The Murder Book Read online

  ‘The two things don’t even compare and you know it.’

  Charles pushed himself out of the deep, button-backed chair and crossed to the console table set against the far wall. He poured himself another drink.

  ‘I’ve never seen you so rattled,’ Edmund said.

  ‘I’ve never been hauled into a police station and accused of murder before. You should try it – see how you feel about it.’

  ‘He was fishing, that was all. He knows he has nothing and no doubt your name just came up somewhere.’ Edmund Fry hesitated for a few moments and then said quietly, ‘But you were seeing her, weren’t you?’

  ‘What the devil do you mean?’

  ‘Charles, you were spotted. Let’s just say a mutual friend mentioned it. I’ve said nothing, of course, but it did strike me at the time as being damnably stupid.’

  Charles May swallowed his drink and then slammed the glass down on the console table. ‘I’m going home to face the music,’ he said. ‘And you can tell our mutual friend, whoever it might be, to keep his or her bloody mouth shut. And I’ll thank you not to interfere. Keep your nose out of my life, Eddie boy.’

  Dr Fielding owned an Armstrong Siddeley Tourer, a two-litre, four-cylinder car in a deep, dark blue that purred happily up the hills but was a little skittish on the bends. Henry thought about the events of the morning as he made his way out to the village. He and Mickey had stirred things up but what would rise to the surface? He should be further on with the investigation by now and that grated terribly.

  As he entered the village he saw a team of horses on the hill ploughing an awkward slope; he had just overtaken a small tractor with bright red wheels tootling along at not much more than walking pace. Manpower, horsepower and the mechanical seem to sit side-by-side in this landscape but he wondered how long that would last.

  He parked beside the church and walked back along to Red Row. He didn’t expect Dar Samuels to be in but thought that Mrs Samuels would be. She must have seen him drive past because she had the door open before he knocked and for a moment he could see that she expected news.

  He watched the hope fade in her hazel eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ Henry said. I’ve nothing new to tell you.’

  She was alone in the cottage. She invited him in, told him to sit down and offered to make him tea but she did not take the seat opposite. Instead she hovered uncertainly between the kitchen sink and the fire.

  ‘He’ll not be back for a time yet,’ she said. ‘But the children will be.’

  ‘Home from school?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, there’s no school just now. There’s the first harvest to be brought in. Hay and the second early potatoes. Then they’ll go back for a bit and come out again for the main harvest. We will all have to pitch in for that, work up in the fields. The women fetch and carry for the men and the children help out with whatever they are of an age to do. No one can stand idle then, not even the little ones.’

  ‘Where could your son have gone to? There’s been no news of him at either Immingham or Grimsby.’

  He saw the relief on her face but she just shook her head. ‘He’s worked on the boats – used to trade horses with his father back when we still could. His granddad was a horse dealer as was his granddad before that but that’s all by the by now. He’s worked down on the south coast, did a little time with a boat builder down there, but I doubt he’d have headed that way.’

  ‘You still have family that travel. Could he have joined them?’

  ‘If he has I’ve not heard of it. Look, this time of year there are itinerant labourers all over the country. Plenty of work and no questions asked. He could be anywhere, and I hope he is.’

  ‘You hope your son escapes justice.’

  ‘I hope my son escapes the noose. Of course I do. I don’t agree with or condone what he done but I don’t agree with a lot of things and they still happen.’

  ‘I’ll be off up to the Hanson’s,’ Henry said. ‘And I’ll be talking to others in the village too.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt you will. I’ve no doubt there’ll be some who make suggestions, even give you names. But if Ethan has a mind to disappear then Ethan will disappear. I just hope he stays gone.’

  It was the same answer everywhere – people made half-hearted suggestions and Helen Lee could not hide her delight at the fact that Inspector Johnstone was getting nowhere with his investigations. Even Elijah Hanson gave him short shrift.

  ‘His mother wants to know when she can bury her son,’ Elijah said.

  ‘The body will be released in a day or two.’

  ‘That’s just it, isn’t it? The boy is just a body to you.’

  Henry thought about protesting but realized that the man had read him correctly. He had no particular feelings for Robert Hanson beyond the vague sense that he may not have liked the young man.

  As Henry Johnstone drove away he had the sense that the entire village was watching – even those whose doors were closed and could not be seen through their windows. He was an outsider here in an even deeper sense than in the market town. He had come to realize that Elijah Hanson had called him in only for the look of things. Elijah had been completely straight with him about that, and had there been a way of taking care of this business themselves the community would have done so. He found it unsettling – not their suspicion, which was commonplace enough – but the sense that he was not really needed, that his version of the law was a mere veneer. Civilization applied as a thin whitewash to the village walls.

  Sergeant Hitchens was having a slightly better time of it. He’d found the photographer without any real problems and managed to get a few minutes to chat to the assistant, Thomas Fields. The photographer knew all about the tragedy that happened in Louth and was openly curious. Mickey made a lot of sympathetic noises, said that he was trying to chat to all of the family just in case Mary might have mentioned something that could be of use to the police in their investigation.

  He and Thomas Fields stood round the back of the shop and Thomas – ‘Call me Tommy’ – lit a cigarette. He looked to be about the same age as Walter or perhaps just a bit younger. He eyed Mickey warily.

  ‘Not sure why you’d want to talk to me,’ he said. ‘Mary was only related through marriage and I didn’t know her very well. Only met her a couple of times so there’s not much I can tell you. It’s not like she’d have confided in me.’

  ‘No, but we know she did confide in Walter. And I’m sure you’d rather your boss heard the excuse I gave than have me ask if you’ve ever lent Walter a camera. I can’t imagine that would go down too well.’

  Tommy glanced around nervously and his face grew pale. ‘I’d lose me job. I can’t afford to lose me job. You can’t tell him.’

  He hadn’t sought to deny it at all, Mickey noted with satisfaction. ‘I’ve no intention of getting you into trouble – I just need to know what Walter told you and if he actually borrowed the camera and took the pictures.’

  Tommy Fields shuffled his feet. He’d finished his cigarette and dropped the butt to the ground. ‘He came to me, said he’d got the opportunity to earn a bit of money. He said he needed a camera to take pictures for a … gentleman, like. I didn’t like the sound of it so I pushed him a bit and he admitted it was for Mary.’

  ‘Did he tell you what kind of pictures? Did he tell you what they planned to do?’

  ‘Didn’t so much tell me as not tell me, if you know what I mean. I figured it out. I told him he could have a camera just for a couple of days. I told him I didn’t like what he was doing but family is family and he told me that this man, this gentleman had been threatening our Mary.’

  It was our Mary now, Mickey noted.

  ‘And that she wanted some insurance.’

  ‘And did you believe him?’

  ‘Like I said, I worked out what he didn’t say.’

  ‘You thought he intended to blackmail this man or that Mary did?’

  ‘Mary, more like. Walter would never have though
t of it.’

  ‘What did you think of Mary Fields?’

  ‘I thought she was not the kind of woman who should have married George. No matter what he did it would not have been good enough. Mary always wanted more. That’s what me mam said anyway. Like I say, I only met her twice or maybe three times.’

  ‘And when he’d taken these photographs, did you process them for him? Did you develop them?’

  Reluctantly, Tommy Fields nodded.

  ‘And did you keep copies for yourself? Did you keep the negatives?’

  Another nod. He moved restlessly now. ‘I’d best be going in. Boss will need me.’

  ‘And I need those negatives.’

  ‘I got a room at a boarding house. I left them there. But I can’t go now, can I? Boss will want to know what’s going on.’

  ‘Do you have a key?’

  ‘Got a front door key. But the landlady, she’s a right old battleaxe. If she sees the police go into my room, what she going to think? Be out on me ear and the boss will want to know why and I’ll lose my job and—’

  ‘Give me the key, tell me where they are and she’ll never know I was even there.’

  Tommy Fields looked around desperately but he didn’t think he had any options left. He dug in his pocket, found the key and handed it to Sergeant Hitchens. Mickey Hitchens pointed to one of the dustbins standing out in the backyard. ‘See that bin? I’ll slip the key underneath it when I’ve done. You can pick it up when you finish for the day. Believe me, lad, you’ll feel better when this is done and those negatives are gone from your life for ever.’

  Tommy Fields looked far from convinced but he went back inside, having given Mickey directions to his lodging house.

  The street was a few back from the main promenade and Mickey stood on a corner watching the house for a few minutes to see if anyone went in or out. It was a large Victorian terrace, three storeys high, with a basement beneath and, fortunately for Mickey, the less fortunate Tommy Fields had a room in the basement. Apparently it was divided into two and four young men shared Tommy’s half. They had a tiny kitchen, a washbasin in one of the rooms and access to the privy out back. Tommy had described this quickly along with the information that his landlady had put proper bathrooms in the main house. ‘Two of them, but she said they were for her decent guests.’ The ones who could afford to pay more than the bare minimum that Tommy and his ilk were able to shell out each week.

  Mickey crossed the road and glanced around but it was practically empty and there was no one to take any notice of him. He went round the area railings and down the four steps to the basement door then slipped the key in the lock. The basement smelt of damp and cooked food and young men who didn’t wash very often, though to give Tommy his due he hadn’t smelt too bad. Mostly of carbolic soap and hair oil and developing chemicals. Mickey had inhaled far worse.

  Tommy shared the left-hand room, off the tiny kitchen, or what passed for a kitchen in that it had a sink and a two-ring burner. It put Mickey in mind of the first place he had lived when he left home. He hadn’t actually had a separate bedroom and three of them had shared the single space that was not much bigger than a closet.

  He stood and listened for a moment but could hear no noises from outside or upstairs in the main house, so he went through to Tommy’s bedroom and found a loose floorboard beneath the bed that Tommy had said was going to be there and took out the envelope from beneath it. The corner had been chewed by something that looked bigger than a mouse and the envelope was covered with droppings. Rats, Mickey thought as he shook the droppings off back into the hole. Quickly, he checked inside the envelope. Photographs and negatives. He poked around inside the hole to make sure there was nothing else there and then left the way he’d come. Only when he was back on the promenade did he have a proper look inside the envelope, sliding some of the pictures out just far enough to satisfy himself that they showed what he had been told they would. Mickey gave a low whistle, then smiled to himself and tucked the envelope back inside his jacket pocket.

  True to his word, he returned to the back of the photographer’s shop and slipped the key beneath the bin. Circling back to the front of the shop, he caught sight of Tommy speaking with a customer. Tommy spotted him and Sergeant Hitchens gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement. He saw the relief on the young man’s face.

  Hopefully this would be the end of it for Tommy Fields, Mickey thought. Hopefully they wouldn’t have to call him to the court to give evidence. That certainly would put the cat among a lot of pigeons.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Edmund Fry received a visit from Chief Inspector Carrington in the middle of the afternoon. He had come, he said, to apologize personally for the inconvenience caused, and asked if he could speak to Mr May to reassure him that this would go no further.

  ‘I have no control over the behaviour of the London detectives,’ Carrington said. ‘I believe they have behaved abominably.’

  ‘If you have no control over them then it’s difficult to know how you could assure either of us this will go no further.’

  Carrington frowned. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought a personal visit might be appropriate. I certainly have no wish for this to continue. Your father and mine were friends for years. Mr May senior was part of the same circle.’

  ‘And I do appreciate the sentiment, believe me. But I think the damage has already been done. And now, if you would excuse me, I still have clients to see today.’

  Carrington flushed red at the abrupt dismissal. He took up his hat and left.

  Edmund Fry sat quietly in his office after Carrington had gone. In truth they had cancelled all appointments for that day but he couldn’t abide the man’s presence any longer. He had begun to wonder, the thought growing in his mind, that his friend might not be as innocent as he claimed. What if Mary Fields and Charles May had been involved, properly involved, and she had sought to benefit from that? He really could believe that of her. He knew that she had stolen from his grandmother. His resentment of the woman was not so much because of his grandmother’s bequest but because he knew that she had been taking and selling small items long before his grandmother had died. The old lady had been slightly less than mentally acute in the last years of her life. Forgetful and occasionally just a little dotty – and he knew that, more than once, when she had missed an item that he believed Mary had taken, Mary Fields had simply used that elderly eccentricity against her, telling her that she must have forgotten where she’d left something. Or didn’t she remember, she’d given that away. He’d been furious when he’d realized what was going on but there was nothing he could do. Relatives had simply been glad that somebody else was dealing with the old lady, who had quite a temper and could be very difficult at times. The result was that Mary Fields had free rein and Edmund Fry could do nothing to change that.

  But what if Charlie was lying to him? What if he really did have something to do with those three people being murdered? Truthfully, if the opportunity had arisen then Edmund could quite easily see a situation in which he would have done away with Mary Fields. But not the child or the young man, come to that. They, it seemed, were just in the way at the wrong moment.

  Charlie had been at the party, right enough, but Edmund had been far too preoccupied to know where he was or what he was doing and, if he was honest, far too drunk anyway to have taken any notice of anyone. Charles could have left, conceivably, and no one would have noticed. He allowed himself a wry smile. It had been one hell of a party.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Sergeant Hitchens arrived back at the hotel just after his boss. He went straight to Henry’s room and knocked on the door. He didn’t mind sharing crime-scene photos in the bar of the Wheatsheaf but this was something else.

  He shook the photos out of the envelope and laid them on Henry’s bed.

  ‘Photographs and negatives,’ he said. ‘And a very athletic young man he is too.’

  Henry studied the photographs dispassionately. ‘We have
proof of infidelity,’ he said, ‘which is slightly more than we had this morning. And the implication is that Mary Fields certainly meant to use blackmail. The question is does it also prove that Charles May was involved with the murder?’

  ‘Prove it, no. Take us further down that path, certainly. Now all we need to do is break his alibi for that night.’

  ‘I drove back via Willingsby, took a look at the hall and then timed how long it would take to get back here. He would be gone perhaps ninety minutes in all. That would give him time to commit the murder and get back. The problem is finding somebody who will admit to seeing him leave.’

  ‘Or to seeing his car back in Louth when he was supposed to be there. That’s always assuming he drove himself and didn’t go with his friends, in which case seeing their car back in Louth when it wasn’t supposed to be here.’

  ‘So our next move will be?’

  Mickey gathered the photographs together and put them back in their envelope. ‘Seems to me our next move must be to go and see the wife, show her the evidence and see if she’ll still vouch for her husband.’

  ‘I suppose that depends on how persuasive he is already being,’ Henry said. ‘I don’t imagine she’ll welcome us anyway.’

  FIFTY-FIVE

  On the Wednesday morning Henry went to visit Mrs May. He was told that the lady was out but he’d come prepared. He had put one of the photographs in a small sealed envelope and now he sent that with the manservant to give this to the lady of the house.

  A few minutes later he was told that she must have returned and that she would see him in the morning room.

  His hat in his hand, because no one had bothered to take it from him, Henry went through as directed. Celia May, in a yellow dress with matching headband, sat on the window seat. The sun streamed through into the cream, green and gold room and Henry guessed she must have chosen this room as a perfect setting for herself. It was a very feminine space; no sign of Charles May in here.