Headcase

by Peter Helton

  Twerton is perhaps the most uninspiring corner of Bath, never visited by tourists, but it does have two attractions: a football ground, if you’re that way inclined, and smack next to that a weekly market, if you’re me. At Twerton Market you can carry away a cut-price crate of over-ripe bananas or a cheap box of mushrooms; cunningly repackaged cheeses hovering around their sell-by date, or three-year-old cuts of beef, hastily defrosted, that just have to go today for a fiver. But I was here for the fishmonger. The freshest fish in Bath, bright-eyed and slick, and at half the price paid anywhere in a city centre crippled by business rates. While middle class shoppers in the supermarkets buy sea bass as an occasional luxury the working class denizens of Twerton happily eat it every week. Who said there’s no justice in this world?

  It was the lobster that looked good today, mottled Prussian blue and so lively I was glad their giant claws were firmly secured with thick rubber bands. From the fruit and veg stalls I grabbed the makings of a salad, sent Tim a text to let him know supper for four was on tonight and tootled back to the valley, with a Tricky CD blaring through the rolled-down windows.

  Annis and Alison were still busy in the studio, Alison slow and thoughtful, Annis on a roll. I swallowed my envy and made for the kitchen. First I shoved the lobsters into the freezer. Apparently it makes them so drowsy they don’t notice you’re boiling up a big vat of water for their final plunge. With the water rolling in the pan I dropped the sleepy crustaceans into it and while they sang themselves to death got the blender working. One egg, a clove of garlic, a squeeze of lemon juice, mustard, salt and pepper. I then whacked it up to full speed and drizzled in olive oil until the glugging sound told me it was done. Three-minute mayonnaise. No mystery there.

  The sun was riding low by the time we clinked glasses and bottles on the veranda. The girls, hair still damp from their shower (how they squeezed into the tiny space together didn’t bear thinking about — for long) pounced on the lobsters like a couple of starved seals. Tim, pale and tired from too much neon light and computer screens, picked more hesitantly at his in how-d’you-eat-this-stuff fashion and spattered his immediate surroundings with garlic mayonnaise. When he was happily covered in gunk he fished a piece of paper from his jeans pocket, unfolded it greasily and presented it to me. “Stuff you wanted to know. Somerset Lodge? You were right, the Culverhouse Trust only rented it. It was owned by that Hines bloke. And he just sold it. He made a bundle.”

  I looked at the figure at the bottom of the sheet, next to a mayonnaisy thumb print, and gave a low whistle. Even I could have retired on that kind of dosh.

  “Ah, but there’s more. I looked up the Culverhouse Trust on the net. They don’t have a website but there were plenty of mentions. They used to run three other houses like Somerset, two in London, one in Brighton. The ones in London closed down. Financial mishandlings, “bad record keeping”. The Trust lost their charity status because they paid themselves too much money out of the charitable pot. And Gordon Hines got an honourable mention, too. In the late nineties there’d been an allegation of abuse. Sexual abuse, I presume, of a resident in the Brighton house. No witnesses came forward and the case never even went as far as the police. But Hines was banned from the Brighton house and posted sideways.”

  “To Bath, where he owned the premises,” I said flatly. I was stunned. To me, Gordon had always appeared as the more acceptable face of the rather stuck-up Culverhouse lot, whom I had only once met in force. And their main motivation had seemed a vague Christian morality, with an amateurish belief in do-goodism and civic duty, so greed and sex hadn’t instantly sprung to mind.

  Annis laid a hand on my arm. “Wouldn’t Jenny have known if any abuse had happened at Somerset?”

  “I’d have thought she’d have been the first person a resident would have talked to. If they talked,” I confirmed.

  “And what would Jenny have done?”

  “Jenny was incredibly protective about her charges, she’d have raised hell…” I said, my mind already elsewhere. Would Jenny have told me about it? Probably not, given the confidentiality issues. She had seemed stressed and tired on the day before her death. I tried to remember exactly what she had said to me. “A bit of bother. Quite a lot of bother, actually.” But she appeared to think that everything would be resolved at the committee meeting, which had been scheduled for Saturday …

  “Would she have gone through Social Services? Or alerted the committee? Or gone straight to the police?” Annis wondered. I was thinking along the same lines. Jenny would have done whatever she thought was in the best interest of the resident in question.

  “We’ll see,” I said and went for my mobile.

  Needham answered after only two rings. “Didn’t I say I wouldn’t mind if I didn’t hear from you for a while?”

  I ignored him. “Are you aware of any allegations of abuse happening at Somerset Lodge? Ever?”

  “Don’t you think I would have mentioned that?” he said. His voice had a tired, impatient edge. “What are you on about now?

  Who was abused by whom? If you know anything, spit it out now, Honeysett.”

  “I don’t know a thing, that’s why I asked,” I said, cut the connection and switched the mobile off. A minute later the phone rang, high up in my attic office. We ignored it.

  “You should tell him,” Annis said. “If Gordon abused a resident at Somerset and Jenny confronted him…”

  “A perfect motive for murder,” I agreed. “In fact the first real motive anyone has found.”

  “So…” Annis widened her eyes at me.

  “So we’ve got nothing on him. Needham wants the murder case buried and we have an unsubstantiated allegation of abuse Tim picked up on the internet. Something that did or didn’t happen years ago in a different town. If it did happen and the Culverhouse lot swept it under the carpet then there’s every chance they’ve got rid of that carpet by now.”

  “Is Hines straight?”

  “He was married, his wife died a while back, that’s all I know. Doesn’t mean a thing.” Anne, Linda, Dave, Gavin. And Adrian, forever in and out of plaster. Of all of them only Linda and Gavin seemed likely victims of abuse, but that was pure conjecture. I remembered Linda, buried deeply inside her Mickey Mouse sweater as though it could afford some protection from the world, and shuddered. Gavin ran from the house and from me. And Dave? Did he kill himself after all? And the sharpening steel in the lock…“Damn it. I’m going straight round to Gordon’s!” I said and stood up.

  “And warn him? Siddown, Honeysett,” Tim said firmly. “Siddown, drink beer. We’ll think of something better.”

  Reluctantly I sat down again. I took another look at the printout Tim had given me and angrily threw the greasy sheet amongst the shell fragments on the table. “How come a professional cat burglar like you…”

  “Ex-cat burglar, please,” he interrupted.

  “…leaves greasy fingerprints on everything he touches?”

  He produced a superior smile, a smear of garlic mayonnaise round his nose and mouth. “’Cause I’ve got nothing to fear. I’m clean.”

  We talked and talked, with Alison fast asleep in her wicker chair. The important thing was not to spook Gordon. He had recently made an awful lot of money from the sale of Somerset Lodge, which meant that if he wanted to disappear he could do it easily and in style. I needed to contact him under a harmless pretext and get him to a place where I held all the cards, i.e. a tape recorder and a witness. With Somerset closed, that could only mean Mill House.

  CHAPTER XI

  The morning, or what was left of it when I staggered out of the shower, looked uncomplicated. Not “cloudy but brightening up later”, not “sunshine and showers”, not “some sunshine but with a cool easterly breeze”. The morning was simple: hot, still, without a cloud in the sky. It made me think of long Mediterranean, take-it-all-for-granted summers. I thought I could hear cicadas in the meadow. Perhaps not.

  Annis was sitting next to me at my desk.
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br />   “You realize of course he’s got an alibi?” I felt a sudden twinge of doubt.

  “Alibi shmalibi,” Annis offered. “Dial!”

  Gordon seemed unfazed by my call. “What can I do for you, Chris?” No questions about the state of my health, no small talk.

  “You remember the photo board Jenny made? It hung in the hall at Somerset Lodge.”

  “I remember it.”

  “There were pictures on it of our last Christmas together. If they’re around somewhere, do you think I could have some of them? I don’t have any pictures of Jenny at all.”

  “I have them here somewhere, in a box, with some other stuff from the house. I’d be happy to let you have them. Pick them up any time at my place.”

  “Thanks, Gordon. The other reason I rang…we’ve got a barbecue here, next Tuesday, in the evening. Just a few of us. I wondered if you’d like to join us. You could bring the prints with you then.” Gordon and I had never socialized before. I held my breath.

  “Well, we’ve certainly got the weather for it, if it holds. And your cooking is supposed to be nearly as good as poor Jenny’s was. So yes, delighted. What time Tuesday?”

  “Make it seven, bring what you want to drink.”

  “Sounds a fair deal. See you then, Chris.”

  I hung up carefully. “Did I sound convincing? I was terribly nervous.”

  “You sounded fine. Natural,” Annis assured me. “So what’s next? If we want to dig up dirt on Gordon we’ll have to go back a long time, speak to people in Brighton, talk to Anne and Linda.”

  “That might be difficult.” I had made a couple of phone calls already this morning. Following the closure of Somerset Lodge, Linda had been taken in by her parents. Social Services had refused to furnish me with an address. Anne had reacted so badly to the break-up of the house, she was back in a closed ward at Hill View, heavily sedated, her mouth full of cotton wool. And if the Culverhouse Trust had anything to hide then they would hardly welcome me in Brighton with open arms. “Jenny’s murder is the priority here. And if the police couldn’t find anything then they’ve missed something. Sooo…I’ll just have to go over the whole thing, from square one. Like a proper little detective.”

  “What, like house-to-house?”

  “Like house-to-bloody-house.”

  I got into the car and got straight out again. A medium oven, Gas Mark 5. And I was wearing a suit, shirt and tie. It helps when you intend to knock on doors. Any uniform will get you attention, a boiler suit works well, but suit and tie is more my style. I let the interior of the DS cool down for a few minutes before I drove to Poet’s Corner.

  I’d intended to park in the bay at Somerset Lodge but it was blocked by two big yellow skips, brimful with rolled-up carpets and builders’ debris. A dust-powdered, shirtless bloke emptied a bucket of rubble into one as I pulled up.

  “Refurbishing,” he told me, once he had switched off the diskman he had clipped to his belt. “New owners. Used to be a private loony bin. The one where that woman was murdered. I sure as hell wouldn’t have bought it, far too creepy if you ask me.” He didn’t know the new owners. “Married couple with kids.” He shrugged his shoulders as though families were a somehow strange, unknowable species.

  I cruised around for a parking space, found one in nearby Kipling Avenue and walked back to Somerset. Being at the end of the street I estimated that only four houses directly overlooked the entrance to the garden, where I presumed the murderer had entered. Five, if I counted Somerset’s direct neighbour, where I would be sure to call. I started bang opposite; an immaculate lilac door, sentinelled by potted bay trees clipped into perfect spheres. I hated them already, so I worked on my smile as well as the over-polished brass knocker. I needn’t have bothered. The bloke who eventually opened the door was in his mid-twenties, wore yellow marigolds and said he was the cleaner. The lady of the house was out at a luncheon engagement. “Nah, I only started work here a couple of weeks ago,” he said when I asked about the day of the murder. “Might jack it in soon, though, they’re incredibly fussy.”

  I looked at his feet. He was wearing nylon shoe covers over his trainers like a lab technician in a germ-free zone. We wished each other luck.

  There was no answer at all at the next number, so I moved on. A well-worn front door this time, a nicely neglected front garden with an equal proportion of flowers and weeds and a green recycling crate crammed full of empty wine bottles. All of it red and from Chile. How much can you tell about the inhabitants from the front of their houses? Nothing of significance, in my experience.

  I knocked, waited, knocked again. The door was yanked wide open by a man in his sixties, with wild hair and specs. “Oh, come in, come in, I could do with a hand. Through here, in the kitchen.” He never even asked who I was. “Shut the door behind you,” he ordered once I was in his big, sit-down kitchen. “Here, you take this.” He handed me a broom. I really wasn’t dressed for this. The back door to his semi-wild garden was open. I looked at the floor. It appeared to be clean. “I’ll get up on the chair and you wave the broom at it,” he instructed next.

  I’ve played strange games in the past but this one was a new one. Never mind, I’d wave a broom at his chair if it made him happy.

  “Sorry about this. I don’t know what you want but whatever it is, first help me get the damn bird out.” Ah. I looked up. A young starling glared at us from the top of some kitchen units on the right. “I’ve tried to get him out for the last half-hour, I’m trying to stop him from bashing his stupid head in against the window pane. The window doesn’t fully open. And does he get the message? Brains the size of peas!”

  I waved the broom as instructed while he shooed. The starling took off, headed straight for the window, changed direction at the last moment and landed on the old boiler in the corner.

  “Right. Now you stand on the chair and look big. I’ll shoo him over. You make sure he doesn’t get back on to the units. That might do it.” He circled the kitchen table, which was covered in score sheets and breakfast debris, and scared the bird into flight again. A frantic flutter of wings as it came shooting towards me. I defended the wall units and shouted, “Out!” He hooked a sharp left and flew out the door.

  “See? Much easier with two people. Thanks for that. I’m Roy. Who are you?”

  I told him.

  “Private detective, eh? Never met one before. Drink?” He opened the fridge. Every inch of it was crammed with cans of Guinness. A liquid diet? Then I realized he had two fridges. Very civilized. Unless, of course, the other one was also full of Guinness. “I don’t drink much else,” he explained. He handed me a can and a glass with the harp logo on it. We took them outside and sat on a couple of rickety folding chairs on his weed-infested lawn. The Guinness was ice cold. Not bad. I asked about the day of Jenny’s murder.

  “Yeah, I remember it, but I didn’t know a thing about it until later, when the street was full of police cars. I was in the sub-basement, practising. I’m a session musician, drummer. And it’s well soundproofed down there, so I wouldn’t hear a damn thing anyway. As it turns out I wasn’t actually in at the time of the murder. Around twelve the leccy went off. First I thought a fuse had blown but it hadn’t. Some council morons in Shakespeare Avenue round the corner had dug through a cable or something. Cut off the whole neighbourhood. I didn’t fancy drumming by candlelight and without a backing track so I drove into town. Came back after two. It was all over by then, apparently.”

  “Did you know Jenny Kickaldy?” I asked.

  “To say hello to, that’s all. I liked her. Don’t know why, really, she never said much.” Probably couldn’t get a word in, I thought. But Jenny was like that: people took to her instantly, all she had to say was “Hi.”

  We eventually drifted away from the murder on to other topics. Roy was a retired engineer-turned-jazz musician, which explained the fading legend on his black T-shirt: The Jazz Bar, Syracuse, Greece. I found myself apologizing for knowing nothing about jazz.r />
  He shrugged and chuckled easily. “It’s not obligatory, you know.”

  I liked Roy and his Guinness. He offered me another can but I knew I wouldn’t get out of there for another hour if I accepted. I was enjoying myself too much. I promised to swing by the Farmhouse on Lansdown Road sometime, where he played jazz with friends every other Friday. I would, too.

  Outside I looked back at Roy’s front door and his crate of empty wine bottles. Perhaps he had a friend who drank as much wine as he put away Guinness. If so, it was just as well they drank red. There wasn’t much space in Roy’s fridge. Then I looked across towards Somerset Lodge. The same half-naked builder was leaning against the skip. He lifted a can of Sprite in a silent toast. From somewhere in the back of my brain I received the stupid warning, the vague feeling I get when I’m missing something glaringly obvious. There was no point in forcing it, though. It would come to me sooner or later.

  I had left the house next to Somerset Lodge to last. I knew I wouldn’t enjoy this conversation. This was the abode of Mr and Mrs Fairbrother, the couple who had erected an eight-foot metal fence between their property and Somerset. They had also led the campaign against it opening in the first place. Annis had dug out some old news clippings of an interview with the two. Scary stuff.

  A preposterously long-winded chime brought first a yappy dog, then Mrs Fair-brother to the door. She was immaculately groomed, about fifty, and wore an expensively understated cream silk dress with an antique gold brooch above her left breast. I explained what I wanted and showed her my business card. The tiny dog, a short-haired, ugly thing, yapped so hard its front legs left the ground with each bark.