Страница 61 из 78
“I didn’t. There was much truth in there but, even for me, the one lie stood out.”
“The heels?”
“That’s right. One detail that speaks volumes. You weren’t here, Adam, when Phoebe died?”
“No. She was nailed down in her coffin and the Trueloves were presiding by the time I got here. That was a different world, pre-war. None of the right questions asked. Not even a police autopsy. A shameful, self-inflicted death, they reckoned. Better shovelled underground sharpish. A maidservant. Not worth investigating and a
“But this Goodfellow, or whoever he was …” Joe hesitated.
“You can call him Goodfellow, right enough. I checked him out, years ago. That is his name. Robert Goodfellow, ex-army, a.k.a. Robin, Mischievous Sprite of the Forest.”
“Well, our sprite describes graphically a very sure way of drowning someone. Holding the heels up forces the head down. It has the advantage of cutting off the screams as well as filling the lungs. He either did, in fact, as he says, see James Truelove holding her under or …”
“She had a fear of water—I told you—she would never have gone in the moat, not even for a swimming lesson with the young master. He bloody did it himself! Tried to force himself on her, I expect. She wasn’t having any of his nonsense and threatened to tell me … He decided to silence her. Swine!”
Hu
Limited in his movements to the area of two pages of the Daily Mirror, Joe had to suppress his urge to clap a comforting hand on Hu
“Ah. Yes. Of course. The Parade of Horses. Worth seeing, Joe, if you’ve got the time and stomach for it.”
“It’s the parade of humans I wouldn’t miss for anything. I don’t forget I’m down here to tease out the puzzle of Lavinia’s death. About which Goodfellow is sinisterly silent. Don’t you think? He throws a distorted light on an ancient murder but drops not a hint of the recent one in his letter.”
“Eager to get off and pack? Not the world’s most fluent writer—he wasn’t about to embark on a further chapter?”
“Hard to believe he had nothing to say. If that chap had had mud to hand I don’t think he’d have hesitated to throw it.”
“You’re right. There was a little something he was keeping in reserve. You’ll see! Extra blackmailing ammo? He’s skilled in the use of hanging threats over people. Not too much, not too little. Push a man just far enough and no further. The ones who get away with it, the ones who never turn up on our books are the clever ones, the ones who are so close to their victims they can judge their every reaction and have the restraint never to demand more than can be borne. Like the East African farmers who live on their beasts’ blood—always allow the victim to recover and thrive before you open up his vein again. In co
“Outbuilding? He has a latrine somewhere about the place I suppose?”
“Well he was only human. It’s carefully camouflaged and architect-designed in keeping with the main building. You’ll find it twenty yards northeast of the rear. Have a rummage around. Here, put these gloves on. Oh, and you may want to hold your sensitive nose.”
A smaller, simpler version of the pine cabin stood, door closed, hidden from all eyes by a thick screen of hawthorn bushes and tangled ivy. A shed any man would have liked to install in his back garden, at first sight. Joe opened the door and entered gingerly. On the left was, indeed, an army-style latrine of the best continental porcelain. Scrupulously clean and scented with hanging bunches of lavender. A large enamel water jug stood by ready for service. On the right another door opened into an allotment holder’s heaven. A potting bench ran the length of the cabin, seed trays, used, cleaned and awaiting the next sowing stood in piles, gardening and woodworking tools were fixed on racks on the walls. An old, horsehair-stuffed armchair was still dented from Goodfellow’s last occupancy, a pile of Men Only and Liliput magazines lurked underneath.
It was the range of wooden shelves with their pigeon-holed compartments that took Joe’s eye. The kind of fitting you could see in any pharmacy, it had probably been bought in at a farmers’ auction. Some of the compartments had a name inked in on their surface. Joe read names of herbs—hartshorne, white willow, marshmallow … One of them seized his attention. It had a piece of writing paper torn from a police notebook stuck on it with a piece of elastoplast. “Look in here, Sandilands! This drawer was slightly open when I entered. The only one.”
The drawer must have been airtight. The smell of the contents would have been held in check. Joe decided to leave a detailed inspection of the scrapings of black residue to Hu
Joe put his head round the door. “Got the message! How are you doing, mate?”
Hu
Joe stepped inside and kicked the door shut. He ignored the newspaper doormat and went to stand directly in front of Hu
“No. I don’t. I think you’d better elucidate for me, Superintendent.”
Hu
CHAPTER 20
Hu
The true enormity of the embarrassed half-accusation hit Joe and, for a moment, sent his mind reeling.
Gathering himself, he began to speak slowly and carefully. “No trace of an interloper, as far as it goes, but you have a considerable amount of evidence of my passage through. I have a firm alibi for the seven o’clock shot but, as you say, death did indeed not occur until after that time. A mischief-maker—no, let’s say simply a scrupulous reader of the notes—might conclude that the second shot it was that did for him. Seven forty. The pathologist may well conclude that later time to be the actual time of death. I couldn’t fault him. Though I would expect the usual umbrella statement of ‘at a time between six and nine.’ I claim to have been the target of that shot myself but where’s the evidence of that? It went skying into the trees. I take off back to the Hall where I am observed to arrive by one or two witnesses, covered in blood and hurrying to change my clothes. Suitably clad for church, I return to the scene of the crime an hour later to check on the progress of the detective I have myself alerted. How am I doing?”