Essex Poison

by Ian Sansom

  ‘Exactly!’ said Morley. ‘That’s right! The pathos of things. And Mr Starling was just explaining about his life here and in Japan: he makes his own beer and wine, you know – he’s almost entirely self-sufficient.’

  ‘How marvellous,’ said Miriam, gazing round at the rather spartan surroundings. ‘One can clearly achieve quite a … remarkable state of … cosiness by the efforts of one’s own hand.’

  ‘Well, we do our best,’ said Mr Starling.

  ‘Mono no aware indeed,’ said Miriam.

  Morley then began asking Mr Starling – in English, thank goodness – about William Cobbett, and about Cottage Economy, and about nutting and blackberrying, but neither Miriam nor I could bear the prospect of any more cottaging talk, in whatever language.

  ‘I wonder if we might see the rest of your garden, Mr Starling?’ suggested Miriam.

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Mr Starling. ‘Do come through.’

  Miriam turned and gave me a triumphant wink.

  The front room led into the kitchen, which had the usual big black range, an old sink propped up on bricks, a tiny table, two chairs, and a ham wrapped in muslin hanging by the back door. There was a washboard in a bucket in the sink, thick with fresh white suds.

  ‘Oh, I do hope we’re not disturbing you,’ said Morley.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Mr Starling. ‘Sunday’s our wash day.’ There were dark uniforms and white shirts hung over by the window.

  ‘If your garden here is as spectacular as the garden at the front,’ said Morley, ‘I really do think you have created something quite unique.’

  ‘Well, thank you. I don’t know if we can live up to that billing!’ said Mr Starling. ‘But let me show you.’ And he opened the door to the rear of the cottage.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Morley.

  The garden at the back of the cottage was quite unlike the garden at the front. It looked at first to be more like a traditional cottage garden: there were flowerbeds and vegetable beds, a hen house, a little rough hut that looked to contain some geese, but then one noticed something rather strange. It took a few moments to work out what it was but once it was obvious it was really very obvious: the garden appeared to have no boundaries whatsoever; there seemed to be no fences nor hedges nor walls separating the cottage garden from the vast Essex landscape beyond. This gave the garden the impression of limitless expanse, as if it were a part of the landscape rather than separate from it, the cultivated plants merging with the natural fauna and flora, clumps of cultivated this clustering with wild circles and drifts of natural that. Again, Morley was terribly impressed.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he repeated. ‘Well, well, well. Quite extraordinary. An open garden? Just on a practical point: how do you deter the foxes and the vermin?’

  ‘We’re very vigilant,’ said Mr Starling. ‘We do have to be careful.’

  ‘You’d have to be,’ said Morley. ‘Wide open to attack. This is the very opposite of what we might usually expect a garden to be, is it not?’

  ‘I’d never really thought of it like that,’ said Mr Starling.

  ‘Yes,’ said Morley, who had taken off along a pathway through the grass, like a dog having picked up a scent, the three of us hurrying along behind him. ‘I mean, the derivation of the English word “garden” is – I think I’m right in saying, aren’t I, Sefton? – closely associated with notions of a boundary, is it not? From the Old English geard, meaning “fence”, the Vulgar Latin gardinum, meaning “enclosure” and of course the Hebrew origin of the word “garden”, which is … Miriam?’ He clicked his fingers, as if summoning a waiter, or a thought. Morley occasionally had these little lapses, when he required a helping hand. ‘The original Hebrew?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t recall the original Hebrew, Father.’ Miriam was not always able or willing to provide a helping hand and alas my Hebrew was not all it could be.

  ‘Ah, well. Anyway. You have quite revolutionised my idea of the garden, Mr Starling! You have turned it upside down and inside out, as it were.’

  ‘That’s terribly kind of you, Mr Morley. I really don’t know what to say. All we’re trying to do here is to create our own little piece of heaven.’

  It looked as though someone in the near distance was burning leaves; you could only just see them through the thick grey smog. I realised now that Morley was striding on towards them, his curiosity disguising his curiosity.

  ‘Well, you have quite succeeded, sir. Paradise haunts your garden.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Morley,’ said Mr Starling. ‘That’s very kind. But there’s really no need to go any further now.’ I thought a note of panic had perhaps crept into his voice. ‘We should really stop here.’

  ‘Oh no, let’s go on!’ said Morley. ‘There’s more to explore, isn’t there?’

  Starling hadn’t moved. Morley was surging on. He called back.

  ‘Is this your co-creator perhaps, up ahead?’ said Morley, as he approached the figure in the smog. ‘The Eve to your Adam?’

  As we grew closer the figure stepped out of the fog towards us. It was PC Adkins.

  None of us said anything for a moment. Miriam gave me a look, which I did not return. And then Mr Starling caught up with us and broke the silence.

  ‘This is Sidney,’ he said. ‘He does a lot of the heavy work for me in the garden.’

  ‘We met at West Mersea,’ said PC Adkins, who was dressed in an old blue boiler suit, which, I have to say, rather gave him the appearance of a criminal.

  ‘Yes, yes. Indeed. That’s right,’ said Morley, without any hint of surprise or embarrassment. ‘How lovely to see you again! How’s the investigation going into the death of Arthur Marden? I hope you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘Not at all, sir,’ said Adkins. ‘Very well, thank you, sir.’

  ‘Good. Any leads at all?’

  ‘We’re following several lines of enquiry.’

  ‘Nothing at all about a batch of bad oysters, I suppose?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware,’ said PC Adkins.

  ‘I never expected there would be,’ said Morley. ‘Absolute nonsense.’

  ‘Really?’ said Mr Starling.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Morley. ‘Never believed it for a minute. Total fantasy. Boadicea died from eating poisonous leaves in Epping Forest, I think. But Marden died of some natural cause.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure you’re right,’ said Mr Starling. ‘Natural cause.’

  ‘Almost certainly,’ said Morley. ‘Either that … or he was murdered.’

  ‘Murdered?’ said PC Adkins. Did he exchange a glance with Starling? I can’t recall exactly.

  ‘Which is highly unlikely,’ said Morley. ‘As my daughter keeps telling me. Anyway,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘I was just saying to Mr Starling here that you have created something quite remarkable in these gardens, Constable. Quite unexpected and quite quite delightful.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said PC Adkins.

  ‘The notion of a garden with aesthetic as well as utilitarian features is one of many things we might learn from the East, don’t you think, Mr Starling?’

  ‘I do, Mr Morley, yes.’

  ‘I think it’s sometimes assumed that there is perhaps only one way of making a garden,’ he said, ‘but one realises by your fine example here that there are of course many possibilities and many paths, as it were, to pleasure. The gardens of the Persians, the Islamic garden – a rich variety of possibilities available to us all, if only we might imagine. To have created one remarkable garden would be something, Mr Starling, but to have made two!’

  ‘I can’t claim responsibility for them both, alas,’ said Mr Starling. ‘I’m responsible for the front and Sidney is responsible for the rear.’

  ‘And what a rear, Constable!’ said Morley, to Miriam’s dismay. ‘What a rear you have here!’

  ‘You should have seen it in the height of the season, Mr Morley,’ said PC Adkins. ‘The green sea kale, the red poppies, yellow sedu
m. Lavender, santolina.’

  ‘I’m sure it was magnificent,’ enthused Morley. ‘Congratulations.’

  After some dreary discussion about the finer points of plantsmanship we eventually began walking back up to the house, Morley successfully having taken Mr Starling and PC Adkins entirely into his confidence. I could never quite distinguish Morley’s tactics from his personality: the two were inextricably linked.

  ‘Now, just going back to Arthur Marden for a moment,’ he said, as we’d almost reached the cottage. Was this a ploy, or was it pure disinterested enquiry? ‘I’d be intrigued to know what you two fellows made of him?’

  ‘Made of him?’ said Mr Starling.

  ‘Yes. I just wondered if the poor chap had any, you know, any enemies at all?’

  ‘Enemies?’ said Mr Starling.

  ‘People who might have been glad to see him go? Anyone who had – shall we say – “differences” with him?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware,’ said Mr Starling. PC Adkins remained silent. ‘He was an upstanding upholder of the traditional values of Colchester and the council.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Morley. ‘Man after my own heart.’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ said Starling.

  ‘It’s just we heard this chap Dunbar in the council chamber, didn’t we, Sefton? Quite a performance he put up, making all sorts of accusations about Marden.’

  ‘Oh well, I think it’s common knowledge that Basil had a grudge against Marden,’ said Mr Starling.

  ‘And who is this Basil with a grudge?’ said Miriam, who had remained unusually quiet during the course of our conversation. She seemed quite fascinated by PC Adkins.

  ‘This Basil Withagrudge is Basil Dunbar, my dear, an independent councillor,’ said Morley. ‘Bit of a loose cannon, would that be a fair description, Mr Starling?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘He struck me as an angry man, I have to say,’ said Morley, ‘but not as someone capable of murder.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any suggestion that Mr Dunbar was implicated in the death of Mr Marden,’ said PC Adkins.

  ‘No, no,’ said Morley. ‘I’m not suggesting he was. That would be quite preposterous. Doubtless you’ve looked into all of this anyway?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, Mr Morley.’

  ‘No, no, quite understandable. I’ve said from the very beginning that there is no way that Marden died from eating a bad oyster. Utterly ridiculous. The poor fellow either died of natural causes – or, as I say, he was bumped off.’

  ‘Bumped off?’ said PC Adkins sceptically.

  ‘Possibly by his daughter.’

  ‘His daughter?’

  ‘Florence?’ said Starling. ‘You think Florence killed her father?’

  ‘She has disappeared, I believe. Nowhere to be found.’

  ‘That hardly makes her a suspect,’ said PC Adkins.

  ‘Does it not?’ said Morley. ‘Well, if it doesn’t I don’t know what does.’

  ‘Motive?’ said PC Adkins. ‘Opportunity?’

  ‘Motive for a daughter to kill her father?’ said Miriam. ‘I can’t think of any possible motive. Can you, Father?’

  ‘I think in the end we’ll find that Marden died of a bad oyster,’ said PC Adkins reassuringly.

  ‘That affected only him?’ said Morley. ‘In which case it was either jolly bad luck or it was carefully administered to him by someone?’ He looked pointedly at Starling, who looked pointedly away.

  ‘Do excuse my father, gentlemen. He reads a lot of crime novels from America,’ said Miriam. ‘He sometimes confuses fiction with reality. Come along now, Father.’

  ‘It’s been a pleasure,’ said Mr Starling.

  ‘Very nice to meet you again, PC Adkins,’ said Morley.

  ‘Likewise,’ said Adkins.

  We drove away from the cottage with Starling and Adkins standing together by their fine English border, waving us goodbye.

  ‘Father!’ said Miriam. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I’m trying to flush out the truth about the death of Arthur Marden.’

  ‘By embarrassing and humiliating those two men?’

  ‘Embarrassing and humiliating? Does it not strike you as strange that the man questioned by police about the death of Arthur Marden not twenty-four hours ago has a serving police officer involved in the investigation assisting him in his garden? One’s suspicions are aroused, surely?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s those suspicions it arouses, Father.’

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The pair of them are living together, Father.’

  ‘Living together?’ said Morley.

  ‘Yes, living together, Father.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you think it’s possibly their living arrangements that Marden objected to?’ I asked.

  ‘Why on earth would anyone object to that?’ asked Morley. ‘Two men living together, pursuing their cottaging dream?’

  ‘Oh, Father,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Like bachelor farmers?’ continued Morley. ‘Why would anyone possibly object to that?’

  We drove on in silence for some time, Morley mulling over some notes in his notebook.

  ‘I still have a rather queer feeling about the death of Arthur Marden,’ said Morley.

  ‘You’re not the only one,’ said Miriam.

  ‘I wonder if we might just pop in and say hello to Mr Dunbar?’

  CHAPTER 21

  PROOF! PROOF!

  BASIL DUNBAR lived in an old narrow house by the Balkerne Gate, which was once of course – I say of course, though admittedly I had never heard of it and had absolutely no idea – the Roman west entrance to Colchester. (For anyone as ignorant as I was, see Morley’s extensive remarks about the Balkerne Gate in The County Guides: Essex, in which he compares the gate to various other surviving Roman gates in Europe and concludes, not surprisingly perhaps, that what is frankly a rather pathetic English ruin is in fact the finest in the world. If you were to believe Morley, the Balkerne Gate is basically the Roman Forum, the pyramids of Giza, the Acropolis, Ephesus and Petra, all combined – and in Essex.) Dunbar’s was a home both mean and overstuffed, a sorry showroom of stop-gaps, imitations and it’ll do: ancient linoleum and gas lights; a big fat ugly radiogram; an elaborate wooden mantel around a tiny fireplace; mirrors hung on chains like torture instruments; and two great grey bulbous armchairs; that eternal familiar sort of English home that always somehow speaks of absence, loss and some unidentifiable sadness.

  After the episode at Len Starling’s cottage, Miriam had decided that she had had enough of wild-goose chases for one day – and possibly for ever – and had determined to retire to the hotel until it was time for our departure.

  ‘Good luck in your quest, Father,’ she said, not without a hint of sarcasm.

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ said Morley, oblivious to her tone.

  ‘Let me know when your discreet enquiries are concluded and we can all move on.’

  ‘Will do!’ said Morley. ‘Will do!’

  Dunbar, I have to say, had greeted us very warmly – rapturously even – on our arrival.

  ‘The People’s Professor!’ he declared, flinging open his front door, hurriedly swallowing something or other he’d been chewing. ‘I’d heard that you were in town, Mr Morley, but I had not for a moment imagined that you might deign to visit us here, in my ’umble, ’umble—’

  ‘Yes,’ said Morley, interrupting Dunbar’s Dickensian self-humbling, ‘I heard you speak at the council meeting, Mr Dunbar, and I have to say I was rather intrigued.’

  ‘Well, please, please, do come in! Come in! Come in! Come in!’ He was almost panting with excitement. ‘This is an honour, sir! An absolute honour! Mrs Dunbar! Mrs Dunbar! We have visitors!’

  ‘Visitors?’ called Mrs Dunbar, from the back room. ‘Visitors,
Mr Dunbar? Visitors?’

  The Dunbars were not perhaps accustomed to entertaining on a Sunday. Or – by the look of it – on any other day.

  Dunbar ushered us into the back room, where he and Mrs Dunbar had clearly been enjoying a Sunday lunch. An old newspaper covered their tiny dining table.

  ‘My goodness,’ said Mrs Dunbar, standing up and standing back, touching her hair, as though in shock. She wore a wrapover Sunday house dress that had perhaps seen the mangle and the hot iron on one or two occasions too many. Mr Dunbar wore a dull brown Sunday suit of similar vintage and wear. ‘We weren’t expecting visitors.’

  ‘This is my glamorous assistant,’ said Mr Dunbar. ‘I’m only joking! This is my wife, Mrs Dunbar.’ Mrs Dunbar gave us a weak smile.

  ‘Hello,’ said Morley, giving her a weak smile back.

  ‘This, Flo, is Mr Swanton Morley,’ said Mr Dunbar. ‘The People’s Professor? You’ve read him in the papers.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Dunbar, half curtseying. ‘It’s an honour to meet you, sir. Basil reads all your articles,’ she said. ‘He’s a great fan. Aren’t you, Basil?’

  ‘I am, I am,’ agreed Basil. ‘A great fan.’

  ‘Well, I am honoured,’ said Morley, raising Mrs Dunbar from her half-curtseying position.

  ‘And this, Flo, is …’ began Dunbar, nodding towards me.

  ‘My own glamorous assistant,’ said Morley.

  With four of us standing awkwardly in the room there wasn’t much room to move.

  ‘Well, can I fetch you both a slice of tongue?’ asked Mrs Dunbar.

  ‘That’s very kind, Mrs Dunbar, but no thank you,’ said Morley. I shook my head.

  ‘A cup of tea, perhaps?’

  ‘A cup of tea would be absolutely delightful,’ said Morley. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Basil?’ She looked to Basil for permission to make tea.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Dunbar, ‘tea is a good idea, Flo.’

  ‘We’ve no cake,’ said Mrs Dunbar. ‘If I’d known you were coming I’d have … I could always …’

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ said Basil. ‘Tea will be sufficient. Mr Morley is famously frugal.’

  Personally I’d have very much liked a slice of cake. We’d not eaten since breakfast and I was short on cigarettes.