A Season for Murder

by Ann Granger

  He now saw that there were two men on the floor fighting. Two girls in black leather, metal rings and spiked hair appeared to be attacking both men. Colin Deanes with his spectacles awry was trying to grab one of the participants and a third youth lunged in and out of the scrum, shouting, ‘Stop it, you stupid sod! Simon!’

  At first – until he recognised Deanes – he thought it was just the usual New Year punch-up and prepared to join the landlord in his attempts to pull the participants apart. Then he caught a glimpse of the face of one of the brawlers.

  ‘Tom!’ Markby roared, leaping into the fray in his turn. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Let go of me!’ yelled Tom Fearon, ‘I’ll kill him!’

  ‘He attacked that boy!’ howled Deanes.

  ‘Get out of my way!’ shrieked Simon Pardy, rising up from the floor and swinging a fist wildly at Tom. Because Markby had grabbed Tom, the stable-owner was unable to protect himself. Simon’s fist connected, striking Tom beneath the left eye.

  ‘Let me get at him! Let go of me, Alan, you idiot!’ Tom tore himself loose and flung himself on Simon, gripping him by the throat. The whole motley tangle of bodies subsided to the floor again in a struggling heap. One of the black-clad girls grabbed a tin tray and struck Tom over the head with it. It bounced off with a resounding echo, like the opening of a J. Arthur Rank film. Deanes paused fractionally to secure his spectacles and hurled himself into the middle of the mass, trying to extricate Simon but arguably doing more harm than good.

  ‘Cut it out, Tom!’ Markby managed to grab Fearon’s arms again, break his grip on Simon and haul him out of the fray. ‘Deanes! Get hold of Pardy!’

  Colin flung both arms round Simon who was coughing and choking, imprisoning him and dragged him back. The two black-clad girls stopped dancing up and down. The one who had wielded the tray, her eyes ringed with black circles which Markby at first took for signs of violence but then realised were make-up, said aggressively. ‘He done it!’ she pointed at Tom, struggling and swearing in Markby’s grip. ‘He slugged Simon.’

  ‘A witness!’ shouted Colin Deanes. ‘You heard what the girl said, Markby! This boy wasn’t doing anything.’

  ‘He was boasting!’ yelled Tom. ‘The little snake was boasting about what he’d done to Harriet!’

  ‘I told you to shut up!’ said the third youth angrily to Simon. ‘Now look what you’ve done!’

  ‘You!’ bawled the landlord, pointing at Simon. ‘Out of here!’ He turned to Tom, ‘And you, Tom Fearon! Much obliged, Mr Markby!’ he added politely and dived towards the front door, opening it. Markby holding Tom, Deanes clinging to Simon and Meredith who had emerged from the snug, bringing up the rear, stumbled out of the door and landed together on the pavement outside The Bunch of Grapes. The door slammed behind them.

  ‘Deanes!’ panted Markby, struggling to restrain Tom who had burst out in renewed fury and was trying to get at Simon Pardy. ‘I’m making you responsible for that lad! Take him back to wherever he lives!’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault—’ Deanes began.

  ‘I don’t care whose fault it was! Do you want me to run him in? No? Then take him home! Now!’

  Deanes departed, dragging a loudly protesting Simon down the street with him.

  ‘All right, Tom!’ Markby turned to Fearon, who leaned against the closed door of The Bunch of Grapes, panting. ‘I’m driving you home.’

  ‘I’ve got my own car!’

  ‘So you may have. You can’t drive it.’

  ‘I’m not over the limit!’ Tom yelled furiously. ‘I’m not bloody drunk! That little weasel was actually boasting to his appalling chums about what he’d done! He just stood there in the bar and said she deserved it! He said Harriet deserved it! Are you going to let him get away with it?’

  ‘I don’t know nor does it matter right now whether you’re over the limit. I’m satisfied your mental state means you can’t be put at the wheel of a car! Now, Tom, either I drive you back to the stables and you promise to stay there or I’ll make this official and arrest you!’

  ‘Arrest me?’ Tom appeared about to have an apopleptic fit. ‘Why don’t you arrest him? Why haven’t you got him behind bars? He killed Harriet! He’s got away with it and he knows it! If those two weird-looking girls hadn’t joined in and that other fellow with the glasses hadn’t come hurtling out of somewhere and got in the way, I’d have settled Pardy’s hash, I can tell you!’

  ‘Then thank your lucky stars Deanes was there to stop you. Don’t be stupid, Tom! And come along – my car’s down here.’

  He pushed Tom with some difficulty along the pavement, opened the front passenger door of his car and shoved him in. Then he went round to the other side and took the driver’s seat.

  Meredith’s face appeared at Tom’s window as she stooped down on the pavement outside to peer in. She tapped on the glass. ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ said Markby. ‘I’d forgotten her. Wind the window down, Tom.’ Tom obliged. ‘I’m very sorry about this,’ Markby shouted across towards Meredith. ‘I’ll take Tom back to Pook’s Common and come back.’

  ‘No point in it! We’re locked out of the pub. All hooligans together. If you’re going to Pook’s Common, I’ll follow behind in my car. If you’ve time later, call by Rose Cottage.’

  She vanished. Markby switched on the ignition. ‘Tom,’ he said in carefully controlled tones, ‘you disturbed my Christmas Day by ringing me up about lost horses. You’ve ruined my New Year’s Eve. You do realise this, don’t you?’

  ‘You can—’ growled Fearon and broke off, folded his arms and glowered through the windscreen. ‘You know what you can do, Alan,’ he finished more mildly.

  Markby drove slowly back to the stables. Going along the B road from Bamford to Westerfield in the darkness, frost-touched fields glimmering to either side, he could see in his driving mirror the headlights of Meredith’s car cleaving the night behind him. Tom, beside him, had fallen silent and introspective in a ‘mood’ of more than ordinary virulence. There you have it, thought Markby with resignation. Another proposed tête-à-tête which might have led to situations only dreamed of – ruined. There was a jinx on the whole business of his friendship with Meredith. There was a jinx on him.

  ‘I don’t know why I joined the police force,’ he said aloud.

  Tom growled.

  They turned off at Fenniwick’s garage, plunged into darkness, and down the lane to Pook’s Common. He saw Meredith draw up before her cottage. He drove on down the lane until they reached the stables where he turfed out the morose Tom and told him in no uncertain tones that he was to stay there.

  Tom’s reply was difficult to make out, which was probably just as well.

  When Markby got to Rose Cottage, he found that Meredith had established herself in the kitchen before a large brown earthenware pot of tea.

  ‘I’m really very sorry,’ he said abjectly.

  ‘Not your fault. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, please. It’s just, I could have called up help and sent both Pardy and Tom to the nick, but they only have a couple of cells at Bamford station and they’ll need them tonight – and it wasn’t a regular fight, more—’ he paused.

  ‘More in the nature of a domestic incident?’

  ‘That’s it,’ he said gratefully. ‘Glad you understand.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. Has Tom calmed down?’

  ‘Not so much calmed down as sulking. But he can’t get into any more trouble tonight. His car is in Bamford and I’ve taken the keys off him for good measure. I’ll see his car is taken to the police pound tomorrow and he’ll have to come and see me before he can get it back.’

  ‘He might saddle a horse and gallop back to Bamford across the fields by moonlight. I can imagine Tom doing that.’

  ‘Can you imagine him slipping tranquillisers into Harriet’s kedgeree?’ Markby asked her quietly.

  There was a pause. ‘No,’ Meredith said a little regretfully, �
�I could imagine him grabbing a shotgun and firing off a few rounds in temper.’

  ‘Tom occasionally acts as though his brain had cut out, but not that badly. Tom is an impulsive man, not a planner. And he wouldn’t do anything which would get him a custodial sentence. The horses, you see. Whatever else, Tom is primarily concerned with the welfare of his horses. Someone has to muck ’em out and take stones out of their hooves with a penknife or whatever it is he does all day long. I’ve warned him to stay at home for the rest of the night. I think he will.’

  ‘Hope you’re right. Impulsive people can act awfully oddly.’

  ‘I get the impression,’ Markby said slowly, ‘you don’t much approve of Tom.’

  ‘Don’t know him well enough to judge,’ she said aloofly. ‘Well, here’s to a happy New Year!’ She raised her teacup. ‘It’s after midnight. Fifteen minutes past, in fact. It is New Year.’

  Markby looked at his watch. ‘So it is. Happy New Year!’

  Eight

  New Year’s day. The morning was clear and fresh, and undisturbed quiet reigned everywhere as Bamford slept in late after its celebrations. Alan Markby wandered out into his backyard – the local house agent described others in the road as ‘patios’ – and contemplated his limited desmesne. Coffee cup in hand he cast a speculative eye over walls and paving, planning where, come springtime, hanging baskets and tubs of shrubs would take their appointed place. Oh, for a proper garden. Oh, for the time to be able to concentrate on some proper gardening. He had once toyed with the idea of taking on an allotment, envisaging rows of beans, potatoes and lettuce. But it had to remain a pipe dream. When did he have time to potter all day long in the sunshine, hoeing up weeds and carefully planting out seedlings? The most he could hope for at the moment was to be able to take early retirement and find himself some place out in the countryside with a decent bit of ground.

  That made him think of Pook’s Common. It was a lonely spot. He was not all that keen on Meredith living out there really, despite the attractions of Rose Cottage itself. He had been quite shocked to learn that at the present point in time she was the only resident of the place, except for Tom away down at the stables and too far away to hear any cries for help – although Tom could get there fairly rapidly if summoned by phone. On the other hand, given Tom’s reputation as the local rural Don Juan, perhaps the idea of Tom galloping up to Rose Cottage on a foaming steed looking like young Lochinvar was not exactly the sort of protection he, Markby, fancied for her. And thinking of Tom, he had to drive out and see him this morning. Happy New Year, hah!

  The telephone’s shrill cry broke into his musings. Secretly hoping it would be Meredith, he walked briskly back indoors and grabbed the receiver. ‘Alan Markby!’

  ‘Ah, Alan, just the chap. Happy New Year, and all that.’

  Colonel Stanley. What on earth was he doing ringing up at – Markby consulted his watch – ten in the morning to wish him seasonal greetings. Was the old boy sloshed?

  ‘Alan . . .’ the Master’s voice was muffled and conspiratorial. ‘I was wondering, perhaps you could stop by for a drink this morning, welcome in the New Year.’

  ‘Very kind of you, sir, but actually I’ve got to drive out to the stables and have a word with Tom.’

  ‘If you could . . .’ the Master was almost inaudible. ‘I’ve got another of those confounded letters here.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Can’t talk on the phone – don’t want my wife to find out about it. Oh, hullo there, my dear! I was just asking young Alan if he’d like to pop in for a glass of sherry . . .’ The Master’s tone sounded as if he had been caught ringing up a call-girl agency, pitched too high, too jovial and ill-controlling an insane cackle of laughter. Guilty as they come. He had probably grown up on a diet of Bulldog Drummond and believed all villains wore slouch hats.

  Muffled female voice in the background, sounding eminently practical and down-to-earth.

  ‘Wife says, would you like to come to lunch?’ asked the Master in more normal tones.

  ‘That’s kind of her but I really have to go and see Tom and I don’t know how long I’ll be out there. But I’ll stop by for the sherry. Can it be earlier rather than later? Because once I get to the stables—’

  ‘Come round any time, any time. What, Charlotte? Well, how should I know? Yes, all right. Wife says not to rush if you’re not ready yet. She thinks perhaps you saw in the New Year rather well.’

  I saw it in, if she really wants to know, drinking tea in a kitchen, after breaking up a scrap in a pub and providing a taxi service for Tom Fearon. Aloud, he said, ‘I’ll be there about ten to eleven if that’s all right. And please keep the envelope!’

  Colonel Stanley lived on the outskirts of town. At one time his house had been in the country but, during the last fifteen years, Bamford had crept out sideways and caught up with it. Markby fought off the enthusiastic greeting of a pair of spaniels and wished Mrs Stanley a prosperous and healthy year to come.

  ‘And all the very best to you, Alan!’ she said, gripping a gin and tonic in her left hand and mangling his fingers with her right. ‘Excuse me – I’ve got to chop up some wood. Come along, boys!’

  The boys – the spaniels – lolloped off beside her as she wove her way out.

  ‘Will she be all right chopping wood?’ asked Markby uneasily. ‘Would you like me —?’

  ‘Oh, she can manage. Dab hand with an axe, Charlotte.’ The Master looked and sounded relieved to see his spouse depart. ‘Sit down – I’ll fetch the blasted letter.’

  It was much like the one Tom had received in wording and appearance. Scrappy snippets of newsprint, fairly fluent and correctly spelled which in itself was interesting. Whoever he was, he was literate. Pardy was literate.

  ‘I’ll take it away if I may.’

  ‘Please do. I don’t want it round the place!’

  ‘You say this came this morning?’ Markby frowned. It was a public holiday, no postal service, he thought. Am I not a member of the public? Don’t I get a holiday? No, he was a policeman and he didn’t.

  ‘Ah, now that’s interesting and I can more or less tell you exactly when it came!’ The Master nodded and now that the letter was to be removed from his house and responsibility he had resumed something more like a normal, practical manner. ‘The thing is, Charlotte and I saw in the New Year with some friends and we didn’t get home here until getting on for two this morning. We came in by the front door and there was definitely no letter lying about on the mat then. Went to bed but about oh, four in the morning both damn dogs started to bark. I got out of bed and had a look out of the window but couldn’t see anything. So I went out on the landing and leaned over the banister, The dogs both sleep down in the front hall, you see. I called down and they both stopped kicking up a fuss, so I decided there was no intruder. They had just heard a noise outside, probably some people going home after a New Year party. Once upon a time this house was as quiet as the grave at night, but now we’re practically built round – got those new houses just behind us. We get noise all night long, car doors, engine noises, headlights playing on the windows . . . And of course, if one dog starts up, the others join in. Anyhow, I’d had a late night and I wasn’t prepared to traipse downstairs and investigate so I just went back to sleep.

  ‘This morning I came down about half past eight to let the dogs out and make a cup of tea – and there it was, on the mat. I couldn’t have missed it if it had been there earlier. A good thing I came down and not Charlotte. I wouldn’t want her to read that. Disgusting stuff.’

  Markby privately thought that the Master’s wife was probably pretty robust and not that easily shocked, but he nodded sympathetically. ‘So it seems likely it was delivered by hand at about four in the morning.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Markby carefully put the letter and its envelope in a larger envelope. ‘I’ll drop this in at the station and then I must get out to the stables. I’ve got to bring Tom in to Bamford so he can collect his
car.’

  ‘Oh, not been in an accident, has he?’

  ‘No, he just left it in Bamford last night very wisely, not wishing to drink and drive.’

  Colonel Stanley saw him to the door. ‘Pity you can’t stay for lunch. Frances Needham-Burrell is coming over.’

  ‘Is she?’ Markby stifled his enthusiasm, ‘Oh yes, I’ve met her.’

  ‘Nice girl. Good looker, too.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll just nip round the back and say goodbye to your wife.’

  He followed the sound of chopping wood and hailed his hostess. She stopped work, both arms held above her head brandishing an axe. ‘Oh, are you off? Pity you can’t stay for lunch. Fran Needham-Burrell is coming.’

  ‘Ah, so I’ve learned. But I must go, really.’

  ‘Shame. Nice girl. Awfully pretty.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Escape.

  At the station he marked the letter for forensic examination, not that it was likely to produce much information, then he picked up the phone and dialled Colin Deanes.

  ‘Yes . . .’ Deanes sounded sleepy. Markby thought he had probably got him out of bed. Good.

  ‘Markby here. Did you manage to take that lad home all right last night?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’ Deanes’ voice became more alert. There was a pause and Markby imagined him putting on his glasses. Without them Deanes probably felt at a psychological disadvantage. ‘That little fracas was not the boy’s fault. We have a witness – three witnesses. He was just having a New Year drink with his friends.’

  ‘And shouting his mouth off in an inappropriate fashion, I understand.’

  ‘Now look here, Chief Inspector,’ Deanes said reasonably. ‘It was New Year’s Eve and perhaps the boy had drunk a couple of pints and was talking foolishly. But more than foolishness it wasn’t. He wasn’t being malicious. Just a little silly. And that other fellow attacked him. Quite viciously.’

  ‘I’d say he was provoked.’

  ‘His attacker is a friend of yours, I understand!’ Deanes snapped.