Untimely Graves

by Marjorie Eccles

  Before taking his leave of Easterbrook, Mayo said, ‘I’d better have some idea what Mr Wetherby’s duties as Bursar were.’ He had already been given the details of how long he had worked at the school, his age, that he was married with a grown-up son, and had lived with his wife in a house owned by the school a couple of miles away, just off Tilbourne Road, adjacent to the hospital.

  ‘He reported to the school Secretary, who is Head of Administration, but he was in charge of the financial arrangements of the school as well as overseeing its general domestic management, and for communication and public relations, that sort of thing. Make no mistake about it,’ added the Headmaster smoothly, steepling his well-manicured hands, ‘he was an excellent administrator — I can think of no one more fitted for the post of Bursar. The loss to the school will be indescribable.’

  He hadn’t liked the man. The cool, scrupulously fair, utterly impersonal appraisal didn’t disguise that, nor hide the fact that the Head seemed slightly more affronted by Wetherby being killed on school premises than by his having lost his life.

  ‘He seems to have had a wide remit.’

  ‘Maybe so, but he had a staff of people working under him who took over various responsibilities, and we also have an Assistant Bursar.’

  ‘Who I assume will be taking over Mr Wetherby’s duties?’

  ‘For the moment,’ said Easterbrook, after a pause. ‘His name’s Riach, John Riach, he’ll give you all the help you need. Meanwhile –’ he rose from behind his desk to indicate the interview was at an end – ‘I have a sixth-form seminar due in a few moments. If I can be of further use, don’t hesitate to ask.’

  In one way it was awkward that he knew Daphne, Mayo thought, albeit not very well, having met her only through the few police social events George had been persuaded to attend, along with his wife. But she was, after all, married to a policeman, and knew the necessity for questioning. Which was why Mayo felt able to say, without dissembling, even though he knew that it wasn’t exactly going to help her banish the ghastly memory of the moment, ‘I’d like you to try and tell me, if you will, exactly what you saw when you went in.’

  He hadn’t underestimated her. She said steadily, ‘I saw he was dead, straight away. No one could still have been alive with his face shot away like that.’

  ‘You were able to see his face, then?’

  Even then she didn’t flinch, though she hesitated fractionally.

  ‘Yes. He’d slumped forward over the desk and his head had fallen sideways. And then I saw there was something stuffed into his mouth. It appeared to be paper of some sort. It – that was somehow more horrible than – all the rest of it.’

  He could almost feel her ordering herself to breathe deeply, not to think of the carnage that had confronted her, which must be there, imprinted on her retina, even if she closed her eyes. ‘Yes, it was,’ he agreed, reflecting on the sort of person who could shoot someone in cold blood and then, while the blood was doubtless still pouring from what was left of his mouth, stuff a crumpled ball of paper into it.

  Daphne had tapped on the door and waited, and when Wetherby didn’t bark out his usual ‘Come!’ she’d gone in, thinking the office would be empty, and stepped straight on to the set of a horror film.

  At first, she’d thought that he was, unthinkably for Wetherby, asleep, but the notion was almost immediately dispelled by the metallic smell of blood which hit the back of her throat, making her gag, at the same time as she saw the blood seeping all over the desk …

  ‘For obvious reasons, we haven’t been able to read what was on the paper yet, it’s gone down to the lab to be treated for prints and so on, but it appears to have been torn from several stapled-together sheets which he seems to have been reading at the time.’ Mayo showed Daphne the sheaf of papers, now encased in transparent plastic, from which the top sheet was missing.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, after a quick glance. ‘That’s a report he’d written. It was something else which was on the agenda for this afternoon. There were negotiations pending for the purchase of a house in Kelsey Road. The school’s already bought three along there, and they want that one as well. It’s unfortunate that the owner’s not for selling. We recently wrote to her again, making her a better offer, but we had a reply only this morning from her nephew, writing on her behalf, that there was no possibility of her agreeing. The house belongs to Dorrie Lockett.’

  He knew Dorrie, if only by sight and reputation. Everyone in Lavenstock knew Dorrie – but he hadn’t heard of the proposed purchase of her house.

  He saw Daphne was hesitating. ‘I suppose I’d better tell you. Someone else will, if I don’t. She came here about midday, demanding to see the Bursar, waving his last letter. I don’t think she could have known that her nephew had already written. Mr Wetherby saw her in his office. I don’t know what passed between them, though I can make a guess. There were raised voices, and eventually she stormed out.’

  She looked almost sorry she’d spoken. ‘Of course, it was nothing. She’s a dear, really, and I’d be furious if someone tried to turf me out of my house. It’s a maddening situation for the school, of course.’

  There was always one, it seemed, in such circumstances: someone who sat there, refusing to move, chained themselves to a tree, barricaded themselves indoors and had to be forcibly evicted: he had, on occasions, been a reluctant part of the removal process himself. But he was, with certain exceptions, nearly always on the side of the protestors. The suffering of the few for the convenience of the many had never been his philosophy.

  ‘Why does the school want these houses?’

  He listened with quiet attention while Daphne explained the situation to him: at present, the one and only entrance to the school was on Tilbourne Road, which had been all right when the school was built, but with the amount of traffic now passing along there, was highly inconvenient for all concerned, especially when anyone wanted to make a right turn into the gates. He nodded, knowing this to his cost, having been held up along that road more times than he could count, for that very reason. He could well appreciate the necessity for another entrance. The school grounds, however, said Daphne, formed a rough triangle, its three sides being the traffic-laden Tilbourne Road; Vanson Hill, the road on which the hospital was situated; and on the third side Kelsey Road, where it was hoped to build the proposed new entrance.

  ‘And what about the present one?’

  ‘Oh, that’ll come down, along with all the buildings on this side, to make space for the new science block.’

  From where he sat, Mayo could see out through the window and across the quadrangle. A carefully tended lawn, smooth as green velvet, with brick paths intersecting it, a small lily-pond in the centre, and venerable-looking buildings all round. A testament to Victorian durability, the buildings looked gracious and solid, set to last another century and a half, at least. He was taken aback at the idea of knocking any of them down, despite knowing that computers and laboratory equipment were more important for contemporary studies at the beginning of this new millennium than a few out-of-date buildings, however agedistinguished and hallowed by precedent.

  ‘Demolish them? That won’t go down very well with the town worthies.’

  ‘The town worthies don’t have to work here,’ Daphne said shortly. ‘If they did, they’d realise what an old rabbit warren it is, what a ratty state this side of the quad at least is in.’

  Lavenstock was proud of nurturing within its bosom an institution which, if not among the top flight of public schools, could boast of numbering among its alumni a First World War poet, a famous fashion photographer, a reactionary right-wing MP, a New Labour cabinet minister, and a TV chef. As long as the ratepayers didn’t have to contribute to its upkeep, they liked the general ambience created by the old buildings, which conferred on Lavenstock a prestigious dignity that helped to dispel a Black Country image most felt was unwarranted: the town did, after all, merely touch fingertips with that unlovely sprawl.

&
nbsp; But if the buildings comprising the rest of the north-facing side of the quad were anything like the offices he’d already seen, Mayo was forced to acknowledge the school had problems. Daphne’s office, where they were sitting, was a Dickensian affair, still sporting, incredibly, an old sloping desk and a high stool, though they’d been pushed into a corner to make room for a modern desk, a fax machine and state-of-the-art computer facilities. The room was low-ceilinged and dark, despite panels in the door having been removed and glass substituted. The windows overlooking the quad were leaded and looked picturesque but rattled in their dark wood frames, the floor was of oak boards a foot wide but worn into depressions in various places by the passage of numberless feet. Steel filing cabinets stood against the panelled dado where the walls above had a problem with peeling plaster. Crude industrial shelving screwed to it held dusty piles of files. The outer office, where the two juniors worked, was similarly uninspired. And, it had to be said, Wetherby’s own office wasn’t much better.

  ‘Apart from anything else,’ Daphne went on, ‘a new entrance would be better from a security point of view. Mr Wetherby was always going on about it, since he was responsible for security arrangements.’

  Reflecting on this irony, Mayo recollected a door situated in the far wall of Wetherby’s office which had seemed to him to have been the killer’s most likely mode of entry. It had, however, been locked when they arrived, and Daphne swore it was kept locked at all times. But she had no idea where the key was, or even if one still existed. It was never opened under any circumstances, because it led on to a windowless corridor which eventually emerged in one of the two identical lodges flanking the main Tilbourne Road entrance. All the same, it was an easy enough method of unauthorised entry for anyone inclined, since it had been ascertained that only one of the lodges had a porter, and the other was used for dumping parcels and casual deliveries, and was often left unlocked. Both had similar blank corridors leading off, running behind what formed offices for the various administrative functions of the school, the only doors being right at the very end of each corridor wing, the route from the unmanned lodge emerging into the Bursar’s offices, the other into the stationery stores.

  Was it indeed through that allegedly locked door the killer had come? Or through the usual door, via the quad and the outer office? In the Bursar’s office, a large, steel-framed mirror hung several feet further along the wall which faced his desk. Looking up from his work, he would have been able to see, in reflection, through the glass-panelled door, right into the outer office. So also would anyone standing outside the door have been clearly visible to him. His killer could have been known to Wetherby then, to the extent that he’d been free to walk behind him and fire the fatal shot, the bullet entering just behind the right ear.

  Mayo had one more question to ask before he left: ‘Can you think of anyone who might have had some grudge against Mr Wetherby, anyone likely to have done this?’ A simple question, the answer to which was often glaringly apparent to all who knew the victim; in most murders, the obvious suspect was quite likely to be the correct one.

  Daphne gave the same answer to his question as nearly everyone did, at first, ‘Not to want to kill him, no, surely not that!’ Then she added, ‘Not even Dorrie Lockett. She might have been furious with him, but I can’t imagine her storming back with a gun and shooting him!’

  ‘You mean he was well liked?’ But her initial reaction had told him what she’d meant. He helped her out by adding, ‘What sort of man was he, then?’

  She thought for a moment or two before answering. ‘He was very efficient, and he expected the same from everyone else, otherwise you got a lecture. He could be very sarcastic, quite cutting, in fact, and he liked the sound of his own voice – though he wasn’t the only one around here that applies to!’ She added fairly, ‘Most people thought him charming.’

  ‘Most people?’

  ‘Yes, well, that didn’t include me,’ she said truthfully after a moment. ‘He was really just too – too full of himself. You know the sort. Good-looking, smooth, persuasive …’ She took a deep breath. ‘But it wasn’t only that. If you want the truth, I thought there was something – creepy about him. No, I don’t mean obviously weird. I don’t know what it was, but it made my skin crawl. How somebody as nice as Mrs Wetherby could stand him, I don’t know. Poor woman.’

  ‘Yes, poor woman.’ She’d already been told. Abigail Moon was busy setting up the enquiry at the moment, then he would go along with her, probably this evening, to see Mrs Wetherby again. Rotten job, one he hated, but one he made himself do. ‘Is she likely to be able to cope?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ Daphne said slowly.

  Damn silly question, really. One which nobody could answer with certainty. Shock took people differently. Apparently strong people went to pieces, those you’d expect to succumb found unexpected sources of courage, or stoicism.

  ‘I don’t know her very well,’ Daphne went on. ‘I don’t think anyone does, except perhaps maybe John Riach, and that only because he worked closely with Mr Wetherby.’

  ‘Riach? He’s the Assistant Bursar, isn’t he?’

  She nodded. ‘She took part in school affairs, always came to any function with the Bursar – and she always helps to make wonderful costumes for the school drama group – in fact, she once told me she makes all her own clothes, though you’d never guess. Quite artistic, really, I believe. But she doesn’t join in the community, not like the other school wives. I sometimes wonder if she isn’t rather shy.’

  He watched her finish her tea. He thought there was more she might have said, had she been so inclined, but she put her cup back in the saucer with a little sigh, and said nothing. He looked at the weak, greyish mixture in his own cup and ventured a sip. Apart from the fact that it was now cold, he’d been right to suspect it. He pushed it away, deciding he’d rather die some other way.

  10

  Joe Totterbridge never used the telephone if he could possibly avoid it. He made Eileen do it for him instead. Even though he couldn’t do that today, he still had no inclination to bestir himself. But the alternative was worse, it would mean going all the way up to Kelsey Road to tell Dorrie Lockett, and he wasn’t used to walking all round the universe, like Eileen was. His heart would probably give out, toiling up that hill. For a moment he contemplated just ignoring his promise to his wife – Dorrie Lockett would know something was wrong soon enough when Eileen didn’t turn up tomorrow. But then she’d likely telephone for an explanation, probably disturb him just when he was watching breakfast TV.

  He’d just have to do it, after he’d had a beer and a sandwich. If he could find where Eileen kept the corned beef …

  ‘Eileen’s not coming for a bit,’ Dorrie heard him shout down the phone when she left the supper table to answer it.

  ‘Why, what’s wrong, Joe?’ She had to hold the phone away from her ear as she listened to the answer. Unaccustomed to telephoning, Joe remained unshaken in his belief that it was necessary to bellow in order to be heard so far away.

  ‘Her’s in hospital, they took her in last night. Her hip give out and her slipped and fell and banged her head on the cooker. Knocked herself out, her did.’

  ‘Good heavens, she’s all right now, I hope?’

  ‘Oh ar, her come round OK, but they’re not letting her out, seeing as how they’ve got her in there at last,’ Joe said, as if his wife were some wild animal which had been evading capture for weeks.

  ‘You mean they’re going to do her hip while she’s in?’

  ‘Ar. Not afore time, neither.’ His voice quavered with self-pity. ‘Though how I’m expected to manage without her I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll cope well enough, Joe, a resourceful man like you. Poor Eileen! But she’s been waiting long enough for that operation. Tell her I’ll be straight along to see her, and not even to think about coming back.’

  ‘Oh, her’ll be back soon enough, orright,’ Joe said hastily. ‘We couldn�
��t hardly make ends meet without her bit of money.’

  ‘Joe Totterbridge,’ said Dorrie with conviction, when she’d returned to her supper and given Sam the news, ‘is a moron. He seems to think Eileen will be back on her knees scrubbing floors next week. Personally, I can’t see her wanting to come back ever, not to clean, I mean, though I hope she’ll still come as a friend.’ Her momentary forthrightness suddenly deserted her, to be replaced by a lost, forsaken look. She pushed aside what was left of her shepherd’s pie. ‘Whatever will I do without her? We’ve known each other over fifty years.’

  ‘Mrs Totty’ll never desert you, perish the thought! She’ll be back, if it’s only for a gossip. I’ll drive you up to the hospital whenever you want to visit. But meanwhile, what are you going to do about getting some replacement help?’

  ‘Replacement?’ Dorrie looked alarmed. ‘Oh, we can surely manage! Well, I mean – can’t we – well, tackle this sort of thing between us for the time being?’ She looked hopefully at Sam.

  ‘Mmm.’ Sam had no more idea how to tackle that sort of thing than Dorrie, and even less enthusiasm for it, but neither did he relish the prospect of living in Dorrie-engendered chaos. He’d no objection to getting the garden into shape, but there he drew the line. There was his book to think of, too, as she’d reminded him. ‘Pass me the Yellow Pages.’

  He was dead.

  They would be coming to interview her and they would expect her to be distraught, the grieving wife. Whereas Hannah felt nothing, yet, not even the sense of freedom she should at least have been allowed to feel. She should feel elated, and would, later. But meanwhile, she couldn’t play the part, certainly not alone.