by Gwen Moffat
‘Edith’s a lying —’
‘That’s right,’ Harald said.
‘I’m addressing Mrs Fawcett, sir.’
‘She can’t tell you anything; she didn’t know till afterwards. Oh, she knew I was going to meet him, but that was as far as it went. I met him in the byre and we had words. He was fond of her, d’you see; he didn’t want her to leave him. So I told him she was carrying my child.’ He looked fondly at Clive, then his face fell. ‘He hated that; it was humiliating, a reflection on his manhood. One suspects he was sterile. We quarrelled and it came to blows. Neither of us was a fighter but I landed a punch and he fell and didn’t get up. Must have hit his head on a stone. Perhaps he had a thin skull. Anyway the poor man was dead. So I pushed the wall down on top of him.’
‘He’s told the truth as far as knocking Walter down.’ Anne had herself in hand now. ‘But he thought Walter was no more than concussed, if that, and would come home, so Harald came running up to the house to tell me how Walter had taken the news about the baby, and I sent him home — to the big house. I said I’d look after Walter.
‘I went down to the byre but Walter was dead. It was me who pushed the wall down on top of him. Of course,’ she added quickly, ‘it’s possible he wasn’t dead and the falling stones killed him after all.’
‘He was dead, ma’am.’
‘What?’ Clive gasped. ‘How can you tell after all these years?’
‘There’s a shotgun wound. It’s scarcely visible from the front. He was shot through the eye; the exit wound’s at the back of the skull.’
16
‘You don’t need me,’ Miss Pink protested. ‘Harald’s in the clear. It had to be the gunshot that killed Walter. Someone else came along and shot him when Harald went away to tell Anne they’d had a fight.’
‘The police appear to be thinking that way,’ Dave Murray said, ‘but suppose it dawns on them that Harald could have been carrying a gun that night, or was out rabbiting and the shooting was an accident — well, manslaughter? This is where you come in.’
He had come knocking on her door late that evening, dishevelled, breathing urgency and very wet. The rain had started an hour ago and showed no sign of stopping. A few more days and the skull might have been covered and concealed for another forty-five years.
Clive had telephoned Dave at his home after Tyndale left Nichol House, had given him the gist of the interview and asked him to inform Miss Pink. ‘They need you,’ he pleaded. ‘Clive’s frantic. He knows you’ve been involved with murder before —Harald told him. Clive says you’ll be able to find out who shot Walter. He reckons the police are holding some cards close to their chest. They had this conversation with the Fawcetts and didn’t reveal till right at the end that he’d been shot, although they did know that Harald and Anne were involved. They got that from Edith. That woman’s a monster. When Anne wanted her out of the flat she threatened to tell the police that Harald killed Walter. And Anne thought he did! By accident certainly but it would only be his word. Imagine Harald serving a life sentence! You can’t bear to think how those two must have suffered over the years.’
‘Well, Edith’s blackmail is recent, but Isaac —’ She stopped dead. After a moment she went on, ‘I think I’ll go across and speak to Edith.’
‘Is that wise? Would you like me to come with you?’
‘No, she’ll talk better if I’m on my own — providing she’s still capable of talking. However, you might care to wait…’
*
Edith’s windows were tightly closed against the rain, that and the television must be loud enough to muffle shouts from below. Miss Pink turned back to the churchyard and, picking up lumps of damp soil, threw them at a window until it was flung up and Edith shouted in a fury: ‘Clear off then! Louts, vandals, I’ll set the dog on you — one more stone and I’ll call police, I’ll —’
‘It’s Melinda Pink. Let me in. We have to talk.’
Pale in the lamplight, Edith’s face turned this way and that, trying to penetrate shadows. ‘D’you know what time this is? You got the police with you?’
‘I’m alone. I need to talk about Joannie.’
‘What?’
‘Joan Gardner.’
The face disappeared and the window was slammed. Miss Pink drew back, pulling the hood of her cagoule forward against the rain. She watched the windows. After a few minutes a light appeared in the living-room and then the door opened silently. There was no light at the foot of the stairs. She stepped forward. Edith said nothing, which was disconcerting. The woman had to be behind the door.
‘You go first,’ Miss Pink said. ‘I’ll close the door.’
There was no bottle on the chenille cloth but the room smelled of the liqueur and dust, and underclothes that had been worn too long. Edith had dressed in a hurry; her blouse was buttoned out of kilter. They sat on opposite sides of the table. ‘This’s got nowt to do with you,’ she said, as if they were in the middle of a conversation.
‘I found her skeleton.’
‘So?’
‘Isaac killed her.’
Edith put her elbows on the table, her hands under her chin supporting her head. Miss Pink thought she’d probably taken a sleeping pill on top of the alcohol. ‘I already told the police,’ she said.
‘And you told them Anne killed her first husband.’
Edith’s eyes opened wide. ‘Have they arrested her?’
‘Why wait till now before exposing her?’
‘Didn’t need to before. But she’s not going to evict me: turn me out to live on some rubbishy estate with all them ‘ooligans. What difference do it make when she done it. She can still pay.’
‘How did she do it?’
‘How?’
‘How did she kill him?’
Edith glared. ‘Her hit him with a stone and tumbled the wall down, like everyone knows.’
‘How did you know?’
Edith’s mouth opened and closed in astonishment that looked genuine. ‘You found un! Under gable-end!’
‘But you threatened to tell the police a week ago. How did you know then that he was there, in the old byre?’
Edith stared, then lowered her eyes. The lids flicked up again.
‘Isaac told me, o’ course.’
‘How did he know?’
‘You ask too many questions.’ Miss Pink waited. ‘He knew,
didn’t he?’ It was spat out.
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. Would I ask him that?’ Another pause. She went on sullenly: ‘He heard the stones come down then. He were out shepherding. He saw them running away. He moved the stones and found the body — dead. Nothing he could do.’
‘Except blackmail Anne to let him have Blondel.’
‘I don’t know nowt about that. It weren’t my business. I were only little.’
‘You lived at Blondel until you were married.’
She shrugged. ‘I kept house for un. Why not? He were my brother.’
‘You said Anne — or maybe Harald? — hit Walter with a stone.’
‘I don’t know. I weren’t there.’
‘But you could blackmail Anne —’
‘I never —’
‘You can use any word you like, it comes to the same thing. Did they shoot him?’
Edith grinned. ‘Never. Brutal, they was: stoned un to death!’
‘Walter was shot.’
‘He couldn’t be,’ Edith said.
‘There’s a gunshot wound in the skull. Isaac shot him.’
In the ensuing silence a sharp burst of rain lashed the window. Edith was breathing deeply. After a while she said, ‘Now why would he do a thing like that?’
‘Harald and Walter fought. Harald knocked Walter down and left him — alive. Isaac saw his chance and killed him because, if Walter disappeared, people would think he had murdered Joan. And it was Isaac who killed Joan.’
‘I know that bit.’ Edith was impatient and suddenly alert. ‘So it were Isaac who
dropped the stones on him?’
‘No, Anne did that. She truly thought that Harald had killed Walter. The wound didn’t show. He was shot through the eye and she’d attribute a little blood to a blow from Harald’s fist, possibly a stone used as a weapon, certainly not a gun. The exit wound was at the back of the head and she wouldn’t see it in the dark. Isaac could have intended to take the body away, to put it in the peat like Joan’s, but Anne got there first and concealed it. She played right into his hands, in fact.’ Miss Pink’s tone changed. ‘All this will have been a great shock to you.’
‘It’s one thing after another,’ Edith said miserably. ‘My own brother. What else? Is there more?’
‘Why did he need to kill Perry?’
Edith looked as if she were in the depths of despair. ‘He killed her too?’ Her voice rose.
‘Why? Why was he so obsessed with young girls, at his age —’
‘He never! He never run after ‘em. That Joan, she tormented un —’ Edith checked, fingering her lips.
‘So why Perry?’
‘She knew about Joannie,’ Edith said.
Miss Pink sketched a nod as if this were common knowledge. ‘She overheard you talking about the bone.’
‘She taunted me! That phone call, when her dog found the bone: he phoned me. She heard. My fault, I talk too loud on phone. He were terrified. I were telling un to give over, no one knew except me; everyone thought as it were Walter killed Joannie. He were safe, I said, no one’d ever know, just keep quiet, go about his shepherding as if it were nowt to do with un, wasn’t even on his grazing. ‘Sides, they might never find the rest of it. She heard it all. Isaac, he went to Whelp to silence her for good an’ all.’
‘But she wasn’t there.’
‘What? ‘Course she were. They fought and — what are you saying: she wasn’t there?’
‘There was a struggle but not with Perry. There are fingerprints.’
‘There can’t be.’ Edith’s eyes were fixed.
‘They’ll be matched. Everyone’s prints will be taken for comparison. They have mine.’ Miss Pink smiled benignly: the consummate liar.
‘All right, I’ll tell you. I followed him. She’d left doors open: one to back yard, and kitchen door. He’d gone in. She weren’t there. He’d told me she were the only one as knew t’truth besides me and he blamed me for that, because of talking loud on t’phone. Got nasty, he did. I tried to take t’gun from him and we struggled like you said but he were only a littlun, tha knows. I could match un any day. And gun went off and wounded him. I thought it were just a scrape like but there were a lot of blood. Scared us, that did. He wanted out so I helped un to his Land Rover and he sent me home. Told me to keep me mouth shut. I said as he should go to hospital and he said he would. Wouldn’t let me go with un. No sense anyways, I can’t drive. Then he musta gone up the dale and shot hisself. He’d got a load of sin on his conscience: Joannie, Walter, what he’d intended for that Perry — he’d know the police would be after him soon as she talked. Which she would soon as she come back and saw the blood in the kitchen. So he decided to end it all.’
‘How did he do it?’
‘He musta wedged the gun down the side like’ — Edith twisted and motioned to the right where the driver’s door would be — ‘put the truck in gear, one foot on — feet on them pedal things, and pulled trigger.’
Miss Pink nodded thoughtfully, trying to visualise it. ‘Poor fellow. And so terrible for you. It’s always worse for the ones left behind. Tell me, when he decided Perry had to be silenced, how did he know she hadn’t already talked to Rick or Anne about the phone call?’
‘I were protecting him all the way. I knew from how they spoke to me: Rick and that Anne, they didn’t suspect nowt, so she hadn’t told un. Perry were the only one to be feared of. Drive her away, I told him: frighten her off; ‘sides, I said, it be his word against hers, who’d believe a little thieving whore, I said, but I never meant for him to kill her!’
*
‘I was just about to come across,’ Dave said, greatly relieved as she came up the stairs. ‘You’ve been an age. Did you find out anything?’
She told him. ‘Oh my,’ he breathed at the end. ‘So Isaac killed Walter. But she didn’t know how he did it. What made you think he didn’t tell her?’
‘I know country people: the more isolated their lives the less communicative they are, even in the family, particularly there sometimes. Everything I heard suggested a dour taciturn couple. He might have told her Walter was dead, even boasted he was responsible, but there was a possibility that he didn’t say how he’d done it. And whatever he said, it wouldn’t have been at the time. Edith was ten years old at the time of the flood.’
‘They were hardly a couple — at any time.’
She stared at him. He grimaced and changed tack. ‘They seem to have been communicative enough when the bone was found. Can you imagine Edith shrieking away on the phone? Why didn’t Perry tell Rick? Why didn’t Rick hear that phone call himself?’
‘Neither of them did. Perry teased Edith about her relationship with Isaac and implied the slightest sound could be heard below in Rick’s flat. It was the old adage of that telegram: "All is known, fly at once." Half the recipients will take off. Edith assumed Perry had overheard that call.’
‘Stupid woman. So she told Isaac and he — the old bastard!’
‘The old murderer. He’d killed twice already.’
‘Why did he go after Joan?’
She shrugged, exhausted. ‘He liked little girls.’
‘He had one already, don’t you think?’
‘Who knows?’
‘Edith does. Do you think that Walter suspected incest? Do you think he said?’
‘Oh no. It would never be mentioned. Isaac shot him to produce a fall-guy for Joan’s disappearance. Although he wasn’t slow to see how he could blackmail Anne and make her give up Blondel.’ She yawned and apologised. ‘I’m afraid I have to turn you out, I can’t keep my eyes open.’
‘So it’s all wrapped up,’ he said, turning back at the head of the stairs. ‘Perry can come out of hiding, Rick will come home and complete his series, you’ll write your book; everybody takes up where they were before Bags found that bone. You look dubious. Did I say something?’
She shook her head, her eyelids drooping. ‘I don’t think Edith loved her brother,’ she said.
She didn’t know what she was saying, he thought; she was half asleep.
17
The rain continued relentlessly through the night, to be augmented in the small hours by a sensational thunderstorm and a cloudburst over the high fells. The downpour tailed off before dawn and by the time the sun rose the sky was gentian blue with clouds piled above the Pennines like cauliflowers. Roofs steamed, birds sat on the ridges warming their backs, and Kelleth children were warned to keep clear of the river banks where the peaty water streamed past, the occasional sheep carcass rolling with the current.
At ten o’clock Edith breakfasted on tea and Alka Seltzer and went downstairs to see how the hanging baskets had fared in the storm. The petunias were a mess. She was in a carping mood when Miss Pink came round the corner, the collie’s lead in one hand, a key in the other.
‘I’ve been searching his flat,’ she said, as if no night had intervened between the two encounters.
‘Searching for what? I didn’t hear you in there.’
‘Evidence. I’m wondering where Perry is.’
‘You was looking for her there?’ Edith’s eyes slewed sideways as if they could penetrate walls.
‘We must leave no stone unturned — and she has to be somewhere.’ Miss Pink sounded mystified. ‘Or her body is.’ She leaned against the sunlit wall, prepared for a neighbourly chat. ‘I’ve been thinking. Obviously Isaac didn’t shoot himself despite what the police say — wedging his gun and so on — because he was in the passenger seat, so Rick had to be driving — well, Rick or Perry...’ She paused, blinking. Edith was poker-fac
ed. ‘No, that doesn’t fit,’ Miss Pink murmured — and repeated it loudly for Edith’s benefit, ‘because I’m thinking that he killed her and then — buried her? Threw her in the river? In that case the body might never be found. Have you seen the river? It’s full of drowned sheep.’ She shuddered, looking down at Bags sitting at her feet. ‘I’m walking the dog for Harald,’ she gabbled on. ‘We usually take the river walk but the water’s over the path. And he would go in, he loves the water; he’d be swept away. I’d have no chance of getting him out, I can’t swim. What was I saying?’ It was rhetorical; she was merely drawing breath to plunge on, but Edith took it for a question.
‘About the girl in his flat.’
‘The body.’ Miss Pink nodded. ‘I have a theory. It must have occurred to you too. I don’t think your brother went to the Hoggarths’ to see Perry but to find Rick.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because he’d killed Perry.’
‘Who had?’
‘Isaac. You told him to frighten her off. He did more than that. You think so yourself.’
Edith was fidgeting with her hands, pleating her apron, scowling with concentration. ‘You was in this flat.’ She was looking for firm ground in the quicksand that had appeared.
‘He could have killed her here — or at the Hoggarths’ — or she could have visited him at Blondel. Did you think of that? Of course you did; you’ve maintained all along that she was a prostitute. How well have you searched Blondel?’
‘I never searched. She weren’t there.’
‘In a wardrobe perhaps, or the barns. In a pool below the waterfall? She’s been missing for five days. There’s a countrywide alert for her. If she were alive she’d have been found by now. She can’t hide that yellow hair.’
‘It don’t make sense.’
‘It does when you know that Isaac didn’t commit suicide. Rick’s fingerprints will be in the Land Rover.’
‘They won’t then. It were under the water!’
‘That makes no difference with modern technology.’ Miss Pink was dismissive. ‘There’ll be prints on the gun too. Unless he wore gloves, of course.’
