Blackstone fell, p.10
Blackstone Fell, page 10
Nell gathered that bed rest was Carrodus’s customary prescription for ailments of all descriptions, but he was right about the weather. She could feel the cold seeping into her bones.
‘I’m not…’
With a wave of the hand, he moved away. ‘Good to see you again, Miss Grace. Forgive me, but I must dash. Remember what I said about resting up. Cheeribye!’
He escaped before she could insist that, limp or no limp, she felt as fit as a fiddle. In truth, the ankle was giving her hell. After going back indoors, she treated herself to a medicinal brandy before flopping back on the bed. Two minutes later she was fast asleep.
*
‘I never knew you were a football fan,’ Jacob said.
He and Detective Inspector Philip Oakes detached themselves from the raucous mob. Fifty thousand supporters were swarming out of Highbury stadium onto the streets of north London. They’d just seen the Gunners share the spoils in a hard-fought derby match against the Hammers. The raging passions of the contest were hardly captured by the prosaic score-line: Arsenal 1, West Ham United 1.
‘I like to lose myself among the masses on the terraces. I find the anonymity intoxicating.’
Oakes was tall, thin, and in his thirties. A conveniently nondescript appearance enabled him to melt into any crowd. A passer-by who spared his malleable features a second glance would be hard pressed to recall anything other than a sharp chin and thoughtful brown eyes. Criminals frequently underestimated him, a mistake that had condemned more than one man to the gallows.
‘Makes a change from being on duty, eh?’
‘I’ll say. Escape from superiors wanting me to solve cases with one wave of a magic wand.’ Oakes tightened the knot in his red and white scarf. ‘An afternoon of freedom. Ninety minutes to bellow about the players’ mistakes, the opponents’ skulduggery, and the referee’s shameful parentage.’
‘Honours even,’ Jacob said. ‘In the end it was a fair result.’
Oakes pointed to two groups of rival supporters berating each other on the opposite side of the road. Any minute now, they’d start a fight.
‘True football fans are one-eyed. Forget the cant about play up, play up, and play the game. We want to win.’
‘Let’s get some beer. The drinks are on me.’ Jacob grinned. ‘Or strictly speaking, on the Clarion.’
‘There’s a spit-and-sawdust place on the next corner where they serve a good pint. It’ll be packed to the rafters. Nobody will be able to listen to us. The regulars make such a racket, you can hardly hear yourself think.’
‘Just as well I’m learning to lip-read. Comes in useful when I see folk whispering things they don’t want me to know.’
Oakes shook his head in mock dismay. ‘You gentlemen of the fourth estate; your cunning never ceases to amaze me.’
Jacob liked the inspector and hoped the feeling was mutual but Oakes was, in his understated way, almost as hard to fathom as Rachel Savernake. Shrewd judges tipped him as a future commissioner, and nobody climbed so far and so fast without possessing a core of steel. Why had he agreed so readily to enquire about Vernon Murray’s death and meet up on his day off? Jacob’s inner cynic refused to put it down to sheer good nature.
Once inside the pub, it took him an age to shove his way to the front of the queue at the bar. Everyone was arguing about the match. The only point beyond dispute was the brilliance of Boy Bastin, scorer of the Gunners’ only goal. Fresh-faced and eighteen, he resembled a schoolboy, but already he was the finest outside-left in England. Watching him race down the wing before cutting inside to advance on goal was a joy, even if his precocious genius made Jacob feel old before his time.
He carried two dimpled tankards of foaming beer to the back of the bar. He and Oakes squashed against the wall next to a gaggle of Arsenal fans. They were disgruntled about their team’s dropped point and vociferous about West Ham’s craven willingness to settle for a draw.
‘Cheers,’ Oakes raised his glass.
‘Here’s to crime.’
‘Speaking of which, I’ve looked into the death of Vernon Murray.’ Oakes shot him a quizzical look. ‘Did Miss Rachel Savernake put you up to this, by any chance?’
‘How did you guess?’
The Scotland Yard man laughed. ‘She’s got you wrapped around her little finger.’
Jacob refused to rise to the bait. ‘What did you find out?’
‘Vernon Murray’s death is being treated as an accident. Half a dozen witnesses have come forward. Nobody was seen pushing the man. He fell just as the train was coming in to the station. The driver couldn’t stop before hitting him. The inquest should be open and shut.’
‘It was Friday evening. The station must have been packed with people desperate to get home at the end of a week’s work. Jostling to get to the front of the platform so they could squeeze into the next train. Nobody pays attention to anyone else in the rush hour. Other people are simply obstacles. Get your timing right, and killing someone is as easy as winking. One sharp jab against the spine, that’s all it takes.’
‘Maybe, but without evidence…’
‘I asked you about Murray’s father-in-law, a man called Baker. I’d like to find out if he was on the scene.’
‘Then you’ll be interested to know that Thomas Baker was in touch with the police last night.’
‘Really?’
‘He said he’d arranged to telephone Murray and got no answer. He’d heard on the news that there’d been a fatal accident at British Museum Station, and he was becoming concerned.’
‘How decent of him. I expect he was heartbroken to discover his worst fears realised?’
‘Naturally. He actually mentioned that this is his second grievous loss in a matter of weeks.’
‘Poor fellow.’
Oakes’s grin reminded Jacob of a card sharp about to play an ace. ‘If you imagine he barged Murray onto the line, think again. Baker rang from Skegness.’
Jacob stared. ‘It’s October. What is he doing at the seaside?’
‘He’s rented a bungalow, a retreat where he can come to terms with the death of his wife.’
‘And console himself with the company of a stream of young actresses.’
‘Is that right?’ Oakes downed the rest of his beer. ‘I’ll ask for discreet efforts to be made to check his alibi, but by the sound of things, he’s taken care to ensure that it’s watertight.’
‘A racing certainty,’ Jacob said grimly. ‘Thanks for taking the trouble. Time for another round.’
As he returned bearing fresh pints, Oakes said, ‘How is Miss Savernake these days?’
‘Enigmatic as ever.’
‘It amuses her to cultivate an air of mystery.’
Jacob wondered what lay behind the inspector’s question. Rachel’s beauty and intelligence were enough to bewitch any ambitious bachelor. A pity that she was ruthless through and through. Jacob didn’t believe she had a romantic bone in her body.
‘Nell Fagan mentioned that she spoke to you about her.’
Oakes inclined his head. ‘The Fagan woman wants to take a leaf out of your book. Writing about the beauty with a flair for detection. I can see the headlines. Not that there’s any chance of Miss Savernake playing ball with anyone as loose-tongued as Nell Fagan.’
‘Nell told Rachel and me about Vernon Murray. Let me explain.’
He gave Oakes a potted summary of the events leading to the encounter with Murray outside the British Museum.
‘Miss Savernake believed he was frightened?’
‘And petulant because Nell hadn’t paid him enough attention that morning. Her main concern was researching old newspapers. But yes, she thought he was afraid of something.’
‘With good reason, it seems.’
‘You think he had a premonition of his impending demise?’
‘More than that,’ Oakes said, taking another gulp of beer. ‘A lot of information passes across my desk. Most of it earns no more than a cursory glance. Late on Thursday evening, there was a report of a hit-and-run accident in Notting Hill. Vernon Murray received a glancing blow from a car as he crossed the road to get to his home. He was knocked to the ground but apart from some bruising, he was none the worse physically. A police constable picked him up and dusted him down. Murray blurted out his belief that someone had deliberately tried to run him over. When questioned further, he clammed up and said he must have been mistaken. It was just the shock that had made him say such a thing.’
‘Could he identify the vehicle?’
‘He said not.’
‘Surprise, surprise. That near miss explains the bruise on his cheek.’
‘It also explains why I took your enquiry seriously when you rang me out of the blue. After one narrow escape, whoever wanted him dead made sure the second time around.’
‘You’re satisfied it wasn’t a coincidence?’
‘That kind of coincidence sticks in my gullet. All the same, I’d never convince my colleagues in the absence of anything tangible to go on. Murray made a poor fist of things when he went to the Yard after his mother’s funeral and accused Baker of murder. He was written off as a jealous mummy’s boy who simply wanted a bigger inheritance.’
‘But the Notting Hill incident, and now his death…’
‘They prove nothing.’ Oakes crumpled a beer mat in his palm. ‘Your telephone call made me curious. This story of Nell Fagan’s suggests that someone had a motive to do away with Murray. Someone who wanted to stop him kicking up a fuss about his mother’s death.’
‘In other words, Thomas Baker.’
‘He’s the obvious suspect. If not for the fact that yesterday evening he was one hundred and fifty miles away from British Museum Station.’
‘Not to mention,’ Jacob said bitterly, ‘having an alibi for the death of his wife at Blackstone Fell.’
‘I don’t have enough evidence to justify devoting time to looking into the case.’ Oakes stared gloomily into his beer. ‘What does Miss Savernake make of Fagan’s tale?’
‘She’s convinced that Nell didn’t tell us the whole truth.’
‘True to form,’ Oakes said.
‘Murray took fright after nearly being run over. When he denied all knowledge of Rachel, I believed him, but perhaps he was lying. My guess is that Baker had scared him off. But Nell was determined to write her story, and she didn’t want to cancel a meeting she’d gone to such pains to arrange. Besides, she was keen to pick Rachel’s brains. She compromised by telling Rachel only what she wanted her to know. And she served up plenty of red meat. A legend about vanishing men and a story of strange goings-on in a sanatorium would be enough for most people to gorge on. But Rachel Savernake is always hungry for something more.’
‘Eloquently put.’ Oakes was amused. ‘What do you make of it all?’
The Arsenal fans were ratcheting up the noise. Guzzling beer, fuelling grievances, decrying the brutality of the other team’s players.
Jacob said, ‘It’s like the football. There’s been foul play. The difference is, I’ve no idea who is to blame.’
10
‘Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.’
Nell Fagan sang lustily, if out of tune. She couldn’t remember the last church service she’d attended; her instincts tended to the profane rather than the sacred. Clad in what passed for her Sunday best, she was clutching a dog-eared copy of Hymns, Ancient and Modern as if her salvation depended on it. She’d squashed in halfway up the aisle, next to Crawshaw, the landlord of The New Jerusalem. The hard mahogany pews of St Agnes Church were almost full. Blackstone Fell was scarcely a beacon of Christian virtue, but what else was there for sinners to do on a cold autumnal Sabbath?
‘The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.’
The walls of the church were plain, the architecture austere. The sole decorative flourish was a corbel table above the nave carved with grotesque heads which grinned down as if they were privy to the worshippers’ darkest secrets. The sombre interior mirrored the rector’s nature, Nell thought. How contrary and eccentric of him to choose this particular hymn; even she knew it was supposed to be sung at evensong. Outside, the sky was bright, but the windows were narrow and high, rendering this a place of shadows. Light was cast by the glow of flickering candles. The odour of hot wax filled Nell’s sinuses.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
Nell shivered. The stove at the back of the church wasn’t enough to keep out the chill. The great and the good of Blackstone Fell – such as they were – occupied the front pews on either side of the aisle; the lower orders from the lower village knew their place. There was no difficulty in identifying the Sambrooks as they took their places beneath the pulpit.
The village doctor sat next to Denzil, who had greeted him like an old friend as he joined them moments before the service began. Although the professor had favoured Carrodus with a nod of welcome, Nell noticed that Daphne Sambrook ostentatiously ignored him. Her coarse hair and no-nonsense manner contrasted with the soft fair curls and delicate femininity of the rector’s wife on the other side of the aisle.
Major Huckerby sat next to Judith Royle. Sitting in splendid isolation at the far end of the pew was the saturnine owner of Blackstone Tower. Nell’s line of vision was interrupted by an inconveniently wide-brimmed hat, but the man had presumably recovered from yesterday’s palpitations. Nell caught him sneaking a look at the rector’s wife. Be careful, she thought darkly, or that fluttering heart will be the death of you. Yet she had to admit that, even in a drab grey coat and matching hat, Mrs Royle’s golden frailty merited a second glance.
The young woman’s head was bowed, but Nell saw her glance surreptitiously at her husband. It was as if she feared catching his eye. The Reverend Quintus Royle had a hooked nose and wild, shaggy eyebrows. Stern and cadaverous in his long black cassock, he marched towards the pulpit, footsteps echoing on the stone flags. He subjected his flock to a cold and penetrating stare, as if gazing into the villagers’ souls. From the curl of his lip, he didn’t like what he saw. His sermon was a doom-laden lament for the sins of the unrighteous, spiked with ominous quotations from the Book of Isaiah.
‘Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord.’
Nell watched the rector’s wife shift uneasily, as if she thought her husband’s fulminations were aimed at her. You didn’t need to be Rachel Savernake to detect Judith’s misery. For all his formidable manner and MA Cantab., Quintus Royle was a hellfire preacher. His corncrake voice rasped with passion, verging on fury.
‘Woe unto the wicked! It shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.’
Over afternoon tea at the rectory, Judith had dropped hints about her motives for marriage. Her father had died when she was a babe in arms, and after her mother’s passing she’d been taken in by elderly relations who had a tumbledown cottage at Blackstone Foot. The family had no money to speak of, and she’d contemplated earning a crust as a lady companion. Or possibly as a governess. Like dear Peggy, Nell thought. Judith too had found a father substitute, but marrying your father wasn’t a sensible idea. Peggy’s character was much stronger; she would never allow a man like Quintus Royle – or any man, come to that – to tell her what to do. Nell couldn’t blame any woman for wanting to escape poverty, but she’d paid an extortionate price.
‘And I will punish the world for their evil and the wicked for their iniquity.’
Quintus Royle’s fearsome rhetoric reminded Nell of modern poetry. It sounded impressive and intimidating, even if you didn’t understand what it meant. She gathered that the rector was warning his parishioners to save their souls before it was too late. Did his excoriations give some kind of masochistic satisfaction, even to those who refused to mend their ways?
‘And I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.’
The rector fixed his menacing scowl on the Sambrooks. If their consciences were itching, Nell saw no sign of it. The professor looked half-asleep and his son was lounging in the pew, as if utterly bored. One or two of the men in the congregation were taking a sidelong peek at Mrs Royle’s trim form. In such a small community, a fetching woman was as conspicuous as Blackstone Tower. Nell wondered if any of the neighbours had gone further than merely coveting her from afar. If so, had Quintus Royle cottoned on?
At last the service thundered to a conclusion. Subdued worshippers began to shuffle out of the church. Nell’s plan was to station herself at the lychgate and buttonhole the people she wanted to talk to. She raced to the door as the organist played the voluntary, but eagerness to get ahead of the crowd proved her undoing. As she rushed out into the open air, her damaged ankle gave way. Catching her toe on the uneven surface, she lost her balance. As she fell forward, her head banged against a corner of a lichen-encrusted gravestone.
The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was the bulk of Major Huckerby towering over her; the last thing she heard was Judith Royle’s shriek of alarm.
*
‘You’re remarkably fortunate,’ Dr Carrodus said. ‘You took a fearful crack on your skull, but it only left a scratch. Concussion usually clears up soon enough. Not suffering brain fog, I hope?’
‘No,’ Nell lied.
‘Glad to hear it. A blow like that can do untold damage, but as far as I can see, there’s no lasting harm done. Plenty of bed rest in a darkened room, and by this time tomorrow, you’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’
Nell mustered a weak smile. Good-natured optimism was the doctor’s stock-in-trade. They were in the large and well-appointed surgery at the rear of his house and Carrodus was in shirtsleeves, putting his stethoscope away in a drawer. She had a fuzzy recollection of Major Huckerby and Denzil Sambrook helping the doctor to bundle her here from the churchyard. She’d been a dead weight, but at least she wasn’t dead. On coming round, she’d been sick, and when the waves of nausea receded, their legacy was a splitting headache. Never mind, Carrodus was right. It was frustrating that her plan to seize the initiative had misfired, but it could have been much worse.
