by Granger, Ann
Jess met the quizzical gaze of his eyes. Depending on the light, they either looked greenish or brownish. Today, she thought, they were brownish. She had the uneasy feeling he’d been reading her mind. No, she told herself next, that’s just me feeling guilty. Pull yourself together, Jess!
‘You believe someone has been using one of the upstairs bedrooms,’ he said with sudden briskness as if he, too, were shrugging off some unwished-for frame of mind. He frowned, drumming his fingertips on the top of his desk. ‘That’s very odd. Bickerstaffe didn’t mention anything about that? You’re sure he doesn’t sleep up there himself?’
‘Absolutely. I told you—’ She corrected herself hurriedly. ‘I was explaining to you earlier that he doesn’t go upstairs. I saw a bed of sorts made up on a chaise longue in the corner of the drawing room. That must be what he uses himself. But someone has been up there in that one bedroom, and cleaned surfaces and so on, before Morton and I saw the room. It’s definitely been in use. You can tell just from the atmosphere. It’s not so stuffy as the other rooms; windows have been opened recently. It feels lived in. Scenes of Crime couldn’t lift any usable fingerprints.’
‘That thoroughly cleaned, eh?’ Carter murmured.
‘Yes, polished to a shine. Makes you think. There is the blanket left on the bed. We don’t know yet if we can get any DNA from that. It’s out of keeping with everything else in the house. Whoever has been using the room brought it in. The thought of any Bickerstaffe buying something synthetic and bright candy pink is just impossible. Anyway, there is a linen cupboard up there full of old sheets and blankets. Why not use one of those?’ Jess answered her own question, ‘Because the person using the room didn’t know about the supply in the linen cupboard. By the way, I checked out the contents of that cupboard. The blankets in the cupboard are all woollen and some of them have Second World War period utility labels in them.’
‘I’m surprised you recognised those,’ Carter said with a smile.
Jess bridled. Why the heck shouldn’t she? ‘I’ve seen the mark before,’ she told him stiffly. ‘My mother’s branch of the Women’s Institute organised an exhibition called the Home Front. You’d be surprised what people dug out of their attics for it. Someone brought in a gas mask. Some families just don’t clear out old stuff. Bickerstaffes are that sort. You can bet your boots they have never thrown anything away or bought anything new, unless it was absolutely necessary. Monty’s always lived in that house. He’s inherited ancestral junk and gone on adding to it. Whatever has been going on in that bedroom, I’m absolutely sure Monty’s blissfully ignorant of the whole thing.’
‘Because he claims never to go upstairs.’ Carter sighed. ‘We can’t take everything he says as gospel. He may wander up there occasionally and has just forgotten the last time he did so. It’s his home. Why shouldn’t he take a walk round it now and then?’
‘If Monty saw a candy-pink nylon blanket on one of the beds, he’d notice that and he’d remember it!’ Jess argued.
Carter held up a placating hand. ‘You’re probably right. I just find it very odd. But then, everyone seems agreed Monty is very odd, even if he isn’t, as you describe it, quite bonkers. Well, you’ll have to ask him outright about it. It’s still possible, whatever you feel, that he may just not have been volunteering information he thinks is none of our business. I’ve dealt with the type before. Bickerstaffe isn’t a social animal. He isn’t going to open up to you or anyone else and tell them his innermost thoughts. He probably thinks the less he tells the police, the sooner we’ll go away and leave him in peace. You’ll have to make it clear to him the reverse is true.’
‘I plan to drive over to Mrs Harwell’s home and interview him again there this afternoon. But I’ll have to be awfully careful how I tell him he’s had an intruder. I don’t want to frighten him. He is very elderly.’ Jess knew she was sounding stubborn.
‘All right, let’s suppose Monty is quite ignorant of his visitor or visitors. The next question is: are they connected with the dead man in the drawing room downstairs? And when did the thorough cleaning of the room take place? If the phantom visitors did put our corpse on that sofa, they would have been keen to get out of the place before Monty came home and found them. So, are we to believe they sought out dusters and brushes and spent anything up to half an hour polishing upstairs?’ Carter shook his head. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘That definitely doesn’t make sense.’
This time Jess had to agree. ‘Sergeant Morton thinks the room was used for assignations.’ Feeling for some reason ridiculously embarrassed, she added, ‘Romantic ones. Junkies would have left needles. They always do. Drunks leave beer cans. Schoolkids leave empty cider bottles and sweet wrappers. These visitors didn’t bring booze or drugs. They just brought themselves.’
‘Why bother to clean up so thoroughly after themselves and yet leave a bright pink blanket in place to tell the tale?’ he countered.
‘I don’t know.’ Jess thought about it. ‘The blanket would be bulky when folded up. Perhaps it wasn’t convenient to remove it each time? This wasn’t a one-off visit, sir. That room has been aired regularly. It’s got a real atmosphere of regular use.’
‘They were careful to remove their fingerprints, these regular lovebirds, If that’s indeed what they were up to. They weren’t so carried away by passion they forgot about that.’ Carter drummed his fingers. ‘Yet leaving the blanket tells us they were confident Monty wouldn’t walk upstairs and find it. It suggests they may have chosen the house because of the assured privacy. They knew the owner’s habits. So why so careful not to leave any prints if there was little risk of discovery?’
Carter leaned back and folded his hands. For a moment they regarded one another in silence. Then the superintendent asked, ‘Where’s Sergeant Morton now?’
‘He’s gone to interview the neighbours. There’s a family called Colley that keeps a small pig farm next door to Balaclava House, although you can’t see it from the house because of a bend in the lane. You can smell it, though.’
‘Nice neighbours,’ commented Carter.
‘I don’t suppose the smell of the pigs bothers Monty. There is also another, larger, farm further on, belonging to a Pete Sneddon. I don’t think the Colleys will be helpful. If they know anything, they won’t tell us. They’re not the type to cooperate with the law. Morton might have more luck with Sneddon.’
‘I’d like to meet Mr Bickerstaffe,’ Carter said.
Jess opened her mouth but he forestalled her protest. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not proposing to accompany you this afternoon. Bickerstaffe knows you. A stranger turning up with you might upset him. I’ll get a chance to make his acquaintance before too long, I dare say.’
While Jess’s conversation with Superintendent Carter was taking place, Phil Morton was carrying out the job of interviewing the Colley family. He stood at the gate barring the track leading into their property and surveyed the hand-printed notice that read ‘Beware of dogs’. He had parked his car in the road and had intended to walk up to the house, but not if ferocious dogs were on the loose. He could open the gate and drive through. He put out a hand and at once, as if they knew a stranger was about to invade the place, the dogs in question began to bark. They set up a deafening racket, but they didn’t appear.
As Morton hesitated, someone else did. A figure came plodding down the track towards him and stopped on the other side of the gate. She was an elderly woman and appeared, to Morton, to be quite square. Short, broad, with straggling grey hair framing a sunburned face, she stood on stumpy legs, slightly spread to balance her weight. She wore a grimy tent-like patterned frock and carried a bucket.
‘Who are you, then?’ she asked. The question startled him, not because of the words themselves, but because of the timbre of her voice. It was as deep as a man’s, with a hoarse quality that suggested a lifetime’s addiction to gin and strong tobacco. Before he could reply, she went on, ‘Copper, I dare say, come about that business at Balaclava.’ She jerk
ed the grimy thumb of her free hand in the general direction of Monty’s home.
Morton produced his ID but she barely glanced at it. ‘Are you Mrs Colley?’ he asked.
‘I’m one of them,’ she said. ‘My daughter-in-law, Maggie, is the other.’
‘I’d like to talk to your family,’ said Morton. ‘Are they all at home?’
‘They’re about the place. You can come in. I’ll take you.’
Morton opened the gate and looked past her apprehensively. She had already turned away from him and was stomping back down the track. She looked over her shoulder without pausing.
‘Dogs is in their pen,’ she said.
Morton followed her, curious to see the place the Colleys called home. It appeared as he turned a shallow bend in the track and he was surprised to see it consisted of several buildings. What a jumble they made! Something of everything, Morton told himself. Without knowing much about architecture, he realised the various parts had been constructed at different times and in some cases probably for different purposes.
The smallest construction, and the nearest to him, was the dog pen. It was a large cage made of chicken wire attached to rough wooden posts. Probably it had started out as a poultry run. In one corner of it stood a ramshackle hut, serving as a kennel. The dogs themselves were three in number, Alsatians with, Morton judged, a touch of something else in their bloodline. They were big, powerful creatures and he doubted that the wire run would hold them for very long if they really wanted to get out. They crowded together, snouts pressed against the wire, watching him with unfriendly yellow eyes. A slight shift in the breeze brought him the rank smell of pack animals kept out of doors. Morton turned his gaze away deliberately, recalling that staring a strange dog in the eye can be read as a challenge.
Mrs Colley, he was not altogether happy to see, had disappeared into the house that lay directly ahead of him, leaving him alone. It had originally been a honey-yellow stone cottage typical of the area. But over the years it had been added to in a piecemeal fashion, bits in brick, some in a different sort of stone, and a lean-to in wood tacked on the far end.
To his left were empty brick pigsties. He wondered where the pigs were. To his right, beyond the dog pen, stood a building of quite a different class. It was larger, both long and higher, brick-built with care, decorated with a fancy pattern of different colour bricks at intervals along the façade. The far end had dusty windows and a stable door. The nearer end, windowless, was pierced by a large doorway, closed now by wooden doors of a more modern and rougher construction than the rest of the building. It was two-storey; the upper floor showed twin openings, about the height of a man, beginning at floor level. A rusted pulley system protruded from the wall by one.
Old hayloft and stables, thought Morton, now a general storage area. I wonder what happened to the original doors? I suppose they use some of it as a barn or farrowing shed. Even in these reduced circumstances, the whole building was a cut above the rest. It was like seeing an elderly, tattered but dignified gentleman tramp, sitting on a bench with a group of less distinguished winos. It made him think of Monty Bickerstaffe himself.
While he had been studying his surroundings Mrs Colley had gathered her clan. They emerged now, some from within the house; others came round the corner of it from some area to the rear. They moved in a solid mass towards him and stood silently, waiting for him to open any conversation.
Mrs Colley senior no longer held her bucket but her fingers were still curled as if a handle rested in them. Next to her stood a belligerent-looking woman in early middle age. Her features and figure were lumpy and her skin weather-beaten and prematurely lined. Her lank, badly dyed black hair was dragged back from her face and fixed in a ponytail. She wore gold hoop earrings, but no make-up, and her bare arms were decorated with tattoos. She glared at Morton with small dark eyes as she drew on a cigarette. That must be Maggie, the daughter-in-law, Morton thought. Fancy waking up every morning and seeing that on the pillow beside you!
The husband who had that honour stood next to Maggie: a burly, bearded man in grimy jeans and quilted body-warmer worn over a plaid shirt. Then came the younger members of the family. There was Gary, with a wary grin on his face and, beside him, an overweight blonde wearing tight black leggings that did nothing to disguise her plump thighs and bulging calves. A loose garment draped the top half of her body. Lastly, a small child emerged from behind the blonde and stood staring unblinkingly at Morton. It was female, and between three and four years old, so Morton guessed. Her hair was uncombed. She was dressed in pink leggings and purple top, and grasped a grubby stuffed toy Morton thought he could identify as a Teletubby, though he couldn’t have said which one.
‘Mr Colley?’ Morton asked the bearded man briskly.
The man stepped forward and nodded. ‘Dave Colley, that’s me.’ He indicated the woman with the cigarette. ‘My wife.’
Morton acknowledged the introduction with a nod. The woman ignored it and drew silently on her cigarette, still glowering. The expression was probably permanent.
‘You’ve already met my mother,’ continued Dave Colley. ‘This is my son, Gary. You’ve met him, too, I reckon, yesterday. And my daughter, Tracy. That little ’un is my granddaughter, our Katie.’
‘Hello, Katie,’ said Morton to the child, since none of the others had moved a muscle.
‘’Ello,’ said the child and sniffed noisily. She rubbed the Teletubby across her nostrils.
‘Where’s Mr Monty, then?’ asked Dave Colley. ‘What have you done with the poor old bugger?’
‘He’s staying with relatives,’ said Morton. ‘I’d like to ask you all about yesterday. You’ve probably heard by now that a dead body was discovered in Balaclava House by Mr Bickerstaffe, when he returned from a shopping trip to town.’
They showed no surprise at the news so they had heard about the existence of a body. Now, where had they heard it? That was another question that needed an answer.
‘None of us know anything about it!’ growled Grandma Colley. She had taken up a defensive stance, head lowered, shoulders hunched. Perhaps she thought that Morton, for some inexplicable reason, was going to rush her and tackle her to the ground.
‘All right, Mum,’ said Dave to her.
She wasn’t so easily silenced. ‘Old Mr Monty, he wouldn’t know anything about it, either. Not his fault he found it. Anyone can find anything, doesn’t make ’em responsible, does it?’ She had a grievance now and having found voice, was getting into her swing.
There was an odd moment in which Morton and the Colleys were united in trying to ignore her. It was quickly over. The Colleys stood together, literally and metaphorically.
‘You’ve been neighbours all your lives, you and Mr Bickerstaffe,’ said Morton, more in dismay at the thought of anyone having to live next door to this bunch than anything else.
‘That’s right,’ said Dave. ‘My granddad, old Jed Colley, he knew Mr Monty when Mr Monty was a kid. Bickerstaffes and Colleys been living here for years.’
‘You’ve always kept pigs?’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Colley. ‘This is our place, passed down father to son.’
‘I see,’ said Morton. ‘Were you all here yesterday?’
‘Off and on, I reckon. Gary went into town.’
Dave Colley was either telling the truth, or smart, thought Morton, and wished he knew which it was. Gary had told the inspector yesterday that he was on his way into town. Now his dad had backed his story.
‘We particularly want to know if you saw any strangers, or even one stranger, in the area. Or an unknown car, in the lane out there.’
Colley shook his bushy head. ‘No, no one. Pretty quiet down here, most of the time.’
‘What about the rest of you?’ Morton asked the family, since they seemed happy to let Dave do the talking with occasional contributions from Grandma Colley.
‘Never seen nothing,’ they chorused.