by L. C. Tyler
‘OK,’ I said, slowly. I thought that I’d seen Fay Tomlinson on her own at some point, but they’d certainly gone out and returned together. I had no reason to doubt they’d been in each other’s sight almost all the time. If that’s what they both said. Anyway, I agreed with Joe that neither of them had much of a motive. If Joyner had killed Cox, that would have been different. But he hadn’t.
‘How well do you know Tertius Sly?’ Joe said.
‘Not that well. I don’t much like him, but I can’t see why he’d kill Joyner, either. They’d only just met. More to the point, Joyner was the only one who supported, albeit for his own reasons, Sly’s wish to reopen the excavations. Sly would have seen Joyner as a friend and ally. He seemed genuinely upset at his death. Logically, Joyner’s death was not to his advantage, and Sly is nothing if not logical in his reasoning. I think he spends his spare time planning his next move. He’s not one for impulsive acts of any sort.’
‘He’s a county councillor? He gave his name as Councillor Sly.’
‘I thought he was just a parish councillor, which technically wouldn’t entitle him to that prefix. If it is parish, then it’s wherever he lives – somewhere near Chichester. I think he’s genuinely public-spirited. I also think he really wants to be liked and accepted.’
‘But he’s not?’
‘No.’
Joe nodded. He flicked back through his notebook and put a question mark against the word ‘councillor’.
‘I see two sides forming here,’ he said. ‘Joyner and Sly on one side, favouring another dig – Professor Cox, Dr Tomlinson, Mrs Munnings and Mr Polgreen on the other. You might say that’s four possible suspects.’
‘Really? Actual suspects? I thought you reckoned it was an accident.’
‘Bear with me for a moment, Ethelred. I’m still talking hypothetically.’
‘Fine. But you’ve ruled out two of those suspects already. That only leaves Henry Polgreen and Iris Munnings. You’re surely not suggesting that Iris would invite Joyner here and kill him to stop him digging for the Madonna?’
‘This Madonna, if it exists, must be quite valuable. That’s a clear motive for somebody. Hypothetically. Iris isn’t as rich as people think. Look at this room. It could do with a lick of paint, couldn’t it? And there’s plenty of work to do on the exterior of the building. She could use the money if the Madonna was found.’
‘If Joyner had found the statue in the garden, Iris might have to prove her claim to it, but she’d certainly have a greater claim than Joyner possibly could. She didn’t need to kill him – just ask him politely to hand it over.’
Joe nodded. ‘Of course, we’ve ruled out Professor Cox killing Dr Joyner out of professional jealousy. But no doubt he could use a few hundred thousand?’
‘I would think that his professorship, his books and his television work would have made him the richest person at the Priory this afternoon. It’s more likely that Cox killed Joyner because his paper on the causes of the Pilgrimage of Grace was insufficiently nuanced.’
Joe’s face was completely deadpan. ‘That’s a no, then?’ he said.
‘I can’t say exactly the same for Dr Tomlinson,’ I said. ‘Maybe she could do with the money. But how would you dispose of a gem-encrusted gold statue, even if you did steal it?’
‘There’s always somebody who’ll buy anything,’ said Joe. ‘That’s why we have boot fairs. And there’s a market for stolen antiques of all sorts and all prices. Anyway, Cox and Tomlinson were together the whole time, so it would have to be both of them working together. If Cox is beyond suspicion, then so is Tomlinson.’
Again, the memory of seeing Fay without Anthony Cox flashed across my mind, but I just nodded. I couldn’t imagine the elegant Fay Tomlinson in hand-to-hand combat with Joyner.
‘So, what about Henry Polgreen?’ Joe asked.
‘He might be after the Madonna on behalf of the Abbey. He wouldn’t think of selling it for his own profit.’
‘You know that?’
‘I know Henry as well as I know anybody here.’
‘A good friend?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’d been in contact with Joyner before. They hadn’t quite seen eye to eye.’ Joe tapped a pencil against his lower lip thoughtfully. ‘Did Henry Polgreen ever show any animosity towards Joyner?’
‘Mild irritation,’ I said.
‘No more than that?’
‘Definitely no more than that.’
‘Fine,’ said Joe. ‘In the absence of other evidence, your mate’s probably in the clear. Even hypothetically. Your agent doesn’t seem to have had a high opinion of Dr Joyner, though.’
‘She doesn’t have a high opinion of anyone. She hadn’t met him until yesterday. I think she may have seen him as a potential client, if he’d been happy to make one or two inconsequential changes to his book.’
‘Mrs Munnings’ housekeeper?’ asked Joe. ‘She’s from the Philippines, apparently – arrived quite recently.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I think she was in the house most of the time, making coffee and slicing cake.’
‘That’s what she told me. When I questioned her, she was slightly confused even as to which one was Dr Joyner. Said she’d met Professor Cox before – several times – but nobody else. I’ve no reason to believe that Iris doesn’t keep her every bit as busy making coffee as she claimed. Neither motive nor opportunity, I think.’
‘There you are, then,’ I said. ‘Nobody had any good reason for pushing Hilary Joyner into the well – or none we know of.’
‘Of course, let’s not forget that almost anyone from the village could have got into the garden. There’s a wall round it, but the gate was wide open this afternoon and there’s no security to speak of.’
‘As you said, Iris can’t afford CCTV. For what it’s worth, I didn’t see anyone, other than the people we’ve mentioned.’
‘No. Nor did anyone else,’ said Joe. ‘Joyner wasn’t popular, though. There’s no getting away from that.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He was pushy, rude and self-centred. But I can’t see why anyone who was here today would have wanted to shove him down the well. It was perfectly possible, but it wasn’t remotely necessary. Anyway, the risks of being caught with so many people around were pretty high.’
‘That’s right,’ said Joe. ‘It’s not something you would do if you’d had time to consider the consequences. Wrong time, wrong place. Still, it seemed worth running it all past somebody with an overheated imagination, just to see if I was missing the obvious. It happens.’
‘One thing that puzzled me,’ I said. ‘When the body was found, Iris said, “Just like last time.” I don’t know what she meant by that.’
‘Somebody else drowned in the well, apparently, back in her grandfather’s day. Iris would have only been a child then, of course. It would seem it was her grandfather’s gardener who died. That’s why they had the iron grill fitted. Shame Iris left it off this afternoon, but there you are. And you’re right: she did warn him. Everyone’s agreed on that.’
Elsie and I stayed with Iris Munnings until the police left. I reckoned she could do with the support.
‘Thank you, Mrs Munnings,’ said Joe as they departed. ‘I’m very grateful for your cooperation and the use of your drawing room.’
‘Miss,’ she said. ‘Everyone calls me Mrs Munnings, but it’s Miss Munnings, actually. I never married. There was a young man but … well, things didn’t quite work out for us. I’m very fortunate in some ways. Just not so lucky in others.’
Later, as we drove back, Elsie asked, ‘So what’s Cox’s relationship with Fay Tomlinson, then?’
‘Officially she’s a postdoctoral research fellow,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t say what she was unofficially.’
‘Still, a bestselling book, a Mercedes convertible and a blonde with legs that go on for ever – Cox isn’t doing that badly. Eh, Ethelred?’
‘How would I know?’ I said. ‘I’m only a crime writer.’
Elsie patted me on the knee. ‘I’m sure you could pick up a cheap, high-mileage Mercedes convertible,’ she said. ‘It’s just a shame you’d have nobody to impress with it.’
Much later, long after we had returned to my own house, I said to Elsie, ‘That really isn’t a lucky family. Not in any respect.’
‘No,’ said Elsie. ‘The grandfather and grandmother dying like that.’
‘And the gardener,’ I said.
‘And the boyfriend?’ asked Elsie.
‘It certainly sounds as if something happened to him too.’
‘What about her parents?’
‘She’s never mentioned them to me before,’ I said. ‘And didn’t say much this time. Just that she never really got a chance to ask them about the Madonna. But they apparently believed in the curse.’
‘You’re not suggesting …’
‘No, no, of course not,’ I said. ‘Just coincidence, so many people dying in a short space of time.’
‘Still, they haven’t had much luck.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘In spite of what Iris says about being fortunate in some ways, I’d have said they’d had no luck in any way whatsoever.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ethelred
Then, for some days, nothing much happened at all, good or bad.
I would occasionally go into the small bedroom and see Joyner’s bag, still sitting there by the bed, a forlorn object, a lost dog waiting for its master’s return. I had not opened it, but I’d lifted it experimentally. It was very light. I had emailed the College to say it was there. The College had replied that his next of kin was his ex-wife, and that they would let me know what, if anything, she wanted me to do with it. She had so far expressed no final view on the matter. I seemed to remember, from something somebody had said at the dinner, that she lived in Spain. It was unlikely that she wanted her former husband’s overnight case. After a week or so, I put it up in the attic, with many other things that I had not looked at since I moved to West Wittering. To be honest, it gave me the creeps. I preferred it out of sight. It had nothing at all to do with the curse.
It was over a week after Joyner’s death when I ran into Tertius Sly at the village stores in West Wittering. Though he lived elsewhere, he worked locally. We normally just nodded at each other or said a brief ‘hello’ but something more than that seemed required this time. We had stood side by side in the presence of death.
‘Terrible business about your friend,’ he said, as if discussing the weather. ‘I didn’t really express my condolences at the time. I was a bit stunned, to tell you the truth – properly shook up, as you may have noticed – but I’m all right now, you’ll be pleased to know. And I’m very sorry for your loss, of course, Ethelred.’
‘My loss? Dr Joyner wasn’t really a friend,’ I said. ‘He was just staying with me. But thank you anyway.’
‘The police haven’t questioned you again?’
‘Is there any reason why they should?’
‘If they found fresh evidence. A new lead. Forensics.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said. I looked towards the chilled cabinets to see if they had any semi-skimmed milk left. There appeared to be one bottle, if I could grab it before anyone else did.
‘But they haven’t?’
‘Haven’t what?’ I asked.
Haven’t said anything to you.’
‘No.’
I watched as a woman opened the cabinet, took my milk and departed towards the till. I’d need to drive to the Co-op at East Wittering now if I wanted to be able to make tea.
‘So, they must think it was just an accident, then?’ said Sly insistently.
Joe had, in fact, phoned me in confidence to confirm that that was indeed what they thought. The pathologist’s report had added very little to what we knew. The blows to Joyner’s skull – and the damage to his panama hat – were consistent with his head having hit the brick wall of the well more than once on the way down. The alternative theory, that he had been hit with something before he fell, could not be ruled out, but had not been supported by the discovery of a bloodstained brick elsewhere in the garden, though that weapon could have just been lobbed in after him. The search of the well had revealed there were loose bricks in the detritus at the very bottom. Whatever the cause of the head wound, Joyner would, the pathologist thought, have been unconscious when he hit the water and would have drowned within a very short time. The discovery of his torch, also at the bottom of the well, suggested that he had been leaning over, peering downwards, just before he fell. Or perhaps he had dropped the torch and was craning his neck to see if it could somehow be recovered. Even if I had stayed with him, Joe had kindly added, there would have been nothing I could have done once Joyner had slipped. There would have been no way of getting an unconscious man out of the well in time to save him from drowning. He didn’t say that I might have prevented his falling into the well at all. But so could we all have done that. And it was Joyner’s choice that none of us had stayed with him. None of us should feel guilty.
And yet I did.
‘There’s no reason why the police should tell me anything,’ I said, not wishing to have Joe’s confidence to me spread all over the village. ‘I’m just a witness, the same as you. I’m sure they’ll make a public announcement when they want to.’
‘I’m sure they will,’ said Sly. It sounded like a sneer, but that was how most things he said sounded, even condolences. ‘Your mate in the police – he didn’t suspect Henry Polgreen, I suppose?’
‘He would scarcely tell me if he did.’
‘No – especially since you are so close to Polgreen and might tip him off. But think about it: Joyner was a sharp cookie. He was keen we continued the programme of excavation on the site. That was the last thing Polgreen wanted.’
‘If you say so,’ I said.
Sly nodded. ‘I do say so. I can keep a secret, Ethelred. I’m known for it. I don’t tell tales out of school. Polgreen’s a friend of yours, but you must realise that he thinks that if there are no further digs, nobody will find him out, and he’ll avoid disgrace.’
‘Disgrace?’
‘Obviously my lips are sealed, under the circumstances, but the last dig – the last authorised dig – showed up some strange anomalies. I can’t tell you any more than that. It wouldn’t be right. Not since you’re his friend.’
‘I entirely respect your discretion,’ I said.
‘What I will say, though, is that it was quite clear somebody had been digging there who shouldn’t have been. Now that could only be through Polgreen’s negligence, couldn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily,’ I said.
He looked at me with approval.
‘Well, you’ve hit the nail on the head there,’ he said. ‘Like you, I can’t see that Polgreen would fail to spot illicit digging on somebody else’s part. So, it’s more likely it would be Polgreen himself. The question is: what was he digging for?’
Sly’s artless probing was beginning to annoy me. Anyway, I needed to go home, get the car, drive into East Wittering and buy some semi-skimmed milk.
‘Really, I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘It could be anything at all.’
‘You think so?’
‘Think what?’ I asked.
‘That Polgreen might be looking for anything at all. But, with a better knowledge of the site than you have, I can make a pretty good guess. Under cover of being chairman of the committee, your friend Henry Polgreen has been conducting illicit excavations to see if he can find the Madonna – and for his own gain, not ours.’
Sly was straying towards slander, and some friendly advice would not go amiss. ‘Well, for your sake, I hope you can get proof of that,’ I said grimly.
He nodded approvingly. ‘So do I, Ethelred. So do I. But we won’t if Polgreen stays as chair. And Iris Munnings as treasurer.’ He spat this last name out as if it was a fat slug he’d eaten accidentally with a rather nice piece of iceberg lettuce. Whatever Iris had said to hi
m in the garden had hurt him a great deal. ‘I told her what Polgreen was up to, but would she listen? Just because she and Polgreen went to university and I didn’t, she seems to think I know nothing. When I was eighteen, I’d already been working for two years. By the time Polgreen had graduated, I had five years of solid commercial experience under my belt, selling office stationery. You can’t just ignore something like that – experience of that quality. But Polgreen thinks he can get away with anything, just because he has a history degree. And Iris Munnings is tied up in it somehow too. I don’t have all the evidence yet, but it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Big house. Not much income, so they say. She needs the money. It’s probably the two of them working together, don’t you think?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ I said.
‘Really? None at all? Then the one man who might expose them dies mysteriously. It must have crossed your mind that it could be murder?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose it has.’
‘Exactly. Then you’d have to conclude that the most likely killers are Henry Polgreen and Iris Munnings.’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Of course you wouldn’t say it,’ he said. ‘Not publicly. Not yet. But thank you, Ethelred, for sharing your suspicions with me. I admire you for not letting your friendship with Henry Polgreen get in the way of discovering the truth. I won’t breathe a word to anyone – and you know you can trust me when I say that. But an accusation of murder, such as you have just made, is a very serious thing. Especially when you’re accusing Iris Munnings of being an accomplice. You can get into a lot of trouble that way, Ethelred. There’s such a thing as slander, you know.’