The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori

by Robert Barnard

  “They’re off to digest things,” said Oddie.

  “So are we,” said Charlie. “I hope we understand things better than they’re likely to do. We need to think where all this is taking us. In other words, what really has been going on here since the Byatts moved in?”

  “You think we should go in for a conjectural history?” Oddie asked. Charlie nodded. “All right, I’ll begin.”

  But he had to sit there for a while before he could collect his thoughts and guesses into a suitable narrative sequence.

  “Round about 1981,” Oddie began, “Ranulph Byatt found himself as an artist. It happened when he witnessed the crash which killed his daughter and her new husband, or arrived to view the wreckage. Doubtless in one part of his mind he was horrified and grief-stricken, but in another part he was excited, aroused.”

  “Could he have been unaware of the sadistic side of his nature?” Charlie asked.

  “Probably not. But he’d never allowed it to get into his art, or maybe never found a way to use it in his art. This experience showed him the way. When he moved here he threw himself into an orgy of painting that liberated that side of him, harnessed it for artistic ends. He was releasing the fascination that pain and destruction had always had for him. And those pictures made his name.”

  “And they began to get him the sort of admirers that worship unreservedly,” contributed Charlie. “What was released in him, they recognized in themselves.”

  “Yes, I think so. But unacknowledged. You notice when the disciples talk about his painting they use words like power, imagination. Never words that would really define the appeal.” Oddie paused a moment before he took up the sequence of events. “The vividness of the memories gradually faded. The productive burst was over. But he’d recognized the source of his real genius as a painter, and so had Melanie, who had always been the totally uncritical supporter and source of inspiration. He needed a fresh stimulus, and they both knew it. And by what must have seemed a stroke of fate, he found he could both satisfy his fascination for horror and justify it by presenting it to himself and her as a piece of justice. He had the idea that his son-in-law Morgan Mates, also traveling north to Ashworth, was the cause of the accident that he had already exploited so successfully.”

  “Yes—I can see how the idea originated. I’ve been through the case reports again, and checked with the Vehicle Registration Office in Cardiff. A witness said that the car that was speeding and cut in on Catriona’s car had a number plate something like CXN and the suffix Y, and it was a sports car. Someone in the police must have relayed this information to Byatt. The car didn’t stop, of course. Mates had a BMW, with the number plate CXW and the suffix Y.”

  “Rules about what could and could not be revealed to interested parties in a case were looser then,” said Oddie. “I did things in those days I shudder at now. This would have been another police force, and there would have been no reason for them to check the cars in Byatt’s own family. How long that grisly pair nursed their suspicions, we don’t know, nor whether there was any basis for them, but they took advantage of his wife being away to exact ‘justice.’ I’d guess it was poison, something like cyanide. Cyanide is a lot less instantaneous, as a rule, than it is in detective stories.”

  “Would they need help in getting it down him?”

  “That’s the crucial question, isn’t it?”

  “We can’t be sure they would,” Charlie said, after reviewing in his mind the little they knew about Martha’s husband. “They were still pretty able-bodied. Stephen was told that at Oxford his father was fond of cars and practical jokes. It could have been presented as a joke. They’d found out he’d been unfaithful to Martha. A mock trial. Sentence: forced to swallow an emetic. Pure guesswork, of course. But Byatt loved the consequences—the long-drawn-out, agonized death.”

  “Yes. We mustn’t assume an accomplice, beyond Melanie, of course, in that one.”

  “But the next one, probably a hanging. Hanging someone is not easy. They would need all the help they could get, especially as they were by now badly weakened by arthritis, and even though a botched job might be more to Byatt’s taste than a clean and quick one.”

  “One of those already here,” mused Oddie. “Not Mellors, then. If we’re right about the victim—chosen for his irreverence, and his hoboism, which made inquiries unlikely—Mellors came in for the cottage later.”

  “I don’t see Mellors as a likely executioner.”

  “If we’re right they are all possibilities, all people with sadistic undercurrents to their personalities. A man would seem to be the obvious choice.”

  “Aston says he wasn’t out until later in 1990, when the last creative burst was already in full swing, if Briscott is correct.”

  “That we can check,” said Oddie. “Chesney is the obvious possibility. I wouldn’t have thought that Charmayne Churton would be much use in carrying out a hanging.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” said Charlie. “She’s built like a tank.”

  “True. And if malevolence is a requirement, she has sufficient and to spare. What about Mrs. Max?”

  “I don’t see her as a disciple at all. She’s never shown any sign of responding to Byatt’s art. She’s here because what’s convenient to the Byatts, having a live-nearby housekeeper and cook, is also convenient to her. She seems like a simple countrywoman—sturdy, common-sensical, unimaginative. I can’t see her even understanding what’s been going on here, let alone participating.”

  “Maybe. A big maybe. That’s her surface. Then there’s the younger generation. We can rule out the Birdsell girl, can’t we? She wouldn’t have been old enough, would she?”

  “About ten at the time of the murder we’re talking about. Joe Paisley would have been about—let me think—say sixteen.”

  “Not inconceivable. A strong, capable lad, isn’t he?”

  “Very much so. And grew up here.”

  “I suppose we keep him in the frame, then,” said Oddie thoughtfully. “You said he claims to dislike and distrust the Ashworth set, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but there’s a more decisive argument against him than that. If he took part in the killing of Patrick, why didn’t he also dispose of the body? If the car had broken down for Joe, he’d have got out and fixed it and then continued on to Bingley Moor, or wherever he had decided to dispose of the body.”

  “True. There’s one thing that puzzles me about that, though. If they needed someone to get rid of Patrick’s corpse, why did Melanie and Ranulph decide on Stephen? Why not one of the disciples?”

  Charlie thought about that.

  “Well, the only ones they could really call on would be Chesney or Mellors. No one would seriously consider entrusting their safety to Charmayne Churton. And the fact that Chesney and Mellors were more reliable—safe, middle-of-the-road men, aside from their kinks—made them unsuitable. Being part of an unspoken consensus that Ranulph needed violence of some kind as a stimulus to do his best work is very different from letting yourself be involved as an accessory after the fact of a murder. I expect they discussed it, but in the end thought Stephen was a better bet.”

  “Young, weak, impressionable, fond of money. Yes, fair enough. Though they ought to have realized that if he was leaned on he would prove to be a broken reed. I suppose he was the best of a bad bunch—fit punishment for them for having collected such a bad bunch around themselves.”

  They were interrupted by the phone ringing in the hall. “Take it, Martin, will you?” called Oddie to the man on duty. A few moments later his head came around the door.

  “Lady for you, sir. One of this mob here, name of Churton.”

  “Oh, Lord. Right, I’ll take it.” Oddie stood up reluctantly, but he managed to keep his voice neutral when he got to the phone. “Oddie here.”

  “Oh, good!” came the unlovely voice. “I did want to speak to the head man, though your second in command is delightful, of course. Look, I hope you boys weren’t taken in by Mrs.
Birdsell’s claim never to have driven. Because you’re too young to remember, but let me tell you a district nurse—which is what she was, and one does wonder how she came to give it up, doesn’t one?—would have to have driven, just to get around her patch.”

  “I see. Do you know how old Mrs. Birdsell is?”

  “Oh, early fifties, I think. Mary Ann was a bit of an afterthought, or a late accident. Never heard the father mentioned. No, I’m afraid she’s not the most truthful of persons. Always rather flaunts the fact that she’s been here so long, claims to know Ranulph and Melanie better than all the rest of us—though that’s really a matter of affinity, isn’t it, rather than length of acquaintanceship?”

  “I would think you’re right. Of course, she’d use her experience as a nurse to help with Ranulph Byatt, in his condition.”

  “Oh, yes, she does! Always ready to help with her cheery smile when Mrs. Max isn’t around.”

  “Did you see her go there on the weekend Declan disappeared?”

  There was no hesitation on the other end.

  “Oh, she’d certainly have gone then. Martha was away, so Melanie would have needed someone’s help.”

  “What I asked,” Oddie said with an appearance of patience, “was whether you’d seen her going there.”

  “I certainly saw her going there one evening. I don’t remember which.”

  “Weren’t you at Cliff Richard’s show on the Saturday?”

  “Of course I was! So it must have been Sunday. Yes, I saw her go there around half past seven.”

  Only she wouldn’t really have been needed, thought Oddie, as he thanked her and put the phone down, since Patrick was there to give any necessary help.

  “Silly woman,” he said, going back into the dining room. “One just doesn’t know when she’s lying.”

  “What did she want?” asked Charlie.

  “Wanted to land Mrs. Birdsell in it by saying that, having been a district nurse, she must have been lying about never having driven. The vicious bitch doesn’t realize we’re more interested in her if she hasn’t ever driven than if she has. Rivalry for Byatt’s affections there, I’m afraid, or at least his notice, which seems the most any of them ever get. She says I’m too young to remember, which is the clumsiest bit of flattery I’ve ever attracted. My impression is that thirty years ago, especially in flat places like Essex, and in the little villages there, a district nurse was probably thought not to need a car.”

  “Easy to check, anyway, whether she’s ever had a license or not. What else did she say?”

  “Said she saw Jenny Birdsell going to the farmhouse on Sunday evening. Also said she usually helped there on weekends, and she would certainly have been needed that weekend, with Martha away.”

  “What would she be needed for, that’s the question,” said Charlie.

  “It goes against the grain,” said Oddie, “even to consider the possibility of a nurse doing what was done to that lad.”

  “Come off it,” said Charlie brutally. “Haven’t you learned anything from all those children’s homes scandals? Some people get jobs in those places because they genuinely want to help kids who’ve had a raw deal. And some are attracted to work there because they want to abuse the kids who’ve all their lives had a raw deal and are troubled or defenseless. Most nurses go into nursing because they genuinely want to alleviate pain and suffering. Others . . .”

  Oddie put his head in his hands.

  “Christ, yes, I suppose so. Gives a new slant to some of the monster matrons of yesteryear, who gave the impression they learned their trade in Auschwitz or Dachau. Though to be fair they reserved their main bestialities for the nurses rather than the patients. . . . Do you think we should have another talk with her?”

  “She didn’t mention going to the main house when we asked her what she’d done on Sunday.”

  “No, she didn’t. Hence the affectation of disorderliness and forgetfulness—in case anyone remembered seeing her. That’s something that could have made the daughter suspicious, if it was a new assumption, but she didn’t take her up on her having gone to the farm.”

  “Mary Ann was at Bible class, remember,” said Charlie. “She may have had her suspicions about that too, though, if her mother would have been expected to go there on weekends.”

  “Seems to me there’s grounds for another little chat.”

  “I suppose we’ll have more of that ‘Goodness me, how can you expect me to remember all those days ago,’” said Charlie. “Come to think of it, that doesn’t go with the rest of her personality, does it? Nor with the district nurse past. They would need to be brisk and efficient.”

  “I suppose there are district nurses and then again district nurses, same as in any other profession. By the way, the lovely Charmayne suggested we should check how she came to give it up. It’s a thought.” He looked through the window. “Hey, is that the younger generation arriving home?”

  Outside, approaching the gate, Mary Ann Birdsell, walking home, had been overtaken by a car. It had stopped, and she was speaking earnestly with the driver. Charlie walked over to the window to see better.

  “Yes, that’s Joe Paisley. Looks like it’s a serious conversation. Shall we go out?”

  “I think so.”

  They went out into the lane, and walked slowly toward the Birdsell cottage. Faces appeared in windows. Inevitably they were noticed. Every action they took in public in Ashworth was noticed. As they approached the gate of her mother’s cottage, Mary Ann came running toward them from the lane.

  “I’ll let you in,” she muttered. “I don’t know if my mother’s at home or not.” She rummaged in a little patchwork bag for the key. Turning her head toward Charlie she continued her muttering. “Go through the cottage and out the back door. Look at the thing for the birds.”

  “The what?”

  “The brass ring with the coconut inside. Mother always says she picked it up in an antique shop in Spain and has no idea what it is. Joe says I should tell you.”

  She found the key and put it in the door.

  “Come in. Oh, Mother’s here,” she said in her normal voice—clear, loud, a wayside pulpit voice.

  “Oh, dear,” Jenny said, bustling forward. “I was just making a cake. Could you make it quick, please? I thought that Ranulph might fancy—”

  As Oddie led her to the settee and Mary Ann darted upstairs, Charlie slipped out the back door. On the step he paused and looked around him. There it was—he’d noticed it from the lane on his very first visit. Attached to a pole with a little crossbar at the top, which now his mind transformed grotesquely into a gallows, was a broad brass collar, within which was suspended a quarter of coconut. Two sparrows were quarreling over the remains of white inside.

  Charlie went over to it. It was tied to the crossbar with string, and the coconut inside was suspended on more string. When you looked closely the collar was not like a dog collar, but had an element of wraparound to it, which could be tightened by a screw. It was this screw that the collar was tied to the post with, and to its lower portion the nut was tied too. The end of the screw was sharpened, and to Charlie’s gaze it seemed that the screw and its thread had recently been oiled.

  19

  THE FINAL PICTURE

  It was a day Charlie would want to put out of his mind for the rest of his life, but would never quite be able to. The end of a case often brought policemen more a sense of horror than of triumph, but this was exceptional. The first chilling spectacle was the matter-of-fact manner that Jenny Birdsell assumed when they confronted her with the evidence of the garrote. The matter, it seemed, was of no greater moment than if a packet of tea bags had found its way into her purse rather than her grocery cart.

  “Of course I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” she said, when the hideous implement had been put under her eyes. She was sitting in her easy chair, her fingers knitted together, a smile on her lips. The oiled screw brought no pity to her voice or eyes. “Nobody could who stands
outside the artistic temperament, the creative urge. All of us who know Ranulph are privileged in our understanding. We have explored the wellsprings of his inspiration—an education in itself, a true spiritual experience. When I was asked to help, of course I didn’t hesitate. The very existence of great pictures was at stake.”

  “By help,” said Oddie, “I suppose you mean you were asked to be the actual instrument of Patrick O’Hearn’s killing?”

  “Oh, not killing! Of course not!” Her round, bunlike face did show pity now, but at the crudity of his understanding. “What was to stimulate Ranulph’s inspiration was just a pantomime, a performance. Patrick wouldn’t have been an easy man to kill if he hadn’t gone along with it. He was so different from Declan! So much more sophisticated, so much more aware of the world and its ways. I believe he understood at once when they told him about . . . about Ranulph’s sexual inclinations. Didn’t shock him at all. Almost as if he understood it from inside himself. They all laughed about it, Melanie said.”

  “And it was presented to him as a sort of mock execution that he would participate in as the victim.”

  “Of course. That’s what it was,” said Jenny composedly.

  “I see,” said Oddie, keeping the doubt out of his voice. “And I suppose there was money involved?”

  “Of course. I’m not sure how much. And in the event—”

  “Yes. The event. Tell us about that.”

  She looked at them, wide-eyed, almost like any other criminal who wanted to convince them it was just bad luck.

  “Well, it was the most terrible miscalculation. I blame myself, having been a nurse—but of course so rusty now! You mustn’t hold Ranulph responsible in any way. Melanie rang me, as I said, and of course Ranulph’s tastes are no secret from me, and I said to her that naturally I’d help.”