Magpie Murders

by Anthony Horowitz

  It was only as they were driving home that Emilia Redwing repeated what her father had told her. Arthur, behind the wheel, was shocked. ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you sure he knew what he was saying?’

  ‘It was extraordinary. He was completely lucid – just for the five minutes you were gone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, dear. You should have called me.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I just wish you’d been there to hear it.’

  ‘I could have been a witness.’

  Dr Redwing hadn’t considered that – but now she nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Dr Redwing didn’t answer. She watched the Bath Valley slipping by, cows dotted here and there, grazing on the other side of the railway line. The summer sun hadn’t set but the light was soft, the shadows folding themselves into the sides of the hills. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, at length. ‘In a way, I wish he hadn’t told me. It was his guilty secret and now it’s mine.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to tell someone. I’m not sure it’ll make any difference. Even if you had been there, there isn’t any proof.’

  ‘Maybe you should tell that detective.’

  ‘Mr Pünd?’ She was annoyed with herself. It had never occurred to her that there might be a connection, but of course she had to pass on what she knew. Sir Magnus Pye, the beneficiary of a huge estate, had been violently murdered and now it turned out that the estate had never been his in the first place. Could that be the reason why he had been killed? ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose I had better let him know.’

  They drove on in silence. Then her husband said, ‘And what about Clarissa Pye? Will you tell her?’

  ‘Do you think I should?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’

  They reached the village. And as they drove past the fire station and then the Queen’s Arms with the church just behind it, they were unaware that they were both having the same thought.

  What if Clarissa had already known?

  8

  At exactly that moment, inside the Queen’s Arms, James Fraser was carrying a tray with five drinks to a quiet table in the far corner. There were three pints of beer – for himself, for Robert Blakiston and for Inspector Chubb, a Dubonnet and bitter lemon for Joy Sanderling, and a small sherry for Atticus Pünd. He would have liked to have added a couple of bags of crisps but something told him that they would be inappropriate. As he sat down, he examined the man who had brought them there. Robert Blakiston, who had lost both a mother and a mentor in the space of two weeks, had come straight from work. He had changed out of his overalls and put on a jacket but his hands were still covered with grease and oil. Fraser wondered if it would ever come off. He was a strange-looking young man, not unattractive but almost like a bad drawing of himself with his badly cut hair, his over-pronounced cheekbones, his pale skin. He was sitting next to Joy, quite possibly holding her hand under the table. His eyes were haunted. It was obvious that he would have preferred to be anywhere but here.

  ‘You don’t need to worry, Rob,’ Joy was saying. ‘Mr Pünd only wants to help.’

  ‘Like he helped you when you went to London?’ Robert was having none of it. ‘This village won’t let us alone. First they said it was me who killed my own mother, not that I would ever have laid a finger on her. You know that. And as if that wasn’t enough for them, then they start their whispering about Sir Magnus.’ He turned to Atticus. ‘Is that why you’re here, Mr Pound? Is it because you suspect me?’

  ‘Did you have a reason to wish Sir Magnus harm?’ Pünd asked.

  ‘No. He wasn’t an easy man, I’ll give you that. But he was always very good to me. I wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for him.’

  ‘I must ask you many things about your life, Robert,’ Pünd went on. ‘It is not because you are under suspicion any more than anyone else in this village. But both deaths occurred at Pye Hall and it is true to say that you have a close association with that place.’

  ‘I didn’t choose it that way.’

  ‘Of course not. But you can perhaps tell us a great deal about its history and about the people who lived there.’

  Robert’s one visible hand curled round his beer. He looked up at Pünd defiantly. ‘You’re not a policeman,’ he said. ‘Why should I have to tell you anything?’

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ Chubb cut in. He had been about to light a cigarette and stopped with the match inches away from his face. ‘And Mr Pünd is working with me. You should mind your manners, young man. If you don’t want to co-operate, we’ll see what a night behind bars will do to change your mind. It won’t be the first time you’ve seen the inside of a jail, I understand.’ He lit the cigarette and blew out the match.

  Joy put a hand on her fiancé’s arm. ‘Please, Robert …’

  He shrugged her off. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide. You can ask me what you want.’

  ‘Then let us begin at the very beginning,’ Pünd suggested. ‘If it does not distress you, perhaps you can describe for us your childhood at Pye Hall.’

  ‘It doesn’t distress me, although I was never very happy there,’ Robert answered. ‘It’s not very nice when your mother cares more about her employer than your own father – but that’s how it was almost from the day we moved into the Lodge House. Sir Magnus this, Sir Magnus that! She was all over him, even though she was never more than his skivvy. My dad wasn’t happy about it either. It was never easy for him, living in someone else’s house in someone else’s grounds. But they stuck with it for a time. My dad wasn’t getting much work before the war. It was somewhere to live, a regular income. So he put up with it.

  ‘I was twelve years old when we moved in. We’d been living up at Sheppard’s Farm, which was my granddad’s place. It was pretty rundown but we liked it there, left to our own devices. Me and Tom had been born in Saxby-on-Avon, and we always lived here. As far as I was concerned there was nowhere else in the world. Sir Magnus needed someone to look after the place when the old housekeeper left and my mum was already doing jobs around the village, so it was an obvious choice, really.

  ‘The first year or so was OK. The Lodge House wasn’t such a bad place and we had plenty of room after Sheppard’s Farm. We all had our own rooms, which was nice – Mum and Dad at the end of the corridor. I used to boast about it at school, having such a grand address, although the other kids just teased me about it.’

  ‘How well did you and your brother get on?’

  ‘We had fights, like all little boys. But we were also very close. We used to chase each other all over the estate. We were pirates, treasure hunters, soldiers, spies. Tom used to make up all the games. He was younger than me but he was a lot smarter too. He used to tap out this code on the wall to me at night. He’d made it up himself. I didn’t understand a word of it but I’d hear him tapping it out when we were meant to be asleep.’ He half-smiled at the memory and just for a moment some of the tension went out of his face.

  ‘You had a dog, I believe. Its name was Bella.’

  At once the frown was back. Fraser remembered the collar that they had found in the bedroom at the Lodge House but he wondered what relevance it could have.

  ‘Bella was Tom’s dog,’ Robert said. ‘My dad got it for him around the time we left Sheppard’s Farm.’ He glanced at Joy as if unsure whether to continue. ‘But after we moved it – it didn’t end well.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We never really found out but I’ll tell you this. Sir Magnus didn’t want him on his land. That much was clear. He said that Bella chased the sheep. He said right away he wanted us to get rid of it but Tom really loved that dog so Dad said no. Anyway, one day it disappeared. We looked everywhere for it but it was just gone. And then, about two weeks later, we found it in Dingle Dell.’ He paused and looked down. ‘Someone had cut it’s throat. Tom always said it was Bren
t. But if it was, he was only acting on Sir Magnus’s orders.’

  There was a long silence. When Pünd spoke again, his voice was low. ‘I must ask you now about another death,’ he said. ‘I am sure it will be painful to you. But you understand …’

  ‘You’re talking about Tom.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Robert nodded. ‘When the war began, my dad went over to Boscombe Down where he worked on the planes and he’d often stay there the whole week so we only saw him now and then. Maybe if he’d been there, maybe if he’d looked out for us more it would never have happened. That’s what my mum always said. She blamed him for not being there.’

  ‘Can you tell me what occurred?’

  ‘I’ll never forget it, Mr Pound. Not as long as I live. At the time, I thought it was my fault. That was what a lot of people said and maybe it was what my dad believed. He never talked to me about it. He hardly ever spoke to me again and I haven’t see him now in years. Well, maybe he’s got a point. Tom was two years younger than me and I was meant to be looking after him. But I left him on his own and the next thing I know, they’re pulling him out of the lake and he’s drowned. He was only twelve years old.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Robert,’ Joy said. She put her arm around him, holding him tightly. ‘It was an accident. You weren’t even there …’

  ‘I was the one who led him out into the garden. I left him on his own.’ He gazed at Pünd with eyes that were suddenly bright with tears. ‘It was the summer, a day like today. We were on a treasure hunt. We were always looking for bits and pieces – silver and gold – we knew how Sir Magnus had found a whole load of the stuff in Dingle Dell. Buried treasure! It was the sort of thing that every boy dreamed about. We’d read stories in the Magnet and the Hotspur and then we’d try to make them come real. Sir Magnus used to encourage us too. He’d actually set us challenges. So maybe he was partly to blame for what happened. I don’t know. It’s always about blame, isn’t it? These things happen and you have to find some way to make them make sense.

  ‘Tom drowned in the lake. To this day, we don’t know how it happened. He was fully dressed so it wasn’t as if he’d gone for a swim. Maybe he fell. Maybe he hit his head. Brent was the one who found him and got him out. I heard him shouting and I came running back across the lawn. I helped to get him on dry land and I tried to resuscitate him, the way they showed us at school. But there was nothing I could do. By the time Mum came down and found us, it was too late.’

  ‘Neville Brent was already working there?’ Chubb asked. ‘He must have been in his teens himself.’

  ‘Yes. He was very young but he used to help his father. In fact he took over the job when his dad died.’

  ‘It must have been a great shock for you, and very upsetting, to see your brother in this way,’ Pünd said.

  ‘I threw myself into the water. I grabbed hold of him. I was screaming and I was crying and even now I can’t bring myself to look at that damned place. I never wanted to stay in the Lodge House and if I had my way, I’d get out of Saxby-on-Avon altogether and now, what with everything that’s happened, maybe I will. Anyway, my dad came back that night. He shouted at my mother. He shouted at me. He never gave us any support. All we got from him was anger. And a year later, he left us. He said the marriage was over. We never saw him again.’

  ‘How did your mother respond to what had happened?’

  ‘She still stayed working for Sir Magnus. That’s the first thing. She would never have thought of leaving him no matter what – that’s how much she looked up to him. She’d walk past that lake every day on her way to work. She told me that she never looked, that she kept her head the other way – but I don’t know how she did it.’

  ‘She was still caring for you?’

  ‘She was trying to, Mr Pound. I suppose I might as well admit it although I never thanked her for it. Nothing was ever easy after Tom died. Things went wrong at school. The other children could be so bloody cruel. And she was afraid for me. She never let me out of the house! Sometime I felt like a prisoner. She was always watching me. She was terrified something was going to happen to me and she would be left on her own. I think that was the real reason she didn’t want me to marry Joy, because I would leave her. She was suffocating me and that was how things went wrong between us. I might as well admit it. I ended up hating her.’

  He lifted his glass and took a few sips of his beer.

  ‘You didn’t hate her,’ Joy said, quietly. ‘Things weren’t right between you, that’s all. You were both living in the shadow of what had happened and you didn’t realise how much it was hurting you.’

  ‘You threatened her just before she died,’ Inspector Chubb remarked. He had already finished his own beer.

  ‘I never did that, sir. I never did.’

  ‘We will come to that all in good time,’ Pünd said. ‘You did, in the end, leave Pye Hall. Tell us first about your time in Bristol.’

  ‘It didn’t last long.’ Now Robert sounded sullen. ‘Sir Magnus had arranged it for me. After my dad left, he sort of took over and tried to help as best he could. He wasn’t a bad man – not all bad, anyways. He got me an apprenticeship with Ford Motorcars but it all went wrong. I’ll admit I made a right mess of it. I wasn’t happy on my own in a strange city. I drank too much and I got into a fight at the local pub, the Blue Boar. It was all about nothing …’ He nodded at Chubb. ‘But you’re right. I did spend a night in jail and there might have been worse trouble for me if Sir Magnus hadn’t stepped in once again. He spoke to the police and they agreed to let me off with a caution but that was the end of it for me. I came back to Saxby and he set me up with the job I have now. I’ve always liked tinkering with cars. I suppose I got that from my dad, although it’s all he ever gave me.’

  ‘What was it that made you argue with your mother in the week of her death?’ Pünd asked.

  ‘It was nothing. She wanted me to mend a broken light. That’s all. You really think I killed her because of that, Mr Pound? I swear to you, I didn’t go near her – and I couldn’t have. Joy told you. I was with her that evening! All evening and all night. We left the flat together, so if I’m lying, she’s lying and why would she do that?’

  ‘You will forgive me, but that is not necessarily the case.’ Pünd turned to Joy Sanderling who seemed almost to brace herself for what was to come. ‘When you visited me in London, you told me you were together all the time. But are you certain that you were constantly in each other’s sight? Did you not take a shower or a bath? Did you not prepare the breakfast?’

  Joy flushed. ‘I did both, Mr Pünd. Maybe there were ten or fifteen minutes when I didn’t see Robert …’

  ‘And your motor scooter was parked outside the flat, Miss Sanderling. Although it was too far by foot, it would have taken Robert no more than two or three minutes to reach Pye Hall – by your own admission. It is not impossible that he could have driven there, killed the mother who had caused him so much torment and who stood so resolutely opposed to your marriage and returned, all in the time that you were in the kitchen or in the bath.’ He let the proposition hang in the air, then turned again to Robert. ‘And what of Sir Magnus?’ he continued. ‘Can you tell me where you were at half past eight on the evening of his death?’

  Robert slumped, defeated. ‘I can’t help you there. I was in my flat, having supper on my own. Where else would I have been? But if you think I killed Sir Magnus, maybe you can tell me why. He never did anything to hurt me.’

  ‘Your mother died at Pye Hall. He did not care enough even to attend her funeral!’

  ‘How can you be so cruel?’ Joy exclaimed. ‘You’re spinning fantasies out of thin air, just to accuse Robert. He had no reason to kill either of them. As for the motor scooter, I never heard it leave. I’m sure I would have, even if I was in the bath.’

  ‘Have you finished?’ Robert asked. He got to his feet, leaving
the rest of his beer untouched.

  ‘I have no further questions,’ Pünd said.

  ‘Then if you don’t mind, I’m going home.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Joy said.

  Chubb glanced at Pünd as if to be sure that there was nothing more he wanted to ask. Pünd nodded very slightly and the two young people left together.

  ‘Do you really think he might have killed his mother?’ Fraser asked, as soon as they were gone.

  ‘I think it is unlikely, James. To hear him speak of his mother just now … he spoke with anger, with vexation and even perhaps with fear. But there was no hatred. Nor do I believe that he drove to Pye Hall on the motor scooter of his fiancée, even though it was interesting to suggest the idea. And why? Because of its colour. Do you not remember? It is something that I remarked to you, when Miss Sanderling first visited us. A man wishing to pass quickly through a village to commit a crime might borrow a motor scooter but not, I think, one that was bright pink. It would be too easily noticed. Could he have had a motive to kill Sir Magnus Pye? It is possible but I will admit that at the moment it is not making itself known.’

  ‘All a bit of a waste of time then,’ Chubb concluded. He glanced at his empty glass. ‘Still, the Queen’s Arms serves a decent pint. And I have something for you, Herr Pünd.’ He reached down and produced Mary Blakiston’s diary. Briefly, he explained how it had been found. ‘It’s got something about pretty much everyone in the village,’ he said. ‘Talk about dishing out the dirt! She’s been collecting it by the bucket!’

  ‘You don’t suppose she was using the information to blackmail people?’ Fraser suggested. ‘After all, that might give someone a very good reason to push her down the stairs.’