‘Just as well. We know it’s a trap. But it’s indirect enough to be convincing.’
‘He’s reached the main road. Turning north,’ said the radio.
‘Towards us,’ Beth said.
‘And towards several mainline stations and the airstrip,’ I said. ‘For all I know, it’s also towards his lady friend.’
Ken Boyce leaned back comfortably in his chair. ‘Look at it from his viewpoint,’ he said. ‘Bruce Fullerton’s worst fault, if you don’t count the accidents that seem to happen to folk he doesn’t like when he isn’t around any more, has always been that he’s impetuous and over-confident.
‘In the bind that he’s in now he believes that, whether he sits tight or makes a run for it, in not many minutes I’ll be saying, “Hey! That looks mighty like the late Mrs Fullerton the Second, who died of an accident much like the one which carried off Mrs Fullerton the First,” and you’ll say, “Would that be any connection with the Fullerton who seemed to be a steady visitor at George Muir’s house, just before and after he was killed in another accident?” and then, given a jump-lead start and an hour or two to think it over, some copper’s brain’s going to start making connections. Next day, they’ll be showing his photograph around the car-hire firms and asking the police back home whether he really went skiing in Vermont. Either way, he’s a dead duck.
‘On the other hand, if he can get in and out, wiping out the evidence before the cops arrive, they may think it smells as fishy as a beached whale, but they’ll have no reason to sniff at him more than at anybody else.’
While Boyce was speaking in his slow drawl, I followed the occasional reports on the radio. Knowing the district well, it was easy to picture the progress of the big BMW. As it neared the turnoff for the village, I found that I was holding my breath. If it went straight on, Fullerton was on the run. Or else he was on some perfectly innocent errand . . .
‘Turning left,’ the radio said.
When Beth had first proposed the setting of a trap, I had had a vague and comfortable vision of Fullerton being arrested at our gates, or arriving at our front door to attempt some hopeless bluff. But, now that I had time to think about it, Fullerton’s style was more for swift, covert but ruthless action.
Beth was the picture of patient expectation. I caught her eye. ‘What do you think happens now? What does he do? What do we do?’
For the first time in an hour, she looked uncertain. ‘He commits himself,’ she said, ‘and the police take him away. We watch. We’ll be witnesses.’
‘Did you and the Sergeant think this through before gambling with our lives?’ I asked her. My mouth was dry. ‘He’s not going to prepare a trap which might not be sprung for days or weeks. If Ken’s right, he needs instant results. And if you’re right, he spent part of last night exploring the place. Some plan will already be maturing in his mind. And we’re not ready for him.’
‘He pulled into the carpark of the pub,’ the radio said. ‘Seems to have vanished. My mate’s gone inside to see what he’s up to.’
The pub? Did he need bracing for what was to come? Or was he going to phone for an appointment?
‘He wouldn’t drive up to the house,’ Boyce said quietly. ‘My bet is, he’ll be walking from there.’
‘You’re right,’ I said. I put out my hand for the radio but it spoke before I reached it. ‘He isn’t inside.’
I picked up the radio and found the TRANSMIT button. ‘There’s a double hedge and sunken track starts one field behind the pub and leads almost to the back of the kennels,’ I said. ‘He’ll be coming that way. You haven’t a hope of following him along there in daylight. You’d better come up here quickly, on foot.’
‘Who’s that?’ the radio enquired suspiciously.
‘I’m speaking for Sergeant Bedale.’
‘And where’s “here”?’
‘Follow the road out of the village. At the first bend there’s a gateway to a house on the left. Come straight to the house or you’ll set the dogs barking and warn him off.’
The radio sighed, dispiritedly. ‘It’s started to snow,’ it said and then fell silent.
‘What’s he going to do?’ Beth asked in a whisper.
‘I wish you’d wondered about that before rushing into this thing,’ I said peevishly. ‘I don’t know what he’s got in mind.’
‘The police—’
‘Won’t be much use if he arrives with a stick of dynamite in his hand,’ I pointed out.
‘He won’t, will he?’ Beth’s face looked pinched.
Fullerton had been at home when Boyce phoned him. So he probably thought that his electrical trap had not yet taken effect. He would expect Isobel to be with us, perhaps going over her records as was her Sunday habit. Or she might be at her home, in which case he could pay a later visit.
I got to my feet and stood, dithering. It seemed to me that nothing much short of a bomb would answer Fullerton’s present problem. He had hardly had time to fabricate such a thing; and nothing that I could think of suggested that he might already have made one for some other emergency. Was he carrying a can of petrol? Another tin of pistol powder? If I looked, I might see.
The farmhouse had been built on a south-facing slope with a fair view in that direction. Whoever designed the house had determined to make the most of the view and the sunshine. Every possible window faced south. In the north face of the building were only the two small windows of the office and my junk room and the bathroom skylight.
I hurried through into the office, squeezed between the desk and the filing cabinets and stooped to the window which was only partly obstructed by Isobel’s box-files of computer disks.
It was staring me in the face. It even looked like a white-painted bomb. If it had not become such a familiar part of the scenery I would have thought of it sooner.
When we acquired Three Oaks, the heating and cooking had been by low pressure, liquid gas. This, I suppose, had also served such equipment as a grain drier. The cylindrical tank which held the liquid gas had been in one of the old farm sheds, now removed. It stood in the open on its brick piers. It had been refilled by tanker only ten days earlier.
My mind zigzagged around the possibilities.
A tracer bullet from a distance would send it up, but I thought that it would fireball on the spot, doing little more damage than to scorch the back of the house. And Fullerton would be unlikely to have access to any such exclusively military ammunition.
But when the sheds had been removed and the land graded and grassed, before I had even moved into the house, a dip had been left. It was only a shallow depression, but on such a breathless day it would channel any leakage of the heavier-than-air gas towards the back wall of the house, to find its way through the subfloor ventilators into the underbuilding. This possibility had worried me at the time; I was in no doubt about the explosive qualities of LPG when mixed with air. At the time, the North Sea Gas mains were being brought ever nearer, month by month. Rather than convert to oil or undertake more earth-moving, I had checked that the pipework was sound and had then invested in a cheap, automatic gas-detector. Unfortunately, the gas main had still not progressed closer than the village and the huge cylinder was still in use.
Fullerton need only break the seal on the drainage cock which permitted occasional cleaning out of condensate. If he left the gas to escape, he could expect it to build up rapidly beneath the house. He could then choose between hanging around to furnish ignition from a safe distance, or making tracks and being well out of harm’s way before the gas found a naked light. Fuelled by the gas, a fire would be sure to follow the explosion.
Time was slipping away. I took one last look at the outside world. The sky was slate-grey although the daylight was ghostly pale. The first snowflakes of winter were already dappling the dark ground in random patches. A black figure crossed a gap in a dry stone wall, less than fifty yards away.
I bolted back towards the hall and slammed into Beth. I held her until she got her
breath back. She made a confused sound of interrogation.
‘No time to explain,’ I said. ‘Go and open doors and windows. Front of the house only. Got it?’
She nodded and turned away.
I dived into the cupboard under the stairs where both the meters were housed, pulled the main electricity switch and turned off the gas valve. That should shut off all pilot lights and prevent any thermostatic switches from producing sparks as they did their well-meaning duty.
That only left the gas-detector which hung in the hall. It had its own batteries. It was supposed to be sealed against gas, but Fate, I thought, might fancy the poetic irony of a spark from the gas-detector setting off the explosion, and subsequent blaze. I switched it off.
Beth had opened the front door and moved on. Something dark showed against the snowflakes. I went to the door. Two men came panting over the gravel.
‘He’s just arriving at the back of the house,’ I said, keeping my voice low. ‘I think he means to open the cock on the gas tank. If he does, he’s virtually admitting to two murders and another attempt. Nail him.’ The men separated in opposite directions. ‘And for God’s sake turn the gas off again.’
Beth and Boyce joined me in the hall. ‘That sounds real mean,’ Ken said. ‘There was a school blew up that way in New London, years back. More’n two hundred children were killed.’ I noticed that his face was pale, showing up a faint stubble.
Beth took my hand and squeezed it. ‘We heard what you said,’ she told me. ‘What do we do?’
‘You get the hell out of here,’ I said ‘Ken . . .’
‘Yep.’ Ken grabbed Beth’s wrist and set off towards the road. Beth looked back at me and held out a hand in appeal. I think that she was going to scream at me to be careful or to come with them, but I put my finger to my lips. To her great credit, she nodded and let Ken Boyce pull her away. I turned back into the house.
There was no smell of gas as yet. It was cold in the hall with the door open and the heating off. While I wondered what remained to be done, I might be better off in the sitting room where at least there was . . . I remembered suddenly that the fire was still burning. God! Would I never get anything right?
And the two dogs were in front of the fire.
And the Sergeant was in the kitchen.
The army had trained me to stay calm and to use reason in an emergency; but reason, I found, went out of the window when my own treasures were at risk. I tried frantically to select the most certain way of extinguishing a log fire in a hurry. Even a bucket of water would not get to the heart of a glowing log. And while I struggled with that puzzle I was also competing against myself in a mental version of the old game – Who or What Would You Save First From a Fire?
Still no smell of gas, but would I smell it in the hall by the time that the first gas reached the hearth and led flame back to the gas below the floor?
Whistle for the dogs, shout to the Sergeant and I might have time to grab the Dickson before I ran after Beth. I tried to whistle and to shout, but I tried to do both at the same time and the only result was an extraordinary noise which was properly ignored.
There were other noises outside. Three figures appeared with a suddenness that made me jump. Fullerton, his hands cuffed behind his back, was dwarfed between the two policemen. His lips were clamped shut as though he was determined never to say another word, but the glare in his eyes was hot enough to have triggered a gas explosion.
‘He turned your gas on,’ one of the policemen said. ‘It’s off again. You want to make a statement now?’
I leaned against the doorpost and took several deep breaths while the panic ebbed out of me. ‘Any time you like,’ I said.
The other officer was looking around him. ‘Where’s Sergeant Bedale?’ he asked. ‘What we’ve got mightn’t stand up in court on its own. If she’s been the investigating officer in a larger enquiry, she should make the actual arrest. I understand there’s at least one other charge to be brought later.’
‘Two,’ I said. ‘Possibly three. Maybe four. You’d better come in.’
They led Fullerton into the house. I opened the kitchen door for them.
Beth and Isobel later accused me of doing it out of spite, because Sergeant Bedale had irked me during our earlier encounters. But I had honestly forgotten what had befallen the Sergeant.
And that is how it happened that Bruce Fullerton was arrested for murder by a scarlet-faced police sergeant clad only in a fetching pair of pink silk camiknickers. It was a scene to which only the pencil of the late George Muir could have done justice.
*
By the time that the officers had taken preliminary statements and removed their prisoner to temporary accommodation in Cupar, we were running very late and the dogs were leaving us in no doubt that they were dying of hunger pangs. Beth, assisted by Ken Boyce, prepared their evening meal while I set about relighting the pilot lights and setting time-clocks. Life has to go on.
In the middle of it all, the phone rang. I took the call in the kitchen, glad of an excuse to sit down. It was Hattie again, her usual composed self. Henry was conscious and would probably be home in a few days. Until then, she would stay with Isobel rather than abandon her to an empty house. And, she enquired, had there been any new developments?
The news would be public property within a few hours, but it was too long a story to tell over the phone. I told her that Bruce Fullerton had been arrested and that he would probably be charged with the murder of her husband.
There was silence on the line. ‘It was on account of one of George’s women, I suppose?’ she said at last.
‘You knew about them?’ I asked before I could stop myself.
‘I’d be a fool not to,’ she said. ‘They were his one great weakness. I paid no heed to them. George was aye careful. And he was not robbing me of anything. We were long past that sort of foolishness between ourselves.’
*
Mr Grogan phoned me later that week. I slipped away to visit him in Glasgow. He had discovered that the painting of the geese had been tacked over another canvas. The hidden oil-painting, which was a finished work except for the filling-in of some peripheral details, depicted what I can only describe as an orgy. Each of the ladies in his sketches made a fresh appearance while the men all sported military moustaches and were no longer in their first youth. The same exuberant joy and affection glowed from the canvas.
We agreed that Mr Grogan would mount the two pictures back to back, with the usual finish of brown paper to hide the less conventional work. The double picture still hangs in the sitting room. I have never looked at the hidden half again, but I like to know that it is there.
It would be pleasant to finish by reporting that the other characters all lived fairly happily for quite a long time, but life is not like that.
Bruce Fullerton was never charged with the murder of his first wife. But his weekend journey from New York was tracked, the body was exhumed, an empty tin which had once held pistol powder was dug up in his garden and he was convicted, mainly on grisly scientific evidence, of the murder of the second Mrs Fullerton. The charge of murdering George Muir was found Not Proven. On the charge of attempting to murder Isobel, he was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Sergeant Bedale was congratulated in open court on the diligence of her investigation, but she never managed to live down the circumstances of the arrest. The story followed her around, growing all the time, during the remainder of her police career and the nicknames which attached to her were various but universally sexist. She stuck it out for a year and then retired to be a good wife and, later, a mother. This was what her husband had always wanted, so my thoughtlessness made at least one person happy.
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Doghouse (Three Oaks Book 3) Page 16