by Faith Martin
‘I did, then. Four or five years ago now, must be,’ John Blandon agreed, still wary. ‘Mind if I ask what this is all about?’
Clement explained about the death of a young boy, and when he’d finished, the landlord sighed and leaned his elbows on the bar. ‘Sounds like a bad business, right enough.’
‘Did you like the de Laceys?’ Clement asked bluntly.
‘Can’t say I thought much about them one way or the other,’ Blandon said carefully. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought they’d have been the kind to leave summat knowingly dangerous just hanging around the grounds, like. They couldn’t have known the well cover had rotted away at one end. Leastwise, not the estate manager.’
‘What about the squire?’ Clement asked. ‘The estate manager is mainly responsible for the farms. The immediate house and gardens are more in the squire’s remit, I understand?’ Clement wasn’t sure that any such delineation existed, but if this man had indeed (as local gossip seemed to have it) played fast and loose with the squire’s wife, he wanted to know how he viewed the cuckolded husband.
‘Can’t see the squire being careless neither,’ Blandon said flatly. ‘He had nippers of his own who might have fallen in, didn’t he? That little girl of his – I forget her name – was always into everything.’
Trudy didn’t for one moment think that his man had forgotten the name of Jennifer de Lacey’s children. But she was content to sit and listen and watch.
‘You were there when another family tragedy struck, I believe?’ Clement said. ‘Didn’t the squire’s wife die in a riding accident?’
‘Yes she did. Mind if I ask why you’re asking all these questions?’ The tone wasn’t quite belligerent, but it wasn’t happy either.
‘This is an official police investigation, sir,’ Trudy said, not very truthfully, but feeling pleased that her presence was once again being fully justified. Clement might be older and cleverer and a man, but she was the police officer here. And as such, carried authority, whether people liked it or not. ‘And we’d be obliged if you’d cooperate. After all, it’s not as if you have anything to hide, is it?’ she added craftily.
As her old sergeant at training college had told her, a reminder that you shouldn’t get on the wrong side of the law was usually enough to get any law-abiding citizen talking. And if it wasn’t – well, then it told you something about the person you were dealing with.
‘Of course I haven’t,’ John Blandon said at once. But he cast a quick glance over his shoulder as he did so, and Trudy guessed that Mrs Blandon must be in the kitchen. The one with the money – and thus, the one who had to be kept sweet, she mused cynically. ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked, lowering his voice just a touch.
‘You were friends with Mrs Jennifer de Lacey, I understand,’ Clement said. ‘The lady of the house?’
The landlord began to polish his beer taps thoughtfully, his face partly averted. ‘So that old chestnut is still floating around is it?’ he muttered bitterly.
‘Which old chestnut is that?’ Clement challenged.
The younger man flushed slightly and shot him an angry look. ‘You tell me! Just because people say I’m a good-looking lad, and was a groom at the stables, and Mrs de Lacey was a fine-looking, older woman… Dirty minds, some people have,’ he finished flatly.
‘So you and she weren’t… friendly?’
John Blandon drew in a long, slow breath. ‘I don’t see how that’s anybody’s business but our own,’ he said stoutly. And for a moment, Trudy felt a certain amount of admiration for the man. He might be an adulterer, but at least he was willing to defend his lady.
‘Some might say it was her husband’s business,’ Clement pointed out dryly.
John Blandon flushed again. ‘Never had much to do with the squire,’ he muttered. ‘Oh, he rode at the Boxing Day hunt, and sometimes just to get to the further farms. But he was more of a sheep man. Knew a lot about the arable side of things too, but didn’t have much time for the horses.’
‘So it was only Mrs Jennifer de Lacey who took much interest in the stables?’ Clement mused. ‘I understand her mother-in-law was something of a horsewoman too, in her day. We’ve been told she had a fine seat.’
‘Perhaps she had. But she was too old to do much riding when I was there,’ the former groom said flatly. ‘The old lady didn’t even have a favourite horse of her own that she visited anymore, since she’d sold her hunter a few years back… Funny that…’
For a moment, the handsome former groom looked startled, as if thinking over old times had brought something back.
‘What’s funny?’ Clement asked swiftly.
‘The old lady… talking about it all… I remember that day, when Seamus came back without his rider. In a right state he was. I knew right away something bad – I mean really bad – had happened. You know, the way you just do?’ His voice thickened slightly. ‘Well, we went out looking for her – Mrs Jennifer – and we found her soon enough. In the water meadow, just lying there. Neck broke…’
He broke off suddenly and gave the beer taps a last, rather vicious swipe, then slung the white towel over one shoulder in a practised sweep. ‘Well, no use dwelling on that, is there? She was too young to go that way. Too full of life and fun…’
He shrugged helplessly.
‘But you said there was something “funny” about that day. When we were talking of the old lady – Vivienne de Lacey,’ Trudy prompted him, and he looked at her blankly for a moment, as if reluctant to leave thoughts of his dead lover behind, and then slowly nodded.
‘Yes, that’s right. I just remembered. She was there that day – at the stables I mean. I remember thinking at the time that it was a bit odd,’ he continued, ‘because, like I said, she didn’t really ride anymore, and her favourite horse had been sold on. So what was she doing there?’
‘She was there when Seamus came back without his rider?’ Clement asked, needing to get the timeline straight in his mind.
‘No, not then,’ John said, a touch impatiently. ‘Before. Before Jen… Mrs de Lacey went out riding. I remember, I’d been mucking out the far stables when the head groom told me the missus was going out, and to get Seamus saddled and ready.’
He looked past them, out of the window and across the river, but was clearly seeing another time and another scene as his blue eyes became thoughtful. ‘I was just walking back to Seamus’s box, when the old cow came out.’
He paused, then shrugged. ‘As you can no doubt tell, I didn’t like her much.’
‘Why not?’ Trudy asked bluntly.
‘She was just… poisonous. Yes, that’s what she was. Dried up and old and ill and she just wanted everyone to be as miserable as she was. And she never liked Jen… Mrs de Lacey. Never accepted her into the family or tried to make her feel welcome. Never thought her good enough for her precious son – as if the squire were any great catch,’ he snorted.
Trudy and Clement exchanged brief looks.
‘So you saw her before her daughter-in-law went riding that morning?’ Clement asked, still seeking clarification.
‘That’s right, I did,’ John said with a scowl, as if he suspected them of doubting his word. ‘And like I said, I was surprised. It’s a bit of a walk from the house to the stables – and in them days she wasn’t that inclined to walk far. But she made the effort that day, leaning on that ebony cane she always had. What’s more, she was coming out of Seamus’s box. Now then,’ the former groom said, his voice hardening. ‘You tell me what she was doing in there.’
For a second, the deserted pub seemed to shiver in a cold draught.
‘You think she did something to the horse?’ Clement said flatly.
But the man wasn’t willing to go quite that far. Perhaps even here, in the far reaches of Northamptonshire, the name of de Lacey still carried with it enough residual power to remind him he would do better to be discreet. Instead, he contented himself by shrugging sullenly. ‘Well, I know there was nothing wrong with the tack,
cause I saw to all that myself,’ he defended himself obstinately. ‘And Jenny was just too good a rider to take a tumble in the ordinary way of things. Besides, Seamus was the least skittish horse you ever saw. What’s more, that horse wasn’t right, not for a few days afterwards. Off his feed, shaking, the sweats…’
‘That might have been a reaction to losing his rider though, mightn’t it?’ Clement mused. Although no horseman himself, he had friends who were and insisted that horses could be delicate, sensitive creatures. ‘Was he fond of her?’ he asked, for again, the same friends swore blind that horses could be as loyal and affectionate as dogs.
‘Oh yes, he loved her right enough,’ John Blandon agreed sadly.
‘But you really do think, don’t you, deep down, that the old lady had something to do with her daughter-in-law’s accident?’ Clement persisted gently.
But again, the handsome landlord was too wily to be drawn into any outright admission. And try as they might, they could get nothing more out of him. If Jennifer de Lacey’s former lover knew any more secrets, he was not willing to share them.
Chapter 32
Clement and Trudy left the pub after finishing their drinks, and once back in the car, sat in silence for a few seconds.
‘Do you think he’s right?’ Trudy asked at last.
‘He could be,’ Clement said, rather unhelpfully. ‘But after all these years, there’s no way to prove it, is there? And even if we could, what would be the point? Both the poisonous old lady and the full-of-life young lady are now dead.’
Trudy heaved a heavy sigh. ‘But what if Eddie Proctor somehow found out something about it? Or maybe Emily overhead something? Her father or grandmother talking when the old lady had still been alive? And then she passed it on to Eddie?’
‘And Martin de Lacey threw him down the well so that he wouldn’t repeat it?’ Clement asked, sceptically. ‘Our squire is no fool. He must realise its common gossip in the village anyway that his wife and our handsome friend in there’ – he nodded to the pub – ‘were a bit of an item. If he could weather that with his pride intact, he could weather any other gossip about his old mum!’
Trudy sighed. Perhaps he was right. ‘Don’t forget though,’ she pointed out stubbornly, ‘that one or two people have mentioned the squire has a bit of a temper, and it’s not a good thing to get on his bad side. That would probably include a nosy little kid poking his nose into delicate family business. Perhaps the boy said something that touched him in the raw and he just lost control of himself and…’ She shrugged graphically.
Clement nodded. ‘It’s a thought.’ He reached for the key and felt his hand begin to tremble. He fumbled the ignition slightly, but managed to turn it, and then slipped the car into gear. He’d have to concentrate very carefully on his driving now. Damn this bloody Parkinson’s!
But Trudy had noticed his difficulty, and felt a chill of alarm ripple through her. If Dr Ryder was really ill… Her heart contracted in fear and denial. The man had just drunk a pint of strong bitter, she reminded herself. So perhaps the lunchtime tipple had had an effect on him?
Then again… maybe it hadn’t.
To distract herself, she turned on the radio, and the current top of the hit parade, Elvis Presley’s ‘Wooden Heart’, filled the air. She had a feeling, though, that this might not be to the coroner’s taste, and quickly turned it off again.
Once again, Trudy was unusually silent as they drove back towards Oxford, her mind chasing around and around in circles. Sometime soon she would simply have to take the bull by the horns and ask him outright if his health was all it should be. But even as she thought it, she could feel herself quailing from the idea. It was so irrevocable. Once she’d asked the question, she wouldn’t be able to take it back. And what did they say about letting genies out of their bottles?
With both of them so distracted by their various thoughts, neither of them noticed the Hillman that still kept pace a safe distance behind them.
*
Inside the car were the two men who’d been watching them on the hillside at Briar’s Hall.
‘So what do you think all that was about?’ the driver of the car asked casually.
His companion shrugged. ‘I’ll find out who owns the pub when we get back.’ It had been left to him to reconnoitre the pub, which he had done by simply peering in carefully through the nearest window. He’d seen at once that the main bar was virtually empty, but that both the subjects were having an intense chat with the man behind the bar.
‘You think they’re actually getting anywhere?’ the driver asked.
‘You know, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve been asking around, and our Dr Ryder is known to be the perspicacious sort.’
‘Yeah, there have already been mild rumblings of discontent,’ the driver said. ‘If they start to become a real nuisance, I expect we’ll get orders to pull the plug on them,’ he agreed casually.
The man in the passenger seat reached into his pocket. ‘Want a humbug?’ He rattled a white paper bag at his companion enticingly, but the driver didn’t want a sweet.
*
‘So, what do we do next?’ Trudy, oblivious to the car that was tailing them, looked across at the coroner.
‘We need to go back to the Hall, I suppose,’ Clement said. ‘Just in case Emily really did hear something about the deep, dark family secret and passed it on to Eddie.’
Trudy’s eyes widened. ‘We can’t ask a little girl if she thinks her granny killed her mother!’ she objected with squeak.
Clement sighed. ‘Of course not. But there’s someone else in that house that we can talk to about it.’
‘Not the squire,’ Trudy said promptly. ‘He’d just deny it. And probably stop us from investigating further as well,’ she muttered gloomily. ‘Don’t forget, we’re only in this thing in the first place because he asked us to snoop around. But he could always change his mind.’
‘No, I wasn’t thinking of him either,’ Clement said. ‘But who else would know all of Mrs Vivienne de Lacey’s secrets?’
Trudy could have kicked herself. ‘The dragon!’ Of course – Mrs Roper.
*
Mrs Roper answered the door promptly, her face tightening instantly at first sight of her visitors.
‘Mr de Lacey is out up at Three Trees, seeing about some fencing that’s come down. And Miss Emily is not well, and can’t be disturbed,’ she said frigidly.
‘That’s all right, Mrs Roper, it’s you we’ve come to talk to,’ Trudy said, forcing her voice to sound friendly. Which wasn’t easy in the face of such unbending animosity.
‘Me?’ The housekeeper couldn’t have looked or sounded more astounded. ‘I have nothing more to say to you. I didn’t know Eddie Proctor that well, I didn’t see him at that wretched Easter egg hunt, and I believe he just fell down that well by accident. So…’
She began to shut the door in their faces.
‘We’d like to talk to you about Mrs Vivienne, and Mrs Jennifer de Lacey,’ Trudy tried again quickly. Which at least had the effect of stopping the closure of the door.
Mrs Roper’s mouth had fallen slightly open. ‘The mistress of the house?’ she said, and both of them instinctively knew that she wasn’t referring to Jennifer. ‘What on earth can she have to do with anything?’
‘We believe Eddie might have learned some secret about her, something that might not show her in a good light,’ Clement said flatly. He was beginning to think that trying to get this woman to talk to them was pointless, since she was so hostile, but she might let slip something if he could shock her badly enough.
His words made her go white, then red. ‘Mrs Vivienne was a lady,’ Mrs Roper all but hissed at them. ‘And there’s nothing that can have been said about her that would show her in a bad light, unless it was all lies. Lies, do you hear me?’
‘Did she really hate her daughter-in-law?’ Clement said. ‘We…’ But before he could finish, the door slammed with a contemptuous and furious bang.
&n
bsp; ‘Well, if the old lady did confide anything bad to her,’ Trudy said grimly, ‘not even bamboo shoots under her fingernails will make her tell us about it!’
‘You’ve been reading too many Sexton Blake novels,’ Clement reprimanded her with a smile. ‘Bamboo shoots under her fingernails indeed.’
But although they both smiled at that, they trudged around the side of the house feeling distinctly thwarted.
And then they both stopped abruptly, as they heard a weird sound.
‘Pssst…’
Trudy glanced at Clement, who wore an equally surprised expression.
‘Psssst! Over here!’
Suspecting young Master George had once again slipped his leash, they turned, but saw, emerging from a laurel thicket underneath an open window, not George, but his sister Emily.
Her hair was a little mussed from her passage through the leaves, but her eyes were big and round and fixed on them urgently.
‘I need to tell you something,’ she whispered. ‘About Eddie. Quick, let’s get away from the house, before Daddy or Mrs Roper finds out I’m not upstairs.’
Trudy glanced around quickly, and saw the wall of the kitchen garden. ‘Let’s go in there,’ she said. Its tall red-brick walls would hide them from any prying eyes.
Quickly, the three of them trotted up the path through the lawns and shot into the privacy of the kitchen garden. A quick look around showed them that Mr Cricklade was nowhere to be seen.
‘All right, what is it?’ Trudy asked breathlessly. Could the answer be about drop into their lap at last?
Chapter 33
‘It’s about Eddie’s secret code spy book,’ Emily said solemnly. ‘The one he used to note down the car number plates.’
Trudy looked at Clement, then back to the little girl. Perhaps because her thoughts had been so taken up recently with the death of this girl’s mother, it took her a moment to adjust to the new topic. ‘What number plates were these, Emily?’ she asked, careful to keep her voice calm and mild.