David Webb 10 - Three, Three, the Rivals

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘Even though he’d just gone out?’

  ‘It was something in her voice. Something — tender, like.’

  Then there’d been blindness on Mavis’s part too. Lilian Webb had never in her life addressed her husband with tenderness.

  ‘Did you hear what she said?’

  ‘Well, I was trying not to listen, like. But something about, “I know. Of course I know.’’ And then she said, “Isn’t it rather—” and I couldn’t catch the next word.’

  It was probably “risky”, Webb thought caustically.

  ‘Then she said, “All right, but I mustn’t be long.” And she came back into the kitchen with her cheeks all pink and asked if I could stay for an hour as she had to go out. So of course I did.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Half-eight,’ she answered promptly.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Positive. Frankie Howerd was on the wireless — there was no telly then — and I turned it on just as she went out.’

  ‘And was she only an hour?’

  ‘Less, but she got back in a terrible state, crying and shaking. Said she’d fallen over and hurt herself, but she wouldn’t show me where. So when I was sure there was nothing I could do, I went home.’

  ‘You didn’t see my father come back?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. And it was the very next morning that Mr Vernon didn’t turn up at the dairy, and there was such a kerfuffle going on, with Mrs Vernon in a fair state phoning the police and everything. And from that day no one saw hair nor hide of him till you dug him up yourself yesterday!’

  She looked across at Webb’s shell-shocked face, well pleased with herself. ‘I told you there was nothing wrong with my memory,’ she said proudly.

  ‘I’d say it’s photographic. It brought things back for me too.’ He hesitated. ‘Did my mother ever refer to that evening again?’

  ‘No. I did ask if she was better the next day, but she didn’t want to talk about it. It must have shaken her up, though, because she was pale as a ghost for the rest of that week. Now, here I am quite carried away with myself, and not offering you a cup of tea! It’ll only take a minute.’

  She bustled out of the room. One glance at Webb’s face made Jackson hold his tongue and the two men sat in silence until she returned with a tray. Somehow, a more or less one-way conversation was maintained while they drank their tea and then took their leave.

  ‘People wondered, you know,’ Mavis Parker confided, as she led them to the front door, ‘at me marrying a man old enough to be my father. I’ll tell you a secret, Davy Webb: I married Bert because he reminded me of your dad.’

  CHAPTER 12

  Webb filled in what remained of the afternoon in the office allocated to him at Silver Street, reading through the mass of reports which had accumulated on his desk. There were statements by an assortment of people who had known Billy Makepeace — his own farm workers, magistrates, members of the church. One or two, read together with the policeman’s impressions of the interviewee, might stand further checking. One such was Stanley Fox, the church treasurer, who, Bob Dawson had noted, seemed on edge and unduly defensive. A finger in the collection plate, perhaps. Could Billy have been blackmailing him? It didn’t seem in character.

  At five-thirty Jackson knocked and looked round the door. ‘Will you be wanting me at the Vernons’, Guv?’

  ‘No, Ken, I don’t expect to get much, it’s more a case of garnering impressions. We have their statements on Makepeace, and they were only kids when their father died.’ He paused, thinking of Rona Vernon and her self-conscious flush at the graveside. He’d like to get to the bottom of that.

  ‘All right if I go home, then? 1 can get a lift back with the lads.’

  ‘Yep. I shan’t be far behind you; I intend to sleep in my own bed tonight. Meet me at Carrington Street in the morning.’

  There was still the question-mark raised by Colin’s non-attendance at the Dinner, Webb reflected as the door closed behind Jackson, but he’d seen enough of his family for the moment. That would keep till tomorrow.

  *

  Tom Vernon and his wife lived in the old family home from which Dick had gone out to meet his death. It was in a winding cul-de-sac of large, detached houses off the Broadminster road into town. Having parked his car at the gate, Webb walked to the bottom of the road which ended, as it always had, in a wooden gate giving on to fields. He stood for a moment, the evening sun in his eyes, staring out across the grass to the boundary wall of the cemetery in Chapel Lane.

  Dick must have come this way that last evening, crossed the fields to Chapel Lane, skirted Piper’s Wood to reach the Heatherton Road, then over the style into the field in which the old barn stood. It wouldn’t have taken him more than ten minutes, going cross-country like that.

  It troubled Webb that he alone knew where Dick had been that evening and whom he had met; knowledge that was vital now murder was involved. And he was again brought up against the unpalatable fact that the only person who seemed to have a motive was his own father, with whom Dick had had a fight on the night of his death. A fight, moreover, which had left him at the very least unconscious on the barn floor.

  Alone in the deserted road, Webb agonized over whether he was justified in holding back that knowledge for a few more days. Naturally, should any more definite suspicion present itself he would go straight to Fleming, lay the facts before him and ask once again to be relieved of the case. Failing any such development, though, a day or two’s grace was surely not much to ask before laying his father open to a posthumous charge of, at best, manslaughter.

  He turned and slowly retraced his steps to the Vernon house. They were all assembled to meet him, united against a common foe. Which was something he had to break up for a start.

  ‘Good evening,’ he began pleasantly. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’

  ‘You mean we’d a choice?’ Larry muttered sourly.

  ‘I’m not sure whether you realize,’ Webb continued, ‘but we’re working on the assumption that your father’s death and that of Mr Makepeace were in some way linked.’

  That surprised them as much as it had Jenny Hawthorn. ‘How do you make that out?’ Tom demanded. He was smoking a cheroot, and the hazy smoke from it melded into a shaft of sunlight, masking his face.

  ‘We have our reasons,’ Webb returned smoothly. ‘My intention in coming here is to probe your memories again of the nights when both men died, and see if we can establish any more definite links, And to do that—’ his eyes went from one closed face to another — ‘it will be necessary to see you separately.’

  ‘But that’ll take the whole bloody evening!’

  ‘I doubt it, sir. So, if there’s a room we could use for the interviews, we can make a start.’

  Rona Vernon rose to her feet. ‘I’ll show you to the study,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you. By the way, since my sergeant isn’t here to take notes, I’ve brought a tape-recorder. I presume no one has any objection?’

  Again his bland eyes surveyed them in turn, and although there was some muttering among the men, no one objected. ‘Good. Then I’d like to see the gentlemen first, please.’ Rona was waiting by the door, and Webb followed her across the hall to a smaller room dominated by a large desk.

  ‘Thank you, this will do admirably.’

  She smiled perfunctorily, not looking at him. ‘I’ll send my husband in,’ she said.

  Tom Vernon plonked himself down in an easy chair and stared defiantly at Webb, who had seated himself behind the desk. Webb switched on the machine and went through the standard preliminaries.

  ‘Mr Vernon, what do you remember of the day your father disappeared?’

  ‘I don’t think I saw him at all. He hadn’t come down by the time we left for school, and afterwards we went to Colin Fairchild’s for tea. Then we came home and went to bed.’

  ‘It was the day after your aunt’s funeral,’ Webb reminded him.

  ‘I kno
w that,’ Tom said testily, drawing on his cigar, ‘but I presume it’s personal memories you’re after? What I’m saying is that Larry and I were aware of very little at the time, but the events of that day have been gone over so often and in so much detail that it’s hard to separate what we actually saw from what we heard about later.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  Vernon shrugged. ‘Dad was hovering on the brink of a breakdown — not hearing when people spoke to him, withdrawing more and more into himself. And he’d always been such an outgoing person. There were business worries too, but they were as nothing compared to the trauma of his sister’s death. All this I know now, but I doubt if I realized more than a fraction at the time.’

  ‘What exactly did you realize?’

  ‘We were aware something was going on, and we weren’t above listening at doors, but it didn’t make us much the wiser. All we really gathered was that Dad hadn’t just gone away for a few days, as we’d been told.’

  He leant forward to stub out his cigar. Its pungent aroma scorched Webb’s nostrils and he surreptitiously moved the ashtray to the edge of the desk.

  ‘Everyone assumed he’d lost his memory,’ Tom continued, seeming now to be thinking aloud. ‘Certainly he’d been under enough stress. It was an odd set-up, you know, between him and Aunt Joan. He was closer to her than he was to Ma, and not unnaturally Ma resented it.’ He uncrossed his legs, seeming suddenly to realize in whom he’d been confiding and resenting the fact. ‘Well, there you have it. I can’t think it’s going to be much good to you.’

  ‘You haven’t remembered anything further about last Monday?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Vernon. Thank you. Would you ask your brother to come in, please?’

  Larry told much the same story as his twin — hardly surprising, since as children they’d done everything together. He did remember hearing talk about various sightings, and confessed that for some months he’d tried to believe his father would return. Like his brother, he could offer nothing new on the previous week when Makepeace had met his death.

  Following Larry, his wife, Frances, came hesitantly into the room. She was pale, fair, and, Webb had thought, nondescript, but away from her sister-in-law, whose vivid colouring accentuated her pallor, she had a certain quiet charm. ‘I really don’t see how I can help you, Chief Inspector,’ she began. ‘I never knew my father-in-law, nor had I anything to do with Mr Makepeace. As you’re aware, there was bad feeling between the families.’

  ‘Where were you on the evening he died, Mrs Vernon?’

  ‘At the WI meeting.’

  No alibi for her husband, then. ‘What time did you get home?’

  ‘About a quarter to eleven, I suppose.’

  ‘Was your husband in?’

  ‘No, he’d gone to the cricket match.’

  ‘So what time did he get back?’

  ‘Soon afterwards. We sat downstairs for a few minutes and discussed our respective evenings before going to bed.’ There was little else she could tell him, and he released her to go and send Rona.

  It was clear at once that she was ill at ease. She glanced apprehensively at the machine whirring softly on the desk before sitting down, knees close together and hands clasped.

  Hoping to make her relax, Webb said with a smile, ‘It seems a long time since tennis club days.’

  She looked up then, and he was struck again by her beauty, the high cheekbones, arched brows and unusual eyes, the vibrant, fashionably cut hair. In his jaundiced opinion, they were wasted on Tom Vernon.

  Slowly she smiled. ‘Yes, I remember. You were at Shillingham Grammar, weren’t you?’

  ‘And you were at St Anne’s.’ Webb moved the silver inkwell an inch to the right. ‘You were sixteen or so when you arrived in the district. Was Dick Vernon’s disappearance still talked about?’

  ‘When I started going out with Tom, people went out of their way to tell me about it.’

  ‘What was the general opinion?’

  ‘That he’d wandered off with amnesia and was probably dead.’

  ‘Did Tom mention him?’

  ‘Not till I asked, but he couldn’t tell me anything more.’

  ‘What about the Makepeaces?’

  She jerked as though a nerve had been prodded. Then she said quickly, ‘I knew Jenny before Tom and I were engaged. Frankly, I resented being forced into that ridiculous feud. I considered it puerile, and I still do.’

  ‘You knew the old man?’

  Her colour deepened. ‘Only vaguely.’

  ‘Where were you, Mrs Vernon, the night he died?’

  She glanced almost fearfully at the tape-recorder. ‘In Oxbury, at the cinema.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Who with?’

  ‘By myself.’ Her cheeks were burning now. ‘There was a film I particularly wanted to see, and that was my only free evening. My husband couldn’t come because he’d arranged to meet some friends.’

  Webb sat looking at her, his fingers slowly turning the inkwell. Not true, he thought. Definitely not true. Where had she really been?

  ‘Is there anything else you’d like to say?’

  ‘No,’ she said, breathing fast.

  ‘That’s all, then.’

  She rose quickly. ‘You’re coming back to the sitting-room?’

  ‘In a moment.’

  ‘Very well.’ She paused with her hand on the door knob. Then she said softly, ‘Thank you’ and was gone.

  Webb stared at the closed door. What had she thanked him for? Not persisting in his questioning? Avoiding subjects that would have embarrassed her? He reached for the machine, rewound it for a second or two, then pressed the play button. His voice said ‘In a moment,’ and hers replied ‘Very well.’ He bent forward, listening intently, but all he heard was the closing of the door. Her soft ‘Thank you’ had not registered on the recorder, as, no doubt, she’d intended.

  He switched it off and sat back, turning over in his mind the questions and answers that had been made. Then, with a sigh, he stood up and went to bid his reluctant hosts good night.

  *

  Outside on the pavement again, Webb hesitated. He had known when this case started that sooner or later he would have to visit the old barn and exorcise the hold it had on him. Now seemed as good a time as any, and at the same time he could re-enact Dick Vernon’s movements that night. Perhaps it would give some idea as to what had happened.

  Accordingly he walked back to the gate at the end of the road, and with some difficulty managed to slide back the rusty bolt and let himself through into the field. It was full of wheat, waist-high now and rippling in the slight breeze, but a public right of way lay alongside the hedge and down this Webb walked in the evening sunshine, as had Dick Vernon all those years ago. Over to his right he could see the cemetery wall. Dick could little have realized that he would end the night within its confines. Perhaps, in his mental torment, he would not have cared.

  Another gate at the far side of the field gave access to Chapel Lane. As though performing some kind of rite, Webb went through it, crossed the narrow road, and entered the field alongside the copse which, in his youth, had been known as Piper’s Meadow. Now, it was given over to potatoes. His countryman’s eyes approved the healthy crop as he followed the path to the busy Heatherton road where he had to wait a moment or two before crossing.

  And now, pausing on top of the stile, he could see the old barn. Owned by Red Roofs Farm down the road, it had fallen into disuse years ago, but the farmer left it standing as sanctuary for the barn-owls which nested there. In its solitary splendour it had long been a local landmark.

  From his vantage-point, Webb looked around him. At his back the cars continued to roar past, but ahead of him the countryside lay more or less as it had for centuries, grass and hedgerows and birdsong in the evening air, larches and oaks heavy with summer foliage. Beneath him buttercups, daisies and scarlet poppies made a painter’s palette of the grass. He drew a dee
p breath and vaulted down from the stile.

  How had Dick felt as he entered this field forty years ago? What thoughts were going round his head as he hurried to meet his erstwhile sweetheart, and what had made this meeting so imperative? Having lost his sister, did he intend to ask Lilian to run away with him? Was that what John Webb had interrupted?

  And now he’d reached the barn and his nostrils picked up the faint, well-remembered scent of sun-warmed creosote. He glanced at his watch. Nine minutes since he’d left the Vernons’ gate. Dick had left home about eight-thirty, Mrs Vernon said, which tied in with Mavis’s recollection of his phone-call. He would have arrived here, then, at much the same time as Lilian. They could not have had long together before John Webb arrived.

  What had alerted him to the rendezvous? The bowling green was in Bridge Street, almost parallel with the barn and some half-mile away. Perhaps, looking up from his game, he had seen the bright colour of her dress as she crossed the field to the barn.

  Webb studied the outside stair leading to the hay loft, up which he had crept to spy on Beth Jones. The wooden steps were rotten, some of them missing and the rest hanging loose. Better not attempt to climb them. Instead he walked round to the door of the barn, which was hanging loosely from one hinge. He pushed it open and stepped inside.

  He had not been in this building since the night his father struck down Dick Vernon, but over the years it had troubled his dreams. Though not as large as he remembered, it was imposing enough with its vaulted roof and the hayloft at one end. He advanced across the floor, the sepia shadow of his boyhood keeping pace with him as memories crowded in, of picnic teas in the early days, of schoolboy gang-meetings on long summer afternoons. A rusty old plough stood in one corner, with a pile of straw in front of it. Dotted around, too, were more modern artefacts, the ubiquitous drinks cans and empty crisp packets. Doubtless today’s young lovers also met here.

  He looked up at the roof and to his delight was able to distinguish the humped, feathery forms of a couple of owls at the far end of one beam. He hoped he was not disturbing them. His eyes moved along to the trapdoor, closed now, and suddenly, intensely, his sensations as he had lain up there came back to him, mouth dry and heart pounding at the sound of his father’s voice. If only he could remember the entire conversation!