Death In Topham
There’s a complex web of motives for DS Beth Holm and her constable to unravel in a case of neighbourly aggravation…
Finishing her phone call, DS Beth Holm beckoned to the newest detective constable on the team.
“Leah, I need you to drive me over to Topham-on-the-Wold so we can take some statements in connection with a suspicious death.
“Does the name Maurice Spilling mean anything to you?
“I’m told some of the court cases he’s been involved in have reached the national press.”
“Is he a barrister then, Sarge?” asked Leah, grabbing her jacket and bag.
“Retired headmaster.” Beth led the way past the front desk, nodding to the officer on duty. “This man’s hobby is getting up his neighbours’ noses. Property disputes, mainly – boundaries, rights of way, the kind that cost a fortune in solicitors’ fees and cause a great deal of stress to everybody concerned.
“Except for Mr Spilling who apparently thrives on it all. Or did, until yesterday afternoon.”
“No shortage of suspects then,” said Leah. “He can’t have been exactly popular. People queuing up to do him in, probably.”
“That’s the funny part,” said Beth. “Mr Spilling is down in the cells. He’s the alleged killer.”
The dead man, she explained, was Howard Davis, a businessman who had moved to the supposedly peaceful Yorkshire village of Topham-on-the-Wold after taking early retirement.
He had been unlucky enough to buy the house next door to Maurice Spilling’s property.
“At three pm yesterday, Mrs Davis and Mrs Spilling returned from a shopping trip to find Mr Spilling standing over the victim’s lifeless body.
“Mr Spilling appeared bewildered, claiming he’d done no more than grab Davis by the lapels.” She opened the car door.
“We’re expecting the post mortem result later today.”
“If he’s not denying that he assaulted the dead man,” said Leah, “shouldn’t it be pretty straightforward?”
Beth frowned.
“I can’t help wondering if there’s more to it. Spilling’s pompous, pedantic – thoroughly annoying, in fact – but not violent, as far as we know. He’s received a few black eyes in his time but never retaliated.
“Let’s see what his wife and the victim’s widow have to say.”
It’s my fault,” said Francesca Davis. Her clothes, shoes and jewellery looked expensive, like the furnishings in her lounge. “It was me who persuaded Ann – Mrs Spilling – to have lunch in York yesterday. We should never have left those two on their own, not with Howard’s heart condition.”
Leah, scribbling frantically, exchanged a glance with Beth.
“Was Mr Spilling aware of this medical condition, do you know?”
“I don’t think so.” Francesca’s breath came in shuddering sobs. “No one knew except me. And his doctor, of course.”
“You didn’t confide in Ann, then?” queried Beth.
Francesca shook her head. “We’re friendly but not close. She’s a nice woman.
“She’s reserved, but then she’s not had an easy life, has she?
“Doesn’t even see her own son more than a couple of times a year. He can’t stand his father.”
“Did anyone warn you, when you moved here, that Maurice Spilling was difficult to get on with?”
“No. Mind you, there were raised eyebrows when our other neighbours heard we’d invited the Spillings to dinner. But we got on all right to begin with. He was always a bit crabby but she tried to cover by making a joke of it.
“Poor Ann – couldn’t believe her luck, I suppose. Nobody else would have much to do with them.”
“Mr Spilling and your husband did fall out eventually, though?”
“At the dinner party, as a matter of fact. When Howard showed Maurice the plans for our new conservatory.”
“Whereabouts do you come from originally, Mrs Davis?”
“South London. But our accountant’s based up here and Howard took a fancy to the area.” She pressed a handkerchief to her eyes. “Howard said we should leave him and Maurice to it, let them sort it out themselves. Man-to-man, sort of thing.”
“You mean,” said Beth, “the shopping trip was Howard’s suggestion? To get you both away while he discussed your plans for the conservatory with Maurice?”
“That’s right,” said Francesca miserably. “I should never have agreed.”
Before knocking on Ann Spilling’s front door, Beth took a moment to survey the quiet village street.
“According to one of our community police officers, who used to live here, Maurice has quarrelled with practically everyone in Topham-on-the-Wold at some point,” she told Leah. “The vicar, the pub landlord.
“Once he even tried to force the parish council to move the duck pond.”
“Surprised he didn’t end up in it,” muttered Leah.
Ann Spilling struck Beth as a woman whose emotions were in lockdown.
Her house felt neglected, which wasn’t perhaps surprising. All Maurice’s energies – not to mention the couple’s savings – must have been poured into his legal battles.
No one could blame Ann if she’d given up caring.
It was hard to imagine them having many visitors.
Ann was unable to add much to what Francesca had told them. She did, however, produce a number of box files of copies of Maurice’s extensive correspondence – complaints to official bodies about incorrectly drawn boundaries, solicitors’ letters, counsel’s opinions and so on.
“Perhaps you could take a quick look through those, Constable Steele,” said Beth, ignoring the junior officer’s grimace. “Might give us some helpful background.”
Leah would almost certainly consider the task a waste of time but, despite that, Beth guessed she’d make a thorough job of it. The young DC came over as a little dour but she seemed conscientious.
Meanwhile, Beth guided Ann once again through the events of the previous day.
Nothing new emerged to account for Maurice Spilling’s behaviour. Nothing to explain why this man, who must have often goaded others to breaking point, should suddenly erupt into violence himself.
Perhaps the time had come to accept he’d simply acted out of character and forward the file to the DPP.
An hour after they’d returned to the station, Leah knocked on her door.
“There’s something I think you should see, Sarge,” she said. “I brought back some newspaper cuttings relating to Mr Spilling’s court cases, though why he’d want to keep them is beyond me.
“Even when he wins on a technicality, the judge generally has a go at him for being petty, and awards costs to the other side.
“But you might want to look at this. It’s a photocopy of a report in the South London Gazette dated January, 1972.”
“Don’t tell me Maurice started suing people as soon as he left school?” Beth began to read.
“Yes,” she murmured thoughtfully after a minute or two. “Yes – I see what you mean. Better bring the car round, Leah.”
So, Mrs Spilling,” said Beth when they were back in the drab living room, “can we take it that you were the Ann Maitland who received a suspended sentence at Westminster magistrates’ court for shoplifting forty-five years ago?”
“Yes, it was me,” said Ann. Her face was flushed but she seemed surprised rather than embarrassed. “I’d travelled into the West End with a group of friends from Bromley College of Art.”
A slightly surreal image of Ann Spilling as a 1970s art student flashed before Beth’s eyes.
“I was naïve, I suppose, and had no idea what the others were up to. I didn’t even realise somebody had shoved a silk scarf in my bag until the store detective pounced.
“The only person who didn’t abandon me was my boyfriend,
Johnny – and he ended up getting arrested as well.”
“That would be John Turner, who appeared alongside you in court,” said Leah, consulting her notes.
“What I don’t understand is how this got into my husband’s filing system. I’ve – er – never discussed the matter with Maurice.”
“Mrs Spilling,” said Beth, “do you think it possible that your husband was being blackmailed?”
This time, Ann actually laughed.
“That’s ridiculous. Who’d care? Nobody in the village speaks to us.”
“But would your husband see it that way? Might he not fear that a story like this could make him vulnerable to public ridicule? In view of his high profile in the community?” she added tactfully.
Ann’s eyes widened.
“You’re saying that’s why he attacked Howard? But why on earth would Howard want to blackmail Maurice?”
“That,” said Beth, “is a very good question indeed.”
Sitting bolt upright in her beautifully furnished lounge, hands clasped in her lap, Francesca Davis resembled a small girl whose birthday party had been cancelled at short notice.
“It’s not illegal to change your name,” she said.
“Johnny’s business affairs – well, suffice to say he’d made a few enemies over the years. He thought it would be best if we started afresh when we moved up here.”
“At what stage had he decided to employ a Yorkshire-based accountant?” asked Leah. “Was it when he learned of Maurice Spilling’s appointment as headmaster of a school near York?
“Did the accountant charge extra for keeping tabs on your husband’s former girlfriend while you were still in London?”
“It wasn’t like that,” said Francesca stubbornly. “It was more – altruistic.”
Leah was about to retort but Beth caught her eye.
“Johnny had always felt bad about Ann,” Francesca went on. “Her parents were very conventional, which is why they talked her into marrying that…” She swallowed hard. “He felt he should have done more to prevent it.
“About a year ago, a photograph appeared in the press of Ann and Maurice standing side by side on the steps of a county court building.
“The newspapers were calling them the worst neighbours in Britain, and Johnny made up his mind on the spot that Ann was never going to suffer that kind of humiliation again if he could help it.
“Through our accountant, he contacted the other couple in the case and offered them a reasonable price for their house – this house.
The publicity had made it virtually impossible for them to find a buyer so naturally they snatched his hand off.”
“You didn’t question his motives?” said Beth gently.
“It wasn’t long after Johnny found out he was ill,” said Francesca. “He saw it as one last thing he could do for Ann.”
“Blackmailing her husband about an old shoplifting conviction?”
“He’d never have hurt Ann. He wanted to put pressure on Maurice, that’s all.
“Persuade him that if he didn’t want a scandal, he’d better not cause any more trouble.”
“And that’s where his carefully laid plan misfired,” said Beth. “Because when his wife’s good name was threatened, Maurice didn’t submit to blackmail – he fought back.”
“How is Ann?” asked Francesca in a small voice.
“Difficult to say,” said Beth. “But I believe her son’s arriving tomorrow.”
“That’s good,” said Francesca. “Perhaps, one day, we can be friends again. I think Johnny would have liked that, don’t you?”
I’m not saying he deserved to die,” said Leah in the car, “but Johnny Turner certainly gave Maurice Spilling a run for his money when it came to being thoroughly selfish. And talk about manipulative.”
“Not to mention deluded,” said Beth.
Earlier, she’d put a final question to Ann.
“Did you keep in touch with this Johnny after the court appearance?”
“He tried to. I had to be firm in the end.” Ann paused and, for the first time since the start of the investigation, Beth saw her eyes fill with tears. “He just couldn’t accept that I’d fallen in love with Maurice.”
And Beth had sensed that those tears weren’t so much for the young Johnny Turner as for the man that Maurice Spilling used to be.
“Once you realise he was sticking up for his wife,” said Leah now, “you can’t help having a bit more respect for the guy.”
“What we’ve uncovered should help his case,” said Beth. “Let’s hope he’s learned his lesson and stops making everybody’s life a misery.”
“Back to the station, Sarge?”
“Back to the station, Detective Constable. And good work, by the way.”
Ms Steele really ought to smile more often, thought Beth. It suited her.
We’re sharing another cosy crime story from our archives, every Monday and Thursday throughout April. Look out for the next one!
