The Hangman's Row Enquiry (6 page)

Miriam folded up the will and replaced it in its envelope. What the old thing left in the bank would not even pay for the funeral. She would have to hunt properly and systematically round the house. But not straightaway. It would look bad, unseemly even, to be turning out cupboards and looking under floorboards before her mother was laid safely to rest. Last night she had awoken to see the familiar lined old face looking at her over the rail at the bottom of the bed. Miriam had pulled the bedclothes over her head, yelling at the apparition to go away and leave her alone.

IN THE SPOTLESS kitchens of Springfields Home for the Elderly, Miss Pinkney was giving the Polish girl a piece of her mind. Fortunately, the girl could understand little of what the red-faced woman was saying. She had quickly discovered that the best thing to do in the face of this kind of meaningless tirade was to say nothing, but have an expression of anxiety to please on her face.

As far as Katya could tell, the crime she had committed was leaving a pot of jam on the table without its top screwed on, a perfect target for the cloud of wasps that already buzzed around in ecstasy.

“Sorry, Miss Pinkney. I will not do again,” she said humbly.

“Do
it
again, girl! We like all our staff to speak good Queen’s English. Aren’t you going to classes?”

Katya nodded obediently. She caught the word
classes
, and for once could answer, knowing what she was agreeing to. She and another Polish girl who cleaned in the village went to weekly English classes in Tresham. This friend, Anya, had a greater aptitude for languages than she did, but she was trying hard. Katya liked working at Springfields, and though some of the old people were rude and unpleasant, most were kind and appreciative. She felt sorry for some of them, dumped by relatives who never came to see them. There was only one that she was really frightened of, and that was Miss Ivy Beasley. Although she did not understand all that the old dragon said to her, the expression on her face when she was cross was enough to frighten the Pope.

“Get on with your work, now,” Miss Pinkney said, her voice softening. Although she had no children of her own, she regarded the staff at Springfields as her family. Some of them were wayward and had to be kept in check. But she prided herself on being fair, and on the whole was not unpopular with the rest.

“Will you put two coffees and a couple of extra biscuits on the tray for Miss Beasley, please,” Miss Pinkney said. “She has a visitor this morning. It’s that new chap in Hang-man’s Row. He’s got a funny name. I noticed Miss Beasley referred to him as Augustus. Quick work on his part. She’s not so fond of Christian names! Mrs. Spurling tried calling her Ivy, but got a flea in her ear. I do hope he’s not a con man, working on the old thing to get her money.”

Katya smiled. She had got the gist of that, and said, “Gus
is
nice man. Very nice to me, and Miss Beasley likes him.”

“Hope you’re right, girl,” Miss Pinkney said. “Now hurry along, else we shall have you-know-who ringing for service.

 

GUS HAD MADE a plan. He had already said good morning to Miriam Blake over the garden wall. She had looked pale and distressed, but had said would he like to come to her house this afternoon for a return cup of tea? He had accepted with pleasure, and organised his day around this important visit. The better he got on with Miriam, the more likely he was to spot any slips in her account of what had happened on the fateful day.

Meanwhile, he looked forward to calling on Ivy. He hadn’t much faith in Deirdre’s ability to persuade Theo Roussel to pay out good money to Enquire Within to take on the case. For one thing, there was another side to it that Deirdre hadn’t mentioned. With the old woman gone, and Miriam in healthy middle age, perfectly capable of getting a job, the squire would have no compunction in moving her on, with Miss Beatty ably abetting him. Contrary to what Deirdre had said, Gus considered Theo would not worry about possible tenants being put off by the murder. There are some ghouls who actually like such things, though Gus didn’t fancy them as neighbours.

No, he put his money on Ivy being the more useful of the two women, and now considered, as he marched along the main street purposefully, how he intended to direct the conversation. He looked in the shop window and noticed that Will was clearing the notice board. He remembered his previous plan to be a general painter and decorator, and decided to forget that. If the agency took off as he intended, he would not have time for anything else. In any case, he liked the image of a private detective a whole lot better than that of a man in a white overall, carrying a paint pot up ladders.

“Morning, Mr. Halfhide!” Will said, as Gus passed by. The shopkeeper had noticed Gus’s apparent friendship with Ivy. It was the talk of the village, and had taken first place in the gossip list, displacing the disgraceful behaviour of the local lads with that Polish girl working at Springfields, but not, of course, the murder.

“Morning, Will—and please call me Gus.”

“Fine, and how are you settling in? Bit of a shock to find you’re living next door to a murder, wasn’t it?”

Gus paused. Village shops were clearinghouses for local news, so he turned back and followed Will inside. “A white sliced, please,” he said.

“Need a bag? We’re trying to cut down on bags—carbon footprint and all that stuff. We have to compete with supermarkets.”

“No, no bag, thanks. That’s all I want at the moment. And to answer your question, yes, it was a bit of a shock. Poor Miss Blake is in a bad state. Pale as a ghost and very shaky. I suppose she was fond of her mother, living together all those years. When did the father die?”

“Years ago,” said Will. “And not much missed, as far as I can tell. As for being fond of her mother, our Miriam and the old woman scarcely spoke to one another. Miriam said Mrs. Blake was so sharp and unkind that she had given up talking to her. Everything she said, apparently, was found fault with, and the poor girl found keeping quiet was the best policy.”

“Still, a mother is a mother,” Gus said, picking up his bread. “Bound to be lonely, poor Miriam. I shall do my best to be a good neighbour.”

He left the shop, and Will said under his breath, “Well, just watch it, mate. Miriam Blake eats unattached men for breakfast.”

When Gus reached Springfields, he saw Ivy waiting for him at the garden gate. “You’re late,” she said. “Might as well be off straightaway.”

“Off where?” he said. He’d been looking forward to coffee and biscuits.

“To the graveyard, of course. Follow me.”

“But the old lady is not buried yet,” objected Gus. “They’ll keep the body for a while yet, while police investigations are going on.”

“Not the old lady. We’re going to see the old man. Poor old Blake. Had a terrible time with those two women, so I hear.”

“Maybe,” said Gus. “But what use is it going to look at a mouldering gravestone? The dead can’t speak, Ivy.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. And don’t argue, even if you are the chair.”

Gus sighed. “Right,” he said, “just the morning for visiting a graveyard. Sun shining, birds singing, a warm breeze. Where else would you want to go on such a day?”

“We shall all be in there for good soon enough, so might as well get used to it,” Ivy said, and walked on steadily.

The graveyard in Barrington was in fact a pleasant spot. Dutiful parishioners cut the grass and trimmed the roses that lined the path to the church door. The churchyard itself was full, but Ivy led Gus to an extension round the back, and stopped at an overgrown grave with moss covering the lettering.

“That’s him,” she said. “You can just make out his name. Now, before we uncover the inscription, what do you notice, Augustus? You’re the gumshoe.”

“The what?!” he said.

“Isn’t that what private detectives are called in America?”

“For God’s sake, Ivy, couldn’t you just stick to Gus and leave it at that?”

“Right, Augustus,” she said, with an unaccustomed smile on her face. “Well, what do you make of it?”

“Neglected, first of all. And why? Because nobody cares for it, and maybe nobody cared for its occupant. Who should have cared? Mrs. and Miss Blake, of course. Well, maybe in later life Mrs. B was too disabled, but Miriam could, or should, have tidied it up once in a while. And what about flowers at Easter and a holly wreath at Christmas? No trace of either. How am I doing, Ivy?”

Ivy had to admit that he had done very well, and said so. “Now you have to scrape off the moss,” she said, and, brushing leaves from a nearby tomb, perched herself comfortably on it and prepared to watch Gus get down to some real work.

AFTER GUS HAD cleared the face of the gravestone of moss and algae, he sat down next to Ivy and said, “Well, what does it say?”

“You can read, can’t you?” said Ivy.

“Not without my glasses,” admitted Gus. “How about you?”

“ ‘In Loving Memory,’ ” she read, and added that this obviously didn’t mean much, judging by the state of the grave. “ ‘John Frederick Blake, born 12 March 1908, died 3 February 1985.’ ” So that was quite a while ago, Gus, as I said.”

“What’s that in smaller letters at the bottom under the grass?”

Ivy peered at it, moving the long grass to one side.
“ ‘He did the best he could
.
’
Well,” she said, shocked, “talk about damning with faint praise! What a dreadful thing to say.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Gus replied with a shrug. “Seems about right for most people,” he said. “Probably more like the truth than the usual eulogy.”

“Huh?” said Ivy, straightening up and wincing silently. “Usual usogy, usual eulogy?” she grunted. “Better stick to plain English, Augustus,” she said, and turned back along the grassy path to the graveyard gates.

They stood outside the church, looking down the village street, and Ivy said shouldn’t they go back to Springfields now and have coffee and biscuits? “Still plenty of the morning left, and we can decide what to do next.”

As Gus’s only commitment that day was tea with Miriam, he agreed. He might see that pretty Polish girl again, and then there was Mrs. Spurling to keep sweet. It occurred to him suddenly that he was surrounded by women. He’d not met a single man so far to share a pint with him at the pub. Perhaps he would call in again at the shop on his way home, see if Will was the matey sort. He would certainly be in possession of a good deal of useful information. Who else? Theo Roussel was probably a snooty toff who would never set foot in the village pub, even if the Beattie woman would allow him to. Nobody else, as yet.

He would ask Will what else went on in the village. He knew there was a Women’s Institute, but obviously not for him. Cricket club? Darts team? Reading group? Ivy had pointed out to him the old Reading Room, bequeathed by Theo’s grandfather to the village, and lately restored. Logical place for a reading group, he thought, but did he want to read books chosen by other people? Depends who are the other members, he decided. Lots of questions, all of which could be answered by Will the shopkeeper.

By the time they reached Springfields, Gus realised he hadn’t listened to a word Ivy had been saying. Still, he gathered early on in the conversation that it was mostly about the iniquities of the people of Round Ringford, Ivy’s home for most of her life.

“Morning, Mr. Halfhide!” Mrs. Spurling was in the hall, looking as if she had been standing there waiting for them. “Ready for your coffee now, Miss Beasley? Katya took up your tray, with a cup for Mr. Halfhide, only to find you two had absconded!”

“Eloped, perhaps?” laughed Gus. Oh God, he thought, is this really me?

“No chance of that,” said Ivy sharply. “And yes, send the coffee up to my room at once. And shortbread,” she added.

“What’s the magic word?” muttered Mrs. Spurling under her breath, but she smiled bravely and disappeared towards the kitchens.