I drove up to the Gittings’ house and parked the car on the gravel drive. Black clouds scudded across the sky above me. We would be in for a storm very soon.
As before, the door opened a crack. ‘You can clear off, Mr Tressider. I’ve tried to help you and you’ve repaid me with insolence and disloyalty. You’re not welcome here and I’ve told Tom to have nothing more to do with you.’
‘I know you killed Robin Pagham,’ I said. ‘I know how you did it and I know why.’
For a long time two steel-blue eyes observed me. Derek Gittings’ expression did not change. ‘Go to the police, then. They investigate murders, don’t they?’
‘I’d like to talk to you first. I’ve plenty of evidence against you. But it doesn’t incriminate Tom.’
Again, a long unblinking stare, then: ‘Fine. Have it your way. Let’s talk.’
He shuffled ahead of me in his old carpet slippers, switching on lights as he went. The strawberry thieves still decorated the wallpaper in the study, but there was a new sense of order. Two large black plastic sacks in the corner bulged with waste paper. On the desk was a single pile of letters to be dealt with – the circulars and junk mail had vanished. The bookshelves too seemed to have been pruned and rationalised. But a lot of the defiance had gone out of Derek Gittings. He dropped into his chair, his shoulders hunched, and looked at me. ‘So, where do you want to start?’
‘In 1848,’ I said, brushing away some dog hair before I sat down. ‘Robin’s death makes sense only in the context of the Herring Field murder and what happened immediately afterwards. It explains why he had to die and why his death couldn’t wait.’
Derek Gittings laughed. ‘You’ve got it all worked out, then?’
‘A lot of it. So, to begin at the beginning, the death of John Gittings benefitted one person and one person only – his brother George. George gained the estate and John’s fiancée. The fiancée, Jane Taylor, was what would then have been described as a flighty piece. She was leading both men on – and possibly not just them. I think that John had discovered what had been going on behind his back and arranged to meet George at the Herring Field to have it out with him. George killed him with Lancelot’s knife.’
‘It’s not a new theory,’ said Derek Gittings. ‘I suspect that a lot of people at the time thought Pagham had been stitched up. And a local historian took a look at it a few years back and said he reckoned that George had been the one who had gained. Tom wasn’t giving away any family secrets when he suggested you might turn it into a book. If he’d known the whole story I doubt he’d have let you go anywhere near it, but he didn’t. He couldn’t have.’
‘But you do know more than that?’
‘If it helps you at all, then yes. What you say is correct. There was apparently a deathbed confession of some sort – thirty years too late to save Lancelot Pagham. George did it all right. And it was much as you describe. George claimed he had met John there to talk things over, they’d argued and then he’d discovered in his pocket a knife he’d found on the green the day before.’
‘So, he hadn’t intended either to kill John or frame Lancelot?’
‘You think not? Well, you’ve read the evidence. Somebody sent the note to Lancelot sending him over to Itchenor on a wild goose chase. And, as you say, the testimony of George’s future wife, at Lancelot’s trial, suggested that there might have been something going on between her and Lancelot. George may have had a good reason for wanting the blame to fall where it did and put a second rival out of the way. His own intervention at the trial appeared to support Lancelot but actually damned him. Very clever, you might say. Maybe even the deathbed confession wasn’t as frank as it might have been, or maybe it’s been edited a bit over the generations. There are some things we’ll never know.’
‘But Perceval Pagham knew George was the killer?’
‘He told George he’d seen him, thought he was acting oddly and followed him to the field.’
I thought of the devil’s sudden appearance in the tale of The Murderer and the Devil.
‘So, he preferred to blackmail George rather than save his brother?’
‘Again, apparently so. It depends a bit whether he really was a witness or whether he worked it out later, after the trial, and just claimed to have seen it. However he did it, he certainly convinced George that he had the dope.’
‘And Perceval’s price was the Gittings’ estate,’ I said. ‘Bit by bit. How did they come up with the scheme?’
‘Perceval went to George and initially demanded the lot,’ said Derek Gittings. ‘George’s reply was that he could scarcely hand over the whole estate without exciting a great deal of suspicion. He might as well go to the authorities straight away, make a confession and get it over with. Perceval went away and consulted a lawyer – a man named Smallwood – and came back with a plan that he thought was watertight. Perceval was to sell George the Herring Field. In return George was to make over to him the freehold of the Gittings’ estate. Perceval then sold George, for £500, a thousand-year lease. So George got it all back again, minus just the £500 and gained the Herring Field.’
‘That’s the lease that was missing from the file at Chettle and Smallwood?’
‘I have a copy and I assume Robin had a copy. I think my grandfather demanded ours back from the solicitor – he never quite trusted them not to let the cat out of the bag. As young Morton did.’
‘And the lease specified some ground rent?’
Derek Gittings smiled bitterly. ‘Of course it did. That was the whole point of it. I think you’ve already worked it out pretty much, though perhaps not the exact percentages. The ground rent was one quarter of the value of the estate whenever the current leaseholder died. It was payable to Perceval and his heirs for ever – or rather until the Gittings family was completely ruined.’
‘His heirs being defined as …’
‘Precisely, you mean? “The heirs male of Perceval Pagham and his descendants” was the wording. Believe me, the words are etched on my brain. The eldest son was to inherit first, failing which the second, and so on. No daughters.’
‘And if there were no male descendants?’
‘Generations of lawyers at Chettle and Smallwood have pondered that one. The consensus was that if there were no legal heirs, the lease was still good for the remaining term, but that no ground rent was payable because there was nobody entitled to it.’
‘So, as long as there were Paghams, one quarter of the remaining estate was lost each time the owner died?’
‘Exactly. George died – according to the records – in 1875, so Perceval lived to collect. He’d already put the £500 to good use and bought a small farm. Now he was able to add a substantial chunk of land to it. Then the following year George’s eldest son, John, also died. That was another big slice out of the estate – one quarter of the remaining three-quarters. John had a young son, also called John – maybe guilt made them try to keep the murdered man’s name alive. John Gittings III, as I shall call him, survived until the nineteen thirties, just to spite the Paghams, but further deaths in 1950 and 1984 meant all that was left was the house and a few acres around it. And the Herring Field, of course – that is ours freehold and always will be.’
‘The death in 1875 – there was a story that George was taken away by the devil.’
‘You’ve read Curious Tales of Old Sussex?’
‘Yes.’
Gittings laughed. ‘You want to know what happened?’
‘I’m curious.’
‘George had kept the whole story from the rest of the family – for obvious reasons. Maybe he’d hoped there’d be no surviving Paghams to collect by the time he died. But in 1873 or ’74, his son John became seriously ill – cancer, I think. George was getting old. He knew that if he died and John succeeded, then passed away shortly after in his turn, almost half of the estate would vanish just like that. But he had a good chance of outliving John and handing over to John Gittings III direct, thus losing only a quarter. He also had a Plan B, which was that, if he died first, his death was to be concealed until after the elder John had died, limiting the damage to the same amount. At some point there must have been a family gathering at which he revealed to the horrified family what he had done.’
‘And George did die first?’
‘Yes, in 1874. So Plan B went live. The family simply told everyone he was sick and unable to appear in public. And they waited for John to die. But he didn’t.’
‘And people started to ask questions about where George was?’
‘Precisely.’
‘So what then?’
‘I think you know – it’s as you discussed with Tom. Their options were limited. They couldn’t keep George’s corpse around the house indefinitely. According to family tradition, they buried George in a desolate and lonely place, where there was no chance of it being found. Until Whitelace interfered, I had no idea where, but it transpires it was the Herring Field. I suppose it was obvious, when you think about it.’
‘But the DNA results …’
‘What DNA results?’
‘Tom did a DNA test. The body wasn’t an ancestor of his.’
‘I wish he’d asked me before he did it. I could have told him who it was …’ Derek Gittings paused. ‘The tests are sometimes wrong. In this case they must be. It was George. I can promise you that.’
‘So, when was the secret burial?’
‘I’ve no idea. Probably very shortly after he died. It would have been awkward if the body had been found. They may have thought they could just claim he had gone away.’
‘But the rector got the truth out of them?’
‘So it would seem. To prevent a scandal, they reluctantly announced his death, about a year after he had actually died, and held a funeral but with no body.’
‘Then when his grave was opened again to bury his wife, they found it empty.’
‘Is that right? I didn’t know that little detail. John died a few months later and the Paghams got the second chunk of the estate.’
‘But the lease could have been challenged in court, surely? It had been signed under duress. It was in effect a sort of fraud.’
‘Yes, but there was a further clause. If the contents of the lease were ever made public by the leaseholder or his representatives, then the whole lease was forfeit. It all had to be handed back to the Paghams. That might have been overturnable too, but none of my ancestors felt quite confident enough to make the challenge in open court and risk losing the lot. I knew about that advice back in the fifties not to go to a tribunal. I’d assumed it as the final word on the subject until I heard what Morton had told you. I’d always suspected that if there was ever any conflict of interest between us and the Paghams, Chettle and Smallwood would know which side their bread was buttered on …’
‘So, whatever the case may have been in law, none of the leaseholders believed they could tell anyone about the terms of the lease – not even their own family?’
‘Some probably did tell them – George must have done, as I said. Others felt that it was a burden they had to bear alone until they could hand it over to the next generation. I didn’t learn anything until my father was dying. We had a long talk in which he explained it all to me: why there would be very little for me to inherit, why the loss of land over the years hadn’t been down to poor management and gambling debts – the story that was generally believed – but to the steady attrition of an ancient blackmail.’
‘Does Tom know?’
‘Not yet. His turn would have come in due course. I’d better tell him straight away. He needs to know.’
‘So, you were the “old man” Robin was waiting for to die, so that he could collect.’
‘I suppose I must be.’
‘Couldn’t a deal have been struck? There must have been a point when it would have been worthwhile for everyone if your family had just bought back the freehold?’
‘If the Paghams had been willing to sell. But I think they rather liked taking their revenge for Lancelot’s death a slice at a time. There was no love lost between the families. Actually, I’d tried to do a deal with Robin myself. We knew each other well. We sailed together. He was a friend. I knew he needed cash and he knew I could last another twenty or thirty years before he could collect on the blackmail again. It might not happen in his lifetime, the way he was living it. And there was less and less, as the years had gone by, for the Paghams to collect a quarter of. Tom stood to inherit a small fraction of the original estate. So, to end the feud, I offered Robin the Herring Field, with the prospect of planning permission for a small wind farm – in return for releasing us from the terms of the lease and letting us keep what little remained. I’d done all the research, spoken to all the right people. It wasn’t such a bad deal. And he was a friend.’
‘But he wasn’t interested?’
‘At one stage … but then he decided it wasn’t worth it. I was cross to begin with. I’d expected better of him. Couldn’t we just lay the whole thing to rest after all these years? But then I began to wonder whether I needed to do a deal at all. The Paghams were not lucky with their offspring, as you may have gathered. Cecil Pagham had five boys, four of whom died in the First World War and a daughter who died in the 1919 influenza pandemic. His only surviving son, Gawain, had three children. Two died in the war – one in North Africa, one on D-Day. The third was Roger, Robin’s father, who was much younger than the other two. For years the whole contract had hung by the slenderest of threads. Just one death would end the whole thing. Robin, as you know, was the last of the line. He showed no sign of marrying and producing legitimate heirs and every sign of killing himself with alcohol or drugs. There was every chance we’d made our last payment, anyway.’
‘Then Robin got engaged to Sophie?’
‘That’s right. Lovely girl. I’d known her for years – she spent family holidays in West Wittering as a child. I almost saw her as one of my own. But totally wrong for a wife-beater like Robin. I knew what he’d done to other girlfriends. I had to stop it.’
‘So you got Tom to intervene?’
‘He’s a good lad. I sang Sophie’s praises to him. Encouraged it in every way possible. Made sure I got them together.’
‘And you split Robin and Sophie up?’
‘Best thing from every point of view.’
‘But it didn’t work out between Tom and Sophie?’
‘Once she’d left Robin, it was job done. I didn’t discourage Tom, of course …’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘Well, maybe a bit. It didn’t seem quite right in some ways …’
‘While they stayed together it reminded you of what you had done?’
‘Of what I’d had to do,’ he said.
‘Then Catarina arrived on the scene?’
‘It wasn’t just that. I knew the wording of the lease back to front. What worried me increasingly was the definition of “heirs male”. I wasn’t sure that a court wouldn’t rule now that illegitimate children could inherit as well – indeed, if somebody had tested it back in the nineteenth century the courts might even have taken the same view. The lease didn’t, after all, actually specify legitimate children. Just the eldest male child. That made a successor far more likely – a real and present danger, in fact.’
‘So, Robin had to die before he had any children at all.’
‘Yes. He had to die. He was a good friend, of course. But he had to die. I did try to reason with him – put forward the Herring Field scheme again. But he was having none of it. So, my thoughts turned to more direct routes. The whole bloody business started with a murder. It could end with a murder too – only this time I’d make sure that there would be no witnesses. At first, I wondered about a drug overdose – easy enough to arrange and not likely to create much of a surprise. I actually got Robin to supply me with some cocaine and other things, ostensibly for my own use, so that I could administer them to him at a later date. But there was always a chance that some meddling person would find him in a coma and get him to hospital in time. And anyway, as I say, he was a friend. I didn’t want him to die quite so sordidly. I reckoned, however, that I could rig up a sailing accident that would be much better from every point of view. I waited for a day when the weather conditions were right and when I knew Robin would be going out – when you can sail from Snow Hill depends a lot on the tides – I could predict his sailing times. I watched the tide tables and the weather forecasts – it didn’t take too long. A day or so before, I went down to the sailing club and made a few alterations to his rudder. It would get him out of the creek, but as soon as it was under any pressure the whole thing would sheer off, leaving him helpless.’
‘Wouldn’t that have been obvious when the boat was found?’
‘Trust me – I know about sailing and I know about making deaths look like accidents. On the day, I’d invited myself over to talk to him about the Herring Field again – there might be money to be made from fracking – though I knew he really had no interest in doing a deal. I’d asked him to make sure we were alone and could talk properly without being overheard – sensitive stuff – big profits to be made. His natural greed and curiosity made him send Catarina off to Chichester for the day. Of course, when I explained it all, he saw that the revised scheme was just the old scheme with a few bells and whistles. He got the field and planning permission. Nothing more. So it was nothing doing. Strange to think that if he’d just said “yes”, or even prevaricated a bit, he’d still be alive today. As it was, I just had time to slip the Rohypnol into his coffee when he was out of the room. I wasn’t sure how well he’d drive after that, so I’d already disabled his car by disconnecting the battery. When it failed to start, I kindly offered him a lift. I’d already delayed him more than enough, so he quickly accepted. I actually helped him get the boat ready. We were the only ones down there. Nobody else fancied going out on a winter’s afternoon with a stiff breeze blowing.’
‘What if somebody had seen you?’
‘I’d have had a bit of explaining to do, but Robin would have been dead for all that. However bad the outcome for me, I’d have been able to hand over to Tom what remained of the estate, unencumbered by the terms of the lease. That was the main thing.’
‘Unless Tom was implicated too.’
‘I did everything I could to avoid that. Tom knew nothing of the lease. And I arranged for him to be out of the way that day. I phoned Sophie and told her that Tom would like to meet up with her again but was too embarrassed to ask. She knew Tom well enough to know that was possible. I said he’d suggested the museum – that was the sort of place that Tom would suggest, bless him. Then all I had to do was to tell Tom that Sophie had called him and left a message. He got back to her and confirmed it all. They must have both found it a bit odd, but the result was right. They went off to Singleton together. He had a witness.’
‘That explains the confusion between Tom’s account and Sophie’s – both thought the other had made the first move and that they had some specific motive for doing so.’
‘I also told Tom to make sure he kept the receipts, just in case he decided to write an article on the museum for the Observer. He could reclaim them as expenses. Of course, more to the point, they would also prove where he was – and where Sophie was – if things had gone wrong. I wasn’t having either of them caught up in it all.’
‘I used the same idea in a book of mine,’ I said.
‘Did it work for the murderer there?’
‘For a while. Then somebody spotted a discrepancy. Murderers usually get caught in fiction. They’d get nobbled on page two if it wasn’t for the red herrings. There were a few red herrings in this case too. For a while I suspected Barry Whitelace. I actually think he would have killed to prevent the wind farm. He tried to kill Robin himself, but was less determined than you. I also suspected Sophie – perhaps in collaboration with Tom. And finally there was Martina Blanch.’
‘Martina?’ asked Colonel Gittings.
‘Yes. Did you know that she was descended from Perceval’s sister, Morgan Blanch – Morgan after Morgan le Fay, I assume, and Blanch after whoever she married. She was well aware that she stood to inherit the estate if Robin died childless and without making a will.’
‘Yes, she’d have got most of it, but not being a descendant of Perceval himself, she couldn’t have collected on the lease. That would still have been at an end. I think she’d have still married Robin, oddly enough. Women think they can tame a man like that. She’d have found out that she couldn’t, though Catarina might have done it.’
‘I also thought that Robin might have been killed by drug smugglers. He was heavily involved in smuggling it would seem.’
‘I know. Robin had quite a loose tongue. He told you all sorts of things when he was drunk. He was stupid to get involved with people like that – they could have bumped him off without a qualm of any sort. But in the end the killer was me and me alone.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And what proof do you intend to present to the police? I assume you have something?’
‘No, not a lot. I sort of lied about that – a bit like Perceval Pagham, perhaps. And I haven’t recorded this conversation on my mobile phone. I’m not sure I know how to. But I can tell them about the lease, which I imagine you or your lawyer will be obliged to disclose. You’ve admitted you keep one copy. My guess is there is at least one more, locked away in a safe, guarded by Robin’s lawyers at Chettle and Smallwood. From what you said, the police will find traces of drugs around this house, even if you’ve disposed of the bulk of them. And you won’t be able to account for your whereabouts at the critical times because you were exactly where I shall claim you were. Since this is a village, I suspect that more people will have noticed you going about your business than you might imagine. Martina and Sophie were certainly spotted at the sailing club that morning. Somebody will have seen you, whatever you believe. It’s just that the police haven’t yet asked the right people the right questions.’
‘If the police show up, I’ve no intention of denying anything. Robin beat up his girlfriends and, whatever Tom may have told you, used Rohypnol on women whenever he felt it might be to his advantage. He was also charming, generous and great company, but that’s beside the point. I’ve killed plenty of men over a long career – they were necessary, unavoidable deaths. This is merely my first in a civilian capacity. It’s strange to discover now that, if Morton is right, there was always another way out of the lease. But for all that, I don’t regret killing Robin. He knew how much the terms of the lease hurt me. He called himself a friend and could have saved me and my family all that pain at a stroke. He could have accepted my offer of the Herring Field. He could just have torn up the lease if he wished. But he couldn’t be bothered. On that last morning he literally laughed in my face. It was with great pleasure that I watched him sail away. Anyway, whatever happens to me, Tom inherits the house and the rest of it. And he’ll have an eight-hundred-year lease that is perfectly marketable if he wishes to sell, as he may. He’ll be the first owner of this house for a hundred and fifty years who could actually dispose of it on the open market. Of course, I’d still rather save him the embarrassment of a trial for murder and having to give evidence. All I’d ask is a few hours’ notice if you’re going to have me arrested. I’ve still got to finish clearing my desk and putting things in some sort of order. I’ve made a start. This wasn’t entirely unexpected.’
‘Tom put me onto it,’ I said. ‘He suggested I researched the Herring Field murder.’
‘Don’t blame him in any way,’ said Derek Gittings. ‘When he came back from the funeral and told me that Catarina had asked you to investigate Robin’s death, I told him I thought that was a bad idea. There was plenty in Robin’s past that, as a friend, I didn’t care to see dug up. Better let sleeping dogs lie. I asked him to divert you in some way. In one sense his choice was inspired – offer you a real-life mystery set in the village in which he lived. What he had no idea of was that it was connected to Robin’s death. And the more I pushed you back to the 1840s, the more you seemed to want to find the links through to the present day.’
‘I need to think about what I’m going to do,’ I said. ‘I’ll phone you when I’ve decided.’
‘Thank you, Ethelred. That’s kind of you. I’ll await your call with interest.’
Colonel Gittings looked at me. There was no fear in those eyes. There was not even much curiosity. He seemed to have made up his mind what he would do, regardless of my own decision.
I went for a walk to clear my mind. What was right? Derek Gittings was a murderer. But Robin had, frankly, had it coming to him – a blackmailer, a minor drug dealer, a rapist, a man who thought that it was OK to slap women around a bit and break a nose or two. The police weren’t looking for anyone. Nobody else was going to get arrested by mistake. And yet, it wasn’t my decision. I ought to hand him over and let the DPP decide what to charge him with.
A couple of minutes’ brisk walking brought me to Snow Hill. On the green, the ragged winter grass was waterlogged and deserted. Over by the sailing club a small depression was becoming a pond, on which the water rippled. I looked over towards the dunes of East Head, where I had planned to go, and wondered if I was wise to venture that far. A stiff breeze was now blowing. The grey surface of the creek, normally placid, was being whipped into angry little waves that crashed against the shingle, making it sing. The South Downs, crystal clear on a fine day, were no more than a watercolour smudge on the horizon. The storm that I had felt approaching earlier was almost upon me. But I needed to keep walking. The first drops of icy rain hit my face, but I plodded on, my jacket darkening with the moisture and my trousers dampening and clinging to my legs.
By the time I reached the beginning of the dunes at East Head, with its great arc of dog-walkers’ sand, grey waves were thudding against the sea wall. A solitary gull rose above me, struggled for a moment in the gale and then, accepting the inevitable, allowed itself to be carried sideways, in one great swoop towards the sodden fields.
On an impulse, I turned left, away from the dunes, following the beach eastwards, along the line of bleak, padlocked beach huts. The wind threw a spray of sand in my face, leaving me blinking and wiping my eyes. I sheltered for a moment in the porch of one of the huts.
Taking out your phone once you are stationary is now almost a reflex action. The first thing that I noticed was that I had missed a call – Tom Gittings. He’d obviously heard I’d been to see his father. I’d call him as soon as I got back home and out of this storm. I took the shortest route back, via the ruler-straight estate road and past the church. I was still no clearer what I ought to do, but I had no immediate plans to contact the police. I supposed I ought to let Derek Gittings know that, at least.
In a carefully nuanced assessment of urgency, I had hung up my wet coat but was still in my soaking corduroy trousers when I got out my phone to return Tom’s call. Just as I did so, however, it rang again.
‘Where are you, Ethelred?’ Tom demanded.
‘Back home. I’ve been for a walk. Sorry I didn’t reply to your first call. Is it urgent?’
‘Dad phoned me. He’s told me everything. Your visit – the lease – Robin’s death. Did you pass Snow Hill on your walk?’
‘Yes. On my way out. I came back the other way.’
‘Did you see Dad there? Or did you see his car parked by the sailing club?’
‘I was there maybe forty-five minutes ago. I didn’t see anyone around. The weather was foul, even then. He’d hardly be going sailing today.’
‘When I got home a few minutes ago I found a note saying he was planning to take the boat out. He’s not answering his mobile.’
‘But it would be suicidal,’ I said. ‘Even if he was planning to take the boat out, he’ll have changed his mind when he sees the conditions. I can’t see how he’d even get it launched. It’ll only take me a couple of minutes to get to Snow Hill and check. I’ll ring you back but I’m sure it will be absolutely fine. He won’t do anything silly.’
I didn’t stop, not even to lock the front door. I ran down the road towards Snow Hill, my freezing fingers fumbling with the buttons on my coat as best I could, the rain dripping down my face.
The storm lasted three days. The coastguards called off their search the following evening. The boat was washed up a couple of weeks later, somewhere in Hampshire.