Dead by Morning

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘So that if, in fact, the heir ever wished to sell it, he couldn’t?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s right. Because it would be impossible to know exactly how many children he’s going to have until he’s dead. It’s a very unusual arrangement, but it’s what we’ve always done.’

  ‘So you’re saying that the trust had been renegotiated with Mr Martindale on his twenty-first birthday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And once set up it couldn’t be broken?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She sighed. ‘Of course, no one envisaged a situation in which the heir couldn’t be found. As it was, obviously someone had to administer the estate so the trustees allowed us to do so in my brother’s absence.’

  ‘And if he hadn’t turned up by the time seven years had passed he would presumably have been assumed dead and the estate would have come to you?’

  A tight nod.

  No doubt they were all thinking the same thing, thought Thanet. As it now does.

  ‘I see. Well, there’s just one more question I must put to you.’ And in the circumstances it was very difficult to think of a way of putting it tactfully. ‘If it does turn out, as seems likely, that it was your van that ran your brother down, is there any reason why any of the people who have access to it wouldn’t be sorry to see him dead?’ Apart from you, of course, with the king-sized motive which you’ve just handed to us.

  His delicacy was wasted. They were intelligent people and saw at once what he was asking, and its implications. They stared at him, in apparent disbelief.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ said Hamilton at last. ‘I asked you earlier if you were suggesting that Leo might have been murdered. I couldn’t believe then that you were serious and I can’t believe it now. But you are, aren’t you? What you’re really asking is whether or not any of these people – including us, I presume, as we also drive the van – had a motive for killing him?’

  ‘This is crazy!’ said his wife, clutching her head. ‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My brother has a perfectly straightforward accident and before we know where we are we’re accused of murdering him!’

  ‘No!’ said Thanet. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions. I’m accusing no one of anything at the moment, I’m merely looking at all the possibilities. That is what I’m paid to do. And you must see that –’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ called Hamilton, a little too heartily; relieved, no doubt, at the interruption.

  It was Bentley. ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir, but …’ It was obvious that he had come across something interesting.

  Thanet stood up. Clearly he wasn’t going to get anything more out of the Hamiltons at present. ‘All right, Bentley, we’ve finished here for the moment.’

  Outside the light was fading and it was beginning to snow. Thanet turned up his collar again and pulled on his woolly hat. No point in freezing in order to look dignified. ‘What is it?’

  ‘One of the guests told me that he was out for a walk yesterday morning and he saw Mr Martindale having a blazing row with somebody.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He couldn’t remember his name, though he had heard it – he saw him again last night when they were having drinks before dinner, and they were introduced. Anyway, he says he’s the farm manager.’

  ‘Talion,’ said Lineham. ‘Well well. I noticed the look Mrs Hamilton gave her husband when his name came up, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Was this guest close enough to hear what the row was about?’

  Bentley shook his head regretfully. ‘No, unfortunately. But he did say that there was another man nearby, a tractor driver. Apparently the farm manager and this man were talking when Mr Martindale joined them. The farm labourer moved a little way away, tactful-like, and soon afterwards the row started.’

  ‘But your witness thinks this tractor driver would still have been close enough to hear what was said?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Thanet, ‘perhaps it would be a good idea to have a word with him first, before seeing Talion.’

  He glanced at his watch. Ten to four. With any luck they might catch the tractor driver before he finished work for the day. Presumably the place to look for him would be at Home Farm.

  Sam Tiller was crossing the yard carrying a shovel, heading for the storage shed in which they had interviewed him earlier, and Thanet called him over. To get to the Home Farm, they learned, they could either walk through the grounds of the Hall, a distance of about half a mile, or drive down to the road and take the first turning on the left.

  With a glance at the leaden sky and the thickening snow Thanet decided to take the easy way out. After a word of thanks to Bentley he and Lineham headed for the Land Rover.

  SEVEN

  ‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ said Lineham gloomily as they set off down the drive. ‘Not only do we discover that six people had keys to the van, but that four of them actually used it last night. And we haven’t asked the Byfleets yet.’ He slowed down as they reached the main road. The red Ford Escort with Tessa Hamilton and her boyfriend inside turned into the drive as he pulled away.

  Thanet lifted a hand in response to her wave.

  ‘Those two young Hamiltons could put you off parenthood for ever,’ said Lineham.

  Thanet laughed. ‘Bit late for that, isn’t it, Mike?’

  ‘All I can say is, I hope Mandy doesn’t look like that when she’s seventeen.… Anyway, the whole thing seems pretty hopeless to me. Even if we do suspect who was actually driving the van when Mr Martindale was hit, we haven’t got a hope of proving it. No witnesses, nothing.’

  ‘Come on, Mike. It’s early days yet. You never know what the house-to-house enquiries will turn up and there’s always forensic. If Martindale was actually put into that ditch as we suspect …’

  ‘Hmm. Ah, here we are.’

  He swung the Land Rover into a lane with HOME FARM stamped in black on a wooden sign. There were well-maintained wire fences on either side of the road, with snow piled against them where tractors had no doubt cleared the way. Ahead was a cluster of farm buildings and in a few hundred yards the track divided, one arm entering a drive leading to a red brick-and-tile farmhouse, the other widening out as it entered a broad yard surrounded by barns and sheds.

  Over to the left a tractor with a forage box attached was moving very slowly along the wide central aisle of a long cattle shed. Thanet and Lineham walked across, hunching their shoulders and keeping their heads down against the swirling snow. At the entrance to the shed they stopped. On either side were stout iron barriers behind which black-and-white cattle on thick beds of straw were lined up munching the silage feed being spewed out of the forage box into the pens along a narrow conveyor belt.

  Lineham wrinkled his nose. ‘Phew! What a stink! How do these farmworkers stand it?’

  ‘I suppose they’re used to it.’

  The tractor had now reached the far end of the aisle and with a roar it accelerated, described a wide arc in the open space beyond the shed and headed back towards them at a fair speed, its task presumably now completed. They stepped back as it approached and Thanet held up a hand. The driver stopped and switched off the engine.

  ‘Yes?’

  The sudden silence was a relief. Thanet stepped forward. ‘We’re from Sturrenden CID.’ He introduced himself and Lineham. ‘We’re looking into the death of Mr Martindale, from the Hall.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ The driver remained firmly planted in his seat, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the ignition, as if ready to take off again at any moment.

  ‘Was it you who was with Mr Talion yesterday, when he had that row with Mr Martindale?’

  ‘Cor, was that him? I didn’t realise.’

  ‘Would you get down, please? We’d like a word.’

  With a practised movement the man swung around and jumped down beside them. ‘Why?’

  He was in his forties, Thanet guessed, with
the weathered skin of a man used to working out of doors, wearing a bulky ancient parka the colour of mud and an incongruously cheerful bobble cap in red and white stripes. A large dewdrop hung from the tip of his fleshy nose and he wiped it away with the back of his gloved hand. Almost immediately another began to form.

  The smell of silage, whether from the forage box, the cattle pens or the man’s clothing, was overpowering.

  Thanet stamped his feet. ‘Is there anywhere a bit less exposed where we could talk, Mr …?’

  ‘Mardy. Jim Mardy. I can’t hang about. I got work to do.’

  ‘It won’t take long.’

  Mardy hesitated a moment longer and then, without speaking, led the way across the yard to a small shed constructed of tarred weatherboarding and pushed open the door. There were no windows and inside it was very dark. Mardy twisted a switch and a single, feeble electric light bulb strung up on one of the rafters revealed a row of nails on which hung several pairs of overalls and an assortment of scruffy coats. Spaced out around the walls on a floor of beaten earth were a number of bales of straw on three of which lay plastic lunch boxes and Thermos flasks. Mardy crossed to one of the bales, picked up a Thermos, sat down and poured himself a cup of steaming liquid. Thanet and Lineham watched enviously, Thanet making a mental note to make sure that tomorrow, if the case continued, he would come well supplied with hot drinks. Lineham, he was sure, would be making a similar resolution.

  Mardy was watching him expectantly over the rim of his mug. Thanet sat down on one of the bales and signalled to Lineham to begin.

  Lineham remained standing, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. ‘We understand that you were talking to Mr Talion when Mr Martindale arrived.’

  ‘’Sright. Some of the fencing needs renewing, we’d gone to take a look at it.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Just before me dinner break. Getting on for twelve o’clock, it must’ve been.’ Mardy wiped away another dewdrop.

  ‘Could you tell us what happened?’

  The glint in the man’s eye told Thanet that Mardy had now realised the purpose of this conversation. The question was, would he be cooperative or obstructive? It all depended, Thanet guessed, on Mardy’s character and on his relationship with his employer, whether loyalty would win over the desire to give an account of the drama.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  The man was playing for time, still hadn’t quite made up his mind. Thanet opened his mouth to intervene then closed it again. It wasn’t fair to Lineham to jump in whenever the going became sticky.

  Lineham had noticed and gave Thanet an uncertain glance. Thanet looked at the ground. Go on.

  ‘We thought you might be able to tell us what the row was about.’

  Mardy shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  ‘You heard what was said, though.’

  ‘Some of it.’

  ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling us what you did hear.’

  Silence. Mardy took another slow, deliberate swig from his cup, then screwed it back on to the Thermos. ‘Why don’t you ask Mr Talion?’

  ‘We shall.’

  ‘In that case,’ Mardy stood up, ‘there’s no point in me telling you, is there?’

  For a few minutes longer Lineham persisted but it was useless. Now that Mardy had made up his mind nothing would shake him.

  ‘Very well,’ said Lineham eventually. ‘Just tell me one thing. How long did this conversation last?’

  Mardy hesitated, weighing up the pros and cons of answering this question and apparently deciding that it was harmless. ‘Not more ’n a few minutes.’

  ‘And would you say they’d met before, recently?’

  Again a hesitation. Then Mardy shook his head. ‘The other bloke, Mr Martindale, started off by saying, “Hullo Talion. Long time no see.”’

  ‘And what did Mr Talion say?’

  Realising that he was imperceptibly being drawn into giving away information he had decided to withhold, Mardy headed for the door. ‘I gotta get on.’

  Thanet and Lineham returned to the Land Rover and watched him roar off on his tractor into the gathering dusk.

  ‘I blew it, didn’t I?’ said Lineham. ‘Sorry, sir.’ He thumped the steering wheel in frustration before turning on the windscreen wipers to clear the thin film of snow which had built up while they had been talking to Mardy. ‘I jumped in too quickly. If I’d begun as I ended, I might have got somewhere.’

  ‘No point in worrying about it now. The main thing is, you can see where you went wrong. And those last two questions were very useful.’

  ‘I just thought it would be interesting to know how long they’d been talking before the row broke out,’ said Lineham eagerly. ‘And whether or not it was the continuation of a recent row.’

  ‘Quite. And apparently it wasn’t. The implication being …’

  ‘That whatever the issue between them, it was a pretty powerful one. I mean, you don’t meet someone after an interval of twenty odd years and plunge straight into a row unless you’ve got a very good reason.’

  ‘Also, it sounds as though it might have been Talion who had the grudge. Martindale’s greeting sounded friendly enough.’

  ‘Mr Talion now, then?’

  Thanet nodded and they drove out of the farmyard and into the driveway of Home Farm. Inside the house a dog started barking as they approached the front door. The barks grew louder and the man who answered their knock made no attempt to stop the noise until Thanet had introduced himself.

  ‘All right, Rhett. Enough!’

  The dog, an Alsatian, at once fell silent but remained wary, watching the two policemen for any threatening move.

  ‘You’d better come in.’

  Talion opened a door to the right of the small hall, switching on the light, and they followed him into a cold gloomy dining-room furnished with heavy oak table and chairs, carpet square and skimpy unlined curtains patterned with orange and yellow flowers. The room looked as though it was rarely, if ever, used and as if no one had cared what it looked like for a very long time.

  ‘What is it?’ He was in his sixties, short and stocky, dressed in well-worn corduroy trousers, pullover and tweed sports jacket. He looked like a man who had long ago forgotten how to smile; all the lines in his face drooped and there were deep creases between his eyebrows. He did not invite them to sit down and agreed only reluctantly when Thanet asked if they may. The dog flopped down at Talion’s feet and buried its nose in its paws.

  The door was pushed open and a woman came into the room. ‘Who is it, Jack?’ She was small, pale and thin, her clothes nondescript, her grey hair pinned back in a meagre bun.

  At once his whole demeanour changed and in a flash he was up out of his chair and putting an arm protectively around her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, Meg, it’s only business, it won’t take long. You go back in the warm.’ Gently, he urged her into the hall and through the door at the far side.

  ‘I don’t want my wife upset,’ he said as he came back in, shutting the door firmly behind him. ‘Her health isn’t too good. Heart trouble.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  Thanet was sincere, but Talion gave him a sceptical glance as he sat down again. ‘Well, what did you want?’

  ‘You’ll have heard of Mr Martindale’s death?’

  A flicker of – what? Satisfaction? Some even stronger emotion? – in Talion’s eyes. He nodded. ‘Hit and run, wasn’t it.’

  Statement, not question, Thanet noticed. And still no hint of regret, false or otherwise.

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’

  Talion was looking disconcerted. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I say.’ Thanet paused. ‘It looks as though he was knocked down by the Ford van they use at the hotel as a general runabout.’

  He watched Talion apparently assimilate this information and remember that he had used the van himself last night.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So
naturally we are talking to everyone who drove it last night. As I understand you did.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. I did. What of it?’

  ‘Mrs Hamilton tells us that you had to go to check on some sheep that had got out on to the road.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You left at about a quarter to eight, I believe. What time did you get back?’

  Talion shrugged. ‘I wasn’t away long. Twenty, twenty-five minutes, perhaps.’

  ‘So you were back by, say, ten past eight?’

  ‘I suppose. What does it matter?’

  ‘I’m just trying to get a clear picture of the van’s movements last night. And naturally I have to ask you if you saw Mr Martindale, while you were out.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You’d seen him earlier in the day, though, I understand?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘One of the hotel guests saw you together.’

  Talion said nothing.

  ‘He said that you were arguing.’

  Still no response.

  ‘Having a row, in fact?’

  ‘What of it? Aren’t I entitled to have an argument with someone without the police taking an interest?’

  ‘Not,’ said Thanet, ‘if that someone happens to be killed later on that same day.’

  Talion stood up and, as if pulled by an invisible string, the dog rose too. ‘Now just a minute … What are you suggesting?’

  The dog’s hackles were rising, Thanet noticed. ‘Nothing, Mr Talion. Merely enquiring. What, exactly, was the row about?’

  ‘It’s none of your bloody business!’ he snarled.

  Lips curling back from teeth, dog and master looked remarkably alike. A low growl issued from deep in the animal’s throat.

  ‘That’s not true, I’m afraid,’ said Thanet mildly. ‘Everything to do with Mr Martindale is police business now. A suspicious death means a complete loss of privacy for everyone concerned.’