David Webb 10 - Three, Three, the Rivals

by Anthea Fraser

  It was only as he found himself nodding off for the second time that he decided to call it a day and go home. He wondered what Hannah was doing.

  It was seven o’clock when he reached his flat, and the atmosphere that met him was stale and airless. He poured himself a whisky, then walked from room to room pushing open windows, though the air that came in was still oppressively hot.

  Resting his elbows on the windowsill, he stared broodingly down the hill to where the town lay partially hidden under the brownish-yellow haze, periodically sipping his drink as his mind tiredly but obsessively re-ran the past twenty-four hours.

  The sound of voices finally roused him as a group of young people came cycling along Hillcrest, tennis racquets strapped to their bikes. He straightened and stretched, aware of the disoriented sensation that comes from lack of sleep. Yet he was still too keyed-up to settle.

  Turning to the phone, he dialled Hannah’s number, releasing his breath when she lifted her receiver.

  ‘Any chance of a revival course for a spent copper?’

  He heard her low laugh. ‘Certainly, sir. Day release or residential?’

  ‘Don’t tempt me! Seriously, I shan’t be very good company; I’ve been up half the night digging up bodies and I’m on my knees.’

  ‘Then I recommend a lazy supper with music in the background as we watch the sun go down.’

  ‘Since I saw it come up, that sounds most fitting. Bless you. I’ll bring a bottle. Half an hour?’

  ‘Fine.’

  God, he looked a mess, he thought, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Shadows under the eyes, badly in need of a shave. He bent over the bath and turned the taps on full. Time for a leisurely soak before he went down, but he must be careful not to fall asleep.

  By the time he reached Hannah’s door he was at least presentable again. ‘Third time I’ve seen you this week,’ he commented as he kissed her. ‘Hope I’m not pushing my luck.’

  She glanced at him, ready with a quick riposte, but something in his face stayed her. ‘Of course not,’ she amended.

  This case was getting to him, she thought, leading the way to the sitting-room, where an electric fan stirred the sluggish air. He’d been singularly uncommunicative over the drinks on Wednesday, and though she’d read the crime reports in the News with more than usual attention, she wasn’t much the wiser. An old man he’d known in the past had died — that much he’d told her. It had later turned out to be murder, which was why, no doubt against his will, David had been put on the case. But digging up bodies?

  They ate a quiche with one of Hannah’s special salads, and the promised music played in the background even if the sun set privately behind its banks of cloud. Conversation was sporadic and Hannah, from long experience, asked no questions, content to wait till he was ready to talk.

  There was often a point in his cases when he needed a sounding-board against which to bounce his ideas, to test his theories and voice his doubts. It had to be someone whom he could trust implicitly to respect his confidences, and Hannah was happy to be that person.

  That was, in fact, how their relationship had started five years ago, when he’d been dealing with a particularly nasty case of child murder. But such confidences did not come easily to him, and it was usually in the aftermath of their love-making that, lying side by side in the darkness, the torrent of words would suddenly spill out, as though he were no longer capable of withholding them. It might well be that tonight would follow the same pattern.

  And so it proved. It was almost a month since they’d been together; they met as friends as frequently as lovers, enjoying each other’s company whether or not physical intimacy was involved, and unperturbed when work or other circumstances kept them apart. It was, they felt, an ideal arrangement for two strong-minded individuals, yet there’d been occasions when each had privately acknowledged that their commitment was in fact deeper than they admitted.

  That night, though his love-making was as tender and passionate as usual, Hannah was aware of the tension in David, a stress more deep-seated than she’d encountered before. She thought she understood why; this case had taken him back to the town he’d grown up in and which he seldom willingly revisited. He’d always been reticent about his past, and it seemed probable he was now being forced to face it. She wanted to share it with him, and her concern was that he mightn’t after all feel able to confide in her.

  For a while they lay silently, Hannah afraid to speak lest she interrupt him on the point of disclosure; and as the silence lengthened she wondered whether he had fallen asleep with his problems unrevealed. Then, suddenly, he reached for her hand and gripped it tightly. Please, she thought, let me say the right thing; let me help him.

  ‘I’m hating every minute of this case,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘So I gathered.’

  ‘It’s nearly thirty years since I left Erlesborough, but the hostility’s still there.’

  She turned her face to him in a silent question, and flatly, without embellishment, he told her the story of the family feud, of Dick Vernon’s disappearance and the probable discovery, that very morning, of his skeleton. Finally, he related the story of Sheila’s ghost, which had drawn his attention to the cemetery in the first place.

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ she prompted softly.

  ‘Yes. Ever since Dick disappeared, I’ve conditioned myself to believe he was still alive. I daren’t not believe it. Subconsciously, I suppose, I was still willing it in the cemetery this morning. Part of me wanted confirmation that we’d found him, the case cleared up at long last. The other part dreaded it.’

  ‘But why, darling?’

  He began to speak hesitantly, pausing to find the right words for a story which had remained untold for so long.

  ‘On the day Dick disappeared, one of the boys at school dared me to go to the old barn that evening and spy on a courting couple. I accepted the dare and agreed to report back the next day.

  ‘So, when I was supposed to be in bed, I crept downstairs. My father’d gone out and my mother was in the kitchen talking to the girl next door. I let myself out of the front door, which we never used and which was kept bolted. I remember moving the bolt only as far along as would release the door, in the hope anyone glancing at it wouldn’t realize it was undone.’

  He paused and Hannah waited, wondering how this childish escapade could have instigated such long-lasting traumas.

  ‘Well, I made my way to the barn, climbed the outside steps to the hay loft, and as instructed, manoeuvred the trapdoor to leave a crack wide enough to give a good view of the barn below. Then I lay down on the hay to wait for the couple to arrive. And, of course, fell asleep.’

  He was silent for several long minutes. Then, expressionlessly, he continued. ‘I woke to the sound of raised, angry voices, one of which I recognized as my father’s. My first thought was that he’d discovered I was missing and somehow known where to find me. I peered through the crack in the floor — the barn door was open and light from the setting sun was streaming through — and to my amazement I saw that the man he was shouting at was Dick Vernon. You can imagine the shock — they hadn’t spoken since before I was born. In fact, I was so astonished that at first I didn’t take in what they were saying.

  ‘Then my father shouted, “...and if there’s any more of it, I won’t be responsible for the consequences!” And Dick yelled back, “You bloody fool, why don’t you listen, for God’s sake? I had to see her, I needed—’; And at that point my father lashed out with his fist, caught Dick on his jaw and sent him crashing to the ground. Then he turned on his heel and stormed out of the barn.

  ‘I lay hardly breathing, waiting for Dick to get up, but he didn’t move. I don’t know how long I stayed there; it seemed like hours, specially since once the sun had set it got dark quite quickly. I could still make out Dick’s figure on the floor, and I got more and more frightened. Eventually I plucked up enough courage to ease mys
elf out of the loft and run home.’

  After a pause, which Hannah didn’t dare break, he added, ‘And by the next evening, everyone was talking about Dick’s disappearance. He’d gone out for cigarettes and simply never come back. His car was in the garage, none of his clothes seemed to be missing — he’d simply vanished into thin air. I was probably the last person to see him, but far too terrified to say so. And of course no one thought to ask me. So you see,’ he ended heavily, ‘why I needed to believe he was alive; if he wasn’t, there was a strong possibility my father had killed him.’ And he added under his breath, ‘Come to that, there still is.’

  Hannah said reasonably, ‘But if that were so, how did Dick’s body get from the barn to the grave?’

  She felt him shrug. ‘Father could have gone back to check he was OK. After all, he hadn’t meant to inflict lasting damage. But if he’d found him dead he might have panicked, remembered Joan’s newly dug grave, and — made use of it.’

  ‘On the other hand, it’s quite possible Dick came round, set off for home and was run over by a speeding motorist, who then panicked, etcetera, etcetera.’

  ‘If that was the case, the PM will show multiple fractures. It’s a possibility, I suppose.’

  ‘You’ve no idea what they were arguing about?’

  David paused, then said heavily, ‘I hadn’t, until last night. I’d always wondered how the two men had come to be together, when they made a point of avoiding each other. Then Sheila told me she’d found out Mother and Dick Vernon had once been engaged and Mother’d let slip she’d seen him on the night he disappeared. And that explained everything. Dick must have arranged to meet her, and somehow my father got wind of it. She’d probably just left the barn — been summarily dismissed, knowing my father — when their shouting woke me.’

  Hannah was silent for a while. Then she said, ‘And what of this other man, the one murdered this week? Are the deaths connected?’

  ‘Lord knows; there are endless permutations.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘One: perhaps Billy had always suspected Dick was murdered. He overheard Sheila telling her ghost story, put two and two together, and mentioned his suspicions to someone.’

  ‘Who then killed him? At least that couldn’t have been your father!’

  ‘No. but if Father had killed Dick, he might have roped someone else in to help him dispose of the body. Unlikely, I grant you, but possible. And that might have been the person Billy went to.’ He paused. ‘Not very convincing, is it?’

  ‘No. What are the other possibilities?’

  ‘Billy could have killed Dick himself after I left the barn, and the Vernon brothers have just found out. Neither of them has an alibi for the time of the murder.’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or Billy’s death had nothing to do with Dick’s, and it was pure coincidence that he phoned Sheila after overhearing her story. He could just have thought the feud had gone on long enough, as my brother-in-law suggested, and wanted to end it. Mrs Makepeace said as much. In which case, he could have been killed by any of several people whose feathers he’d ruffled.’ He was silent, thinking among others of Jerry Croft. Then his thoughts returned to the skeleton. ‘But I hope to God the PM shows Vernon died of a stab wound.’

  ‘Even if it was a fractured skull,’ Hannah pointed out, ‘it didn’t necessarily happen in the barn.’

  He did not reply.

  They lay quietly, side by side in the darkness, and she thought soberly over what he had told her, and also, reading between the lines, what he had not. Of the small boy, starved of affection, haunted for decades by what he’d seen that night; of the man he became, who found it difficult to trust people and whose marriage, possibly affected by that of his parents, had ended in bitterness. And finally of the policeman, disciplined, efficient, whose secret dread was being asked to prove his father’s guilt.

  She propped herself on one elbow and leaned over to kiss him. ‘I love you,’ she said softly, for perhaps only the second time, and he reached for her and pulled her close again.

  *

  Monday morning, and an early appointment at the mortuary. In all Webb’s years as a police officer, this was his first post-mortem on a skeleton. He hoped it might be less stomach-churning than usual.

  ‘We’d the devil of a job separating them,’ one of the mortuary attendants had confided in the gowning-room. ‘Took the best part of the weekend.’

  Dr Stapleton, as at home with a skeleton as with the more usual cadaver, conducted the examination with his customary meticulousness, and Webb’s hope of a stab wound was soon laid to rest. Without question, death had been caused by a severe blow to the skull, which had resulted in extensive fractures. For the rest, the dental records proved conclusively that it was Dick Vernon’s remains which lay before them. Which was as well, since there was little else by which to identify him. All that had been found in the soil was a watch and a belt buckle, both badly corroded, a handful of coins and a few shirt buttons. The clothing itself had long since rotted, though possibly the lab might make something of the fibres.

  And that was about it. With no organs to weigh or stomach contents to examine, the procedure was considerably shortened.

  Webb approached the pathologist as he washed his hands at the sink. ‘Could the injuries have been caused by falling heavily on a hard surface?’ he inquired.

  ‘Yes, it’s possible. But since we have no brain matter we can’t examine it for contre-coup, which is consistent with that type of impact.’

  Which was not what Webb wanted to hear. ‘How about a traffic accident?’ he asked desperately, remembering Hannah’s suggestion. ‘Could he have been run over?’

  Stapleton frowned. ‘Extremely unlikely. There would have been multiple fractures throughout, and none of the other bones was damaged. What are you getting at, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Just scratching around.’

  ‘Considering the state of the remains,’ Stapleton said severely, ‘we’re fortunate to have any conclusive evidence.’

  With which Webb could not argue. He left the mortuary and walked through the hospital grounds to the police station next door, where Jackson was waiting for him. Ten minutes later they were on their way back to Erlesborough.

  *

  ‘So he’s been dead all this time.’ Mrs Vernon was sitting straight-backed in her chair, her eyes dry and bright.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ Webb said gently.

  ‘Oh, I gave up hope years ago. At least he didn’t leave me, as everyone thought; I’m glad of that.’

  ‘Mrs Vernon, I know it’s a long time ago, but I’ll need a detailed account of the days leading up to your husband’s disappearance. Who he spoke to, or about, where he went.’

  With an effort she refocused on his face. ‘That’s no problem, they’re ingrained in my memory; for months I went over and over those last few days, searching for a clue as to what happened. I didn’t find one then, so I don’t see how you can now.’

  ‘How did he spend them?’

  ‘With Joan, mostly.’ Even now, there was a hint of resentment in her voice. ‘When she was taken ill he went every day, though I kept begging him not to. There were the boys to consider, after all.’

  To his embarrassment, Webb realized he did not know the cause of Joan Wainwright’s death. ‘The boys?’ he repeated tentatively.

  ‘Well, she was infectious, wasn’t she?’ And at his blank look, she said impatiently, ‘German measles — we were in the midst of an epidemic. It’s not usually serious unless you’re pregnant, but she had complications, poor woman. She was never all that strong. I was sorry, afterwards, that I’d not been more sympathetic. Still, that’s water under the bridge now.’

  ‘When did Mrs Wainwright become ill?’

  ‘Only days before she died. That’s why it was such a shock — it happened so quickly.’

  ‘Could you be a little more exact, Mrs Vernon? According to her tombstone she died on the nineteenth of May.
I’ve checked, and that was a Saturday. You’re saying she was taken ill during that week?’

  ‘Oh, definitely. We were all at a wedding the previous weekend and she seemed fine then, though of course she must have been incubating it.’

  ‘Let’s say, then, that she became ill on the Monday, which would have been the fourteenth, and your husband spent most of his time that week with her. What about after she died?’

  ‘He was completely devastated.’

  ‘But what did he do, Mrs Vernon?’ Webb persisted. ‘There were five days between her death and his disappearance. Where did he go and who did he see?’

  She exclaimed impatiently, ‘What can it possibly matter who—?’ Then she broke off, and he saw the dawning horror in her eyes. She moistened suddenly dry lips and said in an entirely different voice, ‘You must think me a fool. I’ve been so taken up with Dick’s being found at last, I hadn’t stopped to think what happened to him. But he was murdered, wasn’t he? Like Billy Makepeace?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, yes. So can you tell me, in as much detail as possible, what you remember of his last day?’

  She was silent for a while, staring down at her clasped hands. Then she said slowly, ‘It was the day after Joan’s funeral. Dick was — beside himself. They’d always been close, and it’s no use denying I resented that at times. When Joan died, it was as though a part of him had gone too.’

  She drew a deep breath. ‘The doctor’d given him sleeping pills, and he didn’t wake till about ten that morning. There’d been a letter in the post from the bride’s parents, enclosing a wedding photo. Joan was in the group, all happy and smiling. We’d not had time to let them know, you sec. I managed to hide it before Dick came down, but unfortunately he found it later.’ She stopped speaking, lost in the painful memories.

  ‘And was his reaction as bad as you feared?’ Webb prompted gently.