The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery (11 page)

              “Come out on the terrace,” she said to me, in a conspiratorial whisper.

              At the same time she pressed into my hand a small piece of paper.

              Together they stepped out through the French windows and walked along the terrace.  I unfolded the piece of paper.

              “Dr Hogg?”  I asked, looking questioningly at the author.  Julie Lawes nodded vigorously, a large plume of grey hair fell across her face as she did so.

              “He’s the murderer,” she said.

              “Really?  What makes you think that?”

              “I just know it,” she insisted.  “He’s the type.”

              “Perhaps.”  I tried to hide the tone in my voice but I couldn’t help sound unconvinced.  “What was his motive?”

              “Misconduct.”  She said.  “And Faith Roberts knew it.”

              In reply, I remarked conversationally:  “Yesterday someone tried to push me on to the railway line at Oxupland station.”

              “Bloody hell!”  She exclaimed.  “And Dr Hogg was out doing home visits.”

              “I believe so.”

              “Then that settles it,” she said with satisfaction.

              “Not quite,” I said.  “Both Mr and Mrs Brooks-Nunn were in Oxupland last night and came home separately.  Mrs Hogg may have sat at home all evening watching television or she may not – no one can say.  Chloe Bird often goes to the cinema in Oxmarket.”

              “She didn’t last night.  She was at home.  She told me so.”

              “You cannot believe all you are told,” I said reprovingly.  “The foreign maid, Agata, on the other hand, was at the cinema with her boyfriend last night, so she cannot tell me who was or was not at home!  You see, it is not so easy to narrow things down.”

              “I can vouch for Lorraine and Oliver Terret,” she said.  “We were playing the
Sherlock Holmes
edition of
Cluedo
.”

              “I thought you would have been busy collaborating with your murder mystery play?”

              “Leaving his mother to leap on a motor bicycle concealed in the shrubbery?”  Julie Lawes laughed.  “No, Mrs Terret was there the whole time.”  She sighed as sadder thoughts came to her.  “Collaborating indeed,” she said bitterly.  “The whole thing is a bloody nightmare.”

              We were joined by Karen Bellagamba, who had an ecstatic look on her face.  She carried a glass of red wine in her hand and she smiled at both of us with affection.

              “I think I’m pissed,” she announced.  “
Valpolicella
always does that to me.  We don’t often have parties in Oxmarket Aspal. It’s because both of you have come to stay.  I wish could write books like you, Miss Lawes.  The trouble with me is, I can’t do anything properly.”

              “I’m sure you’re a good wife and mother, Mrs Bellagamba.”

              She was silent for a moment or two, her attractive hazel eyes alcoholically hazy, as though she was looking into the far distance.

              “The other day there was an article in the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
,” she said suddenly.  “A really stupid letter from a woman asking what was the best thing for her to do. Have her illegitimate child adopted so that it stood a chance in the future with a better education, clothes, comfortable surroundings, want for nothing or try and bring her up on her own. I think that is really stupid.  She shouldn’t have got herself pregnant in the first place.  Stupid bitch.” 

              She stared down into her empty glass as though it were a crystal.

              “I ought to know,” she said. “I was an adopted child.  My mother parted with me and my adoptive parents gave me every advantage but it always hurts me to know that I wasn’t really wanted by my own mother.”

              “Maybe it was for the best,” I said.

              Her eyes met mine.

              “I that’s a load of shit,” she responded venomously.  “For my mother it was a way of convincing herself that she was doing the right thing.”

              Oliver Terret came along the terrace and joined us.

              “What are you all talking about?”

              “Adoption,” Karen said.  “I don’t like being adopted, do you?”

              “Well, it’s much better than being an orphan, don’t you think?  I think we ought to go now, don’t you, Julie.”

              We all left simultaneously. Dr Hogg had already had to hurry away and the rest of us walked down the hill together talking loudly and happily with that extra hilarity that alcohol induces.

              When we reached the gate of
Clarendon Cottage
, Oliver Terret insisted that they should all come in.

              “Just to tell mother all about the party.  So boring for her, not being able to go because he legs were playing up and she so hates to miss these things.”

              We surged in cheerfully and Lorraine Terret seemed pleased to see us.

              “Who else was there?” She asked.  “Lord and Lady Osborne?”

              “No, Lady Osborne didn’t feel well enough, and that dim Chloe wouldn’t come without her.”

              “She’s pathetic, isn’t she?”  Keldine Hogg said.

              “I think almost pathological,” Oliver said.

              “Is that mother of hers,” Karen said.  “Some mothers really do almost eat their young, don’t they?”

              She blushed suddenly as she met Lorraine Terret’s quizzical eye.

              “Do I devour you, Oliver?”  Lorraine Terret asked.

              “Of course not, Mum.”

              To cover her confusion Karen hastily plunged into an account of her breeding experiences with Springer Spaniels.  The conversation became technical.

              “You can’t get away from heredity in people as well as dogs,” Lorraine Terret said decisively.

              “Don’t you think it’s the environment?”  Keldine Hogg murmured.

              “No, I don’t.”  Lorraine Terret said cutting her short.  “The environment just gives Oxmarket Aspal its veneer, no more.  It’s what bred in people that counts.”

              My eyes rested curiously on Keldine Hogg’s flushed face.  “But that’s cruel.  Unfair.”  She responded with what seemed like unnecessary passion.

              “Life is unfair,” Lorraine Terret said.

              The slow lazy voice of Eric Bellagamba joined in.  “I agree with, Lorraine.  Breeding tells.”

              “You mean things are handed down.”  Julie Lawes said questioningly.  “Unto the third or fourth generation?”

              “But that question goes on,” Karen said suddenly in her sweet high voice.

              Once again everybody seemed a little embarrassed, perhaps at the serious note that had crept into the conversation.  They made a diversion by attacking me.

              “Tell us all about Faith Roberts, Mr Handful.  Why don’t you think Marcus Dye killed her?”

              “He used to mutter, you know,” Oliver said.  “Walking about the lanes. I’ve often met him.  And really, definitely, he looked like an oddball.”

              “You must have some reason for thinking he didn’t kill her, Mr Handful.  Do tell us?”

              I smiled at them, but did not respond.

              “If he didn’t kill her, who did?”

              “Yes, who did?”

              “Don’t embarrass him,” Lorraine Terret said dryly.  “He probably suspects one of us.”

              “One of us?  Bloody hell!”

              In the clamour my eyes met those of Lorraine Terret.  They were amused and something else.  Challenging?”

              “He suspects one of us,” Oliver said delightedly.  “Now then, Karen,” he assumed the manner of a bullying prosecuting council.  “Where were you on the night of the – what night
was
it?”

              “November 22
nd
,” I said.

              “On the night of the 22
nd
?”

              “I don’t know,” Karen said.

              “Nobody could know after all this time,” Keldine Hogg said.

              “Well, I can,” Oliver said.  “Because I was giving a talk on some aspects of the theatre on
Suffolk Radio
. I remember because I discussed Miss Lawes’ cleaning lady in
My Enemy’s Enemy Is My Friend
at great length and the next day Faith Roberts was killed and I wondered if the cleaning lady in the novel had been like her.”

              “That’s right,” Keldine Hogg said suddenly.  “And I remember now because you said your mother would be all alone and I came down here after dinner to keep her company.  Only unfortunately I couldn’t make her hear.”

              “Let me think,” Lorraine Terret said.  “Oh!  Yes, of course.  I’d gone to bed with a headache and my bedroom faces the back garden.”

              “And next day,” Keldine said, “when I heard that Faith had been killed, I thought that I might have passed the murderer in the dark, because at first we all thought it must have been some tramp who broke in.”

              “Well, I still don’t remember what I was doing,” Karen said.  “But I do remember the next morning.  It was the postman who told us what had happened.”

              She gave a shiver.

              “It’s horrible really, isn’t it?” She said.

              Lorraine Terret was still watching me.

              “Have you any clues, Mr Handful?”  Keldine Hogg urged, querulously.

              Eric Bellagamba’s long dark face lit up enthusiastically.

              “That’s what I love about detective stories.”  He said.  “Clues that mean everything to the detective and nothing to you until the end when you kick yourself for not knowing.  Can you give us any clues, Mr Handful?”

              Laughing, pleading faces turned to me.  A game to them all.  But murder wasn’t a game, murder was dangerous.  You never knew.  I could feel the anger welling up inside of me and with a sudden brusque movement, I pulled out four photographs from my pocket.

              “There you go,” I said, sharply.  “Pick the bones out of that fucker!”

              And with a dramatic gesture I tossed them down on the table in front of me.  By the look on their faces I wasn’t sure whether it was the photographs or my foul language that had shocked them.  Whichever it was it had the desired fact as they all clustered round, bending and uttering ejaculations.

              “
Look!
”

              “What grim looking women!”

              “The hair!”

              “That child looked like she fell out of the ugly tree.”

              “But who are they?”

              “Why are they clues?”

              I looked slowly round at the circle of faces and saw nothing that I might have expected to see.

              “Does anyone recognise any of them?”

              “Recognise?”

              “You do not, shall I say, remember having seen any of those photographs before.  Lorraine?  You recognise someone don’t you?”

              She hesitated.

              “Yes. I think so.”

              “Which one?”

              Her forefinger went out and rested on the spectacled child-like face of Jo Pedder.

              “You have seen that photograph?”  I pressed. “When?”

              “Quite recently . . . Now where – no, I can’t remember.  But I’m sure I’ve seen a photograph just like that.”

              She sat frowning, her brows drawn together.

              She came out of her abstraction as Keldine Hogg came to her.

              “Goodbye, Lorraine.  I hope you’ll come to tea with me one day if you feel up to it.”

              “Thank you, my dear.  If Oliver pushes me up the hill.”

              “Of course, I will, Mum.  I’ve developed the most tremendous muscles pushing that chair.  Do you remember the day we went to Lord and Lady Osborne’s and it was so muddy?”

              “Ah!”  Lorraine said suddenly.

              “What is it, Mum?”

              “Nothing.  Go on.”

              “Getting you up the hill again.  First the chair skidded and then I skidded.  I thought we’d never get home.”

              Laughing, everybody bid their farewells and trooped out into the night.

             
Alcoho
l, I thought,
certainly loosens the tongue
.