If When

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “The other one?”

  “Little Kate. Just twenty one Went for a walk three days ago, before hearing about Clair.” He gulped, apologised, and hurried off. Someone else served dinner.

  It was after cake, espresso and the rest of the wine that Sylvia said, “So, Harry. Do we risk going for a walk?”

  “Do you trust me capable of protecting you?” Harry scratched his ear lobe.

  “The maniac goes for pretty girls in their twenties, my dear. I consider myself quite safe. And I’m not searching for bodies. Well, not entirely. It’s a fresh chilly evening and I’d really like fresh chilly air in my lungs.”

  “Cleansing air,” Harry nodded. He managed to pay the bill, although Sylvia noticed him blinking at the price.

  The cliffs were dark with weed and moss, overlooking the ocean of pitch, but above the sky was a wheeling magical arch of stars whirling in milk and an unblemished clarity of unbelievable distance. The magnificence of the cliffs diminished, the rolling waves shrank, and while looking up everything below became minute.

  “It’s a nice hotel, and it’s beautiful countryside. Almost romantic.” Sylvia stuffed her hands in the pockets of her navy trench coat and shivered slightly. The wind whipped over the crags. “That’s not a silly teenage invitation. Just a statement. But we came on a murder investigation and that’s pretty silly too. Why do we think we have any hope of finding more than the police?”

  “We’ve talked about this before and we both know the answer.” His hair was windswept into a single tuft up from his forehead. “Stupid. But interesting. And I’m sick of sitting in the pub staring at five intoxicated idiots and knowing I’m one too.”

  “The scenery has me blinkered.” Sylvia turned to Harry. “It’s stunning. I can’t think of anything else.”

  “You don’t have to,” said Harry, unmoving. “If we’re meant to know something, we’ll know it. If we’re meant to find something, we’ll find it.”

  They found it. Walking a little further along the coastline, and looking down, they saw the ledge, and the girl lying spread-eagled upon it.

  Chapter Four

  At the base of the cliff the incoming tide rolled up against the mossy stone and a rumble of wave on wave drowned out the whistle of the increasing wind. No stars glittered as the cloud striped the night sky.

  A ledge jutted from the cliff more than half way down, sheltered by a partial overhang. A skidding crumble marked the spot above, pointing out where, if not careful, someone could slip and fall. Small stones had tumbled but were now hidden by the body lying there.

  Not all of the girl was visible from the clifftop, but enough was clear, even in the night’s darkness, and the pale legs, stretched apart, were like magnets to curious gazes.

  Harry thought he could climb down. Sylvia knew she couldn’t. She phoned the police as Harry started climbing.

  It was the following morning in his borrowed office that D.I. Morrison stared at Harry and Sylvia with bemused interest. “You just happened to be in the area?”

  “I’m quite sure you’d never believe in such coincidence, inspector,” said Sylvia, crossing her legs with a swish of pleated silk. “We came to this area with the intention of discovering more about the last young girl, Claire Neilson. It was actually while we discussed that case, that this one was suddenly spoken of. The waiter told us that Kate Connor was missing. We went for a walk, but we certainly didn’t expect to find her. That really was a coincidence.”

  “An odd one, madam.” The detective frowned into his coffee. “I can understand why you’d have some interest in the initial case of Tricia Innes after being first on the scene in Monte Carlo. Your coach, of all things. But to follow the subsequent cases?”

  Harry wished he hadn’t given up smoking thirty years ago. “Sylvia and I are getting to know one another. It was this situation that brought us together. Trying to help seems like a responsibility.” He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and stared belligerently up at the badly painted ceiling. “We hope to find something useful. But we probably won’t. It doesn’t matter. Duty is duty. But I didn’t expect you to understand. I’m sure you think we’re a pair of nuisances.”

  Harry had a black eye and a badly scraped hand. The bleeding knee was hidden beneath his trousers. He looked somewhat abused. Morrison said, “You even climbed down the side of a precipice to take a closer look at the victim?”

  “And I’m not a voyeur. I felt I had to. I’m sure you think I thoroughly deserved to fall.” Harry rested his hands back on the table. “Anyway, we’re going back to Cheltenham tomorrow.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it,” said the detective. “Apart from everything else, Mr. Joyce, you are playing a very dangerous game.”

  “It’s not a game, detective,” interrupted Sylvia. “Just because we’re retired, doesn’t mean we’re bored old fools with nothing better to do with our lives. We both feel strongly obliged to do this. You presumably disagree. But we do what we feel is right.”

  “And you didn’t touch the body?” Morrison asked Harry. He shook his head.

  It was on their drive back to the Rochester Manor that Harry finally detailed the experience.

  “The first six murders were roughly five or six months apart but years ago, of course. Now with the new cases, there were two months between the slaughter of Tricia Innes and Clair Neilson. Yet less than two days between the deaths of Clair and Kate Connor.”

  Sylvia turned abruptly to look at him. “What did you see down there, Harry?”

  A little hunched over the driving wheel, Harry continued to stare through the windscreen, barely blinking. “Well, you saw me scramble down the last couple of feet and I almost fell on top of her. Wouldn’t be surprised if a left a couple of drops of blood on her hair. Now that’ll puzzle the cops.” Sylvia didn’t speak but Harry nodded anyway. “I know, a stupid risk in more ways than one, but I had to make sure she wasn’t alive and needing help. I also needed to see if it was the same killer.”

  From Wales back to Gloucestershire was a pretty drive. Both stared out of the windows, but neither of them saw the scenery. Sylvia mumbled, “It was a strange place to find her. So both she and the maniac climbed half way down a cliff, and then the maniac climbed up again?

  “I don’t know. He may have continued down. There’s a thin streak of beach leading somewhere, I imagine. And perhaps he likes to climb. Or she does. Did.”

  “What if she was there alone and fell. Then saw him walking along the top edge and called for help. He scrambled down like I did but did it better and didn’t fall. So he took advantage and killed her. Then jumped down to the beach and got away.”

  “Which is why it was so soon after the other? He just took advantage of an easy situation.” Sylvia passed Harry the bottle of water.

  Harry drank. “Such a poor sad little thing,” he spluttered, swallowing. “I saw more than I wanted to, nearly tumbling on top like that. I shouldn’t tell you but we both know more or less what we’re facing. But her throat was cut so deep she was almost beheaded. She was stabbed and sliced down her arms. I didn’t see much more because her clothes were draped across her in some sort of bizarre pattern, but no underpants as usual. But he’d cut off her breasts. That disgusted me more than anything else.”

  “Jack the Ripper did that.”

  “The Yorkshire Ripper?”

  “I don’t know about him. I don’t read the details of murder cases, but I read something about Jack the Ripper when I was far too young to have been allowed.”

  “After death, I hope,” said Sylvia and again lapsed into silence.

  It was the last few miles. “Alright.” There was more traffic on busier roads and Harry had slowed down. “My idea of a profile. Rubbish, of course, but as likely as any other. This vile creature is sick, but he doesn’t show it. He’s quiet, polite, had a greatly disturbed childhood and a terrible relationship with his mother. She humiliated and beat him. Probably the father left home when he was young. No brothers
or sisters. He started killing when he was about eighteen. Six murders over three years. But when Paul Stoker was arrested, this maniac decided he had to stop, and let Stoker take the blame. When Stoker got off, the real killer went to ground. He’s in his early forties now, his life is boring and lonely. Unmarried and no kids. He can’t resist the temptation any longer. Same technique – and he’s back on the job.”

  “The Yorkshire Ripper was married. And why our coach in Monaco?”

  Harry wasn’t sure. “Can it possibly be one of your residents? No. Far too old and friendly for that sort of thing. Or is there one you suspect?”

  “There were others on that coach,” Sylvia pointed out. “Such as you.”

  “Yes, from the local pub when your manor didn’t fill every seat. Me. Tony. Someone we call Badger but I’m not sure of his real name. Ewan Walker. And Seb Pratt. I know Ewan and I know Tony. Hardly know the others.”

  “In their early forties, live alone, very quiet, abused by their mothers?”

  Harry grinned. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” He parked the car in the outside bay at the back of the manor and helped Sylvia out. “Not entirely true,” he said, stretching his back, “Since none of us are in our early forties. Tony is happily married, Ewan is happily gay and Seb’s wife died last year.”

  “That could have been the trigger.”

  “I know nothing about his mother. Perhaps I should introduce you to the crowd. None of them are in the slightest interesting. The pub’s an escape from boring inactivity.”

  “Perhaps murder is too.”

  “Easier to read a book, though, or take up gardening.”

  Sylvia shook her head. “And there’s that old business of organised or disorganised. Is this a frantic disorganised killer? Or is he methodical?”

  It was something Harry hadn’t considered. “Both,” he said at last. “The killing is wild and degenerate and disorganised. But in a way, he’s organised too. He must carry a box of tools with him in the car.”

  “So we’re looking for a mechanic or an electrician?”

  “Just a madman.”

  Sylvia left Harry on the doorstep, bustled up the stairs, dumped her overnight case on the floor, tugged out her toiletries bag, found her toothbrush and tottered, half asleep, into her private bathroom. She wanted a steaming hot shower but getting dry afterwards was such a bother. Her hands, increasingly arthritic, made a painful but half-hearted job of drying off the awkward corners. She was waiting for someone to invent a drying machine along the lines of the yellow contraptions for drying hands in public loos. Then she heard someone crying. Ruby had the room next door and their bathrooms shared a wall. Sylvia finished cleaning her teeth, and went next door, tapping and calling. “Beautiful Bluebell, is that you?”

  “Of course it is,” replied the voice through sniffs. “Come in and don’t be boring.”

  Sylvia peeped in. “Tell me.” Ruby shook her bright red tangles. “Come on. Tell me. You’ve just noticed you’re growing old? You can’t remember where you left the tea bags? You’ve been watching Game of Thrones on the telly?”

  “Nothing to do with me,” Ruby said, discovering a tissue. “It’s little David. Poor boy. I think Arthur beat him again. The boy was all curled up under the kitchen table, and he won’t come out.”

  “Oh bother. Where’s Frank?”

  “Bed an hour ago. That’s why David’s crawled in there. I went for a hot milk and found the boy.” Ruby wiped her eyes again. “Are you going down? There’s a blob of toothpaste on your cheek.”

  With a vague attempt to remove the toothpaste, Sylvia rubbed at the wrong cheek, pattered back downstairs, and heard Francesco’s voice before anything else. “Bambino pazzo, what you do ‘ere? “

  “I’m not pazzo,” sniffed the smaller voice. “And I’m going.” He pushed past Sylvia and hurried out into the corridor to the half open back door and the flickering starlight beyond.

  “It’s a chilly night,” called Sylvia, but got no reply. She stalked into the kitchen. There was a rumble of fridges, freezers and dish-washers, and the chef was on his hands and knees collecting torn pieces of tissue from under the long pine table. She asked, “Do you know what was wrong?”

  “Same as always,” muttered Francesco. “Pig padre.”

  “Why do we employ him?”

  “Allora, for the boy. Is innocent boy.”

  “I wonder,” she murmured, more to herself than in serious discussion, “if the pig padre could be – the murderer.”

  “Too busy beating il povero ragazzo.”

  A murderer, she decided that night, in need of such maniacal thrills, must surely offer a clue in his normal working life. Alright, she accepted there was unlikely to be something as recognisable as a mad eye, or even as subtle as a frequent blink. The occasional killer’s face, even a few short interviews, had cropped up on television coverage from time to time and little had ever been visible, apart from one or two she remembered who really looked the part. But something? Surely something?

  Could you sleep, she wondered, with the memories of slaughter, torture and madness swirling like knotted intestines in your head, and the desire to hurt another living person to your greatest ability, enjoying their pain and eventual death. What was missing in the mind of a man who could not rest without witnessing – and causing – the agony of someone else.

  Hatred, perhaps. But twisted into a form of love. Sylvia winced. It was possible, perhaps even probable, that the killer was someone she knew, or at least had met. The men from her community who had accompanied her on the coach to Monte Carlo had not been capable, she was sure. But more important, none had travelled to Wales when the wretched Clair Neilson was murdered, nor had been there while she was there herself. Harry, of course, but she had been with him. Well, most of the time.

  Harry’s friends on the coach were unknown to her except for Tony, a brief acquaintance in Harry’s company, and no report. Was a small and happily married man capable of such slaughter? Sylvia owned only those few books on murder or murderers, but the manor’s reading room would have plenty, she was sure. It could wait for tomorrow.

  The next day was cloudy. A soft Sunday of church-goers and a respectable ringing of Cheltenham bells, though all recorded. Once there had been bell-ringers but one of the bells had cracked. Late August, a gentle sunshine, and pale beams showing up the dust in the reading room. Sylvia hunched in the leather armchair and studied murder.

  Harry turned up at noon.

  “Sorry. Still in my dressing gown. I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “But you invited me for roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.”

  “Gracious. Did I?” She smiled. “How sensible of me. I have to get away from these books. Fred West has completely ruined my appetite.”

  David served. The dining tables had their own glass fronted conservatory with a roof of dead leaves and rain smears collected over the years, and long windows glistening with the view down to the pond and even further across to Cleeve Hill and the Wolds in the distance. Most of the inmates shared tables, some preferred to dine alone, and Pam usually served anyone who hadn’t already gone off to help themselves. But Sunday was Pam’s day off. Often Francesco carved, dished out, or at least shouted at everyone to wait until he had finished.

  This time it was David. Fifteen and thin, the boy was autistic, sweet faced under a fluff of blonde curls. Sylvia explained once David had scurried back into the kitchen. “He cries and says his father is cruel to him.”

  “Then you should inform the police,” said Harry.

  “I did once. About three years ago. They asked a few questions, went away again, and I never heard anymore, except have Arthur scowl at me every time I saw him.”

  Harry rubbed his own bruises, the last marks from the fall in Wales. “To hell with it. Cruelty and madness. I couldn’t sleep last night.” He moved one hand vaguely from bruise to ear. “Thinking of who. There’s Ewan. He’s younger. Lovely sense of humour but prickly. Plays jokes
on all and sundry but gets offended if you tell him off. Has four sisters, all older. Good company most of the time. I like him.” Lowering his voice just a little, “Besides, he’s cheerfully and openly gay. Why would a gay guy want to rape and torture a woman?”

  “So we tick Ewan off the list.”

  “Tony’s sweet and boring. Happily married for years. Never has any conversation but loved Monte Carlo and the race. His parents only died recently, and he dragged me along to the funeral. All very normal.”

  “Both mother and father together?”

  “Yes, a car crash. He’s sixty nine, so they must have been ancient and probably shouldn’t have been driving.”

  “No autopsy?”

  “Oh, I doubt it.”

  Sylvia nearly scratched her ear and wondered if other habits were quite so catching. “What if he drugged his father, so that he fell asleep at the wheel?”

  Harry sniggered. “Or poisoned the lot?”

  “So do we investigate your Seb and Badger?” She smiled at David and accepted the wine she had ordered. “And the vile Arthur?”

  “You said tick Ewan off the list, and that’s fair enough. But do we have a list? We should.” He poured the wine, wiped his gravy up with the last potato, and leaned back, glass in hand.

  “I can get pen and paper afterwards.” Sylvia was playing with the Yorkshire pudding, making patterns in the gravy. “Paul Stoker. Tony, Seb and Badger. Arthur Sims and David.”

  The occupants of one of two tables were turning to watch. “David’s too young. He’d have been eight when the first girls were murdered.” His voice sank lower once again. “And I can’t think Tony capable of anything like this.”

  “Arthur could have done the first killings and now David’s copying. Or helping. I don’t know, but anything’s possible, including the boring Tony. Isn’t that your profile? The insignificant nobody?” The soggy remains of the Yorkshire pudding was skewered on the end of her fork, and she now pointed with this, dripping gravy onto the tablecloth.