If When

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  The shed meant everything to him, but unfortunately he couldn’t live there permanently. Apart from anything else, there were no washing facilities. Not that he wanted to wash away those spikey and enticing perfumes, but he would certainly have to wash – scrub – before returning to work. Being the good and sensible man he knew himself to be, he accepted the responsibility of work, and being a decent husband.

  He had left before Sylvia and Harry set out the next morning on their shed-search. Their cars did not pass on the road. The man was already home demanding breakfast from his wife when Harry, having decided to drive in a different direction and travel further than usual, entered some village Sylvia had never heard of, and decided to stop for coffee at a table-cloth and plastic roses café in the main square. The table next to them was abuzz with chatter, and since the coffee they were brought was vile milky instant stuff, they ended up listening to others rather than settling to chat themselves.

  “Poor little Rosemary,” one woman said, drinking her tea which was clearly nicer than the coffee. “She was a good girl, you know. Carried my bags for me every time she saw me coming from the supermarket.”

  “We can’t tell, Dorothy,” said another between slurps. “She might have gone off on holiday. We all escape January in England if we can. She had a good job. I bet she’s gone to Mallorca.”

  “No body found yet, but she’s been missing for more than a week.”

  “She’d have been in touch if it was just a holiday,” said Dorothy. “I tell you, it’s the Welsh Ripper again.”

  Harry looked at Sylvia. She pushed her half full cup of coffee away. “Another one? I didn’t know.”

  “Just a girl missing,” said Harry. “Not dead. People disappear. All the time It won’t be in the papers.”

  “And Morrison didn’t mention it. But a young woman? Always a possibility. Well, let’s get on.”

  Back in the car with the rug around them and the heater on, they drove on into the longer valleys leading south east, and found themselves in the direction of an incoming rain storm. It hurtled into the windscreen, and Sylvia blinked as though it was slamming into her eyes, while Harry huddled behind the steering wheel. “Should we stop again?”

  “Where?” demanded Harry. He had to shout over the pelting sleet. “We’re out in nowhere.”

  “Well,” Sylvia said, almost impossible to hear, “we can look out for roadside cafes.”

  Harry shouted, “Damnation,” and stopped anyway. “I can’t see. This looks like a bit of a layby, so I’m resting here until the rain slows.”

  “Midnight?”

  “I’ve never yet made love to a woman in the back of a car. They say it’s a good experience.”

  Sylvia did not admit that she’d tried it when young, and hated it. Instead she said, “It’s quite romantic.” She lay her head on Harry’s shoulder and closed her eyes. The helter skelter of the rain seemed more soothing than threatening. “Where are we, anyway?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.” Harry pulled out his road atlas from the door pocket. “I think it’s Pound Road, and goes on through a patch of forest. Then there’s a fork. Farms or more forest. Forests are good places to search for secret hideaways.”

  “Not in pouring rain,” Sylvia objected. “We’d be lost in no time.” She paused. “We’re probably lost now. Can you check your phone?”

  “No service,” Harry told her, clicking at his phone. “And this weather won’t help.”

  They were comfortably entwined and half asleep when the storm stopped as suddenly as it had started, with a splash of daylight beneath one dark cloud and the pounding of the rain turning to a pitter-patter. Sylvia sat up with a jerk. “Is this a trick or has the storm stopped?”

  Harry turned a gloomy eye upwards. “Still black clouds. No rainbow.

  “I’m cramped,” Sylvia said, “I have to stretch or I’ll seize up. I’m getting out. Hopefully I won’t immediately get drenched.” She pushed open the door, unwedged herself and slid out, bracing her back. She stood straight with a slow deliberation, both hands to her back, stared up at the sky, received a plop of rain on her nose, shook one foot after the other, “Pins and needles,” she explained, and turned to walk up the road. “It’s actually not raining anymore,” she called back, “but there’s a good deal of dripping from branches. Never mind, my body’s beginning to feel normal again.”

  “My body hasn’t felt normal for ten years, if ever,” said Harry, following Sylvia up the road. “Don’t go too far. It must be lunch time.”

  He caught up with her, stood, and stretched his own back. As he turned, he looked down from the road into the forested shadows a little below the main sweep of “countryside. “Some poor idiot drove too fast and went off the edge,” he said, pointing downwards. I hope there’s no body. The car would hardly have been visible when the trees had leaves.”

  Sylvia shrugged, looking around. “It could have been there for years.”

  “The car’s modern enough. Small. Bumps and scratches. I nearly went off the road once years ago. Scary.”

  But Sylvia was now staring at the car. “Small. Red. Can you see the number?”

  “Good gracious, no,” said Harry. “It’s in the mud. What’s the matter?”

  “It has a Gandalf figure in a wizard’s hat hanging behind the windscreen. Pam had one of them. I never met anyone else with one. What was she doing out here?”

  “Not all those who wander are lost.” Harry stuck his hands in his pockets. “We’re miles away from anywhere, Sylvia darling. This could be anything. Do you know her registration number?”

  “Well, actually no.” Sylvia pulled out her phone. “But I’m going to phone Morrison.”

  It was confirmed later that day. Another crime scene was set up. After exhaustive investigation and examination, the car was hauled from its grave, and taken to the police station for further forensic insights. The papers discovered the news for themselves as soon as they realised the road was closed, and splashed both truth and rumour across their front pages. It was suggested that since this was where the victim’s car had been dumped, it must have been where the Ripper picked her up. Others maintained that it was more likely to be close to the Welsh Ripper’s home. They began questioning local residents, which didn’t please either them, or the police.

  But Morrison, delighted, thanked his new assistants.

  “It wasn’t us being clever,” Harry grinned. “We more or less fell over it.” In the small salon at Rochester Manor, he and Sylvia were hosting their now more regular guest. Sylvia poured the wine. Harry continued, “But us finding it like that, I must say it seemed like a sign. Clear as a signpost.”

  Having seen Morrison arrive, Ruby had invited herself into the salon. It was her wine they were drinking. “I know the press say all sorts of silly things,” she nodded cheerfully. “They used to about poor Rod. My husband, being famous of course, always attracted silly slanders. But I think they’re right about one thing now, and that’s about the Ripper living near here. That’s several local girls, bodies dumped and now the car. Have you done door to door?”

  Lowering her eyes to her wine glass, Sylvia said, murmuring, “I’m sure he does. He used to live near Leicester. Now here. Maybe he moved because of a good doctor. Or a good job. |

  “We could have met him. Maybe he goes to your pub, Harry.”

  Morrison was once again enjoying the warmth of the fire, and now also the warmth of the wine. “I tend to agree with you,” he said. “This man lives somewhere within Gloucestershire or nearby, and therefore tends to conduct his foul business here. He either lives alone and is free to do what he likes there, using an attic or a cellar perhaps. Or he uses a private place elsewhere, which he rents or owns. A cottage, a garage, an abandoned building perhaps. Why he left Leicestershire I have no idea. Possibly because there was a growing suspicion against him. But it was Paul Stoker who was accused. I’m still not convinced he was innocent, but he can’t be traced. Clearly he’s liv
ing under a false name. We know he went to France, but then lost him.”

  “Those who wander are not always –”

  Harry was ignored. Sylvia asked, “I know it’s early days, but has poor Pam’s car brought any clues?”

  The detective shook his head. “Nott yet. It’s being pulled apart, but so far – well, there’s a hundred finger-prints, and we need to go through them one by one. As for the door to door, once we have fingerprints and DNA to match, then we’ll start on that too.”

  “It could take a year,’ Harry decided. “You could always start with mine.” He grinned. “But I suppose you’re more interested in those who aren’t too eager to give their details or have their fingerprints taken.”

  “A process of elimination.”

  “And in the boot?”

  Morrison pursed his lips. “Nothing much.” He smiled. “Which is more interesting than you might suppose. There would normally have been a spare tyre, and perhaps some sort of tools to change a damaged one. But none of that was present. I suspect Pamela Barnstable was driving back to the manor when she unluckily had a flat tyre. She was trying to change it and had the spare out, when someone passed and offered her a lift, either home, or to the nearest garage. In spite of some suspicion, perhaps she would eventually have accepted. I now have my team searching for the abandoned tyre, and perhaps the lost tools.”

  “Poor little Pam,” Sylvia choked on her wine and Ruby wiped her eyes. “Destiny or just vile, utterly vile bad luck.”

  “Not the sort of question I answer,” said Morrison, “nor ever ask myself. I prefer questions that will one day be clarified. And we will catch this maniac, you know.”

  “We know,” said Harry. “We believe you.”

  “And you’ll let us know the outcome of the car, won’t you?” pressed Sylvia. “We honestly don’t expect miracles, but something even tiny may come out of it.”

  “I’m hoping the same, Mrs. Greene.” He smiled. “My apologies. Mrs. Joyce. And I shall let you know if anything is discovered. If our enquiries move forwards as a result of something you discovered and brought to our attention, it seems only fair to inform you.”

  Both Harry and Sylvia thanked him. Ruby was in tears and wished she hadn’t pushed her way in. She’d used her best red wine too.

  A pack of stray dogs rummaging along a roadside in the recently melted snow outside the town of Hinckley in Leicestershire, smelled rotten meat, and ripped open a large black sack, knotted at the top, but torn down one side. They ate what they could, leaving the remains spread out along the road. By morning as the dawn light misted in pastels through night’s black oblivion, early risers and those hurrying to work, at first ignored the mess strewn in the gutter, but then realised that the bones they saw were not those of any animal, but were surely human. One woman ran from her car and was sick on the other side of the road. Three people phoned 999. The police turned up within ten minutes. The rubbish bag and its erstwhile contents were all carefully collected. A policewoman searching in the grassy bank discovered what she thought was a bead, but then realised it was an eye, gouged from its socket. Everything was carted away and a quick call was made to D.I. Morrison at Cheltenham station.

  “Don’t send everything down here yet,” he told them at once. “I’m coming up.”

  “Back in Leicestershire?” Sylvia answered the phone when Morrison contacted her briefly, and related the short message to Harry. “I don’t understand. Where does this vile creature live, then? Here or there?”

  “Here.” Harry stood abruptly. “And he knows we know. So he’s trying to trick us. It makes it all the more certain that he damn well lives down the road.”

  Sylvia went pink. “You are, I hope, exaggerating.”

  “Well, he might. Get dressed, my love. Do you want to follow Morrison to Hinkley, or wait for him in Cheltenham, or shall we just go back to shed-searching?”

  “No point driving all the way to Leicestershire,” she sighed. “Let’s shed-search today, and go to see Morrison whenever he gets back. Two days or three perhaps.”

  It was four days, and the inspector wasn’t surprised to find Mr. and Mrs. Joyce waiting for him in the anteroom downstairs. Nodding, he hurried up to his office and they followed.

  “No wine from me, I’m afraid. But there’s tea on the boil if you want it.” They did, and he called to Ralph Tammy to bring in three mugs. “Rosemary Ingle, twenty five, a hairdresser from Gloucester, been missing for several weeks. She was murdered and dismembered, but due to the dog pack which discovered the remains, a considerable amount of information is either missing or distorted.”

  “No doubt anymore then,” muttered Harry. “The monster lives around here.” He scratched his earlobe. “We’ve passed him in some street, stood behind him in a queue at the butchers, sat close in the cinema.”

  “I can’t see him trotting out to watch Paddington Bear,” sighed Sylvia.

  Morrison interrupted. “Amongst the many fingerprints covering your Miss Barnstable’s vehicle,” he said, smiling slightly, “is one set on the steering wheel, a thumb print, two fingers and a partial palm, which show traces of blood. These marks are the more recent, superseding those below. The traces of blood are minute, but hopefully sufficient for DNA. If the blood belongs to Miss Barnstable, we have our killer.”

  “Very careless not to wear gloves,” mumbled Harry.

  Sylvia said, “But if your hands are too large for normal gloves and you’ve lost your old ones?”

  “We await the DNA results,” Morrison continued. “As we await the results of the p.m. on the newest victim.”

  “This afternoon?” Sylvia was confused.

  “No,” Morrison was equally confused. “It’ll take a couple of days.”

  “You said the P.M.,” Harry pointed out. “Surely not the Prime Minister?”

  Morrison chuckled. “The post mortem. We have the victim’s identity, but well, never mind about the gruesome details.”

  They did not tell him of their own search for the building where the Ripper might well be practising his sadism. Knowing that Morrison would be horrified, forbid them to continue since the danger was considerable, and there put them in conflict with him, cancelling out his present friendly co-operation, it seemed far wiser to keep certain ideas to themselves.

  No doubt he was doing the same.

  Morrison certainly had no intention of telling members of the public any description of the sickening behaviour which became apparent from the post mortems conducted on the dismantled bodies. The cut marks and blood stains showed without inconsistency what had been done both before and after death.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  On the last day of January, the sun came out, peeping from between the two gently crossing slopes on the green horizon. Snow drops peeped from the grass at roadsides and beneath the bare winter trees. Francesco baked four large steak, onion and kidney puddings and told his waiting admirers that he did not approve of stodgy English food, but since it had been a bitter winter, he was prepared to compromise.

  “Daffodils next,” said Ruby, and giggled, “then bluebells.”

  “Not for ages. Easter first.” Sylvia was half way through the suet crust and the mashed potatoes. “And I bet the sun doesn’t last long.”

  The first day of February brought the rain back, hail stones the size of, “You know what balls,” said Ruby, and it was the coldest day since the Christmas snow. The central heating was turned up, every fire was lit, and since Ralph Tammy had left, Harry and Ben Carson helped Arthur lay and light them. Norman Syrett offered too, but fell asleep in an armchair before he could do so. David Sims also ran alongside to help his father, talked incessantly but did not like to get too near the flames.

  Sylvia adored the leaping gold and scarlet, sat as close as was comfortable to the hearth, and suggested to Harry that they buy long handled forks and toast bread over the fire as she had done as a child. Then she thought of Fletcher. She had not heard from him, and was extremel
y thankful for it, for a considerable time.

  Fletcher Rankling lay unmoving in Warwick hospital, in an induced coma. Very little of him was visible beneath the bandaging and attached tubes and monitors, but the steady beep said he was alive.

  Having discovered no form of identification on him since his clothes were burned, the ambulance had carried Fletcher to the nearest intensive burns clinic where the inert body was immediately rushed to the emergency ward. Already comatose, that condition was purposefully continued.

  Each week Walter Rankling telephoned every single large hospital in England, asking whether a patient had recently been admitted, almost certainly to the burns unit. Eventually the Warwick hospital said yes indeed. An unidentified gentleman of approximately sixty years of age had arrived on the point of death from severe burns, and now lay unconscious and unnamed. Walter rushed from Wales to Warwick, and stared through the large glass panel into the emergency ward. He could not identify his son, since very little of his face was visible, but from other features and from the information given by the doctors, he was able to say with reasonable certainty that this was Fletcher, while admitting that sadly his son was a secret arsonist who was addicted to the excitement of starting fires.

  “He nearly killed himself with this one,” growled the doctor. “If it’s proved he started it, he’ll be arrested. The fire did untold damage and a great deal of minor injury. No one as badly burned as himself, luckily.”

  “I’d sooner he was in gaol than dead,” mumbled Walter, moved into a nearby B&B, and phoned Sylvia. She was out.