by J M Gregson
‘What about Denise Freeman?’
‘She has a key to the office. She could have got in any time when it was quiet. The note could have been prepared weeks ago, of course.’
‘And the signature?’
‘Genuine Stanley Freeman, in the view of the calligraphy boys. As he habitually signed letters without reading them, and on occasions blank sheets of paper waiting for messages to be typed above his name, it wouldn’t have been difficult to obtain.’
Lambert frowned what was no more than a standard reaction. He had never expected this murderer to help them in so obvious a way. But it was another path of investigation that had turned into a blind alley. Perhaps through some superstition that he would close another path in this way, he was quite reluctant as he said, ‘Any news on the car the Harbens saw near Lydon Hall?’
‘No other sightings of it as yet.’
That probably indicated it was local. If a car had been driven across the county in that reckless manner, the police would probably have turned up some other person who had noticed it by now. As he parked at the old Hall, Lambert said, ‘What about our suspects’ cars?’
‘The only one who has a blue one is Simon Hapgood. As you know, the Harbens weren’t sure of make or model. Rushton has shown them the manufacturers’ publicity pictures of Hapgood’s car in blue, but they couldn’t be certain. They’d be no use against a defence counsel, of course.’
‘No.’ He made a mental note to investigate the matter with young Mr Hapgood, though. He had watched him with interest at the funeral.
They walked past the impressive elevations of the old house, looked automatically at the French windows and the spot where Freeman’s body had been discovered. The gardens were trim, the stone terrace mellow in the sun. There was nothing sinister here; the house, which had seen older and darker tragedies, had swallowed this small death effortlessly into its history. In the arboretum, they moved among squirrels and birds who had grown used now to being undisturbed here. They sensed before they entered the sturdy wooden summerhouse that it was empty. Wino Willy was more of this world than theirs: they would scarcely catch him unawares. There was no glimpse of nervous eyes behind the dusty window, no sign this time of the swift, erratic, scarcely human movement of his flight.
Nor was there evidence of a recent presence within the building. The belongings of this strange squatter were precious few, but he had removed them. The cane table had lost its mug and spoon and the ragged blanket was gone from the seat by the door. ‘No condensed milk,’ said Lambert, recalling with a smile the smell from his youth.
‘No bread, no packets of soup,’ said Hook, ticking of the evidence in a mind trained to observation over the years. ‘He’ll be up on the moor in this warm weather.’
Lambert nodded: perhaps both of them chose not to confront the idea that they had driven Willy from this dry, warm haven. They followed the narrow track worn through the long grass by their quarry’s feet, climbed the fence at the gap in the barbed wire, and set off across the common. ‘Are we getting nearer?’ said Hook after they had walked a little way. With the advantage of their long acquaintance, both knew he was talking about the murder.
‘Not a lot. We’re dealing with a cool customer who plans ahead and keeps his nerve.’
‘Not hers?’ said Hook, almost eagerly: he was old-fashioned enough to find murder more unnatural in females.
‘His or hers, Bert. Statistically, it’s six to four on a woman in our five.’
‘You’re still convinced it’s one of those five?’
‘Convinced is a bit strong. But yes, I think so.’ The routine checking of the elaborate police machine that went into action after a murder had not thrown up other possibilities in what was now almost a week. No strangers in the district, no previously undiscovered relatives or acquaintances, no violence elsewhere in the area that might connect with the quietly achieved death at the Hall. ‘What did DI Rushton think of the three we haven’t interviewed yet?’
Although Lambert and Hook had so far interviewed only two of them, all five of the mourners round the grave had now been seen by the police. Lambert would check his impressions and Hook’s notes against their statements in due course, looking for the inconsistencies that might indicate concealment, even guilt. Those who committed this darkest of crimes took on a large organization, developed by experience and technology to a high proficiency. Just occasionally, if they were cool and clever and lucky – it usually required all three qualities – they were successful.
Bert Hook, who had read through Inspector Rushton’s report as directed while Lambert was in conference with the Chief Constable that morning, considered how best to summarize his findings. Rushton, keen and a little officious, was ten years his junior, but Hook had no envy of his superior rank.
‘He didn’t like Mr Hapgood. But he doesn’t think he did it. He quite liked young Jane Davidson, and he doesn’t think she did it. Emily Godson didn’t like him, doesn’t seem to have much of an alibi, and he hopes she did it.’ Rushton would have been aghast at this unprofessional summary of hours of interviews; Hook thought it rather succinct.
They were climbing now, winding slowly over the common as the small town of Oldford opened like a relief map on their left. Already the graveyard they had recently left looked far distant on the other edge of the settlement, though it could have been scarcely more than two miles away in a direct line. Hook, narrowing keen eyes against the sun, thought the earth was already being restored over the coffin of Stanley Freeman, but it might have been no more than fancy: he was too far away to distinguish movement. On the nearer side of the town, the Robsons’ square, solid house was just coming into view above the trees as they climbed higher. Hook could see the back door and kitchen window quite clearly, but there was no sign of the amiable and enthusiastic Fred.
‘Could Emily Godson have done it?’ It was the first time Lambert had spoken for a good five minutes.
‘Not if she was where she says she was,’ said Hook. ‘She says she was with a client of the firm throughout the period between eight and nine.’
‘That should be easy enough to confirm,’ said Lambert, cheerful at the prospect of a straightforward elimination of at least one of his subjects.
‘DI Rushton thought there was something phoney about Simon Hapgood, but he couldn’t catch him out,’ said Hook. Lambert wondered if it might be no more than a clash of temperaments. Hapgood, with his slightly epicene good looks and smart clothes, had looked like a youngish man on the make. Rushton was in some respects rather similar, though he would have been appalled to know that Lambert had recognized the qualities. He was doing well enough himself, but, hemmed in by the boundaries of police procedures, he probably envied Hapgood’s greater scope in a rising property market. Speculation. Rushton was a diligent, industrious detective: if he thought all was not as it seemed here, his superintendent would do well to heed his opinion.
‘Why doesn’t he fancy the fair Miss Davidson?’ said Lambert, regretting his phrasing even before it was complete.
‘I’m sure he does!’ said Hook, relishing this rare lapse, ‘but as a murderer, she seems to have had neither opportunity nor motive.’
‘Opportunity I like. If we can prove she wasn’t in the area, fine. Motive we may simply not have discovered so far.’ Lambert, remembering Jane Davidson’s composure at the graveside, would have preferred to see more grief. Despite her pallor, her air had been one of indifference, even satisfaction, which seemed somehow the more shocking because of her relative youth. Perhaps it was no more than a front, a show of bravado lest her emotional turmoil be exposed. The young could be tiresome at times. But he remembered what the other woman suspect, Denise Freeman, had said about the dead man and Jane: ‘I doubt whether he was bedding her, though it never pays to underestimate the naïvety of the young. But she seemed to have some hold over him.’ He wondered with a grim smile what Jane might think of the astute and enigmatic widow.
They moved off th
e common now, on to the wilder moorland beyond, climbing steadily through heather and patches of bracken towards the long line where earth met sky. They must have been several hundred feet high when they approached a disused sheepfold, its four dry-stone walls forming a ragged square. It was well away from any path, in a small hollow beside a tiny brawling stream. Hook had known where to look, or they would have passed without discovering the place. At its furthest corner, where the prevailing west wind would sweep wildly over its stones on stormy nights, three rusting corrugated iron sheets formed a rough roof, providing a shelter within which was perhaps twelve feet square. From the shadowy interior of this improvised lair, their quarry watched them with the quick, mobile eyes of an animal used to flight and evasion. With the sudden, piercing insight of a mind which had slipped off balance, he knew why they had come.
They moved in cautiously after he had seen them, a little surprised that he did not flee from them as he had once before. But then he had been a trespasser: here he was on his own ground. The distinction was perfectly clear in Willy’s damaged mind.
They took in the empty bottles, the two battered biscuit tins, the plastic dish on the ground which had once held food but which now held a little water. Lambert realized that some wild animal, perhaps more than one, had been here within touching distance of Willy.
There were four wine bottles, all empty. He did not smell of drink; perhaps in a more confined space he would have done. They looked from the bottles to the man, and his eyes followed theirs. ‘Well then, Willy,’ said Bert Hook quietly.
Wino Willy looked at the bottles, then allowed a small, secret smile to come upon him. He rocked back and forth on his haunches, glanced up at the sky, and said, ‘“Poor Tom’s a-cold.”’ Shakespeare knew all about the wisdom of fools and madmen: Willy felt himself in good hands. He folded his arms and drew his imaginary rags about him.
He had in fact a thick coat about his shoulders, too warm if anything for this summer’s day. Lambert, struggling to follow the working of this twisted, agile mind, wondered how to proceed.
‘I was sorry to hear about your boy,’ he said desperately. He meant it: who wouldn’t be sorry who had heard the sad tale of Wino Willy Harrison? But he had not known that son, and the words rang false to himself even as he said them, a means to an end, a cheap way past a sick man’s defences.
Willy flashed him a momentary look of outrage, plucked an imaginary sprig of vegetation from the air in front of him, flicked it contemptuously towards his tormentor’s face, and cried, ‘There’s rosemary. That’s for remembrance!’
‘Sorry,’ said Lambert. Even Hook, who had little idea what was going on, caught Willy’s bitterness.
‘We’re here about a death,’ said Lambert, contriving to sound to himself both trite and desperate.
‘“The Angel of Death hath spread his wings,”’ intoned Willy. He leapt upright and opened his arms above them like some Victorian tombstone sculpture.
‘“Any man’s death diminishes me,”’ said Lambert without thinking. And evoked at least a quick glance of sympathy amid the mockery.
‘“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late,”’
said Willy.
‘“Death lays its icy hand on kings,”’ said Lambert. He was desperate to keep the contact going, but had no idea where this ridiculous game of quotations could lead; he tried not to look at Hook.
Perhaps the bard purged Willy’s contempt and brought him back to his own strange and tragic reality. He said quietly,
‘“Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust,”’
and Lambert, catching his mood correctly this time, picked up the familiar words of consolation,
‘“Fear no more the heat of the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages.”’
Hook, sitting on a flat stone and studying the cold ashes of a dead fire, could scarcely believe his ears as he heard the two voices above him in quiet union on the next lines,
‘“Thou thy worldly task hath done,
Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.”’
There was a long silence, perhaps a full minute, as Willy thought of his lost son, Lambert regretted the crudity of his original attempt to use that memory, and Hook wished he were miles from here.
Then Lambert said reluctantly, ‘Our death was a murder, Willy.’ The words hung heavy in this lonely place. Hook thought that injured brain had not registered the distinction between death and murder, but Lambert had seen the brown eyes flash briefly within their dark hollows. The quick mind had its quotation ready. Willy said gruffly,
‘“Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long.”’
Lambert said, ‘Yes, Willy, but we need your help to bring this truth to light. We think you might have seen something.’
‘“The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.”’
Willy was away across the sheepfold like a wild thing. Lambert thought he had finally lost the thread of connection with that strange mind, until they saw the object of his attention. A black and white mongrel dog stood on its hind legs, its front paws on the lowest part of the wall, its head on one side. Willy was with it in a second, his two hands stretched to fondle its ears.
‘“Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog its day,”’
called Willy. Then he vaulted the uneven stone wall and leapt away like a schoolboy with his delighted canine friend.
‘“Thou shalt do no murder,”’ called Lambert desperately, reduced to the Book of Common Prayer as he saw his witness disappearing.
Willy stopped dead and turned back towards them. He enjoyed this quotation game, the first stretching of his brain for pure amusement that he had known in several years. He called across bracken and heather to his partner in this intellectual conspiracy.
‘“For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.”’
Then he turned and flung a stick for his new companion, wild and high into the bracken, cackling delightedly as the dog leapt high over ferns in pursuit.
Lambert turned back to a perplexed Hook. ‘That was young Hamlet’s view of things,’ he said in explanation. When his sergeant looked disapproving, he added triumphantly, ‘He said it just before he staged the first recorded reconstruction of a violent crime. Forward-looking as always, the moody Dane.’
They saw Wino Willy once more. As they began their descent from the moor, they glimpsed him above them, sitting with the dog between his feet on a knoll of ground, perhaps two hundred yards away. The birds wheeled around the motionless pair, some of them settling even as they watched. They took bread from his fingers, so that even as the police-men watched, Wino Willy was transformed to a latter-day Francis of Assisi.
They thought he had not seen them, but in this world Willy was as alert as a wild thing to his surroundings. As they turned to depart, he called to them through the clear, sun-warmed air, startling the larks above and the stonechats below. ‘“The more I see of men, the better I like dogs.”’
His valediction rang in their ears as they trod carefully back towards the world of men. Hook was disappointed but phlegmatic about what seemed another dead end. He had enjoyed the walk, and he had not expected much from Wino Willy anyway. What he could not understand was the elation which his chief was striving so ineffectively to conceal. The ways of superintendents were arcane indeed, but surely the intellectual contest alone could not have so excited him?
Lambert, wrestling with his recall of that contest, was certain there were clues to the mystery within it somewhere. He had not managed to isolate them yet. But in due course he would return to the strange world of Wino Willy.
Chapter 15
The offices of Arkwright and Sons were touched with the genteel shabbiness which indicates long standing and reliability in the legal profession. Th
e Georgian windows were dusty but genuine; the front door with its polished brass fittings had the myriad small scratches of age, but it was solid mahogany. Inside the building, the doors were low and the rooms small, but little altered since the days when clerks on high stools copied documents in copperplate. This place said, ‘We were here a century and more ago, and we shall be here a century hence. Put your trust in us.’
Alfred Arkwright could hardly have provided a greater contrast with Wino Willy. He was probably ten years older: Lambert’s first thought was that he would comfortably outlive that broken being. The solicitor’s silver hair was impeccably groomed, the skin on his perfectly shaved face gleamed on the high cheekbones. The blue eyes telegraphed interest, but polite, discreet interest. The small hands with their spotless nails would protect you against the petty ploys of the unscrupulous. The gold-rimmed spectacles seemed not merely an aid to better sight but an accessory added to guarantee the competence of this guardian of respectability.
They sat in leather armchairs while he poured the coffee: it would never have done to have had a third party overhear their discussion. His suit was probably fifteen years old; even Hook noticed the narrow, perfectly pressed lapels. It was nowhere threadbare: probably it was one of many in Arkwright’s wardrobe. Like the building, the furnishings, the man himself, it exuded quiet, established quality. In this place, ostentation might be the worst of sins, but everything was ordered, unchanging, reassuring. Wino Willy Harrison’s landscape of wide skies and singing, wind-tossed birds was a different world indeed.
Alfred Arkwright used deliberation as a professional tool. Lambert was in a hurry to complete this routine business, but there was no way he could alter the solicitor’s measured pace. Carefully, he checked the detail of George Robson’s account of wills and intentions. ‘Austin Freeman was a highly respected figure in the town,’ said Arkwright with fond reminiscence. The implication of what followed was that his son Stanley was altogether less reliable. Yes, Austin had clearly indicated his intention of leaving the business jointly to his son Stanley and George Robson. But he had never made a will to that effect; Arkwright’s shrug acknowledged yet another example of human frailty undermining the best legal advice.