A Death in the Family

by Hazel Holt

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. The thing is, he discovered something really awful.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘As well as the family tree thing there were some notes.’ She hesitated and then went on. ‘Harry’s Uncle Robert joined up in the army in the war and left Harry’s father to look after the farm. Well, Uncle Robert was killed in the D-Day landings in Normandy, but before he was sent to France he got married.’

  ‘How sad. What about his widow?’

  ‘That’s the thing – we never knew anything about her, nor about the marriage. Not Harry’s father, not anyone. We never knew there was a widow.’

  ‘What a peculiar thing.’

  ‘It’s more than peculiar, it’s really worrying.’ Pam paused again. ‘You see,’ she said, ‘there may very well have been a child, and if there was, then the farm would belong to him.’

  ‘But that’s dreadful,’ I said. ‘The farm is Harry’s life, and Josh’s too.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  Pam gave a wry smile. ‘I was all for just ignoring it, letting things be. After all, no one’s ever turned up claiming the farm. It was all a long time ago and – damn it all – we’ve looked after it, built it up, kept it going. It would be really unfair if anyone else came along and wanted to take it away from us, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Absolutely. What does Harry think?’

  She shook her head. ‘You know Harry – honest as the day is long. He said he wouldn’t feel right just leaving things as they are.’

  ‘So what’s he going to do?’

  ‘Matt’s got some holiday coming to him so he’s going down to Wiltshire to see what he can find out.’

  ‘That’s quite a task!’

  ‘I know. But Harry rang Bernard, when all this came to light. Apparently this girl Robert married was a land-girl and Bernard gave Harry the name of the farm she worked on.’ She sighed. ‘Honestly, Sheila, I’m terrified of what Matt might find out. If the farm does belong to someone else I really don’t know what’s to become of us.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘I must say I’m with Pam over this,’ Rosemary said when I told her what had happened. ‘After all, if no one’s turned up for over sixty years – well, I mean!’

  ‘Oh I know, I feel the same, especially when they’ve all worked so hard to make a go of things. Not just Harry, but Josh – that’s his eldest son – and Pam too. But that’s Harry all over – he’d rather die than do anything he thought wasn’t right.’

  ‘It’s all very well being noble, but when it’s your family and their livelihood at stake, I think you have to fight for it. Actually,’ she went on, ‘I’m feeling very family-orientated today. That’s why I called round – to tell you. I heard from Colin today. Marianne’s had the baby. It’s a boy – eight pounds – and they’re going to call him John after Jack.’

  ‘Oh, how marvellous; your third grandchild, aren’t you lucky! You must be thrilled.’

  ‘It’s lovely, but Toronto is so far away. It’s maddening not to be able to see him, photos really aren’t the same.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a melancholy thought, really, that I haven’t even met Marianne. When Colin told me they were getting married I was so happy for him – after the break-up with Charlotte and all that – and I did hope they might have come over then. But Colin got this job in Toronto and they had to up sticks and move, so somehow it never happened. And now there’s a grandson as well as a daughter-in-law I’ve never seen.’

  ‘I suppose you couldn’t…?’

  ‘There’s no way I could suggest it – you know what Jack’s like about abroad.’

  ‘They might come over here,’ I said consolingly. ‘Perhaps at Christmas?’

  ‘Oh, not with a very young baby, it wouldn’t be right. No, when he’s a bit older perhaps. I mustn’t grumble. After all I’ve got Jilly and Roger and the children living practically on the doorstep. Lots of people have children and grandchildren living abroad. Look at poor Heather Wainwright. Her only daughter went to Ethiopia, for heaven’s sake, with Médecins Sans Frontières and goodness knows when she’ll see her again, not to mention worrying about the danger all the time. No, I’m sure they’ll come over when they can. But I do want to buy some things for the baby so I wondered if you’d feel like coming to Taunton with me next week. We could make a day of it. I think we could both do with a treat.’

  We had a nice day’s shopping and as well as things for the baby Rosemary bought several garments for Delia and Alex (‘So they don’t feel left out’) and I found an enchanting little dress for Alice. It’s a sign of getting older, I suppose, when buying clothes for oneself is a chore but buying things for one’s grandchildren is pure pleasure.

  We stopped off at a pub for lunch on the way home.

  ‘Better than Taunton,’ Rosemary said, ‘plenty of parking space and, anyway, this place had a good write-up in Somerset Life.’

  The pub was a bit self-consciously rural with a real log fire in the wide hearth, a plethora of agricultural implements hung on the walls, and many sepia photographs of happy farm workers leading carthorses and wagonloads of hay. Apparently the publicity had had some effect because it was very full and we had to wait a while for our food.

  ‘Well, it was worth waiting for,’ Rosemary said, looking with satisfaction at her excellent sea bass, ‘and all freshly cooked, not just heated up in a microwave. How’s your calves’ liver?’

  ‘Gorgeous,’ I said. ‘They’ve done it with sage – quite delicious.’

  We’d been early so other people were still arriving when we left. I was just getting into the car in the car park when a voice behind me said, ‘Sheila? Sheila Malory?’

  I turned and saw that it was Rebecca Prior, Richard’s wife.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ring you,’ she said, ‘about this man Bernard Prior – some sort of cousin of Richard’s. He’s being a perfect nuisance. Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘Well, actually,’ I replied, ‘I was going to ring you. He’s dead.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked disconcerted. ‘Well, of course, I’m sorry and all that…’

  ‘It’s a complicated story,’ I said. ‘Look, we can’t go into it now – could I possibly come and see you and explain?’

  ‘Well, yes, if you like. Would Friday do? Come to coffee, about eleven. I must dash now – I’m meeting someone for lunch and I’m late already.’

  She gave me a wave and a quick smile and was gone.

  I got into the car where Rosemary was waiting patiently at the wheel.

  ‘That was a bit of luck,’ I said as Rosemary looked at me enquiringly. ‘That was Rebecca, Richard Prior’s wife. I wanted to go and see them about Bernard and now I’ve arranged to go and have coffee on Friday.’

  Rosemary laughed. ‘More suspects? Poor souls, little do they know when they innocently dish out coffee invitations to you that you’re doing your Miss Marple act.’

  ‘Well,’ I said defensively, ‘it seemed too good an opportunity to be missed. Anyway, she said she wanted to ask me about Bernard.’

  When I got home I took out the documents for Richard from Bernard’s briefcase. As before, I couldn’t find anything interesting in the family tree. Richard was an only child but his father had had a sister and two brothers, one of whom, Walter, appeared to have gone to live in America since, beside his name, it said d. Oregon? The other brother, Norman, was also dead, as was Richard’s father, George, but the sister, Edna, seemed to be still alive, though since she was b. 1920, she was now quite elderly. She had married a Paul Chapman (d. 1987) and had a daughter, Emma. Norman (m. Margaret Vesey 1970; d. 1994) had a son, Vernon, and he was still alive. Richard and Rebecca had one son, Charles. There seemed to be nothing particularly remarkable about all that so I turned to the notes. But these weren’t much help either. There were dates and places of birth for everyone, and dates of death for Norman and George. For Walter it merely said ‘check Family
Records Centre website, also US sites to find date of death, marriage, issue etc.’ All quite straightforward but, as far as I could see, no dreadful secret that would lead to murder.

  I put the papers away and went upstairs. Foss, who had been asleep on my bed since before I went out, lifted his head as I went into the bedroom.

  ‘Are you still asleep?’ I asked him. ‘Wouldn’t you like to go out in the fresh air with Tris instead of frowsting in here all day?’

  He gave me one of his blank stares then, putting his head on his paws and wrapping his tail around his nose once more, he went back to sleep. Rebuffed, I changed my shoes, put my coat away and went back downstairs.

  As I got down the calendar in the kitchen to make a note of my visit to Rebecca on Friday, I saw with horror that it was tomorrow I was supposed to be going to tea with Rosemary’s mother, Mrs Dudley. I had pushed it to the back of my mind – since visiting Mrs Dudley was something not dwelt upon with anything other than apprehension – and now the time had caught up with me.

  Armed with a stephanotis in a pot, I arrived on the doorstep exactly at four o’clock. This meant that I had been sitting in my car, parked round the corner for ten minutes, since being too early was equally as bad as being too late. Her housekeeper, Elsie, ushered me into the sitting room and was told sharply to bring in the tea in ‘a quarter of an hour exactly’. Mrs Dudley was sitting by the fire – a coal fire naturally since this was what she had always been used to, but in addition to, not instead of, central heating. The room was, therefore, extremely warm and I was glad I’d remembered to put on a thin summer dress although we were well into autumn. I advanced cautiously into the room. One never quite knew what sort of mood Mrs Dudley would be in and it was always advisable to test the waters before embarking on any conversation. I held out the stephanotis in a sort of propitiatory gesture and was pleased to see a smile lighten her face.

  ‘Ah, stephanotis,’ she said softly. ‘I had some in my wedding bouquet. Thank you, Sheila, that was most thoughtful of you. Put it down somewhere where I can see it – no, not on that table,’ she added sharply, ‘over there by the window. Now come and sit down and tell me all your news. I’ve been confined to the house in this terrible wet weather we’ve been having and I haven’t had a visitor for days.’

  This, I knew for a fact, was not strictly true, since Rosemary visited her almost every day and always spoke to her on the telephone, but I also knew that Rosemary didn’t count as a proper visitor, being merely a daughter. I sat down and produced such scraps of gossip I’d prepared in readiness for the occasion. Mrs Dudley listened, absently for her, and then, when there was a pause, said, ‘And what’s all this about that tiresome cousin of yours? Dead is he?’

  I realised that I should never have expected her to be ignorant of such a sensational piece of news, though I couldn’t imagine how she’d heard of Bernard’s death, and I knew there was no way I could ask. So I took a deep breath and gave her a full account of what had happened. She listened in silence, except that when I told her about the murder attempt after Bernard was dead she gave an involuntary exclamation.

  ‘Well,’ she said when I’d finished, ‘I suppose I should never be surprised at what happens in this day and age, but this is beyond everything! It would appear that one isn’t safe from this terrible sort of thing even when one is dead!’ I gave a murmur of agreement and she went on, ‘I didn’t care for the man – I met him several times with his cousin, no his second cousin, who I knew quite well at one time. She used to be a friend of mine before she moved out of the district.’ Anyone who moved out of the district was automatically removed from Mrs Dudley’s list of ‘friends’, that is people who belonged to the Dudley mafia and were no longer useful as sources of information when they moved away.

  ‘His second cousin?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, Edna Chapman. A silly woman, but well-meaning I suppose. I believe she’s in a home now – Alzheimer’s I expect – I’m not surprised.’

  ‘She had two brothers, didn’t she?’

  Mrs Dudley settled more comfortably in her chair as she embarked on her favourite topic. ‘Yes, there was George, he was the eldest, then Norman – both dead now. And then there was Walter, he was much younger than the others, a very difficult person, quite wild, I believe, though,’ she said regretfully, ‘I never knew the precise details. Not that it mattered in the end because he went to America and nobody ever heard of him again. I expect,’ she added confidently, ‘he drank himself to death.’

  ‘And what about their children?’ I prompted.

  ‘Money mad,’ Mrs Dudley said. ‘Richard, George’s boy, is some sort of surveyor – whatever that is – but he’s been buying up property for years. Vernon appears to be a thoroughly unpleasant person, so I’ve been told though I have never met him myself. He has a chain of garages, I believe, somewhere in Surrey. Edna’s daughter Emma lives in London. She works on one of those women’s magazines. Such a rackety life they all seem to lead, living with some man she isn’t married to – Edna was very worried about her. She was afraid he was just after her money, of course.’

  ‘Money?’ I asked. ‘Emma had a lot of money?’

  ‘Oh yes, they all did.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘George and Norman made an absolute fortune, Edna too. There was this piece of land they all inherited jointly from their father. Quite a large area just outside Taunton. The fact is,’ she leant towards me, ‘their father, old William Prior, was a coal merchant.’ She paused to see what effect this pronouncement had on me.

  ‘I never knew that.’

  ‘Oh yes. There was quite a scandal about the business he’d been running, he was some sort of financial dealer I believe, anyway he lost everything, absolutely everything. The next thing anyone heard he’d got a horse and cart and was going around selling coal. Well, as you can imagine, the rest of the family simply washed their hands of him and you can hardly blame them. Still,’ she admitted, ‘he was very hardworking and, in the end, he built up a very thriving business. He bought these fields for the – what do you call it – the depot and then adjoining ones for the horses and so on. He did very well and he was considered to be quite a prosperous businessman when he died.’

  ‘So that’s how George and the others got their money?’

  Mrs Dudley smiled. ‘Oh dear, no. It was selling the fields that did that. They sold them to a property developer who built a whole housing estate on them – you must know where I mean, the other side of Bishops Hull.’

  ‘Yes – do you mean that one, but it’s vast!’

  ‘Exactly.’ Mrs Dudley nodded. ‘That’s where the money came from. George, Norman and Edna were very well-off indeed, and so are their children.’

  ‘Well,’ I said again, ‘I never knew that.’

  ‘You certainly would never have heard from them – about their grandfather, I mean. They would hate to think of people knowing about him. Terrible snobs all of them. I really can’t be doing with that sort of attitude.’ I tried to prevent my jaw dropping at that statement since Mrs Dudley is, and always has been, the most snobbish person I know. ‘I always,’ Mrs Dudley went on, ‘take people as I find them.’

  ‘My father never mentioned it,’ I said, ‘though I suppose he must have known. I seem to remember that he and Richard’s father used to go fishing together occasionally.’

  ‘Your dear father,’ Mrs Dudley said, ‘was a wonderful man and an excellent clergyman – his sermons always made one think about things in a spiritual way, not like the dreadful socialist nonsense the present clergy give us – but he was quite other-worldly about so many things, and especially about money. I don’t suppose he ever thought about where Richard and his family got theirs.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t suppose he did. So Richard and the others used this money to build up their own business empires I suppose.’

  ‘Money always comes to money,’ Mrs Dudley said, ‘that’s what my father used to say. Edna too. Now she ma
rried Paul Chapman – he had private means (his father owned a lot of property in the centre of Bristol) and he had this large estate just outside Dulverton. I believe it sold for some extraordinary figure when they moved to Bath – he had some sort of rheumatic condition and needed permanent treatment there. No,’ she concluded, ‘there’s a lot of money in that family.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Mind you, I’ve always said – money doesn’t buy happiness.’ She picked up the small silver bell from the small table beside her and rang it. ‘I think we might have tea now.’

  Elsie brought in the tea and, as usual, I ate far too much, tempted on this occasion by Elsie’s egg and cress sandwiches (tiny ones, so that one ate an enormous number without really noticing how many) and her heavenly apple cake. Mrs Dudley ‘managed’ two scones (with cream and jam), an éclair and a large slice of cake.

  As I was surreptitiously loosening the belt of my dress, Mrs Dudley said, ‘Of course it was lucky for George and the others that Walter had vanished from the scene so completely. There would have been considerably less for the rest of them if they’d had to share the fortune with him. But there, Walter was always a ne’er-do-well; he would have simply squandered his share, so it was probably a mercy that he never had it.’

  We talked of other things after that, or rather Mrs Dudley did, which was how she liked conversation to be, and when I rose to go she was in a mellow mood.

  ‘It was so kind of you to spare the time to call on an old friend,’ she said, inclining her cheek to be kissed. ‘You know I am always happy to see you.’ She looked at me critically. ‘Sheila, are you quite well? You are looking very flushed.’

  Outside I got into the car and drove down to the seafront. As I stood looking at the sea, breathing in the blessed fresh air and relaxing from the strain of the afternoon, I considered what Mrs Dudley had told me. The whole situation of that branch of the family was much more complicated than I’d realised. All that money. Surely that might very well be a motive for murder. Roger always said it was the first thing he thought of in a murder case. The sale of the land was obviously the key and what that generation had done seems to have had repercussions down to the present day. In fact it was more important to Richard and his cousins than to their parents, because that inheritance had been the foundation of their present fortunes. They would be most anxious that nothing might call the inheritance into question.