Miss Pink Investigates Part One

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘Peta Mossop.’

  ‘She had one? She said she had but we didn’t believe her.’

  ‘Miss Pink says the letters ask for money.’

  ‘Is that so?’ He was astounded. ‘Lucy didn’t say anything about money. But that’s criminal. No one could blackmail Peta, of course; no money there. Anyone else?’

  ‘Zeke Rumney,’ Miss Pink said.

  ‘Zeke! How did he take it?’

  ‘Seriously. His letter wasn’t in the same vein; it was warning him that there were others.’ Miss Pink caught Sarah’s eye but no message was exchanged.

  ‘Someone has their heart in the right place, but why couldn’t this second chap come out in the open and say who the first one was?’

  ‘I doubt if he knew, but he hopes that someone else will investigate and put a stop to it.’

  ‘Bit of a tall order, that. How many people have had them: the unpleasant ones?’

  ‘There must have been more besides Lucy and Peta, but the victims aren’t likely to talk about it.’

  He nodded gloomily. ‘Everyone’s got something to hide.’

  When she left High Hollins he accompanied her to the packhorse track. Arrived on the level he turned and faced her.

  ‘Is Lucy being blackmailed?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t like it. Who d’you think’s behind it? Has Rumney any ideas?’

  ‘Everyone’s puzzled. What do you think yourself?’

  ‘No idea.’ He wasn’t really listening. ‘I usually go to Thornbarrow on Friday evenings,’ he said with an embarrassed air, ‘but she wasn’t feeling too good last night. Is she worried about this business?’

  ‘The anonymous letters?’

  ‘Of course. What else is there?’

  ‘Well, there’s Peta’s death. It must have been a great shock to both of you, so soon after you were talking to her.’

  He wiped the rain out of his eyes. ‘To tell you the truth, I remember very little about that night; I’d had rather too much to drink. All I’m certain about was my feeling that she must see a doctor, and if she wouldn’t, then I was going to have a word with Quentin Bright myself about the state she was in. My God, we’ve got some neurotics in this place! Don’t know what you can be thinking of us. And now there’s these letters. . . . This thing has to be squashed. Wonder who it can be? What d’you think of that Harper fellow? Have you met him?’

  ‘A harmless little man, I thought. He doesn’t know anything about the countryside and he’s wrapped up in his daughter. My impressions went no further than that.’

  ‘Oh? I didn’t know he had a family.’

  ‘I find it difficult to visualise him writing anonymous letters.’

  ‘He’s not what he seems though.’

  ‘And where would he get the knowledge of local people to blackmail them?’

  ‘Well, he’s guessing, isn’t he?’

  She studied the rather bovine face with the rain running down his forehead. The eyes were guileless and anxious. She remembered the broken window in Quentin Bright’s surgery.

  ‘I don’t think this person’s guessing. He knows.’

  And there was the break-in at Harper’s cottage, she thought as she walked slowly home, and there was Jackson Wren. It would appear that someone in Sandale was looking for more than medical records.

  The beck coming down from Shivery Knott was in spate and the daylight was almost gone. She found her headlamp at the bottom of her rucksack and, fastening it round her head, put the battery in her pocket and surveyed the white water. It was very noisy and one could imagine that there were animals in the woods. She heard a crash from the crag above, and the sound of scree running, but then she thought it was probably the swell of a waterfall borne on a gust of air. Gritting her teeth she started to wade, feeling for the bottom with her boots. The icy water flowed over her ankles. On the other side she forced herself to sit down, empty the boots, put them on again with no wrinkles in the socks, and to lace them carefully. She stood up and squelched down the path.

  There was no light in Coneygarth and she hesitated below its garden gate. She was cold, wet and exhausted. Below, the hamlet spelled warmth and comfort. The storm lantern glowed in the cow-house, metal rang on stone, there was a smell of smoke, a door closed quietly. She moved down the green; she would leave Jackson Wren until the morning.

  Chapter Ten

  For her age Miss Pink had excellent powers of recuperation. When she walked into the Rumney kitchen Grannie’s mouth had tightened at sight of the other’s drawn face. ‘Fetch a glass of brandy,’ she snapped at Arabella.

  ‘No!’ Miss Pink exclaimed, ‘I’ve had too much of Sarah Noble’s—but I would appreciate a cup of tea.’

  She sank into a rocker, automatically removing a cat and placing it on her knee where it woke up, took one sniff at wet tweeds and leapt down. Despite her waterproofs, or because of them, she felt damp all over. She started to unlace her boots, explaining about the flooded beck. Arabella whisked away to draw a bath and came back to drive the guest upstairs.

  With a tea tray on a chair beside her Miss Pink lay in a hot bath like a fox with vermin, only her mask projecting above the surface and surrounded, not by drowning fleas but a steaming cloud of Lanvin’s Arpège.

  Eventually her cerebral processes reverted to normal and by the time she descended to the living room, clean, dry and exotically perfumed, she was herself again: perceptive, relaxed and comfortable, in a burgundy suit and apricot blouse.

  Rumney was in his office, the sherry and copetas at his elbow. In response to her query, he replied gravely that Penelope and her calf were well. The calf had been born in the small hours but he looked none the worse for his vigil. She sipped her sherry and recounted the events of her own day. There had been no time to talk at lunch. At the end of her report, which had not been a monologue because he interrupted occasionally for a point to be clarified, he looked at his watch, said he thought it was time to eat and asked if she would continue the discussion after supper. ‘I wouldn’t like you to spoil your food with business,’ he said reasonably, ‘and it will give me a chance to think.’

  So she talked food and animals to Grannie and Arabella while Rumney sat at the head of the table functioning on two planes. Obviously he was enjoying the spiced beef because he had two helpings, obviously he appreciated his own claret, but the greater part of his attention was elsewhere. For herself, she lay fallow, stress epitomised by the difficulty of deciding between a second helping of Spotted Dog and rejection of the blue Cheshire, or abandoning the dog in favour of the cheese.

  They returned to the office and Arabella brought coffee—wistfully, but she did no more than reproach them with looks. Miss Pink sent her a reassuring glance, implying that she should know all, and soon. But it was quicker this way: just she and Rumney, and perhaps safer; not an irrelevant contingency when a killer was on the loose.

  Rumney served the brandy and they nursed their balloons and stared at the fire. From behind the closed door came the strains of Iolanthe. Arabella had discovered Gilbert and Sullivan.

  ‘I think the Brights are right,’ he ruminated, ‘Peta was far more likely to be a victim than a blackmailer.’ He blinked at the flames. ‘And obviously it was done with the priest.’

  ‘What priest?’

  ‘The thing hanging in Mossop’s bar with the blood on it. It’s used to give the coup de grâce to salmon, and some incumbent at Storms brought one back from Ireland. She was killed in the bar?’ He said it tentatively: a question, not a statement.

  ‘The priest suggests that. One wonders why the body wasn’t left there. Mossop’s lying—in part.’ She paused and appeared to study some inner vision. ‘If it comes to that, no one seemed completely honest, except Denis Noble—oh, and the Brights?’ Her voice rose. She could have forgotten that the doctor was Rumney’s friend.

  ‘Who was lying?’

  ‘Well, not quite lying. There were contradictions.
Lucy for instance suggested that Peta was the blackmailer but I think that was more out of residual bitterness than conviction. Her attitude towards Peta appears to have been one of annoyance, like finding ants in the pantry. Suggesting that Peta wrote the letters was a good exit line; she has a strong sense of the dramatic. One feels with both her and Sarah Noble that they would prefer Peta to have been the blackmailer but their reason tells them she isn’t.’

  ‘Was Lucy being blackmailed or not?’

  ‘She says she wasn’t, that her letter was the abusive type with no demand for money. Noble bears this out and on reflection I don’t think her letter did involve blackmail. She divulged its contents and you can be certain there’s no body buried in Lucy Fell’s garden. She’s no exhibitionist, so—no body, no blackmail. There was no reason to hide the fact that someone had demanded money on a stupid assumption. Now that contradicts Sarah Noble who maintains that the letter writer is cunning.’

  ‘But semi-literate.’

  ‘It’s easy enough to imitate semi-literacy if you’ve an ear for the spoken word and a knowledge of phonetics.’

  ‘That should narrow the circle of suspects.’

  ‘Not much; I’d postulated a cultured person and that’s what it remains—except that the intelligence level has risen because not everyone with a high I.Q. can imitate a semi-literate writer. I doubt if Quentin Bright could.’ Privately she thought that Rumney couldn’t either. ‘But blackmail or not, Lucy was terribly upset,’ she recalled, ‘she was trembling when she told me what was in her letter.’

  ‘So there are four people who’ve had communications of some sort—excluding me: Lucy, but she isn’t being blackmailed, Mossop who said that someone tried it on; then Sarah knows someone who’s getting demands for money, but as for Peta: blackmail, but not for money?’

  She hadn’t divulged Peta’s secret, nor had he asked. ‘It could be that someone was threatening to expose her unless she performed some action, or refrained from doing something. Could she have criminal knowledge of some local person?’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone other than Mossop.’

  ‘And you’ve no proof against him.’

  ‘Proof! When the magistrates—ah, you’re thinking of the sheep stealing, but I was thinking of the crate of Scotch. I reckon his telephone call related to something more criminal than after-hours drinking. It could have been about stolen whisky and when he didn’t pay up, the blackmailer called his bluff. The police had a tip about that whisky; they were told to look in Mossop’s cellar.’

  ‘Who would know it was there?’

  ‘Not that so much; who’d know it was stolen? It must have been someone close to him: a waiter perhaps, someone he’d sacked—but he hasn’t sacked anyone since May. A southerner, he told you; his staff are almost invariably Scots or northerners.’

  Miss Pink said doubtfully, ‘Peta was the closest person to him.’

  ‘But if he killed her he’d have cleaned the priest.’

  They stared at each other. ‘Yes,’ Miss Pink said, ‘we were talking about the blackmailer and suddenly we’re at the murder. The crimes must be related. Either Peta was the blackmailer and Mossop the victim who turned on his tormentor and killed her—but he didn’t because he didn’t dispose of the weapon, or she was a victim and was killed by the blackmailer. And since Mossop didn’t kill her, he wasn’t the blackmailer. So the blackmailer is a third person who entered the bar after Mossop had gone to bed, and killed her, then put the priest back. Why was the body moved?’

  ‘Why was she killed?’

  ‘Either because she refused to comply with what was demanded of her, or because she could expose the blackmailer.’

  ‘How did she get the message?’ Rumney asked.

  ‘What message?’

  ‘Well, blackmailers always have a message. I suppose it was in her original letter because nothing was said on the phone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hers were the kind of phone calls where nothing was said. It’s an odd sort of blackmail, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’ She was thoughtful.

  ‘And who does Sarah know who’s getting letters?’

  ‘I think it’s herself, and I think she wrote that letter to you. She knows too much about the blackmail to be talking about a friend’s experiences. She wasn’t drunk, you know. Her conversation was disjointed and she gave the impression of being indiscreet but I thought her an intelligent woman and, considering she’s an alcoholic, she was pretty lucid this afternoon.’

  ‘But she suggested Peta and Mossop were in it together.’

  ‘That was wishful thinking and based on the fact that there have been no letters or phone calls since Peta’s death. She gave herself away there. But if the letters and calls have stopped, I think it means merely that the criminal’s lying low.’

  ‘What did you think of Noble?’

  ‘Too simple for the blackmailer, but he could be a killer—which was why Sarah stressed the brevity of his affair with Peta, and why Lucy Fell said the girl was only a nuisance: both throwing out a bit of protection in passing. It never seems to cross their minds that you don’t consider people as suspects until you find others trying to protect them. Where was Noble when Peta was killed? He said he was very drunk at Thornbarrow. Lucy is his alibi but would she stand by him now that Jackson Wren has come into her life?’

  ‘Noble doesn’t know about Jackson?’

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t; he’s too stupid to dissemble. And nor did Sarah, although I wouldn’t put it past her to lie successfully; it’s so easy for people who are a bit potty to confuse the so-called normal person. When did Harper come to the dale?’

  ‘Late in August. Why?’

  ‘Noble used him as a scapegoat. He asked what I thought of him but didn’t push it.’

  ‘Someone’s pushing if they broke into Burblethwaite.’

  ‘I don’t think Harper can possess anything valuable; it’s his air of mystery that intrigues people—ordinary people. He’s harmless, he could be someone who’s had to retire from circulation for a while; he certainly hasn’t a clue about country life—and he’s playing a part, but who isn’t? Just because he reverts to a London accent when he gets excited doesn’t mean he’s a villain.’

  ‘Why this emphasis on crime?’

  ‘There isn’t really; he seems lost, as if he’d have loved to go back to London with Caroline, but couldn’t.’

  ‘So what questions would you have to ask him tomorrow after what you’ve learned today?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘None. None at all. Any mystery in his past can’t relate to what’s happened here.’ She paused. ‘He seems timid, at least in the country. He was worried about noises in the wood behind his cottage.’

  ‘Sheep? There shouldn’t be any in that bit of woodland.’

  ‘He said it was more noise than a sheep makes.’ A wave of fatigue engulfed her as she sensed the tail of some thought slip through her mind. Rumney was saying, ‘Why have no letters been found? Don’t you think that’s odd?’

  ‘Lucy burned hers, Peta lost the one she’d had, that could imply that it’s still in existence; as for Sarah, another talk is called for with her. And Wren: I have to see him; he’s the only one whom I’ve not talked to. Where was he today?’

  ‘I didn’t see him.’

  ‘He didn’t appear to be at Thornbarrow when I was there; all the same, the atmosphere was highly charged, sexually charged. She was excited; it might well have been that he was in the house. He had to be somewhere. Arabella is afraid that he’ll bleed Lucy dry.’ She gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I doubt it. I imagine that some of Lucy’s passion might start to wane when she saw her money dwindling.’

  He wasn’t interested in Lucy’s affairs. ‘What about telling the police?’

  ‘Nothing I’ve discovered today is evidence.’

  ‘There’s the priest.’

  ‘Salmon blood. Yes, I know it can be analysed, but there’s nothing more than th
e priest. Shall we leave it for the time being, for the weekend anyway? I’ve a feeling the priest isn’t going to disappear; someone, presumably, put it back in order to incriminate Mossop, so it will stay there until it’s fulfilled that purpose. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Monday morning will be time enough to think about the police.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘What happened in June?’ Grannie repeated at the breakfast table. ‘We had no rain and the hay was poor.’

  ‘Can you remember anything happening at High Hollins?’ Miss Pink pressed.

  ‘To the Nobles?’ The old lady was reflective, not curious. ‘At that time Denis wasn’t friendly with Peta, that came later; as for Sarah, what could have happened to her in June?’

  ‘Miss Pink’s asking you, Mother; you hear all the gossip.’

  ‘How can I? I don’t get about.’

  ‘You pluck it off the wind,’ Arabella said softly.

  ‘And Sarah Noble doesn’t visit me any more,’ Grannie was saying, ‘I’ve known that woman all her life and she was always careful of herself.’

  ‘Careful?’ Arabella was puzzled.

  ‘The drinking was sent.’ The old lady was ambiguous. ‘But it must be a great help.’ Her granddaughter raised her eyebrows at Miss Pink. ‘I would never have allowed your father to behave like Denis Noble,’ Grannie told her son sternly. Rumney concentrated on his bacon and eggs, unmoved. ‘She takes care of herself,’ she repeated. ‘Always did; you never see Sarah Noble driving after midday.’

  ‘Because she’s drunk by then.’ Arabella stated a fact, neutrally. ‘What’s she afraid of: damaging herself or her car, or someone else?’

  ‘She doesn’t drive to town,’ Rumney put in, ‘but she comes to see you, Mother, and our lane’s a dangerous place in summer.’

  ‘She doesn’t come here,’ Grannie contradicted.

  ‘Mother! Sarah comes up for a crack with you almost every week.’

  The old lady looked mischievous. ‘You’re getting old, son; you don’t notice time passing. Sarah Noble hasn’t been in this house for weeks. She won’t drive to visit me and she won’t come through the woods because she’s not steady enough on her feet. We visit in the afternoons here,’ she explained to Miss Pink.