Murder in the Afternoon: A Kate Shackleton Mystery

by Frances Brody

  In my country costume, I suddenly felt like a poor governess. Mary Jane was right, she was exquisite. But she was wrong when she said I would never have met anyone like her. I had met many women like Mrs Ledger, delicate, feminine, and with a steely determination to never exert themselves in any direction. Perhaps that was harsh, but it was how she struck me. In the face of such superficial perfection, I could understand why Mary Jane had been so reluctant to set foot inside the gates of Applewick Hall.

  Mrs Ledger sat beside me on the sofa. ‘I am so very sorry to hear about Mr Armstrong, and distressed for Mary Jane. I wish she had come to me. Her husband is a political firebrand but a supremely good workman, the colonel tells me.’

  ‘I believe he narrowly missed engendering a strike in your quarry.’

  She looked at me shrewdly. ‘Yes, that’s true. But my husband tells me we must move with the times, and try to understand people like Ethan Armstrong.’

  Or eliminate them.

  ‘How is Mary Jane?’

  ‘She’s bearing up.’

  ‘And the children?’

  Her interest seemed genuine. Briefly, I told her about Harriet finding the body on Saturday, and this morning taking the farm dog out to search. She listened carefully, then said, ‘And the boy? Six years old is is too young to understand about death. Let’s hope that Harriet was mistaken.’

  After a few more moments, I made my excuses, and left.

  As I stepped from the house, I did a quick calculation. It occurred to me that the money in Mary Jane’s bank book was deposited while she worked for the Ledgers. Perhaps Mary Jane herself had a radical streak and had seen some opportunity for profit here. In spite of Mrs Ledger’s wealth and a certain sympathy, I would not suspect her of generosity. In my experience, the wealthy hold on to what they have.

  The gardener still meddled in the flower bed. I spoke to the back of his head. ‘Excuse me.’

  He looked up from his work and gave me a suspicious glare.

  ‘Where is the rose garden?’

  He straightened up and pointed. ‘Over yon.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As I walked across the lawn in the direction of the rose garden, I felt disappointed that this visit had not taken my investigation much further forward. All I had was a suspicion that Ethan’s attempt to call a strike had tipped the colonel over the edge. Of course he could have sacked Ethan without a reference, turned him out of the tied house, made life exceptionally difficult. It made no logical sense that he would murder, or arrange for murder. But under that charming mask was a hard-nosed businessman, with sons ready to inherit, and who wanted to hold on to what was his.

  In the rose garden, one or two of the bushes showed promising buds. It was too early for roses. I heard the sound of someone at work, a rhythmic tapping that chimed with birdsong from the concealing hedge. I approached cautiously, not wishing to startle Raymond and cause his hand to slip and ruin a second sundial.

  I need not have worried. He ignored my presence and continued with his work. Nearby was a wrought-iron seat. I made for that, as though watching men at work was my chosen vocation in life.

  He’ll stop in a minute, I thought. He’ll stop because he’s nervous and my watching him might make him uneasy.

  He stopped.

  ‘Don’t let me put you off.’

  ‘Did you want something? Only this is supposed to be a surprise, and if Mrs Ledger saw you come in this direction …’

  ‘Raymond, will you do something for me? It will mean going back to the quarry when you finish work here.’

  ‘Is it to do with Ethan going missing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He came across to the bench. ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’

  ‘Ethan was carving four flowers on the sundial, to cover a flaw in the slate. It was his final touch. Will you look through the fragments? If there are four flowers, then he had finished the work. I don’t know whether it will help to find that out, but it might.’

  ‘You think he’s dead don’t you?’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Raymond, who would want to kill Ethan?’

  I held my breath during Raymond’s pause, half expecting that he would accuse his own father of killing Ethan. Although I tried to look impassive, he read my glance.

  When he finally spoke, his shyness prevented him meeting my eye. ‘I’m in the Quarry Workers’ Union. We voted for a strike. Word got back to my father, he’s the foreman – you met him earlier – exactly how everyone voted. Ethan knew there was a traitor in our midst. He said to me no matter where he went, there was always a boss’s nark or a government spy. He said people must be afraid of him to watch him so closely, and that gave him heart. If someone has harmed Ethan, it wasn’t my Dad. Dad’s a bully. He tackles people who can’t fight back. Only this is what I want to tell you. Ethan said he’d found out who it was went telling tales.’

  ‘Did he tell you who?’

  ‘He wouldn’t. He just said he would make sure it never happened again. If you heard Ethan speak, you would understand how his mind works. He says that battle lines are being drawn. He talks about the promises that were made when he went to war. Better housing, homes fit for heroes, decent schooling. He thought he was fighting for a better world. And what have we got, that’s what he asks. Well, the answer’s nowt. The working man got nowt. I’m getting wed on Saturday, and it’s a choice of stopping with her mam and dad, who haven’t space to scratch, or my mam and dad. And my dad knows I’m in the union. He doesn’t let me forget it. You saw what he’s like.’

  I had indeed seen what Mr Turnbull was like, bully, big bruiser, with no love for Ethan or his politics.

  Ten

  As I walked back from the Hall, skirting the reservoir, passing the allotments, I tried to make sense of what I had learned so far. Both Ethan and Mary Jane had longings to be elsewhere, in a different kind of life, but something held her here; him, too, if my guess was right. Wanting to move on in life reminds me of a person who spoils for a fight but thinks better of it because there is no one nearby to hold his coat while he rolls up his sleeves. Perhaps Mary Jane blamed Ethan for caring more about his fellow workers than his own family, and Ethan blamed her for being stuck in her ways, and there they stayed – until Saturday.

  As I neared the village, I remembered that Miss Trimble had been so sure that she had seen Mary Jane by the quarry in the middle of the afternoon. Yet Mary Jane denied that. Perhaps it would be worth another visit to Miss Trimble. Her returning the prayer book, and everything she had said, made me believe she was now sympathetic to Mary Jane.

  I found my way to the vicarage, prepared myself for a great deal of irrelevant gossip, and tapped on the vicarage door. No reply. Perhaps she was in the church, rearranging the carnations.

  The church was deserted. I tried the vestry door. It was not locked. Out of curiosity, I opened the parish register.

  Harriet would be eleven in September. We were now in May. That made the date of her birth September, 1912. I flicked back the pages. Sure enough, there she was. Typically of the family, she possessed two names: Harriet Winifred. I turned back the pages through the summer months of 1912, and back into the spring. No entry of a marriage between Ethan Armstrong and Mary Jane Whitaker. January – nothing; December, 1911 – nothing; November, and there was a note of the marriage, and the signatures of Ethan Armstrong and Mary Jane Whitaker, witnessed by Bob Conroy and Barbara May Dawson. So Bob Conroy, who Mary Jane had rejected, cared enough for both of them to be best man; and the oracle sister Barbara May, maid of honour.

  A respectable ten months elapsed between the marriage and Harriet’s birth. Unless Miss Trimble’s arithmetic was seriously at fault, she must have had some other reason for demanding the return of the missal than that Harriet was conceived out of wedlock.

  Why would Mary Jane have misled me in that regard? Just as I had begun to trust my sister, that trust ebbed away. What made her lie? A l
ie against herself.

  I closed the door of the vestry behind me. An old woman hobbled through the church doors and took a place in a rear pew.

  I left the church for the vicarage, to try again.

  When no one answered my knock, I peered through the kitchen window. It was a neat, modern room, with a gas cooker on which stood a bright copper kettle. A blazing fire burned in the grate; no sparing of coals here. Following the path round the side of the house, I looked through the next window into what must be the parson’s study, its walls thickly lined with books, a manuscript on the table.

  It was through the parlour window that I saw Miss Trimble. She lay motionless on the hearth, her head dangerously close to the corner of the fender.

  The front door was locked. I hastened to the back door. It opened. Hurrying through the kitchen into the hall, I called, ‘Anyone home?’

  No one answered.

  I opened the parlour door. Be alive.

  She must have been about to ring the bell pull and had fallen. My first mad thought was that perhaps she saw a mouse and fainted, but the rug was skew-whiff, as though she had tripped.

  ‘Miss Trimble?’

  My anxiety and lack of sleep must be playing tricks. She breathed. I felt sure she breathed. Her terror-stricken eyes flickered. Her lips moved. I came close to listen, ‘Bitter,’ she said.

  ‘It will be all right.’

  I fetched a rug from the sofa and covered her, adjusting her into the recovery position. No bones appeared to be broken. She was so very cold.

  I took her hand, felt for a pulse in her wrist. Under her nails was wool from the carpet. She must have clutched at it in her desperation. ‘Can you feel anything?’ Her eyes flickered with fear. ‘Does it hurt anywhere?’ I asked.

  She stared hard, the fear stronger now. I realised that she could not move her head, to nod, or to say no. With a harsh grating sound, she made a slow, difficult exhalation, as though this shudder would be her last. With superhuman effort, she held my gaze, and made the smallest of inhalations, her eyes alive with alarm at the shrill, creaking sound that came from her very being. She gasped a single word, ‘Dandy,’ her weak voice barely audible, yet urgent with desperation.

  The poor woman was out of her mind, halluncinating. ‘I’m going to call the doctor. It will be all right. Don’t worry.’

  The fear in her eyes held me still. Kneeling beside her, I held her hand, supported her head. She became calm, and very still. Her look held something greater than fear – loss, love, terror, and then she was gone. I closed her eyes.

  Slowly, I retraced my steps to the hall, and picked up the telephone receiver. ‘Please connect me to the doctor, straightaway. This is an emergency.’

  ‘Who is calling?’ the operator asked, more from nosiness than efficiency.

  ‘My name is Mrs Shackleton, calling from the vicarage. Connect me now please.’

  The woman lying on the hearth rug would preside over no more Girls’ Friendship meetings.

  For such a portly man, the doctor trod lightly. He was no longer young but gamely creaked to his knees to examine Miss Trimble. Seeing that it would be harder for him to get up than down, I placed a raffia-backed chair nearby. He used this to lever himself to standing, and then asked me about finding her, nodding his head sadly as I gave him details.

  ‘Madam, I am obliged to you. The poor lady was asthmatic and had a heart condition.’

  ‘You believe that to be the cause of death?’

  He frowned, his manner changing as he heard the challenge in my voice.

  *

  I left the vicarage feeling faint, and as if every bone in my body had melted. Had Miss Trimble died because she knew something, and was that something her reported sighting of Mary Jane by the quarry? But she had already made a statement about that. The doctor clearly did not want any complications. Heart failure, always a satisfactory cause of death. But the wildness in her eyes when she first looked at me, the sense that she was trying to tell me something, overwhelmed me. Perhaps my nerves played tricks, or my instinct for foul play betrayed me into believing Miss Trimble had been murdered.

  It was a short stumble to the churchyard. Some enterprising soul had created a circular wooden bench around an old oak tree. The shivers began as I sat down. With trembling hands, I fumbled for the brandy flask in my satchel.

  I had been on the go since four-thirty this morning. My visit to the quarry, to the police house and Applewick Hall had brought me no nearer an answer regarding the fate of Ethan Armstrong, alive or dead. I needed to think, before seeing Mary Jane again. The effort of trying to make sense of Ethan’s disappearance made my head ache. What little information I had gathered was in danger of being obliterated from my mind by this sudden death that the doctor seemed determined to regard as natural.

  If I knew more about the people concerned – my own flesh and blood, for instance – then I would be better placed to understand what was going on. Harriet had told me of her fear that her father lay at the bottom of the pool in the quarry. Was that because it was easier to confide in a stranger, or was there a darker reason? Perhaps in some part of Harriet’s being lurked a mistrust of her own mother, as well as fear for her father. That would explain why the children crept from the house on Saturday with the snack for their father while Mary Jane was out; why they lassoed the farm dog into service. It would explain why Miss Trimble saw a figure in a plaid cape near the quarry in the afternoon.

  Austin claimed to have heard a goblin hiding behind the hut. A real aunt would know whether Austin’s imagination teemed with scary bogeymen, or whether he caught the sound of someone who did not want to be seen or heard – a killer, lurking behind the masons’ shed.

  Surely that could not have been Mary Jane? She would not have let her own children find their father’s body. That would be unnatural.

  How long I sat there, I did not know. There was some vague thought at the back of my mind that the vicar would wish to speak to the person who found his sister’s body. I heard the noise of the children, coming out of school. One or two made a shortcut through the churchyard, paying me no heed.

  And then someone spoke. Clearly, I heard the name. Ethan Armstrong.

  Where had the voice come from? Had I conjured the name?

  I walked the path between the graves, looking not at the old stones, but at the new. Ethan Armstrong, stone mason, must have carved some of these names. Perhaps Raymond, Ethan’s apprentice, would carve his master’s name, if ever Ethan’s body was found.

  And then I saw him, bending over a grave, rocking back and forth, muttering to himself. Had I found Ethan Armstrong? My own voice sounded strange as I spoke to him.

  The man turned to look at me. It was not the man whose photograph Mary Jane had shown me. He did not look embarrassed, but seemed unaware of his rocking and his muttering. He stared at me for a moment, as though trying to work out what country was this, what person accosted him.

  Then he stepped back, staring at me, suddenly realising the strange impression he created. A gaunt, wiry man with long arms, he dipped his head to one side and raised his hands in a gesture of harmlessness, or surrender. With some effort, he smiled, showing even teeth near enough to white. The broad forehead and heavy brow gave him a sad look. He had the fresh-faced ruddy skin of a country man, his eyes the colour of stone.

  ‘My wife, Georgina, she said to look out for you. You must be Mrs Shackleton.’

  ‘Yes. Mr Conroy?’

  ‘Bob. Excuse the muttering. I was talking to my brother.’ He nodded at the grave. ‘He was killed in the quarry last year.’

  ‘I heard you speak Ethan’s name. You were telling your brother about him?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bob Conroy said softly. ‘My brother Simon was the true farmer, a shepherd. He lost his life in the quarry, rescuing a lost lamb. This business with Ethan brought it all back.’ He stepped a little to one side, allowing me to join him.

  I read the inscription, and the date of Simon’s
death, just a year, a month and a day ago.

  Bob watched me, and then said, ‘Ethan carved a text on the back of the stone as well. Read that.’

  He waited. I stepped from the path and read the inscription on the reverse of the headstone.

  He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber; he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

  These lines from the Gospel of St John struck a wrong note. They were not the lines I would have chosen for a shepherd who died trying to save a lamb.

  I bowed my head to the gravestone, with the feeling that I was being introduced to the dead man when it would be more usual to make the acquaintance of the living. ‘Ethan carved this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re Ethan’s good friend I believe?’

  He jutted his chin forward in an almost aggressive way. ‘Yes. Friend and comrade. We were at school together. We fought together. Harriet has to have been wrong. He’ll turn up.’

  The forced optimism in his voice did not light his eyes or change his serious expression.

  Perhaps it was the breeze through the leaves of the willow tree, or realising how outnumbered we are by the dead. A sense of foreboding sent a shiver through me.

  ‘I’ve written letters,’ Bob said, ‘to our comrades, to ask whether Ethan has been in touch with them. I’ve posted half a dozen letters today. I can’t understand that he would leave without a word.’

  ‘When you say you’ve written to comrades, do you mean wartime comrades?’

  ‘I mean his friends in the trade union and labour movement. And yes, some of them served in our regiment.’

  I remembered the amount of paperwork in Ethan’s chest, the painstaking minutes of meetings in Ethan’s writing and in another hand, perhaps Bob Conroy’s. Letter writing would give Bob something to do, and he would know all the people Ethan may have been in touch with.