Village Affairs

by Cassandra Chan

  “Not at all, Constable. Only thing to do, really. Have a seat. This is Phillip Bethancourt, by the way. Phillip, Constable Stikes.”

  Bethancourt looked up and offered a hand, which the Constable shook before lowering herself into a chair.

  “I’ve come,” she said, “about the death of Charles Bingham.”

  “Oh, yes, poor chap.” Astley-Cooper nodded. “Vicar found him dead in his cottage on Monday,” he added to Bethancourt. “He was new hereabouts. A delightful chap, if somewhat eccentric. Spent a lot of time in the Far East, I believe.”

  “And Africa,” put in the constable.

  “Yes, and Africa. Exploring, I gathered.”

  “Well, CID’s rung up,” said Stikes, her eyes darting curiously toward the drawing room windows where the models were changing. “They think Mr. Bingham was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” repeated Astley-Cooper in surprise.

  Bethancourt abandoned his study of the chessboard. There was a gleam of interest in his hazel eyes behind their glasses.

  “Yes, sir. At least, it looks very like it. They want me to check into everyone’s movements on Sunday evening before Scotland Yard arrives.”

  “Scotland Yard?” asked Bethancourt. “Isn’t Gloucestershire CID handling it?”

  Constable Stikes shrugged. “They think he was murdered in London, sir,” she answered. “And they’re shorthanded, what with those murders in Cirencester and that spate of burglaries in Cheltenham. Chief Inspector Darren has both of those on his plate, and he’s down by two detective inspectors at the moment.”

  “Two?” said Astley-Cooper. “I heard Greene was retiring, but who’s the other?”

  “Henry Farthet.” Constable Stikes leaned back in her chair, notebook and pencil abandoned on the table in favor of a good gossip. “His old aunt died—you may remember her, sir, Mrs. Castleford over at Stroud.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Astley-Cooper. “Positively ancient, she was. I remember her when I was a child—I was scared to death of her. An old martinet, she was.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, she left everything to her nephew, and it turns out she was richer than anyone realized. Henry’s retired as well, and taken his family off to the Riviera for a holiday.”

  “Well, well,” said Astley-Cooper. “Who would have thought it?”

  “And Detective Sergeant Colston’s broken his leg, not twenty-fours hours after DS Pilcher left on his honeymoon. So you can see the chief constable’s in a spot, and not likely to start looking into murders in London.”

  “Well, no.”

  Constable Stikes drew a deep breath and reached for her pencil. “In any case, sir, I’ve got to take details of everyone’s movements, though I can’t call to mind that anyone here was off to London last weekend. If you ask me, it’ll be some old friend of Mr. Bingham’s that he visited there.”

  She seemed a little disappointed at this prospect.

  “I’m sure you’ll be very helpful, Constable,” said Astley-Cooper soothingly.

  “I’ll certainly try, sir. So could you just tell me what you were doing on Sunday evening?”

  “I had supper here,” replied Astley-Cooper promptly, “and then the vicar came over and we played chess. We always do on Sundays.”

  “So the vicar said, sir,” said Stikes, laboriously noting the information down.

  “Well, if the vicar had already told you, what was the point of coming ’round here?”

  “To confirm the vicar’s story,” supplied Bethancourt.

  “That’s right, sir,” said the constable, forestalling Astley-Cooper’s outburst in defense of the vicar’s honesty. “Now, about what time was all this?”

  “Well, the vicar always comes up about seven. I expect I ate at six or so. And he must have left about ten, perhaps half-past.”

  “And you, Mr. Bethancourt?”

  Bethancourt looked amused. “I was at home in London, Constable,” he said. “I didn’t know the deceased, and I’ve never been to Chipping Chedding before last night.”

  “Phillip’s come up with the fashion crowd,” put in Astley-Cooper. “One of the models is his girlfriend and, since I know his family, I invited them to stay.”

  “Ah.” A light dawned in the constable’s eyes. “I’d heard about that, sir, only I didn’t expect there would be so much …” She waved a hand.

  “Bustle,” supplied Astley-Cooper. “No,” he agreed, looking about a little dazedly, “neither did I.”

  “Fashion shoots are always a bit frantic,” said Bethancourt. “I don’t know why.”

  “Is that so, sir?” Constable Stikes glanced at him, taking in his solid county clothing, and obviously wondering how he had come to be involved with a fashion model. “Which is yours, sir?”

  “My—? Oh, you mean Marla.” Bethancourt looked about, and then pointed at the drawing room windows. “The redhead there with her back to us.”

  Marla’s back was turned because she was engaged in stripping off the ensemble she had been posing in, but their glimpse of her nudity was brief, as she moved off into the room. Astley-Cooper stared and then hastily returned his gaze to the chessboard, flushing faintly.

  “Ah,” said Stikes politely. “She looks pretty.”

  Bethancourt grinned. “I think so,” he said.

  The Constable sighed and looked back at her notebook. “Well, I’d best get on,” she said. “Could you tell me, Mr. Astley-Cooper, when was the last time you saw Mr. Bingham?”

  Astley-Cooper frowned. “Well,” he said, “he wasn’t much of a churchgoer, so I couldn’t have seen him on Sunday. That means it must have been Saturday night, at the Deer and Hounds. There was a darts competition that night. You were there yourself, Constable.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s always best to have an eye on these things, I find. You never know when someone might have a bit too much to drink and take offense.”

  “Quite right.”

  “I saw Bingham myself, but I didn’t take much note of him. Was he just as usual, sir?”

  “Oh, yes. At least, nothing wrong that I noticed.”

  “Could you tell me what time he left?”

  “I don’t think so. I came away at half nine or ten and I think—I’m not sure, mind—he was still there then. I don’t remember him leaving, in any case.”

  The constable noted this down and then closed her notebook. “That’s all then, sir. Thank you very much.”

  “I don’t suppose,” said Astley-Cooper diffidently, “it’s any good asking you what happened?”

  “They haven’t told me that, sir. Only that the circumstances are suspicious. Thank you again, sir.”

  “Well, isn’t that extraordinary,” said Astley-Cooper, watching her go.

  Bethancourt agreed. “What exactly happened?” he asked.

  “Nothing very alarming. The vicar went over on Monday morning to see about a subscription. There was no answer, but he noticed that the lights were on, and he thought that odd, so he went in. And there was old Bingham, sitting in his chair with a book and glass of whisky, quite dead. We all thought it was a heart attack—he’d had one already, you see. The vicar rang up Dr. Cross, waited ’til he came, and that was all. Perfectly straightforward.”

  “Yes, I see,” said Bethancourt.

  “I wonder what made them think it was murder.”

  “Probably something came up at the postmortem,” answered Bethancourt. “Look here, Clarence, do you mind not mentioning this to Marla? She’ll know soon enough, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t have at least one peaceful evening.”

  Astley-Cooper looked confused, but all he said was, “Of course, whatever you like.”

  They had a very pleasant evening. A few people from the shoot were staying over at the old coaching inn in Stow-on-the-Wold, so they all gathered there for dinner, Astley-Cooper charmed to be included in this exotic party. Carol Morwood, probably the most famous model there, seemed to take a positive delight in flirting with Astley-Cooper, and he was pin
k with pleasure by the time the main course was served.

  Since there was really nothing known about the murder, Bethancourt was able to keep his mind on their party and not appear absentminded in the least. It was this that usually signaled to Marla that murder had once again raised its ugly head, for, far from being absentminded, Bethancourt was normally completely captivated by whatever circumstances he found himself in, and it was only when investigating a case that his thoughts tended to stray. He himself could not say where this fascination with murder came from, and it was looked on by his friends as merely one more eccentricity in a man who had a flat full of coffee tables (he was very fond of them) and chose to keep a large Borzoi in London. They had learned, however, that he was serious about this rather grubby hobby and that, when an investigation was in hand, all the other details of his life were tossed unheeding to the four winds.

  But on this evening, there was not much to think about, beyond wondering if Gibbons would be assigned to the case and, if so, whether it would prove complicated enough to distract his friend from heartache. Before he had fallen in love with Annette Berowne, Gibbons’s paramount interest had always been his career, and he had excelled at it, gaining promotion from detective constable to sergeant in record time. But since the breakup, Gibbons had merely been going through the motions, though to be fair, none of the cases to which he had been assigned had held much interest. Bethancourt had been praying for a really tough case for nearly a month now.

  “He’s a funny old thing, isn’t he?” said Marla in a low voice. “I thought he must be gay, but now I’m not so sure.”

  Bethancourt turned to find her contemplating Astley-Cooper, across the table from them. He was chuckling at something Carol had whispered in his ear.

  “Oh, I think not,” said Bethancourt, eyeing their host. “Probably just terrified of women, or at least of sex.”

  “Do you think that’s why he never married?” asked Marla. “He must be fifty if he’s a day.”

  “About that, I believe—he’s a year or two younger than my father. They were at school together. But he seems quite fussy in his habits, and relationships tend to be messy.”

  “Well, I like him anyway.”

  Bethancourt smiled. “So do I. Here, Tony,” he added, raising his voice, “you might pass some of that champers this way.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Eight o’clock on Wednesday morning found Detective Sergeant Jack Gibbons driving a police Rover along the M4, accompanied by Detective Chief Inspector Wallace Carmichael. The chief inspector was a large man with bushy white eyebrows, bright blue eyes, and a cigar. Having got this last going to his satisfaction, and having rolled down the window in deference to his subordinate’s nonsmoking habits, he settled back and opened the case file on his lap.

  “They haven’t given us much,” he remarked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Of course, they only got the pathologist’s report late on Monday, so forensics is just getting to work.”

  “On a scene of the crime that’s been greatly tidied up,” said Gibbons.

  Carmichael sighed. “I know, lad. But there’s no help for it. The pathologist found whisky and a good dose of strong sedative in the stomach. He says that with a weak heart, that was enough to do it.”

  “He could have taken the sedative himself,” said Gibbons, guiding the Rover past a lorry. He did not see that there was much of interest about the case, and rather resented having to drive all the way out to Chipping Chedding just to prove it.

  “So he could,” agreed Carmichael. “But time of death was put at about seven P.M. on Sunday. Bingham’s next door neighbor, a Mrs. Eberhart, says that he left in his car on Sunday afternoon at about three, and that the car was not back, nor were there any lights on in his cottage at nine thirty P.M. However, she did notice lights in the cottage at eleven, when she went to bed.” Carmichael puffed reflectively for a moment. “They’ve had the local rural police officer gather statements from everyone in the village who was well-acquainted with the victim, but there’s nothing obvious in any of them. In fact, no one admits to having left Chipping Chedding last Sunday at all.”

  “Well, they might not have, sir. Gloucestershire seems to think Bingham went to London to see someone, who murdered him there.”

  “True, true. It’s no good theorizing ahead of our data, which apparently we’re to gather from the constable, a Pat Stikes.”

  “Do you think he’ll be any help, sir?”

  “She,” corrected Carmichael. “It’s a woman, and Chief Inspector Darren seems to think highly of her. She grew up in Chipping Chedding and knows everyone. And I rather imagine she’ll be eager to do what she can, if I know anything about these rural beats. Most of her duties will be dealing with tourists, and the season’s over. If she’s as bright as Darren says, she’ll be bored with nothing on her plate and happy to give us a hand.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, sir,” said Gibbons glumly. He was not looking forward to dealing with a bright rural constable, and a woman at that. These days, he did not feel charitably toward women in general.

  Carmichael was gazing thoughtfully out the window.

  “Frankly,” he said in a moment, “I think the chief constable has got ahead of himself on this one. There’s no real evidence the man was murdered.”

  “No, sir,” agreed Gibbons. “He might easily have had a heart attack elsewhere and whoever was with him panicked and decided he was better found in his own house. That’s very possible if a woman was involved—we’ve known it to happen before.”

  “Even more possible if the lady was married.” Carmichael paused, his eyes on the file. “They don’t seem to know much about the victim down there. Charles Bingham, aged fifty-five, in residence at Chipping Chedding for just under a year, previous address unknown, but believed to have lived in China. London firm of solicitors.”

  “I looked him up, sir,” said Gibbons. “He was an inventor. He invented a new flush contraption for toilets.”

  The white eyebrows went up. “Did he, indeed?”

  “Yes, sir.” Gibbons grinned. “It’s not quite as silly as it sounds. It’s made him a fortune. This was all some time ago—I’ve written down the dates—but he was in his twenties at the time. He was married about then, and had one daughter. His wife died in a car accident three years later. And he was still, at the time of his death, a partner in the firm that manufactures the flush device.”

  “What you’re telling me, Gibbons, is that he was a very wealthy man.”

  “It would appear so, sir.”

  Carmichael carefully rolled the ash off his cigar into the ashtray and glanced sideways at his sergeant. There was more, he knew; Gibbons did his work thoroughly. “What else did you find out?” he asked.

  “Well, he became interested in anthropology and went off to Africa a few years after his wife’s death. Ever since then, he has seldom been resident in England. Africa occupied him for several years, but he seems to have spent most of the last ten years in the Far East. I’ve made notes of it all, but that’s the essence.”

  “Good work, Gibbons.”

  “Oh, one other thing, sir. His daughter’s Eve Bingham.”

  Carmichael frowned. “That sounds familiar.”

  “She’s a socialite, sir. Occasionally makes the tabloids.”

  “Ah, yes, that’s it. All those copies of Hello magazine my wife is always reading. Well, that certainly implies money.”

  Gibbons glanced sideways at his superior. Carmichael was ruffling through the brief reports in the case file and puffing contentedly on his cigar.

  “I thought I ought to mention, sir—not that it has anything to do with the case—that Phillip Bethancourt is in Chipping Chedding. He went up for a couple of day’s holiday on Monday.”

  “Did he indeed?” the chief inspector transferred his gaze to Gibbons, who kept his eyes firmly on the road. He sighed. “That’s all right, Gibbons.” It would have to be, with Bethancourt’s father so
friendly with the chief commissioner. “Still, I can’t say I understand it, however. If he’s so interested in our work, why doesn’t he join the force?”

  “He’s really quite rich, sir,” replied Gibbons.

  “I know that, Sergeant.”

  Carmichael did not really mind Bethancourt’s poking about. On several previous cases he had been quite helpful, and he always stayed in the background. But that the idle rich should spend their time involving themselves in police cases did not seem to him appropriate. Carmichael was an old-fashioned man who had worked his way up from the lowest rung of the ladder, but he liked to think himself adaptable. He had certainly adapted better than others to the idea of university-educated detectives, and he was good with his subordinates. He let them think for themselves and was credited with almost superhuman patience in listening to the sometimes absurd theories put forth by newly made detectives. For this reason, he was often saddled with mere sergeants as assistants, something he did not usually mind. He liked to think he could see the chief inspectors of tomorrow in them. Gibbons, for instance: Oxford-educated no less, but as respectful as the lowest constable; a bright lad and a hard worker who would almost certainly advance into the ranks of senior officers. Carmichael liked to see that sort of thing, which was why Bethancourt, who was no part of this grand tradition, bothered him.

  He sighed. “Well,” he said aloud, “there may not be much here for Bethancourt or any of us. I fancy it can be cleared up rather quickly, once we discover where Bingham spent Sunday afternoon. I hope to God they’ve had the wits to put forensics onto his car. We’ll call in at the local station and then go out to the cottage. Probably we’ll find Bethancourt waiting for us there.”

  “Probably, sir.”

  At that moment, Bethancourt was in bed, but by ten thirty he was at the cottage next door to Bingham’s. A phone call from Gibbons the night before had alerted him to the imminent arrival of the detectives, and he might have sought out Pat Stikes at her office in the Stow-on-the-Wold police station, explaining that he was a friend of those about to arrive from Scotland Yard. But there was nothing like doing a bit of investigating on his own, and a chance remark of Astley-Cooper’s about the local vet sent him on a different course.