The Silent Killer

by Hazel Holt

  “He said he felt guilty, like he was responsible for what that man had done because he’d never said anything. But I told him that was nonsense, especially when he’d suffered more than anyone!”

  “I know.”

  Bill settled back more comfortably in his chair. “After he’d said all that we had a nice chat and he asked all sorts of questions about Frank and what I’d done in the war. He seemed really interested and said could he bring one of his boys round one day because he was doing some project at school about the war and he’d like him to hear what I could tell him.”

  “That would be really nice,” I said.

  “Yes, I’d like to think of some of the young people of today knowing what it was really like back then.”

  “Oh, I do agree. I know there are books and all those television programmes, but it’s not the same as actually talking to someone who was actually there.”

  Betty came in with the tea tray and to please her I had a piece of date and walnut cake as well as the tea.

  “Did Bill tell you about David Middleton?” she asked.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw who it was on the doorstep. But he was really nice. He and Bill had a proper old talk, didn’t you, Bill, and the things he told him – well, I couldn’t believe there was so much wickedness in the world! That man had a lot to answer for.”

  “He certainly did,” I said. “Though I suppose he did pay for it in the end.”

  “Dying like that, all peaceful-like, was too good for him,” Betty said vigorously. “He should have suffered like he made others suffer.”

  “Well, he’s gone now,” Bill said, “and that’s that. Mind you, when it first happened, when I heard about Frank and the others, I really saw red. I wanted to go round there and have it out with him, I think I told you. To be honest, Sheila, I wanted to go round there and wring his neck!”

  “That’s very understandable,” I said.

  “I think I was a bit mad then, I could have done anything. I went out walking, for hours sometimes, well, Betty will tell you. Really worried, she was. Just to try and walk it all off. Once I even went as far as his lane, but then I turned back. You see, whatever I did to him, it wouldn’t bring Frank back, and it would bring me down to his level, if you see what I mean.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” I said.

  “So I won’t say I’m sorry he’s dead. It seems to me that there’s a lot of people better off now he’s gone – people who’d be glad to shake the hand of whoever it was who did it!”

  “Oh Bill,” Betty protested, “you oughtn’t to talk like that. Whatever will Sheila think!”

  “I agree with Bill,” I said. “The world’s a much better place without him.”

  “So that seems to be that,” I said to Thea. “In spite of the long walks at night and no alibi, I’m absolutely sure that Bill had nothing to do with Stanley Middleton’s death. It’s not just that he’s an old friend, well, in a way it’s because he is, that I’m positive that what he told me was the truth. And, although he’d been almost as far as Lamb’s Cottage, when the actual moment came he’d turned back. That’s the Bill Goddard I’ve known all my life, that’s what he would do.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Thea said, “but after all you were equally sure that Sidney Middleton was a nice chap and you’d known him all your life too.”

  “Oh dear,” I said, “when you put it like that. But I’ve seen how Bill is with other people, how genuine he is. Anyway,” I finished triumphantly, “there’s Betty as well. There’s no way Betty would marry someone who wasn’t thoroughly nice and good!”

  “That’s true,” Thea agreed. “But if he didn’t do it, who’s left?”

  “Well, there’s David, of course, and Brian. Goodness knows both of them had reason enough to want their father dead.”

  “And they’ve neither of them got an alibi?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “But there’s no proof that either of them did it?”

  “As far as I can see there’s no proof that anyone did it.”

  “Perhaps it will be one of those cases that are never solved,” Thea said. “That would surely be the best thing.”

  “But as Roger said,” I replied, “it’s against the law, so I don’t see him giving up. It’s just that it seems so hard when they’ve both of them suffered so much. Isn’t there something called justifiable homicide, or is that only in American movies?”

  “The law is a bit more complicated than that,” Thea said. “But are Brian and David the only two people that would have a motive? Surely there must be others, people in London perhaps, he’s injured in some way?”

  “All his business life was in London, and if that was as foul as his private life then I’ve no doubt he wrecked a lot of people’s lives, so Roger should certainly do some investigating there.”

  “Well, there you are, then.”

  “Mm. I don’t think it’s as easy as that. I mean, people from London hanging around would stick out like a sore thumb – you know what the country’s like, anything or anyone out of the ordinary is immediately spotted! Besides, how would they know about the wood – burning stove and the inspection plate? No, much as I would like it to be someone we don’t know, I don’t see how it can be.”

  “I suppose not,” Thea agreed regretfully.

  “Actually,” I said, after a moment, “I’ve been wondering why we always thought Sidney was such a splendid person.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was always charming when he met you,” I said, “polite and courteous, like most men of his generation. He always seemed interested in what you were doing. He was a good listener.”

  “He was very generous,” Thea said. “People always went to him first for donations to things.”

  “Yes, he always gave generously to charities, but have you ever heard of him doing anything generous to a person?”

  “Well, no, but one wouldn’t necessarily”

  “And did he have any friends – I mean real friends?”

  “There were Dick and Marjorie in the village.”

  “Yes, they used to give him lifts and things when he couldn’t drive any more, but that was because they were sorry for him when they thought David was being beastly to him. And the old army people, they looked up to him, admired him for ‘having no side’ as they used to say, but that was all.”

  “Your parents liked him,” Thea said. “Well, you did too.”

  “I know, that’s what I’m trying to work out. He was of my parents’ generation, they appeared to like him, I’d known him all my life, so I took it for granted that he was a nice person. True, he wasn’t a close friend of the family, we simply moved in the same circles. My father always saw the best in people so it’s not surprising that he accepted Sidney, but my mother was pretty sharp, she usually spotted when something wasn’t right. How could she have missed it?”

  “But he’d presented that face to the world all his life,” Thea said. “The same face to everyone, always. There was no one to contradict him – his wife, David, they were too frightened even to hint that there might be something wrong. I daresay if you say something loud enough and long enough, like, ‘I am a good and charming person’, people will believe you. Why wouldn’t they?”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “I suppose I just resent having been fooled.”

  “Who wouldn’t? Anyway, will you stay to lunch? It’ll only be soup and cheese, if that’s all right.”

  “That’ll be lovely.”

  Alice came into the room clutching a toy elephant in one hand and a video in the other.

  “Row the boat!” she demanded, holding out the video.

  Thea groaned. “Oh, darling, do you really want it again?” She turned to me. “It’s that nursery rhyme video she adores. But if I have to hear row the boat and the wheels on the wretched bus one more time I think I’ll go crazy!”
<
br />   “Wretched bus, wretched bus,” Alice chanted happily, thrusting the video into her hand.

  Thea passed it over to me. “Gran will watch it with you,” she said, “while I get lunch. After all,” she added with a sweet smile in my direction, “that’s what grans are for.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  * * *

  A few days later I ran into Rosemary in the greengrocer’s.

  “Hello,” I said, “whatever’s the matter? You look positively harassed.”

  “I feel harassed. Mother’s not been very well, just a chill, but she’s had to stay in bed for a few days and you know how she hates that!”

  “Oh dear.”

  “And all she can bear to eat, so she says, is halibut and avocado pear.”

  “Together!”

  “No, separately. Oh, and charantais melon. I’ve got the melon but halibut’s out of the question and all the avocados are rock hard.” She picked one up and prodded it. “There, just feel that! And they’re all the same.”

  “I believe it helps to soften them if you put them in a paper bag with a ripe banana, but I suppose it would take too long.”

  “Much too long,” Rosemary said gloomily. “Jilly said something about putting them in the microwave, but if I did that I’d probably end up with a squidgy mess.”

  “Probably,” I agreed. “I expect she’s just bored. Would it help if I went to see her?”

  “Oh, would you? I know she’d like that.”

  “Of course. I’ll ring Elsie when I get home to see when’s a good time.”

  Mrs Dudley was in bed propped up on a bank of pillows, white pillows, of course (since she held coloured bed linen to be vulgar) with white embroidery, something I hadn’t seen for many years and which took me back to the time when my mother and I would spend a whole morning “turning out” the linen cupboard. She was wearing a high-necked Viyella nightdress and a pale blue knitted bed-jacket and her hair was as impeccable as ever. In other words, Mrs Dudley was herself as always and nothing, not even illness, was allowed to alter her imposing image. She gave me a fleeting smile as I handed her the pot of African violets I had brought.

  “Thank you Sheila, they are delightful. Such a pity one can’t get real parma violets nowadays. I remember when I was a young girl, one always wore a bunch pinned to one’s fur coat.”

  I didn’t mention that fur coats were now as obsolete as parma violets. She put the pot down on her bedside table and motioned me to a chair placed near the bed.

  “Now then, what news?” she asked.

  I gave her the items of gossip about mutual acquaintances that I had carefully garnered to prepare me for this visit, but when I had run out of material, as it were, Mrs Dudley, although pleased with the quality of the information, seemed disappointed at its quantity. She allowed a silence to fall, always, with her, a sign of disapproval, so I cast about for some other topic that might interest her.

  “What was Sidney Middleton like as a young man?” I asked.

  She became animated again. “Ambitious, of course,” she said, “and ruthless, but with that sort of superficial charm that fools so many people.” Here she gave me a beady-eyed look that indicated that she included me in that category. “Completely amoral in every way, no principles and spiteful.”

  “Spiteful?”

  “Oh yes – a sort of envy. He couldn’t bear anyone to have anything he wanted, or thought he wanted, and he would go to any lengths to harm anyone who did. As I said, spiteful.”

  “What sort of lengths?” I asked.

  She thought for a minute and then said, “Joseph Middleton, his cousin.”

  “I never knew he had a cousin. He never mentioned one.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t stand him. Just before the war Joseph married someone Sidney Middleton had his eye on. Cynthia Meadows, a handsome girl, everyone said, though I could never see it myself, with her own money (from her grandmother I believe), and ambitious, as ambitious as Sidney. He proposed but she turned him down. She probably saw through him just as I did, she was no fool.”

  “Good for her,” I said.

  Mrs Dudley gave me a grim smile. “Unfortunately she married Joseph instead. One can see why. He was a better catch (he had his own business, engineering of some sort) and was obviously going to succeed in life. Also he was very good-looking, though that is hardly a sound basis for a successful married life – on the contrary, in most cases.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The war came and both Sidney and Joseph were called up. Sidney went into the Army, and we all know what happened there, and Joseph was in the Navy. He had some sort of secret job, something to do with developing new weapons, because of his engineering experience, I suppose. He wasn’t allowed to talk about it during the war, of course, but afterwards, when the details came out, it all seemed quite glamorous.” She gave a scornful smile. “People are influenced by such things. Look how dreadful life is today!“

  “I know.”

  “As you can imagine,” she continued, “with this old rivalry between them, Sidney was very jealous indeed. He’d married poor little Joan by then so he had at least as much money as Joseph, but he didn’t have Joseph’s – what is that people say now? – charisma!” She brought out the word triumphantly. “Ridiculous expression! But it made Sidney Middleton furious.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “There wasn’t much he could do but watch and wait. Joseph became more and more successful in business, a millionaire, I believe, and that meant something in those days, not like nowadays with every Tom, Dick and Harry winning this appalling lottery thing. They had three children and a very fine house, an old manor house somewhere in the Blackdown Hills. I remember seeing pictures of it in Country Life. Joseph was absolutely obsessed by this house, spent a fortune on it I believe, not a very wise thing to do as it turned out.”

  “Really?”

  “He was stupid in other ways, too,” Mrs Dudley went on. “He had an affair with this young woman, someone who worked for him, quite a common girl but men are so silly about a pretty face. Mind you, I wasn’t at all surprised when it all came out. Cynthia Middleton was a difficult woman to live with, very domineering, always insisted on her own way in everything, something I have absolutely no patience with. I always feel that there must be give and take in this life, don’t you agree?”

  Fortunately the question was rhetorical so I was not required to do more than nod, suppressing any doubts I might have had about the accuracy of Mrs Dudley’s feelings in this matter.

  “It was obviously only a matter of time before he broke out in this way and a sensible woman would have known how to ignore it. But Cynthia Middleton was the sort of person who couldn’t bear to think she wasn’t in control of the situation. Her pride was hurt, of course, but she behaved very foolishly. If she had hushed it up no one would have known anything about it, but she made a great fuss – solicitors, a divorce, both of them dragged through the courts. This was some years ago, of course, when divorce was considered a great disgrace. So different now when young people who actually do get married (and not many of them do that!) think nothing of divorcing after the first little disagreement!”

  She looked at me sharply and I said, “Oh, absolutely.”

  “He lost practically everything. Naturally she had the very best lawyer. The business had to be sold and the house – there was no way he could buy her out. It broke his heart losing that house. I do believe he minded losing that more than he minded losing the children. Anyway, she went to Canada soon after and took the children with her and he never saw them again from that day to this.”

  “How awful. What happened to him?”

  “Oh, he went to pieces. He married the girl after the divorce came through, but it wasn’t a success. She left him. He lost a lot of money, you see, trying to start up a business again. The last I heard, he was living in a tiny little flat in Taunton. I don’t know what he lives on – I suppose he has an ol
d age pension.”

  “He must be quite old now. Was he the same age as Sidney?”

  “A little younger, but I believe still quite active.”

  “I see.” I thought for a moment and then I said, “But what has this to do with Sidney?”

  Mrs Dudley leaned forward from her bank of pillows and said confidentially, “Well, who do you think it was who told Cynthia Middleton about her husband’s affair?”

  “You mean…?”

  “Exactly. When he found out about it – and I don’t suppose that was too difficult, since Joseph Middleton was not exactly the soul of discretion – Sidney went straight round to Cynthia, oh so sympathetic, but egging her on all the time to divorce Joseph.”

  “How awful.”

  “Well, Joseph Middleton was a fool, I have no patience with him, but I do believe if it hadn’t been for Sidney they might just have patched things up. But he kept on telling Cynthia how badly she’d been treated, how she owed it to herself to take a stand, that sort of thing.”

  “I see.”

  “It was quite a scandal at the time,” Mrs Dudley said with some satisfaction. She picked up the small handbell from the table beside her bed and rang vigorously. “Time for my brandy. Dr Macdonald says I must have a little brandy twice a day to keep my strength up. Can I offer you anything, Sheila, a glass of sherry, perhaps? I think it is near enough lunchtime for that to be suitable.”

  I shook my head. “No thank you. I really ought to be going. I promised to look after Alice this afternoon while Thea goes to the dentist.”

  “It was good of you to call,” Mrs Dudley said graciously. “While you are up, would you mind passing me the paper? It’s on the chair by the window.”

  I went over and picked up the Daily Telegraph (“The Times is not what it was”), folded back at the obituaries page. I put it down beside her and kissed her powdered cheek.

  “Take care of yourself,” I said, “and get well soon.”

  “So you see,” I said to Thea while we were having lunch, “there’s yet another person who had a motive for killing Sidney.”