A Hovering of Vultures by Robert Barnard

Author:Robert Barnard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

Chapter 11

Questions (II)

Mrs Cardew, the Fellowship Secretary, was a useless witness. She kept insisting that Gerald Suzman’s death could have nothing to do with the Fellowship, could not be a consequence of the “most successful” Weekend, and said over and over that the new organisation was the brainchild of devoted and tireless workers with not a thought of self. If anyone had suggested the dear old “passing tramp” she would have embraced the idea enthusiastically, so anxious was she to distance herself and the new literary society from the gruesome deed in Oxenthorpe. Both men got the impression that she might be in the lists against Rupert Coggenhoe in any moves to take over the Fellowship.

Mrs Marsden was another matter. A strong-minded countrywoman, she was clearly both more sensible and more intelligent than Mrs Cardew, though certainly less well-educated. She made it plain she had been pleased to be offered the curator’s post by Mr Suzman, had worked with him and for him devotedly and efficiently, but for all that she had never lost her clear-sightedness in relation to him and his doings.

“By the time I got involved he’d already bought the farm,” she explained to Oddie and Charlie. “So I don’t know much about that, apart from what I knew from living in the village.”

“And that was?”

“That it was a pretty run-down affair. It had been farmed for years by the son of the man who bought it at the auction in 1933. He got sick a few years back, never let go of the reins, and eventually died. Mr Suzman bought it at a knockdown price, what with agriculture being in the state it is in at the moment, and the general recession. He’s leased out most of the fields to other farmers, just keeping the bits around the farm and the spinney where Joshua shot himself. All in all, I don’t suppose he laid out that much money.”

“What about equipping it as a museum?”

“He enjoyed that, did Mr Suzman. It was like a bit of fun for him. He went to a lot of sales and auctions all round the country, buying up old stuff. But you wouldn’t be talking high prices. He was just after the sort of furniture and kitchen utensils and stuff like that that they might have had.”

“Was none of it actual stuff owned by the Sneddons?”

“Well . . .” There came on her the hesitation of honest doubt. “There were the two little tables that served as desks, for example. One was possibly Susannah’s, the other definitely Joshua’s, so he said.”

“But you’re not so sure?”

“It didn’t look old enough to me. Like the American lady said, everything they had was old even then—fetched nothing at the auction after they died, so my mother always said. So I did just wonder—well, if he said it was definitely Joshua’s because something had to be authentically his.”

Mike Oddie nodded.

“But do you think, speaking as a countrywoman, that on the whole he did a good job with the place?”

“Yes, I do.

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