The Nursery Rhyme Murders

by Anthony Litton

  ‘I believe he did some bird-watching,’ remarked Calderwood.

  ‘Oh, it was more, much more, than just some bird-watching,’ Gwilym responded, ‘at least, in the sense of him just pottering around in the woods or in some hide he’d built on one of the hills.’

  ‘Took it seriously, did he?’

  ‘Oh yes. He’d done it for years when he had the time.’ He paused to order some coffee and other refreshments for the people manning the Incident Room, as Abigail Jobson, one of his staff, walked past.

  Calderwood nodded his thanks, as he said, ‘Go on’.

  ‘He’d always kept very detailed notes, what birds he saw; how frequently which breeds re-appeared; where their nests were; the number of eggs in each nest and so on. So he decided to turn his hobby into a sort of research; see how things had changed over the forty odd years he had data for. Whether by accident or design, he’d found the perfect formula.’

  ‘Perfect formula?’ Calderwood asked, his thin, dark features alive with curiosity.

  ‘Yes. The rigours of the project kept his mind razor-sharp, but he was able to fully indulge his love of rambling round the countryside watching the birds. He also kept an eye on some of the other wild-life, as well.’

  ‘A happy man, then,’ remarked the young DI.

  ‘Yes, a very happy man,’ replied Gwilym. ‘You’ll have a problem with whoever did it, when you find them, you know,’ he added quietly.

  ‘Problem? What sort of problem?’

  ‘Keeping them alive,’ the publican responded with grim bluntness. ‘He was much loved around here and both the villages have a long history of taking the law into their own hands, whenever the authorities fail to act, or to act in a way the villagers deem fair.’

  Gwilym told his partner the gist of his conversation with the DI as he handed him his drink.

  ‘You didn’t exaggerate,’ Desmond agreed, knowing the two villages well. ‘I assume Calderwood took a somewhat dim view of what you said?’ he added, smiling.

  ‘Oh yes, said they “couldn’t condone such action” etc., etc. But at least he’s forewarned to be extra vigilant when they do get whoever did it.’

  ‘If they get whoever did it,’ corrected Desmond. ‘The whole thing seems so bizarre that we may be looking for some unhinged passer-by who did it on the spur… no,’ he stopped. ‘That’s rubbish. Whatever else it was, it wasn’t spontaneous.’ He shuddered as he recalled the scene at the foot of the ruined wall.

  ‘Maybe not – but it is someone unhinged or very sick,’ Gwilym responded quietly, gazing into the fireplace, its fire unlit, no extra heat being needed in the warm summer night. ‘Or someone with a message,’ he continued after a moment, his dark features, usually so outward looking and alive, now turned pensive, as he attempted to make some sense of the previous day’s events.

  ‘Message?’

  ‘Yes, if not a message, maybe the mask itself was put on Doc because it meant something to whoever killed him. Unless the using of a mask was entirely random and done just to amuse someone’s sick mind, there must be significance of some sort in it.’

  ‘True enough, I suppose,’ Desmond responded, uneasily. ‘It makes the whole thing even more shocking – and frightening,’ he added quietly.

  ‘I’d be very interested to know what exactly the mask was,’ Gwilym mused thoughtfully.

  ‘I doubt they’ll announce that, even if they disclose there was a mask,’ Desmond responded, shivering slightly; a feeling that had nothing to do with the warm air, sweetly scented with the fragrance of night scented-stock, lazily blowing in through the open window. ‘You know, however much I think about it, I still come back to the same point; Alan Rutherford is the last person I would have expected to be murdered.’

  The Welshman nodded in agreement.

  ‘He was such a popular man, such a genuinely good person. I can’t see anyone who knew him would want to kill him, so it must be an outsider – surely?’

  ‘Possibly,’ replied Gwilym, less convinced.

  ‘Just think,’ his partner continued, ‘of the hundreds and hundreds of people he helped when he was a doctor – not to mention the huge amount of goodwill he generated by the hours and hours he put into the various village charities and so on. The word “saint” is much over-used, I know, but he was the nearest I’ve ever come to knowing one,’ he ended, his bewilderment plain.

  ‘Oh I agree, and he’s been so innocently busy with his blessed bird-watching since he stopped working, that I doubt he could’ve made any enemies since he retired,’ Gwilym said. ‘But,’ he added after a short pause, as a thought crystallised in his mind, ‘that does leave one other reason for his murder.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Desmond asked, startled.

  ‘That sometime, somewhere during his ramblings – which he always did with a set of high-powered binoculars, don’t forget – he saw something, something he shouldn’t have; something that was so important to whoever was involved, that, to ensure that he never spoke about it – they killed him.’

  Chapter 7

  ‘So – are we going to take up your Mum’s offer and have the Dower House?’ Gwilym asked suddenly, to break into and lighten the small silence that had descended on them both.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Desmond, happy to move onto a more cheerful topic.

  ‘I think it’s a great idea, personally. We can set up a proper office to work with the London one and it’ll be good for any entertaining we might want to do. It’s certainly big enough.’

  It certainly is, thought the other man wryly, seven bedrooms and six reception rooms, including a large library and even larger drawing room, meant that they’d have more than enough space. This was particularly so, as he knew that Gwilym would still keep his rooms at the pub; a sensitive subject and one he had no intention of raising.

  ‘I agree. We’d better get a move on, though, Tessa arrives in three weeks!’

  ‘We should pay your mum a proper rent, shouldn’t we?’

  ‘We should, but she won’t take it. I suspect that the best we’ll get her to agree to is that we take on all the maintenance costs, council tax and so on. If we’re not careful, she’ll have us taking the rental from the fishing rights too,’ he added, referring to the lucrative stretch of river at the end of the Dower House’s extensive garden.

  ‘Doesn’t seem fair really. I mean she doesn’t seem short of money, but the extra income would be useful, I’d have thought,’ said Gwilym, worriedly. His own mother more than happily – “avariciously” was Desmond’s carefully unspoken word – took the large monthly allowance he gave her and was then forever asking for more, so he was bewildered by his partner’s mother’s persistent unwillingness to take anything from them.

  ‘I agree, but you know the fuss she created when we insisted she have that allowance, years ago.’

  ‘I do indeed!’ Gwilym laughed at the memory. ‘If you hadn’t made entirely clear that you would – literally – throw the money into the Thames, each month, I doubt she’d have agreed to take it!’

  ‘I’m bloody sure she wouldn’t, but I’m glad she did.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll ever give up working in the shops?’ Gwilym asked.

  ‘No, I don’t. Why she keeps on doing so, I don’t know, but she’s talking of opening another one now!’

  ‘Bloody hell! She’s got four already!’ The partners had been stunned at several points during the preceding years, on each occasion that Eleanor told them, quite matter-of-factly, and usually after the event, that she was opening another shop. Now, besides the village shop which was thriving despite the nation-wide trend of commercial village shops closing down in frightening numbers, she also had two, a very successful bakery and a traditional sweetshop, in the county town of Estwich and a fourth, an equally successful gift-shop and tea-room in the very touristy village of Nether Cleydon, several miles away.

  ‘She clearly doesn’t need any more money, particularly with what Grandfather left her a
nd the income from the property she and Dad bought over the years, so I agree with you,’ Desmond replied. ‘I’m at a loss to know why, as well; there seems little purpose in it. We certainly don’t need any more money, nor do Tamsin and the girls,’ he added, referring to his elder sister, who was married to a very wealthy northern landowner, and their two daughters. ‘She already seems to spend an inordinate amount of time in her office as it is. Still, we’ll not change her mind, so we’ll just have to let her get on with it!’ he added wryly, well aware of his mother’s indomitable will once she’d set her mind on something.

  ‘We’d better start moving stuff tomorrow, then,’ said Gwilym glad that the bulk of their possessions were still in the London properties they both owned, so could be ignored until another day.

  ‘We might as well sell one of the flats,’ Desmond added, his voice carefully neutral, ‘as the market’s quite buoyant at the moment. We’ll only need the one for when we’re down there for shows and what have you,’ he added.

  Gwilym nodded non-committedly. ‘I wonder who Huffny will choose?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘The answer to that, lies I think, in the fact that she’s not with us at the moment,’ responded Desmond sourly.

  ‘True!’ laughed the other man. Originally bought for Desmond as an aid to his – eventually successful – attempts at losing weight, the cocker spaniel puppy had smartly changed her allegiance to his mother. Whenever Eleanor was in the house the little spaniel could be found sitting near her. What nettled her previous owner more than a little, though, was that she would both shamelessly join him and Gwilym whenever Eleanor was out and come to them for the walks she knew her current favourite wouldn’t provide.

  *

  ‘Damn!’ Calderwood looked across the room to where the stocky figure of Colin Bulmer was glaring at his laptop, his fair, slightly rounded features – once likened to an ageing Botticelli cherub – creased in irritation. ‘Look!’ the DS said disgustedly, his face turning bright red in his indignation. He turned the laptop so Calderwood could see the cause of his irritation – the headline spread across the online news feed:

  Local Saint killed by maniac!

  Sick joker’s mask put on mutilated corpse!

  Calderwood grimaced, as much in distaste at the sensationalist wording than the fact of it being online. ‘I’d hoped we’d kept a lid on it, at least the part about the mask,’ he said, disgustedly.

  ‘At least they stop at “a children’s play mask”, that’s something I suppose,’ Bulmer muttered, as he read the rest of the brief article.

  ‘And it’s not a particularly widely read site,’ remarked Calderwood. ‘Is that the only one that’s got it?’ he asked.

  ‘So far. What made you put it on the list? asked the DS. ‘A tip-off?’

  ‘No, just that it’s had more than its fair share of “exclusives”, so I thought it was worth a watch.’

  Bulmer nodded. Before the recent murder had changed the force’s priorities, Calderwood and his DS had just set up and now headed a local team of both police and civilian specialists trying to track down the source of an unusual number of internal leaks. They were almost always about sensitive, or high-profile, cases that were happening not just in the county, but the whole region. Both he and Bulmer were reluctant to either hand the work over to some other team or leave the work untouched until they solved the new case. Fortunately, such was the sensitivity of most of the lines of enquiry being followed, their superiors had agreed that their team continue to run with their own investigations and still report in to them. The two officers would keep tabs on the team’s investigations, whilst at the same time staying primarily focused on the current murder case.

  ‘Well, pass it on to the team at HQ. I’d bet they’re onto it already, but best make sure,’ Calderwood said, after a moment.

  Bulmer nodded and quickly did an email.

  ‘So where are we up to with statements on the murder?’ the DI asked after he’d finished.

  ‘We’ve got a full team on it, of course, but we’ve still got about two thirds of the village left,’ Bulmer said, adding dispiritedly. ‘As usual 99.9% will be useless. The problem is with him being so widely known, and no immediately obvious motive, we can’t not do it.’

  ‘Yes, hopefully we’ll get some sort of lead when the forensic people have finished with all the stuff removed from the area,’ replied Calderwood.

  ‘Any luck with the profiling people?’ asked Bulmer.

  ‘No,’ replied his superior with rare irritation. ‘The Region lost one to the last lot of budget cuts as you know; of the remaining two, one is away on holiday, hiking in the Pyrenees, and is uncontactable. The other, apparently, is fully engaged helping the Met out with that series of ethnic minority murders that are threatening to become political dynamite, so our little sideshow won’t get a look-in for some while,’ he added, with a neutrality in his tone that his subordinate could at least admire, if not imitate.

  ‘So we’ll have to muddle along without any scientific insights then?’ Bulmer smiled. Not being a great believer in the abilities of the profilers in any event, he was less pissed off than usual at yet another example of the effects of the budgetary cuts, hitting all the police forces. Always with his ear to the ground, he’d heard worrying rumours about some forces getting involved with private prosecutions on behalf of wealthy organisations and taking a cut of any profits made - not a route he wanted his own force to go down.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Calderwood, ‘although I’ve flagged up its urgency, obviously, we certainly will have to do just that for a while. It’s ironic, as we’re going to need every bit of help we can get on this one,’ he added grimly. ‘Unless, of course, we’re dealing with a murder by someone unknown to the victim; or someone known to him but with a comparatively straightforward motive such as robbery or what have you.’ He broke off for a moment, lost in his thoughts.

  ‘You reckon it’ll be that simple?’ prompted Bulmer, smiling cynically.

  ‘No, I don’t, unfortunately. I suspect we’re looking for someone with a strong motive which, however bizarre and off the wall it might look to anyone on the outside, is both deeply felt and entirely logical to the killer,’ he finished.

  ‘Which will make it the bugger’s own job of finding whoever it is,’ finished Bulmer, turning back to his desk, already over-loaded with paperwork.

  Chapter 8

  Desmond, his arms full of bulky files, came into the entrance hall of his mother’s house just in time to see Eleanor coming through the dining room door, hear a startled yelp from Huffny and then see his mother crash to the floor.

  ‘Mum!’ he shouted, dropping the files as he rushed to help her up. ‘Careful!’ he said, as she attempted to get to her feet and fell back wincing as she tried to put weight onto her left foot.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘sit down.’ He hurried to get her a chair from the dining room. As he did so, guessing what must have happened, he looked around and glared at the puppy, now looking woebegone in the corner by the door.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, though he had already guessed.

  ‘Oh, I stupidly didn’t see Huffny sitting in the doorway,’ his mother, obviously in pain, murmured through gritted teeth.

  ‘Or she did her usual trick of getting under your feet,’ he replied worriedly, as he got her a footstool to ease the pain in her leg. Hearing a small whine he turned and saw the downcast face of the little dog, peering round the dining room doorway. He was just about to give her a stern telling off when he was pre-empted by his mother calling her.

  ‘It’s alright sweetheart,’ she said, and the puppy, sensing she wasn’t at risk of any repercussions, ran towards her. Eleanor bent down to rub the culprit’s ears, leaving her son speechless. She refused to either call the doctor or attend A & E. ‘It’s only a sprain, Desmond. Don’t fuss. I’ll just put some ice on it.’ And, refusing any further offers of help, she did so. Desmond, worriedly ensuring she was resting, left to take his file
s in to the Dower House. Before he did so, however, ignoring his mother’s protestations, he phoned Ann Davies, Eleanor’s daily housekeeper, and asked her to come over early to be on hand should his mother need it.

  It was later that evening that one of the less pleasant ramifications of his mother’s temporary disability became apparent. ‘Bugger!’ muttered Desmond, his ill-humour not at all lessened by the gales of laughter coming from Gwilym. ‘I’d be careful if I were you – you’ll give yourself a heart attack,’ Desmond snapped at the Welshman, which only made the other man laugh the more.

  The source of Desmond’s depression was that he’d just been designated as his mother’s chauffeur. ‘Well, I can hardly drive like this can I, darling?’ she’d said unanswerably, pointing at her heavily bandaged ankle. He had, of course, agreed that she certainly couldn’t drive in that condition. Neither did he have a problem with driving her wherever she wanted until she was able to do so again – until that is, he heard exactly what his first chauffeuring duties would involve.

  ‘The bloody annual “Most Beautiful Garden Competition”! Sod it!’ he exploded, kicking a cushion across the room. ‘At least thirty of the ruddy things, maybe more by the time the entry deadline is reached tomorrow!’

  Eleanor, along with the vicar of the time and, unfortunately, Marcia, were the judges who had to decide each year who’s garden was the best in each of five categories: the most beautiful; the most traditional; the most innovative; the best small garden; and – the much sought after – Garden of the Year, picked from the four category winners.

  ‘I don’t know why she can’t travel with the other judges. They could compare notes or whatever they do, as they travelled between the bloody gardens!’ Desmond said sourly, most of a day of being bored to death looming large in his mind.