Death in the Coverts

by Roderic Jeffries

‘What was the cause of death?’

  ‘Cerebral thrombosis – I looked up in a dictionary to be able to tell you what the words on the certificate mean.’

  ‘Is the doctor a well-known man?’ asked Doherty.

  They turned right and descended a sloping yard on either side of which were houses, all in need of some repair.

  ‘Strange, no one seems to have met him recently and we of the police usually meet the doctors often. Perhaps he is old and… out of work, do you say?’

  ‘Retired.’

  ‘Of course.’ Chauvin turned right again, almost under the wheels of a heavy lorry, and they came to an area where a number of houses had recently been demolished. Beyond this were canal locks. Chauvin parked the car against some railings and they crossed the bridge over the side-by-side locks, in one of which were two large barges and a small yacht rapidly being raised to the level of the river on the far side. Just before they descended the concrete stairs, Chauvin waved at the man in the control tower, set above the locks, and the latter replied by calling out through the loud hailer.

  Once on the island, they walked along the rough road, on either side of which were bungalows, both expensive and cheap in juxtaposition, and a few houses.

  ‘Since some years ago,’ said Chauvin, ‘this was a place for the not very wealthy to retire. Then it becomes chic to live on a river and a place here costs more than anywhere else in Plincennes. It is strange, because the water… is not clean, do you say?’ He stopped and spoke to a woman who was wheeling a suitcase along on a small trolley. She pointed to a white gate a hundred yards farther along. ‘We are here,’ said Chauvin, as they resumed walking.

  The address was a simple wooden bungalow, built up on stilts. It was surrounded by so many trees, mainly evergreens, that as they waited on the balcony they could only just see the river.

  A woman opened the front door and spoke to Chauvin. She was middle-aged, with a heavily lined, slightly ugly face, and she wore a badly-stained dress. After a while, she asked them into the house. They went into the sitting-room which was very poorly furnished and cold, despite the paraffin stove that was burning.

  Doherty listened to their talking and tried broadly to follow what they were saying, but only occasionally was he able to distinguish a word he could recognise. He walked over to a bookcase and stared at the soft-cover books in it.

  ‘When did this man die?’ asked Chauvin suddenly, in English.

  Doherty checked the date which was written in his notebook. ‘June, nineteen-fifty-nine.’

  Chauvin resumed talking to the woman. Doherty wondered where the doctor was now? Did the French have a full national health service or was medicine still efficiently practised and the patient treated with some consideration?

  Chauvin interrupted Doherty’s scattered thoughts. ‘Doctor Roget is dead. It appears his death was entirely natural and due only to his years. We shall check that, of course. He has not been living here for some time because he was a man who loved the sun and so he went to the south to live. This woman here was a cousin and he asked her to live as a kind of… not a servant…’

  ‘Housekeeper?’

  ‘Exactly. She has been his housekeeper. When he died, he gave her this house in his will.’

  ‘Have you been able to find out when he went to the south?’

  ‘He left here in fifty-nine. This woman thinks it was July or August, but of that she is far from certain. She says she can make certain. She says he came into money and that was why he was able to go to the south and live in the sun.’

  ‘Much money?’

  Chauvin shrugged his shoulders. ‘Of course, she cannot really know. She says a great amount, but then she is a…’

  ‘A bit of a slattern?’

  ‘I would think so. I asked her if the doctor was having plenty of money before he left and she says not. He was too old to make money. New people want doctors who use all the new drugs they read of in the magazines.’

  Doherty stared unseeingly out of the window. He heard the single sharp toot of a barge’s horn, followed by several toots from another. Was there a pattern? A doctor, too old to make much money, living in a somewhat ramshackle bungalow who suddenly came into enough money to move to the south and yet keep this bungalow: the money coming to him a month or two after Decker’s death?

  ‘We shall investigate,’ said Chauvin. He brusquely thanked the woman, shook hands with her, and walked to the door. The woman smiled uncertainly at Doherty. He shook hands with her, thought he’d say good-bye in French and then funked even that simple exercise and said good-bye in English.

  The two men went down the wooden steps to the gravel path and away from the overpowering presence of the trees to the road. They walked in silence until they came level with the small riverside cafe and there Chauvin stopped and said he insisted on treating his dear colleague from England to a drink. Over the drink, and the second one which Doherty bought, Chauvin explained the next steps he would order the Sûreté Urbaine – a first-class force – to take and why it was quite unnecessary to call in anyone from the regional branch of the Police Judiciaire.

  *

  Doherty spent the next twenty-four hours waiting and wondering how to make time pass. Never a man for window-shopping, he soon exhausted any pleasure to be gained from staring at the shops and when he found a newsagent which had some old English paperbacks he bought three, even though they were titles he would normally never have read. At four o’clock in the afternoon, after drinking too many cups of coffee and eating too many pâtisseries, he looked round at the door to see Chauvin as the latter come into the lounge of the hotel.

  They shook hands. Chauvin sat down, stared at the plate on which remained two pâtisseries and began to eat them, in rather an absentminded manner. He spoke between mouthfuls and occasionally during them. ‘We have been active. Doctor Roget bought a house in Cagnes-sur-Mer and we are told it was not a cheap one. We have given orders for the body of Monsieur Decker to be… How d’you say?’

  ‘Exhumed.’

  ‘Exactly. We have spoken to many people who might be able to help and we have spoken to the undertakers.’ Chauvin held the remaining half of the marron-filled coffee and chocolate-coated pâtisserie a bare inch from his mouth. ‘They remember.’

  ‘How much do they remember?’

  ‘The funeral.’

  ‘Why, after all this time, do they remember it?’

  ‘Quite so. Why?’ Chauvin took a large bite out of the pâtisserie, studied how little was left in his fingers and pushed the rest in.

  Doherty impatiently watched the Frenchman’s jaws move rhythmically up and down. ‘Was something unusual?’

  Chauvin swallowed. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘They remember because the body was so very… How d’you say?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Chauvin pressed his nose with forefinger and thumb.

  ‘Decomposed?’

  ‘If that means it was becoming ripe, yes. It was June and hot, but even remembering that they say the body was not fresh. Yet the death certificate declares it was.’

  ‘How long do they think the man could have been dead?’

  ‘Five or six days. But we must recollect that they say this now, not then. Do you think he was poisoned and that was why things happened so quickly?’

  Doherty’s mind went back to the time he had stood in the hall of Hurstley Place and Mrs Decker had bemused him with a flood of words in order to keep him from asking the questions he wanted to ask her sons. She had told him how Hurstley Place had been saved to the Deckers because her husband had given the estate to a trust and had then died a mere two days outside the statutory five year period so that no death duties had to be paid.

  ‘You have thought of something?’ asked Chauvin.

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Will we find poison?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He died from natural causes and the death certificate will be right.’

  ‘
What a bore.’

  Doherty wondered whether the other knew the meaning of that word. ‘Could you do something more for me?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Find out if two men, whose photographs I’ll have radioed over, visited the doctor’s house in the south this summer and whether the doctor’s bank accounts show any large deposit at the same time.’

  ‘It shall be done.’ Chauvin looked at the now empty pâtisserie plate. He sighed.

  *

  Wade drove up to Hurstley Place at ten o’clock Thursday morning. He parked the Dodge shooting-brake in front of the steps and when he climbed out of it he looked rather like a small pea escaping from a very large pod.

  He walked between the pillars of the porch and knocked on the front door. Every time he looked at this vast mansion, he was surprised that the family should continue to live in it: the most elementary application of common sense to economics must tell them that in this day and age it was ridiculous to pay for the upkeep of such a place. Waste hurt him. He had once tried to explain to Fawcett Decker the advantages in a move: Fawcett Decker had been exceptionally rude.

  The door was opened by the Wop butler. Wade disliked all foreigners, especially ones who stood taller than himself. He was shown into the study and whilst on his own he stared at the illuminated addresses and thought how absurd they were.

  Julian came into the room. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘It’s nice of you to see me like this.’ Wade wasted no more time on conventional pleasantries. He acknowledged the fact that the Deckers and the Wades of the world were poles apart and that there was nothing to be gained from trying to ignore this fact. ‘I’ve come about the shoot, like.’

  Julian sat down behind his desk and offered cigarettes, which were refused. He suggested Wade should sit down, but Wade preferred to remain standing.

  ‘With Bill and Joe dead,’ said Wade, ‘there’s only me and Charlie left. Bill used to take the four guns so I was wondering what’s the arrangement for next season?’

  ‘I hadn’t got around to thinking about it.’

  ‘Could you have a think now?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but there’s a hell of a lot else…’

  ‘I’m not one for beating about the bush. With Bill dead, I’m ready and willing to take over the guns. Two thousand five or six hundred quid, is it?’

  ‘The cost of the shoot is rising pretty steeply.’

  ‘That’s all right by me. Give or take a few hundred quid and you won’t find me squealing. I’d like them four guns.’

  ‘What about Mr Cranleigh?’

  ‘You can leave the details to me.’

  Julian studied Wade. Of the four, he had always disliked Wade the least. Wade never sought, or pretended, to be other than what he was and he, Julian had never agreed that under Wade’s manners lay a sneering sarcasm. ‘I’ll give you first refusal.’

  ‘I came hoping for better than that.’

  ‘If there’s a shoot next year, you’ll have first refusal.’

  ‘You’re surely not thinking of closing down?’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ replied Julian wearily.

  Wade’s cold blue eyes studied Julian’s face. ‘It’s kind of you to see me,’ he said finally, in his unemotional voice.

  Wade left and Julian followed him out into the hall. After saying good-bye, he watched Wade cross the porch and step down to his car, in which he was engulfed. As the shooting-brake drove out of the garden and across the cattle-grid, another car slowed down until the way was clear and then came round the lawn. Julian recognised his cousin’s Morris.

  Henry Decker came into the house. ‘I’ve a job in the next village for a client with a lot of money and not much taste so I thought I’d pop in and see how things are.’

  ‘Come along and see Mother. She’s polishing the silver and provided you don’t try to tell her that there are at least a dozen better ways of polishing silver to the one she’s using, she’ll be very glad to see you. How’s Clara?’

  ‘Not too well. This damp weather upsets her so much.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘I know. Tell me, wasn’t that old Wade who passed me?’

  ‘It was. He came to try to take over the guns for next season.’

  ‘Did he? I suppose with Rafferty dead, he’s all right in business and can afford a few of the “simple luxuries” of life. It’s amazing how successful you can be these days provided you’re totally devoid of a conscience.’

  They walked through to the dining-room. One end of the table was covered with green baize and on this was all the silver that Lydia was cleaning.

  She looked up. ‘Hallo, Henry. I was saying only yesterday that you and Clara simply must come and have dinner soon. It’s ages since we last saw her. Is she well?’

  ‘She’s not too bright, I’m afraid. You know what this sort of weather does to her.’

  ‘She doesn’t have enough work to occupy her mind. I believe in the saying that work is the finest medicine of all. Now who first said that? I seem to remember it was an American. They’re much more fond of work than the English, aren’t they, but they get so interested in it they forget how to relax and either die from heart or ulcers. That’s why it’s become a matriarchal society, which isn’t right. Women don’t make good rulers and they get very stingy when they’re rich. Personally, I can’t see the point in working to make a lot of money if you’re going to die young. It’s like those people who win so much money on dog racing…’

  ‘You mean football pools,’ corrected Julian.

  ‘Henry knows exactly what I mean. You’re being very intolerant today. Henry, I have cleaned the silver with a mixture of jeweller’s rouge and spirits ever since we lost our last butler… I think his name was McNaughton and he came from somewhere right up in Sutherland near one of the rivers we used to fish… but Julian keeps on and on at me saying I ought to use some different and more modem method just because it’s supposed to be quicker.’

  Henry Decker smiled. ‘Your method certainly brings the silver up well, even if it does take a little time,’ he said diplomatically. He looked at the Queen Anne and Regency coffee-pots, tea-pots, milk jugs, queen’s pattern cutlery, candelabra, dozen sets of silver plates, and the ornaments, and wondered what capital they represented.

  ‘We’ll have some coffee,’ she said. ‘Julian, where’s Danelli?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

  ‘Where’s Fawcett?’

  ‘Once again, I plead ignorance.’

  ‘You really are most unhelpful.’ She finished polishing a milk jug and set it down on her right, put the polishing rags in a neat pile and peeled off her gloves. ‘I’ll go and find Fawcett and tell Danelli to make some coffee.’

  ‘I really can’t stay…’ began Henry Decker.

  ‘Nonsense. You’re not going to rush away when you’ve plenty of time to have coffee,’ she answered, just before she hurried out of the room.

  Henry Decker went to the table and picked up an eighteen inch long pheasant in silver. ‘I’m no great lover of silver ornaments, but I’ve always thought how marvellously sculptured this piece is.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘The plumage is so well delineated.’

  ‘But what can you do with it?’

  ‘I suppose it is a bit like that in this day and age.’ He put down the pheasant. ‘You sound a bit under the weather, Julian!’

  ‘I’m not exactly on top of the world, certainly.’

  ‘Don’t let the two deaths get you down: they weren’t anything to do with the organisation of the shoot. If the two men were so bloody gormless when it came to handling their guns, they were bound to blow their heads off sooner or later.’

  ‘Can you still talk about accidents?’

  ‘No one’s proved the deaths were anything else, have they?’

  ‘The police are doing their damnedest. They never stop asking questions. Haven’t they been worr
ying you?’

  ‘They came and had a word and took a couple of cartridges away, but that doesn’t signify anything.’

  ‘It signifies they’re certain it was murder.’

  Henry Decker shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t really think…’

  ‘You reckon it wag Fawcett,’ said Julian harshly.

  ‘That’s absurd. Why in the name of hell should Fawcett murder them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re too close to it all, Julian, to see straight. If the police were stupid enough to suspect Fawcett of two murders they’d have asked him and you ten times as many questions as I bet they have done.’

  And what would his cousin say, thought Julian, if he knew about the doctor in France who’d been bribed to fake the date of Fawcett John deCourcy Decker’s death by five days?

  *

  Doherty had been at home for only an hour when the front-door bell rang. He looked up from the TV at the clock on the mantelpiece and cursed. Tired out from the journey back from France, he had been hoping to get to bed early. Peggy stood up and left the room, ignoring his feeble assertions that he would go and see who the caller was.

  Doherty heard a voice and recognised it as Detective Superintendent Quincy’s. He cursed again. Quincy came into the room and on his round face was an angry expression. ‘I’ve been waiting for a report. Waiting and nothing bloody well happening.’

  Doherty stood up. ‘I didn’t get back until after seven, sir.’

  ‘That’s an hour ago.’

  Peggy, who had been waiting outside the room, came in and so prevented the detective superintendent’s saying what he had intended to. ‘I’m sure you’d like some coffee to warm you up, Mr Quincy?’

  He muttered something.

  ‘Good. I’ll go and put it on. I’ve been trying for the last hour to find out just what my husband’s been up to,’ she said lightly.

  ‘And that’s just what…’ began Quincy.

  ‘I’m quite certain he’s got at least some wicked thoughts he ought to confess to.’ With skill, she continued to talk in a bantering way until certain that Quincy’s ill-temper had to some extent been blunted. Then, she left the room.

  Quincy took off his overcoat and folded it over the back of a chair. ‘I’ve been doing my nut, Sam.’