Who Saw Him Die?

by Sheila Radley

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said.

  The last time he’d been here, Martin Tait reflected as he stood on the platform at Breckham Market railway station waiting for the London train, was with Alison. That was four years ago, when he was a detective sergeant and she was his chief inspector’s daughter. He’d come to see her off, back to her London job, and it was here – just about where he was now standing – that he’d first kissed her, and realised that he was already half in love with her.

  A lot had happened since then. But their relationship had endured, in an off-on fashion that suited him. He thought he might well marry Alison, eventually; but he had no intention of doing so before his next promotion. Superintendent by the time he was thirty, that was his immediate goal.

  True, he ran the risk of losing her by waiting so long. But Alison had so far shown no serious inclination to desert him for anyone else, though she’d rejected his suggestion that they should live together, and had even refused (to his great relief) the premature offer of marriage he’d made when he thought he was going to inherit a fortune. The fact that she had turned to him for comfort and support in the aftermath of her young brother’s accident had convinced Martin that he was secure in her affections.

  He walked briskly to the far end of the platform, executive briefcase in hand. He was looking forward to his visit to the Middle Temple, where Austin Napier QC had his chambers. Though Suffolk-born, Tait was no countryman; he had chosen to join the county police force only because, as a graduate, he would shine more brightly among rural policemen than he would have done in the Met. But he welcomed this opportunity to pit his wits against a London barrister. He didn’t doubt he’d make a better job of it than poor old Doug Quantrill had.

  The brightness of the day was fading. From the high, exposed platform, Tait looked westwards across waste ground (fields, four years ago; now earmarked for major building development) to the small town half a mile away, where mist was beginning to rise from the river and mingle with chimney smoke. The air was chilly enough for him to be glad of his hat and scarf.

  Turning to retrace his steps he saw, far away up the line, a dark pinpoint that was the approaching train. At the same time he noticed an Austin Metro being driven into the station yard at full lick. A young woman who reminded him of Hilary Lloyd got out and hurried towards the entrance.

  It was good to be working with Hilary again, Tait reflected. He liked having a woman sergeant, especially one who was always stylishly dressed as well as efficient. They had a very satisfactory relationship: she knew how to be friendly with him without losing sight of the fact that he was in charge, and that what he said went. Perhaps he could inveigle her over to the Saintsbury division? Doug Quantrill would no doubt be furious, but Hilary herself might well be glad to get away from Alison’s father’s inarticulate admiration.

  The young woman who darted on to the platform, still in a hurry but with hardly a hair of her new short style out of place, was in fact Hilary Lloyd. She looked about her, caught sight of him, and gave him a more-enthusiastic-than-usual greeting.

  ‘I’m so glad I’ve caught you, Martin! No need to rush off to London – we’re on to something here.’

  Chief Inspector Tait frowned. The train was now well in sight, and he intended to be the judge of whether or not he should board it.

  ‘Is it what you thought?’ he asked. ‘Did Goodrum pay his eye-witnesses to be on Pump Hill that afternoon at closing time, when he knew Clanger would be leaving the Boot?’

  ‘In effect,’ Hilary agreed, ‘though he did it less crudely than that. So far I’ve talked to only one of them, Mrs Napthen. She’s very upset about Jack’s murder. In her view he was a kind, generous man. He told her, two or three weeks ago, that he‘d had the luck to make his fortune, and that he’d sought her out because her family had always been friends and customers of his grandparents. He said he knew that a widow such as herself must find it difficult to make ends meet, and he hoped she’d allow him to pay her electricity bill for her.’

  The train had pulled in. The diesel engine stood throbbing as carriage doors were opened and passengers began to board. Tait saw no reason, from what Hilary had told him, to postpone his own journey; but he didn’t want her to think he was brushing her off. He began to walk up the platform towards the first-class carriages, with the sergeant at his elbow.

  ‘Didn’t Mrs Napthen realise there was something fishy about Goodrum’s approach?’ he said. ‘After all, he was a stranger to her, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes – but don’t forget that Breckham Market was much smaller, thirty-odd years ago, and therefore much more of a community than it is now. Mrs Napthen remembered Jack Goodrum as a boy, and she enjoyed talking to him about old times. She saw no reason to be suspicious.’

  ‘Not even when he asked her not to mention to anyone that he was paying her bill?’ said Tait. ‘I imagine that’s what he said –?’

  ‘Oh yes. He told her that she must be sure to keep warm during the coming winter, and use as much electricity as she needed, because he would go on paying her bills. But she mustn’t tell anyone, or even mention that she knew him, because he couldn’t possibly do the same for all his grandfather’s old customers. Mrs Napthen was special, he told her, because her mother had been such a good friend to his grandmother.’

  ‘Hah!’ said Tait. He opened a carriage door and stood with one foot on the step. Parcels and mail bags were still being loaded into the guard’s van, so he could give Hilary another minute. ‘And then he talked her into hanging about on Pump Hill –?’

  ‘That was on his second visit, when he took her the receipt for the electricity bill. He didn’t actually give her money – I suppose he thought she might have been too proud to accept it. Oh, and he went to her house on foot, presumably to give her neighbours no chance of recognising his Range Rover.’

  ‘Crafty devil …’ said Tait.

  ‘But charming with it,’ said Hilary. ‘At least, when he wanted to be. He offered to take Mrs Napthen for a ride in his car, the following afternoon, and said he’d pick her up outside the Trustee Savings Bank on Pump Hill. While she was waiting there, she saw Clanger knocked over by a Range Rover. At first, she didn’t realise that Jack was the driver. But when she recognised him she felt that the least she could do, as he’d been so good to her, was to wait until the police came so that she could tell them he was blameless.

  ‘And that’s what she still genuinely thinks, Martin – despite the fact that she remembers having noticed the same Range Rover just before the accident. It was parked beside the pavement in Crown Street, across from the top of Pump Hill. The driver was sitting at the wheel, she said. I tried parking there just now, and even from my Metro I had a good view down the hill as far as the door of the Boot. Jack Goodrum would have been in an ideal position to see Clanger emerge from the pub, and to set out on a collision course.’

  ‘You’d still have had difficulty in proving his intention, if you’d tried to charge him,’ said Tait. The station staff were slamming carriage doors shut. He swung himself inside, slammed his own door, placed his briefcase at his feet, lowered the window and leaned out to conclude the conversation.

  ‘It’s satisfactory, I agree, to know that your suspicions were well-founded – but it doesn’t actually get us anywhere, does it? You already knew that Jack Goodrum was a villain. What we’re supposed to be doing is finding the man who murdered him.’

  Still becomingly flushed – probably now, Tait realised, from indignation rather than hurry – Sergeant Lloyd stood her ground and tried to argue with him.

  ‘But because Jack planned Clanger’s death so carefully, he must have had a very strong motive for killing him. If we uncover that, we may be able to establish the motive for his own murder.’

  ‘Hilary, love …’ said Tait wearily. He liked keenness in a sergeant, but in his new rank he felt all the sobering responsibility of command. ‘We don’t need any more motives, do we? I’m going to London for the expres
s purpose of interviewing the man who had the strongest motive of the lot: insane jealousy of his ex-wife’s new husband. In the unlikely event –’

  The train gave a sudden jolt forward, and as suddenly stopped. Tait lurched against the door frame, banging his shoulder and almost dislodging his trilby. He made a grab for the hat and adjusted it with dignity.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, avoiding the sergeant’s amused eyes, ‘at this stage I don’t want you to waste time excavating Clanger Bell’s past. If I don’t succeed with Austin Napier, we’ll talk about it again.’

  Sensing that the train was about to move, he intended this to be his parting word. But nothing happened. For a few awkward moments he felt obliged to remain at the open window, just as Hilary evidently felt obliged to remain on the platform.

  ‘When do you expect to get back?’ she enquired politely.

  ‘That depends how long it takes me to break Austin Napier. I may have to stay overnight. But if I do get back at a reasonable time this evening, I’ll go round to the Quantrills’. I promised Alison I’d see her tonight if I could.’

  ‘Do please give all of them my love,’ said Hilary soberly.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Tait. Then he thought about it: ‘Not to Doug, I won’t,’ he said. ‘He’s very vulnerable at the moment – Molly’s in such a state that she doesn’t realise that he needs support. If I were to give him your love, he’d probably take it too personally … How about love to Alison and her mother, and best regards to the old man?’

  ‘Very diplomatic,’ said Hilary. She looked up at him with a friendly smile. ‘No wonder they made you a chief inspector.’

  The train began to move, slowly and this time more smoothly. ‘Good luck with the Queen’s Counsel,’ she said, standing back.

  ‘I say –’ Remembering that he’d given the sergeant no positive instructions, Tait leaned further out of the window to catch her attention: ‘You’re going straight to the office, aren’t you?’

  ‘No – I’m going to Tower House,’ she called back. ‘I want to talk to Clanger Bell’s sister.’

  ‘I said don’t, Sergeant Lloyd!’ he snapped. But the train was already carrying him away, and the infuriating woman pretended she couldn’t hear.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  At Tower House, Eunice Bell was supervising the loading of a small removal van. The job was almost finished, but the van was barely one-third full.

  She had, after all, decided to leave Breckham Market as soon as possible. With Cuthbert now buried in the family plot in the town cemetery, there was no reason for her to remain in the cold gloomy house any longer. Her solicitor had warned her of the possibility of vandalism if Tower House were left empty, but she had made up her mind to risk it. She couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to buy the property as it stood, and her accountant had reassured her that the value of the site alone – nearly two acres of prime building land – would compensate for the value of the house if it were to become uninhabitable.

  Having decided on the move, Miss Bell had booked a room for the winter at the Angel in Saintsbury. The few items of furniture she wanted to keep, together with her own china and linen and books and pictures, were going into store until such time as she could find and buy her ideal Georgian town house. The rest of the furniture and the effects of Tower House were going to be disposed of in situ by auction; not so much in the expectation of realising money, as with the intention of simply getting rid of the hated things.

  The removal van left. As she went indoors to pack her clothes and the personal belongings she would be taking with her in her car, Eunice Bell felt an unaccustomed lightness of the heart. She rejoiced – inwardly, without expression – in the knowledge that she was about to shake off all the grim associations of Tower House: the unhappiness, the fear of punishment, the pain, the

  adolescent shame. Now at last she could be her own woman, totally

  independent, free of the past.

  ‘Yes, Miss Lloyd?’

  ‘I’ve come to apologise to you, Miss Bell.’

  Hilary had noticed the removal van outside Tower House when she was on her way to the station. It was not so much contrariness that had induced her to disobey Chief Inspector Tait, as the realisation that if Eunice Bell were to leave the house, the evidence of her brother’s boyhood association with Jack Goodrum might well be lost.

  Miss Bell looked, to Hilary, exactly as she had done at their previous meeting: stiff, self-controlled, severe in navy blue. The Tower House drawing room was even gloomier and colder, more deeply overshadowed by the monkey puzzle tree, than the sergeant remembered it. A difference, however, was that the carpets had been rolled, the heavy mahogany furniture had been lined up, and everything was now labelled with lot numbers.

  ‘I won’t attempt to invite you to sit down,’ said Eunice Bell in her strong, spiny voice, taking up her stand in front of the empty marble fireplace. ‘I shall be leaving for good tomorrow morning, and I still have all my packing to do.’

  ‘I’ll try not to keep you, then. I’ve come to tell you’, said Hilary, ‘that we now have reason to believe that your brother’s death wasn’t an accident. As you’ll appreciate, we can’t prove this or make any charges, now that Jack Goodrum’s dead. But I wanted you to have the satisfaction of knowing that your suspicions were well-founded. I do apologise, on Mr Quantrill’s behalf as well as my own, for having taken so long to believe you.’

  Eunice Bell gave a winter smile, and ducked her head in acknowledgement. ‘Thank you, Miss Lloyd.’ She paused, then added: ‘I see from the local newspaper that the Quantrills’son has been badly injured. I had a conversation with the Chief Inspector only last Saturday night at the Town Hall, and I sincerely hope the boy makes a good recovery. Will you please convey that message to Mr Quantrill?’

  Hilary promised that she would, and found herself being ushered out into the echoing, black and white tiled hall. But she declined to be shown the door.

  ‘There is another reason why I came, Miss Bell,’ she said firmly. ‘Although we can’t charge Jack Goodrum with your brother’s murder, we have to find out why he did it.’

  ‘I told you why, Miss Lloyd. It was in revenge for a thrashing my father gave him.’

  Hilary shook her head. ‘I doubt it. Oh, we’d have accepted that, if Jack Goodrum’s own death had been from natural causes and all we’d wanted was a note to put on our files. But we’re investigating Goodrum’s murder – and that involves looking into his past. We know he planned your brother’s death very carefully, and that suggests a much stronger motive than revenge for a long-ago thrashing. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  Eunice Bell inclined her head. ‘I take your point. You think the two murders might be connected by some past event?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I need to find out all I can about your late brother, Miss Bell. And that’s why I’ve come – to ask, before you move out of this house, if I may search his room?’

  ‘For what?’

  The question came at her like a rapier, and Hilary parried it with an apologetic smile. ‘I’m afraid I shan’t know until I find it.’

  ‘You saw Cuthbert’s room when you were here with Mr Quantrill,’ said Miss Bell. ‘I can assure you that it contains nothing of any significance.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it does,’ Hilary agreed. ‘But then, that room hasn’t been used for years, has it? What I’d like to search is the room he actually slept in.’

  Eunice Bell remained as stiffly composed as ever, but she seemed to have shrivelled in size, as though the coldness of Tower House had finally penetrated her bones. At first she made no reply. Then she said, ‘Have you a warrant to search my house?’

  ‘No. And I won’t try to pretend that I could get one. I’ve come to ask for your co-operation, Miss Bell. If you choose to withhold it, that’s your legal right, as I’m sure you know. But that would leave us – not just me, but the Chief Inspector and the Superintendent – asking ourselves why.’

  There
was another silence. Eunice Bell stood ramrod-straight, her hands folded in front of her. Her bony face remained impassive, but a small patch of red appeared on either cheek-bone.

  ‘Is pride so difficult to recognise?’ she asked.

  Hilary shook her head. ‘Pride can sometimes be misplaced, though,’ she suggested. ‘Don’t forget that your brother was very well known to the police in Breckham Market. He spent a night in the cells several times a year. We were all fond of him – I’m sure you must have noticed a number of policemen at his funeral – but we couldn’t avoid knowing that he persistently neglected himself. We never held you to blame for his physical condition, and if his room is equally neglected I shan’t consider that your responsibility either.’

  Eunice Bell’s high colour abated a little. She gave a stiffly gracious inclination of her head. Explaining that she had locked her brother’s ground-floor room against the auctioneer’s men, she went upstairs for the key.

  Sergeant Lloyd walked down the tiled hall and into the narrower passage beyond, glancing at the lot-numbered furniture until she found what she was looking for. The heavy glass-fronted mahogany gun cabinet that Douglas Quantrill had noticed on their first visit was now empty. Hilary opened it. The cabinet, lined with green baize, was fitted to hold the four shotguns that the Chief Inspector had seen there before Jack Goodrum’s murder. The only means of security was a simple door lock.

  ‘I’m glad to see you’ve got rid of the guns already,’ said Hilary as Miss Bell returned. ‘Mr Quantrill was concerned about them after our visit. They’re dangerous things to leave in a cabinet like this.’

  ‘So Mr Glaze – the auctioneer – pointed out. He took them away last Thursday for safety, and he’s going to put them in a specialist sale.’