Simon Tolkien - The Inheritance

“You’ve got no evidence for that.” Clayton couldn’t contain his irritation at Blake’s air of self-satisfied certainty.

“I don’t need any. There’s a big market for that sort of thing, you know, particularly in a place like Oxford, with all those weird university types. Apparently this girl over at the manor had some tropical skin disease or something like that. A lot of people like that. Adds to the price.”

Blake smirked, amused by the look of disgust written across Clayton’s face. There was nothing he liked more than getting a rise out of police officers who were a bit green behind the ears. It was a small revenge for being stuck in a dead-end job. Police photographers remained just that. There was no promotion ladder for them to climb.

Clayton was still trying to think of some clever one-liner that would shut Bert Blake up once and for all, when Jeanne Ritter finally lost her self-control. Her husband had watched the colour drain from her face as she took in the impact of what the fat man was saying. Perhaps she would have been able to absorb the shock if she hadn’t thought that he had been talking about her before. But now her eyes were opened, and she realised what a fool she had been. Silas had been avoiding her for months. Love struck, she had put it down to his fear of Ritter, when it should have been obvious even to her that he’d just lost interest.

Except that it was worse than that. Silas had got bored of her because he wanted Sasha Vigne. Jeanne felt wave upon wave of angry jealousy grip her body like electricity. She needed to get out into the open, and she pushed her chair violently back against the wall and ran out of the room.

Ritter got up as if to follow her but then resumed his seat. His wife was highly strung, and he knew she was worried about giving evidence, but that didn’t seem enough to explain her strange behaviour. Still, there’d be time to ask questions later. For now, he had to stay put in the waiting room. The usher had told him on the way up that he was the next witness due in court.

Clayton followed Jeanne out. He’d turned around in time to see her sudden departure, and he felt he needed to talk to Trave about what had happened. The photographer watched Clayton leave with a grin and then turned his attention to the policeman’s newspaper.

Standing in the witness box, Reginald Ritter looked exactly like what he was: a sergeant without his uniform. His black suit, white shirt, and tie were pressed to military standards. His shoes shone and his thick moustache had been waxed at each end. He’d used more than half a bottle of expensive hair oil back at the manor in order to flatten his curly hair onto his scalp, and he had the overall appearance of a man eager to serve his Queen and country by giving evidence for the prosecution. It cheered Gerald Thompson up just to look at Reg Ritter. Here was the kind of witness he wanted. A military man. And that was where he’d start. With the sergeant’s credentials.

“What do you do for a living, Mr. Ritter?” he asked.

“I’m between jobs at present. I used to work for Colonel John Cade. Up until he was murdered.” Ritter shot a glance at Stephen in the dock. He hadn’t seen the boy in months, and he liked what he saw now. Long hair, disheveled, slumped in his seat. This was getting to Stevie, and there was worse to come. Ritter had seen hangings. In France at the end of the war. They weren’t a pretty sight.

“How would you describe your relationship with your late employer?” asked Thompson.

“Very good. He always treated me well, and I looked up to him. He was a brave and generous man, and the world’s a worse place without him.”

Ritter felt pleased. He’d practiced this little speech in front of the mirror at home, and now he’d got to say it in full, right at the start of his evidence.

“When did you first meet Professor Cade?”

“The colonel, you mean. I always called him that because we were in the war together. He was my commanding officer all the way from France in thirty-nine through North Africa in forty-two and back to France at D-day. We went all the way after that: Battle of the Bulge and into Germany. He was a war hero. Simple as that.”

“And more recently you worked for the colonel at Moreton Manor in Oxfordshire?”

“Yes. My wife, Jeanne, and I went to live there in 1953, and we’ve been there ever since.”

“Tell us about the relationship between the colonel and his youngest son, Stephen, during that period,” asked Thompson, ready to focus in on the accused now that his victim’s good character had been established.

“He was away at boarding school for the first few years that I was there, and then he had some time on his hands before going to university. It was the summer of 1957, and he was at the manor house almost all the time, causing trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“He had it in for his father. Wouldn’t leave him alone, even though the colonel was a very sick man by then. Eventually Stephen left home, and then he had nothing to do with his father until a couple of weeks before the murder. Acted like he didn’t exist.”

“What happened then?”

“He wrote to the colonel asking to come out to Moreton, and the colonel agreed. He was generous like that. He didn’t hold grudges. So Stephen came to lunch. Brought his girlfriend. And then they came again the following Friday to stay the night. I don’t know what his game was, but that was the night the colonel was murdered.”

“We’ll come to that in a moment, Mr. Ritter, but I just want to ask you first about what you knew at the time about the colonel’s testamentary intentions.”

“His what?”

“His will.”

“Well, I always knew he was going to leave me a legacy, if that’s what you mean. I’d been with him a long time.”

“Yes, I understand that, Mr. Ritter. But do you know what he was intending to do with the rest of his estate?”

“Well, in the last months before he died, he did talk about changing his will. He wanted the house to be a museum for his manuscripts. And he’d decided that I was going to be one of the trustees. Not because I knew anything about the manuscripts, but because he knew he could trust me.”

“Who else knew about this?”

“I don’t know. He was going to see his solicitor, but he obviously didn’t get round to it, because he hadn’t changed his will by the time he was shot.”

Thompson paused before asking his next question. He’d like to have added that somebody must have got to the colonel first, but he wasn’t entitled to comment, and besides, the implication was clear. The jurors weren’t fools.

“I’d like to focus now on the murder itself,” he said. “Tell us what happened on that night, Mr. Ritter.”

“Well, Stephen and his girlfriend were staying the night, but otherwise I’d say it was a fairly normal evening. I don’t really remember what we talked about at dinner. Afterward, the colonel went to his study like he usually did. He wasn’t a good sleeper, and he did a lot of his work at night. Jeanne and I went to bed quite early. I don’t know what anyone else did.”

“Where is your bedroom? Use the plan if it helps you, Mr. Ritter.”

“It’s on the second floor of the east wing, with windows looking down on the main courtyard. It’s next to the colonel’s bedroom, and his study is directly below.”

“Did you go to sleep?”

“Yes. With my wife. I was woken up because someone was shouting down below.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I’d just woken up. It sounded like a man, not a woman. I can’t really say more than that.”

“What was he shouting?”

“I don’t know. It sounded like he was shouting for help, but it could have been something else.”