The Room on the Second Floor

by T A Williams

  ‘So we are almost certainly looking for somebody else. I suppose it could always be the work of a professional, hired by Jennings. Mind you, no self-respecting hit-man would still be in business after three unsuccessful attempts on the life of the same person. Or it could well be four.’

  Roger looked up sharply. The inspector elaborated.

  ‘Your groundsman told my men he found a smashed cold frame, directly below your window, when he came back after the Christmas holiday. The frame was smashed by a ladder, and there were bloodstains on the glass. My men are investigating as we speak. So it could be that the bungling assassin has tried and failed four times. I assume you have no recollection of an incident outside your window?

  Roger shook his head in disbelief. This was just getting right out of hand.

  ‘By the way, excellent news about the unfortunate young lady in the shooting incident. I understand she has improved markedly.’ Roger, too, had heard about Tessa. Linda had phoned through the good news an hour earlier. Roger was immensely relieved. Somehow, the fact that the bullet had been intended for him, made him feel responsible for what had happened. He agreed with the inspector and added, ‘And, hopefully, she will make a full recovery.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, and without permanent scarring to that lovely face of hers.’ The inspector remembered her well from his last visit. ‘And your broken leg?’

  ‘A long time in plaster, I’m afraid. But no lasting damage.’

  The inspector looked again at the plaster cast. It could have been a whole lot worse. ‘I feel we have to focus our enquiries a lot closer to home.’ He shot a glance at Roger, who had reached the same conclusion.

  ‘No question, Inspector. I must confess that the facts do point towards somebody down here.’ Roger was prevented from saying more by the arrival of Duggie bearing gifts.

  ‘Morning, Inspector. Hi, Rog. Here, Tina and I thought you might like a bit of cheering up.’ He was carrying Roger’s briefcase, from which he produced Roger’s laptop. Noticing Roger’s look of anticipation, he added swiftly. ‘Not for study, Rog. Here are a few DVDs you can play to while the time away till they release you into the community.’

  Roger was pleased to see that he was in good spirits. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d give you a bit of news to put a smile on your face.’ Roger looked at him expectantly. ‘Tina has agreed to make an honest man of me.’

  They both offered congratulations. Roger was delighted for him, for both of them. Duggie delved deeper into the bag and pulled out a bottle of champagne and glasses. Cocker whistled silently. Bollinger, no less. Nothing but the best here, and with tears of condensation running down the sides of the bottle.

  Duggie ripped off the foil. ‘I suppose the medics advise against alcohol, Rog, and the inspector is on duty, but I really can’t drink the whole bottle myself. Here…’ He eased out the cork and splashed some of the wonderful yellow liquid into a couple of glasses. He passed them over. Cocker accepted his without hesitation, as did Roger.

  ‘Well, Duggie, here’s to you and Tina.’ Roger proposed the toast, and the three men savoured the wine.

  ‘Mr Scott, if your taste in women is anything like your taste in wine, you will have a long and happy marriage.’ Cocker offered his congratulations and then, as Duggie sat down, he picked up where he had left off. ‘We were going through a few possible scenarios here. Mind if we continue?’ Both men nodded.

  ‘Douglas knows all about the Jennings affair, Inspector. You can speak freely in front of him. We have no secrets from each other.’

  Duggie felt the observation like a slap in the face. No secrets? How could he have been so stupid as to set out to betray his best friend’s confidence?

  It must have shown on his face. The inspector narrowed his eyes, but made no comment.

  Duggie looked across at Roger, who was deep in thought. Inside, he was petrified that his extra-curricular venture with the Salon might, somehow, be responsible. This thought made him very, very uncomfortable. For a moment, he thought of speaking up, but he had already decided he would tell Roger, man to man, first. He owed it to him to tell him in private. And, as he had promised Tina, he would also tell him that the Salon’s days were numbered. He drained his glass of champagne and shook his head ruefully.

  Inspector Cocker noticed his discomfort, and filed it away for further consideration. The three of them talked through the facts of the case for the umpteenth time. Patently, however, neither was going to shed any light on the case. The inspector finished the glass, regretfully refused the offer of another, and stood up.

  ‘In the meantime, Professor Dalby, I wish you all the best for a speedy recovery and, in the nicest possible way, I hope I don’t see you till next year.’ He shook hands with them both.

  He was on the point of leaving when Roger had a brainwave.

  ‘Inspector, I was just wondering whether there might be any way you could help provide some extra security for us over the next few weeks.’

  The inspector’s face told its own story of short-staffing, lack of resources and heavy workloads. But Roger wasn’t looking for something for nothing.

  ‘I was wondering whether you, or one or two of your officers, might be able to find time to drop in every now and then. You could use the new fitness centre while you are here. That way you would be able to get more of a feel of the place. And, of course, your presence, maybe with a police car outside, would act as a deterrent to anybody trying to do something again.’

  Duggie nodded enthusiastically, while groaning inside. The Salon might technically be legal, but he preferred to keep the authorities as far away as possible. Roger’s suggestion, while eminently sensible, sparked off a series of unsettling thoughts. All the more so, when Cocker accepted the offer.

  ‘If my presence here for a month or two can offer any reassurance, I’m game. My wife has been on at me for ages about losing some weight. I would be delighted to take you up on the offer. If it helps in any way, so much the better. No guarantee of results, I am afraid.’

  ‘Rubbish, Inspector.’ Duggie put on a brave face. ‘Just avoid snacking between meals. Hit the gym regularly, and you will see concrete results within weeks.’

  As the inspector left, Duggie called to him that he would send a membership card to him at the police station. Turning back to Roger, bottle in hand, he refilled the glasses and they chatted. Duggie braced himself. Now was as good a time as any. It was confession time. He would tell Roger the whole sordid story and fling himself on his mercy. He owed it to him. He cleared his throat.

  But, just as he set down his glass, Tina arrived at the door. She cast a sympathetic glance at the broken leg and hurried over to comfort Roger. She sat down beside him and kissed his cheek.

  ‘I really don’t think you should be drinking alcohol, Roger.’ There was a twinkle in her eye.

  ‘That’s the trouble with these bottles.’ Duggie turned on the charm. ‘You open them, and then you can’t recork them.’ He held up the cork, now hopelessly swollen. ‘Maybe you might be prepared to help us out, Tina, old girl? After all, it’s not every day a man gets engaged…’

  ‘Less of the old girl, please.’

  She accepted a drop of wine and sat with them. Roger was still turning over possible culprits in his head, but with no success. It was unthinkable. Who could possibly hate him so much, he wanted him dead?

  ‘Seems unbelievable, doesn’t it?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Linda’s been visiting Tessa. She’ll be here any minute. Maybe she’ll have some bright ideas.’

  Duggie realised that the moment to confess his sins, man to man, had passed for now. But he was under no illusions that he had a lot of explaining to do. And the sooner he did so, the better.

  Chapter 41

  ‘Skiing accident?’ Ben from the fitness centre had not heard what had been happening while he had been on his holidays.

  ‘Something like that.’

  Roger made his laborious way on crutches to the kitchen door and pushed
it open. Inside, he faced two main hazards: a boisterously friendly dog and Mrs Vinnicombe’s viciously polished floors. With great care, he managed to negotiate both safely. He lowered himself onto a seat at the long central table, carefully stacking his crutches beside him. The dog immediately settled down at his side, while Henri silently materialised beside him and offered coffee.

  Roger accepted gratefully. He watched the Frenchman at the espresso machine. Swiftly and efficiently, he unclipped the old coffee holder. He cleared the used grounds out into the drawer below with a satisfying thud. Then he filled it with fresh coffee and tamped it down. He slotted it back into place and spun the knob to release the boiling water. No matter how many times he watched the ritual, Roger never tired of it. The aroma of fresh coffee began to fill the kitchen.

  As he watched the actions of the butler, part of his mind was still turning over the question of who could possibly be behind the theft of manor property, not to mention the attacks on his life. Were they one and the same? What about Henri himself? He had worked there for well over five years. That meant he could even be responsible for the theft, or at least misappropriation of the furniture and dishes. That had all taken place over the course of the last five years.

  The goods from the old bunker were now gradually drying out in the basement beneath his feet. It had taken four men a whole day to clear it. But why would Henri, or anybody else, steal things just to store them elsewhere on the property?

  Even more disturbing was the question of attempted murder. There was a huge difference between stealing a few chairs, and trying to murder somebody. And Henri? Surely not? Mind you, he had been just about the only staff member still there over Christmas. Of course, he could not have been involved in the shooting incident, as he had been inside the room at the time… Roger snorted with frustration.

  Henri half turned towards him.

  ‘How are you feeling now, sir?’ Roger had been trying hard for weeks to get the butler to call him by his Christian name, but without significant success. ‘You look unhappy as well as unwell.’

  Not bloody surprising, Roger thought to himself, in a rare moment of bad temper. Resisting the temptation to tell Henri that he would be pretty unhappy himself, if he were a victim of theft and multiple attempts on his life, he replied in more measured tones.

  ‘Thanks for your concern, Henri. The fact is that I’m not used to people trying to kill me.’ If Henri’s sympathetic smile was an act, it was a bloody good one. ‘In particular, it’s the pillbox thing. The would-be killer was only a matter of a few feet away from me. It’s a creepy feeling. And locking me in there could have been fatal. The police think it is a local job, but I can’t bring myself to suspect anybody here.’

  Henri turned back to the machine. He removed the cup of coffee, slipping it silently onto a saucer with a practised hand. He turned back, cup in hand.

  ‘If it helps, we are all thinking the same.’ He added a drop of milk and passed it across to his master.

  Roger pointed to the machine. ‘Why not join me in a coffee, Henri?’ To his surprise the butler accepted. Previously he had refused all attempts to persuade him to fraternise with his employer.

  While he repeated the coffee ritual at the machine, Henri looked back over his shoulder. ‘Maybe the question to be answered first is “why”? Then the “who” will follow naturally.’ He had a good point there.

  ‘Well, Henri, you’ve been here a lot longer than I have. Can you think of anybody, present or past, with a grudge against my uncle or myself? And I mean a grudge so big that it leads to murder?’ There was a long pause before the answer came. Roger was surprised by much of what he was told.

  ‘I do not want to slag off, you know, to speak ill of your uncle. But, in the last years of his life, he was not the man we had all loved and served before. His illness made him bitter, vindictive and very, very mean. As tight as a duck’s derrière, I can tell you. You will, I am sure, find a record of the staff pay somewhere in his papers. Take a look at the salaries six or seven years ago. Compare them to what we were paid last year. You will find that they changed not at all. And you and I know full well that the cost of living went up and up over that period. Like a sky rocket.’

  Roger nodded in agreement, wondering where this was leading.

  ‘People who had served him faithfully for years were treated like dirt. In some cases, they lost their jobs. Some chose to leave under the pressure of the ill-treatment they received. We were all desperately short of money, skint in a word. We all knew he was no longer himself. We knew it was that terrible illness that made him behave in such a manner, made him go bonkers. But it did not make the ill-treatment any easier to bear.’

  He paused as he brought his cup over to the table and sat down. Roger waited for the conclusion, which was brief and to the point.

  ‘There are people around here who feel very bitter towards your uncle and, by extension, his family.’ He took a sip of the steaming coffee and sat back.

  ‘Yes, I noticed the low rates of pay and that’s why I gave you all a substantial rise.’ In fact it had been his beloved Linda, of course, who had drawn his attention to the abysmal rates. Duggie had been responsible for ensuring that the new pay scales compared well in today’s market. Henri nodded vigorously. Roger went on.

  ‘But, Henri, there is no getting away from it. However unhappy you may be with your boss, there is very little excuse for attempting murder.’ He thought of a possible exception, ‘Unless your name was Von Stauffenberg, and your boss was a former Austrian painter, with a bit of a space in the testicle department.’ Henri smiled briefly. ‘Besides which, it’s me they are trying to kill, not my uncle. No, there has to be more to it than that. Real hatred or real madness…’ His voice tailed off in thought. Before Henri could respond, the door opened and a familiar voice called in, hopefully.

  ‘And might that aromatic assault upon my olfactory epithelium be some of your real Italian coffee, freshly picked from the slopes of Sophia Loren and roasted on the thighs of Neapolitan maidens?’ Paddy bent down gingerly and very carefully pulled off his Wellington boots.

  Jasper jumped up and greeted him effusively. It appeared that almost everybody in the manor liked the garrulous Irishman. ‘Now, mon brave.’ He addressed the butler. ‘If it were to be possible for me to help myself to a soupçon of that fine, scented nectar, sure and you would be making this poor sod-cutter a happy man.’

  Henri gave him a tired smile and stood up.

  ‘Patrick, you may have some of this coffee but, as you know full well, only I have been introduced to the art of using this wonderful machine. Sit down at the table and I will make you one. White and three sugars, non?’ Paddy held up four fingers as he cautiously took a seat opposite Roger, taking care not to jog the plaster cast.

  ‘So, Paddy, what have you been doing over Christmas?’ Roger noted his careful and tentative movements. ‘Hopefully your back has just about recovered from your fall.’

  Paddy nodded acknowledgement. ‘Sure and it’s nothing compared to your misfortune sir. At least I have the comfort of knowing who was responsible for my ill-fortune. That dust-obsessed Leviathan who roams the corridors of the manor spraying waxes, polishes and oils all over the place. It is a wonder that my backbone is still attached to my sacrum, and it’s lucky I didn’t break a leg. If you will excuse me mentioning that part of the human body, which is no doubt causing you no small discomfort, even as we sit here sipping our magnificent Italian beverages.’ He took his coffee cup from Henri and toasted them both. ‘Here’s to the health of you gentlemen. Let us hope that any further homicidal assaults upon our benevolent benefactor cease forthwith. May he and his delightful betrothed share a long and peaceful life together.’

  ‘Amen.’ Henri joined in the toast.

  ‘What’s your take on the events of the past weeks, Paddy?’ Roger was keen to see what response he got from this comic character. He had, after all, been in his uncle’s employ for many a year, even if h
is specific job description still defied definition. He could not help thinking that Paddy, too, could well have been responsible for the theft of the furniture. Then a sudden thought crossed his mind. The Irishman had complained loudly to all and sundry that his injuries were as a result of a fall in the house, but nobody had seen the fall. What was it the chief inspector had said about a ladder and a cold frame? No, surely it couldn’t be Paddy?

  ‘I will give you my opinion, as I see it, your honour.’ Roger registered that Paddy had bestowed yet another title upon him, but did not interrupt. ‘There are many of us who, from time to time, might have felt aggrieved in our employment.’ He hastened to clarify. ‘Only in the employ of your predecessor, you understand, never under the benign and generous guiding hand of a gentleman such as your good self. There is no excuse, or indeed explanation, for attempts upon the sanctity of human life. Not to put too fine a point on it, the person who has carried out these heinous acts is, without the slightest doubt, and in a single word, aberrant, deviant and dysfunctional.’

  Roger noted that Paddy’s medical jargon was superior to his arithmetic. Henri added a few other epithets of his own, to show that he concurred.

  ‘Barking mad. Off his chump. Round the proverbial bend. Cracked, loopy, bonkers, crazy, mad as a hatter. A total nutter.’

  He paused for thought. Paddy nodded, helpfully adding the word, ‘loony’. He looked across at Roger. ‘Sure and there are many neurologically unhinged people in this world. No doubt we all have our moments when we do things we later regret.’ Did Roger imagine the hint of a furtive exchange of glances between the two men? ‘But attempting murder? No, that is totally beyond the pale. By all that is holy.’

  Still unsure whether he had seen anything untoward, Roger decided to press a little harder. ‘So you are saying that, in your opinion, there are no potential murderers here at the manor? Nobody at all?’ He watched them both closely. All he saw was instant, sincere denial. Henri answered for both of them, so appalled he lapsed into his native tongue.