Enter Pale Death

by Barbara Cleverly

  “We’re being watched, Hunnyton.”

  “I’d be surprised if we weren’t! A stranger in the village, a smartly turned-out feller driving a showy car—he’d come in for a bit of interest. You’ll have set all the lace curtains twitching,” Hunnyton replied easily.

  Joe nodded. No old biddies would be sneaking about hiding behind tombstones to drum up a bit of gossip and all the children were in school. His unease was not dispelled.

  Hunnyton was a policeman and he knew what was expected of a willing witness. Joe asked him again for his view of the events of that summer night a quarter of a century ago and prepared to hear a professionally ordered account. But Hunnyton didn’t follow with the response Joe was waiting for.

  “Commissioner, I don’t believe Phoebe Pilgrim had a liaison with a footman or a groom, as they said at the time. I believe she was drowned by a man of influence whose self-indulgence and carnality was a matter of record. A man who got her into trouble and ruined her.” He chewed his bottom lip and Joe understood the depth and confusion of feeling that must be gripping him. An unwanted, unthinking by-blow of the Master of the household himself, Hunnyton must have been torn in two by the realisation that the same man had despoiled the girl he loved. But there was a further dire revelation to follow.

  “Like father, like son? It’s often said and we both know it’s a load of blether but suppose … just suppose, Sandilands … The old devil’s son is now doing his best to seduce your girl. Planning to make her the next Lady Truelove? I doubt it. More likely the next corpse fished out of the moat. And the latter is probably preferable. I’m asking that you investigate the case to the best of your ability, Sandilands. Without fear or favour. But as fast as you can.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Superintendent, may I just check one detail before we proceed?” Joe replied with equal formality. “Is this your second application for an enquiry into a death? Have you already approached me by means of a recent anonymous letter to the Yard? Item number two in the file I’m getting together?”

  His response was one of pure incomprehension. “ ’Course not! Not my style! I say these things to your face. I just have.”

  “Yes, yes. Exactly what I expected. I wanted to clear that out of the way. It would seem, Hunnyton, that you’re not the only one keen to send me down this particular rabbit hole. Well, well!” He took on a firm tone as he continued: “Now, you’re an experienced CID officer with an impressive reputation. I’d rather hear you tell me why I can take no action in the matter of Phoebe Pilgrim than listen to my own voice laying down the law in a depressing and disappointing way.”

  Joe tried to speak gently yet firmly when what he would really have like to do was sock the man on the jaw. Hunnyton had treated him like one of those Suffolk Punch stallions: attention drawn first—the sticky bun and the oil of cloves were represented by the portraits and the hint of a history behind them. The approach had been made with a gentle delivery, not challenging in any way. He’d let Joe come to him. He’d backed down when necessary, offering the reassurance of frequent flashes of humour and understanding.

  Disarmingly, he lapsed into a Suffolk drawl when it seemed appropriate, and Joe was prepared to hear more of it now they were on his own turf. Not unexpected. Joe found the same thing happened to him, without calculation, when he crossed the border back into Scotland. He never blushed for his Gaelic growl when it escaped in London. Where an English country accent like Hunnyton’s was a liability, seen as clod-hopping and ridiculous, a Scottish accent was held to be rather smart. The Prime Minister himself was a Scotsman; the Duchess of York, the king’s daughter-in-law, was Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon of Glamis Castle, though on the two occasions Joe had chatted with Her Grace the conversation had been conducted on both sides in cutglass Kensington.

  Joe recognised Hunnyton’s verbal conjuring. All tricks of the trade. And, so far, the superintendent must think he’d been successful. True enough. But—no harm done; Joe would go along with his schemes as long as they took him in his own chosen direction.

  “Rest easy, sir. No warrants and you can’t slap manacles on the dead. Wouldn’t expect it,” he murmured, gentling again. “As you said before, it’s a twenty-five-year-old case with no police enquiry worth the name carried out. No autopsy, no forensics of any kind. I just want to know the truth. I want you to know the truth. The same goes for her ladyship Lavinia’s death. I think we might find the answers under the same roof.”

  Hunnyton hauled himself to his feet and dusted off his knees, still gazing at the grave. “It’s not just that she was special to me … I don’t know if it gets you the same way, sir … Once you’re acquainted with a corpse, it belongs to you until you find out what happened to it and who was responsible.”

  Joe grimaced. “Know what you mean. I’ve had so many bloody albatrosses round my neck I’m bent into a hairpin. I can carry one more. A little light-boned one. She’s no trouble, bless her. Well, come on, other sheep’s head! Let’s get moving! The vet did you promise me?”

  As they strode down the path Joe paused by one of the tombstones. “See here, Superintendent. There’s a local family thick in the ground hereabouts, it would seem. The ‘Hunnybuns.’ Any relation? I like to know these things.”

  He had the satisfaction of watching the stony features flush red. Anger? Embarrassment? Impossible to tell.

  “That was my name. It’s a very ancient village name and I’m proud to bear it. There’s hundreds of us in the county and in Cambridge, too. So common I didn’t realise there was anything amusing about it until I was about to apply to college. The old man called me in and explained he’d taken steps to have my name changed by deed poll.” His supple voice took on the tone of an aristocratic old duffer: “ ‘Wouldn’t do to have the other undergraduates laughing at you, old chap! Or calling you a nancy-boy.’ ” He grinned and clenched his fists. “He needn’t have worried. I had my own ways of making my mark.”

  “Thought as much. But I’m with your old man on this—he did the sensible thing. It’s amazing what a difference one consonant can make—kills off any chance of teasing and hoiks you up a class or two. Does seem a waste of a good name, though. I like it! I think you should call your first daughter ‘Hunnybun.’ I shall expect an invitation to the Christening.”

  “You’ll have to find me a wife first, sir.”

  Joe was glad to hear a lightening of mood. “I shall give it my best attention. Carrying on the theme of ‘honey,’ I’m inspired to look for something in light auburn, perhaps, and very lovely as you’re so hard to please.”

  Hunnyton rolled his eyes in scorn at this flight of fancy. “So long as she’s not called Blossom or Gypsy, that’ll do right well.”

  THEY DROVE ROUND to the vet’s house, set a little apart from the rest of the village at the easterly end, its garden hidden behind a stalwart copper beech hedge. Clearly a gentleman’s residence. It was Victorian, of the same period and the same red brick as the schoolhouse. Decorative cornices, stepped brick corners, contrasting black window and door details were the stamp of an uncompromising city architect who was aiming to mark out his work as something superior to the reed-thatched, ground-hugging local dwellings. A row of steeply pitched gables snapped off an angled salute and tall chimneys at either end stood to attention, giving the house more than a touch of imperial consequence, but a bower of climbing roses, which some later owner had encouraged to swarm all over the façade, poked light fun at the ruled-edge regularity and softened its severity with blousy white blooms.

  They parked on the gravelled carriage sweep and got out as the church bell pealed eleven. Seconds later, the infants erupted from the schoolroom into the playground for their recreation and filled the air with their shouts and songs.

  “What’s the vet’s name? Hartest? Must be doing well for himself. This is a very good house.”

  “He’s a very good vet. Best the village has ever had. London trained. Not in the flush of youth. He’s a widower. Came out here l
ast summer, thinking to work out his remaining years in peace and quiet.” His grin was full of mischief. “He isn’t getting much! His prices are very reasonable so people don’t need to think twice before calling him in and, as I say, he knows his stuff.”

  Hunnyton tugged on the bell-pull.

  A maid answered at once, taking their hats and ushering them into a cool black-and-white-tiled hallway. “You’ll be the police gentlemen for Mr. Hartest. Sorry, sirs, but you can’t see him at the minute. Vet’s been called out to Fox Farm. There’s trouble with that new bull of theirs. But you can have a word with Doctor Hartest.”

  They exchanged puzzled looks but before Joe could ask a question, a door at the rear banged open and a voice called out a greeting. “How do you do, gentlemen. I’m Doctor Hartest. Adelaide Hartest. Sorry to disappoint you. My father asked me to welcome you, make his apologies and try to give you any information you might want about the death in the stables. You may see all the notes he made at the time and … well … we did talk about it extensively so I can pass on his comments if you wish.”

  The young woman looked from one to the other of the two men standing awkwardly in her hall. For mature men following a profession where words came easily, they stood in stunned silence, staring at her.

  Adelaide Hartest’s smile of welcome began to fade. “So long as you’re not here to sell me an encyclopedia or guarantee me a pass through the Pearly Gates, you may come into the parlour and introduce yourselves. When you’ve remembered who you are.”

  Her appearance was as informal as her greeting. She was a tall girl, wearing trousers and an aged linen open-necked shirt which had probably belonged to her father or even grandfather, Joe thought critically. Lord! It could well have seen action at Gallipoli. She had wooden clogs on her feet. A pair of pruning shears stuck out of one pocket and a gardening glove dangled from the other. Joe didn’t much care for women in trousers but, as she turned to lead them into the parlour, he decided to add the name of Adelaide Hartest to his list of women who could wear them. It was now a list of three: Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel and Dr. Adelaide Hartest.

  Joe was the first to recover from the surprise of finding himself in the presence of a bright-faced, extremely pretty and self-assured woman. But it had been the sight of the unfashionable abundance of light auburn hair which had silenced him. Hunnyton also had been knocked sideways. What on earth could he be thinking? Joe caught the man’s eye and asked him a silent question. Hunnyton pulled a comedy villain’s face and shrugged a shoulder, saying clearly: “No idea! Nothing to do with me, guv.” Joe’s waggling eyebrows replied in kind: “Me neither!”

  Joe held out a hand and shook the doctor’s, introducing himself, and then he presented Hunnyton.

  “Well, I’d have been happy to welcome PC Plod up from Bury but—a Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner and a Detective Superintendent from Cambridge? They’re really rolling out the big guns! Do you two normally work together?”

  “No, Miss … Doctor … just for this one outing,” Hunnyton supplied.

  “I’ve made some coffee. Suit you both? Good. Sit down, will you, and if you can stop gurning at each other like loonies, we’ll get started.”

  While she poured coffee into blue-and-white china cups and passed around a plate of shortbread biscuits, she explained her presence in her father’s house. Adelaide Hartest had only been in the village a week or two. She was taking time off from St. Thomas’s Hospital in London, where she’d begun her medical career as a junior doctor and was about to enter general practice if her father could scrape the money together to buy her a partnership. Joe steeled himself to nod sympathetically through an outpouring on the difficulties that beset a woman forging a career for herself in the man’s world of medicine in this post-war era, but none came. She was focussed and succinct.

  Joe took the notebook she passed him and began to read through it, checking that it corresponded with the notes he’d already seen in the file. He’d deliberately handed the reins of the conversation to Hunnyton and he listened with half an ear as the superintendent held up his end. The young woman appeared to be asking more questions than the detective.

  “But why? I can’t understand. Why there? Why then? In the stables at crack of dawn with no company other than the two inexperienced lads? Deliberately encountering a stallion with a reputation for violent behaviour? Was the woman mad? You’ll have to tell me—I never met her.”

  She listened to Hunnyton’s explanation with incredulity. “You’re saying it was done in a spirit of rivalry? Like children showing off in a playground? Lady T. was letting everyone know that when it came to horses she was more skilled than her husband’s student? Ooo … er … mmm … Something going on there, wouldn’t you say?”

  Joe was beginning to wonder if the girl communicated in anything other than questions when she abruptly changed gear.

  “Silly women! That’s the sort of behaviour you might expect from men. They have more opportunities, of course, for affirming their superiority—they can always shoot more birds, pee further, drink more whisky and seduce more women.”

  Hunnyton froze her with a scandalised glare straight from the pulpit.

  Deflected by its force, her attention slid over to Joe. “Tell me, Commissioner—you’re clearly a successful member of the competitive sex—how do you go about establish a pecking order?”

  “Oh, all of the above come in useful,” he said with a happy smile. “Luckily I have a lot of gold braid to do my bragging for me these days. My other accomplishments, I’m sorry to say, have not stood the test of time and are getting a bit rusty.”

  “Ah! The uncertainties of middle age! Like motorcars, men need a yearly check-up. If you’re seriously concerned about your declining capacity in any of the aforementioned skills, pop in and consult me. I’m sure I can do something for you.”

  It was Joe’s turn to launch the pulpit stare, though there was a trace of laughter held in check as he replied, “Unless you’re an adept with a twelve-bore shotgun, madam, I’m not sure you can help. The old eyes are less sharp than they were perhaps but—as for the other organs you questioned … what were they?—kidneys, liver …”

  “Yes, yes. I understand. Tongue in good working order, too.”

  “I’m sure we take your point, Doctor.” Hunnyton mastered his disapproval of this exchange and reclaimed his hostess’s attention. “How else could the lady demonstrate her pre-eminence? Assuming she needed to. You have to admit—it would have been quite a coup de théâtre if she’d pulled it off. Parading with a famously fierce stallion trotting behind her on a lead and eating out of her hand right in front of the eyes of the breakfast crowd? A crowd that knows its horseflesh,” he added thoughtfully. “Well, that beats a talent for flower arranging and needlepoint. Nothing like it since Professor Champion put on his show in the Ipswich Corn Exchange when I was a nipper!”

  Hunnyton’s eyes blazed suddenly with a storyteller’s zeal. He pushed back the wayward lock of sandy hair from his forehead and launched into his reminiscence. “Battle between Man and Stallion, it was billed. One night only. Vicious horse will be tamed before your very eyes by Professor Champion, the King of all Horse Educators. Very fine show it was, too! That Champion may have been no more a professor than I was but otherwise he was all he was cracked up to be. He squared up to that horse—Draco, the Transylvanian Man-Eater, his name was. A thundering big black stallion, all rolling eyes and gnashing teeth. Took a crew of six strapping lads to keep it under some sort of control. In two minutes, the beast was eating out of his hand. After half an hour of sashaying around the arena, he’d got a saddle on him and a young lad hopped aboard and trotted him round the ring! To put the final flourish on a memorable evening, I had my first pint of Greene King Ale in the Nag’s Head before my old dad and I climbed back in the cart and turned for home.”

  His boyish blue eyes misted over in pleasurable nostalgia, and Adelaide’s hazel eyes twinkled back her appreciation of his story. She gav
e him a sweetly indulgent smile.

  “There he goes again,” Joe thought. “He’ll be breathing down her nostrils any minute.”

  “I’m sure you’ve understood it exactly, Superintendent,” the doctor commended him. “But, poor woman! What a desperate thing to do. Sad and wrong-headed. And never likely to work the magic she wanted it to. When will women ever learn there’s nothing that can bring back a husband who’s determined to go astray? No demands, no persuasion, no appeals to conscience and duty.” She sniffed. “I always prescribe a boot up the backside to help him on his way if anyone ever asks me. Not that they do very often. We old maids are not expected to have any useful insights into the married state. But you can bet that’s what all this was about: a skirmish over an unworthy man. A tug of war that led to death. Two deaths. I add the name of the horse, Lucifer, to the butcher’s bill. Now, you chaps will want to know who put her up to it.”

  “What makes you think she had an accomplice?” Hunnyton asked.

  “It’s pretty obvious. My father says she was an unadventurous woman, not given to original thought. He thinks someone planted the idea in her noddle and gave her some professional advice.”

  “Advice? What advice are you thinking of?”

  “Pa was the first medical man on the scene—I suppose you know that. He attended to the body of Lavinia Truelove before anyone else saw it. He checked it for signs of life, of course.”

  Joe referred to the notes. “He stated that he shot dead the horse, which had retreated back into its stall and was stamping and quivering in apparent fear at the back. He was curious enough about this behaviour to have the carcase hauled back to his surgery for inspection and wrote a full autopsy. Very interesting. Especially the observation of the condition of the mouth.”

  “That made me angry! The sides of the mouth had been subject to abrasion of some sort. The wounds were not healed and the horse must have been in some pain,” Adelaide said.