The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “We’ll just have some sandwiches,” Harriet had shouted through the locked door of Jack’s shop, looking terribly flustered. “You just put your feet up and I’ll make them when I get in,” she added.

  Hilda had nodded. Then she had gone home, put the kettle on and, at the usual time Harriet always left the house en route for the fish and chips, Hilda had embarked into the darkness on the very same journey. Imagine her surprise when, from behind the big oak tree on the green, a shadowy figure leapt out, grabbed her by the shoulders and planted a big kiss on her mouth.

  It was Arthur Clark.

  “Thought you weren’t coming,” Arthur had announced to a bewildered Hilda. “Been here bloody ages,” he had added. “Edna’ll be getting ideas – mind you,” Arthur had confided, “it won’t matter soon. Must dash.” Then he had given her another kiss and had scurried across the green bound for home, calling over his shoulder, “See you on Saturday anyway, at the Christmas do.”

  Hilda had stood and watched the figure disappear into the darkness, and she was so flabbergasted that she almost forgot all about the fish and chips and went home empty-handed. But already she was thinking that that would not do. That would not do at all.

  The “meeting” had given her advance knowledge of a potential threat to the beloved routine. And by the time she was leaving the fat-smelling warmth of the shop, Hilda had hatched a plan.

  She knew all about poisons from Ian’s explanations, long drawn-out monologues that, despite their monotony, had registered in Hilda’s mind. Which was fortunate. She knew about nicotine, and about the way it was lethal and produced symptoms not unlike heart failure.

  Getting a small supply would not be a problem. There were constant threats against the centre – notably from animal rights groups based out in the wilderness of Hebden Bridge and Todmorden – so a small break-in, during which most of the contents of the centre could be strewn around and trashed, was an easy thing to arrange . . . particularly after administering a small dose of sleeping tablets to her sister, who obligingly nodded off in front of the TV during “Inspector Morse” (Hilda didn’t mind missing it because it was a repeat).

  Hilda scooted along Luddersedge’s late night streets, let herself in with her own key – thanking God that he had seen fit to make Ian make her a joint key-holder with him . . . undoubtedly a result of Ian’s keenness to make her feel important after his calling off their “affair” – did what she considered to be an appropriate amount of damage, and removed a small amount of nicotine from the glass jar in Ian’s office cabinet, to which, again, she had a key. She left the cabinet untouched by “the vandals” who had destroyed the office. Then, after resetting the alarm, she had smashed in the windows with a large stick and returned home.

  It wasn’t until she was almost back at the house that she heard the siren. She had smiled then – it had been long enough for whoever had broken in to do all the damage and escape without challenge. The night air had smelled good then, good and alive with . . . not so much possibilities but with continuance. Back in the warmth, she had settled herself down in front of the TV and, after about half an hour, had dropped off herself. The icing on the cake had been the fact that it was Hilda’s sister who woke Hilda up. A wonderful alibi, even though none would be needed.

  Two days later, on the night of the Conservative Club’s Christmas Party, Hilda had bolted her meal and – though she knew she was risking things – had gone to the toilet at ten minutes to ten (Arthur Clark’s toilet habits being legendary in Luddersedge). Once out of the ballroom, she had run down to the gentlemen’s toilet, removed the tissue rolls from all but one WC, and had treated the first few sheets of the remaining roll with the special bottle in her handbag. It was four minutes to ten when she had finished.

  She had arrived back in the ballroom at 9:58 just in time to see Arthur get up from the table and set off for his date with his maker. She had not been able to go straight back and was grateful for Agnes Olroyd catching her to talk about the break-in – there was nothing that the people of Luddersedge liked more than a bit of intrigue – and about her Eric’s prostate (in the absence of intrigue, family ailments being the order of the day).

  By the time she had finished talking with Agnes, Hilda’s composure was fully restored and she was able to rejoin the table.

  And now Harriet was nowhere to be seen. But that could wait.

  The main thing as far as Hilda was concerned was to find her bag.

  And she had a good idea as to where it was.

  Harriet’s revelations had hit Edna Clark harder even than her husband’s death less than twelve hours earlier.

  In Edna’s kitchen, with the sun washing through the window that looked out onto the back garden and with steam gently wafting from the freshly boiled kettle, Edna sat at the table feeling she had suddenly lost far more than her life partner: now she had lost her life itself. Everything she had believed in had been quickly and surely trounced by the blubbering Harriet Merkinson when she burst through the front door, ran along the hall – pursued by a confused Betty Thorndike – and emerged in the kitchen, tears streaming down her face. And now Edna’s 27 years with Arthur lay before her in tatters . . . every conversation, every endearment whispered to her in the private darkness of their bedroom, every meal she had prepared (if not always lovingly – for how can one “lovingly” make egg, chips and beans three times a week for 27 years? – at least with profound affection) and every holiday snapshot they had taken in Dorset and Derbyshire (dressed in shorts, T-shirts and walking boots, their backpacks on the ground before them) and Cornwall (sitting on the beach amidst the inevitable clutter that always resulted from such seaside expeditions).

  While Harriet continued sniffling and Betty simply stood leaning against the kitchen cabinets (installed by Arthur, Edna recalled, one laughter-filled weekend in the early 1980s), her eyes seemingly permanently raised in a mask of disbelief, Edna looked around at the once-familiar ephemera and bric-a-brac of a life that now seemed completely alien. The painting on the kitchen wall; the small collection of tea pots and milk jugs on the wide window sill; the stacked plates and cereal bowls stacked behind the glass door of the cupboard – all of them. It might just as well have been the priceless jewellery and artefacts unearthed in an ancient Egyptian tomb . . . so devoid now of meaning and familiarity and understanding. These were things from another life – another person’s life – and nothing to do with Edna Clark, newly bereaved widow of one Arthur Clark, late of this parish.

  The story had been a familiar one. Even as Harriet Merkinson had been burbling it out – the clandestine meetings, the whispered affections, the promise of a new life once Arthur had built up the nerve to leave his wife – Edna felt that she had heard it all before . . . or read it in a book someplace, maybe even watched it on television. The Arthur revealed by Harriet was not the Arthur she remembered . . . save for one thing: his toilet habits. At least something was constant in her husband’s two lives.

  And now, while Edna’s mind raced and backtracked and questioned and attempted – in the strange and endearing way of minds – to rationalize and make palatable the revelations, the “other” woman continued to burble a litany of regret and sorrow and pleas for absolution and forgiveness.

  “I can’t forgive you,” Edna said at last, her words cutting through the thick atmosphere like a knife through cheese. “Never,” she added with grim finality. “I can understand, because I know these things do happen, but I can never forgive you. You haven’t taken only my husband’s memory, you’ve completely removed my entire life.” It was the most articulate statement Edna had ever made, and the most articulate she would ever make in what remained of her life. Of course, she would come to terms with what had happened, but she would never get over it.

  “Edna, Edna, Edna, Ed—”

  “Now get out,” Edna said, cutting Harriet’s ramble off midword. Her voice was quieter now, more composed . . . gentle even. There was no animosity, no aggression, n
o threats of retribution: just a tiredness and, the still silent Betty was amazed to see, a new-found strength that was almost majesterial. “I never want to speak with you again.”

  Minutes later, Betty and Edna heard the distant click of the front door latch closing. It sounded for all the world like the closing of a tomb door or the first scattering of soil on a recently lowered coffin. Edna leaned forward and placed her face in her hands, and she began to sob, quietly and uncontrollably.

  While Malcolm Broadhurst was greeting the two uniformed policemen on the steps of the Regal’s ornate front door, two things were happening . . . both of them personally involving the Merkinson twins.

  For Harriet, the routine so cherished by her sister had been a chore. More than that, it had been the bane of her life.

  Harriet had long wanted to get out of the repetitive drudgery of the existence she shared with Hilda, and Arthur Clark – dear, sweet Arthur, with his strange toilet habits – had been her ticket to salvation. Love was a new experience to Harriet: for that matter, she did not know – not truly, down in those regions of the heart and the soul where such things reside, safe from the prying eyes of light and Society – whether she really loved Arthur, for she had never experienced such feelings, even as a teenager and a young woman, when such experiences and experimentation are commonplace. But she did see in him the means whereby she could attain a new life, a life of relative importance . . . “Harriet and Arthur”, “Arthur and Harriet” – she couldn’t decide which she preferred but she preferred either to “the Merkinson twins” or “Hilda and Harriet”!

  As she fished out the old clothesline from the kitchen cupboard, taking care to replace the various bottles and cartons of disinfectant and packets of soap powder, she felt a calmness come over her. Arthur’s death had effectively removed her last chance for salvation, and she had been destitute. But now, thanks to the clothesline, she saw a solution. It wasn’t the one she would have preferred but it was now the only one available. The only game in town. She could neither face life with Hilda nor life without the constant frisson of excitement she got prior to meeting Arthur . . . and she certainly could not face the comments and whispers around town when she walked down the high street or around the green. No, this way was best for all concerned. It was best for Edna – who might at least derive a little satisfaction when she heard – and it was best for Hilda, who would have to put up with her own share of her sister’s shame.

  She climbed the stairs wearily and attached one end of the clothesline to the upstairs banister rail. Then, after ensuring that the line’s drop was sufficiently short to do the job, she fashioned a noose of sorts and slipped it over her head. With one final look around the landing she climbed over the rail and sat on the banister, staring down at the floor far below. As she jumped, in that fleeting but seemingly endless second or two before the line pulled taut without her feet ever touching the hall floor, she wondered where Hilda was . . . and what she would say when she came home.

  “You’ve got something for forensics?”

  Broadhurst nodded. “It’s inside. I didn’t want to be seen with it outside.”

  They started to walk.

  “I came up last Wednesday,” Malcolm Broadhurst explained to the two uniforms. “To check into the break-in down at the animal testing centre.”

  “Oh, yeah?” one of the policemen observed. His name was James Proctor and he had perfected that same aggressive and questioning response to even the most innocent facts or snippets of information, seeming to require confirmation or substantiation to anything said to him.

  “Yeah,” Broadhurst confirmed. They were now walking up the Regal’s steps and approaching the wide, oak-panelled revolving door. “Your Inspector Mishkin asked me up because there were a few things he wasn’t too happy about. I take it you two aren’t working on that case?”

  “We didn’t know it was a case,” the second policeman said as they emerged from the revolving door into the hotel’s reception area. He said the word “case” with a heavy-handed touch of sarcasm. “Thought it was just a simple break-in.”

  “Yes, well,” Broadhurst continued. “That’s the way it looked, and Inspector Mishkin and I decided to keep it that way until things made a little more sense.”

  “And have they now?” the second policeman asked. His name was John Dearlove and he had recently transferred from Manchester when his wife got a job at the Halifax’s head office. Janet Dearlove had a degree in computer science and she was working on a new IT project for the bank. John didn’t know anything about IT but, while he appreciated the generous salary his wife had always managed to secure, his resentment at feeling like a “kept man” – as so many of his colleagues on the Manchester force had delighted in calling him – had blossomed first into a resentment of all women and latterly into a resentment of any kind of authority at all.

  Broadhurst hit the bell on the reception desk.

  “Look at it this way,” the policeman said, turning from the desk and looking the two uniforms in the eye. “Whoever broke in through the window managed to trash the place and then place all the broken glass on top of the wrecked office.” He nodded, smiling. “That’s a pretty good trick, don’t you think?”

  “So—”

  “So,” Broadhurst continued, watching the main staircase as a young man appeared and started down, “the ‘vandal’ clearly had access to the centre and wanted to cover up the fact that they had been there. Now that reason could be simply a matter of their wanting to fight the animal testing . . . kind of like a fifth columnist, or it could be another reason. I think we now have that reason . . . although the reason itself must have a reason – and that’s what I now bloody well intend to find out.”

  “Yes, sir?” the young man said as he reached the bottom of the stairs and approached the three men at the desk. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “Is Mister Poke around?” Broadhurst asked. “I gave him something to look after for me.”

  The man nodded and moved around the desk. “I’ll give him a call, sir,” he said.

  As Harriet Merkinson was swinging gently from side to side in the hallway of the house she shared with her sister, Hilda Merkinson slipped quietly into the back door of the Regal.

  “Hello, Miss Merkinson,” Sidney Poke said. His tone was quite reverential . . . a tone he would use when speaking with anyone who had been at the previous evening’s party, and particularly those who had been closely involved with the tragic death of Arthur Clark.

  Hilda nodded. “I wondered,” she said, “if you had found anything this morning. When you were cleaning up, I mean.”

  Sidney frowned attentively. “Have you—” The ring of his mobile phone interrupted him. “Excuse me just a minute,” he said, pulling his phone from his side pocket. He pressed a button and said, “Yes?”

  Hilda looked around as Poke listened on the phone.

  “Right,” he said. “I’ll get it and bring it through.” He waited another few seconds and then said, “Very well, I’ll meet them on the way.”

  “Now,” Poke said as he returned the phone to his pocket. “Where we were? Ah yes . . . have you lost something?”

  They started walking slowly through the ballroom which was now cleared.

  Tables were folded and leaning against the far wall; chairs were stacked in towering piles in front of the stage; and an army of young men and woman were busy with vacuum cleaners, criss-crossing the floor, their attention fixed on the carpet.

  “My handbag,” Hilda shouted above the drone of the cleaners. “I think I must have left it last night.” Poke nodded and looked around absently. “In all the excitement,” Hilda added, suddenly wondering if “excitement” were the correct word to use under the circumstances.

  “Ah!” Sidney Poke motioned Hilda towards a small occasional table set up by the door leading out to the toilets. “The table contained a few jackets plus an assortment of bags.

  “All those were left last night?” Hilda sai
d in astonishment.

  Poke gave an approximation of a laugh which sounded more like a snort. “No, these belong to the cleaners,” he said, “but your bag – if you did leave it, and if it has been found – is most likely here as anywhere.”

  As they reached the table, Hilda saw her bag. Her heart rose – or surfaced . . . or whatever it was that hearts did that was the opposite to sinking – and she reached out for it, careful not to appear too anxious. “That’s it,” she said triumphantly.

  She picked up the bag and unfastened the sneck. She removed her purse, noting with grim satisfaction that the small bottle was still there, nestled in the bottom amongst Kleenex tissues, lipstick, comb and all the other rudiments of a woman’s handbag, and flipped it open. “There,” she announced, proudly displaying her library card, “just to show it’s mine.”

  Hilda replaced the card and dropped the purse back into the depths of the handbag. Fastening the sneck, she said, “Well, I’ll get off, then.”

  Sidney Poke nodded. He took her arm and gently led her towards the main door that went on to the toilets and out to the reception area.

  “How are you today? I mean, how are you feeling?”

  Hilda made a face. “Oh,” she said, “you mean after—”

  Poke nodded with the quietly attentive air of an undertaker.

  “It was my sister. It was Harriet who collapsed. Not me.”

  “Ah.” He pushed open the door and ushered her through ahead of him. “Well, I’ll leave you here, if that’s okay, Miss Merkinson.” Poke stopped at a desk in a small recess and shuffled in his pocket. He produced a set of keys and set about opening the desk’s deep drawer. “We’re running a little behind, what with . . . you know.”

  Hilda nodded, watching Poke reach around into the drawer.

  Somewhere far off, but coming closer, she could hear footsteps.