by Adam Croft
‘No, but still. The whole practice is under scrutiny and I’ve got to be careful as to what gets back to my superiors. Bottom line is I want you involved.’
The whys and wherefores of murder and serious crime had always fascinated Hardwick. Ever since he was a young child he had sat open-mouthed as his father regaled him with tales from Dame Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Christie’s books, in particular, held a special kind of appeal, often concentrating, as they did, on modes of transport and crimes committed in faraway lands. This appealed greatly to Hardwick’s own love of travel and foreign climes; things he’d become well accustomed to in his formative years.
‘I see. What can you tell me about the case?’ Hardwick asked.
‘Not much at the moment. Not over the phone, anyhow. It might interest you to know that the deceased is—or was—Oscar Whitehouse.’
Hardwick paused for a moment, unsure of what he was meant to say.
‘It doesn’t, no.’
‘I’m sorry?’ asked the Inspector.
‘It doesn’t interest me to know that. I presume I should have heard of him?’
‘Well, yes,’ DI Warner replied. ‘He’s one of the most famous... Actually, never mind. Just get over to Westerlea House as quickly as you can, will you?’
It always struck Hardwick as quite incredible that such great swathes of the British public seemed to order their lives around celebrities: those who did a normal job (and a fairly easy or loosely-defined one at that), with the only exception being that they did so under the watchful eye of the general public. It seemed to Hardwick that this was a horrible notion, rather like having fifty-million bosses.
‘Right. And what is it that you need from me, exactly, DI Warner?’ Hardwick asked, now fully aware that there was only one boss in this particular situation.
‘I told you, Hardwick. I need you to come over,’ DI Warner said, his patience running thin.
‘On what basis, Inspector?’ Hardwick asked. ‘Would I be right in saying that you need my help?’
The line went silent for a few moments.
‘Just get over here now, Hardwick.’
Hardwick could almost hear Detective Inspector Rob Warner’s teeth grinding from a distance of some fifty feet as he approached Westerlea House. A light scattering of browning leaves lined the short gravel driveway, which led to the imperious Warner and his wet sidekick, DC Sam Kerrigan.
‘Ah, DI Warner. How lovely to see you again,’ Hardwick said as he opened his arms in mock salutation.
‘Hardwick. Pleased you could make it.’
Hardwick offered a non-committal murmur as he briefly recalled the last time he had met Detective Inspector Rob Warner. The death of Charlie Sparks, the former Saturday-night comedian and television personality had almost stumped Hardwick, and the distrusting and overbearing eye of DI Warner had helped very little at the time. He had, however, managed to solve (with the help of Ellis Flint) that particular case for Warner, and seemed to have rather endeared himself to the detective. Now, he realised, Warner needed him and he was going to make sure he reminded him of that little fact at every opportunity he got.
‘I’ll be honest,’ Warner added. ‘The moment I saw that old Oscar Whitehouse had died in a locked room with no means of escape other than the door, which had been bolted from the inside… I couldn’t hang around on it. I’d usually not bother, but, well… it seemed like it might be right up your street. No time to waste, and all that. I need a result on this, Hardwick. The Super’s already on my back about blinkin’ standards and protocols.’
Hardwick smiled as he thought himself lucky to be mostly free of the red tape, protocols and paperwork, which burdened the lives and working practices of the modern day police officer. His only concern was that the person responsible was caught and that their culpability could be proven.
‘For some reason, the Super thinks that DI Warner was a bit... sloshed,’ DC Sam Kerrigan added.
‘Sloshed, DC Kerrigan?’ Hardwick asked, his head cocked to one side.
‘Yeah. Mentioned something about DI Warner and a piss-up in a brewery.’
‘Yes, thank you, DC Kerrigan,’ Detective Inspector Warner said, briskly, as he shepherded Hardwick towards the front door of Westerlea House, at which point Hardwick stopped in his tracks.
‘Ah, no. I’m afraid I’m going to need to take a look on my own, Detective Inspector,’ Hardwick said.
‘I’m sorry, Hardwick. You know I can’t allow that.’
‘Ah, well, there seems to have been a mistake,’ Hardwick said, turning to head back up the driveway. ‘Do give me a call if you need me for anything else, Inspector.’
Warner sighed as he thrust his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers and called out in an exasperated voice. ‘Hardwick. Wait.’
Hardwick stopped walking, his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat and waited, eyebrows raised and eyes rolled upwards in anticipation.
‘OK,’ Warner said. ‘The SOCO boys should have done their job by now. Not that they’re likely to find anything — marks on his neck looks like the killer wore gloves. The witnesses are all to stay within that house, in sight of my officers, understood? You’ve got five minutes.’
‘I’ll be down in four,’ Hardwick replied, as he passed DI Warner and headed back through the front door.
Hardwick whistled the opening bars of a Mozart opus to himself as he followed the young constable’s directions towards the sweeping staircase of Westerlea House. He noted the enormous, regal – and slightly pretentious – oil paintings (Hardwick suspected reproductions) of various ancestors and previous incumbents of the residence.
The downstairs hallway of Westerlea House was a large, open-plan affair, with the long, sweeping staircase rising up the right-hand wall before turning left at a ninety-degree angle onto the U-shaped upstairs landing — also open. The landing covered three sides of the hallway, the only exception being the front wall, which was a large, open and scaled both storeys of the house.
On the ground floor, as Hardwick had walked through the front door, he had noticed the dining room to his immediate right, with another door further along the right-hand wall. To his left was a sitting room, with a second door further along that wall. The kitchen and conservatory seemed to cover most of the back of the house.
Upstairs, Hardwick noted a number of doors – most of them guest bedrooms or storage space, the constable told him – one of which was wide open and led to a room at the back of the house, over the kitchen.
As they reached the open door to Oscar Whitehouse’s bedroom, Hardwick stopped for a moment in order to survey the scene. He had long been of the opinion that no detail was too small to consider.
‘It was locked from the inside,’ the voice said, as Reverend Michael Winton gave his apologies to the police officer who had been taking his statement and left the room to greet Hardwick. ‘The key was on the floor. We heard it fall.’
Hardwick nodded, saying nothing.
The vicar was in casual dress. Casual, that is, for a clergyman. He wore his shirt and dog-collar (Hardwick presumed them compulsory), over which he had a green v-neck jumper. Although his hair was greying considerably, Hardwick supposed that he couldn’t have been much over the age of forty.
‘Looks as though he’s been strangled,’ the vicar added, offering a very British interruption to the dreaded two-second conversational silence.
‘How so?’ Hardwick enquired, making eye contact with the clergyman for the first time.
‘Well, he’s got two enormous great red hand-prints on his neck and his eyes are practically bulging from their sockets... I’m sorry, you should probably see for yourself. This isn’t doing me any good at all.’
If a vicar could not deal with death, Hardwick thought, who could?
On entering the room, Hardwick could not help but be drawn to the seemingly possessed figure of Oscar Whitehouse, laid out on the bed to the left-hand side of the room, with his head cocked slightly toward the window
opposite the door. His long, bony index finger appeared to be pointing towards it; an eerie indicator, which seemed to have gone unnoticed by the other parties.
‘This window,’ Hardwick asked, walking over to it. ‘Does it open?’
‘Uh, you’ll have to ask his wife, Eliza, I’m afraid. I’m not altogether familiar with the house,’ Rev. Michael Winton replied.
‘And where is Mrs Whitehouse?’ Hardwick asked as he jiggled the latch, which seemed to be stuck fast.
‘She ran off downstairs when we saw the body,’ the vicar explained. ‘I can imagine it would be a terrible shock for her. I heard her being comforted by the Major, downstairs. Go down and check she’s all right, will you, Harry? I think the police have a family liaison chap there, but best to see she’s all right.’
The verger, Harry Greenlaw, acquiesced and daintily shuffled his shaking self across the landing and towards the staircase.
Hardwick ran his fingers around the frame of the window, as if seeking a draught. ‘The window hasn’t been open for quite some time. A matter of years, I’d say.’
‘How do you know that?’ the vicar asked. ‘And why do you need to ask Eliza if you already know? Can’t you see she’s been through such a –’
Hardwick interrupted him. ‘Because interpretation is a wonderful thing, vicar, but it doesn’t equal fact. No, I can tell the window has been inaccessible for some time as the paint fills the gaps between the window and the frame. Rather careless and slipshod handiwork if you ask me, but rather useful for me in this instance. Had the window been opened since it had been painted, the paint would have broken and cracked slightly where it meets the frame. The window clearly hasn’t been opened since the frame was painted. Tell me, vicar, was Oscar Whitehouse a smoker?’
‘No, I can’t say he was, why?’
‘And Mrs Whitehouse?’
‘No, she despised smoking. In fact, I’m pretty sure no-one in the house smokes at all. Especially not inside the house. It’s always kept so clean. Why are you asking?’
‘Because the paint on the window frame is quite yellowed. Of course, it happens to the best of paints over time, but a smoker in the room would accelerate the process quite considerably. Taking that out of the equation, I’d estimate it’s been almost ten years since this window was last painted and therefore opened.’
The footsteps grew louder as the now-widowed Eliza Whitehouse, and Major Arnold Fulcrupp, came towards the bedroom. Having stopped short of the door, the Major put a reassuring hand on Eliza’s back and cocked his head slightly towards her.
‘I’m not going in there until they’ve moved him, Arnold!’ the voice of Eliza Whitehouse cried. ‘I can’t… bear… to see him like that!’ Sobs of desperation interspersed her speech as she fell into the embrace of Major Fulcrupp just out of sight of Hardwick and Rev. Michael Winton. Hardwick moved towards the doorway.
‘Mrs Whitehouse, I’m terribly sorry for your loss,’ Hardwick said, getting the formalities out of the way rather quickly and abruptly. ‘Tell me, do you know when the bedroom window was last opened?’
Eliza Whitehouse was slightly taken aback by Hardwick’s direct route of questioning. ‘Well, no. Not since we’ve lived here. We never could work out how to get the thing open. Oscar tried to... Oh! It’s just too terrible!’ she cried, as she fell into another fit of hysterical sobbing, this time on the shoulder of a rather awkward and uncomfortable Hardwick.
‘Mrs Whitehouse, did you live here alone with your husband?’ Hardwick said, as his hand hovered mere centimetres from Eliza Whitehouse’s spine, unsure whether (and how) he should comfort her.
‘Yes, most of the time. Our son, Andrew, is home from university, but that’s only for a few weeks of the year. Otherwise we live here alone. Even more alone now... now...’ she sobbed.
‘Yes, well. What about extended family? Do any live close by?’
‘I have two sisters, Maria and Louise. They live in Fettlesham, about three doors away from each other. Oscar was an only child.’
At this, Eliza Whitehouse burst into another uncontrollable flow of tears and left the room, accompanied by the young Harry Greenlaw, who had been waiting outside the room. The young police constable stood awkwardly just inside the doorway.
The vicar spoke. ‘I’m sorry. I can imagine it must have been a terrible shock for her.’
‘I see,’ replied Hardwick – obliviously – a superabundance of thoughts flowing through his mind. ‘And does anybody else visit the house regularly? A cleaner or gardener, perhaps.’
‘Well, yes,’ the Rev. Michael Winton said, his feet shuffling awkwardly as he spoke. ‘There is the gardener. He only comes on Wednesdays, mind.’
‘Five days ago,’ Hardwick said, to no-one in particular.
‘Yes. He’ll be back the day after tomorrow if you need to speak to him. Christos Karagounis, his name is.’
‘I’m afraid I’ll need to speak to him sooner than that, vicar. I don’t suppose it has passed your notice that this is now a murder investigation.’
‘Well, yes, quite. I... um... I suppose his telephone number must be in Eliza’s address book, somewhere,’ the vicar replied, clearly uncomfortable at the thought of having to rifle through Eliza Whitehouse’s possessions at such a delicate moment.
‘There’s no need,’ the voice from the door said, now seemingly calm and placated. ‘He lives in Shafford. On the King’s Road.’
‘I see. Thank you, Mrs Whitehouse, and thanks for your help, vicar. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a few moments to…’ Hardwick trailed off as he gestured to the empty room. Rev. Michael Winton understood the implicit meaning and headed off downstairs, escorting Eliza Whitehouse.
As Hardwick stood in the doorway of the bedroom, he noted the solid brass key, which lay on the wooden floor a couple of feet from the threshold. Noting that it had already been dusted for fingerprints, he picked it up and placed it in the lock. Hardwick turned the key and the latch clicked into place, confirming it was in full working order. As he faced the inside of the room, Hardwick could see Oscar Whitehouse’s grand four-poster bed, the head of which rested against the left-hand wall, a small bedside table placed either side.
The body of Oscar Whitehouse lay on the bed, his eyes half open and his jaw drooping in a state of final rest. His face was congested with blood, his neck marked with handprints and the indentation of a forearm across the front of his throat. Unplanned manual strangulation at its finest. The handprints were too irregular to suggest bare hands; gloves were far more likely. Hardwick supposed that considering the force required to hold a fully-grown man down in his bed and throttle him, the murderer was most likely a man. That is, of course, assuming that Oscar Whitehouse was in the peak of health just before his murder.
With the large window taking up the majority of the rear wall, Hardwick’s attention turned to the right-hand wall, which included a walk-in wardrobe recess at the rear corner, next to which stood a stunning Georgian dresser. A brass candelabra adorned the centre of the piece, with a small brass bowl to the right of it and a lace doily to the left. On the near side of the right-hand wall, the door to the en-suite bathroom was ajar.
On the floor between the dresser and the en-suite door, lay a dark blue dressing gown. As Hardwick picked the dressing gown up, he noticed a small brass hook on the floor next to it. Hardwick picked up the hook and examined it, and then looked up. Indeed, just to the left of the en-suite door Hardwick noted a small sticky tab attached to the wall. The screw holes in the hook matched the indentations on the sticky tab perfectly. He smiled as he silently approved of the Whitehouses’ approach in leaving walls unsullied by screws and nails. He pressed the hook back onto the sticky tab and hung the dressing gown back up on the wall before entering the en-suite bathroom.
The bathroom – being at the front of the room – sided onto a spare bedroom, backed onto the walk-in wardrobe, and fronted the landing. That being the case, Hardwick found no window in the en-suite, but was instead b
linded by the intense halogen lighting that had been installed. The bathroom was otherwise fairly prosaic, consisting of a toilet, over-bath shower (the bath part of which had, presumably, Eliza Whitehouse’s ivory dressing gown draped over it), sink and a small cabinet containing towels and other bathroom sundries.
After examining the bathroom, Hardwick made a quick search of the walk-in wardrobe and satisfied himself that there was no more to be seen.
DI Warner approached Hardwick as he descended the stairs.
‘So what’ve you found, Hardwick?’
‘A few things. I’ll be sure to let you know once I’ve completed my investigation, Inspector.’
The short walk back to the Old Rectory was one which Hardwick barely noticed. He mulled over each of the little details in his mind as he meandered up Hill Lane. The trick, he knew, was knowing which of those little details could possibly be relevant. Each, in its own way, would have its significance, but knowing what to prioritise and what to mentally file as largely trivial was what he had to fathom.
He stepped carefully over the guy ropes and slalomed between the throngs of people on his front lawn before opening the solid oak front door and walking inside. Now in the hallway, he picked up the phone and called Ellis Flint.
‘Ellis? It’s Hardwick. How do you fancy a little intellectual stimulation?’
‘Depends what you mean. I don’t fancy another five-hour Countdown marathon, Kempston.’
‘No, nothing of the sort. I’ve just been to see DI Warner. It seems there’s been a murder in Tollinghill and he wants us—well, me—to help out.’
‘Wow! Great! I mean… what’s happened?’
‘I can’t tell you over the phone, Ellis. Nor can I divulge any details until you tell me why there are two hundred Chinese tourists presently camped out on my front lawn.’
‘Chinese tourists? I don’t know what you mean. Why would there be Chinese tourists in your garden?’
‘I was hoping you could help me with that one, Ellis. It appears that it might be something to do with my house now being one of Britain’s foremost tourist attractions for the world’s ghost hunters.’