‘If you want, my mother will speak to her and her husband. Between them they should be able to get Bella to focus, look through any old papers, that sort of thing. We didn’t want to go ahead without discussing it with you, first, though,’ he added. ‘So, what do you think?’
Calderwood nodded his thanks. His regard for the good sense and discretion of Eleanor Blaine-Appleby was based on more than just instinct, considerably more.
‘Right, we’ll ask her then,’ Desmond responded and then turned to his partner.
‘When do you reckon you’ll have finished at The Dolphin?’ asked Gwilym, taking his cue.
‘Another two to three days should do it, provided we don’t find any more bodies!’ Calderwood responded, with bleak humour. ‘Why?’
‘We’re interested in either buying it or helping restore it, so we’d like to look it over properly, once you’re finished,’ replied the Welshman.
‘Do you think the owners, whoever they are, would be willing to sell?’
‘We don’t know, and obviously it’s too soon for them, or us, to be definite. It would be more than a bit tacky to push after what’s been found there,’ Gwilym replied. ‘We did, though, want to make it clear we’d like to talk, once the owner, or owners, have come to terms with your discoveries, so Eddy put us in contact with the solicitors and we’ve sent them a brief letter.’
Calderwood nodded, relieved. He’d wondered what the fate of the theatre would be now it had been uncovered; whether the mysterious owners would simply demolish it and replace it with a far more profitable mix of housing and commercial properties, or, far less likely, actually re-open it as a theatre.
‘It may be,’ the Welshman continued, ‘that the DeLancys themselves, if they’ve not inherited it back from Gerald, want to buy it back. If, though, the owners are other people and they would prefer to sell to someone else and are willing to talk to us, we can then have it looked at properly. See whether it can be genuinely renovated, rather than just re-built, and then decide whether to either buy it or help pay for its restoration.’
‘Either way, an expensive proposition,’ murmured Calderwood.
‘Oh yes. Superficially, it looks to be in pretty good condition, as you’ve seen for yourselves. There’s no way, after so long, though, that it’s not going to cost a bomb whichever option we go for. New seating, new carpets, new curtains for the stage and the boxes, new lighting in the auditorium and foyer, replacement of the backstage equipment, re-gilding and repainting the interior, are going to be the very least that has to be done inside. That’s without repairing any damage from rats and the like, though there seems remarkably little of that at this stage. As for the outside,’ Gwilym continued, ‘Eddy had his men look at those parts of the original roofing and walls which are now accessible. From what he said, they look in fairly good condition; protected by the warehousing, I suppose. A full survey would need to be done, of course, to know the actual state of it all, foundations and such like, but it does look as though some sort of restoration programme may be viable.’
‘We’ll have to see. Either way, any involvement we have, will sure as hell be more enjoyable than what you lot have to do,’ Desmond added, sympathetically.
Chapter 19
Later that evening he bit his lip. He was unsure whether it was for the fourth or the fifth time in the last half hour and he’d got beyond caring. Apart from a very sore mouth, the preceding thirty minutes had, as he was to relay to an unsympathetic Gwilym later that evening, achieved sod all. His partner’s response, that it served him right for putting the wind up Bella in the first place, did little to improve his temper.
Initially, he had been rather pleased at his idea of asking his mother to try and coax his nervous friend into remembering where her aunt’s nursing home had been; he was considerably less pleased when Eleanor agreed, adding that he could come along as well. He was genuinely fond of his childhood friend, but found, after five minutes of her calling him ‘Des,’ one of the few who dared, and enduring her erratic memory processes, that that affection always wore dangerously thin.
‘I’m sorry, Eleanor. I just can’t think of anywhere else it could be,’ Bella said, almost in tears.
‘It’s alright, darling, don’t worry. If we can’t find anything, we can’t. It’s not worth getting upset about,’ soothed Eleanor.
‘But Des said it’s important. That the police need it!’
‘Indeed he did,’ murmured his mother, keeping her face carefully expressionless as she looked across at him, well aware that it was that pressure that was rattling the younger woman. ‘Let me think,’ she continued, her quiet voice and calm manner, as ever, soothing Bella. ‘You’ve looked through those old address books and letters that you found. There’s nowhere else, an old suitcase in the attic, possibly?’
Bella shook her head, her big face downcast. ‘No, Peter looked for me, but there’s nothing besides those,’ she replied, pointing to the small pile of books and letters. They were piled in an untidy heap on the old sea-chest the couple used as a coffee table, battling for space with a large ginger cat which was sleeping contentedly, if intrusively, across almost half its surface.
‘What about in the garage? People put a lot of unwanted things out there over the years. Did your mother or father ever do that?’
Bella shook her head. ‘No. Dad always insisted it was kept clear for the car.’
‘Your parents never had a car!’ protested Desmond.
‘No, but they might have got one, one day,’ responded his friend unanswerably.
It was Eleanor’s turn to bite her lip, as she carefully avoided looking at her son, as she pondered her next move. ‘What about if we get out a map and look at it? That may jog your memory; what do you think?’ she asked.
‘We could, yes, I suppose, though I don’t have too good a memory, do I? I’ll get one, though,’ she said, rising and going into another room.
‘We could be here ’til Christmas at this rate,’ muttered Desmond under his breath, just as she returned and sat down.
‘That’s it!’ yelled Bella, startling everybody, including the slumbering feline. ‘Mother’s Christmas card list! She kept one and every year she added people to it she liked and dumped those she didn’t,’ she explained, rising and moving as quickly as her considerable bulk would allow, across to the big sideboard dominating one side of the small sitting room.
‘But you said she didn’t like your Aunt Lizzie, so she’d be off the list, surely?’
‘No. Mother only ever crossed through the name of someone she’d gone off. She liked to look at them each year and remember how they’d upset her and caused her to stop sending them a card,’ replied Bella, again causing the two Blaine-Applebys to avoid eye contact.
‘Here it is!’ she exclaimed in triumph, as her head emerged from the depths of the sideboard.
Bloody hell, she’s not joking! thought Desmond, watching in fascination as she hefted out a thick pile of papers. ‘Did she never throw the old list away and make a new one?’ he queried.
‘No, she just kept adding to it each year,’ Bella replied, as she rummaged through the rather tatty-looking pages. ‘Ah! Got it!’ she announced with much satisfaction, as her eyes eventually lit on the right name ‘Rhyl!’ she added, her big face wreathed in a smile.
‘Where’s the hell’s that?’ asked Desmond, as he struggled to place where the obscure town might be. Most certainly it was neither local nor even nearby. Bella had obviously not been joking and the family had deliberately parked their troublesome relative well away from themselves.
‘Wales, somewhere on the north coast, across the border from Cheshire, I think,’ murmured Eleanor, confirming his thoughts.
Bloody hell! How depressing, thought Desmond. He’d once been to Cheshire and been bored so silly that he’d never had the slightest wish to return.
‘And here’s Aunt Lizzie’s name and an address!’ Bella added in triumph, as she passed the list over to Eleanor.
<
br /> The older woman, after wrestling a few moments with the spidery scribble of Bella’s mother, read out ‘Moranedd Nursing & Residential Home, The Promenade, Rhyl, N. Wales; and it’s dated Xmas ’94, so that does narrow things down. Well done, Bella!’ Eleanor congratulated. ‘And thank you for sticking with it. This should certainly help the Inspector,’ she added, as she, and a very thankful Desmond, got up to go.
Chapter 20
Alistair DeLancy-Graeme showed the two police officers into his large, dilapidated sitting room with the airs of an aristocrat and the vowels of Noel Coward.
‘Could I offer you tea or coffee?’ he asked graciously, seemingly unconscious of the stale air that filled the room and made the two policemen feel slightly nauseous. ‘Or something a little stronger?’ he added in arch tones which amused Calderwood and made Bulmer want to thump him. Coffee being accepted, he tripped away to place the order with ‘my little man in the kitchen’ and speedily returned. ‘Now,’ he said, sitting down, crossing his legs and placing his hands round his knees and leaning forward, ‘I suppose you’ve come to see me about that dreadful business at the old Dolphin?’ he asked, in the hushed tones of an undertaker and with the moist, glinting eyes of the confirmed gossip. ‘I remember the time well,’ he continued. ‘Inevitably, I suppose, as it scarred me, scarred me deeply, very deeply,’ he sighed. Going for overkill, thought the increasingly amused DI.
‘And of course, I was so young, scarcely twel... sixteen,’ he corrected, hastily recalling that the police probably knew his real age. Nosey bastards, he thought in passing.
‘Indeed, sir. We realise that it’s many years ago and was a very painful time for the family, but we would be most grateful for your recollections,’ Calderwood responded politely.
‘Of course! I’ve been racking my brains to recall every snippet, from that dreadful time, every snippet!’ He paused. ‘Now, do you want to ask me questions, or shall I just trot it all out?’ he asked, his thin, dark features twitching like a rat sans whiskers.
‘We’ll ask the questions, sir, and then you can add anything at the end, if you feel there’s anything we’ve missed,’ Calderwood replied. Even as he spoke, and so subtly that the elderly man was totally unaware of it, he was sizing him up. He’d already done that with the flat, noting that, with the exception of a few mediocre Victorian pieces, it was furnished in a fashion of some forty or more years previously. Its large settee and deep armchairs were now noticeably threadbare and the rugs were worn and had lost most of their original colour. He’d noted also the scuffed, chipped paintwork and the old-fashioned wallpaper that had faded, except for a few brighter patches along its length, to a drab, mid-green.
The flat was in a large mansion block in one of the city’s most fashionable areas and its upkeep would be expensive; an expense, he suspected, that his elderly host, in his dated woollen cardigan and scuffed, tasselled slippers, was finding increasingly difficult to meet.
‘What do you recall of the period leading up to your uncle’s apparent elopement?’ Calderwood continued quietly, already aware that he’d need all his skills to keep the conversation even vaguely earthbound.
‘I remember it was a dark time, Inspector, a dark time for the whole family. You see, we were a very close-knit clan, very close-knit indeed, and Uncle Gerald’s increasingly bizarre behaviour was putting a great strain on us all, a great strain,’ he added, giving a portentous nod of his small head.
‘What form did your uncle’s ‘bizarre behaviour’ take?’
‘It took several, actually,’ the elderly man smirked, as he settled down to tell his story, happy to have an audience.
‘Several?’
‘Yes. He’d always been what you might call theatrical,’ he began.
Now there’s a surprise! Bulmer thought, keeping his face straight and his pen busy.
‘But he also started to dress in clothes too young for him, not by many years, you understand, but enough for an aunt to mutter something about “mutton dressed as lamb”. He also began to style his hair differently, which was silly, really. He was already losing it at an alarming rate and the new style just showed it up more!’ he sniffed. ‘He also bought a little sports car, bright red and very zippy, which we children adored, but the elders most certainly did not!’ he concluded, waspishly.
‘Did this behaviour pre-date the arrival of Miss Kujenikov?’ Calderwood asked.
‘A good question, a very good question,’ Alistair nodded approvingly. ‘One is tempted of course, to say that he’d been going off the rails before she arrived, but, no, I’m quite sure that she was the cause of the terrible events that were about to rip my family asunder, and only she!’ he ended dramatically.
‘What were your initial views of Miss Kujenikov, when she first arrived?’
‘Before she destroyed our family, you mean? Not much different, actually. I always thought her a sly little piece. Out for what she could get; you know the sort,’ he added, with another disdainful sniff.
‘What precisely do you mean, sir?’ Calderwood asked neutrally, thinking it odd that he could lay the blame for the catastrophe which hit his family on a seventeen-year-old, when the other performer in the tragedy was well over twice her age, and was the one who was married.
‘Well, you know, simpering little smiles, butter wouldn’t melt, nothing too much trouble for her, always making sure she was the one who helped in whatever little task needed doing. She obviously had a very carefully-worked-out plan in her pretty little head. Oh yes, that became clear very quickly; very quickly indeed!’
‘Do you have any evidence for that assertion, sir?’
‘I don’t need evidence, Inspector, subsequent events show that I was correct, don’t you think?’ Alistair replied smugly.
‘I understand your cousin, Daniel, was causing some trouble within the family, which, I understand, did pre-date Miss Kujenikov’s arrival,’ Calderwood couldn’t help adding, though he kept his inflection neutral.
‘He was another who put himself before the family; always going on about finding himself artistically and listening to his inner muse, and other such rubbish,’ Daniel’s now elderly cousin replied, with another of his trademark sniffs.
‘You were not a fan of his, then?’
‘Fan? Not at all! I found him insufferably shallow and conceited,’ Alistair replied dismissively, as he uncrossed his legs.
‘I understood that you and he were very close for a considerable part of your childhood and, indeed, into your young manhood,’ Calderwood remarked mildly.
Alistair paused in the act of re-crossing his legs and then spoke quickly. ‘Close? I don’t know where you got that impression, Inspector, I really don’t! We were friendly, after a fashion, when we were children; one knows no better then, does one? But when one gets older and has more experience with which to make judgements, one’s opinions of people do often change; quite markedly in some cases,’ he almost snapped.
That touched a nerve! Bulmer thought, noting it in his book.
‘Leaving aside, for the moment, your feelings concerning Miss Kujenikov and your cousin, how did you feel once it became clear that both the theatre and a good deal of the family money had suddenly disappeared?’ Calderwood asked, moving on.
‘How do you think it felt, Inspector? Losing The Dolphin was like losing a piece of oneself, certainly losing part of the family’s identity. As for the money, learning about that, was like pouring very large amounts of salt into a very open and very painful wound. It took us all a long time to recover, a very long time,’ he ended, genuine passion in his voice.
‘Have you heard anything, anything at all, from, or about, any of the three, since that time?’
‘No nothing. None of us have,’ Alistair responded shortly.
Nodding, Calderwood stood up to go. ‘Thank you, sir, for your time. We may need to talk to you again, but that’s it, for now, thank you.’
In the long, narrow hallway, he paused, very briefly, his glance restin
g on one of the walls, as Alistair moved ahead to open the door. The thoughtful expression that crossed his features had disappeared by the time their elderly host, having opened the door, turned to say good bye.
‘Phew!’ exclaimed Bulmer, relieved to be out in the fresh air again as they left the mansion block; a relief shared by both his superior, and, for very different reasons, by the man they’d just left.
Chapter 21
‘I’ve been expecting your call, Inspector,’ said the light, cultivated voice. ‘Yes, of course. I’m available whenever suits you,’ he responded courteously. ‘Yes, 2pm tomorrow. Here at the shop? Yes, absolutely fine. Goodbye.’ He replaced the phone and his warm, good-natured smile was firmly back in place as he turned to deal with a customer, his eyes swept clean of the anger that the phone call had momentarily brought into them.
Calderwood saw immediately what Marian DeLancy meant by referring to her younger son as a ‘changeling’. The man who came forward, the next afternoon, to greet them, elegant in dark suit, crisp, striped shirt and elegant bow tie, couldn’t have looked less like a DeLancy had he tried. He also, despite his surroundings, had a more down to earth quality singularly lacking in his more flamboyant relatives. Though not short, his medium height fell far below the DeLancy norm and his complexion, the officers could see, had never been of the dark, almost satanic colouring of the rest of the family. His fair features were broad under the thick head of hair which, though now mainly grey, still showed traces of the dark gold of his youth. Stockier than his brother, with a solid, strong-looking body, he differed also, as the two officers noticed immediately, in the warmth of his personality.
‘What lovely rooms!’ remarked Calderwood, shaking hands and looking around him in genuine admiration.
‘Thank you. Yes, we are rather proud of them,’ responded Edgar DeLancy, or Edgar Turnbull, as he now called himself.
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