The Hanging Tree

CHAPTER ONE-1

CHAPTER ONE

This novel used British English language and spelling, so if there are any words or phrases with which you are unfamiliar, there is a handy list in the back of the book.

It was 10.00 p m and Inspector Rafferty was thankful to finally be going home. The week before Christmas was not the best time of year from a policeman's point of view; Essex, in common with the rest of England’s densely-populated southern counties, had too many criminals with shopping lists of luxury items and a matching reluctance to pay for them. The combination had made his day long and tiring.

So he was inclined to snap when Constable Timothy Smales burst into his office, crashing the door back against the wall just as he was putting his coat on, and melodramatically exclaimed, 'It's gone, sir. Vanished. Lilley says—'

'Can't you open a door without smashing it off its hinges, man?' Rafferty demanded. 'What's the matter with you?'

Crestfallen, Smales said, 'Sorry, sir.'

'What's gone, anyway?' Rafferty asked.

'I thought you'd have heard by now, sir.' Smales's fallen crest was now on the rise again, and he came forward excitedly. 'A body was reported hanging in Dedman Wood. Only, as I said, when Lilley got there it had vanished, so—'

Rafferty was dismissive. 'Is that all?' Timothy Smales's schoolboy enthusiasm for corpses killed his small stock of common sense, and he made a mental note to put the young constable down for a few more post-mortems as a cure for the condition. 'Hardly reason to take the paint off my wall. It's another hoax, man. Have you forgotten it's the school holidays? Last week it was armed robberies—this week it's corpses. With a bit of luck, by next week, the bored local teenagers will be tormenting the fire brigade instead of us.'

Smales flushed but continued doggedly. 'It wasn't a kid that reported it, sir. It was a woman. According to Beard, a posh-sounding woman. Very adamant, she was. And she was there waiting for Lilley. Said she almost burned his ears off when he finally got to the scene. And another thing—Lilley said there were definite indications that a body had been hanging where she said.'

Rafferty, still keen to get home and put his feet up, wasn't easily moved from his opinion that the call had been a hoax. The world was full of attention-seekers who had forgotten to take their medication; a posh voice and a bossy manner didn't make his conclusions any less likely. Still, he reminded himself, callers intent on wasting police time didn't usually hang around for the police to arrive.

'Lilley said there were what looked like rope marks on one of the sturdier boughs,' Smales went on. 'And the grass was flattened directly underneath it. A small tuft of rope was still clinging to the bough itself.'

'Could have been made by children with a tyre swing.' Rafferty still felt their witness would turn out to be less impressive in the flesh. But maybe he ought to look into it a little more deeply. Resignedly, he removed his coat, and indicated that Smales should continue.

'Constable Beard said the woman who reported it told him she was a magistrate from Burleigh.' Burleigh was in the north of the county, while Elmhurst was in the south, near the coast. 'A Mrs ffinch-Robinson. I can believe the magistrate bit and all, because Lilley said that when he got there and the body had gone, she didn't half give him a ticking off. Seemed to think he should have got there sooner. Anyway, she said she'd be in to make a formal statement. She hadn't been drinking, either,' Smales added. 'Lilley made sure to smell her breath.'

Rafferty frowned. ffinch-Robinson. The name rang a bell. And from what Smales said she sounded both sane and sober. But if so, and she was telling the truth, what the devil had become of the body? If the cadaver was a suicide, as seemed likely, what reason would a third party have for removing it?

Having come up with no answers, he said, 'I want to see Lilley the second he gets back. And warn him he'd better make sure he can read his writing, because I shall want to know exactly what this Mrs ffinch-Robinson said to him. I'll need chapter and verse, because, by the sound of her, nothing but another corpse will satisfy her.' Pity we can't provide her with one, he muttered to himself.

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