The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery (15 page)

              “Did you know that Faith Roberts read the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
?”

              “Yes, I did.”

              “Did you ever read it?”

              “She offered it to me sometimes but I don’t like reading that particular newspaper.”

              “Why is that?”

              “My mother didn’t like it,” he replied.  “She preferred
The Times
.”

              “And Faith never spoke to you about what was in the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
?”

              “Once she did,” he responded surprisingly.

              “Can you remember what it was about?”

              “I think it was to do with some old murder case.  Porter, I think it was – no, perhaps it wasn’t Porter.  I can’t really remember the name.  Anyway, she said somebody connected with the case was living in Oxmarket Aspal now.  Full of it, she was.  I couldn’t see why she would be so interested.”

              “Did she say who it was in Oxmarket Aspal?”

              “I think,” Marcus said vaguely, “the women whose son writes plays.”

              “Did she mention her by name?”

              “No – I really it’s so long ago.”

              “You must try and remember,” I implored.  “You want to be free again don’t you?”

              “Free?” Marcus Dye sounded surprised.

              “Yes, free.”

              “Yes.  I – suppose I do.”

              “Then think.  Try and remember.”

              “It was something like – ‘
so pleased with herself that she had recognised someone and that you’d never have thought it was the same woman to look at in the photograph
.’  But of course it had been taken years ago.”

              “But what made you sure that it was Lorraine Terret she was talking about?”

              “I really don’t know . . . I just formed the impression that she had been speaking of Lorraine Terret – and then I lost interest and didn’t listen, and afterwards – well, now I come to think of it, I don’t really know who she was speaking about.  She talked a lot, you know.”

              “I don’t think it was Lorraine Terret she was talking about.  I think it was somebody else.  It is preposterous to reflect that if you serve life imprisonment it will be because you did not pay proper attention to the people who talk to you . . . Did Faith speak much to you of the houses where she worked, or the ladies of those houses?”

              “Yes, in a way – it’s no good asking me.  You don’t seem to realise, Mr Handful, that I had other things on my mind at the time.”

              “Did Faith ever speak of Helena Brooks-Nunn – Helena Woodhouse as she was then - or of Keldine Hogg?”

              “The Brooks-Nunn’s have that new house at the top of the hill. Faith didn’t go a bundle on Helena Brooks-Nunn. I don’t know why.  ‘
Jumped up
’ she used to say.  I don’t know what she meant by it.”

              “And the Hoggs?”

              “He’s the doctor, isn’t he?  I don’t remember her saying anything in particular about them.”

              “What about Lord and Lady Osborne?”

              “I do remember what she said about them.  ‘
No patience with her strange ways
,’ that’s what Faith said.  And about him, ‘
Never a word, good or bad, out of him
.’ He paused.  “She said – it was an unhappy house.”

              I looked up. For a second Marcus Dye’s voice had held something that I had not heard before.  He was not repeating obediently what he could recall.  His mind, for a very brief space, had moved out of its apathy.  Marcus Dye was thinking of Norbert House, of the life went that went on in there, of whether or not it was an unhappy home.  Marcus Dye was thinking objectively.

              “You know them?”  I said softly.  “The mother?  The father?  The daughter?”

              “Not really?  It was the dog.  A Springer Spaniel.  Got caught up in a rabbit’s snare.  She couldn’t get him out.  I helped her.”

              There was again something new in Marcus Dye’s tone.  “I helped her,” he had said, and in those words there was a faint echo of pride.

              “You talked together?”  I asked gently.

              “Yes.  She – her mother suffered a lot, she told me.  She was very fond of her mother.”

              “And you told her about yours?”

              “Yes,” Marcus Dye said simply.

              I said nothing and waited.

              “Life is very cruel,” Marcus Dye said.  “Very unfair.  Some people never seem to get any happiness.”

              “It is possible,” I said.

              “I don’t think she’d had much, Chloe Osborne.”

              “Chloe Bird, don’t you mean?”

              “Oh yes.  She told me she had a stepfather.”

              “Chloe.  A pretty name but not what I would call a pretty girl.”

              Marcus Dye flushed with annoyance.

              “I thought,” he said, “she was rather good-looking . . .”

19

              I returned to Detective Inspector Paul Silver’s office in Oxmarket.  I leant back in a chair pondering, with my eyes half open and the tips of my fingers just touching each other in front of me.

              The Detective Inspector received some reports, gave instructions to Sergeant Higgins and finally looked across at me.

              “A penny for them, John?”

              “I’m reflecting and reviewing.”

              “I forgot to ask you.  Did you get anything useful from Marcus Dye when you saw him?”

              I frowned and shook my head.  It was indeed Marcus Dye I had been thinking of.

             
It was annoying
, I thought with exasperation,
that on a case such as this where I had offered my services, out of friendship and respect for DI Silver that the victim of circumstances should so lack any romantic appeal. A lovely young girl, now, bewildered and innocent, or a fine upstanding young man, also bewildered, but innocent, or a fine upstanding young man, also bewildered, but whose ‘head is bloody but unbowed.’  However, I had Marcus Dye, a pathological case if there ever was one, a self-centred creature who had never thought much of anyone but himself.  A man ungrateful for the efforts that were being made to get him released – almost, one might say, uninterested in them.

             
Really
, I thought,
I might as well let him rot in gaol since he did not seem to care.

              No, I would not go quite as far as that.

             
DI Silver’s voice broke into my reflections.

              “Well?”

              “It was unproductive,” I said.  “Anything useful that Marcus Dye might have remembered he did not remember and what he did remember was so vague and uncertain that he’s given me nothing to go on. But in any case it seems fairly certain that Faith Roberts was excited by the article in the 
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
and spoke about it to Marcus Dye with special reference to ‘
someone connected with the case
,’ living In Oxmarket Aspal.”

              “With which case?”  DI Silver said sharply.

              “He wasn’t sure,” I replied. “He thought it was the Michael Porter case but that was possibly because that was the only one he could remember.  But the ‘someone’ was a woman. He even quoted Faith Roberts comment that ‘
someone would not be proud if all was known.’
”

              “
Proud
?”

              “Yes,” I nodded.  “A strange word to use, don’t you think?  Even suggestive.”

              “No clue as to who the proud lady was?”

              “Marcus Dye suggested Lorraine Terret but as far as I can see for no real reason!”

              “Probably because she was a proud masterful sort of woman,” DI Silver said shaking his head.  “But it couldn’t have been her because Lorraine Terret is dead, and dead for the same reason as Faith Roberts death, because she recognised a photograph.”

              “I warned her,” I said sadly.

              “Jo Pedder!”  DI Silver murmured irritably.  “So far as age goes, there are only two possibilities, Keldine Hogg and Helena Brooks-Nunn. I don’t count Chloe Bird.  She’s got a background.”

              “And the others have not?”

              “They’ve all got background, John.”  DI Silver sighed.  “And it is so easy to check now with the internet if they say who they say they are.”

              “And if they are not who they say they are then they have something to conceal,” I commented.

              “Exactly and if they’ve taken a lot of pains to cover up then that will make it difficult to uncover.”

              “But not impossible.”

              “Oh no.  Not impossible.  It just takes time.  As I say, if Jo Pedder is in Oxmarket Aspal, she’s either Helena Brooks-Nunn or Keldine Hogg.  I’ve questioned them – just routine – that’s the way I put it.  They say they were both at home – alone.  Helena Brooks-Nunn was the wide-eyed innocent, Keldine Hogg was nervous – but then she’s a nervous type, you can’t go by that.”

              “Yes,” I agreed thoughtfully.  “She is a nervous type.”

              I was thinking of Keldine Hogg bumping into me on the village green.  She had received an anonymous letter, she had said.  I wondered, as I had wondered before, about that statement.

              “And we have to be careful,” DI Silver went on.  “Because even if one of them is guilty, the other is innocent.”

              “And Richard Brooks-Nunn is a prospective Mayor and an important local figure.”

              “That wouldn’t help him if he was guilty of murder or an accessory to it,” DI Silver said grimly.

              “I know that.  But we have to be sure.”

              “But you agree it’s between the two of them?”

              “No,” I sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t agree with you.”

              “What?”  DI Silver quizzed.  “Why?”

              I was silent for a moment, then I asked in an almost casual tone, “Why do people keep old photographs?”

              “The same reason they keep other bits and pieces.  Memories I suppose.”

              I pounced on his words.  “Exactly.  Memories.  Mostly good but sometimes bad.”

              “Go on.”

              “Some people keep photographs as a desire to keep their hate for someone alive.  To remind themselves that someone has done harm to them.”

              “But surely that doesn’t apply to this case?”

              “Doesn’t it?”

              “Go on.”  DI Silver pressed, somewhat unconvinced.

              “Newspaper reports are often inaccurate,” I murmured.  “The
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
stated that Kristen Braun was actually employed by the Porters as their nanny.  Is that actually true?”

              “Yes, it was.  But we’re working on the assumption that it’s Jo Pedder we’re looking for.”

              I sat up suddenly very straight in my chair. I wagged an imperative forefinger at DI Silver.

              “Look at the photograph of Jo Pedder. She is hardly an oil painting is she?  Which means that nobody has kept the photograph for vanity reasons have they?  If Helena Brooks-Nunn or Keldine Hogg, had this photograph of themselves, they would tear it to pieces quickly in case somebody saw it!”

              “You may have a point there.”

              “So vanity is out.  Now take sentiment.  Did anybody love Jo Pedder at that age?  The whole point of Jo Pedder is that they did not.  She was an unwanted and unloved child. The person who liked her best was her aunt, and her aunt died violently.  So it wasn’t sentiment that kept this picture. And revenge?  Nobody hated her either.  Her murdered aunt was a lonely woman without a husband and with no close friends.  Nobody had hate for Jo Pedder, only pity.”

              “Christ, John.  Are you saying that nobody would have kept that photo?”

              “Yes.”

              “But somebody did.  Because Lorraine Terret had seen it.”

              “Had she?”

              “Bloody hell, John, it was you who told me.”

              “Yes, she said so.”  I said.  “But the late Loraine Terret was, in some ways, a secretive woman.  She liked to manage things in her own way.  I showed her the photographs and she recognised one of them.  But then, for some reason, she wanted to keep the identification to herself.  She wanted, let me say, to deal with a certain situation in the way she fancied.  And so, being very quick-witted, she deliberately pointed to the
wrong
picture.  Thereby keeping her knowledge to herself.”