Timetable of Death (12 page)

‘The sergeant is right,’ conceded Lydia.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ Beatrice argued.

‘I feel that I do.’

‘You’ve turned your back on Nottingham.’

‘The situation there has changed. If I can help the investigation in any way, then I ought to do it. There’s no danger. I’ve learnt to confront my past.’

Madeleine was unable to read the glance that was exchanged between the two women but she could see that Beatrice Myler was very unhappy. Lydia, however, was offering to answer questions so Madeleine pressed on.

‘It’s only fair to tell you that my husband has already spoken to Mr Burns.’

‘I see,’ said Lydia.

‘He talked very candidly about the reason he left your father’s employ.’

‘Need we dredge all that up again?’ asked Beatrice, tetchily.

‘If it’s relevant,’ said Lydia, firmly, ‘then we must.’

‘It would be like opening a wound that’s starting to heal.’

‘My father was murdered, Beatrice.
He
was the person who inflicted the wound. It no longer smarts so much now that I know he’s dead.’

It was Madeleine’s turn to communicate with a glance and Leeming read it correctly. It was the sort of look that his wife gave him when she wanted to have a private discussion with a female neighbour who’d just called in. He rose to his feet.

‘I feel I’m rather in the way,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait outside.’

‘Beatrice will take you into the other room,’ said Lydia, indicating that she’d rather be left alone with Madeleine. She smiled at her friend. ‘Would you mind?’

‘Of course not,’ replied Beatrice, her face impassive as she got up from the chair. ‘Follow me, Sergeant Leeming.’

She led him out then closed the door harder than she needed to have done.

‘I may have to tell you something rather distasteful,’ warned Madeleine.

‘Don’t hold back on my behalf, Mrs Colbeck. I’ve received some terrible blows in my life and I managed to survive them all.’

‘It concerns your friendship with Mr Burns.’

‘Let’s call it by its proper name, shall we?’ said Lydia. ‘It was a romance, an ill-advised one, perhaps, but it meant everything to me at the time.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘I knew from the start that it was an impossible dream but that’s what drove me on, somehow. I wanted to shock and defy convention. Have you ever harboured impossible dreams, Mrs Colbeck?’

‘Yes,’ answered Madeleine, thinking of her marriage to Colbeck and her career as an artist. ‘In my case, the dreams came true.’

‘Did you have no opposition from your father?’

‘None at all – he’s approved of what I’ve done.’

‘Then he must have been a lot more tolerant than mine.’

‘What about your mother? Did she take your side?’

‘She was never consulted properly. All that Mother was told was that I was in disgrace and had to be punished. As you doubtless know, I was taken abroad.’ Lydia pulled a face. ‘Going to Italy had always been my ambition but not under those circumstances. It was an ordeal – until I met Beatrice, that is.’

‘When you lived at home, did you see much of your father?’

‘I saw very little. He was not really interested in me any more than in Agnes, my younger sister. We were simply part of the furniture. Father only took proper notice of my brothers, Stanley and Lucas. They were raised in his image, though Lucas was something of a rebel.’ She smiled fondly. ‘That’s why I got on with him so well. At heart, we were two of a kind.’

‘You must have been to social gatherings of one kind or another.’

‘Oh, yes, we were all dragged off to those – Mother, Agnes and me. Father hardly noticed us. He was too busy shaking hands with people who might be useful to him one day.’

‘You strike me as an observant woman, Miss Quayle. Did you ever see any sign of … enmity towards your father? I don’t mean outright hostility. People are far too careful to show that. But I fancy that you’d have been able to sense if some of the so-called friends were not quite as friendly as they appeared.’

‘Yes,’ said Lydia, ‘I was. When you’ve nothing to do but sit on the sidelines, you notice all manner of things that give people away.’

‘Did you pick out any false friends of your father’s?’

‘Two of them picked themselves out, Mrs Colbeck.’

‘One of them, I suspect, was Mr Haygarth,’ said Madeleine, recalling what she’d read in Colbeck’s letter. ‘He was your father’s rival, wasn’t he? Who was the other person you spotted?’

‘His name is Elijah Wigg. He’s a police superintendent.’

Madeleine was caught off balance. There’d been no mention of Wigg in her husband’s long and detailed
missive. She wondered what Vivian Quayle had done to make an enemy in the police force.

‘Why he and father were at odds with each other,’ said Lydia, ‘I don’t know, but they were bound to meet at certain functions. There was a dinner when we found ourselves sitting at the same table as the Wigg family. Father didn’t exchange a single word with him.’

‘How strange! Let’s move on to Mr Burns,’ suggested Madeleine. ‘I do apologise if this is embarrassing for you.’

‘Years have passed since then. I’m a different person now.’

‘Your friend gave my husband a very clear account of … what had happened between you and him. There was even talk of an elopement, I believe.’

‘You snatch at anything to be with the person you love, Mrs Colbeck. We were talking about it the night we were seen together.’ Her face showed anger for the first time. ‘That put a stop to all our plans.’

‘Yet you tried to get in touch on your return from Italy.’

‘I tried and failed – so did Gerard.’

‘Do you know why, Miss Quayle?’

‘They kept him away from me.’

‘There was rather more to it than that,’ explained Madeleine. ‘This is what I meant when I said I might have to pass on something distasteful. Your father paid two ruffians to assault Mr Burns and they warned him that, if he dared to get anywhere near you again, he’d suffer even more injury.’

‘I can guess the nature of that injury,’ said Lydia, quietly, ‘because my father made the same threat to me. I was not as familiar with the ways of the world then so you can imagine the profound shock that it gave me. I was horrified.’

‘What did your father threaten to do?’

‘He said that if I made any attempt to get in touch with Gerard again …’ She broke off and wiped away a tear that had just trickled out of her eye. ‘It was the way that Father said it that turned my stomach. Keep well away from him, I was told, or the man I’d loved would be castrated.’

Philip Conway had returned to the offices of the
Derby Mercury
to discover that the editor was not there. Expecting a reprimand for not bringing back from Spondon the latest news about the murder investigation, Conway was heartily relieved. He was able to write an article on an unrelated subject. Instead of vanishing altogether, however, the chastisement had only been postponed. When the editor finally turned up, he summoned the reporter to his office and asked for details of the latest developments. Unable to provide them, Conway was given a verbal roasting and sent off to the Royal Hotel to speak to the man in charge of the case.

The Railway Detective was in the lounge, talking to Superintendent Wigg. From the gestures made by the latter, Conway deduced that an argument was taking place. He lurked nearby until Wigg’s temper had cooled then drifted across to them. The superintendent’s manner changed at once. He always made an effort to cultivate the press even if only dealing with a young reporter.

‘Ah, come on over,’ he invited, beckoning with a finger. ‘This is Philip Conway from the
Mercury
, Inspector, but I daresay that you’ve met.’

‘As a matter of fact, we haven’t,’ said Colbeck, ‘but Sergeant Leeming has mentioned him favourably to me. How do you do, Mr Conway?’

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Inspector. The sergeant worships you.’

‘
I
certainly don’t,’ said Wigg under his breath. ‘Well, I’ll be on my way, Inspector, but do bear in mind what I said.’

Colbeck rose from his chair in tandem with Wigg and they exchanged a farewell handshake. The superintendent beamed at the reporter.

‘Do give my regards to the editor,’ he said.

Conway gave a dutiful nod and stood aside so that Wigg could leave. After sizing the newcomer up, Colbeck waved him to a chair, asked if he would like a drink then summoned a waiter to place an order for two glasses of whisky. The reporter was clearly delighted to be in his presence.

‘I didn’t realise that the sergeant had returned to London,’ he said.

‘It’s only a temporary return.’

‘Is he there in relation to the investigation?’

‘Yes,’ said Colbeck in a tone that announced he would give no details. ‘I’ve read your articles in the
Derby Mercury
. They’ve been reassuringly accurate.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘The sergeant will have told you how often we get traduced or misrepresented in the London press. They always expect us to solve a crime instantly, whereas it may take weeks, if not months. Look at the other murder in Spondon.’

‘I meant to tell you about that, Inspector.’

‘They present a curious contrast, don’t they?’ observed Colbeck. ‘On the one side, we have Mr Quayle, a native of Nottingham without any discernible link to the village, being found dead in its church. On the other, we have a local
man robbed and killed on a road leading out of it. Compare the nature of their deaths. The wealthy industrialist is dispatched with poison while the framework knitter was battered to the ground. Which of the crimes is easier to solve?’

‘Neither has been solved yet.’

‘The latest one will be.’

‘What about the earlier one?’

‘That should have been solved three years ago. The sheer brutality of the attack tells us something about the character of the attacker. The facts would suggest to me that he’s a local man, aware of the route home that Enoch Stone would take after a night drinking in a public house.’

‘Most people believe it may have been a traveller, seizing his opportunity.’

‘Were any strangers seen in the village that day?’

‘Not as far as I know, Inspector.’

‘Then I’d plump for someone in Spondon. I took the trouble to find out the wage earned by a framework knitter and it’s not a large one. The killer didn’t get away with a lot of money so perhaps robbery was not the motive, after all. It was made to look as if it was. What prompted the murder might have been something else entirely.’

‘I agree,’ said the reporter.

‘Now in the case of Mr Quayle,’ said Colbeck, ‘there was a sizeable amount of money in his wallet and he had an expensive pocket watch. Neither was stolen. How do you explain that?’

‘I don’t but, then, I’m not a detective.’

‘Don’t be modest. You ferret out stories so you’re in an allied trade.’

The waiter arrived with the whisky on a tray. He set a glass down in front of each of them then withdrew. Colbeck sampled his drink before speaking.

‘You said earlier that you meant to talk to me about Enoch Stone.’

‘Sergeant Leeming may already have mentioned this.’

‘No, he hasn’t said anything to me about it.’

Conway took a hasty sip of his whisky and had a minor coughing fit. When he’d recovered, he described his visit to Spondon that day and his encounter in the churchyard with Jed Hockaday. He quoted the vicar then recalled Leeming’s assessment of the cobbler. After listening carefully, Colbeck said that he would make a point of speaking to the man himself. Hockaday’s behaviour was too peculiar to be ignored and it called his status as a constable into doubt.

‘I’ll pass on your comments to Sergeant Leeming.’

‘Is he on his way back here this evening?’

‘No,’ replied Colbeck, ‘he’ll spend the night at home then catch an early train. Before then, he may find a surprise awaiting him at Scotland Yard.’

After what he saw as his earlier triumph over the superintendent, Victor Leeming entered the office without the usual tremors. Indeed, there was a spring in his step and a radiant smile igniting his features. He and Madeleine had succeeded in their task. Lydia Quayle had been located and a fund of information about her family had been elicited from her. The person who’d drawn it out, of course, was Madeleine but there would be no mention of her part in the visit. Congratulations were in order and Leeming was ready to enjoy them.

‘Good evening, Superintendent,’ he said, airily.

‘What kept you?’ snarled the other.

‘I had to follow a twisting trail, sir.’

‘You’ve been away for hours.’

‘But I did what the inspector asked me to do,’ Leeming contended. ‘By dint of careful research, I found out the address where Miss Quayle is living.’

‘It’s number thirty-eight, Bloomfield Terrace, Pimlico.’

‘That’s right, sir. Thirty-eight, Bloomfield Terrace …’ His smile froze and his confidence died instantly. ‘How on earth do you
know
?’

‘Colbeck sent me a telegraph with the details.’

‘But I had to spend ages finding the place.’

‘All you found was something we already know. Now, then,’ said Tallis, reaching for a cigar. ‘Since you were so certain that you’d collect vital evidence from the young lady, tell me what you actually discovered.’ He lit the cigar, had a few puffs to make sure that it was fully alight then issued a grim challenge. ‘Come on, man.
Impress
me.’

Leeming could hear the firing squad shuffling into position.

Stanley Quayle was in a vile mood. The first person to feel the lash of his tongue was John Cleary, the coachman. They were outside the stables and Quayle’s voice echoed around the yard.

‘Whatever did you think you were doing?’ he demanded.

‘Mrs Quayle asked to be taken for a drive, sir.’

‘My mother is ill. She needs complete rest. The doctor advised that she remain in bed until further notice. The last thing she should be doing is leaving the house.’

‘I only did what I was told, sir,’ said the other, politely.

‘You should have talked to me first.’

‘You were not here, Mr Quayle.’

‘Then you should have sought my brother.’

‘Your mother was very insistent, sir. She’s always enjoyed being taken for a drive in the country, and the weather was warm.’

‘This is nothing to do with the weather,’ shouted Quayle. ‘It’s to do with my mother’s health. She’s very poorly and
coping badly with her bereavement. If you’d had any sense, you’d have realised that. You should have refused to take her.’

‘That would only have upset Mrs Quayle.’

‘It’s what you should have done, Cleary.’

He continued to berate the coachman. Everyone within earshot felt sorry for Cleary but the man himself withstood the onslaught with relative equanimity. The fact that the coachman remained so calm under fire only enraged Stanley Quayle even more and he threatened to dismiss the man.

‘I was employed by your father, sir,’ Cleary reminded him. ‘Now that he’s no longer here to give orders, I’m answerable to Mrs Quayle instead.’

‘Damn your insolence!’

After ridding himself of another torrent of bile, Quayle turned away and stormed back into the house. Roused by the first confrontation that evening, he was pulsing with fury as he went off to the second one. When he found his brother in the drawing room, he went straight on the attack.

‘Why, in God’s name, did you let it happen?’

Lucas Quayle shrugged. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Mother is dying in front of us and you let her go gallivanting around the countryside in the landau.’

‘She said that she needed fresh air, Stanley. That seemed to me a very reasonable proposition.’

‘It will have taxed her already waning health.’

‘Only the doctor can decide that,’ said his brother. ‘But I’m told that she looked well enough when she came back. Even Agnes admitted that and she did everything to prevent Mother going out in the first place.’

‘Well, it won’t happen again. I’ve just given Cleary orders to that effect.’

‘You can’t
stop
Mother going out, Stanley.’

‘It’s in her best interests.’

‘She loves the countryside around here.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Lucas, she’s in
mourning
!’

‘So are you, for that matter,’ responded his brother, tartly, ‘yet it didn’t stop you traipsing off to one of our coal mines.’

‘Someone had to make the funeral arrangements.’

‘I agree, but you didn’t have to go on to Ilkeston afterwards.’

‘I had things to check up on,’ said the other, angrily, ‘so I won’t be called to account by you. I’m in charge now and that means I make all the decisions. In fact, that’s what I really want to talk about. I had a legitimate reason to go out, Lucas. You didn’t. Agnes tells me that you went to Derby to see Inspector Colbeck.’

‘That’s right,’ said the other, defiantly. ‘I wanted information.’

‘I gave the inspector all the information he required.’

‘That’s nonsense, Stanley. You told him almost nothing and had him out of the house in a matter of minutes. It was absurd. Don’t you
want
to catch the man who killed our father?’

‘Of course, I do.’

‘Then why didn’t you offer proper assistance to Inspector Colbeck?’

‘I had too many other things to do.’

‘The investigation takes precedence over all of them.’

‘Nothing that’s happened within these four walls has any bearing on the case. That’s why I was not prepared to waste time talking to the police. Above all else,’ he said, sternly, ‘I’m not having our dirty linen washed in public.’

‘Inspector Colbeck is very discreet.’

‘But you aren’t, Lucas. You blurt things out before you realise what you’re doing. You had no cause to leave this house.’

‘I wanted to know what was going on, Stanley. That’s what normal people do. If a loved one is murdered, they want every scrap of information they can get about the police investigation. It’s only natural.’

‘I don’t want strangers prying into things that don’t concern them.’

‘The police need our
help
,’ Lucas emphasised.

‘Keep away from them.’

‘The inspector said how useful I’d been.’

‘You shouldn’t have been allowed within a mile of him.’

‘Stop giving me orders, Stanley. I’m old enough to make up my own mind about things. Power goes to your head sometimes. It was the same when we played cricket. I told the inspector about it.’

His brother was puce with indignation. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your insistence on being in control,’ said Lucas. ‘You
had
to captain the team even though people like Burns, Cleary and me were much better players. You went round bawling commands at us as if you really knew what you were doing.’

‘I
did
know, Lucas. That’s why we always won the matches.’

‘Gerard Burns was the real match-winner not Stanley Quayle.’

‘Captaincy was the deciding factor. I set the field and I chose the bowlers.’

‘You also selected yourself as our opening batsman even though you hardly ever got into double figures. That was appalling captaincy.’

The row escalated at once and the brothers stood toe to toe, exchanging insults. Though they talked about cricket, they were really arguing about the lifelong tension and inequality between them. Stanley Quayle became more and more like his father, cold, authoritative and uncompromising, while his brother regressed into the rebel he’d been in his younger days. All of the old dissension between them came to the surface. They were still trading accusations when their sister came into the room.

‘Whatever’s going on?’ she asked in alarm. ‘I could hear you upstairs.’

Sobered by her intervention, Lucas apologised to her but Stanley Quayle was determined to shift any blame from himself. He claimed that his brother had let the whole family down by talking to Colbeck. At a time as fraught as the present one, the one thing they had to guard was their privacy. It was deplorable, he said, that the police were allowed to peer into their lives and learn about their past upheavals. Agnes agreed that it had been a mistake for her younger brother to go to Derby but he defended himself vigorously.

‘I learnt things of importance to us,’ he asserted.

‘You should have stayed here to mourn Father,’ said Agnes.

‘I prefer to help in the search for his killer.’

‘What could you say that would have been of any help?’

‘I talked about Lydia, for a start.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ railed his brother. ‘There
was absolutely no need to open that Pandora’s box. It should have been left firmly closed.’

‘The inspector already knew the truth. He’d spoken to Burns.’

‘Don’t mention that hateful name again!’

‘We have to face facts, Stanley. He may be involved here. Burns would have more reason than anybody to want Father killed. He has to be a suspect.’

‘He wouldn’t
dare
,’ snapped the other. ‘We scared him away.’

‘You never understood what happened between him and Lydia, did you?’

‘I understood enough to know that it was a grotesque misalliance.’

‘That was what I felt as well,’ said Agnes. ‘Lydia was so reckless.’

‘Did you really want your sister married to a
gardener
?’ asked Stanley, curling his lip. ‘That cunning wretch led her astray, Lucas. I daren’t think what he did to Lydia. It’s too unsettling. Burns should have been horsewhipped.’

‘The inspector told me something that I didn’t know,’ said Lucas.

‘We don’t want to hear it.’

‘That’s your trouble, Stanley. You never want to learn the truth. You just close your ears and block everything out. How can you make a fair judgement on anything until you’re aware of all the facts?’

‘The main fact was all I needed to know – Burns tried to seduce our sister.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it went that far,’ protested Agnes.

‘That’s all he was after.’

‘You’re quite wrong about him,’ said Lucas, ‘and so was I. The inspector told me something that’s made me revise my opinion of Burns and showed me just how much he meant to Lydia.’ He paused for a few moments. ‘It was no passing fancy. They were planning to elope and get married.’

Lydia knew that her friend was deeply upset. The moment that the visitors had left, Beatrice retired to her room and stayed there for well over an hour. Nonetheless, Lydia felt that she’d been right to speak to Madeleine Colbeck. It was foolish to pretend that she had no interest in the murder inquiry. Part of her wanted to know what had happened and when the person responsible would be caught. Madeleine had probed gently away without causing the slightest offence or discomfort. When she was leaving with the sergeant, Madeleine had given her an address where she could be reached in case she thought of anything that might be useful to the inquiry. Lydia had felt soothed. In the wake of Beatrice’s departure upstairs, the sensation quickly evaporated. There would be repercussions and Lydia was not looking forward to them.

Beatrice finally emerged from her room and came downstairs but she made no immediate contact with Lydia. Instead, she wandered about the house from room to room as if deliberately avoiding her. It was left to Lydia to make the first move. She intercepted Beatrice outside the kitchen.

‘We must talk,’ she said.

Beatrice feigned indifference. ‘Must we?’

‘To begin with, I owe you an apology. When all is said and done, this is still your house. I had no right to invite someone in when you clearly objected to them.’

‘That’s certainly true.’

‘I’m very sorry, Beatrice.’

‘What I’m sorry about is that you made me look foolish and deceitful. If you heard them mention your name, you must also have heard me telling them that they’d made a mistake in coming here. Then out you pop and contradict me.’

‘It wasn’t like that at all.’

‘They knew I’d been lying. I felt betrayed.’

‘Why didn’t you simply tell them that I live here?’

‘I didn’t want them interfering,’ said Beatrice, petulantly. ‘I didn’t want strangers to walk in off the street and … take you away.’

‘They made no suggestion about taking me anywhere.’

‘I’m talking about your
mind
, Lydia. They filled it with all the things that you ran away from. When they did that, they took you away from me.’

Lydia touched her arm. ‘But I’m still here, Beatrice.’

‘Only in body – your mind is back in the Midlands.’

‘I can’t just ignore what happened to my father.’

‘You’ve managed to do that very effectively, so far. After a month of living here, you stopped mentioning his name. It was as if he didn’t exist.’

‘In that sense, he still doesn’t.’

‘Then why did you spend such a long time talking about him?’

‘I was answering questions about the family.’

‘You were being drawn back into a past you swore to escape. And while you were doing that,’ said Beatrice, unhappily, ‘I was trapped in the other room with that ugly detective. He frightened me, Lydia.’

‘Then that’s something else I have to apologise for,’ said the other, ‘but he did the right thing in leaving me alone with Mrs Colbeck. I could talk to her in a way that would have been impossible with a man.’

‘What did you say to her?’

Lydia chose her words with care. Though she’d taken her friend into her confidence about the reasons for coming to London, she had spared Beatrice the more disturbing details. She had said nothing about the threat made to her about Gerard Burns by her father or about the violence she’d suffered. When she’d dared to defend her actions, Vivian Quayle had lost his temper and struck her across the face. He’d then grabbed her by the shoulders and shaken her before hurling her to the floor. On the following day, when he’d calmed down, he’d mumbled an apology but the damage was irreparable by then. All that Lydia could think about from that point onwards was her eventual escape. When the break came, she’d resolved never to see her father again and she’d kept her vow.

‘It wasn’t my fault that they came here,’ she pointed out. ‘It was yours.’

Beatrice tensed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re the one who belongs to the Lending Library. How clever of them to find this address by asking about readers with a passion for Italy! I’d never have thought of doing that.’

‘There are other ways to discover where you are, Lydia.’

‘Nobody else has any reason to find me.’

‘That’s not true.’

Lydia felt as if she’d just walked into something very solid and she was dazed for a moment. Beatrice’s revelation
was stunning. Evidently, she knew. Lydia had concealed from her the fact that her younger brother had learnt her address by employing a private detective and had then written to her. The only way that her friend could possibly know about the correspondence was by going into Lydia’s room and finding the letter in the bedside drawer. There was profound awkwardness on both sides. Lydia was shocked that her privacy had been violated and Beatrice was horrified that her friend had kept something so important from her. The taut silence lasted for minutes.

‘I should have been told, Lydia,’ said the older woman at length.

‘It would have been hurtful to you.’

‘It was far more hurtful to learn that you hid the truth from me.’

‘You had no call to search my bedroom.’

‘I had to find out the truth.’

‘How did you even know that I’d received a letter? You were out at the time.’

‘Dora told me.’

‘Then why not ask me directly?’