Unhappy Returns

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  Chapter 2

  Conditioned to emergencies by the day-to-day life of a farm and conscious of her status as a churchwarden, Margaret Gillard acted decisively. To her relief the house-hunting couple, now identified as a Mr and Mrs Brand of Westbridge, showed no signs of panic. At her request Mr Brand hurried off to dial 999 from the Barton and report the finding of the body to the police, and subsequently to locate her husband, out somewhere on the farm. Her own duty was obviously to stay on the spot and ensure that nothing was touched. Mrs Brand began to look a little green, and Margaret took her by the arm and led her firmly to a garden seat, keeping up a flow of reassuring conversation. As she talked, a jumble of thoughts and surmises jostled for priority just below the surface of her mind. After what seemed an eternity but was actually a bare ten minutes, there came heavy running footsteps, and Matthew Gillard burst into the vicarage garden from the churchyard, followed by a breathless Mr Brand. After he had been briefed, the conversation dwindled to an exchange of disconnected remarks as they waited with ears strained for the approach of a police car. At last Matthew leapt to his feet.

  ‘Car coming up the hill,’ he said. ‘You’d best all wait here. I’ll go out to the church gate.’

  He had hardly reached it when a car came into sight and braked to a halt at his signal. Detective Inspector Frost of the Westbridge CID, a massive six-footer of surprising agility, emerged simultaneously and introduced himself and his sergeant who was at the wheel.

  ‘Was it you who rang us, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I’m Matthew Gillard of Ambercombe Barton down the road there, on the left. It was my wife found the body, when she took a couple who’d come house-hunting over to see the vicarage. She thought she ought to stay on the spot, and sent the gentleman to ring you and find me. They’re all three waiting in the garden. Shortest way’s through the churchyard here.’

  He led the procession of three, feeling both relieved and uneasily aware that all initiative was now out of his own hands, and in the impersonal ones of the police.

  After congratulating Margaret Gillard on her presence of mind, and asking a few brief questions, Inspector Frost suggested that she and the Brands would be more comfortable waiting over at the Bartons.

  ‘Perhaps you’d stay here, sir,’ he said to Matthew. ‘There’ll be information we’ll be glad of.’

  A few minutes later he looked up at the two men who were standing at the kitchen door while he examined the body.

  ‘Stone dead,’ he said tersely. ‘Twelve hours at least, I’d say. Go over and ring for support, will you, Sarge?’

  He got to his feet, dusting the knees of his trousers and stared at length round the bare room with its rusty cooker and old-fashioned sink. There was no sign of a weapon, nor, he noted, of a handbag.

  ‘Do you know her?’ he asked Matthew Gillard.

  ‘Sure,’ the farmer replied. ‘Ethel Ridd. She lives — lived — in the middle one of the three Quarry Cottages, a couple of minutes away. Used to be housekeeper to old Reverend Viney. He died last summer, rising ninety. Maybe you’ve heard of him? The parish is joined up with Pyrford now,’ Matthew went on, getting an affirmative nod, ‘and the diocese has put this up for sale. Ethel Ridd was caretaking in a manner of speaking. Opened the windows mornings and closed ’em up before dark, and showed over anybody wanting to view.’

  Inspector Frost nodded again. ‘What about her next of kin? Are there any locally?’

  ‘Not that I know of — not in these parts, I’m pretty sure. Maybe my wife’s heard her mention somebody.’

  ‘Secluded sort of place this vicarage,’ the Inspector commented. ‘Easy enough to get in with windows open all day, and nobody around. Do you get a lot of chaps sleeping rough in these parts?’

  ‘Not this time of year, we don’t. Summertime they fetch up at my place now and again and ask for a job. They’re after a handout, of course, and I see ’em off smart. Let the dogs play up. They soon clear out.’

  Inspector Frost glanced round as Sergeant Hill reappeared at the front door, and turned to Matthew Gillard again.

  ‘I’d be glad if you’d take Sergeant Hill over to the deceased lady’s cottage, Mr Gillard. I shouldn’t think she’d have locked it up, just to slip across here. See if anything’s been disturbed, Sarge.’

  Getting into the vicarage wouldn’t have been any problem whatever with windows open, he thought, as their footsteps died away. The kitchen window itself seemed a likely bet, being round at the back of the house. The way she’d fallen with her arms forward looked as though she’d been reaching up to shut it when she was hit from behind. There might be traces of mud under the body, and on the ground outside — jobs for the boys when they turned up. No problem about clearing out either. She’d probably have left the front door open while she did her shutting-up round.

  In confirmation of these ideas he found clear traces of mud on the stone floor of a dank little scullery leading off the kitchen. They were behind the door, and there was a clear view both of the body and of the window behind it through the gap at the hinges. Even more satisfactory was the discovery that half a brick had been removed from the disintegrating fireplace under an ancient copper for boiling washing. Fragments of mortar and brick dust on the floor indicated that the removal was recent.

  His investigations were broken off at this point by the return of Sergeant Hill and Matthew Gillard. The former reported that Ethel Ridd’s cottage had been unlocked, with the key on the inside of the front door. This opened into a combined kitchen-living room which showed no signs of having been disturbed. There was a handbag on the table. He had locked up and brought away the key. No one was at home at number 3, and the first one in the row was obviously shut up.

  ‘That one belongs to a Marchester doctor,’ Matthew Gillard said. ‘He uses it weekends in and out, and for holidays. The third one’s Mr Sandford’s. He’s a lecturer at Westbridge College of Education, and out a lot.’

  Inspector Frost reflected that it was not going to be easy to find witnesses of Ethel Ridd’s final trip to the vicarage. He thanked Matthew Gillard for his help, and asked him to wait with his wife and Mr and Mrs Brand at the farm.

  ‘I’ll be over to take your statements as soon as my chaps turn up and get started here,’ he said. ‘They should be along soon now.’

  He had hardly shown Sergeant Hill his discoveries in the scullery when his support materialised, together with the Westbridge police surgeon, Dr Moffatt. While the photographer and fingerprint experts assembled their apparatus, Dr Moffatt examined the body, keeping up a running commentary as he did so.

  ‘Killed instantly, from the look of it. A terrific swipe with a dear old blunt instrument. She hadn’t even turned her head… No spring chicken, of course … probably a bit deaf … grit or something on what hit her, embedded in the wound, for the lab boys to get busy on, anyway, if you haven’t found the weapon … off the cuff, about forty to fifty hours ago, but I might be able to narrow it down when I’ve had a proper look at her.’

  ‘That takes us back to Wednesday afternoon or evening,’ Inspector Frost calculated, ‘and ties up with what the farmer chap from down the road told us about her habits. She was caretaking this place and came over mornings and evenings to open windows and shut ’em again.’

  Dr Moffatt agreed that the late afternoon of Wednesday made sense.

  ‘No money on her, and nothing in the way of a watch or brooch. Looks like some dropout to me, who’d got in to spend a night under cover, and decided to cash in when the poor old girl turned up. When shall I send along the mortuary van?’

  This matter being settled, he hurried off. Inspector Frost set his technicians to work on the kitchen and scullery while Sergeant Hill went over the rest of the house for any further signs of the murderer’s presence.

  ‘Take a look outside, too,’ he said. ‘It seems plain enough that somebody got in through a window.’

  At Ambercombe Barton the warm kitchen where the Gillards and Brands awai
ted Inspector Frost was a welcome change from the fusty vicarage. He gladly accepted a cup of coffee, took a short statement from the Brands, and let them go with apologies for the delay.

  ‘I’ll have to take up a bit more of your time, I’m afraid,’ he said, on settling down again with the Gillards. ‘There’ll be a post-mortem on Miss Ridd, but unofficially the police surgeon puts her death back to Wednesday afternoon or evening. Do either of you know anything about her movements on Wednesday?’

  They both looked up sharply, and Margaret, quicker off the mark than her husband, spoke first.

  ‘Ethel Ridd was alive and well in Marchester Chapter House Wednesday morning,’ she said. ‘Wednesday was right out of the ordinary for quite a few Pyrford and Ambercombe people. I daresay you read about the Consistory Court case over our church plate up here?’

  ‘I did see a headline in the evening paper,’ Inspector Frost replied, ‘but I don’t know much about it, and that’s a fact. If you think it can have any bearing on Miss Ridd’s death, perhaps you’d fill me in a bit?’

  He listened attentively to the Gillards’ account of the court proceedings, trying to assess their relevance, if any, to his case.

  ‘You say Miss Ridd’s remark in court about somebody having stolen this chalice put local people’s backs up?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll say it did,’ Matthew Gillard replied. ‘Down at the Stars last night the whole bar was still going on about it. Everybody took it she meant somebody local had pinched the thing.’

  ‘Can you see anybody being so mad with her for blurting that out that they’d hide up in the vicarage and bash her head in?’

  Both Gillards expostulated vehemently. ‘There wasn’t a soul in the place who’d do such a thing.’

  ‘And what’s more,’ Matthew added, ‘it’s a lot of baloney about a chalice with jewels stuck in it, isn’t it, Maggie? You were churchwarden for ten years and more, and know well enough what plate there was.’

  Margaret Gillard concurred, and gave it as her opinion that Ethel Ridd had religious mania of a sort, and must have dreamt up the chalice.

  ‘I don’t mean she was round the bend,’ she said, ‘but she and old Mr Viney were proper cranks about the old monks who built the church hundreds of years ago.’

  Inspector Frost felt that the chalice, real or imaginary, was a dead end, and embarked on another topic.

  ‘How and when would Miss Ridd have got back here from Marchester?’ he asked.

  By bus to Pyrford, the Gillards thought. They’d given her a lift in. There was a bus out of Marchester at midday, and another at three. The run took just under an hour and a quarter. Then she’d walk up the hill to Ambercombe.

  This ought to be easy enough to check, Frost thought, making a note.

  ‘If the sort of vagrant was around who’d get into an empty house and attack an elderly woman, he’d surely have been seen by somebody?’ he said.

  ‘That sort find their way up here from Pyrford,’ Matthew told him. ‘They thumb lifts along the road, try scrounging in the village, and then come on to Ambercombe. Seems funny nobody’s come forward about seeing a chap.’

  ‘Through Pyrford’s not the only way of getting here, is it? Where does the road outside lead to?’

  It soon became not much more than a lane, he learnt, passing one or two farms, and finally coming out on a road from Marchester going round the Whitehallows on the north side. There was a track over the hills hikers sometimes used in summer, but hoboes wouldn’t come that way. It was just rough heath used for summer grazing. Nothing up there for the likes of them.

  ‘I take it you were both at the court in Marchester on Wednesday,’ Frost said, making more notes. ‘Was anybody about here?’

  ‘The house was shut up,’ Margaret Gillard replied. ‘We fixed for the children — they’re at the Westbridge Comprehensive — to get off the school bus and stay with friends down at Pyrford till we picked them up. We didn’t get back before half past six. What about the men, Matt?’

  It appeared that the farm hands were working with the tractor in a distant field all the morning, but the cowman and a helper would have been around for the afternoon milking. Frost took names and addresses. He then asked Margaret if she knew anything about Ethel Ridd’s next-of-kin, but she replied that she had never heard Ethel Ridd mention any relatives.

  ‘One more thing, and I needn’t bother you any further for the moment,’ he said. ‘My sergeant’ll take statements from you later. When does that neighbour of Miss Ridd’s, Mr — Mr Sandford, isn’t it, get home from work? He might be able to give us some information about Wednesday afternoon and evening.’

  Frost surprised a grin on Matthew Gillard’s face. Margaret clicked her tongue, but obviously in merely token disapproval.

  ‘Bachelor?’ he queried.

  ‘Free and easy,’ Matthew replied. ‘He wasn’t working Wednesday, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s a part-timer, and Wednesday isn’t one of his days. I saw him sitting in the Chapter House at the hearing, and he gave me a wink. Before the lunch break, that was. What he did afterwards, and whether he slept in his own bed Wednesday night, I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember hearing him coming back, but we were late getting in ourselves, as Margaret was saying. Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays are his regular Westbridge days, but I daresay he’ll be off somewhere for the weekend.’

  On returning to the vicarage Frost found the routine investigation in full swing. To his satisfaction, traces of mud similar to those in the scullery had been found under Ethel Ridd’s body, just in front of the kitchen window, and samples of both had been collected for analysis. The ground outside the window was unfortunately hard, but some faint impressions had been photographed. Frost left his technicians engaged in the unpromising task of trying to bring up fingerprints on the flaking paintwork of the window frame, and returned to his car to plan the various lines of enquiry that would have to be followed up. It looked like some vagrant, true enough, but you couldn’t take things at their face value like that. A lot of the locals would know the deceased’s routine. There’d have to be a check-up on where people had been on Wednesday afternoon and evening. A tiresome time-consuming job, needing a hell of a lot of manpower, and they were stretched as it was… The Super would blow his top when he heard how things were.

  Chapter 3

  The swift passage of a police car through Pyrford, and on up the hill to Ambercombe, was an immediate talking point for people who chanced to see it. The follow-up by a second car bringing the technicians, with the police surgeon’s Austin Maxi on its tail, brought small groups out on to the village green. They speculated excitedly and stood gazing towards the north-east in the manner of the spectators of Halley’s Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry. Suddenly a bread delivery van came in sight, bucketing recklessly down from Ambercombe. Its driver, hardly able to wait to deliver the sensational news of Ethel Ridd’s murder, brought the van to a shuddering halt and vaulted to the ground. He was immediately surrounded by eager questioners.

  The mounting buzz of conversation attracted the attention of James Morse of the Old Forge, a retired chartered accountant and secretary of the Parochial Church Council. He came out of his house to discover what was happening.

  ‘I bet that officious blighter Aldridge has got on to Hoyle,’ he remarked to his wife, on returning home and breaking the news to her. ‘All the same, I think I’ll give him a ring.’

  The only reply from the Rectory was the ringing tone. It was not until mid-afternoon that he succeeded in contacting Robert Hoyle, who, with his wife, had been lunching with friends in Westbridge. His reaction on hearing of the murder was an incredulous horror.

  ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed. ‘How absolutely appalling. I suppose some half-crazy homeless type must have followed her in… I can imagine her threatening anybody like that, you know… I’d better go straight up… No, on second thoughts, I’ll let the Archdeacon know first. Thanks most awfully for ringing, James.’

  In his turn,
Archdeacon Lacy reacted with a horrified exclamation. It was followed by so long a silence that Robert Hoyle, his mind already reaching out to problems ahead, finally cleared his throat impatiently.

  ‘My dear chap, I can’t tell you how sorry I am you’ve been landed with this frightful situation,’ Eric Lacy said hurriedly. ‘It’s difficult to take it in… You say the police are in action?’

  ‘Carloads of them, apparently. I thought I’d go up right away, as soon as I’d rung you.’

  ‘Absolutely right. They’re bound to want to see you, anyway, as it’s happened on church property, unfortunately… Keep me posted, and let me know if I can help in any way at all. If it’s any comfort you’ll find people will forget their differences and pull together in the face of a disaster like this.’

  After a hasty consultation with his wife, Robert Hoyle got out his car again and started off. He raised a hand in sombre greeting to various Pyrford parishioners, but drove straight through the village and headed for Ambercombe. The prospect of the inevitable publicity gave him a prickling sensation at the back of his neck. A horrific vision of Ethel Ridd’s funeral took shape in his mind.

  Three police cars were drawn up at the church gate, watched from a safe distance by a small group of Ambercombe residents. As Robert parked alongside and got out, a tall burly figure in plain clothes came down the churchyard path and gave him a searching look. Apparently his dog collar served to identify him.

  ‘Reverend Hoyle, sir? I’m Detective Inspector Frost of Westbridge, in charge of this enquiry. I take it you know what’s happened? I’d be glad of a word with you, if it’s convenient.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Robert replied. ‘I’ve only just got back from Westbridge, or I’d have been here before.’

  ‘What I’m hoping you can do to start off with, is to give us some information about Miss Ridd’s next-of-kin,’ Inspector Frost said, as soon as they were settled in the police car. ‘From what Mr and Mrs Gillard say, she doesn’t seem to be a local woman.’