The Body in the Beck

by Joanna Cannan

  ‘Well, thank you, Mrs Arnot,’ said Price, rising. ‘I didn’t think myself that there was anything there. I must say good day to you now. I have to visit the other denizens of the dale.’

  ‘Won’t you take a coop o’ tea, Inspector, before you go? You won’t get one at Dale Farm, if that’s where you’re bound.’

  ‘No, really. You must excuse me,’ said Price and made for the door.

  Chapter Four – Down Dale

  ‘Will’s getting in the cows,’ said Mrs Hardwick, who, to Price’s tired eyes, uncannily resembled the housewife of Highbeck Farm. It was a type, of course; and not a type with which he could feel easy. It was a homely type, but behind the wifely apron, within the motherly bosom, there existed — and he sensed it — an ultimate sophistication, that harmony with Nature which is so deviously sought and so seldom found by men. They didn’t, he felt, dislike him, but they thought him incidental. Their eyes were not scornful, but indulgently beheld his capers. A silly little man, they thought him, the representative indeed of law and order, but what was law and order but a safety device fitted to the great machine they tended — the engine of life?

  Another great fat nattering woman, thought Price indignantly, and why in the name of all that is rational must every man in this demented district be called Will?

  ‘But there aren’t any messages for you,’ continued Mrs Hardwick. ‘You can depend upon it, he’d have left word with me if there were.’

  Price said, ‘But I can’t depend upon it. No one bothered about the message that came for me this morning — it was just stuck on my table in the dining-room and in consequence much valuable time was lost. I also wanted to ask your husband — but perhaps you can answer this: when Mr Worthington arrived on Friday, did he come by car?’

  ‘As far as Kendal. He left his car there for an overhaul and coom on oop in Will Watson’s taxi.’

  ‘Mr Worthington runs a car, then?’

  ‘Aye. That’s reet.’

  ‘What make?’

  ‘Goodness alone knows. ’Tis a nice big car.’

  ‘What colour?’

  ‘Black with red upholstery, if ’tis the same that he coom in before.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Arnot — I mean, Mrs Hardwick.’ Price went on to ask if she had seen a car parked in Berrinsdale on the evening of April the seventh, but she assured him that she had been indoors all afternoon and evening; no sooner had she sat down — which she was supposed to do every afternoon on account of her veins — than she had dropped off, and later, Gloria being out, she had got the tea, washed up, taken in the supper, washed that up and gone to bed, and right glad she had been to get there after the long wet day. What had Mr Meade done? Mr Meade had slept in the smoking-room until tea-time. After tea he had come to the kitchen for the key of the Rock and Fell Club’s bookcase, so she supposed he had gone back into the smoking-room to read. And the Ogdens? Will had lighted a fire for them in the drawing-room and they had sat there. They were the ones who should have heard a car pass, but they seemed a soppy couple, spoon-fed bits of kids from the town, who had got their ideas from the radio and the cinema and hardly had enough sense to come in out of the rain . . .

  Cutting her short, Price thanked her, still calling her Mrs Arnot, and was soon plodding down the hard high-road towards Dale Farm and the Hall. During the short time that he had spent with Mrs Hardwick the glory of the day had departed; bad weather was coming in from the west; the Pike and High Hoister had their heads among the clouds. He was glad that he had made his expedition to the pool this morning; it would need more than bad weather to keep him from his duty, but it must be a terrible experience to find oneself alone in a mist on a mountain — one walked in circles, he believed, until one sank down exhausted and died from exposure, or, worse still, one stepped unknowingly over the edge of some yawning abyss.

  After twenty minutes’ walking between stone walls too high to see over, he realized that he should never have dismissed the police car; what the natives of the district called ‘a step’ was well over a mile, and now he was as cold as he had been hot this morning; the clouds were shrouding the pass; however would Worthington and his party find their way back into Berrinsdale? . . . He supposed they would hire a car and come round by the roads. And now here at last was the gate and the drive, dark with conifers, to the Hall.

  He turned in. Really, this could scarcely be called a drive, it was so rough and grass-grown; however, he always liked to see evidences of the decline of the privileged classes and his spirits rose as he emerged from the twilight under the fir trees into a once-gravelled sweep below a mossy stone terrace built up under the mullioned windows of a crumbling Elizabethan façade. Price knew and cared nothing for architecture; as he walked up the terrace steps, avoiding their blurred edges, and pulled at a formidable wrought-iron bell-chain which hung beside a massive iron-studded oaken door, he thought: as old as the hills . . . useless for institutional purposes . . . should be demolished and the grounds utilized for food production . . .

  The door swung back a couple of feet to reveal the peering face of a middle-aged woman, whose foreign appearance was confirmed by her utterance, before Price could speak, of ‘Wot do you vant? No things are bought at ze door.’

  Price said, ‘My good lady, I’m not selling anything. I have called to see Mrs Patten. I am Detective Inspector Price of Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Pol-eece,’ gasped the foreigner and disappeared. Thinking, some wretched D.P., they’re a problem but they shouldn’t be allowed to come here, Price pushed the door back and crossed the threshold. He found himself in a large, darkly panelled hall, with a double staircase running up to a dim gallery. The displaced person was stumbling upstairs; then knocking at a door and frantically crying, ‘Missis, missis, ze pol-eece are here.’

  Price heard a door open and a cool amused voice said, ‘Keep calm, Maria. This is England, not Hungary. Show the officer into the drawing-room in the usual way.’

  The displaced person came downstairs muttering in some foreign tongue. To Price she said, ‘Excuse. I forget all lands is not like England. This way, pliz.’

  Price followed her across the hall into a wide dark corridor on the left of the stairs. She opened a door and he passed into a long room, the four windows of which looked over a garden of neglected lawns, tangled rosebeds and long-unclipped yew hedges, to Cat’s Howe crouching under the rain. The walls of the room were of stone hung with moth-eaten tapestries; the silk curtains at the windows were frayed and faded; the tattered edges of the pale Aubusson carpets revealed dry rot dustily pulverizing the dark oak floor. Ormolu clocks, all stopped, some lacking hands, some glasses, stood on the chimney-piece and on marble-topped, gilt-legged tables; statues supported lamps; dusty palms thirsted behind empty jardinières. Most amazing to Price were the elaborate gilt sofas and love-seats, all upholstered in shredded brocade of a piercing chrome. He sought and found a less exotic seat — though curiously shaped and heavily ornamented with marquetry, it was upholstered in a sober plummy brown but no sooner was his weight off his feet than he was obliged to rise: the lady of the house came in.

  On principle, Price detested all people of property, and especially the owners of large country houses acquired by inheritance, but he was favourably impressed by Mrs Patten as she introduced herself in a voice at the same time melancholy and calm. She was nicely dressed, he thought, in a pale blue cashmere twin set and a pale blue skirt of tweed and, after the footwear he had seen recently, her well-made brogues looked positively dainty. Her hair was snow-white and well-groomed. In the striking pallor of her face, her eyes, though they lacked sparkle, were intensely blue. Her uncoloured mouth dropped pathetically — here, Price thought, was a lady who had suffered more than her share and had suffered with resignation, for there were no frown lines on her forehead; apart from her white hair, only the sagging of the soft cheeks, the blurred outline of the jaw and the shapelessness of the body indicated that Mrs Patten had reached late middle age.

 
; Price said, ‘I must apologize for intruding so late in the day, Mrs Patten, but I am investigating the case of the body which was discovered on Sunday in the stream here.’

  ‘Please sit down. Before we go further, I must apologize too — for the reception that you received at the door. My maid is a refugee from Central Europe, and like all these poor people the mere sight of a policeman terrifies her.’

  ‘I saw that,’ Price said. ‘Poor things, it must take them quite a time to accustom themselves to the British way of life and the security of our splendid democracy.’

  ‘And now you must tell me how I can help you,’ said Mrs Patten pleasantly. ‘I heard from my tenant at the farm that a body had been found. It is quite usual in this district. Hikers, as I believe they are called now, are often in trouble on the hills, but there must be something unusual about this instance or it would scarcely have been referred to Scotland Yard.’

  Price said, ‘This man was murdered.’

  ‘Murdered? How very shocking,’ said Mrs Patten. ‘Oh dear, I do hope that none of our local people are involved.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Price told her. ‘It is possible that the victim, who we know to be a Londoner, was killed elsewhere and brought up this valley in a car. A week ago last Sunday at nightfall, a car was seen parked by the gate at the commencement of the track which leads up to the pass. As the weather was so inclement, that seems in itself suspicious and I wondered whether you or any of your household had noticed the car?’

  ‘The Sunday before last — that was really a dreadful day. We were completely house-bound, Inspector, and not only by the weather — my son and I had everything to do in the house, as my maid and her husband — who lives here, but follows his own employment — were visiting some fellow countrymen in Carismouth — the little industrial town on the coast, which has been in the papers so much lately in connection with a case of sabotage.’

  Oh-ho, thought Price, and he said slowly, ‘Well, now, that is very interesting, very interesting indeed. The county police are disinclined to consider the possibility of some connection between the crimes; they are an excellent body of men, but, as is usually the case in the provinces, apt to rely more on the eyes than on the brain. Now, Mrs Patten, foreigners are foreigners; from what you have told me it is evident that your employees have contacts in Carismouth. Is it possible that they could be participants in this sabotage affair?’

  There was a pause before Mrs Patten spoke. Then she said, ‘Excuse me, Inspector, but I always like to think before speaking. Maria and Stefan were refugees from the Nazis; they may have Communist sympathies — language difficulties have prevented me from getting to know them as I have always prided myself on knowing my servants in the past. I had imagined that they had reached a point when they were sick of politics and only wished to live and let live, but I can see that this is just the impression which they would aim at giving if they were working for the Communists as you suggest. I should hate to believe it. Maria is an excellent cook, and I understand that her husband has given satisfaction at the farm, but I am a very patriotic woman — I worked for the W.V.S. throughout the war — and I’ll do anything I can to help you. Would you care to question the maid?’

  Price said, ‘Not at this stage, Mrs Patten. In such cases it is disastrous to scare the small fry when, handled correctly, they may lead you to bigger game. I shall institute enquiries and be sure that they are made discreetly. By the way, can this Stefan drive a car?’

  ‘Oh yes. He drives a sort of van — a shooting brake, I think they call it — for Mr Robertson at the farm.’

  ‘And your car, Mrs Patten — could he possibly have made use of it without your leave?’

  She shook her head. ‘I have no car, Inspector. These times are difficult for some of us. I parted with our Daimler when my husband died.’

  Price rose. ‘Well, thank you very much, Mrs Patten. I don’t think I need detain you any longer. I suppose there is no possibility that your son would be able to assist me with reference to the car which was seen on the Sunday before last? I realize that there is no view of the road from your downstairs windows, but perhaps from the higher altitude upstairs . . .?’

  ‘We can’t see the end of the road from any of the windows, Inspector; even the hotel is hidden behind a spur of the fell. There is just a section — I’ll call Boysie. He may have gone upstairs for a book or a handkerchief and happened to glance from the window, but that would have been a coincidence indeed.’

  She left the room and Price could hear her musically calling ‘Boy-sie’ about the house. Then she came back into the drawing-room and told him, ‘He’s coming. Just a word, Inspector. My poor Boysie’s not quite like other young men. He has always been very delicate. He was born with a hare-lip — it runs in my husband’s family — and then his asthma — he had to be educated at home. It’s been medically impossible for him to do his National Service, so naturally — Shush! Here he comes.’

  Price, who disliked oddities, braced himself to meet a monster, but the young man who entered was tall, well-made and, in spite of the narrow scar which creased his upper lip, girlishly handsome. When he spoke, however, it was evident that he suffered from a cleft palate; Price found it difficult to understand him and, embarrassed, asked but one question: whether the young man had seen any car or strangers in the valley on the Sunday before last? Boysie answered that he had stayed downstairs all afternoon and evening, and his mother added, ‘I was practically sure of it, Boysie. You were busy with your embroidery, weren’t you? But you see, Inspector, during the short time we had to spare from the horrid chores we were forced to undertake on that particular Sunday, I was writing, and when I am writing I get so utterly engrossed — I do feel that that is a sign that I shall really attain to authorship one day.’

  Price said, ‘It makes a nice hobby, but the same cannot be said of it as a profession. A hand-to-mouth existence — no security.’ He took his leave, went out into the rain and, following a short cut which Mrs Patten had recommended, soon reached Dale Farm. Robertson, an older man than Arnot, received him with civility. On the afternoon and evening of Sunday the seventh, his foreign worker being absent, he had been out and about the sheepfolds and byres, but he was a little hard of hearing; the farm stood at least a hundred yards from the highroad; he had not seen and doubted if he could have heard a car. His sister, Nellie, had been indoors all day; he had fed and shut up her chicken for her; yes, Price could see her, but he must take her as he found her; thirty years ago, when a chap from Little Langdale had jacked her up, she had got religion, which was trying for the folks she lived with, though no doubt it had been the saving of her.

  The rain was through Price’s jacket now. He was in no mood to cope with a religious maniac. He said, ‘Well, as your sister was indoors all day, I won’t trouble her, but I’d just like to get your opinion on the character of the foreigner you employ.’

  Robertson gave the Hungarian an excellent character. Though not too bright in the head, he was honest, hardworking, inexperienced with sheep, but a grand man with cows. His wife slaved from dawn to dark for that daft old bitch, Mrs Patten, and her idle good-for-nothing son, who couldn’t even do a bit of weeding in the garden, but sat all day indoors on his backside scribbling like his mother or doing fancy sewing like a girl. To the suggestion that Maria and Stefan might have Communist sympathies, Robertson reacted indignantly with, ‘All those poor devils want is to be left in peace. They’ve had enough and to spare of being pushed around.’

  Price said, ‘That doesn’t always follow, Mr Robertson. Some of these people are unwilling helpers, blackmailed into it either with threats against their relatives still abroad or because of something that is known about their pasts.’ But as he spoke, a small brutish figure with a sack over its head emerged from an outbuilding and really, thought Price, he doesn’t look fit for anything but minding cows. Of course, he might be working under the woman and he could take an iron bar and bash a head in, I dare say. Supposin
g, he thought as he dragged himself wearily back to the highroad, supposing Worthington and his Carismouth friend, David Brown, were in this and Hawkins knew it and was blackmailing them, then they might have employed this Hungarian to put Hawkins out of the way while they provided themselves with alibis. But that won’t wash, because if Worthington had a prepared alibi he’d have come out with it last night when I questioned him; if he’s my man, it’s more likely it has nothing to do with Carismouth, but is a straight case of a man who sees his position and livelihood endangered and turns on his tormentor. I’ll get off early tomorrow morning, Price planned. I’ll drop in at Divisional Headquarters and tell them they can have their inquest, and I’ll go back to Town and see if I can get a lead from Hawkin’s background; ten to one he’d a place in London, and the Yard may be on to it by then . . .

  *

  Edwin Meade had dropped off again. He was dreaming that he had been offered the Headmastership of Eton when Price came into the smoking-room and wakened him.

  Price was oddly dressed. Having no change of jacket, he was wearing his raincoat, and bedroom slippers on his plastered feet. When he had come in looking like a drowned rat, Gloria, whom he had met in the hall, had suggested that she should bring his tea on a tray to the smoking-room, where there was a bright fire and only Mr Meade, and he had readily assented, for his trousers, which he couldn’t change, were soaking.

  ‘Excuse my attire,’ said Price. ‘I was caught in the rain and my clothing saturated. After the fine morning I did not anticipate such a change in the weather.’

  Meade said sourly, ‘You can hardly speak of being ’caught in the rain’ in the Lake district. Rain here is the norm. It would be more sensible to allude to being caught in the sun.’