Magpie Murders (23 page)

‘When was this?’

‘I can’t remember. Monday! It was the week after the funeral.’

‘Did Brent say where he got it from?’ Chubb asked.

‘No.’

‘Did you ask him?’

‘Why should I have?’

‘You must have been aware that there’d been a burglary at Pye Hall only a few days before. A collection of silver jewellery and coins was stolen from Sir Magnus. It was the same day as Mrs Blakiston’s funeral.’

‘I did hear about that. Yes.’

‘And you didn’t put two and two together?’

Whitehead drew a breath. ‘A lot of people come into my shop. I buy a lot of things. I bought a set of Worcester coffee mugs off Mrs Reeve and a brass carriage clock off the Finches – and that was just last week. Do you think I asked them where they got them? If I went round treating everyone in Saxby like criminals, I’d be out of business in a week.’

Chubb drew a breath. ‘But
you
are a criminal, Mr Whitehead. You did three years in prison for receiving stolen goods.’

‘You promised me!’ Gemma muttered. ‘You promised you weren’t going back to all that.’

‘Stay out of it, love. They’re just trying to wind me up.’ Whitehead glanced balefully at Chubb. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Mr Chubb. Yes. I bought a silver belt buckle off Brent. Yes. I knew there’s been a break in at Pye Hall. But did I put two and two together? No. I didn’t. Call me stupid if you like, but there’s no crime in stupidity – and for all I know he could have had it in his family for twenty years. If you’re saying it was stolen from Sir Magnus, then your argument is with Brent, not with me.’

‘Where is the belt buckle now?’

‘I sold it to a friend in London.’

‘And for rather more than five pounds, I’ll be bound.’

‘That’s my business, Mr Chubb. That’s what I do.’

Atticus Pünd had been listening to all this in silence. Now he adjusted his glasses and observed, quietly: ‘Mrs Blakiston visited you before the break-in at Pye Hall. It was the theft of the medal that interested her. Did she threaten you?’

‘She was a nosey cow – asking questions about things that had nothing to do with her.’

‘Did you purchase any other items from Brent?’

‘No. That’s all he had. If you want to find the rest of Sir Magnus’s treasure trove, maybe you should be searching his place instead of wasting your time with me.’

Pünd and Chubb exchanged a glance. There was clearly nothing more to be gained from the interview. Even so, the detective inspector was determined to have the last word. ‘There have been a number of petty thefts in Saxby-on-Avon since you arrived,’ he said. ‘Windows broken, antiques and jewellery gone missing. I can promise you we’ll be looking into every one of them. And I’m going to want a record of everything you’ve bought and sold in the past three years too.’

‘I don’t keep records.’

‘The tax office may take a dim view of that. I hope you’re not planning on going anywhere in the next few weeks, Mr Whitehead. We’ll be in touch again.’

The antique dealer and his wife got up and left the room, showing themselves out. Ahead of them, there was an upper landing and then a staircase leading down. They continued in silence but the moment they were in the open air, Gemma burst out: ‘Oh Johnny! How could you lie to me?’

‘I didn’t lie to you,’ Johnny replied, miserably.

‘After everything we talked about. All the plans we had!’ It was as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Who did you see when you were in London? This silver belt buckle of yours – who did you sell it to?’

‘I told you.’

‘You mean Derek and Colin. Did you tell them about Mary? Did you tell them she was on to you?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know what I mean. In the old days, when you were part of the gang, if people stepped out of line, things happened. We never mentioned it and I know you weren’t part of it, but we both know what I’m talking about. People disappeared.’

‘What? You think I took out a contract on Mary Blakiston to get her off my back?’

‘Well, did you?’

Johnny Whitehead didn’t answer. They walked to their car in silence.

2

A search of Brent’s house had produced nothing that related either to the murder or the stolen treasure trove.

Brent lived on his own in a row of terraced houses in Daphne Road, a simple two-up, two-down that shared a porch with its neighbour, the two front doors meeting at an angle. From the outside, the building had a certain chocolate-box charm. The roof was thatched, the wisteria and the flower beds well cared for. The interior told another story. Everything had a sense of neglect, from the unwashed dishes in the sink to the unmade bed and the clothes thrown carelessly on the floor. A certain smell lingered in the air, one that Chubb had come upon many times before and which always made him frown. It was the smell of a man living alone.

There was nothing in the house that was new or luxurious and everything had a make-do-and-mend quality, years after those words had gone out of fashion. Plates were chipped, chairs held together by string. Brent’s parents had once lived here and he had done nothing to the place since they had died. He even slept in the same, single bed with the same blanket and eiderdown that must have been his as a boy. There were comics on the bedroom floor, too. And Scout magazines. It was as if Brent had never fully grown up and if he had stolen the entire hoard of Sir Magnus’s Roman silver, he clearly hadn’t sold it yet. He had just a hundred pounds in his bank account. There was nothing hidden in the house: not under the floorboards, in the attic, up the chimney. The police had done a thorough search.

‘I didn’t take it. I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.’ Brent had been brought home in a police car from Pye Hall and was sitting with a look of shock on his face, surrounded by policemen who had invaded the shabby sanctity of his home. Atticus Pünd and James Fraser were among them.

‘Then how did you come upon the silver belt buckle that you sold to John Whitehead?’ Chubb asked.

‘I found it!’ Brent continued hurriedly as the detective inspector’s eyes glazed in disbelief. ‘It’s the truth. It was the day after the funeral. A Sunday. I don’t work the weekend, not as a rule. But Sir Magnus and Lady Pye, they’d only just got back from their holiday and I thought they might need me. So I went down the hall just to show willing. And I was in the garden when I saw it, shining, on the lawn. I didn’t have any idea what it was but it looked old and there was a picture of a man carved into it, standing there with no clothes.’ He smirked briefly as if sharing a rude joke. ‘I popped it into my pocket and then on the Monday I took it into Mr Whitehead and he gave me a fiver for it. It was twice what I was expecting.’

Yes. And half what it was worth, Chubb thought. ‘There were police called into Pye Hall that day,’ he said. ‘Sir Magnus reported a burglary. What do you have to say about that?’

‘I left before lunchtime. I didn’t see any police.’

‘But you must have heard about the break-in.’

‘I did. But by then it was too late. I’d already sold what I’d found to Mr Whitehead and maybe he’d sold it too. I looked in the shop window and it wasn’t there.’ Brent shrugged. ‘I’d done nothing wrong.’

That much was questionable. But even Chubb would have been forced to admit that Brent’s crime was a very minor one. If, that is, he was telling the truth. ‘Where did you find the buckle?’ he asked.

‘It was in the grass. In front of the house.’

Chubb glanced at Pünd, as if asking for guidance. ‘It would be interesting, I think, to see the exact spot,’ Pünd said.

Chubb agreed and the four of them left together, Brent complaining all the while as he was carried back to Pye Hall. Once again they drove past the Lodge House with its two stone griffins almost seeming to whisper to each other and for a moment Fraser was reminded of the game that the two boys, Robert and Tom Blakiston, had played together at night, the code words that they had rapped out to each other when they were in bed. It suddenly struck him that the game had a significance he had overlooked but before he could mention it to Pünd, they had arrived. Brent called to them to stop and they pulled in about halfway up the drive, opposite the lake.

‘It was over here!’ He led them across the lawn. In front of them the lake stretched out, dank and oily with the woodland behind. Perhaps it was the story that Robert had told them earlier but there was something indisputably evil about it. The brighter the sun, the blacker the water appeared. They stopped about fifteen or twenty feet from the edge, Brent pointing down as if he remembered the exact spot. ‘It was here.’

‘Just lying here?’ Chubb sounded unconvinced.

‘The sun was glinting off it. That’s how I saw it.’

Chubb considered the possibilities. ‘Well, I suppose if someone had been carrying a whole pile of the stuff, if they were on foot and in a hurry, they might have dropped a piece without noticing it.’

‘It is possible.’ Pünd was already working out the angles. He looked back at the driveway, the Lodge House, the front door. ‘And yet it is strange, Detective Inspector. Why would the burglar come this way? He broke into the house through the back …?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then to reach the gate, it would have been faster to continue along the other side of the driveway.’

‘Unless they were heading for Dingle Dell …’ The inspector examined the line of trees with the vicarage somewhere on the other side of the lake. ‘No chance of being seen if they go out through the wood.’

‘That is true,’ Pünd agreed. ‘And yet, you will forgive me, Detective Inspector. You are a thief. You are carrying a great many pieces of silver jewellery and coins. Would you wish to make your way through thick woodland in the middle of the night?’ His eyes settled on the black surface. ‘The lake holds many mysteries,’ he said. ‘I believe it has further stories to tell and wonder if it would be possible for you to arrange an inspection by police divers, I have a suspicion, an idea …’ He shook his head as if dismissing the thought.

‘Divers?’ Chubb shook his head. ‘That’s going to cost a pretty penny or two. What is it exactly you’re hoping to find?’

‘The true reason why Pye Hall was burgled on the same evening as Mary Blakiston’s funeral.’

Chubb nodded. ‘I’ll see to it.’

‘Do you want anything else?’ Brent asked.

‘I will keep you only for a few moments more, Mr Brent. I would like you to show us the door that was broken when the burglary took place.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Brent was relieved that the investigation seemed to be moving away from him. ‘We can cut across through the rose garden.’

‘There is one other question I wish to put to you,’ Pünd said. As they walked, Fraser noticed that the detective was leaning heavily on his stick. ‘I understand that Sir Magnus had made it known to you that he wished to dispense with your employment.’

Brent started as if stung. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Is it true?’

‘Yes.’ The groundsman was scowling now. His whole body seemed to have become stooped, his curly hair flopping over his forehead.

‘Why did you not mention to this to me when we met?’

‘You never asked me.’

Pünd nodded. That was fair enough. ‘Why did he ask you to leave?’

‘I don’t know. But he was always on at me. Mrs Blakiston used to complain about me. Them two! They were like – like Bob and Gladys Grove.’

‘It’s a television programme,’ Fraser said, overhearing. ‘
The Grove Family
.’

This was exactly the sort of thing that Fraser would know. And which Pünd wouldn’t.

‘When did he tell you?’

‘The day Sir Magnus died.’

In other words, just before the first death.

‘He must have given you a reason.’

‘He gave me no reason. No good reason. I’ve been coming here ever since I was a boy. My father was here before me. And he come out here and just said that was the end of it.’

They had come to the rose garden. It was surrounded by a wall with an entrance that was an arbour shaped out of dark green leaves. Beyond, there was crazy paving, a statue of a cherub, all the different roses, and a bench.

And on the bench, Frances Pye and Jack Dartford were sitting, holding hands, engaged in a passionate kiss.

3

In fact, nobody was really very surprised. It had been obvious to Pünd – and even to Fraser – that Lady Pye and her ex-tennis partner had been conducting an affair. What else could they possibly have been doing in London on the day of the murder? Chubb had known it too and even the guilty parties only seemed mildly put out that they had been discovered in flagrante. It was going to happen sooner or later so why not now? They were still on the bench, sitting slightly apart, facing the three men who stood over them. A smirking Brent had been sent on his way.

‘I think you should explain yourself, Lady Pye,’ Chubb said.

‘There’s nothing really to explain,’ she replied, coolly. ‘Jack and I have been seeing each other for almost two years. That day in London … I was with him the whole time. But there was no shopping, no art galleries. After lunch, we had a room at the Dorchester. Jack stayed with me until about half past five. I left at seven. You can ask them if you don’t believe me.’

‘You lied to me, Lady Pye.’

‘That was wrong of me, Detective Inspector, and I’m sorry. But the fact is, it doesn’t make any real difference, does it? The rest of my story was true. Coming home on the train. Arriving at half past eight. Seeing the green car. Those are the salient points.’

‘Your husband is dead. You were deceiving him. I’d say those are also salient points, Lady Pye.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Jack Dartford cut in. ‘She wasn’t deceiving him. That’s not how I saw it anyway. You have no idea what Magnus was like. The man was a brute. The way he treated her, his infantile rages, it was disgusting. And she gave up her career for him!’

‘What career was that?’ Pünd asked.

‘In the theatre! Frances was a brilliant actress. I saw her on the stage long before I met her.’

‘That’s enough, Jack,’ Frances cut in.

‘Is that where your husband met you? In the theatre?’ Chubb asked.