The Trebelzue Gate

by Anna Fitzwilliam

  ‘The family said that Amanda worked at their caravan site from time to time, we need to check whether she was one of the complainants.’

  The turning for the woods lay close to the southern end of the runway. Sergeant Bee said ‘In a minute, if the trees aren’t grown up too much, you’ll get a view of the big house, Trenant, this here’s the entrance …’

  They were passing a pair of tall stone gate posts, goose grass and ivy grew up and around the stonework. The large iron gate hung skewed and was propped open with a broken capping stone. A drive curved out beyond the gateway and moments later they glimpsed a grey Palladian style house. This brief view, set against a backdrop of trees, seemed to present the house as a vignette illustration of itself.

  Half a mile further along the road the sergeant slowed down beside a parked patrol car and a garage recovery vehicle. He wound down the window

  ‘Any sign of the car yet?’ he asked the man standing beside the recovery vehicle.

  ‘Not yet, ’hell of a lot of trees in there.’

  As they drove on the sergeant said, ‘There should be a track coming up on the right.’

  He parked on the verge beside a gap in the post and wire fencing. The track led away from it, barred by a length of timber.

  ‘There’s a poem about the way through the woods,’ said Monica.

  ‘I wouldn’t know M’am, I never got further than the Highwayman myself,’

  The first belt of trees was native broadleaf, it made a dappled green dimness, bracken and brambles and the splayed ends of the bluebells’ season were bunched in the leaf mould, two or three small birds were darting among the leaves. Then the planting changed to conifers, the light dwindled and the air was stilled and thickened. The complaint of an air raid siren from the base came much muffled through the trees. The road behind them seemed a long way off.

  ‘I hope we’re going in the right direction,’ Monica said.

  ‘I don’t think there is another way,’ the sergeant replied.

  They had been walking for some ten minutes when there was a sudden movement to the right. Looking up they glimpsed a figure moving rapidly away from them between the tree trunks. To Monica its sudden and bizarre appearance suggested a dreamscape. It was a man with long ginger hair curled like a Restoration wig, his belted gaberdine mackintosh flapped at shin length and beneath it his trousers had been bound around with plastic carrier bags. For a second he paused, apparently indecisive, squinting up into the trees so that a pinhole of light fell on one lens of his spectacles, then he turned and began to run with a lumbering, uneven gait, the panels of his mackintosh lifting behind him. They halted, staring at each other. Monica said

  ‘I’m glad you could see him too, I was afraid at first that it might be an apparition, but I presume that it was our Mr Harvey.’

  ‘Do you want me to chase after him?’

  ‘It’s probably better not to, he knows the lie of the land and we don’t, let’s just carry on and try to find the cottage.’

  They had continued for another five minutes when the sound of popular music rose through the trees. Twenty yards further on the track stopped beside the Harveys’ cottage. It was a low building of stone and cob, roofed with corrugated iron. An area of ground around it had been flattened and cultivated, there was a row of currant bushes and in a chicken run brown and ash grey bantams pecked. The roofs of the several outhouses had been patched with plastic fertiliser sacks. The music gave way to the voice of a disc jockey, cheery and conversational. The same radio station, Monica thought, must be sounding in thousands of places across the country, an un-regarded background in suburban kitchens and service stations and workshops. But here in the clearing in the woods it was a disjunct, incongruous and somehow disturbing. At the front of the cottage an open porch was filled by piles of seed trays and newspapers and broken tools, a sheaf of service sheets from a Methodist chapel and faded copies of The People’s Friend magazine. The front door seemed shut fast, a rusted cobbler’s last stood in front of it. They walked round to the back of the house, the radio sound was louder, a zinc bath hung from a nail in the wall. A chrome tap fitting had been screwed to the standpipe from a pump. The back door stood open onto a kitchen. There was a range and an earthenware sink and a table with one leg propped by a book with pink cloth boards.

  ‘You better come in, now you’re here,’ said the woman standing at the sink. She was very small in frame and stature, she had the markedly pale complexion of a redhead but with a yellowish cast, the colour of chicken skin, cooked and gone cold. The red was almost faded from her hair which was drawn back with Kirby grips. She wore over-sized black Wellington boots, a pleated skirt of maroon plaid and a string coloured jersey knitted in feather stitch.

  On the beam above the range hung a calendar that someone had once hand made. A picture of dahlias in a jug with a pale green embossed cardboard frame. A little calendar booklet for 1946 was glued onto the bottom.

  Monica made introductions. Mrs Harvey had been peeling potatoes. She set down the knife and said ‘I guessed you’d be here before long. No doubt you’ve come to blame him.’

  ‘Who, Mrs Harvey?’ asked Monica.

  ‘My boy,’ her voice was high pitched and her tone hostile, ‘you always do blame him.’

  Monica said ‘Mrs Harvey, I’ve never met your son before. Is he at home now?’

  The woman continued as though Monica had not spoken ‘… anything ever goes missing, anything not right, anyone thinks they got an intruder – it’s always he they accuse, they needn’t think I didn’t see how they looked at me when I went in town to Women’s Bright Hour yesterday neither, … well it’s not he …’

  ‘Mrs Harvey, we are not accusing your son of anything, but we are investigating a murder and it would help us to know whether he saw anything on the night the young woman died. We know that your son spends a lot of his time outdoors and the victim’s car was seen near the woods, on the night she died.’

  Mrs Harvey drew the potato peelings together into a heap and swept it into an enamelware bucket which stood under the sink.

  ‘He won’t be able to tell you nothing.’

  ‘All the same, we’d like the chance to talk to him ourselves. Are you expecting him back soon?’

  She had taken a saucepan from above the range.

  ‘Perhaps I should go out and look for him,’ said Sergeant Bee.

  ‘Oh, have it your own way,’ Mrs Harvey took a sharpening steel and the saucepan to the door step. She held the pan up in the air and beat loudly on the base with the steel.

  ‘That brings him,’ she said shortly. The three of them stood at the door, scanning the trees.

  Sergeant Bee said ‘Must be hard work out here, with no services laid on.’

  ‘We manage. We got a generator.’

  ‘What about shopping and so on?’

  ‘Wednesdays I can pick up the St Wenn bus on the top road. Otherwise my boy takes a list into St Columb.’

  ‘Is there anyone else living in the woods?’

  ‘Just us.’

  ‘On the map it looks as if there’s another building here, about half a mile further.’

  ‘There was an old ruin, but it never got used, it must have fell in years ago.’

  ‘Do you walk in the woods yourself, Mrs Harvey?’

  ‘What would I want to do that for? Especially now Madam’s bringing all they shooters in.’

  ‘Madam?’

  ‘Her at the house, the young one.’

  There was a rustling sound in the undergrowth, Robin Harvey peered uncertainly as he approached the cottage, hesitating every few steps. One arm of his spectacle frames was broken and mended with Elastoplast. On the carrier bags around his trouser legs the faded trademarks of a grocery chain were just discernible. He had secured the bags around his calves with orange binder twine.

  ‘These want to speak to you, Robin, they’re the police,’ his mother said.

  ‘I don’t know nothing,’ said Robin, he
turned his head away from them, looking back towards the trees, ‘Nothing.’

  Monica said, ‘We wondered whether you were out in the woods on Tuesday night, Mr Harvey?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Not in the woods, no.’

  ‘Well perhaps you have seen this young woman,’ she held out a photograph of Amanda. Robin glanced at it quickly and then covered his eyes with his hand and turned away again, shaking his head vehemently.

  ‘Have you ever seen her?’ asked Sergeant Bee.

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ he said, his voice an ascending note of agitation. He turned his back to them, ‘I don’t like people,’ his body began a rapid motion like violent shivering.

  ‘There, he’s told you and that’s that,’ said his mother.

  ‘One more thing, Mr Harvey, is there another building a bit further on, a bit of a ruin maybe, can you tell us where it is?’

  Robin looked at his mother and then he let out a loud and extraordinary sound, a whooping exclamation of distress, before running from them into the trees. The sergeant made to follow but Monica said

  ‘No, let him be for now.’

  ‘You scared him to death,’ said Mrs Harvey. Her observation was matter of fact rather than accusatory.

  Monica said ‘I’m sorry that we upset your son, Mrs Harvey, but we have our job to do. We’ll leave you in peace for now, but we may need to come again.’

  They walked back to the car, alert for any sound around them that might be Robin, but there was nothing.

  ‘He’s gone off to hide somewhere, I reckon. Not an easy life for her,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘No, indeed. We’ll need to talk to social services, and maybe the doctors, see exactly what he might be supposed to be capable of. Now, we’ll go and call on the squire, shall we?’

  They turned in at the stone gateposts, in several places the car rocked over potholes in the drive. On the turning circle in front of the house a woman was lifting the tailgate of a Range Rover.

  ‘Out, Titus,’ she commanded, and a liver and white spaniel jumped down and vigorously shook itself.

  She took out a cardboard box, shut the tailgate and turned to Monica and Sergeant Bee.

  ‘Yes?’

  Her dull blonde hair was pushed back with a velvet Alice band, she wore a green quilted waistcoat over a striped blouse with a pie crust collar, her jeans were pushed into riding boots.

  ‘DCI Guard, Detective Sergeant Bee …’

  As Monica spoke three small fighter jets screamed across the sky at low level. As the noise abated the woman said

  ‘Blasted men with their bloody silly war games, they’ll frighten our birds.’

  ‘Is that birds as in game birds?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘Yes, we’re establishing a shoot. Now, what do you need?’

  ‘We’d like to speak to Mr or Mrs Haig-Mercer.’

  ‘Mr Haig-Mercer is away. Which Mrs Haig-Mercer do you want – there’s two of us?’

  ‘The Mrs Haig-Mercer who could help us with information about the woods.’

  ‘That would be me, I suppose. You’d better come in.’

  ‘Shall I take that?’ Sergeant Bee asked, gesturing towards the cardboard box.

  ‘Could you, yes,’

  The box contained veterinary medicines. They followed her into the hexagonal entrance hall. A large brass lantern shade hung from the decorated plasterwork of the ceiling, Wellington boots and hats and gloves were strewn around and upon a wooden settle. A cantilevered staircase with wrought iron banisters curved away to one side.

  ‘Come through,’ she said and then, to Sergeant Bee, ‘You can dump that there,’

  He put the box of medicines on the settle. She led them to a large sitting room. There were tall windows onto a terrace. A cane work bergère sofa and chintz covered armchairs formed three sides of a square in front of the fireplace. The fireplace tiles were white, embellished with a blue fleur de lys motif. A small fire with neat, licking flames burned in the grate, the colours of the flames transparent in the sunlit air. The walls were hung with portraits of people and animals. Above an escritoire there was a pastel drawing of two young, fair haired boys. They were dressed in grey jerseys and white Peter Pan collars. Among the traditional studies one painting stood out incongruously, a Cubist portrait of a woman with black Marcel waved hair, the facets of her body clothed in a green dress, her legs tipped by bright scarlet shoes.

  As Mrs Haig-Mercer motioned for them to sit down her attention turned to the doorway.

  ‘Oh, you’re in here, are you?’ asked the stern and stately woman standing there.

  ‘Yes, Dorothy, we are in here.’

  The woman entered. She wore a dark green suit with a triangle folded silk scarf about her neck. Her torso was large and well fed but her legs, tapering into conker coloured court shoes, were slim. Her grey hair was firmly curled and set.

  ‘My mother-in-law, the first Mrs Haig-Mercer.’

  ‘Hardly the first,’ she replied, taking a seat in a high-backed chair in front of the terrace windows. The chair was covered in crewel pattern fabric. The younger woman ignored her mother-in-law and said

  ‘Look, I don’t wish to be rude, but can you tell me what this is about, I do have rather a lot to do this morning.’

  ‘We are investigating a murder, Mrs Haig-Mercer, and the victim’s car was last seen by the estate woods.’

  ‘It’s been all over the local news. Most unfortunate,’ said the older woman.

  ‘Do you know the victim, Amanda Shute, or the Shute family?’

  ‘No,’ the younger woman replied, ‘they run a pub, don’t they?’

  ‘Indeed, do you know of any reason why the victim should have been at the woods?’

  Again, it was Felicity Haig-Mercer who replied, ‘You surely must appreciate that we have acre upon acre of woodland – and park land and farm land - we can hardly be expected to notice the whereabouts of every straying tourist or trespasser, unless they make a particular nuisance of themselves or pinch something – we’re still waiting for one of your men to get back to us about the horsebox, by the way. Anyway, which day are we talking about?’

  ‘Tuesday, at some time after 7pm,’

  ‘Well then, I was away for the night. I went up to the game fair at the Bath and West.’

  ‘I see, perhaps …’ she turned to the older woman.

  ‘Not me, Chief Inspector, I very seldom venture out in the evening now. On Tuesday I was at home, I watched a passable adaptation of Rebecca on the BBC, after that I telephoned Lady B to see whether or not she was pleased with it.’

  ‘Lady B?’

  ‘Lady Browning – Daphne du Maurier, she lives over on the south coast, the Rashleighs’ estate, we’ve been friends for years.’

  ‘And Mr Haig-Mercer?’

  ‘No. My husband was away. In London.’

  ‘Do you have staff here at the house?’

  ‘There’s Esther, our housekeeper, but she goes home in the evening, unless we have people here; then there’s a daily woman, but she comes and goes early.’

  ‘Is Esther here now?’

  ‘No, she’s gone shopping in Wadebridge this morning.’

  ‘Very well, is there anyone else on the estate who might have noticed the car – it’s quite distinctive, a Renault 4 with large flower shaped stickers on the back?’

  ‘We don’t have any full-time outdoor staff at the moment. There’s a couple of cottages which we use for holiday lets, further along the main road – I don’t know if they’re occupied at the moment, you’d have to ask in the estate office.’

  ‘Thank you, we will. We have already been to one of your cottages.’

  ‘Which one?’ her tone was sharp.

  ‘The one occupied by Mrs Harvey and her son.’

  ‘Oh God, yes, the Harveys, one tends to forget about them, they’re simply part of the landscape. I don’t suppose they were much help, he’s un peu … deficient shall we say. Look, why don’t I j
ust show you across to the estate office, the secretary will be able to tell you about the holiday lets.’

  ‘Thank you. One other thing, last year’s garden fête, for the Feast Week, would you happen to have a list of those attending?’

  ‘Good God no, why would I, it’s a public thing, there’s a Feast Week committee down in the village, they arrange it all, every man and his dog turns up, we just lend out the lawn to do our bit.’

  ‘But I understand that a number of representatives from the local community attend,’

  ‘Well, by tradition, yes, probably because my late father-in-law was Lord Lieutenant of the county, but I don’t know that we actually invite them. Again, maybe you could ask the secretary.’

  ‘Actually, I can make you a list,’ said the elder Mrs Haig-Mercer, ‘not of the public attendees, of course, but of the people I have to lunch on the day. Felicity was not quite correct, I do send invitations, just as we did in my late husband’s time. Such things are important, a house like this needs to be kept alive. Nowadays the atmosphere is rather sterile, I fear.’

  There was a palpable silence. Monica made a note on her pad, Sergeant Bee studied the Cubist portrait.

  ‘How long have you lived here, Mrs Haig-Mercer?’ Monica asked.

  ‘All my married life. My husband inherited the estate in 1938, when it was quite run down. A year later he had to go off to war. On his return he dedicated his life to rebuilding it. When he died in 1972 my son and his wife took over. Of course, it should have been my elder boy, Peter.’

  ‘Peter?’

  ‘My son Peter died in a sailing accident, in Ireland, when he was nineteen. So, it had to be Nicholas.’

  ‘Do you spend much time outdoors on the estate, Madam?’

  ‘Not now. I used to quite enjoy the garden, but I’m not as active as I was.’