A Hovering of Vultures (23 page)

“It certainly tells us the thing was all but unpremeditated. It tells us that the man—or woman—was desperate, or beyond rational planning. It tells us that he was improvising. Come on, let's go inside.”

Inside the cottage they went about their business without further preamble. Charlie went through the books on the unit, flicking through them for letters or papers. Then he crossed the room to another untidy pile on the heavy cupboard over by the window, and here he was lucky. In among a fairly random collection of hardbacks and paperbacks designed for casual reading he found a leather folder, roughly A5 in shape, and inside he found an old, or apparently old, handwritten letter, six pages in length. It began: “Kjære venn!”

“This must be it,” he said to Oddie. “The Hamsun letter.”

Oddie came over and took it from him in his gloved hand.

“Right!” he said. “We're not going to get anywhere trying to read it. And I'm not sure our forensic people over here are the best ones to handle it. We'll have to get it physically to Oslo, for tests on the paper, and to get a handwriting expert on to it. As far as we two are concerned there's not much doubt it's a forgery, or that it was Mjølhus who did it. The interesting thing about finding it is the confirmation that it was actually handed over.”

“Yes. It could have happened during the Weekend, though,” Charlie pointed out. “There was plenty going on all over the shop that I didn't see. On the other hand he could have brought it here. Safer, really, and giving more chance for talk—and maybe negotiation. I wonder if Mjølhus had a car with him.”

“Could you get on to Vibeke Nordli and find out? She said he wasn't interested in walking. I've found a stack of things here that seem to be of interest.”

So while Oddie was rummaging down in the cupboard at the bottom of the wall unit, Charlie rang the Duke of Cumberland and the Incident Room. As he expected, one of the constables there was able to get hold of Vibeke Nordli,
who was still hanging about in the bars exchanging gossip and hoping for developments.

“He didn't have his car with him, but he did hire one,” she told him. “He collected it from a car hire firm in Batley Bridge after the Weekend was over. He said he wanted to see a bit of Yorkshire, and so far as I know he did. I didn't see anything of him on Sunday evening, and the only time I saw him on Monday or Tuesday was when he came down here to be interviewed.”

“Right. Will you tell this to the constable who fetched you, and ask him to get what details he can from the car firm? By the way, is Lettie still around?”

“Oh yes. Do you want me to fetch her?”

“No—no point in getting her upstairs needlessly. And this is nothing to do with the case. Just ask her, if she does go and see her mother again, if she'd make enquiries about what happened at the farm after the Sneddons' deaths: did the cousin come and take over? Did he try and farm it, or did he sell it immediately—that kind of thing.”

“Right, I'll do that.”

“And give her my love.”

“That's a very unpolicemanly thing to say.”

“I'm a very unpolicemanly policeman.”

Mike Oddie was now sitting on the floor, his feet stretched out in front of him, sorting through a disorderly mass of papers in the bottom of the cupboard unit.

“He was a pretty unmethodical sort of guy,” he said as Charlie finished his phone call and came over to him. “The artistic temperament, no doubt. Electricity bills, bills for servicing the car, letters from Sneddon fans, letters from publishers. Here's one from the people who are going—were going—to do the new edition of the Sneddon novels.”

He handed Charlie a letter with the letterhead Bennett and Morley in stylish red lettering at the top.

“There's too many publishers in all this,” said Charlie, his forehead crinkling. “Now: the original ones, the ones she went to see, were Carter and Foreman.”

“Probably long since gone to the wall,” said Oddie. “Or been swallowed up by some big Corporation.”

“Right. She did say the big cheese there was interested in books. Probably fatal.”

“Almost certainly. They say the men who buy books for W. H. Smith never ever read one, and go entirely on the covers.”

“Right. Then the people who led the revival of interest in Susannah were the Untamed Shrew Press.”

“Yes. You've got some of their paperbacks.”

“Nicely produced. They do a good job. So Bennett and Morley are the people Suzman had got lined up to do the scholarly edition. I wonder if the Untamed Shrew Press people are happy about that.”

“Vibeke Nordli said they were a bit snooty about Suzman and the Weekend. Maybe there's a feeling of ‘We woz robbed.' ”

“Well, they'll be grateful they were never involved when the truth gets out. Let's have a look at this letter.”

It was brief and businesslike, and dated December 12th of the previous year.

Dear Mr Suzman,

Thank you for your typescript for the new edition of
The Barren Fields.
I have no doubt you will find that our decision to begin the series with Sneddon's most popular novel, rather than proceed chronologically, will be justified. I anticipate that this first title will arouse a great deal of media interest.

I am glad that all questions of editorial fees, copyright etc. have now been sorted out, and I can set a firm publishing date for October. I will be sending you art-work for the cover in the course of the next month or so.

Yes, I have noted that a Yorkshire firm is to reissue the Joshua Sneddon novels. No, as you apparently realize, a new scholarly edition of them would be of no interest to us.

With best wishes,

Deborah Vigne

“Not very exciting,” commented Charlie.

“As opposed to this,” said Mike Oddie, handing him a piece of typing paper. “Modern paper, you note. But it's dummy runs for some of the hot passages.”

“Oh my!” said Charlie appreciatively. “'Heaving breasts . . . screams of pleasure . . . felt his hardness . . .' Wasn't he having a good time!”

“I think it would be a kindness to ring this Deborah Vigne and tell her to put the brakes on her new edition. It will be money down the drain for them. How shall we put it? ‘Serious doubts have arisen about the authenticity of Gerald Suzman's new texts.' Sounds good. Look—I've collected everything that might be of interest. Let's get back to Batley Bridge.”

“Do you think it's worth having another word with Mrs Tuckett while we're here?” Charlie asked. “These country people don't come forward with information very readily, and it may be some other member of her family saw something that night.”

But when she answered the door Mrs Tuckett shook her head to their questions.

“Oh no. I've asked my daughter, naturally. I'm afraid we've talked about little else since you were last here. She was fast asleep like me that night.”

“Suzman was a bit of a night bird, wasn't he?” Oddie asked.

“Oh yes. If I did get up in the night, there'd often be lights on there. ‘Who needs sleep?' he used to say. ‘A most unproductive activity.' He used to talk like that—quite a character, was Mr Suzman. I've got to say I'll miss him. I had reason to be grateful to him. The money he paid me to keep an eye on the place and clean it came in useful, and so did the little bit he paid for the garage when he was up here. It's not easy making ends meet these days.”

“You're a widow?”

“These ten years. My daughter's working now, which helps, and there's a bit of money comes in from the bed and breakfast people, but with the cost of living going up the whole time it's still a bit of a struggle.”

“Did you have a bed and breakfast guest the night of the Suzman murder?” Charlie asked.

“Oh yes. He was a walker. I have to get up early every morning, because my daughter's job is in Bradford, and she has to get the bus, but that morning I remember I was extra early because he wanted to be off and away. That's why I was early over to the cottage with the parcel.”

“Do you remember your guest's name? It's just possible he saw something.”

“I don't, I'm afraid. It wasn't one of my regulars. Anyway he couldn't have seen anything because the guest bedroom's at the front, and the toilet window's frosted.”

“Another avenue closed,” commented Charlie.

“I wouldn't have your job for the world, for all it's well-paid,” said Mrs Tuckett sympathetically. “If you want my
opinion, you'll find there's a woman there somewhere. I knew the minute I clapped eyes on him that Mr Suzman was one for the ladies.”

“Oh, there's a woman there somewhere,” said Charlie, as they trudged back to their car. “Her name's Susannah Sneddon.”

“And everyone's fighting over her,” agreed Mike. “It's a bit like a B-grade Western, isn't it?”

“With the Dolores del Rio figure sixty years dead,” agreed Charlie. “Fair makes you shiver!” he added cheerfully.

A
s he went about a mountain of humdrum tasks in and around the Duke of Cumberland, Charlie registered with pleasure that Felicity Coggenhoe had arrived from Leeds. She mingled with the others marking time at the place without any problem: away from her parents she was relaxed and uncomplicated. There was in any case a sort of fellowship of ghouls that seemed to break down barriers. The landlord smiled on them, and on Charlie and Mike Oddie, with a complacency that said that, as far as he was concerned, the district could have a murder a week and he wouldn't complain.

“Lettie's up at the Home seeing her mother,” Felicity told him, during a snatched exchange in the inn's foyer. “I gather there was something you wanted to know.”

“Yes. Just personal interest. Nothing to do with the case. What are you doing afterwards?”

“Most of them feel they need a change from this place.
The bar-food menu is pretty monotonous. We thought we might go along to the Chinese restaurant.”

“Good idea. I agree with Suzman that a super-hygienic restaurant is a contradiction in terms. Are all of you going?”

“Gillian's waiting for her boyfriend to turn up from his walking tour. If he does they'll be with us. If not it's just Lettie, Vibeke and me.”

“I might try to join you, but don't expect me.”

“All right. I'll just hope.”

“Nice! I can't talk about the case, of course.”

“Of course not. I can't say I'll mind. So far we don't seem to have talked about anything else.”

About seven o'clock Charlie, from the upstairs window of the Incident Room, saw three of them setting out, Lettie hobbling gamely. Twenty minutes later he was able to wind up his work and was given the rest of the day off. Mike Oddie said he thought he might join them, but he was niggled by the thought there was something else to do that he'd forgotten. “If it comes to me I'll join you later,” he said.

At the Mah Fung the three women had commandeered a large table, on the grounds that their party might be expanding. The place was less than half full, probably because much of their likely clientele was hovering around the Duke of Cumberland. Charlie kissed Lettie, then sank into the chair opposite beside Felicity, where the menu was waiting for him. He looked around him: red flock wallpaper and cheap lampshades with a faint look of Chinese lanterns. It was like every small-town Chinese restaurant he had ever been in.

“The secret is the cooking,” said Vibeke Nordli.

“And the bugs in the kitchen,” added Charlie. He scanned the menu, which was more selective, less of an omnium gatherum, than most such establishments boasted.

“Pork and beansprouts, prawns and cashews, and fried rice,” he told the blandly hovering waiter. “I feel like I haven't eaten since Sunday.”

“How do you exist when you're on an important case?” asked Vibeke Nordli. “Norwegians always have to have their regular meals.”

“Regular meal people shouldn't become policemen,” Charlie said grandly.

“Perhaps it's a good thing there's not much crime in Norway, then.”

“Don't you believe it! It sounds to me as though you've got it, but nobody finds out about it. Too busy eating their regular meals.” He turned to Lettie. “And how are you, dear lady, as Mr Suzman would have said? How did you get on at Casa Geriatrica?”

“Don't laugh at the old, Dexter,” Lettie reproved him. “I'm on the brink myself. And whatever else you can say about my mother, if she was geriatric she wouldn't be much use to you, would she? Well, of course she was as grouchy as usual about my wanting to ask her about the Sneddons. She thinks I ought only to be interested in
her
—but what in hell's name is there to talk about? The weather? What she had for dinner? What was on the goddamn box last night? Actually she refuses to watch the box—says it's sinful, which sounds to me like the right deed for the wrong reason, but that's typical of my mother.”

“But you eventually got her round to it, did you?”

“Don't rush me, Dexter. I may be a New Yorker but I like to go at my own pace. Well, we talked about when I was coming back to Britain to make a home for her, and I said when the dollar picked up. That should be safe enough. Then we somehow got round to the Methodist Chapel in the
old days—a real fun topic that, I can tell you! Eventually I got it round to funerals, and the Sneddon funeral in particular, and that set her off. Hardly anybody went, but everyone knew about it and watched from darkened rooms.”

“Why did hardly anybody go? Because they weren't popular?”

“Not so much that, because funerals were an event in village life, and you didn't have to be popular to draw a good crowd. No, it was because of the shame: suicides were a shame and an embarrassment, and a murder-suicide—well, people didn't want to have anything to do with it.”