BLIND SPOT - AND TWO OTHERS

THE OXMARKET ASPAL MURDER MYSTERY - EPISODE THREE

6

  In the offices of Anglia Meats, I was shown into the office of the owner, who went named Andy Ottley.

  He was a brisk, bustling man, with a hearty manner.

  “Good morning. Good Morning.”  He rubbed his hands in anticipation.  “What can I do for you?”

  His professional eye shot over me, trying to place me, making mental notes.

  “I would like to ask you about a former employee of yours, Marcus Dye.”

  Andy Ottley’s expressive eyebrows shot up and inch, and dropped.

  “Marcus Dye.  Marcus Dye?”  He shot out a question.  “Press?”

  “No.”

  “And you’re not the police?”

  “I’m a private detective.”

  “A private detective.”  Andy Ottley filed this away rapidly, as though for future reference.  “What’s this all about?”

  “I am opening a further inquiry into Marcus Dye’s case,” I said, never hindered by a pedantic regard for the truth when working on a case. “At the certain request of certain relatives of his.”

  “Didn’t know he had any.  Anyway, he’s been found guilty hasn’t he?”

 “Yes, but his relatives believe there has been a miscarriage of justice.”

  “Do they now,” he said unimpressed.  “Who are these relatives of his?”

  “I am bound by client confidentiality, Mr Ottley,” I said, “but I can say they are both rich and powerful.  Immensely rich.”

  “You surprise me.”  Andy Ottley was unable to help to thaw slightly.  The words ‘immensely rich’ seemed to have an attractive and hypnotic effect on him.  “Yes, you really do surprise me.”

  “Dye’s mother, the late Mrs Dye,” I explained, “cut herself and her son off completely from her family.”

  “One of those family feuds, eh?  Well, well.  And young Marcus without a pot to piss in. Pity these relatives didn’t come to his rescue earlier.”

  “They have only just become aware of the facts,” I explained.  “They have engaged me to do everything possible to try and prove Marcus Dye’s innocence.”

  He leaned back, relaxing his business manner.

  “Don’t know what I can do.”

  I leaned forward.  “Marcus Dye worked for you.  You can tell me about him.”

  “Precious little to tell – precious little.  He was one of our salesman. Quite conscientious but really struggled to get new customers.  Just didn’t have the right personality for the job. Wasn’t pushy enough.  There’s a certain psychology to selling, and he just didn’t have it.”

  I leapt at the word.  “Psychology?  How right you are, I can see that you are a good judge of character.”

  “Not too bad. Not too bad,” Andy Ottley said modestly.

  “So what was your impression of Marcus Dye?  Strictly between ourselves do you think he killed Faith Roberts?”

  He stared at me long and hard.

  “Of course.”

  “And you think too, that it was a likely thing to do.  Psychologically speaking of course?”

  “If you put it like that, then no, not really.  Would have thought he would have need to strap a pair on before he could do that. If you asked whether I thought he was a bit mad, then I would answer you differently.  He was a bit of a beef-burger short of a barbecue and what with being out of a job and worrying about being in debt than that might have tipped him over the edge.”

  “Did you have a specific reason for getting rid of him?”

  Ottley shook his head.  “Bad time of year.  Staff didn’t have enough to do. We sacked the least competent. That was Marcus Dye.  Always would be.  I gave him a good reference, but he couldn’t get another job. He just didn’t have enough get up and go.  Would always make a bad first impression on people.”

  It always came back to that, I thought, as I left the office.  Marcus Dye made a bad impression on people. I took comfort, as I drove out of the industrial estate, in considering various murderers I had known whom most people had found full of charm.

  I stopped for lunch at Duncan’s, a small restaurant between Oxmarket and Oxmarket Aspal and ensconced myself in a small corner table. The interior was rather dark specializing in an old-world effect of oak and leaded panes, and I was deeply entranced by the varied menu when a female voice said to me, “Excuse me, may I join you?”

  I looked across at the young woman who had just sat down opposite me, and she stood out brightly against the dark background of the restaurant.  She had determinedly golden hair and was wearing a suit of electric blue.  Moreover, I was conscious of having noticed her somewhere only a short time previously.

  She went on:  “I couldn’t help, you see, hearing something of what you were saying to Mr Ottley.”

  I nodded.  I had realized that the partitions in the offices of Anglia Meats were made for convenience rather than privacy.  That had not worried me, it was chiefly publicity that I required.

  “You were on your computer,” I said, “to the right of the back window.”

  She nodded.  Her teeth shone with a white in an acquiescing smile.  A shapely young woman, with the sort of curvaceous figure that I liked.  About thirty-three or four, I judged, with dark hair.

  “About Marcus.”

  “What about Marcus?” I asked.

  “Is he going to appeal?  Does it mean that there’s new evidence?  Oh, I’m so glad.  I couldn’t, just couldn’t believe that he did it.”

  “So you never thought he did it?” I said slowly, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Well, not at first.  I thought it must be a mistake.  But then the evidence-”

  “Yes, the evidence,” I said.

  “There just didn’t seem anyone else who could have done it.  I thought perhaps he’d gone a bit nuts.”

  “Did he ever seem to you a little – what shall I say – odd?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.  “He was just shy and awkward as anyone might be.  The truth was, he didn’t make the best of himself.  He didn’t have any self-confidence.”

  I looked at her.  She certainly had self-confidence.  Possibly, she had enough self-confidence for both.

  “You liked him?” I asked.

  She blushed.

  “Yes, I did.  Amy – that’s the other girl in the office – used to laugh at him and call him a wanker, but I liked him a lot.  He was gentle and polite and knew more than he let on.”

  I said nothing.

  “He missed his mother,” she continued.  “She’d been ill for years, you know.  At least, not really ill, but not strong, and he’d done everything for her.”

  I nodded.  I knew those types of mothers.

  “And of course she’d looked after him, too.”

  Again I nodded, before asking, “Were you and the close friends?” 

  “Not exactly,” she said.  “After he left, I used to text him and send him emails, but he never responded.”

  “But you like him?”  I asked gently.

  “Yes, I do,” she said rather defiantly.

  My mind switched back to the day of my interview with the condemned prisoner.  I saw Marcus Dye.  The mouse-coloured hair, the thin awkward body, the hands with their big knuckles and wrists, the Adam’s apple in the lean neck.  I saw the furtive, embarrassed, almost sly glance.  Not straightforward, not a man whose word could be trusted.  A secretive, sly deceitful fellow with an ungracious, muttering way of talking.  That was the impression Marcus Dye would give most superficial observers.  It was the impression he had given in the dock.  The sort of fellow who would tell lies, and steal money and hit an old woman on the head.

  But on Detective Inspector Paul Silver, who knew men, he had not made that impression.  Not on me and now not on this young woman.

  “What is your name, Miss?” I asked.

  “Joanne Burton.  Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “I think there is,” I replied. “There are people who believe that Marcus Dye is innocent.  They are working to prove that fact.  I am the person charged with that investigation, and I may tell you that I have already made considerable progress.”

  I uttered the lie without remorse.  To my mind it was a necessary lie.  Someone, somewhere, had got to be made to feel uneasy.  Joanne Burton would talk and talk in this local community was like a stone in a pond.  It made a ripple that went on spreading outwards.

  “You said that you and Marcus were friends,” I began.  “He told you about his mother and his home life.  Did he ever mention anyone with whom he, or perhaps his mother, didn’t get on with?”

  “Not really.” Joanne Burton reflected.  “She could be a domineering with him sometimes.”

  “Did he ever talk about Faith Roberts?”

  “Not by name,” she shivered.  “He said that he wished she varied her cooking a bit more and also once he mentioned how upset she was about losing her cat.”

  “Did he ever mention that he knew she kept a great deal of cash hidden in the house?”

  Some colour went from Joanne’s face, but she threw up her chin defiantly.

  “Actually, he did.  But it was more out of his concern about the possibility of a burglary or her carelessness.”

  “He never joked that someday, someone might knock her on the head for it?”

  “No,” she said abruptly.  “Never.”

  “Good,” I said.  “I don’t want that conversation coming back to bite me later.”

  Joanne Burton glanced at her watch.

  “I must get back.  I’m only supposed to take half an hour for lunch.  You will let me know if there is anything I can do?”

  “Of course,” I handed her one of my cards with my mobile number on it.  “I’m staying at the Bellagamba Guest House in Oxmarket Aspal.”

  She laughed.  “What’s that place like?  I’ve heard many things about it.”

  “It’s rustic to say the least,” I said politely, with a smile.

7

  The cottage where Faith Roberts had lived was only a few steps from the only bus stop in Oxmarket Aspal.  Two little girls were playing on the doorstep, one was eating an apple and the other was shouting and beating on the door with a tin tray.  They appeared pleased, and I added to the noise by beating hard on the door myself.

  A woman looked round the corner of the house.  She was wearing old clothes and rubber gloves that seemed huge on her slender arms and wrists.  Her blonde hair was tied back and her glasses perched on the end of her nose.

  “Stop it, Summer Louise,” she said.

  “Why?”  The little girl replied, with the broadest Suffolk accent I had ever heard.

  I deserted the doorstep and made for the corner of the house.

  “Sorry, about that,” the woman said, beckoning round to the back door.

  She removed one of her rubber gloves and shook my hand.  “Louise Plume,” she said.  “I keep the front door bolted.  Come in, won’t you?”

  I passed through a very untidy laundry room and into an even untidier kitchen.

  “She wasn’t killed in here,” she said.

  I blinked slightly.

  “That’s what you’re here about, isn’t it?  You’re John Handful, the private detective staying at the Bellagamba Guest House?”

  “Yes, that’s correct Mrs -”

  “Please, call me Louise. My husband’s a plumber.  Moved in four months ago we did.  Some people couldn’t understand how we could live in a house where a murder took place.  We’ve been living with James’ mother before that.  If I stayed there much longer there would have been another murder there for you to investigate.  I can tell you.  Like to see where it happened?”

  I nodded, feeling like a tourist taken on a conducted tour. I followed Louise Plume up the narrow staircase and into a bedroom which contained a large chest of drawers, a big bed, a large chest of drawers and a fine assembly of baby clothes folded on a wicker chair in the corner.

  “Down on the floor she was and the back of her head split open.  Frightened the life out of Mrs Perry.  She’s the one who found her.”

  “Is this her furniture?”

  “Oh no.  Her niece Sarah, took that.”

  I looked around me.  There was nothing left here of Faith Roberts.  The Plume family had come and conquered. Life was stronger than death.

  From downstairs the loud fierce wail of a baby arose.

  “That’s the baby woken up,” she said unnecessarily.

  She plunged down the stairs and I followed her.  There was nothing more for me here, so I went next door and introduced myself to the dramatic Mrs Perry.

  “Yes, it was me who found her,” she said vigorously. 

  Her house was neat, tidy and clean.  The only drama in it was Mrs Perry herself.  A tall gaunt dark-haired woman, who took great pleasure in recounting the one moment of excitement in her life.

  “Brettles, the postman, came and knocked at the door. ‘It’s Faith,’ he said, ‘we can’t make her hear.  Seems there might be something wrong.’  I agreed with him and hurried over, thinking she might have had a heart attack or a stroke.  I went straight up the stairs and found that lodger of hers on the landing, pale as death he was.  Not that I ever though at the time that he had done what he had done.  I banged on the door, good and loud and when there wasn’t an answer. I went in.  The whole place was in a right bloody mess, with the floorboards up and everything, and then I saw Faith. On the floor with her head smashed in.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  A murder in Oxmarket Aspal.  I screamed and screamed. Brettles called the police on his mobile phone and Marcus just stood there staring at the body.  It was horrible, horrible.  I shan’t forget it that easily.”

  I dexterously interrupted her thrilling narrative by asking her when the last time she had seen Faith Roberts alive was.

  “Must have been the day before.”

  “Did she say anything to you?”

  “Just good afternoon.”

  “You didn’t see her on the day she died?”

  “No, but I saw that bloody murderous lodger of hers though.”  She lowered her voice.  “About eleven o’clock in the morning.  Just walking along the road.  Shuffling, his feet like he always did.”

  “Were you surprised when he was arrested?” I asked.

  “Well, I was, and I wasn’t.  I’d always thought he wasn’t quite the ticket, and they can turn a bit violent can’t they, those simple ones.  My uncle had a feeble-minded young lad, and he could be a bit violent sometimes.  Didn’t know his strength.  Yes, that Marcus Dye was a bit of a half-wit.  Look at where he hid the money.  No one would hide in a place like that, unless they wanted someone to find it.  Just silly and simple, that’s what he was.”

  “Unless he wanted it found,” I murmured.  “You haven’t by any chance found a chopper or an axe lying about in your garden.”

  “No, I haven’t.  The police already checked.  Asked at all the cottages in the village.  It’s a mystery what he killed her with.”

  I visited the other two cottages and the residents had been less exuberant than Mrs Plume and less dramatic than Mrs Perry.  They said in effect that Faith Roberts was a very respectable woman who kept herself to herself, that nobody but her niece visited her, that nobody, so far as they knew, disliked her or held a grudge against her and was it true there was a petition being got up for Marcus Dye and would they be asked to sign it?

  From there I walked to the post office.  The right-hand side was given to the business of the postal services and the left-hand side displayed a rich assortment pf merchandise.  The woman who bustled forward to serve me was middle-aged with sharp, bright eyes. 

  “I expect you already know who I am,” I said with a slight smile.

  “You’re that private detective, asking questions concerning the Faith Roberts murder?”

  Behind her, through the door to the back of the shop, I could see the back of a girl’s head who was listening avidly.

 “Yes, that’s right.”  I said.  “And your name?”

  “Lynn Beverley.”  She said quickly.  “Yes, it was a sad business, a shocking business.”

  “Did you know Faith well?”

  “Oh I did.  As well as anyone in Oxmarket Aspal, I should say.  She’d always pass the time of day with me when she came in here for any little thing.  Yes, it was a tragedy.  And not settled yet, or so I’ve, or so I’ve heard say.”

  “There is a doubt – in some quarters – as to Marcus Dye’s guilt.”

  “Well,” Lynn Beverley said, “it wouldn’t be the first time the police got hold of the wrong man – though I wouldn’t say they had in this case. Not that I should have thought it of him really.  A shy, awkward man, but not dangerous or so you’d think.  But there, you never know, do you?”

  I hazarded a request for A4 printing paper.

  “Of course.  Just come across the other side, will you?”

  Lynn Beverley bustled round to take her place behind the left-handed counter.

  “What is difficult to imagine is, who could have been if it wasn’t Marcus Dye,” she remarked as she stretched up to a top shelf of A4 printing paper. “We do get some strange people along here sometimes, and it’s possible one of these might have found a window unlocked and got in that way.  But he wouldn’t leave the money behind him, would he?  Not after committing murder to get his hands on it.  Here you are, good A4 printing paper.”

  I made my purchase.

  “Faith Roberts never spoke of being nervous of anyone, or afraid, did she?”  I asked

  “Not to me, she didn’t. She wasn’t a nervous woman.  She’s stay late sometimes at the Brooks-Nunn’s.  They often have people to dinner and stopping with them, and Faith would go there in the evening sometimes to help wash up, and she’d come home in the dark, and that’s more than I’d like to do.  These roads can be very dark at night.”

  “Did you ever meet her niece?”

  “I knew her just to speak to.  She and her husband used to come over and visit her sometimes.”

  “They inherited a little money when Faith died.”

  The piercing dark eyes looked at me severely.

  “Well, that’s natural enough, isn’t it?”

  “Definitely,” I agreed.  “Do you think she was fond of her niece?”

  “Yes.”

  “And her niece’s husband?”

  An evasive look appeared in Lynn Beverley’s face.

  “As far as I know.”

  “When did you see Faith last?”

  Lynn Beverley considered, casting her mind back.

  “Now let me see, when was it, Susan?”  Susan in the doorway, shrugged her shoulders unhelpfully.  “Was it the day she died?  No, it was the day before – or the day before that again?  Yes, it was a Monday. That’s right.  She was killed on the Wednesday.  Yes, it was Monday.  She came into buy a printer cartridge for her computer’s printer.”

  “She wanted a printer cartridge?”

  “Yes,” Lynn Beverley insisted.

  “She was quite her usual self then?  She did not seem different in any way?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Susan shuffled through the door into the shop and suddenly joined in the conversation.

  “She was different,” she asserted.  “Pleased about some – thing – well - not pleased quite - excited.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Lynn Beverley said.  “Not that I noticed it at the time.  But now that you mention it, Susan, she was sort of full of it.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “I didn’t remember at the time but what with her being murdered and the police and everything, it makes things stand out.  She didn’t say anything about Marcus Dye, that I’m quite convinced.  Talked about the Brooks-Nunn’s a bit and Lorraine Terret – places where she worked, you know.”

  “I was just about to ask for whom actually worked.”

  “Monday and Thursday she went to the Bellagamba’s.  That’s where you’re staying isn’t?”

  “Yes,” I sighed.  “I suppose there isn’t anywhere else to stay?”

  “Not right in Oxmarket Aspal, there isn’t.  I suppose you’re not very comfortable at the guest house?  Mrs Bellagamba is a lovely lady, but she doesn’t know the first thing about the house.  Terrible mess there was always to clean up, or so Faith Roberts used to say.  Yes, Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings Mrs Bellagamba’s, then Tuesday mornings Dr Hogg’s and afternoon Lorraine Terret.  Wednesday was Mrs Rice in Beaumaris Road and Friday Miss Woodhouse – Mrs Brooks-Nunn now.  Lorraine Terret is an elderly lady who lives with her son.  Mr and Mrs Rice never seem to keep any help long – she’s rather an invalid.  The Brooks-Nunn’s they have a beautiful home and do a lot of entertaining.  They’re all nice people.”

  It was this final pronouncement on the population of Oxmarket Aspal that I went out again and drove slowly up the hill towards the Bellagamba Guest House.  I reflected that it had been, on the whole, a disappointing day.

  I had learnt that Marcus Dye had a female admirer.  That neither he nor Faith Roberts had had any enemies.  That Faith Roberts had looked excited two days before her death and had bought a printer cartridge for her computer printer that she hardly ever used.

  I pulled over to the side of the road.

  Was that a fact, a tiny fact at last? I thought.

  I had asked idly whether Faith had said why she had wanted a printer cartridge and Lynn Beverley had replied, quite seriously, that she had intimated she wanted to type a letter.

  There was significance there – a significance that had nearly escaped me because to me, as to most people, using a computer and a printer to write a letter to someone was a common everyday occurrence.

  But it was not so to Faith Roberts.  Typing a letter on a computer was to Faith Roberts such an uncommon occurrence that she had to go out and buy a new printer cartridge if she wanted to do so.

  Faith Roberts, then, hardly ever used her computer. Lynn Beverley, who was the postmistress, was thoroughly cognisant of that fact.  But Faith Roberts had written a letter two days before her death.  To whom had she written?

  It might be something quite unimportant.  She might have written to her to an old friend.  She didn’t possess a mobile. So, she couldn’t contact whoever it was she wanted to contact unless it was by letter.

  I felt stupid focusing so much effort on a printer cartridge.

  But it was all I had got, and I was going to follow it up.