by Ann Granger
‘Won’t want to talk about men, you mean?’
‘Probably not.’
Markby found Mrs Brissett sitting regally in the middle of the kitchen, bobble hat set firmly aloft like a crown and her hands folded in her lap. She had taken off her apron but not the pink slippers.
‘I’m very obliged to you, Mrs Brissett,’ Markby said, seating himself at the table.
‘We’re more than pleased to help,’ said Mrs Brissett, adding in explanation of the royal plural, ‘Fred and me. Fred used to do odd jobs for Miss Needham, mend things, put up shelves, bit of decorating. Fred always thought very highly of Miss Needham. He’ll confirm anything I say. All our family was fond of Miss Needham. She was very good to our Dawn when she had her bit of trouble.’ Mrs Brissett paused for breath. ‘What is it you want to know? If it’s about them pills, it’s like I told Miss Mitchell. Poor Miss Needham never took ’em.’
‘I’m afraid she did,’ Markby said gently. ‘But we agree that it seems out of character and we would like to know where they came from and how she came to take them. You see, she must have taken them that morning. I understand you went to the cottage to clean after breakfast?’
‘Yes, I did.’ The bobble on the top of the hat vibrated frantically. It’s going to fall off, thought Markby, diverted. He clung to his purpose. ‘When you cleaned up, do you recall seeing or throwing away a medicine bottle or packet, or a paper bag with a chemist’s name on it?’
‘No. Nothing like that and I’d have noticed because there never was anything like that around the cottage! She’d said not to come, being Boxing Day,’ went on Mrs Brissett. ‘But I said I would, just for an hour, straighten things up, wash up breakfast dishes, that sort of thing.’
‘Ah yes, breakfast dishes . . .’ Markby murmured.
Mrs Brissett cast him a wary look and redoubled her regal manner.
‘Many dishes?’
‘A few.’
‘For how many people?’ Mrs Brissett’s mouth set tightly. ‘Mrs Brissett,’ said Markby. ‘I’m not prying into Miss Needham’s private life because I’m just curious. Someone took those pills to the cottage and if they were in, say, a box, took the box with any unused pills away with him or her. Someone gave them to Miss Needham. What I want to know is, how? Had she asked for some and took some deliberately – or what?’
Mrs Brissett’s workwom hands clasped and unclasped nervously. ‘I’ll tell you, sir. It’s been worrying me. I’ve got that I can’t sleep because of it. Fred will tell you. You ask him. Fred, I said to him, she never had none of those pills of her own. I know. I’d have seen them. I never saw not one. Someone must’ve given them to her, I said. And Mr Markby—’ Mrs Brissett leaned forward earnestly. ‘’Ooever it was done it, done it on the sly, because she wouldn’t have taken ’em knowing what they was, not Miss Needham!’
Bingo! exulted Markby silently. ‘Mrs Brissett, will you tell me now about the breakfast dishes?’
‘It was for two,’ said Mrs Brissett. ‘I’ll tell you fair and honest, I don’t know who he was. But it wasn’t the first time I’d washed up for two or made the bed—’ Mrs Brissett put a hand to her mouth and coughed discreetly. ‘When it had been used, if you take my meaning.’
‘Quite.’
‘She had a number of gentlemen friends, Miss Needham. She was very popular.’
I bet she was! thought Markby’s alter ego rather ungallantly.
‘But that morning, although there were two of everything, cups, dishes and that, the bed . . . I don’t think he’d slept there. But of course, I couldn’t be sure. There weren’t,’ said Mrs Brissett in practical tones, ‘no hairs in the washbasin from shaving and there was only one pile of pillows on the bed.’
‘So he’d called in for breakfast, you fancy, and left?’
‘That’s it,’ said Mrs Brissett. ‘No harm in that.’ She paused. ‘Or perhaps there was, you might be thinking?’
‘We don’t know. Did Miss Needham have a habit of say, tossing off a glass of something to keep out the cold before she left to go hunting?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Brissett simply. ‘Afore she left to go anywhere. She was a real lady and could hold her drink. Never fell over nor anything.’
Markby stared desperately out of the window. When he could speak he said, ‘Well, thank you, Mrs Brissett. You’ve been very helpful. I’d be grateful if you didn’t repeat the substance of this conversation – except to Mr Brissett, naturally.’
‘We can hold our own counsel, sir!’ said Mrs Brissett, regal again. ‘Me and Fred.’
‘Quite so. Oh – just out of interest, what had Miss Needham and her visitor had for their breakfast, bacon and eggs?’
‘No – she was a lovely cook, Miss Needham. She’d taken one of them cording blue courses and made all kinds of fancy things. They’d had that fish thing. Kedgeree, it’s called.’
‘Kedgeree,’ said Markby, thumbing through the cookbook Meredith had found in the kitchen. ‘Let’s see. Oh, hurrah, hurrah. Boiled rice, cooked dried haddock, chopped boiled eggs, salt, pepper and cayenne, all mixed up together in a lovely muddle and served up piping hot! I’ll check with Paul, but if someone slipped half a dozen tiny tranquillisers into that lot when her back was turned, she’d never have noticed. Eaten them down with the rest!’
‘And you think that’s what happened?’ Meredith asked soberly.
He closed the book and grimaced. ‘I don’t know. I’ve no evidence. But he could have done. One thing we have learned incidentally, Mrs Brissett’s statement confirms what Jack Pringle, who was Harriet’s doctor, has been telling us. Harriet was next to impossible to treat for anything because she wouldn’t take any medicaments. He didn’t prescribe any tranquillisers for her and he’s prepared to say that forcefully at the inquest. What we have to find out is, who was the phantom breakfast visitor?’
‘If we find him,’ Meredith pointed out. ‘He could say she asked for the pills and took them voluntarily with a glass of water.’
‘So he might. But where is he? Why hasn’t he come forward?’
‘Scandal. Perhaps he’s married.’
‘You are absolutely sure that whoever was there the previous evening – the man you saw kissing her silhouetted on the blind – you are sure he left?’
‘I heard a car leave. He might have come back later when I was asleep. There was no car there in the morning, but I was late getting up. Again, he might have left early and I missed him. That’s possible.’
‘Or he might have been on foot . . .’ Markby murmured.
Meredith wriggled uncomfortably. ‘Tom Fearon?’
‘Why Tom?’ he looked up sharply.
‘He’s just down the road. They had a bit of a quarrel on the Monday at the stables, I only heard a bit of it.’ She recounted the scrap of conversation she had overheard. ‘She did say he could come and see her when he’d calmed down.’
‘Well, I’ll talk to him. But she’d have seen him anyway when she went to collect the horse for the Boxing Day meet.’ He frowned. ‘No one hacks to a meet nowadays. They all have horse-boxes and take the animals there on wheels. What did Harriet mean to do?’
‘Tom’s got a horse-box, a small one, two-horse affair.’
‘Mmn . . .’ Markby put away the cookbook. ‘I’ll tackle Tom today or tomorrow.’
‘I’m not saying it was Tom!’ Meredith said hastily. ‘Only that they knew each other well and they did have a mild spat.’
‘Which wouldn’t lead him to put pills in her kedgeree. That doesn’t fit Tom’s style. Tom charges at everything like the proverbial bull at a gate. What we have here is a premeditated act. Someone took the pills with him, waited his chance. But why? And what did he hope to achieve?’
‘He knew she was going hunting and hoped she’d take a fall.’
‘Yes – he’d know that she’d drink a stirrup cup or two and the mix of pills and drink would start to make her unsteady.’
‘But she was unsteady before the stirrup cup came
round,’ Meredith pointed out. ‘We both saw her. So did Dr Pringle. He told her not to drink any more. He thought she’d been over-celebrating.’
‘Don’t forget we know from Mrs Brissett that Harriet had a glass or two before she set out from Pook’s Common! That would explain why she became whoozy so soon. I wonder,’ Markby frowned. ‘I wonder if he realised that? If he realised she’d start drinking before she got to the Market Square? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that some man – or it might equally have been a woman – unknown called on her by arrangement to have breakfast, slipped pills in her food and then went on his way. He might have reckoned she’d drink a stirrup cup or two, become unsteady after a while and fall, very likely at the first fence she came to.’ Markby stopped. ‘At the first fence she came to,’ he repeated. ‘Damn it, I said that to Pearce! But she didn’t – she fell in the Market Square. I wonder if he’d anticipated that, the breakfast-guest. I wonder if that didn’t mess up his plans a little. She fell off too soon – thanks in part to Simon Pardy and his crazy antics.’
‘Why did he do it?’ Meredith demanded. ‘If he did, this hypothetical man. Why try to harm her at all?’
‘Ah, now we’re in really deep water. How did Harriet strike you, Meredith? Likely to make enemies?’
‘She was nice. I liked her. She was welcoming to me. She was kind to the Brissetts. She was forthright, though. She didn’t like the idea anyone might get the better of her. I would have thought that if she did take a dislike to you, she’d be a formidable enemy. She’d be like a terrier – she wouldn’t let go.’
She thought of Frances Needham-Burrell and her threat to take her demand for permission to bury her cousin at Westerfield to Lambeth Palace if need be. Family trait. They got what they wanted and they did things the way they thought they should be done and everyone else could go hang. Though she had taken a liking to Harriet, Meredith had to admit that was very much the impression Harriet and Fran both gave.
‘The first person we have to find,’ Markby said, stretching out his legs. ‘Is the man who was at Ivy Cottage on Christmas Day evening. You heard a car but you didn’t see it. You don’t know for a fact he left. He may well have done so. Mrs Brissett was nicely discreet about the bed but thought it hadn’t been slept in by two. One lot of pillows, she said.’
‘Harriet might have moved the pillows.’
‘I fancy Mrs Brissett really meant that there were no stains on the sheets, but didn’t want to mention it.’
‘Oh,’ said Meredith, reddening, ‘Oh, yes, I see.’
‘Sorry!’ Markby exclaimed, aghast and turning crimson in his turn. ‘I forgot I wasn’t just rambling on aloud, trying out my thoughts on Pearce.’
‘Don’t apologise!’ Meredith said crossly. ‘I’m not that naive!’
‘Okay. Well, Mrs B. thinks he didn’t sleep there. But perhaps he did. Who and where is he?’
‘You know,’ Meredith said softly, ‘Funny thing about Harriet. When she spoke to the horse, Blazer, it was as if she spoke to a friend. A real human friend, who just happened to have four legs. She appeared jolly and outgoing. But I wonder if secretly she only really trusted animals? Was only really at ease with them? She was a sad person in a way. I’d like to think justice was done by her. And I’m a bit inclined to feel as she would have done, if she’d thought someone she knew had been done to death ahead of her time. She’d have kept after whoever was responsible and I’m going to keep after this, Alan.’
‘Police job, leave to the professionals.’
‘Yes, but if you can’t come up with the answer it will get filed away and forgotten. Like Mrs Brissett’s Dawn and the domestic incident. You involved me in the first place and if you can’t, then I am going to get to the bottom of it all!’ She stared at him defiantly.
She has, he thought despondently, wonderful hazel eyes. I don’t suppose we’ll ever get any further on than we are. Doomed to stay on our respective side of whatever fence divides us. Aloud he asked, ‘I don’t know what Mrs Brissett’s Dawn has to do with it. But you are still free to come and have a drink tonight, aren’t you? See in the New Year? I shall be working until late. I could meet you in Bamford at say, half-eight. We might find a pub which would give us a bar-meal, but they lock the doors on New Year’s Eve at most pubs after nine-ish, to keep out trouble-makers. If you’re not inside by then, you’ve had it.’
‘I’ll meet you at half past eight at the pub, if you tell me which one.’
‘Bunch of Grapes,’ said Markby off the top of his head. ‘It’s not far from the station.’
It was only as he was driving back to Bamford that he remembered that The Bunch of Grapes was where Simon Pardy claimed to have been drinking on Christmas Eve.
Bamford on New Year’s Eve was busy. All the pubs were packed and one or two were admitting revellers by pre-purchased ticket only. All of this ought to have been a balm to a policeman’s soul but Markby was alarmed to find, when he reached The Bunch of Grapes, that its wooden door was firmly shut and a notice pinned on it announced that no new drinkers would be admitted. From the other side of the door came the sound of chatter, laughter and good cheer. He supposed Meredith was in there. And he was out here. He supposed that was par for the course as far as they were concerned. He raised a fist and hammered on the door.
After a while it opened a few inches on a chain and the landlord’s face appeared, peering suspiciously into the night. ‘We’re closed to newcomers. You’ll have to go somewhere else.’
‘Do you remember me?’ asked Markby, manoeuvring himself into the light falling from a street lamp and fumbling in his pocket for his identity card.
‘Oh – Mr Markby, isn’t it? Didn’t recognise you, sir. I didn’t send for the police. We haven’t any trouble. Not so far, anyway. That’s why I put the notice on the door.’
‘I’m not here officially. I have, actually, just come for a drink and I’d arranged to meet a friend inside. She might be there.’
There was a rattle of a chain and the door opened. ‘Be quick!’ ordered the landlord. ‘Or someone else will want to slip in behind you!’
Markby squeezed through and found himself in the packed public bar. If Meredith was here, he couldn’t see her. He peered over heads and round bodies. It was unbelievably hot and airless and a minor miracle anyone had enough room to lift a glass to his lips.
‘Your friend wouldn’t be a lady?’ the landlord asked. ‘Tallish, brown hair?’
‘That’s the one? She hasn’t been and gone?’ Alarm returned.
‘No, she’s in the snug at the back. She said she was waiting for someone.’
Reaching the snug was a battle but he got there. Meredith was wedged in a corner at a table occupied by a group of other people. A glass of cider stood in front of her and a half-eaten packet of crisps. When she saw him she looked relieved and picked up her folded anorak from the settle seat beside her.
‘I saved you a place.’
‘Sorry I’m a bit late. I’ll go and get myself a drink – what about you? Are you hungry?’
‘They’re not doing food except sandwiches. I don’t mind. I’ve had these crisps.’
‘Hang on,’ he muttered. He fought his way to the bar and back carrying a pint, another cider and a packet of ham sandwiches wrapped in cellophane, all balanced on a tin tray. ‘A bit primitive but better than nothing. I don’t know why I suggested this pub. But they will all be the same.’
‘Are you busy at the station?’
‘I’ve got my immediate tray cleared up but the station as a whole is busy. New Year’s Eve always is. It’s early yet but give us time and we’ll get the drunks, the fights and the car crashes. Generally someone else deals with them.’
‘Oh dear!’
‘That’s life. You didn’t have any problems driving in tonight?’
‘No. I’m parked just down a little way outside a shoeshop. The shop windows are lit and it throws light on my car so I thought it was a good place and no one would try and
break into it and drive off.’
‘Sound thinking. Well, here’s to a Happy and Prosperous New Year!’ He raised his glass.
‘Same to you. Cheers.’ She sipped her cider and put it down again. ‘I have to admit I don’t feel much like celebrating. I know I should. But to be honest, New Year always is a depressing time to me. And this time, in the circumstances, more than usual. Sorry, I’m being a real wet blanket.’
‘You can’t do anything about it, what happened.’ Markby tore open the sandwich packet. ‘Want one of these?’
‘Just one. Have they got mustard in them?’
He peeled back the uppermost piece of bread on the top sandwich. ‘No, some sort of pickle.’
‘Okay, just the one.’
‘Excuse me munching away but I didn’t have any lunch.’
‘Oh, well, you can have all the sandwiches, then!’
‘No . . .’ he waved away her hand, offering a sandwich, and spoke indistinctly. ‘It’s all right.’
Famous last words. From the public bar came a sudden roar of sound and a crash of glass. Everyone in the snug looked up alarmed and interested in equal part. The crowd between the two areas surged back and forth. A girl screamed and there was a heavy thud of a body falling to earth. The landlord’s purple sweating face appeared – ‘Mr Markby!’ – and vanished.
‘Sorry – I’m needed! They’re starting early!’ Markby swallowed half-masticated bread in a lump, jumped up and deserted Meredith. He barged his way through the crowd to the public bar.
There a confused sight met his eye. The drinkers had pressed back against the walls to form a circle. With a mixture of dismay and glee they were watching, trying to keep out of the way of, and here and there encouraging, a turbulent mêlée taking place on the floor. Bodies swore, panted, twisted, turned, kicked and punched. The landlord grabbed at clothing and tugged ineffectually before it was wrenched from his grasp. It was difficult to see exactly what was happening. Was he, Markby wondered, going to have to call for assistance?
