The Sussex Murder

by Ian Sansom

  ‘I know, Miriam,’ I said. My ire suddenly rose. The face of Lizzie Walter swam before me. ‘I know because I found her.’

  ‘Yes, sorry.’ She shook out the match. ‘Rather insensitive. It has been a long day. Look, sit down, man. You’re making me nervous. Come on.’

  I sat next to her.

  Miriam paused, took a deep breath, turned, and fixed me with a stare.

  ‘This is strictly between us, Sefton. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Strictly.’

  ‘Understood.’

  She took a long drag on the cigarette.

  ‘Henry couldn’t have killed the poor girl.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ whispered Miriam.

  ‘Because what?’

  ‘Because he was with me,’ said Miriam, waving smoke away.

  ‘What do you mean, with you?’

  ‘He was with me, Sefton.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’ Her voice was rising.

  ‘You mean you’re his alibi?’

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ She glanced towards the door of the lounge, which led towards the hotel reception. ‘No, I’m not his bloody alibi. I’m just—’

  ‘He was with you where?’

  ‘Where do you think?’

  ‘I have no idea. I was sleeping outside in the cart shed, with Pablo, if you recall.’

  ‘In my room, Sefton.’

  ‘In your—’

  ‘I was with him all night, Sefton, OK? Can I put it any clearer, man? So he couldn’t have killed her.’

  ‘All night?’

  ‘Yes! All night.’

  ‘You were asleep?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Were you sleeping at all?’

  ‘No, we were not sleeping, no. We didn’t get back till gone two or three.’

  ‘You weren’t sleeping at all?’

  ‘Sefton! Come on. This is intolerable.’

  ‘As you said, this is a young lady who’s been murdered.’

  ‘I bloody well know that. I just don’t want to get caught up in a … thing.’

  ‘We’re caught up in a thing already, Miriam,’ I said. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, I was helping the police with their enquiries most of the day, I was interrogated all over again at the Hudsons’, and now—’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now, you and your’ – I struggled to find the right word here – ‘activities seem to cast a new light on things.’

  ‘I did not mention this’ – Miriam also struggled to find the appropriate term – ‘episode in order for you to lecture me about my behaviour, Sefton.’ She seemed genuinely uncomfortable talking about this ‘episode’, which was entirely unlike her.

  ‘I’m not lecturing you, Miriam.’

  ‘Well, that’s what it sounds like. You sound like Father.’

  ‘I’m not your father.’

  ‘No, but he is.’

  ‘He’s not going to lecture you either.’

  ‘Sefton, come on! He lectures me on everything!’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Can you imagine, Sefton? Lot and his daughters? King Solomon’s concubines. Tamar? Ruth? Dinah? Temple prostitutes! I’d never hear the end of it.’

  The cauliflower-eared doorman appeared at the door of the lounge, perhaps alerted by the word ‘prostitute’ echoing throughout the hotel late at night; it is a word, after all, that does tend to carry and which can attract a chap’s attention, for all the obvious reasons.

  ‘Just checking everything is in order in here, miss.’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘You’re sure? You’re not looking for a nightcap, miss? Sir?’

  ‘No, thank you, not tonight.’

  ‘Would you like me to stoke the fire, miss?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps that would be good, thank you.’

  The gentleman stoked the fire to a blazing fury, Miriam dutifully made polite conversation, and then we were left alone again.

  ‘Anyway, look, Sefton.’ Miriam spoke quietly. ‘You and I are going to have to work together on this.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On a plan that protects my modesty, that allows Henry to walk free—’

  ‘And which finds the murderer of Lizzie Walter?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, of course, Sefton. Yes, that most importantly of all. And which also keeps you from suspicion.’

  ‘I found her, Miriam. I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Miriam. ‘But what do you think the police are going to think once they discover your reputation?’

  ‘My reputation?’

  ‘You’re not exactly someone who’s unknown to the police, Sefton.’

  ‘Well, assuming it wasn’t Henry—’ I began.

  ‘It wasn’t Henry,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Then who was it?’

  This of course was the question, and a question that detained us for some time, as we attempted to draw up a list of suspects and to formulate a plan. Some of the names on our list – an actual list, jotted down in my German pocket notebook – were rather more unlikely than others.

  ‘Mrs Hudson was shifting it a bit last night, wasn’t she?’ said Miriam.

  ‘You don’t think?’

  ‘She was completely stewed, Sefton, by the time we left the hotel. She’d been on large whiskies with small sodas, if you catch my meaning.’

  ‘But why?’ I said.

  ‘Well, it might just be the stress of building an opera house in a barn in your back garden. Women drink for the same reason that—’

  ‘No, I mean, why would she have killed Lizzie Walter?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Sefton. She’d have been quite capable of anything.’

  ‘Or incapable,’ I said.

  ‘Or capable of forgetting all about whatever she’d done.’

  ‘Sounds unlikely.’

  ‘But perhaps unlikely is what we’re looking for?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Oh, fiddlesticks,’ said Miriam, sighing. ‘I don’t know. I mean, let’s be honest, we’re getting no closer to the kernel of the nut here, are we?’

  ‘Not really,’ I agreed.

  She let out a low groan. ‘Do you know what? I give up,’ she said. She stretched out on the chaise. For a moment I thought she was simply lost in thought – but within minutes she was fast asleep, warmed by the fire. It wasn’t long before I joined her.

  I awoke thirsty, hungry and with a desperate need to pee. It was 5.30 a.m., the same time I’d woken yesterday, the fateful dawn of my discovery of Lizzie’s body. The front door of the hotel was locked and so I made my way out the back, past the kitchens. On my way back in I saw Bevis arriving, the big man who’d helped me with Pablo. He was wearing what could only be described as a poacher’s coat, with large pockets that looked like they might easily contain a ferret or a dead rabbit.

  I watched him from the back door of the kitchen. He was intent on some hurried task: he took a bucket of what looked like vegetable parings and slops and offcuts from under a counter and then poured them into a pan, which he began to boil up, mashing the foul-smelling concoction ferociously with a big wooden masher, and thickening it with some sort of meal.

  I watched him for some time. He was so focused that he didn’t seem to notice me, until eventually I felt I had to cough to make my presence known. Hearing the noise, he wheeled round, seizing a knife that lay on a flat sharpening stone by the stove.

  ‘It’s you again,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘You startled me.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘What’s the problem this morning? Killed another dog?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s no problem this morning.’

  ‘No time for problems. The police were here yesterday, asking about you.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I told them what had happened. The dog.’

&
nbsp; ‘Good. Quite right. Breakfast?’ I said, nodding towards his bubbling pan.

  He looked around.

  ‘It’s mash, for the pigs at home. The manager doesn’t know, so …’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t be telling anyone.’

  Bevis grunted in response.

  ‘Though I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea,’ I said.

  He looked at me as if he’d rather make a cup of tea for Dr Crippen.

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  As I settled myself in the kitchen, Miriam appeared at the service door through to the dining room. While I looked as though I’d slept the sleep of the damned, she somehow managed to look as though she’d slept the sleep of the blessed.

  ‘Ah, Sefton,’ she said. ‘I wondered what had become of you. And good morning to you, sir,’ she said breezily to Bevis, who was now changing into his kitchen whites. Underneath his coat he was wearing his striped bonfire jersey.

  ‘Good morning, miss,’ he said, rather sheepishly.

  ‘Bit of a pong,’ said Miriam, ‘isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m just finishing off some …’ Bevis looked towards me for support.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve met,’ I said. ‘This is Miriam Morley. And this is—’

  ‘Bevis, miss.’

  ‘Bevis, as in the giant of legend?’ said Miriam. ‘The warder at Arundel? Who waded to the Isle of Wight? Who ate an ox a week and drank two hogsheads of beer? Whose sword Morglay is in the armoury at Arundel? And whose bones lie beneath the park?’

  ‘I was named after my uncle, miss.’

  ‘Of course. But you are certainly a big fellow, Bevis.’

  ‘Six foot eight, miss.’

  ‘My goodness,’ said Miriam. ‘A giant among men.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, miss.’

  ‘But you’re the man in the jersey, of course!’ said Miriam.

  ‘I am a Bonfire Boy, miss, yes.’

  ‘A friend of yours fell at my feet and you kindly scooped him up.’

  ‘Of course, yes, miss.’

  ‘Bevis is just making some tea,’ I said, ‘if you’d care for some, Miriam?’

  ‘Do you know, Bevis, I could kill a cup of tea.’

  Tea served, Bevis finished work on his swill and got on with preparing breakfast for the hotel guests. The other two kitchen porters, Jake and Ben, had arrived and set about their tasks, and Miriam and I were perched with our teacups on a couple of old chairs in the corner.

  ‘You don’t know someone called Lizzie Walter, I suppose?’ Miriam asked Bevis.

  ‘Of course, miss,’ said Bevis. ‘Lewes is a small town, miss.’

  ‘Everyone knows Lizzie,’ said Jake. ‘Terrible tragedy.’

  ‘Dreadful unaccountable happenings,’ said Ben. ‘I hope they get the bastard who did it. Excuse my language.’

  ‘That’s perfectly all right,’ said Miriam. ‘Bastard is probably the only appropriate word in such circumstances.’

  ‘I can think of some others,’ said Bevis.

  ‘Indeed. And how did you know her, Bevis?’

  ‘Everyone knows her.’

  ‘She’s a teacher at the school,’ said Jake.

  ‘You never spent any time with her, or …?’

  ‘No,’ said Bevis. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘I’d see her out some mornings,’ said Ben, pausing in his hand-grinding of coffee beans, the aroma of which was gradually dispelling the stench of Bevis’s pig feed. ‘Exercising.’

  ‘Exercising?’ said Miriam.

  ‘There’re a few girls in town, miss, they’ve made themselves into some sort of a keep fit society. The Women’s League of Health and something or other.’

  ‘They all wear these white shirts and black satin shorts,’ said Jake, who was busy slicing bread.

  ‘That’s quite a sight, first thing in the morning,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Certainly puts a bit of pep in your step, miss, that’s for sure. If you don’t mind my saying.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Miriam. ‘You chaps are out and about early every morning, I suppose?’

  ‘That’s right, miss.’

  ‘And who else do you usually see up and about at this ungodly hour?’

  ‘No one else really, miss,’ said Jake.

  ‘Well, there’s always the milkman, of course,’ said Ben.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Miriam.

  ‘And the bakers, I suppose,’ he added.

  ‘The butchers,’ said Jake.

  ‘The greengrocers,’ said Ben.

  ‘The fishmongers,’ said Jake.

  ‘And we get deliveries of blocks of ice,’ said Ben. ‘From the iceman.’ (The iceman. Like so many things that we took for granted, the icemen of England, dripping wet in leather and sackcloth, have long since disappeared, like the telegraph boys racing around on their bikes with the old orange-coloured envelopes in their hands, and the muffin men walking through town with their high-sided trays. It seems like yesterday, but this was all a long, long time ago.)

  ‘It seems like Lewes is a veritable Piccadilly Circus first thing in the morning,’ said Miriam.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Bevis, who’d been carefully following the conversation while wiping down the kitchen surfaces with a cloth. ‘A working town, for working people.’ Not like the two of you, being the implication, sitting around in a hotel kitchen at all hours with nothing much to do, sipping tea.

  Breakfast prepared, Miriam and I excused ourselves to go and prepare for breakfast.

  ‘Well, it turns out there’s rather a long list of potential suspects,’ said Miriam, as we made our way up to our rooms.

  ‘And witnesses,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said Miriam. ‘I always knew we’d come up with a plan, Sefton.’

  CHAPTER 23

  WE AGREED THAT while Miriam would set about charming the various butchers, bakers, fishmongers, greengrocers and the icemen of Lewes, in the hope of finding someone who might have seen something suspicious on the morning of 6 November, I would accompany Morley to Lizzie’s school, where he had been scheduled to give a talk on the unprepossessing subject of ‘Sussex: Then and Now’.

  Wherever we went on our travels, Morley always insisted on visiting the local schools and colleges to deliver some such encomium or to award some prize: in many ways, schools and colleges were his natural territory. In the grand country houses and literary salons of England he was often treated as something of an adornment, or an amusement, the pet autodidact, the rare working-class specimen of the genus writer. Specialists and scholars had little time for him or his work, regarding what he produced as little more than cheap entertainment for the masses. They were not entirely wrong. R.G. Collingwood he was not, but then who now reads R.G. Collingwood? There were – I’ll admit, as the author of more than one or two of them – some inaccuracies in the books. Quotations often came closer to paraphrase than they did to absolute accuracy. Broad generalisations often took the place of careful discussion. He was prepared to swoop low in his rhetoric, just as much as he was prepared to swing ludicrously high. Often humourless, and entirely lacking in satirical aim and intent, he could yet be enormously funny and piercingly keen in his insights and ideas. Children, obviously, loved him.

  Mr Johnson, the headmaster of the school, was a man who rather strained towards a military bearing, I thought: ramrod, flinty, no-nonsense. Barrel-shaped, red-faced, he struck one as the sort of man who might have a full set of Blakey’s in his shoes: heel plates, toe plates, dozens of treble hobs; a strider and a stamper; a strict disciplinarian; the sort of chap who prided himself on taking no nonsense, no prisoners, and little or no pleasure in anything, like so many teachers back then, sharp of tongue and dull of mind. He explained to us on our arrival, after a perfunctory handshake and welcome, that though many of the children were aware of the death of Lizzie Walter, he and his fellow teachers were not discussing the exact circumstances of her ‘demise’ – his word – since so many of the children had le
arned to swim in Pells Pool. He would be grateful, he said, if we made no mention of recent events.

  ‘Of course,’ said Morley, clearly offended that anyone would assume that he would make mention of such a terrible tragedy to young children. ‘Under no circumstances, sir.’

  ‘We don’t want to put them off getting into their swimming togs.’

  ‘Indeed we don’t,’ agreed Morley.

  ‘Healthy and wholesome exercise,’ said the headmaster, jutting out his chin, puffing out his chest, and straightening his posture.

  ‘And a sort of performance, of course,’ said Morley, rather pointedly. ‘Of the self, in public.’ He knew a fellow spoofer when he saw one.

  The talk took place in the school hall, with Morley encouraging the children to persevere, to study hard, to be good Christians and citizens: it was boilerplate stuff, yet in Morley’s hands, and in front of this audience, it seemed to have an electrifying effect. There was barely a fidgeter in the hall, and no call upon the teachers to impose discipline or to remind anyone not to do this or that or the other. The children sat, cross-legged, arms folded, heads unscratched, pigtails unpulled and noses entirely untended, staring up at this man whose words they had only previously read, or heard read aloud from books and newspapers. It was as if the good Lord Himself had suddenly stepped forth from the pages of the Children’s Bible – in tweeds, brogues and with a broad Empire moustache. Underneath it all, underneath the words and the outfit, the manner, in his speech, as in his prose, through its many varnished layers, you could still discern in Morley the figure of the child. Which of course is why children loved him: he was exactly like them.

  During my many years with Morley, he spoke rarely of his own childhood and upbringing – only ever, in fact, when speaking to children. I suggested to him on a number of occasions that he should consider writing about his memories of childhood but he was always amazed at the suggestion. Surely every word he wrote stood as a testament to his childhood? There was no need for further elaboration. Like a child, he was curiously uninterested in his own past: he was somehow innocent of himself. The past made little or no claim upon him, though this morning he spoke movingly to the children of growing up in the sawmills and timber yards of Norfolk, full of energy and optimism, and how, without opportunity for education or advancement, the world had become his textbook and his teacher.