The Price of Butcher's Meat (65 page)

I can tell from the way you talk about her how much she means to
you—yes, as I’m sure you’ve worked out by now, I’ve listened to all your
fascinating recordings—but there’s no way of telling if it was a long slow
burn or a sudden explosion.

With me and Esther Denham it was explosive. On my side it was
like a message stamped on my soul with a white-hot iron—
this is the woman for you!
On hers, it was rather different. More,
oh Jesus, I don’t believe this—can I really fancy a guy in a wheelchair? Get out of here now, you crazy bitch!

I could see she was attracted, could tell how much this shocked her.

I knew she was resolved once she got out of the room, she’d make sure
she never saw me again. In fact, she made an excuse almost immediately, said she needed to go to the loo. I boldly offered to show her where
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it was, a bit of behavior which might have struck Lester and Daph as
odd if he hadn’t been in such a state of panic and she of lust!

We got to the bathroom, she opened the door and stepped inside, I
pushed in behind her, she turned in anger which became amazement as
I rose up out of my chair and kissed her.

There followed a moment of shock and resistance on her part, and
on mine of terror that she was going to start screaming rape and bring
the nurses running.

And then she started kissing me back, only stopping because she was
laughing so much. It was, she said, so totally unexpected, so totally unimaginable, that it was comic!

I knew then I was right. She was the one for me. Except, of course,
there was no way in Daphne’s eyes that, in or out of my chair, I could be
the one for her. And if Ess stuck two fingers up to Daph, it wasn’t just
her who’d get cut off without a penny, it was dear brother Ted.

Teddy is not, as you yourself have observed, the sharpest knife in the
box. Ess has looked after him all her life. Family loyalties are, I believe,
God’s way of ensuring that even the most undeserving get a bit of unconditional love. If I wanted Esther, then Ted was part of the bargain.

We started meeting, or rather she and Emil started meeting, keeping
well clear of the smart end of the resort where Daph was queening it up,
and mucking down with the students at the Bengel bar where I encountered George Heywood and the lovely Charley. Things got better every
time we met and I knew by the end of her holiday that, however things
panned out, I had to follow her home. And God, who’s an old romantic
at heart, wrote the perfect scenario!

Soon, despite all he did to try to extend his stay, it was time for Lester to return to Sandytown. By now we were best buddies and it seemed
perfectly natural for me to head home to England with him, to the Yorkshire that I knew so well, and to settle close to the Avalon and get involved with its work.

I cannot describe with what joy I made the journey—or with what
reluctance Lester made his!

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I got myself settled in my cottage. It was as secure as I could make it.

Sometimes Ess would come and visit me there, riding on Ted’s bike.

Sometimes we would meet elsewhere at a distance and I would become
Emil and we could manage whole weekends together. I was actually
enjoying both my lives, but always I anticipated the day when I could be
back on my own two feet permanently with Esther by my side.

That wasn’t going to happen while Daph was alive, but I swear to you,
Andy, that not once did I contemplate doing anything to get rid of her! The
thing was, I came to like her, to enjoy watching her at play! And I became
quite a favorite of hers. She saw I was close to Lester and she thought she
was clever enough to wheedle things out of me about how he felt about her,
and what was going on with Pet Sheldon! But I think she recognized a fellow spirit in me too, someone who is not perhaps too scrupulous when it
comes to fi nding the quickest way to getting what they want!

So to the day of the hog roast.

I was sitting in my chair, enjoying the champagne and watching the
great storm bubbling up over the sea when Esther came up to me. I
knew instantly something was wrong. In public she usually treated me
as if I were a piece of furniture!

She was extremely agitated. Something dreadful had happened, she
told me.

Teddy had killed Aunt Daphne!

I was, as you might say, gobsmacked. Esther told me she’d been wandering round the grounds and by chance she’d stumbled across the body
in some long grass beyond the hog roast pit. I asked how she knew Ted
was responsible. She showed me that fancy fake watch he wears and said
she’d found it snagged on Daph’s dress. Also, earlier that day, Daph had
shown Ted a new will in which he was disinherited and they’d had a
furious row.

Now you and I, Andy, sensible chaps with one eye always fixed
steadily on the realities of life, might have reckoned that when someone
has just written you out of their will, that is the last time you should
choose to kill them!

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Ted, alas, has rarely let reason cloud his behavior, and neither Ess
nor myself had the slightest problem to start with in accepting his guilt.

Nor did his idiocy in leaving his watch at the scene of the crime strike us
as anything but typical!

I asked where Ted was now. She said she didn’t know, she couldn’t
find him. The storm was starting, everyone was heading for the house,
so I said, “Show me the body.”

She took me there. There was no sign of Ollie Hollis at the hog roast,
which struck me as odd. Seeing old Daphne lying there was truly upsetting. She had been so full of life, so vigorous for her age, such a dedicated goer! She didn’t deserve to end up like this. I was furious with Ted,
but for Esther’s sake, I had to do my best to protect him.

Esther had removed the watch but God alone knew what other
traces the idiot had left. I cast around for some way of obscuring them
and also of misdirecting the investigation. It came to me in a flash what
I had to do.

And so with Esther’s help, I hauled the roasting cage off the barbecue
pit, got the pig out of it, and put poor Daphne in.

It really broke me up to heap this further indignity upon her. There
were tears in my eyes and I have begged her spirit for forgiveness and
understanding since. And, knowing as I do what she herself was capable
of, I do not doubt I received it.

Esther was marvelous, doing everything I told her to. By the time we
were done it was pouring down and we were both soaking and fi lthy and
Ess had managed to burn her arm.

I told her to get back to the house, find something to change into,
and get hold of Ted and do what she could to make sure he didn’t do
anything else stupid.

I meanwhile headed for the lowest bit of the lawn where it was turning really boggy, tipped my chair over, and rolled around in the muck to
provide a reason for my dishevelment. Then I lay there, trying to see
into the future, and waiting patiently for the storm to abate.

After Pet Sheldon took charge of me, there was nothing for me to do
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but head for home and wait until Esther reported on further developments.

She came herself on the bike later that evening. What she told me
was hard to take in. She’d found Ted getting dried off and changed in
the house. He had denied any knowledge of Daph’s death. He said he’d
gone down to the beach with the kids. Sid had gone too. After a while,
seeing that there was plenty of supervision, they’d slipped away to the
old cave halfway up the cliff where they’d been banging away at each
other till the storm started.

A lover isn’t the best provider of an alibi, but as we know, it can be
confirmed at least in part by Charley Heywood’s testimony. (Oh yes, of
course I’ve had a look at Charley’s e-mails. Why not? If the brutal and
licentious constabulary can pore and paw over them, why not I? And,
though it was much harder, I even managed to slide beneath Ed Wield’s
defenses and take a look at his interesting analysis of the witness statements. Perhaps happiness is making him careless!)
Myself, all I needed was Esther’s assurance of Ted’s innocence. No
way he could deceive her about something like that.

Which left the interesting question—what had really happened?

And who was the clever bastard who had deposited Ted’s watch on
the body?

I would have loved to come clean with you and Peter from the start,
but knowing how ready you are, Andy, to put me at the center of all criminality, that would merely have set the investigation on a time-wasting false
trail, and poor Peter had enough of those to follow already! No, I needed to
stay free to pursue my own inquiries.

I worked out that Ollie Hollis’s disappearance from the scene before
the storm broke was perhaps signifi cant. It occurred to me also to wonder why the hog roast had been delayed. I’d noticed there was some
evidence of recent repair to the winding gear. Ollie’s handicraft? Perhaps. But it was well known that the actual creator of this complicated
bit of machinery was Hen Hollis, persona non grata at the Hall since
Hog’s death, but the first person Ollie would turn to if he experienced
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any serious problem. So what if Hen had been there, doing a favor for
one of the clan and delighting in enjoying Daph’s booze and grub without her knowledge? Then she had stumbled across him . . .

I tried to hint at this possibility to Peter, but his mind was elsewhere.

Ollie’s death went some way to fitting in with my theory, but all it did for
Peter was provide a possible culprit, caught apparently in flagrante with
regard to one crime, and reported as being at loggerheads with the victim of the other.

With the enthusiastic support of ace reporter Ruddlesdin, Peter was
trumpeted as the fastest gumshoe in the east the following morning, only
to discover the bays had withered before even he was crowned. With
friends like Ruddlesdin, Peter really needs friends like you and me,
Andy!

Then followed all that weird business about the forged will and
Clara Brereton. This brought Teddy right into the foreground. Silly ass!

If he’d paid any heed to Esther, he would never have attempted to contact Clara. He is the worst kind of fool—the kind that thinks he is
clever!

But at the same time as Clara’s “accident” was leading Peter down
another false trail, Clara’s involvement was stirring up some strange notions in me.

Wieldy was helpful here, feeding all the evidence and statements
straight into his computer and thence straight into mine. As Esther got
drawn into Peter’s net, I knew that unless I could make some sense out
of all this, I would have to come forward and confess to my part. Meanwhile, following the old principle that a good lie is best constructed on
a solid basis of truth, it seemed sensible to prepare something to keep
Peter happy when he started getting close to Esther’s involvement. So
we prepared a version that told the truth, except that it left me out.

Encouraged by the idiot Ruddlesdin, the media were already trumpeting another triumph for Peter. (Incidentally, doesn’t it bother you,
Andy, that locally at least the media seem so eager to cry, The king is
dead, long live the king!) Of course I would never have let it reach the
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point where Peter laid formal charges, but I was hoping to fi nd a way to
test my hypothesis that Hen Hollis must be involved before I came forward and confessed my part in the drama.

And then the sad discovery at Millstone Farm was made.

Everything fell into place. Hen, Daph’s sworn enemy, at the Hall
without her knowledge or approval, had to be a prime suspect, didn’t
he? His guilt-inspired suicide in the house she’d ejected him from, the
house where he’d first seen the light of day, was the perfect end to what
would come to look like Peter’s perfect investigation! It was also a result
that cleared the Denhams and left me free to make my miraculous recovery (which I hope you’ve enjoyed!) and walk off with my beloved and
now rather rich Esther into the golden sunset. I should have been as
happy as Peter and the press at this conclusion to his labors.

But like you, Andy, I am both blessed and cursed with the kind of
mind that cannot leave things alone.

I found myself recalling Pet Sheldon’s description of her encounter
with Daph by the stable not long before her death. She was angry, yes.

But what struck Pet was that she was hurt, she was upset.

Making Daph angry wasn’t diffi cult. Upsetting her was a lot harder.

Also I was troubled by the placing of Ted’s watch by the body. That
was the act of a mind under control, not a mind spiraling into a panic
that would rapidly lead to another murder followed by self-destruction.