Ten Year Stretch

by Martin Edwards

  ‘You’ll arrest Michael, won’t you?’

  ‘Why are you so sure he’s responsible?’

  Something like a blush appeared under the remaining powder on Mrs Paynton’s face, creating a blotchy effect. ‘I had to dismiss him a week or so ago. We had words and—and, well, he became rather heated. It was all rather unpleasant.’

  ‘Why did you sack him?’

  ‘His work wasn’t up to scratch. I didn’t like his manner, either. Very surly.’

  ‘The constable will want to know all about him, I’m sure—his surname, where he lives, and so on.’

  ‘But I’ve no idea where he lives. I suppose Mrs Franks would know. But she’s in Bournemouth now, with her daughter.’ Mrs Paynton moistened her lips and glanced at her watch. ‘Oh, look at the time. Lunch will be ruined…and Sylvia won’t be long now. I really don’t want her seeing this. So unpleasant. We could dig it up, I suppose, though that would make a terrible mess of the lawn.’

  ‘Better not,’ Thornhill said. ‘Let the constable see it as it is. I’m assuming you do want to report it?’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing,’ she said pettishly. ‘To you.’

  ‘You’ll need to do it officially, I’m afraid. I’m just advising.’ He tried to make a joke of it. ‘As you see, I’m not exactly dressed for work. Why not cover it up with some sacks or an old blanket? That would do for the time being.’

  ‘Sacks? I suppose we might have some in there.’ She gestured towards the garage, a freestanding building by the fence, set back from the house, with a short concrete drive leading up from the road to its double doors. ‘Would you mind? I’m not really dressed for a garage. And it’s rather grubby in there. We don’t keep a car but the oil from Mr Franks’s seems to have got everywhere.’

  A thought occurred to him. It was none of his business but he found himself saying, ‘Why didn’t you notice this before? The letters must have been visible before today.’

  ‘I told you—we’ve been away. Sylvia’s not strong, and she’s been off-colour because her dog ran away, so I took her down to a hotel on the Gower. Just for a few days. Nothing like sea air, is there? We only got back last night.’ Mrs Paynton glared at the five-letter word. ‘I didn’t see it until this morning. Luckily Sylvia’s bedroom’s at the front of the house. So she hasn’t seen it.’

  Thornhill glanced at his own watch. It was already half past twelve. If he didn’t get a move on, he would be late for lunch.

  ‘Please,’ she said, fluttering gloved fingers close to his arm, threatening unwanted intimacy. ‘It’ll only take a minute. Sylvia will be back from Sunday School at any moment.’

  He smiled and said of course he would. It would be churlish to refuse such a small request. Besides, he had young daughters of his own, and he wouldn’t like them to come home and find that five-letter word on the lawn.

  They walked slowly towards the house—Mrs Paynton wasn’t built for haste—to collect the key. On the way they passed the rose bed and she threw it a glance.

  ‘Just look at those weeds. What was Michael doing with his time?’

  She collected the key from the kitchen. Thornhill followed her down the path to the garage. Dandelions and groundsel sprouted between the concrete slabs. They could do with some of that weedkiller.

  The sun beat down on Thornhill’s bare head and on Mrs Paynton’s Sunday hat. The hat had a flower attached to its band, which bobbed up and down as she walked. Sherry, he thought, then the ritual of carving, then lunch itself. His mouth filled with saliva at the very thought of it.

  Mrs Paynton led him to the garage’s back door. She pushed the key into the lock and twisted it. She turned the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. The wood had warped and the door stuck. She tugged harder, but still the door resisted her.

  ‘Let me,’ Thornhill said.

  At the same moment, Mrs Paynton tried again. The door flew open with such force that it took both of them by surprise. She recoiled and collided with Thornhill. The impact was padded but substantial, like a collision with an armchair. He staggered backwards and almost fell.

  The smell swept out to meet them.

  You never grow used to it, Thornhill thought, however often it comes your way. You can almost see it, as well as smell and taste it, like a cloud of flies shimmering in the air. More often than not, there are real flies as well. As there were here.

  Retching, Mrs Paynton put on a surprising turn of speed and retreated to the relatively pure air near the rose bed. She stood with her back to the garage, her shoulders heaving.

  Thornhill filled his lungs and covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief. He stood in the doorway. Warm, fetid air brushed his cheek.

  The garage was a solid affair built of brick, with a pitched roof open to the rafters and a metal window whose glass was opaque with dirt and cobwebs. There was no ventilation other than the open door.

  The space around the walls was in the process of silting up with the debris that accumulates over the years in an outbuilding—a wheelbarrow, a lawn mower, a stepladder, a variety of tools and paintbrushes, cans, and packets. In the middle of the floor were rows of greasy planks running parallel to the garage doors. A previous owner had installed an inspection pit so he could tinker with the underside of his car.

  Thornhill registered all this in a blink of an eye. The flies were hovering over something in the corner to his left. The wheelbarrow was there, propped against the back wall.

  He lifted the barrow aside. There was a bundle of black fur on the floor. The flies swirled above it, making their sinister music.

  For a long moment he stared at the small dog. It was a cocker spaniel, a bitch. It was lying on its back, its legs splayed as if waiting for someone to tickle its belly. Around its head was a puddle of vomit. Beside it were an empty bowl and a tin of Chappie lying on its side.

  ‘Oh…’ whimpered Mrs Paynton, appearing at his shoulder, with her hand over her mouth. She peered past him. ‘It’s—it’s Flossie.’

  He turned and pushed her gently back, into the garden. ‘Your dog?’

  ‘Yes. Is she…?’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s dead, Mrs Paynton.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Here’s Sylvia.’

  Thornhill’s first thought was that this couldn’t be Sylvia. Mrs Paynton had talked of her daughter in a way that had led him to expect a fragile little thing wearing long white socks, aged somewhere between his own daughters.

  The mention of Sunday School had reinforced this image. At the age of ten, his elder daughter, Elizabeth, had attended the St John’s Sunday School, under protest, for a few months. She had made herself so objectionable about the experience that Edith had allowed her to leave.

  Even now, Elizabeth was still a child, whatever she herself might think. But Sylvia Paynton was a young woman. Like her mother, she was well-built, with a square, heavy-featured face. She was dressed conservatively for church and carried a Prayer Book in one hand and her handbag in the other.

  ‘Hello, Mother,’ she said as she came up the drive. ‘I’m starving!’ Her eyes flickered towards Thornhill. ‘When’s lunch?’

  ‘It’ll be a little late, dear,’ said Mrs Paynton, advancing towards her child with her hands outstretched. ‘I’m afraid something upsetting has happened…Our poor, poor Flossie.’

  Sylvia stared blankly at her mother. ‘Has she—has she come back?’

  ‘Yes…in a way…I’m afraid she’s dead.’

  Sylvia’s face was the colour of suet. Her eyes slid down to the right. ‘But…but I don’t understand.’

  ‘Come into the house, darling.’

  The girl licked her lips. ‘Can’t I see her and say good-bye?’

  ‘Not now.’ Mrs Paynton gestured at Thornhill. ‘This is Inspector Thornhill. You remember nice Mrs Thornhill at church? He’s her husband. He says it’s better you d
on’t see her, not just now. He needs to check one or two things.’

  As she was speaking, she took her daughter by the elbow and urged her towards the back door. Thornhill shut and locked the garage door. He followed them.

  At the house, Mrs Paynton glanced back at him. ‘Probably best to leave us alone for a moment or two, Inspector. If you don’t mind.’ She lowered her voice. ‘The poor thing is very sensitive. But please don’t go.’ Her eyes flickered. ‘There’s still this other matter.’

  Thornhill’s stomach rumbled. The possibility of his being home for lunch had receded to the point of invisibility. He stood for a moment on the lawn, staring at the five-letter word, and then went back to the garage.

  Once inside, with his handkerchief clamped over his mouth and nose, Thornhill walked slowly around the walls. The blades of the lawnmower were encrusted with dried grass. On the shelf above was an open bag of sodium chlorate. Beyond it was the watering can, still with half an inch of liquid in the bottom. There was a spade leaning on the wall. He crouched to examine it more closely. The iron blade was dark and pitted.

  At last he looked directly at the spaniel’s body. Her eyes were open. Rats and maggots had found her. One way or another, the dead become a feast for the living.

  He touched the tin with his finger so he could look inside. There were maggots in there, too, feeding on what was left of the meat. Dislodging the tin also revealed a few grains of white powder on the floor.

  Thornhill looked around the garage again. He let the handkerchief drop and sniffed. The smell made him almost lightheaded. Or was it the hunger? How much smell did one dead dog make?

  Desperate for fresh air, he went back outside. Mrs Paynton was by the back door, smoking a cigarette. For a moment she didn’t see him. He watched her jabbing the cigarette between her lips again and again, taking fast, jerky puffs, as if she couldn’t inhale the tobacco fast enough.

  When she saw him, she threw the cigarette away and almost ran towards him. ‘I’ve put her to bed with a couple of aspirin and a hot-water bottle,’ she hissed. ‘I’ll take her up some cocoa in a moment. The poor girl. She was already shattered, after helping with the Mixed Infants at Sunday School. And now this. How she loved that dog. We both did.’

  ‘Did you ever feed it in the garage?’

  ‘Flossie? No—in the back porch.’

  ‘Someone fed her in the garage. A tin of Chappie.’

  She swallowed. ‘You don’t think…?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That Michael might have…poisoned her?’

  He shrugged. ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘Ten days ago? Two weeks? I reported it to the police a day or two later.’

  ‘May I use your phone?’ Thornhill said.

  ‘Of course.’ Mrs Paynton took a shuddering breath. ‘You mean it was Michael all the time? And he killed her with the same weedkiller he used on the lawn? The wicked, wicked man.’

  The ting of a bicycle bell announced the arrival of reinforcements. PC Porter was at the gate. Thornhill beckoned him into the drive.

  Porter propped his bicycle against the side of the house. He was a large young man with a face like a ham.

  ‘Sergeant Kirby’s on his way up, sir,’ he said. ‘And Sergeant Fowles said he’d ring Mrs Thornhill and tell her not to wait lunch.’

  Thornhill nodded to the garage. ‘There’s a dead dog in there. Stinks to high heaven.’ He pointed to the five-letter word on the lawn. ‘And someone got trigger-happy with the weedkiller over there. Do you have a torch on you, by any chance?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Porter patted his tunic pockets. ‘I’ve got some matches.’

  ‘They’ll do. Cover your nose and mouth when we go in.’

  Thornhill unlocked the door. When they were both inside, he locked it behind them. Porter stared at the dog.

  ‘I want to have a look down there,’ Thornhill said, pointing at the planks over the inspection pit. ‘Give me the matches, will you?’ Then, as it was never wise to take anything for granted with Porter, ‘Don’t touch anything unless I tell you.’

  Whoever had built the pit had done a tidy job. The planks were flush with the surrounding concrete floor and butted neatly against its edges. Near the back door, however, the concrete frame was indented, to simplify the removal of the two end planks.

  Thornhill crouched at one end and gestured to Porter to do the same at the other. They lifted out the first two planks.

  How much smell did one dead dog make? Was the smell worse now? It was hard to tell.

  Thornhill took out a match. Porter’s heavy breathing was as loud as the buzzing of the flies. The match scraped along its box. He cupped the flame and lowered it into the cavity below the planks. He opened his hands and the fitful light filled some of the darkness below.

  It bounced back from the dull chrome of a handlebar, and briefly illuminated fabric, probably Army surplus khaki. The match burned his fingers and went out. A few sparks fell into the pit.

  He lit another match. This time he glimpsed the pale blur of what had once been a face at the far end of the pit. There was a faint, frantic rustling as at least one small creature scurried away from the light.

  Thornhill’s stomach lurched. Oh, yes, he thought. The dead are a feast for the living.

  It was stifling in here. The station was wrapped in its Sunday calm. The clock on the wall ticked away, relentlessly marking the passage of time towards an unknown destination.

  Through the open door of his room, Thornhill stared the length of the CID Office. Vacant chairs waited beside desks heaped with files and family photographs. The ashtrays were clean. The wastepaper baskets were empty. The office looked unreal, which matched the way he was feeling.

  His in-tray was full. While he was waiting he should do something useful with the time. But he couldn’t be bothered. Perhaps he was sickening with something. That would be all too typical at the beginning of a week’s leave.

  Thornhill closed his eyes, shutting out the CID Office. He tried to match the evidence so far with the possibilities, to make logical or at least probable connections between them. But heat and hunger turned his mind into a murky liquid where indistinct shapes swam like carp in a pond. Rational thought was out of the question.

  The phone jangled on his desk. He seized the receiver. The Bradford CID sergeant he had talked to half an hour earlier had checked the files for the Payntons.

  ‘They were here right enough, sir,’ the sergeant said. A match flared at the other end of the line. There was a pause and then: ‘I remember hearing about the case. Chichester Gardens. The neighbour complained. Never went to court or anything.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Another match. Another pause, filled with a faint popping sound as the man at the other end on the line sucked on his pipe. ‘The neighbour claimed that the Paynton girl had been pestering her son—you know, like that—wanting to touch his, er, privates, trying to get him to touch hers. He was only about ten, and she was much older, sixteen at least. When he wouldn’t do what she wanted, she went berserk, gave him a black eye, and chased him out of the garden. Can you beat it? Kids today…’

  ‘Just happened the once?’

  ‘As far as we know. But Mrs Paynton swore blind it was the other way round, that the boy had been playing Peeping Tom on the girl. What’s her name?’ A rustle of paper. ‘Sylvia. They said the boy had made—and I quote—“a lewd suggestion” to her and called her rude names when she wouldn’t do what he wanted.’

  ‘So it was their word against the neighbour’s,’ Thornhill said, ‘but it was the neighbour who complained.’

  ‘Aye. That says something. Even talking to us shows how desperate things had got.’ Yet another match, yet another pause. ‘A warning shot, maybe? Neither of them really wanted it to come to court. But that’s Chichester Gardens for you. Keep themselve
s to themselves up there. Posh folk. They don’t like washing dirty linen in public if they can help it.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s very helpful.’

  ‘Have the Payntons been up to something on your patch, sir?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Thornhill said. ‘By the way, do you happen to know if they had a dog? A cocker spaniel bitch.’

  ‘No. It was the other way round.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The dog was the neighbour’s. Sylvia made a fuss of it. She asked the boy to bring it round so they could all play together.’ There was a strangled sound that might have been a laugh at the other end of the line. ‘But Sylvia wanted to play a different sort of game.’

  Thornhill thanked him and put down the phone. He glanced at the clock: gone half-past four already. He picked up the phone again and dialled the Deputy Chief Constable’s home number. Drake, the DCC, answered on the second ring and, brushing aside Thornhill’s apologies, asked why he was ringing up, when he was meant to be on leave.

  Thornhill told him. ‘A hard one to prove, sir,’ he finished. ‘I know that. But—’

  ‘Let me get this straight: you think Mrs Paynton sacked the young gardener because the daughter tried to get too friendly with him, and so he pulled that stunt with the sodium chlorate on the lawn as a parting message, and used the same stuff to poison their dog? Then the girl killed him—perhaps slugged him with a spade—because he’d turned her down. Then she hid his body and his bike in the pit.’

  ‘I know it sounds weak, sir, but it sounds like the girl’s got form, one way or another. And the mother has too, for covering up what her daughter does.’