After a few minutes of general chat, centred on the two murders with Farmer repeating that he and Thornley were nowhere near the church on the morning of the second one, Hole edged around to Ma Olive.
“I’m still trying to tease out what Den was boasting about; this story of seeing someone at the time of the Alan Tewkes killing. You are sure you saw nothing? Nobody?”
“Nobody.”
“He was out early, too” put in his wife. “But then, he often is. Him and his sheep!”
Hole noted that she wasn’t going to alter that story. He carried on.
“I’m going on now to see if I can get anything out of Ma Olive about it. I’ve picked up some hints from the Bell and, of course, Mrs Carmichael, but I’ve got to get from her, first hand, whatever it was that Den told her. You know her pretty well I understand, Mrs Farmer. Is she the sort who will come clean about whatever it was Den said? Funny sort of set-up that, isn’t it. Always puzzled me, but I’ve never had need to probe before. Related are they?”
Bessie Farmer looked troubled. Her husband encouraged her.
“Go on, love! The Inspector knows how to handle gossip. You can tell him. You were there, up at the Hall, for a time before we married. You saw them.”
’The Hall’ was what the older residents of the village still called Wickton, as Hole did know. He looked, also encouragingly, at Mrs Farmer. She stalled by offering him a second cup of tea. It was a big pot. He accepted, to spin out the time. Maitland accepted a second piece of cake, and settled back to listen carefully to whatever came out. Finally, after some debate internal, Bessie Farmer said:
“It mainly is gossip, Mr Hole. But while I was only at, Wickton as it is now, for not quite two years mind, well, I did wonder how Ma Olive and Den were connected. For they was in some way, that’s for sure. He had some sort of hold over her. Surprised me. Ma had a firm grip on the place. Of course, most of the servants had gone by then. The days when she had a large staff to boss around were no more. There was me and Ethel Rees, her what died last winter poor soul, and a gardener. We was the only full-time people by then. In his heyday the Duke had run a big house, and Ma had been his chief domestic since most of us could remember.”
“A good worker, then?”
“Oh yes. Give her her due. A bit too fussy to my mind. House-proud to excess. Only the three of us to do everything, and her wanting everything spotless and shining in case the Duke saw it. Not that the poor old boy saw much in his last years, but she never gave up. Near worshipped him and all that he did, she did. Used to tell us tales of the big shooting parties and the like which she, according to her, made sure went off with a bang, as she would put it.”
“A sense of humour as well?”
“Not really. But she has a sly way with her. Liked to put everyone into her debt. Except the Duke, of course. He just walked on water so far as she was concerned. Not bad to work for really, but very, very touchy when it came to Den. She never liked him coming up to the Hall. Yet he would. He was getting bolder, I reckon, in my day. But, of course, as I say, it was all rather running down by then. I don’t know how free he was with the place before that. I took it that he worked as some sort of gamekeeper for the Duke, but it’s how he was with Ma that caused the rumours. Like as though she had to do whatever he wanted of her.”
Hole sipped his tea slowly. This could be the crunch moment of this conversation.
“Those rumours. Had you heard them before you went to work there?”
“Oh yes. Around the village. And Ethel, God rest her soul, had great pleasure in telling them to me in detail when I went up to The Hall to join her. She said, and I’m still almost ashamed to repeat it because I still think it’s scandalous, but she reckoned that Den was the product, if you know what I mean, of the Duke and Olive. The nickname ‘Ma’ was only used by us out of her hearing in those days. Not like now. Mrs Carmody she was officially, and she made sure that’s how she always was when working for the Duke. I never saw nothing between them, but then, he was older than her, and both were getting on. Den had some hold, that’s for sure. Didn’t earn his keep on my reckoning. And look what happened when she left? They say that it was one of the last acts of the Duke to get that railway carriage bought and fixed for her to retire to. Not that she would retire so long as he was alive. Wouldn’t leave him for anything.”
“But when she did, and the cottages were bulldozed away by the roadworks?”
“That’s when Den joined her in the carriage.”
Hole’s good fortune continued. Ma Olive was at the carriage. She greeted them duster in one hand and a tin, not a spray, of polish in the other. The Inspector, recalling his impressions on the earlier visits, supposed that being house-proud was her way of passing the time. She looked unchanged. Neither worn down with grief, or showing any surprise at their calling.
“What is it this time? Is it only Den that can rest in peace?”
“I need to speak to you, Mrs Carmody.” Hole paused to see what effect this greeting had. He hadn’t used any title on the earlier visits; he was entirely unsure of the ‘Mrs’ now. He was disappointed. There was no visible reaction. Not a flicker. No show of interest. He went on. “About Den’s ‘talking in his cups’ as you put it. We are getting near to finding who killed him. I must have as much as you can tell me about what he said he saw on the morning of Alan Tewkes’ death.”
“No more than I said last time.”
Hole wanted to get at the phrase quoted by Mrs Carmichael. She had reported Ma Olive as saying to her that Den has said, openly, ‘to her face’ was the expression, that he had seen somebody there when Alan had been shot. Man or woman,? The shopkeeper hadn’t been told. He needed to be.
“May we come in? It would be more comfortable.”
All her face said ‘No’, but she was aware of how difficult the cops could be. She grunted a reply and stepped back into the corridor. The two followed. She turned into the sitting room that Hole had noted before, with its out-of-scale heavy furniture and the dominating, brooding, heavy-framed painting. He took a stab.
“The Duke?”
At last, some animation in her eyes.
“His father. Hung in the study all my Duke’s life. Thought a lot of it. Never had his own done. His father was quite old when he was born. My Duke. That’s why he never married, some said.”
Hole took it that there was some sociological reasoning there, but had no wish to pursue it. He tried a lighter approach. Nodding to the cleaning materials she still held firmly on to, he commented:
“Keeping up the old standards, I see.”
“And why not? Just because this isn’t the Hall.”
Maitland joined in.
“Had a long career at the Hall did you, Mrs Carmody?” Again no response to the title, but a positive one to the reference to her service record. Pride in achievement.
“I went there as a girl. From school. Just fifteen. Better taught than many. That’s why I got on. My Duke was young then. Big staff. Lots of activity. I was with him right to the end. A wonderful man. Absolutely wonderful. We won’t see his likes again.”
There was solemn pause.
“Was Den with you? On the staff?”
“Den? Whatever gave you that idea? He wasn’t on the staff. Lived in one of the old cottages. Did a bit of trapping and that. The Duke allowed him. But no more. On the staff! That’d be the day. Could hardly keep himself clean.”
“Nor his gun, you told us last time,” said Maitland. “You even cleaned that for him. Did you clean the Duke’s guns?”
“Me? Well, by the end, I was doing most things. The young girls who came then had no idea how to do anything properly. It’s at The Hall where I learned how to do it, if that’s what you mean. But he had to give up shooting. The Duke. Just glad he isn’t here today to see what’s become of his land.”
Hole wanted to get to the matter of Den’s claims.
“Den would have got to know that land well, wouldn’t he? On the staff or
not? If he was trapping. He would have learned to move without being seen. And yet see anyone else about.”
“Like a gamekeeper coming,” hazarded Maitland.
The sergeant realised that had been a silly comment. Den was there on ducal authority. He decided to shut up. The three were still standing in the knocked-together compartments. Ma Olive signalled them to sit, in two high-backed, dark wood chairs. She sat opposite in an embroidered wing chair. Well worn. Well fitted. Hole could imagine her in it in her room at the Hall, Wickton, sewing the Duke’s shirts or, who knows, cleaning his guns. And those of others? Foxley’s? He brought himself back to the realities.
“This fine furniture,” he began. “Come from the Hall did it?”
“All legal.” Was she alarmed? “Left me in the Duke’s Will. Along with this house and a small pension. A truly great man was the Duke.”
“He looked after Den too? Had him live here?”
“Den!” There was that sneering edge to her voice again. “Den’s here because of me.”
At the risk of again moving away from the question he wanted answered, Hole pursued the twist.
“I apologise. I thought that maybe either you two were related,” – that did bring a gleam of, what? scorn? to her eyes – “or that he, too, was a pensioner of the Duke.”
Ma Olive showed her upset by almost spitting out a reply.
“Pensioner! So far as the Duke and myself were concerned he could have stayed in that cottage for ever. And that’s more than he would have deserved of anyone with a less wonderful nature than his Grace. Pensioner! I told the Duke again and again not to give in to the boy. But he took pity on that silly girl Blodwen, you see, and ever after took it upon himself to give the boy a chance. And didn’t he take advantage? Once he was old enough and came back to live with his mother, he was indulged by the Duke. Looked on him as a sort of nephew in a way. So we all had to put up with him. Oh, he was a good enough looking boy when young. You wouldn’t think so now.”
The wrong tense was no more than a slip of the tongue. It underlined to Hole how, he supposed, fifty years or near enough would have passed from the baby’s birth to the shooting in the graveyard. He wanted to think. He nodded at Maitland to push the story.
“His mother worked for the Duke, then?”
Ma Olive was away, now, in a flood of reminiscences. She was back into the fine days when the Duke had been in his pomp and her, adoringly by her own manner of speaking, in his service.
“Nice enough girl. And a good worker. Got herself in the family way. Blodwen Brace. She was ever so lucky, as I told her on many a time. The Duke supported her all the way and took her back into service the moment she was free of the baby.”
“Free of it?”
“Lucky, as I say. Lucky twice over. Especially in them days. Not like now where the government pays you to have bastards. Blod was lucky. Her parents took the boy, and saw him right through till he was old enough to leave school and join his mother. Then he had his army service. And then he came to the cottage with her. When she died, the Duke let him stay on there. Wonderful man.”
Maitland didn’t know where to go next. Hole, recalling Bessie Farmer’s story, chanced his arm.
“Do you know who the father was? And why change his name from Brace to Bracegirt?”
At this the old lady exploded.
“And what have you been told? Who have you been listening to? I’ll hear none of it, I tell you. None of it. It was just evil. Bad old gossips. People not good enough to clean his shoes who said those horrible things. Lies! As if the Duke was Den’s father! That boy would have been a different character if he had been. Just some passing fancy man. That was all. Blodwen Brace was no better than she should have been. Going off down the village at night! And where to? And what for? Just because his Grace was the fine, kind, understanding man that he was, there were some who tried to sully his name. None of it is true. None of it!”
Hole pressed a point.
“But if you didn’t like Den much, why take him in with you when the cottages were removed? Surely, Social Services would have had to house him.”
“Social Services! What would the Duke have said? It was my duty. Hard though it’s been at times. My duty.”
The old lady now looked genuinely upset. Hole moved as fast as he could on to what he hoped would be safer ground.
“I see. Very fine. Not many would have done as you did. But one other thing, please, if I may. Why add ‘girt’ to his surname?”
“Just shows you how considerate of all his servants the Duke was. To spare Blodwen Brace any risk of embarrassment, as he told me, he changed his name. Legally. He said that as the boy was ‘bound’ to her, then he was ‘girt’ to her. Do you see?”
Just for a moment Hole could see the spark of humour that Bessie Farmer had noted when shooting parties had ‘gone off with a bang’. But he was no nearer the answer to the one question he had come to ask. Firmly he tried again.
“This business of what Den saw that morning. It is most important. Indeed, it could lead us straight to the killer. We know a lot already. That could be the clincher. Please. What was it, who was it, that he saw?”
There was no prompt reply, but no attempt at evasion this time either. Eventually Ma Olive said:
“He said he saw someone. He wanted to pester that someone. Maybe he wanted money. He always wanted money. I couldn’t give him much and rabbits don’t bring in all that. Maybe he just wanted to taunt. To feel his power over them. He wasn’t a nice man, Den. But I can’t tell you who it was. And that’s the truth.”
“He was nice enough to offer to help dig that grave,” Maitland felt the need to say. It drew no response of any kind.
“Obsessed with the Duke, sir. Cut her own head off if he’d asked her to,” said Maitland as they bumped back down the track to the main road.
“Pity he isn’t here to ask her himself what it was Den saw. She’d tell him, I bet.”
“You think she knows more than she’s telling us? If so, what’s her motive? She says she doesn’t – didn’t – like the fellow. So why go on protecting him after he’s dead?”
“If that’s what she’s doing.”
“Someone else then? Galina Foxley?”
“Can’t see any link. More likely to be whoever it was Den saw.”
“And that wasn’t Galina? You surprise me.”
Hole smiled.
“I’d like to think so! We mustn’t get into a fixed mind-set, as the dear Chief Super has already warned us.”
“None the less!”
“I take your hint. The sooner the good Mrs F returns and we can get at her again the better for us all.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
hey did not have to wait long. Hole had been right. Galina Foxley returned under her own steam. And made no secret of it. Mrs Carmichael knew before Annie who, in turn, beat her husband to the knowledge. The Inspector was able to tell his sergeant and his Chief Superintendent. So does the good word spread.
Some other good news was spreading, though that, too, brought its problems.
“You’ll have to find some time to help, Gerald,” his wife had urged. “We can’t leave it all to the good ladies of the RSPB. Graham Bingley and I will do what we can, but while Galina is still putting in the money she’s not into anything practical.”
The migrating mallards were due back any day. The summer was at last coming. There were a few residents, but the bulk came every year from the Czech Republic or Germany. The shooting records showed this happened – they had their good uses! All this Annie explained, but could her spouse see the implications? The Detective Inspector was as slow onto this one as he had been to Ma Olive’s connection with Wickton.
“Bird flu! That’s the fear of The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, or whatever it’s called now – I’ve only just got over calling it the Min of Ag and Fish. They have said that there have been avian flu outbreaks in both those countries in the last month or s
o. The black-headed gulls are the ones they are most concerned about, but also the mallards. We’ve learned what to do from Slimbridge. If we don’t keep a sharp eye open and ensure that there’s nothing amiss with the birds that come back here, all that Alan has started could be at risk.”
“Not to mention the local farm birds,” replied the now alerted policeman. “OK, I’ll do what I can, but things are coming to something of a critical point in the murder cases. I really can’t promise much. Though,” catching sight of her face, “I will do all I can. Honest!”
Hole and Maitland had been playing the game of guess the truth. Was Ma Olive a ‘ma’? If so, of Den? By the revered Duke? Or was it as she had said, the misled Blodwen Brace supported by an exceptionally caring employer? Guessing whether migrating mallards had avian flu was not as high on his list of ‘what-to-dos’ as his wife would wish.
The Chief Super having been told of their bird’s return, Hole got a renewal of the backing for him to have one more go at the lady of Fox Lea in her lair before resorting to more formal tactics.
Mallard (Mallard in reeds, WWT Llanelli)
“No scaring her off, mind! I don’t want her alerted to the details of the case against her until we have her in the station.”
Hole acknowledged his senior’s point and then, with Maitland, set out to tie down his quarry. Would his luck on chance callings hold? He had made no appointment this time either. Somebody ‘up there’ was with him. It did. Galina opened the door herself.
“I’ve hardly unpacked, but do come in. Something else I can help you with?” She was calm enough at first sight. Hole said nothing as they were taken into the usual, as he now thought of it, room. No Mr Reed dashing out of its door this time. Maitland had his notebook in hand. Galina Foxley sensed the sterner atmosphere than on previous visits and, saying nothing further herself either, indicated them to sit down. She sat, composed but aware, more on the edge of a deep seat than relaxing into its comfort.
“On your own today?”
“Svetlana’s away. She has some business to attend to as well. She’ll be back later.”
Goosey Goosey Gander Page 22