A Fatal Attachment (21 page)

Charlie continued on down the path, and found that it came out just beside the meagre house of the Bellingham family. He turned and made his way thoughtfully back up the hill and to his car. Then he drove out again on to the road and down to the village. He left his car in the main street. No point in trying to hide the fact that he was back: he was too conspicuous for that, and the whole village had registered his first visit. He made his way to Molly Kegan's council house, and was pleased to find her in.

“Yes, I'm free today.” She smiled sadly, ushering him in. “I would have been up at Lydia's . . . the Bellingham man has asked me to go there, but I'm still thinking about it.”

Waiting to discover whether one of that family was involved, Charlie thought. He was pleased to see that her eyes were no longer red, and that she seemed to have regained some reserves of fight. He saw on the battered coffee-table by one of the armchairs a prospectus for the Open University.

“Taking up study?”

“Yes, maybe. I thought of the awful . . . the awful
gap
that Lydia's death leaves in my life—the total lack of stimulus. I thought this might help me to fill it, if they'll accept me. They're quite flexible, I believe. It seemed like a good way of ensuring, in a small way, that her influence lives on. Not that I'll necessarily do History—there seem to be a lot of interesting courses. . . . Was there something you wanted?”

“Yes. I thought you might be able to tell me which of the ladies in the village is the best gossip.”

She looked at him pityingly.

“You're very young, aren't you?”

“No, as a matter of fact I'm not,” said Charlie, offended.

“When you're a bit older you'll know that the best gossips are always men. I think it's to their credit: women are too interested in themselves to be first-rate gossips. What's the time? Twelve o'clock. Go along to The Wheatsheaf and you'll find Jim Scattergood nursing a half of bitter in a corner. He'll be a hundred times more reliable than her in the post office.”

“Right,” said Charlie, trusting her judgment. “I'll go and have a chat with him.”

“Oh, and by the way, Stan Podmore the licensee was heard to say the other day that he'll tell the police something or other when they start buying double whiskies like Nick Bellingham.”

“Thanks for telling me. I'm not into whisky, but I'll order one of those non-alcoholic wines. The profit margin on them is even steeper.”

Charlie recognised Jim Scattergood the moment he walked into The Wheatsheaf. He was not an old man—sixty perhaps—but he had sharp eyes in sunken features. He was sitting by the fireplace as if it was winter. It was obviously his favoured position, his by right, and good both for seeing and hearing. Charlie's eyes met his, and he went over to him.

“What are you having? Another half?”

“Very kind. It's the Theakston Special.”

Charlie ordered it, and a hideously expensive non-alcoholic wine, and told Stan Podmore to keep the change. When he took them over to the table by the fireplace Jim Scattergood had a smile playing around his thin lips.

“What do you want to know then, lad?”

Charlie asked, to test him: “Who's young Jason Wetherby's girlfriend?”

“Oh, that'd be Julie Holmroyd,” said Jim immediately. “None of t'parents knows, because they don't keep a watch. They go up to t'woods for a bit of the usual. Were they up there on t'night of t'murder?”

“Never you mind.”

“Any road, I think young Julie's losing interest. That young Bellingham is a lot better looking—and a lot brighter too.”

“I see. . . . What is it that the landlord could tell us but hasn't got around to telling us yet?”

“Oh that. Well, he says it's nothing, but I say every little thing's important in a murder case.”

“You've been watching Poirot on Sunday nights.”

“Never watch telly. It's got nothing on life, hasn't telly. Well, as I were saying it were only
words.
But I'd say young Hoddle were pretty worked up.
Intense
—that's the word I'd use.”

“I see. And when was this?”

“Night of t'murder it were. That's why folk remembers it. Night of t'murder, around ten.”

“Could you be more exact?”

“No, I couldn't. You don't keep looking at t'clock when you're enjoying a pint of ale, 'cept if it's near closing time.”

“What exactly happened?”

“Well, Bellingham come in, and he were being a bit of a blabbermouth as usual. Folk here don't think a lot to him—he's a foreigner, from down South somewhere. He's just tolerated, like. Any road, he were standing over at t'bar—over there, far end—and going on about Mrs Perceval, what an interest she were tekking in his boys, the amount of work she were doing to stand in for their mother, and so on, and so on. Well, o' course, unbeknownst to him, young Hoddle had come in for a pint ten minutes or so before him, and were stood just feet away from him, down t'other end of t'bar. I reckon they didn't know each other be sight, Bellingham having only moved here a matter o' months sin'. Any road, young Maurice, after a minute or two, he went down to Bellingham's end of t'bar, and started talking to him in a low voice—quiet-like at first.”

“But not after a time?”

“Well, Bellingham's a thick-skulled bloke. Kept repeating how good Lydia Perceval had been, what a weight she'd tekken off his shoulders, and all that. Any road, young Maurice were gettin' more and more worked up. Till finally . . . But you'd better ask Stan there what he said. He were closer than me.”

“Right, I will. Did you live in Bly while the younger Hoddles were growing up?”

“Oh aye. Lived here all me life.”

“Tell me about it—when I've got you another half.”

When he came back with two glasses he asked: “How was Lydia Perceval seen in the village?”

Jim Scattergood drank, then wiped his lips.

“Aah! Rather like t'lady of t'manor. That were how she went on, in a way. 'Course o' late years we hardly saw her. Ten year sin' we had a butcher and a baker here in t'village, and she'd walk down and shop here. Now there's nothing but an itty-bitty general store an' one or two poncy antique shops and the like. She must ha' driven somewhere to shop. Any road, we seldom saw her. Boasted of her, now an' then, wi' strangers, but seldom saw her. Even ten, fifteen year ago, when the Hoddle boys were growing up, what we saw were the boys going up
there.
”

“So there wasn't a lot of toing and froing between the adult members of the family?”

“Happen there may have been once. Years and years before, when t'boys were little. Holidays abroad an' suchlike. But then Mrs Perceval became—well, almost famous, and very busy. And then t'boys started going up there. Every day it would be home from school then straight up to Aunt Lydia's. Sometimes they'd eat up there, sometimes they come home, but every day they'd go up there.”

“What did the Hoddles think about it?”

“What do you suppose they thought? They said nowt, neither Thea nor Andy. But it were like it were a pain they couldn't discuss. Thea aged—you could see it 'appening. Andy had a good job then, wasn't drinking like he did later, but he . . . well, he resented it. You could see he did. Wouldn't you? Losing your boys just when a father feels he has most to offer them.”

“Did feelings ever come out into the open?”

“Never. They come from that class—respectable manufacturing folk—as liked to keep personal things under wraps. Nearest were one year when Mrs P. wanted to take the boys away on holiday. That French valley wi' the castles. The Hoddles had already booked—Portugal or wherever.
That
got around because the boys so wanted to go wi' their aunt. Made no secret of it. And we thought the aunt made it some kind o' trial o' strength.”

“Who won?”

“The parents, for once. She were unwise, you see, was Lydia. The parents had t'cards stacked in their favour: they
were
the parents, when all's said and done, and the boys were still under age, and t'holiday had been booked. The boys went wi' their parents—God knows what kind of a time they gave them,
but they went wi' them. But it were thought in t'village that Mrs P. lost more than just that round.”

“Oh?”

“It were thought—we could ha' got it wrong, o' course—that from that time Maurice went up rather less to his aunt's. Gavin were still dead keen, they were planning his naval career an' all, but we thought as Maurice stayed home more. Could ‘a' been just homework, o' course. Maurice were more of a plodder than Gavin. But we thought that just maybe he'd seen the pain they'd caused their parents. Seen how they'd been sort o' stolen, in an underhand, roundabout sort o' way.”

“And Gavin—he never saw?”

“Oh no—Gavin were his aunt's boy, right up to t'time he died. Used to write her great long letters from Washington—postcards to his parents. . . . And Andy loved that lad . . . Andy and Thea both. But Andy worshipped the ground he walked on. And if Gavin gave him the time o' day, that were as much as he did give him.”

“A
LL
I heard was the end of it,” Stan Podmore insisted, polishing a glass after Charlie bought his third non-alcoholic wine, something he considered over and above the call of duty. “I was down the other end of the bar and I heard nothing, though of course I could guess what they were talking about.”

“How?”

“He'd been boasting how good Mrs Perceval was being to his boys, and everyone in the village knew about her and the Hoddle boys.”

“Did you know how Maurice Hoddle felt about her now?”

“No, we didn't. That's why we were interested in him going over to talk to Bellingham.”

“What sort of conversation did they seem to be having?”

“Looked to me like young Hoddle was warning Bellingham against his aunt. And like he was pooh-poohing the idea.”

“Right,” said Charlie. “So then you went close?”

“The till's at that end, see. And I heard Maurice Hoddle say: ‘She stole us from our parents, destroyed all our love and respect for them, and killed my brother.' ”

“Pretty damning.”

Stan Podmore nodded sagely.

“It's what's been said in the village all along. Mind you, I don't think he got through to Nick Bellingham. Once he gets an idea into his head he doesn't give up easily.”

“Thick?”

“Two planks.”

Outside in the car Charlie made some notes of his conversation with Jim Scattergood and Stan Podmore's overhearings. Then he sat wondering what to do next. A door-to-door enquiry for any sightings or identification of the
bearded man was what he was inclined to, but he thought Mike Oddie would think he had wasted the time he had been given on his own. He was just considering his options when a bicycle passed the car, ridden furiously. As it passed him he thought he heard a sob. Looking through the front windscreen he saw Ted Bellingham ride through his front gate, throw his bike down in the drive and run into the house. Charlie gave him a couple of minutes, then got out of the car and strolled leisurely towards the house.

The boy who opened the door to his knock had probably not been crying, or if so only momentarily. Ted was a feeling boy, but not a crying one, Charlie suspected. But he was obviously deeply upset and uncertain.

“Want to talk?” Charlie asked.

“Not really.”

“I mean just talk. Chat. Not an interview, nothing taken down, so nothing could be used. I'd have to have your dad here, or a teacher, if I was going to use anything you told me. But you do need someone to talk to, don't you?”

“Well—”

“And you can't talk to your dad or your brother, can you?”

“No.”

There was a moment or two more of hesitation, then Ted Bellingham stood aside from the door and let Charlie in, shutting it behind him almost conspiratorially. Then he led the way through to a living room that still showed all the traditional signs of male occupancy without female attention. Ted cleared some dirty clothes off an easy chair for Charlie to sit on, then he himself took one of the dining chairs that was free of encumbrances.

“It was our sports afternoon,” he said. “I told the master I wasn't feeling like it, and he understood.”

“You're still upset about Mrs Perceval's death, aren't you?”

“Yes.” The boy sat thinking. “Yes, in a way. She was good to us. It was interesting going up there. Sort of stimulating. . . .” He suddenly burst out: “I didn't go there because of the money, because she was going to leave us something in her will.”

“We never thought you did,” said Charlie mildly.

“I bet you did. You noticed Colin's reaction, didn't you?”

“Yes. We're trained to notice things like that.”

“He's talking as if that was all he went up for. That he always intended to . . . to worm his way in there, to make her so fond of us that she'd do something like that. I don't like it. That wasn't why I was going up to see her.”

“But you did overhear her talking about the will?”

“Yes.” He looked down at the floor. “A day or two before she died. We went past the window when she was talking on the phone—I think to her lawyer or something.”

“Did you hear when she was going to see him?”

“Yes. Monday.”

“And did you talk about it, the two of you, later?”

“No, we didn't. I wished we'd never heard it. I thought it was . . . sort of nasty. I didn't want to think about it even. But we both of us heard. I don't like Colin saying we were sucking up to her for money!”