Chapter 14
If Garforth was surprised to see them, he didn’t show it. He had what Julia imagined, gleaned mostly from old television and movies, was a classic butler’s demeanour, a calm exterior which gave little away.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said, and waited expectantly.
‘Apologies for arriving unannounced, Mr Garforth. A couple of questions have come up and I thought you might be able to help with some background information,’ said Hayley. ‘Could I have a few minutes of your time?’
She’d told Julia in the car that she was going to approach the conversation in a general way, so as not to accuse or spook the man.
‘Certainly. If there’s anything I can help with I’d be pleased to assist,’ he said now, stepping back to allow them in. He did give Julia a fleeting look, no doubt wondering – quite justifiably – what she was doing there, but he didn’t ask.
‘Should we talk in the study?’ said Hayley.
‘Of course.’
He led the way past the oiled ancestors – the elder Mrs Loxton looked particularly irritable today – and into the book-lined study. In the car, the women had come up with a sort of plan.
Hayley coughed: ‘Mr Garforth, could I trouble you for a glass of water? This dry weather has given me quite a tickle in the throat.’
‘Of course.’
As soon as he left the room, Julia dashed to the shelf where she’d seen him stash something a day or two earlier.
While Hayley looked on from her place at the door, Julia dithered, not sure exactly which shelf it was.
There was no sign of anything hiding between the books.
She took out a book here, a book there, feeling increasingly desperate.
‘Hurry up!’ Hayley hissed.
Julia pulled out a book of war poems that she thought she might have seen on her last visit, and there, between it and the next book, was a small stack of envelopes, just three or four. The top one was stamped FINAL DEMAND.
Footsteps could be heard coming down the passage towards them.
She peered into the second envelope, which was a bill from a wine merchant, and the third, which was a letter written in stern legalese. As she shuffled through the letters, her eyes skimmed over phrases: failed to make payment… we will have no option but to … unless payment is received…
Julia shoved them back in place as the footsteps stopped outside the door. She hissed to Hayley: ‘Bills. Final demands. The colonel owed lots of money,’ as Garforth entered with two glasses of water on a small silver tray.
Julia had taken a step to the right and was making a show of perusing the shelf in front of her.
‘The colonel had a fine library. He seems to have had a great interest in naval battles,’ she said, managing to speak in a calm voice that belied the rapid pounding of her heart.
She really wasn’t cut out for duplicity; it made her quite anxious.
‘I see he has a number of books on the subject.’
Garforth approached, holding the tray out for her to take a glass of water. ‘He was a keen collector of military history books in various periods and subjects. As you noticed, he was interested in naval battles. As well as the Boer War. The Napoleonic Wars. Various others.’
Garforth turned abruptly and walked over to Hayley, who was seated on an upright chair next to the colonel’s desk. She took the water glass from the tray, and thanked him.
‘Now, Inspector, what can I do for you?’ he asked, sitting down in the chair next to her.
Julia felt rather awkward being in the room when Hayley was about to question Garforth.
She considered leaving, but thought that would be more disruptive.
So she remained, lurking by the bookshelf, holding a large book in front of her face as if reading.
She stood stock-still, trying to channel her inner invisibility.
Thankfully, her heart was no longer beating like the hooves of Napoleon’s steed in full battle charge.
It had calmed down to the pace of a brisk trot through the French countryside.
With a jolt, she remembered the gossip she’d overheard at the funeral, that the colonel had recently seemed to be on solid ground, financially, after a tricky patch a few years ago.
But that no longer seemed to be the case, judging by the bills and demands Julia had found in the bookshelf.
‘I thought you might help me understand the colonel’s financial situation,’ Hayley said. ‘I heard that he might have been having financial difficulties?’
‘Heard from whom?’ Garforth snapped. ‘That’s a private matter.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t say, but it seems fairly well known. And yes, his financial situation is his own business, unless it has a bearing on his death – which it might.’
‘I’m under a confidentiality agreement, so unless you have some sort of… What would it be? A sort of legal document or subpoena or what have you, I’m afraid I can’t talk about my employer’s financial situation.’ Somehow Garforth managed to sound both regretful and smug about his inability to help.
‘Of course, I quite understand your position,’ said Hayley, soothingly.
‘Thank you,’ said Garforth, as if that was the end of it. But Hayley Gibson wasn’t going to back off easily.
‘In that case, Mr Garforth, let me ask you about something that affects you directly, and that you can comment on. Your salary appears to have been paid regularly on the twenty-fifth of the month until three months ago, and then as far as I can see, the payments stopped abruptly. What happened? Why have you not been paid?’
Julia lowered the book she was pretending to glance at, admiring the way that Hayley gave no explanation as to how she came to have this information.
There was a minute of silence, during which Garforth must have weighed up the relative merits of co-operating with and crossing the detective inspector.
Then he spoke: ‘My employer had a temporary cash-flow problem. There was a brief… hiatus. A bit of a hold-up.’
They seemed completely unconcerned about Julia’s presence. She put the book down gently on an end table, and blatantly watched the two.
‘That must have been very concerning for you.’
‘It’s not ideal, but I was confident that the cash-flow issue was temporary.’
‘I assume it was the same cash-flow problem that brought Mr Peckham knocking on Colonel Loxton’s door?’
‘I couldn’t comment on that,’ said Garforth, vaguely, as if this was something well beyond his ken.
‘Gambling debts,’ said Hayley. ‘It seems the colonel made the classic mistake of gambling with borrowed money.’
‘As I said, I’m not at liberty—’
‘It’s hardly a secret, Mr Garforth. His own son mentioned at the memorial that Colonel Loxton liked a flutter, that he was fond of the horse races and that he played poker. And he was in trouble, to the point where he couldn’t reliably pay your salary.’
‘That’s the nature of the game. You’re up, you’re down, you’re up again. He always came right in the end.’
‘Except that he didn’t,’ said Hayley. ‘He didn’t come right. The creditors were getting tetchy. Final demands, debt collectors, threats. Peckham broke his toe, for heaven’s sake. The bank cut off his line of credit. I’m sure you must have been getting worried about being paid.’
‘These things have a way of working themselves out,’ said Garforth. His voice was steady, but his cheeks were flushed. ‘I was not worried. I knew I would get what was due to me.’
‘And so you did. In the form of an inheritance, as it turned out. I understand you were well taken care of in the will.’
Garforth’s red face turned quite white. ‘You are not suggesting that I had anything to do with the colonel’s death?’ he said coldly.
‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ said Hayley. ‘I’m gathering information. It would be in your interest to tell me what you know. The sooner I have the information, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair. Now, did you know that you would inherit from the colonel’s estate?’
‘You are barking up the wrong tree, Inspector.’
Garforth was answering Hayley’s question: ‘I did know that I would be taken care of. But I was also the only person who knew how much financial trouble he was in. I knew that the colonel was broke, because he confided in me when he couldn’t pay my salary.
His situation means that my so-called inheritance is doubtful at this point.
I think we can agree that there’s no point in killing a man for your inheritance if there’s nothing left to inherit.
You should be talking to the people who didn’t know he was in trouble.
One of the other heirs. His children, for instance.
They were the ones who had most to gain from his death.
’ He gestured around the room and beyond.
It was true, thought Julia. Greg and Clara at least had Greystone Manor coming to them – unless their father had mortgaged that, too.
Hayley changed tack. ‘I know that you and the colonel go back a very long way. That you were in the army together. Could you tell me a bit about your time together?’ Hayley’s face was blank, giving nothing away.
‘There’s not much to say. We met in the army. I was a youngster. He took an interest in me.’ Garforth shrugged.
‘I’ve heard about the heroic incident with the burning car,’ said Hayley, avoiding the matter of who exactly was heroic. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’
‘Long time ago now,’ said Garforth. ‘I can’t see how it’s relevant to the investigation.’
‘Hard to know, before I’ve heard the details. It’s all just background information.’
‘The story’s well known, he pulled me from a burning car. We both lived to tell the tale.’
Hayley smiled and then went in for the kill. ‘Are you sure it was that way round?’
He said nothing.
‘Mr Garforth, I know that you received a medal for your bravery.’
Julia couldn’t help herself: ‘Colonel Loxton presented himself as a war hero, but you were the one who ran in to pull him from a burning vehicle. Why?’
Garforth gave Julia a poisonous look, but he didn’t deny her statement or answer her question.
‘It’s none of your business.’
Hayley spoke: ‘Mr Garforth, it’s time to tell me what’s really going on here.
What was your relationship with the colonel?
Why did you go along with that lie for all these years?
And what happened between you these last months of his life?
If you don’t tell me the truth, I’m going to have to arrest you. ’
Garforth opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, but he just swallowed, his Adam’s apple rising and falling prominently on his long, thin throat. Julia wondered if he was holding back tears. And then slowly, one lone tear slid down his cheek.
‘I loved him,’ said Garforth, softly. ‘He took me under his wing, and he guided me, and he knew all my secrets but didn’t judge me.
The army is a lonely place if you’re at all different, and I’ve always found it hard to make friends.
But Clarence just warmed to me from the beginning.
And then, he was in that explosion – and I rescued him. ’
‘And then he took the credit? That must have made you angry?’ said Julia.
‘It wasn’t like that at all,’ said Garforth, taking out a large white handkerchief, and wiping his eyes. ‘I was injured rescuing him, and then I had a bit of a breakdown, He was by my side as much as he could manage, and then he took the medal home for me, to keep it safe till I was better.’
‘And then took the credit?’ said Hayley.
‘No – it wasn’t that simple. One of the things that Clarence and I had in common was awful fathers.
His didn’t think much of him – called him a coward and a pansy and a loser.
So when Clarence came home, and his father found the medal in his room, he assumed Clarence had won it and kept it secret out of humility.
It was the first time that his father was pleased with him – threw a big surprise party, told the whole family, even called in the local paper.
Clarence didn’t know how to tell him the truth.
He let them all believe it and it gave him status in the family that he didn’t have before. ’
‘And then you found out and blackmailed him,’ said Hayley. But Julia had been listening to the gentle way in which Garforth always referred to the colonel, the love in his voice, and she didn’t think that that was what had happened at all.
‘You didn’t care,’ she said softly.
Garforth looked at her, and smiled weakly. ‘Exactly. I was so glad to be back in his life, and he gave me a job, and paid me far more than I needed which helped me and my daughter.’
Julia remembered the young woman in the social media posts. Daughter! Of course.
‘Nothing mattered more to Clarence than his reputation and his dignity. When his father died, he offered to tell everyone the truth – but it didn’t matter to me, and I knew it would be painful for him.
He was a respected man; a war hero; and that mattered to him.
I wanted to help him keep that even in death.
I kept the secret about the medal, and I tried to hide the financial problems. I protected him.
’ His eyes filled with tears again. ‘But now I’ve failed. ’
‘You had no choice,’ said Julia gently. ‘Clarence wouldn’t have wanted you to go to jail for keeping his secrets.’
‘I suppose he wouldn’t,’ said Garforth. ‘He always looked after me.’ He started to cry properly now, hiding his face in his hands. Then he looked up at Hayley. ‘I swear, I had nothing to do with his death. Nothing. I would give my own life for that man.’
‘Well, that’s all very well,’ said Hayley, looking at the crying man. ‘But then who on earth killed the colonel, and why?’