Foul Play at Four

by Ann Purser

  “Right,” said Josie. “But how will I know him?”

  “Good question,” said Matthew. “Here, here’s a photo, but it’s an old one. Your mum had a good look at him up in Pickering, so she could help. He’s been living rough, probably, so won’t look too smart. In a hurry to get away, that kind of thing. But don’t worry, he’s not likely to come here. Now, must go. Love you,” he added with a quick peck on the cheek.

  “Love you, too,” Josie answered nervously, and returned to stand behind the safety of the counter.

  LOIS DROVE SLOWLY UP TO THE HALL, TAKING IN THE BEAUTY OF the autumn colours and the artful way the landscape enclosed the house. She reflected how wonderful it must have been for the aristocratic owners in the days when every part of the estate worked as if by clockwork, like a small, self-sufficient state, and all directed to the health, wealth and preservation of one family.

  And now Mrs. Tollervey-Jones was being turned out by circumstance. The world had changed and, Lois sometimes thought, not for the better. Her great-aunt, who had lived in the country on just such an estate, had once said to her that you felt safe with someone over you. As a child, Lois had easily seen the sense of this, but in adult life her views had changed. Equality for all. Opportunity for all. All very well, but. . .

  She parked the car in the stable yard and walked across to the kitchen door. It was locked. Ah well, Mrs. Tollervey-Jones had told her she might be out with the dog. She felt in her bag for the key, and let herself into the kitchen. At once, she looked around and saw the note on the table. As she thought, Mrs. T-J and her dog were out for a walk. She knew where they had got to in sorting out, and so went through to the study to make a start.

  The third time Lois looked at her watch, she saw that a whole hour had gone by. Mrs. Tollervey-Jones had said a short walk, hadn’t she? With the huge volume of work they had to get through, Lois was sure she would not have gone for a long ramble. She returned to the kitchen and read the note again, then went out into the stable yard and looked around. No sign of the dog, but then a short burst of barking came from the direction of the wood. It sounded as if it was well into the trees, and Lois looked down at her shoes. Not at all suitable for trudging through the undergrowth.

  She returned to the house and went into the boot room. Rows of Wellington boots stood neatly against the wall, relics of time past, when house parties had spent happy outdoor weekends at the hall. She changed into a pair roughly her size, and locking the back door behind her, she set off for the wood, calling the dog as she went.

  Perhaps it had walked into a trap, and Mrs. Tollervey-Jones was trying to free it. Heaven help the poachers if this was the case!

  IN THE CROWDED INTERIOR OF THE ICEHOUSE, THE ATMOSPHERE was stuffy and unpleasant. Gerald had lit a candle, and it guttered and flamed up, sending shadows round the three occupants who sat on the damp floor—Gerald, Bert and Mrs. Tollervey-Jones, with her skirt pulled well down over her knees. When the dog barked, Gerald struggled to his feet, but Bert pulled him down again. “She’ll go for yer legs, boy,” he said. “Best like this, until we decide what to do with ’er.”

  They had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Mrs. Tollervey-Jones to agree to say nothing, and then she would be released unharmed. She had refused indignantly, asking them if they were aware that she was a justice of the peace, and one with a reputation for dealing fairly with any accused who came up before the bench.

  “Oh yeah?” Bert had said, “I remember you, all right. You may not remember me, but I wouldn’t’ve called it fair dealing what you handed out to me!”

  Now Gerald cleared his throat and said he had a suggestion to make. “What say we tie her up so’s she can’t move, and then get outa here as fast as we can run? It’ll be some time before she’s found, and we can be well away.”

  “Good idea,” said Bert, and moved towards her. With surprising agility, Mrs. Tollervey-Jones got to her feet. “Oh no you don’t!” she said, and to Bert’s horror, she picked up her stick and drew from the handle a shining blade, which she held out in front of her, inches away from Bert’s face.

  “Where the hell did you get that sodding thing from?” said Gerald.

  “Been in my family for generations,” she said, and added conversationally that the stick was made from very strong blackthorn, and the blade kept sharp and lethal by her husband. “He always said I should keep it by me when alone in the house.”

  “It’s illegal,” said Gerald. “A concealed weapon. You could get done for that.”

  “Wrong,” said Mrs. Tollervey-Jones. “It’s illegal to take it out on the streets, but perfectly legal to keep at home. A curious antique most of the time but, as you see, occasionally useful.”

  “You’re enjoying this, ain’t you, Mrs. Tollervey-Jones,” said Bert bitterly. “Why don’t you just back out of that door and bugger off! Leave us to get away best we can, an’ then you can set the dogs on us.”

  “Dog, singular,” she replied. “Old dog, very slow on her pins now. No, I think we’ll wait here a little longer,” she added. “I think we may find a solution very soon.”

  As if on cue, the old dog outside the door barked again, a sharp anxious sound, full of alarm. Lois, following the sound, was very near the icehouse now, but because of the surrounding undergrowth, did not immediately see it. She called the dog again, and the answering bark led her through the tangled brambles to the icehouse door.

  “There you are, you silly old thing!” Lois said. “Why don’t you come on home? Your mistress is probably looking everywhere for you? There’s nothing in that old hovel, not even a rabbit. Come on, let’s go.”

  The dog did not move, but looked at her pleadingly, as if begging her to understand.

  Then Lois heard another voice, instantly recognisable. “Mrs. Meade! Open this door, please. And be careful.”

  Her warning was well meant, but in the end, when Lois pulled open the door, she was pushed violently aside by Gerald, quickly followed by Bert, both of them disappearing very fast through the wood, and so was confronted by Mrs. Tollervey-Jones, still holding what to Lois looked like a very sharp sword.

  Lois struggled to her feet, gasping with amazement. “What . . . What on earth is that? Oh, blimey, Mrs. T-J, whatever has been happening here?”

  “I have been protecting my honour, my dear,” said Mrs. Tollervey-Jones. “If you will give me a minute or two, I will make this thing safe, and then we can return to the house and start work.”

  “But the Mowlems?”

  “They won’t get far. I am sure you are keeping the police up to date with developments? Your reputation goes before you, you see. Come, shut the door tightly. I must get it seen to. Off we go, dog. Well done,” she added, and patted it approvingly on the head. “Life in the old dog yet, Mrs. Meade,” she said, and chuckled. “Dog and me, both of us,” she added cheerily.

  FIFTY

  GERALD AND BERT COULD NOT BELIEVE THEIR LUCK. GERALD had led the way to his car without much hope of escape. “And now the bloody thing won’t start!” his father had said. But after a couple of turns, the engine fired.

  “Any sign of them?” Gerald asked.

  “Nope. No sign. ’Ere, watch out for yer tyres!”

  The car bumped along as fast as Gerald dared on the rough track. But eventually they reached the tarmac lane and he put his foot down.

  “Where are we going?” Bert said.

  “Where d’you think? Part two of our plan. Go and see Clive. No point in trying to do anything else now. If they catch us, they catch us. But we stand a chance. I’m not quite sure what that Jones woman was on about, but when we told her we had to go and see my brother what was near to death, she seemed to take that in. Changed some’ow.”

  “Huh! The likes of her don’t make allowances for the likes of us. Anyhow, we’ll just keep going and see what happens.” Gerald neatly avoided a cat that ran across the road in front of him, and then suddenly stood on the brake. “Oh no! I forgot Orly! We’ll have to go b
ack!”

  “No we won’t, you soft fool,” Bert said, and put his hand in his jacket pocket. “Here it is, though why you should care about a ginger tomcat is beyond me. Now for God’s sake, let’s get going, and no more holdups.” He pulled out the protesting kitten, and stroked it until it settled on his lap.

  They continued in silence for more than an hour, and then Bert said they should stop for something to eat. “You’ll fall asleep soon,” he said, “an’ that won’t be much use to anybody. Pull in at a garage an’ we’ll get a sandwich.”

  “We got enough petrol to get there,” objected Gerald. “Why risk being spotted?”

  “You ain’t got no alternative. I’m as tired as you are. Food, that’s what we need. Then we can carry on and get there tonight.”

  BY THE TIME LOIS ARRIVED HOME, SHE WAS DESPERATE WITH worry. Mrs. Tollervey-Jones had seemed to shake off her experiences in the icehouse with no ill effects. But she had sworn Lois to secrecy, saying she had no wish to appear more of a fool than she was already. Lois had challenged this, saying she had a duty to report the Mowlems’ movements to the police. To her surprise, this had been approved, Mrs. Tollervey-Jones pointing out that the police already knew where Clive Mowlem was.

  “You’ll see, my dear,” she had assured Lois, “Inspector Cowgill will know exactly what to do.”

  Lois doubted this, but agreed reluctantly to telephone and tell him to expect Mowlem father and son at the hospital within the next twenty-four hours. “You’re taking a big risk,” she said. “They are much more likely to vanish into the woodwork again.”

  Mrs. Tollervey-Jones had ignored her, and went back to packing up her husband’s books, ready to be conveyed to London and her son, Robert.

  Now Lois sat at the supper table with Derek and Gran, pushing her food around the plate, not eating much and saying little.

  “All right, Lois,” Derek said finally. “What’s all this about? You look worried sick. Is it one of the children, an’ you’re not telling me?”

  Lois shook her head. “No, it’s something Mrs. T-J has done, and I think it was stupid and even dangerous.”

  “You’d better tell us, love,” Derek said. “Sounds serious.”

  “Could be,” said Lois, and gave them an edited version of what had happened, from the discovery of Mrs. T-J and the Mowlems in the icehouse, to the old lady’s strange attitude to giving the police all the details so that they could pick up the thugs as soon as possible. “I reckon it’ll be a miracle if them two walk straight into the arms of the police in Pickering.”

  “None s’queer as folk,” said Gran. “I always did think the old tab had a screw loose. Comes of living on your own in a great big echoing house. Nobody to talk to but yourself, Lois. That’s what does it.”

  “So have you phoned Cowgill?” asked Derek. The inspector was not his favourite person, but in this case he agreed with Lois. He should be told the whole story.

  Lois nodded. “Yep.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Just thanked me. Said the information was very useful, and he would be investigating. That’s all. I must say he didn’t sound as if the entire local police force would be rising in a body to catch the Mowlems.”

  “Well, there you are, then,” said Gran. “Nothing more you can do. Now eat up and have some of my blackberry and apple pie. Freshly made this afternoon.”

  Lois did her best, but still felt that until she had news tomorrow that both those crooks had been caught, she would not relax. She could still see Derek lying unconscious on the stable yard cobbles, with a big cosh mark on the back of his head.

  FIFTY-ONE

  GERALD SLOWED DOWN AS A PETROL STATION CAME IN SIGHT.

  “You sure about this, Dad?” he said.

  “Yes. Just trust me, boy.”

  Gerald had every reason to distrust his father, but on this occasion he could see no reason for him to be up to anything but getting them safely to see Clive. He drew in, and filled up the car with petrol. It was already half full, so it did not take long. He went quickly into the paying booth and, keeping his head down, paid with a credit card which his father had handed him. He had had a bizarre haircut in the car as they drove along, Bert giving him a close and brutal trim, and instead of feeling disguised, he felt chilly and exposed.

  Back in the car and driving away from the garage, he looked in his driving mirror.

  “Dad, do you reckon we’re being followed? There’s a dark-coloured car behind us, difficult to see with the light going, but I could swear it was behind us before we stopped.”

  Bert twisted round and stared out of the back window. “Can’t really see, but it’s possible, if the old woman got on to the police. D’you want to do a detour, and then we’ll know?”

  Gerald said nothing for a moment or two, then shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “We’ll just keep going. They’ll be there waiting for us anyway. That Meade woman is a snout. Her and Cowgill are close as a couple o’ turtledoves, so they say. No, our aim now is to get to Clive before, well, before . . .” He choked, and said nothing more.

  Bert looked across at him and gave him time to recover. “All right now, boy?”

  Gerald nodded. “Here’s yer sandwich,” he said.

  The ate in silence for a while, then Bert cleared his throat. “What happened between you and our Clive, then? Why was he up there in a deserted farmhouse, all by himself? I thought your mum told you to look after him?”

  Gerald had been expecting and dreading these questions from his father. The truth was that he had panicked after he’d knocked old Harry for six, and then, when he had thought some more at that old chapel shed, he knew that the two of them would be a much easier target that one on his own. So yes, he had deserted his younger brother in a determined effort to look after number one. But he couldn’t tell Bert that.

  Instead, he told him that he had meant to go back for Clive after he had sorted out things back at home, but it hadn’t worked out. “Don’t think I don’t feel guilty!” he said honestly. “If I’d been with him, we’d never have let that ruddy bull loose. Funny, really. It were a lazy old sod of a bull, never turned a hair if you went close. Something must’ve upset it.”

  “Did you feed it?” asked Bert, who in the dim distant past had had a holiday with a group of wayward boys on a farm, where being in close contact with Mother Nature was supposed to have turned them away from a life of crime. All he remembered was that he had been assigned the job of feeding the animals. Horses, cows, the old bull, chickens, ducks and geese. Every morning, rain or shine, he had trudged round with buckets of this and that. And all of ’em desperate for their food, as if they hadn’t been fed for weeks.

  “I never did. Harry wouldn’t let anyone else do it. So probably Clive didn’t either.”

  “There you are then,” said Bert. “There’s one answer. And here’s another question. What happened to Farmer Harry? And by the way, was he the one who was after your mother while I was banged up? If it was, he had it coming to him.”

  For Gerald, this was like a ray of sunshine on a dark day. Of course! Here was his way out. He had always been good at making up stories. Used to invent them to amuse Clive when he was little. Now he set his imagination to work. Harry had been after his mother, and was taunting him with having a father in jail, so much so that he had lost his temper.

  “Yeah, it was him,” he repeated. “Used to go on about getting Mum to divorce you whilst you were inside, and then he’d marry her and carry her off to Yorkshire. We happened on his farm when we were driving round doing a bit o’ business in Pickering, and stayed a few days there. I thought I could sort him out, stop him bothering Mum. But he was an awkward old sod, and wouldn’t give up. Taunted me and Clive rotten, he did.”

  “So what snuffed him out? I presume that’s what happened to him. The reason why Clive was alone with a hungry bull in the farmyard?”

  “It was an accident, really,” said Gerald, managing to sound humble. “Harry
went out with his gun after we’d had a row, an’ he’d forgot to take his old waterproof coat. It started to pour down, an’ I ran after him. When he saw me coming, he lifted the gun and pointed it straight at me. I told him to put it down, but he just went on walking towards me. He was really close, an’ I knew I had to do something. I just shoved him round so’s I could get the gun, and he tripped and fell back. Hit his head on a bit o’ rock. There’s loads of it out on the moor. I ran back to phone for an ambulance, but those women got to him first and called for help on their mobile.

  “I ’ope you’re telling me the truth,” Bert said doubtfully. “If you are, mind, it don’t sound like you’ll be in too much trouble. Provocation, most likely. Anyway, what happened next?”

  “Is there another sandwich?”

  “Here, it’s the last. So what next?”

  “I reckoned Clive and me had better scarper. We got all our stuff together so there was no trace of us being there. Then we left.”

  “That bloke’s still on our tail,” Bert said as they stopped at traffic lights.

  “Yeah, he will be,” said Gerald. “I’ll tell you the rest later. I got to concentrate now. This is the tricky bit.”

  “MATTHEW’S HAD TO GO BACK UP TO YORKSHIRE,” JOSIE SAID, appearing at the Meades’ kitchen door. “Can I come to supper, Mum?”

  “Course you can,” said Gran. “You’ll have to get used to him going off like that when you’re married. Not an easy job, you know, and sometimes very dangerous.”

  “Well, thanks a lot, Gran. That fills me with confidence!”