Heirs and Assigns

by Marjorie Eccles

  Following his gaze, Mrs Knightly remarked, ‘Bit of a waste of time, all that, isn’t it? I doubt whether any of them will be wanting a fancy garden now … but ten to one they’ll be selling the house, so I suppose it’ll have to be left decent. Put another spoonful in the pot, I like it strong. You’ll find a kettle-holder on that hook there.’

  The water boiled and when the tea was made, he looked for mugs, found them on the dresser and brought everything to the table. Sitting himself down, he watched her while he waited for the tea to brew and she chattered on about the garden and her late master’s enthusiasm for his latest project. But it wasn’t the garden he wanted to talk about.

  ‘You’ll have heard what’s happened at the bookshop, Mrs Knightly?’ he asked as soon as he found the right moment.

  ‘I’ve heard, yes.’ Slap, slap went the dough. ‘Terrible accident.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a sorry business, a young chap like that. I was wondering if you might be able to help.’

  ‘Me? What sort of help?’ She paused to give him a sharp glance. ‘Why in the world should you think of me?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know much about Mr Murfitt but I’ve been talking to the landlady at the Fox, and—’

  ‘Flo Parslowe? Oh, well then, you’ll know all there is to know,’ she said tartly, with a final thunk of the dough on to the table.

  ‘On the contrary,’ he said pacifically. ‘She didn’t have anything to tell me, but she did seem to think you might. Since I had the same idea, that’s why I’m here.’

  She moved a stray strand of hair back from her forehead with her forearm. It struck him how tired she was looking, pale with worry. Keeping house in the aftermath of death, having so many unwilling, and for the most part uncooperative, guests in the house to provide meals for and generally look after was telling on a woman of her age and she was showing the strain. He wondered if she was also worried about her position in the household, now that Pen had gone.

  Without having answered him, she had picked up a bread knife and began to divide the now elastic dough into pieces, and then to shape them into loaves for the waiting loaf tins. The loquacious housekeeper who had so freely given them all that information when they had first met her, wasn’t so anxious now to talk, seemingly. He let her get on with what she was doing while he poured the tea, now dark and strong, added milk and asked if she took sugar. She shook her head and put the loaf tins in a row on the hearth before the range fire to prove, covering them with a tea towel and then opening the damper to increase the heat for the oven. She had a wicker chair near the fire for an occasional sit-down, but a large black cat going grey round the mouth and ears was curled up on its cushion and didn’t look inclined to move. Mrs Knightly didn’t try. After she’d washed her hands at the sink she joined Reardon at the kitchen table, sinking on to the chair opposite, and began to sip her tea.

  ‘Why?’ she said at last. ‘Why should you think I would know anything about Adrian Murfitt?’ He took a cautious sip from his own cup and hoped it would leave some enamel on his teeth. It was strong enough to strip paint.

  ‘Look at it this way – how many people do you knit argyle socks for, Mrs Knightly? Or Fair Isle pullovers?’

  ‘Oh.’ She was taken aback, but after a moment or two she gave a rueful smile. ‘Oh, well, no use trying to fool a detective, is there?’

  He spread his hands. After all, that was what detection really amounted to – an association of ideas; in this case, argyle socks on slipperless feet at the bottom of Murfitt’s stone steps and the brightly patterned knitting on Mrs Knightly’s busy needles, the home-knitted jumper Murfitt had been wearing at their only meeting.

  ‘Poor Adrian, he needed someone to look after him. You know what it is, men on their own. He’d only let me do so much, but somebody had to do something. Doing a bit of knitting for him and a meal now and then wasn’t much.’ She paused and stirred her tea unnecessarily. ‘I reckon you already know he was my nephew, don’t you? Everybody else in Hinton does.’

  ‘No, Mrs Knightly, I didn’t know, but I thought it must be something like that.’ In actual fact he’d speculated on the relationship being closer. ‘I’m sorry. It’s the worst kind of shock when something like this happens to someone you’re fond of.’

  She took a moment to answer. ‘I suppose I was fond of him, in a way.’ Seeing his surprise she explained, ‘I didn’t rightly know him all that well, you see, not until he came to live in Hinton. And even then, we didn’t get close. He wasn’t an easy person to know, or to talk to. But I was sorry for him, like.’

  ‘We’ve heard stories …’

  ‘I’m sure you have,’ she said drily. ‘They’ll have told you … he wasn’t popular. Folks don’t forget easy.’

  ‘Not when it comes to being a conscientious objector, I agree.’

  ‘There was that, of course. There was seven lads, see – seven, just from Hinton – went away to fight and never came home, so can you blame them? I couldn’t altogether bring myself to forgive Adrian for that, either, but it wasn’t exactly a bed of roses for him, you know. Tribunals when he fought against conscription … arrested and sent to prison when he wouldn’t even agree to drive an ambulance or anything. He was made to work as a road mender at one time, and much worse. You can’t imagine.’ Reardon had no need to imagine. He knew, but there was no point in increasing her evident distress by saying so. ‘But there was more than all that to it, besides. It goes back a long way … and it’s complicated.’

  ‘These sort of explanations usually are. But take your time, I’m in no hurry.’ He was, but a long explanation would at least enable him to avoid giving offence by getting down this cup of lethal brew in front of him in small sips.

  It took her a minute or two, but once begun, the explanations poured forth. Adrian was her sister’s child, she said, her youngest sister, Pattie – ‘Patience, she was christened, and never did a name suit anyone less!’ It was a familiar story. Pattie had left home to go into service with a wealthy family and had got herself into trouble with some gentleman who was visiting the big house in Shrewsbury where she worked. ‘Poor little Pattie. No better than she should be, all the old busybodies said, but they were wrong. She was a lovely girl, high-spirited and maybe a bit spoilt, being the baby in our family, but she wasn’t bad. A bit flighty, maybe, and I have to admit she wasn’t all that bright … what I mean is, she just believed everything he promised, that fellow. When you’ve been poor – there was eight of us children and my father only a farm labourer on the Fairlie estate—’

  ‘The Fairlie estate?’

  ‘Well, it’s not an estate now, of course, it’s all gone, the home farm, shooting rights, the lot, since Mr Henry, Mr Gerald’s father, died,’ she said, looking a little put out at the interruption. ‘What does a busy doctor want with an estate and lands, even supposing he had the time, or even if he was cut out for it?’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry, carry on.’

  ‘What was I saying? Oh, yes, just that you learn to take your chances where you can get them if you were like us. It was different for me, I was luckier than most, marrying a good man like my John. Though I’ll give him one thing, he did look after Pattie – that one who was Adrian’s father, I mean. He bought her a nice little cottage over to Bridgnorth and kept in touch with her, and left money to make sure she was never in need – right up until she died last year. And although he never even saw Adrian, he made sure he had a good education. Had him sent away to school, though I reckon that’s where it all went wrong. Uplands House it was, that posh school t’other side of Wyvering. He turned out to be clever, though, and he got some sort of scholarship to Oxford … and that was where he learnt to mix with the wrong sort. Politics and what they call socialism and all that. He was against the war and when it came, he wouldn’t fight.’ She looked troubled. ‘I reckon you have to do what you believe is right, but it didn’t turn out wonderful for him, as I’ve said.’

  ‘Was it his father who left him money t
o buy the bookshop?’

  ‘What? Bless you, no!’ Her kindly face, which had creased with distress during the recital of this old, painful story, suddenly grew wary. She opened her mouth to speak, shut it and then changed her mind and said quickly, ‘The shop didn’t belong to Adrian, see.’ Another pause. ‘It was Mr Penrose who owned it.’

  Reardon digested this as the silence lengthened, broken only by the sounds of the fire drawing up the chimney. It had grown very hot in the kitchen. Mrs Knightly topped up her teacup with what was now a distinctly evil-looking brew, and he only just managed to stop her from doing the same to his. He said slowly, ‘Are you telling me he was Adrian Murfitt’s father?’

  ‘Good gracious no, inspector, that I’m not! And what’s more you don’t need to know who he was,’ she added with a new firmness. ‘That one’s long gone, and you wouldn’t know him, anyway. Mr Penrose bought that shop from the goodness of his heart. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to see to my bread.’ She rose and he watched as she slid the loaf tins one by one into the oven. It gave out a blast of heat as she opened the door and when she’d finally put them all in, closed it and turned round, she was mopping her face with a corner of her apron. But he didn’t think it was perspiration she was wiping away. After a moment she said quietly, ‘They’re saying he fell down them cellar steps, Adrian. Is it true?’

  ‘He was found at the bottom, Mrs Knightly.’

  ‘And what reason would he have to go prowling about at night down into a dark cellar?’ She gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘It wasn’t an accident, was it?’

  ‘There’s cause for concern,’ he admitted at last.

  The big kitchen clock he’d noticed on his first visit here just then reached the hour and struck a loud, bossy four. ‘Goodness is that time?’ she exclaimed. ‘And that Prue not here yet to help with the vegetables!’

  She’d no sooner said it than Prue walked in, bringing with her a breath of the cold outdoors. She smiled as she hung her coat up on the back of the kitchen door. ‘Brr, it’s cold out there. Reckon there’ll be another frost tonight.’

  ‘Then a good hot soup’s what we’ll be wanting.’ Mrs Knightly began bustling about, giving instructions, sending Prue for vegetables from the adjacent scullery. Reardon stood up, thinking of what Kate Ramsey had said to him. ‘I’ll not trespass much longer on your time, Mrs Knightly, but just one more thing … did your nephew by any chance come to visit you the night Mr Penrose died?’

  ‘Gracious, I’d no time to be entertaining visitors that night! We had a supper party on, don’t forget.’

  ‘I’m talking about after the guests had gone home? Did Adrian come to visit you then?’

  ‘That time of night? I’ve told you, I was tired and after we’d finished tidying up and Prue had gone home, I went straight to bed.’

  Maybe the shadow Kate Ramsey had seen along the lane had been imaginary, after all.

  Phyllis Knightly had never been blessed with children, but she’d always been happy with her situation at Bryn Glas. Firstly, working as a maid and then after she’d married, working in the house and helping the nanny to look after the Llewellyn children, while her husband worked as farm manager. And later, after his death and when everything had changed, she’d become housekeeper. Later still, when all the family had gone, her job had become more that of a caretaker, which she hadn’t minded in the least – the house had been almost like her own. She lived here alone except for weekends and the odd times when any of the family came to stay, but empty or not, it wasn’t in her nature to leave rooms undusted and uncared for, even if unoccupied. She kept everything like a new pin, smelling of Mansion polish and lavender. When Pen, always her favourite, had come back to live here permanently, things hadn’t changed much – he liked the homely sort of meals she cooked for herself and was happy enough for her to keep things as they’d always been.

  His decision to marry Anna Douglas had come as no surprise to her. She was fond of saying she’d known both of them since they were knee high to a grasshopper, and thought it was the best decision he’d made in years. Everyone knew two women couldn’t wring one dishcloth, but she wasn’t worried about Anna coming here as the new mistress; there’d be no problem. She was in fact looking forward to her retirement, and already had her eye on the nice little house presently occupied by old Philips, who was ninety-two and told her every time she visited him with a bit of cake or a rice pudding she’d made for him, that he couldn’t last much longer and didn’t want to.

  But now …

  She lifted the sleeping cat and flopped into her chair. The wicker creaked as she sank heavily into it with the cat on her knee and stroked his black fur. Prue worked quietly at the sink, scraping carrots. The rich, nutty smell of the baking loaves came from the oven. It was one of those times she most enjoyed, a quiet well-earned sit in her ordered kitchen after a strenuous day, with the smell of good wholesome cooking filling the room.

  ‘Oh, Silas, what am I to do?’ she whispered in the cat’s ear, tears now rolling down her face unheeded. Silas merely shifted his position, kneading his claws into her soft lap, and settled and closed his eyes again. Mrs Knightly wiped her eyes.

  How far should you go in telling the truth?

  TWENTY-ONE

  After the hot kitchen, the cold outside, with its sharp foretaste of frost in the air, was a welcome relief.

  The light was fading fast and the two young lads working in the garden were packing up their tools for the day. Reardon raised a hand in salute as he passed them and felt their eyes following him, wondering what had brought him out there so late. The fact was, he wanted to clear his mind and mull over something Mrs Knightly had just said, and how it could be connected to the scrap of paper Gilmour had found in Murfitt’s bookshop; a note Murfitt had begun but maybe changed his mind about. He needed to speak to Huwie Llewellyn, but for a few minutes that could wait.

  Reaching the wall that seemed to mark the boundary of the property, he leant against it, looking back at the house. The lads had gone and the house crouched long and low against the hillside rising behind it. In the gathering dusk, it had a surprisingly menacing look, its windows lit here and there but with no signs of life showing behind them. The house that held a murderer. Perhaps a murderer twice over. The second time was easier, they said, yet it was more likely then that mistakes could be made. It was in spotting them where the skill lay, or maybe the luck. He grunted, turned his back on the house and was just resting his elbows on the wall before it occurred to him that as the safety measure it had surely been intended, the wall was now less than adequate, perhaps even dangerous. A few of the capping stones had fallen off and the roots of a stunted tree that had found purchase and unaccountably survived in the precipitous rock face had created an ominous bulge near where he stood. He looked down over the wall and felt dizzy. There were caves in the cliff, he’d heard, not visible from here, hidden by the scrub, and the river could be treacherous at times. It wound into the distance, a sinuous steel-grey band you could see if you leant far enough over the wall.

  He let his thoughts wander, an unproductive activity that all the same often produced results, he’d found, but this time the flash of insight or inspiration he waited for didn’t come. He looked out across the comely, rolling acres, green and lush even at this time of year, but shadowed now and empty. He hadn’t met a single soul in the whole ten minutes it had taken to walk from Murfitt’s shop to Bryn Glas, he now realized. He drew a deep breath of air into his lungs. Not above twenty miles away, back home, cold air like this gave you bronchitis, laden as it was with smoke and factory fumes. The wind, when it was in the right direction, stung your eyes and ears and blew smuts and soot into the clothes on the women’s washing lines. And when it didn’t blow, there was that ever-present smoke pall. He realized he was missing it: the cheerfully crowded streets, shops and familiar accents, noisy traffic, the foundries and smoke stacks that were a fact of Black Country life. And Ellen … He felt a sudden urgent
need to see her, for at the very least a half-hour of normality. His vows for them not to meet vanished as though they’d never been. Excusing himself with the thought that in any case he had something to show her, to ask her advice about, with a last look at the serpentine river, he roused himself and went back indoors.

  Walking down the corridor towards the study, he glanced through the upright struts into that room they used as a sitting room and saw Verity crouching there. Her mother had succeeded at last in prizing her out of her little dormer room like a winkle from its shell, but it hadn’t made much difference to her mood. She seemed to spend all her time huddled up to the fire, in the same position as she was now. The fight had gone out of her once more, the spark of animation she’d shown when Reardon had spoken with her outside Kate’s cottage was extinguished. She sat there alone. Where were all the others? Dressing for dinner no doubt, if Claudia Llewellyn had anything to do with it. Somebody should remind them they were out in the sticks, not bloomin’ Mayfair.

  ‘Hello, Verity,’ he said, going through into the room and joining her.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she answered drearily. She was wearing the same shapeless dark garments she’d worn before, and she looked as though she’d been crying. The news of Murfitt’s death must have upset her more than he would have anticipated. He was wondering how best to broach the subject when she did it for him. ‘Have you caught him yet? The one who killed Adrian?’

  News travelled in this place faster than a ferret down a rabbit hole. First Mrs Knightly and now Verity, both of them knowing it had been no accident. But it was no use denying what eventually must come out if he wanted answers to questions. ‘I’m sorry, you were a friend of his, it must have been a shock.’

  ‘A friend?’ she came back, rather violently. ‘Who told you that? The only time he was a friend was when he needed me to drive him around! When that old Tin Lizzie of his wouldn’t go.’