Murder in the Museum (Fethering Mysteries)

by Brett, Simon

  ‘You’re his mother, and you’ve done brilliantly for him.’ Jude’s gesture encompassed the whole cottage. ‘You’ve made this wonderful environment for him, You’ve made him safe and secure. Much better he should hear this bad news from someone else.’

  ‘Well, if you really don’t mind . . .’

  ‘I don’t make offers I don’t mean.’

  As she sat back in her chair, some of the tension left Brenda Tyson’s body. But its departure heralded a new sadness. She looked around the perfect sitting room and the perfect garden beyond. ‘And who’s going to break the really bad news to him?’

  ‘Which really bad news?’

  She sighed. ‘When Kenneth dies. When I die. I’ve told him it’s going to happen, every day I tell him it’s going to happen, and he says he understands, but he doesn’t. “If you start dying, Mummy, I’ll make it better. Jonny’ll look after you.” He doesn’t understand.’ A distant pained look came into her eyes. ‘I know why people in this situation sometimes kill their children. It’s less cruel than to leave them alone in a world that doesn’t understand them.’

  Jude’s response was stopped by the sudden change in Brenda Tyson’s expression. Dashing away the incipient tear, she beamed broadly as she looked out towards the garden.

  Framed in the French windows was the stocky, powerful figure of her son, whose face was irradiated by a huge smile.

  ‘Jonny darling.’

  ‘I’m jolly hungry, Mummy. Isn’t lunch ready yet?

  ‘Not quite, love. Very soon. But first, I’d like you to meet Jude.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Beautifully schooled, he reached his large hand across and shook hers.

  ‘Jude’d like to have a little talk to you before lunch.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ‘Is this Carole Seddon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Marla Teischbaum.’

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry to interrupt your Sunday, but I wanted to talk about what happened at Bracketts on Friday.’

  ‘Fine.’ Carole remembered the caution that had been given to all the Trustees about talking to the Professor. But she was intrigued. Marla Teischbaum wasn’t the sort of woman to phone her for no reason.

  And so it proved. ‘I believe you were actually with Sheila Cartwright when she was shot.’

  ‘That’s true, yes. We were walking to the car park together.’

  ‘So where was the shot fired from?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t see what relevance this has to you. I’ve given an account of what happened to the police, and I think I should probably leave it at that.’

  ‘No, you gotta tell me. This is important!’

  For the first time in their brief acquaintance, Marla Teischbaum sounded as though she were losing it. Carole had seen her angry before, during her exchange with Sheila Cartwright at Bracketts, but the woman had still sounded totally in control. Now she was nearly hysterical.

  ‘Why’s it important?’ asked Carole, her own cool increasing as Marla grew more heated. ‘Are you planning to add an appendix to your biography about Sheila Cartwright’s death?’

  ‘No, I just . . . want to know.’ The Professor slowed down, regaining mastery over her emotions. ‘All I’m asking is whether you can say exactly where the bullet was fired from?’

  There didn’t seem to be much harm in answering that. ‘Then the answer’s no. It was dark, it was raining, we were walking away from the house. It took me a minute or two to realize that a gun had been fired, and that Sheila had been hit.’

  ‘Was she hit in the front or the back?’

  ‘Back.’ Again that was hardly classified information.

  ‘So the gun was fired from the house rather than from the car park?’

  ‘From somewhere near the house, yes. From that direction, anyway.’

  ‘But you can’t be more specific? You didn’t see anyone with the gun?’

  ‘I’ve told you. My first instinct was to find out what had happened to Sheila. It was only when I saw the blood I realized she had been shot. By the time I looked back towards Bracketts, any self-respecting murderer would have been well out of sight.’

  ‘Yes. That’s true.’ And the news seemed to bring some comfort to Professor Marla Teischbaum. She certainly sounded more relaxed, less threatened, as she went on. ‘I was wondering whether recent events might have changed the situation . . .?’

  ‘What situation?’

  ‘The situation with regard to co-operation on my biography from the Bracketts set-up.’

  Carole was appalled. ‘Marla, Sheila Cartwright hasn’t been dead two days. The Trustees haven’t met since the tragedy, and I think when we next do, cooperation with you on your biography may not be at the top of our agenda.’

  ‘Aw, come on, don’t go all snooty on me. I’m American, I’m direct. If there’s a question that matters to me, I ask it. The worst anyone can say to you is no.’

  ‘And I’m afraid, at the moment, that is the only answer I can give you. Maybe, when the Trustees next meet, the situation will be reassessed.’

  Carole knew she was sounding pompous, but . . . the sheer gall of the woman. Sheila Cartwright had been one of the main opponents of Marla Teischbaum’s biography of Esmond Chadleigh. With Sheila conveniently – though tragically – out of the way, the Professor was coolly asking whether she was now in with a chance.

  On the other hand, if co-operation from the Bracketts Trustees was the outcome she anticipated, it would have given Marla a very good motive to kill Sheila Cartwright. But, as with Gina Locke, the awareness of her advantage from the crime was so overt that surely she couldn’t be the perpetrator? No self-respecting criminal would be quite that obvious.

  ‘But I will, if you like,’ Carole continued, feeling she ought to offer some kind of sop to the Professor, ‘ask Graham if there’s any more Esmond Chadleigh material he’s willing to part with.’

  ‘Forget it. If it’s as useful – and as incompetently doctored – as the last lot, he can keep it.’

  ‘Fine. I was just trying to be helpful.’

  ‘If you’re talking to Graham, by the way, will you thank him profusely for sending me the material, and tell him I’m not that stupid. You can also tell him that I have found a new research source – through the County Records Office – that he knows nothing about, but which is providing me with some wonderfully different insights into the history of the happy Chadleigh family.’

  The emphasis with which Marla Teischbaum swooped on certain phrases was deeply ironic. Carole couldn’t know whether the messages she was being given were true, or whether they were being sent just to upset Graham Chadleigh-Bewes. She thought probably, given the battering Esmond’s grandson have been given, first by Sheila at the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting and now presumably by the police, it might be kinder to omit passing on the messages, anyway.

  Carole Seddon was thoughtful after she had put the phone down. Both Gina Locke and now Marla Teischbaum had been very keen to talk to her, and yet neither had used their conversation to do much more than spell out – in very blatant terms – the strong motives they had for wanting Sheila Cartwright dead.

  Jude. She needed to talk to Jude.

  But there was no reply from Woodside Cottage. Carole returned to High Tor for a thoughtful but uninspiring lunch based on the remains of a fish pie.

  Gulliver nudged hopefully at her knee, hoping to deflect her mind towards thoughts of walks, but she was too preoccupied to notice him.

  There were one or two things Marla had said on the phone that prompted at least speculation, possibly even investigation. She’d talked about a new ‘research source’. Perhaps that was a phrase academics used all the time, but the last time Carole could recall hearing it was from George Ferris at the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting. On that occasion he’d also talked of speaking to Marla ‘this afternoon’. Was it possible that he’d given her a lift over to Bracketts and they’d talked in the car? G
eorge Ferris lived in Fedborough, Marla Teischbaum was staying at the Pelling Arms in Fedborough, there would be a logic to it.

  And if George Ferris had driven her to the house, did he also give her a lift back afterwards? Given that was the case, what did Marla Teischbaum do while the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting was going on? Was she still at Bracketts when Sheila Cartwright was killed?

  Carole knew her mind was racing, making connections from insufficient facts, and she tried to curb its gallop. Come on, whatever else she might be, Carole Seddon was always sensible.

  And there was something else she could do which was less speculative, more pragmatic. Marla Teischbaum had definitely spoken of the material Graham Chadleigh-Bewes had passed on to her as being ‘doctored’.

  Carole was glad she’d taken the photocopies. After lunch, immune to the deep misunderstood pathos in Gulliver’s big brown eyes, she spread the documents out over the sitting room table.

  Chapter Thirty

  Brenda Tyson left them discreetly alone, announcing that she had to get on with lunch, and maybe Jonny would like to show Jude round the garden. This he did, with great enthusiasm, pointing out the various features and the work he had done on them.

  ‘Daddy used to do it all, and I helped him. Now I do it, just like he did,’ he said with pride. ‘Daddy can’t do it, and I’m looking after it for him . . . until Daddy’s better.’

  Oh dear, thought Jude, was this another example of Brenda Tyson trying to protect her son? Medical science would have to advance exponentially before the wreck she’d seen in the customized armchair would be once again looking after his own garden.

  They had reached the bottom of the valley, where a tall thick hedge marked the limits of the Tysons’ property. An area had been flattened down there, and work had begun on paving it with huge slabs of York stone.

  ‘This’ll be a place for Mummy to sit in the evenings. It catches the last of the afternoon sun. It’s a proper little sun-trap.’ He spoke the words confidently, but he was clearly quoting his mother verbatim.

  There was something strange about the way Jonny spoke. His voice was gruff, but had an adolescent’s liability to crack from time to time. And he sounded as though he was modelling his speech on someone else’s. But the model he had chosen was out of date, nearer the nineteen-fifties than the beginning of the twenty-first century. Maybe that was the effect of an upbringing cosseted by an ageing mother and lacking contact with his contemporaries.

  ‘You’re doing it beautifully,’ said Jude, looking at the half-finished patio.

  ‘Yes. It’s going to be very good for Mummy.’ Suddenly, ebulliently, he lifted up one of the piled York flagstones and laid it neatly on the prepared sand. He leaped back, waving his upraised fists in excitement, like a footballer who had just scored a goal, then jumped forward, landing his full weight on the stone to settle it.

  He turned and smiled shyly at Jude. She smiled back, but all she could think about was Jonny’s strength. He had lifted the solid flagstone as if it had been made of polystyrene.

  The scene was idyllic. A warm autumn day in one of the most beautiful parts of the British Isles, the sun rousing smells of the garden, the distant flavour of a Sunday roast. And Jonny Tyson, beaming in the glow of Jude’s approval.

  But she knew she had to break the perfection. And quickly. She didn’t want to disrupt the established routine of the Tysons’ Sunday lunch.

  ‘Jonny . . .’ she began.

  ‘Yes, Jude,’ he said trustingly, proud of his command of her name.

  ‘I want to talk about things that have been happening up at Bracketts.’

  ‘I work there.’ The statement gave him great satisfaction.

  ‘I know you do. Listen, something rather unpleasant has happened. Someone at Bracketts has been killed.’

  ‘There’s no need to tell me that. It was actually me who dug up the skeleton.’ Whatever shock may have been his initial reaction to the discovery had now been replaced by pride.

  ‘I wasn’t talking about the skeleton, Jonny. Someone else has been killed.’

  This puzzled him. ‘Someone else? Who?’

  ‘Sheila Cartwright.’

  There was a long silence. Jude tensed, awaiting the outburst of a tantrum. But when Jonny finally spoke, he sounded bewildered, as he tried to piece together the logic. ‘Sheila Cartwright got me my job at Bracketts . . .’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Does this mean I won’t still have a job at Bracketts?’

  ‘No, I’m sure it won’t change anything about the running of the place,’ said Jude, without questioning the basis on which she made this assertion.

  ‘Sheila Cartwright’s dead.’ Jonny slowly processed the information. ‘Like Granny Tyson. I won’t see her again.’

  ‘No. You won’t.’

  The confusion in his face gradually melted into one of his huge smiles. ‘Mervyn’ll be pleased,’ he announced.

  ‘Mervyn Hunter?’

  ‘Yes. My friend. Mervyn doesn’t like Sheila Cartwright.’

  ‘Ah.’ The opportunity was too good to miss. ‘I did actually want to talk to you about Mervyn Hunter, Jonny.’

  ‘That’s all right. He’s my friend. And he lives at Austen Prison.’ These facts were produced like rich gifts.

  ‘But he isn’t at Austen Prison now.’

  ‘Isn’t he? Have they let him go home early?’

  ‘No, they haven’t, Jonny. He ran away from the prison.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yes. Last week.’ Jude looked into the slightly watery blue eyes. ‘When did you last see Mervyn, Jonny?’

  ‘At Bracketts. At work. Last week.’

  ‘Do you know which day?’

  Jonny Tyson shook his head dubiously, jutting out his lower lip. ‘I’m not sure.’ But then he remembered. ‘Oh yes, it was Thursday. Late Thursday . . . because my friend Mervyn was doing a special project.’ He brought his voice down to a childlike conspiratorial level for the words.

  ‘What kind of “special project”?’

  ‘It was something Sheila Cartwright had asked him to do. That’s why he couldn’t be seen by the other Volunteers. Only me. I was the only one he trusted,’ said Jonny Tyson, once again as proud as Punch.

  ‘Did he give you any more details about it?’

  ‘No, he said it was secret. And if something’s secret, that means you can’t tell people about it.’ He looked at Jude reprovingly. ‘Which means I can’t tell you about it.’

  ‘But do you actually know about it? Did Mervyn tell you?’

  Jonny looked a little discomfited. ‘No, he didn’t tell me. But if he had told me, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you about it. Because it was a secret.’

  Jude didn’t want to bully him, so she shifted the angle of her questioning. ‘But it was definitely Thursday you saw him?’

  ‘Thursday.’ He nodded emphatically. ‘And Friday.’

  ‘Oh?’ The young man could not begin to know the impact of his words. ‘Mervyn Hunter was at Bracketts on Friday?’

  ‘Mm. Because I gave him something on Friday.’

  ‘What did you give him, Jonny?’

  ‘They don’t do nice food at Austen Prison. My friend Mervyn used to have the same packed lunch every day he came to Bracketts. Not very nice. Not like the packed lunches Mummy does for me on my working days.’ The pleasure in his voice once again demonstrated the close relationship between Jonny Tyson and his food. ‘And I always said to my friend Mervyn, “Why don’t you have some of my lunch? Or, even better, why don’t I get Mummy to do a nice packed lunch for you too?” But my friend Mervyn always said no. Until last Thursday.’

  ‘He did ask you to bring him a packed lunch?’

  ‘Yes. On Thursday. He said the “special project” he was on meant it was difficult to get his packed lunch from Austen Prison. So I asked Mummy, and she did two packed lunches for me on Friday.’ Awestruck by his own cunning, he went on, ‘I didn’t tell her who it was for. Be
cause my friend Mervyn had said it was a “special project”, you see. And that meant it was a secret. And I had to meet him somewhere secret at Bracketts to give him his packed lunch.’

  ‘Do you know,’ asked Jude softly, ‘whether his “special project” meant Mervyn couldn’t go back to Austen Prison on Thursday night?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That could explain why he wasn’t able to get his food from the prison, couldn’t it?’

  Jonny looked confused. Clearly the idea had never entered his head. All he could produce was another ‘I don’t know.’

  She smiled her most reassuring smile. ‘Don’t worry about that. Mervyn didn’t ever talk about the idea of staying at Bracketts, did he . . .? Of having a secret place there that he could stay in if he wanted to . . .?’

  ‘Yes, he did,’ said Jonny in innocent surprise. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I just wondered.’

  ‘You’re very clever, Jude.’ He looked at her with increased respect. ‘Yes, my friend Mervyn did say there was always somewhere he could hide at Bracketts.’ A belated caution came into his wide blue eyes. ‘But he said it was a secret. And you can’t tell people about secrets, can you?’

  ‘Well, sometimes you can. If someone’s going to be hurt by something being kept secret, then telling the secret might be a good thing . . . because it would be stopping that person from getting hurt.’

  This ethical argument seemed too difficult for Jonny Tyson to understand. Anyway, as he explained, he didn’t need to understand it. ‘My friend Mervyn didn’t tell me where his hiding place was, so I haven’t got the secret, so I can’t tell anyone.’

  He looked troubled at the end of this, so Jude soothed, ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘No.’ He was silent for a moment, organizing his thoughts. ‘Sheila Cartwright’s dead . . .?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So she won’t come back . . .?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mummy says nobody comes back when they’re dead.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘She says when Daddy dies, he won’t come back.’ He seemed to be testing the ideas against some abstract standard in his mind. ‘Mummy says when she dies, she won’t come back.’ The anxiety in his voice resolved itself into confidence, and his huge smile returned. ‘I’ll look after Mummy. I won’t let her die.’