Miss Pink Investigates- Part Four

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘When I can find a mount,’ she said, glancing in the rear view mirror. It was wrongly angled to see Harald but Anne was staring after the galloping pony and her face was quite blank. Aware of Miss Pink’s eyes on her she said, ‘Marina breeds them. You’re welcome to ride; they can carry any weight.’ Which was the first time Miss Pink had known her be so casually rude.

  She took the Renault to the front door of the big house. They got out and stood for a moment admiring the vista of woods and gentle hills at the foot of the dale. Anne said, ‘You have to see the gardens; they’re magnificent at this time of year. Why don’t you and Rick take a turn in the rose garden before lunch? We’ll call you in.’

  Harald followed the flight of a crow and said nothing. Miss Pink, thinking that few gardens could be termed magnificent in July, said that sounded nice, and she and Rick strolled in the direction Anne had indicated.

  ‘Wants to get rid of us.’ Rick stated the obvious. ‘Family business.’ His companion was deep in her own thoughts. He didn’t like the silence. ‘Isn’t it great about Perry?’ he persisted.

  ‘Great.’ There was no enthusiasm. ‘I wonder if she’ll phone.’

  ‘I’m sure she will. She needs to keep in contact with a friend. She’s always running. That’s no life for a girl.’

  ‘Tyndale says she’s about to have a birthday. It’s not illegal to live with her once she’s sixteen.’

  ‘If you mean what I think you mean, I hadn’t intended a sexual relationship.’ He was stiff and disapproving. In any event, she thought with amusement, it wouldn’t depend on him, but on Perry.

  ‘I’m just pointing out you could no longer be charged with — what would it be? Corrupting a minor?’

  He made a dismissive gesture. ‘So she’ll be sixteen,’ he murmured, surprised and pleased, then his face fell. ‘I wonder where she is at this moment, what she’s doing?’

  They halted and stared at the hills beyond the gardens. Both were uneasy. She wondered if he were remembering the blood in the Hoggarths’ kitchen. Seeking to distract him and trying to avoid the subject of the submerged Land Rover, by association she arrived at Edith, and said rather wildly, ‘So you can stay as long as you like in Plumtree now that Anne’s decided not to turn the flats into one unit.’

  ‘No. I shall join Perry as soon as I know where she is.’

  ‘Finish your job here first. You’re going to need money.’

  ‘Besides, I hate Plumtree.’ He wasn’t listening. ‘I’m on my own now.’ He was before; he meant he missed Perry too much in the empty flat. ‘Edith screeches,’ he went on. ‘D’you know, if you listened, I reckon you could actually hear what she’s saying on the phone.’

  ‘What does she say?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never listen.’

  ‘I suppose, if she had some idea about Isaac’s intentions, she’d have told Mounsey.’

  ‘So that’s what’s bothering you: you think she knows what happened. You think Isaac’s in the Land Rover, don’t you?’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough.’

  They did. Tyndale arrived when they were finishing lunch. Anne had taken a surprisingly long time before calling them indoors, indeed, etiquette had gone by the board today. Their stomachs were complaining loudly by the time they were summoned to join the party. In the shabby drawing-room Clive, beaming hospitality, welcomed them to a feast of baguettes stuffed with ham and salami and what he called salad fixings.

  Both Bob and Marina were present, blandly avoiding any reference to missing persons, explaining that although they had most visitors at weekends, it was then that the local historical society waded in to supply guides. In fact, Marina told Miss Pink, the weekend was their most relaxing time, when all the family could be together. Referring to the absence of her son, she said casually, ‘James will be in for tea. Actually we don’t see much of the children during the daytime in the summer holidays. We’re lucky to get Debbie off a pony. They say you’d like a ride. We can fix you up.’

  They were still talking horses when Tyndale arrived to tell them that the body of Isaac Dent had been recovered from the submerged Land Rover, and his shotgun, both barrels discharged.

  ‘Empty,’ Harald corrected, without turning a hair. ‘You don’t carry a gun loaded.’

  Marina was shaking her head. ‘We never saw him the worse for drink, did we, Bob?’

  ‘He was getting on. Like Dad said, old people lack judgement, and he’d been up and down that road so many times he’d have thought he knew it backwards.’

  ‘He was shot,’ Tyndale said.

  ‘Who was shot?’ Deborah, who had excused herself as soon as she’d eaten a sandwich, was in the doorway, her eyes on Tyndale, avidly curious.

  Anne held out her hand. ‘Old Isaac, love; he’s shot himself.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Tyndale looked meaningly from Anne to her granddaughter.

  She accepted the hint. ‘What was it, Deb?’

  The girl turned to her mother. ‘That new foal, Mum; she’s cut herself. It’s not bad, but you ought to look at it.’

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute. You get the mare in, will you?’

  Deborah hesitated, eyeing them hopefully. Her grandmother nodded, confirming the dismissal. Knowing they wouldn’t talk about Isaac until she was out of earshot, she went, dragging her feet.

  Harald broke the silence. ‘Isaac would favour the gun,’ he said. ‘It’s either that or hanging in these parts.’

  ‘It wasn’t suicide,’ Tyndale said.

  ‘I’d like to believe that’ — Harald was unfazed — ‘but a gun’s not going to go off by accident as a chap’s driving, is it?’

  ‘Hardly.’ Tyndale’s tone was dry. ‘Not to shoot him in two different places anyway.’

  Even Clive gaped at that. He had been following the exchange with what looked like resignation, as if the suicide of one of the family’s tenants was a kind of occupational hazard of living in the sticks. Now he was intrigued. ‘How do you figure that?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s a wound to the left shoulder,’ Tyndale said: ‘a cluster of pellets spreading out, but the main wound is under the right ear. The exit wound is — large.’ In fact the other side of the skull had been blasted outwards.

  ‘That’s odd.’ Harald was visualising it without a qualm. ‘He fired twice?’

  Anne was dumbfounded, as was Rick. Harald and Clive were fascinated, Miss Pink wary, watching Tyndale. How many suicides shot themselves twice?

  ‘He was seated on the passenger side,’ Tyndale told them.

  ‘But he couldn’t be!’ Anne came to life. ‘He must have moved over — floated there as the truck sank.’

  The inspector regarded her thoughtfully, then shifted his gaze to Rick. ‘There were shot pellets and a cartridge case in the Hoggarths’ kitchen,’ he said, and waited. Everyone looked at Rick.

  ‘What are you saying?’ His colour ebbed. ‘No!’

  ‘I’m not saying anything.’ Tyndale was smooth as cream. ‘But I’m wondering where Sharon Ashworth is now.’

  Rick was blank. ‘He means Perry,’ Miss Pink said.

  He said angrily, ‘So he took a gun with him — he went there to — well, what? Rape her? Anyway, he was there — that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? And the gun went off — I ask you: why take a gun when you go to see a young girl? He meant worse than rape, the old bastard! So they struggled and the gun went off and he was scared stiff — so was she, of course. She ran one way, he staggered out to the Land Rover and drove up to the lake there and — and pointed the truck down the slope and shot himself deliberately. He couldn’t face the music after Perry reported him.’ He collapsed, exhausted after the outburst.

  ‘He didn’t drive four miles after losing all that blood,’ Tyndale said, ‘and —’

  ‘You’re suggesting a kid who weighs less than a hundred pounds carried him out to the Land Rover?’

  ‘Or she had help. And he was found in the passenger seat. Like someone else sa
id, you’d need another driver and another car to get the first driver back to town.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Rick sighed. ‘Not again.’

  *

  ‘He didn’t kill Isaac,’ Harald said, but the statement lacked conviction. ‘You look fierce, Mel. What is it?’

  ‘Why would Isaac go to Whelp Yard with a loaded shotgun? It’s out of character. He’s not — he wasn’t a psychopath.’ She’d had only the briefest glimpse of him, hadn’t actually spoken to him, but she couldn’t see a septuagenarian farmer as a homicidal rapist. Of course, it happened, but brains didn’t snap without some kind of warning.

  Harald said dully, ‘He was normal — within the limits of an ingrown community.’

  She looked at him sharply, then at Anne who spread her hands and sighed as if it had all become too much for her.

  Tyndale had taken Rick away for the second time to help the police with their inquiries — that loaded expression — leaving the Fawcetts and Miss Pink stunned and silent until Harald voiced his assertion of Rick’s innocence.

  ‘Did anyone know Isaac well?’ Clive asked. ‘I guess Mum grew up with him but you wouldn’t have socialised?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Anne was dismissive. ‘They were neighbours — once; nothing more. Besides, we were a different age group.’ She caught Miss Pink’s calculating eye. ‘Edith was much younger than I,’ she said firmly, ‘Isaac was older. A few years means a great deal when you’re young. And I was married; I had my own interests.’

  It took one to know one; Miss Pink was another person who became voluble when she was trying to distract people. She looked round the room: Anne, Harald, Clive; she would like to talk to each individually. She had the feeling that Bob and Marina were innocently puzzled, and so disturbed by the bizarre event in Whelp Yard that they were blocking it out. As if to confirm this Marina stood up. ‘I must go and look at that foal,’ she said breathlessly.

  Bob murmured an apology and followed. Now Miss Pink had the impression that the remaining three were presenting a united front towards her. After all, she and Rick had been excluded from what she was sure had been a pre-lunch conference — probably Bob and Marina as well; she sensed that her absence now would be a relief.

  ‘I’m worried about Rick,’ she said, rising in her turn. ‘I’d like to go back to town and see if there’s anything I can do. And there’s the dog...’

  Anne picked up the cue neatly. ‘The dog will be all right in our garden, but if there’s anything you can do to help Rick... We’ll go home with Clive. What kind of help did you have in mind?’

  ‘I’d like to speak to him, ask if he needs a solicitor — and clothes, of course, if they’re going to keep him at the police station overnight.’ She was lying. Rick could take care of himself for the time being. She was heading for Isaac’s farm.

  11

  Miss Pink couldn’t put her finger on her motive for keeping quiet about her destination except that she had the feeling Anne would try to obstruct her. And Anne rather than Harald because she seemed to have more to do with the Fawcetts’ tenants.

  She didn’t know the location of the farm. Mounsey had mentioned Blondel. Was that Norman French? The Cumbrian names were a miscellany of ancient Europe: Norse, British, Gaelic, French, and the inhabitants bore all the traces of their ancestry. Harald, for instance, so obviously of Norse extraction with his pale hair and eyes, not to mention the spelling of his name. His son: even more of a Scandinavian type. And Clive was handsome under the flesh although his looks could be derived from his mother since he didn’t share his father with Bob. Of course Thornthwaite could have been a Norse type.

  So — where was Blondel? North of Kelleth, Mounsey had said. She stopped in a gateway and studied the large-scale map. She found the place by working outwards from Orrdale House; Blondel was marked on a dead-end lane that was itself a turning off a minor road. ‘Cloughfoot’ said the hand-painted sign at the second fork. It didn’t bother her; Isaac hadn’t seemed the kind of man to advertise his presence. Sure enough, when she came to the first farm track, the lane ran on and at least two cottages showed ahead. She turned up the unmarked track.

  *

  ‘Mounsey got the news on his mobile,’ Albert Bainbridge said. ‘He’ll have taken her home now so that’s where you’ll find her.’

  He hammered another staple into a post. Beyond the fence the bullocks watched with mild interest.

  Miss Pink had experienced a moment of fright when she came on an old Land Rover at the back of the dilapidated farmhouse, but when she’d cut her engine, and had found and quietened the dogs, she’d heard the prosaic sounds of hammering and had discovered this old fellow repairing the broken fence.

  She’d hardly needed to say that she was looking for Edith, had come from the scene of the ‘accident’, before he was demanding details. Mounsey had been close-mouthed. She told him that the body had been recovered but she didn’t mention the gun or the wounds, allowing Albert to assume that Isaac had run out of road. ‘Although Lord knows what he were doing up there at night,’ he said. ‘But maybe it wasn’t night?’

  She said she didn’t know but it would be all one if a person had had rather too much to drink.

  ‘Isaac didn’t drink,’ Albert said, ‘leastways not so he couldn’t drive, but then maybe he did this time.’

  ‘So you’re looking after the animals,’ she observed chattily. ‘What’s going to happen to the farm? I assume Edith will inherit.’

  ‘No!’ He stared at her, then gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘She let you think that? Isaac were only a tenant. Farm belongs to the Fawcetts, don’t it?’

  ‘My mistake. She never actually told me Isaac owned it; that was what I assumed. So this was the place that was allocated him when the dale was flooded.’

  ‘Wrong again! This were to be the Thornthwaites’ farm — that’s Mrs Fawcett, as is now; she married Mr Harald at the big house.’ He checked and squinted at her. ‘You don’t know Mrs Fawcett?’

  ‘What does she have to do with Blondel? Oh, I see: she owns it.’

  ‘Well, in a sense; her married into the family so her got it back. This is how it was: Mrs Fawcett were Mrs Thornthwaite. Walter Thornthwaite were her first husband, and when t’old village were flooded, folk was given new farms, and Blondel were to come to Thornthwaites — as tenants, see? But then Walter — he left, and his missus let Isaac take over.’

  Miss Pink looked around. ‘It wasn’t much loss to her.’

  ‘It were a nice little farm at one time,’ he protested. ‘The best around. And look at t’place now! It’s a mystery to me how Fawcetts never booted him out. Why, if I ran my farm like this un, Anne Fawcett woulda given me my marching orders years since! Now Walter’— his tone softened — ‘he’d have made a fine job o’ Blondel. He loved the land, did Walter; whatever come over ‘im —’ He stopped. ‘But you know that story.’ It was an accusation. ‘You know yon skeleton were found in the peat.’

  She looked him in the eye. ‘There’s no evidence to tie the child to Walter Thornthwaite,’ she said earnestly, coming clean and not bothered by it. ‘Just because they disappeared around the same time is no proof that he was responsible for her death.’

  He returned her gaze. ‘Aye, you been talking to folk. Did no one say as it coulda been an accident? Those girls were wee devils, always teasing — ‘least Joannie was, and her the younger too! But a pretty little thing.’ He shook his head. ‘I mind the wife saying when she went missing as she’d always said Joannie Gardner would come to a bad end.’

  ‘Teasing?’ she repeated. ‘Teasing the boys?’

  ‘No! Men. Them weren’t interested in boys as such.’

  ‘Who’s "them"?’

  ‘Why, her and Edith, o’course. Only Edith, she weren’t so much interested in — you know — bad things; her was just into general mischief.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I dunno.’ He was embarrassed. ‘Maybe she egged Joannie on like. Oh, she were naughty
all right but you wouldn’t see young Edith going in a barn —’ Again he stopped.

  ‘Joannie did that? You knew?’ Miss Pink was shocked.

  ‘Not then: afterwards. We talked about it afterwards.’

  There was a pause while she assimilated this. ‘And Walter,’ she prompted. ‘But you liked Walter. He wouldn’t —’

  ‘No! Never. He were more of a — well, a stern fellow and — I don’t know how to say this but he wasn’t much of a lady’s man, you know? For all he was married.’

  Miss Pink abandoned all caution. ‘You’re saying he was gay?’ Anyone who watched TV had to be familiar with current terminology.

  Albert regarded the bullocks thoughtfully. ‘I used to wonder,’ he murmured.

  She said quietly, so as not to disturb his mood, ‘I did hear a suggestion that they might have gone off together: that Joannie persuaded him to take her to Canada.’

  Astonishment was replaced by amusement. He grinned at her. She wondered how often he shaved; if he’d been younger the bristles might have passed for designer stubble. ‘Who you been talking to?’ he asked. ‘That’s the wildest tale I heard yet.’

  ‘She was much older than her years.’

  ‘True enough, but Walter Thornthwaite carrying off a girl to Canada? Never. He’d be scared stiff of her.’

  Miss Pink frowned. ‘So if someone said he was a lusty fellow it would be a lie?’ He regarded her shrewdly. ‘Perhaps it was Isaac who was meant?’ She appeared to be asking herself that question.

  ‘If Walter were, he hid it well. He were different from the rest. Afore us married, us all ran after t’lassies; lads is human, all said and done’— his eyes slid sideways and he smirked — ‘even Mr Harald there at one time.’

  Her guts gave a lurch. ‘People would have known,’ she said weakly. He shrugged and was suddenly a travesty of innocence. ‘The big house was too far away,’ she added, trying to draw him out again.

  ‘Not on a horse.’