Death At Willows End

by A. B. King

  “Yes, Miss Fortescue,” the teenager said meekly, and promptly scuttled out through the office door as if glad to escape.

  “You are at it again,” I said warningly to Danny as the sounds of the escaping youngster faded away. “I told you; I'll run my own business my own way.”

  “But of course,” Danny cooed, “and I wouldn't dream of interfering! You are just doing me a tremendous favour, I don't want to lose her, and what else could I do with her?”

  Privately, I thought that there was absolutely no reason why she should have employed the girl at such short notice in the first place, but what was the use in arguing? If I was going to be out on her case, it would undoubtedly be a help not to have to keep coming back, and she knew as well as I did that my own resources certainly wouldn't run to employing anyone. I guess she wanted my undivided attention, and being Danny, was determined to get it!

  “All right, but she is entirely your responsibility, right?”

  “Absolutely,” she agreed.

  “So, when did you say this carpenter is supposed to be coming?”

  “He is going to call in this afternoon to look at the door, and if he agrees with the price I have already told him I'm prepared to pay, he will come in next Monday to get on with it. Now, if you've no more questions, where do you want me to sign?”

  “Don't you want to read it first?”

  “No need,” she cooed. “I trust you Neil, otherwise I wouldn't be here.”

  She picked up the pen lying beside the papers and signed it with a flourish.

  “There,” she said, laying the pen to one side and sitting back in the chair, “now everything is official.”

  She opened her bag as she spoke and extracted a large wad of bank notes.

  “£200 per day,” she said. “Here's one thousand in advance for the first week working exclusively on my behalf. I'll sort out expenses with you afterwards if that is ok with you?”

  I took the pile of notes and stuffed them in my wallet before she could change her mind.

  “Aren't you going to check it?” she asked.

  “No need,” I cooed, imitating her own voice, “I trust you, Danny, otherwise you wouldn't be here!”

  Chapter Seven.

  By the time Tania returned to the office I had agreed with Danny that as I had to start somewhere, perhaps the best place to begin was at the 'scene of the crime', cold trail or otherwise. She raised no objections, and suggested that following an ‘investigation’ of the site it might be an idea to go and speak to Julia, who was the only witness to what had actually happened. As this was broadly in accord with what I had figured out for myself I went along with it without argument. However, I pointed out to her that if something had happened along the lines that she clearly suspected, then it was obvious that Julia must have known or seen something, and if she hadn't revealed it at the time she was scarcely likely to admit it some fourteen years down the line. I had hoped to go off on my own, but Danny was having none of it, and after a few mild protests I gave in. Tania had returned with the magazine she had been sent out for, and armed with a pile of sandwiches and some cans of drink she seemed well set for her afternoon at the office. I gave her such instructions as I thought necessary, and dropped a gentle hint about catching up on the cleaning, and making a start on sorting out the filing system, which I knew was in a complete mess. She seemed perfectly happy to oblige.

  “Lunch first, I think,” said Danny as we left the office, “then it’s off to the River Sharbourne.”

  “On the expenses,” I asked hopefully?

  “On me,” she replied with determination. “I don't want to spend the whole afternoon eating and boozing even if you do.”

  “Spoilsport,” I muttered.

  We drove to a country pub I sometimes patronised, and with bar snacks ordered, and drinks in hand we went outside into the pub garden. There were a few people about, and we were lucky enough to get a table more or less secluded from the others partially in the shade of an apple tree. One or two of the men in the vicinity cast glances at my companion, some appraising, others quite lascivious, and I have to admit to a small degree of pride that I was the one escorting a truly fantastic looking woman, and not one of the lookers-on. Maybe I hadn't got anywhere with her yet in the personal sense, but where women are concerned I suppose I am the eternal optimist.

  “How well do you know the actual site,” I asked as I placed my drink down on the table.

  “Well, I know where it is,” she responded, “it’s quite close to the river, not far from the bridge.”

  “Have you ever been back there; since the accident that is?”

  “No, I never felt any desire to do that until all this business blew up recently.”

  “So you don't actually remember a thing about the location?”

  “Only what Julia told me and everybody else at the time.”

  “Julia could have told you anything she liked; how do you know what she said was true?”

  “Why would she lie?”

  “Because if, and I say 'if' mark you, anything underhand did happen fourteen years ago, then the chances are, as I have already said, that she knew something about it. If she was in any way involved, then she might not necessarily have told you, or the police, or your parents or anybody else the whole strict truth.”

  “Well, I suppose that is a possibility, although I don’t think it likely. From what little I remember of her after the accident, and from what my parents said, she was absolutely distraught about what had happened. She is extremely 'churchified'; the model of respectability and all that sort of thing just like her parents. No, I really can't see Julia being involved at all, I mean; she's the sort that wouldn't say boo to a goose.”

  “We are not talking about a goose,” I said pointedly. “We are trying to establish whether your sister died by accident as everyone believes, or by foul play, as you are paying me a thousand pounds a week to investigate.”

  “I see, so you simply want to 'eliminate her from your enquiries', is that it?”

  “I'd just like to chat with the only witness I know about so far, and form my own opinion.”

  “Well, that's easily enough arranged; I haven't seen her for quite a few years, but I've discovered where she is living now so I can take you along and introduce you this afternoon if you wish?”

  “I'll let you know after I've looked at the site.”

  At that point a barmaid brought our food out, and this was accorded our full attention. My companion ate with gusto, and I wondered how she managed to keep such a trim figure if she habitually ate in such a fashion. I found it quite difficult to concentrate on food, much less the 'case' while faced with such an alluring female within grabbing distance, but I stuck it out manfully.

  “Tell me as much as you can remember of what she actually said to you, or what she said to your parents or anyone else at the time,” I asked, more to keep my mind off considering various ways and means of seducing her than from any real hope of uncovering any startling information.

  “Well, as near as I can recall,” she explained, either failing to notice how I was almost drooling as I looked at her, or more likely completely indifferent to the fact, “she said that she had seen a lot of black clouds rolling up, and she was standing outside her tent clearing some pots and pans away. She told me that she had called out to the pair of us where we were down by the river bank. I think she said we were fishing, or doing something like that close to the edge of the water, I don't remember her exact words now.”

  “Was fishing one of your hobbies?”

  “I don't think so; there was nothing in my room at home when I came back from the hospital to suggest that it was. I expect we were doing something dreamed up by Julia while we were there.”

  “I see, and after she called out to you?”

  “She said that she called as she felt a few spots of rain, and thought we might be in for a downpour. Anyway, it seems that moments later we came up from the river bank, wh
ich was only a few yards away anyway, and as we got near to our tent, which I think she mentioned was closer to the river than hers there was a sudden flash of lightning and a huge explosion as a thunderbolt or whatever it was hit the tent. She was knocked over and stunned by the blast, and when she got back to her feet the skies had opened up. She saw me lying on the ground a few yards away from the tent and towards the river bank. She said that she was shocked silly by what happened, and when she saw me she thought that I was dead. I was apparently lying face down on the ground and presumably deeply unconscious. She said the remains of my clothing were still smouldering in spite of the downpour, and it was obvious that I had been badly burned. I suppose in a way that cloudburst went some way towards saving my life, pouring as it did on my charred back. It was then that she realised that my sister was missing. She ran around calling out for her, but with no luck. She didn't have a phone with her, and after searching everywhere she could think of in the immediate vicinity, she ran all the way up to the farm to raise the alarm.”

  “Interesting,” I commented.

  “I'm glad you think so,” she responded with just a hint of irony in her voice. “Considering it’s only what I told you last night?”

  “True, but now that I'm being paid I suppose I'm paying a bit more attention.”

  “I'm pleased to hear it.”

  “You say you were burnt across your back?”

  “That's what I said, but if you think I'm stripping off now just to show you the scars you can think again.”

  “Pity,” I said, trying not to sound too disappointed, “but never-the-less it’s still interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “Well, you said that you and your sister were supposedly coming up from the riverbank towards the camp-site, in other words your tent must have been roughly speaking in front of you?”

  “So?”

  “The lightning strikes the tent, and it’s your back that gets burnt?”

  “I see what you mean,” she commented, stopping her eating for a few moments as she thought about it. “If I was on my way back, I had to be facing the other way?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “Maybe I turned to say something to Dian just as the lightning struck?”

  “That's possible, but then again it’s equally possible that you weren't coming towards the tent but moving away from it. You apparently finished up face down, which is consistent with either theory.”

  “Then you think Julia was lying?”

  “Not necessarily, if she was also knocked over by the lightning strike it is quite possible that her own recollection of events would be confused, or maybe your own memory of what she actually said about the event when she told you about it afterwards is less accurate than you imagine?”

  “You could be right on both points,” Danny admitted. “I guess we will have to ask her to repeat her story, and see if she comes out with the same anomalies.”

  As we ate our meal I plied her with a few more questions, but as she had no personal recollection of events I didn't get any farther forward. Privately I still thought that we were on a wild goose chase, but at a thousand pounds a week I was happy to indulge her by chasing a whole skein of geese, wild or otherwise! With lunch finally complete we got back into the car and headed for Willows End and the River Sharbourne. It was only about half an hour's drive from the pub, and there was very little traffic heading for what was essentially a quiet rural location. The village actually straddled the river, the two halves connected by an ancient stone bridge that Danny assured me was not the one by which they had camped all those years ago. I'd been there a few times over the years, usually just passing through, so it wasn't a place I could claim to be intimate with. We locked the car up and set off on foot to follow the path that led away to the left from the stone bridge and along the east bank of the river.

  It was undeniably a beautiful part of the English countryside, although a little off the beaten track for my tastes. Aside from the main road which crossed the river via the bridge it consisted of a dozen or so houses scattered throughout a few winding country lanes leading away from the bridge on either side, and perhaps as many again scattered farther out, mostly on or close by the river. Here and there people had small boats tied up at the bottom of their gardens, and I saw a couple of narrow-boats plying their way upstream and under the bridge. One or two more modern buildings mingled with hoary ancient ones sporting thatched roofs, and a short way along the meandering path we were following I saw a really ancient willow tree trailing its foliage down towards the waters that were leisurely drifting past beneath its shade. On the far side of the bridge was a quaint old pub fronting onto the river bank, and I could see a family feeding some ducks and swans that were obviously quite used to getting free meals there. It was an idyllic rural scene rarely found these days of gross multi-racial overcrowding and general lack of appreciation of things traditionally British.

  As we strolled along that riverside path in the warm sunshine I was tempted more than once to put my arm round Danny's tiny waist, but something stopped me each time; probably an innate sense of self-preservation closely linked to the proximity of the river and the knowledge that I hadn't brought a pair of swimming trunks with me. I realised as we ambled along the quiet rural path that this was probably going to be the most difficult part of the task that faced me; keeping my hands off my 'client'! I had only known her for about twenty-four hours, and in that time I seemed to have become utterly besotted with her. For me it was a new and in many ways an uncomfortable experience. From early adolescence I'd met many girls with what used to be called 'sex-appeal', and although I was aware and fully appreciative of it, it had never tempted me to lose control or to become so emotionally screwed up as I was at that moment. Well, not completely anyway. Danny, fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon how one viewed the matter, possessed everything a young woman should have, and in spades, so to speak. She drew me like a rivet to an overcharged electro-magnet, and if I wasn’t careful I could see me getting hammered just as much as the aforesaid rivet!.

  The path eventually rounded a gentle bend, following the sweeping left hand curve of the river, and about fifteen minutes after we set out we came in sight of another bridge. In contrast to the one in the centre of the village, this was a somewhat rickety wooden structure, and certainly not wide enough to accommodate any form of vehicular traffic bigger than a bike. There was another footpath that joined the one we were following at right angles by the foot of this bridge, which was presumably the one that led off to the farm I had been told about. As we progressed closer to the bridge it became pretty evident to me that none of the paths ever saw a great deal of use. Glancing across to the far side of the river I saw a couple of anglers passing the time away, but apart from that there wasn't another person in sight.

  “Well, here we are,” Danny announced, pointing ahead and slightly off to her left as we came abreast of the bridge, “According to Julia's story, that's near-enough where we camped.”

  The area she indicated was on a slight rise in the land sheltered on one side by a spinney, and shelving down to the water at a distance of about ten or fifteen yards from the tree-line.

  “You are certain that this is the actual site?” I asked as we closed in on it.

  “No, but it is exactly where Julia described it to be more than once.”

  In other words she couldn't be 'certain' about anything; she was only going by what somebody else had told her. There was nothing visible to say that she was wrong, neither was there anything to indicate that she was spot-on. “So coming here again hasn't jogged a memory?” I asked hopefully.

  “Afraid not.”

  We went right up to the open patch of grass she had indicated, and of course there was nothing whatever to suggest that anyone had ever camped there in tragic and quite dramatic circumstances. Even if there had been, after fourteen years it could have been a site used since by heaven knows how many other people. I browsed round
and actually found evidence of a more recent camping expedition some ten yards further along, and slightly closer to the river. Judging by the marks on the ground and the residue of ash resulting from a camp-fire this site could well have been used within the last few days. I knew without bothering to think about it that scrambling around on my marrow bones looking for microscopic clues that would solve the whole business, thereby allowing me to leap back onto my feet shouting 'Ah, I have it', would be a complete waste of time and energy.

  What I really wanted was to get a general picture of the alleged site and the surrounding area in my mind. It is one thing to hear about it from Danny, who was only repeating what somebody else had told her, and quite another seeing it for myself. From the point of view of a camping enthusiast it was quite a pleasant location, and certainly there was no evidence of the tragedy that had occurred there all those years ago. Danny pointed out to me where she believed the tents had been pitched, and from there she was able to indicate near enough where she was found afterwards. I stood on the same spot, trying to picture in my mind what it must have been like. I still wasn't convinced that there was anything more than a terrible accident to investigate, but as I frequently reminded myself, at a grand a week I still needed to go through the motions. If one bore in mind that the girls had to be well within sight of each other if Julia was telling the truth, it seemed obvious to me that if one had met with foul play, the killer would be scarcely likely to allow any possible witnesses to survive. How would a theoretical murderer know that the surviving twin would suffer from amnesia? If one had been killed and dumped in the river, then it would have made more sense to have disposed of both. Of course that would have meant disposing of Julia as well if she wasn't involved, all of which made the whole business increasingly unlikely. Still, it was odd that Danny had only suffered burns to her back.