The Nidderdale Murders (A Yorkshire Murder Mystery)

by J. R. Ellis

  Oldroyd laughed. ‘So did you see Mr Fraser?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye.’ It was Bramley’s turn to smile. ‘He came in with his kilt on – reckons he’s got summat to do wi’ a Scottish clan ’cos he’s called Fraser. He looked a reight silly bugger.’

  ‘I understand he’s not popular, either.’

  ‘No, you’re right there. Ian Davis wor havin’ a go at him and Alan Green wor sayin’ what a stingy sod he is.’

  ‘I see. What about you?’

  ‘Ah’ve no time for ’im. He’s t’worst landlord ah’ve ever ’ad, and ah’ve ’ad a few over t’years. T’problem is, t’land my farm’s on is owned by t’same estate as t’grouse moor above t’village so Fraser’s been my landlord since he came, worst luck. Mr Wilson who owned it before, he wor a real gentleman – never hardly put me rent up. He knew ah couldn’t afford it, but this chap, well . . .’ He stopped, shook his head, took another drink of his tea and snapped a ginger biscuit in half.

  ‘So did you dislike him enough to wish him harm?’

  Bramley looked at Oldroyd and frowned. ‘Aye, well, ah know what you’re gettin’ at. Did ah bump ’im off? The answer’s no.’

  ‘Do you own a shotgun?’

  ‘Aye. What farmer doesn’t? You’ve got to keep t’crows and t’pigeons at bay. Rabbit makes a good stew an’ all. Ah’ve got a licence and ah keep t’gun locked up.’

  ‘OK. I’ll have to send another officer up to look at that later. How well did you know Alan Green?’

  Bramley frowned. ‘Alan? Well, ah only saw him in t’pub, but we ’ad some laughs. Wasn’t he a gardener or summat? He was sayin’ that night that Fraser never paid properly for t’jobs he did for him. Why are yer askin’ me?’

  ‘Alan Green has been identified by a witness as the murderer, and now he’s disappeared.’

  ‘Alan Green?’

  ‘Yes. Kirsty Hemingway saw the murder from an upstairs window at the inn.’

  ‘Kirsty the barmaid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Bramley shook his head. ‘Well, that’s a funny do. But if yer think it was Alan, why are yer quizzin’ me?’

  ‘We have to keep our options open. Kirsty Hemingway might turn out to be wrong, so we have to consider everyone who had a motive to kill Mr Fraser.’

  Bramley grunted. ‘Aye, well yer wastin’ yer time. Ah’m too busy to be goin’ round shootin’ folk.’

  ‘OK. Did you ever hear Alan Green threaten violence against Mr Fraser?’ asked Andy.

  ‘No, as ah said, he agreed with all of us that Fraser was keen with his brass, but he never threatened to do owt abaht it.’

  ‘Do you know anybody who might have wanted to do Mr Fraser harm?’ continued Andy.

  Bramley finished his tea and put down his mug. ‘No. Put it this way: nob’dy liked t’chap, but ah can’t see anyone shootin’ him.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Oldroyd, getting up. ‘Thank you for the tea and biscuits.’ Andy also stood, leaving his mug half empty, although he’d enjoyed the biscuits.

  ‘Aye, now, before yer go, yer were asking abaht t’tractors?’ Bramley had a big smile on his face.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Oldroyd, who’d forgotten about the tractors and now wished that Bramley had too. But there was no chance of that. The farmer marched the two detectives out to the field that held his collection. Andy groaned in despair.

  ‘This one here belonged to me dad,’ Bramley said, indicating a small rusty vehicle, on parts of which the traditional red paint was still visible. ‘It’s a David Brown VAC 1C Cropmaster. They were made at Meltham near Huddersfield, you know, but this model was only made for six years, between 1947 and 1953. They didn’t used to have cabs – oh no! Farmers were tough old buggers, out in all weathers.’ He went on to the next without a pause. ‘Now, if you want to see one wi’ a cab, look at this: it’s a Ford 5000 1968 – absolute classic. Not much left of t’cab though.’

  To Oldroyd and Andy, it looked like an utter wreck.

  Oldroyd tried desperately to think of a way of escaping, but the flow of information from Bramley was unstoppable. And so they had to wait until every machine had been identified and its history and special features had been described. This included a steam-powered traction engine and an early-model tractor without rubber wheels, which must have been excruciating to drive along the uneven country roads.

  Finally, they were able to say goodbye to a very happy Wilf Bramley, who beamed with pride and satisfaction as he insisted on shaking hands with them. They were silent for a while on the walk back, exhausted from the battering of information they’d received.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Andy, at last. ‘I don’t really suspect him of being the murderer.’

  ‘No. Neither do I,’ replied Oldroyd.

  ‘But for goodness’ sake, sir, if he needs to be questioned again, could you please send someone else? If I have to go back there and he starts going on about his tractors, I think I’ll get into one of them and drive over him!’

  They laughed together as they walked down the path, back towards Niddersgill.

  Three

  Gollinglith Fleet

  Crookrise Crag

  Oughtershaw Side

  Healaugh Crag

  Early next morning, Inspector Gibbs sat in his office at Pateley Bridge station feeling puzzled and unsure about exactly what to do next. The attempts to track down Alan Green had not yet proved successful. He and his team had made enquiries in a number of villages and hamlets around Pateley Bridge, but no one seemed to have heard of the man. This was odd, because in a rural community like this, anonymity was hard to maintain, particularly if you were a gardener and odd-job man and therefore knew a lot of people. It seemed that he was paid cash in hand for all his jobs, so it was hard to trace a bank account – if he had one.

  Gibbs got up and walked over to the window, which commanded a view of the road bridge over the River Nidd. He could see people talking in little groups, and a window cleaner who waved to a farmer going over the bridge in a tractor. Two people were having a conversation at a petrol station. How could you lose yourself in a place like this? He began to wonder whether Green was actually who he said he was.

  Was he at all active in the town and the surrounding area, or had he come to Nidderdale with the intention of targeting only Niddersgill and Fraser? He had done jobs for a number of people in Niddersgill, but apparently nowhere else. He must have a base somewhere, but it could just be a basic bolthole where he lay low. Did he travel in from further afield? That didn’t tie in with the absence of a car. Walking or cycling from the Pateley area to Niddersgill was one thing, but living any further away would not be practical.

  Gibbs shook his head; he was a dogged character but this was a frustrating case. He’d been brought up in the dale and knew every inch of it. They would search every barn if necessary. They would also have to mount a ‘Have you seen this man?’ campaign.

  Unfortunately, as they had no photograph of the suspect, it would have to be an identikit-type picture based on what people who knew him remembered of his features. At least they were a little more sophisticated in terms of computer graphics than they used to be. If all that still yielded nothing, they would have to accept that he’d fled the area leaving no trace, or that he had an accomplice who was hiding him. Gibbs would have to alert other forces and instigate a watch at airports and seaports. But if Green was anywhere on his patch, Gibbs was determined to flush him out – because only then could they begin to answer the further puzzling question of what he’d had against Fraser that had made him kill the man.

  However, it was not all gloom. His research into the death of the saboteur had yielded material of more interest, and he’d sent a report to DCI Oldroyd. It was possible that they had uncovered a promising lead.

  As Gibbs dealt with his frustration at not making more progress in the search for Green, Andy, Steph and Oldroyd met in Oldroyd’s office at Harrogate HQ. Gibbs had sent two more officers from Pateley to help DC Potts m
onitor the crime scene in Niddersgill, while the investigating team reviewed what they knew. Coffee and chocolate biscuits were available but, as everybody was on some kind of health drive at the moment, the latter remained untouched. Andy gazed at them longingly, but he was under orders from Steph to lose weight, so he had to resist.

  Oldroyd had adopted his customary position, sitting back in his desk chair with his hands behind his head and his eyes partly shut while he listened to what the others were saying. He saw that his two detective sergeants had laptops with them – an inevitable change, he supposed, from the old leafing through sheaves of paper, and probably an improvement. However, he was happy to remain only half engaged with the digital world, whatever derision he had to endure from his daughter and others of her generation.

  ‘Anything interesting come in?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ replied Andy. ‘It seems that Fraser was in a bit of financial trouble. He’d run up debts and he had a big bank overdraft. Apparently, he had no significant savings.’

  ‘Hmm, I suspect he took on more than he bargained for with that grouse moor. He had no experience of managing anything like that and he’d never been a businessman. He was a retired judge who’d had his salary paid every month.’

  ‘No wonder he struggled to pay his bills with people like Rawnsley,’ observed Steph. ‘But does that help us in any way? Does it mean there could have been more people with a motive because they were owed money?’

  ‘Maybe. One of his biggest debts could have been to the Dog and Gun. We couldn’t find any payments to the Owens over quite a long period, but he must have run up a substantial bill for his shooting parties.’

  Oldroyd whistled. ‘Did he indeed? I wonder why they never told us that? In fact, Sheila said he always paid.’

  ‘Maybe they knew it made them possible suspects, sir,’ said Steph.

  ‘You’re probably right. People get scared, don’t tell the truth and then get themselves into deeper trouble. If they were involved, they must have been in league with this Alan Green or whoever actually shot Fraser. I can’t see how either of them could have done it and then got back up to their flat without being seen by Saunders and Symons.’

  ‘Unless they were in on it too, sir,’ suggested Andy.

  Oldroyd shook his head. ‘And then we get back to the big conspiracy theory and you know what I think about those. Anyway, let’s run through the rest of the suspects, now we’ve had time to think about things. What do you make of Kirsty Hemingway? Do we believe her?’

  ‘If we don’t, sir, it makes things much more complicated,’ answered Andy. ‘It would mean she was covering for someone by trying to incriminate Green.’

  ‘She could be honest and just mistaken,’ added Steph. ‘But surely Green’s disappearance is the clearest indication that she’s telling the truth.’

  ‘I agree. The latest from Inspector Gibbs, by the way, is that they still haven’t tracked him down.’

  ‘He could be dead, sir,’ observed Andy. ‘Felt guilty and topped himself or was silenced after he played the hitman.’

  ‘Not impossible, but you’re making it sound more like the world of city gangsters. I don’t think downtown Pateley Bridge is that edgy and dangerous.’

  They all laughed at this image.

  ‘What about the last three to see him?’ continued Oldroyd. ‘His shooting pals?’

  Andy began: ‘Rawnsley we know had an argument with Fraser, but being late with your money for a car seems a flimsy reason to be murdered. Saunders the old school friend and Symons of the local gentry don’t appear to have had any motive.’

  ‘They had the best opportunity, though,’ said Steph. ‘As they knew when Fraser had left the inn and were on hand to kill him. It could very well be Saunders and Symons were working together. Maybe one of them impersonated Alan Green, and somehow Green found out he was going to be framed for a murder and bolted?’

  ‘Hmm, impersonation – that’s making me think a bit,’ said Oldroyd, leaning back with his eyes shut. ‘But do you have any evidence for your theories, imaginative though they are?’

  ‘Not much, sir,’ said Steph, smiling. ‘I think we’re floundering, aren’t we?’

  ‘Maybe a little at the moment,’ conceded Oldroyd. ‘What about our two activists?’

  ‘I think Liz Smith would be capable of violence in some circumstances. She’s very passionate about her beliefs and angry with people who do what she considers evil things. Fraser was a classic example of the type of person she hated: upper-middle-class, arrogant, contemptuous of her views. There’s also the issue of getting revenge for the sab who died on the moor. She has no alibi for Friday, so I would place her high on the suspects list. She could have been involved with Alan Green in some way.’

  ‘And Tony Dexter, Andy?’

  ‘No alibi, again. Disliked Fraser but didn’t come across as the volatile type. We haven’t ruled out collusion between the two who opposed Fraser’s grouse shooting. By the way, DC Potts went round to see Theresa Rawlings, and she verified that the postman, Eastwood, was with her on the Friday evening, and he didn’t leave until after Fraser was shot. Of course, we’ve only got her word for it, but we’ve no reason to suspect her or Eastwood of anything at the moment.’

  ‘OK,’ said Oldroyd, who appeared to sink down even deeper into his chair. ‘There’s one more thing to add. Going back to the issue of the sab who died, I’ve had a report from Bill Gibbs. He confirmed all the medical details and that no one could be held responsible for the man’s death, but the potentially interesting thing is that he was a man called Sam Cooper, and his brother Greg is a sous chef at the Dog and Gun.’

  ‘Someone with a real motive,’ said Steph.

  ‘Sir, I remember that name,’ said Andy. ‘Wasn’t he the one who was on late-night duty at the inn on the night of the murder?’

  ‘You’re right, Andy. Well remembered, and that is interesting. It gave him the opportunity. This could lead somewhere and I hope it does, because somehow the rest of it doesn’t seem to amount to very much. You may be right that it’ll all be over when Gibbs flushes out Green, but I’m uneasy. What was his motive and why is it proving so difficult to find any trace of him?’

  ‘Maybe this Greg Cooper employed him as a hitman?’

  Oldroyd frowned sceptically. ‘Well, I suppose it’s possible. It does seem as if Green only undertook jobs here in Niddersgill. It’s as if he came to the village with a purpose and now he’s done what he needed to do, he’s gone. But where did he stay during that period? Gibbs can find no one in Pateley who knew him or had any jobs done by him. I think we need to look carefully into Fraser’s past to see if Green’s name crops up. My hunch is still that, if it was him, he shot Fraser on his own behalf. He must have had a grudge against him about something that happened a while ago, maybe before Fraser retired here.’

  ‘Why didn’t Fraser recognise him, then, sir? Green did jobs for him, didn’t he?’ asked Steph.

  ‘That’s a very good question. It could have been a long time ago,’ said Oldroyd thoughtfully. ‘We’d better get back out there; we obviously need to speak to this Greg Cooper and to the Owens again. You stay here, Andy, and get people working on Fraser’s past, and also see if you can turn up any Alan Greens in the London and Leeds areas, which is where Fraser spent his career.’

  ‘There’ll be quite a lot of those, sir.’

  ‘Yes. Start with ones that have any criminal connections. Steph, you come with me up to Nidderdale. We’ll speak to the Owens and we’ll have a look at Fraser’s possessions and papers and see if they can tell us anything. I think his widow might have recovered a little from the initial shock now.’

  ‘OK, sir.’

  Oldroyd’s phone rang. It was Tom Walker. ‘Jim, you’d better get back up to Nidderdale as quick as you can. Someone’s rung in from that inn . . . Dog and Gun, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, apparently the bloody press are swarming all over asking questi
ons. Typical, isn’t it? It probably took them two days to find out where Niddersgill is. They haven’t got the slightest interest in places like that until something juicy happens, then they don’t mind trampling all over and making a nuisance of themselves when the poor locals have already had their peace shattered.’

  ‘We were just about to leave anyway, Tom, so don’t worry.’

  ‘Excellent. You’re good at talking to the hacks, and no doubt Watkins’ll be watching to see if anything is reflecting badly on the force. That’s the only thing he bloody cares about of course—’

  ‘OK, Tom, we’re off now,’ Oldroyd cut in, as he sensed a rant beginning: the two things Walker hated most were the press and the chief constable. ‘Better get a move on,’ he said to Steph. As they got up to leave, he turned to Andy. ‘And you keep off those chocolate biscuits!’ He wagged his finger. ‘I’ve counted them. You need to keep on track if you’re ever going to be as fit as I’ll be soon with my running.’

  ‘Blimey, sir,’ said Andy. ‘At this rate we’ll soon be cheering you on in your first marathon.’ Steph and Oldroyd laughed as they went out.

  It was a quiet Tuesday morning in Peter Gorton’s shop in Niddersgill, but then most mornings were quiet. Gorton didn’t mind. He’d bought the shop in order to move out of the city into semi-retirement, and he’d never expected to make a lot of money. The newsagent part kept him ticking over, and locals popped in to buy bits and pieces they’d forgotten in their weekly grocery shop in Pateley Bridge. Things were clearly extra quiet because of the fear that still hung over the village, although Gorton had noticed one or two people who looked more like reporters than tourists wandering around.

  He was arranging a display of confectionery in front of the counter when the door opened and Wilf Bramley came in. He was dressed in his usual dirty moleskin trousers, an old jacket and a woolly hat.

  ‘Morning, Wilf.’

  ‘Morning, Peter, gi’ me twenty o’ me usual.’