The Property of Lies

by Marjorie Eccles

  ‘We shouldn’t have too long to wait for the PM result,’ remarked Gilmour. ‘Rossiter usually gets a move on.’

  He and Reardon were on their way home, the car bowling along the deserted country roads leading from Maxstead – when it wasn’t chugging up the many hills along the route, some of them steep, passing scattered villages and isolated farms sleeping in the dying sun. This particular road they were on skirted its ancient forest, once the hunting preserve of kings, teeming with wildlife, roamed by herds of deer, which was now a destination for charabanc parties to view the bluebells, or picnics for those lucky enough to own a car.

  Gilmour’s comment received only a grunt in response, but he knew when to keep silent and said no more. It was going to be one of those investigations that would need patience – not a quality he himself possessed in great abundance, though he could summon it up when needed. He had a premonition he was going to need it this time. Meanwhile, he let himself enjoy this chance to drive.

  The rural aspect was beginning to give way to the more suburban delights of Folbury, and in fact they were within sight of the Beacon, Folbury’s famous landmark, that sentinel rising hundreds of feet above the rolling pasturelands, the site of warning or celebration flares from the time of the Armada to the Armistice, before Reardon asked him to pull in when he could. It seemed they weren’t finished yet. ‘I know we both want to get home, but we need a few minutes.’

  Gilmour was to drop Reardon at the Market Street office in Folbury before parking the car in the police garage, after which he’d still have a good walk home. He sensed Reardon, too, was ready to call it a day, though Gilmour knew he had yet to prepare a report for their new chief at HQ, who was young, highly efficient, and expected the same from everyone else.

  The inside of the car had been like an oven when they got in to drive home, but the heat generated by the sun on hot metal had dissipated somewhat as they had driven along with the windows open and it was more comfortable now. The sun was low in the sky and it was behind them anyway as he drew to a halt.

  ‘Right, Joe. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll make an early start in the morning and get back to Maxstead. There’s that builder chap to see and I don’t want to miss him. You can take the car and go over to Moseley. Make it your first port of call and see if you can speak to this friend Mlle Blanchard was staying with, this Miss Catherall; find out what she can tell us about her replacement. It’s a starting point. We’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Don’t have much else to go on so far, do we?’

  ‘What’s new?’ Reardon replied. Floundering was the name of the game at the beginning of any investigation, or that was what it usually felt like – if you let it. To admit it was to admit defeat before they’d begun, a vote of no confidence in their own abilities. But this was where it began, the disorientation, the grubbing around for facts to put together and hopefully coming up with something that would give them a firm lead in which direction to go. It didn’t make it any easier, knowing so little of the victim. Not that there was any overwhelming urgency in this particular instance, but Reardon still felt charged with the need to get on with it. Gilmour, more impatient than he was, always itching to get things moving, was even keener.

  This proposed visit to Moseley suited him, and he suspected Reardon had known it would. It meant he intended using his motorcycle to get out to Maxstead, but since the boss actually preferred that as a mode of transport, and since Gilmour dearly loved driving and the Gilmour finances didn’t yet run to being able to afford to run a car of their own, much less a Wolseley Seven like this police car, he regarded the opportunity as a gift. The car was nice and roomy, with a fair turn of speed, though the built-up area from Folbury into Moseley, a suburb of Birmingham, wouldn’t give him much chance to put his foot down.

  He didn’t, however, fancy questioning someone who might still be in hospital – might even be at death’s door, if the headmistress was to be believed. ‘Didn’t Miss Hillyard say she was seriously ill?’

  ‘Her mother, then, if she’s not available.’ Reardon lapsed into silence again and still didn’t seem anxious to move off.

  ‘She had a purpose in going back to the school – the French teacher, I mean,’ he said at last. ‘And to that part of the building in particular. I know that’s a statement of the obvious, but it bothers me.’

  ‘Makes you wonder why she came back at all when she’d seemingly left for good – and what caused her to leave, anyway? Something must have happened while she was there.’

  ‘Right. And another thing – how did she get there, or back, when she’d done what she came for, come to that? Not an easy place to get to, Maxstead. The other end of nowhere and no signs of any form of transport. Not even a bicycle.’

  ‘Taxi? Or there’s a bus service, once a flood, so they told me. Goes to the village, and like all these rural buses, it’ll stop wherever you want it to. I’ll put Gravy on to it tomorrow. He can talk to the taxi firms and the bus service. Right up his street.’ Gilmour grinned. DC Gargrave was the youngest addition to their team, so new his feathers were still wet. He was a bit of a clever clogs, too full of himself, but he knew enough not to object to the boring jobs that inevitably fell to his lot, and to take his nickname in good part.

  ‘Do that, but make sure he understands to keep it low key when he asks around. I don’t want the press getting hold of this yet, not before we’ve got more facts under our belts, and I hardly think Miss Hillyard will, either.’ Inevitably, the local paper would nose it out soon, and there was a keen new editor at the Herald, anxious to make his mark. Murder at a girls’ boarding school where the parents were likely to be well known and influential and were certain to make a fuss, would be meat and drink to him, but the detrimental publicity was unlikely to be welcomed by either the parents or the school.

  Reardon still wasn’t ready to move, and went back to what was evidently foremost in his mind, as well as in Gilmour’s. ‘So how she got there might not be all that difficult to find out … but leaving? She had that torch in her pocket, remember, which suggests it was night-time when she came, or would have been soon, and I don’t suppose these country buses run late. Having a taxi wait for her to return doesn’t sound feasible.’

  ‘Maybe she intended to see the headmistress and just hoped she’d be allowed to stay on?’

  Reardon raised an eyebrow. Gilmour spread his hands. Fair enough, it was a lame suggestion, but theories were thin on the ground at this stage.

  ‘I can’t see anything other than that she was brought here in a car,’ Reardon said. ‘And by the one who left after helping her to step out into space. The same one who nailed that door back afterwards.’

  A drift of poppies in the field next to where they were parked made a scarlet splash against the ripe, gold corn. He was reminded of the hexagonal beds in the gravelled forecourt of the school, none of which had lost any of the bright, patriotic hues that Lady Maude had favoured when she lived there. It looked as though Heaviside was keeping the old owner’s traditions alive.

  Heaviside. Something about that grumpy old cove remained caught in Reardon’s attention. The old gardener was a truculent character, not the sort to give help willingly, even if asked for it. Yet it had been offered in this case. He’d been prepared to show them the way up the stairs to that door. But not to give any other information, and it crossed Reardon’s mind to wonder why. It didn’t take much effort to believe secrecy was an innate part of his character, but it might also have been fostered by the occurrence. Had he known Miss Blanchard? How much connection, if any, was he likely to have with the teachers? More likely any interaction with staff at the school would be with the domestics, the cook and Mrs Jenkins, the housekeeper to Lady Maude, who had also continued to work at Maxstead now that the old lady no longer needed her.

  ‘All right, let’s go,’ he said at last.

  I don’t feel I acquitted myself very well with Mrs Reardon’s husband. He’s sharp and I let my uncertainties sho
w and certainly didn’t feel I’d projected the image of a competent, sensible and responsible headmistress, whose concern for the girls in her care is paramount.

  One way and another, it has not been a good day. I had to send for little Daisy Rawlins this morning and tell her that her father had died suddenly, that her uncle would be coming to fetch her and take her home for the funeral. She will not be coming back afterwards. Mrs Rawlins has decided already that she will take her family and go to live back in Scotland, with her own mother. Poor child.

  Tragedy, even one not directly concerned with oneself, affects different people in different ways, my mother used to say, and she should know. She wore it like a heavy cloak round her shoulders, letting it drag her down, suffering it like a penitent. I have learnt through bitter experience to live for the moment, and take happiness where I can, and it usually serves me well enough, but poor Mother, she never could do that, never shake off the past. I hope Mrs Rawlins, and Daisy, will have a better future.

  I was sad when my own father died, but unlike Daisy, who is thirteen, I was too young to mourn him for long, or to know how pointless his death had been. Jamie Hillyard, my father. Big, warm and loving; someone who used to catch me safely when I jumped dangerously down from the top step at the front of our house and into his arms, laughed and lifted me high above his head. Someone who sang funny little songs before bedtime, and made me laugh, who disappeared mysteriously from my life when I was five. For years, until I learnt the truth, and had to accept that he was dead, I prayed he would return.

  Now, I must remember what living in the past did to my mother, and concentrate on how to get out of this situation which is none of my making. I thought I had dealt with the problem. It was hard, but right, what I did, and I have no regrets. Not even now, when it has become like playing a game of Statues, knowing those behind are creeping up to get you, but whenever you turn, they are all frozen in time.

  The telephone rings and its shrill clamour makes me jump. It will be Michael Deegan, about continuing the work on the east wing. It brings me up sharply. Whatever has happened, life here must go on. I will arrange a time tomorrow for him to come and see me, brisk and businesslike. I won’t tell him of what has happened here today, and that the police will want to speak to him. Time enough when he gets here.

  FOUR

  After supper that night, his notes for the report to the new DS in Dudley now in order, which Reardon had brought home to finish, they sat out in the garden in the cool of the evening. He watched Ellen for some time, lying back in her deck chair. ‘Do you still want to work there?’ he asked.

  She adjusted the cushion behind her head so that she could turn to look at him properly. ‘What, at Maxstead? You’re suggesting I should leave – when I haven’t even started?’

  It was a question stupid enough to require no answer and he waved an apologetic hand. ‘Perish the thought. Don’t know why I asked, love. Except that it could put you in an impossible situation, you do realize that?’

  ‘There’s no fear of that,’ she answered wryly. ‘As soon as they knew the man in charge was my husband, they all shut up like clams. Every one of them, even Eve Draper. United we stand, because nothing must be said that would be taken as criticism of Maxstead.’ She sighed. ‘Well, that’s understandable. Whatever happens, it’s going to reflect on the school, isn’t it? If parents start taking their girls away, that means their jobs are at stake. So the sooner your business there is finished, the better, as far as they’re concerned. All right, I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, that’s what you want, isn’t it? But spying on my new colleagues wouldn’t be a good start to my career there.’

  ‘Spying? That’s a nasty word, and who said anything about it? On the other hand,’ he added after a pause, ‘we can’t afford to be too nice when it’s a case of murder.’

  Ellen gave him the old-fashioned look that said she knew what he was up to. It wouldn’t be politic to say more. He smiled and turned back to the latest Edgar Wallace, but fictional crime had no more appeal for him than it usually did. He’d already read the last three pages without taking in a word, and shifted uncomfortably on his newly bought deckchair. On the decks of ships was where they belonged, in his view. The man who invented them clearly didn’t have legs as long as his. However he adjusted it, his knees were either up in the air or being caught at the back by the crossbar.

  Two deckchairs, and a little table for drinks between them. Just the thing for sitting out on hot summer evenings in the garden, given suitable weather and that you ever had the time for such indulgences. A luxury he could rarely afford, though he’d grabbed the opportunity now, while the new case was still more or less in limbo, just to show willing. He’d made time tonight to please Ellen, as if that stood a chance of becoming a regular thing in this new house.

  New to them, the house was, although it was old. It had been in a right state when they’d bought it – which of course was how they’d been able to afford it – but they’d both worked like Trojans and now it smelt of fresh paint and wallpaper and had a new gas cooker and bookshelves he’d almost finished putting up for the growing collection of books he and Ellen shared a passion for. And a garden. If a stretch of scrubby grass and a patch of nettles and brambles at the end could be so called. Taming it would have to be faced, sooner rather than later. He’d need to ask Joe Gilmour for some advice on how to start, because he hadn’t a clue. The Black Country streets where young Bert Reardon had been brought up didn’t feature gardens, only a back yard with an outdoor privy.

  It was a source of rejoicing to him that Ellen was so happy in the move here. He’d been afraid it might not work. For himself, he was gradually getting used to it after Dudley, though he still felt disorientated sometimes, as if he’d been picked up and put down in the wrong place. There had been a few occasions when he’d found himself actually missing grimy old Dudley. On the other hand, there was his new job, demanding enough to keep him on his toes and his brain working, and they had exchanged their terraced house with a view of smoke stacks and chimneys for this.

  It was the only old house in the short street. The others were four pairs of new, semi-detached dwellings, built on land which had once been attached to a now demolished large house. It was something of a mystery why this small house, once part of the estate, hadn’t been pulled down, too. Small being the operative word. If he stood in the centre of the kitchen he could, at a stretch, touch each of the four walls. Still, the only other room downstairs was long, low-ceilinged, with a huge old fireplace and windows at either end, one of which gave on to the sloping garden, and a view which would have been the deciding factor, had they not already made the instant decision to buy the house on a love-at-first-sight basis. The crumbling wall that rose at the bottom of the garden was part of an old boundary wall that had once surrounded the ruined, moated castle that had stood for the Royalists against Parliamentary forces three hundred years ago. A good way beyond it was a glimpse of the mellow buildings, the red roofs and quadrangles, the playing fields of the King’s School, an old chantry school, and beyond that, the green, red-earthed countryside began.

  Folbury itself was unpretentious, comfortably mixed, a market town which had managed to retain the character of its medieval origins along with its progress towards modernity. Black-and-white timbering coexisted agreeably with the elegant simplicity of a few Georgian terraces. There was an ancient, timber-framed moot house, a Victorian town hall, the remains of the ruined castle, a fish and chip shop, a penny bazaar, a picture house and a Woolworth’s, and enough pubs to shake a stick at. Folbury had its unlovely, industrial side, almost a separate entity that was allied more to the Black Country. Folbury was where the Black met the Green, as the locals had it.

  Tolly, lying supine at Ellen’s feet, temporarily stuffed by his evening meal and stupefied by the sun after the long walkies Ellen had given him, emitted a sudden snore, but settled back. He was a Jack Russell, a smart and friendly little terrier with a piratical patch
over one eye. He had been totally in love with Ellen ever since she had adopted him when he was left alone in the world after his master died.

  Reardon gave up trying to read, and as he closed the book he saw that Ellen was watching him, and that she had noticed him fingering his scar, the wartime scar on the side of his face, a habit he too deplored whenever he found himself doing it. He knew it gave him away, a sure sign that his thoughts were straying elsewhere. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘tell me what you know about those teachers.’

  Ellen smiled. She’d known he would come back to it, but she didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Give me a chance!’ she said in token protest. ‘I’ve only just met them.’

  If Reardon knew women – and his wife in particular – they could find out more about anyone after meeting them for five minutes than he with all his experience as a detective could in an hour. ‘OK. I’ll tell you what I know, and you fill me in with what you’ve picked up.’ She smiled again and let him begin, ticking them off on his fingers: ‘One. Miss Mildred Elliott.’ She of the Tyrolean hat and masculine handshake, beneath whose tweed costume, manly tie and permanent expression of dry disapproval he could detect no softness. Terrifying. Maths, naturally. ‘Bit of a martinet, I’d guess?’

  ‘That may be to disguise that she’s often in pain, poor woman. It does affect some people like that. Her arthritis, or whatever it is, meant she was forced to resign as principal of another school.’

  ‘Was she, by Jove? Well, that explains a lot.’

  ‘She may be a bit too outspoken, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t a lot of common sense, you know.’