by Fay Sampson
‘How?’ The detective’s eyebrows rose, but his expression gave little away.
‘I don’t know!’ she said in frustration. ‘I’ve got a really bad feeling that she’s in danger. But I don’t know what I can do about it. Except tell you.’
‘And what sort of danger might that be? As I understand it, Frances Nosworthy is the solicitor for Philip Caseley. She is perfectly within her rights to investigate any line of enquiry which could help her client. You had some … shall we say, rather imprecise information about something you thought was going on at Saddlers Wood. Though nothing that would obviously have a bearing on Eileen Caseley’s murder.’
‘Unless it had to do with a dispute over mineral rights.’ Nick unexpectedly came to Suzie’s aid.
‘Hmm. I see.’ The detective’s tone was unconvinced.
‘So, will you do something about it?’ Nick enquired. ‘Is there any way you can help Frances Nosworthy?’
The detective twiddled the pen between his fingers. ‘I can’t discuss operational matters.’
Suzie could contain her impatience no longer. ‘So where does that leave us? I’m really scared for her. And I don’t know whether you’re going to do anything to protect her.’
‘It’s not for me to say how your information will be used. I’ll report back to my superiors. The decision’s up to them. Thank you for reporting this. If you would just give me a few moments, I’ll get you to sign a statement.’
When the formalities were complete, DS Dudbridge rose. He held out a hand to Nick.
‘Thank you again. Let us know if there’s anything else.’
He shook hands with Suzie and then he was gone.
She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘So, did he believe me? Was he taking it seriously?’
‘He didn’t slam the door in our faces, did he? He said he wants to know if there’s anything else.’
What? Suzie wondered to herself. What else could happen now that Frances had warned Suzie not to contact her?
The detective’s car had barely drawn away from the gate when Tom came breezing in. He was dressed in shorts and singlet and was glowing from a morning run.
He threw a copy of the local paper down on the table.
‘There! Told you! You said the press were all over the shop at the Caseley funeral. They’ve given a whole page to it. Photographs and all. Recognize anybody?’
The front page directed Suzie to page five. She thumbed through to it, clumsy in her haste.
The full page spread was a mixture of text and pictures. For a horrid moment, Suzie feared she might see herself entering the church. The most arresting image was of Philip Caseley in his black suit, handcuffed to a warder. There was a picture of the son Matthew, his face expressionless, making his way with other mourners to the church door. A photograph of the farmhouse in Saddlers Wood where the murder had taken place. A longer shot of the sober group around Eileen Caseley’s grave as the coffin was lowered.
Suzie started. There was a slim figure in a dark skirt and a paler jacket standing just on the nearer side of the wall which separated the old churchyard from the new. She had her back to the camera, but Suzie knew it was herself. And there, not far away, was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a long dark raincoat, standing beside a Celtic cross.
She shuddered and reached her hand forward till her finger hovered over him.
‘That’s him. The man who was watching me. I wasn’t making it up.’
‘What man? Let me see.’ Millie pushed forward between Suzie and Tom. She stared at it, uncomprehending. ‘So? A man in a black coat at a funeral? What’s special about that?’
Suzie sighed. ‘It’s a long story. I didn’t realize we hadn’t told you.’
‘No one ever tells me anything!’
Nick laid his hand on Millie’s shoulder. ‘It’s just your mother thought this guy was rather more interested in her than in the people at the graveside. It spooked her. But we’ve no idea who he is. There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation.’
‘Like he fancied her?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
Suzie looked up warily. Nick’s eyes met hers over Millie’s head. He winked at her, but not in a playful way. He was telling her that they didn’t want to alarm fifteen-year-old Millie. No need to tell her what had happened with Frances, or why the police had been in the house. She breathed more easily. Nick was no longer discounting that instinct of fear she had felt, whatever he said to Millie.
‘You said you couldn’t see his face properly, because of the cross,’ Tom said. ‘But you can from this angle.’
‘And where’s that hat you said he was wearing?’ Nick asked.
‘He’d taken it off for the committal,’ Suzie said. ‘He wasn’t wearing it when I first saw him. Only afterwards, when we were coming away. And then I couldn’t see him properly because he’d pulled the brim down over his face.’
‘You won’t see much, anyway.’ Millie was still indignant at having been shut out from the story. ‘He’s too far away. Just that he’s bald. Or nearly.’
It was true. The photographer had been sufficiently respectful not to show a close-up of the mourners at the grave at such a sensitive moment. They were rather like stick figures in a Lowry painting.
‘Tell you what,’ said Tom. ‘You could go to the newspaper office and get a blow-up of this photo. He’s pretty much in the foreground. You might get a proper look at his face then.’
Nick seized the paper. ‘I’ll do it. It’s high time I was off into town, anyway.’
‘Hey, you don’t have to take the photo with you,’ Millie protested. ‘You know which one you want. Just tell them … Besides,’ a thought struck her, ‘they might have others of him they didn’t publish. Clearer ones. It’s worth a try.’
‘I’m not sure the photographer would want to hand them over to me. I’m not the police.’ Nick looked at Suzie uncertainly. ‘Should I show the murder team this? Point out it’s our best chance yet of identifying the man?’
She made a doubtful face. ‘It’s up to you. That detective sergeant seemed more inclined to listen to us than his boss did.’
‘Did they tell you whether they’d noticed this man themselves?’ Tom asked.
‘Chief Inspector Brewer wasn’t giving anything away. You’ve met her. You know what she’s like.’
‘Point taken. And the DS?’
‘We weren’t really talking about that. It was …’ Suzie realized belatedly that she hadn’t taken the kids into her confidence, ‘about something else entirely. A phone call from Philip’s solicitor,’ she added lamely.
‘You’re holding out on us,’ Millie accused her.
‘Look, sort this out among yourselves,’ Nick said. ‘I’ve got to go.’
He breezed out of the house, leaving the newspaper lying on the table.
FOURTEEN
‘So, Mum,’ Millie insisted.
Suzie gave her a watered down version of Frances Nosworthy’s phone call and the sense of menace she had felt.
‘Probably just my imagination, but I thought she was holding something back.’
Tom picked up the paper and scrutinized the photograph. ‘You think it was this guy, leaning over that solicitor and holding a gun to her head? And you say I’m the one who takes off into conspiracy theories?’
‘Give me that photo,’ Millie demanded.
She took it over to the window and stared at it thoughtfully. The morning sunshine made a halo of her tousled blonde hair. After a while she said, ‘I know you two are fixated on the idea of some mining company murdering the poor woman to get their filthy hands on some minerals under Saddlers Wood, but what if there’s a different reason why this guy’s standing on the other side of the wall watching them bury her? OK, he’s middle-aged and bald, but she wasn’t exactly Naomi Campbell herself. What if he was her secret lover? He could hardly push himself in at the graveside with her family and friends, but he’d want to be there, wouldn’t he, to say a l
ast goodbye?’
Tom rounded on her, ‘But then, why would he kill her?’
‘I didn’t say he did, half-brain. But he might be the reason someone else did.’
‘Philip,’ said Suzie. ‘You mean you think he did it, after all?’ She felt a sense of weary disappointment, for a reason she could not name. She felt her brow furrow. ‘But Frances Nosworthy seemed sure he didn’t, and she seems to be, not just his solicitor, but a family friend.’
‘So? She probably fancies him. Doesn’t want to believe he could do anything as bad as that. Come to think of it,’ Millie was warming to her subject, blue-grey eyes alight now, ‘she might even be an accomplice, so that she could marry Philip once she’s got him off the hook and this is all over. Mum, you’d never met her before the funeral. And she sounds keen as mustard to have you spin her a story that would throw suspicion on someone else. It all fits!’
Suzie felt a heavy sense of disbelief. She could see the logic of what Millie was saying. It was an old, old story, far more common than the complicated scenario she and Tom had concocted around a surveying nail found on Caseley land. But then, she argued with herself, money was another standard motive for murder.
‘That doesn’t explain,’ she said more aggressively than she intended, ‘why this man you say was Eileen’s lover was staring at me. What would I have to do with it?’
Millie shrugged. ‘Look at it from his point of view. Party round the graveside. Two detectives watching. They could be a problem, so he’s hiding behind that cross. And then there’s you. Unexplained woman. Also watching from a careful distance. You say he spooked you. But what if you spooked him?’
Suzie turned this new idea over in her mind. It had a kind of uncomfortable plausibility. She could not explain why she found it so difficult to accept.
‘Should we go to the police with this?’ Tom suggested. ‘Change of heart?’
‘No need,’ Millie said. ‘Your Detective Chief Inspector Brewer was there. She must have seen him. I’m quite sure she can work it out for herself.’
Suzie sat in her office at the back of the charity shop, trying to keep her mind on her job. Confusing thoughts chased each other through her head. She had been so sure that the truth about Eileen Caseley’s murder lay outside the domestic sphere. But why? It had all stemmed from that one sharp crack of a broken branch, the feeling of being watched as she stood by the ruins of her ancestors’ cottage in Saddlers Wood. She could see now with increasing clarity why that wasn’t enough to convince the police.
Millie’s explanation made such perfect sense. A secret lover, a jealous husband. And yet … Her mind flew back to Frances Nosworthy’s phone call. It had not been possible to convey to the others, or to Detective Sergeant Dudbridge, the contrast between the eagerness with which Frances and Suzie had discussed the case over tea, and the curtly formal telephone communication. The woman who had been sufficiently keen for Suzie to call her with fresh information to give her a business card, then flatly ordered her to stay out of it and make no further contact.
Was it just that Suzie’s own pride and self-importance had suffered a slap in the face? She was no longer wanted, of no significance in this case.
Or … Her skin crawled as she thought through the rest of Millie’s speculation. Was it really possible that Frances herself had been behind Eileen’s death? That she and Philip …?
Had Frances only latched on to Suzie after the funeral in the hope that the latter’s suspicions about a mining company might lead the police away from her?
Suzie thought back to that hour in the tea room. She found it hard to believe that the warmth she had felt towards the other woman had been based on a lie. Or did her pride not want to accept she had been duped?
So had she been conned again by that phone call? Had there been nothing after all in that seeming plea for help at the end: Do you understand?
She sighed with frustration and turned her attention to the work in hand. It was only two days now to the sponsored tractor pull on Saturday. Teams from a local Young Farmers Club were taking turns to tow a tractor right across the moor. Suzie had walked the moor enough to know what a challenge that was. Of course, they would be sticking to the road, not climbing the higher tors on either side, and the really steep gradients were not on the moor itself, but in the river gorges around it. Still, it was a formidable undertaking. She hoped the weather would keep fine for them.
She reached for the map. The patron of the old people’s charity would be starting them off on the western side, and at the eastern end the MP, Clive Stroud, would be there to meet them in … Moortown.
The name leaped out at her from the page. She had known this for weeks, of course. She’d made all the arrangements, invited the MP, organised the WI to lay on the refreshments that would be ready for the triumphant team and the welcoming party. She had even known that she would need to be there to see that everything went off smoothly. But not until this morning had she connected the two strands in her mind. She had wanted to keep away from Moortown after her brush with Chief Inspector Brewer and that warning call from Frances Nosworthy. But now she couldn’t help it. There was no one else she could delegate this to. It was a small organization. She was the sole local administrator.
She felt her heart sink as she realized that she would have to go.
Her ears were alert for Nick’s key in the front door at the end of the afternoon. Until now she had not realized how much she had been both anticipating and dreading a closer look at the face which had been watching her in the graveyard. If Millie were right, then this man might be guilty of adultery, but not murder. He had come to the funeral torn by a grief he could not express openly.
But she was still left with that feeling of menace as her eyes met his between the interstices of the Celtic cross.
And if Philip had found out about the affair, why not kill this man as well as Eileen?
She was in the hall to greet Nick, her face eager for news.
‘Hey, I don’t usually get this sort of welcome.’
‘Have you got it? The photograph?’
‘Should have known it wasn’t my bright blue eyes you were pining for. No.’ He slapped his car keys down on the hall table in frustration. ‘Come back tomorrow, they said. Can’t do it any sooner. I’m sorry.’
She did not know whether it was disappointment or relief she felt.
Instead she changed the subject. ‘Look, I know you’d rather we kept away from Moortown, under the circumstances. But it had gone clean out of my head that there’s this sponsored tractor tow across the moor this weekend. I’m supposed to be there when the MP meets them at the finish in Moortown. I can’t really get out of it.’
His eyebrows flicked casually. ‘Of course you have to go. Why not? It can’t do any harm. There’ll be crowds of people around. And you’ll be there in your official capacity. It’s not as if you’d give them the impression that you were nosing around in the murder case. Do you want me to drive you over?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind. I still feel a bit shivery about going back there. I’d be glad of the company.’
He put his arms around her lightly. ‘Consider yourself escorted. I’ll be there to watch your back. And a tractor tow sounds like it could be fun … as long as nobody’s expecting me to take part. OK?’
‘Thanks,’ she said, and meant it.
FIFTEEN
Suzie hesitated at the end of their avenue. One branch of the main road led to the Record Office in an industrial estate on the edge of town, the other to the police headquarters. It seemed a symbolic choice. There was nothing new to report to the police, was there? Even if they were interested. Detective Chief Inspector Brewer must surely have noticed the man in the photograph – that was why she was at the funeral, to look for anyone acting suspiciously.
Including me.
The senior investigating officer was not going to welcome Suzie teaching her her job.
On the other hand … Some of what Millie had p
roposed was disturbing. About Frances being personally involved in Eileen’s death.
But there was nothing more she could do about it. She felt a lift of her spirits she had not experienced for several days. She could go back to what she enjoyed most: delving into the history of this area that was not only her own home, but that of countless generations of her ancestors.
There was a swing in her step as she walked up the hill and crested the rise above the industrial estate.
The Record Office nestled in an older house that had been here long before the car showrooms and DIY centres. More recently the council had added a new wing with state-of-the-art conservation facilities for the county’s historical documents. It had become Suzie’s playground since its opening.
She stowed her belongings in a locker and put her essential tools in a clear plastic bag. No chance of smuggling irreplaceable papers out under the archivist’s eye. She had brought her laptop. Suzie smiled wryly as she realized that her decision to come here, and not to the police headquarters, had been made the moment she picked it up.
She wondered where to begin. She knew that her ancestor Barnabas Avery had been a tinner back in the 1600s. As she had told Tom, that didn’t mean he hacked the tin from the moor with his own hands. In fact, the Averys had run a tannery in Moortown. But Barnabas had inherited the historical rights and privileges of a tinner. He was, in a small way, a mining magnate.
She felt the tension immediately. This was too close to what they had thought when they made that discovery of the survey nail. That whoever was in that wood the day they’d met Eileen Caseley had a stake in a mining company that was eager to get its hands on what lay under the soil. Had it been Merlin Mines?
She pushed the thought away. It was because she thought she could put that idea behind her that she had come here. Should she just zip her laptop back into its case and go home?
She steeled herself to concentrate on the seventeenth century. It was an era that had known the bitterness of civil war, the beheading of its king, the lurch back from Puritanism to hedonism with the Restoration of the monarchy, and then the flight of the Catholic-leaning James II before the Protestant William of Orange and Queen Mary.
