At this point in his narrative, they were interrupted by the entry of a whirlwind into the room, which resolved itself into his wife Ruth, holding a willow-pattern plate with a look of puzzlement on her face. ‘Nobody will own up to owning this plate. It arrived with all the others from the school with, I think, a Victoria sponge on it, but everyone who contributed denies all knowledge of it. I’ve heard of anonymous letters, but never anonymous Victoria sponges.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about it, my dear. Someone will remember it eventually.’
‘Well, I don’t know who. I’ve just had a complete phone round.’
‘Ruth – the phone bill!’
‘Don’t fuss so, Septimus. It was as good an excuse as any to check that everyone’s all right, after poor Mrs Finch-Matthews’ unfortunate accident – I mean ‘incident’.’
‘You mean her murder.’ Falconer liked to call a spade a spade.
‘Horrible man!’ she retorted, flashing him a little smile. ‘I thought if I used the plate as an excuse, it would save you hours and hours calling round to see everybody, and having to drink endless cups of tea and coffee, and be driven mad by the inane chatter that goes with them, Sep.’
‘Clever girl!’ exclaimed the vicar. ‘Worth every penny of the bill, and you are worth your weight in rubies, my dear. Now, where was I,’ he resumed, as his wife left the room somewhat more slowly than she had entered it, still staring at the plate with a puzzled expression on her face and muttering,
‘Well, it must belong to somebody,’ finally calling over her shoulder as she exited, ‘Did you tell them about that weird woman who said she’d just been involved in some other murders, and wouldn’t stay here another minute?’
‘No, she’d completely slipped my mind.’
Falconer merely glanced at him in an enquiring manner, and he continued, ‘It was someone who came to the bake sale – a couple – and as soon as the murder was mentioned, she went all peculiar, and said something about being involved in murders before. I’m sure it means nothing whatsoever with regard to our own unfortunate circumstances, but it does seem worthy of mention. Whoever it was was staying at the holiday cottages, but I can’t remember her name. You’ll just have to ask.’
‘I’ll do just that, thank you, sir. Make a note, Carmichael,’ but he was too late. Carmichael had already noted it down, and licked his right index finger’s top joint, and made a downward gesture with it in the air, to indicate that it was his house-point this time.
‘Oh, yes: back to the twins from hell. While we were all searching for the little plaster figure, they got into the stable scene and took all the straw and strewed it around the whole of the altar area and the choir stalls. I won’t repeat what they said when I admonished them, because it was unspeakably rude. I must admit, I was glad to see the back of the little terrors, and although their parents could see no wrong in them, I’ve since heard that they’re boarders at their new school, so maybe mummy and daddy didn’t have such bad eyesight after all.
‘I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you, but I’m simply too much of a newcomer. The ladies in the post office have been here since the Flood waters receded, so you might strike lucky there, and Mrs Hammond at the shop loves nothing better than to have a good old shred of folks’ characters, while she peddles her wares – sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound quite so bitchy. She’s got a good heart, and would help anyone in trouble. Well, good luck with your investigations.’
Carmichael slipped his notepad back into his mackintosh pocket and followed the inspector out of The Rectory. ‘Where to now, sir?’ he asked, wanting to know whether they’d be using the car, which they had left in the Temporary Sign’s car park, or would continue on foot. It was a bright day, and the fresh air was very welcome.
‘Shop first, I think, then the post office.’
III
Although Shepford Stacey’s village shop stocked an amazing amount of diverse lines, it could nowhere near match the sheer diversity and multiplicity of items for sale in ‘Allsorts’, the general store in Castle Farthing. It did its best, however, and Falconer and Carmichael had to pick their way carefully between towering displays and teetering stacks of miscellaneous stock.
Anne Hammond was behind the counter drinking a cup of tea, into which she was enthusiastically dunking ginger nuts, slurping up the drooping results with an audibly liquid sound that might be written as something like ‘schlup’.
‘Enjoying those, are you?’ asked Carmichael, before he could help himself.
‘They’re gorgeous, love. D’yer want one?’ she offered, holding out the packet to him and smiling. ‘If yer don’t take one I’ll have guzzled the lot meself between now and lunchtime.’
Carmichael smiled back and extracted a biscuit, looking sideways at the inspector to see what his reaction was to this somewhat informal introduction, but he didn’t seem put out. In fact, he was secretly pleased that the woman wouldn’t need opening up like an oyster. She was already receptive enough to questions, and he was proved right when their first enquiry netted them a mine of information.
‘If I were you,’ she advised them, looking to left and right, to check that they weren’t being overheard, ‘I’d take a close look at the Baldwin family. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all lovely people, but you’ve got to take into account what happened to their Stevie, haven’t you?’
‘Have you?’ asked Falconer, bowled over by her speed of delivery, and trying to give Carmichael a chance with his notes, half-consumed ginger nut notwithstanding.
‘Oh, yes. Accident like that must have been one in a million, with an outcome like that, that is.’
‘What accident?’
‘The one where Stevie lost her leg!’
‘She’s only got one leg?’
‘Didn’t you notice?’
‘No.’
‘She does cope well, doesn’t she?’
‘When did all this happen?’ Falconer felt as if he were under attack from heavy artillery.
‘It was years ago when she was at the village school. All the County schools were banning skipping ropes because some little tyke – oh, I can’t even remember where it was now – some boy, had decided that he wanted a go at what is usually considered a girls’ activity, got his feet tangled up in the rope.
‘Boys have such bad co-ordination when it comes to things like skipping, unless they’re boxers, don’t you think?’ Without giving them a chance either to agree or disagree, she ploughed on relentlessly. ‘Anyway, this lad fell over and, as a consequence, broke his arm, and all the parents were up in arms. As a result, skipping got demonised, along with a lot of other innocent childhood activities – like conkers – mad, isn’t it?’
‘Hhhh.’ Falconer drew breath, but was over-ruled again.
‘Our parents said it was a daft thing to do, as it was something that had gone on ever since anyone could remember – like marbles: all games have their season in the school year. So the vicar at the time agreed, and so did the school staff.’
‘Being?’ He was more successful this time, and her faraway glazed eyes, lost in memory, suddenly became alert as she tuned into his one word question, and she shot him an admonitory glance.
‘I was just getting to that bit!’ Anne Hammond reacted like someone who wasn’t used to being interrupted when she was in full flow. ‘It was the same old birds as now, only they weren’t quite so old then – Harriet Findlater and Audrey Finch-Matthews – may she rest in peace.’ She was thrown right off her track now, and Falconer managed another question.
‘There was an incident with a skipping rope, at the local school, I presume?’
‘That’s right!’ Stevie – little Stephanie, as she was known then – got in a tangle and fell, breaking her leg. Well, that was the end of that, as far as the school was concerned, but it was only the beginning of a sorry tale of woe for the Baldwins.
‘They took her to hospital, operated to set the bone, and she had to go into traction – I
don’t know enough to describe exactly what happened; I could’ve got that bit wrong after all this time, but the up and down of it was that she got an infection, and gangrene set in. If they hadn’t taken her leg off, she would have died.
‘She coped awfully well, poor kid; but I shouldn’t say that. She’s made a marvellous job of just getting on with her life, and never moaning about it or blaming anyone other than herself, for being so clumsy.’
‘But you think that there may be resentment harboured in the Baldwin household?’
Oo-er, thought the inspector. Was that really Carmichael asking that question? It sounded as if he had been reading the ‘Improve Your Vocabulary’ section in the Readers’ Digest, but Anne Hammond didn’t notice the rather formal wording of the question, merely carrying on where she had left off.
‘Patsy and Frank were heartbroken. She was their little princess, and now she looked more like Hopalong Cassidy – no offence meant. Patsy cried for months and had a bit of a breakdown because of it, if truth be told. Frank just disappeared inside himself, the way men do, but he spent a lot more time in the pub in those first few months after the accident.
‘His mother lived with them even back then, and he probably wanted a bit of relief from the weeping and wailing after he got home from work of an evening after a hard day’s graft. That all stopped when Stevie was finally allowed home, but they had a big, black pit to crawl out of, and I knew they weren’t happy when Stevie applied for her job at the school, after she had little Spike.’
‘So, in your opinion, how do they all feel now?’ Falconer asked, feeling a little left out. After all, he was the senior officer here, and it must be his turn now.
‘That grandmother, her opinion’s absolutely wicked, and I’ll only tell you if you promise not to tell anyone else I said it. You can confirm it yourself when you talk to her, though.’
This sounded interesting, and both detectives pricked up their ears for a juicy titbit, and Anne didn’t disappoint. ‘You know she’s got that little boy, Spike, that I just mentioned?
Both detectives nodded in silence, now actually wanting her to continue in full flow.
‘And you know he was born out of wedlock?’
They did now, and nodded in unison again, like a couple of toy dogs on the back shelf of a car.
‘Old Elsie told me once, in confidence, that she reckoned Stevie only went to bed with someone so that she could prove she could attract the lads, even with only one leg. And what’s more, she reckoned that someone took advantage of her because she was a cripple, and deserved – what? Pity? Contempt? I don’t know which, but it’s an absolutely horrible thing to think about your own flesh and blood, and I don’t want this to go any further than these four walls, and I hope I’ve made myself very clear.’
She had, and the two nodding dogs obliged for a third time.
‘Stevie was a pretty child, and she’s grown into a pretty young woman. I reckon if she didn’t marry the father, it was because she didn’t want to. At one point Patsy accused her of not knowing who the father was, but I doubt that. Stevie’s not that sort of person. She travels her own road, and anyone who says otherwise is talking rubbish.’
Falconer picked up on the reference to Patsy Baldwin, and decided to press for more information. ‘How do her parents feel now, so long after the event? Have they finally come to terms with what happened?’
‘I don’t really think so. Most of the time they seem just like everyone else, but now and again, you can see it in their eyes – that sort of agony at not being able to change things, and incomprehension at why it should have happened to their daughter, and their family.’
‘Thank you very much, Mrs Hammond. You’ve been most informative,’ Falconer thanked her as they prepared to make their exit, Carmichael chewing appreciatively at a ginger nut, another three clasped possessively in his right paw, and a look in his eyes that challenged anyone to try to take them off him.
‘Carmichael, you’re shameless,’ the inspector opined, his ear catching the sound of enthusiastic crunching.
‘No. I’m not, sir. I’m an opportunist, and I’m hungry,’ was the brief reply, through a mouthful of fragrant crumbs.
IV
The sisters in the post office were also inclined to gossip, and it began to feel like it was going to be a fruitful visit. Vera and Letty had been mulling things over since the murder, and had reached a conclusion as to the identity of the killer.
‘It’s usually very quiet at this time of day, Inspector. Why don’t you and the sergeant come into our little back parlour, while I make us a nice pot of tea, and I’ll put up my ‘please ring’ sign by the bell,’ Vera invited, definitely mistress of her own post office.
‘We don’t want to interfere with the smooth running of Her Majesty’s postal service,’ replied Falconer.
‘But we’d love a cuppa,’ added Carmichael, whose mouth was dry after his handful of biscuits.
The post office was behind a bay window, probably Georgian, and consisted of what must have been the front room, with a side room where the post was delivered. At the back of the actual post office was a cosy little snug where the two sisters could go for refreshment breaks, without having to go upstairs.
In front of a cast-iron fireplace, a gas fire hissed gently, although it was not cold outside. Two 1930s armchairs sat at each side of it, and to the left front of the room was a tiny dining table and two chairs. A corner at the other end of the room boasted a miniature sink, and equally minute work surface adjacent to a power point, where hot drinks could be prepared during opening hours. Between the two armchairs was a worn Turkey rug, over old brown linoleum, and a bouquet of everlasting flowers sat in a glass vase in the exact centre of the table.
While Letty busied herself at the sink, Carmichael admired the ornaments on the mantle-piece. ‘My gran used to have a pair of dogs like that,’ he commented, indicating the Staffordshire spaniels, one at each end. Got ’em from her mum,’ he informed the room at large.
‘Those belonged to our grandmother,’ Vera said, entering the room, apparently satisfied that the post office would not be burgled during the next half hour. ‘Has she still got them?’ she asked, referring to Carmichael’s own grandmother.
‘Nope! She sold ’em to a ‘knocker’ at the door for twenty quid, a few years ago,’ he replied, ruefully. ‘I loved ’em,’ he added. ‘I gave them names, and thought about where I’d put them in my house when I had one.’
‘I know they’ve gone down in value in recent years, but I’d say that was daylight robbery, young man. Did she get the man’s name?’
‘No, and she was furious when she found out she’d been done, but the next week she won a hundred pounds on the bingo, and just forget all about the dogs, saying that Fate had seen her right in the end.’
There was no polite answer to that, so Letty took up the conversational reins with, ‘We’ve got a theory, Inspector.’
‘Yes, a theory about who the murderer is, but the roots of it go back a long time. Shall we tell you who we think it is, or shall we start at the beginning, and tell it like a story?’
‘Story, please.’ Carmichael answered for the inspector. He loved stories, even if he did have to take notes.
‘Let’s take it in turns,’ suggested Letty, almost treating the situation as a game. ‘You go first, Vera, dear.’
‘Thank you Letty. Now, let me see: where shall I start? I suppose we’ll have to go back about thirty years to find the beginning.’ Carmichael smiled, and started to scribble. This was the bit he liked about an investigation, when all the threads of a case turned out to be little vignettes, and when they had them all together, they could be woven into a tapestry that showed a clear picture – a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, but with less cardboard, and with no box with a helpful picture on it.
‘It was the two of them together that caused most of the trouble, although they were bad enough separately. I’m talking about David Darling and Seth Borrowdale. From the
moment they met at school, they became a pair of little devils, each one egging the other on to worse things.
‘Audrey and Harriet did what they could. They disciplined them as far as they were allowed to, and spoke to the parents, but nothing curbed their behaviour.’
‘And, of course, as they got older, their mischiefs grew into actual criminal acts,’ Letty took over, without missing a beat. ‘Things that had been ‘borrowed’ at school, such as dinner money, or sweeties from a coat pocket, or a satchel, could be sorted out internally, but as they grew older, it progressed to shoplifting.
‘Anne Hammond’s parents ran the village shop back then, and they showed no mercy where shoplifters were concerned. They’d spotted that small stuff was going missing, and they had a fair idea who was responsible, so they kept an eagle eye on them, and caught them at it, the pair of them. First thing they did was call the police: none of this ‘speak to the parents’ first. They knew the little devils were out of control, even at that age, and the police were the beginning of a story that’s still going on to this day, certainly in the case of David Darling, and, more than likely, in the case of Seth Borrowdale.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Falconer asked.
‘Well, David Darling’s in prison, just been sentenced to four years, and that Seth Borrowdale’s been in trouble with the police a couple of times. That was quite a while ago now, but that’s probably just because he’s being more careful these days. The man’s so naturally crooked you could open a bottle of wine with him.’ It was Vera’s turn again, and she believed in ‘telling it like it is’.
‘If you’re looking for a suspect, you could do worse than to consider him,’ Letty chimed in, ‘or that Margaret and Ernie Darling. Their David was a spoiled and pampered only child, and they never could see any wrong in him – especially her. Since he’s been inside again, she’s taken to the bottle with a will. Perhaps she staggered over there in a state of fugue, and gave Audrey Finch-Matthews one in the eye for her little darling David. Ha ha!’
Pascal Passion (The Falconer Files Book 4) Page 9