The Judgement of Strangers Page 16

  This seemed to satisfy the curiosity of Rosemary and Michael, but it stimulated mine – and reminded me that I had promised Vanessa to look into the origins of the phrase. After washing up, I took my coffee into the study.

  I found the relevant verse in Deuteronomy, Chapter 27, Verse 19. Both the Authorized Version and the Revised Version had an almost identical translation to that in the Prayer Book. I looked out my copy of the Vulgate to check the Latin translation: Maledictus qui pervertit iudicium advenae pupilli et viduae. The most recent translation I had on my shelves was the Jerusalem Bible. ‘A curse on him who tampers with the rights of the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.’ The notes in the commentary referred me to parallel texts in an earlier chapter of Deuteronomy and to a much earlier one in Exodus, Chapter 23:

  Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.

  I opened a drawer and took out a pad of paper, thinking that I should write a few notes for Vanessa. I knew, of course, that I was trying to distract myself from the thought of Lady Youlgreave and the implications of her death. This sort of work was a luxury for me; scholarship could be a snare just as surely as the more traditional temptations. It occurred to me as I was uncapping my fountain pen that I was not the only one looking for distractions. Why else had Rosemary raised the subject of ‘The Judgement of Strangers’ at lunch? Why had none of us mentioned the subject of Lady Youlgreave?

  I pushed aside the questions and made notes. The Deuteronomic legislation of the seventh century BC had been comparable to the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe over two thousand years later: a determined attempt to reform the national religion. The compilers of the book were intolerant of dissent, but their moral teaching was remarkably humane. The fact that the phrase ‘perverting justice’ was so well established in the Old Testament suggested that such abuse was a long-running problem.

  I turned to the original Hebrew and to the Septuagint, the most influential of the Greek translations of the Old Testament. The word I wanted to check, the crucial word in the passage, was stranger. In Hebrew the word was gêr, which meant ‘protected stranger’ – in other words, a stranger who lived under the protection of a family or tribe to which he did not belong. (The Arabs had a similar word for the protected stranger, the jâr.) The life of a gêr could be hard – I made a note about Jacob’s complaint concerning his treatment by Laban in Genesis 31. A whole clan or family might be gerim. The same distinction was preserved in the Greek of the Septuagint. ‘Stranger’ was not translated by the obvious word, xenos, but by proselutos, which meant a licensed foreign resident. Was the implication, I wondered, that complete strangers were unprotected, that they were the legitimate prey of those whose territory they strayed into?

  As I was making a note of these points for Vanessa, I heard a car pulling off the main road into the Vicarage drive. I glanced out of the window and saw an Austin Maxi drawing up. The passenger door opened and Sergeant Clough climbed out, pipe in mouth. Franklyn wriggled out of the driver’s side. My tranquillity evaporated. I reached the front door before they did.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Clough rubbed his bald head and stared past me into the hall. ‘Mind if we come in? Just for a quick word.’

  I took them into the study, and settled them in hard chairs in front of my desk.

  ‘Mrs Byfield not in? She works, doesn’t she?’ Clough made the idea sound slightly indecent.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘It’s Lady Youlgreave, this time, not the cat.’ He raised his eyebrows, perhaps signalling that he was making a mild joke; the rest of his face remained serious. ‘Sad business.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Franklyn took out his notebook and a pencil.

  ‘Don’t mind Frankie taking notes, sir. Just for the record.’

  ‘I’m not sure I see how I can help you. I didn’t actually find the body – Doris Potter did that. And Dr Vintner can tell you more about Lady Youlgreave’s injuries – he must have arrived about fifteen minutes after I did.’

  ‘Oh, we have to look down every avenue, sir. It may be a cul-de-sac, so to speak, but we have to check. You wouldn’t believe how much of Frankie’s time is spent taking notes that turn out to be absolutely useless. But you never know, do you? You can’t take anything for granted.’

  Clough in his role as homespun philosopher was irritating me. ‘What exactly do you want to know?’

  ‘I wish I knew, sir – in a manner of speaking, that is. Something and nothing. In cases like this – sad death of old lady, who is already very ill – bound to have happened sooner or later, probably sooner – well, usually there’s no problem. Not as far as we’re concerned. And there may not be a problem in this case, either. But Dr Vintner thought that he should have a word with the coroner’s officer, and he thought we should have a word with you. In view of the circumstances, you see.’

  ‘Which circumstances?’

  ‘Well, first of all: the last person to see the old lady was apparently her cleaning woman, Mrs Potter. And that was at about seven o’clock on Friday evening. But the body wasn’t found till Monday morning. Now that’s –’

  ‘One minute,’ I interrupted. ‘Why didn’t the nurse from the Fishguard Agency go in over the weekend? Mrs Potter goes in – went in – during the week, Mondays to Fridays. But the agency nurse came in on Saturday and Sunday. Twice a day – morning and early evening.’

  ‘But not this weekend, Mr Byfield.’ Clough was watching me closely. ‘Curious, eh? Apparently, Lady Youlgreave phoned the agency on Friday evening – must have been about seven-thirty, they reckon – and said some relations had come to stay for the weekend, and they’d look after her.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that Lady Youlgreave had any close relations. But I do know that she didn’t like using the telephone.’

  Clough struck a match and held it over his pipe. The pipe made a gurgling sound. ‘Why did you go and see the old lady on Friday, sir?’

  I did not want to involve myself in explanations concerning the bird table. I could imagine Clough’s reaction. Lord Peter had already made me ridiculous enough in the eyes of the police. I took the morally dubious course of avoiding the question while seeming to answer it. ‘I regularly visited her, Sergeant. It’s part of my job to visit the old and infirm.’

  He nodded, and I had an uneasy sense that I might not have misled him. ‘How did she seem? In good spirits?’

  ‘As well as could be expected. Dr Vintner can fill you in on her state of health, if he hasn’t already. But she was declining rapidly. She was also in a great deal of pain. But yes, we had a chat, and I left at about half past five.’

  ‘How mobile was she? In general, I mean.’

  ‘It rather depended how she felt.’ I could not see where these questions were tending. ‘She spent most of her time in her bed or in her chair. But she could move about with the help of a Zimmer frame.’

  ‘Could you describe to us exactly what happened this morning? What you saw at the Old Manor House?’

  ‘Everything? I don’t understand.’

  ‘It was unfortunate, sir. After you and the doctor had been, Mrs Potter was by herself in the house for upwards of an hour. No doubt the poor lady was in a state of shock. Anyway, she started tidying up. Moved the old lady into her chair. Covered her up. Hoovered. When she opened the door to us, she had a duster in her hand.’

  ‘Perhaps she didn’t realize that she shouldn’t move anything.’

  ‘The doctor said he’d told her.’

  ‘Then,’ I said, ‘as you say, it must have been the shock. But why is this so important? Does the coroner think that Lady Youlgreave’s death was suspicious?’

  ‘We have to tie up the
loose ends.’ He veered away on a tangent. ‘Talking of which, how did people get in if they called at the house when Mrs Potter wasn’t there?’

  ‘There’s a key hidden at the back of the house. It’s been there for years.’

  ‘Who knew about it?’

  ‘Anyone who needed to, I imagine. I think Mrs Potter has her own key, but there are a number of other people who went in regularly, and they would use the key in the kitchen yard if Mrs Potter wasn’t there to let them in. It’s under the flowerpot by the door.’ I paused, assembling the possibilities. ‘I knew about it, and so did Dr Vintner and the Fishguard Agency. There’s a weekly delivery from Harrods, and I know the man sometimes let himself in when Mrs Potter wasn’t there. And there may well have been others. Do you think that Lady Youlgreave had another visitor after Doris Potter left on Friday evening?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think yet, sir. I’m just working out the possibilities. Would Mrs Byfield know about the key?’

  ‘Yes, she did.’

  Clough looked at me, waiting for more.

  ‘My wife has been working on Lady Youlgreave’s family papers during the last few weeks. She used to sit with Lady Youlgreave in the dining room, and work on them there.’

  ‘What about the dogs? How do they react to visitors?’

  ‘They bark if they have the energy.’ I swallowed. ‘Too old to do anything else except eat and sleep.’

  ‘So if a stranger turned up, they wouldn’t have seen him off the premises?’

  ‘I doubt it. They might have barked, but no one outside the house would have heard.’

  Clough nodded. ‘And now, could you tell us what happened this morning?’

  I leant back in my chair. ‘We were having breakfast in the kitchen when Mrs Potter phoned. It was a little after eight o’clock. She was very upset. But I understood from her that Lady Youlgreave was dead. She said something about the dogs, too, but …’ I swallowed. ‘But I thought the shock had made her confused – even hysterical. I phoned Dr Vintner and then went round to the Old Manor House at once. The dogs were in the back garden. There’s an iron gate at the side of the house and they were poking their noses through the bars and barking at the dustmen.’

  ‘Did the dustmen know what was happening?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. Their lorry was parked on the road. One of them had just collected the bin by the gate.’ He had been a grimy little man who had not wanted to meet my eyes. I had said, ‘Good morning,’ automatically, but he walked past me as though I were somewhere else; and all the time he whistled ‘Waltzing Matilda’ at a tempo suitable for a funeral.

  ‘And where was Mrs Potter?’

  ‘She opened the front door before I rang the bell.’ Pink-rimmed eyes but no tears. Cheeks pale and lined like crumpled handkerchiefs. ‘She took me along to the dining room straightaway and showed me Lady Youlgreave.’

  Clough was turning his pipe round and round in his hands. ‘Take your time, sir. Take your time. Tell us exactly what you saw, what the room was like, where the old lady was.’

  I swallowed again. ‘She was lying face down on the carpet near the window. Roughly midway between her chair and the fireplace. Her head was by the corner of the fender. The Zimmer frame was on the hearthrug, lying on its side.’

  I paused and reached for a cigarette. The room had smelled of faeces and urine, human and canine. I saw the telephone on the table and the tin trunk on the floor. Lady Youlgreave’s father-in-law glowered down on us from his vantage point above the fireplace.

  ‘She was in her night clothes.’ A nightdress, bed socks up to the knee, a dressing gown. Her head lying on its side on the hearthrug, eyes open wide as if in astonishment, and mouth open wide, too, as though snapping at a fly. Bare pink gums. I had never seen Lady Youlgreave without her teeth. ‘The nightdress had ridden up, or perhaps the dogs had pushed it up. Up to the waist.’ Pale, wrinkled legs; not much strength in them and not much nourishment either. Brown stains, and in those parts which were relatively fleshy, the sight of raw meat. ‘The dogs had obviously been starving,’ I went on slowly. ‘I suppose that’s why James Vintner had to get in touch with the coroner’s officer … You know what dogs are like when they get old, Sergeant? Often their training begins to slip away from them. Their taboos no longer have the same force. Like humans, really. They had tried to eat her –’

  I broke off. Clough stared blandly across the desk at me. Franklyn wrote in his notebook.

  ‘Damn it,’ I burst out, surprising myself as much as the two policemen. ‘What have you done with the dogs?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that, sir,’ Clough said. ‘We’ll look after them for the time being. Now, to go back to this morning: tell me about the rest of the room.’

  ‘It was much as usual.’ Apart from a pile of dogs’ excrement beside Lady Youlgreave’s armchair.

  ‘Were the curtains drawn across the window?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The table by the chair: was there anything on that?’

  ‘I think there was a book.’ A slim volume in a green leather binding: The Voice of Angels. ‘I suppose she must have got up after Mrs Potter left her in bed. Her bedroom’s next to the dining room. She probably went in there and read for a bit. And then she stood up and tripped, I imagine.’

  ‘Suppose you’re right,’ Clough said. ‘She stands up. Why should she move towards the fireplace?’

  ‘Her medicine was there.’

  ‘Ah. The medicine.’ Clough scratched the sparse tuft of hair above his right ear. ‘Now that’s interesting. It’s in a bottle, right? You know what it looks like?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And did you notice it this morning?’

  ‘No. I had other things on my mind.’ I remembered Lady Youlgreave’s hunger for her medicine. ‘I suppose she was going to give herself a dose, and as she walked towards it, she stumbled on something. The edge of the hearthrug, perhaps.’

  There was a silence. Something was wrong, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Franklyn yawned. Clough stared over my shoulder and out of the window, his face sad.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ I said slowly. ‘When I was there on Friday, Doris said something about leaving her medicine out in the bedroom.’

  ‘She did. In three separate glasses to cover the period until the nurse turned up on Saturday morning. But they’d been knocked over.’

  ‘So that would explain her going into the dining room?’

  Clough did not answer. ‘Tell me, Mr Byfield, have you known Mrs Potter long?’

  ‘A good ten years.’

  ‘Reliable, is she?’

  ‘Extremely reliable. She’s a regular churchgoer so I know her well. And she’s done a great deal for Lady Youlgreave.’

  ‘Surely she was paid for that?’

  ‘I don’t think the money was particularly important. Lady Youlgreave and Mrs Potter had known each other for years.’

  I pulled myself up short, knowing that I was on the verge of becoming angry. In their own way, the two women had been friends; and Doris had given far more than she had ever received. Clough’s questions were like a cynical chisel, chipping away at Doris’s kindness.

  ‘So Mrs Potter and the old lady got on well?’

  ‘Very well.’

  Clough sighed. ‘We have to ask these questions, sir. I know it must seem tiresome, but there it is.’

  ‘Will there be an inquest?’

  ‘Not for me to say, sir. It depends on what the coroner thinks.’

  I allowed my eyes to stray back to the notes I’d been making for Vanessa. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘No, not at present.’ Clough stood up and extended his hand to me. ‘Thank you for your time.’

  We shook hands and I came round the desk to show them out. As I stood up, I caught movement in the corner of my eye – movement on the other side of the window. I looked out and was just in time to see Michael running to the side of the house. Had he been eavesdropping? The window was
open. Clough and Franklyn seemed to have noticed nothing.

  I followed them into the hall. ‘Sergeant?’

  Clough turned back. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Just a couple of points about Miss Oliphant’s cat.’

  ‘Ah. This won’t take long, will it?’

  ‘No. But I thought I should let you know that there was something on Lady Youlgreave’s bird table the other day. She told my wife and me that she thought it was a head.’

  ‘A head?’

  ‘A small one, badly pecked by birds. We wondered if it might have been the cat’s.’

  ‘Did you have a look?’

  ‘Yes, but by the time I did, there was no trace of it.’ I paused, then added: ‘She said someone brought it there in a paper bag.’

  There was a snuffling sound from Franklyn: barely concealed laughter.

  ‘So who did she say put it there?’ Clough said.

  ‘She couldn’t or wouldn’t say.’

  ‘I see.’ He put his hand on the door handle. ‘And did you say there was something else?’

  ‘You remember I phoned you about the place where the cat might have been cut up?’

  Clough nodded.

  ‘It’s called Carter’s Meadow. Our local poet, Francis Youlgreave, is said to have cut up a cat in the same place.’

  After another pause, Clough said, ‘Thank you, sir. All a bit speculative, if you don’t mind me saying so, a bit vague. But I’ll bear it in mind.’ He opened the front door. On the threshold, however, he stopped and turned back to me. ‘Oh – by the way. You know those young people up at Roth Park? The Cliffords?’

  I felt myself tense. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know if they ever met Lady Youlgreave?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. They’ve not been living here that long.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Clough put his hands in his pockets and sauntered towards the car, where Franklyn was unlocking the driver’s door. Franklyn was still snuffling happily.

  ‘Why?’ I called after him. First Trask, now Clough.