Bury in Haste (18 page)

Then he recalled the notice he’d seen in the file Jakes had borrowed to fool Bert Bunyard. If the county authority decided to lower the regulation height for police officers then Harry would qualify; his dream of joining the police force could finally come true.

Deepbriar opened his mouth to call the young man back, then he had second thoughts and closed it again. Time enough to share the good news when it was certain; it would be heartless to give the lad false hopes.

Somehow the episode with Harry had plunged Deepbriar back into gloom. He no longer felt any enthusiasm for the search, it all seemed pointless. Which is what it proved to be, because although he explored several miles of overgrown roads he found no further trace of the vehicle. As he faced the problem of getting his bike back through the gap in the fence his misery deepened. He decided he’d been chasing a red herring, and that the tracks would turn out to belong to some official Ministry car.

‘I thought Mary would be back by now,’ Mrs Emerson said tartly, standing in Deepbriar’s doorway, solid and immovable. Obviously she had no intention of leaving.

With an internal sigh Deepbriar attempted a smile and asked the woman if she would like to come in and wait, praying that she would refuse. Yet again that day he was to be disappointed. With a decisive nod she shouldered her way past him.

‘I know dear Mary will want to see me, I’ve been going through my libretti, and I’ve brought three for her to look at.’ She bustled through into the living-room with Deepbriar following disconsolately at her heels. ‘We have far too much talent to waste our time on Gilbert and Sullivan. Are you familiar with the works of Verdi? There’s one aria from
Aida
I simply adore. Let me sing you a few bars, I know you’ll recognise it.’

‘Oh no,’ Deepbriar said hurriedly; his day was going from bad to worse. ‘Not without warming your voice properly, don’t risk straining anything.’ He searched frantically for some subject to distract her. ‘Tell me, Mrs Emerson, was your husband keen on opera?’

She shook her head. ‘Poor Edgar, I’m afraid he wasn’t musical, although the dear man always encouraged me with my art.’ Her face took on what she obviously thought was a wistful expression and she leant towards the constable as if sharing a confidence. ‘I miss him, you know, Thorny. Life can be hard for a widow. One gets so lonely.’

‘But you have many good friends, I’m sure.’ This was barely better than listening to her singing. ‘You and Mr Emerson lived somewhere north of Belston, didn’t you?’ he asked.

‘At Overside,’ she said. ‘The manor house.’

Deepbriar nodded. He’d recognised the picture he’d seen on the wall when he and Inspector Stubbs had visited to ask about Bronc. ‘That’s a very beautiful old place. It must have been hard to leave.’

‘But it had to be done.’ She gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Overside Manor was our home for nearly twenty years. For me it holds too many memories. It’s never a good thing to cling to the past.’

Deepbriar nodded. ‘I’m sure you go back sometimes. It must be a comfort to go to the churchyard and know your Edgar is there, close to the home you shared.’ This, he thought, was safer ground; all the widows he knew attached great importance to the ritual of tending their departed husband’s grave.

Mrs Emerson’s face suddenly went a bright shade of pink, and her breathing seemed to be troubling her. Deepbriar looked at the woman in confusion.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, wondering if she was about to have a seizure.

‘No, of course not, I’m quite well, thank you. Whatever makes you think …’ The words tumbled out, as her plump face cycled rapidly through a range of emotions. After a moment she regained control and offered Deepbriar a wintry smile. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, it’s my artistic temperament. Talking about such things is so distressing. Ever since I was a child I’ve preferred not to dwell on unhappy events.’

She turned away from him and began rooting in the bag she’d brought. ‘Do let me sing a little of this aria for you,’ she gushed, ‘it won’t take me a moment to do some exercises and warm up my vocal chords …’

The sound of the back door opening had never been so welcome. ‘That will be Mary,’ Deepbriar said thankfully, ‘I’ll go and tell her you’re here.’ He made his escape, and a few minutes later was safely hidden in his office. It was only when he read the first paragraph of a new chapter of ‘
Mitch O’Hara and the Thousand Dollar Dame
’ for the third time, that he realised he couldn’t get the woman’s strange behaviour out of his mind. Mrs Emerson’s greatest pleasure in life was to talk about herself, and she happily dramatised the least little event in an attempt to appear more interesting, yet only now did it occur to Deepbriar, that in all the time he’d known her, she had never said one word about her husband’s death.

Later, joining his wife for lunch once their visitor had gone, he asked Mary about it.

‘Now you come to mention it, that is odd,’ Mary said. ‘Bella has told me every detail of her father’s last illness, she had to nurse him for nearly two years, you know, it was very hard on her, but she’s never told me much about Edgar. I expect it’s still too fresh in her mind.’

‘But it must be more than a year ago,’ Deepbriar said. ‘And most people love talking to you about their trials and tribulations, you’re such a good listener.’

‘Flatterer,’ she said, doling an extra spoonful of soup into his bowl. ‘I’m sure there’s some perfectly simple reason why she prefers not to talk about him.’

Back in his office an hour later, Deepbriar picked up the telephone, and dialled the number of the vicarage at Overside. It just happened that Father Gregory, the vicar there, had once done a spell as curate in Minecliff; he and Deepbriar shared an enthusiasm for church organ music, and it seemed like a good moment to get back in touch. After ten minutes of enjoyable reminiscences, Deepbriar came to the point, and was greeted by total silence at the other end of the line.

‘Father?’ he prompted, wondering if the connection had gone dead.

‘Yes, I’m here, Thorny. But do you know, I don’t think I can help you. Edgar Emerson isn’t buried in my churchyard, because he didn’t die in my parish.’

‘Didn’t he? But he was one of your parishioners?’

‘Oh yes, he was a regular churchgoer, more so than his wife. But he died in Peru.’

‘Peru?’ For a moment Deepbriar thought he must have misheard. ‘You did say Peru? South America?’

‘That’s right.’ Father Gregory sounded a little uneasy.

‘Did he travel a lot then?’

‘No. It was all a bit odd. The Emersons hadn’t been in church for a couple of weeks, and I hadn’t seen them in the village either, so I decided to call. Mrs Emerson answered the door herself, which was unusual, because they always kept a maid, even through the War, though then the girl was an evacuee. Anyway, I asked after Mr Emerson, and she stared at me in the most peculiar way, and then told me he was dead. Naturally I offered my condolences, and asked how and when it had happened. And that’s when she said he’d died in Peru. As far as I know neither of them had ever travelled abroad before, even during the War Mr Emerson had never been further away than Norfolk.’

‘So what did he die of?’ Deepbriar asked.

‘I never found out. To be honest I was so taken aback by the news that I rather failed in my duties as pastoral advisor. I was going away on a sabbatical a few days later, and by the time I returned the house was up for sale, and Bella Emerson was moving out. We spoke once or twice more, but I never did learn any more about the circumstances of her husband’s death. But you surely can’t think there was anything suspicious about it?’ Father Gregory gave an uneasy little laugh. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting that Bella is getting her widow’s pension under false pretences?’

‘No, of course not,’ Deepbriar said insincerely.

‘Of course, she always had a tendency for self-dramatization, and her singing voice is truly awful, but she’s an honest soul at heart.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Deepbriar replied. ‘Forget I asked, it isn’t important. Tell me, have you been to St Peter and St Paul’s at Possington since the restoration was finished? The organ sounds wonderful. That swell to great coupler …’

If there was something suspicious about the fate of Edgar Emerson, some mystery in Mrs Emerson’s strange reticence on the subject, the constable could think of no way to find out for the moment. There must be officials who dealt with deaths that occurred overseas, and doubtless on Monday he could track one of them down and discover the details of Edgar Emerson’s sudden demise, but for now, short of subjecting the man’s grieving widow to the third degree, he was stuck.

Deepbriar did his best to concentrate on the matter in hand. He tried to think how Mitch O’Hara might have tackled the problem of finding Bronc’s body, but much as he enjoyed reading about the detective’s exploits, when he considered the American’s methods he concluded that they depended very much on luck; any time O’Hara despaired of making any more progress, some previously unheard of character would turn up with exactly the piece of information he needed.

There was nothing wrong with a sizeable slice of good luck. With that in mind Deepbriar decided to patrol the village on foot, making himself available in case anyone had something useful to tell him.

It was a raw December Saturday, and very few of the villagers were out and about. With too much time for his thoughts to wander, Deepbriar’s ruminations returned to the subject of Edgar Emerson. Outside the shop he met Mr Harvey, a stalwart of the Amateur Operatic Society and one of Bella Emerson’s staunchest supporters. It had been he who discovered the absence of the fake plaster case when he helped check the props cupboard in the village hall.

‘Mrs Emerson called in to see us before lunch,’ he said, when Deepbriar brought her name into the conversation, ‘and I must say Mrs Harvey and I were a bit worried about her, she wasn’t her usual self at all. It’s not like our dear patroness to be so subdued, and she jumped like a cat when the postman knocked at the door. She said she’d been to see you and Mrs Deepbriar, I trust nothing happened to upset her?’

‘Not that I’m aware of,’ Deepbriar replied thoughtfully. Bella Emerson’s behaviour smacked strangely of a guilty conscience.

‘I don’t think she’s been the same since that business with the tramp,’ Mr Harvey went on. ‘It’s very unsettling, a thing like that. I mean, imagine, a murder happening in your back garden! It’s enough to make anyone nervous.’

‘Murder’s a serious business right enough,’ Deepbriar said stolidly, but his mind was jumping wildly to conclusions. Perhaps his earlier supposition was right, and they had a contract killer on their patch! Perhaps the Emerson’s marriage hadn’t been happy. Perhaps the idea of playing the part of the merry widow had persuaded Bella to take matters into her own hands.

‘C
onstable Deepbriar, I am so sorry, I tried to telephone you but the exchange couldn’t get through. I believe there was a fault on the line.’ Miss Lightfall wrung her hands together in an apologetic frenzy. ‘Coming all this way on such a cold morning, it’s so good of you, and finding it’s wasted.…’

‘I’m not needed then,’ Deepbriar said. He could hear the rich tones of the organ spilling through the open door of St Peter and St Paul’s, and it wasn’t Nicky Wilkins playing, because he was larking about with two other choirboys as they bundled through the vestry door. Possington had its organist back.

‘Mr Crimmon didn’t tell me until yesterday evening that he was fit to play,’ Miss Lightfall said, ‘it was rather naughty of him.’

‘Not to worry,’ Deepbriar said stolidly, ‘I’ll come in for the service, now I’m here. No point rushing to get back to Minecliff.’

‘So sorry,’ Miss Lightfall repeated, as Deepbriar followed her under the handsome Norman arch and in through the doorway. He sat in a pew at the very back of the church, positioning himself behind a pillar, where nobody would notice if he didn’t manage to stay awake during the sermon.

He’d not slept well, and when he’d finally dozed off he’d been plagued by vivid dreams, all of them unpleasant. In one nightmare it wasn’t Bronc who had had his throat cut, but Harry Bartle. The young man’s body lay in a pool of blood outside the NCO’s mess up at the abandoned airbase, while enemy aircraft circled high overhead. Deepbriar flinched as one aeroplane dived, but instead of dropping bombs it dropped a pig, which came hurtling towards him, squealing on a high monotonous note as it fell. He woke with a start, a split second before the animal hit him, to hear the kettle whistling in the kitchen. Mary was making tea.

Despite his fears Deepbriar didn’t sleep during the service. Father Michael’s sermon was short and to the point; he preached the virtues of love and truth, inviting prayers for the missing Bronc, and urging anyone with information about the mysterious goings on in Minecliff to talk to the police, or, if they felt that was impossible, to consult him. ‘God’s justice is certain,’ he said in conclusion, ‘but so too is his mercy.’

Father Michael stepped down from the pulpit and delivered a prayer, then with a shuffling of feet and clearing of throats the congregation rose for the final hymn. No sound came from the organ. Seconds dragged by. An uncomfortable silence descended but still the music didn’t start. As the pregnant pause dragged on, people began to fidget, until finally Father Michael coughed loudly, and said, ‘we will now sing hymn 256, “Come unto Me, ye weary, and I will give you rest.” Let us lift our voices together in praise of our Lord’s charity.’

A frantic rustle of paper could be heard from behind the curtain which screened Mr Crimmon from view; the resultant giggle from the boys in the choir was drowned as the organ’s rich harmonies filled the church.

Evidently wishing to make amends for his slip, Mr Crimmon played with more than usual gusto, and the congregation responded in kind, their singing echoing from the roof. From behind his pillar Deepbriar added his own full-throated bass, wondering if the Vicar’s appeal would bring any results.

As everyone filed out after the final blessing, the sound of the organ swelled to a new pitch, until it must surely have been audible in Minecliff. Deepbriar stayed where he was, sitting hidden in his pew, enjoying the great crashing ebb and flow of music echoing in the high roof. At last, long after the nave was empty, Mr Crimmon launched into the Adagio from Beethoven’s Pathetique, playing so poignantly that Deepbriar’s found himself almost moved to tears by the haunting theme, so different from the organist’s previous triumphal outpourings.

The last strains died away, leaving behind nothing but the drift of dust in the low shafts of winter sun that had crept in through the windows. Getting up and walking as silently as his size ten boots would allow, Deepbriar went to meet the organist as he stepped down from his high seat.

‘Mr Crimmon,’ he began.

The little man had a faraway look on his face, and coming suddenly upon the constable he stopped dead, his face blanching deathly white. ‘Ohh.’ The breath escaped from Crimmon’s lungs as if he’d been punched, and he seemed to shrink.

‘I’m sorry,’ Deepbriar said, finding it hard not to laugh at the man’s total confusion, ‘it’s lucky you’re not the criminal type or I’d think you were suffering from a guilty conscience, Mr Crimmon. It’s not surprising you were still lost in the music. I had to come and tell you how much I enjoyed your playing. I’ve never made any instrument sound the way you did this morning.’

‘Wha-a-a.’ Crimmon swallowed hard and managed to pull his wits together, although he still seemed distracted, his gaze wandering to the rank of pipes above their heads. ‘Some things,’ he said at last, ‘are more important than others, don’t you agree?’

‘Well, yes,’ Deepbriar said, though he had no idea what Crimmon was talking about.

‘This organ,’ Crimmon went on, nodding to himself with an air of satisfaction, ‘will go on playing beautiful music long after I’m gone.’

Father Michael came from the vestry then, and Crimmon gave him a vague smile and hurried away, hugging his music to his chest as if it were a buffer against the cares of the world.

‘Is he all right?’ the vicar asked. ‘I’ve never known Mr Crimmon to sleep during my sermon before.’

‘Maybe he wasn’t asleep,’ Deepbriar replied thoughtfully.

Monday morning found Deepbriar sitting in the magistrate’s court, waiting for Bert Bunyard’s case to be called. Jakes had spoken to him briefly when he reported to the police station. The sergeant told him he was going to visit the estate agent who had written to Tony Pattridge about the sale of Low Rooking Garage, to find out if the missing man had turned up for his appointment, and if he was considered to be a serious buyer.

Compared to spending hours hanging about in the stuffy courthouse, Deepbriar thought that Jakes’s morning sounded pretty exciting, and he was fighting to stay awake by the time the name of Albert Horatio Bunyard was finally read out, followed by the long list of charges. After some deliberation the magistrate ordered Bert to be tried at the Quarter Sessions, and declared himself ready to set bail for his release in the meantime, providing the police had no objection.

‘If the defendant agrees not to enter any property belonging to Ferdinand Quinn, nor to approach Ferdinand Quinn, as a condition of bail,’ Deepbriar said, ‘we would have no objection, Your Honour.’

‘You hear what the constable says, Bunyard?’ The magistrate stared over his spectacles at the man in the dock. ‘Will you promise not to molest Mr Quinn, or to trespass upon his property?’

There was an indistinct mumble from Bunyard, then a grudging agreement, though he had to be prompted by the clerk of the court to address the magistrate with proper respect.

‘Very well. Released on bail, on a recognisance of five pounds.’

Deepbriar made his escape, thankful that he had no more cases coming up. As he descended the steps outside the court he met Jakes coming the other way. ‘That’s good,’ the sergeant said breathlessly, ‘I thought I might have to come in and fetch you.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’ Deepbriar asked, his earlier lethargy forgotten.

‘There’s been a tramp seen in Derling, and the woman who telephoned us thought it might be Bronc. I didn’t want to go without you, it’s not easy to identify a person you’ve never even seen. That’s the trouble with tramps, nobody takes their photograph. Come on, I’ve got a car. It’s a bit of luck this flu, they don’t often let me drive.’

Not bothering to point out that the simplest way to identify a living human being was to ask them their name, Deepbriar followed the younger man, and folded himself into the front passenger seat of the police car. Jakes drove far too fast for the constable’s comfort; after one glance at the speedometer to see that it read fifty five miles an hour, he kept his gaze firmly fixed on the road, while his mind veered between prayer and trying to figure out how likely it was that Bronc would leave two coats and his hat in Minecliff, not to mention a couple of pints of blood, before travelling to a village some twenty miles away.

Opening his eyes again just in time to see Jakes take a blind bend on the wrong side of the road, Deepbriar decided he needed something more concrete to divert his mind from the possibility of his imminent demise. ‘What did the estate agent say?’ he asked.

‘Pattridge turned up for the appointment. And he was keen to buy. He was due to call at the agent’s office the following Monday with the deposit. Needless to say he didn’t turn up. The agent wrote to him, but the letter was returned with “gone away” on it. Low Rooking Garage was sold to somebody else about three months later. It’s a dead end, but it’s yet another piece of evidence that suggests something untoward happened to young Mr Pattridge.’

‘Three men can’t just vanish,’ Deepbriar said.

‘It looks increasingly likely that they did. While I was in town I called on another of Joseph Spraggs’s old chums. He was a bit more wary of naming names than Mrs Spraggs, but I got the impression he wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Sylvester Rudge had something to do with Joseph’s disappearing act. Though like Ted Cosgough, he was inclined to the view that Rudge wasn’t likely to resort to murder.’

‘Rudge himself wasn’t around the day Spraggs went missing. That might make a difference. It would be murder at one remove, so to speak.’ They went speeding through a village and zipped across the arterial road. ‘Didn’t you see the lights?’ Deepbriar asked, wondering if his new-found career with the CID would survive if he gave his superior officer a caution for dangerous driving.

‘On amber,’ Jakes replied cheerfully. ‘Proceed with caution, constable.’

There was nothing of caution in Jakes’s driving, but they were only half a mile from Derling by this time, so Deepbriar gritted his teeth and kept silent.

‘We’re looking for Mrs Marshall at Derling Grange Farm,’ Jakes said, as the village green flashed by. ‘Any idea where it is?’

‘You just passed it,’ Deepbriar said. ‘On the left.’

Taking advantage of a side turning, the sergeant wrenched the car round with a squeal of brakes, and headed back the way he’d come. ‘Neat, eh?’ he asked, grinning. ‘I don’t often get behind the wheel of one of these. Stubbs prefers to use a driver from the pool; he says it’s easier for us to work on the case if we don’t have to concentrate on the road.’

Stubbs, Deepbriar decided, was a diplomat, and a sensible man.

Mrs Marshall, a plump woman dressed in a stockman’s coat tied around the waist with string, and with her head swathed in a woollen head square, told them she had seen the tramp that morning as she brought her cows in for milking. ‘I’m not absolutely sure it was Bronc.’ she said, with a sidelong look at Deepbriar’s uniform, worn that morning because of his appearance in court. ‘But I’d heard the police were looking for him, so I telephoned the police station as soon as I got back inside.’

‘Exactly where did you see him?’ Jakes asked.

She answered with a question of her own. ‘You’re not going to arrest him, are you?’

‘No, but we hope he might be able to help us with our enquiries,’ Jakes said.

‘It’s nothing he’s done,’ Deepbriar explained, seeing the woman was still hesitant. ‘He’s needed as a witness.’

‘Oh, that’s all right then. I remember old Bronc coming through here when I was a little girl, I wouldn’t want to get him into trouble.’ She pointed to a small patch of trees on a nearby hill. ‘He was on the track up there. It goes over the top and down on to the Polthrup Road. There’s a café, where the lorry drivers go, and there’s usually somebody who’s prepared to buy a cup of tea for a tramp. At this time of year with the weather being so cold, I’d guess that’s where he’d be heading.’

Jakes turned the car around in the farm yard. ‘Which way?’

‘To the right.’ Deepbriar instructed. Suddenly inspired, he added, ‘I don’t know the roads that well, you’ll need to go slow or we’ll miss the turn.’

The ABC Café lay on the junction of the Polthrup Road and the new arterial road; an ideal spot to attract the passing trade. Through the haze of steam and cigarette smoke inside, the two officers inspected the clientele. Two lorry drivers sat hunched over plates of sausage and mash, while a man in a grubby trilby and a brown mac sat by the window nursing a large mug; a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string lay on the seat at his side.

‘That’s not him,’ Deepbriar said, disappointed; somehow he’d hoped, against all the odds, that this might be Bronc, alive and well. ‘That’s Digger Biggins.’

The tramp looked up as the two policemen approached, and gave Deepbriar a toothless smile. ‘Howdo, constable. What brings you so far from home?’

‘What now?’ Deepbriar asked, surreptitiously easing his belt out a hole. They were heading back to Falbrough, having made the best of a bad job by inviting an overjoyed Digger to join them for a plateful of the ABC’s choicest offering of sausage, eggs, bacon and fried bread, washed down with plentiful amounts of strong tea.

‘Blowed if I know.’ Jakes was despondent. ‘Let’s face it, we’ve got nowhere. We’re looking for Bronc because he just might know something about the abduction of Joe Spraggs, which just might be linked to what happened to Joseph. That case in turn bears some similarity to the disappearance of Tony Pattridge, who vanished nearly a year ago. All we’ve done is add more mysteries to the ones we already had. We think Sylvester Rudge could be involved, but apart from a few rumours, we’ve only Mrs Spraggs’s word for that.’ He shook his head. ‘Inspector Stubbs isn’t going to be impressed.’

‘He’s not back until Wednesday,’ Deepbriar said consolingly.

‘But that’s only two days. And we still haven’t got hold of the key to the airbase. I managed to speak to somebody at the Ministry this morning. They’re waiting for the man who knows who the key holder is, but he won’t be back in town until tomorrow night.’ They had almost reached Falbrough. With sudden decision Jakes turned off towards Minecliff. ‘There’s no point waiting, we’ll go in through the fence and take another look around. I came prepared this time, I’ve got some wellingtons in the back.’