Nicola turned to Mabel whose hands were intertwined as if wrestling with each other over some dispute.
Kat thought she saw a glimmer of yet more tears in the corner of each eye.
“It’s my Ollie,” said Mabel, tentatively. “My husband.”
The woman took the deepest of breaths.
“Y-you see – he’s in Pentonville Prison in London. And they’re going to hang him! Friday at dawn. Dawn!”
And with those rather amazing words, the young woman fell apart, sobbing, heaving as Nicola draped an arm around her.
While all waited for this terrible storm – if not to end – to at least subside.
*
Harry handed the woman his folded handkerchief, and she wiped her eyes, then began to talk again.
“They said he killed Ben Carter. Murdered him.”
Harry took his seat. He knew the case. Wasn’t often that Mydworth was rocked by such a grisly affair. The young chap, Carter, had been found brutally stabbed in a narrow cut-through on the edge of the town, just up from Hill Lane.
The evidence, as reported in the Mydworth Mercury, overwhelming: a bloody knife found at the house of Oliver Brown; as well as a shirt – dappled in blood – discovered in his vegetable patch. Buried, but apparently too quickly, and easily found.
He and Kat had talked about the case when the lurid details first came out, following developments through the courts to the final guilty verdict before Christmas at the Old Bailey in London.
With Kat’s background working for a New York criminal lawyer, she had agreed: there seemed little doubt that Oliver Brown had murdered his old friend in a drunken rage.
In desperation, it seemed, the defence had resorted to pleading that the whole affair should be seen as a crime of passion; there’d been absolutely no attempt to deny that Brown had struck the fatal blows.
For now, Harry held back any questions – the most important of which would be, What on earth could he and Kat do to help this woman and her husband? Justice had reached its decision.
At one point, Nicola added details: “The WVS were able to arrange a solicitor to manage the case. Charles Strudwick... you know him?”
Harry nodded. Strudwick was an elderly and perfectly adequate partner in one of Mydworth’s oldest practices. Eminently respectable, but perhaps not someone you’d want to entrust with your life in a murder trial.
“Anyway, Mr Strudwick’s barrister in London won an appeal last month. Hoping for more information to come to light.”
Harry thought, With all the evidence as reported in the paper, what more information could possibly be needed?
“The lawyers did the best they could, I’m sure,” Nicola said, “but we just heard this morning, the appeal failed.”
“And my Ollie didn’t do it!” Mabel said.
Of course, Harry thought, that’s what any wife would claim about their accused husband.
He saw Kat lean forward, reach out and take Mabel’s two hands in hers. Hold them. Then very gently she said, “Can you tell us, why you think that, Mabel? Why you believe your husband isn’t guilty?”
And Harry saw that Kat’s grasp – gentle and supportive – had given the woman some strength to tell what she believed.
Now it would be a simple question: would her words be anything that they too could believe?
3. Ben and Ollie
My Ollie wouldn’t kill anyone,” said Mabel, as if the very notion was patently obvious. “I mean, he has a temper all right, and he can get into a spot of trouble. But kill someone? Never!”
Harry glanced at Kat. Was this the defence? It didn’t stand for much.
“I read in the reports,” Kat said, “that Ben and your husband were old friends?”
“Yes. I mean, they knew each other – all grew up in Mydworth, didn’t we? Course, Ben had come up in the world, and my Ollie, still, well, just a farmhand. But they were never enemies, not really.”
Harry found the choice of the words “not really” rather interesting.
So did Kat, apparently.
“But there had been – or was – something?”
Yes, Harry thought, she sensed something not being said here.
Least, not yet.
Mabel looked again to Nicola as if she needed a bit of a prod to say what she was about to say. Then, “Long time ago, we three all knew each other, and, and... well, Ben and me, we was going together then. Ollie used to joke that Ben still carried a torch for me. But I told him, time moves on, Ollie.”
She paused.
“But there was that... history, yes.”
“And what about the night it all happened?” Kat said. “Did you see Ollie when he came home from the pub?”
“No. I’d gone to bed, hadn’t I?”
Harry glanced at Kat again, now remembering the woman’s testimony as written in the papers.
“So, you don’t actually know what time he got in?” said Harry.
“Well, it was later. After the pub closed. That’s what I said in court.”
Harry smiled and nodded at that. “But – you can’t be sure?”
Mabel shrugged away the obvious point.
“He woke me up with his snoring. Asleep on the rocker, by the fire, he was. Always snored, he did, after a few pints.”
“So nothing unusual about that night?” said Kat.
“No. Only the police coming round at dawn, banging on the door, taking my Ollie away...”
Harry could see that Mabel was about to break down again, but Kat put a hand on her shoulder. “That must have been so frightening.”
“It was. And little Elsie, she didn’t understand.”
Harry watched how gently Kat asked questions.
“They had been at the Station Inn?” she said. “Lot of drinks I guess?”
Mabel nodded. “My Ollie, he liked his ale. Could get a bit out of order. But never nasty with it, you know? Not like a lot of the lads.”
“But there had been a bit of a fight, hadn’t there, earlier in the evening?” Harry asked, doing his best to be as gentle as his wife had been.
Mabel hesitated, then said slowly, “The police was called. Seems the two of them got into some kind of dustup. But no real harm done. Things all calmed down, with Will there.”
Will. Not a name Harry remembered from the newspaper story.
“Will?” he asked.
Mabel nodded. “Will Davis. One of the lads, he is. Was with them in the pub. All friends together, see? Whatever happened, had passed.”
Then Mabel began shaking her head. “My Ollie has a temper, yes. But he loves me – loves our little Elsie – more than anything in the world. He wouldn’t—” the words hard now, with lips quivering “—get angry and throw it all away.”
And she looked up, through what were now constantly glistening pools.
“It’s only three days away. Three days, and I lose my husband; my little girl her father. Please, m’lady, Sir Harry... help me.”
Harry was ready to answer but Kat beat him to the punch.
“Mabel, I’m not sure what Sir Harry and I can do. But I guess Nicola has all the details?”
Mabel nodded, the slim offer of hope having its affect.
Kat turned to Harry. “We can look into things. See if anything was missed from the evidence.”
Mabel leaned out of her chair and – like grasping a lone rocky outcrop in a raging sea – gave Kat the biggest hug.
At which point Harry heard his aunt enter, chattering away with her new charge.
“Ah, there’s your mother. Elsie here was wondering where you were.” Lavinia leaned down to the little girl, still holding half a biscuit. “Though we had the grandest time – with our oatmeal biscuits – looking at all the decorations.”
The little girl went to her mother, who stood up.
Kat looked at Mabel. “We’ll do our best. But please don’t think we can promise anything.”
“But you’ll try?” Mabel said.
Harry
answered that one. “We will absolutely do that.”
And then, feeling that they were now facing an impossible task, he watched as Nicola, with a grateful smile to Kat, escorted the woman and her little girl from the stock room, and out to the hall.
It was Lavinia who pointed out the obvious.
“I know the case. From the papers, of course. You two have your work cut out for you.”
To which Kat replied, “Do we ever...”
*
Kat pushed open the heavy door of the Town Hall and pulled her coat tight against the falling snow.
“How about we leave the Alvis here, walk back to the Dower House?” said Harry, as he joined her. “I can pop down, pick it up later.”
“Good idea,” said Kat. “I take back what I said about New York. This English snow? Looking like the real thing. Quite beautiful, actually.”
She took Harry’s arm, and together they plodded across the square and up the High Street, the snow shin-deep.
Around them, in the gathering darkness, she saw the shops all shutting early, the gas lights in the street already lit, throwing pools of yellow light.
A bunch of delighted kids on the corner were throwing snowballs.
“Harry,” she said, snuggling against his warm coat as they walked. “The evidence does sound damning.”
“To say the least. The murder weapon found. The bloody shirt. And what happened at the pub beforehand?”
“I just couldn’t bear to say ‘no’ to her.”
“Oh, me too. You know, Kat, I do understand how the people in the lovely town of Mydworth have come to appreciate our rather unlikely skills. But rabbits out of hats? Tough call, as your fellow New Yorkers would say.”
“Agree. Totally.”
She held his arm tight, the thought of Mabel’s husband facing the gallows... such a grim image.
Especially leaving behind that little girl.
“I have an idea. You’re in London tomorrow, aren’t you?” she said.
“Don’t remind me. Another interminable meeting, yes,” said Harry. “Early train – if it’s still running.”
“Then home for the rest of the week?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“So, we’re not too busy, are we?”
“Not terribly,” said Harry.
They walked in silence for another minute, treading carefully in the thick snow. Then, at the crossroads by the Green Man, she turned to him, their breath making small clouds in the chilly evening air.
“It’s just... I wondered... what with you being at the Foreign Office and all, maybe you could pull some strings in London? You must know someone who knows someone?”
“Not sure that my knowing anyone can stop the wheels of justice and the dire fate ahead for Oliver Brown.”
Kat nodded at that.
“Not even to win a delay? Another appeal? Worth pursuing, right? I mean, really?”
Harry nodded, but then looked away as if there was something troubling him.
“Trouble is, it all comes back to the small matter of the damned – and damning – evidence,” he said. “All pointing in the direction of Oliver Brown having stabbed Ben Carter.”
“I know. But can I let you in on a little secret?”
“Why do I think I’m about to hear a tale from the great metropolis of Manhattan?”
She laughed, as they stood now for a moment at the foot of their drive. “Because you are. My work for that defence attorney? Know what we saw, more than just a few times? Evidence that seemed magically to ‘pop’ up. The police, the DA—”
“Sorry, DA?”
“District Attorney. The city’s prosecutor. Both eager to close a case, get their suspect in jail, and move onto other things.”
“While the real killer goes free?”
“Exactly. So, listen, Harry,” she grabbed his forearm, “why don’t we, in the days ahead, talk to anyone connected to the two men? Look for another motive. Another suspect. Look for any secrets. Anything – and everything. Worth a shot don’t you think?”
Harry fixed his eyes on her. He’s thinking this over, Kat thought.
“Not terribly sure at this point. But,” Harry took her arm again as they headed up the drive towards the house, “well – dammit – why not?” he said turning to her. “The hangman, as they say, waits for no man.”
And with the sudden idea – the possibility, even though she had not a jot of proof – that there could have been a mistake in the judgement, Kat took a deep breath.
Then, as if simply planning another festive activity to accompany the upcoming weekend’s charity ball, she said: “Shall we plot and plan? Now, I mean. Right now?”
“Absolutely. Quick cup of tea, warm up by the fire, then carry on over dinner?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t think about starting an adventure like this without the mandatory pot of tea!”
And Harry laughed, as they stepped up to the porch of the Dower House, the air cold, crisp, and the snow crunching below their feet.
4. The Case Begins
Thank you, Maggie,” Harry said as their housekeeper put down the tray with two plates of bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes.
The sunroom at the side of the house, small but perfectly comfortable, was catching the first glimmerings of the rising sun. A winter sun, but still – through the glass – not without warmth.
“Yours is the runny egg, sir, just as you like it,” said Maggie. “Top up the teapot, shall I?”
“Maggie, you are a godsend,” said Harry, buttering toast as Maggie took the teapot away to refill it.
“You don’t have to butter me up to get a spot more tea, Harry,” she said over her shoulder as she left the room.
He laughed at that.
Maggie had been by his side for so long. More than a housekeeper, that’s for sure.
Harry leaned over to his wife. “Whatever would we do without her?”
“Eat less, that’s for sure. I mean, we both know the extent of your cooking skills—”
“Hey there – no need to be harsh, now. Think I successfully scrambled an egg once.”
“Scrambled?” said Kat. “Confused it, more like.”
Kat, grinning, took a mouthful of toast; a scattering of crumbs on her lower lip. Harry knew they had important things to do now, not least the coming rush to the station.
Still, looking at her now, bathed in that morning sunlight?
Well, one could be excused for thoughts of procrastination.
“All right – back to the plan, then,” he said. “Think we’re sorted? I bow to your expertise.”
Kat nodded. “Well, I didn’t run real investigations in New York. Took depositions, sure. Spoke to people. But I did get rather involved in an incident or two in my postings.”
“The Istanbul affair? Sounded a tad dangerous when you told me about that one.”
“More than a tad, dear Harry. But okay, start at the beginning with the victim. I’ve got an address for Ben Carter. Lodgings out on a place called Blackmead Farm. You know it?”
“Rings a bell,” said Harry. “Up off the Arundel Road, I think? Good luck in this snow. What then?”
“The crime scene, for sure – and the victim.”
“Absolutely. Still thinking of another chat with the wife, too?”
“Probably,” said Kat. “But that – maybe later. I want to talk to the constable who discovered the body first.”
“Relatively new to the post, I remember from the newspaper reports.”
They waited while Maggie reappeared with the teapot, then returned to the kitchen.
“What about the solicitor?” said Kat. “You know him?”
“Decent enough chap. Not sure he’ll be much help. But it would be good form to let him know we’re taking a look at the case. I might have an angle on the barrister in London.”
Another bite of toast, and the crumb disappeared.
“You keeping an eye on the time?” said Kat.
&nb
sp; “Oops,” said Harry. “Breakfast – and the company – too delicious to leave.”
Kat laughed at that. “Don’t you worry. I’ll give you a lift, check out Ben’s lodgings, then on to the police station.”
“Enjoy your encounter with Sergeant Timms.”
“Encounter? Is that what you’d call it?”
“Hardly the face of modern policing, now is he? Okay, that’s your day planned. Here’s hoping I can somehow get access to Pentonville.”
“That poor man,” said Kat. “A noose only days away.”
“Yes. But remember, that poor man – until we know otherwise – is still a brutal killer.”
“Think you do a very good job of reminding me, Harry.”
“I imagine it’s why you love me,” he said, getting up and giving her a kiss, then putting on his jacket. He grinned. “It is, isn’t it?”
Kat laughed, and then she quickly drained her tea cup, standing as well.
“Oh. Let’s not forget. There’s the third man to track down,” Kat said.
“The who?”
“Will Davis – the peacemaker Mabel mentioned? Think we can meet him together?”
“Good idea.”
And with that, Harry grabbed his coat and briefcase. Maggie had informed them that a roast chicken would be waiting for them for dinner: roast potatoes, her secret raisin stuffing, and her special carrots that tasted more like dessert than the obligatory vegetable.
At which point, thought Harry, we might just know if all this fuss is a waste of time – Oliver Brown’s fate sealed.
Or maybe not.
And as Harry opened the front door, he said: “I do love all this domesticity. You know, breakfasts, roast dinners, wife running me to the station...”
“But much more fun with our little extracurriculars?”
“Birds of a feather.”
And they left the cosy Dower House. Already Harry could see the morning growing chillier again, blue skies now dotted with looming grey clouds.
Maybe even more snow on the way.
*
Kat dropped Harry off at the station, barely in time for him to race up the platform stairs to catch the 8.14 to London Victoria, then coaxed the Alvis back through the snowy streets and out onto the Arundel Road.
Mydworth Mysteries--The Wrong Man Page 2
