David Webb 10 - Three, Three, the Rivals

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘But then she said that the reason she remembered it so clearly was because it was just after the first Mrs Wainwright’s funeral, and everyone was in a state of shock over her death. She — Miss Grant, that is — was fifteen at the time — and she had German measles, too. No one had thought it was serious, but what with Mrs Wainwright dying, when her temperature suddenly shot up her parents panicked and phoned the doctor. And he in turn wouldn’t have dared risk delaying his visit.

  ‘And then she said, “Poor Dr Adams — he was only a young man then, still wet behind the ears.” And I said — because that was what the doctor had told us — “He must have been glad Mrs Wainwright wasn’t his patient.” And she said, “No, but he’d been treating her, because Dr Nairn was away at a conference.’

  Webb said slowly, ‘Which was certainly not the impression he gave us.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, Guv. I didn’t like to say too much, because I didn’t want her thinking we were suspicious of the doctor, specially since I might have been off-beam anyway. But I did manage to get out of her that it was about half-nine when he went out to see her.’

  ‘So he’d have left them just about the time Dick was returning from the barn.’

  ‘I wondered about that, but if your mum got home at nine, wouldn’t he have been earlier than that?’

  Not if he was lying unconscious. ‘He might have been glad of some time to himself. What I still don’t understand, though, is what motive the doctor could have had for killing him. If he did.’

  ‘Dick could have blamed him for his sister’s death.’

  ‘In the state he was in, quite probably. But Adams was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. He’d have realized the man was still in shock.’

  Jackson shrugged. ‘Search me, Guv. So what do we do now?’

  ‘I think, Ken, we’ll go and have a word with Mr Harvey. I’ve felt guilty about not keeping in touch, and he might know something about the good doctor that we don’t.’

  *

  George Harvey welcomed them eagerly and, when they were seated again in his little room with a tray of tea between them, listened attentively as Webb went through the case. When he reached that afternoon’s disclosures, the old man’s face grew grave.

  ‘I don’t like what I’m hearing, Chief Inspector. Frank Adams has been a good friend to us, along with the rest of the town. I don’t fancy him in the guise of murderer.’

  ‘Nor I, sir; but we have to consider the possibility, even though we’ve not come up with a plausible motive. I wondered if you’d any suggestions?’

  ‘You read the earlier statements?’

  ‘Yes, and I flicked through his again on the way here. He simply said he’d been calling on patients that evening. True, as we know, and no one tried to tie it down, because at the time it was thought Dick had just wandered off. More significantly, when asked for his opinion of Dick’s state of mind, it was he who first mooted the amnesia theory.’

  Harvey leant forward, hands clasped between his knees, and looked up at Webb from beneath bushy eyebrows. ‘Are you proposing to go and charge him with it?’

  ‘Not till I’m a lot more sure of my ground. We’ve no proof whatever at the moment, only a faint suspicion. What I do propose, though, is to go back and have another word with Mrs Vernon. There’s something about that wedding photo that worries me. I wondered if you’d care to come with us?’

  The old man brightened. ‘That is good of you, my boy. I still feel the Vernon case is my baby, though I can’t help hoping you’re after the wrong bird.’

  *

  Mrs Vernon showed no surprise when the three of them arrived on her doorstep.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Harvey — nice to see you again. I hope you’re keeping well?’

  ‘Very well, thank you, ma’am. A bad business about your husband. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘Thank you. I think I was already resigned to it.’ She turned to Webb, her face hardening. ‘Well? What is it this time?’

  ‘The wedding photo that arrived the day your husband disappeared. I’d be glad of some more details.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘I’m curious as to why it had such an effect on him.’

  ‘It’s simple enough, surely. Last family outing, and so on.’

  ‘Have you by any chance still got it, Mrs Vernon?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I have. Pure sentiment, really, but as I said, it was the last time—’ She broke off and, rising, walked over to a walnut bureau which stood against the wall. When she turned back to him, Webb was surprised to see she was holding not the expected glossy photograph but a yellowing piece of newspaper.

  ‘That was what came through the post?’

  ‘Yes, a report from the local paper.’

  ‘But you said it was a photograph.’

  ‘So it is, Chief Inspector. Look.’ She held out the paper and Webb took it, studying the faded wedding group and the typical local paper write-up describing the dresses of bride and bridesmaid. He’d been pinning his hopes on this photograph, but for the life of him he couldn’t see anything significant in it.

  ‘That’s Joan,’ Mrs Vernon said, pointing to a smiling woman standing on the right. ‘You’d never have thought, looking at her, that she’d be dead within the week. And as it turns out, Dick soon after,’ she added in a low voice.

  So he’d been wrong. With a sense of anticlimax Webb flipped the paper over, running his eye down the item printed on the back. Then he stiffened. ‘Mr Wainwright said the wedding was in Swansea?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Mrs Vernon looked anxious. ‘What is it? Have you found something?’

  ‘The answer, perhaps, to two murders,’ Webb said slowly. ‘You told us earlier this arrived in the morning post, but you hid it from your husband.’

  ‘That’s right. I slipped it behind a cushion, meaning to destroy it later. But that evening he couldn’t settle and he started wandering around plumping up cushions, and of course he found it.’

  ‘You said he took it upstairs?’

  ‘Yes, and when he came down he said he was going out for cigarettes.’ Having made his phone-call to Lilian Webb, presumably. ‘Why?’ she added. ‘What’s wrong?’

  He ignored her question. ‘While you were in Wales, did any of you go off anywhere — a run in the country, perhaps?’

  Puzzled, Mrs Vernon shook her head. ‘Oh, apart from Joan. She went to tea with an old schoolfriend up the valley. They should have been at the wedding, but their little girl was ill.’

  ‘Do you remember where they lived?’

  ‘Goodness, I haven’t thought of it in years. Pen-y-something.’

  ‘Pen-y-Bryn?’

  She gave a little exclamation. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Mrs Vernon, I shall have to borrow this cutting. I’ll take great care of it and it will be returned to you in due course.’

  ‘But what’s it all about?’ she demanded. ‘Aren’t you going to explain?’

  ‘Not at the moment, but I’ll come back to you as soon as I can. Thank you for your cooperation.’

  He was half way out of the room before Harvey and Jackson, startled and bewildered, struggled to their feet and followed him.

  *

  ‘And what the hell was all that about?’ Harvey demanded explosively as they reached the privacy of the car.

  Webb swivelled to face both men. ‘On the back of this clipping is a report of an outbreak of meningitis in Pen-y-Bryn. Several people died before it was diagnosed.’

  There was complete silence. After a moment he spoke into it, thinking aloud as he felt his way through the tragedy of forty years ago.

  ‘It’s my belief that it was that which killed Mrs Wainwright. And, unlike the encephalitis on her death certificate, it could have been treated if diagnosed in time.’

  ‘So you were right,’ Harvey said at last, just above a whisper.

  ‘I imagine the symptoms are easily confused; especially by an overworked, inexperienced young
man in the middle of a German measles epidemic. He’d have no reason to suspect meningitis.’

  ‘And Dick Vernon, reading that, realized his sister might have been saved, and was after Adams’s hide,’ Jackson mused.

  ‘We know there was no love lost between his wife and Joan, and, though shocked by her death, Mrs Vernon made it clear she resented the time he’d spent with her. So he decided to discuss the matter with my mother. But since I’m quite sure she never knew about it, they must have been interrupted before he got round to telling her. Perhaps,’ Webb continued shamelessly, ‘someone else came to the barn; it was a popular meeting-place for courting couples.’ He no longer felt guilty about his half-truths. Beneath the surface, awaiting time for him to savour it, an enormous tide of relief was building up.

  Harvey took up the story. ‘So he set off for home, and as luck would have it, came upon Adams himself returning from visiting the Grant girl.’

  Webb said quietly, ‘I think it’s time we called on the doctor and heard what he has to say.’

  *

  Dr Adams stood with his hand still on the door-knob, seeming to shrivel before their eyes. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said, adding to his wife, ‘Vera, I’d like you to be in on this.’

  ‘What is it, Frank?’ Mrs Adams, who had appeared in the sitting-room doorway, looked startled by his tone. He did not reply. Sombrely he led the way into the study where they had spoken before and gestured to them to sit down. He himself remained standing, his back to the empty grate, as though facing his inquisitors. As, of course, he was.

  Webb said quietly, ‘Dr Adams, as you know, we’re making inquiries into the deaths of Dick Vernon and Billy Makepeace. We think you might be able to help us.’

  ‘Frank?’ Mrs Adams’s voice rose agitatedly, and she jumped up and went to stand beside her husband, taking his arm. He absent-mindedly patted her hand.

  ‘What put you on to it?’ he asked, almost conversationally.

  ‘A number of things, but principally a cutting from a Welsh newspaper that arrived the day Dick disappeared. And, as we now know, died. Doctor, before we go any further I’m going to ask the sergeant here to caution you that—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I think we can take that as read.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to sit down?’ Webb suggested gently. With his wife still clutching his arm, the doctor moved to a couple of upright chairs and they both seated themselves.

  ‘How much do you know?’ he asked dully.

  ‘That Mrs Wainwright was taken ill after visiting a village where there was an unsuspected outbreak of meningitis. And that Dick had just discovered the fact.’

  He nodded. ‘The symptoms are very similar — stiffness of the neck, nausea, vomiting. She even developed a rash, and I was too inexperienced and too geared to rubella to recognize it as the characteristic meningococcal rash. Her condition worsened rapidly, leading to coma and then death. I’d no hesitation at all in giving the cause as encephalitis following rubella.’

  ‘And you met Dick that evening?’

  ‘Yes. I’d been visiting Elizabeth Grant and had just got into my car when I saw him come through the gate from Piper’s Meadow. He stepped off the pavement, then, seeing the car, paused to let me pass. I thought he was drunk; he was swaying about with a dazed look on his face. Well, I was driving slowly and there was a full moon. As I drew level he recognized me.

  ‘I lifted a hand as one does, but he suddenly darted forward and banged furiously on the car window. I stopped and opened the passenger door to see what he wanted, and was subjected to a barrage of verbal abuse such as I’d never heard before. I was astounded; I hardly knew the man, but he’d always appeared quiet and well-mannered. I put it down to drink, and it took me some time to realize he was accusing me of criminal negligence.

  ‘Fortunately the road was deserted, but in case anyone came along 1 pulled him into the car, trying to calm him down until I could make out what he was getting at. As soon as I heard the word “meningitis” I knew. Everything clicked into place and I was panic-stricken. That rash — with hindsight it was obvious it hadn’t been a rubella rash at all — I should have recognized it. And he was ranting on about reporting me to the medical council and having me struck off the register. I — I just lost my head.’

  There was a silence. Vera Adams had started to weep quietly into her handkerchief.

  The doctor roused himself from his traumatic memories. ‘In mitigation, I might say I was almost dead on my feet. The rubella epidemic was at its height, my partner was away, and because it was the Whitsun holiday we’d been unable to obtain a locum. And since babies were being born and all the normal ailments continuing at their usual rate, I’d had only a couple of hours’ sleep a night for the best part of a week.’

  He paused, and added reflectively, ‘Medicine had been my ambition for as long as I could remember. At long last I was qualified, in a good practice, and the world was my oyster. Then, out of the blue, this. Scarcely knowing what I was doing, I seized a spanner out of the glove compartment and lashed out at him. And he simply folded over in the car seat.’

  He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, we were only yards from the cemetery, and Joan Wainwright, as I knew only too well, had been buried the previous day. The ground would still be soft, and I kept a spade in the boot in case of snow in winter. It was almost too easy. The whole business was over in the space of an hour and before I’d emerged from my somnambulant state.’

  No one spoke, and after a moment he continued. ‘I checked, of course, about the Welsh outbreak, which confirmed both Vernon’s accusation and my own fears. But it didn’t take me long to realize that even if he had reported me, it wasn’t likely any blame would be attached. And I mightn’t have been able to save her, even with penicillin. In other words, if I hadn’t panicked, if I’d just calmed him down and sent him home, it would probably all have blown over. But by the time I realized all this it was too late.’

  Webb said inexorably, ‘And what of Billy Makepeace? His death was deliberate and premeditated.’

  The doctor wiped a shaking hand over his face. ‘True; I wouldn’t have believed myself capable of such action, but again I succumbed to panic.’

  His wife had turned to him, her eyes widening. ‘Mr Makepeace? Oh Frank, no!’

  ‘He called round that evening soon after you’d gone out. He was full of some ghost-story Sheila Fairchild had been telling, which for some reason made him think she’d seen Vernon’s murderer.’ He looked at Webb almost accusingly. ‘Perhaps you can explain?’

  ‘My sister’d left a toy in Piper’s Wood that afternoon. She woke in the night and set off to find it, and as she was passing the cemetery a figure rose up out of one of the graves. She had nightmares about it for years.’

  ‘I see. It was shrewd of old Billy to work it out,’ Adams said ruefully. ‘Apparently he’d tried to ring both your sister for clarification and the vicar for advice, but both were out. So he came to me, poor devil.’

  He looked up, wearily meeting Webb’s eyes. ‘And this time I had everything to lose; it wasn’t a mistaken diagnosis I’d be accused of, but murder.’

  ‘But he didn’t suspect you, man!’ old Harvey broke in. ‘Why didn’t you just fob him off, tell him it was nonsense? There was no need to kill him!’

  ‘You know Billy. Once he had an idea in his head, he’d worry away at it till he got everyone else believing it too. I just couldn’t take the risk. And when it came down to it, I suppose I felt my life here was of more value than his.’

  He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of resignation. ‘Actually, I hoped the shock of the cold water would do the trick with his heart condition, but he thrashed about so much I thought he was going to climb out.’ He paused, then added expressionlessly, ‘So I had to hold him down till it was over.’

  Mrs Adams gave a strangled sob and ran stumblingly from the room. Her husband looked sadly after her.

  ‘Not that it did me much good,’ he continued. ‘Billy w
asn’t the only one to put two and two together, and the exhumation took place.’ He turned to Webb. ‘So there you have it, Davy. Ironic, isn’t it, that you should solve the murders of your father’s two old rivals?’

  Webb gestured to Jackson to read out the charge. Then he said flatly, ‘If you’d like to pack an overnight bag, sir, we’ll be getting back to Shillingham.’

  *

  It had been a painfully illuminating investigation, forcing Webb to re-examine himself, his conceptions and misconceptions, his beliefs, doubts and motivations. He said as much to Hannah over supper a few nights later.

  ‘And I was damn lucky the gamble paid off,’ he added. ‘If it had turned out my father killed Dick, I could have been in trouble for withholding information. Nor did I enjoy keeping Ken Jackson in the dark; he’s a good cop and I know he smelled a rat, though he was too loyal to say so.’

  ‘There are pluses as well,’ Hannah reminded him. ‘You came to understand — and perhaps appreciate — your parents a bit better. And best of all, you’re free of that longstanding fear that your father might have been involved in Dick’s disappearance.’

  ‘True, and Sheila’s free of her ghosts. What’s more, I think we can safely say the family feud’s at an end. Larry Vernon rang with his congratulations, and the rift with Jenny has been healed.’

  ‘Jenny?’

  ‘Jenny Makepeace-that-was.’ He grinned for the first time in two weeks. ‘An old sweetheart of mine.’

  ‘You dark horse! You never mentioned her before.’

  ‘It was a Romeo and Juliet situation — young love torn apart by warring families. It was — good — to see her again, and straighten things out.’

  ‘Should I be jealous?’ Hannah asked lightly.

  He shook his head, laying a hand over hers. ‘No, my love. She was then and you are now. Still, it’s good to be on speaking terms again. And I’ve a bit more news for you: Sheila’s going to invite us to her annual garden party, along with the Vernons and the Makepeaces. How about that?’