On the bed was a suitcase. It was the size and colour of the one I’d seen Geoff take from Ronnie’s flat. It was, as I’d guessed, leather. Nothing but the best for Ronnie. It was tied around with a length of rope that I also recognized. This was necessary because both latches had been broken open, probably with a screwdriver.
Carefully I untied the knot in the rope. It was five feet of white, braided clothes-line.
This, I thought, would be Ronnie’s suitcase. The hasps had been broken, and it had been taken from Ronnie’s flat. Geoff had gone there, not, as I’d assumed, to collect Ruby’s clothes and personal items. No...her effects had been collected by her parents. Geoff had gone for this suitcase. It was therefore likely that it had been he who had broken the hasps, to check that he’d found what he’d come for. He had then tied it shut with a length of rope—which he had known he would need, and therefore had taken with him.
No! Wait! That couldn’t be so. Geoff could not have anticipated having to break the hasps, and therefore would not have brought any rope. In any event, he was strong enough to have tucked the case under his arm, open lid or not. So...it had already been tied. The case, as I’d just found it, was exactly as Geoff had found it. But Ronnie would not have broken the hasps of his own suitcase.
There was only one other explanation. Ronnie had had to use somebody else’s suitcase, in a house he’d illegally entered, because he had found items he would dearly wish to remove and he hadn’t come prepared for bulk. So he had been the one to break the hasps, he had tied up the case to stop the lid flapping open. Yet it didn’t sound like Ronnie, who hated force.
Almost holding my breath, I lifted the lid. Packed inside, lovingly enclosed in the folds of a musty old blanket, were a number of items. These I took out reverently and placed on the bed, one by one.
There was a vase or goblet made of a milky glass, with yellow flowers on it. There was a large china bowl in blue and white, with a Chinese design and a Chinese signature on the back. There was a gold pocket watch. There was a carved ivory owl about six inches high, perched on a branch. And there were two medals, along with the suitcase keys, in the bottom corner. These were the usual duplicate pair you get with a new suitcase.
I don’t know much about medals, but Ronnie had mentioned a Victoria Cross and a Distinguished Flying Cross. These were crosses.
The liar! The cynical little plausible liar! He had asked me to help him, and then he’d told me only what he thought I might like to hear, that he’d had his eye on them but he hadn’t touched them. The impression had been that he’d taken nothing. Nothing! Only a suitcase full of nothing, that was what it’d been.
I carefully replaced it all, looked round, as one does, turned off all the lights, and locked the back door with the key that had been in it. I slipped this bunch into my pocket.
Out at the front, working with whatever light there was left, I tried to arrange the remains of the clematis across the gap that had been a window. It wasn’t a very good job, but it would disguise from the idle gaze of a passer-by the fact that the place was wide open to intruders.
But of course, I had to remember that neither Ronnie nor Geoff had much chance of returning there. Poor Ruby certainly would not.
I put the suitcase on the passenger seat of the Stag and drove away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was around five o’clock when I arrived home. To me, it didn’t seem that I’d been away long, but Amelia radiated disapproval, and Mary seemed nervous.
‘Richard!’ Amelia touched my arm. ‘We were worried.’
‘Sorry, love. No need for that. I was only an observer.’ With a little practice how easy it is to lie.
‘And what’s that you’ve got there?’
‘A suitcase. Evidence, I’d say, of a burglary.’
Sheba came to lick my hand. Jake rolled on his back and I had to scratch his chest.
‘Was he there?’ she asked.
‘Who? Oh...Geoff Tomkins. Yes, he was there. Durrell and Rawston arrested him and took him away.’
‘And you simply watched?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘I pinched his van keys.’ I could be truthful now. ‘Sort of a delaying action.’ Also true. ‘Now...what’s the time? A quarter past five. I should be able to catch Milo at home.’
‘I’ll bring you in a cup of tea.’
I went into the living-room and sat in the easy chair next to the phone, looked him up, dialled, and listened to the ringing tone. It went on for a long while. When he answered, his voice was thick.
‘Hello there, Milo!’ I said cheerfully. ‘How are you? It’s Richard Patton.’
‘I’m not talking to you!’
‘Heh! Don’t ring off. I’ve got something here that I think might belong to you.’
There was a short silence. I imagined him there, perhaps sitting on the bottom of the stairs, as they’d found him that fatal night. ‘Such as what?’ he ventured at last, gruffly.
‘It’s a light tan suitcase, looks like pigskin, with one or two interesting items in it. It’s only a guess that it could all belong to you, Milo, but if you’ve missed anything...’ I allowed that to tail off on a questioning inflexion.
I could hear his heavy breathing, conveying anger and frustration. At last, ‘How would I know? Christ, Patton, I’ve been living in the kitchen and a bedroom.’
‘Then can I suggest you have a scout around and call me back? I’ll sit by the phone. All right?’ I gave him our phone number.
‘Ten minutes,’ he snapped, then he hung up.
This gave me a quiet twenty—it took him that long—to sit and consume two cups of tea and consider where I was heading. If these things were his, my actions now could be considered as currying favour. He might, therefore, be in a mood conducive to the production of a little truth. At this time, I felt, I had nothing to play with but a handful of poor cards, and I was hampered by the fact that I couldn’t even see their faces with any clarity.
The phone rang. I grabbed it. ‘Patton.’
‘Look here...I...How’d you come by this...these...’
‘Something, I gather, is missing.’
‘Something—you’re dead right.’
‘Such as?’
‘Oh Gawd! An owl—hand-carved from ivory. Valuable. A vase, made of a milky kind of glass. She treasured that. Some sort of antique gold watch. And a bowl. Chinese, that is. Worth a fortune. Christ...she’ll kill me!’
‘She being your wife?’
‘She said I ought to fit alarms. That bowl alone...a fortune, Patton. She’ll go mad. It’s Kung Fu or something.’
‘Oh dear!’
‘And my 1914-18 VC, and the 1939-45 DFC.’
‘Milo! I didn’t know you’d served in both wars.’
‘Not me, you fool. I bought them. Stop assing about. What’ve you got there?’
‘Oh...all of those, and the pigskin suitcase. With the hasps broken.’
‘Busted the locks? The bastard.’
‘And where was that kept, Milo. Under your bed?’
This I asked as a cross-check on Ronnie, who’d said he hadn’t gone upstairs until the bathroom scare, when he’d done no more than glance in the bedrooms. Then, after the bathroom, he’d run down again.
But Milo didn’t hesitate. ‘It was in the broom cupboard under the stairs.’
‘Ah yes. Pity about the locks, it’s a nice case.’
He put in quickly, ‘Just stay there, Patton. I’ll come...no, it’d be better if you could bring it all here. I’ll see you don’t regret it.’
I settled back, stretching my legs. ‘I can’t do that, I’m afraid. No, Milo, I really can’t. They’re evidence of a burglary. The police’ll have to have them.’
‘Burglary, burglary!’ There were clicking sounds, his teeth perhaps. ‘I haven’t reported anything, so there ain’t any burglary. What d’you say to that? Stop being funny and see sense. A hundred. I’ll make it a hundred. Finder’s fee.’
‘Oh dear! I do
wish I could help you, Milo. But it’s all linked with a crime, you see. I wouldn’t dare to withhold any of it. Really, I wouldn’t.’
‘What crime?’ His voice was harsh, strangled.
‘The death of your son Bryan.’
‘Are you telling me—’
‘Not telling you anything, Milo. Now think. Relax, and take a few breaths. I didn’t have to phone you about these items. I could’ve taken them straight to the police, and left you all in the air. But I’ve phoned you. So therefore you owe me...’
‘I told you—’
‘A simple favour—such as the answer to one or two questions.’
That held him for a few moments. It didn’t relax him. I could hear his breathing, and from it that he was near to exploding with impatience. In the end he capitulated.
‘Ask your bloody questions.’
‘Thank you. That night, the night Bryan died...’
‘I don’t wanna talk about that.’
‘I’m sorry. Me neither. But one or two details don’t fit.’
‘Don’t fit what, for Chrissake?’
‘The facts I’m digging out. Now...can we take it from when you’d broken open the front door? You’re listening? Good. You told me you dashed round the rooms on the ground floor, but found nothing, so then you ran upstairs. Right, so far?’
‘You know it’s right.’
‘You hadn’t put on the hall light or the landing light?’
‘No. The car lights were on. I told you that. You stupid or something?’
‘So you ran up the dark stairs,’ I went on steadily, ignoring the insults. ‘Didn’t you say you had a premonition, a kind of feeling?’
‘Something like that. Get on with it, damn you.’
‘And when you got to the landing you saw the line of light around the bathroom door. You knew what’d happened. Felt it like a blow, you said.’
Though I’d paused, he simply growled. I went on.
‘Then you crashed through the bathroom door?’
‘That’s what I did. Just ran at it.’
‘In a panic?’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘I’m not sure. There could’ve been other reasons for the silence. Perhaps he’d simply left the bathroom light on, taken a sleeping tablet, and was flat out on his bed.’
‘No. He wasn’t on anything like that.’
‘Wasn’t on anything? Drugs, Milo, I mean. He could’ve been introduced to—’
‘No son of mine’s going to be on drugs, Patton. And that’s flat.’
‘All right. So he could’ve been ill. In that bathroom and unable to get down to the front door, unable to shout out.’
‘He was hangin’ by a sodding rope, Patton. I’m finished with you. Saying nothing else.’
I sighed as though disappointed. ‘All right. That’s about the lot. It was the panic that threw me. You know what I mean...you’re not the panicking type. But you simply charged through that bathroom door as though it wasn’t there, taking the bolt out of the frame...’ I paused. He was breathing harshly. ‘You did do that, Milo? You did take out the bolt?’
‘Bolt! Bolt! What do I know about any bolt? If it was there, I took it out. I don’t have to talk to you about bloody trifles, Patton. I don’t have to talk to you at all.’
Another disadvantage of phones is that the other fellow can hang up.
‘You finished?’ he barked.
‘Thank you, Milo—I believe so. The police’ll be in touch with you about the suitcase and its contents.’ But I was talking to a dead line.
For quite a while now I had been aware that Amelia had been crouching down beside my chair, quietly, her head close to mine. I had held the earpiece away from my face for her convenience. She straightened, and I got to my feet.
‘Was that supposed to be clever?’ she asked. ‘All that talk, just to edge him round to that one answer?’
‘What answer do you mean?’ I asked innocently.
‘That he was in a panic, and went through that door so fast he didn’t even notice whether or not it’d been bolted.’
‘It wasn’t quite that. He’s big enough, certainly. You’ve seen him. If it was one of those tiny bolts, he might not have noticed a bit of a shock to his shoulder. But it wasn’t that—exactly.’
‘What was it then?’ She was smiling, ahead of me now.
‘It was a month ago. He ought to have noticed by now—if it’s broken.’
‘Alone in the house, he wouldn’t need to use the bolt.’
‘But surely he would notice.’
‘So perhaps it wasn’t bolted. Your friend Ronnie said it was bolted, and two or three minutes later it wasn’t.’ She nodded. So there.
I stared at her, then kissed the end of her nose. ‘But doesn’t that make it all very interesting, love?’ And she grimaced at me.
We took out the two dogs together, taking a torch and walking the lanes. It was no longer necessary to keep Jake on a lead. Sheba simply rounded him up if he strayed too far.
Amelia murmured, ‘It was a good idea, don’t you think?’
‘Jake, you mean?’
‘Yes. A good idea.’
I had to agree it was. We walked along slowly, the torchlight at our feet. Each knew what the other was thinking but hesitated to mention it. In the end she sighed.
‘You intend to visit his house again, don’t you?’
‘I think I must.’
‘When he’s not at home?’
‘I feel he’d hamper my movements if he was.’
We covered another hundred yards. Then, ‘You’re thinking of tonight, Richard?’
‘Some time after nine.’
She squeezed my arm. ‘May I come with you?’
May I? This, from Amelia, was very tentative. ‘You would be conniving in a felony, my love.’
‘I suppose I would. But Richard, if you’re caught and sent to prison for housebreaking, I might as well be inside too. It’d be pure hell without you anyway.’
I had to clear my throat. ‘They ought to have special prisons for married couples,’ I suggested.
She understood me through and through, and took it along. ‘And with nothing else to do, we could make love all day. Every day.’
We stopped. My arm was tight around her shoulder. ‘But not if it was a long sentence, surely.’
‘Didn’t I tell you, Richard, you’re out of trim? Flabby. Run down.’
‘Too true,’ I agreed softly, and we walked ahead very slowly.
It was typical of Amelia that when she continued with it, saying, ‘you see, Richard, I want to be in on this,’ it was a long while later, when we were on our way in the Stag. She assumes, always, that we are mentally in tune.
‘Your version of “this” might not agree with mine,’ I observed.
‘I’m sure it does. I want to help you to catch the person who killed Ruby Carter. Naturally. And I want to be with you when you catch Bryan’s murderer too.’
‘You’ve decided it wasn’t suicide, then?’ I asked, glancing at her.
‘I’ve decided...put it like this. I think you’re tackling it backwards. Here you are, hurrying to satisfy yourself about the circumstances of Bryan’s death. But first of all you ought to be satisfied about Ruby Carter’s death. And you’re not certain. I can tell that. No matter what the police say, I can tell you’re not happy about it.’
‘Ken’s certain,’ I murmured. ‘He’s got Bryan down for that one.’
Perhaps she hadn’t heard me because she plunged on. ‘If you could prove Bryan killed Ruby Carter, then frankly, as you very well know, I wouldn’t really care one way or the other how he died.’ She nodded, I saw, in the corner of my eye. So there!
But the police—Ken—had proof that Bryan had killed Ruby, and I had to have faith in that. I was therefore now trying to prove, one way or the other, the cause of Bryan’s death. Amelia, if she knew my thinking on this, would be repelled by it. It would be tantamount to an insult to her feelings abo
ut rapists. Very nearly, at this thought, I decided to turn back. Very nearly. But I had to know. Surely she would accept that. And if I knew beyond doubt that he’d been murdered, and could even point a finger at the culprit, I would not necessarily feel I needed to share that knowledge with Ken or anybody else. With Amelia, yes. I could share the knowledge then, and we would once more be in mental and emotional tune. And without my conscience striking a sour chord.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘That’s how I ought to be doing it.’
But perhaps I was, after all.
Aces High was full of darkness, as I knew it would be, having phoned from home before we left and listened long enough to it ringing out. I turned into the drive and ran the car up to the house.
‘Isn’t this rather obvious?’ she said.
‘I don’t think so. Parked out on the street, with you sitting in it, that would attract attention. This way we look simply like visitors.’
‘Visiting a dark house?’
‘The lights could be on at the rear.’
‘Specious, Richard, specious. What do you want me to do?’
‘Stand outside under the front of the house with a pebble in your hand. Just one. If anybody comes nosing, throw it at a window. I’ll hear it, wherever I am. If they ask what you’re doing here, simply say your husband’s gone round the back to see if anybody’s at home. And I’ll come strolling round from the side. Can you do that?’
‘Of course I can. You’ve missed your vocation, Richard.’
‘Not a bit of it. It was my vocation that’s taught me this.’
I had brought along a small torch, but hoped to manage without it. The streetlights were not going to be much help, but there was a nearly full moon in a crystal-clear sky. The temperature was falling rapidly, but Amelia was wearing a warm coat. I had my anorak, the pockets already loaded with three sets of keys that weren’t mine, and Ronnie’s pliers.
I said, ‘Right. Then I’m off.’ And I walked round the side of the house, past the garage.
By now, I was an expert with the pliers. All I needed was a dim sight of the keyhole. The rest was by touch. The key turned, and fortunately Milo hadn’t bolted the door. Gently, quietly, I closed it behind me. Then, while the question of bolts was in my mind, I checked those, now using the torch sparingly. They were very old and loose in their sockets, but operative. My torchlight, as I examined the lower one, also embraced the up-pipe from the mains supply of water. The stop-cock was exactly opposite the lower bolt, and eight inches from it.
The Key to the Case Page 16