‘Can you keep this mobile canine thing orf me slippers, somebody? I don’t want to ’ave to give it a kick.’
‘Would you like to get back home now, Mummy McMurrough?’ asked Bailey, and she nodded.
‘I’ll just get me shoes on and collect me ’andbag, and I’ll be orf.’ To Falconer, she added, ‘Always wanted to be rich and famous when ’e were a kiddy, ’e did. Well, ’e’s got it now, much good it’s doing ’im. I’ve always said that you should be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.’
‘Does Mr McMurrough have any brothers or sisters?’ asked the inspector, wondering if there could be any sibling rivalry behind these two recent mishaps.
‘’E’s got three, but they’re blood strangers now. They don’t approve of ’im making a public spectacle of ’isself.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Mrs McMurrough, you don’t sound as if you come from the same place as your son; your accents are so dissimilar.’
‘I should ’ope so, too. ‘’E were always tryin’ to talk posh, from when ’e were a kid. Traitor to ’is roots, ’e is, but do you ’ear me complainin’? No, you don’t. I’ve always told ’im to be ’oo ’e feels ’e is, and tell the rest of the world to go ’ang, and that’s exac’ly what ’e’s done. Can’t say fairer than that, can yer?’
‘Your attitude says much for your magnanimity,’ replied Falconer, just before a plaintive voice spoke from the sofa.
‘I am in the room, you know. And I don’t appreciate being talked about in front of me like that.’ McMurrough was missing the limelight. ‘If you wish to dissect my character, kindly do it behind my back.’
And it was definitely going to be much too late to go to the pub tonight.
As Radcliffe ushered Mummy McMurrough out to the car, Falconer introduced Heather, and let her have a little gush in front of him, before he began his questioning.
When the two of them left half an hour later, Falconer promising to get someone out to collect the ‘weapon’, and any forensic evidence there may be, he said to Heather, ‘Shall we go back to mine for a coffee? It’s still quite early.’
‘Great idea,’ she replied. ‘And there’s something I need to ask you.’ Leaving that threat hanging like a sword of Damocles, she enquired whether he’d like her to come over and cook Sunday roast for him, if both of them were off duty. It was quite a forward suggestion from her, as the invitation for coffee had overstepped bounds already set, and it would be her first visit to his home.
Having agreed in a somewhat nervous state, to this unexpected and unprecedented offer, the inspector spent the rest of the short drive back to Market Darley telling her about the traditional Sunday meal during his childhood years.
He had noticed, through the window of Glass House, a large floral centrepiece in the middle of the dining table. There had been no centrepiece in his home. Cook had always brought the lump of charred flesh to the table, and set it before his father with a defiant glare, which was returned in silent venom.
Every Sunday morning, his father would remind Cook that all of them like their meat pink, with the exception of chicken. Every Sunday lunchtime, he waged war on the tough, stringy lumps of charred meat, with which his ever-hopeful carving knife was presented.
The exception was, of course, the rare treat (in those days) of a chicken, which oozed dark pink juices as soon as he pierced its skin. Falconer Senior felt true hatred for the cook, who remained his bête noir, until he finally sacked her after a memorable Sunday when he had become incandescent with rage at the dry, solid, dark lump that sat, seemingly mocking him, from the carving plate.
He finally lost his grip on his temper, and wrestled the blasted lump off the plate, across the table and, eventually, to the floor, at which point Mrs Falconer had rung for Cook, requested that she open a tin of corned beef, then pack her bags forthwith, and leave the premises on a permanent basis.
Thereafter, the carving was always carried out in the kitchen with silent savagery and frustration, by the matriarch of the family.
Heather laughed gleefully at the visions of this in her mind’s eye, and declared that Sundays were never so dramatic in her childhood home, and suggested that this was probably because they couldn’t afford to pay the wages of a cook.
While Falconer escorted his lady friend into his house, Chadwick McMurrough and Bailey Radcliffe in Fairmile Green settled down to watch McMurrough’s chat show that they had recorded to watch at their leisure, Dipsy Daxie curled up, fast asleep, on his new master’s lap, while Bailey leaned across and played lazily with the puppy’s ears.
Back in Market Darley, the sense of tension began to grow in Falconer as Heather entered his home, and their coffee together became quite a stiff affair. He had few visitors, and the entrance of someone with whom he met regularly for social reasons bothered him more greatly than he had anticipated. When he went to bed that night, it was with a real sense of foreboding and doom.
Chapter Three
Thursday
Market Darley
Harry Falconer could not believe his eyes. There was an open newspaper and a magazine left carelessly on the floor. On the coffee table were two almost empty cups, both stained with lipstick. Someone had disturbed his collection of ornaments, and they now sat out of place and muddled up. In the kitchen sink sat several pieces of crockery awaiting washing and, in the downstairs cloakroom, three pairs of ladies’ tights hung on the radiator to dry.
‘No! No! No!’ he cried in revulsion and despair, and the cries woke him from this distressing nightmare. He lay for a while, his eyes bulging and staring at the ceiling, his fists clenched, sweat pouring from his body. His reaction to the very thought of someone sharing his house had produced a panic attack. The dream had been one of his rare, vivid ones, in colour.
Heather had asked him the previous evening if she could possibly stay – as in, move in – with him for a while. She had a limited time in the nurses’ home, and it was nearly up, and although she had found a flat she wanted and made an offer on it, the legalities were not yet complete. It would only be for a few weeks, and they got on so well together.
He had sat on the fence, and said he would consider the idea. This nightmare had convinced him that the reality of the situation would rob him of his sanity. He had not realised how much he prized his personal space. His home was the den and he was the lion. There was no room in it for a lioness.
He was next rent with conflicting emotions: glad that his dream had polarised his opinion of sharing his home, albeit temporarily, and at the same time, filled him with trepidation that his refusal would jeopardise his friendship with Heather, but he couldn’t think of a middle path.
The only thing he could think of doing was talking the situation over with Carmichael. He was much better at people than he was, and maybe he could suggest an acceptable solution to his awful dilemma. He could hardly explain to Heather that the thought of sharing his home made him feel physically sick. She had only spent half an hour in it the evening before, and his reaction had been extreme.
Falconer poured out his woes to his sergeant later that morning in a rather embarrassed manner. He was not proud of how he felt, and wondered if he was abnormal, but Carmichael soon put his fears to rest.
‘A lot of people don’t like sharing their home. When you look at your life so far, you had to sleep in a dormitory at school, then you shared a room when you were at university. I suppose you didn’t have any private space when you first went into the Army. It’s no wonder that you value having somewhere that’s just yours. It’s something you haven’t had a lot of, and it’s become very important to you. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t beat yourself up about it.
‘This country is full of people who live alone and, for a lot of them, it’s by choice, not necessity; they’re just very private people, like you. I’ll tell you what, sir, we’ve got a spare room, and she’s welcome to that, if she doesn’t mind bunking in with a fairly chaotic family.’
‘You couldn’t do that,’ protested Falconer. ‘Whatever would Kerry say?’
‘Kerry wouldn’t mind at all. She got on with Heather fine when I was in hospital and, when’s she’s not on duty during the day, it’ll be company for Kerry. I’ll give her a ring if you like, and see how she feels about the idea. We’ll think up some excuse for you to use to Heather, and everything will be all right again.’
‘Carmichael, how can I thank you?’
‘By coming over for lunch on Sunday.’
Carmichael didn’t know it, but he was a double saviour. Now Falconer could politely decline Heather’s offer to come over and cook for him on this particular occasion. He hadn’t given her a definite answer, and he could now claim that he had a prior arrangement with his sergeant that he had temporarily forgotten.
It would be far less disturbing to spend the day with the family of five and their dogs, than to have someone other than himself working in his kitchen, cooking in his oven, and rummaging in his cupboards.
‘Thank you so much. I should be delighted, Carmichael. What time would you like me to arrive?’
The inspector made a point of relaying this (fictitious) muddle-up in his social arrangements before Carmichael had the chance to talk to her, making the call as brief as possible so that she couldn’t ask him whether he’d made a decision or not yet about her moving in with him – albeit temporarily.
Fairmile Green
In Glass House, tempers were rather frayed, as Dipsy had howled for much of the night, missing the mother and siblings to which he was used to curling up to sleep. The peacocks had also been unusually noisy, and no soul in the household was well rested.
Bailey had snapped at Chadwick when they first woke, and had stumped off downstairs to put some coffee on to brew, in the hope that he might feel a little more human, with some caffeine coursing through his veins.
Chadwick went into his en-suite – they each had their own, off different sides of the bedroom – for a shave, as he had not bothered the day before. As he plugged in his top of the range (of course!) razor, there was a bang and a flash, and he suddenly found himself on his bum, sprawled in the shower cubicle – definitely not amongst his short-term plans.
The short-circuit would normally have been enough to trigger the main circuit-breaker in the domestic distribution unit in the hall but, in this case, it had not. Although Bailey had been conscious of the noise, it did not trigger the fact that there was something wrong. The first intimation he had that there was something amiss had been a faint bleating noise of distress from upstairs.
Cold-heartedly staying to pour the water into the cafetière first, sure that there was nothing seriously out of kilter, he then slowly mounted the staircase, in the sure and certain knowledge that he would find Chadwick whingeing on about something really trivial, as usual.
Imagine his jolt of guilt, then, when he found his partner had suffered a serious electric shock that, had water been involved, could possibly have killed him. He helped the trembling Chadwick back to the bed, pulled the duvet over him, and marched downstairs to check the domestic distribution panel in the neat cupboard in the hall.
He could not believe his eyes when he saw that the circuit-breaker that should have been triggered by whatever the fault was, was actually taped in a way that prevented it from switching off the supply of electrical current. This was sabotage of the first order, and must have occurred when the trip-wire was affixed to the stairs, as there had been no other opportunity for someone with any sort of grudge to do so since then.
Bailey marched to the telephone in the hall and called Falconer’s mobile number. This was getting really serious. It was not just a series of practical jokes or mild attempts to hurt Chadwick; this was attempted murder.
After venting his ire on the inspector, he went back upstairs with a cup of coffee for the invalid, only to be told, in the most scathing tones, that Chadwick would be grateful if he, Bailey, would mind removing his ratty old dressing gown from his, Chadwick’s, bathroom, as it was cluttering up the place and making it look like a slum.
‘You ungrateful bitch!’ snapped Bailey. ‘I should throw this coffee at you rather than just hand you the cup. I apologise for leaving it there. It was a rare aberration on my part, and I assure you it won’t happen again.
‘Trivialities aside, how are you feeling? I’ve checked the fuse box, and someone has actually taped down the circuit breaker. You could have been killed.’
‘I feel ever so shaken,’ moaned the invalid, placing the palm of one hand – the one not in possession of a cup of coffee – against his forehead in a most theatrical way.
‘I’m not surprised. I’ve spoken to that police inspector again, and he and his sergeant are on their way over. I just hope that there aren’t any more deadly traps lying in wait for you.’
‘Oh, Gawd!’ groaned Chadwick, with a quick return to the accent of his roots. ‘So do I. I’m going to have to be ever so careful. Do you think I could get police protection?’
‘We’ll ask the nice inspector when he arrives. The situation isn’t much of a joke after this latest episode. Someone seems to have got it in for you, my little poppet.’
‘In spades, ducky.’
‘Drink your coffee before it gets cold.’
‘Yes, Nanny.’
Market Darley
Harry Falconer answered the urgent summons of the telephone to find a furious Bailey Radcliffe on the end, with a tale of someone trying to electrocute his partner.
His tale was convincing enough to send a shiver of apprehension up the inspector’s spine, as he realised someone didn’t seem to be merely playing games with the new celebrity resident of the village, and if they were, they were playing for keeps. They really meant business, and meant to kill him, not merely inconvenience him with some minor injuries.
Ending the call, he grabbed his car keys from his jacket pocket, and hailed Carmichael. ‘Come along with you. There’s been a more serious attempt on Chadwick McMurrough’s life. There was also an incident yesterday evening that I haven’t had time to bring you up to date on yet. We need to go back to Fairmile Green. I’ll tell you about last night on the way.’
Carmichael picked up his sunglasses and followed the inspector out of the office, his appetite whetted with the promise of details of an incident of which he had been, up to now, unaware, and the chance to see the star – his current personal hero – again.
Fairmile Green
Although the newcomers did not know it, there was already a fair amount of resentment felt towards the new occupants of Glass House, some personal, from their past, and some more recent, to do with their refurbishment and occupation of that particular property, not to mention the installation of the peacocks.
While Chadwick McMurrough was recovering from the shock of his shock, there were many residents of the village who sat in their homes and fumed, on this bright and sunny day.
In the house to the left of Glass House as one looked down the village, Riverbanks, Gerald and Lucille Sutherland sat over a post-breakfast cup of coffee, bags under their eyes, their mouths constantly stretched by yawns.
‘Those bloody birds!’ exclaimed Gerald, once he could close his mouth with any degree of certainty that it would stay that way long enough for him to speak. ‘I hardly got a wink of sleep last night. Apart from nightingales, I thought all birds were supposed to be quiet during the hours of darkness.’
‘And that blasted dog,’ chipped in Lucille. ‘Did you hear that thing howling its head off half the night, as well?’
‘It can’t be allowed to go on. I know the animal’s got to settle in, but those birds will have to go.’
‘But what can we do?’ asked Lucille, always first to the nub of the matter.
‘When we’ve finished this coffee and I’ve woken myself up with a shower, I’ll go out into the village with a clipboard and see if I can get up a petition, and we can then face our new neighbours with the local oppositio
n.’
‘Excellent idea! And while you’re in the shower, I’ll get the petition written and printed up on the computer.’
With a pained and put-upon expression, her husband added, ‘After all that time when we had to put up with the work being done on the place, you’d think we’d have earned a bit of peace and quiet.’
Gerald had retired just as the refurbishment work had started on The Orchards to transform it into Glass House, and he thought he would go mad with the constant banging and noise from the various power tools. Then, just when the new owners had moved in and he thought things would settle down, the peacocks had been delivered and made their presence known in a very in-your-face, or perhaps in-your-earholes, way. Life seemed, sometimes, to be so unfair.
In self-defence, when the weather had improved, and the months wore on and the work still continued, he took to tucking his newspaper under his arm and heading, after breakfast on weekdays, to either Old Swan Yard or Darley Old Yard at the back of the shops in the High Street, where there were benches, and he could not hear the banging, hammering, and drilling quite so clearly.
On particularly bad days, he even went as far as Bear Pit Yard at the back of the parade of shops in Market Street, but he was sorely tried by having to evacuate his home directly after his retirement, because of noisy building work. To then be subjected, very shortly afterwards, by the constant shrill cries of God knew how many peacocks, to which mix was now added the howls of distress of a recently arrived puppy, was almost beyond both tolerance and belief.
After the night they had just endured, he was just in the right mood for toting a petition around the main streets and retail establishments of the village. He didn’t know whether he’d gather enough signatures in one day, but he didn’t mind that. He’d go out for as long as was necessary to get a goodly list of others who felt the even tenor of their lives was being disturbed by the current occupants of what he still thought of as The Orchards.
Glass House (The Falconer Files Book 11) Page 4