A Well Kept Secret (49 page)

In the following weeks his visits to Springwater House became markedly less, and usually at times when he already knew that there would be nobody around to comment on his presence. When he considered that matters had calmed down sufficiently for him to remove the proceeds of his crime from where he had secreted them in one of the store-rooms in the house, he contrived to do this in small amounts until at last the money was all disposed of. Where he took it, or what he did with it I never knew. Considering how well planned everything else was, I imagine that even this had been well thought out in advance. Eventually he retired from the police force on the grounds of ill health, and for all practical purposes he disappeared from the area. I suspect he moved abroad, but he came back from time to time, and eventually he established himself under a false name and identity in London, and in this guise he still kept up the pressure on me.

From time to time he would descend upon Springwater House; preferring mostly to come when he would be unobserved. Later, he would come occasionally in broad daylight, and seemed to take a personal delight in the fact that neither Mrs Jefferson nor May recognised him. From that time my life became one long living hell, I could never be certain of anything where he was concerned, and he took delight in tormenting me with veiled threats of what he might have to do if he felt I was not being, as he put it, ‘fully co-operative’. I had to tell May a watered down version of the truth, but she never knew anything about the murder of Carpenter. She only knew that Phillip Burton had some sort of hold over me that would affect my professional standing, and that his alter-ego who now appeared from time to time was in fact an agent of his. She frequently urged me to call his bluff, yet knowing in my heart what would result if I tried, I always resisted.

And so it went on for nigh on twenty years, a nightmare that seemed to have no end. And then one day something happened that added a whole new dimension to everything. Quite by chance I was in the surgery in Wellworthy when there was a motor accident right outside. I dashed out and discovered a young woman lying in the road where she had been knocked down by a hit and run driver. She had suffered multiple injuries and was quite severely concussed. In the course of my examination I also discovered appalling evidence of long term physical maltreatment that I found quite shocking. I treated her in the local cottage hospital, and as she was recovering from her concussion and other injuries she talked to me, and to my astonishment I eventually discovered that she was none other than the daughter of Carpenter, the man who had been murdered in my house!

It was a severe shock; even more so when she told me that she had come to Wellworthy looking for her father who had disappeared so many years before! Can you possibly imagine how I felt when I became aware of all this? Call it a bad case of guilty conscience if you will; I just knew that I had to do everything I could to help her, short of confessing that I knew exactly where her father was. Just by being there she posed a very real threat, not only to my own family, but equally she was placing her own life in jeopardy if Phillip Burton realised who she was, and what she was trying to do. I knew that I had to somehow take control of the situation without seeming to, simply to protect her, and thus May, and perhaps even you and your mother. Without revealing who she really was, I talked matters over with May, saying how very concerned I was for a homeless patient who appeared to have had a terrible life. May went to see her, and after learning the terribly sad details of her background, suggesting that we allow her to convalesce at Springwater House. May was always a very upright and charitable person, and she took to Carpenter’s daughter right from the first, accepting without question the fictitious name I had already induced her to adopt to help shield her from her husband should he ever come looking for her upon release from prison. I think that May was relieved in a way that I had developed an interest that was helping to lift me from what she saw as developing depression. It seemed to be the ideal solution; I could protect ‘Mrs Brent’ from both her husband and Burton, and at the same time prevent her from innocently asking too many awkward questions in the wrong place.

I make no secret of the fact that both May and I soon came to look upon ‘June Brent’ as a surrogate daughter, and when the day came for Mrs Jefferson to retire, we were both delighted when she agreed to take on the role of housekeeper. We would both have been happier if we could have treated her even better, but I was constantly fearful that Phillip Burton might become suspicious, and that was something I could not risk.
 
Fortunately, it was an arrangement that suited everyone; it gave the girl a home, and it enabled me to keep a protective eye on her. I admit that my heart was in my mouth when she first came face to face with Phillip Burton, but he failed to recognise her for who she was.
 
June is naturally a very defensive person, which is not at all surprising considering her background, but she responded well to both May and myself, and I drew a small degree of comfort from doing what I could to ease the lot of the daughter of a man whom I had perhaps indirectly brought to his death.

For a while after June came to us nothing much happened, I remained in the same quandary because I could think of no way out of the impossible position I was in. I still maintained a discrete watch from a distance over your own affairs, and I was terribly saddened when your mother died yet I still dared not risk making contact for fear of bringing unknown danger upon yourself. Some while after she died I visited her grave but of course you would know nothing of this.

And then May took ill. I cannot even begin to tell you how terrible those last days were, and even thinking of them now threatens to destroy me as a man. I make no bones about it, if June had not been there I doubt I would have survived once May had died, for with her death, my very reason for existence had died also. It was only after the funeral that I started to think that perhaps the time was coming for me to finally face the risk of prosecution, just to bring Phillip Burton to account. With May dead, my own reason for living had now vanished, so the hold he held over me no longer mattered very much, for by this time I doubt he even recalled that I had a surviving relative he could threaten. However, I had no doubt that following May’s death, the same idea had also occurred to him. It did not take me long to work out that sooner or later, he would dispose of me, just to ensure that his secret remained safe. I had always known that this was a possibility; he had made me sign a will leaving the house to him not long after the original crime. Naturally I took great care to ensure that he had no inkling that I had made an entirely new will.

My problem now was that by making an overt move to bring him to justice, lives other than my own could still be at risk. Although throughout all these long years he had never once mentioned your mother to me, nor yourself, I simply could not be absolutely certain that he knew nothing of you. In the end, having lived so many years with the burden, I somehow lacked the determination to face the world for my own part in what had happened. I could picture the look on June's face when she finally learned what a thoroughly despicable person I was, and I simply couldn't face the prospect. Call me a coward if you like; I richly deserve the title. I’m simply too old now, and too tired to do what I know I ought to do.

In many ways, that is the saddest part of the whole terrible business. I no longer have the courage to do what is right.
 
I have monitored your life from a safe distance, and formed the opinion that not only do you have the spirit, the courage and the determination to do what is right, you would be far better placed to make the right decision about bringing Phillip Burton to the justice he so richly deserves. To that end I have taken every precaution I can think of to ensure that these words fall only into your hands. To reach this point, you must have followed the clues I left, clues that would only mean things to you, and you alone. There is nothing left for me now other than to place my faith in the abilities I feel sure you possess, abilities I now realise I sadly lack.

Please try not to think too ill of me; I have grown weak and indecisive with the passing of the years, and with the death of May, my spirit seems to have died also. In getting this far, and reading these words, I am hoping that you will be able to put right an old wrong; to do what I should have done a long time ago. Please also do what you can to see that June Brent is not left wanting; she is a truly wonderful person, and in her own way she is as much a victim as her father. I have tried to make provision for her, yet being the sort of person she is, she will have none of it. I am not exaggerating when I say that she has been like a true daughter to me since May died. I do not know how much time is left to me, although I fear there is little enough. I am racked with guilt and remorse; so many wrong decisions, such a profound lack of moral courage that has sapped my will to do anything other than pin my hopes upon you.

Phillip Burton has been to see me not so long since, and he has uttered veiled threats that no longer even have the power to frighten me. I am led to suspect that one night he will break into the house, he will enter my room, and no doubt a tiny injection will solve his difficulty. What he may do once he discovers that he does not stand to inherit the house I do not know, yet I doubt that he will just accept matters philosophically. Be warned that he is a man of many aliases; he exudes charm and integrity, yet he is as deadly as a black mamba. No doubt he will initially try to obtain the house from you by perfectly legitimate means, and if that fails, then your life, and anyone close to you may be seriously at risk.

Martin, I sincerely wish that life could have been different, that you and I could have shared things as they should have been shared in a normal family. My last hope is that you will find it in your heart to forgive me.

Henry Marston, MD.

Martin sat back in his chair holding his uncle’s letter in his hand, his tea standing stone cold and unheeded; the sandwich half eaten and forgotten. It felt as if in a way the uncle he had never really known had been speaking to him from beyond the grave, and he felt deeply moved by the appeal expressed in those words. He could sense the long weary years of worry and guilt that had blighted his life, and in his heart he knew that he would not rest until he had done what the doctor so earnestly desired. Everything started to fit together in his brain; the puzzle he had sensed from the time he had come to Springwater House was finally resolving itself into a clearly recognizable picture, even the obscure clue his late uncle had left in his choice of password, Abbadon, the guardian of the abyss, an allegorical reference to the well itself! Yet although much was explained, there were still tantalising details missing. Paramount among these were, (a), knowing the exact location of the well in which Carpenter’s body had been secreted, and, (b), how would he recognise the man of many aliases, Phillip Burton? If only his uncle had included this information, everything would be simple, yet in his heart he could not criticise a tired and broken man for the omission.

Without doubt his uncle had foreseen his own demise quite clearly; a proper post-mortem would probably have revealed a tiny puncture mark somewhere on his body, and a toxicology report might have picked up traces of some quick acting poison. As it was, nobody had looked beyond the obvious. His uncle lived alone in that rambling house, his housekeeper safe in her flat over the garage. Even if he had struggled or cried out, she would never have heard. The house was not fitted with an alarm; a window could have been forced without anyone being any the wiser.

The mysterious would-be purchaser of the house had to be Phillip Burton. He had finally slain the one person who might betray his secret, only to discover that the house would not be willed to him, as he had confidently believed. No doubt he had discovered this fact quite rapidly, and then realised that he could still be at risk. He had certainly acted quickly in getting an offer in for the property. The nature of the offer, the manner in which it had been made, and the difficulty in tracing it back to him all bespoke of the man’s ability and organisation. That the offer had now been withdrawn could only mean he had decided upon more drastic means of ensuring that the crime never came to light.

From the context of the letter, it could only have been Burton who had taken Carpenter’s car to Castleman’s. If the shady dealer and the ambitious police officer were not partners in crime, then probably Burton had a hold over the car dealer effective enough to ensure both his co-operation and his silence. If Burton still maintained contact with the dealer, or the son that now ran the business, then no doubt his attempts at trying to trace the vehicle had by now become known to him. From Burton’s point of view, that would indicate that the new owner of Springwater House was getting too close to the truth, and that would spur him to action. The question was; what form would this action take, and how quickly would it come?

Upon discovering that letter, a less self-assured person than Martin Isherwood would probably have wasted no time in approaching the police directly to lay everything before them. It was the proper thing to do only he had no intention of doing it until he was ready. He wanted Burton to pay for his crimes, to pay for the death of his uncle, and also for the death of June’s father. As matters stood, he suspected that even with the Doctor’s note, with no weapon, no forensic evidence, and no witness’s, there was still a chance he would get away with it. Even if the body should be discovered, after this length of time there would be nothing but a skeleton left, and even that wasn’t certain. He didn’t know off-hand how long fingerprints would remain detectable on a weapon, but assuming they did last out a quarter of a century they would only point to the late doctor as a killer. Logically, Burton didn’t really need to do anything. If it had not been for the secret attempt to buy the house, Martin would have been inclined to believe that the danger no longer existed; that Burton himself was either long dead, or as hidden today as he had been for the last quarter of a century. By all accounts his record whilst in the police had been excellent, and there was still the suspicion lurking at the back of his mind that the crime had not been instigated and carried out by Burton alone. No, he wanted the man to be tempted, and then to trap the man in a situation he couldn’t wriggle out of.

But even if Phillip Burton had not made the disguised attempt to get possession of the house, Martin pondered upon whether he would he still have been prepared to allow his uncle’s plea to resolve matters go unheeded? Would he have been content to allow the man who had cold-bloodedly slain June’s father to remain unpunished? Even without suspecting that Phillip Burton was still alive, or even alive and living somewhere abroad, the answer to that was still a firm ‘no’. That letter would have been enough by itself to have spurred him to investigate relentlessly, and if he had discovered that Burton still lived, and was as guilty as his uncle described, he would have moved heaven and earth just to see justice done at last.

Presently, he thrust the letter into his pocket and left the kitchen, his mind still full of possibilities and eventualities. Rightly or wrongly, he decided that he needed to locate the well as his first positive step. It was the one place where corroborative evidence in support of his uncle’s letter strong enough to bring Burton to justice might be found. In searching the garden, the youngsters had not mentioned coming across anything that might be construed as a well, or the capped remains of one, but that didn’t mean anything. It was not impossible that it had been reduced to below ground level and covered up, or it might even be under the ornamental pond. He needed to conduct that search himself, and to conduct it without delay. He needed to get rid of the most obvious locations first, before moving on to more obscure possibilities. He suddenly thought of something that the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes had once remarked to the long-suffering Dr Watson; ‘When you have eliminated the probable, what is left, no matter how improbable, is the answer’ or words to that effect!

He went out into the grounds, methodically searching ever foot of them for anything that might suggest that a well had ever existed there. It was time consuming and ultimately fruitless. If the well had ever existed, there was not the slightest hint as to its whereabouts, nor was there anything to suggest that the ground had been disturbed in any way beyond the normal requirements of gardening. As far as he could see, the only place the remains of an old well could now be was at the bottom of the pool, and if that was true, then Carpenter’s body could not be there, because the pool itself had been in existence before the time the crime had been committed. In any case, it was unlikely that a well had ever existed in a location that far from the house. To him, it seemed logical that the well his uncle was referring to would be situated much closer to the property itself.
 
It was approaching five o’clock when he finally gave up the search, and he was thinking of returning to the house when his mobile phone rang.

“Hi Martin,” came June’s voice. “We’ve just boarded the train, and we are on our way. Can you tell me what you have discovered?”

“Hi,” Martin responded. “Quite a bit, but nothing I can talk about on the phone; I’ll bring you up to date later. I’m on my way to the station now.”

“Fair enough, see you there.”

Martin locked up and returned to his car, his mind still buzzing. As far as he could see, his first priority now was to get June and the girl’s safely back to Springwater House, and until they were with him and in the car he didn’t want to make any moves that might alert the mysterious Phillip Burton to precipitate action. As he saw it, the girl’s were his Achilles heel; if Burton acted quickly, then it was not impossible the girls would be in deadly danger. He would need to remain alert and vigilant all night, and then first thing in the morning he would get them back to the school. No doubt they would complain about being robbed of their last day, but once they were safely out of the way where Burton would have no chance of getting at them he would be in a far better position to face whatever the man might try.

He was still turning over endless possibilities and theories when the train came in and his attention was immediately diverted as he listened to the excited stories being relayed to him by the girls. That they had had a marvellous time was beyond question, and the barrage never stopped until they finally returned to Springwater House. One inside the girls bathed and changed before they sat down to a meal prepared by June. Considering how much they each claimed to have eaten throughout the day it was astonishing how much they could still pack away.

Snatching just a few moments privacy once they had returned to the house, Martin told June that he would wait until the girls had retired for the night before bringing her up to date with everything. She accepted his decision with good grace and flung herself into her domestic chores as if there was nothing untoward in the air. He did his best to match her, and watching how she was dealing with matters he felt sure that once she knew what he had discovered and what it meant, she would agree with him that they had to do what they could to flush Phillip Burton out and bring him to justice. Exactly how they would go about doing this he still hadn’t worked out, but he felt sure that once he had talked things over with June a workable plan would emerge.

The nub of the matter as far as he could see was actually identifying the ex-police officer. The one photograph he had found was taken so many years ago that it was of no real help. After the passage of so many years he could have changed his appearance dramatically. His uncle’s letter had warned that he used many aliases and that he had even come to the house and faced people who actually knew him, and still had them fooled. If one who knew him couldn’t recognize him, what chance did he stand? As he saw it, there were only three possible candidates. Firstly, there was Peter Buxted who claimed to be an old friend yet wasn’t. At a guess he was in the right age group, and he had already decided that there was something that didn’t ring true about the man. Secondly there was Hugh Edwards, who demonstrably wasn’t what he claimed to be either. Anyone less like a retired police officer he couldn’t imagine, but was that his real appearance? Thirdly, he needed to accept that there could be a person who as yet hadn’t actually appeared in person. Buxted was coming to the house the following day, so he would see if he could detect anything about him that would give the game away then. Edwards seemed to be in and out at odd times, and the next time he came in he would force himself to talk and listen to the man. At this stage there was little he could do about the third possibility.

As the evening drew to a close, Martin broke the news to the girls that they would be returning to school in the morning, explaining that due to business commitments he couldn’t spare the time on Monday as was previously agreed. He hated lying to his daughter, yet in the circumstances he felt the act was justified. Both girls were obviously disappointed, and he was glad they didn’t make too much of an issue of it. When the youngsters had retired, still chattering about their day out it was already approaching ten o’clock. By the time that June had finished her duties, which she still insisted on rigorously attending to, and had joined him out on the terrace where they felt reasonably certain that even if the lounge had been bugged, they could converse quietly in private, it was already gone eleven. By this time Martin had gone round the house, personally checking every window and door. He didn’t think it was likely that anyone would try to break in, yet nevertheless he didn’t want to make matters too easy for anyone. If his theorising was correct, he needed to bear in mind that Burton may have already broken in once, and if that was true, might well try the same method again.

June eventually came and sat beside him in the moonlit darkness and she looked so attractive and appealing in the pale light that he gave in to a sudden impulse, and reached across and kissed her. She responded instantly, and it would have been no hardship for him to allow matters to escalate. However, as he reluctantly reminded himself, there is a time and place for everything, and he was just happy that the old shadows that had blighted her for so long seemed to have lifted from her, but at the same time he wondered how she would react once he told her what he had discovered.

“Well, I think I have held my peace long enough,” she remarked as they finally drew apart, and apparently divining his thoughts, “What have you discovered?”

“Your patience does you credit, madam,” he observed in a slightly facetious tone. “So, first of all, the good news; I’ve learned that that your delightful husband seems to have been frightened off, and has returned to his old stamping ground. Somehow, I don’t think he will ever bother you again.”

“If he has actually given up, then maybe I’ll sleep better,” she remarked. “I just hope you information is correct.”

“I can assure you it comes from a usually impeccable source.”