Family Ties (The Mark Pemberton Cases Book 1)

by Nicholas Rhea

  Later that night, PC Marshall came to tell us that James had been found dead and it looked like suicide. James hadn’t wanted to join the army and I know he was frightened about going to France, but I never heard him threaten suicide. He was too good a Catholic to do that. So far as I know, he had no enemies and I’ve never heard anyone threaten him.

  Attached to this statement was one from the toll gate keeper who said she recalled Luke Hartley driving through on Monday afternoon about three o’clock. He was heading towards Rosenthorpe. She’d seen him again about five thirty heading in the opposite direction. The toll booth tickets obtained by Luke had been recovered and were pinned to the file. He’d paid three-pence for each journey, the rate being one penny per wheel and one penny for the pony.

  The police had made strenuous efforts to find further corroboration of Luke’s story but, other than a six-year-old girl, they had not found anyone who had used that quiet country lane at the material time. No one, not even that child, had seen Luke from the time he’d passed through the toll gate until the time he’d arrived at the railway station. There were no houses along the lane until the final fifty yards or so where it entered Rosenthorpe but enquiries there had produced nothing. The station master was the first person to acknowledge seeing Luke after he had passed through the toll gate — and the time taken to drive from the toll gate to the station would normally be around half an hour.

  On this occasion, Luke had taken some fifty or fifty-five minutes — the explanation being the loss of a horseshoe. So Luke’s story was not corroborated.

  The police had interviewed the child, but her statement was in the form of question and answer and taken in the presence of her mother. The girl was Millicent Roe, born 19th February 1910, and she had lived at 3, Priory Cottages, Rosenthorpe. The interviewer was Detective Sergeant Ripley.

  Ripley: You went shopping for your mother yesterday, Monday, didn’t you?

  Millicent: Yes.

  Ripley: Where did you go?

  Millicent: To Rosenthorpe shop.

  Ripley: And what did you buy?

  Millicent: Eggs and butter

  Ripley: What time did you come home?

  Millicent: Just before tea-time.

  Ripley: What time is tea-time?

  Millicent: Four o’clock.

  Ripley: How long before that was it when you got home?

  (Mrs Roe interrupted: She was home by quarter to four.)

  Ripley: Did you see anybody along the lane?

  Millicent: I saw a man in a horse and cart.

  Ripley: Might it have been a pony and trap?

  Millicent: Yes, I suppose so.

  Ripley: Who was the man?

  Millicent: I don’t know.

  Ripley: What was he doing?

  Millicent: Sitting in the bushes.

  Ripley: Which bushes?

  Millicent: Near the cricket field.

  Ripley: What time was this?

  Millicent: Before I got home.

  (Mrs Roe interrupted again: It’s about five minutes’ walk for her, from the cricket field home.’)

  Ripley: So you saw a man in a horse and cart about twenty minutes to four.

  Millicent: Yes, I think so. I can’t tell the time yet. We’re learning at school.

  Ripley: You weren’t at school that Monday?

  Millicent: No, it was holidays for threshing.

  Ripley: Now, Millicent, this is very important. What was the man doing? The one you saw in the bushes.

  Millicent: He was in the cart, sitting.

  Ripley: Would you know him if you saw him again?

  Millicent: I don’t know.

  Ripley: How many men were there in the cart?

  Millicent: Just one.

  Ripley: Did you see anybody else walking along the lane? A soldier?

  Millicent: No.

  (Mrs Roe: She left the shop before the train came in, Mr Ripley. James would have followed her along the lane).

  Ripley: Millicent, you are very small, and I think you would walk slowly. Did you see a soldier behind you? Catching up to you?

  Millicent: No.

  Ripley: The man in the bushes, did he stay there?

  Millicent: Yes, all the time I was walking past, he just sat there.

  Ripley: Did he see you?

  Millicent: I don’t think so. He was facing away, he never said anything.

  Ripley: What did you think he was doing?

  Millicent: I thought he was having something to eat or having a rest.

  Ripley: Why did you think he was having something to eat?

  Millicent: He was looking down at his hands, at something he was holding. I couldn’t see what it was. I thought it might be his tea.

  At this point, Ripley had concluded the interview, and the question/answer sheet had been signed by Mrs Roe.

  As a consequence of this statement, Luke Hartley was interviewed again but denied he had been stationary in the bushes. He maintained he had driven directly from the toll gate to the station, stopping only to replace the shoe at a point along the toll road; after replacing the shoe, he had relieved himself behind a hedge. He had driven past the two oak trees but stated he had not seen any person or a horse-drawn vehicle in the bushes, nor had he seen the schoolgirl.

  Pinned to this part of the file was a short additional statement by Detective Sergeant Ripley. It said, ‘On Wednesday, 13th September 1916, I accompanied Millicent Roe, aged six, and her mother, Alice, to the point where she claimed to have seen the man sitting in the horse and cart among the bushes. I identify that location as the place where the body of James Hartley was later found.’

  Chapter Seven

  Pemberton felt sure Luke had been lying. If he had driven a pony and trap along that lane between the times he’d stated, the lane that he and Lorraine had examined, then Millicent Roe must have seen him — unless he’d been hiding. And the only place to hide was among the bushes — which was where the child had seen a man in a horse and cart, as she described it. Pemberton’s instinct was that Luke had not told the truth and that he must surely have been Dawson’s prime suspect.

  Mark then realised that he himself must establish that the death of James Hartley was a genuine murder and not a suicide, however unlikely the latter seemed. That had not yet been done to his satisfaction. A ballistic examination of the bullet, if it had been done, should determine that issue. Furthermore, if this had been a modern investigation, Luke would have been subjected to the most intense questioning about his precise movements during that journey to and from the station and there would have been a determined effort to find more witnesses, even if they themselves had something to hide. If the man in the bushes had not been Luke Hartley, then who had he been and why had he been there? Why had he not come forward to help the police?

  Pemberton left his office and went over to DC Young.

  ‘Duncan.’ He sat on the desk beside the detective. ‘From what I’ve read so far, Luke Hartley’s very much in the frame. If we’d been doing the investigation, Forensic would have gone over his clothing with a fine-tooth comb, we’d have given that pony and trap a real scientific examination, the scene would have been meticulously searched by the task force and we’d have been turning that farm over to find the murder weapon — assuming it is not that rifle. So do we know whether the bullet was examined to see whether it had been fired by James’s army rifle?’

  ‘I’ve not had time to go through the whole file, sir, but I’ll check now for that. Luke’s top of my suspect list too, by the way.’

  ‘Fine, and I’ll look as well. What we need are further sightings of him. I can’t understand why nobody reported seeing him between the toll gate and the station on either journey. If he stopped for twenty minutes or thereabouts to fix a shoe on his pony, surely somebody must have seen him? I’m sure Dawson would have tried to find more witnesses. If no one saw him, where was he? Did the police check that the shoe had been replaced? Was that possible? New nails in the hoof, say? Di
d anyone, other than that child, use the lane that afternoon? Did anyone else use the toll road? When you’re going through the files, can you concentrate on those elements too?’

  ‘Sure, yes, sir.’

  Mark walked around the mansion at this point, chiefly for a little break from his spell of intense reading but also to show his staff, and the visiting teams, that he was taking an active interest in his official duties. He had words with the detective on the desk, who assured him there were no problems, he spoke to the uniformed constable who was on patrol duties within the hall, and he spent time with the Americans to assure them that, so far as the internal security of Thirklewood Hall was concerned, all was progressing smoothly. There were still three clear days before the great man arrived. He was told that the suite to be used by the Vice-President was undergoing a quick but thorough redecoration, with new curtains and soft furnishings as befitted a man of his eminence. Mark made a mental note to have the entire suite re-examined for listening devices and planted bombs, although he felt sure the dangers of bringing in new furniture and craftsmen at this stage had been considered by all concerned. It was something he must check, however. A job for Paul Larkin, he decided.

  It was during his perambulations that he saw Lorraine Cashmore emerging from the dining-room. This large, ornate room had been used by the schoolgirls as their refectory and it was now the canteen for the resident officers.

  Lorraine had been enjoying a morning coffee.

  ‘Morning, sir.’ She used the formal style of address on this occasion because other officers were around.

  ‘Hello, Lorraine. Are you managing to occupy yourself?’

  ‘I’m on half-nights, sir. I shall be manning the desk from 6.00pm till 2.00am, so I thought I’d pop out for a while.’

  ‘I might have come with you, but I want to plough through the Hartley murder file, and besides, I’m supposed to be on duty here!’

  ‘Is there anything I can do for your Hartley enquiry? I need something to occupy me, so I thought I might go to Wolversdale again and do some more investigating of the Hartley family.’

  Mark felt she could help and told her of his gut feeling about Luke Hartley, suggesting she might like to revisit the scene of the crime. He asked her to try to ascertain whether Luke’s story would stand up in a modern court, referring her to the various statements in the file. He drew her attention especially to the one given by Millicent Roe — her sighting of a horse and cart at the very place the body was found must surely carry some credence. And the toll road might still be there, for example. Perhaps Lorraine could establish distances between the key points, and the times required to cover those distances either on foot or by pony and trap.

  ‘But if you do all this, Lorraine, it’s classed as duty, remember. This is not a hobby, it’s work!’

  ‘I might remember that if I want any time off for a special reason.’ She smiled and left him.

  Mark returned to his office and resumed his study of the Hartley murder file.

  His priority now was to examine the pathologist’s report and the police examination of the scene. Had the murder weapon been found, for example?

  The pathologist’s report was couched in terms which were similar to those in use today. It described the body of James Reuben Hartley as that of a thirty-year-old man in good physical condition, clean and well nourished. Other than the wound in the temple, there were no suspicious marks or bruises on the body. He was now clean-shaven, the army having removed his moustache. The fingers of the right hand were stained, and the forefinger bore a very rough tip, the signs of a pipe smoker. Examination of the internal organs showed no heart disease or other malfunctioning of organs like the kidneys or liver which might have contributed to James’s death. Those organs, and the lungs, were all in first-class condition, as one would expect in a healthy and active young man. Examination of the skull, however, did reveal a .45 calibre bullet which had lodged in the brain. Mark knew that .45 bullets were almost certain to have been fired from either a pistol or a revolver; few rifles, if any, were of .45 calibre. Beyond all doubt, that bullet had caused his death. So what make and model was the army issue rifle?

  In the opinion of the pathologist, the bullet had been fired from fairly close range and had entered the brain via the left temple. The bullet had been recovered for scientific examination.

  Pressed to be more precise, the pathologist expressed an opinion that the weapon had been fired from a range of about twelve inches, this assessment being given because particles of gunpowder had been found in James’s hair, but there had been no scorch marks on the skin. Had the muzzle been within a mere inch or two of the head, then there would have been scorch marks on the skin.

  The pathologist believed the wound had not been self-inflicted. One reason for this hypothesis was that the deceased was known to be right-handed. To fire a bullet into one’s own temple from a range of about a foot while holding a rifle was highly unlikely but not impossible. It could have been done with a pistol or a revolver. If James had committed suicide, the pathologist argued, the muzzle of the weapon would have been pressed against the temple to guarantee its effectiveness, not held away at a distance which could result in a miss. And for a right-handed man to discharge a handgun into his own left temple was highly unlikely. In the opinion of the pathologist, therefore, the wound was not self-inflicted. Death had resulted from the actions of another person — murder, in other words. The only weapon found at the scene was James’s service rifle and expert examination showed it had not been fired.

  More importantly, the calibre of the rifle was not the same as that of the .45 bullet.

  The rifle was known as an SMLE — a Short Magazine Lee Enfield, Mark III. This was a .303 calibre rifle and thus it could never have fired the fatal bullet; besides, when privates of the Green Howards returned home on leave, they never brought any ammunition, even though they did bring their rifles. Mark now realised that his earlier assumption had been wrong. This was not a suicide dressed up to look like murder — beyond all doubt, it was murder. It now seemed to be a murder which had been clumsily dressed up to look like suicide, but the killer had not paid due attention to the finer details which were required to ensure an efficient cover-up. Those old policemen had done their job with customary thoroughness.

  In the mind of Mark Pemberton, this put Luke even higher in the frame of suspects — but had he had access to a .45 weapon of any kind? He began to peruse the file for statements from anyone other than the toll gate keeper who might have seen Luke on that fateful journey between Wolversdale and Rosenthorpe.

  Armed with her copy of the Hartley file, Lorraine returned to the scene of the crime. She stood on the side of the road with the boulder on her left as she tried to visualise the area as it would have been in 1916. To her left in the distance was Rosenthorpe railway station and the village with its shops and cottages. She could not see the station from here, although there was a bridge over which one of the branch lines ran. But there was a long, clear view towards that bridge.

  As she gazed towards the bridge, a car was coming towards her; as it moved beneath the railway bridge, it almost vanished from sight, only its roof being visible. But as it approached her, it was evidently climbing a very slight incline because it gradually materialised in full. This disappearing trick was due to the bumps and hollows that Pemberton had described as switch-backs. She wondered if all those inclines had been there in 1916. And as she pondered that, she thought of little Millicent Roe walking that same road. Is that why she’d not seen the approach of Luke in his pony and trap? Had she, or the pony and trap, been concealed in one of the dips at the crucial time?

  To her right, the road curved slightly away towards a corner; from the corner, a lane branched off to the right into what was called Priory Fields, the site of an ancient monastic establishment. Continuing its route, the lane turned sharply left, with a link with the old toll road near the river, and then it climbed high on to the hills to vanish over the
horizon. Although the modern road, at this point, did not follow the earlier one with one hundred per cent accuracy, Lorraine believed their routes were very similar. A person standing forward from this boulder by, say, twelve feet or so, would have stood in the middle of the old lane and would have been able to see the railway bridge. That was a good half-mile away. How long would it take for a pony and trap or a small girl to walk that distance?

  Surely someone must have seen Luke upon this lane? Or was there a conspiracy of silence? If people had seen him in the lane at the material time, had they kept quiet? If so, why? Why would anyone shield a murderer? She knew that villagers could keep secrets; they did not like outsiders prying into their affairs, but surely there must be a stronger reason for not providing the information which would bring a murderer to justice? As Lorraine stood at the scene of the murder, deeply engrossed in her thoughts, a middle-aged man with a spaniel on a lead approached from her right. He had come from the area of Priory Fields and looked about sixty-five. A retired gentleman, she felt.

  ‘I wouldn’t stand there too long,’ he said without a smile as he neared Lorraine.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Young Jimmy Hartley was found dead there. It’s unlucky to stand there,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ She pretended to be vague.

  ‘You on holiday, then?’ he asked, for the area was popular with holidaymakers.

  ‘No, I’m gathering information for a book,’ she lied, knowing that villagers loved to air their knowledge about spooks and weird occurrences. ‘Ghost stories from the moors.’