by Clare Curzon
It upset Maddie, accustomed to mediating as pig-in-the-middle between him and her father. She couldn’t recall just what had made Matthew so irritable tonight, but he had already been hatefully sarcastic to Gus, implying he was a worthless hanger-on and his job as an estate agent mere face-saving.
She couldn’t let her father get away with that when Gus was the only one she could expect any real kindness from. There had been an unpleasant stiffness all round, but she was sure Gus would eventually relent and fall in with the evening’s plans as arranged. However, when she went down again to the car after returning for her driving gloves, she found the rear seat empty.
‘That husband of yours,’ her father said in a voice of disdain, ‘is a diva in his own right. He has presumed to take offence and gone off in high dudgeon.’
In her driving mirror Madeleine saw Jake, wearing his leathers, wheeling out his Kawasaki from the second garage. As she let in the clutch and the car moved off, Gus appeared from the house and went down to speak to his son.
Plotting? She devoutly hoped not. These little squabbles were best fast forgotten, not mulled over and blown up into a lasting atmosphere. She guessed it could end with Jake too deciding to fall out of the family party.
She was never the smoothest of drivers, preferring her own Land Rover to her father’s Mercedes, and the disagreements had been enough to set her nerves on edge. She ground the gears as they left the driveway, causing Matthew to remark that he should have bought an automatic since she couldn’t manage the clutch.
It didn’t augur well for the rest of their evening. She had no idea then how true that would prove.
16
Next morning Chief Superintendent Perry summoned Yeadings to his office, pursed his small mouth and treated the Superintendent to a fixed stare. ‘The ACC asked me to have a word with you about the Dellar case. He isn’t very happy about the apparent lack of progress.’ Perry took seriously the passing on of dissatisfaction.
Yeadings waited po-faced, saying nothing, watching his senior’s eyes. The man appeared to have aged since they’d met up a fortnight back, before he went on leave. Now the cheeks sagged more puffily, the broken veins showed an even plummier red, his forehead was more creased. It seemed that the ACC’s quoted unhappiness was a catching condition round here. Poor old bugger. Perry was looking forward to retirement. Just another three months to go.
The prolonged silence made the DCS uneasy. He preferred his comments to be dutifully punctuated with murmurs of agreement or, even better, of apology. ‘A complicated case, it seems,’ he prompted.
Yeadings considered this. ‘I think we shall find it gets more so. In fact that’s what I should prefer.’
‘How d’you mean? As you describe the situation there are already a number of unexplained factors …’
‘Which so far appear unrelated. Links are missing, or being deliberately concealed. To recognize a pattern we need something adhesive. It could be that we have more than a single crime here, with two or more independent instigators: arson and murder, also possible abduction. And I’m pretty sure there’s yet more to come.’
Perry blew out his cheeks, a habit the other recognized as denoting reluctance to be persuaded. ‘Then you must contain it. At all costs we must avoid a long investigation. I need to hear of some positive progress by the weekend at the latest. I don’t need to stress to you that there are influential people …ah, er …’
‘ …involved?’
‘ …who need to be satisfied that all possible is being done.’
And so on and so forth, Yeadings silently agreed. Now just potter off for a cup of tea. Let me get on with my work.
‘The inquest,’ Perry said, making it sound like a question.
‘Is at three this afternoon, sir. No conclusions can be drawn. I’m expecting a fortnight’s adjournment. You will be fully advised.’
‘And by then I hope …’ Perry raised both hands and left them suspended in the air. He wasn’t very good at ending his own sentences.
‘Right then,’ Yeadings said briskly, rising, gathering his papers from the desk between them and turning on his heel. ‘If that’s all, thank you sir, and I’ll wish you a good day.’
The Coroner’s Court was a clean-lined modern building separated from the police station by its own car park. Across the access road and about five hundred yards farther was the Fire Station marked out by its operations tower of red brick with blackened openings used as practice windows. As Yeadings strolled into the forecourt he could hear a deal of splashing and shouting from beyond the sheds.
He found the Station Officer in his upstairs office, busy with paperwork. The same sounds of horsing about came in through the open window. ‘Sorry about that,’ he excused it, getting up and lowering the sash to cut the row. ‘Got a coupla new lads on the watch.’
Yeadings walked across and looked out. One, in clinging boxer shorts, was sitting on the concrete, grinning foolishly in a pool of water. The other, on a fully extended ladder was up the tower and being tilted on to the vertical.
Watching, he realized it was a girl. Well, why not? They demand equality. With this lot initiation is initiation. She could thank her stars they’d left her full uniform on.
‘So, anything spectacular you’ll be throwing at us this afternoon?’ asked the Station Officer.
‘I’ll leave the eye-openers to you and pathology,’ Yeadings offered, accepting the proffered chair. ‘Professor Littlejohn will take the stand after you. My DS will kick off with negative identification. We’ve little enough on offer. How about you?’
‘Evidence of discovery of the body. Then it’s up to the pathology people to describe its condition. I understand now that that will reveal how the man died. Manual strangulation, wasn’t it?’
‘So it seems. The hyoid bone was broken and throat cartilage damaged. If the coroner picks up on the way vinyl flooring was fused on to the underside of the corpse, your expert may need to explain how he came to be found on the stone-floored cellar.’
‘That’s straightforward enough. During burning, the kitchen floor dropped through on to the flagstones, and the body with it. Then the upper walls, collapsing almost immediately after, cut off further air, stifling the flames; so the cellars were the least affected part of the building. Apart from being filled with debris.
‘One interesting fact we did find: cellar access from the kitchen was by a heavy oak door lined with steel. Formidable lock on it too. It would have done for a bank vault.’
Yeadings remembered this detail from the SOCO’s report. ‘Not modern, though. It would have dated from the fifties. I understand the late Frederick Dellar put down a considerable quantity of valuable claret years ago. Maybe he didn’t trust the servants.’
‘Strangely enough, some of the wine has survived the fire.’
‘That should increase its value if it ever reaches Sotheby’s. Amazing how a murder detracts from house prices and puts hundreds on portable mementos. Not that I’d care to taste it after such heating. Actually there’s a witness statement I’d like your views on, Bob. A technical point. It’s about the moment when Eddie Dellar is supposed to have forced his way into the burning kitchen.’
The senior fireman grunted. ‘Can’t say I saw any such statement. Got enough of my own to shuffle.’
‘The witness, Augustus Railton, claimed he was at the door to the kitchen when Eddie pushed past. He tried to restrain him but came off the worse. Then while he staggered back an explosion inside the kitchen hurled him back against the wall of the hall passage.’
‘That could have been caused by an inrush of fresh air. A classic fireball. Maybe that happened when the windows blew.’
‘Or air surged in from the cellar door being opened?’
‘Could be, equally. Especially if the coal chute had already been forced open. I wouldn’t give much for the chances of this Eddie in that case. According to the press, when found he appeared to have been in a fight. If it happened when the window
s blew then he’d look all of that, catching the full blast face-on. He should have landed out in the passage on top of your witness.’
‘Unless the blast hurled him right on through the way he was heading.’
‘That’s possible too. He’d have been on fire, of course.’
‘His clothes were singed, but there was almost no smoke-blackening up his nostrils and none in his lungs.’
The Station Officer stood up and took a precautionary squint through the window. Apparently matters hadn’t got totally out of hand in the rear yard. He turned back to Yeadings. ‘Makes me wonder how far the fire had taken hold on the kitchen, Mike. And how long your witness stood outside the door waiting for something to happen.’
Yeadings nodded. ‘We seem to be thinking along the same lines. One thing does seem likely: if Railton wasn’t lying, then the door to the cellar can’t have been locked. Eddie Dellar could have held his breath and barged through like a Rugby forward. And maybe the “restraint” offered by my witness was fainthearted in the extreme. A touch of the Munchausens in his heroism.’
‘Nobody likes to admit they turned tail in a crisis. But why did this Eddie head for the cellar in the first place? The natural instinct is to get out in the open.’
‘That’s what we have to find out,’ Yeadings admitted. He glanced at his watch. He needed to note something in his log before returning for the inquest. And for that occasion he’d be in the background. Let Zyczynski testify. She was more involved than anyone and there was mighty little that the coroner had to go on at this stage. It would have been different if they’d got the victim’s ID.
‘I’ll push off,’ he said; ‘and see you at three.’
The fire scene continued to fill his mind as he drove back. When he reached his office he opened the relevant file and again checked Gus Railton’s statement which he’d quoted to the Station Officer. Then he ambled into the Analysis Room and consulted the diagrams pinned to a pegboard. Eddie Dellar had had some desperate reason to go through fire to get to that cellar. And nobody had suggested an overwhelming passion for claret.
Larchmoor Place, undamaged, was shown there as three separate floors, and in front and rear elevations. On the ground floor he visualized Railton in the downstairs passage and Eddie Dellar thrusting him aside to get to the kitchen.
They had only Railton’s version of how it was. He’d implied the place was an inferno. But Eddie Dellar’s survival argued against that.
So when the young man plunged in, to get to the cellar, had the body already been on the kitchen floor? Could he, in the smoke, have overlooked something so bulky? Or had he run into the unidentified man still alive; they’d fought and that was how Eddie got his ribs kicked in?
In which case Railton’s story was a tissue of lies. The timing was all wrong. Minutes must have elapsed before the fireball which he claimed had hurled him back. So had he known there was a dead man/intruder in there? That might have been his reason for keeping everyone out until fire destroyed all the evidence.
Whichever way, it made Railton worth far more than a second glance as the potential arsonist-killer.
Yeadings closed his eyes and stood rocking gently on his heels, scrolling back through recollection of other statements. Somewhere Railton had been mentioned as others were being herded out.
Yes. Mrs Kate Dellar had stated that he was the one who woke her. He’d come banging on her door, and she’d found it hard to wake because of taking a sleeping tablet. So she’d been the last one to leave upstairs.
Her statement had been detailed. She had seized a few belongings to pack in a bag, dropped – and had to grope for – her reading spectacles, then made her way out on to the landing. Someone – perhaps Robert Dellar the journalist – had shouted reassurances that the young people had been evacuated from the top floor. He was standing, waiting for her, at the top of the front stairs. But they’d left it too late and flames suddenly came roaring up the stairwell. The back stairs had already gone, as well as the kitchen. In desperation they’d both escaped by an open window from the upstairs library, dropped on to the roof of the front porch and waited for a ladder.
So Gus Railton must have gone downstairs after calling Kate. Or had he come back upstairs to wake her after the incident at the kitchen door?
Yeadings looked at his watch. Time he should be on his way to the inquest. Except that he could safely leave it to Z and DI Salmon. It would be more rewarding, he decided, to stay and work out a more exact sequence of people’s comings and goings on the night of the fire.
He returned to his office. Almost immediately the internal phone rang. He listened, nodding; asked for full details to be sent up immediately.
That morning he had warned Chief Superintendent Perry that there was yet more to come, not knowing that events had overtaken his expectations.
The message was from Traffic. Last night Sir Matthew Dellar and his daughter had been involved in an RTA. His Mercedes, driven by Madeleine, was in a pile-up at a roundabout between Windsor and Ascot while returning home from an evening out. Both were in Intensive Care in Windsor Hospital, their condition critical. DI Salmon had been informed this morning, but nobody had been able to reach Yeadings, since his mobile wasn’t operative.
Switched off for peace and quiet while he was with Perry, the superintendent admitted silently. It looked as though his team would have plenty on their plates once they emerged from the inquest. Meanwhile it was up to him to look in and check on any witness statements for the accident. He assumed that a uniform officer would be posted at the hospital.
This had happened too soon after the fire at Larchmoor Place. Sir Matthew had survived the first incident, but the arsonist-killer might succeed with a second attempt on the retired judge’s life. Too many of the same family were ending up as serious surgical cases.
Traffic Division had had the damaged Mercedes plastic-wrapped and removed for scientific examination, doubtless on Salmon’s insistence. Like Yeadings, the Inspector wouldn’t have overlooked that the crash could have been fixed. One thing he had omitted, though, was to leave a written note for Yeadings to find on return to the station. If Traffic hadn’t been wised up on his interest in the family it might have escaped his notice.
Inform Perry, he told himself, and reached again for the phone. The DCS made a small explosive sound at the news. ‘You were wanting a development,’ he said, breathing heavily. ‘Now you’ve got one. Let’s hope it’s going to lead somewhere.’
The inquest was swiftly dealt with and adjourned for a fortnight as Yeadings had predicted. Later, DS Zyczynski found his office empty when she took up her list of convicted criminals known to have threatened Sir Matthew Dellar’s life. There were five, three of whom were still serving life sentences. One had since died, and the last was given an exemplary report by his Probation Officer whom Z knew to err normally on the side of scepticism. It looked as though the erstwhile judge had little to worry about.
With no further duty allocated to her, Z opted for a quick visit to check how Kate Dellar was weathering her misfortunes. She wasn’t at home, and at the library they told her Kate had phoned in to ask for the rest of the week off. Afraid this meant some deterioration in Eddie’s condition, Z made for Wycombe hospital to join her there.
The surgeon who had operated on the young man’s pierced lung was in the unit office as she passed. He stopped in mid-flow of an amusing story and, recognizing Z, called after her. She went back. ‘How’s Eddie Dellar?’ she asked.
‘Have you suddenly become family?’ he asked with mock severity.
‘I’m a concerned party,’ she told him.
‘Well, there’s no more cause for concern than yesterday. Sister can probably tell you more.’
Sister emerged from the group. ‘Maybe even a little less cause for concern. He’s stable and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for signs of some improvement. But don’t tell his family. We don’t want false hopes raised. And there’s absolutely no chance of any police
getting closer to him than that bulldog out in the corridor.’
Her cheeks were slightly flushed and she was more vivacious than Z had seen her; almost frivolous. Maybe some personal therapy was at work, and it could be connected with the entertaining doctor. ‘Is Eddie’s mother here?’ she asked.
Kate wasn’t. In fact she had phoned in at midday to ask for news and said she couldn’t get in until the evening. Z grimaced and looked at her watch. ‘I think I’ll hang on here in that case. Maybe catch up on a meal.’
‘Staff dining-room. Be my guest,’ said the surgical registrar with alacrity
She wasn’t sure, but it was ten hours since she’d had breakfast and she was feeling empty. So yes; it seemed a chance not to be missed.
‘You carry on,’ Sister said. ‘I’ll tell Mrs Dellar when she gets here, and phone a message down to you.’
So Z joined the doctor, whose name was Oliver, and quite enjoyed the substantial lasagne with broccoli tips and a large cappuccino.
‘It really should be decaff at this time of day,’ Oliver advised, having fetched it for her. ‘Believe me. I’m a doctor.’
‘Nothing interferes with my sleep,’ Z assured him. ‘Believe me. I’m a copper. When we come off the job we could sleep on a clothesline.’
‘As bad as being a junior medic,’ he said, grinning. He was pleasant company, and if flirting with her was likely to make Sister more determined, then Z was happy enough.
They were walking back to Intensive Care when Oliver’s pager went off. He read the message. ‘Your lady has arrived,’ he said. ‘If you can find your way to her, I’ll drop off on the way. There’s a case I should take another look at before I go home. It was good seeing you again.’
Eddie had two visitors. Kate was accompanied by a tall, handsome man in his thirties who looked vaguely familiar. Z doubted she had met him before. It was more likely she’d seen his photograph somewhere – but not on police records.
