Wycliffe and the Dead Flautist

by W.J. Burley

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Classic crime featuring the ever-popular Chief Superintendent Wycliffe - 'Another must for collectors' Sunday Times. On the peaceful and secluded estate of Lord and Lady Bottrell, the body of amateur flautist Tony Mills has been found, shot by his own gun. It appears to be suicide - but a closer inspection reveals some sinister inconsistencies, and Chief Superintendent Wycliffe is called in. As Wycliffe begins to unravel the last days of the dead man, another mystery is revealed: the disappearance of Lizzie Biddick, a pretty young girl who worked as a maid for the Bottrell family. Gradually, bitter family feuds and secret illicit relationships are uncovered - and then another body shatters the pastoral peace of the Cornish estate for ever... Why readers love W.J. Burley: 'First-class, old-time, hyper-ingenious whodunit.' Observer 'You can always count on Wycliffe ... he inevitably guarantees a good story, convincing characters and appealing landscape ' Financial Times 'Wycliffe teases out the truth with delicate skill that leaves the reader intrigued and convinced.' Mail on Sunday 'Gripping.' The Times Fans of Ruth Rendell, Val McDermid and Peter Robinson will love W.J. Burley: 1. Wycliffe and the Three-Toed Pussy 2. Wycliffe and How to Kill a Cat 3. Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi 4. Wycliffe and Death in a Salubrious Place 5. Wycliffe and Death in Stanley Street 6. Wycliffe and the Pea-Green Boat 7. Wycliffe and the School Bullies 8. Wycliffe and the Scapegoat 9. Wycliffe in Paul's Court 10. Wycliffe's Wild Goose Chase 11. Wycliffe and the Beales 12. Wycliffe and the Four Jacks 13. Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin 14. Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue 15. Wycliffe and the Tangled Web 16. Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death 17. Wycliffe and the Dead Flautist 18. Wycliffe and the Last Rites 19. Wycliffe and the Dunes Mystery 20. Wycliffe and the House of Fear 21. Wycliffe and the Redhead 22. Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine * Each Inspector Wycliffe novel can be read as part of a series or as a standalone*

Release date: December 16, 2010

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 228

Sample

A Sunday in August, almost midnight; the night was soft and still, moonless but starlit. On a broad promontory between two creeks of the River Fal, the Duloe Estate spread out in a pattern of light and shade; the sweep of the park and the random patches of woodland disguised contours, creating here and there pools of deep shadow. Duloe House, home of the Bottrells, square and stark, commanded the landscape as it had done for two hundred years. Outbuildings formed two courtyards behind the house and, at some distance, nearer the upper creek, there was a second house, neither as old nor as large as Duloe, a building of low eaves, steep gables, and tall chimneys – Treave, home of the Landers. Inland from the estate, a half-mile from the river, a village of fifty or sixty houses, clustered and straggled about its church and pub.

There were two or three lighted windows in the village, an isolated cottage on the estate showed a single light, an upper window at Treave glowed plum-red through its velvet drape, but Duloe House was in total darkness. Everywhere there was stillness and it seemed there could be no living creature abroad. But in the shadow of a shrubbery, under the lighted window at Treave, Paul Bottrell, a boy of sixteen, waited.

He did not know how long he had been there and he had all but given up hope when he heard a faint sound, a sound repeated close at hand, a movement of the air, and a whispered: ‘Hi!’

‘I was afraid you wouldn’t come.’

‘Sh! That’s mother’s room and I don’t think she’s in bed yet.’

He felt her hand in his, warm and confident. They moved off, keeping to the grass border of the drive.

A few yards, and they turned off the drive along a footpath through the shrubbery; the shrubs gave place to trees and the trees made strange patterns against the sky. Although there was no moon outlines were clear.

‘Listen!’

Someone was playing a flute, a melody, plaintive and melancholy. Paul put his arm around her. ‘Jean!’

She said: ‘Doesn’t Tony ever go to bed?’

They could see the light from the cottage. The sound of the flute grew louder and the tune changed; the melancholy air gave place to the lifting rhythm of a reel which quickened the pulse. The light was in a downstairs room, the front door was shut, and a blind covered the window. On the blind the shadow of the flute player was enlarged and grotesque.

Paul said: ‘He’s a strange man.’

‘Don’t you like him?’ Jean wanted definition.

Paul, always wary of committing himself, hesitated, then: ‘I don’t know; sometimes when he looks at me he makes me feel odd.’

They emerged from the woodland into the park. Duloe House brooded on its eminence, blind and silent. They walked, hand in hand down the slope to the river, through a belt of trees, and came upon a wharf largely overgrown by brambles and gorse. Beyond, the river ran smooth and luminous between shadowy banks.

Paul said: ‘The skiff?’

‘All right.’

On that other occasion, exactly a week ago, similar words had been spoken and already it was as though they were adhering to an established ritual. They followed a path through the undergrowth along the wharf and came to a boathouse. It rose in front of them, low to the eaves, but with a great expanse of roof. Paul opened a door in the side of the building and Jean followed him in. The house was open at one end to the river but it was eerie in the near darkness. Soft, liquid sounds came from movements of the water below the staging on which they stood.

The wet dock was occupied by a white launch which loomed large in the dim light and confined space. They passed around the bow of the launch to the other side of the dock where a cranky little river skiff was moored beside the launch. They got in, cast off, and Paul propelled the boat out of the house by working hand over hand along the staging. Once in the open river he unshipped the oars.

‘Lower Creek?’

‘No, let’s do the same as last week.’ Then they had followed the Upper Creek and almost reached the village.

‘We shan’t get far, the tide’s too low.’

‘Never mind.’

The little boat slid along, the water chuckling beneath the bow. Paul rowed cleanly, without splash. Now that they were on the water it seemed lighter and they could see each other clearly.

Paul said: ‘I can’t believe this.’

‘What?’

‘Well, all our lives we’ve lived next door to each other and, until I went away to school, we saw each other nearly every day … Even after that there were holidays … Now it’s as though I’ve never known you.’

‘And this holiday is nearly over.’

He stopped rowing. ‘Don’t, Jean!’ He shipped the oars and came to sit beside her in the stern, leaving the boat to drift. She let him draw her to him and kiss her on the lips. He kissed her hair, her ears, and her neck and fondled her breasts.

Then there was a shot. It was not particularly loud; it sounded muffled, but it reverberated briefly between the banks.

Jean broke away. ‘What was that?’

‘A shot.’

‘I know that, idiot! But who goes shooting in the middle of the night?’

‘Somebody after a fox, or it could be poachers after old Roskilly’s deer. They’ve tried it before.’

Jean got up and moved, cautiously, to the centre thwart. ‘I’ll row for a bit.’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘Should I be?’

She gave the shore a wide berth and entered the creek, following the channel. Here the creek was broad but it narrowed quickly so that half a mile away, in the village, it was no more than a stream. The church tower rose out of the trees in silhouette against the night sky and the water was dark and shining. Once they were startled by a sudden quacking from the shore as something disturbed a family of roosting ducks.

Rounding a small promontory on their left they came in sight of an old cottage from which there had once been a ferry, now Treave property.

Paul said: ‘There’s a light in the cottage. Your father must be there again.’

The girl said nothing.

‘Does he often spend the night there? I thought he only used it for his photography.’

‘He sleeps there at weekends sometimes.’ Her manner was distant, dismissive.

She continued rowing as the creek narrowed until finally the keel ploughed into soft mud. It was of no consequence on a rising tide.

Jean said: ‘Anyway, it’s time I was getting back.’

‘Already?’

Somehow the magic of the night had deserted them.

She back-paddled clear of the mud until the channel broadened and she was able to head the boat downstream. As they passed the cottage a light was still burning in an upper window but nothing was said.

They reached the boathouse in silence, berthed the skiff, and retraced their steps across the wharf. Paul put his arm around her. ‘What’s wrong, Jean?’

‘Nothing. Don’t be silly.’

They walked up through the park and as they entered the wood she said: ‘Tony is still up.’

The way ahead seemed brightly lit and as they drew near the flute player’s cottage they saw that the light came not only from the window but also through the open door.

Paul said: ‘That seems odd. Perhaps we ought to find out if he’s all right.’

‘I don’t want to be seen. He might tell my parents.’

‘All right; you wait here.’ The boy went ahead; she saw him standing in the doorway and she heard him call, softly: ‘Tony? Are you there?’ Then he went inside and a moment later she saw his shadow on the blind.

The door opened directly into the living-room. Paul knew the place well and everything looked as usual but there was a smell – acrid, and vaguely familiar, though he could not identify it. Then he rounded the draught screen and he could see the rest of the room.

Tony Miller was sitting in his usual chair by the window, his flute on the table at his elbow. He had a shotgun between his thighs, the butt resting on the floor, the muzzle pointed at his throat. Paul knew about shotguns but he had never before seen the consequence of a full charge entering a living creature at close range. The lower part of Tony’s face had gone, leaving only a mess of blood and tissue. Blood had spattered the wall and the plastic covering of the table; even the gleaming flute was spotted and streaked with blood.

Paul felt faint. He turned away and steadied himself with one hand gripping the edge of the table.

Jean had heard nothing since he disappeared inside and it seemed a long time. The light, streaming across the clearing, intensified the shadows where it failed to reach. The silence was total and she began to feel uneasy. Then she heard soft footsteps, they sounded stealthy and seemed to come from somewhere close to the cottage. Peering against the light, she made out a vague figure standing by the corner of the building. It seemed that he (she was sure that it was a man) must have come round from the back. She had a momentary glimpse of the pale blur of his face then, immediately, he withdrew. Had he spotted her? She must have been easily visible in the stream of light from the cottage.

She decided to join Paul and ran across the clearing. He met her at the door and spoke in a horrified whisper. ‘He’s dead! He’s been shot!’

‘Shot?’

‘I think he’s killed himself.’

The day before – Saturday – the Wycliffes had returned from a three-week holiday in the Dordogne. They had been there before – twice, and he had secretly entertained the notion that he might settle there on his retirement and take up fishing. There were difficulties: his French was not very good, he found the summers too hot, he had never fished in his life, and he did not particularly like Frenchmen. Added to that he guessed that if he broached the idea to Helen she would say: ‘Over my dead body!’

As it was he had spent three weeks half-dazed by heat, sunshine, and white wine. He had vague recollections of delicious meals and convivial evenings at a restaurant just a few yards (metres) down the road from their cottage. (The cottage was rented from a countess who personally checked the cutlery, crockery, and linen, before they left.) He remembered the cathedral at Périgueux with its five great domes, the caves at les Eyzies, and a street scene in Sarlat where they were dress-rehearsing an outdoor performance of Henry V.

It was all very pleasant in a dreamlike way but secretly, towards the end, he missed the unpredictable showers, the smell of moist earth in the garden, even those murky days when everything drips. But as luck would have it they returned home to a heatwave, the garden was parched and within hours of their arrival Helen had produced an alarming list of plant casualties.

‘I’ll bet,’ Wycliffe said, ‘there’s a hosepipe ban.’

On Monday morning he was on his way to the office, stuck in a queue for the ferry, breathing the usual cocktail of lethal gases from other people’s exhaust. Oddly, when he got there, the sight of the police building, for all its naked ugliness, lifted his spirit. His parking space, labelled with his name and rank, and a welcoming grin from the desk sergeant, completed his home-coming.

He spent half an hour with the chief chatting about police and office politics, and an hour or so with his own deputy, John Scales, being briefed on progress or lack of it in cases on hand. Through the files he renewed old acquaintances and met new ones.

At half-past eleven Wycliffe had his office to himself, a chance to ease his way back into the burrow, but it did not last. Diane’s voice came through on the intercom: ‘Mr Kersey wants to see you.’

‘Ask him to come in.’

Detective Inspector Doug Kersey, colleague of nearly twenty years.

Coming back after three weeks’ absence can be like wearing new spectacles; one sees familiar faces with a keener perception. Wycliffe thought Kersey looked older. Certainly the grey hairs were taking over, spreading upwards from the temples; and his face, always deeply lined, now seemed furrowed. Wycliffe sighed.

‘Good holiday, sir?’

‘Fine! How are Joan and the girls?’

The civilities over, Kersey hooked up a chair and sat down. ‘I reckon they’ve been saving this one for you. I’ve had Tom Reed on the line and he thinks he’s got a homicide dressed up as suicide … Mind if I smoke?’

The question was rhetorical, but today there was a difference: Kersey came out with a pouch of tobacco, a little machine, and papers. ‘I thought the chore of making ’em plus the lousy taste might put me off.’

‘Where, and who?’

‘The Duloe Estate, on the river, four or five miles south of Truro.’

‘Isn’t that the Bottrell place?’

Kersey referred to his notes. ‘Let’s get it right: Hugh Cuthbert Grylls Bottrell, Ninth Baron Bottrell.’

‘Is it the noble lord himself?’

‘No, the estate foreman: Anthony Charles Miller, bachelor, mid-thirties. He lives – lived – in a cottage on the estate. A girl, out dog-walking, found him. To be accurate, her dog did. He’d been shot with a 12-bore at very close range making a nasty mess of his face and neck.’

‘So where does the notion of suicide come from?’

Wycliffe had to wait while Kersey concentrated on inserting a cigarette paper into his little machine.

‘When he was found Miller was sitting in his chair—’

‘He was indoors?’

‘Yes. Didn’t I say?’

‘I wish you’d get that thing going then concentrate on what you’re supposed to be telling me.’

Kersey grinned. ‘Sorry! I expect I’ll get better at it; I had an uncle who could roll these things with one hand. Anyway, Miller was in his living-room, sitting in his chair, the gun between his thighs, butt resting on the floor, muzzle pointing at his neck. There was a bit of string tied to the trigger – typical of a suicide with a long-barrelled shotgun. But Tom Reed is no fool and he says it’s one for us.’

‘I’ll have a word with the chief.’

‘Before you do there’s something else you should know. The girl who found him is Simon Lander’s daughter.’

‘Lander, the lawyer?’

‘And member of the Police Authority as ever was. The Landers are neighbours of the Bottrells. According to Reed, their house, Treave, was built on estate land. What’s more, the Landers have been lawyers to the Bottrells since they wrote with a goose quill on parchment. Anyway, I gather Lander is already on Tom’s back, convinced that Miller committed suicide and that Tom is stirring things unnecessarily.’

‘You’d better contact Franks; we must have a path. report before the body is moved, and with a question between suicide and murder we shall need ballistics evidence. Get Melville down. As far as our people are concerned: scenes-of-crime there as soon as possible, Lucy Lane with a couple of DCs first thing in the morning and, if we’re still in business, you can follow when you’ve off-loaded whatever you’re on at the moment. Ask Truro to arrange accommodation – they can book me in at the village pub from tonight – if there is one and if they’ve got a room.’

It was one of his idiosyncracies to stay at places most likely to offer local contacts. In his lectures to cadets he was fond of saying: ‘In any murder investigation if you shut yourself off from the locals you are working with one hand tied behind your back.’

Kersey said: ‘If you start getting organized now, it will still be evening before you get there.’

‘So what? The evenings are light and I shall have a chance to talk to Reed on the ground.’

He did not say that a day or two by the Fal might help dispel any lingering withdrawal symptoms from the Dordogne.

Kersey fingered fragments of tobacco from his lips and grinned. ‘As I said, perhaps they laid this one on as a welcome home.’

‘I’m going out to lunch – coming?’

‘No, I promised Joan …’

He went to his usual restaurant, run by a fat woman whose husband, a Czech, was the chef. The place was old-fashioned, the food was plain and good; there was a regular clientele, very little conversation, and no – definitely no – muzak.

‘Good holiday? Nice to see you back, Mr Wycliffe. Salad today: ham-off-the-bone or chicken.’

‘I’ll take the ham, Annie.’

In a world that was changing too fast for him Wycliffe clung to those things which survived as a drowning man clings to a plank.

He was glad to be alone. In a few hours he would be at the start of an intimate involvement with people he had never met who, for reasons often unconnected with any crime, would feel the need to lie. As usual, much of his investigation would be concerned with pinning down the innocent.

When he returned from lunch the internal telephone was ringing. It was Freda, the grey dragon who guarded the chief. ‘Oh, Mr Wycliffe, if you are free, Mr Oldroyd would like a word, in his office.’

A trip along the corridor and through the padded door. Freda was amiable; she had her likes and dislikes which she made plain regardless of rank but Wycliffe was among her elect.

‘Please go in, Mr Wycliffe.’

‘Do sit down, Charles! I almost said “light up” – I can’t get u. . .