David Webb 10 - Three, Three, the Rivals

by Anthea Fraser

  The man who opened the door to them was in his late sixties, tall and with a military bearing. He looked vaguely familiar, and when Webb identified himself a small smile touched his lips under the bristly moustache.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, adding as they complied, ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  He had shown them into a pleasantly shabby room with a piano in one corner, and it was that which gave Webb his clue.

  ‘Mr Lang — of course. You taught music at St Gabriel’s.’ As he spoke, he recalled the dark young man whose patience he had tried more than once.

  ‘That’s right. I remember you as a small boy who used to sit at the back of the class, drawing throughout the lesson. I confiscated several of your artistic efforts, among them a very creditable cartoon of myself.’

  Webb smiled. ‘I remember.’

  Jackson wondered if the man realized that the acclaimed cartoons which spasmodically appeared in the Broadshire News came from the same source. Possibly not, since they were signed enigmatically with an S in a circle — a spider in a web.

  ‘You’re here about Makepeace, of course,’ Lang said, seating himself in a deep winged chair. ‘A curmudgeonly old devil, but I liked him. It’s a shocking thing to have happened.’

  ‘I believe you used to meet occasionally outside the church?’

  ‘Yes, we’d have a pint together now and then.’ Lang steepled his long fingers and regarded them thoughtfully. ‘I knew your father, too. Played bowls with him quite regularly until he became ill. I tried once to bring him and Billy together, but they rounded on me with equal ferocity and I had to give up.’

  ‘It was a stupid business,’ Webb said, aware of Jackson’s interest. ‘Do you remember Dick Vernon, sir?’

  Lang looked surprised at what appeared to him to be a change of subject. ‘Only vaguely,’ he replied. ‘He disappeared soon after I came to Erlesborough.’

  Webb returned to his original topic. ‘Was Makepeace at odds with anyone else?’

  Lang gave a short laugh. ‘Frequently. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, and in his opinion there were a lot of them about.’

  ‘Hardly the attitude of a churchman,’ Webb commented.

  ‘Make no mistake about it, Chief Inspector, Billy was a good man. His heart was in the right place even if he was tetchy, and if anyone was in trouble he’d move heaven and earth to help them. As regards your father,’ he added, sensing Webb’s scepticism, ‘it was six of one and half a dozen of the other. Lord knows what they fell out about all those years ago, but neither of them was prepared to forget it.’

  Which was not the impression Mrs Makepeace had given. It seemed Billy had not admitted his wish for reconciliation, probably in case John Webb turned it down.

  ‘Did he discuss his farm with you?’

  ‘Ad nauseam!’

  ‘What was his opinion of his manager?’

  Lang shrugged. ‘Typically, Billy felt he’d be better off without him. In fact he considered getting rid of him, but I talked him out of it. With his heart condition, he wouldn’t have lasted a month on his own.’

  Webb wondered whether Croft had been aware of these deliberations. ‘What had Makepeace got against him?’

  ‘Mainly that he was young and full of new ideas which, according to Billy, would cost a fortune to implement. He was always grumbling that Croft didn’t know the value of money. The man was in personal difficulties, too; Billie’d had to bail him out with a loan. Mind you, I bet he charged a good rate of interest!’

  The ironic smile was back again. ‘It’s a perfect example of Billy’s philosophy: he’d never refuse help, but if he considered people had brought on their own misfortunes, he couldn’t resist teaching them a lesson at the same time.’

  ‘What’ll happen to the loan now?’ Webb wondered aloud.

  ‘I’ve no idea. The chap’s probably on tenterhooks.’

  Jerry Croft would warrant another visit. He’d call there before he went to Sheila’s.

  ‘Mr Makepeace was on the Bench, wasn’t he?’ Webb said reflectively. It could well be that some villain had taken exception to Billy’s philosophy.

  Lang’s sharp glance showed that he’d followed Webb’s reasoning. ‘He was, yes, but you’d need to speak to the other magistrates about that.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ Webb got to his feet. ‘Incidentally, sir, where were you on Monday evening?’

  ‘Bell-ringing practice, after which we repaired to the Crown as usual. But I was home by eleven.’

  Webb nodded. ‘Well, thanks for your help. And despite my endless doodling,’ he added with a smile, ‘you managed to instil a love of music into me which has given me a great deal of pleasure over the years. I’m very grateful.’

  *

  Jerry Croft closed the stable door and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. It was six o’clock, and he was ready for a shower and a glass of cold beer. He glanced uncertainly at the farmhouse, but there was no sign of life. Still, Sally would have checked on the old lady on her return from school. And Mrs Hawthorn would be back soon; she was staying here at the moment, though, with the tourist season in full swing, she’d been unable to take time off work.

  Lord, what a mess it all was! He knew Sally was as much on edge as he was with all the uncertainty; knew, too, that if they had to move out of the area there’d be all the fuss about her job having to be the one that was sacrificed.

  But damn it, what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just kick his heels because she and the kids were nicely settled at St Gay’s. More serious was the fact that if they did have to move, it would mean repaying the loan. The old woman couldn’t be expected to continue it once they were out of her employ. And where, Croft wondered despairingly, would he find another employer willing to take it on? For all his faults, old Makepeace had had his good points.

  Suppose, he thought, his heart plummeting still further, they had to remove Mother from the nursing home? There was no place for her under the National Health; his frantic inquiries had been met with the implicit suggestion that he should take her into his own home. But how could he, when she was wandering like that? There was no one in the house all day, and she couldn’t be left alone. Not to mention the effect it would have on the kids.

  He had reached the gate in the hedge when the sound of a car drawing up made him pause. Then, as Webb got out of it, he felt a wave of impotent anger. Another grilling was the last thing he needed.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Croft,’ Webb was saying over the five-barred gate. ‘I’m glad I caught you.’

  The red-headed sergeant wasn’t with him; perhaps this was an informal visit — or intended to seem so.

  Croft said ungraciously, ‘More questions?’

  ‘A few, I’m afraid. I shan’t keep you long.’

  ‘Go in next door, then, and I’ll see you there.’

  Webb nodded pleasantly and strolled along the pavement, and with a sigh Croft went through the gate to his own property. The children were playing a skipping game in the drive, hair flying and brown legs flashing as they kept up the complicated rhythm. Not a care in the world, he thought sourly, and was instantly ashamed of his resentment.

  Circumnavigating them, he opened the front door, called to Sally that he was home, and led Webb into the farm office where they’d spoken before. The shower and the beer would have to wait.

  ‘You’ll appreciate we’re having to look very closely into Mr Makepeace’s affairs,’ Webb began, seating himself in the chair he’d occupied on his last visit, ‘and there’s been mention of a loan you received. Could you give me some details?’

  ‘My God, it didn’t take you long.’ Croft sat down heavily in the desk chair. ‘It was a personal matter, nothing to do with the farm.’

  ‘So I understand,’ Webb said, and waited politely. Croft ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘If you must know, we’ve had to put my mother in a private nursing home. Not from choice, but because it was the only one to have room for he
r. She has Alzheimer’s. I can’t afford the fees and we’ve not enough security for a bank loan, so Mr Makepeace agreed to step in. It was all quite legit, interest accruing and so on.’

  So Lang had misjudged him; this misfortune was not self-induced. ‘How much was the loan for?’

  Croft named what seemed to Webb an extortionate figure, but then, thank God, he knew nothing of nursing-home costs.

  ‘We’re paying it off every month,’ Croft said quickly, aware of his surprise.

  ‘Did you get on well with your employer?’

  The man seemed glad of the shift to business matters. ‘On the whole, though we clashed once or twice. I was keen to introduce new methods, but he wouldn’t hear of them.’

  ‘Will Mrs Makepeace be staying on here?’

  Croft shrugged. ‘She’s been here fifty years, I shouldn’t think she’d want to leave. Unless she goes into a home, too,’ he added bitterly. ‘Her daughter lives in town, but she’s out at her job, so the old girl wouldn’t be much better off there.’

  ‘I asked you before if you knew of any disagreements Makepeace might have been involved in. Have you remembered anything in the interval?’

  ‘No. If you ask me, your best bet would be to follow up his cases in Court. They get a rough element up before them.’

  ‘Thank you, yes, that’s being looked into. Well,’ he rose to his feet, ‘I won’t keep you any longer. And I hope your family worries sort themselves out.’

  Croft, surprised at the human touch, nodded and showed him to the door. Amen to that, he thought devoutly.

  CHAPTER 8

  Webb drove slowly the few hundred yards to his sister’s home, turning over in his mind what he had heard. Suppose, contrary to the impression he’d been given, old Makepeace had tried to call in the loan for some reason? Croft was near to breaking-point, that much was obvious. Any such move could have panicked him into action, temporarily blinding him to the fact that Billy was more use to him alive than dead.

  Tentatively, eyes on the road ahead, Webb cast Croft in the role of murderer. The man was a tightly coiled spring of repression, competent enough but continually frustrated in his job — and possibly in his marriage too. It might be illuminating to see man and wife together.

  He had reached The Old Farmhouse gateway and, seeing the dog come gambolling up to greet him, Webb shrugged off his introspection. He’d defer any further speculation until he knew what the night’s digging would unearth.

  *

  After supper the family again separated, Stephen to his postponed game of tennis, Lyn to study, Colin to the local Horticultural Society. Sheila had intended accompanying him, and Webb urged her not to stay home on his account; but she insisted she had a headache and was glad of the excuse not to go.

  ‘Friday’s always hectic,’ she said. ‘I get up an hour early to start baking, and I’m usually exhausted by the end of it.’

  They settled by the window with their coffee and Webb felt a momentary qualm. It was many years since they’d been alone together for any length of time; suppose they found nothing to talk about?

  ‘I saw Jenny again yesterday,’ he remarked to open the conversation. ‘We were talking about the split between Billy and the others. Did you ever hear what happened?’

  ‘No — no, I didn’t.’

  Webb repeated the story of the party and the high-spirited young men in the car. She listened in silence, then sighed, shaking her head.

  ‘What a tragedy. I never knew Billy had been an athlete.’

  ‘Nor I. But that’s only half the story; what surprised me was that Father and Dick, though not particularly friendly, remained on speaking terms for several more years. She didn’t know what caused that rift.’

  Sheila was gazing out of the window, and something in her face made him say sharply, ‘Do you?’

  She avoided his eyes, lifting one hand in a helpless little gesture.

  ‘Well, Sheila? Do you?’

  She said slowly, ‘Yes, as it happens I do; Mum told me just before she died. But I had to promise not to tell anyone.’

  Webb said harshly, ‘I’m not “anyone”, I’m her son.’

  ‘And a policeman to boot. Which means if tonight goes as expected, Dick’s background will be investigated anyway.’

  Tonight. What would he know that he’d prefer not to, before it was over? If Dick’s body really were in Joan’s grave, it could mean the confirmation of everything he dreaded. God, he thought suddenly, what was he thinking of, going through with this? The exhumation was entirely his doing; he’d had no need to apply for it. But, as Sheila remarked, he was a policeman, and a conviction had been growing in him that Billy’s death and Dick’s disappearance were linked. So, after all, he had had no choice.

  He looked up, meeting his sister’s concerned eyes.

  ‘Go on, then,’ he said.

  ‘The row was over Mum.’

  He tensed, instinctively rejecting her words, concentrating instead on the soft upholstery under his hand, the shadows striking across the garden, the steady breathing of the dog at his feet. Then, despite himself, they filtered through to understanding and acceptance.

  When he made no comment, Sheila went on: ‘She was engaged to Dick, you see, but Dad, who hadn’t shown any interest in her before, suddenly muscled in.’ Her voice shook. ‘I don’t think he loved her, David. I think it was just a way to score off Dick — the old, bloody rivalry again.’

  There was silence. It fitted, Webb thought dully. He wondered he’d not thought of it before.

  ‘And I also think — though she didn’t say so — that she never completely stopped loving Dick, nor he her.’

  It was a novelty, this picture of his mother as tragic heroine. He remembered her as weak, discontented, showing little affection to either husband or children. Had his father been happy with his prize? Or — and Webb saw this in a flash of insight — having won her, was he bitterly disillusioned — by her peevishness, her lack of interest, her general spinelessness?

  And how must his mother have felt? To a young girl, two men fighting over her must have seemed the essence of romance, straight out of the pulp fiction she read so avidly. How, then, would she react when she realized she’d deserted the man she loved for a taciturn, stubborn character who, at least in his son’s hearing, never gave her so much as a word of endearment? After all these years, Webb understood what lay behind the tragedy of his parents’ marriage — corrosive resentment at the hand fate had dealt them.

  Sheila was staring out of the window, twisting a handkerchief in her hands. He said, ‘There’s more, isn’t there?’

  She nodded. ‘Something she let slip. We’d been talking about Dick and wondering where he could have got to, and Mum suddenly said, “The odd thing is, I saw him that night, and he never mentioned leaving.” And then she looked frightened, and I couldn’t get any more out of her.’

  Yet another facet to the night when he’d hidden in the barn and Sheila set out to find her teddy-bear.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it ever since I got back from the cemetery,’ she continued. ‘The dates tied in; it would have been the day after Joan’s funeral. Dick must have been shattered, specially since she was his twin. Perhaps he turned to Mum for a bit of comfort.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be his wife’s province?’ Webb asked, and saw her eyebrows lift at the harshness in his voice.

  ‘I heard she and Joan never got on. Probably jealous of each other.’

  They sat in silence, engrossed in their own thoughts, and Webb, glancing suddenly at his sister, experienced a jolt. For a fleeting moment in the half-light it could have been his mother sitting there: the same profile with its rounded cheek, the same softly curling hair. Then the door opened and Lyn’s voice said cheerfully, ‘In the gloaming?’ The room flooded with light and the resemblance fled, restoring Sheila to her competent, practical self.

  ‘I’ve come down for more coffee,’ Lyn was saying. ‘Would you like some?’

&nb
sp; Sheila smiled at her. ‘Thanks, darling.’

  As she went out, Webb said suddenly, ‘Did you tell anyone about Billy phoning you?’

  ‘Outside the family, you mean? I don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘It would be as well not to mention it, nor what you and the others were talking about in the café.’ Though from what he’d seen of Janet Conway, he imagined that story had already been passed round.

  Before she could comment, Lyn returned and handed each of them a mug of steaming coffee. She was barefoot as usual, and wearing what looked like one of Colin’s old shirts outside her jeans. Whatever happened to glamour? Webb wondered as she padded out of the room.

  Sheila looked after her fondly. ‘Susan thinks the world of her, you know.’

  ‘Susan?’ It was so long since Webb had thought of his ex-wife that for a moment he wasn’t sure who Sheila was referring to.

  ‘Yes; she never forgets her birthday. I’ve always felt she’d have liked children of her own.’

  This unsuspected view of his wife following swiftly on the revelation about his mother roused Webb to irritable self-defence.

  ‘If so, it’s the first I’ve heard of it.’

  Sheila said quickly, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to imply—’ and broke off, uncertain how to continue. He didn’t help her. The gulf between them was still there, he thought sadly. Though it could be temporarily bridged, basically they were doomed to stand one on each side of it, staring helplessly across at each other. But then they’d never been a family unit, simply four separate individuals, forced by circumstance to live under the same roof.

  ‘What time will you have to get up?’ Sheila asked. ‘Three-thirty; I’ll set the clock-radio. Actually, Sheila, if you don’t mind I won’t wait up for Colin. I’d like to get in as many hours’ sleep as possible before everything gets going again.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Aware of the lingering constraint between them, he said awkwardly, ‘I do appreciate it, your putting me up. I’d hardly have had any sleep otherwise.’