A Brush with Death

by Ali Carter

  I exchanged my thermal underwear from the day for a midnight-blue twinset, and thankfully I had a whole outfit Toby hadn’t seen me in yet. It was about time the jazz tights had a second outing.

  Just before I left the house Nanny said, ‘That’s how we did it Susie, we sang our hearts out to Inspector Grey, reeling off the Sunday morning love songs we’d listened to on Radio 2. Didn’t miss one out of the order.’

  ‘How fantastic, good on you!’ I turned to Shepherd. ‘Did you sing too?’

  ‘Course not! But mine were like a white rabbit out a hat. I bunched my wife on Sunday morning. It was the silver lining, I tell you. Did myself in with the drink on Saturday night and apologised to my Mary,’ he smiled across at his sweet ageing wife, ‘on Sunday, with a fist full of chrysanthemums.’ He couldn’t quite pronounce the word but gave it a jolly good try. ‘And for once in my life I kept the receipt. So I had 100% proof that I’d visited Tommy’s garage at 11.18am. And it’s backed up with his word to prove it.’

  I picked up my car keys, wished them a pleasant evening and dashed off before Nanny could remember that she hadn’t grilled me on who I was meeting.

  ‘I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to since the puppy visit,’ were Toby’s first words to me.

  ‘Oh good,’ I smiled at him as he stood waiting for me outside the pub, under the glow of the porch light. He was looking particularly dashing in an open shirt and faded blue chinos.

  The pub was quaint. A burrow of low-beamed tunnels and nooks and crannies. Green-baize tables harkened back to the home of card games. It looked like the sort of old-fashioned place that might still have a skittles alley out at the back.

  Toby nodded at a few locals as we made our way towards the bar. Wednesday night had broken the back of the working week and so it was quite busy.

  ‘Hiya Toby,’ said a busty bar lady. ‘We’ve not seen you for a while.’

  ‘Been busy,’ said Toby.

  ‘I bet you have,’ she tried to lean closer towards us and whispered in a hushed voice, ‘We thought you were probably working on the murder...’

  Toby didn’t acknowledge her invitation to gossip, and instead he looked at me to ask, ‘Drink?’

  ‘Vodka and tonic please.’

  ‘Coming up,’ said the bar lady as she turned to the shelf of spirits and exposed a tattoo of angel wings beneath the straps of her top.

  ‘I’ll have a pint of the ale please,’ said Toby.

  I thrust a note towards her. ‘They’re on me.’

  Toby didn’t protest, which I liked.

  My father doesn’t think a woman should ever pay their way. He says, ‘If any man’s lucky enough to take my daughter out they should treat her like a lady.’ But he doesn’t know what it’s like out in the dating jungle nowadays. If a man pays for everything, as a woman it’s all too possible to feel you owe him something in return. Consequently you find yourself going much further than you want to to avoid any accusations of ‘taking advantage’.

  I thought that by paying for these drinks it would keep me and Toby on an even keel. Our drink had been, after all, my suggestion.

  ‘You take the bench Susie, as it has a nice comfy cushion on it.’

  We’d come to a discreet table through the back and Toby sat in a lovely Orkney armchair.

  My father likes a pub. His local drinking hole is a den of ageing men whiling away a Friday night. Going there at the end of the week is a routine he’s followed all my life. Mum remains at home, being of the dated opinion that pubs aren’t places for ladies. Cleaver Square has two pubs but Dad only ever goes to one, declaring the other ‘full of young fillies’; apparently young fillies change the atmosphere.

  ‘Nice place this, don’t you think?’ said Toby.

  ‘Yes, it’s very cosy. Reminds me of a place in Oxford where the ceiling was so low almost everyone had to sit down.’

  ‘What about the bar staff?’ Toby smiled.

  ‘The floor was sunken behind the bar. Not sure if it was always like that or whether people were just shorter in the olden days.’

  ‘I’m sure people were shorter. Haven’t you ever noticed how low the doorway is on an original red telephone box?’

  ‘That’s a good point, I’d never thought about it.’

  ‘Well next time you’re in London go to the entrance of the Royal Academy and there under the arch you’ll find a Grade I listed original Giles Gilbert Scott red telephone box and you’ll see what I mean.’

  I then thought I wouldn’t point out to him that there is now a whole generation of younger people who barely even know what a telephone box is, low door height or not.

  ‘So Pet Detective, what’s the latest?’

  Pet Detective! I had been repeating this catchy term to myself ever since I got Toby’s text message, and was finding it increasingly endearing. Still, it was a bit embarrassing hearing him say it out loud, though Toby himself didn’t reveal an ounce of awkwardness in doing so.

  ‘Afraid not much. I actually wanted to pick your brains about local footpaths.’

  ‘Ah, you’ve chosen the right person as I’m chairman of the local ramblers’ club.’

  I laughed. ‘You are so the type. I can picture you in a pair of zip-off trousers, carrying your map in a waterproof case.’

  There was a pause, and then Toby said in a more serious tone, ‘Go on, Susie, I could tell at our second meeting that you have the bit between your teeth for solving this case. How’s it going?’

  ‘Slowly,’ I said, slowly. ‘Although I bet I can get there quicker than Inspector Grey.’

  ‘That means you’ve got something?’

  ‘I might do but I’m hoping I can tell you in confidence. It is mainly details of certain people’s private lives, which under normal circumstances I wouldn’t be bandying about.’

  ‘I don’t think you would have rung me up if you didn’t think you could trust me. Let’s talk in confidence.’

  I was hoping Toby would say this. I needed him to act as a sounding board, and he could help me weed out dead-ends and highlight important leads. And of course to have him as a confidant would allow me to contact him without, I hoped, seeming as if I was chasing him.

  Although I enjoy working through my thoughts independently, I like very much to have a sounding board.

  I’d discovered this the moment I met my first tutor at the Ruskin, and since then my working relationship with him, and our sifting through together of my ideas, has been essential to my artistic practice. Every so often I invite him into my studio to give an honest and truthful opinion of some art I’ve created. It’s so valuable as I find I become so intricately involved and close to my painting that at some point I am no longer able to stand back and see it for what it is. In the case of something as deeply personal as a painting, I have then to put on a suit of armour, metaphorically speaking, to shield me from the sharp stab of his comments. But even when I don’t like what I hear, I always think about it carefully; constructive criticism and feedback really can make a difference.

  I knew that I needed someone like Toby to point out the mistakes I’d got too close to see. There was something honest and trustworthy about him, and I sensed I would value his opinions.

  I showed him my tree of suspects and explained how it worked.

  ‘Such a neat diagram, Susie,’ he said, pulling the picture towards him and studying it carefully as I talked him through the initials. ‘This is good and clear but surely you can cross some people off it?’

  ‘I wanted to run my thoughts past you before I did.’

  ‘Give me what you’ve got.’ Toby pulled a large notepad out of his bag. ‘Let’s write down everything first.’

  His systematic approach suggested he liked a less visual way of compiling information. But I knew it was time for a list, as there were various details not connected to any one person that needed to be set down.

  To get things going I began to explain my theory behind not being waylaid by conspiracy to m
urder.

  Toby understood what I was driving at. ‘I think you’re right in assuming that if you uncover the motive by looking at the details, the rest will become clear.’

  With that I outlined my suspicions and theories and Toby wrote them down.

  I wanted to hear his ideas before I mentioned the Globus Cruciger, which I felt was my biggest clue so far.

  ‘Been hard at work, haven’t you?’ he said, with the suggestion that he was slightly surprised by the thoroughness of my investigation. ‘What about S.L.? You haven’t talked much about him?’

  ‘I don’t think Strange Loader’s important for now.’

  ‘You said his work involves guns, which, bearing in mind the shape of the bruising, could bump him up the list.’

  I frowned.

  ‘Okay, whatever’s best for you.’ Toby backed down quickly. ‘I’m just here to help, I don’t want any of the responsibility.’

  What a perfect answer. I needed an accomplice, but one who let me take charge. My reason for not talking more about S.L. is that I did not want to put Toby off me. In fact I wanted him to like me a lot and if I immediately told him about another piece of evidence I’d been concealing he’d have reason enough never to trust me.

  ‘Let’s start with the first thing on the list, the Codringtons’ dog,’ he said.

  ‘It was just an observation from my photographs that there might have been something going on inside the Glebe House.’

  ‘Any idea what?’

  ‘None at all, and he seemed perfectly happy when I saw him today. Antonia thinks it was jealousy of visitors staying.’

  ‘That probably explains it. After all a dog’s tail is a tenuous clue. Let’s leave it for now.’

  ‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’

  ‘Exactly!’ said Toby smiling. ‘Moving on, Lord Greengrass’s behaviour.’

  ‘I always liked him, but from what Nanny’s told me he doesn’t sound as kind and caring as I thought he was. Taking this into account, there is reason to think he might have upset people in his lifetime, and what happened to him could be their revenge.’

  ‘We’ll put down unfair dismissal, dishonesty and unpopular with the working classes as accusations against him. Is there anything you want to add?’

  I flicked through the photographs on my mobile and showed Toby the one I’d taken of the charitable trust document.

  ‘Sorry Susie, I’m not following.’

  ‘Lord Greengrass, unbeknown to his family, gave a heck of a lot of money to his old Cambridge College’s specialist medicine project. Don’t you think there’s something strange about that?’

  ‘I think there’s something strange about you taking the photograph.’ Toby, although disapproving, sounded impressed by my daring behaviour.

  ‘I think it’s necessary information. Alexander didn’t study medicine.’

  ‘That is odd.’

  ‘The thing is…’

  I stopped as Toby interrupted. ‘Before we go into any of this in more detail, would you like another drink?’

  It was only then that I realised how quickly I’d drunk the first one. It had gone down a treat.

  Toby headed to the bar and my eyes followed. He was polite, handsome and easy-going. Not to mention that I could now see he had a delicious bottom.

  I looked down and my eyes went towards a flimsy bit of paper, roughly cut round the edges, drooping out of the top of the wire condiment-carrier. I plucked it out. ‘Organic Product’s for Sale’. I know someone who’d be driven mad by this misuse of the plural, not to mention the apostrophe: my friend Sam. Last time I saw him, in London, we were walking past an awning and he halted, deeply depressed by the signage: ‘Meat’s and Veg’s’. Bad grammar amuses rather than irritates me but dear Sam is a book editor by profession, and I think he has a point about apostrophes used in ignorance or to make a sentence more fancy. Here’s hoping his mother sorts this out in the wider scheme of things, as she’s devoted a large chunk of her life to fighting the battle to get better state education.

  As I looked at the piece of paper in my hand I saw,

  Eggs, Veg, Bread and more…

  Farby Farm Shop, open 7 days a

  week 7am – 4pm.

  A simple map was scribbled on the back and underneath were the words,

  See you soon, Phil & Iona Yard

  ‘The Yards advertising again?’ said Toby who was back with the drinks.

  ‘Um?’ I was deep in thought.

  ‘They’re always at it, those fliers are in every pub, café and tourist office across this county.’

  Toby sat down and propped his head up with one elbow on the table and scrunched his auburn hair in the cusp of his hand. He looked tired. ‘I was thinking about that charitable donation when I was up at the bar. What was the family’s reaction?’

  ‘Diana said she would have stopped it had she known.’

  ‘There’s your reason why he kept it quiet. It’s not as unusual as you might think for an economics alumnus to endow the medical department of their old college. Late-onset morality among successful bankers and old aristocratic families is what keeps these faculties developing. Most medical graduates never earn enough to do the same. Good on Lord Greengrass, I say.’

  Toby took his head out of his hand. ‘Let’s address P.Y. and I.Y. then.’

  ‘All I know from Nanny is that the Yards were very happy farming at Beckenstale until Alexander effectively sacked them. Mary and Nanny think they may have had something to do with his death.’ I took a quick sip from my vodka and tonic. ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘Everyone local knows the Yards. They’ve lived round here for years, although I only know them by name. I don’t think I’ve ever actually met them. I don’t shop that posh.’

  I said that neither did I. Organic produce only makes its way into my cupboard if by mistake I fill my basket from the wrong vegetable boxes in the supermarket.

  ‘Diana’s never mentioned their farm shop,’ I said as I slipped the flier into my handbag.

  Toby looked at me, and then wrote:

  1. Visit Farby Farm Shop.

  A man in a blue and thin white-striped apron loomed above us and lowered a large meat platter down to our table.

  ‘I was hungry and ordered this. I thought you might like some too.’

  ‘Yum.’

  I was pleased Toby had got us some food as it would help soak up the alcohol before I had to get back in my car. We both reached for a slice of bread from the basket; it was still warm and the butter melted as I spread it.

  ‘Right, onwards,’ said Toby with a half eaten gherkin in one hand and his pen in the other. ‘One hundred percent I don’t think Diana was involved or committed her husband’s murder.’

  ‘Neither do I, but what makes you say that?’

  ‘Well, do you know how long ago Lord Greengrass stopped drinking?’

  ‘Ages ago. From what Diana’s told me, he’s been dry for at least ten years. She often praised the day he took himself off to AA.’

  ‘There we have it; if she was going to murder him she would have done it long ago.’

  ‘I see. You think nothing he could have done would have been worse than when he was a drunk?’

  ‘Pretty much. My uncle’s an alcoholic. Our family have seen his wife put through hell all their married life. I can tell you for certain that if Diana didn’t murder her husband when he was drinking then nothing he did after would tip her over the edge.’

  I crossed out D.G. and felt sad at the thought that almost every family can dig up an alcoholic.

  ‘Good, we’re pacing ahead. Put a line through Lr.C. and all the Beckenstale staff. We know for sure it’s not them,’ said Toby.

  I told him about Nanny and Mary singing their alibi for Inspector Grey, and how funny it had been watching them recreate the scene, but then he took the wind from my sails by pointing out that they could have listened to the radio programme later, on catch-up or a podcast, and got the running order of the song
s then.

  I sighed, but it was this sort of comment that showed me how much I needed a sounding board.

  I put a mini pickled-onion in my mouth and immediately the acid caught the back of my throat and it very nearly shot straight back out again. Toby, for the first time since I’d met him, looked sheepish and, with watery eyes, I tried to pretend nothing had happened as I took a piece of cold ham to eat with the crust of my bread.

  ‘You can cross out S.H., A.C., B.C., N.M., H.D.S., R.dK. and S.M. of course,’ said Toby.

  ‘How do you know Katy’s innocent?’

  ‘She’s dating a friend of mine, and as I’ve already told Inspector Grey, Katy was at his house, as was I, on Sunday morning.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, jumping to the disappointing conclusion that maybe Toby had a girlfriend afterall.

  ‘La.C. What are we going to do about her?’ he said with such a friendly smile that immediately I decided once again he was in fact single.

  ‘I just don’t know. I hate to think it was her.’

  ‘You said she’s been reticent and has more reason than most to dislike the Greengrasses but she is married to their son. If she truly loves Arthur, surely she wouldn’t kill his father.’

  ‘If I trust my instincts, I can’t possibly believe it is her.’

  ‘Let’s leave her be and hope narrowing down the others will help us decide later if she really is a prime suspect.’

  ‘Ronnie’s basically my key suspect. He has no one to verify that he was in the pub and not the graveyard between 11.15am and 11.25am on Sunday morning.’

  ‘Hmmm. Your visit to the Dorset Horn didn’t give us anything did it?’

  ‘No. I have absolutely no proof; but still I do think it might have been him.’

  I told Toby about finding the Globus Cruciger. ‘Ronnie could have been in the graveyard on his way to the Codringtons’ house, perhaps he saw Lord Greengrass faint and took the opportunity to make mischief. If he’d grabbed the globe it would have come free, and the cross on top would have given him the purchase to use as a weapon.’