Although Lamb knew that the path to the village began somewhere behind the church, he did not know where exactly and so asked Brandt to step away from the car for a moment to show him the spot. Hence, he and Brandt retraced their steps up the hill to the church, where Brandt led them off the High Street and onto the flagstone path that led round to the rear of the church. To their left, the path was bordered by a high hedge.
“Just on the other side of the hedge is Janet’s Lockhart’s cottage,” Brandt informed Lamb. “As you will see when we get round back, she can walk directly through her back garden to the place where the path begins to climb the hill to Elton House.”
The path led round the back of the church and past the church cemetery, which was surrounded by a waist-high wrought iron fence and gate. Twenty yards beyond that the cleared land gave way to wood and began to noticeably slope upward. Brandt pointed to a break in the hedge on their left that he said led to Janet Lockhart’s rear garden.
The cemetery caught Lamb’s eye—and particularly a small granite mausoleum at its center, where someone had laid a half-dozen paper lilies and lit some candles, which had burnt out.
“Who is buried in the mausoleum?” he asked Brandt—though he thought he knew.
“Lord Elton,” Brandt said, confirming Lamb’s guess. “As you might have noticed from my story, today is the anniversary of his death—June twenty-second. I’d actually forgotten it until just now.”
Lamb opened the cemetery gate. “I wonder if we might make a little detour, Mr. Brandt,” he said.
“By all means.”
Lamb went to the mausoleum and squatted down to inspect the flowers and the candle stubs. The latter appeared to be identical to the stubs they’d found by the pond and in Lee’s cottage. He took one and slid it into his jacket pocket. He fingered the petals of the paper lilies and found them to be well made, of a high-grade stock.
“Is there anyone in Marbury who felt particularly close to Lord Elton, or the family?” he asked Brandt.
“Not that I’m aware of, though of course one never knows.”
Brandt led Lamb from the cemetery to a place just inside the wood, where the flagstone path ended and the footpath to Elton House began. Lamb thanked Brandt, told him that he would return soon, and began the climb, as Brandt returned to the car.
Although hemmed in on either side by the wood, the path was well-worn and wide enough to accommodate two people walking side by side. After roughly a quarter-mile the steepness of the rise began to soften and the wood began to fall away. Here Lamb came upon a sign that was staked into the ground to the right of the trail: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE PROPERTY OF ELTON HOUSE SANATORIUM.
Fifty yards later, the portion of the wood to his right ended and gave way to the open area behind Elton House, which included the pond. On his left, the wood continued for a short distance farther, taking in the former gamekeeper’s cottage in which Joseph Lee had lived.
Lamb spied a lone figure standing along the edge of the pond who he recognized as Nurse Stevens. She stood only a foot or two from the water and seemed to be staring into it; indeed she was so engrossed in what she was doing that she did not notice Lamb’s approach. Lamb looked at the surface of the pond but could see nothing that might have caught the nurse’s attention.
Not wanting to startle her, he spoke quietly as he approached: “Hello, Nurse Stevens.”
She abruptly turned to face Lamb with a look of frank surprise.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Lamb said.
She looked intently at Lamb. “I thought you had finished here, Chief Inspector.”
“Not quite. I still want to speak with Dr. Hornby, as I said yesterday.”
“He hasn’t returned yet from Southampton.”
“That is disappointing,” Lamb said. “You said yesterday that you expected him to return this morning.”
“Yes. Well it seems he’s been delayed.”
“Do you still expect him to return today?”
“I hope so. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Lamb removed the candle stub he’d taken from Lord Elton’s grave and showed it to the nurse. “Do you recognize this?” he asked. “I found it on a grave in the church cemetery in Marbury. It’s identical to several we found yesterday while searching Mr. Lee’s cottage. I wonder if it might have come from Elton House?”
Nurse Stevens looked at the candle briefly. “No, I don’t recognize it,” she said.
Lamb then showed Nurse Stevens the paper lily he’d taken from the grave, which, she said, she also did not recognize.
She stepped back from the pond. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to work,” she said.
“Please tell Dr. Hornby that I will return later to speak to him,” Lamb said.
Nurse Stevens’s face clouded for an instant—almost as if, Lamb thought, she’d suddenly remembered something she instantly wished she hadn’t forgotten.
She looked at Lamb. “Of course,” she said. Then she turned and made her way up the path.
NINETEEN
RELUCTANTLY—AND FEELING VERY SUSPICIOUS OF FREDERICK Hornby—Lamb turned round and headed back down the path. He hoped that Brandt would not take long repairing the Wolseley. In the meantime, he could check with Rivers and the others on the progress of the canvass of the village.
As he descended the path he noticed a familiar figure climbing the hill in his direction. It was Janet Lockhart.
“Hello, Chief Inspector,” she said as the two converged. Despite the fact of her climbing an unpaved footpath, she wore high-heeled shoes and a simple yellow dress. Once again, Lamb caught the scent of her perfume and found himself thinking that she was an attractive—and even a seductive—woman.
“Hello, Mrs. Lockhart,” he said. “I assumed that you were already at the sanatorium by now.”
“Well, I took a bit of time this morning; I suppose I’m still getting over the events of yesterday. I don’t mind admitting that I found them overwhelming.”
“Yes, I can certainly see why,” Lamb said. “I hope you are feeling more like yourself.”
“I am. Still, it’s very troubling to think about what happened to Mr. Lee. Murder is so disturbing.”
Lamb recalled Brandt’s assessment of Mrs. Lockhart—that she had, in effect, dedicated herself to denying the finality of death.
“Indeed it is.”
“And yet you must encounter it regularly, Chief Inspector. I wonder if you’ve found a way to inure yourself from its disturbing aspects.”
“I suppose that I must have, at least to a degree. But, of course, I still find it disturbing.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m criticizing you, Chief Inspector. On the contrary, I sense you are a truly honorable man—and perhaps even a bit heroic in your pursuit of those who kill.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’m no different in that regard from any other policeman.”
“Still,” Mrs. Lockhart said. She paused for a couple of seconds in which Lamb felt her appraising him. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Chief Inspector?”
“I suppose that depends on the question,” Lamb said, though in a cordial tone.
“I want to ask you if you were in the war. I sense that you were.”
“I was on the Somme in 1916 and ‘17.”
“It must have been terrible, having to live with that knowledge—that each day you awakened might very well be your last.”
“It was terrible, yes.”
“And yet, as terrible as it is, there comes a point at which you accept it. Is that right?”
Lamb nearly said, It depends on the man, but thought of Mrs. Lockhart’s husband and brought himself up short.
“Yes, after a time you come to accept it. Or maybe it is more accurate to say that you lose an idea of yourself as somehow different from all the rest, which is a feeling that nearly every man who goes into combat for the first time carries with him. A feeling of, Yes, others
will die, but I will not. You come to realize that those who die and those who live is all down to chance. No one is especially protected in any way, by God or fate. Then again, neither is anyone naturally inclined toward being among those who won’t live to see the end of the day, even those who are the worst sinners or whose hearts are brimming with evil. It all comes down to a series of events that no one could possibly have predicted or had even an inkling of ahead of time.”
Lamb could not recall the last time he had spoken at such length about what the war had left him believing. But something in Janet Lockhart’s eyes—a kind of pleading—loosened something within him he normally kept reined in.
“Well, I want to thank you for answering my question, Chief Inspector. I realize that such sentiments are enormously personal.”
“I hope that it was of some help to you.”
“Yes—yes, it has been.”
Lamb pulled the candle stub and the paper lily from his pocket and showed them to Mrs. Lockhart. “Before you go on your way, I wonder if I might ask you if you recognize these?” he asked.
“Well, the candle does resemble some that we keep round the sanatorium. But then, I suppose one candle looks much like another. As for the lilies I have noticed that someone has been putting something similar on Lord Elton’s grave, especially recently, but otherwise I don’t recognize them. They are not something I’ve ever seen for sale in Marbury.”
“I found this on the grave of Lord Elton. Do you know of anyone in Marbury who might have had a close connection to him and therefore might feel compelled to mark the anniversary of his death, which I understand is today?”
“I don’t really—at least among those people in the village who are still living or haven’t moved away. I suppose I would have to say that, among those who still live in Marbury, I would be the most likely choice. My late husband and I were among their closest acquaintances from the village.”
“Did you remember that today was the anniversary of his death?”
“Yes. I don’t think I shall ever forget that date. His death and the events that followed it shocked everyone in Marbury at the time. It greatly upset me. I don’t know what sort of man he really was, but I couldn’t understand then—and still can’t—how his wife could kill him.”
“Has anyone in Marbury ever sought you out to assist them in communicating with Lord Elton?”
“No.”
“How about from the sanatorium?”
“No, and I’m quite certain that if Nurse Stevens found out that I was dredging up the old sins of Elton House with one of the patients, she’d have a fit. She has in the past complained about me to Dr. Hornby—accused me of being a negative influence on the men. I know because Dr. Hornby himself has told me. But he has ignored her, thankfully.”
“So she disapproves of your interactions with patients such as James Travers?”
“Yes. And James has mentioned to me that she has tried to dissuade him from seeing me. But James feels as if I have helped him, as I told you yesterday, and so he also has ignored her.”
“What is Nurse Stevens’s relationship to Dr. Hornby? He seems to rely quite heavily on her.”
“He does, though I’m not sure why. Frederick Hornby is a brilliant man, Chief Inspector—a man who is devoted to his work and his patients, for whom he has a great understanding and a great deal of empathy. And yet he seems blind to some of Nurse Stevens’s more obvious shortcomings. I hope you’ll excuse me if this sounds catty and small-minded, but she is not as crucial to the smooth running of the sanatorium as Dr. Hornby seems to believe she is. At least she isn’t in my opinion.”
“She strikes me as very efficient.”
“She can be indispensable when it comes to the small duties—the fetching of the correct file or a cup of coffee or the prompt answering of the phone and the noting down of the caller’s message. She would make an excellent secretary, I shouldn’t wonder. But she’s not much of a nurse; she seems to know next to nothing about medical matters and has little patience with the men, nor any sympathy for them. Her duties seem to consist mostly of bossing them and the other nurses about, ensuring that they are never late for this or that appointment or duty, especially if it involves Dr. Hornby, or would be something he would notice.”
Mrs. Lockhart drew in a deep breath. “Well, I’ve gossiped enough, Chief Inspector. And here only yesterday I told you that I detest gossip. You must find me a terrible hypocrite.”
“Not at all.”
“You’re very kind.” She smiled. “I should be on my way. I’m sure Nurse Stevens is wondering where I’ve gotten to.”
TWENTY
ARTHUR BRANDT HAD EXTRACTED A PART FROM THE MOTOR OF Lamb’s Wolseley, which he’d laid on the ground atop the same red handkerchief on which he’d cleaned his hands.
“What is that?” Vera asked.
“A distributor. It fires the car’s spark plugs.”
“Have you fixed it?”
“Oh, heavens no. It’s shot and needs replacing.” He wiped his brow with his right wrist, which left a smudge of grease on his forehead.
“What happens next, then?”
“Well, as I told the Chief Inspector, I can probably fit the one from mine into this one. I’m off to fetch the part. Would you like to come and have a cup of tea, or does duty keep you glued here?”
Vera glanced behind her, up the High Street, hoping that Harry Rivers or David or Sergeant Cashen didn’t suddenly appear. She believed she could risk leaving the car long enough to have a cup of tea with Arthur Brandt.
“I’d love a cup of tea,” she said. “But it will have to be quick.”
“Splendid. We’ll have a break and then get back at it. I expect the whole job shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.”
They walked together to Brandt’s cottage. He cleared a space on the sofa in his cluttered study for them to sit on, then went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. He then went to unlock the shed behind the house in which he’d mothballed his Wolseley. He pulled away the sheet of green canvas with which he’d covered the car and opened its bonnet. He had a look at the distributor and knew that it would fit. As he exited the shed, he heard the kettle come to the boil in the kitchen and jogged back inside, where he made a pot.
While he was gone, Vera had a snoop round the study, feeling relieved that she had spoken to her father about David and her future. She was uncertain if her father also had spoken to David in the same way, but doubted it. His relationship with David was too dependent on chain of command for the two of them to speak as equals. She had not foreseen such problems as she had fallen in love with David and was certain that David had not either. But love was blind, especially in the beginning. She believed that the next conversation she must have with her parents was one in which she told them that she was leaving the constabulary to take her chances with the call-up. That was coming soon, she was certain now.
She found herself perusing Brandt’s bookshelves, where she found a mix of some of the more popular novels, along with an eclectic mix of English, German, and French literature, histories and biographies, and a fair amount of poetry, including the Great War poems of Wilfred Owen, which she had studied in school and remembered mostly because of the opening lines of his “Greater Love,” which she considered both beautiful and disturbing:
Red lips are not so red,
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
She took the volume down from the shelf and read the poem anew, which made her think of her father. She knew that her father had served with Rivers on the Somme, but not much else. He did not speak of his war experiences, nor did Rivers.
Brandt entered carrying a tray that had on it a pot of tea and a container of milk. “Here we go,” he said, putting it on the table in front of the sofa. “Sorry there’s so little room, by the way,” he said, clearing a few more magazines and papers from the space by tossing them on the floor.
Vera returned the book to the shelf and joine
d him.
“The distributor will fit by the way; I’m sure of it.”
“Good news,” Vera said.
They sat in silence for a bit sipping the tea as people did when they were in a hurry. Vera rose, though, and went to Terry’s terrarium. She had been intrigued by the snake and wanted to see if he had indeed eaten his mouse. But she did not see him.
“Has he gone back into his box?” she asked.
“Probably,” Brandt said, rising and joining her by the cage. “They spend most of their time hiding away.”
Brandt put down his tea and removed the top of the cage.
“Really, it’s not necessary,” Vera said, realizing what he was doing. “I’m happy to leave him be.”
“He doesn’t mind,” Brandt said. “I’d like to say hello to him myself.”
Brandt lifted the cigar box, revealing the curled python, which he lifted gingerly.
“There we are, my friend,” he said, as he removed the snake from the enclosure. Terry hardly seemed to notice. Indeed, he laid tightly curled in the cupped palms of Brandt’s hands, looking very much, Vera thought, like an oversized pastry. After several seconds, though, he began to slowly uncoil, raise his head, and flick his tongue.
“Why do they flick their tongues so?” Vera asked.
“It’s how they smell; they actually ‘taste’ odor.”
“May I touch him?”
“By all means.”
She reached out to stroke the area just behind Terry’s head. “Hello, sir,” she said. “You are quite a handsome and dignified fellow, aren’t you?
The snake seemed to look right back into her eyes, she thought.
“There are tribes in West Africa that believe the ball python to be a spiritual creature and consider it taboo to kill them. Some African kings kept them as pets and wore them round their necks as ornaments. Most people misunderstand snakes; they believe them to be evil, when they are nothing of the sort. It all goes back to the story of the Garden of Eden and the temptation of Eve, I suppose. The snakes ended up with rather a bad break in that story, I’m afraid.”
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