A Snapshot of Murder

by Frances Brody

  I wanted not to look but could not turn away. In the first photograph, Tobias was lying face down. In the second, I had somehow managed to turn him over, which I had no recollection of doing. I was kneeling over Tobias, a look of horror on my face. In the next, there was Edward, his mouth open in the moment that he called for people to stand back.

  ‘You began to take pictures with your own camera, when Mr Murchison had collapsed.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘For the record, I suppose. I thought it might be evidence.’

  ‘Was that thought uppermost in your mind when you decided to take the photographs?’

  ‘I can’t say it was. I work for a newspaper. There is sometimes a photograph that only one person could take, and on that day it was me. I took pictures of who was there, who was nearby.’

  ‘So you did,’ Marcus said calmly. He asked us all to identify ourselves in the photographs. We were all there, except Carine, or partially there. Rita’s head had been cut off. There were other people in the photographs whom we did not know, but Marcus had their names. ‘Does anyone have any other film that was taken since you arrived, any waiting to be developed?’

  No one did.

  ‘Miss Rufus.’ Marcus turned to Rita, not quite managing to hide his surprise at her appearance. Her silk was now looking rather crumpled. She wore the cardigan that Marcus had bought for me in Selfridges, and that I had passed on to Harriet. ‘Miss Rufus, you did not hand in a camera.’

  ‘Well no, I didn’t bother to bring one.’

  ‘But you came on a photographic outing.’

  ‘Yes, well it’s a weekend away isn’t it, with friends. I am a member. I’m entitled.’

  ‘Of course.’ Marcus moved on to the photographs I had taken. The landscapes were a disappointment. Whoever had developed the photographs had done a good job. I could not help but be pleased to see Harriet standing in the doorway at TopWithins, sharply focused and with the shadow of the wall adding a sense of atmosphere. The circle of photographers would have been more interesting, except that in the foreground of my picture I had Rita, who was pretending to hold a camera.

  Carine’s photographs were all of flowers in close detail, except for one. She had taken a picture of the camper in the wood.

  Derek said, ‘There’s the camper again! He’s in my photo too, taken after the … after Mr Murchison collapsed.’

  ‘He packed up his tent and left,’ Edward added. ‘Said his name was John and he had a long way to go. We thought it odd that he should leave in the evening. Most people would set off in the morning, if they had a long walk ahead.’

  ‘Did he give a last name?’ Marcus asked.

  Edward shook his head. ‘And you asked, didn’t you, Kate? Elisa says that they don’t keep a note of who stays, that there’s no reason to do so.’

  We all perked up. A stranger had slipped away.

  Marcus moved the photograph of the camper to one side.

  We were now looking at Edward’s photographs. There were not many. Edward’s gaze fixed on one. It was Elisa Varey, seated on a stool, milking a cow. He had taken it from the doorway of the milking parlour, with the sun behind him, and so the image included Edward’s own shadow. Apart from that, it was a beautiful shot. Edward had turned Elisa into Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

  ‘They have just one cow,’ Edward explained, ever the schoolmaster. ‘Because of the reservoir, farmers are discouraged from keeping any cows at all – otherwise the water might become contaminated.’

  Edward’s few remaining photographs were less successful. In the group shot, all heads were chopped off.

  ‘Have you been a member of the photographic society for long, Mr Chester?’ Marcus asked him.

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘But you wanted to come on the outing.’

  Edward became defensive. ‘No one told me that a person had to pass a proficiency test.’ Edward glanced at Derek. ‘About my clumsiness putting film in the camera, which somebody noticed …’ Edward rubbed at the palm of his hand. ‘I’m not as dextrous as I once was.’

  Marcus moved on to the final group of photographs.

  It was unsettling to look at the pictures Tobias had taken. His landscapes were well-framed. He caught an unusual cloud effect.

  He had lied about wanting to take a picture of the scene at the Brontë waterfall. One picture showed Carine close to Derek. Another caught her in an intimate moment with Edward.

  Rita said bitterly, ‘I expect he would have been pleased with these.’

  Constable Briggs hovered by the door. Marcus motioned him to come in. He did so, bringing pencils and several sheets of drawing paper which he set down on the table. He then proceeded to gather up the photographs.

  ‘I apologise if what I am going to ask of you sounds like a school exercise.’ Marcus gave a nod to the constable who placed four sheets of paper and four pencils around the long refectory table. ‘Mrs Shackleton, Miss Rufus, Mr Chester and Mr Blondell, I want each of you to provide me with a sketch of where you were standing yesterday afternoon when Mr Murchison died. Please include, to the best of your memory, where everyone else was too. If you remember any particular person who is not part of your group but was nearby, please include that person. If you cannot name them, give a number, and write a description. If you remember anything that was said in the moments before, please include that too.’

  The others looked at me.

  Rita said, ‘We’ve done this for Kate.’

  I took the sketches from my satchel, including the one I had done myself, and handed them to Marcus. ‘I thought it might be a good idea to do these while recollections were still fresh, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Marcus glanced at the sketches. ‘And they’re named and dated. Excellent. But I would still like you to do the drawing again now, along with a note of anything significant that you remember.’

  Rita sighed. She picked up a pencil. ‘I’m sure Kate would have given me ten out of ten for the last one.’

  The library at Ponden Hall became the interview room. Marcus had decided that he would speak to me first.

  He and I are fond of each other, in spite of our differences, and this was not the kind of meeting either of us would have wished for.

  ‘I’m sorry your outing ended so tragically, Kate.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘Whose idea was it to come here?’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘Ah, because …?’

  ‘Because of the importance of yesterday’s event, and because I wanted to see this place. Its connection with the Brontës made it seem perfect.’

  ‘Did anyone object or have other preferences?’

  ‘There were a number of different preferences but I was not the only person to be attracted to Haworth. Someone else had named Ponden Hall in the suggestion box.’

  ‘Do you know who?’

  ‘It may have been Carine Murchison, but I can’t be sure.’

  ‘Have you kept those suggestions?’

  ‘I believe I have, at home. It occurred to me that there might be some dissension at a future meeting and then I could justify the choice.’

  ‘Was anyone against this decision?’

  ‘According to Harriet, Tobias had it mind to stay at the Black Bull.’

  ‘I have been briefed about why he would have been reluctant to come here, though it was fifteen years ago, and at the time no one knew his surname.’

  ‘He would have hoped people would not connect him with the man who abandoned the elder Miss Varey.’

  Marcus looked at the sketches we had done for him. ‘Carine is not in any of the sketches.’

  ‘She felt unwell. It was a terrible crush. She wanted air.’

  ‘No one thought to go with her?’

  ‘I offered but she said no. It all happened so quickly.’

  ‘You took Harriet away from the scene immediately.’

  ‘She was upset.’

 
‘Your gloves had Tobias’s blood on them.’

  ‘I tried to help him.’

  ‘Yes. We have someone who was by the wall who saw that. Did it occur to you that you should go to Carine?’

  ‘I knew that Edward, Derek and Rita would take care of Carine. Harriet is my responsibility.’

  ‘Harriet disliked Murchison, his familiarity was unwelcome. She tried to keep her distance from him.’

  ‘When did you speak to her?’

  ‘I was briefed by the local sergeant. I know you are protective of Harriet, but I must ask.’ He scratched his neck. ‘Harriet practises ju-jitsu.’

  ‘She has been to half a dozen classes. You have been listening to Mrs Porter, who does not know Harriet at all. She suspects her on the grounds that Harriet, unusually for a girl her age, had the gumption to object when Tobias pinched her bottom. If every girl who had her bottom pinched committed murder, there would be a string of corpses from John o’ Groats to Land’s End.’

  ‘She is obsessed with death. She is strong enough to wield a knife.’

  ‘Are you doing this deliberately, so that I will come up with some suspect that you haven’t thought of?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘As for her being obsessed with death, I don’t need to remind you that Harriet found her father’s body.’

  ‘That was a long time ago. Children forget.’

  ‘It was no time at all and children do not forget. I think you may have forgotten that you chased your own phantoms and arrested Harriet’s mother.’

  ‘I am not accusing anyone. Sometimes one has to choose a roundabout way to arrive at the truth.’

  In that moment, I remembered why I had turned him down. ‘Marcus, Mrs Porter has a vivid imagination but that is not true of her husband or my parents. Do you imagine they wouldn’t know the difference between a girl who is in shock and a girl who is guilty of murder?’

  ‘You won’t mind my saying this Kate –’

  ‘Oh, I probably will.’

  ‘You sometimes overreact.’

  ‘Do you have any more questions for me?’

  ‘Did you know that Tobias carried a sword stick?’

  ‘No.’

  He was playing games now, checking whether I knew that there was a search going on for the real murder weapon.

  ‘Who might have known?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask.’ It occurred to me that the one person most likely to have known was Tobias’s wife. Carine was also the only person who did not feature in our sketches of who was there when Tobias died.

  He picked up Derek’s sketch. ‘Derek is friends with Harriet?’

  ‘They are close in age and both mad about talking pictures.’

  ‘Harriet holds a grudge against Tobias Murchison.’

  ‘Hardly anything as strong as a grudge.’

  ‘… and Derek – contradict me if you think I am wrong – is deeply attached to Mrs Murchison. That is the impression he has given investigating officers.’

  When I did not comment, he said, ‘Sometimes, people act together to commit a crime that neither would contemplate if left to their own devices.’

  Knowing his techniques, and that he can be rather provoking, I remained calm. ‘As a general observation there is probably truth in what you say. But suggesting that Harriet and Derek colluded in murder is pure poppycock, and you know it.’

  There was a tap on the door. Marcus rose and went to open it.

  It was Rita. ‘I’ve just thought of something and it might be important, about the blonde woman.’

  ‘One moment.’ Marcus closed the door.

  ‘I think we’re done for now, Kate, unless there’s anything else?’

  ‘Am I free to return home, and take Harriet?’

  ‘Not yet if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I do mind, very much.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry, but I have a job to do. Until I have questioned everyone, and made some progress, I want no one to leave the house.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Jim Sykes’s Mystery Tour

  When Jim Sykes suggested to Rosie that they take the dog out to the country, he thought it best to keep the destination a surprise, at least until they were well underway. This was not unusual. They would often take a jaunt on a Sunday. Rosie thought of these as Jim’s Mystery Tours. She soon realised that today they were going a much greater distance than a run out to Roundhay Park, or to Ilkley Moor.

  The dog, seated upright in the dickey seat, seemed curious about their destination. It breathed on the back of Rosie’s neck, sniffed her hair and slobbered on her collar. After several miles of this, Rosie began to ask questions.

  ‘The thing is, Rosie, you know Mrs Sugden was keeping an eye on the photographic studio over the weekend.’

  ‘Yes, she told me.’

  ‘I went up to see how she was getting on, and I found something of interest.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later, but Mrs Shackleton needs to know about it.’

  ‘Mrs Shackleton? What about the owners?’

  On the grounds that he had persuaded her to come out under false pretences, she winkled it out of him long before they went through Shipley. He tried to soften the news. ‘This body, it might have been in the cellar a very long time. It might have been there since the houses were built.’

  ‘Why disturb everybody?’ she asked. ‘Mrs Shackleton and Harriet are having a nice weekend away. Can you not leave them and the Murchisons in peace until tomorrow?’

  ‘Well, no, because I had to report it.’

  Rosie clammed up until Keighley, when she said, ‘You could have left it to the police.’

  But he saw that she was looking about her with interest. He took advantage of the lapse in her interrogations to volunteer a crumb of information. ‘You see, I have a feeling Mrs Shackleton needs to know today. Wouldn’t you want to know if you were off for the weekend and two lots of police turned up at your friends’ house and those friends were in your company?’

  Rosie turned her attention back to her husband. ‘First off, we don’t go away for weekends, second, it’s not Mrs Shackleton’s cellar, and third – no, I would not be in a hurry to know about a body in a cellar.’

  ‘I always like to have you with me, Rosie. You know I wouldn’t go anywhere on a Sunday without you, love.’

  She groaned. ‘Butter up your bread, not me.’

  But Sykes knew that she was pacified.

  He was glad he had brought an extra can of petrol because the road was long and winding. He had to stop and ask the way to Ponden Hall.

  It was a left turn onto a bumpy lane. At the bottom of the lane was a young police constable. He waved them down.

  ‘What’s your business, sir?’

  Aye, aye, Sykes thought. It can’t be every Sunday that there’s a police post at the end of a country lane. Having come all this way, he was determined to see Mrs Shackleton and did not relish parking the motor in the road and finding some roundabout way up to Ponden Hall. Rosie was at the limits of her tolerance.

  ‘It’s in connection with a matter that I’m assisting with. The officer in charge is Inspector Wallis of Leeds CID. I need to see a party who is staying at Ponden Hall.’

  The constable hesitated.

  Sykes sometimes felt at a disadvantage when people thought he looked like a police officer. Today that would work in his favour. There was the added advantage of a police dog overseeing proceedings from its vantage point of the dickey seat. Sykes climbed from the car, taking the cloth and the bottle of water that he kept handy, and began washing dead insects from the windscreen.

  While he washed and wiped, he kept up a chat with the young constable. ‘You never know where you’ll be in this line of work, eh? I expect you didn’t think you’d find yourself on duty here on a Sunday morning.’

  That was quite true, the constable agreed. He had expected to be playing cricket in Keighley. ‘Sorry to stop you, sir, but we’re being aske
d to tell anyone who is calling at Ponden Hall for cups of tea and cake to turn round and go to the tearooms in Stanbury.’

  So something was seriously wrong up at Ponden Hall, Sykes surmised. It must be if the serving of refreshments was banned.

  Sykes thanked him and drove on, negotiating a deep pothole in the lane.

  Rosie stared straight ahead. ‘You are going to find yourself in big trouble one of these days, Jim. And don’t come crying to me if this lane shreds your tyres.’

  ‘I didn’t say a word that was not perfectly true.’

  He had intended to stop the car a little short of Ponden Hall and walk up, just in case there was a more experienced constable on duty. The hall appeared sooner than expected. In spite of the supposed ban on tea and cakes, there were tables in the garden. A group of ramblers sat taking refreshment. There was already a car parked opposite the hall. He drove a little farther on, towards farm buildings.

  ‘Come on then, Rosie. If ramblers can have a cup of tea, so can we day trippers. Come on, Failure. You better come as well.’

  ‘Jim, don’t call the dog that.’

  They got out of the car and walked back to the hall.

  A tall fair young woman, her hair plaited and pinned up, was carrying a tray of empty cups back to the house. ‘Are you here for refreshments?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re only serving outside today.’

  The dog sniffed the ground. It sniffed the air. It sniffed the young woman’s feet.

  ‘Why’s that then?’ Sykes asked.

  ‘I’m not allowed to tell you, and I don’t have time. Find a seat and I’ll be with you directly.’

  ‘Oh and Miss!’

  The young woman turned. ‘I said I’ll be with you.’ She began to pick up empty cups and saucers and put them on the tray.

  Rosie and Sykes helped, passing them along. ‘Bit of a palaver for you, to and fro-ing from the house.’

  ‘At least we’re able to serve you. What’ll you have?’

  Rosie was quick off the mark ordering sandwiches, tea and cake.

  ‘Let me help.’ Sykes moved to take the tray from her, offering to carry it in. She was too quick for him and snatched the tray.

  ‘I know you’re busy, Miss, but I’d like a word with Mrs Shackleton who’s staying here.’