The Affacombe Affair

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  Hugh muttered inaudibly, his face a stiff mask of distress.

  ‘Someone was trying to force the door open,’ Barbara went on, ‘and a nurse burst in with two babies in her arms: you, Ju, and mine. You both had labels tied round your wrists with pink ribbon. Before I could ask her anything she’d stuffed you both into my arms and dashed off again. There were more frightful explosions farther away, and shouting and ambulance and fire sirens. Then a lot of the ceiling came down, some of it on the bed. I was terrified, and tried to hide you both under the clothes. Then two men came in with a stretcher and got us downstairs somehow through all the wreckage. It was just as we were being lifted into an ambulance that I chanced to turn my head. I saw that the wing where Ruth’s room was ... well, simply wasn’t there.’

  Julian exclaimed with horror and pity.

  ‘Yes, your real mother.’ Barbara averted her face for a moment. ‘We were left in the ambulance for what seemed like hours. There was another awful crash which must have been some more of the buildings coming down, and more shouting and confusion. I think I must have fainted. When I came round we were still alone, and it was then that I saw my baby was dead. I heard afterwards that it was the blast and dust.’

  ‘So you changed over the labels?’ asked Julian softly.

  ‘Yes. I suddenly felt I couldn’t face — nothing. Richard had gone, and the life together we’d planned, and Ruth, and now my baby, and with her all the security John Wrey had offered us. It was like a bottomless abyss opening in front of me. I saw the way out in a sudden flash, and something just snapped inside me. My hands shook so badly that I could hardly manage the little bows. And the moment I’d done it the door was flung open and they brought in a terribly hurt woman. There was a Red Cross worker who came with us all the way to the hospital at Wynfordham where we were taken. She came to me to see how I was, and I saw that she’d realized my baby was dead. She said I’d be more comfortable just holding my own — you, Ju — and took it away. I never saw the poor little darling again. That’s all, except that I never had the courage to say what I’d done.’ She turned her head away again, tears running down her cheeks.

  But you’ve had the determination to carry it through for nearly twenty-five years, thought Olivia, appalled. Doubt and fear too strong to be brushed aside rose up and assailed her.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Motive?’ Dart said, in response to an opening gambit from Metcalfe, ‘the case is lousy with it. Anything to do with a blackmailer always is. We haven’t a clue what other poor devils Roach was bleeding. Somebody we haven’t even heard of may have done the job. Meantime all we can do is to check up on Winship and Earwaker. I’m going to time the walk down from the Monk’s Leap to the road myself: it may turn out to be crucial. You’d better carry on with the house-to-house enquiries. A line on Earwaker would change the whole look of things. Not that we’re likely to get one.’

  His faint optimism of the night before having evaporated, Dart sat gloomily in the police car meditating on the full P.M. report which had come in before they left Highcastle. Calling in at Leeford they learnt from Sergeant Murch that the constable posted at the Priory overnight had been relieved after an uneventful vigil. The Garnishes had driven off at half-past seven, and Fred Earwaker was at work as usual. Enquiries about any strangers seen during the weekend were already under way at the outlying farms. The C.I.D. men drove on to Affacombe, where Dart dropped Metcalfe at the Church Lane turning, going himself to a convenient parking place just inside the Priory gates. From here he walked to the beginning of the Monk’s Path.

  For the first hundred yards or so this followed the hedge, and then ran close to the Sinnel. It was rough and muddy. Picking his way Dart wondered who would be responsible for maintaining a public right of way which ran through private property. A rum arrangement, come to think of it, and of course no landowner would want to encourage people to come tramping through his place. On the park side of the path there were intermittent clumps of brambles and other bushes. Through the gaps Dart could see the goal posts on the games pitches mentioned by Barbara Winship. From time to time he made a short detour into the park to avoid a particularly boggy patch. Numerous heavy footprints suggested the stretcher party which had brought Sister Roach’s body down to the road this way. Lost in thought he almost came a cropper over a snaky tree root and swore aloud, putting up a blackbird which flew off scolding hysterically.

  It was being borne in on him that the rough going would inevitably slow down a woman of Barbara Winship’s type, and this became even more obvious on the steep rise to the Monk’s Leap with its loose stones. At the top the path broadened to include the small level space overlooking the river, where a seat had been placed, facing downstream to get the view. A railing had been erected as a safeguard, a single iron bar supported by wooden posts at about three feet from the ground. Dart eyed its inadequacy with disapproval; it bore out his impression that the path was little used by the general public. All the same, the feet of those who had paused to admire the view over the years had worn a shallow depression in front of the railing, and it was here that the rainwater had collected and infuriatingly obliterated possible footprints. There was still quite a large puddle. Dart stood back a little, and surveyed the scene with narrowed eyes. The seat was dirty and damp, with patches of green mould: you couldn’t imagine women sitting on it and risking stains on their clothes. Anyway, the full P.M. report which had come in overnight specified a heavy downward blow delivered by a taller, right-handed person, standing in front of, and slightly to the left of Roach. She must have been standing talking to her murderer close to the railing, so that her body fell across the iron bar, threads from her coat catching in its rough surface. There wouldn’t have been any difficulty about lifting it: a good heave would have toppled it over and down the sheer thirty feet or so to the water.

  Dart stepped across the puddle and stood resting his hands on the bar. The Sinnel, still running quite high, was surprisingly colourful, the golden peat-stained water creaming white over the boulder of the legend, and in quieter stretches mirroring the morning blue of the sky with astonishing vividness. At the foot of the Leap it ran still and silent, engaged in its immemorial task of undercutting the cliff. The strong current had swirled the body along with it, and wedged it under the projecting bank a short distance downstream.

  As he returned to the path it struck Dart anew what a very secluded spot the Monk’s Leap was, despite the fact that it was on a public path and almost within hailing distance of a house. Upstream the path soon vanished round a corner. The direction from which he had come was cut off by the convex slope of the rising ground. Across the Sinnel were some marshy fields, not even carrying stock at this season, and the great emptiness of Sinneldon. On the Priory side of the path the clump of bushes where the heel print had been found formed an effective screen. You could be half a dozen miles from anywhere, he thought, going over to examine the carefully marked spot where someone — surely the murderer? — had stood for some time. But if it was Winship who had hidden there it didn’t look like an appointment with Roach, unless she’d got there too early, and was afraid someone else might come along. Or had she spotted Roach coming up to the Leap for an innocent breather, and simply acted on impulse? He must ask for whatever she’d been wearing on her feet, but she’d probably have several pairs with Monk’s Path mud on them.

  He walked on through the mins to the edge of their comparatively level site, and ran his eye along the back of the Priory.

  The windows of the West Wing and its garage were all shut. The school windows were hygienically open, and the sudden shrill ringing of an electric bell was followed by a babble of talking and laughter and a fusillade of banging desk lids. Dart’s gaze moved on to the back of the East Wing. It had a door giving on to the flagged space at the back of the buildings. Roach would have come out that way, he thought, and wondered what route she would have taken to the Leap. Walking in an easterly direction he came on a faint but disc
ernible track going up the slope towards the ruins and leading out on to the Monk’s Path quite near the Leap. All the same, he decided, if she’d had that cuppa before starting she couldn’t have arrived there before four at the very earliest. More likely a minute or two later.

  Reminding himself that the going wouldn’t have been so slippery before Saturday night’s rain, he set out for the road, stopwatch in hand, at what seemed a reasonable pace for a woman like Barbara Winship who had just committed a violent murder. He found himself emerging on to the road exactly six minutes later.

  Back in the car he lit a cigarette and settled down to review his findings, unhappily aware that they were inconclusive. Suppose the two women had met at four, the earliest possible moment as far as he could see, whether by appointment or not. It seemed pretty certain to assume that Winship would have got a conversation going in order to take Roach unawares. Say 4.03 or 4.04 for the actual murder, and another couple of minutes for heaving the body over the railing, and looking round for any possible traces. There was the question of the weapon, so unhelpfully described by the autopsy as a blunt instrument. Winship could have started off at 4.05 or 4.06 then, making the arrival in the road 4.11 or 4.12. Perhaps a few seconds more to the point where Mrs Strode saw her at 4.15. That left a margin of three or four minutes.

  Dart frowned as he drew on his cigarette. It was just possible, but damn tight. You could hear Counsel for the Defence inviting the jury to study photographs of the Monk’s Path ... a charge was out of the question unless the blackmail could be established beyond doubt, and Roach’s hold shown to be pretty deadly. Winship would deny it, and then he’d spring the evidence of her dabs on the notes on her. That was the moment when she’d give herself away ... if she were guilty. There was still Earwaker to consider. Coshing and chucking over a cliff was much more a man’s crime on the face of it, and it seemed safe to assume that Roach had tried to blackmail him, and had then given him away to his wife. A motive there, all right. But so far there was no evidence whatever that he’d been anywhere near the Monk’s Path on the afternoon of the murder, whereas Winship admitted having been there at the probable time when it happened. Dart, who disliked what he called hanging about, came down in favour of going to Crossways first.

  There was a static element in Dart’s thinking of which he was unaware. He always expected to go on from where he had left off, and an unexpected change in a situation was apt to put him off his stroke. He was disconcerted to find Barbara Winship more composed than on the previous evening, and her husband more the old soldier accustomed to authority than merely a nice old buffer. Moreover, he was showing a tiresome tendency to stick.

  ‘Some additional information of a private nature has come to our knowledge,’ Dart said, taking refuge in officialese. ‘I should prefer to discuss it with Mrs Winship in private.’

  ‘I wish my husband to be present, Inspector. Shall we sit down?’ Elegant, if a little drawn, Barbara took a chair and indicated another to Dart.

  ‘No point in beating about the bush,’ Hugh Winship suddenly barked. ‘M’wife’s told me the woman was blackmailing her, and everything about it.’

  His carefully-planned procedure for the interview collapsing in ruins, Dart hastily improvised.

  ‘It’s very sensible of you to be so frank, madam,’ he said, taking out his notebook. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you a number of questions, all the same. I must explain that if you wish you are entitled to have your solicitor present.’

  ‘Cautioning her?’ demanded Hugh.

  ‘A police caution has to be perfectly explicit, as I’m sure you know, sir,’ replied Dart. ‘I’m merely explaining to Mrs Winship that she’s entitled to have her solicitor present if she wishes.’

  ‘I can hardly decide about that until I know what kind of question you want to ask me, Inspector.’

  ‘Very well, madam, I’ll go ahead. How long have you been paying blackmail to the late Sister Roach?’

  ‘I have only paid it once. A week ago today.’

  ‘Had further demands been made?’ asked Dart in some surprise.

  ‘Yes. I was to pay her £25 on the 23rd of each month.’

  ‘How did she approach you in the first place?’

  ‘I got an anonymous letter, printed in capitals. It came by post, on the 27th of October. I was to take the dogs for their usual walk a week later, bringing the money to the Monk’s Leap at four o’clock. If I didn’t, or went to the police she was going to send some — information to my husband.’

  ‘You realized who had written the letter, of course?’

  ‘Not at once.’ For the first time Barbara hesitated. ‘Then I remembered something that had happened a short time ago, and realized it must be Sister Roach.’

  Dart decided to probe.

  ‘How long had you known her?’

  ‘I didn’t know her at all. As far as I know I’d only spoken to her once.’

  ‘Then, as she only arrived in Affacombe just over a year ago, I take it that the subject of the blackmail is a recent occurrence?’

  ‘Police can’t insist on the disclosure of a subject of blackmail.’ Hugh Winship was as staccato as a machine gun.

  ‘I’m well aware of the regulations governing police procedure, sir,’ retorted Dart, nettled.

  ‘I’m prepared to say that it was actually something which happened many years ago, when I was a girl. It was the merest chance which reminded Sister Roach about it. I didn’t recognize her when she came to the school, and she didn’t place me until quite recently.’

  Suspecting an attempt to lead him up the garden path, Dart became more forthright.

  ‘This is a very odd story, Mrs Winship. Sister Roach knew something about your past which you were willing to pay her £25 a month to keep quiet, and yet you tell me that you both lived in this small village for a year without recognizing each other? Are you sure you wouldn’t like to reconsider this part of your statement?’

  ‘It happens to be the truth,’ she told him.

  ‘Bear it out,’ interjected Hugh.

  Dart ignored him pointedly.

  ‘We’ll return to the events of last Saturday, then. I put it to you that the real object of taking your dogs along the Monk’s Path was to keep an appointment with Sister Roach, made at your request.’

  ‘That isn’t true. No appointment had been made.’

  ‘So you met her by accident, then?’

  ‘I didn’t meet her, or see a sign of her, as I told you yesterday.’

  ‘Four o’clock at the Monk’s Leap was the time and place where you handed over the money on November 3rd, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Rather curious, surely, Mrs Winship, that you chose to revisit a place with such unpleasant associations at exactly the same time of day?’

  ‘I take the dogs along there practically every afternoon before tea, if I’m at home. You can ask anybody in the village.’

  Feeling that he was getting nowhere, Dart tried an abrupt switch.

  ‘When the anonymous letter arrived, did you show it to your husband?’

  ‘No, I burnt it.’

  ‘Why did you tell him about it subsequently, then?’

  Barbara Winship met his eyes steadily. He noticed that her hands were tightly clenched, but they showed none of the nervous twisting of the evening before.

  ‘Because of Sister Roach’s murder. I was naturally very frightened. As you can see, I had a strong motive for — well, getting rid of her. And by almost incredible bad luck I had been near the Monk’s Leap at the time when it could have happened.’

  ‘How did you know when it could have happened?’ Dart cut in sharply.

  ‘Mrs Strode, who is doing Sister Roach’s work temporarily came in to see us last night, and told us that no one at the school had seen Sister after about a quarter to four,’ Barbara replied without hesitation.

  Sometime later Dart left Crossways with Barbara Winship’s signed statement in his pocket, having once more f
ailed to shake her in her account of her actions on Saturday afternoon. Before going to find Sergeant Metcalfe he sat for a few minutes in the car. An illegitimate kid would fit in with Roach being a nurse, of course. Not that finding out about it would help on the case much. A deep one, Winship, to have covered up whatever lapse she’d had all these years. Not so easy in her walk of life. For all that she was so drooping and lah-di-dah there must be real toughness underneath. But on the other hand, there was that bloody path and the timing...

  He started up the engine and cruised down the village street. Metcalfe conveniently emerged from a cottage and hurried over to join him.

  ‘Priory,’ said Dart, moving over into the passenger’s seat. ‘We’ll take Earwaker next. Got on to anything?’

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid, sir. Nothing on Earwaker. Half of ’em seem to have been in Polharbour between one and six, blowing the wages packet. The shopkeeper thought he could remember all his customers, and I’ve checked up on the whole lot. He saw Mrs Strode going up the street soon after four. A few places were shut down with everybody out to work. I got a complete list of the people living in the place from the List of Electors in the church porch.’

  ‘Anyone seen a stranger around?’

  ‘I asked everyone that question. The only lead I got was from an old girl called Ellen Labbitt, who lives opposite Mrs Strode. She went on about a man with a beard and dark glasses who called on Mrs S. a week last Saturday and stayed about an hour. Then she saw him go up the street. Friendly they were, she said, but not to suggest any goings-on, Mrs Strode being a real lady, for all that she was fair ’mazed about what happened hundreds of years ago. I let the old thing natter on a bit, and it turns out that Mrs Strode’s son’s engaged to Mrs Winship’s daughter by her first marriage, who had a fortune left her by her granddad.’