By a Narrow Majority (7 page)

‘Then hunting was banned, and the hunt sort of petered out,’ McNamara went on, ‘and things might have calmed down some but of course Malcolm wasn’t going to take it lying down. Told everyone who would listen that Parliament had no right to dictate such matters. He even made it one of
his pledges that, if elected, he would do everything in his power to get hunting reinstated. And that of course was popular with a lot of people. The Country Alliance was behind him one hundred per cent, as you might expect.’

Hillary sighed. Her only thought on the Country Alliance was that she was glad she was no longer in uniform, and therefore not obliged to turn out whenever they held a protest rally.

‘I see. Well, thank you, Mr McNamara,’ she said, climbing to her feet. ‘I may need to speak to you again.’

The solicitor beamed. ‘Any time, Inspector, any time.’

Out on the street, Hillary told Janine to go and talk to Mrs McNamara – who’d probably be at her place of work – and confirm the nuts and bolts of her husband’s story. ‘But hurry back, then we’ll see what Percy Matthews has to say for himself,’ she added grimly.

Janine didn’t need telling twice.

Janine wasn’t gone long, and reported back within the hour that Mrs McNamara’s story supported that of her husband in all respects. And since she herself hardly knew either the victim or his wife, there had been little she could add to help move the case forward.  

‘So, McNamara’s not officially out of it, but he’s not high on the list,’ Hillary responded gloomily. By now, she was hoping that she could at least have started ruling people out, but McNamara’s alibi was still definitely iffy. She glanced at Tommy’s desk, but it was still vacant, and she could only hope that he’d return with better news concerning Valerie Dale’s movements last night.  

‘Right, let’s see what the Matthews have to say for
themselves
,’ she sighed.  

Outside, they took Hillary’s car, which was slightly bigger than Janine’s, with Hillary opting to drive. According to Frank’s somewhat cartoon-like map of Lower Heyford, the Matthews residence was at the top end of the village. She found it with ease – a tiny cottage, situated off the main road via a stone and mud farm track, overlooking a small set of allotments. Next to it stood an empty barn and some rusting farm machinery, with weeds growing through the metal.  

As Hillary climbed out, she looked through the barely greening hawthorn bushes at the allotments, and could make out several ramshackle sheds, and, here and there, tepee-like
beanpoles for runner beans, with some clumps of curly greens, and brussel sprouts in frost-blackened rows. It instantly took her straight back to her childhood, for her father had kept an allotment, mostly for the cultivation of new potatoes and soft fruit. And sweet peas, for the local flower show.

Her father had been dead for several years now, and Hillary turned firmly away from the nostalgic sight and headed for the single dwelling, which had once, surely, been a farm labourer’s cottage, a basic two-up, two-down. She knew from what she’d been able to glean during Janine’s short absence that Percy Matthews was a retired shoe salesman, who’d worked for nearly forty years in the same shop in Bicester, before it had closed to make way for a computer showroom. His wife, as far as Hillary could tell, had never worked beyond doing odd domestic jobs for the locals. The couple had five children, who’d all long since flown the nest.

Janine pushed open an old-fashioned picket gate, set in a matching, but rather flimsy-looking, picket fence. ‘No wonder the hounds got in,’ Janine muttered, eyeing the askew, white-painted woodwork. ‘This wouldn’t have kept a hedgehog out.’

‘It was up to the master of hounds to control his dogs,’ Hillary said sharply, making Janine shoot her a quick look.

‘Anti-hunting, boss?’ she asked, with genuine curiosity. She knew, from having lived in rural areas all her life, that the pro-hunters were talking rubbish when they insisted that the vast majority of country dwellers were all pro-hunting. In fact, nearly everybody that Janine knew, who were also country bred like herself, detested the practice. And that included not a few farmers! She suspected that her boss, like herself, was glad that the barbaric so-called sport had been banned.

Hillary merely nodded, then walked up the short, flagged stone path and reached for the knocker. The garden was small but tidy, well kept but uninspired. A small square of lawn
played host to four flat flower-beds on each side. A dwarf and weeping flowering cherry tree stood squarely in the middle.

‘Sweet,’ Janine said, following her gaze. ‘At least there aren’t any bloody gnomes.’ Janine hated gnomes.

Hillary grinned, then quickly turned it off as the door opened, revealing a woman of about her own size and weight, but with iron-grey hair and eyes to match. She was wearing an old-fashioned flowered pinafore, the kind that looped over your neck and tied at the back in a bow. ‘Yes?’

There were generations of country-bred Oxonian in that single word and Hillary smiled briefly. ‘Mrs Rita Matthews?’

‘Yes.’

Hillary held out her ID card, and nodded to Janine to do the same. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Greene, this is Detective Sergeant Tyler. Is your husband in?’

‘Yes.’ For a moment, Hillary thought the woman was going to leave it at that, and simply stand there. Though she had considerable experience of country phlegm, that, she
considered
, would be really taking it too far. After another second, however, in which the old woman’s dark eyes took stock of her visitors, she stood back. ‘Come on inside. The kettle’s on. I’ve just made some bread pudding.’

Hillary carefully wiped her feet on the rough mat outside, before stepping straight into a kitchen. Of course, such a tiny cottage would have no call for anything so grand as a hall, or even a corridor, where muddy boots and coats could be dispensed with. Inside, instant heat hit them, along with the smell of cooking. ‘He’s in the living room,’ Rita Matthews said, waving a hand at a large wooden door bearing a simple, hundred-year-old black iron latch.

Hillary nodded and went through, finding herself in a small room, with a real log fire blazing away in the hearth. A single settee, with a matching armchair, faced it. There was a utility cupboard, made just after the war by the looks of it, standing against the back wall, which was bedecked with photographs of the Matthews’ offspring and assorted grandchildren, along
with the usual selection of cherished but inexpensive
ornaments
. The pale cream walls were bare of any paintings or hangings. Bright emerald-green curtains hung at a single bay window. On the window-sill, in pride of place, was a big photograph of a grey cat.

The old man sitting in the armchair and reading a copy of the
Oxford Mail
slowly lowered the newspaper into his lap and looked at them in some surprise. Hillary heard the door close behind them and knew that Mrs Matthews had followed them inside. Janine cast a quick look at Hillary, wondering if she wanted her to usher the old woman out. Hillary gave a bare shake of her head as she headed around the sofa.

‘That’s a lovely fire, Mr Matthews,’ she said, and again introduced herself.

‘Police?’ Percy Matthews echoed, surprised. ‘Well, sit you down, sit you down. Want a cup of tea?’

‘No, thank you,’ Hillary declined. ‘We’re here to talk about Mr Malcolm Dale, Mr Matthews.’

At once, the old man’s face darkened. He was a small, wiry man, with tufts of hair at his eyebrows that seemed to move like independent caterpillars. As had his wife, he had a lovely country accent. ‘Oh, him,’ Matthews sneered. ‘What about him? Been complaining about me, has he? Ha, much good it’ll do him. I’ll get him yet.’

Behind her, Hillary heard Rita Matthews give a small sigh. Hillary settled a little more comfortably into the sofa, for she had the distinct feeling that she was going to be here some time. Percy Matthews, she noticed, was becoming flushed and animated as he charged on without waiting for any
explanation
of their presence.

‘You see that, there,’ he said, pointing imperiously to the photograph of the cat. ‘That was Wordsworth, our cat. A beauty, weren’t he?’ Percy demanded, all but defying her to say otherwise. Not that Hillary was inclined to. Although not a thoroughbred, the photograph depicted a big, muscular Tom, with a dense, short-haired, dappled grey coat. Big green
eyes and slightly tattered ears showed signs of a battling nature. He wouldn’t have surrendered to the hounds without a fight, she thought sadly. Not that his sharp claws, fierce hissing or brave heart would have helped him much in the end.

‘He looks as if he were real a character,’ Hillary said
truthfully
. She liked cats. She liked dogs. In fact, there weren’t many animals she didn’t like.

‘He was,’ Percy Matthews confirmed, his voice cracking. ‘Ten years old he were, when that was taken, and he was top cat around here, I can tell you. He fathered some kittens.’

Hillary nodded sombrely. ‘I know what happened to him, Mr Matthews,’ she said, hoping to head off a graphic
description
. Without, of course, any luck.

‘They came down this field, out back, see,’ Percy said, glancing out the window to where a field of winter wheat stretched to a short horizon uphill. ‘Following the hawthorn hedge down, in case the fox tried to cut across the main road into the gardens yonder.’ He pointed to one side, where, across the road, was a small cul-de-sac of well-built council houses. Not that Hillary supposed many of them still belonged to the council now. ‘But there was no fox, see, and those bloody dogs saw our Wordsworth. Even in the dead of winter, he liked to be out, watching the birds, or looking for queens in season. He were out by the bird bath,’ Percy added, nodding at a rather small, bowl-shaped stone basin set almost into the ground. ‘Had nowhere to go, did he? No way out. The bastards cornered him between the house here and the wall of the barn. I heard ’em, oh yes, and ran out, but I was way too late.’

Percy Matthews swallowed hard and took a much-needed breath, his small wrinkled face pursing in dismay as hatred and outrage gave way to a gulp. His eyes brightened
suspiciously
, and Hillary knew he wasn’t far off tears. Beside her, she felt Janine stir nervously.

‘It must have been an awful thing,’ Hillary said, and meant
it. ‘You buried him in the garden?’ she asked, knowing he’d have to get it all off his chest before she could even begin to talk about Malcolm Dale.

‘Arr, what was left of him. Planted the little tree on top of him, as a remembrance, like. But you know what that bastard Dale said, that day? When he finally came prancing down here on that stupid black beast of a horse he rides, to see what was holding up his precious hunt?’

Percy was sat on the edge of the armchair now, his face pinched and tight, his eyes blazing. His hands, she noticed with a touch of unease, were knobbly with arthritis, the fingers and one thumb curled in, as if he couldn’t help but make a fist. Would those hands have been able to hold tightly on to a blunt instrument? And if so, would they have had enough force to crush a man’s skull?

‘Just imagine it – there I was, Boxing Day it were, the day after Christmas, with his bloody dogs boiling around in my garden making that hair-raising howling racket, and with my poor Wordsworth, like a hank of grey wool, all mangled and unrecognizable in my hands. And you know what he says, from up on that bloody horse of his, all dressed in scarlet, and looking like the biggest muckety-muck you ever saw? “Couldn’t be helped, Mr Matthews” he said.’ Percy shook his head, his thinning white hair flopping around his ears. ‘Couldn’t be helped?’ His voice had risen almost to a
hysterical
pitch now, and Janine visibly winced.

‘Percy,’ Rita Matthews said, a weary warning in her voice. ‘Take it easy, love.’ It made Hillary wonder, with a sudden surge of sympathy for the woman, how many times she’d had to say that in the last few years.

‘Well, it makes me sick,’ Percy said defiantly. ‘It couldn’t be helped – what kind of rot was that? Course it could be helped – if they knew what they were doing. Bloody Heyford Hunt – just a few stupid idiots looking for an excuse to dress up and play real gentry, if you ask me. Only been formed for a year or two. Think they can make out they’re someone a cut above
the rest. That so-called master of hounds was about as much use as a fart in a colander.’

Rita Matthews walked a few steps to the window and stared out, her back firmly to the room, as if trying to
disassociate
herself from what was going on. Her gaze, however, strayed from time to time to the picture of the cat, Hillary noticed.

‘Bastards never even said sorry,’ Percy fumed. ‘Well, that one woman did, the one on the white horse. She looked upset. But the others didn’t give a toss. All they cared about was getting off again to see if they could track down Reynard. But I showed ’em,’ Matthews snorted. ‘Oh yes, I showed ’em. Went to a solicitor, got them to write a nasty letter, threatened to sue. That took the smile off their faces, I can tell you,’ Matthews said, his angry face transforming suddenly into one of glee.

‘Oh? Did you pursue it through the courts?’ Hillary asked gently.

‘No,’ Matthews admitted grudgingly. ‘Solicitor cost an arm and a leg just to write a letter. After that, though, I wrote to the local papers. I took a picture of Wordsworth, see, after they’d been at him. But the paper wouldn’t publish it,’ he added, aggrieved. ‘Said it was too graphic. Might upset the kiddies if they saw it. But I wanted people to see it! If only people could have seen what those buggers did.… But the paper did a nice write-up, I suppose,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘Put that sod Dale’s nose out of joint, any road,’ he chortled. ‘Then I heard that two members of the so-called hunt had retired. Yes, that put a dent in his pride, I can tell you. But it weren’t enough.’ He glanced at the photograph of the defiant Wordsworth, and again his eyes gleamed with ready tears. ‘Not nearly enough.’

‘I’ve been told you threatened to kill him, Mr Matthews,’ Hillary said softly, and again she heard Rita Matthews heave a long-suffering sigh.

‘Oh arr,’ Percy said, with some of his old animation returning. ‘Meant it too. Wanna see?’

Janine’s pencil, which had been racing across the page of her notebook, came to a sudden halt, and Hillary herself blinked. Both women watched in surprise as Percy Matthews put aside the newspaper and got up, then went across to the utility cupboard. Inside, along with a tea service, some photo albums and other assorted bric-a-brac, he pulled out a big, untidy scrapbook.

Without more ado, Percy returned, not to his chair, but to the vacant third seat between the two women on the sofa. His thin narrow frame fit in easily, but Hillary saw Janine hastily move her notebook to one side as his elbow threatened to dislodge it. The old man opened the cheap scrapbook, bought in Woolworths, Hillary noticed automatically, nearly three years ago, and showed them the first page – which was a
clipping
of the newspaper article in question.

‘You must be really pleased that hunting’s finally been banned,’ Hillary said, not sure where all this was heading. But to her surprise, Percy Matthews merely shrugged.