Fate Worse Than Death

by Sheila Radley

  ‘Me? Good God, you don’t mean to say you suspect –?’

  ‘Stop jumping down my throat, will you? I’m simply asking for information about the woman. You’re obviously on intimate terms with her, so I thought you’d know.’

  ‘That’s not true. I am not on intimate terms with her.’

  ‘No? Didn’t you spend the night with her on Wednesday? It certainly looked as though that was what you’d planned. And then last night –’

  Tait controlled his temper with an obvious effort. ‘For your information,’ he said, stiff-jawed, cold-eyed, ‘I have never had any kind of sexual relationship with the woman. I haven’t even touched her. And I know nothing about her private life. My visit last night was official, at your request. I wasn’t with her more than five minutes. And on Wednesday evening I didn’t stay with her for more than a quarter of an hour after you’d gone.’

  The Chief Inspector said nothing. He folded his arms, and gave the younger man the same kind of quizzical look that he’d given the suspects in the Sandra Websdell enquiry. It was a look that Tait knew well, though this was the first time he’d been on the receiving end of it.

  ‘What I told you is the truth,’ he persisted in a more conciliatory voice, remembering whose father Quantrill was. ‘Yes, I know I lied to my aunt, but that was different. Whatever impression I might have given you about my relationship with Mrs Yardley, it went no further than eye-contact and chat. I didn’t intend it to go any further. I’m extremely fond of your daughter – sir – and I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize my relationship with her. I may well marry her, eventually.’

  ‘Not if I have anything to do with it, you won’t,’ said Quantrill.

  At the Flintknappers Arms, Lois Goodwin greeted Sergeant Lloyd with alarmed relief. She’d dreaded the detectives’return; but the sergeant alone was different. At the sight of her, smiling pleasantly, sympathetic, ready to listen, Lois suddenly realized that since she’d been in Fodderstone she had made no friends. She’d been so busy with the wretched pub – not to mention her exhausting family – that it hadn’t until now occurred to her that she had no other woman to talk to. And she needed to talk.

  Phil was in the bar doing the lunch-time serving. Sergeant Lloyd approached by way of their private backyard, commenting on the number of their outbuildings. Lois willingly showed her round, then shooed the children out of the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you yesterday,’ she said, her hamster cheeks crimsoning. ‘About Phil being here asleep on Tuesday evening, I mean. He wasn’t. He didn’t come in until just after eight o’clock. He didn’t tell me what he’d been doing, but I can guess. He’s often had affairs – nothing serious, he always comes back – and I expect he was in Breckham Market with some other woman. Keeping a pub doesn’t really suit him, and that’s his way of escape. He would never have harmed Sandra Websdell though, I’m absolutely convinced of that.’

  ‘Keeping a pub doesn’t suit you either, does it?’ said the Sergeant. ‘I can understand why. Having to serve the same small bunch of regulars, all of them saying the same old things, every single day of the week, must be deadly.’

  ‘Oh, it’s worse than that! They’re not just boring, they’re cruel. You’ve no idea – I had no idea, or I’d never have agreed to take a pub in the first place.’

  Lois had tied a plastic apron over her frilled blouse, put on rubber gloves, and begun to tackle a sinkful of washing up. Her neatly rounded body quivered with activity and fury as she described the various humiliations she had to endure from the regulars. Clashing the dirty dishes together as she talked, she was too preoccupied to register the fact that her visitor had picked up a tea-towel and begun to do the drying. But she felt supported, and she gladly told everything she knew about Stan Bolderow and Reg Osler and Howard Braithwaite and Charley Horrocks.

  ‘They’d been up to something on Tuesday, I know that. Stan and Reg and Charley always come in every evening, early, but on Tuesday they weren’t back until after Phil returned from Breckham Market. Howard comes here only occasionally in the evenings, but he followed the others in.’

  ‘What made you think they’d been up to something?’

  ‘They were so noisy – almost as noisy as Phil always is. Flushed and excited … even Howard. I’d have said they’d been drinking somewhere else, except that I couldn’t smell it on them.’

  ‘What were they talking about?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t stay to listen. I was so angry with Phil for being late that I got out of the bar as soon as I could.’

  ‘But what was your general impression? Were they boasting, for example?’

  ‘Not boasting, no … I think perhaps they were being careful about what they were actually saying. Secretive. They seemed very pleased with themselves, but at the same time – well, guilty.’

  Her visitor made no comment. ‘Which drawer does the clean cutlery live in?’ she asked. ‘Ah, I’ve found it. You’ve heard about Mrs Yardley, I expect?’

  ‘That she’s been thrown from her horse – yes, it’s all round the village.’ Lois paused for a moment, with the greasy foam-flecked water almost over the top of her rubber gloves, remembering Annabel Yardley’s infuriating attitude of superiority. ‘I don’t really wish her any harm. I hope she’s soon found, and that she hasn’t been badly hurt. But quite honestly I’ve never liked the woman. She comes here when it suits her, but she either patronizes me or ignores me.’

  ‘Oh yes, the upper-class put-down. I get it in my job, too. Mrs Yardley does look stunning, though, I’ll give her that. She must turn quite a few heads when she comes into the bar.’

  Lois snorted. ‘Men,’ she said, punishing a grease-baked casserole dish with a pan-scrubber. ‘Yes, they all ogle her and fancy their chances.’

  ‘And do any of them have a chance with her, do you think?’

  ‘That’s what’s so annoying!’ exclaimed Lois, pounding the finally emptied sink with a dishcloth and scouring powder. ‘Mrs Yardley looks and sounds immaculate, but she doesn’t seem to have any morals. After all, she is a married woman. But if a man attracts her, she’ll go for him. And from what I’ve heard young Andrew Stagg saying –’

  ‘Andrew Stagg – isn’t he the farrier from Horkey? Dark curls, handsome face, good body?’

  ‘That’s him. Though he’ll soon lose his figure if he goes on drinking so much. He’s too fond of beer, and of what he calls wenching – he’s been after every attractive female for miles around. He was determined to add Mrs Yardley to his list as soon as he set eyes on her, and if you can believe what he’s said since –’

  ‘Do you believe it?’

  A bellow of ‘Lois!’ came down the long corridor, a summons from her husband in the bar. She raised her eyes, sighed, and pulled off her rubber gloves with a squelch and a plop.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ she said with wry gratitude as she took the damp tea-towel from her visitor. ‘I’m sure it isn’t every woman you ask for information who gets her drying up done for her. Look, as far as Andrew Stagg’s concerned, I really don’t know what his relationship with Mrs Yardley is. I don’t know whether to believe what he says about her or not. I don’t know what to believe about anybody – except that I’m sure my husband had nothing whatever to do with Sandra Websdell’s death.’

  ‘I heard you the first time,’ said Sergeant Lloyd.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Later that afternoon, Chief Inspector Quantrill drove over to Horkey to interview Andrew Stagg. He decided to go alone. He didn’t ask himself why, but he knew that he didn’t want Hilary Lloyd with him; still less did he want her to go by herself.

  As Quantrill arrived at the forge, Stagg was leading a chestnut mare out into the yard. A girl of about eighteen walked with the farrier, making up to him shamelessly. He had good features, strong teeth, a column of a neck; and as before he was shirtless, all tanned skin, pectoral muscles lightly oiled with sweat, and curling dark hai
r. A public menace where women were concerned, thought Quantrill, who was not predisposed to like him.

  Andrew Stagg bent, cupped his hands for the girl’s knee, and gave her a lift up into the saddle. They talked for a minute longer. ‘Tomorrow, then?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Stagg lazily. He slapped the mare’s flank in farewell, and ambled over to the Chief Inspector. ‘Anything I can do for you?’ he asked, politely enough but with a dismissive glance at his caller’s unhorseman-like girth.

  Quantrill told him sharply who he was and what he wanted. Andrew Stagg agreed without hesitation that Mrs Yardley was one of his customers. Yes, he’d heard she’d been thrown. Hadn’t she been found yet? Well, as soon as he’d finished work that afternoon he’d gladly come and help search for her.

  ‘Is Mrs Yardley a friend of yours?’ asked Quantrill. ‘A personal friend, I mean?’

  Stagg laughed cheerfully. ‘Not with her expensive tastes! No, I keep well away from women with her standard of living.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard. My information is that you boasted in the Flintknappers Arms that she was one of your conquests.’

  ‘Ah, talking’s different. When you’ve got a reputation, you want your mates to believe you’re living up to it.’ Stagg gave the Chief Inspector an inoffensively cheeky grin. ‘You were my age, once. You know how it is.’

  Quantrill did know, of course. He pulled in his stomach, recalling that he’d once had a bit of a reputation himself. He’d enjoyed exaggerating it, too – until he rashly went all the way with a pretty girl called Molly, in those far-off pre-pill days when you were expected either to be more careful or to pay for the mistake for the rest of your life. Modern young men like Andrew Stagg didn’t know how lucky they were, blast them.

  ‘Mrs Yardley is a very attractive woman. I can well imagine that you fancied adding her to your list,’ said Quantrill censoriously. ‘But she’s married, and socially she comes out of the top drawer. What I’m wondering is whether you pursued her, and then resented the fact that she turned you down.’

  Stagg’s open face crumpled in protest. ‘Here, wait a minute! You’re not suggesting that I knocked Annabel Yardley off her horse so that I could have my evil way with her, are you? That’s squit. Look, there’s no need for me to go to that trouble – I could have her any time I liked. Except that it wouldn’t be me having her, it’d be her having me … When I go wenching I want to get straight on with the job and finish it, but that woman’s got ideas of her own. She’s insatiable. I went to bed with her just once, and I thought I’d never get out of it intact. I’m not risking that again!’

  Quantrill grunted, somewhat appeased. Stagg sounded like a man in his own mould. ‘Do you know any of Mrs Yardley’s men friends?’ he asked.

  ‘I met some of them at a weekend house-party she gave in July. Noisy buggers – just like old Charley Horrocks, only younger. Wah wah wah – I’ve never come across so many toffee-nosed twits in my life.’

  ‘Hmm. And when did you last see Mrs Yardley?’

  ‘About ten days ago. I shoed her horses and chatted her up a bit – no harm in letting her think she’s still in the running – but that was all. If she’s not found before this evening, though, I’ll certainly help look for her.’ Stagg shook his head, recollecting his close encounter with Annabel Yardley with reluctant admiration: ‘Phew! She’s some woman …’

  But the Chief Inspector had reverted to a previous preoccupation. ‘Can you remember the date of that house-party?’ he asked, taking out his notebook. Stagg thought it had been the middle of the month: yes, probably 21-22 July.

  Sandra Websdell, Quantrill meditated, had disappeared on Wednesday 18 July. And it was on the following Friday night that the Websdells’family gnome had gone missing. If there was no connection between the two events – if the gnome had, as Tait suggested, been lifted by some Hooray Henry guests of Mrs Yardley – Andrew Stagg might be just the man to confirm it.

  Stagg did confirm it. In fact he’d been with them at the time. Some of the male guests, he explained, had persuaded him to do the driving (and use his petrol) when they went out on an evening pub crawl. On their way back to Beech House, just before midnight, they’d been making such a racket in the car that he’d taken the wrong road. He’d had a pint or two himself, of course, and that might have had something to do with it.

  Anyway, finding himself by mistake in Fodderstone Green, he’d turned the car. As he did so, his headlights had picked up a garden gnome that was propped outside somebody’s front gate. The Henries had made a lot of hunting noises, and insisted in kidnapping the gnome and leaving a ransome note. They wanted to find somewhere original and witty to park their capture, so they’d instructed Stagg to go on driving while they cudgelled their brains.

  But they hadn’t gone far before the Henries realized that the gnome was badly damaged. One of its legs had been knocked off, and the broken plaster was crumbling. They began to wonder whether the gnome had in fact been put down by the gate for the next refuse collection. If so – if it wasn’t its owner’s cherished possession – there was really no fun in taking it. So they’d chucked it out of the car window.

  ‘Whereabout would that have been?’ asked Quantrill.

  ‘Somewhere along the Horkey road, as far as I can remember.’

  ‘And was this on the Friday night?’

  ‘No, the Saturday. Definitely Saturday.’

  The Chief Inspector scratched his chin. So twenty-four hours in the gnome’s life were still unaccounted for. Where it had been taken on the Friday, by whom, how it had got damaged and why it had been returned to the garden gate, was a mystery. There was no reason to connect its adventures with Sandra Websdell’s disappearance and death; but on the other hand there could be a link. It was something he would have to discuss with Hilary Lloyd.

  By mid-afternoon, Annabel Yardley had still not been found.

  While the search for her continued, detectives made return visits to the Thorolds, Charley Horrocks and Howard Braithwaite. They also sought out Stan Bolderow and Reg Osler. All the men had denied any knowledge of Mrs Yardley’s whereabouts, and some – the Thorolds, father and son – had denied any knowledge of Mrs Yardley. She was certainly not to be found in any barn, hen-house, woodshed, boathouse or any other of their outbuildings.

  ‘But I wouldn’t trust the Flintknappers regulars any further than I could throw them,’ said Chief Inspector Quantrill. ‘And that includes the landlord, Phil Goodwin. If – for God knows what reason – they’ve got Annabel Yardley tucked away somewhere, it’s likely to be a hidey-hole we don’t yet know about. Possibly even on the other side of the forest.’

  ‘If she is being held captive,’ said Hilary practically, ‘someone will have to visit her regularly with food. Why don’t we start keeping a watch on the lot of them?’

  Quantrill shook his head. ‘That’d tie up too much manpower. Look at it like this: if the same people who held Sandra Websdell have now got Mrs Yardley, we have reason to believe that they mean her no physical harm. In that case, we can afford to leave her with them for another twenty-four hours.

  ‘But if she really was thrown from her horse and she’s lying out there in the forest in this heat – with no water, and possibly badly injured – we must find her as soon as possible. For that, we need all our manpower, plus every volunteer we can raise, to make a concentrated search before nightfall.’

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Martin Tait was so annoyed by the words he’d had with Chief Inspector Quantrill that he made no offer to help in the search for Mrs Yardley. It’s their problem, let them get on with it, he thought. Besides, he had things of his own to do that evening.

  Next day, Saturday 12 August, he went flying again. There was still no break in the weather. Heat haze, augmented by smoke from the last of the straw fires in the harvested fields, continued to obscure the horizon. But he decided to make a longer trip, as a navigational exercise: down to Ipswich for a touch-and-go l
anding, and then across country to Cambridge, where he stopped for a snack lunch.

  As he returned to Horkey, approaching the airfield at 2,000 feet, he noticed some unusual activity five or six miles north of Fodderstone. The area – an uninhabited part of the forest – was a stretch of heath bounded on one side by a conifer plantation. On the other side of the heath was a large field of pale stubble that was flickering into orange blossoms as fire was put to heaps of straw. The open heath was crossed by a dirt road, and travelling along it were a number of vehicles; twenty or more of them, all heading northwards.

  But Tait had no time to see where they were going, because he was flying south and the airfield was in sight. He called the control tower when he was overhead, and then began to descend to circuit height. He looked again for the vehicles when he was flying the crosswind leg, but the flames from the burning straw had turned to smoke that spread over the heathland and obscured his view.

  After he had landed and parked his Cessna in the hangar, he found that Hilary Lloyd was waiting for him outside the clubhouse. Her face was grave and her tone unusually formal as she told him that Chief Inspector Quantrill wanted to see him in Fodderstone, as a matter of urgency.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Tait. ‘Haven’t you found Mrs Yardley yet? Look, I had Doug Quantrill here yesterday, trying to grill me about her private life, and I’m damned if I’m going to put up with any more of it. I’ve already told him I know nothing at all about the woman. Believe it or not, Hilary, I took your advice and walked out on her.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said seriously. ‘We haven’t found Mrs Yardley yet, and of course we’re still looking. But –’

  ‘Was that convoy, going across the heath to the north of what used to be Fodderstone Hall, anything to do with your search?’ asked Tait. ‘Because if not, it seems a bit odd that twenty private vehicles should all be heading purposefully towards nowhere in particular. It might be worth your while to investigate the area. I’ll show you on my map.’