery at Simcaster Grammar?' the inspector asked.

‘Oh, there was snobbery all right,' Bliss said. ‘Not that we'd have seen it in quite
those terms
before the First World War.'

‘Then how would you have seen it?'

‘As part of a social order in which everyone knew his place and stayed in it. You know how the hymn goes – “The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high or lowly, And order'd their estate.” That was pretty much the accepted wisdom in those days. But that's not the point.'

‘Then what is?'

‘It wasn't just a matter of class. We did, eventually, learn to accept some of the boys from more humble origins. And if they never quite became our “friends”, then they were, at least, our “close acquaintances”. But Fred Dodds would never have qualified for either of those titles – not even if he'd been
born
with a silver spoon in his mouth.'

‘And why might that be?' Rutter asked.

‘Because he was a freak,' Alfred Potter said. ‘You must have known boys like him in your own schooldays – boys who stood out as being different, and were shunned by most of their contemporaries.'

Rutter thought back to his school, which, while it had not been as exclusive as ‘Simmie', had at least been a grammar.

‘Yes, there were a few of them,' he admitted. ‘Usually, it was the ones who were no good at games. Was that Fred Dodds' problem?'

‘By no means,' Bliss said. ‘He was never what you'd call a team player, but he was quite an exceptional athlete – won the hurdles championship for three years running.'

‘So what was wrong with him?'

‘It's difficult to put one's finger on, especially after all these years,' Bliss admitted. ‘I think it would be fair to say that he shunned us almost as much we shunned him. He never really tried to fit in – never aspired to be like the rest of us. He seemed quite content to spend all his time with Sidney Hill.'

‘Who was he?' Rutter asked.

‘Another freak,' Alfred Potter replied.

‘And was he from the “wrong” social background, too?'

‘No, as a matter of fact, his background was highly acceptable,' Potter said. ‘His father was a rural dean. I believe, in fact, that he was elevated to a bishopric in the end.'

‘So what drew Dodds and Sidney Hill together?'

‘Again, it's very difficult to put a finger on that,' Bliss said. ‘They seemed to share an interest – though it wasn't anything as commonplace as trainspotting or butterfly collecting.'

‘Then what was it?'

‘I don't know. But it certainly had to be
something
. They were always whispering conspiratorially to each other, you see. And even when the rest of us could hear what they were saying, we never seemed to understand them as well as they understood each other. It was almost as if they'd turned English into their own secret language – as if they'd given all the words a different meaning.'

‘What about girlfriends?' Rutter asked.

Bliss chuckled, as if at a fond memory. ‘None of us was what you'd exactly call “advanced” for our age. I suppose that came from attending an all-boys school. Even so, by the time we were fifteen we could all feel the sap rising in our loins. But not those two. Not Fred and Sidney. They'd turn up when the school organized a joint dance with Lady Margaret's College, but they'd show absolutely no interest at all in the “tottie”.'

‘Perhaps they were both . . . er . . .'

‘Queers? Poofs? Bum bandits?' Dr Stokes supplied.

Rutter looked at him with dislike. ‘Not being a medical man like yourself, I don't know all the scientific terms you have at your command,' he said. ‘So to put it in simple, layman's terms, I was wondering if they might have been homosexuals.'

‘Not a chance of that,' Bliss said firmly.

‘How can you be so sure?'

The solicitor squirmed a little in his leather seat. ‘Well, you can always tell, can't you?'

‘No,' Rutter replied. ‘You can't.'

Bliss exchanged a quick glance with the other two. ‘We have a friend,' he said tentatively. ‘Very nice chap indeed, and one of the driving forces behind the Lodge. He's been taking medication for his condition for over forty years, and I must say, it seems to have worked a treat.'

Woodend would have said, ‘So a poof's all right is he – as long as he's also a Mason?'

Rutter said, ‘If I understand you correctly, this friend of yours is, or was, a homosexual.'

‘
Was
. Definitely
was
,' Bliss replied. ‘In fact, I'm not sure he ever
practised
it at all. Just had a tendency towards it. No more than that.'

Woodend was right about the Masons, Rutter thought – a funny handshake excused a multitude of sins.

‘How does this friend of yours fit into this conversation?' he asked.

‘Can't you work it out for yourself?' Dr Stokes demanded.

‘Possibly. But I'd prefer to hear it from you.'

‘All right. If you must,' Bliss said resignedly. ‘This friend of ours didn't think that either Dodds or Hill were homosexual.'

‘That's scarcely what I'd call proof,' Rutter said.

‘They can spot each other a mile away,' Alfred Potter said. ‘That's the way they are.'

Rutter nodded, as if what they were saying made perfect logical sense. Then, when he saw the looks of mild relief on their faces, he said casually, ‘You're holding something back, aren't you?'

Bliss sighed. ‘When this person we were speaking of decided to take the cure, he gathered all his friends together.'

‘In the Lodge?' Rutter guessed.

‘As a matter of fact, I think it was. Anyway, he said that some of us may have had our suspicions about him and others may have not, but he wanted to make a clean slate of it before all of us – to confess everything.'

‘And that's when Hill and Dodds came up?'

‘That's right. He said that towards the end of our school days, he'd approached both of them separately. Dodds punched him on the nose, and when Hill had finally understood what he was talking about, he was physically sick. Does that satisfy you?'

‘More than it seems to have satisfied them,' said Rutter, allowing himself one small Woodendesque comment. ‘I'd like to talk to this Sidney Hall. Does any of you know where I might find him?'

Dr Stokes smirked. ‘You could try St Jude's churchyard,' he suggested.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘He threw himself under the wheels of the Simcaster to Manchester express train. That would be in 1915, I think.'

‘1916,' Potter corrected him.

‘Whatever the date, he's been as dead as they get for well over forty years.'

‘Does any of you know
why
he committed suicide?' Rutter asked.

‘He was a freak,' Dr Stokes said. ‘That's exactly the kind of thing that freaks do.'

Bliss gave his friend a reproachful look. ‘I remember reading in the paper that it was something a mystery,' he said. ‘There was certainly no suicide note, if memory serves.'

‘Did any of you have any business dealings with Fred Dodds after you'd all left school?' Rutter asked, changing tack.

‘Are you asking if we bought our coal from him?' Dr Stokes said, after draining most of a large whisky in one swallow. ‘If I did, I really can't remember.'

It would almost be worth going back into uniform – if it gave him a chance to arrest Stokes for drunk-driving, Rutter thought.

‘I wasn't asking if you had any dealings with him while he was still a coalman,' he explained. ‘I meant after that. When Dodds and his partner, Mr Cuthburtson, ran the Peninsula Trading Company over in Whitebridge.'

Stokes and Potter immediately shook their heads.

‘What about you, Mr Bliss?' Rutter asked. ‘Didn't you do any legal work for him when he was setting up his business?'

‘As far as I can recall, Fred always used the same lawyer as his father had done,' Bliss said. ‘Todd Danby, his name was. Used to have his offices on Church Street. He's dead now, of course.'

That was the trouble with this case, Rutter thought. So many people who had been involved with it were dead now.

‘Yes, he was a wily old bird, was Todd,' Bliss said, the look in his eyes taking him back to an earlier age. ‘Taught me a thing or two when I was starting out. Nobody could tie up a contract as tightly as Todd Danby. Once he'd worked on it, you could study it for a year, and still not find a loophole. And he certainly did a good job of keeping Fred Dodds out of gaol.'

‘He did
what
?' Rutter asked.

‘Kept Fred Dodds out of gaol.'

‘And why should Fred have gone to gaol in the first place?'

‘Because in a case of that nature, the next-of-kin is usually the most obvious suspect.'

‘In a case of
what
nature?' Rutter asked exasperatedly.

Bliss looked at him oddly. ‘You mean, you really don't know what I'm talking about?'

‘I should have thought that was obvious!'

‘I see,' Bliss said. ‘Well, I must say that, since you're looking into Fred Dodds' murder, I am quite surprised that you don't already know that his father was murdered as well.'

‘When was this?'

‘1921? 1922? Just before Freddie sold the coal yard and set himself up as Peninsula Trading.'

‘And was someone eventually arrested for the murder of his father?'

‘No. As I said, the police might, or might not have suspected Fred – I definitely would have in their place – but they certainly couldn't prove anything, and he inherited the whole of his father's estate. I really think someone should have told you all this before, you know – especially considering the way that Freddie's father died?'

‘And how did he die?' Rutter asked – though he thought he probably already knew the answer.

‘His head was smashed in,' Bliss said. ‘With a coal hammer.'

S
o this was one of the places where Margaret Dodds had rested for a while on her journey from birth to the gallows, Paniatowski thought, looking up at the vicarage that stood in splendid isolation on the edge of the village of Blakebrook.

The vicarage was large, and probably extremely draughty – especially when the wind was blowing in from across the moors. It had been built at a different time, to meet a different set of needs. Thus, there were gable windows in the roof, which would allow a little light to permeate into the servants' cramped attic bedrooms. Thus, there was a driveway wide enough to permit two coaches to pass each other, and a stable block where the horses had been housed. And thus – since both the coach and the servant belonged to the past – it was now up for auction and would probably eventually be converted into rural-holiday flats.

If Rutter had been there with her, Paniatowski would probably have commented that the vicarage seemed an unlikely nursery from which to grow a full-blown nymphomaniac like Margaret Dodds. It would have been a mistake to say it, but she would have said it anyway, because scoring points off the inspector was rapidly becoming her main aim in life.

‘My judgement's shot,' she murmured softly to herself. ‘My bloody judgement's shot.'

‘What was that you said, my dear?' asked a thin voice to her left. ‘I didn't quite catch it, you see. My brain's as sharp as it's ever been, but my ears are starting to let me down.'

Paniatowski turned her head, to face the little old woman who was standing next to her.

‘Sorry, Mrs Trotwood,' she said. ‘I was just thinking out loud.'

The old woman smiled. ‘You can afford to at your age,' she said. ‘Whereas if
I
started doing it, people would just assume I'd gone batty.'

Clara Trotwood reminded her in many ways of Mrs Fortesque, Paniatowski thought, and wondered – for perhaps the hundredth time – just what the question was which she should have asked the major's wife.

‘You said you started working here as a kitchen maid, didn't you?' she asked the old woman.

‘That's right,' Clara Trotwood agreed. ‘I was twelve years old at the time, and so, naturally, I started at the very bottom of the ladder. But I didn't stay there for long!'

Her accent was not local, and certainly not natural to the class she had been born into, Paniatowski decided. She had acquired it – perhaps deliberately, perhaps accidentally – during her long years of service at the vicarage. She had probably learned a great many other things as well, the sergeant guessed, because even now Clara looked like a woman set on self-improvement.

‘By the time Mr Jeffries, Margaret's father, took over the living, I was in my mid-twenties and had already been the housekeeper for nearly two years,' Clara Trotwood continued.

‘How old was Margaret when the family moved here?'

‘She was seven.'

‘You don't happen to know where Mr Jeffries' previous parish was, do you?'

‘There hadn't
been
a previous parish. Mr Jeffries was what was called a “late entrant” into the clergy. He was considerably older than his wife, and before he'd got the call to the priesthood he worked in a big merchant bank in the centre of Manchester.'

‘Were the family happy here, do you think?'

‘Mr Jeffries
could
have been.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘I mean that he was very enthusiastic about his new vocation. I'm not saying it was easy for him at first, mind – folk round here were naturally suspicious of anybody who'd been contaminated by living in the big city. And it didn't help that Mr Jeffries' posh accent made him sound as if he was talking with a plum in his mouth. But it didn't take the people of Blakebrook long to realize that there was no side to him – that he really did care about his duties. And in the end, his past even started working for him, instead of against him.'