Death of a Serpent (The Inspector Felix Mysteries Book 8)
Page 7
‘Might they have thought he would?’
‘I suppose it’s possible, but why? He’d barely arrived. No-one had said anything to anyone.’
‘Raymond Galbraith has been accused of it. I expect you know he’s been arrested and bailed.’
‘So I understand. I don’t believe for a moment it was Ray and neither do my parents. It’s absurd. You should let him go.’
‘Was there anything between you and Raymond — romantically, I mean?’
‘Nothing at all. I was aware that he was attracted to me of course but I never encouraged him and he never said anything. Had he declared himself I’d have told him it was impossible. I don’t believe he is capable of murder. Diffey is a fool.’
‘Did you spend much time alone with him? Might he have misunderstood your feelings towards him?’
Alice considered. ‘No, I don’t think so. When we were together I was usually with my sister. He’s a good friend and I like him, but that is all.’
‘He didn’t know about Mr Dutton presumably?’
‘No. No-one did. I kept it a secret.’
‘Why was that?’
She looked meaningfully behind her. ‘Because of how some people felt about him.’
Felix nodded his understanding. They both knew her mother had her ear to the door.
‘Can you take us through the evening, Miss Stickland, after Mr Dutton arrived?’
‘I heard his van coming and went out to meet him. We hadn’t seen each other for months and we spent some time together before going inside. When we eventually did, it was getting late and the party had moved to the music room. We decided to get it over with and announce that we were engaged. He’d asked me to marry him before he even left here but of course I couldn’t tell anyone. If only I’d had the courage to just go to him!’ Her face crumpled and she put a hand to it, the tears dripping through her fingers.
Felix reached in his pocket and handed her a fresh handkerchief. ‘Here, have this, Miss Stickland. It might be better than those woolly ones.’
She smiled her thanks. ‘I can’t tell you what anyone said to us, I’m afraid. Foolish things probably. My parents brought us in here and we tried to explain that we couldn’t wait any longer and wanted to get married. Joe asked Dad for his permission. He was very polite about it.’ She looked towards the door again. ‘They seemed all right to start with but when they realised he was taking me away they become very hostile. They wanted to know if I was expecting! As if we’d had a chance! Then Grandma, who was there, drew us into her room. She was very kind. She’s always been kind to me. It ruined her birthday I’m afraid. He wasn’t quite sure when he could get here and we’d quite forgotten about it. She tried to persuade us to stay here until I was twenty-one. After that I could legally clear off and they couldn’t do anything about it. Then she went to her desk and wrote me a cheque for two hundred pounds! She said that if we were determined to leave, we might need it. I was flabbergasted, we both were. Nobody here is supposed to have any money of their own. We said we’d think about staying, it seemed churlish not to, though of course we wouldn’t have done. He had a business to run and needed to go straight back. Then she left us together in her private sitting room. We could hear her arguing with them outside but not what was said. Then we heard the piano and realised they’d gone into the music room. The party was still going on, of course. It went on quite late. Then it all went quiet and we realised they’d gone to bed. No-one had offered Joe a place to sleep. I was all for leaving then and there but he said he’d sleep in his van. He’d more or less lived in it before he started his farm so he didn’t mind.’
‘This was cut-flowers?’
‘Yes. He loved his flowers. It was his dream really. When I got up he’d gone.’
‘But the van was still there?
‘Yes.’
‘Did you go out to his van to say goodnight?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Was there anyone about?’
‘Not that I noticed. There might have been.’
‘You heard nothing in the night?’
‘No, and I was awake for most of it. I sleep at the other end of the building though.’
‘Can you think of any reason why your fiancé would take it into his head to walk into Home Wood after you left him? That’s assuming he did, as reported.’
‘No. I’ve gone over and over it and I can’t understand it. I can only think he was lured there somehow. That’s if he went there at all. Sister Clarice is a bit cracked, you know. It’s one of the reasons why Joe left.’
She was weeping steadily now, and Rattigan put a hand in his pocket. ‘Have another handkerchief, miss.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant, that’s very kind.’
‘You searched for him of course?’ said Felix.
‘Yes, everywhere. I tried to get someone to help me but my mother flatly refused. Eventually my father rather grudgingly said he’d do Home Wood because of what Sister Clarice had said. She’d accused Raymond by then.’
‘Accused him to you?’
‘Yes, but she’d only seen him going into the wood, as far as I can tell. She’s a vicious old cat who hates outsiders and I wouldn’t trust anything she says. Coming back from seeing her I met George. He went straight out into Eden, looking. They like him there because he gives them rabbits. But by then my Joe . . . wasn’t here any more.’
Felix gazed at her in contemplation for a while. ‘Miss Stickland, it’s up to you of course, but I’d feel more comfortable if you were to stay somewhere else until we’ve apprehended this person. Would you be prepared to do that?’
‘Yes I would. I’d like to be away from here, but I’ve nowhere to go.’
‘We could arrange something. You’d be under our official protection with a bobby to guard you. I’d have to agree it with your parents of course. To the world outside you’re still a minor I’m afraid.’ He stood and slightly raised his voice. ‘Sister Mary, I’d like a word with you please.’
‘Let’s look at this van,’ said Felix as they came out.
‘She wasn’t keen was she?’
‘No she wasn’t, but I think it’s for the best. It’s round here, I suppose.’
The back of Eden House sported a multitude of later additions and alterations typical of such places. Being north-facing it was in shade and in winter would be rather dank and mossy. A flagstoned path meandered along it. Felix counted no fewer than five outside doors, presumably corresponding to the various self-contained accommodations and public spaces.
‘Music room,’ said Rattigan, peering in at a window. ‘More a sort of common room, I think, and this looks like the central hallway.’
‘Here’s the school-room,’ said Felix. ‘I wonder where they go when they’re not here?’
‘Weeding and collecting eggs,’ Rattigan reminded him.
At the corner of the building a branch of the entrance drive terminated in a circle of gravel upon which stood the van, a large but elderly Ford. Hooking open the unlocked back doors revealed an old mattress, a couple of blankets and a good number of stacked buckets and battered tin baths, presumably for transporting Joe Dutton’s stock in trade. Under the dashboard and on the unused passenger seat were an Oxo tin containing greaseproof paper and breadcrumbs, scattered lists and invoices, a road map and some old newspapers. It didn’t amount to much but it somehow served to put flesh on the bones of the man. It suddenly seemed ridiculous that he should be murdered for wanting to join the twentieth century, yet everything so far suggested that this was what had happened.
‘Best dab it I think,’ said Felix.
‘They’ve had plenty of time to wipe it, and we’d need to take everyone’s prints too.’
‘Even so. It’ll keep the lads busy if nothing else, and show ’em we mean business.’
Chapter Nine
<
br /> Nash and Yardley were sitting at the big table, waiting for them.
‘Hello gents,’ said Felix. ‘How was Paradise?’
They told them about the allotment-like plots, the cottages, the orchards and the sheep and goats.
‘Hardly your Brueghel, said Nash, who knew his art. ‘All right in summer, I suppose.’
‘I think we approached most of the ones working in the fields,’ said Yardley. ‘There were far more of them than were on our list. Some were all right but others were pretty hostile and wouldn’t even talk to us. If they were near enough to their shacks they went inside and hid from us. I don’t think it was because we were policemen necessarily; they just seem shy of outsiders.’
‘Of Noddies,’ corrected Nash. ‘That’s what they call us.’
‘Yes, Noddies,’ chuckled Yardley, ‘people of Nod. I’ve been called some things in my time but that’s a new one. We did meet one couple, John and Kezia, whom we got on with all right. Fortunately they were the first we came to. They couldn’t tell us anything about the murder, or said they couldn’t – nobody had anything useful to say about that – but they told us a bit about the place generally. They seem to divide into three camps. There are those you might call the normal ones who just want to live the simple life; then there are the ones that are a bit hair-shirt about it and won’t use metal implements and so on, and finally there’s a bunch that frankly seem half-mad. They call themselves the Adamites and live a bit apart from the others in holes in the ground with a sort of thatched wigwam for a roof. When we arrived, we found them all naked, the women as well. There was one big, hairy bloke that was shouting and gesticulating and called us Serpent’s spawn. Someone threw a stone at us and they became very threatening so we cleared off.’
‘Everyone we spoke to hated Dutton,’ said Nash, ‘or disapproved of him at least. He really must have rubbed them up the wrong way.’
‘They seem to have made him into a sort of bogeyman,’ said Yardley, ‘something to frighten the children with. I can quite see why he left. Some of them believed he was coming back.’
‘Aha!’ said Felix. ‘Did they actually say that?’
‘Yes they did.’
Alice appeared, carrying a little bundle under her arm.
‘Is this all you’re taking?’ frowned Felix.
‘We don’t encourage personal possessions,’ she explained. ‘It’s all I own.’
‘But you’ve got your grandma’s cheque?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. This is Sergeant Nash. He’ll drive you to our lodgings at the Mole Inn and stay with you until we can make other arrangements.’
‘I really must apologise for my mother,’ said Alice. ‘She’s not usually like that. I think she’s upset for me really but can’t bring herself to show it.’
They watched the Vauxhall pass down the dusty drive.
‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,’ said Felix. ‘There’s no knowing how someone will react to a policeman.’
‘She meant it right enough,’ said Rattigan. ‘Her own bereaved daughter!’
‘Well at least one can’t accuse her of hypocrisy.’
‘Your boss is a kindly man,’ said Alice as Nash drove her to the village.
‘Yes he is. Miss Stickland, I’ve had an idea. I think you’re friends with Miss Burt, the schoolteacher. Is that right?’
‘I don’t know about friends. I do talk to her sometimes. She’s nice. I’m a sort of teacher too so we get on.’
‘Do you think she’d have you to stay?’
‘Goodness! I don’t know. I wouldn’t presume to ask.’
‘You won’t have to, I will.’
*
Brian Strickland was a plump, bullet-headed little man of indifferent appearance. He sported the obligatory long hair, plaited into a queue, and a long wispy beard that made him look ridiculous. As with his womenfolk, this was presumably only a gesture of solidarity with the other brethren, the sophisticated Truscotts surely retaining the use of scissors and razors. His oversized hands, the only characterful part of him, were dry and chapped from working at the potter’s wheel. He glanced constantly at his wife as he spoke, as if taking his cue from her. Felix wondered how the good-looking Mary had ever been attracted to him. Perhaps the commune needed a potter?
‘I take great exception to this, Chief Inspector,’ he said. ‘You have taken our daughter away from us without consulting me, or even doing me the courtesy of a visit.’
‘Brother Brian, you are quite right,’ said Felix, chastened. ‘I had assumed that Sister Mary was speaking for both of you and I shouldn’t have done that. Please accept my apologies. However, I do feel Alice will be safer under our protection until we resolve this business.’
‘But why? It’s perfectly clear to me what has happened. Dutton was unfortunately hated by many here and no doubt one of our number murdered him. Some of them are quite capable of it, unfortunately. It’s most regrettable but nothing to do with Alice, who should be with her parents. She’ll be lost without us.’
‘Then I’ll ask her if she wants to come home, sir. She can be with you in ten minutes. Though I’m not able to share your conviction that one of the brethren committed this crime. He may well have done, but the truth is we don’t yet know. One is bound to ask, for a start, why anyone became so convinced Mr Dutton was returning here to live that they were prepared to commit murder to prevent him. According to your daughter no-one knew he was planning to visit or what he intended. And when he arrived, only those at the birthday party knew about it. Yet scarcely had a new day dawned than he was dead.’
‘I really don’t know how they knew,’ said Mary, ‘but it’s not impossible. Walls have ears, as they say, especially in Eden.’
Felix turned to her. ‘Mrs Stickland, were you aware of the continuing friendship between your daughter and Joseph Dutton, after he left Eden?’
Mary looked uncomfortable. ‘Yes I was, since you ask.’
‘How?’
‘I just was. A mother knows.’
‘She was keeping it a secret from you. Were you opening her letters?’
‘She never had any letters!’
‘Yet you knew.’
‘She’s our daughter, Chief Inspector! It’s our duty to protect her. You’ve seen the state she’s in. She’s gone to a shadow.’
‘The man she loved has been murdered. What would you expect?’
Felix could see her colour rising again. ‘She didn’t love him. She couldn’t have done. She’s too young to know any better. He seduced her away from us!’
‘She’s nineteen, Mrs Stickland. Plenty of young women are married at that age, and it was hardly a whirlwind romance. I understand you were married at eighteen yourself.’
‘Chief Inspector,’ said Brian, ‘with respect, you don’t understand Eden. We are purposely remote from the world here. Many, indeed, choose never to leave its protection. My daughter has scarcely been outside it — a few local visits to friends and relatives and that is all. She has never even spent a night away from us. She is sheltered and vulnerable. Dutton wanted to take her away to God knows where. He didn’t even have a proper home to take her to. Had he been one of our own it might have been different.’
‘You might have considered that?’
‘Yes, perhaps.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Mary, looking daggers at him.
‘Mrs Stickland,’ said Felix, ‘I understand that at your mother’s birthday party, just a week ago, you quite forcefully encouraged Raymond Galbraith and another young man – “Noddies,” as I believe you term them – to pay court to your daughter. That seems rather at odds with a desire to shelter her from the world.’
‘I never did!’
He gestured at Rattigan, quietly writing. ‘I have it from several witnesses. My sergeant will read out the
pertinent passages if you wish. It rather suggests to me you were desperate that she should become interested in anyone other than Mr Dutton. Why was that?’
‘Raymond is just a boy,’ she snapped. ‘If I seemed to encourage him it was in the hope of diverting her from Dutton, who was a grown man. He’ll be going away to college shortly anyway.’
‘That, Mrs Stickland, is if he doesn’t hang first!’
Mary, who had been pacing the room, folded her arms and turned away from him. ‘I have nothing further to say.’
‘Neither have I at present,’ said Felix.
‘You were sailing a bit close to the wind weren’t you?’ said Rattigan. ‘They’re quite within their rights after all. She’s under twenty-one.’
‘That woman makes me cross,’ grumbled Felix. ‘Never mind young Raymond. In the lack of empathy stakes she’d romp home.’
‘Some people won’t let their children grow up.’
‘Is that all it is, though? I want that girl away from her influence. Something is going on here I don’t understand.’
‘Whom do you think has been snitching on Alice?’
‘I can’t believe it’s Caroline, must be one of the Seatons. Or else she’s been eavesdropping on the daughters’ conversations. We know she listens at doors.’
When they returned to the Mole Inn, Felix found a note from Nash and a message to telephone to Colonel Galbraith at his earliest convenience. ‘John has billeted Miss Stickland on the schoolteacher,’ he reported. ‘He says she looks better already. Wants to know if it’s safe to leave her there. It’s the school holidays, fortunately.’
‘I did wonder about Miss Burt,’ said Yardley, ‘but she lives alone in the school house.’
‘Then he’d best stay with them tonight until we can get someone more permanent. Good thing he’s married now, eh? I understand the lady is quite attractive.’
Yardley smiled. ‘It’s a new John these days, sir. Lady Godiva could ride by and he wouldn’t trouble to look.’
‘I might take a peek at the horse,’ chuckled Felix, ‘I’d best go and ring Galbraith.’