GANGLAND FENCE RELEASED FROM JAIL
He achieved brief notoriety as part of the Mansion Gang – a network of professional burglars who targeted mansion blocks in Kensington and Chelsea. Arrested for receiving stolen goods, John Whitehead was released from Pentonville Prison after serving just four years of a seven-year sentence. Mr Whitehead, who is married, is believed to have left London.
There was no picture but Chubb had already checked that there was indeed a Johnny Whitehead living with his wife in the village and that it was the same Johnny Whitehead who had once been arrested in London. There had been plenty of organised criminals operating in the city during and after the war and the Mansion Gang had been notorious. Whitehead had been their fence and now he ran an antique store no less! He looked again at the two words in Mary Blakiston’s handwriting. And dangerous? The question mark was certainly apposite. If Whitehead was an ex-criminal and she had tried to expose him, could he have been responsible for her death? If she had talked about him to Sir Magnus, might he have been forced to strike again? Chubb carefully set the newspaper article aside and went back to the diary.
7 July
Shocking. I always knew there was something about Rev Osborne and his wife. But this!!!! I wish old Montagu had stayed. Really, really don’t know what to say or do. Nothing, I suppose. Who would believe me? Dreadful.
6 July
Lady Pye back from London. Again. All these trips she makes, everyone knows what’s going on. But nobody will say anything. I suppose these are the times we live in. I feel sorry for Sir Magnus. Such a good man. Always so kind to me. Does he know? Should I say something?
The last entry that Chubb had selected had been written almost four months earlier. Mary Blakiston had written several entries about Joy Sanderling but this one followed their first meeting. She had written it in black ink, using a much thicker nib. The letters were splattered onto the page and Chubb could almost feel the anger and disgust as her pen travelled across the paper. Mary had always been a fairly impartial observer. Which is to say, she had been equally spiteful and unpleasant about everyone she encountered. But she seemed to have a special reserve for Joy.
15 March
Tea with little Miss Sanderling. She says her name is Josie but ‘call me Joy’. I will not call her that. There is no joy in this marriage. Why can’t she understand? I will not let it happen. Twelve years ago I lost my first son. I will not allow her to take Robert away from me. I gave her tea and biscuits and she just sat there with that stupid smile on her face – so young, so ignorant. She prattled on about her parents and her family. She has a brother with Down’s syndrome! Why did she have to tell me that? Robert just sat there, saying nothing, and all the time I was thinking about this awful sickness infecting her family and how much I wanted her to leave. I should have told her then and there. But she’s obviously the sort of girl who won’t listen to the likes of me. I will talk to Robert later. I won’t have it. I really won’t. Why did this stupid girl have to come to Saxby?
For the first time, Chubb felt a real dislike for Mary Blakiston, almost a sense that she had deserved to die. He would never actually say that about anyone but he had to admit that the whole diary was pure poison and this entry was unforgivable. It was the reference to Down’s syndrome that most upset him. Mary described it as ‘an awful sickness.’ It wasn’t. It was a condition, not an illness. What sort of woman could see it as a threat to her own bloodline? Had she really pulled up the drawbridge on her son’s marriage simply to protect future grandchildren from some sort of contamination? It beggared belief.
Part of him hoped that this would turn out to be the only volume of Mary Blakiston’s memoirs. He dreaded having to wade through any more pages of misery and resentment – didn’t she have anything good to say about anyone? But at the same time, he knew he had stumbled on too valuable a resource to ignore. He would have to show it all to Atticus Pünd.
He was glad that the detective had turned up in Somerset. The two of them had worked together on that case in Marlborough, a headmaster who had been killed during the performance of a play. This business had many of the same hallmarks: a tangle of suspects and different motives and not one but two deaths that might or might not be related. In the privacy of his own home, Chubb would admit the truth, which was that he couldn’t make head or tail of it. Pünd had a way of seeing things differently. Maybe it was in his nature. Chubb couldn’t help but smile. All his life he’d been brought up to think of the Germans as his enemy. It was strange having one on his side.
It was equally strange that Joy Sanderling had actually brought him here. It had already occurred to Chubb that she and her fiancé, Robert Blakiston, had the most compelling reason for wanting to see Mary Blakiston dead. They were young and in love and she had wanted to stop the wedding for the very worst and most hateful of reasons. For a brief moment he himself had shared their feelings. But if they had planned to kill her, why would they have tried to get Pünd involved? Could it have been an elaborate smokescreen?
Turning these thoughts over in his mind, Raymond Chubb lit a cigarette and went through the pages again.
6
In his masterwork, The Landscape of Criminal Investigation, Atticus Pünd had written: ‘One can think of the truth as eine vertiefung – a sort of deep valley which may not be visible from a distance but which will come upon you quite suddenly. There are many ways to arrive there. A line of questioning that turns out to be irrelevant still has the power to bring you nearer to your goal. There are no wasted journeys in the detection of a crime.’ In other words, it did not matter that he had not yet seen Mary Blakiston’s diary and had no idea of its contents. Although he and Inspector Chubb were taking two very different approaches, it was inevitable that eventually they would meet.
After they had left the Lodge House, he and Fraser had walked the short distance to the vicarage, following the road rather than using the short cut through Dingle Dell, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon. Fraser had rather taken to Saxby-on-Avon and was a little puzzled that the detective seemed so immune to its charms. Indeed, it struck him that Pünd hadn’t been quite himself since they had left London, lapsing into long silences, lost in his thoughts. The two of them were now sitting in the living room where Henrietta had brought them tea and home-made biscuits. It was a bright, cheerful room with dried flowers in the fireplace and French windows that looked out onto a well-kept garden with woodland beyond. There was an upright piano, several shelves of books, door curtains that would be drawn in the winter. The furniture was comfortable. None of it matched.
Robin and Henrietta Osborne were sitting next to each other on a sofa and could not have looked more awkward or, frankly, more guilty. Pünd had barely started his interrogation but they were already defensive, clearly dreading what might come next. Fraser understood what they were going through. He had seen it before. You could be completely blameless and respectable but the moment you talked to the detective you became a suspect and nothing you said could be taken at face value. It was all part of the game and it seemed to him that the Osbornes weren’t playing it too well.