by Bill WENHAM
Allenby stared at him.
“And that is your decision, Inspector Solomon?” he smiled.
“It is, sir.”
“And you will stand by it?”
“I will, sir, of course.”
Sir Alfred Allenby extended his hand and Middleton shook it.
“Then I thank you sincerely and I will try to live up to your faith in me. You are a really remarkable man, Inspector,” Sir Alfred said.
“I try to be fair, sir, but I also truly believe that this decision is not just mine. It cannot stand alone. It must be supported on both sides by good sense and good judgment,” Middleton said, smiling.
“I will remember what you have done and said here today, Inspector, when I sit in court and pass my judgment upon others,” Allenby said.
“Then it has been a very worthwhile exercise, hasn’t it, sir?”
“It has indeed, Inspector, and I will never forget it. If you ever need…” Allenby started to say but Middleton cut him off sharply.
“Please don’t, sir. I will never come to you for anything, you can be sure of that. To do so would compromise you, me and what has been done here today.”
Allenby smiled gratefully.
“Am I allowed to wish you every success in your future investigations, Inspector?” Allenby asked.
“You are, sir, and I thank you but I really must be on my way now,”
Allenby rang for Ives to show him out and they shook hands once again as Middleton left.
After the Inspector had left, Allenby breathed a huge sigh of relief but now he was faced with a quandary.
By his actions today, the Inspector had just graciously and remarkably removed two of his most major concerns.
One was his secret past and the other, was David Bowen.
Up until today, Allenby had been quite prepared to murder Bowen in order to keep his secret. The trouble was that Allenby had no idea how to do it either anonymously or legally. Had he been a religious man, he would probably have prayed for divine assistance and angels to watch over him.
In his wildest dreams, he would never have imagined Middleton in that role and even less so, Joe Turner, even if he’d known who he was.
Consequently, when Ives had informed him today that David Bowen had just been arrested for the murder of one Joseph Turner, Sir Alfred could barely contain his delight.
He asked Ives to bring him a double brandy and jovially told him that he could take the evening off.
Ives gave his Lordship a puzzled look. Why was Sir Alfred quite obviously delighted at the news of the death of one man and the arrest of another, neither of whom he’d apparently ever met?
A few days later, Ives decided to check the recorded phone tapes to see if any of them needed deleting. He was completely astounded at the message that was on one of them. Now his Lordship’s behavior made a lot of sense to him and he decided to talk to his master about it. But Ives thought long and hard and it was several days later before he asked Sir Alfred if he could speak to him.
Allenby invited his valet into his study and asked him to sit in one of the soft leather chairs in front of his desk. To Ives this was very much of an honour since he had never sat in his Lordship’s presence before. Ives looked decidedly uncomfortable.
“Now then, Ives, you have something on your mind, have you? Do you want to tell me about it? Are you or any of your family sick or in trouble of some sort?”
Ives shook his head.
“No, thank you, your Lordship, my family and I are all healthy and with no problems to speak of, sir,” he said.
Allenby frowned.
“Then what is it, man. Speak up.”
Ives hesitated a moment.
“It is not I that has the problem, your Lordship – it is you,” Ives said, now sitting nervously on the front edge of the chair.
“Me, Ives?” Allenby said, truly astonished. “Why do you believe that I would have a problem?”
Ives hesitated again and moved even further forward in the chair. His back was bolt upright.
“I was checking the phone messages with the intention of deleting those no longer relevant – and I heard a message, sir. I’m sure you know the one to which I refer.”
Allenby’s already florid face went almost beetroot red and his heart started to pound in his chest. He struggled to keep both himself and his voice under control. He couldn’t trust himself to say anything except a curt, “Go on, Ives.”
Ives took a very deep breath but didn’t relax his very stiff posture.
“I come from an honourable family, your Lordship, one whose members believed it to be both an honour and a privilege to be in the service of families or gentlemen such as yourself, sir,”
Oh, Lord help us, there can’t be three of them now, surely, Allenby thought. Not Ives as well! He’s been with me forever!
“Please get to the point, Ives,” he said, a little sharply.
“My grandfather, grandmother, father, mother and older sister were all in the service of Lord Henry Faversham’s family, sir, and now I am in yours,” Ives said ponderously.
Allenby felt like getting up and shaking the man but he let Ives continue.
“I wanted to say, sir, that I am absolutely appalled…” he paused and took another deep breath.
Oh, oh, here it comes, Allenby thought. Damn you, Ives!
Ives continued.
“Yes, appalled, Sir Alfred, that anyone would have the audacity to make such a call to you, sir. I have never heard such utter drivel in my entire life. It’s these modern times, your Lordship, where people can hide behind the anonymity of a telephone and make such dastardly accusations against a peer of the realm such as yourself, sir.”
Allenby was astonished. In all the years that Ives had been in his service, he couldn’t even remember one instance when Ives had strung much more than half a dozen words together, all at one time, in front of him. Of those, three of them were usually, ‘Yes, your Lordship’ or ‘No, your Lordship’ when Allenby had asked him a question.
Allenby gathered his composure quickly and said, “So, Ives, what have you done with the message?”
“Nothing, your Lordship. I came here simply to ask your permission to erase the offensive item, sir.”
Allenby smiled, more from relief than from anything else and said, “But, of course, Ives. You always have my permission to erase anything you find offensive on those tapes.”
He paused and said, “On second thoughts, Ives, just erase everything and dismantle the whole bloody system. It has been a complete waste of time and money, anyway, hasn’t it?”
“And what should I do with it then, sir” Ives asked.
Allenby thought about that for a moment.
“Perhaps our little police force could use it, Ives, or maybe the school or post office. Take it with you the next time you go into the village and give it to the first taker. Just don’t bring it back here. We don’t need it.”
“Yes, your Lordship,” Ives replied.
“And Ives.”
“Yes, your Lordship?”
“A large brandy, please, when you have a moment – and thank you for your concern about my welfare.”
Ives got awkwardly up out of the chair and said, “Yes, sir, right away and thank you too for listening to me, your Lordship.”
“My pleasure, Ives, my pleasure – any time.”
When Ives had left, Allenby blew out a huge breath. He’d forgotten all about those bloody tapes and he was fortunate that Ives was the kind of loyal servant that he was.
Ives was indeed a very honourable man but he was also one who had put the fear of God into him there for a few scary minutes.
It was all over now, surely, Allenby thought.
Chapter Twenty Seven
“I’ve never asked you this before, Bristow, but are you courting?” Middleton said to her in his office one day right out of the blue.
Bristow looked at him in astonishment.
“Courting, sir? Cou
rting? The only bloody courting I do is when I drag some creepy little villain up in front of a judge!”
Middleton started to say…”What I meant was…”
She interrupted him with, “If you are asking me if I am shacking up with someone, the answer to that is a resounding NO – and do you know why that is, sir?”
Middleton shook his head.
“No, Bristow – why?” he asked.
She grinned at him.
“Because I’m kept too busy watching out for an old fart who hasn’t even entered the twentieth century yet, let alone the twenty first.”
“By old fart, I assume you are referring to me, Bristow, and I’ll have you know….”
“If the shoe fits, sir…” she laughed.
Middleton sighed.
“What the hell am I going to do with you, Bristow?” he said wearily.
“You could promote me. That would be nice,” she replied.
“Ah, yes, Bristow, I really should do that, and you’d have some other young smart arse working for you and then you’d find out what its like,” he said, and once again thought that she was right. He really should do something about that soon.
“I’ll take a chance on that, sir, because it would be very different for me, wouldn’t it?”
“How so, Bristow?”
She gave him a cheeky grin and said, “Well, for starters, there’d be two smart arses on my team instead of only just the one of us on this one.”
Middleton threw his hands up in the air in despair.
“I give up, Bristow – you’re just bloody impossible.” he said and she pouted.
“That’s not fair, sir. I’ve hardly even got started yet and teasing you every day makes my job that much more fun.”
Middleton smiled at her.
“If I was being honest…” he started to say.
“And you very rarely are, of course,” she added for him.
“…I think that it’s a lot of fun as well and much as I hate to admit it, I would really miss you if you went,” he said sincerely.
For a moment Bristow didn’t have one single smart remark to come back at him with. But that wouldn’t last long. They sat in silence for a moment or two.
“Okay then, what did you ask me that for anyway? Do you fancy me, or something? Do you think I’m attractive?” Bristow said. She had asked her questions in quick succession and it didn’t matter which one he answered or in what order, she had still him trapped.
“No, no, Bristow, of course not…” he started to say but she cut in with, “So, you don’t fancy me and you don’t think I’m attractive. You must think that I’m pretty bloody repulsive then?”
“No, no, that’s not it at all. I think you are…”
He paused and she could have sworn there were tears in those gentle blue eyes of his.
“…just Bristow – and I like you exactly the way you are,” he said and then added, smiling, “Warts and all.”
Bristow was about to get in the last word with, ‘but you still don’t fancy me’ and thought better of it. There was a strange mood in the air and jokes and jibes wouldn’t help it.
It was a good job that she had reconsidered because Middleton thought of his beautiful young partner in a completely different way. He loved her almost like a daughter and he knew that, if it ever came to it, he would lay down his life to protect her. But he would never, ever tell her either of those things.
He also dreaded that event which he felt to be inevitable. That would be when he lost her to another partner, either in the job or in marriage. She had been his partner now for over four years, first as a Detective Constable, and now Detective Sergeant and they trusted each other implicitly.
He was her superior officer in terms of rank and responsibility but they both knew that she was his equal in the job itself. Middleton wouldn’t have it any other way and sometimes he deliberately acted in a wooly and old fashioned manner just to see what she would come up with to tease him about. He enjoyed their banter and was never offended by any of it.
As far as the murders were concerned, both Middleton and Bristow had both been hounded by newspaper and television reporters. They had nothing much to say to any of them other than the standard, ‘we are continuing with our inquiries’.
Soon, with no results apparent, other news took over and the reporters left. After a couple of lurid newspaper headlines such as ‘Cutthroat killer runs amok in Cambridge village’, the murders moved off the front pages and totally off the television screens. In the media’s case, no news is definitely not good news!
David Bowen’s activity, when it came, warranted just one misspelled American style headline referring to him as the ‘Kopykat Kutthroat Killer’ and the article that followed had even less accuracy or credibility. His notoriety lasted for one issue only and was only mentioned at all after that in a small item in the obscurity of the middle pages of the other papers.
When David Bowen was arrested, charged and incarcerated pending his trial for the murder of Joe Turner, Middleton and Bristow’s job in Carrington parish was finally over. They stayed on for a few more days, tying up any loose ends to be certain of an airtight case when it went to trial.
As Bristow had suspected, the interior of the handle of the razor had yielded ample samples of Joe Turner’s DNA. In addition to that, although Bowen had washed the razor, he hadn’t worn gloves when he’d returned it to its case. His fingerprints were all over it. As a final nail in his coffin, as it were, minute specks of Joe’s blood were also found on his shirt, pants and shoes.
“Just as you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs, you can’t cut a throat without spilling a bit of blood either,” Bristow had said when they were advised by Forensics of the evidence on David Bowen’s clothes.
When confronted with all the evidence against him, Bowen capitulated and confessed. He claimed that he had done it on the spur of the moment, hoping to blame that one on Prentiss as well. His statement was that he hadn’t known that Prentiss was already dead at the time. Strangely, and possibly because he didn’t also want blackmail to be included in the charges against him, he made no mention of Sir Alfred Allenby at all.
As is the way, when the ponderous wheels of the law turn, it took many months before the case came to trial but with a confession of murder, there would be no doubt about the outcome.
Before Middleton and Bristow left, Rachel, whom Middleton had now been seeing on a regular basis, asked them both to her tearoom for a farewell dinner.
“Are you sure you want me there, Rachel?” Bristow asked her.
“I’m quite sure, Sally – for dinner only, if you don’t mind, not for the whole evening. I have other plans for Paul for later,” she said.
Bristow grinned at her.
“I just bet you have! So, when my desert plate is cleared off, you want me to clear off as well, right?” she said.
Rachel smiled.
“I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, Sally, but you’ve certainly got the gist of it,” she replied.
“My boss is a very lucky man,” Bristow said. “I told him once that you two would make a lovely couple. He just about choked.”
“Really, Sally. I can’t imagine you with a bow and arrow somehow.”
“Pardon?”
“Cupid, Sally. You just don’t look the type.”
Bristow grinned.
“I know I don’t, Rachel. That’s how I fool everyone. I’m really just an old softie inside,” she said. “Anyway, you just give me the nod and I’ll be out of there.”
“Thanks Sally. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
Bristow shrugged.
“That’s okay. So, you two have plans for later. Should I ask what they are – as if you’d tell me.”
Rachel smiled.
“Actually, it’s me that has the plans for later, not Paul, and I can tell you,” she said and paused for a moment, “I’m going to propose to him!”
“Propose!” Bri
stow said, astonished. “You want to actually marry that old fart?”
Rachel shook her head.
“No, Sally, not marry. I don’t want a wedding but I do want him,” she said softly.
Bristow nodded.
“I can’t say that I’m surprised and I’m very happy for both of you. So, this isn’t a farewell dinner at all then, is it?”
Rachel said, “It is for you I’m afraid, Sally, but hopefully, if I play my cards right, not for him.”
Bristow looked the beautiful Rachel Donnelly up and down and laughed.
“Play your cards right, Rachel. You must be kidding me. Just look at you. I would say that you’ve already got all the cards stacked in your favour. The poor old fart doesn’t stand a chance,” she said and then added, “Anyway, you don’t need to play cards with him - surely you know that.”
Rachel smiled.
“No, Sally, as I’m sure you’re well aware, I have a totally different game in mind that we can play.”
Middleton would have been mortified if he’d heard the two women discussing him like that, just as though he was a piece of merchandise to be bartered back and forth.
“Are you in love with him, Rachel,” Bristow asked.
“Yes, I believe so, but I’m afraid love is much too fragile an emotion to base the rest of my life on, Sally. Let’s just say that I’m very, very seriously in like with him. I like him in a way that I’ve never felt before with any other man. If that’s what love really is, then I love him too, I suppose. So, how about you?”
Bristow stared at her.
“Is it that obvious, Rachel? But don’t worry, even though my feelings for him are very much the same. We are very, very close. Much more than one would expect from a police partnership. My feelings for him are emotional rather than physical. He’s like a father figure to me, Rachel.”
Bristow paused and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.
“My stepfather was a cruel bastard and he made my life a misery when I was a child. He’s dead now and I was never so glad to see the back of someone as I was him. I really hated him, Rachel.”
