Suddenly it struck me. I could see Lady Isabelle’s face in the photograph. I was sure she had been murdered.
Thirteen
I’d rung Dyer’s office as soon as I’d come to the conclusion about Isabelle Barleigh’s murder. I wanted to see him urgently but was told he was out in Stratford-on-Avon at a Superintendents’ meeting for two days. I was thinking of attempting to go over to Stratford to find him when I received a call back from WPC Fallon. She told me she’d managed to contact Dyer and he’d see me on Wednesday afternoon at his office in Warwick when his meetings were finished. She said I wouldn’t be able to speak to him before he returned so it made sense to get on with other things and I’d arranged with Sawyer to see his father.
If I’d seen Sawyer and his father standing side by side anywhere outside their home I’d never have guessed they were related. Dave Sawyer was dark haired and thick set, the complete opposite of his son, with a farmer’s complexion, leathery from long days spent outside in all weathers. His grip, when he shook my hand, was strong and calloused.
‘Good to finally meet you, Inspector. John talks about you all the time.’
Sawyer Junior let out an exasperated, ‘Dad!’
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mr Sawyer, John’s a fine officer.’
My colleague blushed even more and it would have been fun to carry on embarrassing him. However, I needed to interview his father alone, so I sent him out for a while.
‘John tells me you were in the same regiment as Sir Arthur Barleigh, is that right?’
‘It is. Lots of us around here joined up together, all in the same mob, “pals” battalions they called ’em. I can think of at least twenty men who came with us, including Sir Arthur and his mates, Graham Cox and Harry Stenson. Those two, and another eight or ten, never came back. They stopped that happening later in the War, too many men from the same area being slaughtered. What a waste. Why do you ask?’
‘I was wondering if you might know of anything in Sir Arthur’s past which might explain why someone would kill his wife and son. Anyone with a grudge, that kind of thing?’
Dave Sawyer sat back in his chair and thought for a minute.
‘No-one comes to mind, Inspector. No-one who’d murder someone, anyway.’
‘It’s often hard to tell who’d commit such a crime, Mr Sawyer. If you can think of anyone at all who’d dislike Sir Arthur, or Lady Isabelle for that matter, just tell me and we’ll check them out.’
‘As I said, many of the men from that time never came home. Of those that did, I only ever heard one say a bad word about Sir Arthur. Wally Bailey.’
I wrote down his name.
‘Is he still local?’
Dave laughed. ‘You could say he’s local and always in the local.’ He continued chuckling at his own joke.
‘This Mr Bailey likes a drink then, does he?’
‘Aye, he does that. Nicest man you’d ever want to meet when he’s sober, though that’s rare enough these days. When he’s had a few he’s loud and rambles like my old donkey. Now and again he’ll go on about how Sir Arthur’s a fraud and how he hates the man.’
‘A fraud?’
‘Hard to be sure what Wally’s going on about because he rambles, as I say. But as far as I can make out he reckons Sir Arthur got all the credit as a war hero when he came back, just because he’d been injured. Wally himself was decorated, saved some blokes out of no-man’s land, and resents the fact he never got the recognition he deserved. As far as I’m concerned, they’re both heroes. From what I know, Sir Arthur paid a high price for his time at the Front.’
He wouldn’t go so far as to say he thought Bailey meant Sir Arthur any harm so I just got from him where the man did his drinking, and asked if he could think of anyone else.
‘Only other person I can think of, and it might be something and nothing, was a woman who came round about eighteen months ago, just after young Tom’s accident. There was quite a bit in the papers about it at the time and all sorts of people came hanging around. Our John had to chase a few of them off, they were such a nuisance.’
‘So who was this woman? Why did she stand out from the others?’
‘She latched on to me one day when I was in the post office. Fine looking woman, though she’d have been in her fifties. Must have been a stunner when she was young. Well dressed. Looked like a city type, not from round here. Started asking me questions about the Barleighs. I thought she was just another sad woman getting her thrills from someone else’s misfortune so I told her to sling her hook. Then she apologised and said it wasn’t Tom Barleigh she was interested in, but his father. After a couple of minutes she started going on about how he owed her something, how they’d been very close in the past but he’d left her. She said she needed to see him to pay him back. The poor lass seemed to be in quite a state about it.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I felt sorry for her and decided it was up to him to sort out his own affairs, so just gave her directions up to Grovestock House. She went off and I didn’t see her again.’
Sawyer and I left his father’s house and ensconced ourselves in a back room of the Victory which Mr Cudlip continued to allow us to use as an office. He kept us well supplied with cups of strong tea, biscuits and occasional sandwiches. I suspected he’d gossip with his regulars about any little scrap he might get from us. As a result I made sure everything was taken away each day. If I needed a rumour to be spread I could, in a moment of rare forgetfulness, leave something in the room for him to pick up on.
I liked Cudlip. He appeared to be a good honest man trying to eke out a living as best he could. He was over six feet tall, a veritable giant amongst the local farmers and workmen who mainly frequented the pub, and cut a comical figure as he ducked and bowed under the low beams and doorways, going about his business. He was a mine of information and always ready with a funny story he’d picked up from a customer or someone he’d met in the town. Cudlip was a useful, if unknowing, assistant to have as he fed me all the bits of tittle-tattle he’d heard. None of them had proved important in the case so far but they helped to paint a fuller picture of the village and its residents.
I filled Sawyer in on how I knew Isabelle had been murdered.
‘So you’re saying, sir, that if she’d held the shotgun under her own chin she’d have had the barrel against her body and would have blown off her face when she pulled the trigger? Couldn’t she do it any other way?’
‘Well, possibly, but this is the most likely — the most comfortable way of holding the weapon. She’d have had to hold the weapon at arm’s-length at an angle to just destroy the back of her head, and that would be far from easy. One thing I’m having trouble working out is, if Isabelle didn’t kill Tom but was shot after him, why she couldn’t run off to raise the alarm when Tom was murdered? If she had, then the killer would have shot her in the back from a distance and not been able to stage a suicide.’
‘Perhaps the murderer was holding her hostage with the gun under her chin.’
‘But surely she’d have struggled and escaped. Unlikely he, or she, would be able to hold on to Isabelle effectively, shoot Tom with any degree of accuracy, and then get the weapon back under her chin.’
‘You’re now assuming, then, that Lady Isabelle was shot first?’
‘I’m coming to that conclusion, John, I can’t seem to make sense of it any other way. The problem then thrown up is whether her ladyship was really the main target, rather than Tom.’
At this point the landlord came in with our lunch. After some pleasantries he confided he’d heard a rumour regarding Tom Barleigh and his nurse. Cudlip’s informant had assured him it was “the gospel truth” that Miss Collinge had a deep and consuming crush on Tom. She’d apparently convinced herself he’d soon throw over Jenny Bamford in favour of her.
Cudlip left wearing a satisfied smile. Sawyer added to the list in front of him.
‘He’s a useful source of information, don’t you
think? Nothing stays secret in a village pub and he’s just confirmed what Alan Haleson said. It also almost guarantees the threat I found in Tom Barleigh’s envelope came from Collinge.’
‘So she could have done it? Hell hath no fury, etc?’
‘I suppose if Tom eventually made it clear he was only interested in Jenny Bamford, the nurse might have decided to wreak revenge on the two of them. But why would she go for Lady Isabelle as well? And why would she shoot two people with the shotgun and then go to the trouble of finding another gun to kill the fiancée?’
‘Perhaps she didn’t know how to reload the shotgun? She could have pinched it from the gardener’s shed already loaded, then not known what to do, or had no more cartridges when she’d emptied the two barrels.’
‘That’s a possibility, John, a little unlikely, but we’ll keep it in mind. In any case, we’ll have to leave Nurse Collinge on the list until either we can find her or discount her properly. We were just going to go through the others when Mr Cudlip came in, so who are they?’ I noticed him smile briefly as I called him by his first name.
‘It’s becoming quite a long list now, sir. The ones I have are Billy Sharp, Michael Parry, the mysterious man in the woods and, now, Trudy Collinge and Alan Haleson, plus the ones Dad mentioned, Wally and this woman who came looking for Sir Arthur. I suppose we always have Mr Jervis as well. After all, the envelope was found in his cupboard and he has no satisfactory explanation about how it got there. I know those Victorian melodramas always have the butler doing the dirty deed, but it would be nice and tidy if this time he actually had!’
I laughed. If only life was as simple as that. We went on to consider Haleson as a suspect. He, at least, had a possible motive for getting Tom Barleigh out of the picture, if he had indeed told his friend of his treason.
‘But isn’t that at odds with your idea of Lady Isabelle being the first one killed, sir? And anyway, even if Tom was the target and Lady Isabelle came upon the scene by accident, why should Haleson go on to murder Jenny Bamford? It’s the same reasoning as for Trudi Collinge.’
‘I know, I know, John. Of course you’re right but we’ll need to leave him somewhere near the top of your list for the time being. Doubtless our friends at Special Branch and MI5 will get it out of him if he was in any way involved. I notice you don’t have Sir Arthur on your list?’
‘Sir Arthur? Why would you think it could be him, sir? What possible motive would he have?’
‘I don’t know, John, but somebody did it and he’d as much opportunity as anyone else, though I agree, I can’t see why he would. It might just be my natural mistrust of the landed gentry but let’s also add him to your list till we can take him off for certain. What about Billy Sharp?’
‘On the face of it Billy’s the most likely for using the shotgun, either as an accident or in a fit of anger for being told off. It was fairly well known the lad liked to play around with the gun, and he has taken off and gone to ground. But there’s still the problem of the third shooting, the same as with the nurse and Sir Arthur. Why would Billy, having killed Tom and Lady Isabelle, find another gun, then chase after Jenny Bamford and pop her off as well?’
It occurred to me that Jenny’s death might be a bit of a distraction. Did she commit suicide after all? Or could she have been murdered by someone other than the person who killed the others? Two murderers? Highly unlikely but still a possibility to be considered. I shared this with Sawyer.
‘Good God, sir, do you really think that’s possible?’
Until recently all the young fellow had needed to deal with were petty crimes and the occasional drunk and disorderly. Now he was faced with the picture of two killers walking the streets of his sleepy parish.
‘Relax, John. The chances of Grovestock House harbouring two homicidal maniacs is a bit remote, I’ll admit, but we don’t want to have to backtrack later to make all the pieces fit together.’
With this reassurance Sawyer seemed to calm down slightly and we moved on to Michael Parry.
‘I don’t know about this one, John. There’s no doubt he’s a bad egg but it’s only been minor stuff in the past, usually just getting into trouble after drinking or losing his temper, until the latest incident with the theft. He has no alibi but I’m still inclined to believe he had nothing to do with it.’
Sawyer started to reply but changed his mind.
‘Go on, John, what is it?’
He was still hesitant and I had to urge him again to speak.
‘Do you think you might be being a bit light on him because he’s Miss Parry’s brother, sir? I ... I mean, with you and her going out, so to speak.’
I held my temper, though I was seething at his suggestion. I’d asked him to speak his mind, so now he had there was no point in bawling him out for it. At least it was better out in the open than festering throughout the investigation.
‘We’ve not known each other long, have we?’
Sawyer hung his head. ‘No, sir, we haven’t.’
‘So you’d not know whether what you just said was reasonable or not?’
‘Sorry, sir, I only meant —’
I cut him off. ‘When you know me a little better you’ll see me for what I am — a bastard when it comes to catching criminals. I’ve even considered if Elizabeth Parry herself might have been involved in the murders in some way but she has cast iron alibis. I would exclude no one, not even her, let alone her brother, if I had the slightest inkling they were implicated. If you can show me any firm evidence linking Michael Parry, I promise I’ll show no mercy. Do you have anything, Constable?’
‘No, sir, I don’t. All we have is he was in the area at the time, he, like Sharp and Collinge, has disappeared, and he has a record, a prison record, sir, for violent crime.’
‘Good points, John, and well made. Never assume that older, more experienced officers have all the answers. Being a good detective is being able to see the things others can’t see. Tell you what, when we’re finished here you can pull him in again and we’ll have a second go.’
Sawyer brightened at this, though I could see he was still a bit annoyed at the dressing down. Still, he’d get over it. We agreed I’d also follow up on Wally Bailey and ask Sir Arthur about his lady friend when I got a chance.
‘There’s also Jack Sumner, you know. I’ve had no proper explanation about why he wants me off the case or why he was arguing with Tom Barleigh. He’s another long shot so I’d best interview him at some point.’
This was becoming silly. A list of suspects as long as my arm and none I’d be confident to put in court. And the roll call was getting longer by the minute.
‘Finally, we have the man in the woods. What have you got on him?’
‘He’s a right mystery, sir. All we know for sure from the cook is someone, she thinks it was a man, was standing at the far edge of the woods looking over the wall of Grovestock House when she went out to the village. The person was too far away for her to see anything distinctly, and she didn’t give it too much thought as there are often walkers passing through there.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you think it might have been Michael Parry?’
‘If it was he could have been there for any number of reasons. Perhaps he was trying to make contact with his sister. Have you been over to see what the man was looking at?’
‘I took the cook out with me to find the spot where she’d been, and once she’d pointed out the general direction I went over to the wall myself. There was a patch a couple of yards wide where the grass was heavily trampled as though someone had been there a while and had walked up and down, perhaps trying to get a better view. There are several paths through the woods, one just a couple of yards from where our man had been so it wasn’t possible to tell which way he’d entered and left.’
‘Did you look over the wall?’
Sawyer gave me a look suggesting he wasn’t impressed with my question. He referred to his notebook.
‘A few stones are missing from the top so the wall is fairl
y low there, only about five feet high. It would be easy for a man of average height to get a decent view but it’s only really possible to see the hedge around the side lawn and the front door of the house. No one would have seen what took place behind the hedge. I had a good search on the ground and along the path but there didn’t appear to be anything of interest. A few odd cigarette butts, all different types, had been flicked into the grass but they could have belonged to anyone.’
‘I’m taking a walk back to the House that way later so I’ll do a bit of looking around myself, see if I can spot anything missing.’
I was pleased with the progress we’d made on reviewing the suspects, despite our little spat. Even though we hadn’t got very far in thinning out the pack, at least we’d clarified who needed following up. And we’d cleared the air a bit in terms of my relationship with Elizabeth. Sawyer was a bright copper and it was right of him to question me, even if it did get me riled.
The lunch provided by Cudlip had been as expansive as always. Platefuls of sandwiches with pie on the side and, as if we needed more, a dish of apple tart. We could hardly keep our eyes open after all this, though we did manage to struggle through the last few points before giving up for the afternoon. The day was sunny, with a light breeze rustling the branches, occasionally dislodging one of the few remaining leaves to float down.
I was glad I’d decided to walk back to Grovestock House; the exercise wouldn’t do me any harm and I’d take the opportunity to have a look in the woods as I’d promised. Sawyer told me how to find the place from the House but because I was walking from the opposite direction I had to look for an alternative route in. With the trees and bushes now mainly devoid of foliage it was relatively easy to see the start of the wall through the woods as I approached the estate. I’d already passed several footpaths where they joined the lane and I could see Sawyer was right in his assessment. Any of them could have been used for access or escape.
A Shadowed Livery Page 14