Bring Forth Your Dead (17 page)

Lambert said quickly. ‘We should simply like to be absolutely clear. Did you or did you not know the contents of this will that everyone claims not to have seen?’

‘Yes. Well, I think so.’ He shook his head hopelessly and said, ‘It’s so long ago now. I had a blazing row with Dad when he found that I proposed to dispose of Tall Timbers after his death. He threatened to disinherit me there and then. When I heard he was making a new will, I suppose I assumed that was the purpose. Angela was closer to him
than anyone, and she certainly thought that was to be the change, after he had talked to her. Margaret Lewis was so damned smug that I thought she knew as well…’

Lambert listened very carefully to Craven’s rather disjointed recall of the events of some seventeen months ago. When he was sure it was finished, he said, ‘Briefly, then: your father threatened during your quarrel to disinherit you. When you heard of a revised will, you assumed, reasonably enough, that the major change would be to cut you out. This seemed to be confirmed by the views of your sister and Mrs Lewis, who may have known more details of the new draft than ever came to your notice. Is that a fair summary?’

‘Yes. Does this alter anything?’

‘It’s possible it might. There is one other thing we wanted to check with you. It relates to the same period the months before your father’s death. In fact, we can date this one quite precisely: we are interested in your reaction to a letter sent to you by the Manager of the Oldford branch of the National Westminster Bank on 27th August last year.’

‘Six weeks before my father’s death.’ Craven was as acutely aware of the significance of the date as the men questioning him; he looked as if he was genuinely puzzled about what was coming next. ‘I had many letters about credit at that time. My company was in difficulties. Fortunately for both of us, George Taylor at NatWest was persuaded to wait a little longer.’ Craven’s attempt at urbanity tailed away as he realised these men were investigating the very death which had brought about the revival of his fortunes.

Hood produced another of his documents, with a flourish worthy of Rushton. ‘This is a copy of the letter sent to you by Mr Taylor. It draws attention to your failure to respond to the Bank’s ultimatum about meeting at least the interest on your loans, and asks you to arrange an appointment urgently to see Mr Taylor.’

Craven was unabashed: he had obviously been used in the dark days to such summonses, but they were a thing of the past, his attitude proclaimed. He managed a semblance of relaxation as he said, ‘It was a near thing for me financially at that time, I admit. But it’s all water under the bridge now, Sergeant, and I can’t see how this connects with my father’s death.’

‘Then I shall enlighten you,’ said Lambert unsmilingly. As always, suspects were ordinary citizens unless and until they were proved guilty: that did not mean you had to like them. ‘We wish to check Mr Taylor’s recall of the subsequent interview against your own, to see if the two recollections tally.’

Perhaps Craven caught now at least an intimation of what was coming. He said cautiously, ‘It was an anxious time for me. I had a lot of meetings of this kind. I’m not sure I can—’

‘Mr Taylor is quite clear about the exchanges. He says you used an argument he had not heard from you before.’

‘That’s quite possible. Frankly, I was at my wits’ end to stave off the institutions for a little longer, and any argument was welcome—’

‘But you told Mr Taylor that there would not be long to wait for a dramatic improvement in your circumstances. Because your father was dying. Because he would be dead, in your phrase, “within weeks”.’

Craven was wide-eyed with shock. His eyes were fixed on Lambert’s watchful, inscrutable features, as though held by some primitive spell. Eventually he faltered, ‘I was in all kinds of difficulty at the time—prepared to use any argument…’

‘Are you saying that Mr Taylor’s account of what you said is substantially true?’

‘It may be…Yes, I suppose it is.’ He nodded miserably, as if admitting for the first time to himself that he had used such an argument.

Lambert was sure the man had forgotten the details of the occasion until reminded of them at this moment. That did not diminish its significance. ‘How did you know that your father was going to die, Mr Craven?’

The man seemed to have shrunk behind his own large desk. He stared at its surface now, as if to look elsewhere would shatter what degree of brittle control he retained. It took him a long time to say, ‘I was desperate. People were closing in on me from all sides. I was facing the bankruptcy court and worse. I used any and every argument with those who were pressing me. Dad was ill, failing even, with what I thought at the time was heart disease. I know I argued with various people who were threatening me that he wouldn’t last long and that his death would solve my financial problems. If George Taylor says I used that argument with him, I’ve no reason to doubt him.’

His broken delivery of this was a strain on all of them. When Lambert was sure this was all that would be volunteered, he said, ‘You asserted within six weeks of your father’s death that you knew he would be dead “within weeks”. That has a precision of timing that must surely strike you as quite chilling, now that your father’s death is established as murder.’

Craven said wretchedly, ‘I’m not proud of using Dad’s illness like that. Financially, I was existing from day to day. I said Dad would be dead in a few weeks because that was the maximum extension I could hope for—if I’d thought they’d give me a few months on the basis if my expectations from the estate, I’d have said that.’

Lambert studied him, weighing his arguments, trying to assess the possibilities of his unlikely account being true. He said, ‘Had you any innocent reason to feel your father might be near death?’

Craven looked like a drowning man who had been thrown a lifeline but had lost the co-ordination to grasp it. He began to speak, stopped, and shook his head hopelessly. Finally, speaking very quietly, he managed to put together, ‘Only the evidence of my own senses when I visited him. He looked terrible, and his voice was getting weaker. You notice these things when you only see someone once a week. But I’m sure Angela and Margaret Lewis, who were seeing him every day, thought the same thing; I know they were getting more and more anxious about Dad’s condition.’

‘What about Walter Miller and Andrew Lewis? Did they express the same concern?’

‘I don’t remember. I didn’t see very much of them at that time. Miller’s visits didn’t coincide with my own. Lewis was in the house, but he made himself scarce when any of us was around.’

Lambert stood up. ‘Sergeant Hook has made full notes on what you have said. We shall need you to sign a supplementary statement later.’ Craven nodded a dejected acquiescence; he couldn’t think this would read any better than it had sounded in his ears as he told it. ‘I repeat to you what I said to Mr Lewis. Come to us with any suspicions you may have in this matter: don’t approach the party concerned directly. And please do not leave the area without informing us.’

They left him then, sitting miserably at his empty desk, staring unseeingly across the room at the alpine scene that seemed a part of a different and cleaner world.

19

On the two-mile journey to the Miller’s house, John Lambert was unusually communicative. Hook did not flatter himself that this sprang from a desire to keep him in the picture. Experience told him that the Superintendent was clarifying his own thoughts, organising his approach to the interview with Dorothy Miller which lay ahead of them.

‘Did you notice any point in our previous interview when Walter Miller seemed disturbed?’ said Lambert, as he guided the big Vauxhall cautiously round a sharp bend in the narrow lane.

They thought of the big, affable American, handsome even in his seventies, confident in his account of Edmund Craven as fighter pilot almost half a century ago, anxious apparently that his old friend’s killer should be brought to justice. Hook said unhurriedly, ‘He seemed to become a little uneasy when he talked of wives. He’s not alone in that, of course.’ Behind the tiny male joke there was a real point; they had discussed it earlier in the progress of this investigation. But there had been no time to come back to it. After the victim had lain in his grave for thirteen months, this   murder investigation seemed to the Sergeant to be proceeding at a headlong pace, as if events teemed upon themselves in a belated effort to make preparations to the corpse.

That was an illusion, of course. A successful murder inquiry made things happen. It was when they were getting nowhere that the routine and the dead ends seemed endless. Those killings in which the only impulse was a distorted sexual drive could lead to hunts which lasted for many months, without any guarantee of success. The possibilities were too wide, the number of suspects almost as great as the male population of the area—always male, he thought, with a wry disgust in his own sex. In the present case the scents might be cold, but the number of suspects was probably no more than five: it seemed almost certain now that their killer must come from those people who had been constantly around Edmund Craven in his last months. And Bert Hook saw suspicion gathering comfortingly around his choice for the crime.

He pulled his attention hastily back to the present topic, visualising the notes of the interview with Miller in his carefully rounded longhand, which he had studied as they set out towards the village where the Millers lived. ‘According to Miller’s account of their weekly chess meetings, old Craven only came to the Miller’s house when Dorothy Miller was out,’ he said.

Lambert nodded, giving a wide berth to a child wobbling disconcertingly on a battered bicycle as she heard the sound of the car behind her. ‘Walter Miller seemed quite pleased when old Craven’s failing health meant he had to go each week to Tall Timbers instead of them alternating the venue.’ It was true, but Hook recalled it only now: as usual he was astounded by his chief’s recall of the nuances of an interview.

They fell silent for the remaining two minutes of the drive, each forming his own picture of a Walter Miller thirty years younger, virile and handsome, sweeping the Mrs Craven they had never seen into an affair whose repercussions were possibly still resounding all these years after her death.

Hook had his own image so vividly in his mind’s eye that he was quite resentful on Dorothy Miller’s behalf when she opened the door. She had a natural courtesy which made her smile a welcome to these two large men who arrived menacingly at her door, moving soundlessly over the thin coating of snow which had coated the long path. The mellow stone of the house looked warmer than ever against the snow. Behind the trees, the sun was a huge crimson ball in a perfect Cotswold sunset, so that the front of the house looked almost orange in its low rays. But behind, the woman’s quick, automatic smile there was anxiety, burning in her like a consumption, making the light brown eyes unnaturally bright against cheeks which seemed for a moment to have caught the whiteness of the snow.

Lambert turned down drinks, and for once his sergeant did not resent it. What the woman had to say to them must be said at once; any delay would be nothing less than a cruelty. The detectives sat together on the chintz settee, feeling overlarge for its cottage proportions; Dorothy Miller perched like an anxious sparrow on the very edge of the armchair opposite them. Hook wondered where her husband was. He had no doubt that there was no chance of his returning to interrupt them. Even in her distress, this woman was too well organised for that.

She was anxious to talk, but she needed the formal introduction of Lambert’s ‘You wanted to speak to us, Mrs Miller,’ to ease her into speech.

‘Yes. Thank you for coming so quickly when I rang. Superintendent, there is something my husband concealed from you when you came here a few days ago.’

Lambert felt the old, familiar surge of excitement at the prospect of new information. An unbidden flash of self-knowledge told him that it would be time to retire if that surge ever failed. The woman looked so distraught at her husband’s concealments that he said encouragingly, ‘That is never a good policy, Mrs Miller. But people hold things back far more often than you might think. Anyway, we’re here now for you to make amends.’ He smiled as encouragingly as if she were a distraught child. And for a
moment he wondered if she would think him patronising. But this woman, who had struck them as so alert and in control during their previous brief contact with her, seemed to find only the reassurance he had intended in his words.

‘Yes. It probably has nothing to do with the case—in fact I’m sure it hasn’t, but you will need to be convinced of that, I suppose.’ She stared miserably into the fire, whose cheerful flames danced in faint reflection across her pallid features. Then she plucked her soft woollen cardigan unnecessarily about her shoulders and transferred her gaze to the hearth. ‘It happened a long time ago. It’s just that I didn’t like Walter concealing it from you.’

When she seemed to find it difficult to go on, Hook accepted Lambert’s nod and said gently, ‘We are anxious to find out all we could about old Mr Craven. The more one can find out about a murder victim, the clearer the possibilities become about the possible killer. It was especially difficult for us to get a picture of the victim in this case, where the crime was already thirteen months old. So we were pleased to be able to talk to Mr Miller about Edmund Craven’s life when his wife was still alive.’

‘Yes, I know. That is when he held something back.’ She was tight-lipped and drawn, even after Hook’s emollient contribution. On the low wall at the end of the garden a robin surveyed the white winter landscape and chirped briefly at the great red orb of the setting sun, as if posing for an early Christmas card. There would be a hard frost on this still, clear night. ‘He was trying to protect me. He shouldn’t have done. You see, what he tried to hide gives him a motive for murder.’

For a moment, Lambert’s mind was unworthily preoccupied with the ramifications of the law and the implications of a wife’s evidence against her spouse. Then he said, ‘We can make no promise, but we are as discreet as we can be about old affairs of the heart.’ It was curious how often clichés floated to the surface in situations like these; and strange how often they were effective. ‘Unless they have a direct bearing on the case, there is rarely any need for these things to come out in court.’ He thought sourly of how often nowadays the cheque-books of the tabloids brought forth lurid stories which had no such relevance, once a murderer had been convicted and acquired an abattoir glamour.

She nodded, without looking at him. Then, suddenly, the words tumbled out, almost without punctuation, as if an invisible check had been abruptly removed. ‘Ed Craven and I had an affair, Superintendent. It was nearly thirty years ago now. It lasted almost a year. Then Walter found out.’

Lambert felt Hook stiffen slightly beside him. They were such old hands by now that neither of them betrayed anything in their faces. They had been caught out when their experience should have protected them. Picking up the significant facts, they had made the wrong deductions. Walter Miller had certainly been disturbed by the mention of wives, had ensured that Edmund Craven only came to the house when Dorothy was out, had been pleased when the infirmity of Craven ensured that they could meet only at Tall Timbers. They had been right to suspect a sexual liaison in those far-off days, but they had picked the wrong pair, discounting the possibilities of the man who had faded and died against those of the one who had been such a vigorous physical presence before them.

A curious phrase in the will of Edmund Craven came back to Lambert in Alfred Arkwright’s dry tones. Walter Miller, in being allocated Craven’s war memorabilia, had been called ‘my old friend of many years, with whom I have shared so much’. Including, it now seemed, a wife. Lambert heard himself saying rather foolishly, ‘That’s a long time ago now.’ He felt as if he were offering comfort in the confessional rather than establishing the facts in a murder inquiry.

‘Yes. I think Walter wanted to protect me as well as himself when he didn’t tell you about it.’ Now that she had made her revelation, her relief made her a little more relaxed.

Perhaps she had never talked about this before, even to a woman friend. Lambert thought for a moment of the company director he had interviewed a few days ago in a fraud investigation, who had said without a hint of embarrassment of a woman who was involved, ‘We were lovers,
of course, for a few months, but that was all over quite quickly,’ as if emotional life could be terminated as cleanly as a set of accounts. He said quietly, ‘Thank you for telling us this, Mrs Miller. Probably, as you say, it has no bearing on the case.’

‘But you see, from your point of view, it might have.’ Having finally brought herself to speak, she was determined that all should be made clear. ‘Walter is a passionate man, Superintendent.’ A trace of perverse pride came through in the assertion, and they saw her for a moment as a young woman who could break hearts, perhaps even cause men to kill. ‘He swore he would kill Ed for what he had done. At the time he meant it; he tormented me by saying that he would wait until the time was right, until the opportunity presented itself. I think he forgave me a long time ago. I’m not sure he ever forgave Ed. Ed Craven, like Walter, was quite a bit older than me, and that allowed Walter to throw the blame almost entirely on to him, as the years passed and the breach healed between the two of us. The fact that they had been friends for twenty years before it happened, had come through most of the war together as comrades, made it much worse for Walter.’

She turned her palms fractionally upwards, allowed her rigid shoulders the tiny shrug which was another stage in their relaxation, and said, ‘I still don’t understand the male code in such matters. Walter was good to Ed in those last years. They enjoyed each other’s company and for most of the time their friendship seemed fully restored. But Walter seemed to have separated off his resentment. It was almost as though he had it locked in a box and took it out from time to time to treasure in private, like a miser with his money. Perhaps I was the only one who saw how that hatred still burned.’

She looked into the fire again. The flames were brighter now upon her face as the day died, and the brown eyes sunk deep enough in their sockets to be invisible. Though she had said her piece now, it was a visage grey with apprehension. What she feared was that her husband, that handsome, passionate man with his relaxed transatlantic drawl, who
nowadays took such affectionate care of her, had carried out his threat after all these years and murdered his old friend. That for thirteen months and more she had shared her bed and her life with a murderer. And even now, when she had brought herself at last to speak, there was not the complete relief she had hoped for; she realised as clearly as the men sitting opposite her that they could offer her no real reassurance for the moment. No reassurance, that is, which would be of any value when she lay awake in the long hours of darkness beside that soundly sleeping presence, fighting the doubts that had seemed so small by day.

Lambert guessed all this, but to offer her comfort at this stage would have run counter to the whole process of detection. He watched her in silence for a moment. Then, timing his question with a clinical efficiency which ruthlessly cut across his sympathy for the woman, he said, ‘I understand that your husband took a box of chocolate each week on his visits to Tall Timbers?’

‘Yes.’ She looked at him blankly, failing at first to see any implication in his question.

‘For
how long before Mr Craven’s death did he do this?’

She thought hard, still untroubled by any sinister implication, still genuinely anxious to be helpful. ‘It’s difficult to be certain. What began as an occasional treat became a regular thing over a few months. That was as Ed’s health failed and he became almost housebound. I should think Walter began to take them every week about six months before Ed died.’ Now, belatedly, she caught her breath and, looked at him in horror. ‘You can’t think—? Poisoned chocolates! Surely that’s a bad joke from the nineteen-thirties?’

Lambert said, ‘From much earlier than that. Christiana Edmunds was killing people with poisoned chocolates in Brighton as long ago as 1870.’ Burgess would have been proud of him for that, he thought.

As an attempt to defuse an emotional situation, however, it was a notable failure. He saw her fear turning to outrage and said hastily, ‘We don’t think anything yet, Mrs Miller. We’re assembling facts. One of them is that Edmund Craven
died as a result of ingesting arsenic, in several stages. A second one is that one of the best ways of disguising arsenic is to combine it with some strong, sweet taste: chocolate is obviously an ideal medium. A third is that we now find that chocolates were taken each week into the house where Craven was murdered. You will agree, I think, that this constitutes a line of inquiry which it is part of our duty to pursue.’