The Oxmarket Aspal Murder Mystery (5 page)

              “Did he ever mention that he knew she kept a great deal of cash hidden in the house?”

              Some of the colour went from Joanne’s face, but she threw up her chin defiantly.

              “Actually, he did.  But it was more out of his concern about the possibility of a burglary or her carelessness.”

              “He never joked that someday, someone might knock her on the head for it?”

              “No,” she said abruptly.  “Never.”

              “Good,” I said.  “I don’t want that conversation coming back to bite me at a later date.”

              Joanne Burton glanced at her watch.

              “I must get back.  I’m only supposed to take half an hour for lunch.  You will let me know if there is anything I can do?”

              “Of course,” I handed her one of my cards with my mobile number on it.  “I’m staying at the Bellagamba Guest House in Oxmarket Aspal.”

              She laughed.  “What’s that place like?  I’ve heard a lot of things about it.”

              “It’s rustic to say the least,” I said politely, with a smile.

7

              The cottage where Faith Roberts had lived was only a few steps from the only bus stop in Oxmarket Aspal.  Two little girls were playing on the doorstep, one was eating an apple and the other was shouting and beating on the door with a tin tray.  They appeared quite happy and I added to the noise by beating hard on the door myself.

              A woman looked round the corner of the house.  She was wearing old clothes and rubber gloves that seemed huge on her slender arms and wrists.  Her blonde hair was tied back and her glasses perched on the end of her nose.

              “Stop it, Summer Louise,” she said.

              “Why?”  The little girl replied, with the broadest Suffolk accent I had ever heard.

              I deserted the doorstep and made for the corner of the house.

              “Sorry, about that,” the woman said, beckoning round to the back door.

              She removed one of her rubber gloves and shook my hand.  “Louise Plume,” she said.  “I keep the front door bolted.  Come in, won’t you?”

              I passed through a very untidy laundry room and into an even untidier kitchen.

              “She wasn’t killed in here,” she said.

              I blinked slightly.

              “That’s what you’re here about, isn’t it?  You’re John Handful, the private detective staying at the Bellagamba Guest House?”

              “Yes, that’s correct Mrs -”

              “Please, call me Louise. My husband’s a plumber.  Moved in four months ago we did.  Some people couldn’t understand how we could live in a house where a murder took place.  We’ve been living with James’ mother before that.  If I stayed there much longer there would have been another murder there for you to investigate.  I can tell you.  Like to see where it happened?”

              I nodded, feeling like a tourist taken on a conducted tour. I followed Louise Plume up the narrow staircase and into a bedroom which contained a large chest of drawers, a big bed, a large chest of drawers and a fine assembly of baby clothes folded on a wicker chair in the corner.

              “Down on the floor she was and the back of her head split open.  Frightened the life out of Mrs Perry.  She’s the one who found her.”

              “Is this her furniture?”

              “Oh no.  Her niece Sarah, took that.”

              I looked around me.  There was nothing left here of Faith Roberts.  The Plume family had come and conquered. Life was stronger than death.

              From downstairs the loud fierce wail of a baby arose.

              “That’s the baby woken up,” she said unnecessarily.             

              She plunged down the stairs and I followed her.  There was nothing more for me here, so I went next door and introduced myself to the dramatic Mrs Perry.

              “Yes, it was me who found her,” she said vigorously. 

              Her house was neat, tidy and clean.  The only drama in it was Mrs Perry herself.  A tall gaunt dark-haired woman, who took great pleasure in recounting the one moment of excitement in her life.

              “Brettles, the postman, came and knocked at the door. ‘
It’s Faith
,’ he said, ‘
we can’t make her hear.  Seems there might be something wrong.
’  I agreed with him and hurried over, thinking she might have had a heart attack or a stroke.  I went straight up the stairs and found that lodger of hers on the landing, pale as death he was.  Not that I ever though at the time that he had done what he had done.  I banged on the door, good and loud and when there wasn’t an answer. I went in.  The whole place was in a right bloody mess, with the floorboards up and everything and then I saw Faith. On the floor with her head smashed in.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  A murder in Oxmarket Aspal.  I screamed and screamed. Brettles called the police on his mobile phone and Marcus just stood there staring at the body.  It was horrible, horrible.  I shan’t forget it that easily.”

              I dexterously interrupted her thrilling narrative by asking her when the last time she had seen Faith Roberts alive was.

              “Must have been the day before.”

              “Did she say anything to you?”

              “Just good afternoon.”

              “You didn’t see her on the day she died?”

              “No, but I saw that bloody murderous lodger of hers though.”  She lowered her voice.  “About eleven o’clock in the morning.  Just walking along the road.  Shuffling, his feet like he always did.”

              “Were you surprised when he was arrested?” I asked.

              “Well, I was and I wasn’t.  I’d always thought he wasn’t quite the ticket and they can turn a bit violent can’t they, those simple ones.  My uncle had a feeble-minded young lad and he could be a bit violent sometimes.  Didn’t know his own strength.  Yes, that Marcus Dye was a bit of a half-wit.  Look at where he hid the money.  No one would hide in a place like that, unless they wanted someone to find it.  Just silly and simple, that’s what he was.”

              “Unless he wanted it found,” I murmured.  “You haven’t by any chance found a chopper or an axe lying about in your garden.”

              “No, I haven’t.  The police already checked.  Asked at all the cottages in the village.  It’s a mystery what he killed her with.”

              I visited the other two cottages and the residents had been less exuberant than Mrs Plume and less dramatic than Mrs Perry.  They said in effect that Faith Roberts was a very respectable woman who kept herself to herself, that nobody but her niece visited her, that nobody, so far as they knew, disliked her or held a grudge against her and was it true there was a petition being got up for Marcus Dye and would they be asked to sign it?

              From there I walked to the post office.  The right-hand side was given to the business of the postal services and the left hand side displayed a rich assortment pf merchandise.  The woman who bustled forward to serve me was middle-aged with sharp, bright eyes. 

              “I expect you already know who I am,” I said with a slight smile.

              “You’re that private detective, asking questions concerning the Faith Roberts murder?”

              Behind her, through the door to the back of the shop, I could see the back of a girl’s head who was listening avidly.

              “Yes, that’s right.”  I said.  “And your name?”

              “Lynn Beverley.”  She said quickly.  “Yes, it was a sad business, a shocking business.”

              “Did you know Faith well?”

              “Oh I did.  As well as anyone in Oxmarket Aspal, I should say.  She’d always pass the time of day with me when she came in here for any little thing.  Yes, it was a terrible tragedy.  And not settled yet, or so I’ve, or so I’ve heard say.”

              “There is a doubt – in some quarters – as to Marcus Dye’s guilt.”

              “Well,” Lynn Beverley said, “it wouldn’t be the first time the police got hold of the wrong man – though I wouldn’t say they had in this case. Not that I should have thought it of him really.  A shy, awkward man, but not dangerous or so you’d think.  But there, you never know, do you?”

              I hazarded a request for A4 printing paper.

              “Of course.  Just come across the other side, will you?”

              Lynn Beverley bustled round to take her place behind the left-handed counter.

              “What is difficult to imagine is, who could have been if it wasn’t Marcus Dye,” she remarked as she stretched up to a top shelf of A4 printing paper. “We do get some strange people along here sometimes, and it’s possible one of these might have found a window unlocked and got in that way.  But he wouldn’t leave the money behind him, would he?  Not after committing murder to get his hands on it.  Here you are, good A4 printing paper.”

              I made my purchase.

              “Faith Roberts never spoke of being nervous of anyone, or afraid, did she?”  I asked

              “Not to me, she didn’t. She wasn’t a nervous woman.  She’s stay late sometimes at the Brooks-Nunn’s.  They often have people to dinner and stopping with tem, and Faith would go there in the evening sometimes to help wash up, and she’d come home in the dark, and that’s more than I’d like to do.  These roads can be very dark at night.”

              “Did you ever meet her niece?”

              “I knew her just to speak to.  She and her husband used to come over and visit her sometimes.”

              “They inherited a little money when Faith died.”

              The piercing dark eyes looked at me severely.

              “Well, that’s natural enough, isn’t it?”

              “Definitely,” I agreed.  “Do you think she was fond of her niece?”

              “Yes.”

              “And her niece’s husband?”

              An evasive look appeared in Lynn Beverley’s face.

              “As far as I know.”

              “When did you see Faith last?”

              Lynn Beverley considered, casting her mind back.

              “Now let me see, when was it, Susan?”  Susan in the doorway, shrugged her shoulders unhelpfully.  “Was it the day she died?  No, it was the day before – or the day before that again?  Yes, it was a Monday. That’s right.  She was killed on the Wednesday.  Yes, it was Monday.  She came into buy a printer cartridge for her computer’s printer.”

              “She wanted a printer cartridge?”

              “Yes,” Lynn Beverley insisted.

              “She was quite her usual self then?  She did not seem different in any way?”

              “No, I don’t think so.”

              Susan shuffled through the door into the shop and suddenly joined in the conversation.

              “She was different,” she asserted.  “Pleased about some – thing – well - not pleased quite - excited.”

              “Perhaps you’re right,” Lynn Beverley said.  “Not that I noticed it at the time.  But now that you mention it, Susan, she was sort of full of it.”

              “Did she say why?”

              “I didn’t remember at the time but what with her being murdered and the police and everything, it makes things stand out.  She didn’t say anything about Marcus Dye, that I’m quite sure.  Talked about the Brooks-Nunn’s a bit and Lorraine Terret – places where she worked, you know.”

              “I was just about to ask for whom actually worked.”

              “Monday and Thursday she went to the Bellagamba’s.  That’s where you’re staying isn’t?”

              “Yes,” I sighed.  “I suppose there isn’t anywhere else to stay?”

              “Not right in Oxmarket Aspal, there isn’t.  I suppose you’re not very comfortable at the guest house?  Mrs Bellagamba is a lovely lady but she doesn’t know the first thing about the house.  Terrible mess there was always to clean up, or so Faith Roberts used to say.  Yes, Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings Mrs Bellagamba’s, then Tuesday mornings Dr Hogg’s and afternoon Lorraine Terret.  Wednesday was Mrs Rice in Beaumaris Road and Friday Miss Woodhouse – Mrs Brooks-Nunn now.  Lorraine Terret is an elderly lady who lives with her son.  Mr and Mrs Rice never seem to keep any help long – she’s rather an invalid.  The Brooks-Nunn’s they have a beautiful home and do a lot of entertaining.  They’re all nice people.”

              It was this final pronouncement on the population of Oxmarket Aspal that I went out again and drove slowly up the hill towards the Bellagamba Guest House.  I reflected that it had been, on the whole, a disappointing day.

              I had learnt that Marcus Dye had a female admirer.  That neither he nor Faith Roberts had had any enemies.  That Faith Roberts had looked excited two days before her death and had bought a printer cartridge for her computer printer that she hardly ever used.