Blood on the Wood

by Gillian Linscott

  When I got home there were scuttlings of mice diving for their holes as soon as I opened the door and a letter from the bicycle manufacturers saying they’d forgotten to ask me to translate another page about patent battery lamps, enclosed, and could I please do it as soon as possible? No mention of an extra fee, naturally. I sat up half the night to do it, on cups of strong coffee, because in my financial state I couldn’t afford to lose customers, even annoying ones. But while most of my mind was on switches and batteries another part of it must have been thinking about Daisy, because in the early hours of the morning there was a nagging question that wouldn’t let me sleep until I’d dealt with it. So I went upstairs and rooted around for the few of my father’s medical books that I’d kept out of sentiment. One of them had quite a long and comprehensible section on rigor mortis. I read and re-read it.

  The feel of Daisy’s body as Adam and I lifted her out of the cabinet had been at the back of my mind all the time and wouldn’t go away. Now I dropped the mental defences and let it come back to me without resisting – her arms and legs thin and stiff like dry sticks, as if a little pressure would snap them, her neck slewed sideways. She’d bent a little at the waist when we’d lifted her out but that was all. Daniel had noticed it too some time later, appalled by the stiffness of her quick violinist’s hands. The book, dating back fifty years or so, was cautious about the time rigor mortis would take to set in after death. This would be affected by various factors like air temperature or body weight. The first onset of it in hands and feet might be noticed as early as two hours after death. It could take anything between six and twelve hours for stiffness to spread to the whole body. So Daisy was six hours dead at least when we found her. I hadn’t checked the exact time, but thought it was probably around an hour past midnight. In that case, it would fit well enough with the shot Bobbie and I heard around seven o’clock, just before it got dark.

  Almost beyond doubt, Daniel hadn’t killed her and neither had Hawthorne. For several hours from around seven o’clock the gun had been in my possession. About ten o’clock, probably, I’d given it to Daniel. Some time after that he’d shown it to Hawthorne then mislaid it. But if Daisy had been shot after ten o’clock, her body wouldn’t have been almost completely stiff a mere three hours or so later. I wondered briefly if there were two guns involved and decided against it. The inspector would know more about guns than I did and he was obviously concentrating on Philomena’s revolver. Besides, this was the Cotswolds not the American West – hardly bristling with revolvers. Except there was something I was missing. It was late, my mind was muzzy. I looked again at the passage in the book – between six and twelve hours for rigor to spread to the entire body. Forget the shortest time for a while and look at the longest. Assuming twelve hours, Daisy might have been shot as early as one o’clock in the afternoon – but I knew she hadn’t been, for she’d been scraping carrots at the Scipian camp as late as three or even four. It might have been at any time after that. Which meant …

  My mind was creaking like the timbers of an old ship in a gale, both from tiredness and from having to go where it didn’t want to go. Daniel had told the police that he’d taken his aunt’s revolver, had it with him all afternoon. I’d assumed it was a lie to save Felicia but suppose it had happened? And it had been Daniel after all who left the blanket in the summerhouse for me, as I’d asked him. Was I intended to find the gun under it much later and add another layer of confusion to the evidence? If so, Daniel had been the cold and calculating one and Felicia’s unlikely story of happening to find it under the blanket might even be true.

  Up to that point I’d still believed in Felicia’s guilt. Now the picture had shifted and I liked what I saw even less. Daniel and Felicia were lovers, they’d been together in the cart shed. Daisy was a regrettable mistake and must be disposed of. And I was the worst fool in the world for thinking that a person I’d instinctively liked couldn’t be guilty of murder. Inspector Bull, without that emotional disadvantage, must have got there before me. For all I knew, knowledge of rigor mortis might have improved since my father’s student days so that the police could judge the time of death more precisely. But come to think of it, in that respect at least Inspector Bull was at a disadvantage. It was daylight by the time he arrived on the Tuesday morning, around five o’clock, say. Four hours for the body to stiffen completely, with no way of telling how long it had been like that. It would annoy him when he thought about it, and he’d had time to think by now. Why hadn’t we called the police earlier? Why hadn’t we done the normal thing and sent somebody running down to the village policeman? The decision not to had been Adam’s. A questionable decision by an intelligent man – unless he’d known more than he admitted about when Daisy died. I put the book back on the shelf and got to bed at last for a few hours’ sleep.

  * * *

  In the morning I packed a carpet bag with a change of clothes, put a note through my neighbour’s door saying yes please to the kittens when I got back and went to Clement’s Inn to break the news that I’d be away for a couple of days. It wasn’t as easy as that, of course, because there were half a dozen things that had to be settled before I went. I was sitting in the main office, working through a series of memoranda about speakers’ out-of-town expenses (‘Is it too much to expect that the hosts should provide a meat tea?’) and being distracted by a friend at the other end of the table who was trying to talk to me while dealing with incoming telephone calls.

  ‘… so I told her, if all they could do was quarrel about who was going to ride the horse they might as well give up there and then. The trouble with processions … Hello, yes, this is Holborn 2724. No, should she be? No, I don’t think so. If you’ll hold on a minute I’ll go and look.’ She left the phone off its hook and disappeared, leaving me in peace for a while. ‘No, I’m sorry Lady Fieldfare, nobody here’s seen her today. Well, of course we will. I hope you find her.’

  She hooked the phone back. ‘Lady Fieldfare, worrying about her daughter.’

  ‘Why worrying?’

  ‘She was supposed to be somewhere or other this morning and she hasn’t turned up. From what I’ve seen of that young woman, that’s not unusual.’

  Probably not. I scrawled a hasty memorandum of my own to add to the out-of-town expenses saga, put on my hat and picked up my bag.

  ‘Off already, Nell? Are you coming back for the meeting this afternoon?’

  I told her no and please give them my apologies. I was already heading for the door. At Paddington I sprinted for a train, caught it as the guard’s whistle was blowing and by mid-afternoon was getting out at the all too familiar halt.

  * * *

  Somewhere to stay the night was a priority. I didn’t intend to live under the Venns’ roof. I enquired at the village store and post office and was told that Mrs Penny sometimes took in hikers, opposite the Crown with geranium pots outside. Her cottage was a sliver of honey-coloured limestone wedged between two taller houses and looked approximately one and a half storeys high, with the overhang of the ragged thatch coming halfway down the small upstairs windows. Mrs Penny herself was in proportion to her cottage, less than five feet tall from her black boots to her grey topknot. She looked me down and up on her doorstep, tilting her head right back as a protest at my height.

  ‘You a hiker then, miss?’

  ‘Yes.’ I quieted my conscience with the thought that I’d probably do plenty of walking.

  ‘I only take hikers in the summer.’

  ‘But it’s only just September. Couldn’t you stretch a point?’

  ‘Hiking on your own?’ She made it sound like a suspicious act in itself. Why did I have to work so hard round here to persuade my way into an uncomfortable bed? ‘I usually have gentlemen.’

  I assured her my habits were civilised. She still looked doubtful.

  ‘I had a lady here for her health once. A teacher, she was. The doctor said if she stayed in Birmingham with her chest he wouldn’t be answerable.’

>   The meaning was clear. Ill health was acceptable. Lone females gadding around for selfish pleasure were not.

  ‘I’m sure the country air would do my chest a world of good too,’ I said.

  Her eyes gleamed, bright as a robin’s sighting a worm. ‘So it’s for your health, then?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  I doubted it, but it was enough to get me over the threshold and up the stairs to a wedge-shaped room with a slanting ceiling. Even in the high part of the room I couldn’t have stood upright, and anyway that was taken up with the brass bedstead. In the lower part all I could do was crouch by the window with a view of the village street and the yard of the public house.

  ‘Tea’s at six o’clock,’ she said. ‘Cold beef and pickles.’

  ‘Could you possibly make it later? I’ve got a call to make first.’

  The look in her eyes told me she’d never have let me in if she’d known I was going to be a nuisance, but the thing was done now.

  ‘You don’t want to be out late, not with your chest. But no later than nine o’clock, because some of us need our sleep.’

  I washed dust and train smuts off my face in the cracked basin on the toilet table, was shown the hiding place of the key – under a pot of geraniums by the front doorstep – and turned up the street towards the open road, aware of Mrs Penny’s eyes on me as I went. I’d almost certainly taken up lodgings with the village gossip, but nothing to be done about that. The road between the fields to the Venns’ house was empty of people or carts, and shining in watery sun after a shower. By five o’clock I was walking up the steps to the front door.

  Annie answered it, a scared look on her face, eyes puffy and red-rimmed. Before she could say anything, Carol appeared on the stairs.

  ‘Daniel said you’d be coming.’

  Her pale skin was drum-tight over her cheekbones, her eyes hot and bright. She led the way through to the room where we’d had our meeting.

  ‘Adam’s gone to the junction to collect Mr Galway.’

  ‘Galway?’

  ‘He’s a friend of Adam’s, another solicitor. Adam asked him to come down in case…’

  ‘In case they arrest Daniel?’

  She bit her lip, then nodded. ‘You see what he’s doing, trying to protect her?’

  ‘Has he told you so?’

  ‘I guessed. Daniel’s an open book.’

  ‘Did you try to talk him out of it?’

  ‘Yes, but it was a waste of breath. Daniel may act like a madcap some of the time, but there’s so much determination there, even as a boy. He was only ten when I got engaged to Adam and … oh, I’m sorry, I’m rambling. I don’t know what to do.’

  I said, ‘If it comes to it, I may have to take the choice away from you. You realise I couldn’t let Daniel stand trial for murder without telling the police what I saw.’

  ‘Felicia?’

  ‘Yes. How is she?’

  ‘She’s hardly been out of bed since she spoke to the police. The inspector was quite gentle with her, all things considered, but it didn’t help. The doctor’s seen her twice. Nervous prostration, he says. Keep her quiet and give her time.’

  ‘From what Daniel said to me, he’s trying to buy us all time,’ I said. ‘Time to find out who killed her.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He believes somebody left her body in the cabinet to put the blame on the family.’ I didn’t mention Hawthorne’s name, not sure how much Daniel had discussed with her.

  ‘Do you think that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Would many people know the cabinet was here?’

  ‘The whole village, I suppose. Mr Bestley the carter brought it up on Monday morning and he’s the biggest gossip in the district.’

  ‘What about when it was in the workshop. Did anybody show any special interest in it?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Would you mind if I went there tomorrow and asked Mr Sutton?’

  She looked worried. ‘Do you really need to do that?’

  ‘You don’t want me to?’

  ‘It’s just that you might not get a lot of sense out of Mr Sutton at the moment. His wife Janie’s left him, just up and taken the baby without saying a word. He can’t think or talk about anything else.’

  ‘Why did she go?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. Oh God, everything’s such a mess.’

  She seemed so brittle with worry and tiredness that I didn’t press the point.

  ‘Where’s Daniel? Can I talk to him?’ I said.

  ‘In the music room. He says there’s something he wants to finish before … you know.’

  She got up, led the way across the hall and tapped on a door.

  ‘Daniel, Miss Bray.’

  * * *

  She left me at the door. Daniel opened it. The top of the upright piano behind him was scattered with sheets of music. He had a pen in his hand, ink blots on his fingers.

  ‘Do you think I’m heartless, trying to work? Not that it’s any good anyway.’

  He plumped himself back on the piano stool, leaving me to take a seat by the table. It was a small room, very much a musician’s workshop, with an upright piano, a guitar, and a concertina on the table. Music stands and a cello case were pushed against the wall.

  ‘Did Carol tell you the inspector was waiting for me when I got back last night? Wanted to know where I’d been. I didn’t tell him I’d been up to see you but he asked about you anyway.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Had I spoken to you since last Tuesday? I said it was none of his business. But I got the impression he wants to talk to you again. He seems to be in a pretty savage temper with all of us.’

  That was predictable, but bad news all the same.

  ‘What else did he ask you?’

  ‘More about where I’d been on Monday afternoon. In here, I said, trying to work or out strolling around because I couldn’t work. When? Had anybody seen me? How am I supposed to know who saw me or who didn’t?’

  So I’d been right. Inspector Bull had done the same sums as I had, probably more accurately.

  ‘Did he ask you about the gun again?’

  ‘How many squirrels I’d bagged – very sarcastic.’

  ‘And you stuck to the story that you’d had it with you all afternoon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me, did you put it under the blanket in the summer-house?’

  He brought his fist crashing down on the piano keys.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t you start. Haven’t I had enough of it from the police? You’re supposed to be on my side.’

  ‘If I’m on anybody’s side, it’s Daisy’s.’

  ‘Too late for her.’

  ‘I know. But you can’t rely on my being on your side or anybody else’s side. If you want me here, you’re going to have to put up with my questions.’

  He sighed, loud and exasperated, like a child giving in reluctantly.

  ‘Ask, then.’

  ‘I’ve asked. Did you put the revolver under the blanket?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Had you seen it or handled it that day, before I gave it to you down at the camp?’

  ‘If I answer that, are you going to tell the police?’

  ‘I reserve the right to, yes.’

  ‘Then I reserve the right not to answer.’

  ‘Very well, when I gave it to you, you said you thought two rounds had been fired. Do you remember that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Reluctantly.

  ‘Looking back, do you still think so?’

  He frowned down at the piano keys. ‘It’s difficult, but yes.’

  ‘Why did you notice that in particular?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Think, then. Wasn’t it an odd thing to notice in the circumstances?’

  ‘Habit, I suppose. You know Aunt Philly used to have shooting competitions with Adam and me? The game was, you’d have five shots each at the bottles. Then when you’d fired your five and the chamber was
empty you had to pass the gun on to the next one, to reload. As a kid, I always enjoyed breaking open the gun.’

  ‘I heard one shot in the garden,’ I said. ‘If that wasn’t the one that killed Daisy, there must have been another earlier.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  I didn’t tell him about my researches into rigor mortis.

  ‘There’s something else I want to ask you,’ I said. ‘In the ordinary way it would be none of my business but you brought me into this, after all.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You remember that Saturday, when we first met at the camp? I had a strong impression that at that point you hadn’t seen Felicia since you’d got back.’

  He wrinkled his forehead, as if it were too far back to think about. ‘Wasn’t that when I’d just got back here with Daisy? No, I didn’t see Felicia until the next day, when I told her the engagement was off.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. I wouldn’t forget a thing like that, would I?’

  ‘I ask because somebody is sure they heard you and Felicia talking together in a cart shed near the camp, some time before it got dark on the Saturday evening.’

  ‘Who?’ He twisted round on the piano stool. ‘It’s just not true. Who have you been talking to?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. The point is, what the person thinks she—’

  ‘So it’s a she, is it, this gossip?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter either. She heard a man she believed to be you talking to a woman with what she described as a toff’s voice. She didn’t see either of them. The woman said “We should never have done it. What if they find out?” The man comforted her and said they wouldn’t know. He called her Flissie.’