Evidence of the Accused

by Roderic Jeffries

  I heard a car stop outside the cottage, looked out through the window. It was a black Singer with roof wireless aerial. I didn’t have to wait to see Pope climb out to know who my visitor was to be.

  He knocked on the front door and I called to him to enter. He did so and came into the sitting-room, closely followed by Detective-Sergeant Ventnor.

  Pears began to bark.

  ‘You shut up, you old fool,’ said Pope indignantly.

  ‘Don’t you like dogs?’ I asked.

  ‘Hate ’em. Got very badly bitten by one when I was a kid … They’re nothing more than a visible expression for the owner, designed to bolster up his egoistical senses and give him a servant over which he has despotic control.’

  ‘Where the hell did you read that load?’

  Ventnor smiled.

  Pope settled on the settee in the corner away from Pears. From the way he regarded her it seemed he expected her to try to take a chunk out of him at any moment.

  Ventnor sat down in the farther of the armchairs, stared at the fire. I studied the line of his chin and wondered if it denoted tremendous strength of character.

  Pope glanced casually at his watch. ‘Just after four.’

  ‘As late as that, is it?’

  A short silence. ‘I wouldn’t say no to a friendly cup of tea, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I haven’t any in the house. I stick to coffee.’

  ‘Suits me as well.’

  I smiled briefly, left the room, crossed the passage and went into the kitchen. I ground the coffee-beans in the noisy and difficult hand-grinder, filled the bigger of the two holders of the Atomic Espresso machine. I added water, stood the machine on the gas stove, lit the gas.

  Did I offer them biscuits? I’d lashed myself up with a pound of orange Jaffa cakes and it seemed a bit of a waste to pour them down someone else’s throat: still, I’d nothing else to offer them and stoats were hungry animals.

  I put three cups and saucers on the ‘Chinese’ tray that had all the appearances of having been manufactured no farther east than Birmingham. Two cups and one saucer were from one service, one cup and two saucers from another.

  I made certain the sugar bowl was filled with brown sugar.

  The Espresso machine hissed the coffee into the container. I heated milk, poured it into an attractive Victorian silver jug, took the tray through.

  Pope was reading one of my books that I had had handy for reference purposes. He looked up and watched me put the tray on the table. ‘I didn’t ’ave the kind of schooling your clever friends had but I received sufficient to be told never, never, say or write different to.’ He spoke with pleasure he did not try to hide. ‘You say different to in the fourth line of the third paragraph of this page.’

  I poured out three coffees, added milk. I passed one cup to Ventnor, gave him the sugar, passed a second cup to Pope.

  ‘Didn’t know you’d done that, did you?’ said Pope gleefully. ‘Caught you out with a real blooper.’

  ‘Fowler agrees one is perfectly entitled to say different to.’

  ‘’Oo the hell’s Fowler?’

  ‘The final authority on English grammar.’

  He thought about that. ‘Are you saying my school was wrong?’

  ‘It wasn’t a hundred per cent right.’

  ‘Give us the sugar,’ he snapped and Ventnor leaned over and passed it to him. He gave himself three heaped spoonfuls. ‘You’d ’ave thought people would agree on a simple thing like that. I suppose they do at the posh schools?’

  ‘Even less so … Biscuit?’

  He took one and held it in his hand. Pears caught the scent of chocolate and reached forward with her long neck. ‘Here, keep this brute away from me. I’m telling you straight, if it bites me I’ll ’ave you up in court before you can say Jack Robinson.’

  ‘If Pears bites you I’ll sign the pledge. She’s the best-natured dog in the world.’

  ‘She looks vicious,’ was all Pope could find to say.

  We drank coffee and ate biscuits. The pound of orange Jaffa cakes became half a pound, then a quarter. Finally, Pope with an almost bashful admission for a liking for sweet things finished the last two with obvious pleasure.

  We had a second round of coffee.

  Pope read again the offending page in my book, muttered something about the iniquities of grammar-schools and the lack of grammar in them, which led him to a heavy pun, put the book back where he had picked it up. ‘Did it sell well?’

  ‘No worse than usual.’

  ‘Must be a funny life — writing.’

  ‘Must be a funny life — chasing murderers.’

  ‘Now that just reminds me nicely. I’ve got a bloody big bone to pick with you, Mr Waring, and I aim to pick it clean.’

  ‘Sounds very grim.’

  ‘D’you remember me coming here one day and asking you what went with Tetley and Mrs Cheesman?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘Would you like to carry on and remember what your answer was.’

  ‘I couldn’t off-hand.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you. You said you’d sometimes wondered whether there was anything between ’em.

  ‘That’s probably right.’

  ‘I asked for more and you said there weren’t any because that’s all you knew on the subject.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m telling you, Mr Waring, I just ain’t no time for people acting like you are. If I was given my way I’d push you behind bars and make you stay there until you realised what a goddam nuisance you were being.’

  I stood up and placed my cup and saucer on the tray, then did the same with the sergeant’s. ‘I’m not with you,’ I said as I sat down again.

  ‘Remember hard. You was in the witness-box being questioned. You broke down and admitted you thought him and her were up to something because the village gossip said so … Yet when I asked you before the trial you didn’t tell me nothing about gossip. Why not?’

  ‘It can’t have occurred to me to do so.’

  ‘I can answer me own question better than you can! Still trying the old pals act. Protection of friends at all costs. Wake up to yourself, Mr Waring, and remember I’m right behind you ready to remind you to co-operate.’

  ‘One thing quite beyond your power is to force me to co-operate.’

  ‘Quite agree, quite agree. You’re so exactly right legally, as one would expect. So therefore it’d be sheer coincidence if an official inspection was to be made of your car to see if it really was fit to be on the road. And if it weren’t, if a search was made to find out and punish whoever passed it. Life can be very difficult, very difficult indeed.’

  ‘I’d report you to the chief constable for blackmailing me into giving evidence.’

  ‘Blackmail? When all I’ve done is to point out what terrible coincidences can happen?’

  ‘He’d understand.’

  ‘He’d understand that your bit of diseased machinery shouldn’t be on the road and that the chap who passed it needs a talking to … Look, man, can’t you realise you ought to stop seeing things from the distant side of the tracks?’

  ‘Will you people never allow any measure to friendship and loyalty?’

  Ventnor softly belched and immediately apologised.

  ‘A woman’s been murdered,’ said Pope.

  ‘Bringing the murderer to justice won’t help Lindy Cheesman.’

  Absent-mindedly, Pope put out his hand to his side until he touched Pears. Pears went forward to lick the hand and Pope immediately thought he was about to be viciously attacked and snatched his hand back to his side.

  Ventnor offered a packet of Senior Service. ‘Cigarette?’

  I accepted one.

  Pope refused, immediately changed his mind and accepted one. ‘I can’t afford to smoke these expensive brands,’ he observed sourly.

  ‘Not even, sir, if you gave up your indigestion pills?’ asked Ventnor.

  I was astonished to see Pope grin good-humouredly.
I hadn’t yet found the measure by which one could judge what would irritate and what would amuse him. He spoke to me. ‘Were you thinking you might like to keep your car running?’

  I stood up and walked over to the window, looked out. There was a slight mist clinging to the land. As it became night, the mist would increase. I turned back, sat down once more. ‘I haven’t a bicycle and the local bus has been cut down to two services a day.’

  ‘Has it now?’ He made it sound as though he didn’t know this. ‘Glad to hear you’ll help us as far as you can. Makes our job so much easier … When did you first ’ear the rumours about Mrs Cheesman and Tetley?’

  ‘I suppose it was about four months before the murder.’

  ‘How did the rumours come to you?’

  ‘I heard someone talking.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A chap who lives round here.’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘Charnley.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘One of the council houses along the road. Number five, I think it is.’

  ‘What’s he do for a living?’

  ‘Works for a chap in Titterton who farms poultry. Broilers and deep litter.’

  ‘How would Charnley have found out anything?’

  ‘He’s a man of many parts. He works harder when he’s not working than when he is.’

  ‘That may sound very clever but it don’t make sense.’

  ‘Not when I tell you he’s the smartest poacher this side of Ashford.’

  ‘Poacher?’ Pope scratched the lobe of his right ear then tried to smooth down his bushy eyebrows.

  ‘They say he can charm the pheasants to jump into his pockets.’

  ‘Where do the pheasants come in?’

  ‘He has his poaching round like all good countrymen and Settle Wood is part of it. I’ve heard him boast it’s good for fifty birds a year.’

  ‘What’s each one of them worth?’

  ‘The poulterers pay best for poached birds when they’ve been trapped and not shot because there’s no damage to the flesh. I suppose you can say the average price to Charnley would be between eight and ten shillings a bird.’

  ‘And how many would he reckon in a year?’

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I shouldn’t disbelieve any number within reason. If he includes the Jallock estate in his rounds he could clear a hundred a week.’

  ‘That’s fifty quid a week … Two thousand five hundred and something a year.’

  ‘Don’t forget the season only runs between October and January.’

  ‘Oh! … Still, it’s tax free.’ Pope thought about the figures for a moment. Then he returned to the subject in hand. ‘Where does Charnley fit in?’

  ‘Last August he went for a walk in the woods one afternoon, surveying his lands, he’d call it. He came across Lindy Cheesman and Stuart Tetley.’

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘What were they doing?’

  ‘Getting better acquainted.’

  ‘Why did Charnley tell you?’

  ‘He was spending some of his hard-earned money at the Marsh Arms and forgot to say when. I helped him struggle back to his cottage. On the way, he made a confidant of me.’ I stared at the fire and watched a piece of coal give off an unusual blue-green flame. I inhaled on my cigarette, blew out smoke that was promptly shredded by one of the many draughts.

  ‘It’ll make the charge stick even harder. Tetley was enjoying Mrs Cheesman long before she was killed. Cheesman suspected the truth and decided his wife had to die because she’d forgotten the drawer she’d come out of. He also decided he was a very clever bastard because he’d worked out how to murder her and make it look like an accident: he got Tetley over to a shoot and the two of them went out together — giving him a weak alibi but which would have helped to keep the accident myth going.’

  ‘D’you think the jury’ll see it so definitely?’

  ‘Don’t matter how stupid they are, yes. I’m telling you, Charnley sets things up. If he knew what was going on it’s ten to one Mark Cheesman knew. If Mark Cheesman knew then he’d have been killing mad and a very different person to the one ’e told us about at the trial. None of this wife hitting ’im: he slung her through them banisters hard as ’e could go.’

  ‘They might be able to talk the jury round to manslaughter.’

  ‘Still hoping? Can’t take the truth? Like all the rest of the people in this dirty world. Live in airy-fairy palaces and won’t see the world’s an ugly place full of misery, dirt, ’unger, disease.’

  ‘Must I be condemned for wishing I hadn’t brought additional trouble to a good friend?’

  ‘Yes. It means you ain’t the guts to live with the truth. I tell you, if all big business with its fat cigars and its new Rolls Royces was made to ’ave a look at the world as it is … I’d better shut up or Ventnor’ll forget his rank and go for me for me old-fashioned way of thinking. Thanks for your kind ’ospitality, Mr Waring.’ Pope stood up. ‘Time we was pushing on. Glad to ’ear you won’t be getting rid of your car to a knacker’s yard just yet.’ He stared at Pears with dislike, left the room. Ventnor followed him, reached the door, paused. ‘You know, sir, it really is much better the truth is known. I don’t reckon it’s ever right one person alone should try and judge. Another thing, don’t tell yourself it was all your fault: the truth comes out in the end and we’d have heard about Charnley from someone else if we hadn’t from you.’ He smiled, closed the door behind him.

  I heard Pope calling out and I looked through the window. Pope climbed into the car, leaned over and put his right hand on the horn and was about to sound it, checked his movement when he saw the sergeant come out of the front door of the cottage.

  I watched the car drive off in the direction of the council houses. Once it was out of sight, I stared at the hills that marked the mainland. They stood out above the dimming land and the mist abolished distance and proportion so that they seemed much farther away and much higher than they really were.

  *

  The police car came to the T junction and Ventnor braked to a halt. The council houses were on either side and it was difficult to judge in which direction number five would be. Eventually, he turned right.

  ‘There it is,’ said Pope.

  They stopped twenty yards from the junction, left the car.

  ‘Seems a pity when they plaster the countryside with blocks of houses like this,’ said Ventnor.

  ‘What the ’ell d’you mean?’

  ‘Couldn’t they build about the towns and leave this land free?’

  ‘And what about the poor perishers that live here and need a roof over their heads? D’you reckon they ought to be made to exist in pigsties?’

  Ventnor grinned. ‘Farm labourers live in farm cottages, on account of the rent being low. Most of the people in the council houses work in the towns and curse the fact they can’t live there as well. They wouldn’t know what a pigsty looks like.’

  They reached the front door and Pope knocked on it. It was soon opened. A woman in the middle forties, wearing a jumper and tweed skirt, with elaborately permed hair and too much make-up, said: ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is Mr Charnley in?’

  ‘He’s still at work.’ She looked beyond them at the car. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re police, ain’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what d’you want with Perce?’

  ‘Answers to a few questions which won’t upset ’is equanimity so much as a butterfly’s hiccup.’

  She relaxed. ‘He won’t be allowed to leave work for half an hour or more. Works at the chicken farm and never comes home when a working man ought … You’d catch ’im there if you was to get along sharp.’

  ‘What’s the name of the place?’

  ‘Millers Farm in Titterton. You can’t miss it, ’cause of the big board in front saying it’s the biggest accredited place in East Kent. I know one thi
ng: if I was setting up chicken farming I wouldn’t go to him for any stock. He sometimes has extra birds he don’t want for ’imself and sells ’em off. Chap three doors down bought fifty and after a week there was ten left. Accredited for what is what I’d ask.’

  ‘I ’ate chickens,’ said Pope. He thanked her, turned, and walked back to the car.

  Mrs Charnley watched them drive away. Then she looked through the gloom to try to see whether her neighbours on either side had remarked the visit of the police car. It meant such awful rumours could be started.

  Ventnor and Pope drove through the Marsh, up the twisting road that climbed the hills. After a total time of twenty minutes they reached Titterton.

  The village proper consisted of twenty houses loosely clustered round the public house, general stores, and garage. Millers Farm was the last house before the road turned a right angle. There was an old Kentish farmhouse, built on an amazingly shallow ragstone foundation, with characteristically sloping roof which covered the outshot, whose charm was spoilt by the mess of battery and broiler houses which were immediately behind it.

  The car was parked and the two men entered the garden and walked past the rose-beds which were untidy from the chicken-dung lying on top of the earth. Pope knocked on the front door. The wife of the house directed them round to the out-buildings.

  They found Charnley leaning against a pile of bags of pellets in the store room.

  ‘Come along for a word or two with you,’ said Pope as soon as introductions had been made.

  Charnley, a squat-shaped man with thick features that erroneously suggested he was dull-witted, studied the floor. ‘Concernin’ what?’

  ‘What d’you think we might want to talk to you about?’

  He cleared his throat, spat on the floor. ‘No sayin’, is there?’ He looked towards the door of the shed and there was strong yearning expressed in his glance.

  Pope laughed. ‘We ain’t bothering ourselves over the hundred and fifty pheasants missing from the Jallock estate.’

  ‘They’s missing pheasants, is they?’ Charnley looked very astonished. ‘Shouldn’t have thought it, not with the three keepers they’ve got. Clever as they come, they say.’

  ‘Not quite clever enough for a man who really knows his way around.’