But before the inspector could embark on a blow-by-blow account of his sergeant’s sporting triumphs, a fresh ripple of applause
broke out and all the white-clad figures scattered over the cricket pitch began to drift untidily off the field, mostly in
the direction of the pavilion.
‘Tea,’ said Wesley. ‘I’d better get back.’ He looked at Heffernan meaningfully. ‘I’ll see what Willerby wanted to talk to
me about, then I’ll bring him over to have a word with you. Okay?’
‘Yeah, Wes. Keep it casual, eh? We don’t want to put the wind up him just yet.’
Wesley hurried back to the pavilion, looking for familiar faces in the crowd. He noticed Martin Samuels, the trust director,
disappearing in the direction of the hall. Neil and the object of his newly discovered affections were nowhere to be seen.
But he didn’t have time to look for his friend now. He had to find Brian Willerby … fast.
But there was no sign of him. He walked into the pavilion and accepted a welcome cup of tea from Bob Naseby’s Thermos flask.
Bob explained sadly that the wives and girlfriends of the home team had, in a fit of feminist fervour, refused to provide
refreshments … so it was every man for himself when they played at Earlsacre.
There was no sign of Willerby inside the pavilion either. Wesley took his tea outside on to the veranda and scanned the faces
scattered about the field. He could see Pam in the distance, and he felt a stab of guilt for abandoning her. But police work
had no respect for family outings. He looked round the field again, more carefully this time, but his quarry was nowhere to
be seen.
Wesley felt a tap on his shoulder. ‘Fine six you hit. Lucky I caught you.’ He swung round. Standing there, smiling breathlessly,
was a young man in cricket whites with the dark, even features of a
Hollywood matinée idol. He put his hand out to Wesley. ‘Charles Pitaway. It was me who took the catch, I’m afraid.’
Wesley shook the man’s hand firmly. ‘I know. I recognised you. Fine catch.’ Then Wesley realised where he had seen Pitaway
before: he had been the unnamed third man in the newspaper photograph found beneath John Jones’ mattress. His was a hard face
to forget.
‘I hear you’re a friend of one of our archaeologists up at the hall … Neil Watson?’ said Charles with casual charm.
‘That’s right. Are you working there yourself?’
‘Yes. I’ve been helping out with the designs for the restored gardens. I’ve got my own garden design business and I was doing
some very routine work on the showhouse gardens for a new estate just outside Dukesbridge when Martin asked me to come up
with something for Earlsacre. As you can imagine, I was delighted to take him up on his offer. My family used to own the hall.
I sold it to the trust.’
‘It must be strange for you seeing all this work going on,’ said Wesley, his eyes still scanning the veranda and the field
for any sight of Willerby.
‘Not really,’ Charles replied. ‘I was five when we moved out, so it doesn’t hold many memories. I’ve come back to live around
here, so I’ve been taking quite an interest in the plans for the place. Fascinating stuff the archaeologists are finding;
especially those skeletons.’ He paused and looked over Wesley’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll have to dash. I can see Jacintha,
our resident poet, looming on the horizon. I expect Neil will tell you all about her. Don’t look round. Will you do me a favour?
If she asks, say that you don’t know where I am.’ Charles looked round furtively, preparing to disappear.
‘Before you go, have you seen Brian Willerby anywhere around?’ asked Wesley quickly before Charles had a chance to vanish.
‘Not since we stopped for tea. Sorry. He turned up late for the match and the captain was more than a little annoyed. Perhaps
he’s keeping a low profile.’ Charles Pitaway looked around again, then raised a hand in farewell and hurried away, pushing
through the throng of white-clad men. Wesley noted that he was holding his right leg and limping slightly: Charles Pitaway
was paying the price for his catch.
He turned to see a woman in her forties, draped in floaty Indian fabrics, barging her way through the crowd. She was making
for
Charles like a homing missile, her long auburn hair flowing behind her. But Wesley didn’t have time to find out whether she
met her target: he had to find someone who knew where Willerby was.
He began to wander round the edge of the field, stopping for a word with his wife and his boss.
‘Any sign of him yet, Wes?’ shouted Heffernan, his deckchair close to Susan Green’s.
‘No. He turned up late for the match and everyone I ask says that they haven’t seen him since we went in for tea.’
‘Keep looking. His team are batting next, aren’t they? He can’t have gone far. Probably just nipped home to polish his bat
or whatever it is they do.’
Wesley looked at his watch and gave Pam a quick smile. ‘I’d better get back to the pavilion … see if Willerby’s turned up.’
‘Off you go, then,’ said Pam, resigned. ‘Bowl them all out quickly, will you, so we can all get home.’
Wesley returned to the fray. After a brief and uneventful spell of bowling he spent most of the innings fielding near the
boundary. He watched as batsman after batsman came in, waiting in vain for the familiar face of Brian Willerby.
After a while he began to sense that something was wrong. The odd look, the furtive whispers shared by batsmen between overs.
But it wasn’t until the match was completed that Wesley discovered the truth. Brian Willerby, the man chosen to bat third
for the Earlsacre team, hadn’t been seen since the start of the tea interval. The captain of the Earlsacre team had rung Willerby’s
home and been told by his wife that she hadn’t seen him since he had left for the cricket match … half an hour before it was
due to begin: he hadn’t wanted to be late.
It seemed that Brian Willerby had disappeared into thin air.
I informed Sir Richard that I would take my leave of him the next day. He made no effort to persuade me to stay. As it was
my last evening in his company, I grasped the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity concerning strange stories I had heard in
that most admirable of hostelries, the King’s Head.He talked for a while about his estate and how he had rebuilt the gardens when he found them quite overgrown on his return
from the West Indies. The good wine fuelling my impudence, I then inquired as to the whereabouts of a certain Jinny Cartwright,
a young woman of the village who had come to Earlsacre as a maidservant and who had disappeared two years before in the summer
months. Her disappearance was still much spoken of in the village and her family’s distress has occupied my thoughts. Sir
Richard was silent at first. Then he spoke up, saying that the cook told him Jinny had run off with a soldier. He would discuss
the matter no further, saying he did not concern himself with the doings of servant girls. When I asked if the tales of strange
hauntings in the walled garden were false, he threw his glass into the fire and left the room without a word. Sir Richard
Lantrist is indeed a troubled man. Before retiring I visited my lady in her bedchamber to bid her farewell. See how the Earlsacre
wine banishes all caution and prudence.I had words with the cook before I left the house the following morning. The good woman did swear she knew nothing of Jinny
Cartwright and any soldier.From Jacob Finsbury’s Account of His Travels around the Houses of England, 1703
‘I think we’ve pussyfooted around long enough,’ Heffernan announced. ‘Willerby wanted to see you so why don’t you get round
to his house after you’ve changed, eh? He only lives down the road in Earlsacre village. It’s time he was asked a few pertinent
questions.’
‘I’ve tried ringing his house, and the captain of his team’s been trying too. He’s not there. And we’ve no evidence he’s done
anything, sir. It’s hardly a crime to leave a cricket match half way through.’
‘But what about young Billy Wheeler’s photofit?’
‘So the man looked something like Willerby. We’ve absolutely no other evidence that he even knew the dead man.’
‘Instinct, Wes. I can feel it in my water that all this is linked. It has to be. Don’t forget I saw him going into that house
near the church and I know a man with something to hide when I see one. When you’re changed you can go round and have a word
with his missus … see what you can find out.’
Wesley nodded, unconvinced. There were times when Detective Inspector Heffernan tended to get carried away … and this was
probably one of them.
‘You’d better get back to Pam and Mrs Green,’ Wesley suggested. ‘They’ll be wondering where we are. And Pam’s looking forward
to having a takeaway from the Chinese tonight.’
‘That’s a good idea. If we get the Willerby business out of the way quickly why don’t Susan and I join you?’ He grinned.
Wesley’s heart sank. He and Pam were looking forward to a quiet night in after their experience with Della and Jamie the night
before. ‘Yes, er, if you’re sure Mrs Green won’t mind.’ He noticed that Pam was deep in conversation with Susan Green. The
two women seemed to be getting on well: perhaps he would have to bow to the inevitable.
Wesley strolled back to the pavilion. The warmth of the early September day meant that there were still a lot of people sitting
around the cricket pitch enjoying the sun. He looked for Neil but he was nowhere to be seen: the Earlsacre staff with their
looming deadlines were probably still at work.
Wesley had hoped to make a quick getaway from the match and he felt a sudden wave of irritation towards Brian Willerby. Why
did the man have to mess him around; intrude on his precious free time? Why had he seemed so anxious to speak to him that
afternoon and then disappeared without any explanation? He had never actually spoken to Willerby alone face to face: he had
only seen him at the
police station, talked to him briefly on the telephone, and seen him as a distant, white-clad figure at the other end of the
cricket pitch. But he was already starting to dislike the man.
Les Cumbernold, the opening batsman of Earlsacre’s narrowly defeated cricket team, pulled the stumps out of the ground and
tucked them under his arm. Then he remembered the ball lost at the end of the seventh over of the visiting team’s innings
when their captain had whacked it over the boundary. He had distinctly seen it hurtling towards the trees that edged the pitch
on the eastern side. There was no harm in having a quick look. The red ball might not be difficult to find against the green
undergrowth at the edge of the woodland; and cricket balls didn’t come cheap.
Les, a heavy man with an impressive beer gut, lumbered towards the trees and made for the spot where he had seen the ball
disappear. He stepped into the deep green shade of the trees, using one of the wooden stumps to poke about in the undergrowth.
The ball had to be there somewhere.
Then he heard a sound; a giggle, then a moan, then another small cry of pleasure. He walked farther into the trees, stepping
softly, stopping suddenly each time a twig snapped beneath his feet. All thoughts of the lost cricket ball fled from his mind
as he approached the clearing. He slowed down: he knew that was where they would be.
They were in front of him, lying in the dead centre of the clearing on a carpet of soft bark chippings, dramatically lit by
dappled shards of sunlight which had seeped through the tall trees. They had kept their clothes on in spite of the day’s warmth
and the young man lay on top, moving rhythmically. Les hid his large frame behind the thick trunk of an ancient oak tree and
watched. He saw the woman’s face, the greedy pleasure she took from her young partner as she ran her grasping fingers through
his dark, curly hair.
Les knew her: she called herself a poet. He remembered her name: Jacintha. And he had seen the man around Earlsacre Hall.
Les smiled to himself. She was a bit of a girl was that Jacintha.
With a gasp of delight it was finished. Les knew they would soon be sitting up and making themselves decent: it was time for
him to make a rapid exit.
He took a few steps backwards, careful to keep out of sight behind the trees. He stepped to the side, where a particularly
thick tree trunk
seemed to offer ample protection, then turned and began to pick his way over brittle twigs back towards the open ground. In
his excitement he had forgotten all about the cricket ball, but now his eyes focused once more on the ground in a token effort
to locate it.
He wasn’t aware of making a noise when he saw Brian Willerby lying in the undergrowth staring up at him with dead, unseeing
eyes. But he heard a woman’s voice coming from the direction of the clearing. ‘Jake, what was that? Did you hear something?’
‘Yeah.’ This time the voice was male. ‘I’m going to take a look. You stay there, Jacintha.’
‘Not bloody likely. I’m coming with you,’ she said with determination.
Les Cumbernold took one last look at Brian Willerby’s startled face and began to run towards the daylight. He was just emerging
back on to the cricket field when he heard Jacintha’s scream.
‘So who’s the bloke who found him?’ asked Gerry Heffernan as Colin Bowman knelt by Brian Willerby’s body, examining a thermometer.
‘A member of the Earlsacre team,’ said Wesley. ‘Name of Les Cumbernold. And not only is he a fellow team member, it also turns
out that he’s Brian Willerby’s next-door neighbour.’
‘So who was that woman who kept screaming? Had she been in the woods with this Cumbernold character for a bit of naughties?’
‘Er, no, sir. It seems she was in the woods for a bit of naughties, as you so elegantly put it, with someone else entirely.
A Jake Weston, one of the trust’s archaeologists.’
Gerry Heffernan grinned wickedly. ‘You mean one of Neil’s mates has been up to a bit of how’s your father with …’
‘With a lady called Jacintha Hervey. She’s poet in residence here.’
‘Poet in residence, eh?’ mused Heffernan, staring down at the body. ‘Pity you never got a chance to find out what this poor
bugger wanted to talk to you about.’