Last to Leave

by Clare Curzon

  ‘So I thought why not. Only I hadn’t got a key to get back in. Mrs Carlton had picked me up from the village store that morning when I went in for stamps. And I’d slammed the door after meself when I left. So I’d have to go home first for me key. That upset him a bit. He said the note was urgent. Anyway, I took it, only by then I wasn’t so sure I should.’

  Yeadings nodded. ‘So what time would it be when you delivered the note?’

  ‘Goodness knows. Well after midnight. I hadn’t fed the kittens, you see. When I got home they were crying their little hearts out. Their mother got run over, so I have to give them their milk with a gravy-baster.’

  ‘Did you speak to Miss Jessica?’

  ‘Gracious, no. Her light was still on, so I pushed the note under her door. She’d have seen it before she switched off. The socket’s right there as you go in.’

  ‘Meanwhile her young man was waiting in the garden.’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir. I never caught sight nor sound of him on me way back. He could have got tired and gone home.’

  Her mouth tightened like a drawstring purse. ‘If he was serious he’d have waited all night. She’s a nice girl, Miss Jessica, for all she has some wild ways. I suppose I thought she deserved someone a bit smarter.’

  ‘And you weren’t quite happy about acting as go-between. Something about the young man wasn’t quite right,’ Yeadings said softly.

  She sat staring at the carpet by her feet. After a moment she raised her eyes to his. ‘He smelled of sweat,’ she confessed. ‘I thought there was something a bit wrong with him.’

  They left Silver to get a written statement from Florence Carden and then take her to the canteen for refreshments. ‘Could be our body,’ the DI surmised. ‘Which means the girl read the note and went down to let him in. She’s got a lot to answer for once we catch up with her.’

  Yeadings was pondering the woman’s last words. Not ‘something wrong about him’ but ‘something wrong with him.’ Had she meant he seemed unwell? His thoughts were cut through by the internal phone’s ringing. He picked it up to hear Beaumont sounding mildly exasperated.

  ‘I’ve just had that Dellar woman on the phone. You’ll never believe it – complaining!’

  ‘Which Dellar woman?’

  ‘Mrs Carlton. The old Daimler ran out of gas on the way to the coast and she’s blaming us. Apparently it’s a gas-guzzler and they always carry a can of four-star in the boot because it’s never been converted to lead-free.’

  ‘I’m amazed she can still get the stuff. Go on.’

  ‘Well, the can wasn’t in the car. So apparently it’s our fault it got stolen. Thankfully it hasn’t occurred to her to blame us for it fuelling the fire!’

  ‘Marvellous,’ sighed Yeadings. ‘Does she expect us to return the can if it’s found in the debris?’

  12

  Claudia Dellar firmly replaced the receiver and drew a long breath. Later she might regret making the call but at the moment of deciding it had brought relief.

  There had really been no choice. If the can of petrol had been deliberately removed then somebody had known about its existence. And knowing that, then they might maliciously have leaked that fact to the police. The connection was there to be seized on: one of the family had used it to fire the house. And the person there who made all the decisions, let alone carried them out, was herself.

  So she had had to move first: acknowledge the can had been in the car, make the point that the Daimler was never locked and the old stables left open to everyone. Let the police make something of that. It gave her breathing space.

  Nevertheless she seethed inside. It had been galling to get stranded in mid-journey; and doubly so to be obliged to take measures because of it. Passing the hall mirror of the sprawling little bungalow she stopped and studied her face, watching the unaccustomed colour slowly fade, the lines of anger settle into the normal expression of supercilious control.

  In the sitting-room behind her she heard Miranda open the piano and a pile of sheet music slither from stool to floor. God, now she must put up with that row as the girl worked through her scales, then the Bach which was little better. She couldn’t trust herself not to go in and flay the wretched girl, so instead she marched out to the rear of the building to endure Carlton, languid on a beach lounger, babbling on about the sea.

  The sea to look at; not to venture on. At best his stomach was queasy and the least hint of a swell could upset it. Even when they had travelled by air he could sometimes manage to be sick. Those adventurous days were past, however, and she missed them.

  The thought of travel exercised her enough to climb up into the loft and open the briefcase with the floppy disks in. She selected from centre-batch the one labelled Holiday ’95. The small room in the roof held a workstation with her computer. She switched on, booted up and inserted the disk. Swiftly she scrolled through the first pages of scenic description until she reached a blank. At that point the setup changed to columns of figures. There she found itemised the main contents of Larchmoor Place at the time of father-in-law Frederick’s death. This list was the one to be printed out for the loss adjusters.

  Dated some two months back, separate final pages held two columns, the first of which listed the actual reduced contents as at the previous weekend. Gone up in smoke and little regretted, she thought, smiling tightly. It was the second column that really mattered to her, and the price obtained against each item. They might have made more sold on the open market, but she had needed to be extremely discreet. She allowed herself a few more minutes to play the disk through and, feeling braced, prepared to go down and cope with her husband.

  Locking the tape back into the briefcase with the others, she ran her hands over the faded surface of the leather, remembering the day her father had given it to her. It had cost him his invalidity pension for three weeks, but a daughter has only one twenty-first birthday, and they were all each other had. He had died three months later while she was still in her pupillage in Matthew Dellar’s chambers, and only two weeks before she’d become his mistress.

  Matthew had been her insurance then, she thought bitterly. But he’d had his own agenda. She thought of the years of faithful service she had given, in office and in bed, and the stupid vow of silence he’d demanded, in return for empty promises. Then Joanne Blythe-Hamilton had become a client and he won her big compensation in a damages claim. With full disclosure of her financial standing, Matthew had proposed marriage to her and been accepted.

  Horse-faced, four-square, stolid and stupid Joanne, with her landed gentry background and an inherited fortune made in city property. That had bought his partnership in chambers, and subsequent path to success. What chance had beauty and passion against such competition?

  And I was beautiful, Claudia reminded herself. Lithe as a greyhound, tall, majestic, with the face of a Pre-Raphaelite saint, she used to turn heads as she swept through the law courts, ambition her inspiration. And clever. But not as clever as her heartless lover.

  Not then perhaps; but the game wasn’t over. Matthew was going to pay in full. Did he still think he’d done enough for her, in passing her on to his doddering older brother?

  She had bided her time, letting the property deteriorate over the years because it was legally Matthew’s, and exploiting the house contents, ultimately to receive double by the time the insurance money came through.

  She would outlive both brothers, find someone to take over Miranda. Finally she would be free, a wealthy widow travelling the world.

  She picked at a fingernail. A rubbing from the old, scarred leather had lodged under there. After so much hard use she could barely remember the briefcase in its pristine glory. Instead, she was haunted by Dadda’s tired, lined face transformed by pride as he watched her open the birthday package, having so short a while left to live. If she tried she could make herself see Carlton’s face with the same sickly intimation of mortality. It helped her to tolerate his awfulness.

  Nobo
dy had picked up on that phone call from Cooden Beach, Yeadings realized. There’d been some tongue-clicking and eye-rolling at the old people’s lack of common-sense, then the team had gone its several ways, leaving him desk-bound as ever. It might, however, furnish him with an excuse to get out of the office and breathe fresh air.

  Accordingly he made an entry in his log: Supt Y to check on reported petrol stash at Larchmoor Place, and noted the time. Then he borrowed a uniform constable to drive and do the legwork.

  He was correct in assuming that the Dellars would have used the nearest petrol station to their home. The kiosk attendant confirmed that their ‘old crate’ took some filling. ‘More a case of how many gallons to the mile,’ he joked. ‘They shoulda traded it in years ago.’ They would put in just enough to get them twenty miles or so and fill a can for emergencies.

  ‘How often?’ Yeadings asked.

  ‘Every time they called, reg’lar as clockwork. Same thing most weeks.’ Their last visit had been on the day before the fire.

  With a modest amount in the tank at a time, they would need the emergency can for any journey over the routine length. ‘Did they ever forget to bring their can?’

  The man scratched his head. ‘Yeah. Once or twice. Didn’t matter. They could get another from our sales department. You’d best ask there.’

  ‘No, no. No matter,’ Yeadings assured him airily. He didn‘t want to cast suspicion and set rumours flying. ’Old folks get forgetful. My dad’s the same,’ he lied.

  His next stop was at the remains of the house, where he left the car and walked round to the rear, his nostrils filled with the stench of burnt debris. The old stables had a row of closed half-doors where the horses were once kept, but the double gates of the coach-house were slightly ajar. He alighted and slid through, followed by the uniform man.

  A light switch gave sufficient illumination to reveal a large square interior which had once been whitewashed and grown festooned with cobwebs over the years. The worn floor, of black stable tiles, sloped gently to a central drain. There was a dark stain of sump oil where the car had stood.

  Along one wall was hung an extendible aluminium ladder above a brass tap with a zinc bucket under it. At the far end an open staircase led up to a loft at the opening to which old straw spilled out, accounting for the musty smell.

  ‘See what you can find up above,’ Yeadings ordered, waving towards the loft. While the constable was absent he poked about among the cupboards’ mainly rusted tools.

  ‘Not a lot,’ the man reported when he had clomped back down. ‘Jest a couple of milking stools and an old pack of playing cards.’

  ‘No fuel cans?’

  ‘Nothing like that.’

  ‘Right.’ Of course this building had already been searched, but it did no harm to have gone over it again. Yeadings resolved to re-read the list of salvaged rubbish from the fire when he got back to the nick. The Dellars must have disposed of the old cans somewhere.

  ‘Let’s do a tour of the grounds,’ he suggested and made off down an avenue of limes. At its beginning the leaves were charred and curled like Autumn, but the flowers had yet to open and weren’t sticky to the touch. He followed the path to a cleared space where a dilapidated little hut had a fallen branch piercing the holed thatch of its roof. Just beyond it a faded blue plastic sheet sagged over a rectangular space which must be a small swimming pool.

  He sauntered towards a wooden bench which grew flaky silver-green lichen on its soggy timber. The place had such potential. An enthusiastic weekend gardener, he was saddened by the neglect of fine old trees and once-rich soil. Even this bench had … He paused, bent closer and examined a thread of something dark green caught in the jagged edge of the seat. Not navy blue, so it hadn’t come from any police uniform during the search of this area. It appeared to be a wool mixture of the kind used in machine-knit sweaters.

  Florence Carden had described the unknown young man’s clothing as a darkish knitted top, possibly green, and black or navy-blue jeans. So perhaps he had waited here for an answer to the note sent to Jessica. The superintendent didn’t carry evidence envelopes, but he pulled the thread free and folded it inside a laundered handkerchief. From its position on the seat it could imply that the youngster had even bedded down here, and pulled the thread in turning a shoulder on the splintered wood. A slender enough lead for identification, but it shouldn’t have been overlooked before.

  The constable came crashing through overgrown raspberry canes that had gone wild behind the little hut. ‘Found anything?’ Yeadings asked without hope.

  ‘No sir.’

  His own visit hadn’t been entirely fruitless, although he hadn’t high hopes of getting anywhere with the thread. It was time to return to the office and see what had come in.

  As the car passed the black ruins of the house it struck him again as curious that the younger son should have inherited the family home. Why had it been left to Sir Matthew? Because the then QC had achieved greater status? But apparently it hadn’t come up to his requirements, and he’d chosen to buy a more impressive family home elsewhere, relinquishing Larchmoor Place to his brother.

  According to local intelligence, the contents inherited by Carlton included some remarkable Old Masters and valuable books. So perhaps after all he’d received the better legacy. The house itself was known to have been badly neglected and barely worth restoring: of much greater value as a future building site.

  Which could provide a motive for arson. So to whose benefit? Sir Matthew’s, surely, but one didn’t go around voicing incautious suspicions about a retired High Court Judge. (Injudicious. Yeadings caught himself smirking at a double entendre worthy of DS Beaumont.)

  If Sir Matthew would benefit from the fire, so must Carlton with his fortune in art treasures converted into insurance compensation almost overnight, with none of the hassle or expense of being sold through a London auction house. Provided, of course, that the cover had been adequately upgraded over the years.

  Yeadings played with the notion of an internationally respected poet as a fire-raiser for profit. There wasn’t much mileage in that notion either. So, his domineering wife, or the apparently autistic grown-up daughter? Suspicion didn’ t have to focus on either, because the house had been packed full of family. What better occasion to get away with it and spread the blame?

  Then again, the arsonist could have come from outside and the motive been nothing to do with monetary gain. Revenge would be reward enough if the rancour ran deep in someone who’d spent half his adult life in jail. Destruction of the house could have been peripheral to the real intention, which was to wipe out the judge himself. So who would have known that the Carlton Dellars would be entertaining him over that weekend?

  Which brings one, Yeadings considered, to the body in the cellar. Had the arsonist gained entry with an accomplice whom he then strangled to guarantee silence? Or was the body connected with the young man lying unconscious in hospital? – because he had certainly been in a fight which might yet cost him his life.

  So was Eddie Dellar the intending Good Guy who’d come on the arsonist, attacked him and killed him before escaping outside? He’d still have to face a manslaughter charge if he survived. At twenty-two was his job at the Department of Trade and Industry enough in itself to justify Special Branch’s interest? That was doubtful.

  So many questions. So little to go on as yet. Yeadings closed his eyes and stayed that way until the car drew up again at the local nick.

  Kate Dellar had almost dropped off at Eddie’s bedside while a CD of Vivaldi’s Summer quietly played through. Last night she had spent long periods without sleep and now tiredness was rolling over her in waves. She jerked awake with a vague impression that Eddie had made some small movement. And then he spoke, quite clearly. ‘Jess is all right, Ma.’

  She came more sharply to her senses. He couldn’t have. The bandaging gag was still in place with the clear plastic tube-holder in his mouth. There was no movement now. His eyes
were still closed. She’d imagined hearing him, as she’d done once before against the Dellars’ disconnected conversation at dinner.

  Then from the real past the words came back. Once, when she’d been almost despairing of some new craze that Jess had taken up, he’d sensed the impatience in her. She hadn’t complained out loud, but maybe she was transparent to her son just then. That’s when he’d said it, and in just that voice. ‘Jess is all right, Ma.’

  Then it hadn’t been about Jess being safe from danger. What he’d meant was that she really wasn’t a bad girl. ‘Jess is all right, Ma.’

  Now it had replayed in her memory. My mind playing tricks, Kate warned herself; but it was comforting all the same. Eddie was right, and she ought to have more faith in the fact. In every sense Jess was all right. She would hold on to that, be more confident.

  She was a ninny to have been scared by the man following her yesterday. It was a caretaker’s natural reaction to someone seen hanging around the gates. Instead of bolting like a rabbit she should have confronted him. He could have told her where Stone could be found, or how she might get in touch with him. There was no call to mention Jess, in case the man was working directly for Stone’s wife.

  She had made up her mind. She would go back there right away, and rattle the gates until someone came; then demand to be given a phone number or some other address where she could find Stone and ask him …

  Ask what? ‘Have you got my daughter?’ Was that it? Something of the sort, she supposed. But the right words would come to her when they came face to face.

  She bent over and kissed Eddie’s forehead. It seemed less heated than before. His breathing continued unchanged. Well, of course it did: the machine went on doing that. It governed him.

  ‘I’ll be here tomorrow,’ she told him. ‘God bless.’

  She sat fuming in the hospital’s car park before she could drive out. A green Land Rover had been parked across her nose so that she couldn’t pull away. She was beginning to work up a strong dislike for that make of car. Angrily she pressed on her horn. It brought no response, except for a man in a denim suit staring back at her as he passed and hunching his shoulders in non-involvement.