The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery (18 page)

              “Yes,” I said.  “This is Kristen Braun.  And on the back of it are written words in pencil.  Shall I tell you what they are?”

              I paused for effect.  I was really enjoying myself.

              “
My mother
.”

              My eyes were grave and accusing and they rested on Karen Bellagamba. She pushed back the hair from her face and stared at me with wild bewildered eyes.

              “I don’t understand.”

              “No, Karen you don’t understand. There can be only two reasons for keeping this photograph after the second murder. The first of them is an innocent sentimentality.  You had no feeling of guilt, so you kept the photograph.  You told us yourself at the Brooks – Nunn’s that you were an adopted child.  I doubt whether you have ever know what your real mother’s name was.  But somebody else knew.  Somebody else who has the pride of family – a pride that makes him cling to is ancestral home, a pride in his ancestors and his lineage.  That man would rather die than have the world know that Karen Bellagamba is the daughter of the murderer Michael Porter and Kristen Braun.  That man, I have said, would rather die.  But that would not help, would it?  So instead let us say that we have here a man who is prepared to kill.”

              Eric Bellagamba got up from his seat.  His voice, when he spoke, was quiet, almost friendly.

              “You’re talking a load of shit,” and then his anger broke suddenly in a furious side.  “You fucking two face bastard!”

              The swiftness of his rush across the floor took the room unawares and in a blur of movement Eric Bellagamba was rolling about the floor grabbing his stomach and DI Silver was down on his knees, looking up at me accusingly.

              “Now, now Mr Bellagamba, take it easy – take it easy -”

              Eric Bellagamba gasping for breath, got slowly to his feet, still trying to understand how I had hit him so hard without him seeing it coming.  “Anyone can stick a photograph in a drawer.”

              “I know,” I agreed.  “And the interesting thing about this photograph is that it has no fingerprints on it.  But it should have.  If Karen Bellagamba had known about it, her fingerprints would have been all over it.”

              “I only ever saw this photograph at Lorraine’s one day,” she exclaimed.

              “Fortunately, I know you are telling the truth.” I said.  “The photograph was put into that drawer only a few minutes before I found it there.  Twice that day the contents of that drawer were tumbled on to the ground, twice I replaced them; the first time the photograph was
not
in the drawer, the second time it
was
.  It had been placed there during that interval –
and I know by whom
.”

              I allowed the tone of my voice to change.  I was no longer cheerful.  I was now the hunter closing in on my quarry.

              “The crimes were committed by a man and they were committed for the simplest of reasons.  Money.  In Lorraine Terret’s’ house there was a book found and written in that book was the name
Kirsten Brown
.  Now it is quite a strong possibility that Kristen Braun christened her child Kirsten and to protect the child changed the surname from Braun to Brown when it was born. 
But Kirsten is a man’s name as well as a woman’s
.  Why had we assumed that Kristen Braun’s child was a girl?  Roughly because the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
said so!  But actually the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
had no said so in so many words, it had assumed it because of a romantic interview with Kristen Braun.  But Kristen Braun left Suffolk
before
her child was born.  So nobody could say in those days what the sex of the child would be.  That is where I let myself be misled. By the romantic inaccuracy of the Press.”

              I focused on my quarry before continuing.

              “Kirsten Brown, Kristen Braun’s son, comes to Suffolk.  He is talented and attracts the attention of a very rich woman and spins her a plausible yarn about his life.  A lonely woman has recently lost her own son.  And the talented young playwright takes her name by deed poll.”

              All eyes were now on the one person I was directing my rhetoric.

              “
Your real name is Kirsten Brown, isn’t it, Oliver Terret
?”

              “What the hell are you talking about?”  Oliver Terret asked with a shrill.

              “You can’t deny it.  There are people who will know you under that name.  The name Kirsten Brown, written in the book, in your handwriting.  The same handwriting as the words ‘
my mother
’ on the back of the photograph.  Faith Roberts saw the photograph and the writing on it when she was cleaning.  She spoke to you about it after seeing the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
.  Faith assumed that it was a photograph of Lorraine Terret when young, as she had no idea that Lorraine wasn’t your real mother.  But you knew that once she mentioned it to Lorraine that that would be the end of that.  Lorraine Terret wouldn’t have tolerated for one moment an adopted son who was the son of a famous murderer.”

              “This is bullshit!”  Oliver yelled.  Tears running down his cheek.

              “Faith Roberts had to be silenced at all costs and you did it with
this
. . .”

              With a sudden movement I removed from the jiffy bag that Kira Reed had brought with her, the stainless steel meat tenderiser and whirled it round and down as though I was going to hit Oliver Terret on the head with it.

              So menacing was the gestures that several of my audience cried out.

              Oliver Terret screamed. A high pitched terrified scream.

              “Fuck me!”  He yelled. “It was an accident.  I swear.  I didn’t mean to kill her.  I just got into a blind panic.  I swear I did.  Anyway it isn’t my fault. . .  I’m not responsible.  It’s in my blood. I can’t help it.  You can’t send me to prison for something that isn’t my fault.”

              “Can’t we?”  DI Silver muttered under his breath and then aloud in a grave official voice:  “I must warn you, Mr Terret, that anything you say . . .”

23

              “I really don’t see, John, however you came to suspect Oliver Terret.”

              I looked complacently at the faces turned towards me.  I always enjoyed giving explanations.

              “I should have suspected him sooner,” I said.  “The clue, such a simple clue, was the sentence uttered by Karen Bellagamba at the party the other day.  She said to Oliver Terret:  ‘I don’t like being adopted, do you?’  Those were the revealing two words
Do you? 
They meant – they could only mean – that Lorraine Terret was not Oliver’s own mother.”

              “Oh, I see.”  DI Silver exclaimed.

              “Lorraine Terret was really anxious herself that no one should know that Oliver was not her own son.  She had few intimate friends so it was an easy secret to protect.  However, from the very first time I visited Clarendon Cottage, I felt something was not quite right.  Oliver Terret’ attitude to Lorraine was not that of a spoiled child or of a devoted son.  And Lorraine Terret, though she was clearly very fond of Oliver, nevertheless unconsciously treated him as a prized possession that she had bought and paid for.”

              I sipped my third pint before continuing.

              “So there us Oliver Terret, comfortably established with Lorraine Terret’s money to back his ventures, and then into his assured world comes Faith Roberts who has recognised the photograph that he keeps in a drawer – the photograph with ‘
my mother
’ written on the back of it.  Faith Roberts, of course, thinks that the photograph is of Lorraine Terret when young, since she assumes as a matter of course that she is Oliver’s own mother.  I do not think that actual blackmail ever entered Faith’s mind, but she did hope, perhaps for a ‘
nice little present
,’ as a reward for holding her tongue about a piece of bygone gossip which would not be pleasant for a ‘
proud
’ woman like Lorraine Terret.”

              I could see that once more I had everyone’s attention.

              “Oliver Terret was taking no chances.  He steals the meat tenderiser, laughingly referred to as a perfect weapon for murder by Karen Bellagamba, and on the following evening, he calls at Faith Roberts’ cottage.  She invites him, quite unsuspicious, and he kills her. He knows where she kept her savings – everyone in Oxmarket Aspal seemed to know – and he faked a burglary, hiding the money outside the house.  Marcus Dye is suspected and arrested.  Everything is now safe for the very clever Oliver Terret.”

              I looked at the empty chair where Oliver had been sitting before being handcuffed and led away by Sergeant Higgins.

              “Then suddenly, I came on the scene and produced four photographs, and Lorraine Terret recognises the one of Sue Myers.  She needs time to think things through.  Murder is involved. But what action she decided to take we will now never know. Oliver Terret wasn’t going to take any chances though and planned the whole thing like a theatrical scene setting with prepared props.  The coffee cup smeared with lipstick taken from Helena Brooks-Nunn’s handbag as well as even buying a bottle of her distinctive perfume.  While we waited in the car before going down to the pub, Oliver ran back twice into the house.  The murder took a matter of seconds.  After that there was the swift distribution of the ‘
props
.’  And with Lorraine Terret dead, he inherited a large fortune, and no suspicion would be attached to him since it would seem obvious that the murder was committed by a woman.  With three women visiting the Clarendon Cottage that night one of them was bound to be suspected.  And that, indeed, was so.”

              “My God,” Julie Lawes exclaimed.

              “But Oliver, like all criminals, was careless and over confident.  Not only was there a book in the cottage with his original name scribbled in it, but he also kept, for purposes of his own, the fatal photograph.  It would have been much safer for him if he had destroyed it, but he clung to the belief that he could use it to incriminate someone else at the right moment.”

              “The bastard!”  Karen Bellagamba interjected.

              “Very much so,” I agreed and then pointed to her. “He tried to incriminate you.  After all, the meat tenderiser was hers, and she was, he knew, an adopted child and might find it hard to prove she was not Sue Myers’ daughter.  However, when Chloe Bird admitted having been on the scene of the crime he conceived the idea of planting the photograph amongst her possessions.  He tried to do so, using a ladder that the gardener had leant against the window.  But Lady Osborne was nervous and had insisted on all the windows being kept locked, so Oliver did not succeed in his purpose.  He went straight back to the guest house and while I sat there meditating with my eyes shut and put the photograph in a drawer which, unfortunately for him, I had searched only a short time before.”

              “I didn’t see him come in,” Karen Bellagamba stated.

              “You were too busy looking for some paperwork and I knew the photograph had been planted.  Even with my eyes shut I can tell the difference between a male and female footsteps and since the name of Kirsten Brown had been written on the inside of the book from the cottage, Kirsten Brown must be either Lorraine Terret or Oliver Terret.”

              I finished my drink and signalled to the barman for a refill.

              “I should have seen this all a lot sooner.  I was handicapped by the fact that someone tried to pushed me onto the railway line and that the person who had done so was the murderer of Faith Roberts.  Now on that occasion Oliver Terret was practically the only person who could not have been at the railway station at that time.”

              There was sudden chuckle from Eric Bellagamba.  “It could have been an accident.”  He suggested.

              “Could have been,” I said.  “But Oliver Terret was far too conceited to fear me at all.  It is a characteristic of murderers.  Fortunately, perhaps. For in this case there was very little evidence.”

              “Do you mean to say,” Julie Lawes demanded incredulously, “that Oliver murdered his mother whilst we sat outside in the car and that we hadn’t the least idea of it?  There wouldn’t have been time!”

              “I’m afraid there was.”  I said.  “It wasn’t a spontaneous killing.  It was all very contrived.  Pre-eminently a theatrical murder.”

              “The bastard!”  She said with emphasis and I couldn’t disagree with her.

24

              “I’m not going back to Anglia Meats,” Joanne Burton told me.  “They’re a lousy frim anyway.”

              “And they have served their purpose.”

              “What do you mean by that, John?”

              “Why did you come to Oxmarket Aspal?”

              “”I supposed being Mr Clever-Clogs, you think you know?”

              “I have a little idea.”

              “And what is that?”

              “I have been discreet,” I said looking meditatively at Joanne’s hair.  “It was assumed that the woman who went into Lorraine Terret’s house, the fair-haired woman that was seen, was Helena Brooks-Nunn, and that she had denied being there simply out of fright.  Since it was Oliver Terret who killed Lorraine, her presence had no more significance than that of Chloe Bird.  But all the same I don’t think it was, Helena.  I think that woman that was seen was you, Joanne.”

              “Why me?”  Her voice was hard.

              “Why were you so interested in Oxmarket Aspal?” I countered with another question.  “Why, when you went over there, did you ask Oliver Terret for an autograph?  You’re not the autographing type.  What did you know about the Terret’s?  Why did you come to Suffolk in the first place?”

              “I’ve nothing to hide.”  She opened her handbag.  From a worn notecase she pulled out a small newspaper cutting frayed with age.  It showed the face that by now I knew so well.  The simpering face of Sue Myers.”

              Written across it were the words:
She killed my mother
.

              “I thought so,” I said handing back to her.  “Your real name is Porter?”

              Joanne nodded.

              “I was brought up by relatives.  Very kind to me they were.  But I was old enough to know what had gone on.  Sue Myers was a manipulator and my father was just weak and besotted by her.  But he took the rap for something that I always believed that she did.  After a lot of research I found out that she’d had a son and had christened Kirsten Brown.” 

She paused as the emotion started to well up inside her before continuing once she had composed herself.

“I then found out that he’d changed his name to Oliver Terret and he wrote plays.  I traced him to Oxmarket Aspal and when he was pointed out to me with his mother I initially thought that Sue Myers was still alive and had now got a load of money.  I got myself a job because I was curious.  Really curious and I admit that I wanted to get even.  Then when you brought up all that Marcus Dye business, I jumped to the wrong conclusion that it was Lorraine Terret who’d killed Faith Roberts.  Sue Myers up to her tricks again.  I saw you, Julie Lawes and Oliver Terret go down the pub so I went to Clarendon Cottage and I found her.  Sitting there dead, her face all purple and swollen.  All the things I’d been thinking seemed silly and melodramatic.  I knew that I’d never, really, want to kill anyone when it actually came to it. Then I realised that it might be awkward to explain what I’d been doing in the cottage. It was a cold night and I’d got gloves on, so I knew I hadn’t left any fingerprints and I didn’t think anyone had seen me.”  She paused and added abruptly.  “Are you going to tell the police?”

“No,” I said shaking my head.  “I wish you all the best for the future that is all.”

EPILOGUE

              Detective Inspector Paul Silver and I celebrated in the Italian Restaurant in the centre of Oxmarket.

As coffee was served DI Silver leaned back in his chair and gave a deep sigh of repletion.

“That was fantastic, John,” he said approvingly.

“It always is in here,” I agreed.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, John.” A slight smile creased his wooden countenance.  “I didn’t think you could do it but you really pulled it off. It was lucky that Oliver Terret didn’t realise how little evidence we actually had on him.  A good lawyer would have crucified you in the dock.  Luckily he incriminated himself when you pressurised him.”

“It was not entirely luck,” I said reprovingly.

“Nice to see you deal with Eric Bellagamba so well,” DI Silver said with a grin.  “Got a temper he has but you quickly put him in his place.”

I said nothing.  I was trained in unarmed combat and I hadn’t had much call to use it since I had moved to Suffolk from London.

“Such a complicated business,” ruminated DI Silver.  “Just shows how true the old saying is that everyone’s got something to hide.  At one stage, I was all set to arrest Helena Brooks-Nunn.  If ever a woman acted guilty, she did.”

He sipped his coffee, and then gave a low chuckle.

“Then take Lord and Lady Osborne.  Sinister sort of house. Hate and malice.  Awkward frustrated sort of girl.  And what’s behind that? Nothing sinister.  Just money!”

“As simple as that!”

“The girl has the money – quite a lot of it. Left her by an aunt.  So mother keeps tight hold of her in case she should want to marry.  And the stepfather loathes her because she has the money and pays the bill.  I gather he has had a few business failures.  A mean bastard by all accounts and as for the Lady Osborne, she’s pure poison dissolved in sugar.”

I nodded my head in a satisfied fashion.  “It is fortunate that the girl has money.  It will help her pay for her wedding to Marcus Dye.”

DI Silver looked surprised.  “What?”

“They don’t know it yet but I guarantee that will happen in the next couple of years.  They are attracted to each other without knowing it.”

“Like interfering in other people’s lives do you?”  DI Silver grinned.

“You’re one to talk.” I said and then suggested a brandy.

“”Don’t mind if I do.”

I gave the order.

“There is something else I need to tell you,” DI Silver said.

“Go on.”

“Apparently at his previous practice in Grimsby, his first wife died and the police there got some rather nasty anonymous letters, saying that he had killed her.  Poisoned her in fact.  She’d been attended by a different doctor, reputable man so everything was quite above board. There was nothing to go upon except the fact they’d mutually insured their lives in each other’s favour but married couple’s do that all the time.”

I remember Keldine Hogg’s frightened air.  Her mention of anonymous letters, and her insistence that she did not believe anything they said.  I remembered, too, her certainty that my inquiry about Faith Roberts was only a pretext.

“I should imagine that it was not only the police who got anonymous letters.”

“Who else got them?”

“Keldine Hogg,” I said.  “When I appeared in Oxmarket Aspal, she thought I was on her husband’s track and the Faith Roberts murder investigation was a pretext.  Yes – and he thought so too . . .  That explains it!  It was Dr Hogg who tried to push me under the train!”