Grave Stones (The Falconer Files Book 9)

by Andrea Frazer

  On this assumption, they both got out of the car but, as she reached the pavement, she shook her head at them. ‘No sign of her yet, and I’m really getting worried now,’ she said, before noticing Carmichael, after which a bright smile of glee lit up her face.

  She herself was dressed in a long, tie-dyed, hippie-style dress that was multi-coloured and distinctive. Looking down at her own attire, then glancing over to Carmichael’s neon trousers and gaudy shirt, she gave a low whistle, and commented, ‘Looks like we’ve been asked to the same party, Sergeant, but don’t tell the boss. He looks like he lucked out when they were giving out the invites.’

  ‘About your friend, Miss Fletcher,’ Falconer stated, defusing the embarrassment of the situation for Carmichael, ‘Have you no idea whatsoever where she’s gone off to?’

  Suddenly serious again, Wanda replied, ‘I haven’t seen her for days, now. We usually meet a couple of evenings a week. Sometimes we stay in, or we go to The Druid’s Head if we’re feeling flush. She just doesn’t do this sort of thing.’

  ‘And we don’t need to ask you whether she’s been missing for more than forty-eight hours, because we called there ourselves on Sunday. If she doesn’t show up pretty soon, I suggest you report her as a missing person,’ Falconer advised her. He’d already bitten back a sarcastic retort about Wanda getting information from her tarot cards, and felt a twinge of worry himself.

  ‘Put a note through her door,’ he continued, ‘Leave a message on her answer phone and her mobile and, if you don’t get a response fairly soon, make it official. That way we can search for her, put out a radio appeal, something like that, and ascertain whether she’s just sloped off somewhere and forgotten to tell anyone, or has put herself in danger somehow.’

  ‘Thanks, Inspector,’ said Wanda, her face a mask of uncertainty and worry. ‘I’ll start the process off straight away and, if I’ve not heard anything by the end of tomorrow, then I’ll report it.’

  When Violet Bingham opened the door to them, Lettice’s old black and white cat wove in and out between her ankles, purring loudly. ‘He seems to have settled in well,’ opined Falconer, stooping to stroke the cat, which immediately turned into a raging monster and raked its claws across the back of his hand, drawing four lines of blood in his skin.

  ‘That’s only because he’s known me since he was a kitten,’ she answered, putting a hand across her lips, which refused to stop smiling, they having no understanding of the English belief that Schadenfreude should be enjoyed in private. ‘The Bishop can be really naughty at times.’

  ‘The Bishop?’ queried Falconer, wondering how ecclesiastical matters had suddenly entered the conversation.

  ‘The cat’s called The Bishop. I should have explained, and I’m sorry about that, but you didn’t give me a chance to warn you. This old kitty just isn’t very good at making friends. Come in and wash the blood away, and I’ll get you some antiseptic cream and a plaster – or two,’ she finished, examining the length and breadth of the wounds.

  ‘You come on in and sit down, while I show the inspector to the bathroom and administer a bit of timely first-aid,’ she said, looking up at Carmichael, to make sure that he could hear her at that altitude. She was only five-feet nothing in her stockinged feet. Carmichael was like a giant beside her, and they’d only conversed in a sitting position before.

  Carmichael made himself not-quite-comfortable in one of her tiny armchairs, his legs sticking out right to the hearth, like a giant hurdle to anyone attempting to cross to the other side of the room.

  When the other two returned, Falconer had a wad of gauze-covered cotton wool across the back of his hand, firmly affixed with several sticking plasters. ‘That’s the inspector sorted,’ Violet said, twinkling at Carmichael and walking round the back of the chair and inserting herself between a sofa and the other armchair, at the far side of the fireplace. ‘Sit down, Inspector, and tell me how I can help you.’

  But, before he could open his mouth, she asked him, ‘Did the murderer take all her jewellery – I mean the whole lot – even what she was wearing?’

  ‘She wasn’t wearing any jewellery, Mrs Bingham.’

  ‘She must have been!’

  ‘Nothing, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But she never took them off. Said that wearing them was better than a safe, any day of the week. I told her she was mad; it was too risky, but she said I was just fussing unnecessarily.’

  ‘To what, exactly, are you referring?’ Falconer asked, feeling that they were at rather cross purposes.

  ‘To the bracelets and necklace that she always wore, of course,’ replied Violet, getting agitated at their lack of comprehension.

  ‘Those stones?’ Carmichael asked. ‘Those dull old stones?’ not realising what he was about to bring down around his head.

  ‘Those dull old stones, as you describe them, were uncut gems – diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies. Those were her real treasure. She’d never had them cut, thinking that, if she were ever in any real financial difficulties, she could always sell them. Where are they? They’re really valuable.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ exclaimed Falconer, ‘that was the message she was trying to leave.’

  ‘Whatever are you talking about?’ asked Violet, totally perplexed.

  ‘When she was found,’ Falconer explained, she’d managed to crawl out of the house and over to the boundary of the old graveyard. She had her arms reached out as if she was trying to touch something, and now we know what it was.’

  ‘What?’ asked Carmichael, knowing that light would soon dawn for him; it was just a case of waiting for someone to say something he understood.

  ‘It was the gravestones!’ Falconer exclaimed, with total comprehension, now.

  ‘The gravestones what?’ One minute they’d been talking about those dull old pebbles the old lady wore strung round her wrists and neck, now they’d somehow got on to the gravestones in the church yard.

  ‘She was giving us the message that the most important things were those dull old stones she wore. That’s why she crawled out to the gravestones – to let us know.’

  ‘Why didn’t she just take off the bracelets and necklace?’ Carmichael was slowly getting there.

  ‘Because the only other person who knew about them was Mrs Bingham here. Miss Keighley-Armstrong did something dramatic with her last ounce of strength and her final breath, to alert someone that they were not just some cheap holiday souvenir from her childhood. If we’d only had the forethought to tell her friend the position in which she was found, the connection could have been made right at the beginning of the case.

  ‘If she’d just taken them off and put them on a table, they might have been cleared away, with no notice taken of them at all. They could have been packed up with the rest of the house and never identified. She was leaving a message for her best friend that the real stones had not been stolen. She was still wearing them.’

  ‘Crikey! I don’t know how you do it, sir,’ said Carmichael in admiration.

  ‘It was staring me in the face. I just didn’t know what I was looking at, nor who to ask for an explanation. Thank you so much for your insight, Mrs Bingham. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.’

  ‘And none of the beneficiaries of the will are going to lose out either,’ concluded Violet, with a ‘hmph’ of satisfaction.

  Falconer, however, had disappeared off in to a brown study, suddenly visualising all those priceless uncut stones in a plastic bag in the evidence room, like so much worthless dross. ‘I’m going to have to make a phone call about those stones. Before we go, though,’ he said, his plans now shattered, ‘Why didn’t you mention that you were her executrix?’

  ‘Because you already had a copy of the will from the safe. I’d have thought you’d have read it fairly thoroughly. I didn’t know that you actually didn’t realise the position.’

  She was perfectly correct in her assumption, and Falconer felt the fool that he undoubtedly was, for his lack
of attention to detail and observation.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, breaking in on his thoughts. ‘I didn’t think about it at the time, but Lettice always kept a goodly sum of money in the safe, just in case of emergencies.’

  ‘Have you any idea of the amount? We certainly didn’t find any cash.’

  ‘Anywhere between four and five thousand, I believe. I told her it was asking for trouble, but she brushed me off, telling me I was like an over-anxious nanny.’

  ‘Great! Glad you mentioned it!’ Wrong-footed again. Why hadn’t she said something sooner? Not that it really got them any further forward with regard to who the murderer was.

  Back in the privacy of the car, Falconer telephoned the station and explained the situation to Bob Bryant, telling him to get the unremarkable objects out of the plastic evidence bag into their own bag, and safely locked in the station safe. It would do the reputation of the force no good whatsoever if a bag of valuable uncut gems was ‘lifted’ from the evidence room under their very noses.

  After that shocking revelation, Falconer suggested that they went round to The Rectory and begged a cup of tea, using the excuse that they were just warning Rev. Florrie about the search warrant that would be executed on the morrow. Neither of them had any qualms about her knowing about this proposed search, for neither of them had any suspicions of her behaviour, or any doubts about her character.

  Having refreshed their bodies, if not their souls, with well-brewed Darjeeling and the unexpected treat of sliced, buttered ginger cake, they left her to get on with writing her sermon for the following Sunday, and got back into their vehicle.

  ‘Are we going straight round to the Galton and Lattimer houses?’ asked Carmichael, as Falconer fired up the ignition.

  ‘No, I think we’ll just have another quick round of the runners in the race, just to make sure that we’ve asked everything we can, and to check the atmosphere in the households. They’ve all had more time to take in the fact that there have been, not one, but two murders, and I’d like to see if that has changed anything in their attitudes.’

  ‘If we’re just having a bit of a sniff around, and not actually searching, do you think I could ask Mr Lattimer if he’d come over to my place and have a look at my collection?’ asked Carmichael, suddenly spotting a bright spot in the afternoon.

  ‘If you must,’ replied Falconer, in a resigned voice. He’d have to make sure he was not in earshot at the time, as he would find the whole thing very embarrassing. Smurfs! Whatever next? Barbie dolls?

  Gwendolyn had gone round to Toby’s house as instructed, wondering what on earth he could have that she hadn’t yet seen – in the bibelots field, of course! She’d been in his sitting room and dining room. She knew he had a study, but it was a small one, the same size as hers, as the two houses had been built at the same time and by the same builder. There could be nothing in the kitchen. She was intrigued.

  Her curiosity was not to be satisfied immediately, however, as Toby had the afternoon tea things laid out on the dining room table, there being no need to take it from a small table in front of the drawing room fire, as the weather was so spring-like.

  He’d produced a proper old-fashioned tea, with cucumber sandwiches with the thinnest bread and the crusts cut off. A cake-stand held fondant fancies on the bottom and scones on the top. In the middle of the table was a silver tea service, hot water jug included, and fine porcelain waited to be used, with white, starched damask napkins rolled into silver napkin rings beside the plates.

  ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble, Toby. It looks rather as though you were expecting royalty, not just scruffy old me from two doors down.’ Gwendolyn was astonished at his attention to detail, and the formality with which he had imbued the situation. ‘I usually only manage a mug of tea and a custard cream myself, if I bother at all.’

  ‘It’s the least one can do for a lady guest with whom one wishes to establish a business relationship and, hopefully, a friendship as well,’ he replied, with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. ‘Sit down, do, and I shall be mother. I’ve made Indian; I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Sounds great. A teabag’s the greatest luxury I allow myself,’ replied Gwen, reaching for a chair only to find that Toby had pulled it out for her, and was waiting for her to sit, so that he could place it under her. Next, he removed her napkin from its ring, shook it out and placed it on her lap.

  ‘Good heavens! I feel like I’m at the Ritz. Do you always do afternoon tea like this?’ she asked, appraising the food with a greedy eye.

  ‘Only on very special occasions,’ he replied, causing her to blush. Really, he could be full of old-world charm, when he wanted to be. Perhaps he wasn’t such a bad old stick after all, thought Gwen, watching the amber stream pour from the teapot’s spout and into cups that were so thin that she could see the tea through them.

  When she had eaten as much as she could and drunk three cups of tea, Toby placed his used napkin on his plate, and gave her a wolfish smile. ‘Time for treasure!’ he announced, rising from the table. ‘There are some downstairs things I’d like you to look over but, before we do that, I’ll show you my upstairs collection.’

  The smile and the word ‘upstairs’ had made Gwen wary, and she stared a challenge at him. Seeing her look, he smiled and reassured her, ‘My dear, I’m interested only in my collections, and showing them to someone who will really appreciate them. These awful events in the village seem to have brought us together and exposed our like minds, don’t you think?’

  ‘Lay on, Macduff,’ she uttered, at a loss for anything else to say. All she’d expected was a look through a few display cabinets, with maybe a few drawers full of items, and the contents of the glass-topped display table in the living room.

  Toby led the way upwards, entering what proved to be the third bedroom – merely a box-room, in this particular house design. Every wall was lined with shelved, glass-doored units, each bulging with pieces of porcelain.

  ‘I have some lovely little Sevres bits-and-bobs,’ he told her, ‘and my oriental collection will take some rivalling. Come in and have a look.’

  In the centre of the tiny room sat a swivel leather chair, placed so that it was possible to sit and slowly rotate, allowing each cabinet and its contents to be admired one by one. It was a perfect little viewing gallery, and she’d never seen anything like it before in an ordinary, not over-large house.

  Letting her eyes move round the room, she was overwhelmed with the bright display of Moorcroft pieces, from the very earliest to those from the sixties. There were even some early Macintyre pieces of Florian ware in his collection. Light from the window shone on some of the tube-lining, making it stand out proudly. The impression made was that she had walked into a rainbow, and she caught her breath in admiration.

  ‘How long have been collecting this?’ she asked, drawing in a deep breath of appreciation.

  ‘I inherited the first pieces from Mother – she was a collector, too – and then I caught the bug as well,’ he replied, smiling smugly at the expression of wonder on her face. ‘I’ll just visit the bathroom, and give you a few minutes to look around, then we’ll go on to the next room.’

  With the meaning of Lettice’s message from beyond the grave now discovered, Falconer was given furiously to think, and when Carmichael spoke in the car, he heard not a word, a nudge of his knee from the sergeant finally bringing him back to the here-and-now.

  ‘Sorry, Carmichael,’ he apologised. ‘I think the new pieces of the jigsaw are starting to settle in my brain. I was miles away. What did you say?’

  ‘I said that I might as well try to confirm a provisional date for the christenings when we go to the vicar’s tomorrow,’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes. Good idea.’ The inspector had pulled up outside Three-Ways House, causing Carmichael to ask, ‘So, we’re starting here, sir, are we?

  ‘Quite right. It’s as good a place as any, and the closest to where we’ve just come from. As I said
, I just want to take another look at everyone, before I reach any earth-shattering conclusions. If that’s all right with you, Sergeant?’

  ‘No problem, sir. You go where you think we’ll get the most useful information.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tuesday afternoon – Shepford St Bernard

  When they were invited inside the awkwardly positioned house, the Haygarths were in the middle of unloading the spoils of a mammoth shopping trip, foodstuffs scattered all around the kitchen waiting to be put away. The working surface boasted two packs of steak and a leg of lamb, the kitchen table half-a-dozen bottles of a rather acceptable red wine.

  ‘Business looking up?’ asked Falconer, eyeing the wares quizzically.

  ‘Actually, we’ve just landed a big contract, and we’ve cut down on every side of our lives so much that we thought we deserved a celebratory splurge,’ answered Belinda, caressing a pack of steak as she gazed at it lovingly.

  ‘Couldn’t have come at a better time,’ confirmed Jasper, gently sliding the bottles of wine into the built-in wine-rack.

  ‘Rather fortuitous,’ remarked Falconer sarcastically, thinking back to the domestic stinginess that had existed just a few days ago. Here, indeed, was evidence of the acquisition of unexpected liquid funds. He’d have to factor that into his thinking.

  ‘Anyway, how can we help you?’ asked Jasper, the last bottle put away.

  That called for a bit of quick thinking, as Falconer had only brought them there so that he could have a little nose around, to see if anything had changed. That done, he was a bit stumped.

  ‘We just wanted to ask you if you’ve remembered anything else, from the night of the party. Any tiny thing, no matter how unimportant it seems to you, could be the vital piece of information that solves the case.’ This was Carmichael, who, for once, had proved quicker thinking than the inspector, and Belinda looked at him with a new respect.

  ‘Actually, there was just a tiny something that looked unusual,’ she volunteered, causing Jasper to look at her in astonishment.