by Hazel Holt
“Well, no,” she said reluctantly, “it had more or less gone by then. That’s why,” she went on, warming to her theme, “I didn’t know what had happened to him. Lying there in his chair he was, just as though he was fast asleep. He looked really peaceful. There now, I thought, he’s just slipped away. Well, he was quite an age, wasn’t he?”
“What did you do?”
“I rang Dr Macdonald. He’s my doctor as well as Mr Middleton’s, so I know him quite well – he was really good when my Jason had that motorcycle accident and broke his collarbone – and he came at once.”
“And what did he say?”
“I could tell that he was puzzled – not that I was there when he saw to Mr Middleton, of course – but he came and told me that there’d have to be – a what do you call it? – an examination of the body…”
“A post mortem?”
“That’s it. Seems there’s a law or something when people die suddenly. Anyway, he asked if I had Mr David’s number and he rang him. Well, he wasn’t there, at work of course, but he left a message with his wife and Mr David had to make all the arrangements. I saw you at the funeral, a lovely service, wasn’t it? I thought the vicar spoke really well.”
“Yes. It was very moving.”
“I thought there might have been a flag on the coffin, him having been in the war. When my uncle Sam died – he was in the army too – there was a Union Jack on the coffin and a lovely wreath in the shape of his regimental badge.”
“Fancy,” I said.
“It was really queer, though,” she went on. “They say there must have been something wrong with the chimney because Reg – you know Reg – had that stove to pieces not long since and it was drawing beautifully. Well, I know that because I came in and lit it myself the day he got back from Cornwall with Mr David. Nothing wrong with it then.”
“And that was the evening when…”
“When he passed away. It’s a real mystery. They think it must be something to do with the chimney – I don’t understand these things – but I do know Reg swept that chimney when he saw to the stove.”
“Perhaps it was a bird’s nest,” I suggested. “Jackdaws, perhaps. They build in chimneys, don’t they?”
She looked at me pityingly. “Not in November they don’t.”
“No, of course not, how silly of me. But I can’t imagine what else it could have been.”
“That’s what I said to my John. I can’t think what it could have been.”
“The inquest was adjourned,” I said, “so I suppose they’re still looking into things.”
“Well, I don’t see how they can tell anything about what happened now. I mean, if there wasn’t anything to show straight away, they’re not likely to find anything now, are they?”
I had to agree that it didn’t seem likely.
“It’s going to seem queer not coming in here any more,” she said, looking around. “I’ve been with Mr Middleton a long time, ever since his poor wife died, and that was some years now. I suppose everything will go. I mean, I don’t expect Mr David will want anything, I believe he has a lovely home. But it’s a funny feeling to think of all the things you’ve looked after and polished and kept nice, going to be sold in some auction place. Sad really.”
We were both silent for a moment in tribute to this thought.
“Right. I think that’s everything,” Michael said then, coming into the room. “Thank you so much, Mrs Harrison, for seeing to things, it’s been a great help. The house won’t be going onto the market immediately so I’ll keep the central heating on just in case the weather gets colder and we have a bad frost.”
Mrs Harrison fished in her handbag and produced a bunch of keys.
“Here you are, then. All the keys are there. That big one is for the mortice on the front door and that little one there is for the padlock on the woodshed.” She looked round the room once again. “The end of an era, you might say. Well, I must be getting along. You know where I am, if you need me for anything.”
When she had gone I, too, looked round the kitchen. Another of my mother’s generation gone. Here, in these familiar surroundings, it seemed to hit me more strongly than it had at the funeral. And with the death of another of her friends it seemed somehow that I had lost a little bit more of her.
“Are you all right, Ma?” Michael asked anxiously.
I pulled myself together. “Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit melancholy.”
“I’ll lock the front door,” Michael said, “and we’ll go out the back. I’d better check on the outbuildings as we go.”
As we walked round the side of the house Michael stopped and looked up at the chimney, then his gaze travelled down onto the wall of the house.
“Yes, well, Reg did sweep the chimney, like he said. Look, you can see where the soot has spilt out when he had the inspection plate off.”
He pointed to a metal plate let into the wall. Below it there were streaks of soot caught in the rough sandstone surface of the wall.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s the inspection plate. You can take it off and get to the chimney from here. I expect Reg swept the chimney from the outside to save making a mess in the house.”
“How does it work?”
“It’s quite simple. The chimney flue divides inside – sort of a Y shape – and one arm goes up the chimney proper and one arm comes out here. It’s usually done when the stove is installed.”
“What a good idea…” I looked at the plate. It was about ten inches square with a slot – the sort you could open with a coin or a screwdriver – at one side. “It’s very neat,” I said, “and quite unobtrusive. Could I have one fitted on my chimney? It would be lovely to be able to have it swept with absolutely no disruption inside.”
“I don’t see why not. You’d better ask Reg what he thinks. Here are the keys of the Land Rover. You go and get in while I have a quick look round out here. I’ve put the table in the back.”
The table, oval-shaped mahogany with a design of flowers executed in delicate mother of pearl, looked immediately at home under the sitting-room window. I drew Rosemary’s attention to it when she called the following day.
“Oh, that is pretty. I do love those things. Great Aunt Amy had some lovely pieces but when she died Mother got rid of them all. Her generation despised anything Victorian.”
“I know,” I said, “it was the same with buildings. All that lovely municipal Gothic torn down after the war and hideous modern stuff put up instead.”
“So is Sidney’s furniture to be sold off?”
“He left a few things to the Crofts – you know, Dick and Marjorie, they live in the village and used to do shopping for him and things like that. Otherwise it was a very peculiar will.”
“Really?”
“Nothing at all for David and a Trust set up for the boys. And…” I paused for dramatic effect, “and a cottage at Withycombe and a substantial sum of money – I quote Michael – left to Brian Thorpe’s mother.”
“No!”
“It’s true.”
“But why?”
“There is one explanation,” I said, “but I honestly can’t believe it.”
“You mean…?”
“That Mrs Thorpe – or perhaps she isn’t Mrs – was Sidney’s mistress and Brian is his son.”
“No. No, it can’t be. Not Sidney!”
“I agree. It sounds impossible. But what other reason could there be?”
Rosemary shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t think of anything.”
“You see,” I said, “it would explain, in a way, that extraordinary remark Brian made after the funeral.”
“I suppose so. But still…”
“I know. It simply doesn’t fit in with the Sidney we knew.”
We were both silent for a moment, then Rosemary said, “Of course, there is another possibility.”
“What?”
“It’s just possible,” she said slowly, “that he was
n’t the person we thought he was and we didn’t know Sidney at all.”
Chapter Seven
* * *
I was walking past the houses on the quay when I saw Reg unloading some gear from his van. As he emerged he saw me and said, “’Morning Mrs Malory.”
“Oh, Reg,” I said, “just the person I want to see. You haven’t sent me your bill yet. Could you let me have it so I can get it settled before Christmas.”
“Right you are. I’ll get onto it tonight.”
“That’s good. Oh, and there was something else. Would it be possible for me to have one of those inspection plate things on the wall so that you could get at the chimney from the outside. I was up at Lamb’s Cottage a few days ago and I saw that Sidney had one. It seems like a good idea.”
“No reason why you shouldn’t. I’ll come and have a look next time I’m passing. Up at Lamb’s Cottage, was you? I suppose they’m going to sell it. I don’t see that son of his wanting to live there. Mind you, it’ll fetch a pretty penny these days. I daresay,” he continued, his voice heavy with scorn, “some off-comer’s going to buy it for a fancy price for a second home! It’s a disgrace. Didn’t ought to be allowed.”
“I know, it’s awful, isn’t it.”
“My Les, he’s having to move away – can’t afford to buy anything round here. Mr Middleton, he was going to see if he could hear of something – maybe a council house or a cottage to let – but no hopes of that now.”
“It was very sad. Such a dreadful accident. Have they any idea at all of how it happened? I know you checked the stove for him and, when I was at Lamb’s Cottage, I saw by the soot around the inspection plate that you’d swept the chimney.”
Reg, who had been lifting a box of tools from the back of the van, put them down and stared at me.
“No, that’s not right,” he said. “I never swep ’un from the outside. Not when I had the stove to pieces – I did ’un from inside…” His voice trailed away and he looked at me sharply.
“You sure you saw soot all round the plate?”
“Yes,” I said. “It was caught in the stone work – you know how rough sandstone is – and had dribbled down below.”
Reg was silent for a moment, then he said slowly, “So that’s how they did do it.”
“Who did what?” I asked, puzzled.
“Them as killed Mr Middleton. I knowed I had that chimney clear. I thought as how it might have been wet paper or wet rag pushed up the chimney, like. But no, all they had to do was take the plate off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if the plate is off, they fumes can’t go up the chimney, they’m going to come back into the room, aren’t they?”
“Are they?”
“That’s what happened, sure as I’m standing here.” He took off his cap and scratched his head. “Well I’m damned! Who’d have thought they’d think of that!”
“But Reg,” I said, “who do you mean – who would have wanted to kill Mr Middleton?”
“I can’t say,” he replied cautiously, “but where there’s money – well, you know as how folks talk.”
“You mean David? No, really, I can’t believe that. And anyway, he didn’t inherit anything himself – it went to the boys.”
“Is that so?” Reg looked at me intently, obviously registering this piece of gossip. “Still, he was killed no matter who did it.”
“So, will you tell the police?”
His face lightened with pleasure. “Aye, I’ll tell that Sergeant Bob Lister. He was so sure it were an accident. Didn’t believe me about the stove. Now he’ll have to do something about it whether he likes it or not!”
“Yes, well, you must tell someone. After all they adjourned the inquest, didn’t they? They must have thought it needed investigating further.”
“That it does…”
He broke off as a woman came out from the house and called to him, “Reg, are you coming in? Your tea’s going cold!”
He picked up his tool-box and closed the back door of the van. “I told them,” he said triumphantly, “that it weren’t no accident,” and went into the house.
When Michael came round that evening to put a new washer on the tap in the kitchen, I told him what Reg had said.
“Good heavens! He’s quite sure?”
“You know Reg. If he said he swept that chimney from inside then he did. And someone must have been doing something to that plate fairly recently, because the soot was still there.”
“That’s true.” He took a wrench out of his tool bag. “Have you turned the water off?”
“Yes, of course,” I said impatiently. “And if someone had wanted to kill Sidney, then they could easily have come and blocked off that chimney from the outside. They didn’t have to get into the house at all!”
“Just look at that!” Michael said, holding up the old washer. “Completely perished. I can’t imagine why it hasn’t gone before.”
“But you do see,” I persisted, “how simple it would be. You could open that plate with a coin. In the dark! Someone could have come at night, taken off the plate and then, early the next morning, he could have nipped back and screwed it back on again, and no one would have been the wiser.”
Michael carefully slipped the new washer into place and replaced the tap. “There now,” he said, “just turn the water back on and we’ll see if it’s all right.”
I bent down to turn the stop-cock under the sink. “It’s perfectly clear to me that that’s how it must have happened,” I said. “There, how’s that?”
Michael turned the tap on. “That’s fine.”
I began to replace the bottles of fabric softener, detergent, and washing up liquid, slightly rusty sprays of polish, air freshener and oven cleaner, together with the old cleaning rags, brushes and pot-scourers that lived in some squalor in the cupboard under the sink. “I really must clear this lot out sometime,” I said. “So what do you think?”
“What do I think?”
“About Sidney!”
“Oh yes, well, there’s certainly something peculiar going on there. But murder? It’s a bit drastic. Who would want to kill Sidney?”
I switched the kettle on and got out the cups and tea pot. “Well, there’s Brian, for one. I told you what he said after the funeral. He certainly seemed to hate him. And then being left the cottage and that money…”
“Mm. Could be. But can you really see Brian killing someone?”
“Well, yes,” I said. “I think I can. Quite reserved, you never know what he’s thinking. And so bitter! Whatever the reason, he really did sound as if he hated Sidney. Yes, I could imagine him killing someone he hated as much as that.”
“Possibly.”
I got the fruit cake out of the tin. “Will you have a piece of this, or will it spoil your supper? Here, help yourself.”
Michael cut a hefty slice and said, “Well, Reg is going to tell the police, you said. We’ll have to leave it to them.”
“I don’t have much faith in Sergeant Lister, especially since he and Reg seem to have some sort of feud going. Do you think I ought to tell Roger about it?” Roger Eliot is our local Chief Inspector, now based in Taunton, but married to Jilly, Rosemary’s daughter and my god-daughter, and still living in Taviscombe. “I run into him quite often in the town and I could mention it to him casually.”
Michael gave a short laugh, slightly impeded by cake crumbs. “I know your idea of casual, and so does Roger. Still, if you’ve got the bit between your teeth over this – and I can see you have – I don’t suppose anything I can say will stop you. Is there another cup left in the pot?”
I didn’t run into Roger and when I mentioned to Rosemary that I hadn’t seen him around she said that he was off on a course.
“Whatever that may mean,” she said. “Surely there weren’t so many courses when we were young, were there? And everyone seemed to manage perfectly well without them. I know Jilly’s very fed up about this one. He’s up in London for a fo
rtnight and the poor girl’s having to do all the Christmas stuff herself. He may not even be back in time for Delia’s Nativity play and she’s going to be the Angel Gabriel this year.”
“How splendid.”
“Well, yes and no. Delia’s thrilled of course, but poor Jilly’s got to manufacture an enormous pair of angel’s wings out of something!” She looked at me curiously. “Did you want to see Roger about something special?”
I told her what Reg had said. “I’m sure Sergeant Lister will report it and all that. It’s just that – well, since it’s Sidney, I did want to see what Roger thought about it all.”
“Yes, I do agree. And do you believe Brian might have had something to do with it?”
“I really don’t know. I’d hate to think so. He seems such a nice, genuine sort of person, but then you never know what someone might be capable of if the provocation was great enough.”
“If Sidney was his father, you mean, and Brian thought his mother had been treated badly?”
“Yes. Though Sidney did leave her the cottage and I suppose he’d let her live there rent free before. Oh really!” I broke off. “I simply can’t imagine Sidney living that sort of double life. I mean, he was devoted to Joan.”
“The most unexpected people do have secret lives.”
“But he was so – well, so nice!”
Rosemary laughed. “How do we know? He may have been nice to us, but horrible to other people.”
“But he was such a gentle person. Think how David bossed him around and how well he took it – always saying that David only had his interest at heart when David was badgering him to go into an old people’s home.”
“True. But, as I said before, how do we know what he was really like? And there’s no way of finding out now.”
Still, I did think I might get some sort of answer from Bridget when I met her in the supermarket a few days later. I thought she was looking rather drawn and strained, not at all well, in fact, but I greeted her cheerfully.
“How are you?” I asked. “Are you ready for Christmas?”