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‘I do hope you find that nasty poison pen soon,’ the cook said anxiously.
Although the servants had already suspected that something was upsetting their employer – they’d all noticed he’d been particularly edgy of late – all of them had seemed genuinely shocked by the news that he’d been receiving death threats, directed at his son. Unfortunately, none of them had any idea of who could be behind it all. Likewise, they’d all professed ignorance about any possible dark misdeeds in Sir Marcus’s past that might account for someone wanting revenge now.
It had all been rather discouraging, but Trudy’s pace quickened with excitement as she stepped out of the kitchen and made her way outside.
It was half past eleven and, in the stable block situated at the back of the house, she watched as Rodney Broadstairs approached the young man dismounting from a lovely black hunter.
Trudy, a city girl through and through, knew nothing about horseflesh, but she instinctively recognised quality when she saw it. And it occurred to her, as Anthony Deering swept off his riding helmet and handed the reins to the stable girl who had stepped up to take them, that it wasn’t only the horseflesh on display that was worth looking at.
As she got nearer, she saw that the son of the house was about the same height as she was, with thick brown hair and large, hazel-green eyes. Dressed in jodhpurs and a dark-green hacking jacket, he looked the epitome of an upper-class gent at play.
His eyes swept over her warmly, reminding her of Phyllis’s warning. ‘Let him near your bottom, and he’d as likely as not try to pinch it.’
Trudy smiled now as she contemplated how nice it would be to arrest this handsome young toff for assaulting a police officer if he was ever rash enough to try and pinch her derrière!
‘Well, things are looking up, I must say,’ Anthony Deering said, smiling into her eyes. ‘And are you going to protect me from Dad’s nasty letter writer too?’
‘No, sir.’ It was Rodney who spoke up first, his eyes shooting daggers at Trudy. ‘WPC Loveday is just about to go inside and talk to your mother, sir.’
Trudy, taking the hint, nodded briskly and continued round to the back of the house, where she knew Sergeant O’Grady was with the Deerings in the large sunroom.
It was ten minutes before noon.
The sunroom was accessed by a pair of French doors with an aspect on the south-facing side of the house, and as she tapped on a glass pane and was bid to enter, she couldn’t help but wonder what Anthony Deering must be thinking now.
And again, she glanced at her watch.
Just eight minutes to go.
Even though the young man’s swagger and joking manner had suggested he really didn’t take the threat seriously – as, indeed, most of them didn’t – he must still, nevertheless, feel just a little trepidation, surely? Knowing that someone, somewhere, had vowed to kill you when the hands of the clock both stood straight up would be enough to make anyone feel a cold chill up their spine.
In some respects, the situation reminded her a little bit of the film High Noon. With herself, the Sergeant and Rodney keeping an anxious eye on the clock while waiting for something explosive to happen. Except that Anthony Deering was no Gary Cooper! And he certainly wasn’t expected to face any gunmen alone.
Even so, she still maintained he wouldn’t have been human if he didn’t feel a little bit scared. And she knew for a fact that his parents definitely had the wind up for, inside the sunroom, Lady Deering, a tall, sparse woman with a rather long face, paced restlessly up and down, while her husband pretended to read the newspaper. Sergeant O’Grady glanced at her as she came in, smiled briefly, and continued to survey the expanse of fields outside the house.
Trudy glanced at her watch once again – she couldn’t help it. Barely five minutes to go now.
Was it really possible that someone was outside, watching them, waiting to make their move? That, despite the police presence, they had figured out some fantastic way to end Anthony Deering’s life right under their noses? Perhaps by setting up a booby trap of some kind? Or might they have simply decided that brute force was by far the easiest way, and would simply come in, guns blazing?
The thought of the possible carnage that would result if such an unlikely scenario came to pass made her feel sick, and she only hoped the women in the kitchen would have the good sense to stay hidden if anything bad did happen.
But, of course, nobody really believed it would. DI Jennings, the Sarge and even that plank, PC Broadstairs, were all sure it was nothing but a mare’s nest. Which was reassuring, Trudy supposed. Even so, she knew her nerves weren’t the only ones being stretched.
Outside the door, she heard Rodney Broadstairs’ voice, and that of Anthony Deering answering him. In the next moment, both men stepped into the room.
Sir Marcus looked up from his paper and nodded. ‘Sit next to me, Anthony, will you? I’ve saved you the crossword puzzle.’ And he pulled out a section of the paper and handed it, along with a pen, to his son, who accepted both offerings, indulging him.
‘Fine,’ he said briskly, casting his father a wide smile. ‘But at five past twelve I’m off to the kitchen for lunch, and then I’m going to Oxford, to catch a matinee at the cinema.’
Sir Marcus frowned. ‘I wish you wouldn’t, son.’
‘Yes, why can’t you stay here? At least for the rest of the day,’ his mother insisted nervously.
Anthony sighed theatrically. He’d changed out of his riding clothes and now wore a tweed jacket with dark-grey flannel trousers. ‘Oh, come on! This lunatic threatened to bump me off at twelve noon. Once we’ve got past that, I’ll be fine. After all, why go to the trouble of specifying a time so precisely and then not stick to it? It doesn’t make sense. Either something will happen at twelve o’clock, or it never will.’
‘That’s hardly guaranteed,’ Sir Marcus muttered, unconvinced by such spurious logic.
‘Nothing in life’s guaranteed, as you well know,’ his son shot back pithily. ‘Come on, old fella, you can’t expect me to hang around the old homestead forever,’ he joshed his father. ‘Buck up – we all know this is just some sad, silly person giving us the runaround. Nothing’s going to happen!’
Sir Marcus sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall. Four minutes to noon.
Jonathan McGillicuddy paused, stretched, and put his palms in the middle of his aching back. Another hour and he’d take a break and go back to the van for his sandwiches and flask of tea.
He picked up a handsaw and bent down to tackle a particularly knotty and thick branch close to the ground. Despite the damp chill of the day, he’d managed to work up quite a sweat.
He didn’t hear footsteps approaching him from behind, as the harsh scraping noise of the saw, and the soft, damp grass smothering the sound of booted feet, served to keep him in ignorance of the figure creeping up on him.
Away to his left, Jonathan McGillicuddy heard the mellow tones of the bell of the village church begin to strike twelve.
It was the last thing he ever heard.
Lady Deering began to laugh. Out in the hall, the grandfather clock chimed the last of the twelve strikes. The silence after the last one seemed profound.
Trudy felt like laughing too. Had she ever seriously imagined that some madman would burst in, spraying gunfire? Now she felt vaguely ashamed of her fears.
Anthony Deering looked up from his nearly completed crossword puzzle and grinned at his mother. ‘Feeling better now?’ he asked.
‘Much, darling,’ Martha agreed.
‘See, Dad…’ The young man turned to his father. ‘I told you nothing would happen!’
It was six o’clock and fully dark before Mavis McGillicuddy began to really worry. It wasn’t like Jonathan to work this late. It had been fully dark for nearly two hours. Where on earth could he be?
At nine o’clock she nipped next door and asked her neighbour if she wouldn’t mind sitting with Marie for a while. The little girl had gone reluctantly to bed, but Mavis feared she might be naughty enough to get up, claiming she wanted a drink of water, and she didn’t want her to find the house empty.
Marie, too, had expected her father to be home in time to read her their usual bedtime story, and Mavis wasn’t sure her granddaughter had believed her lies about his arranging to meet with some friends and have a drink with them at the local pub.
The desk sergeant at the police station listened patiently to Mavis’s report, then told her that her son, in all likelihood, probably really was currently drinking in some pub somewhere, just as she’d told his daughter, and that it was far too early to panic just yet. Only after Mavis had vehemently insisted it was something he’d never done before did he promise to check there had been no road-traffic accidents reported, involving Jonathan’s van.
And more to get rid of her than anything else, he then rang around the local hospitals to see if anyone of Jonathan’s description had been brought in.
No such reports had been made.
Eventually, knowing she had to get back home, since she couldn’t expect her neighbour to sit in her house all night, Mavis forced the sergeant to promise that, first thing in the morning, he’d send a constable round to the garden where her son was currently working. Just to check all was well there.
On nearing her house, her footsteps quickened with hope. Surely she’d find that Jonathan had come home while she’d been out? He’d be full of sheepish apologies on finding their neighbour in residence in the sitting room, and she would tell him off roundly.
But when she got there, there was still no sign of him.
Not surprisingly, Mavis didn’t sleep a wink that night.
Mavis McGillicuddy was up with the dawn, and was sitting dry-eyed and hopeless in the kitchen, her hands feeling as cold as ice even though they were wrapped around a hot cup of tea, when she heard the knocking on her door.
She dragged herself to her feet and out into the hall. Through the frosted glass in the front door she could make out a large, ominous shape. When she opened it, it was to find a policeman looking back at her solemnly.
It was only then that she began to cry.
Sir Marcus Deering rose that morning with a cheerful whistle on his lips and ate a hearty breakfast. The whole mood in the house was jubilant now, and faintly shamefaced, as if acknowledging they had been silly ever to have worried.
Anthony was once more out on his beloved horse, since he was due back in London soon and was determined to make the most of a dry, if cold, day.
By nine-thirty Sir Marcus was seated behind the desk in his study, reading the morning post. There had been no green-inked missive to worry him, and if any more came, he would simply toss them, unread, into the bin. The poison pen had shot his arrow and missed by a mile. And never again would Sir Marcus be foolish enough to be conned into worrying about ‘doing the right thing’.
When the telephone on his desk rang he reached for it absently. He heard his secretary telling him there was a woman on the line who insisted on speaking to him but wouldn’t give her name.
‘Oh?’ Marcus frowned. ‘That’s odd.’ His daytime calls were invariably with other businessmen or their secretaries – none of whom was unwilling to identify themselves. ‘Well, put her through.’
‘Yes, sir,’ his secretary said. There was a short delay, a beep, and then he heard a tentative, tearful voice.
It took a moment for him to realise who it was on the other end of the line, and when he did so, his first instinct was to look furtively at the closed door of his study. ‘I told you never to call me here,’ he hissed angrily into the receiver, getting automatically to his feet. ‘If my wife were to…’
But the voice frantically overrode him – something that had never happened before. And as he finally took in what was being said, all the anger washed out of him, along with the colour in his face, leaving him sitting white and shaken in his chair and fighting the urge to be sick.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At St Aldates police station, DI Jennings looked gravely at the faces turned towards him.
‘Let me repeat, this is a murder investigation. Sometime yesterday, somebody brutally killed Jonathan McGillicuddy by bashing him over the head with his own spade.’
He went on to give details of the deceased, his work as a gardener in a house where the owners were absent, his failure to return home and the missing person’s report filed on him by his mother as a result. He then went on to relate the discovery of his body in the morning by the PC sent from Kidlington, in response to the request from the desk sergeant on duty at Cowley police station.
‘He subsequently found the victim dead in the orchard,’ DI Jennings concluded heavily. ‘He’d clearly been working clearing out the old trees, and our police surgeon reckons he’d been dead at least twelve hours – possibly fifteen. Probably longer, but he can’t be sure. He’s also given a preliminary cause of death as blunt-force trauma to the head – but again he won’t sign off on it until after the autopsy.’
Trudy Loveday, along with the others, listened to all this dry-mouthed. It wasn’t often that they had a murder case to deal with, and such a cold-blooded, savage attack was very unusual. Around her, everyone else was also tense and alert, and listening intently.
That poor man’s mother, she thought, swallowing hard.
‘The lad who sometimes worked with him as casual labour has been traced, but he confirmed he wasn’t working that day with Mr McGillicuddy, but at a warehouse in Bicester instead. His alibi has since been confirmed. According to Mrs McGillicuddy, her son had no enemies, wasn’t a drinker or troublemaker, and had always been a responsible, respectable lad. Widowed young, with a little girl to take care of, he’d lived with his mother all his life. And he’s certainly not known to us,’ the DI confirmed heavily. ‘But it’s early days yet. Somebody had a reason to kill this man. And that’s where we need to start. Since the killer used the victim’s own spade, one theory is that the murder was unpremeditated. Our MO confirms the initial and primary wound was to the back of the head, with several more blows as he lay prone on the ground. Now I want you to sort yourselves into teams and find out all you can about our victim. His mother says she knows of no female friends.’ The DI paused and smiled at this. ‘But that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist – only that her son played his romantic cards close to his chest.’
The DI shrugged. ‘Then we need to find out all about his finances. He was basically a gardener for hire, so his overheads should have been low and his income easily traceable. Is it? Does he have debts? Maybe he’s a bit of a gambler? Find out.
‘Then there’s the mother. Yes, I know, on the face of it she’s an unlikely suspect. But families can be tricky things. We need to a do a house-to-house around the area where he was killed. Unfortunately, according to the PC who found the body, the house and grounds are large and relatively private. Plus, yesterday was a damp and cold day, and it’s doubtful many people would have been out and about, but we need to find any that were. Did they notice the victim’s van and, more importantly, were any other vehicles seen in the lane that day. If so, we need to trace the owners of those cars and speak to them. Did anyone hear loud or raised voices, or notice any strangers lurking about? We need to interview those who were in the vicinity – the postman, any tradesmen or callers. Was it rent week, or the day the man came around collecting the pools? We need to know anything and everything about that lane and what went on in it yesterday.’
‘Sir…’ A young PC shuffled up and handed him a message from the desk sergeant. He read it briefly, lips thinning slightly in irritation, then nodded at the Sergeant. ‘O’Grady, carry on. I’ll be back shortly.’
‘Sir.’
But DI Jennings wasn’t back for quite some time.
When he’d got the message that Sir Marcus Deering was in the station and was demanding to speak to him, DI Jennings had intended to deal with him quickly and shortly. While he was willing to pander to his superiors’ insistence that the man be treated with respect when times were slow, he had no time to hold the entrepreneur’s hand when he had a vicious murder inquiry just getting underway. Especially since the threats in the anonymous letters had proved to be so much nonsense.
But when he went into his office the businessman’s first words floored him utterly.
Sir Marcus, sitting slumped in the chair in front of his desk, looked visibly haggard, and his hands were shaking uncontrollably.
‘We were wrong, Inspector. They did kill my son, after all,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion.
DI Jennings blinked and sat down heavily in his chair. Another murder inquiry, coming so fast on the heels of the McGillicuddy case? His first thought was that he’d need much more manpower.
‘How did it happen?’ he demanded at once. ‘I was told nothing happened yesterday. When was Mr Deering attacked? Are you sure—’
‘My son Anthony is fine.’ Sir Marcus interrupted the barrage of questions flatly, leaving the Inspector slack-jawed and stupefied into silence. The older man stared down at his hands, unable to meet the DI’s gaze. ‘Fact is, er, Jennings, that in my younger days, well… I was rather fond of a young girl, a local girl, very pretty and perfectly respectable, but a bit… er… below us on the social scale, I suppose you’d say. A decent girl, and all that… but well, when she fell pregnant, my father… Well, let’s just say my father and hers came to an arrangement…’
‘I see, sir,’ DI Jennings said briskly. Although he felt vaguely shocked and a little embarrassed by such revelations, it was not his place to judge. ‘And this… er… local girl, I take it she had a baby boy?’
‘Yes. He’s… was… would have been thirty years old now.’
DI Jennings slowly felt a cold chill begin to creep up his spine. ‘This girl, sir. Your son…?’
‘His name is… was… Jonathan McGillicuddy,’ Sir Marcus said flatly. ‘His mother’s name is Mavis. Naturally, he kept his mother’s name. I believe her neighbours all think McGillicuddy is her married name. Er… less gossip that way.’
‘I see,’ DI Jennings said heavily. ‘And did the lad, er, know who you were?’ he asked delicately.
‘Oh, no,’ Sir Marcus said, sounding shocked. ‘Mavis always told the lad his father died in an accident before they could get married. My father insisted on that.’
‘I see,’ Jennings said – and did too. No doubt Mavis McGillicuddy had received a small annuity to pay for the raising of her child only on the strict understanding that neither she nor the child would do or say anything to embarrass the Deering family.
‘Mavis rang me this morning and told me… told me…’ Sir Marcus began, but then couldn’t get the words out.
‘Yes, sir,’ the DI said grimly. ‘I know what she told you.’
‘My… son. Jonathan.’ The businessman finally raised his head from his inspection of his hands and looked the policeman squarely in the eye. ‘He died at twelve noon yesterday, didn’t he?’ Sir Marcus asked bleakly.
‘We don’t know that, Sir Marcus,’ Jennings admitted levelly. But he knew it would fit with the timeframe supplied by the police surgeon.
Sir Marcus gulped and raised his hands to his head, covering his eyes with his palms. ‘When nothing happened yesterday, we were all so relieved. I thought the nightmare was over, but it’s not. It’s just beginning, isn’t it?’ he asked, his voice muffled by his fingers and despair. ‘Whoever wrote that letter said they’d kill my son, and they did.’
DI Jennings opened his mouth, but didn’t know quite what to say. That they had been protecting the wrong son at twelve noon yesterday was all too clear – and he could imagine the reaction of his superiors when this came to light. And, no doubt, if Sir Marcus had come clean right from the beginning about having a second son, he might not now be lying dead in the county morgue. But that cruel fact hardly needed saying out loud.
‘You have to catch him,’ Sir Marcus said finally. ‘You have to stop him. Or Anthony…’ He broke off and shrugged helplessly, not even daring to put the horrible thought into actual words. Not that he’d needed to, of course, for the DI had already reasoned it out for himself.
If the poison pen could kill once, they could kill again.
‘Sir Marcus, I ask you again. Do you really have no idea what this person wants? What exactly is this “right thing” they want you to do?’
Sir Marcus shook his head. He was a pitiful sight now. Unshaven, pale and trembling, he was a far cry from the bustling, self-important businessman the DI had first met just a week ago. ‘I don’t know!’ he wailed. ‘Unless… there’s only one thing I can think of, but it doesn’t make sense. It truly doesn’t.’
‘I need to know anything that might be relevant, Sir Marcus,’ Inspector Jennings insisted gravely.
And so the shattered man told him all about the fire.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Beatrice Fleet-Wright bit neatly into a thin slice of toast topped with a thin layer of Oxford marmalade, and reached for the copy of the local paper. Her husband was already reading The Times, while Rex, her son, ate without benefit of the written word, as was his custom.
Beatrice was just two years short of her fiftieth birthday, though if that landmark event loomed large in her life, you couldn’t tell it by looking at her. Her short, dark hair was as well groomed as ever, and if hair dye played a major role in keeping the telltale grey at bay, it was too professionally done by one of the city’s best hairdressing salons for anyone to be able to tell. Her green eyes still dominated an otherwise unremarkable face, but clever and discreet make-up had always served her well. As had her determination, over the years, to watch her weight.
Hers had been the generation that had grown up listening to the song ‘Keep Young and Beautiful If You Want to Be Loved’, and if she’d ever been inclined to forget, her mother had always been kind enough to remind her.
Outside, it was another dull and overcast day. She sighed, and to distract herself from the never-ending day ahead, glanced at the rather lurid STOP-PRESS headline that had clearly been rather hastily cobbled together. Obviously a major story had broken shortly before the morning papers went to press.
For a moment, she only took in the bare details – some poor soul, murder, and the horror of a discovery in a large Kidlington garden.
And then she saw the name.
McGillicuddy.
And her heart leapt into her throat, instantly cutting off her ability to breathe. It wasn’t exactly a common name, after all.
For a moment, the room swam around her as, fearfully, her eyes scanned the small printed paragraphs for more details.
The name of the murdered man was Jonathan. It was Jonathan. The age was right. And he was a gardener… It had to be him.
For a moment, Beatrice thought she was actually going to be sick, right there at the breakfast table, staining the white damask cloth and making a total exhibition of herself, no doubt causing her husband and son much distasteful inconvenience.
But, of course, she didn’t. Such behaviour was unthinkable. She was Beatrice Fleet-Wright, a Collingswood by birth. The daughter of a wealthy local brewery owner, she’d attended Cheltenham Ladies College, and later Somerville College. She had always attended her nearest church and had always done what was expected of her. Which included behaving like a lady at all times.
She had even made a good match – and one much approved of by her parents – in marrying Reginald Fleet-Wright, whose father owned a large haulage firm that very nearly produced an annual income equal to that of her father’s business.