by Ali Carter
‘Thanks,’ I said, picking up the local freesheet from the rack by my side. Its headline made my eyes open the widest they’d been all morning. ‘Earl-ing Abuse At Murder Victim’ it said, and there was a strapline beneath: ‘Lord-Lieutenant’s Exclusive Interview’.
As is often the case the headline was all bark and no bite. The manipulative editor was hinting that Lord Greengrass’s murder could be linked to some sort of dodgy dealing that happened eighteen years ago. The gist of it was built around Mrs Fishbone’s speculative accusation that Lord Greengrass had in some way bribed the planners to get permission for a housing development on the parcel of agricultural land that he had sold off.
To me the hard facts detailed in the story, along with the Lord-Lieutenant’s comments, read as if they had been a tiny part of a much longer interview given in the past to the newspaper on something else, and were possibly libellous assertions that Mrs Fishbone should never have said. How could she possibly stand by these comments, if in the end her claims were proved to have nothing at all to do with his death?
Why don’t more people employ the simple but effective ‘no comment’ if a journalist is asking a difficult question or two? By not doing so, Mrs Fishbone had revealed that she really did have a personal axe to grind, and now nobody had made that more obvious than this paper’s editor. I decided not to take a copy of the freesheet to show Diana or Arthur as I thought it would only upset them, and pour salt into old wounds.
The coffee was very good and I sat staring out of the window, wondering how on earth I could discover whether Iona, who seemed to be very sweet, had anything to do with Alexander’s death.
Life is unpredictable though, and sometimes fate steps in just when you least expect it.
A gruff-looking man burst through the door behind the counter. ‘Iona! You seen the paper?’ he shouted, furiously shaking a copy clutched in his fist. ‘She’s done it now, that Fishbone. Right on the nail.’
I tried to pretend I’d hardly registered he was there.
‘Phil,’ said Iona in a motherly tone as she indicated with her eyes that I was there.
He swivelled to look at me.
‘Good god, I’m so sorry,’ he apologised instantly, in a voice that made him seem as if he had become a completely different, much meeker person. ‘I had no idea we had a customer.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. Although I knew I could be staring a murderer in the face, there was something about Phil and his wife that I rather liked.
I shuffled around on my stool in the hope that it didn’t look like I was paying them too much attention, and pretended to check messages on my mobile.
Phil put on an apron and began sharpening several large knives on the butcher’s block.
Tiresomely they obviously weren’t going to talk about the freesheet story in front of me, and so I slugged the last sip of coffee and counted out coins to the precise value of my bill, added a few more for a tip and put them in the saucer as I got up to leave.
Sometimes I wonder if I have traits of OCD as it gives me inordinate pleasure when I can pay for something with the exact change. Occasionally I feel shy of handing over, say, fifty pence in pennies and tuppences, but it is hugely satisfying and so I do it anyway.
When I reached the door I turned to say, ‘Thank you very much.’
‘Bye,’ said Phil. ‘Sorry for me outburst.’
We all laughed, me much more nervously than they (I had just noticed how very large the knives were that Phil was sharpening) when the loud bell on their door made me jump, and then I was in my car, soap in the glove box and driving out of the yard.
Thankfully Nanny’s bedroom door was open when I got back into Rose Cottage and I saw no sign of her. I assumed she had gone across to the main house as the boys were off school this week because of their grand-father’s death.
I was disappointed with my feeble behaviour. I’d wasted a trip to the farm shop and had got absolutely nothing out of meeting the Yards. A sad failure on the part of the Pet Detective.
I sat at the desk in my room mindlessly staring out of the window at the weathered rose garden. I don’t like winter, I never have. The short days and unreliable sunshine get me down, but I’d still rather live in England than anywhere else. I often think if I were dropped in the landscape I would know exactly what time of year it is. There’s no other country, where the seasons turn with such beauty.
Nanny’s house was lovely and warm. I knew that all bills – electricity, oil and gas – were paid for by the Greengrasses as they paid the utilities for anyone on the Beckenstale Estate. Alexander had once explained to me that there was an element of self-interest in this seeming generosity – these running expenses were offset against the estate’s profit and therefore helped reduce income tax. Owners of large houses with land are always keeping an eye out for legitimate expenses they can use in this way.
A home petrol pump has therefore been added to most country piles and comes under the account heading of ‘farm vehicle expenses’, despite being used to refuel all the family’s private vehicles too.
Several times on pet portrait commissions, I have been instructed to top up my tank before I depart. I always say yes as petrol is so expensive these days.
After five minutes I still felt down in the dumps, and so I told myself that desperate times called for desperate measures. I called Toby.
‘Susie!’
‘Sorry to call so early, but I need to run something past you.’
Then I tried to draw him out on whether he felt the Yards were likely suspects as murderers.
‘It’s not part of our plan that you ring me up and pursue whether I think someone did it, but for what it’s worth, I say no, I don’t think they murdered him. It seems too obvious as everyone knew they had a falling out. As Agatha Christie taught us the most likely suspect is never the culprit.’
Toby wasn’t taking my question seriously, which annoyed me. Didn’t he want to find out who did it?
Toby added, ‘The Yards and Mrs Fishbone will have had to give a statement by now. Just wait for the meeting with Inspector Grey and the family this morning and then give me a call back. That way we won’t be wasting time on false leads.’
Yes! Toby was keen for me to ring him again.
The Manor’s front door was open when I trotted over a few minutes later, and I half expected Mary to be mopping the hall, but in fact it was Diana who greeted me.
‘Don’t shut the door Susie. I know it’s chilly but there’s a terrible smell in here that I’m trying to get rid of.’
I came into the hall and sniffed. ‘I see what you mean. That’s not nice is it.’
Actually it was pretty mild from where I was standing, but as I got further inside it was obvious that it was the smell of something dead.
‘Very unpleasant indeed,’ said Diana.
I was in no doubt about what had happened. ‘You have a dead mouse under the floorboards.’
Diana looked livid.
‘That stringent smell is definitely a dead mouse; it happened all the time at home,’ I added.
As a child I’d always begged my parents to get a cat to sort out the mice, and thus the smell problem. But my father disliked cats, especially their penchant for killing his adored garden birds, and so he had come up with a ridiculous family motto: ‘Mahls love cooking and hate cats’.
‘Asquintha is to blame,’ said Diana, her lips thin and angry. ‘That woman and all her pretentious allergies. We wouldn’t have this problem if Arthur would just stand up to her and get a blessed cat.’
I wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t excite Diana further.
‘SHEPHERD!’ she yelled.
Shepherd was in the hall within a millisecond.
‘Yes, My lady,’ he said, and gave a short bow to acknowledge me.
‘Susie can explain the dreadful smell and you can do whatever needs doing.’ Diana went to stomp away.
‘Diana,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘There�
��s nothing Shepherd can do. Lifting up the floorboards would mean relaying the entire floor.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Diana. ‘And when you’ve finished talking to Shepherd join me in the family sitting room.’
I knew about geometric floor patterns and chipped in quickly, ‘This is a mahogany parquet floor of the highest spec. There just wouldn’t be the craftsmanship out there today to lift it and re-lay it and even if there was I doubt very much you’d find someone who would want to bear the responsibility.’
‘What shall we do?’ Dejectedly, Diana sat herself down on the worn embroidery of one of the two Louis XVI chairs sitting on either side of the hall table.
‘I think your only option is to buy an air-freshener and use it until the smell has gone. The best type are those plug-in ones they sell now. Luckily the smell won’t be pungent for too long.’
‘Oh no I couldn’t possibly have that in the hall. It would be the equivalent of having fresheners dangling in the loo. Not here, Susie, not here.’
Why was it that even a bloody air-freshener could involve an element of snobbery?
I tried again, ‘You could fill the hall with scented candles.’
‘Much better idea, Susie.’
We left Shepherd pondering scented candles and who was going to go out and get them.
‘My goodness, that’s a beautiful bunch of lilies,’ I said, as we went into the sitting room. There was a huge vase on a small wooden table.
‘Aren’t they? They came from Gonville and Caius, Cambridge with that card.’ Diana was already sitting on the sofa and she pointed towards the mantelpiece.
The card had an abstract design on the front. Pleasant colours but not vibrant, and I thought it very suitable for condolence wishes.
‘Read it to me again, Susie, they were such nice words.’
I stood between the pouffe and the glowing fire and read aloud:
‘Dear Lady Greengrass, Although we have never had the good fortune of meeting I wanted to send you our deepest sympathies. Your husband, a most generous benefactor, will be remembered by us all, and future generations, for making possible the building of our advanced modern-medicine block. This comes with thoughts and prayers for you and your family from all the dons of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge.’
‘I’m pleased they have marked Alexander’s passing in this way.’
Diana had been won over by a bunch of lilies but I was still struggling to make sense of Alexander’s extravagant endowment.
‘The flowers are exquisite,’ I said, putting the card back on the mantelpiece and sitting down on the sofa opposite Diana. As usual, the tweed itched me through my tights. ‘Was Alexander always keen on medicine?’
‘I would have thought so.’
This was a reply that didn’t really go anywhere, but Diana didn’t seem to be suspicious about the donation at that moment. Maybe I was the only one who still thought it odd.
I changed my mind about not telling Diana of the story I’d seen in the freesheet.
‘The local paper has an interview with Mrs Fishbone on the front of it today, I believe.’
‘The Telegraph! How on earth did she get in there?’
‘No, no, I meant the local rag.’
‘And what does she have to say for herself?’
‘She expresses her speculation that Alexander had bribed the planners with cash when he applied for development rights on ten acres of the ninety he was selling.’
‘And?’ said Diana, taking me by surprise with her instant deflection of this news.
‘That’s all. The headline was trying to link it to his murder, I think.’
‘Ridiculous. That was nearly twenty years ago,’ fumed Diana. ‘Just who does Mrs Fishbone think she is, bringing this up again when I’m in mourning?’
This mention of mourning was the first time Diana had used her own situation as ammunition to write someone or something off. I thought she was trying to distract me away from the truth.
In fact it was so out of character that in an instant I was convinced that the sale of this land and the subsequent redundancy of the Yards, the fury of Mrs Fishbone and the unexplainable charitable donation were absolutely all central to Alexander’s death.
‘Susie, anyone who can afford to do so uses cash to get their own way. Everyone knows this. It’s the good fortune of having money. My husband was acting in the way any other person of our means would in the same situation.’
Diana’s imperious tone was designed to make me believe I was being naïve to think otherwise.
‘Why Alexander decided to sell that land I can’t remember. But if he wanted to, I don’t see why there is anything wrong with lining someone’s pockets to get the job done.’
Diana’s attitude was something I disagreed with vehemently; I thought it very wrong that the rich could get what they wanted with a backhander, while the rest of us have to play by the rules. Her comments shook the very foundations of how I had perceived the Greengrasses.
It’s always disconcerting when you see a side of someone you never imagined. In a trice I found myself riddled with doubt over whether I really knew this family or not.
Diana hadn’t noticed that I was in a quandary. ‘If she wasn’t our Lord-Lieutenant I’d think Mrs Fishbone might have murdered Alexander herself, from the way she is behaving.’
I asked, ‘What happened to your tenant farmer when the land sold?’
‘The Yards?’
‘Yes.’
‘They moved on long ago and we lost touch. I daresay they’ll be having their say in the local paper too.’
‘Do you think they might be connected to the murder too?’ I tried to sound gullible.
‘You are a dear girl, Susie, trying to see it from our behalf. I don’t want you concerning yourself with all this nasty business. If it’s getting too much you must go home. I’ve got quite used to it now and am sure I’ll cope without you.’
‘I’m sorry for bringing up the Yards, it was just a thought. I’m definitely going to stay a little longer if that’s okay as I hate to think of you all alone.’
‘Thank you Susie, and you can rest assured that the Yards have nothing to do with Alexander’s death. Of that I am perfectly sure.’
I tried the trick of silence. It worked as Diana then said, ‘Iona cried every year the lambs went to slaughter, while I very much doubt Phil could have walked the graveyard inconspicuously with his club foot.’
‘Oh gosh, I never knew that was the case, of course he couldn’t have.’
I was inclined to agree with Diana that the Yards were out of the frame. This left Mrs Fishbone, and if she were involved then she must have been in cahoots with somebody, otherwise she would have been missed from the commemoration service.
At this rate I wasn’t going to have any suspects left. Toby would not be impressed.
Ding-dong went the front-doorbell, which was operated by pulling on a large handle attached to a chain.
‘Is it that time already?’
We sat there waiting for Mary to come and tell us who had arrived.
‘My Lady, Detective Inspector Grey is here and so would you like me to show him to the library?’
‘Yes please, Mary. We will be down shortly.’
Diana picked up the telephone, dialled a number and put the receiver to her good ear. ‘Arthur!’
I got up, gave the backs of my legs a jolly good scratch, and then followed Diana downstairs.
Inspector Grey jumped up from his seat as we entered the room.
‘Morning My Lady,’ he said.
‘Good morning, Inspector. Arthur will be here shortly and Susie is still with us.’
‘Morning, Inspector,’ I said.
‘Miss Mahl,’ he acknowledged.
‘Inspector, yesterday I was walking through the graveyard and noticed that the stone sculpture of Christ at the back of the church, where Lord Greengrass died, was missing its Globus Cruciger.’
‘Its what?’
Diana stopped in her tracks and both she and Inspector Grey looked at me as I explained there might be a stone ball and cross hidden in the graveyard.
‘Thank you Susie for your minor observation.’
Inspector Grey’s dismissive response meant the moment passed without Diana questioning it, and before we had time to sit down Arthur and Asquintha walked into the room. Asquintha looked unusually scruffy and I could swear Arthur was losing weight by the day. His clothes always had a tendency to hang off him but today his belt buckle was done up one further than the previous worn hole.
Diana gave us our orders. ‘Arthur, you sit here next to me. Inspector, stay at the head. Asquintha, you sit over there with Susie.’
‘How are the boys?’ I said, turning to Asquintha.
‘Fine thanks, Susie.’ She sounded far stronger than she looked.
The door creaked open, and Mary’s hands trembled as she put the silver tray on the table.
‘Thank you Mary. Susie, would you mind?’ said Diana.
‘Of course not,’ I said, getting up to reach the tray which had been put beside Asquintha.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Asquintha, tapping my thigh.
As she filled the cups I passed them around the table. Diana was having an inaudible conversation with Arthur.
‘Right, My Lady, this won’t take long. I’ll run through the recent statements we’ve taken and let you know where the case stands.’
Disappointingly, for the first part of the meeting Inspector Grey mentioned nothing I didn’t already know. Antonia, May, Katy, Shepherd, Mary and Nanny could be accounted for. He rattled on in too much detail as he gave us their whereabouts.
He added that there was CCTV footage from the Yards’ farm shop that showed them both behind the counter attending to customers at the time of the murder.