A Season for Murder

by Ann Granger

  ‘No,’ they answered in unison.

  ‘It isn’t properly shut, is that normal?’

  ‘Yes . . . we leave it that way,’ said Mick. ‘In case anyone forgets the key. I mean, no one is going to break in here, are they?’

  Aren’t they? thought Markby. ‘What’s behind here? Out the back here, I mean. A garden?’

  ‘Yes, well, not much of one. None of us does any gardening. It’s just mud.’

  Mud, better and better. Footprints, with luck. ‘Does it run down to another garden, or what?’

  ‘No,’ Micky said. ‘It runs down to a back alley. All the gardens in this street do, on this side.’

  That’s the way he came and went, then! thought Markby. Even better still. It often went like this. You messed around getting nowhere with nothing but your instinct to guide you, and then your luck changed. ‘I don’t want anyone to touch this window or the back door or go out in the back garden, all right?’

  ‘All right,’ they said obediently.

  Markby found himself suddenly liking them all. They were actually quite nice kids. Pity about the chains and the metal studs, but they’d grow out of that. He found the way they clung together rather touching. Cut off from their own families, they’d formed a family grouping of their own, setting up in this disastrous dwelling, adopting the two stray cats, going off together on their evenings out. And into this milieu had come Simon, the outsider, the interloper, the unaccepted.

  ‘How did Simon come to be living here?’ he asked.

  ‘Mick met him in a pub,’ Tracy said.

  ‘We needed a fourth,’ Mick explained nervously. ‘He was looking for a place to live. He always paid up his share of the rent all right. We don’t know anything about him. He never said anything – about himself, you know.’

  ‘Do you know where he lived before this?’

  Micky shook his head.

  ‘Not round here!’ Tracy said suddenly in her aggressive way. ‘We’d have seen him before. He just turned up, like Micky said, one evening in The Bunch of Grapes.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Markby smiled at them. ‘You’ll have to sign statements later, but it can wait a few minutes. Make yourselves a cup of tea, why don’t you – but don’t touch that window frame!’

  He went outside and found the surgeon repacking his bag. ‘Hullo, Alan,’ said the surgeon morosely. ‘In the absence of a post mortem, I’d say cracked skull and broken neck, either of which would have killed him. Mind if I go home now? I’ll get you a proper report in the morning when I’ve had a chance to take a good look at him.’

  ‘Fine, thanks for your help.’

  The surgeon departed. Markby gave orders for the kitchen window and door to be fingerprinted. The ambulance had arrived at some point whilst he had been talking in the kitchen and waited outside, lights flashing. Pearce came down the rickety staircase, very cautiously,

  ‘Hunt’s up!’ said Markby to him quite cheerfully. ‘Suspicious circumstances, all right! What did you find?’

  ‘One or two things which will interest you, sir.’ Pearce led the way upstairs. All the bedroom lights were on now and the landing reasonably lit. ‘First of all,’ Pearce pointed down at the newel post at the head of the stairs. ‘Fibres. Some kind of cloth caught on there. Might just be from their clothes, of course. On the other hand, the damage to the wood looks new.’

  Markby stooped and peered. A few rough woollen threads were snagged on a splinter of wood in the post. As Pearce had said, the wood behind the splinter was pale and clean. It was recent. ‘Take good care of these. Get them down to forensic. Have them check them against all their clothes, including Pardy’s. Pardy had a long overcoat – but these are the wrong colour, to my eye. But check just the same. What else did you find?’

  Pearce grinned. ‘You’ll like this, sir.’ He stood back and gestured towards the interior of Pardy’s room with a flourish.

  Markby walked in with a grimace of distaste. What a mess. ‘Hullo,’ he said. He walked over to the table, covered with Simon’s ‘work’. Newspapers, scissors, glue . . . scraps of chopped up print . . . cheap paper and envelopes.

  ‘It was him, all right,’ said Pearce. ‘Writing those letters.’

  ‘Looks very like it, doesn’t it? We’ll check that note-paper against Tom Fearon’s letter and the one the Master got. And the type of newsprint – the glue, too.’ Markby’s eye ran over the untidy room. ‘Search this glory-hole and carefully.’

  He made his way back down the staircase and stopped on the bottom step to allow Pardy’s sheeted body to be carried out on a stretcher. One accident too many. Now he knew he was looking for a murderer. And one who was getting sloppy in his methods, jumpy – it was all snowballing beyond him. Panic was setting in. Markby stared down at the dark stain on the hall floor. But his quarry was getting used to killing. If they didn’t find him, he’d kill again.

  It was drizzling with rain later that morning when Meredith arrived for the inquest on Harriet Needham. She parked her car in the forecourt of the building and got out into the fine mist of water which worked its insidious dampness into hair and clothing with ruthless efficiency. She had put on a lined raincoat for warmth and because the anorak hardly seemed respectful enough for the proceedings – but the cold damp weather made nothing of the garment and she shivered.

  Something seemed to have gone wrong with the heating in the room where the inquest was to be held. The radiators were barely warm. As people arrived they huddled together with pinched faces and grumbled about the cold and rain. Behind all their complaints could be read, in their eyes, their apprehension at the proceedings about to start.

  Frances Needham-Burrell, splendid entirely in black with her corn-blonde hair swept up into a pleat, said fiercely, ‘If that coroner tries to fob me off with some damnfool verdict of misadventure, he’ll soon find out that it won’t do!’

  Jack Pringle had arrived, lugubrious in his duffel coat, and Tom Fearon, unnaturally smartened up and respectable in a dark-blue short length overcoat and carrying in his hand the sort of trilby hat seen on racecourses. He greeted them morosely and turned his back on them all.

  ‘Tom in a mood,’ said Pringle. He blew his nose on a large blue-check handkerchief. ‘I can’t do with the damp weather. It plays havoc with my sinuses.’

  ‘You’re a doctor,’ said Fran unsympathetically.

  ‘I still can’t help my sinuses.’

  Mrs Brissett and Fred arrived looking nervous. Fred’s hair had been slicked down and he’d cut himself shaving. Mrs Brissett had exchanged the bobble hat for a jersey turban and her zipped boots for shiny black court shoes on which she teetered uncertainly and which were obviously excruciatingly uncomfortable.

  Colonel Stanley appeared accompanied by his wife, he in what was obviously his funeral suit and she utterly immovable in tweeds, brogues and thick stockings and brandishing an umbrella.

  ‘I hope this doesn’t drag on too long,’ she said. ‘We’ve left both the boys in the back of the car. They get bored and chew things.’

  Pringle looked mildly alarmed and the Master explained. ‘The dogs . . .’

  ‘Oh,’ said Pringle, blowing his nose again.

  ‘Got a cold, Jack?’ asked Charlotte. ‘Try a tot of whisky in your tea. I don’t believe in medicines for colds.’

  Meredith was looking round for Markby but so far he had not put in an appearance. But someone else had, much to her surprise. Rupert Green had slipped into the room behind the last arrivals and stood alone at the back in a camel overcoat, his pigskin-gloved hands gripping the back of a chair. He met Meredith’s eye and gave her a cool nod of acknowledgement. Meredith returned him a dowager’s bow. The two of them would be sending their seconds round to discuss weapons next, she thought wryly, and then wondered where Alan had got to.

  At that moment he arrived, hastening through the door looking rather dishevelled and as though he had been up all night. He muttered, ‘Good morning, good morning . . .’ at them all and disa
ppeared through another door in the side of the hall. Voices could be heard in a further corridor, rising and falling.

  A tingle ran up Meredith’s spine. Something’s gone wrong, she thought. Something’s happened . . . something pretty big and important.

  In the room where they waited the atmosphere had subtly changed. Fran muttered, ‘What’s going on? They’re late starting!’

  ‘Might as well sit down, Charlotte,’ said the Master. ‘Going to be here for a bit, I fancy.’

  ‘Oh dear, I hope the boys don’t chew the armrest again.’

  ‘So do I, ruddy brutes.’

  ‘The leather makes them sick. You should have put down newspaper, Bungy.’

  ‘Oh dash it,’ said the Master. ‘I’ve just remembered, I’ve left my Times on the front seat.’

  There was a bustle at the front of the room. The coroner had arrived accompanied by a pale man in a shiny dark suit and Markby trying ineffectually to smooth his hair and generally tidy up his appearance. Everyone sat down hurriedly. The inquest was opened with the usual preamble and Meredith tensed, waiting to hear the first witness called.

  It was at that moment that she realised Pardy wasn’t there. But surely, he was the principal person to give evidence? She looked round but only caught Rupert Green’s eye. He gave her a steely look.

  The coroner leaned forward. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Markby, I believe you have a request to make of this court?’

  ‘Yes, sir . . .’ Markby got up. ‘I’d like to ask for an adjournment.’ A sigh ran round the courtroom followed by utter stillness.

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘There has been a sudden death overnight, in suspicious circumstances, of someone who would have been a main participant in the proceedings today. There may be a link with the death of Miss Needham. The police are conducting enquiries and it’s possible criminal proceedings will result.’

  ‘Very well,’ the coroner said. ‘In view of the likelihood of criminal proceedings at a later date, this inquest is adjourned for the time being to allow the police to complete their enquiries. It will be reconvened at a future time and persons concerned will be informed.’

  Small-scale chaos broke out as soon as the coroner had retired and Markby found himself mobbed,

  ‘Where’s Pardy?’ Meredith demanded. ‘What’s happened to him?’

  ‘What do you mean, he’s dead?’ Fran was not beating about the bush. ‘Who killed him?’

  ‘I can’t discuss it, I’m sorry.’ He tried to extricate himself from the crowd about him.

  ‘You’ve got to discuss it with me, I’m Harriet’s nearest relative!’ Fran insisted.

  ‘I’ll call round at The Crossed Keys, but not today probably. I’m very busy today. Ill call tomorrow.’ Markby pushed a way forcibly through for himself. Catching Meredith’s eye he opened his mouth, closed it again and gave her a meaningful look which probably meant he would telephone later, she thought – or hoped? She watched him disappear through the main door.

  Somehow they all squeezed out behind him in a disorganised hubbub. Green walked quickly away into the rain. Slowly the others dispersed, having asked each other fruitlessly several times what had happened and speculated wildly on the cause of the delay.

  Meredith walked slowly to her car. In the estate car parked behind her, Charlotte’s boys barked wildly as they saw people come out of the building. The interior of the estate car was scattered with confetti of shredded newspaper. The boys had happily dismembered the Master’s Times. She reached her own car, put the key in the lock and then suddenly realised that Pringle’s car was parked alongside hers and the doctor sat in the driving seat motionless, his hands resting on the wheel, staring fixedly down at the dashboard.

  Meredith, alarmed, stooped down and tapped on the window. ‘Dr Pringle? Are you all right?’

  Pringle started and looked up at her. The glazed look faded from his face and he wound the window down. ‘Yes – sorry, Miss Mitchell. I was just thinking . . .’ He fell silent again.

  ‘You are sure you’re all right?’ she asked, unconvinced.

  ‘Yes . . . yes. It’s just that I was wound up to give evidence – about Harriet . . . and it wasn’t necessary. I’m suffering a little from the reaction.’ He glanced at her almost timidly. ‘I was rather dreading it, to tell you the truth. I was – I was very fond of her, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Meredith confessed. ‘But I can understand it. I didn’t know her for very long, but I liked her very much.’

  ‘I loved her,’ Pringle said simply. ‘I wanted to marry her. Just a foolish dream on my part. I mean, I had nothing to offer. I did ask her once – but she turned me down. Only to be expected. She was quite right, of course. Still, it rocked me at the time. I’d been a hunt subscriber but I gave up after that, sold my horse and all the rest of it. I just couldn’t bear to be where she was, in company, hunt balls, point to points, that sort of thing. Seeing her with others . . . I’m sorry, Miss Mitchell, I’m rambling.’ He smiled in a strained way.

  ‘That’s all right, Dr Pringle. I am sorry, really.’ Meredith looked at him in helpless despair. There was nothing she could say which would make any difference. Pringle had loved and lost. There was no lonelier situation in the world. She put out her hand and touched the rain-damp shoulder of his duffel coat. ‘I am truly very sorry.’

  The rain eased as she drove home and she switched off the windscreen wipers as she turned off the main road on to the B road. Glancing up into the driving mirror immediately afterwards, Meredith saw another car turn into the B road behind her, the easily recognisable Mercedes of Tom Fearon. She pulled over so that he could overtake her but he didn’t, he seemed content to follow her at a steady distance. Perhaps, she thought, he’s going to stop at Fenniwick’s garage for fuel. But at the garage he turned off down the lane to Pook’s Common behind her. Meredith drew up outside Rose Cottage and got out. The Mercedes slid past and she was not surprised to see it stop a few yards down and Tom set out and walk back towards her. She waited for him.

  ‘Do you know anything about all that – back there?’ he asked her without any preamble, jerking his head in the general direction of Bamford.

  ‘No, should I?’ she asked, nettled.

  ‘You’re Alan’s girlfriend, aren’t you?’

  ‘Friend, not girlfriend – ’ She saw the ironic expression in Fearon’s dark eyes and her annoyance increased. ‘He doesn’t discuss his work with me and, in any case, I haven’t seen him to talk to properly since the day before yesterday.’

  No, I haven’t, thought Meredith crossly. We’re not exactly talking at the moment – but that was none of Tom Fearon’s business.

  Fearon muttered and pushed his hands into the pockets of his blue overcoat. ‘If someone has got Pardy, I’m not surprised, but it wasn’t me. I suppose the adjournment means Alan will be going round asking us all where we were every minute of every blasted day and night!’ He stared at Meredith truculently. ‘I was waiting to hear what they were all going to say about Harriet – all those people back there who reckoned they knew her!’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Reckoned?’ Meredith raised her eyebrows. ‘You think they didn’t know her really, then?

  ‘No!’ said Fearon in some disgust. ‘Look, I saw her every day more or less for five years. I knew Harriet. She came over as full of herself, confident, independent, difficult – but it wasn’t confidence, it was defensiveness.’

  ‘It did seem to me,’ Meredith said slowly, ‘that she might have been shy, underneath it all.’

  ‘Did it now?’ That gained her a shrewd look from Fearon. ‘You were probably nearer the mark than most, then. Harriet always had to prove something – not to others, although I did think that at first, but to herself.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Meredith supposed she could invite Fearon in for a cup of coffee but prudence warned that he might not prove so easy to get rid of afterwards. It had stopped raining. They could talk as well out her
e.

  ‘The way she acted. When she first came here she turned up at the stables one morning enquiring about livery fees. She wanted to buy a horse and needed nearby stabling. We sorted that one out and she asked me if I knew of a likely animal for sale. She wanted a lightweight hunter. I didn’t but I told her of a couple of stock sales coming up. I offered to go with her to them if she wasn’t sure about bidding. She said she could manage – told me so pretty sharp, actually. So I thought, right, you get on with it then, and don’t grumble to me if you bring back some sway-backed, knock-kneed brute with one blind eye and a mean disposition! But she came back with Blazer, nice sound horse, good temperament – bit out of condition from neglect but nothing which couldn’t be remedied with feeding and general care. So I realised she knew a good horse when she saw one.’

  Meredith repressed a smile. Presumably one went up or down in Fearon’s estimation according to whether one knew a good horse or not.

  ‘But she had to do it herself, you see? And it was the same with everything – take that fancy cooking. Why couldn’t she turn out meat and two veg like any other woman? Prefer it myself, personally. I don’t like these sauces – you can’t see what’s underneath. I like my food recognisable. No, Harriet had to be the best cook around. She hated things going wrong. She hated making a mistake. So I reckoned that at some time in her life she’d made a beauty – and she was still trying to live it down.’ Tom shrugged. ‘She needed someone to look after her, I reckon.’

  ‘Not you, I shouldn’t think!’ said Meredith, she realised very rudely. However, Tom would probably claim to appreciate plain speaking so he might as well hear some.

  ‘I didn’t suggest me!’ Fearon growled. ‘Although what’s wrong with me? Got mud on my boots, I suppose? Smell of horses, do I? Pardon me!’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Yes, you did. Well, it’s mutual, sweetheart – you’re the sort of woman I find aggravating without any compensatory virtues. Harriet could drive a man barmy – but she made up for it in other ways!’