Alibi For A Corpse Read online

  ALIBI FOR A CORPSE

  Pollard & Toye Investigations

  Book Three

  Elizabeth Lemarchand

  To Joanna

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  ALSO IN THE POLLARD & TOYE INVESTIGATIONS SERIES

  ONE

  The small boy navigating from the back seat of the car wrestled with the concertina folds of an Ordnance map.

  ‘Don’t jiggle so,’ he said impatiently to his twin sister. ‘I can’t see a thing. We’ll be at the turning in a sec.’

  Clare Wainwright hastily steadied her side of the map, and focused on Philip’s grubby pointing finger.

  ‘Straight on over the bridge, Dad,’ he ordered.

  The new A40 sailed up the steep hill beyond the bridge. Derek Wainwright glanced round and grinned at his wife Rachel, who responded by snuggling into the unaccustomed comfort of the passenger seat. Anyway, she thought, he enjoys driving the car… They swept up over the crest, and she gave an exclamation, echoed by the children. Appearing with dramatic suddenness the moor swept to the distant horizon, a tumbling sea of muted colours.

  A sharp right turn sent Philip sprawling against Clare. Realizing that he had missed his supreme navigational moment he squirmed round to look out of the back window.

  ‘I’d like to know how a person can be expected to see a grotty little signpost like that?’ he demanded indignantly. ‘It’s half-buried in the hedge, anyway.’

  ‘Daddy saw it,’ Clare remarked pointedly.

  ‘This is only a farm road, old chap,’ Derek told him. ‘I expect the farmer put it up himself. He —’

  ‘Do let’s stop just a minute and look at the view,’ Rachel broke in. ‘There’s a gate coming.’

  They drew up at a gateway on the left. A field of gorse, bracken and heather sloped steeply to a stream. Further down the valley this curved away to the right, round a cluster of farm buildings. In front of these, a low bridge carried the lane over the water to become a track, which rose past a cottage and vanished between two tors into the open moor beyond. Apart from some sheep grazing in the distance there was no sign of life, and the silence was almost audible.

  ‘Can you go absolutely anywhere you like?’ Philip asked.

  ‘Anywhere, as long as you keep clear of the mires,’ his father told him, ‘I can hear larks — shut up a minute.’

  Soon, bored with listening, the twins got out of the car and went to the gate. Rachel stretched and let out a contented sigh, resting her head against the window frame, her attractive pale fairness accentuated by signs of tiredness about her eyes. Becoming aware of her husband’s silence she turned to look at him, and saw that the élan of driving the new car had evaporated. He was sitting abstracted with his hands resting idly on the steering wheel. He glanced up quickly, and met her gaze with a slightly guilty expression.

  ‘I was thinking about this time last year,’ he said.

  Rachel nodded without speaking. The sickening impact of the car crash, the bright enclosed world of the hospital ward and her grief at her miscarriage, came back with astonishing vividness. The prospect of another child in their very straitened circumstances had been daunting, but its loss heart-breaking, all the same.

  ‘Remember two years ago?’ she asked, trying to break out of the memory. ‘In that ghastly cheap holiday flat?’

  ‘And now all this.’ Derek Wainwright made a vague comprehensive gesture which took in the car and the middle distance. ‘Of course I’m grateful to the late Bertha, but I can’t help it making me feel more inept than ever. All I’ve been able to provide is a shoestring.’

  ‘Our only shoestring’s been financial, as you know as well as I do. And she was your cousin, anyway. Think how much worse you’d be feeling if she’d been mine!’

  He laughed and kissed the top of her head. ‘True enough, darling. But honestly, I could murder the old girl if she were still above the ground. Why the hell couldn’t she have got in touch before, if she was going to leave me the money and the house? Think what a spot of lolly would have meant over our bad patches. When you were ill, for instance.’

  ‘Fantastic to carry on a family feud into the third generation,’ Rachel agreed. ‘Like an improbable Victorian novel. You know, I still simply can’t get over her leaving instructions that you weren’t to be contacted until the funeral was over. No sense of proportion. Hallo?’

  Two faces had appeared at the window.

  ‘Can’t we go on now?’

  ‘We’re absolutely starving!’

  ‘You’d better hop in, then,’ said Derek, pressing the self-starter. ‘Let’s hope Nora Pearce, Miss, has laid on a decent tea for us.’

  The children giggled as they scrambled into the car. The signature of the late Miss Bertha Wainwright’s housekeeper amused them immoderately.

  Almost at once a small bungalow appeared on the right of the lane.

  ‘Watchers Way,’ Clare read aloud from a board on the gate. ‘What a funny name. Oh, look, here’s another house coming. P’raps this one’s ours.’ She bounced up and down on the seat in excitement.

  Derek braked sharply.

  ‘Moor View,’ he said. ‘This is it.’

  There was silence as they sat and stared.

  ‘Lavatory brick in a place like this!’ Rachel exclaimed in horror. ‘How could anyone?’

  Moor View had been built at the turn of the century by the late Bertha Wainwright’s father, a prosperous dealer in animal feedstuffs and other agricultural requirements. Unfortunately, his preference for country life had not included appreciation of the rural domestic architecture of the district. Moor View was a late Victorian terrace house in yellow brick, with bulging bay windows. It stood in incongruous isolation, its two sharp gables adorned with terracotta mouldings. A path bisected the rectangular garden with precision and led to the front door. This was standing open, disclosing an inner glass door with panels of coloured glass.

  ‘Well, we’re here,’ said Derek, getting out of the car and going round to help Rachel. As she extracted herself, a short, plump woman came out of the house and hurried down the path. Her hands, tightly clasped to her breast, suggested a state of nervous tension.

  Leaving Derek to marshal the twins Rachel went forward smiling.

  ‘Miss Pearce? We’ve got here at last! My husband and I are so awfully grateful to you for holding the fort.’

  Nora Pearce was somewhere in her fifties with a kindly, if anxious, face. Her large white teeth were much in evidence as she talked volubly, her sentences running into each other. Rachel noticed that her hazel eyes protruded slightly. As she listened to the flood of statements, she became aware of a muffled altercation in the background, and realized that Philip was having one of his bouts of obstinate shyness. Looking round she intercepted an SOS from her husband, but missed the expression of startled surprise which came over Nora Pearce’s face, quickly giving way to one of guardedness.

  A very substantial tea had been laid on the dining-room table. Eyeing it, Philip and Clare slid into their places and devoted themselves to steady eating. Flushed with gratification, Nora Pearce plied them with food, while maintaining disjointed general conversation with their parents. At long last they were replete and began to fidget and look imploring.

  ‘All right,’ Rachel said. ‘You can go off and explore now, but don’t stray too far till you’ve got the hang of the place.’

 
‘I’ll come along soon,’ added Derek. ‘I’ll meet you somewhere around those two tors.’

  ‘They’re called Buttertwist and Skiddlebag,’ Philip informed him. ‘It says so on the map. OK, Dad. Be seeing you.’

  The door shut noisily, and a moment later there came the sound of running feet and the slamming of the front gate.

  ‘Such dear little people!’ Nora Pearce combined a sigh and a smile.

  ‘I hope you won’t find them too much of a good thing,’ remarked Derek. ‘They do crash about, although we try to keep the row within bounds.’

  He held out his cigarette case, but she drew back awkwardly.

  ‘Oh — no, no thank you. I don’t smoke. I wonder,’ she broke off, and moved her plate the fraction of an inch, ‘I wonder if, perhaps, it would be a suitable moment to discuss just one or two matters?’

  ‘Why, of course,’ he said. ‘I hope you haven’t had anything tiresome to cope with?’

  ‘Oh, dear me no! At least…’ She flushed deeply, glanced away, and then plunged into rapid speech. ‘Of course, it’s never very pleasant being in a position of responsibility for a house full of other people’s property. Things can be said… Of course, there’s an inventory of Miss Wainwright’s jewellery and the silver for the insurance company. But there’s so much else. Not really valuable things, but such a great quantity, as you’ll see presently. So I thought it best to make lists of everything, room by room, and sign them. I have them here for you.’

  She fumbled in a holdall on the floor beside her, and extracted two folders which she presented to Derek.

  ‘My dear Miss Pearce,’ he said, accepting them with some embarrassment, ‘it really wasn’t in the least necessary to give yourself all this trouble. My cousin obviously had the greatest confidence in you, and so has her solicitor, I can assure you.’

  ‘Mr Greenwood’s said several times in his letters how lucky we’ve been to have you here to look after things till we could get down,’ put in Rachel.

  ‘You are both so kind…’ To their discomfiture Nora Pearce produced a handkerchief, wiped her eyes and blew her nose vigorously. ‘Do forgive me. If you are quite sure that you have finished your tea, perhaps you would care to have a look round the house now?’

  The kitchen premises were north-facing and dreary, their cavernous cupboards stacked with household equipment, china and glass. The Wainwrights exchanged appalled glances.

  ‘Now the little breakfast-room is very bright and cosy,’ Nora Pearce told them, ‘especially in the mornings with the east sun.’

  They inspected it and moved on. The drawing-room felt chilly and unused, in spite of its south aspect and open windows. It was heavily over-furnished, and every available space was crowded with silver and china ornaments. Watercolours in gilt frames and faded photographs almost completely covered the walls.

  ‘Having all this stuff about must have made a frightful lot of work,’ Rachel ventured.

  ‘Ah, yes, but you see Miss Wainwright dearly loved to see all her family treasures around her. Right up to her last illness she used to spend hours in cleaning the silver and washing the ornaments. The house was her life. We lived very quietly.’

  ‘And they say we moderns are materialists.’

  Nora Pearce looked in a baffled way at Derek, who was standing on the hearth with his hands in his trousers pockets.

  ‘Yes,’ she said uncomprehendingly. ‘Would you like to go up to the first floor now, Mrs Wainwright?’

  They followed her through the bedrooms, each one furnished with a kind of heavy comfort and a total absence of taste. Finally she opened the door of a cupboard on the landing and switched on a light.

  ‘This is the linen cupboard.’

  They peered in at shelves laden with stacks of house linen and blankets, all in impeccable order.

  ‘Miss Wainwright always kept up good stocks and bought the very best. She said it was an economy.’

  Catching sight of Derek’s wry smile Rachel hastily interposed a question about laundry collection and delivery.

  ‘Well, I imagine you’ve no doubts now about selling the place?’ Derek asked when they were alone in their bedroom.

  ‘Heavens no!’ Rachel sank on to the end of the bed. ‘It’s the most gorgeous part of the world, and if the house had been half the size and not utterly hideous, I suppose we might have kept it on for holidays, and faced the distance. But as things are the sooner we get rid of it the better, don’t you think?’

  ‘I certainly do, and most of the horrific contents with it. We can pick out anything we want and arrange for it to be packed and taken home at the end of the holiday. Do you think we can persuade the Pearce to stay on and see the furniture sale through, or shall we have to come down again?’

  ‘We could try. Mr Greenwood will probably have some helpful ideas when you see him tomorrow. I say, what about the children?’

  ‘Good Lord! I’d completely forgotten them! Have you any idea where you packed my Marks and Sparks bags?’

  Dashing out of the house, the twins had plunged into an ocean of delicious warm air, tangy with the scent of bracken and heather. They were nine years old, fair, blue-eyed, and bursting with life and energy. They pelted down the lane towards the farm, stopping just short of it in unspoken accord. From this point they advanced more cautiously towards the gate.

  Across a cobbled yard they saw a long low house of grey granite, with a big porch and massive chimneys. On the left of the yard was an immense ancient barn, facing new and functional buildings on the right. The front door of the house was open, and a broad passage ran straight through to a garden at the back of the house. The figure of a woman flashed across it.

  ‘Let’s go down to the stream,’ Philip suggested.

  They found a line of stepping stones beside the bridge, and made several crossings before running on again. Passing the cottage they breasted the rise between the tors, and finally collapsed panting on the heather at the side of the track. Clare recovered her breath first and sat up to take stock. With a squeak of excitement she grabbed her brother’s arm.

  ‘Phil! Look!’

  A group of mares and foals drifted into sight from behind Skiddlebag.

  ‘Keep quiet!’ he hissed. ‘You’ll scare them off.’

  They rolled over on to their stomachs and lay watching, so absorbed that they failed to hear the rider coming off the moor until he was almost level with them. As they sat up quickly he reined in his pony and gave them a keen look.

  ‘You from Moor View?’ he asked brusquely.

  He was a powerfully built man with springy black hair, sharp dark eyes and a formidable jaw. Clare drew back a little, but Philip met his stare squarely.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ he said. ‘It belongs to my father now, and we’re staying there for a holiday.’

  ‘Young Wainwrights, are you? That’s a different story. Fine old lady, Miss Wainwright was. Enjoyin’ yourselves?’

  Realizing that they were now identified and accepted they nodded vigorously.

  ‘Please, are those your ponies?’ Clare ventured.

  ‘That’s right, love. Some o’ the Twiggadon ponies, those. You passed the farm backalong.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the tors. ‘Reg Bickley’s my name. Well, be seein’ you, I don’t doubt.’

  He raised his whip in salute, and trotted off, two lithe sheep dogs rising soundlessly from the bracken and bringing up the rear, noses close to the ground. The children watched him disappear over the rise.

  ‘I say, d’you think he might have some ponies we could ride?’ breathed Clare.

  They began to retrace their steps, discussing this enthralling possibility as they went. There was no sign of their father, and they paused to inspect the cottage. It was built of the same sturdy granite as the farm, and had a small walled garden in front. Philip gave a sudden exclamation.

  ‘Great galloping horses! That’s the hugest cat I’ve ever seen.’

  The black and white monster sunning itself
on the wall contemplated them appraisingly. Philip had a passion for cats, and advanced with ingratiating noises. It responded by rolling over and purring loudly.

  ‘Puddy-wuddy-woozle,’ he crooned, massaging its stomach, while Clare tickled it gently behind the ears.

  A harsh shout sent them both springing back in alarm. An extraordinary figure was coming through the gap between Buttertwist and Skiddlebag and striding towards them. Immensely tall, long-limbed and crowned with a wild shock of grey hair it resurrected fairytales of the grimmer sort, and they stood paralysed.

  ‘What the devil d’you mean by teasing my cat?’

  It was, after all, only a very tall man, but he was furiously angry, and kept jabbing the ground with the tall staff he carried. Stung by the sheer injustice of the accusation, Philip reacted indignantly.

  ‘We weren’t teasing it. We were only stroking it.’

  ‘Well, whatever you were doing, keep your hands off it in future — d’you hear? You’re the brats from Moor View, I suppose? Don’t let me catch you hanging about round my cottage again.’

  He slammed the gate in their faces and went up the path with the cat in his arms. Scarlet with rage Philip snatched up a stone.

  ‘We don’t want to come near your beastly cottage!’ he shouted.

  ‘What on earth’s going on?’ Derek Wainwright ran up from the direction of the farm, followed by Reg Bickley and the dogs. As Clare flung herself into his arms and burst into tears Philip unobtrusively dropped the stone again.

  On hearing their garbled story the farmer was surprisingly adroit.

  ‘Why, no one takes no notice of old Blow-’is-top Stobart,’ he told them. ‘’E don’t mean nothin’. Fond o’ cats, are you? There’s a pack of ’em in the barn, an’ kittens, too. Take a look, shall we?’

  Returning, he was reassuring to Derek.

  ‘Not to worry, Mr Wainwright. The old boy won’t do the kiddies no ’arm. A bit cranky from livin’ on ’is own that’s all ’tis.’

  ‘How in the world does he come to be living out here?’ asked Derek. ‘I should have thought you’d need that cottage for a farm hand.’