Gravestones and obelisks of various stones rose from the ground all around the path to the main door of the church. The older graves with their worn lettering and eroded images could be distinguished from a distance by the same dark local stone, the only thing available before marbles and granites had been imported from other areas to adorn the resting places of the dead.
Weeds squeezed between the cracks in the pathway. Diane always found it amazing that amongst all the death and man’s attempts to control it, the natural world still found a way to get a foothold and take a small piece back for itself.
The main door to the church had always been unlocked when she was younger to allow a place of sanctuary for those that needed it. Dark times could visit a soul at any hour of day or night, and that was the domain of the church to assist in. However, when Diane tried the great iron ring that was the handle, the heavy wood-planked door did not move. A spate of theft over the years had led to the church being locked whenever the vicar or the verger was not in attendance, and it told Diane all she needed to know.
With a sigh, she turned back along the path, heading towards an off-shoot that took her around the perimeter of the church. There was a bench just past the vestry door, and Diane felt the urge to sit for a while and look out over the graves and into the copse of trees beyond.
She had a hard time believing the she had been present at two murders that day as the sparrows whirled in the air and chirped their carefree songs. The tranquillity of the spot belied the confusion and evil beyond, but it was the peace she had needed to start clearing the thoughts and organizing the evidence.
The three women - Mrs. Gilbert, Kendall, and Pitman - had sent a man to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Not an innocent man by all accounts, but not guilty of that particular crime. Thirty years had passed since then, and twenty since the incarcerated man had died. And now someone had come to take revenge upon these women for their own crime.
If it was a lover of Frank Parker, a resident of Apple Mews, then why wait so long to get back at the women? And that person would be in their late fifties or sixties by now. This wasn’t to say that sixty was old in this day and age, but these murders, especially Sally Pitman’s, seemed to be a much younger person’s act.
What of the younger people in the village? Jilly Newman had been there at the first murder, but Diane had known her for years through school and village life. If there was a mean bone in that girl’s body, it was buried very deeply. Tommy Giles delivered groceries to Sally Pitman and would know her house well. Diane knew him well too, and as mischievous as he could often be, she had a hard time equating what she knew of him to a murderer who delayed the crime for decades.
A sliver of white waved from amongst the gravestones and caught Diane’s eye. It broke her concentration and forced her to focus in its direction. A grey gravestone was covered in yellow and purple lichen and from behind it poked a flower whose whiteness gleamed in the sunlight. It seemed to peer at her sheepishly from behind the stone and then, with a flick of the wind, dodged back away from sight, like a child playing hide and seek.
Diane rose from her seat and walked over to the playful flower, mimicry of life in a home for the dead. All around, gravestones stood with no additions, or with withered plants protruding from stone vases. She had to see who had been blessed with such beauty, to see who was so loved even now in death. It lifted her spirits and pushed the darkness of the day’s events behind her.
There was no pathway to the grave, so she stepped carefully around the other graves, her mother having told her of the disrespect shown to those buried if you trampled over their resting places. This section of the graveyard seemed more haphazard than more modern sections that had neat rows of headstones with regular pathways between each. She would step around one grave to be confronted with another that she would skirt around, only to be forced back by yet another grave that slanted in at an angle. She almost tripped over a fallen stone, a crack passing through the name of the dweller with the rest tumbled off behind.
Eventually the flowers came into sight, a delightful collection of daisies and lilies, all as white as if they had been freshly bleached. They lolled from a grate placed beneath the gravestone, catching the wind and dancing back and forth. Diane couldn’t help but smile at the gift, a smile that soured and turned on its head as the name on the gravestone appeared between the stems.
Here lies loving mother and wife,
Dorothy Parker
The recognition of the name triggered a series of memories to come to the fore. The flowers, Diane had seen ones exactly like them earlier, given to Jilly Newman at the baking contest. The son of Frank Parker, he would be in his late twenties now. He’d gone into the foster system, which means he might have changed his name to that of his adopted family. All of the pieces clicked into place, and Diane felt her heart sink.
Frank Parker’s son was with Albert and Mrs. Kendall at that very moment: Constable Martin Jackson.
Chapter 6
The phone seemed to stick in her pocket, the edges becoming wedged at odd angles within the cotton confines. Her shaking hands didn’t help, along with a sheen of sweat that blistered out along her palm and fingers to make her tenuous grip effectively useless.
She strode quickly toward the gateway out of the churchyard, throwing aside her previous care to avoid disrespecting those buried in the expediency of trying to save the living. Her Albert. She had stumbled at the thought of being too late, at losing another man in her life to a criminal act. Even as it slowed her pace, it jostled the phone free of her pocket.
Diane had stared at the colourful display, for once her next step not so clear. Who should she call? She could call the Inspector and have him get the Constable out of the house and clapped in irons. But he could already be running, two elderly corpses littering the rugs. A lump blocked her throat and tears welled in the corners of her eyes at the thought. She had to know that Albert was safe.
With a shaking finger, she hit the button to dial Albert, who smiled out of the screen at her. The picture had been taken when they were on a trip down to Brighton. He had just emptied a shoe of sand, and he seemed quite pleased with himself at having collected so much of the beach in one shoe. “Mount Foot-ji” he had named the pile it had made.
The phone rang once, then again, and again, with no response. Every second her call went unanswered her stomach dropped another inch, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
“Come on Albert,” she said huskily into the mouthpiece. “Pick up the phone. Be…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
A click at the other end and Albert’s voice rang into her ear.
“How do you… what? This one… ah okay,” then a loud click followed by a woman that told her to leave a message after the tone.
Diane’s heart had pounded at his voice only to stop when she realized that she was hearing Albert’s voicemail message. Her legs felt weak, unable to support her weight, and she sat heavily on the bench.
“He could have the ringer off,” she told herself. “Or he’s chatting Penelope’s leg off. Or any number of things.” The reassurance fell short. Lead sat in her limbs, rooting her to the bench as the heavy metal addled her mind.
“No,” she whispered.
The seconds dragged on for hours as the world froze in place, the colours rinsed out into greys and blacks. Her heart stopped, refusing to beat again until the break in it was fixed. Diane was sure she could hear distant singing; angels perhaps, come to take her away from this life. The angels sounded an awful lot like Jerry Lee Lewis, thought Diane.
“Great balls of fire!” the angel wailed.
Colour poured back into the world, and Diane’s heart began thumping again as time cranked back up to speed. That was their little joke, from when Albert had eaten jalapeno cheese balls by mistake, and she had set it as her ringtone for him. The phone was lying in a hearty dandelion by her feet, its leaves partially covering the speaker like it was trying to hide the call.
“Albert,” she cried before the phone was even to her ear.
“You rang?” answered Albert, his usual brusque self when on the phone.
Diane’s breath was caught in her lungs for another second, unable to respond as the relief rushed through her. She knew that she had to get talking; time was of the essence. The danger was still very present. But to hear his voice caused her to savour that moment.
“Hello? Diane? Have you been in the sherry with Mrs. Pitman?”
“Albert. Listen to me, and listen carefully. Reply with yes and no, okay?”
“Oh come on, is this some…”
“Albert!” Diane put on her firmest tone, the one that had made classrooms full of children stop their talking and pay attention. “This is serious. Yes and no, only.”
“Yes,” was the reply from the chastened schoolboy at the other end of the line.
“Good. Now, has the Inspector returned?”
“No.”
“Are the two Constables still there with you?”
“Yes.”
“You can see them both?”
“Yes, about 4 o’clock.”
“So they can hear you talking?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I need you to go get Penelope out of the house, as quietly as you can.”
There was some determined erring from Albert, who didn’t want to break with the yes/no responses.
“Constable Jackson, he’s the murderer Albert. Do you understand?”
“Umm yes.” There was a hesitance to his response that made Diane think that getting Penelope away from Martin Jackson wouldn’t be as easy as she had hoped.
“Do what you can, Albert. I’ll be there with the Inspector as soon as I can. Stay safe. Call me when you have her free.”
“Yes, yes. Bye Diane. Good luck,” said Albert loudly, as he tried to be as nonchalant as possible.
Diane hesitated in hanging up the line until she was sure Albert was gone. She knew that he was still in danger, but now he had been warned and would know what he was getting himself into. The call still left her uneasy, and she rose from the bench and called the Inspector as she strode toward the gate.
♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
“Can I get you gents a cup of tea?”
Albert had stood before the two Constables, unsure of which one he should be concerned about. They both looked like fine young men, as far as appearances went. They stood guard at the bottom of the staircase with Mrs. Kendall in the master bedroom above. The stairs were the only way up and, more importantly to Albert, the only way down. Diane had been pretty clear about getting Mrs. Kendall out of the house and away from a Constable Jackson.
“That would be very nice. Thank you, sir,” replied the slightly taller of the two police officers after a nod from the other.
“Right-oh, I’ll get the kettle on.”
Heading down the hallway to the kitchen, the bead curtain clacking closed behind him, Albert tried to think of a plan. He was sure Diane would have been much better about this sort of thing with all of her reading and writing of crime novels. There always seemed to be some scrape that had to be gotten out of with a cunning plan. He filled the kettle and, plugging it into its base, flicked on the power switch. Without warning, he found himself whistling a tune of his own devising.
“All the better to seem at ease, I suppose,” he thought to himself giving a shrug and really getting into the tune with some fancy vibrato.
The kettle rumbled after a few minutes, its whistle joining with his in an impromptu harmony, yet Albert was no closer to a devious plot. He grabbed the ceramic teapot that he had already become familiar with, being the cause of most of the brown droplet stains around the spout and a chip in the lid that he would deny all knowledge of if asked. Plopping a couple of teabags in through the top, he added the boiling water, closing the lid over it, and went about some serious thinking while the tea steeped.
He had to find out which Constable was the one with the homicidal tendencies, as he could then enlist the help of the other in protecting Mrs. Kendall. And once Diane got in touch with the Inspector, he would have a much easier time convincing the other Constable. He just had to make sure Mrs. Kendall stayed safe until then. Maybe it would just be better to barricade her into the bedroom until help arrived? That would certainly be easier than battling a fit young man. There was always nice heavy stuff in a bedroom to put behind the door, like wardrobes and dressing tables.
He slammed a few cabinets, rattling four mugs as he pulled them down to the countertop along with a small plate on which he placed several bourbon biscuits that he had found in his earlier rummagings. Nothing says everything’s fine like a cup of tea and a biscuit.
He filled the cups to brimming with tea and a splash of milk.
“Can one of you lads give me a hand?” he called back down the hallway. After a moment, the beads parted for the Constable that had spoken earlier. “Grab hold of those, if you would.” Albert motioned with his head as one hand was holding two mugs of tea that were dripping down the side, and the other held the plate of biscuits that had a bowl of sugar cubes balanced on top.
“Just these two?”
“Yep, thanks Constable…” Albert hesitated, waiting for the blank space to be filled.
“Jenkins,” obliged the other man. “Dan Jenkins.”
“Are you from around here, Dan?” asked Albert as he led the way back to the staircase.
“Transferred into Shrewsbury a year ago. Wife got a job up there with social services.”
“How’d you like it?”
“Pretty quiet most of the time, unless you count Saturday nights. Nothing like this goes on very often.”
They arrived at the base of the stairs, and Dan handed a cup over to who Albert assumed was Martin Jackson, killer in disguise. Albert offered them both the hand with the biscuits and sugar, urging them to take whatever they needed.
“I’ll just nip this upstairs to Mrs. Kendall,” said Albert as he pushed past Martin Jackson and mounted the stairs. “She’s going to need some distraction, poor woman.”
Both officers nodded their thanks as they dunked their biscuits and went about their sentry duties.
One step after another, his heart began to race faster as he climbed to where the next part of his plan would take place. If he could get into the room, he was pretty certain he could hold off any intruder until the Inspector and Diane arrived.
♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
Diane strode through the streets trying to get to Sally Pitman’s house as quickly as possible. She had tried calling the Inspector and the one time that it rang, she was pretty certain he had refused her call. The rest of the time was busy signal after busy signal. She knew that he had two murders on his plate, but she was starting to get irritated, with the busy signal, with the Inspector, and with herself for not being able to get to him faster. Albert was within the viper’s range, and the only way she could think to get him away was through a phone that couldn’t connect.
The trees and houses were a blur around her. Her vision was locked ahead on where she needed to go, and nothing was going to distract her - unless Albert called and said they were safely away from the house. Only then could she at least relax a little until the Constable was in custody.
♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
The bedroom door was shut, and Albert knocked a couple of times with his foot, nearly spilling the tea onto his leg. There was a muffled sound from beyond, and he waited for a moment out of courtesy, but no one came to open the door. With his elbow, he pushed down on the handle and leaned in with his shoulder, seconds away from a tea and biscuits disaster. After some jostling the door gave, and Albert knocked the door backward.
A woman sat on the end of a neatly made bed, pink flowered duvet draped over a lace trim that ran around the bed skirt. She was looking into a mirror that was mounted on the wall opposite, her eyes hollow with shimmering tracks down her face. Her hair was a mess from fingers passed
through it one too many times. She looked haunted, a woman in despair. Her reflection looked up at Albert and mouthed rather than spoke, “What do we do?”
Albert took a step into the room and froze. Wardrobes and closets of light wood lined the wall around the mirror, which sat above a dressing table covered in bottles of various sizes. There would have been more than enough furniture to block the door for a year if they weren’t all fitted and fastened directly to the wall itself. None of the wardrobes were going anywhere.
He looked at the bed and night stands. They were attached, the headboard spanning out either side of the bed to encompass the sparse nightstands. He stepped forward and lifted the bed skirt with a toe and saw no gap underneath, the wood of the bed going all the way to the floor. The furniture in the room was so secure it could have been fitted in a sailing ship.
“Well, time for plan B,” he said. “Whatever that might be.”
♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
Diane stormed past the parked police car, its lights flashing blue around the white walls of the cottages. A uniformed officer on the gate stopped her from passing, a hand passing over the closed gate to restrain her from coming closer.
“This is a crime scene, mada…”
“I know it’s a crime scene. I was with the Inspector when he discovered it. I need to talk to him immediately.”
“Inspector Crothers is very busy ri…”
“Of course he is! But I have some new evidence that he needs to hear.”
“I’m sure you do, mada…”
“Don’t madam me, young man. Get me Inspector Crothers right this instant or you’ll be responsible for another murder. Maybe more than one.” Diane had stepped back from the gate but fixed the officer in a gaze he found uncomfortable. He had the look of someone that would rather be in the autopsy room than barring the way of this woman.
“I’ll, err…” said the officer hesitatingly. “I’ll see if the Inspector is free.” He turned away from the gate and moved towards the front door. Almost as a second thought, he looked over his shoulder and said, “Please don’t come past the gate, miss.” It wasn’t a command; it had the tone of a plea from a small boy.
The Diane Dimbleby Murder Collection Volume 2 Page 6