Reginald Hill - The Price of Butcher

I worked out that Ollie Hollis’s disappearance from the scene before the storm broke was perhaps significant. It occurred to me also to wonder why the hog roast had been delayed. I’d noticed there was some evidence of recent repair to the winding gear. Ollie’s handicraft? Perhaps. But it was well known that the actual creator of this complicated bit of machinery was Hen Hollis, persona non grata at the Hall since Hog’s death, but the first person Ollie would turn to if he experienced any serious problem. So what if Hen had been there, doing a favor for one of the clan and delighting in enjoying Daph’s booze and grub without her knowledge? Then she had stumbled across him…

I tried to hint at this possibility to Peter, but his mind was elsewhere. Ollie’s death went some way to fitting in with my theory, but all it did for Peter was provide a possible culprit, caught apparently in flagrante with regard to one crime, and reported as being at loggerheads with the victim of the other.

With the enthusiastic support of ace reporter Ruddlesdin, Peter was trumpeted as the fastest gumshoe in the east the following morning, only to discover the bays had withered before even he was crowned. With friends like Ruddlesdin, Peter really needs friends like you and me, Andy!

Then followed all that weird business about the forged will and Clara Brereton. This brought Teddy right into the foreground. Silly ass! If he’d paid any heed to Esther, he would never have attempted to contact Clara. He is the worst kind of fool-the kind that thinks he is clever!

But at the same time as Clara’s “accident” was leading Peter down another false trail, Clara’s involvement was stirring up some strange notions in me.

Wieldy was helpful here, feeding all the evidence and statements straight into his computer and thence straight into mine. As Esther got drawn into Peter’s net, I knew that unless I could make some sense out of all this, I would have to come forward and confess to my part. Meanwhile, following the old principle that a good lie is best constructed on a solid basis of truth, it seemed sensible to prepare something to keep Peter happy when he started getting close to Esther’s involvement. So we prepared a version that told the truth, except that it left me out.

Encouraged by the idiot Ruddlesdin, the media were already trumpeting another triumph for Peter. (Incidentally, doesn’t it bother you, Andy, that locally at least the media seem so eager to cry, The king is dead, long live the king!) Of course I would never have let it reach the point where Peter laid formal charges, but I was hoping to find a way to test my hypothesis that Hen Hollis must be involved before I came forward and confessed my part in the drama.

And then the sad discovery at Millstone Farm was made.

Everything fell into place. Hen, Daph’s sworn enemy, at the Hall without her knowledge or approval, had to be a prime suspect, didn’t he? His guilt-inspired suicide in the house she’d ejected him from, the house where he’d first seen the light of day, was the perfect end to what would come to look like Peter’s perfect investigation! It was also a result that cleared the Denhams and left me free to make my miraculous recovery (which I hope you’ve enjoyed!) and walk off with my beloved and now rather rich Esther into the golden sunset. I should have been as happy as Peter and the press at this conclusion to his labors.

But like you, Andy, I am both blessed and cursed with the kind of mind that cannot leave things alone.

I found myself recalling Pet Sheldon’s description of her encounter with Daph by the stable not long before her death. She was angry, yes. But what struck Pet was that she was hurt, she was upset.

Making Daph angry wasn’t difficult. Upsetting her was a lot harder.

Also I was troubled by the placing of Ted’s watch by the body. That was the act of a mind under control, not a mind spiraling into a panic that would rapidly lead to another murder followed by self-destruction.

And at a simple practical level, how would Hen have known he would find Ted’s watch with his clothes in the room where he changed in the Hall?

But above and beyond all these doubts, reservations, and queries, I had some special knowledge.

I have always been fascinated by the behavior of my fellow human beings, their vanities, their hopes, their fears, their strengths, their weaknesses, above all their deceptions both of themselves and others. So in the months I have been living here in Sandytown I have taken careful note of what goes on about me. It is marvelous how eventually such notes of things apparently disconnected and of very little consequence may, so long as you do not try to force an issue or superimpose a pattern, come together to make a clear and often surprising picture.

Charley Heywood has an inkling of this and will, I suspect, become a very fine clinical psychologist. You too, dear Andy, are in your own way a painter of such pictures, at times almost an artist. As I say, it is my suspicion you might already be sensing an outline that moves me to talk to you now.

What I had come to understand was that dear Daphne, a woman of strong appetites that the advancing years had done nothing to take the edge off, needed more than the odd encounter with a reluctant Lester to satisfy her needs. Once she had him chained up in the matrimonial bedroom, I do not doubt he would soon have been taught how to sing for his supper, but while the pursuit was on, she needed someone else to keep her in trim, someone vigorous enough to meet her high standards, and someone with very good reason to keep the liaison discreet.

She found him in Alan Hollis. He was in her employ. More, he was going to receive the reward of the freehold of the Hope and Anchor when she died. She could see him on a regular basis to “go over the accounts.” The frequency of these meetings surprised no one who knew her attention to detail in matters of money. The living accommodation at the pub was used only by Hollis himself, and by lawyer Beard and his secretary when they came to town. (Your own feeling that Miss Gay might be worth talking to suggests that your mind was already drifting in this direction, Andy. Am I right?)

So she felt safe and secure in using Alan as her source of regular servicing. And had she continued to regard this as a simple mechanical transaction, perhaps all might have been well. Alas for her (and this is often the case with the willful and self-centered personality) familiarity bred not contempt but something like affection.

She came to like and to trust Alan Hollis, and to believe her feelings were reciprocated.

Oh, Andy, there is a lesson here for you and for me. Never believe that those whom we use actually like us!

And now I must reach to the uttermost limits of hypothesis, based on such a flimsy ground of evidence and tragic hints that I can only justify it to myself by presenting it in the form of narrative fiction. Indulge me a while!

Daphne Denham, her soul in a state of considerable agitation after her confrontation with her deceitful nephew, looked out of her window and saw at his work the one man she knew could restore her inner harmony.

“Alan,” she called. “Would you step inside a moment, please. There is a matter of accounting I need to discuss with you.”

Hollis obeyed, they went up to her room, and a little while later she emerged, with the placid smile on her face of a woman whose entries have been double-checked and whose books are in perfect balance.

For the next hour or so she moved serenely among her guests, receiving their compliments and gratitude with graceful condescension, till a rough encounter with the uncouth Mr. Godley, a guest at her party only because he was a protégé of her neighbor Mr. Parker disturbed the even tenor of her ways. Seeking solitude to recover her equilibrium of spirit, she moved away from the main body of the party and found herself approaching the site of the actual hog roast. Irritated already that her man Ollie Hollis had sent word of a delay in preparation caused by some defect in the machinery, she was further annoyed not to find him by the roasting cage, basting the revolving pig.