Bury Him Darkly

by Roger Ormerod

  Terry laughed, then cut it short when Oliver said, ‘I’d have dragged you off by your hair, rather than lose you in the first place.’

  ‘With only one arm, Oliver?’

  Terry looked from one to the other, not understanding.

  ‘With one arm, Phil.’

  I grinned at him. ‘And you couldn’t strangle me with one hand, Oliver. That makes me feel very safe.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck. It can be done.’

  Terry said, ‘Haven’t we wandered a bit from the point?’

  ‘Which is?’ I asked.

  ‘Weren’t we heading towards Dulcie’s murder — and who strangled her?’

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded my head vigorously. ‘That was where I was heading. Can you imagine that Joey did that? Did he return to Horseley Green to take away his beloved Dulcie, and change his mind and strangle her instead? Nonsense. Rowley was just about the only one it could have been. Rowley.’

  ‘It would be one way of preventing her from leaving him,’ Terry pointed out. ‘But he’d be sending her away permanently. Defeats its own purpose.’

  ‘And it doesn’t sound like the Rowley Fields we’re getting to know.’ Oliver shook his head. ‘Not the Rowley who didn’t take anything seriously.’

  ‘Except himself.’ I nodded emphatically. ‘Oh yes, he’s the classic example of inadequacy. Inadequate sexually, mentally, socially, and living with a basic insecurity, one he had to cover with all that back-slapping and fooling about. Then for once, when married, he’d have to face the fact that he’d have nothing better to offer than his true character, based on a sexual performance he was probably uncertain about… and imagine that coming face to face — literally — with a woman who would be to him a wonder and a delight, whom he’d see as unassailable, and was known throughout the countryside as Duck-out Dulcie! Can you see any sparks flying around? Can you imagine any wild and uncontrollable passion mangling up the sheets of their marriage bed?’

  They were staring at me blankly. ‘Good Lord!’ said Terry.

  ‘Well… can you?’

  ‘Is this,’ Oliver asked, ‘a cold and scientific analysis of the situation?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Hmm!’ he commented. ‘Heaven help us when you get emotional.’

  ‘Which,’ I told them, annoyed by their lack of reciprocal response, ‘I am just about to do, unless you two make an effort to understand what I’m getting at.’

  ‘I’m making the effort,’ said Oliver seriously. ‘What about you, Terry?’

  ‘Workin’ hard at it, Chief.’

  ‘Damn it all, you two must’ve come across this sort of person before. Like Rowley. He’s the sort who crops up in domestic killings. He exactly fits as the killer of Dulcie.’ Infuriatingly, they just stared. ‘In complete control of himself, even proud of that control, but it would gradually boil up inside him, he screwing the safety valve on a little notch now and then. And if he knew neither child was his — as he had to do — and suddenly Dulcie was going to leave him… walk out on him… I wouldn’t imagine she’d even trouble to keep it from him. She’d pack her bags as he watched, not caring, not perhaps even aware that he was there, in the same room. And poof! The boiler would blow up.

  Oliver moved in his seat. His discomfort might not have been entirely physical. ‘We get the picture, Phil. But it’s all conjecture, all theory, with nothing to support it.’

  ‘What about the ring, the one Rowley gave Bella for her sixteenth birthday? It’s not vastly valuable, I’d say, but she wears it. Rowley had told her it was her mother’s, so it was probably an engagement ring he’d given her. They don’t do that now, I believe. They simply crawl into bed together. But at that time it was the done thing — a gift from the man. It wasn’t necessarily returned if the engagement was broken off. So I can’t believe Dulcie would carefully remove that ring and place it on her dressing-table. She wouldn’t give it a thought. But Rowley, he had it to give to Bella twelve years later. Can’t you just see him, with a body to dispose of, a dead and probably naked body, it’d be — he wouldn’t leave the ring on her finger. Quite apart from the question of identification, he’d remove it as part of his fury. It would represent an ending — a total ending. And he eventually gave it to Bella! Perhaps he loved her, loved both girls. Bella was his substitute for Dulcie. Oh yes, I think we can accept that he killed Dulcie. Don’t you?’

  They looked at each other, nodded to each other. ‘We’ll accept that,’ said Oliver.

  ‘Well, thank you.’ I was a little cool, because of their complete lack of enthusiasm. ‘So what’s the snag?’

  ‘The snag is… that they were buried side by side. And that can’t be explained by saying they were buried by the same person if you’re going to assume that Rowley was burier number one. So… how come?’

  I bit my lip. A poser, this was. ‘Somebody saw him bury Dulcie, so knew exactly where her body lay.’

  ‘Somebody who didn’t do anything about it? Somebody who saw it, but waited fifteen years to kill Rowley? Heavens, how could they have watched that burial and not intervened, or at least fetched the police? Phil, your romantic theories involving Rowley are all very well, but everything falls down on that. Whoever buried them side by side must have killed both of them, Dulcie and Rowley. Terry? Don’t you agree?’

  And Terry was looking vacant and very distressed, wouldn’t meet my eye, wouldn’t venture a word until pushed.

  ‘Well, Terry?’ Oliver insisted, but now with a note of abrupt interest in his voice.

  ‘Well… there is somebody.’ Terry lifted his head. ‘Though only Phillie, with her analytical theories, could make sense of it. But there is one person who could’ve watched Dulcie being buried and could not have done anything. One person who wouldn’t have had the initiative to do anything until pushed into it, when her grandmother told her what a monster her father was, and as good as handed her a tacit permission to do something about him, and who still wears her mother’s ring, so must have loved her very dearly...’ He allowed it to fade away, shrugging.

  ‘But she was only four!’ I burst out. ‘Only bloody well four!’

  ‘So?’ Terry delicately lifted his eyebrows. ‘That would be why she couldn’t have done anything at that time, and would have been too scared to say a word, not even to her sister, Tonia, later. But at nineteen she could do something — when the surrounding circumstances put a whole crowd of suspects between her and suspicion.’

  ‘Bella!’ I breathed.

  Chapter 13

  We took it no further at that time, all three of us realizing that we needed to think about it. The concept would take a certain amount of consideration before I’d be happy with it.

  So, as I now seemed to be in need of urgent words with Bella, and because Oliver was clearly aching to get into his bed, I said goodnight. We agreed to get together in the morning and plan further action.

  I walked along thoughtfully to my room. It was very quiet out there, with the distant rumble from the bar seeming to emphasize the silence. With my hand on the doorknob, I paused. There were voices from within.

  It could be embarrassing if I walked straight in, but I have a tendency towards objecting to having to knock on my own door. Yet it could be Jay Messenger inside there, and though Bella had said they hadn’t slept together for five years, the novelty of the situation could have acted as an aphrodisiac.

  But at that moment Jay himself solved my difficulty. There were rapid footsteps thumping up the stairs. I turned. It was Jay.

  He seemed agitated as he came hurrying up to me. ‘Thank heaven you’re here.’ He grasped my arm. He smelt strongly of aftershave. Did he shave at night? Certainly his face was very smooth, even glistening.

  ‘What is it?’ I found myself whispering.

  ‘It’s that damned fool Inspector Connaught. She phoned me — you weren’t there.’

  ‘So why are we standing out here?’ I demanded.

  He thrust fingers through his hair. ‘God
knows.’ He grimaced, gave one sharp tap on the door, and we walked in, he ushering me ahead of him.

  Bella was backed up against the window, trying to look imperious and failing dismally, looking only terrified. Inspector Arnold Connaught was there, on his feet and talking, briskly efficient but with his temper hanging by a thread, and accompanied by a large and placid man, whom I assumed to be a sergeant, who was sitting on the edge of my bed, blast him, with a notebook on his knee.

  The notebook was the clue. Anything you say may be put into writing and given in evidence. Oh yes, I know the Judges’ Rules. Hadn’t my father taught them to me, as a litany? They embody the very flesh and bones of British justice, the rights of the citizen and the duties of the police. And Rule 2 plainly states that it is after a person is cautioned that a record shall be kept… etc. So Bella, I could guess, had been cautioned. Not yet charged. Cautioned.

  Perhaps Bella wasn’t aware of these niceties. She looked as though the end of the world had arrived and she was about to be whisked off and locked away, never to see daylight again, certainly never to see a spotlight. Though it was just possible that a situation such as this had arisen in the Colossus series, and she knew exactly how to portray a shattered despair.

  A little ashamed that I hadn’t shaken myself free of cynicism, though she had only herself to blame, I went over to her.

  ‘Bella!’ I put a hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this.’

  Then I was thrust aside by Jay, who knew exactly what to do, swept her into his arms, clasped her tightly to his solid chest, and crooned to her as though she were a child, which I suppose she was.

  ‘Who’s been frightening my little girl!’ When he knew damned well who’d been doing it, though, judging by the expression on her face, which was over his left shoulder and panting for air, it was Jay who was doing it at that moment.

  I looked at Connaught, who raised his eyebrows at me, and it was all we could do not to laugh out loud. The sergeant looked down at his notebook.

  Then Bella said, ‘Put me down, you big oaf, you’re stifling me.’

  Jay did so, stood back with his arms hanging at his sides, and said, ‘Is this an arrest, precious?’ Precious! ‘Have you got a lawyer? Don’t say a word. Not one damned word. Leave it to Jay.

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ She was brusque. But at least the fear had left her eyes.

  ‘She’s not been charged,’ said Connaught briskly. ‘Only cautioned. Please don’t interfere, Mr Messenger.’

  ‘Somebody’s gotta look out for her,’ Jay declared, like Perry Mason girding up his loins.

  It was quite clear that this was verging on farce, though it was a little difficult to be a party to anything involving Bella without finding the dramatics going over the top.

  ‘Relax, Jay,’ I told him quietly. ‘The inspector’s only doing his job. Nobody needs to get all worked up. If he wants to ask questions and there’s a possibility that her answers might incriminate her, then it’s only correct that he’d have to caution her, and have somebody with him to get it all down in writing. It’s procedure, Jay. Protection all round.’

  ‘What the hell d’you mean, incriminate?’ Jay demanded, breathing heavily and flexing his chest muscles. He was wearing old slacks and a shirt, and loafers on his feet, as though he’d come running at her phone call. Gratified, perhaps, that she’d turned to him at a time of distress.

  ‘I don’t know what she might say, do I, Jay,’ I replied. ‘We’ve only just walked in on this. Let’s listen and find out.’

  He glared, but I knew that a caution wouldn’t have been administered unless Connaught had had ‘reasonable grounds for suspecting that a person has committed an offence’. Rule 2 wording. I had the uneasy feeling that Connaught might have reached the same conclusion as Terry.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Lowe,’ said Connaught, and there was something in the lines of his mouth that indicated he was at least sincere. And something in his eyes of a sudden interest.

  He clasped his hands in front of his chest. ‘Now… where were we?’

  ‘You walked in here,’ Bella reminded him acidly, ‘with your friend there, and said you’d got some questions to ask me, then you made that unpleasant suggestion that there’s something to… to answer for.’ The suppressed anger was real; she would not otherwise have tightened her lips into such an unattractive line.

  ‘As long as you remember what I told you.’

  ‘I’ve conveniently forgotten it.’

  ‘Very well.’ Connaught refused to react. ‘To summarize it: that you needn’t answer if you don’t want to.’

  She raised her chin an inch, but said nothing.

  He went on: ‘You came here, Mrs Messenger — Bella, I’ll call you Bella. For heaven’s sake, I knew you when you were a child. Right. You came here, from the States, because of a hint that the two houses were going to be knocked down.’

  ‘I wanted to see… a last time… my old home.’

  ‘Understandable, I’m sure. It’s just the coincidence —’

  ‘Not,’ I put in, ‘a coincidence if she came here only to get a last look at Ivy House before it was destroyed. Sentimental, sort of.’

  Slowly he turned on his heel. ‘Are you a solicitor, Miss Lowe?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you been asked to represent her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then please be silent.’ He turned back. ‘In any event, Bella, you came. I suggest you expected something. I can’t accept there’d be any great thrill in seeing those two old wrecks of houses.’

  ‘I didn’t know what they might look like now,’ she muttered.

  ‘But your reaction to the first skull indicated you’d prepared yourself for it. In fact, the indications are that you believed it to be the remains of your father.’

  No response. She stared past his head.

  ‘Rowland Fields,’ he enlarged, leaving no room for misunderstanding.

  She said nothing.

  ‘May I have a reply, Bella? Please.’

  ‘You didn’t ask a question.’

  ‘Very well. Did you believe that skull might belong to your father?’

  ‘I didn’t know. I was terrified.’

  ‘But the circumstances at the time he disappeared were such that you would’ve had good reason to believe it was your father.’

  ‘Is that a question?’

  ‘Treat it as such.’

  ‘Then the answer’s no.’

  ‘Right. We’ll now consider the second skull. When that appeared, didn’t you believe it was the skull of Tonia, your sister, who disappeared at the same time as your father?’

  At last she moved, perhaps to veil her expression. If she needed to hide it, she was not acting now. ‘I didn’t know what to think.’

  Connaught smiled. As far as I could tell, seeing it side-on, it was intended as a smile of sympathetic understanding. ‘But you did know what to think. In fact, you’d known how your thinking would be for several days, because you’d met Philipa Lowe on the QE2, and decided she was sufficiently like Tonia to be used as a substitute. Yes, you certainly knew how to handle it. You implied that the second skull could not be that of your sister because here was your sister, in this very room… as she is now.’ Again the smile. He was being very formal and correct. The smile was of satisfaction, that he was able to be so.

  ‘What the hell’s this?’ demanded Jay.

  She swept a hand towards him, but now she didn’t take her eyes from Connaught. ‘Shut up!’ she snapped, and Jay raised his eyebrows at her, his eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘You know damn well,’ she said to Connaught. ‘I was scared. I had to have time to think.’

  ‘Ah yes. I did understand, you know. Time — you mean — for us, the police, to come up with a proper identification. It didn’t have to be that the skeleton belonged to any specific person, merely that it did not belong to your sister. And then you could breathe a dramatic sigh of relief and tell everybody you’d been so wo
rried it might’ve been taken to be hers. Wasn’t that your idea?’

  So Connaught had worked that out for himself, and it was exactly as I’d predicted to Bella. She flashed a look at me, her eyes huge, then her attention was returned fully to Connaught. She was clearly not aware of it, but I knew he was about to spring a trap.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ he asked.

  ‘Well… I was worried.’

  ‘That it might well have been assumed to be your sister’s skull?’

  ‘No… I don’t know… yes, I suppose. I was worried you wouldn’t ever be able to tell who it was, and you’d assume it was Tonia, and you’d say I killed my father and my sister, when all I’d done was go away...’ She stopped, her hand hovering, not certain how far she dared go.

  ‘But you knew your sister was alive,’ he reminded her, gently now, coaxing her. ‘You said you’d kept in touch. You’d have managed to contact her —’

  ‘It would’ve taken too long,’ she snapped.

  ‘What was the hurry?’

  ‘I needed to get back to the States. In three weeks I’ve got to. And you might’ve taken me… taken...’

  ‘Taken you into custody? Yes. I get your point. But all the same, you’ve left me with the impression you knew who that skeleton was — had been — otherwise you wouldn’t have needed the distraction involving Philipa Lowe.’

  ‘I did not. Don’t know… damn it,’ she shouted, ‘how the hell could I have guessed?’

  As though it might have been a genuine question, Connaught was silent for a few moments, prowling the floor with his head down, the picture of a man facing an important, even critical, decision. Then he turned on her, and his next remark was an anticlimax. Quietly, he answered her question. ‘You could guess it wasn’t Tonia if you knew she was alive in the States.’