The House in River Road

The House in River Road

by Lincoln Donald

"Good morning. Lovely day, isn't it," I said to the old man who was busily pruning the roses in the front garden of the old house in River Road. Dressed in a tweed jacket over a heavy grey shirt with a woolen tie, dark green corduroy trousers and highly polished brown shoes, he epitomised a country gentleman from a vanished era. He smiled and nodded in response to my greeting but said nothing.

River Road, as the name suggests, runs from the outskirts of the town of Rockwood to the river about five miles away. None of the 80 or so residents of the collection of houses by the river can remember anyone ever living in this house, which is much older than the others, although, every so often, someone from the lawn mowing and gardening service in town pays a flying visit to keep the garden from getting completely out of control. That was until three weeks ago when three gardeners spent the whole day slashing, mowing, and taking a chain saw to a sickly tree and some out-of-control shrubs. The gardeners were quickly followed by the painters and then, almost before the paint was dry, the old man arrived sitting between the driver and his mate in a furniture van. Even the removal van, which was from one of the big firms, gave no clue to where he was from. But we would soon know all about him. Maisie would see to that.

Maisie is the personification of our local news service. Always one to seize an opportunity, she converted the front room of her house to a shop when the newsagent, the milkman, and the baker all ceased delivering to the houses at the end of River Road. Almost all of us visited the shop every couple of days, giving her the perfect opportunity to indulge in her favourite activity -- gossiping. If you want to spread the word about anything in our little community, you only have to tell Maisie. She also has the knack of extracting from us information that we don't necessarily want spread around. But she always seems so interested and easy to confide in that, somehow, we forget we are not just telling Maisie.

When he ordered a daily newspaper, Maisie learned that the old man's name was John Walters and that he would be 90 years old in August but, even though he took a daily stroll to the shop to collect his paper, that was all she discovered. He engaged a housekeeper who drove out from Rockwood on four days a week to cook and clean for him but she never came near the shop. "Must bring everything from town," Maisie thought disapprovingly.

Not willing to face defeat after three frustrating weeks, Maisie called in the reinforcements. Mr. Walters found himself invited for morning tea, afternoon tea, lunch, and dinner at the homes of the most charming hostesses in our little community. It had taken several weeks but, eventually, we had the whole story.

"Grandad, go down to Rockwood and write the history of the Company before you forget the details," they told him and he knew they meant before he was too demented to remember. "If you stay here in the city, you won't be able to resist meddling in what we are doing." He knew they were right. So, on one of the rare occasions in his life, he did as he was told.

"My big problem is that I have no idea how to start." he confided in Maisie, who instantly and without consulting me offered my services as an adviser and possible ghost writer. She even made an appointment for me to see him on the following afternoon.

Two gentle knocks on the solid front door with the heavy, cast iron knocker brought the housekeeper.

"You the writer?" When I nodded she beckoned me in. "He's in his office." She ushered me down the long central hallway to a large, many windowed room with a view across the back garden to the river. It was sparsely furnished with an antique roll-top desk, a bookcase with a few reference books, two large filing cabinets and a coffee table between two comfortable leather armchairs, one of which looked as though it received constant use.

Noting the direction of my gaze, he said, "Yes, that's my favourite chair. Spend a lot of time in that chair."

In the corner, still in its cartons, was a computer. Pointing to it he asked, "Use one of those things."

"Yes. But nothing as flash as that."

"Flash or not, at my age, I'm not even going to try and use it. Do a good job on this history and it's yours. In fact, I'll go further than that. You can take it with you today whether you use it on this job or not."

After we had discussed what he wanted and agreed on the terms on which I would do it, we got down to talking about the company history I was to help him write. It soon became obvious that it would also be a biography of the old man, and that to capture his unique way of expressing himself I would need my tape recorder, rather than the notebook I had brought. Having secured his agreement to this method of operation and setting up three recording sessions per week, I walked back home and returned with the car to collect the computer before he changed his mind.

When the project was under way, it was obvious he spent much of his time between my visits consulting the old files in the filing cabinets, getting his thoughts in order and making notes that he referred to occasionally. For myself, my time was fully occupied transcribing the tapes into the computer, editing them, and writing my weekly newspaper columns. Every day, when I called at the shop for my papers, Maisie asked "How's the old man's history going?" and I invariably infuriated her by replying, "OK" or "Very well, thanks." depending upon my mood.

He told me he was an orphan before the end of World War I, his mother dying while his father was fighting in France where he was unlucky enough to fall victim to a sniper's bullet three days before the Armistice. After his mother's death, John lived with his grandmother in the house in River Road and, when he finished school, learned to drive and found work as a truck driver in Rockwood. He soon became convinced that trucks would more economically perform much of the work then carried out by the railways and moved to the city where there were more opportunities. His grandmother gave him the money to buy his own truck and when she died, left him the property on River Road. He had a sentimental attachment to the house but saw the 30 acres which came with it as the opportunity to raise enough capital to really get into the trucking business. He subdivided the land into residential blocks and sold them off, mainly to people from the town who were attracted to a riverside home rather than one close to the railway line. It took a few years to sell them all but, as they sold, he bought more trucks and employed more staff.

Like many testosterone charged men of his generation who succeeded in business, he married early and unwisely and lived to regret it. He fathered a son and a daughter in quick succession and by the time they were both at boarding school, Marion, his wife, began to play the field and everybody but him seemed to know all about it.

"How did you find out," I asked.

"A chance remark by a chap at a Transport Association meeting prompted me to do some investigating. I discovered that, by then, she had become involved with a man people these days would describe as a young stud. His name was Gerald Irons. They met on a cruise and then she set him up in a flat about a mile from home. To rub salt into the wound, I was paying the rent through her American Express card which my office paid automatically every month."

"What happened in the end?"

"Do you want the official version or the truth?"

"Why not tell me both, then we can decide which version to use in the book."

"Well... the official version is that they ran off overseas together and were sighted some months later in Argentina. I sounded off to anyone who would listen about how bitter I was over the whole affair and nobody questioned the story although some may have privately wondered how Gerald could have afforded it. Within a few years she was forgotten by everyone, myself and the children included.''

"And the truth..?"

Without saying anything he ushered me into the back garden and walked to a big, old, standard rose with a few blood-red blooms growing by itself down towards the river.

"If you dig here you'll find whatever's left of them after more than fifty years."

I was shocked and confused by this revelation and seemed to have lost the power of speech.

Finally he broke the silence between us and said, "That's probably enough for today. Same time again Wednesday?"

I grunted, "Yes," retrieved the recorder and my briefcase from the office and let myself out. Although I hadn't collected that day's papers, I couldn't face going near the shop until the following day by which time I hoped to be Maisie proof again so far as John Walters was concerned.

I did a lot of soul searching the following day. I had learnt from our sessions about his earlier years that, to succeed in the road transport business, he was a much tougher man than his gentle demeanour now suggested. Asking myself if I thought he was capable of murdering his wife and her lover, I had to admit it was possible. I also realised that his 'confession' was outdoors and well away from the recorder. If I did anything about it, it would be my word against his. I decided to dismiss it as pure fiction with which he hoped to retain my interest in what would otherwise be a dull story

On my next visit he greeted me with, "I've been half expecting police sirens."

"Well... not because of me. Not before the book's finished and about to be published in any event. Are you going to tell me how it happened?"

Checking that the tape was running, he began,

"I've been thinking about it since you were last here and," with a gesture towards the filing cabinets, "there's nothing there to remind me. It was a sad and sordid affair and I suppose I was lucky to get away with it. I've been repressing my memory of it ever since. From something Monica said I guessed that the next time I was out of town she and Gerald intended to go off to an isolated farmhouse belonging to a friend of his who was overseas. I told Marion and the office that I would be going to Melbourne for a few days. Gave her enough notice for them to organise their farmhouse adventure. Even had the office arrange tickets. At the appropriate time I parked my car in the long stay carpark at the airport, hired a station wagon and headed back home. I only just made it in time to see her drive off. I followed her until after she picked up Gerald and I was sure they were headed for this farmhouse. That night I broke in -- place wasn't even locked -- and shot them both while they were in bed asleep. Her first, then him. I don't think they even woke up."

"I dug the grave out there in the garden a few days before in readiness. I bundled the bodies into the station wagon along with all the traces I could find of their visit to the farmhouse, tidied the place up a bit then drove down here. Dawn was breaking before I finished filling in the grave. I couldn't go home so I spent the two days while I was supposed to be in Melbourne hiding out in Gerald's flat. Before I left I cleaned out all his stuff and returned the keys to the estate agent in an anonymous envelope. Fortunately, nobody was interested enough to check on the Argentina story and I got away with it."

"Shall I include that in the first draft of the book?" I asked.

He thought for a moment then said, "Yes. At least let's see what it looks like in the first draft."

When I started the project I expected the book would end up as a not very interesting biography of a former business tycoon and a history of the company he founded. If I could include enough revealing but not libelous comments about others in the industry it might well find a publisher who would not want the old man's company to pay the cost of publication. If the story of the bodies under the rose bush stayed in I should have no trouble finding a publisher, particularly if the police became involved about the time it was published.

We settled back into our routine of tape recording and in another three weeks reached the end of his involvement with the company. A further month saw the first draft ready for him to check and I managed to get it past him without too many alterations. I still didn't believe his story about murdering his wife and her lover and suspected it was his way of keeping me interested in the project, but his account of the double murder was still included when he gave me back the draft. Three weeks later I went off to the city with the finished manuscript under my arm, having suggested to a small publisher that this could be his chance of a best seller.

He rang me after he read the book and asked whether I was going to give the information regarding the bodies in the garden to the police.

"Not until a few days before the book is released and I tell the old man what I am doing."

"Good," he replied, "Let's get on with the job."

When I received the small box of advance copies I was pleased to see what a good job he had done. He used most of the photographs from the early days the old man had given me, including the one of himself and Marion. But the picture on the dust jacket was not the one of a truck with the company name on it I had selected but of a standard rose with blood-red blooms. I set off immediately with a copy for the old man.

He seemed genuinely pleased with the book and, after checking that the section about his wife and Gerald Irons was still there, he asked

"I suppose you'll want to see the police now?"

"Yes. I'm afraid I'll have to. Otherwise I could find myself charged with withholding evidence of a serious offence."

"Could you give me a couple of days to get a few things sorted out? Please?"

I agreed but when I returned two days later there was no answer to my repeated knocks on the front door. Making my way round to the back of the house, I peered through the windows of the office. He was stretched out in his favourite chair with his feet on a footstool. He looked to be asleep but did not stir when I tapped on the glass. The door was unlocked and I let myself in. He wasn't asleep, he was dead and there was a glass, a half empty bottle of scotch and an empty packet of sleeping pills on the coffee table. I removed these before I rang for the ambulance.

He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Presumably because of his age, no post mortem was conducted and the cause of death on the Death Certificate was shown as heart failure. I let the police contact the grandsons and waited until after the funeral in the city before giving an appropriately marked copy of our book and the tape of the old man telling his story to the Rockwood police.

I met them at the old house. A detective sergeant and two constables in overalls. They marked out a two metre square around the rose bush and began to dig. I retired to the old man's office and waited. They struck the first of what appeared to be human remains after an hour of careful digging. Having established there was probably something in the old man's story, they sent for the regional forensic team, leaving one of the constables on guard. I went home and rang the publisher telling him it was OK to release the book.

Later that afternoon I marked another copy and took it with me when I went to the shop to collect my papers. Maisie must have heard that the police were at the old house and gave me a quizzical look.

"Maisie," I said, handing her the book, "I'll give you a scoop. If you read the section I have marked you'll know almost as much as I do about how old John Walters murdered his wife." She still hasn't forgiven me for holding out on her for all those weeks.