I cannot describe with what joy I made the journey-or with what reluctance Lester made his!
I got myself settled in my cottage. It was as secure as I could make it. Sometimes Ess would come and visit me there, riding on Ted’s bike. Sometimes we would meet elsewhere at a distance and I would become Emil and we could manage whole weekends together. I was actually enjoying both my lives, but always I anticipated the day when I could be back on my own two feet permanently with Esther by my side.
That wasn’t going to happen while Daph was alive, but I swear to you, Andy, that not once did I contemplate doing anything to get rid of her! The thing was, I came to like her, to enjoy watching her at play! And I became quite a favorite of hers. She saw I was close to Lester and she thought she was clever enough to wheedle things out of me about how he felt about her, and what was going on with Pet Sheldon! But I think she recognized a fellow spirit in me too, someone who is not perhaps too scrupulous when it comes to finding the quickest way to getting what they want!
So to the day of the hog roast.
I was sitting in my chair, enjoying the champagne and watching the great storm bubbling up over the sea when Esther came up to me. I knew instantly something was wrong. In public she usually treated me as if I were a piece of furniture!
She was extremely agitated. Something dreadful had happened, she told me.
Teddy had killed Aunt Daphne!
I was, as you might say, gobsmacked. Esther told me she’d been wandering round the grounds and by chance she’d stumbled across the body in some long grass beyond the hog roast pit. I asked how she knew Ted was responsible. She showed me that fancy fake watch he wears and said she’d found it snagged on Daph’s dress. Also, earlier that day, Daph had shown Ted a new will in which he was disinherited and they’d had a furious row.
Now you and I, Andy, sensible chaps with one eye always fixed steadily on the realities of life, might have reckoned that when someone has just written you out of their will, that is the last time you should choose to kill them!
Ted, alas, has rarely let reason cloud his behavior, and neither Ess nor myself had the slightest problem to start with in accepting his guilt. Nor did his idiocy in leaving his watch at the scene of the crime strike us as anything but typical!
I asked where Ted was now. She said she didn’t know, she couldn’t find him. The storm was starting, everyone was heading for the house, so I said, “Show me the body.”
She took me there. There was no sign of Ollie Hollis at the hog roast, which struck me as odd. Seeing old Daphne lying there was truly upsetting. She had been so full of life, so vigorous for her age, such a dedicated goer! She didn’t deserve to end up like this. I was furious with Ted, but for Esther’s sake, I had to do my best to protect him.
Esther had removed the watch but God alone knew what other traces the idiot had left. I cast around for some way of obscuring them and also of misdirecting the investigation. It came to me in a flash what I had to do.
And so with Esther’s help, I hauled the roasting cage off the barbecue pit, got the pig out of it, and put poor Daphne in.
It really broke me up to heap this further indignity upon her. There were tears in my eyes and I have begged her spirit for forgiveness and understanding since. And, knowing as I do what she herself was capable of, I do not doubt I received it.
Esther was marvelous, doing everything I told her to. By the time we were done it was pouring down and we were both soaking and filthy and Ess had managed to burn her arm.
I told her to get back to the house, find something to change into, and get hold of Ted and do what she could to make sure he didn’t do anything else stupid.
I meanwhile headed for the lowest bit of the lawn where it was turning really boggy, tipped my chair over, and rolled around in the muck to provide a reason for my dishevelment. Then I lay there, trying to see into the future, and waiting patiently for the storm to abate.
After Pet Sheldon took charge of me, there was nothing for me to do but head for home and wait until Esther reported on further developments.
She came herself on the bike later that evening. What she told me was hard to take in. She’d found Ted getting dried off and changed in the house. He had denied any knowledge of Daph’s death. He said he’d gone down to the beach with the kids. Sid had gone too. After a while, seeing that there was plenty of supervision, they’d slipped away to the old cave halfway up the cliff where they’d been banging away at each other till the storm started.
A lover isn’t the best provider of an alibi, but as we know, it can be confirmed at least in part by Charley Heywood’s testimony. (Oh yes, of course I’ve had a look at Charley’s e-mails. Why not? If the brutal and licentious constabulary can pore and paw over them, why not I? And, though it was much harder, I even managed to slide beneath Ed Wield’s defenses and take a look at his interesting analysis of the witness statements. Perhaps happiness is making him careless!)
Myself, all I needed was Esther’s assurance of Ted’s innocence. No way he could deceive her about something like that.
Which left the interesting question-what had really happened?
And who was the clever bastard who had deposited Ted’s watch on the body?
I would have loved to come clean with you and Peter from the start, but knowing how ready you are, Andy, to put me at the center of all criminality, that would merely have set the investigation on a time-wasting false trail, and poor Peter had enough of those to follow already! No, I needed to stay free to pursue my own inquiries.
I worked out that Ollie Hollis’s disappearance from the scene before the storm broke was perhaps significant. It occurred to me also to wonder why the hog roast had been delayed. I’d noticed there was some evidence of recent repair to the winding gear. Ollie’s handicraft? Perhaps. But it was well known that the actual creator of this complicated bit of machinery was Hen Hollis, persona non grata at the Hall since Hog’s death, but the first person Ollie would turn to if he experienced any serious problem. So what if Hen had been there, doing a favor for one of the clan and delighting in enjoying Daph’s booze and grub without her knowledge? Then she had stumbled across him…
I tried to hint at this possibility to Peter, but his mind was elsewhere. Ollie’s death went some way to fitting in with my theory, but all it did for Peter was provide a possible culprit, caught apparently in flagrante with regard to one crime, and reported as being at loggerheads with the victim of the other.
With the enthusiastic support of ace reporter Ruddlesdin, Peter was trumpeted as the fastest gumshoe in the east the following morning, only to discover the bays had withered before even he was crowned. With friends like Ruddlesdin, Peter really needs friends like you and me, Andy!
Then followed all that weird business about the forged will and Clara Brereton. This brought Teddy right into the foreground. Silly ass! If he’d paid any heed to Esther, he would never have attempted to contact Clara. He is the worst kind of fool-the kind that thinks he is clever!
But at the same time as Clara’s “accident” was leading Peter down another false trail, Clara’s involvement was stirring up some strange notions in me.