The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery (6 page)

              I pulled over to the side of the road.

             
Was that a fact, a tiny fact at last?
I thought.

              I had asked idly, whether Faith had said why she had wanted a printer cartridge and Lynn Beverley had replied, quite seriously, that she had intimated she wanted to type a letter.

              There was significance there – a significance that had nearly escaped me because to me, as to most people, using a computer and a printer to write a letter to someone was a common everyday occurrence.

              But it was not so to Faith Roberts.  Typing a letter on a computer was to Faith Roberts such an uncommon occurrence that she had to go out and buy a new printer cartridge if she wanted to do so.

              Faith Roberts, then, hardly ever used her computer. Lynn Beverley, who was the postmistress, was thoroughly cognisant of that fact.  But Faith Roberts had written a letter two days before her death.  To whom had she written?

              It might be something quite unimportant.  She might have written to her to an old friend.  She didn’t possess a mobile. So she couldn’t contact whoever it was she wanted to contact unless it was by letter.

              I felt stupid focusing so much effort on a printer cartridge.

              But it was all I had got and I was going to follow it up.

8

              “A letter?”  Sarah Young shook her head.  “No, I didn’t get a letter from Aunt Faith.  What would she write to me about?”

              “There might have been something she wanted to tell you in private.” I suggested.  “She even bought a new print cartridge for the task.”

              “She never used that computer.”  She said.  “We gave it to her. It was our old one.”

              “I see.”  I said.  “Maybe she was responding to a letter she had received?”

              Sarah Young looked doubtful.

              “Who would write to her, apart from the utility companies?”

              “Maybe she had forgotten to pay a bill?”

              “Never.”

              “Were there any letters amongst her personal possessions?”

              “I don’t remember. But then the police took over first.  It was quite a while before they let me pack her things and take them away.”

              “What happened to those things?”

              “The rest we sold on
eBay
.”

              “I meant her personal things,” I added:  “Such things as brushes and combs, photographs, toiletries, clothes . . .”

              “Oh, them.  Well, tell you the truth, I packed them in a suitcase and it’s still upstairs.  Didn’t rightly know what to do with them.”

              “May I see them?”

              “Of course.  Though I don’t think you’ll find anything.  Police went through it all.”

              “I might look at things with a different perspective,” I smiled.

              Sarah Young led me briskly into a minute back bedroom and pulled out a suitcase from under the bed.

              “There you are,” she said.  “Now, if you wouldn’t mind excusing me, I must get dinner ready.”

              I thanked her and heard her thumping downstairs again.  I drew the suitcase towards me and opened it.

              A musty smell initially came out as with a feeling of pity, I lifted out the contents, so eloquent in their revelation of a woman who was dead.  A long black coat.  Two cashmere jumpers.  No underwear (presumably Sarah Young had thrown them away).  Two pairs of high heeled shoes, wrapped up in newspaper.  A brush and a comb, used but clean.  An old dented silver-back mirror, which must have been a hand-me-down.  A photograph in a silver frame of a wedding couple dressed in the style of twenty years ago – a picture of Faith Roberts and her husband presumably. Two picture postcards of Sheringham in Norfolk. A china dog.  A recipe torn out of a magazine for making a chocolate Christmas cake.  With that, there was also a Bible and a Prayer Book.             

              I unwrapped one of the pairs of shoes.  They were expensive and hardly ever worn.

              It was the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
and the date was October 29
th
.

              Faith Roberts had been killed on November 1
st
.

              This then was the paper she had bought on the Sunday preceding her death.it had been lying in her room and Sarah Young had used it in due course to wrap up her aunt’s things.

              Sunday, October 29
th
.  And on
Monday
Faith Roberts had gone into the post office to buy a printer cartridge . . .

              Could that be because of something she had seen in the Sunday newspaper?

              I unwrapped the other pair of shoes.  They were in the
Independent On Sunday
of the same date.

              I smoothed out both papers and took them over to a chair where I sat down and read them.  And at once I made a discovery.  On one page of the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
, something had been cut out.  The space was too big for any of the clippings I had found. 

              I looked through both newspapers, but could find nothing else of interest.  I wrapped them round the shoes again and repacked the suitcase tidily.

              Then I went downstairs.

              Sarah Young was busy in the kitchen.

              “Don’t suppose you found anything?” She asked.

              “Afraid not,” I replied, before adding in a casual voice:  “Do you remember seeing a cutting from
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
amongst your aunt’s other personal effects?”

              “I don’t think so.  Perhaps the police took it.”

              I knew that the police had not taken it from DI Silver’s notes.  The contents of all her personal effects had been listed and no newspaper cutting was among them.

              I left Sarah Young to continue preparing her dinner and drove through the rain to the local library, where I signed into a computer and checked the archive pages of the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
for Sunday, October 29
th
.

              Almost immediately I stumbled on an article which said:

WOMEN VICTIMS OF BYGONE TRAGEDIES

WHERE ARE THESE WOMEN NOW?

              Below the caption were four very blurred reproductions of photographs taken many years ago.

              The subjects of them did not look tragic.  They looked actually, rather ridiculous, since nearly all of them were dressed in the style of the day and nothing is more ridiculous than the fashions of yesterday – though in another thirty years or so their charms may reappear but I doubted it.

             
Under each photograph was a name.

              Kristen Braun, the ‘other woman’ in the famous Michael Porter case.

              Melissa Smith, the ‘tragic wife’ whose husband was a fiend in human form.

              Little Jo Pedder tragic child.

              Sienna Rose, unsuspecting wife of a killer.

              And then came the question in bold type again:

WHERE ARE THESE WOMEN NOW?

              I blinked and set myself to read meticulously the somewhat romantic prose which gave the life stories of these dim and blurry heroines.

              The name of Kristen Braun I remembered, for the Michael Porter case had been a very celebrated one.  Michael Porter had been the Mayor of Oxmarket, a conscientious, rather nondescript little man and pleasant in his behaviour.  He’d had the misfortune to marry a tiresome and temperamental wife.  Kristen Braun was the children’s nanny.  She was nineteen and very pretty.  She fell desperately in love with Michael Porter and he reciprocated her love.  Then one day the neighbours heard that Mrs Porter had been ‘
ordered abroad
’ for her health.  That had been Porter’s story.  He took her to the airport and saw her off to recuperate in Switzerland.  Then he returned to Oxmarket and at intervals mentioned how his wife’s health was no better according to her emails, texts and phone calls.  Kristen Braun remained behind to tend to the young twin girls and soon tongues started wagging. Finally, Porter received news of his wife’s premature death abroad.  He went away and returned a week later with an account of the funeral.

              The children were packed off to their grandparents but Porter’s biggest mistake was mentioning where his wife had died, a moderately well-known village near the Alps.  It only remained for a relative to fly out to the village and question the locals about what he had said for them to find out that there had been no death or funeral of anyone of that name and on that relative’s return to communicate his finding to the police.

              Subsequent events were briefly summarised.

              Mrs Porter had not left for the Swiss Alps. She had been cut into neat pieces and buried in the Porter’s cellar.  And the autopsy of the remains showed poisoning.

              Porter was arrested and sent for trial.  Kristen Braun was originally charged as an accessory, but the charge was dropped, since it appeared clear that she had throughout been completely ignorant of what had occurred. Michael Porter in the end made a full confession and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

              Kristen Braun, who was by now pregnant, left Oxmarket and in the words of the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo:  Kindly relatives offered her a home. Changing her name, the local well-loved nanny, seduced by a cold-blooded killer, moved away to begin a brand new life and concealed from her daughter the name of her child.

              “My daughter shall grow up happy and innocent.  Her life shall not be tainted by the cruel past.  That I have sworn. My tragic memories shall remain mine alone.”

              Poor young Kristen Braun.  To learn, so young.  Where is she now?  Is there, in some part of the United Kingdom, an elderly woman, quiet and respected by her neighbours, who has, perhaps, sad eyes . . . And does a young woman, happy and cheerful with her own children, come and see ‘Grandma’ telling her of all the little strifes and stresses of daily life – with no idea of what past sufferings her mother has endured?

             
“Fucking hell,” I exclaimed quietly under my breath, before passing on to the next tragic victim.

              Kay Kempster, the
‘tragic wife’
, had certainly been unfortunate in her choice of husband. His peculiar practices, referred to in such a guarded way as to rouse instant curiosity, had been suffered by her for eight years.  Eight years of martyrdom, the
Oxmarket Sunday Echo
said firmly.  Then Kay met a friend, an idealistic and an unworldly young man who, horrified by an argument between husband and wife, had intervened and assaulted the husband with such intensity and violence that the latter had crushed in his skull on a sharp-edged marble fire surround.  The jury had found that provocation had been the reason behind the attack and the young man had had no intention of killing him and a sentence of five years for manslaughter was given.

              The suffering Kay Kempster, horrified by all the publicity the case had brought her, moved abroad ‘
to forget
’.

             
Has she forgotten? The Oxmarket Sunday Echo asked.  We hope so. Somewhere, perhaps, is a happy wife and mother to whom those years of nightmare suffering endured, seem now only like a dream . . .

             
I cursed under my breath once more and passed on to Jo Pedder.

              She had it seemed, been removed from her overcrowded home and placed in the care of an elderly aunt.  One particular day, Jo had wanted to go to the cinema and her aunt refused to let her go. In a blind rage, Jo reacted by picking up a hammer that was lying conveniently on the table and aimed at her aunt with it.  The aunt being small and frail, died from the blow.  Jo was well-developed for a twelve year old and she was sent to an approved school and disappeared from the public eye.

             
By now she is a woman, free again to take her place in society.  Her conduct, during the years of confinement and probation, is said to have been exemplary.  Does not this show that it is not the child, but the system, that we must blame.  Brought up in ignorance and below the poverty line, little Jo was the victim of her upbringing.

              Now, having atoned for her tragic lapse, she lives somewhere, happily, we hope, a good citizen and a good wife and mother.

             
I shook my head.  A girl of twelve who took a swing at her aunt with a hammer and hit her hard enough to kill her was not, in my opinion, a nice child.  My sympathies were, in this case, with the aunt.