*
‘So – so just let me take you by the arm – that’s it – now don’t resist, Paul, please don’t resist – it’s going to happen anyway whatever you do. That’s right – just fall limp, like that – good – good – good – makes it all the easier for both of us. All right, now, one foot in front of the other – right foot first – now the left – there’s a good boy – there’s a good boy – at this rate we’ll be at the stairs in a jiffy – no, no, no, don’t panic – I’ve got you – I’ve got you – I promise I won’t let go – just try to stand upright – that’s it – that’s it – good, very good – now the other leg – good – you’re doing just fine – good – good – good – that’s it – good, Paul, very, very good …’
‘Mr Ryder? Mr John Ryder?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m Inspector Truex. I believe you were advised I’d be calling?’
‘Oh yes. Yes, of course. Come in, come in.’
‘Thanks. We’ll try not to take up too much of your time.’
‘Not at all. I understand. This way. Yes, in fact, I was told. Yes. In here’ll be best, I think.’
‘Ah, thank you.’
*
‘Hmm. Interesting room, isn’t it? A real writer’s room.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose it is. Though, actually, most of the writing was done next door. In the study. Sir Paul’s study. Please. Please take a seat. And you too –?’
‘Forgive me. This is Sergeant Gillespie.’
‘How do you do, Sergeant?
‘How d’you do, sir?’
‘Hah, snap! Please, you too, Sergeant, take a seat. Now. Is there anything I can get you? Something to drink?’
‘Well, sir, that’s very kind of you, but we won’t, thanks. You know what they say on TV? Not while we’re on duty.’
‘Ah, so you’re on duty, then?’
‘Well, yes, naturally we are. Nothing to be alarmed about, though. All just routine.’
‘Which they also say on TV.’
‘So they do, sir, so they do. Anyway, there are a few questions that have always got to be asked in these – these unfortunate cases. We could have had this conversation down at the station, but I thought you’d prefer to have it at home. I hope you don’t mind?’
‘Not at all. I’m extremely grateful. But you really shouldn’t refer to this cottage as my home. I was just Sir Paul’s employee. Nothing here belongs to me.’
‘Is that why you’re packing, sir?’
*
‘How did you know I was packing?’
‘The window seat? The little pile of neatly folded shirts?’
‘Very observant of you, Inspector. It’s true, I am packing. Most of my luggage is still upstairs. Now that Sir Paul – well, as I said, there’s absolutely nothing to keep me here a day longer.’
‘You aren’t one of his beneficiaries?’
‘Me? Good Lord, no.’
‘Stranger things have happened.’
‘No, no. Sir Paul paid me by the month. Paid me well, too. But there was no question of his leaving me anything. I’ve never for a moment entertained such an idea.’
‘How long have you been with him? Had you been with him, I should say?’
‘Just over a month. And I’ve been paid up to date. No complaints on that score.’
‘And you’re going –?’
‘Going?’
‘May I ask where you’re going? I mean, now?’
‘Oh. Back to my house in London. You know, Inspector, I’ve already given my London address to the police.’
‘Please, Mr Ryder, it’s not a problem. Just my natural nosiness.’
‘I can leave, can’t I? I mean, I don’t have to report to anyone, do I?’
‘Absolutely not. No, no, no. You may go whenever you like.’
*
‘So what exactly can I do for you?’
‘Well, I’ll tell you, Mr Ryder. There seems to be no doubt at all as to what happened. It’s a very nasty case indeed. Death by accident – apparently from suffocation. But in all such cases, especially with a man as prominent as Sir Paul was, we’ve still got to go through the motions. There’ll be an inquest of course. But, as you can imagine, it’s my job to make sure nothing’s been overlooked.’
‘I’ll do my best to answer whatever questions you have.’
*
‘Well now, it was you who discovered Sir Paul’s body, was it not?’
‘Yes. I found him upstairs. In his bedroom wardrobe.’
‘Forgive me, Mr Ryder, but how did – well, how did you know he was there? I mean, he’d got himself locked inside the wardrobe, hadn’t he?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And he’d already been dead for some hours?’
‘Yes, he had.’
‘So how did you know where to look?’
‘By the smell, I’m afraid.’
‘The smell?’
‘Listen, Inspector, I told everything I know to the policeman who – you know, when I called the police?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir.’
‘Oh, okay. Well, when I got back – I’d been in London for the weekend – I looked just about everywhere for him and, well, you know, he couldn’t have gone anywhere – by himself, I mean – so I went back into his bedroom and I happened to walk close by the wardrobe and it was then, well, I suddenly smelt … Poor man, he’d soiled himself.’
‘Hmm. Pretty grim for you.’
‘Inspector, that was the least of it. His face – never, never in my life, will I forget the look of sheer – the look of petrified – kind of frozen – horror on his face. And his hands –’
‘What about his hands?’
‘He’d obviously been clawing away at the door. His fingernails were completely raw – his fingers caked with blood – all ten of them – skin scraped down to the bone – just red meat. It was horrible.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘So you’d been away?’
‘Well, yes. As I say, it was the weekend. I tend not to stay here at weekends. I drive up to London and usually return – returned – on Sunday evening. Sometimes first thing Monday morning.’
‘But in fact it was on the Sunday morning that you found his body?’
‘That’s right. I came back earlier, for some reason.’
‘For some reason? Was there a reason?’
‘No, not really. I was a bit bored in London, I found myself at a loose end, so I thought I might just as well drive back down. I suppose you could say I’d come to feel at home here. A month is quite a long time. My life had got completely wrapped up in Sir Paul’s.’
‘You were helping him write a book, is that it?’
‘Yeah. He had decided to write what he called his testament. His literary testament. But given his condition –’
‘He had no eyes?’
‘He lost them, both of them, in a terrible car accident in Sri Lanka. Four years ago.’
*
‘So he could see nothing at all?’
*
‘He had no eyes, Sergeant.’
‘Ah. Right.’
‘Listen, Gillespie, why don’t you take a quick look round the cottage? Who knows, you might find something that’ll give us a clue to Sir Paul’s state of mind. That is, if you have no objection, Mr Ryder?’
‘I told you already, Inspector, I’m in no position to object. This is not my house. I don’t rightly know whose it is now that Sir Paul’s gone, but I certainly can’t stop you looking around. Not that I would anyway.’
‘Do you happen to know if he died intestate?’
‘Surely not. But, really, I’ve no idea.’
‘Any relatives you’re aware of?’
‘We never spoke about his family.’
‘I see, I see. Well, Sergeant, go on. Have a discreet nose around.’
‘Right, sir.’
*
‘I realize all this must appear pointless to you, Mr Ryder, but – well,
you never can tell.’
‘I made sure I touched as little as possible. That’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?’
‘With murder cases, yes, it’s true. But, pooh, with an accident like this. Go on, though. You were saying?’
‘I’m sorry, what were we talking about?’
‘Sir Paul was looking for someone to help him write his book?’
‘That’s right. An amanuensis. Someone who’d transcribe what he dictated. He put an ad in The Times, I noticed it, I answered it and, I have to say, to my total surprise – frankly, I didn’t think I had a hope in hell – but he seemed to take a shine to me and I’ve been more or less living down here ever since.’
‘Pleasant work, was it?’
‘You never met Sir Paul?’
‘No, sir, I never had that privilege.’
‘Well, I don’t know that “pleasant” is the word I’d use. No, that’s unfair. No, I have to say it was actually very rewarding.’
‘Rewarding?’
‘Yes, rewarding. To feel the book beginning to take shape and to realize that you’re part of the shaping process. Yes, for someone like me that was very exciting.’
‘Yes. Yes, I can see that it might be. To be honest with you, I’ve never actually read any of his novels myself. Stephen King is more in my line. Was this going to be a good one, in your opinion?’
‘It wasn’t a novel. It was to be a sort of autobiographical memoir.’
‘Ah yes, of course. So you said.’
‘And you have to appreciate that only a small part of it was ever written.’
‘Even so. You must have formed some idea?’
‘Well … what I can say is that there were strange things in the book, things Sir Paul insisted on keeping in even after I told him different. Not that I ever actually argued with him – I wouldn’t have dared – but I have to say I never really understood what the point was.’
‘Not quite with you here, sir. What sort of things are you referring to?’
‘Oh, he’d get a bee in his bonnet about something, some fantastical notion that had no basis in fact but that he was nevertheless determined to use in his book. Symbolically, you might say.’
‘For example?’
‘Oh God, it’s always hard to come up with specific examples. No, wait, I do remember one. The empty statue, the empty plinth, in Trafalgar Square. We had quite a discussion about that one, as I recall.’
‘You’ll have to explain, sir.’
‘Well, as you know – or maybe you don’t know, not being a Londoner – Trafalgar Square has four monumental plinths, one at each of its four corners. But, in fact, there are only three statues. The fourth one’s unoccupied. Has been for decades. Well, anyway, Sir Paul had heard some vague rumour about how they might erect a statue to Diana – you know, after her car crash – and though it hasn’t happened and, if you want my opinion, it’s never going to happen, he insisted on writing about it as though it already had. There’s a section in the book on Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, don’t ask why. Anyway, he insisted on writing about it as though it had already happened. As though the statue were already up. I won’t say I tried to talk him out of it – it wasn’t my place to argue with a great writer – but I did take the liberty of expressing – well, expressing certain misgivings about the whole idea and Paul took that rather badly. I was almost told to pack my bags there and then.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No, he seemed to think twice about it. But the business about the statue stayed in. And the book, or what we wrote of it, has lots of other little – little anomalies, you might call them. I never objected again, as you can imagine. And probably, if we’d finished it and it’d been published, probably these would have been the very things the critics would have got most excited about.’
‘Mmm. Funny lot, critics. Never read them myself. I somehow know in advance what I’m going to enjoy without anyone recommending it to me, know what I mean?’
‘I know exactly what you mean.’
*
‘So. Sir Paul was a bit cantankerous, was he?’
‘He could be. He certainly could be. I had to laugh once.’
‘At what?’
‘Well, he once told me that, because of his blindness, he’d turned himself into what he liked to call “the salt of the earth”. You know, being nice to everyone all the time, even if he didn’t feel like it, because he was so dependent and he was afraid people wouldn’t help him out if he wasn’t very nice to them. The salt of the earth. Can you imagine? If that’s what he called being the salt of the earth, God knows what he must have been like before his accident.’
‘As difficult as that, was he?’
‘Oh well, yes, at times. Other times, though, when he was on form, he could be very witty.’
‘A bit of a raconteur?’
‘Well, up to a point. He did have a habit of repeating himself. I used to hang on his every other word, as you might say.’
‘Hah, yes. So he’d tend to blow hot and cold?’
‘Exactly. But, you know, when you think about what had happened to him, you can’t be too harsh. Personally, I’d have tried to kill myself.’
‘Suicide? Not so easy without eyes.’
‘True. But I’d have found a way.’
*
‘It never crossed your mind that it might have been suicide?’
‘What? Sir Paul’s death?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘No way. Absolutely not.’
‘Well, think of it, sir. None of the traditional avenues open to him – he gets desperate –’
‘Take my word for it, Inspector. He didn’t commit suicide.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I knew him. Because one of the very first things he ever told me about himself was that he was mortally afraid of the dark.’
‘Afraid of the dark? A blind man afraid of the dark?’
‘I know. But that’s what Sir Paul told me. He was incredibly claustrophobic. “I feel claustrophobic in the universe”, that’s how he put it. Of course, that was typical of him. Just one of his exaggerations. A lot of what he’d say was said purely for effect, you know. But, in fact, having got to know him as well as I did, I’ve come to the conclusion it was closer to the truth than it sounds.’
‘Well, well, well.’
*
‘But then, Mr Ryder, something occurs to me.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, given what you’ve just been saying, it does seem odd he’d have such a powerful spring on his wardrobe door.’
‘Odd?’
‘Oh, odd that someone as claustrophobic as you say he was would risk having happen to him what actually did happen to him in the end. I mean to say, the door springing shut and trapping him inside.’
‘Yes, you’re right … Yes, I never thought of that.’
‘He probably didn’t either. You’d be amazed how easygoing and thoughtless people can be when what’s potentially at stake is their greatest fear in life. By the way, it looked fairly new.’
‘What did?’
‘The spring on the wardrobe door. It looked as though it had just been changed. It was a bit blood-stained, but you could tell it was new.’
‘It was new. As a matter of fact, I was the one who changed it.’
‘You were?’
‘That’s right.’
‘At Sir Paul’s request?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Why on earth did he want it changed?’
‘I gather the catch had always been a bit faulty. The door didn’t close properly and once or twice Sir Paul had walked into it. He hadn’t realized it had swung back open and, you know, he’d hurt himself quite badly. Actually, he did it again only the other day. Walked smack into the side of the door. Given himself a big black-and-blue bruise. As I recall, you could still see it on his forehead.’
‘Yes, we noticed that.’
‘So,
anyway, he was telling me about what had happened and I said, if he liked, I’d put a new spring in. What’s called a restrictor. I’m quite good at that kind of odd job.’
‘He specified that particular type, did he?’
‘Yes, he did. I remember that clearly.’
‘I see. So why do you suppose he actually stepped right inside the wardrobe, it being so narrow and him so claustrophobic?’
‘There I can’t help you, Inspector. Except –’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, as you can check for yourself, Sir Paul had a lot of clothes. A whole wardrobe. I got the impression he must have been quite a – quite a dapper sort of dresser before, well, before the disaster struck him. It’s true, all the time I was with him, I never saw him wearing anything around the house but a slovenly old dressing-gown. The same dressing-gown he died in. Still, you could tell it had once been expensive. Fine silk and all. He’d let himself go, and who can blame him? But, anyway, as I say, he had lots of clothes, lots of suits and jackets, all made to measure, and he’d actually taken the trouble to memorize the exact order they were hung up in the wardrobe. So I can only suppose he stepped right inside the thing to get out some jacket or maybe a tie – he was very proud of his collection of ties – maybe a tie hanging up at the far end.’
‘Sounds reasonable. Except, if you say he never wore anything but a ratty old dressing-gown, why go to all the trouble of hunting out something special? For whose benefit?’
‘He always did wear a tie. Always. Even when he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, you could be sure he’d have one of his silk ties on.’
‘Did he ever have visitors?’
‘No.’
‘What, never?’
‘In the month I’ve been here, not one person ever came to see him. Course, I can’t speak for the weekends, but I think it highly unlikely.’
‘Let me get this straight. He had no contact at all with the outside world?’
‘There’d be the occasional telephone call. Very occasional.’
A Closed Book Page 17