Wycliffe and the Scapegoat

by W.J. Burley

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

Synopsis

An ancient legend, an all-too modern murder, and Chief Superintendent Wycliffe must find the link between them ... Every year, at Halloween, high on the Cornish cliffs, a life-sized effigy of a man is strapped to a blazing wheel and run into the sea - a re-enactment of a hideous old legend where the figure had been a living sacrifice. And now Jonathan Riddle, well-known and respected local builder and undertaker, has disappeared - and it seems all too likely that his corpse has gone the way of the historic 'scapegoat'. As Chief Superintendent Wycliffe begins to investigate, more and more unpleasant facts emerge until he is left with an incredible, and seemingly impossible, solution . . . 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: 184

Sample

JONATHAN RIDDLE WALKED down Bethel Street between two rows of identical granite cottages whose front doors opened on to the street. It was a sunny afternoon, warm for October, and some women were gossiping on their doorsteps. They stopped as he passed and he was acutely aware of their collective gaze. ‘The undertaker’ – that was what they called him, using it as a term of mild contempt. So rarely was he referred to by his name that when people came to see him in his office they often began, ‘Mr …’ and had to stop and think before they could remember what he was called. Why did he have to be ‘the undertaker’? Why not ‘the builder’? or just ‘Riddle’? Funerals formed only a small part of his business.

He found it impossible to go about the town in a relaxed and casual way as others seemed to do, for he always felt self-conscious and absurdly vulnerable. Frequently he used his car or one of his vans to go short distances merely to avoid a walk through the streets.

He turned out of Bethel Street into Stockholm Backs and walked briskly to his yard. Double doors, newly painted and tastefully lettered, announced his business: Jonathan Riddle: Builder, Contractor and Decorator. An addendum, in smaller letters, read: Funeral Director. As he passed through the wicket gate and closed it behind him he experienced an immediate relaxation of tension. It was ridiculous but he felt that he had escaped pursuit.

On his right, a large, open shed housed two trucks, a battery of cement mixers and a new, yellow-painted excavator. In front of him, across the yard, was the workshop, with offices next door. All seemed as it should be; the reassuring whine of the circular saw and the screech of the planing machine drowned all other sounds. As he entered the main office one girl, a little brunette, was on the telephone while another, who had streaks of grey in her hair, was typing.

‘Any messages, Miss Hicks?’

The typist turned back a page of her pad. ‘Mr Bryant telephoned about our last order.’

‘Problems?’

‘He said that there might be a delay of up to three weeks on the oak strip.’

‘What about the cedar?’

‘No difficulty there, he expects to deliver within a week.’

‘Is Matthew in?’

‘No. He’s gone over to Moyle’s Farm. Apparently they’re having trouble with the foundations for the new implements shed.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘Mr Moyle didn’t say; he just asked to speak to Matthew so I put him through.’

‘Thank you, Miss Hicks.’ He made a point of politeness and formality in dealing with his employees.

He went through to his office and into a cloakroom adjoining. He took off his undertaker’s coat with its black satin facings, covered it with a polythene wrap and hung it in a tiny closet. His bowler hat, similarly treated, went on to the shelf above. He moistened a comb and ran it through his hair, sleeking it down, then he studied the result in a mirror over the hand-basin. He turned his head a little to one side then to the other, careful to avoid a near-profile view which would have disclosed the abnormal development of his chin.

He was fifty, and except for a dusting round the temples, his hair was still black, the skin of his lean neck was firm and there were no bags under his eyes nor crow’s feet in the corners. He thought that he might pass for five years younger than he was. Laura Passmore, the woman he was going to marry, was thirty-eight. The black coat she had worn that afternoon at her uncle’s funeral had set off her blonde hair and fair complexion. She was a very good looking woman and, he thought, a sensible one who would do him credit as his wife. No one nowadays would bother about the fact that she had divorced her husband.

After a lifetime of bachelorhood Riddle had decided to marry for a number of reasons; chief among them was a morbid fear of old age and an irrational belief that he would be the victim of a protracted and demeaning illness when he would need someone who was in duty bound to care for him. He was troubled also by a growing need for companionship, something deeper and more truly intimate than he could achieve with the women he had so far known.

Still eyeing himself in the mirror, he fingered his upper lip. Perhaps a moustache? Broad and well trimmed it might give him a military air and do something to relieve the sallowness of his complexion …

He heard a movement in the office.

‘Is that you, Matthew?’

‘Yes, uncle.’

He joined his nephew in the office.

‘What’s the trouble at Moyle’s?’

Like his uncle, Matthew was lean, bony and very dark, but his features were less prominent; in fact he had rather a weak face which, in repose, looked vaguely petulant. He was thirty, the son of Riddle’s widowed sister, and he had been with the firm since leaving school. For the past four or five years he had been in virtual charge of the practical side of the business, though liable to be called to account for the smallest decision.

‘Fabricon sent us the wrong foundation plans. We set the ragbolts for the stanchions at three metre centres but now our chaps have started to erect it turns out they should have been three metres fifty.’

Riddle’s voice was silky. ‘Wouldn’t it have been wise to check?’

‘We put the foundations down before the steel was on the site.’

‘Then perhaps we were in too much hurry.’

Spots of colour appeared on Matthew’s cheeks. ‘But it was you who said that …’

Riddle’s voice acquired an edge. ‘Whatever I said or didn’t say won’t help us now.’ He smoothed his great chin. ‘What’s it going to cost?’

Matthew controlled his indignation. ‘Not a great deal; a compressor and a couple of drills with two men for a day – a hundred should cover it.’

Riddle took a tin of white mints from his pocket, opened it and slipped one between his lips.

‘A hundred pounds wasted.’

‘But we shall be able to claim on Fabricon, it was their –’

‘I hope so, indeed. What does Moyle say?’

‘He’s reasonable, he realises it wasn’t our fault.’

‘Very understanding of him – but he doesn’t have to foot the bill.’

Matthew’s irritation broke through. ‘But I’ve told you –’

Riddle waved a large, pale hand. ‘Don’t get excited, Matthew; you must learn to take criticism. Perhaps you will send in Miss Hicks as you go out, I think she has some letters for me to sign.’

Matthew was useful, but needed to be reminded from time to time who was running the firm. Riddle had hinted once or twice at a junior partnership but he had made no promise.

Miss Hicks came in with the letters and Riddle read every one before adding his signature. He was proud of that signature. The J and the R formed a monogram surrounded by a complex arabesque; the ‘—iddle’ seemed to have been added as an afterthought.

The noise of machinery from the workshop ceased abruptly, leaving a silence which came as a slight shock. Although there was a clock on the wall Riddle took out a silver watch from his waistcoat pocket.

‘Half-past five already! The undertaking side of this business takes up a lot of time, Miss Hicks. I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it.’

‘It’s a public service, Mr Riddle.’

He nodded. ‘That’s true, Miss Hicks, very true.’

Riddle lived in a large stone-built house with an acre of grounds. In his boyhood the house had belonged to a retired general, an autocratic gentleman who employed four or five servants. When the general died the house had remained untenanted for a long time until Riddle bought it. Now, for almost fifteen years, he had lived there with his mother, his widowed sister and her son, Matthew.

‘Oh, there you are!’

His sister Sarah, seven years older than he, was tall, heavily built, with large features, a definite moustache and a masculine voice.

He hung his mackintosh in a cloakroom off the hall and changed his shoes for a pair of patent leather slippers. The house had been built in 1890 in neo-Gothic style reminiscent of Pugin and the hall looked like a church porch.

‘Your tea will be ready in ten minutes.’

Riddle did not answer; they exchanged very little small talk. He crossed the hall and entered the drawing-room, which had a large bay window looking out on the gravelled drive. The furniture, which included a lot of red plush, had come with the house; so had the grand piano which none of them could play. Sarah followed him in.

‘Sidney Passmore phoned.’ Sidney was the brother of Laura’s ex-husband.

‘What did he want?’ he asked mechanically though he knew well enough.

‘He didn’t say. He’s coming over this evening.’ She lingered. ‘Surely you must have seen him at the funeral?’

‘You can’t talk business at a funeral.’

Sarah never tired of prying, though he told her very little – just enough to whet her appetite for more. It was a game they played, but a game in which there was very little goodwill.

‘I told him you would be in – you will, won’t you?’

‘Yes.’

When he married he would have to make provision for his mother and Sarah. Obligations: they grew on a man like hair. He had no liking for Sarah – over the years she had become slovenly in her person and habits so that she often repelled him – but she was his sister.

Laura Passmore. The image of her as he had seen her that afternoon kept returning to his mind. He had given a great deal of thought to the subject of marriage and long before her divorce was even in prospect he had admired her and hoped that he might find a woman of her age and stamp. He had toyed with the idea of marrying a young girl; one often read of men of his age or older marrying young girls of eighteen or nineteen, and all his erotic fancies concerned such girls, but he had the sense to see that a young woman would marry him only for his money while an older woman would value the security he could offer, a very different matter. There would be a contract, the terms of which would be clearly understood, mutually though tacitly agreed.

And there was Hilda, Laura’s sixteen-year-old daughter. What would it be like to be her step-father? Living in the same house was bound to entail some intimacy. He had a vivid and shameful vision which he banished from his mind. And three-year-old Harold: his attitude to the little boy puzzled him by its ambivalence. The child was bound to be a liability, a tie, making demands on Laura which would conflict with and no doubt take precedence over her obligations to him. Against that he would bring up the boy as his own, a ready-made son. He had made up his mind that there would be no children of the marriage, for the business of pregnancy and birth revolted him. Moreover there was something in his nature, perhaps a hidden flaw in his self conceit, which made him dread parenthood.

He heard Matthew come in and go up to his room.

It was a pity that the business with Sidney should crop up now, though he did not think that Laura had any regard for her ex-husband’s family.

‘Your tea’s ready.’

The dining-room was at the back of the house, a gloomy room looking out through french windows to a thicket of laurels. The oval table was laid for four. Cold ham and tongue, some limp lettuce and a few tomatoes; there was a plate of bread and butter and a fruit cake which, like all Sarah’s cakes, would be soggy in the middle. His mother was already in her place and he went over to put his lips to her forehead.

‘Hullo, mother.’

She was still an impressive figure, with strong, angular features and surprisingly youthful brown eyes. Her white hair was gathered into a tight bun at the back and she wore a magenta cardigan over a high-necked, grey silk blouse.

‘Was it a good funeral?’

‘Very good, mother. A lot of people and everything went without a hitch.’

The old lady helped herself generously to cold meat and took a slice of bread and butter.

‘This bread is dry, Sarah, like sawdust. Left over from yesterday, I’ll bet!’ she muttered disagreeably before turning again to her son. ‘I suppose Laura Passmore was there?’

‘Naturally; she was his niece.’ He and Laura had not yet told anyone of their intention to marry but he suspected that his mother and Sarah had somehow informed themselves.

Sarah said: ‘I see in the paper that her divorce has come through.’ When Riddle said nothing, she went on: ‘But it won’t be long before she gets her hooks in another man.’

‘Pass me the mayonnaise, Sarah, please.’ Riddle’s manner was peremptory. He took the jar she passed to him; it was sticky on the outside.

Sometimes he imagined coming home to meals that were well prepared and tastefully served; meals to be eaten in a bright room off sparkling china on a white cloth. There would be flowers and his companion would be clean, crisp and comely …

The fretted overmantel was dusty, the little inset mirrors had a bluish bloom, the curtains and carpets looked faded and tired. Sarah had a woman in every day but the rooms were never properly cleaned.

‘She thought she’d got rid of that husband of hers but he’s back.’ The old lady was not easily intimidated. ‘Ernie’s living in one of the caravans on his brother’s site.’

Matthew came in and sat in his place with a muttered word. He helped himself to ham and lettuce.

‘There’s a tomato, Matthew.’

‘You know I never touch tomato, mother.’

His grandmother looked at him with disapproval. ‘You should. No wonder you get boils.’

It was true that Matthew had suffered a succession of boils in recent months.

‘You’ve fixed up for the compressor to be at Moyle’s in the morning?’

‘Yes, uncle.’

Riddle’s gaze rested on his nephew; Matthew met his eyes for a moment then looked down at his plate.

This business with Sidney Passmore was a complication. Although Laura’s ex-husband, Ernie, had specialised in living off social security, his brother, Sidney, was prosperous. He and his wife ran a large boarding house and he had the only camping and caravan site within easy reach of the town. Five years ago he had bought a field and put caravans on it; now he rented four adjoining fields. The site had proper sanitation, hot showers, a shop and a cafeteria. It was these rented fields which were the cause of the present trouble.

Riddle sighed.

The silence in the dining-room was complete. Sometimes when the four of them were sitting down to a meal he would listen to the silence for minutes together. It seemed to grow, to become palpable, almost menacing until he could stand it no longer and was forced to speak. He was convinced that they did it on purpose, for these silences usually followed an occasion when, as now, he had cut short a line of talk of which he disapproved.

Not one of them would meet his eyes, not even his mother.

‘Are y. . .