The Nursery Rhyme Murders Page 7

  ‘Not long at all really, if you take off the two to three months where I have to gently manoeuvre the obstinate old sod into a) even thinking about it and b) getting to the point where he’s convinced himself that most of the ideas were his in the first place!’ she responded laughingly.

  ‘And then more hard work starts!’ he replied smiling, stopping filming for a moment. He was fully aware that, as well as designing the garden, she also did a lot of the work needed. He knew from watching her lug scenery and props around that her slight frame held a surprising strength.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, looking up as the group of judges showed signs of dispersing. ‘I think, I’m needed,’ he smiled, bending down and kissing her cheek. And he went off, dutifully prepared to spend the rest of the afternoon viewing and filming yet more greenery and, no doubt, soothing some seething egos. If the truth were told, a part of him enjoyed standing back and watching the various small competitions held in the villages. In many, he sensed a latent jealousy equal to anything the bigger world of the theatre could offer.

  Chapter 11

  ‘Where next?’ Desmond asked later, as he helped his mother back into his car. Thankfully, the long afternoon was almost over with only four more gardens to visit. He was in fact mildly looking forward to seeing two of them; both were entered in the “most innovative” section. Knowing the gardeners of one he was intrigued to see what their, in his view, rather warped minds, had come up with.

  The reality was every bit as bad as expected, he thought, as he gazed out over the colourless wilderness that the creators called their White Garden, in ‘homage to the great Emmeline Duveen’, they murmured reverentially. Eleanor, a genuine fan of the once reasonably famous gardener, beloved by many mid-Victorians, was not impressed. This was particularly so as they’d picked the wrong name. In her view, limp lines of wishy-washy blooms were just that, and caught nothing of the ethereal beauty of the later, and significantly more famous, Jekyll or Sackville-West creations which were much more influential in creating the fashion. Marcia purported to see a deeper, almost spiritual aspect to the whole benighted site, which also did little to impress either Eleanor or her son. Desmond, having a somewhat over-active mischievous streak, was delighted to see the woebegone face of the vicar, as that worthy realised that when the trio met-up for their final and formal adjudication meeting, he was going to be very much a very thin stick, tossed to and fro between two very determined opponents.

  The creators of the disaster – an almost ethereally thin couple in late middle age – were sublimely unaware of how underwhelmed at least one of the judges was and continued to warble on about almost ‘feeling the dear lady’s spirit guiding us, helping us, as we worked, quite, quite wonderful,’ trilled Hermione, the female half of the duo. Douglas, the other half, nodded portentously. ‘Yes, we felt quite inspired, guided by the dear lady herself,’ he murmured, sounding rather fatuous in Desmond’s view.

  Pity the inspiration didn’t get shown in the garden, he thought, relieved to see the judges preparing to leave after not very long at all. ‘You realise of course, that any outside help, wherever it’s from, can lose you marks?’ he murmured wickedly, causing them to gulp, his mother to laugh and his cousin and the vicar to give him a stony glance apiece. Ah well, he thought, switching his camera off, it amused two of us!

  As expected, his mother said little about how she felt about any of the gardens to him. She was particularly tight-lipped about those which she could find little positive to say, which in this case she most certainly couldn’t. He knew his mother well enough, however, to read the signs, and they didn’t bode at all well for the deluded duo.

  ‘Only three more to go,’ she said, a little tiredly he thought; though he knew she’d deny it, as they drove off and she directed him to Lavender Cottage. It was an address he once knew well from when boyhood friends lived there.

  ‘Who’s living there now? he asked as he drove along the village high street. ‘When Gavin and Peter left, didn’t their parents move to live with their daughter?’

  ‘Yes, though I keep expecting them back daily,’ his mother replied, laughing.

  Desmond, having known the sharp-tongued daughter from their school-days, couldn’t but agree.

  ‘They couldn’t afford to come back now could they, though,’ he remarked, being well-aware of the spiralling cost of property in the beautiful village and the equally beautiful surroundings it nestled in.

  ‘Oh, I expect something would be found for them if they did want to come back,’ Eleanor said casually.

  He looked at her curiously. His mother having said it, he knew it was true. For someone who’d left the manor house over fifty years previously she still seemed to exert a surprising measure of control over what did, or didn’t, happen in the village.

  ‘Who’s living here now, then?’ he asked, again.

  ‘Incomers,’ she remarked succinctly. ‘Quite wealthy, I believe, at least they seem so, with the way they’re spending,’ she added coolly.

  Oops! he thought. Incomers and ostentatious display, two big no-no’s for his mother.

  ‘From what I gather they both have well-paid jobs and businesses, but she also inherited quite a lot, I understand’ she continued, and went on to outline what she knew of the pair.

  He smiled as he pulled into the little driveway of the half-timbered cottage, there was little his mother didn’t know about what was going on on the estate.

  Now here they were, gazing in stunned silence at the proud newcomers’ offering. Wow! he thought, left speechless by the sight that met their eyes as they entered the large garden through a side passageway and stood at the top of the first of the shallow terraces cut into the garden.

  ‘Gracious me!’ murmured Eleanor as, leaning heavily on her stick, she reached where the other two judges were standing, also in shell-shocked silence. The full effect had, as was intended, hit them all very hard, though for reasons entirely different to those intended by the proud creators, now happily smiling at their arrival.

  The entire garden, which Eleanor remembered from the previous year, as being of staunchly traditional layout, had now been transformed into a soulless, minimalist gravelled area with stainless steel sculptures interspersed with boxy channels constructed of aluminium and all at varying heights, with running water of differing colours flowing down them. To make matters considerably worse, the channels were fitted with something which had the water make a hissing sound as it travelled down the different heights to reach the starkly square pond set at the centre of the new layout. A few lonely laurel bushes were the only plants in the arid space and they were cut into such severe triangular shapes that any feeling of their being actually alive was entirely absent, though a mathematician might eulogise, thought Desmond wryly.

  Standing proudly to greet them the creators of what, even to him, looked to be a gross parody of what a garden should be, were blissfully unaware of how low in the year’s rankings they were destined to be. Introduced to him as Bethan and Andrew Linklater, Desmond watched in amusement as his mother, in one raking glance, took in their obviously expensive, and, equally obviously, very new gardening attire.

  God! They’ve even dressed the part, he thought, thoroughly enjoying the effect on the three judges, as they took in the Wellington boots, corduroy shirts and canvas trousers, the couple obviously thought were the required dress. As the day was hot it was an unfortunate choice, as Desmond noted with growing amusement, observing the heavy sheen of sweat on both their faces.

  ‘Such an honour to meet you, Lady Blaine,’ gushed Bethan, almost curtseying to Marcia, who, judging by the pleased look on her face, clearly agreed with her. Belatedly remembering the other two, she said a brief and more perfunctory welcome.

  ‘Let’s show you round,’ said her husband, eager to show off the results of their six months’ work.

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ murmured Eleanor, ‘but we do find it best just to stroll around ourselves,’ she added, to the obvious
disappointment of the couple,

  ‘Yes, do chat to Desmond, he’d enjoy hearing how you arrived at your designs,’ interjected Marcia with unexpected humour, though heavily laced with her usual malice. ‘He works in the theatre, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ they responded with something less than enthusiasm, until something clicked with Andrew.

  ‘Oh! Of course! You’re Desmond Appleby!’ he said with much more interest as he realised the stocky, fair-haired man he’d vaguely assumed was a driver of some sort, was in fact the very famous theatre mogul; famous and rich, so two very good reasons to cultivate him. Cursing Marcia, though wryly acknowledging the hit, Desmond resigned himself to ten minutes or so of superficial and over-blown opinions and “insights” into the theatrical world, a world they clearly knew very little about.

  In truth, he didn’t mind as much as he ordinarily would have done, because while they burbled on with their superficial nonsense, gleaned mainly from the supplements of the Sunday newspapers, he was in between his dutiful stints of filming the monstrosity they’d created, able to observe them in some detail.

  The husband had the heavy build going to seed of an ex-rugby player and the red, bloated features of the heavy drinker. He also had a remarkable capacity for not actually looking anyone in the eyes as he spoke. He owned a small but highly profitable firm on one of the industrial estates sprouting up around Estwich, a small town some twenty odd miles from Beldon Magna.

  ‘Not as interesting as your line of work, of course, but it pays the bills don’t you know!’ he guffawed in Desmond’s general direction.

  ‘We weren’t sure that the competition would actually go ahead,’ his wife, a sturdy woman almost as tall as her husband, said. ‘I mean, it seems a bit heartless in a way, doesn’t it?’

  Desmond would have agreed with her had he not known of the old doctor’s wishes, said many years before to his son. Alan was very clear that when his time came no one must change what they were doing in any way at all. ‘Some of our children were very upset, weren’t they Andy? We were very distressed ourselves,’ she added.

  ‘We were indeed,’ agreed her husband, hiding any upset that he felt quite well, thought Desmond, continuing to film. How the hell they could be running one of the most successful pre-school groups in the county baffled him. Had he had any children, he knew he’d travel whatever extra distance it took to take them to an establishment not being run by this pair of weirdos as he mentally thought of them as.

  Still, he acknowledged grudgingly however they were doing it, they were bloody successful and within five years, besides the very successful Estwich business, had built up one of the county’s biggest pre-school groups, according to his mother.

  ‘We feel as though each child we have in our centres is as one of our own,’ she’d breathed to Eleanor once at a recent, and very boring, Sherry party held at the Vicarage, in aid of something or other. That lady, who most certainly did not believe in wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve, was distinctly unimpressed, though her manners were far too good for the silly woman to know it; or that that conversation was one of the reasons she never made it onto Eleanor’s coveted party list.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Desmond asked, realising that he’d missed something that the husband was asking. ‘I’d suddenly remembered an important phone call, completely distracted me for a moment,’ he lied, in explanation, turning the camera off for a moment.

  ‘I asked if you’re looking for any more “angels” at the moment?’ Andrew repeated, his irritation at clearly not having the famous man’s full attention, not quite hidden.

  Desmond smiled, aware that he was now caught between a rock and a hard place. Although, unlike many producers, he and Gwilym funded a larger proportion of the costs of staging one of their many shows themselves, they never did so to the point they could be ruined, or even severely distressed, if one went belly-up. Like all other theatre producers, therefore, they relied heavily on outside investors – called angels in their world. These were usually, though not always, genuine theatre-lovers, who put money into a show. Besides sharing in a percentage of any profits – or losses – dependant on how big an investment they’d made, they, in return, got free or reduced price tickets and/or invited to first or last night parties. Perhaps, also, they were taken on informal theatre tours. For the genuinely interested, a workshop on how shows were actually produced, was sometimes put together. Profitable and necessary though investors were, therefore, it all took time and energy and it was time and energy that Desmond would have preferred to spend on the shows themselves. He was not overly money-oriented but had, however, after more than one early near financial- disaster, and, even more, under Gwilym’s remorseless pressure, eventually grown to value their financial input. An added problem, though, was that the larger investors, and, indeed, some of the smaller ones, often wanted a chunk of “the man’s” time, on top of everything else. This meant that he, as Maximian Productions’ public face, was, more often than he liked, unable to offload any of the resulting workload onto his staff.

  He had, though, become personal friends with many of the “angels”, so had come to resent their demands much less. Indeed, he often enjoyed their company. The problem, here however, was that he knew that, far from making friends with the odd duo in front of him, he’d flatly refuse to enter any room he thought there was a chance they’d be in. Still, business was business, he thought, resignedly, as he handed them a card, adding a note on it with his Executive Assistant’s name and suggesting they phone their production offices. ‘She can tell you where we are at the moment, much better than I can,’ he explained. ‘Have a chat and see if you’d like to come aboard,’ he added, debating whether to phone her in advance and have her kill any chance they actually had of becoming investors.

  ‘Ah! looks like they’ve finished. Off to the next one,’ he added smiling. Such was his charm, inherited from his mother, that they were left with the distinct impression that he’d have loved to have stayed chatting much longer and, indeed, that they were headed to becoming “bosom buddies” with himself and Gwilym.

  *

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ muttered a dispirited Bulmer.

  ‘The only places we can go to – analyse every statement yet again, double, treble, check all alibis; even go through the records again, if necessary, though God forbid!’ replied Calderwood calmly.

  Bulmer nodded. He knew Calderwood was as disappointed as he himself was at the report just given by the two young DCs. The duo had, at last, after over a week of gruelling boredom, finished looking at every single one of the hundreds of medical records, both manual and computerised, of every patient still on the practice’s books. All had shown absolutely nothing that could count as a motive for the old man’s savage murder. Besides the usual ailments, they’d come across a few cases of suspected wife-battering, some child physical abuse, again, only suspected, and even two cases of apparent husband battering. These, along with some with alcohol or drug problems and a number with embarrassing personal afflictions, were the sum total of their search.

  So, despite all the record checks, all the neighbourhood having been interviewed and alibi checked, the investigation team still had absolutely no idea of any motive. Thanking the pair for their work, he turned to his despondent deputy as they left the room.

  ‘This should cheer you up a bit, though,’ he said, as he passed something over to Bulmer. It was the fruits of a visit he’d made two days previously to County HQ and had just arrived as an attachment to an email. He was carefully straight-faced but had something in his voice which alerted his subordinate who, thus warned, played the ball back perfectly.

  ‘That’s great,’ the DS said earnestly, after he’d quickly scanned the two page report. ‘It’ll give us just the extra edge we need to crack the case. You know guv, I really do hope they don’t chop those last psychologists posts. We’d be lost without them, we really would,’ he ended with an earnest look across the desk.

&n
bsp; ‘Don’t overdo, it Colin,’ laughed Calderwood appreciatively. ‘If someone heard you, they might, just might, think you’re taking the piss!’

  Bulmer grinned, ‘I can’t think why guv, I really can’t. I mean, listen to this bit!’ Adopting a pedantic, pseudo-academic tone, he proceeded to read out bits of the analysis: ‘…it would appear that the perpetrator – or perpetrators – have a strong, indeed, regressive, fixation on Nursery rhymes. Their emotional development may not have developed beyond that stage normally associated with learning and enjoying those early childhood rhyming stories. That the victim, is or once was, an, ‘authority figure’, makes it probable that the perpetrator(s) link/s him to whatever event or events occurred at that stage. It is also highly probable that any link is a medical, or quasi-medical, one, given the one-time profession of the victim. The viciousness of the attack – which went well beyond what was needed to merely kill, makes it seem likely that the perpetrator(s) may harbour some degree of resentment against the victim. Whether that resentment was a secondary reason for the murder or, indeed, the prime motivation, is of course impossible to say at this point.’

  Calderwood laughed, both at his DS’s accent and at some of the hard-edged truth behind his parody.

  ‘I know; there’s not a great deal more there than we’d already found out or deduced for ourselves. But at least it confirms that we’re probably on the right track.’

  ‘A combined thirty years plus of training and experience tells us that guv, not some poxy “analysis” of the obvious like this,’ Bulmer replied dismissively, shoving it back over to his superior.

  Chapter 12

  ‘An interesting attempt,’ murmured Desmond neutrally as they left the Linklater’s and headed off to their next visit, again an entry in the “novel” category. ‘Very… er… modern,’ he added, hiding a smile.