Murder at the Nineteenth (Lambert and Hook Detective series Book 1)

by J M Gregson

  ‘Masterful,’ said Lambert. ‘Have you thought of becoming a receptionist when you get your police pension, Bert?’

  ‘Politeness costs nothing,’ said Hook magisterially. ‘That was Len Jackson, you’ll be pleased to hear.’

  ‘Will I, indeed? Why?’

  ‘Because it may eliminate one loose end from your list.’ Hook did not deign to remark his chief’s wince at his mangled metaphor. ‘He spent last night at his mother’s house, outside Nottingham.’

  ‘Scarcely the most convincing witness,’ said Lambert automatically.

  ‘I’ve warned him we’ll check it out. It sounds the kind of village where someone will have seen him or his car. Especially as he was brought up there. For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure it will prove genuine enough.’

  ‘Did he say why he was there?’

  ‘Evasive. Bit embarrassed. I didn’t press him.’

  ‘Quite right, Bert; we’ll have to check out his story anyway. Ah, this time I believe it is lunch.’ Vic Edwards entered with a large tray which was promisingly full. ‘Just leave it anywhere on the table, Vic. We’re ready for it.’

  The steward set down his burden carefully on the table. ‘I see that thing’s back!’ he said, keeping his tray a wary distance from the murder weapon and regarding the knife with evident distaste.

  ‘Tools of our trade, I’m afraid, Vic,’ said Lambert breezily, looking at the thick roast ham with approval and checking that the mustard was present. ‘Mr Shepherd will have no further use for it, but it will no doubt become Exhibit A in a court case before too long.’

  The steward nodded; his repugnance was scarcely assuaged. ‘I don’t suppose Mr Parsons will fancy having it back when all this is over.’

  ‘Mr Parsons?’ Lambert studied his notepad with determined unconcern. Hook began to take things slowly off the tray.

  ‘Yes. It’s his knife, isn’t it?’ Edwards turned his attention reluctantly back to the heavy, long-bladed dagger.

  ‘Well, there would hardly be two around like that in the same club,’ said Lambert inconsequentially.

  ‘No, that’s Mr Parsons’s old knife all right. Turkish, I think he said when he first came. He bought it when he was abroad somewhere.’ Edwards made as if to pick up the knife, then hastily abandoned the idea as its grisly associations came back to him.

  Hook’s eyes met Lambert’s even as the door closed behind the steward. ‘Parsons said the knife belonged to Shepherd,’ he said needlessly. He was seeking confirmation of his own recollection; he began to riffle back through his notes of the morning’s interview. Lambert walked over to the pile of typed sheets the stenographer had left behind and thumbed back to the third sheet. ‘True enough,’ he said. ‘“Mr Shepherd’s own instrument” was our Secretary’s rather quaint phrase for seven inches of cold steel. Now, why would he want to deceive us about that?’

  ‘Guilt,’ said Hook, but with no great certainty.

  ‘Quite possibly. The trouble is that, as we both know, innocent people often behave guiltily, or at least irrationally, in circumstances like this.’

  ‘Let’s go and ask him about it,’ said Hook, to whom the simplest methods were normally the best.

  ‘We’d have to prise him away from Michael Taylor. No great harm in that. Any word on Colonel Parsons from military records yet?’

  ‘They’re ringing back at four o’clock. I had to lean on them pretty hard to get them to move at all today.’

  ‘In that case, I think we keep our powder dry until we have more information. Let’s hit him with everything at once. If, that is, we collect anything else,’ he said with grim superstition, as if touching wood lest Parsons’s military career should offer them nothing. ‘Look, Bert, I’ve had enough of this room for a while and I expect you have. Follow me.’

  Hook locked the door behind them and Lambert, carrying the tray solemnly ahead like a high priest, led his acolyte through the deserted corridors and the big main lounge of the clubhouse. Pressing the security handle of the door beyond the bar, he moved to where a sheltered terrace gave shade from the broiling sun but allowed a view of the peaceful green acres of the course. There they said little else until they were half way through the pile of sandwiches and two modest halves of foaming bitter.

  ‘“A land in which it seemed always afternoon,”’ said Lambert, lying back in his garden chair and surveying the distant oaks through half-closed eyes. ‘Tennyson,’ he added some twenty seconds later, when Hook’s silence seemed to indicate that he had surrendered himself absolutely to that lotus-land of sun-warmed lethargy.

  ‘The Hon. Lionel?’ murmured Hook. Bert was more a cricket than a literary historian, having been a fearsome fast bowler in his heyday.

  ‘Lord Alfred,’ Lambert informed him.

  ‘Sounds like an opening bat with all day to bugger about,’ said his Sergeant. Lambert thought this rather an unfair speculation about a man who could cut a dash when he chose to, but dragged himself reluctantly back to duty. He sat upright and put his notes on the white metal table beside his plate.

  ‘We’ve interviewed three of our five suspects and gathered some information. I suppose you could say we’re gradually getting a fuller picture, but not necessarily a clearer one. James Shepherd was for me rather a faceless figure at eight o’clock this morning, a prosperous businessman and Golf Club Chairman, with the trappings of success in his Rolls-Royce and so on. Now he emerges as a rather unsavoury bully who used his power and knowledge for purposes that were almost sadistic. But we’re no nearer to deciding who killed him. We haven’t really had the chance to compare notes yet on our three morning suspects. What do you make of Parsons, for a start?’

  Hook was properly cautious. ‘He seems anxious to be as helpful as possible. As far as we know, he produced the information about his Committee and himself promptly and efficiently. Black mark: he deceived us about the murder weapon.’

  ‘Which could be the foolish but not unusual behaviour of an innocent man. It’s scarcely unknown for those who had nothing to do with a killing to panic when they find themselves dragged in by ownership of the implement involved. But I think there’s also something in his military background that he’s concealing from us. We’ll reserve judgement on David Parsons until we’ve talked to him further — hopefully with a few more cards in our hand.’ Lambert turned to his next sheet of paper. ‘Mary Hartford.’

  ‘I haven’t even clapped eyes on her,’ said Hook with unseemly satisfaction. ‘What did you make of your Lady Captain in your clandestine exchange?’

  ‘Sometimes I wish I’d never taught you words like that. Mary Hartford is a lady.’

  ‘Many a splendid female has been driven to murder by gentlemen like our Mr Shepherd,’ Hook asserted smugly.

  ‘She would almost certainly be the first who was also Matron of a hospital and Lady Captain of a golf club,’ mused Lambert. ‘She had opportunity, like Parsons and Taylor. No motive that we know of as yet: I fancy she detested Shepherd, but it needs something more tangible than that to commit murder.’

  He lay back in his chair and looked at the azure sky through eyelids barely open: despite his long professional experience, it still seemed bizarre to be talking of murder in a context like this. Or to be considering that trim, compassionate helper of the sick, Mary Hartford, as a suspect. Reluctantly he forced this last thought into his assessment of the evidence. ‘Mary is used to death, has lived with it for years in hospitals. She wouldn’t flinch from the thought of a corpse like some of the others …’

  ‘And she has the medical knowledge which our eminent pathologist says just might be involved in this murder — to kill anyone with one stab wound is not very common, as we know,’ urged Hook with some relish.

  Lambert shook his head unhappily, admitting Mary Hartford to his possibles but unable as yet to see her as a murderer. Across the course, at tiny thread of smoke rose straight as a rod into the still, warm air above the tree-tops. He watched a kestrel hover motionless a hun
dred feet above the rough on the eighteenth, then drop like a stone on to some unseen prey. Shepherd’s death had been as swift, as unexpected, as expertly executed as that. And yet old Burgess had said when he admitted the possibility of expert knowledge that it ‘could just as easily have been a lucky strike’. That heavy knife, with its seven inches of slightly curved blade, didn’t look as though it needed too much luck with a desperate hand behind it.

  Hook, who had been writing as they spoke, now pushed his pad across the table to Lambert. The Superintendent was amused as usual by the neat, almost prim handwriting which filled the pages of the CID-issue pad. It was so unexpected from this heavy, rubicund figure that he always wondered what the calligraphers they occasionally consulted in their work would make of it. He suspected that the fact that Hook, like him, had been a small child in the days of post-war austerity, when paper was scarce and precious, had shaped his hand far more than Freudian deprivations. Increasingly in the modern force, as typewriter and word-processor prevailed, Hook’s hand stood out by its legibility.

  ‘Michael Taylor,’ Lambert read. ‘Golf Club Captain. Vain, womanizing, tries to create an image which is probably more important to him than to anyone else. Hated the deceased, who threatened his whole way of life because he might at any time destroy Taylor’s standing with his wife. Taylor admits he is completely dependent on his wife’s money: he has tried to live a different life without it and failed. Query: has he the “bottle” for a murderer? No. But men driven to desperation often commit one violent act. When put under moderate pressure in our interview, he appeared near to collapse. This reaction again would be typical of the man who, driven beyond endurance, has committed a rash and violent act.’

  As Lambert read and pursed his lips, Hook waited a little defensively for his reaction. The Sergeant did not usually crystallize his thoughts into a summary of this kind: written judgements could be made to look very silly by subsequent events, whereas spoken ones were more easily forgotten. Having speculated in writing, he scarcely thought his efforts objective, but he was ready to defend them. But all Lambert said was, ‘How desperate does Taylor look to you now, Bert?’ as he looked past Hook to the course. The Sergeant turned in his chair. At first he saw only the plume of smoke beyond the tree-tops, now thicker and blacker but rising straight as ever into the motionless air. Then, focusing his eyes on things nearer and lower, he saw the Captain and the Secretary strolling by the woods on the eighteenth, Taylor now hands in pockets, Parsons as erect as ever and still wearing his jacket in the sweltering heat. Certainly the Captain had recovered his poise, even if after watching him half an hour ago they could only regard it as an image rather than reality. The two were in animated discussion, presumably about the course, for both made gestures which seemed related to their surroundings.

  The two detectives watched them curiously while they finished their sandwiches and beer. Reluctantly, Lambert gathered his papers and made ready for the afternoon’s activities. He had two people still to see: Debbie Hall and Bill Birch. Hook had already set up the first of these for him, but had not so far been able to contact Bill Birch. Now Vic Edwards appeared to recall him to duty. ‘Mr Birch on the phone for you, Superintendent,’ he said a little self-consciously: it was the first time he had ever addressed Lambert by his professional title.

  ‘John?’ It was a relief to Lambert to hear his first name again after so much formality with people he knew. ‘Terrible business last night.’ Lambert was listening for a trace of grief in the still recognizably Northern tones; Birch had been in the Home Counties now for twenty years, but scorned to disguise his Lancashire origins. There was no grief; rather did Lambert detect a note of elation as Birch went on, ‘As they used to say in Hollywood, “He had it coming to him,” though I’m sure that’s in very bad taste and I wouldn’t say it to a proper policeman. One I didn’t know, I mean.’ He trailed away a little on the last note of explanation; he had been waiting for the Superintendent to interrupt with some emollient phrase, but Lambert had been listening acutely for any hint of knowledge. ‘I believe our esteemed Boss was stabbed to death. It’s thrown things into confusion here, I can tell you. I’ve been trying to sort out the works all morning.’ Lambert had thought at first that Birch was referring to Shepherd’s chairmanship of the golf club; in his hectic round of interviews, he had forgotten that Bill Birch worked for Shepherd. Now he grunted just enough non-committal sympathy to encourage Birch forward.

  ‘I suppose this means our match is off this evening?’ said the Vice-Captain. Again Lambert was lost for a moment. Then he remembered what the tumbling events of the day had driven from his mind: Bill Birch and he had arranged to play their second round tie in the summer match-play tournament at 4.30 this very evening. He thought quickly. The decision he came to would have been considered eccentric, even unprofessional, by his Chief Constable.

  ‘No, Bill, let’s play. I’ll certainly be ready for some fresh air by then, and from what you say, so will you. I must see you some time today anyway, so let’s combine work with pleasure. That’s if you don’t mind answering questions as we stride down the fairways. We can postpone the serious match for a few days if you like and just play a friendly.’

  ‘Suits me, John. Spoken like a golfer. What a shame it would be to waste weather like this. See you at the Club at around four-thirty.’

  Lambert felt his spirits lift. There was a golfer lurking still within the policeman, then. Or perhaps, as Christine always said, a schoolboy. At any rate he was reassured by this little surge of humanity, until he remembered that Bill Birch, whom he liked, was today a murder suspect. He had seemed on the phone open, guilt-free, buoyant with the anticipation of sport in the perfect evening. But that was conduct entirely appropriate for the cool and nerveless murderer the case so far seemed to demand. And even more than the others he had seen, Bill Birch had been cheerfully resilient to the death of James Shepherd, OBE, and Chairman of his company.

  Through the thick walls of the clubhouse he heard a faint, excited shout. A heavy vehicle swung with a squeal of tyres into the Golf Club’s private road and a siren shrieked its urgent note. By the time Lambert got back to the terrace, the cause of the uproar was obvious. That didn’t stop a wide-eyed Michael Taylor, carefully waved blond hair now unkempt with agitation, from telling him.

  ‘The greenkeeper’s cottage,’ he gasped, ‘in the woods by the seventeenth. It’s burning like paper!’

  Over the trees, the thick plume of smoke had become an ugly black column. As they watched, it spread outwards in oily clouds. Even at this distance, there fell upon their ears the sharp crackle of flaming timber.

  Chapter 9

  With the clubhouse closed, there were not many people about to witness the drama. Hook wished his eight-year-old son could have been here to watch. The gleaming red fire-engine raced crazily across the green acres of Burnham Cross golf course. As their conveyance careered across the fairway, the helmeted firemen stood erect and impassive as toy soldiers. But at the gap where they disappeared between two tall beeches into the practice ground, the earth was rutted from the passage of the greenkeeper’s tractor. Here the fire-engine rocked crazily, and its passengers had to cling on like sailors on a storm-tossed trawler.

  Taylor, McBrain the Club professional, the learner whose lesson had been disrupted, and the few golfers in this area of the course ran in a ragged procession behind this scarlet vanguard. Parsons moved almost as swiftly behind them without essaying more than a swift march, mysteriously combining speed with dignity even in a crisis, a magisterial shepherd behind his unlikely flock. At a further remove, Lambert and Hook followed with the aldermanic gait appropriate to policemen of rank and experience; it was no more than four hundred yards, and they might need to arrive unruffled amid whatever destruction awaited them.

  The old greenkeeper’s cottage was a tiny but solid stone-built building, approached by a wide but overgrown track. In the days of the private estate which had stood here for a century be
fore the golf course, it had been a labourer’s cottage. The Club had modernized and furnished the dwelling some years previously. The Head Greenkeeper was now accommodated in a new house near the clubhouse, but a succession of his assistants had occupied the little cottage in the woods over the years. For the last six months it had been empty, the current green staff being generally young men still living at home with their parents. This quiet haven in the woods, where even the wildest slice rarely penetrated, was largely forgotten, except when older golfers reminisced about the course in days of yore.

  The end of the cottage adjacent to its single door was well ablaze and the flames were crackling hungrily around the tinder-dry leaves in the surrounding undergrowth. Fortunately, the fire-engine had been able to push its way down the overgrown track to the edge of the little clearing that still surrounded the old building. As Lambert and Hook arrived upon the noisy scene, the first hose began to play upon the blaze.

  There was a fierce hiss of steam from the undergrowth. Fortunately, the trees in their proud new growth were full of sap; only a few bushes and saplings at the base of larger trees would perish. From the tiny building, there was a sudden belch of steam and smoke, as if a dragon had been trapped within it; Hook thought again of his son. Long after all flames had died, the firemen continued to play their hoses upon the cottage, moving cautiously nearer until eventually they crouched beneath the low, collapsed doorway and peered into the smoking darkness. It was a single-storey building; the roof had perished at this end but remained intact elsewhere.

  ‘Good thing we were called so promptly,’ said the Fire Officer when he had finally given the order to douse the hoses. ‘No loss of life certainly, and not much real damage, I fancy.’

  ‘The building is presently disused,’ said David Parsons. Lambert could think of no one but Parsons who would have used the word ‘disused’, which seemed to belong to written English. Perhaps he was quoting one of his own reports on the club’s assets. A black fragment settled softly upon the forearm of the Secretary’s suit and he removed it fastidiously. Secretary and Captain cautiously circled the smouldering hovel; their members watched the firemen reassembling their implements upon the engine.