Six Feet Under

by Dorothy Simpson

  The vicar’s reaction was interesting. He was clearly astounded and a faint colour crept up into his cheeks. His voice, however, was level enough as he said, “Are you suggesting that there is some kind of attachment between them?”

  “I had heard something of that kind, yes.”

  Ennerby gave a little laugh. “Absolute nonsense, I can assure you, Inspector.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Quite, quite sure. You can take my word for it. I can’t imagine who …”

  “It doesn’t really matter,” Thanet said. “So long as you’re certain. And I don’t think the person concerned is going to spread the rumour any further, so …”

  “I do hope not. If there had been any truth in it I would have heard, I’m sure of it. It is a sad fact that people are always only too anxious to let me know if one of the church members is suspected of backsliding.”

  “Fine,” said Thanet. “I’m quite happy to accept that. Now, while I’m here … I understand that there was a PCC meeting here last night. Could you let me have a list of those who attended it?”

  “By all means.” Ennerby rose, left the room and came back a few moments later with a sheet of paper. “Here you are. This is a complete list of PCC members, so I’ve crossed out the names of those who weren’t able to attend the meeting last night.”

  Thanet glanced at it. Selby’s name was there, he noted, duly crossed out.

  “Thank you,” he said, rising.

  “I must confess,” Ennerby said, opening the door and leading the way into the hall, “I’m at a complete loss to imagine who on earth could have wished to kill an inoffensive person like Miss Birch.”

  “You knew her well?”

  “Not well, no. She wasn’t a church-goer. But she’s always been about and I’d occasionally see her in the church on the evening she cleaned it, have a little chat with her, you know …”

  “The evening she cleaned it, did you say?” Thanet stopped with his hand on the front door jamb.

  “Yes. She always came on Tuesdays.”

  “Only on Tuesdays?” Thanet wanted to be quite sure.

  “Yes, why?”

  “I had been given to understand,” Thanet said carefully, “that she cleaned the church on two evenings a week.”

  “At one time she did,” Ennerby said. “But about, let me see, three years ago we had to have an economy drive and we cut it down to one.”

  Interesting, Thanet thought as he headed once more for the Gambles’ house. Mrs Birch had been very positive about it. What could Carrie have been up to on Thursday evenings, if she had not been innocently engaged in scrubbing the church floor?

  Whatever it was, she obviously hadn’t wanted her mother to know about it.

  8

  Thanet’s knock at the door of number three was answered by a girl of about twenty. Her jeans and baggy mohair sweater suited her rather gamine good looks—neat features, pointed chin and shining cap of short, dark hair.

  She led the way into a sitting room which was all warmth, colour and noise; a gas fire was heating the room to suffocation point, a bright green carpet patterned in yellow fought with an orange three-piece suite and the television was turned up several decibels too high for comfort. There were two other people in the room, a plump middle-aged woman toasting her toes in front of the fire and a good-looking young man a little older than the girl who had answered the door.

  “The Inspector, Mum.” The girl had to shout to make herself heard above the noise of the television.

  “Eh?” The woman turned a puzzled, tired face towards Thanet.

  “About … you know,” said the girl. “Her. Miss Birch.”

  Comprehension flooded into the woman’s face and at once she began to struggle to her feet. “Chris, turn that thing off, for goodness sake,” she said to the young man, flapping her hand at the television set. “We can hardly hear ourselves think. Take a seat, Inspector, do.”

  Welsh, decided Thanet. And now, looking at her more carefully, he could see the Celtic strain: small stature, sallow skin, dark hair and eyes, all reproduced in her daughter. The son, though, was of a different type; stocky, yes, but with much lighter hair and hazel eyes. Took after his father, no doubt. Thanet was not concerned that Gamble was not here. Lineham had checked with the factory this afternoon and had been satisfied that last night Gamble had been working right through the period during which Carrie had met her death.

  “A terrible thing,” went on Mrs Gamble. “Terrible. I could hardly believe my ears when I heard about it.”

  “When was that?”

  “On the bus. On the way home from work. Full of it, they were. Strangled, they said, and in her own back garden.”

  Although they lived next door to the Birches, the Gambles knew very little about the tragedy, Thanet realised. Mrs Gamble and her son had already left for work when the alarm was raised, Mr Gamble had slept right through the commotion and even Jenny Gamble, who had gone to Mrs Birch’s aid, was unaware of the details of what had happened later; as soon as she had handed over responsibility to Marion Pitman she had had to leave for work.

  “It wasn’t quite like that,” he said. “You can’t believe all you hear, in a case like this.” And then, because the details would become public soon enough and these people, after all, had as much right as anyone to know the facts, living next door to the victim as they did, he went on, “As a matter of fact someone hit her on the head and then hid the body in the outside privy of number two.”

  “Duw,” breathed Mrs Gamble. “D’you hear that Jen, Chris? There’s terrible.”

  She was genuinely shocked, no doubt about that, Thanet thought.

  “What time did it happen?” she said.

  He told her.

  “Between half past nine and eleven,” repeated Mrs Gamble. “But … but we was here, wasn’t we, Jen? And to think that right next door …” She shuddered and reached for her daughter’s hand.

  “You were in, you say. All of you?”

  “Well my hubby was at work, of course. He left about a quarter to eight. He’s on the night shift, you see. And Chris was out, at the pictures. What time did you go, Chris?”

  “Caught the quarter to seven,” said her son, speaking for the first time.

  “And you came back …?” asked Thanet.

  “On the twenty-five to ten.”

  “Rather early, surely, if you’d been to the cinema?”

  “No choice, is there?” Chris Gamble scowled. “Twenty-five to ten’s the last bus out from Sturrenden, unless you want to walk.” It was obviously a sore point.

  “He’s saving up for a car,” said Mrs Gamble fondly. “They’re looking out for one for him, at the garage.”

  “The garage?”

  “Where he works. He’s a mechanic, aren’t you, love? But he doesn’t want any old rubbish, do you? He’s waiting till he sees a really good bargain.”

  “Oh mum,” growled the boy, looking embarrassed. “The Inspector don’t want to hear about cars.”

  “I’d have thought a lad like you would’ve got himself a motor bike,” said Thanet.

  “That’s his dad,” said Mrs Gamble quickly, as the boy opened his mouth to speak. “Don’t hold with them. Dangerous things, they are.”

  “Still …” said Thanet. Boys of twenty-one didn’t usually refrain from doing things they wanted to do just because their fathers didn’t approve.

  “Didn’t have much choice, did I?” said Chris bitterly. “Not if I wanted to go on living at home. And how much would I have had left from me pay packet, if I’d had to pay for digs?”

  Thanet saw that he had unwittingly touched on a longstanding bone of contention. “Anyway,” he said hurriedly, before Chris and his mother launched into a full-scale argument, “you say you caught the twenty-five to ten home last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What time does it get into Nettleton?”

  “Between ten and five to ten.”

  �
�Good,” said Thanet. “Now look, Chris, the murder was, as I said, committed between nine thirty and eleven last night, so it’s just possible you might have seen or heard something useful. Could you think back very carefully and tell me exactly who you saw and what you heard on the way back from the bus stop—where is it, by the way?”

  “Opposite the post office,” said Mrs Gamble. “You all right, Chris?”

  He ignored her. Thanet doubted that he had even heard her. His eyes had glazed and he was frowning a little in concentration. They all watched him expectantly.

  “It’s no good,” he said. “I just can’t remember.”

  “Start from further back,” suggested Thanet. “Were there many other Nettleton people on the bus?”

  “A few.”

  “Anyone else from this end of the village?”

  Chris hesitated and his sister, who was sitting on the arm of Mrs Gamble’s chair, stirred uneasily.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “But you’re not sure?” Thanet was convinced that Chris was lying. But why?

  “I told you, I’m not sure.” But he avoided Thanet’s eye.

  Mrs Gamble opened her mouth, then closed it again as Thanet looked at her expectantly.

  “But if there were only a few Nettleton people on the bus,” Thanet said, “surely you can remember whether or not any of them were from this end of the village?”

  “I wasn’t really paying much attention,” mumbled Chris.

  Thanet decided not to press the point any further at the moment. Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to get hold of the boy’s mother or sister at a time when he was not there. By the look of it, they both knew what he was holding back. Whatever it was, Thanet had a feeling that it was irrelevant to his enquiry—or at least, that all three Gambles considered it to be so.

  “Did you see anyone on the way home?”

  Chris considered. “There was several cars parked in front of the church,” he volunteered.

  “Did you recognise any of them?”

  “Mr Waley’s Rover three thousand five hundred, Mr Martin’s new Range Rover, Mrs Dobson’s Mini, Mr Parson’s old Cortina … I think that’s the lot.”

  Predictably, Thanet thought with resignation, a young mechanic would notice cars rather than people.

  “There was a PCC meeting at the vicarage,” he said. “Did you see any of the people coming out?”

  Chris shook his head. “There was lights on in the vicarage, I noticed. But I didn’t see nobody.”

  “Which way do you come in, front or back?”

  “Back in the day, front at night. Back door’s locked at night and I got a front door key of me own.”

  Pity, Thanet thought. “Now think very carefully. As you passed the entrance to the footpath last night, did you see or hear anything, anything at all?”

  It was obvious that all three members of the family were aware of the importance of this question. Chris frowned fiercely, his mother clamped her teeth over her lower lip and watched him tensely and his sister raised her free hand to her mouth and began to gnaw at the quick of her first finger.

  “I dunno,” he said at last. He ran one hand through his hair. “I’ve just got this feeling there was something, but …”

  His audience of three watched him with total concentration. Suddenly he snapped his fingers, making them all jump.

  “Got it!” he said. “It was Miss Cox from number five, calling her cat.”

  The sense of anticlimax in the room was almost tangible.

  “You saw her?” Thanet asked.

  Chris shook his head. “Heard her, that’s all. Must’ve been in her back garden.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  Thanet switched his attention. “What about you, Mrs Gamble? And Jenny?”

  The two women looked at each other, but there was no complicity in the glance they exchanged.

  “In all evening, wasn’t we, Mum?” said Jenny, entering into the conversation for the first time.

  “Had the telly on, I’m afraid,” said Mrs Gamble.

  “The entire evening?”

  They nodded in unison, like two clockwork dolls.

  “Good film on,” said Jenny.

  “Oldie,” said her mother. “For Whom The Bell Tolls. Didn’t finish till eleven. Chris watched it too, after he come in.”

  “Neither of you went upstairs for any reason, looked out of the window?” Stupid question anyway, Thanet thought. It had been pitch dark at the relevant time.

  “Toilet’s downstairs,” said Mrs Gamble primly.

  “Well, thank you,” Thanet said. “I think that’s about it, for the moment. No need for me to tell you to be careful about locking up.…”

  The television blared behind him as he stepped out into the night. The church bells were silent now but only temporarily; before Thanet reached the road they began to ring again.

  Who else, from this end of the village, had been on that bus, Thanet wondered, and why should Chris Gamble wish to protect him—or her, of course? Thanet’s pace faltered as a possible answer came to him. The Selby girl! Mrs Selby had said that her daughter had spent the evening in Sturrenden with a school friend and had arrived home just before ten. So, unless she had used her mother’s car—assuming that Mrs Selby had one, and that her daughter could drive—she must have come home on the same bus as Chris Gamble. And if so, Chris’s lie aroused interesting possibilities. Suppose that he and the Selby girl were going out together … a man of Major Selby’s position and status might well not approve.

  Thanet clicked his tongue in exasperation. That was the trouble with police work. People lied, evaded, prevaricated for the most irrelevant of reasons, afraid, presumably, that their little secrets would be made public. The problem was, trying to sort out which lies or evasions were relevant and which were not—always a frustrating waste of time.

  The light from the little street lamp in front of the Pitmans’ house did not penetrate the dense shrubbery which fronted the Selbys’ garden and the first section of the curving drive was very dark. Ahead, however, was some kind of illumination and when he rounded the bend Thanet could see that a lamp outside the front door had been switched on, perhaps in expectation of his visit. The door opened almost at once in answer to his knock.

  “Inspector …?”

  “Thanet. That’s right. Miss Selby?”

  She nodded, stepping back. “Come in.”

  A real honey of a girl, this one, thought Thanet: tall and slim, her unconscious elegance lifting her outfit of tight jeans and ruffled blouse into the eye-catching class. Her colouring was pure English Rose—fair complexion, eyes the colour of a summer sky, long, silky blonde hair.

  “This way,” she said. “Daddy’s expecting you.”

  Major Selby was planted squarely in front of the hearth in the drawing room with his hands clasped behind his back, feet slightly apart. Behind him, a cheerful fire crackled. He was shorter than Thanet and of slender build, but he gave the impression of a whip-cord strength. He was expensively dressed in a well-cut tweed suit of lovat green, tattersal check shirt and shoes which shone like ripe chestnuts. Perhaps the poster had made him look more aggressive than he really was. Certainly his greeting was affable enough.

  “Ah, Inspector …?”

  “Thanet.”

  “Inspector Thanet. Of course, of course. Sit down, won’t you?”

  The two men shook hands and Thanet complied, irritated to find, however, that Selby did not follow suit but returned to his original position in front of the fire, thereby giving himself a slight psychological advantage.

  “Drink, Inspector? It would have to be something soft, I’m afraid. We’re teetotal. Or we could offer you coffee, or tea …?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  Selby’s daughter had been hovering at the door and he now gave her a dismissive nod.

  “Just one moment, Miss Selby, if you don’t mind,” said Thanet quickly.
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  She hesitated, clearly torn between responding to Thanet’s request and obeying her father’s unspoken command. Selby was frowning.

  “I don’t see …” he began.

  “I understand Miss Selby came home on the twenty-five to ten bus from Sturrenden last night,” said Thanet.

  “So I believe,” said Selby. “But quite what …”

  Thanet sighed inwardly. Clearly he was going to have to fight for any scraps of information she could give him. “Please, Major,” he said politely, and turned to the girl.

  She hesitated a moment and then, as her father did not intervene, said, “That’s right, yes.”

  Thanet had already decided not to risk compromising her in front of her father. If she and young Chris Gamble had indeed been out together the previous evening, it was none of his affair. So he merely said, “Could you tell me, do you think, whether or not you saw or heard anything suspicious on the way home from the bus stop? Particularly in the region of Church Cottages?”

  He thought he detected a flicker of relief in her eyes before she replied, “I’ve already thought about that. Mummy thought you’d want to know. And no, I’m afraid I didn’t. There were some cars parked in front of the church, that’s all.”

  “PCC last night,” said Major Selby testily. “And now, if you’ve finished with Susan … She has some prep to do, I believe.”

  Thanet had no choice but to let her go. Privately, however, he made a resolution to try and catch her on her own. She looked a bright, intelligent girl but it was pointless to try to get her to talk freely with her father present. He turned his full attention to the man before him.

  The Major seemed to relax a little now that his daughter had left. He turned, picked up the poker and prodded the fire into a brighter glow.

  “Mrs Selby well?” Thanet surprised himself by saying. He had no intention of putting questions to a man’s back, but even so.… Unwittingly, he seemed to have touched some kind of tender spot. Unmistakably the Major’s hand hesitated and his back stiffened slightly before he stooped to replace the poker.