The Nidderdale Murders (A Yorkshire Murder Mystery)

by J. R. Ellis

  ‘I see. And is that all?’ asked Oldroyd.

  The Owens exchanged looks again.

  ‘I don’t know of anyone else who you could call an enemy of his, Chief Inspector,’ continued Rob. ‘But, as I say, he wasn’t popular. Of course, we don’t know anything about his life before he came to Niddersgill.’

  ‘Did you know any of the people in the shooting party? I’m thinking particularly about the three who were with him in this lounge before he was shot,’ asked Oldroyd.

  ‘None of them apart from Mr Saunders and Mr Symons, who were friends of Mr Fraser and they’ve stayed here before. I’ve heard of Gideon Rawnsley. He runs an upmarket car business in Harrogate. I didn’t know any of the others, did you?’ Rob looked at Sheila, who shook her head.

  ‘OK, thank you. You’ll need to make statements, but by all means go back to work. We’ll release all your staff when we’ve talked to them.’ Oldroyd got up to leave. ‘By the way, any chance of some coffee and a bit of lunch?’

  ‘I’ll order some sandwiches and drinks for you,’ replied Sheila.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Before we go, Chief Inspector,’ said Rob, ‘there was one thing I saw which I ought to tell you about. But I don’t want to get anyone into trouble.’

  ‘Go on.’ Oldroyd had suspected that there might be more.

  ‘When I went out to tend to Mr Fraser, I caught sight of the back of a black van parked behind that terrace opposite. When I went back out with the ambulance people, it had gone.’

  ‘Do you know whose van it was?’

  Rob seemed reluctant to continue. ‘No, not for sure, but it looked like David Eastwood’s. He’s the local postman, delivers all the post to the villages round here. He comes in the daytime in his red post van, but if he comes here at night he uses his own van.’

  ‘Does he live in Niddersgill?’

  ‘No, he lives in Pateley Bridge. He wasn’t in the bar here so it was odd that his van was here at that time of night, except . . .’ Rob looked sheepish.

  ‘What Rob’s trying to say is that Dave has a bit of a reputation as a womaniser. He could well have been visiting someone in the village.’

  ‘For . . . romantic reasons?’ It never ceased to amaze Oldroyd what went on behind closed doors in the little dales villages.

  ‘Exactly,’ Sheila said.

  ‘I can see why you don’t like reporting that, but you’re right to mention it. We’ll have to follow it up and hopefully eliminate him from the enquiry without causing too much upset to those involved,’ said Oldroyd discreetly.

  The Owens nodded and left.

  ‘Well,’ said Oldroyd, settling back in his chair and reflecting on what they’d been told. ‘What do you make of things so far?’

  ‘I take it you’re considering whether one of his three friends could have bumped him off?’ said Andy.

  ‘At least two of them seemed to have had the opportunity but we don’t know any motive yet. We might know more when we’ve interviewed them.’

  ‘Real motives are a bit thin on the ground so far, aren’t they, sir?’ said Andy, looking at his notes. ‘I mean, the Owens obviously didn’t like him but you’d hardly murder someone who brought you a load of money in, even if they didn’t like your sauce.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. It’s going to be interesting to speak to those animal rights and environment people. Emotions can run high with those issues.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but this might all prove unnecessary if we can find Alan Green,’ said Andy.

  ‘True, but I’m already thinking that this may not be as open and shut as it seems,’ continued Oldroyd. ‘For a start, as you said, motives are not clear: what was Green’s? No one has yet given us a reason why he would want to kill Fraser. The second point, as we discussed, is that we can’t rely totally on this witness. She may be mistaken and there’s no one to corroborate her story.’

  ‘You still think Kirsty might be covering for someone else?’

  ‘It’s possible. A neat little plan. She has a nice vantage point from which to say she saw the murderer, and she did, but was it who she said it was? Was it actually Symons or Saunders, as they were well placed to follow Fraser out and shoot him? Or maybe Rawnsley didn’t go to bed but nipped out and lay in wait for him.’

  ‘That’s all possible, sir. Also, we’ll have to follow up with this postman. It’s suspicious that his van was there just at the right time and then it disappeared.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The coffee and sandwiches arrived.

  ‘The questions are building up and we’ve got a lot of people to speak to, and unless I’m wrong, and Alan Green is found quickly and confesses, my instinct is that it’s going to be a hard slog.’ Oldroyd looked at the food. ‘So we’d better get stuck into this first. But leave some for Steph.’

  Steph walked the short distance out of the village to the Frasers’ seventeenth-century manor house. It was small but beautiful, with attractive mullioned windows. There was a garden full of roses and nepetas which were still in bloom, if a little ragged now at the end of the season.

  She walked up the path and knocked on the door. It was answered by a woman with glasses and short greying hair, dressed in a tweed skirt and a cardigan. Her eyes were red.

  Steph introduced herself, and Miriam Fraser invited her in.

  Steph followed the woman into a sitting room full of chintzy sofas. A large grandfather clock stood in a corner and a cat lay asleep on one of the sofas, on top of a sheepskin throw.

  Mrs Fraser sat down in an armchair, while Steph sank into the sofa next to the cat, which looked round, yawned and went back to sleep.

  Fraser’s widow looked clearly agitated. ‘I would offer you some tea, but I’m too . . .’ Her hand went to her mouth.

  ‘No. That’s fine, don’t worry about it. You’ve had a terrible shock. Could I make you some?’

  The woman shook her head, closed her eyes and seemed unable to reply.

  ‘I know this is very difficult, Mrs Fraser,’ Steph said, ‘but we want to catch whoever is responsible and you can help us. Is it OK if I ask you a few questions?’

  Mrs Fraser sighed, grimaced and seemed about to refuse, but then nodded.

  ‘I presume the last time you saw your husband was yesterday evening?’

  ‘Yes. He came back from the shoot and changed for the dinner at the Dog and Gun.’ It was clearly a big effort for her to speak.

  ‘Did he seem OK?’

  ‘Yes. He was his normal self. He told me not to wait up for him, as he would be late back as he usually is when he goes to the shoot dinners. Then he gave me a kiss and . . .’ She started to cry, dabbing her face with a handkerchief.

  Steph waited until she appeared to have composed herself. ‘And what did you do when he’d gone?’

  ‘I watched television until about eleven o’clock and then I . . . went to bed.’ She struggled to finish the sentence.

  ‘I’m sorry. I know this is difficult but it’s really important. Has your husband been his normal self recently? Has he been worried about anything? Anything to do with money perhaps, or the grouse moor.’

  ‘Not that I know of. I left all the financial stuff to Sandy. He was very good with that side of things and I never had anything to do with the grouse moor. To be honest, I don’t like it: grown men firing their shotguns at defenceless birds.’

  ‘I understand. Did your husband have any enemies, Mrs Fraser? And I don’t mean just around here, but maybe someone in the past. Just try to think back.’

  ‘No,’ she said after a pause. ‘Sandy could be quite abrasive and domineering. I think he was a judge the barristers feared, so he was never popular, but I’m not aware of anyone who was a real enemy – someone who would want to harm him.’

  ‘And you were married a long time?’

  ‘Thirty-nine years. We were coming up to our ruby wedding.’ She had another little weep.

  ‘Do you have any family, Mrs Fraser?’

  �
�Thomas, our son, is a barrister in London – father’s footsteps and all that. Henrietta studied environmental science and she works for the National Trust in Wiltshire. She and her father had some fierce rows about grouse shooting and blood sports, I can tell you.’ She smiled for the first time at this family memory.

  Steph continued. ‘The main suspect at the moment is a man called Alan Green. Did you know him?’

  Mrs Fraser looked puzzled. ‘Green? Oh, you surely don’t mean the odd-job man? Sandy got him to clean out the gutters and trim the hedges, stuff like that. What could he possibly have against Sandy?’

  ‘They didn’t have a row about anything?’

  ‘No. I think Sandy got him to lower his estimate for the work, but it was all amicable.’

  ‘Now, this is a hard question, Mrs Fraser, but I have to ask it. How was your relationship with your husband?’

  The woman gave a cynical little laugh. ‘I think you can tell what I thought about Sandy unless I’m a wonderful actress. We had a marvellous marriage. Sandy could be difficult with other people, but he treated me like a queen. I couldn’t have asked for more.’

  Steph smiled. ‘I see. Is there going to be someone coming to stay with you, Mrs Fraser? Your son or daughter perhaps?’

  ‘Yes, my daughter’s coming on Tuesday. I’ll be all right until then.’ She turned to Steph. ‘I think . . . before you go, there is something else I’ve remembered.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It was about two years ago. Those hunt-saboteur people were causing trouble up on the moor. Sandy couldn’t bear them spoiling his shoots, said they could lose him a lot of money. One day some of them appeared and Sandy chased one of them with a stick. He lost his temper quite easily. He ran after this man, who fell. Sandy tried to pull him to his feet and he found that the man was dead. They called the ambulance and there was a post-mortem and everything. It turned out he had a rare heart condition and could have died at any time. It wasn’t really Sandy’s fault, but I wonder if some of those people hold Sandy responsible for the death of one of their group. I suppose if they did, it could be a motive to kill him.’

  Inspector Gibbs arrived back at Pateley Bridge station, eager to pursue Alan Green, but he soon discovered that there was very little to go on. No adverts for his services seemed to have appeared in any local publication. Brief enquiries earlier had yielded nothing. It was time to be more thorough, so he and his officers would have to go out and patiently ask people in shops and pubs whether they had heard of the suspect. A photograph would have been very helpful because sometimes people went under different names, but all they had was a basic physical description, and the north-eastern accent.

  The police station was a modern building at the top of the beautiful, long main street in Pateley Bridge. Gibbs organised a small team of officers to cover all the shops, cafes and pubs on both sides and he set out with them. It was not an easy task. It was Saturday afternoon and the street was bustling with people. Everywhere he went, Gibbs felt that he ruined the relaxed atmosphere by bringing a message of horror and fear: a local man murdered and the murderer on the loose, probably still in the neighbourhood. Smiles dropped from people’s faces and bright conversations stopped abruptly.

  Two hours later, Gibbs met up with his team at the bottom of the street. The results of their enquiries were poor. One or two people said they thought they might have seen someone answering Alan Green’s description in a pub, but no one recognised the name as someone who was a regular, or who had done work for them or for anyone they knew.

  The officers walked back up to the station with nothing to show for their efforts. But they were professionals and not about to give up. Gibbs knew that people like Green, who lived somewhat itinerant lives, could be difficult to locate, often because they had left a trail of petty crime behind them and didn’t want to be found. Green may have lied to people about where he lived, but it had to be somewhere not too far from Niddersgill as he appeared not to have a car; maybe he lived in one of the many villages or hamlets nearby. The task of finding Alan Green had only just begun, but what also concerned Gibbs, as it did Oldroyd, was that they still had no idea why he’d killed Fraser; both man and motive were elusive.

  Gideon Rawnsley sat opposite Oldroyd and Andy. Potts had gone to check on the statement-taking. Rawnsley appeared chastened and downcast, and was clearly suffering from a hangover.

  ‘Well, Mr Rawnsley,’ began Oldroyd, ‘a number of people have testified that they saw you having an argument with Mr Fraser not long before he was murdered. So, shall we start with that? Can you tell us what it was about?’

  Rawnsley looked very sheepish. ‘It was my fault. I was drunk and I shouldn’t have raised the issue. Sandy hasn’t paid me for his latest car and it was starting to annoy me. We work on very small margins with luxury cars, and we get a lot of customers like Sandy: wealthy and posh but very lax when it comes to paying their bills. I don’t suppose money matters to them. But it does to people like me, who have a business to run.’

  ‘Did you threaten him?’

  Rawnsley shook his head. ‘No. As I said, I was drunk – it was all swagger. I tend to get like that when I’ve been drinking. It would all have blown over; Sandy and I got on well, really. He enjoyed talking to me about cars, vintage ones and stuff like that. I do a bit of business in vintage stuff and if I ever got anything unusual in, Sandy would come down to have a look. He wouldn’t have invited me to this shoot if we didn’t get on, would he?’

  ‘Maybe not. Have you known him for long?’

  ‘Ever since he came to the area.’

  ‘Did he have any enemies?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. But I only knew him after he’d retired from his job.’

  Rawnsley had made the same point as Rob Owen about Fraser’s previous life. That needed to be researched as soon as possible and might yield someone with a motive more compelling than what they were finding so far in Niddersgill.

  ‘Did you know a man called Alan Green, who works as an odd-job man in the area?’

  ‘No, never heard of him.’

  ‘What did you do after you were ejected from this lounge?’

  ‘I just went straight to bed. I was already feeling bad about the way I’d behaved, and I was going to apologise to Sandy and the others at breakfast. But I never got the chance.’ He seemed genuinely sad and regretful.

  ‘Is your bedroom at the front? Did you hear anything?’ asked Andy.

  ‘No, it’s at the back. I went straight off to sleep until Henry Saunders woke me up this morning. He told me there was a hell of a mess going on, the police were here and Sandy had been shot.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m very sorry about it all. It’s shocking, but I had nothing to do with it.’

  Henry Saunders sat down casually, with his long legs crossed, and looked straight at Oldroyd through his rimless glasses.

  ‘How long have you known Mr Fraser?’ began Oldroyd.

  ‘For more years than I care to remember, Chief Inspector. We were at school together in the early seventies. We’ve always got on well although there have been periods when I didn’t see that much of him.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Well, Sandy was in chambers in London and then became a judge, but he moved up to the north a while ago. That’s when he discovered these grouse moors out here in the wilderness.’

  Oldroyd frowned as he suspected a slur against his beloved county. It might well be wild on the fells but it was also beautiful. In fact, the wildness was part of the beauty.

  ‘Now that Sandy’s retired, I come up to see him quite regularly, especially at this time of year. My wife and I came up for Christmas a few years ago. Quite delightful to get away from it all. You really are miles from anywhere up here.’

  Oldroyd wasn’t sure whether that meant in Nidderdale or the north generally, but he didn’t pursue this particular question.

  ‘I take it you were on good terms with him?’

  ‘Good Lord, yes. Sandy wa
s a sound type, solid through and through. Man of the old school, like me.’

  Again, Oldroyd refrained from exploring what Saunders actually meant by that.

  ‘Were you aware of any enemies? Anyone who wished him harm?’

  ‘No.’ Saunders shook his head.

  ‘What happened last night in here?’

  ‘Oh, that idiot, Rawnsley, had too much to drink and started to harangue Sandy about some money problem. I ask you – there’s a time and place, isn’t there? So I steered him out of here before he made a damned fool of himself and told him to go off to bed, and he did.’

  ‘And you roused him in the morning?’

  ‘Yes, well, I thought he would have a hangover and had probably slept through all the commotion.’

  ‘And he was in his room?’

  ‘Well, he answered me and he came down here pretty quickly.’

  ‘Do you think he would have been capable of attacking Mr Fraser?’ asked Andy.

  Saunders laughed. ‘I don’t think so, Sergeant. There was nothing dangerous about him; he was just, how shall I put it, a little out of his social depth. I’m not sure why Sandy invited him unless he was buttering him up and hoped to get a good deal on a car.’

  ‘I understand the row was about payment for one of those cars. Did Mr Fraser have any money problems as far as you were aware?’

  ‘Sandy? I shouldn’t think so. He’s always been well heeled – family money, judge’s salary and all that. Maybe he didn’t pay his bills as quickly as some people would have liked, but nothing serious. I don’t think he’d run up any significant debts. Not that he would tell me.’