Six Proud Walkers

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘And,’ Webb said softly, ‘we know that was where Neville went when the family separated. Despite the impression he gave, he wasn’t as shocked as the others to learn of the adoption, because, of course, he already knew. But hearing his mother’s letter would have brought it all back, and, like the classic murderer, he returned to the scene of the crime —as he admitted, for the first time since her death. Who knows what thoughts were going through his head? And just at that fraught moment, he overhears his young daughter ask his brother why he didn’t save their baby. In his place, I’d probably have reacted as he did.’

  ‘So he watched Robin set off across the lawn, and followed him.’

  ‘Yes. Note he didn’t make the mistake of claiming to be in the drawing-room all the time; which was just as well, because Howard and Gavin went in later for a drink. He said vaguely that he walked up and down the terrace, and there was no one to disprove it. It was a gamble that no one would look out of a window—Fay could easily have done—but they were all occupied with their own traumas and the gamble paid off.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ Sally asked uneasily.

  ‘We’ll let them finish their Sunday lunch, then we’ll go and pick him up. Better to have the interview at the nick rather than the house.’

  ‘It’s silly, but I wish it wasn’t him. I like him.’

  Webb nodded. ‘You’ll find, Sal, that quite often the villains are more likeable than the honest Joes. Neville Walker had a raw deal. The tragedy was that he couldn’t cope with it. I keep remembering what he said when we last interviewed him. “I had so much, and now I have nothing.” He really believes that, and he just couldn’t take it.’

  They lingered over their meal and ordered coffee to follow, so it was two-fifteen by the time they left the pub.

  ‘No need for you to hang about, Sally,’ Webb told her. ‘Write up the interviews, then you can go home.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Webb wished he could, too. He wasn’t looking forward to the afternoon.

  ***

  At the Old Rectory, they were met with the information that Neville was at the church.

  ‘Again?’ Webb exclaimed. ‘I thought he was on duty this morning?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s a christening and the other churchwarden’s on holiday.’

  ‘What time will he be back, then?’

  Melanie shrugged. ‘About half past three, I suppose.’

  There was nothing for it but to settle down and wait. They went over to the church hall and passed the time by bringing their diaries up to date. Jackson was keeping a weather eye on the church path. At three-fifteen he reported that people were starting to come out of church. With a heavy heart, Webb went out into the warm afternoon, Nina and Jackson behind him.

  At the church gate they stopped and waited while the family photographs were taken. The baby had started to cry, and the young mother was frantically jigging it up and down in her arms in an attempt to soothe it. Jackson, father of four, reckoned it was more likely to make it sick.

  Eventually, the party made its way down the path to the waiting cars. There were two sets of grandparents and quite a large group of friends and relatives. As the last of them came through the gate, the detectives moved inside. The vicar was coming down the path towards them.

  ‘Are you looking for me, Mr Webb?’

  ‘No, sir. Is Mr Walker still inside?’

  ‘Yes, he’s locking up. He’ll be out in a minute.’

  They had just reached the porch when the heavy door opened and they found themselves face to face with their quarry. There was an instant’s frozen surprise. Then, before they realised what was happening, Walker reached forward, grabbed Nina by the arm, and pulled her inside. To their horror, Webb and Jackson heard the scraping sound of bolts being drawn. Webb hammered on the door.

  ‘Mr Walker, open up at once! I must warn you that assaulting a police officer is an offence!’ Even to himself, his words sounded hollow when addressed to a murderer. Through the thick wood, they heard Neville Walker’s reply.

  ‘And I warn you, Chief Inspector, that if you attempt to force entry, this young lady will be killed. I’ve nothing to lose, and I took the precaution of bringing a sharp kitchen knife with me.’

  ‘Oh God, Guy,’ Jackson said shakily, ‘what do we do now?’

  ‘Go after the vicar. Ask him if he has keys to the other doors.’

  ‘But you heard what—’

  ‘Go, Ken. And get Walker’s wife. She might be able to talk some sense into him. I’ll keep talking through the door and see if I can calm him down.’

  ***

  Inside the church, however, Neville had led Nina away from the door and sat her down in a pew off the centre aisle. He seated himself in the one in front, slewed round to face her, with the knife he had mentioned resting on the back of the pew.

  ‘Sorry about the histrionics,’ he said calmly, ‘but I had to establish that I have the upper hand.’

  Nina’s voice was equally calm. ‘It would be much more sensible to go out quietly. You haven’t really got a chance, you know.’ She eyed the lethal point of the knife, and he followed her gaze.

  ‘I assure you I’ll use it if I have to, but please don’t make me. They can’t get in, by the way, so don’t pin your hopes on that. All three doors are bolted and not easy to break down, even if they’re prepared to risk your life by trying.’

  The smell of polish tickled her nostrils, overlaid by the faint perfume of flowers. On the gleaming pillars, black numbers on white indicated the hymns sung that morning. Nina wondered which they’d been. It all seemed so peaceful. Impossible to believe she was locked in here with a murderer.

  She shuddered as the thought took root. What was the DCI doing? Would he manage to rescue her? How should she deal with this unstable man in front of her? Despite his calm voice, there was panic in his eyes. She said the first thing that came into her head.

  ‘Mr Walker, I’m so dreadfully sorry.’

  She saw his uncertainty, suspecting a trick. ‘For what?

  ‘For everything that’s happened. Your world just fell apart, didn’t it?’

  ‘I’d so much,’ he said, paraphrasing Webb’s words over lunch, ‘but it was built on a lie. All of it.’

  ‘Not all. Your mother loved you as if you were her own.’

  ‘No!’ he said harshly.

  ‘How did it happen?’ She kept her voice quiet, mildly interested. Surely it would be a relief, now, to talk about it?

  There was a long silence, in which she was able to hear even the faint ticking of her watch. Well, it had been worth a try. But then his voice came.

  ‘I was about to leave for Stratford. I’d a difficult meeting ahead, and though I’d planned my approach, there were a couple of points I needed to clear with my mother. She’d a very sound business sense, you know. I buzzed her office, but Eunice said she’d gone home at lunch-time. If I’d known that, I could have spoken to her when I phoned Lydia. I rang again but there was no reply. I didn’t know about her appointment, so I thought she might be in the garden, and decided to call in on my way.’

  ‘And she’d just got back from the doctor’s?’ Nina prompted.

  His eyes clouded, remembering. ‘She looked ghastly. For the first time, I saw her not as my mother but as an old woman. And before I could say anything, she started pouring out those terrible things, the words falling over each other in her haste to get them said. About the disease which was killing her, and as if that wasn’t enough, the fact that it was hereditary. And while I was still reeling from that, she came out with the brain-numbing statement that I mustn’t worry, because the three of us weren’t her children anyway.

  ‘Even then she went rushing on without pausing for breath, and I was shouting at her to stop, to say it was all lies. Yet I knew somehow that it wasn’t.

  ‘I grabbed the poker just to threaten her, make her shut up, but the words still streamed out of her like some obscene discharge, poisonin
g the air. And then I was hitting her, over and over in a monotonous kind of rhythm. She went down at the first stroke, but by then I was incapable of stopping.’

  Nina said from a dry mouth, ‘And then?’

  He smiled, a twisted rictus. ‘Then I realised I was covered in blood, and self-preservation took over. Suddenly completely calm, I stripped down to my underclothes and stuffed everything into a bin-bag. Then I went upstairs, had a good wash and changed into clean clothes. Incredibly, I’d only been in the house fifteen minutes.’

  ‘And no one saw you arrive or leave?’

  ‘Honeyford’s not a hive of activity on summer afternoons. But I’d forgotten Gavin was expected. It was sheer luck he didn’t arrive while I was there.’

  ‘And you went on to your business meeting as if nothing had happened?’

  ‘Yes. It’s hard to explain, but the whole episode was blotted from my mind. It was such an enormity, so utterly inconceivable, that I convinced myself it couldn’t have happened, it was a bad dream. That suspension lasted till I got back to the factory to find Webb waiting.’

  ‘And how did you feel then?’

  ‘No compunction, if that’s what you’re expecting. I’d idolised that woman all my life, and she’d deceived me. There wasn’t a vestige of affection left. How could there have been? She’d even contrived to do away with my grandchild. Lydia and I would have kept the baby, but she insisted on abortion. What right had she? Tell me that?’

  ‘And your brother?’ Nina asked after a moment. In the pause, her ears had been straining for any sounds outside the door, but she hadn’t detected any. They’d be doing something, though. Please make them quick—she wasn’t sure how long she could keep him talking.

  ‘Robin,’ Neville said, ‘was a filthy pervert, but he wasn’t my brother.’

  ‘That made a difference?’

  ‘Naturally. If he had been, I’d have flogged him and had him sent abroad. We have a factory in France, you know. I’d hardly have killed my own mother and brother. These people weren’t related to me.’

  To which mad logic Nina could find no answer. He gave a brief laugh. ‘Here endeth my confession. We’re in the right place, aren’t we? I’ve bared my soul to you, and I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘Detective-Insp-’

  ‘First name.’

  ‘Nina.’

  ‘Well, Nina,’ he began, and broke off as an odd sound came from behind the door. His hand tightened on the knife and Nina braced herself, her heart fluttering in her throat. Blurred and distorted as though through a loud-hailer, Lydia’s voice reached them.

  ‘Neville? Can you hear me?’

  He sat immobile, his glazed eyes on the door. It took his wife’s voice, so much a part of normal everyday life, to bring home to him the truth of his position, barricaded in the church with a police officer held hostage. He, Neville Walker, churchwarden. And double murderer. He gave an odd, choked sound.

  ‘Neville dear, please come out, and bring Mrs Petrie with you. It’ll be all right. I’m here.’

  Neville glanced back at Nina. ‘What am I likely to get?’

  ‘You’ll be examined by a psychiatrist, and if—’

  ‘—if he thinks I’m mad, I’ll spend my life in a padded cell rather than an ordinary one? Not much to look forward to, is it? How could they think it was merciful to abolish the death penalty? It’s far preferable to life-imprisonment.’

  ‘It very seldom is life,’ Nina said gently.

  ‘You mean it might be only fifteen years? I’d still prefer to die.’ He got up slowly. ‘Anyway, that’s what it says in the Good Book. An eye for an eye. Even more, surely, a life for a life. And I took two.’

  He stood looking down at her. Then he gave a deep sigh. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘you can let them in.’

  Hardly believing she was safe, Nina ran to the door, dragged back the bolts and pulled it open. Webb caught hold of her.

  ‘Nina!’ Even in the panic of the moment, she registered that first use of her Christian name. She was accepted at last—one of the team. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, he—’ Glancing back over her shoulder, she realised Neville was no longer in sight. ‘Where-?’ she began in bewilderment, but Webb was quicker.

  ‘Get round to the tower!’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Hold your jackets out—anything to break his fall!’ Pushing past her, he dashed round the corner to the twisting staircase he’d climbed with Hannah the day it all began. As he hurtled round and round, he could hear other steps running above him. ‘Walker!’ he called, his voice echoing against the stone walls. ‘Wait! For God’s sake! At least let’s talk about it!’

  There was no reply. And when, seconds later, he reached the parapet, no one else was there.

  ***

  ‘What’ll happen to them now?’ Hannah asked. It was the next evening, and they were on the patio overlooking the cottage garden.

  ‘They’ll survive,’ Webb said. ‘If they weren’t a “proper” family before, they certainly are now, and they’ll stick together. My guess is Howard’ll come into his own, which will please his wife. Up to now, he’s been overshadowed by Neville’s authority and Robin’s glamour.’

  ‘But Lydia and the girls?’

  ‘It’ll take time, but Howard and Ashley will look after them. At least Fay has a chance, now everything’s in the open. If this last week hadn’t happened, she might have ended up in a mental home.’

  ‘What I can’t forgive,’ Hannah said, ‘is Neville allowing her to find Robin.’

  ‘He did ask Melanie.’

  ‘Even so—his own daughters! Why didn’t he go himself?’

  ‘Perhaps he couldn’t face it. Or perhaps, in some twisted way, it was to punish them: Melanie for the flowers and her opposition to the abortion, and Fay for submitting to Robin and making it necessary for Neville to kill him. By that stage, you know, he wasn’t entirely sane.’

  They were silent for a minute or two. Then Webb said, ‘Will you stay here for the rest of the month?’

  ‘I’ll have to. I can’t take the cats back to the flat.’

  ‘You could be a great help to them, particularly Fay. Someone apart from the family but who knows the whole story.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He put an arm round her shoulders and drew her against him.

  ‘Do you believe in Macbeth Prophecies?’ Hannah asked.

  He gave her a little shake. ‘I do not,’ he said emphatically. ‘Nor in Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny!’

  ‘But seriously, David, could it have influenced him, seeing the word spelt out in scarlet like that?’

  ‘Sweetheart, we spend our lives surrounded by influences of varying kinds. How we respond to them is what makes us different from each other.’

  ‘The fault lying not in our stars but in ourselves?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  She sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Then she smiled and reached up to kiss his cheek. ‘In that case, I might as well get supper.’

  If you enjoyed Six Proud Walkers, you might be interested in Pretty Maids All in a Row, also by Anthea Fraser.

  Extract from Pretty Maids All in a Row by Anthea Fraser

  CHAPTER 1

  His teeth were chattering, though it was unbearably hot in the room and he was bathed in sweat. Pulses throbbed sickeningly throughout his body as panic engulfed him, closing his throat, pricking his scalp, furring the inside of his mouth. It took a conscious effort of will to remain where he was, and not go running naked out of the house.

  She had drawn the curtains, and through their thin material the September sun blazed undiminished, filling the room with a rosy glow. He’d laughed at her for drawing them, since they were on the first floor. ‘Expecting the window-cleaner?’ he’d asked her. Now, he was grateful for the thin screen they offered.

  He stood in the middle of the room, drawing deep breaths and being careful not to loo
k at the bed. That was better. His brain was beginning to function again. There was no hurry. Important to remember that. No one was likely to come to the house, and he wasn’t expected anywhere. Plenty of time to work things out.

  Still with his back to the bed, he went to the chair and, feeling in his jacket pocket, drew out cigarettes and matches. No one had seen him arrive, he was sure. He moved to the window and put his eye to the small gap between the curtains. Across the narrow lane a patch of uncultivated land rose towards the road on the next level, but to right and left small cottages basked, humped under their thatches, in the hot sunshine. It wouldn’t be safe to move till dark, which was — what? — a good four or five hours yet. Plenty of time to plan, to avoid mistakes.

  Testing himself, he turned back to the bed. She lay as he had left her, sweat still glistening on her body, the lurid pink glow unkindly highlighting sinews on her neck and grey at the roots of her hair. She’d been a good lay, though, he thought dispassionately. Plenty of experience. A pity, but he’d had no alternative. Impossible to rely on her keeping quiet, and he’d too much to lose if she talked.

  He tipped a lozenge of ash into a little china dish on the dressing-table. Remember to rinse that later. Through the mirror was a looking-glass room, the reverse of normality. Appropriate, really, in the circumstances. He could see the bed with the figure on it, and, centre stage, his own bare body, cigarette in hand.

  He’d feel better after a shower. Easier to think clearly with his clothes on.

  * * *

  Slowly the hours passed. Quite early on he had drawn back the curtains, standing to one side as he did so. It would not be possible, later, to switch on lights, so everything must be completed in daylight, and he had to make it seem she’d gone on holiday. Now, as at last blueness filtered through the air, he had only to wait for it to thicken, and he could go.

  Methodically he reviewed his actions. A suitcase, removed from the top of the wardrobe, had been packed with clothes and toiletries and stood ready by the front door, a mackintosh draped over it. On top of the mackintosh lay a neatly typed and stamped envelope. He’d post that once he’d got rid of the body. Upstairs, bed linen and towels had been changed and the soiled items bundled into a black plastic bag he’d found under the sink. The contents of a second bag were more gruesome but, after dressing the body, he’d managed to bundle her in. She was sitting with her knees up and torso bowed over. There was a surprising amount of room.