Enter Pale Death

by Barbara Cleverly

  “You may have noticed that I didn’t charge you with anything formally or informally. Why on earth should I want to pin a killing on you, Joe?”

  “A trade-off. Knowing what the risks were, I would be more likely to rush to accept the alternative you so nobly offered me. Suicide. Goodfellow is buried with a suicide label attached to him and no one will ever know the truth. Just as Phoebe was branded a suicide. Poetic justice? Symbolic but hardly lyrical. The man died in revenge for Phoebe. This was always about Phoebe, wasn’t it? You could not be sure. You always thought it was a Truelove who drowned her—a suspicion so unpalatable you chose to bury it with her corpse. It was another death of a woman in suspicious circumstances that gave you the leverage you needed to get—at long last—a CID detective down here to sort it out for you. You could hardly go about arresting your own much-admired, unimpeachable half-brother. The exemplary Englishman. Get some other poor fool to do the dirty work for you …”

  Adam smiled again and refilled his brandy glass. “Good story so far. Carry on,” he invited.

  “You were keeping the villain Goodfellow under surveillance. You trailed him back from the pub, intrigued that he had had much less to drink than he normally did. A break in the behaviour pattern. Your professional eye would have taken that in. You watched as he prepared his departure. You saw him put his farewell letter to me in Diana’s hand. You read it and in it found confirmation of your girl’s killing and James Truelove’s seduction. You guessed—it could be no more than a guess—that it was Goodfellow himself who’d drowned her and for that he was going to die.

  “Next morning, you returned, armed. The old steward striding about the estate with his father’s Purdey tucked under his arm was a familiar sight. But you never intended to use your gun on the Green Man. You took his shotgun from under his bed, fixed up the firing angle and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, he woke and moved his head a split second before the bullet struck. You must have been in a quandary, Adam. Leave him and hope for the best? You could hardly administer a second shot! As his throat was a wreck, you took the chance that he was not about to make any deathbed accusations. But you hung about just in case, watching.

  “And a few minutes later, in response to the earlier shot, tripping along through the bluebells comes the London Plod, who proceeds to put his feet right in it. You see him off with a shot up his bum and put together a bargain he’d be mad to refuse. He even feels grateful to you. Do you know, Adam, it was some time before the penny dropped and I worked out what you were up to. You bugger! You even had the gall to shove a crumb or two of the horse bate you were given by Adelaide into one of Goodfellow’s drawers—leaving it ever so slightly open with a sticker on it so that I’d couldn’t miss it. Establishing a tangible link between the dead rogue and the guilty family. In case I needed a little shove in the right direction. That’s the third charge: supplying false evidence.”

  Adam grinned. “All correct but for one detail, Joe. He didn’t wake up of his own accord. I woke him. I take no chances. Dish out no injustices. I offered him his life in return for the truth. He confessed that he’d dragged Phoebe to the moat and drowned her in a rush of carnal lust that was repulsed. She threatened to shop him to Sir Sidney. She said she’d tell the old man his pet Spirit of the Woods had raped her and was the man responsible for her condition. Thereby incriminating him and exonerating the young master. A version that would have been much more palatable to the old man. I told you she was quick-witted. But it got her nowhere with that brute. The man condemned himself out of his own mouth. His sins, in the end, found him out.”

  The old-fashioned phrasing recalled to Joe Mrs. Bolton’s estimate of the man’s character. She’d mentioned, in approving tones, his “righteousness.” Joe replied in kind. “You wanted him to see the face of Retribution looming over him before the lights went out?”

  “He recognised me all right. Killing him gave me more satisfaction than accounting for a whole squadron of the Hun.”

  “You put on the breastplate of judgement, reneged on your offer of his life for the truth and pulled the trigger.”

  “So? What would you have done, Sir Gawain? Slapped him on the wrist and handed him over to a bunch of his drinking cronies for a decision on his fate, going by present form! My word against his on an uninvestigated death that happened a quarter of a century ago—that doesn’t get attention from any police department in the land and you know it. You are only here, looking more closely because you had strong personal, present-day reasons to do that.” Less angrily, he added, “I’m not ungrateful—never think it. You’ve done your job. But—let’s be clear—I’m glad he’s no longer on the face of the earth, festering and spreading his malice.”

  “Too late. It’s already spread. It’s touched you, Adam. Take care you don’t pass it on like the flu.”

  “What are you going to do about it? They say you’re a man who takes a hard line when it comes to ethics in the Force. You’ve fined coppers on the beat for drinking, sacked officers for taking bribes … I’m ready to hear what you propose for a superintendent who commits murder.”

  “Tricky.” Joe paused to marshal his thoughts and took a moment, as he often did in a tight spot, to select a diplomatic formula of the kind his old friend Sir George Jardine would have used to oil an unpalatable response. “I don’t give a shit,” he said finally. He picked up the bullet and tossed it over to Hunnyton. “Stand off! I suggest you do with that what I did with the letter.

  “Now, Adam. It’s been a long day one way or another and I’m turning in. Early start for Cambridge in the morning and I have to get a young lady onto the ten o’clock London train.”

  “Then I’d better drive you. Um … If it’s no bother, Adelaide’s expressed a wish to spend a day or two in Cambridge. Hope you don’t mind, Joe, but I sort of suggested it myself. Your Dorcas was more hurt than you supposed by that charade. She may well have agreed to it but it still knocked her back to find the man she … um … respected …”

  “Loved,” Joe corrected. “I’m not a fool.”

  “Well, she doesn’t want to talk to you. Not ready yet to forgive you. She’s rather clinging to sensible Adelaide for support. In fact I think she’s hiding from you behind Adelaide’s skirts. She senses this is a moment when she needs a doctor rather than a detective and if the doc’s another woman who’s very ready to agree with her that Joe Sandilands is a complete arsehole—all the better. There’s a fence there that, just for once, you may not be able to mend with charm and a glib tongue. It’s got a dirty great hole right through the middle of it.”

  “You’ll be glad to see Tommy again? Does Adelaide like dogs?” This was the feeble attempt of a tired man to change the subject and extract information and Adam was not deceived.

  “Adelaide? No idea. The woman’s a mystery to me. She doesn’t have a dog of her own, though her father has the usual pair of Labradors,” he said genially. “Tommy’ll be waiting behind the door when I get back to Maid’s Causeway. There’ll be eggs and bacon and a basket of mushrooms on the kitchen table and Mrs. Douglas at the hob. You’re very welcome to stay for breakfast. Hannah would insist. I told you my landlady was the best cook in Cambridge—she’s also the handsomest. In fact—she’s a corker! I’d make an honest woman of her tomorrow if she’d have me but she’s waiting for something better to turn up. When I’m feeling cheerful, I tell myself it must be that she prefers the spice of an illicit affair.”

  Joe grinned. “Don’t kid yourself. She just doesn’t want to be ‘Hannah Hunnybun.’ ”

  “It had occurred to me. But I don’t stop trying. Look, Joe … Don’t mess your life up out of pride or misplaced loyalty. We do a nasty job. The nastiness can rub off on you. What you need is a loving dog who’s never going to notice and, failing that, a good woman who does see it and helps you scrub it off.”

  “One more apple brandy and you’ll have me agreeing with you,” Joe said doubtfully.

  CHAPTER 26

  Joe tra
iled a hand in the cool green water, snatching at a strand of weed for the pleasure of feeling its slippery smoothness between his fingers. The punt he was lounging in surged forward at a kick from the pole and he cut his hand on the plant’s sharp edge.

  “Watch it!” he growled. “I’m supposed to be spending a relaxing afternoon recovering from my exertions. All this swooshing and heaving about makes me feel like a badly stowed cotton bale. Where am I supposed to put my feet? This cushion’s soaking wet! Call this fun? Isn’t it my turn yet to have a go with the punt pole?”

  “Not until you’ve fully appreciated the demonstration I’m giving you.”

  “I’ve been watching. And—I’ve been meaning to ask for the last mile—aren’t you standing in the wrong place? Why are you balancing precariously on the platform at the back? It would make more sense to put your feet down here in the body of the boat. You’d have much better control, surely?”

  “You know nothing of the mechanics of punting. Oxford ignoramuses punt from inside, Cambridge men stand up here on the stern. I don’t want to attract rude shouts and possibly a dunking from the local chaps—they get very picky about style. But I can see you’re the sort of man who can’t bear to be pushed around by a girl. Look—there’s a deep, grassy indent in the bank over there and a convenient willow to hitch the punt to. I’ll make for that. We’re not all that far from Grantchester meadows now. It’s a wilderness of buttercups and tall-growing Queen Anne’s Lace. Plenty of shade. We could be thinking about landing for tea.”

  She nodded down at the hamper Joe was struggling to prevent from overturning. “I asked them at the hotel to forget about the flask of tea and put a bottle of champagne in there. For consolation or celebration? I’m not sure yet. Depends on what you have to say for yourself. Or there’s apple juice if you want to keep a clear head. And some ham sandwiches, some spice buns from Fitzbillies and a chocolate cake. That do you?”

  The promise of chocolate cake and the sight of Adelaide Hartest’s sunburnt bare feet right in front of his eyes produced a sigh of pleasure and a stir of excitement. Her damp summer frock was clinging in a very indecent manner to her legs and her face was pink with exertion, her eyes alight with humour. Perhaps there was something to be said for punting after all.

  “Watch it, Adelaide,” he warned. “I can work magic with spice buns.”

  “Joe,” she said with a smile that was uncomplicated, warm and for him alone, “you don’t need the buns.”