Magpie Murders Page 3
Waiting for the eggs to boil, Dr Redwing remembered the scene exactly as she had seen it. It really was like a photograph printed on her mind.
They had gone through the boot room, along a corridor and straight into the main hall, with the staircase leading up to the galleried landing. Dark wood panelling surrounded them. The walls were covered with oil paintings and hunting trophies: birds in glass cases, a deer’s head, a huge fish. A suit of armour, complete with sword and shield, stood beside a door that led into the living room. The hallway was long and narrow with the front door, opposite the staircase, positioned exactly in the middle. On one side there was a stone fireplace, big enough to walk into. On the other, two leather chairs and an antique table with a telephone. The floor was made up of flagstones, partly covered by a Persian rug. The stairs were also stone with a wine red carpet leading up the centre. If Mary Blakiston had tripped and come tumbling down from the landing, her death would be easily explained. There was very little to cushion a fall.
While Brent waited nervously by the door, she examined the body. She was not yet cold but there was no pulse. Dr Redwing brushed some of the dark hair away from the face to reveal brown eyes, staring at the fireplace. Gently, she closed them. Mrs Blakiston had always been in a hurry. It was impossible to escape the thought. She had quite literally flung herself down the stairs, hurrying into her own death.
‘We have to call the police,’ she said.
‘What?’ Brent was surprised. ‘Has someone done something to her?’
‘No. Of course not. It’s an accident. But we still have to report it.’
It was an accident. You didn’t have to be a detective to work it out. The housekeeper had been hoovering. The Hoover was still there, a bright red thing, almost like a toy, at the top of the stairs stuck in the bannisters. Somehow she had got tangled up in the wire. She had tripped and fallen down the stairs. There was nobody else in the house. The doors were locked. What other explanation could there be?
Just over a week later, Emilia Redwing’s thoughts were interrupted by a movement at the door. Her husband had come into the room. She lifted the eggs out of the pan and gently lowered them into two china egg cups. She was relieved to see that he had dressed for the funeral. She was quite sure he would have forgotten. He had put on his dark Sunday suit, though no tie – he never wore ties. There were a few specks of paint on his shirt but that was to be expected. Arthur and paint were inseparable.
‘You got up early,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, dear. Did I wake you?’
‘No. Not really. But I heard you go downstairs. Couldn’t you sleep?’
‘I suppose I was thinking about the funeral.’
‘Looks like a nice day for it. I hope that bloody vicar won’t go on too long. It’s always the same with Bible-bashers. They’re too fond of the sound of their own voice.’
He picked up his teaspoon and brought it crashing down onto his first egg.
Crack!
She remembered the conversation she’d had with Mary Blakiston just two days before Brent had called her to the house. Dr Redwing had discovered something. It was quite serious, and she’d been about to go and find Arthur to ask his advice when the housekeeper had suddenly appeared as if summoned by a malignant spirit. And so she had told her instead. Somehow, during the course of a busy day, a bottle had gone missing from the surgery. The contents, in the wrong hands, could be highly dangerous and it was clear that somebody must have taken it. What was she to do? Should she report it to the police? She was reluctant because, inevitably, it would make her look foolish and irresponsible. Why had the dispensary been left unattended? Why hadn’t the cupboard been locked? Why hadn’t she noticed it before now?
‘Don’t you worry, Dr Redwing,’ Mary had said. ‘You leave it with me for a day or two. As a matter of fact, I may have one or two ideas …’
That was what she had said. At the same time there had been a look on her face which wasn’t exactly sly but which was knowing, as if she had seen something and had been waiting to be consulted on this very matter.
And now she was dead.
Of course it had been an accident. Mary Blakiston hadn’t had time to talk to anyone about the missing poison and even if she had, there was no way that they could have done anything to her. She had tripped and fallen down the stairs. That was all.
But as she watched her husband dipping a finger of toast into his egg, Emilia Redwing had to admit it to herself. She was really quite concerned.
4
‘Why are we going to the funeral? We hardly even knew the woman.’
Johnny Whitehead was struggling with the top button of his shirt, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t slot it into the hole. The truth was that the collar simply wouldn’t stretch all the way round his neck. It seemed to him that recently all his clothes had begun to shrink. Jackets that he had worn for years were suddenly tight across the shoulders and as for trousers! He gave up and plopped himself down at the breakfast table. His wife, Gemma, slid a plate in front of him. She had cooked a complete English breakfast with two eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato and fried slice – just how he liked.
‘Everyone will be there,’ Gemma said.
‘That doesn’t mean we have to be.’
‘People will talk if we aren’t. And anyway, it’s good for business. Her son, Robert, will probably clear out the house now that she’s gone and you never know what you might find.’
‘Probably a lot of junk.’ Johnny picked up his knife and fork and began to eat. ‘But you’re right, love. I suppose it can’t hurt to show our faces.’
Saxby-on-Avon had very few shops. Of course, there was the general store, which sold just about everything anyone could possibly need – from mops and buckets to custard powder and six different sorts of jam. It was quite a miracle really how so many different products could fit in such a tiny space. Mr Turnstone still ran the butcher’s shop round the back – it had a separate entrance and plastic strips hanging down to keep away the flies – and the fish van came every Tuesday. But if you wanted anything exotic, olive oil or any of the Mediterranean ingredients that Elizabeth David put in her books, you would have to go into Bath. The so-called General Electrics Store stood on the other side of the village square but very few people went in there unless it was for spare light bulbs or fuses. Most of the products in the window looked dusty and out-of-date. There was a bookshop and a tea room that only opened during the summer months. Just off the square and before the fire station stood the garage, which sold a range of motor accessories but not anything that anyone would actually want. That was about it and it had been that way for as long as anyone could remember.
And then Johnny and Gemma Whitehead had arrived from London. They had bought the old post office, which had long been empty, and turned it into an antique shop with their names, written in old-fashioned lettering, above the window. There were many in the village who remarked that bric-a-brac rather than antiques might be a more accurate description of the contents but from the very start the shop had proved popular with visitors who seemed happy to browse amongst the old clocks, Toby jugs, canteens of cutlery, coins, medals, oil paintings, dolls, fountain pens and whatever else happened to be on display. Whether anyone ever actually bought anything was another matter. But the shop had now been there for six years, with the Whiteheads living in the flat above.
Johnny was a short, broad-shouldered man, bald-headed and, even if he hadn’t noticed it, running to fat. He liked to dress loudly, rather shabby three-piece suits, usually with a brightly coloured tie. For the funeral, he had reluctantly pulled out a more sombre jacket and trousers in grey worsted although, like the shirt, it fitted him badly. His wife, so thin and small that there could have been three of her to one of him, was wearing black. She was not eating a cooked breakfast. She had poured herself a cup of tea and was nibbling a triangle of toast.
‘Where?’
‘At the funeral. They won’t be back until the weekend.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I don’t know. They were talking about it in the pub. They’ve gone to the south of France or somewhere. All right for some, isn’t it! Anyway, people have been trying to reach them but so far no luck.’ Johnny paused, holding up a piece of sausage. To listen to him speaking now, it would have been obvious that he had lived most of his life in the East End of London. He had a quite different accent when he was dealing with customers. ‘Sir Magnus isn’t going to be too happy about it,’ he went on. ‘He was very fond of Mrs Blakiston. They were as thick as thieves, them two!’
‘What do you mean? Are you saying he had a thing with her?’ Gemma wrinkled her nose as she considered the ‘thing’.
‘No. It’s not like that. He wouldn’t dare – not with his missus on the scene, and anyway, Mary Blakiston was nothing to write home about. But she used to worship him. She thought the sun shone out of his you know where! And she’d been his housekeeper for years and years. Keeper of the keys! She cooked for him, cleaned for him, gave half her life to him. I’m sure he’d have wanted to be there for the send-off.’
‘They could have waited for him to get back.’
‘Her son wanted to get it over with. Can’t blame him, really. The whole thing’s been a bit of a shock.’
The two of them sat in silence while Johnny finished his breakfast. Gemma watched him intently. She often did this. It was as if she were trying to look behind his generally placid exterior, as if she might find something he was trying to conceal. ‘What was she doing here?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Mary Blakiston?’
‘When?’
‘The Monday before she died. She was here.’
‘No, she wasn’t.’ Johnny laid down his knife and fork. He had eaten quickly and wiped the plate clean.
‘Don’t lie to me, Johnny. I saw her coming out of the shop.’
‘Oh! The shop!’ Johnny smiled uncomfortably. ‘I thought you meant I’d had her up here in the flat. That would have been a right old thing, wouldn’t it.’ He paused, hoping his wife would change the subject but as she showed no sign of doing so, he went on, choosing his words carefully. ‘Yes … she did look in the shop. And I suppose that would have been the same week it happened. I can’t really remember what she wanted, if you want the truth, love. I think she may have said something about a present for someone but she didn’t buy nothing. Anyway, she was only in for a minute or two.’
Gemma Whitehead always knew when her husband was lying. She had actually seen Mrs Blakiston emerging from the shop and she had made a note of it, somehow divining that something was wrong. But she hadn’t mentioned it then and decided not to pursue the matter now. She didn’t want to have an argument, certainly not when the two of them were about to set off for a funeral.
As for Johnny Whitehead, despite what he had said he remembered very well his last encounter with Mrs Blakiston. She had indeed come into the shop, making those accusations of hers. And the worst of it was that she had the evidence to back them up. How had she found it? What had put her on to him in the first place? Of course, she hadn’t told him that but she had made herself very clear. The bitch.
He would never have said as much to his wife, of course, but he couldn’t be more pleased that she was dead.
5
Clarissa Pye, dressed in black from head to toe, stood examining herself in the full-length mirror at the end of the hallway. Not for the first time, she wondered if the hat, with its three feathers and crumpled veil, wasn’t a little excessive. De trop, as they said in French. She had bought it on impulse from a second-hand shop in Bath and had regretted it a moment later. She wanted to look her best for the funeral. The whole village would be there and she had been invited to coffee and soft drinks afterwards at the Queen’s Arms. With or without? Carefully, she removed it and laid it on the hall table.
Her hair was too dark. She’d had it cut specially and although René had done his usual, excellent work, that new colourist of his had definitely let the place down. She looked ridiculous, like something off the cover of Home Chat. Well, that decided it, then. She would just have to wear the hat. She took out a tube of lipstick and carefully applied it to her lips. That looked better already. It was important to make an effort.
The funeral wouldn’t begin for another forty minutes and she didn’t want to be the first to arrive. How was she going to fill in the time? She went into the kitchen where the washing up from breakfast was waiting but she didn’t want to do it while she was wearing her best clothes. A book lay, face down, on the table. She was reading Jane Austen – dear Jane – for the umpteenth time but she didn’t feel like that either right now. She would catch up with Emma Woodhouse and her machinations in the afternoon. The radio perhaps? Or another cup of tea and a quick stab at the Telegraph crossword? Yes. That was what she would do.
Clarissa lived in a modern house. So many of the buildings in Saxby-on-Avon were solid, Georgian constructions made of Bath stone with handsome porticos and gardens rising up in terraces. You didn’t need to read Jane Austen. If you stepped outside, you would find yourself actually in her world. She would have much rather lived beside the main square or in Rectory Lane, which ran behind the church. There were some lovely cottages there; elegant and well kept. 4 Winsley Terrace had been built in a hurry. It was a perfectly ordinary two-up-two-down with a pebble-dash front and a square of garden that was hardly worth the trouble. It was identical to its neighbours apart from a little pond which the previous owners had added and which was home to a pair of elderly goldfish. Upper Saxby-on-Avon and Lower Saxby-on-Avon. The difference could not have been more striking. She was in the wrong half.
The house was all she had been able to afford. Briefly, she examined the small, square kitchen with its net curtains, the magenta walls, the aspidistra on the window sill and the little wooden crucifix hanging from the Welsh dresser where she could see it at the start of every day. She glanced at the breakfast things, still laid out on the table: a single plate, one knife, one spoon, one half-empty jar of Golden Shred marmalade. All at once, she felt the onrush of emotions that she had grown used to over the years but which she still had to fight with all her strength. She was lonely. She should never have come here. Her whole life was a travesty.
And all because of twelve minutes.
Twelve minutes!
She picked up the kettle and slammed it down on the hob, turning on the gas with a savage twist of her hand. It really wasn’t fair. How could a person’s whole life be decided for them simply because of the timing of their birth? She had never really understood it when she was a child at Pye Hall. She and Magnus were twins. They were equals, happily protected by all the wealth and privilege which surrounded them and which the two of them would enjoy for the rest of their lives. That was what she had always thought. How could this have happened to her?
She knew the answer now. Magnus himself had been the first to tell her, something about an entail which was centuries old and which meant that the house, the entire estate, would go to him simply because he was the firstborn, and the title, of course, because he was male, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. She had thought he was making it up just to spite her. But she had found out soon enough. It had been a process of attrition, starting with the death of her parents in a car accident when she was in her mid-twenties. The house had passed formally to Magnus and from that moment, her status had changed. She had become a guest in her own home and an unwanted one at that. She had been moved to a smaller room. And when Magnus had met and married Frances – this was two years after the war – she had been gently persuaded to move out altogether.
She had spent a miserable year in London, renting a tiny flat in Bayswater and
watching her savings run out. In the end, she had become a governess. What choice was there for a single woman who spoke passable French, who played the piano and who could recite works of all the major poets but who had no other discernible skills? In a spirit of adventure she had gone to America; first to Boston, then to Washington. Both the families she had worked for had been quite ghastly and of course they had treated her like dirt even though she was in every respect more experienced and (although she would never have said it herself), more refined. And the children! It was clear to her that American children were the worst in the world with no manners, no breeding and very little intelligence. She had, however, been well paid and she had saved every penny – every cent – that she had earned and when she could stand it no more, after ten long years she had returned home.
Home was Saxby-on-Avon. In a way it was the last place she wanted to be but it was where she had been born and where she had been brought up. Where else could she go? Did she want to spend the rest of her life in a bedsit in Bayswater? Fortunately, a job had come up at the local school and with all the money she had saved, she had just about been able to afford a mortgage. Magnus hadn’t helped her, of course. Not that she would have dreamed of asking. At first it had galled her, seeing him driving in and out of the big house where the two of them had once played. She still had a key – her own key – to the front door! She had never returned it and never would. The key was a symbol of everything she had lost but at the same time it reminded her that she had every right to stay. Her presence here was almost certainly a source of embarrassment for her brother. There was some solace in that.
Bitterness and anger swept through Clarissa Pye as she stood on her own in her kitchen, the kettle already hissing at her with a rising pitch. She had always been the clever one, her not Magnus. He had come bottom of the class and received dreadful reports while the teachers had been all over her. He had been lazy because he knew he could be. He had nothing to worry about. She was the one who’d had to go out and find work, any work, to support herself from day to day. He had everything and – worse – she was nothing to him. Why was she even going to this funeral? It suddenly struck her that her brother had been closer to Mary Blakiston than he had ever been to her. A common housekeeper, for heaven’s sake!