The Skeleton in the Grass

by Robert Barnard

  If he had had his way, and a car, he would have liked to travel around and interview the people concerned in their home settings—at Hallam, at Beecham, or at Cabbot Hall. This not because he would have felt at home there, but because the suspects would. A relaxed suspect, in command of his world, is a careless one. Here none of them would feel at home: it was too bare and hard. The villagers would be tongue-tied because they were in a police station, the gentry would feel awkward because they were in a working man’s home. But there was no help for it. The car in which he had arrived at Hallam was the only one possessed by the force at Banbury, where Minchip served, and it had been recalled for use by the Superintendent. It was always needed for use by the Superintendent. Minchip might have been able to secure the use of a motor bicycle, it was true, but he disliked the machines and distrusted his ability to fix one of them if anything went wrong. Otherwise there was the bicycle, which took time. Best, on the whole, to call people in to No. 7 Hopper Lane, Chowton.

  It had to be Dennis Hallam first. Though Minchip would have liked to have saved him, to have got the feel and savour of the Oxfordshire gentry of these parts first before coming to its most famous representative, it had to be Dennis first. If he and everyone else were not being led up a blind alleyway by a monstrous red herring, the case had to revolve around Dennis Hallam. Minchip had heard Dennis giving thoughtful talks on matters of current moment on the Home Service. He had even read some of his reviews, when staying with his sister (she and her husband were both teachers of vaguely progressive outlook, who took the Observer). But Minchip was nervous of Dennis. He hoped the man had nothing to hide, because he feared that the Hallam intelligence and charm might be more than a match for him if he had.

  “This is a terrible business,” said Dennis, looking around him as he was ushered into the room as if he were a clergyman doing a spot of poor visiting and checking whether the roof was leaking. “Are you any further with it?”

  “A little, a little,” said Minchip, not willing to let this become an inquisition of himself. “But I expect this to be a case that takes time. Do sit down, sir.”

  Dennis sat on the other side of the dining table, facing Minchip with his battery of files and notepads. “Like being back in the headmaster’s study,” he told them at Hallam later.

  “Now,” said Minchip, “I’ve got the general idea of what you were doing on Saturday night. You were all—including the little girl—at a party at Lord Wadham’s. I’ve heard of him, from odd little items in the popular press, but I’ve never met the gentleman. I gather this party was—how shall I put it?—sporty. Lots of games and so on.”

  “That’s right. Like a big Christmas party for the district,” said Dennis. His face became thoughtful. “It’s odd, isn’t it? Coffey—or someone—plays these childish practical jokes on us, and we go away and play childish games at Beecham park. Is the world reverting to infantilism?”

  “But this party was something of a tradition, I gather.”

  “Oh yes. Happens every year. And very enjoyable.”

  “So you knew about it well in advance?”

  “Certainly. It’s always a weekend or two before Parliament resumes.”

  “And everyone in the district would know about it too?”

  “Oh yes. Many of the village people would have been helping with the preparations. The Waddies don’t have a great deal of money, not these days, but this is the social event of their year. There’s lots of cooking to be done, and some of the men help with setting up the games in the garden.”

  “Games in the dark?”

  “Sounds odd, but yes. The Waddies would play cricket in the dark if they thought it would be fun.”

  “I see. And you all went in the car?”

  “Yes. The Wolseley.”

  “Arriving when?”

  “Oh, quarter, half past seven.”

  “You can’t be more definite than that?”

  “I’m afraid not. Mrs. Munday was listening to the wireless when we left, so she may have a better idea of the time. I should think it takes about ten minutes to drive to Beecham.”

  “And when you got there, what did you do?”

  “Let me see . . . The other Hallams were there—my cousin Mostyn, the MP. And we said hello to the Cousinses, neighbours from across the border in Northamptonshire. Then the Waddies came along, and I caught sight of Major Coffey. I made myself scarce, and I think most of my family did.”

  “Ah . . . How well do you know the Major?”

  “Quite as well as I wish to . . . I knew of him before he moved to Chowton, of course. Just from little paragraphs in the newspapers, but after the rise of Mussolini one noticed such things. Then one forgot about him when Mosley formed his British Union. But the next thing one knew he was here.”

  “You bumped into him in the village?”

  “Well, no. I don’t have a great deal of call to go into the village. I think I heard he had moved here first. Then someone—maybe Oliver—pointed him out from the car.”

  “Did you ever meet him socially?”

  “I’m afraid so. My cousin Mostyn has these ‘do’s,’ periodically, keeping the constituency sweet, and he started inviting Coffey. I blame him very much. You can’t keep people like that too much at arm’s length.”

  “So you have spoken to him?”

  “Yes. Briefly. Our policy was to be perfectly polite, and to avoid him as much as possible.”

  “You don’t think anything you did roused his resentment in any way?”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t think it was ever possible for the Major to like us, nor would I want him to. You’re trying to say the dislike was social. I’m sure it was political . . . I also think the man is slightly mad.”

  “Your paths didn’t cross at the Wadhams’?”

  “No. I made sure of that. Once I was willing to be coldly polite. Now the situation had changed, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be even that any longer.”

  “So what in fact did you do?”

  “During the evening? I’ve been trying to remember, and I have to some extent, but the trouble is that at do’s of this kind one doesn’t look at one’s watch. Even if one wants to, one fears one of one’s hosts might see. So my memories are all a big vague. I looked in to see if Chloe—that’s our youngest child—was all right, but Oliver was in with the small ones, getting together two or three card games, so I wasn’t needed. I went looking for Sarah, that’s Chloe’s nursery governess, who’s new. I thought she might be feeling awkward or out of things, but she was out on the lawn playing croquet, and seemed all right. Major Coffey was watching, so there was no inducement to stay. I came in and slipped into Waddy’s reading—”

  “His what, sir?”

  “His recital, whatever you like to call it. He gives a reading from Dickens every year. It’s a well-established custom at these parties. He regrets the passing of the reading-aloud habit, and anyway it’s a boost to his ego. He has a perfectly harmless desire to perform.”

  “What work of Dickens was he reading from, sir?”

  “Bleak House. Mrs. Jellyby while I was there. He may have gone on to something else later—I thought I’d done my duty after ten minutes or so. Then—let me see—I thought there might be Murder going on upstairs—”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “The game of Murder, man. It’s great fun, but I suppose it wouldn’t be up your street. Anyway, I thought they might be playing it upstairs, but when I got there it was just Sardines. Elizabeth—that’s my other daughter—was playing, but she looked as if she was tired of it. It can be slightly spooky, hiding away in dark places, and all my family is a bit jumpy at the moment, for obvious reasons.”

  “Quite natural, sir.”

  “So I waited for her down in the Conservatory and took her off for something to eat. We were joined there by Sarah, who’d finished her game of croquet. I’m pretty sure that was about ten past nine.”

  “You looked at your watch, sir?”


  “Yes. None of the Waddies was around, and I was wondering—”

  “How soon you could go home, sir?”

  “Well, yes, to be honest.”

  “You weren’t enjoying yourself, sir?”

  “Well . . . Trouble is, anything you say about an occasion of this kind is likely to sound priggish, or killjoy. But it’s not really my kind of party. Enough is definitely enough.”

  “But you could hardly leave at ten past nine, sir.”

  “No. When we’d eaten—about nine-thirty, I imagine—I slipped away. I had a book in my pocket, and I had a hip flask as well. Wine is in short supply at the Waddies, and spirits non-existent. They assume you want Cherryade or Ovaltine. I found a small room, a lavatory for the maids, and sat there reading and writing until from the sounds I heard I guessed that people were beginning to go.”

  “I see . . . Could you describe this room to me?”

  “Well, a loo is a loo, even a servants’ one . . .”

  “Its position, sir.”

  “Oh, the second floor, in a corner of the east wing.”

  “And nobody knew you were there? Nobody interrupted you?”

  “No. They don’t, do they, in a loo? There was a lock on the door, and though the tide of Murder—the game, you know, they played it after Sardines—occasionally rolled in my direction, nobody tried the door.”

  “So you were unaccounted for during the later part of the evening?”

  “Entirely, I’m afraid. By the time I came down I had my article written, and I should think I showed it to my family, but of course that’s not evidence, even though it was written on toilet paper. I could have had it written before I went to Beecham.”

  “Quite, sir. You appreciate the way my mind is forced to work,” said Minchip, adding to himself: and you’ve read a few detective stories. He went on. “Now, as to coming home, sir. Would you have any idea of the time you all came away?”

  “Yes, to some extent. I looked at my watch as I came out of the loo. It was half past eleven. People had come looking for me, but there was a bit of delay, finding everybody, and saying goodbyes, and so on. But it can’t have been much later than midnight when we got home. Pinner and Mrs. Munday had gone to bed, I know that, because Sarah made us all a good night drink in the kitchen while Helen put Chloe to bed. I should think we were all in bed by half past midnight.”

  “Not to wake again until—?”

  “Until Pinner called me in the morning and said there was something funny on the lawn. I knew then it was another of the Major’s stupid and nasty tricks. I couldn’t have guessed . . .”

  “Quite, sir. This boy, Christopher Keene—did you know him?”

  “No . . . I mean, if I’d seen him I would have known he was a boy from one of the villages. But I wouldn’t have been able to put a name to him.”

  “And his mother?”

  “No, though she may have worked at Hallam now and then, substituting for one of the regulars. That happens quite often. My son knows her better.”

  “So there can be no question, to your mind, of anything personal in this, on the boy’s part.”

  Dennis shook his head vigorously.

  “No, Inspector, absolutely not. I’m quite certain we’ve done no injury to the Keene family.” He pushed back his chair and said bitterly: “We’ve never had enemies in the villages—until that damned Major arrived.”

  CHAPTER 11

  They didn’t discuss their interviews with Inspector Minchip, not in any real way. Why not, Sarah wondered? They said they’d found it difficult to remember, they said he seemed to know his job, without being anything as positive as nice or nasty. But they didn’t talk about what they’d said, about what he’d asked them. They didn’t compare notes. Twice Sarah caught Dennis looking at Helen with an interrogation in his eyes. If Helen answered him in any way, the answer escaped Sarah. It was all so unlike the Hallams, so open, so conversational, so unafraid to talk about themselves and their problems.

  The next day began badly. Dennis had been scheduled later in the week to give a broadcast talk on “What is Expressionism?” He had always been very good at making ideas and artistic movements understandable to the man in the street. Sarah had been looking forward to hearing on the wireless someone she actually knew. Then, that Tuesday morning, Dennis got a postcard from the BBC saying they had postponed the talk, knowing he would not, in the circumstances, feel like giving it.

  “Those bloody BBC people!” Dennis said, throwing the postcard violently across the breakfast table. “A few paragraphs in the popular press about a dead body being found on my lawn and, hey presto, they’ve decided they’d better distance themselves from me. Can’t have the BBC being associated with anybody questionable, oh goodness me no! It’s that bloody fool John Reith. God! to think of the influence that one man wields! It’s like being ruled from the Manse!”

  “You could write an article on it,” suggested Oliver.

  Dennis laughed, his anger evaporating.

  “And never be asked back to broadcast again? It would be a heavy penalty. Like most broadcasters, I do rather like the sound of my own voice. But you could be right. It might be worth it.”

  It was possible to see the shape of an article in the Observer forming itself in Dennis’s mind.

  Later, as they were finishing breakfast, Oliver said:

  “I think I should go and visit Mrs. Keene today.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to go after someone is charged?” Dennis asked. “It would make the atmosphere less awkward.”

  “I have to go back to Oxford at the end of the week, unless the police insist on my presence here. Anyway, what I really want to see is whether she is in any want. I suppose the boy was the breadwinner. If we’re going to be of any use we must get in early.”

  “Yes, do find out what we can do for her,” said Helen. “Make it clear we don’t blame her in any way.”

  “I have to go and buy a birthday card for my father,” said Sarah. “If I can get Chloe settled to something we could walk to the village together.”

  “Good,” said Oliver. “I shan’t go till eleven or so. Give Mrs. Keene a chance to get the house straight.”

  Chloe was rather drowsy that morning. She had slept badly, and probably had been affected by the tensions in the house. She was quite amenable to being sat at a table in the corner of the kitchen with drawing pad and crayons and the cat on the table watching her. Mrs. Munday was worked off her feet, with another of the village women having defected, but she was delighted to have Chloe with her. Sarah and Oliver set off for the village soon after eleven.

  “I’m not looking forward to this,” Oliver confessed.

  “Why? Is she an unpleasant woman?” asked Sarah.

  “No, no, not at all. Quite a fat, comfortable woman. Has a dog and two cats who are fed to within an inch of their lives.”

  “Why, then?”

  “What does one say to a person who has lost everything? First the husband, and now the son. There are no other children. What has she got to look forward to but dragging out the rest of her life on a tiny pension? She’s not an old woman, either . . . There’s not a lot of cheering-up things one can think of to say to her.”

  “Not a lot,” admitted Sarah.

  She darted a look at Oliver’s worried face. It struck her suddenly how very good Oliver was. Since she had come to Hallam she had only noticed him now and then—when he drove her to the station when her mother died, for example. He had none of the physical glamour of his brother Will. He was of medium height, rather overweight, with brown hair and slightly anonymous features. The school swot, grown up—or if not the swot, the plodder. But perhaps that was just in comparison with the other Hallams. And how many other young men would volunteer to go and comfort a bereaved mother in the village? How many would remember that she would want to have the house straight when he called? It was something she herself would probably not have thought of. The whole expedition was a piece of quite ext
raordinary goodness. “Oliver is the best of us,” Will said to Sarah, when they met in the early years of the war. “I know,” Sarah replied.

  “I suppose,” said Sarah now, uncertainly, “that it’s really the vicar’s job . . .”

  “The vicar is bedridden, and wasn’t much use before. It won’t have escaped your notice, I suppose, that we’re not a very churchy family.”

  “It is one of the things that has most endeared you to me,” said Sarah demurely. “Though it does rather take the shape out of the week.”

  “It’s the Observer that gives shape to our week—dateline for copy, then its delivery. But if you don’t believe in the efficacy of the Church, you have to take something of its function on your own shoulders. I only wish I could perform it better . . . Oh, there’s Roland Bradberry. Isn’t he a boyfriend of yours?”

  “Just a friend,” countered Sarah, but she raised her hand readily to the figure coming from the other end of the Chowton main street. The two Oxford men greeted each other warmly—a greeting in which Sarah could detect little of English reserve or of class divide. Then Oliver made his excuses.

  “I must off to Mrs. Keene. See you at our first meeting of the League of Nations committee.”

  “Groan, groan—committees,” said Roland.

  “Groan, groan—Oxford!” said Oliver, turning to grimace.

  “Oh,” said Roland, turning back to Sarah. “I didn’t know he felt like that.”

  “Nor did I. Maybe it’s because it’s his Finals year.”

  “I always imagined he would just coast through them. The Hallams have that sort of reputation. All the great prizes of life scattered in their laps.