Murder in the Morning

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘Probably trying to get you. Try again before you leave. Any other news?’

  ‘I told Harris what I discovered yesterday about Delia Forbes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s going to follow it up but I had the impression he was only so interested. As far as he’s concerned, Barney is his man and he’s simply waiting for the forensic reports to confirm it. I can’t tell you any more than that,’ Melissa added in response to Iris’s lifted eyebrows. ‘I did manage to worm a few details out of him but strictly in confidence.’

  They fell silent for a few moments as they drank their tea. When the phone rang, they both jumped. ‘You get it,’ said Iris.

  It was the engineer, speaking from the exchange. ‘Did you have a call from a Stowbridge number recently?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘The caller must have left the receiver off. We’ll get it cleared for you as soon as possible.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Melissa returned to the kitchen. ‘I don’t like the sound of it,’ she said. ‘It looks as if she never came back to the phone. Whatever can have happened?’

  ‘Found you’d hung up and didn’t put her receiver on properly,’ suggested Iris. ‘Easily done with these modern phones. Did it myself the other day. Didn’t realise until it started howling like a demented banshee!’

  ‘Howling?’

  ‘Something they do from the exchange to get your attention. She’ll ring again as soon as she tumbles to what she’s done.’ Iris picked up the teapot and held it over Melissa’s cup. ‘Want a refill?’

  Melissa waved the teapot away, frowning. ‘You know, this doesn’t make sense. She had something she was simply bursting to tell me. She’d never have waited this long. I don’t like the sound of it at all,’ she repeated.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s all right,’ said Iris. ‘She’ll be in touch presently, you’ll see.’

  ‘Supposing she’s been taken ill or something? She lives on her own.’

  ‘We agreed she must have been talking to someone . . . ’

  ‘I never actually heard voices, except a sort of muttering as if she was rummaging around trying to find something. I wasn’t really listening, just waiting for her to pick up the phone.’

  ‘Try again. She may have hung up by now.’

  Sybil had not hung up; the line was still engaged and Melissa was becoming more uneasy by the minute. ‘I’m going round to her house to find out what’s wrong,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the tea, Iris. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Up to you. Think you’re wasting your time.’

  Melissa was not given to premonition but the fear that something had happened to Sybil had taken hold and would not be shaken off. ‘I’ve got to set my mind at rest,’ she said. ‘Iris . . . I don’t suppose you’d come with me, would you?’

  Iris stared at her. ‘You really are worried, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I am. The more I think about it . . . ’

  ‘Okay, if it’ll make you feel better.’

  The little street where Sybil lived was deserted except for a British Telecom van parked a short distance from her house. A red and white striped tent had been erected on the pavement and two young men in blue overalls were lounging against a nearby wall, mugs in hand.

  ‘That looks like the answer,’ commented Iris as Melissa pulled up. ‘Fix one line, foul up two more and then take a tea-break!’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  They got out of the car and walked up Sybil’s short drive. Two-thirds of the ground floor of each house in the terrace was taken up by a garage; the door to Sybil’s stood open with the car inside but the other three were closed, revealing that the owners had differing and not particularly compatible tastes in colour.

  ‘Look like slabs of rainbow chocolate!’ sniffed Iris, pausing to assess the effect. ‘Architectural vandalism!’

  ‘We can’t all live in listed cottages,’ Melissa pointed out as she pressed the bell-push.

  There was no movement inside the house. She rang again and rattled the letter-box but still there was no response. She peeped through the slot into the narrow hall with its little polished table bearing a silver letter-tray and a vase of flowers. Everything appeared normal.

  ‘Gone to report her phone out of order!’ suggested Iris.

  ‘No. Listen.’ From somewhere in the house came a faint, high-pitched hum. ‘Isn’t that the howler thing you were talking about? Surely she’d have heard that.’

  ‘Must have gone out in a hurry. Maybe a neighbour needed help.’

  ‘I can’t believe she’d have gone out and left her garage open. There must be a personal door into the house. I’m going to look.’ Melissa led the way, easing herself between the car and an assortment of garden implements ranged along the wall. Across the end of the garage was a workbench with a rack of tools above and a hydraulic jack beneath.

  ‘Don’t tell me she does her own car maintenance,’ commented Iris.

  ‘I doubt it. I expect that lot belonged to her late husband.’ As she spoke, Melissa found the door and turned the handle. It was unlocked. Something behind it prevented it from fully opening and a dark, viscous substance that in the subdued light looked like a patch of oil was spreading from an invisible source and had begun soaking into the carpet. Melissa’s heart began to thump as she peered round to see what was causing the obstruction.

  She stared down at the floor and the remains of what had been a human being. For a moment she stood transfixed in shock and disbelief; then she screamed, and the scream drained her lungs until she was all but suffocated. Like someone drowning, she fought for air, gasping and retching, covering her eyes in a futile attempt to blot out the memory of the crushed skull, the shattered features and the foul, oozing stain.

  ‘What is it?’ Iris stepped forward, saw, and turned away in horror, her eyes like black holes in a face the colour of bleached bones.

  ‘Something wrong?’ One of the telephone engineers, alarmed by the shrieks, appeared behind them. Dumbly, they pointed to the open door.

  ‘Jesus!’ he gasped, and fainted.

  ‘That’s all we need!’ said Iris, her nerve restored by this display of masculine weakness. She knelt beside the young man as he lay slumped against the wheel of Sybil’s car. ‘I’ll see to him. You go and tell the other one to call the police. An ambulance too. Not that they can do much.’ She began a vigorous slapping of hands and face while Melissa, on legs that would barely carry her, stepped shakily over the inert form and went for help.

  Detective Inspector Clarke had smooth, pink skin, pale eyes and receding sandy hair. His habit of constantly raising his eyebrows had etched a row of horizontal lines on his forehead, giving him an air of permanent surprise. He raised them now at the two shaken women who sat facing him in the interview-room at Stowbridge police station. His sergeant, an alert girl whom he addressed as Barbara, served them all with mugs of strong tea before sitting down with her notebook on her lap.

  ‘Now, you’re sure you feel well enough to make a statement?’ he asked for the second or third time. ‘If you’d rather go home to rest and get over the shock . . . ’

  ‘No, that’s all right, really,’ said Melissa.

  ‘Best to get it over with,’ agreed Iris. ‘So long as you’re okay?’ she added with a glance of concern at Melissa.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Right then.’ Clarke took a swig from his mug. ‘I believe it was you who discovered the body, Mrs Craig?’

  ‘I was the one who saw it first,’ said Melissa. She took a sip of the dark, bitter tea but, almost overcome by nausea, she hastily put down the mug and covered her mouth with a handkerchief.

  ‘Just take your time, and tell me exactly what happened.’

  Briefly, she related the sequence of events, beginning with the interrupted phone call.

  ‘Do I understand,’ said Clarke when she came to the end of her story, ‘that you had reason to believe your f
riend might have been the victim of a violent attack?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. I thought she might have been taken ill or had a fall or something.’

  ‘You say you heard bumps. Perhaps you thought she’d fallen downstairs?’

  ‘Not then, because I heard her come back. It sounded as if she was looking for something. I could hear impatient noises, but I wasn’t really paying close attention.’

  Clarke’s eyebrows jiggled up and down. ‘It didn’t occur to you,’ he suggested, ‘that it wasn’t the poor lady herself that you heard?’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Melissa felt the room start to spin. Barbara was on her feet in a second, pushing her head forward and speaking brisk words of encouragement. Iris grabbed the hand nearest to her and squeezed it.

  ‘Feeling better? Have a drink of tea?’ Barbara held out the mug.

  ‘No, thanks very much.’ The sight of the scummy liquid aroused more warning signals from her stomach. She sat up and put a hand to her forehead. ‘I’ll be all right now. It was just the shock of realising . . . of course, it must have been the killer I heard. How absolutely ghastly!’

  ‘It rather looks,’ said Clarke, ‘as if this was an opportunist crime. Someone saw the open garage door and sneaked in to see what he could pinch. He probably tried the door to the house, found that unlocked as well and picked up the hammer in case he was disturbed.’

  ‘Sybil was killed with a hammer?’ Of course, it would have had to be something heavy to cause those dreadful injuries.

  ‘A seven-pounder. He might have brought it with him but more likely it was already there with the other tools in the garage.’

  ‘You mean, he went in quite prepared to kill someone?’ One read of such crimes in deprived areas of inner cities, but . . . ‘How do you suppose it happened?’

  ‘We can’t be absolutely sure of the sequence of events but the victim was hit from behind and fell against the door leading into the garage, so the killer must have been in the house. Maybe he’d already started up the stairs when he heard the lady coming down and dodged round them to hide. From what you’ve told us, Mrs Craig, she’d heard him come in. He must have come at her as she closed the door.’

  ‘But surely she’d have screamed or cried out? I never heard anything like that.’

  ‘We must assume he took her completely by surprise.’

  ‘But why such a murderous attack? It’s brutal . . . senseless!’ That someone as gentle and inoffensive as Sybil, with her flower paintings and her harmless little poems, should have been needlessly and savagely battered to death, made Melissa seethe with rage.

  ‘I’m afraid that brutal and senseless attacks are all too common nowadays,’ said Clarke, the resignation in his voice making an odd contrast to his air of perpetual astonishment.

  ‘Was anything stolen?’

  ‘We can’t find the lady’s handbag. We shan’t know what else is missing until the relatives get here but it was probably money he was after . . . for drugs, I dare say.’

  Melissa closed her eyes and shivered. She felt cold and sick and wished she could crawl away and lie down. What sort of a society have we become, she wondered miserably, that our homes are no more secure from drug-crazed humans than were the dwellings of Stone Age tribes from marauding beasts?

  ‘Is that all you want to ask us?’ Everyone turned in surprise to Iris, who had sat bolt upright in her seat throughout the interview, replying in her own brand of verbal shorthand to the questions that came her way. ‘She’s had enough!’ Iris nodded in Melissa’s direction and turned fierce eyes on the detective. ‘Tomorrow will do if you want to know anything else.’ She got to her feet, grasped Melissa by the elbow and hauled her upright.

  If Clarke had intended to pursue his enquiries further, he obviously thought better of it under that formidable gaze. He too stood up. ‘Yes, that’s all for now. Thank you, ladies, you’ve been most helpful.’

  After the artificial light in the interview-room, the late afternoon sun shining directly on the entrance to the police station was like a physical blow to the eyes that tapped a gush of protective tears. Half-blinded, Melissa faltered, stumbled and collided with a burly figure hurrying towards the building. A strong arm prevented her from falling.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Madam . . . Melissa!’ The face of DCI Harris swam out of the mist. ‘What brings you here? And Miss Ash? Is something wrong?’

  Melissa could only nod speechlessly.

  ‘A friend murdered,’ she heard Iris explain. ‘We found the body.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ Harris looked from one to the other in consternation. ‘Where? When?’

  ‘This afternoon. In Stowbridge. Your colleague’s got our statements. We’re going home.’ There was a steely ring in Iris’s voice that dared Harris – or anyone else – to delay them further but he was more than equal to the challenge.

  ‘Who was the victim?’ he asked, looking directly at Melissa.

  ‘One of her students. Can’t you see, she’s had enough for one day?’ snapped Iris.

  ‘You both look as if you could use a stiff drink,’ said Harris, softening the natural rasp of his voice with an almost paternal note of concern. ‘There’s a good water-hole just round the corner. If you don’t mind waiting here a second while I . . . ’

  ‘Not now. Got to get home.’ Iris tugged at Melissa’s arm. ‘Come on. I’ll drive you.’

  ‘I think Ken’s right. A drink would do us both good,’ said Melissa. There was something solid and comforting about the big detective’s presence that was already having a restorative effect.

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Reluctantly, Iris relaxed her hold.

  ‘Just wait here a second while I drop this in.’ Brandishing a large manila envelope, Harris bounded up the steps and vanished while Iris sat Melissa on a convenient wall and stood over her like a guardian angel, a protective arm on one shoulder.

  ‘You’re incredible, Iris,’ said Melissa gratefully. ‘You must be just as shaken as I am.’

  ‘Not quite. Didn’t know her so well as you did. Wonder if they’ll get him?’

  ‘The killer, you mean? They’ve got to get him. If Clarke’s theory is correct, he’s very dangerous.’

  It was several minutes before Harris reappeared. ‘Right, that’s that,’ he said breezily. ‘Let’s go and have that drink. You okay to walk, Melissa?’

  ‘Of course I am.’ How stupid to have been caught tottering about like an invalid. It was hardly the way her readers would expect the creator of Nathan Latimer to react to a crisis, she thought, ashamed of her weakness. Already she was feeling more herself.

  Harris installed the two women in a quiet corner of the bar and bought a pint of bitter for himself, a brandy for Melissa and orange juice for Iris. He went back for a plate of sandwiches and Melissa was surprised to find that she was hungry. She ate the food, sipped her brandy and was even able to smile at the sight of Iris peering between the slices of bread to ensure that the contents were acceptable to a vegetarian.

  ‘I’ve heard of people being accident prone,’ Harris observed after a while, ‘but you seem to be murder prone, Melissa.’ It was the nearest she had known him come to making a joke.

  ‘I should carry some sort of health warning, shouldn’t I?’ she said wryly.

  ‘How did all this come about, then?’

  The tone was casual but it did not deceive Iris. She glared at Harris like a tigress defending a cub. ‘I told you, she’s made her statement,’ she snapped. ‘Not up to any more questions.’

  Melissa patted her arm. ‘It’s all right, Iris. I’m quite okay now.’

  ‘You said your friend sounded very excited about what she had to tell you,’ Harris continued between mouthfuls of bitter. Obviously he had taken the opportunity whilst in the station of running through her statement. ‘Have you any idea at all what it was?’

  ‘None whatever. She was saying things like “unbelievable” and “doesn’t make sense”, but she never came to the point at all.
’

  ‘Try to remember her exact words.’

  Clarke had said the same thing and she had tried desperately to comply but it had been like trying to lay hold of darting butterflies. Now, relaxed by the brandy, she felt her reflexes improving.

  ‘She was complaining at not being able to get through because my number was engaged and I said I’d been talking to you. Then she said, “Wait till he” – she meant you – “hears about this!” ’

  ‘Have you any idea where she’d been before she phoned?’

  ‘She was going into Cheltenham, to the library and then to call on Delia Forbes.’ Melissa felt a tingle of excitement. ‘I wonder if she spoke to the person who’s been doing the caretaking? Maybe she learned something that could help us find the person who’s been using Delia’s name.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Harris set down his empty beer mug, took out a handkerchief and wiped foam from his mouth. ‘Or maybe she just learned from a more rational neighbour that the real Delia has been abroad for six months. Or had you already told her that?’

  ‘No, I hadn’t. That was probably it.’ As had happened so many times lately, what looked like a flash of illumination had turned into a damp squib. ‘Whatever it was, she was so excited that she forgot to lock her door. Poor Sybil!’

  ‘Dangerous thing to do nowadays,’ observed Harris. ‘I hope you two are careful about security, living in that isolated spot.’

  ‘Give us credit for some sense!’ barked Iris, who had been showing signs of impatience. She stood up. ‘Going to the ladies’. Then home.’

  She vanished through the bar and Harris turned to Melissa. ‘I’m glad she’s out of the way for a moment. I’ve got some news that may cheer you up.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s not much help to me, though.’ A rueful grin crumpled the craggy features. ‘Nothing belonging to your friend Willard matches up with the fibres we found on the dead girl.’

  ‘Oh, thank God for that!’

  ‘Thought you’d be pleased. Not surprised, are you?’

  ‘Not really, but circumstantial evidence can play lousy tricks, can’t it? Oh, Barney’ll be so relieved – can I tell him?’