by Granger, Ann
The bus service to Weston St Ambrose was notional. A bus made the round trip there, through several other smaller places, twice a day. Alfie had to huddle in a corner of the bus shelter until it came. It had begun to rain. He was hungry, wet, frightened, disappointed and in pain. The driver didn’t want to let him on at first. ‘I live at Weston!’ protested Alfie. ‘How am I going to get home? I’ve had an accident.’
‘You’ll bleed all over the seats,’ said the driver unsympathetically.
‘For Pete’s sake, Darren, you know me!’ Alfie pleaded. ‘And I’m not bleeding much now. It’s stopped.’
‘Yeah, I know you. I let you on my bus one time when you’d had a skinful and you threw up all over the floor. It stank the place out, even after the cleaners got in, for a week.’
‘I’m not drunk, Darren, I had a fall.’
Clearly Darren didn’t believe that, but he did allow him on the bus at last, with instructions to sit right at the back. All the other passengers squeezed themselves into the front seats.
His mother was not at home when he let himself into the house. He had no idea when she might return. It could be late, or even the next day. When he was a school kid she’d done the same. He’d come home in the late afternoon and there would be no one there. Occasionally, if she remembered, she’d leave a note and something in the fridge for his tea. More often than not, there had been no note and no food. He would scavenge around for anything to eat: biscuits, cornflakes if there was any milk or even eaten in dry handfuls, peanuts. Once he’d retrieved some dry old bread from the back garden, thrown out for the birds.
When she eventually reappeared she would atone by bringing home fish and chips or pizza, hamburgers and cola, and he’d gorge himself. She had not been so much a neglectful mother as an absent-minded one. When she’d been enjoying herself, wherever she was, she’d simply forgotten about him. But she’d never turned him away, not after he’d started getting into trouble, nor after the police started turning up regularly at the house to look for him, or started searching the place for his hidden stash of grass or other drugs. ‘It’s your home, ain’t it?’ she’d said once.
Now he was glad of her absence. He went upstairs, pulled off his bloodstained upper clothing and stowed it in a supermarket carrier bag to be disposed of later. Then he ran the taps in the washbasin and sluiced away the blood. He peered into the mirror and groaned. His nose had swollen to clown-like proportions and appeared to veer to one side. His upper lip was split. He waggled a front tooth. It was loose.
Behind him, the bathroom door swung open. Against the noise of running water he’d not heard her return.
‘Now what have you done, you stupid little bugger?’ she asked in maternal concern. ‘And don’t think I’m going to clean that washbasin after you. Look at the mess!’
Chapter 20
Jess came into the interview room where Muriel sat facing Carter across the table and Phil Morton lurked in the background. Carter looked up and raised his eyebrows in question. Jess nodded.
For the benefit of the tape recorder, Carter said, ‘Inspector Campbell has just come into the room.’
Jess took a seat beside him. ‘Miss Pickering,’ she said, ‘the implement called a priest that I removed from your garden shed has been sent to the forensics laboratory.’
‘Do what you like with it!’ Muriel shrugged and gazed past her towards Morton, stationed by the opposite wall. ‘I recognise you,’ she informed him. ‘You’re the policeman who first came to talk to me at Mullions.’
‘Miss Pickering has indicated Sergeant Morton,’ said Carter to the tape recorder.
This had the effect of attracting Muriel’s attention to the recorder. ‘It’s like a person,’ she mused, ‘just sitting there, listening to us.’
‘Would you like to tell us about the fire at Key House?’ Carter invited.
‘Fire?’ Muriel was still staring thoughtfully at the tape recorder.
Carter glanced briefly at Jess. It had been obvious, during the journey here from Ivy Lodge, where a protesting Hamlet had been left with Poppy Trenton, that Muriel’s previous loquaciousness was giving way to an introspective taciturnity. Was she now going to refuse to admit to anything? Perhaps it had been a tactical mistake to stop off at the Trentons’. Roger, thank goodness, hadn’t been there, but Poppy had been so dismayed at the situation and Hamlet made such desperate efforts to follow his mistress that it was possible the reality of what she faced had come home to Muriel for the first time.
‘Miss Pickering,’ she asked, ‘did you set fire to Key House?’
Muriel stopped studying the tape recorder to look at her. ‘The problem with you people,’ she said, ‘is that you go about things in the wrong order. You always want to know what happened last, when you haven’t heard what happened first. How can you understand what happened later, if you don’t know what happened before?’
‘You’ve told us what happened before,’ Carter pointed out. ‘You told us about the drunk-driving incident involving Gervase Crown, as a result of which your dog, Warwick, died.’
‘You also mentioned the later accident in which Petra Stapleton was badly injured,’ Jess added. ‘You said you felt a moral responsibility for that. Would you like to go on from there?’
‘All right,’ said Muriel, amenable now that things were progressing in what she felt was the right order. ‘After that second accident, when that poor young girl’s life was ruined, Gervase went to jail. He didn’t go for nearly long enough in my book; they let him out halfway through his sentence. Sebastian took it badly. His precious family name was damaged and, with it, his social standing in the community. That meant a lot to him. He didn’t like other chaps at the golf club looking embarrassed when he hove into view. He even gave up playing for a while; Poppy told me that. He’d also been put under an obligation to me and that must really have bugged him. He didn’t trust me to keep my side of the bargain. I wouldn’t have welched, mind you. I’d given him my word and I’d have kept it. He’d lost his wife (through his own fault, mind you!). Now, in a sense, he’d lost his son. One would have felt sorry for anyone else in his situation. But I didn’t feel sorry for him because he carried the major share of the responsibility. He’d brought every darn thing on himself. He shouldn’t have kept buying Gervase those fast cars. Then Sebastian upped and died while Gervase was still doing time. He had a heart attack. You’ll have to ask Trenton if you want the detailed description of that.’
‘Roger Trenton?’ Carter and Jess spoke together.
‘That’s the one. Fate has a way of having the last word. Sebastian had finally got up enough courage to reappear at the golf club. Roger Trenton, Dr Layton and Sebastian Crown were playing a threesome together. They’d finished and walked back to the clubhouse, and went to the bar. There, without any warning, Sebastian fell forward into his gin and tonic and that was that. Layton, who was his doctor, was right there on hand but couldn’t help.’ Muriel paused. ‘That’s pretty well how Poppy told me about it. You can check with her. Does it matter? He died.
‘Gervase came out of jail early because his father had died. Compassionate grounds, they call it. He didn’t get any sympathy around here and soon found he wasn’t welcome back in the area. It couldn’t have surprised him. The sight of young Petra in a wheelchair must have been uncomfortable for him, too. So he went travelling again. He’d done a bit of that when he was younger, before he started driving fast cars. This time he ended up in Portugal where, we heard, he’d bought a home and settled. Key House was emptied out and we all expected it to be sold. But it wasn’t. It stayed there, an attraction for every ne’er-do-well in the area.’ Muriel’s expression sharpened. ‘Roger Trenton would have you believe he kept an eye on Key House. How could he? He can’t even see it from where he lives. But I could. If anyone kept an eye on Key House, it was me!’
‘How did you do that? Your house, Mullions, is in Long Lane,’ Jess pointed out. ‘Mullions isn’t visible from Key House. I couldn�
�t see it when I was there. I was surprised to come on Mullions when I turned into Long Lane. So, like Roger, you couldn’t see Key House from your home either. Do you mean you checked out Key House when you walked your dog?’
‘Jumping the gun again!’ Muriel told her. ‘No, you couldn’t see Mullions from ground level at Key House. I can’t see Key House from my front gate or garden. But I haven’t been keeping an eye on it from ground level. You remember that Mullions has a pigeon loft up on the roof? It looks like a tower.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Jess admitted.
‘Well, then, that’s my observation post. I’ve been climbing up there pretty well every day, partly to see how the roof is holding up because it’s going to need some more repairs soon, but also to take a look round the countryside. I’ve got a good view of Key House from up there.’ Muriel gave her a triumphant smile, sat back and folded her arms. ‘So I watched out for activity at Key House. I saw ’em come and go, drug users, hippies, odds and sods of all kinds. It was in my interest to know who was sleeping there or using the place. I had to be on my guard. I’m on my own at Mullions. I was afraid some of them might wander up Long Lane and see Mullions and try and break in. They might think it empty, just like Key House.’
Carter was growing restless. ‘Why did you set fire to Key House?’
‘You’re as bad as she is,’ Muriel told him. ‘I haven’t got that far, nor have I admitted to setting fire to the place.’
‘Did you?’ prompted Jess.
‘Later, I did. Hang on a bit. I’ll have to explain how it came about. If I’d just wanted to set fire to it, I could have done it any time. Perhaps I should have done.’ Muriel frowned. ‘That would have taken care of it. I wish I had thought of burning it down. But I didn’t do anything. I thought that eventually it would be sold, although as it began to deteriorate it was a problem as to who would want to take it on! Trenton kept writing to the council, a waste of time. I just watched the house crumble. But I kept up my observation because from time to time all kinds of undesirables continued to turn up there, drinking and doing drugs too, as I told you. I kept waiting for the “for sale” notice to go up, and it never did. Then, one day not all that long ago, I met Poppy and she told me something really strange. She said she thought she’d seen Gervase Crown at the house. She wasn’t sure because the light hadn’t been good and she hadn’t seen Gervase for a long time. But she was eighty per cent sure.
‘I went back to Mullions and camped out in the pigeon loft. Sure enough, a couple of days later, I saw him with my own eyes, or I thought it was Gervase. I saw him again a few days after that. I said to myself, the blighter is looking the place over with a view to moving back in again! He’s keeping a low profile because he knows he’s not Mr Popular. But he’s coming back. I was so angry. After all the trouble he’d caused, to even think of returning to live among us!’
Muriel paused but this time they didn’t make the mistake of trying to hurry her. ‘After that, I didn’t see him for a week or two. I thought, good: he’s gone back to Portugal. Then we had some rain, quite heavy. I was worried about the roof. I took to going up to the attics and the pigeon loft at all hours to check for leaks if it was raining again, middle of the night sometimes. One evening I saw a light flickering in Key House. Usually, that’s meant another bunch of dropouts, often Alfie Darrow and his pals, has taken over for a few hours to have one of their parties. I’d had enough. I went down to the shed and got the priest. It was the best thing I could think of for a weapon. I wasn’t going to attack anyone!’ Muriel glared at them. ‘I took it for self-defence. If they were doing drugs, or drunk, or both, they could turn very nasty. But I was going to tell them to clear out, even so, or I’d phone the police.’
‘Perhaps,’ Carter couldn’t resist telling her, ‘you should have phoned the police straight away and not gone yourself.’
‘And how long would it have taken your lot to come out?’ enquired Muriel sarcastically. ‘Key House is private property and trespass isn’t something you coppers worry about. You probably wouldn’t have turned up before the morning, if you’d turned up at all!’
There was, regrettably, an element of truth in that. If more serious incidents had been reported that night, a breakin to a vacant and unfurnished house would have been given low priority.
‘So I went,’ said Muriel. ‘If I’d seen Alfie, I’d have faced him. He knows me. Even with his mates to back him up, he’d have been careful of me. If I hadn’t been able to see Alfie, I would probably have just turned tail and gone back home again. I wouldn’t have faced complete strangers. But, when I got down there to the house, I saw a car parked up under the hedge, a Clio. I crept up to the house and peeped in through a window. Whoever it was, it was just one person. He was walking around from room to room, flashing a torch about. When he turned, the beam fell across his face and I saw him. I thought it was Gervase, back again, just as Poppy had told me she thought he was. I decided to give him a piece of my mind. I knew how to get in. There’s a window catch broken at the rear of the building. I believe Roger Trenton reported it to Reggie Foscott and he sent someone over to board the window up. But the boards were pulled out again, probably by Alfie and his crew. So I clambered through there and went to look for Gervase.’
Muriel paused. ‘I still only meant to tell him to clear off, tell him he wasn’t wanted and ask why the hell he didn’t put the house up for sale. He was in the kitchen. He seemed to be taking a lot of interest in the fitted cabinets in there. Going to have a new kitchen put in, are you? I thought – and I just saw red. All of it, Warwick’s death, Petra being left in a wheelchair, the way he’d left the house empty to be used by any old miscreant. Even the things that had happened before that … Sebastian’s appalling treatment of Amanda. That was not Gervase’s fault, but the Bible says the sins of the fathers are visited on the children. All in all, I thought to myself, you are bad news, Gervase Crown, and if you come back here, there will be more mischief, more sorrow, more lives ruined. You are not going to live here again! I’ll stop you. I marched up behind him and hit him with the priest and down he went. I hit him again for good measure. He lay still.’
Muriel frowned. ‘I sobered up a bit after that. I don’t mean I was drunk. I’d only had a couple of glasses of elderflower that evening. I meant, my head cleared and I realised what I’d done. I’d killed him.’
‘What made you think you’d killed him?’ asked Carter.
‘I shone the torch on him. He was absolutely still, eyes shut, mouth open a bit. I hoped he was only unconscious, so I put my face close to his but I couldn’t feel any breath. I shook him and slapped his face to bring him round, but his head fell back like a rag doll’s. I even had a go at the kiss of life!’ Muriel leaned forward to make sure they got the point of how much she’d tried. Then she sat back and heaved a sigh. ‘I’d never tried it before and only read about it, and might have seen pictures on First Aid posters. I’d never seen a demonstration or had a go, even on a dummy, and these things aren’t as easy as they try to tell you. So next I tried finding his pulse and couldn’t. He looked and appeared in every way as dead as a doornail to me. I thought, he’s a goner, so now what, Muriel? I decided that as I’d got rid of Gervase – I still believed it was Gervase – I’d finish the job and get rid of the house as well. I went back out through the window at the rear and I saw the car parked there again. The keys were in it. I drove it back to Long Lane, past Mullions and parked it in the coppice further down the lane. Nobody goes down there so I thought it wouldn’t be seen and I’d have time to get rid of it somewhere later. Then I went to my garage, put some petrol in a plastic bottle and took it back to Key House with me. I sprinkled it all round the kitchen and put a match to it – and that was that.’
She paused. ‘I didn’t think the whole place would go up quite so quickly, but it did – whoosh! I must say that, at the time, it was very satisfying. Later on, I found out I killed the wrong fellow. It wasn’t Gervase in the house that night; it w
as some other man. Poppy had been wrong about seeing him as she told me,’ finished Muriel resentfully. ‘She got me all worked up about Gervase returning, and he hadn’t!’
‘Nor had you killed the intruder at Key House with the priest,’ Carter told her. ‘He wasn’t dead, Muriel, even though you thought so. In the circumstances, in the dark, and lacking first-aid skills, it’s hardly surprising you didn’t find a pulse. But if you’d called an ambulance, they’d have taken care of him. However, you left him there and the fire killed him.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Muriel. ‘I really am. I did my best at the time. It’s like I was telling you. When things start going wrong, they carry on going wrong, just piling up, one on top of another. But they begin long before they appear to happen. You say I left that man to die in the house. But I was there in the house – and he, the Italian, was there in the house that night – because Gervase Crown had left the house empty for so long, giving us all such worry. So why don’t you blame him?’
She leaned forward suddenly and declared, ‘Not even my plan for getting rid of the Clio went right, you know? I meant to drive it out into the countryside somewhere the next day and abandon it, perhaps set fire to that, too. But the fire crews arrived very quickly and they stayed for nearly the whole of the day immediately following. The police turned up too because the body hadn’t burned away to nothing, as I hoped it might. So I couldn’t move the Clio.’ She gazed sorrowfully at Jess. ‘I did hope the fire would have burned the body completely, you know. It was so fierce! They cremate dead bodies and it all goes away, or nearly all of it except for a few bits of bone. They put those through a crusher because there’s nothing more they can do with them. I thought that’s what would happen with any fragments left at the house. When I walked down there with Hamlet, and saw you and that idiot Trenton, I learned that the body was more or less intact! Badly charred but still a proper body. That was a nasty shock.