Murder at the Lodge (Inspector Peach Series Book 7)

by Gregson, J M

  I’ll sing a song to praise the ladies,

  Our partners in all that we do.

  Without them our lives would be empty,

  And cheerless as morning’s cold dew.

  They readily shoulder our burdens,

  And cheerfully help us along.

  Providing, consoling, inspiring,

  And here’s to their health in a song.

  And here’s to their health, and here’s to their health,

  And here’s to their health in a song.

  There were two more verses in the same vein, with all the men joining in the choruses, each time more confidently and stridently. The waiters and kitchen staff, in safe anonymity behind their double doors, grinned at each other in wide-eyed wonderment at this rowdy carousing from men they knew as pillars of the local establishment.

  In the dining room, there was tumultuous applause at the end, mainly polite from the ladies, mainly raucous from the men, some of whom felt that Eric Walsh took his singing too seriously and had pretensions which were beyond his vocal calibre.

  Ros Whiteman, with senses heightened by tension, was aware of both strains in the reception of Eric Walsh. Then the Toastmaster announced that Mrs Rosemary Whiteman would reply on behalf of the ladies and she rose to begin her speech.

  It was here at last, the moment which she had anticipated for weeks, and even as the applause for the Toastmaster’s announcement rang round the room, Ros Whiteman, county tennis player and confident athlete over many years, felt a wholly unaccustomed trembling at the back of her knees.

  But her opening remarks were well received, and she sensed a sympathetic audience, well primed by this time with food and wine. The men were immediately responsive to this erect and elegant woman in the striking blue dress; the women accorded her the gender support which was natural in what was still the overwhelmingly male ambience of a Masonic Lodge, where women were allowed in on sufferance on this one strictly social occasion of the year.

  She knew she had to compliment the singer on his song, and she began with a carefully prepared comparison of herself with Lady Macbeth, chanting revealingly in her mad scene, ‘Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?’ Her sentiments, she said, having listened with much pleasure to Mr Walsh’s song of welcome to the ladies, were rather, ‘Who could have thought the young man to have so much voice in him?'

  Mixed among the general bonhomie, this met with some ribaldry among the men at the idea of Eric’s youth. Ros gathered confidence and rode on the support she now sensed in her audience. She made a graceful, humorous speech about how the women saw the activities of the menfolk, carefully avoiding any reference to the Masonic rituals about which some of the men were notoriously sensitive. This was not an occasion for controversy, and she contented herself with a little gentle irony.

  At the fringe of her vision, Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker smiled indulgently and tapped the table politely in response to Ros’s humorous sallies. He was careful not to show too much enthusiasm for the speaker. Barbara Tucker had eventually insisted on wearing her orange satin for the occasion, so Thomas could hardly fail to remark his spouse’s every reaction. Tucker tried to pitch his response to the only female speech of the evening on that delicate tightrope between the enthusiasm which would be right for his fellow members of the Lodge and the zeal which Barbara would consider inappropriate and which might provoke her domestic retribution in the privacy of the Tucker home.

  It was a delicate balance to strike, but Tucker, who prided himself upon his skill in public relations, had had much practice over the years in assessing what his reaction should be in a variety of situations, and he thought he brought it off. By the end of Mrs Whiteman’s speech, he was confident enough to engage in eye contact with the other males at his table to emphasize his appreciation.

  He didn’t dare to catch Barbara’s eye, not wishing to endure the dent to his confidence which her censure would bring. But he did not really think his wife would disapprove of the animation he was showing: after all, he had held out to her the heady prospect of his being Master of this Lodge in the years to come. With an eye to this glorious future, even Barbara could scarcely disapprove of a little Masonic bonding on Ladies’ Night.

  Ros Whiteman sat down to an excellent reception as the women applauded and the men moved on from clapping to that thumping of the tables which was their ultimate sign of bucolic male approval. Not all women in their forties can blush prettily. Ros, who had expected no such reaction in herself, reddened spontaneously and splendidly. She snatched up the glass she had eschewed before her speech, downed its contents in a half-comic toast to the smiling faces aropnd her, and flushed most attractively above the dark blue of her dress.

  She was aware of John’s hand, now wholly under his brain’s control, stealing softly over the tablecloth to cover hers and squeeze it in congratulation. For the first time in weeks, she accepted his touch without any feeling of hypocrisy. She had enough of human vanity in her to want this moment to stretch indefinitely, to feel herself cocooned for long hours in this convivial congratulation, with the harshness of the larger world wholly excluded.

  It was several minutes before she looked for the approval of one other pair of eyes in that large and busy room.

  Her speech was the last formal moment of the evening, and she came down gradually from her exhilaration in the next hour or so as the noise level rose to its highest of the night and the hilarity rang in noisy bursts around the room, whilst the Master and his lady circulated among members and guests.

  Superintendent Tucker stayed until the end, well aware that his profile among the longer-standing members of the Lodge might be enhanced by diminishing numbers. Silver-haired and trim in his evening suit, he offered little beyond his praise of the evening’s events; he gave a detailed account of his approbation to the Master as John and Ros Whiteman paused at his table. Tucker knew from long years amidst the police hierarchy that praise never went amiss, that however banal and conventional his eulogies might be, people were never very discriminating about things they wanted to hear.

  As the numbers of Lodge members remaining grew smaller, he took the opportunity to move around the room in the Master’s wake. Much to his relief, Barbara had decided that she was enjoying her evening, and her Wagnerian presence cruised happily at his side, trilling the chorus to his paeans of praise as he sowed seeds that he hoped would bear fruit in his Mastership of the North Brunton Lodge. Barbara did her best to help his cause by dropping the hint that they might expect Superintendent Tucker to be chief superintendent before very long.

  Tucker had stressed the need for secrecy when he had revealed his hopes for a final promotion to her, and he laid a finger across his lips in mock admonition. But it was the stage of the evening when no one was entirely sure what was serious, and the thinning company around them, mellowed by drink and conviviality, smiled upon Barbara’s indiscretion.

  Tucker had a sudden dismal thought: he had not yet revealed to Barbara the necessary condition of his proposed elevation, that he must take the detested Inspector Peach up the ranks with him. His wife, who had decided on her more limited acquaintance that she detested DI Peach even more deeply than her husband, would be aghast at the thought that Percy would have to be elevated to the title of Chief Inspector Peach.

  The Tuckers were amongst the last dozen people in the room at the end of the evening. Tucker was concluding an extended goodnight to the Master when the head waiter, Charles Davies, appeared and drew the superintendent discreetly to one side. ‘We have a problem, Superintendent,’ he announced, in what was little more than a whisper.

  ‘What sort of a problem?’ Tucker, who was nerving himself to be driven home by Barbara, was immediately cautious.

  ‘A police problem. In the car park.’

  ‘If someone has had a bump, it’s not the sort of thing a superintendent gets himself involved in,’ warned Tucker portentously. He drew himself up to his full heigh
t and smiled indulgently at Davies; he did not want the Master of the Lodge to see him being impatient.

  ‘It’s nothing like that. You’d better come and look, Mr Tucker,’ said Davies. He then pre-empted any further argument by turning on his heel and walking away, as smooth and erect on his head waiter’s feet as if he were drawn on castors.

  Tucker hesitated for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders towards the Master and his lady and moved after Davies with what he hoped was an air of command. There was something at least in being in demand on such an occasion, he told himself. An emergency emphasized one’s professional standing in front of the Master, rather as if one was a doctor able to save a life.

  Davies did not look back. He led the way through a car park that was now almost deserted. The smell of petrol from recently started engines hung heavily in the still night air. The head waiter moved smoothly but surprisingly swiftly to a distinctive car at the far end of the car park.

  It was not he but Thomas Bulstrode Tucker who stopped abruptly as they neared the handsome Triumph Stag. As the shaft of light from the door forty yards behind them fell palely upon the windscreen of the car, the head of Brunton CID saw a figure slumped forward over the steering wheel.

  Some dim memory from long ago, from the years when he had been used to attending the scenes of crimes, told Tucker that this was not a living figure.

  A series of memories flashed across the superintendent’s suddenly active imagination. He saw Darren Cartwright’s frightened face; heard his voice on the phone, full of apprehension at the threats to his life; remembered his own omissions in the matter; recalled Peach’s view that Cartwright should not have protection; recollected with horror his own assurance that Cartwright would be safe tonight at least at the Lodge’s Ladies’ Night. All these things flashed with surprising clarity through the mind of Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker.

  ‘Don’t touch anything!’ he said automatically to Davies. He summoned an air of authority. ‘I’ll have a scene-of-crime team along as soon as I can muster one. There’ll be a fingerprint expert, a photographer, and a whole team of people to gather forensic evidence.’ Even in this crisis, Thomas Bulstrode Tucker could not refrain from adding a little vicarious importance to his office.

  He took a deep breath and bent to peer inside the vehicle. Then he recoiled, not in revulsion, but in sheer surprise.

  He had seen the bulging eyes and contorted features of asphyxiation victims often enough before. As a young policeman, he had had to contemplate many more distressing deaths than this.

  What surprised Tucker was the identity of the man who was so indisputably dead behind the wheel of this car. This was not the repeatedly threatened and duly apprehensive Darren Cartwright at all.

  The eyes which stared so unseeingly past Tucker’s head were those of the late singer of the song to honour the ladies, Eric Walsh.

  Six

  Superintendent Tucker was rather out of touch with modern criminal investigations. He was indeed widely regarded as an anachronism at Brunton Police Station, though his rank ensured that few displayed such contempt to his face. But he remembered the basic procedures for confronting a serious crime.

  As soon as he was made aware of Eric Walsh’s body, Tucker asserted himself. He announced firmly that the few members of the North Brunton Masonic Lodge who remained in the White Bull and the entire staff of the hotel would not be allowed to leave. He bustled in and out of the main rooms of the hotel and made a series of phone calls with a growing air of authority, secretly pleased by the way people looked to him for a lead in this crisis. He remembered the form for these occasions clearly enough, and that gave him confidence. He was implacable in the face of the growing displeasure amongst those who had thought to be comfortably in bed by now.

  By the time DI Peach and DS Blake arrived, it was nearing one in the morning, and irritation was mounting towards unpleasantness among those most anxious to be away. Superintendent Tucker was relieved to announce that what he called the ‘details of the investigation’ would now pass into the hands of his inspector whilst he withdrew from the front line, assuring the thunderous faces that he would be maintaining a ‘continuous overview of the case’.

  Percy Peach was not best pleased himself. He had been in bed with Lucy Blake, getting very near the point of no return, when the phone had rung so insistently. He had spent most of his time in the car on the way to the White Bull grumbling that he had given up coitus interruptus when he had renounced the Roman Catholicism of his boyhood.

  He found that Tucker was too relieved by his arrival to think it suspicious that he and Lucy came into the White Bull together. Percy brought a brisk despatch to the practical details of the case. He announced that a proper scene-of-crime team could not be assembled until the morning, and instructed the two uniformed constables already at the scene to cordon off the area around Walsh’s white Triumph Stag at the end of the hotel car park.

  The police surgeon had arrived minutes before Peach and Blake. He went through the formality of confirming the death they all knew had happened at least an hour earlier, and even went so far as to venture the view that it looked to him like murder by person or persons unknown.

  As the man in the driving seat had plainly been garrotted savagely from the rear with some sort of cord which was no longer here, this did not seem unduly speculative. But the doctor was young and eager, so Peach accorded him the privilege of a couple of routine questions.

  ‘How long since this happened?’

  A shrug of the young shoulders. A venture at an answer where in a year or two he would be professionally cautious. ‘He’s still warm. Not more than an hour and a half ago, I should think.’

  ‘Any great strength needed for this?’

  The police surgeon smiled, thinking he saw where the inspector was going. ‘No. Anyone could have done it. Especially if he was taken by surprise from behind. It could have been a woman. Even a child.’ He couldn’t help a small smile. This was almost like being on the telly. Much better than the routine deaths he had to certify in hospitals and suburban homes. Much better than the drunken drivers from whom he had had to extract blood samples earlier in the evening.

  Peach nodded sourly. ‘We don’t get many children garrotting drivers at midnight in Brunton. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps you’re on to the first.’

  The young doctor looked crestfallen. He tried not to sound piqued as he said, ‘I’m only saying it was possible. I didn’t say that’s what happened.’

  Peach grinned. ‘Of course you're not. And it’s good to have the assurance that it might he a woman. Isn’t it. Detective Sergeant Blake?’

  Lucy didn’t see the need for a reaction to this. She looked at the handsome car and said to the police surgeon, ‘It looks as though he had no warning of this. As though someone waited in the back seat for him to come to his car and crouched down as he arrived. As if he was taken completely by surprise as he settled into the driving seat. As if he probably never even saw who did this.’

  The doctor nodded, then looked apprehensively at the impassive Peach. He was a quick learner. ‘It’s your job to decide about these things, of course. But the little I can see without disturbing his clothes would indicate that that is entirely possible. The pathologist will be able to tell you more after a full post-mortem examination, of course.’

  ‘I’m not sure he will, in this case,’ said Percy Peach grimly. ‘The simplest murders are always the worst. The buggers leave less of themselves behind.’

  It was a crude summary, but an accurate one. Forensic science always looks for an ‘exchange’ at the scene of a serious crime, the idea being that the criminal, however careful he might be, always leaves something of himself at the place of his crime, and usually takes away something from it, such as blood from his victim or fibres from the dead person’s clothing.

  This already looked like one of the least rewarding murder spots, with the victim despatched swiftly and silently and the killer away without
detection. Enquiries among the hotel staff and the Lodge members might reveal some suspicious presence around this car, but Percy was not optimistic. He had already noted that the seats of the Triumph were covered in leather, the most unhelpful of materials so far as the colleetion of fibres went. He summoned up a cheery politeness he did not feel to dismiss the doctor; no detective wanted to make an enemy of the official police surgeon.

  Peach’s dark eyes blinked a little at the suddenness of the light as he went hack into the brightly lit dining room of the hotel. It was now one twenty in the morning, and those members of the Lodge who had been unfortunate enough to be still on the premises when Walsh’s body was discovered sat in a rough semicircle, white-faced and emotionally drained.

  The men here were part of a Masonic Brotherhood, and they wanted to support each other now, but they were so fatigued and the situation was so beyond their previous experiences that they did not know how. They gave each other occasional glances, sometimes of sympathy, sometimes of speculation about this sensational end to their evening. But mostly they looked at the floor and said nothing, having long since exhausted the few conventional phrases which suggested themselves.

  The women said even less and looked even worse. Shock flatters no one’s looks, and coming as it had at the end of the evening it had cut through the make-up which was already tired and left the women looking frail as well as old. Lucy Blake, who was thirty years younger than most of the women who sat tight-lipped and bewildered here, felt sharply for them as she glanced around.

  There was much finery in the dresses and the jewellery on display, but like the make-up on the ageing faces, the effects seemed damaged beyond recall by the knowledge of what had happened in the car park outside. She was reminded of the hospital casualty departments she knew so well, where women with parchment faces waited for the news of their injured men, at the end of evenings which had started out full of excitement and glamour.