“I forgot to tell you,” I said quickly, “I won’t be here for dinner.”
5
“I don’t know, I’m sure.” Sarah Young said.
She had said that three times already. Her natural distrust of private detectives was not easily overcome.
“It’s been a nightmare,” she went on. “With Auntie Faith being murdered and the police and all that. Stomping around everywhere, ferretting about and asking questions. With the neighbours nosing about. I didn’t think at first we’d ever here the end of it. And my mother-in-law has been the bitch from hell about it. Nothing like that ever happened in her family, she kept on saying. What about my poor aunt?”
“And supposing that Marcus Dye is innocent after all?”
“That’s rubbish,” she snapped. “He’s as guilty as sin. I never did like the look of him. But Aunt Faith said he was very obliging and gave her no trouble. Well, she know better now, doesn’t she?”
I looked thoughtfully at her. She was a big, plump woman with a healthy colour and a good-humoured mouth. The small house as neat and clean and a faint appetising smell came from the direction of the kitchen.
Di Silver had gone into the financial background of Mr and Mrs Young and had found no motive there for murder, and the Detective Inspector was a very thorough man.
I sighed, and persevered with my task, which was the breaking down of Sarah Young’s suspicion of private detectives. I led the conversation away from the murder and focused on the victim of it. I asked questions about her aunt, her health and her habits, her preferences in food and drink, her politics, her late husband, her attitude to life, to sex, to sin, to religion, to children, to animals.
Whether any of this irrelevant matter would be of use, I had no idea. I was looking through a haystack to find a needle. But, incidentally, I was learning something about Sarah Louise Young.
Sarah did not really know very much about her aunt. It had been a family tie, honoured as such, but without intimacy. Now and again, once a month or so, she and her husband Michael had gone over on a Sunday to have midday dinner with Aunt Faith, and more rarely she come over to see them. They had exchanged presents at Christmas. They’d known that Aunt Faith had a little something put by, and that they’d get it when she died.
“But that’s not to say we were needing it,” Sarah Young explained with rising colour. “We’ve got savings and we made sure that Aunt Faith got a good send off.”
Aunt Faith had been fond of reading and loved Strictly Come Dancing on the television. She didn’t like dogs, they messed up a place, but she used to have a cat – a ginger. It strayed away and she hadn’t had one since, but the woman at the post office had been going to give her a kitten. Kept her house very neat and didn’t like litter. She made a nice little living out of her cleaning, especially from the Brooks-Nunn’s. Rolling in money they are. Tried to get Aunt Faith to come more days in the week, but she wouldn’t disappoint her other clients because she’d gone to them before she went to the Brooks-Nunn’s, and it wouldn’t have been right.
I mentioned the Bellagamba’s.
Oh yes, Aunt Faith went to her – two days a week. They’d come back from Italy and Mrs Bellagamba didn’t know a thing about the house. They tried to market-garden, but they didn’t know anything about that, either. When the children and grandchildren stayed the house was just pandemonium. But Mrs Bellagamba was a nice lady and Aunt Faith liked her.
So the portrait grew. Faith Roberts liked to read, loved ballroom dancing on the telly, cleaned houses, liked cats and didn’t like dogs. She liked children, but not very much. She kept herself to herself.
She attended church on a Sunday, but didn’t take part in any church activities. Sometimes, but rarely, she went to the cinema in Oxmarket. She could be judgemental and one occasion had given up working for an artist and his so-called wife when she had discovered they weren’t married. She loved the local newspaper the Oxmarket Mercury and she liked the old magazines when her clients gave them to her. She wasn’t interested in politics but voted Conservative like her husband had always done. Never spent much on clothes but when she did they were always of top quality. She had an old computer but hardly ever used it, never used the internet and didn’t possess a mobile phone.
Faith Roberts was, in fact, very much the Faith Roberts I had imagined her to be and her niece, Sarah Young, was the Sarah Young of Detective Inspector Paul Silver’s notes.
Before I left, Michael Young came home for his lunch. A small, shrewd man, and definitely less easy to be sure about than his wife. There was a faint nervousness in his manner. He showed fewer signs of suspicion and hostility than his wife and that I reflected was very faintly out of character. Why should Michael Young be anxious to placate a private detective who was a complete stranger until an hour ago? The reason could only be that I had brought with me a letter of confirmation of my identity from Detective Inspector Paul Silver of the Suffolk Constabulary.
So Michael Young was anxious to impress the local police? Was it that he couldn’t afford, as his wife could, to be critical of them?
A man, perhaps with an uneasy conscience. Why was that conscience uneasy? There could be many reasons-none of them with Faith Roberts’ death. Or was it that, somehow or another the cinema alibi had been cleverly faked, and that it was Michael Young who had knocked on the door of the cottage, had been admitted by Aunt Faith and who had struck down the unsuspecting woman. He could have pulled out the drawers and ransacked the rooms to give the appearance of robbery, he might have hid the money outside to incriminate Marcus Dye, because the money that was in the ISA was what he was after. Twenty thousand pounds coming to his wife which, for some reason unknown, he badly needed. The weapon, I remembered, had never been found. Why had that not also been left on the scene of the crime? Any moron knew enough to wear gloves or rub off fingerprints. CSI and television programmes like that had made sure of that. Why then had the weapon, which must been a heavy one with a sharp edge, been removed? Was it because it could easily be identified as belonging in the Young’s house? Was that same weapon washed and cleaned, here in the house now? Something perhaps a little unusual . . . a little out of the ordinary, easily identified. The police had hunted for it, but not found it. They had searched woods and dragged ponds. There was nothing missing from Faith Roberts kitchen and nobody could say that Marcus Dye had had anything of that kind in his possession. They had never traced any purchase of any such implement to him. A small but negative point in his favour. Ignored in the weight of other evidence. But still a point. . .
I cast a swift glance round the rather overcrowded little sitting-room in which I was sitting.
Was the weapon here, somewhere, in this house? Was that why Michael Young was so uneasy and conciliatory?
I did not know. I did not really think so. But I was not absolutely sure. . .
6
In the offices of Anglia Meats, I was shown into the office of the owner, who went by the name of Andy Ottley.
He was a brisk, bustling man, with a hearty manner.
“Good morning. Good Morning.” He rubbed his hands in anticipation. “What can I do for you?”
His professional eye shot over me, trying to place me, making mental notes.
“I would like to ask you about a former employee of yours, Marcus Dye.”
Andy Ottley’s expressive eyebrows shot up and inch, and dropped.
“Marcus Dye. Marcus Dye?” He shot out a question. “Press?”
“No.”
“And you’re not the police?”
“I’m a private detective.”
“A private detective.” Andy Ottley filed this away rapidly, as though for future reference. “What’s this all about?”
“I am opening a further inquiry into Marcus Dye’s case,” I said, never hindered by a pedantic regard for the truth when working on a case. “At the certain request of certain relatives of his.”
“Didn’t know he had any. Anyway, he’s been
found guilty hasn’t he?”
“Yes, but his relatives believe there has been a miscarriage of justice.”
“Do they now,” he said unimpressed. “Who are these relatives of his?”
“I am bound by client confidentiality, Mr Ottley,” I said, “but I can say they are both rich and powerful. Immensely rich.”
“You surprise me.” Andy Ottley was unable to help thawing slightly. The words ‘immensely rich’ seemed to have an attractive and hypnotic effect on him. “Yes, you really do surprise me.”
“Dye’s mother, the late Mrs Dye,” I explained, “cut herself and her son off completely from her family.”
“One of those family feuds, eh? Well, well. And young Marcus without a pot to piss in. Pity these relatives didn’t come to his rescue earlier.”
“They have only just become aware of the facts,” I explained. “They have engaged me to do everything possible to try and prove Marcus Dye’s innocence.”
He leaned back, relaxing his business manner.
“Don’t know what I can do.”
I leaned forward. “Marcus Dye worked for you. You can tell me about him.”
“Precious little to tell – precious little. He was one of our salesman. Quite conscientious but really struggled to get new customers. Just didn’t have the right personality for the job. Wasn’t pushy enough. There’s a certain psychology to selling and he just didn’t have it.”
I leapt at the word. “Psychology? How right you are, I can see that you are a good judge of character.”
“Not too bad. Not too bad,” Andy Ottley said modestly.
“So what was your impression of Marcus Dye? Strictly between ourselves do you think he killed Faith Roberts?”
He stared at me long and hard.
“Of course.”
“And you think too, that it was a likely thing to do. Psychologically speaking of course?”
“If you put it like that, then no, not really. Would have thought he would have need to strap a pair on before he could do that. If you asked whether I thought he was a bit mad, then I would answer you differently. He was a bit of a beef-burger short of a barbeque and what with being out of a job and worrying about being in debt then that might have tipped him over the edge.”
“Did you have a specific reason for getting rid of him?”
Ottley shook his head. “Bad time of year. Staff didn’t have enough to do. We sacked the least competent. That was Marcus Dye. Always would be. I gave him a good reference but he couldn’t get another job. He just didn’t have enough get up and go. Would always make a bad first impression on people.”
It always came back to that, I thought, as I left the office. Marcus Dye made a bad impression on people. I took comfort, as I drove out of the industrial estate, in considering various murderers I had known whom most people had found full of charm.
I stopped for lunch at Duncan’s, a small restaurant between Oxmarket and Oxmarket Aspal and ensconced myself in a small corner table. The interior was rather dark specialising in an old-world effect of oak and leaded panes and I was deeply entranced by the varied menu when a female voice said to me, “Excuse me, may I join you?”
I looked across at the young woman who had just sat down opposite me and she stood out brightly against the dark background of the restaurant. She had determinedly golden hair and was wearing a suit of electric blue. Moreover, I was conscious of having noticed her somewhere only a short time previously.
She went on: “I couldn’t help, you see, hearing something of what you were saying to Mr Ottley.”
I nodded. I had realised that the partitions in the offices of Anglia Meats were made for convenience rather than privacy. That had not worried me, it was chiefly publicity that I required.
“You were on your computer,” I said, “to the right of the back window.”
She nodded. Her teeth shone with a white in an acquiescing smile. A shapely young woman, with the sort of curvaceous figure that I liked. About thirty-three or four, I judged, with dark hair.
“About Marcus.”
“What about Marcus?” I asked.
“Is he going to appeal? Does it mean that there’s new evidence? Oh, I’m so glad. I couldn’t, just couldn’t believe that he did it.”
“So you never thought he did it?” I said slowly, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
“Well, not at first. I thought it must be a mistake. But then the evidence-”
“Yes, the evidence,” I said.
“There just didn’t seem anyone else who could have done it. I thought perhaps he’d gone a bit nuts.”
“Did he ever seem to you a little – what shall I say – odd?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “He was just shy and awkward as anyone might be. The truth was, he didn’t make the best of himself. He didn’t have any self-confidence.”
I looked at her. She certainly had self-confidence. Possibly she had enough self-confidence for both of them.
“You liked him?” I asked.
She blushed.
“Yes, I did. Amy – that’s the other girl in the office – used to laugh at him and call him a wanker, but I liked him a lot. He was gentle and polite and knew more than he let on.”
I said nothing.
“He missed his mother,” she continued. “She’d been ill for years, you know. At least, not really ill, but not strong, and he’d done everything for her.”
I nodded. I knew those types of mothers.
“And of course she’d looked after him, too.”
Again I nodded, before asking, “Were you and he close friends?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “After he left, I used to text him and send him emails but he never responded.”
“But you like him?” I asked gently.
“Yes, I do,” she said rather defiantly.
My mind switched back to the day of my interview with the condemned prisoner. I saw Marcus Dye. The mouse-coloured hair, the thin awkward body, the hands with their big knuckles and wrists, the Adam’s apple in the lean neck. I saw the furtive, embarrassed, almost sly glance. Not straightforward, not a man whose word could be trusted. A secretive, sly deceitful fellow with an ungracious, muttering way of talking. That was the impression Marcus Dye would give most superficial observers. It was the impression he had given in the dock. The sort of fellow who would tell lies, and steal money and hit an old woman on the head.
But on Detective Inspector Paul Silver, who new men, he had not made that impression. Not on me and now not on this young woman.
“What is your name, Miss?” I asked.
“Joanne Burton. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I think there is,” I replied. “There are people who believe that Marcus Dye is innocent. They are working to prove that fact. I am the person charged with that investigation, and I may tell you that I have already made considerable progress.”
I uttered the lie without remorse. To my mind it was a necessary lie. Someone, somewhere, had got to be made to feel uneasy. Joanne Burton would talk and talk in this local community was like a stone in a pond. It made a ripple that went on spreading outwards.
“You said that you and Marcus were friends,” I began. “He told you about his mother and his home life. Did he ever mention anyone with whom he, or perhaps his mother, didn’t get on with?”
“Not really.” Joanne Burton reflected. “She could be a domineering with him at times.”
“Did he ever talk about Faith Roberts?”
“Not by name,” she shivered. “He said that he wished she varied her cooking a bit more and also once he mentioned how upset she was about losing her cat.”
“Did he ever mention that he knew she kept a great deal of cash hidden in the house?”
Some of the colour went from Joanne’s face, but she threw up her chin defiantly.
“Actually, he did. But it was more out of his concern about the possibility of a burglary or her carelessness.”
“He never j
oked that someday, someone might knock her on the head for it?”
“No,” she said abruptly. “Never.”
“Good,” I said. “I don’t want that conversation coming back to bite me at a later date.”
Joanne Burton glanced at her watch.
“I must get back. I’m only supposed to take half an hour for lunch. You will let me know if there is anything I can do?”
“Of course,” I handed her one of my cards with my mobile number on it. “I’m staying at the Bellagamba Guest House in Oxmarket Aspal.”
She laughed. “What’s that place like? I’ve heard a lot of things about it.”
“It’s rustic to say the least,” I said politely, with a smile.
7
The cottage where Faith Roberts had lived was only a few steps from the only bus stop in Oxmarket Aspal. Two little girls were playing on the doorstep, one was eating an apple and the other was shouting and beating on the door with a tin tray. They appeared quite happy and I added to the noise by beating hard on the door myself.
A woman looked round the corner of the house. She was wearing old clothes and rubber gloves that seemed huge on her slender arms and wrists. Her blonde hair was tied back and her glasses perched on the end of her nose.
“Stop it, Summer Louise,” she said.
“Why?” The little girl replied, with the broadest Suffolk accent I had ever heard.
I deserted the doorstep and made for the corner of the house.
“Sorry, about that,” the woman said, beckoning round to the back door.
She removed one of her rubber gloves and shook my hand. “Louise Plume,” she said. “I keep the front door bolted. Come in, won’t you?”
I passed through a very untidy laundry room and into an even untidier kitchen.
“She wasn’t killed in here,” she said.
I blinked slightly.
“That’s what you’re here about, isn’t it? You’re John Handful, the private detective staying at the Bellagamba Guest House?”
“Yes, that’s correct Mrs -”
The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery Page 3