Inspector Colbeck's Casebook (5 page)

‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ chided Maria. ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead.’

The rebuke set Revill off into a fit of coughing that went on for a full minute. Leeming waited patiently. Maria was embarrassed on her uncle’s behalf.

‘I’ll make a cup of tea,’ she announced. ‘Would you like one, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Leeming.

As soon as she went out of the room, Revill stopped
coughing. He crooked a finger to beckon Leeming closer.

‘Don’t listen to Maria,’ he said. ‘She always tries to think the best of people.’

‘That’s a good attitude to take, sir.’

‘What she told you about Exton’s wife is not true. It may have looked like an accident but we know the truth.’ He lowered his voice. ‘She committed suicide.’

When they met up outside the church, the detectives were pleased to see that the body had been removed, the crowd had vanished and the door was locked. As a result of their interviews, both had acquired the names of people with a particular reason to detest Claude Exton. They compared their notes.

‘Let’s start with the people who appear on both lists,’ suggested Colbeck.

‘The man that Mr Revill kept on about was George Huxtable. He and Exton came to blows once,’ said Leeming. ‘Exton was bothering Mrs Huxtable.’

‘She wasn’t the only woman who caught his eye.’

‘He seems to have been a menace.’

‘What would you do if someone made a nuisance of himself to Estelle?’

‘Oh, I can tell you that,’ said Leeming, forcefully. ‘I’d have a quiet word with him and, if that didn’t work, I’d punch some sense into him.’

‘That might render you liable to arrest.’

‘I wouldn’t care, sir. Whatever it took, I’d protect my wife.’

‘And I’d do the same for my wife,’ said Colbeck. ‘Yet neither of us would go to the lengths of killing the person inside a church. The very idea would revolt us.’

‘It didn’t revolt the man who murdered Exton.’

‘How can you be sure it was a man, Victor?’

‘No woman would be able to carry his weight, sir.’

‘Two women might,’ argued Colbeck. ‘And one woman might move him on her own if she used a wheelbarrow. I’m not claiming that that’s what happened. I just think we should keep an open mind. A woman would have been capable of luring Exton into a position where he was off guard. No man could do that.’

‘Could any woman hate him enough to smash his head open?’

‘Why don’t you put that question to Mrs Huxtable?’

‘What will you be doing, sir?’

‘I’ll be talking to Harry Blacker. He’s the gravedigger.’

Anthony Vine more or less carried him up the narrow staircase. Revill protested but he knew that they were right. He was better off in bed where he could drift in and out of sleep. Maria was waiting in the bedroom to help her husband lift the older man into position. She plumped the pillows to make him comfortable and drew the bedclothes over him. After stifling a cough, Revill managed a smile of gratitude.

‘You’re both Good Samaritans – you really are.’

‘We’re family,’ said Vine, ‘and this is what families do for each other.’

‘But it’s so much trouble for you.’

‘Don’t be silly, Uncle Adam,’ said Maria. ‘It’s no trouble at all. I haven’t forgotten how good Aunt Rachel was to me when I was ill as a child. You used to come with her sometimes and tell me those wonderful ghost stories.’

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ said Vine with a grin. ‘I didn’t know that he enjoyed scaring the daylights out of my wife.’

‘I was only six at the time, Anthony,’ she reminded him.

‘All that I heard at that age were Bible stories.’

A few years older than his wife, Vine was a wiry individual of middle height with conventional good looks. Six days a week, he worked in the standard garb of a fireman but he now wore his suit. There was no sign of the routine dirt he picked up during his time on the footplate.

‘I still think it could be George Huxtable,’ whispered Revill.

‘Speak up, Uncle Adam,’ said Maria.

‘He and Exton were always snarling at each other.’

‘That doesn’t mean George killed him,’ reasoned Vine. ‘And if he did, he’d be more likely to dump him in the river than leave him in a church. George Huxtable only ever came near the church at Easter and Christmas.’

‘He and his wife are not the only ones,’ said Revill, darkly. ‘We have too many occasional Christians in Wolverton.’

‘Don’t worry about that now,’ said Maria, moving to the door. ‘We’re off now, Uncle Adam. One of us will pop in from time to time to see if you need anything. Anthony will bring you something to read, if you like.’

‘The only thing I read on the Sabbath is a Bible. And I still say it was George Huxtable,’ he added. ‘I’ve seen it coming for months.’

As soon as he laid eyes on the man, Victor Leeming could see that he’d have no trouble carrying a body over his shoulder. George Huxtable was a hulking man in his forties with a
pair of angry eyes staring out of an unprepossessing face. His wife, May, by contrast, was a dainty woman with a fading prettiness. Side by side, they were an incongruous couple. When the sergeant introduced himself, Huxtable dismissed his wife with a flick of the hand and she fled to the kitchen.

‘I know why you’ve come,’ he said, arms folded. ‘People have been talking. Well, you’re wasting your time, Sergeant. I didn’t kill that bastard. Somebody got there before me.’

‘Show some respect, sir. The man is dead.’

‘It’s the best news I’ve had in years.’

‘You spent the night here, presumably,’ said Leeming.

‘Yes, I did. I worked the late shift at the factory,’ explained Huxtable. ‘While everyone else was back home for the evening, I was putting rivets into a locomotive that came in for repair.’

‘What time did the shift finish?’

‘At ten o’clock last night. I came straight here. My wife will tell you that I got back here around twenty past ten.’

‘Did your journey home take you anywhere near the church?’

‘No, it didn’t.’

‘I can always check your departure time at the factory.’

‘Please do. The foreman stands over us. I have to work until the last second.’

‘We have a superintendent like that,’ said Leeming, ruefully. ‘He keeps our noses to the grindstone.’ He looked Huxtable up and down. ‘Mr Exton must have been a fool.’

‘He was a fool, a liar, a drunk and a pest to women.’

‘I’d have thought that the last woman he’d pester was your wife. He must have known you wouldn’t take kindly to it.’

‘When I heard that he’d been following May around,
I wanted to tear his head off. My wife begged me not to touch him but I gave him a black eye just to let him know who he was dealing with. He didn’t bother May after that.’

Leeming thought of the submissive little creature that had scurried off to the kitchen. Colbeck had suggested that he ask her if a woman could hate a man enough to kill him. The question was redundant. She was clearly incapable of violence. As for burning hatred, Huxtable had enough for the two of them.

‘Do you have any idea who
did
commit the murder?’ asked Leeming.

‘A lot of people come to mind.’

‘Would the name of Harry Blacker be among them?’

Huxtable smirked. ‘He’d be top of the list,’ he said. ‘The surprise is that he battered Exton to death in a church. Harry would have preferred to bury him alive.’

Leeming was not convinced of his innocence. There was no point in asking the wife to confirm the time of her husband’s return on the previous day. May Huxtable was so afraid of him that she’d say anything he told her to say. As he left the room, Leeming glanced through the open door of the kitchen. The woman was bent over a washboard, scrubbing away as hard as she could at what looked like Huxtable’s working clothes. Two questions sprang into Leeming’s mind. Why was she doing that on the day of rest and what was she so anxious to wash away?

‘Where were you last night?’

‘Where were
you
, Inspector?’

‘I’ll ask the questions, Mr Blacker.’

‘Then the answer is that I can’t remember.’

‘Why is that?’ asked Colbeck.

‘I’d drunk too much.’

Harry Blacker was fishing in the river when Colbeck finally ran him to earth. He was a scrawny man in his sixties with a craggy face and an almost toothless mouth. When Colbeck asked him about the murder, the gravedigger claimed that it was the first time he’d heard of the crime. Putting his head back, he chortled merrily.

‘Now there’s one grave I’ll really enjoy digging,’ he said.

‘You and Mr Exton were not exactly bosom friends, were you?’

‘I despised him, Inspector.’

‘Did he harass Mrs Blacker?’

‘There’s no Mrs Blacker to harass,’ said the gravedigger with another chortle. ‘Who’d marry an ugly devil like me? Besides, I like my own company. And I’d much rather catch fish all day than be chased around from breakfast to supper time by a sharp-tongued harridan. There’s plenty of women like that in Wolverton.’

‘I’ll have to take your word for it,’ said Colbeck, recoiling from the man’s bad breath. ‘What did you and Mr Exton fall out over?’

‘What else but the churchyard?’

‘Oh?’

‘It’s
mine
, Inspector,’ said Blacker with vehemence. ‘I’ve dug every grave in that place and I’ll dig a lot more before it’s my turn to be buried in the ground. Exton had the nerve to sleep there when I wasn’t looking. I caught him one night and poured a bucket of water over him. That kept him away for weeks but I knew he’d be back eventually. People like him never give up.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I got into the habit of going past there every night to make sure he wasn’t using my territory as his bedroom. When he did show up,’ said Blacker, bitterly, ‘he did something so disgusting that I wanted to kill him on the spot. Since he had his trousers down, I smacked him across his bare arse with the flat of my spade.’ He let out a cruel laugh. ‘He wouldn’t have been able to sit down for a week.’

Victor Leeming had a long wait outside the church and it gave him time to construct his theory about the crime. When an apologetic Colbeck turned up at last, Leeming had the solution worked out in his mind.

‘We must treat George Huxtable as a prime suspect, sir.’

‘Why is that, Victor?’

‘He’s a big, embittered man with a grudge against Exton. Huxtable worked until late at the factory last night. I believe that he could have overpowered Exton, left him bound and gagged somewhere, then slipped out in the night and taken him to the church to murder him. It was the wife who gave me the clue,’ said Leeming. ‘She was frantically scrubbing his working clothes. Estelle would never do anything like that on a Sunday. Mrs Huxtable is under her husband’s thumb. If he ordered her to get rid of bloodstains, she’d do it without question.’

‘Did you actually
see
any bloodstains?’

‘No, but it’s a strong possibility they were there.’

‘Only if he actually committed the murder,’ said Colbeck, ‘and to do that, he’d need a key to the church. Where did he get it from?’

Leeming’s certainty faltered. ‘I’m not sure about that, sir.’

‘It’s the crucial factor. Is Huxtable a religious man?’

‘Not as far as I could see.’

‘Then the significance of that scene at the altar would mean nothing to him.’

‘He just
looked
so guilty, Inspector.’

‘And so did Harry Blacker when I first clapped eyes on him.’

‘Is he a likely suspect?’

‘No,’ said Colbeck, ‘but he did point me in the direction of someone who might be. Come on, Victor,’ he said, moving off. ‘We have a train to catch.’

Leeming fell in beside him. ‘Are we going back to Euston?’ he asked, hopefully.

‘I’m afraid not. Do you know why the railway company chose Wolverton as a place for their depot and their factories?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘It’s almost equidistant between London and Birmingham. When I said that we had a train to catch, there was something I forgot to mention.’ Colbeck gave a teasing smile. ‘It won’t be the same train. You’ll go in the direction of London and I’ll go in the direction of Birmingham.’

When they called in on Adam Revill later that afternoon, the warden had rallied. A couple of hours’ sleep had put some colour in his cheeks and given him the urge to sit up in bed and read. Anthony and Maria Vine were pleased to see the improvement in him. Maria placed a cup of tea on the bedside table.

‘There you are, Uncle Adam,’ she said. ‘It’s just as you like it.’

‘You’re so good to me, Maria – and so are you, Anthony.’

‘We’re both happy to help.’

‘I feel so much better now,’ said the warden. ‘The person who really needs your help is Simon Gillard. After making that grisly discovery in the church, he must be in a terrible state. I just wish that I was well enough to comfort him.’

‘Anthony says they’ve moved the body,’ explained Maria. ‘He walked past the church earlier on. The detectives seem to have disappeared.’

‘Well, I hope they come back soon,’ said Vine. ‘The murder has cast a pall over the whole town. We need someone to lift it from us. As for Simon, I agree that he’ll need a lot of support from us. He doesn’t have the strongest constitution. It’s been a real blow.’

‘You must be ready to take over, Anthony.’

‘I’m not a warden, my dear.’

‘You will be one day and there’s nobody who can compare with you when it comes to church affairs. That’s the kindest thing you can do for Simon. Tell him that you’ll take over his duties next Sunday. It will be a huge weight off his shoulders.’

‘Maria is right,’ said Revill. ‘You’re the man to step into the breach.’

‘I’d have to speak to the vicar first,’ said Vine, clearly attracted by the notion. ‘I’ll need his approval before I speak to Simon Gillard.’

They heard a knock at the front door. Maria went off to see who it was.

‘That may be the vicar now,’ said Revill. ‘He promised to call this afternoon.’

‘Then I’ll seize my opportunity,’ said Vine.

But it was not the Reverend Odell. They heard a voice talking to Maria then three sets of footsteps came up the staircase. Maria entered the bedroom with Colbeck and Leeming. Since he’d met Revill and Maria before, the sergeant took charge of the introductions. Vine shook hands with both men.