Magpie Murders (14 page)

‘What is the matter with you?’ she demanded. ‘You’re like a bear with a sore head today. And that’s your fourth cigarette. Why don’t you go out and get some fresh air?’

‘I don’t want to go out,’ Johnny said, moodily.

‘What’s wrong?’

Johnny stubbed out his cigarette in a Royal Doulton ashtray shaped like a cow and priced at six shillings. ‘What do you think?’ he snapped.

‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.’

‘Sir Magnus Pye! That’s what’s wrong.’ He stared at the smoke still rising from the twisted cigarette butt. ‘Why did someone have to go and murder him? Now we’ve got the police in the village, knocking on doors, asking questions. They’ll be here soon enough.’

‘What does it matter? They can ask us anything they want.’ There was a fractional pause, long enough to make itself felt. ‘Can’t they?’

‘Of course they can.’

She examined him, a sharp look in her eye. ‘You haven’t been up to anything, have you, Johnny?’

‘What are you talking about?’ There was a wounded tone in his voice. ‘Why do you even ask that? Of course I haven’t been up to anything. What could I possibly get up to, stuck out here in the sticks?’ It was the old argument: city versus countryside, Saxby versus almost anywhere else in the world. They’d had it often enough. But even as he spoke the words, he was remembering how Mary Blakiston had confronted him all too recently in this very building, how much she had known about him. She had died suddenly and so had Sir Magnus, both of them within two weeks of each other. That wasn’t a coincidence and the police certainly wouldn’t think so. Johnny knew how they worked. They would already be drawing up files, looking at everyone who lived in the neighbourhood. It wouldn’t be too long before they came after him.

Gemma walked over and sat down next to him, laying a hand on his arm. Although she was so much smaller than him, so much frailer, she was the one with the strength and they both knew it. She had stood by him when they’d had their troubles in London. She had written to him every week, long letters full of optimism and good cheer, when he was ‘away’. And when he had finally come home, it had been her decision that had brought them to Saxby-on-Avon. She had seen the antique shop advertised in a magazine and had thought it would allow Johnny to maintain some of the practices of his old life whilst providing a stable, honest basis for the new.

Leaving London had not been easy, especially for a boy who had lived his whole life within earshot of the Bow Bells, but Johnny had seen the sense of it and had reluctantly gone along with it. But she knew that he had been diminished by it. Loud, cheerful, trusting, irascible Johnny Whitehead could never be completely at home in a community where everyone was being endlessly judged and where disapproval could mean total ostracism. Had it been wrong of her to bring him here? She still allowed him trips back to the city although they always made her nervous. She didn’t ask him what he got up to and he didn’t tell her. But this time it was different. He had been there only a few days earlier. Could that visit possibly be connected with what had happened?

‘What did you do in London?’ she asked.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I was just wondering.’

‘I saw some of the blokes – Derek and Colin. We had lunch, a few drinks. You should have come.’

‘You wouldn’t want me there.’

‘They asked after you. I went past the old house. It’s flats now. It made me think. We had a lot of happy times there, you and me.’ Johnny patted the back of his wife’s hand, noticing how thin it had become. The older she got, the less of her there seemed to be.

‘I’ve had enough of London for one lifetime, Johnny.’ She withdrew her hand. ‘And as for Derek and Colin, they were never your friends. They didn’t stand by you when things went belly-up. I did.’

Johnny scowled. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’m going out for a walk. Half an hour. That’ll blow away the cobwebs.’

‘I’ll come with you, if you like.’

‘No. You’d better mind the shop.’ Nobody had come in since they had opened that morning. That was another thing about murder. It discouraged the tourists.

She watched him leave, heard the bell on the door make its familiar jangle. Gemma had thought they would be all right coming here, leaving their former lives behind them. No matter what Johnny had said at the time, it had been the right decision. But two deaths, one following hard upon the other, had changed everything. It was as if those old shadows had somehow stretched out and found them.

Mary Blakiston had been here. For the first time in a very, very long time the housekeeper had come to the shop and, when challenged, Johnny had lied about it. He had claimed she was buying someone a present but Gemma knew that wasn’t true. If Mary had wanted a present she would have gone into Bath, to Woolworth or Boots the Chemist. And less than a week later she had died. Was there some link between the two events and, if so, was there a further link that led to the death of Sir Magnus Pye?

Gemma Whitehead had come to Saxby-on-Avon because she thought it would be safe. Sitting alone, in the dingy shop surrounded by hundreds of unnecessary items, trinkets and knick-knacks which nobody seemed to want and which, today anyway, nobody had come in to buy, she wished with all her heart that she and Johnny could be anywhere else.

4

Everyone in the village thought they knew who had killed Sir Magnus Pye. Unfortunately, no two theories were the same.

It was well known that Sir Magnus and Lady Pye were at loggerheads. They were seldom seen together. If they turned up at church, they kept a distance between them. According to Gareth Kite, the landlord of the Ferryman, Sir Magnus had been having an affair with his housekeeper, Mary Blakiston. Lady Pye had killed both of them – although how she had managed the first death when she was on holiday in France, he hadn’t explained.

No, no. It was Robert Blakiston who was the killer. Hadn’t he threatened his mother just days before she died? He had killed her because he was angry with her and had gone on to kill Sir Magnus when he had somehow discovered the truth. And then there was Brent. The groundsman lived alone. He was definitely peculiar. There were rumours that Sir Magnus had fired him the very day that he had died. Or what about the stranger who had come to the funeral? Nobody wore a hat like that unless it was to conceal their identity. Even Joy Sanderling, that nice girl who worked for Dr Redwing, was suspected. The strange announcement that had gone up on the notice board next to the bus shelter definitely showed that there was more to her than met the eye. Mary Blakiston had taken against her. So she had died. Sir Magnus Pye had found out. He had died too.

And then there was the destruction of Dingle Dell. Although the police had not released details of the threatening message that had been found on Sir Magnus’s desk, it was well known how much anger the proposed development had provoked. The longer you had lived in the village, the more angry you were likely to be and by this logic, old Jeff Weaver, who was eighty-three and who had tended the churchyard for as long as anyone could remember, became the number one suspect. The vicar, too, had plenty to lose. The vicarage backed directly onto the proposed development site and it had often been remarked how he and Mrs Osborne liked to lose themselves in the wood.

Curiously, one resident who had every reason to kill Sir Magnus but whose name had been left out of the loop, was Clarissa Pye. The impoverished sister had been by turns ignored and humiliated but it had not occurred to any of the villagers that this might make her a murderess. Perhaps it was the fact that she was a single woman – and a religious one at that. Perhaps it was her eccentric appearance. The dyed hair was absurd, visible at fifty yards. She tried too hard with her hats, her imitation jewellery, her wardrobe of once-fashionable cast-offs when really simpler, more modern clothes would have suited her better. Her physique was against her too: not fat, not masculine, not dumpy, but perilously close to all three. In short, she was something of a joke in Saxby-on-Avon and jokes do not commit murder.

Sitting in her home in Winsley Terrace, Clarissa was trying not to think about what had happened. For the last hour, she’d been absorbed by the
Daily Telegraph
crossword – though normally she’d finish it in half that time. One clue in particular had confounded her:

16. Complained endlessly about Bobby

The answer was a nine-letter word, the second letter O, the fourth letter I. She knew that it was staring her in the face but for some reason it wouldn’t come to her. Was the solution a synonym of ‘complained’ or was it somebody famous, first name Bobby? It seemed very unlikely. The
Telegraph
crossword didn’t usually involve celebrities unless they were classical writers or artists. In which case, could ‘Bobby’ have some other meaning that had eluded her? She chewed briefly on the Parker Jotter that was her special crossword pen. And then, quite suddenly it hit her. The answer was so obvious! It had been in front of her all the time. ‘Complained endlessly’. So drop the D at the end of the word. ‘About’ indicating an anagram. And a Bobby? Perhaps the capital B was a little unfair. She entered the missing letters …
Policeman
and of course that made her think of Magnus, of the police cars she had seen driving through the village, the uniformed officers who would be up at Pye Hall even now. What would happen to the house now that her brother was dead? Presumably, Frances would continue living there. She wasn’t allowed to sell it. That was all part of the entail, the complicated document that had defined the ownership of Pye Hall over the centuries. It would now pass to her nephew, Freddy, the next in line. He was only fifteen years old and the last time Clarissa had seen him he had struck her as shallow and arrogant, a little like his father. And now he was a millionaire!

Of course, if he and his mother died, if – for example – there was a terrible car accident, then the property, but not the title, would have to move sideways. That was an interesting thought. Unlikely, but interesting. Really, there was no reason why it couldn’t happen. First Mary Blakiston, then Sir Magnus. Finally …

Clarissa heard a key turning in the front door and quickly folded the newspaper and set it aside. She wouldn’t want anyone to think that she had been wasting time; that she had nothing to do. She was already on her feet and moving towards the kitchen as the door opened and Diana Weaver came in. The wife of Adam Weaver who did odd jobs around the village and helped out at the church, she was a comfortably middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense attitude and a friendly smile. She worked as a cleaner: two hours a day at the doctor’s surgery and the rest of the week divided between various houses in Saxby-on-Avon with just one afternoon once a week here. Seeing her as she bustled in with the oversized plastic bag she always carried, already buttoning the coat which surely wasn’t needed on such a warm day, it occurred to Clarissa that this was a real cleaning lady, which is to say a lady for whom such work was entirely appropriate and indeed necessary. How could Magnus have possibly placed her in the same category? Had he really been serious or had he come here simply to insult her? She wasn’t sorry he was dead. Quite the opposite.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Weaver,’ she said.

‘Hello there, Miss Pye.’

Clarissa could tell at once that something was wrong. The cleaner was downcast. She seemed nervous. ‘There’s some ironing to do in the spare bedroom. And I’ve bought a new bottle of Ajax.’ Clarissa had got straight to the point. It wasn’t her habit to engage in conversation: it wasn’t just a question of propriety. She could barely afford to pay for the two hours each week and she wasn’t going to eat into them with small talk. But although Mrs Weaver had divested herself of her coat, she hadn’t moved and didn’t seem in any hurry to start work. ‘Is something the matter?’ she asked.

‘Well … it’s this business at the big house.’

‘My brother.’

‘Yes, Miss Pye.’ The cleaner seemed more upset that she had any right to be. It wasn’t as if she had worked there. She had probably only spoken to Magnus once or twice in her life. ‘It’s a horrible thing to happen,’ she went on. ‘In a village like this. I mean, people have their ups and their downs. But I’ve lived here forty years and I’ve never known anything like it. First poor Mary. And now this.’

‘I was just thinking about it myself,’ Clarissa agreed. ‘I am mortified. My brother and I weren’t close but even so he was still blood.’

Blood
.

She shuddered. Had he known he was about to die?

‘And now we’ve got the police here,’ Diana Weaver continued. ‘Asking questions and disturbing everyone.’ Was that what she was worried about? The police? ‘Do you think they have any idea who did it?’

‘I doubt it. It only happened last night.’

‘I’m sure they’ll have searched the house. According to my Adam …’ She paused, unsure whether to spell it out. ‘… someone took his head clean off his shoulders.’

‘Yes. That’s what I heard.’

‘That’s horrible.’

‘It certainly was very shocking. Are you going to be able to work today or would you like to go home?’

‘No, no. I prefer to keep myself busy.’

The cleaner went into the kitchen. Clarissa glanced at the clock. Mrs Weaver had actually started work two minutes late. She would make sure she made up the time before she left.

5

The meeting at Larkin Gadwall had not been particularly illuminating. Atticus Pünd had been shown the brochure for the new development – everything in watercolour with smiling families, sketched in almost like ghosts, drifting through their new paradise. Planning permission had been approved. Construction was due to start the following spring. Philip Gadwall, the senior partner, insisted that Dingle Dell was an unremarkable piece of woodland and that the new homes would benefit the neighbourhood. ‘It’s very much in the council’s mind that we regenerate our villages. We need new homes for local families if we’re going to keep the villages alive.’