It seemed neither the time nor the place, but I asked anyway. “Do you know anything about the circumstances of her death?”
“I do not. I wish I did. If she’d accepted my proposal of marriage all them years ago, it might not have come to this. But she’s with the Lord.”
Milly said, “I’ve remembered. Alec is going to see if he can take one of the cars, telling them he’s going to look for you. We should meet him on the track by the copse with the three poplar trees.”
“And if he can’t take a car?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t know where he meant. I’ve seen too many poplar trees and too many tracks.”
Herbert stood. “Come on then.”
There was a rustling sound nearby.
He raised his gun.
Chapter Forty-Five
Sykes looked once more through the window of the White Swan. An old man turned up his collar against the wind. A woman wearing a shawl on her head and another around her shoulders picked up a little child who had tripped over a paving stone and started bawling.
He took a page from his notebook. He scribbled a message, for when Mrs. Shackleton arrived. She should have been here by now. He gave the note to the landlord.
Leaving the pub, he turned into Swan Yard. He knew which door. It was the house with the cream curtains. He knocked. Sergeant Dog barked.
It was Harriet who came to the door and asked him in. “I won’t, thanks. Just give a message to your Auntie Kate when she comes. I’ve left a note at the Mucky Duck to say the same. I’m calling in to see Mr. Hood at headquarters. Perhaps she’ll come round there when she’s said hello to you and your gran and Mrs. Sugden.”
He looked at Harriet’s face, sure then that he had kept anxiety from his voice. Sergeant Dog pushed forward, waiting his turn for attention. Sykes patted his head and told him he was a good dog, and to look after everyone. He nodded to the woman in the rocking chair. “How do!”
That would have been it, but Mrs. Sugden came out into the yard. Of course she would, Sykes thought, nothing slips past her.
She shut the door behind her. “What’s worrying you?”
“Mrs. Shackleton should have been here by now.”
“She’ll be here.” If she shared his anxiety, she did not show it. “It’s not easy to tear yourself away from a funeral do.”
“You said that three hours ago. I’m going to see Mr. Hood.”
“Oh that’ll be just grand, a grown woman on an assignment being reported to her dad as a damsel in distress. She’ll love that.”
Sykes felt himself tense. That was the trouble with Mrs. Sugden. She thought Mrs. Shackleton invincible. He tried another tack. “Mr. Hood’s stopping at his desk until he hears from her. It’s only polite to keep him in touch.”
A cat, tail held high, crossed the yard. It sniffed at the doorstep, and then jumped on Harriet’s gran’s windowsill and stared at the lace curtains. “Even a cat goes look-about,” Sykes said. “We can’t do nothing.”
Mrs. Sugden hated to admit he was right. While sitting chatting by the fire with Harriet and her gran, she had let the time go by, telling herself everything would be all right.
“I have an idea. What about if I telephone? The Brockmans know she has a housekeeper, and they know my name. I’ve answered the phone to them before.”
“Then they’ll know you’re calling from a different town.”
“What does that matter? I don’t have to explain why I’m at a different number. For all anyone knows, the landlord of the Mucky Duck might be my brother.” Watched by the cat that was still sitting on the windowsill, she opened the door a fraction and spoke to Harriet and her gran. “I won’t be long. I’ll get us some fish and chips.”
Sergeant Dog tried to break out. Harriet was there in an instant, putting on his lead. “I’ll go for the fish and chips.”
“Right.” Mrs. Sugden took out her purse. “You do that then. Just get yours and your gran’s for now, in case mine and Mr. Sykes’s go cold.”
Harriet pocketed the money. “You’re worried aren’t you?”
“Not a bit, there’s just something we need to do.”
Harriet strode up the yard. “Auntie Kate is fine. Gran said if anything was wrong, she’d feel it in her waters.” Harriet turned off for the fish and chip shop.
The pub telephone was on the wall in the back room. Sykes watched Mrs. Sugden’s jaw tighten as she waited to be connected to Thorpefield Manor. So she was anxious, in spite of her pretence. He listened as she made her request to speak to Mrs. Shackleton.
After a moment, she put one hand on the wall to steady herself. “Is she all right?”
She listened again. “What do you mean, can’t find her?” And, “Have you called the police?”
After a few more words, she put the receiver back, preventing Sykes from snatching it. “Her car hit a tree. Two of the young servants went to look for her, and she wasn’t there. Now they’re searching. They haven’t called the police!”
Sykes made to move. “I’ll go out there now.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“She’ll be all right,” Sykes said, trying to convince himself. “If she’s not there it’s because she got out.” He picked up his hat.
“And began to walk?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Mrs. Sugden hated to picture the scene, but picture it she did, seeing the crash in her mind’s eye. Hearing the bang, feeling the jolt. “If they couldn’t find her, it’s because she didn’t want them to.” She put a hand on Sykes’s arm. “I think it’s time for your earlier idea. We go to Mr. Hood.”
“You go. I’m setting off for Thorpefield. I don’t trust those so-called friends of hers.” He went to his car.
“Mr. Sykes!” A uniformed constable hurried across the road. “I just saw you were about to drive off, sir. It is Mr. Sykes?”
“Yes.” Sykes felt the breath leave him. Something had happened. Something bad.
“Mr. Hood sent me. He’s had a report from a local shopkeeper, Maurice Lewis. Seems Mr. Lewis cycled out to Thorpefield to deliver some photographs to Mrs. Shackleton. He was cycling back and heard a crash.”
Sykes willed the man to speak faster, jump to the point.
“It was Mrs. Shackleton’s car, hit a tree. He saw her being helped out of the car, and thought it best to go straight to the nearest police station, and report what he’d seen.”
“And so what’s happening now?” Sykes felt impatient with people who told you the prologue and not the outcome.
Chapter Forty-Six
Herbert Wesley’s dog came running through the wood, carrying something that stank. Herbert shooed him away and so he came to me, generously dropping a long-dead rabbit at my feet.
It was the parting of the ways for Milly and me. I felt anxious for her. “Milly, do you want to come with me and Mr. Wesley, and take our chance that there’ll be someone by the three poplars to give us a lift into Wakefield?”
She shook her head. “I’ll just say I looked for you in the wood, which is true, and then I got lost. The housekeeper will tell me off, that’s all. I’ll cry if I have to.”
“Thank you, Milly. I won’t forget this.”
Herbert Wesley reminded her of the way out of the wood, and she left.
There was no knowing whether Alec had managed to commandeer a vehicle, but I had a feeling my companion would be willing to walk me to Wakefield if necessary. Though that might mean sliding into a ditch each time a car came along the road, in case someone was looking for us.
We walked along a broad path, the trees so close on either side that I could feel darkness falling.
“Nearly there,” Herbert said.
Somewhere in the wood behind us, I heard a police whistle. “Keep going,” I said. Having illegal possession of just such a whistle myself I would not take the chance on the sound we heard coming from a legitimate source. In any case, I preferred that Benjie Brockman and Raynor not fi
nd out where I was from anyone. Benjie or Raynor would be capable of persuading a bobby that I was to be taken back to Thorpefield for my own good.
We reached a clearing, where three tall poplars stood. Just beyond the clearing was a laundry van. “Where did that come from?”
Herbert Wesley was no wiser than I on the matter.
“Let’s just make sure it’s the right driver at the wheel, before you go hopping in.”
The driver at the wheel was Philip Goodchild. He got out.
“Hello, Kate.”
“Hello, PH.”
I shook hands with Herbert. “Thank you, Mr. Wesley. I won’t forget your kindness.”
Philip opened the back door. “If you get in there, no one’ll see you.”
I climbed into the back of the van. It was full of laundry bags. A face peered out through the bags. Alec Taylor.
“Alec’s coming with us,” Philip said. “This van has to go back to the laundry. It broke down and I fixed it and now I’m testing it as I take it back.”
“Right.” I climbed in before the explanation lengthened.
It would have been comfortable sitting among laundry bags, except that it was bag wash, that comes back to its customers damp and ready for hanging, and there was a lot of it.
I made no attempt to talk because the van was even noisier than my car. But Alec shouted above it. “I got into bother. Mr. Raynor didn’t believe me. He shook me till my teeth rattled and said he’d tell where I got the pound note, but I didn’t tell him.”
“What pound note?”
“I was given it for driving a van, and I wish I hadn’t.” He took a note from his pocket. “Here. You take it.”
“Why?”
“Don’t tell.”
“You better tell me, or I won’t be able to not-tell.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Sykes and I sat with Dad in his office, along with the CID chief inspector. We had been supplied with sweet tea. For the shock, Dad said. He and Sykes might be shocked. I was angry. My beautiful car, wrapped around a tree.
As calmly as I could, I set out everything we knew. Not that I expected another attempt on my life so soon, but I had no intention of taking hard-won knowledge to the grave.
The CID officer must have been on a Trappist Monk Total Silence retreat, for he said not a word.
“Mr. Sykes discovered the man’s identity. He was Harry Aspinall, expatriate, originally of Rothwell, a trustee of the Bluebell Children’s Home. Mrs. Farrar wrote to him when she knew the children’s home was at risk.”
Sykes added more information. “I’ve found out what I could about the trust. It was wound up. Remaining moneys—a substantial amount—have been deposited in the Morley Bank under a new account, name Brock-Dell Limited. There is a charitable purpose to the account, to cover obligations that may arise under the trust. I suppose that’s to avoid accusations of sharp practice. Two percent of future profits from the new pit, after tax, will be donated towards maintaining respectable orphans.”
I refrained from saying that if you believed that you would believe anything. Profits would slide into personal accounts. High moral standards would ensure that suitably respectable orphans were few and far between.
Dad leaned forward. “As far as I can see, what Mr. Brockman and Mr. Dell did is not illegal. Trustees have a great deal of leeway.” He massaged his scalp with his fingertips. “They’re powerful men, Kate.”
“Look at Mrs. Sugden’s notebook. Mr. Aspinall was murdered at the shop. I don’t know why or how but his body was taken to the railway sidings from there.”
Dad opened the notebook. “It won’t be easy to prove collusion in murder. It’s cack-handed. It’s amateur, and the men you are accusing –”
“Powerful, I know, but amateurs at murder.”
“Most civilians are.”
“They are also arrogant and think themselves above the common herd. There’s evidence—the remains of his clothing. Mrs. Farrar was expecting him.”
“She didn’t tell anyone.”
“Because she was too canny to show her hand.”
Dad spoke patiently. “The man’s identity is no longer in doubt. Nothing else is certain.”
From my point of view something was certain. “If Scotland Yard—if Commander Woodhead—hadn’t been so intent on keeping this murder a state secret, it would have been solved by now.”
The CID inspector perked up. Perhaps he shared my view. He said nothing. I took advantage of his smidgen of interest. “Chief Inspector, I can’t conduct a full search of the shop, but you can. Perhaps there’s another bullet that can be traced to a particular gun, or an unexpected set of fingerprints.”
It was Sykes’s turn. He had been making notes. “Sir, the anonymous letters that Mrs. Brockman wrote herself. You have the fingerprints.”
“Yes.”
“There might just be a possibility that the box under the eaves, or the shoes, have those same prints. As long as no one gets to them first, that might provide some evidence.”
Dad nodded agreement. “Not strong evidence. It’s Mrs. Brockman’s house, why wouldn’t her fingerprints be on property in her own home? And there’s nothing on the statute book forbidding the penning of imaginative letters, especially those that are not posted.”
I began to see Dad’s point of view. A good solicitor would pick a dozen holes, find a dozen alternative explanations. “We have only touched the surface. There’s motive: gain, greed, desperation. Gertrude admitted that she and her husband are doing badly. They were hit by death duties, are still recovering from the General Strike. I know from what Gertrude once told me before that rents due from their tenant farmers were set a hundred years ago. They’re paying an accountant and a solicitor to find a legal way of putting up rents. Part of me would feel sorry for them, if I were not convinced of their guilt.”
I did not tell them of my conversation with Mrs. Dell. That would be hearsay, something to follow up later if needed. Gertrude must know what had been happening, but I found it hard to believe that she took an active part. That would be the job of Benjie, and his trusty butler.
Dad can be so annoying, and now he excelled himself. “Kate, I think you need a good night’s sleep.”
“I’ve only just begun!”
“There’ll be other lines of enquiry for CID or Scotland Yard to pursue now that you’ve gathered information. Someone must have helped move the body. We need to find him.”
They didn’t need to find him. I did. Eliot Dell had cleverly involved Alec Taylor. That would ensure, if needed, that Benjie would not break ranks. I kept to myself that I had an idea who might have been engaged for the heavy lifting: Kevin O’Donnell, Giant Jack, from the demolition gang, who went to the Dell estate looking for work.
“You’ve done a good job.” Dad pushed back his chair. “Speak to Commander Woodhead tomorrow.”
The CID officer looked from one to the other of us. He had clearly decided to play the observer, not to break his vow of silence. He, too, made ready to move.
“Now, are you coming back with me, let your mother take care of you, or will Mr. Sykes give you a lift home?”
I stood. “Neither. I’m going to London.”
Sykes opened his mouth to speak, and shut it.
Dad said, “There are no trains to London at this time of night.”
The CID Chief Inspector finally spoke. “The last train is 10.45 p.m., arrives King’s Cross at 2.35 a.m.”
This rattled Dad. “Have you swallowed a timetable?”
“There’s no restaurant car,” the chief inspector said.
“Thank you. Dad, would you please leave a message for Commander Woodhead that I’ll be there at eleven tomorrow morning?”
The CID officer tactfully moved to leave. “Oh and we’ve brought in your car, Mrs. Shackleton. Preliminary investigation shows that the steering linkages have been tampered with. We’ll be taking fingerprints from everyone who had access to the vehicle.”
&
nbsp; So Alec Taylor was right. I hoped that the pound burning a hole in his pocket did not also include payment for sabotage, and that his race to the wreck of my car was not simply belated remorse.
Would CID also obtain search warrants, I wondered.
As if anticipating that question, the CID officer hastily shook my hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Shackleton. We will be liaising with Scotland Yard. Goodnight, all.”
That left me with little hope. A deputy Lord Lieutenant of the County would not be someone easily taken into custody.
When the chief inspector had gone, I turned to Dad. “Dad, would you please put in a call to cousin James and say it’s imperative that he meet me at King’s Cross? If I talk to him, he’ll argue.”
James was in at the beginning of this. He would be able to tell me who skewed the investigation by dreaming up a story of Bolshevik gold.
“Who will go with you?”
Before Sykes could open his mouth, I said, “I’ll do this alone.”
Dad said, “You could be kidnapped.”
“White slavers and the yellow peril are the product of writers with a feverish imagination.”
“I know what I’m talking about, Kate.”
“All the more reason James had better be there to meet me.” I looked at my watch. “I hope there’s a seat on that train.”
Sykes chipped in. “You won’t be fighting anyone for a seat at this time of night. There’ll be no first class carriage, much less a ladies’ carriage.”
Neither Dad nor Sykes thought to mention that I looked a sight and hadn’t as much as a toothbrush with me.
For once, I didn’t care.
Dad said little after that. I could see he was disappointed that I would not go home with him. He showed Sykes and me into the station canteen, and tried once more. “Sometimes, when you have a good night’s sleep, you see things differently the next day. Everything looks clearer.”
“I’m seeing things very clearly, Dad. Thanks all the same.”
“I’ll leave you to order some supper then.” I felt sad to see him walk away, but then he turned back. “I’ll book your train ticket, and I’ll be in the office until you leave.”
The Body on the Train Page 22
