They Rang Up the Police: A classic murder mystery set in rural England (Inspector Guy Northeast Book 1)

by Joanna Cannan

  And the next day: “Vet came again. He’s marvelous. I think he’s my ideal. His name is Forbes and the initials on his bag are D.F., so his Christian name may be Derek, or Denis, or David. I do hope it’s David. I shall call him David to myself, but it will be awful if it slips out while I’m talking to him.”

  A few days later, John was sick again. “D. said it was my fault for giving him a teeny bit of chocolate. Mother said I’d better telephone the vet, so I did and David’s lovely deep voice answered. He said he would come at once, and, after a bit, he did, and when we were looking at John his hand touched mine and I’m sure he meant it. Just after that D. came in and spoilt everything, asking awful questions about John’s bowels, etc. No one will ever fall in love with her, that’s one thing. After David had gone, D. said he looked like a dancing partner. I could have killed her.”

  For the next few weeks there were only brief references to Delia. “D. doesn’t like my new dress.” “D. said she could see a lot of gray in my hair.” “D. went out for a ride and insisted on taking John with her. I waited in agonies, thinking she might let him get run over.” “D.’s got a beastly new patent breakfast food and says we all ought to eat it. I wish it would poison her.” “D. fell off Flavia. Ha, ha. I wish I had seen her.” “Damn it, I’ve got a horrid spot on my chin and of course as soon as D. came down to breakfast she passed remarks about it.” “D.’s gone to the dentist. I hope he hurts her.” Then, in June: “D. has sent for the vet about Sultan. Will Mr. Ross come or my own dear David? But Forbes came, and I watched out of the spare room window. David looked more marvelous than ever, and presently I plucked up courage and went downstairs trying to think of an excuse to go across to the stable. At last I thought of taking John with me and asking David if he looked in better condition. So I did. D. said, ‘Oh, your fat dog’s all right,’ but David patted John and said that he was a good old fellow and lucky to have such a kind missus. D. was annoyed and said sharply, ‘Well, it’s the horse you’ve come to see,’ but David took no notice of her and said he could see that I loved animals. D. was furious, and after David had gone, she said he was tipsy. When I said he wasn’t, she laughed and said I was an innocent little thing. Why should I always be treated as though I were a child? I’m a woman of thirty-eight and that’s just the age when you’re capable of real passion. To men of experience a young girl’s love is like milk and water.”

  Two days later the fat was in the fire. “D. says that David ordered the wrong treatment for Sultan. She says he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing, and she’s going to write to Mr. Ross and complain about him. Now the beast has telephoned for him… David came and I watched out of the spare room window. D. went on at him. She was furious and talked and talked with her head nodding. David very calm and noble. They went into the stable and then I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t take John out to them again, so I went out to my car and opened the bonnet and pretended to be looking at the carburetor. Presently David came out of the stable. I wanted to say a few words of comfort to him, but I couldn’t think how to begin, so I just said, ‘Good morning.’ David didn’t answer, but went to his car and drove off looking angry. Perhaps he didn’t hear me — my voice isn’t like D.’s, but soft and seductive — but I think it was really because he’s too strong a man to seek for comfort in anyone. I’m glad he’s strong, but it’s awful to witness a strong man’s anguish and not to be able to do anything.”

  The next day: “D. keeps on about David. If she does write to Mr. Ross, I wonder if I could intercept the letter. That would be something that I could do for David. I nearly stood up for him today at lunch — I don’t know why I didn’t, only there’s something about D. which makes it impossible. I don’t know what it is. If I look straight at her when she’s looking at me, it makes my eyes water. I wonder if it’s the same with S. Sometimes she stands up to D. and they have an argument. It’s always D. who wins, but S. doesn’t seem to mind — I suppose her music is the only thing she really cares about. She’s sexless, too. Not like me. I’m capable of feeling and inspiring a great enduring passion. I wonder whether John Owen ever thinks of me. I’m sure he would have proposed if I’d met him again, and Mother would have asked him to our picnic if D. hadn’t said he was common. D. has spoilt my life. I might have hunted and met men that way, if she hadn’t made me ride those awful ponies and then said I was nervous. I’m not nervous. I’m just as capable of heroic acts as she is. Why do we all treat her as the dashing one of the family?”

  A few days passed with entries you might have found in any quiet countrywoman’s diary. Then came: “Gardened for a bit, but D. came out and showed me how to do it. She said, ‘Get out of my way, you silly darling, and I’ll show you.’ I didn’t get out of the way, but she just pushed past me and knelt down beside the border. I had been ever so happy gardening and thinking how lovely it would be to have a little home of my own and make the garden nice for a tired man to sit in on summer evenings, and I simply boiled with rage. While D. was kneeling there I could see a bit of her red scraggy neck between the short stiff black hairs at the back of her head and her horrid high collar and I thought how I’d like to take hold of her neck and squeeze the life out of her. It would be lovely if she was dead. Think of waking up and knowing that all day you could do as you liked and there’d be no one to say, ‘Fancy stuffing indoors,’ or, “You don’t want that thick scarf on,’ or ‘What a funny idea to go to church on a weekday!’ Why should she stop me doing what I want? Yesterday I’d have bought that green and red material for my new frock only I knew she’d say, ‘What crude colors,’ so I got a wishy-washy thing that no one will know from my old one. Why shouldn’t I wear what I like? It’s my own body.”

  From that date onwards there was scarcely a day when some domineering act of Delia’s was not recorded. “Wet all day. I should have liked a fire in the evening and I’m sure Mother and S. would have been glad of one too, but D. said that we couldn’t be cold — she wasn’t. Just because I missed brushing John yesterday, D. did it. She said, ‘There, poor old man, now you’ve had a real good grooming.’ I stood watching her. I expect she thought I was doing what she calls ‘picking up wrinkles,’ but really I was thinking how I hate her. I do hate her. I don’t only hate her mind but I hate her body. I hate the back of her neck where it shows between her hair and her collar. I hate her brown thin hands and the shape of her nails. I hate her hard, gray eyes, that make mine water, and I hate the two bristly hairs that have begun to show at the corners of her upper lip. I wish she would get ill and die, but she never will. I know I shall die first. I shall die and be buried and never know what life could have been like without her.”

  There came a day in late June. “D. has been given tickets for Wimbledon. I don’t know how she gets them out of people, but I suppose she nags and nags until they send them. I should like to go, but D. says I don’t like watching tennis. I never go anywhere. D. says I’m shy, but I’m not — if I go to a party and she’s there I can’t talk because I know that afterwards she’ll say, ‘Fancy your telling Mrs. So-and-so what we pay for the house at Southwold,’ or, ‘Darling, everybody isn’t as interested in your fat dog as you are.’ It was she who first said I was the home bird, and now Mother’s always saying it. I don’t want to be a home bird. If it hadn’t been for D. I could have had lots of friends, but whenever I make friends with anybody, she says they are boring or common. Last year when I gave some windfalls to that nice Mrs. Smith for her dear little children, D. said we didn’t want to get mixed up with people who lived in bungalows. In every way she’s spoilt my life, and she’ll go on spoiling it until I’m dead and buried.

  “June 28th. A dull day, but I suppose it was no duller than usual. Had breakfast early just because D. wanted to school Flavia before starting for Wimbledon. Brushed John. Walked round the garden and saw D. schooling Flavia in the paddock. Flavia reared so high I thought she was going to fall over backwards. I wish she had. I wish she had fallen on the top of D. and c
rushed all the breath out of her body. Sometimes I think that nothing could kill D. I’m sure no poison would. If you put poison in her coffee, she’d drink it and then you’d wait and wait and nothing would happen. If you tried to suffocate her, you’d creep into her bedroom at night and put a pillow over her head and press and press and press, but when you took the pillow away, she’d be just as much alive as ever. The only way to kill her would be to hit her with something sharp — an axe or a hatchet. That would go through her skull all right and you’d see the blood come and then you’d know for certain that she was dead or dying. What awful thoughts I have, but I do so hate her. She came home from Wimbledon and told us all about it and what was wrong with everybody’s play and what strokes they should have made — I wonder she isn’t a champion. In case she should look at me and say, ‘Why is our baby so silent?’ I asked if she had seen any pretty frocks, and she said it was tennis, not frocks that she went to look at. I hate D. I hate D. I HATE HER.

  “June 29th. I was late for breakfast. I couldn’t sleep last night. I lay awake and thought of D. and of all the years I’ve got to go on living with her. I suppose that one day Mother will die and D. and S. and I will just go on living together. I’ve got my own money — I could go away but I shall never be able to. Last year I made up my mind to tell them I wanted to go and I decided what I should say, but one day after another passed and I couldn’t say it. I shall never be free while D.’s alive and I know she’ll live longer than I shall. Today, she was more hateful than ever. She went on at Elspeth about a cobweb and the poor girl did look so upset and helpless. I should have liked to have said something nice to her, but I knew it would get round to D. somehow. I’m sure the maids hate D. I wish one of them would murder her. I often feel like murdering her, only it would be awful to be hanged — still, I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather be dead than go on living with D. bossing me forever and ever.

  “Later: A dreadfully dull evening. I cut out my wishy-washy material, and tacked it, and wished I had had the red and green. D. wouldn’t have the wireless on, though I wanted it dreadfully. Someone was going to sing You Are My Heart’s Delight, and I do love it — it makes me think of David. Instead, I made up a story about how I killed D. and nobody ever found out who did it. I don’t believe anyone would find out a murder that was planned by an educated person. Most murderers are rough men like farm laborers and they’re caught because they do something absolutely half-witted, like strangling girls with mufflers that everybody knows belong to them. If I murdered D. I wouldn’t make any silly mistakes like that, and I’m sure no one would think of suspecting the little home bird. It would be lovely to kill D. — she’d be so surprised to find that silly timid me had the power to send brave competent her right out of the world forever. Oh, that’s a lovely idea! For years and years she’s bossed me, but I should turn the tables on her and she’d never be able to do anything about it — never. She’d be dead and buried and the worms would eat her wonderful marvelous D. I think I shall kill her. Tonight in bed I shall think out a really clever way.

  “June 30th, Last night I lay awake and thought of a plan. It’s so clever that I’m sure no one will ever find it out. D. is sleeping in the garden every night now, and I shall kill her there and, somehow or another, I shall hide her body. Then I shall creep back into the house and pack some of her clothes in that ugly new rawhide suitcase she’s so proud of, and I shall put it in my car — in the boot under the back seat, where nobody ever looks, and next morning, when everybody’s fussing and wondering where darling Delia is, I shall drive to Melchester Station and buy a ticket for London and put the suitcase on the rack in an empty carriage, and everyone will be quite sure that D. traveled up to London and just forgot it when she got out of the train at Waterloo. Now comes a bit of my plan that’s especially clever. Of course, D. would have traveled in clothes of some sort, so I shall take her blue flowered frock and the hat and shoes she wears with it and throw them away somewhere, and the lucky thing is that she bossed me into getting a blue outfit something like it, so I shall wear that myself and, if the silly police are called in, they’ll be absolutely done, because the porters and people on the platform will remember seeing a lady in blue carrying a rawhide suitcase. Of course I shan’t be so silly as to go off the platform the way I went on — I shall go down the subway. As well as buying a ticket for London, I shall get a platform ticket out of a machine, which I shall give up to the man in the subway. Memo. I mustn’t forget to throw away D.’s dark blue hand-bag.

  “I think this is a wonderful plan. Last night I couldn’t see a flaw in it, but when I woke up this morning, I did see one. Supposing that when I’ve killed D. I find I can’t move her body? She’s small and light, of course, but I’m not very strong; I’m not horrible and mannish like D., or huge and clumsy like S. I’m an appealing feminine type, and that’s why strong men like David are attracted to me. Well, this day passed, and I really don’t know what we did, because all the time I was thinking hard — oh, wouldn’t they have been surprised if they had known what their ‘baby’ and their ‘home bird’ was thinking! It makes me laugh out loud, but I mustn’t, because D. has just come up to get ready for bed and she might hear me and come into my room — without knocking, of course — and say, ‘Fancy laughing when you’re all alone in your bedroom.’ Well, I thought and thought and at last I got it. D’s always fussing about the maids and their young men, so, as soon as she has said good night to me, I shall creep out into the garden and hide behind the stable. Then, when she’s been in bed for a few minutes, I shall give one of those whistles that the village boys call after their girls with. I think I can do it, but I daren’t try now. Tomorrow I shall go out in my car and practice. When D. hears it, she’s sure to get up and come to see who it is — she’s so interfering. I shall stand up on the midden just behind the corner of the stable and I shall have the hatchet out of the woodshed in my hands and I shall bring it down on her head as she comes round the corner. The hatchet will split her head open and I shall see the blood and know that she’s dead and I’m free to say what I like and do what I like and wear what I like forever. Then I shall pull poor limp dead D. on the midden and heap some straw on her and the next day Ames will put some more straw on, and every day she’ll be buried deeper and I’ll be safer. It’s a lovely plan. I can’t see a single flaw in it.”

  On the page where the events of July 1st should have been recorded, Nancy had written only the one word — “Successful.” Then, on July 2nd: “Last night was the first night for years when I didn’t write in my diary, but it was no use writing before and afterwards I wasn’t so silly as to turn my light on. But now Mother has gone to bed crying — she doesn’t realize that with D. gone she won’t be bossed off to bed at ten o’clock every evening, but she’ll be able to stay up as long as she likes and finish what she’s reading even if it does mean that she’ll have nothing to read tomorrow — and S. has gone to bed with watery eyes and a red nose — she doesn’t realize that she can have the piano turned round now, and that no one will say, ‘Well, come on, spit it out,’ when she stammers. At last I’m alone and I’ve turned on both the lights and there’s no one to say I’m extravagant; and I’ve shut the window top and bottom and there’s no one to say it’s unhealthy. Ha, ha, D.! You’re dead, you’re deaf, you’re dumb, you’re blind, and already I’ve started to do the things you wouldn’t let me do — you don’t know that after dinner I brought John up to my bedroom and LET HIM SIT ON THE BED and gave him a WHOLE BAR of chocolate!!

  “Well, I must go back to last night. All evening D. was as bossy as usual — we all got told off for feeding Flavia — she wouldn’t have thought that I would have given my old orange frock to Jessie — Mother must sack Jessie — she couldn’t think why S. and I don’t sleep in the garden — I ought to take more exercise — it was Mother’s bedtime. And then, when I was going to let John out, she insisted on doing it. Ordinarily, I should have been boiling with rage, but I just sat and sewed and though
t of all the evenings to come when she’d be dead and her mouth shut forever. I went to bed and when she came in to say good night — later than usual because she’d been downstairs bullying poor little Jessie — I pretended to be half-asleep, but, as soon as she was safely in her room, I jumped up and put on my dark dressing gown. I crept downstairs and into the garden. John was in his basket in the lobby, but I told him to lie still and tomorrow I would give him lots of chocolate. I tiptoed down to the woodshed and got the hatchet and then I crouched on the stable side of the yew hedge and watched through a hole I made until I saw D. come out. I waited for ten minutes by my wristwatch and then I whistled. Nothing happened and I was terrified that I’d waited too long and she was fast asleep and wouldn’t hear me. I whistled again and then, thank goodness, I heard her bed creak. I slipped back to my place by the midden and held the hatchet ready and after ages and ages I heard her footsteps, soft and shuffling because of her bedroom slippers. She seemed to be wandering round the stable yard, so I whistled again quite softly, and the next thing I really knew was that D. was lying at my feet — my feet — and there was a wound in her head out of which a little blood had oozed, but now she wasn’t bleeding. I did wish that she was — for one horrid moment I thought she couldn’t be dead, but then I felt her heart and it had stopped beating. I could have danced with joy. I remember hearing myself say out loud, ‘Ha, ha, D. Now you’re only a silly dead body!’ and it was the easiest thing in the world to move some of the straw and pull her up on the midden. Her slippers fell off, but I put them on again, and then I heaped the straw over her. Of course I wasn’t so silly as to leave my fingerprints on the pitchfork. When all that was done, I wiped my fingerprints off the hatchet too, and with my hanky wrapped round it, I pushed it down the stable drain, where no one will think of looking for it. Then I crept back to the house, let myself in with my latchkey, and tiptoed up the stairs. I mayn’t be good at silly old games and athletics, but one of the things I can do, is to creep about quietly. I couldn’t put very much in the suitcase — you can’t carry heavy things quietly — but I put in the sort of things D. would have taken for a night or two — her brown evening dress, brown sandals and evening bag, etc., and I didn’t forget her sponge, toothbrush and paste, as some people might have done. I took her handbag and her blue dress and hat and shoes and rolled them up in a piece of brown paper I had ready in my dressing-gown pocket, and I’d been clever enough to think of another thing — a weight off the kitchen scales to make the parcel sink — I had planned to throw it into a pond I know of, on the way to Melchester. I had to be awfully careful going downstairs, but fortunately the carpet’s a very thick one. I hurried out to my garage — I call it a garage but of course the big car lives in the real garage and my poor little car has to put up with a horrid old shed. I put the suitcase and the parcel in the boot of my car, and then there was nothing more to do but to go to bed.