‘Would you like some coffee?’ I said.
Mrs Forbury looked over Janet’s head at me. ‘I’d better not, thank you. I mustn’t stay long. I just popped in on impulse, you see, and Dennis wouldn’t know where to find me if – if he happened to want me.’
In other words, she hadn’t told her husband she was coming here. She didn’t stay long. She slipped out of the house as furtively as she’d come in. When she said goodbye, Janet clung to her hand. At the time I couldn’t understand it, but now I think that Janet and Mrs Forbury were joined together by dead babies.
‘It was kind of her,’ Janet said when I came back.
I nodded offhandedly, miffed that I had been temporarily dislodged from my position as Comforter-in-Chief.
‘I must do a bit of shopping this morning,’ I said. ‘You remember that Henry’s coming?’
‘David will stay with me. You go out to lunch with him by yourself. It’ll do you good.’
‘But what about you?’
‘I’ll find something. I’m not very hungry.’
‘But Janet –’
‘I’m not ill. I wish you wouldn’t mother me.’
The doorbell rang again.
I went into the hall. Inspector Humphries and Sergeant Pate were standing with their backs to the house, apparently admiring the sun-filled garden. When I opened the door they turned together to face me in a movement so synchronized it might have been choreographed.
‘Good morning, Mrs Appleyard,’ Humphries mumbled, his lips scarcely moving. ‘Is Mr Byfield in?’
‘I’m afraid you’ve missed him. He’s at the Theological College.’
‘May we come in?’
I stood back to let the two men into the house.
‘Who is it?’ Janet called from the drawing room.
‘The police.’
Humphries moved so that he could see Janet on the sofa through the doorway of the drawing room. ‘Mind if I have a word, Mrs Byfield?’
The policemen sat down one on either side of the fireplace. I perched on the arm of the sofa. Pate took out a notebook and fiddled with the piece of elastic which held it together.
Humphries cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid I shall have to have a look in Mr Treevor’s room again, Mrs Byfield. And perhaps elsewhere in the house.’
‘All right.’
I said, ‘Is there something in particular you’re looking for?’
‘One or two things we’d like to dear up,’ he said, still looking at Janet.
‘Such as?’ Janet asked.
‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather talk to your husband about this,’ Humphries said.
‘Why?’
‘Well, there are some things that aren’t suitable for ladies, really.’ He stirred in his chair. ‘No need to make things worse than they are, is there?’
‘Mr Treevor was my father,’ Janet said. ‘I want you to talk to me.’
I saw Pate wince, as though expecting an explosion. Humphries ran his fingers through his baby-soft hair. But he didn’t clam up. Quite the contrary.
‘Very well, Mrs Byfield, I’ll tell you what I would have told your husband. There’s some doubts about the circumstances of your father’s death. You know what a pathologist is?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘He had a look at the body last night. Now, when someone cuts their throat, you normally get a dean cut and they arch their heads back, which means the carotid arteries slip back. And that means that the knife misses them, so there’s less blood than you’d expect. Follow me so far?’
For a moment the scene in Mr Treevor’s room flashed in vivid technicolour behind my eyes.
‘There was quite a lot of cuts on your father’s throat, and a lot of blood. The bedclothes were in a mess, too, which suggests he struggled. Tell me, Mrs Byfield, was your father right-handed or left-handed?’
‘Right-handed,’ she muttered, and Sergeant Pate had to ask her to repeat her answer.
‘If a right-handed person is cutting his throat, Mrs Byfield, he usually does it from left to right. Understand? But the cuts on your father’s throat were from right to left. So. Perhaps you can see now why I wanted to talk to your husband, and why we’d like to have a look around a little more, and ask a few questions.’
I stood up. ‘This is absurd,’ I said. ‘You know Mr Treevor wasn’t a well man. As Dr Flaxman will tell you, he was going senile. He wasn’t acting normally. Nothing he’s done in the last few months could be called normal. So it hardly seems strange that the way he killed himself was rather unusual.’
Inspector Humphries had stood up as well. With his head hunched forward on his shoulders, he looked like a bird of prey in an ill-fitting suit. ‘Unusual, Mrs Appleyard? Oh yes, very unusual. For example, this is the first suicide I’ve seen where the perpetrator killed himself, then got up and washed the knife, left it on the floor at least a yard away from the bed, climbed back into bed and carried on with being dead.’ He sucked air between his teeth. ‘Very unusual indeed, I’d say. Wouldn’t you agree, Sergeant?’
Janet shifted her body on the sofa. ‘What would you say if I asked you to leave?’
‘I’d say that was your right, Mrs Byfield, but if you do it won’t take me long to come back with a search warrant. And if this goes any further, your refusal will look very bad. Whatever happens there will have to be an inquest, you know. It will probably be adjourned so we can make further enquiries.’
Janet sighed. ‘You can look round, if you want.’
‘Good.’
‘Do you want me to go with them?’ I said to her.
Janet shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Neither of us spoke for a moment when Humphries and Pate left the room. We heard their heavy footsteps on the stairs and the key turning in the lock of Mr Treevor’s room.
‘Why was he so unpleasant to you?’ I asked.
She looked at me for a long moment. ‘Why should he be nice?’ she said at last. ‘They’ll look everywhere.’
‘Everywhere?’
‘Of course they will. It’s their job.’
I wanted to laugh. What would they make of the bottle of gin in my bedside cupboard, not to mention the sprig of lavender resting on a cheque for ten thousand pounds?
‘Janet, you don’t think–’
‘I don’t know what to think.’ She swung her legs off the sofa. ‘I’d better ring David.’
There was another ring at the doorbell.
It was a boy with a telegram addressed to David and Janet. Janet tore open the envelope, read the message and passed it to me.
ARRIVING 12.38 TRAIN. MOTHER.
‘Damn it,’ Janet said, running her fingers through her hair. ‘I thought this might happen.’
‘It must be the train Henry’s on. Ask David to bring round the car, and I’ll meet them both if you want.’
‘We’ll have to make up a bed for her, and then there’s supper.’
At least David’s mother had given us something to do, something to distract us from the heavy feet moving about upstairs, and what the presence of the police officers might mean to all of us. While Janet phoned David, I explained what had happened to Inspector Humphries and made up the bed for old Mrs Byfield in the little room next to Rosie’s. Mrs Byfield was a demanding visitor, and Janet asked me to make sure there was a hot-water bottle to air the bed, and on the bedside table a carafe of water, a glass and a tin of biscuits in case she should feel peckish in the night. She might be chilly at night, so extra blankets had to be found and a fire had to be laid.
While I was doing this, David came home, and I heard his raised voice first in the hall and later in Mr Treevor’s room. I was glad to see him, because we soon had other distractions in the shape of two more journalists, whom David turned away, and the bishop’s chaplain. I stood on the landing and eavesdropped on his conversation with David in the hall below.
‘I say,’ said Gervase Haselbury-Finch, ‘this is awful. The bishop sent me r
ound to say how sorry he is. He says you and Mrs Byfield are much in his mind at present. And in his prayers, naturally.’
‘How very kind of him,’ said David in a voice that suggested the opposite. ‘Do thank him.’
‘Um – I should say – the chief constable telephoned him this morning.’
‘Really?’
‘I gather there are one or two things that the police will have to dear up about Mr Treevor’s death. He – the bishop, that is – would very much appreciate it if you could keep him informed.’
‘I’m sure he would,’ said David.
‘There are wider issues to be considered.’ Haselbury-Finch was almost gabbling by now. ‘The bishop feels that the matter could be a sensitive one for the diocese, even for the church as a whole.’
‘Thank him for his advice, Gervase. In the meantime, I have got rather a lot to do.’
‘Eh? Oh yes, I see. You must be awfully busy. I’ll say goodbye then.’
The garden door opened and dosed. I went downstairs and found David lighting a cigarette.
‘I heard that,’ I said.
‘I could have strangled him,’ David said, and to my surprise smiled at me. ‘Not poor Gervase. The bishop.’
‘I’d better go down to the station.’ I studied my reflection in the hall mirror. I would have to go as I was. There was no time to repair make-up or brush hair.
‘I’ll see if I can get rid of the policemen before my mother comes. I’m sorry you’re being dragged into this. Just drop my mother off here and then go and have lunch with Henry. Try and forget all about it.’
‘Not so easy.’
‘No.’
We seemed to have blundered into a world where the ordinary rules were temporarily suspended. So I said, ‘What do you think really happened to Mr Treevor?’
David rubbed his forehead. ‘God knows. It simply doesn’t make sense.’
Our eyes met. I felt sick. It was as if we were all in a lift going down a shaft, and the cables had snapped and we were falling, and all we could do was pretend we were calm and wait for the crash at the bottom.
David let me out of the back door into the High Street. The car was parked in the marketplace. I drove down River Hill and cut through Bridge Street to the station. I was a few minutes late and when I got there I found Mrs Byfield asking a porter to be more careful with her suitcases while Henry was pretending to be absorbed in a poster advertising the Norfolk Broads.
Henry pecked my cheek. ‘I’m so sorry. How are David and Janet?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
‘There were journalists on the train.’
I smiled at Granny Byfield. To look at her was to get an impression of what David would look like when he was old. I introduced myself, and then Henry. She had met us at David and Janet’s wedding but we had not lingered in her memory. I drove them back to the Dark Hostelry. Henry tried to make conversation – he’d have tried to talk to a Trappist monk – but Mrs Byfield kept him in his place with monosyllabic replies and the occasional glare.
We parked in the marketplace. Mrs Byfield gazed out of the window while she waited for Henry to fetch the suitcases from the boot and me to open the door for her. Her hip was painful and I had to help her out.
‘I’m sure I’ve seen that woman before,’ she said, leaning heavily on my arm. ‘Do you know her?’
I was just in time to see a small woman wearing a dark-blue headscarf going into the Sacristan’s Gate.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘I never forget a face,’ announced Mrs Byfield. ‘I probably met her when I’ve stayed here before.’
‘Damn,’ I murmured.
‘I beg your pardon.’
Jim Filey was leaning on the back doorbell of the Dark Hostelry. There was another man with him, a camera and flash slung round his neck.
Henry followed my gaze. ‘Trouble?’
‘What is it?’ demanded Mrs Byfield.
‘There’s a journalist and a photographer outside the house.’
At that moment the door opened and I glimpsed David’s face. The flash went off.
‘Intolerable,’ Mrs Byfield said. ‘It shouldn’t be allowed.’ She limped down the pavement towards the Dark Hostelry, with Henry and me trailing behind her. She tapped Filey on the arm with her stick. ‘Excuse me, young man. You’re blocking our way.’
Filey swung round. So did the photographer, raising his camera. There was another flash.
‘Come in, Mother,’ David said. ‘These gentlemen are just leaving.’
‘Mrs Byfield?’ Filey said, his Adam’s apple bobbing in excitement. ‘I wonder if you’d care to comment on the tragic death of your daughter-in-law’s father. Was he someone you knew well?’
‘I don’t want to talk to you, young man. I shall complain to your editor.’
Filey jotted something down in his notebook. ‘Have you come down to stay with your son and his family, Mrs Byfield?’
She compressed her lips as if to stop the words falling out. David took her arm and drew her gently into the house. I followed, with Henry dragging the cases behind me. David shut the door and put the bolts across.
‘Well!’ Mrs Byfield said. ‘This is a fine welcome, I must say.’
‘It’s getting worse.’ David kissed his mother’s cheek.
‘Worse?’
‘They were peering through the kitchen window just before you came.’
‘But when all’s said and done, it’s none of their business.’
‘That’s not how they see it, Mother.’ He hesitated and then went on, ‘It seems that there’s a possibility that Janet’s father didn’t commit suicide after all.’
She frowned. ‘Some kind of accident?’
‘The police think not.’
‘But that’s ridiculous.’ She was nobody’s fool and saw where this was leading. ‘Then someone broke in. A thief.’
‘Perhaps. Janet’s father did say he’d seen a strange man in the house, but we rather dismissed that. As you know, he hadn’t been himself in the last few months.’
‘I’d like to sit down now.’ She looked tired and old.
‘Come up to the drawing room. Let me take your coat.’
‘Where’s Janet?’
‘Resting in bed.’
Granny Byfield grunted as she moved towards the door to the stairs, either because of the pain from her hip or because she disapproved of Janet’s resting in bed.
David looked at Henry and me. ‘I’m sorry about this. Why don’t you two go to lunch?’
‘Isn’t there something I should do here?’ I said. ‘Your mother will need some lunch as well.’
‘Just go,’ David said wearily. ‘Please. I’ll need to talk to her, and it’ll be easier if there’s no one else around.’ He glanced at his mother, who had begun the long haul up the stairs, and turned back to us. ‘I’m sorry to sound so unwelcoming.’
I don’t know why, but I put my hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek.
41
A few minutes later Henry and I slipped into the High Street and walked down to the Crossed Keys. I thought the lobby of the hotel smelled faintly of Turkish tobacco, but no one I recognized was there or in the bar.
The big, panelled dining room was almost empty. We ate tinned tomato soup, a steak-and-kidney pie with far too much kidney; and a partially cooked bread-and-butter pudding. Not that it mattered. Neither of us had much appetite. We had a couple of gins beforehand and shared a bottle of claret with the meal.
While we ate, or rather for most of the time failed to eat, I told Henry what had happened. It wasn’t until the pie arrived that I realized something that should have struck me at the station. I laid down my fork.
‘You knew,’ I said. ‘You knew about Mr Treevor.’
‘There was something in the Telegraph this morning. Not much – police are investigating the death of a sixty-nine-year-old man in the Cathedral Close at Rosington. That sort of thing. They didn’t mention him by
name but they made it clear he was a resident. So I was half expecting it. And then I asked the ticket collector at the station, and he confirmed it.’
‘Filey.’
‘Who?’
‘He’s a reporter on the local paper. He was the one asking the questions when we arrived at the Dark Hostelry. I bet he sold the story to the Telegraph.’
‘How’s Janet taking it?’
‘Not very well. It’s come on top of David losing his job, and the miscarriage. It would be bad enough if he had just died. But to have it happen like this … David’s been good. I think they’ve learned who their friends are.’ I thought of the dean’s wife. ‘And sometimes they’re not who you’d expect.’
We sat in silence for a moment. There had been a party of rowdy men, perhaps journalists, in the bar, but the only other person in the dining room was a well-dressed woman sitting twenty feet away with her back to us and staring out of the window into the street. I thought she might be the woman that Mrs Byfield had recognized in the High Street, but I wasn’t sure.
Henry broke the silence. ‘No sign of Munro?’
‘It seems rather unimportant now, whatever he and Martlesham are up to.’
Henry glanced across the table at me. ‘After what happened to Janet’s father?’
I nodded.
‘I suppose they are unconnected.’
‘They must be.’ I pushed aside the small mountain of bread-and-butter pudding. ‘Martlesham hadn’t got anything to do with Mr Treevor. They probably didn’t even know of each other’s existence.’
Henry shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. When Munro came to Rosington, he might have been finding out about the Dark Hostelry as well as about Youlgreave. So Martlesham could have known about Mr Treevor. I bet it was an open secret in the Close that he was going senile. And Munro would have told Martlesham.’
I thought about the stroke-blighted man we had met. ‘Martlesham was hardly in a position to nip down to Rosington and cut somebody’s throat, even if he had a motive for doing it.’
‘No. I agree.’ Henry threw down his napkin and reached for his cigarettes. ‘Nothing quite fits. I wish you’d come away with me. Now. Not go back to that bloody house. I don’t like thinking of you there.’
The Office of the Dead Page 27