Troubled Waters

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

‘Naturally I couldn’t press her for the exact wording. The first three seemed to be variations on the theme that this house was an ideal base for going down unobserved and yanking up the warning notice on the old bridge. The fourth was more specific, and asked what she was doing at five past six in the evening of April the twenty-third, when the writer claimed to have rung this number and got no answer. This one rattled my wife badly. Apparently she had gone into the vegetable garden to get some fresh parsley and actually heard the telephone ringing just at this time. She hurried back, but whoever it was rang off just as she got to the house. The fifth letter, which came this morning soon after I had left for Littlechester, suggested that it would be better for me, and our children, if my wife made away with herself.’

  Silence descended as Pollard mentally reviewed this information. One of the French windows swung inwards in a light breeze. Toye got up unobtrusively and fastened it back. A sudden outpouring of song came from a thrush perched on a rhododendron bush.

  ‘Once again,’ Pollard said, ‘all this points to someone living in, or very near this village. Do you know of anyone who is hostile to your wife and almost certainly unbalanced into the bargain?’

  ‘No,’ Rodney Kenway-Potter replied, without hesitation. ‘She is a charming and genuine person, as you will see for yourself, and does a lot for Woodcombe without the Lady Bountiful touch. It’s fair to say that she’s much liked. Loved in some cases. Of course we’ve got a few families with leftish views who are anti-gentry on principle, but I’ve never felt that they’re personally hostile to me or my family. The idea of any member of them sending my wife those letters is just fantastic.’

  ‘I’d like to ask you about Mrs Kenway-Potter’s general state of physical and mental health lately,’ Pollard said, after a further pause. ‘Has she been suffering from depression, for instance?’

  ‘Until this Tuke business she seemed absolutely her normal self. Of course, time passes. She is fifty-one: at the so-called “difficult age” for women, and has been apt to get tired more easily than she did ten years ago, but nothing more than that. The row over the fishing syndicate with the wretched Bolling didn’t bother her unduly, although it has been a damned nuisance. But young Tuke’s death upset her badly. You see, it was the second time there’d been a fatal accident on our property.

  ‘Six years ago a young boy from the village fell out of a tree in the woods not far from the house. He fractured his skull and was dying when found. He was trespassing, poor little blighter, and the coroner emphasised that we were absolutely blameless, but naturally we were very distressed. So when the Tuke disaster happened, again on our property, you’ll understand how we felt. Once more the coroner went to some length to say categorically that we had taken all proper precautions and were not at fault in any way, but you can imagine how upsetting it was.

  ‘However, by the middle of May my wife had braced up and was carrying on with her various activities, and I had no qualms about going up to London for the inside of a week to deal with arrears of business. I should explain that the family owns Woodland Hotels. I went up on May the twelfth, leaving early by car, and the first anonymous letter arrived after I’d left. I rang my wife several times and thought she seemed a bit preoccupied, but assumed that she was catching up on things as I was myself. When I got home again on May the seventeenth I found her decidedly edgy and quite unlike herself. The obvious conclusion was that we both needed a good holiday, and I tried, not very successfully, to interest her in plans for going abroad in early June.

  ‘Then, as you know, a letter went to the Littlechester Evening News, and by last weekend we were being subjected to a frankly outrageous invasion by newsmen and photographers. My wife took refuge indoors and I kept them at bay as best I could. By Wednesday evening most of them had gone off, and I persuaded her to come out in the car and have a drink in Littlechester for a change of scene.

  ‘By this time it was common knowledge that the Yard had been asked to look into Tuke’s death, and the prospect of the whole thing being reopened seemed to upset her. You’ll remember we saw you in the bar of the Ring and Crazier, and she was unwilling for me to make contact with you as I felt I should do. She also had been reluctant for me to go to the committee this morning, in case the Press returned, but later yesterday evening she changed her mind and said I obviously ought to go...

  ‘Look here, Superintendent, don’t let’s beat about the bush. It sticks out a mile that either my wife or I could have taken up that warning notice in the late afternoon or early evening of April the twenty-third, and whoever made that telephone call is trying to prove that she did. What the hell can we do to convince you that neither of us had ever set eyes on young Tuke until that brief encounter in the Green Man, that morning? I suppose you’ll want to question her?’

  ‘Not, of course, until we have her doctors’ permission,’ Pollard replied soothingly, ‘and of course we shall try to cut down the interview to the minimum. You probably don’t realise that enquiries made both here and in the States have failed to find any link between you and your wife on one hand, and Edward Tuke on the other. I know it’s irritating to be asked to repeat oneself, but it would help us to get a clear picture of exactly what happened in the afternoon and evening of April the twenty-third if we could just run through the statement you made to Inspector Deeds. We’ve got a copy here.’

  ‘Of course I’ll go through it again if it would be helpful. Some point might strike a fresh mind coming to it, I suppose.’

  Toye found the statement in the file, and at a nod from Pollard read it aloud. The Kenway-Potters had arrived home from luncheon with Rear-Admiral Slade and his wife in Marycott at about three-thirty. Mrs Kenway-Potter had gone up to her room and rested until about four-thirty, when she brought out a tea tray to her husband who had been sitting in the garden with the newspapers. At about five-thirty she had gone indoors to begin preparations for supper, and he had taken the dog for a walk on the Marycott road. A friend, John Scott, who lived in the next village beyond Marycott and commuted daily to Littlechester, had overtaken him and drawn up. They had chatted for about five minutes before he went on and Rodney Kenway-Potter retraced his steps. After going on to Lower Bridge for a look at the river, he returned home. His wife was having a bath and changing, and Mrs Boggis, their domestic helper, was functioning in the kitchen. He had gone upstairs himself to change into a clean shirt, and come down to assemble drinks. From then on they had waited, at first patiently and finally with some annoyance for Edward Tuke. When he had still not turned up at eight o’clock, Rodney had rung firstly the Green Man and then James Fordyce, before going out to check up on the paths leading to Old Grim. He had discovered Edward Tuke’s body at about half-past eight, dragged it clear of the water and run to the Green Man for help.

  As he finished reading, Toye looked up.

  ‘Just one point, sir. When you went down to take a look at the river, did you see any sign of Mr Bolling?’

  ‘Never set eyes on the old devil. That reminds me...’

  ‘May we come back to Bolling in a moment?’ Pollard said. ‘Is Mrs Boggis the lady we met outside the house this morning in such distress?’

  ‘Yes, and thank you for being so decent to her. She’s been with the family ever since she left school at fourteen.’

  ‘Is she resident here?’

  ‘Yes and no. She married one of the gardeners, and when he died and my father wanted the cottage for another man he made a small flat for her over the stables. She comes in every day from nine to twelve, except Fridays and Sundays, and helps out if we entertain in the evenings. She’s back on an even keel now that I’ve convinced her that my wife is going to be all right. Will you want to see her?’

  ‘I think we’d better have a word with her off the record. Would tomorrow morning be possible?’

  ‘No problem. She’ll be doing her usual stint in the house here between nine and twelve. I’ll tell her to expect you. I shan’t be around myself. Our daughter is co
ming down from London on an early train, and I’m meeting her at the station and taking her straight to St Kilda’s...’

  ‘You were going to say something about Mr Bolling, I think?’ Pollard said.

  ‘What I feel like saying would turn the air blue,’ Rodney Kenway-Potter replied, getting up and going to his desk. ‘Just read this. It came by the first post today, after I’d gone to Littlechester. I’ve only just got round to opening my mail.’

  Pollard read the letter of which Leonard Bolling had given him an accurate summary early in the day.

  ‘Will you bring an action against him for malicious damage?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I’m not giving him the satisfaction of getting me into court again. To be honest, the longstone doesn’t mean a thing to me. It’s rather a bind to have to let the public go up and look at it, but one can’t be very well refuse, and outrage the archaeologists. With all the vandalism that goes on these days the fewer people who wander about one’s property, the better.’

  ‘You’ve had it re-erected, I see,’ Pollard commented.

  ‘I felt I had to. Quite apart from the archaeologist johnnies, it’s a sort of status symbol to the village. If Bolling’s got any sense at all he’ll clear out before it gets round that he dug the thing up. He’s disliked enough as it is.’

  ‘Harking back for a moment to the information you gave Littlechester about your conversation with Tuke in the pub, did he strike you as an obsessional sightseer, as one can fairly say some Americans are when they come over here?’

  ‘He certainly seemed to have enjoyed seeing the stock sights and going around, but I should have thought him too intelligent to rush about covering as much ground as possible.’

  ‘Did it surprise you to learn that he’d gone up to see the longstone?’

  Rodney Kenway-Potter suddenly grinned. ‘Now you put it to me, yes. You haven’t met Mrs Rawlings, yet, have you? She’s quite knowledgeable on local history, but once she starts on folklore she’s apt to hand out the most awful twaddle as solid fact. I felt a bit conscious-stricken at letting her loose on Tuke, but my wife and I had to hurry off to lunch with the Slades. I thought he might be amused by her yarn about Old Grim and a boss in the church. I wish to God I’d never done it, or asked the poor chap up to supper that night. To answer your question, I shouldn’t have expected him to want to see the longstone after listening to her tripe about it.’

  ‘Well, thank you for being so co-operative, Mr Kenway-Potter,’ Pollard said, getting to his feet. ‘We’ll now take ourselves off. All things considered, I imagine you’ll welcome your change of neighbours at Bridge Cottage in the near future.’

  He thought, but was not sure, that there was an almost imperceptible pause before Rodney Kenway-Potter agreed heartily, adding that James Fordyce was a most awfully good chap.

  Clearly Woodcombe kept early hours. The Rover passed along the deserted village streets where only a few lights showed in upper windows and the Green Man presented a blank dark facade. As Toye halted at the road junction the church clock striking eleven was distantly audible. He turned right for Littlechester and the car swept effortlessly up the long hill through the woods. Pollard watched the flat theatrically scenic effect of an endless succession of tree trunks and hedgerows caught in the glare of the headlights, while allowing his thoughts to assemble and reassemble without conscious direction.

  ‘Let’s pull in for a bit,’ he said suddenly as they came out of the woods on to the crest of the rise.

  Toye drew up by the gate where, six weeks earlier, Edward Tuke had leant, drinking in the landscape and planning his future. Pollard let down the window and breathed in the soft air redolent with warm moist earth and young bracken. There was still a faint luminosity in the midsummer sky, and on the far horizon a harsher light indicated the city of Littlechester. It was a still night and the enfolding silence absolute.

  ‘Well, one thing’s a dead cert,’ he said after an interval, ‘Edward Tuke wasn’t a premarital indiscretion of Mrs Kenway-Potter’s. That possibility’s ruled out by the official statement of his parentage and date of birth that came through from the States by way of the F.B.I. and the Yard. He was born over there in ’52, and the K-Ps were married in ’50. Whatever made her try to kill herself it wasn’t the prospect of her having had an illegitimate kid coming out.’

  Toye agreed. ‘And no motive you can see for her husband to team up with her over getting rid of Tuke, was there?’

  ‘It’s occurred to me that there is another possibility, you know,’ Pollard said meditatively. ‘Suppose Mrs K-P had an illegitimate child by Tuke Senior before he emigrated in ’48. She’s fifty-one now, her husband says, so she’d have been about eighteen when he went. Did he slope off and leave her in the lurch? Her people could have hushed it up and had the child adopted, and then thankfully married her off to her cousin in ’50. Of course, young Tuke wouldn’t have identified her under her married name, but his name could have given her a nasty jolt. And there might have been a resemblance to his father, too.’

  ‘You’d hardly think old Tuke would have told his son about a woman he’d seduced, right down to her name,’ Toye objected.

  ‘In theory Edward Tuke could have got on to it in some other way. He was his aunt’s sole legatee, and must have gone through her personal papers and belongings after she died. He might have come across some reference to an older illegitimate nephew.’

  Toye remained dubious. ‘The way people carry on these days,’ he said, ‘you’d hardly expect a woman in the Kenway-Potter class to commit murder or suicide because she’d slipped up over thirty years ago.’

  ‘The moral climate’s changed quite a lot since 1950, but she’d probably feel that the story would disgrace the K-P set-up if it got out. And Edward Tuke’s reason for coming to the U.K. was to research into his parents’ history. It could have come out. If there was a child the birth would have been registered. And who...’ Pollard’s voice trailed off suddenly. There was such a lengthy pause that Toye shifted his position.

  ‘I think it’s unlikely,’ Pollard said at last, ‘that if Mrs K-P had an illegitimate child before marrying K-P she would have told him about it. From her local commitments she seems to have a sense of status, and he certainly has. He mightn’t have been prepared to marry her if he’d known about a previous lapse. Has he found out through getting interested in his family history? And if so, doesn’t it seem possible that Fordyce knows about it too? He’s been teaching Kenway-Potter the ropes over making searches. They’re buddies: wouldn’t they have decided to keep quiet? And then, out of the blue, young Edward Tuke turns up...’

  ‘Do you mean,’ Toye asked, after digesting this idea, ‘that they might both have been in on his death?’

  ‘An unholy alliance between them would have made the whole business much more workable, wouldn’t it? Fordyce could have persuaded Tuke to go up to the longstone. Said it really was a chance to see an outstanding prehistoric monument. We know he showed him the way up. But instead of coming straight home he could have nipped along the river bank and removed the notice. Meanwhile Kenway-Potter leaves the Marycott road, cuts through the woods, meets Tuke at the longstone, chats, advises him to go on up to the top to see the view and shows him the shortcut down to the bridge. Then he heads for the Manor, arriving in time to spruce up for Tuke’s arrival at seven, possibly going down the road to Lower Bridge first, as he said.’

  The two sat in silence, contemplating the new possibility.

  ‘We must get a much firmer grasp of facts before taking any action on this,’ Pollard said. ‘Timing’s tight, for one thing. K-P’s alleged meeting with his commuter pal must be checked. There’s a lot of work ahead, but I think we’ll stick to the plan of seeing the Boggis woman first tomorrow.’

  ‘Before we tackle Fordyce?’ Toye asked in surprise.

  ‘Yeah. For one thing we don’t want to alert K-P. We said we’d be going along to see Mrs Boggis tomorrow morning so we’d better stick to it. For another
we may get some quite unexpected gen from her. She’s been with the family man and boy and I bet there’s precious little she doesn’t know about them. We’ll get her talking — that probably won’t be difficult — and try to steer the conversation towards useful topics. Whether Rodney K-P and James Fordyce see a lot of each other, for instance. But you know it’s a depressing thought that quite apart from finding out who directed Edward Tuke to that bridge with criminal intent, there’s the problem of who’s behind these anonymous letters. Who wrote the ruddy things? If Kenway-Potter and/or Fordyce engineered Tuke’s death, who has it in for Mrs K-P quite independently? Is there some other local person who had a link with Tuke, and if so, who the hell is it? The incontrovertible evidence that he was born in the States and never left there until he came over here last March is damned inconvenient, isn’t it?’

  Toye agreed. They relapsed into silence again. An owl suddenly hooted from the woods behind them. Pollard leant out of the window of the car, cupped his hands and replied with such a faithful imitation that the usually impassive Toye exclaimed in astonishment. After a couple of moments the owl replied on a note of suspicion and annoyance.

  ‘Exactly how I’m feeling myself,’ Pollard commented. ‘I learnt that trick from an old chap in the village when I was a kid. Come on, we’d better head for base and get some sleep. I’m pinning my hopes on Boggis being garrulous tomorrow. Better still, indiscreet.’

  Chapter Six

  When Pollard woke the next morning his thoughts quickly reverted to James Fordyce and the conversation with Toye the night before. Curious, he reflected, that one wasn’t struck more forcibly by the obvious. After all, Fordyce was the one person in Woodcombe who was known to have previous contacts with Edward Tuke. After the Boggis interview, he decided, they would go on to his bungalow. Anything that came up about the chap’s relations with Kenway-Potter must be taken further, if possible. And they would go over Fordyce’s statement on his dealings with Tuke in detail. Picking up his watch from the bedside table Pollard saw that it was already a quarter past eight; a perfectly reasonable time at which to ring someone about an important appointment. A local telephone directory was provided and he sat on the side of the bed and dialled the Fordyce number. A woman’s voice, of the type which he classified as ‘bright’, answered.