The Red Chairs Mystery

by L. D. Culliford

  According to Dan’s story, when they had finished eating, the two Oxford students had gone into the Judge’s study, taking Fran with them, gripping her by the wrists and pulling her along. There they sat her in one of the big red armchairs while they opened the drinks cupboard, topping up their alcohol levels by helping themselves liberally to the Judge’s very best liquor.

  ‘They must have been drunk to do what they did’, Dan explained, pausing hesitantly at this point, as if on a precipice. Once he said another word, he knew it would all have to come out.

  ‘They put music on and forced her to dance’, he began again finally. ‘Then they made her take her clothes off, one by one: shoes, socks, cardigan, blouse, skirt; and the rest, you know, her underwear… Then they raped her… Royle made Gryllock hold her down over the back of one of the chairs and, when he had finished, insisted they change places. She said Royle seemed to enjoy that part the most, pulling on her wrists while she screamed and struggled, with the other one forcing himself on her from behind.’

  ‘So you decided to make sure the world knew what they’d done, even though so many years had passed’, said Holly.

  ‘I just felt so bloody mad at the thought they’d got away with it and nobody knew about it.’ Dan looked up at her, then collapsed back onto the pillows, closing his eyes again with a mixture of relief, exhaustion and shame, his family’s dishonour finally revealed.

  ***

  It’s not the whole story yet’, Holly was telling DCI Holroyd, DI Garbutt and Rich Baum when they met at Sussex House a few hours later, ‘But I’ll get the rest out of him in due course, don’t worry. I think he’s dying to unburden himself now he’s started.’

  ‘He is dying’ said Holly’s boss, without a trace of humour. ‘That’s for sure… According to the medics, he probably hasn’t got long.’

  She had spoken to someone at the Cancer Centre. The radiotherapy was palliative, they said, meaning that it might reduce the pain and discomfort, perhaps also delay his inevitable demise, but it could not keep him alive indefinitely.

  ‘Are we going to charge him?’ said Holly.

  It was Holroyd who spoke up this time, ‘With what exactly? I think we’d better wait. It looks like he could have murdered his sister, perhaps to put her out of her misery, but we’ve no real evidence for that.’

  ‘Do we have anything on Royle and Gryllock?’ This was DI Garbutt again.

  ‘I’m not sure that we have enough’, Holroyd replied. ‘I’ll try and speak to someone at the Met working on this new ‘Operation Yewtree’. It seems we can no longer ignore strong evidence of historic sex abuse cases.

  ***

  It was only ten minutes from her home to Worthing Hospital, so Holly went back that evening, but her hoarse-voiced informant was sleeping, and she did not like to wake him. The following morning though, when she returned, he looked brighter.

  ‘I won’t run away, Miss’, Dan said as she walked in. ‘You don’t need to keep an officer outside all the time. I’m far too weak… And where would I go, anyway?’

  ‘Alright… Thanks’, she responded. ‘I’ll see to it… But first, please continue with your story. What happened to Fran after she was assaulted by Royle and Gryllock?’

  ‘Mother stayed with her all night’, Dan resumed. ‘She drank a little water, but she wouldn’t eat anything. That’s when she lost her appetite for good, I reckon… That’s when she became anorexic. It was a complete change of personality. She was such a sweet, pretty, bubbly person before, but she became depressed after that, and seemed to develop an intense kind of self-loathing, especially for her body.’

  ‘I was only young, but I felt it. She had always loved and protected me, but now the roles had to be reversed. There were so many times I sat with her, trying to get her to eat a morsel of food. Even a few lettuce leaves or a small piece of a carrot would have been a success. I often saw her take food from mother, then spit it out again when she thought no-one could see. Also, she used to hide food and later flush it down the toilet. Eventually, of course, she learned how to make herself vomit food back. That was about the worst thing.’

  ‘It must have been awful’, Holly muttered in sympathy. ‘Why did your mother not call in the police?’

  ‘Well, for the same reason, I suppose’, Dan answered. ‘She did not want to lose her job. I don’t suppose she thought it would do any good, either. It would only have been poor Fran’s word against those two.’

  ‘What about taking her to the hospital?’ Holly asked.

  ‘We did’, Dan replied, ‘A number of times… But she would never stay there. They called a psychiatric nurse or a social worker to her once or twice, I remember; but we were told Fran wasn’t ill enough for them to force her into hospital; and mother didn’t want that anyway.’

  ‘Didn’t your mother go and speak to Royle and Gryllock after it happened, make some kind of protest, threaten them with exposure even?’ Holly was again beginning to identify with Dan’s sense of outrage.

  ‘It was too late’, he replied. ‘They packed up and left pretty quickly after the incident… Back to Oxford, I imagine, to start setting up a strong alibi… You know Royle. He really was that dreadful. We never saw him again; but a few months later his father died, and within weeks he had his lawyers send us a letter to quit the property. He was going to sell it… We had to go… Just like that!’

  ‘What did you do?’ Holly asked.

  ‘’Mum was amazing’, Dan said. ‘She didn’t make any fuss. She just went to the landlord of a local pub, The Cricketers, and asked for work. From then on, she pulled pints three evenings a week in the bar. During the day, she worked as a cleaning woman for various people around town. She took a small unfurnished apartment, and contacted the Royle family solicitors for permission to buy cheaply some of the furniture from Fotheringay House, or perhaps just take it; so that’s how we came by those awful chairs. We covered them over with blankets because Fran hated them so; but mother said we had no money to spare for new ones, and it was true; for example, we never had any holidays.’

  ‘So Fran developed anorexia, your mother was working very hard, and you were still at school, I suppose’, Holly clarified.

  ‘That’s right’, said Dan, ‘But I left as soon as I turned sixteen. Fran wasn’t going to school or college by then either… I went to be a stable boy on a stud farm nearby run by the Andersons, Vic and Andy.’

  ‘Do you mean Sybil?’

  ‘Sybil, yeah!’ She hated that name. We always just called her “Andy” or “Mrs A”.’

  ‘Go on’, said Holly.

  ‘I was with them for years, and they both seemed to take a bit of a shine to me’, Dan continued. ‘They didn’t have any kids of their own, you see… They gave me lodgings at the farm after a bit, and that’s when I took those chairs off mother, to get them out of Fran’s way, like. Then, in the mid-80’s, Vic decided to take on something a bit smaller and easier to run. He was getting on a bit by then. Andy, his missus, was a good bit younger… So that’s when they sold up and bought Ponyrest Place. It’s what Andy really wanted to do, and it gave her a chance to have some contact with children. She liked that… And it’s just as well they moved to Sussex when they did because, only about a year later, Vic died of a heart attack.’

  ‘You were there?’ Holly suggested.

  ‘Oh yes’, Dan answered. ‘I was there. They took me with them to help run the place, and…’ Holly noticed he was suddenly blushing. ‘And I used to keep Andy company sometimes, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘You were sleeping with her?’

  ‘Well, if you put it like that… Yes’, Dan admitted, his cheeks burning. ‘I think Vic knew about it, but he never said anything. I loved that man. He was like a father to me, and I owe him so much… He was clever, too. It was him who designed that horse-hoist, for example. He told me he had seen something like it as a boy in his
native New Zealand… He was an amazing man!’

  ‘That’s the horse-box you used to take Fran’s body and those chairs to the golf course?’ Holly offered.

  ‘Yes’, agreed Dan. ‘I’m coming to that…’

  But he was not to reach that part of the story just then, being racked by a lengthy fit of coughing. When Holly heard a strange gurgling sound, and then saw a large amount of blood appearing on the tissues, she went and called for a nurse. The interview was suddenly over.

  The 18th

  Chapter

  Holly left the hospital and drove to Sussex House. Several armoured police vans filled with uniformed officers were leaving as she arrived at the car park.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked someone, on her way to the canteen. ‘What’s all that lot doing?’

  ‘There’s a pitched battle going on at the beach between some rival London gangs’, she was told. ‘The riot shield lads are going to try and break it up.’

  ‘Which one were you, Sarge?’ someone called from a room across the corridor. ‘Mod or Rocker?’

  ‘That was the sixties, you cheeky blighter!’ said the burly Sergeant. ‘How old do you think I am?’

  ‘That’s right, Sarge’, said another voice from within. ‘You tell him… We all know you were a Punk!’

  Holly laughed, joining in the general banter that followed. It was another reason she liked being in the police force. No-one took anything too seriously… Except DI Garbutt, of course! Ten minutes later, having found a spare desk, she was typing her report into the police computer, including Dan Pennycuik’s account of things, more or less word for word. It took her quite a long time.

  Later, on her way home, she went to the supermarket, then for another run. After a shower, she heated up a frozen meal and ate it in front of the television. The gang warfare on Brighton Seafront was one of the major stories covered, but Holly felt distracted. She was worried about her man, Dan, reflecting that she still did not know how his sister had died, and whether in fact she was murdered.

  She thought of phoning the hospital for an update on his condition; then she decided it would be better to go in person. Pennycuik had been moved to the Intensive Care Unit (the ‘expensive care unit’, as Jack always called it, she remembered), but she was not allowed in. The nurse in charge, after inspecting her warrant card carefully, told her that Dan had lost a lot of blood after the tumour in his chest must have eroded into a blood vessel, but that the bleeding had stopped and he was receiving a blood transfusion. For the time being, he was also sedated.

  Back home, she telephoned her father, who had had a successful afternoon playing bowls with his mates and was in a cheerful mood. Although she knew he would be interested, she felt she could tell him nothing yet about the case she was working on, except vaguely perhaps that there had been something of a breakthrough.

  ‘What’s the matter, Love?’ her father asked, sensing something amiss.

  ‘I’m alright, Dad’, she insisted. ‘It’s nothing… I’m probably tired, that’s all.’

  Later, she put on a coat and went out for a walk.

  ***

  Up in London that evening, high up in his luxury penthouse apartment, Jamie Royle was fretting. His lawyers had tried persuading him against leaving the country again too soon, so his plans had gone wrong and he was fuming. He had already instructed Catherine to recall Gary Brooker and Louise from Oregon, and there was not much else he could do. Paddy Gryllock was being a pain, wanting to discuss matters that, as far as he was concerned, were dead and buried. ‘Everybody commits a few peccadilloes when they’re young, don’t they?’ he told Paddy, during one of their more heated discussions. ‘Just forget about it.’ The news about Operation Yewtree had gone right over his head. It never occurred to him that he might be called to account.

  The unexpected highlight that week had been the meeting with the Chinese. Despite all the hassle at Heathrow, he had made it to his office soon after midday on the Tuesday. At first he was disconcerted by the fact that Laetitia Chou turned out to be positively plain in appearance and over forty. Her lack of pulchritude was one thing, but he was mostly upset that his partner had lied to him. Nevertheless, putting on his best business face, he had eventually negotiated a satisfactory new deal. The prices would go up, but not by twenty-five percent, only by ten; and the increases would be staggered over the next three years.

  He was so pleased afterwards that he forgave Gryllock his mendacity. ‘But don’t you lie to me again, Paddy’, he warned over a celebratory glass of the Lagavulin. ‘I might not be so forgiving next time.’

  And there had been a bonus. During a pause in the discussion, Jamie took a comfort break. Mr Chou, the chief Chinese negotiator, who was not related to his female colleague despite having the same name, followed him into the toilet. Until now, Chou had spoken only in his native language, using the expert offices of translator, Grace Welsh; but, approaching Jamie, standing at the wash-basin, looking him in the eye through his reflection in the mirror, he spoke to him in perfect, American-accented English. ‘Quite a match, wasn’t it?’ he said. It took Jamie a moment to realize he was talking about the Ryder Cup.

  ‘I saw the final day’s play on the television in Bonn, Sunday night’, the Chinaman added. Then, before Jamie could respond, he began telling him about golf course construction projects his cousin was involved with, not only near Guangzhou but in other provinces too. He was sounding Royle out about engaging Regal Enterprises to help with both course and clubhouse design. If they played their cards right, Jamie realized, this was a deal worth many millions. He had arranged to meet Mr Chou and his cousin again in Hong Kong the following week, but now that meeting was firmly scotched by his lawyers’ instructions, and he was pacing his flat in a fury.

  ***

  On Sunday morning, Holly went to the hospital again. Pennycuik was still very weak and more or less unconscious, however. He was still unfit to be interviewed. Back home, she changed bed-sheets and put washing on, then went running again. Later she cleaned her bathroom and vacuumed all over the house, cut the tiny lawn with a push mower, and thought about tidying up her small garden later. After a sandwich lunch, she sat down in an easy chair, feeling restless. She needed to think about the case, but could not get her thoughts into focus. She wondered what Mark Berger was doing, and whether to go to the golf club at Graffham in the hope of seeing him; but then she talked herself out of it, ringing Jack and Brian instead. Unfortunately, there was no reply on their home number, so she ended the call without leaving a message. ‘You could call Jack’s mobile’, she thought, but then decided it wasn’t worth bothering him. The gay couple were probably out enjoying themselves somewhere.

  In the end, she went out again for a walk. The ever-changing cloudscape over the sea was looking wonderful. A container ship in the distance moved impossibly slowly left to right across her line of vision. On her return home, there was a message from her father inviting her over that evening for a meal. ‘You have to come’, he said. ‘I want to beat you at Scrabble’ Somehow, not having to spend more time alone, she felt mightily relieved.

  On the Monday, they told her at the hospital that Pennycuik was improving slowly, and that he would soon be transferred to St Catherine’s, a hospice near the seafront in Hove. It would be best if she waited until he was there before trying to interview him again.

  That same afternoon, she and Rich were back with DI Garbutt in DCI Holroyd’s office for another meeting, this time with the Coroner’s Officer from Chichester and a senior member of the Crown Prosecution Service, to consider all possible options.

  ‘The Yewtree people will interview Royle and Gryllock this week’, Hugh Holroyd began, ‘But they’ve said not to get our hopes up… With Francesca Pennycuik dead, there’s only her brother’s hearsay evidence to go on, so very little chance of a conviction unless one or other of them is prepared to confess.’

 
‘Royle won’t’, offered Holly, ‘But Gryllock might. He’s set up a charity for helping people with disabilities, including mental health problems, and they mostly run hostels for young women. I suspect it’s his guilty conscience motivating him, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s possible’, Holroyd replied, ‘But don’t forget he has a disabled sister, Georgina. Perhaps it’s just because of her…’

  ‘They are called “D-i-D” hostels’, Rich interjected. ‘It stands for “Damsels in Distress” I believe.’

  ‘Thank you, Baum’, said Holroyd.

  ‘Now, let’s suppose, Lester’, he continued, addressing the man from the CPS, ‘That Dan Pennycuik did kill his sister by throttling her. Should we arrest him and mount a case against him?’

  ‘We need to know a bit more about her final days’, Lester Crowther replied. ‘And we need to know if he’s going to survive… But this is a suspicious death, and first there will need to be a full inquest to determine how and when she died and who, if anyone was responsible; in other words whether an unlawful killing took place. If she died because someone else was responsible – someone still unsuspected and at large, and therefore someone who could conceivably continue to pose a risk to the public – that person needs to be identified and apprehended.’

  ‘I doubt there is such a person’, Laura Garbutt spoke up. ‘I think we’ve got this case sown up, thanks to Detective Angel.’

  ‘Well, possibly’, Hugh Holroyd commented. ‘But we can’t close the books on it yet.’

  ***