by Bill Kitson
‘It all seems very suspicious; three people arriving in a small town and deciding to set up a company together almost immediately afterwards,’ Holmes added.
‘I was going to suggest checking into their backgrounds,’ I told them, ‘but it seems that you had the same idea.’
‘We did, but we got nowhere with our enquiries. Knowing where to look would be a massive help.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve considered sending their fingerprints to other forces, have you?’ Eve asked.
‘It would be a slow, cumbersome process, if for example they’ve used other names. And where would we start? It isn’t as if there was any evidence, either in Wharton’s home or his office, or in Miss King’s flat.’
His final words triggered a memory. ‘It might be worth sending a telegram to the South African police with their names and descriptions,’ I suggested.
My statement was greeted by astonished silence. It was Eve who recovered the power of speech first. ‘Why South Africa of all places, Adam?’
‘I remembered something I’d seen in Kathy King’s flat, just after we discovered her body. I had a few seconds in which to look around before Johnny threw me out. I noticed some items that interested me. It was a set of figurines that were standing on a display cabinet alongside the sofa. They were wooden sculptures of African natives. I spent some time in Africa as a correspondent, and saw a lot of similar work over there, created by craftsmen working in South African townships. I know this might seem rather a long shot, but I very much doubt whether she acquired them locally. That sort of artwork is about as rare in North Yorkshire as elephant droppings. I may be totally off the mark, but I still think it might be worth the cost of a telegram quoting those names to Pretoria or Cape Town.’
‘I think Adam’s right,’ Pickersgill told Holmes. ‘It might be worth trying.’ He gave me a sly grin. ‘It’s telex, by the way, Adam. We’re embracing new technology.’
‘Gosh, you’ll be replacing your bike with a Panda car next! Anyway, Eve has an idea you might find interesting.’
Eve described our search of the safe and what we’d found amongst the contents. Although she mentioned the family tree and the Latin manuscript in passing, she managed to convey the impression that we believed them to be incidental, concentrating instead on the letter from the young girl. ‘Given what we’ve heard about Stephen Pengelly’s reputation as a serial womaniser, we thought it seemed a little strange that he should have retained this above all the others he might have had.’
Eve was holding the letter as she spoke and lifted it to emphasise her next point. ‘I’ll show you it in a moment, and I think you’ll agree that although the girl is quite explicit in her wording, the style implies she could be quite young. That being the case, we wondered why Stephen kept it, and also why he secreted it so carefully within the photo album. Then we remembered something Robert told us; an argument he overheard when he was a child.’
She repeated Robert’s account of the row between Stephen and his father. ‘If you look at this letter, I think you’ll agree that the girl might well have been underage. If that was the case and Stephen got her into trouble, that might provide a motive for revenge. I’m not sure how it would tie in with the other murders, but I thought it might be worth asking a few questions locally, to see if we can discover who the girl is, and what happened to her.’
‘I agree that it might be worth tracing this girl, if only to rule her out,’ Holmes told us, ‘but if you’re right and this is who the argument was about, it does seem unlikely that the revenge should take place now, after so much time has elapsed.’
‘If the crime was an act of vengeance, I feel sure it would have been committed long ago,’ Pickersgill added, backing his colleague up.
There were factors the officers had failed to take into account, but I decided against mentioning them at that point. ‘Returning to our suspicions about the connection between the victims and Graeme Fletcher,’ I said, ‘we have a theory that the Pengelly family tree we discovered might have been fabricated to swindle Stephen Pengelly out of a large sum of money, using this company Overtring Ltd. If that wasn’t the purpose of setting up that firm, the only alternative we can think of is blackmail.’
‘Might that manuscript you mentioned be part of it, Adam? The one you said was in Latin,’ Pickersgill suggested.
‘It could be, but until I’ve had a go at translating it, I won’t know, and even then there’s no guarantee that I’ll be any the wiser. As a way of shortening the procedure, we wondered if it might pay off for Eve and me to visit Fletcher and see if we can get him to talk. He might not have been prepared to admit anything to the police, but he could do so to us, as we don’t pose a threat.’
‘I suppose it might be worth trying. Let me mull it over during the weekend and I’ll let you know after that,’ Holmes said.
We watched the officers leave, before I sought out Robert. I found him supervising the locksmith at work on the back door, and explained what their problem was. Eve and I returned to the drawing room. There, I told her what I believed was wrong with Holmes’ dismissal of the revenge theory. ‘If the girl had a lover, a brother, or a husband even – someone who had been abroad or in jail for many years – that would explain the delay in seeking retribution.’
Eve gave me one of her more brilliant smiles, the ones that always melt my heart, and said, ‘I’m glad you agree, because I’m more convinced than ever that this letter is important in some way. Why else would Stephen lock it away? So if the police aren’t in a hurry to discover who this girl is, I think we should make some enquiries locally.’
‘A good idea, Evie, and I think I know the very place to start asking questions.’
‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. The village pub, by any chance?’
‘Exactly, where better to get hold of local gossip than the lounge bar of the local? I think you and I should go for a pint sometime in the near future and see what we can discover.’
‘I knew that beer would enter into your plans at some stage or other.’ Eve smiled indulgently, ‘OK, all we have to do is decide when to go. Of course, if you’re driving, you won’t be able to have a drink.’
That was a snag I hadn’t foreseen.
Victoria’s statement took everyone by surprise. ‘I believe that I may be on the way to deciphering one of the runic inscriptions in the notebook. I know it seems to have taken forever. I was all but convinced that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax, a set of meaningless scribbles presented to give the appearance of runes.’ She shrugged. ‘That might well still be the case. There could be nothing more to the messages than someone writing “Kilroy was ’ere”, or something equally banal, but until I’ve finished I won’t know for certain.
‘I thought it was beyond me, but today I realised why it has been so difficult. I firmly believe that someone was desperate to avoid both the messages being translated. It was only when I looked at the photographs carefully and compared them with the inscriptions in the notebook that I realised where the problem lay; or rather, problems, to be strictly accurate.’
‘But why, and by whom?’ Robert asked.
Victoria smiled. ‘Even I am not old enough to determine who, but I strongly suspect it was the composer or composers of the texts. Alternatively, it could equally well have been the person or persons who commissioned them to be carved on the stone tablets. I have no way of knowing whether the source for both those messages was the same, or whether they are completely unrelated.’
‘So you are saying there are two messages within those runic inscriptions, is that correct?’ Alison asked.
‘Actually, I believe there are three, possibly even four, but again, I can’t be positive.’
‘I’m getting confused,’ Eve told her.
‘If you’re confused, how do you think I’ve been feeling for the past few days? Let me try and simplify matters. When they were inscribed, someone put all the symbols down, but jumbled them up – in essence creatin
g a simple form of code. The message within the text would have been difficult enough to disentangle even at that, but as I discovered on examining them, someone else defaced the text. They did this by omitting some of the symbols and altering others by adding different characters. In essence, the effect would be similar to changing a letter I to a T in the Latin alphabet.’
‘Why would anyone go to so much trouble?’ Tammy wondered.
‘It seems they were determined to ensure that the gist of the text did not fall into the wrong hands. That in itself is intriguing. I could understand the need to maintain the secrecy at the time these were created, but what I can’t grasp is why someone went to all that trouble recently. Whatever the messages contain, they must have felt it was important enough still to be guarded after such a long time. Why that should be, I have absolutely no idea.’
‘Perhaps it gives directions to the hiding place of some great treasure,’ Tammy suggested.
‘I rather doubt that,’ Victoria told her. ‘Such things don’t exist outside the pages of fictional adventure stories.’
‘What about the other inscription?’ I asked.
‘Ah, that would appear to present a different challenge entirely. The reason I can’t be sure if it comprises one or more messages is that all I am able to say with some degree of confidence is that although the inscriptions are runic by nature, the language they are written in is not Celtic. Apart from that, I can also say that it definitely isn’t Latin or Greek either. Where that leaves me, I have no idea at present.’
Victoria’s news was good, and there was more to come when Frank appeared with a message for Robert. ‘Mary asked me to remind you that Tony Bishop will be back from his holiday either later this evening or tomorrow. With everything that’s happened, we’d quite forgotten that you haven’t met him yet.’
Frank’s statement gave Eve and me chance to discuss the idea of a jaunt to the pub in Barton-le-Moors. ‘The manor is more secure now, and if there was someone else on hand in case of emergencies I think we could risk a visit to the Crown and Anchor,’ I suggested.
Eve agreed, ‘I’m beginning to think we’ll never get anywhere with this investigation by staying cooped up here.’
‘That’s true, and despite the charms of my lovely cellmate, I’m starting to go stir crazy,’ I told her.
‘I think we should tell the others what we plan to do, but let’s leave it one more day. When we’ve met Bishop we can form a better judgement.’
Chapter Fourteen
I’m not sure what the estate manager expected on his return to work, but I’d guess the size of the reception committee wasn’t what he anticipated. A few minutes after eight o’clock next morning the estate’s Land Rover pulled up outside the front door and Tony Bishop got out. Frank had been deputised to lead the welcome party, which comprised six people. He opened the front door, allowed Bishop to enter, then closed and locked it, sliding the bolts home.
Bishop blinked with surprise at the sight of the gathering, but his attention quickly turned to Frank as he told him, ‘We have some very bad news, and we’re not taking any chances.’
‘I did hear something last night, but I couldn’t believe it. Emma’s father phoned us when we got home. It was after midnight, and we thought there must have been a problem at their house, but then he told us a lurid tale about what had gone on here. Is it true? Has Stephen really been murdered?’
‘It is, but before we go into that, let me introduce you.’
I watched as Robert greeted his new employee, and noticed that both men were assessing one another. In turn, Robert introduced Alison, then Tammy, and finally Eve and me, explaining that we were there to help with protection and to assist the police with their enquiries. ‘I didn’t mean that like it sounds,’ he added with a smile. ‘Apart from Adam and Eve trying to prevent us being murdered in our beds, the police have enlisted them on an unofficial basis to help solve the murders.’
‘Murders?’ Bishop looked aghast. ‘Has there been more than one? I didn’t know about anything other than Stephen’s death.’
‘The body count is three at present,’ I told him, ‘plus an attack on Tammy and two break-ins here.’
‘Is that how you got that?’ Bishop pointed to the plaster cast on Frank’s arm.
‘No, that was something totally different. A freak accident, you could say, but it happened at a most inconvenient time.’
Frank returned to the kitchen and we adjourned to the drawing room, spending the best part of half an hour explaining to Bishop everything that had gone on. I could tell he was struggling to take it all on board. Eve, Tammy, and I left Bishop alone with his new employers, and headed for breakfast.
‘I think we can risk a trip to Barton-le-Dale this morning,’ I told Eve. ‘We won’t be missed here, and I rather fancy buying you a Ming vase, or a nice mahogany whatnot.’
She looked puzzled for a second, then caught on. ‘You’re proposing that we visit Fletcher’s antiques shop? Despite DS Holmes saying he wanted to think it over.’
‘Yes, I reckon it’s time we forced the pace a bit. Like you said earlier, the investigation isn’t going anywhere. I think Holmes must be under enormous pressure not to make mistakes. There comes a point when that sort of stress makes you freeze, and you become unwilling to try anything in case you get it wrong.’
‘What if we get it wrong?’
‘Holmes can’t be blamed for our actions. He has no control over us.’
Eve agreed a trifle reluctantly, and after we’d eaten, we asked Mary if she needed anything and informed Frank that we were going shopping. ‘Keep the baddies away while we’re out,’ I told him, ‘and if the worst comes to the worst you can always hit them with your pot.’
He glanced down at the plaster cast on his arm. ‘I’d never have thought of using it as a weapon until you mentioned it, but I could do worse. I reckon it would give them a nasty headache.’
On our way to Barton-le-Dale, I asked Eve what she thought of Tony Bishop. Her opinion matched mine almost exactly. At one time this would have surprised me, but the longer we spent together, the more often our thinking seemed to tally on most subjects. I guess this happens with lots of couples. They either grow together or apart.
‘I like him,’ Eve said. ‘He’s considerably younger than I expected. He can’t be much older than Robert, but that’s no bad thing. I also think he cares more about the estate itself than he does about Stephen Pengelly. He didn’t pretend to be devastated by the news of Pengelly’s death, which shows he’s not a hypocrite. I was a bit surprised that his girlfriend’s father had already told them about the murder. I thought that DS Holmes was trying to keep a lid on publicity. But I guess that’s village life for you. No point trying to keep secrets, because it just won’t work. I can’t imagine there will be many other topics of conversation in the Crown and Anchor of an evening at present, can you?’
‘Not only at present. Gossip about what happened to Pengelly will keep tongues wagging for months. And when you add the other murders into the equation, talk will go on for years. Mind you, by if we go back in a couple of years and listen to it, we probably won’t recognise the events, the way it will have been distorted.’
I’d anticipated needing to use the car park at the back of the main street, but despite the influx of Saturday morning shoppers I was lucky enough to see a vehicle pull out of a space almost directly opposite the antiques shop and manoeuvred the car carefully into the vacant bay. I sighed as I locked the car door. ‘Getting back into my own car will be a wrench after driving the Mercedes.’
‘Don’t get ideas above your station, Adam. If you’re not careful you’ll start believing you’re one of the landed gentry.’
‘That isn’t going to happen, Evie.’ I took her hand and squeezed it gently. ‘I’m too content with what I have to worry about things like cars, but I admit the Merc is a real temptation.’
The first sign that all was not as it should be was when we reached the shop
door. Despite it being mid-morning on the busiest shopping day of the week, a market day at that, the sign was still in the closed position. That could have been an omission, I thought, but when I tried the handle, the door refused to yield. I looked at Eve and saw that her concern mirrored mine. She peered through the window, cupping her fingers to enable her to get a clearer view of the interior of the shop. ‘There’s no sign of anyone about,’ she reported, ‘the shop is neat and tidy, and the lights aren’t on.’
I wondered if perhaps Fletcher had nipped out to get a sandwich, or had needed to use the toilet and locked up while he was absent from the shop floor, but if either of those had been the case, he would surely have left the lights on. ‘Perhaps he’s been taken poorly,’ I suggested, ‘he has nobody to cover for him now, following Kathy King’s death.’
With hindsight, I think I was trying to come up with acceptable alternatives to what I feared might have happened. ‘I suppose that’s possible,’ Eve conceded, but I could tell she didn’t really buy into my theory. ‘I think we should go round to the back and check, just to be on the safe side.’
I followed Eve towards the end of the terrace. There were five shops in the row, with Fletcher’s occupying the central position. At the end, a road bisected the main street. We made our way along it, moving against the tide of pedestrians heading from the car park towards the open-air market that was a weekly feature in the town.
The rear of the properties comprised open yards, which served the dual purpose of providing easy access for deliveries, plus parking space for staff and customers of the shops. Eve pointed to a nearly new BMW that was parked at one side of the yard belonging to the antiques’ shop. ‘Holmes told us that Fletcher had recently bought a BMW, could that be it?’
‘It could indeed.’ My fear for the antiques dealer’s wellbeing increased dramatically as I pointed to the back door, which was slightly open. ‘Looks as if someone’s inside. Perhaps he had a late night and has only just arrived.’
I’m not sure whether Eve believed me. My statement might have sounded more convincing if I believed it myself. I walked across and pushed the door further open, before calling for the owner. ‘Mr Fletcher? Are you there?’