DCI Isaac Cook Box Set 2

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Father’s found a willing partner,’ Amelia said as she came into the room. Her mother was with her.

  ‘We’ve been out riding,’ Lady Bentham said.

  ‘Father likes to show off his wines. Mother doesn’t drink often, and I can’t tell a Merlot from a Shiraz.’

  ‘Philistine,’ Geoffrey Bentham jokingly said to his daughter.

  ‘I’ll be back in five minutes,’ Amelia said. ‘We can talk then.’

  ‘We’ve another bottle to test,’ her father said.

  ‘Sergeant Gladstone can stay for dinner. And besides, she’s not in a fit condition to drive back to London tonight. I knew them both better than anyone else. Strange, I should be more upset, but it wasn’t as if I ever knew Matilda really.’

  ‘What’s the reason that got Matilda’s brother evicted from the family home?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘I can’t remember it being mentioned. You’ll be asking me how Matilda could afford such a lovely house, won’t you?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Then have your drink with father, praise his wines, and after dinner, you and I will talk.’

  ‘As I was saying, seventeen months in French barriques,’ Geoffrey Bentham said.

  Wendy nodded in acknowledgement, spoke about the wine – the intensity, the colour, the nose – taking the lead from her teacher. She did not have any idea what a French barrique was.

  After her introduction to wine tasting, Wendy was shown her room by the haughty butler.

  ‘I’ve laid out clothes for you, and there are clean towels in the bathroom,’ he said.

  ‘Casual for dinner?’

  ‘Always,’ the man said as though he regretted it.

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Eight o’clock. Don’t be late. It’s fish tonight. His lordship’s chosen a Cabernet Blanc from his cellar for you.’

  ‘I don’t think I could drink any more.’

  ‘Not so from where I was standing,’ the butler said. ‘You looked as though you were just settling in for the long haul. They’re good people.’

  ‘Yes, they are.’

  ‘I hope they’re not in trouble.’

  ‘So do I,’ Wendy said.

  ***

  Upstairs in the Montgomery house, Larry and Constable Sands found Janice Montgomery’s room, the woman answering from the other side of the door.

  Elaine Sands turned the door handle. ‘It’s locked,’ she shouted out.

  ‘Stanley locked it. He has the key. He doesn’t want me to see you,’ Mrs Montgomery replied.

  ‘Is there a spare?’

  ‘Downstairs, hanging from a rack in the kitchen.’

  Larry ran down the stairs, found the key quickly enough and returned. He put the key in the lock. It turned, and the door opened. Inside, Janice Montgomery was sitting up in bed.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Larry asked.

  ‘Yes. Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Your husband…’

  ‘That’s Stanley. He cares in his own way, wants to protect me from the nastiness outside.’

  ‘Don’t you leave the house?’ Elaine asked.

  ‘Sometimes, but I prefer it here.’

  The room was well decorated and bright. In one corner, a budgerigar in a cage. It was chirping. In the centre of the room, a queen size bed with a wooden headboard. Mrs Montgomery seemed to be consumed by the voluminous pillows that supported her.

  ‘Stanley has made it very nice for me, don’t you think?’

  Larry could only agree, but it was still a gilded cage, and the woman looked as if she had become institutionalised, a captive to her husband’s paranoia, his need to control. Getting answers from her would be difficult, but he had to persevere.

  ‘Mrs Montgomery, your husband is helping us with our enquiries into the deaths of your children.’

  The woman sat still in her bed. She clutched a doll. ‘Matilda loved this doll,’ she said, a tear rolling down her cheek. ‘Why did she have to die?’

  ‘We need to know,’ Larry said. Elaine Sands dabbed a handkerchief on the tearful woman’s cheek. Janice Montgomery clutched her arm, as in an act of affection.

  Larry, not a psychologist, just a detective inspector, thought that the woman had been deprived of affection for a long time. The young police constable had supplied what she had wanted.

  ‘Thank you,’ Mrs Montgomery said. Elaine Sands went downstairs, returning after a few minutes with a cup of tea and toast for her.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Larry said. The circumstances of the woman in her room did not indicate neglect or maltreatment, though she was childlike, a mere shadow, perilously thin.

  ‘You want to know about Matilda?’

  ‘And Barry. We don’t understand why Matilda needed to die.’

  ‘My husband is a good man, you must understand that. It is just that he is…’

  ‘Controlling?’

  ‘He wants everything and everyone his way. Barry could never accept it, although Matilda was more forgiving, and she loved her father, I know she did.’

  Loving the father seemed more than Larry could accept. Nobody could love a tyrant, other than from fear of causing displeasure, hanging on to the only thing they had ever known. But Matilda hadn’t been a child. No one calmly throws a rope over a beam, not unless their life has taken a turn for the worse, a broken heart, a financial crisis, guilt.

  The last reason, the most viable of all the possibilities, was hard to contemplate.

  And now there was Stanley Montgomery, a man who had no friends, a family that he ruled with an iron rod, just his wife remaining.

  ‘How did Matilda leave this house?’ Larry asked.

  ‘She was a good girl, did well at school, and then there was university. Always the best for her, but she would spend more time away, not always coming home every night.’

  ‘What did your husband do?’

  ‘He confronted her at a house she was sharing, accused her of cheapening herself, cheapening the good name of Montgomery. Not that she could cheapen it any more than it already had been.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Check on the Montgomery family history. You’ll find out what I mean.’

  ‘We will, but first, can you tell me?’

  ‘Stanley’s great-grandfather fought in the Boer War in South Africa.’

  ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘Not to Stanley, it wasn’t. Cecil Montgomery, a captain in the Cheshire Regiment. He deserted, couldn’t take the bloodshed, the wanton loss of life, the treatment of the captured Boer families. They charged him with desertion and cowardice. They executed him by firing squad and buried him in an unmarked grave.’

  ‘Why should that concern your husband? That’s over a hundred years ago. No doubt we’ve all got relatives that have committed crimes, shown weakness in a time of adversity.’

  ‘The family history of military service. There had been a Montgomery at every major battle for three hundred years before that, an earldom, an estate in the country, wealth and influence.’

  ‘After the execution?’

  ‘All gone within five years, ostracised from polite society, reduced to servitude and living in the slums.’

  ‘Your husband did not grow up under such conditions.’

  ‘No, but the memory ran deep, the need to hide that shameful past. Stanley is a driven man, not a man to show emotion, but Barry hurt him deeply, and then Matilda not coming home. He became worse, but with me he remained calm, even loving on occasions.’

  Larry realised that the woman could not face the reality of her life. He’d leave her with her delusions if it helped to deal with the current situation.

  ‘The house in Pembridge Mews?’

  ‘Stanley purchased it for her.’

  ‘Did you ever visit?’

  ‘I met Matilda every few months, Stanley never did. In fact, he never saw her again after the problem with Barry.’

  ‘What about Barry?’

  ‘Stanley wanted someo
ne to restore the family name. To regain the prestige that it once had. Stanley couldn’t do it, he knew that. He did not have the charisma or the likeability to influence people, but Barry did. Barry was a lovely young man, a true gentleman. He knew the right people, and he would have made a great success of his life.’

  ‘What happened between your son and his father?’

  ‘It was the last time with Matilda. Barry was there at the house that she shared. Stanley was insisting that she come home, Matilda resisting. Barry stood up to his father and said no. There was a fight, and Stanley lost. For once Barry had bested him, and my husband could never forgive him, never to allow his name to sully this house.’

  ‘It was an argument, his son. Surely, with time?’

  ‘Not to Stanley. To him, Barry was Cecil, the coward, the man who had turned his back on tradition and history, the pariah who had to be expunged at all cost.’

  ‘Even murder?’

  ‘I can’t believe that of Stanley.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He never raised a hand to the children. He controlled by his voice, his strength of character. He loved Barry, even more than Matilda, and he had been let down.’

  ‘Had you seen him since?’

  ‘No. We occasionally spoke on the phone, and Matilda would pass on the news about him. I never saw my son again.’

  ‘Is there anyone that can stay with you?’ Larry asked.

  ‘No. Please, I’m fine. I’ve got the television and Stanley will be home later. He’ll be hungry when he comes in. You’ll not keep him for long, will you?’

  It was Elaine Sands, the young constable, who spoke first outside the house. ‘The woman’s mentally stunted if she puts up with that,’ she said.

  ‘Are you convinced that her husband is the saint that she portrays him as?’

  ‘He’s either Saint Stanley of the Divine Benevolence or the devil incarnate. Personally, I’d go for the latter.’

  ‘So would I,’ Larry said as he shook hands with the constable. ‘Best of luck, see you around,’ he said. The constable walked back to her police station; Larry got into his car for the drive back to Challis Street.

  Chapter 15

  Wendy knew she wasn’t going to drive back to London that night. At the head of the table, Geoffrey Bentham was dressed casually, as the butler had said. His wife sat at the other end. Wendy thought that she was the more aristocratic of the two: her high cheekbones, her flawless skin, her elegant figure. In spite of the more than twenty-year difference between mother and daughter, she could have passed as Amelia’s sister.

  The butler hovered, ever attentive, ensuring that everyone’s glass was topped up. On the plate in front of Wendy, salmon with all the trimmings. Nothing like the fish and chips she’d sometimes buy on the way home from Challis Street.

  ‘Best china for you,’ Amelia said.

  ‘I’m not sure what to say,’ Wendy said. She looked at the array of cutlery, polished to perfection, the tablecloth freshly pressed, the flowers in the middle of the table.

  ‘Bruce, we can’t stop him,’ Denise Bentham said. ‘We’ve tried enough times to make him sit down with us, but he won’t. Someone’s got to maintain the tradition, I suppose.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Wendy said, not sure if they did, not caring particularly at the present time.

  ‘Tell us, Wendy,’ Geoffrey Bentham said. ‘You don’t’ altogether approve of how we live, do you?’

  ‘It’s not that. I grew up in the north of England. We weren’t poor, not rich either, but it was a loving family. Every day my father would go out into the fields, rain or shine, snow or sleet. And in Yorkshire, up in the dales, most days were not ideal. He never complained, not as long as he could have a pint at the end of the day, a chance to talk about what was wrong with the world, not that he ever saw any of it.’

  ‘So why the disapproval? If some people have money, either through hard work or being born with a silver spoon in the mouth, would your father have cared, should you?’

  ‘If a person carves out a good life for themselves through honest hard work, then I’ve no issue. I sometimes wished that my husband had been more ambitious, and I had had the discipline to have educated myself better, but that’s behind us now.’

  ‘Your husband?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘He died young, dementia at the end.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No need to be. He was difficult during the last few months, and now I’m sharing the house with Bridget, one of the ladies in Homicide. There’s enough money between the two of us to go on holidays twice a year.’

  ‘The silver spoon?’ Geoffrey reiterated.

  ‘In the countryside, I didn’t see it much, but when I got to Sheffield, there they were, the late teens, the twenty-somethings, with their pockets flush with cash, partying, getting drunk, drugged, not caring who got in their way. It just seemed unjust, and then there was Margaret Thatcher attempting to bring to heel anyone who opposed her. Good people suffered. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a storm the Bastille socialist. It’s just that I feel that people should be treated better, a fairer division of wealth. The rich helping the poor.’

  ‘I’m a socialist,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Small “s”, though. When Denise and I were first married, and before I inherited the title, before Amelia was born, we were doing it tough. We’ve experienced the other side, not that we ever want to go back.’

  ‘You’ve all been very hospitable,’ Wendy said. ‘I could get used to this.’

  ‘Then enjoy your time here. There’s another wine I’d like your opinion on.’

  ‘I still need to talk to Amelia,’ Wendy said.

  ‘There’s all night. Enjoy your meal and your wine,’ Amelia said. ‘We will go into the other room later. There’s a log fire in there.’

  ***

  It was two in the morning before Wendy and Amelia finally had a chance to sit down and talk. The retreat to the log fire, the heat it gave off, the subdued music playing in the background, and Wendy, the worse for wear after a good meal and more wine than she had drunk in a long time, slept for three hours, her feet on a stool in front of the chair where she was sitting.

  ‘I left you to sleep it off,’ Amelia said when Wendy finally stirred. ‘I’ve brought you a pot of black coffee. I hope that’s alright.’

  Wendy got up, slightly embarrassed because she had visited the Benthams on official business, not to indulge herself.

  ‘Mum and Dad don’t socialise much,’ Amelia said. ‘They’re not into foxhunting and hanging out with the local gentry.’

  ‘Foxhunting’s banned, isn’t it?’

  ‘They still have their hunts, make out they’re tracking an animal-based scent. Fox urine, usually, and they’ve still got the hounds. It’s proof, that’s the problem. Even now, there are attempts to overturn the ban in Parliament.’

  ‘Matilda?’ Wendy said as she drank her coffee.

  ‘What can I tell you that I haven’t already?’

  ‘We know from her mother that her father bought the house for her.’

  ‘She never spoke about her father. Not even her mother from what I can remember.’

  ‘According to the mother, a nervous, timid woman, very much brow-beaten and controlled, she used to meet with Matilda on an occasional basis.’

  ‘As I said, Matilda never spoke about her parents, always changed the subject. Sorry, I can’t help you there.’

  ‘We know that Matilda’s father was, still is, a controlling individual. Off the record, the man’s a horror. He must have subjected his daughter to untold mental anguish.’

  ‘Physical abuse?’

  ‘It’s not been proven one way or the other. We’ll continue to check, but we don’t believe that he did. He gave the house in Pembridge Mews to Matilda with no conditions, and the family home is attractive and well maintained. His wife has also been cared for, although not a life that you and I would enjoy.’

  ‘Man, the provider; woman, the child bearer
and homemaker? Her father’s view of how the world should be?’

  ‘It’s more than that. According to Inspector Hill, the woman was locked in her room. Not neglected or maltreated, far from it. The room was luxurious, and the woman wanted for nothing.’

  ‘Except her freedom.’

  ‘The one thing that she had been conditioned not to want. It was subtle brainwashing, that’s for sure. But Matilda must have been affected by it, though.’

  Amelia put another log on the fire before continuing.

  ‘We’ve spoken about this before. Matilda never opened up about her life, and whereas she’d go out and enjoy herself, she’d never get drunk or take a man home with her.’

  ‘And then she commits suicide. If she had murdered her brother, the most likely scenario, what’s the reason? We know she was close to him, but did it transcend sibling love into something else?’

  ‘It could have, but why? Barry was interested in other women, including me. I can’t see why he’d want to be sleeping with his sister.’

  ‘Amelia, take your head out of the sand for a minute,’ Wendy said, sounding awfully close to a preaching mother, she thought. ‘You have kind and loving parents, a good life, not only here, but an interesting career. Matilda had a strict upbringing as a child, no horses to ride, no freedom to make mistakes, to sleep with the wrong boy or man, to get drunk. Nothing that you and I take for granted, apart from the horse.’

  ‘You grew up on a farm,’ Amelia said.

  ‘Okay, a horse that worked on the farm, pulling a cart, my father riding it to check around the place. I saw your horse; it wasn’t a nag.’

  ‘Do you ride?’

  ‘When I was younger. We’re digressing. Let’s talk about Barry. You slept with him on a few occasions.’

  ‘Three, from what I can remember.’

  ‘Remember or know?’

  ‘It was more than three. Once after a night at the pub, and another time when Matilda was asleep, and he crept over, used my key under the flowerpot and climbed in with me. The other times when the opportunity presented itself.’

  ‘You didn’t suspect it was someone else coming into the house?’