Hughes shrugged. ‘Okay, so I saw people from time to time, but if I don’t know who they were, how’s it gonna help you?’
‘Did you ever watch the back of the house?’
The man debated with himself. ‘Maybe,’ he said guardedly.
‘Where from?’
‘If you’re aiming to use this against me, I want my brief.’
‘You’re in no position to argue,’ said Charlie impatiently. ‘Where were you watching it from? Outside or inside the garden?’
‘I sometimes used to park the van in the housing estate at the side. Ruth reckoned it was safer, what with all the yuppies living there. Wives commuting to work along with their husbands so no one in during the day,’ he explained obligingly. ‘There’s some rough ground next to the fence round Cedar House garden, easy enough to hop over and watch from the trees.’
The Inspector took an ordnance survey map out of his briefcase. ‘The Cedar Estate?’ he asked, tapping the map with his forefinger.
Hughes sniffed. ‘Probably. Ruth said the land once belonged to the house before the old lady sold it off for cash, though Christ knows why she didn’t flog the rest while she was about it. What she want with a massive garden, when there’s people living on the streets? Jesus, but she was a tight-fisted old bitch,’ he said unwarily. ‘All that frigging money and no one else got a bloody look-in. Is it true she left the lot to her doctor or was Ruth just spinning me a yarn?’
Charlie stared him down. ‘None of your business, lad, but I’ll tell you this for free. Ruth didn’t get a penny because of what you forced her to do. Her grandmother took agin her when she started stealing. But for you, she’d have had the house.’
Hughes was unmoved. ‘Shouldn’t have been so quick to open her legs then, should she?’
Charlie looked at the map again, fighting an urge to hit him. ‘Did you ever see anyone go in through the back door?’
‘The cleaner used to sweep the step now and again. Saw the woman from next door pottering about in her bit and the old boy sunning himself on his patio.’
‘I mean strangers. Someone you wouldn’t have expected.’
‘I never saw anyone.’ He put unnatural emphasis on the verb.
‘Heard then?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Where were you? What did you hear?’
‘I watched Mrs Gillespie go out in her car one day. Thought I’d take a look through the windows, see what was there.’
‘Was Ruth with you?’
He shook his head. ‘Back at school.’
‘Refusing to co-operate, presumably, so you had to find out for yourself what was worth stealing. You were casing the place.’
Hughes didn’t answer.
‘Okay, what happened?’
‘I heard the old lady coming round the path so I dived behind the coal bunker by the kitchen door.’
‘Go on.’
‘It wasn’t her. It was some other bastard who was nosing around like me.’
‘Male? Female?’
‘An old man. He knocked on the back door and waited for a bit, then let himself in with a key.’ Hughes pulled a face. ‘So I legged it.’ He saw the triumph on Jones’s face. ‘That what you wanted?’
‘Could be. Did he have the key in his hand?’
‘I wasn’t looking.’
‘Did you hear anything?’
‘The knocking.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I heard a stone being moved after the knocking.’
The flowerpot. ‘How do you know it was a man if you weren’t looking?’
‘He called out. “Jenny, Ruth, Mathilda, are you there?” It was a man all right.’
‘Describe his voice.’
‘Posh.’
‘Old? Young? Forceful? Weak? Drunk? Sober? Pull your finger out, lad. What sort of impression did you get of him?’
‘I already told you. I reckoned it was an old man. That’s why I thought it was her coming back. He was really slow and his voice was all breathy, like he had trouble with his lungs. Or was very unfit.’ He thought for a moment. ‘He might have been drunk, though,’ he added. ‘He had real trouble getting the words out.’
‘Did you go round the front afterwards?’
Dave shook his head. ‘Hopped over the fence and went back to the van.’
‘So you don’t know if he came by car?’
‘No.’ A flash of something – indecision? – crossed his face.
‘Go on,’ prompted Jones.
‘I’d never swear to it, so it’s not evidence.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘I was listening, if you get my meaning. He gave me a hell of a shock when I heard him coming so I reckon I’d’ve heard a car if there’d been one. That gravel at the front makes a hell of a row.’
‘When was this?’
‘Middle of September. Thereabouts.’
‘Okay. Anything else?’
‘Yeah.’ He fingered his shoulder gingerly where Jack’s car door had slammed into it. ‘If you want to know who killed the old biddy then you should talk to the bastard who dislocated my fucking arm last night. I sussed him the minute I saw his face in the light. He was forever sniffing round her, in and out that place like he owned it, but he made damn sure Ruth wasn’t there at the time. I spotted him two or three times up by the church, waiting till the coast was clear. Reckon he’s the one you should be interested in if it’s right what Ruth told me, that the old woman’s wrists were slit with a Stanley knife.’
Charlie eyed him curiously. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘He cleaned one of the gravestones while he was waiting, scraped the dirt out of the words written on it. And not just the once neither. He was really fascinated by that stone.’ He looked smug. ‘Used a Stanley knife to do it, too, didn’t he? I went and read it afterwards . . . “Did I deserve to be despised, By my creator, good and wise? Since you it was who made me be, Then part of you must die with me.” Some bloke called Fitzgibbon who snuffed it in 1833. Thought I’d use it myself when the time came. Kind of hits the nail on the head, wouldn’t you say?’
‘You won’t be given the chance. They censor epitaphs these days. Religion takes itself seriously now the congregations have started to vanish.’ He stood up. ‘A pity, really. Humour never harmed anyone.’
‘You interested in him now then?’
‘I’ve always been interested in him, lad.’ Charlie smiled mournfully. ‘Mrs Gillespie’s death was very artistic.’
Cooper found the Inspector enjoying a late pint over cheese and onion sandwiches at the Dog and Bottle in Learmouth. He lowered himself with a sigh on to the seat beside him. ‘Feet playing you up again?’ asked Charlie sympathetically through a mouthful of bread.
‘I wouldn’t mind so much,’ Cooper grumbled, ‘if my inside had aged at the same rate as my outside. If I felt fifty-six, it probably wouldn’t bug me.’ He rubbed his calves to restore the circulation. ‘I promised the wife we’d take up dancing again when I retired, but at this rate we’ll be doing it with Zimmer frames.’
Charlie grinned. ‘So there’s no truth in the saying: you’re as old as you feel?’
‘None whatsoever. You’re as old as your body tells you you are. I’ll still feel eighteen when I’m a bedridden ninety-year-old and I still won’t be able to play football for England. I only ever wanted to be Stanley Matthews,’ he said wistfully. ‘My dad took me to watch him and Blackpool win the FA cup in 1953 as a sixteenth birthday present. It was pure magic. I’ve never forgotten it.’
‘I wanted to be Tom Kelley,’ said Charlie.
‘Who’s he?’
The Inspector chuckled as he wiped his fingers on a napkin. ‘The photographer who persuaded Marilyn Monroe to pose nude for him. Imagine it. Marilyn Monroe entirely naked and you on the other side of the lens. Now, that really would have been magic.’
‘We’re in the wrong business, Charlie. There’s no charm in what we do.’
‘Mrs Marriott ha
sn’t raised your spirits then?’
‘No.’ He sighed again. ‘I made a promise to her, said we wouldn’t use what she told me unless we had to, but I can’t see at the moment how we can avoid it. If it doesn’t have a bearing on the case, then I’m a monkey’s uncle. First, Joanna Lascelles was not Mrs Gillespie’s only child. She had another one thirteen, fourteen months later by Mrs Marriott’s husband.’ He ran through the background for Charlie’s benefit. ‘Mrs Marriott believed Mrs Gillespie killed the baby when it was born, but on the morning of the sixth, Mrs Gillespie told her it had been a boy and that she’d put it up for adoption when it was born.’
Charlie leaned forward, his eyes bright with curiosity. ‘Does she know what happened to him?’
Cooper shook his head. ‘They were screaming at each other, apparently, and that little tit-bit was tossed out by Mrs Gillespie as she closed the door. Mrs Marriott says Mathilda wanted to hurt her, so it might not even be true.’
‘Okay. Go on.’
‘Second, and this is the real shocker, Mrs Marriott stole some barbiturates from her father’s dispensary which she says Mathilda used to murder Gerald Cavendish.’ He detailed what Jane had told him, shaking his head from time to time whenever he touched on James Gillespie’s part in the tragedy. ‘He’s evil, that one, blackmails everyone as far as I can judge. The wretched woman’s terrified he’s going to broadcast what he knows.’
‘Serves her right,’ said Charlie unsympathetically. ‘What a corrupt lot they all were, and they say it’s only recently the country started going to pot. You say she went to see Mrs Gillespie on the morning of the murder. What else did Mrs Gillespie tell her?’
‘Murder?’ queried Cooper with a touch of irony. ‘Don’t tell me you agree with me at last?’
‘Get on with it, you old rogue,’ said Jones impatiently. ‘I’mon the edge of my seat here.’
‘Mrs Gillespie began by being very cool and composed, told Mrs Marriott that the whole matter was out of her hands and that she wasn’t prepared to pay the sort of money James was demanding from her. As far as she was concerned she didn’t care any more what people said or thought about her. There had never been any doubt that Gerald committed suicide and if Jane wanted to own up to stealing drugs from her father, that was her affair. Mathilda would deny knowing anything about them.’ He opened his notebook. ‘“I’m more sinned against than sinning,” she said and advised Mrs Marriott that, in the matter of the baby, things would get worse before they got better. She went on to say that Mrs Marriott was a fool for keeping her husband in the dark all these years. They had a terrible row during which Mrs Marriott accused Mrs Gillespie of ruining the lives of everyone she had ever had contact with, at which point Mrs Gillespie ordered her out of the house with the words: “James has been reading my private papers and knows where the child is. It’s quite pointless to keep quiet any longer.” She then told Mrs Marriott it was a boy and that she’d put it up for adoption.’ He closed the notebook. ‘My bet is the “private papers” were the diaries and things were going to get worse because Mrs Gillespie had made up her mind to acknowledge her illegitimate child and spike James’s guns.’ He rubbed his jaw wearily. ‘Not that that scenario really makes a great deal more sense than it did before. We’d more or less decided that whoever was reading the diaries was the same person who stole them and murdered the old lady, and I still say James Gillespie wouldn’t have drawn our attention to the diaries if he was the guilty party. The psychology’s all wrong. And what motive did he have for killing her? She was far more valuable alive as a blackmail victim. Let’s face it, it wasn’t just the business of the baby he could hold over her, it was her uncle’s murder as well.’
‘But he probably couldn’t prove that, not so long afterwards, and you’re making too many assumptions,’ said Charlie slowly. ‘“I’m more sinned against than sinning”,’ he echoed. ‘That’s a line from King Lear.’
‘So?’
‘King Lear went mad and took to wandering in the fields near Dover with a crown of weeds on his head because his daughters had deprived him of his kingdom and his authority.’
Cooper groaned. ‘I thought it was Ophelia who had the crown of weeds.’
‘Hers were coronet weeds,’ corrected Jones with idle pedantry. ‘It was Lear who wore the crown.’ He thought of the epitaph on the Fontwell tombstone. ‘By God, Tommy, there’s a lovely symmetry about this case. Jack Blakeney’s been using a Stanley knife to clean inscriptions in Fontwell.’
Cooper scowled at him. ‘How many pints have you had?’
Charlie leaned forward again, his keen eyes scouring Cooper’s face. ‘I studied King Lear at school. It’s a hell of a play. All about the nature of love, the abuse of power, and the ultimate frailties of the human spirit.’
‘Just like Hamlet then,’ said Cooper sourly. ‘Othello, too, if it comes to that.’
‘Of course. They were all tragedies with death the inevitable consequence. King Lear’s mistake was to misinterpret the nature of love. He gave more weight to words than to deeds and partitioned his kingdom between two of his daughters, Goneril and Regan, whom he believed loved him but who, in reality, despised him. He was a tired old man who wanted to relinquish the burdens of state and live the rest of his life in peace and tranquillity. But he was also extremely arrogant and contemptuous of anyone’s opinions but his own. His rash assumption that he knew what love was sowed the seeds of his family’s destruction.’ He grinned. ‘Not bad, eh? Damn nearly verbatim from an essay I wrote in the sixth form. And I loathed the flaming play at the time. It’s taken me thirty years to see its merits.’
‘I came up with King Lear a few days ago,’ remarked Cooper, ‘but I still don’t see a connection. If she’d divided her estate between Mrs Lascelles and Miss Lascelles there’d have been a parallel then.’
‘You’re missing the point, Tommy. King Lear was the most tragic of all Shakespeare’s plays and Mrs Gillespie knew her Shakespeare. Dammit, man, she thought everything he wrote was gospel. There was a third child, don’t forget, who was turned off without a penny.’ He surged to his feet. ‘I want Jack Blakeney in the nick in half an hour. Be a good fellow and bring him in. Tell him your boss wants to talk to him about Mrs Gillespie’s adopted son.’
What neither of them knew was that Jack Blakeney had been arrested at Mill House, half an hour previously, following the Orloffs’ 999 call and Joanna Lascelles’s hysterical assertions that he had not only tried to kill her but had admitted killing her mother.
The Inspector learnt of it as soon as he arrived back from lunch. Cooper was informed by radio and ordered to return post haste. He took time out, however, to sit for five minutes in depressed disillusion in a deserted country lane. His hands were shaking too much to drive with any competence, and he knew, with the awful certainty of defeat, that his time was over. He had lost whatever it was that had made him a good policeman. Oh, he had always known what his superiors said about him, but he had also known they were wrong. His forte had been his ability to make accurate judgements about the people he dealt with, and whatever anyone said to the contrary, he was usually right. But he had never allowed his sympathies for an offender and an offender’s family to stand in the way of an arrest. Nor had he seen any validity in allowing police work to dehumanize him or destroy the tolerance that he, privately, believed was the one thing that set man above the animals.
With a heavy heart, he fired the engine and set off back to Learmouth. He had misjudged both the Blakeneys. Worse, he simply couldn’t begin to follow Charlie Jones’s flights of fancy over King Lear or comprehend the awful symmetry behind inscriptions and Stanley knives. Hadn’t Mr Spede told him that the Stanley knife on the bathroom floor was the one from the kitchen drawer? The crown he thought he understood. Whoever had decked out Mrs Gillespie in nettles had seen the symbolic connection between her and King Lear. How then had Ophelia come to lead them up the garden path? Coronet weeds, he recalled, and Dr Blakeney’s reference to them in the
bathroom.
An intense sadness squeezed about his heart. Poor Tommy Cooper. He was, after all, just an absurd and rather dirty old man, entertaining fantasies about a woman who was young enough to be his daughter.
An hour later, Inspector Jones pulled out the chair opposite Jack and sat down, switching on the tape recorder and registering date, time and who was present. He rubbed his hands in anticipation of a challenge. ‘Well, well, Mr Blakeney, I’ve been looking forward to this.’ He beamed across at Cooper who was sitting with his back to the wall, staring at the floor. ‘The Sergeant’s whetted my appetite with what he’s told me about you, not to mention the reports of your contretemps with the police in Bournemouth and this latest little fracas at Cedar House.’
Jack linked his hands behind his head and smiled wolfishly. ‘Then I hope you won’t be disappointed, Inspector.’
‘I’m sure I won’t.’ He steepled his fingers on the table in front of him. ‘We’ll leave Mrs Lascelles and the Bournemouth incident to one side for the moment because I’m more interested in your relationship with Mrs Gillespie.’ He looked very pleased with himself. ‘I’ve deciphered the floral crown that she was wearing in her bath. Not Ophelia at all, but King Lear. I’ve just been looking it up. Act IV, Scene IV where Cordelia describes him as “Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow weeds, With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flow’rs”. And then Scene VI, a stage direction. “Enter Lear, fantastically dressed with weeds.” Am I right, Mr Blakeney?’
‘It did occur to me that Ophelia was a very unlikely interpretation. I guessed Lear when Sarah described the scene to me.’
‘And Lear certainly makes more sense.’
Jack cocked his irritating eyebrow. ‘Does it?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He rubbed his hands in gleeful anticipation. ‘It goes something like this, I think. Lear had two vile daughters, Goneril and Regan, and one loving daughter, Cordelia. Cordelia he banished because she refused to flatter him with hollow words; Goneril and Regan he rewarded because they were deceitful enough to tell lies in order to get their share of his wealth. For Goneril and Regan, read Joanna and Ruth Lascelles. For Cordelia, read the son Mrs Gillespie put up for adoption, i.e. the one she banished who never received a penny from her.’ He held Jack’s gaze. ‘Now, in the play, Cordelia comes back to rescue her father from the brutality her sisters are inflicting upon him, and I think it happened in real life, too, though purely figuratively speaking of course. Neither Joanna nor Ruth were brutal to Mrs Gillespie, merely desperately disappointing.’ He tapped his forefingers together. ‘Cordelia, the adopted son whom Mathilda had long since given up on, reappears miraculously to remind her that love does still exist for her, that she is not as embittered as she thought she was and that, ultimately, she has produced at least one person who has qualities she could be proud of. How am I doing, Mr Blakeney?’
The Scold's Bridle Page 28
