‘Certainly, m’lady,’ he said as the engine coughed and then burbled contentedly.
We all clambered in and were on our way again.
It was less than a mile up to Top Farm and we were pulling into the farmyard before I’d even managed to settle properly into my seat. Lady Hardcastle waved Bert back into his driving seat as he made to get out.
‘You’re most kind, Bert, but I don’t see any great profit in us all getting muddy. It’s not as though I can’t open a car door.’
‘Thank you, m’lady,’ he said.
‘We might be a little while,’ she said. ‘Do make yourself comfortable.’
‘Thank you, m’lady,’ he said. He had brought a newspaper and seemed unconcerned about how long we might be; I got the feeling he was looking forward to a day of dozing broken up by occasional driving.
The farmhouse was solid and well-maintained; a whitewashed family home to be proud of. Lady Hardcastle knocked on the sturdy front door and a few moments later it was opened by a short, plump, grey-haired woman. She was in her late-fifties, I judged, and her face, though etched with sadness, was still pretty. In her youth she would have turned heads, I was certain.
‘Yes?’ she said, suspiciously. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Mrs Carmichael?’ said Lady Hardcastle, warmly. ‘I’m Lady Hardcastle, from Littleton Cotterell, and this is Florence Armstrong. Inspector Sunderland of the Bristol CID has asked us to… to… umm…’
‘I’ve heard of you,’ said the widow, still on her guard. ‘Local busybodies, they say. You want to poke your nose into my Spencer’s death, too?’
‘I want to help you find out the truth, Mrs Carmichael. I lost my own husband at the hands of a murderer and I understand all too well the sadness, anger and frustration you must feel.’
‘Begging your pardon, my lady,’ said Mrs Carmichael with more than a hint of bitterness, ‘but you don’t understand nothing.’
‘Then help me to understand, Mrs Carmichael. Please may we come in and talk?’
Audrey Carmichael eyed us both appraisingly for a while longer until finally she said, ‘You’d better both come in, then.’
The inside of the farmhouse was as clean and well looked after as the outside and she led us into a warm, cosy kitchen.
‘I’ve just made a pot of tea,’ she said, fetching clean cups from the hooks on the Welsh dresser.
We sat at the large kitchen table while she fussed with the tea things.
‘You must be devastated, Mrs Carmichael,’ said Lady Hardcastle, kindly. ‘I do so hate to intrude, but if we can catch your husband’s killer–’
‘What makes you so certain he was killed?’ interrupted Mrs Carmichael, sitting down with us.
‘Well, I…’
‘The doctor insists it was poison,’ I said.
Mrs Carmichael laughed. ‘Doctor Manterfield, was it?’ she said, derisively. ‘That old quack? What does he know? Spencer was ill. He’d been ill a couple of days ’fore he even went to the market.’
‘So you don’t think he was murdered?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
‘There’s plenty as would have liked to murder the old buzzard, that’s for sure,’ said Mrs Carmichael. ‘But that sort of thing don’t happen in real life, does it. Not round here.’
‘You’d be surprised, Mrs Carmichael,’ I said.
‘Like as not, I would be,’ she said. ‘But that don’t make it so.’
‘I gather your husband was not a popular man,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
Mrs Carmichael laughed again. ‘Spencer was a curmudgeon and a bully, Lady Hardcastle. He was a humourless man whose only real pleasure came from trying to make everyone around him just as miserable as he was.’
We sat in embarrassed silence.
‘Shocked you, a’n’t, I,’ said Mrs Carmichael. ‘I can’t say as I’m glad he’s gone – I loved him once and I never really wished him ill – but a lot of people’s lives’ll be just that little bit brighter without his dark cloud hanging over them.’
‘People like whom?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘“Whom”,’ said Mrs Carmichael with the first near-smile I’d seen her give. ‘’Ark at she.’ She chuckled dryly. ‘Be quicker to give you a list of people who liked him.’
Lady Hardcastle produced her notebook and pencil from her voluminous handbag. She leafed through the first few pages until she came to the notes she had made earlier. ‘Can you tell me anything about your neighbours, Mrs Carmichael? Would any of them have a grudge?’
‘Pretty much all of them, I’d say,’ said Mrs Carmichael. ‘But let’s see, there’s Laurence Dougal over one side.’
‘Yes, we met him on the way here. Nice enough chap. Doesn’t seem to relish the life of the farmer, but he seems pleasant enough. How did Mr Carmichael get on with him?’
‘Like I said, no one really got on with Spencer.’
‘But did they have any special disagreements?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Same as everyone else as far as I knows. They had a row down by the boundary gate this last week, I think.’
‘What about?’ I said.
‘Couldn’t say; didn’t hear, didn’t care. Spencer was always arguing with someone.’
‘I see,’ said Lady Hardcastle, looking at me quizzically. ‘And on the other side?’
‘Noah Lock’s our neighbour on t’other side. Lovely bloke.’
‘No arguments there, then?’
‘Look,’ said Mrs Carmichael wearily. ‘I knows you means well, and despite all as I’ve said, I really does want to find out if it was murder, but you i’n’t listening, are you? Spencer Carmichael, my late husband, was a miserable old codger who rowed with everyone. ’Course he rowed with Noah.’
‘What about?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Whatever he could think of.’
‘Anything recent?’
‘Noah pops by a couple of times a week… just… to be neighbourly, like. I ’spect Spencer found cause to harangue him about sommat.’
‘I see,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘And what about other neighbours? Does anyone else come to call?’
‘No, them’s our only actual neighbours as you might say.’
‘What about…’ Lady Hardcastle flicked back a page or two in her notebook. ‘Ah, yes, here he is… Dick Alford? Did you ever see him?’ she asked.
‘Old “friends” as you might say. He’s from over Woodworthy but they knowed each other for years.’
‘And what did they argue about?’
‘Now you’re getting it,’ said Mrs Carmichael. ‘You name it, love, they argued about it,’ she said. ‘’Twas like it was their favourite pastime. Latest was when Spencer’s bull won a prize and Dick accused him of nobbling his bull.’
‘Mr Carmichael beat Mr Alford at the auction last week, too,’ I said.
‘Don’t I know it, love. Dick came round here shouting the odds that night. “You knew I wanted them cows, you bribed the auctioneer.” They was at it for ages.’
‘And did he?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Did he what?’ said Mrs Carmichael.
‘Did he bribe the auctioneer?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past him, but I don’t reckon so. Dick Alford was just a bad loser.’