There is no Fear in Love: (Parish & Richards #20)

by Tim Ellis

  He spoke into the phone again. ‘Says his name is Ray Polaski – he’s a private investor . . . Just a minute.’ He put his hand over the mouthpiece again. ‘She wants to know what you want?’

  ‘I’ve come about the accountant – Paige Belmont – who came here last Thursday.’

  The young man nodded. ‘Yeah, Mrs Frampton? . . . He says he’s here about your accounting last Thursday . . . Uh huh! . . . Okay.’ He turned to Kowalski. ‘She’s on her way.’

  ‘Thanks. New at the job?’

  ‘Been here three months.’

  ‘Enjoying it?’

  He pulled a face. ‘I like the free staff chocolates. I really wanted to drive Formula One cars though, but the lady at the Job Centre said that it wasn’t a proper job. I don’t see how that can be, because there seems to be lots of people doing it. Take that Louie Hamilton. He’s doing it. Earns a packet of money doing it as well, and he gets a bottle of booze when he wins. There’s all the women, the nights out with Nicky Shufflebottom, the fast cars . . . Yeah, that’s the job for me. Someone has to do it, so I don’t see why it can’t be me.’

  ‘Well, good luck chasing your dream.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks, Mr Polaski.’

  The door at the rear of reception opened and an attractive woman in her mid-thirties appeared. Her page-boy style blonde hair had been crimped, she had a square face and a nice smile.

  She offered her hand. ‘Tuesday Frampton, Managing Director of Chocoholics.’

  ‘Ray Kowalski, private investigator.’ He nearly said he was from Abacus Investigations, but it sounded pompous. Not only that, he wasn’t “from” Abacus Investigations, he was the Managing Director, the owner, a fifty percent shareholder, the main man . . .

  ‘One of these days you’ll get something right, Charlie.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Frampton.’

  ‘How can I help you, Mr Kowalski?’

  ‘Your accountant – Paige Belmont – from Bates-Belmont Accountants disappeared last Thursday. I’ve been asked by her partner to investigate.’

  ‘So, your name’s not Polaski, you’re not an investor, and you’re not here about my accounting last Thursday?’

  ‘The last bit is pretty close.’

  ‘Come through.’

  He followed Mrs Frampton through the door behind reception, up a set of ridged metal stairs and into an outer office where a young woman – probably not even twenty – was sitting at a desk typing on a computer keyboard. She had long ginger hair scooped back into a ponytail, a thin face and blue eyes.

  ‘Corinne.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Frampton?’

  ‘Two coffees, please.’ She turned to Kowalski. ‘Coffee okay for you?’

  ‘More thank okay. Thanks.’

  ‘Apparently, we’re going to run out of coffee by 2080, so we’d better drink our fill while we can.’

  He had a gut feeling that he wasn’t going to live to the ripe old age of a hundred and six, so he wasn’t overly concerned about the dearth of coffee.

  She guided him into her office and they sat down in two easy chairs on opposite sides of a coffee table. ‘What’s this about Paige disappearing?’ she said. ‘And why are you here and not the police?’

  ‘Her husband has said that she left him for another man.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t, but as yet I haven’t found any evidence to confirm either possibility.’

  Corinne came in carrying a tray of refreshments and put it on the table between them.

  ‘Thank you, Corinne. That will be all.’

  The young woman left.

  ‘Did Paige keep her appointment last Thursday?’

  ‘Yes, she arrived at eleven-thirty. We spent about an hour together discussing the accounts, the Managing Director’s Report and cleared up a few anomalies.’

  ‘You didn’t notice anything unusual?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Did she seem relaxed, or on edge?’

  ‘Ah! I would say that she didn’t seem her normal self. She kept looking at her phone, said she was expecting an important call.’

  ‘Do you know if she received it?’

  ‘Not while she was here with me.’

  ‘Did you talk about anything other than the accounts?’

  Tuesday Frampton shook her head. ‘Clothes, shoes, bags.’

  His eyes glazed over.

  She laughed. ‘My husband has the same look.’

  He threw back the last of his coffee – if there was a worldwide shortage, he didn’t want to waste any – stood up and said, ‘Thank you for seeing me, Mrs Frampton.’

  ‘Tuesday.’

  ‘Nice name. I guess you were born on a Tuesday?’

  ‘Saturday, actually. I’m just glad my parents weren’t too literal.’

  ‘Yes. Saturday is probably four days too far.’ She picked up a paper chocolate-coloured bag with CHOCOHOLICS printed on the outside. ‘Complimentary chocolates. Do you have children?’

  ‘Three girls and a boy.’

  ‘You’d better take two bags then.’ She handed him another bag.

  ‘Very kind.’

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t be more help, Mr Polaski.’

  ‘And I’m sorry I couldn’t invest in your chocolate business, Tuesday.’

  They laughed as she led him out to the reception.

  In the car, he wondered who Paige Belmont was expecting a call from, and whether she’d received it.

  Chapter Nine

  At the bottom of the concrete steps she turned left as Mr Downton had instructed her to, and inched along the corridor. There were grey steel doors on either side, lagged pipes and all sorts of wiring bound together above her. Beneath her feet was a dusty concrete floor. She was just thankful that the strip lighting worked and there were no rats. Memories of being tortured in a cellar by Rose Needle tried to claw their way into her conscious mind, but she pushed them back down again.

  There was a brick wall up ahead. She could hear people’s voices. Eventually, she reached a steel door that had been left ajar. A dim light was on inside, and the voices seeped out through the gap.

  She knocked on the door.

  The voices stopped. A thin man with heavy bags under his light grey eyes appeared at the door. He had white-silver hair combed straight back from his wrinkled forehead, unnaturally pale skin and white eyebrows. She wondered if Beecher Berkley was an albino, or at least genetically predisposed to the condition.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re not permitted to be down here – health and safety rules.’

  ‘Mr Downton directed me down here.’

  ‘He had no right to do that. I’m in charge of the basement.’

  ‘I needed to talk to you, but Mr Downton said he couldn’t leave the lobby unattended.’

  ‘You’ll have to leave. If anything happened . . .’

  ‘Nothing will happen, Mr Berkley. I just need to ask you about the night Emily Hobson was murdered.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘I notice from the file that you didn’t give a statement.’

  ‘Nobody asked me.’

  ‘I’m asking you now.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘Please.’

  He looked up and down the corridor. ‘You’d better come in then. Don’t touch anything, and don’t tell anyone you were down here. I only have seven months until my retirement, and they’re just looking for an excuse to fire me.’

  There was a two-seater sofa; a threadbare rug underneath a coffee table with cigarette burns on one side; a sideboard with an old radio that had an egg-whisk in place of its aerial and a small LCD television sitting on it; two battered six-foot tall lockers; an electric fire; some old prints in frames and an ornate mirror hanging on the walls. Beecher Berkley had made the room a home-from-home.

  Jerry perched on the edge of the sofa. ‘Surely they wouldn’t fire you when you’re so close to retirement?’

  ‘You don’t know them . . . Well, Mrs Lindsey, especially. She do
esn’t like me even though I work hard and I’ve been here since the building opened in 1971.’ He sat next to her on the sofa.

  ‘That’s a long time.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Berkley. I have a couple of questions and then I’ll leave. If anyone ever asks me what I was doing down here, I’ll say I got lost looking for the ladies.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Jerry Kowalski, I’m a second year law student from King’s College and I’m investigating the death of Emily Hobson.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Were you here the night Emily Hobson was murdered?’

  ‘You promise you won’t tell anyone?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘I sometimes sleep here. I absolutely shouldn’t, but it’s a lot easier than going home – especially in the winter.’

  ‘And that night you slept here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One of the nurses – Greta Ross – saw Emily in the kitchen in her pyjamas making herself hot chocolate at ten-fifteen that night. Emily was supposed to be on her way to bed, because she had an early start the following morning. Instead, she was found murdered on Cambridge Street at three in the morning dressed for a night out. She’d been beaten, raped and strangled. Have you any information that might help me, Mr Berkley?’

  He wrung his hands. They looked more like they belonged to a surgeon than a janitor. ‘I was outside at quarter to one that morning . . .’

  ‘Outside! And nobody saw you?’

  ‘At the back of the building.’

  ‘Ah! What were you doing there at that time of the morning?’

  ‘You promised.’

  ‘I won’t tell a soul.’ She had an idea that she wasn’t going to like what he was about to tell her. What was he doing at the back of the Nurses’ Home? Was he peering in windows like a peeping tom?

  Berkley stood up. ‘You’d better see for yourself.’ He led her out of the room, back along the corridor to a steel door, where he used a key from a hefty bunch he kept on a chain attached to a belt beneath his blue coveralls to open it. The door opened onto a set of concrete steps littered with leaves that led up to a fenced-off area at the back of the Nurses’ Home.

  ‘This is where I keep the rubbish, the dirty linen and other things. I’m the only person permitted into this area.’

  ‘I see.’ She didn’t yet, but she hoped she would soon.

  There was a long brick building wedged between the palisade fencing with rusty barbed wire running across the tiled roof to prevent people climbing over it.

  He walked to the building, unlocked the steel door and beckoned her inside. ‘This is where I keep my flammables.’

  ‘Okay.’ She decided to stand outside, because she didn’t really want to go inside a store for flammables.

  ‘Come,’ he said.

  Reluctantly, she stepped inside.

  Berkley switched the light on.

  He was right – it was a small store for flammables. There were metal shelving units stacked neatly with flammable chemicals.

  ‘This way.’

  She followed him across the room to a door slightly hidden between two shelving units.

  He found another key on his bunch, unlocked the door, stepped inside and switched the light on.

  She followed him into the room and stood there with her mouth agape as she looked at what was in there.

  ‘This is my workroom.’

  It was a reasonably large room. There were floor to ceiling shelves attached to two of the walls, which contained an array of different sized and shaped clay pots. In one corner was a throwing wheel, a worktop ran the length of one wall, there was a small sink behind the door, a kiln . . .

  ‘This is where I make my creations.’

  ‘Your creations.’

  ‘It’s a hobby . . . Well, it’s a bit more than a hobby now. I live in a flat, you see. I couldn’t do this in my flat, so I use this room. Nobody knows it’s here . . . Well, except you. You’re not going to tell, are you?’

  ‘I’ve promised I wouldn’t.’

  ‘It’s for my retirement.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘I make handmade original pottery designs for people.’

  ‘And they buy them?’

  ‘Oh yes!’

  She walked along the shelves looking at the vases, jugs, plates, teapots, figures and weird creations Beecher Berkley had made. Some had been glazed, other were still in the process of drying. She felt guilty at thinking he was a peeping tom, which she knew in part was her prejudice about the way he looked.

  ‘If Mrs Lindsey ever found out . . .’

  ‘Well, she won’t find out from me. Some of your creations are really beautiful, Mr Berkley.’

  ‘Thank you. Do you want one?’

  ‘I’ll pay.’

  ‘There’s no need. Pick one . . . except that one.’ He pointed to a black-and-white hand-carved vase. ‘That one’s already sold.’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t, but I’m curious. Can I ask how much you sell them for?’

  ‘It depends on the size and the work involved in creating the piece. I sold that one for three hundred pounds.’

  Her eyes opened wide and she smiled. ‘It’s my guess you’re going to have a long and happy retirement, Mr Berkley.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She chose a blue and beige bowl with intricate double-wrapped edges. ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘For keeping my secret.’

  ‘So, you were in here at quarter to one in the morning?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t in here. As you can see, I’ve blacked out all of the windows, so no one can see in. But it means I can’t see out either. I was outside. The kiln had been firing all day, and the workroom was hot and smelly, so I was letting some air in. I hadn’t long started doing pottery all those years ago, so I was still learning. Of course, the room didn’t look like this back then, it was dirty and reasonably basic.’

  ‘So you were outside getting some fresh air?’ she reminded him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you saw something?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll have to go outside, so I can show you.’

  She followed him back outside. It had begun to drizzle. She hated Februarys. In fact, she hated any days that weren’t summer days. Maybe she and Ray ought to think about moving to the South of France, Spain or Italy.

  Berkley led her to the right side of the palisade fencing that had weeds and ivy growing up it like a natural camouflage. He pointed through a gap to the other side and said, ‘One, two, three . . . the third window along. I saw Emily climbing out of there at quarter to one that morning. It belongs to a toilet on the ground floor. Emily lived on the third floor, but a lot of the nurses used it to get out of the building without having to sign out. Of course, they’re allowed out whenever they want now, so nobody uses it. They still have to sign in and out because of fire regulations, but in 1997 they weren’t allowed out after midnight unless they wanted to explain what they were doing to the Matron the following morning.

  ‘Was Emily on her own?’

  ‘No.’

  He swivelled his feet and his finger to the right about forty-five degrees and pointed at the outer palisade fencing that extended all around the building. ‘Nobody remembers now except me, but two of those posts are loose. They swing left or right to create a gap that the nurses could climb through. Not just going out, but coming back in as well. And sometimes, they had male visitors. I know, I should have come forward at the time and said something to someone, but then I would have had to explain why I was out here at that time of the morning, why I hadn’t said anything about the window, and why I hadn’t organised the repair of the loose fence posts, which was and still is my responsibility. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that they’d fire me, so I didn’t say anything. And then the longer I didn’t say anything, the more impossible it became to say anything. I kept thinking that the police wo
uld solve her murder and find her killer, but they didn’t. And then I realised that I could never say anything.’

  It was also entirely possible that the police would have identified Beecher Berkley as a prime suspect. She recalled how the media had vilified a suspect in a recent murder inquiry because of the way he looked. She didn’t like to admit it, but Berkley was probably right in not saying anything.

  ‘Did you see who she was with?’

  ‘No. It was dark, but I heard a name.’

  ‘A name?’

  ‘Yes. Emily was climbing out of the window backwards, and I think the man was doing something inappropriate. I heard her say: “Stop it, Morton. Unless you want me to pee myself.” He obviously stopped what he was doing, they pulled the window down and made their way to the gap in the fence – that’s all I know.’

  ‘It’s enough. The police had very few leads.’ She cast her mind to the file – there was no Morton mentioned in there.

  ‘Thank you for being honest with me, Mr Berkley.’

  ‘And you won’t say anything?’

  ‘No.’

  After collecting her free clay pot, Berkley guided her back down the external steps into the basement, and along the corridor to the internal steps that led up to the lobby.

  She shook his hand. ‘Thank you for the creation,’ she said, holding up the pot. ‘I’ll treasure it.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  After climbing the steep steps, she made her way outside through an empty lobby.

  Where Mr Downton was, she had no idea.

  ***

  Richards pulled into the car park at Cheshunt Community Hospital. ‘Why are we here?’

  ‘Tessa Henson said that Christy had no boyfriend. Maybe that’s true, but maybe it isn’t. The same could be said of her going out with men from work. We need to discover where Christy and the killer intersected. To do that, we have to retrace her steps from the time she left work on Friday. We’ll speak to her work colleagues and find out if they knew where she was going, or if any of them went out with her. She must have had friends.’

  Cheshunt Community Hospital replaced the Cottage Hospital in 1998 where Edith Cavell had worked as the Temporary Matron in August of 1901. There was a blue heritage plaque on the wall outside the main entrance commemorating the 100th anniversary of her death on October 12, 1915 by firing squad in WWI in German-occupied Belgium for helping allied soldiers to escape.