Sweet Sorrow (11 page)

After they had admired the Munnings, which Edward thought very dull, they were able to make their excuses and depart, promising – when they had their house in order – to ask Heron over to dinner.

‘God bless my soul,’ he said suddenly. ‘What with the vicar making his speech, I forgot to pick up my sword. I think I’ll just walk back to the green and see if I can find it. I wouldn’t like to lose it. Bit of an heirloom, if you understand me.’

‘Of course, but I’m sure someone will have put it somewhere safe. “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them”.’ Edward could not prevent himself quoting Othello. Verity rebuked him with a look but Heron did not seem to have heard.

‘He must have made a bit of money to have been able to buy that house,’ Edward observed as they walked home.

‘But wasn’t it cold, and I thought it smelt horrid.’

‘Yes, I noticed that too – as though his char had spilt the cleaning liquid.’

Verity shivered. ‘If it’s cold in midsummer, I shudder to think what it must be like in winter.’

They were just sitting down to eat Mrs Brendel’s Austrian ragout when there was a loud knocking on the door. Mrs Brendel went to open it and they heard a panicky-sounding Colonel Heron ask for Edward. As they rose from the table, Heron broke into the dining-room and, without apology and almost incoherent, urged them to come with him to look at something he had found.

‘For goodness sake, calm down and tell us what’s the matter,’ Edward ordered.

With a visible effort, Heron moderated his voice from an unintelligible gabble to something they could understand.

‘On the green . . . It’s Byron Gates – he’s dead.’

‘Dead!’ Verity exclaimed. ‘Has he had a heart attack? Have you telephoned the doctor?’

‘He doesn’t need a doctor, I tell you. He’s dead! PC Watt has just telephoned Lewes police station.’

‘The police?’ Edward’s heart sank. ‘Why the police?’

‘Someone’s cut off his head.’

6

‘Someone’s cut off his head! I don’t believe it. How . . . was it an accident . . .?’

Edward looked at her pityingly. ‘I don’t see how it could be an accident.’ Grabbing his coat and a torch he said, ‘I’ll go with Heron. You stay here, V. I won’t be long.’

‘Of course I won’t stay here. What do you take me for? Colonel, how did he lose his head?’

‘You’ll soon see,’ Heron replied grimly, beginning to recover himself. ‘I went to find my sword, you remember? I wanted to take Velvet, my retriever, out too. I don’t bother with a lead and when he disappeared I didn’t worry. I thought he had just gone off into the bushes to do his business. When he didn’t return, I whistled – I was just on the edge of the green – and he appeared with something in his mouth. I had a torch with me and when I shone it on Velvet I just couldn’t believe what he had in his mouth.’

‘What was it?’ Verity asked, feeling slightly sick. It was a relief to be out in the fresh night air.

‘It was a human head. Velvet had it by the hair. Of course, I made him drop it immediately and that’s when I saw it was Gates. I grabbed hold of Velvet’s collar and tried to see where he had found it. I couldn’t see anything at first. Then I spotted something dark in the middle of the green. When I got nearer, I saw it was a body – or rather a torso. Then I saw the sword and then, I’m afraid, I was sick.’

‘Did you see anyone – alive, I mean?’ Edward asked.

‘No, the green was deserted. The head must have rolled away from the rest of the body and Velvet retrieved it.’ Heron was panting now, partly because they were walking fast and partly, Edward thought, from the shock. Heron coughed from deep in his chest and Edward thought he was going to be sick again but he managed to pull himself together. ‘It was disgusting. I never saw anything like it, not even in India.’

‘The rest of the body . . . was it lying on the ground?’

‘No, you’ll see in a moment. It’s kneeling against a block. I think it’s the one the children used in the pageant. You know, when Charles I was executed. His legs have been tied at the ankle and his hands roped together behind his back. Look! Over there!’

They had reached the green and walked gingerly towards the dark shadow in the middle where the stage had been. They stared at the torso in fascinated horror.

‘Where’s the head?’

Heron pointed to the edge of the green. ‘He’s been beheaded with my sword just like in the tableau. It’s horrible. I’ll never get the image out of my mind.’

Edward saw that he was shaking. ‘After you were sick – what did you do?’ he asked.

‘I panicked. I ran to PC Watt’s cottage and banged on his door. He didn’t believe me at first when I told him what I had found but I made him come with me to the green. As soon as he saw I was telling the truth, he went back to ring headquarters. He told me to stay on guard but then I thought of you, Lord Edward. I remembered that you had investigated murders . . . I hope you didn’t mind my breaking in on you like that.’

In the light of the torch, he looked white and haggard.

‘No, of course not, but you probably shouldn’t have left your post. Ah, Constable,’ Edward continued as he saw a figure approaching them across the green, ‘my name is Corinth and we’ve recently moved into the village. Colonel Heron came to get me. I was just telling him that he ought to have stayed by the body as you’d instructed, but no harm done, I hope. You have telephoned Lewes?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ Watt responded, clearly well aware to whom he was talking. ‘Will you stand guard here? I must make sure no one disturbs the head until the Inspector arrives.’

‘Verity, take the Colonel back to his house, will you? There’s no point in him staying here. Make sure he has a tot of brandy. You too, V. This isn’t a pretty sight.’

For once she did not argue, glad to have an excuse for leaving the grisly scene.

How the news of the atrocity had spread, no one could say, but there was already a little crowd gathering on the edge of the green, staring at the severed head. PC Watt was having difficulty holding people back and preventing them from poking at it ghoulishly. ‘Keep back, keep back,’ he shouted angrily, ‘and put that dog on a lead. Keep back there, I say. Stay off the green. This is the scene of a crime.’

Alone with the torso, Edward knelt to examine it more closely in the light of his torch. Byron’s bow-tie had fallen off and lay on the grass, a bloody ribbon. His hands had been tied behind his back with what looked like fishing twine and his ankles were also bound. Edward looked for the cape he normally wore and saw it some distance away. The murderer must have made him take it off before he tied him up. Edward had a horrible feeling that the killer cut off Byron’s head while he was still alive. The terror he must have felt in those last few minutes didn’t bear thinking about. On the other hand, it was a clean cut. If Byron had struggled, there was no evidence of it.

Edward looked at the sword and then at the neck. The sword was covered in blood but it suddenly came to him that it was unlikely to have been the murder weapon. A sword, so he had read, was not an easy weapon with which to behead someone, particularly if they weren’t ‘cooperating’. Anne Boleyn was executed using a sword, he remembered – in that respect Miss Fairweather’s tableau had been accurate. Heron’s sword – none too sharp by the look of it – would have left a ragged wound but this was a neat execution. It was much more likely that an axe or something similar had been used to behead Byron.

Edward leant back on his heels and thought about it. Even an axe could be awkward. He had read, only that morning as it happened, in Churchill’s biography of his great forebear, that the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, captured after his ill-fated rebellion, had been beheaded in the Tower of London. Although the Duke had tipped Jack Ketch six guineas, his executioner had botched the job. Having failed to kill him with three hacks, Ketch threw down his axe in disgust and refused to continue until the angry crowd had made him. Another two blows failed to sever the Duke’s head and, in the end, Ketch had had to worry it off with his knife.

This seemed a much more professional job. Edward shone his torch around but there was no sign of any other weapon. He examined the twine used to bind the dead man. It looked unremarkable to him but perhaps the police might discover its origin. He wondered why Byron had been on the green after everything had been cleared away. Perhaps he had been composing another deathless ode – no, ‘deathless’ was the wrong word in the circumstances. Had the murderer known he would be on the green? Had he perhaps arranged to meet Byron, or had the attack been opportunistic?

His train of thought was broken by the sound of a bell, shrill in the night air. He stood up, wondering whether or not to make himself scarce. ‘I go, and it is done – the bell invites me,’ he muttered to himself. In truth, he had no wish to be involved in this murder investigation. On the other hand, if he left the scene now he would have some explaining to do. He watched as the police car came to a halt at the edge of the green. Two large policemen in plain clothes got out, followed by a constable in uniform. Watt pointed his torch at the head and then towards Edward standing over the torso.

The two burly policemen strode towards him while the constable set about helping Watt push the little crowd of gawpers back off the green.

‘Who are you,’ one of the policemen asked, striding up to Edward, ‘and what are you doing here?’

‘My name is Lord Edward Corinth. Colonel Heron fetched me after he had discovered the body. He thought I might be able to help.’

‘Yes, I have heard of you,’ the policeman said with something like disgust. ‘You live . . .?’

‘Just over there, at the Old Vicarage. And you are?’

‘Inspector Trewen. Now, sir, please will you go back to your house. I may need to ask you a few questions in the morning. And the man who found the corpse – Colonel Heron, you said – where is he?’

‘He was very shocked. I sent him home.’

‘You sent him home! Very well. Now, if you don’t mind . . .’

The other policeman intervened. ‘Sir, the murder weapon . . .’ He pointed his torch at the bloodied sword.

‘Actually,’ Edward began, ‘I don’t think . . .’

‘Please, sir – do what I ask and go home. You may already have destroyed evidence – footprints . . .’

‘It’s too dry for footprints,’ Edward pointed out. Then, seeing the Inspector’s face, he added, ‘but I shall leave you with the greatest pleasure.’

‘Before you go – do you know who this man is?’

‘Constable Watt will tell you,’ Edward said, turning away.

He chided himself for being petty but the Inspector obviously had no need of him to solve the crime, for which he was heartily grateful.

When he got home he found Verity, white-faced and overwrought.

‘Is the Colonel all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I think so. I must say, he looked awfully ill but he wouldn’t let me stay with him. Do you think he murdered Byron? I don’t,’ she added before Edward could answer. ‘He was very shocked and upset.’

‘No, I don’t, but it’s nothing to do with us, thank God. An Inspector Trewen arrived and sent me about my business. He made it clear he needed no help in solving the crime.’

‘I’ve been thinking, Edward, about the children. Ada and Jean may not know what has happened. I don’t know who is looking after them but they need to be told now before they hear it from the police.’

‘Must we be the ones to tell them?’ he groaned, feeling quite weak at the thought. ‘Won’t they be asleep? It’s very late.’

‘Probably, but they should still be told,’ Verity said firmly. ‘I know I won’t be able to sleep if we don’t go over to Ivy Cottage. It’s our duty to try and comfort them. I mean – what a terrible thing for Ada to lose her father in this way and even Jean . . . We must do what we can.’

‘But is it our business?’ Edward protested, knowing in his heart that she was right.

‘Whose else is it? Until Mrs Gates gets back – and that may not be for ages – they are quite alone.’

Edward straightened his back. ‘You’re quite right, V. It’s not our responsibility but we should do what we can to soften the blow. There is something particularly gruesome about this murder. It wasn’t an act of unpremeditated violence – a sudden quarrel or something. This was coldly planned to be as theatrical as possible – an execution in a public place. The killer must have seen the children’s tableaux and thought it would be amusing to echo the execution of Charles I. The murderer is mad – quite mad.’

‘And – I’ve just remembered – Byron told me his most recent book is called
The Unkindest Cut
. Someone has their head cut off. Was it a cruel joke, do you think?’

‘I really don’t know.’ Edward felt exhausted and longed to be able to go to bed and forget all about Byron’s ugly death but Verity wasn’t going to allow it.

‘In someone’s eyes, he must have committed a heinous crime,’ she continued.

‘Treason?’ Edward suggested, thinking of Anne Boleyn.

‘Worse, but what, I can’t begin to imagine. We hardly knew him, although we did know he was vain, possibly cowardly and not very kind to his daughter. But none of those are motives for murder.’

‘He was a philanderer,’ Edward pointed out. ‘After money, isn’t love, or the loss of it, the strongest motive for murder? But V, I’m determined that we shouldn’t get involved in investigating this case. This is
our
time together – perhaps the last we shall have before you’re sent off to some far-away place and I won’t see you again for months. These few weeks are very precious to us. We mustn’t let this awful murder spoil things. I won’t let it happen.’

Verity said nothing. There was nothing to say. She knew that, whether they liked it or not, they would be drawn into the investigation. Their only hope was that the policeman in charge of the case would not want anything to do with them.

They set out for Ivy Cottage with heavy hearts. Was there was any kind way of telling Ada that her father had been brutally murdered? Edward knocked at the front door. It was answered by a girl, hardly older than Jean, whom Verity vaguely remembered seeing behind the cake stall at the fête.