The Philosophy of Disgrace

by Ann Troup

  Diana didn’t buy it. There was much more to Delia Jones’ involvement with the Porters than could be explained away by a glib memoir recounted to a loyal grandchild.

  For instance, why on earth had Delia maintained links with the family after Charlie’s conviction? Surely, no amount of loyalty to an old friend, or concern for Rachel could have withstood the betrayal of her own child.

  Then there was Charlie. Diana had developed good instincts about dangerous men. She had dealt with the fallout of domestic violence for enough years to spot an asshole a mile off. Charlie was not a dangerous man, definitely not a killer, though she was reserving judgement on whether or not he was an asshole.

  No, there was something very dark at the centre of this situation. If only for Rachel’s sake, Diana was going to find out what it was.

  DI Ratcliffe and DS Watson got out of his car and approached the two uniformed officers who stood outside the Stationers shop that belonged to the Porter family. A strip of crime scene tape fluttered delicately across the open door way. The smell of petrol was overwhelming.

  ‘So?’ Ratcliffe said, holding his hand over his mouth, he never could stand the smell of petrol.

  ‘Attempted arson attack by the looks of it Sir. Someone poured petrol through the letterbox, but the fire never took hold; it seems there might have been a water leak of some kind recently. Everything this side of the door was too wet to burn, so the fire just fizzled out. Lucky really.’ One of the officers volunteered

  Angela Watson pointed up, to a CCTV camera that was aimed directly at the doorway, ‘Anything on that?’

  The other officer shook her head. ‘Not even connected, just here for show I’m afraid.’

  ‘And no one saw anything?’ Angela added.

  ‘We’re still checking, but nothing so far. You might want to take a look upstairs, in the flat.’

  Ratcliffe ducked under the tape and held it up for Angela to follow him. They walked past the fire scarred door, and practically paddled up the hallway to the stairs, their feet squelching on the sodden carpet that had saved the place from burning down. The report had come in first thing, when Ratcliffe had reached his desk five minutes before Angela had nonchalantly strolled into the office. The Porter’s shop had been petrol bombed, and the body recovered from the fire at The Limes had been confirmed as Stella Baxter. It stood to reason that if Stella had set fire to The Limes, she might have had a go at the shop too. What didn’t stack up was the fact that the house fire had taken place during daylight, the shop later. Ratcliffe didn’t have confirmation from the fire department of that fact, but he was sure he would. After all, the shop was on the high street, this side door just off it, it was unlikely that a burning door would not have attracted the attention of at least one member of the public. The fire brigade hadn’t even been called.

  The flames were all out by the time the milk delivery driver had noticed the damage, and had told the manager of the next door Mini Mart, whilst handing him a tray of semi skimmed, that someone had tried to burn down the neighbouring shop. Vishal Sharma, the owner of the Mini Mart, was a conscientious man and had reported it to the police immediately. As soon as the operator in the call centre had typed in the details of the incident into her computer, the machine had done its magic and cross-referenced the address with Ratcliffe’s case.

  He had been meaning to take a look at the place anyway; it just pissed him off that, incidents kept happening that made him look incompetent. He was beginning to think that someone involved with the Porter mess had it in for him.

  Wondering what other little surprises were in store for him that day, he led the way upstairs to the flat above the shop, where the Crime Scene Operatives were already busy about their work looking like diligent, white clad gnomes.

  At first glance, the sitting room looked like a typical crack house. Filthy, squalid, neglected, vile. But there was no drug paraphernalia. ‘What’s the deal?’ Ratcliffe asked one of the CS Tech’s.

  ‘Not much, looks like someone’s been in residence fairly recently, we’ve found traces of food that aren’t too old. Also some women’s clothes.’

  ‘Stella?’ Angela asked, figuring this was where she’d been hiding out since she’d left The Limes. She was still kicking herself over the fact that they had overlooked this place. Sooner or later Benton would have Ratcliffe’s hide over it.

  Ratcliffe nodded. ‘That would be my guess.’ He stepped carefully across the room and glanced into a rancid kitchen, full of mouse droppings and the fetid remains of meals recently eaten, strewn amongst the wrappings they came in. It made him want to gag.

  Angela had made for the bedroom. ‘Come and have a look at this boss’ she called. Not just because she wanted him to see it, but because being in there on her own was seriously creeping her out.

  Ratcliffe joined her, and neither of them spoke as they looked around the room. It had been decorated as a nursery. Lambs and ducklings gambolled across the walls on a pastel coloured background. A crib, draped with lace and frills sat in the middle of the room next to a nursing chair. A cobwebbed mobile dangled forlornly from the ceiling. Everything was damp and mouldy, so that the little yellow ducks had a green tinge to their feathers and the lambs already had a smattering of mint sauce. It would have been sad, a depressing little scene, one to tug at the heartstrings, except for the dolls.

  There were hundreds of dolls. Naked dolls. They sat around the walls, all their little china and plastic hands pointing into the room towards the nursing chair. Their little fingers extended, accusing, pleading, beckoning? It was difficult to tell. Angela shuddered, she couldn’t help it. ‘Look at their eyes.’

  Ratcliffe looked, the room was dim, but he could see well enough to tell that every eye, in every little head, had been poked out. A countless battalion of sinister childlike effigies surrounded them. Revulsion rippled across his senses. ‘Jesus.’ Was the only word he could think of.

  Angela shivered again. She knew that she was going to have nightmares about this place.

  ‘Do you think Stella did this, because of the dead baby?’ She asked.

  ‘God knows, maybe. It’s ghoulish though.’

  That was one word for it, Angela thought. She could think of others, macabre, grisly, gruesome, morbid, ghastly, the list went on....

  ‘Can we get out of here now?’ She pleaded. It was going to be hard enough to shake off this little tableau, without having it permanently engraved on her mind.

  ‘Hold on, there something else.’ He pulled a small Maglite out of his pocket and aimed the beam at the chest of one of the dolls, its empty eye sockets looked even more menacing half lit by the thin beam of light.

  It was like Toy Town meets the Blair Witch. Angela thought with grim humour. It didn’t help lighten the situation. ‘What have you found?’

  ‘Something’s been written on the chest’s’ he swung the beam round, randomly illuminating the tiny torso’s.

  Angela squinted, ‘What does it say?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think it says Peccavisti. What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘It means, “you have sinned”. It’s Latin, and a bit melodramatic don’t you think?’ The sudden insertion of Julia Ferris’s dulcet tones into the creepy atmosphere of the room made both of them jump.

  ‘Sorry chaps didn’t mean to startle you.’ She said with a smug smile. ‘Ooh, this is a gruesome little set up isn’t it?’ She had gloves on and was suited and booted for the occasion. She picked up one of the dolls and turned it over carefully. As she tilted it, a plaintive little voice emitted from its rosebud mouth, “Mama”. ‘Nice touch’ Julia said placing it back on the floor in its original position. ‘I take it you got my message. We have a positive ID on our crispy critter. It is Stella Baxter.’

  Ratcliffe nodded. ‘Yeah, we think she must have tried to burn this place too.’ Looking around, he wished she had. The scene would be far more palatable as a pile of charred wood and molten plastic.

  ‘I doubt it.’


  Ratcliffe turned to face Julia. ‘Eh?’

  ‘Stella was dead before the fire started. No smoke in her lungs.’

  If the chair in the middle of the room had not been part of a potential crime scene, Ratcliffe would have plopped down into it and held his head in his hands in a fit of despair. Would this never end? ‘How did she die?’

  ‘It looks like she was strangled. Her hyoid bone was broken. It’s a typical indication of strangulation.’ Julia said casually.

  ‘Great.’ Ratcliffe said, gritting his teeth. Now he had to look for another murderer who was also a pyromaniac. Given Frances’s propensity for burning potential evidence, he would have pointed the finger at her, but she had been in a cell at the time of the fire. Rachel and Charlie had been in London.

  ‘Peter Haines?’ Angela suggested, as if she could see his train of thought.

  ‘Doubt he would have the gumption, but he was pissed off when we arrested his wife. I suppose we have to go and ask some questions though.’ Benton was so not going to like this.

  ‘I’m surprised your Nan didn’t want to come with us today.’ Diana said as she and Amy made their way up Charlie’s drive.

  ‘Oh, yeah, she said she had a visit planned. Some old friend in hospital she had to go and see. She’ll be round later. Nan wouldn’t miss out on a drama if she can help it.’ Amy laughed, fishing in her pocket for her house key.

  ‘Hello. It’s me, anybody up yet?’ She called from the hallway. The house was still in darkness, the curtains drawn. ‘Probably having a lie in, he hasn’t had a decent kip in days,’ she said by way of explanation to Diana. ‘He’s getting too old for all this excitement.’ She said cheerfully, pulling back the curtains and letting the daylight flood in.

  Now that the gloom was lifted, Diana was glad to see that Charlie had not inherited his mother’s proclivity of surrounding herself with tacky clutter. His home was clean and modern, not a frill or a flounce in sight. She could breathe easy.

  Somewhere up above she heard the creak of floorboards.

  Amy’s voice had woken both Rachel and Charlie with a start. Charlie was shocked to see that the bedside clock said half past nine. Rachel was shocked to find that she had been holding his left hand, whilst his right arm had been draped across her chest. He pulled away from her as if her stunned gaze were an electric current. ‘Sorry’, he said hastily, jumping up from the bed and scurrying to the door. ‘Hi love, put the kettle on will you? I’ll go in and wake Rachel.’ He lied, making a big show of knocking on the door he was holding. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he stumbled to the bathroom and splashed cold water onto his stubbly face. The towel smelled vaguely of Rachel.

  Rachel lay in the bed, her right side suddenly chilled by the absence of Charlie’s body heat. Her leg was throbbing and hot, in fact her whole left side felt as if it were on fire. She didn’t feel good. Charlie had left her tablets on the bedside table, so she took two of everything just to be sure. Then painfully inched her leg out of the bed. She was exhausted by the mere thought of trying to get out of bed, so instead she helped herself to Charlie’s dressing gown, which was hanging on the back of the door.

  Getting down stairs was a slow painful process, and mostly involved putting her body weight on the banister and swinging the duff leg onto the stair below, before gritting her teeth and making it bear her weight for a second or two. By the time she reached the bottom, she was flushed in the face and exhausted. The night’s sleep may as well not have happened for all the good it had done.

  The look on Diana’s face as she entered the lounge, red faced, wearing Charlie’s clothes told her that Diana thought her state was down to entirely different reasons. She felt too lousy to bother explaining herself. She eased herself onto the sofa and took the coffee that Diana held out for her gratefully.

  Charlie and Amy were in the kitchen, she could hear his mobile phone ringing above the noise of cupboards being open and shut, to her surprise he came in and offered her the phone, ‘For you, DS Ratcliffe.’

  Gingerly she took the phone, ‘Hello?’ Everyone’s eyes were on her as she listened to the detective. Finally, she handed the phone back to Charlie. ‘I’m not sure how you turn it off.’ She said in a voice that sounded too weak and too thin to be her own.

  ‘Is everything alright?’ Diana asked, leaning forward.

  ‘They’ve had confirmation that it was Stella who was in the house. Apparently, it’s more complicated than that, other things have come up. He wouldn’t tell me on the phone, but he’s coming here later. Apparently I’m not to go anywhere.’

  ‘Just as well looking at the state of you, in fact I don’t think you should leave that sofa today.’ Charlie said, pressing his hand to her forehead and looking concerned.

  ‘I’m fine. Don’t fuss.’ She said batting him away.

  ‘Hmmm. We’ll see. Look, Amy and I are going shopping, there’s barely any food in the house and we need milk desperately. We won’t be long.’

  Amy had hung back, quiet after yesterday’s outburst, almost shy in fact. Rachel gave her a tentative smile, and was pleased to have it returned.

  ‘I have to go with him, or we could be living on pot noodles for a week.’ Amy said.

  Rachel wanted to laugh, but it hurt.

  After they had gone, Diana turned to her, ‘So what did that detective really say?’

  Rachel was surprised, since Diana had never questioned her before. ‘Like I said, he wants to talk to me sometime today. He wouldn’t say much over the phone.’

  ‘But what do you think? Look Rachel, your sister was killed in a fire, your other sister has been arrested for murder, your mother died a few weeks ago, your long lost husband and daughter have just popped out of the woodwork, and people aren’t what you thought they were. You’ve been living as a recluse for god knows how many years, need I go on?’

  ‘When you put it all together like that it’s an abysmal catalogue of disaster.’ Rachel said with a wry smile.

  Diana nodded vigorously, the expression on her face exaggerated by raised eyebrows. ‘Yes, it is. It’s a bloody mess, and you’re sitting there showing less reaction than someone who has just been told that the post will be late today!’

  Rachel sighed, she didn’t feel well. Diana was right, she should be reacting differently, but she was looking at it all as if she were one end of a long, long tunnel, and the cataclysmic mess that threatened to engulf her was at the other. She explained this to Diana, and added ‘So do you suggest that I rush to meet it head on?’

  Diana suddenly felt guilty for pushing the matter, ‘No of course not. I suppose I’m just a bit shell shocked by it all. I forget you’ve been living with a lot of these issues for a long time. Though I don’t know how you’ve stood it.’

  Denial is a wonderful thing, Rachel thought to herself. ‘Anyway, let’s change the subject. How did you get on at Delia’s last night?’

  Diana grimaced. ‘Let’s put it this way, I don’t think we’re likely to become lifelong friends any time soon.’

  Rachel smiled, ‘Was she a bit rough and ready for you? She can be rather blunt, but she means well. Without Delia, I think we might all have fallen apart a lot sooner, god knows what her reasons were but she kept the family ticking for a long time. We have a lot to be grateful to her for.’

  Indeed, Diana thought, ‘Why was she so loyal to your family?’

  Rachel shrugged, ‘I don’t really know, other than she had links with my mother, Valerie, which went back to childhood. There was some bond there. She was more loyal than she needed to be, I know that much. Mother treated her like a skivvy.’

  ‘Yet she carried on her involvement with you all?’ The strident, brassy woman that Diana had met didn’t seem the type.

  ‘Yes, but don’t ask me to explain it. It’s impossible enough to make sense of my family as it is.’ Now her hand was beginning to throb too. ‘Do you mind if we don’t do any more questions, I think I might be getting enough of that when the p
olice turn up.’ It was uncharacteristically rude of her, but that tunnel was getting shorter with every word.

  ‘Of course. You should rest, you look a bit peaky to be honest.’ Diana said, feeling bad that she had added to her friends stress. She had come here to support her, not add to her burdens. However, Rachel’s state of calm in the face of so much was quite worrying, the dam had to give way sometime, and she felt she needed to be there when it did. As for Delia Jones, it was clear that no one else had the same reservations about the woman. Given that, they all knew Delia a damn sight better than she did, perhaps she would be wise to reserve judgement. In the meantime, she needed more tea, and Rachel needed rest. Quietly she left the room to take advantage of Charlie’s decent tea bags in the peace and quiet of his uncluttered kitchen.

  Ratcliffe could feel the beginnings of a headache, his left eye felt twitchy and white light zigzagged around the periphery of his vision. Peter Haines had a cast iron alibi for the fire; he had been at home at the time, but not alone. His sister and her husband had been with him and could account for his every move since he had left the police station after Frances’ arrest. If Ratcliffe had judged Peter as imperious, his sister turned out to be the high priestess of pomposity. She and her husband made Frances and Peter look positively accommodating in comparison. Ratcliffe was just glad he didn’t have to interview the Haines parent’s, he didn’t think his will could have stood it, because those two had definitely learnt their high handedness from someone.

  One thing that had been abundantly clear from the meeting, Peter Haines had no intention of standing by his wife. Bail for Frances was out of the question, and Haines had seemed relieved about it, and seemed to be using the reprieve from his wife as an opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge. The only satisfaction Ratcliffe had from the meeting was in finding out that The Limes had not been insured. Fate had made doubly sure that Peter Haines would not see a penny from the place. Rough justice, Ratcliffe had commented to Angela as they left. She didn’t seem to get it. She was still wittering on about the dolls of Satan scene back at the flat.