Harry didn’t think that was going to help. Tony, standing next to him, pulled a face. “Don’t like all that blingy stuff. But I suppose Sylvia would.”
“A woman who lives and dies in navy silk isn’t the obvious lover of bling,” muttered Harry, somewhat annoyed. “I’ve been trying to get her out of navy silk ever since we married.”
“There you are, then,” said Tony, “don’t buy the woman some silly rug. Get her a red jumper.”
Harry changed the subject. “She’ll be expecting me, I’d better get home.”
“Bossy, eh?” smiled Tony with sympathy.
Harry got stuck in school traffic driving home, finally drove his now beloved Lexus in the garage, and plodded into the warm living room. He found Sylvia talking with Ruby, Kate, a strange man and three strange children. Then he recognised one of the children as Jackson, the second youngest of the Morrison offspring, and dutifully sat next to him.
“Hi, Jackson. How’s your father?”
“Working, as usual,” said the boy with distinct disinterest.
The unknown man looked up. “Ah, Mr Joyce, I presume. My wife’s been telling me what an interesting gentleman you are. May I introduce myself. I’m Maurice Howard, and I teach English history and a few other general subjects at the Cheltenham Primary. This is our little girl, Mia. And this is Alison who lives down the road from Kate’s shop. And this young man is Jackson - ,”
“I know Jackson and his parents,” said Harry, leaning over and taking Sylvia’s hand while nodding to Ruby and Kate. “Nice to meet you.” Polite generalities over, Harry stood. “I’ll ask Lavender to bring some tea.”
“I have already. It’ll be coming any minute,” Ruby said. “Sit down and relax, Harry. We’ve been talking about school. My husband was a racing driver, you know, a bit of a star, dear Rod, won six separate Formula Ones in succession. But a teacher – well – that’s most impressive.”
Looking somewhat puzzled, Maurice adjusted his glasses. “Only a Primary School teacher. My brother’s the clever one. He loves Formula One racing – used to pop over the channel every year for Monte Carlo. I sometimes went with him when we were younger. I may have even seen your husband win a few times.” He smiled a flashing white-toothed grin at Ruby.
“You’re too young,” Ruby sniffed. “But I used to love the races. You came with me two years ago, didn’t you dear?” She turned to Sylvia.
“It’s where I met Harry.”
“Oh, yuk. I remember. Not such a happy day. Murder and mayhem. Now there’s – ,”
She was interrupted. “Probably time I took the children home,” Maurice said, adjusting the collar of his polo neck. “The Morrisons will be waiting, and so will Alison’s mother.” Nodding to Kate, he added, “See you later, m’dear. I’ll start dinner. Broccoli stew or something. Keep warm.”
She scrambled up and grabbed Mia’s small hand. “No, I’ll come too. You’ve got the car, it’s too cold to walk.” Twisting around, she waved at the others. “Sorry to miss the tea, but I want a nice lift through those icy roads. See you again soon.” And was gone, with Alison and Jackson trailing after.
Sitting back, Ruby stared into the flames before them. “Such nice people and Kate makes such gorgeous cakes. Her husband’s a twin, you know. Mark. Identical. Not that I’ve met him, but he looks like Maurice, Kate told me. Mark’s the rich one. A bank executive or something. So handsome.”
“Nice smile,” nodded Sylvia. “But a bit swarthy. Anyway, that’s not important. Harry, what happened to bring you home so early? I expected you’d be in the pub till late.”
“What, drinking and driving? No, I only went to ask a few questions. And don’t ask me about that now. I’ll tell you upstairs.”
They took their tea upstairs once it came, and Harry stretched out on the bed. “Arthur knew something of white fur rugs and he had one once but it sounds very flash. Sounds as though he nicked it from his wife’s job. Red threads sewn into Alpaca wool, and red suede backing. Sold it off at a garage sale in Cheltenham. No use to us.”
“And no one else in the pub came up with anything?”
“No,” Harry had let his tea go cold and now pushed it away. “I asked loud enough, three different people, and everyone else shook their heads.” He scratched his ear lobe. “Only Arthur said about the one he got rid of nearly ten years ago or something.”
“Ten years ago might be good timing. But there’s probably hundreds of the damn things in Gloucestershire. Honestly, Harry,” Sylvia sat down beside him, then kicked up her legs and snuggled close, navy silk getting creased. “It’s not a lead worth plugging. Give it up and think of something else.”
“Like getting you a red woolly jumper for your birthday?”
Sylvia sighed. “You talk such sublime nonsense sometimes, my love,” she said. “My birthday isn’t for five months. You know that.”
Another gale blew in three days later, whipping through the valleys like a hungry tiger, whistling around the church spires, blowing sheep droppings down from the hills, and blowing down an old spruce tree in the Rochester grounds near the creek. The manor house was quiet with no one wanting to leave the warm fire. Then someone called from the large living room, “Where’s Sylvykins? She has to watch the telly.”
In the corridor outside Harry was just about to plod upstairs to bed, but he quickly turned to Sylvia at his side. “We’d better go in and watch the news by the sound of things.”
Detective Inspector Darcey Morrison was delivering his first press interview, standing out in the wind with his grubby mackintosh collar turned up to his chin and his hands stuck in the pockets. “No,” he was saying. “No leads at present, unfortunately. But we have a couple of suspects in mind.”
The reporters all shouted at once. “Who? Names? About to make an arrest? Already in Custardy?”
“Certainly not,” frowned Morrison. “However, there are several suspects at this time, and you’ll certainly be notified if we make an arrest.”
“But Lionel Sullivan’s escaped. What’s he up to? How did that happen? Big trouble, eh? And they say the escape was an inside job.”
Looking cross and not bothering to hide it, Morrison clamped his briefcase shut, turned on his heel, and said somewhat curtly, “I asked for questions regarding the latest investigation concerning the murders discovered more than three weeks ago. The escape of Lionel Sullivan is a very different matter.”
As he left and the squash of journalists pushed after him, shouting questions, accusations and opinions, another jostle bulged on the opposite side of the road, where a woman had hopped onto a little two step ladder she’d brought with her, waved both arms, and began shouting, “Well, all of you. I’m quite willing to give an interview. As a woman in great danger, I’ve come here to tell my side of the story. I’m Joyce Sullivan, once married to the evil Lionel Sullivan, but now divorced. Who wants a unique story for their newspaper?”
Joyce wore a new sheepskin jacket, bought with the proceeds of her eBay sales, and looked very small and lost inside, except for her wellington boots which were mud-spattered. A startled silence was immediately followed by so many voices that not one single word could be clearly heard.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Sylvia, staring at the television as she clutched Harry’s hand. “This is crazy.”
Harry clutched back. “She’ll be lucky to stay alive once bloody Lionel sees this.”
“I doubt he’s sitting comfortably at home watching TV.” Lavender crossed to the armchair where Sylvia sat, with Harry on the arm beside her. “But you have a visitor, Harry. And I promise it isn’t Lionel Sullivan. In fact, it’s nothing to do with him. It’s a very distraught woman called Mrs Belinda Daish.”
“But I don’t know anyone of that name,” mumbled Harry.
“An old girlfriend?” suggested Sylvia.
The woman who hurried in was shivering and looked as though she’d dressed as an afterthought. Sylvia stood at once. She saw the tear stains on the woman’s
face and the red-rimmed and swollen eyes. “I’m sorry to trouble you,” whispered the woman. “I thought, just thought – though you won’t want to – and I’ll go away and leave you in peace – but I had to try. You see, I have to try everything.”
With an arm each, Harry and Sylvia took the woman to a large couch in front of the fire, sat her in the middle with themselves either side and signalled to Ruby. “Ruby darling, can you get a bottle or tea or something.” Turning to the woman, asked, “It’s bitterly cold outside. Now, would you like a cup of tea or coffee? Or better still wine? Red or white? Or a whisky and ginger? I’m thinking of having a hot toddy myself.”
“I didn’t want to be a bother,” murmured the woman. “Honestly, I just want a moment of your time.”
Sylvia waved again at Ruby, “Gorgeous Bluebell, can you possibly drum up three large steaming glasses of whisky, boiling water, a spoonful of honey and a couple of cloves?”
“Hot toddies?” Ruby winked. “I do know my booze. I’ll bring four of them.”
Sylvia turned back to their visitor. “It’s your daughter, isn’t it?”
She looked as though she might start crying once more. “How do you know? Yes, it’s my Evie. It’s a whole month. I keep having the most tragic nightmares about – you know – chimneys.”
Harry hugged her. He hadn’t hugged anyone except Sylvia for a very long time. Now Belinda Daish buried her head on his shoulder and wept silently. “You find people, don’t you,” she groaned between sobs. “You find people who can’t be found by anyone else. Could you? My Evie? Could you – even just perhaps – to look for a day – or two. I truly don’t want to be a nuisance, but there’s no one else. I’ve begged the police. They think my Evie’s dead. I think she is too. But I want to try and try.”
He kept hugging. Sylvia spoke softly. “My dear Mrs Daish, your daughter may well be alive. Don’t give up hope. Not yet.”
Belinda looked up. Her eyes were blurred and red. “I know she’s alive. But I think she’s dead. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, it does,” said Sylvia. “And you most certainly and utterly and seriously aren’t being a nuisance. I’m afraid you’ve over-estimated our skills, but I’ll try. I promise I’ll try. Just don’t – I beg you – have too much belief in us. Finding that other man was Harry – not me – and it was mostly luck.”
Others in the room heard, but although ears were twitching, not even Ruby came closer. It was Arthur who interrupted, bringing a tray of steaming glasses and a wonderful scent of spice, honey and Scotch. He passed the glasses around, almost too hot to clasp, but also passed paper napkins for an easier grip. Belinda Daish buried her nose in perfumed steam. Everyone sipped, then gulped, and then drank more. Harry cheered up.
“We’ll do our best. But I’m afraid we’ll have to start with questions. Do you mind starting by telling us about the last time you saw your daughter? And where? And then if you could talk a little about her? Boyfriends? Her father?”
Some of the other Rochester residents politely moved away, leaving the three to speak in peace. The hot toddies gradually disappeared.
Two hours later when Belinda Daish left the Rochester Manor, Harry roused himself sufficiently to drive her home. When he got back to Sylvia, they quickly hurried up to bed, but it was a long, long time before they tumbled under the quilt, and even longer before they slept.
“Morrison sent us, well it was a strong hint, wasn’t it, off to that other address. Now this poor, poor woman has come to us.”
Sylvia’s last words melted into his shoulder. “We’ll help. We have to do it. The daughter isn’t dead. The mother knows it, and I know it too.”
Chapter Nine
Morrison looked up from his desk. “Harry? I’m snowed down here. You should have made an appointment.”
“You’d have told me to go to hell.” Harry smiled. “I thought I’d have more chance just turning up.”
“Then sit down, keep quiet, and look at these,” Morrison said and pushed a small folder towards him. Harry sat as invited and began to read a virtually empty pile of reports detailing – or rather not detailing, the results of the autopsies completed the previous week. Every separate collection of remains had been identified, and the relatives informed. But cause of death has not always been possible to define. There were deep engraved knife marks on some of the bones, particularly around the rib cage and back of the neck. “Stabbed to death,” Morrison looked up briefly. “But nothing conclusive. Too much contamination and too much decomposition. Now you know as much, or as little, as I do. So go home, Harry.”
“Thanks for that.” Harry grinned, unmoving. “But it wasn’t actually what I came for. Oh yes, I know you haven’t arrested anyone yet, but is there a suspect?”
Morrison frowned. “Harry, you know me better than that.”
“I met your boy a couple of days ago. Jackson. His teacher was delivering him home, and dropped in at the manor since we’ve got friendly with his wife.”
Shaking his head, Morrison returned to his papers. “Yes, somebody Howards, nice enough though a bit simple. But I advise you not to get involved with his brother.”
“I don’t know anything about his brother.”
“Good. Keep it that way.” Morrison returned again to his open folder.
Harry tried again. “Feel like popping around tonight for a chat?”
“No. Too busy.” He looked up. “Come to me. You and Sylvia, six o’clock. Now go away, Harry, and leave me in peace.”
Paul Stoker had started his second chapter with the words, “There is nothing colder, nor bleaker, than a police cell. The walls sing of misery and whispers of threat and attack slip through the bars, circling within your head. Freedom has never been more precious until you lose it.”
Harry leaned back against his pillows. He’d taken the book from the library just a couple of hours before but was not enjoying it as much as he had expected. He closed the trashy cover, its flimsy colours already creased. He decided he’d had enough of Lionel Sullivan and would read no more. He turned off the small side light, flattened his pillows, and flung a gentle arm over Sylvia’s prone back.
He heard the “Mmmm.”
“Less than two years married and already you turn your back on me.”
Sylvia rolled over, smiling. “Make me want to stay facing you then.”
Peggy Morrison made lamb and aubergine meatloaf and Jackson said, “Hello Mrs Joyce and Mr Joyce. My teachers says you’re both really elderly so I have to be polite.”
“Young, old, clever, daft, healthy, sick, you have to be polite to everybody,” Peggy said, dishing out spoonfuls of dinner.
“I’m always polite,” said Primrose, who was the only girl, and the youngest.
Morrison passed around the wine. “Have you seen Joyce Sullivan? Damned nuisance of a woman. It won’t help. Finding that damned husband of hers is what she should be doing – quietly, of course. She was given a safe-house. Now it’ll be harder.”
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” said Sylvia, “because she came to see us. Asking us to look for him since it was Harry last time. Then – lo and behold – someone else turned up.”
Morrison’s fork hovered. “Who?”
“Mrs Daish. Her daughter disappeared some time ago. She’s reported it and the police have promised a search, but the poor woman’s convinced the girl has been abducted by the same man you’re investigating. Bodies in the chimney.”
“That’ll be Eve Daish. I was talking to the uniforms about her a couple of days back. And abduction, unfortunately, is likely.”
“Do you mind then,” asked Sylvia. “If we try and look for her too?”
“Of course you can,” Morrison said, mouth full, while everyone else around the table stared at him. “This is a missing girl, and anyone and everyone is free to search. But the police are still onto it. Don’t fall over them. And they tend to stamp if you get under their feet.”
Harry scratched his ear lobe. “We
’ll keep you informed.”
“You sound busier than I am,” Morrison said. “The murders of at least seven young women and the disposal of their bodies in the chimney of an empty house. The whereabouts of the criminal Lionel Sullivan, the most dangerous wanted man in Britain. And the young girl Eve Daish, who may or may not have been abducted, and might be deceased.” He regarded his visitors who sat at the kitchen table eating his food. The children had gone into the living room to play with various contraptions until bedtime. Morrison rarely spoke of business in front of them. Faint shouts and the sound of machine guns and explosions hinted at television games.
“You’ve taken on even more than usual this time.”
“And just what’s wrong with your teacher’s brother?” Sylvia asked.
A silence was now interrupted only by the sounds of chewing. Finally Darcey said, “Not my job, and not my speciality. International crime- nothing to do with murder or abduction. Whether the teacher has any involvement, I don’t know, but he’s being watched in case. Not by me. I’m homicide, not other stuff.”
Harry leaned forward, fascinated. He hadn’t expected this. “Drugs?”
Morrison shook his head, “Not as far as I know, but I won’t talk about it, Harry, since it’s not my speciality and not my case. Leave it at that. And I think you’ve got quite enough to do already, my friend, without poking your nose into anything else.”
Whether or not these hints and clues, dropped with a resounding echo, had been intentional, neither Sylvia nor Harry could be sure. “But,” Sylvia whispered, “that man doesn’t make mistakes.”
Standing on the doorstep and not yet fully outside, Harry smiled at Peggy. “It’s been a wonderful evening. And most interesting, apart from the excellent food. Odd,” short pause, “about the teacher’s brother.”
It was as Peggy was pushing the door shut that she whispered to Sylvia “Money laundering – big-time. International. Don’t tell Darcey I told you. Personally I like to keep an eye on Maurice, Jackson’s teacher – just in case. He doesn’t talk about any of that of course, but they’re twins. They must be close. But Maurice Howard’s certainly not a rich tycoon, just a sweet fellow in a tweed jacket. Interpol keeps Mark’s business secret until they catch him, but he stays mostly in Dubai. And as he likes to keep reminding us, Darcey’s in homicide, and this money launderer isn’t into murder. But if Kate ever tells you anything about him, do tell Darcey. He’d pass it on to the right people. It might help a lot.”
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