Death at Burwell Farm

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘Hmm, I see what you mean.’ Fergus polished off his portion of Bakewell tart and helped himself to another slice. ‘Unless the reason for the blackmail was something disgraceful in Oliver’s past?’

  ‘By all accounts he was a pretty upright sort of man. And in any case, how would the people at RYCE know anything about his private affairs?’

  ‘Search me.’

  ‘I guess it’ll all come out during the inquiry,’ said Sukey with a shrug.

  Fergus gave her a questioning look. ‘You’ve got another idea, haven’t you, Mum?’

  ‘There’s something bugging me, but I can’t put my finger on it at the moment. And I’m still wondering why Serena offered a free therapy session to everyone but me. Maybe it was an oversight, but I think I’ll chase it up just the same.’

  ‘You reckon it might have something to do with the murder?’

  ‘Not necessarily the murder.’

  ‘Then what?’

  A little wearily, Sukey passed a hand over her eyes. ‘I might be just imagining things, so please don’t mention it to anyone for the moment,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to make a complete fool of myself.’

  Timmy Tritton had two absorbing interests – a passion for gadgets and a desire to become rich. The two converged one day when he spotted a headline in the local paper reading ‘Farmer Unearths Buried Treasure’. Fascinated, Timmy read the story of how a man using a metal detector had located a quantity of Roman coins estimated to be worth over £20,000. Timmy’s fourteenth birthday was approaching; when his doting grandfather asked him what he would like he knew exactly what to ask for.

  His initial search, in an uncultivated corner of the family’s back garden, yielded nothing more valuable than a couple of old paint tins where a ramshackle shed had recently been demolished. He then approached the father of one of his school friends, who farmed a few acres in a neighbouring village, and was given permission to try his luck in a field recently turned over to pasture. Armed with his new toy and a spade, he set off to seek his fortune. He was an intelligent lad; knowing that the field had been regularly ploughed until a couple of seasons ago, and reasoning that anything of value in the cultivated area would have long since been brought to the surface, he decided to try his luck close to the boundary hedge. His hopes rose when within a very few minutes the machine signalled his first ‘find’, but quickly died when further investigation in the undergrowth revealed nothing more valuable than a fifty-pence piece, probably dropped by someone gathering blackberries. Still, fifty pence was better than nothing. He pocketed the coin and continued to work his way patiently and methodically along the hedgerow. Half an hour later, the machine responded again.

  The first thing Timmy noticed was that, whereas his first find was merely concealed in the long grass, the second apparently lay beneath a patch of bare earth where the soil appeared loose and crumbly – possibly the remains of a molehill. That would make digging easier. In a state of great excitement he put down the machine, picked up his spade and began to dig. A few minutes’ work exposed the source of the signal; that too was far from being treasure trove. Disappointed a second time, he was about to throw it back in disgust when it occurred to him that his mother would find it useful and decided he might as well keep it. He was about to refill the hole – having promised the owner of the field that he would leave everything as he found it – when he spotted something else, potentially more interesting. He picked it up, brushed off the loose, dry soil that clung to it and put it in his pocket with the coin before completing his task and moving on. He made no further discoveries that afternoon and returned home at tea-time, somewhat downcast at his lack of success but determined to resume his search another day. He put the fifty pence in his money-box, presented his second find to his mother – who expressed surprise that anyone should have taken the trouble to bury it but thanked him all the same – and decided to wait until after tea before investigating the third. His eyes nearly fell out when, on further examination, he realised what it was. It was only with difficulty that he managed to convince his mother, who happened to enter his room unannounced at a crucial moment, that he had come upon it entirely by accident.

  The courtyard at Burwell Farm was deserted when Sukey drove in and parked her ten-year-old Astra alongside the office building. She pushed open the door and found Josie at her desk entering a pile of cheques in a paying-in book. Evidently, in spite of the tragedy, enrolments were still coming in. She looked up and greeted Sukey with a friendly smile that held a hint of surprise.

  ‘Hullo, I wasn’t expecting to see you again,’ she said. ‘I thought the police had finished their search.’

  ‘They have, as far as I know. This isn’t an official visit.’

  ‘Oh, right. Just bear with me a second while I finish this, will you?’ Josie totted up the amounts on a calculator and entered the total in the book, which she put in an envelope with the cheques. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I was wondering if I could have a word with Serena.’

  ‘She’s in the Rejuvenation Suite at the moment, getting ready for a treatment later on.’

  ‘Would it be all right if I popped across?’

  ‘I’m sure it would.’

  ‘I was hoping to have one of her treatments, but what with all the upset over the tragedy…’

  ‘Yes, dreadful, wasn’t it?’ Josie shook her head sadly. ‘Have the police arrested anyone yet?’

  ‘I believe they’re making some progress,’ said Sukey cautiously.

  ‘I assume you’ve come to claim your complimentary session – would you like me to make you an appointment? I’m not sure if we can fit you in this week, though.’

  ‘Never mind, it can wait. It will be something to look forward to.’ In a sudden flash of inspiration, Sukey assumed a serious expression and said, ‘I know how much poor Vera Masters was looking forward to hers.’

  Josie sighed. ‘Yes, it was so sad about Vera. She was to have come for an OSS treatment the day after she died. That’s Oriental Spiritual Stimulation – something like aromatherapy, but a bit different I suppose. I haven’t tried it myself.’

  Sukey was barely listening to Josie’s explanation. Something had clicked in her brain. ‘Are you sure… about the date, I mean?’

  ‘Oh yes, quite sure.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry to bother you, but this could be quite important. Would you mind very much checking?’ While she was speaking, Sukey was frantically trying to concoct a plausible reason for her request, but it did not seem to occur to Josie to query it. Jim had been right in his assumption; she was not of a curious disposition.

  Josie opened her appointments book and flipped through the pages. ‘Here we are.’ She pointed to an entry. The name Vera Masters was clearly entered against the day after the discovery of her body. But Vera had been seen by Jarvis emerging from the Rejuvenation Suite on the day of her death, apparently upset. Of course, she might simply have been annoyed at her own mistake, but on the other hand…

  ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ said Josie.

  ‘Yes, quite right. Thank you.’ As the girl took back the book she happened to glance over Sukey’s shoulder through the open door. ‘I just saw Freya go into Rejuvenation,’ she said. ‘You’ll catch them both there now if you want to discuss your treatment. I must get off to the bank now – our local branch closes at one.’ Her face clouded again as she added, ‘I do feel so sorry for them, but they’re coping splendidly.’

  ‘It’s what I would have expected. I’ll go over right away, if you’re sure they won’t mind me barging in.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll be very happy to see you.’

  But that cheerful assumption was shortly to be proved dangerously wide of the mark.

  Twenty-Three

  Sukey crossed the yard and tapped lightly on the door of the Rejuvenation Suite. Receiving no reply, after a moment’s hesitation she opened it and went inside. It led directly into the small reception area where she and t
he other five members of her group had assembled the previous Friday to hear Serena give a brief résumé of the nature and benefits of the therapies on offer before showing them the treatment rooms. The walls were papered in a soft shade of peach; to the left of the door was a couch upholstered in a deeper shade of peach damask, and a cloth of similar material covered a small round table on which stood an arrangement in a copper jug of silk flowers ranging in colour from deep bronze to pale alabaster. The lighting was soft with a flattering pinkish tinge; one or two prints of naturistic designs of clouds, rocks, leaves, birds and flowers hung on the walls and the air was perfumed with the same musky fragrance as the meeting room in the main building.

  Sukey’s recollections of her one previous visit were a trifle blurred; seven people crowded into such a small space had given it a slightly claustrophobic feel which, together with the shadow of the previous day’s tragedy, had induced a desire – which she sensed had been shared by the others – to be back in the open air as quickly as possible. Serena had led them along the narrow, windowless passage which ran the length of the single-storey building and shown them briefly the three small treatment rooms which led off it. The furniture appeared conventional enough; each had a couch, an adjustable stool for the therapist and a table on which were arranged a selection of bottles, jars and other containers. One corner was curtained off to provide hanging space and storage for items of equipment appropriate for the various treatments. There were also the ubiquitous, discreetly positioned speakers pumping out the usual soothing, formless cascade of musical harmonies.

  For the moment, presumably because the morning session was over and the afternoon’s not yet begun, the music was stilled. It had become so much a part of the RYCE environment that its absence gave the atmosphere an uncanny quality of emptiness that sent a ripple of gooseflesh along Sukey’s spine. As she moved hesitantly along the passage, the sound of her footsteps absorbed by the thick, milk-chocolate coloured carpet covering the floor of the entire suite, she found herself holding her breath like a child entering the haunted house in a fairground, half excited, half apprehensive. She had a momentary vision of Xavier, not as a murdered, bloodstained corpse with the fatal dagger protruding from its back, but of the charismatic, white-robed, monkish figure with the brooding eyes who had exerted such a powerful influence on his followers. For an instant she seemed to feel his spiritual presence, then told herself not to be so fanciful. Serena had said he played no part in the ‘hands-on’ side of the RYCE programme and so would seldom, if ever, have had reason to be here.

  The door of the first room stood ajar; within, the light was on and she was about to give a gentle tap before pushing it open when her arm froze at the sound of a woman’s voice that seemed to be coming from the room at the far end of the passage. It was not so much the fact that someone had unexpectedly spoken – Sukey already knew that both Serena and Freya were in the building and to hear them conversing would have been natural enough – but the words themselves, spoken in a low but penetrating voice that vibrated with emotion, made her throat tighten and set her heart madly racing.

  ‘It’s his blood, isn’t it? Percy’s blood!’ In the short pause that followed, the words seemed to echo round the confined space like the sound of a fallen stone rising from the bottom of a well. Then the woman spoke again, and this time Sukey recognised the anguished shriek that Freya had uttered on finding the body of her murdered husband. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You killed him! In God’s name, why?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Serena’s voice was a sharp, staccato hiss. ‘D’you want the whole world to hear? Anyway, what were you doing rummaging around in my room?’

  ‘I was only collecting the laundry for Mrs Robbins. Your wardrobe door was open and I noticed it on the floor at the back. You’re always so untidy, I thought you’d forgotten to put it in the basket.’

  ‘Well, that should teach you not to be so nosey. I couldn’t wash it myself or put it on the bonfire without risking you asking a lot of questions so I thought I’d bag it up and put it out with the refuse tomorrow.’

  ‘But why kill him?’ Freya’s voice dropped to a low moan. ‘Just tell me why!’

  ‘He found out about our lucrative sideline, that’s why.’ There was something chilling about Serena’s matter-of-fact tone, as if committing murder to protect one’s personal interests was a perfectly logical thing to do. ‘He walked in early Thursday morning while I was running through Henry’s performance.’ She gave a low, sensuous chuckle. ‘It’s pretty good – I can’t wait to see his face when I show it to him. He’ll cough up a mint—’

  ‘Never mind Henry’s performance.’ Freya was clearly on the verge of another outburst of hysteria. ‘Are you telling me you murdered your step-father – my husband, our leader – just because he was going to put a stop to your miserable little scam?’

  ‘You mean our scam, don’t you? I don’t recall you refusing your share of the proceeds.’

  ‘We could have done without the extra money—’

  ‘It wasn’t just a question of the extra money.’ Serena’s voice was harsh, urgent. ‘You should have seen him – he was incandescent with rage, said I’d sullied and defiled his life’s work. For a moment I thought he was going to hit me, but instead he stood there with his arms stretched up to heaven, cursing away like an Old Testament prophet. He said I was to be cast out of the Unlimited, I was nothing but a great whore, he’d never been happy about running RYCE for profit and as far as he was concerned that was the end of the road. Then he went rushing out; I thought at first he was going straight back to the house to tackle you and I followed him to try and reason with him, but instead he went off down the garden muttering about needing to meditate.’

  ‘And you knew he’d be squatting there with his back to you, a sitting target, so you fetched the knife and killed him!’

  ‘He was going to pull the plug on our whole enterprise. Don’t you understand, we’d have been left with nothing – I had to stop him somehow.’

  ‘And now, you evil cow, I’m going to stop you.’ This time, there was no emotion in Freya’s voice, only an icy calm that was even more ominous. ‘In the name of the Great Unlimited, I’m going to make you pay for your wickedness.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Sukey, straining her ears to listen, detected a hint of apprehension in Serena’s voice. ‘And what’s that you’re hiding?’

  ‘All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,’ Freya intoned.

  ‘Mum, you don’t believe all that… Mum, you wouldn’t!’

  Apprehension swiftly changed to alarm. ‘No, Mum, don’t… you don’t understand… we’d have had nothing left.’

  ‘Without him, I have nothing left.’

  ‘That’s a load of crap. You’ve been doing brilliantly so far… we can keep it up, you know we can. It’ll be difficult, we’ll need a period of adjustment before we can… please, Mum, just put that away and… all right, if you want to play rough—’ The next minute there was a sharp, whistling crack followed by a high, thin scream.

  Fearing that unless she acted quickly there would be a second killing or at least a serious injury, Sukey sprinted along the passage to the end room and flung open the door, but was disconcerted to find it empty. Before she had time to figure out her mistake and check the middle room, a curtain in the far corner was pushed aside and Serena emerged backwards through another door concealed behind it. In one hand she held a three-legged metal stool by its seat; in the other was a whip with a black leather thong. Behind her was Freya, her face contorted with pain from the thin red weal on one bare arm. She too held something in either hand; one grasped a long cotton garment patterned in brilliant shades of red and orange, the other a kitchen knife, its long, narrow blade pointing directly at Serena.

  For a fraction of a second the scene appeared unreal, almost ludicrous, as if the protagonists were acting out some bizarre, erotic ritual, but one glance at Freya’s expression, eyes burning with hatred in a fa
ce the colour of marble, was enough to convince Sukey that this was no game. Unless she acted quickly there would at the very least be some serious bloodshed. Unable to think of any other effective action she shouted, ‘Stop it at once, both of you!’

  Serena started and half turned to face the intruder, momentarily taking her eyes off her mother. At the sight of Sukey, her mouth fell open and she uttered a strangled gasp of astonishment, but Freya, whose gaze was still fixed with murderous intensity on her daughter, did not appear to have noticed the interruption. With Serena’s attention thus distracted she seized her chance and lunged at her. In the nick of time, Sukey leapt forward, grasped her by the arm and deflected the blow. Freya stumbled and almost fell; the point of the knife hit the wall with such force that the blade snapped in two. Sukey, keeping a wary eye on both women, backed away and dragged her mobile phone from her pocket. ‘You’re nicked – both of you!’ she said.

  ‘You reckon?’ Serena’s voice was scornful. In a sudden, totally unexpected movement she lashed out with the whip. The thong caught Sukey on the wrist, dashing the phone from her grasp and sending it spinning across the room. The shock of the searing pain in her arm put Sukey off her guard for a moment; then, realising that she was in deadly danger, she made a move towards the door, but Serena was there before her, cutting off her retreat. The next moment she was pinned by the arms and thrown face downwards on the couch. She thrashed out frantically with her legs but a second pair of hands held them in a grip of iron. Their quarrel momentarily set aside in the face of a common threat, the two women began working quickly and in silence to immobilise their enemy.