The Marsh & Daughter Casebook

by Amy Myers

  ‘How’s the Fairfax book coming along?’ Luke asked, once they had given their order. ‘I brought you the cheque incidentally.’ He fished in his sports jacket pocket and produced the envelope for Peter.

  ‘Excellent. A splendid spur to our investigation.’ Peter took it from him.

  ‘No doubt. How’s it going though?’

  Georgia did not dare look at her father as Peter replied: ‘We are scuffling round the perimeter.’ He beamed so confidently that one might have thought he’d announced he was on the last chapter.

  ‘At least that’s honest. Suppose there’s nothing inside the circle? Not that I want the cheque back,’ Luke said hastily.

  ‘There will be something there,’ Peter said, more confidently than Georgia felt. ‘It’s a question of finding the way in.’

  ‘How can you be certain of that?’ Luke asked curiously.

  ‘We know,’ Peter said, glancing at Georgia, ‘that there is something to find out.’

  Georgia kept silent. The dell shouted so loudly in her mind that she felt its presence must make itself felt to Luke too.

  ‘But how?’ Luke persisted.

  ‘How do you know which of two books to publish and which to reject if they both seem publishable?’ Georgia answered at last.

  ‘Instinct.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  *

  ‘I had an interesting talk with Mike while you were gallivanting at Medlars,’ Peter said casually when they returned from lunch. ‘Before you see Bill Dane, I thought we should have another go at seeing what was in their original statements.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she cried.

  ‘I am telling you. He’s a good chap,’ Peter said condescendingly. ‘He’s already looked up the file on the Fairfax case. He rang me, not me him. Went over to Malling specially, so he said, but he might have been overstating the case.’

  ‘Why? What made him go? Is it being officially reopened?’

  ‘No. We’ve nothing to justify it yet, but Mike saw our dilemma. How can we produce a rabbit if we don’t know what’s in the hat with it? He believes in a flat playing field, does Mike.’

  ‘Can we read them?’

  ‘You’re joking. As it is, he says we owe him.’ Peter looked pained. ‘Imagine that. After all I did for him.’

  ‘We do owe him,’ Georgia said scathingly. ‘What’s the gist of it?’

  ‘He’s emailed me the notes he took. I’ve forwarded them to you. One of the diners in the restaurant saw Patrick Fairfax leave the hotel to go into the gardens. He was alone.’

  ‘Time?’

  ‘Thought to be about seven o’clock.’

  ‘What about the waiter who found the body?’

  ‘Nothing of interest. He seems to have been thoroughly grilled and ruled out. Matt claimed to have been alone in his office until nearly eight, and didn’t see Patrick after he’d been thrown out just before seven. Paul Stock did indeed say he went to find him in the downstairs bar but failed. So far nothing new on any of the pilots. Sir Richard Vane said he left the club a little earlier than the other aviation club members because he wasn’t well. Plenty of staff said they saw Patrick that day. The other restaurant waiters, reception staff, bar staff, were all interviewed. The latter in particular. One barman saw him drinking in the bar – the upstairs one – after the others had left; another in the downstairs bar.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘No, with a woman. Probably Janet Freeman.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I thought that would get your attention. It seems this Mrs Fairfax was selective in which photographs she put in these scrapbooks – and with the truth. There were four, not three, aviation club members who went to the hotel that day. Janet Freeman also made a statement to the police.’

  Georgia had been thinking. ‘You don’t mean the traveller? Writes or wrote books on women explorers?’

  ‘I imagine the same one.’

  ‘Now that is interesting.’ The further 1940 receded, the better. ‘What about the staff? Was it the sort of barman who if not still working there might be contactable?’

  ‘Checked that. Their hotel staff records don’t go back as far as the Seventies, but the maitre d’ says that when he came to the hotel, the barman who’d been there for thirty years was just about to retire. The three barmen interviewed in 1975 were Jim Potter, Tony Wilson and Thomas Langley. The first two were casual labour, and Langley was the one who’d been there since the year dot.’

  ‘Who was on duty that night?’

  ‘All of them, I gather. The two bars were going full tilt and they alternated service. Langley remembered seeing Fairfax in the upstairs bar, and later Wilson saw him downstairs. He said Fairfax left at ten to seven and the lady a little later. She told him to tell Fairfax she’d be in the gardens. Which fits with the story of Fairfax’s sighting at seven.’

  ‘So Janet Freeman is on our list. What about Mrs Dane? Was she interviewed?’

  ‘Yes. She stated that she was at the meeting with Matt Jones and Paul Stock, and confirms that Patrick stormed in with the potential investors and was promptly thrown out again. Nothing decisive happened in the meeting to provide a motive for murder, in her view. She left about six o’clock to meet her husband.’

  ‘And what about the row between the pilots?’

  ‘There’s the interesting thing. Not mentioned. Three of them said that Patrick left them for ten minutes or so, and came back with Paul Stock. There’d clearly been words between them. It wasn’t long afterwards that three aviation club members came in, followed by Janet Freeman a little later. I bet fur was ruffled over that.’

  ‘Paul Stock didn’t mention meeting Patrick outside.’

  ‘Another one economical with facts?’ Peter raised an eyebrow. ‘Richard Vane told the police he left about five twenty p.m. and drove home immediately since he was feeling unwell. Evidence corroborated by his wife – so the police obviously were pretty thorough. She said he arrived home in London much earlier than expected, about six thirty, and his son Harvey confirmed that too.’

  ‘That probably clears him then.’

  Peter grunted. ‘I suppose so. I’ll put him and Sylvia Lee in as background evidence in Suspects Anonymous. Now, what about Mrs Dane, a shadowy figure if ever I saw one? A dull woman, so we’re told, the little warm wife of the Fifties. Yet she was the third partner in the Matt Jones company, and by rumour Patrick Fairfax’s lover – a sleeping partner twice over, albeit a transitory one where sex is concerned.’

  ‘As was Sylvia Lee, yet you seem intent on my seeing her. It’s a good job I like tying up loose ends.’

  Peter had the last word. ‘But avoiding the knot?’

  *

  Bill Dane lived at Coggeshall, a stunningly attractive Essex village with each cottage painted brightly in varying colours. All carefully planned, Bill told her. He radiated pleasure at seeing her, which half of her appreciated while the other half still remembered that stick and the grinning gargoyles of her nightmare. Nevertheless it seemed a good start. Inside the house was delightful, full of interesting objects, although it struck her as a widower’s house. The only sign of his ‘dull’ wife was a large photograph of their wedding. Alice wore a New Look dress, with pinched-in waist and wide three-quarter-length skirt, dating it to between 1948 and 1950. She didn’t look at all dull to Georgia.

  No coffee, or even tea, in this household, even though it was early afternoon. ‘How about a glass of something?’ he asked her. She joined him in a glass of wine, which served to break any remaining ice, and duly admired the photograph.

  ‘I understand your wife was a partner in the Woodring Manor Hotel?’

  ‘Not an active role. She had great faith in Matt Jones.’

  ‘But not in Patrick Fairfax?’ Rather a gauntlet to lay down on her part, but he had promised to help them.

  He smiled. ‘Patrick was a wonderful person. We all loved him. But he was no businessman. His death was an enormous shock to us all. We
still feel it, and that’s why we decided to help you. We were perhaps too close to see much at the time.’

  ‘Guarding what did not need guarding?’ Where had that come from?

  ‘Who judges that, Georgia, apart from God?’

  ‘I’m afraid we have to.’

  He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘I see that. So where shall we begin?’

  ‘Would your movements have varied from the statements you gave then, or can we take them as still valid?’

  ‘Details corrected now might be suspect.’

  ‘But you must have talked them over between yourselves?’

  He answered almost too quickly. ‘Obviously we did. There was no disagreement over what happened.’

  It was time to push, Georgia decided. ‘There was some kind of fracas with Patrick Fairfax that afternoon. Perhaps two blow-ups. One he had with Paul Stock outside and another disagreement between the eight of you. That’s not in the statements, but we’ve been told two different stories. That it was about writing memoirs, or that it was over a personal problem . . .’

  ‘Over my wife,’ he finished for her. ‘I’m accustomed to that canard. No doubt you heard that she and Patrick had had an affair, and that Patrick taunted me at the meeting.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed gratefully.

  ‘So now you wish to know if it was true. Let me tell you an old army joke I used to use in my sermons. A chestnut, no doubt, but worth boring you with. The commander leading a column of troops despatched a verbal message back through the men: Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance. By the time the message had reached the rear of the column it had been transformed into: Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance.’

  She laughed. ‘Peter and I are used to that problem, but I haven’t heard it put so well before. That’s what happened over your wife?’

  ‘Whispers grow out of proportion and alter their direction. My wife came from a wealthy family. Patrick was keen to begin the aviation club, and Matt the hotel. Patrick spent a long time trying to persuade Alice to invest in the club but she chose the hotel, trusting Matt rather than Patrick where money was concerned. Patrick had escorted her to many events in the meanwhile, providing the basis for rumour. My wife had great beauty but it shone from within. Not Patrick’s style for his casual amours.’

  ‘But if the rumour was false why did Patrick apparently tell his wife it was true, and why did a row blow up on the day of his death?’

  ‘It didn’t.’

  ‘Your wife was there . . .’ she began doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, but not in the bar. That was a stag do, or meant to be. In fact Janet Freeman joined us, which displeased my misogynistic friends. My wife did not so intrude. We had friends living nearby, whom she visited and then drove over to see Matt later. She left the meeting before Patrick burst in for the second time, when only Matt and Paul were left. He had to be patiently persuaded not to throttle them both, I gather.’

  ‘How did the rumour first get around about the affair?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  She wasn’t having that. ‘You must have. You’d have been hopping mad if false rumours were going round, and certainly your wife would.’

  ‘Bowled leg before wicket,’ he chuckled. ‘Very well. I suspect Patrick himself at least helped spread the rumour and then told his wife.’

  She blinked in disbelief. ‘Why?’

  ‘Patrick had the gift of the gab. What better way of hiding an indiscretion than by confessing to another, particularly one that could be implied to have been in the past?’

  ‘You mean there was a current one?’

  ‘One never knew with Patrick. It could have been to deflect poor Jean from his monetary troubles. A hint of an affair with Alice could explain all too easily why he was getting flak over the hotel.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. That made sense. ‘So the argument in the bar on the day of his death was about memoirs?’ This seemed odd to her.

  ‘Correct. Some of us felt strongly that Patrick should not write such a book.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘After so long how could he see things clearly? One could look at one’s logbook and read the brief notes made at the time. “Shot down Me 109, Ashford.” But how could all the circumstances be recalled? Imagination, with the best will in the world, must always be helpfully hovering to help out. Suppose one forgets the horror of seeing one’s comrades shot down in flames, and the equal horror of doing it oneself. Suppose one remembers only the face of God, the glory of the skies and not their darkness. The whole truth can never be recaptured.’

  Fine words, but she was still puzzled. ‘Why did Patrick want to write his memoirs in the 1970s when he had already published such a classic in This Life, This Death?’

  ‘Family pressure, I seem to recall. The earlier book is naturally short on detail. You have no doubt seen how enthusiastic Jean still is to keep his flame alight. She supported, indeed suggested the biography of him, written by Jack Hardcastle. Now she is naturally eager to help with the film and revised new edition.’

  ‘Who amongst you supported his writing a new book?’

  ‘Dear Harry, Matt, and Fairfax himself were in favour. Tom, Jan, Bob McNee and myself opposed it. I can’t recall what stance Nat took.’

  ‘And that’s fact,’ Georgia asked lightly, ‘not hindsight?’

  He didn’t take offence. ‘It is fact. I know that because we continue to hold the same views. Helping a historian or biographer is one thing. Writing our own stories seems to me another. We couldn’t stop Patrick writing his, but we could certainly make our opinions known. We did, and he didn’t like it.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to be mentioned in your statements.’

  ‘Because, Georgia, animated discussion is hardly murder material. Do you really think one of us had a hidden secret and was so fearful of its being revealed in Patrick’s memoirs that he killed him? If there was such a secret it would have emerged in Jack’s biography. Killing Patrick would have achieved nothing. No. You must realize that we loved the man, Georgia.’

  He spoke with conviction, and it made sense. ‘Do you still talk about the day Patrick died amongst yourselves?’ she asked him curiously.

  ‘Mostly not. The link is there without its being spoken of. As it is with the Battle of Britain. Public perception of such reunions is that their purpose is to hash over old times. In practice they work out differently, especially as we meet regularly.’

  ‘Why do you?’ Georgia asked bluntly. ‘Didn’t the shock of his death tempt you to give them up?’

  ‘I believe I see it as my duty to continue. I cannot speak for the others.’

  ‘Duty towards whom? Patrick?’ She found this so interesting that it was worth risking his annoyance by persisting.

  The blue eyes held her steadily. ‘Why do most of us send Christmas cards year after year to people we’d love to see again but probably never will? Time does not permit. We change. The Christmas cards are a sign that the past is still with us and that the future still bears hope. All this in one small gesture – yet some say it is pointless, too expensive. Nonsense.’ He smiled. ‘So, to answer your question, it’s something that Bob, Harry, Jan, Matt and I need to do.’

  ‘A memorial to Patrick?’

  ‘To the dead, Georgia. Remember that.’

  He was very serious now, and yet they were getting away from the point, even though Bill seemed to want to impress this strongly on her.

  ‘Was the memoir discussion ended when Patrick left you and later returned with Paul Stock?’

  He hesitated. ‘I believe so. After that three members of the aviation club arrived, followed by Miss Freeman. It was not well received. We are a hospitable bunch, but we like our time alone. Your father was of course an exception,’ he added politely.

  ‘You were very gracious to him.’ She wasn’t going to be fobbed off. ‘But animated discussion was over?’

  Again he hesitated. ‘Well, yes . . .’

&nbs
p; ‘You said you’d help,’ she reminded him, ‘and making sense of all this is essential.’

  He made a rueful face. ‘It’s a fair cop, Georgia. I was hoping to keep this out of it. The real row was between Patrick and Paul Stock. Patrick had gone outside – we didn’t know why – and then they both came in very angry.’

  ‘But why wasn’t this in the statements?’

  ‘We couldn’t swear to something that took place out of our hearing. Anyway, it was well known that Patrick and Paul had a rocky relationship at that time. It had nothing to do with our reunion.’

  ‘Then you can tell me. If it leads nowhere there’s no problem,’ she said instantly. She was getting somewhere now.

  ‘I see you’ve been CIA trained,’ he said resignedly. ‘It was over Paul Stock’s ex-wife with whom Patrick was having an affair. Paul had seen her in the car park carrying what was clearly an overnight bag, and objected strongly when Patrick came out to meet her. Patrick, I fear, would not have been able to see what the fuss was about. Paul’s ex-wife was now single, even if Patrick was not, so he told Paul to keep out of it. Paul refused.’

  ‘So who was she?’

  ‘I have no way of knowing the truth about that, even though it was fairly common gossip at the club.’

  ‘At the club?’ Georgia pounced.

  A split second reaction as Bill seemed to realize he was cornered.

  ‘It was Janet Freeman.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘It’s a motive at least.’ Georgia was mutinous. Peter was not as jubilant as she about the Janet Freeman lead. She tried to ignore the suspicion that her own jubilance was because it took the case so firmly away from 1940.

  ‘I agree.’ Peter held up his hands in surrender. ‘I’m just saying it’s an interesting fact, not a solution.’

  ‘You said cherchez la femme. I’ve found you one.’

  ‘You know why the Greeks fought so successfully, Georgia?’

  ‘Oh, please.’

  ‘They organized themselves in a phalanx, maintaining a continuous line of shields.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Doesn’t it strike you that Bill Dane has organized a phalanx and is deflecting you from the vital issues?’