Rack, Ruin and Murder Read online

  Seeing Monica brought all this back with painful bitterness. If that didn’t make the situation difficult enough, a further uncomfortable truth was that he’d underlying motives for seeking Monica out this mild evening. He wanted something from her, if she were able to provide it.

  He passed a black cat sitting on a lichen-encrusted paving stone in the last of the evening warmth, and paused, before ducking his head beneath the low lintel of the front door, to look round the garden. It was bathed in a mellow rosy glow that would disappear within a few minutes as the setting sun finally sank below the horizon. He could hear busy twittering from nearby trees as the starlings settled for their nightly roost. The cat yawned, curling a bright pink tongue to meet sharp white teeth. It then looked studiously away from him.

  Inside the cottage, it was just as he remembered it from the last time he’d been here with Sophie – and Millie. Millie had been jumping around full of excitement. The memory caused a sharp ache in his chest. The living room was still cluttered, untidy and cosy. He watched as Monica removed another cat, a surly-looking ginger one, from a chair and gestured to Ian to take the seat. The cat gave him a look that spoke volumes. He tried to make amends by bending to stroke it. It hissed at him and stalked away.

  ‘He doesn’t know you,’ explained its owner. ‘If you came more often, you’d soon be his friend.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Monica,’ Ian apologised. ‘I know I should have come before, or even just telephoned. It’s just—’

  He broke off.

  ‘Oh, I understand, we all understand,’ Monica said. ‘But we were all of us very fond of you, Ian. I was hoping very much that you’d look me out. Of course you mustn’t come just because you feel obliged to.’

  ‘It’s not obligation,’ he said frankly. ‘Partly it’s that I don’t want Sophie thinking I’m hanging around like some sort of stray animal hoping to be taken into the family circle – again.’

  ‘You and Sophie have a child,’ Monica said firmly. ‘And whatever your differences, Millie has a right to some sort of continuity in her family life.’

  ‘Millie writes to me once a fortnight, more or less,’ he told her. ‘But she hardly ever mentions her mother. She’s well aware that something is broken and can’t be repaired. It’s hard for her. She is only ten.’

  ‘She’ll have to come to terms with it.’ Monica smiled. ‘Children do. They’re very resilient.’

  ‘But hard as I try – and I know that Sophie tries hard too – Millie is paying the price for something she didn’t bring about.’

  Her wise gaze rested on his face. ‘There’s always a price to pay, Ian, for everything, in the end. Even happiness can have a price on it.’

  ‘I just don’t want Millie to resent what we did – break up, I mean.’ He didn’t intend to sound wretched and suspected he did. That would never do.

  ‘If she does, then that’s something you and Sophie will have to accept and make the best of. It’s no use agonising over it, Ian. You just have to get on, all of you, and make a good job of a new set of circumstances.’

  She poured out two generous glasses from the sherry bottle waiting on an unpolished silver tray on a coffee table. Monica Farrell wasn’t a person who kept antiques in a display cupboard. She used them. ‘However, listening to you, it rather makes me wonder why you did telephone out of the blue and ask if you could drop round at short notice!’ She handed him a sherry schooner.

  ‘I was hoping to persuade you to let me buy you dinner somewhere,’ he said sheepishly.

  ‘I never eat after six o’clock,’ was the firm reply. ‘You should remember that. It plays hell with my digestion. Cheers!’

  Presumably the sherry didn’t trouble her stomach. He watched her sip hers with appreciation.

  ‘I’m driving,’ he protested weakly.

  ‘How many have you had today?’

  ‘Alcoholic drinks? None.’

  ‘Then one small sherry won’t hurt.’

  He sipped politely; his eyes straying round the room to see if there was any flowerpot or similar receptacle into which he could pour some of the sherry when she wasn’t looking.

  ‘Ian!’ said Monica loudly, ‘You look like a little boy caught with his hand in the sweet jar.’

  Her disconcertingly direct gaze was fixed on him. It was always well to be honest to the point of bluntness with Monica, Carter reflected ruefully. He set down the sherry.

  ‘I do have another reason for contacting you,’ he admitted, ‘apart from wanting to see you and apologise for not coming sooner. I’ve been settling in to a new house…’ he heard himself add lamely and cursed himself. ‘I recognise that’s no excuse.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll like it in this part of the world, now you’ve made the move?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘So, I’m all the more curious…’

  ‘We’re investigating an incident that occurred earlier today.’

  ‘When you coppers say “incident”,’ she remarked, ‘you can mean almost anything. Go on, Ian, I won’t interrupt again.’

  ‘Right, OK, it’s a suspicious death. It occurred at the house of someone I thought you might know. You’ve lived here most of your life. Sophie always said you knew everybody—’ He broke off.

  ‘Sophie probably said I knew everybody’s business.’ Monica’s promise not to interrupt couldn’t resist his embarrassment. ‘Well, once upon a time I did, though far less so nowadays because I don’t get out and about so much. But in the old days, well, in a village news gets around. Besides, don’t forget I taught at the primary school here for over twenty years. The village schoolmistress does learn every family’s secrets!’ Her voice took on a grim tone. ‘The old school is now a private residence; tarted up beyond recognition and lived in by a bally awful couple of townies who can’t control their dogs! The man is a property developer and I suppose the poor old schoolhouse is an example of what he can do.’

  ‘Have you registered a complaint about the dogs? If you have, then failure to control them—’ the policeman in Carter responded automatically.

  ‘They chase cats!’ interrupted Monica fiercely.

  ‘Ah…’ Carter met the scornful gaze of the ginger cat. He could understand any self-respecting dog being annoyed.

  ‘Of course I’ve complained. Not to the police. We don’t have a police house here any longer, just as we don’t now have a school or a post office. Instead I’ve complained to Hemmings, the owner, and his bottle-blonde wife. They say I should keep my cats in. But you can’t control a cat!’ She took a good swig of sherry to calm her nerves.

  ‘True,’ Carter agreed. ‘A cat is a natural wanderer and there isn’t the same legal requirement to keep it under control as there is on dog owners.’

  ‘Exactly! I told the wretched Hemmings that. We had a row about it.’

  Arguments between neighbours could take a nasty turn, especially in small communities, and even more so when one party to the dispute was an old resident and the other party a newcomer. Carter made a mental note to keep track of this story.

  ‘But you didn’t come to ask me about Hemmings, I suppose,’ Monica said regretfully. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me, mind you, to see the cops turn up on his doorstep. He’s got a very shifty look about him. His wife is no better, nor his friends. However, who is on your mind, Ian?’

  ‘I wondered if you ever knew a family called Bickerstaffe?’

  She gave a great hoot of laughter. ‘Bickerstaffe! I should say I do – or did. There’s only one of them left living locally – at least, I suppose old Monty is still alive. I hadn’t heard he’d died.’ She frowned. ‘Suspicious death? You don’t mean Monty’s dead, do you?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, although the body was found on his premises.’

  ‘Balaclava House?’

  ‘That’s the one. Mr Montague Bickerstaffe found the deceased, by his own account, on his return from a trip into town. He claims not to know the dead man’s identity.’


  ‘Old Monty found a stiff, eh?’ She drained her sherry glass. ‘Well, well. He was half potty when I last saw him, quite a while ago. This must have sent him right over the edge.’

  ‘Actually he seems to be coping rather well. He’s gone to stay with a sort of niece, Bridget Harwell, while we’re conducting enquiries.’

  ‘Is that her name now?’ Monica asked. ‘I heard she’d married again.’

  ‘And divorced again, I gather. I believe she’s about to get married for the fourth time.’

  ‘Humph! She was a pretty girl, Bridget Bickerstaffe. You’re right, she’s not a proper niece. Her father, Harry Bickerstaffe, and Monty would have been cousins. But Harry’s side of the family didn’t ever live at Balaclava House, although they visited often up to the time Penny Bickerstaffe packed her bags and moved out. So you want to know about the Bickerstaffes, do you? You’ve never come across Bickerstaffe’s boiled fruit cake?’

  The look on his face gave her an answer,

  ‘No. Well, you’re too young. You were spared one of the horrors of my childhood. My mother always bought one for Sunday teatime. I can see it now, a great dark brown lump of stodge, packed with dried fruit that got stuck in your teeth. It tasted more bitter than sweet and sat in your stomach like a lump of lead. But the history of that cake is pretty well the history of the family. By the way, I ought to tell you I knew Penny, Monty’s wife, better than I ever knew Monty. He was always an awkward blighter. I don’t know how Penny put up with him for so long. Eventually she decided that, having squandered the best years of her life on the old sod, she might as well spend her declining years in comfort and peace. She bought a little flat in Cheltenham and left him to stew on his own in that gloomy mansion.’

  ‘She’s still alive?’ he asked eagerly.

  Monica shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid. Died, oh, four years ago. She didn’t have much time to enjoy her freedom. Sad, that. I managed to get to her funeral. Do you know, that wretch Monty didn’t have the good manners to turn up? The other members of the clan did. It was the last time I saw Bridget. What was her name then… ?’

  Monica frowned. ‘Let’s see, she wasn’t married to little Tansy’s father. Peterson, that was his name. He was her first husband, ages ago. She’d already divorced him and divorced the chap she’d tied the knot with after Peterson. I’m blowed if I can remember the second one’s name, not that it matters because that marriage didn’t last long. Yes, of course, she was still married to Freddie Harwell, husband number three. He was definitely there; and half cut, breathing alcohol over everyone. As a matter of fact, even Peterson flew in from Jersey where he lurks, I understand, in tax-haven splendour. It was very odd, seeing Bridget perched in a pew between two spouses. Tansy, Peterson’s daughter, was there too. She was only a kid at the time, oh, fourteen or fifteen years old. She’ll be a young woman now, getting on for twenty. Peterson probably turned up to see her, rather than say goodbye to Penny. At any rate, pretty well everyone was there but Monty.’

  ‘Did Monty and Penny produce any children?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, perhaps Penny found looking after Monty enough. He’s something of a child himself. I don’t mean he’s simple. He was always a bright chap and could have been a success. But he never stuck to anything. He was a dreamer and would go wandering off on the track of anything that took his interest. Penny would have no idea where he was or when he was coming home. Perhaps being a Bickerstaffe didn’t help. I’ll explain.’

  Monica gathered herself up to recount the tale, faintly taking on the manner in which, Carter imagined, she must once have addressed her primary class.

  ‘It all started in the eighteen thirties when an enterprising baker by the name of Josiah Bickerstaffe found his biscuits sold rather well and went into business producing them en masse. By the middle of the century Bickerstaffe’s had branched out, making other baked goods. They did rather well out of a contract to supply the army with hard tack during the Crimean War. Following that stroke of good luck Josiah’s son built Balaclava House, on the proceeds.

  ‘The firm then had a second bit of good fortune. They began to produce ‘Bickerstaffe’s boiled fruit cake’. They set about despatching this goody, sealed in a tin with a fake coat of arms on the lid, around the Empire. Their boast was no spot was too far-flung or too awkward to reach. Everyone from district commissioner to humble clerk could sit beneath the tropical sun, eating Bickerstaffe’s boiled fruit cake with his afternoon tea. It makes a nice image.’

  She chuckled. ‘“A Taste of Britain”, the cake was called. It continued to be a best-seller right up to the Second World War when they had to suspend making it because they couldn’t get enough of the ingredients. They relaunched it after the war, but tastes had changed, and the Empire was disappearing fast. Just when it seemed things were looking bleak, the family had another stroke of luck. A big American-based multinational company offered for Bickerstaffe’s. They were keen to acquire such an old and reputable name in the cakes and biscuits world. The family were still the sole shareholders and did rather well out of the deal. Even Monty did, although he was still only a schoolboy, because he had inherited a large number of shares from his grandfather. So from scraping along they went to quite wealthy. But it didn’t last, of course. Monty’s father died soon afterwards. Inflation took care of the windfall money, plus their being saddled with that crumbling old house.’

  ‘So Monty is the last Bickerstaffe to carry the name?’ Carter asked.

  She nodded. ‘To my knowledge, he’s the only one. There are other family members but they’re all female, like Bridget, and have acquired other surnames on marriage. Monty must be, oh, I’d say seventy-six. He did National Service in the army; and after that he did have a brief career as a draughtsman. He didn’t stick at that, either. There might still be a small amount of money coming in from investment of the windfall money, enough to keep him going, with his pension.’

  ‘Thank you, Monica,’ Carter told her. ‘All that is very helpful.’

  ‘I can’t see how,’ she returned. ‘Well, I never had much time for Monty, but I’m sorry he’s had such a nasty shock. What a strange business. So you’re in charge of sorting it all out?’

  ‘In overall charge, yes, but the case is actually being handled by Jess Campbell, Inspector Campbell.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll get to the bottom of it?’ Monica’s bright gaze rested on him.

  ‘Yes, let’s hope so, anyway. In the little time I’ve worked with Inspector Campbell I’ve learned that she’s nothing if not thorough! She’ll leave no stone unturned.’

  He’d meant his last words as a casual reassurance. But Monica Farrell seemed to take them seriously.

  ‘Then tell your Inspector Campbell to watch out,’ she said quietly. ‘When you turn over stones around the Bickerstaffes, you never know what might crawl out.’

  * * *

  Dusk had fallen while he’d sat talking with her and now it was almost dark enough to qualify as night. Lights were on in all the buildings around them when Carter left. He drove slowly away, raising his hand in a salute to acknowledge her farewell wave. In his mirror, he saw her turn and go back into the cottage. Both cats, ginger and black, twined round her ankles. He hoped they didn’t trip her up. He would come and see her again before too long, a proper friendly visit; not one seeking information.

  Eventually, after they had drunk their tea and eaten some brittle pieces of pastry with currants in them, called Shrewsbury biscuits according to his hostess, they had talked more about Sophie and what she was doing at the moment. He had known they would. It was inevitable. Not to mention her at all would be more awkward than talking of her, but it hadn’t been easy.

  Monica Farrell’s approach to the subject had been typically simple and direct.

  ‘How are you getting on, Ian? I don’t mean work-wise or in moving house. I mean being on your own.’

  ‘Well,’ he replied slowly, picking his words. ‘I’m doing all
right. It did seem strange at first, being a bachelor again. I was only ever average at household chores. But I am learning to cook at the moment, in a rather hit or miss way.’

  ‘No one else on the horizon?’

  ‘Not so far. That’s another thing about being thrown back into the bachelor pond. I have to learn to date again. I haven’t even tried yet. I won’t have another biscuit, thanks.’

  ‘Don’t blame you,’ Monica replied. ‘They are teeth-crackers, aren’t they? I didn’t make them. Our church had a fund-raising coffee morning and one of our congregation brought them.’

  He smiled wryly at her. ‘I wish I’d come at once to see you, when I moved down here. I was being a wimp.’

  ‘Oh, I knew you’d come, sooner or later, when you felt up to it,’ Monica said comfortably. ‘Old Monty finding a body in his drawing room gave you the excuse you’d been searching for… even if you didn’t know you were searching. The divorce hit you hard; we all knew that. But you’re making progress, Ian. That’s what matters. You have got your life together again; not completely, perhaps, but the framework is there in place. You are making a new life, without Sophie, starting to move on. I’m cheering you on from the sidelines, if that’s any help.’

  She gave him a surprisingly wicked grin, making him laugh aloud.

  Now, alone in the car, he told himself: Monica’s quite right. It’s time you got your life together. You came down here to begin again, so get on and do it.

  But you couldn’t help looking back at a lost age as you drove around Weston St Ambrose. Mindful of Monica’s words about the changes wrought by the years, he was curious to see the signs of them. He noticed, as he made a slow tour of the few twisted streets, where the post office had once stood. It was now a small restaurant, called, logically enough, The Old Post Office. There was the pub, still plying its trade but alarmingly gentrified in appearance. Here was the former schoolhouse where Monica Farrell had spent so much of her working life. Carter braked and sat, looking at it, remembering that Monica had fallen out with the owners.