Untimely Graves

by Marjorie Eccles

And this was where it stuck. Why should any of them have killed Angela? Indeed, the reasons for her being killed at all were murky – and the biggest puzzle of all was why she had been dumped in the Kyne. Yet her death, and the fact that she had been put in the river, he was convinced, were what mattered. There was a loose end to be picked up there, somewhere, the Ariadne thread that would lead them to the centre of the whole mystery.

  For a long time, he thought about that, and the gun that Cleo Atkins claimed to have seen. He rang through for Abigail but was told he had just missed her, she was on her way to Covert Farm. He looked at the time. He had a meeting at three. He thought of who was available, and eventually decided he’d have to send Farrar to Kelsey Road. Farrar, who was quick-witted and astute, and even as a humble DC could always be relied upon to do a thorough and responsible job, notwithstanding he was somewhat lacking in the public relations department. However, there was no one else to send, apart from DC Barry Scott, and Farrar had to be better than that. As a new, untried sergeant, Mayo just had to hope that Farrar would be careful not to put his foot in it.

  16

  Dorrie looked at the clock and said, reaching for the tattered old gardening jacket that hung behind the back door, ‘Still time to get an hour or so in, before the light goes. Where’s the pepper dust? That blessed tomcat from over the road is paying my garden far too much attention.’

  ‘And I suppose I’d better slip over and see how Hannah is,’ Sam said.

  Dorrie thrust her feet into her rubber gardening clogs. She looked up through her round specs at her nephew, hesitated and then said softly, ‘Suppose nothing, Sam. Help her if you can, but don’t go letting yourself in for something you’ll regret, just because you’re sorry for her.’

  ‘Set your mind at rest. All that was over a long, long time since.’

  ‘Ah, but does she know that?’

  As so often happened, Dorrie, under her vague exterior, had her finger right on the button. Hannah still clung to him. He acknowledged this was only natural, in the circumstances … who else did she have to turn to? But though he’d told her plainly enough that anything more than friendship wasn’t on, he wasn’t sure she’d accepted it. And he was still worried about her, and that masochistic tendency she had to attract trouble to herself. In the present situation, that was something which could be disastrous, for both of them.

  ‘Don’t think I’m interfering, Sam, I wouldn’t do that, but I couldn’t bear to see you get hurt again.’

  She looked so woebegone he hugged her, his arms encircling, with difficulty, the chubby little form wrapped in layers of clothing, plus the padded jacket. ‘Not to worry, I’ve better control over myself nowadays.’

  He dropped a kiss on her head, and when she stood back she asked him, as if he were still seven years old and had been caught bunking off Sunday school, ‘You have been telling the truth, haven’t you, Sam? Only –’ She was interrupted by the loud peal of the front door bell. ‘Now who’s that?’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Sam said, and a moment later, ushered into the kitchen a tall, well-tailored young man with blow-dried blond hair who looked like a bank clerk and who Sam said was a detective sergeant.

  Farrar looked at the bundled form and the gentle face topped by soft, floppy grey hair scrabbled up anyhow on top of her head, its fringe falling over her glasses, and wondered what he was expected to wring out of this dear old thing. Then he remembered what Kite had said about her attacking the big Irishman at the women’s refuge and nervously took out his notebook.

  She took the wind out of his sails by reversing the order of things, asking him questions before he could begin to question her: how long had he been in the police, was he a native of these parts, where did he live? ‘And are you married, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, nine years.’

  ‘Really? Have you any children?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said, and blushed. ‘But come July …’

  Dorrie beamed. ‘Let’s have a glass of sherry to that!’ Farrar smiled and said thank you, but not on duty, and forbore to look at the clock – sherry, mid-afternoon! No wonder the old girl acted like she didn’t know the time of day – but he began to see what Sandra had been on about all these years when she said people regarded you differently if you had a family.

  But since he was in one of his upbeat moods, he was prepared to go easy with old Dorrie, and accepted a cup of tea. Life for him had taken a turn for the better, at last. In his career – and not least, in his relationship with his wife. Sandra, after all the years of hospital tests, temperature-takings and other more unmentionable necessities, had become pregnant, her world had regained its balance, she’d stopped nagging and Farrar’s life had become more comfortable all round.

  Dorrie said suddenly, disconcerting him, ‘So you’re here about the Bursar’s murder, young man – what do you think we can tell you that we haven’t already?’

  Farrar finished the last of a delicious homemade cake, his second and the like of which he hadn’t seen in years. Butterfly buns, his grandmother used to call them. Little sponge cakes with the tops cut off and wedged like wings into a butter-cream topping, decorated with jam. You were lucky if you got a Mr Kipling cake at 3 Elm Close. Sandra hadn’t done any home baking for years, considering it time-wasting, sinful and unhealthy.

  ‘Well,’ he said, picking crumbs carefully from the lapel of his beautiful suit, taking his cue from Dorrie Lockett’s directness, ‘maybe you’d care to tell me exactly what took place between you and Mr Wetherby just before he was murdered.’

  ‘Dorrie?’ said Sam. ‘What’s all this about? You never told me you’d been to see Wetherby!’

  ‘It’s all right, Sam, it’s nothing. He only wants to ask me –’ She broke off, and to Farrar she said, ‘I didn’t kill that man … though I don’t say I didn’t want to! Or that he didn’t deserve it. But if I had, I’d have seen to it he died in a more painful way!’

  ‘Dorrie!’

  ‘No use beating about the bush, Sam! We had high words, the Bursar and I, yes, but he was still sitting there, smug as a blessed plaster saint when I left him. Still as determined to press on with that stupid idea of knocking down four perfectly good houses no matter who it hurts! He started threatening me with compulsory purchase orders, and friends on the council and a lot more rubbish. I told him he could talk about friends in high places till he was blue in the face, it wouldn’t make any difference, I still have a few friends of my own left, they’re not all dead yet, and we’d see what they could do! I said he couldn’t make me move out of my house if I didn’t want to go, nothing he could offer me would persuade me, and that was that. I left before I said too much.’

  Sam, studying the gingham cloth covering the kitchen table, tracing its checks with his forefinger, waited until Dorrie had finally finished. When he raised his eyes, his lips were twitching.

  Farrar, however, was looking stunned. ‘Oh, right, yes, OK. I see.’

  ‘He was alive when I left him.’

  ‘Of course, we know that,’ Farrar said, recovering. ‘There’s no question. Several people saw him afterwards.’

  ‘Then why are you plaguing me? I came home straight afterwards and I had to go for a little lie down, I was so upset.’

  Maybe she’d done just that, thought Farrar, wondering why she was so bothered about moving from a house that was, after all, a bit of a dump. He looked round the old-fashioned kitchen, comparing it to his and Sandra’s, with its fitted units and all the latest technology. You’d have thought a little old lady like her would have jumped at the chance of a good offer that would enable her to buy a nice little home somewhere else, plus a bit in the bank to see her through the rest of her days in comfort. Then he thought, OK, maybe she had come straight home after seeing Wetherby, and relayed the incident to her nephew, who’d been so concerned on her behalf he’d gone round to the school to confront Wetherby himself. Another fight, ending with Wetherby being shot in the head? In the back of the head, sitting at his
desk, he reminded himself, but still he asked, ‘What time did you get back here?’

  ‘About twenty past twelve, I suppose. And just in case you’re thinking it, I didn’t go back later and shoot him.’

  ‘Did you see Mr Leadbetter when you came in?’

  ‘No, but I used the front door and went straight up to my bedroom. Sam was working in the garden at the back, weren’t you, Sam?’

  She looked directly at her nephew, as if willing him to give the right answer. Sam nodded. ‘There, and clearing the ditch in the lane behind. When I heard all those police sirens, I went out to find out what was going on. I couldn’t see anything of course, so I was none the wiser, but I happened to notice the ditch was blocked and I thought I might as well have a go at it while I was there.’

  ‘But nobody, apart from your aunt, would have known this?’

  ‘My aunt didn’t know what I’d been doing until I told her that evening. But Mr Ryman was with me, our retired neighbour further along. The noise made him look out of his bedroom window, and when he saw me clearing the ditch, he came down to help me. We worked there together for about an hour – until about quarter to two, I should think.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say this before?’

  ‘As far as I’m aware, I did. When I was asked what I was doing, I told them I was gardening and they seemed satisfied. Nobody asked me to prove it,’ he added, knowing he was being bloody-minded, but obeying the same instinct that had been telling him all along to say as little as possible.

  With admirable restraint, Farrar said no more. He couldn’t help feeling he’d hardly distinguished himself in this interview, but at least he’d found someone who could confirm Leadbetter’s alibi.

  ‘Well,’ Dorrie said, ‘if that’s all, young man –’

  She was interrupted by a commotion of caterwauling and high-pitched barks from outside. She rushed to the door, followed by Sam, with Farrar bringing up the rear. Outside, they were greeted by a tremendous fight taking place on the stretch of garden at the side of the house, where a miniature dachshund and a big ginger cat were locked in combat. Earth and plants were flying in all directions. A young woman was standing by, shouting, ‘Hermione! Come here at once!’ and holding a dog lead with a collar dangling from the end, commands which the dog totally ignored.

  When the girl saw them she cried, ‘Oh, Miss Lockett, I’m so sorry! She slipped her collar – and now she won’t come back!’

  At that moment, the combatants, falling on each other with tooth and claw, dislodged a large rock, which rolled down the slope and fell into the pond with a great splash. Both animals leaped aside to avoid it, and the cat seized its chance and shot away, while Sam grabbed Hermione by the scruff of the neck. Dorrie gave a soft, heartbroken moan and ran towards where the rock had been, uttering something which sounded like, ‘Oh no! My baby!’

  After she had heard that the woman the papers had dubbed The Mystery Woman was in fact Angela Hunnicliffe, Cleo hadn’t thought she could face up to the gruesome fact of staying in the house where she’d lived. But something had happened the next day which made her decide to tough it out, to remember that Phoebe’s little house had held enough happiness and contentment to overcome any bad vibes she might imagine. She wasn’t going to be there long now anyway, she hoped, crossing her fingers. Not if the most amazing, the most exciting thing she could imagine came true.

  Although this should, in theory, have made her concentrate even more on her writing, it had the opposite effect, even though her work at MO was petering out and she had plenty of spare time. She would have welcomed even the chance to work for Mrs Bristow and her demon family, but Val hadn’t sent for her.

  In the end, she went out to look for a present for Tone, since he’d refused to accept payment for the work he’d done on the house, but she couldn’t find anything that seemed remotely appropriate, except artists’ materials, and felt she didn’t know enough about them to risk it. Even George, not renowned for his imagination, must have better ideas. She called into the office on her way home. He hadn’t.

  ‘Where’s Muriel?’ she asked, bending down to stroke Hermione, who was taking advantage of her mistress’s absence to roam at will around the office, but thinking better of it when Hermione’s lip curled back warningly.

  ‘She came in this morning with a face the size of a football. She’d broken a tooth over the weekend and she was in agony. I packed her off to the dentist.’

  ‘Poor Muriel!’ Cleo had a horror of someone poking about in her mouth equalled only to that of being leaped on by a mad axe murderer.

  ‘Only thing to do. He gave her emergency treatment and sent her away with painkillers and advice to go home and sleep it off for a few hours. I told her she could leave the dog and I’d deliver her on the way home. She wouldn’t have got any rest otherwise.’

  ‘I’ve what’s left of the afternoon free and I know how busy you are. Anything I can do?’

  ‘Not really – except to get this damn dog from under my feet for a while. My impulses got the better of me, letting her stay here. She needs a run, would you …?’ He didn’t need to add that he’d just as soon be seen walking the streets of Lavenstock naked than with a miniature dachshund on the end of a lead.

  ‘Tell you what – I’ll give her a long walk, tire her out and by then it’ll be time to deposit her at home with Muriel, how’s that?’

  The long walk took her up Kelsey Road, either by design or by subconscious processes. When she got to number 16, she paused for another glimpse of that magical little wild garden. But the hedge that shielded it from the road was too high. She walked up the sloping path beside it to where the hedge almost levelled out near the house and she could finally peer over.

  And that was when it had happened. Hermione had seen the ginger tom scratching at the soil, and had slipped her collar, leaped the foot-high hedge and pandemonium had broken out.

  By now, it was all over and Hermione, back in her collar, was twisting the lead round Cleo’s legs in an effort to get away again, her every instinct telling her to get back to the hole left by the displacement of the rock, and dig: her ancestors had, after all, hunted badgers. But there was Dorrie, bending down and lifting something from the earth where it had been buried behind the large boulder. A sort of domed metal coffer it appeared to be, green with age and damp, not apparently heavy, about the size of a large shoebox.

  Cleo told herself she couldn’t have heard properly, above the din Hermione was making, those despairing words she thought Miss Lockett had cried out.

  Dorrie swallowed a mouthful of the sherry she’d asked Sam to pour for her, refusing to accept his advice that brandy would be better. The thick, sweet liquid seemed to soothe her, and she kept her fingers curled round the stem of the glass, the other hand resting on the lid of the coffer, which now sat on newspapers on the kitchen table.

  Farrar sat stiffly on a kitchen chair with his back to the window, uncharacteristically shaken, trying hard not to show it. Sam and Cleo sat on either side of Dorrie at the table.

  ‘I don’t suppose it matters now, after all,’ she said.

  ‘What doesn’t matter, Miss Lockett?’ asked Farrar, far too sharply, pulling himself together but earning himself unfriendly looks from the other two.

  ‘Whether I leave this house or not,’ Dorrie answered. ‘I couldn’t go before, you see, not while my baby was lying here, but now that her resting place has been disturbed, it doesn’t matter, does it?’

  The hairs rose on the back of Cleo’s neck. She couldn’t mean baby – as in baby. Could she? No, that was ridiculous! She swallowed and reached out to put her arm around Dorrie’s shoulders. ‘Won’t you let us put that box back where it was, Miss Lockett, as though it had never been disturbed?’ she asked gently.

  ‘You can’t do that!’ Farrar intervened, outraged. He reminded himself he was an officer of the law, it was his duty to take charge of the situation, at least until he’d satisfied himself what was in the box, and that he ha
dn’t really heard what he thought he’d heard when that stone rolled down the bank.

  For a moment, it seemed as though Dorrie had failed to hear what Cleo said, or wasn’t going to respond, but then, with a scarcely heard sigh, she smiled at the girl and shook her head. ‘No, dear. It’s time someone else knew, in any case. I want this box laid to rest with me, you see,’ she said. She put her other hand on the lid of the box.

  Sam had felt colder surrounded by a million tons of frozen ice, but not much. Cleo sat transfixed, and Farrar was almost as still. The box looked evil, Sam thought, gave off an aura of corruption, or was that only his imagination? Copper, or bronze, worth a fortune probably. Where in heaven’s name had it come from? he wondered, trying to think of anything but what was in it. Most probably simply found amongst the extraordinary accumulation of stuff, junk and otherwise, that had gathered dust for years in this old house.

  At first, the lid wouldn’t respond, and as he watched her try, it was all Sam could do not to stop her. ‘Dorrie, must you do this?’

  She gave him that extraordinarily sweet smile. ‘It’s all right, my dear,’ she said as the lid eventually yielded with a metallic scrape that set the teeth on edge.

  There was an involuntary backward movement from everyone, even Farrar, but no one took their eyes from Dorrie as she plunged her hands into the box. Half expecting to see a bundle of dry bones, a small skeleton, the shock was no less when Dorrie lifted out a small figure clothed in long yellowed cotton and pillowed on a delicately crocheted shawl, fine as a cobweb.

  A doll. Only a doll.

  ‘I’ve had her since I was three. I used to call her Marietta.’ Dorrie laid the doll tenderly on the table, its face winsome, chubby-cheeked, rosebud-mouthed, with long-lashed, blue glass eyes, its synthetic, glued-on hair gone bald and tufty.

  ‘Dear God,’ said Sam.

  Dorrie stared at him for a long moment. Finally, she said softly, ‘Yes, my dear, that was what I said when I put her there. Dear God, keep my baby safe. They wouldn’t let me keep her, you see, my own baby I was dreadfully ill when she was born, and she died. They took her away before I’d even held her. My father said it was a judgement on me. But he had a stroke soon after, and was bedridden for years, which I thought was a judgement on him.’ She touched the doll’s smooth, cold, still-pink cheek, her hands caressed the broderie anglaise cotton of the small gown. ‘This was to have been my baby’s christening robe, it was the only thing I had to remind me of her. I couldn’t believe she was really dead, I’d never seen her grave, so I buried my dolly in place of her. That way I could always keep her near me,’ she said simply.