The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery

by Andrew Hixson

  “I thought you would have been busy collaborating with your murder mystery play?”

  “Leaving his mother to leap on a motor bicycle concealed in the shrubbery?” Julie Lawes laughed. “No, Mrs Terret was there the whole time.” She sighed as sadder thoughts came to her. “Collaborating indeed,” she said bitterly. “The whole thing is a bloody nightmare.”

  We were joined by Karen Bellagamba, who had an ecstatic look on her face. She carried a glass of red wine in her hand and she smiled at both of us with affection.

  “I think I’m pissed,” she announced. “Valpolicella always does that to me. We don’t often have parties in Oxmarket Aspal. It’s because both of you have come to stay. I wish could write books like you, Miss Lawes. The trouble with me is, I can’t do anything properly.”

  “I’m sure you’re a good wife and mother, Mrs Bellagamba.”

  She was silent for a moment or two, her attractive hazel eyes alcoholically hazy, as though she was looking into the far distance.

  “The other day there was an article in the Oxmarket Sunday Echo,” she said suddenly. “A really stupid letter from a woman asking what was the best thing for her to do. Have her illegitimate child adopted so that it stood a chance in the future with a better education, clothes, comfortable surroundings, want for nothing or try and bring her up on her own. I think that is really stupid. She shouldn’t have got herself pregnant in the first place. Stupid bitch.”

  She stared down into her empty glass as though it were a crystal.

  “I ought to know,” she said. “I was an adopted child. My mother parted with me and my adoptive parents gave me every advantage but it always hurts me to know that I wasn’t really wanted by my own mother.”

  “Maybe it was for the best,” I said.

  Her eyes met mine.

  “I that’s a load of shit,” she responded venomously. “For my mother it was a way of convincing herself that she was doing the right thing.”

  Oliver Terret came along the terrace and joined us.

  “What are you all talking about?”

  “Adoption,” Karen said. “I don’t like being adopted, do you?”

  “Well, it’s much better than being an orphan, don’t you think? I think we ought to go now, don’t you, Julie.”

  We all left simultaneously. Dr Hogg had already had to hurry away and the rest of us walked down the hill together talking loudly and happily with that extra hilarity that alcohol induces.

  When we reached the gate of Clarendon Cottage, Oliver Terret insisted that they should all come in.

  “Just to tell mother all about the party. So boring for her, not being able to go because he legs were playing up and she so hates to miss these things.”

  We surged in cheerfully and Lorraine Terret seemed pleased to see us.

  “Who else was there?” She asked. “Lord and Lady Osborne?”

  “No, Lady Osborne didn’t feel well enough, and that dim Chloe wouldn’t come without her.”

  “She’s pathetic, isn’t she?” Keldine Hogg said.

  “I think almost pathological,” Oliver said.

  “Is that mother of hers,” Karen said. “Some mothers really do almost eat their young, don’t they?”

  She blushed suddenly as she met Lorraine Terret’s quizzical eye.

  “Do I devour you, Oliver?” Lorraine Terret asked.

  “Of course not, Mum.”

  To cover her confusion Karen hastily plunged into an account of her breeding experiences with Springer Spaniels. The conversation became technical.

  “You can’t get away from heredity in people as well as dogs,” Lorraine Terret said decisively.

  “Don’t you think it’s the environment?” Keldine Hogg murmured.

  “No, I don’t.” Lorraine Terret said cutting her short. “The environment just gives Oxmarket Aspal its veneer, no more. It’s what bred in people that counts.”

  My eyes rested curiously on Keldine Hogg’s flushed face. “But that’s cruel. Unfair.” She responded with what seemed like unnecessary passion.

  “Life is unfair,” Lorraine Terret said.

  The slow lazy voice of Eric Bellagamba joined in. “I agree with, Lorraine. Breeding tells.”

  “You mean things are handed down.” Julie Lawes said questioningly. “Unto the third or fourth generation?”

  “But that question goes on,” Karen said suddenly in her sweet high voice.

  Once again everybody seemed a little embarrassed, perhaps at the serious note that had crept into the conversation. They made a diversion by attacking me.

  “Tell us all about Faith Roberts, Mr Handful. Why don’t you think Marcus Dye killed her?”

  “He used to mutter, you know,” Oliver said. “Walking about the lanes. I’ve often met him. And really, definitely, he looked like an oddball.”

  “You must have some reason for thinking he didn’t kill her, Mr Handful. Do tell us?”

  I smiled at them, but did not respond.

  “If he didn’t kill her, who did?”

  “Yes, who did?”

  “Don’t embarrass him,” Lorraine Terret said dryly. “He probably suspects one of us.”

  “One of us? Bloody hell!”

  In the clamour my eyes met those of Lorraine Terret. They were amused and something else. Challenging?”

  “He suspects one of us,” Oliver said delightedly. “Now then, Karen,” he assumed the manner of a bullying prosecuting council. “Where were you on the night of the – what night was it?”

  “November 22nd,” I said.

  “On the night of the 22nd?”

  “I don’t know,” Karen said.

  “Nobody could know after all this time,” Keldine Hogg said.

  “Well, I can,” Oliver said. “Because I was giving a talk on some aspects of the theatre on Suffolk Radio. I remember because I discussed Miss Lawes’ cleaning lady in My Enemy’s Enemy Is My Friend at great length and the next day Faith Roberts was killed and I wondered if the cleaning lady in the novel had been like her.”

  “That’s right,” Keldine Hogg said suddenly. “And I remember now because you said your mother would be all alone and I came down here after dinner to keep her company. Only unfortunately I couldn’t make her hear.”

  “Let me think,” Lorraine Terret said. “Oh! Yes, of course. I’d gone to bed with a headache and my bedroom faces the back garden.”

  “And next day,” Keldine said, “when I heard that Faith had been killed, I thought that I might have passed the murderer in the dark, because at first we all thought it must have been some tramp who broke in.”

  “Well, I still don’t remember what I was doing,” Karen said. “But I do remember the next morning. It was the postman who told us what had happened.”

  She gave a shiver.

  “It’s horrible really, isn’t it?” She said.

  Lorraine Terret was still watching me.

  “Have you any clues, Mr Handful?” Keldine Hogg urged, querulously.

  Eric Bellagamba’s long dark face lit up enthusiastically.

  “That’s what I love about detective stories.” He said. “Clues that mean everything to the detective and nothing to you until the end when you kick yourself for not knowing. Can you give us any clues, Mr Handful?”

  Laughing, pleading faces turned to me. A game to them all. But murder wasn’t a game, murder was dangerous. You never knew. I could feel the anger welling up inside of me and with a sudden brusque movement, I pulled out four photographs from my pocket.

  “There you go,” I said, sharply. “Pick the bones out of that fucker!”

  And with a dramatic gesture I tossed them down on the table in front of me. By the look on their faces I wasn’t sure whether it was the photographs or my foul language that had shocked them. Whichever it was it had the desired fact as they all clustered round, bending and uttering ejaculations.

  “Look!”

  “What grim looking women!”

  “The hair!”
<
br />   “That child looked like she fell out of the ugly tree.”

  “But who are they?”

  “Why are they clues?”

  I looked slowly round at the circle of faces and saw nothing that I might have expected to see.

  “Does anyone recognise any of them?”

  “Recognise?”

  “You do not, shall I say, remember having seen any of those photographs before. Lorraine? You recognise someone don’t you?”

  She hesitated.

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Which one?”

  Her forefinger went out and rested on the spectacled child-like face of Jo Pedder.

  “You have seen that photograph?” I pressed. “When?”

  “Quite recently . . . Now where – no, I can’t remember. But I’m sure I’ve seen a photograph just like that.”

  She sat frowning, her brows drawn together.

  She came out of her abstraction as Keldine Hogg came to her.

  “Goodbye, Lorraine. I hope you’ll come to tea with me one day if you feel up to it.”

  “Thank you, my dear. If Oliver pushes me up the hill.”

  “Of course, I will, Mum. I’ve developed the most tremendous muscles pushing that chair. Do you remember the day we went to Lord and Lady Osborne’s and it was so muddy?”

  “Ah!” Lorraine said suddenly.

  “What is it, Mum?”

  “Nothing. Go on.”

  “Getting you up the hill again. First the chair skidded and then I skidded. I thought we’d never get home.”

  Laughing, everybody bid their farewells and trooped out into the night.

  Alcohol, I thought, certainly loosens the tongue.

  Had I been wise or foolish to display those photographs? Had that gesture also been the result of alcohol? I wasn’t sure.

  Half way along the road, I murmured an excuse to the others and turned back.

  I pushed open the gate and walked up to the house. Through the open window on my left I heard the murmur of two voices. They were the voices of Oliver Terret and Julie Lawes. Very little of Julie and a good deal of Oliver.

  I pushed open the door and went through the right-hand door into the room I had left a few moments before. Lorraine Terret was sitting before the fire. There was a rather grim look on her face. She had been so deep in thought that my entry startled her.

  At the sound of the apologetic little cough I gave, she looked up sharply with a start.

  “Oh,” she said. “It’s you. You made me jump.”

  “Sorry. Did you think it was someone else? Who did you think it was?”

  She did not answer that, she just merely said, “Have you left something behind?”

  “What I feared I had left behind was danger.”

  “Danger?”

  “Because you recognised one of those photographs?”

  “All old photographs look exactly the same.”

  “I believe, Faith Roberts recognised one of those photographs. And she is now dead. So, if you know anything at all. Tell me now. It could save your life.”

  “It’s not as simple as that,” she said, sharply. “I’m not sure at all that I recognise anything. Not definitely.”

  “But there is something!” I persisted.

  “I need to think it through.” She replied. “And only when I am one hundred per cent certain will I tell you.”

  “If you won’t talk to me what about Detective Inspector Paul Silver of the Suffolk Constabulary. He is based in Oxmarket.”

  “Not the police. Not at this stage.”

  “I have warned you, Lorraine,” I said, shrugging my shoulders before leaving Clarendon Cottage once more.

  As I walked back to the Bellagamba Guest House, I was convinced that Lorraine Terret knew damned well exactly where and when she had seen the photograph of Jo Pedder.

  14

  Keldine Hogg came to visit me the next morning.

  I was already on my way down to the village green when she bumped into me walking in the opposite direction.

  “Why are you here in Oxmarket Aspal, Mr Handful?”

  I was puzzled by the question because I never thought that she was stupid.

  “I told you. I’m investigating the death of Faith Roberts.”

  “I thought that is what you would say,” she said sharply. “But it’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” I raised my eyebrows.

  “Of course it is. Nobody believes it.”

  “And yet I promise you, it is the truth.”

  “You won’t tell me.” Her pale blue eyes blinked and she looked away.

  “Tell you what?”

  She changed the subject abruptly again, it seemed.

  “I wanted to ask you – about anonymous letters.”

  “Yes,” I said encouragingly as she stopped.

  “They’re really always lies, aren’t they?”

  “They are lies some of the time,” I said cautiously.

  “Some of the time?” She persisted.

  “Yes.”

  “I think they’re cowardly,” she said vehemently.

  “They are,” I agreed.

  “Would you every believe them?”

  “That is a very difficult question,” I said gravely. “Especially when they’re normally sent in text form nowadays.”

  “I don’t believe them,” she said vehemently. “And I know why you’re down here and I tell you it isn’t true.”

  She turned sharply and walked away and left me standing there totally confused.

  Keldine Hogg professed to believe that I was staying in Oxmarket Aspal for a reason other than that of inquiring into Faith Roberts’ dearth. She had suggested that it was only a pretext. Did she really believe that?

  What have anonymous letters got to do with anything?

  Was Keldine Hogg the original of the photograph that Lorraine Terret had said she had ‘seen recently?’

  In other words, was Keldine Hogg Jo Pedder? Had Dr Hogg met and married his wife in total ignorance of her history?

  I shook my head and sighed. It was all perfectly possible but I had to be sure. A chilly wind sprang up suddenly and the sun went in. I shivered and retraced my steps to the Guest House.

  Yes, I had to be sure. If I could find the actual weapon of the murder –

  And at that moment, with a strange feeling of certainty – I saw it.

  On the littered top of the bookcase near the window. And I stood there wondering whether, subconsciously, I had seen and noted it much earlier. It had stood there, presumably, ever since I had come to the Bellagamba Guest House.

  Why I didn’t ever notice it before, I thought I will never know.

  I picked it up and weighed it in my hands. Examined it, balanced it and raised it to strike –

  Karen came through the door with her usual rush, two dogs accompanying her.

  “Hello, are you playing with my tenderiser?”

  “Is that what it is? A meat tenderiser?”

  I turned the implement carefully in my hands. Made of steel, it was shaped like a large square mallet with one studded side for the tenderising of the meat.

  “Great for killing someone isn’t it?” She said conversationally. “I told Eric what’s coming to him if I get fed up with it.”

  She laughed and put the tenderiser down and turned towards the door. “I’ve forgotten what I come in here for now.”

  “Where did you get this from?” My voice stopped her before she got to the door.

  “At the Christmas Car Boot at the Vicarage,” she replied. “I bought it off Lord and Lady Osborne’s stall.”

  She went out and the door banged. I picked up the tenderiser and held it under the light in the centre of ceiling.

  On the studded side there was a faint, very faint, discolouration.

  I placed it in my pocket and immediately left the Guest House, knowing that nobody would notice it missing as it wasn’t a very tidy household.

  Clouds had gathered
and the day was now oppressive with a threat of rain. I walked through the dense shrubberies to the front door of Norbert House and decided that I would not like to live in this hollow valley at the foot of the hill. The house itself was closed in by trees and its walls suffocated by ivy. It needed, I thought, a bit of a sort out.

  I rang the bell and after getting no response, I rang it again. It was Chloe Bird who opened the door to me and she seemed surprised.

  “Oh,” she said, “it’s you.”

  “May I come and speak to you?”

  “I – well, yes. I suppose so.”

  She led me into the small dark sitting-room where I had waited before.

  “I’m afraid,” Chloe said in an apologetic tone, “that you’ve called at an inopportune moment. Agata has handed in her notice today. She only took the job to get a work permit and so that she could get married. Now they’ve fixed the date and she’s leaving today.”

  “Bit short notice,” I commented.

  “It is, isn’t it? My stepfather is fuming. But I don’t think we can do anything about it. We wouldn’t have known anything about it if I hadn’t caught her packing up her things.”

  “It’s the way of the world, I’m afraid.”

  She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. “You’re probably right.”

  “Anyway, I won’t keep you for long,” I said, “I just wanted to ask you about a stainless steel meat tenderiser.”

  “A meat tenderiser?” Her face was blank, uncomprehending.

  I described it carefully in an enunciated manner, before adding. “I believe it came from this house?”

  “Yes. I remember we had a clear out before the car boot Harvest Festival.”

  “Harvest Festival?” I said. “I heard it was at the Christmas Car boot sale.”

  “No, it was the definitely the Harvest Festival one.” She insisted.

  It suddenly became very quiet in the little room. I looked at Chloe Bird and she looked back at me. Her face was mild, expressionless, uninterested. Behind the blank wall of her apathy, I tried to guess what was going on. Nothing, perhaps.

  “Are you really sure it was the Harvest Festival car boot and not the Christmas one?” I asked, quietly, urgently.

  “Quite sure.” Her eyes were steady, unblinking.

  I waited and continued to wait, but what I was waiting for did not come.