Unhappy Returns

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘So what?’ Pollard went on. ‘If that service on June the eleventh, 1974 was at 11.00 a.m., and there was only a congregation of one, it must have been over by 11.30. Ethel Ridd goes back to the vicarage to get the vegetarian lunch, leaving Viney to put things away and say his prayers. She burst into the Barton saying she’s found him lying on the church floor just as Matthew Gillard comes in for the farm dinner at 12.30. Say at 12.25, the discovery having been made at 12.20, by which time the chalice has vanished. What happened during those fifty minutes?’

  ‘Either the old gentleman managed to hide away the chalice so that it’s never been found, or someone came in and made off with it,’ Toye replied unhesitatingly.

  ‘Agreed. In theory he could have popped out and buried it in the churchyard, but that simply doesn’t tie up with all the elaborate arrangements for keeping it safely in the bank. And you’ve seen the church. It’s minute, and built of large solid blocks of stone, with a stone floor. No handy loose bricks to pull out. The chalice wasn’t in the cupboard — we’ve Mrs Gillard’s evidence on that, and I vetted the pulpit and the font. So it looks as though, as you say, someone came in and lifted the thing.’

  ‘Before or after Mr Viney collapsed and died?’ Toye queried.

  ‘It wouldn’t take much to give an old chap of eighty-eight a fatal heart attack,’ Pollard said thoughtfully. ‘Just a show of force, for instance. On the other hand, someone may have come in, found him on the floor with the chalice beside him, and just appropriated it and walked out again.’

  ‘Somebody being Sandford?’

  ‘Apart from Ethel Ridd’s hiker, Sandford’s the only candidate at the moment, isn’t he? We’re taking it that he’d illegally checked up on the chalice, and no doubt knew about the services Viney had on Saints’ days.’

  Toye looked up from his diary.

  ‘June the eleventh 1974 was a Monday. Sandford works at the College here on Mondays this year. Do these places change their timetables much?’

  ‘Easy to find out. But I’m not making a move until we hear from the handwriting bloke. While we’re marking time let’s look into the exact circumstances of Viney’s death. There may have been an inquest. He doesn’t sound like the sort of chap who’d have much use for doctors.’

  An enquiry resulted in the information that an inquest had been held on Barnabas James Viney on Friday 15 June 1974, and a report of its proceedings was soon forthcoming. There had been a verdict of death from natural causes, the immediate cause being a severe cerebral haemorrhage. Evidence on the finding of the body was given incoherently by Ethel Ridd, and clearly and sensibly by Matthew Henry and Emily Margaret Gillard. Deceased had fallen face downwards at the back of the church, by the cupboard in the recess under the belfry. His head and shoulders were lying in the aisle between the first pair of benches, suggesting that he was on the point of walking up the aisle when he fell. He had removed his stole and surplice, put them away in the cupboard with the various articles used in the service, and locked the cupboard. The key had been found on the floor beside him. Dr William Bruce Jarvis, of Ford House, Pyrford, who had arrived at the church a few minutes ahead of the ambulance, stated that he had attended the deceased in February 1970, when he was suffering from pneumonia, but had not seen him professionally since. Mr Viney had made a remarkable recovery, but he (Dr Jarvis) had warned him that his blood pressure was above normal. Mr Viney, however, had refused to have periodical checks made. In Dr Jarvis’s opinion death had been virtually instantaneous, resulting from a severe cerebral haemorrhage affecting the right side of the body and producing marked flaccidity of the facial muscles. This opinion had subsequently been confirmed by a post-mortem held at Westbridge General Hospital, at which no other cause of death had been found.

  ‘Straightforward, from the look of it,’ Toye commented.

  Pollard made a vague assenting noise, wondering why he felt inexplicably dissatisfied.

  ‘I suppose a stroke as well as a heart attack can be sparked of by a shock?’ he queried. ‘Suppose somebody came in at the door and told the old chap to hand over — or else? Let’s look up this Dr Jarvis tomorrow morning. It’s just possible we might get something, I suppose. Anyway, isn’t he on Frost’s List C? We could have to go back to it, and start all over again.’

  Toye, dedicated to methodical procedure, welcomed the suggestion.

  Dr Jarvis’s surgery at Pyrford occupied an annexe to his house. Through the co-operation of Mrs Jarvis, Pollard and Toye bypassed the queue of waiting patients and arrived in the consulting room through an inner door. The doctor, grizzled and weather-beaten, got up from his desk and greeted them with undisguised interest.

  ‘I’ve seen you around,’ he said, ‘and thought you’d be along sooner or later. This is where my profession goes all correct and sticky in the whodunits, isn’t it? Is it poor old Ridd you’re after, or my failure to find a witness to my whereabouts the afternoon she was bumped off?’

  ‘Actually, it’s the late Barnabas Viney,’ Pollard told him.

  ‘Barnabas Viney?’ Dr Jarvis ejaculated. ‘Why, all that business seems a hundred years ago after what’s been happening round here lately. I didn’t do the P-M, you know. That was Craig, one of the Westbridge police surgeons.’

  ‘I know: I’ve read the report of the inquest. Just one question, Doctor. Could the stroke he died of have been brought on by a sudden shock? Like somebody turning up and threatening him, of instance?’

  ‘But what the hell would anybody have wanted to threaten the poor old blighter about?’ Dr Jarvis demanded incredulously. ‘He looked as though he hadn’t a brass farthing in his pocket and needed a good square meal. Well, yes, to answer your question, a sudden violent emotional reaction could have triggered off a stroke in a chap of his age, especially one with fairly high blood pressure. You’ll have read my reference to his blood pressure in the inquest report. But I can only say that there was absolutely nothing in the way he was lying or in his expression to suggest that he’d been terrified by anything or anybody. Naturally I should have drawn attention to it if there had been.’

  ‘Fair enough. Thanks for being so helpful,’ Pollard replied soothingly. ‘Now, just for good measure, can you add to your original statement on what you did on the afternoon of the nineteenth?’

  ‘As it happens, I can. I meant to get on to Frost, but I’ve been snowed under. Wednesday’s my day off, and I spent most of it down at Coracle Bay Bird Sanctuary. Jim Doulton, the Warden, rang me about something else last night, and asked if I’d spotted anything interesting. He’d been away all day but noticed my car in a layby when he came back about four. I stayed late to watch the Canada geese coming down the valley to the shore marshes, and got home here about six.’

  ‘Thanks for clearing up that loose end, too,’ Pollard said.

  Back in the car Toye made a neat entry by Dr Jarvis’s name on List C. Pollard looked at his watch. It was still barely ten o’clock: much too early to try to contact the handwriting expert. He felt his edginess of the previous evening returning, aggravated by indecision. After all, he had been sent down to solve the Ridd murder, but seemed to be continually diverted on to the problem of the missing chalice’s existence and present whereabouts. Yet even now, when Sandford, the likely thief, was unquestionably in the clear over the murder, his own hunch that the two problems were somehow linked was stronger than ever.

  Toye had regrouped the names on List C geographically, and at his suggestion they took a steep left turn at the bottom of Pyrford’s main street.

  ‘What’s a water vole?’ he asked, as he changed down.

  ‘A water vole? What on earth —? Oh, yes. The Redshaw woman’s drivelling poems,’ Pollard replied. ‘It’s a sort of water rat with a long tail… This place stinks of money, doesn’t it? Just as Hoyle said.’

  They had swung right into an immaculate drive leading to a terrace in front of an eighteenth-century stone house in mint condition. As they got out of the car Toye looked back at a pa
latial garage reached by a branch from the main drive.

  ‘Room for six cars in there. Wish I could have a look inside,’ he said, almost wistfully.

  ‘Keep your mind on the job,’ Pollard admonished him in tones of mock reproof. ‘Stand by to chat up the lady about water voles.’

  He found the white and gold drawing room into which they were ushered self-consciously elegant. The same could be said of Miranda Redshaw, who rose to greet them in a long flowing garment of cream-coloured woollen material. As Pollard introduced himself and the purpose of his visit a pained expression replaced the cultivated serenity of her face.

  ‘I know nothing of this hideous affair, nothing,’ she assured him, gazing at him with soulful blue eyes. ‘I find even the mention of it distasteful. I try to make this house a place of peace and beauty.’

  ‘I expect Miss Ridd found being murdered distasteful,’ he was goaded into retorting, and instantly regretted the lapse. Detective Superintendent Crow, one of his earliest mentors at the Yard, had warned him about antagonising witnesses, remarking that unless you wanted them to clam up, it paid to keep your cool, however bloody-minded they were. He hastily pulled himself together. It was fantastic to think of this woman bashing Ethel Ridd on the head with a brick, so he concentrated on the time of her husband’s return home.

  Confirmation of Martha Rook’s statement was forthcoming at once. The sound of the car coming up the drive had coincided with the church clock striking five.

  ‘Did he go out again that evening?’ Pollard asked Miranda Redshaw.

  She shook her head and smiled, subtly suggesting a lack of comprehension on his part.

  ‘We are both creative writers, you see, and the visit to Marchester had been such an interruption. Apart from our supper, we spent the evening at our desks.’

  The sound of a door opening and a masculine tread in the hall suggested that the household’s creative writing had suffered another interruption. A red-faced man with a toothbrush moustache and wearing expensive looking tweeds walked into the room.

  ‘What goes on?’ he demanded. ‘By Jove, the great man from the Yard! How dare you hog him, Miranda? This is the chance of a lifetime for a crime hack like me. Introduce us, darling.’

  She complied, murmuring sotto voce to Pollard that her husband was a great big boy. He treasured up the remark for Jane, wondering if this was Miranda Redshaw’s technique for accepting her husband and his lurid books. Not to mention the income from them, he thought…

  After some further badinage from Hugh Redshaw, the three men moved at his suggestion to his study, which struck Pollard as a perfect stage set for a play about a successful author. It was all there: vast desk littered with typescript, typewriter, Dictaphone, well-filled bookshelves, conspicuously displayed copies of the author’s works.

  Hugh Redshaw sank into a leather-covered armchair facing his visitors, and assumed the expression of an intelligent man determined not to miss the slightest detail of the impending interview.

  ‘Now I shall really know how one is grilled,’ he told them avidly.

  Pollard once again took a firm grip on his temper. He consulted his watch.

  ‘Nothing that’s likely to come in for your books, I’m afraid, Mr Redshaw,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Just a quick run-through of the statement you made to the local police about your movements on the nineteenth. Routine, you know. The sort of time-consuming job you writers can telescope… I see that your departure from the bar of the Cathedral Hotel at about 1.50 p.m. is well documented.’

  Hugh Redshaw guffawed, and gave Pollard a man-to-man look.

  ‘Naughty of me, I’m afraid, but these provincial coppers, y’know. He took it all down: name, address and telephone number of the friend I’d been talking to. But I did pick up one tip: he didn’t suck a pencil. The chap actually had a biro. One has to try to keep up to date.’

  ‘The price of being with-it is eternal vigilance,’ Pollard agreed. ‘You then went on to the public library, to check some references, but are not sure when you left?’

  ‘Not absolutely. One rather loses count of time in these places. Gets side-tracked. But it was twenty-five to four when I left the station car park.’

  ‘What is your car, Mr Redshaw?’

  Hugh Redshaw subtly conveyed that he was amused by the question.

  ‘Let me think … yes, I took the Mercedes in. Not the Jag.’

  ‘And you took almost an hour and a half to get back here from Marchester in a Mercedes?’

  Hugh Redshaw slapped his knee triumphantly.

  ‘Thank God you’ve left me my illusions. The Yard is characteristically bang on. I came the long way round to pick up a couple of ducks at Breakacres Farm, where we get our poultry. Free range, y’see. The ducks are pure ambrosia. It’s about five miles to the north of here. The bobby completely missed out on the time factor.’

  ‘And you arrived here at five o’clock?’

  ‘On the dot. The church clock was striking as I turned up from the village green.’

  ‘Did you go out again that night?’

  ‘Not on your life. It had been quite a day. I went to ground in here,’ Hugh Redshaw added, with a jerk of his head in the direction of an obvious drinks cabinet, and a broad wink.

  Shortly afterwards, as the Hillman negotiated the abrupt descent to the village, Pollard designated Hugh Redshaw a prize bastard.

  ‘That damn awful phoney female, too,’ he said. ‘Look here, I’m going to have a bash at Marchester. This messing about is getting me down. Pull up by that telephone kiosk.’

  The kiosk had been recently redecorated and its interior, flooded with morning sunlight, was still pristine, and reminded Pollard of a hospital. He got through to Marchester police station without difficulty, and heard almost with incredulity that Mr Bamber had already come in, and could take a call. He held the line as requested, and in less than a minute a dry elderly voice came over the line.

  ‘Yes, an interesting little job you’ve sent over,’ it said, after an exchange of formalities. ‘An obvious forgery, of course. Not a doubt in the world. Overall, and at first glance it’s quite effective, but there’s a curious disregard of minor details. It’s more like an artist’s impression of the original than an attempt at a meticulous reproduction, if you follow me…’

  As he rang off, it flashed through Pollard’s mind, not for the first time in his career, what a catalyst a few sentences could be.

  ‘Full steam ahead,’ he told Toye as he re-joined him in the car. ‘At any rate we ought to get this chalice business off our hands by tonight.’

  ‘The 1974 timetable?’ David Longstaffe, head of the history department at the Westbridge College of Education queried. ‘Yes, we can soon unearth it for you.’

  There was a short interval during which his secretary searched and found a printed form, and placed it before him.

  ‘This ran from October ’73 to the end of the academic year,’ David Longstaffe said, as the door closed behind her. ‘Any particular day or time?’

  ‘This is a confidential enquiry,’ Pollard told him. ‘We want to know if Mr Sandford worked here on Mondays during the summer of ’74.’

  David Longstaffe, a grey balding man with rimless spectacles looked surprised, but refrained from comment.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ he replied, on referring to the timetable, ‘have you one special Monday in mind? Of course, at this distance of time I can’t swear that he wasn’t off sick or had leave of absence for some reason.’

  ‘We’re interested in the morning of Monday, June the eleventh.’

  A subtle change of expression came over David Longstaffe’s face.

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ he said, and stooped to hunt in a drawer. He extracted a large diary, and began turning its pages.

  ‘Ah, I thought so,’ he said. ‘Sandford wasn’t around on June the eleventh. He left with a party of students on June the eighth for a fortnight in Greece.’

  The ensuing silence was long enough to make him
glance up at the two impassive faces confronting him across his desk.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Longstaffe,’ Pollard said. ‘That’s the information we wanted. We’d like a word with Mr Sandford. Is he free at the moment?’

  ‘He’s due out of a lecture in five minutes. See him in here, if you like. I’m just off to a committee.’

  ‘That’s very kind: thanks again.’

  David Longstaffe snatched up a folder and prepared to depart. At the door he paused briefly, but finally went out without any further remark.

  Pollard and Toye sat on in silence for some moments.

  ‘What are the odds that Sandford knew where the chalice must have been hidden, and picked it up when he got back?’ Toye asked.

  ‘There was that hiker,’ Pollard said. ‘Suppose he was a chap dead set on seeing the church, came back when he thought the service would be over, and found Viney and the chalice on the floor?’

  The door opened and Bill Sandford stopped dead on the threshold.

  ‘Where’s Longstaffe? I was told he wanted to see me.’

  ‘He’s lent us this room for a talk,’ Pollard replied. ‘Come in, Mr Sandford, and sit down.’

  Bill Sandford strolled across and subsided nonchalantly into the desk chair.

  ‘Well, what is it now?’ he demanded. ‘I imagine you’ve checked my alibi for Ridd’s murder and found it holds water.’

  ‘It does,’ Pollard told him. ‘We’ve had an interesting visit to the West Regional Bank, though, and forensic tests have been made on the Ambercombe plate box. Why did you forge an authorisation to withdraw it from the bank on August the eighth, 1973?’

  After a fleeting reaction of astonishment, Bill Sandford gave Pollard a look of grudging admiration.

  ‘Nifty work on your part,’ he said. ‘How did you get on to it? Oh, I forgot: you’re here to ask questions, not answer them, aren’t you? I wanted to have a look inside. I’m an enquiring sort of bloke, you know.’

  ‘You knew that Mr Viney used an unrecorded chalice on occasions?’

  Bill Sandford grimaced and shrugged.