Who Saw Him Die? (10 page)

Felicity's chief interest, though, was in her new home. The Mount – early Georgian three-storeyed red brick, with a pedimented doorway and a roof-concealing parapet – was set in over an acre of walled garden. It was south-facing, secluded, yet only five minutes' walk from the centre of Breckham Market. It also had the advantage of a sloping site, and a view across the roofs of the houses in the lower part of Mount Street towards the wooded, undulating country on the far side of the town.

Mount Street, a tree-lined residential road, rose steeply from the direction of the river, passed the entrance gates of The Mount and then forked. The right fork levelled and continued, still residential, into the upper part of the old town around St Botolph's church. The narrow left fork, Hobart's Lane, looped up and round the back of the walled garden of The Mount. The Goodrums'property was therefore surrounded by roads on three sides; but fortunately for their peace, the traffic in Mount Street was usually light and in Hobart's Lane – which went nowhere in particular – almost non-existent.

Before Jack bought it, The Mount had stood empty for some years. It was in a state of disrepair, but because of its situation and architectural merit the asking price was too high for the local residential market. Only someone with Jack's resources could have contemplated buying and restoring the house, and he – with a secret preference for having something nice and modern built to their own requirements – would not have thought of doing so if his wife-to-be hadn't fallen in love with it.

For Felicity, the house was ideal. And what had attracted her most was the Victorian conservatory that extended from the south-east wall. It was shaped in a hexagon, one and a half storeys high, with a framework of slender cast-iron pillars joined at the top by delicately curving cast-iron ribs.

When she and Jack first saw the ruined conservatory – virtually glassless, its ironwork rusting away – it had seemed irreparable. Jack had been all for having it demolished. But Felicity had seen its structural beauty. And besides, there were glossily dark-leaved camellias, so mature that they were trees rather than shrubs, still growing there amid the broken glass and bird droppings. From the moment she saw the camellias, flourishing happily though it seemed that everything had fallen apart about them, Felicity had known that this would be a good place to call her home.

And now that Jack had had the conservatory restored, at considerable but ungrudged expense, he had become very proud of it. He would often join Felicity there so that they could do their odd jobs together in mutual contentment. That was where they were – he cleaning his shotguns, she potting up bulbs – when a large middle-aged man and a younger woman came walking round from the side of the house and tapped on the glass of the conservatory's garden door.

The man apologised for taking them by surprise. ‘No one answered the front door, but we saw the Range Rover in the drive and knew there'd be somebody about somewhere. County police – Detective Chief Inspector Quantrill, Detective Sergeant Lloyd.'

Puzzled but hospitable, Felicity – who happened to be nearer the garden door than her husband – invited them in. She took an immediate liking to the Chief Inspector because he was very much a man in Jack's mould, solidly and unpretentiously Suffolk. The woman detective was much more stylish and sophisticated. Good bones, thought Felicity approvingly; pity about that scar on her forehead. But how strange that her eyes should move so rapidly, taking everything in …
his
eyes, too, despite the slowness of his voice …

Feeling slightly unnerved by their comprehensive scrutiny, Felicity glanced back at Jack for support. He had already moved up behind her, and now he placed his hand on her shoulder.

‘And what can we do for you, Chief Inspector?' he enquired genially.

‘Just a private word, if you please, Mr Goodrum.'

Jack's fingers tightened. ‘Has something happened?' he demanded, his voice suddenly hoarse. ‘You're not bringing us bad news, are you?'

‘Oh
no
,' Felicity sensed his alarm and her compost-soiled hands flew up towards her open mouth as if to stifle her gasp of horror. ‘It isn't Matthew, is it? Don't say he's –?'

‘It's all
right
, Mrs Goodrum,' said the sergeant quickly. She gave a reassuring smile. ‘We're only making routine enquiries. Matthew's your son, I imagine?'

‘Yes –' Felicity relaxed. She laughed with relief as Jack gave her shoulder an affectionate pat before taking his hand away. ‘This is Matthew's first term at boarding school so I can't be sure what he's up to. He's nearly seventeen, and I believe he's learning to ride a motor bike. I had visions of him borrowing a machine and crashing it …'

‘It's a worrying age,' agreed the Chief Inspector. ‘My own boy's at day school, but I've no idea what
he
gets up to either. As Sergeant Lloyd says, though, we've come solely to ask for Mr Goodrum's help with a routine enquiry.'

Felicity dusted her hands together and gave the detective a parting smile. ‘I must go and see about lunch, anyway,' she said. But as she began to move her husband put a detaining hand on her arm.

‘I'd rather you stayed, my dear.' He turned to the detectives. ‘There's nothing you can ask me that I wouldn't want my wife to know about,' he asserted with a proud jut of his Desperate Dan chin. ‘
Our's
isn't the poor sort of marriage where husband and wife have secrets from each other.'

The Chief Inspector looked discomfited. He opened his mouth to say something, but evidently thought better of it. Felicity, standing serenely beside her honest Jack, felt quite sorry for the man. ‘Do sit down,' she suggested.

The conservatory was furnished, among the camellias, with bamboo chairs. Jack had – inevitably – wanted to buy brand new ones. He didn't like to provide his wife with what he called disparagingly ‘second-hand rubbish'. But Felicity, who knew how old buildings should be furnished, had ferreted about in junk shops and saleyards and had triumphantly acquired some relics of the Imperial East: sagging, somewhat battered, but indubitably the real thing.

She had made the old chairs comfortable with chintz-covered cushions, but this had done little to muffle their tendency to creak. As the Chief Inspector's chair protested under his weight, Felicity saw him cast a glance of embarrassment at his woman colleague. Sergeant Lloyd, who wore a diamond eternity ring, gave no sign that she had noticed the creaking; not so much out of tact, Felicity guessed, as out of a studied determination to take no personal interest in her senior officer.

Oh dear
, Felicity thought with gentle amusement. She was a kind woman, and certainly not a smug one, but she couldn't help rejoicing in the confidence that her newly acquired happiness had given her. She suspected that the Chief Inspector was a partner in what Jack had tactlessly dismissed as a poor sort of marriage, and that he was hankering after his unattainable sergeant.
Poor Chief Inspector Quantrill
…

She gave Jack a fond look, and prepared to smile kindly at their visitor. As she did so, she realised that in the last few seconds there had been a subtle change in the atmosphere. There was now a hint of chill. The Chief Inspector was no longer a figure of pity but a massive and intrusive presence. He sat perfectly still in his chair and his eyes were still, too; they were the hard green of little apples, and they were staring straight at Jack.

‘What we've come to do, Mr Goodrum,' he said in his measured Suffolk voice, ‘is to tie up the loose ends in the matter of Cuthbert Bell's death.'

This time, Jack's was the chair that creaked. Felicity looked at her husband. His chin was jutting and he was staring back at the Chief Inspector, but his voice was completely calm as he said, ‘I thought that'd all been dealt with at the inquest.‘

‘So did I. But some information has come to light that doesn't match what we thought we knew. We took you for a newcomer to Breckham Market, you see.'

‘That's right. So I am. We came to live here in October.' Jack turned for confirmation to his wife. ‘What was the exact date, my dear?'

‘The fifth,' said Felicity mechanically. Jack seemed completely unworried, but that did nothing to lessen her unease. She had noticed that the sergeant's eyes had stilled and that they too were now focused on her husband.

‘October 5th – yes, that date was mentioned in the report,' agreed the Chief Inspector. ‘What
wasn't
mentioned, either at your interview after the incident or at the inquest, was that you were no stranger to the town when you arrived. I understand that your grandparents owned a butcher's shop just off Victoria Road, and that you often came to stay with them when you were a boy.'

For a second Jack looked taken aback. Then he burst out laughing. ‘Why, blast, you're going back a year or two! So they did … So I did! There's no secret about it. I daresay a few of the old ‘uns in the town can remember me delivering their meat … But that was all of thirty-five years ago! I haven't been near the place since I was sixteen.'

‘Why not?' asked Sergeant Lloyd quickly.

‘Because I grew up and went out to work,' said Jack, his voice civilly matter-of-fact. ‘I got a job near home, in Ipswich. Then m'grandad died, Grandma came to live with us, and there wasn't any reason for me to come back to Breckham. There wasn't any reason, either, for me to tell the Coroner that I used to come here in the school holidays thirty-five to forty years ago! That had nothing at all to do with the inquest.'

‘Except that the man you knocked over with your Range Rover was not in fact a stranger to you, Mr Goodrum,' said the Chief Inspector. ‘You used to know Cuthbert Bell quite well, I believe, when you were boys together?'

Jack had told Felicity all about his grandparents and their butcher's shop. She enjoyed his stories of his early life, and of the mischief he used to get up to. She knew there was no secret about his long-ago acquaintance with Breckham Market, and she agreed with his contention that the fact was irrelevant to the inquest. But she hadn't, until now, heard that he used to know the man he had accidentally killed. The revelation made her draw in her breath so sharply that both detectives immediately looked at her, hard.

‘Oh Jack – and you didn't tell me!' she said reproachfully. ‘That must have made the accident even more distressing for you.'

He took her hand. His own was big and warm and comforting. ‘That's exactly why I didn't tell you, my dear. You were upset enough over the accident as it was. Not that I realised who the man was at the time, o'course.'

He looked straight at the detectives. ‘Clanger, that was what everybody called the man who walked into my Range Rover,' he explained. ‘Just Clanger, the town drunk. I'd seen him wandering round, but I had no reason to connect him with the boy who used to follow me about all those years ago. No reason at all. As soon as I heard his real name, after the accident, I thought I recognised it. But even then, it was some time before I could call him to mind. It wasn't as though we'd ever been friends – he'd just followed me like a lost dog. Mind you, young Cuthbert always was an odd 'un. ‘S not surprising, come to think of it, that he ended up as a drunk – not with the parents
he'd
got, poor little perisher …'

‘You knew his parents, then, Mr Goodrum?' said the sergeant.

Jack laughed. Still holding his wife's hand, to their mutual comfort, he said, ‘Only to deliver meat to – and then I didn't see
them
, o'course. Tradesmen went round the back in those days, and were dealt with by the servants. But I heard my grandparents talk about Mr and Mrs Bell, and how cold and distant they were with their children.'

‘So you never actually met Cuthbert's father?' asked the Chief Inspector. Though he spoke casually, Felicity couldn't fail to notice that he was watching every movement of her husband's face.

But Jack was completely relaxed. ‘Met him? Why yes – I got a good hiding from him, once! I can't say that I actually
knew
him, but I certainly felt the weight of his leather strap …'

‘What for?' asked Sergeant Lloyd. ‘What had you done?'

Jack scratched his thick hair with his free hand. ‘Hanged if I know, after all these years – but no doubt I deserved it! I was a young terror, always getting into trouble and having my ear clipped for it. My poor grandma used to take the sole of an old shoe to my backside when she couldn't put up with my tricks any longer. I remember the time when –'

‘I'd rather you tried to remember the time when Mr Bell thrashed you,' interrupted the Chief Inspector. ‘My information is that he punished you severely – and that it was Cuthbert who'd told on you.'

Jack made no direct reply. He went completely quiet for a moment, and then turned to his wife. ‘I tell you what it is, Felicity,' he said in a conversational tone. ‘The CID has come here imagining that I recognised the town drunk, and deliberately ran him over so as to get my own back for something that happened thirty-five years ago.' He looked challengingly at their visitors. ‘That's it, isn'it? That's what all this is about?'

Felicity was horrified. Jack was right, of course – the police
were
suspicious, that was what accounted for the unease she had felt during their questioning. But what they were imagining was preposterous, and she told them so.

The Chief Inspector's chair creaked uncomfortably. His sergeant was already on her feet and he stood too, still trying to maintain that his enquiries were merely routine. Felicity turned disdainfully away. She expected Jack to show the detectives the door, but to her surprise he seemed to have taken no offence.

‘Now hold you hard, my dear,' he told her. ‘The police have their job to do, and being suspicious is part of it. I've been glad of CID help more than once, over break-ins and thefts from my business, and I reckon an honest man's a fool if he won't co-operate with 'em. They have to act on information they receive – but what they've heard this time is just not true. What it sounds like is malicious gossip.'