Inkier Than the Sword (The Falconer Files Book 3) Read online

  They took Falconer’s Boxster this time, and didn’t bother making a call at his home for a change of clothes, as he had been to this particular village recently, and knew that there were no muddy tracks and rutted, puddled pathways for the unwary. It was a well-maintained village that he could visit in his usual immaculate garb, with complete peace of mind.

  On the journey there, not a long one in distance, but made longer in time by the presence of black ice on the roads, the conversation turned from the resemblance between Kerry and her boys, to physical traits in general, leading Falconer to tell of the Roman nose which, although missing him out, on his swim through the gene pool, haunted nearly every member of his father’s family, including the women. He concluded, somewhat unfortunately, ‘Noses run in my father’s family,’ and then, realising what he had uttered, waited for Carmichael to come up with some smart-alec answer.

  But there was just a short silence, before Carmichael made his contribution to this discussion on genetics. ‘Whippets run in my Uncle Pete’s family – but they never win!’

  III

  They left the car in the drive of The Spinney, and went round to the back door, as instructed. Dimity had said that she’d wait there, as she really didn’t want to go anywhere else in the house, and that’s where they found her, a half-drunk cup of very strong tea in front of her, as she sat at the kitchen table, an empty brandy glass just to the right of the cup.

  Apart from two small red patches on her cheeks, evidence of the spirit she had consumed, her face was pale, and her hands shook as she took another sip of tea, before rising to greet them.

  Introductions were made, and both detectives noticed how cold her hand was, and how it fluttered like a frightened bird in their grasp. Her knees shook at the effort of standing too. The shock had affected her badly, and Falconer bade her sit again, and leave everything to them.

  He had alerted Dr Christmas, thinking this was home territory for him, but were informed that things had changed. He would attend in his role as police surgeon, but his two sessions a week in Steynham St Michael were now history, as a permanent doctor had been appointed – Pierce, his name was, if Philip Christmas remembered aright – and they’d better give him a buzz too, for the sake of protocol.

  Thus updated, he alerted a SOCO team, as well, as they were leaving the station, knowing that at least he couldn’t get that one wrong, but now they were here, they’d better take a look at Steynham St Michael’s latest effort to make his job more difficult.

  For all he knew, there were dozens of poisoned pen letters out there, people committing suicide like it was a new dance-craze and a whole clan of Littlemores beating each other senseless in the throes of alcoholic rages. And now he had a murder to deal with as well. So much for a happy and peaceful New Year!

  Dimity Pryor had given them directions to Hermione’s writing room – what she occasionally referred to whimsically as her ‘bookery nook’; more often as her ‘author-torium’ – and Falconer was first through the door, using a clean handkerchief so that he did not disturb any fingerprints that might prove important during the investigation.

  Both men entered the room, their immediate reactions differing hugely. Falconer took a huge intake of breath, making a noise that would probably be spelled ‘huuuh’. Carmichael hooted with laughter, which bordered on the hysterical, then clapped both hands over his mouth to stop the noise, that was obviously involuntary in its inappropriateness.

  Hermione Grayling, or at least the shell that had been Hermione, sat in front of the ancient Underwood, which was placed in its usual position for typing, but her proportions were skewed by the presence of a tea towel (clean!) over something which protruded from the top of her head, making her look as if she had a severe case of antlers.

  Dragging his eyes away from the whiteness of the tea cloth and the red streaks that had run down Hermione’s face, Falconer turned his gaze to the typewriter, while Carmichael fought to regain control of his behaviour. The sergeant had rapidly exited the room, and now stood in the hall, taking deep breaths to calm himself, after his brief demonstration of hysteria.

  There was a sheet of paper in the machine, sadly decorated with its author’s blood, but it was still readable, and Falconer read:

  How many more stories, not to mention men, are you going to steal, to fill the void that you foist on the reading public as your storytelling gift? And give the Victorian period a rest, will you? The whole era didn’t last as long as your interminable books about it.

  And having read, straightened up with a start. The woman had been writing a poison pen letter to herself! Only this one was typed! Did that mean that she was responsible for the other letters? He briefly wondered how many of them had been received: no doubt a much greater number than had been admitted to. And why was this one typed? Was it just a writer’s instinct to make a note of what they wanted to use, so as not to lose the flavour before, in this case, tracking down the letters necessary to actually construct the letter?

  He’d have to get the keys of the machine tested for fingerprints, of course, before he drew any hasty conclusions, but it might be a good idea, in the meantime, to discover who else had received anonymous missives. This might mean case closed, as far as the letters went, but if somebody had found out that it was Hermione sending them, then that gave them a splendid motive for murder, especially if their letter had hinted at something shameful or illegal in their past that they still couldn’t risk being bandied about as common knowledge.

  Carmichael re-entered the room at this point in Falconer’s conjecture and, as always, went straight to the nub of the matter. ‘What’s that thing sticking out of her head, sir?’

  ‘No idea, Carmichael. I haven’t got close enough to take a good look yet. We’ll have to leave the cloth in place until after it’s been photographed, but it you want to see if you can peek under the edge, be my guest.’

  Fully in control again, Carmichael worked his way from one side of the body, round behind it and to the other side, bent double and, skewed his neck to one side, his face pointing upwards. He then repeated this short inspection in reverse order and, standing straight once more, announced, ‘I’m not sure, sir, but I think it’s a billhook. Very nasty!’

  ‘A billhook!’ Falconer repeated, aghast.

  Taking this for ignorance of the implement, his sergeant began to give a physical description of the tool and its uses, only to be cut short.

  ‘I know what a billhook is, Carmichael, but I’d have lumped it in with machetes and the like, as more likely to be used by drug dealers in gang warfare. This cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be gang warfare.’

  ‘It’s not, sir. It’s village warfare, that’s what it is. This place is surrounded by agricultural land, so there are likely to be no end of murder weapons disguised as farming implements, with respect, sir.’

  ‘By god, you’re right, Sergeant. I just hope we’re not looking for a psychotic farmer for this one! Combine harvester beats patrol car any day of the week, never mind paper, scissors, stone.’

  Chapter Nine

  New Game

  Friday 8th January, 2010

  I

  News travels fast in a village, and the first ears to hear of the tragedy were Tilly Gifford’s. It was just her good fortune to be on duty at the doctor’s surgery, when Dr Philip Christmas called to keep Hermione’s GP abreast with events. It may have been a private telephone call, but that didn’t stop Tilly listening in on the reception area extension. That extension was one of her major gossip-gathering tools, and she was very fond of it.

  Hanging up a second or two after Dr Pierce, she was just in time to catch him as he headed for the exit, calling that he had to make a quick visit to a patient, and may be gone some time. The latter part of this information mattered nought to Tilly, as there was no more surgery that day, and she was due to finish at four o’clock; and the former piece of information imparted was easily interpreted as Dr Pierce going off to The Spinney
to have a good old nose at the murder scene and, no doubt, a good old gossip with Dr Christmas.

  It must be very lonely for him in a one-man rural practice like this one, she thought, as she sorted out her telephone chat-list for that evening of those unable to spare the time for a good old gossip at this time of day.

  Tilly was glad of the privacy now that he was gone, and with such a valuable and rare nugget of news to share, she immediately removed her mobile phone from her handbag and began to dial. Without there being any danger of Dr Pierce interrupting her, she could enjoy the reactions to her news bulletin from several of her friends, giving them only the bare bones now, and promising to dish the dirt in more detail when she got home and could enjoy the much lower tariff of her landline.

  II

  There was a welter of activity at The Spinney when Dimity eventually left to go home. There was a plethora of evidence bags, photographs were being taken, fingerprints checked for, Hermione’s hands were encased in plastic bags – just in case she had managed to take a swipe at her executioner – as was her beloved old Underwood. Philip Christmas had pronounced life extinct, and was discussing the bizarre choice of weapon with Dr Pierce, when the mortuary vehicle arrived to remove Hermione, feet first, from her home, for the last time.

  It was at this moment that Dimity, who had waited patiently to give her statement, but had been unsuccessful as yet due to all the said activity, decided that she could stand it no longer, and had to get out of that house of death and back to her own home. By now she was feeling decidedly ill, and wanted nothing more than to have a mug of cocoa with a goodly shot of Baileys in it, and go to bed and sleep till the morning. She had had enough of today for today and she just couldn’t deal with any more of it.

  Carmichael, noticing her severe discomfort, offered to walk her to her own door, but she declined his kind offer, as it was only about a hundred yards away, and she was unlikely to come to grief in such a short distance. He did, however, tell her that he would watch her down the road to Spinning Wheel Cottage, in case she came over faint again, and for this she was grateful.

  As she passed the junction with Dairy Lane, however, she met with Vernon Warlock, who was approaching from the opposite direction, obviously on his way home. Seeing them meet and stop to talk outside Vine Cottage, Carmichael called it a day for little-old-lady sitting (Dimity would have slapped his face for him, if she’d known that was how he thought of her. She was only fifty-seven, and that wasn’t anywhere near little-old-lady status, not these days) , and went back into the residence of the late, and hopefully to be lamented, Hermione Grayling.

  As Dimity had crossed the Market Darley Road towards home, she had considered calling into Pear Tree Cottage, the occupants of which had been the subject about which she had gone over to The Spinney in the first place, but without the chance to chat to Hermione (and that there never would be again, she thought, her eyes blurring with tears), she made a snap decision to give it a miss.

  They had obviously taken Gabriel Pryor’s suicide to heart – she had not realised they had been so close – but that was probably because she had avoided contact with him, originally on advice from her parents, but of later years from long established habit. They would probably not welcome what they would consider was her interference and she could hardly call there without saying something of the afternoon’s events. She found that she didn’t really want to burden them with any more bad news at the moment, and discovered that tears were pricking at her eyes again.

  Vernon, on the other hand, was a very old friend, and had been part of the same circle as her for years. The sight of him affected her like the breaching of a dam, and as he greeted her, she burst into floods of tears, and held out her arms to him like a child seeking comfort from its mother.

  Vernon was not a large man, but Dimity was of a tiny build, and his hug, in response to her pleading arms, engulfed her. ‘Whatever’s wrong, Dim? It can’t be as bad as all that, can it?’

  ‘Oh Vernon,’ she spoke through her sobs. ‘It is! Hermione’s dead!’

  Pulling away suddenly from the embrace, Vernon stared at her incredulously and ushered her through his front door and into the kitchen, where the old-fashioned wood boiler pulsed heat into the room. He ushered her to one of a pair of chairs either side of the source of heat and comfort, and drew out his silence a little more, by taking the time to fill and put on the kettle, before he took the chair opposite her.

  Dimity’s eyes were drying, now that she’d actually said the words, and she looked to Vernon for guidance as to what happened next. ‘What do you mean, Hermione’s dead? She can’t be. I spoke to her on the phone, only this morning. Was it a heart attack or something?’ he asked, sceptical as to the veracity of her two word statement.

  ‘Or something,’ Dimity answered somewhat cryptically.

  ‘What sort of something? A stroke? A brain haemorrhage?’ Vernon wracked his brain, but could think of no other medical event that could cause so quick a demise.

  ‘A billhook,’ Dimity stated, two words again, plain and unadorned. The shock was having a quite different effect, now that she was out of The Spinney.

  ‘Did you say a billhook?’ Vernon looked aghast at her, sitting there calmly now, and uttering such madness. Had she lost her mind?

  ‘I did indeed, Vernon. She’s been murdered.’

  ‘It can’t be true. That sort of thing only happens on the television and in books, not in quiet, normal villages like Steynham St Michael. Have you had a blow to the head or something, Dimity?’

  ‘I assure you I’m speaking the absolute truth. If you don’t believe me, you can go over to her house now, and speak to the police who are still there. Her body’s been taken away, but I’m sure that, if you ask nicely, they’ll let you have a peek at where it happened.’

  Dimity was beginning to feel a little light-headed now, and reached out gratefully for the mug of strong coffee that a still-unbelieving Vernon handed across to her.

  ‘I can assure you that I wouldn’t be so crass as to do anything of the sort, but for God’s sake tell me what happened, Dim. First you tell me that someone I’ve known for most of my life is dead, then you imply there was a billhook involved somewhere, and I don’t know what to think.’

  Dimity sipped at her reviving drink, and began to explain. ‘I don’t know exactly what happened, Vernon. All I know is that there was something that I wanted to discuss with Hermione: something I wanted a bit of advice about – oh, nothing very important – just the usual everyday stuff. And I went over to the house and let myself in through the back door, the way we all do when she’s at home.’ Vernon nodded for her to go on, as she momentarily hesitated.

  ‘I called out, the way one does if she’s not actually in the kitchen, and then I tried all the other rooms: I even stood outside the downstairs lavatory to see if I could hear her in there …’ As this memory occurred to her, she gave a hoot of hysterical laughter, after which her face crumpled into a mask of disgust, and she plunged her face once more into her mug, in search of comfort.

  ‘She was in her writing room, Vernon. I went there last, just in case she was working and didn’t want to be disturbed. Oh, I knew she’s finished her latest, but she may have been making notes for something else. I even tapped on the door, to see if she’d tell me to “sod off” or something – you know how she was when she was caught up in the throes of an idea.’

  Not waiting for a reply, she continued, ‘Well, she didn’t tell me to sod off, and she didn’t ask me to come in either, so I went in anyway, thinking that she might actually be out, and had forgotten to lock the back door. And there she was! There she was, Vernon, with a bloody great billhook sticking out of the top of her head, and I couldn’t believe it was happening. And I closed my eyes to see if it would go away, but it wouldn’t, and I didn’t know what to do, so I got a tea cloth – a clean tea cloth, not a used one – and I threw it over the billhook, because it looked so awful, sticking out of her head like that,
her wig all split and …’

  Dimity’s voice trailed away to nothing, as Vernon came over and, leaning down, wrapped his arms around her. ‘There there, old thing: don’t take on so. It’ll be all right!’

  Rallying briefly, she lifted her head to look him in the eye, said, ‘Don’t you “platitude” me, you pompous old bag of testosterone!’ then dropped her gaze again, as the weeping returned. ‘Nothing’s ever going to be all right again, is it?’ she asked haltingly through her tears. ‘How can my best friend be dead? It’s not real! It’s all a dream! It just can’t be! I shall go mad! Vernon, what am I going to do without her?’

  Vernon did the only thing possible in response. He knew Dimity well, and he knew her habits, so he half-lifted her to her feet, led here two doors down to her own cottage, and saw her safely inside. Leaving her in an armchair in the sitting room, he popped up to her bedroom and fetched a hot water bottle from the bottom of her bed.

  After filling that and placing it where her feet would rest when she retired, he returned to the kitchen, warmed some milk for cocoa, and added a drop of her favourite tipple, Irish cream. ‘Now, come on, old girl. I closed early today to get a bit of time to myself, and I’ve played nursemaid for enough of that free time. I’ve put a hot water bottle in your bed, I’ve got your favourite bedtime drink here, and I’m going to see you to your room now, and trust you to get yourself undressed and off to sleep. There’s nothing else for it, after the shock you’ve had, and if you need any more specific help, ring the emergency doctor, and see if he can give you something to help you sleep.’

  ‘Oh, Vernon,’ she almost moaned, as he was about to go downstairs.

  ‘What is it, Dim?’

  ‘It was Hermione who wrote that poison pen letter to Gabriel Pryor. There was another one in her typewriter, when she was killed.’