The Property of Lies

by Marjorie Eccles

  The arrival of the two detectives coincided with the departure of a taxi, of all unexpected things to see here, just drawing away from the first house of the three. Like the others, its paintwork was shabby, though the doorstep was defiantly donkey-stoned in white and the lace curtains at the one downstairs window were dazzling behind shining panes. The passengers in the departing taxi were an elderly couple. Gilmour watched it drive off and shrugged philosophically. One house down, two to go.

  Gravy knocked on the door of the neighbouring property. Here, there was no scrubbed doorstep, the curtains were drawn, and it was no surprise when the knock elicited no response. If you were a copper, you developed a feeling for an empty house, or that’s what Gilmour told himself, and this one said there was no one at home. He jerked his head towards the last of the three houses and Gargrave stepped over to try there. This time, the knock was answered.

  Nothing like nosy neighbours when it came to getting information. If you were in luck on this sort of job, you might get someone who took enough notice of the comings and goings of the folk next door to remember what they’d been doing. The woman who opened this door, however, was a late middle-aged, respectable type, who looked as though she minded her own business. Plump, cheerful, and no doubt with a brood of grandchildren. ‘It’s Mr Newman you’re wanting, then?’ she said. ‘I heard you knocking next door.’

  Gilmour said yes, seeing no reason to tell her they had no idea of the occupant’s name, or even whether that was the house they wanted.

  ‘Well, you’re out of luck then. He’s not in.’

  ‘Any idea when he might be back?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him about for quite a bit as it happens.’

  ‘You mean he’s gone away, Mrs …?’

  ‘Ainsworth, Miss.’ So much for easy assumptions. ‘No, I didn’t say that.’ She looked uncertainly at them, wanting to know who they were and why they were enquiring about her neighbour, not liking to ask.

  ‘We’re police officers.’ Gilmour gave their names and showed his warrant card. ‘It’s actually the lady we want to see,’ he added, making a stab towards what he hoped might be the truth. But she shook her head.

  ‘There’s no lady there. He lives on his own, when he’s here, that is. That’s what I meant, he’s not just out of the house, he might be away, as you said. He does go off, sometimes for a day or two, or a week. Looking for copy, I expect.’ The word came out self-consciously, as if she wasn’t quite sure it was the right one.

  ‘Copy?’

  ‘He’s an author, isn’t he? At least, that’s what I think. I haven’t had a lot of conversation with him. He’s writing a book or something, I reckon.’ She hesitated, then perhaps remembering they were police and wanting to have her curiosity satisfied, she said, ‘Look here, step inside a minute, won’t you; we can’t talk on the doorstep.’

  The front door opened directly off the street and into the living room, which was dominated by a large table in the centre. A treadle-operated Singer sewing machine stood next to it, and most of the chairs were occupied by swathes of fabric and pieces of sewing in various stages of completion. ‘Excuse the mess. Now that Father’s been taken and his pension’s stopped, I have to take sewing in to make ends meet, you know how it is. A bit of dressmaking when I can get it, alterations and that for Baxendale’s,’ she said, naming the town’s best ladies’ dress shop, which had lately expanded into a small department store and now called itself an emporium.

  She swept her work aside, making room for them to sit.

  ‘What makes you think your neighbour’s a writer, Miss Ainsworth?’

  ‘Well, I just assumed, you know. On account of the typewriter. You can hear a pin drop, these walls are that thin. The Dawsons on his other side are both so hard of hearing it doesn’t bother them, bless ’em. They’re just off on holiday, to their daughter’s. But I don’t mind, not really. Mr Newman’s very quiet otherwise, and very polite when I see him, which isn’t often, I have to say. And I dare say he has enough of me at times. You can’t use a machine like this old thing here without making a right racket. I don’t see much of him at all, but I have to say, he’s very gentlemanly when we do meet.’

  ‘Lived here long, has he?’

  She shrugged. ‘I couldn’t say, exactly. Three or four months?’ She was the sort who’d never admit to being seen as nosy, just ‘interested’ in her mysterious neighbour, but she had evidently decided she wasn’t going to give anything more away until she’d got something in exchange. ‘What’s he been up to, then?’

  ‘Nothing, as far as we know. You say he’s often away?’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t seem to go out much, and when he does it’s in his car. Keeps it behind the house. There’s just room between the back yard and Shefford’s fence.’

  ‘What sort of car is it?’

  ‘Eeh, don’t ask me! One’s the same as another, as far as I can tell. It’s black is all I know.’

  But she was on surer ground when it came to the man himself. Tall, dark and handsome was how she described him. Very handsome, like a film star when he smiled.

  ‘What about his wife?’

  ‘He doesn’t have a wife – or if he does, she doesn’t live here. I told you, there’s no woman living there.’ She looked curiously at them. ‘What’s all this about?’

  Gilmour said, ‘Just routine enquiries.’ Ever the answer in response to such questions.

  He was disappointed. There was nothing to say Isabelle Blanchard – or any other woman – had been living at 43, Melia Street. But despite Miss Ainsworth’s certainty, there was nothing to say she hadn’t. There would have been no need for anyone to have known, if that was what she had wanted. She could easily have kept herself out of sight, which would account for that request to be picked up round the back of the houses. And if Newman had left before she did, taking his car, that would account for her need of a taxi.

  They would have to leave it at that for now, but Gilmour handed Miss Ainsworth his details before they went. ‘If anything else occurs to you, Miss Ainsworth, or as soon as Mr Newman returns, will you let us know?’

  If he returns, he added, but not out loud.

  TWELVE

  Originally built for a gamekeeper, when such a person had been employed on the Scroope estate, Heaviside’s home was a small cottage in a sheltered, sunlit clearing in the woods that abutted on to Maxstead Court. With the afternoon sun glinting on its red brick and scalloped eaves, it looked charming, a Hansel and Gretel gingerbread house with red-and-white checked gingham curtains fluttering at the open windows. It stood on what was still part of the school land, and Miss Hillyard had seemingly extended her good work here, even to having the roof retiled against the plague of grey squirrels which had once been a great problem in the main house. A neatly tended plot of vegetables at the front sat inside a white picket fence, and a few chickens scratched about in a run at the far side.

  Pickersgill had been doing some scouting around, asking about Heaviside, and was itching to pass on what he’d found. As Reardon seemed absorbed in his own thoughts, he managed to contain himself. They were nearly there and were emerging from under the heavy shade of thickly planted trees, when Reardon turned to him and asked him what was up.

  ‘I’ve been talking to one of the women who works in the school kitchen, sir.’ He was good at that, winkling information from those below stairs who often knew more about those they worked for than the same people knew themselves.

  ‘And what did she have to say?’

  ‘She lives in Maxstead village; she’s known Heaviside all her life and swears he’s harmless. A right old miser, though, she says he is. Do anything for a bob or two, it seems.’

  Even to providing cigarettes and alcohol for rebellious teenage girls who regarded breaking school rules as a caper? He could see Reardon thinking that, though it didn’t seem much to have offered, now he’d said it, but Reardon nodded acknowledgement. ‘Useful to bear in mind, Dave.’


  The old man answered Pickersgill’s loud rat-tat on the open door and, after an initial hesitation, stood aside to let them enter.

  Inside, the cottage was as neat, clean and tidy as the deck of a small ship, and something savoury bubbled in an iron pan on the old-fashioned range. As far as Reardon was aware, shooting and fishing rights had been sold along with the estate, but very likely Heaviside didn’t feel that prevented him taking a rabbit for the pot. He’d been peeling potatoes and the knife was still in his hand as he waved to them to sit down. Pickersgill took his six-foot frame inconspicuously aside, choosing a chair as near the open door as possible. Reardon took his point. Today had turned out hotter than ever and the sun, plus the glowing fire, made the small room hot as Hades, despite the slight breeze coming through the door and window, but there was no help for that: the only means of cooking was on the range.

  Other than that, the whole place spoke of modest comfort. A line of winking, polished horse brasses hung on nails from the mantelshelf above the range, and the windowsill was home to a row of geraniums in pots. The windows shone and the gingham curtains were crisp and fresh. You had to admire Heaviside. He might be an old curmudgeon in his seventies and live alone, but after working at a tough job all day, he still found the energy when he came home at night to keep the snug little place spick and span. He put aside now the potatoes he’d been peeling, ready to add to the pot for his supper, and seated himself in a Windsor-backed chair by the fire. He didn’t seem to notice the heat.

  ‘You’ve been working down at the school today, Mr Heaviside,’ Reardon began. ‘I suppose you’ve heard of the latest happening?’

  ‘That little wench getting herself shut in? Ar. No telling what they get up to, is there? Times I’ve told ’em to keep away from that there old bit.’

  ‘It’s more a case of what somebody else has been up to. That’s why we’re asking everyone to account for their movements last night. Can you tell us where you were?’

  ‘Me?’ He eyed them both sardonically as he struck a match and lit one of his cigarettes. ‘Well, I weren’t at the school. I walked across to the Scroope, like I do every night.’

  ‘That would be the Scroope Arms in Maxstead village?’ He nodded. ‘So you would pass the school?’

  ‘Nah. No call for me to go anywhere near the Big House,’ he answered, which was what the school evidently still was to him. ‘Use the path up behind here, short cut, I do, save me legs.’

  ‘So you didn’t see Josie?’

  ‘I don’t know no Josie. I don’t have nothing to do with them down there.’

  ‘She’s the girl we’re talking about,’ Reardon explained patiently. ‘The one who was shut in all night.’

  ‘So they tell me. But I still don’t know her.’

  ‘So it wasn’t you that shut her in, then? To teach her a lesson, not to go wandering around there at night?’ he asked, keeping in mind those bottles and cigarette ends they’d found, though not in the room where Josie had been imprisoned, but in another small room at the back of the building. A room which also still had its shutters intact, where the lights from the candles stuck in the bottles would not be seen from the house.

  There had been something dubious right from the start about the old man’s concerns with that old half-ruin. He’d been too anxious, after Isabelle Blanchard’s body had been discovered, to steer them away from closed doors and had taken them directly to that other door on the next floor which had been nailed up. He’d known what they were going to find there, moreover. Reardon repeated his question.

  Heaviside coughed and spat into the fire. ‘Not up to me to learn her, is it? What have they got teachers for? Any road, I’ve already told you, I weren’t anywhere near there.’

  Reardon said, ‘We found things in one of the rooms. Bottles, cigarettes. Were you paid to get them for those girls?’

  He gave a short bark of laughter. His cigarette had burned down. He lit another one from its stub. It was little surprise that the savoury smell of the stew on the fire and the open door and window weren’t enough to mask the stale reek of tobacco which hung heavily in this close little room, despite its cleanliness. ‘No, I weren’t.’

  Reardon was inclined to believe him. It had been worth a try, though it hadn’t actually ever been a realistic possibility. Heaviside smoked Woodbine’s himself, and where would he have found Balkan Sobranie to buy? In the village shop? Not even in Folbury, if Reardon was any judge. But if Heaviside hadn’t provided the goods, who had? It hadn’t been the girls themselves. Smuggling forbidden delights like Russian cigarettes and sherry into a well-regulated school such as Maxstead, like someone passing a knife to a prisoner in an old spy story, wasn’t an option that could be considered. Discipline at Maxstead Court was not severe by any means, but rules were made to be kept and just punishments meted out. The girls would be allowed only a limited amount of pocket money, strictly supervised. Having a midnight feast which included smoking and drinking alcohol in forbidden, out-of-bounds and possibly dangerous territory was a shocking breach of school rules that Miss Hillyard would not be willing to overlook under any circumstances. It was hardly surprising that Josie had refused to talk. The girls concerned would be in serious trouble when she learnt of it, possibly facing expulsion.

  ‘Look here,’ Heaviside said suddenly. ‘I never got them girls nothing. I knowed summat were going on but it were none of my business.’

  ‘That building, and what they’re calling the Quad, with all that equipment hanging around. It was out of bounds to the girls because it was dangerous; you knew they were using it and you never thought of reporting it? Why not?’

  ‘Weren’t my business,’ he repeated stubbornly.

  ‘Somebody paying you to keep quiet about it, were they?’

  ‘You got no call to think that.’ But Reardon did. Especially after what Pickersgill had told him about the old man’s keenness for money.

  ‘We’ve been told you’re not averse to earning a bit on the side. Spot of poaching, the odd pheasant, venison?’

  The taciturn old codger suddenly became eloquent. ‘Look here,’ he said again. ‘I’ve a son. Out in Australia, and I’ve a mind to go out to him. Haven’t seen him for years, nor my grandkids. Saving up. He can’t afford the money for me passage, he’s struggling himself what with four kids and making his way – they don’t all make their fortunes when they go out there, you know. But if I can get the half of it, he’ll see me all right with the other half. The wife would have wanted me to go.’ His glance flickered to the old-fashioned mahogany chiffonier that stood by the far wall, and the photograph which took pride of place there – a faded sepia likeness of a young woman with a baby on her knee, and a young Heaviside standing with his hand on her shoulder.

  This unexpected side to the grim old man brought silence for a moment or two: Heaviside as a once happily married man, with a wife and son. Now a grandfather whose family lived halfway across the world, all of whom he was longing to see again. It presented a different and more appealing picture to the one they’d so far seen of him.

  He’d had enough of them. He stood up and walked to the sink, where he picked up the knife again, a potato in his other hand, and began peeling it. ‘Well, I’m sorry the little wench had such a fright,’ he said gruffly, not looking at either of them. ‘She all right?’

  ‘She is now,’ said Pickersgill

  ‘Well, then, no harm’s done.’

  But Reardon wasn’t ready to leave it just yet. ‘One more question. Was it you who re-nailed that door up?’

  Heaviside took his eyes from the potato long enough to throw a derisive look. ‘Me? I’d have made a better job of it if I had.’

  But he knew that it had been reopened, after Deegan had made it fast, and knew all about it being nailed shut again after Isabelle Blanchard had gone through it to her death. So he’d been poking around – why? It wasn’t part of his duties to look after the derelict wing; he was employed as the gardener. He’d admitted h
e knew something was going on – had he suspected something other than illicit midnight feasts? Reardon would have given a lot to know how much he knew, or suspected, but Heaviside had decided he’d said too much already. Getting blood from a stone would be easier than getting him to say any more.

  ‘Well,’ Pickersgill said, as they made their way back to the school, ‘the old skinflint might not have got the stuff for them, but he knew about it. Paid to keep his mouth shut, wasn’t he, sir? Never mind what he said.’

  ‘So it would seem.’ The old man’s last outburst had been an admission of sorts. Trying to scrape enough for his passage to Australia explained why he’d acted as he had to get the money, but didn’t excuse it, never mind that Heaviside himself obviously felt quite justified in what he’d done.

  He’d been paid not to report what had been going on, all right. But why had someone felt it necessary to do that? The old man had known what the girls were doing was irresponsible, and Reardon thought he regretted now having taken money from someone who evidently didn’t think the same way. A person who felt it was more dangerous to expose the situation than to allow it to continue, and Reardon had begun to doubt whether he was going to get any light thrown on the subject from the girls he was now due to see, before prep began.

  He had been irritated with himself for consenting to be drawn into what had initially seemed to be a purely school matter. In the middle of a murder enquiry, the promise he’d made to Miss Hillyard had afterwards seemed rash, something they could have done without. All the same, when evidence was short on the ground, something which didn’t seem to have any connections could turn out to be the key that fitted the lock. Now, after the last half-hour with Heaviside, links between Isabelle Blanchard’s murder and what had happened to Josie Pemberton didn’t seem all that unfeasible.

  Too much was happening in that ill-fated east wing. To misquote, one fatal incident may have been a misfortune, two incidents looked like deliberate malice.