Dead by Morning

by Dorothy Simpson

  Talion laid a hand on the dog’s head. ‘All right, boy, it’s all right. Lie down.’ He sat down himself as the dog subsided and for several moments remained silent, staring at the table. Eventually he stirred. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘if I don’t tell you now, you’ll be back, until you get what you want.’

  Thanet said nothing. He guessed that Talion was remembering that there had been a witness to the argument and, unaware that they had already interviewed Jim Mardy without success, was thinking that it would be best to get in first with his own version.

  ‘So I might as well tell you. Mr Martindale told me that he was thinking of staying on for good, now he’d come back. I told him that he’d do better to take off again, the sooner the better as far as everyone around here is concerned.’

  ‘He was that unpopular?’

  Talion shrugged. ‘Let’s just say he had a knack of getting up everyone’s nose.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t very pleased, naturally. Said after all this time we ought to be able to let bygones be bygones. I couldn’t agree and said so.’

  ‘You make it all sound very calm, very rational. But it wasn’t, was it?’

  Talion said nothing, just shrugged again.

  ‘Our witness was some distance away, but it was obvious to him that you were having a heated argument.’

  Talion’s mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘That’s all that was said.’

  Now for the really important part. Thanet didn’t think that he was going to get anywhere, but he had to try. ‘I can’t believe that you were concerned only in a general way, for the good of the community. I assume that if Mr Martindale said you ought to let bygones be bygones you had a personal reason for being so against his settling here again?’

  The silence stretched out, became protracted. Thanet waited. And waited.

  Eventually Talion stood up. ‘Sorry, but I’ve said all I’m going to say.’ He thrust his chin forward and his voice rose. ‘And as I said before, it’s really none of your bloody business. So get out, will you?’

  The dog was on his feet again, barking this time, the fur along his back standing up in ridges.

  It was pointless to persist. Slowly, almost casually, giving the dog no cause for alarm, Thanet rose. Lineham followed suit and they left. Outside, Lineham released pent-up breath. ‘Phew. I thought he was going to set the dog on us in the end, didn’t you?’

  ‘Doesn’t look as though either of us is doing too well at the moment, Mike.’

  Back in the Land Rover Thanet looked at his watch. Four-thirty. If he was to report back to Draco as ordered at five they would have to get a move on. And he was chilled to the bone. The thought of home, warmth and hot food was irresistible.

  He decided to call it a day.

  EIGHT

  As usual, however, the lure of home had to be resisted. By the time Thanet had reported to Draco, chewed over the day’s findings with Lineham and written up the ‘detailed, literate and accurate’ reports upon which Draco invariably insisted, it was nearly nine o’clock. Fortunately the threatened heavy snowfall had not materialised and all the main roads were relatively clear. Thanet hoped that they would stay that way.

  His own street looked unfamiliar, its pavements lined with humps of piled-up snow where householders had tossed it aside to clear their driveways.

  Inside the house the warmth and savoury smell of food were like a benediction. He shrugged off his sheepskin jacket and hung it in the cupboard under the stairs, his stomach rumbling in anticipation.

  Joan had heard him and came out into the hall. She was wearing a new jumpsuit which they had chosen together the previous Saturday, in a soft, misty blue which enhanced her delicate skin tones and hair the colour of clear honey.

  ‘Mm,’ said Thanet as they kissed. ‘You look gorgeous. Smell gorgeous, too.’

  ‘I just had a bath.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing much. I’m giving myself an evening off.’

  ‘Were you watching something you wanted to see, on television?’

  ‘Nothing special.’

  She led the way into the kitchen, took his supper out of the oven and put it on the table where his place was laid. ‘I had it on a very low heat but it’s a bit dried up, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Looks delicious,’ said Thanet. It was steak and kidney pie, his favourite. ‘Just what I need.’

  ‘I thought of you today, tramping about in the snow. Was it grim?’ She knew how he hated the cold.

  Thanet grimaced. ‘This morning was.’

  ‘How did you get on with Superintendent Draco breathing down your neck?’

  She poured the tea then sat down opposite him and they chatted about the day’s events while he ate. When he had finished telling her about the case she sat thinking for a while. Eventually she stirred. ‘He sounds a pretty sad sort of person. The victim.’

  ‘That wasn’t the impression I got from the people I talked to.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t mean the impression he gave other people, I mean what he was really like, underneath.’

  ‘You mean, because I said that no one has yet shown any sign of sorrow over his death?’

  ‘Partly, I suppose. It must be awful to think that there isn’t a single person who cares if you’re alive or dead.’

  ‘We don’t know that that’s how it was with him. There might be other people, in other places … No, well, I admit it does seem unlikely. He was very much a rolling stone, by the sound of it. But if you’d seen the pile of letters – carefully hoarded – from all his conquests, perhaps you wouldn’t feel quite so sorry for him.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not trying to defend all that. I’m just saying it must be sad to feel so alone.’

  Thanet laid down his knife and fork. ‘He certainly seems to have succeeded in making himself thoroughly unpopular in the area. And now …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m just trying to work it out. Yes, I feel as though they’re all drawing closer to each other in a tight circle to prevent me from finding out the truth.’

  ‘And what d’you think the truth is?’

  Thanet shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting that it was a communal plot to get rid of him!’

  ‘No. Oh no, nothing as bizarre as that. It’s just that I’m beginning to suspect that everyone is really rather relieved that he is dead and therefore feels a degree of gratitude to whoever was at the wheel of that van when it happened. So there’s a … well, a conspiracy of silence, if you like, to protect that person. No one wants to be suspected himself, but he’s going to make sure he doesn’t point the finger at anyone else. So far the only useful leads we’ve had are from outsiders.’ He sighed. ‘If it continues like that, it’ll be hard going. Any more tea in the pot, love?’

  She took his cup and he watched her pour it, grateful for a relationship in which each performed such small services for the other when they needed it without a second thought. It had taken them a long time to reach that plateau. For many years he had, while paying lip service to Joan’s need for a satisfying career of her own, inwardly been the original male chauvinist pig he outwardly professed to despise. But now … He caught her hand, kissed it. He was a lucky man.

  ‘The house is very quiet tonight. Bridget out?’ He knew that it was her evening off.

  ‘Yes. And Ben’s doing his homework.’

  ‘Still?’

  They grimaced at each other. The days of Ben’s skimping his homework had long gone. The higher academic standards and level of attainment in his new school had seen to that. At first Thanet and Joan had been delighted at his new seriousness over his work but by now they were becoming concerned about it. They’d had enough trouble over Bridget, when she sat her GCSEs, to be concerned lest Ben should go the same way.

  ‘I’ll pop up and say hullo.’

  Ben was sitting at his desk, hunched over his books.

  Than
et sat down on the bed. ‘Still at it?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve nearly finished.’

  Ben looked tired, Thanet thought, remembering anew with a lurch of anxiety how obsessive Bridget had become over her work last year, how it had nearly ended in disaster. Questions he longed to ask, things he longed to say, tumbled through his mind but he held them back. He and Joan would stick to their original resolution, to give Ben six months to settle down in his new school before reviewing the situation. He stood up. ‘Good.’

  Ben looked up. ‘There’s a chap in my class, Fellows … He’s asked if I’d like to go ice-skating at Gillingham on Saturday. His brother’s got a car.’

  With difficulty Thanet refrained from asking how old the brother was, how long he’d been driving, how many of them would be going. This was the first time Ben had mentioned a specific friend at the new school. He smiled. ‘Sounds fun.’

  Downstairs he flopped down on to the settee beside Joan and told her about the proposed expedition.

  ‘Oh good! I am pleased. I think that’s what he’s found hardest of all, having none of his old friends at the same school.’ She frowned. ‘Though I’d like to have known how long it is since the brother passed his test. Still, as you say, it really will do him good.’

  ‘Did you have the chance of a word with Bridget about last night?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. She was in the bathroom, as usual, when I got home and then she came down in a tearing hurry, said she was meeting Diana at seven.’

  ‘Where were they going?’

  ‘I didn’t have a chance to ask. She was gone practically before I could open my mouth.’

  Thanet frowned. ‘I don’t like not knowing where she is.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And it’s not the first time it’s happened. She’s got to realise she must always let us know who she’s with and where they’re going.’

  Joan sighed. ‘I have tried. But she just says, how can she tell me if she doesn’t know herself? She says they never decide in advance, just see how they feel when they meet.’

  ‘I can understand the difficulty but all the same, it’s not good enough. We really must try and work out some system.’ She could be anywhere, Thanet thought. How would we begin to know where to look for her, if she just didn’t come home?

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if you spoke to her, Luke. She’s so touchy with me these days. If ever I say anything like that to her she just says, “Oh Mum, don’t fuss”, or “Other people’s mothers don’t go on like that”.’

  ‘I don’t care what other people’s parents do,’ said Thanet grimly. ‘While she’s living under our roof we do have a right to know where she is. I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Don’t be too heavy-handed, will you? We don’t want her saying, “If that’s how you feel I’m moving out.”’

  ‘D’you think she would?’

  Joan considered, head on one side. ‘No, I don’t think so. No, I’m sure she wouldn’t. After all, on the whole, we get on pretty well. If you think of some of the problems other parents seem to have with their children …’

  Thanet sighed. ‘I suppose that’s true. It’s just that there always seems to be something …’

  Joan grinned. ‘At the risk of sounding hackneyed – C’est la vie.’

  Thanet smiled back. ‘That’s one of the things I love about you. Your truly original mind.’

  She raised a provocative eyebrow. ‘What are the others?’

  ‘Which would you prefer?’ said Thanet, putting an arm around her. ‘Demonstration or exposition?’

  She snuggled closer. ‘Oh, demonstration, definitely.’

  Next morning Thanet set off for work early. There would be a stack of reports to read from Bentley, Swift, and the men who had been working on the house-to-house enquiries, and he wanted to skim through them before the morning meeting with Draco at 8.45. He hated facing the Super’s early morning ebullience ill-prepared. He was thankful to note that the temperature had risen and the snow was beginning to thaw. He’d remembered to make two large flasks of coffee but it looked as though it wouldn’t be quite as miserably cold today.

  Lineham had not yet arrived. Thanet hoped that the sergeant had managed to sort out his problems with his brother-in-law and get a good night’s sleep. He lit his pipe, considerately leaving the door open so that Lineham would not be greeted by a smoke-filled room, and settled down to read.

  A number of interesting points had emerged.

  One of the guests had seen the housekeeper, Mona Byfleet, coming out of Martindale’s room at 7.15 on the night he died. This meant that she was, so far, the last person to have seen him alive. Thanet sat back and gazed up at the coils of smoke lazily intertwining above his head, remembering.

  ‘I don’t know what he did afterwards.’

  ‘Did you see him again at all, after he’d had dinner?’

  ‘No.’

  And he distinctly remembered knowing that she was lying and wondering why. At the time he had thought that perhaps she had overheard some snatch of conversation, some argument, even, between Martindale and the Hamiltons, but now he wondered. Had she simply not wanted him to know that she had seen Hamilton again after dinner? But why not?

  Thanet shook his head. No, it was much more likely either that she had been making a routine check on the room or that Martindale had called her in to solve some small domestic problem, and the incident had been so trivial that it had slipped her mind.

  He picked up the next report.

  The Byfleets claimed that neither of them had driven the van last night, Byfleet stating that he had left the Hall at 5.30 in the Rolls to pick up some guests from Gatwick Airport and had arrived back just before eight. The guests had confirmed this. All very well, thought Thanet. That still meant that apart from the time when Tiller had been using the van to go to the pub, they had both been free to drive it later on in the evening, if they had so wished.

  He moved on to the house-to-house reports.

  The landlord of the village pub had mentioned Tiller and Mrs Rankle, his woman friend, as being among the regulars who had been in that night. They always came on Tuesday evenings, he said, and had arrived at their usual time, around twenty to nine. Also … Thanet’s eyes widened.

  ‘Morning, sir.’ It was Lineham, looking, Thanet was pleased to see, somewhat fresher this morning.

  ‘Listen to this, Mike. The landlord of the pub says that Mrs Rankle – Sam Tiller’s girlfriend – always borrows his van some time during the evening to nip home. Apparently she’s got a handicapped son and she likes to check that he’s OK.’

  ‘And did she borrow it on Tuesday?’

  ‘Apparently she went out for a short while as usual, and he assumed that was where she’d gone. She’s usually away for twenty minutes or so.’

  ‘Wonder what sort of a driver she is. The roads were pretty icy that night.’

  ‘Quite. We’ll have to go and see her, obviously.’

  Lineham picked up a batch of reports and sat down. A few minutes later he looked up. ‘Sir! This is interesting …’

  It was the report of an interview with a Mrs Doreen Victor, who lived in the village. She claimed to have seen Martindale (identified by his distinctive black-and-white checked overcoat) twice that afternoon. On the first occasion he had been talking to Mrs Fever, wife of a local businessman (and mother of Toby Fever, Tessa Hamilton’s boyfriend, Thanet wondered?) who had been filling her car up with petrol at the garage. On the second occasion Mrs Victor had seen him having what appeared to be a heated exchange with Mrs Rankle, Sam Tiller’s friend. Unfortunately they had been on the other side of the street and she had been unable to hear what the argument was about.

  ‘An argument,’ said Thanet thoughtfully. ‘You don’t walk up to a perfect stranger in a village street and have an argument with her, do you?’

  ‘He must have known her before,’ said Lineham eagerly. ‘When he lived here. And she drove the van that night …’
>
  ‘Quite … What about this Mrs Fever? Did the witness have the impression Martindale knew her too?’

  ‘She doesn’t say,’ said Lineham regretfully.

  ‘Did you happen to notice if the petrol pumps at the garage are self-service, Mike?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. You mean, there might have been an attendant, who could have overheard the conversation?’

  ‘It’s possible. A lot of the smaller garages in the villages haven’t switched to self-service yet. We’ll check.’

  Lineham made a note.

  Thanet was now glancing through Swift’s reports of interviews with the staff at Longford Hall. ‘Ah, listen, Mike. One of the housemaids saw Martindale having a row with a Mr Fever – this woman’s husband, I presume – at about a quarter past six that evening. She was in the library, checking that everything was in order, and Martindale was there. Fever apparently came barging in and laid into him, telling him to keep away from his wife.’

  ‘What did Martindale say?’

  ‘He was very cool apparently, tried to play it down, laugh it off. Said there was no harm in saying hullo to an old acquaintance, was there? Fever nearly went through the roof.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Mrs Hamilton came in and shooed the girl away, so she didn’t hear any more.’

  ‘So Mrs Hamilton knew about this and didn’t say a word.’

  Thanet sighed. ‘It’s just as I thought. I was saying to Joan last night, I suspect we’re going to have our work cut out trying to get people to talk. Our main hope is through outsiders like this Mrs Victor, or the pub landlord, and this housemaid.’

  ‘They’re not exactly outsiders.’

  ‘By outsiders I mean people who didn’t know Martindale before.’

  Lineham pulled a face. ‘You may be right. If so, as you say, it’ll be hard going.’

  Thanet checked the time. Eight-thirty-five. ‘Let’s just glance through the rest of these. I’d like to be up to date before the meeting, and know roughly what our plans are for today.’

  They hurried through the remainder of the reports. The only other item of any interest was Swift’s account of an interview with another member of staff, who had overheard Sam Tiller delivering an ultimatum to Delia Hamilton: if Martindale stayed, he, Tiller, would go.