Skeleton Key

by Robert Richardson

  The police were within a hundred and fifty yards of him when he heard them, a crackling voice on a radio carrying through the silence. He looked to his left in terror and saw two torchlight beams, glow-worm flickers like sparks creeping along burnt wood. There was nothing visible to his right. Cautiously he stood up and moved away, half crouching, invisible against the deep grey headland rising behind him. The path was rough and twice his foot slipped as he climbed upwards, stumbling against small boulders in the twilight. After about a quarter of a mile, the path divided and he hesitated, looking back to see the quivering torchlights edging closer, before taking the way downwards. As the police reached the high point behind him, they saw the silhouette of his moving figure against the polished backdrop of the sea where the land dropped away beyond, and shouted.

  Luke Norman began to run wildly and suddenly there was loose, sliding scree beneath his feet. He fell clumsily face downwards, grabbing at the short coarse grass, his feet scrabbling for firm ground. They found it and he pushed himself upwards with his hands just as his foothold betrayed him, his weight wrenching a small rock out of the earth. His arms swung crazily as he fought to regain his balance then he toppled backwards, his head striking another stone, half stunning him as he rolled down the steep slope towards the pewter mirror of the sea. A chatter of small pebbles gathered as they slid down with him until they began to tumble over the cliff edge. Luke Norman fell among them and they rattled off the barbed surfaces of the huge pointed rock sticking up like a crude arrowhead that split his body open. He died during the half-hour it took the police to climb down and find him.

  *

  The story broke too late for the morning papers but Maltravers and Peter heard it on Breakfast Time television while Tess was taking the children to school. Self-conscious of the presence of the cameras, a customer from the curiously named Lamorna Wink pub told how he had walked down to the cove after closing time to gain brief and meaningless fame as the man who discovered Luke Norman’s car. The picture changed to library film shot from a plane flying along the rough-torn edges of the Cornish coast.

  ‘Police recovered the body from the rocks on a small inlet about half a mile from the popular holiday beach at Porthcurno,’ the commentary reported. ‘Officers from Capley are expected here later this morning. At this stage, the police are treating the death as accidental. A spokesman said that Mr Norman appeared to fall off the narrow, treacherous path as he was trying to run away.’

  The screen blinked again to show a reporter standing in front of Penzance police station.

  ‘Luke Norman was wanted for questioning in connection with the murder at the weekend of Lord Dunford, the heir to Lord Pembury of Edenbridge House. After the murder…’

  ‘So where does that leave everyone?’ Maltravers asked as he turned away from the set. He and Tess had decided not to share their suspicions about York with anyone until they had something solid to go on.

  ‘With a murderer, presumably,’ said Peter. ‘Nothing else makes sense.’

  ‘But where’s the actual proof?’ Maltravers argued. ‘Luke Norman could have been over-distressed at Simon’s death and terrified that he was a major suspect. All that’s happened could have been the result of blind panic. There’s no way the police are going to wrap it all up yet. It still could have been Oliver. I’d like to know how the police are treating it, but I can’t see any way we can find out at the moment.’

  ‘I know somebody who’ll be able to tell us,’ said Peter.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Harry Matthews on the Capley Citizen. He’s an idle bugger of the old school but he’s got marvellous police contacts and they tell him all sorts of things off the record. He owes me a favour for tipping him off about a bank raid in the New Town.’ Peter glanced at the clock. ‘Can’t try for a while though. Harry thinks it’s indecent to arrive for work before half past ten. Better still, he’s always in the office pub at lunchtime. I’ll try him there on my way to see Susan. Come with me if you want. It’s quite an experience meeting Harry.’

  *

  Keith Miller received the report from the officers he had sent to Penzance gloomily. There was no question but that the body was that of Luke Norman and would have to remain in Cornwall until the inquest had been held. Norman’s car had not contained either of the missing cricket balls, Dunford’s tie or a convenient note of confession. Miller tossed the message back on to his desk in irritation.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said unemotionally to Parry. ‘I needed this like a sick headache. I’m even more convinced now it was him, but how do we prove it? He could have tossed a cricket ball away anywhere between here and the West Country. We can’t search the whole sodding M4.’

  ‘And the M5,’ Parry added. Miller scowled at him. ‘But he might not have done that, Sir. He could have dumped it when he ran off from the house.’

  ‘All right, but where? We’ve done everything in that churchyard except dig up the graves and there’s no sign of either of the damned things there or in the Darbys’ garden.’

  ‘His car was parked at Edenbridge House,’ Parry pointed out. ‘He could have chucked it somewhere in the park as he drove off.’

  Miller pulled a face, contemplating the wide spaces of Edenbridge Park which Norman could have driven through as he escaped from Old Capley.

  ‘All right,’ he said resignedly. ‘I’ll try and get more men and you see how many reliable civilians you can round up to help. God, it could take weeks—and even then it might not prove anything.’

  ‘There’s still Hawkhurst,’ Parry added and Miller noted the hopeful tone of his voice.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s much the same position isn’t it? Proof, Sergeant, we need some bloody proof, any bloody proof and we need it in a hurry. The Chief Constable is not best pleased at the moment. The most notorious murder that this force has had to deal with for fifty years is playing havoc with his ulcer and he wants results. Oh, get on with it.’

  After Parry left, Miller made a series of phone calls to senior officers in both his own and neighbouring county forces and managed to collect another twenty men. Then he picked up the report from Penzance again, read it sourly and once again regretted that his annual leave had not started a week earlier. All his instincts were telling him that Luke Norman was his man. Everything—motive, opportunity, his escape from the scene, his fatal running away in the night when the police reached him—every aspect pointed in that direction. Had they caught Norman, Miller was sure he would have confessed; now he was a body on a mortuary slab with his secret. Hawkhurst? Miller shook his head impatiently. Too obvious…and yet the alibi he had offered had fallen apart at the first touch. York? A tiny muscle in Miller’s left cheek twitched slightly, which often happened when his brain was trying to tell him something.

  *

  Oliver Hawkhurst heard the news about Luke Norman with much less dissatisfaction than Miller. The police suspicion of his cousin’s lover had taken a great deal of pressure off him and, being a latent queer-basher among his other unlovely habits, the prospect of Norman being jailed for life had appealed to him. As far as Hawkhurst was concerned, Norman must still be the obvious suspect—and now could it ever be proved that he didn’t do it? As he drove to Edenbridge House for a meeting with Lord Pembury and Sir Gerald, he wondered what the police did in such circumstances. Unless something else came to light, they presumably lost interest in the matter after sufficient time had elapsed. Not a completely satisfactory position from Hawkhurst’s point of view, but better than the alternatives. The immediate question was, where did it leave him in relation to inheriting Edenbridge? The meeting with his uncle and his lawyer should clarify that. As the butler led him along the corridor to the study, Hawkhurst adjusted his newly-bought black tie and composed his face into an appearance of suitable solemnity and regret.

  ‘Ah, Oliver,’ Pembury said as he was let into the room. ‘I don’t think you know Sir Gerald.’

  ‘No, but I know Sir Gerald’s reputat
ion.’ As Piers-Freeman acknowledged with a gracious smile, Hawkhurst congratulated himself on a good start. He sat down opposite Pembury and looked across the desk expectantly. When he left Edenbridge House two hours later he was furious and would happily have strangled both Lord Pembury and his lawyer.

  Sir Gerald had at first been apologetic. It was to be deplored that Mr Hawkhurst should remain the subject of police inquiries. Clearly some confirmation that Luke Norman had been the murderer was greatly to be desired. However—Sir Gerald had gestured elegantly—for the time being, his advice must be that it would not be correct for Mr Hawkhurst to be officially recognised as the heir. Doubtless this most unsatisfactory situation would eventually resolve itself, but…Mr Hawkhurst understood? Oliver Hawkhurst found it intolerable, but remained silent.

  Then Lord Penbury had spoken. He accepted the legal advice, but saw no reason for not acquainting his nephew with certain facts about the ownership of Edenbridge which he felt sure would eventually devolve to him. Hawkhurst controlled his sense of elation, a feat which became increasingly easy as Pembury outlined the incredibly strict controls that would be placed on him by the Edenbridge Trustees. As far as he could make out, he would not be able to go out and buy a newspaper without first obtaining their permission. Quite simply, Edenbridge was locked for all time in a legal straitjacket and all future holders of the title would in effect be tenants in their own ancestral home. A junior accountant with a firm in London would have more power over the Pembury wealth than Oliver would ever have—if it ever became his. For all the good that Dunford’s death had done him, he might as well have lived.

  Oliver Hawkhurst had not recognised that very old money was kept in very strong boxes and other people held the keys. Lord Pembury had never thought that his nephew was very bright and found their direct blood connection rather unfortunate. But he was the only possible heir—unless he turned out to be a murderer, a prospect Lord Pembury did not choose to consider.

  *

  Harry Matthews flopped against the bar with the elegance of a beached walrus. He looked as though he had slept in his suit and would need to check his diary to see when he had last changed his shirt. His hair had settled around the back of his head with a few strands stubbornly remaining in the centre of his forehead, swept back across his crown like fine pencil lines. The pint glass looked minute in his massive paw of a hand and Maltravers watched in admiration as more than three quarters of its contents disappeared into his mouth almost as swiftly as they could have been poured into a bucket. There was a legend on the Capley Citizen that when Harry had once gone on the wagon for a month, the biggest brewery in the county had been forced to lay off the night shift.

  ‘Thanks, Peter,’ Matthews grunted. ‘Needed that.’ He burped resonantly and removed the froth from his thick, lank moustache with a downward movement of his hand, as though squeezing any escaping drops of beer on to his upper lip. ‘Anyway, what brings you in here? Thought you only drank with the nobs in the Old Town.’

  ‘We’d like a bit of information, Harry,’ Peter said. ‘Incidentally, this is Gus Maltravers, a friend of mine.’

  Matthews made some indecipherable sound of greeting then turned back to Peter. ‘Information about what?’

  ‘Whatever the police are saying off the record about this Luke Norman business. Do they still think he killed Dunford?’

  Matthews sucked in his breath through blubbery lips, making a noise like a child dragging the last drops of a drink up through a straw. Maltravers sensed that information would require more lubrication before it started to flow.

  ‘Another pint?’ he suggested. ‘You’ve done considerable damage to that one.’ The speed with which Matthews finished his drink and pushed the glass across to the barmaid was incredible in a man who looked as though he would even sneeze in slow motion.

  ‘Same again, Betty,’ he said, then glanced at Peter again. ‘So what do you want to know?’

  ‘Anything you can tell us. You must have been checking it out this morning.’

  ‘Had a chat with a couple of contacts,’ Matthews admitted. ‘Not much I can tell you though. There’s nothing to prove Norman did it and Keith Miller’s ordered a search of the park for the cricket balls. The medical evidence proves that’s what was used to kill him. That’s about it.’

  ‘But is he still the chief suspect?’ Maltravers pressed.

  ‘He is as far as Miller’s concerned. Dave Parry says he still thinks it could have been Dunford’s cousin but they’ve released him for the time being.’

  ‘And there’s nobody else?’

  Matthews looked at Maltravers sharply as he put the question. Somewhere inside the overweight ruin of a journalist, idling out the end of his career with the barest minimum of effort, were the rusting remains of a first-class reporter.

  ‘Should there be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Maltravers. ‘I thought you might.’

  Matthews turned off again when he realised he was not about to be given a tip without having to make any particular effort.

  ‘Not that I’ve heard of,’ he said. ‘And I’d have heard. Let’s have a couple of those meat pies, Betty. What about you gents?’

  They remained with Matthews for an hour during which he did not buy a single drink although the occasion later appeared on his expenses as a meeting with two local councillors and cost his editor seven pounds. Maltravers found the burned-out newspaperman, who had let his talent rot in the provinces because he lacked the ambition to climb higher, entertaining company. If he ever decided to use only half his ability and experience he would leave the brash young Turks on the Capley Citizen for dead. And his contacts in the police, among them senior officers with whom he had drunk as raw, beat bobbies, were impeccable. By the time they left, Maltravers was sure he could have found out no more about the inquiry into Dun-ford’s murder if the police had offered him the freedom of the incident room.

  ‘He’s one of a dying breed, isn’t he?’ he remarked as Peter drove him back into Old Capley before going on to visit Susan and the baby. ‘And I admire his local knowledge, even if it doesn’t tell us very much. How big is Edenbridge Park?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Peter. ‘Several hundred acres.’

  ‘Possibly containing one cricket ball that…Just a minute…There could be dozens of lost cricket balls out there…I nearly hooked a couple across that short leg side boundary.’

  ‘Believe it or not, I’ve done it myself,’ said Peter. ‘The local kids turn them up long after a match—and usually keep them.’

  ‘Which means that if Luke threw the ball away somewhere near the cricket pitch, somebody could already have found it and it could be anywhere by now,’ said Maltravers, thinking through new possibilities. ‘Would he have driven near there on his way out?’

  ‘He could have done. There are several ways in and out of the park, but as far as I know only two gates are left open all night. If he used the main gates he would have driven right past the pitch, or he could have gone out through East Sutton, which is a hamlet right over the far side of the park. Luke could know about it from previous visits and it’s a more private exit than the main entrance.’

  ‘How far is it from the house?’

  ‘To East Sutton?’ Peter mentally calculated for a moment. ‘Certainly more than a mile, possibly a mile and a half. Then it’s country lanes for another couple of miles until you reach the A1 into London.’

  ‘That’s an awful lot of country to lose any number of cricket balls in,’ Maltravers observed. ‘I don’t envy the police the search. But that’s where the murder weapon could be.’

  ‘And what about the second cricket ball?’ Peter queried. ‘And the tie?’

  ‘Among life’s little mysteries,’ said Maltravers.

  *

  Tess had driven into London after dropping the children off at school to buy a present for Susan’s baby—one look at the New Town shops had convinced her she would find nothing she liked there—and w
as still not back when Maltravers returned to Bellringer Street. He noticed that the police had disappeared from the churchyard and decided to walk round and see if he could find Susannah’s grave among the ancient dead of the parish. Its obscurity meant that it took him nearly half an hour of bending down to read faded inscriptions, including one to a woman who had buried seven children before mercifully joining them herself. As he was standing by the lonely stone to the unhappy daughter that the Pembury family had ruthlessly cast out of their lives, he saw Joanna York walking in through the church gates, her arms filled with Enchantment lilies and carnations. He was sure that she had noticed him because she hesitated for the briefest moment before walking quickly on and disappearing into the church. After a few minutes he followed her.

  There was no sign of her at first, then he spotted her arranging the flowers in a vase near the altar. He dropped some coins in a box by the door and helped himself to a pamphlet on the church’s history before casually making his way down the, aisle, apparently looking for various features to which visitors’ attention was drawn. It was impossible to move completely quietly in the hollow vault of the building, but he noticed that she never turned round to see who had come in and he had almost reached her before he spoke.

  ‘Good afternoon. It’s Mrs York, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’ She turned as if startled that someone had crept up on her. ‘Oh, Mr…Maltravers. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Playing at tourists.’ He waved the pamphlet as evidence then indicated the vase. ‘Do you always do this?’

  ‘Pardon? Oh, the flowers. There’s a rota and it’s my turn this week. We put fresh ones in the church nearly every day.’

  ‘How nice.’ Maltravers smiled. ‘Can you tell me…I’ve just been reading about the Pembury chapel, but I’m not sure where it is. Is it open to the public?’