by William Shaw
‘You’re angry. You’ve just found out he was having… relations with your sister.’
‘Fucking her, you mean. She was sixteen.’
‘And when did having a good alibi become a proof of guilt?’
‘Yeah, but.’
Breen said, ‘What if digging into this stirs other stuff up? You’re upset already.’
‘You think it’s nice to hear that your sister was sleeping with older men? Not just a bit older. But loads older. And married too. And you didn’t even know about it.’
‘That’s what I mean. It will get worse.’
She gnawed her lip for a while. ‘I know. But it’s the thought that someone got away with it. That’s what eats you up. Which is worse?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Breen said.
‘Well, I am. I’m not like you. It’s as if it’s your natural instinct not to stir things up. All people your age are like that. Our generation want it all out in the open. I want everyone to know.’
‘Who is he, anyway, James Fletchet?’
‘Like I said, he’s an earl or something. Owns a stonking great house about twenty miles from here. My father used to work for his family a while back before his father died. Has a farm. Bloody loaded and all. Fancies himself. Everyone I know thought he was a bit of a show-off.’ Now the pianist had segued into ‘Moon River’. ‘I like this one, actually,’ said Helen. ‘He threw these big parties when he first turned up. I remember, went to one up at his place not long after he’d inherited it. It was wild. Barn dance for the hunt, it was. Big marquee on the lawn. Dancing and everything. Free booze. It’s like he was working hard to impress us all. Mind you, I remember some lackey searched us all on the way out in case we’d nicked the cutlery.’
‘Did Alexandra go?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Do you still know Fletchet?’
‘God, no. I never actually knew him. Mr High-and-Mighty.’
‘Would he recognise you?’
‘I don’t know. Doubt it.’
Helen looked out of the window. The light was fading over the grey sea. ‘God. This place is bad enough in summer. In winter it’s a dump, isn’t it?’
The piano needed attention. Keys clacked. When the tune finally ended, only one person was clapping: Helen Tozer, looking at the fragile old woman behind the keyboard, who smiled back at her out of the gloom of the hotel dining room.
SIX
The temperature was dropping fast. Large slate clouds hung over the moor.
A painted wooden sign had been knocked into the verge: ‘Private Road’. Beyond, a long driveway led towards a distant grand house tucked somewhere out of sight. The English landscape, as dreamed, thought Breen.
With Helen behind the wheel, they paused by the open iron gates, the old Morris rattling gently as it idled.
‘Go in, then?’ she said.
Large, black-barked cedars were dotted around on either side of the pale drive ahead of them.
‘We’re crossing a line now. This is different from letting Freddie show you a few files, one copper to another.’
‘I know,’ said Breen.
‘I mean, I don’t mind. But then I’m not a copper any more. No skin off mine.’
‘In for a penny,’ said Breen.
‘Right,’ she said, putting the car into gear and heading through the gateway.
They edged down the driveway.
‘Guernseys,’ she said, nodding at the cows grazing on either side of the drive. ‘Looks like they outwinter them. OK for some.’
Whatever that meant, thought Breen. In the distance, the large two-storey mansion loomed at the end of the driveway. For a stately home, it was an ugly one. A square building, the roof concealed behind a parapet that ran the length of it.
The house looked deserted. Helen pulled the car up on gravel close to the entrance. Breen got out and walked up lichen-covered steps towards a huge front door. To the right he found a handle on a chain and tugged at it, but if it sounded a bell, it would have been a long way off. He heard nothing.
He waited.
‘No one in?’ called Helen from the car.
Breen shook his head, banged on the door with the side of his hand. ‘I don’t think so.’
Helen got out of the car and, instead of coming to the front door, walked across a small strip of grass in front of the flower beds that spread under the house’s immense windows.
‘Bloody hell.’
Breen said, ‘What can you see?’
‘Get a load of this.’
Breen joined her on the grass, peering in through a large Georgian window. It was a living room, the sort you’d normally see in a stately home, with heavy velvet drapes hung around the windows and two large Chesterfields on either side of a vast marble fireplace. But instead of the usual oil paintings, the walls were covered by the mounted heads of animals.
A zebra, a warthog, gazelles, antelopes, some other deer-like creature with curly horns. Every available piece of wall was crammed full of staring animal heads. Some had mouths open, lips black and shiny, their eyes glossy and wide, in an eerie pretence of life. Breen shivered.
‘It’s like bloody Daktari,’ Helen said.
Above the fireplace, stupidly large, was a lion, faced fixed in a roar.
‘Hideous,’ she said.
‘They must be out,’ said Breen.
‘Imagine inheriting this lot. Jimmy Fletchet was born with a silver spoon up his arse.’
Breen looked at her. There was a darkness about her these last few days.
‘Only, strictly speaking, all this was supposed to be his brother’s. He was the younger one. But his brother was killed in a plane crash yonks ago.’
A huge blob of birds circled overhead, morphing into dark shapes, splitting into smaller ovals and rejoining.
‘A plane crash, you said?’
‘Can’t remember much about it. I must have been about sixteen or seventeen at the time. Sometime after that, Jimmy came home–got the farms, the house, everything, fluky bugger.’
Gravel crunched behind them. ‘Can I help you?’
They both turned. A tall, thick-hipped woman of about forty was standing about ten yards away with a pair of large pale brown dogs on leads. She wore a red coat and her long hair was held up in a bun.
‘We were looking for James Fletchet,’ said Breen.
‘You are standing in my roses,’ the woman said. She had a slight accent that Breen couldn’t place and was too stylish and colourful to be English.
‘I’m sorry. We were just trying to see if someone was here.’
‘The tradesman’s entrance is at the rear of the building,’ she said, then leaned down and unhitched the leads from the dogs. The dogs bounded towards them, stopping a few feet short, barking.
Breen took out his wallet, pulled out his warrant card and held it up. ‘I’m a policeman,’ he said.
The woman stepped forward. She was middle-aged, but beautiful, with striking olive-green eyes under broad black eyebrows. ‘Quiet,’ she shouted. The dogs were instantly silent. She took the card from Breen and leaned her head back a little to examine it. ‘You are from London?’
‘Yes.’
She turned her head towards the Tozers’ car. ‘And you came in that?’ She seemed amused. ‘Is that what British police drive now?’
‘Is your husband here?’ asked Breen.
The woman looked him up and down. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘I can explain that to Mr Fletchet. Is he here?’
‘He is at the hospital.’
‘Nothing serious I hope?’
‘A worker injured himself on the farm this morning falling through the roof of our barn. James has driven him to the hospital.’
The dogs started barking again. Helen squatted on her haunches and held out her hand. The dogs approached cautiously, sniffing.
‘Will he be back soon? We can wait.’
‘No. That won’t be convenient. I would prefer you to leave now.’
The woman smiled. ‘My husband’s family keeps them.’
‘You know this girl has ticks?’ said Helen, ruffling the dog’s ears.
The woman raised her chin a little and said, ‘She does not.’
‘Reckon she does.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Helen. ‘Only if you don’t treat them there’ll be a bunch of them, come summer.’
‘Don’t be foolish. Dogs don’t get ticks at this time of year.’
‘Depends where they been. You keep pheasants, don’t you? I saw you had release pens down in the valley.’
‘Yes. For the shooting.’
‘If you don’t believe me, come and feel for yourself,’ said Helen.
After a second, the woman stepped forward. When Helen tried to take her hand, Mrs Fletchet snatched it back.
Helen said, ‘I’m not going to bite.’ Then reached out and placed her hand on the back of dog’s head. ‘See?’
The woman felt. ‘I’ll call the vet.’
Helen stood. ‘You could do, if you like. Or I could do them. Wouldn’t take a minute. I done billions of them. While we wait for your husband.’
The woman in the red coat paused, thought for a second, then said, ‘I suppose you could come round the back.’ Calling the dogs, she led them towards the servants’ entrance at the left of the building.
Breen followed her down a flagstoned pathway at the side of the house. Behind him, Helen muttered, ‘Never knew a toff that wasn’t stingy.’
Breen turned and said, ‘Don’t let her know that this is about your sister.’
‘In case I let slip that her husband was having sex with her?’
‘Shh,’ said Breen.
Mrs Fletchet stopped and looked back at them. ‘Did you say something?’
‘Just saying it looks like snow,’ said Helen.
She frowned. ‘Does it?’
The kitchen was huge. Heavy pans hung on hooks from the ceiling. A pot bubbled on a giant stove. Mrs Fletchet hung her coat on a rack while the two dogs left muddy footprints on the tiled floor.
‘Got any tweezers?’ said Helen. ‘And alcohol.’
‘I have gin. Will that do?’
Breen sat at a long kitchen table and watched as the two women held first one dog, then the other, Helen steadily picking off ticks and placing them in a glass.
‘I don’t understand what you two are doing here,’ said the woman as Helen checked the second dog. ‘You’re not on official business.’ She pronounced it ‘oh-feesh-al’. ‘You wouldn’t be in that car if you were.’
‘It’s an old inquiry. I was in the area so I thought I would come and talk to your husband.’
‘I’m his wife. Why not tell me?’
‘It’s confidential.’
Mrs Fletchet snorted, looked up from the dog. ‘So it’s something to do with one of his women?’
Helen looked up. ‘What do mean, “his women”?’
Mrs Fletchet tugged the dog away. ‘You have finished. That is enough.’
Breen said, ‘Is your husband a hunter? I noticed the animal heads on your walls.’
‘You were snooping,’ she said.
‘I was just trying to see if anyone was in,’ he said.
‘James still chases after foxes and badgers and otters,’ she said. ‘I am less interested in that kind of sport. I always preferred bigger game.’
‘You shot those animals?’
‘Some. The elephant is mine,’ she said. ‘And the leopard. One of the buffalo, too, I think. We used Zimmermann’s of Nairobi. The best taxidermist’s in the world,’ she said. ‘Have you heard of it?’
‘No,’ said Breen. She seemed disappointed. ‘I suppose it’s hard, to shoot an elephant.’
‘Harder for the elephant,’ said Helen.
Mrs Fletchet shrugged. ‘If you know what you are doing… and have the right gun. I got him with a Magnum .460. A shoulder shot. It severs the main artery above the heart.’
‘You lived in Africa?’
‘Kenya. For many years. Until James inherited this estate. Do you know Kenya?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘It was an exciting country. I loved it. England is so very dull in comparison. And so wet.’
There was the sound of tyres on gravel.
‘I expect that will be him now,’ Mrs Fletchet said. ‘If you must talk to him, you had better come.’
They followed her out of the kitchen into a huge hallway, the dogs padding behind. A twelve-bore shotgun sat propped against the wall by the door, next to an ugly carved-wood umbrella stand.
Mrs Fletchet opened the door, letting in icy air. Outside, a tall man in a brown cap was getting out of a short-wheelbase Land Rover.
‘Is he all right?’ Mrs Fletchet called.
‘He’ll live.’ James Fletchet approached his front door. ‘Who’s this?’ He looked Breen up and down.
‘This is a policeman,’ said Mrs Fletchet. ‘He wants to ask you some questions but he won’t tell me what it’s about.’
Breen stepped forward. ‘I wonder if we could speak in private, sir?’
Fletchet hesitated. He looked at his wife.
‘Well?’ said Mrs Fletchet. ‘Che cosa, James? Have you been gambling again?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest, darling. They don’t even look like police officers to me.’
Breen held out his warrant card and said, ‘Do you know a police officer called William Milkwood, sir?’
‘Milky?’ said Fletchet. ‘What about him?’
‘I’m looking over the details of an investigation that he was part of four years ago.’
Fletchet hesitated.
‘Ha detto Bill Milkwood?’ said Mrs Fletchet.
‘Bill’s in London,’ Fletchet told his wife. ‘I have no idea what they’re going on about.’
‘Would you like us to explain a little more about the investigation?’ said Breen.
Fletchet coloured. ‘Get your superior officer to write to me. Right now I’m busy. I have a farm to run and thanks to some idiot injuring themselves I’m short-handed.’
‘I just want to get a few facts straight. It will only take a few minutes.’
Fletchet raised his voice, ‘If you don’t get out of my house I’ll have you thrown out. Please leave.’
Breen hesitated. He was about to give up and step onto the gravel when, behind him, came a voice.
‘My name is Helen Tozer.’
Fletchet looked at her, startled.
‘Cosa?’ said his wife. ‘Who is she?’
‘I’ll walk you to the car,’ Fletchet said.
Mrs Fletchet stood at the door looking angrily at her husband as he followed them across to the car. Helen got into the driver’s seat. Breen sat next to her.
‘I’ll talk to you,’ Fletchet said quietly, leaning into Breen’s window so he could speak out of earshot of his wife. ‘But not now.’
‘When, then?’
Fletchet hesitated. ‘How did you get my name? I cooperated with the police fully. I told them everything I know.’
‘I could ask your wife about Alexandra Tozer, if you’d prefer.’
‘There’s no point. She doesn’t know anything about what happened.’
‘Exactly,’ said Breen. ‘All I want is thirty minutes.’
Fletchet stiffened. ‘That’s a little grubby, isn’t it?’
‘Unlike sleeping with sixteen-year-olds,’ said Helen.
Fletchet looked startled. ‘OK. Tonight,’ he said. He gave the name of a pub.
‘Do you know it?’ Breen asked Helen.
She nodded, started the car engine, then leaned across Breen. ‘You might think about moving those cows down the bottom to higher ground. It’s going to snow tonight.’
‘Tonight, then?’ Breen said. ‘Seven?’
The clouds were blacker than before. The starlings wh
eeled in the sky above them. Breen leaned forward to watch them rolling above the car as they drove under them.
It was a long, grey building, low-doored. Cold in spite of a log fire burning slowly in the grate.
Above the fireplace was a fox, stuffed and mounted, grimacing its teeth.
‘Why does everyone stuff animals round here?’
‘They’d go off otherwise,’ said Helen.
‘No. I meant…’
‘Look,’ said Helen. ‘Snow. The temperature’s dropping. It’ll turn to ice. It’ll be a tough drive getting back.’
Beyond the window, flecks of white were starting to fall. Breen watched them settling on the road. ‘I’ve got to get out of here. It’s sending me doolally,’ he said.
‘See what I got away from?’
‘Are you going to be OK? Meeting him. After all…’
Helen looked at Breen. ‘You don’t know what it’s like, do you?’
‘I was just thinking it would be upsetting. Even if he has an alibi, he’s still a suspect. You’ll be thinking that he could be the one.’
‘What if I am? You think I’d sleep better not having tried?’
Breen looked at his watch. ‘He should be here by now.’
‘You could see he was scared when he realised who I was. What if he doesn’t come?’ He watched her biting a fingernail. ‘Are we having a drink?’
So they sat and had a drink as the snow started to fall. And just as he was at the bar buying Helen’s third rum-and-blackcurrant and she was starting to look relieved that he wasn’t coming after all, the pub door opened and Fletchet came in, snow on his cap.
Fletchet was one of those people who made the chairs he sat on seem small. He was over six foot, tall and hearty in a way that city people never were. He looked at Helen across the table.
‘I thought about what you said. You were right. I decided to move the cows. That’s why I’m late.’
‘Don’t sound surprised. I’ve been working with cows since I was a girl.’
‘You’re Alex’s sister, aren’t you?’
Helen nodded, lips pressed together.
‘I thought I recognised you.’
She didn’t answer.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Fletchet, voice quiet. ‘A terrible thing. I’d just like to say, I thought your sister was… amazing.’
Helen didn’t speak for a while. Finally she said, ‘My sister was sixteen.’