The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery

by Andrew Hixson

“Please, call me Louise. My husband’s a plumber. Moved in four months ago we did. Some people couldn’t understand how we could live in a house where a murder took place. We’ve been living with James’ mother before that. If I stayed there much longer there would have been another murder there for you to investigate. I can tell you. Like to see where it happened?”

  I nodded, feeling like a tourist taken on a conducted tour. I followed Louise Plume up the narrow staircase and into a bedroom which contained a large chest of drawers, a big bed, a large chest of drawers and a fine assembly of baby clothes folded on a wicker chair in the corner.

  “Down on the floor she was and the back of her head split open. Frightened the life out of Mrs Perry. She’s the one who found her.”

  “Is this her furniture?”

  “Oh no. Her niece Sarah, took that.”

  I looked around me. There was nothing left here of Faith Roberts. The Plume family had come and conquered. Life was stronger than death.

  From downstairs the loud fierce wail of a baby arose.

  “That’s the baby woken up,” she said unnecessarily.

  She plunged down the stairs and I followed her. There was nothing more for me here, so I went next door and introduced myself to the dramatic Mrs Perry.

  “Yes, it was me who found her,” she said vigorously.

  Her house was neat, tidy and clean. The only drama in it was Mrs Perry herself. A tall gaunt dark-haired woman, who took great pleasure in recounting the one moment of excitement in her life.

  “Brettles, the postman, came and knocked at the door. ‘It’s Faith,’ he said, ‘we can’t make her hear. Seems there might be something wrong.’ I agreed with him and hurried over, thinking she might have had a heart attack or a stroke. I went straight up the stairs and found that lodger of hers on the landing, pale as death he was. Not that I ever though at the time that he had done what he had done. I banged on the door, good and loud and when there wasn’t an answer. I went in. The whole place was in a right bloody mess, with the floorboards up and everything and then I saw Faith. On the floor with her head smashed in. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A murder in Oxmarket Aspal. I screamed and screamed. Brettles called the police on his mobile phone and Marcus just stood there staring at the body. It was horrible, horrible. I shan’t forget it that easily.”

  I dexterously interrupted her thrilling narrative by asking her when the last time she had seen Faith Roberts alive was.

  “Must have been the day before.”

  “Did she say anything to you?”

  “Just good afternoon.”

  “You didn’t see her on the day she died?”

  “No, but I saw that bloody murderous lodger of hers though.” She lowered her voice. “About eleven o’clock in the morning. Just walking along the road. Shuffling, his feet like he always did.”

  “Were you surprised when he was arrested?” I asked.

  “Well, I was and I wasn’t. I’d always thought he wasn’t quite the ticket and they can turn a bit violent can’t they, those simple ones. My uncle had a feeble-minded young lad and he could be a bit violent sometimes. Didn’t know his own strength. Yes, that Marcus Dye was a bit of a half-wit. Look at where he hid the money. No one would hide in a place like that, unless they wanted someone to find it. Just silly and simple, that’s what he was.”

  “Unless he wanted it found,” I murmured. “You haven’t by any chance found a chopper or an axe lying about in your garden.”

  “No, I haven’t. The police already checked. Asked at all the cottages in the village. It’s a mystery what he killed her with.”

  I visited the other two cottages and the residents had been less exuberant than Mrs Plume and less dramatic than Mrs Perry. They said in effect that Faith Roberts was a very respectable woman who kept herself to herself, that nobody but her niece visited her, that nobody, so far as they knew, disliked her or held a grudge against her and was it true there was a petition being got up for Marcus Dye and would they be asked to sign it?

  From there I walked to the post office. The right-hand side was given to the business of the postal services and the left hand side displayed a rich assortment pf merchandise. The woman who bustled forward to serve me was middle-aged with sharp, bright eyes.

  “I expect you already know who I am,” I said with a slight smile.

  “You’re that private detective, asking questions concerning the Faith Roberts murder?”

  Behind her, through the door to the back of the shop, I could see the back of a girl’s head who was listening avidly.

  “Yes, that’s right.” I said. “And your name?”

  “Lynn Beverley.” She said quickly. “Yes, it was a sad business, a shocking business.”

  “Did you know Faith well?”

  “Oh I did. As well as anyone in Oxmarket Aspal, I should say. She’d always pass the time of day with me when she came in here for any little thing. Yes, it was a terrible tragedy. And not settled yet, or so I’ve, or so I’ve heard say.”

  “There is a doubt – in some quarters – as to Marcus Dye’s guilt.”

  “Well,” Lynn Beverley said, “it wouldn’t be the first time the police got hold of the wrong man – though I wouldn’t say they had in this case. Not that I should have thought it of him really. A shy, awkward man, but not dangerous or so you’d think. But there, you never know, do you?”

  I hazarded a request for A4 printing paper.

  “Of course. Just come across the other side, will you?”

  Lynn Beverley bustled round to take her place behind the left-handed counter.

  “What is difficult to imagine is, who could have been if it wasn’t Marcus Dye,” she remarked as she stretched up to a top shelf of A4 printing paper. “We do get some strange people along here sometimes, and it’s possible one of these might have found a window unlocked and got in that way. But he wouldn’t leave the money behind him, would he? Not after committing murder to get his hands on it. Here you are, good A4 printing paper.”

  I made my purchase.

  “Faith Roberts never spoke of being nervous of anyone, or afraid, did she?” I asked

  “Not to me, she didn’t. She wasn’t a nervous woman. She’s stay late sometimes at the Brooks-Nunn’s. They often have people to dinner and stopping with tem, and Faith would go there in the evening sometimes to help wash up, and she’d come home in the dark, and that’s more than I’d like to do. These roads can be very dark at night.”

  “Did you ever meet her niece?”

  “I knew her just to speak to. She and her husband used to come over and visit her sometimes.”

  “They inherited a little money when Faith died.”

  The piercing dark eyes looked at me severely.

  “Well, that’s natural enough, isn’t it?”

  “Definitely,” I agreed. “Do you think she was fond of her niece?”

  “Yes.”

  “And her niece’s husband?”

  An evasive look appeared in Lynn Beverley’s face.

  “As far as I know.”

  “When did you see Faith last?”

  Lynn Beverley considered, casting her mind back.

  “Now let me see, when was it, Susan?” Susan in the doorway, shrugged her shoulders unhelpfully. “Was it the day she died? No, it was the day before – or the day before that again? Yes, it was a Monday. That’s right. She was killed on the Wednesday. Yes, it was Monday. She came into buy a printer cartridge for her computer’s printer.”

  “She wanted a printer cartridge?”

  “Yes,” Lynn Beverley insisted.

  “She was quite her usual self then? She did not seem different in any way?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Susan shuffled through the door into the shop and suddenly joined in the conversation.

  “She was different,” she asserted. “Pleased about some – thing – well - not pleased quite - excited.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Lynn Beverley s
aid. “Not that I noticed it at the time. But now that you mention it, Susan, she was sort of full of it.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “I didn’t remember at the time but what with her being murdered and the police and everything, it makes things stand out. She didn’t say anything about Marcus Dye, that I’m quite sure. Talked about the Brooks-Nunn’s a bit and Lorraine Terret – places where she worked, you know.”

  “I was just about to ask for whom actually worked.”

  “Monday and Thursday she went to the Bellagamba’s. That’s where you’re staying isn’t?”

  “Yes,” I sighed. “I suppose there isn’t anywhere else to stay?”

  “Not right in Oxmarket Aspal, there isn’t. I suppose you’re not very comfortable at the guest house? Mrs Bellagamba is a lovely lady but she doesn’t know the first thing about the house. Terrible mess there was always to clean up, or so Faith Roberts used to say. Yes, Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings Mrs Bellagamba’s, then Tuesday mornings Dr Hogg’s and afternoon Lorraine Terret. Wednesday was Mrs Rice in Beaumaris Road and Friday Miss Woodhouse – Mrs Brooks-Nunn now. Lorraine Terret is an elderly lady who lives with her son. Mr and Mrs Rice never seem to keep any help long – she’s rather an invalid. The Brooks-Nunn’s they have a beautiful home and do a lot of entertaining. They’re all nice people.”

  It was this final pronouncement on the population of Oxmarket Aspal that I went out again and drove slowly up the hill towards the Bellagamba Guest House. I reflected that it had been, on the whole, a disappointing day.

  I had learnt that Marcus Dye had a female admirer. That neither he nor Faith Roberts had had any enemies. That Faith Roberts had looked excited two days before her death and had bought a printer cartridge for her computer printer that she hardly ever used.

  I pulled over to the side of the road.

  Was that a fact, a tiny fact at last? I thought.

  I had asked idly, whether Faith had said why she had wanted a printer cartridge and Lynn Beverley had replied, quite seriously, that she had intimated she wanted to type a letter.

  There was significance there – a significance that had nearly escaped me because to me, as to most people, using a computer and a printer to write a letter to someone was a common everyday occurrence.

  But it was not so to Faith Roberts. Typing a letter on a computer was to Faith Roberts such an uncommon occurrence that she had to go out and buy a new printer cartridge if she wanted to do so.

  Faith Roberts, then, hardly ever used her computer. Lynn Beverley, who was the postmistress, was thoroughly cognisant of that fact. But Faith Roberts had written a letter two days before her death. To whom had she written?

  It might be something quite unimportant. She might have written to her to an old friend. She didn’t possess a mobile. So she couldn’t contact whoever it was she wanted to contact unless it was by letter.

  I felt stupid focusing so much effort on a printer cartridge.

  But it was all I had got and I was going to follow it up.

  8

  “A letter?” Sarah Young shook her head. “No, I didn’t get a letter from Aunt Faith. What would she write to me about?”

  “There might have been something she wanted to tell you in private.” I suggested. “She even bought a new print cartridge for the task.”

  “She never used that computer.” She said. “We gave it to her. It was our old one.”

  “I see.” I said. “Maybe she was responding to a letter she had received?”

  Sarah Young looked doubtful.

  “Who would write to her, apart from the utility companies?”

  “Maybe she had forgotten to pay a bill?”

  “Never.”

  “Were there any letters amongst her personal possessions?”

  “I don’t remember. But then the police took over first. It was quite a while before they let me pack her things and take them away.”

  “What happened to those things?”

  “The rest we sold on eBay.”

  “I meant her personal things,” I added: “Such things as brushes and combs, photographs, toiletries, clothes . . .”

  “Oh, them. Well, tell you the truth, I packed them in a suitcase and it’s still upstairs. Didn’t rightly know what to do with them.”

  “May I see them?”

  “Of course. Though I don’t think you’ll find anything. Police went through it all.”

  “I might look at things with a different perspective,” I smiled.

  Sarah Young led me briskly into a minute back bedroom and pulled out a suitcase from under the bed.

  “There you are,” she said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind excusing me, I must get dinner ready.”

  I thanked her and heard her thumping downstairs again. I drew the suitcase towards me and opened it.

  A musty smell initially came out as with a feeling of pity, I lifted out the contents, so eloquent in their revelation of a woman who was dead. A long black coat. Two cashmere jumpers. No underwear (presumably Sarah Young had thrown them away). Two pairs of high heeled shoes, wrapped up in newspaper. A brush and a comb, used but clean. An old dented silver-back mirror, which must have been a hand-me-down. A photograph in a silver frame of a wedding couple dressed in the style of twenty years ago – a picture of Faith Roberts and her husband presumably. Two picture postcards of Sheringham in Norfolk. A china dog. A recipe torn out of a magazine for making a chocolate Christmas cake. With that, there was also a Bible and a Prayer Book.

  I unwrapped one of the pairs of shoes. They were expensive and hardly ever worn.

  It was the Oxmarket Sunday Echo and the date was October 29th.

  Faith Roberts had been killed on November 1st.

  This then was the paper she had bought on the Sunday preceding her death.it had been lying in her room and Sarah Young had used it in due course to wrap up her aunt’s things.

  Sunday, October 29th. And on Monday Faith Roberts had gone into the post office to buy a printer cartridge . . .

  Could that be because of something she had seen in the Sunday newspaper?

  I unwrapped the other pair of shoes. They were in the Independent On Sunday of the same date.

  I smoothed out both papers and took them over to a chair where I sat down and read them. And at once I made a discovery. On one page of the Oxmarket Sunday Echo, something had been cut out. The space was too big for any of the clippings I had found.

  I looked through both newspapers, but could find nothing else of interest. I wrapped them round the shoes again and repacked the suitcase tidily.

  Then I went downstairs.

  Sarah Young was busy in the kitchen.

  “Don’t suppose you found anything?” She asked.

  “Afraid not,” I replied, before adding in a casual voice: “Do you remember seeing a cutting from Oxmarket Sunday Echo amongst your aunt’s other personal effects?”

  “I don’t think so. Perhaps the police took it.”

  I knew that the police had not taken it from DI Silver’s notes. The contents of all her personal effects had been listed and no newspaper cutting was among them.

  I left Sarah Young to continue preparing her dinner and drove through the rain to the local library, where I signed into a computer and checked the archive pages of the Oxmarket Sunday Echo for Sunday, October 29th.

  Almost immediately I stumbled on an article which said:

  WOMEN VICTIMS OF BYGONE TRAGEDIES

  WHERE ARE THESE WOMEN NOW?

  Below the caption were four very blurred reproductions of photographs taken many years ago.

  The subjects of them did not look tragic. They looked actually, rather ridiculous, since nearly all of them were dressed in the style of the day and nothing is more ridiculous than the fashions of yesterday – though in another thirty years or so their charms may reappear but I doubted it.

  Under each photograph was a name.

  Kristen Braun, the ‘other woman’ in the famous Michael Porter c
ase.

  Melissa Smith, the ‘tragic wife’ whose husband was a fiend in human form.

  Little Jo Pedder tragic child.

  Sienna Rose, unsuspecting wife of a killer.

  And then came the question in bold type again:

  WHERE ARE THESE WOMEN NOW?

  I blinked and set myself to read meticulously the somewhat romantic prose which gave the life stories of these dim and blurry heroines.

  The name of Kristen Braun I remembered, for the Michael Porter case had been a very celebrated one. Michael Porter had been the Mayor of Oxmarket, a conscientious, rather nondescript little man and pleasant in his behaviour. He’d had the misfortune to marry a tiresome and temperamental wife. Kristen Braun was the children’s nanny. She was nineteen and very pretty. She fell desperately in love with Michael Porter and he reciprocated her love. Then one day the neighbours heard that Mrs Porter had been ‘ordered abroad’ for her health. That had been Porter’s story. He took her to the airport and saw her off to recuperate in Switzerland. Then he returned to Oxmarket and at intervals mentioned how his wife’s health was no better according to her emails, texts and phone calls. Kristen Braun remained behind to tend to the young twin girls and soon tongues started wagging. Finally, Porter received news of his wife’s premature death abroad. He went away and returned a week later with an account of the funeral.

  The children were packed off to their grandparents but Porter’s biggest mistake was mentioning where his wife had died, a moderately well-known village near the Alps. It only remained for a relative to fly out to the village and question the locals about what he had said for them to find out that there had been no death or funeral of anyone of that name and on that relative’s return to communicate his finding to the police.

  Subsequent events were briefly summarised.

  Mrs Porter had not left for the Swiss Alps. She had been cut into neat pieces and buried in the Porter’s cellar. And the autopsy of the remains showed poisoning.

  Porter was arrested and sent for trial. Kristen Braun was originally charged as an accessory, but the charge was dropped, since it appeared clear that she had throughout been completely ignorant of what had occurred. Michael Porter in the end made a full confession and was sentenced to life imprisonment.