The Distant Dead

by Lesley Thomson

  When Janet had suggested meeting at the teashop, Stella had panicked. Was the plan to get her relaxed then pounce with a killer question? Stella had told Lucie she had an extra cleaning shift at the teashop to prevent Lucie tagging along, or lurking on the yew path. Stella hadn’t told Lucie the cleaning company had cancelled her shifts. Naturally, the manager had said, Stella would need to recover from finding a body in the abbey. Code for ‘not tainting the company name with murder’, Stella had been let go.

  Recalling last night’s Death Café, Stella felt far from relaxed. She was riddled with guilt. She had not told Janet that Lucie was in town and she had told Lucie information that, since it hadn’t been reported, Janet must be withholding. Roddy March’s dying words. Word. Stella had told Lucie it had sounded like ‘chamomile’. Lucie said Stella had misheard. Stella felt sick at the memory of Roddy’s terrible efforts to make her understand. He had died knowing she had not got it.

  Lucie had promised Stella not to be at the 11 a.m. press conference with the police, but Lucie’s promises had a short use-by date.

  Although the fire was lit, damp from the rain, Stella was trembling and cold.

  Janet locked eyes with Stella as soon as she walked in. Terry never said what to do if the nominal you were meeting was a police officer.

  Mindful of not engaging with props when she was shaking, Stella refused coffee then changed her mind. A drink would be warming and perhaps it was better to have something to do with her hands.

  ‘After last night we both need blood sugar.’ Janet returned with a tray of coffees and a chocolate brownie with two forks. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I was when my sergeant gave your name as the witness. I said to myself, there can only be one Stella Darnell, detective extraordinaire.’

  ‘I’m a cleaner.’ Stella took a sip of coffee. She wanted nothing to do with murder.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, once the team have got over my not being the bloke who just retired, they’ll shape up. But it’s all so by-the-book – not like with Terry or his daughter.’ She grinned at Stella.

  ‘Terry worked by the book,’ Stella said.

  ‘Terry made the rules work for him. Think how he got to grips with PACE. Others moaned it was a show-stopper, but not your dad – he made the pros work for the cons. At least I can discount you as a suspect.’ She divided the brownie in half.

  ‘I’m not a suspect?’ Stella spluttered coffee.

  ‘Duh. No?’ Janet attacked her half of the brownie with the side of her fork. A hand over her mouth she went on, ‘Sure, you had means, but when and where did you dispose of the weapon? You were soaked in March’s blood, but the stains were the result of staunching his stab wound, not spatter from an attack. Motive? Aside from meeting March a couple of times, we can’t find evidence you knew the guy. OK, so the timing is right, March was stabbed just before you – allegedly – found him, but I know this because you told me yourself. You could have lied and said you got there later.’ Janet flipped through her notebook. ‘Stella, when you commit a murder it will be perfect.’

  ‘You’ve ruled me out with an argument that rules me in,’ Stella said. ‘What if this is my perfect murder?’

  ‘Help me out here – rule yourself out. I’m ducking under the thin blue line because I need your eyes, ears and definitely your brain. Eat.’ Janet pushed across the other half of brownie. ‘Were he here running this, Terry would be talking to you.’

  Looking around the tearoom, Stella imagined the Death Café group around the table, faces in shadow. Since her dad’s death, she had understood he’d respected her. Nowadays this feeling was mutual. She had found a relationship with Terry after his death. On the day before he died, Terry had rung her for help on a case, but she’d changed her number and forgotten to tell him.

  Janet had had Terry’s back. Stella owed her.

  ‘Honestly, Stella, don’t let me down. I need you as my sanity check. I leave London for a slower pace and find myself locked in an Agatha Christie novel.’

  ‘Not sure how I can help.’ Reaching into her rucksack, Stella got out her own – pretend – police notebook.

  ‘You are my star witness. Tell me anything and everything that comes to mind about this creepy death group you’ve joined.’ Janet rested her elbows on the table.

  ‘OK, so there were seven of us there. Including me.’ On a clean page, Stella drew a circle marked with the names of each participant. Roddy on her left, the nice landlady Gladys Wren, Andrea the abbey gardener, then Clive who had actually known the murdered Professor Northcote, then Joy the organist. Felicity had been on Roddy’s left. Stella slid the book across the table to Janet.

  ‘You’ve put March close to you, was that deliberate?’ Janet took a picture of the diagram on her phone.

  ‘I didn’t mean to, but actually he did sit nearer to me than anyone else did around the table.’

  ‘To hear Mrs Wren, first name Gladys, you’d think the sun shone of out March’s everything.’ Janet sat back with her coffee. ‘He’d take her shopping, do the bins, sit up drinking sherry which, Roderick, as she called him, always brought himself. Such a lovely fella. He told her he wasn’t the marrying kind, I said get away with you.’

  ‘They never said they knew each other, although I did notice Gladys liked Roddy.’ Janet’s bad imitation of Gladys’s accent made Stella feel protective of the only member of the group who she had liked. ‘Felicity was cross when she thought Roddy came with me – maybe he warned Gladys it was best to pretend they were strangers.’

  ‘Mrs Wren’s nest is a tall rickety house opposite the Tudor House Hotel. From the outside it’s a dump, but it looked like you had waved a wand in there. The five-star hygiene rating put me to shame,’ Janet said. ‘Apart from Gladys Wren and Roderick March, did you get the sense any of them already knew each other?’

  ‘I thought I was the only stranger. I’m sure Joy and Clive did, they were quite offhand with each other.’ Stella looked at her diagram. ‘Joy’s patience with him was thin, but it was with Gladys too. Andrea the gardener didn’t know anyone. I got the strong feeling she wished she hadn’t come. It was Felicity’s first time, and she got annoyed that everyone kept straying off death; Joy was the only one who answered the questions properly.’

  ‘Felicity Branscombe, retired Home Office pathologist, she’s lived in Tewkesbury for five years. This will make you laugh, she told me when she was an “eminent pathologist” her nickname was Cat Woman. Tony my sergeant said it’s in a true-crime book on that Salt Cellar Murder in the eighties which was solved because of her autopsy.’

  ‘She told us she was known as Cat Woman at the Death Café.’ Stella felt less amused than surprised. Felicity had struck her as not the sort to accept a nickname. Stella wouldn’t mind being known as Cat Woman.

  ‘In her youth, she was as agile as a cat and wore close-fitting black. She reckoned it was important to stand out from the men.’ Janet pulled a face. ‘Not a bad idea, I thought. I looked her up. Felicity Branscombe was considered the cream of her generation.’ Janet was reading from her notes. ‘She didn’t seem bothered that Roddy March crashed her Death Café. But if she had been, it hardly merits murder. Unless she planned a Burke and Hare body snatch for old times’ sake. She actually offered to come out of retirement and do his PM. She’s seventy-odd.’

  ‘I doubt she’s lost the skill. I read Felicity does world lecture tours.’ Stella couldn’t admit it was Lucie who’d googled.

  ‘Slap my ageist wrist. Why not? She’s brighter than I feel.’ Janet tapped Stella’s diagram. ‘Joy Turton was on the organ when you got there. That puts her in the abbey with March if it was him on the other side of the pillar. You said she stopped then began practising chords so she had the opportunity.’

  ‘The interval between the music and the chords seemed short, it was silent in that time. Wouldn’t Roddy have shouted out when he was stabbed?’

  ‘He was stabbed in the back. The blade went right through.Initially he may not have co
mprehended he’d been stabbed.’ Janet walked her fingers on the chequered tablecloth. ‘Then Joy scoots away and lands back at the organ where, flustered, she can only bash out chords.’ Like Janet, Terry had brainstormed crime scenarios with Stella as bedtime stories. Stella loved hearing them, but her mum had said it was one good reason for leaving him.

  ‘Or she chose chords because they are louder. The organ was deafening.’ Stella couldn’t see Joy getting flustered.

  ‘Felicity the Facilitator can obviously wield a knife, but since she left after you, how did she get past you?’

  ‘I would have seen her,’ Stella agreed.

  ‘I see what you meant about that Andrea Hammond, the gardener. Boy, was she hard work. However, for all she’s a sulky bitch with a pruning knife, CCTV backs up her story that she was cycling off along the high street before you called it in. Oh, and she did know people, she too lodges with the redoubtable Gladys Wren. She had passed March on the landing by the bathroom, but claims not to have said more than hello. I didn’t get the sense Mrs W was keen on Andrea, but I also got the sense that she likes blokes better.’ Janet moved her finger around Stella’s diagram of the Death Café table. ‘That clock man, Clive Burgess, is as thin as a pin, but we’ve established it doesn’t take strength to stick even a strapping man like March in the back. He said he hadn’t seen March before that night and I tend to believe him. Gladys Wren had more to lose than gain by March’s death, no more gratis sherry, she’s lost a lodger and her tears were definitely real. Of all of you, she’s the only one who seems genuinely sorry.’

  ‘I don’t see her killing anyone.’ Stella resented the implication she wasn’t sorry.

  ‘That leaves the perfect stranger.’ Janet groaned. ‘A copper’s nightmare.’

  It was all a nightmare. For the umpteenth time, Stella wished she’d stayed in the flat. Takeaway, chat with Lucie, bed, then up early to clean…

  ‘…according to the tox report, Roderick March’s blood alcohol level was normal. He tested positive for coke and we found a small amount in his flat which would definitely grieve Mrs Wren.’

  ‘In his podcast, Roddy claimed to know the identity of the real killer of Professor Northcote who was murdered in that house beyond the wall. If Northcote’s killer is still alive then that’s a motive to murder him,’ Stella said.

  ‘What bilge that was. Produced with Sellotape on a shoestring. A reason to bump him off might be to prevent him making more episodes.’ Janet flapped a hand in front of her face. ‘The Northcote case was clear-cut, it pointed to the son. I asked Mrs Wren if March talked about his podcast. She said he’d kept it under his hat, he wouldn’t say who he thought killed Northcote. My guess is March was stirring dead embers. You can tell from that vacuous first episode the podcast would have been all hope and hype. From the one I’ve heard and from various descriptions, he appeared grandiose, a fantasist. I’ll keep an open mind for now.’

  ‘He said he was receiving death threats.’

  ‘He never mentioned that to Gladys Wren, which since she told me they had gossipy sherry evenings is odd. We’re checking every cloud, as surely he’s saved his stuff somewhere. Nothing so far.’

  ‘If the son was innocent, someone might want to make sure that never comes out.’ Against her judgement, the podcast had piqued Stella’s interest. ‘Roddy is dead – doesn’t that increase the likelihood his theory about Giles not being the killer holds water?’

  ‘Up to a point and I will chase that down. I’ll have a hard time pushing for a fifty-year-old solve, which left no room for doubt, to be reopened on a flimsy basis. It’s not that we’d have the hurdle of going against the techs of the time – with no more than March’s saying Giles Northcote was innocent, my boss wouldn’t front up the budget and nor could I blame him.’ Janet looked impatient. Stella was reminded that, Terry’s daughter or not, Janet would see her as an amateur with no idea of how to operate in the real world of policing.

  ‘I’m more inclined to go down the stranger route. A gold candlestick is missing from that chapel and, sad though it is, robbery is motive enough. It’s possible that March went for playing hero and tried to do a citizen’s arrest.’

  ‘That means his killer didn’t catch him by surprise?’ Stella tried to remember if she’d seen the candlestick the last time she cleaned.

  ‘One bloke goes for the candlestick, March grabs him, doesn’t see the accomplice and is stabbed. While you’re spotting Roderick’s beanie, they make a getaway down the Three Kings’ aisle and leave without you or the grumpy organist knowing they were there. Terry always said how often the more colourful murders have a banal solution.’ Janet did quote marks.

  ‘It’s possible.’ Stella tried to recall what happened after she had got up and seen the beanie. Unconvinced by the banal explanation, she wondered out loud, ‘Did Giles Northcote have children?’

  ‘No, but March wanted to clear his name so why would any offspring want March dead? I’ve got the techies on his laptop where we may find any research and, if he bothered with one, a projected plan of the series.’

  ‘He told the Death Café group that he knew who the real killer was – that’s a finite group of suspects.’ Stella knew, as she did a lot these days, that she was arguing for the sake of it.

  ‘He said it on his podcast,’ Janet said. Stella didn’t repeat Lucie’s view that the number of listeners was in the low single figures.

  ‘He left about fifteen minutes before the Death Café ended,’ Stella said.

  ‘Joy the organist said she unlocked the doors when she came to practise. March can only have entered the abbey after her.’ Putting on her coat, maybe Janet had concluded she’d overestimated Stella’s observational powers. Or she’d remembered that, at the end of the day, Stella was a cleaner not a detective.

  ‘Did you find his notebook?’ Stella tried to delay Janet leaving. ‘It was in his jacket pocket when he left the Death Café.’

  ‘Nope.’ Janet frowned.

  ‘What if the candlestick was stolen before Roddy went into the chapel?’ Stella tried to conjure up the little altar, the cloth on the table, the shadowy starved monk. Had there been a candlestick then?

  ‘His pockets were empty. If he had a wallet that had gone too.’ Doing up her coat, Janet wasn’t listening. ‘We found photocopies of newspapers from the war, 1940 during the Blitz, in his room.’ She brightened. ‘Actually, one article featured our old stomping ground, a woman strangled in a house by the Thames in Hammersmith, murderer never caught. He’d scribbled “Retro Murders” on one of the cuttings. We’ll check them out, but I’m guessing they were ideas for yet another podcast.’ Janet glanced at her watch. ‘I should be gone. Media circus is in half an hour, boss’ll be antsy if I’m not prepping.’ She tossed a couple of pound coins onto the tablecloth.

  Outside, Stella pulled up her hood against the relentless rain.

  ‘After that I’m taking March’s parents to view his body,’ Janet said. ‘They’ve flown in from Australia. Roddy came from a hick town outside Perth, no wonder he was a thrill-seeker.’

  ‘They got here quickly, the flight’s about thirty-six hours.’

  ‘That’s the sad thing, they were coming over anyway – a family reunion after five years.’ Janet gazed up at the abbey, the tower lost in the mizzle. ‘They got here yesterday. They missed him by hours. Remind me, Stella, why do I do this job?’

  Stella couldn’t think of a reason why anyone would.

  She pictured the small chapel, the cold stone of the starved monk’s tomb seeping through the fabric of her anorak as Roddy March’s warm blood soaked her trousers.

  ‘Word to the wise, Stella, keep whatever it was March said as he died to yourself, OK?’ Janet checked her hair in the tearoom window. ‘I don’t want the press getting wind of it.’

  ‘OK.’ Stella fixed her own gaze on the abbey tower.

  Chapter Nineteen

  December 1940

  Chief Superintendent Robert Hackett’s office
was on the top floor of the police station. While a part-glazed partition split CID in two, Hackett’s oak-panelled affair sprawled across the entire square footage. A football-field-sized desk, four-seater chesterfield and conference table still left room enough for, as Hackett liked to say, swinging a villain. However, like CID, the metal casements did not deaden the clatter of trams and lorries on Shepherd’s Bush Road below.

  When Hackett’s long-suffering secretary told him to go in, Cotton was unsurprised to find the room empty. The top brass offices included showers and water closets which, a memorandum sent before the move last year had said, ‘enabled dignified preparation for functions’. Or, as Shepherd reckoned, they enabled undignified hanky-panky with secretaries. Cotton knew Hackett, deacon at his church and self-styled pillar of the community, was unfaithful. With this, and a martyr to piles, he made full use of the facilities.

  Prepared for a wait, Cotton sat on the other side of Hackett’s desk. Passing out himself, Hackett had the photograph of them all framed on the wall – Hackett had made Cotton’s present rank in his late thirties and chief super at forty. Alone, the men reverted to friends sharing a pint in the pub across the road, their wives swapped recipes and family news, but at work their roles were strictly observed.

  Cotton fiddled with the galvanized metal pencil sharpener affixed to Hackett’s desk, turning the handle as if every crank would grind down the problem.

  An embroidered homily hung above Hackett’s chair: Home Sweet Home. Perhaps Betty Hackett’s swipe at Bob’s long hours, which Cotton knew were spent mostly on the Richmond golf course.

  Agnes had sent him off that morning with a greaseproof packet of fish-paste sandwiches and a lingering kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Georgie, you’ve got enough for a jury to find him guilty many times over. Not but what that lazy so and so Bob Hackett will claim the glory. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not Dr Northcote’s first time…’