by Clare Curzon
11
The ventilator kept up its rhythmic sighing. In the unnatural heat of the Intensive Care Unit it was a brutal reminder to Kate of time ticking away. As counterpoint, the nurses’ soft-soled shoes made sticky kissing sounds on the polished vinyl flooring. She almost resented that they were active, while she had no contact, no control. Despite her patient summoning up of familiar topics Eddie had failed to respond to her voice or her occasional pressure on his fingers.
She slid a disk into the CD-player and left music to replace her. A Scarlatti sonata wove bright mathematical patterns of the kind he’d once delighted in. After that would come plainsong from Christ Church chapel, Elgar’s clarinet concerto, the Zwingle Singers, Eric Clapton and an old Ralph McTell recording. Surely something there would get through to whatever consciousness remained behind the stony face.
Her own features grew taut. If she had failed here, there remained something else to follow up. She knew the police had resumed their fingertip search for clues in the grounds of Larchmoor Place. The Cricks had phoned early that morning from the pub to tell her, having somehow also learned the result of the dental check. Then a further call from Rosemary Zyczynski had questioned her about any of Jess’s acquaintances who might help to trace her whereabouts. There was an active police operation which surely she could take some part in.
Kate had drawn up a list of one-time school and college friends. Beyond that point Jess hadn’t confided who was closest to her. Except, of course, Charles Stone. Kate hadn’t included his name with the others. Him, she intended to contact in person.
She had insisted on continuing her work at the library, although offered compassionate leave. Even with her hours cut to four a day, it helped to keep her mind occupied between hospital visits. She went directly there now.
During a round of tidying the reference section, she lifted down the thick red volume of Who’s Who and looked up the name of Jess’s lover. She ran a finger down the entry. Several lines of discreet description covered his interests: euphemism for wheeler-dealing, she supposed. The world of high finance was totally alien to her and she had no interest in finding out more. All she needed was his address there at the bottom: Alders, Chalk Lane, near Maidenhead.
Kate made a note on scrap paper, looked up the relevant local map and photocopied the part she needed. She had two and a half hours more to get through before she could go and confront him.
It wasn’t an easy house to find. In the end she asked at a little farmhouse. The woman who came to the door gave her directions but added that she wouldn’t get an answer there. ‘It’s shut up,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s away and they’ve cancelled the eggs till next month.’ She had no idea where they’d gone.
Just the same, in case there was a caretaker left in charge Kate followed the directions and drew up at pair of closed iron gates set in a red brick wall some two hundred yards long. Behind stood quite a pretty lodge built of cream stone with a small garden. The flowers in it looked well cared for.
She could make out no movement in the rooms on the near side. There was no bell to ring, but overhead a high-sited CCTV camera slowly panned the approach road. Her own car must have been caught by it as she drove up. It would be recording the length of her stay as she sized up the entrance.
Useless to remain longer, she decided. A wealthy man like Stone would surely have more than one home; and this could be the less used, to keep a check on junk mail and unwelcome visitors. She couldn’t even be sure there was any house beyond the curve in the drive because the shrubbery and trees were so dense. A man so security-conscious might just use the lodge for a poste restante.
Dejected, she managed to lose herself in the narrow lanes and took a few minutes to find her way back to the A4094 and head for home. By now the sky had clouded over and it began steadily to rain. On reaching the motorway she realized the same pair of headlights had followed her from Maidenhead and were pacing her in the central lane.
With a wet road surface, she had been driving at a reasonable 60mph and keeping a good space from the car in front. Now she accelerated, flashed right and pulled into the fast lane. The lights behind her followed her across. Half a mile farther on she crossed suddenly back into the central lane where the traffic was denser. For a few minutes she thought she had lost the other car, but when she turned off from the M40 a vehicle two places back did the same.
There was no reason anyone should be following her. Perhaps there was an innocent explanation. There was a way she could check on it. She took the next exit, then by the village road to Ford’s End and into the public car park.
The headlights of the other car, a green Land Rover, went cruising slowly past. By the time she had locked and left her own car the other could be indistinguishable from those vehicles parked farther along by the shops. It must be one of the commonest makes of car in this rural area. She started to walk in that direction, looking for a familiar face.
Barney, who sold copies of the Big Issue, was still there, squatting on the grey army blanket he shared with his scruffy black mongrel, his back against the wall of Parrish’s the chemists. He was grinning up at some passerby and displaying the black gaps in his crooked teeth.
‘Evenin’, Missus Dellar,’ he greeted her as she came opposite. She dropped a coin in his cap and bent to take the newsletter he handed her.
‘Barney,’ she said quietly, ‘it sounds idiotic, but I think I’m being followed. Would you keep an eye out?’
He winked. ‘Nasty wet evenun settun in. I was jes go’un home.’ He dragged the waxed cape closer round his shoulders. Rain trickled in little crooked lanes down his whiskery young face.
She knew it took more than rain to upset him. A little harshness in the weather added to the pitiable picture. This was good business. He wouldn’t quit his post until the depressive dog lifted its muzzled snout and nudged him foodwards.
Kate smiled and walked on, called in at the post office for stamps and an Evening Standard, then wasted minutes looking through the display of birthday cards. When she felt enough time had elapsed she retraced her steps, never looking round.
Again as she passed Barney he grinned. ‘Yeah, yorrigh,’ he said. ‘Nasty-lookun geezer, but ‘e’s scarpered now. You watch yerself.’
‘You too,’ she wished him, and walked briskly back to her car. Still nervous, she kept glancing in her rear-view mirror as she drove, but the cars that followed appeared to be changing places in a normal sort of way. Before she garaged her car she sat there in silence a while, waiting to see who drove by. Everything appeared quite ordinary.
Indoors she made tea and looked at the evening paper. On the front page was a photograph of police officers and dogs searching the grounds of Larchmoor Place. So now it was out in the open. Thank God for one thing: Jess would see it and get in touch. But she’d be furiously embarrassed.
She carried her tray back to the kitchen, checked that the back door was bolted and the key removed from the lock, then did the same for the front door. When she had bought the cottage, after Michael died, Eddie had insisted on making the place secure for her, even fitting an alarm system which she seldom thought to switch on. This evening, however, she felt disturbed enough to need its comfort. Not that the follower, if there had been one, had continued as far as this.
So where, and why, had he given up? Why, for that matter had he taken an interest in the first place? And where had his car picked her up?
Imagination, she told herself. She was getting jumpy about perfectly normal traffic on the roads. Except that Barney had confirmed her suspicion. He was a great deal sharper than he looked, and he’d spotted the ‘nasty-lookun geezer’ showing an interest in what she was doing.
Perhaps the man had seen her from inside that empty-looking lodge and, alerted by the CCTV, suspected she was up to no good. Kate Dellar, casing the joint prior to breaking and entering? Unlikely, but how was he to know that?
So he would have driven some way to check on her. Perhaps her nor
mal, housewifely activities at Ford’s End had satisfied him that she was just rubbernecking at the lodge. In which case she too could feel relieved.
Only she didn’t.
Superintendent Yeadings directed a brief glance at the computer terminal on his desk and picked up his fountain pen. These electronic devices had their uses and what he felt for them wasn’t scorn or Luddite horror: more a determined resistance. He was involved in an unhappy relationship with his own computer at home. It was a dominator, permitting no freedom of action to the human unit: fine for the nerds who surrendered their whole lives to its service, but for him there must be broader horizons.
He rolled the Parker appreciatively between his fingers. A present from Nan last Christmas, it had become his passport to freedom. He could click a keyboard with the best of the codgers of senior rank but, when it came to thinking, it took pen and paper.
The main advantage was that it carried the writer’s authority, admitting personal responsibility for what the document contained. It made his log sacrosanct, inviolable to interference, with every action and proactive decision recorded, dated and timed to the minute. As far as an investigation could be faithfully recorded, this was the way he demanded it should be done, with the added precaution at each day’s end of a transcript backup with electronic timing and dating.
At present, in the case’s third day, there was a dearth of positive information. Each question raised led to another. ‘Was it arson?’ led to ‘At whose hand?’ ‘Was the body that of Jessica Dellar?’ – now proven wrong – led on to ‘Whose then?’ Even DNA, which he was assured could be obtained from the bones, could have no value until they’d a name to link it to.
He had hopes: that the missing girl would read newspaper accounts of the ‘Mystery Fire at Poet’s Home’ and get in touch; that the searching of debris and grounds would yield material clues to the identity of the arsonist; that further examination of the dead body would lead to its identification; that Edward Dellar would regain consciousness and explain exactly what had been going on in the early hours of Saturday June 8th.
He read through his notes on allocation of individual personnel. His nuclear team had been well enough employed, although Salmon still didn’t recognize the value of a woman DS.
By now Beaumont would have interviewed Matthew Dellar, the Railtons and Dr Marion Paige. He’d also chased up Jessica’s dental chart and disproved the body was hers.
Zyczynski was regularly liaising with the missing girl’s mother and had set up a search of her narrowboat, broken-into on the canal bank. She’d attended the extinguished fire and next day watched the body’s recovery. She stood in at the subsequent post-mortem, providing useful notes in advance of Littlejohn’s official report. She was now detailed to follow up any of Sir Matthew Dellar’s judgments which could have given rise to a revenge attack.
DC Silver had followed up the Florence Carden lead offered by Miranda Dellar, whose written statement would be taken by police at Cooden Beach. He would bring Florence in for further questioning by the DI. (‘Supt Y attending in person,’ Yeadings wrote in, and highlighted the sentence.)
DC James had been ordered to look into Carlton Dellar’s financial standing, but would probably get short shrift from that gentleman’s bank manager. They might, for the present, have to work more circuitously, relying on local gossip on promptness of settling bills and any outstanding extravagances. Not that outgoings were a reliable indication of income or balance.
Salmon was over-optimistic in going all-out for the notion of an insurance scam. They were facing too complicated a web of unknown factors for certainty on that yet.
Yeadings grunted: plenty of occupation there for everyone but himself. ‘More exchange of ideas essential between principal investigators,’ he wrote. Then, on a fresh line, ‘Query Special Branch visiting Edward Dellar and requesting regular reports on his progress. Is that young man their concern rather than Sir Matthew?’
He looked at his wristwatch, wrote ‘Tuesday, June 11th, 14.20 hrs,’ and passed the last two pages through the scanner. He locked the log in the top drawer of his desk and pocketed the key. The copies went into an inner pocket; just to be on the safe side, he told himself. He wouldn’t have been so paranoid if Angus had been here handling the investigation.
A phone call from front desk informed him that DC Silver had just brought in Florence Carden. He summoned Zyczynski and made his way down.
In the Interview Room he complained of stale cigarette smoke. ‘We’ll be more comfortable in my office,’ he told the visitor.
‘Silver, wait fifteen minutes, then let the DI know where we are and come up yourself.’
Florence Carden was a small, neat woman in a grey, straight-skirted jersey suit and a hat like an inverted flowerpot plus a drooping brim. It was the sort of headgear Joan Hickson had invariably worn as Miss Marple. In fact she was not unlike that character with her pale, lined face. At present the washed-out blue eyes held something of the same steely determination, but in her case from a prim distaste for finding herself inside a police station.
Yeadings hoped she hadn’t been too badly inconvenienced, and explained how important her recollection of the night of the fire could be. ‘I’ll leave you to chat to young Rosemary here while I find someone to fetch you a cup of tea,’he offered, vaguely avuncular.
She declined both tea and coffee, sitting with hands demurely clasped in her lap and a heavy handbag hanging from one arm. ‘Have you worked a long time at Larchmoor Place?’ Z began conversationally.
‘Sixteen years, miss. Well, nearly seventeen now. Not regular, like. Nowadays just when things get a bit out of hand.’
‘How out of hand, Mrs Carden?’ Yeadings inquired.
‘It’s Miss.’ She struggled between discretion and a wish to oblige. ‘I bin brought up to keep me mouth shut,’ she informed him. ‘Doesn’t mean I’ve gotta keep me eyes and ears closed too. You wouldn’t last long in service otherwise. But don’t expect me to gossip about me betters. I know not to do that.
‘What I mean is, a big place like that takes a lot of upkeep. But there’s things you can let slip for a while and then catch up with. Things like polishing brass and cleaning rooms that aren’t used. Mrs Carlton thinks she can manage on her own most of the time, but …’
‘Things can get out of hand,’ Z echoed, nodding sagely. ‘That’s why they rely on you.’
Florence Carden smiled at her and appeared to relax a little. ‘She’s very droll, Mrs Carlton. She says she runs the house on a system of organized neglect. Only trouble is, what’s neglected is much harder to get right later. Housekeeping’s something you have to keep at if it’s to be any good.’
‘Of course,’ Yeadings agreed. ‘Having been so long with the family, you must know them very well.’
‘Not to be familiar with them, sir. But yes, I do go back quite a way. I first went there as a parlourmaid when Mr Carlton’s father was still alive. He kept a very well run house in those days. There were eight staff, four of them living in.’
‘And now there’s only you.’
‘Yes, sir. Sir Matthew sacked the lot of us when he decided not to live there. By then he had a big place in Ascot with his family.’
Yeadings cleared his throat and ventured to ask, ‘But Sir Matthew was the younger brother. Why didn’t the house go to Carlton Dellar?’
‘The house went to Sir Matthew and the contents to his brother, as I understood it. But Mr Carlton wanted to stay on, because he didn’t have anywhere else.’
‘As his brother’s tenant?’
‘I think they came to an arrangement, sir. Mr Carlton wasn’t a wealthy man and not in the best of health even then. Perhaps they thought it wouldn’t be for as long as it has been. Instead of rent perhaps he was letting his brother have some of the contents. A lot of furniture and pictures have disappeared over the last year or two.’
‘I see.’ Yeadings looked up at a knock on the door. ‘Come,’ he called, and Salmon entered
, followed by Silver. The office was beginning to feel crowded.
‘Detective Constable Silver you’ve met already. This is Inspector Salmon, Miss Carden.’
The look she turned on the man was shrewd. Yeadings doubted she gave him high marks for presentation. This woman used her eyes; could be a good witness in court.
‘Now this young man you found in the grounds on Friday night, Miss Carden. It would help us find him if you could give us a description.’
She nodded. ‘He was about twenty-four to twenty-eight, I’d say. Same height as me; that’s five feet seven. Mousy sort of hair. He was thin, with a bony face, sharp nose and chin. He was wearing a knitted top in some dark colour, perhaps green, and black or navy jeans. He didn’t have any finger rings or pierced ears.’
‘You’re very observant. How about his voice? Did he have a distinctive accent? Would you say he was local?’
‘I took good note of him once he said he was a friend of Miss Jess. She does seem to keep some strange company and I didn’t want no harm – any harm – to come to her. His voice …’ She paused and frowned. ‘He certainly wasn’t born around here. He spoke different. It reminded me of that pianist who was on television last Friday, only younger; not so growly. Finnish, wasn’t he?’
She hesitated.
‘There’s something else?’ Yeadings suggested. ‘Did you have doubts about delivering the note he gave you?’
‘Like I said, I didn’t want any trouble coming out of it, but he seemed quite a nice young man. I suppose I felt sorry for him, and I was sure Miss Jess could take care of herself, if any young woman can nowadays. But afterwards, because of the fire, and then this body they say was found …’
‘I don’t think anyone can lay that at your door, Miss Carden. Inspector, have you any questions?’