The Nursery Rhyme Murders Page 4

‘Oh aye, I can. You see it takes me that much time to get from the old wall to the shed and start to get stuff out for the day. Sir Ian don’t like anyone to be late,’ he said, his voice carefully expressionless, and all the more telling for that, thought Calderwood.

  ‘This house is set back in the woods, but there are two routes onto the path leading to the spot where you found Dr Rutherford. Which one did you take? Did you go along the cart-track or the footpath?’

  ‘Oh the footpath, I usually do this time of the year; it’s lovely with all the flowers and that out,’ he said, all the simple love of the genuine countryman in his voice.

  ‘Did you see, or hear, anything at all unusual?’

  He shook his head, ‘No nothing. I’ve been racking my brains ever since this morning, but there was nothing different from every other morning, until… well… you know,’ he faltered, obviously re-living the moment he’d found the elderly doctor.

  Bulmer nodded calmly, steadying him. ‘Tell me what happened when you got nearer the old wall.’

  ‘Not much really. I’d just been looking at a lovely patch of comfrey, still in bloom, though coming to its end now, of course. Lovely it is, though a lot of folk don’t like it – think it’s a weed!’ he said, his voice full of a countryman’s scorn for their ignorance. ‘Anyway, I looked up and saw this jumble at the bottom of the wall; just a few feet off the side of the path.’

  ‘Jumble?’

  ‘Yes. It looked, at first, like someone had dumped a load of old clothes there. Then I thought it might be one of the tramps we get round here a lot this time of the year and that he was sleeping late.’ The elderly gardener shook his head, obviously wishing that what he’d stumbled over had been as simple as that. ‘Anyway, I walked over to get a better look, maybe move the man on if it were a tramp. Then… then…’

  ‘Would you like a break for a moment?’ Bulmer, asked quietly, as the gardener stumbled again, whilst at the same time hoping that he didn’t want to, now that he was so near the crucial part of his statement.

  ‘No, no, lad, I’m fine. Best get it over with. There’s not much else left to tell, if the truth be told. I walked across the grass. I soon saw it wasn’t just some old clothes someone had dumped, too bulky. But I still thought it was a tramp. Then, o’course, once I got up close, I could see it weren’t,’ he ended sadly, his voice drifting to a halt.

  ‘Did you realise then who it was?’ asked Bulmer quietly, after the silence had gone on for a few seconds.

  ‘What? Oh sorry, lad,’ the elderly countryman, said, giving himself a little shake. ‘No, no I didn’t; not properly, though I sort of knew. The clothes, you see,’ he added in response to the DS’s enquiring look. ‘They were what the old Doc wore whenever he was off doing his bird-watching.’

  ‘Did you touch the body at all?’

  ‘No, that I didn’t’ he responded emphatically.

  ‘Not even to check if he was still alive, or see who it was? A natural enough reaction if you did,’ Bulmer probed.

  ‘I was all but sure who it was – and he weren’t alive, you could see that,’ the gardener replied flatly.

  ‘How could you be sure?’ asked Bulmer curiously.

  ‘I did three years with the Royals,’ the elderly man responded bluntly; ‘in the seventies. It were one of its last tours of duty before them daft buggers in London broke us up and stuck us with them lot from across the way,’ he added with some bitterness, nodding in the direction of the county border. ‘I saw enough dead ’uns then to know one, even now.’

  Bulmer correctly interpreted the scathing references to apply to one of the frequent mergers of county regiments, this one adding insult to grave injury by merging the regiments of the two adjoining counties. The DS, well aware of the centuries old antipathy between the two, was heartily glad that he hadn’t been one of the commanders of the new combined force. He didn’t fancy being one of the men who actually had to make workable whatever daft decisions the politicians and civil servants had made. Before they went on to their next one, of course, he thought cynically.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he replied, being well aware of how easy it was to tell the difference between an inert mass of dead flesh and blood from one still retaining even some of the vibrancy of life.

  ‘And like I say,’ John continued after a moment, ‘the clothes were pretty recognisable, despite him being face down and with something over his face.’

  ‘So what did you do next?’

  ‘I got hold of Robert Parry, right quick.’

  ‘Why him? Why didn’t you phone us first?’

  ‘No reason. Just that Mr Parry is good in situations like that,’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I pressed 3 and he came quick,’ the elderly countryman added.

  ‘Excuse me?’ asked Bulmer perplexed.

  ‘I pressed 3 – on this,’ he replied, pulling a top of the range smartphone out of his pocket.

  ‘A nice phone!’ Bulmer remarked, mildly envious. A fan of gadgets, he’d have loved one. Unfortunately one salary and three children, meant that he’d have to wait a very considerable while longer.

  ‘Dunno about that. Emily, our youngest, bought it for me for last Christmas, but we couldn’t get the hang of it, so she put in three numbers – hers, ours and Mr Parry’s, so we just press 1, 2, or 3.’

  Calderwood hid a smile. Knowing both the cost and the immense versatility of those particular phones, he suspected that the couple’s extremely limited use of its functions had resulted in one rather pissed off daughter.

  ‘So you didn’t leave the body at all?’

  ‘No, didn’t need to, Mr Parry arrived very quickly.’

  ‘Did you see or hear anything whilst you were waiting?’

  ‘No, nothing, nothing at all.’

  A few more questions convinced the two police officers that they had learned all that the elderly gardener knew, or at least could recall for the moment, and Bulmer moved to close the interview.

  ‘So, to recap, you heard nothing whilst you were waiting for Robert Parry; nor did you see or hear anything unusual before you discovered the body of Doctor Rutherford, throughout your walk to work?’

  John shook his head in confirmation.

  ‘I did,’ said his wife suddenly, her round red face flushing to an even deeper shade as the three men swivelled round in surprise.

  ‘You did? You didn’t say anything, Jenny!’ said her husband in surprise.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t sure,’ she said. ‘Still aren’t, if the truth be known,’ she added, then went on, ‘but I heard something, and sort of saw something as well,’ she continued.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, ’cos I’m not sure exactly what it was, but then I thought of poor Dr Rutherford, and decided I’d rather make a bit of a fool of meself if I’m wrong, than find out later that it could’ve been of some help in getting whoever did it,’ she ended, her hands nervously intertwining.

  ‘Go on, Mrs Abbott,’ prompted Bulmer gently.

  ‘It was when I was pegging out my washing,’ she started then stopped.

  ‘Go on, Can you remember the time?’ asked Bulmer, even more gently.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she replied, calmed both by his gentle tone and her husband’s hand reaching out for hers. ‘I always do it just after I’ve got him from under my feet,’ she added, a touch of unexpected humour briefly surfacing and even more quickly disappearing. ‘It was the sound that got me looking at first,’ she continued.

  ‘A sound?’

  ‘Yes, only for a second or two like, I thought it was a large bird or fox or something at first. It was a funny sort of sound, almost like a harsh cry or laugh. But it was so loud I thought it was on my shoulder almost. But then I looked over to the woods,’ she nodded to the woods which the small cottage backed onto, ‘and I saw, only for a second like, a splash of colour moving fast through the trees.’ She shivered. ‘It were that that was making the sound, whatever it was,’ she finished.

  ‘How big was it – the
moving object?’

  ‘The same size as you or me; that’s how I knew it were no bird or fox.’

  ‘You say you saw colour? Can you remember what the colour was?

  She shook her head. ‘Not really, it were moving so fast.’

  ‘Was it a dark colour or a bright one?’

  ‘Oh, whatever it was, was bright,’ she said firmly. ‘Oh and sort of floaty,’ she added, something clearly coming back to her.

  ‘Bright and floaty?’ echoed Bulmer encouragingly.

  ‘Yes, sort of flashy as well, but that’s all I can remember,’ she said sadly, genuinely keen to help, now that her nervousness had left her.

  Bulmer reassured her and continued to go over the ground in slightly different ways.

  It became obvious, though, that try as she might, she couldn’t remember much else. He left it, not wanting to push her into recalling things she really hadn’t seen just to be helpful. He knew that that occurred in interviews much more often than the police liked to admit.

  ‘Can you remember how far in the woods the figure was?’ Bulmer then asked, eventually.

  ‘Not really. I just assumed it was on the little path,’ replied Ellen, after a moment’s thought.

  ‘Little path?’ Calderwood interjected, his interest aroused.

  ‘Yes. Besides the track and the bigger footpath, there’s a little path set back a bit. It branches off the main footpath, just past the old castle. It’s not much used; except by the gamekeepers, of course,’ she added. She stopped, her eyes pleading and her hands starting to shake again. ‘You don’t think it really was who did it, killed the old Doc do you?’

  Both policemen thought it highly likely, but wouldn’t say so at this point. ‘It’s too early to say, as yet,’ Bulmer replied, hoping his ambiguity would comfort the woman who was getting increasingly distressed – but it didn’t. Scarcely surprising, Bulmer thought sympathetically, a few minutes later, as, thanking the elderly couple, they left them to comfort each other, Ellen’s offer for them to call in whenever they wanted a cup of tea, ringing in their ears.

  ‘It’s well-hidden, that’s for sure,’ Calderwood remarked as they stood by the small pathway pointed out by the Abbotts and set back about ten or so yards from their little cottage.

  ‘Yep, another pointer to it being a local, I’d think,’ murmured the DS as they peered down at the narrow pathway. Although the little track’s meandering route amongst the overhanging branches and greenery was obvious once you knew it was there, it seemed much too hidden for anyone unaware of its existence to stumble on it by accident, particularly in the pressured moments going to, or coming from, a murder site.

  The team Bulmer had called in had arrived not long after they’d reached the half-hidden pathway and they watched them diligently going over its entire area and the woodland immediately bordering it with, literally almost, a fine tooth comb. They themselves could see a number of branches broken at their ends, indicating the passage of something large enough to be the figure spotted by Jenny Abbott.

  ‘Hmm. It looks recently done; about the right height too,’ observed Calderwood, peering at the broken ends of the branches of a small Aspen tree, all at roughly shoulder height, as one of the team gently broke them off. They’d know, with a great deal more certainty, exactly how recent, he knew, once the lab had examined them under their powerful microscopes.

  ‘Sir!’

  Calderwood and Bulmer’s heads snapped up, as a voice called out just beyond one of the small bends in the little track. Moving away from the pathway and treading carefully, they moved through a light covering of young saplings.

  ‘Well, well,’ Calderwood murmured, as they reached the young PC and followed his excited gaze. On a branch of a blackthorn bush, its barbed branches protruding slightly into the pathway, was a small strip of material. It was a vivid red and hung some four feet off the ground, its edges torn and frayed. Later analysis was to show that the pattern of the tears was consistent with whatever it formed part of having got stuck on the thorns and been savagely pulled free; though whether that savagery was deliberate or merely the result of the wearer’s continued speed, the analysis couldn’t say. Nor, of course could it say whether or not it had anything at all to do with the murder of Alan Rutherford.

  *

  ‘You know, our killer was very fortunate,’ remarked Calderwood later, back in the Incident Room, as they took a break and relaxed over strong coffees. These had the dual advantage of both reviving them and of removing the last of the taste of Jenny’s killer brew.

  ‘Time-wise, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. Simon Bryant was clear, even at the site, that it had almost certainly happened only minutes before the gardener walked past and found the body. A route, apparently he – and several others – took every day to and from their jobs.’

  ‘And the head gardener confirms what John Abbott said, that it was always at virtually the same time each way, every day,’ added Bulmer. ‘Not to mention her Ladyship,’ he continued, uttering the honorific with an intonation that even the thick-skinned lady in question would have had no difficulty realising was somewhat far short of anything approaching genuine respect, ‘riding past less than half an hour earlier as well as those of the indoor staff who usually took that route. It certainly gives only the narrowest of time frames, almost suicidally so.’ He paused. ‘Do you think it could point to it being an outsider who didn’t know the risk, after all?’ he asked.

  ‘Possibly; although it could equally well apply to a local who knew the timings and either didn’t care or, much more likely, factored them in so as to avoid being seen. And don’t forget, Marcia Blaine only arrived home last night, somewhat unexpectedly, so she wasn’t even expected to be in the area,’ Calderwood, cautioned.

  Bulmer nodded in agreement, then continued. ‘Curious what Mrs Abbott saw. I wonder if it was our killer? It seems too much of a coincidence, I’d say’

  ‘Yes, it does; though how a running figure – or at least one moving quickly, dressed at least partially in vivid red and making sounds like a bird or animal, fits in to what is already a somewhat confusing picture, I’m at a loss to know!’ Calderwood responded with wry humour.

  Chapter 6

  ‘Damn! She’s accepted!’ muttered Desmond, passing across a sheet of writing paper covered in florid purple ink, to Gwilym.

  ‘Who? Tessa? That was quick!’

  ‘Yes, I thought, with the short notice, I’d better phone and I spoke to Edwina yesterday, hence this,’ he said, gesturing at the notepaper. ‘Tessa must have replied immediately – she must be really set on coming!’ he added ‘I was hoping the changed date wouldn’t suit, but it does, unfortunately. And she’d “be delighted” to open the fête.’

  ‘If it’s held,’ replied Gwilym grimly.

  ‘Oh it’ll go on,’ said Desmond. ‘Don’t forget, the village takes a pride in a high summer celebration having been held, in one form or another, through every war and plague, or what have you, for three hundred years or more, even risking the wrath of Cromwell’s puritans. Anyway, tradition apart, there’s too much need for the money it’ll raise,’ he added bluntly. ‘And, let’s face it, with Tessa LaVerne scheduled to open it, there’ll be a big turnout, which will boost the pot even further! Mind you, if I thought it would keep her away, I’d willingly give a decent cheque to the bloody thing myself!’ he added with a flash of humour.

  ‘If your Mum’s right about the increasing need for more and more money for the village, besides giving money ourselves, we might have to do just that and do this sort of thing again,’ remarked Gwilym suddenly.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Get one of our more famous London friends to open the fête and other village stuff.’

  ‘You’re right I suppose,’ replied Desmond, after a moment’s gloomy thought.

  ‘We’d be daft not to, I suppose.’

  ‘Yep,’ replied Gwilym, deciding that now wasn’t the moment to break it to him that his mother was alr
eady on to the idea. Even less was it the time to tell him that she was going to get him to do a big Christmas show and even had plans for a mid-summer outdoors play the following year. He smiled to himself. Eleanor had always been scrupulous in not taking advantage of their wide London circle of stellar names when they lived in the capital. Now that they were back in the village, she had no such compunction, as her son was soon to find out. Gwilym, for one, had no intention of missing the moment when she told him.

  He smiled briefly to himself as he got up to refresh their drinks from the well-stocked drinks table in the small side sitting room that was their favourite room of all in Eleanor’s large house. It was late in the evening, two days after the discovery of the old doctor’s body and such was the fall-out from the hideous death that it was the first time that they’d had an opportunity to discuss the events in anything like calm.

  He had watched impassively the day of the murder, as the police had set-up their Incident Room in two of the pub’s entertaining rooms. Hardly worth them dismantling it from last time, he thought with a touch of black humour, recalling that it was only a few scant weeks previously that they’d been in the same rooms investigating the bizarre events which had commenced earlier in the year and come to a bloody and shocking climax some months later.

  ‘Again, not the most pleasant of circumstances,’ said a voice at his shoulder. Turning, Gwilym saw Robert Calderwood, the young police inspector heading the investigation, his eyes sombre.

  The Welshman grimaced in agreement. ‘Worse, in some ways. Doc was very much one of us.’ Gwilym paused, and then went on. ‘Before today, I would have said that he hadn’t an enemy in the entire world,’ he added, shaking his head with infinite sadness.

  ‘Popular was he?’ Calderwood asked, nodding as the stocky form of Colin Bulmer, hurried past.

  Gwilym nodded, ‘Very much so,’ and went on to outline the doctor’s background. ‘He still did the occasional surgery, when Teddy, his son, was either particularly busy or away on holiday; but I’ve never seen someone enjoy their retirement so much as Alan did. We all, and, I suspect, he himself, had wondered how he’d fill his days. He’d always been so busy, so involved in his practice. Then, when he resigned all his committees and stepped back from every one of his other activities as well, we thought he’d die of boredom within six weeks. Instead, he took on an entirely new lease of life; it was lovely to watch,’ he added, with a brief smile.