Magpie Murders (25 page)

‘The Bible is very clear about suicide. It’s the moral equivalent of murder. “God is the giver of life. He gives and He takes away.” That’s from the book of Job. We have no right to take matters into our own hands.’ She stopped and suddenly there was a hardness in her eyes. ‘But there have been times when I have been very much in the shadows, when I have looked into the valley of death and wished – and wished I could enter. How do you think it’s been for me, watching Magnus and Frances and Freddy? I used to live in that house! All that wealth and comfort was once mine! Forget the fact that it was actually stolen from me, I should never have come back to Saxby-on-Avon! It was mad of me to humiliate myself by returning to the emperor’s table. So the answer is – yes. I thought about killing myself. I took the physostigmine because I knew it would do the job quickly and painlessly.’

‘Where is it now?’

‘Upstairs. In the bathroom.’

‘I’m afraid I must ask you to give it to me.’

‘Well, I certainly don’t need it now, Mr Pünd.’ She spoke the words lightly, almost with a glint in her eye. ‘Are you going to prosecute me for theft?’

‘There won’t be any need for that, Miss Pye,’ Chubb said. ‘We’ll just make sure it gets back to Dr Redwing.’

They left a few minutes later and Clarissa Pye closed the front door, glad to be alone. She stood quite still, her breasts rising and falling, thinking over what had just been said. The business with the poison didn’t matter. That wasn’t important now. But it was strange that such a tiny theft should have brought them here when so much had been stolen from her. Would she be able to prove that Pye Hall was hers? Suppose the Detective Inspector was right? All she had were the words of a sick and dying man with no witnesses present in the room, no proof that he was actually sane when he spoke them. A legal case resting on twelve minutes that had ticked by more than fifty years ago.

Where could she possibly begin?

And did she actually want to?

It was very strange, but Clarissa suddenly felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The fact that Pünd had taken the poison with him was certainly part of it. The physostigmine had been preying on her conscience for all manner of reasons and she knew that she had regretted taking it from the very start. But it was more than that. She remembered what Chubb had said.
You might be better off just accepting things as they are. You have a nice enough house here. You’re well known and respected in the village
.

She
was
respected. It was true. She was still a popular teacher at the village school. She always made the most profitable stall at the village fête. Everyone liked her flower displays at Sunday service: in fact, Robin Osborne had often said that he didn’t know how he would manage without her. Could it be, perhaps, that now she knew the truth, Pye Hall no longer had the power to intimidate her? It was hers. It always had been. And at the end of the day, it hadn’t been Magnus who had stolen it from her. It hadn’t been fate. It had been her own father, a man she had always remembered with fondness but who turned out to be antediluvian – a monster! Did she really want to fight him, to bring him back into her life when he had been so long below the ground?

No.

She could rise above it. She might visit Frances and Freddy at Pye Hall and this time she would be the one in the know. The joke would be on them.

With something close to a smile, she went into the kitchen. There was a tinned salmon rissole and some stewed fruit in the fridge. They would do very nicely for lunch.

5

‘I thought she took it extremely well,’ Emilia Redwing said. ‘We weren’t even sure at first if we should tell her. But now I’m glad we did.’

Pünd nodded. He and Fraser had come here alone, Inspector Chubb having returned to Pye Hall to meet the two police divers who had been summoned from Bristol, the nearest metropolis to have such a resource. They would be examining the lake that very day although Pünd already had a very good idea what they would find. He was sitting in the doctor’s private office. Arthur Redwing was also present. He looked uncomfortable, as if he would rather be anywhere else.

‘Yes. Miss Pye is certainly a formidable person,’ Pünd agreed.

‘So how is your investigation going?’ Arthur Redwing asked.

It was the first time Pünd had met Dr Redwing’s husband, the man who had painted the portrait of Frances Pye – and also, quite clearly that of the young boy which hung on the wall behind him now. The boy must be his son. He had the same dark, good looks, the slightly crumpled, very English features. And yet the two of them were at odds. There had been some difficulty between them. Pünd had always been interested in the unique relationship that exists between the portraitist and his subject, how there can never be secrets. It was true here. The way the boy had been painted, his pose, the nonchalance of his shoulders resting against the wall, one knee bent, hands in his pockets … all this suggested intimacy, even love. But Arthur Redwing had also captured something dark and suspicious in the boy’s eyes. He wanted to be away.

‘It is your son?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Arthur replied. ‘Sebastian. He’s in London.’ The three words somehow contained a lifetime of disappointment.

‘We don’t see him very often, I’m afraid,’ Emilia Redwing added. ‘Arthur painted that when Sebastian was seventeen.’

‘It’s terribly good,’ Fraser said. When it came to art, he was the expert, not Pünd, and he was glad to have his moment in the sun. ‘Do you exhibit?’

‘I’d like to …’ Arthur mumbled.

‘You were about to tell us about your investigation,’ Emilia Redwing cut in.

‘Yes, indeed, Dr Redwing.’ Pünd smiled. ‘It is very nearly complete. I do not to expect to spend more than two more nights in Saxby-on-Avon.’

Fraser’s ears pricked up when he heard this. He’d had no idea that Pünd was so close and wondered who had said what, and when, to provide the significant breakthrough. He was keen to hear the solution to the crime – and he wouldn’t be sorry to get back to the comfort of Tanner Court either.

‘Do you know who killed Sir Magnus?’

‘I have, you might say, a theory. There are just two pieces of the jigsaw that are missing and which, once found, will confirm what I believe.’

‘And what are those, if you don’t mind us asking?’ Arthur Redwing had suddenly become very animated.

‘I do not mind you asking at all, Mr Redwing. The first is taking place almost as we speak. With the supervision of Inspector Chubb, two police frogmen are searching the lake at Pye Hall.’

‘What do you expect them to find? Another body?’

‘I hope nothing as sinister as that.’

It was evident he was not going to expand any further. ‘What about the other piece of the jigsaw?’ Dr Redwing asked.

‘There is a person to whom I wish to speak. He may not know it, but I believe that he holds the key to everything that has taken place here in Saxby-on-Avon.’

‘And who is that?’

‘I am referring to Matthew Blakiston. He was the husband of Mary Blakiston and of course the father of the two boys, Robert and Tom.’

‘Are you looking for him now?’

‘I have asked Inspector Chubb to make enquiries.’

‘But you know he was here!’ Dr Redwing seemed almost amused. ‘I saw him myself, in the village. He came to his wife’s funeral.’

‘Robert Blakiston did not tell me that.’

‘He may not have seen him. I didn’t recognise him at first. He was wearing a hat that he kept very low over his face. He didn’t talk to anyone and he stayed right at the back. He also left before the end.’

‘Did you tell anyone this?’

‘Well, no.’ Dr Redwing seemed surprised by the question. ‘It seemed perfectly natural for him to be there. He and Mary Blakiston had been married for a long time and it wasn’t hatred that drove them apart. It was grief. They lost a child. I was a little sorry that he chose not to speak to Robert. And he could have met Joy while he was there. It’s a great shame, really. Mary’s death could so easily have brought them all together.’

‘He might have been the one who killed her!’ Arthur Redwing exclaimed. He turned to Pünd. ‘Is that why you want to see him? Is he a suspect?’

‘That is impossible to say until I have spoken to him,’ Pünd replied, diplomatically. ‘So far Inspector Chubb has been unable to locate him.’

‘He’s in Cardiff,’ Dr Redwing said.

For once, Pünd was taken by surprise.

‘I don’t have his address but I can easily help you find him. I had a letter, a few months ago, from a GP in Cardiff. It was perfectly routine. He wanted some notes about an old injury that one of his patients had incurred. It was Matthew Blakiston. I sent him what he wanted and forgot all about it.’

‘You remember the GP’s name?’

‘Of course. It’s on file. I’ll get it for you.’

But before she could move, a woman suddenly appeared, letting herself into the surgery through the main door. The door of Dr Redwing’s office was open and they all saw her; a woman in her forties, plain, round-faced. Her name was Diana Weaver and she had come to the surgery to clean it as she did every day. Pünd had known exactly when she would be arriving. It was she whom he had actually come to see.

For her part, she was surprised to find anyone here so late in the day. ‘Oh – I’m sorry, Dr Redwing!’ she called out. ‘Would you like me to come back tomorrow?’

‘No, please come in, Mrs Weaver.’

The woman came into the private office. Atticus Pünd stood up, offering her his seat, and she sat down, looking around her nervously. ‘Mrs Weaver,’ he began. ‘Allow me to introduce myself—’

‘I know who you are,’ she cut in.

‘Then you will know why it is I wish to speak to you.’ He paused. He had no wish to upset this woman and yet it had to be done. ‘On the day of his death, Sir Magnus Pye received a letter relating to the new houses that he proposed to build. This would have caused the destruction of Dingle Dell. I wonder if you can tell me – did you write that letter?’ She said nothing, so he went on. ‘I have discovered that the letter was typed on the machine that sits in this surgery and that only three people might have had access to it: Joy Sanderling, Dr Redwing and yourself.’ He smiled. ‘I should add that you have nothing to worry about. It is not a crime to send a letter of protest, even if the language is a little intemperate. Nor do I suspect for a single minute that you followed through the threats that were made in that letter. I simply need to know how it got there and so I ask you again. Did you write it?’

Mrs Weaver nodded. There were tears beading at her eyes. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Thank you. I can understand that you were upset, quite justifiably, about the loss of the woodland.’

‘We just hated seeing the village being knocked about for no good reason. I was talking about it with my husband and with my father-in-law. They’ve been in Saxby all their lives. We all have. And it’s a very special place. We don’t need new houses here. There’s no call for them. And the Dell! You start there, where does it end? You look at Tawbury and Market Basing. Roads and traffic lights and the new supermarkets – they’ve been hollowed out and now people just drive through them and—’ She stopped herself. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Redwing,’ she said. ‘I should have asked your permission. I acted in the heat of the moment.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Emilia Redwing said. ‘I really don’t mind. In fact, I agree with you.’

‘When did you deliver the letter?’ Pünd asked.

‘It was Thursday afternoon. I just walked up to the door and popped it through.’ Mrs Weaver lowered her head. ‘The next day, when I heard what had happened … Sir Magnus murdered … I didn’t know what to think. I wished then that I hadn’t sent it. It wasn’t like me to be so impulsive. I promise you, sir. I really didn’t mean anything ill by it.’

‘Again, the letter has no relevance to what occurred,’ Pünd assured her. ‘But there is something I must ask you, and you must think very carefully before you answer. It concerns the envelope in which the letter was placed and, in particular, the address …’

‘Yes, sir?’

But Pünd did not speak. Something very strange had happened. He had been standing in the middle of the room, partly resting on his walking stick, but as he had continued the interview with Mrs Weaver, it had been noticeable that he was relying on it more and more. Now, very slowly, he was toppling to one side. Fraser noticed it first and leapt up to catch him before he hit the floor. He was just in time. As he reached him, the detective’s legs buckled and his whole body slid away. Dr Redwing was already out of her seat. Mrs Weaver was staring in alarm.

Atticus Pünd’s eyes were closed. His face was white. He didn’t seem to be breathing at all.

6

Dr Redwing was with him when he woke up.

Pünd was lying on the raised bed that the doctor used to examine patients. He had been unconscious for less than five minutes. She was standing over him, a stethoscope around her neck. She looked relieved to see that he had awoken.

‘Don’t move,’ she said. ‘You were taken ill …’

‘You have examined me?’ Pünd asked.

‘I checked your heart and your pulse. It may just have been exhaustion.’

‘It was not exhaustion.’ There was a shooting pain in his temple but he ignored it. ‘You do not need to concern yourself, Dr Redwing. I have a condition that was explained to me by my doctor in London. He also gave me medication. If I might rest here a few more minutes, I would be grateful to you. But there is nothing more you can do for me.’

‘Of course you can stay here,’ Dr Redwing said. She was still looking into Pünd’s eyes. ‘Is it inoperable?’ she asked.

‘You see what others do not. In the world of medicine, it is you who are the detective.’ Pünd smiled a little sadly. ‘I am told that nothing can be done.’

‘Have you had a second opinion?’

‘I do not need one. I know that there is not very much time left to me. I can feel it.’

‘I am so sorry to hear it, Mr Pünd.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Your colleague did not seem to be aware of the problem.’

‘I have not informed Fraser and I would prefer it if it remained that way.’