He made a note. "Thank you, I will. You say the woods are a favourite spot for—er—copulation."
"Very much so," she said firmly. "Reggie and I used them a lot before we were married. They're particularly nice in the spring. Bluebell woods, you know. Very pretty."
He boggled at her.
"Well, well," she said calmly, "that surprises you, I see, but the young are really very ignorant about sex. People were no more able to control their desire for it in my day than they are now and, thanks to Marie Stopes, we were not unprotected." She smiled. "When you're as old as I am, young man, you'll know that where human nature is concerned, very little changes. Life, for most of us, is the pursuit of pleasure."
Well, that's true, he thought, thinking of his pint. He abandoned his inhibitions. "We've found some used condoms on the Grange Estate which ties in with what you've been saying, Mrs. Ledbetter. Apart from Emma Barnes, do you know of anyone else who might have been making love up there?"
"Precise knowledge, no. Guesses, yes. If you promise to be tactful in approaching the people concerned, I'll give you two more names."
He nodded. "I promise."
"Paddy Clarke, the landlord at the pub. He's married to a harridan who has no idea how highly sexed he is. She thinks he takes the dog for a walk after closing time while she clears up inside, but I've seen the dog running loose in the moonlight too often to believe that. I don't sleep well," she added, by way of explanation.
"And the other?"
"Eddie Staines, one of the farmhands up at Bywater Farm. A good-looking young devil, out with a different girlfriend every month. I've seen him set off up that hill a few times." She nodded in the direction of the Grange.
"That's very helpful," he said.
"Anything else?"
"Yes." He looked a little sheepish. "Have you noticed any strangers about? In the last six months, say?" This question had been greeted with universal amusement.
Mrs. Ledbetter cackled. "Twenty-five years ago I might have been able to give you a sensible answer to a question like that. Nowadays, impossible." She shrugged. "There are always strangers about, especially in the summer. Tourists, people driving through and stopping at the pub for lunch, campers from the site at East Deller. We've had a few caravans get stuck in the ditch on the corner, usually French ones, such bad drivers they are. Ask Paddy. He pulls them out with his jeep. No, I can't help you there, I'm afraid."
"Sure?" he prompted. "Someone on foot perhaps, someone you remember from years ago?"
She gave an amused snort. "David Maybury, you mean? I certainly haven't seen him in the last few months. I'd have reported that. The last time I saw David was a week before he disappeared. It was in Winchester in the days when I could still drive and I came across him in Woolworths buying a teddy bear for Jane. He was a strange character. Vile one day, charming the next, what my husband would have called a cad, the sort of man that women are invariably attracted to." She lapsed into silence for a moment. "There was the tramp, of course," she said.
"What tramp?"
"He came through the village some weeks back. Funny old man with a brown trilby hanging off the back of his head. He was singing 'Molly Malone,' I remember. Quite beautifully. Ask Paddy. I'm sure he went into the pub." Her head sank wearily against the back of her chair. "I'm tired. I can't help you any more. Show yourself out, young man, and don't forget to shut the gate." She closed her eyes.
DS Robinson rose smartly to his feet. "Thank you for giving me so much of your time, Mrs. Ledbetter." She was snoring quietly as he tiptoed out.
Inspector Walsh replaced the telephone receiver and stared thoughtfully into the middle distance. Dr. Webster had been irritatingly unhelpful. "Can't prove it is Maybury, can't prove it isn't," he had said cheerfully along the wire, "but my professional guess is it isn't."
"Why, for God's sake?"
"Too many discrepancies. I can't make a match on the hair for a kickoff, though I'm not saying that's the end of it. I've sent samples off to a friend of mine who claims to be an expert in these things but don't get your hopes up. He warned me that the sample you got off Maybury's hairbrush may have deteriorated too far. Certainly I couldn't do anything with it."
"What else?"
"Teeth. Did you notice our corpse was toothless? Not an incisor or molar in sight. Indications that he had dentures, but there were none with him. Looks like something or someone removed them. Now, Maybury on the other hand had all his teeth ten years ago and his records show they were in pretty good shape, only four fillings between them. That's a very different picture, George. He'd have to have suffered appalling gum disease to necessitate having all his teeth out within ten years."
Walsh pondered for a moment. "Let's say, for whatever reason, he wanted to lose his old identity. He could have had them taken out on purpose."
Webster chuckled good-humouredly. "Far-fetched though not impossible. But why would Ms. Maybury remove his dentures in that case, assuming she's our murderer? She, of all people, would know they couldn't identify him. To be honest, George, I'd say it's the other way round. Whoever murdered our chap in the ice house removed anything that would show he wasn't Maybury. He's had all his toes and fingertips mauled, for example, as if someone wanted to prevent us taking prints. Yet everyone at that house knows you didn't manage to lift a single workable print ten years ago."
"God damn it," exploded Walsh. "I thought I had the bastard at last. Are you sure, Jim? What about the missing fingers?"
"Well, they're certainly missing, but it looks as though they've been chopped off with a meat cleaver. I've compared them with the records of Maybury's amputations and they're nothing like. Maybury had lost the top two joints of both fingers. Our corpse has had his severed at the base of each finger."
"Doesn't prove it's not Maybury."
"I agree, but it does look as if someone who knew only that he'd lost his last two fingers has tried to make us think it's Maybury. To be honest, George, I'm not even positive at the moment that a human agency is involved. It is quite conceivable, if a little bizarre, that very sharp teeth have mutilated him in the way I've described. Take that filleting you pointed out. I've taken some close-ups of some furrows on the ribs and it's damned hard to say what they are. I can't rule out tooth marks."
"Blood group?"
"Yup, you've got a match there all right. Both O positive, just like fifty per cent of the population. And, talking of blood, you must find his clothes. There's very little in that mud we scraped off the floor."
"Great," Walsh had growled, "so what good news have you got for me?"
"I'm getting the report typed now, but I'll give you the gist. Male, white, five feet ten inches—give or take an inch on either side—both femurs have been well and truly smashed so I wouldn't be too dogmatic on that one—broad build probably running to fat, hair on chest and shoulder blades, indication of tattoo discolouration on right forearm, size eight shoe. No idea of hair colour but hair was probably dark brown before it went grey. Age, over fifty."
"Oh, for God's sake, Jim. Can't you be more precise?"
"It's not a precise science as people get older, George, and a few teeth would have helped. It's all a question of fusion between the skull plates, but somewhere between fifty and sixty is my guess at the moment. I'll come back to you when I've done some more homework."
"All right," said Walsh grudgingly. "When did he die?"
"I've taken some advice on this one. The consensus is, weighing the heat of the summer against the cool of the ice house—bearing in mind that the ambient temperature in the ice house may have been quite high if the door was open—and balancing that against the acceleration in decomposition after the scavengers had pulled him open and devoured him, plus possible mutilation by human agency but minus severe maggot infestation because the blowflies didn't lay in numbers, though I've sent some larvae off for further examination—"
"All right, all right, I didn't ask for a bloody biology lesson. How long's he b
een dead?"
"Eight to twelve weeks or two to three months, whichever you prefer."
"I don't prefer either of them. They're too vague. There's a month's difference. Which do you favour, eight or twelve?"
"Probably somewhere in the middle, but don't quote me."
"You'll be lucky," was Walsh's parting shot. He slammed the phone down crossly, then buzzed his secretary on the intercom. "Mary, love, could you get me all the details on a man who was reported missing about two months ago? Name: Daniel Thompson, address: somewhere in East Deller. I think you'll find Inspector Staley covered it. If he's free, ask him to give me five minutes, will you?"
"Sure thing," she breezed back.
His eyes strayed to the huge file on David Maybury which he'd resurrected from the archives that morning, and which, refurbished and glossy in its pristine new folder, sat now on the edge of his desk like a promise of spring. "You bastard!" said Chief Inspector Walsh.
Chapter 10
Summoned by urgent telephone calls, Jonathan Maybury and Elizabeth Goode arrived early that afternoon in Jonathan's battered red Mini. As he drove it in through the gates and past the Lodge, Elizabeth turned to him with a worried frown. "You won't tell anyone, will you?" "Tell anyone what?"
"You know perfectly well. Promise me, Jon."
He shrugged. "OK, but I think you're mad. Much better to come clean now."
"No," she said firmly. "I know what I'm doing."
He glanced out of the window at the azaleas and rhododendrons, long past their best, which hedged the length of the driveway. "I wonder if you do. From where I stand, there's very little difference between your paranoia on the subject and your mother's. You'll have to find the guts to speak out sooner or later, Lizzie."
"Don't be an idiot," she snapped.
He slowed as the wide sweep of gravel in front of the house opened up before them. Two cars were already parked there. "Plainclothes police cars," he said with grim humour, drawing the mini alongside one of them. "I hope you're ready for the thumbscrews."
"Oh, for God's sake grow up," she exploded angrily, her worry and her uncertain temper getting the better of her. "There are times when I could quite happily murder you, Jon."
"We've found a pair of shoes, sir." DC Jones placed a transparent plastic bag on the ground at Walsh's feet.
Walsh, who was sitting on a tree stump at the edge of the woodland surrounding the ice house, leaned forward to peer at the bag's contents. The shoes were good quality brown leather with irregular cloudy patches on the surface where damp had penetrated and then dried. One shoe had a brown lace, the other a black lace. Walsh turned the bag over and looked at the soles.
"Interesting," he said. "New heels with metal studs. There's hardly a mark on them. What size are they?"
"Eights, sir." Jones pointed to the shoe with the brown, lace. "You can just make it out on that one."
Walsh nodded. "Tell one of your men to go up to the house and find out what size shoes Fred Phillips and Jonathan Maybury wear, then on down to the village to see how Robinson and his chaps are getting on. If they've finished, I want them up here."
"Righto," said Jones irreverently.
Walsh stood up. "I'll be at the ice house with Sergeant McLoughlin."
DS Robinson returned to the pub as the last customers left.
"Sorry, mate," said the landlord amiably, recognising him from the pint he had bought earlier. "Too late. Can't serve you now."
Robinson proffered his identification. "DS Robinson, Mr. Clarke. I'm asking questions around the village. You're my last port of call."
Paddy Clarke leaned his elbows on the bar and chuckled. "The body at the Grange, I suppose. There's been talk of nothing else all lunchtime. Sod all I can tell you about it."
Nick Robinson perched himself on a bar stool and offered Paddy a cigarette before taking one himself. "You'd be surprised. People often know more than they think they do."
He assessed his man rapidly and decided here was another where a straightforward approach would pay. Paddy was a big, bluff man with a ready smile and a shrewd eye. But not a person to cross, Robinson thought. His hands were the size of meat plates.
'"We're interested in any strangers who may have been through Streech in the last few months, Mr. Clarke."
Paddy guffawed with laughter. "Give me a break. I get strangers in here every day, people taking the back roads down to the West Country, stopping off for a quick lunch. Can't help you there."
"Fair enough, but someone mentioned seeing an old tramp a while back, thought he may have come in here. Does that ring a bell?"
Paddy squinted through the smoke from his cigarette. "Funny. I wouldn't have remembered him myself, but now you mention it, we did have one in here, said he'd walked from Winchester. Looked like a bundle of old rags, sat in the corner over there." He nodded to a corner by the fireplace. "The wife wanted me to turn him away, but I'd no reason to. He had money and he behaved himself, made a couple of pints last through to closing time then shambled off along the Grange wall. You think he's involved?"
"Not necessarily. We're just looking for leads at the moment. When was this? Can you remember?"
The big man thought for a moment. "It was pissing down outside. Reckon he came in to dry off. The wife might remember when. I'll ask her and give you a ring if you like."
"She's not here then?"
"Gone to the Cash and Carry. She'll be back soon."
Nick Robinson checked his notebook. "I gather you also do a Good Samaritan act with stranded caravans."
"About twice a year when idiots cut the corner. It's good for business, mind. They usually feel obliged to come in and eat something." He nodded towards the window. "It's the Council's fault. They've stuck a bloody great sign for the East Deller campsite at the top of the hill. I've complained about it but nobody takes any notice."
"Anything strike you about the people you've rescued, anything unusual?"
"There was a one-legged German midget once with a wife like Raquel Welsh. That struck me as unusual."
Nick Robinson smiled as he made a note. "Nothing unusual."
"You don't have much to go on, do you?"
"That depends on you." Unconsciously, the policeman lowered his voice. "Is anyone else here?"
Paddy's eyes narrowed slightly. "No one. What are you after?"
"A confidential chat, sir, preferably with no eavesdroppers," said Robinson, eyeing the large hands.
Paddy squeezed the glowing end of his cigarette into an ashtray with fingers the size of sausages. "Go ahead." His tone was not inviting.
"The body was found in the ice house at the Grange. Do you know the ice house?"
"I know there is one. I couldn't lead you to it."
"Who told you about it?"
"Probably the same person who told me there's a two-hundred-year-old oak in the woods," said Paddy with a shrug. "Maybe I got it from David Maybury's booklet. I couldn't say."
"What booklet?"
"I've some copies somewhere. David had this idea of fleecing the tourists, wanted to turn Grange into another Stourhead. He produced a map of the grounds with a short history of the house and had a hundred or so copies printed. It was a dead duck from the word go. He wouldn't spend any money on advertising and who the hell's ever heard of Streech Grange?" Paddy gave a derogatory snort. "Stupid bastard. He was a cheapskate, always expected something for nothing."
Robinson's eyes were alight with interest. "Do you know who else has this booklet?"
"We're talking twelve to thirteen years, Sergeant. As far as I remember, David handed them out to anyone who would pass them on to tourists. Testing the water, he said. Whether anyone else's still got a copy I wouldn't know."
"Can you look yours out?"
The other man was doubtful. "Christ knows where they are, but I'll have a go. The wife might know."
"Thanks. I gather you knew Maybury quite well."
"As well as I wanted to."
"What so
rt of man was he? What was his background?"
Paddy stared thoughtfully at the ceiling, dredging up memories. "Upper-middle-class, I'd say. He was the son of an Army major who was killed during the war. I don't think David ever really knew his father but old Colonel Gallagher certainly did. I imagine that's why he let Phoebe's marriage go ahead, he thought the son would take after his father." His lips twisted into a cynical smile. "Fat chance. David was a bastard through and through. The story goes that when his mother died he had the choice of going to her funeral or going to the Derby. He chose the Derby because he had a fortune riding on the favourite."
"You didn't like him?"
Paddy accepted another cigarette. "He was a shit—the kind who enjoys putting people down—but he kept me supplied with fairly decent plonk, plus he was one of my best customers. Bought all his beer from me and drank in here most nights." He took a deep inhalation of smoke. "Nobody regretted his disappearance, except me. He left owing me over a hundred quid. I wouldn't have minded so much if I hadn't just settled my wine account with his blasted company."
"You say 'he left.' You don't think he was murdered?"
"I've no views on it. Left, murdered, same result. It doubled our trade overnight. With all the media coverage, Streech became quite famous. The ghouls dropped in here for local colour before setting off up to the hill to gawp through the Grange gates." He saw a look of distaste on the Constable's face and shrugged. "I'm a businessman. The same thing'll happen this time which is why the wife's gone to the Cash and Carry. Take my word for it, there'll be a horde of pressmen in here tonight. I pity those wretched women. They'll not be able to set foot outside their gates without being hounded."
"How well do you know them?"
Ice House Page 9