Day for Dying

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘So the six of you queued up for your food with everyone else and took it to your table?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sylvester. ‘Well, sort of. Mrs Jeopard is in a wheelchair, as you saw, so she and her sister chose what they wanted to eat, then Tess carried their plates and Max pushed his mother’s chair to our table, got her and his aunt settled. Then he and Tess went back to collect their own food. About five minutes later Tess got back and sat down. We all assumed Max would join us shortly and it must have been a good ten minutes before his mother said she wondered where he’d got to.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Mrs Sylvester. ‘We didn’t pay any attention at first. Like my husband said, we assumed he’d gone to the loo – which was, in fact, what Tess told us. When Max’s mother said she wondered where he was, I mean.’

  ‘What time would that have been?’ said Lineham.

  ‘Well,’ said Sylvester, working it out. ‘Supper was arranged for 9.30, and I think it was on time, wasn’t it, darl?’ He waited for his wife’s nod. ‘Then it would have taken us about ten minutes to get settled. Usually, at parties, we serve ourselves last, but on this occasion there was a bit of fuss made about the special table and so on, and everyone waved us to the front of the queue.’

  ‘So you sat down about twenty to ten?’

  ‘Thereabouts, I should think. Then it was another ten minutes or so, like I said, before any comment was made about Max not having come back yet, and it must have been a further five or ten before I went to look for him.’

  ‘Around ten o’clock, then?’

  ‘It must’ve been about then,’ said Mrs Sylvester. ‘Tess had been getting restless and I think by then she felt we’d all waited long enough, so she said she’d go and see if she could find him. But my husband said no, she was to stay and enjoy her supper and he’d go instead.’

  ‘So I did,’ said Sylvester. ‘Trouble was, there were so many places to look – a cloakroom and two bathrooms for a start, then tables had been set up everywhere, like we said – hall, lounge, dining room, conservatory, and quite a few of the young people had settled down on the stairs and the upstairs landing. And everywhere I went people kept on delaying me – saying what a great party it was and so on, and I had to keep stopping to chat. I even went into the bedrooms, to make sure he hadn’t crashed out on one of the beds, unlikely as that seemed.’

  ‘Did you ask people if they’d seen him, as you went around?’ asked Thanet.

  ‘No. What was the point? If he’d been there I’d have spotted him. I was sure I’d find him somewhere, talking to somebody. I just thought he’d probably got engrossed in a conversation and hadn’t noticed how time was slipping away.’

  ‘Max was like that if he was really interested in what someone was saying,’ said Mrs Sylvester. ‘Sort of intense.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said her husband, ‘he was nowhere to be seen. The only place left to look was the kitchen and it was on way my back from there that I thought of the pool house – it’s at the other end of the corridor which leads to the kitchen, you see. I didn’t expect to find him there but as I got nearer the door I could see the key wasn’t hanging on its hook, it was in the lock. And even when I switched the lights on in there, at first I thought the place was empty. I didn’t go right in, there seemed no point, just glanced quickly around. But as you saw, the deep end is nearest to the door and the diving board obscures your view of the pool, so it was only as I swung around to turn away that I glimpsed something dark in the water. When I moved for a better view I saw that there was a body floating on the surface. I kicked off my shoes, tore off my jacket and dived straight in. I suppose I must have realised it was Max, but I wasn’t sure until I got him out, and that was a real struggle, I can tell you. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get a dead weight out of water, but in the deep end it is absolutely impossible – if you try to push it up on to the side you just go under. So I towed him to the shallow end and even then I had problems getting him up the steps, it was like heaving a couple of sacks of potatoes.’

  ‘Ralph!’ protested his wife.

  ‘Sorry, darl, but that’s the way it was. Anyway, I could see right away that he was dead, and it was hopeless, but I knew I mustn’t take that for granted, I’d still have to make an effort to revive him. I also knew that every second counted, that I couldn’t delay by going to fetch help. God, I was wishing I’d taken first-aid classes, I can tell you. I felt absolutely useless. I put him on his stomach for a few minutes first, tried to pump some water out of him, then rolled him over and tried to give him the kiss of life – to the best of my ability anyway. I’d only ever seen it done on television.’ Sylvester shook his head, his face screwed up in distaste. ‘Not an experience I would wish to repeat. But after a few minutes I could see I wasn’t getting anywhere so I rushed back to the party, asking if anyone knew about resuscitation.’ He shook his head again. ‘I’m sorry. I can see now that this will make things difficult for you, but at the time . . .’

  ‘A natural thing to do in the circumstances,’ said Thanet. ‘I’d probably have done the same myself. So how many people went to see if they could help?’

  ‘We all poured in,’ said Mrs Sylvester. ‘It was awful. Tess had hysterics, as you can imagine . . .’

  ‘But nothing could be done,’ said her husband heavily. ‘So we got everyone back out as soon as we could. Then we rang the police.’

  But by then irreparable damage would have been done as far as finding any useful scientific evidence was concerned, thought Thanet ruefully. Well, it was pointless to bemoan the fact. ‘What time was it when you found the body?’

  Sylvester rubbed his bald pate in a polishing movement while he worked it out. ‘Around 10.30?’

  ‘Right. Now, let me make sure I have this absolutely straight. Living in this house are the two of you and your daughter Tess. Anyone else?’

  Thanet thought it an innocuous question but suddenly the atmosphere was strained again, the fear back in their eyes. The answer to his question was obviously yes, but neither of them responded.

  ‘Is there?’

  ‘We have a housekeeper,’ said Mrs Sylvester. ‘Barbara Mallis.’

  ‘Yes, Barbara,’ echoed her husband.

  ‘She’s been with you long?’

  ‘Must be four years now,’ said Sylvester. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, darl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And a gardener, Ron Fielding,’ said Sylvester. ‘Though he’s not exactly one of the household. He and his wife and daughter live in the bungalow near the gates.’

  ‘And that’s the lot?’

  There was a brief silence. Sylvester’s hand closed over his wife’s shoulder again and she put hers up to clutch at it, twisting her head to look at him. They exchanged a despairing glance. We’ll have to tell them.

  Thanet glanced at Lineham. The sergeant raised his eyebrows. What now?

  ‘And there’s our son, Carey,’ said Sylvester at last, capitulating.

  ‘Your son?’ Thanet did not try to hide his surprise. Why no mention of him till now? Perhaps the lad was a late child, too young to attend the party? But if so, why all this reluctance? ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Twenty-eight,’ said Sylvester with resignation. ‘He’s ill, so his nurse lives in the house too. Michael Roper.’

  So why all the mystery? Thanet wondered. Unless it was an illness which the Sylvesters were reluctant to admit to, like AIDS. But if so, and the young man was ill enough to warrant a full-time nurse, this still didn’t explain why they should be afraid, as opposed to embarrassed. Unless . . . Yes, that could be it. ‘What, exactly, is wrong with your son?’

  Mrs Sylvester bit her lip and her grip on her husband’s hand tightened. Sylvester gave a resigned sigh. ‘He’s schizophrenic.’

  Thanet had guessed correctly. ‘I see.’ And he did. This, then, was the root of the Sylvesters’ fear: they were afraid that their son was responsible for Jeopard’s death. Schizophrenics were notoriously unpredictabl
e. They were not all violent or dangerous, by any means, but many were.

  ‘How serious is his illness?’ said Thanet, aware that the severity of this particular condition can vary enormously.

  ‘Pretty serious,’ said Sylvester. ‘Carey doesn’t go anywhere without Michael, and they spend quite a lot of time in his rooms. The doors are kept locked.’

  ‘And tonight? Did they come to the party?’

  Sylvester shook his head. ‘We were afraid the noise and the numbers of people might be too much for Carey to cope with. They stayed upstairs.’

  So what was the problem? It was time to bring the matter out into the open. ‘Look, Mr Sylvester, Mrs Sylvester, it’s been obvious to me ever since we started talking that you are both very worried about something and from your reluctance to tell me about him I imagine that you’re afraid your son might be involved in Mr Jeopard’s death. But if he was safely locked up in his room with his nurse . . .’

  They stared at him and Thanet saw the tears begin to well up in Mrs Sylvester’s eyes. Her lower lip began to tremble and then, suddenly, the vestiges of her control snapped and she began to weep, turning her head away and pressing her face into her husband’s thigh.

  Sylvester looked down helplessly at her and began to stroke her hair. ‘Darl, don’t,’ he pleaded. ‘I can’t bear it. Don’t!’ Then he glanced at Thanet. ‘Carey got out this evening,’ he said, wearily, the words barely audible above the sounds of his wife’s distress. ‘And he’s still missing.’

  THREE

  Thanet and Lineham exchanged a glance. Not surprising they’re worried! ‘I see,’ said Thanet. ‘How long has he been missing?’

  Sylvester ran a hand over the top of his head. ‘I’m not sure. Oh, I know that might sound crazy, but everything’s been in such a turmoil since I found Max in the pool. I didn’t even know Carey was missing until my wife told me, did I, darl?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘So when did you find out, Mrs Sylvester?’

  ‘Shortly after Ralph went off to look for Max.’

  ‘Can you be a little more precise? It could be important.’

  She frowned, screwing up her face as she tried to work it out. ‘Say, a quarter past ten?’

  And Max Jeopard had died between twenty to ten and half-past, when Sylvester had found him. ‘And who told you?’

  ‘Michael, of course. His nurse. He was very upset, as you can imagine.’ Now that the matter was out in the open Mrs Sylvester couldn’t wait to unburden herself and the words came tumbling out. ‘He and Carey had supper much earlier than us, about 7.30, in Carey’s sitting room. But about twenty to ten Carey said he’d like a cup of coffee, so Michael came down to fetch one. There was a lot of activity in the kitchen and he didn’t want to get in the way so it took him a bit longer than usual to make it. When he got back upstairs he found the door unlocked and Carey gone.’ Mrs Sylvester glanced at her husband. ‘He thinks someone who’d had a drop too much must have been looking for the bathroom, turned the key without thinking it odd that the door was locked from the outside, realised he’d got the wrong room, but didn’t relock the door again. And Carey . . .’ Mrs Sylvester’s tone became despairing. ‘Well, Carey regards it as a sort of game, to escape whenever he can. He hates . . .’ Her voice shook and the tears spilled over again. ‘He really hates being locked in.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh God, you must think us absolute monsters, locking our own son up like that, but you have no idea, you can’t imagine –’

  ‘It’s the bloody Government that’s to blame!’ exploded Sylvester. ‘And their sodding Mental Health Act! Closing all the mental hospitals and dumping these sick people either on their families or on the streets! Community Care! It’s a joke, a bloody joke, that’s what it is, and a sick one, at that.’

  Sylvester was well launched into what was obviously a long-held grievance and there was no stopping him. Not that Thanet particularly wanted to. He agreed with practically every word the man was saying. There was no doubt that in the past there had been cases where people had been wrongly locked away, sometimes for many, many years, but the Government had now gone too far the other way. Thanet had seen some of the pathetic creatures turfed out to fend for themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, and completely unable to cope. Only recently he’d come across the case of a man who had been supplied with money and a room of his own and who had been found virtually starving, having no idea how to budget or to prepare food for himself. Others either slept rough or persistently committed criminal offences in order to get themselves put in prison; incapable of organising themselves they were only too happy for others to do it for them. A roof over their heads, food on the table and a modicum of warmth was all they asked of life.

  ‘They have no idea,’ said Sylvester, ‘they can’t begin to realise what it’s like to have a relative who has schizophrenia. I’d like to see Mrs oh-so-sweet Bottomley with all those statistics she reels off so pat trying to cope if she had a son or daughter who was a schizophrenic! We tried to manage by ourselves at first, didn’t we, darl, but it was impossible. Marion was at the end of her tether, weren’t you? So in the end we decided to get a full-time nurse to look after Carey. It still isn’t easy, but at least now we can live something resembling a normal life and it’s taken the pressure off Marion a bit. But we’re lucky, we can afford to pay for a nurse. What about all those poor sods who can’t, that’s what I’d like to know?’

  ‘I do understand . . .’

  ‘Don’t say you understand!’ said Sylvester savagely. ‘No one can understand, unless they’ve been through it themselves! No one! You can’t begin to imagine what hell it was for Marion. She could never go out because she never knew what Carey would get up to if he was left alone. Once he slashed his wrists and she came home to find him bleeding to death on the kitchen table. Another time she found him unconscious. D’you know what he’d done? He’d stuck his tongue into an electric socket! His voices had told him to, he said! And what did the bloody doctors say? That we must make sure he took his medication! You try making a grown man take pills if he doesn’t want to!’

  ‘He hates taking them,’ said Marion. ‘Says they turn his mind inside out. But Michael seems to have the knack. Carey will accept things from him he won’t accept from us.’

  ‘If he’s still missing, I assume someone is looking for him?’ said Thanet.

  ‘Yes. Michael is,’ said Sylvester. ‘And Ron. The gardener. They know most of the places he likes to hide. Fortunately he doesn’t usually stray too far. But this time . . .’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Oh God, it’s gone half past twelve. It’s been more than two and a half hours now!’

  No wonder Mrs Sylvester looked frantic, thought Thanet. What a disaster of an evening it had turned out to be for them. He stood up. ‘You must be wanting to join the search. I’ll arrange for some of my men to help you.’

  Sylvester jumped up. ‘No! He’ll be frightened if . . . Oh, but then, I suppose . . .’

  ‘I think it would be advisable,’ said Thanet gently. ‘But we’ll be careful, I promise.’ He glanced at Lineham. Fix it, will you, Mike? Lineham nodded and left the room.

  Anxious to go, the Sylvesters were already at the door. Thanet raised his voice. ‘Would you send Mrs Mallis in next, please?’ In the course of her duties the housekeeper would have been better placed than anyone to have an overall view of what had gone on this evening.

  Sylvester spoke over his shoulder. ‘Right.’

  While he waited, Thanet thought. Almost certainly, this was murder. But what had Jeopard been doing in the pool house? Had he arranged to meet someone there? Unlikely that he would have wandered in there alone. Thanet said so to Lineham who was soon back.

  ‘I agree. He must have been meeting someone. But who?’

  ‘I expect we’ll find out sooner or later.’

  ‘You didn’t ask the Sylvesters why they didn’t like him.’

  ‘I was going to get around to that last of all. I thought if
I asked early on they might clam up. Then when they dropped that minor bombshell . . .’

  ‘Think their son did it, sir?’

  ‘It’s an easy conclusion to jump to. And for that reason I think we ought to be wary of doing so. It’s not as though he’s a homicidal maniac. How are the others getting on?’

  ‘I put Bentley in charge of the search for Carey. Most of the guests have gone, there’re just a few stragglers left and Wakeham is seeing to them.’

  ‘Good.’

  There was a knock at the door. Thanet raised his voice. ‘Come in.’ And then, to Lineham, ‘You take this one, Mike.’

  ‘OK.’ Lineham stepped forward. ‘Come in, Mrs Mallis. Sit down.’ This time he leaned against the windowsill and Thanet sat on the arm of a chair.

  It was interesting, Thanet thought, that Mrs Mallis chose to do likewise. She obviously didn’t wish to confer a moral advantage by having to look up at them. Which perhaps meant that she had reason to be cautious. He folded his arms and studied her, remembering his initial impression that she was the ‘lady’ of the house. Yes, both clothes and jewellery were expensive, but if she had no family responsibilities there was no reason why she shouldn’t indulge herself. She obviously cared a great deal about her appearance. Time, as well as money, had been spent on it. Her make-up was skilful and it must take hours to coax her hair into those deceptively casual tousled curls. There had been no mention of a Mr. Mallis so she must be a widow or a divorcee – the latter, he guessed, noting again the impression of bad temper conveyed by a mouth which turned down at the corners, the calculating look with which she was watching Lineham. Perhaps he was being unfair. Perhaps life had treated her badly. She caught his eye and he smiled at her, disarmingly, he hoped, and was disconcerted when she responded by giving him a flirtatious glance and running her tongue slowly over her upper lip. Good grief! Did she think he was making a pass at her? Glancing at Lineham he was irritated to catch a glint of quickly suppressed amusement in the sergeant’s eye.