The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori (22 page)

“To still doubts?”

“Exactly. But whether it was wise to ask that now, with no evidence of any sort . . .”

“Anyway, I don't think we'll ask Mrs. Byatt about that. We've no reason, as you say, to think that Mates's disappearance was anything other than a discontented husband taking off—though you're probably right that she, at the
back of her mind, was suspicious. It will be interesting, if we can find out, to know whether the daughter brings up our question with her mother, or whether she lets the suspicion fester, as it presumably has up to now.”

It mattered very little, in fact, what they brought up with Melanie Byatt. On almost every subject she stonewalled the question completely. In her manner, somewhere between the Roman matriarch Volumnia and Lady Bracknell, she sat straight, rarely deigned to look either of them in the eye, and answered where possible in monosyllables. By and large she treated them like the under-gardeners which, her manner suggested, would naturally have been part of her establishment in an earlier age.

Since she denied ever having seen Declan's brother Patrick, denied he had come to Ashworth, said she could not even remember whether she had ever heard him mentioned and had to be reminded that Mrs. Max had mentioned him on Charlie's first visit, it was not long before Oddie, from the drying up of possible questions, was forced on to another subject.

“Your grandson Stephen left Ashworth on Monday?”

“Yes.”

“Why did he do that?”

“He decided to go up to Oxford early.”

“That was a sudden decision, wasn't it?” She shrugged. “Was there anything that triggered it?”

For once she looked in Charlie's direction.

“Mr. Peace,” she said, her voice oozing condescension, “tell your superior that young people do unpredictable things.”

“Yes, they do,” agreed Charlie easily. “But often they
seem unpredictable to older people, but seem logical and well thought out to the young person himself. Monday was—what—September the twenty-first.”

“Something like that.”

“The Oxford term doesn't start till well into October. Could you make an effort to get into Stephen's mind, guess at what reason he could have had for going up so early?”

There was a long silence. Was she meditating on whether to reply, or what to reply, or trying to think up a convincing reason that would satisfy them? Eventually she said, still as if offering a few pence to a beggar, “Stephen is not a very intelligent young man. Sad but true, and something he tries to hide from himself. He went to a very good private school near York, but he never prospered there. He finally got into Brasenose because his father had had an undistinguished career there back in the sixties, and because Ranulph offered the college a very good picture for their hall. I suspect Stephen realized that if he was to make anything of his chance he either had to get into a good set, or he had to work hard to get a reasonable degree. He has never yet shone socially, so the second alternative was the only one open to him. He's gone up to get a lot of reading done so he can steal a march on the other freshmen.”

So if you're so confident of his reasons, Oddie felt like asking, why didn't you tell us that from the start? Instead he said, “So that's what he told you on Monday before he set off?”

“Not in so many words,” Melanie said carefully. “We were making practical arrangements about where he'd leave the car in Keighley, and who would pick it up.”

“And financial arrangements too?”

“Oh, Stephen had enough money for the fares and the first few days. He was going to set up a bank account in Oxford, and then we would forward the necessary funds.”

“We? His grandfather, you mean?”

“Of course.”

“Mr. Byatt is presumably very fond of his only grandchild.”

“Naturally.”

It was the only thing she could say, granted the line she was taking, but it was said after a brief pause, and with firmly set lips.

Mrs. Max, when they talked to her, was much more accommodating, but the real disappointment was that weekends were her time off.

“Saturdays I always come in for the mornings,” she said, “and I serve them a light lunch and leave them the wherewithal for their evening meal—either a cold one or something in the oven they can just switch on. Sundays Martha usually cooks a roast or a pie or something—she can cook if she wants to.”

“Martha was away last weekend,” said Oddie.

“Oh, they'll have managed. It's not part of my job to worry about what they do when I'm not here. They'll probably have rung one of the Chinese or Indian places in Haworth that deliver.”

“Melanie can't cook?”

“Won't, if she can help it.”

“So after midday on Saturday you were free until Monday morning?”

“That's right.”

“What did you do?”

“In the afternoon I pottered around in my little bit of garden, clearing up dead stuff, and in the evening I read my magazine and then watched
Casualty
on television.”

“And Sunday?”

“Sundays I like to cook for myself—things I wouldn't serve at the house because
some
one would turn up their nose: tripe, liver, kidneys, that sort of thing. In the afternoon last weekend I went to my sister's—she lives between Oakworth and Keighley, and I walked there.”

“Did you see anything unusual, or hear anything from the house on your way there or back?”

“No, I didn't. I was driven back to Stanbury about seven, and just walked down the lane. Frankly, it's not likely I would, is it? If anything was done, it wouldn't be done by a window, would it? I don't think anything was done at all.”

“You said, I believe, that on Saturday you saw Mrs. Byatt throw Declan's note in the fire. What about Monday? Was anything more said about his leaving Ashworth then?”

“Nothing beyond how inconvenient it was.”

“His brother Patrick wasn't mentioned?”

“He was
not
,” she said without hesitation. “And surely he would have been if he'd called there.”

“What about Stephen, and his decision to go up to Oxford early: what did you hear about that?”

“Not a great deal. Quite early on, while I was washing up breakfast things, I'd heard him phoning the garage from the hall. He phoned again about an hour later, and I heard him tell Melanie it was ‘no big deal' what was wrong with the car. Then there were several huddles around the place, and the next I knew he was striding out with a big knapsack on his back, and Melanie told me he'd gone to
Oxford for a bit to get down to work. Another of his fancies, I thought. Your constable will have told you he's not a favorite here. He's changeable, goes hell for leather in one direction, then changes tack—particularly when he has a hangover.”

“He had a hangover?”

“Well, he looked very tired, anyway. He wasn't back that late the night before, so I don't know that it was the drink.”

“You heard him come back on Sunday night?”

“Oh, yes. It was about ten o'clock or so.”

“What do you mean, you heard him? What sort of noise was he making?”

“The
car
. I heard the car. I should know the noises it makes. I'd seen him drive out about half past seven, and I heard him drive back as I was going to bed about half past ten.”

“I see. Could he have gone out again later?”

“Easily. I hear nothing after I've dropped off, like my son told your young constable there. Someone must have, mustn't they, if the car landed up in Haworth that night.”

“Of course. When he drove out at seven-thirty, did he have anyone with him in the car?”

“No one. He was alone. Unless someone was hiding.”

“Or unless someone was a corpse in the boot,” said Charlie to Oddie when they were alone in the dining room. But neither of them was happy with that idea.

“Then why didn't he dispose of it?” asked Oddie. “It was dark long before ten-thirty, when he returned.”

“The most likely reason,” said Charlie slowly, “is that when he went out there was no corpse to dispose of, and when he came back there was.”

Oddie considered this.

“Or there was soon after. Because either Stephen Mates did the garroting after he came back, or it was done while he was away. And if it was the latter, who on earth did it? Because looking at Mrs. Byatt, I can't see her hands having enough strength. And from what you've told me about her husband, he needs help painting, let alone turning the screw on that horrible implement.”

“That leaves us with one of the disciples,” said Charlie. “Or with all of them together.”

They were interrupted by the sound of cars. Charlie registered with a start how much his ear had accustomed itself to a car-free environment. No wonder the ears of the Ashworth people took note of the comings and goings of their one vehicle. The arrival of Forensics meant four cars left higgledy-piggledy in the lanes around the farmhouse. Mike got up to let in the six- or seven-strong team, then came back into the dining room.

“They know what they're looking for,” he said. “What
say we let them get on with it? I think it's time we talked to the disciples.”

“Shall we do them together, or divide them up?”

“Together, I think. You know these people better than I do.”

“I've only really talked to Colonel Chesney.”

“By reputation, anyway. You may pick up things I would miss if I was on my own—discrepancies, contradictions. You can have a watching brief.”

“‘Forgive me, Lord, I have sinned.'”

“It's nothing to do with what you asked Mrs. Mates. We've yet to learn that that was counterproductive. Don't go all sensitive just because I ask you to button your lip.”

“I'm all girlish uncertainty,” said Charlie. “You know that.”

They emerged from the house, which was filled with the subdued bustle of the forensics people going about their finicky business, and in the weak, late-afternoon sun, they looked about them.

“Where do we start, Boss?”

“With the one who's done time, I think,” said Oddie, after a thought. “It's where we normally would. I don't see why we should make a difference, even if he is middle class and artistic as hell.”

 • • • 

Ivor Aston had had ample time to adopt the manner that seemed to him the best form of counterattack. He greeted them in a friendly, courteous way, sat them down, and offered them tea or coffee, which they refused. All in all he seemed to be presenting a surface of normality for
their inspection. Here I am, he seemed to be saying, your friendly neighborhood child pornographer.

“Do you want to discuss my record first,” he said easily, “or recent events at the farmhouse?”

“I think we'll discuss recent matters first,” said Oddie, equally easy.

“Right you are. I hear it was Declan's brother who was the actual victim. I had no idea he had one.”

“Can we stick to the question-and-answer approach?” said Oddie, smiling more kindly than he felt. “It usually works rather well. We're working now on the assumption that Declan O'Hearn did indeed leave Ashworth voluntarily on the night of Friday-Saturday last week. Have you any idea why he left?”

Aston shrugged.

“None at all. Just the itchy feet of the young, I would imagine. My impression was that he'd rather enjoyed helping Ranulph paint, been rather proud of being part of a new creative surge. I had a fair bit of chitchat with him when Ranulph invited me to a special private viewing of his new canvas, and that was the feeling I got. But in the long run that's not going to weigh against seeing the world, mixing with people of his own age, having a few girls, maybe experimenting with drugs.”

“Doing what all young people do, eh?”

“That's right.”

“You say you didn't know that Declan had a brother. Did you see any young man around Ashworth that weekend?”

“No.”

“Didn't suspect that the Byatt household might have found a replacement for Declan?”

“No. And I very much doubt they did.”

Oddie nodded neutrally.

“What were you doing on that Saturday, sir?”

“I went sketching over toward Hardcastle Crags. It's a favorite spot of mine. I walked over the moors and spent the day there. I have my sketchbook to prove it.”

“Someone who remembers you would be useful, sir.”

Ivor Aston thought—or gave the appearance of thinking. Because surely he had got it all thought out before they came?

“I stopped on the way for a pint and a sandwich at the Horse and Whippet. They'll remember me there. I'm well known—and well shunned—in this area.”

Oddie nodded, still neutral.

“I see. Talk to anyone while you were sketching, sir?”

“No. The odd walker was around, but I didn't talk to any of them. I began back about half-four, so as to be home by nightfall. I had another pint at the Grange—the same applies as at the Horse and Whippet: at the Grange they serve me through clenched teeth, if you can imagine that, thanks to my sister.”

“And when you got back to Ashworth itself, you didn't notice anything unusual?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Nor saw anybody you wouldn't normally see?”

“No.”

“Well, the fact that you were walking may make it easier to check your alibi than if you had driven. What about Sunday?”

“I went to church in Haworth. They have a new rector—very good, he is. Then I came back here, cooked a simple meal, then read and relaxed for the rest of the day.”

“And you noticed nothing unusual around the place?”

“Nothing. I was in rather than out, working up one of my sketches to a watercolor.”