Enter Pale Death (15 page)

The young face looked back at him wide-eyed. Startled by the flash or overawed by the occasion of having her photograph taken in distant Stowmarket? Long fair hair fell in tidily combed ripples over her shoulders. She was wearing her Sunday best—possibly her only—dress and buttoned ankle boots. A large silk bow emphasised the tiny waist.

The image of that slim little frame now rotted to dust only feet below him triggered in Joe a response he suspected to have been carefully calculated, though it was none the less instinctive and inevitable. He swallowed and tried manfully to keep emotion out of his voice as he handed back the photograph.

“ ‘Fair was this young wife, and there withall / As any weasel,
her body gent and small,’ ” he murmured. “Though I’ve never been able to understand ‘gent.’ ” When words fail you, Chaucer could always come riding to the rescue with a pithy phrase, Joe reckoned.

Hunnyton’s smile was full of warm surprise. “He weren’t wrong! We still use the word over here. It means neat, worthy of the gentry. Chaucer’s Alisoun was lithe as a weasel and so was my Phoebe. She was proud of her eighteen-inch waist. Prettiest girl in the county. May Queen in her last year at school. Clever too. She was wasted emptying chamber pots and scrubbing floors. She could turn her hand and her head to anything. Only one thing she never learned—how to swim.”

The abrupt pause invited Joe’s next question. “Are you ready to tell me how she died?”

“She drowned. One summer night. In the moat behind the Hall.”

Joe waited.

“She were afeard o’ water. She’d never have gone near it willingly.”

“The household at the time—1908?—remind me. Sir Sidney and Lady Truelove were in residence?”

“Yes. Sir Sidney was … oh, forty-six years old. A man in his prime, you’d say. His prime lasted him thirty years. And to prove it—his wife was heavily pregnant at the time with what turned out to be young Alexander.”

“James? What of him?”

“You had to feel sorry for him. No longer the centre of attention. Down from Eton for the holidays. Rather embarrassed by his mother’s late showing of fecundity, I’d say. Not easy at that age to be told you’re about to acquire a baby brother or sister.”

“How did he cope with it?”

“By ignoring it. He disappeared off into the woods playing with catapults and shooting off his airgun from dawn to dusk.”

More and better particulars required from that source, Joe
decided. Boys stalking about in the woods saw more than they were supposed to and remained, themselves, unseen.

As he got to his feet, Joe caught a stirring of foliage, at the periphery of his vision, a flash of colour. He turned his head casually to check the source. The nerve endings on the back of his neck were sending an alert, as was the sudden stillness where there had been movement.

“We’re being watched, Hunnyton.”

“I’d be surprised if we weren’t! A stranger in the village, a smartly turned-out feller driving a showy car—he’d come in for a bit of interest. You’ll have set all the lace curtains twitching,” Hunnyton replied easily.

Joe nodded. No old biddies would be sneaking about hiding behind tombstones to drum up a bit of gossip and all the children were in school. His unease was not dispelled.

Hunnyton was a policeman and he knew what was expected of a willing witness. Joe asked him again for his view of the events of that summer night a quarter of a century ago and prepared to hear a professionally ordered account. But Hunnyton didn’t follow with the response Joe was waiting for.

“Commissioner, I don’t believe Phoebe Pilgrim had a liaison with a footman or a groom, as they said at the time. I believe she was drowned by a man of influence whose self-indulgence and carnality was a matter of record. A man who got her into trouble and ruined her.” He chewed his bottom lip and Joe understood the depth and confusion of feeling that must be gripping him. An unwanted, unthinking by-blow of the Master of the household himself, Hunnyton must have been torn in two by the realisation that the same man had despoiled the girl he loved. But there was a further dire revelation to follow.

“Like father, like son? It’s often said and we both know it’s a load of blether but suppose … just suppose, Sandilands … The old devil’s son is now doing his best to seduce
your
girl.
Planning to make her the next Lady Truelove? I doubt it. More likely the next corpse fished out of the moat. And the latter is probably preferable. I’m asking that you investigate the case to the best of your ability, Sandilands. Without fear or favour. But as fast as you can.”

CHAPTER 10

“Superintendent, may I just check one detail before we proceed?” Joe replied with equal formality. “Is this your second application for an enquiry into a death? Have you already approached me by means of a recent anonymous letter to the Yard? Item number two in the file I’m getting together?”

His response was one of pure incomprehension. “ ’Course not! Not my style! I say these things to your face. I just have.”

“Yes, yes. Exactly what I expected. I wanted to clear that out of the way. It would seem, Hunnyton, that you’re not the only one keen to send me down this particular rabbit hole. Well, well!” He took on a firm tone as he continued: “Now, you’re an experienced CID officer with an impressive reputation. I’d rather hear you tell me why I can take no action in the matter of Phoebe Pilgrim than listen to my own voice laying down the law in a depressing and disappointing way.”

Joe tried to speak gently yet firmly when what he would really have like to do was sock the man on the jaw. Hunnyton had treated him like one of those Suffolk Punch stallions: attention drawn first—the sticky bun and the oil of cloves were represented by the portraits and the hint of a history behind them. The approach had been made with a gentle delivery, not challenging in any way. He’d let Joe come to him. He’d backed down when
necessary, offering the reassurance of frequent flashes of humour and understanding.

Disarmingly, he lapsed into a Suffolk drawl when it seemed appropriate, and Joe was prepared to hear more of it now they were on his own turf. Not unexpected. Joe found the same thing happened to him, without calculation, when he crossed the border back into Scotland. He never blushed for his Gaelic growl when it escaped in London. Where an English country accent like Hunnyton’s was a liability, seen as clod-hopping and ridiculous, a Scottish accent was held to be rather smart. The Prime Minister himself was a Scotsman; the Duchess of York, the king’s daughter-in-law, was Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon of Glamis Castle, though on the two occasions Joe had chatted with Her Grace the conversation had been conducted on both sides in cutglass Kensington.

Joe recognised Hunnyton’s verbal conjuring. All tricks of the trade. And, so far, the superintendent must think he’d been successful. True enough. But—no harm done; Joe would go along with his schemes as long as they took him in his own chosen direction.

“Rest easy, sir. No warrants and you can’t slap manacles on the dead. Wouldn’t expect it,” he murmured, gentling again. “As you said before, it’s a twenty-five-year-old case with no police enquiry worth the name carried out. No autopsy, no forensics of any kind. I just want to know the truth. I want
you
to know the truth. The same goes for her ladyship Lavinia’s death. I think we might find the answers under the same roof.”

Hunnyton hauled himself to his feet and dusted off his knees, still gazing at the grave. “It’s not just that she was special to me … I don’t know if it gets you the same way, sir … Once you’re acquainted with a corpse, it belongs to you until you find out what happened to it and who was responsible.”

Joe grimaced. “Know what you mean. I’ve had so many bloody
albatrosses round my neck I’m bent into a hairpin. I can carry one more. A little light-boned one. She’s no trouble, bless her. Well, come on, other sheep’s head! Let’s get moving! The vet did you promise me?”

As they strode down the path Joe paused by one of the tombstones. “See here, Superintendent. There’s a local family thick in the ground hereabouts, it would seem. The ‘Hunnybuns.’ Any relation? I like to know these things.”

He had the satisfaction of watching the stony features flush red. Anger? Embarrassment? Impossible to tell.

“That was my name. It’s a very ancient village name and I’m proud to bear it. There’s hundreds of us in the county and in Cambridge, too. So common I didn’t realise there was anything amusing about it until I was about to apply to college. The old man called me in and explained he’d taken steps to have my name changed by deed poll.” His supple voice took on the tone of an aristocratic old duffer: “ ‘Wouldn’t do to have the other undergraduates laughing at you, old chap! Or calling you a nancy-boy.’ ” He grinned and clenched his fists. “He needn’t have worried. I had my own ways of making my mark.”

“Thought as much. But I’m with your old man on this—he did the sensible thing. It’s amazing what a difference one consonant can make—kills off any chance of teasing and hoiks you up a class or two. Does seem a waste of a good name, though. I like it! I think you should call your first daughter ‘Hunnybun.’ I shall expect an invitation to the Christening.”

“You’ll have to find me a wife first, sir.”

Joe was glad to hear a lightening of mood. “I shall give it my best attention. Carrying on the theme of ‘honey,’ I’m inspired to look for something in light auburn, perhaps, and very lovely as you’re so hard to please.”

Hunnyton rolled his eyes in scorn at this flight of fancy. “So long as she’s not called Blossom or Gypsy, that’ll do right well.”

T
HEY DROVE ROUND
to the vet’s house, set a little apart from the rest of the village at the easterly end, its garden hidden behind a stalwart copper beech hedge. Clearly a gentleman’s residence. It was Victorian, of the same period and the same red brick as the schoolhouse. Decorative cornices, stepped brick corners, contrasting black window and door details were the stamp of an uncompromising city architect who was aiming to mark out his work as something superior to the reed-thatched, ground-hugging local dwellings. A row of steeply pitched gables snapped off an angled salute and tall chimneys at either end stood to attention, giving the house more than a touch of imperial consequence, but a bower of climbing roses, which some later owner had encouraged to swarm all over the façade, poked light fun at the ruled-edge regularity and softened its severity with blousy white blooms.

They parked on the gravelled carriage sweep and got out as the church bell pealed eleven. Seconds later, the infants erupted from the schoolroom into the playground for their recreation and filled the air with their shouts and songs.

“What’s the vet’s name? Hartest? Must be doing well for himself. This is a very good house.”

“He’s a very good vet. Best the village has ever had. London trained. Not in the flush of youth. He’s a widower. Came out here last summer, thinking to work out his remaining years in peace and quiet.” His grin was full of mischief. “He isn’t getting much! His prices are very reasonable so people don’t need to think twice before calling him in and, as I say, he knows his stuff.”

Hunnyton tugged on the bell-pull.

A maid answered at once, taking their hats and ushering them into a cool black-and-white-tiled hallway. “You’ll be the police gentlemen for Mr. Hartest. Sorry, sirs, but you can’t see him at the
minute. Vet’s been called out to Fox Farm. There’s trouble with that new bull of theirs. But you
can
have a word with
Doctor
Hartest.”

They exchanged puzzled looks but before Joe could ask a question, a door at the rear banged open and a voice called out a greeting. “How do you do, gentlemen. I’m Doctor Hartest. Adelaide Hartest. Sorry to disappoint you. My father asked me to welcome you, make his apologies and try to give you any information you might want about the death in the stables. You may see all the notes he made at the time and … well … we did talk about it extensively so I can pass on his comments if you wish.”

The young woman looked from one to the other of the two men standing awkwardly in her hall. For mature men following a profession where words came easily, they stood in stunned silence, staring at her.

Adelaide Hartest’s smile of welcome began to fade. “So long as you’re not here to sell me an encyclopedia or guarantee me a pass through the Pearly Gates, you may come into the parlour and introduce yourselves. When you’ve remembered who you are.”

Her appearance was as informal as her greeting. She was a tall girl, wearing trousers and an aged linen open-necked shirt which had probably belonged to her father or even grandfather, Joe thought critically. Lord! It could well have seen action at Gallipoli. She had wooden clogs on her feet. A pair of pruning shears stuck out of one pocket and a gardening glove dangled from the other. Joe didn’t much care for women in trousers but, as she turned to lead them into the parlour, he decided to add the name of Adelaide Hartest to his list of women who
could
wear them. It was now a list of three: Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel and Dr. Adelaide Hartest.