A Dreadful Murder (9 page)

Most of the characters in this story existed and are real. A few – the Blaines, the Farrells, Sarah Anderson and Amy Pegg – are my own invention.

1908 was a time of change in Britain. Herbert Asquith, the leader of the Liberal Party, was Prime Minister. Mrs Pankhurst was fighting for votes for women. And Europe was in the run-up to the most shocking and awful war the world had ever seen.

With the help of his Chancellor, David Lloyd George, Asquith laid the way for the Welfare State. The workhouses were closed, the poor were given access to education, and the Old Age Pension was introduced.

Such measures meant that wealthy women like Caroline Luard – who spent their days working on behalf of the poor – would no longer be needed. In future the State would decide how much benefit a person could receive, and these moves were already under way at the time of Caroline’s death.

In view of the hate campaign against Charles afterwards, I think it probable that Caroline, too, was disliked by many of her neighbours. Few people enjoy taking charity, particularly if they have to beg for it. And if Caroline put conditions on the money she handed out, she would have made enemies.

I don’t know if young men like Michael Blaine and Will Farrell lived in and around Ightham in 1908. But I find it easier to believe that Caroline was murdered by someone she knew rather than by a stranger.

Clearly many people thought the same at the time otherwise they wouldn’t have focused the blame on her husband. But, apart from the Major-General, little attention was given to anyone else in the area. Police effort was put into searching for vagrants and finding witnesses to Charles Luard’s alibi.

For myself, I have never believed that the Major-General shot his wife or hired someone else to do it for him. His alibi depended entirely on chance. He could not have known that Thomas Durrand would be outside Hall Farm when he passed by, nor that a labourer would see him ten minutes later.

Had he been guilty, he would have stayed at the Golf Club as long as he could – acting normally, talking to friends, buying drinks – until the tragic news came through that someone else had found Caroline’s body.

Instead, he collected his golf bag, spoke to no one, accepted a lift home from the vicar and put himself in the dangerous position of being the last person to see Caroline alive and the first to find her dead.

I believe Charles loved Caroline. And I believe what he wrote in his last letter to his friend.

‘
The dreadful murder of my wife has robbed me of all my happiness.
’

For those interested in further research,
a factual retelling of the murder can
be found on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Mary_Luard

1
. Pronounced
Item

2
. Pronounced
Item Noll

3
. In 1908 a Coroner could name a suspect in a murder case if he felt the evidence was strong enough. But such verdicts, made under pressure from the public, were often wrong. Today, it is the job of the police to decide if and when to release the names of suspects.

THE ICE HOUSE

‘Terrific first novel with a high
Rendellesque frisson count’

The Times

THE SCOLD’S BRIDLE

‘A gothic puzzle of great intricacy
and psychological power’

Sunday Times

THE ECHO

‘It grips like steel . . . Passion, compassion,
intelligence and romance are what Walters
offers, with no quarter for squeamish cowards’

Mail on Sunday

THE SHAPE OF SNAKES

‘Breaking all the rules of popular fiction,
Minette Walters asks as much of her readers
as many literary novelists, and yet she offers
them a book as gripping as any thriller’

Times Literary Supplement

FOX EVIL

‘
Fox Evil
is the work of a writer
at the peak of her confidence and
supreme ability’

The Times

THE TINDER BOX

‘If there wasn’t a recognised school
of crime writing called Home Counties
noir before, there is now. Minette Walters
invented it and remains the
undisputed Head Girl’

Birmingham Post

CHICKENFEED (A QUICK READ)

‘A marvellous little story, thoroughly
intimate with human nastiness’

Evening Standard

Minette Walters is a bestselling crime writer. She has written 12 novels and has won the CWA John Creasey Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award and two CWA Gold Daggers for Fiction.
A Dreadful Murder
is her second Quick Read, following
Chickenfeed,
which was voted the 2006 Quick Reads Readers’ Favourite. Minette Walters lives in Dorset with her husband.

The Ice House

The Sculptress

The Scold’s Bridle

The Dark Room

The Echo

The Breaker

The Shape of Snakes

Acid Row

Fox Evil

Disordered Minds

The Tinder Box

The Devil’s Feather

Chickenfeed
(a Quick Read)

The Chameleon’s Shadow

First published 2013 by Pan Books

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ISBN 978-1-24601-2741-0 EPUB

Copyright © Minette Walters 2013

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