This Way Out

by Sheila Radley

  All the other items on Cartwright’s list were found inside the briefcase. Presumably, the detectives decided, the villain had filled it and left it ready to take away when he had finished burgling. After being disturbed, and murdering the old lady, he must have snatched up the briefcase as he left the house. Then, on his way back to his car, he must have thought better of taking anything so identifiable with him.

  ‘That answers your query about the missing items,’ said Quantrill, ‘but it still doesn’t explain Cartwright’s behaviour. Dumping his dog, and then leaving the pantry window unlocked, just a few hours before the break-in sounds more like collusion than coincidence. But what about his cut hand?’

  ‘Perhaps he staged his own accident, so as to leave the way clear for the break-in,’ said Hilary.

  ‘Yes – but in fact he didn’t leave the way clear, did he?’ Quantrill objected. ‘The house wasn’t left empty, unfortunately, otherwise we wouldn’t be investigating the old lady’s murder. But I’m still not convinced that this was an ordinary burglary-gone-wrong. We’ve been all through the house and we know for sure that there’s nothing of special value or interest in it. At the same time, we know that a man answering to the description of the murderer was seen sussing the place out the day before. So what could have brought him here?’

  ‘I suppose it’s still possible that he got away with what he wanted,’ said Hilary. ‘If there’d been any collusion, Cartwright would naturally be reluctant to tell us. Even so, I really would have thought that the murder of his mother-in-law would have shaken him into talking.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that. P’raps he was only too glad to get rid of her,’ suggested the chief inspector with feeling. Life in the Quantrill household was a good deal less harmonious than usual. Bad enough to have had his wife supervising his consumption at every meal; now her mother had commandeered the job, and was doing it with relish. ‘P’raps he feels grateful to the man.’

  ‘Do stop being snide about mothers-in-law, Douglas,’ protested his sergeant. ‘I don’t suppose yours likes living with you any more than you like having her there. The least you can do is try to be nice to her – after all, time’s on your side.’

  ‘Just as well something is,’ muttered Quantrill, rather ashamed of his suggestion. A detective, of all people, understanding the appalling reality of murder and its effect on the bereaved, should know better than to talk about it lightly. But if you didn’t, sometimes, the horror of the job would be unbearable.

  ‘What we need,’ he went on firmly, ‘is some good hard evidence. We both suspect that Cartwright could tell us a lot more, but we’re handicapped by not being able to prove that he knew the reason for the break-in. If we can’t find some evidence to link him with the man who did it, we’ll have to forget about him and start looking for a completely new lead.’

  ‘Do you want me to talk to his wife?’

  ‘No – we’ll go to Cambridge and see if we can find out anything about him there. Then we’ll pick him up, and start to put on the pressure about what he was really doing on Saturday afternoon. You’ve got the address of his office, Hilary? And the name of the hotel? Right, m’dear, let’s get going.’

  Derek Cartwright’s junior colleagues in the Anchor Life Assurance office had assumed that the regional marketing manager was at home on account of the sudden death of his wife’s mother. When the detectives told them that she had in fact been murdered, while her son-in-law was at Yarchester Hospital late on Saturday evening having a cut hand stitched, they were astounded. Derek had come back to the office for an hour or so on Monday afternoon, and had made no mention of the murder!

  But then again, they agreed when they’d finished exclaiming, you could understand why: he was probably too shocked to want to talk about it. And now they realized why he’d looked so wretched on Monday – though at the time of course they’d put it down to his injured hand.

  Derek Cartwright was well respected. A good boss, said his up-and-coming assistant, demanding maximum effort from the sales force but giving them a hundred per cent encouragement and support. Everyone liked Derek, though he wasn’t one for socializing. On the occasions when he spent a day at the office, he wouldn’t go to the pub for lunch, but to the Post House health club for a swim. And after work, he always headed straight for home.

  His assistant was at a loss to know why Derek should be staying in Cambridge this week. He hadn’t mentioned, when he came in on Monday that he intended to do so. Certainly he’d said he was glad to get away from home for a bit, after the upheaval of the old lady’s death, and that was understandable. But heaven knew why he was staying on. He hadn’t been in touch with the office since Monday, and he’d cancelled all his appointments for the rest of the week.

  Talking of cancelled appointments, though, his assistant remembered, Derek had done something very odd on Friday afternoon. He’d kept an appointment with the manager of Lloyd’s Bank in Saintsbury in the morning, but he’d failed to keep his afternoon appointment with the personnel director of a brewery, one of the town’s major employers. Hadn’t cancelled it, though – they’d had a blistering telephone call from the personnel director to say that he just hadn’t turned up. ‘Str’ordinary. Derek had been trying to sell a new company pension scheme to the brewery for months, and it was unthinkable that he should have forgotten. He’d sack any of the consultants who missed an appointment, no excuses accepted! But then, he’d seemed very edgy for the past couple of weeks. Uptight. Brooding about something. No, his assistant had no idea about what.

  Derek Cartwright’s pretty secretary agreed about his recent edginess. No, she couldn’t imagine what he was doing in Cambridge – she simply couldn’t understand why he wasn’t at home with his wife at a time like this.

  No, she was quite sure that Derek wasn’t spending the time with a girlfriend! He was a devoted family man. There were photographs of his wife and the little girl who’d had Downs Syndrome on his desk, and he’d told her all about his family: what the older children were doing, Laurie’s sudden death, his wife’s fight against cancer. He’d had more than his share of domestic problems. But even so, he wasn’t the sort to run after other women. He was a thoroughly nice man, who’d never breathed an unkind word against his mother-in-law, which was more than she could say for some of the men in the office. He obviously liked the old lady, so no wonder he was upset over her murder. And as for his earlier edginess, well, she’d put that down to his wife’s health.

  Yes, she supposed it would be all right if the detectives took a look round Derek’s office to see if there was some indication of what he might be doing this week. But she didn’t think they’d find anything that would help them; and she was right.

  Derek Cartwright wasn’t remembered by name at the health club, but both T-shirted supervisors recognized the snapshot that Sergeant Lloyd had appropriated from the family pin-up board in the downstairs cloakroom at the Brickyard. Yes, he came in occasionally on the strength of his company’s block membership. In fact he’d been there that morning.

  They’d seen much more of him that usual during the course of the past week. On Saturday night they’d been quite worried about him. Saturday? No – p’raps Friday; yes, Friday, that was it.

  He’d nearly done himself in on the power-sport equipment. That was something you always had to watch for, middle-aged men trying to prove they were young and giving themselves a heart attack in the process. But this one was very fit for his age.

  He’d had a recent assessment, and he’d warmed-up properly, so there was no reason why he shouldn’t go through the full routine. But he wasn’t merely exercising, he was making himself suffer, and he just wouldn’t stop. They’d given him a couple of warnings, and in the end they’d had to haul him off, as much for the club’s sake as for his own.

  They’d been quite relieved to see him alive and back again on the Saturday morning. He was in again yesterday afternoon, with a heavily bandaged hand – apparently he’d accidentally cut
himself. He couldn’t swim or exercise because of the hand, but he’d used the sauna and the jacuzzi.

  No, he didn’t seem to be with anybody on any of his visits. He might well have talked to other people, but they couldn’t possibly remember who was there at the same time. Hotel guests were entitled to use the club facilities, so there were always visitors about as well as members. And there was always a lot of chat, especially in the jacuzzi. You can’t sit knee-to-knee with a stranger in a hot tub without exchanging the odd word.

  Yes, they said, producing the register, everyone using the club has to book in, stating whether they’re members or hotel guests. And yes, the hotel does have a photo-copier – no problem.

  The shrewdly mature receptionist at the private hotel just round the corner from Derek Cartwright’s office was the daughter of the proprietor. She told the detectives that Mr Cartwright had arrived on Monday, asking to take a room for an indefinite period. She had thought it a little odd, because normally he stayed only for the occasional night. He was there last Friday, a most unusual night for him to stay, and he hadn’t said a word then about wanting to come back this week.

  As a matter of fact, he hadn’t looked at all well when he arrived late on Friday evening – both she and her mother had noticed that. He hadn’t come down to breakfast on Saturday morning, and he’d seemed very tense and agitated when he paid his bill. For some reason he hadn’t used his company credit card, but his own card – most unusual, for a businessman. She’d thought perhaps he had given it to her by mistake, but he said quite forcefully that this was one bill he was paying for himself.

  When he came back on Monday night he’d looked even worse, though by that time he had his left hand bandaged so he was probably in pain. And last night he’d come in late, looking dishevelled with drink. Most unusual for any of their guests, and if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes she would never have believed it of Mr Cartwright.

  No, she had no idea where he went during the day. Wasn’t he at work? She had every reason to suppose that he was coming back tonight, but goodness knows when, or what state he’d be in. Certainly the detectives could take a look at his room – and if they particularly wanted to see Mr Cartwright, she would be only too glad for them to stay until he returned.

  Carwright’s room revealed nothing of any significance, until the wardrobe was opened. The interior smelled strongly of whisky; clothes had been tossed haphazardly on to the shelves. Stashed away at the back was one half-bottle of whisky, unopened but with the seal roughly broken, and one half-bottle that was empty.

  Convinced that Derek Cartwright was a deeply worried man who had been through some on-going crisis ever since Friday afternoon, the detectives decided to accept the owners’daughter’s offer. Seated in the hotel’s breakfast room, with a pot of tea to keep them going, they worked through the photo-copied pages of the health club register while they waited for Cartwright’s return.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Derek had never allowed himself, except in the most general way, to acknowledge the attractions of women other than Christine. His reaction to the sight of Belinda Packer took him completely by surprise.

  Embarrassed by the fact that she had quickened his pulse, he decided to behave as though they had never met. After all, he had no reason to suppose that their one brief moment of physical contact on that hot afternoon at the roadside had registered with her as it had with him. Perhaps her averted eyes, as she waited in the garden beside her father’s wheelchair, indicated nothing more than indifference; perhaps she didn’t even remember him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said courteously, not so much ignoring the old man as too intent to notice him, ‘but I was hoping to see Hugh Packer. We have some business to discuss. My name’s Derek Cartwright, I’m regional marketing manager for Anchor Life Assurance.’

  Belinda lifted her head. As they looked at each other across the wheelchair, almost height-to-height, Derek knew that she did remember. Her blood was rising, suffusing her strong, curved throat and handsome features with a self-conscious red, and she greeted him with artless enthusiasm.

  ‘Oh – it’s you.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He was staring at the column of her throat, shocked to see that the skin was marred by a scattering of bruises, some fading, one particularly recent and livid.

  ‘Hugh isn’t here.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m so glad to see you.’

  The radiance of her greeting temporarily deprived him of his wits. But then a gobble of protest from her father reminded them that they were not alone.

  The old man’s daughter bent to him immediately. ‘You remember Mr Cartwright, Dad? That day when we took you to hospital to have your wrist X-rayed, and then got stuck in a traffic jam on the way back. It was very hot, and Mr. Cartwright –’

  ‘Derek.’

  She dazzled him with a glancing smile. ‘– Derek kindly helped me move you into the shade. Remember?’

  Sidney’s single eye indicated recognition. Seeking her further approval, Derek gave him a friendly greeting and asked him about his wrist, even though he knew the answer would be incomprehensible.

  ‘But what about your own hand?’ said Belinda with concern.

  Derek was so accustomed to its ache, and had so adjusted himself to the inconvenience of driving with bandages on, that he had almost forgotten about the injury. For the past twenty-four hours he had deliberately blocked its cause out of his mind, and he didn’t intend to revive the memory now.

  ‘Oh, it’s just a bad cut.’

  ‘It needs rebandaging.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Looking at the bandages, he realized how grubby and loose they had become. He gave an uncertain laugh, wanting to make the most of the opportunity she was so transparently offering, yet half-ashamed of his willingness to be involved. ‘It’s a bit difficult to do, single-handed.’

  ‘I could do it for you, if you like.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Gladly.’

  She was gazing at him with an urgency that went beyond attraction. Her pale eyes under their heavy lids had a beseeching look; they seemed to be signalling distress. And no wonder, poor girl, he thought with compassion, glancing again at her savaged neck. That evil bastard Packer –

  With a growing sense of elation, he realized that there was no reason for him to feel ashamed of wanting to linger. Belinda was in trouble; she needed help, and needed it more than she knew. He hadn’t angled for her attention for his own sake, but for hers. What decent, honourable man could do less?

  Belinda left him in the sun-room with a cup of coffee while she took her father elsewhere to give him his lunch. Then she wheeled in the old man for his afternoon nap, and led Derek through the opulent house to a bathroom where she could attend to his hand. Her first touch made him catch his breath, but although the colour rose again under her skin she kept her eyes on what she was doing. Her hands were large but well-shaped, her fingers deft.

  ‘You’re obviously an expert,’ he said with admiration as she began to roll off the soiled bandage.

  ‘I always wanted to be a nurse. I started to train, but then I had to give it up to look after Dad.’

  There was regret in her voice, and Derek wondered with alarm if he had misinterpreted her unhappiness. Was it her father who was her real problem? Had her husband planned to get rid of the old man as much for Belinda’s sake as for the money? With a new lurch of anxiety, he prayed that Belinda wasn’t about to encourage him to go ahead with the killing.

  ‘Do you very much resent having to look after your father?’ he asked apprehensively.

  ‘I did at first. I missed the company of other girls. And then, I’d grown up to hate Dad’s boozy lifestyle. But he was a most affectionate father when I was small, and now that he’s dependent on me I see this as my chance to repay him. Oh, I get tired and depressed, and sometimes angry – who doesn’t in these circumstances? But I’m not resentful. This is my choice, and I really would
n’t have it any other way.’

  Derek breathed again, and Belinda eased the final stained layer of gauze from his hand. ‘Good heavens!’ she said, counting: ‘Eight stitches – how on earth did you get such a bad cut?’

  ‘I was making myself a sandwich. The knife slipped.’

  ‘Ouch, that must have hurt!’

  She covered his scored palm with a fresh dressing, and produced a new bandage. ‘Er – talking of sandwiches,’ she elaborated, ‘I usually have one for lunch, after I’ve fed Dad. Would you like to –? I mean, do stay, if you have the time.’ She looked straight at him, blushing again: ‘As long as you’re not expected at home, or anything?’

  She was trying to discover whether he was married. Elated by the significance of her question, Derek answered without a blink. ‘I’m not expected anywhere. I’m living in a Cambridge hotel at the moment – and I’d love to stay, thank you.’

  Well, he’d told her the truth, hadn’t he? He wouldn’t lie to her, he wasn’t that kind of man. All the same, as she rebandaged his left hand he couldn’t help thinking it a piece of luck that he didn’t wear a wedding ring.

  ‘Belinda –’

  Sharing sandwiches in the sun-room, and keeping down their voices so as not to disturb her sleeping father, had given their inconsequential conversation a kind of intimacy. Derek was reluctant to break it, until she made some reference to her father’s diabetic condition and the need to keep his blood-sugar in balance with insulin injections.

  With jolting dismay he realized that by coming to Winter Paddocks and making himself known to Belinda he had not, after all, extricated himself from Packer’s plan to kill his father-in-law. Derek had thought of it as committing murder. Well, it would be committing murder. But Packer had cunningly arranged it to seem like a straightforward imbalance of insulin: death from natural causes. There would be no suspicious circumstances, and therefore no police investigation.