Suddenly While Gardening

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  Some minutes later he got up and walked out of the room and down the corridor to Superintendent Crookshank’s office. He found him in conversation with his chief constable. There were empty coffee cups on the desk and both men were smoking. Pollard looked down at their enquiring faces through a thin blue haze.

  ‘Come along in,’ Henry Landfear invited. ‘Is the Yard about to make an arrest or just continuing with its enquiries? Anything we can do?’

  Pollard drew up a chair and sat down.

  ‘Well, there’s a bit of information you could give me off the cuff,’ he said. ‘Miss Grant’s death last year was sudden, wasn’t it?’

  As he expected, astonishment was followed by a slight caginess.

  ‘Yes,’ Henry Landfear replied laconically. ‘She fell off a ladder while she was tying up some climbing roses, and fractured her skull. The actual cause of death was intracranial haemorrhage.’

  ‘Were you —’ Pollard hesitated fractionally — ‘absolutely satisfied with the verdict of accidental death?’

  ‘What the hell —’ Henry Landfear broke off and began again, speaking with deliberation. ‘To answer your question. Yes, we were. Perfectly satisfied. She suffered from Meniere’s disease, and her balance was liable to be disturbed. Of course she shouldn’t have climbed ladders at all, but she was a strong-minded woman and didn’t believe in wrapping herself up in cotton wool. From the position of the body on the ground it was clear that she had been reaching too far to one side, lost her balance, and fallen. Her watch was broken in the fall, and had stopped at five past two. There was no one else in the house. The nephew and niece who inherited the bulk of her estate were both out, and had witnesses to confirm their whereabouts. The daily woman had left before lunch as usual, and was at a Women’s Fellowship meeting. Peter Grant found the body when he came home from the office at a quarter past five. In view of all this the verdict was a foregone conclusion.’

  ‘Why I’m asking about it,’ Pollard said, deciding to ignore the defensiveness that had built up, ‘is that there’s now no reasonable doubt that George Akerman was responsible for the death of the chap whose skeleton turned up in the kistvaen. Things have moved fast in the last twenty-four hours, and I was just waiting for official confirmation that he changed his car soon after Easter last year before putting you into the picture. The death probably took place at the Wanton Wenches stone circle at the Biddle end of Cattesmoor, and Akerman brought the body in his car to Starbarrow Farm and hid it in an old well-shaft. It was when the Lings were away. Incidentally, Ling has admitted finding the skeleton and parking it in the kistvaen. I don’t believe that it was deliberate murder on Akerman’s part, but I’m fairly sure that he had plans for his future which made it vital that he shouldn’t be charged with manslaughter, for instance.’

  Defensiveness on the part of the local men was replaced by stupefaction.

  ‘Akerman?’ Henry Landfear exclaimed. ‘It’s incredible! And anyway, how the devil does Heloise Grant’s death come into it?’

  ‘Suppose Davina Grant and Akerman were going to marry, and try to step into her local status while living at Upway Manor? If I’m right, her elimination was the first step.’

  ‘First step?’

  ‘Well, don’t these anonymous letters and the phoney phone call look rather like an attempt to implicate Peter Grant in the skeleton affair, anyway to the extent of getting him talked about, so that he might decide to clear out of the area, and agree to sell his share of the house to Davina?’

  A long uneasy silence developed.

  ‘Remember that bastard Worth writing in the Advertiser when the Friends of Cattesmoor were electing a new president to follow Miss Grant?’ Crookshank asked suddenly. ‘Something about it being a surprise in certain quarters where it seemed to have been taken for granted that the job would be hereditary.’

  Pollard suddenly realised that it was Crookshank’s earlier remark about Worth’s journalistic activities that he had subconsciously wanted to follow up.

  ‘I remember your saying that he wrote malicious articles,’ he said. ‘Was he just enjoying having a dig at Davina Grant, do you think, or could he have suspected something offbeat about the aunt’s death?’

  ‘If Worth had any suspicions of Davina Grant or Akerman or anybody else he certainly wouldn’t have left it at that,’ Henry Landfear replied, looking worried. ‘It’s simply that he’s a chap with an uncanny nose for people’s weak spots, and enjoys drawing attention to them. I can’t deny that he’s sometimes been useful to us, without realising it, of course. No doubt the girl behaved tactlessly, and that gave him a handle... Look here, Pollard, just what do you want done? I honestly can’t see that you’ve unearthed anything at all that would justify reopening the enquiry into Heloise Grant’s death.’

  ‘Absolutely fair comment,’ Pollard agreed. ‘All I’m asking is to see the verbatim report of the inquest, and that if I stumble on anything that seems suggestive, you’ll discuss it.’

  They conceded that this was reasonable.

  In the event all the relevant records were handed over, including the signed statements of everyone interviewed in connection with Heloise Grant’s death, and a number of photographs of the south front of Upway Manor. With an unexpected flash of imagination Superintendent Crookshank provided an electric fan which made Pollard and Toye’s small room more tolerable in the remorseless heat of midsummer, 1976. In spite of this amenity they found their long stint of concentrated mental effort taxing.

  Gradually a picture of the events of 20 May 1975 emerged. For Pollard with his knowledge of their setting it was a vivid one. The morning had been perfectly normal and uneventful. Peter Grant had fetched Mrs Broom, the daily help, from Stoneham, before setting off again for his office. She had carried out her ordinary domestic work, with Heloise and Davina taking their usual share of the chores. Later in the morning Heloise had settled down to paperwork at her desk. At midday Davina had driven Mrs Broom back to Stoneham, and then returned to the snack lunch which she and her aunt always had, the household’s main meal of the day being in the evening when Peter was home from the office. When questioned, Mrs Broom had said that Heloise Grant seemed just as usual; Davina, on the other hand, thought she looked tired, and said she had advised against the afternoon’s gardening her aunt had planned to do.

  ‘Naturally she’d tell the police that if she’d got a fake accident lined up,’ Pollard observed, taking a gulp of a cold drink provided by the canteen. ‘However, let’s press on.’

  After lunch, according to Davina, her aunt had gone to the drawing room with the day’s Times for a rest. She herself had gone up to her bedsitter to get ready for her afternoon session at the Stoneham museum, where she did two stints of voluntary duty each week. A visit by a party of school-children had been booked for two o’clock, so she had left home in good time, coming downstairs just after half-past one. She found that her aunt had already gone into the garden, and brought an aluminium ladder from the gardener’s shed and propped it against the front of the house, in order to tie up some sprays of the climbing roses loosened by a recent high wind. A further effort to get Heloise to take the afternoon quietly was laughed at, and she was told not to fuss. Davina drove to the museum where her presence from roughly 1.45 to 5.10 was vouched for by the caretaker and numerous other witnesses. On leaving she had gone to the Rectory with a message from her aunt. By chance she had mentioned to the caretaker that she had a call to make there before going home, and so her brother had been able to ring her at about half-past five and tell her to go at once to the hospital where Heloise had been taken by ambulance.

  ‘Fool proof, from the moment she left the Manor, wouldn’t you say?’ Toye asked.

  Pollard agreed.

  ‘Cast-iron, If there’s a weak spot, it’s not here.’

  Peter Grant’s alibi was equally unbreakable. He had lunched with a friend in a bar, and spent the entire afternoon working on plans in his office, seen at intervals by his secretary and
other members of the staff. After knocking off at five o’clock he had driven straight home, and been appalled to discover his aunt lying on the gravel drive at the foot of the ladder. He had at once dialled 999 for an ambulance and managed to contact Davina at the Rectory by first ringing the museum.

  ‘Equally cast-iron,’ Pollard commented. ‘He’s obviously out of it. So is Mrs Broom. She turned up at the Parish Church Hall with a pal at about two-twenty, having had a bit of dinner with the said pal on coming back from her morning job.’

  The investigations by the police had been thorough. An important clue to what had happened was a length of green garden string. One end was attached to a loose spray of a climbing rose well to the right of the ladder, while the other hung loose. The angle at which the body was lying was consistent with Heloise Grant’s having leant well over to the right to tie the spray to a nail in the wall. The impact of her fall had slightly shifted the ladder, which was found to be a little crooked. It was in perfect condition and very steady, and carried numerous impressions of her fingerprints, and some less well-defined specimens of her gardener’s, but no others. As she reached the ground, her left wrist and hand had struck the large stones bordering the flowerbed along the front of the house, breaking the glass and mainspring of her watch which had stopped at five minutes past two. The watch was otherwise in perfect order, and had recently been cleaned and certified as keeping perfect time by Mr Robert Dell, horologist, of Stoneham. She was dead on arrival at the hospital. A post-mortem examination had found the cause of death to be a severe intra-cranial haemorrhage resulting from a fractured skull, the time of death being estimated as between three and four hours previously. As she had been lying in the sun, it was difficult to be more exact, the pathologist had stated.

  At the inquest Heloise Grant’s doctor had stated that while in general her health was good, she suffered from Meniere’s disease, and was liable to attacks in which her physical balance was affected. He had repeatedly advised her to avoid heights and all activities in which a loss of balance would be dangerous. She had not, however, paid much attention to these warnings, being a strong character and temperamentally averse to what she called ‘giving in’ to her disability. She certainly should not have climbed a ladder to any appreciable height.

  The coroner had summed up at considerable length, giving due emphasis to all the main points which had emerged in evidence. He also gave due weight to the possibility of some unknown person having come into the garden of Upway Manor while Heloise Grant was on the ladder attending to the roses. She could have been startled by someone calling out, turned to see who it was, and in so doing lost her balance and fallen. If such a person had been an acquaintance, he or she had not come forward in spite of all the publicity. Moreover, it was impossible to believe that anyone in this category witnessing the fall would not have taken immediate steps to get medical aid. Mr Peter Grant had found the front door of the house standing open, and it would have been a matter of moments to reach a telephone. A more remote possibility was that someone with criminal intent had arrived on the scene with robbery in mind, and had threatened Heloise Grant by shaking or trying to move the ladder. Against this was the fact that the only fingerprints on the ladder were her own and her gardener’s, and the absence of any signs of the ladder having been shifted, apart from the small dislodgement which could be attributed to the impact of her fall. After due consideration of all these matters, the coroner had concluded, the only reasonable verdict on Heloise Grant’s fatal fall was one of Accidental Death.

  Pollard pushed the papers aside.

  ‘Some unknown person,’ he quoted.

  ‘Akerman?’ Toye queried.

  ‘On our theory it’s possible. He was on visiting terms with Heloise Grant, so there’d have been nothing out of the ordinary in his turning up. But I’m sure he couldn’t have come out by car or even on foot along Pilgrim Lane without somebody remembering afterwards. Her death must have been the Event of the Year in Stoneham. I suppose he might have approached the house from Cattesmoor, but how could Davina have contacted him and got everything fixed? Heloise Grant said she was going to garden in the course of the morning but no one could have known exactly when she’d have been tackling the roses... No, on the whole I think the odds are that Davina did the job herself. It was probably all lined up, and she waited for a suitable opportunity.’

  ‘Just exactly how was it done without leaving any dabs on the ladder, do you think?’

  ‘Well, try to picture the scene. Heloise Grant’s on the ladder, busy with tying up the roses. Davina comes out of the house and stands talking. Asking something about the message she’s taking to the Rectory, perhaps. She points out a branch on her aunt’s right which has come adrift. As Heloise leans over to cope with it, Davina slips a nylon cord around one of the rungs of the ladder, steps back and heaves with all she’s got. A normal woman feeling a ladder coming adrift under her might be able to save herself if there was anything to grab, but not one liable to Meniere’s disease. She loses her balance and crashes. Davina lets the ladder right itself. No need to touch it with her hands, and the nylon cord won’t leave any recognisable mark on an aluminium rung. You can’t see the front of the house from the lane, and she knows that the chance of anyone arriving at the critical moment is negligible. So she gets busy with changing the time of the watch on her aunt’s wrist.’

  Toye took off his horn-rims, extracted a small piece of wash leather from their case, and polished them carefully. Pollard rubbed his eyes, tired from continuous reading, pushed back his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

  ‘Well, we’ve had it,’ he said. ‘There’s not one bloody thing we can put forward that would justify reopening the enquiry into Heloise Grant’s death, is there? At least, not one that we’ve managed to spot... All the same, I shall always feel certain that Davina managed to engineer the fall and get away with it... Our deadline for meeting the C.C. and Crookshank’s nine o’clock, so I suppose we’d better go and get something to eat first. It’s about half-past six, isn’t it? I thought I heard six strike just now.’

  He stretched, flexed his left arm and looked at his watch.

  ‘Half-past seven,’ Toye said, consulting his own.

  ‘It can’t be!’ Pollard put his watch to his ear, shook it and frowned. ‘Hell! It’s stopped. I dropped it on my bedroom floor this morning, but it seemed all right. I suppose I’ve bust the mainspring. I’ll have to —’ He broke off, still staring at the watch, and sat completely immobile and oblivious of his surroundings for several seconds. As if unaware of what he was doing he took it off, and placed it carefully on the table. Suddenly he looked up at Toye, a grin dawning on his face.

  ‘God!’ he said. ‘How exquisitely simple! How in the name of all that’s holy has everyone missed it, ourselves included? There were two watches, of course. One was smashed by the fall, soon after one o’clock, I should think. The other had previously been deliberately dropped and smashed, and its hands put to five minutes past two. Change ’em over, get rid of the first one, and Bob’s your Uncle... But can it be proved?’

  Chapter 10

  It was at Superintendent Crookshank’s suggestion that Mrs Broom was induced to come round to the police station when she returned from Upway Manor on the following morning. Reliable daily women, he maintained, and she must be one of those since she’d worked up there for years, often knew a damn sight more about what was in the house than their employers did.

  She was understandably apprehensive, and sat bolt upright in his office in her overall, clutching a shopping bag on her lap just as she had in Peter Grant’s car when Pollard had first seen her. She was hatless, and had fuzzy mousy hair with some grey streaks and conspicuous dentures. He put her age at about fifty-five. She gave him the impression of having a mind of her own but of being chary of expressing it, as if you needed to be on your guard against life. As a working-class widow it probably hadn’t been a bed of roses for her...

  ‘Nice o
f you to come along to see us, love,’ Crookshank was saying, jollying her along with an expertise which astonished Pollard. ‘Of course you’ve been reading in the Advertiser about the rum things that’ve been going on in these parts, haven’t you? Skeletons turning up in old monuments up on Cattesmoor and whatever?’

  Mrs Broom looked baffled and nodded dumbly.

  ‘And I expect you know that these two gentlemen from Scotland Yard have come down to help us sort it all out?’ She nodded again and murmured barely audible assent. ‘Perhaps you remember me, Mrs Broom?’ Henry Landfear came in. ‘I used to visit Miss Grant at the Manor.’

  At this she brightened up.

  ‘Yes, sir, I remember you very well. Miss Grant had a lot of callers, what with all the committees she was on and the good she did. She’s sorely missed, I’m told.’

  ‘Quite true. And you must miss her yourself. She valued you, I know. Remembered you in her will, didn’t she?’

  ‘That’s right, sir, and very grateful I was.’

  ‘But you’ve stayed on to work for Miss Davina Grant?’ Mrs Broom hesitated briefly.

  ‘I felt I owed it to Miss Grant, her being so good to me.’

  ‘Now, love, there’s something we want to ask you,’ Crookshank told her. ‘Anything you say here’s one hundred per cent private, as if you were telling Father Mulley your sins in the confessional down at the Church, so you needn’t be afraid to speak out. Tell us this. Were you quite easy in your mind about the verdict on Miss Grant’s death in the coroner’s court?’

  Pollard watched her workworn hands tighten on the handles of the shopping bag until the knuckles showed white.