A Presumption of Death (26 page)

‘Well, we think George Withers’s garden can’t have been the scene of the crime,’ said Superintendent Kirk. ‘It’s overlooked from the road. We’ve got a time of death around ten in the evening, and there would have been people around. Coming from the Crown, or the choir-practice. I think someone moved the body later, and dropped it into George Withers’s handy hole. So if whoever moved it was carrying it over their shoulder, head hanging down, like . . .’

Harriet turned deathly white, and said, ‘Oh, my God, Peter.’

And simultaneously Bunter said, ‘I might hazard a guess at the scene of the crime, my lord.’

But Harriet couldn’t accompany them to the shed, because she was being humiliatingly and violently sick.

She woke from a brief sleep in the aftermath of this seizure, to see Peter sitting in the bedside chair. A glass of brandy stood on her bedside table. She sat up and held out a hand to him.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked.

‘Quite all right now. I’m sorry; the spirit is willing but – the shed?’

‘Clean as a whistle. But not cleared of suspicion. John Bateson had sluiced and scrubbed and disinfected it, repaired the rope, checked the pulley, got it all ready for next time. Nobody told him not to, and the idea of leaving it offended him. Not hygienic. He borrowed the key from Constable Baker, who has a bit of explaining to do. Of course the fellow thought he was conniving at covering the traces of unlicensed pig-killing, nothing worse, but Kirk is breathing fire and thunder. Bunter is full of remorse for not voicing his suspicions earlier, but I rather suspect his mind was taken off it by Hope.’

‘Not to speak of your return, Peter. Has all the evidence gone, then?’

‘Probably not. I’ve rung Charles and he’s sending an expert forensic team. They’ll find something. Possibly on that block. Ooops, sorry, Harriet.’

‘What for?’

‘You turned a rather green shade of white. But the jolly scene in the shed – our shed – makes it much less likely that this is a boy’s own spy story. You would have to have local knowledge of that rig-up; very local knowledge. It isn’t a bit likely that one of ours or one of theirs could know that. I suppose it’s just possible that the shed was chosen because it was secluded and a warm dry meeting place, or hidey-hole.’

‘That would still entail local knowledge.’

‘Not so much. Only that someone had walked through the yards and seen the doors. Perhaps actually looking for a hidey-hole. When it comes to knowing that the pig-killing rig is in that particular shed and how to work it, that really is insider knowledge.’

‘Well, that isn’t impossible, Peter. Perhaps Superintendent Kirk and I were not the only ones to have worked out that pseudo-Brinklow was unaccounted for the night Wendy was murdered. And remember that two of her boyfriends threatened to kill her murderer if they found out who it was.’

‘There’s a difference between making threats and being able to carry them out.’

‘Let me think. Archie Lugg certainly knows about the shed; his family are in the pig club. I’m not so sure about Jake Datchett; I don’t see him walking round at our end of the village very much. I think I remember being told that Datchett isn’t in the club because he kills his own pigs. But he’s a local. They all know everything.’

‘So what about Birdlap?’

‘Well, he isn’t a local man, and he hasn’t been here much as far as I know. But when he was here he was making assignations with Wendy Percival, and on at least one night, the night she died, he would have walked through our stable yard to the street. So he certainly passed the pig-shed.’

‘Which would have been locked?’

‘Which might have been bolted. The bolt is too high to be reached by the younger children, and I don’t suppose anybody thought of anything else.’

‘There would have been nothing to draw his attention?’

‘I don’t think so. But of course anyone could have said at some time . . .’

‘Well, Superintendent Kirk is playing Pontius Pilate. He has washed his hands of it. He’s delegating the task to us. Rather afraid of going anywhere near anything that Bungo warned him off. I thought Bungo came over rather heavy about the poor Superintendent. No wonder his hackles are raised.’

‘So where have we got to?’ she asked. ‘We haven’t established where pseudo-Brinklow was the night Wendy was killed. If he was wandering about, anyone could have seen him. Whoever was on fire-watch from the top of the tower, for example, because it was a very bright moon. It’s true that Fred Lugg didn’t mention – no, wait, he did mention that he hadn’t seen his son. But one way or another possibly one of her admirers suspected him, and carried out a threat to kill him.’

‘We do rather badly need to know where those young men were, on the night in question.’

‘I’m not sure I can see how to find out, Peter. We have to try to find out without letting them guess that the body in George Withers’s garden was Brinklow; without letting them know that he isn’t accounted for on the night Wendy was killed, and that’s why we suspect them of a motive to kill him. I gather that the powers that be think that if any of that got around, the enemy might realise their agent had been silenced.’

‘It’s a touch delicate, certainly,’ he said.

‘Just the simple fact that pseudo-Brinklow has disappeared won’t surprise anyone,’ said Harriet thoughtfully. ‘They will assume that he got better and returned to his unit. People keep coming and going without notice at the moment. You, for example, my lord.’

‘You don’t think the village gossip-machine will connect the unannounced disappearance of a resident with the unexpected appearance of a body? Times must have changed!’

‘Well, all the slogans we have been favoured with, all the “Be like Dad, Keep Mum” and “Tittle-tattle lost the battle”, are having some effect,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s all a bit muted, now.’

‘Mrs Ruddle is muted?’ said Peter. ‘You amaze me! Is Hitler capable of
anything
?’

‘Well, she’s down a few decibels,’ said Harriet, smiling. ‘And most of the fuss is going to be about the hypothetical pork. That’s what will be on Mrs Ruddle’s mind. But, Peter, we’ve only got until the inquest to get on with this. However distracted villagers are, and however diligently it has been put around that the body was a tramp, and however creatively the local newshounds misspell Brinklow, the inquest at the Crown will be packed, and then they’ll put two and two together and make fifty-six. This is going to be another case like the invasion committee for Great Pagford.’

‘What was that?’

‘Very sensible arrangements for having emergency food and water, and such like. But a directive came from above to tell everybody about it and keep it strictly secret.’

‘Ho, ho,’ said Peter. ‘But, Harriet, what was that you said about pork?’

‘Well, I suppose that most of the village still think that the hoist was used to kill a pig. The hot topic will be: what pig? I gather that at least two unofficial pigs were being kept somewhere in Blackden Wood – our wood – because there was general relief when Sam Bateson found them alive and well. But my guess is that people will be speculating that there was a pig somewhere that wasn’t even an unofficial pig, that was a really secret one. And there’ll be a good bit of detecting about that, that won’t involve Superintendent Kirk or his merry men.’

‘Harriet, that’s an idea. What if we were to try to buy some blackmarket pork? We would be asking who was around on the very same night . . . I think I might have an appetite for some nice chump chops.’

‘Peter, dearest, think of the scandal if you were found out! Famous sleuth breaks the regulations! Greedy aristocrat can’t survive on rations like the rest! Twenty-fourpoint headlines!’

‘No, surely, well down the page. Bottom right-hand corner stuff.’

‘Well, a woman made headlines the other day, top of the page, across three columns for buying enough sugar for 140 weeks’ rations, and driving it home in a Rolls-Royce.’

‘What did she get?’

‘It’s twelve ounces a week. Work it out.’

‘I don’t mean how much sugar, I mean what sentence was meted out?’

‘She was fined. Seventy-five pounds. Don’t tell me you could afford it, it’s the shame I was thinking of.’

‘I am entirely shameless already,’ Peter said. ‘I shall send Bunter.’

‘Supposing, Bunter,’ Lord Peter said, ‘that a pig had been killed in our outhouse.’

‘Unlawful killing, my lord?’

‘Oh, quite. Except for this purpose the law is irrelevant. Supposing that we thought there might be some pork around, and we might get a share in it;
when
would we be asking for it? How long after the event?’

‘Well, I believe one would hang the carcass for a day and a half, or two days, my lord. Then the butcher would cut it into joints. Then in a cool pantry, it would keep perhaps two or three days at most. Yes, I think three days in the weather we are having at present.’

‘Bother!’ said Lord Peter. ‘That means we are too late. Another tragedy.’

‘Tragedy, Peter?’ exclaimed Harriet.

‘Thing I heard somewhere: ‘A tragedy is a good theory defeated by a fact. In this case a good cover story defeated by a fact.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘If I may say so,’ offered Bunter, ‘the belly and hams of this hypothetical pig would be in brine tubs at the present moment, where they would remain for some three weeks before smoking could begin.’

‘So we would
not
be too late to be asking for pork futures – bacon futures, I mean?’

‘No, my lord. Assuming that you knew who to ask.’

‘We want you to ask Archie Lugg and Jake Datchett,’ said Lord Peter. ‘We don’t expect you to bring home the bacon literally, Bunter. We want you to find out what each of those two young men was doing on the evening of 30
^th
April; and we want them to think you are after something entirely different, like rashers or gammon. You may allege anything you like about the voracious desire of your employers to exceed their rations.’

‘Thank you, my lord. If you can dispense with my services this afternoon, my lord, I think I might take a turn round the local lanes.’

‘Certainly, Bunter. Certainly,’ said Peter cheerfully, with the air of one conferring a favour.

‘
More
shelves, is it?’ said Archie Lugg. ‘Should think they’d be straining their eyes in your household, Mr Bunter, if they’ve read even the half of them there books.’

‘It’s more a question of fairness, Mr Lugg,’ said Bunter. ‘That’s a nice piece of work you’re on now, if I may say so.’

Archie Lugg was cutting a narrow plank of planed beech at an angle. Two or three sections were cut already, lying on his work bench.

‘What is it?’ asked Bunter. ‘A window-box?’

‘No. It’s the nearest I can do for a toy bath for dollies,’ said Archie, shaking his head. ‘I can make it water-tight, but it doesn’t look much like a bath.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ agreed Bunter. ‘If you had said it was a feeding trough for a toy donkey I would have been none the wiser.’

‘Well, the best I can do has got to be good enough,’ said Archie. ‘Mrs Simcox has got an evacuee little girl what’s breaking her heart over a doll’s bath that got left in London, and the little mite’s parents seem to have more or less dumped her on the Simcoxes, and don’t get in touch, so this is a birthday present.’

‘That’s very good-hearted of Mrs Simcox,’ said Bunter.

‘She’s gone and got involved,’ said Archie. ‘I said to her, that’s all very well, missus, but what if the parents just turn up out of the blue and take her off of you? But she didn’t pay me any mind. Wants the toy bath anyway.’

‘I suppose you can put all the off-cuts and shavings to good use,’ remarked Bunter.

‘Was you wanting kindling?’ Archie asked. ‘I’ve got a sack over in the corner I could let you have.’

‘I was thinking your workshop sweepings would be good for smoking,’ said Bunter.

‘They are, yes. Specially the oak shavings.’

‘So I thought, if anyone were to be smoking a nice gammon, quietly, somewhere, you might know who.’

‘His lordship can’t hardly manage on his ration, is it?’ said Archie, grinning.

‘I mentioned fairness, Mr Lugg,’ said Bunter. ‘We have reason to believe that use was made recently of equipment in our sheds, without our knowledge or permission. Naturally it occurs to us that we should be offered a share.’

‘Certainly you should,’ said Archie cheerfully, fitting the sloping sides of the bath together, and fetching from a little primus stove a pan of hot water, in which was standing a pot of dark brown foul-smelling glue. ‘I haven’t any problem with that. So long as you didn’t react by shopping all concerned to the police.’

‘Well, that’s exactly the problem,’ said Bunter. ‘We haven’t been offered anything, and we wouldn’t know who to “shop” as you put it. I just thought possibly you might know who I should be asking.’

‘Sorry,’ said Archie. ‘I don’t know a thing about it. Nobody particular has come asking for wood shavings.’

‘And you wouldn’t by any chance have been out and about yourself, on the night of the 30
^th
of April, and seen something unusual happening?’

‘Who told you that?’ exclaimed Archie. ‘No, I never! That’s to say I was out with a friend that evening, and nowhere near your place, and the first I heard of this bothersome pig it was same time as everybody else.’

‘And your friend would gladly confirm that?’ asked Bunter.

‘No, he wouldn’t be glad at all,’ said Archie. ‘Which is why I aren’t a-going to tell you who it was.’

‘Well, I can’t make you. Thank you for your time, Mr Lugg,’ said Bunter pleasantly. ‘I’ll bid you good afternoon.’

It was the wrong day for talking to Jake Datchett. He was over at Broxford, selling lambs in the market. Roger Datchett greeted Bunter amiably enough, and offered him a seat in the farmhouse kitchen, and a pint from the barrel in the pantry.