The Affacombe Affair

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  The two Ainsworths made emphatic sounds of assent.

  ‘Of course, sensational newspaper reports and so on are frightfully bad for a school, but if by any chance she really has come to harm, and it transpires that you did nothing much about it tonight, wouldn’t the long-term publicity be even worse?’

  ‘Fifty times worse!’ burst out Faith. ‘Anyway, there’s another side to it. If you employ people, you’ve got to accept some responsibility for them. I’m certain she’d never have gone off like this of her own free will.’

  There was an uneasy silence.

  ‘Your last points make sense to me,’ Roy Garnish remarked to Olivia. ‘Not that the police or anybody else can do much round here tonight. It’s raining like hell and pitch dark. But see here, Ainsworth. If you’ve reported it to the police you can’t be caught on the wrong foot if there’s trouble.’

  John Ainsworth reluctantly picked up the telephone directory and began turning over the pages.

  ‘I’d better ring the station at Leeford,’ he said. ‘It’s hardly a 999 call — The headmaster of Affacombe Priory School speaking. Is that Sergeant Murch?’

  A couple of minutes later he replaced the receiver.

  ‘Murch is coming over. He sounded pretty browned off, and made it quite clear that he thinks it’s a fuss about nothing, and that she’ll walk in later with some perfectly good explanation.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope she does,’ said Olivia cheerfully. ‘We can but look silly.’

  ‘I’ll be pushing off, then.’ Roy Garnish got to his feet. ‘There’s nothing I can do at the moment. Let me know if the copper wants to hear where we searched, Ainsworth, and if the damned woman turns up, of course. Sorry you’re having all this bother,’ he added, with a comprehensive jerk of his head in the direction of Faith and Olivia.

  As the two men went out of the room Faith thrust back her straying hair with an agitated gesture.

  ‘I simply must run up and see how Stephen Biggs is. He’s in the spare room with a bilious attack. I brought him across from the San.’

  ‘I,’ said Olivia firmly, ‘am dealing with Stephen Biggs, and any other casualties. Otherwise there’s no point in my being here. I’m perfectly ready to stand in for Sister Roach until further notice. I’ve had supper, and you and John obviously haven’t. For heaven’s sake be sensible, and go and see about some food.’

  Reinforced by John, Olivia persuaded Faith to agree to this programme, and left them eating a hasty and belated meal. Going upstairs she encountered a startled Mrs Claythorpe, and decided to bring her up to date with developments. She invented a tactful message from Faith to the effect that she was relying entirely on Mrs Claythorpe to keep the rest of the domestic and house staff on an even keel. Stephen Biggs was recovering, and showing signs of curiosity about his transfer to the Ainsworths’ private quarters and Olivia’s presence. As she sponged his face and hands and settled him for the night she parried his questions as best she could. She heard a car draw up, and an unfamiliar masculine voice in the hall, followed by the shutting of a door. As Stephen became drowsy she slipped out quietly and went downstairs, anxious to avoid further conversation with Mrs Claythorpe. She could hear voices in the sitting-room, but John’s study would be empty. She went in and sank into an armchair, staring unseeingly at the impersonal office furniture and the rows of school photographs on the walls. It was impossible to smother the feeling that something sinister and unpleasant was going on below the surface in Affacombe.

  After a few minutes she heard a door open and footsteps in the hall. Was Sergeant Murch going, then?

  ‘Well, sir, we’ll leave it like that then,’ she heard. ‘Unless you contact us meantime to say the lady’s returned, we’ll be over as soon as it’s light.’

  Ought I to have advised it, Olivia thought in sudden panic? It’s landed us in quite a different context. Official, and outside our control altogether.

  The rain died out during the night, but low cloud and drifting hill fog delayed the coming of daylight on Sunday morning. It was half-past eight before a police car arrived at the Priory, bringing Sergeant Murch and a couple of constables. At the former’s request the Ainsworths conducted all three to the East Wing, where they briefly inspected Sister Roach’s quarters and the various sheds in the rear of the building. Finally, reinforced by Blake, the head gardener, they moved off in the direction of the ruins. Olivia, preparing to receive two boys with bad colds, watched the solid uncompromising backs of the policemen from a window in one of the wards. The fact that all four men carried stout sticks horridly suggested a search of the undergrowth.

  The arrival of the boys distracted her attention, and she was disconcerted to find a long jostling queue of out-patients at the surgery door. They looked extremely healthy, and it did not take her long to realize that the news of Sister Roach’s disappearance had leaked out. With most of them she was crisp, and overheard some far from complimentary remarks which amused her. One or two, however, were genuinely in need of her ministrations. She was so busy that she did not notice the hurried return of Sergeant Murch to the main building shortly after ten o’clock.

  John Ainsworth sat swivelled round from his desk, an incredulous expression on his face.

  ‘In the river, did you say? At the bottom of the Monk’s Leap?’

  ‘A bit farther downstream, actually, sir. The body’s wedged under an overhanging bit of the bank, where the current’s swept it. It’s going to be a job getting at it with the water running high as it is after the rain. We’ll have to work along from the village end.’

  ‘But what in God’s name can have happened? There’s a perfectly good railing at the Leap.’

  ‘That’ll be up to the coroner to find out, sir,’ Sergeant Murch replied impassively. ‘There’ll be an inquest, of course. Meantime there’s the next-of-kin to think of. You’ve got the name and address, I expect?’

  ‘It’s a sister in London as far as I remember.’ John Ainsworth flicked through a card-index. ‘Yes, here it is. A Mrs Grant, 167 Winterton Road, Lewisham, SE13. No telephone.’

  ‘Then it’ll be best to get on to the local station right away. We’ll see to that.’ Sergeant Murch made a note of the address. ‘You’ll keep the boys away from the river for the next hour or so, I take it?’

  ‘I certainly will,’ replied John Ainsworth grimly, already mentally composing an urgent circular to parents.

  After the initial shock of the news a general sense of relief was perceptible. As Faith Ainsworth remarked to Olivia, it was something to feel you knew the worst and what you’d got to cope with. On their return from church the boys were assembled and sensibly addressed by John. Their reaction was what he had expected: goggle-eyed excitement, and eagerness to start their home letters. The foreign girls showed a tendency to get into huddles and mutter, but in general the normal routine was maintained. Lunch for Olivia and her patients was brought over to the East Wing, and at half-past one she was relieved by Sheila Wills and went home for a couple of hours to catch up on her own affairs.

  When she returned two unfamiliar police cars were standing in the drive. She deduced that the enquiry had been passed to a higher level, and was unprepared to find a shaken and ashen-faced Sheila.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Strode, I’m so glad you’ve come back,’ the girl gasped, almost in tears. ‘The police are saying Sister’s been — been murdered! An Inspector from Highcastle’s been in here, asking me all sorts of questions. He said he’d be coming again to see you.’

  Olivia had the sensation of having stepped out of normality into a nightmare. For a moment she stood frozen.

  ‘How absolutely terrible,’ she said slowly. Then the sight of the frightened girl restored her powers of action. ‘I’d better give the boys their tea at once, I think, if the Inspector’s coming back. Would you like a cup too?’

  Busy in the pantry she fought an icy little fear which had taken root in her mind from the first moment. It was absurd, she told herself. Sister was in the schoo
l kitchen fetching her tea tray ‘about four’ — John had said so. Barbara had come through the gate on to the road as the quarter had struck, all the way down from the Monk’s Leap. It wasn’t as though she was a quick walker. Anyway, even to imagine for a single moment — but the police would find out, and in her present nervy state Barbara’d go to pieces. Suppose the Inspector asked where she herself was yesterday afternoon?

  It’s no good, she thought, steadying herself, and taking trays in to the boys. Not the slightest good pretending I didn’t see her. It’s bound to come out in the end, and would only make things worse. Perhaps he wouldn’t ask.

  The cups of tea were barely finished when there was a knock on the door from the colonnade. Olivia went to answer it. A very tall man was standing outside, and she felt a flicker of interest in his combination of dark colouring and a Scandinavian cast of features.

  ‘Detective-Inspector Dart of the Highcastle C.I.D., madam,’ he said, producing his official card. ‘I’m in charge of the enquiry into the death of Sister Joan Roach, and I’d like a few minutes with you, if you’re free just now.’

  In the unoccupied ward where she had installed herself, Olivia explained that she was not a member of the staff, but a friend of Mr and Mrs Ainsworth, who was helping them out in the emergency. Inspector Dart, who gave the impression of finding the situation unorthodox, made a note of her full name, widowed status and address. He was polite, if tediously slow, and took her through the events of the previous evening, step by step.

  ‘May I ask you something, Inspector?’ she asked in a pause. ‘The young assistant matron you interviewed here just now told me that the police think Sister Roach was murdered? Is this really true? It seems absolutely incredible.’

  Dart gave her a disapproving look, and appeared to be weighing up the advisability of snubbing her.

  ‘At present we are treating her death as a case of murder,’ he said. ‘Her injuries are not altogether compatible with accident or suicide.’

  As he reverted to a study of his notebook, Olivia realized that the idea of suicide had not even occurred to her, and she felt a momentary relief, but Dart’s next words confirmed her earlier apprehensions. In such a case, he told her, a full routine enquiry was, of course, essential. It was only by checking and counterchecking statements that the police could arrive at the movements of people over the crucial period. Would she tell him where she herself was yesterday afternoon, purely as a matter of routine?

  ‘Certainly, Inspector,’ she replied. It was important to be relaxed, matter-of-fact, unemphatic. ‘I was in my cottage until about five minutes past four, when I left to go to tea at the Vicarage in Church Lane. I returned home just before six, and didn’t go out again until Mrs Ainsworth telephoned asking me to come up here. That was at eight o’clock, as I told you.’

  There was another pause.

  ‘Did you go to the Vicarage by car, Mrs Strode?’

  ‘No. I walked.’

  ‘Did you notice anyone about?’

  ‘Very few people. The village is always rather empty on Saturday afternoons. There’s a shopping bus into Polharbour.’

  ‘I should like the names of the people you did see, if you can remember them. Take your time.’

  Olivia closed her eyes and wrinkled her brow.

  ‘I saw George Forbes behind the counter of the shop. It was a dark afternoon and the lights were on. Several people were inside, but I only saw their backs. I think one of them was old Andy Pethybridge... Mrs Moon was going up the street ahead of me, carrying a basket. She went into her cottage — Pear Tree Cottage, it’s called. That’s all, I think... Oh, Mrs Winship. I just caught sight of her coming back from exercising her dogs as I turned into Church Lane. We waved to each other.’

  ‘What direction was she coming from?’

  Olivia plunged.

  ‘From the gate leading to the Monk’s Path. She nearly always takes her dogs for a run there before tea.’

  Inspector Dart made another entry in his notebook. Her heart was beating painfully, but at any rate she’d sounded quite casual and undisturbed.

  ‘Did you notice the time when you got to the Vicarage, Mrs Strode?’

  ‘The church clock was striking the quarter as I turned into Church Lane.’

  ‘How long did it take you to get to the Vicarage from the turning?’

  ‘Oh, about half a minute, I should think.’

  ‘Did you see anyone about in the lane?’

  ‘No one at all.’

  She was aware of his steady gaze.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure? There are some houses along there, aren’t there? New bungalows, and Church Cottages: Robinsons, Earwakers — he’s a gardener up here, I understand, Paleys, Lethbridges?’

  Olivia’s heart gave a particularly painful leap. Sergeant Murch must have briefed this man about the Earwaker situation, and of course he’d freeze on to it. In her anxiety about Barbara she’d forgotten Fred.

  ‘I’m quite positive I didn’t see anyone,’ she said decisively.

  A loud rat-tat came from the door leading to the colonnade.

  ‘That’ll be my sergeant.’ Dart put away his notebook and got to his feet, towering over her. ‘We’ll be taking a look at the deceased lady’s rooms now, but that shouldn’t disturb you or your patients. You’ve given me some helpful information, Mrs Strode.’

  Chapter Eight

  Inspector Dart walked across to the window of Sister Roach’s sitting-room and jerked the curtain over it.

  ‘Got all those statements signed?’ he asked Sergeant Metcalfe, also of the Highcastle C.I.D.

  ‘Yes, sir, Mr and Mrs Ainsworths’, the matron’s, the cook’s and the two German girls’. Tie up nicely, don’t they?’

  ‘We’ve nothing yet from the two chaps who brought the team over, nor from the games master belonging to this place.’ Dart was ultra-cautious, and Metcalfe, young and ambitious, found him damping to work with. ‘All the same,’ Dart went on, ‘it looks as though the whole lot were having their tea when Roach went out, and if we can prove it, it’ll save no end of time.’

  ‘There’s a Mr Garnish who’s very anxious to see you, sir. He’s the chap who owns the whole place, and uses the matching bit to this for weekends and so on.’

  ‘I’ll see him when I’m ready. The next job is to go through these rooms of Roach’s, and see if there’s any clue about what she went out for yesterday afternoon. A diary, or a letter, for instance. And anything that fills in the picture a bit. She’s been here a year, but doesn’t seem to have any close friends.’

  ‘Dark horse, perhaps?’ suggested Sergeant Metcalfe.

  ‘Could be. What we want is evidence though, not speculation. You get cracking here, while I go over and see what this Garnish wants.’

  Left alone, Sergeant Metcalfe spent a few minutes getting the feel of the room, an activity which his superior officer would have scorned. Like a room in an hotel, he thought. Nicely done up and furnished, but bleak all the same. Impersonal. Not a photograph or anything that looked as though it belonged to the occupant, barring a workbasket and yesterday’s paper. A cagey sort of room. He went out quietly to explore the bedroom next door.

  Roy Garnish in slacks and sweater still managed to radiate a great deal of money and the confidence that goes with it. He was clearly not in the best of tempers.

  ‘Getting mixed up in this business is a bloody nuisance for me,’ he told Dart. ‘I’ve got a top-level board meeting of one of my companies on Tuesday morning, and the hell of a lot of work to do beforehand. We’d planned to get away from here as soon as it’s light tomorrow, so I hope there’s no question of wanting me to hang around to answer questions. The only thing I can tell you is that I got soaked to the skin helping Ainsworth search the grounds last night. My wife and I were in Polharbour the whole afternoon, and didn’t get back here till after six.’

  ‘We’ve no wish to inconvenience anyone where it isn’t necessary, sir,’ Dart replied. ‘Perhaps you and Mrs
Garnish would make a formal statement of your whereabouts yesterday afternoon now, while I’m here? You’ll understand that in a case of this kind routine enquiries have to be made.’

  ‘Fair enough, I suppose. It’s your job — paid for by the taxpayers. What do you want to know? We left here by car about quarter past twelve. Did you notice the exact time, Pam — if it matters?’

  Pamela Garnish was lying back in an armchair, smoking a cigarette. Downright ugly woman, thought Dart, taking in her thinness, lavish make-up and blood-red nails. In his opinion her with-it clothes and diamond rings made her even more of a sight.

  ‘I did, as it happens,’ she said, with a bored glance at her husband. ‘I set my watch by that.’ She indicated the electric clock on the mantelpiece with a nod. ‘And it was just on twenty past twelve. You were outside in the car, yelling at me to get a move on.’

  It appeared that they had overtaken John Ainsworth in the drive, and some boys who were carrying benches down to the games pitch. On arriving in Polharbour shortly before one o’clock they saw from the hoardings that the West End hit The Mousetrap, was on at the Esplanade Theatre. As it looked like being a wet afternoon they decided to ring up for seats from the Zenith-Excelsior, where they always ate when in Polharbour. After lunch they had driven to the theatre, picked up their tickets, and spent the afternoon at the play, having tea brought to them in the second interval.

  As he jotted down these particulars Dart reflected that they would be extremely easy to check, in the unlikely event of this being necessary.

  ‘We had a filthy drive home,’ Roy Garnish went on. ‘Patchy drizzling mist. Not a hope of getting up any speed on these roads of yours. It took us over an hour. As I said just now, we didn’t get in till after six, and we’d barely got our coats off when Ainsworth rang through. I finally got in just before half-past eight, plastered with mud and wet through. That’s all. Does it satisfy you?’