‘So I drove on to the forecourt, but couldn’t see him. I waited a minute, then got out of the car to see if he was around. The shop had no light on and was showing a closed sign, so I thought I’d try round the back. Couldn’t find him out there either, then I remembered how drunk he’d been the night before and wondered if he was suffering from a bit of a hangover. Hoped he was, actually.’
‘How did you know he was drunk the previous night?’
‘Everyone was over at the pub for Clive Romaine’s birthday. And Mike certainly made sure that everyone knew he was there. Had words with just about everyone, he did.
‘But back to this morning. I looked through the window – he doesn’t bother with curtains, the glass is dirty enough to give some privacy – and I could see him in that armchair, spark out, as I thought then. I tapped on the window – no response, so I rapped on the door. By then I was impatient to be on my way, so that I could be back in time to open up, so I tried the door and it wasn’t locked. And there he was, and now I shall have to go shopping this evening instead.’
Callous bastard , thought Falconer, then returned to an earlier point in the post-master’s monologue. ‘Did he have words with you?’
‘What?’
‘Mike Lowry. Were you one of the people he had words with in the pub yesterday evening?’
‘We had a slight falling out over the amount of noise that had been coming from his workshop, but it was mostly bluster and the drink talking, I realised. He probably wouldn’t even have remembered it, the way he was stumbling around when the vicar took him home.’
‘The vicar took him home?’
‘That’s right. Seemed the best thing to do, and the party broke up shortly after that.’
The vicar again, thought Falconer, but would not let himself be side-tracked. ‘What time did you retire last night?’
Marian answered. ‘I went to bed about eleven and took a sleeping tablet.’
‘And you, sir?’
‘Stopped up to watch a film. Didn’t notice the time when I finally turned in.’
‘Did you notice it, Mrs Warren-Browne?’
‘I told you, I’d taken a sleeping tablet.’ And with this evasive answer they had to be content for the time being.
As they left by the side door, Falconer said just three words. ‘Vicarage, Carmichael. Now.’
V
Lillian Swainton-Smythe admitted them. ‘Good morning, Inspector. Ah, I see you still have Ronald MacDonald with you. Do come through, we’re in the sun lounge,’ this last proving to be a rickety lean-to affair attached precariously to the south-facing wall of the vicarage. ‘Bertie, the police to see you. Again.’ Surely she could not have been drinking at this early hour? ‘Can I take your jacket, Inspector? It’s rather warm out there.’
‘No thank you,’ Falconer replied, once more conscious of the disgraceful condition of his left shirt sleeve. He’d just have to sweat it out.
‘Good morning again, Inspector, Sergeant,’ the vicar greeted them.
‘Why didn’t you tell us you’d taken Lowry home from the pub last night?’ Falconer was prickly with more than just heat.
‘You didn’t give me much of a chance to tell you anything, as I remember,’ replied the vicar, still smarting from their peremptory treatment of him earlier.
‘Shall I turn out my pockets for you, Inspector, or would you like to conduct a body search?’ Lillian leered, leaning close to him, the unmistakable smell of gin on her breath.
‘Go and lie down, Lillian. You’re upset.’
Unexpectedly, she complied, and wandered from their company and into the main body of the vicarage.
‘Sorry about that. She’s highly strung,’ explained Bertie. It seemed a little more tactful than describing her as ‘tight’, and he was, overall, a tactful man who tolerated and overlooked his wife’s occasional little lapses.
‘Perhaps you’d tell us about last night, sir? Why did you need to escort Mr Lowry home?’
‘There’d been words. He’d upset a few people. I wasn’t really listening, then things got rather louder and I felt it my Christian duty to try to pour oil on troubled waters.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Not a lot. I just stepped in to distract him while George Covington, the landlord, drew attention back to the party. I told him he’d had enough, passed him his pint then, when he’d drunk it, I took him over to his bed-sit.’
‘What condition did you consider him to be in?’
‘Pretty far gone. He was stumbling all over the place when we got to his door. I had to prop him up against the wall and get his key out of his pocket myself before I could get him inside. By the time I’d manhandled him into the chair he was just about incoherent, and started to snore almost immediately. I had no chance of moving him on my own if he was out cold – he was a dead weight. Oh, my dear Lord, what an unfortunate choice of phrase. I do apologise. Anyway, I thought it was best just to leave him where he was until he came round in his own good time – except that he didn’t, did he?’
‘Sadly, no. Now, did you lock the door before you left?’
‘I couldn’t. You may not have noticed, but there’s no Yale lock on that door, only a mortise, and it doesn’t have a letterbox. All his post goes – sorry, went – to the shop. I could hardly lock him in and put the key through the shop door. There isn’t an interconnecting door between the two, as that bed-sit’s really just a part of the workshop roughly converted. I just slipped the key back in his pocket and closed the door behind me. May God forgive me!’ he expostulated. ‘If I could have locked that door he might still be alive. I left that door unlocked for a murderer.’ The vicar’s face was stricken and drained of all colour.
‘Don’t distress yourself, sir. If someone is determined to do murder, they’ll find a way. You are in no respect responsible for what happened later.’
‘I must pray for forgiveness.’
‘Before you do that, sir, can you tell me if you recognise these names?’ Falconer had produced a small piece of paper from his jacket’s inner pocket. ‘John and Catherine Marchant,’ he read. ‘They were witnesses to the will, made about ten years ago, that we found in Mr Morley’s cottage.’
Momentarily curbed in his flight to seek forgiveness, Rev. Bertie wrinkled his brow and thought. ‘No. Yes. Yes, now I remember. They ran The Fisherman’s Flies for a few months as temporary managers, just about the time that Lillian and I moved to this parish, but I haven’t the foggiest idea where they are now. Perhaps the brewery might have a record of them.’
‘Thank you very much, sir. We’ll see ourselves out, shall we?’
When Falconer had pulled the piece of paper from his pocket, he had become aware of another object and, as they left the vicarage, fished it out and glanced at it, before slipping it back into his right-hand outer jacket pocket. It was the odd coin that Carmichael had picked up in Reg Morley’s back garden. He’d not worn that jacket since Monday, and had forgotten it was there. He must remember to find out what it was and lodge it with all the other flotsam and jetsam of the case.
Falconer did not speak again until they were headed along Church Street towards the green. ‘Pub next, I think. That landlord is a pretty shrewd fellow, and his wife’s a bit of a smart cookie too. Whatever went on in that pub last night, between them, they’ll have it, chapter and verse.
Chapter Seventeen
Thursday 16th July – morning
I
The Fisherman’s Flies was not yet open for business and George Covington had to draw the heavy bolts on one half of the double doors to admit them. He greeted them with the words, ‘Grim business, this. Anything we can do to help, we will.’ Then he called over his shoulder to his wife. ‘Paula, love. Police. Do us a tray.’
The bar smelled as all bars do when closed. There was the sour tang of stale beer in the air, the smell of stale cooking, and the acrid reek that a place exudes when it has absorbed the smoke from countless cigarettes over a great man
y years, a reek that persisted even though smoking had now been relegated to the beer garden by the government ban. It was a depressing smell, totally different from that given off by a bar open to, and peopled by, its customers.
The three men had just seated themselves at one of the tables when Paula Covington pushed her way through from behind the bar. She carried a tray on which squatted four cups of individual filter coffee, the liquid still dripping through the fragrant grounds as she set one before each of them and, retaining the fourth for herself, sat down to join them.
‘What appened to im, Inspector?’ she asked, not at all shy of appearing nosy. ‘Was it the same as the old man, or was it an accident of some sort? Lots of dangerous machinery in a garage, especially when you’re three sheets to the wind.’
‘It was no accident, Mrs Covington, but I’d rather not go into details just at the moment.’ He wouldn’t need to and he knew it. The village grapevine would soon see to that.
‘We understand,’ Falconer continued, ‘that there was a party here last night, during the course of which there was some unpleasantness involving Mr Lowry. Would you care to tell us anything you can remember?’
George Covington was the first to offer his recollection of events. ‘There was a bit of a to-do early on. Young Lowry had been working to all hours out back in his workshop, and sound does carry in a quiet little backwater like this.’
‘We didn’t tend to notice it in the evenin’, what wiv the noise in the bar,’ Paula added. ‘But it’s been goin’ on long after we’ve shut up shop.’
‘That’s right.’ Her husband took over the tale. ‘It was young Nick – Nick Rollason – that started it. He’s normally very quiet, but he can get a bit bolshie with a few beers inside him. He’d told Lowry to keep it down a bit as it was keeping his kid awake.’
‘What was Lowry’s reaction to this?’
‘Not over co-operative would be a good description.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Alan from the post office spoke up to defend Nick. The noise was bringing on his wife’s migraines again, and he was fair ticked-off about the disturbance.’
‘And Mr Lowry’s reaction?’
Paula couldn’t keep out of it any longer. ‘Downright abusive. He accused Marian of swingin’ the lead, and the Rollasons of more or less neglectin’ that lovely little baby of theirs. Why, they dote on little Tristram – spoil him somethin’ rotten. That’s when George went over to settle things down.’
‘That’s right. I sent him off to play darts with some of the local lads, keep him out of mischief for a while.’
‘Then it all started up again about ten,’ added his wife.
‘I only caught the end of that, though.’
‘That’s right, George, so you did.’
‘Was this with the same people?’ asked Falconer, eager to cut down his list of runners for the Murder Handicap Chase (the handicap being that he did not, as yet, have a clue who was responsible for either death).
‘Glory be, no. Wiv a whole bunch o’ new ones. He accused the Brigadier of murderin’ his old uncle,’ (she counted Lowry’s victims off on her fingers) ‘poor Kerry of being – what did he call her? – a “money-grubbin’ bitch”,’ she smiled as she recalled the exact wording, ‘Clive Romaine – birthday boy for the evenin’, God ’elp ʼim – of bein’ a … what’s that word I want, George? Begins with a ‘k’ sound.’
‘Cuckold.’
‘That’s it. Never could get the ’ang o’ fancy words like that, me. Then ’e more or less called Clive’s wife a whore and said she was ’avin’ it off wiv that Piers Manningford.’
‘That’s when I stepped in. Things seemed to be getting a bit out of hand, like, and something had to be done before they got any worse,’ said George.
‘The vicar offered to take him home?’
‘That’s right. And just as well. By the time he’d supped his last he could hardly keep upright.’
‘Thank you both. Now, was there anything else you remember that might prove useful, before or after closing time?’
‘Most of them had gone by half past ten. We shut up at eleven just gone.’
‘And that was it?’ Falconer had an irresistible urge to push just a bit further.
‘I went straight to bed and left George down here to clear up.’
‘What time did you retire, Mr Covington?’
Suddenly the big man was unsure of himself. ‘Can’t really remember. Not important, is it?’
‘Who knows what may be important. Can you remember what time your husband came up to bed, Mrs Covington?’
‘Must’ve been dead to the world. Didn’t know a thing till the alarm went off this mornin’.’ But she looked away as she said this last.
II
Their next visit took Falconer and Carmichael to The Rookery where, unexpectedly, they found all three Rollasons. Carmichael had pointed out, as they passed it, that the Castle Farthing Teashop was closed, its doors locked, gingham curtains closed. No tables and chairs sat invitingly outside, no smells of baking wafted enticingly from its premises.
It was Nick who answered the door to them, his face set in an angry frown. Bidding them enter, he led them to a sitting room strewn with baby toys, around which Tristram toddled, using the furniture to keep his balance and pull himself on to greater achievements in his fairly new skill of walking. Occasionally he would stop, grab at a toy, examine it, shake it, and give it an experimental chew before hurling it to the floor with a happy shriek and resuming his dogged circumnavigation.
Rebecca sat on the sofa, her feet drawn up under her, a box of tissues by her side. Her eyes and nose were red and swollen, her hair un-brushed. She looked a picture of misery, managing little more than a wan smile in greeting.
‘Do you see what that scum has done to my wife with his filthy, slanderous accusations? She’s been breaking her heart that anyone could even think such a thing about us, let alone broadcast it to half the village.’
‘I gather you’re referring to Mr Lowry and last night’s little performance in the pub.’
‘Too right I am. I guessed you must have heard about it, when I answered the door to you. There’s no sewer that filth flows through quicker than a village.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, sir,’ agreed Falconer, ‘but that’s not the only reason we’ve called here.’
‘No? Oh, surely it’s not about the murder of that old man again? We’ve said our piece on that and we’ve absolutely nothing to add. Except, maybe, that that scum of a nephew of his is made in the same mould.’
‘Was made,’ Falconer hinted.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Past tense, Mr Rollason. I’m afraid that Mr Lowry was murdered last night, sometime after he was seen home after his outbursts in the pub.’
‘Oh, no!’ Rebecca cried. ‘That’s awful,’ and she began to sob again.
‘Don’t be so soft, Becky. That one’s no loss to anyone. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving chap.’
‘You don’t mean that, Nick.’
Her husband had the grace to look shame-faced. ‘No, I don’t suppose I do, but I shan’t be shedding any crocodile tears over him, that’s for sure. He was a nasty piece of work all round.’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean he deserved to die.’
Falconer and Carmichael left them to it. ‘Perhaps not, but he is dead, so the inspector says, and nothing’s going to change that. So, good riddance, I say. I’ll not be a hypocrite for anyone.’
‘Nick, his poor little kiddies.’
‘Will be a sight better off without him, so don’t be so sentimental. Times will be a lot easier for Kerry and her two, with him out of the way.’
‘If I may intervene,’ cut in Falconer, who felt he had given them enough free rein to establish their sympathy (or lack of it). ‘Would you tell me exactly what time you left the party yesterday evening, and what you did after that?’
‘We left straight away, afte
r Lowry implied we were neglectful parents. Becky was distraught and we went straight over to collect Tristram from Rosemary, who was babysitting him at Kerry’s cottage along with Kerry’s two.’
‘Little angel,’ cooed Tristram’s mother, wiping her eyes and brightening a little. ‘He was fast asleep in his travel cot. When I picked him up he gave me such a smile, put his darling little arms round my neck, said “mama” and went straight back to sleep with his head on my shoulder.’ The tears returned in an unexpected rush. ‘I’m not a bad mother and no one can say I am. I’d die for Tristram. I love him so much it hurts.’ Here she broke off and sobbed.
‘There, there, love. No one took any notice. Everyone knows you dote on him. We both do. It was only the drink talking, and he’s hardly likely to say anything else now, is he?’
‘Nick!’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Mr Rollason, if you wouldn’t mind continuing with what happened last night?’
‘Of course. Becky carried the little man home and settled him in his cot while I ferried over his equipment – travel cot, toys, bottles, you know. That was it really.’
‘What time did you turn in for the night?’
‘Becky went straight to bed when Tristram was settled. Cried herself to sleep. She was completely exhausted.’
‘And what time did you join her?’
There was a pause. ‘I really can’t say, you know. I sat down here brooding for a bit, then I had a look at the paper, tried the crossword, but didn’t get very far. Must’ve been pretty late. And we were both shattered this morning, so we decided to spend a few quiet hours at home to recover.’
‘Did you notice what time your husband came to bed, Mrs Rollason?’
‘I was so worn out with crying I slept like the dead – oh, that poor man,’ and two more tears coursed down her already flushed cheeks.
Death of an Old Git (The Falconer Files Book 1) Page 14
