Stiff News Page 15

  ‘But,’ said the constable profoundly, ‘which two and two and which four?’

  ‘That,’ agreed Sloan, ‘is the question.’

  ‘We don’t know who slashed the coat either,’ said Crosby.

  ‘Let alone why.’

  ‘Our trouble, sir,’ declared the constable with a sigh, ‘is that we’re seeing them as they all are now. ‘They were probably younger when they got up to no good.’

  ‘True,’ conceded Sloan, veteran giver of evidence in juvenile courts. He didn’t need telling that crime was age-related, that it was an activity that young males often grew out of. Though, unless he was much mistaken, malfeasance at the Manor would seem to disprove this.

  Crosby laid his knife and fork carefully across his empty plate. ‘Now that was really good.’

  ‘And where do you go when you’re an old lady with nowhere to go?’ mused Detective Inspector Sloan, conscious that Mrs McBeath’s safety ought to be his very highest priority now. To the naked eye, the blade of the dirk had seemed dry and clean but no true investigating officer could very well call that particular observation conclusive evidence that any weapon had never been used on a person in anger.

  Not without Forensics saying so.

  In writing.

  ‘Social services?’ suggested Crosby, worldly-wise in his generation.

  ‘Church?’ said Sloan, showing his age. Mrs McBeath was, after all, also of an age still to consider the church a source of succour. ‘Or the hospital?’ Even now, all such ports of call in Calleshire and every foot and motor patrol were being alerted. A cohort of reinforcements were already on their way from Berebury Police Station to join those on the spot in a search of the grounds of the Manor.

  ‘Or is she with all the other runaways under the railway arches at Berebury?’ asked Crosby with feeling. He didn’t like what the drop-outs there shouted after him as he went past them. ‘What I want to know, sir, is why that old judge made out that list of names in the first place.’

  ‘He said it was so that he didn’t forget old friends,’ recounted Detective Inspector Sloan. ‘How’s that for a tale?’

  ‘You don’t need to write down six names to remember them,’ said Crosby scornfully. ‘Even if you are that ancient.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Sloan, ‘you don’t. So?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So why did he do it?’

  Crosby said, ‘I can’t think.’

  Heroically resisting the temptation to comment on this naive admission, Sloan said mildly, ‘It could just be, Crosby, that he had planned on that list of names being found after he’d died.’

  Crosby considered this. ‘Just like Mrs Powell wanted us to know what had been going on after she wasn’t here?’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘And someone else doesn’t want us to,’ said Crosby neatly.

  ‘Keep going.’

  ‘At least the Judge’d be safe then, wouldn’t he, sir? If he was dead, I mean.’

  ‘But safe from what?’ asked Sloan, letting the theology of this slide by. ‘I can’t see that there could be anything left for him to be frightened of now.’ At ninety, Sloan thought, surely one must be done with this world and things of this world – or was that wishful thinking?

  ‘Conscience?’ suggested Crosby slyly. ‘That’s, sir, if judges have consciences…’

  ‘I doubt if it’s that.’ Sloan’s latest encounter with Judge Calum Gillespie had been unfruitful to the point of pure exasperation. ‘He’s as bad as the rest of them. Wouldn’t say a single word.’

  ‘Closing ranks,’ concluded Crosby, adding sedulously, ‘Do you think there might be any more of that chicken pie left, sir, if I was to go back to the kitchen and ask?’

  ‘Closing ranks against whom?’ Sloan swept up the last mouthful on his own plate.

  ‘Couldn’t say, I’m sure, sir.’

  ‘The Fearnshires versus the Rest?’

  ‘For the honour of the Regiment, probably,’ said Crosby, only well read in certain highly selective areas of British military history. He regarded his own clean plate with satisfaction. ‘One thing, at least, the oldies don’t have to worry about here is the food. It’s good.’

  ‘They would seem, though,’ said Sloan acidly, ‘to have plenty of other things to worry them. Like death, accidents and murder.’

  ‘No wonder they have an Escape Committee,’ said Detective Constable Crosby lightly.

  ‘I’d forgotten about the Escape Committee,’ admitted Sloan. That was just one more thing about the Manor that he hadn’t really had time to go into yet. That wasn’t meant as an excuse. It was only that in an ideal world, as one of his lecturers at the police training school always used to insist, good policemen should have all of the capabilities of the remontoir and he wasn’t sure that he, Christopher Dennis Sloan, had half enough of them.

  Then a young and keen Sloan, who had never even heard of the word, had waited for some other bright spark on the course to ask what it meant. He’d never forgotten the answer, delivered in the orotund tones of the lecturer – or its implications for an investigating officer.

  ‘It’s the mechanism,’ the man had said so pompously, ‘which regulates the power from the mainspring of a watch so that the force applied to the time-keeping element stays the same whether the instrument is nearly wound down or has just been wound up.’ And he’d called them all ‘officers of the watch’ for the rest of the day to ram the lesson well and truly home.

  As far as Sloan was concerned today, he – working police officer – was now very nearly wound down and he wasn’t sure if his efficiency had stayed exactly the same as it had been when he had begun that morning.

  ‘They’d need to get away from here once in a while, poor devils.’ Crosby rose to his feet.

  ‘They would, indeed.’ There was an escape mechanism on a watch, too, he remembered.

  ‘It’s a proper God’s waiting room, this place. I don’t know about you, sir, but it gives me the willies.’

  Time and tiredness, decided Sloan, were no excuse for detectives not following up each and every lead, even if the mainspring was running down. ‘Yes, Crosby,’ he admitted. ‘I think I would want to get away once in a while, too, if I had landed here.’

  ‘If I was put in the Manor, sir, I think I’d just pop my clogs straight away and have done with it,’ said Crosby insouciantly. ‘Even if I wasn’t completely gaga by then.’

  ‘Easier said than done…’ Sloan’d spoken casually enough but now he came to think about it … he pulled himself up with a jerk, something niggling at the back of his mind now.

  ‘Me, I shouldn’t just hang about waiting for that chap with the scythe…’ persisted Crosby.

  ‘The Grim Reaper.’ Sloan made the connection without difficulty, his mind now suddenly switched to something Lisa Haines had said yesterday.

  ‘I think I’ll just nip along, sir, and see the cook,’ said Crosby, plate in hand.

  Sloan wasn’t listening. He was trying to remember exactly what it was that that selfsame cook had said yesterday about poor Mrs Forbes. It hadn’t seemed important at the time but there was an entirely different construction which could be put on that simple sentence about a dying woman: ‘Of course,’ Mrs Haines had said, ‘she could die at any time. She does know that.’

  He sat quietly, alone in the Matron’s pretty little sitting room, thinking about the words and their two entirely opposite interpretations. Suppose any one at the Manor could die whenever they wanted to …

  There was a word for that.

  Euthanasia.

  Or two words.

  Easy death.

  Not, at the Manor, physician-assisted euthanasia, anyway, because Dr Angus Browne had refused to issue at least one death certificate – that for Maude Chalmers-Hyde.

  That must mean something.

  But what?

  A hothouse of intrigue, that’s what the Manor was, he decided. With undercurrents that he could feel but not see. And nobody h
ere was going to tell him what they were. What was it that Crosby had said about closing ranks?

  The door of the sitting room opened quietly but it was the Matron who came in. ‘I’ve got the addresses of Walter Bryant’s two daughters for you, Inspector.’

  ‘Thank you.’ That was something else that would need following up after Inspector Harpe’s vehicle examiners had made their report on the brakes of Walter Bryant’s wheelchair.

  She hesitated. ‘Is there any news?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘But there will be. Old ladies always turn up sooner or later. Tell me,’ went on Sloan, since anything – anything at all – might be useful at this stage, ‘what did Mrs McBeath’s husband do in the war? Do you happen to know?’

  ‘I gather he was on the Staff.’ Muriel Peden gave a faint smile. ‘I’m afraid the others didn’t seem to hold the Staff in high esteem. I don’t know why – but then I wasn’t in the army in wartime.’

  ‘Because it’s usually behind the front line, I expect,’ said Sloan sapiently. ‘I suppose that’s where the Brigadier was, too.’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t think so. He was at the Tinchel, I’m sure.’

  A memory stirred in Sloan’s mind. ‘He wasn’t mentioned in the history.’

  ‘Really? Well, he was definitely there and,’ she gave her faint smile again, ‘I can tell you he’s in great fighting form now. Hazel’s got him into bed at last but it wasn’t easy. He won’t say anything except that he wants to know where to find Lionel Powell.’

  ‘He’s not the only one,’ said Sloan astringently. ‘We’re still looking, too … Tell me, Matron, which is Mrs Carruthers’ room?’

  * * *

  ‘Police.’ Inspector Sloan introduced himself without preamble.

  Mrs Carruthers was in bed, her son still reporting on what he could see from the window.

  Ned Carruthers, for whom the police force had vague subconscious associations with the attacking of protesters trying to protect the environment, immediately went on the defensive. ‘You must remember that my mother’s an old woman, Inspector,’ he said. ‘She shouldn’t be disturbed like this…’

  Mrs Carruthers sat up, eyes bright with excitement. ‘What’s happened now?’

  Ned was undeflected in his protection of his mother. ‘After all, she only arrived at the Manor two days ago. She can’t possibly be of any help to you with your enquiries.’

  Maisie cut off this display of filial piety by saying briskly, ‘What is it you want to know, Inspector?’

  ‘I understand, madam, that you’ve known some of the residents here for a long time.’

  ‘A very long time,’ she said with emphasis. She gave a mirthless laugh and added, ‘Man and boy, you might say.’

  ‘Including the late Mrs Powell?’

  ‘A great girl,’ said Maisie reminiscently. ‘A great girl.’

  ‘Did you know her in Egypt?’

  Mrs Carruthers nodded vigorously. ‘I’ll say!’

  Detective Inspector Sloan said, ‘After her first husband was killed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you know her second husband?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She gave a high cackle. ‘That marriage didn’t last. Never thought it would.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He didn’t have what it takes,’ said the old lady succinctly.

  ‘Mother!’ Ned Carruthers began another outraged protest.

  She sniffed. ‘Never had. Never will.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan gave the figure in the bed a long considered stare. ‘And are you going to tell me who he was or are you going to leave us to find out for ourselves?’

  ‘Inspector,’ began Ned Carruthers, ‘I call this…’

  Maisie gave Sloan a wickedly coquettish look. ‘You’ll get to know anyway, won’t you?’

  ‘It’ll take longer, that’s all,’ said Sloan equably, ‘and time may be something we don’t have now.’

  She turned her head away as if she was staring into the past and seeing the action all over again like an old film.

  ‘Captain Markyate,’ she said after a long pause. ‘Peter Bertram Markyate.’

  It was Ned Carruthers who spoke next, ‘Everybody’s uncle…’

  Chapter Twenty

  Smell sweet and blossom in their dust

  ‘More, young man?’ In the kitchen Lisa Haines bridled at Detective Constable Crosby and his empty plate with a mixture of pleasure and high indignation. ‘After that great helping I gave you?’

  ‘It was very good.’

  ‘Who do you think you are? Oliver Twist?’

  ‘The Thin Man,’ said Crosby.

  The cook looked him up and down. ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘Ah,’ rejoined Crosby swiftly, ‘but you can’t fool me. That pie was the best I’ve had in years.’

  ‘Don’t you think you can sweet-talk me, Constable, and get away with it.’

  ‘And the gravy was out of this world.’

  ‘Flattery won’t get you anywhere, either.’

  Crosby lifted his head. ‘Even the Inspector said so. He thinks your sauce is wonderful. Gravy raised to a higher power, he called it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded with surprising belligerence. ‘Even the Inspector!’

  ‘He’s a very critical man,’ said Crosby earnestly.

  ‘Hard to please, is he?’ said the cook, opening the door of one of her ovens.

  ‘Discriminating, Mrs Haines, that’s what he is,’ said Crosby, peering over her shoulder and inhaling a deeply satisfying aroma.

  ‘More than can be said for some folks round here,’ sniffed Mrs Haines.

  ‘No pleasing the residents?’ suggested Crosby, one eye on the pie dish. There were still a few segments of feathery pastry crust to be seen, each exuding a rich brown substance.

  ‘If it isn’t their teeth,’ lamented the cook, ‘then it’s liver or stomach troubles. ‘Terrible shame to get to their age and not to be able to enjoy your food, isn’t it?’

  The constable nodded. ‘Terrible.’

  ‘What’s terrible now?’ asked Hazel Finch, coming through the kitchen door with an empty tray in her hands. ‘Have they gone and found Mrs McBeath?’

  ‘Not being able to enjoy your food,’ said Lisa Haines, who had her own culinary-based priorities. ‘That’s what’s terrible.’

  ‘It’s not the only thing you can’t enjoy when you’re old,’ said the care assistant vigorously. ‘There’s other things as well. Take Mr Bryant now…’

  ‘He can’t walk,’ said Lisa Haines, giving the pie dish a considering look.

  ‘And Captain Markyate can’t ever make up his mind,’ said Hazel Finch.

  ‘Mrs Forbes,’ said Crosby suddenly, ‘she can’t die.’

  ‘She could,’ said Lisa Haines, ‘but she won’t. That’s her trouble.’

  ‘And then there’s Miss Bentley, who won’t let go of being in charge…’ said Hazel ruefully. ‘Can’t stop telling me what to do.’

  ‘Comes of always being top, I suppose,’ said Lisa Haines. She turned to Crosby. ‘Here, Constable, give me your plate. I think I might be able to manage a second helping for you after all.’

  * * *

  Detective Inspector Sloan walked down the long corridor to the library and pushed open the heavy old door. Dust motes danced in the early afternoon sunlight which was streaming through the windows and somewhere a fly buzzed, but otherwise all was still.

  ‘Matron told me I would find you here, Captain Markyate,’ he said, pulling up a leather chair beside the old Fearnshire soldier. ‘Might I join you? We’d like a word.’ This wasn’t strictly true since Crosby was nowhere to be seen but the police plural would suffice.

  Markyate lifted his head politely. ‘Please do. We’re both here.’

  Sloan spun round. ‘Both?’

  Markyate pointed. Sunk deep into a large armchair across the room was Lionel Powell. The civil servant raised his hand in Sloan’s direction by way of ackno
wledgement but did not speak.

  Sloan could have kicked himself. Pure Kipling, it was, Lionel Powell being in the library. Just like Captain Wentworth in ‘Jane’s Marriage’ – ‘in a private limbo, where none had thought to look.’ Lionel Powell wasn’t ‘reading of a book’, though. He was sitting attentively with Peter Markyate.

  ‘There is a time,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan portentously, conscious that he might almost have been reading aloud something from the Book of Ecclesiastes, ‘for the truth to be told.’ He cleared his throat and added a sentence that was quite his own, ‘And for it to be known exactly who knows what.’

  It was Lionel Powell who spoke. ‘I now know, Inspector, why my mother wanted Captain Markyate to have that old Egyptian ornament.’

  ‘My wedding present to her,’ said Markyate, looking more like an attentuated strand of willow than ever. By contrast, Lionel Powell looked a new man.

  ‘I picked it up in the souk,’ said Markyate, ‘the day we got married. I hadn’t got a bean in those days. Not a bean…’

  ‘That was the Tulloch treasure we were always hearing about,’ said Lionel Powell calmly. ‘My mother was forever talking about that.’

  ‘It’s what Gertie always called it,’ said Markyate, ‘to throw people off the scent.’

  ‘You couldn’t believe a word she said,’ Lionel declared fervently, accepting Markyate’s statement without demur. ‘Ever.’

  ‘The scent of what?’ enquired Sloan, although he thought he could guess by now.

  ‘Our marriage,’ Markyate said.

  ‘Why,’ asked Detective Inspector Sloan, ‘should she want to do that?’

  Captain Markyate lifted his head and said pallidly, ‘It was not what Gertie called a proper marriage.’

  ‘You went through a form of wedding ceremony,’ said Sloan, consulting his notebook for what Maisie Carruthers had told him, ‘in Alexandria in Egypt on…’

  ‘Oh, the ceremony was all according to Cocker,’ said Markyate readily. ‘Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘So?’ said Sloan, conscious that as Markyate spoke Lionel Powell was strangely relaxed.

  ‘Any man can stand up and say “I will”,’ said the Captain, stirred almost to animation. ‘But…’ his light, high voice trailed away.