Jeremy, however, was happy that she said no more about his late homecoming, and was anxious to get on with telling her what it was he had been talking about. To the chaps. He did not register her look of distraction. What he had to say was important.
“So, you see”, he continued, thinking that he had her respectful attention, “there is a ready market and a combination of good causes. You are not the only one, my dear, who picks up useful information at gatherings.”
Marcia had little idea what her beloved husband had been saying. That letter! True, it was addressed to Jeremy but, by long-established marital right, she had taken upon herself the task of opening the day’s post, still delivered at a respectable early hour. After all, if there was anything to be done arising from any of it then, no doubt, it would fall to her to do it. And, again, there was the unassailable philosophy summarised as ‘what have you got to hide from me? We are as one now.’
Jeremy had been able to use the estate agent office for such correspondence as he wished to keep to himself. He was still trying to work out an alternative now that he was a landed gent. A poste restante sounded easy, but here? In London, now, no doubt simple enough. Here, a kind-hearted soul would probably deliver it to the door as a way of being helpful. He gazed over the toast rack at his engrossed wife.
“Do you see?”
Marcia broke out of her reverie and, using her experience of such situations, put on a sympathetic face
“Yes, darling. But do tell me again. It is rather a lot to take in at once, you know. For a little woman.” Her accompanying smile was not as warm as the dutiful laugh Galina had disposed upon the message-bearing Inspector, but Jeremy took it as a token of interest, and dutifully expanded on what it was that he had gleaned the previous evening.
“The whole point is that they want land. Already own over twenty miles of the upper estuary and want more. Actively pursuing any opportunity to buy up marshes. All in the name of preservation. Preservation and management of wildfowl stocks for us and for future generations. They even buy land put down to conservation. That stuff you told me about re-using reeds and so on. All fits in. Don’t you see? The right people shooting over our land, having bought it, paid for it, and yet preserving it for us. And, I’ll be bound, leaving quite enough away from the banks to satisfy Reed. It’s a win-win situation. There! Now, don’t tell me that isn’t good news.”
“And these wonderful people are, again?”
“The County Wildfowlers. Been going over fifty years. All the right people. All the right ideas. Just what we want. They pay well. Thornley told me himself. He’s not only sold land to them, I gather, but he’s on the management committee now. You see? Win-win!”
And Jeremy Tewkes, sitting back in his chair, waved a bitten-into piece of toast like a magic wand. One that would wipe away their problems, privacy-wise and financial for the ever and ever to come.
Marcia looked back down at the letter in her hand. That letter! That Macintosh! She opened her mouth to speak but, for once, was beaten to it by a now thoroughly wound up Jeremy.
“Marvellous sport. Oh, the beauty of it! The early morning mist; the first signs of the rising sun. The silence. Until, in the distance, the first honk of an approaching goose. Then, there they come. In high line formation, and up go the guns. The dogs all-aquiver await the summons to splash in after the game. Greylag and Pinkfoot; White Front, Canada and Brent. All, the chaps say, are around and in plenty on such fine mornings. Not to mention the mallard, the widgeon and the pintail. Wondrous sport, all. Wonderful! All on our own land! We can have it all.”
“We, my dearest husband, are in line for getting nothing of it. Not, that is, unless you rate those precious acres as being worth less than about three thousand pounds.” The last bite of toast splattered out over the breakfast table driven by the replying snort.
“Three thousand! Three thousand! What’s got into you woman! Hundreds more like it. Three! Pah!”
Greylag Goose (My Patch, WWT Llanelli)
“Then calm down, swallow your toast as well as your indignation and listen. To me and to Mr Macintosh whose letter I have been studying despite your complete lack of interest.” The voice was cold. “Three thousand. Any more and, as your awkward brother chose to die intestate, we, as the next of kin, are required to obtain a grant of letters of administration.”
For a one-time estate agent, Jeremy looked suitably blank. Also increasingly worried at his wife’s bitter tone. She declaimed.
“The document that entitles us to get the land. Letters of administration.”
Her concern seemed to him out of perspective, as his brain came back into focus.
“All right. Annoying, I grant you, but so what? Easy enough thing for Macintosh to do, surely? He must have got many of these letters things in his time.”
“No doubt, but,” and Marcia gave the letter she was holding a vigorous shake, as though to throw the next set of unwelcome words free from its surface, “it is not as simple as that. He says he may fail to get them for us in the situation that has arisen.”
“Why not? Why not? What’s arisen?”
“What’s arisen? Your evil-minded sister, that’s what’s arisen. Evil-minded and money grasping. Oh, I won’t blame your family. Although heaven knows what genes she inherited from your father. It’ll be her husband’s doing. Taught her all the underhand tricks he knew. Bitch! We have a fight on our hands. Utterly unfair and utterly irritating.”
Jeremy, having no idea what it was she was talking about, had the sense to wait upon her explanation. There is nothing he could say, he knew, at this stage, that would in any way help the outcome of whatever problem it was that he was now to be told of.
“Your dawn squadron of geese will fly safely out of sight whilst you will be allowed to do no more than wave a stick at them if she gets her way.” The ‘she’ was spat out with a venom especial to a thwarted Marcia. “More like an unkindness of ravens. Or a thieving of magpies. No dropping of sheldrake or spring of teal will test your guns. Not if she has her way.” Jeremy was as much taken aback by the flood of collective nouns as by the anger in his wife’s voice.
“What on earth is it?”
“A partnership, if you please.” And, calming, Marcia prepared to tell her husband what it was that their solicitor had really written to tell them. Letters of administration he could well have handled without bothering to tell his clients of the need. But not in this scenario. The cool young woman who acted for Galina, the Ms Susan Garland that the bereaved lady had so recently consulted, had been sharp and to the point.
“Partnership!” Had he still toast in his mouth it would have covered the cloth and shot across the room. “What partnership? Why”, recovering something of his business acumen. “Alan was acting as a sole trader. Surely?” His voice fell away to more of a whine as he looked again at her face. He knew that was not what he was about to hear.
“You know of the Partnership Act 1890, of course, having worked for a partnership.” There was more than a hint of sarcasm in her piercing tones. Jeremy once again knew when to keep quiet. It was a struggle, but it had to be done. He waited. Somehow, and managing, just, not to choke while so doing.
“It seems that your beloved sister is claiming that, as she put money into the business to back Alan, even if he was dead almost before he knew of it, she is now a partner.”
Jeremy almost rose to the bait of a screaming denial of the possibility, but suffered a rapidly reddening face instead as he breathed hard and she went on, referring to the solicitor’s letter.
“The law, that wonderfully up-to-date 1890s law, states that a relationship, a partnership, which is not an organisation in its own right with a separate legal personality – I read here – can be fixed by oral agreement or implication. And there, dear Jeremy, is more than just an implication from Galina. Her lawyers have written to Macintosh claiming full rights. Every partnership is dissolved by the death or the bankruptcy – no argument which is which here – o
f a partner. Unless! Here’s the thing. The articles of a business, more or less, frequently provide that the business may be continued by the surviving partner where one has died. Galina simply intends to carry on where Alan left off.”
Jeremy sat back, swallowed, re-swallowed, then began to get into gear. It was still rather early in the morning for anything other than shooting wild fowl.
“Read that last bit again. If you will. That bit about the surviving partner carrying on the business.” Marcia did so.
“Ha! ‘The articles’ you say. What articles of partnership could there possibly be? They had no time. Surely? Surely they couldn’t have? I doubt if the poor old boy lived to see anything into his bank account.”
“It’s there now. Paid in. Macintosh thought of that one. But, well done you! Yes, he goes on to say that the matter of any articles will be one for investigation. Also, there must be, he says, some evidence of an agreement that, if one were to die or, again, go bankrupt, the other could carry on. Galina, it seems, is claiming all this was discussed and agreed between her and Alan before she confirmed the giving of the money.”
Both sat back awhile. Marcia passed the letter over to Jeremy. He, taking more control of his emotions as the smell of danger, the danger of losing his land, for his it should beyond doubt be, grew in his nostrils. The fumes began to act as a sal volatile. He steadied. He read it a second time. It deserved the attention. It required the attention. Something stank other than the whiff of loss.
“This bit, Marcia! This bit in particular. This is frightening. If I read aright, it says that partnership property, in the circumstances claimed by Galina, can be converted to personal property.”
“So now we know who killed him.”
Jeremy could only look down the table, slack jawed, at his Lady Macbeth of a wife. That was a comment he could not reply to.
They continued to sit over cold cups of coffee, with hot flames of the indignation of the unjustly deprived racing through their heads. Neither seemed able to get any further. It was Jeremy who broke the jam with a basic, practical remark.
“It’ll cost money.”
Marcia knew what he meant. Getting into the hands of the law always meant expense. Galina could afford it. Could they? What if she won her claim? Then, on top of the expense to them, what other costs would arise? Marcia saw ever more clearly the simple outline of a simple answer to a simple who-dunnit. Galina becomes a partner, and settles the issue of the succession by a single shot. Marcia’s mind did not explore questions of detail. What she was wondering was how she could avoid sitting down with her murdering, land-grabbing sister-in-law under the ecclesiastical eye of the good and simple Vicar at the luncheon club to which, under pressure, she had agreed to go? If she went, she would be sorely tempted to jump to her feet and accuse Galina there and then! The She-Devil, in a such circumstance, would deny it all, of course. Certainly not break down and ask the Reverend for absolution. Yet, who knows? What a dramatic scene it would make! Marcia knew that her accusation would have to be very well timed. And perfectly phrased. A task far from easy, face to face with her scheming sister-in-law. So, could she, should she go at all? She couldn’t. Couldn’t! Go to that lunch! How on earth? And yet. And yet. Why not? Maybe, in the presence of such company, a few well-prepared and smoothly presented questions, allied to a suitably forgiving demeanour, might lead Galina to admit that this partnership wheeze was nothing more than a try-on. The approach might pay off. In any event, it was a little late to drop out. More. A drop-out would, no doubt, give that scheming Jezebel further opportunity to gloat. To tell her ghastly crew of jenny-come-latelys how clever she was. How successful she was being. No! She, Marcia, would go. She would not confront, not in words of aggression, but she would listen and, at any and every opportunity, she would make sure that Galina and as many of her sycophantic entourage as she could engage, would know what a cheap, mean, underhand and sly person they were associating with. She would not openly accuse her of murder. Of course not. There were laws other than the Partnership Act of 1890 that covered such behaviour, but she could hint. Oh, she could hint! It wasn’t only Galina who could command the field. A few words from her, Marcia, well chosen and well placed, could, would, be more effective, certainly more damaging, the more so in that luncheon group setting, than any flatulent prose from a lawyer. She would not say it in so many words but, by her implications, she would sow the seeds in the others’ minds. Let’s see who can do the most damage, and who will creep limping from the fold first. If Marcia could not afford legal fees in the way Galina could, she, Marcia, could do the most damage among those her opponent wished to cultivate. Poor Vicar! She hoped he had a suitable old-testament theme. Her vengeance, if aroused, could rival that of the ancient God of the Jews.
Jeremy wished he had some fresh coffee to console him. His sister a murderess indeed!
Chapter Thirteen
etective Chief Superintendent Elwyn Davis liked a puzzle. He chose his Sunday paper with that in mind. The one that gave him a good brain-tester each week. As his wife said to her friends, it kept him quiet and took his mind away from his work. Not that the Chief Super was a worrier by nature. But his mind liked to worry away at a problem until it was solved. A Welshman, he had moved across the border very shortly after joining the Force, and had been happy and successful there. He had no regrets at his decision. He liked his work and liked, in the main, those that he worked with. He did not like people who tried short cuts or looked for the easy way out of difficult or unpleasant tasks, but he knew how to handle human nature. He could never have got where he had otherwise. As an example, he understood, had understood since taking his career decision, his younger brother’s reservations over the police arising from his deep involvement in valleys politics of a somewhat old school. Left wing, allied to a nationalistic bent. That same brother’s political passion led him to use the Welsh f and not the English v in his surname – for no sound reason, as Chief Superintendent Elwyn would put it with a little smile.
He greeted ‘Digger’ Hole with a broader smile for he hoped he brought him a puzzle to talk over.
“So! Got the killer yet?” The question did not require an answer. Hole knew his chief.
“Going back there right after this, sir. With Maitland. He’s been doing a bit of digging for me.”
“As you have, no doubt?”
“Been delving a bit. Just to get the feel of things.”
“Quite right. Annie can help there, I’m certain. With her local knowledge and contacts. It’s as good as having two DIs on the case.”
Hole didn’t respond to that one either. His wife’s dragooning into the next lunch club meeting was as far as he could dare hope for her DI-type co-operation. But for background, he knew his boss was right. And background probably was the key to this case.
“Narrowed the field?”
“In a sense yes, sir. In one way its wide open. Anyone with the right sort of gun could have done it. I’ve even considered someone from the continent jumping on the Eurostar and doing the deed. As a mental exercise only.”
“I would trust so! You’ve not arrested one of our fellow Europeans yet?” Again Hole let the comment slide past, and went on to give a more reasoned report.
“In so far as there is a feasible field,” he began, “I am trying to tie it in with a motive. There are two possible or, maybe, a combination of them. First, there’s the anger at the loss of shooting rights.”
“Anger you say? Not too dramatic an interpretation?”
“I think not, sir. Deep anger is what I sense. Oh, for sure, it’s all wrapped up in a pretence of the affair being no more than one of slightly hurt feelings, of being diddled out of something. But that something goes deep. Certainly in the case of DeLacey Thornley and, through him, maybe Farmer as well.” Hole could use the names with confidence; his preliminary written submission had been on his chief’s desk first thing that morning, and he knew that it would have been absorbed before his arrival.
“Sufficient to drive them to kill?”
“Enough, who knows, to push one of them over the edge.”
“A brother!”
“As I say, I think our Mr Jeremy is being pushed by his wife into stances and postures that he is not entirely comfortable with. But no. I don’t think that the change of ownership, in so far as it affects shooting, would of itself take Jeremy that far. Hence the second motive. Land. I am increasingly sure that it lies at the heart of this matter.”
Davis glanced down at the papers on his desk.
“The unexpected legacy? Wills can be the very devil in families. Don’t I know.”
He said this last with such feeling that Hole couldn’t tell if the Chief Super was speaking just from professional experience or from some family saga of his own. He didn’t ask.
“Taking that land, and it’s an extensive stretch, as the key, then Jeremy certainly would have been put out. His expectations were dashed by his father’s Will. He has hopes of a natural succession to it now. A great relief to him, I guess, especially if he can find a suitable buyer. Then enters Mr Reed. Quite where I’m not sure, but he has some connection with Alan’s sister Galina. There’s a business-like lady. Someone, I would hazard, whose feelings were put out of joint by her father’s Will. We know Reed is a hard-headed man, one on the lookout for land to develop his business. Could well be that he is in the market. With money. He’s a rich one. Nice car. Soon know. Got to press him yet. If he is in the hunt for those acres, it’s a lot of money we’re talking about. Money is always a motive. Mrs Tewkes in particular is, by all accounts – including those of my assistant DI! – looking to spend a lot of it.”
Goosey Goosey Gander Page 11