Swallow Hall Murder

by Noreen Wainwright

  “Hester has to come back up here, at major inconvenience too, as I understand, something about the League of Nations. You know she works for a minister of state?”

  They both turned to the door, at the sound of it opening. Archie was wearing his big tweed coat which seemed to dwarf him. It was probably not even possible, but he looked as though he’d lost weight in the past few days.

  The lines on his face and his hair, unsmoothed, ruffled by the March wind told of him being called out early before he’d properly begun his day.

  “Sit down, Doctor. ” Hannah was easy in her own skin, but always slightly formal with him.

  “Have you just been out to Swallow Hall?”

  He sat down after putting down his old Gladstone bag, the one belonging to their father. Edith glanced at its shiny surface, worn in places, and thought, not for the first time, at how it must have dragged Archie down at times. The weight of family responsibility. Not as heavy as whatever weighed on the Turner family, at the moment, though.

  “What happened?” The sound of the kettle and the comforting smell of toast filled the room.

  “Well, she died, in her sleep. Greene and the police doctor, pathologist, I mean, and photographer were there already. I was called, principally because she was my patient. Not that I saw that much of her. She was the hearty type. Tough as old boots, might be another way of putting it.”

  “How did she die? Not natural causes, I take it?”

  Archie shrugged and stretched his arms behind his head. “I can’t say that for definite, Edie. I suppose, in theory, she could have died of any one of a range of causes. It happens. The post-mortem will tell us more. She wasn’t on any medication, not that I gave her anyway.”

  “How are they taking it? The rest of the family?” Hannah put the toast rack down in front of Archie.

  “Well, there’s the odd thing,” he said. “I don’t think there’s an iota of sadness in any of them. Unnatural bunch, if you ask me.”

  * * *

  Greene kept telling himself to be thorough, to let no clue slip by him. His hold on his job was slipping, and his job was the only decent thing in his life at the moment. Take the Sean Bracken business. The man remained elusive.

  He was convinced still, that the motive for his murder, and the reason for it, were here in this house. But, he mustn’t be blinded by that belief. The man had a past; he had a past in Ireland. He had a past serving abroad, and a past in London, working in journalism.

  You hear of journalists making enemies, but that seemed remote. All too long ago. Bracken had an extreme propensity for keeping secrets, particularly around his private life. Cherchez la femme still bounced around in Greene’s brain, haunting him.

  The death of Elizabeth Turner reinforced the connection with the house and the family here. They had spoken to Serena Grant again. She’d had the better of them, this time, right from the start.

  “I didn’t exactly lie to you, Inspector. I said that Sean and I were close, but maybe I played down a bit quite how close. It was too raw. I was in shock.” She bowed her head. “I loved him.”

  The statement was deceptively simple. The situation was more complicated. What was the impediment to them getting married and why had she lied to the police even after he was dead, and beyond being angry that she’d betrayed their private life?

  “So, why did you lie to us?”

  “I said, Inspector…you get used to hiding something. I don’t blame Sean. This house…this family. They drove him mad. How could we have any sort of life? None of them speak to each other; none of them are normal, Inspector. Apart from Mother and she is just stuck here…”

  She glanced at the inspector and quickly put a hand to her mouth and took it away again.

  How small gestures could betray a person; like trying to withdraw words once they’ve been spoken.

  It didn’t add up, any of it. Unless…a thought hit him, but he knew better than to put his oar in at the moment. Wait until they were on their way back to the station.

  “You’re an adult, though, Mrs. Grant. I can’t understand, if both of you were free, why you would need the subterfuge…that is…were both of you free?”

  “What do you mean? Yes. Of course. You know my husband died. Sean has never been married. Just because we didn’t flaunt our love affair… Apart from that, the habit of keeping things quiet was very ingrained. Sean had a positive obsession about keeping things private. I became used to it, I suppose, and to an extent, I understood him and his reasons.”

  Even so, thought Brown but he held his tongue.

  “So, how did you feel when you heard he was leaving the Ellbeck area?”

  She swallowed. “There was nothing definite in that. You’re talking as if it was a fait accompli. Sean talked about leaving, not surprising. I talked about leaving too. This place is beautiful, but at times, you feel buried alive. If I talked about it here, I was made to feel guilty as if I was deserting them. No, not my mother. The others, though. My grandmother, in particular. For some reason, she wanted us all around her. Even Hester. Secretly, I think grandmother would like her to give up the important job in London, and come back up here and join the clan.”

  It was difficult to tell whether she was bitter or just making some a joke. But, if Mrs. Turner was so attached to her family that she wanted all of them at close proximity, then…shouldn’t she be more openly upset at Elizabeth’s death?

  The inspector voiced his thoughts, indirectly. “Your grandmother took the news of your aunt’s death surprisingly calmly, Mrs. Grant.”

  Serena bit her bottom lip.

  She wasn’t knock-out stunning, but she had the kind of looks that the more you saw her, the more you recognised how attractive she was. Elegance, class and a touch of something else, maybe a fragility. The kind of woman that brought out the protector.

  “That’s my grandmother. Never, never show your feelings. I don’t know if all her generation is like that, but she is. She despises tears and what she calls, “hysterics”. So, don’t take it for granted that she isn’t upset.”

  “What about everyone else in the house, Mrs. Grant? Do they strike you as being upset too? Are you upset?”

  “I…I…” She shrugged, her eyes shifting to the side. “I’m shocked. She was healthy and strong as far as we knew. If it had been my grandmother, well, it would have been more natural. But, I’d be lying if I behaved as though I was heartbroken. My aunt was a difficult woman to warm to. It’s terrible to speak ill of the dead, especially as her body hasn’t yet been taken from the house but…she was spiteful. She didn’t want anyone else around her to have anything she didn’t or to be more fulfilled.”

  She must be talking about herself; her love affair.

  “Did she object to your friendship with Sean Bracken?”

  Serena laughed, shortly. “You could say that. She hated it. Hated him, would have done anything to part us. Grandmother often hinted that what she wanted was marriage, one of us to marry. She implied that if that happened, it would influence her will. I don’t know why. She hated my father and Hester’s mother too. But, with the younger generation anyway, she wanted us to get married. No chance of that happening with Hester, so well, it might have been me. Elizabeth went mad if the subject was mentioned. You had to take cover when my Aunt Elizabeth became angry. Things got thrown, and I don’t mean just words either.”

  * * *

  “Really is no love lost, is there, at all, anywhere in that house or that family?”

  Greene had sat in silence for the first mile of their journey back to the station. Now, his words were dragged out as though he was exhausted and Brown himself, heard them as through a funnel or under water. He’d almost gone into a trance, his mind still back in that girlish bedroom…enough to make you shudder. Talk about Miss Haversham. In death, there had been an unfinished look about Miss Elizabeth Turner as though she’d stopped developing in her mind at some young age. Brown gave a quick, impatient shake of his head. Becomin
g fanciful like this wasn’t going to help anyone. It was that flaming house. Swallow Hall. It gave him the creeps.

  “No, sir, none of them show any feelings at all for any of the others. It can’t be a nice way to live.”

  “You’ll learn, lad. People put up with all sorts for all sorts of reasons.”

  Robinson met them a bit like an eager puppy, full of self-importance and at the same time, wanting to please. He made Brown feel tired and old. He threw a quick glance at Brown then focused all his attention on the inspector.

  “There’s a report come in, sir. A dead body. A woman’s body found in the river, past the ford, in Near Beck. Found by a fisherman.”

  His voice faded.

  The inspector’s face drained of all colour, and Brown’s heart hammered.

  Greene’s hand gripped the edge of the desk just for a few seconds, the skin stretched tight, his knuckles white.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “It’s a relief to talk to someone about this. We’ve been getting on better, lately. Maybe, because…,” Edith flashed a quick smile at Henry, “Maybe because I’m happier and more settled, and feel that I have something to look forward to.”

  “Well, that hasn’t changed, Edith, we still have that. This decision of Archie’s to move to Canada, now that is big. Truly life changing. I can understand that knocking you for six. But, this business about money? Does it matter? In the big picture.”

  Maybe she was stubborn, but it did matter.

  “I think it does. It’s a niggle and its making me feel uncomfortable. Look, Henry, I’m not accusing him of stealing from himself. That’s nonsensical.”

  “So, what is it that most bothers you about this?”

  “The feeling that he’s hiding things and that he’s running away from his troubles, going to Canada. That’s the wrong reason to do something like this, and I think it could be a disaster. He ran away once before in his life. When we were young. I’ve told you about it, and I know it was years ago. It was a difficult time, and Father was putting pressure on him to follow him into medicine, and Archie upped sticks and moved to London. That ended badly, but that was London. How much worse that will be, if he’s thousands of miles away.”

  Henry took her hand. “You can’t live his life for him, Edith.”

  * * *

  Ivy moved from the stove to the table with this new restlessness,

  “I don’t feel the same desperation to leave, now, Sylvia. What should I do about the job, though?”

  Sylvia sighed. “I’m tempted to say turn the job at the Arbuthnot’s down and stay here with me. But, that would be the height of selfishness, and I’m not going to do it. Put the whole thing to the back of your mind for now and think about it again in a few days when all of this has died down…and…”

  “Yes,” Ivy knew what she meant. When they had found out what had killed Miss Elizabeth. Her heart thudded with a dull and steady beat in her chest.

  “Did you do out Hester’s room?”

  “Yes, though there hasn’t been time for much dust to accumulate. That boss of hers in London must be a tolerant man. She’s spent more time here in this part of the country in the past few weeks than she has down there.”

  “Hubert has gone to pick her up again, then?”

  “Yes,” Ivy hesitated. Now that Miss Elizabeth was no longer there to torment her at every turn, Ivy had time to consider other people in the house.

  “Do you ever wonder about Hubert, Sylvia? I mean he’s never uttered a word out of place to me, but he stopped the car the other day when I was taking my walk and offered me a lift. I’m probably just being stupid, but for a moment I felt, I don’t know how to put it…it felt a bit creepy.”

  Sylvia shook her head. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you now, girl. There’s nowt wrong with that man. If you’re not careful, you’ll be seeing bogeymen everywhere and evil coming out of the walls.”

  Sylvia put a hand on Ivy’s arm. “It’ll come out in the wash, Ivy, you’ll see.”

  * * *

  The blood rushed and pounded in Greene’s ears. He clenched his fists and moved to the door. “I must go. You go back to Swallow Hall. Continue with what I was telling you to do. Interview them…that pub…that woman.”

  “Sir,” Brown had picked up the telephone receiver.

  “Sir, the telephone…it’s.”

  “I can’t stop.”

  His voice was tight.

  The hospital corridor was deserted and the floor covering thick and shiny. He had that feeling like in a nightmare, where the ground was pulling you down and you couldn’t move fast enough. His throat was tight, and his stomach churned, and he knew he’d never, in what remained of his life forget these moments and this never-ending walk.

  It wasn’t her.

  He’d had a hasty, whispered conversation with the pale-faced, soft-spoken member of staff manning the hospital morgue and as he walked behind him, the dread, cold in the pit of his stomach was the same as going over the top. Brought it back.

  Before seeing the blue-white face, he knew it wasn’t his wife by the shape. This poor woman was shorter, more rotund, older too. Maybe sixty. He’d rushed out of the station. If he’d just curbed his impatience and asked a few basic questions he could have spared himself this.

  There was a sergeant in the corridor as Greene left. He recognised him from Ripon. Aylesbury. The name had stuck in his mind because it had reminded him of a place… and a breed of duck.

  “From St. Bride’s sir. We’ve been searching all morning. Poor woman. Been talking about doing it for years, apparently.”

  The telephone call. Brown had been trying to tell him something. But, he’d raced off like a madman.

  He sat in the café and stirred the ginger-hued tea. He needed this before going back to the station, and stepping back into his shoes, back into his life. Something had to mark this experience out from his normal routine. Not that there was a normal routine in this job and not that there had been anything remotely normal in the way he’d been carrying on—not only since Bet disappeared but since she returned.

  You could even go further than that and say there had been something wrong since she’d walked out in the first place, those years ago.

  The relief when he’d looked at that poor lost soul laid on that trolley had been weakening in its intensity—unlike anything he’d experienced before. That must be how a condemned man feels if he’s pardoned at the last minute. Like tangled wool, he tried now to tease apart the strands of the relief. He took a drink of the tannin-heavy brew. He was relieved that Bet’s story hadn’t ended there—for Margaret’s sake too. Though driven to distraction by her sister, Margaret’s care for her younger sister was unwavering.

  For …thank whoever, if anyone, who was up there, for sparing him having to live with that for the rest of his life. It might be extreme, but he felt like he’d been handed the greatest second chance ever. Now, he would deal with things as he should have done weeks ago. There would be no going back. That wasn’t the second chance, he wanted. But, no longer would he bury his head in the sand.

  No-one actually could be shackled in a marriage which was making him miserable. He wasn’t going to live with Bet again—ever. It would be properly dealt with, this time. Courts, solicitors and whatever she might decide to throw at him. He would deal with it. In comparison with the fright he’d had today, it was nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Brown was plodding through the day, his cold lurking in the back of his nose and throat, and a dull headache throbbing away in his forehead. The inspector had returned after nearly two hours away, and he’d been a different man, or rather back to his old self. Unlike the preoccupied person he’d been ever since that woman had come to see him.

  Going back to the Drover’s Arms was an uncanny sort of déjà vu. Even down to Ted Prentice on the bar stool. The old man’s face lit with a grin when he caught sight of Brown. Well, he’d be out of luck this time. Brow
n wasn’t going to waste time or money on that old game, again.

  The landlord was behind the counter, this time with the racing page of the Daily Mirror opened in front of him, a pencil in his hand.

  “Could I have another word?” At the landlord’s glance, he saw he wasn’t doing this right. “I’ll have a pint of bitter and have one yourself,” he said.

  There was a cough and a mutter from the corner.

  “And a pint for Ted,” he said.

  The landlord took his time moving and filling the glasses, and there was no invitation, this time, to continue the conversation in the back room.

  Ah well, what did it matter? Ted wasn’t likely to take any heed of the conversation and apart from him, the place was deserted.

  “I wanted to ask you about the woman. The woman Sean Bracken was in here with that evening, you said about six weeks ago?”

  “Lad, with respect. I don’t know what more I can tell you. There was nowt remarkable about her in herself, like. She was a smart woman. Not in the first flush of youth. Not old, though. Very well turned out, and with an accent that weren’t local.”

  So, not a lot more information this time around. He’d have to go elsewhere. Or think about it in a different way.

  “Did you know how she got here? I mean the time she came looking for directions to Bracken’s house? Was she driving? Driving herself?”

  The landlord ran his hands through his sparse red hair. One look at him made Brown think that he’d struck something. The landlord’s impatience was gone, and for the first time since Brown had started asking questions, he looked interested.

  “She came in a taxi. I suppose from Harrogate station. Denis Harvey drove her. So, maybe she was local and knew him, or he’d taken to lurking outside the station touting for business. Shouldn’t think so, though. The last I heard he was coining it in, and talking about getting a third hackney cab. There’s no-one as wants to go by shanks’ mare, anymore. Soon, the bicycle will be relegated as well, and they’ll all have motor cars, even in this place.”