Stiff News (4 page)

‘I'll let the Rector and Tod Morton know that they definitely can't go ahead with the interment now, sir,' said Sloan, ‘whatever anyone else may think.'

‘And the Coroner's ordered a post-mortem,' added Leeyes. ‘So it's up to the pathologist now. We'll see what Dr Dabbe has to say.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Not that that let's us off the hook, of course, Sloan. I hope you realize that.'

‘Yes, sir. Naturally.'

‘So see what you can do out there at Almstone. Strike while the iron is hot.' He gave another seal-like bark, laughing at his own witticism. ‘I say you should catch 'em while they're still at a wake … and not asleep.'

‘Very good, sir.'

‘And keep Crosby with you.'

‘Thank you, sir,' Sloan managed to say between clenched teeth. Detective Constable Crosby was the weakest link in any detection chain.

‘Then we shan't have him in our hair over here at the station.'

Chapter Four

Death lays his icy hand on kings

‘Lisa, Lisa!' Mrs Muriel Peden shot through the green-baize door of the Manor in search of her cook. ‘Where are you?'

As Albert Einstein put it so much better, everything is relative, and as many another victim of crisis has found, relative values can change rapidly. And unexpectedly. Matron was quite surprised to find that her own first steps were taken – like the way of all flesh – in the direction of the kitchen. Her thoughts had flown straight there as she had hurried out of the church and back to the Manor.

While she had sped across the churchyard ahead of the rest of the congregation she had made a swift inventory in her mind of the menu of the excellent cold collation that ought to be – would surely be – awaiting the arrival of the mourners in the old oak-panelled dining room.

‘I'm here, Matron.' Lisa Haines, plump and white-aproned, appeared out of the larder, a great dish of smoked salmon in her hands. ‘Are they all back? Everything's ready.'

‘I'm sure,' murmured Muriel Peden pleasantly, that being the least of her worries. She regarded the fish in a calculating way. Of all of the emotions chasing through her mind at that moment, she was honest enough to admit that it was economy that surfaced.

‘And though I says it as shouldn't, Matron,' beamed the cook, ‘the table and the sideboard look really lovely. It was meant for proper food, that dining room.'

‘And it would be a great pity to waste all of it,' said Mrs Peden, making up her mind on the matter. ‘Not right, I mean…'

‘Waste it?' echoed Lisa, shocked. ‘You couldn't do that, Matron. Not all that cooked ham … it's home-cured!'

‘Which wouldn't freeze.'

‘And then there's the cold duck,' said Lisa. ‘I did that myself special because Mrs Powell – God rest her poor soul – always liked my duck when it was served. She said so every time.'

‘And that wouldn't freeze either,' said Muriel Peden decisively, ‘would it?'

‘Freeze?' Lisa's starched apron rustled at the very word. ‘Why should it be put in the freezer, I'd like to know? They'll be here any minute and if I know them they'll be hungry.'

Resisting the terrible temptation to say that freezing was probably what was going to happen to the late Mrs Powell – God rest her soul, indeed – Matron explained that there had been police at the funeral.

‘Oh, that's no problem, Matron,' responded Lisa immediately. ‘I'll give them something in the kitchen.' She looked down at the charger of smoked salmon and its decoration of halves of lemon and subconsciously tightened her grip on it. ‘There's plenty of that ham left and there's some beer in the cooler. That'll do for the police.'

‘That's not quite what I meant, Lisa,' began Muriel Peden weakly.

‘And if I know them, the residents will be quite peckish by now. Some of them have been up for hours getting ready, the darlings.'

Mrs Peden, who held a less rosy view of her charges than did the middle-aged cook, nodded.

‘And,' went on Lisa, ‘Hazel says she had her hands ever so full with Captain Markyate this morning. He was in such a fret, poor old gentleman, about which tie to put on for the funeral. Ever so upset today, she said he was.'

‘He chose the black,' murmured Muriel Peden.

‘Ah, but Hazel said she had quite a time with him because he couldn't make up his mind.'

‘He never can…' said Matron.

‘He thought perhaps he should wear the regimental one on account of Mrs Powell's first husband having been in the Fearnshires.'

Matron, an essentially kind woman, made a mental note to remark later to Captain Markyate on the suitability of black.

‘Oh, and Mrs Carruthers has just rung to say she's coming down for the luncheon after all.' Lisa pursed her lips. ‘I don't know what's made her change her mind, I'm sure.'

‘I can guess…' began Muriel Peden warmly.

‘Said to Hazel when she first came that she was going to stay up in her room until she got used to the place, she did, and that it would be a case of all her meals up there.'

‘They all do to begin with,' said Matron absently, her attention distracted by the sight of the first of her flock coming up the drive. She turned back to the door out of the kitchen. ‘You'd better serve that smoked salmon right away, Lisa. The Brigadier was going to see to opening the champagne and I expect he's gone right ahead in spite of everything … it would be just like him.'

*   *   *

The dilemma experienced by Lionel and Julia Powell was purely a social and not an economic one. It centred on whether in the circumstances they should accept the hospitality of the Manor. This Gordian knot was cut for them by the unlikely combination of the police and their own two daughters.

The former, in the person of Detective Inspector Sloan, had indicated a desire to have further converse in due course with the Powells, and their daughters had flatly refused to miss out on anything in the nature of a champagne luncheon.

‘Nonsense, Daddy,' said Amanda to their parents' suggestion that they had something to eat on their way back to London.

‘We're starving,' announced Clarissa. ‘Do you realize how early we had to get up this morning to get here from town?'

‘Besides, Daddy,' said Amanda firmly, ‘this is our last chance to find out what Granny was really like.'

‘I bet she was fast,' said her sister.

‘Clarissa!' exclaimed Julia Powell. ‘You shouldn't be talking like that about your grandmother.'

‘Why didn't you like us coming down here to see her then?' Amanda challenged her mother. ‘You always tried to put us off.'

‘There was something that you were keeping from us,' insisted Clarissa dramatically.

‘Don't be silly, girls,' snapped Lionel.

‘And we mean to find out what it was,' chimed in Amanda. ‘Come along, Clary, let's follow the crowd.'

‘At least,' said Julia Powell acidly to her husband as they reluctantly trailed behind the other mourners towards the Manor dining room, ‘they're not “Following the Band”.'

Lionel, who understood the allusion perfectly, pretended not to hear.

*   *   *

‘A little more ham, Inspector?' The cook's knife hovered over the ample bone set on the old-fashioned variety of china stand not often seen except in a grocer's shop.

‘Well … I must say it's very good.' The policeman had asked nothing better than a chance to get his feet under the kitchen table at the Manor. ‘You don't see a lot of home-cured ham about these days. Now, who was it you said looked after the late Mrs Powell here?'

‘Hazel.' Lisa Haines glanced at the door. ‘Hazel Finch. She'll be down in a minute. She's feeding Mrs Forbes. Poor lady – she can't even lift a spoon for herself these days.'

‘Mrs Powell had been ill for quite a time, too, hadn't she?' murmured Sloan, accepting some proffered chutney.

‘Oh, yes.' Lisa Haines nodded vigorously. ‘Going downhill for weeks. That's apricot and walnut chutney. I made it myself.'

‘It's very good,' said Sloan truthfully. ‘Now, about Mrs Powell…'

Lisa Haines looked up as the kitchen door opened. ‘Ah, here's Hazel. She'll tell you all you want to know about Mrs Powell, Inspector. She looked after her.'

Hazel Finch was a large, slow girl who sank down at the table, one eye on the ham bone and another on the detective inspector.

She agreed ponderously that Mrs Powell had been ill for weeks before she died.

‘Were you worried about her?' asked Sloan.

Hazel shook her head. ‘No. Matron always promises our ladies and gentlemen that they can die here if they want to and she says we aren't none of us to worry when they do.'

The cook nodded comfortably, placing a substantial plateful of ham in front of the girl. ‘And, Inspector, however bad they are, Matron tells them that here there's no hurry about dying.'

‘I'm very glad to hear it,' said Sloan astringently. Hurry about dying was something that always worried the Criminal Investigation Department at Berebury.

‘If I was like Mrs Forbes upstairs I'd want to die as soon as I could,' volunteered Hazel, tucking in to the ham.

Lisa Haines pushed some mustard in the girl's direction and echoed the sentiment. ‘I'm sure I hope someone will put me out of my misery if I ever get as bad as that poor old lady.'

‘She can't do anything for herself,' said Hazel, making immediate inroads in the ham. ‘Anything at all. It's a shame.'

‘Of course she could die at any time,' said the cook. ‘She does know that.'

‘About Mrs Powell…' said Sloan valiantly.

‘She didn't need no help until the end,' said Hazel between mouthfuls.

‘Ah…' said Sloan, whose professional concern was that Mrs Gertie Powell hadn't had the wrong sort of help towards the end. He drew breath and took a long shot: ‘So when did she give you the letter, Hazel?'

‘'Bout a month ago.' The big girl didn't even pause before she answered. ‘I remember because it was just before I went on my holiday. Mrs Powell gave me some money for that and then gave me a letter.'

‘Another slice of ham, Inspector?' Lisa's knife hovered above the ham bone. ‘I'll have to get started on dishing up the desserts any minute now.'

Wordlessly, Sloan passed his plate, his eye still on Hazel Finch.

‘Then Mrs Powell,' resumed Hazel Finch, ‘asked me if anything happened to her would I post that letter.'

‘Did she tell you when you were to post it?' asked Sloan.

‘Oh, yes.' Hazel nodded. ‘She was most particular about that. She said it was to go into the pillar box outside Almstone post office the day before her funeral.' She finished a large mouthful and then went on, ‘You see, she wanted her son to have it on the day to cheer him up at the funeral.'

‘Nice, that, wasn't it?' said the warm-hearted Lisa Haines sentimentally.

‘So she wasn't expecting to go while you were away?' said the detective inspector to Hazel, leaving aside the question of whether what Mrs Powell had done – if she had – was nice.

‘Oh, no.' Hazel Finch shook her head quite vigorously. ‘Promised me she'd still be there shocking everyone when I got back.'

‘And she was?'

‘Lived another fortnight.' She grinned. ‘Ever such a naughty lady, she was really … but nice with it, if you know what I mean.'

Detective Inspector Sloan said truthfully that he knew exactly what she meant. And he did, although the naughty people he usually dealt with were anything but nice. Downright nasty, most of them: unprincipled, violent, greedy, selfish, murderous perhaps.

‘You're going to miss her, Hazel,' opined Lisa Haines.

‘She was fun,' pronounced the care assistant.

As epitaphs went, thought Sloan, it couldn't easily be bettered.

*   *   *

Out in the churchyard Detective Constable Crosby was making the revised arrangements for the disposal of the dead with Tod Morton, the undertaker.

‘She's to go over to Berebury Hospital for Dr Dabbe,' the constable said.

‘Ah, a post-mortem case,' said young Tod knowledgeably. ‘Thought as much the moment I set eyes on you and the Inspector. Don't often see the police at a funeral.'

‘And pretty pronto, please,' added Crosby.

‘Trouble?'

‘Could be,' said Crosby.

‘Cutting it a bit fine, weren't you?' said Tod curiously.

‘No,' said Crosby.

‘Another ten minutes and we'd have had her six feet under.'

‘Ten minutes is ten miles,' said Crosby ineluctably.

‘Not in a hearse, it isn't,' rejoined Tod. ‘You police've got your regulation two and half miles an hour on the beat and we've got—'

‘The doctor,' Crosby interrupted him, ‘is waiting.'

The undertaker waved a hand in the direction of the south-west corner of the graveyard. ‘So is the lady's lair…'

‘Her what?'

‘Lair.' Tod Morton jerked his shoulder in the direction of the Manor. ‘The Fearnshires are a Scottish regiment.'

‘So?'

‘A lair is what the Scots call a plot in a churchyard,' said the undertaker. ‘When they've paid for it, that is.'

‘That's as maybe,' said the constable magisterially, ‘but as far as the deceased is concerned let me tell you that though it's usually a case of “ashes to ashes” the dust will have to wait for it.'

Chapter Five

Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down

Mrs Muriel Peden surveyed the dining room of the Manor with a practised eye. She was trying to judge to a nicety the right moment to give the signal for the first course to be cleared away. This was not easy because on the whole her charges were quick drinkers and slow eaters.