Agatha Raisin 04 (1995) - The Walkers of Dembley

by M C Beaton

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “Gustav drove me up and my aunt, Mrs Tassy, came with us.”

  “We will be having a word with both Gustav and Mrs Tassy”

  “You can speak to Gustav for as long as you like. But must you speak to my aunt? She is lying down at the moment. All this has been a great shock to her.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow. But we must speak to her. Tell us what you know of the Dembley Walkers.”

  “Not much,” said Sir Charles. “Here’s a letter Miss Tartinck wrote to me and here’s a copy of the letter I sent in return.”

  They studied both. Wilkes said, “So with such a charming invitation, why was Miss Tartinck alone, do you think?”

  “Oh, I can tell you that. I took one of the girls from the ramblers out to the cinema. Citizen Kane. Jolly good film. Have you seen it?”

  “Many times,” said Wilkes.

  “Anyway, she said that the rest didn’t like this Jessica’s militant attitude and told her to go by herself.”

  “So you knew she was coming?”

  “Yes, but I had friends to see in London and so I decided to make myself scarce.”

  “The name of these friends?”

  “The Hasseltons. But I didn’t get around to seeing them. It was a wet day and I decided to stay in my flat and watch television.”

  “So you really have no witness to the fact that you were in London?”

  “But I told you, my aunt and Gustav.”

  “We would have liked a witness less close to you.”

  “Meaning they would lie for me? That’s a bit naughty.”

  “We’ll speak to you again, if we may, Sir Charles,” said Wilkes, getting to his feet.

  “Must you? Don’t be all night, will you?”

  “Where would the murderer have found that spade?”

  “I don’t really know. I suggest you talk to my land agent, Mr Temple. He lives in Dembley.” Sir Charles scribbled on a piece of paper. “That’s his address and phone number.”

  Wilkes took it. “Where are these ramblers?”

  “I think Gustav’s put them in the ballroom.”

  “Why there?” asked Wilkes curiously.

  “I suppose because we hardly ever use it.”

  Wilkes turned in the doorway. “Which one of the ramblers was it you took out?”

  “Nice little thing called Deborah Camden.”

  Gustav was waiting outside the door. He led the way across the vast expanse of the hall, down a corridor at the end and threw open a door. The ballroom was oak-panelled like the rest of the house. In a little island of chairs, which had been unshrouded from their covers for the occasion, sat the ramblers. A great Waterford chandelier blazed overhead. In the musicians’ gallery overlooking the ballroom sat one policeman, and another stood guard beside the door.

  Wilkes turned to Gustav. “I would like to question them one at a time. Is there somewhere we could use?”

  Gustav hesitated and then said, “Come with me, sir.”

  He opened a door next to the ballroom. “Used to leave cloaks here in the old days,” he said. “Good enough?”

  Wilkes looked round. There were a few hard chairs, a long mirror along one wall, and nothing else except a black and empty fireplace.

  “I suppose this will do. Send Deborah Camden in first.”

  “I have to attend to Sir Charles,” said Gustav. “Get her yourself.”

  “I used to dream that one day I would be rich,” said Bill Wong after Gustav had left, “and have servants. A short experience of Gustav is enough to persuade me that robots would be preferable.”

  “May as well get started instead of discussing the servant problem. Get Deborah in.”

  When Deborah came in, Wilkes studied her closely. She was very pale. A shy, insignificant little thing, he thought, amazed that Sir Charles should even consider dating her.

  “This is just an initial interview, Miss Camden,” he said. “We will need you to call at the police station tomorrow, where we will take an official statement. What were you doing last Saturday afternoon?”

  “I went shopping in Dembley”

  “And would any of the shop assistants remember you?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. I was window-shopping. A teacher’s pay doesn’t go very far.”

  “How is it you know Sir Charles?”

  “I was sent out to check the right of way but I didn’t want to be accused of trespass, so I called at the house. Sir Charles gave me tea, took my phone number, and then asked me out.”

  “We’ll return to Sir Charles in a moment. What do you know of Jessica Tartinck?”

  Deborah’s eyes filled with tears. “I wish I hadn’t quarrelled with her,” she said shakily.

  “Was the quarrel about the right of way?”

  Deborah nodded dumbly.

  “It’s a sad business, but try to compose yourself. Tell us what you know of Jessica’s background.”

  In a faltering voice, Deborah outlined what she knew. She knew Jessica had been with the anti-nuclear women protesters on Greenham Common when it had been a missile base. She had been arrested on a couple of occasions for cutting the wire. She had been vague about the posts in teaching she had held before she came to Deinbley. No, no, they hadn’t been close. Jessica had been living with Jeffrey Benson but he had thrown her out.

  “Why?”

  “The same reason that the rest of us got angry with her. She liked finding out rights of way that quite often the landowner didn’t even know he had, and then making trouble. It was exciting for a bit, but I suppose we were all getting a bit tired of her bossing us around,” said Deborah. “I’m only speculating, of course. I wasn’t there when Jessica had the row with Jeffrey”

  Deborah visibly grew more at ease as the questioning continued. She said that although Jessica seemed to have annoyed them all in one way or another, she could not think of anyone actually hating Jessica enough to kill her. “But I think I know who did,” she ended triumphantly.

  “Who?” demanded Wilkes.

  “Gustav, that servant. He’s weird and I think he could be violent.”

  “We’ll be checking on him. We expect to see you at the central police headquarters in Mircester tomorrow to make a statement, Miss Camden. See the policeman at the door of the ballroom before you leave and he will give you a time to call on us. And send in Jeffrey Benson.”

  Bill Wong studied Jeffrey when he entered. Something was tugging at the back of his mind. He felt the police had been interested in Jeffrey before. Jeffrey Benson was a big, powerful man with receding hair tied back in a pony-tail.

  He was warned it was a preliminary interview and then asked about his relations with Jessica Tartinck.

  “We were lovers,” said Jeffrey. “I suppose you want the old–fashioned term.”

  Being well aware of what the new-fashioned description would be, Wilkes pressed on.

  “We’d like you to begin at the beginning and tell us how it came about that Miss Tartinck went out walking along the old right of way on her own.”

  For one who did not like the police, Jeffrey appeared, surprisingly, an ideal witness. He described everything from the beginning, then Jessica’s speech trying to rally them all, then how they had had a row, although he omitted any mention of Irishmen, simply saying he was tired of ‘bossy women’. “There was no real affection between us,” he said. “She wanted what I’d got and I gave it to her.” Like Deborah, he had no alibi for the Saturday afternoon. He had done a few chores at home. Maybe he had gone to the Grapes. He couldn’t really remember.

  The next to be interviewed was Kelvin Hamilton. When asked if Jessica had applied to him for a place to stay, he said, “Of course not. I had no time for that lassie’s bullying ways and she knew it.” Kelvin thought furiously. He had not said anything to anyone of Jessica’s visit. Had he? Then he thought with a sinking heart that the police might interview his neighbours, would probably interview his neighbours, and might find out
about the visit and the subsequent row. The walls between the flats were thin and Jessica had shouted a few choice insults at him on her road out. But he dare not tell them he had been lying. “I think you’ll find it was Deborah Camden,” he blustered.

  “Why would that be?” asked Wilkes.

  “Because she was so carried away wi’ the idea o’ being friendly wi’ an aristo, och, you wouldnae think we was living in the twentieth century.”

  “And you think that would be enough motive to kill a woman for simply walking across a field?”

  “It’s the wee quiet ones you have tae watch.”

  They then took Kelvin through when he had first met Jessica, what he knew of her, what he judged her relationship with Jeffrey to have been, and where he had been last Saturday, before letting him go, wiping the look of relief off his face by saying they would see him at police headquarters in Mircester the following day.

  “Another one without an alibi for Saturday,” said Wilkes.

  The next was Alice Dewhurst. She wanted to be jointly interviewed with Gemma Queen and it took several minutes of argument to persuade her that they had to be seen separately.

  Alice sat down sulkily after Gemma had been led away. “So,” said Wilkes after Bill had taken down particulars of Alice’s address, age and job, “what can you tell us about Jessica Tartinck?”

  She heaved her great bottom uneasily on the small hard chair. “I dunno. Seemed to have all the right ideas, but too pushy even for a dedicated feminist. I mean, it’s the men you’re supposed to push around, not the women.”

  Wilkes found this rather a mad piece of reasoning but he let it go.

  Instead he said, “Did any of you know Jessica Tartinck before she came to Dembley?”

  “No,” said Alice. Something flickered at the back of her eyes. Bill Wong had an uneasy feeling she was lying.

  “You will appreciate, Miss Dewhurst, that some of these questions may seem random, but it is important to establish what sort of person Miss Tartinck was. Miss Tartinck’s family is in Milton Keynes, I believe she has a mother and sister living there, and they are being informed of her death. But she was killed here, and so we must try to find out why someone hated her enough to kill her.”

  “It’s all very simple,” said Alice in heavy patronizing tones. “Sir Charles or one of his minions on this estate lost their temper with her and struck her with a spade.”

  Wilkes reflected wryly that this reasoning seemed quite logical, as no one had made any attempts on Jessica’s life before her solitary ramble, or none that they yet knew of. So they questioned Alice about Jessica, her interests, her friendships, and were left with a feeling that Alice had been jealous of Jessica and had not really liked her.

  Alice said she had been at home with Gemma the previous Saturday. They had watched a video on television and had not gone out at all.

  Gemma Queen, who was next, backed this alibi in a shy voice. She seemed to Wilkes to be typical of a certain type of unambitious shopgirl, the kind who should have been giggling about boyfriends with other shop-girls and not getting tied up with the tetchy and angry ramblers. Asked about Jessica, Gemma had nothing but praise and admiration for the dead woman.

  “Did you share her militant views towards landowners?” asked Wilkes.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Did you dislike landowners as much as Miss Tartinck?”

  “You’ll need to ask Alice.”

  “Miss Queen! Don’t you have any views of your own?”

  “I dunno. To tell the truth, I don’t know half what they’re talking about. But Jessica was all right. Real attractive. She took me to the ballet once.” Gemma suddenly giggled. “Alice was furious.”

  Wilkes decided he wasn’t going to get anything much out of Gemma that was useful. Besides, she would be interviewed again the following day. By that time they would know a lot more about the characters in the case.

  Peter Hatfield and Terry Brice appeared refreshingly gossipy in comparison to the others. Both had been working on Saturday afternoon and appeared to be the only ones with cast-iron alibis. Although they were interviewed separately, their stories were much the same. Their motive in joining the walkers on their outings was because neither of them wanted to get ‘too fat’. Yes, they usually took Saturday afternoon off, but this Saturday, when the restaurant was closed between three and seven, they had volunteered to stay on to set up the tables for the evening. Their stories were so alike that Wilkes was sure they had rehearsed them carefully while waiting in the ballroom. Although the one alibied the other, it did cross his mind that one of them could have left the restaurant, gone out to the estate in a car, murdered Jessica, and returned.

  After them, he turned to Bill Wong, stretched and yawned, and said, “Now, for Gustav.”

  But there was an interruption. A policeman who had been on guard outside the house came in and said, “Excuse me, sir, but one of the farm labourers is here. I think you should listen to him. His name is Noakes, Joe Noakes.”

  “Send him in.”

  A large, burly man with a bad-tempered-looking face came in. He said he was Joseph Noakes and worked on the home farm for Mr Dyke, who ran it for the estate.

  “And what have you got to tell us?”

  “I seen Sir Charles and that dead woman.”

  Wilkes tensed.

  “Go on. When?”

  “Last Satterday, it were. Her was scraping and jumping her way across the rape field. Sir Charles met her.”

  “Where? Which part of the field? The middle, where the body was found?”

  “No, t’war a bit towards the far side o’ the field from the house.”

  “Could you hear what he was saying?”

  “No, I war over in t’other field. But he was waving his fists at her. Then he turned away and walked back towards the house.”

  “And she was still alive?”

  “Yerse,” admitted Mr Noakes with obvious reluctance.

  “And then what happened?”

  “I went away, didn’t I, and saw nothing else.”

  “Wait outside,” said Wilkes. “We’ll be taking you down to the station.”

  When the door closed, he turned to Bill Wong.

  “And we’ll be taking Sir Charles as well. I think we’ve found our murderer.”

  Four

  Agatha Raisin had just finished reading an account of the death of Jessica Tartinck in the local newspaper when her doorbell rang. Always hoping it might be James, she glanced quickly at her reflection in the hall mirror before opening the door.

  Mrs Mason, chairwoman of the Carsely Ladies’ Society, stood there. “Oh, Mrs Raisin. May I come in a minute? I want to ask your advice.”

  “Of course. I was just about to have a cup of coffee.” Agatha led the way through to the kitchen.

  “So what can I do for you?” asked Agatha, pouring two mugs of coffee.

  “It’s this terrible murder. A relative of mine is involved.”

  Agatha’s bearlike eyes gleamed with interest.

  “My niece, Deborah Camden, is one of the ramblers,” said Mrs Mason. “She had heard through me of your detective abilities and begged me to speak to you. The fact is” – Mrs Mason preened slightly – “that this Sir Charles Fraith is by way of being a friend of Deborah’s.”

  “The landowner?”

  “Yes, and Deborah says he has been arrested for the murder and that they’ve got the wrong person.”

  “Does she know the right person?”

  “No, but she says Sir Charles is nice and kind and it can’t be him.”

  “But there was nothing in the paper about an arrest. It simply said a man was helping police with their inquiries.”

  “That’s Sir Charles. He hasn’t been charged yet. But Deborah says it’s only a matter of time. You see, he says he was up in London on the Saturday she was killed, but some farm labourer swears he saw Sir Charles in the field shouting at this Jessica and waving his arms.”

  “O
h dear, does she know why Sir Charles lied?”

  “No. But she begged me to ask you for help.”

  “I would be delighted,” said Agatha, speaking no more than the truth. She could hardly wait for Mrs Mason to leave so that she could call on James and see if she could get him to join her in detecting adventures again.

  But she asked, “What can you tell me about your niece?”

  “Deborah is a schoolteacher at the Dembley Comprehensive. She is twenty-eight and not married. I haven’t seen much of her because I quarrelled with her mother, Janice, my sister, a long time ago and we don’t visit. Deborah always was a clever little thing but a bit mousy, which is probably why she isn’t married.”

  “I think I should talk to her.”

  “She’s teaching until four this afternoon. After that, I could take you over to Dembley.”

  “No, I don’t want to be seen with her in Dembley,” said Agatha.

  “Why?”

  “Well, perhaps I will be going undercover.”

  “Oh. Oh, well, I’ll go over and fetch her and bring her to you. We’ll be here about five.”

  “That would be splendid.”

  As soon as Mrs Mason had left, Agatha darted upstairs and put on a new short-sleeved blouse of a soft leaf-green and then a pair of biscuit-coloured tailored slacks. Taking a deep breath to hold her stomach in, she made her way next door.

  James opened the door. He frowned when he saw her. “What is it, Agatha? I’m very busy at the moment.”

  And Agatha, feeling hurt and rejected because he wasn’t speaking any of the lines she had written for him in that short breathless time between Mrs Mason’s departure and Agatha’s arrival at James’s door, said gruffly, “Nothing. It can wait.” And turned and walked away.

  Screw him, she thought. Who needs him anyway? How dare he speak to me like that!

  She found to her dismay that her interest in the case was waning fast. To counteract it, she drove down to the newsagent’s in Moreton and bought all the papers and retreated to a dark corner of a tea-room, one of the few which still catered for smokers, and began to read all she could about the death of Jessica Tartinck.

  Jessica, who had defied the others and said she would go on the walk on her own, had been found dead in the middle of one of the fields on Sir Charles Fraith’s estate. She had been struck savagely on the back of the head with a spade. Jessica Tartinck had been a campaigner for all sorts of rights – anti-nuclear, save the whales, the environment in general, and now the rights of ramblers. A don from Oxford University described her as having a brilliant academic brain and absolutely no common sense whatsoever. She had taught at a girls’ school and had brought the pupils out on strike. Although her family were in Milton Keynes, since leaving university Jessica appeared to have hopped from one teaching job to another, with spaces in between to take time off to go on marches and rallies and create general mayhem. Agatha reflected cynically that such as Jessica probably kept moving on as soon as people got used to her, as soon as she felt her power slipping. There were people like that who really did not give a fig for the environment, the whales, or anything else, but used protests as a means to gain power. Probably, thought Agatha, if she had not been killed, Jessica would soon have moved away from Dembley. She wondered what Jessica’s sex life had been like. Such women often used sex as a weapon to manipulate people and gain control of them. There was a rather blurry photograph of her in one newspaper. She appeared to have been quite a striking-looking woman. There were several articles in various papers about ancient rights of way. But there was no hint at all why anyone should have wanted to murder Jessica.