by Charles Todd
He could see Sergeant Miller bristle. “You must look for answers to that in Yorkshire. Benjamin sold up and left. That’s as far as our information goes.”
“I understand. What I’m searching for is a past that might have followed him there. Does this shop still exist?”
Miller gave him directions, and Rutledge set out to find Netherby. It lay east of Bristol, and Rutledge discovered he’d actually driven through it on his way into Bristol although he hadn’t seen a sign giving its name. In the shadow of the larger town, it had never attained more than village status. Still, Netherby had a small church with a tall, elegant tower, and a number of pretty houses on the High Street. He had no trouble finding the building he sought—but it had been converted into a barber’s shop many years before. He spoke to the barber, who was busy stropping his razors, and learned that the furniture shop had only survived Ben Clayton’s decision to sell up for some ten years.
“The new man didn’t have the knack,” the barber told Rutledge. “Everyone needs a haircut, man and boy. But it’s quite another matter convincing a housewife she needs a new carpet this year, or a more comfortable chair or a sturdier washtub. Mr. Stedman hung on as long as he could, but it was never the prosperous business it was under Alfred Clayton or his son Ben.”
To Rutledge’s surprise, the barber, a stooped, graying man of perhaps sixty, actually remembered Ben Clayton.
“And for the price of a haircut,” he added, folding his razors and setting them away, “I’ll remember more than the name.”
As the shop was empty, it was a fair trade, and Rutledge laughed as he sat down in the worn chair. “The sign says LOLLY’S. Is that you?”
“Was when I was a lad. I took the name for the shop because Edgar didn’t sound quite right, to my ears.”
The barber whisked a sheet across Rutledge’s chest, and set to work. Rutledge reminded him of their bargain.
“I remember the father best. As a lad I’d do errands for him, and earn a few pence. But I knew Benjamin also. Nice lad, he was. Alfred, now—the father—knew his worth, and he gave good value for the money in everything he sold. Wife died young of her appendix, and so there was only the one child. Clever with his hands, Alfred was, and the boy took after him. Ben was always trying something new. Most of it didn’t suit at first, then people began to ask for his chairs. After that they wanted tables to match, and my wife bought one of his tea tables—the top tilted, you could push it against the wall, if you liked, out of the way. But he was quiet, you see, not one to stand about and chat, like his father.”
“Was he ever in any trouble?”
“Benjamin? No, not the sort, in my book. Went to church of a Sunday, fell in love with a nice girl from the teacher training school, and married her. But that was after his father had passed on. He was taking a cart to the school outside Wells, chairs I expect it was, and she was in the parlor when he came to the door.”
Once more the information fit. “Married her and left Somerset?”
“That’s how it was. I can’t bring to mind just where it was he went. He did say he had no ties here, not with his father gone, and I was looking for a place of my own to set up shop. But he sold to Stedman and shook hands on it.” He turned and pointed to a rosewood chair in one corner. “He did that one for me. My wife’s having the cover redone, something a bit more cheerful.”
The elegant ladies’ chair, with the knot of carved cabbage roses at the peak of the back, was beautifully made, the finish still rich with beeswax and polish, although with time the seat had grown dark with wear, the original pattern of the fabric all but obscured.
“Of an evening she always sits in that chair.”
“Did Clayton have any friends to speak of? Anyone he owed money to, anyone he might have had difficulties with? Someone who might have known where he’d gone to live?”
“Benjamin? Not what you’d call close friends, no. Although he was on friendly terms with everyone in the village. He was a hard worker, with very little time to spare for an evening in the pub. Still, people respected him. He was meticulous about money, and everyone knew he was as honest as the day’s long. If he gave you a price, he held to it. I never heard any word said against him.”
Lolly whipped off the covering and stood back. “Now, then, there you are.”
Rutledge looked in the mirror and was satisfied. He’d had his hair cut before the party, but Lolly had trimmed it nicely. He said as much and paid what was asked.
As Rutledge rose from the barber’s chair, Lolly said, his head to one side, “You haven’t said why you’re interested in Benjamin Clayton. I’ve told you what you wanted to know. It’s only fair you should tell me why you come around asking about a man gone these thirty years.”
“I never knew much about his past. He never spoke of Netherby to his family. I wondered why. I was in Bristol this morning. It wasn’t far to come to Netherby.”
Lolly nodded. “I expect Netherby held only sad memories for him. Losing his ma so young, and then his pa before his time too. Horse stepped on his foot, gangrene set in, and the doctors couldn’t stop it. Not an easy death. You tell Ben Clayton that old Lolly remembers him right enough, and the chair’s still just fine.”
Rutledge added something to what he’d paid, and thanked the barber.
But as he went down the street, in the direction of the church, he thought that Benjamin Clayton must have indeed been the good man his children had claimed he was. Then who had killed him?
He stopped by the church, looking for the vicar, and found him changing the numbers on the hymn rack.
He turned, nodded to Rutledge, and clambered down the ladder to come and greet him.
“Good morning! Visitor, are you?”
“I’m doing a little research into family history. I wonder if you remember a Benjamin Clayton, late of this village and now a resident in Yorkshire. He tells me we shared a great-aunt, who lived here.”
The vicar smiled. “I’ve only been here these ten years. I’m afraid I don’t know a Benjamin Clayton. But there are Claytons in the churchyard here. One of them might well be your shared great-aunt.”
Rutledge was looking around him. “This is a little gem of a church,” he said, amazed to find such beauty in a village this size. The wood paneling, the ends of the benches, and the choir were old and exquisitely worked.
“Yes, it was built in the years when wool was king. No expense spared by the Benton family. Benton’s wife was from this village, and he rebuilt the church for her. There’s gold leaf in the chancel, and the altar was carved by a German woodworker. And the misericords in the choir were done locally, with such vigor. The glass is quite good, and you can see the pulpit for yourself. A marble work of art. So is the baptismal font.”
It was clear he took great pride in his church, and for the next fifteen minutes he took Rutledge on a tour. And then, suddenly remembering that his companion was interested in the dead, he said, “But I’m forgetting my manners. I’ll show you where to find the Claytons.”
They walked outside into the sunny churchyard. Flowers were rampant in front of some of the grave stones, adding bursts of color to the green of the grass. Trees shaded a good part of it, and sun picked out the stones on the east side and lit the details of the tower. Rutledge had been looking at that when the vicar said, “Here are the Claytons. You should be able to read most of the inscriptions.”
They’d been buried along the south side of the church, and Rutledge knelt on one knee to look at them. He counted seventeen family members, going back five generations. The stones weren’t ornate, but they had all been well carved, and verses from the New Testament had been engraved on most of them. Ben Clayton’s mother and father were there, lying side by side.
“You’ll find an Agnes Clayton just there,” the vicar was saying, pointing out a stone at the edge of the grouping. “Married a cousin, I believe. She may be the ancestress you’re seeking.”
“She must be indeed.” He noted her d
ates, and then thanked the vicar for taking the time to show him the church and the graves. They made their way around the apse toward the far side, the vicar pointing out various features remaining from an earlier church on the site, and that was when Rutledge saw the stones.
Blackened, smeared, and ugly. An attempt had been made to clean them, but to no avail. Whatever the mixture was—lampblack and paint?—he couldn’t read a single name carved into them. It was as if they had been deliberately obliterated.
“What happened here?” Rutledge asked, and almost at once answered his own question. “They’ve been vandalized by the look of them.” Davies’s unsolved case? Cummins hadn’t told him the village name, but he’d said the churchyard was in Somerset.
The vicar said tightly, “We’ve never found the guilty party. Or known why those graves were damaged while so many others have not been touched. It’s a desecration. I’ve prayed that the police will find out who has done this, if only to know why he’s so disturbed.”
Rutledge surveyed the damage. Surely here indeed was Inspector Davies’s unsolved case. He remembered how lightly he and Cummins had discussed the inquiry. Looking down at the evidence before him, it no longer seemed humorous. There was a violence and hatred here that was shocking, the black substance layered on with savage intensity, as if the person doing this wished he could tar the body buried here as well. But he said nothing to the vicar of Inspector Davies.
“It’s a tragedy,” he said, and meant it. “And you know of no connection among these people?”
“They died on different dates of different causes as far as I can ascertain. A farm accident for that one, typhoid fever took another one, cancer two more, and a brain hemorrhage for the most recent. I’ve made it my business to find out. I even wondered if someone hated doctors. There’s a doctor among them.” He sighed. “Desecration, that’s what it is. Family members have been very upset, as you can imagine.” They walked on. “My training says that all men have good in them. And I strive to find it. But this is depravity. The dead can’t fight back.”
Rutledge thanked him again as they reached the churchyard gate and took his leave.
As he walked back to where he’d left his motorcar, he thought that he must tell Cummins what he’d seen here. And that the vicar had been right to fear for his church. But that was all that he’d accomplished here in Somerset.
Unless there was a connection in Netherby with Clayton’s death that he hadn’t found.
Yet.
He was no longer so convinced that there might be.
Clayton’s break with the village had been amicable and permanent. Hardly the stuff of murder thirty years later.
Now he must return to Moresby and look into the possibility that the killer had mistaken his target. There had been the older man living next door to the Clayton house. Talmadge, his name was. His past would bear looking into next.
Which was certain not to please Inspector Farraday.
As he turned toward London, Rutledge wondered if Jean was enjoying Henley with her parents. For all the good he’d done by rushing to Bristol, he could have stayed in London and spent the day with the Gordons.
When Rutledge reached London, he looked at his watch and saw that there was still time to call in at the Yard before going home.
Bowles was not in, but Rutledge stopped to thank Sergeant Gibson for directing him to Sergeant Miller.
“Little good it did you,” Gibson said. “Or you’d be more pleased than you are. Sir.”
“True, but there’s another possibility I’d like to look into when I get back to Yorkshire. A man by the name of Talmadge.”
“There’s no need. A suspect’s already in custody.”
Surprised, Rutledge said, “Inspector Farraday’s found Clayton’s killer? Who is it?”
“You’ll have to ask Himself on Monday. He sent for you and wasn’t best pleased you were haring about in Somerset when the murder was in Moresby.”
Rutledge swallowed the retort he’d been about to make. Bowles had agreed to his going on to Somerset. It wasn’t Sergeant Gibson’s fault, but it would delay his return to Yorkshire if he must wait to speak to the Chief Superintendent.
He went to his office to see if Bowles had left anything on his desk. But there was nothing.
The rank and file referred to Bowles as Old Bowels, and with good reason—his ill temper was legendary. When Rutledge walked into his office on Monday morning, Bowles glared at him and snapped, “There’s an inquiry come in that needs your attention. You had no business taking yourself off to Somerset without my authority.”
“I went because I haven’t closed the inquiry in Yorkshire,” Rutledge said as pleasantly as he could manage. “It was my belief that you concurred in that decision.”
“It’s been closed. Yorkshire. And without your help, I might add. The local man informed me that you didn’t wish to act, and he was forced to do it for you. And I’m told you hurried back to London for a party on the Friday night.”
“There was a dinner honoring my engagement to Miss Gordon,” he said. “Yes. But you knew about that. And I took my time in Moresby.”
“I won’t stand for insubordination, Rutledge. Do I make myself clear?”
“Who was taken into custody?” he pressed.
“Man by the name of Kingston.”
Rutledge felt anger sweeping through him in a red tide. He tried to count to ten before answering but didn’t quite make it past six. “I told Inspector Farraday that the case he presented against Kingston wouldn’t stand up in court. That’s why I went to Somerset, to look into the victim’s background—”
Bowles didn’t wait for him to finish, abruptly interrupting. “And did you find anything?”
“My opinion is—”
“Did you find anything.” It was no longer a question.
“No—”
“Then Inspector Farraday’s decision stands. The matter is closed.”
“I’d wager my life that Kingston is innocent.”
“We’ll see how you feel about that when he’s tried and found guilty.” Bowles took up a file lying on his desk and gave every appearance of being absorbed by it. But Rutledge saw his eyebrows twitch in annoyance.
He left the office, feeling the roil of an anger so fierce he kept going, out of the building and down the street, unaware of where he was until he heard Big Ben strike the half hour and realized that he was just by Westminster Bridge.
He wasn’t sure whether Bowles had been in the police force so long that he had lost any driving need to see justice done. If Inspector Farraday was satisfied that the inquiry was closed, then closed it must surely be.
Or was it the fact that Bowles had no imagination? He’d long suspected that. No ability to look beyond the obvious and see where supposition and possibility might lead.
Swearing, Rutledge turned back toward the Yard.
And then there was Farraday’s decision.
Was he—Rutledge—wrong about Kingston? Or for that matter, Michael Clayton, the dead man’s son? Had he looked into every corner of the inquiry before—as Bowles had put it—haring off to Somerset?
In his considered opinion, he had. And yet Farraday had won the day, Kingston was in gaol, and it would now be up to a jury, not an Inspector of police, to decide if the charges stood on their own merits or not.
Yet it felt wrong. He’d dealt with murderers before this, he’d had to sift through evidence and interviews, he’d had to come to a conclusion based on facts he could prove. Kingston had neither the courage nor the weakness necessary to kill.
He had reached the door to the Yard, but his anger was still molten, and he stood there for a full minute, debating what to do.
Just then Inspector Cummins came out of the building and nodded to him.
“You could give thunderclaps a bad name,” he said. “Run-in with Bowles, was it?”
“Yes. He’s cut short the inquiry in Yorkshire.”
Cummins put a hand on his e
lbow. “Let’s walk, shall we?” He headed in the direction of Trafalgar Square and carried Rutledge along with him. “More of those blackened graves have come to light. This time in the village of Beecham. South of Bristol, a few miles from the first village. Davies was sent to have a look, and it appears to have been the same vandal, because whatever was poured on the first graves appears to be the same substance used here. Or else news of what happened earlier has sparked someone else to copy what was done.”
“Davies must be beside himself.” He turned toward Cummins. “While I was in Somerset, I happened on the first of the damaged graves. In Netherby.” He went on to describe what he’d seen. “It was rather macabre, the way the names had been eradicated as the black substance, whatever it was, spread into every crevice. As if the dead were sinners, not fit to lie in a proper churchyard. The vicar hasn’t found an answer, although apparently he’s still looking.” For a moment Rutledge watched the traffic moving around the square. “I did wonder if they might have some connection with Clayton. Now it seems unlikely.”
“I’m sorry there isn’t. Davies has two vicars and a local squire pressing him for answers. The latest theory is that someone is targeting churches. My feeling is that it’s more personal than that.”
“Male, again? The grave stones.”
“Yes. One of them the squire’s late nephew who owns a cottage not far from the church. Owned, I should say. Although his widow lives there still. She’s as perplexed as everyone else is.”
“The count is seven, now?” Rutledge asked, wrenching his mind away from his own thoughts. “Five in Netherby, two in Beecham?”
“I believe it is. Davies has looked at everything from wills to disputes over an inheritance. And he’s no closer to the truth.”
“What about a jury? Could these men have served on one?”
“That’s quite clever, Ian.” Cummins considered the suggestion, then shook his head. “Still, I don’t see how that fits. At some point in time, all these men would have had to live close enough to have been called upon to serve together. According to the information Davies has, three of the five in the first churchyard hadn’t died in the village but had been brought back there for burial in the family plot. And one of the two in Beecham had been brought back as well. Quite a scattered population, in fact.”