The Wages of Desire (18 page)

In the Winstead village pub, as Lamb got Evers, the duty sergeant in Winchester, on the telephone to report the Clemmons matter, Evers immediately told Lamb that Harding had been trying to reach him and that he should stand by. A few seconds later, the superintendent came on the line. He allowed Lamb to explain the situation in Winstead before he dropped in Lamb's lap the news of the simultaneous discovery at the prison camp.

The rush of events left Lamb feeling mildly stunned. He and his team seemed suddenly to have found themselves saddled with the challenge of making sense of a grave and mysterious coincidence—the simultaneous discovery of a child's skull on the old Tigue farm and the seeming confession of Albert Clemmons, who had worked and lived on that farm, of his having murdered the O'Hare twins twenty years earlier. Lamb had learned not to discount coincidence, including those that on the surface seemed rather improbable or convenient. But neither did he trust coincidence, necessarily. He preferred to assess coincidences on their merits—or lack thereof—and this one seemed to him questionable.

“I've sent Larkin out to the prison camp to set up a proper dig of the foundation for evidence,” Harding said. “Obviously, we'll also have to start an inquiry into Clemmons's death. I'll send the doctor to Winstead this afternoon.” Harding added that he would put someone to the task of digging out the old files on the O'Hare case for Lamb, since that investigation now appeared, at least potentially, to be in the picture again.

Lamb stopped for a minute to consider what lay before him. He faced one certain murder inquiry, that of Ruth Aisquith; one of a possible suicide, Albert Clemmons's; and the probable reopening of the inquiry into the suicide of Claire O'Hare and the subsequent disappearance of her husband and twin sons. He found his packet of Player's, lit one, took a good long drag from it, and told himself that he must do as he always did, as he had no choice but to do—to approach the mess one step at a time.

He returned to Clemmons's campsite, where, by then, Rivers had gone through the tramp's pockets—in which he found nothing save a rusty folding knife—and begun searching the contents of the lean-to. In doing so, Rivers had found a small tin of rat poison by the pile of blankets and rags on which Clemmons apparently had slept.

“It's been opened,” Rivers said. “He has no marks on him and there's no sign about of a struggle.”

Lamb picked up the container; it contained arsenic, which induced vomiting when ingested in sufficient amounts. He replaced the container on the ground and wiped his fingers on his pant leg. Placing his handkerchief over his mouth and nose again, he waded into the disarray of the lean-to and began to search through Clemmons's scattered belongings—a pile of soiled socks and clothing; a metal cup, along with knife, fork, and spoon that lay inside a rusting iron pot; four or five tins of canned fruit and vegetables and one of sardines; a second large green canvas cloth; a half loaf of coarse brown bread that had begun to grow white mold.

He also found lying among the items of clothing a small satchel made of heavy blue cotton that was cinched closed with string. He parted the strings and looked in the satchel. It contained two shillings and five pence, a nearly empty box of matches, a dull stub of a pencil tucked within several folded pieces of unmarked paper (Lamb immediately wondered if the pencil had been used to write the suicide note) and—curiously—a three-inch-high leaden figurine of the American Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant. The toy was well detailed and carefully painted, down to the golden sash Grant wore around his waist and his signature brown beard. Indeed, the figure seemed almost too pristine, given its owner and the conditions in which he lived, and seemed to have been the only thing resembling a personal keepsake that Clemmons possessed.

He held up the figure so that Rivers could see it. “What do you think of this, Harry?”

“General Grant, then?”

“Yes, but why? He doesn't seem to have kept anything else in the manner of a keepsake. Why a toy soldier and why an American? And look how bloody clean it is.”

“Maybe he fancied the American Civil War.”

“Yes, but there's nothing else—no books or other personal items.”

“Maybe his mum or dad gave it to him, a long time ago. Maybe our man”—Rivers nodded at Clemmons's body—“was a sentimentalist at heart.”

Lamb stared at the figurine for another couple of seconds then, on impulse, put it into the pocket of his jacket.

“All right, Harry, keep at it,” he said. He added that Winston-Sheed was on the way to examine and move the body and that a few uniformed constables also were due to lend him a hand.

Lamb retraced his steps along the path through the wood to Miss Wheatley's cottage. She answered his knock. Lamb thought that the distress at Albert Clemmons's death that Miss Wheatley had exhibited only an hour before seemed to have lessened.

“Captain,” she said. “Come in.”

Little natural light penetrated Miss Wheatley's small, close cottage, tucked, as it was, hard against the wood. The place was crammed with packaged and canned food, piles of newspapers and magazines that appeared as if they might go back years, even decades, along with bits of paper, empty bottles, and boxes and crates of various sizes stacked in corners. Upon entering Lamb could not see a clear place on which to sit.

Miss Wheatley moved a stack of newspapers from one of three chairs that surrounded an oval wooden table in the middle of her kitchen. “Won't you sit down, Captain?” she said. “I'll get us tea.”

“That sounds fine, thank you.”

As she brewed the tea, Miss Wheatley regaled Lamb with her tale of the sad fate of the local nuthatch and renewed her claim that Lawrence Tigue was the worst of the offenders. He allowed her to spin out her tale to its end and promised that he would look into the matter.

She sat opposite him at the table and poured the tea from a bone white china pot with matching cups and saucers. She offered no milk, nor made mention of possessing any, though she produced a small bowl of sugar. Lamb thanked her, sipped his tea, and, falling short of the truth, pronounced it delicious.

“I wonder if you know yet how Albert died, Captain?” she asked.

“It appears as if he died of natural causes.”

“Well, that's a comfort. Poor man. I'm afraid he lived a very difficult life.”

“Did you have reason to believe that he might have died in some way other than naturally?”

“Well, I don't know for sure,” she said. “Given his past history with the village one couldn't know for sure.”

“Meaning you believe that there are people living in Winstead who might have liked to have seen him dead?”

“Well, the mess with the O'Hares upset and frightened people here, as you might imagine. Some hereabout never fully bought into the idea that Claire O'Hare killed herself. Claire was no angel and an execrable mother, to be sure, but Sean was a bad sort, too. He drank and beat Claire about. In fact, the rumor had gotten around at the time that he was up to something with Olivia Tigue, the woman who ran the farm on which they're building the prison camp now.”

“Lawrence Tigue's mother?”

“Yes.”

Lamb could not recall hearing of such a rumor at the time of the O'Hare case—though his distance from the case would have precluded him from being privy to village rumor. He wondered, though, whether the rumor Miss Wheatley recalled was a product of her dislike and mistrust of Lawrence Tigue. He made a mental note to check the rumor when he looked at the O'Hare case files Harding had promised to pull from the vaults.

“You said that you knew Albert as a boy growing up here and recognized him when you encountered him in the wood in April,” he said. “Do you know if anyone else in the village recognized him?”

“Well, I suppose they did.” She paused to sip her tea, then added, “Though I don't know for certain. Most people just avoided him, as they normally do tramps.”

“Did it not bother you that he'd been convicted of pedophilia?”

Miss Wheatley threw up her chubby hands.

“Please, Captain—that's a load of rubbish. Albert was no pedophile. He merely made a mistake with a girl who was too young. Some girls, as you know, can seem quite old at thirteen. And as for Ned Horton's suspicions of him regarding the O'Hare boys, he was cleared in that, and rightly so, though it cursed him for living here any longer. He'd been branded a pervert and that was that. He was an only child, and both his parents are long dead. He said he came back here to die, but I thought that rubbish, too. I believe he returned here because he still considered Winstead his home, despite the terrible thing that had happened to him here. I was glad to see that he'd returned, if you must know. He'd fallen so very far, you see.”

“And how was it that you found his body this morning?”

“Well, I simply went up the trail to check on him. I hadn't seen him in a day or so and was worried that he might be sick.”

Lamb sipped his tea and daubed his lips. “Why were you out in the village two nights ago, and well after midnight?” he asked as he replaced his cup in its saucer. “You were seen in Mr. Tigue's backyard—coming from his henhouse as a matter of fact.”

Miss Wheatley's eyes widened and, for a moment, Lamb believed that he'd actually struck her speechless. Obviously Lilly had not lied about seeing Miss Wheatley steal the eggs, he thought.

“May I ask, Captain, who saw me?”

“I'm afraid I can't say.”

“I see.” She was silent for a few more seconds, then raised her chin. “
Yes
, I took the eggs and I'm not sorry,” she said. “Tit for tat I call it. He takes from the nuthatch and I from him. If you must know, I intended to give the eggs to Albert—and to keep one or two for myself, of course.”

She went to the crowded counter by the sink and retrieved a blue ceramic bowl covered with a yellow cloth. She put the bowl on the table and withdrew the cloth, revealing seven brown chicken eggs.

“You see, Captain, I still have them,” she said. “I took them with me this morning when I went to check on Albert.” She paused, then added, “That's when I found him.” Her eyes suddenly began to fill with tears. “Poor Albert,” she said.

Lamb considered returning the eggs to Tigue but decided to let the matter go. He was inclined toward believing that Miss Wheatley had nothing to do with Albert Clemmons's death.

“One other thing, Miss Wheatley. Do you know if Albert Clemmons finished school?”

Confusion briefly clouded Miss Wheatley's eyes. “Why, yes, he did,” she said after a pause. “He made it through primary school at any rate.”

Lamb stood.

“I'm afraid I've done a very naughty thing, haven't I, Captain?” Miss Wheatley said, looking up at him.

“Yes you have, Miss Wheatley. But I'm confident that you won't do it again.”

“No, Captain,” she said. “No, I won't. I promise.”

SEVENTEEN

DURING THE AFTERNOON AND INTO THE EARLY EVENING, LAMB
remained in Winstead as Winston-Sheed examined Clemmons's body in situ and then removed it for autopsy.

The doctor found no sign of trauma on the body—no one had bludgeoned, strangled, cut, or shot Albert Clemmons. Other than the suicide note and the rat poison, Lamb and his team collected no useful evidence from the scene. At the same time, Harding had taken care of negotiating with the army the bureaucratic necessities of shutting down work at the prison camp until the police removed whatever evidence the farmhouse foundation contained.

Lamb very much wanted to go to the prison camp to have a look at what the workers had unearthed in the foundation of the farmhouse. He also wanted to speak again with Lawrence Tigue, who had connections to the farm and Albert Clemmons. At the time of the O'Hare case, Tigue had lived on the farm with his mother and younger brother, and they had employed Albert Clemmons as a farmhand. Now Miss Wheatley had alleged that Sean O'Hare might have been having an affair with Olivia Tigue. Lamb feared that the small skull that had been found on the farm indeed belonged to one of the O'Hare twins, and that Larkin might soon turn up a second skull to match it.

If the bones did turn out to belong to one or more of the O'Hares, then someone who lived on the farm, or had access to it, had buried them in the basement. In any case,
someone's
remains had come to earth in the foundation of the building that Lawrence Tigue once had called home—though it was possible that the bodies had been buried in the house after the Tigues had left the farm and the house had lain abandoned.

Lamb wondered if Tigue had known that the tramp who'd taken up residence in the wood had been Clemmons. He also yearned to look at the O'Hare file and to track down and interview Ned Horton, the detective who had investigated the case more than two decades earlier. He also must track down Lawrence's younger brother, about whom he knew nothing, and, if she still was alive, Olivia Tigue. On top of that, none of his team had yet found an opportunity to thoroughly look at Ruth Aisquith's background.