The Silence of the Night

by Roger Ormerod

  THE SILENCE OF THE NIGHT

  Roger Ormerod

  © Roger Ormerod 1974

  Roger Ormerod has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1974 by Robert Hale.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was one thing I’d have bet on, that I’d never be pleased to see Beanie Sloan. But there he was, having petrol slopped into a white Audi, with Elsa’s Rover waiting innocently behind him, and the tremor that crept up my spine was definitely pleasurable. Or at least, encouraging.

  I was parked out on the roadway, gradually cooking in my Oxford, and waiting for Elsa to fill up. We were only a few miles short of Killington Towers, and I’d thought I might get out and stretch my legs. It had been a long drive, Elsa leading because I didn’t know the place, and me trying to keep her in sight. Seeing Beanie, I decided to stay put, because nobody ever liked to be spotted by him. He was never shy of being noticed himself, not when he was innocently tanking-up. You’d recognise him a mile off, that swaggering, belly-thrust strut of his, the smirk of self-conceit, and his loud-checked sports jackets. That afternoon the smile wasn’t so confident, but these days everybody’s in loud checks, so I supposed the strain of going one better was getting him down. It was, however, the very fact that we were so close to the Towers that prickled my interest.

  Beanie disappeared towards Upper Killington, and the 3 1/2 litre coupé eased to the pump. Elsa got out and I forgot Beanie for a while. She can make a fill-up of five star a graceful incident. To tell the truth, it was only the idea of spending a few summer days with Elsa at one of those grand country mansions that had persuaded me to go along. Certainly not the job. In fact, the job had been set-up by Elsa, just to keep me happy, and she did not realise how unhappy that made me. I wanted to find my own jobs, if I was going to have to leave the Force, and anyway, security adviser isn’t in the interesting line at all. Or rather, it wasn’t until Beanie showed up in the area. Beanie made anything interesting.

  I wished I’d brought my gun.

  I got out anyway and walked on to the forecourt. Elsa flashed me a smile.

  ‘Did you notice the chap in front of you?’ I asked.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘His left hand. Fingers brown with nicotine.’

  ‘Now David, why should I see that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  She wouldn’t have noticed a bulge under his jacket, either. I gave my attention to the Rover. ‘Has it been all right?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it now. It’s running beautifully.’

  But all the same I stood and waited while she started it. It didn’t. She revved the starter a few times, and nothing.

  ‘Is the red light on?’

  ‘No.’

  It had done that before, on the way, once suddenly cutting out, and it had all the annoying symptoms of an ignition fault. Could have been anywhere. I had the bonnet up, just to do something. It was packed with engine. I stared at it despairingly.

  ‘Try it now,’ I suggested.

  It started. I grinned.

  ‘I don’t know how you understand it,’ she said, and I went back to the Oxford, hoping it would last out the remaining few miles.

  Killington Towers was one of those vast country estates, which had been built by some ancestor of the present owner, Hillary Keane, unaware of the frightening burden he’d be loading on to his family in the 1970s. But Keane was reluctant to leave it to rot, which seemed about the only thing he could afford. The fencing of the extensive perimeter, and importing of sundry dangerous livestock, would have been prohibitively expensive, especially as he’d probably have had to lay on a fun fair and miniature railway in order to be in the running. And simply to throw open his house and gardens had not seemed sufficiently attractive, particularly, Elsa had said, as the gardens were not large and the house was insignificant. So he’d decided on a gallery. Someone had given him the idea — I suspect Elsa’s Uncle Albert — and it had seemed a good one. The Grand Hall was to be arrayed as an art exhibition, which at least confined the public to that area, though why Keane expected the public to journey so far from their cities to his gallery, when they failed to patronise their own so consistently, I couldn’t imagine.

  But he’d got a lot of stuff lined up for it, valuable stuff, and it was up to Dave Mallin to lay on sufficient security, otherwise it was going to take a lot of fifty pences to cover the insurance premiums.

  We turned into the drive. You could tell it was the drive because of the old gate posts each side of the entrance, but apart from that it was just a side road. Meadows stretched in all directions, speckled with his present livestock — but nothing more exotic than bullocks — with far ahead a minor belt of trees on the horizon. We dived into them, and it could have been the Black Forest. Oaks and sycamores almost suppressed the sunlight and we plunged through them long enough to become considerably cooler. Then we were suddenly out into the sunlight again, and Killington Towers spread itself in front of us. This was Elsa’s idea of insignificant. There hadn’t been any sordid considerations of planning permissions in those days, so they’d just built, and continued to build. Maybe there was some more, out of sight; I never did explore the whole house. In front of it, in so far as there was a front, there was a sunken lawn and flower garden arrangement you’d need a sextant to venture into, and beyond the buildings a belt of pines too close for comfort, from a security angle anyway. The whole frontage was wide, windows and terraces marching away, and it seemed that their main entrance was at the side. At any rate, Elsa was drawing up in front of a pillared little surround like the Parthenon, framing a vast, oak door.

  She got out. So did I. We rang, but nothing happened. They probably needed horses to drag open those doors.

  ‘Hillary did say he had trouble getting domestic help,’ Elsa said placidly. ‘We’ll drive round.’

  I wondered why Hillary didn’t open his own doors, but when I met him later I realised how unreasonable it was to expect him to put his hand to anything.

  We trickled round the back of the building, through an opening in a high wall, and into a courtyard. Far away on the other side there was a row of garages, which had obviously been stables. We drove across. A tall, good-looking young man in uniform, but minus his hat, was polishing a maroon Bentley in a patch of shade. He raised his head, winked at Elsa, and got on with the polishing, so I had to hump the bags myself.

  The side door was a little smaller and Elsa had managed to shoulder it open when I caught her up. We were facing a long corridor, very dim, down which a noise was echoing.

  ‘We go straight on, I think,’ said Elsa, and the noise grew to become a pounding of feet and an angry voice.

  From the far end there came a running youth. His legs were long and his face anguished. Behind him there was a large person in flapping trousers and a Fair Isle pullover, cursing something incomprehensible and waving a heavy stick. I stood aside.

  ‘Much obliged,’ the young man gasped, then he was away, his legs flying, and the elder man pounded past with something that sounded like: ‘Na crummich ta.’

  Elsa gazed after them. ‘I do believe that was Cameron Frazer,’ she said, and I was surprised to det
ect concern.

  I shut the door. It was cooler inside. We walked ahead into the calm and gracious house.

  The corridor led into the entrance hall, and because we came in at the side we were able to see the backs of a man and woman contemplating the inside of the massive front doors.

  ‘Hillary, we’re here,’ cried Elsa, and her voice ran lightly in soft echoes along the mellow surface of the panelling, lost its way up the grand, wide staircase into the upper reaches. A chandelier rustled gently in acknowledgement.

  Hillary Keane was obviously relieved to be spared further effort. He was around fifty, his hair completely white, creeping down in front of his ears to ginger tufted sideboards. His eyes were pale and quite vague, and breeding had robbed his face of any expression other than the courtesy permitted in the given circumstances.

  ‘My dear Elsa,’ he said, and clasped her briefly. ‘Here’s Elaine. Where are you, Elaine?’

  His wife was a good ten years younger, and could have been quite something in the city. Just a little effort would have sharpened her approach, brightened her eyes, stiffened slightly her carriage, but here she could relax, and she did. I had the impression of a blissful pudginess, a sense of humour neatly balanced against the stately background. Brown eyes smiled into mine when we shook hands.

  ‘Our protector!’ she said proudly. ‘Elsa, my dear, you never said he was handsome.’

  I turned. Elsa was regarding me gravely. ‘Is he?’

  ‘Your rooms,’ said Keane. ‘I’ll show you your rooms.’

  He gave me no help with the bags. We dropped off Elsa first, and Elaine went with her into a sun-dappled vastness. My room, Hillary admitted, was a bit small, and tell him if I’d like it changed. Small! My suits got lost in the wardrobe, the two best and the dinner jacket I’d lashed out on. The bed would have slept half the crime squad. I looked at the view from the window, but there was nothing but gardens and ponderous acres, so I thought I’d go down for a preliminary look at my principal charge — the Grand Hall.

  I got lost, but by opening a number of doors I eventually found Elsa in a drawing-room or something, trying her Chopin on the Bechstein.

  ‘Isn’t it a marvellous place, David?’

  And that depended on whether you were worrying about the number of opening windows on to the terraces. It also depended on her tone, which was searching, as I’d made quite clear my attitude to this. A man’s got to make his own way. He didn’t want it paved with good intentions from Elsa’s elegant and wealthy friends. Though to hear Elsa on the subject you’d think Keane was down to his last few thousand.

  ‘I shall grow to love it,’ I assured her, and she stood up to kiss me on the cheek.

  It was a good sign. I had about decided to press the advantage, and eventually soften her to the point of promising that the next job ... you know the technique ... when a voice boomed behind me, a door slammed, and I turned to see two men advancing heartily.

  Elsa introduced her uncle, and Uncle Albert introduced his friend.

  I had always assumed that any relation of Elsa’s must be naturally steeped in it, but Uncle Albert gave no impression of having money. Or even of having had any for some time. His suit was rundown, his shirt floppy, his shoes about collapsing. He didn’t even fill anything properly. But he seemed unaware of want, his round and happy face creased with delight, and he looked me over contentedly as though I was a rare folio he was appraising. Uncle Albert was an antiquarian.

  ‘I knew we could rely on you,’ he said. He looked round at his friend. ‘Isn’t that what I said?’

  ‘Results, Albert, that’s what counts. Introduce me, you dithering old idiot.’

  You could tell they were the firmest of friends. Uncle Albert beamed at him. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is Alton K. Bloome, of Minnesota.’

  ‘The USA, sir,’ Bloome claimed loudly, and he pumped my hand.

  I was glad when he’d finished. Alton K. Bloome, I gathered, was over in this country to gather gems for a library he’d endowed for his old college, and anything else interesting for his own home. That he was at Killington Towers was attributable to a chance meeting with Uncle Albert at the British Museum, which presumably he’d been considering buying, and an interest in something called T’ang, which is Chinese porcelain, and which Hillary Keane persistently refused to sell. Bloome lit a cigar and asked did I know anything about Tamburlaine. I caught Uncle Albert’s eye, saw him shake his head warningly, and said I didn’t. Which was true.

  Fortunately, before I could be told, Hillary Keane arrived, seemed surprised to see me, remembered who I was, and said I ought to see the Grand Hall. I agreed. It was what I’d come for.

  So he and I went and had a look.

  The Grand Hall at Killington has been attributed to Grinling Gibbons, Hillary told me, with the grave air of a trained guide, and mumbled about pea-pods. He said he thought Robert Adam was probably the major influence. Whoever it was, he’d done a good job. One wall, the long one, was almost completely tall windows opening on to the terrace. The ceiling was lofty and vaulted, the walls panelled, the floor an inlaid mosaic. The room alone was worth a visit, but the Keanes had accumulated in it a few centuries of indiscreet purchase and discreet looting, and Hillary had no doubt denuded the rest of the house for goodies and arrayed them all here. The blank wall facing the windows was cluttered with half the National Gallery, separated only by their heavy gilt frames, with below them a hundred or so watercolours. Down the centre was a row of show cases, fancy pieces and coins protected by glass, and as we wandered along them I gave the whole arrangement the odd nervous glance. I wasn’t feeling too receptive. The far wall was covered with etchings and engravings. I knew something about those, and knew if I’d been outside those windows with itchy fingers I’d never have been able to resist them. My uneasiness grew.

  He drew me to a halt in what was the exact centre. He’d got a heavy black pedestal mounted in a square of tastefully hung silken ropes. On the top was what looked like the scruffiest exhibit of the lot. It was a vase, a nice enough shape, and with a little lid, but I didn’t think much of the glaze. They hadn’t even got it to run all the way down to the base.

  ‘The T’ang,’ said Keane with gentle pride, and I wondered if he’d fancy the coronation mug I was still using for shaving.

  ‘Isn’t that a Reynolds?’ I asked, just to show I wasn’t completely ignorant.

  ‘A Gainsborough. One of my ancestors. There’s two by Reynolds further along. And one or two Rubens. You’ll have time for a good look later, old chap.’

  Sweat was trickling gently down my neck. ‘No Cézannes?’

  He smiled. ‘Nothing recent.’ He turned. ‘But this is the pride ...’

  ‘The T’ang?’

  ‘Chinese. A thousand years old. Mind you, some of the paintings ...’ He gestured with vague pride.

  I felt sick. I said: ‘If you need money, you could sell one or two items. It’d be safer.’

  ‘Sell them?’

  I’d made a mistake. But I’ve had a lot of experience, and I covered smoothly. Sell? It was going to cost him a fortune for insurance, another load for all the wiring and alarms I’d need, and a bit on the side for my services, but he’d die before he’d sell. He’d go down clutching his Rembrandt.

  The Grand Hall was a security nightmare. There were only two doors, the one we’d entered by, and one in the centre of the wall opposite the windows. But ... those windows! I’d need special locks, rays ...

  I said: ‘It’ll cost, you know.’

  ‘Young man, you have a depressing tendency to speak of money all the time. Just let me know what you need.’

  All right, I’d let him know. He could sell a few hundred acres of land or something. But before I could suggest it I became aware that we were not alone. A man had been standing in a far corner, quietly, thinly in a tall shadow, silent and waiting. Now he came forward.

  Sir Edmund Fisch might have been anything from fifty to seventy. The dust of a lifetim
e’s browsing in museums had engraved his face. It creaked when he smiled, or tried to. His hand was as cold and crisp as a lettuce leaf fresh from the soil, his voice dry and rasping. He was Keane’s art expert, his adviser, here on a visit during the summer recess. I knew the face, the name, the personality, from a cosy art series he’d run on television. He was said to be very witty on Botticelli. I never noticed it myself.

  ‘You do not appreciate our collection,’ he said, having been eavesdropping. I was the Philistine in their midst.

  ‘I appreciate the risk. You’ll have every crook on the Continent here when you advertise it. When’re you planning to open?’

  Hillary touched my shoulder gently. ‘A month. We thought a month, didn’t we, Edmund?’

  I’d never do it. Call out the army? Maybe it’d come to it. ‘You haven’t let it be known ... I mean, anything in the papers ...’ I felt very hot.

  ‘A few art experts,’ said Keane. ‘We’re expecting a few.’ And Fisch smiled in placid conceit, as though it was his stuff.

  They left me after a few minutes to worry over it on my own. I didn’t treat myself to a private view of the exhibits. The windows were the worry — and that other door.

  I opened it, and went in. It was a library, and itself had no other entrance. Not a large library — I think Birmingham’s bigger — but they’d packed them all in, calf bound dusty stuff, in old English, all effs, from ground to carved ceiling and confining the windows to tall, narrow slits. It smelt like dusty horses. There was a desk in there, halfway along, facing sideways. Sitting at it, his back to me, was the shaggy person I’d seen previously, chasing the young man. He had a mug of coffee and some sandwiches on the desk beside him, and when I coughed he took no notice.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, and behind me Uncle Albert laughed shortly and said: ‘You’re wasting your time, he’s deaf.’

  It was Uncle Albert who told me all about the library, and he did so by completely ignoring the presence of Cameron Frazer. As far as Uncle Albert was concerned, the real treasures in this house were contained in the library. He was there to catalogue it, and already he’d made some exciting finds.