Murder in Advent

by David Williams

  This time Miss Daras was so consumed with laughter she slid off her chair at the front on to her knees and had to be helped back by the questioner. ‘Pre-electric. Pre-electric,’ she gargled hoarsely. ‘Lord help you, we haven’t got the gas yet.’

  ‘Well, I think we should call on Mr Daras. Good to have met you . . .’

  ‘You can try,’ the old crone interrupted Treasure. ‘Front door’s over there. Mind the dog.’

  ‘We heard a shot earlier.’

  ‘Did you now, Missy? Got to protect ourselves. Protect our virtue.’ But, instead of pealing with laughter at what the others took to be a witticism, the speaker was re-applying herself assiduously to her main task.

  There was no knocker, though there was a space denoting where one had been long ago. The callers – particularly Jingles – had been careful to line themselves on the side of the door furthest from the Alsatian. The dog barked at them unceasingly and with increasing fervour the closer they came, straining and pulling on it chain, wrestling to break free, sometimes rolling about in contortions, sometimes towering on its hind legs. All this induced thoroughly worried noises from Jingles and mute but matching concern from both her companions.

  Treasure rapped sharply on the peeled, greyed paintwork of the door, which was opened immediately by a scrawny, middle-aged woman smoking a clay pipe. Behind her was a sniggering girl of about twenty with a young baby in her arms. The older female had on a man’s cap and an aged overcoat open over a dirty cotton dress. There were carpet slippers on her thick-stockinged feet. The girl, big and buxom, wore blue overalls and her hair in dirty ringlets.

  ‘We’ve called to see Mr Daras,’ announced Treasure firmly. ‘Sorry to have disturbed your dog.’

  ‘Right. This way, then,’ said the girl in a broad country burr and an implication that they might have been expected. She scuffed her bare feet through the thick layer of straw covering the flagstone floor as she conducted them across the square, empty hall. ‘’Ee’s in the dining,’ she added, throwing open a door.

  Both visitors caught their breath.

  The big room was over-furnished – like an antique showroom with nothing displayed to advantage.

  In the middle was a long, thick medieval oak table with its centre opposite the door on one side and a huge fireplace on the other. Logs were burning briskly in the hearth. Most of the chairs around the table matched the one Miss Daras had been using outside. The floor was covered in Oriental rugs of different sizes and thickly overlapping.

  At one end of the room was a chaise longue, a number of richly upholstered chairs and occasional tables all wedged in front of a formidable and intricately carved Welsh dresser. The other end was dominated by a massive double bed, unmade and partly inhabited. This was hemmed in by more chairs, cabinets, and a glazed bookcase crammed with china and glass.

  It seemed every available section of wall space was taken up with oil paintings. Every flat surface was covered with bric-à-brac, with silver boxes, vases, bowls, and candlesticks and candelabra – all except the centre of the table where there was evidence a meal was in progress.

  The remains of two cold chickens and a ham were displayed on a silver serving plate balanced on a small and presumably battery-operated television receiver. Silver vegetable-dishes, a soup-tureen, a scattering of apples and pears and a cheeseboard were grouped around. Some empty beer-cans lay upturned beside a much less plebeian silver tankard.

  In the bed a girl was laying on her stomach with her face peering over the bottom board. She was not unlike the young woman with the baby, but younger – about sixteen. She was clad in a short cotton shift. Her concentration and both her arms were sternly engaged.

  Behind the food sat a very old man. He was small and shrivelled. There was little hair on the tight skin of his wide domed head but plenty protruding from the orifices of ears and nose, and in uneven wisps from behind his jawbone. The parched skin of his face was patched with red blobs, most noticeably below the eyes – dark sunken eyes that searched and strained over the top of the gold half-spectacles perched on the end of a surprisingly bulbous nose. He was clothed in army uniform – khaki battle dress tunic and trousers that were comically over-sized. Under the tunic collar the tops of striped flannel pyjamas protruded; under the table running shoes encased feet protruding below sockless white bony legs.

  ‘Stand still and be recognised. Move and ’ee’s dead. Hold it on ’im, girl. Hold it!’ cried the old man in a frenzy of ascending yokelry, the pitch so high at the suddenly attenuated finish it seemed he might have strained something. Although an accusing mittened finger remained pointing at the end of a wavering, outstretched arm, behind it the head slumped to nearly table level.

  ‘They’re all mad. Help me,’ pleaded Len Hawker, who had dared to look round from where he was kneeling, bowler hat askew, well inside the room. The shot-gun the girl was levelling was pointing directly at his chest.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Mr Daras?’ questioned the banker formally. ‘My name’s Treasure. This is Miss Jones.’ There was an ominous click behind him. He didn’t want to look over his shoulder but sensed that he and Glynis had just been locked inside the room by the two women who had ushered them in and who were now flanking them. ‘I can’t imagine what Mr Hawker here . . .’

  ‘Raping an’ ravaging in my domain, is it? Sorry you’ll be in the latter day. Won’t they, sisters?’

  ‘Aah!’ exclaimed the three women in a sort of unison but with varying degrees of keenness. The girl on the bed was the most enthusiastic.

  ‘Sorry this man be already. Dispoiling our sister Ethel in the midst of her work. Her milking.’ Daras seemed to have recovered his strength but his voice was operating in a lower register than before and with less vigour.

  ‘Whatever Mr Hawker was doing, I’m quite sure he wasn’t assaulting the lady milking the sheep,’ replied Treasure firmly. ‘Please tell that young lady to put the gun down. Now.’

  ‘You’ll not be a rapist as well – not bringing a young nubile wench along with you?’ The old man’s beady gaze swept Glynis lasciviously from head to toe and back again before reverting to regard the quaking Hawker. ‘’Ee be a rapist, though. Going in custody he is. A prey on sisters, daughters and grand-daughters.’

  ‘And great grand-daughters,’ cried the girl on the bed.

  ‘Mr Hawker here is a private investigator,’ said Glynis coolly, advancing to stand beside that unfortunate. ‘He’s a sort of policeman. I think you’d better put the gun away, don’t you? Otherwise the whole lot of you will be going into custody. And not just for threats with a loaded shotgun. From great grand-daughters. Marvellous family likeness, Mr Daras. Are your sons-in-law about?’

  ‘Put it down, Nabar,’ ordered Daras slowly after a pause for contemplation. ‘It’s not loaded, Missy. Show her it’s not loaded.’

  The girl Nabar sniggered, bounced up on the bed, and broke open the gun. With exaggerated movements she exposed to everybody present not only the empty breach but also a calculatedly generous amount of bare bosom.

  Hawker staggered awkwardly to his feet, removed his bowler, and wiped his brow with his chequered handkerchief. ‘The other one was loaded,’ he cried in outrage. ‘The one they fired outside. When they set the dog on me. I’m very upset. Please make him let me go.’

  ‘Trespassing you were then. Trespassing you are now. Man can’t be too careful,’ Daras went on hurriedly and addressing himself to Treasure. ‘Not living out here he can’t. Need to put the fear of Almighty God in prowlers.’ He lifted his arms heavenwards. ‘An’ beseech His protection for deserving womenfolk.’

  ‘Amen,’ chanted the three Daras women.

  The old man’s arms came down. ‘Nothing for investigations, though. Nothing . . . nothing unnatural here.’ Now the look he switched to Glynis was full of calculation. ‘And people are welcome who come in peace. Like some tea?’

  ‘We’d like you to let Mr Hawker go, with safe conduct off your property,�
� said Treasure.

  The old man nodded malevolently at his early captive. ‘Bugger off, and don’t ’ee ever come back,’ he admonished.

  Hawker hesitated, but on an indication from Treasure he turned about and shuffled out through the door that the older women had unlocked and was holding open for him. He was limping awkwardly. The woman left, too, followed by the girl with the baby.

  ‘And now we’d be grateful for some information, Mr Daras,’ continued Treasure, sensing that the ascendancy established by Glynis was still applying. ‘I believe you’re acquainted with Mr Pounder, the Dean’s verger in Litchester.’

  ‘Go and put some clothes on, Nabar,’ was Daras’s first response.

  Nabar slid off the bed, in the process managing to reveal several sections of bare anatomy that hadn’t been exhibited already. She left the gun lying on the covers and slunk across the room preening her auburn hair and slowly pulling up a strap of her slip. Her eyes were on Treasure most of the time and she purposely brushed her thigh against his as she passed on her way out of the room. She paused at the door to turn, make a face, and poke her tongue out at Glynis.

  ‘Darlin’ sweet child,’ said Daras when the door closed behind the girl. ‘Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Warm enough for you ’ere, is it? Live mostly in ’ere we do. Saves fuel. Terrible poor we are today.’ He narrowed his gaze. ‘Neville Pounder sent you, then.’

  The banker nodded, because figuratively the assumption was true. It appeared his hunch had paid off. ‘To talk about the Magna Carta.’

  ‘That’s over. Long since.’ Now there was suspicion on the crinkled face. One hand went to stroking the huge nose. ‘Neville didn’t come hisself?’

  ‘No.’ It seemed certain also that the news of Neville’s awful demise had not come either.

  ‘Couldn’t come here again hisself. Wouldn’t have it. Not pleading for ’er. Not the daughter taken in adultery. Not Beryl. Not the flesh of my flesh gone second-hand to a fornicator. Dead he is. Dead he ought to be as well. And her and her bitch child could be dead with him. That’s for all I mind.’ Daras retched and spat over his shoulder into the fire. He turned back to the two with a look of blatant malevolence.

  ‘You and Mr Pounder were in the Army together?’ put in Glynis, who, studiously unruffled, had seated herself at the table. Jingles, less relaxed, jumped into her lap.

  ‘He told you that? And good friends one time. Best he got of the friendship, too.’

  ‘He told us about the Magna Carta,’ said Glynis, figuring it was time for another try in that area. ‘More fool him.’

  ‘The copy,’ Treasure offered.

  ‘Oh ay? Which copy would that be.’ The eyes narrowed into slits.

  ‘The Daras family copy,’ confirmed the banker blandly and, judging from the other’s interested reaction, confident he had taken the right direction.

  ‘Lost that was. Long since. Terrible shame.’

  ‘Came down through the family, I suppose? From the time of the scriptorium?’

  The old man looked about him as if to enjoin the attention of others and not just his two hearers. ‘County Sheriff he were. King’s representative. My ancestor.’

  ‘Powerful gentry,’ offered Glynis quite softly. ‘What happened, I wonder?’

  ‘Come to this,’ Daras replied in a whisper, his gaze now dolefully contemplating the cluttered board before him and seeming metaphorically to be reflecting on the present sad state of his family affairs. But it was the lion’s contraction before the leap. Without warning he jumped to his feet, his arms scattering food and utensils. ‘What happened?’ he cried. ‘Swindled we’ve been on every hand. Snared by usurers. In league with Beryl and ’er whorey daughter. That’s who sent you. Tell us the truth, then!’ He thumped his fists down on the table and left them there, while the rest of him subsided back into the chair, his chest heaving, his whole countenance a dangerous shade of purple.

  ‘Nobody sent us, Mr Daras,’ said Treasure. ‘Not even poor Mr Pounder, I’m afraid. Not directly. We came because we’re interested in Magna Carta copies. We thought you might have one. For sale.’ Then he included as an afterthought ‘Ready money, of course.’

  Daras looked about him as though checking his whereabouts. The rancour had evaporated and the face resumed its blotchy norm. ‘Very hard to come by.’ He flashed a conspiratorial glance at both his hearers in turn. ‘Good ones are. Very hard.’

  ‘Are they as good as the original?’

  ‘Can’t tell the difference, most folk can’t. Haven’t got the knowledge.’

  ‘Could you show us one?’ asked Glynis.

  Daras diminished further in his seat. ‘Show you one, Missy? Now, how could I show you something as I haven’t got?’ he offered guardedly, then turned to Treasure. ‘Supposing I knew someone? Let’s say someone knowing where there’s a copy. One that’d pass as genuine, like . . . like.’ He stopped at this, rubbed his chest, then took several deep breaths before continuing. ‘How much? How much of this ready money you got on offer?’

  ‘Mr Treasure is an important banker,’ Glynis volunteered across the table.

  Daras’s searching gaze remained on Treasure.

  ‘As much as would be needed, Mr Daras. Perhaps five thousand pounds.’

  Daras convulsed with laughter was not an edifying sight: so many of his teeth were missing. The mirth was eventually subdued by a fit of coughing. He wiped his eyes and mouth with a revoltingly dirty handkerchief. ‘“Perhaps five thousand pounds,”’ he mimicked. ‘That wouldn’t buy the seal.’

  ‘So how much more money would buy a copy? One as good as any you’ve sold already? The one you sold to Pounder? How much did that fetch?’

  Treasure knew he’d made a mistake the moment the words were issued. Pumping Daras had been like playing a hooked fish, but this time the banker had reeled in when he should still have been letting the catch run free.

  ‘Out of my house! Be gone! Out of my house!’ the old man cried. He stumbled across to the bed, clutched the shotgun and began searching through the pockets of his tunic. At the same time the doors had burst open and the three women reappeared.

  ‘Are they hurting you, Grandpa?’ called the one with the baby.

  ‘Can I lay into ’er, Grandpa? Tear her things?’ pleaded the still scantily clothed Nabar with relish, and moving forward eagerly, pushed on by the older woman from behind.

  Glynis jumped up and swung her chair around. Jingles, peremptorily unseated, began barking fiercely at her feet. Treasure had already moved up beside them. ‘Calm down, all of you,’ he ordered distinctly. ‘We’re leaving now, Mr Daras. If either of us is hurt by anybody or any animal, I’ll see it costs you this house. This house, you understand, and all the things in it. Plus every penny you possess. Is that clear?’

  ‘Get out,’ Daras repeated, but with less venom and hardly any power. He hadn’t succeeded in finding cartridges for the gun, which he was still cradling with the breach open. ‘Beryl sent ’un. That’s for sure,’ he advised the three women. ‘Spies they are. Spies.’ He fell back into his chair as the women stood aside to make a gangway.

  ‘Your threat about this place made him go quite white,’ said Glynis as she and Treasure left the farmyard and entered the lane to the main road.

  They had emerged unscathed. Even the chained Alsatian had regarded them with indifference. Ethel and the sheep were nowhere to be seen. Jingles, who had been trotting ahead, now watched them pass as, with an urgent look in her eyes, she watered the base of the first large tree along the path.

  ‘One cares most about holding on to territorial boundaries,’ said the banker glancing at the animal but meaning Daras.

  ‘Especially when in reduced circumstances. I told you, he still leases out several farms in the area. Can’t produce much. This one, what’s left of it, used to be the home farm.’

  ‘No stately family home as well?’

  ‘There used to be. Fell down in the last century. Neighbours say Joshua Daras cut the family off
from the rest of the community more than forty years ago. When his wife died.’

  ‘Know what she died of?’

  ‘Officially natural causes. But the word is she never got over the effects of being raped. By an Italian prisoner of war who’d been working on the farm. That’s what one of my clients told me this morning.’

  ‘You didn’t mention it earlier.’

  ‘Frankly, I didn’t believe it earlier. Do now. There’s a lot of scandal in village talk. You never know the truth for certain.’

  ‘So his fixation with rape has a reason in fact?’

  ‘Excuse more like,’ said the girl slowly. ‘All that business of protecting virtue is most likely a front for something nastier. Much nastier.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘That’s because you’re not exposed to isolated country communities. Isolation for some of the families becomes a way of life. They fall into being self-sufficient. In every way.’ She paused, clearing her throat. ‘Including sexually.’

  ‘Good Lord, didn’t the railways cure all that in the last century? Providing for wider intercourse?’ asked Treasure too glibly. Watching her serious expression he added: ‘Sorry. Not funny.’

  ‘Didn’t cure incest. Not so common now. Not restricted to rural areas, either. But you have it back there all right. Didn’t see any menfolk except old Daras.’

  ‘One could assume they were working in the fields.’

  ‘Except there aren’t any. Fields I mean. Or menfolk.’ She sighed. ‘The whole family’s bonkers. Half-witted. You could see that. It’s exactly what I’d been told about them. Daras was always a screw loose apparently. The others have got it from him in direct descent. And I mean direct.’

  ‘Hence all the manic behaviour.’

  ‘If you want to know, I’d guess that old man’s been cohabiting with all the bedworthy women. And been doing it for years. Generations.’

  ‘But why should the women submit to anything so degrading?’

  ‘Broadly because they’re all simple-minded and dependent on him. Easily put upon.’