‘Yes.’
‘All gone now. Sold the land, they did, for development. Cuh! Call that development? Rabbit hutches! I said to them, I seen that kind of development in a dead bird I found under a hedge. Developed into a maggot farm, it had.’
‘They sold your garden without your permission?’
‘Belongs to the Church, this cottage. They can do what they want. Oh, I got advice,’ he added, seeing Slider’s concern. ‘I asked Mr Dacre what he thought, and he asked Mr Meacher, the estate-agent man, to look into it for me, but it turned out I didn’t have any right to use the land. I didn’t understand the ins and outs of it, but that was how it was in the Law. Mr Dacre’s a proper gentleman. He wouldn’t put me wrong.’
It had led very nicely to the subject. ‘You’ve known him for a long time, I suppose?’
‘Oh, yes. He’s an important person around these parts – practically like the local squire, if you take my meaning. Lived here all his life. His dad bought the Old Rectory from the church when they built the new one in eighteen ninety or thereabouts – that’s that big house on the other side of the square, with the bay windows. Course, they’ve sold that now, too. Vicar’s got a new house opp’site St Melitus’s. Sell everything in the end, the Church will,’ he added gloomily.
‘So Mr Dacre was born in the Old Rectory?’
‘That’s right,’ he said, milking the tea. ‘Only son, he was, and with his father dying when he was only a boy – died of the Spanish flu, just after the First World War – he come into the house then, so to speak, so he never needed to move away. Three older sisters, he had: they all married and went. Then it was just him and his mother. I remember her – she died in, what, ’thirty-six it must have been.’ He put a cup down in front of Slider and sat with his own opposite. ‘Real hatchet-faced woman she was! What I’d call a Victorian matron, if you get my drift. Tongue like a razor blade. And everything had to be just so. Even used to tell the rector off – it was a rector we had then. Used to criticise his sermons.’ He chuckled at the memory. ‘“My husband was a literary figure,” she used to say, “so I know what I’m talking about.” He was in publishing, Mr Dacre’s dad – had his own company. Mr Dacre’s a writer, did you know that?’
‘Yes, I did,’ said Slider.
‘I suppose that’s why he went in for it. Went to university at Oxford, and then started writing books and everything, and got famous straight off.’ He shook his head in wonder at such cleverness. ‘Got married straight off, too, to a very pretty young lady, and they had a little boy. ’Thirty-two or -three, he was born. Gor, Mr Dacre doted on that kid! Frank, his name was.’
‘So he’s Mrs Hammond’s brother?’
‘Half-brother. I’ll tell you how it was. Terrible sad thing. Mrs Dacre had this message that her dad had been took queer and took to hospital. Winter of nineteen forty, that must’ve been. Anyway, she went over to see him. They lived in South London,’ he added, in the same tone of voice that he might have mentioned Zanzibar or Bogota. ‘So she’s on her way back when the air-raid siren goes off, and she goes down the tube to shelter. That was the night Balham tube station took a direct hit. A bomb goes right through to the tunnel. Sixty people killed. Terrible.’
‘I’ve read something about it,’ Slider said.
‘And the worst thing, so Mr Dacre always said to me, was that her dad wasn’t even really bad. They thought he was having ’eart-attack, but it turned out to be just his stomach turning him up. He had one of them drastic ulcers. By the time she got there, he was getting dressed to go home. So she needn’t’ve gone.’ He shook his head. ‘Ironic, Mr Dacre always said it was. He said God must have a funny sense of humour. He used to talk to me a lot when he was on the council. Tell me all sorts of things. People like him think people like me are a safe pair of ears. Truth to tell, I think they think we don’t understand half what’s said to us.’
Another insight. Slider wondered whether that accounted for his own confidability. ‘So Mr Dacre married a second time?’
‘That’s right. Near on right away it was. Well, he was always an impulsive one. Young Frank got that from him. Anyway, he married a nurse he met at the hospital where they took Mrs Dacre’s body. Margery, her name was. Ever such a nice lady, but not glamorous – older than him – very quiet and shy. Not shy, but—’ He groped for a word.
‘Self-effacing?’ Slider hazarded.
‘That’s it. Like that. I suppose he thought she’d be a good mother for young Frank. Anyway, she was Mrs Hammond’s mother. Born in ’forty-two, Mrs Hammond was, so you can see Mr Dacre didn’t waste any time.’
‘And they called her Frances as well,’ Slider mused.
‘That’s right. It was a bit of a rum do, that was. To tell the truth,’ he leaned forward confidentially across the table, ‘I think he regretted marrying the second Mrs Dacre because, nice as she was, she wasn’t his class, and, like I said, not glamorous. But, well, when a man’s in a state like that, it’s easy to fall for a nurse. And the uniforms they used to wear in them days, with them big white head-things like nuns—’
‘Hard to resist.’
‘That’s right. But then, of course, when he got her home and woke up, like, from the dream, he was stuck with her. A gentleman like him wouldn’t go back on his word, and divorce just wasn’t done in them days. And then when she has her baby, it turns out to be a girl – which Mr Dacre’s got no use for daughters anyway. So I think he named her after young Frank, just to put the second Mrs Dacre in her place.’
Some gentleman, Slider thought. But it was throwing an interesting light on the domestic set-up at the Old Rectory. ‘So he was never very fond of Mrs Hammond?’
‘I don’t think he knew she existed when she was a little kid. Well, her ma kept her quiet, and there was young Frank, you see. He came first in everything. Mind you, he was a smashing kid. Handsome lad, full of fun. Clever, too. Always up to something.’ He looked across into Slider’s eyes. ‘Don’t you think sometimes that youngsters like that are marked out to die young? Everything golden about them – too good to last. You know what I mean?’
‘Like spring sunshine,’ Slider said.
Whitton seemed struck by that. ‘That’s it. You said it. Just like that. Spring sunshine.’ He dreamed a little.
‘What happened to him?’
‘Smashed himself up on a motorbike. His dad had just bought it for him – Frank wheedled him into it, because Mr Dacre didn’t like the idea. Not because of the danger, but because he didn’t want his lad mixing with all them rock-and-rollers and teddy-boys. Then the first time he takes it out – woof. Gone. He was only twenty. I don’t think Mr Dacre ever really got over that.’
Another instance of God’s funny sense of humour? ‘It ought to have made him fonder of the child he had left,’ Slider suggested.
‘Ought to of,’ Whitton agreed economically. ‘Another cup?’
‘If there is.’
‘I can always add a bit more water. Well,’ he said, heaving himself up, ‘after that it was all downhill, as the saying goes. Mr Dacre buried himself in his writing, and Mrs Dacre, Mrs Hammond’s mum, and Mrs Hammond, not that she was married then, of course, they looked after him. It was a queer set-up,’ he mused, as the kettle came back to the boil. ‘You’d have thought they were the housekeeper and the parlourmaid, rather than his wife and daughter. Oh, I never offered you a biscuit.’
‘No, thanks, not for me. Tell me about Mrs Hammond getting married.’
‘Wait’ll I do the tea.’ He brought back the refilled cups and sat down again, his face alight with the pleasure of having someone to tell the story to. ‘Well,’ he began with relish, ‘that was a queer thing, too. How it happened was this: one of Mr Dacre’s sisters died, and he was the whatjercallit for her will and that.’
‘Executor?’
‘That’s right. Anyway, she had this big house, which Mr Dacre had to sell, and he put it with this posh estate agents, and the person they sent round to deal with it wa
s David Meacher – you know him?’
‘Yes, of course. Mrs Andrews worked for him. I’ve talked to him about her.’
‘Course you have. Well, selling the house turns out to be a complicated business, and he’s around a lot, and Mr Dacre seems to take a shine to him, and he becomes like a family friend. Wormed his way in, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Whitton added with disapproval.
‘You don’t like him?’
‘Not for me to like or not like, but he strikes me as smarmy. Anyway, he introduces this friend, Gerald Hammond, that he was at school with, and before you know where you are this Mr Hammond’s asking Mr Dacre for his daughter’s hand in marriage, which Mr Dacre don’t hesitate to say yes.’
‘Why did he do that, I wonder?’
‘Why? To get her off his hands, o’ course. Well, she was pushing thirty by then.’
‘I mean, why did Hammond want to marry her? Was he in love?’
‘After her money, if you ask me. It must have been a big shock when he found she didn’t have any. No, to be fair, she was pretty, but very, well, mousy. Well, you know what she’s like now, and she was never any different. Wouldn’t say boo. How could she, brought up like she was? Still, I expect Mr Hammond thought Mr Dacre would part with some money for his only daughter, not realising he couldn’t care tuppence for her. I do know that later on he asked Mr Dacre to invest some money in his business – Mr Hammond did – and Mr Dacre said no. Quite a row there was about it, Mrs Hammond told me. And it was soon after that that Mr Hammond run off with this young girl to South Africa. Sold the business and took every bit of money, and even sold the house without telling Mrs Hammond. She’d have been homeless with her two little boys, if Mr Dacre hadn’t invited her to come back home.’
‘That was kind of him.’
‘Well, it was really, I suppose. But he hasn’t suffered by it, because Mrs Dacre was never a well woman and she was ailing by then, poor thing, so Mrs Hammond was able to take over running the house, and when her mother got really bad, she looked after her as well.’
‘Living at the far end of the house,’ Slider murmured.
‘That’s right,’ Whitton nodded. ‘Her and the boys in the servants’ end of the house, and her ma and pa right the other end. And if ever the boys made a noise, or broke anything, or played ball in the garden, there was an almighty row, and poor Mrs Hammond in tears in the kitchen, which I’ve seen with my own eyes on more than one occasion. But still, she owed everything to her father, and there was nowhere else she could go, never having earned her living in her life. I mean, women like that, they can’t get on without a man, can they?’
‘No,’ said Slider; and he thought briefly, painfully of Irene. Thank God for Ernie Newman – and who’d have thought he would ever say that? But if there were no Ernie in the case, he would have had to support Irene for the rest of her life, whatever the courts said, because she, like Mrs Hammond, had never earned her living. She had been promised as a child that if she was good, she would get married and never have to, and it wasn’t her fault that history had overtaken her.
‘It was different for her boys, of course. Harry and Jack – nice youngsters, and clever. As soon as they could, they left home.’
‘You’d have thought Mr Dacre would be fond of them. His only grandchildren – and they’re boys, not girls.’
‘Ah, but they’re Hammonds, you see, not Dacres. They’re not Frank’s boys.’ He drained his cup, wiped his lips, and sighed. ‘You got to feel sorry for Mrs Hammond, really. Her husband gone and her mother gone and now her boys gone, stuck there looking after her father, and he’s no company for her. And now he’s on the way out, poor gentleman. It just shows you, money can’t buy you happiness nor health.’
‘I suppose he is well off?’ Slider asked cautiously.
‘Oh, yes, rich as treacle. Well, there’s his books, and he had a share in his dad’s company. And then there was money the first Mrs Dacre left him, and I heard tell his sister, that he was whatsisname for, she left him a lot. And there’s the house, o’ course. That must be worth a bit nowadays.’
‘And will it all go to Mrs Hammond?’
He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t tell you on that score. He’s never cared for her, and I’ve never heard she’d been promised anything. But when it comes right down to it, who else is there? I reckon she’ll come in for it. For the house, at least, because he’s always been keen for it to stay in the family. Hates the idea of selling it.’
‘It is a lovely house.’
‘D’you think so? Can’t see it, myself. If I had that sort o’ money, I’d buy a nice modern place. Mind you, some old places I can see the beauty of, though it’s not what I’d want. But the Old Rectory – well, it’s neither fish nor fowl to my mind. And it’s not been a lucky house for Mr Dacre. You wouldn’t think he’d be so attached to it. I mean, even his last days are going to be upset with all this business over Mrs Andrews.’
‘I gather Mr Dacre didn’t like her?’
‘Well, he wouldn’t. She was common, was Mrs Andrews – not Mr Dacre’s sort at all. And thick-skinned. She never knew when she wasn’t wanted. You couldn’t freeze her out, or give her a hint. I’ve heard Mr Dacre at church give her a set-down, real cutting-like, and she’s not even known it was one. Took it for a compliment. She thought everyone was mad for her company.’
‘She went to the Rectory a lot?’
Whitton assented. ‘Sucking up. She always wanted to be in with the nobs. They used to give parties, before Mr Dacre got ill, musical evenings in that big hall, and garden parties in the summer on the terrace, and his posh friends would come. She’d have died to get invited, would Mrs Andrews. That’s why she got herself in at the church, because Mr Dacre and Mrs Hammond is both church people, and the vicar and some of the others on the council got invited to the house, and she thought she could get in on their back. And, of course, being Christians, the church couldn’t refuse her when she said she wanted to help. Didn’t get her invited to parties, but now she thinks she’s so well in she just calls round when she likes anyway.’
‘Or she did until last Tuesday,’ Slider corrected.
He opened his faded eyes in comic alarm. ‘Deary me, I was forgetting for a minute! Yes, and her visit there must have been nigh on the last she ever made anywhere.’
‘Her visit there when?’ Slider asked.
‘Tuesday night. Quarter to midnight, just after, I see her go in. The quarter struck as I was coming up the steps from the crypt. I’d been—’
Slider leaned forward. ‘Wait, wait, you’re telling me you saw Jennifer Andrews going into the Old Rectory last Tuesday night?’
‘The night she was murdered. Like I’m telling you. I was on my way home from the pub when I stopped off to check everything was locked up, which I always do, because you can’t trust anyone these days. And then I went down the crypt to check how much coke we had, because I remembered vicar had give me a leaflet from the coal merchants saying there was a big discount if we ordered our winter fuel now, and he asked me to see if there was room to get any more in, and if there was, to order it, so I thought as I was there I’d have a look and then I could order it the next morning. So then I come up again and locked the crypt behind me, and as I turned round I saw Mrs Andrews just skipping across the parking place beside the house and round to the back door.’
‘You’re sure it was her?’
‘Course it was. D’you think I don’t know Mrs Andrews after all this time? And I remember thinking the next day when I heard about her being found dead that I must have been one of the last to see her, barring Mrs Hammond and Mr Dacre. And her husband, of course.’
‘Her husband?’
‘Eddie Andrews, the murdering swine. Well, he must have been the last, if he killed her, mustn’t he? But I suppose you don’t count that. Poor creature. I didn’t like her, but I don’t hold with that, not with murdering her.’
Slider thought of all the hours they’d spent trying to trace the woma
n’s footsteps that fatal evening. ‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’ he asked, with strained patience.
‘You never asked,’ Whitton said indignantly. ‘I thought someone would come and ask me questions, me having known all the people in it, but no-one did until now.’
‘No-one could catch you in.’
‘Well, they could’ve come and found me, couldn’t they? I’m out and about all day, and anyone could’ve told you where I was. Anyway,’ he went on reasonably, ‘I don’t see it makes any difference. Mr Dacre and Mrs Hammond will’ve told you all about it already. I know you’ve been to see them.’
‘Of course,’ said Slider. ‘There is that.’
Eileen Rogan, the physiotherapist, was an athletic-looking girl, trim of figure, nicely tanned, and with such wonderfully clear skin it looked like exceptionally delicate eggshell china with a light behind it. Her hair, short and dark in a pageboy bob, shone and bounced with health like one of those irritating shampoo ads, and the whites of her eyes were so clean they looked blue. At the sight of her all the late nights, bad food, excesses and bodily neglects of Slider’s life coagulated in his veins, rusted up his joints, and withered his brain. He felt like a cross between the Straw Man and the Tin Man. He could feel his face wrinkling and his hair greying as they spoke, like She after the ill-advised second bath.
‘I understand you want to know something about Mr Dacre?’ Miss Rogan said, preceding Slider into the sitting-room of her little flat in a small modern block in Ealing. She had a noticeable but pleasant Australian accent, and Slider wondered, not for the first time, why so many Antipodeans became physical therapists of one sort or another, from doctors and dentists through to masseurs and sports trainers. Maybe it was the climate: spending so much time out of doors and semi-nude must concentrate the thoughts on the body.
‘If you don’t mind,’ Slider said politely, trying to keep his thoughts off her body. She was wearing a white uniform dress with a broad black elastic belt, like a nurse, but the skirt was short and the neckline low and when she bent to clear a heap of files off an armchair for him he discovered he wasn’t as old as he’d thought after all.
Shallow Grave (Bill Slider Mystery) Page 27