Echoes of Silence (23 page)

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Authors: Marjorie Eccles

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: Echoes of Silence
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The fact remained that
someone
had killed her.
When it had happened, ten years ago, Polly had been spending a crazy weekend with a group of friends, after the wedding of two of them. The wedding had taken place in a village on the Cornish coast, as nearly off the end of England as you could get, so there was no chance of driving home the same night, just supposing any of them had been in any condition to drive. The group had taken a rented cottage for the weekend, meant to sleep six. Ten – or maybe more – had crammed in, occupying chairs, floors and sofas, carrying on the celebrations. One of the chaps was a stranger to Polly, a loose-limbed Adonis with floppy dark hair and laughing blue eyes and no moral conscience. Three months later, before this last was apparent, they were married.
While Polly was being swept off her feet by Tony Winslow in a Cornish village, sense and sensibility blotted out by his charm, the sombre events in Steynton were being played out. She hadn't known about it until she'd got back to college, when an urgent telephone call had brought both joy and disaster – on the one hand, news of the birth of twins to Ginny and Leon, and on the other of Beth's disappearance.
She drove home to Yorkshire the following day, ditching all her classes and commitments, battling up from London through increasingly treacherous weather, cursing her decision to drive when she found the M62 closed because of snow, and that she was being redirected miles and miles out of her way, along roads hardly less navigable. Low Rigg had still been in an uproar when she finally got there: Peter being questioned by the police, Isobel, prostrate with grief and illness. Birth, and what eventually turned out to be death, happening within a couple of days – Ginny's delight and happiness overshadowed and dimmed by
the appalling tension, the endless wait for news of Beth that never came. Placid and undemonstrative though Ginny outwardly appeared towards her boisterous little boys, Polly had always sensed that the twins' birth at that particular, poignant moment had made them doubly precious in her eyes, a brush of angel wings across the darkness and misery of those long January days, the miracle of new life in some way making sense of the unutterable sadness and pain of a child's death.
For Beth had to be dead by then. Hope for her had dwindled, though the search had continued, hampered by the appalling weather. And afterwards had come the endless questioning, the suspicions … Sonia was right. Peter wouldn't have been capable of facing up to all that again.
 
 
She was wearing swirling layers of warm fabric, a velvet, printed waistcoat, and long boots, yet she clasped her arms across her chest, hugging herself, feeling as if she'd never be warm again.
The big superintendent hadn't stayed long after all, had been replaced by a young woman in a sheepskin jacket named Sally. She was kind and firm with Sonia and had persuaded her to take the sedative prescribed by the doctor and to lie down. She'd stayed on with Tom Richmond to manage the rest of the business, but he'd eventually sent her back to the station and was now seated in the kitchen with Polly, mugs of muddy liquid in front of them, made from a cheap, instant coffee powder, all she'd been able to find.
They sat uncomfortably wedged either side of a pine table with integral benches, reminding Richmond of those in a set-aside picnic area off a motorway. She picked up her mug and held it with her hands clasped round it, seeking its warmth, not drinking. Richmond had already manfully downed most of the repellent brew, which had at least had the one virtue of being hot.
‘So that's it,' she said, her voice unsteady. ‘I suppose this wraps it all up?' He looked at her without answering. She swallowed and went on, ‘What Peter's done – to my untutored way of thinking, it seems tantamount to a confession … Perhaps
you were right all along to suspect him … Perhaps my mother really did know the truth.'
‘I wish it were as simple as that.'
Her eyes grew wide as she digested this. ‘It wasn't suicide?'
‘That's not what I meant, no. We'll have to wait for the pathologist's report but I don't think there's much doubt he took his own life.'
‘Oh! Then … then, you do think he could have murdered Wyn Austwick – that it wasn't necessarily true what he told Sonia, that he spent the time walking.'
‘Walking,' he repeated.
‘Yes, well, that's possible, you know. Very typical, something he'd done ever since he was a boy. For miles and miles, over the moors. Alone. But …' She was dismayed to find her eyes filling with tears.
‘I'm sorry, this is rough on you.'
‘It's rough on us all.' She took a determined gulp from her mug, swallowed it down. ‘Do you know what I keep thinking? I keep asking myself how he could do it when he believed in the after-life. How could he – how can anyone who believes that – be sure the agony, the punishment, will end, that it won't just go on and on?'
He was very quiet.
‘Do you know what
I
keep thinking?' he answered eventually. ‘That you'd be better with a nip of whisky than that coffee. And then getting off home. Or rather the other way round, if you have to drive. Mrs Denshaw won't be awake for some time, and your sister's coming later, isn't she?'
‘I have to pick the children up from school, anyway. You're right, this coffee's disgusting.' She picked up both mugs, rose and poured what was left down the sink before rinsing them.
When she turned round, he saw that her face had taken on a look of determination. She leaned back, her hands on either side of her, gripping the edge of the sink. ‘You asked me the other day if I knew anything about Elf's origins. I don't know why you wanted to know, and these are other people's secrets – but if it will help to clear up all this mess … You implied Philip was her father. Well, I think he probably is.'
‘Probably?'
‘I don't actually
know,
not for certain. But I've been putting
two and two together and yes, it explains quite a lot. I suspect Elf knows – it may seem incredible to you that the rest of us have never been told, but you see, my aunt, Philip's wife, was still alive when Elf was born. She'd been ill for a long time – but twenty-eight years ago, people weren't so accommodating about that sort of thing. Philip is rather strait-laced as well, and he's always been very sensitive to what people think about him.'
‘Your mother must have been very understanding to take in his illegitimate child as one of her own family,' he said ambiguously.
‘There were strings attached.' She came to sit down again, and some time passed as she gathered her thoughts. Then she explained what the family had learned from Philip a few nights ago, about their father leaving no money and Philip stepping into the breach with his offer. ‘He didn't actually say so, but I think taking Elf in was a condition of the agreement. You know, it really wasn't a bad way out of a very awkward solution.'
Especially for Philip Denshaw, thought Richmond. ‘Thank you for telling me that.'
‘I might wish I hadn't, later.'
She smiled ruefully but the way she'd said that made him sure that there were still gaps in this story she hadn't filled in. He had a feeling she might, if he gave her time, that the results would be worth his patience. Why he should feel so convinced that this confirmation of Elvira Graham's parentage had very definite bearings on his own child's death was something he kept asking himself. So far he'd found no satisfactory answer.
He needed to talk with some person who'd been there at the time, someone unbiased and able to keep calm in the face of crisis as Philip Denshaw seemingly had. Aware that he was a man with his own secrets, and not apparently inclined to divulge them, Richmond nevertheless determined to talk to him.
Before he left, he tore a page from his notebook and scribbled his home number. ‘Any time you need me,' he said.
Steynton never quite went to sleep. A busy main road ran through the valley town, bearing heavy traffic towards the motorway, even throughout the night. Along the road were public houses and a Chinese takeaway and a disco that stayed open late to cater for the local night life. But at half-past nine that night there was little going on. The road had been kept cleared and gritted, and snowploughs and traffic had pushed the snow into dirty heaps on the pavement edges. It was very cold. More snow was expected and, apart from carefree youth, not many people were prepared to face the prospect of getting themselves stuck in their cars or involved in a pile-up on the icy roads, preferring the comfort of their own firesides on a night such as this.
Richmond saw that the lights were still on in the Wesleyan Methodist chapel, however, and its car-park well filled. The members of the Steynton Choral Society must be a dedicated lot, or perhaps better equipped for driving in these conditions than he was, he reflected, drawing his own car up alongside a four-wheel drive vehicle and spotting several more in the vicinity.
 
 
For the first time in his life, Philip Denshaw felt glad that one of his musical evenings was nearly over.
The rehearsal for
Judas Maccabeus
had been going for nearly two hours, and the rafters rang in the old chapel where choirs had sung with zeal and gusto for generations. It had been built in the days of religious fervour to accommodate a congregation of three hundred, with an overflow in the gallery. Since then, varnished pine had given way to white paint, the walls were now claret colour, the central heating had been updated and the hard wooden pews provided with cushions. People no longer saw the need to equate religion with discomfort. But they still loved to sing.
Sheer love of music, a tradition of lusty hymn-singing that had been passed down through the generations, was inherent in this
choir; they were not afraid to raise their voices in full-throated, joyful harmony, quite unlike the soft cooing of a Welsh male voice choir, say, but just as seductive in its own way.
Tonight they were not singing as well as they might: a missed note here, one voice a beat behind, a ragged finish to a phrase, perhaps infected by his own inner unease.
‘Stop! That's it for tonight. Next Tuesday at eight. Thank you all very much.'
Surprise showed on all faces. Ten minutes before time, when it was usually ten minutes after, or even twenty! Especially when there was only a fortnight to go before the final performance, with all the usual last-minute hitches and complications: winter colds and coughs, a virus among the sopranos. One of the specially booked principals down with laryngitis – or temperament - and her understudy, a young woman who sang like an angel, not wishing her ill but daring to hope …
But Philip Denshaw, usually a rigid taskmaster, had declared the rehearsal over and, remembering the road conditions outside, most of them were willing enough to depart. Scores were shuffled together, outdoor clothes donned, farewells exchanged, and Philip, at last left alone, gathered his own things together and felt for his car keys as he walked to the back of the chapel.
A stranger sat in one of these pews at the back. How long had he been sitting there, listening? There was a familiarity about him, a face half-remembered. He stood up as Philip approached him. ‘DCI Richmond,' he said, offering a police warrant card for inspection.
Beth's father. Seen as a grainy newspaper photo, ten years ago, never completely forgotten. Philip felt his pulses beating, the blood draining away from his heart, then the heat rising in his face.
‘What can I do for you?' he managed, calmly enough.
‘Wonderful singing,' commented the policeman, waving a hand to indicate that Philip should sit down. Philip nodded acknowledgement and took a seat at the end of the pew opposite, turning to face Richmond, the aisle between them. Richmond told him he was investigating the murder of Wyn Austwick.
‘Then you've come to the wrong place. I didn't have anything to do with that book my sister-in-law was having published.'
‘Mrs Austwick was a member of your choir here, wasn't she?'
‘She was. But I don't know all the members personally. She was just one of the contraltos, pleasant voice, that's all I knew about her. Except that she wasn't very trustworthy – about turning up, I mean. Missed a lot of rehearsals.'
Richmond could see that damned her in Denshaw's eyes as not worthy of more attention, he made it clear she had impinged on him as nothing more than a voice, but Richmond pressed on with his questions. He found no further enlightenment. Philip insisted he had never met Wyn Austwick outside the choir rehearsals, had no idea where she lived. He hadn't even known about the book she was writing for Freya until after her death. ‘
Freya's
death,' he added.
‘Distressing, two family bereavements, so close together like that, Mrs Denshaw, then her son. I'm sorry.'
‘Thank you, yes, it is upsetting. You get used to it as you get older, folk dropping off one by one, but Freya was younger than me. Makes you think.'
He had to be well on in his seventies, but he looked hale and hearty enough at the moment, plump and pink-cheeked, his sparse white hair scraped horizontally across a bald pate. You could never tell how death affected people, however. And intimations of mortality must inevitably be strong after losing two close relatives in such quick succession.
‘Must do. Not yet forty, your nephew, I'm told. An untimely end. It's always disturbing when something like that happens, when you can't see a reason.'
‘You're asking me why he did it,' Denshaw said bluntly. ‘Well, I can't tell you. Whatever made Peter do anything?' Despite his asperity, his eyes were pained. He added abruptly, ‘I wasn't surprised. He was always unstable. Went off at tangents, trouble wherever he went. The last person who should have been a parish priest.' He brushed a hand across his face. ‘I'm sorry, shouldn't have said that, but Peter and I never saw eye to eye.'
‘Different generations …' Richmond offered the cliché, just to keep him going.
‘It wasn't just that, I don't have any difficulty with other younger people, only Peter, and -' He stood up, picked up his
music case. ‘I'm talking too much. I have to get back up to Low Rigg and with the weather as it is … Sorry I couldn't help you.'
‘Yes, of course, I'm keeping you
but I
would
like to talk to you further about your nephew. Can we arrange another time?'
‘Another time? Why?'
‘Peter's death is still unexplained.'
Denshaw heavily resumed his seat. ‘You'd better carry on and get it over with now then. Just tell me what you mean by that.'
‘All right. As you wish. He didn't leave a note and there'd been no indications that he'd ever had suicidal tendencies. We have to be satisfied that there were reasonable causes for him to have taken his own life.'
‘What are you suggesting, Mr Richmond? Peter was a very unhappy young man. Apart from his mother's death, which affected him deeply, he'd suffered two previous bereavements, both of them tragic, and he'd been under suspicion for one of them … I hardly need to remind you of that. He never got over it.'
‘He had a certain difficulty with personal relationships, or so I understand.'
‘With me, you mean. I can see somebody's been talking.'
‘Not only with you, with Elvira Graham, too, I'm told.'
If he'd hoped to shock Philip, he'd succeeded. The old man suddenly looked his age. A kindly old man, on the surface, yet there was something that jarred, made Richmond wonder if he might not be a bit of an old humbug …
‘Let me help you,' he said. ‘There was some trouble, I believe, when Elvira was a young teenager, between her and Peter and yourself. It must have been serious to warrant an enmity that's lasted over
what, fifteen years?'
Philip was silent for so long, Richmond thought he wasn't going to answer. Finally, he said, ‘Don't make a big mystery out of this, there's no need. I'll tell you exactly what happened and you can draw your own conclusions. I came across Peter painting Elvira. In the nude. She was eleven years old, and he was twenty-one. Elvira meant a great deal to me, and I can tell you I was very shocked. Protestations of innocence from Peter
simply
art
, he said – cut no ice with me, he knew what he was doing. I was very angry with him, told him it must never happen again and that was that, as far as I was concerned. I was prepared to forget it. But Peter's resentments always went deep. He never spoke to me after that if he could help it, was barely civil when he did. He tried to poison Elvira against me too, and for a long time succeeded. Children in their teens can be very unforgiving. I persisted, though, and we were just about getting somewhere when …' He looked thoughtfully at Richmond. ‘May I speak frankly about your daughter? It won't upset you?'
Richmond waved a hand.
‘It seemed to me that Beth needed a lot of love. She'd been very troubled about the divorce and I didn't think Peter was the best person to act as a stepfather. So I paid her a lot of attention and she responded. I was very fond of her – and she was fond of me, I think. Well, when that terrible thing happened to her, I found that Elvira and I were back where we started. I have to say I think she was just a bit jealous, even at eighteen. She's a determined little madam, and she'd got it into her head that none of it would have happened if I hadn't kicked up such a fuss about that painting … Peter wouldn't have felt so guilty, wouldn't have got religion, wouldn't have met Isobel, all that psychological rubbish everyone talks now, nobody responsible for their own actions. Go back far enough and you can find a reason for anything, I say, but Elvira …' The old man looked at him wearily and stood up. ‘The situation has upset me very much over the years.'
‘I can understand that. Thank you for being so frank,' Richmond said, but waited in vain for more confidences.
‘And now I must go.'
It wasn't the right moment, when the old man had been so forthcoming, to probe further. Philip followed him to the door and waited outside with him while he locked it. When they reached the car-park, Philip held out his hand. ‘We've talked about death – but the death of a child is the worst thing of all. It may comfort you to know that none of us at Low Rigg wished Beth harm.'

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