A Season for Murder

by Ann Granger

  ‘I’ve run into a bit of a problem with that.’ Fran bundled up expensive silk and lace lingerie and stuffed it all efficiently into a Harrods plastic bag. ‘I thought I’d like to have Harry buried in the churchyard at Westerfield. She enjoyed living in the area and that’s the nearest I can get. But it seems it was decided ages ago to discontinue burials there and it’s been grassed flat. They’ve advised me to bury her at Oxford. I don’t see why I can’t bury her where she would have wanted, least I can do! I was fond of Harry, we were very close as kids.’

  ‘What about her original home – before she moved here?’

  ‘No point, no family left up there.’ Fran paused. ‘Harry would have liked to be buried here and I’m going to raise a ruckus until I get permission. What’s the use of a churchyard you can’t bury anyone in? I’ll get on to the Diocesan office, county council, Lambeth Palace if I have to. You watch me!’ She gave a determined nod and Meredith fully believed that the assembled synod of the Church of England would quail before Miss Needham-Burrell in full cry.

  Together they lugged plastic sacks of Harriet’s clothes down the narrow stair and out into the lane to pack them in the Range Rover. As they returned indoors, Fran said, ‘I’ll let you know about the funeral – write your phone number down for me.’

  ‘Right – oh, I haven’t got a bit of paper.’

  ‘Try the desk.’

  Fran ran back upstairs and Meredith, stifling her excitement at the unexpectedly helpful turn of events, opened up Harriet’s Victorian roll-top desk.

  Harriet had been untidy in paperwork matters but that too might prove to be a blessing. The desk’s capacious pigeon-holes were stuffed with all kinds of correspondence. Meredith pulled out a writing pad and opened it. A loose sheet fell out, partly scrawled across. Curiously she spread it out.

  ‘. . . plaster-saint you’ve got another think coming. You’re a dirty two-faced liar and—’

  There was no more. Evidently the passage was part of a draft. Harriet had reworded it – either to make it milder or stronger – at least, Meredith supposed this to be Harriet’s handwriting. A quick hunt amongst other papers confirmed that it was. But it did not reveal any similar scraps. Meredith sat with it in her hand, thoughtful. This was, by any standard, a turn up for the books. When talking of abusive mail, Alan had meant letters to Harriet – not from Harriet. Meredith glanced guiltily over her shoulder. Handing this over to Fran might not be a good idea. Alan would certainly like to see it, even if he later excluded it from any investigation. But Fran might not like her cousin’s private letters of this nature to be bandied about. Fran’s footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs. A decision had to be made quickly.

  Meredith folded the scrap of paper and pushed it into her anorak pocket. Hastily she scrawled the phone number of Rose Cottage on the next blank sheet and handed it to Fran as she came in.

  ‘Enough for one day, I think,’ Fran said with a sigh. ‘I’ve got to go into Bamford and call on old Simpson, anyway.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘Not here – I’ve taken a room in Bamford at The Crossed Keys.’ Fran put Meredith’s phone number away in her shoulder-bag. ‘I’ll call you when I’m coming out here again.’

  ‘So what do you think?’ asked Meredith impatiently.

  ‘I think if Theo Simpson finds out we – you – abstracted this piece of paper from Harriet’s desk, we’re in trouble. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Whom was this intended for, do you think? You’re a woman. Whom would you write to like this?’

  ‘I don’t know! I don’t think I’d’ve ever written to anyone like that. I can’t imagine – unless, someone who had let me down?’

  ‘A man? Cheating on her? Promised her something – marriage? Chickened out?’

  Do men promise girls marriage nowadays? I mean, like they did once.’

  ‘Well, since breach of promise ceased to be an offence in law, sobbing young things reckoning they’ve been let down and their prospects are ruined are not a category we get to deal with nearly so much. Where’s Miss Needham-Burrell staying?’

  ‘At The Crossed Keys in Bamford.’

  ‘I’ll call in on her when I get back.’

  ‘You mean, sir,’ said Pearce, ‘that Miss Needham didn’t receive abusive letters, she wrote ’em?’

  ‘She wrote at least one and take another look at this letter Fearon got. It’s pretty strong. But it’s also pretty vague about what he’s actually supposed to have done. He’s a swine, he’s a decadent parasite, he’ll get his come-uppance one of these days . . . four-letter words galore . . . but what’s he done? It doesn’t actually say anything about the hunt by name. Fearon assumed it was about the hunt. We took his word for it.’ Markby picked up Fearon’s letter. ‘Of course, I realise it’s composed of stuck-on clippings of newsprint and this piece Miss Mitchell found is handwritten – but one reason Harriet rejected this hand-written piece might have been a sudden decision to do it anonymously and use chopped-up newspapers. Fearon has a reputation as a lady’s man. We know Harriet had a passionate male visitor on Christmas Day evening. Fearon told me he was late meeting with a lady friend because of chasing horses round all Christmas Day morning. Perhaps Tom was two-timing her and she found out?’

  ‘I would have thought,’ Pearce said slowly, ‘that if she’d found out he was deceiving her she would have gone down to his stable yard and pushed him in the horse trough. More her style from all I’ve heard. She wasn’t one to write anonymously, I’d have said.’

  ‘Actually, so would I. But you never can tell. But we’re forgetting the letter the Master got. I wish he’d kept it. Harriet wouldn’t have written to him like that. Scrub the theory about her writing the letters. It wasn’t her. Tom’s was probably from a hunt crank and this letter is a one-off and about something else.’ Markby scowled at the scrap of paper Meredith had given him. ‘Incidentally, did you have any joy with other hunt subscribers? Anyone get any letters?’

  ‘Not to admit it, sir. One or two acted a bit furtive. But all swore blind they hadn’t received any.’

  ‘Damn. Well, one thing at a time. I’d very much like to know who Harriet’s dinner guest was – and whether he was there the next morning. He might hold the clue about the tranquillisers which are so much disputed by everyone who knew the deceased well. Miss Mitchell heard a car leave. But what if he came back later or turned up for breakfast?’

  Markby put both letters into the folder on his desk. ‘In the meantime, I’m popping over to The Crossed Keys to see if Miss Needham’s cousin is there.’

  It took only five minutes to walk from the station to The Crossed Keys. He asked for Miss Needham-Burrell at the desk.

  ‘Room twenty,’ said a receptionist with heavily mascara-ed eyes. ‘Would you like me to ring up?’ She laid scarlet-tipped talons on the phone by her and cast him a speculative look.

  ‘If you would. Say, Chief Inspector Markby – she’ll know who I am.’

  The girl spoke into the internal phone. Putting it down, she said, ‘She says, go up. We haven’t got a lift but you can go up those stairs mere – they’ll bring you out at the right end of the corridor. Second floor.’ A flash of scarlet nails to indicate direction.

  Markby made his way up two flights of what had once been service stairs. The Crossed Keys was an old building. Its floors sloped disconcertingly and it was a rabbit warren of little rooms with low door lintels. It catered mainly for travelling businessmen of one kind and another and people who broke journeys here on impulse. As a result it had that uncared-for look, although it was clean enough. But with its guests, one-or two-nighters, there was no call for luxury or anything but the basic necessity of a bed and a bath.

  Number twenty had a pot of African violets outside it on a rickety wooden table. Markby paused to gaze covetously at the violets, a colour he didn’t have, and to wonder if anyone would mind if he abstracted a leaf to try and strike some cuttings. Oh well, Miss Needham-Burrell first. He had
to do this strictly by the book. Lots of polite enquiry and expressions of sympathy and coax out the permission to go through Harriet’s papers Perhaps he should offer her tea downstairs in the lounge?

  He lifted his hand and knocked. A quick, light footstep and the door opened to reveal to his startled eye a stunning blonde in a towelling wrap and mule slippers.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said, sea-green eyes widening. ‘Don’t tell me you’re Mr Plod?’

  ‘I’m – Chief Inspector Markby . . .’ he heard his voice say, curiously strangled.

  ‘Policemen are getting handsomer! You’re Meredith’s friend, right? And your name is Alan.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ he confirmed sheepishly and made an effort to cast off his confusion and stop looking at this luscious beauty like a mesmerised rabbit at a stoat.

  ‘Great. I’m Fran, to you. Why don’t you come in, Alan? And we can – talk. I’ve got a bottle of whisky.’

  He followed her into the room and took the armchair offered. She was pouring out drinks efficiently from a collection of bottles and glasses on a tray. ‘Water in mine, if you don’t mind!’ he said hastily.

  ‘Say when . . . okay?’ She handed him a tumbler. ‘What do you want to ask me?’ She sat down and crossed her legs. The towelling robe slipped a little, not much but enough. ‘I was just going to run a bath,’ she explained, the corners of her full lips turning up slightly.

  Markby’s mind briefly cast up a forbidden image and then went totally blank. He rummaged in its depths for the reason which had brought him. Letters, pills, he wanted to ask about both. Wonderful slim tanned leg. Keep your mind on your work. What did he want to ask her? To tell the truth, just at this minute, nothing to do with police work.

  ‘You know the results of the post mortem, of course,’ he said doggedly, staring straight into her slightly amused sea-green eyes.

  He saw the amusement fade. Her expression stiffened and she sipped at her whisky. ‘Yes. Meredith said you were asking about tranquillisers. We – Meredith and I – searched the cottage but we didn’t find any or any empty packets and, frankly, I’m not surprised. Harriet didn’t take that kind of drug, any kind of drug. She didn’t believe in them. She believed in this—’ Fran raised her glass. ‘I’m not doubting the results of the post mortem. But like you, I’m very curious to know how and why.’

  ‘I wonder if the dustbin’s been emptied?’ he murmured, more to himself than her.

  She answered anyway. ‘No – it’s the holiday period. Everything is tied up in a plastic bag. You can rummage through that if you like.’

  ‘I’ll get my sergeant on to it. There is also the question of some letters.’

  ‘Oh, yes, hate mail. I haven’t had time to go through her papers. I’ll keep an eye open.’

  He swilled the remains of his whisky and water round his glass and said carefully, ‘I know this appears to be a straightforward unfortunate accident following a piece of very foolish behaviour by a young demonstrator. I’m not suggesting it’s anything else. I have no reason to do so. But there are a couple of loose ends and if I seem to be asking impertinent questions about your cousin, it’s because I don’t like untidiness – not because I’m prying.’

  ‘Ask away.’ She shifted slightly in the chair and retrieved the fold of towelling robe which had earlier slipped, drawing it back over a shapely knee. The result was twice as erotic than if she had left it as it was. ‘I don’t, incidentally, promise to answer. But I’ll listen.’

  He gave her a wry grin. ‘That’s fair.’

  She met his eye. ‘Oh, I’m always fair.’

  ‘Yes – well, we have reason to believe—’ he saw a slight smile touch her full mouth. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Sorry – it’s the police jargon. Do go on. What have you reason to believe, Alan?’

  ‘That Harriet had a male visitor on Christmas Day in the evening. He would seem to have left that night. I’m wondering if you would know who he was. He might be able to shed some light on the mystery of the tranquillisers.’

  She rotated her topmost foot, flexing the bare toes which protruded through the mule slipper. ‘No, I don’t know. I’m not being obstructive. I don’t, really. She had a lot of friends.’

  ‘I see. Well, if you should find out – I’d be grateful . . . and I’ll send my sergeant over to check out the waste and Miss Needham’s desk, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘I hope you’re managing to arrange everything,’ he said, remembering the sad duty which was hers. ‘Mr Simpson being helpful?’

  ‘Dear old Theo?’ She gave a throaty chuckle. Then she pulled a face. ‘Actually I’m having trouble about the funeral. I want to bury Harriet at Westerfield in the little churchyard but that’s not allowed, I’m told. It all seems damn stupid and petty to me. It’s been secularised or whatever. Flattened out and turfed over like a park. No more burials.’

  ‘Oh? Oh, yes, so it has.’ He reflected. ‘The Markby tombs haven’t been flattened. That’s my family’s private corner of the churchyard. It’s railed off. I mean, no one has been buried there for years but the graves are still there, headstones, monuments, all the usual . . . There might be a space there and I don’t see why anyone should object, especially if the family – i.e. myself – agrees. Try that tack.’

  ‘Thanks!’ The sea-green eyes glowed with genuine warmth. She followed him to the door and stood in the open frame, one hand on the doorjamb. ‘I’ll try it, as you say, how can they object? And as I told you, I’m fair. If someone does me a good turn, I like to return it.’ The smile touched her mouth again. ‘I owe you one.’

  ‘Not at all!’ he said hastily and fled.

  Seven

  The next day, Tuesday, was New Year’s Eve. And a thoroughly miserable New Year’s Eve it promised to be, thought Meredith, notwithstanding Alan’s invitation to join him for a drink. A blight lay over it. The New Year would bring the inquest on Harriet and the funeral and the beginning of a regular slog up to London every weekday for herself. The weather was grey, dreary and lowering to the spirits. However, as it was Tuesday and thus Mrs Brissett’s day for cleaning at Rose Cottage, she duly appeared, in bobble hat and zipped boots.

  ‘It’s really very good of you to come in over the holiday period,’ Meredith said gratefully. She was glad to see the cleaner, less for any work Mrs Brissett might do, than because she was glad of the company.

  She was realising what a very lonely spot indeed Pook’s Common was. The Haynes had not reappeared. The people who owned the garage and the wishing-well cottage did not appear to be about either. Perhaps they had also gone away for New Year. With Harriet lying dead, Meredith realised almost with horror that she was the sole present inhabitant of Pook’s Common. Unless one counted Tom Fearon down at the stables.

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ said Mrs Brissett firmly. ‘No point in leaving it and then I’ve got twice as much to do when I do come. That’s what I said to poor Miss Needham. Don’t you trouble to come on Boxing Day, she says. Never you fear, I said, I’ll be there. And I was – and saw her for the last time, just before she left . . .’ Mrs Brissett sniffed and dumped a large shopping bag down on a kitchen chair with unnecessary violence.

  ‘I do try and keep the place tidy, Mrs Brissett,’ Meredith said humbly.

  ‘Yes, dear. I know you do. But tidying up and cleaning properly aren’t the same thing. Not by a long chalk, they aren’t.’ Mrs Brissett hung up her coat, took off her boots and produced a pair of pink slippers trimmed with nylon fur from her bag. Wheezing with the effort of being bent double, she pulled them on. ‘Our Dawn give me these for Christmas,’ she sat up and held out one solid foot in a crepe stocking and pink slipper for inspection. ‘Nice colour aren’t they? I like pink.’ She lowered the foot. ‘Our Dawn was that upset to hear about poor Miss Needham. There now. Well, work won’t wait. This won’t knit the baby a new bonnet, as my old mum used to say.’ She stood up. She hadn’t taken off her bobble hat which seemed a
permanent fixture but next tied on her apron. ‘Finished your breakfast, have you?’

  ‘Yes, I was just going to clear away.’ And dear myself away, thought Meredith, which is what she means! Out from under her feet!

  ‘You leave it to me, Miss Mitchell.’

  ‘Mrs Brissett,’ Meredith said cautiously. ‘About Miss Needham. When you said you’d be here this morning, I did mention it to Chief Inspector Markby. Because he’d quite like to have a word with you. He’s coming over later. Would you mind?’

  I don’t gossip!’ said Mrs Brissett fiercely. ‘And not about poor Miss Needham, dead and gone as she is!’

  ‘It’s not gossip, Mrs Brissett. Chief Inspector Markby is trying to find out just how Miss Needham died. You’d want to help, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t mind talking to Mr Markby,’ said Mrs Brissett graciously. ‘Because he’s a gentleman. Not all the police is. But he is. I wouldn’t necessarily talk to some of them others. When our Dawn had her trouble and that fellow she was married to broke the house up – that was before he run out on her altogether – Fred went to the police and told them. “Domestic incident!” they said and just sat on their hands and did nothing. I lost confidence then, as it were, in the police. But Mr Markby is different and he can ask away. But I know how Miss Needham died. It was that wicked boy frightened her horse!’

  ‘There’s the question of the drugs, the tranquillisers, Mrs Brissett.’

  ‘She never took none! She never took them pills!’ Mrs Brissett burst out. ‘I tole you so before. I tole everyone. And I’ll tell Mr Markby, if that’s what he wants!’

  Markby drove up shortly before eleven. Meredith met him in the hall and said quietly, ‘I’m just about to make coffee and Mrs Brissett is all primed to talk to you. But you won’t upset her, will you? She was so fond of Harriet. She won’t want—’ Meredith paused. ‘She won’t want to tell you anything that she would consider cast a bad light on Harriet. And she’s got her own notions of what sort of thing that might be.’