The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery (2 page)

              “And he never thought to ask if she was okay?”

              “He did, but obviously still got no reply.”  DI Silver replied.  “He thought she must be sleeping in, so he didn’t continue to carry on knocking.  Then the postman came and Marcus Dye went up and knocked again, and after that, as I told you, the postman went next door and fetched in the next door neighbour, Gemma Bowman, who eventually found the body and went off the deep end.  Faith Roberts had been hit on the back of the head with something with a very sharp edge.  She’s been killed instantaneously.  Drawers were pulled about and things strewn about, and the loose board in the floor in the bedroom had been prised up and the money gone.  All the windows were closed and locked on the inside.  No sign of a forced entry.”

              “Therefore,” I said, “either Marcus Dye must have killed her, or else she must have admitted her killer herself while Dye was out?”

              “Exactly.  It wasn’t any hold-up or burglar.  Now who would she be likely to let in?  One of the neighbours, or her niece, or her niece’s husband.  We eliminated the neighbours.  Niece and her husband were at the cinema in Oxmarket watching the new James Bond film. It is possible – just possible, that one or other of them left the cinema unobserved, drove the three miles to the cottage, killed the woman, hid the money outside the house, and got back into the cinema unnoticed.  We looked into that possibility, but we didn’t find any confirmation of it. And why hide the money outside Faith’s house if that was true?  Difficult place to pick up there with the SOCO’s all over the place.  Why not somewhere along the three mile journey?  No, the only reason for it to be hidden where it was -”

              I finished the sentence for him.  “Would be because you were living in that house, but didn’t want to hide it in your room or anywhere inside.  In fact: Marcus Dye.”

              “You see?”  DI Silver said exasperated.  “It comes back to Marcus Dye all the time.  And then of course there is the blood and hair on the cuff of his shirt.”

              “It gets worse.”  I commented.

              “He tried to explain it away by admitting that he had gone into her room that night after he come back from the pub and found her dead on the floor.  He bent over her and touched her to make sure she was dead and then at the sight of so much blood he went to his room and more or less fainted. In the morning he couldn’t bring himself to admit he knew what had happened.”

              “The man sounds like an idiot.”  I commented.

              “I agree, but yet,” DI Silver said thoughtfully, “it might well be true.  I’ve come across people like him before.  People who are confronted by a demand for responsible action and who simply can’t face up to it.  Shy people.  He goes in and finds her.  He know he ought to do something – get the police – got to a neighbour – do the right thing whatever that is and fucks it up.  He thinks he should just go to bed and everything will sort itself out in the morning.  Behind this thinking there is a fear – fear that he may be actually suspected of having a hand in it.  But he thinks he’ll keep himself out of it as long as possible, and so the tosser goes and puts himself deeper in the mire.”

              DI Silver paused.

              “It
could
have been that way.”

              “It could,”” I said thoughtfully.

              “Or it could have been just the best story his defence counsel could think up for him.  But I don’t know.  The waitress in the café
Julie’s Place
in Oxmarket where he usually had lunch said that he always chose a table where he could look into a wall and not see people.  He was that kind of bloke, just different.  But not different enough to be a killer.”

              DI Silver looked hopefully at me, but I did not respond.  I was frowning because I couldn’t offer him any hope.

              We sat in silence for a while.

2

              I roused myself eventually with a sigh.

              “We’ve exhausted the motive of money,” I said.  “Let us move to other theories. Did Faith Roberts have any enemies?  Was she afraid of anyone?”

              “No evidence of it.”

              “What did her neighbours have to say?”

              “Not very much but they wouldn’t to the police, but I don’t think they were holding anything back.  She kept herself to herself, they said.  Faith passed the time of day with the neighbours but they weren’t intimate.”

              “How long had she lived there?”

              “Matter of eighteen or twenty years, I think.”

              “And before that?”

              “There’s no mystery about her.  Farmer’s daughter from Norfolk.  She and her husband lived near East Dereham for a while and then moved to Oxupland.  Had a cottage, but found it damp, so they moved to Oxmarket Aspal.  Husband seemed to have been a quiet, decent man, that didn’t go to the pub much.  All very respectable and above board.  No mysteries anywhere, nothing to hide.”

              “And yet she was murdered?”

              “And yet she was murdered.”

              “The niece didn’t know of anyone who had a grudge against her aunt?”

              “She says not.”

              I rubbed my nose, exasperated.

              “You do realise, Paul, that it would be so much easier if Faith Roberts wasn’t Faith Roberts, so to speak.  If she was a woman with some baggage then this might be easier to solve.”

              “Well, she wasn’t,” DI Silver said stolidly.  “She was just Faith Roberts, who led a simple life and had simple needs.  There are hundreds of them all over Suffolk.”

              “But they do not all get murdered.”

              “True.”

              “So why did Faith Roberts get murdered?  The obvious answer we do not accept.  What remains?  A shadowy and improbable niece. An even more shadowy and improbable niece. Facts? Let’s stick to the facts.  What are the facts? A middle-aged cleaning lady is murdered.  A shy and unassuming young man is arrested and convicted of the murder. Why was Marcus Dye arrested?”

              DI Silver stared at me impatiently.  “I told you the evidence against him.”

              “Yes, yes. The evidence.  But tell me, Paul, what if I told you the evidence was so contrived it is unbelievable.”

              “Excuse me?”  DI Silver considered.

              “The money was taken and hidden outside the house in a place easily found.  To have actually hidden it in his room would have been a little too much even for the Suffolk Constabulary to believe.” 

              DI Silver frowned but I continued.

              “The murder was committed when Marcus Dye went for his regular daily jaunt down the pub.  What if the bloodstain on the sleeve of his jacket came from someone brushing against him in the pub or on the way home in the darkness?”

              “That’s a bit far-fetched, John.”

              “Is it?  Maybe that’s the route I’m going to have to take because Faith Roberts was so ordinary. Which means the murderer must be extraordinary.”

              “What do you mean?”

              “The answer is not to be found in studying the life of Faith Roberts. The answer is to be found in the personality of the murderer and whether they wanted to strike down Faith Roberts or Marcus Dye.”

              DI Silver looked at me incredulously.  “You really think someone would murder a perfectly inoffensive cleaning lady to get someone else charged with murder?”

              “What else can you tell me about Marcus Dye?”

              “Nothing much.  His father was a doctor who died when Marcus was nine.  Normal school education, tried to get into the Army, but had a weak chest.  Lived with a possessive mother.”

              “There are certain possibilities there.”

              “Do you seriously believe what you are suggesting?”

              “What else have I got?”

              “How you going to go about this, John?  Is there anything else I can do?”

              “First, I should like an interview with Marcus Dye.”

              “That can be managed.  I’ll get on to his solicitors.”

              “After that and subject, of course, to the result, if any – I am not hopeful – of that interview, I shall go to Oxmarket Aspal.  There, aided by the case files, I shall, go over them as quickly as possible.”

              “In case the Suffolk Constabulary have missed anything,” DI Silver said with a wry smile.

              “No,” I said.  “Some circumstance my strike me in a different light to the one in which it struck you.  I will stay in the village, so that I can get a feel of the place.  Is there somewhere of moderate comfort you could recommend?”

              “There is the Bellagamba Guest House in Oxmarket Aspal,” he said.  “It’s not really a Guest House, just a rather decrepit country house where the couple who own it take in paying guests.  I don’t think that it’s very comfortable.”

              “I don’t want to go over budget,” I told him.  “I take it the fee is the usual standard rate.”

              “Of course,” DI Silver eyed me doubtfully.  “But is it really a good idea to stay in the village?”

              “I think it is essential.  I am staying in the village because I am not satisfied about the verdict in the Faith Roberts case.   I have a shrewd suspicion of what really happened.”

              “You want to provoke a reaction?”

              “Exactly.”

              DI Silver looked at me uneasily.  “Is this wise?”

              “It will prove beyond doubt whether Marcus Dye is innocent or not!”

3

              My fiancé, Kimberley Ashlyn Gere was curled up with her back to me, her air inches from my nose, the smell of her making me feel almost drunk.  Even though we were engaged we hadn’t officially moved in together, but this was the third night in a row that I had stayed at her apartment and I was getting used to it.  Sharing my space and my body heat.

              I’d wrapped myself around her, content to look at her while she slept.  I watched her breathe:  gently in, gently out.  She laid so still, her face expressionless, as if she knew she was being watched and didn’t want to spoil the illusion for me.  She was perhaps even more beautiful asleep than awake, even devoid of the mischievous spark that lit up her eyes.

              The only noise in the room was the sound of her snoring spaniel, Charlie, who slept contentedly at the foot of the bed. Brushing my lips past her ear, I lifted my head and looked at the morning that was trying to break in through the curtains. It was still raining and the prospect of assisting the police in investigating the deaths of the three men in such dreadful weather did not fill me entirely with glee.

              My head sank once more, my lips against her shoulder, and she flickered momentarily before she settled again.  I watched some more, wondering how I had got myself into something I’d never thought I’d be lucky again to experience. Tiny little breaths escaped from between her lips, making the slightest whistle, and I was the only person in the world that could hear it.

              I could feel the comfort and the calm getting the better of me, and I knew I was swimming into a half-sleep, carried away by the warmth of her skin and the smell of her natural perfume.  I wasn’t sleeping, though, I was sure I wasn’t.  Instead it was fitful serenity; a workable compromise, some kind of sleep mode where I could retain some control.  That was what I told myself as I drifted deeper. 

              The next thing I knew I was being nudged out of my no-sleep by her pert buttocks grinding against me as she stretched, catlike, her smooth skin working against me, a distinct purr rumbling in her throat.  I was suddenly and noticeably awake.

              Kimberley turned, a huge triumphant smile on her face, and pushed me away from her until I was flat on my back.  I was aware of her crawling on all fours towards me from my feet, stalking her prey with confidence. A hand grabbed, stroked me, and owned me.  Her face told me what we both knew, she could do what she wanted.  And she did.

She sat above me, positioning herself just where she wanted.  I ached for her but she remained on her knees, an agonizing inch or two above me.  She looked glorious in the half-light, her hair partly over her face, her skin pale in shadow and her figure lean and curvy.  When she’d satisfied herself that I’d suffered enough, she swooped and engulfed me.

She set the pace and the rhythm. I did my best just to keep up. It was a race, but only Kimberley knew where the winning post.

The smile on her face told me that she was in charge, she had me.  But the truth was that I couldn’t care less.  If this was subservience, I’d take it.  In the end, I wasn’t sure if she pushed or dragged me over the finishing line, but we crossed together.

As she collapsed on top of me and we both drifted off on a sea of satisfaction, I took a brief second to look over her shoulder and see the indefinable light leaking through the window.  I couldn’t place the time within a few hours either way or it didn’t matter.  This was sleep I could handle and I shifted a little for deeper comfort, and drifted, like Kimberley, to sleep.