The Valentine Murder

by Evelyn James

  Clara was making a mental note of all this.

  “Mr Beech was a cattleman,” Tommy suddenly recalled.

  “Yes, he got on well with Yates, shared some of his old knowledge with him,” Blyth elaborated. “I think Yates was one of the few people Bill regularly spoke to, and then it was about the cattle. Bill was of a generation where the way they worked with the cattle was more like magic than science. Speaking charms and putting out bowls of milk for the fairy folk, that sort of thing. Bill believed in the old ways like modern men believe in their veterinary medicines.”

  “Is that why people felt there was something odd about him?” Clara asked.

  “You mean this witchcraft talk? Bill was no witch, but he clung to the things he was taught as a lad by men who would have been as old then as he was now. Old, old folk magic. Harmless nonsense.”

  Mr Blyth was far too practical a man, firmly rooted in the twentieth century, to pay heed to any talk of witchcraft.

  “Bill had a remedy for anything that ailed a cow, horse, man or dog,” he said. “He had dozens of potions for hoof rot alone. All of them locked up in his head, not a single one written down. And they worked too, though there was an element of superstition to each and every one. Picking clover at nightfall, for instance, or only collecting reeds when there were frogs croaking. Country magic, that was all.”

  What Blyth was saying, though not aloud, was that none of the charms or potions were sinister, and the harmless traditions associated with them were not a reason to kill a man.

  “It sounds like a lot of old knowledge died with Mr Beech,” Clara said sympathetically, seeing Blyth’s face had fallen.

  “A lot died with Bill,” Blyth stated. “A lot more than we have yet to realise. A way of life. A last link to our fathers’ and grandfathers’ age of innocence.”

  Blyth’s words made them all solemn. Something more had been killed than an old man, some element of life that no one had yet to quite understand. Things would never be the same in the area, ever again. Mr Blyth was right; an age of innocence had been lost for good.

  Chapter Fourteen

  They stayed with Annie until close to four then headed to Hangleton to seek out Hanna Beech. Jones took the car cautiously down the tight streets of the village, concerned about scratching the sides or knocking off a mirror. When they pulled up outside the old cottages, the car was effectively blocking the whole lane. Clara suggested Jones stay in it in case a cart came along and needed to get past.

  Stepping out of the car they were nearly atop the houses and their front doors. Mrs Yates appeared almost the moment the car had come to a halt, curious at the sight, but looking territorial at the same time – as if to say, ‘no car should be outside my house and I shan’t let it stay.’

  Clara gave her a friendly smile.

  “It is us again. We hoped to catch Hanna.”

  Mrs Yates still looked at the car with distaste.

  “Hanna came home about half an hour ago. Have you any news?”

  “Not really,” Clara admitted.

  “Then I have things to do and can’t be stood chatting on the doorstep,” Mrs Yates had a slight apologetic tone to her voice as she shut the door.

  Clara did not take her abruptness to heart. The death of William Beech had hit people hard, disrupted their lives and these were not folk who liked their routines disturbed. They were people who knew what they would be doing every hour of their lives, from dawn to dusk chores they had done a hundred times before filled their existence and brought them a sense of security, or comfort. Remove them and they felt adrift, and that was frightening. Nothing disturbed routine as much as a murder, especially a vicious murder of an old man that no one could fathom the reason for.

  Clara knocked on Hanna Beech’s door. A woman in her thirties opened it and peered at them through round glasses. She showed no sign of hostility to these strangers on her doorstep, rather she was curious.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Beech? I am Clara Fitzgerald, and this is my brother, Tommy. We are working for Mr Spinner, trying to discover the truth behind what happened to your father.”

  The speech was close enough to the truth. Hanna cast her eyes over them, seeming to be deciding if she should believe them or not. She was around Clara’s height, and wore one of those shapeless dresses that had started becoming the practical fashion of working-class women at the end of the war. She had dark black hair, tied back in a bun. In the evening shadows, it was difficult to get a good look at her face, but Clara had the impression of a homely, comfortable looking person. Not pretty, as such, but a kind looking person. Hanna took several moments to make up her mind, then she stepped back from her door.

  “Come in. It is good of Mr Spinner to think of father and to want to find his killer.”

  Clara bit her tongue, that was not Mr Spinner’s intentions at all. She had made him sound more virtuous than he was, though she doubted anyone else in the village would have come to the assumption that he was hiring Clara for anything other than his own selfish purposes.

  They had walked into the living area of the tiny cottage, the matching version of the Yates’ kitchen next door. The only source of light was the range, which had just been lit. The door to the little hearth inside was open to allow the orange glow to illuminate a patch of the room.

  “I suppose…” Hanna glanced around her and produced a candle in a holder. She poked it into the range to light its wick and then set it on an old table. “I don’t really need the light. I eat a cold supper in the evenings and then go straight to bed to keep warm and save on coal.”

  She looked a little abashed by this declaration and Clara realised she was a woman who understood how humble her life was and wished for more. Here was a woman with an educated mind, someone who should have lived in a house with more than just a single room downstairs. She knew this and she felt bad about it.

  “Really, it doesn’t matter,” Clara said in a friendly way. “You have lived here with your father long?”

  “All my life,” Hanna said at once, then she frowned. “Well, since I was three. William was not my actual father, though I called him that. My parents died when I was young, my actual father was William’s younger brother and he took me in when I was orphaned.”

  “That was kind,” Tommy said.

  “William was always kind. People thought he was hard, or cold, because he was so quiet, but he would give you his last penny if you needed it. He was good man,” Hanna’s voice trembled, and she sat down abruptly in a chair. “Sorry, it just hits me so hard at times.”

  “That is completely understandable,” Clara promised her. “This has been a terrible shock.”

  Hanna swallowed audibly down on her emotions.

  “When he was not home that night when I arrived, I feared the worst. My father… William was never out after dark. He hated the dark, he was scared of the night. Petrified of it. I knew at once something terrible must have happened to prevent him getting home. I thought he had suffered a fit or maybe his heart had burst. I never thought…”

  “We don’t want you to relive those moments, you don’t have to,” Clara said to her. “We want to talk about your father as he was in life.”

  Hanna was silent a moment, then she nodded.

  “What do you want to know?”

  That was a good question, what would give them insight into this killing?

  “How long has he worked for Mr Spinner?” Tommy asked.

  “I suppose it was about five years now,” Hanna said thoughtfully. “When Mr Spinner took over the farm from his father some of the labourers left and William thought he might need odd jobs doing, the sort that get forgotten. Like the hedges.”

  “Labourers left when Spinner took over?” Clara asked curiously.

  “Yes. It was natural. They followed Mr Peterson who had been the farm manager before Mr Spinner took over. Mr Spinner senior had not run the farm personally since before the war. He employed Mr Peterson to manage it a
nd he lived at the farmhouse. He was highly successful too,” Hanna seemed to consider for a moment before she added. “It upset people when Mr Peterson was replaced. He had been a good employer and when Mr Spinner Snr suddenly decided his son should be running the farm, well, it was a shock.”

  “I sensed a certain tension between Mr Spinner the younger and people around here,” Clara concurred. “I see now it is deeper rooted than merely finding him difficult.”

  “Mr Alastair Spinner has allowed that farm to slip. The profits are down, and he has dismissed workers as a consequence,” Hanna added.

  “Maybe Spinner Snr ought to get Mr Peterson back?” Tommy suggested.

  “He cannot,” Hanna replied. “A good farm manager like Peterson is hard to come by. He found a new position almost at once and took with him a number of the men who used to work on Spinner’s farm. Mr Yates, next door, works for him. People prefer to avoid working for Mr Spinner, if they can help it.”

  “Why is that?” Clara wondered.

  “Mr Spinner is difficult,” Hanna explained, though the expression on her face suggested she would like to have used a stronger term than ‘difficult’. “He doesn’t treat his workers well, always shouting at them and blaming them for things he has done wrong. People will put up with that sort of thing if the money is good and regular, but Mr Spinner doesn’t pay wages on time and always is trying to avoid paying people at all.”

  That was curious. Spinner’s Farm was one of the largest concerns in Hove, it should have been generating more than enough money to pay its workers and still leave Alastair with a sizeable return. Yet, there he was trying to avoid paying his workforce, claiming poverty. Clara thought of Kate Spinner with her electric iron, what other modern gadgets had her husband bought her? How much had the wiring of the house for electricity cost? Was that where all the money was going, on toys for the farmhouse?

  “Why would your father work for a man like that?” Tommy asked.

  Hanna gave him a sad smile, that sort that implied he really understood so little.

  “My father was a cripple. He could only work sporadically and on easy tasks that did not require urgent attention. Mr Spinner allowed him to come and go as he pleased, work when he could and never demanded more. He was also the nearest farm to us, so my father did not have to walk far.”

  “What about Ellen and Gus at Three Pigs Farm?” Clara asked, thinking the young couple would be much nicer to work for and must have little jobs an old man could do.

  “They don’t have the money to spare. They are a small concern and they already employ men on a regular basis. My father would never have imposed upon them, even though I am sure if he asked, they would have found him work and paid him for it. Probably costing themselves in the process. No, my father understood how farms work and how tight money could be.”

  “But Spinner did have the money to spare?” Tommy said.

  “Only big farms make profits, that is the way it is these days. You see, we have all these imports from other countries, wheat, corn, barley all coming from America and the prices they charge undercut our own farmers. Now we are seeing more and more meat coming from abroad too. It is a trying time for farmers. Small concerns can just survive, but it is difficult. Only the largest farms make money, if they are well run, that is.”

  Hanna tilted her head and her eyes flashed. Her point was plain; Mr Spinner was going to ruin the farm and waste all Mr Peterson’s and his father’s hard work if he was not careful.

  “Did Mr Spinner pay your father on time?” Clara asked.

  Hanna shrugged.

  “I really cannot say. My father did not speak of any trouble, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t like to talk about money. He always gave me the weekly money for housekeeping without fail.”

  “He wouldn’t have told you if he had argued with Mr Spinner or anyone else?” Clara asked, surprised.

  “No,” Hanna sighed. “You didn’t know him, and it is so very hard to explain. My father was a quiet person and he did not share his worries with others, even with those closest to him. He had always been that way.”

  Hanna’s sadness had returned, she dipped her head and looked at her hands clasped upon the table before her.

  “I nearly lost him the winter before last from pneumonia. I thanked God, at the time, for his recovery. Now, having learned of the horror inflicted upon him, I feel it would have been kinder had he died from the pneumonia. At least he would have been in his bed.”

  “Try not to think on it,” Clara told her softly.

  “I try not to,” Hanna’s eyes had filled with tears. “But I keep thinking how he must have suffered.”

  “It would have been swift,” Tommy said hastily. “He would not have known much about it.”

  Hanna gave him a scornful look. You did not need to suffer for long to have suffered greatly.

  “It makes it worse all this nonsense I hear people muttering,” Hanna said. “I suppose you have heard that?”

  “Do you mean the talk of witchcraft?” Clara asked.

  Hanna gave a muffled laugh, the sound bitter.

  “Yes, that ridiculous talk! I find it hard to believe rational people would speak such insanity.”

  “People can be superstitious,” Tommy said.

  Hanna dabbed at her eyes, irritated by the tears.

  “My father was not a witch, or whatever they are saying. He knew old folk remedies for sick cattle and horses, yes, but that was it.”

  “What about his charms?” Clara said softly, remembering what Mr Blyth had said. “Collecting flowers at midnight and the sort?”

  “Charms made people feel there was power to a concoction my father made,” Hanna snorted. “No different to if someone where to say a prayer over a sick relative. That isn’t magic, its hope. And collecting plants under certain conditions? Well, that is just a way to remember when a plant is most potent or at a stage in its growth when it is safe to eat. When you don’t have calendars, or can’t read them if you did, such old-fashioned means of marking time are important.”

  There was far more to all Mr Beech’s charms than that, Clara was sure of it. A plant was not most potent at midnight, or when collected beneath a full moon, but she could see that Hanna wanted to believe that there was a rationality to her father’s old ways. She was an educated, practical woman who did not want to think her father was absorbed in superstition. Clara was not going to press the subject.

  “Is there anyone else I could speak to about your father? Perhaps a friend?” She asked instead.

  Hanna gave her a strange look.

  “Father didn’t really have friends. He liked his own company. But, if there is anyone who might be considered close to him, outside of myself, it would be Mr Gage. He knew my father since they were boys, they grew up together.”

  “Does he live in Hangleton?” Clara asked.

  “No, he moved to live with his daughter, but it is not so far. I can give you his address,” Hanna rose and went to the fireplace to produce a scrap of paper and a pencil. The paper proved to be the wrapper from a sugar packet. “I always sent father to work with a piece of cake wrapped in this sort of paper. He didn’t always feel like breakfast, but around eleven he would be hungry.”

  She smiled sadly at the memory, then wrote out the address, before handing it to Clara.

  “I hope they find my father’s killer soon,” she said, suddenly looking hopelessly exhausted by everything.

  Clara knew there were no words she could say to make the situation better, so she thanked Hanna and excused herself and Tommy. Outside the cottage, her brother turned to her.

  “What next?”

  Clara glanced over her shoulder at the cottage beside them.

  “Let’s see what Matthew Yates has to say for himself.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mrs Yates opened the door to them. She didn’t seem as hospitable as the day before.

  “What is this? Its late.”

  “Can we speak to your husb
and?” Clara asked politely.

  Mrs Yates gave a long groan.

  “Matthew, speak to these people and be done with it!” She departed from the doorway and towards a stack of wet clothes sitting in a wooden tub.

  Matthew Yates wandered towards the door. He was a rugged fellow, the years working outside having hardened his skin and given him a chestnut hue, visible in the flicker of a lamp. Unlike Hanna’s home, the Yates had illuminated their small domain brightly and it instantly made the tiny cottage feel cosier and inviting. Yates gave his visitors a lopsided grin.

  “Take no heed of my wife. It is wash day. She hates wash day.”

  In the background, Mrs Yates muttered something loudly and that was probably derogatory, aiming the comment at her husband. Mr Yates chuckled softly.

  “Let’s talk outside.”

  He led them around the side of the house, where a bare patch of ground had been acquired by the Yates for the purposes of extending their own meagre vegetable patch. The land was not theirs, but whoever was the rightful owner was unlikely to come around and demand they hoe up their cabbages. Matthew Yates produced a pipe from his pocket and spent a few moments arranging tobacco in the bowl, before lighting it. He visibly relaxed upon the first puff and settled comfortably into a position leaning against the wall.

  “This is about old Bill then? You are investigating on the behalf of Mr Spinner?”

  “That’s right,” Clara agreed. “I just wanted to ask you about the discovery of the body?”

  Matthew shuffled his shoulders against the brickwork behind him.

  “Not sure what you want. I went with Hanna as soon as she told me her father had not come home. Neither of us expected him to be found alive, you know.”

  “You couldn’t have expected him to have been murdered,” Tommy pointed out.

  “No,” Matthew admitted. “But I knew, as did Hanna, that Bill always came home before dark. For him to have not come home, something serious must have happened and considering his age and his frail health, it does not take much imagination to suppose he had been taken ill or had a bad accident. Either way, the chances were he had passed on.”