Hung Out to Die

by Anthony Litton

  Desmond’s eyes clouded a little as he followed her gaze, recalling the Welshman’s recent nervous breakdown, his second in fifteen years. “Yes, thank heaven. We weren’t sure he would ever come out of it this time, but he did. God! If he’d only relax and accept what we have, as I do! Take the joy in it without any guilt! Sod it! there shouldn't be any guilt!” Jemma heard clearly in his voice the pain that his partner’s unwillingness to openly acknowledge their relationship had caused him. “We've been life-partners, lovers, for almost thirty years, yet he still can’t bear people knowing about what we are, about us!”

  “You think that’s what caused his breakdowns?”

  “I do,” he responded, taking a deep breath, and continuing more calmly. “And more to the point, so do his doctors - and he had some of the best both times.” He shook his head, weary of a long-running problem that he saw no solution to.

  “I was a bit surprised when I heard you two were coming back here to live,” she said quietly, gently easing the conversation into less pain-filled waters. “What made you decide? Was it Gwilym’s illness?”

  “Partly, though we had been talking seriously about it from when my father died last autumn. We were both worried about how my mother would cope. Then when we heard the pub was in danger of closing, Gwilym was horrified. He’s always had a nostalgic hankering back to when his parents ran it. The thought it might go the way of so many village pubs jolted him, so, all in all, we felt the time was right.”

  “You think you’ll stay? You always swore you’d never come back to live here!”

  “Oh yes. Mother has said nothing at all about being pleased we’re back, but I know her, and she is – very much so. And Gwil is enjoying the pub, though I don’t see him staying with it once it’s back on its feet.”

  “You know, everyone talks about a recession and everything, but you’d not know it, looking round this lot, would you?” remarked Jemma, tactfully lightening the conversation a little. “We must be doing something right, despite what the bloody papers keep telling us,” she added sourly. Desmond smiled, his diminutive friend was most definitely not the Fourth Estate’s greatest fan. “It’s not only the women wearing designer stuff, either,” she said, her practised eyes scanning the male half of the guests. She was right, as Desmond had already noted. Expensive watches and equally expensive, very carefully casual clothes dominated, at least with the incomer part of the guest-list, anyway.

  “There are certain notable local exceptions, of course,” she murmured. They both smiled as their eyes lit on three oddly dressed figures standing very close to the long bar that Desmond and Gwilym had set up earlier for his mother.

  “Ah yes, the Family Grimm!” he responded, using the nickname given to the odd looking trio by generations of village children. The name was not entirely unwarranted. Besides being almost always dressed in cast-offs that even the local charities would reject, the trio – two brothers and their sister – were frequently unwashed, usually grumpy and almost always surly to virtually everyone in the village. One exception was Eleanor, for reasons known only to them – and perhaps to Eleanor herself. For her part, she was always unusually amiable whenever she heard of their latest short-comings.

  “Free-loading as usual, I see.” Jemma smiled, watching them quickly refilling their glasses as they ploughed through their heavily laden plates of food. It was less a question than a comment born of long-suffering acquaintanceship.

  “Yep, I think virtually everyone else brought a bottle of something, some food or some little token – despite mother saying it wasn’t necessary – but not those three.”

  “Do they ever? Ironic, when they’re one of the richest families in the village! And no one has ever found out where their money came from,” she added wickedly, sighing melodramatically and glancing sidewise at her friend, knowing how much this had galled him over the years.

  “Don’t be a bitch, dear, it doesn’t become you!” he shot back, smiling. “I’ll find out one day, just you wait and see! Oh shit! Watch out for turbulence,” he added, looking over her shoulder.

  “Dessy! Darling! I haven’t seen you for simply ages!” practically bellowed a large woman, surging across the room and displacing a number of smaller creatures in her single-minded push to reach the duo.

  Desmond kept his head turned towards the sound whilst gritting his teeth, determined not to rise to her using the shortened version of his name. She knew it irritated the hell out of him, which, of course, was the reason she did it, and had done since they were children. Seeing that he wasn’t going to rise, she good naturedly gave him a hug which almost asphyxiated him.

  “Bella, you saw me three days ago!” he said, as, needing to breathe, he extricated himself with some urgency.

  “Oh, was it? It seems much longer, time drags ...” Shaking herself, she deliberately brightened up and changed the subject. “I see Gwilym’s looking better at last,” she said, peering myopically over to where the subject of her attentions was politely listening to the vicar, now displaced from his hostess’s attentions. “Didn’t think he would, not this time; thought he’d had it and he’d end up ...” She suddenly ground to a halt as both Desmond’s and Jemma’s faces told her that she was definitely treading where angels very much feared.

  “Oh! Sorry! I shouldn’t have...didn’t mean to...wouldn’t upset...no not for the world; it’s just...”

  “Bella – shut up,” said Jemma firmly.

  “Oh yes! Good idea!” her large friend agreed sheepishly. She looked down thankfully at her suddenly empty glass. “Better go and get a refill!” So saying, the now thoroughly embarrassed behemoth hurried across to the bar, again scattering lesser mortals in her wake.

  “She really doesn’t change, does she?” said Jemma resignedly.

  “Nope, she really doesn’t; but, you know, she’s got one of the largest hearts in the village. I’m not sure whether it’s despite her blundering and so on, or because of it, but I do love her to bits,” he smiled.

  “Even when she calls you Dessy?” teased Jemma

  “Even then – just!” he replied, smiling.

  “God, and to think what she’s having to put up with...” Jemma began.

  Desmond’s attention was suddenly pulled away from his friend as a thin, sharp-featured face suddenly appeared in his line of vision, almost pushing between him and Jemma.

  “You must be Desmond! I’m Della Riminton, Riminton with an ‘ i’, but without the ‘g’,” she giggled, her high-pitched voice cutting across their conversation as she held out her hand. “I’ve just this minute arrived and couldn’t...” Whatever she couldn’t do went unsaid, as there was a sudden sound of smashing glass and a muffled oath, killing every conversation stone dead as everyone in the room turned in alarm to see what had happened.

  “Good God! He’s bleeding!” said Jemma, and turned immediately, not to the injured victim, but to Desmond, whose arm she grabbed. She knew from bitter experience that the merest sight of blood usually sent him into a dizzy spell, which was frequently followed by an immediate faint.

  She needn’t have worried.

  Desmond, once he saw there wasn’t a major crisis, just turned his face away and sat down rather suddenly.

  “Oh he’s just cut his hand,” she continued, looking across and seeing Jon Peters, a local farmer, clutching his wrist. “And is he loving the attention that Louise and that new woman, the one Piers is shagging behind his wife’s back, are giving him! They’re fussing round him like mother hens!” Jemma giggled.

  Desmond’s deep love of gossip caused him to swivel his eyes up from the swirling faded green and amber of the Persian rugs overlaying the ancient wooden floor, and risk a look over to where the two women were indeed fussing over a now beaming Jon Peters. Like all the women here tonight they were surprisingly smartly dressed for a country supper party; but, then again, Eleanor Blaine-Appleby’s standards were rather high – and made clear to all her expected guests before they arrived. After all, thi
s was the woman who’d soundly berated some opera goers at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden for being dressed, in her view, little better than the down and outs in the piazza outside. That she later found out they were exiled foreign royalty merely made her sniff and remark that it was easy to see why their family was now out of a job.

  “I’d better go and show my concern,” Jemma added, laughing. “After all – he’s always telling me that he’s a floating voter, and that I should never take his support for granted!”

  “Now, Desmond,” the newcomer said, taking his arm possessively even before Jemma had moved away. “You don’t mind if I call you Desmond, do you?” and hurried on, either taking his agreement for granted, or not much caring whether he minded or not. He had a feeling it was the latter, but said nothing.

  “I’ve read so much about you and your London work! I hadn’t realised that you were Eleanor’s son! Stupid of me, and you so famous! But I didn’t realise that you didn’t use the Blaine bit professionally!”

  And so on – and on. Desmond, not having his mother’s ruthless social skills, resigned himself to the verbal onslaught. Fortunately, Gwilym caught his eye, saw his need, and came to his rescue, politely but firmly steering him away from the verbal torrent...

  *

  And now here she was, that glittering social butterfly, gilded and lovely until you looked into the slate-hard eyes and at a mouth painted to look beautiful, but reminding

  him of an enamelled steel trap. It was embellished and eye-catching to be sure, but none the less deadly for that. She was tied – Desmond hoped she was tied and not impaled – onto the uprights, her clothing, face and body so savagely ripped, the heavily blood-spattered result could have been a prop in an old-style horror film.

  Grabbing the wriggling puppy with one shaking hand, Desmond reached into his pocket for his mobile phone. As he made two shaky phone calls, he breathed a heartfelt sigh of thankfulness that, for once, he had remembered to bring it with him.

  He never afterwards could recall how long he’d stood there until the others arrived. Gwilym got to him first, of course, being the nearest, and hurriedly leaving his staff to cope with getting the pub ready for opening. Glad as he was to see him, Desmond was almost more glad of the brandy bottle his friend had grabbed as he rushed out of the building, and now thrust at him.

  Beyond a single, appalled glance at the butchered corpse, Gwilym ignored the horrifically disfigured body. All his attention was on Desmond, almost catatonic with shock. The face turned to him when he reached the field told him everything he needed to know about how near to collapse his long-time friend was. He held the brandy bottle to lips now rapidly turning blue with the cold of the wind still sleeting savagely across the large, flat landscape. He moved him to the edge of the field and sat him down on the ground, his own jacket underneath him, rubbing his dangerously white hands and face. Whether it was the brandy or not, Gwilym neither knew nor cared as he saw colour return to a face drained to a whiteness he’d never expected to see on anyone still alive.

  The local police arrived very quickly after him, and the stark windswept field quickly became a crime scene, part of which, it was quickly made clear to them both, they were now no longer part of.

  Even so, Gwilym had to bluntly overrule the police objections about Desmond leaving the field itself before a senior officer could question him; objections which only grew stronger when Desmond confirmed that he knew the dead woman.

  “For Christ’s sake, John! You know him – and he only lives two bloody fields away!” the Welshman snapped to the local PC as he determinedly took his friend’s arm. He himself wasted no time on questions or conjecture as he gently steered him home. As for Desmond, now that the effects of the brandy had worn off, he felt as cold, icy and drained as the corpse itself had looked. He scarcely remembered afterwards how he made it back to the familiar warmth and safety of his mother’s home.

  Guiding him to one of the comfortable armchairs in the large sitting room, Gwilym watched him anxiously. Although it was he himself who had been seriously ill recently, he knew that, in situations like this, he was the stronger of the two. Such was his concentration on looking after his still shaky friend, that he had neither the time nor the interest to think through what he’d half-noticed when he got to the scene, despite a familiar nagging feeling already telling him that it was important. Whatever ‘it’ was, it would have to wait, he thought, as he gave Desmond some more brandy.

  “What on earth’s the matter,” asked Eleanor as she strode into the room from the shop where she’d been serving, or rather overseeing, her two assistants.

  “There’s ... there’s...” stammered Desmond.

  “We’ve been told to say nothing until the police have spoken to Desmond,” said Gwilym, a strong believer in such rules.

  “Rubbish!” retorted Eleanor, who wasn’t, at least when they applied to her. “I’m his mother. What’s happened, darling?” she asked with mounting concern as she saw the ashen face and shaking hands of her youngest and, perhaps, favourite child.

  Gwilym, sighing, gave up and told her, his soft lilting accent not lessening the horror of what he’d seen. “It’s Della Riminton; she’s in Corbett’s field. She’s dead!”

  “But what was …?” Eleanor started to ask the obvious question, or one of them.

  Gwilym cut across her. “She’s been murdered and staked out as a scarecrow.”

  “Good God!” said Eleanor, sitting down rather suddenly, at the same time helping herself to Gwilym’s bottle of brandy. “Even she didn’t deserve that,” she murmured softly, looking down at the bottle in her hands.

  “What do you mean ‘even she’?” asked Gwilym, distracted from his worries about Desmond by the tone of Eleanor’s voice.

  “Oh, nothing really, just that I thought her an absolute bitch – very unpleasant.”

  “Mother! The poor woman’s dead! You can’t speak ill of the dead!” spluttered Desmond, jolted out of his shock by her words.

  Eleanor, her primary goal achieved, looked back at him and said calmly, “I’m not, dear. I was describing what she was like when she was alive. I’ve no idea what she’ll be like now she’s dead; quite transformed, possibly, though, personally, I rather doubt it.”

  Gwilym choked back a laugh. Good old Eleanor, he thought, sod the conventions; or, at least those she disliked. Heaven help anyone, though, who broke any of those that she did care about, he thought fleetingly, still hovering anxiously over his friend.

  Such was their shock at the murder, that it was only later that it occurred to them to wonder why, if she disliked the woman so much, Eleanor had invited Della Riminton to the supper party at all.

  Chapter 2

  The police, in the form of two CID officers from the county force, arrived just before lunch to talk to Desmond. They introduced themselves as Detective Inspector Robert Calderwood and Detective Sergeant Colin Bulmer, respectively.

  Even through his shock, Desmond was able to tap into his sense of humour. It was a trait that had often helped in the past when things had been particularly difficult. Now it surfaced as he looked at the two men as they entered Eleanor’s sitting room. Had he been casting one of his famous thrillers, he doubted he’d have cast either in the role of policeman.

  The Detective Sergeant was slightly below mid-height, and a little plumper than the TV or stage version would have had him. With his reddish hair and round face, he could, Desmond thought, have modelled for a Raphaelite cherub; though perhaps some years ago, he amended mentally as he noticed the incipient droop of the jawline and the slight bagginess under the eyes.

  The senior of the two – above medium height, well-built, and with strong, alert features – did, on the other hand, look more the part – except that he looked absurdly young.

  Seeing that Desmond was still very pale and in some degree of shock, they took things gently. After taking him step by step through the morning itself – why he was in the field, what he’d seen, a
nd so on – they then turned to the evening of the party.

  “I’m not sure I can even remember everyone who was there,” said Desmond.

  “You needn’t worry, sir; Mrs Blaine-Appleby has already provided Constable Forbes with a complete list.”

  “Of course,” murmured Desmond. “With appropriate comments beside each name, I imagine.”

  “No, sir. She said she’d not had time to do that, but would do so before we left, if we thought it would help,” replied Robert, keeping a straight face.

  “Sounds about right,” murmured the lady’s undutiful son.

  “Now, moving on – if you could tell us when you first met the deceased.”

  “I’d never met her before last night at the party; although she seemed to know me, or at least of me,” he corrected.

  “Scarcely surprising, surely,” the DI responded. “You’re pretty well-known in the theatre world.”

  “Yes, but she wasn’t... from the theatre world, I mean.”

  “Perhaps not, but over the last few years you’ve become known beyond that world, particularly in London, and the deceased was from London herself.”

  “Really?” said Desmond, startled. “Mind you, thinking about it, she would fit that milieu much better than here,” he added, nodding to himself.

  “Just to be clear – you’d not come across her in London, then?”

  “Me? Good Lord, no. Wouldn’t have wanted to either,” he added, feelingly recalling the rapacious look on her face as she cornered him.

  “You didn’t like her, then?”

  “No, no, I didn’t, not particularly,” Desmond responded honestly.

  “So you got to know her only when she attended your mother’s party, not previously?”

  “No, like I’ve said already, I didn’t know her. I’d never met her before the other evening.”