A Short Time to Live (Miss Pink Book 4) Page 4

  ‘Someone did.’ Bright halted the car on the sweep outside the Storms hotel. They stared through the windscreen at the mountains which looked very clear and close.

  ‘Foul play?’ Rumney asked.

  ‘Well, she didn’t do that to herself,’ Bright said acidly. ‘Here’s Mossop.’

  They got out of the car slowly and deliberately. Miles Mossop was a fat man who had once been powerful; he had the body of a wrestler gone to seed. He was dressed in wrinkled jeans and a grubby shirt strained over his obese stomach. He had long thin ginger hair with a bald patch, luxuriant sideburns and pale grey eyes. His face was large, soft and sagging, and he regarded them with an expression of irony tinged with contempt. If he was surprised by the appearance of the doctor he didn’t show it although his eyes did rest for a puzzled moment on Rumney in his working clothes. They greeted him and he grunted a response. The doctor looked past him to the hall.

  ‘What’s up?’ Mossop asked.

  ‘We’ve got bad news for you.’

  The publican’s face was blank. ‘About what?’

  ‘Peta.’

  ‘What’s happened to her?’ The eyes flickered to Rumney.

  ‘She’s been hit by a car.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Just near the foot of the drive.’ Bright’s voice climbed as if the position of the body had suddenly astonished him.

  ‘I haven’t been in her room,’ Mossop said. He sounded dazed. Bright started to speak but the other went on flatly, as if he guessed the answer. ‘How bad is she?’

  There was a pause in which Rumney threw a glance at the doctor, obviously wondering whether he should give more than moral support, a pause during which Mossop’s face lost its hostility and his jaw dropped, and the doctor, relieved that the other had guessed the truth, nodded.

  ‘She’d been dead for a long time, Miles. . . . She died immediately.’

  The man’s mouth snapped shut and he glared at them, his head swinging from one to the other like a bull threatened on two fronts, then he turned his back and went into the hotel. The others exchanged a glance and followed.

  He’d gone to the cocktail bar where he drew himself a large whisky and drained it at a gulp. He made a move to pour another then checked and, turning, put both hands on the counter, still holding the empty glass, and glared at them.

  ‘I can’t take it in. Dead. You did say she’s dead?’

  ‘There’s no doubt, Miles.’

  His look was stricken. ‘What do I do?’ he whispered.

  ‘You can’t do anything at the moment,’ Bright pointed out, ‘I’ll have to report it to the police—’

  ‘Will they be bringing her here? The wife?’

  Bright looked at Rumney. Suddenly Mossop cried: ‘How does he come into it? Did he find her?’

  ‘I was putting the gimmers in the meadows,’ Rumney explained easily, ‘Jackson Wren was with me.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  Bright said, ‘I haven’t—it’s impossible to say, yet.’

  Rumney said, ‘There was hardly any frost on the coat—’ and stopped.

  Mossop’s eyes opened wide. ‘She were out last night.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. I saw her go out about nine, nine-thirty. I didn’t see her come back. You haven’t told me what happened down there.’

  ‘She had head injuries,’ Bright said.

  ‘Is that what did it?’

  ‘I haven’t done a full examination but—it would be the head injury, yes.’

  ‘Was she on t’road?’

  ‘In the ditch, as if she’d—’

  ‘As if what?’

  ‘As if the car had thrown her there.’

  Bright turned away and caught Rumney’s eye. The doctor had been about to say ‘as if she’d been put there’. He was used to seeing death from violence, impact deaths, and he was thinking that, for a body that had been thrown in the ditch by a car, it looked terribly neat.

  Chapter Five

  Peta Mossop’s body was found on Saturday and the resulting revelations shocked the dale, but for reasons of age or personal problems some people were able, as the week wore on, to forget about Peta, at least for short periods. At Sandale House on the following Friday afternoon, old Mrs Rumney and her granddaughter, Arabella, regarded the scones and cakes on the kitchen table and speculated on nothing more sinister than the present whereabouts of Zeke.

  Grannie Rumney was pear-shaped with narrow shoulders and broad hips. Her hair was white and fine, drawn back to a plaited bun at the nape of her neck, and she had deep, hooded eyes: the eyes of a matriarchal turtle. At eighty-five her sight was not so good as it had been and, although she didn’t bump into furniture and could still measure ingredients when she was cooking, she gave the impression of looking beyond the object of her regard. Arabella said she was a seer.

  ‘When do we take it to the other room?’ the girl asked, indicating the food. She wore a white jersey and a red flannel skirt to below her knees, and Lapp boots. With her curling black hair and the deep Rumney eyes—a very dark blue in her case—she was a vivid complement to the old lady.

  ‘We don’t set the table till she comes.’ There was reproof in the tone. ‘Food would look bad in the room, catching dust.’

  ‘It’s doing that here.’

  ‘She can’t see it though.’

  ‘I wonder what she’s really like,’ Arabella mused, going to stand in the window. ‘Tough as old boots, Zeke says; all leather brogues and Scottish tweeds: everybody’s maiden aunt—that’s what he said, and a climber and a lawyer as well. What a wild mixture!’

  ‘No, it’s your uncle’s old friend, Ted Roberts, who’s the retired lawyer. This lady is his friend; I believe there’s an understanding between them.’ Arabella stared. ‘She writes love stories,’ Grannie continued, ‘and she’s a magistrate and Mr Roberts says she’ll catch the man who’s stealing our sheep.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Arabella breathed. ‘There’s Zeke; oh look, he hasn’t changed his clothes!’

  Rumney and the old collie came in the back door (which was in the front of the house but called the back to distinguish it from the main entrance which was down the street a bit). He regarded his womenfolk and the food anxiously.

  ‘I hope she’s not going to be late,’ he said. ‘Penelope looks as if she’s coming down.’

  ‘Coming down?’ Arabella glowed with delight.

  ‘Calving—and she’s one you have to be with all the time; she frets on her own.’

  The dog pricked his ears and stared at the door. Rumney cocked his head. Grannie, who appeared to be counting the scones, asked, ‘Is that her?’ A dark Austin 1100 slid to a halt outside the window.

  There was the familiar movement of a lady picking up her handbag from the passenger seat, then the driver’s door opened and Miss Pink stood up smoothing her skirt and regarding the façade of Sandale House approvingly from behind thick spectacles. Rumney and the collie went out by the back door in order to admit her ceremoniously by way of the main entrance. Arabella and Grannie went through to the living room, carefully shutting the door behind them to keep animals out of the kitchen.

  Everyone entered the living room by different doors and Grannie launched into a little speech of welcome while Arabella took stock of the visitor.

  There were the brogues: beautifully polished with huge serrated tongues; ribbed brown stockings, and a coat and skirt in a tweed which fairly reeked of peat smoke. The shirt was in cream silk and the brooch at Miss Pink’s throat was a cairngorm. Her hair was thick, grey and tapered by an expert, her face round and roughened by Cornish gales. The frames of her spectacles were large, in a fetching marbled green. She carried a tan leather handbag and soft brown gloves.

  She greeted them, smiled at Grannie and Arabella and allowed herself to be seated in the best chair, which was placed by the range and opposite the jutting partition which protected the hearth from draughts. Having calculated how lo
ng she might withstand the heat from the fire, she had a momentary qualm when she observed that what she had taken for a very large dog on the hearth-rug was coloured curiously in the firelight and had far too many little legs, perfectly formed. When Arabella switched on a light this was revealed as a number of sleeping cats in an arrangement reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch but more pleasing.

  She answered polite questions about the journey from Cornwall and, after a decent interval, Grannie went out to the kitchen and Arabella started to bring in the food. As Miss Pink chatted she absorbed the atmosphere of this large low-ceilinged room where massive oak pieces stood in the shadows, hams hung from hooks, and twin seventeenth-century spice cupboards were set in the plastered wall either side of the Victorian range.

  Tea arrived, with home-made scones. Rumney drank delicately, his cup held in large red hands, the fingers swollen from working in the cold. Arabella explained about her being American and that normally she lived in Texas and that her mother had just parted from her second husband so Arabella had come to England not because she was unhappy but to let the others work things out, as she put it. Then she stopped talking because she thought other people’s marital affairs were boring. There was a break in the conversation.

  Grannie asked politely: ‘Do you think you’ll like the Lakes?’

  ‘I like them already,’ Miss Pink pointed out. ‘I’ve often come here on holiday; I’ve even walked down Sandale, but I’ve never spent any length of time here.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll have to now,’ Grannie said.

  Rumney turned his head inquiringly to his mother and Miss Pink asked carefully, ‘What makes you think that, Mrs Rumney?’

  The old lady looked at a spot over the visitor’s shoulder. ‘You’ll soon find who killed Peta Mossop,’ she said.

  There was a short silence and then Arabella said, ‘I thought Miss Pink had come here to try to find out who was stealing our sheep?’

  Rumney stirred. ‘I’ll have to go and look at Penelope in quarter of an hour.’ Miss Pink’s brows rose. ‘My cow,’ he explained. He looked at the old lady. ‘Mother is very perceptive. . . .’ Grannie watched the flames, her face expressionless. ‘I’ve only spoken to Miss Pink on the phone,’ he reminded his family, ‘so she doesn’t know what’s been happening: not the latest developments.’

  ‘You’ve found out who stole the sheep?’ Miss Pink asked politely.

  ‘Oh no. No. By the latest developments I meant the post mortem and the inquest on Peta Mossop. I told you that there’d been an accident at Storms’ bend; you’ll know the place if you know the dale. Well, it wasn’t an accident.’

  Silence.

  ‘It was murder,’ Arabella said.

  Miss Pink frowned, unable for a moment to bridge the gap between stolen sheep and murder.

  ‘The inquest was adjourned,’ Rumney said. ‘Her face was bruised and the post mortem found that the bruise was made some time before death—not long, but it didn’t coincide with the blow on the skull that killed her. That was caused by some blunt instrument. And they think she was put in the ditch late at night, or rather, in the early hours of Saturday morning because there wasn’t much frost on the coat, and the fields were white. She was definitely put there; she’d died somewhere else and been moved—something to do with post mortem staining? And then the wound had bled the wrong way, you see, for how the body was lying in the ditch.’

  Miss Pink followed this attentively but Grannie could have been listening to a report on the sheep sales.

  ‘On Friday night,’ Rumney went on, ‘Peta was at Lucy Fell’s place—that’s the house opposite, down past our barn. Lucy’s a widow and friendly with Denis Noble who was with her that night. Peta turned up after dinner, uninvited and rather drunk, and left about ten-thirty. They seem to have been the last people to see her alive. Mossop saw her go out about nine-thirty but didn’t see her come back. The police grilled him for forty-eight hours—he says—but apparently they couldn’t shake his story.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Miss Pink asked. ‘In detail?’

  ‘He closed early: around ten-thirty, and then he says he checked that there were no cigarettes burning anywhere and went to bed. Peta wasn’t around but he didn’t think anything of that.’ His eyes held Miss Pink’s. ‘It’s a somewhat irregular household. He’d locked up but she had a key, of course. She takes—took—sleeping pills and was a late riser. They had separate rooms and when the doctor and I arrived on Saturday morning after finding the body, he didn’t even know she was missing.’

  ‘Who gave you all these details?’ Miss Pink asked, merely for the record; she was a countrywoman.

  ‘It gets around, and the police have questioned most, if not all of us.’

  Miss Pink regarded him with a singular lack of expression. Arabella, who had been dying to interrupt, succeeded. ‘But you said you asked Miss Pink to come here to see if she could trace the sheep. Peta’s murder can’t have anything to do with that!’

  Rumney said heavily, ‘Mossop’s got a cattle wagon, and very good dogs. You know Sheepbone Moss?’ Miss Pink signified that she did. ‘Our sheep go up by Gathering Hill and right along the watershed above Rannerdale; they can—and do—go as far as the pass at Whirl Howe. You could bring them down off Whirl Howe and into a wagon hidden in the forest below the pass.’

  ‘What makes you suspect this Mossop?’

  ‘Apart from his knowing the fells and sheep—he’s got a few himself—he’s dishonest. He was up in court last week: stolen whisky was found on his premises. I don’t necessarily suspect Mossop; it’s just that whoever’s stealing our sheep knows our fells. I can’t think of any of our neighbours I dislike as much as Mossop.’

  Miss Pink considered this. ‘You think there is a connection?’

  ‘I’ve had a curious letter.’ Even his mother evinced interest as he extracted it from the pocket of his disreputable jacket, got up and, skirting the cats, handed it to the visitor. It was printed in regular characters on blue Basildon Bond paper and read simply:

  peta was getting anonymous letters.

  Miss Pink studied this and said, ‘It does seem odd to receive an anonymous letter about anonymous letters; the implication being that there are two letter writers: a “good” one trying to expose an evil one? Did you keep the envelope?’

  He shook his head. ‘That must have been cleared away. The address was printed in the same way—it caught my eye—and the postmark was Carnthorpe.’

  ‘Do you know anyone else who’s had similar letters?’

  None of them knew of anyone.

  ‘Have the police seen this?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I reckon everything’s related; sheep stealing’s big business nowadays, and if Mossop was the villain, it’s an odd coincidence that his wife should have been murdered. Who sent anonymous letters to her and what did they say? Who sent this letter to me? I’d rather not bring the police into it. We’re a bit clannish in Sandale,’ he explained, ‘and sheep stealing’s not the kind of thing you want noised abroad.’ She nodded; she’d lived most of her life in sheep country. ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘suppose it isn’t Mossop taking the sheep—which there’s no proof of anyway, any more than there’s proof of his killing his wife? They could have been stolen by some other neighbour.’ He thought about this. ‘That would be horrible.’

  Grannie said regretfully, ‘It’s a great pity it couldn’t be someone from outside.’

  ‘He knows our fells too well, Mother.’

  ‘It was right not to bring the police in.’ She nodded to herself. ‘We’ve always settled our own affairs.’

  Miss Pink caught Arabella’s eye. The girl said: ‘Sheep stealing, murder and anonymous letters: all in one tiny dale; there must be some connection. Where do you start?’

  Rumney turned to her. ‘What story will you tell people to account for your being here?’

  ‘I shall be looking for a cottage,’ she said firmly. ‘Is there a ruin which I might spend some time pok
ing around?’

  ‘There’s an old barn across the beck that belongs to some people called Dalton who own Burblethwaite. They applied for planning permission to convert it but I’m not sure what the position is about that. You could go and have a look at the place and even inquire of the tenant. Burblethwaite is let to a fellow called Harper.’ Arabella giggled and he went on good-humouredly, ‘I must attend to Penelope. Arabella will tell you about Harper, or rather, his visitor; I daresay she’ll do better at it than me.’

  He went out. Miss Pink looked at Arabella and thought what an expressive little face it was, far from conventionally beautiful with its broad nose and wide mouth but interesting to watch.

  ‘Mr Harper is a visitor from Surrey,’ Grannie intoned.

  ‘Oh, he’s not interesting, Gran—but that’s the point—’ Arabella turned to Miss Pink eagerly. ‘An old man—’ she began, and checked herself immediately, disconcerted, ‘well, middle-aged, but so dull! He had to sell his business because of the economic situation and he came here for a rest. He’s completely inarticulate and he doesn’t do anything but potter in the garden: digging up the Daltons’ bulbs and putting them back again furtively as if he’d found a grave, and going for little walks up to Dalehead—not farther because he says the mist comes down like a stone! And he’s terrified out of his life of burglars. Someone tried to break in at Burblethwaite and he had all the locks changed: front and back, even the coal shed! He’s got something called mortice deadlocks now.’

  ‘They have a lot of burglaries in the south,’ Grannie put in. ‘He told me. He’s worried about the stuff in the, place.’

  ‘Oh, Gran! An old television set and George Harper’s transistor! He’s so obsessed with the thought of campers breaking in, he’s forgotten it’s winter time and all the campers have gone home. And this is the astonishing thing—’ she turned to Miss Pink with saucer eyes, ‘here’s this funny little guy, who’s scared of his own shadow, entertaining the most marvellous person: well, what you can see of her as she goes by. . . . She drives a Lotus Europa—that is, she owns it; she can’t drive.’ She pursed her lips primly. ‘It’s O.K. doing a hundred on freeways if you’re very beautiful, because you can’t do any harm and you won’t even get a ticket from the traffic cops, just a proposition if they’ve got the nerve, but to do fifty up Sandale lane is not on. Funny,’ she mused, ‘George Harper can’t drive either.’