Dying in the Wool (28 page)

‘Would he have kept his money under the bed?’

‘Oh aye, he’d have done that all right. Cellar floods you see, or he might have stashed it down there somewhere.’

‘If robbery was the motive, why not just break in while the two of them were at work?’

Mitchell thought for a moment, shaking his head as if the motion would set the pendulum of his brain swinging. ‘You were on your way home today I believe?’

He wanted me and my smart observations off the premises before his sergeant arrived. ‘Yes. I’m meant to be packing to go London but …’

‘There won’t be anything more for you to do here until
we’ve had the post mortem on Lizzie. You look to me as if a break wouldn’t do you any harm.’

There was a tap on the downstairs door. Mitchell went down. It had been a gentle rap, not at all like a copper’s. The voice was Sykes’.

‘Something you should take a look at, Constable Mitchell.’

I perched on Lizzie’s bed for a moment. She hadn’t slept here last night. That’s when she must have fallen – or been pushed. Sometime late yesterday after her neighbours had departed.

I watched from the bedroom window as Sykes led Mitchell down the bank, to the reeds by the humpback bridge. He was pointing something out. Some men carry cigarettes, matches and a penknife. Sykes produced an evidence bag from his inside pocket. Mitchell leaned down carefully to pick up a cricket bat. Sykes intercepted him and put the bag over the bat, lifting it carefully, handing it to Mitchell without looking at him. Tactfully, Sykes then walked away as a small crowd began to gather on the bridge. Time for me to leave.

I walked up the bank, carrying my camera bag, reaching the bridge as a car approached from the main street. The burly moustachioed sergeant sat at the wheel. His inspector climbed out of the car first. Spotting me with the camera bag, he gave me a grumpy acknowledgement for taking the photographs, and clearly wanted me off the scene as quickly as possible. The sergeant followed, looking so much the part that he could have been cast in a Keystone Cops film as the one who knots his brow and chases the villain. Behind us, Mitchell tramped about the bank – probably looking for a box of treasure in case it had been too heavy for the thief to carry.

From the small crowd on the bridge, Hector emerged.

‘You must let me help you with your camera stuff!’

If I saw a photograph of Hector as a baby, I’m sure he
would have changed not a jot. He has a round, jowly face with sparse hair. His pale-blue eyes dart about as if looking for his mother.

He insisted on helping me onto his mount.

Being in the saddle allowed me to see the shiny patch on his crown when he adjusted his cap. ‘You’re losing your hair, Hector!’

‘Yes. Terrible isn’t it? I’ll be bald by the time I’m thirty.’

‘That should age you up a bit.’

He laughed, knowing immediately of Tabitha’s worries about the difference between their ages. Straight away he said, ‘It’s abominable to laugh, after what’s just happened. You must think we’re a desperately unlucky village. First Kellett dying in that appalling way, and now Lizzie. What happened?’

‘It looks like a fall down the stairs. But it’s possible that both Paul and Lizzie’s deaths weren’t accidental. There may be a connection with Mr Braithwaite’s disappearance.’

Hector stopped in the middle of the field and reached for the bridle. The horse came to a standstill. He produced a small stone bottle from his saddle bag, took out the cork, wiped the mouth on his sleeve and offered it to me. ‘It’s ginger beer.’

My first impressions of Hector had been of an affable, hearty young man. Now, watching him play for time, it occurred to me that he was not quite all he should be in the brains department. He was still a child who would not look out of place in his old boy scout uniform. I refused the ginger beer. He put the flagon to his lips and drank.

‘Hector, I’ve had to look at two bodies this week. All I want from you is some information. You avoid talking to me about your time in the boy scouts …’

‘Because …’

‘Because you were one of the boys who found Mr Braithwaite, weren’t you?’

I had struck home. His hand trembled slightly as he put the ginger beer bottle back in the saddle bag. ‘Well, what if I was? It doesn’t mean …’

‘No more excuses, Hector. If you won’t talk to me, then speak to the CID inspector. Let him decide whether there’s a connection between then and now.’ I yanked on the reins and turned to go back the way we had come.

It was a long moment before Hector called, ‘I say, hold the horse, Kate! Don’t go all official on me.’ He hurried to my side.

‘I’m right aren’t I?’ I said, sounding like a stern school-teacher, not turning back yet in case he thought I would relent.

‘All right, all right. I’ll tell you. Yes, I was one of the boys who found him. And I was the oldest.’ He waited until I had turned the horse and we were once again crossing the field towards the Braithwaites’ house. ‘Soon as I sent young Ashworth to fetch the scoutmaster I knew I’d done the wrong thing.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because Mr Braithwaite seemed dazed. He just said to me, “Bugger off. Leave me be.” If I had buggered off and let him be, he might have come round, he would have got up, and got home eventually. Instead, it became this … It just got out of control. The minute I saw Mr Wardle’s eyes – Scoutmaster Wardle, the way he looked, a kind of triumph. And Mr Braithwaite groaned, and he didn’t have the strength, but he tried to kick out.’

‘I don’t see what else you could have done.’

‘There was something not quite right, all us lads felt it. “You saw this,” Mr Wardle said. “You may be called upon to give an account.” I gave Mr Braithwaite my handkerchief to wipe his face and hands. He didn’t have the strength so I did it for him. There was blood on his mouth, as if someone had punched him. I dipped the hanky in the beck and wiped his mouth. His front tooth was loose.’

‘This was with Mr Wardle looking on?’

‘I can’t remember. Perhaps Mr Wardle hadn’t reached us and I was just trying to help Mr Braithwaite. His knuckles were scraped, as though he’d been in a scrap. The face of his watch was cracked. There was a bit of check material caught in the watch chain.’

I tried not to sound incredulous or critical. ‘Did you say anything about this at the time?’

‘I put the scrap of material in my pocket, and forgot about it until later, until it was too late.’ He spoke to the grass, to cover a lie or his puzzlement.

‘What did you do with the watch, and the material?’

‘I tucked the watch in his pocket. I kept the bit of check. Still have it, with my scouting bits and pieces, my axe and my whistle and so on. I was going to give it to you …’ he tailed off miserably.

‘You still can give it to me. As soon as possible. Hector, from what you say about Mr Braithwaite’s loose tooth and scraped knuckles, perhaps you’re right and he had been in a fight.’

‘I suppose I thought he’d been duffed up.’

‘Why did you think he’d been attacked?’

‘Stands to sense. A man of Mr Braithwaite’s standing wouldn’t start a fight. I feared someone had taken him by surprise and got the better of him. From the scrapes on his knuckles he’d fought back but come off worse, and he’d be too proud to admit it. Someone must have given him a real pasting. He was like one of those punch-drunk boxers.’

‘Do you have any idea who might have attacked him?’

He blushed and shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know.’

‘Hector? Hector, please look at me.’ Reluctantly he turned his troubled face and gazed at me. He gulped, then said, ‘I knew Uncle Arthur was angry with Mr Braithwaite, but I didn’t know why. I suppose I thought it may have been Uncle Arthur, attacking from behind. He
was supposed to have been with us, supervising the camp, but he was nowhere to be seen. Arthur Wilson is not a gentleman. I wondered if this snatch of stuff might have been from his shirt.’

‘But it wasn’t?’

‘I asked Auntie Marjorie, what was Uncle Arthur’s opinion of check shirts. He has a low opinion and doesn’t own one. Says that check shirts are a disgrace to the human race.’

‘Wouldn’t he have been wearing a scouting uniform?’

‘He and Mr Wardle wore what they pleased. I didn’t know what Uncle Arthur had on under his coat.’

If it had been anyone else but Hector telling the story, I would have not have believed his confusions and assumptions.

‘I’m still not sure why you didn’t tell Constable Mitchell what you’ve told me.’

Hector looked as though he would burst into tears. ‘He would have badgered me and I might have said too much.’

‘I have a feeling you might not have told me this if Mr and Mrs Kellett had not been killed.’ And if I hadn’t threatened you with the CID.

‘Perhaps not.’

‘So, you think there’s a connection and that’s why you’re telling me now.’

‘It’s nothing I know for sure, just a feeling. I can’t tell Tabby that I was part of her father’s downfall. Yet if I keep it to myself it’ll eat away at me. I’m hoping you’ll say …’

‘What?’

‘That the cracked watch face, the scrap of material, that what I’ve told you would make no difference. That it all would have happened anyway. I loved Tabby even then. She was magnificent and entirely out of my reach. I was just a gangly idiot.’

So what’s changed, I asked myself. The horse tired of standing still and began to move again. Looking down on
Hector gave me a distinct advantage.

‘Go on, Hector.’

‘After what happened with her father, I wanted to tell her. It would have given me an excuse to speak to her, if I could have found my tongue. I hung about their house and grounds, waiting. Then someone told me she’d gone away, and that she had a chap who’d returned wounded, and she’d gone to see him. And of course she was in the VAD. She only ever came home for short visits, and by the time I’d hear “Tabby Braithwaite’s home” she’d be gone.’

‘You thought Mr Braithwaite had been attacked. Was there anything else unusual about him?’

Hector patted the horse’s neck absent-mindedly. He looked at the ground as though searching for a four-leaf clover.

‘That was the odd thing, Kate. He didn’t seem to know me, know who I was. All right, so I was just another boy in scout uniform. But really, I’d expected him to remember me. We were supposed to be helpful to people in the scouts, good turns and all that sort of stuff. I was wandering about one Saturday, thinking about being helpful, and also looking for shelter from the rain. It’d started to rain stair rods. I went into the Braithwaites’, hoping to see Tabitha to tell you the truth, but also thinking I might shelter in one of their out-buildings. Mr Braithwaite was there. He was obviously busy and I hoped he might be taking the motorbike to pieces or something. But he was packing stuff into the sidecar. When I offered to help he was a bit rude to me.’

‘Can you remember what he was packing?’

‘No. Not after all this time, except one thing, one odd thing.’

‘What was that?’

‘He was packing a bucket and spade. And I thought, no wonder he’s being rude. He’s gone mad. Losing Edmund has sent him mad with grief, that’s what I thought. He let
me clean the motorbike, and gave me a tanner. So he should have remembered me.’

‘How did he seem in himself on that day he was packing the motorbike?’

‘Sad of course. He’d lost Edmund you know, but cheerful as well. Isn’t that odd? Sad and cheerful.’

‘Hector, thank you for telling me. I’ll keep your confidence. I’m sure what you did or didn’t do that day wouldn’t have made any difference.’

He opened the second gate. I held the horse steady until he closed it again, so slowly that the horse grew impatient, threw back its head and snorted a cloud of air from its nostrils.

‘There’s something else.’

‘Go on.’

‘I knew I’d made a pig’s ear of everything, calling the scoutmaster and so on. So on the Monday, it was a school holiday, I took myself over to Milton House because I heard that Mr Braithwaite had been taken there. I saw him.’

‘Where?’

‘He was walking in the grounds. He spoke to me at the side gate. It wasn’t locked, but we just spoke through the bars of the gate. He seemed a bit more himself, and he asked me to do something for him.’

‘Kate! Hector!’ It was Tabitha, hurrying across towards us from the house.

‘Good Lord,’ Hector said. ‘She mustn’t know.’

‘You can tell me later. This could be important.’

He gulped, waving to Tabitha who had slowed down now that we walked towards her.

The four of us sat down to breakfast. I was not very hungry but knew I should have something before my journey home. Hopes of seeing Mrs Braithwaite’s reaction to the news of Lizzie Kellett’s death were dashed. She had
heard about it from her maid, and Tabitha had been told by Becky.

Tabitha sipped tea and nibbled at half a slice of toast. ‘Horrible, horrible,’ she said, over and over. ‘To think of poor Kellett scalded, and blackened by dye, and then the shock of the freezing beck, and now this. Do you think Mrs Kellett hit the bottle? Marjorie Wilson had given her a flask of brandy. If she’s unused to drink, she could have tripped down the stairs.’