Episode 1 - Prelude

Monday May 1st

She was lying on the kitchen floor; motionless because she was stone dead; face down because she had been attacked from behind; bathed in blood because she had been stabbed. The murder weapon lay on the floor beside her. It was her own favourite kitchen knife, one of those smart Japanese knives chefs use in smart kitchens: long, sharp, lethal and glistening, except that this blade was now dulled by congealed blood.

She was found by Mrs Baines, housekeeper at Huddlecourt Manor School, at four p.m., a time of day when the kitchen was not normally in use; the only time of day in which nothing was being cooked, prepared or cleared away.

What was Kitty Oldfield, cook at the school, doing in her kitchen at that time of day? Why wasn’t she resting in her room, as she normally did before starting to prepare the evening meal?

***

Mrs Baines phoned Cleo Hartley’s Investigation Agency even before notifying the police. But before phoning Cleo, she had phoned Dorothy Price, whom she knew only as a piano teacher, but who had appeared to know everyone in the district. Dorothy had told her to phone Cleo. Cleo offered to organize the ambulance services and police, which included calling Gary Hurley, Chief Detective Inspector at Middlethumpton Police Headquarters and top man in the homicide division. He would normally have delegated, but when Cleo called, he immediately offered to see to it himself.

“Are you quite sure she’s dead?” Dorothy had asked Mrs Baines.

Cleo asked Dorothy the same question.

“Mrs Baines said Mrs Oldfield was quite cold to the touch and there was blood everywhere.”

“Don’t touch Mrs Oldfield again, Olive!” Dorothy had said when she told Mrs Baines that she would drop everything and come to the school with Miss Hartley. We’ll help you to make any decisions about the evening meal and tomorrow.”

***

Huddlecourt Manor School occupied an old villa situated the other side of Monkton Priory grounds, in Huddlecourt Minor, the next village to the west of Upper Grumpsfield. It had been turned into a school only a decade or so ago. Some people liked to call the establishment a finishing school, like the ones they have in Switzerland for aristocratic young ladies needing a bit of spit and polish before doing the socialite rounds as debutantes in a world of haute couture and champagne. That sounded antediluvian to a modern American like Cleo, since girls often went to university these days and spent their free time visiting discos or chatting on the internet rather than learning old-fashioned airs and graces.

But everyone in the district had to admit that the girls did seem to be more disciplined after they had attended the school. Indeed, things could only get better for most of the teenage girls, though they regretted that it was now a girls’ school. The girls came mostly from sheltered homes, but parents who thought their offspring would lead sheltered and above all supervised lives were deluded.

The girls, or young ladies, as they preferred to be called, were usually there because there seemed to be no alternative. They had invariably been expelled from their previous boarding schools for misdemeanours including alcohol and, drugs and lads in their rooms, but they had to go somewhere. They were – to quote the locals – obnoxious when they came, and only a few were less obnoxious when they left.

Mrs Oldfield’s theory that they lacked love and affection was not well-received by Mrs Baines, who knew the girls better since she was in charge of the living quarters.

“If you had to clean up after them, you wouldn’t defend them,” she told Mrs Oldfield.

***

Kitty Oldfield had had a hard life she did not like to discuss. Mrs Baines gathered that she had worked to support herself for most of it and that romance and family had evaded her. Mrs Oldfield – given the Mrs prefix because cooks were traditionally called Mrs at establishments such as Huddlecourt Manor - was a middle-aged, rather corpulent spinster. She was fond of food, especially when she had cooked it herself. She was disgusted at the amounts left on plates by teenage girls aiming at hourglass figures.

Later, Mrs Baines reported that the cook had often been unwell, short of breath and short tempered. In her opinion the woman was past her sell-by date and it was actually quite convenient that the position of cook at the Manor was now vacant.

Complaints by the girls about fatty foods they were expected to eat had brought protests from parents who were otherwise largely indifferent to what their children got up to, and Mrs Baines was worried about the school’s reputation if Mrs Oldfield were to stay much longer. She had been considering the options for some time.

Some people would say that the cook’s death was providence. That is what Mrs Baines really thought, though she put on an act of extreme sadness. Later, Dorothy was to remark to Cleo that Baines was only sad because it was inconvenient to have to find a new cook all of a sudden. Dorothy was certain that Mrs Oldfield was going to be fired the end of the term, by which time it was hoped that a replacement would have been found.

“In other words, it was bad timing rather than hard luck for Mrs Oldfield,” said Cleo. “At least that exonerates Mrs Baines from being a suspect.”

“Does it?” said Dorothy.

***

The fact that the school would be left cook-less for half a term proved to be Baines’s best defence. Mrs Baines had no blood on her hands. That would have been too inconvenient and much too soon.

***

The school was not on a bus route. On foot, you could get there via Monkton Priory and Woods if you wore sensible shoes and didn’t mind climbing, since Huddlecourt Minor overlooked the surrounding villages.

Robert Jones, the family butcher Cleo lived with said the school, which he supplied with meat and his own special sausages, was a desolate place, not least because that's where the girls had been sent after being thrown out of other educational establishments.

Robert claimed that by appearing to toe the line at the school they were probably just making sure Daddy didn’t cap their allowance or cause some even worse punishment to come their way. Robert felt that his suspicions had been confirmed when boys were banned from attending the school after several erotic episodes in the dormitories caused the conservative villagers of Huddlecourt Minor to complain about the depravity. Dorothy said that it was the pot calling the kettle black.

Robert was assured a constant stream of gossip on the topic by his regular customers since there was no butcher’s shop in Huddlecourt Minor village. In fact, there was almost nothing in Huddlecourt Minor village save the pub, a free house with the unlikely name of The Olde Huddle Inn, run by buxom wench named Molly Moss, and the school.

Jobs in the village consisted mainly in the upkeep of the Manor grounds and buildings. Robert told Cleo that the few jobless young men who still lived in the village had apparently been seduced by the girls who attended the school. The same had applied to male students in the past. Those boys could be and were sent home, in contrast to the locals, who remained welcome prey for girls looking for sexual adventures.

***

Coupled with the departure of the male students, the headship had also changed. The former head had been forced out by the governors of the school, who were in turn answerable to those paying the fees, and thus highly susceptible to rumour and gossip. A scapegoat was needed and had been located in the figure of that headmaster, who was unceremoniously fired.

***

Beatrice Parsnip, respectable elder sister of the vicar of Upper Grumpsfield, the village directly below Huddlecourt Minor, consented to leave her comfortable post of schools’ inspector, in which she had condemned the school to closure. She would baby-sit the headship, rescuing the school from closure, though she had herself recommended it.

The previous job allocation had not been squeaky clean, but no one asked serious questions about how Beatrice had wangled the post. It was not a desirable one and Beatrice was probably forceful enough to cope, so she was at least an improvement on Augustus Blake, the dismissed school director. He transferred his working life to a small but thriving Third World corner shop that sold merchandise guaranteed to come from a Third World country if no questions were asked about the authenticity of the labels.

***

Friedrich Parsnip, a vicar of strong religious convictions and inexplicable faith in the goodness of human nature, was delighted that his sister had managed to get herself such a good job, not least because she could just phone him now and again and spend most of her time regimenting others.

The vicar did not like to have Beatrice quite so near, however. He was sure he loved her, but preferably at a distance. Now he could only hope that she would have so much to do at the school that she would leave her little brother in peace rather than put on her lace-up brogues and stomp down the hill and through Monkton Wood to see what he was doing.

***

The good news for the vicar included the novelty of improved attendance at his old parish church, St Peter's. Thanks to Beatrice, the girls were allowed out of school to attend the Sunday morning service. As long as they were back in school for a late Sunday lunch, they were in the clear even if they skipped the sermon. By leaving the church early, the girls who wanted to, which was most of them, had time to spend enjoying clandestine fun-and-games with local lads in Monkton Wood or in the old priory ruins if it rained. Mr Parsnip was so deep in his own evangelism by the time he started his sermon that he did not even notice the gradual depletion of his congregation, and even if he had, he would not tell his sister, since Beatrice would tell him to make sermons shorter and less boring.

Dorothy Price suspected what was going on, but refrained from confiding in Beatrice about it in case she was labelled a busybody. She merely hinted when she had the opportunity that lessons on birth control might be more helpful than the piano lessons she gave to one or two of the girls.

***

“Just wait a few months,” Dorothy had told Cleo with more than a little schadenfreude, “then we’ll see how many of the girls have fallen prey to pregnancy!”

“Fallen?” said Cleo. “That’s a biblical word, if ever there was one. I suppose you mean they were careless.”

“Yes, but that sounds rather flippant.”

“Whatever you call it, it is drastic, and we’ve no time to waste on speculation about the consequences of the girls’ debauchery,” Cleo had told her. “It’s Beatrice’s problem, not ours.”

“It’s a pity that baby hatch was closed down,” said Dorothy.

“It was illegal,” said Cleo.

“But useful,” retorted Dorothy.

***

“But now we have quite a different problem on our hands,” said Cleo, ”assuming that Mrs Oldfield was not killed in the cause of avoiding a surfeit of fatty calories.”

“We’ll sort it out,” said Dorothy. “There can't be many suspects excluding the students.”

“That may not have been a joke about Mrs Oldfield's school cooking," said Cleo. “No doubt the boys used to like stodge, but modern girls don’t.”

"Canteen cooks  are notorious for filling meals, but that's not a reason to kill her, Cleo."

"Then we'll have to look for the real motive, won't we?" said Dorothy.

“Maybe Gary will have an idea,” said Cleo.

“Don’t count on it,” said Dorothy. “Do still see Gary privately?”

“Yes, though I tell myself that each time will be the last one,” said Cleo. “Don’t worry about working directly with him, Dorothy. He’s quite tame these days.”

“I expect he has his hands full with Sybil.”

“What makes you say that, Dorothy?”

“He found her a flat and a job.”

“As I understand it, the relationship is platonic, Dorothy.”

“You could have fooled me,” said Dorothy, who did not believe that a beautiful ex-prostitute wanting a better life could resist a good-looking man like Gary or leave him alone, even if she was concentrating on having her little daughter back after three years or so when she did not know where the child was. But Dorothy would refrain from talking about the issue any longer. There were more important things at stake than the activities of Sybil Barnet or Gary or both together.

***

Beatrice and Mrs Baines were on hand to greet them when Cleo parked her car next to the main entrance to the school. The building was large and pompous as is often the case of manor-houses built as monuments to the success of their owner. A wide flight of steps led up to the carved oak double doors. Beatrice was wearing her cap and gown like in the old days. She was clearly disgusted that someone had had the gall to get stabbed in the kitchen.

“A murder at a school is not a good recommendation and not something you should publicize, especially to parents,” she said.

That was, of course, a fond hope, since all the girls possessed smart phones (or even smarter). They communicated regularly with the outside world, and now and again – such when funds ran out or a murder occurred  – with their parents. It was only a matter of hours before Mrs Oldfield’s murder was broadcast to the world.

Dorothy, who knew the school well because of her peripatetic function as a piano teacher, introduced Cleo to Mrs Baines, who was a bit astonished that Cleo did not look like a sleuth, but like a rather exotic person, having brown skin and an imposing stature. Cleo saw that she was being looked up and down, so she cut short the small talk and asked to be led straight to the scene of the crime. Beatrice said she would not accompany them as she had things to do, so Cleo and Dorothy followed Mrs Baines to the domestic quarters where the corpse of Mrs Oldfield still lay.

“Have you left everything the way it was, Mrs Baines?”

“Of course, Miss Hartley. Miss Price told me to and anyway, I could not do anything for the poor woman.”

“Have you any idea who could have killed Mrs Oldfield?” Cleo asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why ever not? If you suspect someone, you’d better tell us, Mrs Baines,” said Dorothy, who had also noticed the woman’s critical surveillance of Cleo and not  approved of it.

At that moment, Gary arrived on the scene and to their astonishment and gratification gave each of the sleuths a hug followed by a kiss on each cheek, all of which was designed to give him a moment of intimacy with Cleo, as Dorothy well knew.

“Quite right, tell my colleagues!” he commanded.

“You startled me, Gary,” said Dorothy.

Mrs Baines just stared in amazement.

“Sorry to burst in, Ladies," said Gary. "The ambulance was just behind me and the doctor will be here any minute.”

“And you are...?”

“Chief Inspector Gary Hurley of the Middlethumpton homicide squad at your service, Mrs Baines.”

“Homicide?”

“Murder, in plain English. I hope you didn’t move the victim.”

“Certainly not. I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to. She weighs at least 30 stone.”

“How did you find out she was dead?”

“By checking her pulse, not by moving her around,” said Mrs Baines, who had taken an instant dislike to Gary.

There was a knock on the kitchen door. Chris Marlow, a fanatical forensic pathologist, had arrived with his team that now included Jenny Smith, a young scientist and forensic chemist, who gasped in horror when she saw the state of the victim.

“Don’t worry, Jenny,” said Chris, giving her left hand a squeeze. “The lads will deal with this.”

The affectionate gesture did not escape Gary, who also admired Jenny, despite being in a sort of relationship with Sybil Barnet alias Garnet, in the course of divorcing the woman who had moved to Spain with her new partner and taken their daughter with her, and in love with Cleo Hartley, with whom he had only an on-off relationship since she was still trying to come to terms with her marriage to Robert.

Chris had grown in stature and self-confidence since Jenny had joined forensics. Cleo’s theory that he preferred men had come unstuck. Gary noticed that he had taken to wearing a badge inscribed with his name. Up till now he hadn’t even known the guy’s surname. Chris Marlow had just been someone in a white plastic overall. He had the enviable talent of being able to solve most murders by analysing the pathological and forensic evidence and was therefore indispensable.

“Right,” said Chris. “We’ll get some mugshots and then get the victim taken to my pathology lab at HQ.”

Mrs Baines was impressed.

“What will you do there?” she asked.

“Take blood samples, for a start,” said Chris.

“But she was stabbed. You can see that. And most of her blood is on the floor.”

“We have routines, Mrs …”

“Baines.”

“Mrs Baines. We know what we’re doing.”

“Oh,” said the housekeeper.

Chris told the two paramedics who had wheeled their stretcher from the main entrance to the kitchen and made a lot of noise doing so, to wait outside . He would tell them when to remove the deceased Mrs Oldfield. The result of their noisy manoeuvre had been to draw attention to themselves. A fair number of onlookers, mainly girls who had been taking a nap rather than indulging in strenuous sports, closed in on the kitchen, only to be sent packing by Dorothy, since Beatrice was nowhere to be seen.

“So much for discretion,” Cleo whispered.

***

“Who was the last person to see her alive, Mrs Baines?” Gary wanted to know.

“I think it was me,” said Mrs Baines. “We sent our assistant cook home because it was her free afternoon, so I helped with the clearing up.”

“Don’t you have a scullery maid for that sort of thing?” Dorothy wanted to know.

“Mrs Cagney didn’t turn up this morning.”

Mrs Cagney could have been entitled ‘resident cleaner’ for many of Upper Grumpsfield households, including the vicarage. She listen to and spread gossip and was not averse to making something up if nothing much was going on. It was just as well that she had not turned up that morning.

“So you were alone with the dead person, weren’t you?” said Gary, eying the bossy woman and wondering why she wasn’t already a corpse.

“Yes. Does that make me a suspect?”

“Everyone’s a suspect,” said Gary sternly. “Where is the headmistress?”

“I’ll get her,” said Mrs Baines, and left the kitchen.

“Do you know the assistant cook, Dorothy?” Cleo asked.

“I didn’t even know they had one.”

“Mrs Baines will have to call her in to work and I’ll talk to her,” said Gary.

“You don’t think...?”

“Dorothy, I don’t think anything yet. Whoever killed Mrs Oldfield was brutal and possibly had it in for her.”

“Poor woman. I’m sure she was harmless.”

“I’m sure she wasn’t,” said Gary. “That’s something the Hartley Agency can do, Cleo. Find out just how harmless she was.”

“That might provide us with a motive,” said Dorothy.

Dorothy, whose main interest is in how people tick, was enthralled that she was going to get to investigate the dead woman.

“I’ll start right away,” she said. “She used to have a friend in Lower Grumpsfield and she sang in Laura Finch’s chorus a few years ago.”

“Didn’t the chorus disband when Mr Morgan left?”

“With Laura dead and Mr Morgan the organist gone back to mother, the Finch Nightingales had to move fast in order to survive,” Dorothy sniped. “Their new chorus director is not an organist with a foible for vicars’ wives, but an enthusiastic barbershopper, young, male and single, so the ladies are on their best behaviour, even the dowdiest of them.”

“I just hope their singing has improved,” said Cleo.

“I’ll find that out when I join, won’t I?” said Dorothy.