Cidered in Sidmouth Read online

  Amazingly enough, purple straggly hair complied with the polite request. Frank made sure he sat in the middle of the three.

  “Right, my name is Frank. This is my wife Ella. And you are…‌?”

  “Amelia ‌-‌ Amelia Nutwell. I’m Billy’s girlfriend. So missie, don’t try any la‌-‌di‌-‌da moves on my Billy.”

  Somehow Ella couldn’t prevent a watery smile.

  “And you can wipe that smile off your pretty face!”

  Frank diverted purple straggly hair’s attention back to him. “We are here because we were delivering a package that had been misdirected to us at our house. The key was under the flowerpot by the front door.”

  “Well, I know that. I’ve got my own key so I don’t need the spare.”

  “Now, Amelia,” Frank continued, “we may have some bad news for you.”

  Ella thought that Amelia seemed to sense what Frank was about to tell her.

  “We think that your Billy may be out in the courtyard in the cider vat barrel.”

  Amelia laughed and got up so she could see out of the closed kitchen door into the courtyard.

  “There’s somebody in the barrel! He’s upside down. Is that Billy’s legs?”

  “Has he got a tattoo on either leg?”

  “Yes, on his calf. It’s meant to be like that barrel. He’s only just had it done.”

  Frank had noticed the strange tattoo. It appeared to be a cider vat. It was way too similar to the barrel in the courtyard.

  “Then it could be Billy?”

  “I can see a tattoo. My word, I can see a tattoo!”

  Ella tried soothingly to join in with the conversation. “We’ve called the police. They should be here any minute now.”

  Amelia turned away from the door. “The police? I’m not speaking to any police. No. Not the police. You can deal with it. You killed him, you face the consequences. They’ll put you in jail!”

  Amelia headed for the open back door, and almost ran into the courtyard. The ridiculous accusation left Frank and Ella stunned. They did nothing to stop her.

  Ella was only able to shout, “Don’t touch anything!”

  Amelia had no intention. They heard a terrifying scream and then nothing. Within a couple of seconds, she had disappeared from sight.

  “Wait a minute, you can’t just run away! The police will want to speak to you if you’re his girlfriend…‌” Frank was speaking into thin air. He got up and followed her into the courtyard.

  Frank shouted out to Ella, “She’s not here!”

  “How did she get out of the courtyard. Over the wall?”

  “No, they’re too tall to climb over. There must be a door or a gate here somewhere.”

  Frank looked around, avoiding the barrel and its pair of legs. The courtyard was rectangular with two brick walls and a tall wooden fence reaching easily six foot in height. The back of the house made up the fourth side of the rectangle. Frank reckoned the courtyard was no bigger than four metres in depth. There was no gate. The brick walls were solid and as tall as the fence. Frank was increasingly baffled until he made himself look at the barrel. He immediately understood how Amelia had disappeared.

  However, he had no time to consider any pursuit. There was a sharp knock on the front door and in strode a young, efficient looking policewoman.

  “Hello, we received a call about a dead body. I’m WPC Knowle and this is PC Hydon. At least, it will be if he can find his way into the house.” She turned around to look behind her, waited for a moment and then returned his gaze upon the couple.

  “And you are, sir, and madam?”

  “My name is Frank and this is Ella, my wife. Frank and Ella Raleigh.”

  WPC Knowle jotted the names down in her black notebook. A loud thump on the door announced the arrival of PC Hydon. Neither Frank nor Ella had ever seen such an enormous human being, let alone a police officer. He filled his uniform both length‌-‌ways and width‌-‌ways. He must have had to remove his hat and duck his head to get through the door and into the room.

  “Right, now we’re both here, perhaps you can tell us why we’ve been summoned?”

  Frank moved away from the door into the courtyard and faced the two police officers.

  “We had a package wrongly delivered to our address. It’s not the first time so we decided to deliver it personally. We knocked on the front door here but no‌-‌one answered. We couldn’t post the package through the letterbox. I found a key under the flowerpot and tried it in the front door. It turned the latch so we came in. I was going to leave the package on the kitchen table with a note but when we got to the kitchen, we looked out into the courtyard and saw that.”

  He pointed to the cider barrel.

  “My word, what’s his legs be doing upside‌-‌down like that?” blustered PC Hydon, “He be drowning if ‘e’s not careful.”

  “I think he’s beyond that,” said Ella.

  Both police officers strolled out in the courtyard and surveyed the scene.

  “How sad, how very sad.” WPC Knowle touched the ankle of the deceased, “Definitely dead. What a tragic accident. He must have stood on the step there and slipped in.”

  “Yes, ‘e got stuck and couldn’t get out again. What a way to go.”

  “This is cider, isn’t it?” WPC Knowle dipped a finger into the liquid.

  “So he drank himself to death?”

  “What a way to go!” PC Hydon repeated.

  Both Frank and Ella stared at each other.

  “Don’t you think it could be foul play? He may have been murdered!”

  PC Hydon turned around and spoke incredulously:

  “This is Sidmouth, sir. Nobody gets murdered in Sidmouth!”

  ***

  Other official people arrived and extracted the body from the barrel and took him away. Frank had seen a photo of Billy Bowd in the front room. The corpse’s face was already bloated and reddened but definitely Billy. Even the police agreed with that. PC Hydon slumped himself down into the large tatty armchair in the front room and began to take notes.

  Frank and Ella were asked to make themselves available to pop into the Police Station so they could make a statement. Another person busied themselves in securing both front and back doors. It appeared that was that.

  “Wait a minute, please,” cried Ella. “Aren’t you missing out on some very significant clues?”

  Frank agreed, “Yes, the front room is a wreck. It looks like a fight took place in there. There are blood stains by the fire. Somebody tried to cover them up with cushions. It all appears to be very suspicious and upstairs…‌”

  Frank paused for breath.

  “Yes, I had noticed the state of the front room,” replied WPC Knowle. “But, sir, there could be any number of reasons for the mess. Did he live alone?”

  “There’s a picture of a happy couple on the mantelpiece,” Ella pointed.

  PC Hydon perked up. “When they took him out, I noticed a wedding ring on his finger.”

  “So we may need to contact a Mrs Bowd.” WPC Knowle took more notes.

  “What about the blood on the floor?”

  “He may have cut himself and couldn’t bear to see it. Lots of people can’t stand the sight of blood.”

  Ella suddenly remembered the purple straggly haired lady.

  “But while we were waiting for you, we had a visitor. A wild woman, name of Amelia Nutwell. She claimed to be Billy’s girlfriend.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “We told her we were waiting for the police and then she scampered out through the kitchen door into the courtyard.”

  “That’s strange.” WPC Knowle struck a thoughtful pose. “I didn’t see a back gate in the courtyard.”

  There was a brief moment of silence whilst the woman police officer scribbled away.

  “Right, we must be getting on. We have to cover a large area of East Devon and I bet, there’s a list a mile long waiting for me in the police car. If you’d like to leave through
the front door, I’ll close everything up behind me.”

  PC Hydon got up from the armchair. “Cheers,” he said as he walked out of the front door.

  WPC Knowle frowned at her partner and then turned to smile at Frank and Ella.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at the police station? For your statement? Do you know where we are? Turn up at eleven and ask for WPC Knowle. We’ll sort it all out then!” She stood there, ushering the couple on their way.

  Frank and Ella left the building in a trance and walked, hand in hand, back to the car park. All thoughts of ice cream had vanished from their minds a long time ago. All they wanted to do now was to go home.

  They arrived back at the car‌-‌park to find, attached firmly to the windscreen of their car, a parking ticket.

  Chapter Four

  Cidered in Sidmouth

  Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

  “We help report a suspicious death,” Frank blustered, “and we get a parking ticket as a reward!”

  He was fuming as he snatched from the windscreen the plastic envelope containing the ticket.

  Ella didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll dispute it tomorrow when we make our statement. Let’s just go home.”

  They drove slowly from the car‌-‌park, through the narrow back‌-‌streets of old Sidmouth, turned right to head along the seafront.

  The tourists were still out and about and the regency sea‌-‌front was covered with couples strolling and seagulls swooping. Elderly ladies and gentlemen were perched on wooden council benches chatting and people watching. Here and there, younger couples, some with toddlers, some with babies in prams, stared wistfully at the pebbles between them and the sea. Did they realise that if they had only gone to Exmouth they could have spent the whole day on a sandy beach?

  Ella turned inland up Station Road past the Knowle towards the old railway station.

  ***

  Soon, Frank and Ella were comfortably seated in their own front room overlooking the hills dividing the Otter and the Sid valleys. Confronted by the patchwork of fields, populated by grazing sheep and cows, Sidmouth now seemed to be on another planet.

  Both sat there in peace and solitude for some minutes, going over the afternoon’s calamitous events. Neither of them had experienced anything quite like the last couple of hours.

  Ella broke the silence.

  “What did you mean about upstairs? What did you see?”

  “A couple of strange things. In the bedroom, there were clothes all over the floor.”

  “I’m not surprised given the state of the front room.”

  “Yes, but the clothes were in pieces. It looked like someone had taken a pair of large scissors to them.”

  “Were they his clothes?”

  “I think so. But there were so many bits…‌”

  Ella frowned. “And the other strange thing?”

  “There was a phone by the bed.”

  “Don’t tell me, someone had ripped it from the wall!”

  “No. It was one of those with an answer‌-‌phone attached. I just had time to listen to the messages. There were only two of them. The first was from someone called Gabriel saying he needed to speak to him about some more gallons.”

  “Cider?” was Ella’s educated guess.

  “Could be. The other was from a woman demanding he pays her what was rightfully hers. If not, he was in big trouble.”

  “I bet that was the ex‌-‌wife.” Ella was on a roll. “Now that could explain the cut‌-‌up clothing!”

  “Do you think purple straggly hair was his wife? She said her name was Amelia Nutwell. Could be her maiden name?”

  “Could be, but she didn’t look anything like the woman in the photo.”

  They sat there, once again, in silence. They were both taking in all the information and its suspicious connotations. As teachers, they had been used to sorting out problems between children. Sifting the evidence and drawing mostly accurate conclusions. This was undoubtedly different.

  “Anything else?”

  “No, not upstairs. But on the mantle‌-‌piece was a postcard.”

  “Yes, I saw you slip that into your back pocket when the police weren’t looking.”

  “Oh, I thought I got away with that!”

  Frank took the postcard out of his pocket. “There was a picture on the front of some apples. They were speckled red and green, varied in size and shape.”

  “Well, is it important?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t time to read it yet.”

  “Look, there’s no address. Just these words.” Frank showed the writing to Ella. She read it out loud.

  “Billy Bowd Pippin! The recipe’s worth a lot to us and to you. We’ll be in touch!”

  “And it’s signed…‌”

  “The Zummerzet Zyder Mafia!”

  “Who on earth are the Zummerzet Zyder Mafia?”

  “Well, they must be from Somerset. They have a vested interest in Cider and they sound as if they’re criminals.”

  “A very obvious deduction!” Ella laughed.

  “Very strange.” Frank rubbed his chin, “This tragic accident is looking more and more suspicious.”

  “Do you really think, it could be murder?”

  “The caption of the photo reads Billy Down Pippin. That’s the name of the apples.” Ella turned the postcard back over to look at the picture.

  “Billy Down Pippin? Billy Bowd Pippin? They knew his name. It’s a warning aimed at him!”

  Ella mused for a moment. “Poor Billy Bowd ‌-‌ Cidered in Sidmouth!”

  The silence set in once more as they sipped cups of tea whilst deep in their individual thoughts.

  “Wait a minute,” Ella said, “Could anyone, a random person, just have broken in? Maybe a burglar?”

  “There were no signs of damage to either the front or back door. The back door was open. They could have escaped that way. The front door only opened when we used the key. The key was still there under the flowerpot.”

  “So if it was murder, he must have opened one of the doors to let his killer into the house!”

  They both lapsed back into companionable silence. Being married for nearly 40 years they knew exactly what the other was contemplating.

  Frank put their thoughts into words. “It must be either a ghastly accident or…‌ wilful murder!”

  Ella nodded. “And I think it’s more than likely to be wilful murder. There’s at least four suspects from our knowledge alone!

  “The ex‌-‌wife, Amelia ‘purple straggly haired’ Nutwell, Gabriel from the answer‌-‌phone and the Zummerzet Mafia.”

  “It could be any one of them!”

  ***

  “‘Ello, be that the Sidmouth Herald? Good. I’ve got ‘ee a stary. A stary fer your nooospaper. There be a man stuck in ‘is cider vat. ‘Is legs upalong pointing to the sky. He’s as apple pied as a cider drinker affer harvest. Dead drunk. No, oi’m a nony mouse, a concerned reader. Cheers.”

  “Aretha, there’s some bloke on the phone. Talking about a body in a cider vat. Says he was dead drunk.”

  “Yeah, he sounds it! Look, put the phone down. There’s no story in a drunkard’s ramblings. We’ve got more important things to cover. There’s a town council committee meeting. They’re discussing moving one of the council noticeboards and painting it red.”

  Chapter Five

  There’s no such thing as unfortunate coincidences

  The search for someone to blame is always successful.

  Frank and Ella attended the police station the following day, keen to share their thoughts and eye witness evidence.

  WPC Knowle took them to a side room, offered them a cup of tea and sat them down on two black rickety plastic chairs in front of an old Formica‌-‌topped table.

  “Welcome, Mr and Mrs Raleigh. Just tell me, step by step, what happened. From the time you arrived at the house o
n River Street to the time you left. Just to let you know, I’m recording this. Then, I can concentrate on your story without having to worry about writing it all down for now. I will type it up later and ask you to sign the statement once you’ve agreed it’s a true record!”

  Frank and Ella went through the events together. The mis‌-‌delivered package, the key under the flowerpot, the messy front room and the discovery of the body.

  Once or twice, they had to correct or clarify something with each other. Occasionally, WPC Knowle interrupted to ask a question.

  Frank recounted his quick look‌-‌around upstairs. Ella told of her abrupt meeting with Amelia Nutwell and her rapid appearance and then disappearance. They both described the contents of the cider barrel. Frank even confessed to the borrowing of the postcard. He handed it back to the smiling policewoman and apologised for his foolish behaviour.

  Whenever either Frank or Ella voiced an opinion, WPC Knowle gently reminded them to keep to the facts and not to drift into the realms of speculation.

  It took a while but, eventually, they were both satisfied that they had remembered everything. The recorder was turned off and WPC Knowle thanked them for their thoroughness and clarity.

  “It makes a change to hear two people give their evidence in such a clear manner.”

  “Thank you,” said Ella, “but what happens next?”

  “I think I mentioned about typing it all up and…‌”

  “Yes, with respect, I know about that. What I meant is what are you going to do about Billy Bowd’s death?”

  “Well, my Sergeant will pass on all the evidence we’ve gathered to his superiors. Somebody somewhere will decide if an inquest is needed. The coroner will be informed and, after all that, I expect someone will declare the death to be a tragic accident with no further action to be taken.”

  “But, it seemed to us, that there was every chance that it could have been murder.” Frank kept his voice calm and steady.

  Ella copied his persona. “Or manslaughter, at the very least!”

  “That’s one way of looking at it, but it seems to me more likely to be a tragic accident. Your clues can be interpreted as unfortunate coincidences. No, I think accidental death will be the verdict.”