Death Rope

by Leigh Russell

  The door wasn’t open wide enough to allow Geraldine to enter. There was a smell of fresh paint and a faint sound of scraping, but she couldn’t see what was happening inside.

  ‘Can I come in, Mrs Abbott?’

  ‘What is it you want?’

  Gently Geraldine explained that she had a few questions to ask about Mark.

  The widow shook her head. ‘Mark? You mean, my husband, Mark?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But –’ her face twisted in a bitter grimace, ‘surely they’ve told you? Mark’s dead.’

  Evidently she hadn’t noticed Geraldine at the funeral.

  ‘I know. That’s why I’m here, to ask you about him. It’s just routine,’ Geraldine added quickly.

  ‘Oh well, I suppose you’d better come in.’

  While they were speaking, Charlotte’s stepson appeared in the hallway behind her.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s just someone from the police come to tie up a few loose ends,’ Charlotte replied. ‘Why don’t you go home? I’ll deal with this. Watch out for the wet paint,’ she added, standing aside to let Geraldine to enter.

  Eddy was standing in the hall, a wide brush in his hand, and a pot of paint on the floor beside him. The lower half of the banisters had been given a fresh coat of paint, some of which had dripped on to the carpet.

  ‘You go on home,’ Charlotte repeated.

  ‘This won’t take long,’ Geraldine said. ‘I just want to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘I’ll be back tomorrow evening, mum,’ Eddy said, wiping his brush on a rag. ‘I’ll soon get this job finished.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied. She turned to Geraldine. ‘I couldn’t bear to look at it, knowing…’

  Since Mark’s death was not being investigated as suspicious, there was nothing Geraldine could do to stop his widow painting her hall. All the same, fresh paint could cover up telltale evidence. It might now be impossible to establish who else had been present when Mark had died. If Amanda’s accusation was correct, there could be a sinister reason for Charlotte wanting her hall redecorated.

  After some half-hearted protest Eddy left, with assurances that he would speak to his stepmother first thing in the morning.

  ‘If you’re sure you’ll be OK, mum,’ he said, glancing anxiously at Geraldine.

  ‘Yes, of course. Stop fussing, will you, and get going.’

  Having dismissed her stepson in a fairly peremptory manner, Charlotte led the way into a neat front room. Geraldine refused an offer of tea, and expressed her condolences, conscious that she had to proceed carefully. What Mark’s former colleague had told her at the funeral seemed to support Amanda’s accusation, but Geraldine had no hard evidence to substantiate the suggestion that Mark had been murdered. Not only was she unable to question the widow as though this was a regular interview, but she couldn’t risk any complaint being raised about her visit, which hadn’t been specifically sanctioned by a superior officer. Still unused to working as a sergeant, Geraldine knew she risked getting herself in trouble for allowing her pursuit of the truth to outweigh any other consideration, but once the suspicion of murder had been raised, she couldn’t ignore it. Her life had been dedicated to seeking justice for the voiceless dead. She wasn’t ready to stop.

  ‘What is it you wanted to know?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘Tell me about your husband.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Feeling as though she was fishing around in the dark, Geraldine almost gave up.

  ‘What kind of a man was he?’

  ‘He was – a man. Ordinary. A man, like anyone else. I don’t know what you want me to say.’

  ‘Did he suffer from depression?’

  ‘Oh I see. No, there was nothing like that. He was quite even tempered, cheerful most of the time.’

  Geraldine rephrased her question. ‘Were you surprised by what happened?’

  ‘You mean was I surprised to find he was dead? Well, yes, of course. It was a shock, a dreadful shock, to find him like that…’ Her voice tailed off and she dabbed her nose with a tiny white hanky.

  ‘Yes, it must have been terrible for you. But were you surprised by how he died?’

  ‘If you’re asking me whether I was expecting him to kill himself, no, of course I wasn’t. If I’d had the slightest idea he might have had anything like that on his mind, I would have insisted he got help.’ Charlotte spoke quite clearly, but although her voice was steady, her hands were trembling. ‘Yes, of course I was surprised. More than surprised. I still can’t believe it. But it’s happened and we just have to accept it, don’t we? I mean, there’s no turning the clock back. If only I’d known…’

  She insisted that she could think of no reason why her husband might have decided to kill himself. Geraldine understood that Charlotte might not want to admit that her husband had been suicidal, even if she had known about it, but she thought the widow seemed genuinely shocked by what had happened. Before Geraldine could attempt to probe further, Charlotte burst into tears. After a moment she pulled herself together, and Geraldine sounded her out gently about her husband’s life insurance, but she didn’t seem to know much about it.

  ‘I’ve asked my son to speak to the lawyers about the will and everything,’ Charlotte said. ‘I’m not very good with money and that sort of thing. Mark used to deal with everything like that.’ She looked up at Geraldine and burst out, ‘Why did he do it? He had so much to live for. What reason could he have had for…?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. Charlotte, are you sure you can’t think of any reason why Mark might have wanted to kill himself?’

  ‘Nothing I know about. But he did it,’ she added miserably, ‘so I suppose there must have been a reason.’ She looked directly at Geraldine, her eyes puffy and bloodshot from crying. ‘It’s driving me crazy, not knowing what was going on in his life. I keep asking myself, was it something I did? I thought we were jogging along OK. I didn’t know there was any problem. How could I not have known how unhappy he was? If I’d known, if he’d talked to me, whatever it was, we could have worked it out. But not like this. Not this… please find out what happened. I need to know. Please…’ she broke down in tears, sobbing incoherently.

  Relieved that Charlotte didn’t appear to resent her visit, Geraldine left after promising to let the grieving widow know if she discovered anything more about her husband’s death. What Charlotte had told her seemed to bear out what Mark’s colleague had said at the funeral. A man was unlikely to be planning a holiday, or arranging a tennis match, the night before he was intending to kill himself. Either something unexpected had come up on the day of his death, or he was mentally ill, or his death had not been a suicide at all. Although it wasn’t Geraldine’s place to enquire into the circumstances of Mark’s death, she resolved to continue looking into it for just a little longer. She was committed to ensuring the guilty were brought to trial. That the outcome of such proceedings wasn’t always fair was out of her control. She couldn’t be judge and jury as well as a law enforcer. But her passion for justice had governed her life for so long, she couldn’t walk away from a possibly suspicious death. Because if her suspicions were right, not only had Mark Abbott been murdered but his killer looked set to escape justice.

  6

  She used to complain when he left her alone in the house. She especially hated it when he went out on jobs at night. She never knew who might be outside, watching the house in the darkness. He scoffed at her fears.

  ‘What are you talking about, you daft cow? There’s no one out there. Who’d be interested in you, anyway?’

  Ironically, now that she was never alone in the house, she was more frightened than ever. Since he had brought the beast back with him, she had been living in constant fear. The animal had taken against her right from the start, growling and baring its yellow fangs at her whenever she entered the room. Every time she shrieked at him to keep the monster away from her he laughed, pr
etending to be amused by her terror, but she knew he was scared too. She could see his fear in the way he narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together until they virtually disappeared.

  She begged him to put the dog out in the garden, but he refused. When she tried to insist, he explained that he could get in serious trouble if any of the neighbours spotted a Pit bull crossed with a Rottweiler on the premises. He might even be reported to the police for keeping an illegal dangerous breed, in which case the dog would be taken away from him and he would be fined. So the animal, he said, would remain where it was, chained up in a kennel in the living room. Only rarely had she dared to contradict him, but for once she was too frightened to avoid a confrontation.

  ‘You can’t keep a large dog like that cooped up indoors,’ she protested. ‘It needs daily exercise. Besides, the whole house stinks. It’s filthy. We’ll all get sick. And people are going to notice the smell.’

  ‘What are you talking about? What people? No one comes here.’

  But he looked anxious, and she knew the presence of the dog in the house worried him. The next day he came home with a large cosh, and wound a length of barbed wire carefully around it. Her guts began churning, and she retreated, crying with fear. Ignoring her whimpering, he turned away from her and ran up to the dog. As the animal raised its head, he swiped at it with the stick, hitting the side of its head with a thud. The creature cowered back in its kennel, casting a baleful glare at her. As though any of this was her fault.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she cried out.

  ‘Get out of the way!’ he yelled at her.

  The dog growled, crouching down in its kennel. As it leapt, snapping its jaws, the kennel jolted and jerked forwards. Restrained by its chains, the beast couldn’t reach him. He whacked it again and it drew back. Dashing round behind the kennel, he bent down and began to push. The tendons in his neck bulged as he forced the kennel across the carpet towards the door.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘I told you to get out of the way!’

  Sobbing, she ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her, determined not to come out until the dog had gone. She had no idea what he was planning to do, and she didn’t want to know. Through the door she heard his voice raised, and a lot of banging. Lying on the bed, she rolled herself a spliff. It wasn’t enough, so she swallowed a couple of pills and then pulled a pillow over her head and lay there trembling. Hours seemed to pass before she heard the bedroom door open and felt the bed jolt as he flopped down beside her.

  ‘I’ve done it,’ he said.

  She tossed her pillow aside.

  ‘What you done?’ Even to her own ears, her speech sounded slurred. ‘What have you done?’ she repeated, enunciating her words carefully.

  He waved his forearm in front of her face. ‘Look what that bleeding animal did to me!’

  With horrible fascination, she watched a steady stream of blood trickling down as far as his elbow and then dripping on to the sheet.

  ‘How’d you do that?’

  But she didn’t need to ask. She could see the gashes where vicious teeth had torn at his flesh.

  ‘What have you done with it?’ she whispered, hardly daring to hope. ‘Is it dead?’

  ‘Dead? No. But the kennel got smashed.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘It fell all the way down the stairs. You should’ve seen it. It’s a miracle the bloody dog survived,’ he went on, serious again. ‘Bloody animal did this to me while I was chaining it to the wall. It would never have got me, if it hadn’t caught me off guard. But I was lucky. If I wasn’t so quick, it would’ve killed me.’

  ‘And then it would have come for me,’ she whispered. ‘You got to get rid of it. Please. Get rid of it before it kills us.’

  He told her how he had pushed the kennel, with the dog inside it, all the way across the hall to the cellar door. When it reached the top of the stairs, he hadn’t been able to stop it toppling forwards and falling down into the cellar.

  ‘I thought the dog was dead, but it was just stunned. That’s how it got me.’ He held up his injured arm again. ‘It went batshit crazy. If I’d had a shooter I would’ve put a bullet in its head. Look what it did to me!’ He held his arm up right in front of her face so the blood dripped on to her T-shirt.

  She shuddered and drew back, pressing herself against the wall. ‘Where is it now?’

  He told her the dog was chained up in the cellar.

  ‘Don’t look so scared,’ he said. ’It can’t get out. That chain’s unbreakable.’

  But she knew the filthy brute was there, lurking in the darkness. She told him exactly what she thought about that, alternately pleading with him to get rid of it, and losing her temper with him over it. But nothing she said made any impression on him. When she threatened to leave if he didn’t throw the beast out, he laughed at her.

  ‘Go on then,’ he taunted her. ‘Bugger off. You’re easy to replace. I can get another tart just like that.’ He snapped his fingers in her face. ‘That dog’s a one-off, specially bred to be aggressive. I spent a fucking fortune on it, but it’ll be worth it. You’ll see.’ He leaned forward and growled at her, making her squeal with alarm.

  ‘Don’t do that! Fuck off!’

  He laughed again.

  Weeks later she still hadn’t forgiven him for refusing to get rid of the dog, but there was no point in arguing with him. If she aggravated him, he would raise his fist against her. He was no better than the dog, really. They were both vicious animals.

  7

  The next morning, Geraldine reread the reports on Mark Abbott’s death. Apart from his sister’s unsubstantiated accusations, and a random comment made by one of his colleagues, there was nothing to suggest he had been murdered. Even his widow seemed resigned to the fact that he had taken his own life and just wanted to know why he had done it. The man was dead and buried and there, it seemed, the matter would rest. So when Amanda returned to the police station, Geraldine determined to put an end to her demands. But if anything, Amanda appeared even more het up than she had been on her first visit to the police station. Nostrils flaring, she launched into a tirade before Geraldine had even sat down.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s nearly a week since I was here,’ she began.

  ‘Four days,’ Geraldine corrected her quietly.

  ‘And you’ve not got back to me yet,’ Amanda continued, ignoring the interruption. ‘Why not? This is my brother we’re talking about. I have a right to know what’s going on. I demand to know what’s being done. I won’t be fobbed off with excuses any longer.’

  ‘The reason I haven’t contacted you yet is because there’s nothing to tell you. Rest assured I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I discover anything new,’ Geraldine replied with an air of finality.

  This interview had gone on for long enough.

  ‘Oh no,’ Amanda said. ‘You’re not going to dismiss me out of hand like that. I want to know what you’ve been doing.’

  Geraldine reminded herself that the woman scowling at her across the table was grieving for her brother. Behind her outward show of anger, she was holding back tears that glistened in her eyes. As a single woman, Amanda’s relationship with her brother might have been the only close bond she had with another human being. Shocked and distressed, she must be missing him. But that didn’t alter the fact that Geraldine had nothing to tell her. As far as she knew, Mark had committed suicide.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Amanda insisted. In spite of her loud voice and fierce frown, she sounded plaintive.

  ‘He left a suicide note.’

  ‘It was forged.’

  ‘There’s no proof of that, is there? It’s just a wild allegation.’

  Amanda glared at her. ‘How can anyone prove whether it’s genuine or not when it was typed? But I’m telling you, it’s a forgery.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Because I knew my brother. He would never have killed himself. I know he wouldn’t. You have to believe me.’
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  Geraldine could only reassure her visitor that she would look into the case again, and eventually Amanda left, threatening to return in a few days if Geraldine hadn’t been in touch with her.

  Ariadne’s dark eyes sparkled with amusement when Geraldine voiced her suspicions.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re one of those officers who cry murder every time someone dies? If you had your way, we wouldn’t be able to move for investigations. We’d all be drowning in paperwork. But seriously, Geraldine, you’re not in London now.’

  ‘And no one gets murdered in York?’

  ‘You know that’s not what I meant. Of course people get murdered here. Why else would we be here? I just meant it doesn’t happen as often as in London. And in any case, this guy committed suicide, didn’t he, so it’s got nothing to do with us. That was the conclusion of the pathologist and the investigating team, so I can’t see your problem. And if there’s any doubt, it’ll come out at the inquest.’

  ‘You know very well that by the time there’s an inquest, it will be too late to carry out any kind of investigation. And who’s going to find out about a casual remark made by a colleague after so long?’

  ‘What are you talking about? What casual remark?’

  Geraldine explained that Mark had spent the last evening of his life talking about his holiday plans and arranging a tennis match.

  ‘Well, maybe he didn’t feel like ending it all then,’ Ariadne replied. ‘But clearly he changed his mind by the following day. In any case, people planning to commit suicide often do carry on as usual until they actually kill themselves, otherwise other people would stop them doing it. Honestly, I wouldn’t waste your time on this. No one else is.’

  Geraldine nodded, but she determined to do a little more ferreting around before she let the matter drop. Explaining to Ariadne that she had only followed it up to satisfy Amanda, she couldn’t lie to herself. As an inspector she had been able to pursue her hunches, and colleagues had gradually come to respect her instincts. Now she felt as though she was starting all over again, no longer confident she could even trust herself. But some inner passion drove her on. It could have been a need to prove herself. Whatever her motivation, she decided to proceed with her private investigation, irregular though it was. It was Friday evening, and several of her colleagues were going for a drink at the end of the day. Ariadne invited Geraldine to join them, suggesting they go out for supper together afterwards. Although she was gratified by the friendly overture, Geraldine made her excuses, and set off home to give her attention to a dead man.