The Graveyard Position

by Robert Barnard

  Charlie got out of his car and looked up at the house. Brick and stonedash, with the odd painted beam providing a timid nod to the distant past. The gate from the street was open, and he went through the little apron of front garden to the olive-green painted door. He was about to press the bell when he heard a voice from upstairs.

  “If you aren’t well enough to go to school, you certainly aren’t well enough to go swimming or skating. You can stay in bed till lunchtime, and then we’ll see if you’re well enough to come with me to the shops.”

  Charlie had had a vivid thumbnail sketch of Caroline Chaunteley from Merlyn, and the voice he heard didn’t correspond with it. As he pressed the doorbell he heard a door shut inside, then steps coming rapidly down the stairs.

  “Caroline Chaunteley?” he said to the face at the door.

  “Yes. But I never buy—”

  “And I never sell. You’re very wise. It’s always rubbish if it’s sold at the door, and if it isn’t it’s something you don’t want. But I’m not selling anything, as I say. I’m a police officer.”

  “Oh! I don’t see why you—”

  “Do you think I could come in?” Charlie asked, smiling his most innocent and beguiling grin. “It’s about your cousin Merlyn Docherty, and it’s a little bit private.”

  “Oh yes, then,” Caroline began, and then turned into the hall. “He’s such a nice man, and I don’t see why…”

  “Don’t see why what?” asked Charlie, following her through into the lounge.

  “Everyone has been so beastly to him. Well, not…”

  “Not everyone? Who, then, mainly?”

  “Well, Rosalind. And Emily. They’re one of my cousins and one of my aunts. And my mother hasn’t been particularly nice. She seems nice, but—”

  “Not nice, really?”

  “Horrid, sometimes. Oh, I shouldn’t—”

  Charlie held up his hand, as if he were directing traffic.

  “I hope you’ll be quite open with me, and tell me honestly what you think or feel. Will you do that? This could be a case of murder.”

  “Murder! Surely—”

  “A young man died after he went joyriding in Mr. Docherty’s car. It had been tampered with.”

  “But wasn’t it an old car? I mean, brakes on old cars—”

  “Tampered with. Not worn down, but deliberately made a danger to the driver. No one could have known that the car would be taken by joyriders. So the question arises: Why would anyone want to kill your cousin Merlyn?”

  “I can’t think of anyone.”

  “You just mentioned several people who had been beastly to him.”

  Caroline’s eyes widened.

  “Yes, but I mean beastly. It’s just words, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not—”

  “Murder. No, beastly is not murder.” They were sitting down now, Charlie in a large comfortable chair beside the empty grate, Caroline on the farthest cushion of the sofa. Charlie bent forward.

  “Mrs. Chaunteley, I heard you just now talking to your child—daughter, is it? I have a daughter, much younger—not yet at school. I heard you, and you can talk to your child in proper sentences, forcefully, sensibly. I think you could talk to me like that if you tried, and if you could it would give me a much better idea of what you know. I think you do know something, and something important too. Why don’t you close your eyes and imagine that I’m a child—an intelligent child who wants answers to his questions, and thinks you have some of them. Could you try that?”

  “I—I don’t know. I could try.”

  “So, close them…Now, tell me how this habit of not finishing sentences, leaving people to guess your meaning, came about. Did it start when you were a child?”

  She swallowed, thought, and then gave a coherent, finished answer.

  “Yes. It sort of grew, but I knew what I was doing. My parents loved each other, but didn’t much care for me. I think I was an encumbrance, or if not that at least an irrelevance. Quite young I realized that they, and particularly my mother, had decided that I was stupid. And I found that, with that view of me, they often said things in front of me that they shouldn’t—and wouldn’t—have, if they’d thought me quick and bright.”

  “So it suited you to confirm them in this impression?”

  She left a pause, as if wondering whether to strip off one more garment, then said, “Yes.”

  “Because you liked hearing things that they thought would pass completely over your head?”

  “Yes.” She was keeping her eyes tightly closed, and sometimes screwing up her face. “And often they did. Pass over my head, I mean. But I would remember those puzzling remarks later on—sometimes years later—and then they would make sense, because by then I’d gained the knowledge of the world that could explain them.”

  “What sort of things did you learn?”

  “I learned that I was not a wanted child, at least as far as my mother was concerned. My father had insisted that I was not to be aborted. He was a widower, and his previous marriage was childless, and he didn’t want another the same. But he was always extra-attentive to my mother, to show her she had not been replaced by me in his affections. To me he was loving, but only when we were alone.”

  “That must have been hurtful.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “I want to turn now to the time when your Grandfather Cantelo died. Do you remember?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Why do you say that so confidently?”

  There was quite a long silence. Since her eyes were still closed it was as if she were asleep.

  “Because Grandfather’s death was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened to me. I mean, really the most extraordinary thing I ever overheard.”

  “You overheard a lot?”

  A secretive smile spread over her face.

  “I always enjoyed listening, though if it was just Mother and Father there wasn’t much of interest, and they never talked about me. But this was different—for a start because there were so many people there.”

  “A sort of party? Or a conference? Tell me about it.”

  “I was told in advance that there were a lot of people coming to the house—that was a couple of hours before they arrived, though in fact it must have been organized days in advance. I think they didn’t want to arouse my curiosity. I was told to go to bed early. I was twelve, well past the age of being sent to bed, or so I thought, but I didn’t make a fuss. It was convenient that they thought I was a little mouse who always did as she was told. My room looked out over the front of the house, so I saw everyone arrive.”

  “And who was that?”

  “Aunt Emily and her husband, Uncle Hugh and Auntie Joan, Uncle Paul on his own, Auntie Edie, Malachi and Francis’s mother, and Merlyn’s father.”

  “Merlyn’s father? Jake Docherty?”

  “Yes. He was the only one I didn’t know at all.”

  “How did you know it was him, then?”

  “Because they called him Jake later. I’ll tell you.”

  “Go on, then.”

  “Well, I left it a long time before I went down. I was sure Aunt Clarissa would be coming, and perhaps Uncle Gerald too, though I knew nobody in the family wanted to have much to do with him, and I thought Auntie Edie was there instead. But I felt sure Aunt Clarissa would come, because it seemed to be some kind of family council, some crisis meeting or peace conference. But she didn’t come, so eventually I went down.”

  “Where were they meeting?”

  “In the dining room. Nice long table for them to sit around. There was a wardrobe in the hall just beside the door, but I couldn’t hide in it because it was September, and a lot of people had coats on when they arrived, which were put in there. I didn’t want to be found among the coats and scarves, so I just stood by the door into the dining room and hoped I’d be able to scuttle into the kitchen if any of them got up to go. The floor in the dining room was parquet, so if someone just got up to go to the toilet I woul
d be able to hear quite well.”

  “You’d got it all worked out, hadn’t you?”

  “Oh, I had. Father sometimes had ‘good, long talks’ with his better-off patients in the dining room. I used to listen to those if mother was out of the way. That’s where I first learned what venereal disease was.”

  “You went in for self-education, I can see that.”

  Caroline giggled. She was now very relaxed, and had opened her eyes.

  “Anyway, when I got down to the hall and had taken up position, they were discussing Clarissa. ‘Clarissa is out of it,’ I heard my father say. ‘That’s beyond question.’ There were one or two mutters of agreement, but then Uncle Hugh came in: ‘I don’t see why. Her interests are threatened as much as any of our interests.’ But Auntie Edie came in at that point: ‘She’d be the first to be suspected—inheriting the house, and having nursed and suffered all his rages and awfulness all this time.’ Then Uncle Hugh came back: ‘But if we do go in for some kind of ballot, we could fix it so that it’s not her. Then we could make sure she was somewhere she could be vouched for. That way she’d be inside the tent pissing out, not outside pissing in.’ Aunt Emily said: ‘Don’t be crude, Hugh.’ And he just muttered: ‘We’d have less to fear—that’s the main thing.’”

  “So they talked of some kind of ballot, did they?” asked Charlie. “You’re sure?”

  “Quite sure. It’s not something anyone would forget! It was bizarre. Anyway, my father asked: ‘When did you last talk to Clarissa, Hugh?’ ‘Good Lord, I’ve no idea. I haven’t really talked to her for years.’ ‘Then I can assure you,’ my father said, ‘that there is no way—no way—that she would go along with this. If we broached it to her she would go straight along to the police and spill the beans. End of plan. End of discussion. We have to set a time when she’s fully occupied anyway, and get plenty of outside witnesses, not just family. That’s the only way to make sure that she’s out of it altogether.’”

  “Interesting,” said Charlie.

  “Then they started talking about how ‘it’ was to be done. They never used any specific word for what it was. My father said the best way was probably a pillow covered with polythene. He said ‘it’—the method—was quite difficult to spot at the best of times, and the polythene made it still more so. ‘Not that the doctor will be looking all that closely,’ he said, and there was a nervous little laugh from somebody. It made my blood run cold. No name had been mentioned, you see, for the victim. For a moment I thought they might be talking about me! It must have been a case of the unloved child, feeling everyone could have dispensed with their existence. I think I even started across the hall in terror. Then I remembered how they’d talked about Aunt Clarissa inheriting and having nursed him. There was only one person Aunt Clarissa could inherit from. So I crept back, knowing they were planning to kill Grandfather.”

  “It must have been terrifying for you,” said Charlie.

  “Relief more like!” Caroline said, giggling. “Well, I suppose it was terrifying as well, to know I had a family full of potential murderers. But when I knew it was Grandfather Cantelo, I don’t think I felt shocked or anything. I didn’t like Grandfather, I didn’t like going to visit him, and I didn’t like the way he talked to me, or touched me. I only went to Congreve Street when I knew Clarissa would be there as well. I think she thought I was stupid, as everyone else does, but she was always kind.”

  “So you went back and listened at the door?”

  “Yes, for a while. They were back on to Clarissa. They thought they couldn’t just rely on her going to whatever she had on, on the night ‘it’ was going to be done. Someone had to go with her. It was Aunt Edie who volunteered. I didn’t really know the voice, because everyone avoided Gerald Cantelo, but hers was the only woman’s voice I wasn’t certain of. She said she would not have the strength or the courage to do it, but this way she could play her part. Clarissa knew she was interested in the spiritualist case, and she’d like to go along to one of her séances. That was agreed, and Edie said she’d drive her there. Clarissa always felt that driving herself to a session dissipated her spiritual energies just when she needed them most. What a lot of nonsense it all was! So Edie said she felt sure Clarissa would accept the offer of a lift, and once she was at the séance or meeting or whatever it was, she would phone my mother, who would ring round to all the others in the group. That was when I realized,” she added, looking straight at Charlie.

  “What did you realize?”

  “That no one was to know who had drawn the straw that marked them out as the murderer. My mother would have to ring round all of them to tell them that Clarissa was out of the way, and only that way could she be sure of speaking to the one who was going to do the job.”

  Charlie thought hard.

  “It makes sense. Then none of them—or only one of them—could break under questioning. No one would know who actually did it except the one who did.”

  “Though of course they didn’t expect questioning. In their minds it was just a remote possibility that needed to be faced up to.”

  “Though someone like your uncle Paul, who seems to have been consumed with rage at being cuckolded by his own father, would have presented a danger. Anyone not in full control would.”

  “That could apply to Merlyn’s dad as well.”

  “They really were relying rather heavily on your father pulling it off. He was your grandfather’s doctor, and he could get an easygoing colleague to countersign, and that would be the end of it. As it turned out that was the end of it.”

  “Ye-e-es.”

  Charlie noted the hesitation, but ignored it for the moment.

  “So what happened then?”

  “They started to talk about the next meeting, and the drawing of straws. I nearly slipped away, but it became clear that a row was developing, so I stayed a bit longer. There was the question of who would prepare the draw that was to select the murderer (they never used that word, of course). People seemed to think that my father was a good idea—he being a doctor seemed to put him above suspicion, and also he was only a member of the family by marriage, which seemed to Emily and others to be an advantage as well. Then I heard a voice I didn’t know well—it must have been Jake Docherty—say: ‘He may be a doctor, but he’s also an amateur conjurer. I’ve been at a kids’ party where he’s done all kinds of tricks. Good ones they were too. He’s got his part in this business, and an important part, and it should be left at that. We’ve got to have someone who isn’t going to be suspected of fiddling the ballot.”

  “Good heavens,” said Charlie. “What a collection of people! I get the impression of a group that were disunited even as they were planning a joint action.”

  “That’s right. There was no way of uniting the Cantelos.”

  “Was he right about your father as a conjurer?”

  “Oh yes. Some of the happiest days of my childhood were spent watching my dad do his tricks. He was only an amateur, of course, but a brilliant one. I sometimes thought he only wanted a child so he would have a resident audience.”

  “So who was finally picked to prepare the draw?”

  “They rejected my mother, and finally they picked Paul. “Does that satisfy you, Jake?’ they asked, and he grunted a reply. So that was all agreed, they arranged a date for the next meeting—about ten days away, at Emily’s—and a provisional date for when ‘it’ was to be done—about three weeks away. They agreed that Paul would arrange eight identical slips of paper, one of which would have an X on it. At the meeting at Emily’s they would inspect the slips, fold them, put them in a bag, then each would draw one out. They wouldn’t open them—they would simply go away and have no more contact with one another till after the death, and even then nothing would be said about what had been decided and what had happened. Simple! Easy-peasy!”

  Charlie thought long and hard.

  “Simple maybe. But you were uncertain a minute or two ago when I said your father would sign the de
ath certificate and that would be the end of it.”

  “Well, yes, a bit. He did sign the death certificate, but…well, I don’t think things went as he expected.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Ten days after that meeting at ours there was the meeting at Aunt Emily’s—my father and mother went there, and made no secret of where they were going. I knew that another ten days or so after that, Grandfather was scheduled to die. No one had any contact with any of the others, so the only way I might have learned the actual date was by overhearing a discussion between my parents about it. I never did. I don’t think they talked about it, because they didn’t need to. They knew, and kept quiet about it, even among themselves. But I did feel that I knew by signs—looks, tensions, nerviness—when it was getting near.”

  “So how did you know when it happened?”

  “I’m coming to that. I knew when they knew. We were at dinner one evening when the cook came in—she came and cooked dinner for five evenings a week, and the other evenings were grim—and she whispered in my father’s ear. I heard the words ‘Mr. Merlyn Cantelo,’ and my father burst out: ‘But that’s—’ with an expression of total surprise on his face. That’s when I knew things hadn’t gone as expected.”

  “So what happened then?”

  “He realized at once that his reaction was wrong. Grandfather had been ill for three or four months. No one, let alone a doctor, could be surprised at his death, even though there’d been a lot of talk about his getting better. Father looked at Mary, the cook, but she was too dim to register that something was not quite right. He should have looked at me. He got up and went round the table to my mother. ‘Marigold,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid your father—’ and she dabbed at her eyes and said, ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ and Father said, ‘Yes. I must go to Congreve Street.’ Then he left the house, Mother went up to their bedroom, and when Mary cleared away the plates she said, ‘It’s been a terrible shock for your mum and dad, hasn’t it?’ and I just said, ‘I suppose so.’ It had been a shock up to a point.”

  “Did you ever find out what had gone wrong?”