Magpie Murders Read online

  ‘When did Sir Magnus do anything to help anyone else? Look at the church! We’ve got the leaking roof, the new heating system that we can’t afford and he’s never put his hand in his pocket to stump up so much as a shilling. He hardly ever comes to services in this, the very church he was christened in. Oh! And he’s got a plot reserved in the cemetery. The sooner he inhabits it, the better – if you ask me.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t mean that, Robin.’

  ‘You’re right, Hen. It was a wicked thing to say and it was quite wrong of me.’ Osborne paused and took a breath. ‘I’m not opposed to new housing in Saxby-on-Avon. On the contrary, it’s important if the village is going to keep hold of its young people. But this development has got nothing to do with that. I very much doubt that anyone around here will be able to afford the new houses. And you mark my words. They’ll be nasty modern things, quite out of keeping with the village.’

  ‘You can’t stand in the way of progress.’

  ‘Is this progress? Wiping out a beautiful meadow and a wood that’s been there for a thousand years? Frankly, I’m surprised he can get away with it. All the time we’ve been living here, we’ve loved Dingle Dell. You know what it means to us. Well, a year from now, if this goes ahead, we’re going to be stuck here next to a suburban street.’ He put down the vegetable peeler and took off the apron he had been wearing. ‘I’m going to the church,’ he announced, suddenly.

  ‘What about dinner?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Would you like me to come with you?’

  ‘No. Thank you, my dear. But I need time to reflect.’ He put on his jacket. ‘I need to ask for forgiveness.’

  ‘You haven’t done anything.’

  ‘I’ve said things that I shouldn’t have said. And I have thoughts in my head, also, that shouldn’t be there. To feel hatred for your fellow man … it’s a terrible thing.’

  ‘Some men deserve it.’

  ‘That is certainly true. But Sir Magnus is a human like the rest of us. I shall pray that he has a change of heart.’

  He left the room. Henrietta heard the front door open and close, then set about clearing the kitchen. She was deeply concerned about her husband and knew only too well what the loss of Dingle Dell would mean to the two of them. Was there something she could do about it? Perhaps if she went to see Sir Magnus Pye herself …

  Meanwhile, Robin Osborne was cycling up the High Street, on his way to the church. His bicycle was something of a joke in the village, a terrible old bone-rattler with wheels that wobbled and a metal frame that weighed a ton. There was a basket suspended from the handlebars and it was usually filled with prayer books or fresh vegetables which he had grown himself and which he liked to distribute as gifts to poorer members of his congregation. This evening it was empty.

  As he pedalled into the village square, he passed Johnny Whitehead and his wife who were walking, arm in arm, heading for the Queen’s Arms. The Whiteheads did not often go to church, certainly not more than they had to. For them, as in so much of their life, it was a question of keeping up appearances and with that in mind they both called out a greeting to the vicar. He ignored them. Leaving his bicycle at the entrance to the cemetery, he hurried on and disappeared through the main door.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Johnny wondered out loud. ‘He didn’t look at all happy.’

  ‘Maybe it was the funeral,’ Gemma Whitehead suggested. ‘It can’t be very nice having to bury someone.’

  ‘No. Vicars are used to it. In fact, they enjoy it. Funerals give them a reason to feel important.’ He looked up the road. Next to St Botolph’s, the garage lights had flickered out. Johnny saw Robert Blakiston crossing the forecourt. He was closing for the night. He glanced at his watch. It was six o’clock exactly. ‘Pub’s open,’ he said. ‘Let’s get in there.’

  He was in a good mood. Gemma had let him go to London that day – even she couldn’t force him to spend his whole life in Saxby-on-Avon – and it had been nice to return to a few haunts and to see a few old friends. More than that, he’d actually enjoyed being in the city with the traffic all around him and dust and dirt in the air. He liked the noise. He liked people in a hurry. He’d done his best to get used to the countryside but he still felt that he had about as much life here as a stuffed marrow. Catching up with Derek and Colin, having a few beers together, wandering down Brick Lane had been like rediscovering himself and he had come away with fifty pounds in his pocket too. He’d been quite surprised but Colin hadn’t thought twice.

  ‘Very nice, Johnny. Solid silver and a bit of age to it too. Get it from a museum, did you? You should visit us more often!’

  Well, drinks were on him tonight even if the Queen’s Arms was about as cheerful as the cemetery it stood next to. There were a few locals inside. Tony Bennett was on the jukebox. He held the door open for his wife and the two of them went in.

  7

  Joy Sanderling was on her own in the dispensary that also served as the main office at Dr Redwing’s surgery.

  She had let herself in with her own keys. She had keys to every part of the building except for the cupboard containing the dangerous medicines and even this she could open, as she knew where Dr Redwing kept her spare. She had decided what she was going to do. The very thought of it made her heart beat faster but she going ahead anyway.

  She pulled a sheet of paper out of a drawer and fed it into the typewriter, the Olympia SM2 De Luxe model that she had been supplied with when she began the job. It was a portable. She would have preferred something a little heavier for all the typing she had to do but it wasn’t in her nature to complain. She looked down at the white page as it curved round towards her and for a moment she thought of her arrival at Tanner Court and her meeting with Atticus Pünd. The famous detective had disappointed her but she felt no ill will towards him. It had been kind of him to see her particularly as he hadn’t been looking at all well. She was used to seeing sick people. Her time at the surgery had given her a sort of premonition. She could sense at once when something was seriously wrong, even before the patient had been in to see the doctor, and she had known at once that Pünd was in need of help. Well, that wasn’t any concern of hers. The fact was that he had been right. Now that she thought about it, she could see that it would have been impossible to stem the tide of vicious gossip within the village. There was nothing he would have been able to do.

  But there was something she could.

  Choosing her words carefully, she began to type. It didn’t take her very long. The entire thing could be contained in three or four lines. When she had finished, she examined what she had written and now that it was there, in black and white, in front of her, she wondered if she could really go through with this. She couldn’t see any alternative.

  There was a movement in front of her. She looked up and saw Robert Blakiston standing on the other side of the counter, in the waiting area. He was wearing his overalls, covered in oil and grime. She had been so focused on what she had been doing that he had entered without her hearing. Guiltily, she pulled the page out of the typewriter and laid it face down on the desk.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I came in to see you,’ he said. Of course, he would have only just shut down the garage and he must have come straight here. She hadn’t told him she was going to London. He would assume she had been here all day.

  ‘What sort of day have you had?’ she asked, brightly.

  ‘Not too bad.’ He glanced at the face-down letter. ‘What’s that?’ His tone was suspicious and she realised she had turned it over a little too quickly.

  ‘Just something for Dr Redwing,’ she said. ‘It’s a private letter. Medical stuff.’ She hated lying to him but there was no way she was going to tell him what she had written.

  ‘Do you want to go for a drink?’

  ‘No. I ought to get
back to Mum and Dad.’ She saw a look pass across his face and for a moment she was worried. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Not really. I just wanted to be with you.’

  ‘When we’re married, we’ll be together all the time and nobody will be able to do anything about it.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She considered changing her mind. She could have gone out with him. But her mother had cooked a special dinner and Paul, her brother, became agitated when she was late. She had promised she would read to him tonight, before bed. He always enjoyed that. Taking the letter with her, she got up and went through the door that connected the two areas. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. ‘We’re going to be Mr and Mrs Robert Blakiston and we’re going to live together and we’re never going to be apart again.’

  Suddenly, he took hold of her. Both hands were around her and the grip was so strong that he almost hurt her. He kissed her and she saw that there were tears in his eyes. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you,’ he said. ‘You’re everything to me. I mean it, Joy. Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me and I’m not going to let anyone stop us being together.’

  She knew what he meant. The village. The rumours.

  ‘I don’t care what people say,’ she told him. ‘And anyway, we don’t have to stay in Saxby. We can go anywhere we want.’ She realised that this was exactly what Pünd had said. ‘But we will stay here,’ she went on. ‘You’ll see. Everything will be all right.’

  They parted company soon after that. He went back to his little flat to shower and change out of his work overalls. But she did not return to her parents. Not yet. She still had the note she had written. It had to be delivered.

  8

  At exactly that moment, and a little further up the road, Clarissa Pye heard someone ringing at her front door. She had been preparing her dinner, something quite new that had suddenly turned up in the village shop; frozen fish cut into neat fingers and covered in breadcrumbs. She had poured out some cooking oil but, fortunately, she hadn’t yet popped them into the pan. The doorbell rang a second time. She laid the cardboard packet on the kitchen counter and went to see who it was.

  A shadowy, distorted figure could be seen on the other side of the granite glass windows set into the front door. Could it be a travelling salesman at this time of the night? The village had recently had a veritable plague of them, as bad as the locusts that had descended on Egypt. Uneasily, she opened the door, glad that the security chain was still in place, and peered through the crack. Her brother, Magnus Pye, stood in front of her. She could see his car, a pale blue Jaguar, parked in Winsley Terrace behind him.

  ‘Magnus?’ She was so surprised she didn’t quite know what to say. He had only ever visited her here on two occasions, once when she was ill. He hadn’t been at the funeral and she hadn’t seen him since he got back from France.

  ‘Hello, Clara. Can I come in?’

  Clara was the name he had always called her, from the time they were children. The name reminded her of the boy he had once been and the man he had become. Why had he chosen to grow that awful beard? Hadn’t anyone told him that it didn’t suit him? That it made him look like some sort of mad aristocrat out of a cartoon? His eyes were slightly grey and she could see the veins in his cheeks. It was obvious he drank too much. And the way he was dressed! It was as if he had been playing golf. He was wearing baggy trousers tucked into his socks and a bright yellow cardigan. It was almost impossible to imagine that they were brother and sister – and more than that. Twins. Perhaps it was the different paths that life had taken them in their fifty-three years but they were nothing like each other any more, if they ever had been.

  She closed the door, released the security chain, then opened it again. Magnus smiled – although the twitch of his lips could have signified anything – and stepped into the hallway. Clarissa was going to take him into the kitchen but then she remembered the box of frozen fish lying next to the hob and led him the other way instead. Left turn or right turn. Number 4, Winsley Terrace was not like Pye Hall. In this house there were very few choices.

  The two of them went into the living room, a clean, comfortable space with a swirly carpet, a three-piece suite and a bay window. There was an electric fire and a television. For a moment, they stood there uncomfortably.

  ‘How are you?’ Magnus asked.

  Why did he want to know? What did he care? ‘I’m very well, thank you,’ Clarissa said. ‘How are you? How is Frances?’

  ‘Oh. She’s all right. She’s up in London … shopping.’

  There was another awkward pause. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ Clarissa asked. Perhaps this was a social visit. She couldn’t think of any other reason for her brother to be here.

  ‘That would be nice. Yes. What have you got?’

  ‘I have some sherry.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Magnus sat down. Clarissa went over to the corner cupboard and took out a bottle. It had been there since Christmas. Did sherry go off? She poured two glasses, sniffed them, then carried them over. ‘I was sorry to hear about the burglary,’ she said.

  Magnus shrugged. ‘Yes. It wasn’t a nice thing to come home to.’

  ‘When did you get back from France?’

  ‘Saturday evening. We walked in and found the whole place ransacked. It was that damn fool Brent, not fixing up the back door. I’m glad I’ve got rid of him. He’d been getting on my nerves for a while now. Not a bad gardener but I never did like his attitude.’

  ‘Have you fired him?’

  ‘I think it’s time he moved on.’

  Clarissa sipped her sherry. It clung to her lip as if reluctant to enter her mouth. ‘I heard you lost some of the silver.’

  ‘Most of it, actually. To tell you the truth, it’s been a bit of a trying time – what with everything else.’

  ‘You mean, Mary Blakiston.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was sorry not to see you at the funeral.’

  ‘I know. It’s a shame. I didn’t know …’

  ‘I thought the vicar wrote to you.’

  ‘He did – but I didn’t get his note until it was too late. Bloody French post office. Actually, that was what I wanted to talk to you about.’ He hadn’t touched his sherry. He looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Do you like it here?’

  The question took her by surprise. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, and then more determinedly, ‘Actually, I’m very happy here.’

  ‘Are you?’ He made it sound as if he didn’t believe her.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Because, the thing is, you see, the Lodge House is empty now …’

  ‘You mean the Lodge House at Pye Hall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you want me to move in?’

  ‘I was thinking about it on the plane home. It’s a damn shame about Mary Blakiston. I was very fond of her, you know. She was a good cook, a good housekeeper but above all she was discreet. When I heard about this bloody accident, I knew she was going to be very hard to replace. And then I thought about you …’

  Clarissa felt a cold shudder run the length of her body. ‘Magnus, are you offering me her job?’

  ‘Why not? You’ve hardly worked since you got back from America. I’m sure the school doesn’t pay you very much and you could probably use the cash. If you moved into the Lodge House, you could sell this place and you might enjoy being back in the hall. You remember, you and me chasing around the lake? Croquet on the lawn! Of course, I’d have to talk about it with Frances. I haven’t mentioned it to her yet. I thought I’d sound you out first. What do you say?’

  ‘Can I think about it?’

  ‘Absolutely. It was just a thought but it might actually work out very well.’ He lifted his glass, had second thoughts and put it down again. ‘Alway
s good to see you, Clara. It would be marvellous if you moved back in.’

  Somehow she managed to show him to the door and stood there watching as he climbed into his Jaguar and drove away. Clarissa’s breath was not coming easily. Even speaking to him had taken a gigantic effort. She felt wave after wave of nausea spreading through her. There was no feeling in her hands. She had heard the expression ‘numb with anger’ but she had never realised it could be a reality.

  He had offered her a job, working as his skivvy. Mopping floors and doing the washing up – dear God! She was his sister. She had been born in that house. She had lived there until she was in her twenties, eating the same food as him. She had only moved out after the death of their parents and Magnus’s wedding, the two events following, shamefully fast, one upon the other. Ever since that day, she had been nothing to him. And now this!

  There was a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks in the hallway. The Virgin Mary might have turned her head from John the Baptist and looked in alarm as Clarissa Pye stomped up to the first floor with vengeance in her eyes.

  Certainly, she wasn’t going there to pray.

  9

  By half past eight, darkness had fallen on Saxby-on-Avon.

  Brent had decided to work late. Quite apart from the lawns and all the weeding, there were fifty varieties of rose to be deadheaded and the yew trees to be trimmed. When he had docked the wheelbarrow and his various tools in the stable, he walked round the lake and out through Dingle Dell, following a path that would take him close to the vicarage and on to the Ferryman, the village’s second pub, which stood at the lower crossroads.

  It was just as he reached the edge of the wood that something made him turn back. He had heard something. He quickly ran his eyes over the house itself, squinting through the darkness. There were a couple of lights burning on the ground floor but no sign of any movement. As far as he knew, Sir Magnus Pye was in alone. He’d driven back from the village an hour ago but his wife was away for the day, in London. Her car was still out of the garage.