Stone Cold Dead

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘His car?’ He gave a short bark of derision. ‘He’d have had to nick one.’

  ‘A stolen car?’ I considered it, and it didn’t sound valid. ‘No—not a stolen car. Not and have to follow Clare, on such a lousy evening as we had coming here. So much more simple just to wait for her—somewhere I don’t know. Where he might expect her to be. Then force her to drive him to where his wife was hiding. Probably with a knife to her ribs. So she drove, to the nearest place where they could get on the tow-path, where I found her car. And that would explain why it wasn’t locked, and why the keys were left in the ignition. She probably tried her only chance to get away from him in the storm, and didn’t succeed. Then he’d have forced her to take him on, past the house here, to the boat. And then what? A few more punches and a few more bruises for Helen—’

  ‘Richard, Richard!’ cut in Amelia. ‘You’re talking nonsense. Are you saying that this Arnold Pierce forced Clare to bring him to where Helen was hidden? Nonsense! From what we’ve heard about her, Clare would’ve been quite a handful, knife or not. And anyway—what would that Pierce creature want to find Helen for—just to give her another beating—and heavens, Richard, he’d have simply taken her back home again, and done all his beating there.’

  ‘But love,’ I said. ‘Dennis was there.’

  ‘What?’ Colin demanded. ‘No...he wasn’t there.’

  ‘We found his little jacket, on the boat,’ she assured him.

  But Colin was shaking his head stubbornly. ‘He wasn’t there yesterday. I was along there yesterday morning. No Dennis.’

  ‘But Clare did come, yesterday evening, Colin,’ I said. ‘We know that. Her car was at the crossroads—and she died in the pound. Perhaps she came for the engagement party, but didn’t get that far. Perhaps she came to visit Helen, and everything was all right at that time, so Clare came away…’

  Then I ran out of inspiration.

  ‘And fell in the pound on the way back to her car?’ asked Amelia meekly, smiling her little smile at me.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be so very straightforward if that were the case,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps it is,’ she replied.

  Chapter Nine

  Lunch was a misery, with Gerald demonstrating his ability to carve a side of beef into wafer-thin slices, and the conversation equally transparent. We ate in the dining room, of course, in honour of our distinguished visitors. Colin was grimly silent, and seemed not to be hungry. Ray and Mellie sat at opposite sides of the table. It seemed that their first lovers’ dispute had raised its head and leered at them. Victoria, Alexandra and Adolphus did their best to lighten the atmosphere, they really tried, but nobody other than themselves seemed to be interested in the fortunes and misfortunes involved with their estate.

  I gathered that a considerable number of acres were involved, and that their agent (it being inconceivable that they should manage the property themselves) had been proposing sundry considerations that did not please them. Rentals! The property seemed to include three farms and two villages. Some increase all round in the rentals would be necessary, the agent had explained, if his books were to show a satisfactory margin. But this was not acceptable to the family. The alternative was to consider the sale of meadowland for development. Nor was this acceptable. It was all very worrying.

  Silently, Amelia and I worried for them.

  Afterwards, I felt restless. No action, no progression, and Ted Slater was not around to be argued with.

  ‘A walk?’ I suggested. ‘The dog could come.’

  ‘But where?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘Along the tow-path.’

  ‘It’ll only upset him if he sees that boat again,’ she protested.

  ‘Then we’ll go in the other direction.’

  Bruce was asleep in the kitchen. They had rigged him out with a cardboard box, with an old blanket in it. He opened one eye. I said, ‘Walkies?’ and he was out of there in a flash.

  Somebody had fabricated a better lead for him, out of a strip of leather. One end was formed into something to grip, by riveting it into a loop, and the other end had a clip for his collar. Colin’s work, obviously. Good with his hands, was Colin.

  We went out through the bar. Ted Slater and WDS Tomkinson were there again, talking to Ray, who was not a resident but had been a temporary one, and there when Clare died. They looked up.

  ‘Going for a walk,’ I told them. ‘Getting anywhere, Inspector?’

  He scowled at me, then returned his attention to Ray. ‘Did you know that Clare had come here?’ he asked. ‘Or know she intended to?’

  ‘I thought she might.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I asked. Did you know?’

  ‘I’ve told you. She said she might.’

  We walked out. Ray was in difficulties. Let him sort it out for himself.

  Bruce, naturally, turned right, intent on getting back to the houseboat. He needed quite a little persuading, by which time I was getting flashes of light, coming from just beyond the end of the house. I investigated.

  The old stables were not so dilapidated as Colin had implied. The one next to the lodge had been converted, probably by himself, into a workshop, complete with a long bench all the way down one side. He was wearing a leather apron, from neck to thighs, and his face was shielded by a large, dark-coloured welding mask. Sparks were flying, spluttering sparks.

  ‘Don’t look directly at it,’ I said quickly to Amelia as we approached.

  He was completely unaware of us, concentrating. As far as I could sort it out, he was using a butane gas and oxygen torch, as I now recognized the shape of a Calor gas cylinder. We stood for a moment, watching. Then he straightened, flung up his mask on to his forehead, and switched off the taps. The flame died.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ I asked, and he looked round, startled.

  ‘By heaven, you gave me a shock.’

  ‘What’re you making?’ I repeated.

  He had bent curves at the ends of three strong lengths of rod, and had been welding the shanks together. The result was an anchor with three prongs. Then I understood. Two prongs to it, and it wouldn’t have worked. Three, and it always offered two gripping points.

  ‘I’m going to start dragging,’ he said, a hint of pride in his voice. ‘The locks,’ he explained, when neither of us spoke. ‘That missing handle, I’m going to have a go at dragging for it.’

  ‘But didn’t they bring—’

  He cut in, annoyed. ‘That’s not the point. They brought one. Jenkins came round with it. There it is, look.’ He pointed to one end of the bench.

  There was a brand-new winding handle lying there, just waiting to be put to use. It was as he’d described it, a shank with a square hole in it, and a hand grip for turning.

  ‘So why trouble about the old one?’ I asked, reasonably, I thought.

  He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. ‘I’ve got to try, see. Such a fuss they make! A bloody handle! And them with their hundreds of acres. I’ve got to write out a full report. Can you believe it! Every tiniest damned detail has to be right. A murder in their lock and—’

  I interrupted. ‘Has that been confirmed? Is Inspector Slater taking that line?’

  ‘Yes, he damn-well is. Now he says they’ve found traces of rust in her hair—at the back. Where she got hit. And there’s nothing rusty where she went in. I keep all the metal moving parts greased.’

  I laughed. Easy enough to laugh, looking back on it. I’d remembered the mess his grease had made of my anorak.

  ‘So you thought the winding handle that’s missing could have been the weapon?’

  He grinned. He had the sort of face that wore a grin attractively. ‘It’s not the point. Don’t you see! It’s to stick under their noses. Give ’em back the new one. Indiscretion wiped clean.’

  Amelia said, ‘Is that what they called it—an indiscretion?’

  ‘They did. You’re getting to know them. Everything has to be right and proper. Lock-keepers don’t los
e their gate handles. Damn it all, it wasn’t me who lost it.’

  ‘Oh?’ I asked. ‘Then who?’

  ‘The one who used it on Clare Martin. Belted her with it, then tossed it into the water. That’s what I reckon, anyway.’

  ‘But you do realize...they’re mighty good at fingerprints, these days. For all I know they might be able to lift ’em off your winding handle, if you find it. A day under water or not. They might.’

  ‘I suppose. Yeah...I suppose.’

  ‘So, if you do find it, don’t touch it. Let it lie where it comes up, and fetch the inspector. Okay?’

  ‘Sure. All right. I’ll do that.’

  ‘But I don’t fancy your chances. There’s hardly anything to hook on to.’ I picked up the new one, hefted it, and turned to face the lock. ‘What’s it worth not to toss this one in?’

  He gave a yelp, and dived for it. ‘It was a joke! A joke,’ I told him, replacing it gently on the bench.

  He didn’t seem to appreciate it.

  We walked away, firmly turning Bruce from the direction of the houseboat. I said, ‘The funny thing is that Colin, with all his skills, could have made himself a new handle from scrap, though it doesn’t seem to have occurred to him. But then, he needn’t have reported its loss.’

  Stranger still, he didn’t seem to have mentioned it to Slater, the loss of the handle, or certainly Slater would be dragging for it already, with a whole team and proper equipment. Colin’s mind was firmly locked on his responsibilities, and to hell with the police.

  We crossed the locks by way of the narrow footbridge over the pound in which Clare had died, as the tow-path switched sides there. Then I realized what Colin had meant, when he’d mentioned easier access to the pound from there. A ramp ran down to the level of the bottom lock’s coping edge. It would have been easy, from that lower level, for me to reach the low deck where I’d sprawled so frantically and uselessly, and from there with only the main gate’s arm to edge round, and the rack and pinion.

  Indeed, it would not have been particularly difficult to slide in the dead body of Clare—if it hadn’t been for the chain from bridge to lock-arm. Which, I saw, the police had put back on its requested hook. So easy, and down there, out of sight from any of the lodge windows.

  We walked on. Here, the canal was on our left, and overlooked by trees on the far side. I released Bruce from his lead. He was slightly disorientated, one tow-path being the same as another to him. He galloped ahead, searching for a houseboat that wasn’t there, returned, seemed confused, and ran ahead again.

  It was no more than a quarter of a mile to the bridge, over which the road ran. This was the crossroads where I’d looked for the signpost. There was access up to the roadway, a steep ramp cut into the high bank, with poor, collapsing steps, which were supported only by planking at the vertical edges. A rickety rail ran up, curving beneath the overhanging branches of a tree.

  It didn’t seem that it was a practical proposition to carry anything heavy down there from the road above. But I had already dismissed the proposition that Clare had been dead before arriving here. Gerald Fulton had seen her since, anyway. So he claimed.

  We walked a little further along the tow-path, which narrowed considerably beneath the arch of the bridge. It seemed to be exactly the same view that side—a canal disappearing into the distance. The only difference was that the trees were now on our side, and only a thorn hedge at the top of the bank on the other.

  And...‘Look, Richard!’ cried Amelia, pointing.

  Floating on the water, half submerged and half caught in bobbing peaks of paper-thin ice, was my hat.

  ‘Heh, heh,’ I said in delight.

  ‘Ruined, now,’ she said.

  ‘Ruined...not it.’ It had been a long way from pristine before, as I’d had it for years, a tweed trilby with all the stiffening worn out of it, lining tatty, but with the ability to be squashed down into a pocket and later emerge in all its former glory. Or rather no worse than it had been. A night in the canal wouldn’t have harmed it at all.

  I looked around. Trees overhung us and dipped over the water, but I couldn’t reach any of the branches. I tried jumping, but nearly fell in.

  ‘Richard! It’s not worth the risk.’

  ‘Oh...but it is. It is.’

  I went hunting further along the canal, but remembered the access steps beside the bridge. There, the trees encroached closer. I marched away, and returned with a branch I hadn’t been ashamed to break free, as its absence merely improved the access.

  ‘You can’t reach it with that.’

  Why is it that women always seem to concentrate on what you can’t do, rather than what you can?

  ‘I can try.’

  It was a foot short.

  ‘Hang on to my belt,’ I said.

  ‘No. It’s ridiculous. You’ll have us both in.’

  And Bruce, having been watching these activities, supplied the answer. He had observed the objective, plunged in, and swum to it.

  ‘Fetch!’ I said, belatedly.

  One quick chop with his teeth, and he had it. Then he was back, placed it at my feet with obvious pride, then shook himself thoroughly, soaking my trousers.

  ‘He’s wet through!’ cried Amelia.

  I patted his wet-through head. She didn’t mention me.

  ‘We’d better get him back into the kitchen,’ I said. ‘Before he gets a chill.’

  ‘Richard—you’re the limit. You really are.’ Then she took up his lead and began to run back along the tow-path.

  ‘Watch your step!’ I shouted, walking after her, but to no obvious response.

  But my mind was still locked on the recovery of my hat, and quite naturally I recalled that the police had not found Clare’s cap. Because of this, I walked along with my mind firmly on the possibility that hers, too, could have been blown away, so that...

  ‘Hold on, love!’ I shouted. ‘Wait a second.’ She stopped, looking back. ‘What is it?’

  I pointed. Floating on the water, about a hundred yards back towards the lodge from the bridge, was a peaked cap. It had a checkered band around it.

  ‘It’s Clare’s,’ I called. ‘Must be.’

  She returned, breathing hard from her run. ‘How very interesting.’

  ‘It is, though. It means that she didn’t walk along the tow-path, with whatever she was carrying, she walked down the lane. That’s the direction the wind was from. And she wouldn’t be able to hold her cap on if she was carrying something. So she lost it. And therefore, she had no protection at all against a blow to the back of her head.’

  ‘How very clever of you, Richard.’ She gave me her little grin.

  ‘And, my love, it also means that Gerald was lying when he said he saw her, because he mentioned the cap.’

  ‘And won’t you enjoy telling him that!’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ I pointed. ‘Fetch,’ I said.

  Bruce looked up at me, showing me about six inches of tongue, and did nothing.

  ‘Fetch the cap, Bruce,’ I said.

  Nothing.

  ‘The one with the checkered hat-band,’ explained Amelia, pointing. So I laughed at her, and changed it to a smile when Bruce plunged in.

  ‘You see,’ she explained to me. ‘You have to be quite explicit.’

  ‘I’ll remember that.’

  So I took the cap from Bruce, after a certain amount of tug and enticement, and off they went once more, Amelia and Bruce, but not before he’d shaken himself all over my legs again.

  I walked, more soberly, after them. When I reached the kitchen, Amelia was rubbing him vigorously with a kitchen towel, which was rapidly taking on a darker hue, and Mellie was plugging in a hair dryer. Bruce thought all this was great fun.

  Quietly, I waited. I glanced at my watch. Three-thirty. Too early. The ward sister had definitely said, ‘Later.’ I could come and see Helen later. Would four o’clock be considered sufficiently late? But she had hinted that I might be able to see Helen
, providing...Providing what, she had not specified. I had to guess that she’d meant: providing Helen was fit to receive visitors. So maybe she would be—at four.

  I went up to change my trousers, and when I returned, Bruce had come up very much whiter than he had been, his markings a brighter brown. He rolled over on the floor happily, enjoying the warm draught of air. I left the hat hanging on one end of the radiator, the cap on the other end, and wandered outside to see what was going on.

  Colin was standing on the wider of the two bridges, and had been dragging in the top lock. I could have told him how hopeless this was, fishing for his winding handle, when a whole team of police, with experience in such activities, might spend several days on such a task, especially as the only place a hook might catch would be the angle between the handle and the shaft. But...beginner’s luck had triumphed again, and he began shouting at the sight of me.

  ‘I’ve got it, Richard. I’ve got it.’

  I approached. It was lying at his feet, and I couldn’t see what all the fuss had been about. It was obviously very old indeed, the squared hole at one end very nearly worn circular, and the handle of brass tube showing cracks here and there.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ I told him.

  ‘I haven’t. You said not to.’

  ‘So now you’ve got two of them. A spare.’

  ‘I shall’, he said with proud dignity, ‘tell the three old penny-pinchers to take the other one back.’

  I eyed him with amusement. He would delight in doing that, and probably, if I’d been the one to criticize them, would have given me a ticking-off.

  ‘Why not keep both?’ I said. ‘It’d save you switching one around from here to there.’

  ‘Yeah. Sure.’

  ‘And on which of the rack and pinion things did you usually leave this one?’ I was very casual about this, as I had a feeling what his answer would be.

  ‘Oh—down by the lower pound. Your rack and pinion.’ He laughed. ‘It’s ’cause I use that gate more often than the others.’