The Key to the Case

by Roger Ormerod

  While I was inside the kitchen I checked another point that interested me, in case I had to dash through here in an emergency retreat and thus lose the opportunity. This was a very old kitchen, large, cold and spacious, with a high ceiling. Its red-tiled floor was uneven, its badly plastered walls painted cream and brown. In one corner was an ancient coal-fired boiler for laundry, though now Milo used a modern washing machine. That kind of boiler used to mean stringing your washing high across the kitchen, to dry indoors in bad weather. It needed...and yes, there it was...a geared spool of rope attached to the wall, the rope up through a pulley and across the kitchen, close to the ceiling. They used to let down the rope and peg on their smalls, then they wound it all up out of the way. It was rope I was looking for. What had been the source of the hanging rope?

  But this wasn’t it. The spool had been so long out of use that it was stuck solid, but the rope was intact. I pulled on it, and it wasn’t intact any more. It had rotted so badly that it simply fell away.

  This was a nuisance. I didn’t want Milo to realize he’d had a visitor. I did what I could, pulling the stiff rope down from the ceiling and cutting the end off close to the spool. There was a chance he wouldn’t notice. I stuffed the bundle into the front of my anorak.

  I was wasting time. Quickly I went through into the hall. It was square and wide, with a large window overlooking the drive. I could see my car out there, though not Amelia. But it meant I had to be careful with the torch. Better to get up to the bathroom first, I thought, in case I had to make a run for it.

  The staircase was against the far wall, rising to my right. The front door was to my left, opposite the stairs. Milo’s phone was on a shelf fixed to the wall. There would have been room for a small table and a chair, but the shelf was all Milo had. So he’d had to sit on the stairs, his legs, by this time, being unable to support him.

  I bounded up the stairs, as he had. The landing ran sideways across the rear of the hall. Three doors led from it, a fourth facing me at the end. Ronnie’s description indicated this could be the bathroom. It was. I walked in, closed the door behind me, and flashed the torch around. Quick, almost subliminal glances these were, for secrecy’s sake, but I saw enough for what I needed.

  Milo had described an old-fashioned toilet unit with a high tank. It was from the water intake pipe that Bryan had been found hanging. Milo had now replaced it with a pink low-level suite, but the wash basin was an old one of white earthenware, with a crack in it, and the bath was an ancient cast-iron one. Milo was naturally not going to spend too much on a property that belonged to his wife. It was even likely that when she was ready she would plan to clear the house of her furniture and fittings. Including those in the pigskin case? Oh yes, very likely. His hold on his existence was precarious.

  It is not, when you come to think about it, easy to hang yourself in a bathroom. But, as I’d explained to Milo, it happens. It doesn’t take much to start it off, then all of a sudden it’s too late, when you’re perched on your toes, to change your mind. But to hang someone else, whom you have already strangled with the rope, is very much more difficult. There you are, with a limp body, a rope round its neck, and an amateur noose neatly tied. But you have to support that body in an upright position and tie the rope to a support—the cistern, say, or the pipe. Tie it one-handed? While the other arm supports all that limp body and raises its weight from the floor? Almost impossible, surely. The only way, as far as I could imagine, would be to fling the rope over a support, preferably the pipe in this event, and pull until your corpse is on tiptoes at least, to make it look good. Then you’ve got to find somewhere to tie your end of the rope. Very tricky. Very difficult. Another flash of the torch revealed a suitable point to which such a rope could be tied, the handle of the airing cupboard.

  But what I was doing was no more than exploring the possibility of murder.

  At last—it might have been a full minute—I turned my attention to the bolt on the door. This, primarily, was the reason for my visit.

  It was small and fragile, to be used simply as a latch. It was intact, as was the socket on the door frame into which the shaft fitted. Certainly, Milo could have charged through such a minor resistance, and never even have felt the presence of the bolt.

  But it was intact. I examined it closely. It had been there umpteen years and had been painted over several times. This, and its socket, had not been disturbed, certainly it had not been recently replaced.

  Thoughtfully, I drew the door shut behind me—there was a small hand grip—and made my way down the stairs. Now...a quick look into that broom cupboard and I’d be finished.

  Amelia would be worrying. I’d been longer, already, than I’d intended. I scanned the low door quickly. It was right beneath the bottom half dozen stairs, tucked in, a strangely triangular-shaped door, with its hinges down the deeper edge. It had only a simple catch. I swung it open and hunched down.

  A broom cupboard? Only at the taller end could one have kept brooms. There were two in there, and a vacuum cleaner, and a great load of rubbish, some of it in bundles, as though prepared, in the distant past, for a jumble sale. And two large suitcases, but not leather.

  I could now imagine Ronnie crouching where I was crouching. He had collected together the useful items he wanted to take away, and had laid them gently and reverently on the carpet beside him. He needed a suitcase. The pigskin one would seem to be the correct size. He had broken the hasps, or they were already broken, so he had needed a length of rope to tie round it. And a blanket...and yes, there was a bundle of old blankets, also tied with rope, and disturbed as though he’d yanked one from the middle. He had then packed the case with his treasures.

  At that point he’d had to use one of the lengths of rope from in there to tie it up. He must have chosen the best piece. The rope left behind in the cupboard was of poorer quality than the rope I’d found round the case. This had been braided cotton. The rope I could see was all poor quality sisal. Now he would be ready to leave. However much Milo had owed him, he had covered it a hundred times with the contents of that suitcase. So...greedy Ronnie...he’d decided to have a quick look round upstairs. There would be plenty of time for that. No panic rush required.

  It was then, on the landing, that he’d had to face a lighted bathroom with a bolted door, and his nerve had failed. Retreat was on the agenda, so he’d retreated rapidly. Off and away was the immediate impulse, underlined, a minute or two later by the fact that Milo’s Jaguar had just turned into the drive.

  I decided to do a similar operation and went quickly.

  I must have been walking very quietly, because Amelia jumped with tension as I appeared at her elbow.

  ‘Sorry, love. Everything quiet?’

  ‘Too quiet.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s not an attractive house, is it?’

  ‘Most certainly not.’

  ‘And what’s the matter with your chest?’ She thumped it.

  ‘Oh...it’s a bundle of old rope. It came away in my hand.’ I walked quickly to one side and flung it beneath a hedge.

  ‘Not strong enough—’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not for that. Let’s get going, shall we?’

  And she did not relax until we were a mile away.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said.

  ‘I got what I came for,’ I assured her. ‘And a bit more. I found the cupboard where Ronnie might have discovered the suitcase. There was even a bundle of blankets looking as though one had been pulled out. It fits with what he told me. I think I can say I’m now able to prove his alibi.’

  She tried a light laugh, but there was no heart in it. ‘He ought to be pleased.’

  ‘I can’t wait to tell him.’

  There was a short period of silence. It was a perfect night for driving, and normally I would have relaxed and enjoyed it. But too many things were haunting me.

  Then Amelia said, ‘Aren’t you going to tell me about the bathroom door?’

  I glanced at her. She was sitting with
her head back, eyes ahead. ‘I’ve been giving it a bit of thought,’ I told her. ‘You see, that bolt wasn’t broken, and never had been broken. When Milo said he charged through the door, he meant exactly that. It simply wasn’t bolted at that time.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Exactly. My sentiments. Doors don’t unbolt themselves. If Bryan was alive, he must’ve unbolted it just in time for his father to come charging in like a mad elephant. If the lad was already dead, then his murderer must still have been inside with him when Ronnie tried the door. And...how long would it be? A minute, perhaps two minutes later Milo was there at the front door, ringing the bell, shouting, running around. That person then—the murderer—wouldn’t have been able to escape from the house. The best he could’ve done was run down the stairs quickly and hide. But where? Milo said he looked in all the downstairs rooms. All right, he could’ve hidden behind a settee, say, and then waited for Milo to go upstairs, and then perhaps escaped out of the front door.’

  ‘He, Richard?’ she asked quietly. ‘Why do you say he? What “he” would this be? What man would be able to persuade Bryan to let him in?’

  ‘Don’t you remember—I suggested a policeman...’

  ‘And you’re still uncertain about Inspector Durrell? Surely not, now you’ve met him.’

  ‘Even more so. You heard him. His hatred of rapists is almost psychotic.’

  ‘Everybody hates rapists.’

  ‘There was a special tone in his voice. I don’t know. That feeling of his ran very deep.’

  ‘Hmm!’ she said sceptically. She seemed to have taken to Durrell. ‘But I still ask—why must it be a man? Bryan would open that door to his mother. He would! You have to admit the possibility.’

  ‘Ha!’ It was a laugh sound, but I wasn’t amused. Amelia firmly believes in sex equality. Even with murder, she jealously guards the principle. ‘You haven’t forgotten, then! I was going to suggest we go and see her tomorrow.’

  ‘And ask her that?’

  ‘Not directly, I thought. But we might at least discover if she’s the kind of woman who would kill her own son.’

  ‘Is there such a woman?’ She hadn’t queried the physical possibility, I’d noticed, had in fact upheld it. But when it came to the psychological possibility, then it was different. No woman, she would believe, could kill the child she had borne. At that point, the equality slid a little sideways. It was beyond her imagination. Yet women had—they did. In my time as a copper I had come across such instances. Three, to be exact, though those were women half demented with strain and frustration, and the victims had been young children.

  I dropped the issue. She would discover, if she accompanied me, whether she was correct.

  ‘And there’s Milo himself,’ I reminded her. ‘If he’s lying.’

  ‘Why would he?’

  ‘D’you mean: why lie? Or why kill him?’

  ‘Why kill him.’

  ‘Ah yes. Motive, then. You could pile it on. You’ve met him. Milo, the toughie, the bully—violent Milo. But that violence would be kept for men. He couldn’t physically harm a woman. It in no way complies with his vision of himself. But in Milo’s complex mind there would be doubt as to whether this Bryan of his was to be treated as a man or a woman. He’d be disgusted that his son would sink to the level of rape. In Milo’s book, women have to be seduced, perhaps with a certain amount of violence, but the violence equated with sex. Not the violence of assault.’

  ‘Richard! You sound like an experienced old roué!’

  ‘My experiences have been vast and diversified, my love. They’ve changed the rape laws to include the rape of wives by their husbands. What d’you think of that, then?’

  ‘Nothing pleasant. But...you were saying...about Milo.’

  ‘I’m saying he would view his son with extreme distaste, at the very least. Oh yes, I know. He talks of panic, as a father who loved his son. Loved! It would be closer to hatred. Perhaps Bryan’s mother refused to have him living under the same roof. Perhaps, even, Bryan refused to leave his father. There could’ve been something darkly fascinating about Milo for young Bryan, who never seems to have got the hang of the two sexes. Secretly, Bryan could have admired his father, not realizing the macho image has never been much more than a mask, a show, and becoming more grandiose the more uncertain of himself Milo became. There now—isn’t that an idea? Milo not loving even himself, and hating his son for the same personal inadequacies it has cost Milo himself the most intense agony to conceal from his multitude of admirers!’

  ‘Have you ever realized, Richard,’ she said, after a pause I assumed was appreciative, ‘that you reach your most flowery and biting heights when you’re describing someone you dislike?’

  ‘I hadn’t. No.’

  ‘Why don’t you just make your point?’

  We had crossed the river and would be home in five minutes. We could expect a welcome—three welcomes—to a sane world. I was prepared to be benign.

  ‘All right. Imagine our Milo, rushing home to his son after three unanswered phone calls, his emotions all in a mess. His whole life was in a mess, in fact, and the Ace Of Clubs was doing rotten. And Bryan, having calmly ignored those three calls, was fed up with being locked away...defiant. He was in the bathroom, innocently, perhaps just having had a bath. There’s pandemonium downstairs. That great idiotic lout! he would think, and he would come out on to the head of the stairs. And Milo, seeing that all his emotional turmoil had been a waste of effort, and that he’d smashed in his own front door...made a complete fool of himself...wouldn’t he run up those stairs in a fury? Ah...wouldn’t he bound up those stairs with only one intention, which was to teach the young hooligan a lesson?’

  ‘Hooligan?’

  ‘It would be the kindest epithet I could imagine he’d use.’

  ‘And you think he found himself going too far before he knew what he was doing?’

  ‘I’m saying it’s a possibility,’ I said cautiously. ‘A black fury, they call it.’

  There was a snag in this glorious theory. It implied an attack with the bare hands, which, with Milo, could easily have become lethal before he realized it. But it also implied a subsequent hanging with rope brought from that cupboard beneath the stairs, and the days have long passed since Forensic mistook a manual strangling for a hanging. I didn’t pursue this issue.

  We drew into the drive. The slamming car door brought both the animals.

  ‘And it all dissolved into despair and tears and breakdown by the time the police arrived,’ said Amelia gently at my shoulder.

  ‘It dissolved,’ I suggested, equally quietly, ‘into a glorious bout of self-pity. Hello, Sheba. Has Jake been behaving?’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Beaudesert Park, I discovered, is best approached by a roundabout route, from our place through Wolverhampton and on to Cannock, where we had to turn right to Lichfield, and keep a look out for Chase Terrace, from where it’s a left turn up the hill to Cannock Wood. The park entrance is here, tucked away in a corner and so insignificant that it gives the impression of entering somewhere small. There is a tiny gatehouse, now no doubt a private residence, as were all the other properties inside the park, I later discovered.

  At this time the park is still large, but in fact occupies only the elevated end of the original great park that was Cannock Chase. From the gatehouse, in any direction, you go downhill, and in fact there are the remains of a castle around there. But we didn’t seek them out. Our purpose was serious; no time for sightseeing.

  We proceeded downhill. The drive, or road, was narrow, had been surfaced some time in the past, but was now all pot-holes. This at least prevented wild driving which would have been dangerous. It wound, it dipped, it swooped round corners, and always, in glimpses ahead between the massive bulk of trees, there was distance, way out to misty glimpses of the far reaches of Cannock Chase. And, to right and left, where narrow side roads branched away without any indication signs, we caught glimpses of cottages, or
rather, the roofs and chimneys of cottages.

  At one time, in Elizabethan days, these cottages would have housed a whole army of park- and game-keepers, of manor house staff and forestry superintendents, because here had been Lord Lacey’s huge and fine manor house. For a short period, Mary Queen of Scots rested here, at the request of Elizabeth. Now the manor house is gone, destroyed, and the Chase itself is cut by roads and peopled with small townships. Only this high, corner portion is now designated Beaudesert Park.

  We had no more than a name: Elm House. Which wasn’t going to be any help at all because all the elms would have fallen foul of Dutch elm disease. I explained to Amelia, using logic, that we were therefore looking for a larger house than the cottages, and surrounded by an extensive open space where the elms had been.

  She promptly destroyed my logic. ‘It was probably something like a dower-house, three or four hundred years ago. The elms could’ve disappeared a couple of hundred years ago. So where does that leave you, Richard?’

  ‘Looking,’ I said, ‘for a large old house, with or without trees.’

  The thought crossed my mind that a postman on this route would’ve needed a week’s training, and would have to carry a survival kit in case he got lost.

  The lane or road levelled for a couple of hundred yards, and suddenly there were several larger houses, varying from medium to positively breathtaking. The National Trust had had a finger in here for certain. And each of these had disciplined drives, heavily overhung, and with signs at their entrances.

  Elm House. There it was—at least, there was the entrance—but from outside there was a view of no more than the tops of slender and tall chimneys.

  Francine Dettinger had been the one with the money when compared with Milo. But there are grades to wealth, and surely, in the time involved, she would not have been able to buy this property. She could probably not have afforded it anyway, of that I was certain when the Granada completed the curving downhill run of the drive and dipped beneath the overhanging beeches.