Fate Worse Than Death (22 page)

‘That was when my grandfather saw it. The hare was moving up a frozen ditch towards him with a kind of zig-zagging crawl, and its long ears were drooping over its head. It had been chased to exhaustion.

‘It tried to find some cover, but there wasn't any. The ditch was wide and open, and came to a dead end not far from where my grandfather was standing. The hare crawled to the end and tried to spring out, but its hind feet kept skidding on the ice and it fell back. The hounds began baying again in the next field, and Grandad could see that the hare had given up hope of escape. He used to tell us how he watched it give up. It crouched where it was, trembling, ears down, and hid its face in its paws. And he could hear it making a thin, despairing, wailing noise, like a terrified child.'

Hilary looked sickened. ‘What did your grandfather do?'

‘Jumped the ditch, ran to the nearest huntsmen and pointed them in another direction. When they'd streamed away, taking the hounds with them, he went back and picked the hare up. It struggled and cried as he lifted it, and then suddenly went limp. It simply died in his hands, without any violence on his part, and without a mark on it.'

‘I see … And Sandra Websdell also died with hardly a mark on her – but as a direct result of God knows what ordeal. Do you think that she was in some way harried to death?'

‘It's possible, isn't it? I don't mean physically; but during the three weeks of her captivity she must have been under extreme mental and emotional pressure. And then she had that infection, which would have lowered her resistance. By the time she died, she must have been totally exhausted. You may be right that only one man was directly involved, but if the landlord and the regulars of the Flintknappers Arms persist in covering up their whereabouts on Tuesday evening, we're bound to suspect that the whole gang contributed in some callous way to the girl's death.'

‘What had your grandfather intended to do with the hare, when he tried to rescue it?' asked Hilary as they approached Fodderstone.

Quantrill, a down-to-earth countryman, gave her a grin. He was glad to know that she had a heart, but he didn't propose to encourage her inclination to be sentimental about animals.

‘The same as he did when it died in his hands. They were a large family, poor and always hungry, and the hare was a prize. He took it home to his mother, and they ate it next day for their dinner.'

Charley Horrocks lived in what had once been a gatekeeper's lodge at one of the entrances to the park surrounding Fodderstone Hall. The ornamental iron gates, chained and padlocked, still hung between two imposing stone pillars. But the metalled road that had once led from Fodderstone village past the Green and on through the gates and the park to the Hall, now came to a dusty end at the lodge. All that could be seen through the rusting gates was one great harvested field, blackened by the firing of surplus straw, that extended northwards in the direction of Stoneyhill wood.

The boundaries of the former park were still marked in places – as here, on either side of the lodge – by a straggle of trees. From the lodge a dirt lane led off to the right, parallel with the boundary. This was the lane that gave Howard Braithwaite access to his private office in the old boathouse. It also led on to the conifer plantation where Sandra Websdell's car had been found.

The former gatekeeper's lodge had been built in the same Regency
cottage orné
style as the houses on Fodderstone Green. But whereas they were all carefully maintained, the lodge was in decay. Thatch had crumbled and slipped from the roof, the rustic poles that supported the porch looked about to collapse, the Gothic front door sagged open, partly off its hinges. Rampant bindweed half-smothered the fruit trees in the garden and pulled the roses away from the walls, leaving the knapped flints bare and black.

Despite the evidence of neglect, an electricity power line led to the lodge and its twisted brick chimneystack sprouted a television aerial. As the detectives approached the open door they could hear that the set was on full blast. Like Howard Braithwaite, Charley Horrocks was spending the hot afternoon at the races.

But his method of following the sport – his interest in racing – was very different from Braithwaite's. Above the noise of the commentary the detectives could hear a rhythmic whacking sound and a voice raised in hoarse excitement: ‘COME ON!
Come on come on
–'

Hilary Lloyd gestured the Chief Inspector ahead of her, in acknowledgement of the fact that masculine fantasy was better dealt with by a policeman than a policewoman. Quantrill took a look through the door that opened straight on the squalid living-room of the lodge.

Charley Horrocks, oblivious of everything except the 26-inch colour television screen, was riding the winner. He sat, hugely hunched, astride the sagging back of an old sofa, one bare foot on the seat, one on a wooden box of approximately the same height. He had stripped in the heat to a grimy singlet and a pair of underpants that were not quite long enough to cover his massive knees. On his grey head was a jockey cap in racing colours, and in his right hand was a riding whip with which he was belabouring the sofa. ‘Come on!' he urged as the tiring horses approached the final furlong. ‘
Come on come on comeoncomeoncomeon
…'

Quantrill withdrew from the doorway, grimaced at Hilary, and waited until the excitement of the race had subsided. Then he thundered on the iron knocker, steadying the insecure door with his other hand. ‘County police,' he called. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Quantrill. Anyone at home?'

He walked into the room. Charley Horrocks dropped both his jaw and his whip. He scrambled off the sofa and stood behind it, his scarlet cap making a wincing colour-clash with his sweating purple face.

‘Just watchin'the racin',' he mumbled. ‘Turn it off, if you like …'

Quantrill did so. ‘I was told that you were interested in racing,' he said. ‘It's something you have in common with Mr Braithwaite, I believe?'

Horrocks looked uneasy. He seemed about to deny it, then changed his mind. ‘You've been talkin'to Braithwaite?' he asked.

‘About half an hour ago.' Quantrill gingerly lifted a shirt and a vast pair of khaki trousers, army tropical issue circa 1952, from the floor. ‘Make yourself decent, Mr Horrocks, there's a lady detective with me. No, not in these –' he dropped the clothes again. ‘You must have been wearing them for weeks. Can't you find yourself something cleaner?'

Horrocks rumbled off up the stairs. The Chief Inspector took the opportunity to make a quick inspection of the dirty living-room and the dirtier kitchen that led off it. ‘Ah, that's better,' he approved as the man reappeared, still shirtless but wearing a heavy tweed suit. ‘If I were you,' Quantrill added, ‘I'd ease off the racing, especially in this hot weather. If you go on like that you'll give yourself a heart attack.'

Horrocks shrugged away the risk. Something else was on his mind. ‘You said you were talkin'to Braithwaite. What else did he tell you?'

‘He talked about what he was doing last Tuesday, in the afternoon and early evening. And now Sergeant Lloyd and I have come to hear exactly what you were doing at that time.'

Hilary took a final breath of fresh air, then walked into the room. The reek of unwashed clothes and an unwashed body assaulted her nostrils, but she kept her face professionally straight. Horrocks's eyes – pale-blue irises, yellowed whites – swivelled towards her and away again, his expression mingling embarrassment, resentment and suspicion. Sweating in his tweeds, he addressed himself exclusively to Quantrill.

‘Tuesday? Damned if I know. Shockin'memory … S'pose I did the same as usual – a drink at the Knappers before lunch, afternoon here watchin'the racin', back to the Knappers in the evenin'.'

‘And what time in the evening did you get there?'

‘Damned if I know …'

‘You said in your statement, Mr Horrocks, that you got there at five minutes past six. But we know you weren't there before seven-thirty at the earliest. Where were you between six and seven-thirty? With Braithwaite?'

Charley Horrocks wiped his hot face on his hairy sleeve. ‘No, I definitely wasn't with Braithwaite. Absolutely not. I was here on my own until I went to the Knappers. Can't be sure about the time – somethin'wrong with m'watch.' He looked unhopefully about the room. ‘It's here somewhere … Gold hunter and chain, bequeathed to me by m'grandfather the third Earl. Bloody good watch, but no use for tellin'the time.'

Quantrill gave him a hard look. ‘You know why we're enquiring about Tuesday?' he demanded.

Horrocks shrugged his great shoulders. ‘The Websdell girl, I s'pose. The one who was killed by the feller she'd promised to marry. Promised herself to him and led him on, then tried to back orf. She was arskin'for trouble.'

‘Was she?' said Sergeant Lloyd. ‘How do you know that? How well did you know Sandra Websdell?'

Horrocks floundered: he knew her only by sight, hadn't seen her for months. He'd heard talk about her in the Flintknappers Arms, that was all.

Hilary Lloyd bent to pick up a newspaper that had fallen to the floor. ‘Were you ever married, Mr Horrocks?' she asked.

‘Good God, no!' he said promptly. ‘I've never had any time for young women. They're too selfish and demandin'.'

Hilary gave him a cool smile. ‘I'll go and wait for you by your car, sir,' she said to Quantrill, handing him the copy of the
Sun
and walking out. She thought that in her absence Horrocks might be persuaded to say more; she also wanted to take a good look round the outside of the lodge.

The newspaper was folded open at the racing page, but Quantrill knew why his sergeant had handed it to him. He turned to page 3 of the tabloid and studied the photograph that occupied the full length and half the width of the page; the model was bare, blonde and buoyant.

‘A big girl,' he commented, impressed. ‘You like them big, do you?'

‘I dunno what you mean.'

‘Of course you know. There isn't a man alive who would choose to buy the
Sun
and not take a good look at page 3.'

Horrocks protested that he didn't buy the paper for himself. He took it with him to the pub because it was the only way he could communicate with the peasants. ‘I told you,' he said, ‘I've got no use for young women.'

‘Not sexually, perhaps,' conceded Quantrill. ‘But you could certainly do with someone to clean this place up.' He gestured disapprovingly at the dirt, the disorder, the disrepair, and at the cans of schoolboy grub – baked beans, sausages, custard, rice pudding – that stood opened, with spoons in them, on the table. ‘Look at it! How can you live like this? What would your grandfather the Earl say if he could see you now?'

Charley Horrocks sat down heavily on the sofa. He looked desolate. With a quivering chin he explained that when the rest of his family moved away, his nanny had continued to look after him. She had married a Horkey shopkeeper, but she came over to the lodge once a week to bring Charley's laundry and supplies, and to do the cleaning for him.

‘But she gave up comin'last winter. Said she was too old … Her son still brings the groceries, but I do miss Nanny.' Charley fumbled in his pocket, found something that might have begun life as a handkerchief, and used it noisily. ‘She's eighty-four next birthday,' he gulped. ‘I don't know what I'll do when she dies.'

Quantrill shelved his theory of group involvement; this line seemed much more promising. He sat on the edge of the sofa so that he could look into the man's face.

‘You need someone here, then, don't you, Charley?' he said sympathetically. ‘A healthy young woman – not to go to bed with, but to look after you. That's what you want, isn't it? And preferably a local woman, someone you've known all her life. Sandra Websdell would have suited you ideally.

‘But the problem was that Sandra didn't want to come, did she? The only way you could get her here was by abducting her. And the only way you could keep her here was by tying her up. You didn't mean to hurt her, I know that. But that was what happened, wasn't it?'

Charley Horrocks wiped his purple cheeks and shook his great grey head. ‘No no no,' he mourned, rocking himself backwards and forwards on the sagging springs. ‘I don't want any other women here. I don't like other women. It wouldn't be the same as havin' Nanny to look after me.'

The Chief Inspector returned to his car carrying a large plastic evidence bag. It contained Charley Horrocks's tropical trousers and shirt.

‘How did you persuade him to let you take them away?' asked Sergeant Lloyd. She had just emerged, stung, from the nettle patch that had once been a garden; having learned to come prepared for such rural hazards she was now treating her tingling skin with antihistamine cream.

‘No problem,' said Quantrill. ‘I offered to have the clothes washed for him. Send them to the lab, will you, Hilary? There may be something on them that will provide a direct link with Sandra Websdell.'

‘Do you think it's likely?'

‘I did when he started to talk about himself. I thought you were right that it was a one-man job, because he certainly had a motive for abducting the girl.' Quantrill related what Horrocks had said about his nanny. ‘On the other hand, when we first arrived he told us without hesitation that he was here at the time of Sandra's death. His chief anxiety was to convince us that he was alone, and not with Braithwaite – and that seems to rule out any possibility that Sandra's abduction was all his own work.

‘He couldn't have hidden the girl anywhere in the house, either. I asked to look round, and he made no objection at all. I rather think he hoped that I'd offer to have that cleaned for him too. It was full of muck, but I couldn't find anything of any significance. What about the outbuildings?'