The Distant Dead

by Lesley Thomson

  Leaning across Stella, Andrea tapped the image. It speeded up. The lamp-post went out, the scene was washed in grey light incrementally brightening. 10.13 a.m. The street was sketched with diagonal lines. Rain. Puddles appeared. Cars and front doors became tinged with colour as time passed. Occasionally umbrellaed pedestrians shot across the frame. Hours rolled. Light diminished. Dusk. 4.54 p.m. The lamp-post lit up. On time went. The rain eased. A woman opened a gate of the nearest house and drifted up the path. She looked up. Andrea froze the image.

  ‘That’s you,’ Stella said.

  ‘Date and time?’ Andrea indicated the bottom of the screen.

  Stella read out the numbers on the frozen screen. ‘Oh, that’s—’

  ‘—when Clive Burgess was murdered. Oh, and by the way, the pathologist is in with the lab people here. Boy, does she like a gossip. She told me how both men died.’ She glared at Stella. ‘No doubt you’ve updated Felicity on my true status?’

  ‘Where is this street?’ Unrepentant, Stella had clients who, while demanding confidentiality, would, as Lucie put it, spill everyone else’s beans.

  ‘It’s my dad’s place in Chertsey. Two hours away by road. Proof that I wasn’t here in Tewkesbury nailing dirty old Clive to his sundial.’

  ‘Clive could have been killed in a botched robbery. His death might be unconnected to Roddy’s murder,’ Stella said.

  ‘It proves you didn’t kill Clive,’ Jack said. ‘March stole your project and dumped you. Revenge is a motive served at any temperature.’

  ‘I’m a woman scorned. Hell hath no fury?’ Andrea shook her head. ‘I thought you prize detectives had Roderick and Clive Burgess murdered by the same killer. Ergo, to be innocent of one murder makes me innocent of both.’

  ‘Good point,’ Stella admitted.

  ‘If it’s a consolation, I’m sure March would have used Stella then spat her out too,’ Jack said.

  ‘Let’s be clear.’ Stella got off the coffin. ‘One, had March asked me, I’d have refused to work on his podcast. Two, I didn’t fancy him, and three, I love Jack.’

  ‘How touching.’ Andrea did a slow hand-clap.

  Jack and Stella’s phones went off. The ringtone, Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’, fractionally out of synch. Stella read her text.

  ‘Jackie’s found William Greenhill.’

  Jack was reading his text. ‘Seems we don’t know everything, do we, Andrea Greenhill?’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  2019

  Jack

  ‘I love Jack.’

  Basking in Stella’s words in the abbey close an hour ago, Jack struggled to concentrate. Over pizza and beer in the flat, the team was debriefing. Jack and Stella skipped how they’d spent part of the day. Stella, beside him on the sofa, was updating her spreadsheet. Stanley snoozed on his bed, his chin on Mr Ratty. Lucie was in her cockpit, Bev was curled in the armchair and Jackie was perched on top of a pile of empty pizza boxes via Zoom. Jackie was walking them through her sensational discovery.

  ‘It’s in plain sight on Ancestry. I put in William Greenhill and there it was. Andrea’s pretend identity was thin. Although I only found it because I went looking.’

  ‘So, Andrea is Maple Greenhill’s granddaughter,’ Beverly said. ‘Let me get this straight. William is her father. He was three when his mother, Maple, was murdered nearly eighty years ago.’

  ‘William Greenhill is now eighty-two.’ Lucie had done the maths.

  ‘Andrea’s mother was fifteen years younger, but died of cancer last year,’ Jackie said.

  ‘Andrea told us that the rumour the Greenhills heard that William was a doctor was correct. Guess what sort?’ Jack said.

  ‘No games.’ Lucie was still sulking that Stella and Jack had got Andrea talking when she’d failed.

  ‘A pathologist?’ Jackie’s ceiling shot into view when she jogged her laptop. She righted it and reappeared.

  ‘Bingo.’ Jack pointed at Jackie, on Lucie’s laptop. ‘Not a coincidence, but I’ll come to that. After his wife died, Greenhill, or, calling him by his new name, Rogers, told Andrea about Maple and that the killer was never caught. Until then he’d said his parents died when he was young. He confessed that, when he was twenty, Vernon, the man he’d known as his older brother, told him his parents were his grandparents. This was 1958, eighteen years after Maple was murdered and—’

  ‘We know this.’ Lucie was ripping into a fig.

  ‘Cleo Greenhill had told Bev that, learning this, William took off. Vernon never saw him again. It broke his heart. He’d lost his sister and her child. He named his garage after Maple and made his son Cliff keep it going for when William returned. Bev and me saw what being second fiddle to a missing cousin has done to Cliff. He sits at his desk drinking. Meanwhile, William Greenhill never came back and is a successful pathologist in the mould of Northcote. As for mending cars, Andrea said he can’t change a tyre.

  ‘Privately, he must have wanted to know about his mother because he went on Ancestry, obtained Maple’s death certificate. He collected newspaper cuttings about her murder, tracked down the man in charge of the investigation, Inspector George Cotton, on his allotment living out what we suspect was an unhappy retirement. Cotton told William everything he knew.’ Jack paused for Stella to catch up on her spreadsheet. ‘Cotton told William who had murdered his mother.’

  ‘Flipping creepy he’s a doctor. Why not help poor dear Vernon with his garage?’ Lucie flicked a fig stem into the waste-paper basket.

  ‘Vernon told William he’d remembered Maple saying she was going to marry a doctor and that, one day, William would follow in his new father’s footsteps. William snatched at his mother’s dream and made it true.’

  ‘Andrea said her dad wanted to fulfil Maple’s dream. He went for pathology because he wanted to ensure dead women received respect. Cotton had told him Northcote called his female corpses Annie: “my Annies”, he’d say.’

  ‘Revolting.’ Beverly scowled.

  ‘Sounds like Andrea was a proper motormouth,’ Lucie huffed. ‘Didn’t Vernon tell the police Maple’s fiancé was a doctor?’

  ‘He only remembered she’d said it when he read in the paper that Julia Northcote had taken her own life. He did go to the police. By then Cotton and Shepherd had been moved off the force. The case was unofficially closed. Cotton told William that his boss had plenty of evidence pointing to Northcote, but the powers that be, specifically the coroner, buried it. This was 1940, the Blitz was in full swing and the government needed the public onside. The last thing they needed was for them to discover that a toff thought the rules didn’t apply to him and had strangled a decent girl from a respectable home. They hushed it up.’

  ‘So, this is the project that March nicked from Andrea.’ Lucie broke the ensuing silence.

  ‘As she told us, Andrea confided in March to keep him, but he stole the idea and cut her out in favour of me,’ Stella said to Lucie. ‘He never got the chance to ask me because he was murdered.’

  ‘Horses for courses,’ Lucie said obscurely. ‘If Andrea didn’t want March rootling in her past, why come to Tewkesbury with him?’

  ‘Have you ever been in love?’ Jack said, then regretted it. Lucie had been in love with Stella’s dad and neither woman needed to be reminded. ‘Any hope of keeping March was dashed when he discovered Stella’s name on the abbey cleaning rota.’

  ‘So, it was Andrea who tried to kill you on the country lane, on your way to the Death Café?’ Lucie said.

  ‘She says it was meant to be a warning to stay away from Roddy. Had she got to speak to me I’d have been able to say I’d only met Roddy once. On that morning in the abbey by the cadaver tomb.’

  ‘She’d never have believed you,’ Lucie said.

  Jack saw Stella and Lucie exchange a look. Since sharing the flat, they’d formed a bond. It should please Jack, but he felt a twinge of jealousy that Stella had always made space for Lucie. He kept to himself that he too had believed Stella and March w
ere an item.

  ‘Andrea followed you to the Death Café?’ Beverly asked.

  ‘No. Felicity was worried about having so few people for her session so she paid Andrea to go. When she arrived on the second night, Andrea found Roddy there. That convinced her I was in cahoots with March. But it was Andrea herself who told him I’d been there the first night which I’m guessing is why he came.’ Stella saved her spreadsheet. ‘Before you ask, Andrea didn’t attack me at the weir last night.’

  ‘Pigeon blood on her spade? A grave in the garden? She played you both.’ Lucie still had Andrea as top of the suspect chart.

  ‘The grave was a potato bed,’ Jack said. ‘She showed us the dead pigeon.’

  ‘You plant potatoes in March or April. Just saying,’ Lucie said. ‘My turn.’

  Lucie put her phone next to her laptop so Jackie could hear it and played her illicitly recorded chat with Gladys Wren in the tearoom that morning.

  ‘…he’d said he would marry me. I’d have left but I needed the job and he’d have made my name mud in the town. That night, before Derek and me went to the pictures in Evesham, Derek proposed. He’d blown his wages on a gorgeous ring. Look.’

  ‘She’s showing me her diamond,’ Lucie said.

  ‘…I’d just said yes when Derek gets a shout to attend a barn fire. He wanted me to hand in my notice that night. He knew I hated it there, not that I’d said why or Derek would have swung for Sir Aleck. I went back all cock-a-hoop and told Sir Aleck I was leaving to get wed. He made me submit, one last time. I said no, but that didn’t bother him. I was up against the wall in that sitting room. It hurt worse than ever, while he was… while… he kept saying I’d led him on. That I was a common tart, did Mr Wren know that? That sort of language always got him in the mood. That time he had me by the throat.’ There was silence during which Jack could hear the clatter and chatter of the tearoom. ‘…I was scared stiff he was going to murder me.’

  ‘So, you killed him,’ Lucie’s voice said softly. ‘I know I would have.’

  Jack knew Lucie would have fought and doubtless Northcote would have strangled her as he had Maple. Gladys Wren had gone for survival. Of a sort.

  ‘No,’ Gladys Wren hissed. Another silence in which Jack thought Gladys had left. Then, ‘…I was halfway home, we lived in Bredon’s Hardwick, outside of Tewkesbury, when I saw my brooch was gone. I’d sneaked it from my mother’s drawer to wear for Derek, I had a notion he’d pop the question. It must have come off when… I had to get it back.’

  ‘You weren’t worried Northcote would rape you again?’

  Jack shut his eyes, Lucie had no soft pedal.

  ‘If Mother found her brooch missing, she’d go to the police. She’d never think it was me, I was a goody-two-shoes. I planned to creep in through the kitchen. By then he should have gone up to bed. But when I opened the baize door, there he was. Dead in the hall. I called 999. When they came to interview me, Derek told me to say I’d been at the film in Evesham until it finished. He said, if they didn’t find someone for the murder, they’d blame me.’

  ‘And you never told Derek what Northcote had done to you?’

  ‘He believed he was my first. Soon after, I discovered I was carrying. For the next months I was sure I was bearing the Devil’s child. But God forgave me. John had Derek’s chin and that winning smile of his. There was nothing in him of Northcote.’

  ‘Do you know a woman called Joy Turton?’

  ‘Joy, the blacksmith’s daughter, runt of the litter. The kids called her Spotted Dick after she got the measles. Joy told Roderick she’d seen me that night. She was on at me about who murdered the girl in the film. Well, I didn’t know, did I. The minx said the murderer was a girl who’d seen her husband kissing another girl in the lounge at the back of the house. From jealousy, she bashed her on the head with a poker. I couldn’t tell on her to her father because I had lied and she knew it. Roddy looked up the film on the internet, although Mary my friend who worked at Moore’s auctioneers had gone over what really happened, so I knew. Joy had lied to let me know there was no escape.’

  They heard a loud rat-a-tat-tat, like gunfire. Stanley jumped up and woofed his head off.

  ‘She’s banging her teaspoon on her cup,’ Lucie explained.

  ‘Good guard dog.’ Stella calmed Stanley.

  ‘I’m waiting for her to go the police. She is biding her time, giving me her Cheshire cat smile when we pass in the shops.’

  ‘That’s it.’ Lucie had her own Cheshire cat smile.

  ‘Joy was keen that Lucie and I suspected Gladys.’ Stella said.

  ‘We can rule out Gladys.’ Beverly was hugging a cushion. ‘I wish I could murder Northcote all over again.’

  ‘I agree with Bev, Gladys is too obvious a suspect,’ Jack said.

  ‘Often the simplest solution is the one. She had a strong motive for wanting Northcote dead.’ Stella sounded reluctant to point a finger at the former housekeeper for whom Jack knew she had a soft spot. ‘But if Northcote had carried through his threat to tell Derek Wren he’d been with Gladys, she’d have lost everything.’

  ‘She’d have lost everything if she’d killed him with Joy watching.’ Beverly would be upset that Stella wasn’t simply ‘onside’.

  ‘She would have.’ Stella’s fingers flew about the keys as she added in the latest information. ‘Gladys’s story rings true to me.’

  ‘I agree,’ Jackie said from the pizza boxes. ‘You said Gladys Wren is the size of a wren, we know from photos that Sir Aleck Northcote was a big bloke. How did she overpower him?’

  ‘The same way Roddy’s killer got to him – by catching him unawares,’ Lucie said. ‘Gladys Wren finds Northcote zizzing in his chair. Grabs the poker and with one whack fells him. Another and he’s unconscious. Presuming he’s dead, she finds her brooch and scarpers.’

  ‘If Joy was watching at the window, she’d have seen everything.’ Jackie’s picture momentarily pixelated. ‘You said she’s a Christian steeped in morality, would she witness a murder and say nothing? And why protect a woman she doesn’t like?’

  ‘Joy had a better idea,’ Lucie said. ‘After I accidentally stopped recording, Gladys told me that, for fifty-seven years, Joy by Nature has been blackmailing her.’

  Jack had to hand it to Lucie, she was consummate at the grand finale.

  ‘Why hasn’t Gladys gone to the police?’ Stella sounded outraged.

  ‘Why indeed? Suspect round-up.’ Lucie’s good mood was restored. ‘Gladys Wren is paying out on a murder she claims she didn’t commit. Madam Joy wins the jackpot every month for being a peeping Tom. Felicity Branscombe knows how to use a knife and has a morgue in her basement and a creepy crush on Northcote. Andrea the Fake Gardener is granddaughter to the first victim in our grisly daisy chain and jilted girlfriend of the third. All four are steeped in motive and opportunity.’ Lucie was riding high. ‘…kinell, let’s do eeny-meeny-miny-moe.’

  ‘If Gladys killed Northcote, and then Roddy to stop him naming her in his podcast, why not murder Joy too?’ Stella coded the suspect cells on her spreadsheet a light blue.

  ‘What if Joy murdered Northcote for Gladys and that’s why she’s paying her?’ Beverly said. ‘And she told you Joy was blackmailing her because she’s strapped for cash.’

  ‘Felicity and Andrea could have teamed up.’ Lucie waved a fig.

  ‘Felicity said pathologists revere Northcote – she’d surely want the true killer revealed.’ Jackie raised her voice over the hubbub of theories.

  ‘And see Roddy March get the credit?’ Lucie said. ‘Ooh, Andry-Pandy just texted.’

  I love Jack. Stella’s words echoed as if she’d whispered in his ear. I love Jack.

  ‘…you go, Jack?’ Stella was looking at him.

  ‘Sorry?’ Jack blinked.

  ‘Andrea’s texted Lucie: William Greenhill wants to see her. She’s insisting you go with her.’

  ‘Me?’ Jack ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘She migh
t want to make a pass at you to get back at Stella. But it’s a chance to see Maple’s son, another piece of the jigsaw,’ Lucie cackled.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Jack asked Stella.

  ‘Why would I?’ Stella took his hand. ‘I love you and I know you love me back.’

  Chapter Fifty

  2019

  Stella

  The next morning Jack went to meet Andrea in Stella’s van to drive her to Chertsey to find out why William Rogers (Greenhill) had summoned his daughter. There had been a contretemps before they left when Jack and Stella found Lucie hidden in the back of the van under a heap of groundsheets.

  ‘She could lead you off the beaten track and bash your brains out with her spade,’ Lucie had protested as they bundled her out. ‘Jack, you’d never let Stella go off with a woman who is likely a murderer.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Stella had said.

  ‘I don’t think Andrea is a murderer.’ Promising to keep them posted, Jack had sped off down the high street.

  This had delayed Stella getting to Cloisters House to clean for Felicity. The front door was open. Stella knocked and waited. The door was probably open for her. With the tip of her finger she pushed on it.

  ‘Felicity?’ After finding Clive dead in a house with the door ajar, Stella feared the worse.

  She told herself Felicity was making a point about punctuality. She had disapproved of Andrea being late for the Death Café. Or Felicity had forgotten Stella was coming and had gone out without locking up. Stella stamped on the tiles to announce her presence.

  ‘Hi, Felicity, I’ve come to clean.’ She pushed on the green baize door and ventured down the passage. Light from the kitchen cast a sheen on the brick floor. Distantly, Stella noted it was clean. The door to the utility room where Felicity stored mops, vacuum and other cleaning equipment was shut. Stella felt unwilling to open it although it was precisely where she could legitimately go. Heart in her mouth, she turned the handle.

  A body was spread-eagled on the stone flags, the head jammed against the washing machine.