Troubled Waters

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘Thanks for a masterly run through,’ he said. ‘You people have absolutely nothing to blame yourselves about. You took all the obvious and proper steps to establish who Tuke was and exactly how he died. Without third-degree methods you couldn’t force the sozzled football fans to admit they’d chucked the “Bridge Unsafe” notice into the river. The “Death by Misadventure” verdict when the inquest was resumed for the second time was the only possible one. No one could have foreseen the anonymous letters which followed, nor the publicity they sparked off in the Press and through the media.’

  The Chief Constable stated his news on multinational consortia with special reference to Integrated Oils, the late Edward Tuke’s employers, and their apparent ability to poke their noses into a member country’s properly and legally conducted affairs. There were assenting noises.

  ‘I know it’s all in there,’ Pollard said, indicating a formidably bulky file, ‘but may I recap briefly to clear my mind? Here goes. Edward Tuke, aged twenty-eight and employed by Integrated Oils, comes over to the London office on a specific job. It is his first visit to the U.K. He takes the opportunity of contacting Mr James Fordyce of Woodcombe, an established genealogist, who had been recommended to him by a pal in the U.S., with a view to getting his family history traced. He finds that Mr Fordyce has been delayed in London, and won’t be able to see him before 5 p.m. He books a bed at the Green Man, the village pub, and runs into Mr Kenway-Potter of Woodcombe Manor in the bar, who asks him up to supper that evening. He spends the afternoon sightseeing in the city here, and turns up for his appointment with Mr Fordyce at 5 p.m. He leaves soon after six o’clock to have a look at a prehistoric monument at the top of the Manor Woods before going on to his supper fixture with the Kenway-Potters at seven. He never turns up for this, and is eventually found drowned in the river which runs through the Manor grounds, apparently having tried to take a shortcut across it to the car park of the Green Man to pick up his bus. A conspicuous notice, partly blocking the entrance to the footbridge he used and saying that it was unsafe had been pulled up and chucked into the river, just like the “Private Fishing” notice further upstream where the football fans had rampaged the night before. Obvious conclusion: the fans dunnit. Only they just won’t come clean, either about the warning notice or the aforesaid prehistoric monument, a hefty longstone found prone on the ground on Friday, April the twenty-fifth ... Have I got it right so far?’

  The C.C. and the local C.I.D. officers assured him that he hadn’t missed a thing.

  ‘Right. Well, I suppose we might call everything up to this point Stage One,’ Pollard went on. ‘Stage Two opens with the resumed inquest on May the second, and the unsatisfactory but inevitable verdict of Death by Misadventure. There is then a lull until Tuesday May the thirteenth, when you people get an anonymous letter telling you to find out who it was in Woodcombe who had had it in for Tuke. A week later another arrives, saying that Woodcombe people aren’t going to stand for a coverup. All the signs are that the letters are from a joker or a crackpot. Then, on May the thirtieth a letter of similar type arrives at the office of the Littlechester Evening News. The whole affair becomes a story to the national Press and the media, and a burst of paternalism towards young Tuke surges in the breast of Integrated Oils, his grandiose and influential employers...’

  ‘Leading,’ cut in the Chief Constable, ‘to Stage Three: The Yard Takes Over. No hard feelings towards you personally, Mr Pollard, I assure you. We’re flattered at someone of your status being sent down. No need to say that we’ll lay on any help you ask for.’

  ‘I just happened to be unemployed at the moment. That’s all there was to it. And at the moment at least it certainly isn’t a takeover. Just a second opinion on whether there’s anything to take. As to your help, we’ll need lashings of it. Our local knowledge is nil at the moment. Would it be possible for you to lay on an escorted tour of Woodcombe and the immediate neighbourhood?’

  ‘No problem. Inspector Deeds here is your man. He’s done most of the actual fieldwork. I suggest that he drives you over to Woodcombe when you’ve had something to eat. You won’t want to patronise the village pub and be surrounded by goggling natives.’

  ‘That’ll be fine. Many thanks. Just before we break up, there’s one more point I’d like to raise. Am I right that no trace has been found of any contact between Tuke and a local resident except what appears to have been a correspondence with Mr Fordyce on genealogical matters?’

  ‘Not a vestige of one,’ the Chief Constable replied. ‘The correspondence with Fordyce is in the file. He was recommended to Tuke by a friend in the States and had never met him until April the twenty-third. There seems no reason to disbelieve Fordyce’s statement about this, and in any case it’s borne out by the correspondence.’

  ‘What sort of a chap is Fordyce? I know it’s all in the file but I’d like your personal reaction.’

  ‘He’s fifty-five, a very decent scholarly punctilious sort of chap. He was in the Inland Revenue Office here for about fifteen years and lived in a flat in the city. He married a girl quite a lot younger than himself. She’s about thirty-five now. They moved out to a bungalow in Woodcombe five years ago when he came into some money and retired early. Genealogy’s always been his hobby and he’s made it a second career. I can’t imagine him being involved in any funny business.’

  ‘Tuke was invited to supper by a Woodcombe resident though, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but there seems no doubt that it was just the outcome of that casual encounter in the Green Man, the village pub. Just a touch of Lord of the Manor there, don’t you think, Super?’

  Superintendent Newman agreed. ‘Mr Kenway-Potter lives at Woodcombe Manor, Mr Pollard,’ he explained. ‘The Big House, you might say. He’s a public-spirited friendly type, and it would be just in character for him to offer a bit of hospitality to a young foreigner turning up out of the blue.’

  ‘He’s the fourth generation of Kenway-Potters to own the Manor and the estate,’ the Chief Constable added. ‘His career’s been entirely orthodox: public school, army for the last years of the war, agricultural college, and then home to run the estate and be a director of the family hotel chain. Plenty of lolly but doesn’t live it up. Married a distant cousin. Two grown-up children. Not a whisper of a dubious connection with someone in the States or anywhere else.’

  Inspector Deeds had remained discreetly silent during the conference unless addressed by his superiors. However, Pollard had noted that he missed nothing. He was not much above regulation height but gave the impression of a physical toughness and an active mind. Early thirties, Pollard decided, and destined for higher things. He drove out to Woodcombe with expertise coupled with just a dash of panache. For once Toye, whose passion was cars and everything connected with them and who usually suffered agonies when driven, made no disparaging comments later. The police car drew up smartly just beyond Upper Bridge and the three men got out. Pollard stood for a few moments contemplating the stiles leading to the fishermen’s, paths on both banks of the river, and two PRIVATE FISHING notices just inside them. These were in bold black lettering on white boards secured to posts driven into the ground. He saw that about fifty yards downstream the Honey made a slight curve to the right, and that the disused footbridge and its warning notice were not visible from where he was standing.

  ‘Inspector,’ he said suddenly, ‘do you personally think that the football fans pulled up that notice further down?’

  As he spoke he looked round and met a steady gaze from a pair of intelligent grey eyes.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I’d like to hear your reasons.’

  ‘Well, sir, to begin with all of them were Littlechester lads, and none of them had relatives or friends living here in Woodcombe, so they wouldn’t be likely to know the place well. As you can see for yourself, the warning notice is out of sight from here, and it was half-past eleven and a dark night. To my mind there’s reasonable doubt that any of them knew the foo
tbridge and the notice existed, and they all swear they didn’t. Then they were all under the influence. It came out through counter-checking their statements that three of them were dead drunk and never got out of the cars. The others went on the rampage, drinking and chucking bottles and whatever into the river and two of them were pushed in by the others. They admit that they had no end of a job pulling these notices down and chucking them in. I can’t believe that after all this they’d have started off in the state they were in along that path or up to the top looking for more damage to do, and in the dark, too. Much more of a lark to make for the village and stir things up there. And when it came to questioning them you couldn’t shake a single one of ’em. Except for the three who never got out of the cars they all pleaded guilty to being drunk and disorderly, and to causing wilful damage. But each one swore ten times over that he’d never gone more than a few yards beyond this bridge. So as far as Mr Tuke’s fall went we had to leave it at that, and the verdict was Death from Misadventure.’

  ‘Thanks, Inspector. That’s all very clear and helpful,’ Pollard said thoughtfully. ‘Tell me one other thing. Are these two paths along the banks rights of way?’

  ‘Not in the legal sense, sir. The Woodcombe Manor Estate owns both banks and the fields on the righthand side of the river up to the gardens of the village houses. We asked Mr Kenway-Potter if the paths were used much by walkers and the village people, and he said no, but that he’d no objection so long as they didn’t disturb anybody who was fishing or do any damage. Sometimes he gets requests for parties to go up and see the ancient monument affair up near the top of the woods. The path starts just a short distance along the left bank there.’

  ‘And that’s where Mr Tuke was last seen as far as we know, by Mr Fordyce, the genealogist who’d brought him along to show him the way?’

  ‘That’s correct, sir.’

  ‘Right. Let’s go up ourselves.’

  It was an oppressively warm afternoon and the path was little more than a stony track which became steeper as it gained height. Pollard was soon convinced that the football fans could never have made it in their sozzled state, even if they had discovered in the darkness the place where it started up from the river bank. Inspector Deeds who was leading the way bore left round a fine full-grown oak and they emerged into a clearing.

  The longstone had been re-erected. It was a rough grey granite column about ten feet high. At about three-quarters of the distance from its base it had a curious twist which gave the eerie impression that it was struggling to wrench itself out of the ground, while its weathered top inclined slightly forward. Toye, a staunch evangelical churchman, surveyed it disapprovingly and remarked that anybody wanting to see a heathen idol wouldn’t need to go any further. Inspector Deeds contributed the information that there used to be a lot of superstition about the stone, and that he had got the impression that there were still some people in Woodcombe who wouldn’t be keen on coming near it after dark.

  ‘Well, somebody didn’t jib at coming,’ Pollard said. ‘I can’t believe the job was done in daylight. Digging the thing out must have been a pretty hefty business too, which suggests an able-bodied person.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, sir, toppling it would be much easier than you’d think. I came over as soon as Mr Kenway-Potter phoned in to report the damage, him thinking naturally enough that it might link up with the football fans and indirectly with Mr Tuke’s death. I was surprised to see that the stone hadn’t been bedded deep into the ground. It stands in a hole only about eighteen inches deep and it’s kept upright by being packed in tight with bits of rock. You’ll find a photo in the file. All anybody’d have to do would be to cut away the turf round the base and loosen the rock packing on the downhill side. When you’d got enough of ’em out the big chap would begin to heel over, and a good shove would topple it, seeing how hefty it is. And Mr Kenway-Potter said that it had developed a bit of list downhill, anyway.’

  Pollard and Toye both expressed their astonishment. Toye, who was practical and good with his hands, asked what would be the best tools for the job.

  ‘Well,’ Inspector Deeds replied, ‘I’d clear the turf with a spade, and loosen the packing stones with a pickaxe by choice till I could get ’em out by hand. But if you’d all the time in the world I reckon you could manage with a trowel.’

  ‘Whoever it was wouldn’t have wanted to be around any longer than he was obliged,’ Pollard said. ‘Given a spade and a pickaxe, how long would it have taken, do you think?’

  ‘Say an hour, sir, for a chap used to handling tools of that sort, and double that if he wasn’t. And you’d need light, of course. First light comes early towards the end of April: well before folks get moving, so time shouldn’t have been much of a problem. And nobody much comes up here as a general rule, except Bill Morris, the forester.’

  ‘When do you think it was done?’

  ‘Almost certainly in the early morning of Wednesday, April the twenty-third, sir. It would have been a good time to choose because Mr and Mrs Kenway-Potter were away for the night of April the twenty-second, staying with friends in Littlechester to be on time for the County Court hearing next morning, and nobody would be sleeping in the Manor. You could come along the drive with no risk of being seen or heard. According to a Mrs Rawlings, a lady living in the village who’s keen on prehistoric remains and whatever, the stone was upright on the early evening of the twenty-second. She came up for a stroll and to have a look at it after her tea. The damage wasn’t discovered until early on the Friday morning when Bill Morris came this way.’

  Pollard asked if there were any point from which one could get a good general view of the village, and Inspector Deeds led the way to an outcrop of bare rock on the west of the slope above the clearing. They climbed this and stood gazing round them. Regretfully Pollard turned his back on a superb panorama to the north and concentrated on the layout of Woodcombe below. Under the Inspector’s guidance his eyes moved from the roof and chimneys of the Manor to those of Bridge Cottage. He learnt that this was the residence of Mr Leonard Bolling, the plaintiff and loser in the fishing syndicate case, and that it had been put up for sale even before the court hearing. He raised an eyebrow but made no comment. The post office-cum-village store, the village hall, the church, the Green Man with its car park adjacent to the churchyard, the Fordyces’ bungalow and the junction of the village street with the main road were successively pointed out.

  ‘Fine,’ Pollard said, after a long hard look. ‘It’s all quite clear in my mind now. O.K. by you, Toye? Right. I don’t think we need actually go through Woodcombe, Inspector, but I’d like to retrace Tuke’s route down to the bridge before we go back to Littlechester. Presumably he didn’t go down the way he came up, or he would have gone round by the road. It’s no distance to the Green Man car park, is it?’

  Inspector Deeds agreed that it was not much longer than by the shortcut Edward Tuke was apparently trying to take.

  ‘There’s a track branching off on the left from the one we came up by which takes you to the Manor,’ he said, ‘and a little way along it there’s one on the right going straight down to the footbridge. They’re very little used these days, and easy to miss, you’d think, especially the one to the bridge. It looked to us as though Mr Tuke may have stayed up on the top longer than he meant to, enjoying the view. Then he could have come to, and realised that he was running late for his supper date, and thought that he’d cut straight down to the footbridge — you can just get a glimpse of it on the way down — and cross the meadow to the Green Man. He may not even have used the two tracks: just made a beeline for the bridge through the wood. It’s mostly beech around here and there’s not much undergrowth. He’d have been in a hurry, and with it getting a bit dimpsey and the notice gone, it’s easy to see how he might dash on to the bridge and never notice the gap.’

  ‘There’s another possible explanation, of course,’ Pollard remarked. ‘He met somebody up here who deliberately misdirected him.’


  The three detectives looked at each other in questioning silence.

  ‘The footbridge itself next, I think,’ Pollard said.

  Inspector Deeds led the way down by the little-used tracks to the single-span bridge. He had learnt from Mr Kenway-Potter, he told Pollard, that it had been built in the middle of the eighteenth century to provide a shortcut on foot from the Manor to the parish church and the village. Its collapse not long after the First World War had been mainly due to the unsuitability of the site. While the north bank provided a foundation of hard rock, the ground on the south side was much softer, and in the course of time the south pier had started to settle. This process was aided by the gradual deterioration of the mortar used in the brick facing which eventually affected the keystone of the arch. Occasional serious floods brought down fallen trees and other debris which battered the piers, and eventually the southern part of the arch had collapsed into the river.

  ‘Mr Kenway-Potter said that his father didn’t see any point in rebuilding the bridge now that it was quicker to go round by car, but, as a precaution, warning notices that nobody could miss were fixed at both ends,’ Inspector Deeds concluded.

  Pollard studied the notice board facing him which partly blocked access to the bridge. It was about three feet square and mounted on a post for which a socket had been made. Bold black capitals on a white ground stated BRIDGE COLLAPSED. DO NOT CROSS. He tried to pull it up and found that he could manage this with a good hard tug.

  ‘Is this the one that was chucked into the water?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. The lettering wasn’t damaged as the paint’s waterproof. There’s an identical notice over there on the other side with its back to us. It’s been fixed to block the way to anybody coming up the steps which lead down to the path over the meadow. The ground level’s a lot lower on that side, as you can see.’