by Pat Herbert
“So, young man,” she said crossly, “still not happy then? The police have the identity of the real killer, so what more do you want?”
“They have? They know who murdered my wife, then?”
The penny dropped just as she dropped yet another stitch. This wasn’t the nasty Robespierre Fentiman; this was his much nicer twin brother, Danton. Of course, why didn’t she think of that? This poor man still hadn’t received justice, and probably never would.
“Ah, it’s Danton, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Apparently my brother’s been exonerated. Well, bully for him. But what about me?”
Anbolin tutted impatiently. “My dear young man, why did you admit you killed your wife and unborn child if you didn’t?”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” he said, swinging around on his rope. “She was buried in my garden, for God’s sake. And anyway I didn’t want to live.”
“So what’s changed?”
“I suppose it’s for the family name. Now that Robey’s cleared his name, I need to clear mine.”
Anbolin put down her knitting and sighed. “You do realise, don’t you, that it will be hard to prove your innocence after all this time?”
“I know, I know. But if you can do it for Robey, then I think you should be able to use that as a link. If he’s not a murderer, then it’s more likely that I’m not either. I was always the good, hard-working one, while Robey was the philanderer, happy to live off his wife’s money most of the time.”
Anbolin didn’t respond to this for a few minutes; instead she continued knitting, the only sound the click-clack of her needles. Danton stared at her, waiting for some clue to what she was thinking. Finally the old woman broke the silence.
“I can’t promise to clear your name, young man,” she said softly, appearing to be counting her stitches as she spoke.
“I know you can’t promise,” said Danton impatiently. “But you can try. You were so successful for my brother, I think I deserve the same treatment. The inspector at the time didn’t think I did it, you know. I thank him for that. Perhaps I should have let him find the real murderer, after all. But, dear lady, perhaps it’s not too late, even now?”
“No, I don’t think it is,” said Anbolin, standing up and putting her knitting away. “But if I find out the truth, will you want it known at any cost?”
“Of course! Why shouldn’t I? I’m innocent, I’ve nothing to fear from the law or – anyone else.” He swung around once more on his rope and, as he did so, began to slowly dematerialise.
“Very well. I will find the murderer for you, and provide the proof, if at all possible. But I warn you, you may not like what I discover.”
As the ghost of Danton Fentiman disappeared, she heard him say, “Don’t worry. As long as I am proved innocent – for the sake of the family name.”
It’s the family name I’m thinking of muttered Anbolin as she left the shed.
Summer, 1956
The following morning, Bernard was sitting in his study when Mrs Harper barged in, announcing he had a visitor.
“A Mr Roger Squires wants a word, vicar,” she said without preamble.
Bernard had to remove Beelzebub from his lap, and they had both been very comfortable before the interruption. The cat, especially, showed his displeasure by hissing at the housekeeper responsible for disturbing his sleep.
“I don’t know anyone of that name, Mrs Aitch,” he said, searching his memory, which was faulty at the best of times.
“’E says you don’t know ’im,” said Mrs Harper, “but ’e needs to speak to you on a ‘pressing matter’, as ’e describes it.”
“Pressing matter? Hmm,” said Bernard wisely. He felt like he was in the middle of a Victorian novel. “All right, Mrs Aitch, show him up. Maybe elevenses would be appropriate?”
Appropriate? Mrs Harper wondered what sort of word that was. Besides, he was lucky to have any elevenses at all after the way Anbolin got through the comestibles that week. There were some drop scones left, however, so they would have to do.
She gave one of her sniffs and went off to fetch the visitor. A youngish man entered the study a few moments later, hat in hand, looking apologetic.
“I’m so sorry to bother you, vicar, but I didn’t know who else to ask,” he said. He had a boyish face with pale skin and eyes, and matching pale hair that was fast receding up his forehead.
Bernard was intrigued now. This looked like a promising visit after all.
“Please, don’t apologise. Take a seat. Tell me what’s bothering you, sir.”
“It’s where I live.”
“Where you live?”
“Yes, I live in Tooting.”
“I see.” He didn’t, really. There were worse things than living in Tooting, surely. “What about your local vicar, Mr – er Squires? I believe Reverend Soames is very good, and popular with his parishioners.” That wasn’t strictly true. The Reverend Nigel Soames was known to be a choleric, generally miserable individual who didn’t tend to sympathise with his flock or relate to it in any way. It was generally felt he wasn’t vicar material at all, and it was something of a mystery how he ever got ordained in the first place.
“It’s a bit difficult, you see. I tried telling him but he doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He just laughed and told me to come and see you. He said you’d be more sympathetic.” A laughing hyena would be more sympathetic than Soames was Bernard’s thought, although he didn’t voice it.
“The supernatural, eh?” Bernard was more intrigued than ever. “Yes, yes, I have some experience of such matters.”
Roger Squires looked relieved. “Thank goodness. I don’t think anyone believes me, but my house is haunted. My wife is having nightmares about it. She’s completely run down and can’t sleep because of this ghost…”
“Ghost, you say? What form does this ghost take?”
“It’s a woman – a very beautiful woman, except for the marks around her neck. Like she’s been strangled.”
“I see,” said Bernard. He couldn’t wait to tell Robbie about this new development. He was getting bored with Carl Fentiman and his father and this new ghost promised well. “Do you have any idea who she is?”
“Yes, well, that’s it. I’ve done some research and found out that my house was the scene of a murder about twenty years ago. A man murdered his wife and buried her in the garden.”
Bernard smiled. A juicy murder as well as a ghost. Well, he supposed they often went together. Just as he was thinking this, Anbolin burst into the room.
“Vicar, I’ve just been talking to Danton Fenti- oops, sorry to interrupt.” Mrs Harper then appeared behind her bearing a tray of coffee and drop scones. At least two disappeared into Anbolin’s pocket before she could put the tray down.
“Thank you, Mrs Aitch,” said Bernard, noting the fast disappearing food. “Put the tray there. Now, Anbolin, what do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?” If she took another scone he was prepared to tweak her nose.
“Nancy just told me who your visitor was – good morning, Mr Squires. You’re living in the house where Danton Fentiman murdered his wife, aren’t you?”
Mr Squires was completely taken aback. “H-how on earth did you know that?”
“Yes, how did you know that?” echoed Bernard.
Anbolin tapped the side of her nose and winked. “A little bird told me.”
“What does this ghost do?” asked Bernard when the coffee had been poured out, and the remaining scones distributed. Anbolin had two on her plate, as well as the two in her pocket.
“She just stands in the corner of the front room and strokes her neck and then points down at her finger.”
“Does she say anything?” asked Anbolin, munching her way through her second scone. Where the first one went so quickly was anybody’s guess.
“No. Just stands there sighing, pointing at the little finger of her left hand. Do you know what she wants?”
“Yes, young man, I do. She
wants to set the record straight. Her husband was hanged for her murder but he didn’t do it.”
“How can you be so sure? A jury found him guilty, after all.”
“Pooh! Juries – what do they know?”
Roger Squires looked at Bernard and smiled.
“I have been talking to the dead husband and he assures me he didn’t kill his wife. He didn’t say anything at the time because he didn’t care if he lived or died. His wife was dead, along with the baby she was carrying – his baby, although it wasn’t.”
Bernard was shocked now. “Do you mean that his wife was having an affair?”
Anbolin looked thoughtful. “Not an affair, exactly. It’s my opinion she was taken against her will.”
“Raped, you mean?” said Roger Squires. He was enjoying himself for the first time in ages. This old biddy seemed to know it all.
“Not exactly, I would imagine. She probably led the man on, but then she couldn’t stop him when she wanted to. It’s the old story.” Anbolin was thinking that she wouldn’t have stopped Burt Lancaster at any time in the proceedings, especially in those tights. Although, when she gave it further thought, they would rather defeat the purpose.
“Do you know who this man is, then? Is he the murderer?”
“All in good time, young man, all in good time. I know who murdered her, but I haven’t found a way yet of proving it.”
All three looked at each other and silently sipped their coffee. That, they knew, would be practically impossible after all this time.
Autumn, 1936
Stanley Mossop was fed up. Trying to sell shoes to people who didn’t want them was a thankless task at the best of times; today it was doubly difficult because it was raining not only felines and canines, but bovines and lupines as well. At least, that was how Stanley Mossop saw it. He raised his collar and humped his suitcase full of elegant ladies’ and gentlemen’s shoes along the street, splashing through the puddles, feeling decidedly irritable. He had been traipsing the streets all morning and so far not a nibble. He wouldn’t always be an itinerant salesman, he vowed to himself as he turned into Elsiemaud Road, Tooting. One day he would have a whole string of shoe shops across the country, starting in his hometown of Middlesbrough in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He would set up his ailing mother in a wonderful nursing home where she would be looked after by caring nurses around the clock. He hated his travelling life and having to be so far away from her so often.
He sniffed back a tear that was perilously close to trickling down his cheek and studied his watch. It was old and rather unreliable, but it was the only thing he had left of his father’s, and he couldn’t bear to part with it. He tapped its glass face, almost as if it was a very small, horizontal grandfather clock or barometer; but it still didn’t tell him the correct time. He calculated it must be almost one o’clock, so this would be his last call before breaking for a pint and a pork pie in the local hostelry.
As he opened the gate of number twelve, Elsiemaud Road, a rather harassed looking man emerged from the front door and started down the path towards him. Even though the man looked in a hurry, he wasn’t to be deterred. He’d never sell anything if he was put off by a prospective customer’s demeanour. He nervously raised his hat.
“G-good afternoon, sir,” he said as Robespierre Fentiman stopped and glared at him. “C-can I interest you in a pair of new shoes?”
“Can you what?” said the man rudely.
“A p-pair of new shoes, sir. They are of excellent quality, made by the finest cobblers in Yorkshire. The Royal family buy their shoes from him,” he lied.
“I haven’t the time nor the inclination for your shoes. Even if King Edward himself wears them. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a busy man.”
“Of c-course, sir. I’m sorry to have bothered you. What about your wife? Is she at home, sir?”
“The lady is not my wife, sir. I am just visiting.”
“I – I see.” Stanley Mossop sensed a story here. Was this an illicit lover escaping before the cuckolded husband returned? He liked to think so, anyway. Life was very dull for Stanley Mossop these days, so any little excitement he met along the way was always welcome. “Is – would – she be interested in a new pair of shoes?”
Robespierre smirked at the timid little salesman who looked extremely cold and wet. Robespierre himself had been out in the back garden for over an hour, digging furiously. But he was glad of the rain as it kept people out of their gardens and, consequently, nosey neighbours from peering over the fence. Most people, who weren’t at work, would be huddled by their firesides, he hoped, not in the least interested in what he was doing in the garden in the rain. But, he laughed to himself, any neighbours peering out of their windows wouldn’t see Robespierre Fentiman there; oh no. They would only see the master of the house, Danton Fentiman. Ha, ha.
“I think the lady of the house wouldn’t be at all interested in new shoes, my man,” he said, grinning. “Not the least little bit.”
“I – I thought most ladies liked new shoes, sir,” said Stanley Mossop. What a rude man, he thought. Handsome, though. No doubt the woman concerned was madly in love with him, besotted by the charm he could no doubt turn on when occasion demanded. Not now, of course.
“I’m sure they do,” said Robespierre, “but the lady in question is not in just now.”
Well, why didn’t he say so in the first place, thought Stanley Mossop, now more irritated than ever. “Oh well,” he said. “I’ll call another time, then.”
“You do that,” said Robespierre. And much good will it do you, he said under his breath.
Stanley Mossop entered the nearest pub after his encounter with Robespierre Fentiman and ordered a pint of stout and a ham sandwich. He took his provender to a table close to the fire and gratefully sat down. His feet were aching and he was chilled to the bone. He held out his hands to the roaring blaze and thought about the man he had seen coming out of number twelve Elsiemaud Road.
He wondered why people had to be so rude. He knew that, in his line of business, he ran the risk of meeting with brush offs at every turn, but he usually shrugged them off philosophically. But there was something about the man he had just met that had really got under his skin. He continued to wonder why he had upset him so much as he bit into his sandwich. He felt sorry for the woman in the case, that was for sure.
As Charmian Fentiman was at that precise moment lying under the freshly dug earth in her back garden, his sympathy for her wasn’t entirely misplaced.
Summer, 1956
Bernard and Robbie were sitting in the former’s study one late August evening, enjoying their usual tipple (Bernard a sweet sherry; Robbie a Glenfiddich whisky), when Bernard suddenly burst out.
“What were you doing with that barmaid at the pictures the other day, Robbie?”
Robbie, who was about to take a comforting sip of his whisky, looked at his friend shamefaced. However, he decided to brazen it out.
“What on earth makes you think I was at the pictures with Freda? Did someone tell you?”
Bernard gave him a slow smile. Poor Robbie. It wasn’t really any of his business who he went out with, but she was a married woman and Robbie had told him he wouldn’t see her again.
“I saw you with my own eyes,” said Bernard, the smile fading slightly.
Robbie sighed. “Oh,” he said. “The film was rubbish, wasn’t it? Apart from La Lollo, of course. And I can’t take Sid James seriously as he’s always trying to con Tony Hancock on the wireless. That’s what he does best. Now when I hear his voice I’ll see that blessed python wrapped round him all the time.”
“When you’ve quite finished talking about the wretched film, Robbie,” said Bernard, sipping his sherry. “I want to know what your intentions are towards this young lady.”
“You sound like a Victorian father, old boy,” said Robbie.
“I’m a vicar, if it hadn’t escaped your notice in all these years I’ve known you. It’s my duty to keep
you on the straight and narrow. Just because we’re friends, doesn’t mean you’re exempt from that. I can’t show any favouritism. It wouldn’t be right.”
Robbie stood up and fumbled along the mantelpiece for the matches to light his pipe. When he had done so, he spoke again. “All right, I know I’m being a cad and a bounder blah blah, but I really like her. She values my friendship, Bernie. She’s unhappy. She’s not in love with her husband at all and her father is horrible – not to mention her stepmother.”
Bernard was building up to dropping his bombshell, and now he couldn’t wait to tell him. “Don’t you know who this woman is, Robbie? This woman you’ve been dating and no doubt kissing in the back row of the pictures.”
Robbie eyed him quizzically. “Of course I know who she is! Probably much better than you do with your ability for remembering names, or lack of it.”
Bernard laughed. “You’re right there, Robbie. I’ve no idea what her name is now, but she was once called Mortimer. She is the daughter of the woman who was murdered twenty years ago. The one who was supposed to have been killed by that Carl Fentiman’s father. The ghost in his garden shed.”
Robbie’s jaw dropped. “It’s a small world and no mistake,” he said. “Are you sure? How do you know?”
“Anbolin, of course. She’s found all this out. She’s known who the Feathers barmaid is for quite a while. Proper Sherlock Holmes, that one.”
“I’ve always likened her more to Billy Bunter, the amount of food she puts away. Or Bessie Bunter, I should say.”
Bernard laughed. “Isn’t she though? But she’s a clever old bird, you know. She contacted the ghost of the real murderer and she’s told the police how to find the proof.” He went on to explain to his friend in detail all the facts as discovered by Anbolin Amery-Judge.