Chapter 35

 

“This is a delicate situation and I want you to leave the talking to me.”

Bill Brown found his face was hurting from clenching his teeth. As if there was even a remote chance that he’d stick his oar in and start asking questions anyway in the presence of his highness. Why did the Inspector persist in stating the blindingly obvious? Of course he was going to keep his mouth shut. Of course he knew he’d been brought along just to make up the numbers.

The Peters lived, as the Major had said, four miles outside Ellbeck. Bill Brown knew the family vaguely as they were Methodists and occasionally attended the same chapel as his mother. He’d never heard about the tragedy in their lives though–maybe not surprising–it smacked of a story that would be well buried. The thought of it, the injustice of it made his guts twist and tears of rage prickle the back of his throat. However, he was well aware that he’d have to keep all these feelings to himself. His job was to accompany the Inspector and presumably to keep his eyes and ears open.

If he hadn’t heard the story, Brown would have thought that the Peters family lived in the ideal spot out here. He knew the exact word to describe it as he was good with words–when he could get one in. The word was pastoral. Even in August, when the ground was tired and plants and grass dying, it still was green, up here, with trees and high hedges–the road that took them to Outer Ellbeck was narrow and you could barely see for the profusion of growth on either side of the road. The house was unpretentious–the normal stone-built cottage, but there was space and privacy and you wouldn’t have anyone bothering you.

There was a woman tying up flowers to stakes and they could hear somebody working in a lean-to shed. The woman straightened up and wiped her hands on a hessian sack she’d attached around herself in place of an apron. She looked well into her sixties and was unsmiling. A man came out of the shed as the two policemen got out of the car. Both looked suspiciously at the car and Brown guessed that visitors might be a fairly rare occurrence up here.

If anyone had told Brown that Inspector Greene was capable of showing the amount of tact that he did in the next few minutes, Brown would have argued that it was impossible–out of character.

“Mrs. Peters?”

“Yes, that’s right. Can I help you?” She looked at Brown’s uniform.

“Or have you come with bad news for us?” Brown thought that the woman was unnaturally calm even though her words showed fear.

“No, not what you’d call, bad news, ma’am but we’d like to talk to you and it’s a delicate matter. Would it be possible to come inside for a minute?”

He glanced at the husband who hadn’t uttered a word, but who led the way into the house.

Green briefly told the couple who they were and the woman put the kettle on, without referring to them.

She indicated a couple of armchairs that looked as if they’d been around a while, well-worn and sagging uncomfortably low. Instinctively, both men gravitated towards the table and pulled out a couple of kitchen chairs.

“It’ll be about our Jack.”

It was the man who spoke and the words fell into the kitchen with terrible resonance. It was the first words the old man had spoken, although when Brown looked at him, he could see that he wasn’t so much an old man as a careworn man.

“Now, his wife spoke, her tone scornful.

“Whatever more can they do to our Jack, father?” Then, she laughed, shortly.

The kettle sang and she went to fill the pot, her movements sharp; all the sound seeming loud–the water splashing into the pot, the bang as she put it down again on the stove. She stirred the pot with a large spoon and took mugs out of a cupboard. She was jerkily going through the motions of a hospitality she certainly didn’t feel.

That’s when the Inspector took control of the situation and for once, Brown was glad at his high handedness.

“I’m sorry to have had to come up here like this and bring any more trouble to your door. But, nevertheless it’s my job. Giles Etherington was shot and now a young woman has also died in suspicious circumstances.

Both of the Peters looked up at this.

“We have to follow every possible connection with Giles Etherington.”

He paused.

“In spite of your understandable anger, both of you, I still hope that you will give me that. We have to ask questions and in the course of that, sadly we have to rake over old coals.”

He stopped then and Brown hoped he wasn’t imagining the loosening of the tension in the room.

Somehow, the inspector had struck the right note. In this case, Brown recognised that he’d just been honest with them.

“We do understand, Inspector,” it was Mr. Peters who spoke.

“Life may have stopped for th’missus and me up here, but we know that isn’t the case for the whole world.”

Brown glanced at her and saw her lips compressed and her eyes downcast. It was clear that tears were not far away.

Still, Inspector Greene ploughed on and Brown recognised that it was the only way to go here, quickly and straight to the point. However unlikely it was that either of these people would have shot Giles Etherington–in fact it was ludicrous, there might be someone else here, a sibling maybe.

“What was done to our lad was brutal Inspector. And when I say, lad, that’s what he was. Think about it, eighteen years old; not very long before he’d been running round the field at the back with a football and pushing an old cart he’s knocked together with a few other lads, down yon hill. What they did to him, destroyed him, ruined his nerves and then as a final insult, shot by ‘is own side; sentenced and shot to death by the very people as should ‘ave been looking out for him. Actually, no, Inspector…that’s not even the final insult–that’s that his family received no pension and lad’s name’s not on the monument in the village.”

Brown felt like there was a weight pressing down on the back of his neck. He supposed he’d no right to feel like that, but he couldn’t help it. The story weighed him down.

“I’ll tell you something Inspector,” Mrs. Peters continued, her voice stronger.

“I stayed away from Chapel for a few years since the day we got the news and I’ve never voted, ever since, since women got the vote that is. I’ve nothing against Mrs. Etherington or her children, but I can feel no sorrow for what befell th’man–that’s how it is. All we ask now is to be let get on with our lives up here.”

“I can see your point, Mrs. Peters but I still must ask you a few questions. Is it just the two of yourselves, here now?”

She saw what he was getting at and Brown saw the flash of anger in her face and her battle to contain it.

“Yes, Inspector–there’s no one left in this house to do any harm to Colonel Etherington. Our two remaining children have long gone. Our Jimmy took hisself off down south, not far from London, working on the railways. The girl, our Kitty is fairly local though, married and settled. I daresay it wasn’t easy for them living in this house in the time after the war. We’re not big mixers, Inspector, but there was a party in Ellbeck on Armistice; a bonfire, a brass band, that sort of thing. Can you imagine how that made us feel? We stayed away, but it were hard to miss the signs of it when I went to The Miss Sowerbys for my bits and pieces of shopping.”

Again, there was a silence and Brown felt a twist of pity for them, in his chest.

They drank their tea and the conversation seemed painful–dragged out. After such a grave subject, it was difficult to lighten the mood.

As they drove away, Brown couldn’t see that the answer to the case lay in Outer Ellbeck but surely, there must be some connection?