Death in the Greenhouse Read online

  DEATH IN THE

  GREENHOUSE

  J.R.L. ANDERSON

  CONTENTS

  IThe Paper Boy

  IIThe New Minister

  IIIAt the Foreign Office

  IVNewbury

  VA Trip North

  VISome Little White Flowers

  VIIThe Box

  VIIIThe Foreign Office Again

  IXAfrica

  XThe Mission Station

  XIPursuit

  XIIBetrayal – and Something Else, Perhaps

  About the Author

  Copyright

  THE J.R.L. ANDERSON COLLECTION

  The Peter Blair Mysteries

  Death on the Rocks

  Death in the Thames

  Death in the North Sea

  Death in the Desert

  Death in the Caribbean

  Death in the City

  Death in the Greenhouse

  Death in a High Latitude

  The Piet Deventer Investigations

  A Sprig of Sea Lavender

  Festival

  Late Delivery

  Other J.R.L. Anderson Mysteries

  Reckoning in Ice

  The Nine-Spoked Wheel

  Redundancy Pay

  For

  Ricarda

  I

  The Paper Boy

  SIMON JONES, the paper boy, was always glad to get to Vine Cottage on Saturdays. It was a little outside the village and at the end of his round, a tiresome round on Saturday mornings, because it was the day for collecting money. Most people were pretty good, but some were awful – never had any change, ‘Let it wait till next week’, ‘I’ll call at the shop and settle with your father later’. They didn’t always keep their word. One bill was now over twelve pounds, and Simon knew that his father would not be pleased when he got home and reported that he had again had no luck at that particular house. It wasn’t that they were poor, two cars, and always a crate of empties waiting to go back to the pub. But they were bad payers, and it isn’t easy to deal with bad payers in a village where everyone knows everyone else. Simon’s father, once an engineer in the Merchant Navy until an accident to a boiler left him crippled, had invested all he had in the village stores, and the giving of credit was a constant headache. He and Simon’s mother worked most of the hours God sends, serving in the shop, driving their elderly van to the Cash-and-Carry to buy stock, and in the evenings doing accounts. It was a living, but only just, and Simon, at fifteen, was beginning to understand what a struggle his parents had. It made him angry when people who could well afford to pay their debts just didn’t bother.

  So he was glad to get to Vine Cottage, where old Mr Quenenden always had his paper-money ready, and always added 25p for, as he put it, ‘The service charge, my boy’. Mr Quenenden’s weekly 25p was a valuable part of Simon’s pocket money.

  Simon propped his bicycle against the wooden gatepost and walked down the short neat path to the door of the cottage. Mr Quenenden’s garden always looked a treat, and, in a quiet way, the village was proud of it. He was an incomer, of course, and would remain so, for all that he had lived in Newton Blaize for nearly twenty years. But he kept himself to himself, went to church regularly, and behaved to everyone with a rather old-fashioned politeness that identified him to the older villagers, to whom such terms still had meaning, as a gentleman. Few local people had ever been inside Vine Cottage, but some had: collectors for the St John Ambulance Brigade and seekers after jumble for Women’s Institute bazaars would be asked courteously if they would care for a cup of tea, and out of curiosity they would accept. These reported that although Mr Quenenden was unmarried, had no housekeeper and did for himself, his cottage was as clean as a new pin, beautifully tidy, with bookshelves from floor to ceiling and with some queer bits of ivory and wooden carvings about the place. He had once given a small ivory figure for a Women’s Institute jumble sale. Nobody quite knew what to make of it, and as it was considered rather ugly it was priced for sale at 50p. Out of kindness of heart it was bought by the Vice President of the village WI, who put it away in a box. When she died a few years later her property was inherited by a nephew, who lived in London. He sold the ivory figure to an art dealer for £600, without ever knowing how his aunt had acquired it.

  The gardener at Blaize House grew Chlorophysum Quenendenium, a lovely miniature African lily, in his greenhouse, but it never occurred to him that it was a variety discovered by the old boy living at Vine Cottage.

  *

  Simon, who had left home on a cup of cocoa and a biscuit, was looking forward to his breakfast. On other mornings he simply pushed Mr Quenenden’s Times through the letter-box, but on Saturdays he always gave it to the old man when he opened the door. He took the paper from his haversack and knocked on the big wrought-iron knocker. He expected the door to be opened almost at once, but it wasn’t. ‘Funny,’ he thought, ‘he’s always up early. Perhaps he’s out at the back.’ He knocked again. Still no one came.

  He glanced at the garage, to one side of, and a little behind the cottage. It was shut, so it didn’t look as if Mr Quenenden’s car was out. Beyond the garage was Mr Quenenden’s greenhouse. The door of this was open.

  Simon, a country boy, knew enough about greenhouses to know that on mornings in early April their doors are seldom opened unless someone is inside them. ‘That’s where he’ll be,’ he said to himself. ‘I should have thought he’d have heard or seen me come, but maybe he’s getting a bit deaf. He won’t mind if I go across.’

  Mr Quenenden was undoubtedly in his greenhouse. But he was lying face downwards on the floor, his grey hair caked with blood from a wound in the back of his head. Simon had never seen a dead person, but he knew instinctively that Mr Quenenden was dead. He ran to his bicycle and rode home as fast as he could to tell his father.

  *

  ‘You can’t be quite sure that he’s dead. I’d better go up in the van at once,’ Mr Jones said. ‘Tell your mother, and ask her to get on to the police at Newbury. You’ll have to keep an eye on the shop while she’s telephoning.’

  It took only a few minutes to get from the shop to Vine Cottage in the van. Mr Jones found everything just as his son had described it, and he was pleased that the boy had kept his head. One look through the greenhouse door was enough to tell him that Simon was right – there could be no life in that still figure lying on the floor, and the wound in the back of his head was an ugly thing. ‘Poor old boy,’ Mr Jones thought. ‘Did no harm to anyone as far as I know, paid his bills and was well respected. Don’t see how that wound could have been an accident. There’s no pane of glass fallen on him, and there’s nothing else to fall.’

  He did not enter the greenhouse. ‘Better leave things to the police, they won’t want me marching around and messing up footprints or something,’ he told himself. ‘But I’d better stay here in case anybody else comes. Why do these things always have to happen on a busy Saturday morning?’ He sighed, but as an old seaman he knew his duty.

  He was not alone long. Simon came back, pedalling furiously, let his bicycle lie on the path with its wheels spinning, and ran to his father. ‘Mum told me to tell you that the police are on their way,’ he said. ‘Oh, Dad, whatever do you think happened? He was such a nice old man.’

  ‘Don’t know, son,’ Mr Jones said. ‘You did all right – it’s not a quarter of an hour yet since you got here with the papers.’ He went on gently, ‘But I don’t think this is any place for you, Simon. I expect the police will want a statement from you, but they can get that at home. Besides, you haven’t had any breakfast. Slip off now, have some breakfast, and give Mummy a hand in the shop. She’ll need it on a Saturday morning.’

  ‘I don’t want any breakfast, Da
d. I want to stay with you.’

  ‘That’s nice of you, son, but I’d rather you went home. It can’t be long before the police get here, and I don’t suppose they’ll want to keep me long. With any luck, I’ll be home soon after you. Better not say anything to the customers – Mummy will know that.’

  Much as he wanted to stay, Simon was an obedient child, with a good relationship with his parents. He knew that his father meant what he said. He had thought that he didn’t want any breakfast, but when he got home and smelt the bacon that his mother had put on the hotplate in the kitchen for him he experienced the healthy truth that, whatever happens, somehow life goes on.

  Constable Rogers in a patrol car was the first policeman to arrive. Mr Jones knew him slightly, for shopkeepers are often visited by the police with inquiries of one sort and another, and Constable Rogers was one of the regular men who came to Newton Blaize.

  ‘Morning, Mr Jones,’ he said. ‘Got a radio call to come here – the CID and a doctor are on their way from Newbury. What have you got for us?’

  Mr Jones said nothing, but indicated the open door of the greenhouse.

  ‘Good Lord! Looks a bad business. How did you come to find him? Do you know him?’

  ‘Yes, he’s a customer, and a good customer at that, Mr Quenenden. He’s lived here for years, longer than I’ve had the shop, but he’s not regarded as a Newton Blaize man, no more than I am. My boy Simon found him this morning on his paper round. He collects money on Saturdays, and he knocked on the door in the usual way. No one came. Then he noticed that the greenhouse door was open, so he looked in, expecting to find Mr Quenenden inside. When he saw him lying like that he came straight back to me. I drove up in the van to see if there was any help that I could give, but I saw at once that there wasn’t. I didn’t go inside, but waited here for you to come. It was my wife who phoned Newbury.’

  ‘Where’s Simon now? We shall want a statement from him.’

  ‘He came back here to tell me you were on your way, but I sent him home – bad enough for the kid to find someone like that, without hanging around and getting morbid. You can see him at home any time you like.’

  ‘Well, we’ll do our best not to upset him. What time would you say it was when he found the body?’

  ‘It was just on a quarter past nine when he got to the shop. It couldn’t have taken him more than five minutes to cycle from here. Say around nine ten.’

  Constable Rogers wrote in his notebook. He stood with Mr Jones at the door of the greenhouse, but did not go in. ‘If there were anything we could do we’d have to get him out, but the CID’s not best pleased if we interfere with things, so I reckon we’ll stay here,’ he said. ‘Looks to me like he’s been shot.’

  The body was not more than six feet away from them, and the wound in the back of the head was clearly visible. ‘I thought maybe a pane of glass had fallen on him – the point might make a wound like that, I suppose,’ Mr Jones said. ‘But the glass in the roof is all intact, so it can’t be anything to do with glass. But who on earth would want to shoot him?’

  ‘Was he liked in the village?’

  ‘Can’t say he was exactly liked, because I don’t think anybody knew him very well. Didn’t seem to have much to do with the village, but always a cheerful “Good day” if you happened to meet him. He was well respected, and nobody that I know of would want to hurt him.’

  Speculation was interrupted by the arrival of another police car, bringing Detective Inspector Keith Rosyth and the police surgeon Dr Wilfred Fremlin. After a hurried explanation of Mr Jones’s presence the inspector and the doctor went to the dead man. Dr Fremlin knelt beside him and gently parted the matted hair around the wound. Then he lifted the still head and studied the forehead. ‘Undoubtedly a bullet wound,’ he said. ‘There’s some bruising, but no exit wound. Probably a .28 – a .45 or even a .32 would have done more external damage. We shall know definitely when we do the autopsy. Fired at fairly close range, but not point-blank.’

  ‘Can you say anything about the probable line of fire?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘Well, that depends on whether he was standing up. From the way he has fallen I’d say he probably was standing, with his back towards whoever fired the shot. From the frontal bruising of the forehead it looks as if the bullet followed a more or less horizontal path. The bruising is towards the right temple, which suggests that the man behind him was standing slightly to his left. But you can’t be sure, because the bullet may have been deflected inside the skull. In broad terms, I’d say that he was shot by someone standing more or less directly behind him, and probably a little taller than he was. The dead man is . . . what? About five feet eight or nine inches. From the nearly horizontal path of the bullet I’d put the attacker at around six feet. You can’t be sure of these things, of course, but that may serve as a rough guide.’

  ‘And the bullet was presumably fired through the open door?’

  ‘There’s no broken glass in the door, so obviously nothing was fired through it. The alternative assumption would be that whoever fired it was in the greenhouse with the victim, but I think that’s ruled out by the condition of the wound. There’s no burning, and a shot within the greenhouse would have been at very close range. It’s more likely. I think, that the shot was fired from outside, but not far off – three or four yards, perhaps.’

  A short flagged path from the drive to the garage led to the greenhouse. In a flower bed to the left of the path was a big French currant, just coming into bloom. Inspector Rosyth paced the distance from the bush to the greenhouse door – it was just under four yards. ‘He could have stood behind this bush,’ he said. ‘It seems about the right distance.’

  The greenhouse was aluminium-framed, about twenty feet by ten, big for a garden greenhouse. There was wide staging along both sides, with not much more than a yard of working space between the staging. ‘I can’t do much in here,’ the doctor said. ‘Can you get him outside?’

  The inspector took a piece of chalk from his pocket and ran it round the body, tracing the outline of exactly how it was lying on the greenhouse floor. Then he and Constable Rogers lifted the dead man and carried him to the path outside. He was slightly built and not heavy – the doctor’s estimate of his height seemed about right. When the body was lifted a plastic potting-tray, big enough to hold two or three rows of little pots of seedlings, was lying beneath it. The edges of the tray were broken and there was a scattering of earth or potting compost that seemed to have come from the tray, but there was no sign of any broken pots. ‘Looks like he was holding the tray when he fell,’ Constable Rogers, who was a gardener, observed. ‘It wouldn’t be a growing-tray, though – not enough earth. Probably just some bits that spilled over from the pots that stood in it. Wonder what he had in the pots.’

  With more room on the flagged path, the doctor was able to examine the body more closely. Mr Quenenden was wearing a roll-top pullover and a pair of old corduroy trousers, and when the doctor turned up the pullover to feel his chest it was apparent that he had on pyjamas underneath his outer clothes.

  ‘Something disturbed him, he put on some clothes over his pyjamas and went out,’ the inspector said. ‘Can you say approximately how long he’s been dead?’

  The doctor considered this for a moment. Then he said, ‘There’s some heat in the greenhouse, and that would delay cooling. The blood from the wound has had time to coagulate, but it’s not yet wholly clotted. That may be due to the warmth of the greenhouse, of course. He’s not been dead long, but I’m afraid it’s impossible to give a precise estimate of when he was killed. At a rough guess I’d say about three hours ago, but with the heat in the greenhouse it might easily be a bit longer.’

  ‘He was found at about ten minutes past nine. Three hours from that would make it just after six – it would be getting light then, and if he saw anyone he’d hardly have been standing with his back to the greenhouse door,’ the inspector said. ‘Of course, whoever it was may have been hiding be
hind this bush. I’d have thought it more likely, though, that it was a little earlier, when it was still more or less dark.’

  ‘Well, the medical evidence wouldn’t conflict with that – we may know a bit more after the autopsy. But don’t forget the path of the bullet. It was very accurate shooting, even at fairly close range, and one would think that scarcely possible in the dark.’

  ‘A good point, that . . . And now, doctor, is there anything more that you want to do here?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Short of something surprising turning up at the autopsy, there doesn’t seem much doubt about the cause of death. The sooner we can get him away to the mortuary the better.’

  ‘We asked for an ambulance before I left. It ought to be here at any minute. Yes, I think it’s come now.’

  It had. The pitiful remains of Mr Quenenden were placed reverently on a stretcher, and taken away.

  *

  Mr Jones, feeling unhappily in the way but not liking to go off before he’d been told to, wanted to get back to his shop. ‘Is it all right for me to go now?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sorry to have kept you,’ the inspector said. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you a few questions, but I’ll be as quick as I can. You came here as soon as your son told you what he had seen?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been lame ever since my accident, so I came in the van.’

  ‘Can you tell us anything about Mr Quenenden?’

  ‘Not much, apart from his being a customer. He was a good customer, bought most of his groceries as well as papers from the shop. I used to deliver his bread. We don’t do meat as a regular trade, but there’s no butcher in the village and we get meat to order for a few customers from Newbury. We used to get a joint for Mr Quenenden most weeks.’

  ‘So you knew him quite well?’

  ‘I didn’t really know him at all, save as a customer. He was always polite, and never any trouble about his bill.’