by Moody, Susan
‘Hopeless,’ he said. ‘Me, I mean. At this clipping and shaping lark. I just can’t seem to get the hang of it.’
‘Practice makes perfect,’ I said. ‘Why not try something simpler, like a ball?’
‘I already did.’ He waved at another untidy bush. ‘Over there.’
‘Ah.’
He stared at his watch and brightened. ‘Looks like coffee-time. Why don’t you come in? I made some chocolate chip cookies this morning – delicious!’
When we were seated in the Major’s living room, and I was on my third cookie, I said, ‘Last time we spoke about Tristan Huber’s murder, you mentioned the possibility that the warehouse-cum-shed in the woods belonged to the husband of Mrs Roscoe’s cousin Lilian.’
‘Brian Harkness,’ nodded the Major. ‘That’s right.’
‘I don’t think I’m breaking any confidences when I tell you that the police have definitively established that Tristan Huber was worked over in that shed.’
The Major sucked air in through his teeth like a Polish builder and shook his head. ‘Terrible, terrible. What a business. Poor young man.’
‘Can you tell me anything more about Harkness?’
‘Not much. Everything I know about him I’ve already passed on to the police in the shape of a grim sort of chappie called Offside or some such.’
‘Garside. And what exactly do you know?’
‘Harkness was a surly bugger, ’scuse my French, that was for sure. Never had a smile for anyone, least of all his poor wife.’
‘Did Nell Roscoe ever say anything to you about him or his business?’
‘Only more or less what I just told you. Import–export, usual sort of ambiguity, if you ask me, could cover any amount of unlawful activity. I have to say I was under the impression he no longer used that warehouse thingy. Terrible what people get up to these days, I sometimes wonder what the world’s coming to, really doesn’t bear thinking about. Anyway, I passed what little I know on to the constabulary.’
I was thankful that there would be no point in me trekking cross-country to talk to Mr Harkness, since the police had probably already interviewed him and learned everything he had to tell them about the killing room his storage shed had been turned into.
The Major poured more tea.
‘As a matter of fact, he was here just the other day,’ he said. He flicked at a cookie crumb which had lodged itself in his moustache. ‘Didn’t come round to see me, I may say. Saw him trying Nell’s front door. Damned impudence. Went out, asked what he wanted. He spun me some cock-and-bull story about something belonging to his wife being left behind. “Look here, matey,” I said. “It’s a bit late for you to come nosing round here, when you couldn’t even be bothered to come to the old girl’s funeral. And now everything, including the house itself, belongs to me. So why don’t you just clear off?” That sorted him out, I can tell you.’ He adopted a slightly sheepish expression. ‘Didn’t exactly tell him to clear off, but he got my drift.’
While I had no real reason to consider Harkness in any way involved with the actual murder of Tristan Huber, my mind was on high alert. It was equally likely that he had nothing to do with the rip-offs stored in his warehouse. But the bloodstained gurney? Perhaps I was being a little premature in dismissing him. After all, there was a definite connection, since he owned or leased the premises where my friend had been tortured. Perhaps he’d come here to try and retrieve something incriminating from Nell’s Roscoe’s house. ‘I wonder what he really wanted.’
‘Sheer nosiness, I should think.’
‘Next time you see him, if ever, I wouldn’t mind having a word. And now, Major, would it,’ I asked diffidently, ‘be possible to have a quick look at the work Huber Associates undertook for Mrs Roscoe?’
‘Why not? The house is pretty much as she left it. To tell the truth, I haven’t had the heart to change anything yet, clear things away, empty cupboards and wardrobes and the like. Get the charity shop people in. There’s a lot of clutter to sort out, and Nell was a bit of a magpie, as far as I can tell. Never threw anything away. Only thing I’ve managed to organize is her fridge.’ He grimaced. ‘For such a methodical person it was disgusting, to be honest. Stuff going mouldy, everything well past its sell-by date, saucers full of festering God-knows-what. Really doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Does anything else come to mind? I said. ‘Like when you first saw Tristan’s body behind the hedge? Anything unusual about it – apart from the fact that the poor man had been badly cut about?’
‘I can’t say I was in particularly observant mode. The shock … it’s not what you expect to find when you take the dog for a walk, is it?’
‘Do you always go the same way?’
‘No. As a matter of fact, as I told you, I’d been away for three or four days, staying with my son and his family near Lincoln. And I see what you’re trying to establish: you want to decide how long the body might have been lying there, don’t you?’
‘That’s right. Though I’m sure the police officers on the case have already done that.’
The Major munched on one of his biscuits while he cast his mind back. ‘Tell you what,’ he said eventually. ‘Sounds silly, but I couldn’t help noticing what good quality trousers he was wearing.’
‘And?’ I encouraged. Tristan had always been what my father called a snappy dresser.
‘Point being that there wasn’t a drop of blood on them.’
‘I suppose that’s significant in some way, though I—’
‘But don’t you see? No blood, despite the removal of … uh … certain parts. How could that have happened?’
I tried to envisage it. Tristan tied to that blood-soaked gurney, pieces of his chest being cut off, the castration. Major Horrocks was right: it was strange. Or was it? ‘If he had been stripped naked before they started on him … his chest had obviously been swabbed clean.’ I tried to keep emotion off my face and out of my voice.
‘But why would they bother to dress him again?’ He chewed thoughtfully. ‘Because, if you think about it, they would have to wait for the blood to dry, wouldn’t they? Otherwise, they’d have got it all over the show.’
‘True.’ I hadn’t told him about the third body in the warehouse, which I now knew had been Ned Swift, university student and member of the chess club. I did so now.
‘But that’s … that’s absolutely …’ He paled as he stared at me for a moment before bringing a starched white handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping the sweat from his forehead. Fleetingly it crossed my mind to wonder if these murders could possibly be laid at the Major’s door. ‘Anyway …’ He stood up. ‘Let’s go and take a look at Nell’s house, see if you can spot anything out of the ordinary.’
We walked out of the back door and through a gap in the hedge which separated Metcalfe from Rattrays. The Major let us in, using a key which he’d picked up from the mantelpiece before we left.
The next-door cottage greeted us with the mixture of alien smells which always hits you when you step into someone else’s home, especially if it hasn’t been occupied for a while. Faint remembrances of lavender furniture polish, dog, fusty bed sheets, something rotting, like a piece of forgotten citrus fruit, ancient stair-carpet in need of replacement. And illness. I remembered that the former owner of the house had been removed to the hospital with ulcerated legs and had never come home again.
Somewhere a tap dripped. We walked along a stone-flagged passage, our heels clicking loudly on the hard floor. Little dust-devils stirred in front of us and a couple of silverfish slid secretively away and into cracks in the skirting board. We passed a dusty dining room which contained an oak dresser on which was displayed an enviable Coalport dinner service. There was also a fine antique walnut dining table with a tarnished silver epergne in the centre, and ten chairs set round it. Relic, I imagined of happier days when the old lady had been in her prime, since I found it hard to imagine her hosting a dinner party for ten in the past few years. Beyond
that was a small room which had evidently been used as a study cum-office where Mrs Roscoe paid bills and answered correspondence. The walls were hung with photographs showing ranks of girls in school uniform, the formal shirt and tie ensemble gradually giving way to more relaxed open-necked blouses and navy sweaters as the years went by.
‘And this,’ the Major said, pushing open a door, ‘is the room your friend did over for poor Nell.’
Given the restrictions of the space – low ceiling, heavy beams, small diamond-paned windows – Huber Associates had done a great job of letting in the light without spoiling the character or ambience. Sunshine-yellow walls, white-painted beams, linen slip-covers in various shades of yellow, from palest primrose to organic egg yolk. The walls were lined with purpose-built, white painted bookshelves, all filled with orderly rows of paperbacks. I checked them out. Mostly crime. Mostly contemporary. A shelf of what I knew were called Golden Age detective novels, featuring Dorothy L Sayers, Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Ngiao Marsh, John Dickson Carr and many many others. A painting of an autumnal wood full of gold, orange and red leaves hung above the fireplace.
‘This is lovely,’ I said. ‘So cheerful.’
‘And a vast improvement on what it looked like before,’ said the Major. He looked round. ‘Nell and I spent many a happy hour in here over a glass or two of gin.’ He sighed. ‘I miss her much more than I ever thought I would.’
I patted his arm. ‘By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask if you’ve seen any more of our American friend. Todd, or Jerry or whatever he’s calling himself these days.’
‘Not a sausage.’ He sighed again. ‘I must say, the chap’s an obvious bad ’un, but he was rather fun, wasn’t he?’
‘I’m fine-tuned to take against criminals,’ I said. ‘But yes, he was. Still is, I’m sure.’
Not knowing what I hoped to find, I glance around the place. At the moment I could see absolutely no link at all between the retired headmistress and the interior design company, except for the work the one had produced for the other. But the fact that Harkness had been connected to both Mrs Roscoe and the warehouse where Tristan Huber had died had to have some significance.
‘Come upstairs,’ said the Major. ‘I’ve cleaned it up a bit, done the dirty laundry and so forth. But I haven’t had a comprehensive clear out, so it’s still pretty much as it always was. Haven’t dealt with the clothes in the wardrobes and the chests-of-drawers are still full of poor Nell’s clutter.’
I followed behind him. There were three bedrooms, the beds all stripped and tidied.
‘Linen cupboard,’ said the Major, opening a door to display slatted shelves neatly piled with bed linen, as though I were a prospective buyer. Opening another, ‘Bathroom.’
‘I wonder what Harkness was after,’ I said.
‘Could have been anything. Or nothing. He could simply have wanted to check that there was nothing of Lil’s left in the house. And this was Lilian’s room, when she visited Nell.’ The Major led the way back along the corridor to a room with a double mattress on a mahogany bedstead, pillows covered in black-and-white striped cotton ticking and a puffy pink eiderdown rolled up against the foot. There was a small day-bed covered in faded greeny-blue linen, with several brilliant embroidered cushions piled up against the back. Framed photographs stood on the small cream-painted iron fireplace mantel. ‘Feel free to have a look round. I’ll be out in the garden when you’re finished.’
The room gave off the same aura of innocence as the bedroom of an eight-year-old. I conducted a thorough search but found nothing that seemed significant. After Ms Roscoe’s death, and coming into his inheritance, the Major had clearly maintained the place, without getting shot of much. For instance, when I opened Lilian’s wardrobe, there were still a couple of her cardigans hanging up, a limp and shapeless dress, two awful old pleated skirts, a much-washed blouse. Lilian obviously didn’t feel the need to dress up when she was staying with Cousin Nell. There was also a magnificent pink brocade robe, heavily embroidered in gold and red and green, with tiny oriental birds flaunting long tails, and a proliferation of peonies and mop-head chrysanthemums. It seemed at odds with the pathetically shabby rest.
The old-fashioned mahogany chest-of-drawers held a lipstick, three loose pearl beads, a tatty hairbrush. In the second drawer down, there were a couple of greying bras, some rolled-up tights, and a waist-petticoat. Sad stuff for a sad lady. I was about to close the drawer again when I noticed one of the pairs of tights. Something square and hard had been concealed in it. I unrolled it and found a blister-pack of contraceptive pills, with five already removed. Looked like the downtrodden wife had fought back against her bullying husband’s unreasonable demand that she conceive yet again. Good for her!
In the drawer of the left-hand bedside table, I found a lavender sachet, a small tin of Vaseline (I really didn’t want to go there), a lace-edged handkerchief, and a novel by Raymond Chandler. On the other side of the bed, the drawer was empty.
I did another sweep of the rooms, not knowing what I was supposed to be looking out for. I turned back the edges of the carpets on the floors. Tapped the nice Victorian tiles set around the fireplace, listening for the sound of hollowness. Felt behind the bedsteads and underneath the drawers. Lifted the mattresses and shifted the sheets and pillowcases in the linen-cupboard. Came up with zip.
I forced myself to think. If Harkness had been trying to get into the house, it seemed logical to assume that he not only knew there was something in it that he wanted, he also probably knew where it was. But was it Lilian’s, or something of Nell’s?
I went downstairs again and started the same search in the reception rooms and kitchen. It could take forever to find something, even something specific. No wonder that intruders throw everything on to the floor: flour, sugar, buckets of coal, the contents of drawers. Boxes, suitcases, sofa cushions. No wonder they always leave such a mess.
I stood at the doorway of Ms Roscoe’s study. A desk against the wall, its contents neatly pigeonholed. An old-fashioned wooden swivel chair, with polished arms, stood in front of it. On the seat lay a cushion cross-stitched with a pattern of forget-me-nots and rosebuds. I could easily picture the former headmistress stitching away of an evening, head bent beneath a one hundred-watt lamp, rimless glasses slipping down her nose until they were pushed back into place.
I sat down on the moulded seat and examined the contents of the desk. A small pile of spiral-bound notebooks lay in one pigeonhole and I pulled them out. Flipping through the pages of the top one, I could see that she had only got half way through before she was carted off to hospital. I opened it and read a neatly-written description of a robin pulling a worm out of the garden soil. It was the sort of exercise she might have set her own students (‘All right, girls, settle down. You have fifteen minutes to produce a short essay on what you saw on your way to school this morning’). There was another: a spirited (and very funny) description of Major Horrocks’s struggles to produce anything remotely resembling any object known to man from his box hedges.
I picked up the notebook below that and opened it at random. It was clear that she frequently took the dog Dashiell through the woods in order to spy on Harkness. She seemed adamantly convinced that it was Harkness himself who had deliberately run over (‘murdered’) Dashiell, Marlowe’s predecessor. She detailed the comings and goings at the Harkness warehouse, after Lilian’s death. (‘I feel I owe it to her to keep an eye on whatever it is he’s up to’). As far as she could make out, there were flurries of activity out there, followed by long periods when nothing happened. Boxes and crates being delivered, sometimes two or three times a week. At other times, consignments being removed. Marlowe (or Dashiell, as it might once have been) provided her with a legitimate excuse for snooping on the place. The arriving goods were stashed in the warehouse by workers who were not what Nell delicately called English people … not English English. I took this to mean they were of ethnic origin in some way. Africans? Or – here I had
a light-bulb moment, only for it to flicker and die out – were they Asians? More specifically, Chinese? Employed by, or even members of, a Triad? I should have asked the Landis/Lockharts what nationality the workers on their barn conversion had been. In fact I might go over there again tomorrow and stick my nose into their business a little deeper than I had previously done.
The Major probably wouldn’t even realize if I removed a few of the more recent notebooks. They could always be returned when I’d finished trawling through them. Back in his cottage, I mentioned the robe in Lilian’s bedroom.
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Her husband brought it back for her from one of his business trips abroad. I understood from Nell Roscoe that she never wore it.’
‘Why was that, do you think?’
‘Because I believe that she couldn’t stand the blasted man. Not after his selfish behaviour, treating her like a … like a reproductive vessel. It’s an insult to womanhood, doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Did he often go abroad?’
‘Often enough. Gave the poor woman a bit of a rest.’
‘That robe looked Chinese or Indian.’
Major Horrocks nodded. ‘Indeed … I know he had commercial interests out in that part of the world.’
‘But you don’t know which part?’
‘Sorry. No.’
I headed for the door. ‘By the way, Major, if you’re planning to sell the books, give my friend Sam Willoughby from the bookshop first refusal.’
‘He can take the lot, far as I’m concerned. I’m not much of a fiction reader, I’m afraid. Frankly, he’d be doing me a favour.’
FIFTEEN
I woke to cloudless blue skies. Gulls were peaceful on the rocking water, which was banded with colours shading from translucent green to Mediterranean blue. Summer had reinstated itself. My heart lifted, although my dreams had been confused: egg-ridden, pantomime-damed, Philip-Marlowed. Lying awake as morning gradually unfolded, I considered Tristan and his punitive death. What could he have done to deserve so violent an end?
