Buried in the Past

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Pollard replied. ‘I think the most practical move is to return to Warhampton as soon as possible.’

  By the time he reached his own room he had mentally farmed out the bulk of his backlog, and within a couple of hours was on the road once more with Toye. After lengthy discussion they agreed that the least unpromising line of action was a thorough search of Bernard Lister’s flat and its contents.

  ‘No aspersion on Worrall and his boys,’ Pollard said, ‘but they’re human like the rest of us, and could have missed something. After all, Lister was an academic, given to putting pen to paper. If anything was afoot between him and Stanton — or X — I can’t help feeling that there’s a note or a diary entry, even if it’s a cryptic reference.’

  On arrival at Warhampton there was an inevitable holdup while Superintendent Norrington was brought up to date on the case. This accomplished, Pollard and Toye looked in at their temporary office. Bernard Lister’s article on the Corbury charters, skilfully pieced together by Adrian Beresford, was lying on the table.

  ‘I’d better skim through this,’ Pollard said. ‘It won’t take long. Anything linking Lister and Corbury could be significant.’

  Within moments he was absorbed, temporarily oblivious of the case. Toye, when treated to a summary, was more scandalised by the turpitude of the fifteenth century Corbury burgesses than impressed by Bernard Lister’s scholarship.

  ‘Slack lot they must have been up in London, too,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘not to mention taking bribes.’

  Pollard was amused.

  ‘Well, one thing, Lister’s worst enemy couldn’t accuse him of slackness. You realise that all this hinges on a copyist’s error over one letter, turning Spinner into Skinner? I’ll just try to catch Beresford at the Record Office, and tell him he’s done a good job.’

  Adrian Beresford was clearly much gratified by the call. Behind his modest disclaimers, however, Pollard sensed an anxiety which only just stopped short of a direct question.

  ‘I … er… I seemed to have a sort of tie-up with the whole business,’ the young man proffered tentatively. ‘Lister working here on the documents, and buying that desk I wanted. I don’t know if it’s of any interest but he bought some of Sir Miles LeWarne’s books, too. I found one or two with the old chap’s bookplate when I took a quick look at the heaps on the floor. The Librarian here bought in some.’

  Pollard pleasantly but firmly declined the gambits and rang off.

  ‘I’d like to put that pair’s minds at rest, not to mention that blundering hothead, Plowman’s, but it’s too risky. It might leak out, and alert Stanton or A. N. Other. Got the key? Let’s go, then.’

  Bernard Lister’s flat felt increasingly dirty and dreary.

  As they stood in the disordered study, Toye remarked that it was hard to know where to start.

  ‘In here, anyway. One can feel that this was the hub of the poor chap’s universe. Let’s clear the decks a bit first. Get the books back on the shelves for a beginning. It doesn’t matter what order they’re in.’

  ‘Blimey,’ Toye said, immediately heaving up a Liddell and Scott Greek Lexicon, ‘this’d take a bit of reading.’

  ‘It’s a dictionary,’ Pollard told him absently, his attention on a mint volume of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire containing Sir Miles LeWarne’s bookplate. He surfaced reluctantly and began to tackle his share of the work.

  It was by chance that his eye lighted on a book covered in brown paper. The next moment he experienced a sharp tingling at the base of his spine. Neatly inscribed in block capitals was a title: THE LETTER KILLETH. R. LE SPINNER.

  He opened the book, and saw the LeWarne bookplate. Turning to the title page he found that he was holding a copy of Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage. On ruffling through the pages he came on two folded sheets of paper.

  ‘Let’s have the forceps,’ he said abruptly.

  Toye produced them from Pollard’s working case in seconds. The papers were extracted and carefully opened out on a piece of blotting paper. Chairs were pulled up to the desk.

  One document was a sheet of expensive writing paper engraved with the Edgehill Court address. It was headed in an elderly hand ‘Gerald Stanton. Final notes for my new Will. 5.12.1971.’ Pollard read them to the end, and became aware that he was holding his breath. Beside him Toye was apostrophising his Maker.

  ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘This could be a pointer, but it isn’t evidence within the meaning of the Act.’

  The second folded paper was of different quality, and looked as though it had been tom from a pad used for rough notes. It was a list in Bernard Lister’s handwriting of dates relating to the last weeks of Sir Miles LeWarne’s life, some of them prefaced by question marks.

  ‘We have been here before,’ Pollard muttered. ‘Those cuttings from the Corbury Courier.’

  Toye unearthed them from a pile of papers on a chair. Within a few minutes it was clear that the list had been compiled from them, and was accurate.

  ‘Rum to think of Lister’s happening on this one book by pure chance,’ he commented.

  ‘Almost incredible,’ Pollard agreed. ‘I’ve wondered if things like this really are chance, or if there are subtle connecting links we just can’t see. Anyway, Lister obviously found the papers, perhaps when he unpacked the books and looked them over. From then on it’s easy to see how his mind worked. He saw from the cuttings that the young LeWarnes were killed on 20 November. The final notes for the will are dated 5 December, so Sir Miles had had plenty of time to think things over, and come to a decision about the house and his residuary estate. Then on 12 December he has a stroke. On the thirteenth he signs a will with a different principal bequest, and promptly dies from a second stroke. Highly convenient development for the Stantons.’

  ‘Do you think Lister confronted Stanton, and threatened to contest the will on grounds of undue influence?’ Toye asked.

  Pollard was silent, startled by an idea which had suddenly presented itself to him.

  ‘It could be,’ he said at last. ‘Unless, of course, he’d gone a step further, and suspected that Stanton had submitted a forged will for the genuine one, and that LeWarne hadn’t been in a state to question what he was signing.’

  Toye emitted an astonished whistle, his expression one of combined admiration and alarm.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Pollard grinned, and pulled the telephone towards him. ‘We’ll play it cool: not to worry. I admit it’s a bit steep. But I’m going to ring the Yard, and ask them to phone through the full text of LeWarne’s will as early as they can tomorrow. We’ll at least know for sure then if Stanton drew the thing up.’

  This done, they systematically worked through the rest of the books, and closely examined the desk for possible secret compartments, but without discovering anything of interest. Eventually they sat down again, and lit cigarettes.

  ‘If Stanton murdered Lister to shut his mouth,’ Pollard said abruptly, ‘it was a carefully worked out affair. They must have been in contact before 14 December. How, when and where? If we could get on to that, we’d be halfway home. If you’d been Lister, with blackmail, or just anti-Plowmanship in mind, how would you have made contact? ’

  Toye considered carefully.

  ‘I’d have phoned in for an appointment at his office, saying I was a client, and put on dark glasses and pads in my cheeks or whatever, in case some Corbury old-timer spotted me.’

  ‘If Lister tried that, Stanton’s secretary must have made a note of the appointment, and seen him. However, that’s several stages ahead. Let’s concentrate on 14 December. If Stanton killed Lister, I think we can take it that it happened then, when he — Stanton — was up here for his client’s Crown Court case. Up to now, his tight time schedule has been his alibi. But if it was a prearranged meeting, following on an earlier one, for Stanton to hand over a signed confession of fraud, or lolly perhaps, well, obviously the time factor’s much less important.’

&n
bsp; Toye suggested a meeting somewhere on the road back to Corbury.

  ‘Don’t forget that Lister had turned in his car for servicing before Stanton’s case was over. Of course he might have gone to an agreed place by public transport. Less conspicuous in some ways than parking one’s car. I suppose they didn’t meet at Stanton’s car in the Grand Central Hotel car park? It sounds an improbable place for a murder. Would Lister have been fool enough to get into Stanton’s car?’

  ‘You’d hardly credit it,’ Toye said thoughtfully. ‘But then, Lister doesn’t strike you as a chap having his feet on the ground, for all his brains. Living in a sort of fantasy world about Corbury and the Plowmans, anyway.’

  ‘You’ve got something there.... Well, the obvious step is to go and look at the car park. It’s too late tonight, and anyway, we ought to see it in daylight to get the hang of the place. What’s in your mind?’

  ‘Talking about parking’s reminded me of the Stantons’ old house, sir. We looked inside their garage, if you call it to mind. Nice weatherproof building, but it wouldn’t take more than a couple of cars. Didn’t Mrs Stanton say they heard her husband draw up just when they’d started their dinner? Well, did he leave his car outside all night? If the visitors’ car was in the garage with hers, seems he must’ve.’

  ‘I think this is important,’ Pollard said, hoisting himself into a more upright position, and recrossing his legs. ‘If it was the visitors’ car that stood out overnight, Stanton would have had a perfectly sound reason for going out again, and driving his own car round to the garage. It wouldn’t have taken him long to heave the body out of the boot, and dump it in a comer under a tarpaulin or something, ready to be shifted to the dig at the first suitable moment. After dark the next day perhaps. I think a visit to those people is called for. Hayter, they were called, weren’t they, and lived at Longstaple?’

  Toye consulted the file.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Name of Hayter. Colonel and Mrs.’ Pollard relapsed into a lengthy silence, frowning as he sat with legs outstretched, drawing on his cigarette.

  ‘If Stanton killed Lister, we’re moving into a highly dangerous situation,’ he said at last.

  ‘You mean he might do a bunk?’ queried Toye.

  ‘I mean a hell of a lot more than that. This time he’d have two crimes to cover up, murder on top of fraud. What price the life of anyone in a position to give damaging information? His secretary, for instance, if he got to hear we were showing interest in his office staff? We can’t watch our step too carefully.’

  Chapter 11

  Just before ten o’clock on the following morning Toye drew up at the threshold of the Grand Central Hotel’s forecourt.

  ‘If this is the only parking space they’ve got, we’re wasting our time,’ Pollard said. ‘No, look. Round the side of the building. “To Car Park”.’

  Toye advanced cautiously, circumnavigating a mound of luggage in the process of being loaded into a Mercedes Benz. They emerged into an unexpectedly large space with an exit to a side street. He drew up and they sat taking in the lie of the land. Apart from a laundry van unloading at the Grand Central’s back door and ten or a dozen cars in a section reserved for staff, the place was almost empty.

  ‘A lamp over the back door and a street lamp quite near the exit,’ Pollard said. ‘I can’t see anything else in the way of lighting.’

  ‘You’d get a certain amount from the windows,’ Toye pointed out.

  ‘Just on five on a mid-December evening. We ought to have come along here before. It’s made for assignations at that hour. Stanton arrived in the morning, and could more or less pick his stance. Near the exit, so that Lister wouldn’t have to wander around, but not too near that street lamp. With any luck there wouldn’t be another car anywhere near: too early for the bar, and shoppers and so on would have pushed off.’

  ‘There could be staff coming and going at any hour,’ Toye objected.

  ‘You are a Devil’s Advocate, aren’t you? I didn’t say it wasn’t risky: murder usually is; only that it was a practical possibility. I can picture it easily. Something said to distract Lister’s attention, and the blunt instrument in action.

  Open the boot — Stanton would have backed in on arrival, of course — and heave in the body. Not too difficult for a chap of Stanton’s physique, considering how undersized Lister was. Anyone seeing you would think you were loading a sack of potatoes or something. Then drive off, not forgetting to chuck the blunt instrument over a suitable hedge at some point. Let’s see what that side street’s like.’

  It was one-way and flanked by double yellow lines, and led them back to the main road at the front of the hotel.

  ‘Lister ran an account at that garage where he kept his car,’ Toye remarked, as they waited at traffic lights. ‘I saw some receipts with his papers.’

  ‘Come again?’ Pollard invited.

  ‘I was wondering if he filled up before going down to Corbury to see Stanton. Might be useful to see if there’s anything to suggest he made a longish trip in late November or early December.’

  ‘That car fixation of yours has got its points. Let’s go along.’

  They found the garage within a few minutes’ walk of Imperial Road. It was a small business and the proprietor, a bald tubby extrovert, was impressed by Pollard’s official card and anxious to help.

  ‘ ’sright,’ he said, after hunting through a dog-eared day book. ‘30 November last. Five gallons and half a pint: Mr Lister, for first thing tomorrow. Tyres would’ve been done, too, but we don’t make a charge, not with petrol. All right?’

  ‘It could be very useful,’ Pollard told him. ‘I suppose you don’t happen to remember if Mr Lister said where he was going?’

  ‘He never,’ the proprietor said emphatically. ‘Very close little gent, Mr Lister. Good payer though. Nearly six months the lawyer’s kept me waitin’ for this last lot. Now Mr Lister, he paid monthly, regular as clockwork.’

  Pollard thanked him, and the Hillman once more headed for the police station. On arrival he was handed a lengthy typewritten message which had just been telephoned through from the Yard.

  ‘LeWarne’s will,’ he told Toye, quickly running his eye down the page. ‘Drawn up by Stanton and Mundy of Corbury. Executors likewise Stanton and Mundy.’

  He sank on to a chair, and read the details of the will with a mounting excitement which he tried to hold in check.

  ‘Pointers aren’t evidence,’ he reminded himself as much as Toye. ‘Time now to be moving in and taking some calculated risks, from the look of things. Longstaple and the Hayters for a start.’

  Toye looked surprised.

  ‘That question of where the three cars — Stanton’s, his wife’s and the Hayters’ — were parked on the night of 14 December is worth following up. Did Stanton go out after dinner, saying he’d got to shift his? If he did, he could have got Lister’s body out of the boot, and stowed it somewhere for the time being. Garden shed, for instance.’

  ‘When do you suppose he dumped it in the trench?’

  ‘God knows. One step at a time. Let’s get moving.’

  It was mid-afternoon when they ran into the pleasant little town of Longstaple, fifty miles beyond Alchester. A courtesy call at the police station involved a brief delay, but Pollard was punctilious in his relationships with a local force. Over a cup of tea in the Super’s room he learnt that the Hayters were one of the numerous retired couples in the area, absorbed in the characteristic activities of their age group and social class. They were in no way remarkable, and lived in a nice little place called The Rowans on the outskirts of the town. Keen gardeners, both of ’em, the Super concluded.

  Pollard and Toye found the house without difficulty. The front door stood open, but they had to ring twice before a man emerged from a door on the right of the hall, wearing disreputable trousers and an open-necked shirt. He had a decisive face, with a projecting chin and bulging brow, and paused to size up his callers.

  ‘Colonel H
ayter?’ Pollard asked, producing his official card. ‘Could you spare us a few minutes?’

  The colonel inspected the card with a faintly mystified expression and returned it.

  ‘Come along in,’ he said, and led the way across the hall to a small untidy den. ‘Hope you haven’t been ringing long. You can’t always hear the bell in the garden,’ he added, dislodging an outraged tabby cat from a chair, and removing a pile of old newspapers from another. ‘Penny’s just dropped. You’re on this rum Corbury case, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am,’ Pollard replied. ‘It’s in connection with it that we’ve come along, on the off-chance that you might possibly be able to help us. We’re interested in the movement of cars anywhere near the Roman villa excavations on the night of 14 December last year. You and your wife were the guests of Mr and Mrs Stanton, I gather, and had come by car?’

  ‘Quite correct. We’re old family friends, and sometimes break our journey with them if we’re driving down from town. I’d been up for a regimental dinner. Smoke?’

  ‘Thanks. Did you go on the next day?’

  ‘Yea. We left about half past ten, as far as I remember.’

  ‘Did it cross your mind that somebody might have used your car during the night?’

  ‘Good God, no! Never entered my head. Anyway nobody could have after Gerald Stanton had put his own car away, and locked the garage. I mean the place wasn’t broken into.’

  Having by a stroke of luck got the one essential fact he wanted, Pollard angled skilfully for further information.

  ‘One can’t altogether rule out the possibility of some unauthorised person having got hold of a key,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘There was absolutely nothing to suggest that your car had been taken out? Petrol a shade lower than you remembered, or mud on the floor?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing,’ Colonel Hayter echoed emphatically. ‘And I’m certain my wife would have remarked on it if she’d noticed anything of the sort. I’ll ask her to come along, if you like.’