The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery

by Andrew Hixson

  The Detective Inspector received some reports, gave instructions to Sergeant Higgins and finally looked across at me.

  “A penny for them, John?”

  “I’m reflecting and reviewing.”

  “I forgot to ask you. Did you get anything useful from Marcus Dye when you saw him?”

  I frowned and shook my head. It was indeed Marcus Dye I had been thinking of.

  It was annoying, I thought with exasperation, that on a case such as this where I had offered my services, out of friendship and respect for DI Silver that the victim of circumstances should so lack any romantic appeal. A lovely young girl, now, bewildered and innocent, or a fine upstanding young man, also bewildered, but innocent, or a fine upstanding young man, also bewildered, but whose ‘head is bloody but unbowed.’ However, I had Marcus Dye, a pathological case if there ever was one, a self-centred creature who had never thought much of anyone but himself. A man ungrateful for the efforts that were being made to get him released – almost, one might say, uninterested in them.

  Really, I thought, I might as well let him rot in gaol since he did not seem to care.

  No, I would not go quite as far as that.

  DI Silver’s voice broke into my reflections.

  “Well?”

  “It was unproductive,” I said. “Anything useful that Marcus Dye might have remembered he did not remember and what he did remember was so vague and uncertain that he’s given me nothing to go on. But in any case it seems fairly certain that Faith Roberts was excited by the article in the Oxmarket Sunday Echo and spoke about it to Marcus Dye with special reference to ‘someone connected with the case,’ living In Oxmarket Aspal.”

  “With which case?” DI Silver said sharply.

  “He wasn’t sure,” I replied. “He thought it was the Michael Porter case but that was possibly because that was the only one he could remember. But the ‘someone’ was a woman. He even quoted Faith Roberts comment that ‘someone would not be proud if all was known.’”

  “Proud?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “A strange word to use, don’t you think? Even suggestive.”

  “No clue as to who the proud lady was?”

  “Marcus Dye suggested Lorraine Terret but as far as I can see for no real reason!”

  “Probably because she was a proud masterful sort of woman,” DI Silver said shaking his head. “But it couldn’t have been her because Lorraine Terret is dead, and dead for the same reason as Faith Roberts death, because she recognised a photograph.”

  “I warned her,” I said sadly.

  “Jo Pedder!” DI Silver murmured irritably. “So far as age goes, there are only two possibilities, Keldine Hogg and Helena Brooks-Nunn. I don’t count Chloe Bird. She’s got a background.”

  “And the others have not?”

  “They’ve all got background, John.” DI Silver sighed. “And it is so easy to check now with the internet if they say who they say they are.”

  “And if they are not who they say they are then they have something to conceal,” I commented.

  “Exactly and if they’ve taken a lot of pains to cover up then that will make it difficult to uncover.”

  “But not impossible.”

  “Oh no. Not impossible. It just takes time. As I say, if Jo Pedder is in Oxmarket Aspal, she’s either Helena Brooks-Nunn or Keldine Hogg. I’ve questioned them – just routine – that’s the way I put it. They say they were both at home – alone. Helena Brooks-Nunn was the wide-eyed innocent, Keldine Hogg was nervous – but then she’s a nervous type, you can’t go by that.”

  “Yes,” I agreed thoughtfully. “She is a nervous type.”

  I was thinking of Keldine Hogg bumping into me on the village green. She had received an anonymous letter, she had said. I wondered, as I had wondered before, about that statement.

  “And we have to be careful,” DI Silver went on. “Because even if one of them is guilty, the other is innocent.”

  “And Richard Brooks-Nunn is a prospective Mayor and an important local figure.”

  “That wouldn’t help him if he was guilty of murder or an accessory to it,” DI Silver said grimly.

  “I know that. But we have to be sure.”

  “But you agree it’s between the two of them?”

  “No,” I sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t agree with you.”

  “What?” DI Silver quizzed. “Why?”

  I was silent for a moment, then I asked in an almost casual tone, “Why do people keep old photographs?”

  “The same reason they keep other bits and pieces. Memories I suppose.”

  I pounced on his words. “Exactly. Memories. Mostly good but sometimes bad.”

  “Go on.”

  “Some people keep photographs as a desire to keep their hate for someone alive. To remind themselves that someone has done harm to them.”

  “But surely that doesn’t apply to this case?”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “Go on.” DI Silver pressed, somewhat unconvinced.

  “Newspaper reports are often inaccurate,” I murmured. “The Oxmarket Sunday Echo stated that Kristen Braun was actually employed by the Porters as their nanny. Is that actually true?”

  “Yes, it was. But we’re working on the assumption that it’s Jo Pedder we’re looking for.”

  I sat up suddenly very straight in my chair. I wagged an imperative forefinger at DI Silver.

  “Look at the photograph of Jo Pedder. She is hardly an oil painting is she? Which means that nobody has kept the photograph for vanity reasons have they? If Helena Brooks-Nunn or Keldine Hogg, had this photograph of themselves, they would tear it to pieces quickly in case somebody saw it!”

  “You may have a point there.”

  “So vanity is out. Now take sentiment. Did anybody love Jo Pedder at that age? The whole point of Jo Pedder is that they did not. She was an unwanted and unloved child. The person who liked her best was her aunt, and her aunt died violently. So it wasn’t sentiment that kept this picture. And revenge? Nobody hated her either. Her murdered aunt was a lonely woman without a husband and with no close friends. Nobody had hate for Jo Pedder, only pity.”

  “Christ, John. Are you saying that nobody would have kept that photo?”

  “Yes.”

  “But somebody did. Because Lorraine Terret had seen it.”

  “Had she?”

  “Bloody hell, John, it was you who told me.”

  “Yes, she said so.” I said. “But the late Loraine Terret was, in some ways, a secretive woman. She liked to manage things in her own way. I showed her the photographs and she recognised one of them. But then, for some reason, she wanted to keep the identification to herself. She wanted, let me say, to deal with a certain situation in the way she fancied. And so, being very quick-witted, she deliberately pointed to the wrong picture. Thereby keeping her knowledge to herself.”

  “But why? Blackmail?”

  “No, not blackmail, she didn’t need the money. I think she liked the person in question and wanted to protect her. But she was nevertheless still curious. She intended to have a private talk with that person. And make her own decision whether that person had had anything to do with Faith Roberts murder.”

  “Then that leaves the other photos.”

  “Precisely. Lorraine Terret meant to get in touch with the person in question at the first opportunity and that came when we all went the pub together.”

  “And she telephoned Chloe Bird. That puts her right back in the picture, along with her mother.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Bloody hell, John,” DI Silver said shaking his head sadly at me. “You really like to make things difficult, don’t you?”

  20

  I drove back to Oxmarket Aspal in my Peugeot 208.

  I was tired because I had been thinking. Thinking about this case was proving to be exhausting and my thinking had not been entirely satisfactory. It was as if a pattern, perfectly visible, had been woven into a piece of mater
ial and yet, although I was holding the piece of material, I could not see what the pattern was.

  But it was all there. That was the point. It was all there. Only it was one of those patterns, subtle, not easy to perceive.

  A little way out of Oxmarket I encountered the Bellagamba’s 4x4 going in the opposite direction. Eric Bellagamba was driving and he had a passenger but I was so deep in thought I hardly noticed them.

  When I got back to the guest house, I went into the living-room. I removed a colander full of spinach from the most comfortable chair in the room and sat down and shut my eyes.

  I thought of Lorraine Terret. I considered what she had really been like. I remembered what DI Silver had said many years ago when working on another case. Let’s taken them apart and see what makes them tick?”

  What made Lorraine Terret tick?

  There was a crash, and Karen Bellagamba came in. Her hair was flapping madly.

  “I can’t think what’s happened to Eric,” she said. “He’s been gone ages and I need to find the latest electric bill. I’ve looked everywhere.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and carried on thinking about the two murders and about the character of Lorraine Terret.

  She swept over to the bureau and started pulling out the drawers. Most of the contents she swept onto the floor ruthlessly. I found it agony watching her.

  Suddenly she uttered a cry of triumph. “Found it!”

  Delightedly she rushed from the room and I resumed my meditation.

  To arrange, with order and precision.

  I frowned. The untidy heap of objects on the floor by the bureau distracted my mind. What a way to look for things!

  Order and method. That was the thing. Order and method.

  Though I had turned sideways in my chair, I could still see the confusion on the floor. Sewing patterns. Credit card bills. Gas bills. Magazines. Photographs. Newspapers.

  It was insupportable!

  I rose, went across to the bureau and with quick deft movements began to return the paperwork to the open drawers.

  My mobile vibrated in my pocket. The sharpness of the ringtone made me jump.

  “Hello?”

  “John? It’s Paul Silver.” The Detective Inspector’s voice was almost unrecognisable. A very worried man had given way to a confident one.

  “We’ve got some new evidence.” He said with reproachful indulgence. “Girl at the post office in Oxmarket Aspal. Eric Bellagamba just brought her in. It seems she was standing practically opposite Clarendon Cottage that night and she was saw a woman go in, between eight-thirty and nine o’clock and it wasn’t Chloe Bird. That puts us right back where we were – it’s definitely between the two of them – Helena Brooks –Nunn and Keldine Hogg. The only question is – which?”

  I opened my mouth and did not speak. Carefully, deliberately, I ended the call.

  I stood there staring unseeingly in front of me and the sound of my mobile ringing again shook me out of my reverie. I answered without checking to see who it was.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr Handful?”

  “Yes?”

  “Joanne Burton here. Could you meet me at the post office?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I ended the call and left the guest house. On my way down the hill I was hailed by Sergeant Higgins emerging from Clarendon Cottage.

  “Morning, John.”

  “Morning, Pat,” noticing my friend was looking excited.

  “DI Silver sent me over to make sure there was nothing we might have missed,” he explained. “You never know, do you? DI Silver has got a bee in his bonnet and sent me over. And guess what? I found something.”

  “Really? What was it?”

  He unwrapped from a piece of old newspaper an old and rather decrepit book. He opened it and showed me the fly-leaf. Written across it were the words: Kirsten Brown.

  “Bit of a mystery isn’t it, John?”

  “It is,” I said with feeling. “The poor old Detective Inspector will be pulling his bloody hair out.”

  “Oh God, I hope not.”

  I did not reply and carried on down the hill. I had ceased to think. Nothing anywhere made sense.

  I went into the post office. Joanne Burton was looking at the latest paperback novels on the book carousel. I did not speak to her but went up to the stamp counter. When Joanne boughtA HANDFUL OF SECRETS,Lynn Beverley came over to me and I bought some stamps. Joanne went out of the shop.

  Lynn Beverley seemed preoccupied and not talkative. I was able to follow Joanne out fairly quickly. I caught her up a short distance along the road and fell into step beside her.

  “You have something to tell me?” I prompted.

  “I don’t know whether it’s important but somebody was trying to get in at the window of Lady Osborne’s room.”

  “When?”

  “This morning. Lady Osborne had gone out and the daughter was out with the dog as usual. Lord Osborne was locked up in his study as usual. The miserable sod. I’d have been in the kitchen normally – it faces the other way like the study – but actually it seemed a good opportunity to – you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “So I slipped upstairs to her bedroom. There was a ladder against the window and a man was fumbling with the window catch. She had everything locked and barred since the murder. Never a bit of fresh air. When the man saw me he slid down and ran off. The ladder was the gardener’s – he’d been cutting back the ivy and gone off to have a smoke. Lord Osborne doesn’t allow smoking on the premises.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “I only got the merest glimpse, I’m afraid.”

  “It is interesting,” I said. “It is very interesting. . . . Anything else?”

  “Not yet,” she replied. “The junk that woman keeps! She’s the biggest hoarder I’ve ever come across. She came in without me hearing her and she bollocked me for being bloody nosey. If anyone deserves to be murdered she does. She’s a real nasty bitch.”

  I walked back to the Bellagamba Guest House and sat in the easy-chair again and began once more to think. I had by now a lot to think about.

  There were things I had missed – little things.

  The pattern was all there. It only needed cohesion.

  Kirsten Brown . . .

  Of course! Kirsten Brown!

  21

  Helena Brooks-Nunn came into the guest house in the casual way that most people did, using any door or window that was convenient.

  She was looking for me and when she found me she did not beat about the bush.

  “Look here,” she said. “You’re a private detective and I’ve heard that you’re good. I want to hire you?”

  “I might not be for hire,” I told her sharply.

  “I’ll pay you.”

  “For what?”

  “Protect me against the police,” she said emphatically. “They’re crazy. They seemed to think I killed Lorraine Terret. They’re nosing around, asking me all sorts of questions – ferreting out things. I don’t like it. They’re driving me mental.”

  I looked at her. Something of what she said was true. She looked many years older than when I had first seen her a few weeks ago. Circles under her eyes spoke of sleepless nights. There were lines from her mouth to her chin, and her hand, when she lit a cigarette, shook badly.

  “You’ve got to stop them,” she said.

  “How?”

  “Have a word with them. If my husband was any sort of a man he’d put a stop to all this.”

  “And he does nothing?”

  “I’ve not told him,” she said suddenly. “He just talks pompously about giving the police all the assistance possible. It’s all right for him. He was at some bloody meeting that night.”

  “And you?”

  “I was just sitting at home watching the television actually.”

  “But, if you can prove that -”

  “How can I? I offered my neighbours the Kelly’s, a fabulous sum o
f money to say they’d been in and out and seen me there but the bastards refused.”

  “That’s was an unwise thing to do,” I told her.

  “Why?”

  “Once the police find out they’ll be convinced you’re trying to hide the fact that you committed the murder.”

  “She asked me to go and see her, you know?”

  “Who?”

  “Lorraine Terret. On the night she died.”

  “Did you go?”

  “Of course not. She would have bored me to tears.”

  I looked at her. She had lovely wide blue eyes.

  “Why don’t you wear glasses, Helena?” I asked quietly. “You need them.”

  “What?” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I do sometimes. I did as a child. I hated wearing them. Made me look so ugly.”

  “Did your mother tell you that?”

  “I don’t remember my mother,” she said sharply. “Anyway, what the hell are you talking about? Will you take on the job?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “Because I am working for the Suffolk Constabulary and I’m trying to prove that Marcus Dye is innocent.”

  “Marcus Dye? The idiot who murdered Faith Roberts? What has that got to do with Lorraine Terret?”

  “Perhaps – nothing.”

  “Is it a question of money? How much do you want?”

  “Money doesn’t buy you everything you want, Helena.”

  “I haven’t always had it, you know,” she told me.

  “I thought so,” I nodded gently. “That explains a great deal.”

  Helena Brooks-Nunn went out the way she had come, blundering a little in the light as I remember her doing before.

  I said softly to myself, “Kirsten Brown.”

  So Lorraine Terret had rung up both Chloe Bird and Helena Brooks-Nunn. Perhaps she had rung up someone else. Perhaps –

  With a crash someone came into the room and the process with which I was well acquainted was repeated. This time, the objective was achieved rather sooner. .

  Once on my own again, I almost automatically stepped over and began to replace the things in the drawer. Letters, bills, birthday cards photographs –

  Photographs . . .

  I stood staring at the photograph I held in my hand.