Resort to Murder

by TP Fielden

  In the street, Valentine linked his arm through hers. ‘I’m so enjoying this,’ he said, and his eyes were gleaming. ‘I’ve got a hundred questions to ask.’

  He bought the drinks and the sandwiches – Well, that’s taken care of your week’s wages, young man! Judy thought – and the couple sat in the sunlight at the end of the bar where the open door looked out over the harbour. A relentless tooting indicated the fleet were on their way in, warning the fishermen’s wives to have the dinner ready.

  ‘You were asking why we print what you call parish magazine stuff.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Valentine. ‘I’m getting the hang of all that. No, I wanted to ask about you. You’re so brilliant, I want to know why you’re here, not in Fleet Street editing one of the nation’s more respected organs.’

  ‘Long story. Short lunch-break.’

  ‘Oh, go on. A clue, at least.’

  Miss Dimont sipped her ginger beer. ‘You don’t have to live in London for excitement to come knocking at the door. All the things you were talking about – murder, arson, embezzlement – turn up in Temple Regis sooner or later. This place isn’t Toy Town, you know.’

  ‘I’m beginning to register that. But I was asking you about Fleet Street.’

  ‘Not for me. I had another career before this one which gave me enough excitement to last a lifetime.’

  Valentine looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got eight minutes left. Two and a half to walk back to the office, that gives us the luxury of five and a half long minutes together before we have to move.’ He stretched luxuriantly.

  ‘If I may say so, Mr Ford, you have a curious attitude for one so young. Most people your age would be complaining about how mean a lunch-break is when it lasts only twenty minutes.’

  ‘Depends who you’re sharing it with,’ said Valentine, looking at her with a shy smile. ‘Look, I’ve got the cottage in Bedlington sorted out now, would you and Miss Hedley like to come to supper tomorrow?’

  ‘Can you cook?’

  ‘What a question!’ Valentine snorted, but in his reply she already knew the dread answer.

  They walked quickly but companionably back to the Riviera Express offices and Miss Dimont wondered for a moment whether this charming young fellow might put his arm through hers again, but he didn’t.

  *

  It should have been a straightforward afternoon – the same this Thursday as every Thursday for decades past – mounting pressure as the paper’s deadline approached, distracted consultations over the rewrite of a sports headline, an apology or correction anxiously inserted at the last minute, and a nervous last look through the pages to make sure that some story had not duplicated itself on another page (a spanner that often threw itself in the works). Final proofs would be OK’d and the papers start to spin off the presses, by which time the responsibility for tomorrow’s Riviera Express passed from Editorial to Distribution, those anonymous cloth-capped men with cheery smiles and ancient vans. All over for another week!

  Instead, on their return, Judy and Valentine were confronted by ashen faces, a silent office, and from the other end the muted bellowing of Rudyard Rhys. His door was shut but from the sound of it he appeared to be berating Betty Featherstone. Outside in the newsroom everything seemed to have come to a standstill, with people looking helplessly about them. Such inaction at such a time and on such a day was disturbing.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Judy asked John Ross, the chief sub.

  ‘He’s been looking for you, girrlie,’ came the silky reply. ‘Watch your step now.’

  Sensing a moment of crisis, Valentine slid behind his desk and hid behind a page proof. Not sharing the same sense of self-preservation, his lunch partner strode purposefully towards the editor’s door. She knew a crisis when she smelt one, and it wouldn’t be first time she’d had to help Rhys out of a difficulty. For all the massive solidity, the overbearing presence, the ringing tones and the waggling beard, the editor was a bit of a panicker. He always had been.

  As she opened the door, the bellowing ceased. Betty was sitting opposite her editor. She was in tears, which though they came often never suited her, since her mascara had a way of liberally making tracks across her face like the tributaries of the Nile delta. She dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief.

  Opposite her stood the editor, hunched and ashen-faced. He glanced up at Miss Dimont and paused momentously.

  ‘Ben Larsson’s dead,’ he said bleakly. ‘Suicide. Or accidental. Don’t know at the moment.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Judy crisply. She paused for just a second. ‘Well, we’ve still got time to re-plate the front page.’ She’d seen the problem and found the solution, all in an instant. ‘Betty can come and help me while I write the story – you spoke to him only a day or two ago, didn’t you, Betty?’

  The blonde on the sofa nodded dumbly.

  ‘Go and kick Valentine out of his desk and get your notes,’ she ordered briskly before turning to Rhys. ‘Who says it was suicide? Do we have any more facts?’

  ‘Frank Topham called. A rarity for him to be so helpful.’ Rhys hesitated then muttered, ‘Apparently Ben had hooked himself up to his Rejuvenator and was electrocuted.’

  ‘What?’

  The editor started to repeat this simple information but his words were drowned by Miss Dimont’s peals of laughter. ‘I can’t believe it! And after all the denials of the Daily Herald’s story! What a delicious irony!’

  Rhys ignored this. ‘Topham said he couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t an act of suicide. And, given the pressure Ben was under, that can’t be discounted.’

  ‘Pretty theatrical way to go.’

  ‘Just find a way of getting as much in as you can. But remember that Ben Larsson was without question the most important and best-known figure in Temple Regis. Treat him with respect.’

  Feeling less respect than might be wished for, Judy returned to her desk. Valentine was over the other side of the newsroom talking energetically to a sub-editor while Betty sat in his chair, leafing distractedly through her notebook.

  ‘Don’t like to speak ill of the dead, Judy, but he was a bad lot.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The butler or whoever he was gave me a sheaf of letters by mistake. Some of the things that Rejuvenator had done – you know, some people even claimed that it had killed their husband or mother or son. It was shocking to read.’

  ‘I know,’ said Judy, feeding copy paper into her Remington Quiet-Riter. ‘In many ways Ben Larsson may have been Temple’s best-known personality but he will leave the town with a horrible legacy. Now he’s dead people will feel free to speak.’

  ‘Why didn’t they, when he was alive?’

  ‘They did. They wrote those letters – they even used to write us letters here at the Express. Sooner or later the dam would have burst and, if it was suicide, you can see why he did it. He was about to be disgraced after half a lifetime of people saying how wonderful he was, and how brilliant his machine was.’

  Betty was perplexed. Unfamiliar with death, she kept it at a distance because she was not really sure how to cope with it. For all her recent disillusion of Ben Larsson, she’d been in the great man’s company only a few hours before, and knowing he was dead somehow rendered him innocent of all charges – you can’t accuse someone who has lost their life so unexpectedly of the damage and death of others.

  ‘What’s your intro, Judy?’

  The chief reporter glanced across to Curse Corner, the place where curses are kept specially to be brought out at such moments. But then she started typing. Furiously.

  In twenty minutes the new lead story which would adorn the Riviera Express’s front page was complete. Miss Dimont had brought it in on time, at the correct length, and with no need of the sub-editor’s corrective pen.

  I HAVE NO REGRETS – TEMPLE’S BEN LARSSON

  Exclusive final interview with the Riviera Express

  Rejuvenator tycoon found dead at

  Ransome’s Retreat
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  by Betty Featherstone and Judy Dimont

  There had been some nice words exchanged between the pair as to whose name should go first in the joint byline. Betty wanted hers but didn’t like to say. Judy cared not at all whether her name was on the story or not, but in truth every last word on the front page would be written by her. She’d waited for Betty to mention the tricky topic since it was always amusing to see how she pushed herself to the fore – in life, in the paper – whenever she could.

  ‘No, Betty,’ Judy said when she finally cranked up the courage to raise the byline issue. ‘This is your exclusive – the Daily Herald never got a squeak out of him when they printed all that stuff a couple of weeks ago, but you got him to talk. It’ll be in all the national newspapers tomorrow.’

  Oh, thought Betty, oh … maybe, at last, the call from Fleet Street!

  ‘Now Betty, pay attention.’ But Miss Fleet Street was looking out of the window, her thoughts many miles away. Already she was making herself at home in the capital city, a seasoned denizen of the Cheshire Cheese and the Old Bell where the thirsty old newshounds hung out.

  ‘Betty!’

  ‘Er … Judy?’

  ‘You see this through the subs and the stone – I’m going over to the Retreat. I want to be there before the nationals get to hear about it. I bet there’s a lot more to this story – unless you’d like to go?’

  Betty didn’t want to break the spell by leaving the office at such a magical moment – Betty Featherstone of the Daily Mail!

  Miss Dimont grabbed her raffia bag and strode up the office, notebook flapping from her coat pocket. It was on occasions such as this that the synthesis of her life – all that had happened before, all that happened now, all that was destined for the future – came together.

  She took the side door out to the car park, where the ever-faithful Herbert awaited her command, so intent upon her mission that she barely noticed it was raining.

  ‘You’re going to get awfully wet,’ said a voice behind her. ‘Want a lift?’

  ‘In that ghastly death trap?’ she said without turning her head, but secretly delighted.

  ‘You can drive if you like,’ said Valentine.

  Their progress in the red bubble car was sedate, but at least it was dry. ‘Shouldn’t you be finishing those proofs?’ Miss Dimont asked sternly once they were under way. ‘The editor won’t like you bunking off without saying where you’re going.’

  ‘All done. And I told John Ross. He was very disappointed with your headline.’

  ‘He can change it if it doesn’t fit. What did he want instead?’

  ‘“Ben Larsson Is Dead”.’

  ‘Oh yes. As in, “The Queen Is Dead”.’

  ‘Just so.’

  ‘The headline he’ll never write.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Either.’

  With difficulty Valentine’s bubble car conquered the steep rise up to Ransome’s Retreat. The view from the drive when they came to a halt was particularly beautiful today: the rain had stopped and, as if in deference to the memory of the recently departed, the cloud-base above the estuary had formed itself into tall pillars which stretched high into the azure sky. One might almost picture St Peter and his welcoming committee at the gates between the pillars, until one recalled that Ben Larsson’s onward journey might be taking him in a different direction – if all those letters of complaint were to be believed.

  Before the reporters lay a familiar sight – a collection of Temple Regis police cars, some in their summer livery of sky blue, others more darkly meaningful in coal black. Uniformed constables stood about the place as if bodysnatchers might come to steal the old inventor away, but the main activity was occurring beyond the massive oak front door.

  ‘Judy Dimont, Riviera Express,’ she chirped brightly at a particularly stony face sweltering away under a large helmet. ‘My colleague Valentine, er, Ford.’

  ‘No press.’

  Such was the standard opening gambit on these occasions, a courtly ritual which had to be danced before Miss Dimont got her way, which she usually did.

  ‘Inspector Topham, I think, is expecting me.’

  ‘Di’n’ mention it.’

  ‘I think you’ll find …’

  ‘G’wan, push off. This is a police matter.’

  ‘Come on, Valentine.’ Miss Dimont strode away from the door and walked round to the side of the house. The copper let them go.

  The corner turned, the reporters stepped through a side door into a long grey hall suffused by the stillness which comes with death. Though people were moving around in a side room, their movements seemed muffled, their conversation deliberately muted.

  ‘D’you really think we should be …?’ An innate decency cautioned Valentine not to step further, but he found himself left behind as Judy launched forward into the centre of activity.

  ‘Faint heart never won fair lady,’ she taunted over her shoulder, and barged into Ben Larsson’s office.

  Frank Topham was going over the train of events with his two henchmen, one of whom was taking notes. On the desk were a handful of Polaroid pictures – a recent addition to the armoury of provincial crime-fighting – but of the body there was no sign.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he snarled. Policeman and reporter had known each other, not entirely cordially, a long time.

  ‘The door was open, so we popped in.’ Judy smiled. ‘How’s everything, Inspector?’ Her junior marvelled at this insouciance, not to say barefaced cheek.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ said the Inspector heavily, ‘we’ve had enough press here for one day. Clear out or I’ll have you arrested for interfering with police work.’

  Miss Dimont turned pale. ‘What press?’ she snapped back. Was the Riviera Express about to lose its scoop to some enterprising freelancer who’d sneaked in and stolen the story from under their noses? Her competitive instincts gathered force and exploded. ‘What press?’

  The Inspector looked hard at her. ‘Miss Dimont, this has been a trying day. Your being here is a hindrance to police investigations. I put a constable on the front door and told him, no press. Yet here you are. I won’t ask again – clear out!’

  ‘What press?’

  The Inspector could hear the rising panic in her voice and rather enjoyed the moment. Rarely did he feel he had the advantage over Miss Dimont.

  ‘Well, for heaven’s sake,’ he chortled, ‘you should know, of all people.’

  ‘Come on, Inspector!’

  The Inspector got out his briar pipe and took some time filling it. Finally, he said, ‘You people down at the Express ought to get your ducks in a row. If I ran my department like you run your newspaper …’

  ‘Who was it, Inspector?’ Miss Dimont was already calculating how she could grab back the exclusive from the magpie who’d stolen it from her.

  ‘Your bloomin’ editor, that’s who. Mr Rhys. He was here when we arrived. He called us in.’

  Miss Dimont turned briefly to Valentine and he could see the stunned look on her face. Almost to herself, she said, ‘Mr Rhys said you had telephoned him. That you had let him know about the death.’

  ‘That’s the press for you, always getting things wrong. Ha!’

  ‘So … Mr Rhys was here when you got here?’

  ‘Ask him. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you himself.’

  What on earth, thought Judy, was her editor – a man who rarely left the office – doing up here at Ransome’s Retreat, and on press day too? It didn’t make sense.

  ‘Can I speak to Mrs Larsson?’

  ‘No. She’s upset, as even you must be able to imagine.’

  The reporter inclined her head ever so slightly to her junior who saw the look in her eye; and, as she started on a full-scale interrogation of the policeman, he slipped away.

  ‘Inspector, we’ve known each other a long time. It would be betraying no confidences to tell you that Mr Rhys is a creature of habit who never leaves his newspaper on t
he day it’s being printed. What on earth was he doing up here?’

  ‘I have no idea. He told me something which I am not permitted to repeat to you.’

  ‘What do you mean, not permitted?’

  ‘Some things are above the law, Miss Dimont, let’s leave it at that. You saw war service, as did I – you’ll know there’s a time to ask questions and a time to keep quiet. This is one of those times.’

  Miss Dimont blinked and shoved the spectacles back up her glorious convex nose. She decided to change tack.

  ‘So the death was an accident? Or was it suicide? I gather Mr Larsson had hooked himself up to the Rejuvenator.’

  ‘Take a look for yourself.’ He pushed the small pile of Polaroid photographs towards the reporter. They showed the body of the great inventor sprawled backwards in his desk chair, one arm hanging limply down while the other seemed to be attached to his head. In each hand were the electronic tubes whose life-enforcing powers had done so much to so many since the Rejuvenator came on to the market. The old man had a puzzled expression on his face.

  ‘You know,’ said Miss Dimont slowly, ‘there are some people who claim that the Rejuvenator killed their loved one. We know that from letters we have seen from Mr Larsson’s office, and also from letters we received at the Express.’

  ‘We had a few of those too,’ said Topham blithely.

  ‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed the reporter. ‘Didn’t you ever feel the need to investigate them?’

  ‘We did. Mr Larsson said people who had injured themselves, or worse, had done so because they hadn’t read the instructions properly. You can’t answer that.’

  ‘So, Inspector. Was it suicide? Or an accident? Or did he,’ she went on, barely suppressing a sardonic laugh, ‘fail to follow the instructions properly?’

  ‘You’ve left out the other possibility,’ said the Inspector massively.

  ‘What?’

  Topham did not reply.

  ‘You mean that someone tampered with the Rejuvenator?’

  ‘There you go, jumping to conclusions like the press always does. I am saying no more.’

  ‘Well, let’s talk about something else then,’ said Miss Dimont with more than a dash of pepper in her voice. ‘The dead woman on the beach at Todhempstead. What’s going on there?’