Deadly Admirer

by Christine Green

  ‘What?’

  He had a mouth so small he must have found cleaning his teeth a struggle and a beaky nose that plunged downwards to meet his tiny oral orifice. If he had a girlfriend he could only have managed to kiss her sideways on.

  ‘You seemed to be following the red Mini.’

  ‘Did I?’ he asked.

  ‘You did.’

  Nervously he pushed his checked cap a little back from his forehead and stared at me with eyes the colour of stale porridge. ‘I don't know what you're talking about,’ he said. ‘I've come to see the practice nurse. She hasn't arrived yet, her car's not here. I hate hanging about in the waiting room, everyone hacking and coughing, so I sit here for as long as I can – it's a lot healthier. But I certainly haven't been following anyone. I just drove here today as I've done twice a week for the last month, once to see Dr Hiding, once to see the practice nurse.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘What's wrong with you?’

  ‘This.’ he said, as he pulled off his cap and revealed a balding head with a few downy fair hairs sprouting amongst a mass of pustules.

  ‘That's nasty,’ I said. ‘Is is getting better?’

  ‘Not so you'd notice,’ he replied. ‘It's defying medical science at the moment. But I live in hope.’

  ‘I'm sorry to have disturbed you. I hope it gets better soon.’

  He nodded and as he did so I remembered where I'd seen a similar nose – the Reverend Collicot, vicar of St Peter's. So this was the son known in the village shop as, ‘Young Christopher – poor soul'. I now realised it was his looks the customers referred to, not, as I'd thought, because he was at theological college. Vanessa, of course, would have known him from his frequent visits to the Health Centre. No wonder she was unperturbed by his presence. The vicar's son was hardly the Very Mad Sod I had anticipated, more he of the Very Mouldering Scalp.

  I couldn't help wondering why Vanessa wanted me out of the way for the rest of the morning but I felt like a break from sitting in the car and I wanted a chat with Hubert. He kept an ear to the ground in more ways than one and I wanted to tell him about my visit to the police.

  On the way to Humberstones I saw there was a free parking space outside the bakery and I couldn't resist stopping. The novelty of being able to park directly outside shops hadn't waned yet. I'd lived in north London for many years and felt lucky if, there, I could manage to park my car outside my own home.

  I chose two fresh cream meringues because then I could tell Hubert that they were lower calorie than most of the other cakes. He is always saying he's watching his weight but really I think he's watching mine. Anyway, I knew he had a sweet tooth and when he saw the cakes he wouldn't exactly smile but his face would fall into creases of pleasure.

  Hubert's hearing as always seemed very acute because he came to the foot of the stairs as soon as he heard me open the side door.

  ‘You've had a phone-call this morning,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘Cream cakes!’ I said, ignoring his tone and the phone-call and waving the pink ribboned box before his eyes.

  ‘Haven't you heard of healthy eating, Kate?’

  ‘You mean lettuce and lentils. It's not the same, is it, Hubert? They don't wrap up half so prettily. I'll eat them both if you don't come up and share them.’

  It was then that his face began to crease and I knew I'd won.

  Between mouthfuls, we sat opposite each other on the dove grey office chairs Hubert had bought me after my last major case and I told him about Vanessa's mysterious rapist and showed him the two hundred she'd given me in fivers.

  ‘Is she on the game?’ he asked.

  ‘She's a district nurse!’ I protested.

  He shrugged. ‘There's a lot of it going on. Especially in Percival Road.’

  ‘How do you know she lives in Percival?’

  ‘You wrote it in your diary.’

  I guessed that Hubert was wondering how she could afford me so I said, ‘When someone pays cash in a shop the shop assistant doesn't say, “Excuse me, madam, but how can you manage to afford this?” do they?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ agreed Hubert grudgingly. ‘But I wouldn't want you to get involved in anything dangerous or illegal.’

  ‘No need to worry about that,’ I said. ‘I've got a feeling this one is just going to die on me.’

  ‘What you need is a bit of inside information,’ suggested Hubert. ‘Someone else must have seen her being followed, some old biddy she visits must have clocked this bloke. After all, Longborough isn't a large place, it's not New York where an oddball would go unnoticed.’

  ‘You're right, Hubert, I've been to New York, and crime there lurks just like London fog in those old B pictures. In this country prospective criminals hide away pretending they're as innocent as the characters in Coronation Street—’

  ‘You're getting ever so cynical, Kate,’ interrupted Hubert. ‘And when did you go to New York?’

  ‘I'll tell you about it one day,’ I said. ‘But you are right, Hubert, I do need to be on the inside. Perhaps Pauline could fix me up with some relief work.’

  Pauline Berkerly, a friend of mine, ran the Berkerly Nursing Agency and she usually managed to find me work without asking me too many questions about why I wanted it.

  Hubert continued to nibble his meringue while I rang her.

  ‘District work?’ she said, sounding doubtful. ‘That's usually well staffed; people don't want to work in hospitals any more, you know. Your only hope is if they have some long-term sickness. I'll ring you back if I hear of anything.’

  As I put down the phone I remembered the other call. ‘Hubert, who was it who called?’ I asked.

  Hubert got up to go, his expression glum, and walked towards the door. The electric light was on and my new white paper shade seemed to highlight the shiny bits of his black suit. When Hubert looked miserable, I thought, and in certain gloomy lighting, he only lacked the scythe to be my idea of the all-purpose Grim Reaper.

  As he opened the door he said, ‘A Paul Oakby rang – nasty, aggressive character. He said he'd keep ringing till he got you.’ ‘Sounds ominous,’ I said and I knew that Hubert knew that the smile on my face was false.

  I spent what was left of the morning planning how best to interview a suspected rapist and wondering who let it be known I had an interest in him. Only the desk Sergeant and DS Roade knew I had been to the station. I hoped it was the desk Sergeant.

  For lunch I ate four naked cream crackers, drank two mugs of fully caffeinated instant coffee and at one o'clock I watched Hubert walk off down the High Street towards the Swan. If I was around we usually went together. Perhaps he was sulking, I thought, or maybe he was going to meet his ex-wife, whom he met regularly at the pub to give her maintenance money she in no way seemed to deserve.

  Either way, I'd have to think of something to have my name reentered into his good books.

  Just before two I drove to the Health Centre. Vanessa was waiting beside her car.

  ‘I thought you weren't coming,’ she said, touching my arm as if for confirmation I was there in the flesh.

  ‘I wouldn't let you down, Vanessa. Was there any sign of him this morning?’

  ‘None at all,’ she replied. ‘You must have frightened him off.’ ‘Let's hope so.’

  I didn't mention Paul Oakby's phone-call, not wanting to upset two people in one day.

  Her first stop was Little Charnford, a hamlet to the west of Longborough.

  It was a right-hand turn out of the Health Centre and at the first gap in the traffic Vanessa was off, leaving me to wait, and by the time someone stopped to let me go, the red Mini was out of sight. I drove on, soon out of Longborough and on to empty country lanes. A wintry wisp of sunshine poked occasionally through grey clouds but I knew that in a couple of hours it would be dark and I definitely wanted to be somewhere other than these rural depths before nightfall.

  The first suggestion that Little Charnford even existed was a near-collapsing signpost opposi
te a single-track road which said ‘Village only' and then underneath, ‘Little Charnford 4 miles'. Four miles! It seemed more like six. Especially as I had to leave the car every few minutes to open gates and then close them again. It was obvious that Little C belonged to an estate: it bred sheep like other fields grew wheat and had more ‘Private' signs than Longborough had traffic lights. Eventually, though, I arrived at the small cluster of measly, run-down, thatched cottages that comprised the hamlet.

  Vanessa's red Mini couldn't be missed, it was the only car. The cottages, a group of six, formed a semicircle around a patch of scrubby grass and a feeble elm tree. I parked alongside her car and waited. And waited. I got out of the car and walked around her car. More to be nosy than because I wanted to stretch my legs. I'd read somewhere that personality showed itself in the interior of cars. I didn't like to think what torn upholstery, chocolate wrappers and the odd apple core said about me. The inside front of the red Mini was immaculate. A box of tissues and a first-aid box sat neatly in the glove compartment. She even had a fire extinguisher. The back seat was equally tat-free but a rumpled tartan blanket covered the upholstery, which surprised me. I would have expected it to be folded.

  Having inspected her car I sat back in mine, switched on Radio Four and listened to an earnest lady talking about the joys of living in Lapland. She wasn't at all convincing. After that there was a totally incomprehensible play. I kept looking at my watch. I bet she's having tea and home-made biscuits in there, I thought. But which cottage? At three thirty I realised the play would continue to be beyond me and I decided to join Vanessa with an offer of help and the hope of joining in with the tea and home-mades.

  I knocked at the cottage immediately opposite her car. After some time the door opened, bringing with it a waft of damp mustiness and an equally damp and musty-looking elderly man.

  ‘What do yer want?’ he said.

  He wore a pair of dark grey trousers, with grease patches down both legs, held up by a wide brown belt and above that a short maroon jumper exposing a scraggy neck that would have looked equally at home on a well-strangled chicken.

  ‘I'm looking for the district nurse,’ I said. ‘She's in one of the cottages but I don't know which one.’

  ‘She ain't here, me duck,’ he said, shaking his unstable-looking head.

  ‘Could you tell me where you think she might be?’

  ‘She might be at Mrs Brigstock's or Mrs Harold's, both off their feet they are, been poorly a long while they have. Just waiting for us all to die he is.’

  ‘Who is?’ I asked.

  ‘The owner, Duke of Croxly. It's his estate. I thought everyone knew that. You a townie?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Which cottage is Mrs Brigstock's?’ I asked, thinking perhaps my best bet would have been to knock on all six doors.

  ‘She's next door, duck. Daffodil Cottage.’

  ‘Thank you. I'll try there.’

  Daffodil Cottage was entirely without flowers. Weeds and dust and peeling brown paint and half the thatch replaced by green corrugated metal were its only decorative features. The front door had deep cracks down the wood and one of those old black latches, a reminder of the days when it was safe to leave doors open. Mind you, that was probably because no strangers ever came near. I don't expect they could even find Little Charnford.

  I knocked loudly. There was no reply. I waited and knocked again. Suddenly the whole place gave me the shudders. The old people here had been buried alive. There was no church, no shop, no school, no living souls to be seen at all. I knocked again and shouted ‘Vanessa' and ‘Mrs Brigstock' alternately at the top of my voice. I'd chosen the wrong cottage. Mrs Brigstock was either asleep or stone deaf and if Vanessa had been there she could not have failed to hear me.

  I was about to give up and try another door when I found my hand unable to resist the novelty of that black latch. I lifted it and slowly opened the door. Inside it was as dark as a cave but narrow and low as a tunnel. To describe this area as a hall or a corridor would have defied even the most flamboyant estate agent. It smelt of boiled cabbage but not freshly boiled and of the same musty damp I had smelt next door.

  Calling out ‘Mrs Brigstock', I moved towards the first door on my left. This is the living-room, I told myself but I hesitated with my hand on the latch of the door; for I had the feeling that there wasn't a lot of living going on inside.

  Chapter Five

  The latch clicked open and I pushed the door ajar very slowly, in the hope, I suppose, that any shock I might receive would be assimilated equally slowly. The smell of foetid air mixed with wood smoke rose towards me like vapour. And after the smell it was the sounds I noticed most, the ticking of a clock and the barely perceptible sound of someone breathing.

  As the door opened fully I could see the bed on the left-hand side of the room. Facing me was a curved black headboard and beneath it the unmistakable sight of a dead old lady. Strands of silver-white hair lay, like down, on her forehead and under her chin had been placed a lace-edged pillow. All that seemed to cover her was a white sheet and in the sea of white she had become almost indistinguishable from her bedclothes. In contrast the blackness of the headboard made it look like a gravestone for a corpse that had already been prepared.

  By the small front window on a wicker chair sat Vanessa. She didn't move as I came into the room, her eyes staring straight ahead, dull and blank.

  ‘Vanessa,’ I said softly, but there was no response. That she was in shock was obvious. But why? Finding dead people is an occupational hazard for district nurses. So why on earth did Vanessa look as if she'd caught a glimpse of hell?

  I knelt down in front of Vanessa and touched her hand. She flinched.

  ‘What's wrong?’ I asked.

  She stared ahead for several seconds then she turned her head sideways. I followed the movement of her head. A mirror, circa 1950, hung above the grate that contained the ashes of a wood fire. I looked again at the mirror; something was written in what appeared to be a black felt-tip pen in its top left-hand corner. I walked over, stood on tiptoe and read the words written in small capitals: FOR YOU. v.

  It was then I took my first close look at the corpse. I removed the pillow from under her chin. My impression of white sheets was correct, for that was all that covered her. Her arms were laid neatly by her sides, as if, as if – someone had already laid her out.

  ‘Did you – touch her?’ I asked.

  Vanessa shook her head. The dead woman's face had deceived me too, for although as white as any paper shroud, under her eyes were tiny blue haemorrhagic patches. The pillow beneath her chin had not only kept her jaw closed, it had smothered her as well.

  As if reading my mind, Vanessa said dully, ‘There's no phone.’ ‘I'll stay here,’ I said. ‘You know which houses have a phone. Go and ring the police.’

  As if in slow motion, she stood and walked towards the door, gazing blankly ahead of her. I watched as she went outside, past the front window towards the third cottage in the row. I doubted somehow that she would come back and the police would take at least twenty minutes to arrive. That would give me enough time to explore the house.

  I walked the short distance to the closed door at the end of the narrow hall, guessing the room beyond to be the kitchen, a euphemism for this poky area. One curtainless filthy window about a foot square stood just above a grimy butler sink with a single cold tap which dripped relentlessly into a half-filled enamel bowl. Dripping taps irritate me and I'd placed the bowl on the wooden draining board and was about to empty it away when I realised I'd probably just wrecked a perfectly good clue. I'd have to explain my fingerprints away, but at least I was beginning to know a clue when I saw one.

  A few dirty plates were stacked on the top of a low brown cabinet covered with old Fablon, curling at the edges, and next to them a Belling electric cooker. A whistling kettle half-filled with water was on one ring and solid porridge in a saucepan on the other. Both were cold to the touch. The cabin
et contained a packet of cornflakes, a half-full bag of sugar, a packet of oats, a bottle of Camp coffee, four full packets of sweet biscuits, a tin of condensed milk and half a bottle of sterilised milk. There was no fridge or sign of any fresh food. There was no sign either of a forced entry. The back door had not been forced and the glass in the window remained intact.

  Upstairs there were two bedrooms, one bedless, both with the musty smell of rooms left closed and unused, and a bathroom with an ancient enamel bath over which loomed the spout of a geyser, grey with age and lack of use. It was fairly obvious the occupant had long since stopped making the journey up the narrow steep stairs to either bedroom or bathroom. But where, I wondered, did she wash or do anything else?

  Downstairs again, I found the answer. The wicker chair Vanessa had sat upon was a well-disguised commode and in a sideboard I found a washing bowl, soap and towels and the nursing notes, nowadays known as care plans. The dead woman's name was May Brigstock, she was eighty-four years old, suffering from a multitude of ills but alert and able to state that she wanted to die in her own bed. That she had achieved and by the expression on her face, death had not been that unwelcome, or come as much of a surprise.

  The district nursing service had visited twice a day for many months, a neighbour had provided food at lunchtime, but at night she had been alone. As her condition had deteriorated Vanessa had been asked to call early afternoon as well. From the notes it seemed Vanessa visited on the days off of the district nursing sister, someone called A. Caltrop.

  I stood by the bed and touched May's face. It was as cold to the touch as a can of lager from the fridge. I guessed she had been dead some hours although now I had become aware of the coldness of the atmosphere it wasn't surprising her face felt cold. By her side on a low wooden table an alarm clock, green and yellow, ticked on loudly; cheerful, and relentless. By its side on the low wooden table stood her bottles of tablets and a full glass of orange squash covered by a paper tissue.