by Ann Granger
Markby hissed and frowned. The annoying thing was that the revolting youth had put his finger on a significant point. Harriet had indeed gone down ‘like a sack of spuds’. He had seen her fall with his own eyes but he doubted any other witness would have disagreed with the description. Even Tom Fearon, who ought to know how good a rider Harriet had been if anyone did, had said wonderingly and without the slightest intention of double-entendre, ‘Harriet had a first-class seat. I didn’t expect to see her coming out the side door like that.’
So why had she? Just bad luck? Or was it in some way connected with her pallor and unsteadiness remarked upon by Dr Pringle?
‘Did you,’ Markby asked patiently for about the third or fourth time, ‘intend to make her fall?’
‘No, of course not!’
‘Was your action pure stupidity—’ He saw Simon’s eyes gleam with hatred at him. ‘– stupidity, as I say, or did you act hoping to make her fall off?’
‘Oh great,’ said Simon sarcastically. ‘Either I agree with you that I’m thick – which I’m not, incidentally. Or I say, yes, Chief Inspector—’ His voice took on a mincing mimicking tone. Markby hoped it wasn’t intended to imitate him. ‘I intended her to fall, and if I said that, where would it leave me? Facing a murder charge, I suppose.’
Markby tapped his fingers on the table top and hissed with exasperation. It was impossible to tell whether this youth was very shrewd or rather simple.
The law recognises degrees of homicide other than murder and is observed with some nicety on the matter of recklessness or assault with intent to cause bodily harm. The element of ‘mens rea’ – that is to say, what was actually in the accused’s mind at the time of the assault – is of utmost importance. Pardy had certainly behaved recklessly as the law understood that term. If Pardy had stood in the middle of an empty field shouting and waving his placard, he would have committed no offence. If he had done so because he genuinely believed himself to be alone and was unaware that a mounted rider was behind a clump of trees nearby, though the horse as a result took fright, he might still plead that his action was not reckless.
But Pardy had known he was in a crowded place and that animals were involved which might very well react with panic at his action. Yet he had gone ahead. Reckless, certainly. But had he intended to make Harriet fall? Had he been bearing a grudge against her since the previous Friday when she had pushed him against the door of Woolworth’s? Had he singled her out or had she simply been the unfortunate rider nearest to him? Had Pardy, in a nutshell, just been carried away and thoughtless – which might result in a lesser charge – or had he set out to harm Harriet with such deadly results that this might even finish up as a trial for manslaughter?
I’m not a barrister, Markby thought, nor judge nor jury. But he was the first step on the path to those persons and he had to get this right! If he didn’t, some clever lawyer would get the boy off on a technicality. On the other hand, perhaps the youth was just plain stupid and hadn’t realised what would happen when he started waving that placard about. People could be amazingly stupid. Further enquiry into Pardy’s activities might well hold the clue to the truth. Markby set out on a different line of approach.
‘Ever send any letters to members of the hunting fraternity?’
‘Send them letters? Valentines, I suppose?’ Simon jibed in his sarcastic way. But he looked startled for the moment. He had not been expecting the change in subject. He had his answer to questions about the events of that morning but he had not prepared an answer to any others. He gave Markby a look of pure dislike, rooted, the chief inspector suspected, in anger at having been out-manoeuvred.
‘Don’t try and be clever,’ Markby told him, hanging determinedly on to his patience. ‘It’s not a laughing matter and no time to make jokes. Nor are you in any position to make them. Have you, at any time, sent threatening letters to members of the Bamford Hunt or people connected with it? To Mr Fearon who runs the livery stables at Pook’s Common, for example?’
‘No, I didn’t!’ said Simon defiantly. ‘And you can’t say I did or prove anything.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Markby saw Pearce, taking notes in the background, shift in his chair. ‘Fearon kept his letter and we have it here,’ Markby said.
‘So? Going to compare handwriting, are you?’ Pardy sneered insolently.
‘Supposing I said, yes? What would you say?’
‘I’d say you couldn’t do it!’ Pardy returned triumphantly.
‘Oh?’ Markby’s voice was deceptively pleasant. ‘Why?’
But Simon had belatedly realised the trap into which he had already put a toe – and drew back. ‘I dunno. What I meant was, you couldn’t prove it was my writing because I didn’t write it.’
‘Indeed?’ Pardy was right and he couldn’t prove handwriting, because the letter had been formed of scraps of newsprint in the classic way. A tabloid paper. Pardy had almost admitted that he knew that – but had stopped just short and wouldn’t be fooled into such a damning admission now.
‘Where did you spend Christmas Eve?’ Markby asked.
‘At home mostly. Went down the pub first for a drink.’
‘Anyone see you there? Which pub?’
‘Bunch of Grapes. Several people saw me there. My mates – Micky was there and Trace and Cheryl – I share the house with them. And the landlord will remember me. Miserable old bastard that he is.’
‘What time did you leave?’
‘Dunno, half ten-ish.’
‘And went –?’
‘Home!’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes!’
‘Any one at home to witness your return?’
‘No! I told you, Trace and Cheryl and Micky were all down the pub. I left them there. Cheryl was pissed.’
‘Were you – drunk?’
‘No, I was not drunk!’
Markby abandoned this tack. It would lead nowhere. If Simon had gone to the stables and let out the horses, it would be difficult to prove it. Christmas Eve is a time of flux, like New Year’s Eve. The youthful population ebbed and surged like a floodtide in and out of public houses and discos. Invariably some of them were drunk, others high on some weed, some too randy to notice anything but the opposite sex, and the remainder were too self-absorbed to notice anything.
‘All right, let’s go back to the events in the Market Square. Or rather, let’s go back to the Friday before that. Last Friday. You were in Bamford, collecting signatures for a petition.’
‘Yes, I was!’ Simon looked surprised, displeased and wary by turn. ‘Who told you?’
‘Police foot patrol saw you and half of Bamford. You approached Miss Harriet Needham, the deceased lady.’
‘Did I? I don’t remember. I asked a lot of people. Is that her name?’
‘You approached Miss Needham,’ repeated Markby evenly, ‘whether or not you knew at the time that was her name, and you asked her to sign. She spoke brusquely to you and pushed you back against the door of Woolworth’s.’
‘Oy!’ burst out Simon, aggrieved. ‘Who says that? Load of cobblers!’
Markby kept his gaze steady.
‘A very reliable witness.’
‘Yeah? Well your reliable witness can—’
‘Did you speak to Miss Needham?’ Markby almost shouted before Simon could finish. ‘And as she walked away from you, did you utter the words, “Wait until Boxing Day” or any words similar to that?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Yes, you do. You were angry. You had some cause to be. She pushed you. She made you look a bit of a fool in front of anyone else who was watching. Didn’t it make you angry? Wouldn’t you have liked to get your own back?’
Simon ran a tongue across his dry lips. ‘I want a solicitor.’
‘Oh, why?’
‘Because it’s my right, that’s why. I want my solicitor. I’m not saying another word until he gets here and you lot can certainly forget any idea that I’ll sign anything.�
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‘So, what’s his name?’ Markby asked, nodding at Pearce.
A gleam of malice shone in the detainee’s eye. ‘Colin Deanes,’ said Simon and had the satisfaction of seeing the chief inspector momentarily struck dumb.
It was later that evening that Simon Pardy, released from custody for the time being with a stern warning not to leave the town, went home. This was a terraced house in Jubilee Road, a street of run-down Edwardian villas. Number forty-three where he lived with three other youngsters was more dilapidated than most. It had no inside lavatory. No matter the weather, one had to go out to a privy next to a coalshed in the backyard. The stonework around the bay windows was crumbling and the upper front bay had developed a distinct list. All the brickwork needed repointing and the paintwork was faded and peeled. In the state it was, the landlord would have had difficulty in finding respectable tenants and was happy to let it out – at a fairly stiff rent – to youngsters.
Simon lived here as a result of a chance meeting with Mick Leary in a pub. He had been looking for a place to live. Micky and the two girls were looking for a fourth person – someone having just moved out and on. They needed four to make the rent affordable. Simon had moved in at once.
Micky worked locally as a storeman; the two girls, Tracy and Cheryl, as supermarket assistants. When not working the girls dressed alike in black tight pants, black leather jackets and black suede boots. They had spiky black-dyed hair and ears drilled full of holes to take a forest of earrings. Both were short, dumpy and energetic and, seeing them scurry together down the street in their black garb, they looked like a pair of hunting spiders. Simon was not interested in them or in girls generally. Nor was he interested in young men. He was not, basically, interested in people at all. He had always been a loner, even at school. He had early become addicted to radical causes but latterly had settled on those related to animals. Yet curiously enough, he was not particularly interested in animals for their own sake, either. A couple of cats hung around number forty-three, but they avoided Simon – who in any case never fed them. Mick made a fuss of them and the girls brought home tins of catfood from the supermarket for them. On the whole, the cats did quite well out of number forty-three. But they did so without Simon, the animal champion.
One cat, a sinewy black and white, crouched on the crumbling brick wall in the lee of next door’s straggly privet hedge as Simon strode, greatcoat flapping, through the gap where a gate should have been. The other, a tabby of more enterprising character, lurked in the porch hopefully. Simon let himself in and shut the door before the cat by his feet could squeeze in after him.
Voices could be heard from the kitchen – the only room in the house which had any heating and so the one where they all assembled. Simon made his way over the cracked linoleum on the hall floor and pushed the door open.
The other three were seated round the rickety kitchen table, its surface covered with empty coffee mugs, lager and Coca-Cola cans and an overflowing ashtray. Their heads were close together and as he appeared they all looked up in unison with startled faces and fell silent. It was obvious they had been talking about him.
Simon didn’t care whether they had or not. Recently he had begun to suspect they would like him to leave and, if they could have been sure of finding a substitute fourth, would have asked him to do so. But he was used to people not liking him or his company and so took their attitude as expected. He had not the slightest intention of going. He went over to the kettle and filled it.
‘How did you get on with the filth?’ Micky asked. ‘We heard all about it down the pub.’
‘All right.’
‘She’s dead, that’s right?’ Cheryl asked, her mouth remaining half-open when she finished speaking. ‘Everyone was saying she was dead.’
‘Yes.’
‘What, an’ they let you go?’ demanded Tracy, the more aggressive of the two. She shook her crest of rusty-black spikes and blinked eyes rimmed with thick black circles like a nautch dancer’s.
‘You bet they did,’ snarled Simon. ‘I got Colin on to them.’
‘What, Deanes?’ Tracy sounded sceptical.
‘Yes, Deanes!’ Simon turned to glower at her. ‘He sorted them out quick enough!’
‘Him?’ Her scepticism increased. ‘He couldn’t sort himself out of a paper bag!’
They were all startled by his reaction. Simon launched himself towards the table and crashed both clenched fists down on its surface, making it rock dangerously and all the mugs and cans rattle.
‘Don’t you say anything against Colin! He knows what he’s doing! He tells the sodding establishment where to get off! He’s the best bloke I know and if there were a few more like him, we’d have a decent society in this country – instead of the crap we’ve got!’
There was a silence, then Micky said peaceably, ‘All right, keep your hair on. Good job you could call him up.’
Simon looked from one to the other of them. Cheryl ran the tip of her tongue round her parted lips. Tracy blinked her kohl-rimmed eyes rapidly.
‘All right?’ he demanded truculently.
‘All right!’ they chorused obediently in reply.
Simon pushed himself away from the table and went back to the hissing kettle to make his coffee. They could not see the glow of triumph in his eyes. His heart danced with pleasure in his chest and all the fear he had experienced at the station turned to joy. They were afraid of him. They were afraid he’d turn violent and do one of them some actual physical harm. They had never feared him before. They had despised him, tolerating him for his share of the rent. But now the Needham woman had died and they were afraid of him. There would be no more hinting now that they would like him to leave. They’d like him to go, all right, but were too scared now to ask it of him. From now on he could do and say what he liked – they wouldn’t raise a squeak.
Simon poured hot water into his mug, his lean face creasing into an unattractive, self-congratulating smile as he began to consider the perks of power.
Five
Markby drew up before Rose Cottage and switched off his engine. He got out but before going to knock at the door, crossed the road and stood for a moment contemplating Ivy Cottage. It was Friday morning, following the accident. They had traced a relative of Miss Needham’s already, a Miss Frances Needham-Burrell. Bit of a mouthful, that, thought Markby. She was also, it appeared, Harriet’s executor in the matter of her will and was making arrangements to come to Bamford immediately. He had not spoken to Miss Needham-Burrell himself and had no idea how old she was. Probably a stringy old battleaxe in tweeds.
Harriet’s solicitors were Duckett & Simpson, one of Bamford’s three legal firms. Mr Theo Simpson, the senior partner, personally handled Miss Needham’s affairs. Mr Simpson it was who, hearing of the accident in the Market Square, had telephoned Markby to confirm what had happened and to inform him that he, Mr Simpson, would be getting in touch with Miss Needham-Burrell. Markby thanked him for his prompt intervention and help. He had dealt with Mr Simpson on several occasions. The solicitor was a scrupulously correct elderly man with no sense of humour and a dislike of being hurried, although he’d moved quickly enough this time. His devotion to his clients’ interests was outstanding. So much so that on several occasions when obliged to contact him on police matters, Markby had found him positively obstructive. This time poor old Simpson had been caught off-balance by events and had sounded distinctly agitated on the telephone.
‘Old Theo?’ Laura had said once, when he grumbled to her about Mr Simpson. ‘He’s a bit stuffy, I suppose, but he’s very sound on his law. Wish I knew a tenth as much.’
Markby found himself wondering now of what, apart from Ivy Cottage, Miss Needham’s estate consisted. As for Ivy Cottage, it was attractive, old-world, in a good state of repair and with a nice little garden behind it. It was guaranteed to make any estate agent’s eye light up, even with the current slump in the property market. He realised that asking Mr Simpson about the will without a c
ourt order would be a waste of time. He’d tried, in a roundabout fashion, on the telephone to get some information as to Harriet’s means of support, pointing out that there might be others who should be informed of the tragic event. The most Mr Simpson would concede – with the greatest reluctance and sounding scandalised at the impropriety of the question – was that his late client had been in receipt of a private income from a family trust. What level of income this had been, he did not feel he could reveal. It was, he said testily, sufficient. Which same meant, thought Markby, that he was saying Harriet wasn’t a kept woman.
So Harriet hadn’t worked at a regular job. She had done a little freelance journalism for such magazines as Horse and Hound, The Field and Country Life. For this information he was indebted to Jack Pringle. Harriet was also, he had been surprised to learn this time from Laura, the author of a saga entitled Briony Rides at the Horse of the Year Show. It was aimed at a readership of little girls at Pony Club age but also attracted those who didn’t own a pony but just felt passionately about horses – a stage little English girls are prone to go through and some never grow out of. His niece, Emma, was apparently entering such a stage and owned a signed copy of Briony Rides at the Horse of the Year Show.
‘It was jolly nice of Harriet,’ Laura said. ‘Emma saw her in Bamford and asked her if she could send her the book to sign and Harriet said yes, of course. So Emma sent it over to Pook’s Common and Harriet sent it back with a very nice inscription and a signed photo of herself on her horse. Emma’s got it framed in her bedroom. This accident is a rotten business.’
However, this remarkable literary work – even given an army of fans as keen as his niece – would not have brought in very much income, nor would the journalism, and it was to be assumed the trust provided the rest.
What he was also wondering was whether Harriet had received any letters of the kind received by Tom Fearon and if so, whether she had kept them? But he had little reason yet to ask for a search warrant and Mr Simpson would go purple in the face and throw every legal book in his considerable library at him if he so much as tried. But it would be worth making contact with Miss Frances Needham-Burrell when she arrived and asking her – when sorting out her cousin’s effects – to keep an eye open for letters with a threatening or abusive content.