Inspector Colbeck's Casebook

by Edward Marston

  ‘That’s what puzzles me, Inspector. It was locked overnight.’

  ‘Is it conceivable that any of the keys went missing?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Odell, firmly. ‘The other warden and I are extremely careful with our keys and Simon Gillard is so dutiful that I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes his to bed with him. How two people got inside the church is a mystery. Only one, alas, came out alive.’

  After plying the vicar with some more questions, the detectives asked the policeman to let them into the church. He stood aside so that they could open the door. Some of those lingering nearby edged forward to take a peek but Colbeck shut the door firmly behind him. The atmosphere inside the church was eerie. It was quite warm outside but both of them shivered involuntarily. Consecrated ground had been violated by a foul murder. There was a strange sense of unease. They walked down the nave and into the chancel to view the body. Though both of them had seen many murder victims, they were shocked. Colbeck was also curious.

  ‘What does it remind you of, Victor?’ he asked.

  ‘That man in Norwich, sir,’ said Leeming. ‘He’d been battered to death with a sledgehammer. His head was just like pulp.’

  ‘Look at the way the body has been arranged in front of the altar.’

  ‘That’s just the way he fell.’

  ‘I don’t think so. There’s something almost … artistic about it.’

  Leeming frowned. ‘Is there?’

  ‘It’s reminiscent of those medieval paintings that depict the slaughter of Thomas Becket. He was hacked down in front of the altar by four knights who thought they were doing the king’s bidding.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like that to me, sir. And if what they say is true, he’s certainly no saint like Becket. Exton was a real sinner.’

  ‘Then we could be looking at the punishment for his sins.’

  Colbeck knelt down to examine the corpse. Around the mouth were traces of vomit. He searched the man’s pockets but they were empty. He then gently pulled back the sleeves of Exton’s jacket.

  Leeming was perplexed. ‘What are you looking for, Inspector?’

  ‘Something I expected to find,’ said Colbeck, ‘and you can still see traces of the marks on his wrists. As we’ve heard, Exton abhorred churches. He’d never have come in here and stood obligingly in front of the altar so that someone could bludgeon him to death. I think that he was knocked unconscious elsewhere, tied up and gagged, then brought here to be killed.’

  ‘Then we’re looking for a strong man, sir. Exton was heavy.’

  ‘Let’s get him out of here,’ said Colbeck, standing up. ‘He’s defiling the church. Tell the vicar to summon the undertaker and ask that constable to frighten the crowd away. We don’t want an audience when we move him. However much of a rascal he was, Exton is entitled to some dignity.’

  Simon Gillard was propped up in his armchair with bandaging around his head. Still shocked by the ghastly discovery in the church, he was in a complete daze. When his wife admitted Colbeck to the house and took him into the parlour, her husband was staring blankly in front of him.

  ‘This is Inspector Colbeck from Scotland Yard,’ she explained. ‘He needs to talk to you, Simon.’ There was no response. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector,’ she went on. ‘He’s been like this for hours.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ said Colbeck. ‘Perhaps you can help me instead.’

  ‘It was my husband who found the body.’

  ‘Does he enjoy being a warden?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘he loves it. Since he retired, the church has taken over his life – both our lives, in fact. I’m one of the cleaners and I organise the flower rota.’

  Winifred Gillard was a short, roly-poly woman with grey hair framing an oval face that still had traces of her youthful appeal. She talked fondly of her husband’s commitment to the church since his retirement from the railway, and she spoke with great respect of the vicar.

  ‘Does your husband ever lend the key to the church to anybody?’

  ‘Only to me,’ she replied. ‘Simon guards his bunch of keys like the family jewels – not that we have any, mind you. When he first became warden, he used to sleep with them under his pillow.’

  Colbeck smiled inwardly. The vicar’s earlier comment had some truth in it.

  ‘So nobody else would have access to the keys?’

  ‘Nobody,’ she insisted, ‘nobody at all.’

  Victor Leeming was asking the same question of the other warden, Adam Revill, an emaciated man in his sixties with a few tufts of hair on a balding head. He was patently unwell and sat in a chair with a blanket around his shoulders. Every so often, he had a fit of coughing.

  ‘No, Sergeant,’ he asserted. ‘I never lend the key to the church to anybody. If I’m not using it, it stays on a hook in the kitchen. Maria will tell you the same.’

  ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘Uncle Adam takes his duties seriously. It grieves him that he’s been unable to carry them out for a while. The doctor told him to stay indoors and rest.’

  ‘I’d be lost without Maria,’ said Revill, giving her arm an affectionate squeeze. ‘She’s been a godsend. Since my wife died, I’ve had to fend for myself. The moment I was taken ill, Maria began popping in to look after me.’

  ‘I only live four doors away,’ she said.

  Maria Vine was an attractive woman in her thirties with a soft voice and a kind smile. Fond of her uncle, she wanted no thanks for keeping an eye on him.

  ‘I take it that you both knew Claude Exton,’ said Leeming.

  ‘Yes, we did,’ replied Revill, curling a lip. ‘We knew and disliked him.’

  ‘That’s not entirely true,’ said his niece.

  ‘He was a good-for-nothing, Maria.’

  ‘I know – and he was a nuisance to everybody. But he wasn’t that bad when his wife was alive.’ She turned to Leeming. ‘She was killed in a railway accident, Sergeant. It preyed on Mr Exton. That’s when he took to drink.’

  ‘He seems to have had a lot of enemies,’ observed Leeming.

  ‘I’m one of them,’ said Revill.

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t hate him enough to kill him, sir. And even if you did, you’d hardly do it inside a church.’

  ‘That’s true, Sergeant. A church is sacred.’

  ‘I feel sorry for Mr Gillard,’ said Maria. ‘He actually found the body.’

  ‘Yes,’ croaked Revill, ‘I pity Simon. But don’t ask me to shed any tears for Claude Exton. He’s gone and I’m glad.’

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ chided Maria. ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead.’

  The rebuke set Revill off into a fit of coughing that went on for a full minute. Leeming waited patiently. Maria was embarrassed on her uncle’s behalf.

  ‘I’ll make a cup of tea,’ she announced. ‘Would you like one, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Leeming.

  As soon as she went out of the room, Revill stopped coughing. He crooked a finger to beckon Leeming closer.

  ‘Don’t listen to Maria,’ he said. ‘She always tries to think the best of people.’

  ‘That’s a good attitude to take, sir.’

  ‘What she told you about Exton’s wife is not true. It may have looked like an accident but we know the truth.’ He lowered his voice. ‘She committed suicide.’

  When they met up outside the church, the detectives were pleased to see that the body had been removed, the crowd had vanished and the door was locked. As a result of their interviews, both had acquired the names of people with a particular reason to detest Claude Exton. They compared their notes.

  ‘Let’s start with the people who appear on both lists,’ suggested Colbeck.

  ‘The man that Mr Revill kept on about was George Huxtable. He and Exton came to blows once,’ said Leeming. ‘Exton was bothering Mrs Huxtable.’

  ‘She wasn’t the only woman who caught his eye.’

  ‘He seems to have been a menace.’

 
‘What would you do if someone made a nuisance of himself to Estelle?’

  ‘Oh, I can tell you that,’ said Leeming, forcefully. ‘I’d have a quiet word with him and, if that didn’t work, I’d punch some sense into him.’

  ‘That might render you liable to arrest.’

  ‘I wouldn’t care, sir. Whatever it took, I’d protect my wife.’

  ‘And I’d do the same for my wife,’ said Colbeck. ‘Yet neither of us would go to the lengths of killing the person inside a church. The very idea would revolt us.’

  ‘It didn’t revolt the man who murdered Exton.’

  ‘How can you be sure it was a man, Victor?’

  ‘No woman would be able to carry his weight, sir.’

  ‘Two women might,’ argued Colbeck. ‘And one woman might move him on her own if she used a wheelbarrow. I’m not claiming that that’s what happened. I just think we should keep an open mind. A woman would have been capable of luring Exton into a position where he was off guard. No man could do that.’

  ‘Could any woman hate him enough to smash his head open?’

  ‘Why don’t you put that question to Mrs Huxtable?’

  ‘What will you be doing, sir?’

  ‘I’ll be talking to Harry Blacker. He’s the gravedigger.’

  Anthony Vine more or less carried him up the narrow staircase. Revill protested but he knew that they were right. He was better off in bed where he could drift in and out of sleep. Maria was waiting in the bedroom to help her husband lift the older man into position. She plumped the pillows to make him comfortable and drew the bedclothes over him. After stifling a cough, Revill managed a smile of gratitude.

  ‘You’re both Good Samaritans – you really are.’

  ‘We’re family,’ said Vine, ‘and this is what families do for each other.’

  ‘But it’s so much trouble for you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Uncle Adam,’ said Maria. ‘It’s no trouble at all. I haven’t forgotten how good Aunt Rachel was to me when I was ill as a child. You used to come with her sometimes and tell me those wonderful ghost stories.’

  ‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ said Vine with a grin. ‘I didn’t know that he enjoyed scaring the daylights out of my wife.’

  ‘I was only six at the time, Anthony,’ she reminded him.

  ‘All that I heard at that age were Bible stories.’

  A few years older than his wife, Vine was a wiry individual of middle height with conventional good looks. Six days a week, he worked in the standard garb of a fireman but he now wore his suit. There was no sign of the routine dirt he picked up during his time on the footplate.

  ‘I still think it could be George Huxtable,’ whispered Revill.

  ‘Speak up, Uncle Adam,’ said Maria.

  ‘He and Exton were always snarling at each other.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean George killed him,’ reasoned Vine. ‘And if he did, he’d be more likely to dump him in the river than leave him in a church. George Huxtable only ever came near the church at Easter and Christmas.’

  ‘He and his wife are not the only ones,’ said Revill, darkly. ‘We have too many occasional Christians in Wolverton.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that now,’ said Maria, moving to the door. ‘We’re off now, Uncle Adam. One of us will pop in from time to time to see if you need anything. Anthony will bring you something to read, if you like.’

  ‘The only thing I read on the Sabbath is a Bible. And I still say it was George Huxtable,’ he added. ‘I’ve seen it coming for months.’

  As soon as he laid eyes on the man, Victor Leeming could see that he’d have no trouble carrying a body over his shoulder. George Huxtable was a hulking man in his forties with a pair of angry eyes staring out of an unprepossessing face. His wife, May, by contrast, was a dainty woman with a fading prettiness. Side by side, they were an incongruous couple. When the sergeant introduced himself, Huxtable dismissed his wife with a flick of the hand and she fled to the kitchen.

  ‘I know why you’ve come,’ he said, arms folded. ‘People have been talking. Well, you’re wasting your time, Sergeant. I didn’t kill that bastard. Somebody got there before me.’

  ‘Show some respect, sir. The man is dead.’

  ‘It’s the best news I’ve had in years.’

  ‘You spent the night here, presumably,’ said Leeming.

  ‘Yes, I did. I worked the late shift at the factory,’ explained Huxtable. ‘While everyone else was back home for the evening, I was putting rivets into a locomotive that came in for repair.’

  ‘What time did the shift finish?’

  ‘At ten o’clock last night. I came straight here. My wife will tell you that I got back here around twenty past ten.’

  ‘Did your journey home take you anywhere near the church?’

  ‘No, it didn’t.’

  ‘I can always check your departure time at the factory.’

  ‘Please do. The foreman stands over us. I have to work until the last second.’

  ‘We have a superintendent like that,’ said Leeming, ruefully. ‘He keeps our noses to the grindstone.’ He looked Huxtable up and down. ‘Mr Exton must have been a fool.’

  ‘He was a fool, a liar, a drunk and a pest to women.’

  ‘I’d have thought that the last woman he’d pester was your wife. He must have known you wouldn’t take kindly to it.’

  ‘When I heard that he’d been following May around, I wanted to tear his head off. My wife begged me not to touch him but I gave him a black eye just to let him know who he was dealing with. He didn’t bother May after that.’

  Leeming thought of the submissive little creature that had scurried off to the kitchen. Colbeck had suggested that he ask her if a woman could hate a man enough to kill him. The question was redundant. She was clearly incapable of violence. As for burning hatred, Huxtable had enough for the two of them.

  ‘Do you have any idea who did commit the murder?’ asked Leeming.

  ‘A lot of people come to mind.’

  ‘Would the name of Harry Blacker be among them?’

  Huxtable smirked. ‘He’d be top of the list,’ he said. ‘The surprise is that he battered Exton to death in a church. Harry would have preferred to bury him alive.’

  Leeming was not convinced of his innocence. There was no point in asking the wife to confirm the time of her husband’s return on the previous day. May Huxtable was so afraid of him that she’d say anything he told her to say. As he left the room, Leeming glanced through the open door of the kitchen. The woman was bent over a washboard, scrubbing away as hard as she could at what looked like Huxtable’s working clothes. Two questions sprang into Leeming’s mind. Why was she doing that on the day of rest and what was she so anxious to wash away?

  ‘Where were you last night?’

  ‘Where were you, Inspector?’

  ‘I’ll ask the questions, Mr Blacker.’

  ‘Then the answer is that I can’t remember.’

  ‘Why is that?’ asked Colbeck.

  ‘I’d drunk too much.’

  Harry Blacker was fishing in the river when Colbeck finally ran him to earth. He was a scrawny man in his sixties with a craggy face and an almost toothless mouth. When Colbeck asked him about the murder, the gravedigger claimed that it was the first time he’d heard of the crime. Putting his head back, he chortled merrily.

  ‘Now there’s one grave I’ll really enjoy digging,’ he said.

  ‘You and Mr Exton were not exactly bosom friends, were you?’

  ‘I despised him, Inspector.’

  ‘Did he harass Mrs Blacker?’

  ‘There’s no Mrs Blacker to harass,’ said the gravedigger with another chortle. ‘Who’d marry an ugly devil like me? Besides, I like my own company. And I’d much rather catch fish all day than be chased around from breakfast to supper time by a sharp-tongued harridan. There’s plenty of women like that in Wolverton.’

  ‘I’ll have to take your word for it,’ said Colbec
k, recoiling from the man’s bad breath. ‘What did you and Mr Exton fall out over?’

  ‘What else but the churchyard?’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s mine, Inspector,’ said Blacker with vehemence. ‘I’ve dug every grave in that place and I’ll dig a lot more before it’s my turn to be buried in the ground. Exton had the nerve to sleep there when I wasn’t looking. I caught him one night and poured a bucket of water over him. That kept him away for weeks but I knew he’d be back eventually. People like him never give up.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I got into the habit of going past there every night to make sure he wasn’t using my territory as his bedroom. When he did show up,’ said Blacker, bitterly, ‘he did something so disgusting that I wanted to kill him on the spot. Since he had his trousers down, I smacked him across his bare arse with the flat of my spade.’ He let out a cruel laugh. ‘He wouldn’t have been able to sit down for a week.’

  Victor Leeming had a long wait outside the church and it gave him time to construct his theory about the crime. When an apologetic Colbeck turned up at last, Leeming had the solution worked out in his mind.

  ‘We must treat George Huxtable as a prime suspect, sir.’

  ‘Why is that, Victor?’

  ‘He’s a big, embittered man with a grudge against Exton. Huxtable worked until late at the factory last night. I believe that he could have overpowered Exton, left him bound and gagged somewhere, then slipped out in the night and taken him to the church to murder him. It was the wife who gave me the clue,’ said Leeming. ‘She was frantically scrubbing his working clothes. Estelle would never do anything like that on a Sunday. Mrs Huxtable is under her husband’s thumb. If he ordered her to get rid of bloodstains, she’d do it without question.’

  ‘Did you actually see any bloodstains?’

  ‘No, but it’s a strong possibility they were there.’

  ‘Only if he actually committed the murder,’ said Colbeck, ‘and to do that, he’d need a key to the church. Where did he get it from?’

  Leeming’s certainty faltered. ‘I’m not sure about that, sir.’