Fate Worse Than Death (23 page)

‘One's an earth closet, in current use,' said Hilary with wry recollection. ‘There's also an old wash-house that hasn't been used in years. But next door to the loo is a large shed with a strong door, and it's piled high with sawn logs. The area between the back door of the lodge and the outbuildings is well-trodden, dusty grass. The rest of the garden's waist-high with vegetation, and a new path has been beaten through it during the past day or two, leading direct from the garden gate to the shed. There are the marks of a wheelbarrow along the path, and pieces of bark and dribbles of sawdust. So Charley Horrocks has just taken delivery of a load of firewood. And what I'm wondering is whether he acquired it in a deliberate attempt to prevent us from searching the shed.'

‘That's an interesting thought,' said Quantrill. ‘Yes, the man could have held Sandra there … either on his own account, or on behalf of the group. The whole place is isolated enough, and it might have suited their purpose very well.'

‘Before we get too hopeful, though,' said Hilary, ‘I'd better find out exactly when the logs were ordered and delivered. There's a local woodman, Christopher Thorold, who's making deliveries in the village this week. I'll go and talk to him.'

‘Better make that your next job,' Quantrill agreed. ‘As soon as we've had a cup of tea.' He mopped his forehead with one of the large white handkerchiefs that his wife always laundered so immaculately. Hilary, he observed, still managed to look admirably cool; he hoped that she wasn't offended by the increasing dampness of his shirt. ‘And while you're with the woodman, I want to talk to the remaining two members of the Flintknappers Arms mob. What do we know about them?'

‘Stan Bolderow and Reg Osler – they're local men, and on the face of it they haven't much in common with Goodwin and Braithwaite and Horrocks. They call themselves agricultural contractors, but that sounds like a delusion of grandeur. They seem to be spending most of their time in the harvested fields, burning straw.'

‘Hmm. They call themselves contractors because they're self-employed,' said Quantrill. ‘And that's probably what they have in common with the other three. They're all either self-employed or not employed at all, so they can organize their time as they like. And they can spend far longer in the pub than ordinary mortals. The five of them have probably been looking for ways to pass the time, and taking bets on some enterprise or other.'

‘Such as abducting Sandra Websdell? Yes, I can see that's how it might have happened. Any one of them would have been able to keep her supplied with food and water … Though with what ultimate purpose –'

‘God knows,' Quantrill agreed. ‘Look, Hilary, the Flintknappers Arms seems to be central to this enquiry, doesn't it? We need to know what's been going on there – or what's still going on, come to that. Trouble is, the pub's so small and Fodderstone's so isolated that I can't send a plainclothes man in for a drink without arousing immediate suspicion.'

‘No need for that,' said Sergeant Lloyd. ‘The landlord's wife is worried sick, and longing for someone to talk to. I thought I'd leave her to agonize over the situation tonight, and then call on her for a heart-to-heart tomorrow morning. She'll probably go on trying to protect her husband, but I shouldn't be surprised if she's only too glad to shop the other four.'

Martin Tait had had enough of Fodderstone.

Ordinarily, with his aeroplane to fly and with a local murder to investigate – with or without the permission of the detective in charge – he would have been in his element. But his leave had turned sour. First there had been the row with Alison; then there had been the row with his aunt. Now Alison's father, the Chief Inspector, was being pig-headed and obstructive every time Martin made a suggestion about the murder enquiry. And although flying was as stimulating as ever, it was cripplingly expensive.

And that – the problem of having too little money, while his aunt was proposing to deny him his rightful share of her estate – was what had ruined his leave. But it wasn't going to ruin his whole life, not if he could help it.

There was nothing more to be gained, though, by hanging about Fodderstone Green. Being forgiving and gentle and affectionate didn't come naturally to Martin Tait, and he was afraid that if he stayed much longer he might spoil the act. Better to make some excuse for returning to Yarchester immediately, so that he could leave Aunt Con with an indelible impression of his niceness …

He still had one unfinished piece of business to attend to, however. He had reluctantly promised the Chief Inspector that he would call on Annabel Yardley to find out whether her Hooray Henry friends had made any mention of kidnapping a garden gnome. Having been seen off by Annabel yesterday with a flea in his ear, his inclination had been to send someone else to make the enquiry – DC Bedford, for example, a keen and innocent lad to whom it wouldn't occur that an inspector of the regional crime squad, currently on leave, had no authority to send him anywhere.

But on reflection Martin Tait had decided that he would make the enquiry himself. Now that he knew better than to lust after Annabel Yardley, it would be no bad thing to meet her again in his official capacity, and then re-establish his pride by walking out of her life in his own good time.

He had already been to Beech House that morning in the hope of seeing her, but she was not at home. He would try again this afternoon, on his way back to Yarchester.

‘Must you really go so soon, Martin?' His aunt, returning from a conversation over the garden fence with Geoff Websdell to find her nephew already packed, took the news like a blow. She sat down abruptly, her long narrow face drawn as though with shock. ‘But your leave isn't half over.'

‘That's what I told the regional crime squad co-ordinator when he rang to recall me. But as he pointed out, the job always takes priority. I'm really sorry that I can't stay – it's been extremely kind of you to put up with me, Aunt Con, and I've enjoyed my visit.'

‘I'm sorry you're going, too,' she said, moving her lips as though with difficulty. Her eyes had a distant, bleak focus. ‘I'd expected just a few more days …'

‘Is there something you wanted me to do?' he asked, puzzled. His aunt had been so preoccupied with the Websdells'bereavement that he'd sometimes wondered whether she knew he was there.

‘No, no.' Con stood up, resuming her bright voice, and gave him her lop-sided smile. ‘You've already helped me tremendously, and I'm jolly grateful to you. Of course your work must come first.' She paused, and then burst out, embarrassed, ‘I'm so pleased that you're doing so well in your career. Your father would have been very proud of you.
I'm
awfully proud of you, too. I want you to know that.'

She had a fine way of showing it, he thought bitterly. But he gave her a charming smile, thanked her, and changed the subject by enquiring after her neighbour.

Beryl, Con reported – half wry, half envious – was so high on religious faith that she was practically floating. Her relatives, coming to give her their support, had found themselves superfluous; particularly as Marjorie Braithwaite had taken it upon herself to organize everything and everyone.

‘It's Geoff I feel saddest for. He doesn't say much, but he feels Sandra's death deeply. It'll hit Beryl later … but she'll cope, I'm sure.'

Con paused, frowning. ‘I think I was able to help her through yesterday evening, though.' She spoke with a wistful uncertainty, as though she wanted some reassurance. ‘Beryl's been a very good, kind neighbour, and I'd like to think that I did the right thing.'

‘I'm sure you did, Aunt Con. Look, I hate to rush off, but –'

‘I know. I won't keep you, old chap. Oh – you've taken the loot, I hope? The family silver, and the other things I gave you? I left them in your room, boxed for the journey.'

‘Of course I haven't taken them!' Martin protested warmly. It was part of his plan, to leave her gifts behind – temporarily – as evidence that he was not a grasper. ‘I wouldn't dream of removing them without your permission. I can pick them up next time I come.'

‘But don't you
see
,' Con burst out, ‘that's the whole
point
.' She sounded tired and irritated. ‘I don't expect to be here much longer, and if you're going now you must take them with you. I want to be absolutely sure you've got them.'

Martin soothed her, took possession of the valuables without reluctance, and loaded them into his Alfa.

‘And don't forget the sampler,' said Con, her irritation forgotten. She had wrapped it, in its rosewood frame, in a dust sheet, and now she carried it out to her nephew's car. Placing it carefully beside her other gifts, she moved aside the protective cloth for a final look at ten-year-old Maria Bethell's stitch-work: the blossoming boughs, the cats, the dogs, the birds, the hearts, the cupids.

‘I'm so glad you're having all the family treasures, Martin,' she said. ‘I know you'll look after them – and in time, I hope, hand them on to your own children.'

He nodded his agreement as the image of Alison Quantrill – the dark-haired, green-eyed girl who would so love the sampler – filled his mind's eye. As his young ancestress's verse reminded him,
Now in the heat of youthful blood
–

But Alison was no longer his girl-friend. In fact – dismissing her image and visualizing instead Annabel Yardley, with her air of superiority and her questionable cold sore – he'd temporarily gone off women altogether. As for Aunt Constance Schultz and the ‘family treasures'that she was bestowing on him so munificently, all they amounted to were a few scratched pieces of silver and a faded bit of needlework. Total value no more than £2,000 … while the real family treasure, the money that should have been his, was being given away.

But not if he could help it.

‘Aunt Con,' he began, embarking formally on his major, carefully prepared speech, ‘you've always been extremely good to me –'

But she wasn't listening. To his confusion she suddenly lurched forward and gripped his shoulders in a strong embrace, pressing her soft-skinned old cheek for a moment against his.

‘Bless you, dear boy,' she muttered in his ear, her voice strangely hoarse. Then she turned and galloped away, up the long garden path and under the arching sprays of the fragrant pink Zephirine Drouhin rose that climbed over the knapped-flint walls of number 9 Fodderstone Green. And shut the door on him.

The mobile police incident room had stood in the centre of Fodderstone village all day. Noticeboards with blown-up photographs of the dead girl and the message
When did you last see Sandra Websdell?
had been placed conspicuously in the single main street, and also on Fodderstone Green. Shirt-sleeved policemen trod through the village trying to look friendly and approachable under their helmets; but all to no effect. Passers-by passed resolutely by, and not one person offered any scrap of new information. As the Chief Inspector had predicted, the inhabitants of the isolated village had closed ranks.

Refreshed by longed-for cups of tea (provided by the balding constable with the unsociable socks, who observed with tolerant amusement that beer no longer seemed to be the DCI's favourite thirst-quencher, now that Sergeant Lloyd was working with him) the two detectives sat in the incident room under Hilary's electric fan and read the latest reports.

Desmond Flood had been eliminated. His prematurely white-haired good looks were memorable, and a Saintsbury woman who travelled regularly to London had recalled that he was a fellow-passenger on the Tuesday afternoon coach. At the time of Sandra's death he would have been passing through East London, somewhere between Whitechapel and Aldgate.

No fingerprints had been found on the Websdell's itinerant garden gnome. This was not surprising, as the wife of the landlord of the Flintknappers Arms had admitted to scrubbing the gnome clean after it had been found in a ditch beside the Horkey road. Mrs Goodwin had asserted that she had done the scrubbing entirely for the benefit of Beryl Websdell. The detectives, remembering the way Lois Goodwin had lied in support of her husband, put another question-mark against her name. They also, in view of the fact that Inspector Tait had just rung in to report that Annabel Yardley knew nothing about any gnome-napping expeditions by her weekend guests, put another question-mark against the gnome.

The forensic lab had reported that the fragment of twig found on the dead girl originated from an apple tree. There was an apple tree, Hilary recalled, in Charley Horrocks's overgrown garden. But then, as Quantrill tetchily pointed out, there were apple trees in almost every garden in the village; and an orchard of them at the back of the Flintknappers Arms.

Another report concerned Sandra Websdell's car. The only usable fingerprints on it were her own. But what had been found inside the vehicle was a scattering of sawdust, most of it on and immediately in front of the driver's seat, but some on the back seat as well. The sawdust was similar to that found on the girl's clothing: hardwood sawdust, coarsely cut, of the kind produced by a hand-held chainsaw.

‘Now this is interesting,' said Quantrill. ‘When we first heard about the sawdust on her clothes we assumed that she must have been lying on the ground, either immediately before or just after her death, at a spot where tree-felling had taken place. But the car has been hidden in the forest, untouched, ever since the girl was abducted. And from the distribution of the sawdust, it looks as though whoever abducted her could have been carrying it on his own clothes.'

‘As a kind of occupational accumulation, do you mean?' asked Hilary. ‘That suggests a forester. When I first went to the Websdells, the husband got a scolding from his wife for coming home from work and dripping sawdust over the floor.'