Miss Pink Investigates Part One

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘She used to visit you regularly?’

  ‘About once a week, as Zeke said.’

  ‘So she was still coming in June?’

  ‘Yes, she wasn’t drinking so bad in June; she couldn’t have been—but when you took me to Storms that weekend, son, when your cousin Randolph was with us, I hadn’t seen her for quite a while. She apologised; it was then she told me she wouldn’t drive her motor car when she’d been drinking, so I knew the drinking was getting worse.’

  Arabella was studying Miss Pink’s face. She turned to her uncle. ‘When was cousin Randolph here?’

  ‘October.’

  Arabella poured herself some coffee. ‘Perhaps something happened to Sarah in July or August,’ she said idly.

  ‘Nothing, or she’d have told me.’

  ‘If she visited you.’

  ‘Oh, she was here in August; that was when we had the sudden storm and the wall crept at Striking Knife.’

  ‘That’s a field halfway down the lane,’ Zeke explained. ‘She’s right; traffic couldn’t get through till the Council cleared the rocks and got the bank built up again.’

  ‘She didn’t come that week,’ Grannie said calmly. ‘She stopped soon after that.’

  Her listeners were silent, September in their minds. September and blackmail—for, although Miss Pink had gone up early last night, Rumney had told her he would say something to Arabella. They were a very close family; he would have told his mother too but she’d already gone to bed. This morning she had said to Miss Pink, as if the observation explained her lack of curiosity: ‘I’ll wait till you can tell me about our sheep.’ Nevertheless, Miss Pink wondered about the extent of the old lady’s knowledge, and regretted the other’s advanced age. It was not that one had to exercise compassion towards them in their frailties; on the contrary, their resistance to questioning could be unassailable. Old people, she thought, smiling vaguely at the table cloth, were rock-hard.

  ‘The hiker was killed in September,’ Grannie said.

  ‘Which one?’ Rumney asked in bewilderment. In the hills death was usually associated with climbing accidents.

  ‘The one at Storms’ bend.’

  *

  It was late when Miss Pink left Sandale House but before she got out her car to drive to High Hollins she remembered that there was something to do first. If Sarah Noble were involved, however unwillingly, with a criminal, Jackson Wren was a possible candidate.

  Coneygarth appeared not to have changed since yesterday morning, its door and windows were closed, its chimneys smokeless. She climbed the high steps to the gate and went up the slate path. It had stopped raining for the moment but everywhere there was the sound of water: dripping gutters and down-pipes, and the chatter of innumerable runnels in the wood as the hillside drained, while behind her the beck, which one could have waded on Friday, roared down the dale like a glacier torrent, confined between its banks but safe only to that extent. Anyone who fell in wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Coneygarth’s front door appeared to give access to the cow-house rather than the cottage but it was of good quality wood with a Yale lock; this would be the cross-passage customary in old longhouses, giving on to both barn and house once one were inside. There was no bell or knocker so she beat on the door with her fist. The sound was puny against the continuous background of rushing water.

  To her left were split doors which would open directly into the byre. She moved along and saw that they were unsecured except by the wooden latch lifted by poking a finger through the hole in the upper half-door. Yet solid staples were secured to door and jamb. There was a raw gash in the wood and on the grass at her feet lay a padlock and chain, the padlock still locked, the chain broken. The weakest link, she thought, and lifted the latch.

  Daylight showed her the byre with tyings for cows on each side. At the end on the right was the way through to the cross-passage with, opposite, an open door giving access to the house. She stood on the threshold and shouted for Wren. In the silence that followed she heard rats scamper over bare boards.

  The house was dark. She found a switch and the light showed her an untidy and untenanted living room with the curtains drawn over the windows. She crossed it and hesitated in front of a closed door. Shouting again was only a ritual. She swallowed unhappily, braced herself and pushed the door open. It swung inwards silently, revealing a parlour with the curtains undrawn. It was empty except for a couple of easy chairs, and climbing equipment strewn about the floor.

  At the back of the living room was a stone staircase. She sighed heavily and mounted the steps which spiralled round to emerge in another dim space. Her hand crept up, feeling for the switch.

  The light came on and showed her one large room with an unmade double bed. There was a wardrobe with open doors, clothes on hangers and, apart from an old-fashioned washstand, that was all. She looked under the bed. Dust and a pair of men’s sandals.

  The ceiling sloped, so there was no loft. The cow-house had a loft. There was no ladder but she muscled up with some difficulty from the side of a stall. Light showed round the edges of a shuttered window in the gable end. She worked her way across to it carefully, feeling for rotten boards. It opened with ease to reveal a few stalks of hay and crumbs of rubble. Coneygarth was as unoccupied as it appeared from outside.

  *

  Rumney was puzzled. He stood at the cow-house door and fingered the broken chain. ‘It looks like a break-in,’ he said, ‘but it could just as well be Jackson: come back last night and forgotten his front door key. I had a spare, but if he came back late, he wouldn’t like to wake us up.’

  They looked across the hamlet. Lucy’s chimney smoked but not Harper’s.

  ‘This door’s definitely been forced,’ he went on. ‘I didn’t hear his van come back last night, nor leave this morning, but then the beck’s making a fair noise.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s down at Thornbarrow. Lucy’s almost certain to know where he is.’

  ‘If he’s at Thornbarrow, where’s his van?’

  Arabella came up the garden path. ‘Has someone broken in?’ She’d been in the kitchen when Miss Pink went back to tell Rumney.

  ‘Looks like it,’ her uncle said. ‘Would you know if anything had been taken?’

  ‘He had a transistor—’

  ‘That’s still here.’

  ‘And all his climbing gear.’

  ‘There’s a lot of equipment in the parlour,’ Miss Pink told her, ‘valuable stuff too: ironmongery and a new rope.’

  ‘It wasn’t a climber,’ Arabella said firmly. ‘A new rope would be the first thing to go.’

  Rumney looked at Miss Pink doubtfully. ‘Perhaps you’d better see Lucy. I won’t come; I might complicate things.’

  *

  In the cold daylight Lucy looked her age but she was still elegant and courteous, if surprised. ‘Jackson?’ she repeated, ushering Miss Pink into the house, ‘I haven’t seen him since you were here: Friday night.’

  ‘Not seen him? Even in the distance?’

  ‘No.’ The other bit her lip and looked out of the window. ‘I thought it a bit odd myself—’

  Miss Pink did not appear to be waiting for the end of the sentence. She regarded the bread cupboard thoughtfully. ‘Climbing, I suppose.’ She turned to Lucy. ‘You don’t think—?’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  They stared at each other.

  ‘Does he climb alone?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Lucy said slowly. ‘When did he go?’

  ‘I didn’t see him after Friday. Didn’t you hear him leave? I mean, hear his engine?’

  ‘I didn’t hear him drive away yesterday—or did I?’ She thought about it. ‘When you’re used to hearing things, it’s difficult to remember. My God! It’s so easy to slip . . . and all that rain yesterday. His van! That’s what we have to find.’

  ‘We don’t know that he went climbing,’ Miss Pink said reasonably, ‘he might merely be visiting over the weekend.’

  Lucy’s fac
e blossomed in relief. ‘Of course! That’ll be it. He’s gone—oh, to Wales or—or Scotland—anywhere. He could be anywhere, couldn’t he?’

  *

  ‘It’s those bloody sheep,’ Rumney said viciously. ‘He’s cleared out; you must have said something Friday evening.’

  ‘I don’t think I said anything about the sheep.’ Miss Pink was calm.

  They were back in Sandale’s kitchen, ‘You didn’t say anything, Miss Pink,’ Arabella assured her. ‘The sheep weren’t mentioned that evening, not at Thornbarrow.’

  ‘I’ve suddenly remembered,’ Rumney said in wonder. ‘I mentioned to Harper that some were missing when he was across for the milk. I’d forgotten him. And he took Lucy’s eggs down to her.’ He stared at Miss Pink in consternation. ‘So Wren knowing they’d gone didn’t necessarily mean he’d taken them.’

  ‘If his disappearance doesn’t have anything to do with the sheep, what’s the next most likely explanation?’ asked Miss Pink.

  ‘Perhaps he’s gone off with George Harper’s daughter,’ Grannie put in comfortably and they turned to her in astonishment.

  Arabella’s face was blank. ‘That’s it,’ she agreed coldly, ‘he’s gone with Caroline; I wonder Lucy didn’t think of that. It’s obvious.’

  ‘He took his van,’ Rumney said. ‘He parks it on the green.’

  Arabella said in the same cold voice: ‘He’ll have left that in Carnthorpe and gone to London in Caroline’s car: more sporting.’ Miss Pink’s heart bled for her.

  ‘He’s well out of our lives,’ Grannie said.

  ‘He has to come back for his possessions,’ Miss Pink pointed out.

  ‘Oh, he’ll come back,’ Arabella assured her. ‘There’s Lucy, you see. He’ll tell her he’s been to Scotland.’

  ‘So who broke into Coneygarth?’ Rumney asked.

  ‘Why, he did: on Friday night, not last night; he’d forgotten the front door key.’

  ‘And went away Saturday morning and left all that valuable gear lying around? I’m bolting and chaining that cottage this morning or we’ll have vandals in and the place on fire.’

  *

  ‘I don’t like it,’ he told Miss Pink as they went out to her car. ‘If he broke in himself, he only had to put the chain back, using different links; it was long enough. And he had the key of the padlock.’ He stared up the dale. ‘Those sheep worry me. Of course it couldn’t have been Wren; he has no dogs, no wagon, nothing.’ He turned to her. ‘In fact, he had no experience of shepherding. He helped me a bit but it was only a matter of opening gates, that type of thing.’

  ‘Perhaps it was that type of thing for Mossop: opening gates, putting up the tailboard of a cattle truck?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘What d’you say to going along to Storms and tackling him now?’

  ‘He’ll stall.’

  He looked up at Coneygarth. ‘Yesterday he was lying to you and you didn’t ask him about my sheep. Let’s do a Box and Cox act and see if that’ll soften him up a bit.’

  ‘It’s only eleven o’clock; he won’t be open.’

  ‘He’ll be open for us.’

  *

  There was a red Aston Martin on the gravel sweep in front of the hotel.

  ‘Is that what he runs?’ Miss Pink asked, switching off her ignition.

  ‘Oh no; he’s got a Citroen Safari.’

  She glanced inside the other car but it gave no clue to its owner.

  The curtains at the window on the right of the entrance—the cocktail bar—were still drawn; there was a gap at the side where they didn’t meet. Someone had been stinting on material. The front door was closed but not locked. As they entered the hall, Mossop came down the stairs. Their appearance seemed to worry him.

  ‘The—the bar’s closed,’ he stammered.

  ‘We’ll go in there all the same.’ Rumney strode across the room where the only light came from the gap in the curtains, and pulled them back. The priest still hung above the counter and Miss Pink noticed that the carpet was black, or very dark blue: a colour that wouldn’t show the dirt—or blood. She had been wondering about that.

  Mossop had entered by the door behind the bar. ‘You want a drink?’ he asked.

  ‘Why? Are you serving?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘I’ll give you a drink. I mean—’ there was a trace of belligerence in him now, ‘—you shouldn’t—I shouldn’t do it; we’re not open till twelve. It’s Sunday,’ he added lamely.

  ‘Where’s Jackson Wren?’ Rumney asked.

  Belligerence was replaced by blank astonishment, then something approaching relief. Mossop wiped the counter carefully. ‘Wren? I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘Where would he go?’ Rumney snapped.

  ‘How the hell would I know?’

  ‘Where didst tha sell my sheep?’

  Mossop’s eyes wandered. ‘Your sheep?’ he repeated stupidly, ‘what about your sheep?’

  ‘Tha put t’wagon in t’forest an’ brought ’em down Whirl Howe!’

  ‘But someone saw it,’ Miss Pink put in.

  ‘No, not me.’ Mossop’s voice was low. ‘You’ve got t’wrong chap. Not me. Keep your voice down, Zeke; I’ve got residents. Shut that door.’

  He closed his own door. Miss Pink shut the other and came back. ‘Peta was killed in here,’ she said to Mossop conversationally.

  His hand came up as if to hide his expression then he drew it down his face slowly, staring sideways at the closed door. He shook his head helplessly.

  ‘You found her.’ Miss Pink was implacable.

  ‘I didn’t kill her. I swear it—I didn’t—’

  ‘No; you didn’t kill her.’ She held his eyes. ‘You found her dead and took her down to the road.’

  ‘I couldna’ tell t’police; they’d never believe it!’ There was a flicker in the terrified eyes. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘What time did you find her?’

  He hesitated, cast a glance at the expressionless Rumney and muttered, ‘About two o’clock.’ They waited. ‘I got up to go to t’toilet,’ he whispered, ‘and her bedroom door were open so I looked inside. She hadn’t come to bed. I come downstairs and found her like you said. . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Would you mind telling us about it?’

  ‘Nothing to tell. She were lying on t’floor, fallen off her chair and t’chair turned over. Her glass were on t’carpet there, not broken. They’d come in through t’front door; it were unlocked. I’d locked it after she come in.’

  ‘After Peta came in?’

  ‘O’ course.’

  ‘What time did she come in?’

  He thought about it. ‘I don’t know.’ He sounded infinitely weary. ‘Near eleven, I expect. I were having an early night and just going up when she come in.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said she’d have a drink and go to bed.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I went to bed then.’

  ‘She said nothing else to you, or you to her?’

  ‘I told her to remember to put t’lights out, that’s all. Oh, I’d have said to watch her cigarette. That’s probably why I come downstairs; she left cigarettes burning everywhere.’

  ‘But since she hadn’t gone to bed, you knew she must still be down here.’

  ‘That’s right, but she were on sleeping pills; she could fall asleep anywhere. Cigarette could be burning and set t’whole place afire.’

  ‘Was the weapon beside her?’

  ‘No; he must have took it with him.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘You know that. What else could I do but take her down to t’road?’

  ‘You could have called the police.’

  He shook his head. ‘They got to have someone for it, haven’t they? They thought it were me before; what will they say when they hear t’truth?’

  ‘You’re going to be all right. At least,’ she amended, ‘you won’t be convicted of—the other thing.’ He d
idn’t seem to understand. ‘Did she know that you were being blackmailed?’

  ‘No.’ He wasn’t concentrating on her. He was listening. ‘It’s not nice, having that door shut,’ he said. Rumney was regarding him intently. ‘Look, Zeke,’ he implored, ‘I don’t know nothing about t’sheep; there’s wagons stealing sheep at night all up t’motorway, and tha knows it. Why pick on me? One crate of Scotch and everything that happens within fifty miles of this place will be me from now on, won’t it?’

  Rumney said, ‘If I had proof—’

  The door opened quietly and a stranger looked in, glancing from them to Mossop. ‘Good morning. Is the bar open already?’ He approached the counter, smiling diffidently at Miss Pink. ‘I’ll have a gin and Italian, landlord.’

  He was middle-aged with florid but aquiline features, dark eyes and very thick iron-grey hair, cut short and curling close to his scalp. He spoke with a trace of accent which Miss Pink could not identify but which she thought was not European. He was short and powerful with wide shoulders and narrow hips flattered by a beautifully tailored grey suit and navy silk shirt. His shoes were hand-made and when he paid for his drink there was a glimpse of a thin gold watch on a crocodile strap.

  Mossop looked at the man’s eyes. ‘This is Mr Cole,’ he said warily, ‘Miss Pink and Mr Rumney.’

  ‘Not Ezekiel Rumney?’ He was delighted. ‘From Sandale House? But this is splendid! I have to see you. At your convenience, of course.’

  Rumney, who was used to meeting all kinds of people, particularly in the summer, was not surprised, only a trifle disconcerted, but that was because his mind was still on sheep.

  ‘I’m a photo-journalist.’ The man produced a card and handed it to Miss Pink. ‘Environmental. I’m working for the David Ramet Institute of Environmental Studies.’ He paused, raised his eyebrows at her but she was reading the card which said: ‘Daniel S. Cole. Photo-journalist’. There was a Hampstead address and telephone number. ‘You’ve never heard of it,’ he said politely, ‘no one has; it’s an American organisation and they commission books on conservation: beautiful productions on rain forests, vanishing apes, the Danube marshes—you know the kind of thing: very lavish, superb pictures, printed in Italy.’ He coughed delicately. ‘I’m only the small fry, of course.’