Lineham grinned. ‘Yes. And pretty.’
‘Why didn’t she come up with all this before?’
‘She was off duty the day the body was discovered, so he didn’t see her till yesterday.’
‘So what else did she hear?’
Lineham sat back and grinned. ‘Only that Martindale informed them that they were welcome to stay on and work for him, if they liked.’
‘His sister to run the hotel and Hamilton the estate?’
Lineham nodded.
‘So much for all that “I’m sure we could all have come to some amicable arrangement.” And, “It’s a good-sized cake, there was plenty for everybody.”’
Lineham was still nodding. ‘Quite. It’s a classic motive, isn’t it? Two thousand acres and Longford Hall.’
‘It certainly is. I must admit I was a bit suspicious when Mrs Hamilton told us about Sam Tiller and his bull. Oh, I know she put up a good show of reluctance, but I’m pretty sure that she still wouldn’t have given in if she hadn’t had a good reason.’
‘To deflect attention away from herself, you mean?’
‘Yes. Did the girl say how they reacted to the good news?’
‘Unfortunately she doesn’t know. She had to go and fetch the next course. But she didn’t think there’d been an open row about it, judging by their behaviour when she went back.’
‘I imagine they’d have been too subtle for that, tried persuasion first, or sought legal advice.’
‘Quite.’
‘We’ll have to talk to the Hamiltons again, obviously. If only we could find out what Martindale was up to after Mrs Byfleet left him at 7.15 … Well anyway, was there anything else?’
‘Swift is still trying to trace Martindale’s former lady loves. The address book was pretty useless, most of the stuff was way out of date. He thinks it might well take several more days yet. Some of the names were non-starters, of course. Just a postcard, with no address. Some of them were guests at the hotels Martindale stayed in, often some time ago, so it’s a long job. Records have been lost or destroyed or the hotel’s changed hands, or the women have moved …’
‘Yes yes, I get the picture. Has he managed to get any positive results yet?’
‘Well, some of them were manageresses or even the owners of the hotels, so they’re still around. Not surprising, really. Martindale was only fifty and he would have gone for middle-aged widows mostly, I should think. And if they owned hotels they wouldn’t be likely to have retired yet. But some of them are now married, so it’s proving a bit tricky. Swift’s made a list.’ Lineham shuffled through the papers on his desk and picked out a sheet of paper. ‘Here we are.’ He handed it over.
‘Mm.’ Thanet read out the names. ‘Mrs Mary Wix in Norwich, Mrs Elizabeth Johnson in Broadway, Mrs Jeannette Martin in Eastbourne, Mrs Brenda Taylor in Worthing, Mrs Caroline Dempster in Folkestone, Mrs Kathleen Jackson in Bournemouth.’ None of them rang a bell. But then, why should they, and what possible relevance could they have? Perhaps Swift was wasting his time. Thanet said so. ‘What d’you think, Mike?’
‘Well I agree, it does seem an awful lot of time spent to little purpose. I’m not quite sure why you thought it important.’
‘Not important, just a loose end to be followed up. But if it’s going to be as time-consuming as that I’m not sure it’s justified.’ Thanet tapped the report. ‘Did he actually learn anything useful from any of them?’
‘Not really. Reactions varied, apparently. One or two refused to talk. As soon as they heard Martindale’s name they slammed the phone down. One – Mrs Dempster, in Folkestone – was rather pathetic apparently, eager for news and pretty upset to hear he was dead. A couple more said they didn’t want to talk about it, they were now happily married … No, I agree. I don’t think there’s much point in wasting any more time on it.’
‘Pull him off it, then. That the lot?’
‘Not quite.’
There was a glint in Lineham’s eye which Thanet had seen before. It looked as though the sergeant had saved the most interesting item till last. ‘What have you got up your sleeve, Mike? Ah, don’t tell me. That sacked farmhand …’
‘Right!’ Lineham selected another report, opened it. But he didn’t hand it over. Obviously he wanted to tell Thanet himself, watch his reaction.
Thanet decided to indulge him. ‘Well?’
Lineham leaned forward. ‘Talion’s daugher Rose committed suicide when Martindale ditched her.’
EIGHTEEN
Thanet remembered the satisfaction in Talion’s eyes when Martindale’s death was mentioned, the man’s bitter hostility when questioned, the bleakness of the atmosphere in Home Farm, the frailty of Talion’s wife, his protectiveness towards her. Had Rose been their only child, he wondered? And had her suicide cast over her home and family a blight from which they had never recovered?
‘When was this?’
‘Nineteen sixty-four. She was seventeen.’
Bridget’s age. How would he feel about a man who drove her to suicide? Thanet shivered.
‘Explains why Talion was so hostile, doesn’t it, sir? Especially when we told him it was the hotel van that ran Martindale down and he knew he’d used it himself that night. No wonder he didn’t want to tell us what he had against him. He must have known we’d consider it a strong motive.’
‘True. All the same, it doesn’t necessarily mean he did it. He might quite simply not have wanted to have what must have been a very painful business resurrected.’ Thanet sighed. ‘I must say, Martindale didn’t do things by halves, did he? He seems to have left a trail of shattered lives behind him. Sam Tiller, Mrs Rankle, now Talion …’
‘We’ll have to go and see Talion again.’
‘Obviously.’ Thanet grimaced. ‘He’ll probably set the dog on us. But I want to see the Hamiltons first.’
‘Shall I fix up appointments?’
‘No. We’ll take pot luck. It doesn’t really matter which order we see them in. If we can’t find one we’ll try another.’
It was a real pleasure to drive out to Sutton-in-the-Weald this morning. The countryside basked in the sunshine and it was possible to believe that spring really was just around the corner. Soon now the sheep grazing in the fields would be surrounded by lambs, the woods and hedges misted over with the tender green of young foliage. Thanet loved to watch the progress of the seasons and pitied city dwellers who depended on parks and gardens for visible evidence of nature’s annual rhythms.
Longford Hall was at its best today, its rosy brick mellow in its serene setting of park and woodland. Far away over to the right tiny figures toiled on the Sisyphean task of clearing up the storm damage. Thanet wondered aloud if Hamilton were among them.
‘Doesn’t matter if he is. We can see Mrs Hamilton first.’
‘If she’s there.’
She wasn’t, but was due back shortly, apparently. Thanet had noticed Toby Fever’s car outside and thought that while they were waiting they might take the opportunity to clear up one or two minor points with him and Tessa.
The receptionist frowned. ‘I’m not sure where they are. I think they said they were going up to see Nanny.’
Nanny! Thanet’s ears pricked up. He wondered if, by any stroke of luck, she had also been Delia and Leo’s nanny. Sometimes, in families like this one, the nanny became so much part of the household that she stayed on when her charges were grown up and then looked after their children. Such elderly retainers were a dying breed, of course. Today’s nannies rarely stayed more than a few years at most, then moved on to fresher and perhaps more lucrative pastures. But in a house like this … ‘Where would we find her?’
‘I’m not sure that … Oh, I don’t suppose she’d mind.’ The girl laughed. ‘In fact, come to think of it, she’d probably enjoy it! She’s pretty lively still, it’s only her arthritis that keeps her confined to her rooms. She’s in the day nursery. I’ll get someone to show you.’
A trim housemaid led the way up seemin
gly endless flights of stairs and along interminable corridors to a bright, sunny room on the south-east side of the house. At this hour in February the sun was streaming in and Thanet blinked, momentarily dazzled. The room seemed full of people but when his vision cleared he saw that there were only four: Adam, Tessa, Toby and an elderly woman in an orthopaedic wing chair near the fire. The room was comfortably but plainly furnished with sturdy central table and chairs and a number of sagging armchairs with worn loose covers. Adam and Tessa were seated in two of them and Toby was sprawled on the hearthrug in front of the fire, which burned brightly in a black Victorian cast-iron grate surrounded by glazed green tiles with animal motifs. A tall brass fireguard stood in front of it, relic of the days when the room really was a nursery and now presumably retained as a safeguard against the nanny’s disability.
They were all clearly enjoying this cosy relaxed domestic interlude. They had been sharing a joke and the faces they turned towards the two policemen were still smiling.
‘Inspector!’ Adam jumped up. ‘Allow me to introduce you to the love of my life, Nanny Foster. Nanny, this is Inspector Thanet, that I was telling you about, and his faithful sidekick, Sergeant Lineham!’
Gone were the dandy and the waif. Today Adam was very much the son of the house in cavalry twill trousers, tattersall shirt, old school tie and tweed sports jacket. Which persona would eventually emerge? Thanet wondered. Tessa, too, looked different today. The stiff spikes of hair were now horizontal instead of vertical, sticking out above her ears on either side, as if a mysterious force had visited her in the night, altering their disposition. If anything her mini was even more minimal; the expanse of inner thigh seemed to go on for ever, leaving little to the imagination.
‘That’s enough, Adam,’ said the woman, smiling. ‘The Inspector will think I never taught you any manners.’
She was alarmingly frail, her thin body bent and twisted by the disabling disease, her hands as gnarled and misshapen as old tree roots. But there was plenty of evidence that she was well looked after. She was neat and clean, her sparse white hair neatly combed back into a bun. Beside her chair was an adjustable spotlight on a stand and a three-tiered trolley laden with books, magazines, radio, photograph albums, and all the cluttered pill and potion paraphernalia of an invalid’s day. Nearby stood a hospital-type table which would swivel across her knees. On it was a half-completed jigsaw.
They all settled down, Thanet and Lineham on upright chairs at the table.
‘I hope you don’t mind us intruding, Miss Foster, but there are one or two minor details we wanted to check,’ said Thanet. But his mind was only partly on what he was saying. When he’d come in just then and glimpsed Toby from that unfamiliar angle he had once again experienced that curious shock of recognition. He had seen the young man before, he was certain of it. But where? Toby was still on the floor but was now sitting up, elbows hooked over knees, leaning back against Tessa’s armchair. Thanet glanced at him again and suddenly it came to him. Of course!
‘Not at all. The children have told me about you and it’s nice to meet you in the flesh, though I could wish it was for a happier reason.’ Her face was sombre.
‘You’ve been here a long time?’ The question was mechanical. Thanet was still preoccupied with his revelation. He realised that Lineham, always sensitive to the nuances of his behaviour, had noticed and given him a questioning glance.
‘Forty-six years. I came when Leo was four.’ Briefly her face contorted and her lower lip trembled.
With an effort Thanet focused his mind on the conversation. He would think about the implications of his discovery later. Registering her distress he guessed that she was remembering those early, presumably happy days and wondered if this was, after all, a good idea. It was in any case difficult to talk to her as he would wish, with the young people present.
‘He had wings and a halo then, didn’t he, Nanny?’ This was Tessa.
Adam laughed. ‘Used to bore the pants off us with stories of Ma and Uncle Leo, didn’t you, Nanny?’
‘All very well for you to laugh, you two, but they were happy days. Right up until your grandmother died.’
‘Ta-ra-ra, ra-ra ra ra.’ Adam scraped away at an imaginary violin.
‘Adam!’ she said sharply and for once he actually looked a little shamefaced.
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ she snapped. ‘It’s all very well for you, brought up with the security of your mother and father behind you. Your Uncle Leo wasn’t so lucky.’
Tessa sighed. This was obviously an old theme, retold so often that for them it had lost its impact. ‘Nanny’s trying to say that after Grandmother died Uncle Leo became a Deprived Child.’
‘He did!’ said the old lady. She put her hands on the arms of the chair and shifted herself into an almost imperceptibly different position.
Thanet recognised the signs. She was settling herself into a narrative mood. He hoped none of the young people would sabotage it.
Tessa and Adam exchanged glances. Shall we go?
Thanet willed them to leave but to his disappointment they stayed, through sheer inertia he imagined. It was comfortable in here and any entertainment was better than none. Tessa presumably didn’t have a job, but what about Toby?
As if he had tuned in to Thanet’s question Toby uncurled himself and stood up. ‘I’d better be off. I’m supposed to be halfway to Maidstone by now and I’ll have Dad on my tail. No,’ to Tessa, ‘don’t bother to come down. I’ll see you tonight. About half seven?’
She nodded. ‘Fine.’
Thanet glanced at Lineham and gave an almost imperceptible nod at the door. Go and ask him.
Unobtrusively Lineham followed Toby out. Thanet saw that Tessa was frowning. The little exchange had not escaped her.
‘Sorry, Miss Foster,’ he said. ‘You were saying, about Mr Martindale …?’
‘He was unlucky, that’s all. As so often happens, the father favoured the daughter and the mother the son. Leo was the apple of Mrs Martindale’s eye and I’m afraid she spoiled him rather. Over-indulged him. I don’t blame her, mind, it was always very hard to say no to Leo. He was such a handsome lad, he could have charmed the birds out of the trees if he’d set his mind to it. But I’m afraid it set his father against him. It was the old story, really, I’ve seen it so often, the father jealous of the son … So when Mrs Martindale died, when Leo was twelve, he had a rough time.’
‘In what way?’
‘He was shoved off to boarding school for a start,’ said Adam. ‘Like poor little me.’
‘You hadn’t just lost your mother,’ said Miss Foster reprovingly. ‘And you’d boarded at your prep school, too. Leo had been a day boy until then.’ She shook her head. ‘Of course, he hated it, just went haywire. Personally, I think his behaviour was so impossible because he was hoping they’d throw him out and he could live at home again. He loved it here. But his father wasn’t having that. Every time Leo was expelled he was just sent off to another school.’
Lineham came back in and sat down again.
‘Every time?’ said Thanet.
‘Well, it sounds worse than it actually was. He was expelled from three. After that I think it dawned on him that there really wasn’t much point, he might as well settle down. But he was never happy. Did as little work as possible and then went to Cirencester, where he started the Estate Management course. Threw it in at the end of the first year and came home, lazed around doing nothing very much. His mother had left him enough for him not to have to work.’
‘Sounds great!’ said Adam. ‘Wish somebody’d leave me enough to doss around and do nothing.’
‘You’d be bored out of your tiny mind by the end of the first week,’ said Tessa. ‘I know. I’ve tried it. I’m off to Art College in September,’ she said to Thanet, her eyes alight with the first sign of enthusiasm she had shown.
‘Good!’ he said. ‘Where?’
‘St Martin’s School of Art.’ There was pride in her voi
ce now.
Obviously he had done her an injustice and he was careful not to sound condescending as he said, ‘You must be good. It’s very difficult to get in, I believe. Fashion?’
‘Textile design.’
‘It’s all very well for you,’ said Adam sulkily. ‘You’ve always known what you wanted to do. There’s nothing that really grabs me like that.’
‘Give it time,’ said Miss Foster, smiling. ‘Just keep on doing as well as you are at school and who knows, you could end up Prime Minister!’
‘Heaven forbid!’ said Tessa. ‘The imagination boggles!’
‘I don’t suppose,’ said Thanet, anxious to lead the conversation back to Martindale, ‘that Mr Martindale senior was too pleased, when his son dropped out of college.’
‘He was furious. Barely spoke to him for weeks. There was always a clash of personalities between them but after that things were worse than ever. Mr Martindale was a good employer and I don’t really like saying this, but he seemed to have this blind spot as far as Leo was concerned; couldn’t see anything good in him at all. And that just made Leo behave more badly.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘It was a vicious circle, really.’
‘And once he’d set his foot on the slippery slope …’ said Adam. He made a sliding motion with his hand. ‘Oops, it was downhill all the way.’
‘I’ve never discovered why he finally went away for good,’ said Thanet. He’d be interested to hear Miss Foster’s version of the rift between father and son.
Miss Foster pursed her lips and shook her head.
‘Simple,’ drawled Tessa. ‘Oh do stop looking so disapproving, Nanny. If we don’t tell the Inspector someone else will. Can’t you see, he’s not the type to give up? It happened really because he ran out of money. Grandmother Martindale had apparently been rather unwise and instead of setting up a trust fund from which he had the income until he reached the age of wisdom – though from what we know of Uncle Leo I don’t suppose he ever would have – she left him a capital sum outright. He had a whale of a time: wine, women, song, fast cars, expensive clothes, the lot. Grandfather kept on baling him out of debt but when he started betting on the gee-gees it was the last straw. I believe he gave him one more chance and when he finally blew it, to the tune of several thousand pounds – and that was an awful lot of money in those days – that was it. Grandfather did the “Never darken my doors again” act, and Uncle Leo never did.’ She shrugged. ‘We always felt deprived about that, didn’t we, Adam, thought our lives had lacked a certain spice.’
Dead by Morning Page 17
