Murder Among Us (8 page)

Markby nodded glumly. Just great. All the work and none of the freedom to do things his way.

"Of course, if you feel the clash of interests is too great..."

"It's all right, I can manage. What about the film the TV crew took?"

"We've obtained a copy. It's currently being blown up and studied frame by frame but so far it's disappointing. You can nip over and take a look at it before you leave. There was always doubt whether the television company would use any of the footage because it was assumed the occasion wasn't really interesting enough apart from a few known names being there. They covered it in case they were short of material and could use it to fill in. Once they realised a body had been discovered they were keen to film everything, of course. Prior to that, they'd only filmed views of the house and a clip of guests arriving—until the streak. They got a good shot or two of her and it's still possible there might be something in the background. Don't count on it."

McVeigh pushed all the papers back in the cardboard folder from which they'd spilled. "See what you can do. If Morton gets back from Yorkshire ahead of time, he can take over if necessary."

"Some people," said Markby mildly, "might interpret such an action in mid-investigation as a declaration of lack of confidence in my progress."

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The superintendent's bushy eyebrows shot up alarmingly.

"Nonsense! You know we've all got every confidence in you! That's why everyone thinks it's time your career moved on and up."

"Can we discuss that some other time?" Markby asked brusquely. "About this case. If I take this on, I'll do it on the strict understanding that I'll be left on it. Unless, needless to say, I feel the slightest tug of loyalties at which point I'll ask myself to be taken off. Of course you're overseeing it and I'll keep you informed. I won't do anything unusual without checking it out with you first. But otherwise I must be able to do things in my own way."

There was a silence. McVeigh wasn't used to having terms dictated to him but for once he conceded defeat gracefully. "All right!" he acknowledged. "But just remember that technically I'm directing this and if the balloon goes up, my name will be attached to it!"

"I'm not sure," said Finlay Ross, "but that I should report you for employing child labour!" He twitched a bushy eyebrow and nodded in the direction of the ramshackle buildings which constituted the Alice Batt Rest Home for Horses and Donkeys.

"Oh, Emma!" exclaimed Zoe, glancing towards the scene which had met the vet's eye.

Emma Danby was engaged in the energetic grooming of an aged donkey. It was large as donkeys went and to reach over its back Emma had to stand insecurely on an upturned bucket. Both the animal's forelegs were distorted by swollen knee joints. It was also possessed of a very large head at the end of a ewe-neck and ears which flopped to either side. No one could have called it an endearing animal or supposed that any amount of currying and brushing could improve its moth-eaten coat. But Emma worked with dedicated ferocity, a small whirlwind of activity in jeans and gumboots.

"I only wish I could afford to pay her something,

poor kid! Even pocket money. But she does it all for love, works herself into a frazzle if I don't stop her. I have physically to pull her away. Mind you, she's a great help and the animals behave wonderfully with her. Horses and children, you know, operate on much the same wave-length. And I do give Emma her lunch when she's here all day. Anyway, her mum is a lawyer and wouldn't let me exploit her if I wanted to."

''And her uncle is in charge of the local cop-shop, as I understand it."

"Chief Inspector Markby, yes."

There was an awkward silence. Forty-eight hours had passed since the murder but the feeling of tension which hung over the whole district had not faded.

"In charge of investigations into the death of your fellow history-buff, isn't he?" Finlay Ross laid the ghost firmly by naming it aloud.

"Yes, poor Ellen. I can't bear to think of her. So— so dreadful. There are no words to describe it. Obscene, somehow. I keep seeing her, crouched in that gap between the wall and the wine racks . . . and the knife sticking out of her neck. She was all curled up like a foetus in the womb."

"I'm an animal doctor not a human one," Finlay growled. "But my advice to you is go and see your medical man and get him to give you something for your nerves. You look, my dear, very stressed."

"No thanks, I'm not a pill-taker. I know I'm stressed. Pills won't help."

"Fine. Then try a tot of whisky."

"Don't like that either. It smells horrid."

Finlay looked shocked to the depths of his Scots soul. "My dear girl! The water of life! Smells horrid? Whatever next? Anyway, a word of caution: don't describe details of the appearance of the deceased to others. I realise I invited it and shouldn't have done. The police might not like it. Careless revelations can prejudice trials, inspire cranks, tip off murderers to cover their tracks or Lord knows what else. Or so I've been informed.

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Now then, let's look at the patient, shall we?"

They walked together across the yard. Emma stopped her manic brushing of the donkey and stood back, purple-faced, sweating and dishevelled. She rubbed a grimy palm over her freckled face leaving it liberally streaked with grease. "Hullo, Mr Ross," she said doubtfully.

"Hullo, Emma! You look about to succumb to spontaneous combustion. Why don't you go and sit down for a bit while I take a look at Maud here?"

The donkey turned her ugly hammer head and leered malevolently at the vet, rolling her heavy top lip back to reveal discoloured teeth.

"Yes, Emma, go over to my trailer and help yourself to some orange squash," Zoe urged.

"I want to know what's wrong with Maud!" Emma stood her ground defiantly.

"And you shall. I'll tell you what Mr Ross has to say just as soon as he's had a chance to look Maud over."

"You're not going to put her down?"

"Guid grief, no," said the vet cheerfully. "Go on, Emma, scram!"

Emma returned him an uncertain smile and wandered away in the general direction of the rickety caravan which was Zoe's home. She cast many a mistrustful glance back at them as she went.

"Move over, old lady!" ordered Finlay. Maud gave a deep groan and shifted about six inches. He ran practised hands over her, looked at her teeth which she allowed him to do with surprising cooperation, pulled affectionately at one of her long drooping ears and returned to the anxiously waiting Zoe. "Just walk her round in a small circle."

Zoe took the halter and urged Maud to accompany her. The donkey lurched forward in ungainly fashion, the distorted knees now more obvious, her forelegs permanently crooked.

"How's she eating?"

"Some things she can't digest but on the whole she eats well."

"Has she any trouble getting up if she lies down?"

"Sometimes. She doesn't lie down much. I think she knows. But actually, I think that's what caused the present aggravation in her knees. She lay down, struggled to get up and knocked her legs against the wall of her stall."

"Quite possible." Finlay scratched Maud's mealy muzzle. "I'll be frank. She's a very old lady in donkey terms and I don't know how she'll cope with the coming winter. At least," he indicated the ramshackle stabling with an apologetic gesture, "not in present conditions. She needs a proper, warm, draught-free loose-box."

"We're not likely to be in our present conditions much longer, much less improved ones!" said Zoe gloomily. "We'll be camping out at the roadside, me and the animals all, if Schuhmacher has his way."

"Well, if you are still here come winter and nothing's changed, I'll have to recommend the old girl is put out of her misery."

"She's not miserable!" Zoe glared at him.

"No, my dear," Finlay said gently, thinking how much this young woman resembled the child Emma in her devotion to these infirm beasts. "Not now, not today with the sun shining on her poor old back. But come wet damp weather and given her rheumaticky knees ..." He shook his head. "She'll be in pain. She'll very likely go down and not be able to get up—get pneumonia quite likely. If she's not in a good, warm dry stable, it just wouldn't be right, lassie. Not all your loving care can prevent her suffering. You know me. I'll never put down an animal I can save. But I won't agree to Maud seeing winter out in these stables. They just aren't adequate."

"I'll find us all somewhere! Something will turn up!" Zoe said desperately.

"I hope it does, Zoe. I hope it does. Well, I must be on my way."

"Thanks, Finlay." Zoe put her hand on his arm.

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"You've been a tower of strength ever since I took over from Miss Batt."

"Pshaw! Only too happy... Wish I could help, financially, I mean. Can't, I'm afraid."

"You do more than enough, Finlay. We couldn't have kept going at all if it wasn't for you."

They walked together across the yard to where the vet's hatchback was parked by the gate. Deep in their conversation, neither of them saw Emma creep out from behind the horsetrough where she had been crouched, listening, nor did they see her put both arms round Maud's scrawny neck and press her face against the rough hair.

Maud hitched up one hind hoof and to the child's snuffles added a long deep sigh of sad acceptance.

Markby at his desk that same Monday was already regretting his assurance to McVeigh that he could manage this case despite his nearness to it. A help or a hindrance in the investigation? Time would tell. In one respect however, it had already disrupted his private life. Hadn't police work always done that? Years ago, when he and Rachel had had so many bitter rows, he had tended to blame his wife for what he had considered her lack of understanding. Since then, however, with the passage of time he had grown more and more sympathetic to her view of things. All those broken dinner dates he had thought of trifling importance, those lost weekends and midnight calls out to her had meant her life was no life. It had not been a good marriage. They would have divorced sooner or later anyway. But the faults had been split pretty evenly between them.

He reached out a hand and touched the sheet of typed paper which was signed in a bold hand "Meredith Mitchell." Her statement. The only time they'd had together on Sunday had been spent here in the station, waiting for it to be typed up. She had read it, signed it and then it had been "Thank you very much, we'll be in touch." Now it was his relationship with Meredith

which was called upon to pay the price. She, at least, understood. That was cold comfort to him as she returned to the bosom of Whitehall and this scrap of paper remained alone behind as an epitaph on a dead weekend.

Dead as Ellen Bryant. Markby picked up another report, the pathologist's. Since his life did not normally include such matters as needlepoint cushion covers and crocheted waistcoats, he had never encountered Mrs. Bryant alive nor been in her shop. He knew nothing about her before her death—and despite the unspeakable intimate intrusion of the autopsy, precious little about her now.

She'd been in good health at the time of her death. She'd died quite quickly. Either the murderer had known just how to strike or the blow had been lucky. A slight deviation would have led the blade to be deflected by the collar bone. As it was, it had driven straight in, severing a jugular. A messy business. The woman's sweater had been sodden with blood and only the scarlet colour of the wool had disguised it. She had good teeth but no dental records in Bamford. She was registered as a patient at the local medical centre, but had never been there to complain of the slightest ache or pain. She wasn't a virgin; not unexpected as she had been forty-one years old and a married woman by the evidence of her ring and title. But there again, there was no sign of recent sexual activity. Everything about Ellen was negative.

Another problem was that there was no next of kin to inform. Everyone has someone. But not Ellen. They'd been reduced to informing her shop assistant, Margery Collins. Wpc Jones had done that. Jones reported that Margery received the news with floods of tears, but her only voluntary comment had been that God would punish the evil-doer.

In the meantime, Markby had to find the perpetrator of the crime and deliver that person up for punishment here on earth.

Questioned, Miss Collins said that Ellen had told her she would be taking the Saturday afternoon off. She had

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not said where she was going. She did not normally confide in Margery. Margery had the keys to the shop and Ellen lived in the flat above it.

One piece of firm evidence they did have was the weapon itself. It was a cook's knife and it came from the kitchens of the hotel. It was identified and claimed by the chef, Richter, who declared that knives and other pieces of small equipment wandered frequently. Eric Schuhmacher had confirmed this. Richter had complained to him about it. In the circumstances, the setting up of new kitchens and a certain degree of chaos, Markby supposed it would be a mistake to make too much of that.

Richter did say, however, that the particular knife in question had been used by him on the Saturday morning. It would have been lying about in the kitchen after that. Almost anyone could have picked it up and when one considered how many people had been in the vicinity on that Saturday, the day of the gala opening, the list of people who could have got to that knife was long. The handle of the blade had been clean, no fingerprints. Either the murderer had worn a glove or wrapped the handle in something or had leaned over the victim and carefully wiped the handle clean without removing it from the wound. That, if so, showed iron nerve and a high degree of callousness.

"Come on, Pearce, ,, said the chief inspector. "We'll take a look at the deceased's flat."

He picked up the bunch of keys found in Ellen's handbag. It had been the shoulder-strap variety and had still been wound round the dead woman's arm in the cellar. The motive for her death hadn't been theft. She still wore her wedding ring and an expensive wristwatch and although the shoulder bag had been unfastened, her purse and twenty pounds in fivers had still been in it. She may simply have left it unfastened herself, careless.