The Cruellest Month

by Hazel Holt

  As if on a given cue we both raised our glasses; synchronised drinking, I thought absurdly. Then I said, ‘I saw Molly Richmond yesterday. She’d found the other part of Gwen’s diary.’

  ‘Oh yes, you told me about the one you read – wartime, on that farm somewhere.’

  ‘Just outside Kidlington, near the airfield.’

  ‘Was there anything in it – anything interesting?’

  ‘Yes, it was very interesting. There was a photograph there too, and it made clear the one thing I hadn’t had the wit to work out. It was, of course, an American airbase. The photograph was of the young girl, May Brown – you remember I told you about her? – and two American airmen. One was called Johnny – he was her boyfriend, the one who made her pregnant – the other was Johnny’s friend Chuck.’

  He made no comment so I went on.

  ‘This part of the diary describes how Gwen Richmond saw this Chuck deliberately run down and kill May Brown one night when she had arranged to meet Johnny and insist that he should marry her. Why Johnny didn’t do the deed himself I don’t know. To judge from his photograph I don’t think he had the stomach for it, though I’m sure he knew what his friend was up to.’

  ‘You’re right, that diary was interesting.’

  ‘Gwen Richmond was a vindictive woman. She was also, in her own way, fond of poor little May. She decided to confront Chuck with what he had done – she didn’t intend to go to the authorities, she preferred to have a personal hold over him – that’s the sort of person she was. Unfortunately, from her point of view, she became ill and, by the time she had recovered, the American personnel had all been moved down to the south coast in the build-up to D-Day. But she was tenacious and I imagine she made enquiries and found out Chuck’s name. Years later she ran into him, in the Bodleian, as it happens, and recognised him – surprisingly, after all these years. She confronted him with what she had seen that night and threatened to expose him. She had no proof, of course, apart from her diary – though that wouldn’t stand up in a court of law and I don’t suppose the other young man, Johnny, would have testified against his friend. But Chuck was now respected in his profession and established in a very select circle in the higher echelons of, shall we say, Boston society. The thought of this woman making noisy accusations, accusations that would be eagerly taken up by the media – have you noticed how fashionable anything about the Second World War is these days? – that would shatter his elegant lifestyle. Even if there is no proof, you know how avidly people listen to gossip. So that is why you set out to kill her.’

  ‘I?’

  ‘Yes. I believe Chuck might be an affectionate diminutive of Chester?’

  ‘Can you imagine anyone calling me Chuck?’

  ‘In certain circumstances, yes.’

  ‘But, you’re forgetting, I wasn’t in Oxford the day she died. I went up to London by car with Jim – Dr Maxted – he’s at St John’s if you want to check. We left at eight-thirty in the morning – he likes to make a tediously early start – and we didn’t get back until after midnight, because we went to the National – it was The Seagull – I think I told you about it.’

  ‘And in between?’

  ‘In between I worked in the British Library and Jim went to the Public Record Office.’

  ‘Actually, in between, you went to Paddington and got a train back to Oxford:’

  ‘You have proof of this?’

  ‘Oh yes. Yesterday I happened to be clearing out my handbag – one accumulates such a lot of junk – and I came across those chocolate wrappers I rather officiously took away from you that afternoon in the Randolph. I am – I’m the first to admit it – an incurably nosy sort of person, so I smoothed out the wrappers to see what sort of chocolate you had been eating. In among them were two bus tickets. They’re flimsy bits of paper, Oxford bus tickets, but they do have on them the date they were issued – and the date on those tickets was that of the day Gwen Richmond was murdered. I suppose you took a bus from the station into town and then back again after the murder to catch the train to London so that you could meet your friend – as I’m sure you arranged to – actually at the National before the performance.’

  ‘What a pity you took the bus tickets away from me,’ he said. ‘Now they’re not evidence – just your word against mine. In fact you haven’t any evidence at all, have you?’

  ‘No,’ I said simply. ‘I haven’t. But you did kill her, didn’t you? Because she saw you kill May Brown?’

  ‘I suppose I could go on denying it, but, since you have no evidence – as she hadn’t – and since it’s just you and me – I suppose I must congratulate you on piecing things together so neatly. A successful piece of research, we might call it, though you won’t be able to publish the results. And, really, she was a most unpleasant person – you know what she did to Fitz and Elaine. Now you must admit that the world is a better place without her.’

  ‘I hold no brief for Gwen Richmond – she was un-pleasant, though that doesn’t give anyone the right to kill her. But it wasn’t just her, was it? There was poor little May – and her unborn baby.’

  He ran the tip of his finger around the rim of his glass and said, ‘No, you’re right – I shouldn’t have done that. I suppose I was young and besotted, not that that’s any excuse.’

  ‘Besotted?’

  ‘Johnny. It was what I believe they call a coup de foudre – I’ve never felt like that about anyone before or since – not even Fitz. There’s something so very intense about first love, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘first love can be like that.’

  ‘He had no idea, of course; he thought we were buddies! You’re right, he did call me Chuck. He used to find dates for me so that we could go out in foursomes! I guess people were pretty simple in those days.’

  ‘I guess they were.’

  ‘He was a strange sort of boy – rich and spoilt and very wild. His father was a general and really upset that Johnny had asthma and couldn’t be a pilot and was just stuck as a second lieutenant in Supply on some cruddy little airbase in England. It sort of made Johnny defiant and he kept looking for ways to make his life seem more exciting. That’s how he got into this black-market deal with the gasolene. It wasn’t for the money, he was rolling, but for the kicks. Then this stupid little girl came along, whining that she was pregnant and saying that he had to marry her – there was no way he could do that, even if he’d wanted to. And then she tried to blackmail him over the gasolene deal. He couldn’t bear the idea of facing his father if it all came out – he’d lose his allowance, sure, but it was much more than that – he was really terrified of the old man. He told me he’d agreed to meet the girl and I said I’d go instead and reason with her. I’d have done anything for him – I told you, I was obsessed – and, anyway, I was pretty crazy with jealousy over the whole affair. Of course he didn’t know I did it deliberately. Even he might have smelled a rat if I’d told him that. I said it was an accident and we’d better just keep quiet. Then we got moved down to the south coast straight after – he’d forgotten about the whole thing by the end of the month.’

  ‘Poor little May,’ I said quietly. ‘What happened to Johnny?’

  ‘Killed in France – they machine-gunned the airfield. I guess,’ he added wryly, ‘the general would have been really proud to think his son had died in action.’

  ‘It must have been quite a shock to discover someone had seen you that night.’

  ‘Yes, the Richmond woman came up to me in the Bodleian one day and asked if I was Professor Howard. Then she said we had a mutual friend – May Brown. I’d practically forgotten the name, of course, and just stood there staring at her. Then she told me. She said something rather odd. She said she wasn’t sure it was me until she saw me with my hat on.’

  ‘Men change more completely as they get older,’ I said, ‘if they lose their hair. May Brown used to refer to you as James Mason – she was mad about films – so Gwen never really knew your name.
It’s funny, I noticed the other evening, when you put your hat on, that you reminded me of someone, I couldn’t think who.’

  ‘As you guessed, she’d found out my name all those years ago and now she threatened to make trouble. I couldn’t have that – not just for me, but for Fitz – it would have brought the whole thing about Lance back to him.’

  I was silent. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to tell Bill Howard what I had done to Fitz.

  ‘I found out which room she was working in – I was lucky it was tucked right away like that. You were right about how I set my alibi with Jim Maxted and then came back by train and bus – that was careless. I went along to her room. She was sitting at a desk and was surprised to see me. We talked for a while – I pretended to plead with her, to put her off her guard. She seemed quite relaxed and I remember she took her glasses off and put them away in their case. While her head was turned I took up that large metal-bound book and cracked it down on her head. I’m pretty tall and strong and she was well – a little old lady, I guess. It didn’t take that much to kill her. Then I loosened the screws in the bookshelves – I have always carried a penknife since I was a boy in summer camp, they surely do come in handy – and brought the ladder and the shelves down on top of her. As I say, I’m tall, so I was able to bring them down quite slowly so that there wasn’t too much noise. Then I slipped away and – there you are. What should have been the perfect crime.’

  ‘One thing I haven’t worked out,’ I said, feeling almost as if I were asking a question at the end of a seminar, ‘is how you got in without George on the desk seeing you.’

  ‘Human beings are pretty predictable.’ he said, ‘if they expect to see something they don’t really notice it. If you look as though you’ve got a right to be somewhere people won’t question you. I simply went round the back to the staff entrance about one o’clock when some of the staff were going out to lunch and some were coining back. I waited until a couple of people were coming out together, talking, and just went in – one of them even held the door open for me.’

  ‘As easy as that!’

  The pub was filling up now and getting noisier. Bill Howard looked at his watch.

  ‘Well, it’s been great talking to you,’ he said. ‘You’re a good listener. You did a neat job, working it all out like that. Pity you haven’t any evidence.’

  Two figures came round from the next alcove, both were tall – one was very tall with red hair.

  ‘Actually.’ Michael said, ‘we did hear every word. Confession before three witnesses. And just to make sure, we brought along William’s new tape recorder – very high definition – state of the art, as they say. William says that will do as evidence.’

  With sudden movement Bill Howard was on his feet. Involuntarily I cried out, ‘Michael, be careful!’ and then blushed with embarrassment as heads turned to look at me. Bill Howard laughed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to make a dash for it. No thrilling car chases down the Broad.’

  Michael and William ushered him quietly but purposefully out of the pub. The car was parked at a meter a little way up St Glies and I unlocked the doors.

  ‘If,’ Bill Howard said, ‘by any ridiculous chance the police should take this thing seriously, will you please tell Fitz what has happened.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think I could do that.’

  Then we all got into the car and I drove us to the police station at St Ablates.

  ***

  I leaned my hand against the warm stone of the archway that leads into the Schools quadrangle of the Bodleian.

  SCHOLA ASTRONOMIAE ET RHETORICA,

  SCHOLA LOGICAE,

  BIBLIOTHECA BODLEIANA

  I would come back to Oxford, of course. But it would never be quite the same again.

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  The Cruellest Month