Death is a Word

by Hazel Holt

  I made some sort of non-committal noise and she ate a forkful of her gateau and, thus refreshed, started off on a new tack.

  ‘I’m sure I’m not one to complain,’ she said, ‘but I do think Anthea was a little demanding about the bring-and-buy sale. I’m quite willing to do my bit, but I did explain that Maurice was going to be away just then – he sometimes has to go away, visiting clients and so forth – and there’s always a lot extra to do when you’re on your own. I’m sure you must find that, situated as you are – and, out in the country, it’s especially difficult.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said gathering my things together, ‘Anthea can be a little overpowering at times. But I really must be going. I have to collect Alice from school.’

  ‘What it is to be a grandmother! Alas, we have no grandchildren as yet; the young seem to lead such busy lives,’ she said wistfully, ‘but I suppose there’s plenty of time yet.’

  A few days later Patrick came to coffee again.

  ‘How was the Gentleman’s Relish?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, was that what you meant when you were asking about anchovies? I loved it.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’

  He looked a little puzzled but took some papers out of a folder and spread them out on the table. ‘I’ve managed to track down quite a bit of the family and made a sort of family tree. Here we are.’ He spread out a large sheet of paper and began to read. ‘Now this is Eva’s great grandfather, William Benson, and he married Sarah Eliot (I think that’s where the connection with Rosemary’s branch of the family comes in, but I haven’t traced that yet) and they had two children, James and Martha. This is where it became a bit tricky because James left England and went to Australia – I worked this out by going backwards from Richard. Anyway, he married an Ellen Montgomery and their son was Richard, who came to England and married Lydia Castel and they, of course, were Eva’s parents.’

  ‘So Eva had some other relations in England that she didn’t know about?’

  ‘Yes, Martha married a John Shelby and they had a son Arthur who married someone called Charlotte Townsend and they had a son …’

  ‘Called Maurice.’

  Patrick looked up. ‘How did you know?’

  I took up the paper. ‘Here, let me see. Yes, it must be him, the dates are right.’ I laid the paper down again. ‘What on earth is going on?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I tried to gather my thoughts. ‘Maurice Shelby,’ I said, ‘is a member of Brunswick Lodge. He knew Eva and, to my certain knowledge, talked to her about her family name, Benson, also her parents. She even mentioned Lydia Castel – an unusual name as everyone said at the time – and never admitted his connection with the family. In fact, he more or less denied knowing any of the names. And he obviously knew about the connection, even giving his daughters family Christian names.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘That is the question. I think I’d like to get Bill Morris’s opinion on that.’

  ‘You think there’s some connection with Dan’s death?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I do feel that if we were to investigate all this further,’ I indicated the family tree, ‘we might just discover a motive.’

  ‘But he didn’t know Dan, did he? From what you say, he barely knew Eva, so how could he have known about Dan’s movements, how would he have known about the running? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I know.’ I tried to think, then suddenly it occurred to me. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Alison Shelby! His wife. She’s a tremendous gossip, always at Brunswick Lodge listening to people’s conversation and of course she would have gathered all sorts of information, quite innocently, which she would have passed on to her husband. She’s the sort of person who never stops talking and, although, after all these years, Maurice Shelby must have managed to tune out all the chat, I bet he pricked up his ears whenever she mentioned Eva or Daniel. In fact, he probably encouraged her.’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ Patrick said.

  ‘I’ve just remembered,’ I went on, ‘Alison Shelby was standing just behind me – she had some books for Brunswick Lodge – when I was talking to Rosemary about Daniel running early in the morning.’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘And another thing. I told Maurice Shelby that Daniel was tracing his family on the Internet. If there’s some sort of motive in this family tree … Oh dear, what have I done!’

  ‘You weren’t to know. But can it be true?’

  ‘I don’t know, but whatever all this genealogy is about, it’s the nearest thing we have to any sort of motive. What we need to know now is what Bob Morris has found out about the hire of the Land Rover in Bristol.’

  We didn’t have long to wait. He phoned the next day. ‘It was the right place. The girl who dealt with it remembered him very well because he didn’t look the sort of person who’d want a Land Rover. Middle-aged, with rimless spectacles, with rather a stiff manner, she said, a bit old-fashioned-looking. He had to produce his driving licence, of course, and the name on it was Martin Rogers.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Martin Rogers?’ I said, bewildered, and I told him what Patrick and I had discovered from the family tree. ‘There has to be a motive somewhere there and it has to be Maurice Shelby who hired the car. The description fits him exactly.’

  Bob was definitely excited by what we’d discovered and all the other things that seemed to point to Shelby.

  ‘That’s really interesting, I’m sure you’re right about him and everything I’ve found out does seem to reinforce what you’ve just told me,’ he said. ‘And, of course, he wouldn’t have used his own driving licence, he must have acquired this other one somehow. Anyhow, the dates are right and the mileage – from Bristol to Taviscombe and back and a bit over. He had the Land Rover for two days so he may have stayed somewhere overnight, although he might have slept in it to make sure of being up really early.’ He paused. ‘But we had one wonderful piece of luck. No one else has hired that particular vehicle since he had it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The force down there has been very cooperative and sent a forensic team to examine it and they found shreds of clothing caught up in the edge of the front bumper, just where it must have struck Daniel Jackson.’

  ‘Fantastic!’

  ‘They also found that the steering wheel, gear lever and door handles had been wiped clean.’

  ‘That’s good?’

  ‘A bit too clever. He wore leather driving gloves – the girl remembers that because, again, they seemed so out of character. But he took them off when he signed the forms. I’ve taken all the pens he may have used and we just might be able to get something from them.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ I said. ‘Wonderful progress!’

  ‘I think,’ Bob said cautiously, ‘we can establish that vehicle was the one that killed Daniel Jackson and that Maurice Shelby does seem to be the person who was driving it. I’m pretty sure the girl would be able to identify him.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘Unfortunately, apart from the shreds of clothing, I wish we had more actual evidence. And a really solid motive would be nice!’

  ‘The old detective story questions,’ I said. ‘We have How and Who, but we don’t know Why.’

  ‘More or less. Perhaps a little more work on the genealogy might help.’

  ‘I can tell Patrick, then, what you’ve found out?’

  ‘If you’re sure he can be relied on.’

  ‘Patrick is very good at keeping secrets,’ I said.

  I found it hard to keep all this information to myself, though it did help to be able to discuss things with Patrick, who threw himself even more enthusiastically into his genealogical searches. Still, after a few days, I managed to get more or less back to normal and was able to take an interest in the extension Michael and Thea were having made to their house.

  ‘It means,’ Michael said, ‘we can enlarge the kitchen –
it’s always been a bit small for the size of the house – and make it into a kitchen-diner, and then I can have the dining room as a study instead of that dismal little box room upstairs.’

  ‘It sounds splendid,’ I agreed.

  ‘And I have to do more stuff at home, at present.’ Michael has just been made one of the senior partners. ‘Actually there’s a lot to do after Mrs Armstrong’s death. She didn’t have any relatives so there’s all her papers and documents to go through and it’s easier to sort things at home rather than in the office – I’ll be able to spread myself out more there. Anyway, Thea says could you possibly collect Alice from school tomorrow and give her her tea because they’re doing something to the floor in the kitchen then and she won’t be able to get at the cooker.’

  So life went on, though, always at the back of my mind, was the thought of Maurice Shelby and if and why he could have possibly been a murderer. The name Martin Rogers also bothered me. It sounded somehow familiar but I couldn’t place it until, when I was reading The Free Press and glancing at the obituary column, I suddenly remembered seeing his name there a few weeks back. So after the next committee meeting at Brunswick Lodge I asked Matthew Paisley (who seemed the most likely person to help) if he knew Martin Rogers.

  ‘Poor old Martin. Yes, we’ve known him for ages and, after Joan, his wife died – she and Marjorie were friends for years – we felt sorry for him, he’d taken it very badly, so we had him to meals and things and tried to cheer him up. But he never really got over it. Such a pity there were no children; in fact, I don’t believe he had any relatives. Very sad.’

  ‘Of course, I remember him now. It’s just that the name was familiar and I couldn’t place him. I don’t think he was one of Michael’s clients …’

  ‘No, Maurice Shelby was his solicitor. I always thought he was a bit old-fashioned, but Martin swore by him. Though, I suppose it suited Martin who was a bit old-fashioned too.’

  Anthea, who could never bear to see two committee members in conversation without her, came up to bully one of us into acting as a steward at the next coffee morning.

  ‘So you see,’ I said to Bob Morris, when I phoned him in great excitement, ‘that’s how he got the driving licence. Because Martin Rogers had no relatives, as his solicitor he’d have had access to all the documents, including the driving licence. I suppose it would be too much to hope that he’d kept it after having used it in Bristol.’

  ‘It would have been very foolish of him to have done so, but people are foolish.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true, and, in a way, it’s the sort of thing he just might have done. An old-fashioned reluctance to destroy a document of one of his clients.’

  ‘It would be a useful piece of evidence,’ Bob said ruefully, ‘something we’re painfully short of. No further genealogical stuff, I suppose?’

  ‘Not so far. Patrick is rather handicapped by not being able to get anything new about the Australian side of the family. I wish I could remember more about Eva’s father, but I didn’t see much of her parents. I suppose I could ask Rosemary.’

  But Rosemary’s memories were no more useful than mine.

  ‘You know how it is, you never think about people of another generation, so no, I don’t remember hearing him talk much about Australia. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I suppose it’s because of Patrick doing all this family tree stuff.’

  I felt really bad about not being able to tell Rosemary what was going on – we always tell each other everything and I knew she’d never say anything, but I had promised Bob to keep silent. It was a nuisance that Rosemary was no more use than I was. And then I thought of someone who was far more likely than either of us to be helpful. I just needed an excuse to go and see Mrs Dudley, quite casually, on the spur of the moment.

  Fortunately I was at Brunswick Lodge when I heard Maureen complaining about having to deliver some of the parish magazines and I offered to do them for her. A perfect excuse for visiting Mrs Dudley. I called just before eleven, pretty sure she’d ask me to stay for coffee.

  ‘Well, this is a pleasure,’ Mrs Dudley said, regarding me critically as I poured the coffee from the ornate coffee pot. ‘I never seem to see a single soul – everyone is so busy nowadays.’ Since Rosemary calls on her mother every day, this was a little unfair. ‘Even Patrick, dear boy, has deserted me. He’s been looking up Eva’s family tree on that World Wide Web, or whatever it is, and I’m very interested to know how he has been getting on.’

  ‘I believe it is very complicated,’ I said placatingly, ‘and, of course, there is the problem of the Australian connection.’

  ‘Oh, Australia,’ said Mrs Dudley dismissively, annihilating the whole continent. ‘Though I must say for Richard, you would never have known he was a colonial – quite the gentleman and, of course, he didn’t have that dreadful accent. I was a little doubtful when Edward met him and found that we had some slight connection – something to do with Edward’s grandmother.’ Edward was Mrs Dudley’s husband whom she referred to very rarely and then usually to back up some opinion of her own. He had died quite young (Rosemary was still at school) and somehow, since she had been a widow for so long, one never thought of her as having been a wife. ‘Lydia’s parents were very doubtful about the marriage, well she was an only child and there was quite a lot of money, but he was very charming and it worked out well in the end.’

  ‘Did he talk much about his life in Australia, about his parents and so forth?’ I asked.

  ‘I believe there had been some dreadful rift in the family,’ she said with relish. ‘His father had quarrelled bitterly with his father, Richard’s grandfather, that is, and had cut off all ties. The family in England didn’t even know where he was, they’d no idea he’d gone to Australia. He never talked about it. Richard only heard about the English connection from his mother, who sounds like a sensible woman, even though she was an Australian. She didn’t know much but she did tell him that the family came from near Porlock and I don’t think she was surprised that he finally settled down here, though I believe his father was upset and more or less washed his hands of him.’

  ‘How sad.’

  ‘Well, he sounds like a thoroughly unpleasant man,’ Mrs Dudley said firmly, ‘leaving his family like that and going off to the other end of the world. I always say that family is the most important thing in a person’s life and not to be cast aside lightly. I have no patience with families that are always quarrelling,’ she declared, ignoring the fact that she had, herself, cherished several long-term family feuds.

  ‘Was Richard’s father an only child?’ I asked.

  ‘That I don’t know – as I said, he never spoke of his family.’

  ‘So there might be relations down here that Eva knew nothing about?’

  ‘I suppose there might be, though I would hesitate to pursue the connection – one has no idea what sort of people they might be.’

  I wondered how Mrs Dudley would consider Maurice Shelby as a family connection if our suspicions about him turned out to be true.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to go up to the graves,’ Rosemary said, ‘but what with Mother’s illness and everything else I haven’t got around to it. I feel really badly that I’ve neglected them. I know the grass is cut, but they might need tidying up.’

  ‘I’ll have a look at them for you,’ I said. ‘I’ve been meaning to clean Peter’s stone for ages.’

  I was pleased to see that Daniel’s grave had now been grassed over, as Eva’s was. I pulled out a few weeds that had sprung up and went over to where Peter was buried. The church is built on a hill (as many Somerset churches are) and his grave commands a panoramic view of the countryside he loved – the meadows below with the high moorland in the background. A beautiful spot, where, one day, I will lie beside him. I cleaned the lichen from the stone and then made my way up into the church, which is what I do whenever I’m there.

  The church at that time of day, on a weekday, is usually empty but I saw that t
here was someone sitting in one of the pews, a man with his head in his hands. I instinctively drew back, not wanting to disturb him, when he lifted his head and I saw that it was Maurice Shelby. On an impulse I went up the aisle and stood beside him. He turned and saw me, looking confused and uncertain.

  ‘Mrs Malory – I had no idea you were here.’

  ‘I’ve been cleaning my husband’s gravestone and I usually come in here for a while afterwards. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I hadn’t realised you were a churchgoer.’

  ‘No, not usually, but I needed to – to think about something and this seemed a good place to do so.’

  ‘I believe you do have quite a lot to think about just now,’ I said, ‘and,’ – I went on impetuously – ‘what more suitable place to do so than where Daniel is buried.’

  He stood up suddenly. ‘What do you mean?’

  Feeling that I’d gone too far to turn back, and knowing that Bob Morris would not approve, I said, ‘Because you killed him.’

  For a moment I thought he was going to push past me and leave the church, but he sat down again, silent, his hands clutching the back of the pew in front of him.

  ‘The police know about the Land Rover you hired in Bristol,’ I said, ‘and the girl there could identify you in spite of your using Martin Rogers’ driving licence.’

  He looked up at me blankly.

  ‘And,’ I continued, ‘police forensics have found shreds of Daniel’s clothing on the bumper. We know how you did it and where you parked, waiting for Dan to come by that morning. What we don’t know is why.’

  He looked as if he was going to say something and I waited, but he remained silent.

  ‘I imagine it was something to do with the genealogy,’ I said. ‘Patrick, Daniel’s partner, has traced the line back to your connection with Eva’s family – a connection you denied. Daniel was killed to stop him doing just that, wasn’t he?’ I paused for a moment, then I said fiercely,‘If you’d known that Patrick was doing that would you have killed him too?’