A Talent For Murder

by Andrew Wilson

  ‘Don’t get up,’ said Una, grandly. ‘I really must be going.’

  ‘But, the – the Colonel—’

  ‘Don’t bother him,’ she said, striding across the kitchen to the back door. She tried the handle and pushed. The door did not move.

  ‘We locked it because of the reporters and the like,’ said Kitty.

  Una spun round on her heels and flashed her eyes at the girl.

  ‘The keys,’ she said plainly, without a note of fear in her voice. ‘Could you pass me the keys?’

  Una heard the Colonel began to turn the lock of the front door.

  ‘But what about the Colonel?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t talk to him now,’ she whispered. ‘You see, I have just discovered something upstairs in Mrs Christie’s desk that would upset the Colonel a great deal. Trust me, he really doesn’t want to have to deal with this at the moment. I am sure he has enough to endure, don’t you think?’

  The front door opened.

  ‘But?’ Kitty looked like she had been struck by a form of paralysis.

  ‘After all, you wouldn’t want to be blamed for the discovery of something that casts your mistress in a bad light, would you?’

  ‘No.’

  The front door slammed. Una heard the Colonel walking across the hall towards the staircase. She felt a moment’s relief when she heard his feet on the stairs but then there was silence, before she realised that the Colonel had started to retrace his steps.

  ‘Kitty?’ he called out.

  The sound of her name roused the girl from her state of unresponsiveness. She opened her mouth to speak, but Una stopped her.

  ‘Give me the keys now,’ she said in an imperious whisper.

  Kitty turned her head slightly towards the kitchen door and then quickly took out a set of keys from her apron pocket and pressed them into Una’s hands. Una sprang towards the door like the cat she had once seen outside the back of Elm Park Road about to do its business when the cook had thrown a bucket of scalding water over it. She forced the keys into the door, turned the lock and ran out into the cold night leaving the door wide open. She heard the sound of the Colonel behind her – ‘Who on earth?’ – and then the incoherent babbling of Kitty and snatches of the interrogation that followed: ‘A lady publisher’, ‘No, never seen her before’, ‘Did she give her name – what was her name, you stupid girl?’, ‘No, sorry, sir’, ‘Did you not think to wait for me?’ and the final sound of sobbing.

  She ran down the side of the house and out into the road just as the Colonel opened the front door. Una crouched behind a neighbour’s hedge and as the Colonel approached she pushed her face deep into the fur trim of her coat to stifle the sound of her heavy breathing. She heard the Colonel getting nearer and then saw the glint of his chestnut-brown brogues in a gap in the hedge.

  ‘Damn reporters,’ he swore under his breath. ‘Next one I see I swear I will throttle – even if it is a woman.’

  He turned on his heels, but Una remained in her secret pocket of darkness behind the hedge until she was sure he had retreated back inside the house. When she stood up she felt dizzy from the danger, the fear, and the unmistakable thrill of having stolen something from inside the house. Was this how Davison had felt when, in his early days, he had worked – what was that silly phrase he had once used? – ‘in the field’? How exciting it all was. She knew she didn’t want to be a spy as she didn’t want to run the risk of getting knocked off. Davison had told her some awful stories of people getting garrotted and poisoned and pushed off cliffs. But if she could get this sort of feeling from working in journalism then surely this was just the job for her. She couldn’t wait to tell Davison of her little scrape – but on second thoughts perhaps it was better if she kept this to herself for the time being.

  She took out the letter, but it was too dark to see anything more than the few phrases she had read earlier. That Colonel was a sly one. And who was this Nancy he had been bothering with? Una hurried along the dark street, towards a lamp-post that she had seen earlier and under the glare of its light she started to read. As she did so she noticed that her hands were still trembling.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I took another sip of morning tea and suddenly felt happier than I had in days. I had, at some point during the night, decided to go to the police and tell them all about Kurs. My dreams had been haunted by visions of dead children: a terrible nightmare about Eliza Reid, whose grave I had seen, in which the little girl, screaming at the hands of her torturer, suddenly changed into Rosalind.

  On the way back to the hotel from the cemetery the day before, I had paused outside Harrogate Police Station. I had taken a couple of steps up towards the front door and stopped while I thought about my actions. I just wished the ordeal was over. Perhaps if I went into the station and told the police all about it they would bring the whole sorry episode to an end. I would show the officers the letters that Kurs had written and they could just telephone Scotland Yard and issue a warrant for the doctor’s arrest. I could return from Harrogate and be with dear Rosalind, Charlotte, and Peter within a day. Then I thought of what Kurs said his associate would do to Rosalind and I had turned away from the welcoming glow of the police station and walked into the darkness back towards the Hydro. I had dined alone, but at some point during the meal, when no doubt I had been looking especially bleak, I looked up to find a middle-aged woman standing by my table.

  ‘I’m so terribly sorry to disturb you,’ said the lady. ‘But my husband and I were just wondering whether you would like to join us. We’ve been watching you since you arrived. It can’t be much fun eating alone.’

  I didn’t know quite what to say. I was certainly not in the mood for socialising, and of course I couldn’t tell the nice, slightly overweight lady the truth.

  ‘That’s extremely kind of you,’ I said. ‘Most kind. But I’m afraid I’m not the best company at present.’

  ‘Why, we can cheer you up. Well, Arthur certainly will.’ She pointed over to a neighbouring table where a red-faced man was gesturing in a rather over-expressive manner. ‘You should hear some of his jokes. Some of them are so terrible one simply has to laugh.’

  ‘Perhaps some other time,’ I said.

  The lady moved a step towards me and placed a hand on my sleeve. She really had the most beautiful blue eyes, full of kindness.

  ‘I understand. Are you here for the waters? They do say they work wonders. I’m sure they will make you feel like a new person.’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I’ve just lost a child, a daughter.’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ said the lady. ‘Do you mind if—’

  I did rather, but the woman proceeded to sit down next to me.

  ‘I’m so sorry. That must have been awful for you.’

  ‘Yes, it was rather. I can’t imagine how I will ever get over it.’ I imagined standing by a dank, dark hole and the undertakers lowering a small coffin into the ground. Tears began to sting my eyes. ‘But I suppose one has to go on, even though one doesn’t feel like it.’

  ‘These things are sent to test us, don’t you think?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, wiping an all too real tear from my face. ‘I’m sorry, what’s your name?’

  ‘Mrs Robson. Janet Robson.’

  ‘Hello – I’m Mrs Neele. Mrs Teresa Neele.’

  As we shook hands I noticed the warmth emanating from the lady’s skin.

  ‘Well, if at any time you want to dine with us, just let me know. Or if you would like to take a walk around the town one day?’

  I didn’t know what to say. There was an awkward pause that lingered over the table.

  ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry,’ I said. ‘You must think me very rude. It’s just that the – the loss has affected me rather badly, as I said. Sometimes I am not sure where I am at times. And my memory is shot to pieces. Please don’t think me rude.’

  ‘Not at all, dear, not at all.’ She stood up, smiling kindly. ‘I must get back to Arth
ur before he starts trying to talk to one of the poor waitresses. Sometimes he can be terribly overfamiliar. And please don’t forget – if you ever need dining companions, here we are.’ Again she touched me lightly on the sleeve and walked back across the dining room to her husband.

  For the rest of that evening I had felt absolutely wretched. Why had I said that about a dead child to Mrs Robson? I pushed my plate of food away from me uneaten and returned to my room. I wished that I had come up with another excuse for my strange behaviour – a physical illness that affected my mind, a melancholy that had descended upon me for no reason, withdrawal from an over-dependency on alcohol. The voicing of my greatest fear – the death of my daughter – had somehow made it more real.

  I had gone to bed feeling despondent, and the nightmares had plagued me all through the early hours of the morning. I had woken up clammy and afraid, but as I reconstructed the fragments of the dream I felt possessed by a wave of anger. How dare Kurs inveigle his way into my life in this way? What right did he have to dictate what I should do? As if I could ever go through with what he suggested. By the time I had risen from my bed I had made up my mind. It was time to free myself from this ongoing psychological torture. I would have to take a risk, that much was certain, but it was, I reasoned, a risk worth taking. Otherwise, I feared that I would go quite insane. I knew that I was not one drawn to introspection – all that self-indulgence, and to what end? – and anything that bothered me I tended to let find expression in my novels.

  As I stepped into the breakfast room I saw Mrs Robson seated at the couple’s usual table. I made a point of going over to talk to her.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said, trying to smile.

  ‘Good morning, my dear,’ said Mrs Robson. ‘My, you are looking much brighter this morning, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘Yes, I am feeling much better. Please forgive me for my gloomy spirits last night.’

  ‘Not at all, dear. Would you care to join me for breakfast? I’m afraid Mr Robson is rather the worse for wear this morning. Dyspepsia.’

  ‘That’s very kind, but I have some letters I really must deal with. I’ve been rather negligent of my correspondence these last few days.’

  ‘Of course. Well, perhaps we will see you later for dinner?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps.’

  I walked over to my table and ordered two boiled eggs and toast, with a pot of tea. I extracted my notebook from my handbag and looked at the series of scribbles I had made since Kurs had entered my life. How extraordinary, I thought. Surely I would, at least, be able to use some of this in a novel. Obviously, it would have to be much, much darker than the neat stories that I had written so far in my career, books which always tied up the loose ends and ended on a note of resolution and the restoration of order. Evil had been successfully expelled from the book and from the reader’s mind and goodness ruled once more. But someone like Kurs upset the normal order of things.

  I wondered what lay at the root of him. Had he been born evil or had something – some awful experience like cruelty or loss or wickedness – twisted his mind? One day, when all this was over – and how much I prayed it would be over soon – I would like to ask him a few questions. How on earth would he react when a policeman knocked on his door, I wondered. I knew he thought of me as a mere woman whom he believed he could manipulate at will. I had gone along with him out of fear, out of a terror that he, or one of his degenerates, would harm firstly Archie’s reputation and then, and this was much more frightening, my daughter. But really he would never get the chance. After breakfast was over I would simply walk down to the police station and inform them of everything that had happened. Then I would place a telephone call to Charlotte and tell her to make sure that Rosalind was safe in the house. I would instruct her to lock the doors and let no one, absolutely no one, into Styles.

  I took another sip of tea and tried to imagine my future. If my marriage to Archie was over – and I had to face up to the probability that it was – I would have to resolve to make a new kind of life, with just Rosalind and Charlotte. And then, of course, I would always have my writing. I felt now that I could begin to write again. Perhaps it had been good for me to have this break, this crisis, in my creative life. Indeed, this experience, this dark episode, may well have helped. It had certainly not been wasted, I thought. I drank the last of the tea, gathered my coat and handbag and started to walk out of the hotel. But as I passed the reception desk I heard a voice calling out a familiar name.

  ‘Mrs Neele. Mrs Neele?’

  Of course, that was my name now. I turned to face the nice Scottish girl who I had talked to the day before. What was her name? Moira, that was it. Such a lovely name. But did it not also mean something in Ancient Greek?

  ‘A parcel has just arrived for you, from London, I think,’ said the girl.

  ‘That sounds exciting,’ I said, approaching the desk. What on earth could it be?

  But as soon as Moira handed the small package to me I froze. The handwriting was Kurs’s.

  ‘Is everything all right, Mrs Neele?’

  ‘Yes, everything is – is.’ I didn’t know what to say, but then the words started to flow out of my mouth. ‘I think it must be a ring from London. A ring that I thought I had dropped in Harrods.’ Why was it that I was always much more articulate when I made things up?

  ‘That is very fortunate,’ said Moira, casting a slightly suspicious glance towards me. The girl suspected that the package contained something a little heavier than a ring.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is rather. Thank you.’

  With a feeling of dread, I carried the parcel up to my room. I closed and locked the door behind me. I sat on the bed and carefully began to tear the top edge of the package. A whiff of something earthy and unpleasant hit me.

  I tipped the parcel on its side, but whatever was inside refused to move. I opened the edge again and peered inside. There was something the size of a small child’s fist wrapped in tissue paper.

  I took a deep breath and eased my hand inside. Almost as soon as the tips of my fingers touched something soft and fleshy they recoiled. Blood had started to ooze out, spreading a sinister bloom across the tissue paper.

  I dropped the disgusting thing onto the bed, but as I didn’t want to stain the bedspread I picked it up and threw it into the basin in the corner of the room. Feeling weak and nauseous, I stood over the basin for a minute or so as I contemplated what to do next. What the devil had Kurs done?

  I checked the inside of the parcel again, but there was no note or letter. Kurs must have been assuming that the object – whatever it was – would be enough to get his message across. I approached the basin again.

  Traces of blood had started to leak out onto the white porcelain. Slowly and delicately I began to pick back the blood-red tissue paper. As soon as I did so I saw a tuft of something brown. Was it hair? I peeled back another layer and saw a couple of claws, four small pink pads and a larger, darker metacarpal pad. It was a dog’s paw – oh no, it was Peter’s paw – the end of which had been severed and showed a mass of bloody gristle and tendon. I let out not a scream, but a howl of pain. How could Kurs do this to me? The poor creature had not deserved to suffer.

  To begin with I thought it was the fault of my tears that blurred my vision. Peter, my darling Peter, had the same colouring, but there was something not quite right. I was sure that the bottom of Peter’s legs – the same legs I would often clasp together and raise up to my face, proclaiming them to be darling little rabbit’s feet – had more white in the fur than this.

  I touched the brown-and-white fur which was as smooth as silk. I steadied myself on the basin as I forced myself to continue looking at the grisly sight. My stomach heaved, but I swallowed back the bile and made myself examine the creature’s forepaw.

  No, this was not the paw of Peter, thank goodness, but it still belonged, or had belonged, to some poor unsuspecting dog. It was a message from Kurs to show me just the kind of brutality
that he was capable of inflicting. How had he done it? I couldn’t bear to think of what had happened and the pain the dog must have suffered. I only hoped that he had had the decency to put the creature out of its misery afterwards.

  I wrapped the paw back in the bloodied paper and then took out a handkerchief from my handbag and covered the paper in that for more protection. I placed the severed limb back in the envelope and started to walk across the room towards the door. But as I passed the bed my legs went from under me. I clasped hold of the edge of the bed and started to sob again. I imagined Peter, always so friendly, wagging his stubby tail as a stranger stopped by to stroke him. Then the sudden terror and panic as he felt himself being held down. And the horror of what happened next.

  I saw my daughter playing in the garden and then the shadow of Kurs casting a darkness across her face. I had to stop myself imagining what awful things might happen next.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Superintendent William Kenward stood by the side of Albury Mill Pond with a sense of anticipation rising inside him. He was sure his latest operation would net results – literally. He smiled to himself as he thought of the pun. And to think some people accused him of not having a sense of humour. He had ordered his men to rig up a series of enormous nets – the kind he had seen draping beneath the high wire in that travelling circus that had visited his town when he was a boy – and on his instruction the gates would be opened and the water would spill through the nets. Any large objects – the body of a missing lady novelist, for instance – would get caught in the nets as the water drained through the sluice.