‘When are we going to speak to the production crew?’ asked Carmichael, holding open the station door to let Falconer enter first, the well-brought up boy.
‘Tomorrow morning, I should think. You and I could probably manage that on our own. After all, there are only five of them, I believe. I did catch a quick glance at that list Radcliffe gave you.’
When they shed their wet coats up in the office, there was neither hide nor hair of DC Chris Roberts, and Falconer’s temper began to flare. He was not particularly patient with his detective constable, because he seemed to spend an inordinately large amount of time either in hospital or just off work, sick.
And when the detective constable did deign to put in an appearance at the station, spent an inordinate amount of time with his feet up on his desk reading a newspaper, or outside, having a cigarette – Falconer dared not think of using the word ‘fag’ at the moment – break.
‘If that lazy dog’s sloped off somewhere, I’ll have his guts for garters. Look! There’s no sign of a note or a message, either. He’ll be swinging the lead somewhere, no doubt. You take a look out of the window and see if you can spot him smoking out there.’
‘Then I’ll get us both a mug of coffee, sir,’ offered Carmichael, anxious to avoid getting caught in the cross-fire and, after a brief glance to confirm that the missing DC was not visible in the car park, went off in the direction of the canteen.
Roberts answered the call after the fourth ring, his voice sounding slightly slushy and abnormal; somehow full of suffering.
‘Where the hell are you, Roberts? I’ve just got back to the office, and there you aren’t. Nothing unusual in that, I know but, as far as I know, you’re not in hospital just at the moment, so where the hell are you?’
‘I’m at home, sir.’
‘Why, in the blue blazes are you at home? It’s not even lunchtime.’
‘It must’ve been those school talks I did at the end of term,’ replied Roberts, cryptically.
‘What? Whatever are you talking about, man? Talk sense, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Incubation times. When I woke up this morning, they were nearly as big as footballs.’
‘What incubation? What were as big as footballs? What are you babbling about?’
‘I’m a man, sir – a male adult, and this is, apparently, what happens if you get it at my age.’
‘Get what? Stop talking in riddles and tell me what’s wrong with you now, immediately?’
‘Mumps, sir. I must’ve picked it up doing those road safety and ‘stranger danger’ talks at the primary schools, before they broke up for the summer holidays. The glands in my neck are also pretty swollen too, and it’s agony to try to eat anything.’
‘Mumps? I think I realise, now, what are almost as big as footballs.’
‘Let me put it this way, sir, if they get any bigger, I think I’ll have to walk with a wheelbarrow in front of me.’
‘Don’t you dare come back to this office until you’re completely free of infection, do you hear me?’
‘Gotcha, sir.’
When Carmichael re-entered the office carrying two steaming mugs, he asked Falconer if he was really going to have Roberts’ guts for garters, now he’d spoken to him.
‘No, life has dealt him a much lower blow than that!’
‘What’s that, sir? Here’s your coffee, by the way.’
‘Thanks. Our DC Roberts has got mumps. Reckons he picked it up on his pre-holiday talks to the kids in the local schools.’
‘Glad I didn’t do them, then. It’s a bit late in the year for mumps, though, isn’t it?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Usually March or April time.’
‘Whatever. One of the little darlings he has met on his travels has infected him, and he’s suffering rather badly from swellings.’
‘Did you mention a wheelbarrow to him?’ asked Carmichael with a grin.
‘He suggested one himself. How are you feeling? I’ve checked myself, and I seem to be a hundred per cent.’
‘Fit as a fiddle, sir. Anyway, I had it when I was a kid, and you can’t get it twice.’
‘Thank God for that. Let’s go and get an early lunch, and do this afternoon without appointments. It’s not as if any of the addresses are a long way apart, so we can’t waste much time. We’ll just play it by ear as we won’t have the pleasure of Roberts’ company.’
Fairmile Green
The two policemen, replete with a canteen lunch, pulled up outside Woodbine Cottage, the residence at the eastern end of the row of houses. ‘If we start here, we can work our way along to the other end, then that’ll only leave us with the three down Old Darley Passage, and we’re done. Any who aren’t in at all, we’ll have to come back to tomorrow. Are you on duty, then?’ the inspector asked Carmichael.
‘Course I am, same as you, and we’re both off Sunday. You’re coming to us for lunch, remember?’
‘How could I forget? I’m already looking forward to it,’ Falconer replied dishonestly. The real reason he had accepted the invitation was so that he could prevent Heather coming round and cooking for him in his own kitchen – heaven forfend.
‘Now, consulting this list, we start with Mr and Mrs Fairchild, then it’s Mr and Mrs Catcheside, missing out The Old Smithy – that couple didn’t turn up for the party – then Mr and Mrs Warren before we get to Glass House.
‘Passing that by, we go on to Mr and Mrs Sutherland, then Mr and Mrs Smallwood, Mr and Mrs Trussler and Mr Eastwood, then we go up to Old Darley Passage for Mr Worsley, Mr Jones, and Mr Westbrook.’
At that moment his mobile rang, and he answered the call to find Bailey Radcliffe on the other end. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Radcliffe?’ he asked, hoping that nothing else sinister had occurred.
‘You’d better add the Innocents to your list, should there be another attempt. I dropped Chadwick off at the studios just now for a technical run, and on the way back, I ran over their cat. The ruddy thing’s dead, and they’re spitting fire in my direction, so maybe you can expect me to become another target.’
After he’d ended the call, Falconer told his sergeant what had happened, and suggested that they call there anyway, to ask them if they had seen anyone or anything suspicious which could be pertinent to what had been happening in Glass House recently.
Chapter Seven
Fairmile Green
At Woodbine Cottage, the door was opened by a young lad possibly only in his late teens. Falconer gave their names and ranks and asked him if his parents were in.
‘They’re at work, but you can talk to me if you like,’ he offered. ‘I’m their son, Rufus, by the way.’
‘Did you attend the house-warming party at Glass House last night?’ asked Falconer, not wanting to waste his time.
‘No I bloody well didn’t,’ answered the youth, roughly. ‘I wouldn’t set foot on that cheating poof’s property if it was the last house on earth?’
‘And which ‘cheating poof’ would that be?’ asked Falconer giving as good as he got.
‘That queen, Chadwick sodding McMurrough. It should’ve been me what won that programme, not him, but he was always playing up for the cameras, simpering at all the cameramen, and dressing like it was some sort of play or summink.
‘I was robbed, getting thrown out on the first eviction. Well, I’m going to apply for the X Factor next year, and Britain’s Got Talent. I will get my chance at the high life, with no cheating shirt-lifters like him around to spoil my chances.’
‘So you’re not a fan of Chadwick McMurrough’s, then?’
‘No I bleeding well ain’t, and that’s the truth. I did hear someone’s trying to kill him. Well, bloody good luck to them is all I can say.’
And with that charming little speech, Rufus Catcheside tried to shut the door in their faces, but Falconer employed an experienced foot to stop him. ‘Tell me, sonny, if your parents are at work, why exactly are you lounging around the house during working hours on a
weekday?’
‘I’m at college in Market Darley, ain’t I? I’ve got no lectures till four, so I can do what I bleeding well want in my free time. It’s no business of no nosy copper, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, pal.’ The door closed as Falconer removed his obstructing foot, and he turned to his sergeant.
‘Make a note, Carmichael. We may have to come back to him. We’ll definitely have to come back to speak to the parents, but I think we should add him to our list of possibles. He’s certainly hostile enough.
‘We shouldn’t be long at the next one, either. That’s the couple whose cat Radcliffe ran over earlier today, and they hadn’t met them before.’
He knocked smartly on the door of The Old Smithy, after there was no answer to his ring on the doorbell, but still the door remained firmly closed. The Innocents were definitely not at home.
‘Perhaps they only came home for lunch, sir. If they don’t have any children, and they’re not retired, people tend to be out at work, if they’ve got it, during the week.’
‘Good point, Sergeant. On we go then.’
A man whom they took to be Vince Catcheside opened the door to them at Church Cottage. After presenting their credentials, he grudgingly asked them in and led the way into a small sitting room overfull of flower-covered furniture, with equally hectic curtains at the windows, and a patterned carpet on the floor.
It was obvious that he and his wife were over retirement age from their grey hair and wrinkled faces, but there was no evidence of the courtesy of that generation, as they offered their visitors no refreshment.
‘You may have gathered that there has been more than one attempt to injure or even kill your new neighbour, Chadwick McMurrough, Mr Catcheside. I’m looking for anything that was seen or heard that could help me find the culprit.
‘Both you and your wife were at their house-warming party last night. Did you observe or overhear anything that could be of help to us?’
‘Even if I did, I’d keep me trap shut. People like that should be done away with. If whoever it is succeeds, I’ll be the first to shake their hand,’ Vince Catcheside spat, a look of loathing on his face.
‘They ain’t natural, them two,’ added his wife, looking similarly hostile. ‘In some ways, Hitler got it right. They should be rounded up and shot, in my opinion.’
Both detectives were shocked. Neither of them had any idea that such real hatred existed towards gays these days. They had both considered that the days of ‘gay bashing’ were well and truly over, and this unexpected display of venom was unsettling.
‘I don’t know whether you’ve realised it, but homosexuality was decriminalised many years ago, and they do have the right to form civil partnerships these days. They are generally accepted as part of the modern society that has been worked so hard for.’
Falconer knew that he sounded a little pompous, but he was absolutely furious with the bigotry displayed by these two social dinosaurs, and appalled by their prejudice. As he spoke, Carmichael let his breath out in an audible hiss, and turned, of his own accord, towards the front door.
‘There’s nothing for us here, sir,’ he commented, his face a complete blank. ‘I suggest we get on with our enquiries elsewhere.’
‘Excellent idea, Sergeant.’ Without a word of farewell, the two men exited the little house, both of them glad of a breath of fresh air after the tirade of hatred they had just experienced.
As they stood waiting outside the door of Myrtle Cottage they could hear the sound of children’s laughter sounding from the other side of it. Their summons was answered by a dishevelled woman, probably in her thirties, with a substance that looked suspiciously like cake-mix in her hair and down the front of her T-shirt.
Discreetly ignoring this probably accidental sartorial addition, Falconer bade her good day, introduced the two of them, and asked if they could come inside for a word or two about what had happened to Chadwick McMurrough the evening before.
Apart from the muttered, ‘Little shits,’ apparently in judgement of her own children and not the neighbours, she didn’t utter a word until she had sat them down in the sitting room. Three children were romping, unchecked, through the house, while a baby, only just crawling, moved slowly across the carpet rather like a snail – its trail, however, being of urine, for it wore no nappy. It was not a restful household.
Before either of them could utter a word, the woman suddenly broke into self-pitying speech. ‘Things are a bit fraught around here, as you can see. And I’m surprised no one told you that we left that party almost as soon as we arrived
‘Those two unnaturals have got absolutely no empathy towards children. They’re so deep in their own twisted world of glamour that they were quite hostile towards my little darlings,’ – her face told a different story of how she really felt about her brood – ‘and we wouldn’t stay there for the kids to be shouted at and generally harassed just for being young and inquisitive.’
‘So, were you not there when Mr McMurrough collapsed?’
‘Know nothing about it, except what I’ve learnt on the grapevine.’
‘Were you aware that there have been other attacks on Mr McMurrough?’
‘No, and I wouldn’t be the least interested in finding out about them. No one in this house will cross that threshold again.’
‘Thank you for your time and patience,’ said Falconer, politely, although he suspected that patience was a quality of which she didn’t possess great stores, judging from her facial expression and general air of twitchiness. ‘Good day to you – Mrs Warren, isn’t it?’
‘For now,’ was her curt and intriguing answer.
They passed Glass House and approached the next door property, Riverbanks, hoping for a little more success than they had had up to now.
The lady of the house answered their summons, introduced herself as Lucille Sutherland, and advised them that it was her husband they’d want to speak to. ‘Only, it’s him as has suffered the most. Me, I just get used to things and tune them out, but Gerald’s sensitive, like,’ she concluded.
Mr Sutherland was to be found in an old leather armchair in front of an open fireplace, decorously screened now it was summer, keeping himself amused with today’s newspaper crossword. He rose to meet them and shook hands. ‘I suppose you’ve come about that incident last night, at next door’s moving-in do?’ he asked.
‘That’s right, sir. There have been other attempts to harm Mr McMurrough, and we need to find out everything we can, so that we can apprehend the culprit before anything else, maybe more serious, occurs.’
The inspector was suddenly aware that pomposity was sometimes a little difficult to get rid of, and gave himself a mental shaking to rid himself of this priggish manner of speech.
Carmichael came to his rescue during this slight hiatus. ‘Anything at all, Mr Sutherland – maybe something you saw but didn’t attach any importance to at the time, maybe something you overheard that perhaps didn’t make sense at the time. We need all the help we can get. The police have had enough bad press, and we don’t want to add even more to the Force’s burden.’
‘I can understand that. Damned fine police force we have in this country, but I can honestly say that I saw or heard nothing untoward during my time there, and was as surprised as anyone else when Mr McMurrough suddenly dropped to the ground.’
‘If you can just search your memory over the next day or so, we’d be grateful for anything, no matter how small.’
‘I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything.’
At that point, Lucille entered the room with a laden tea tray and proved a very welcome distraction. As she poured from the pot she told the three men to take a plate and help themselves. The rock cakes were home-made, as were the individual treacle tarts, and Carmichael’s eyes positively lit up.
It was at least two hours since he’d had lunch and substantial though that meal had been, he was already hungry again. Keeping such a large machine fuelled was a constant challen
ge to him, and he took every opportunity he could to stoke up his engine.
Lucille Sutherland handed out brimming cups, and her husband started out on an explanation he had not been pressed to give, but felt it only fair that his feelings be known, about what had been happening next door. Apart from that, if he didn’t say anything, Lucille would wonder why, as it had been almost his sole topic of conversation for months, now.
‘We’ve had a lot of trouble with noise nuisance from The Orchards,’ he began.
‘The Orchards?’ queried Falconer.
‘Oh, that was the old name of next door. Got the fancy name Glass House now, probably after that awful TV programme the young one appeared in,’ continued Gerald. ‘People say he’s got his own chat show now, but I couldn’t be bothered to watch anything so facile. And it’s on pretty late. We usually go to bed early.
‘Not that we get to sleep early any more, if at all. But I’ll start at the beginning,’ he said, seeing the look of puzzlement on both policemen’s faces.
‘I retired some months ago, and I was looking forward to having time to call my own, and some peaceful days pottering around the house and the village. I no sooner retire, than those two must have bought the house next door, which had been for sale, although we had no idea it was on the market, and the noise started.
‘It was in a terrible state when they must have bought it. Yes, it’s a good-sized house, but the little Darle runs below its foundations, and only a cash buyer would have done. Anyway, the workmen moved in, and that was the end of peace and quiet.
‘It needed everything doing – new electrics, new plumbing, new bathrooms, new kitchen, new windows – and what a palaver it’s been. Have you seen the amount of glass in that house? There was some re-plastering, and rooms knocked into one another, and all the redecorating, with heaven knows what else into the bargain.
‘They had to have re-pointing done, insulation; you name it – the works. The noise was indescribable, and it went on from eight-thirty in the morning to six at night; thankfully only on weekdays. The men didn’t work Saturdays.
Glass House (The Falconer Files Book 11) Page 9