The Dead Call: A chilling British detective crime thriller (The Hidden Norfolk Murder Mystery Series Book 6)

by J M Dalgliesh

  "Ah… bloody hell!" Eric said.

  Tom looked round to see Eric steadying himself by holding the gate post with his left hand and examining the sole of his right shoe.

  "What?"

  "I've trodden in dog sh—"

  The rear door was yanked open and a man appeared, scowling.

  "You're trespassing!"

  Tom smiled, withdrawing his warrant card from his pocket once again, holding it aloft.

  "Robert Rutland?"

  "What of it?" he asked, maintaining his expression.

  "We'd like a word. May we come inside?"

  Rutland eyed him up and down. Then he turned to Eric, currently busy wiping his foot in the long grass growing to the side of the gate.

  "He'd better not stink my house out with that," Rutland said, disappearing back inside.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tom followed Robert Rutland into the house with Eric carrying out another couple of sweeping passes of his foot in the long grass before he, too, entered the property. The cottage was deceptively spacious on the inside. The low pitch and overhanging eaves implied the house would be small, compact and with low ceilings. The reality was far from it. Although room dimensions were generous, the kitchen they were standing in was cluttered. The sink was full of dirty crockery with a saucepan balancing precariously at the top of the stack, half filled with water and a dried brown residue lining the sides. Every inch of space on the worktops was filled by used plates and bowls, unsealed food packets and vegetables. Many of the latter were almost unidentifiable, having turned black or discoloured and grown mould spores to such a degree that a CSI tech would struggle to name them.

  There was an unrecognisable smell in the air, also stale and unpleasant, which snagged at the back of your nose and mouth. It was a lingering odour that triggered the senses. The irony of Eric having to clean his shoes before entering was not lost on Tom. Rutland stood in the centre of the kitchen, hands on hips.

  "Do you want a cup of tea?"

  "No, thank you," Tom said. A battalion from the Parachute Regiment couldn't force him to eat or drink in this place. Not without booster vaccinations first.

  "In that case, we don't need to stay in the kitchen. Damned depressing being in here, right enough."

  Rutland led them out of the kitchen and into the rear sitting room. The change of location did little to improve their surroundings. The room had a dining table and six chairs at its centre. An open fireplace was set into one wall and a picture rail delineated the change in colour scheme. Below the rail the walls were a dark shade of crimson and above would once have been white or possibly cream but was now yellowed by wood smoke and, judging by the smell in the air, frequent use of a pipe. Tom's grandfather, on his mother's side, used to smoke a pipe and it was a distinctive aroma. Unfortunately, here that familiar smell was intermixed with something very different.

  Rutland sat down at the head of the table, producing a leather pouch of tobacco and looking around for something, frowning.

  "Where's that damn pipe?"

  Claws scraping on the wooden floorboards announced the arrival of the dog. Eric need not have worried. It was a Golden Retriever, not a breed known for its aggression, and it was clearly aged. The animal moved with almost robotic movements of the hips, its tongue hanging out and panting hard with the exertion of movement. The dog flopped down on a bed in the far corner, paying the visitors no attention whatsoever.

  "Poor girl," Rutland said, noticing Tom watching the dog. "With her cataracts, she probably can't even see you. Lost her sense of smell years ago, too. What with the arthritis, she probably won't make it through another winter."

  Rutland got up again, searching the room with his eyes. It was no surprise that he couldn't find anything. The room was packed with freestanding furniture, laden with dust-covered books, newspapers and magazines. There were several glass-fronted display cabinets and shelving around the room dedicated to wild birds. In the cabinets were stuffed birds; evidently a process done years ago because many of them were visibly deteriorating. On the shelves were glass display domes, some containing more birds and others with eggs placed inside nests, much as they might be found in the wild.

  He found his pipe on a stack of books alongside the dog's bed. Before returning to the table, he bent over and scratched behind the dog's right ear. She leaned into him, appreciating the gesture.

  "Not long now, eh, old girl?" he said, before righting himself and coming back to his seat. He also seemed to be suffering in the same way as his pet, coming back to his seat with the pipe in one hand and an ashtray in the other. "So, what do you want?"

  He didn't offer either Tom or Eric a seat. With the questionable hygiene on display, Tom thought that was probably for the best.

  "We're investigating a murder," Tom said.

  Rutland glanced up at him and then continued packing tobacco into his pipe. "That body found out at Blakeney?"

  "You heard about it?"

  "Of course I have. Just because I can't abide being around people it doesn't mean I'm deaf," he said. "What's that got to do with me?"

  "You've had issues with the victim in the past."

  That got his attention. Rutland stopped what he was doing, gently placed the pipe on the table and inclined his head to one side, fixing Tom with an inquisitive look.

  "Who?"

  "You fall out with a lot of people?"

  "One or two," Rutland said, his face splitting a grin that revealed yellow teeth along with a few blackened stumps and receding gums.

  "Mary Beckett."

  Rutland sank back in his chair, placing both hands, palms down, on the surface of the table. The grin faded and he slowly bobbed his head forwards.

  "Old Mary was done for, was she? Can't say I'll miss the old cow."

  "Not nice to speak ill of the dead," Eric said softly, moving about the room.

  Rutland's eyes flicked briefly towards Eric, but he didn't comment directly, looking back at Tom.

  "Fair's fair. She would be pretty pleased to see the back of me too," he said, sneering. "I'll go to my grave happy knowing I outlasted the old witch."

  "We gathered the two of you didn't see eye to eye," Tom said.

  Rutland's eyes were trained on Eric, who was now leaning closer to one of the glass domes, raising a pointed finger to trace the detail of the contents. "Don't you be touching my collection, boy!" he said. Eric looked over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow, and then diplomatically retreated from the display case. "It's all legal."

  "That's not always been the case though, has it?" Tom said.

  "That was all a long time ago. Given that type of thing up for good." He waved his arms around, a gesture to encompass the room's contents. "Everything here was assembled prior to the law changes. I'm allowed to keep them. Anything that came after was taken away from me. Incinerated, too, I expect. Damn waste of fine specimens."

  "Perhaps if you'd left them in the wild, there would be more there to see," Tom countered. "Then incineration wouldn't have been necessary."

  Rutland shrugged, a gesture accompanied by a monosyllabic grunt.

  "Mary Beckett had you prosecuted, didn't she?"

  "Don't mean I killed her though, does it," Rutland said. "As if I'd kill her over a few eggs and a fine. You must be short of ideas if you're bothering me!" He chuckled as he said the last. His confidence was obvious. He'd had dealings with the law before, and he felt he was on solid ground here.

  “What was the cause of the crossed words you had with her last year?"

  Rutland sat forward, gathering up his pipe and setting about stuffing it once again. His brow furrowed as he continued and Tom waited for a reply. Once he was satisfied with it, he sat back and struck a match. Puffing on the end of his pipe, he sent a cloud of sweet, grey smoke into the air which filled the room. Eric scrunched up his face, clearly uncomfortable.

  "Allegations," Rutland said, pipe in his mouth. "Always making allegations, that one. Like I said, I'm clean.
Have been for ages. But that doesn't stop an old busy body like Mary Beckett. Always got to have a cause. Always got to be nipping at somebody's heels. If it wasn't me, it would be another." He took his pipe from his mouth and wagged it towards Tom suggestively. "No safe space for any of us. That's what you call it these days, isn't it, a safe space?"

  Tom was pretty sure the context was different, but he smiled politely.

  "Besides, you're barking up the wrong tree. If anything, I should be raising a complaint against her."

  "Is that so?"

  Rutland got up, placing his pipe in the ashtray and moving to a cabinet to his left. He moved aside a stack of magazines, old copies of an ornithology publication by the look of it. They were precariously placed and fell over, spilling to the floor, but Rutland ignored them. Eric moved to help pick them up but was waved away. Opening one of the drawers, Rutland took out a clutch of papers. They were little more than handwritten notes on pages torn from a spiral-bound book. He forced them into Tom's hands before returning to his seat, sighing at the effort required to have done so.

  Tom placed the papers down on the table. They were in a disorganised pile, unsurprisingly. They looked as if they'd been written by the same hand. Some of them were damaged by water, the ink having run. They were all short, abusive and aggressive. Tom flicked through them. One stated I'll tell everyone you're a paedophile which was a recurring theme along with demands for him to stop. Another implied Rutland was a secret homosexual. Tom indicated for Eric to have a look and the DC came closer. Tom turned to Rutland.

  "These were all meant for you?"

  Rutland nodded.

  "And you think it was Mary Beckett who left them?"

  "Everywhere I would go. Sometimes pushed through my letterbox… other times left pinned to my gate post or on my Landy, tucked under the windscreen wiper in the supermarket car park."

  "How can you be sure it was her?"

  Rutland laughed, but it was a sound without genuine humour.

  "She'd say exactly the same thing to my face. The woman wasn't shy, you know."

  "And what was it she wanted you to stop doing?"

  He splayed his hands wide, shaking his head. "Like I said. Allegations. That woman needed an enemy, something or someone to focus on. She damn well accused me of stalking her! Can you believe that? Me, harassing her when it was her who wouldn't leave me alone."

  Tom absently rubbed at his chin with his forefinger and thumb, casting a sideways glance at Eric.

  "Did you? Harass her?" Tom asked, fixing Rutland with a stare.

  He sat forward, resting his elbows on the table in front of him and drawing himself upright. "I'm many things, both now and in the past, but I'm not a danger to women, Inspector Janssen. Not now and not then." He sat back, relaxing and rolling his tongue across the inside of his cheek. "Even if she was a bloody awful woman."

  "You know these notes give you a motive, don't you?" Tom said.

  "If so, then I'd be unlikely to pass them to you if I'd done her in, would I?"

  There was logic to the point.

  "I would like to take these with me, if you don't mind?"

  Rutland focussed on Tom, there was distrust in his expression. "Why would you want to do that?"

  "If only to analyse the handwriting to see if it was Mary who left them for you. If so, then it points to her state of mind. The type of things she got up to. It could help lead us to her killer." Tom watched the man intently. Rutland held the eye contact, unflinching. "What do you say?"

  "Take them."

  "Thank you. Just one more thing, Mr Rutland. Where were you the night before last?"

  Rutland looked to the ceiling, his mouth open as he thought about it.

  "Here, mostly. I took the old girl out for her evening walk around seven, but the weather wasn't nice. Then we came back."

  "You can't have made it far," Eric said, looking at the dog lying in the bed. "I mean, she doesn't look like walking would be her thing anymore."

  "True enough. We were only out for a half hour, tops. And no, before you ask, I didn't see or speak with anyone who can confirm it. Unless Mrs Nosey next door saw me come and go."

  Tom smiled. "What is it with her and your dog?"

  "She mentioned that did she?"

  Tom nodded.

  "Goes back years. She caught her taking a pee on her alliums… didn't care for it and tried to shoo my girl away with a rake. Dogs don't like that much."

  "Did she bite her?" Eric asked.

  Rutland shook his head. "A growl is more than enough for that one. I think she's more scared of dogs than you are, young man."

  "Who says I'm scared of dogs?" Eric didn't sound like he could convince himself, let alone anyone else.

  "Thank you for your time, Mr Rutland," Tom said, as Eric gathered the notes together and produced a folded-up evidence bag from his pocket.

  "If you're looking for someone who Beckett fell out with, it wouldn't hurt for you to take a look at Daniel Crowe. If anyone had it in for her, then it was him."

  Tom assessed the suggestion. Was it an attempt at distraction or an expression of civic duty from a man who had never done so in the past? Rutland appeared to read Tom's scepticism well.

  "Don't take my word for it. The two of them were going at it outside the Blakeney Village Hall a while back."

  "What was going on?"

  "I don't know. Some community gathering. Plenty of people saw it, not just me."

  "What were they arguing about?"

  Rutland shrugged. "Beats me. But he was mighty angry when he left, and Mary looked very pleased with herself."

  Tom smiled. "We'll look into it."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tamara Greave looked around the complex as they walked. The residences were arranged in a U shape around a central garden. The beds were well tended and flowers were in bloom. A number of faces could be seen peering out at them from windows on both the ground and first floors. The buildings were flat-roofed and clad in white boards. From a distance they looked wooden but as they walked around them it was obvious they were plastic. Easy maintenance.

  "Ever get the feeling you're being watched?" Cassie said under her breath.

  She smiled. "New faces will always raise an eyebrow or two."

  "True enough."

  They were in a warden-controlled development, a halfway house between a care home and private residences. Nothing around them was ostentatious. The grounds were pleasant but functional with an outdoor seating area located in places of shade. Passing a wooden bench, it looked rotten and in need of painting. The cladding on the properties also had a build-up of dark green residue in patches, often confined to the north-facing sides, those that stayed out of the sun. Tamara counted perhaps eight residences, imagining them to be self-contained apartments and occupied by single people rather than couples.

  Michael Rowe lived in a ground-floor unit. They came to the door and Tamara rang the bell. To the left of them was a set of patio doors which opened directly onto the communal garden. The threshold was set at the same height on the inside and out, thereby making it safer and easier for the occupant to make use of it. Someone was inside, Tamara could see him through the window in the corner of her eye. Cassie went to press the button again but she stopped her.

  "He's coming."

  It took a while. A figure appeared on the other side of the door, visible through the obscured glass. He was shuffling forward and the process of unlocking the door took a while. A pale-faced man peered out at them through the gap. Having read his file, Tamara was quite shocked at the physical appearance of the man. He was tall, probably taller even than Tom Janssen, but he stood in front of them stooped over, one hand gripping the door handle as if it was all that kept him upright. His head was now at Tamara's level.

  "Mr Rowe?" Tamara asked, brandishing her identification. "DCI Greave and—"

  "Police. Yes, I guessed as much," he said, eyeing the two of them suspiciously. "She's spot on," he said,
indicating Cassie with his free hand. The skin was drawn across a bony and skeletal hand. "You're not what I'd expect to see, though."

  Tamara was surprised. "What would you expect, Mr Rowe?"

  "Police officers are like middle managers these days," he said. "Mind you, maybe you're dressed like they do in the offices of these new tech-based businesses. They're not bothered about convention either." His speech became halting, as if he was struggling to catch his breath. "You'd better come in, if you want to speak to me."

  He turned and began the slow shuffle back into the interior, leaving Tamara to push the door open. She glanced at Cassie as they entered.

  "What's wrong with how I dress?"

  Cassie smiled but didn't comment. Of all the things ever said to her by witnesses, suspects or criminals, no one had ever mentioned her choice of clothing before. They followed Rowe into his living room. Tamara was right, she could see a bedroom and bathroom off the entrance hall and a small kitchenette was attached to the one reception room overlooking the garden.

  She waited patiently for him to ease himself back into his armchair. He offered them both a seat, there was a choice of another faded green corduroy recliner or a wooden chair pushed under a small round table. Cassie chose to remain standing and Tamara perched herself on the recliner next to their host. Now that she had more than the narrow gap to view him, she took in his measure. He was indeed very tall and thin. His hair was thin and combed over in a classic attempt to hide his baldness but it was so obvious as to be comical. His skin tone was pale across all visible parts of his body, with some dark brown patches on his forehead and the backs of his hands. They could be natural and formed from birth but he may have spent a lot of time in the sun. The tips of his fingers were blue which was a symptom she'd never come across aside from someone suffering from acute frostbite.

  "Mr Rowe, we're investi—"

  He held up his hand, his brow furrowing as he reached down to the left of his chair. There was a large magazine holder next to him and between that and the chair Tamara caught sight of some transparent plastic tubes. Rowe pulled up an oxygen mask, placing it across his mouth and nose and drawing deeply. Tamara saw the tubes connected to a canister similar in size to a domestic kitchen fire extinguisher. After a few moments, Rowe released the mask from his face and placed it in his lap. His eyelids fluttered and his expression softened.