The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery

by Andrew Hixson

  “I told him that,” she said vehemently before adding, “and she was a frightful liar as well!”

  “Really?” I looked from one to the other. “She told lies did she? That may prove to be useful in my investigation.”

  “How?” Helena asked.

  “The establishment of motive.” I informed her.

  “She was robbed of her savings,” Richard Brooks-Nunn said sharply. “Surely that is enough motive.”

  “But was it?” I asked softly, rising slowly from the Sherlock chair. “I’m sorry if I have caused you distress but these situations are always unpleasant.”

  “Faith Roberts’s death was extremely upsetting,” Richard Brooks-Nunn said quickly. “Helena just didn’t like being reminded about it that was all. I’m sorry we haven’t been much help.”

  “But you have.”

  “How?”

  “Faith Roberts told lies,” I said. “You said so yourself. But what lies did she tell?”

  I waited politely for Helena Brooks-Nunn to speak.

  “It was nothing in particular,” she said at last.

  “Anything might help,” I pressed.

  “It was gossip that was all.”

  “What sort of gossip?”

  “Just rubbish. I never paid it any attention.”

  “Thank you,” I said, making a gesture of farewell.

  Richard Brooks-Nunn accompanied me out into the hall and made sure in a polite and discreet way that I left.

  Outside the gate, I looked back at the house and wondered.

  12

  Detective Inspector Paul Silver sat opposite me and sighed.

  “I’m not saying you haven’t got anything, John,” he said slowly. “Personally, I think you have. But it’s not much. Not much at all.”

  “By itself it is not much,” I agreed. “There must be more.”

  “Sergeant Higgins and I ought to have spotted that newspaper.”

  “It’s not your fault. The crime was so obvious. Robbery with violence. The room all pulled about, the money missing. Why should there any significance to you in a torn newspaper amongst all the other confusion.”

  “I should have got that.” DI Silver repeated obstinately. “And that bloody printer cartridge.”

  “I heard about that purely by accident. It was a lucky break that was all.”

  “Yet it meant something to you. Why?”

  “Only because of that comment about her hardly ever using her computer. You and I, use a computer as a matter of course. Faith Roberts didn’t.”

  DI Silver sighed heavily. Then he laid out on the table four photographs.

  “These are the photos you asked me to get. The original photos that the Oxmarket Sunday Echo used. At any rate they’re a little clearer than the reproductions. But they’re not much to go on.”

  “Do you agree with me that we can discard Sandra Cavendish?”

  “I would have thought so,” DI Silver said. “If Sandra Cavendish was in Oxmarket Aspal, everyone would know. Retelling her sad personal story seems to have been her speciality.”

  “What can you tell me about the others?”

  “I’ve found out what I could. Kristen Braun took the name Hope Newman and the police opinion of her doesn’t quite match up with the article.”

  I smiled and then asked, “What the police think is not evidence but is usually a very sound guide.”

  “Exactly. I was quite a young chap at the time and I remember hearing it being discussed by my old boss, Assistant Commissioner William Frederick Patterson. He believed that the idea of killing Mrs Porter was all Kristen Braun’s idea and that she not only thought of it, but she did it. Michael Porter came home one day and found that his young mistress had taken a short cut. She thought it would all pass off as natural causes, but Porter knew better. He started to shit himself and disposed of the body in the cellar and elaborated the plan of having his wife die in Switzerland. Then, when the whole thing came out, he was insistent that he’d done it alone, that Kristen Braun knew nothing about it. Well,” DI Silver shrugged his shoulders, “nobody could prove anything else. Forensics, SOCOs, all drew a blank. Kristen Braun was all innocence and horror. Assistant Commissioner Patterson had his doubts, but there was nothing to go on. It’s not evidence, though John.”

  “What about Kay Kempster?”

  “I checked her out on the police computer. A nasty bitch. Her husband was a horrible bastard as well. Really Unpleasant pair. Nothing to choose between them and she really worked her sexual charms on that young man until he didn’t know his arse from his elbow.”

  “Did she marry him?”

  “No idea,” DI Silver replied, shaking his head.

  “Where did she end up?”

  “Haven’t got a clue?” DI Silver shrugged. “She was free woman and hadn’t been charged in any way.”

  “She might be walking round Oxmarket Aspal,” I said, thinking of Dr Hogg’s remark.

  “Exactly.”

  I shifted my gaze to the last photograph.

  “And Jo Pedder?”

  “Last heard of in Ireland. I think you can count her out, John. The same as Sandra Cavendish.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I said. “It was a violent attack on her aunt and a violent attack on Faith Roberts.”

  “Yes, I see,” DI Silver said. “So, what is your opinion on all this, John?”

  “Kristen Braun, if she is still alive, would be now approaching sixty. Her daughter, of whose adult life the Oxmarket Sunday Echo paints such a touching picture, would be now in her thirties. Jo Pedder would also be about that age. Kay Kempster would now be not far short of fifty.”

  DI Silver nodded in agreement.

  “So we come to the residents of Oxmarket Aspal with special reference to those for whom Faith Roberts worked.”

  “Go on.” DI Silver edged forward in his seat.

  “This case is complicated by the fact that Faith did occasional odd work here and there, but we will assume for the time being that she saw whatever she did see, presumably a photograph at one of her regular ‘houses.’”

  “Go on,” DI Silver said again.

  “Then as far as age goes, that gives us as possibilities – first Lord and Lady Osborne where Faith Roberts worked on the day of her death. Lady Osborne is the right age for Kristen Braun and she has a daughter of the right age to be Kristen Myer’s daughter – a daughter said to be by a previous marriage.”

  “And as regards the photograph?”

  “I’m afraid no positive identification from that is possible. Too much time has passed, too much water has gone under the bridge. I can say that Lady Osborne is a very attractive woman but she is much too fragile and helpless to be a murderer, but then that was the popular belief about Kristen Braun. How much actual physical strength would have been needed to kill Faith Roberts is difficult to say without knowing exactly what weapon was used.”

  “That still grates with me that we couldn’t find it.”

  “Lord Osborne is a different kettle of fish. He could be very unpleasant if he so wished. The daughter is fanatically devoted to her mother and hates her father with a vengeance. I’m only presenting these facts for consideration. The daughter might kill to prevent her mother’s past reaching her stepfather’s ears. Mother might kill for the same reason. Father might kill to prevent the ‘scandal’ coming out. You and I both know that more murders have been committed for respectability than one would believe possible! The Osborne’s are ‘nice people.’”

  DI Silver nodded and then said. “If – I say if – there is anything in this Oxmarket Sunday Echo business, then the Osborne’s are clearly the best bet.”

  “Exactly. The only other person in Oxmarket Aspal who would fit in age is Kristen Braun is Lorraine Terret. There are two arguments against Lorraine Terret, as Kristen Braun, having killed Faith Roberts. First, she suffers from arthritis and spends most of time in a wheel-chair -”

  “In a detective novel,” DI Silver said e
nviously, “that wheel-chair business would be a ruse.”

  “Secondly,” I continued. “Lorraine Terret seems dogmatic and forceful, more inclined to bully than coax.”

  “Lorraine Terret is not impossible but highly unlikely,” DI Silver conceded. “What about Kay Kempster?”

  “No one in Oxmarket Aspal is the right age.”

  “Unless she’s had plastic surgery.”

  “There are three women of thirty-odd. There is Chloe Bird. There is Keldine Hogg and there is Helena Brooks-Nunn. That is to say, any one of these could be Jo Pedder or alternatively Kristen Braun’ daughter as far as age goes.”

  “And as far as possibility goes?”

  I sighed. “Kristen Braun’ daughter may be tall or short, dark or fair – we have no guide to what she looks like. We have considered Chloe Bird in that role. Now for the other two. First of all I will tell you this: Keldine Hogg is scared of something.”

  “Afraid of you?”

  “Possibly.”

  “That might be significant,” DI Silver said slowly. “You’re suggesting that Keldine Hogg might be Kristen Myer’s daughter or Jo Pedder. Is she fair or dark?”

  “Fair.”

  “Jo Pedder was a fair-haired child.”

  “Helena Brooks-Nunn is also fair-haired. Expensively made up with remarkable wide-open dark-blue eyes.”

  “Now, John,” DI Silver shook his head at me smiling. “I’ll tell, Kimberley.”

  “She knows what I’m like,” I laughed in return and gently with my forefinger, I tapped the photograph of the child Jo Pedder in her thick spectacles.

  “So that’s what you think? Jo Pedder?”

  “No, I am only suggesting what might be. At the time Faith Roberts died Helena Brooks-Nunn was not yet Mrs Brooks-Nunn. She was a young widow, very badly off, living in a rented cottage. She was engaged to be married to the richest man in the area. A man with political ambitions and full of his own self-importance. If Richard Brooks-Nunn had found out that he was about to marry, say, a child who had obtained a notoriety by killing her aunt, or alternatively the daughter of Michael Porter, one of the most notorious murderers from this area. You would say perhaps if he was in love then the answer would be yes! But he is not that sort of man. I would put him down as selfish and ambitious. I think that if Helena was anxious to achieve her goal she would have been extremely desperate that her past was not revealed to her future husband.”

  “I see, you think it’s her do you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m examining only the possibilities. Helena Brooks-Nunn was on her guard against me, watchful, alarmed.”

  “That looks bad.”

  “Yes. But it is all very difficult. Once I stayed with some friends and one day we all went out shooting. You know the way it goes? You walk with the dogs and the guns; the beaters beat and the birds fly out of the woods, up into the air and then bang! That is like us. There isn’t only one bird up in the air there are quite a few and we’ve got to make sure we bag the right one. During Helena’s widowhood, there may have been affairs, no worse than that, but still something that might be a little bit embarrassing. Certainly there must be some reason why she told me that Faith Roberts was a liar!”

  “What do you really think, John?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter. I am only interested in finding out the facts.”

  “If we could get anything definite,” DII Silver murmured. “One really suspicious circumstance, then that will turn the whole case on its head. At the moment all we’ve got is theory and do people really murder for the reasons you’re considering?”

  “That depends on a lot of family circumstances I don’t know yet. But the passion for respectability in Oxmarket Aspal is strong. The postmistress said so. Nice people like to preserve their niceness. The village is like something out of an Agatha Christie novel. People pretending to be happily married where their pasts are kept secret from each other. Someone might say ‘I would rather die than my husband or wife find out!’ Or “I would rather die than have my children discover who I really am!” And then you could go on and say ‘that maybe it was better if Faith Roberts was shut up permanently!’”

  “So you think its Lord and Lady Osborne?”

  “No.” I said firmly. “Lorraine Terret fits the bill more than Lady Osborne. She has determination and willpower and she fairly dotes on her son. I think she would do anything to prevent Oliver Terret from finding out her past before she married his father.”

  “Would he mind finding out?”

  “Probably not,” I shrugged. “He is extremely self-centred and is certainly less devoted to his mother than she to him.”

  “What if his mother was really Kristen Braun? Would he have killed Faith Roberts to prevent that from coming out?”

  “He would probably capitalise on it and use the publicity for his plays. Oliver Terret would only commit murder if he could gain out of it.”

  “It’s a wide playing field, John.” DI Silver said, sighing.

  “I know,” I said. “That’s what makes this case so complicated.”

  I left the small café in the centre of Oxupland and walked to the small railway station to wait for the single-carriage train to Oxmarket Aspal. There had been a farmers’ market and the platform was crowded and as I waited there more people joining him on the platform.

  I leaned forward to look. Yes, the train was coming at last. Before I could right myself I felt a sudden hard purposeful shove in the small of my back. It was so violent and so unexpected that I was taken completely unawares. In another second I would have fallen on the line under the incoming train, but a man beside me on the platform caught hold of me in the nick of time and pulled me back.

  “Fuck me, are you alright?” The man demanded. He was a big burly man, covered in tattoos and wearing an Ipswich Town football shirt. “You’re not trying to top yourself are you?”

  “No, I lost my balance,” I said quickly. “Thanks very much for catching me.”

  “I thought you were a goner, mate.”

  Already the crowd was milling around us, boarding the train, others leaving it. Oblivious to what had just happened.

  “You, okay?” The man asked me again, as I stepped onto the train.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  It would have pointless for me to say I had been pushed. Up until that point I have gone about consciously on my guard, alert for any danger. But after talking with DI Silver, after the Detective Inspector’s bantering inquiry as to whether any attempt on my life had been made, I had wrongly regarded the danger as over or unlikely to materialise.

  But how wrong had I been! Amongst those I had interviewed in Oxmarket Aspal one discussion had achieved a result. Somebody had been afraid. Somebody had sought to put an end to my dangerous reopening of a closed case.

  On my mobile phone walking from the station at Oxmarket Aspal, I rang Detective Inspector Paul Silver.

  “I have some news,” I said. “Someone has tried to kill me!”

  I listened with satisfaction to the flow of remarks from the other end.

  “No, I’m not hurt. But it was close. Yes, under a train. No, I did not see who did it, but rest assured, I shall find out! I know now that I am on the right track.”

  13

  With a glass of Baileys over Ice in one hand, Julie Lawes approached me towards the end of the Brooks-Nunn’s party. I was grateful because I was wondering how the hell I had got roped into attending. I had returned to the guest house to find an invitation left with Karen Bellagamba and telephoned the Detective Inspector to see if he had the same doubts that I had about going.

  I was surprised about his response.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” he told me. “But be a bit more on your guard this time. Somebody has already tried to kill you and they will try again.”

  Julie Lawes clinked my glass of Aberlour. A ten year old single malt whisky.

  “How are you?” She asked.

  “Good thanks.�
� I said. “You?”

  Up till that moment we had each of us been the centre of an admiring circle. Now that a great deal of wine had been consumed, and the party was going well, there was a tendency for old friends to get together and retell local scandal and as we were the two outsiders we were able to talk to each other.

  “Come out on the terrace,” she said to me, in a conspiratorial whisper.

  At the same time she pressed into my hand a small piece of paper.

  Together they stepped out through the French windows and walked along the terrace. I unfolded the piece of paper.

  “Dr Hogg?” I asked, looking questioningly at the author. Julie Lawes nodded vigorously, a large plume of grey hair fell across her face as she did so.

  “He’s the murderer,” she said.

  “Really? What makes you think that?”

  “I just know it,” she insisted. “He’s the type.”

  “Perhaps.” I tried to hide the tone in my voice but I couldn’t help sound unconvinced. “What was his motive?”

  “Misconduct.” She said. “And Faith Roberts knew it.”

  In reply, I remarked conversationally: “Yesterday someone tried to push me on to the railway line at Oxupland station.”

  “Bloody hell!” She exclaimed. “And Dr Hogg was out doing home visits.”

  “I believe so.”

  “Then that settles it,” she said with satisfaction.

  “Not quite,” I said. “Both Mr and Mrs Brooks-Nunn were in Oxupland last night and came home separately. Mrs Hogg may have sat at home all evening watching television or she may not – no one can say. Chloe Bird often goes to the cinema in Oxmarket.”

  “She didn’t last night. She was at home. She told me so.”

  “You cannot believe all you are told,” I said reprovingly. “The foreign maid, Agata, on the other hand, was at the cinema with her boyfriend last night, so she cannot tell me who was or was not at home! You see, it is not so easy to narrow things down.”

  “I can vouch for Lorraine and Oliver Terret,” she said. “We were playing the Sherlock Holmes edition of Cluedo.”