Sitting in her home in Winsley Terrace, Clarissa was trying not to think about what had happened. For the last hour, she’d been absorbed by the Daily Telegraph crossword – though normally she’d finish it in half that time. One clue in particular had confounded her:
16. Complained endlessly about Bobby
The answer was a nine-letter word, the second letter O, the fourth letter I. She knew that it was staring her in the face but for some reason it wouldn’t come to her. Was the solution a synonym of ‘complained’ or was it somebody famous, first name Bobby? It seemed very unlikely. The Telegraph crossword didn’t usually involve celebrities unless they were classical writers or artists. In which case, could ‘Bobby’ have some other meaning that had eluded her? She chewed briefly on the Parker Jotter that was her special crossword pen. And then, quite suddenly it hit her. The answer was so obvious! It had been in front of her all the time. ‘Complained endlessly’. So drop the D at the end of the word. ‘About’ indicating an anagram. And a Bobby? Perhaps the capital B was a little unfair. She entered the missing letters … Policeman and of course that made her think of Magnus, of the police cars she had seen driving through the village, the uniformed officers who would be up at Pye Hall even now. What would happen to the house now that her brother was dead? Presumably, Frances would continue living there. She wasn’t allowed to sell it. That was all part of the entail, the complicated document that had defined the ownership of Pye Hall over the centuries. It would now pass to her nephew, Freddy, the next in line. He was only fifteen years old and the last time Clarissa had seen him he had struck her as shallow and arrogant, a little like his father. And now he was a millionaire!
Of course, if he and his mother died, if – for example – there was a terrible car accident, then the property, but not the title, would have to move sideways. That was an interesting thought. Unlikely, but interesting. Really, there was no reason why it couldn’t happen. First Mary Blakiston, then Sir Magnus. Finally …
Clarissa heard a key turning in the front door and quickly folded the newspaper and set it aside. She wouldn’t want anyone to think that she had been wasting time; that she had nothing to do. She was already on her feet and moving towards the kitchen as the door opened and Diana Weaver came in. The wife of Adam Weaver who did odd jobs around the village and helped out at the church, she was a comfortably middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense attitude and a friendly smile. She worked as a cleaner: two hours a day at the doctor’s surgery and the rest of the week divided between various houses in Saxby-on-Avon with just one afternoon once a week here. Seeing her as she bustled in with the oversized plastic bag she always carried, already buttoning the coat which surely wasn’t needed on such a warm day, it occurred to Clarissa that this was a real cleaning lady, which is to say a lady for whom such work was entirely appropriate and indeed necessary. How could Magnus have possibly placed her in the same category? Had he really been serious or had he come here simply to insult her? She wasn’t sorry he was dead. Quite the opposite.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Weaver,’ she said.
‘Hello there, Miss Pye.’
Clarissa could tell at once that something was wrong. The cleaner was downcast. She seemed nervous. ‘There’s some ironing to do in the spare bedroom. And I’ve bought a new bottle of Ajax.’ Clarissa had got straight to the point. It wasn’t her habit to engage in conversation: it wasn’t just a question of propriety. She could barely afford to pay for the two hours each week and she wasn’t going to eat into them with small talk. But although Mrs Weaver had divested herself of her coat, she hadn’t moved and didn’t seem in any hurry to start work. ‘Is something the matter?’ she asked.
‘Well … it’s this business at the big house.’
‘My brother.’
‘Yes, Miss Pye.’ The cleaner seemed more upset that she had any right to be. It wasn’t as if she had worked there. She had probably only spoken to Magnus once or twice in her life. ‘It’s a horrible thing to happen,’ she went on. ‘In a village like this. I mean, people have their ups and their downs. But I’ve lived here forty years and I’ve never known anything like it. First poor Mary. And now this.’
‘I was just thinking about it myself,’ Clarissa agreed. ‘I am mortified. My brother and I weren’t close but even so he was still blood.’
Blood.
She shuddered. Had he known he was about to die?
‘And now we’ve got the police here,’ Diana Weaver continued. ‘Asking questions and disturbing everyone.’ Was that what she was worried about? The police? ‘Do you think they have any idea who did it?’
‘I doubt it. It only happened last night.’
‘I’m sure they’ll have searched the house. According to my Adam …’ She paused, unsure whether to spell it out. ‘… someone took his head clean off his shoulders.’
‘Yes. That’s what I heard.’
‘That’s horrible.’
‘It certainly was very shocking. Are you going to be able to work today or would you like to go home?’
‘No, no. I prefer to keep myself busy.’
The cleaner went into the kitchen. Clarissa glanced at the clock. Mrs Weaver had actually started work two minutes late. She would make sure she made up the time before she left.
5
The meeting at Larkin Gadwall had not been particularly illuminating. Atticus Pünd had been shown the brochure for the new development – everything in watercolour with smiling families, sketched in almost like ghosts, drifting through their new paradise. Planning permission had been approved. Construction was due to start the following spring. Philip Gadwall, the senior partner, insisted that Dingle Dell was an unremarkable piece of woodland and that the new homes would benefit the neighbourhood. ‘It’s very much in the council’s mind that we regenerate our villages. We need new homes for local families if we’re going to keep the villages alive.’
Chubb had listened to all this in silence. It struck him that the families in the brochure, with their smart clothes and brand-new cars, didn’t look local at all. He was quite glad when Pünd announced that he had no further questions and they were able to get back out into the street.
It turned out that Frances Pye had already left hospital and had insisted on returning home, so that was where the three men – Pünd, Fraser and Chubb – went next. The police cars had already left Pye Hall by the time they arrived. Driving past the Lodge and up the gravel driveway, Pünd was struck by how normal everything looked with the afternoon sun already dipping behind the trees.
‘That must have been where Mary Blakiston lived,’ Fraser said, pointing to the silent Lodge House as they passed.