Death at Hazel House

by Betty Rowlands

  He interrupted her. ‘Just let me think about it, leave it with me for a day or two. You’d better put this lot back the way it was before Arthur comes home.’

  ‘Oh, he’s up north somewhere, he won’t be back till tomorrow.’ She closed the safe, locked it and put the carpet and the chair back. Then she stood up and replaced the key in the wall safe, relocked it and covered it with the books.

  ‘How did you find it?’ he asked. ‘Did Arthur show it to you?’

  ‘Of course not. He doesn’t trust me that far.’

  ‘Then how—?’

  ‘I came home unexpectedly the other day and found him and the local handyman in here. Terry had cut out part of the floor and Arthur said the wood was rotten and needed replacing. I pretended to believe him and left them to get on with it, but I’d spotted the pieces that were cut out and they certainly weren’t rotten. So at the first opportunity I had a look for myself. It didn’t take too long to find the key – Arthur isn’t a very original thinker when it comes to hiding places.’

  Hugo’s brain was buzzing away like a dozen silicon chips. ‘Did this guy Terry fit the safe?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m pretty certain he did. I saw him later, taking something heavy out of his van. It was in a box with printing on the outside.’ She looked at him enquiringly. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No, of course not. Just an idle question.’ He leaned across and kissed her, his lips nibbling at hers, his tongue busy. The plan was shaping up nicely. ‘The sight of all that dosh has turned me on,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s go back to bed.’

  Two

  Things were comparatively quiet until towards the end of the afternoon: a break-in which was so unmistakably the work of a problem teenager recently absconded from a children’s home that dusting for fingerprints was a mere formality; a couple of mugshots down at the station. Then, just as Sukey was hoping to get away on time so that she could tidy the house and start preparations for the evening meal before Fergus got home from school, she was sent to the general hospital, where a pensioner was being treated for injuries following an attempted mugging. Two teenage thugs had tried to steal her handbag, but despite being savagely punched and kicked the old woman had grimly clung on to it and the would-be muggers had run off empty-handed when a passing motorist had stopped to intervene. By the time Sukey had photographed the bruised ribs, the two black eyes and the split and swollen lips of the badly shaken victim and spent half an hour comforting her while the hard-pressed casualty staff found her a bed, it was getting on for six o’clock.

  She reached the little semi in Brockworth just as Fergus was putting his bike away after his paper round. He waved her into the open garage and stood waiting while she got out of the car and dragged out the shopping she’d managed to grab before reporting for duty. He took the bag from her and then brought the up-and-over door down with a bang. Sukey winced. ‘Do you have to slam it like that?’ she grumbled and then, seeing his slightly hurt look, clapped him gently on the shoulder and said, ‘Sorry, son, I guess you’re tired too.’

  ‘I am a bit.’ He had his key at the ready and opened the front door, stepping aside to let his mother enter first. She never ceased to feel pleasure at his natural courtesy. It must have been picked up subconsciously from his father. Paul had always been meticulous about helping women on with their coats, opening and closing doors for them, walking on the outside of the pavement, standing up when they entered the room and so forth. It was a pity he had shown his son the ultimate discourtesy by leaving home for another woman two days after his tenth birthday. Sukey had had to abandon a promising career in the police to look after Fergus. It was only recently that she had felt able to pick up the threads of that career, this time as a civilian Scene of Crime Officer.

  Fergus put the bag of shopping on the kitchen table and switched on the electric kettle. He had put out cups and saucers and the teapot and tea caddy stood ready. ‘Had a good day, Mum?’ he asked while she unpacked groceries.

  ‘Not bad. Had to go to casualty to take pictures of an attempted mugging. That’s what made me late.’

  ‘Was it bad?’

  ‘Not pretty, but not too serious either. Someone stopped them before they did any real damage.’

  ‘That’s good.’ He made the tea and poured it out. Sukey cleared away the last of the groceries and they sat opposite one another at the table.

  ‘What was your day like?’ she asked.

  ‘OK. Kevin Potter and a couple of kids in the third year were caught in the toilets with a spliff and the Head called their parents in.’ His tone was matter of fact; such things were too commonplace these days to arouse much excitement. ‘Oh, and we had a double period of chemistry and Maisie Kemp singed her hair in a Bunsen burner. Served her right really. Old Samuels is always telling the girls to tie their hair back in the lab. More tea?’

  ‘Thanks.’ She held out her cup. ‘How old is this Potter character?’

  ‘Nearly seventeen, I guess. He’s in the year above me.’

  ‘D’you reckon he’s dealing?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Has the Head told our people?’ She wasn’t officially police any more, but they were still her people.

  ‘Guess so.’ Fergus had lost interest. He took a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and spread it on the table. ‘Mum, will you have a look at this?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s about a canoe trip to France in September.’

  Sukey picked up the paper and scanned it while sipping her tea. One week at a centre in the Dordogne. Travel, full board and hire of equipment included. There was a picture of a broad river spanned by a stone bridge with a backdrop of cliffs crowned by a medieval castle, indifferently reproduced but nonetheless alluring. Her eye homed in on the figure at the bottom of the page and she winced. ‘It’s a bit expensive,’ she said doubtfully.

  ‘I’ve got fifty pounds saved from my paper round,’ Fergus said eagerly. ‘And there’s time to save quite a bit more… and you needn’t give me anything much at Christmas.’ His eyes were bright, his young face slightly flushed with eagerness. He so badly wanted to go.

  Sukey shook her head doubtfully. ‘I’m not sure I can manage it all. Have you asked Dad?’

  ‘I thought I’d wait till I’d spoken to you. You would let me go… if we can afford it, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. But I can’t promise right away. It’s a lot of money.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Could you manage half, if Dad coughed up the rest?’

  Sukey did some quick sums in her head, anticipating her likely commitments. ‘I guess so,’ she said, ‘but don’t bank on it. You know how Petal played up over last year’s trip to Paris.’ Petal was Paul’s pet name for Myrna, his second wife. Fergus had reported it with some scorn after the first weekend spent with them and he and Sukey had giggled over it together.

  ‘Didn’t get her anywhere though, did it? Dad shelled out just the same.’ Fergus went to the refrigerator and carefully attached the paper to the door with a magnet in the form of the Eiffel Tower, a memento of the trip. ‘Can we have supper in the sitting room?’ he asked. ‘There’s a European Cup match on in half an hour.’

  ‘What about your homework?’

  ‘I haven’t got much – I’ll do it afterwards.’

  ‘Make sure you do.’ Sukey got up and went to the sink to peel potatoes. ‘I did a workout first thing this morning and guess what, a rather dishy man chatted me up.’

  ‘Mum! You didn’t—’

  ‘Didn’t what?’ She turned to face him with a teasing smile. He hesitated, looking embarrassed. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Various small indicators told her he was becoming increasingly aware of his own budding sexuality; at the same time he was disturbed by the notion that a man might find his mother desirable. It was touching, and somewhat illogical. After all, he had managed to come to terms with the knowledge that his father had taken up with another woman.

  ‘Don’t w
orry, he didn’t ask for a date, and I wouldn’t have gone anyway,’ she said and saw the look of relief in her son’s eyes. ‘He did offer me a commission, though. Asked me to do some photographs of his house and garden. Said his wife wanted them,’ she added wryly.

  ‘You didn’t agree, did you?’ Fergus looked anxious again. ‘Did you let on what your job is?’

  ‘I said I was a photographer but I didn’t tell him I was a SOCO. He looked a bit miffed when I turned him down… he really thought he was getting somewhere, and it was all so obvious.’ Sukey chuckled at the recollection. She glanced at the clock. ‘It’s nearly time for the match. You go and switch on. I’ll bring supper in when it’s ready.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ He gave her shoulders a quick squeeze and dropped a kiss on her temple, something he would only do these days when they were on their own. He was rising sixteen and growing up fast. Already he was half a head taller than she was. And so like his father to look at. With a sigh, Sukey lit the gas under the potatoes and set the chops to grill.

  Hugo spent the week devising what he considered a foolproof plan to get Lorraine out of the way while he entered the house and emptied the floor safe. Every time he thought of all that loot he practically slavered. He’d made some dud bets lately and ready cash – plenty of it – was exactly what he needed to keep the bookies happy. Lorraine, of course, would be as mad as a wet hen when she realised how she’d been duped, but there was bugger all she could do about it without dropping herself right in the shit. Another thing that made the whole business so sweet was that Hugo was pretty certain the taxman didn’t know about the nest egg under the floorboards, so Arthur Chant wouldn’t dare report its disappearance to the police. But just in case… before leaving the house after Lorraine had shown him the money, he had casually asked where he could contact Terry, the odd-job man, on the pretext of wanting something done at home. Terry would have had an opportunity, before installing the safe, to get a spare key cut. There was no reason to suppose he had, of course, but it mightn’t be a bad idea to lay a false trail to throw suspicion elsewhere. He’d been to suss the guy out and what he’d learned had given him a shock. He’d put it down to one of life’s unlucky coincidences, but it made the business more urgent. If by yet another mischance their paths should cross, things could get really nasty.

  Lorraine had been like a cat on hot bricks waiting for him to make up his mind, but he’d explained there were all sorts of things he had to settle before they actually took off. You couldn’t board a plane with a bag full of money these days, not when it was likely to be searched by security staff. It would take time to transfer the cash – and other assets – abroad.

  Lorraine didn’t know a thing about business so she’d swallowed it all without question. She wasn’t over bright, really. It would be a relief to be shot of her. Then he’d be free to go after that little bird he’d met in the health club. Sukey. Odd name, but it suited her somehow, with her sharp features and aloof manner. She wouldn’t be a pushover, which would make the pursuit all the more exciting. He was confident he’d score in the end.

  Lorraine was to tell Arthur that she’d been invited to the wedding of an old school friend and would be away for a few days. He’d agreed without question that she could go. She was to fly to Amsterdam, check into a hotel and wait for Hugo. It might be several days, a week even, before he could meet her there. He told her he knew someone who could organise new passports for them with no questions asked and as soon as he had those, he’d book the tickets to Rio. Rio had been her choice – she thought it sounded romantic, the ideal place to begin their new life together. Poor cow. He almost laughed aloud at her naïvety as on Friday morning he headed, for the last time, for the Chants’ house.

  Everything went according to plan at first. Lorraine had assured him that there was no rush. Her husband had a full schedule that day and wouldn’t be back till the evening. He normally left the house at nine o’clock and she would leave an hour later for the airport. At the pre-arranged time of half past ten, Hugo drove to the house in the van he’d stolen from outside Terry’s place during the night and parked it round the back of the house. The property stood in the middle of a large plot, surrounded by landscaped gardens and well screened by trees. Absolutely ideal. Hugo found the window; Lorraine had pointed it out to him from inside the house, but she hadn’t warned him about the roses growing beneath it. He swore under his breath as a thorn found bare flesh between glove and cuff, giving him a nasty scratch. Another thorn caught the seat of Terry’s overalls and he felt a sharp jab as it penetrated his rump, but he managed to clamber onto the sill, jump down into what Lorraine had described as the breakfast room and immediately set about laying the false trail. Then he went up to the study.

  He was shaking slightly with excitement and his gloves made him a trifle clumsy. Lorraine had given him the combination of the wall safe, but it took him a couple of tries before he got it right and the door swung open. The jewel cases were still there, but their contents were missing. He cursed again. She was only supposed to take five grand in cash to keep her going until he joined her. Not that he had any intention of joining her, of course, but she wasn’t to know that. He’d expressly told her to leave the rocks for him, saying he knew people who’d fence them in London. That was, he estimated, a cool thirty thousand down the tube. Arthur Chant must be loaded.

  No use wasting time fretting about it. Hugo pulled out the drawer, found the key to the floor safe, rolled back the carpet, opened it – and found himself gazing open-mouthed into an empty cavity. ‘Bloody hell!’ he muttered, aghast. ‘Bloody, fucking hell!’

  He was still trying to take it in when he heard a movement beside him. He swung round in alarm, scrambled to his feet, and met Lorraine’s cool gaze. She was dressed in travelling clothes, with a handbag slung over her shoulder and a bunch of keys dangling from one finger. ‘It’s all right, darling,’ she said, ‘it’s in here.’ She gave him one of her most ravishing smiles as she indicated the holdall she held in the other hand. ‘The rest of my luggage is in my car. Shall we go?’

  ‘Go? Go where?’ His brain was reeling. What the hell was she up to? ‘Why aren’t you on the way to Heathrow?’

  ‘The wedding was cancelled,’ she said, and there was a mockery in her voice and a steely glint in her eyes that he had never seen before. It was dawning on him, too late, that she wasn’t as green as he’d believed.

  ‘I thought we’d go to London together instead,’ she went on. ‘Stay in some nice, quiet hotel while you get everything organised like we agreed. I thought this,’ she held up the holdall, ‘would be safer if we were both around to look after it.’

  Hugo felt cornered. There was only one way out. He recalled a scene in an old black-and-white movie from way back. It seemed to suit the occasion very well. ‘I’ll take care of this,’ he said grimly, yanking the suitcase out of her hand. ‘The deal’s off. This is goodbye, baby.’

  Later that day, Terry’s van was discovered abandoned in a side street a couple of miles outside the city. The police constable who came to tell him about it said some stranded reveller had probably ‘borrowed’ it to drive home. It happened all the time, he said. He drove Terry to the spot and asked him to identify it, which he was only too happy to do. He was even happier when it emerged that none of his tools or equipment had been nicked. It was dusted for fingerprints before the police let him have it back and they took his own prints – for elimination purposes, they explained. The prints would be destroyed in his presence once there was no further use for them.

  ‘Ever had this done before?’ the young officer joked as he inked Terry’s fingers and rolled them one at a time on the paper.

  ‘Oh sure, I’m a seasoned villain,’ Terry joked back.

  At six o’clock that evening a distraught Arthur Chant reported finding his wife’s body. She had been strangled.

  Three

  Sukey had been on a daytime shift all week, but on the Friday of the Lorraine Chant murd
er she had agreed to be on standby until ten, covering for a sick colleague. The summons came over her personal radio shortly after six, just as she was finishing her prawn stir-fry supper. Fergus was not fond of rice dishes, so on the weekends when he was with Paul she often pigged out on Chinese or Indian.

  Resignedly, she swallowed the last few mouthfuls, put her plate in the sink and returned the chocolate mousse to the refrigerator. She went into the sitting room to set up the video for the repeat of an early episode of Inspector Morse that she had been hoping to watch later. Then she got into her working clothes, checked her gear and set off. By the time she had picked up the van from the central police station in Gloucester the homeward-bound traffic had thinned out and the ring road was comparatively clear, but even so it was almost seven o’clock before she left the city behind her and headed south along the Bristol Road.

  She had been given detailed directions to the Chants’ house, but the village of Marsdean itself was tricky to find. The signpost on the main road was so weathered that she spotted it too late and had to drive on for nearly a mile before she found a suitable place to turn and go back. Even then she might have missed it a second time had there not been a farm shop close to the turning to serve as a landmark.

  It was a mild, sunny evening in early June. The narrow lane, winding gently between open fields, was bounded on either side by hedges of hawthorn, elder and ash which still showed signs of having been ruthlessly hacked down to a geometric neatness during the winter but were defiantly responding to the butchery with masses of vigorous, untidy new growth. At their feet, the brilliant green of the verges was spattered with dandelions whose sunshiny golden yellow made a perfect foil for the creamy elder blossoms overhead.

  Sukey had driven almost another two miles before a carved and painted wooden sign, almost invisible in the shade of a tall holly tree, informed her that she had reached her destination. A final bend in the road revealed the village itself. It had a self-consciously picturesque appearance, with an ancient church set among clipped yew trees and weathered tombstones, trim houses surrounded by tidy gardens, and a smoothly shaven village green with a stone war memorial in the middle. A few of the houses were modern, but most were what local estate agents were fond of describing as ‘immaculately maintained period properties’, with walls of mellowed brick, white-painted wooden windows and thatched roofs. There were a few shops, one of which had a letter box let into the wall, an old-fashioned red telephone kiosk and a pub with a thatched roof and swags of wisteria flowers dangling like bunches of pale blue grapes around the door. A discreetly painted sign in a wrought-iron frame proclaimed it to be ‘The Historic Priory Inn, circa 1680’.