Seeing is Believing

by E. X. Ferrars

  Frances, by the way, is my name.

  ‘Of course we'll think about it,’ Avril said. ‘I expect there'll be a good deal more discussion of such things on Saturday evening than we've had already. You'll be there, of course.’

  Saturday evening was to be our first rehearsal in the village hall. Most of us would be reading our parts, and arguing a great deal, getting in each other's way and wasting time. But it was a phase that had to be gone through.

  ‘Will you be back from London, Avril?’ I asked, then explained to Malcolm, ‘Avril's going to London to have lunch with her cousin, Lynne Denison.’

  ‘Oh yes, I'll come straight back after lunch,’ Avril said. ‘And of course, Peter'll be there.’

  ‘Our problem is that we're expecting a guest for the weekend,’ Malcolm said. ‘We're going into Otterswell to meet him this afternoon. And we'll either have to bring him to the rehearsal, which might bore him, or leave him to himself for the evening.’

  ‘Is he the kind of person who'd be bored by the rehearsal?’ Avril asked. ‘I should have thought it might be quite entertaining.’

  ‘I think so too,’ I said. ‘After all, he's had quite a lot to do with amateur dramatics himself in the last few years. I think he'll enjoy it.’

  But I was wrong. He did not enjoy it because it did not take place.

  Something happened on Saturday that put an end to our production of Romeo and Juliet. So perhaps it was as well that it was to have been a modern dress production, because at least our society had so far spent hardly anything on the clothes. The material for my nurse's uniform was the only thing that had been bought with our rather scanty funds.

  The guest whom Malcolm and I were expecting that afternoon was Brian Hewlett, now headmaster of Granborough. He had been to stay with us several times before during the school holidays. At the moment, we were in the middle of the spring holidays and we were hoping the fine weather that we were having would last over his visit, because he and Malcolm enjoyed going on long walks together over the Downs. I usually let them go without me, because generally Brian's wife Judy came with him, and she and I enjoyed each other's company. She was ten years younger than I was but that had never been a barrier. He was coming alone this time because she was on a visit to a member of her family whom she felt obliged to see from time to time, but whom she preferred not to inflict on Brian. Over the years, I had heard a good deal about her family, all of whom thought of Granborough as nothing but a deplorably eccentric institution and Brian as more than a little mad.

  We were to meet him at three-forty-five in Otterswell. It was at about a quarter-past three that we went out to the garage and brought out the Rover. It was looking spruce, because Fred Dyer had recently washed it. As we went towards it, I saw him at work in the Loxleys’ garden. He noticed us and gave us a wave. He was a tall young man, bony but muscular, with wide shoulders and long arms, and a small, well-shaped head set on a long neck with a pronounced Adam's apple. His hair was a deep, burnished red and his eyes were a greenish grey. In his gangling way he was striking to look at, if not exactly handsome, and although up to a point he was friendly, it was sometimes difficult to feel sure that he knew to whom he was talking. He seemed to look through you rather than at you, and to want to make sure that you realized that he liked to keep himself to himself. We had all been a little surprised when he had agreed to take the part of Romeo, indeed to have anything to do with our dramatic society. His girlfriend, Sharon, we supposed, must have been responsible for it. He was mowing the Loxleys’ grass when we came out of the house.

  While Malcolm was backing the car out of the garage, I went across our own lawn and called out, ‘Hello, Fred, when are you going to give us some time?’

  He switched off the mower and came towards me. A low beech hedge divided the Loxleys’ garden from ours and we could easily talk across it. Both gardens had several apple trees in them, and flowerbeds which at that time were making a brave show of tulips. The daffodils were over and so was the forsythia, and the rhododendrons were not yet in bloom. Our garden was a little the more ambitious, because Malcolm spent a good deal of time at work in it, so we were not quite as dependent on Fred as the Loxleys were. Our two houses stood close together, with only the hedge between them and paths going round to the back of each house. Our house was white, with dark beams and square sash windows, but the Loxleys’ was a good deal bigger. I found its mellowed red brick and tall windows very attractive.

  ‘I'll come over on Monday, if that's all right,’ Fred answered. ‘I'm busy over the weekend.’

  He had a puzzling voice. Usually with the English, the moment they open their mouths you can place them socially, but Fred's accent eluded me. I thought there had probably been a public school at some time in his life, but if so, he had done his best to eliminate any trace of it. His busyness, I thought, was probably simply that he wanted to spend the weekend with Sharon.

  ‘Monday's fine,’ I said. ‘Morning or afternoon?’

  ‘I could come around ten.’ As usual, he was not speaking directly to me, but seemed to be focusing on something beyond me, and I wondered if that was how he looked even at Sharon, because there was something a little chilling about it. ‘Or shall I come earlier?’

  ‘No, ten's all right, if that's what suits you.’ I am not good at getting up myself, and was quite glad that he would not need attention earlier. Not that he needed much attention. He would arrive with his own tools in his van, which he would park at our gate, as it was parked now at the Loxleys’, and get to work with what he considered needed doing, without consulting Malcolm or me. Then, at about eleven o'clock, I would take him out a cup of tea, and we would have a brief chat, mostly about all the mistakes that we had made in our garden before he had come to our rescue and a little bit about the character of Romeo, then at twelve o'clock Malcolm would make out a substantial cheque to him, and he would drive off in his van. If he charged everyone he worked for as much as he charged us, he must have taken a comfortable income home to Sharon.

  Malcolm by now had the car in the lane and I went to join him while Fred returned to the mowing-machine. The lane went down a fairly steep hill to the main road that ran through the village. There were three other houses along the lane, one of them belonging to Hugh Maskell to which we were going for drinks that evening, one to two elderly unmarried sisters, and one to a young couple called Askew with two small children. Hugh had been a highly successful surgeon before his retirement. He was sixty, which perhaps had been early to put an end to his career, but he claimed that he did not trust his hands any longer. Besides directing our performance of Romeo and Juliet, he was taking the part of Capulet.

  The afternoon was fine, with a light breeze blowing and small puffs of cloud chasing each other across the clear blue sky. The hawthorn hedges were green and the beech trees were coming into leaf. It was only seven miles from Raneswood to Otterswell, along a twisting road that ran through two or three more villages. Brian was coming from Edgewater by train, which in fact had meant his going to London first and changing there, because Judy had taken their car when she went off to visit her family in Cheshire. We arrived at the station in Otterswell in plenty of time to meet the three-forty-five, and were waiting for Brian as arranged, at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the platform when the train came in.

  Brian was among the first people who came down the stairs. He clapped a hand on Malcolm's shoulder and gave me a kiss. He was a small man, very neatly built, with a light, springing walk which seemed to make him move faster than anyone else around him. His hair was thick and grey and generally untidy; his face was narrow and long, with a pointed chin, a sharply jutting nose, a wide mouth, and large, very bright brown eyes. His fine, arched eyebrows were still black, in spite of his grey hair. He had never been handsome, yet he was a man whom one noticed in a crowd, mostly, I used to think, because he had so much vitality. He was carrying one suitcase which Malcolm tried to take from him but to which he clung, refusing to b
e helped with it. He seemed to think that our meeting was an occasion for chuckling rather than for speech, at least until we were in the Rover and on the way back to Raneswood.

  Then he drew a deep breath, stretched comfortably in the seat beside Malcolm and said, ‘Wonderful to be back here. You don't know how I've been looking forward to it. Peace and quiet. That's what you always give me here. Wonderful, it really is. Train was on time, too. That's wonderful these days. And I'm needing the peace and quiet more than usual. Life's been pretty hectic this last term.’

  Trouble?’ Malcolm asked.

  ‘No, not trouble. But the place is expanding and there's been a lot of planning to be done. You know, I'd like to be the headmaster of a really small school, the kind of place Granborough was fifty years ago. But I don't complain, at least not overmuch.’

  ‘I hope it won't upset your ideas of peace and quiet that we're taking you out for drinks this evening,’ I said from the back seat. ‘If the thought appals you too much, we can leave you behind. We needn't stay long.’

  ‘Dear me, no, that'll suit me nicely,’ Brian said. ‘All strange faces and no need to worry if you're going to say something that's going to give someone bitter offence. A touchy lot, schoolmasters and mistresses. Who's our host?’

  ‘Someone I think you may have met on a previous visit,’ Malcolm answered. ‘His name's Hugh Maskell. He's a retired surgeon. He lives in the only modern house along our lane.’

  ‘Maskell. Ah, yes. I remember him quite well,’ Brian said. ‘Remarkable thing the memory is, isn't it? He called in on you one day when Judy and I were staying with you a couple of years ago, and I think he stayed for about half an hour, yet I'd know him if we happened to meet casually in a London street. But expect me to recognize a parent who visited us only a week ago, and you'll find I'm floored. Most inconvenient. I'm in a job where, as you know, one's memory ought to be infallible.’

  ‘How's Judy?’ Malcolm asked.

  ‘Annoyed,’ Brian said. ‘Definitely annoyed that I'm coming here when she'd committed herself to visiting that sister of hers. I'd be annoyed in her place too. Her sister is someone I can do without. I advise Judy to break the bond entirely, as really it means nothing to her, but she can't bring herself to do it and subjects herself to a week of irritation, boredom and pointless quarrelling at least once a year. There's no need to tell me blood's thicker than water. It certainly is, but I think I prefer water.’

  Malcolm began to ask him questions then about some of the older members of the staff at Granborough, people whom we both remembered, whether they were still at the school or had moved on to higher things or retired. The drive home seemed short, and Fred Dyer was still at work when we drove past the Loxleys’ gate. That is to say, he was just putting his tools away in his van and taking a broom out of it with which to sweep the paths, when he saw us and once again gave us a wave.

  But the gesture was strangely, abruptly checked and he stared blankly at the car.

  At the same moment, Brian said, ‘Good God!’

  Malcolm edged the car past the van and stopped at the entrance to our garage.

  Brian repeated himself, ‘Good God!’ Then he went one further and muttered, ‘Christ!’

  ‘What's the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘That man,’ Brian said. ‘What's he doing here?’

  ‘He does all kinds of things,’ I said. ‘Gardens, washed our car yesterday, puts new washers on taps if you need them, does minor electrical repairs. Oh, he's a treasure. Why, do you know him?’

  ‘No!’ Brian said with considerable violence. ‘No — that's to say I don't know him. I may have exchanged a few words with him, but I could hardly help knowing who he is. You mean you don't?’

  ‘We don't really know much about him,’ I answered, ‘except that he turned up here about four or five months ago as the boyfriend of one of the local glamour girls, and seems to live contentedly with her. There's a rumour around that he's a poet, but I don't think anyone's ever seen anything he's written.’

  ‘What's his name?’

  ‘Fred Dyer.’

  ‘Well, that's something that it certainly is not.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘When I last heard of him, he was called Jack Benyon.’

  Brian and I had got out of the car and Malcolm was driving it into the garage. He took Brian's suitcase out of the boot, came out of the garage, locked it and started towards the house. But Brian stood still, looking towards the Loxleys’ garden, where Fred Dyer's red hair was visible above the hedge.

  ‘I could be mistaken,’ Brian murmured. ‘I suppose I could be.’

  But he did not sound as if he believed that he was. Following Malcolm along the path to the house, he repeated thoughtfully, ‘Benyon.’ Then after a moment he added, ‘That's the name he was using then. Don't expect it was any more his own than Dyer.’

  ‘But when did you come in contact with him?’ I asked.

  We had reached our door and Malcolm had opened it.

  ‘Did you never hear about the sex murders in Edge-water?’ Brian said. ‘There were three of them, all the same, and they've never been solved. But a man called Jack Benyon was nearly arrested for them.’

  At his words, I felt a chill go through me, although I did not believe that his Jack Benyon and our Fred Dyer could possibly be the same person. But the mere thought of those murders in Edgewater a year ago was enough to make one shudder.

  I led the way into the sitting room.

  ‘I should think everyone in the country must have heard about them,’ I said. ‘Of course, we paid a bit of extra attention to them when the papers and television were full of them, knowing the place as we did.’

  ‘But you said this man you're talking about was only nearly arrested for them,’ Malcolm said. ‘In other words, even if you're right that he's turned up here, he's innocent.’

  ‘I don't think many people thought he was,’ Brian said. ‘But there wasn't enough evidence for a conviction. They took him in for questioning, but then they let him loose and he quietly disappeared. I know Detective Inspector Dalling quite well — he was in charge of the case — and he told me a bit more about it than perhaps he should have.’

  ‘What was the evidence they had that made them suspect him?’ Malcolm asked.

  He had put Brian's suitcase down in our small hall, at the foot of the stairs, and was standing in the doorway of the room, ready to take Brian up to our spare bedroom. Brian was standing in front of the fireplace, where I had just switched on a bar of the electric fire that stood on the hearth. Though the spring day had been so bright, it was still cool and a little warmth was welcome.

  ‘A woman saw him running away from the place where they later found a body,’ Brian said. The third body. As you know, they'd all been killed in the same way: a black plastic rubbish bag pulled over the head from behind, then strangling. There wasn't any actual sexual assault, though her clothes were ripped and her body was bruised. Extreme sexual perversion, obviously, probably linked to impotence. And this woman who saw him running off described him perfectly. His red hair, his height, his thinness and all, and the clothes he was wearing. And she picked him out at once in an identity parade of red-haired men. Mostly men in red wigs, that's to say. They couldn't collect enough of the genuine article in Edgewater. But then she had second thoughts and said she was not at all sure that he was the man she saw, in fact she thought he wasn't. And the other bit of evidence was that Benyon, only the day before, had been into a hardware shop in Edgewater and bought a packet of those black rubbish bags, and when he was questioned about them one bag was missing, and he couldn't account for what he'd done with it. The girlfriend he had there said she'd taken it to line the dustbin, but as the rubbish people had just been round that day, there was no way of checking her story. She gave him an alibi too, which could have been true, though not many people believed it.’

  ‘But that doesn't sound much like impotence,’ Malcolm said. ‘And I doubt if you co
uld accuse our Fred of it, either.’

  ‘How long was it after this girl saw the man, whoever he was, running away, that they found the body?’ I asked.

  ‘A couple of hours, I think,’ Brian answered. ‘It was dusk, which was partly why she wouldn't stick to her first story.’

  ‘She didn't stop to investigate at the time?’ I said.

  ‘No. She didn't think much about it till she saw the news of the murder on television that evening, then she got in touch with the police straight away. The television showed, you see, just where the body had been found, and she remembered at once what she'd seen,’

  ‘Just where did that murder happen?’ Malcolm said. ‘It was somewhere down by the heath, wasn't it?’

  There is a heath with a stream running through it on what used to be the edge of Edgewater, but in recent years buildings have slowly been creeping round it, so that it is losing its old, wild look. But there is still a good deal of gorse on it and as I remembered accounts of the murder, the body had been found in a patch of gorse.

  Brian corroborated this.

  ‘Yes, in some gorse. But they didn't think she'd been killed there, or at least not assaulted. They thought the object of the plastic bag was to prevent her being able to recognize the man if the murder somehow went wrong and she got away. Or it may have been less sensational than that, more some kind of fetishism. They never found that out, of course. There were no fingerprints on the bag.’

  ‘What was the man Benyon doing in Edgewater?’ Malcolm asked.

  ‘Working in a garage,’ Brian said. ‘I used to take our car there to be serviced. That's why I told you I thought I'd exchanged a few words with him. I think I did. And it's why I recognized him at once when I saw him out there.’ He nodded towards the window.

  ‘He recognized you too,’ I said. ‘Anyone could see that. So perhaps Fred Dyer is Jack Benyon, even if he isn't necessarily a murderer. Now I think I'll get some tea,’