The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori (16 page)

“Ah, well, you see,” he began, already stumbling. He tried to pull things together. “Now, the point is this: the ladies at the farm know what there is to know about Declan while he was with them. But I know for a fact that he used to get around in the evenings after dinner. Did the rounds of the pubs in the area. Sometimes sang, if they had a piano and a player, or if he knew he'd be welcome
he'd take his guitar. That's what he was doing when he saw the advertisement for handyman here: playing the guitar and singing folk songs and suchlike in the street in Haworth.”

“I know. What exactly are you suggesting, sir?”

“Well, it's obvious he could have a side to his life that the ladies at the farmhouse, dear souls, know nothing about. You get me? He could have got in with any sort of crowd.”

“I know the pubs in the area can get pretty rough at weekends,” said Charlie, keeping his tone ironical and light. “But I've never heard they're hotbeds of crime.”

“Well, of course, not normally, no. But at this time of year they're absolutely swarming with all sorts of people. He could have met up with just anyone, and got drawn into something. To take just one example: the IRA.”

“I'll look into it, sir,” said Charlie, adding to himself:
if all else fails
. “About O'Hearn during his time here: was it your impression he was an easily led young man?”

Chesney blew out his cheeks.

“He was only about twenty, Constable. I mean—”

“What
do
you mean, sir?”

“At that age one can be led into anything.”

“So if someone suggested something dubious, whether here, or in one of the pubs around Haworth . . .”

“Well, I mean—no, I wouldn't go so far. I don't want you to get the wrong impression of the lad.” Chesney was conscious of having got himself into an awful muddle, and in particular of having been unfair to a young man he had genuinely liked. Defensiveness about the community had been struggling with honesty. “He was a nice lad, make no mistake. And he had his religion. I respect that.
Haven't got a great deal myself. ‘Thought for the Day' on Radio Four is about my limit. But I respect those who have. . . . Spot! Back in your corner! . . . And he wasn't one of those Catholics who think they can do whatever they like and confess it on Saturday and make everything all right. No, Declan was a boy who really had standards.”

“Really? What makes you say that?”

“I heard him say there were things he wouldn't do—said it out, just like that, very serious. Not the sort of remark you'd often hear from one of today's young people. And it was all of a piece with the boy generally. He was very quiet, but he was . . . I think ‘upright' is the best word.”

Charlie kept his voice casual.

“That's interesting, sir. Did you hear in what connection he said that there were things he wouldn't do?”

His voice wasn't casual enough. Chesney spluttered.

“Ah, well, I can't quite . . . I think it was the viewing—Ranulph's new picture, you know.”

“Was this a public viewing, sir?”

“Oh, no, just us, the people here. But we were all there, even Stephen. He was taking pictures. Even he realized it was something of an event, Ranulph painting first-rate pictures again.”

“Can you remember who Declan was talking to?”

“No. No, I can't—just general, I expect. I mean, philosophical: what would you do, what would you draw the line at, that kind of thing, you know.”

“Ah,” said Charlie. “You know, I rather doubt that.”

Chesney jumped. “Eh?”

“You get me over here to suggest that O'Hearn could have got in with any sort of criminal crowd in the pubs
around Haworth. You're presumably trying to direct my attention away from the people here at Ashworth.”

“I say, nothing of the sort—”

“You then, out of all honesty—and I respect you for that—you have to admit that Declan was a young man with a strong moral sense. And you base this on a conversation that you overheard. Abstract philosophical arguments don't tell one anything much about people's moral character. I suspect someone put a suggestion to O'Hearn, or seemed to be leading up to a certain suggestion, and he reacted in a perhaps immature but straightforward way: ‘There are some things I would never do.' Am I right?”

Chesney became obstinate.

“I just heard the words. In a babble of conversation. Impressed me with the lad's honesty. That's all.”

“Hmmm.”

“Just trying to help,” said Chesney lamely.

Charlie thought it was time to store this fascinating piece of information in his memory bank and pass on. To relieve Chesney's embarrassment he asked, “How did this—what should I call it?—this community come to be established?”

Chesney breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, it's just happened that admirers of Ranulph Byatt—admirers of his work—have had the chance to take these cottages around the farm.”

“Rent them?”

“That's right. They were derelict when Ranulph inherited the whole place—farm, cottages, estate. Some of them he had put into a shipshape state, and then let them. Others, like myself, took them on and only began paying
rent—reduced rent—when they were in good order. Great opportunity. A challenge. I like a challenge.”

Charlie nodded his acceptance of this unexceptionable sentiment.

“But how did you come to hear of them?”

Chesney looked down into his lap.

“Bit embarrassing, really, at my age. I wrote him a fan letter. Can't describe it as anything else. Went to a big retrospective of his work at the Hayward, and I was just bowled over: the power, the passion. I said in the letter that I dabbled, was quite frank about having no talent at all, said I was about to leave the army, and, well, things developed from there.”

“I see. The community was already in existence then?”

“Yes. The Birdsells were well installed, and Charmayne Churton had just moved here—waiting for Ivor. You know these people?”

“I haven't had the pleasure,” said Charlie urbanely.

“Pleasure wouldn't be my word for it. She was waiting for Ivor to be released when she came here. He'd organized a cottage for himself, and she got wind of it. He was in jail—so far as I can understand that was for possessing and circulating child pornography of a particularly revolting kind. I suppose I'm old-fashioned, but an offense like that strikes me as beyond the pale.”

“You don't have to be old-fashioned to feel that, sir.”

Chesney gave a brisk nod, dismissing his emotion as somehow unsoldierly.

“No, well . . . The trouble is, it ought to be admirable for Charmayne to come and live with or live near her brother, to help his rehabilitation, keep him on the straight and narrow, but somehow—I can't explain—”

“Try, sir.”

“Somehow she seems even worse than him.”

Charlie frowned, finding his inarticulateness bewildering.

“I see. There must be something—something about her, or something she has done—that makes you say that.”

“She seems to gloat. Tells everyone what Ivor went to jail for. It's as if his offense has given her a reason for living. You know, she's the last person he wants around him—you could see his horror when he came out and found her here. Now he can hardly take a step but she's there beside him.”

Charlie thought it sounded like a very odd relationship indeed.

“So then this man Ivor came out of jail. Has there been anyone else join the community since?”

“Arnold Mellors. Nice enough chap, and capable, but not very inspiring. I suppose none of us is very inspiring, though.”

That was a thought that had occurred to Charlie during his account, but he found it difficult to express tactfully.

“So—how shall I put this?—Ranulph Byatt didn't use these cottages to get fellow artists around him?”

“Oh, no, we're rank amateurs, and not particularly good amateurs at that. Ivor Aston is the best: he sells the odd picture to tourists, usually through one of the shops on Haworth Main Street. Charmayne sells occasionally to greeting card people. But we are none of us serious artists.”

“So what is the purpose, the point, of the community?”

“Well . . . I suppose . . . really we're all tremendous
admirers of Ranulph's work. That seems to be enough. It's the only thing that keeps us together.”

Charlie stepped delicately into these difficult waters.

“You said ‘none of us is very inspiring.' Would you say that Ranulph Byatt wouldn't want to have people around him who were, particularly good artists, or very strong personalities? That he likes being the focal point of admiration—the big fish surrounded by minnows?”

“That's unkind,” spluttered Chesney, though on whose behalf Charlie was unclear. “It's a cruel way of putting things. Best not said. It's Melanie decided these things quite as much as Ranulph, you know. And nobody could describe her as a minnow. Remember, first-rate painters don't grow on trees. Not many would want to shut themselves away in a little cottage miles from anywhere. Ranulph just wants to have like-minded people around him, people who share his ideals.”

“Right! I see,” said Charlie, who thought his earlier assessment of the situation had not been so wide of the mark. “Now, what about Mrs. Max?”

“Mrs. Max? Oh, she was around when I arrived here.” He looked a bit embarrassed. “Tell you the truth, I was afraid the whole setup was going to be a gaggle of women. Not so good with the ladies, me. Not that she's a silly body—not at all. She's got the best head of anyone around here, apart from Melanie.”

“I really meant, what's her place here in the community?”

“Well, she cooks at the farm, every meal except breakfast. Does as much cleaning as she can fit into the hours.”

“She has no artistic aspirations?”

“Good Lord, no. She's just a local who was glad enough
of a cottage and a job when her husband took up with another woman. She had a lad when she came here, though he took off for the bright lights a year or two ago.”

“And her relationship with Ranulph Byatt?”

“Relationship?” Chesney's tone implied that she was a servant and had no business having any kind of relationship with her employers. “She likes it when he's a bit more active, comes down to dinner, and so on. The womenfolk get in her hair, and she doesn't like Stephen, who used to treat her son like dirt. Beyond that . . .”

Charlie got up to go.

“Thanks for talking to me. I'm beginning to get the picture, I think.”

“But, Constable, there really isn't any picture to get,” said Chesney, getting up too and looking him straight in the eye, which aroused all Charlie's suspicions. “I mean, not from your point of view, not from the point of view of a murder inquiry.”

“Now I, on the contrary, am starting to feel there are a great number of pictures, of a great many kinds,” said Charlie with relish. “I'll be surprised if we don't meet again, sir.”

Chesney's face showed that he far from looked forward to the prospect. In fact, he seemed to have a sense that he had got himself further into the very thing he had been intent on getting himself out of.

 • • • 

Back at the police headquarters in Leeds after a long walk and a drive through late rush-hour traffic, Charlie found Mike Oddie with a small pile of stuff on Ranulph Byatt.

“Nothing of interest from our point of view,” he said,
looking up from it. “Only time he's come to our notice was a pretty sad business: elder daughter and her husband killed in a motorway crash on their wedding day. That was back in 1980. It was about that time he inherited Ashworth, but they didn't move up till 1982. So nothing much in our records. I've had a look at his entry for
Who's Who
. It just charts growing fame—at least in the art world, not popular fame—over the last fifty years or so. Went to art school just before and then just after the war (he'd been in the desert campaign, then through Italy), and then the entry charts a series of exhibitions at increasingly prestigious galleries. Married in 1951, and been married to her ever since. Hobbies, sailing and rock climbing.”

“Not much chance of him indulging in them these days,” commented Charlie. “He's not quite bedridden, but he's only a stage or two away from it.”

“Not a likely murderer, then.”

“Not a possible one, unless we were talking about poison or something like that. Otherwise I might have guessed he had the temperament for it.”

“Meaning?”

“Ruthless, egotistical, amoral.”

They were interrupted by a young man who came over and handed Oddie a sheet of paper. It was Michaelson, one of the pathologists most used by the West Yorkshire Police—young, intense, withdrawn. Charlie was struck by the unusualness of a pathologist delivering a preliminary report himself and standing by for questions. There must be something—

“Christ!” said Oddie.

“What is it?” asked Charlie, bending down to read.

“Will you tell him?” said Oddie, turning to the pathologist.

“It's a mite unusual,” said Michaelson, with a sort of reluctance rare in someone usually cold and scientific. “The boy's hands were secured, not by a rope, but probably some kind of handcuffs, possibly of leather. His feet seem to have been roughly tied with something plastic, maybe a clothesline. And then he was garroted.”

“He was
what
?” demanded Charlie.

“A sort of halter—I think of metal, maybe brass—was put around his neck, and then a screw was turned to tighten it. He was slowly strangled.”

They faxed the Gardai in Rathdrum that night, and had a reply on their desks when they got back to West Yorkshire Police headquarters in the morning.