lies in lashbrook 15

 

Chapter 15

 

Alexander stood at the graveside. The Girl Guides had turned out in uniform to follow the coffin of Irma; and the Braithwaite family had come in solidarity.  Alexander could not see anyone there for Violet Savin except her husband. Theodore Savin was sobbing quietly. He had already received a phone call from Superintendant Barrett confirming that Savin had been in the office all day and had not taken French leave at any time.

Alexander put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” said Theodore. “I appreciate it.”

“I need to ask you for help with Irma’s diary but it will do on Monday,” said Alexander. “After the inquest.”

“God! There’s that, too,” said Theodore.

“Hang on there,” said Alexander. “I take it you had no trouble from work about taking time off?”

Theodore snorted.

“I’m being docked pay.  Having close relatives die is an inconvenience to the firm, and I am made to understand it. But then, I have less to spend it on, so why should I care? Sometimes I have the mad thought of sending in my resignation, but I’m not sure where I would go or what I would do.”

“I understand,” said Alexander. “You have been working hard for your daughter, to give her a good start in life.”

“Yes, you understand,” said Theodore. “I could probably live on my savings if I invested wisely; I don’t need to be beaten down by my superiors. And if I spent them on living, Vera has no chance of challenging any will I might make and getting any of it.”

“I should think there’s no challenge if you left it to your niece and nephews; but don’t let your mind drift towards an early grave for yourself, it’s not healthy,” said Alexander.

“I’ve precious little left to live for,” said Theodore.

“Nine out of ten people who try to commit suicide bungle it badly,” said Alexander. “Then it becomes my job because it’s illegal, and I hate having to arrest people who have crippled themselves or who are dying slowly and painfully because they got an overdose wrong. Please don’t become one of my clients.”

“You know, that’s a more powerful argument than to say that it’s wrong, or that I should find something to live for,” said Theodore. “Really, so many people bungle it?”

“Oh, hell, yes,” said Alexander. “If you overdo an overdose, your body can reject it but still be damaged. If you try to hang yourself and get the knot wrong, someone might easily cut you down, jumping off buildings or bridges can make a mess of your bones without necessarily killing you, so there you are, just as miserable, but stuck in a wheelchair and needing someone to change your underwear when you have accidents because you can’t feel what’s going on down there....”

“Stop! I won’t try,” said Theodore. “I was considering the drowning machine, like Al.”

“At that, if you don’t get the angle right, you can be spat unceremoniously out of it, battered but alive,” said Alexander, mendaciously. It could rarely happen that people survived a drowning machine of a weir, but it was unlikely. However, if it kept Theodore hanging on to life and ready to rebuild, he would lie about it. “Violet may not have been a good wife to you, but there are other women out there.”

“I still loved her, you know,” said Theodore. “I got angry with her often, but I still loved her. I’ll think about it, but not yet.” 

“A word of advice?” said Alexander.

“I’ll always listen.”

“Don’t turn Irma’s room into a shrine,” said Alexander. “Get some of her friends to clear it, and each take a memento. Then you’ll know she will be remembered, but without letting it consume you. Maybe let out the room to students, it’s close enough to Oxford that someone who can’t afford to live in the city would be glad of it, and it would give you some company in the evening”

Theodore nodded.

“I’ll think about that; thank you,” he said. “And a small fee for the room would supplement my income if I left work, which I believe I might.  I did all the work in the garden, I’ve half a mind to set up as a gardener-handyman.”

“If you need a loan for equipment, I’m willing,” said Alexander. “And as our gardener at Heywood Hall is disobliging if it doesn’t involve his idea of seasonal planting, I imagine I’ll be a customer and willing to help out with some of the ideas I have for the place.”

“Well, then! I’ll go back to work next week, after the inquest, to put my affairs in order, which should not take longer than Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then it’s bank holiday Friday and Monday for Easter, and I’ll call in my resignation on Tuesday third of April,” said Theodore. “I can almost hear Irma approving, she said I gave too much of myself for too little appreciation.”

“And maybe your first job can be for the parish in cutting down those damned bushes on the river walk,” said Alexander. “And that an act for Irma, too.”

“I’ll do that for free over the weekend,” said Theodore. “Gladly and willingly. I don’t want anyone else’s little girl killed in what should be plain sight.”

Alexander hid a smile of satisfaction; he had hoped that Theodore might feel that way, and would distract himself in hard work.

Theodore went to have a word with Mrs. Marion Squires, Maggie’s mother, thanking her and the Girl Guides for turning out, and asking if the girls would care to help strip Irma’s room, taking a keepsake and any clothing they fancied.

“Well, now, Mr. Savin, that’s generous,” said Mrs. Squires, who also answered to ‘Captain’ or ‘Cap.’ “We usually meet on a Tuesday, perhaps though it’s holiday we could have an extra meeting to help you out?”

“Certainly,” said Theodore. “I... I have no objection if the girls would like a bonfire in the garden as well, and I can get in some potatoes and sausages to wrap in foil to bake. Irma loved cook-outs.”

“Well, that’s very generous of you,” said Mrs. Squires. “I’ve a new child, one of eight children and the only girl, her parents farm; could I ask for Irma’s uniform for her? It will be a little large, but she can grow into it.”

“Certainly, and her Girl-Guide handbook, too,” said Theodore. “And her camping handbook; together that’s five bob. Not easy for a poor family to find.  And if there’s anything that the child needs to buy and cannot, let me fund it so she does not feel humiliated.”

“You are all that is good.”

“I recall Irma learning the rules, and that a Guide is a friend and a sister to all guides. I would do as much if Irma had had a sister.”

“I think Irma would be very pleased,” said Mrs. Squires, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief.

Theodore also shook hands with all the Braithwaites, a wordless exchange in which all exchanged more than could ever be said. He accepted a hesitant invitation from Braithwaite to take pot luck with them for lunch. Alexander was glad; though he had no objection to inviting Theodore back with him, he was hoping that Jeff and Tim would be at Heywoods Hall for lunch, with a budget of news they could talk about more freely concerningVera Tweedie-Banks than they might in front of her cousin and neighbour.

 

 

Tim greeted Mary and Ruth a bit self-consciously, and flushed when he would have reached for a knife and fork whilst Jeff murmured a grace. Alexander and Ida were used to Alexander’s father saying grace, and if Jeff was willing to do it, they accepted it.

Alexander carved the leg of mutton which Mary had served, passing down slices to the women first, and including Millie in that, and then the men.

“We could do with two sets of cruets, really,” said Alexander. There were nine of them at the table with Gladys and Campbell.

“I’ll get another set out,” said Mary, standing up.

“It’ll do next time,” said Alexander. “We shall just have to plaintively ask for the mint sauce.”

“Oh, now that is in two bowls, Mr. Alexander; the one at your end is hiding behind the potatoes.”

“There now, couldn’t see for looking,” said Alexander, cheerfully. “But I can smell it and it’s tantalising me. Let us do justice to this before giving up your budget of news; thank you, Mary, for filling the inner policeman at midday after a hard morning.”

“I did think that going to a funeral or going to court were equally depressing tasks in need of cosseting,” said Mary.

“I’ll take a funeral every day,” said Alexander. “Assuming they are not bad people, you know where they’re going, which isn’t necessarily true when up before the beak.”

“Mr. Alexander!” said Mary.

Alexander grinned unrepentantly.

“Vi Savin isn’t bad enough to go down, and Irma, poor child, had little opportunity to sin much in this life. Sorry, I’ve been talking Theodore out of suicide, and it makes me facetious when trying to cope with it.”

“What’s suicide?” asked Millie, with devastating clarity. There was a very loud silence.

“Well, Millie,” said Jeff, “It’s really a very grown up thing when grown ups are very sad, and they want to go to sleep for ever and ever and not get on with life.”

Millie digested this.

“I wouldn’t like to do that,” she said.

“No, it doesn’t really solve any problems,” said Jeff. “But that’s one thing policemen are for, to help people to manage without it.”

“Oh!” said Millie. “Can I....”

“May I,” corrected Ruth.

“May I have more peas, please?” asked Millie.

“Goodness, more?” said Ruth, spooning some out for her daughter. “Considering you were eating them raw all morning, while you helped me shell them, I’m surprised you have room.”

“I like peas,” said Millie.

“How do we have peas in late March?” asked Alexander. “These taste fresh, not canned and if Millie has been shelling them....”

“The forcing-house,” said Mary. “We have year round cucumber, too.”

“It works on waste heat from the kitchen and laundry,” said Campbell. “And a southerly aspect carefully angled for the best sun.”

“Well, that stopped a tirade of mine in its tracks,” said Jeff. “Actually, I love the luxury and I’m not going to be a hypocrite about it.”

“It’s not too far to commute by train,” said Alexander. “I’m thinking of taking up cycling so I can take my bike by train into London, and living here if I’m not tied up late on a case.”

“I haven’t cycled in years since I came out by bike to the cottages,” said Jeff. “My backside is still complaining.”

“I haven’t cycled since I was on the beat,” said Alexander. He cocked his head, hearing a loud bicycle bell. “It’ll be good for us.  Now, I can hear the ice-cream man, which I asked to call, so as you’ve finished eating, Millie, perhaps you will take a bowl out, and get a dozen good scoops of ice-cream and nine half-bars of Cadbury’s flake, and you can keep the tenth half flake for running the errand.”

“I’ll go and help her,” said Ruth, sliding off as her daughter took off on sturdy little legs. “She’ll never carry the bowl.”

“No, but I want little pitchers with big ears out of the room,” said Alexander. “Jeff can fill you in later.”

 

“And there’s not much to tell,” said Jeff. “She was expecting to be remanded on bail for the wasting of police time, and for being the poison-pen, and she did not take that well. Her solicitor told her to plead guilty to wasting police time and hope to get off with a fine, but no. She opened that big mouth of hers and told the judge he was a fool and in on a conspiracy to silence her from saying that she knew that Theodore Savin had killed his wife. Well, the beak asked us some questions regarding that, and I told him that Savin had an unassailable alibi which had been checked by Scotland Yard, and that the idea of him murdering his wife was purely in Mrs. Twiddly-bonk’s head. I did remember to call her Tweedie-Banks.”

“Just as well,” said Alexander.

“Yes, I was pleased with myself,” said Jeff.  “And she went on and on about vagrants in the police force eating out of dustbins, and I explained that we were looking for a diary which might contain clues; so she held forth about how there was nothing but squiggles. I told the judge that the girl was studying Pitman’s shorthand, and that breaking and entering to read her diary was part of our case against the accused. So she set up a screech and said it wasn’t breaking and entering if you knew where the key was hidden, and got cagey when the beak asked if she had permission to come and go at will, and asked if she was in the habit of doing this, and after some humming and hah’ing, she admitted it, and he said, ‘A persistent offender, then,’ and she called him an evil old bastard, begging pardon of the ladies, and the upshot was she was sent down for fifteen days for contempt of court, and when she shrieked more, he extended it to thirty days.”

“Did you get a search warrant?” asked Alexander.

“I did,” said Jeff. “This afternoon?”

“Might as well get it over and done with,” said Alexander. “Oh, look! Ice cream and flakes. Splendid!” as Ruth came in carrying the bowl. Millie’s mouth was suspiciously stained with chocolate.

The company tucked into vanilla ice cream with half a flake bar each, and when given permission to leave the table, Millie trotted off on her own small concerns.

“Back to the dustbins, I fear,” said Alexander.

“‘Lay on, Macduff, and cursed be he who first cries ‘hold! Enough,’” said Jeff.

“Have I ever told you about how my ancestor, the Bow Street Runner, tortured two actors into giving their testimony by mentioning Macbeth, or quoting from it every time they turned obstreperous?” asked Alexander.

“No, how did that work? Surely they knew the play,” said Jeff.

“Actors are as superstitious as sailors,” said Alexander. “And they have to go through a ritual of turning around and quoting from ‘Hamlet’ if anyone calls it by name, not ‘The Scottish Play,’ or who quotes from it.”

“How do they rehearse?”

“Apparently, that’s different,” said Alexander. “Tim, are you ready?”

The young policeman gave a shy grin.

“‘When shall we three meet again?’” he quoted.

Jeff and Alexander laughed.

“Now that would be a performance, the three witches all men in drag,” said Alexander. “I wonder if Fred would go for it?”

“If it has comedic value, Fred would go for it,” said Tim.