Strangeways to Oldham (8 page)

While she was ‘cooking', Beauchamp kindly fetched her reading glasses and her bedtime book from her room, and left her alone for half an hour, until she was nicely done to a turn, when he would return, and rinse and condition her curly locks, all blonde again, and without a tell-tale trace of grey.

While she was thus on her own, Lady Amanda had what until recently she had taken so much for granted – some time on her own. Although it was lovely to have Hugo staying with her at The Towers, she had lived alone since Mummy and Daddy died – Beauchamp didn't count. He had always been there. But now she was beginning to realise how difficult it was to adapt to having someone else about the place.

Of course, it wasn't Hugo's fault, and she couldn't let him go back to that ghastly home, but it was going to take some time to establish a routine that satisfied them both, with time together, and time in solitude. She knew Hugo had also lived alone before, and he must be feeling very much as she was, but she was sure they could work something out between them.

Chapter Eight

At breakfast the next morning, served half an hour earlier than usual, so that they should have sufficient time to make themselves ready for Reggie's funeral, they discussed what they wanted to achieve that morning.

‘Being at the funeral will give us a good chance to have a real eyeful of whoever attends, then, I understand, it's back to Reggie's house for the wake. Young Mr Williams has sort of given me permission to stay on for the reading of the will, and I want to know to whom the dosh has been left.'

‘Where did Reggie live?' asked Hugo.

‘Apparently he lived in that really old house called High Hedges – the only property that fronts on to The Butts. I've passed it many a time on my peregrinations on the trike, but never realised it was Reggie's place. If I had, I'd have called in to say hello, and now it's too late.' Lady Amanda drew a handkerchief from her pocket and mopped at the corners of her eyes.

‘There, there, Manda. Never mind. You might not have got to meet up with him again, for all your efforts visiting the nursing home, but at least you sussed out that he'd been murdered, and are going to avenge his death now, by hunting down and bringing to justice the cad who knocked him off,' replied Hugo in soothing tones, but somewhat pompously.

‘
We
are going to bring that bounder to justice, Hugo – 
us
 – both of us.'

‘Fair enough, but I don't see what a useless old buffer like me can do to help apprehend a dangerous criminal.'

‘Just do as I tell you and you won't go far wrong,' Lady Amanda instructed him.

‘Don't I always!' replied Hugo, helping himself to another slice of toast and the thick-cut marmalade.

‘If I take my mobile phone with me,' she informed her companion, ‘I might be able to get a photo of that
faux
nephew, and then we can show it to Nurse Plunkett, for identification purposes, and then … Well, we can get the case wrapped up fairly rapidly, and present it all to that ill-mannered Inspector Moody – I rang up to check who was on duty when I called in – and show him who are the better detectives.'

‘It's all a bit Enid Blyton, isn't it, Manda?' Hugo ventured.

‘Tosh! Easy as one, two, three. We'll show that uncivilised buffoon at the police station who knows their onions and who doesn't.'

‘Well, just be careful. If that chap's killed once, he may not hesitate to do it again,' Hugo warned, suddenly fearful for her safety – suddenly fearful for his own safety, too, when push came to shove. He'd momentarily forgotten that they were working together.

In the car, on the way to St Michael-in-the-Fields, Lady Amanda informed Hugo that his house was on the rental market. ‘But you don't even know where I live!' he exclaimed in amazement. ‘I never said anything, when you were referring to the old place, and how lovely it had been. Didn't like to. Shatter your illusions, and all that.'

‘Well, I have a little confession to make,' she told him.

‘What have you done now?' he asked, in a resigned tone of voice.

‘Oh, nothing much. I'd already worked out that you'd moved on. I lifted your house keys from your jacket pocket one day when you were having a little nap. It's very naughty of you to have an address label on them. It's just asking to be robbed.'

‘I hadn't thought of that,' replied Hugo. ‘It was so that they could be returned to me, if I ever lost them.'

‘You were more likely to be cleaned out, or murdered in your bed – or both!' chided Lady Amanda, amazed at the naïveté of her old friend.

‘Holy Moses! So you could've saved my life!'

‘Better than that,' she said. ‘I phoned round a selection of local estate agents, and got Beauchamp to sort out access – I'm afraid he had to have a few copies of the keys made, but we'll get them all back before anyone moves in. Anyway, they've all valued it for rental, and I've chosen the one who has come up with the most believable figure, and the lowest rate of commission, and I've asked him to advertise it.'

‘But …'

‘But me no buts, Hugo. You don't have to do anything. If there's anything you'd like to remove from the property, Beauchamp and I can sort that out. The same with any special pieces of furniture that you'd like put into storage – loads of room at Belchester Towers – and the agent does all the financial checks, collects the rent, and just pays it into your account. All you have to do is sit back and accrue the profits.'

‘But what if something needs doing?'

‘The agent organises all that, and takes it out of the rent money,' she explained, feeling that she had adequately clarified the process to him by now.

‘I say! You have been a busy little bee, haven't you, Manda?'

‘I do my level best. I used to hang around the estate manager's office, when we had more land, and tenants, so I had a fair idea of how things worked.'

There were only a handful of people in the church for the funeral. Young Mr Williams was there as Reggie's legal representative here on this earth, there were a couple of people from the nursing home that Lady Amanda recognised, and a couple who introduced themselves as Reggie's former neighbours. The only other person in attendance was a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, who sat in the front row, his face shaded by the hat he had not had the respect and courtesy to remove, inside the church.

It was black! The hat was black! ‘There you go, Hugo,' whispered Lady Amanda. ‘It's always the man in the black hat who's the baddie.'

‘Don't be silly, Manda. That's only in old films and westerns. He's at a funeral. Of course his hat is black.'

‘I bet that's the fake nephew!' she hissed back, right into his ear, which tickled a lot, and he had to push her away, while he gave it a good old rub with the palm of his hand, to stop it itching so.

‘Shut up and behave yourself!' was his last word on the matter, and they both bent their heads to examine the flimsy piece of paper which contained the order of service. Hugo had barely had sufficient time to take in the details, when she hissed at him again. ‘That Moody man should be here, not us!'

‘Who the hell is “that moody man”?' asked Hugo, a little tetchily.

‘That policeman – Inspector Moody. If only he'd listened to me instead of humiliating me, he could be sitting in the church now, about to pounce on the villain.'

In uncharacteristically demotic mode, Hugo hissed back, ‘Can it, sweetheart! It's all about to go off!'

The service itself was short and swift, and started with a couple of verses of ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea'. ‘Reggie wasn't a sailor, was he?' whispered Hugo, behind his hand.

‘Not to my knowledge. I know he was passed unfit for service during the war, and I never heard of him having a boat of any kind.'

The eulogy was short and evidently delivered by a clergyman who had never met the dear departed. Both Lady Amanda and Hugo were surprised that the man they had dubbed the
faux
nephew hadn't risen to speak, but, on more considered thought, realised he probably knew very little about Reggie, being a fake.

Two verses of ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Over' finished the swiftest funeral that either one of them had ever been to, and the undertaker's men came in, to ferry the coffin to the graveside.

They made a very sad and sorry bunch – the few of them that there were – standing in the pouring rain and getting soaked to the skin – as the coffin was lowered into the ground, and the clergyman began to say the words of the service of committal. When the time came for someone to throw in a handful of earth, they all looked round at each other, Lady Amanda finally removing her gloves and picking up a handful of almost liquid mud, before pouring it into the grave, to dribble across the coffin, like the trail of a brown snail.

The man in the black hat blushed with embarrassment, and reluctantly copied her action, as did Hugo, as a mark of respect for the departed. The vicar made the sign of the cross, and they all looked around to see who would be the first to leave.

As it happened, it was the man who had sat at the front and claimed to be related to Reggie who scuttled off first, but that was no problem, as there was to be a wake – a very small one, by the looks of it – afterwards, and all Lady Amanda and Hugo had to do was to get Beauchamp to follow the car of Reggie's ex-neighbours, to their unknown destination.

‘Actually, I think it would be better to follow young Mr Williams. The neighbours might not be going back to wherever it is – it could be the young man's house. I hope it is, because then we will at least know where he lives. But, if we follow young Mr Williams, we know he'll be going back afterwards, because he's arranged to read the will, after the – the – whatever it turns out to be.

‘I don't expect a champagne reception, but a cup of tea and a slice of cake, or a ham sandwich would go down well. It's getting on for lunchtime, or will be by the time we've all gathered there, and I shall, no doubt, be ravenous.'

‘Typical Manda!' commented Hugo. ‘You always did put your stomach first!'

‘Anyway, I've got a thirst on, after all that singing!'

‘Pathetic, wasn't it?' Hugo asked, looking round at her for a response.

‘It certainly was: a sad and pathetic end to a man's life, and if there's nothing more we can do about it, we'll at least expose the person who caused him to be planted in the ground today.'

‘Oh, damn and blast it!' exclaimed Lady Amanda, as the car in front of them turned into the drive of Reggie's old house in The Butts. ‘How are we ever going to find out where this cove lives, if he holds the wake at Reggie's old house?'

‘Haven't the faintest idea, old thing, but I'm sure you'll think of something,' replied Hugo with confidence.

‘Oh, I will, I will. And if I can't get the information today, there are more ways than one to skin a cat.'

‘You think this chap's got a cat, do you?' asked Hugo, not really paying attention any more.

‘You're dothering, Hugo. It's just a figure of speech, as you jolly well know.'

Young Mr Williams did the honours at the front door, welcoming them all back to Reggie's old home, which seemed very odd, considering there was a ‘relative' in attendance. Where had that fellow got to, wondered Lady Amanda? He ought, at least, to act the part, by welcoming the funeral guests. But he was nowhere to be seen, nor did he appear as they sipped glasses of warm, cheap punch, and nibbled on curling ham and cheese sandwiches.

It wasn't until Reggie's next-door neighbours left, that he reappeared, but he moved to the far side of the room, and seemed to take an inordinate interest in a bookcase full of dusty leather-bound volumes, that probably had not been taken out of the shelves in years – nay, decades.

‘What's he up to?' asked Hugo,
sotto voce.

‘Avoiding speaking to anyone, if you ask me. He's pulling that old trick of trying to hide in plain view, like that purloined letter, or whatever it was, that Sherlock Holmes had to sort out.'

‘He can't hide for ever.'

‘Probably waiting for us to go. What he doesn't know is that I arranged with young Mr Williams for us to stay on and hear the will being read. That should spike his guns good and proper! Watch this!'

And with this last imperative hissed at Hugo, she approached the rear view of the man who wasn't who he said he was. ‘You're dear old Reggie's nephew, aren't you?' she asked, in the sort of piercing voice that simply cannot be ignored, and he had to turn towards his interrogator, no doubt flabbergasted at being addressed as such.

His first reaction was one of alarm, and he simply blurted out, ‘Who told you that?' Lady Amanda was on dangerous ground here, but it had not occurred to her that her manner of address might make him suspicious of her motives for being here.

‘Can't remember. I just remember hearing that you were,' she assured him. ‘Had a great old time in the navy, didn't he, your uncle, during the war?'

‘Really enjoyed himself,' came the answer, with great assurance, an utter and complete lie. He was handling himself well under fire.

‘Well, nice to meet you,' she said, ‘Although, I suppose our paths will never cross again after today,' she finished, turning away, and thinking, until we bring you to justice, that is.

Her hearing was still sharp, though, and, as she left his side, she heard him mutter, ‘I damned well hope they don't!'

Young Mr Williams had overheard this exchange, and frowned in puzzlement. He'd have to try to remember to have a word with young Lady Amanda sometime. The poor girl seemed to have got her wires crossed somehow.

As the few remaining guests trickled away, young Mr Williams began to shuffle through the papers in his briefcase, and when there were only ‘the suspect', Lady Amanda and Hugo left, he cleared his throat and begged for them to be seated. ‘I have here the last will and testament made by Mr Reginald Chamberlain Pagnell, and I propose to read it to you now.'

‘Why are those two still here?' asked the suspected murderer.

‘Because we're old family friends!' boomed Lady Amanda, in her best Lady Bracknell voice. That quelled him, and the reading of the will proceeded.

After a number of small bequests, it was announced that the residual legatee was a Mr Richard Churchill Myers, of number six Wilmington Crescent, Belchester, another old friend, apparently.

Lady Amanda fixed her beadily accusing eye at the young man sitting with them, and enquired if this were he, to which he replied, smugly, in the negative, and stood, preparatory to leaving.

‘Is that
really
not you?' she enquired again of the young man.

‘'Fraid not!' he admitted, and gave her a cheesy grin of triumph. How had he managed to outwit them? Lady Amanda was simply furious.