Felix decided not to press the matter. Time enough later. ‘Sister Clarice, you are a senior member of the community. May I ask what your role is here?’
‘ My speciality is preserves,’ she said. ‘I take much pleasure in my preserves. I also keep bees, and I have my own garden, as we all do. “Each Brother or Sister shall endeavour to be as self sufficient as the commune as a whole.” It’s a pity that so few now subscribe to it.’
‘Don’t they then?’
‘There is much backsliding.’
‘Did you know that your son and Alice were engaged? Before Saturday night, I mean.’
‘No, but I’m not surprised. He was always sweet on her, even when they were children. Maybe she’d have encouraged him to turn away from wickedness and come home. She’s a good girl and knows where she belongs, even if he didn’t. Instead, Sister Mary tried to push her at those foolish Noddies, none of whom have been called to the Light.’
They returned to find Caroline chatting with the others.
‘How different your lives must be,’ Caroline was saying. ‘I’d love to see London.’
‘Miss Stickland,’ said Felix, ‘we need to interview everyone who was at your grandmother’s birthday party, and possibly the entire commune. Would you recommend we call a meeting and introduce ourselves first, or shall we collar them individually?’
Caroline considered this. ‘I think probably individually. It might be difficult to get them all together at one time.’ After a moment’s reflection, she added, ‘Or at all.’
‘Do you think we’d have difficulty there?’
‘I’m afraid you might. Some of the Stricts don’t like outsiders.’
‘They’ll see a policeman I dare say. Would you be able to provide my officers with a guide? I understand the place is quite large.’
*
Looking very self-important, a boy and girl, aged perhaps eleven or twelve led the two sergeants away into Eden, Nash clutching a list of residents to interview. The boy, Felix noted, was wearing a kind of medieval tunic and knitted tights. Easier than trousers, he supposed.
‘They’ll be all right with those two,’ said Caroline, returning to the table. They’re both quite sensible.’
‘Thank you, Sister Caroline, you’ve been most helpful. I wonder, as we’ve got you here, whether you’d give me your own statement next?’
‘Yes all right, but you needn’t bother with the “Sister.” What do you want to know?’
‘Well first of all,’ said Felix, ‘can you confirm that to your knowledge Raymond Galbraith only briefly saw Joe Dutton on the night of the party? I will be asking other people some of the same questions, by the way, to get the fullest picture of what happened that night.’
‘In case anyone is lying?’ enquired Caroline.
‘Or might have seen the same incident a little differently,’ said Felix diplomatically.
‘Well I’m quite sure that the only time Joe and Raymond met is when Alice brought him out here to introduce him. No-one saw him when he arrived because Alice went to intercept him. You can pull a car round to the back — it’s still there. A van, actually. She brought him into the music room first, where most people were gathered by then, and announced they were engaged. I wasn’t there unfortunately; I was still out here, talking to the boys. Then they came out and told us too.’
‘Raymond was out here with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did he react?’
‘He just looked gobstruck. Everyone did.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘He said something to Clive but I didn’t catch it. I got up and followed them indoors but they’d gone in with Mum and Dad. I thought I’d best keep out of it.’
‘Why was that? Did you expect trouble?’
‘Yes, I did. I knew they wouldn’t approve. My parents, I mean. Or anyone else, for that matter. It was such a surprise when he just turned up like that. She never even told me. I don’t know why they did it really. I suppose they’d had enough of waiting.’
‘When did you next see Alice, to talk to?’
‘Not until next morning, by which time they’d found him.’ She sobbed and put her face in her hands. ‘I’m sorry.’
She’s only a kid and she’s being very brave, thought Felix. ‘Do you want to continue this later?’ he asked. ‘It doesn’t have to be now.’
‘No, it’s all right. Go on.’
‘‘Why was it such a surprise?’ asked Felix gently. ‘Didn’t they know your sister and Joe were courting?’
‘I don’t know if they knew. They weren’t supposed to. It was supposed to be a secret. He’d been gone for years and never came to visit. I was the only one who knew they were in touch and I don’t think she’d even have told me except that if she couldn’t have talked to someone about him she’d probably have popped.’
‘Why the secrecy?’
She didn’t reply for a while but searching in her sleeve for a handkerchief she dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. Felix waited patiently.
‘Some people didn’t like him,’ she said at last. ‘Or didn’t approve of him, let’s say.’
‘Who? And why?’
Caroline paused to consider. ‘You know how when as a child you want to help Mummy or copy the older children. It’s natural, isn’t it? In Eden the little ones start by picking fruit or weeding or collecting eggs – they lay all over the place – and it goes from there. You might question why it’s done but almost never how it’s done. Only when you get older do you realise what a strange place this is. So many things are done the hard way because of our beliefs. We all know this but we just accept it. Joe was different — he never would. He used to poke fun at it, even when he was quite small.
‘I remember the first time I really noticed. I must have been about seven, I think, and he’d have been about fourteen. We were at dinner and he was teasing them as usual. “If we’re going to do it right,” he said, “we should grow a fig tree and wear the leaves, one for the men and three for the ladies.” I can remember having to think about that a bit! That’s their tender spot, of course, because everything here is a compromise and it’s pretty arbitrary which things are allowed and which are not. As it happens we’re quite good at making our own clothes so we don’t need fig leaves but we’re stumped when it comes to, say, a saw or a pair of scissors.’ She dabbed at her eyes again and pulled a face. ‘Or decent handkerchiefs.’ She became thoughtful. ‘He was always terribly opinionated and assertive — rather attractive, you know, to a girl, but really irritating to everyone else. I don’t really know whether they didn’t like him because he behaved that way or if he behaved that way because they didn’t like him. Does that make sense?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Felix.
She gave him a watery smile. ‘When he got older he started doing odd jobs in the village and keeping the money for himself. It’s all supposed to go into the common purse, so you can imagine what people thought about that. Then he bought an old motor-bike and other bits and started tinkering with the engine, trying to make a pump or something. That mysteriously disappeared, I remember. It all came to a head with the row about glass. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d developed other interests. Some people do. They grow up and clear off and that’s that. But he was genuinely keen on “making Eden work,” as he termed it, and he decided we should have some cold-frames or cloches, maybe even a greenhouse or two. He became obsessed with the idea. They, of course, said there was no glass in God’s Eden and that if one grows things in season there’s no need for it; which is true, until you get a bad year. Anyway, one of them became particularly angry and said Joe was the Serpent – you’re always the Serpent if you challenge their ideas – and Joe stood up and hit him. He was twenty then and he hurt him quite badly. A day or two later he packed up and left, like his father before him.’
�
��Is that why his father left?’
‘I don’t know. It might have been.’
‘What did Alice say to his leaving?’
‘She went very quiet. Later she told me he’d asked her to wait for him. I suppose they became engaged then, in a way. She was fifteen.’
‘How old was Joe? When he died, I mean.’
‘Twenty-four.’ She knuckled away the tears, now flowing freely. ‘Oh how terrible it is!’
Felix put a comforting hand over hers. ‘Whom do you think murdered him, Caroline?’
‘I don’t know. But it wasn’t Raymond. I’m sure of that.’
‘Does anyone else think he did it?’
‘I don’t know that they do really, apart from Sister Clarice, but it’s easier, isn’t it, to blame someone from outside?
‘Do you think it was someone from the commune?’
Caroline looked troubled. ‘I truly don’t know.’
‘Or would rather not know,’ said Rattigan when she’d gone.
‘I agree. She’s a bright girl and must have her suspicions, provided the killer is home- grown of course.’
‘Everything here is home-grown, except saws and scissors.’
‘And bought tea.’
‘And tennis balls.’
‘And pianos.’
Chapter Seven
The latter-day Eden was not as they’d imagined it. Passing through a hornbeam hedge they found themselves in a kind of idealised English countryside in miniature, or as Yardley unromantically termed it, some unusually well-maintained municipal allotments. Stretching far around them was a colourful patchwork of every imaginable fruit and vegetable, never with very much of one crop in any given place but every square inch of soil used. Now and again there were small orchards or individual trees – apples, pears, plums, cherries, quinces – many with box-like wooden constructions in their lower branches which, they were to learn, were for chickens to fly up and roost in, wire netting being forbidden. Beyond, on the rising land, they could see the commune’s sheep and goats grazing (The goats were for milk, cows being considered to take up too much space), and on the horizon, acting as a windbreak, were the trees grown for fuel and construction materials. Scattered about were a number of small buildings, some mere sheds (one, they discovered, for the cultivation of mushrooms), others clearly dwellings. It appeared that not everyone lived at Eden House as they had supposed.
‘May we see your list?’ asked Asher. He and Adah, his sister, were sturdy, good-looking children fairly glowing with rude health. They appeared not a bit daunted by the two detectives.
‘Brother John is the nearest,’ said Asher, indicating a nearby cottage. ‘He lives with Sister Kezia now, I think. She’s always there anyway. Why have you chosen these people particularly? There are lots more.’
‘Because they were at Sister Gertrude’s birthday party and would have known about Joe Dutton arriving,’ said Nash, who saw no point in making bones about it. ‘He’s the man who was murdered.’
‘Yes, we know,’ said Asher matter-of-factly. ‘Do you think one of the brethren did it?’
The sergeants glanced at one another. There was a directness about these nippers that was rather disconcerting. ‘We don’t know yet,’ said Yardley carefully. ‘We’re just gathering information at the moment. Someone may have seen or heard something that could help us. When we’ve talked to as many people as we can find we’ll put all those facts together and see what we’ve got.’
Adah looked sceptical. ‘I’ll warn him you’re coming,’ she shrugged, and went bounding over the rows to a man picking beans.
They made their way to Brother John’s tiny wattle and daub home. It had giant sunflowers around it, their massive blooms seeming to peer inquisitively down at the house, and tomatoes in a row against the sunny south wall.
‘Will you look at the size of those!’ enthused Yardley. ‘They’re like cricket balls.’
‘I hope they don’t taste like them,’ laughed the presumed Sister Kezia, emerging from indoors. ‘Try one.’
A big-bosomed woman in perhaps her late twenties, she was knitting some unidentified garment, and continued to do so while she talked to them, the wool emerging from a bag at her waist. A wide-eyed but silent toddler clung to her skirts and observed them doubtfully.
Yardley plucked a tomato, giving one to Nash. ‘Delicious,’ he said, and meant it.
‘Just arrived and eating my stuff already!’ quipped Brother John. Not tall but heavily muscled he was stripped to his knitted tights and brown as a nut. ‘I hear you’re enquiring about our murder.’
They introduced themselves.
‘Been here long?’ asked Nash.
‘I came here after I was demobbed. Quite a few of us did, though not many stayed.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘I give thanks daily,’ he said piously. ‘God guided my feet, as they say.’
‘I was born here,’ laughed Sister Kezia. ‘God knew where to put me.’
‘We thought the whole commune was at the birthday party,’ said Nash, ‘but these youngsters say there are others.’
‘Lord, yes. You could fill that big old table three times over if they all turned up.’
‘If you include the Adamites,’ said Asher.
‘Yes, if you include them,’ agreed Brother John, seeming to address the boy as an equal. ‘Not that you’d get that lot round a table. They prefer to squat in the mud.’
‘They’re not that bad,’ said Sister Kezia, but she laughed.
‘So why were you at the party, if you don’t mind me asking?’ said Yardley. ‘Are you friends of Sister Gertrude?’
‘I work with her in the weaving room,’ said Sister Kezia, ‘and we eat our main meal with them.’
‘She likes to catch up with the gossip,’ teased Brother John.
‘Yes I do. Why not? When I was small we all ate together, all the time. People were closer then. We were like one big family and it was nice. Anyway, you gossip too.’
‘Oh, I’ll not deny it. That’s what life is about, isn’t it?’
‘But now it’s different?’ enquired Nash
The two of them looked at one another. ‘What I say,’ said Brother John, answering somewhat obliquely, ‘is if people want to go naked and live in holes in the ground, that’s fine. No-one is stopping them. We like a bit of comfort. There ought to be room for all views, that’s my opinion. It’s not as if there are tablets of stone with it all spelled out.’
‘It never used to be like this — people criticising and finding fault,’ said Sister Kezia. ‘You knew you couldn’t live exactly like Adam and Eve; it was just something to aim at. Now everyone has to be the same and you get moaned at if you’re not. Some of them think we’re Serpent’s spawn because we buy real coffee. But I like my coffee. Anyway,’ she said defensively, ‘they could have had coffee in Eden, or something like it, couldn’t they?’
‘If not kettles,’ smiled Brother John.
‘Well all right, not kettles.’
It turned out they’d known Joe Dutton well.
‘He was the other extreme,’ said Brother John. ‘He wasn’t really an Edenist at all, even though he was born here. He wanted the Things of Nod, as we call them. I quite liked him personally, but I couldn’t agree with that. Maybe the cold-frames he was so keen on would have done little harm but it would have been the thin end of the wedge. We do take our beliefs seriously, though you mightn’t think it.’
‘Was there a row, then, when they said they were engaged?’
‘Not a row, no, but some folk thought it meant he was coming back. There would have been trouble there, I think, but before that, of course, the poor chap was dead.’
‘It’s Alice I feel sorry for,’ said Kezia. ‘She absolutely worshipped him, right from when they were children.’
‘Do you like the Truscotts?’ asked Nash.
‘Yes, and they get criticised too! Which is daft because they started it all. Are you going to talk to the others?’
‘We’re hoping to see everyone, if we can,’ said Yardley. ‘We’ve got a list.’
Grinning, Brother John picked up the toddler and swung her onto his shoulders. ‘Good luck with that, eh, Hepzibah?’
‘I only wanted a word,’ said Yardley querulously. They hadn’t shut the door on him – there was no door, just a sort of wattle hurdle laid over the entrance to their shack – but like so many others they’d made off as soon as he approached and were now lurking inside it, waiting for him to go away. There didn’t seem much point in pressing himself upon them; they’d just deny all knowledge. He looked around him and spotted Nash emerging from another primitive shelter nearby. ‘Any luck?’
‘Didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything, don’t know anything,’ he grumbled. ‘What can you do? They probably didn’t.’
‘We’ve finished the list,’ said Asher. ‘Shall you need us now?’
‘What about that lot?’ said Nash, pointing to a group of conical structures at the top of the sloping site. ‘The ones by the trees.’
‘Those are Adamites,’ said Adah.
‘But they’re Children of Eden, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Then we’d best see them too. Come on.’
The children looked at one another, turned and fled.
‘Bored, I expect,’ said Yardley.
This new style of dwelling appeared quite well constructed and thatched, like the cottages, with heather or bracken but rather low to the ground. They were arranged in a loose circle around a clearing of well-trodden earth. At the centre were a half dozen people crouching over a cooking fire. Something smelled good. Seeing the detectives approach they leapt to their feet in alarm, the women among them scuttling for their shelters. They were all stark naked.
‘Clear off, you!’ shouted one of the men. ‘You’re not allowed here.’
Death of a Serpent (The Inspector Felix Mysteries Book 8) Page 5
