Death Comes to Durham

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Alan gave me a warning look and took over the conversation. ‘We know that you are as unhappy as we are about the circumstances of Dr Armstrong’s death, and we’ve found a new piece of evidence that may help to uncover the truth of the matter. We hoped you might allow us to ask your staff a few more questions. I believe this is the time of day when most of them have a brief respite from their duties?’

  ‘Mr Nesbitt, we have uncovered the truth of the matter, as you put it. Unhappily, there is no doubt that Miss Bowen is to blame. It isn’t her fault, of course, and she could never stand trial, poor dear, but you must see that we can’t continue to put the lives of our other residents at risk.’

  Alan pulled out his phone. ‘In that case, sir, I have no recourse but to call my solicitor. I have discussed the matter with him, and he agrees that you may be acting in an unreasonably obstructive manner.’

  Gosh. Even I fell back. Alan in full chief-constable mode can be extremely intimidating. The director’s face changed. He held out a hand. ‘I do not agree with you, Mr Nesbitt, but if you wish to waste your time in this fashion, you are free to do so. I ask only that you not waste the time of my staff. They work very hard and are entitled to their rest at this time of day. Good afternoon.’

  He strode off. The receptionist let out her breath in a gust. ‘He doesn’t mean to be rude, you know. This whole thing has upset him enormously. This place is his pride and joy, and he hates the thought of its reputation being damaged. And the worse of it is’ – she looked around and lowered her voice, though there was no one in sight – ‘the worst of it is he doesn’t really believe himself that poor Amanda had anything to do with all this, but he has to do something, and he doesn’t see anything else to do.’

  Alan was still not quite ready to unbend. ‘Perhaps. Now, before we go elsewhere, we should ask you if you recognize this.’

  I pulled the jacket out of my carrier bag. ‘Not this particular one – it’s new – but have you seen anyone wearing a jacket like this recently?’

  She looked it over carefully. ‘Hmm. Wool?’

  ‘Acrylic, I think. It was on sale, but even at sale prices, wool would be more expensive.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Meant for warmish weather, then. For spring, probably. Smart, but not too expensive. No, I can’t say I remember seeing it before.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘There are lots of other people to ask. Are you on duty every day, by the way?’

  ‘No, I’m off on weekends.’

  ‘We’ll need to talk to your replacement, then, but that can wait a bit. For now, can you give us the key codes for the kitchen and the elev— the lift?’

  She chuckled. ‘I do speak some American, you know. Here are the codes, and good luck to you!’

  TWENTY-THREE

  The kitchen door was very near the elevator. We flipped a mental coin and chose to go upstairs first.

  The staff room was crowded when we knocked on the door and looked in. Some of the people didn’t look familiar. Either they hadn’t been there when I visited before, or I simply didn’t remember them. (A growing possibility these days.) But several remembered me.

  ‘Mrs Martin!’ The attractive woman who’d been so pleasant before jumped up with a huge smile on her face. ‘We were just talking about you. Well, talking about Amanda, and hoping you’d been able to clear her name. We can’t bear the thought of her leaving. I know we’re not supposed to have favourites, but …’

  There was a subdued buzz of agreement.

  ‘Thank you – oh, I’ve forgotten your name.’

  ‘Dharani.’

  ‘Lovely name. I should have remembered. I’m sorry to tell you we haven’t yet found out who really did kill Dr Armstrong. This is my husband, incidentally – Alan Nesbitt.’

  Everyone murmured something polite. The men stood to shake his hand. Even after living in England for years, I still haven’t quite got used to that little courtesy. My native countrymen have a few things to learn.

  Miss Manners having been satisfied, Alan and I took the seats we were offered and turned down the cups of tea. Velma (I remembered her, for sure) said in her usual irascible way, ‘If you haven’t come to give us good news, why have you come? I’ll bet it isn’t for the pleasure of our company.’

  ‘Not entirely,’ I said, sweetly as you please, ‘though I did enjoy meeting you all. No, I have something to show you.’ I pulled out the jacket and held it up. ‘Does anyone recognize this?’

  Velma, of course, spotted the tags immediately and pounced. ‘How could we? It’s straight from the shop.’

  ‘This one is, you’re quite right. But we have reason to believe that someone wearing one like this is … well, at least, not an entirely pleasant character.’

  ‘You mean he killed Armstrong.’

  ‘That’s an inference we’re not quite yet ready to make, although you could well be right,’ said Alan smoothly. I watched with interest. If he could charm Velma out of her gleeful malice, he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. ‘You seem to be an observant woman. Take a good look.’

  He handed her the coat. She inspected every seam, every pocket, every button, and finally rendered her verdict. ‘Showy but cheap. Not a jacket for a gentleman. I’m quite sure I’ve never seen one like it before.’ She handed it back to Alan and said no more, but I thought perhaps her movements showed a grudging respect.

  Of course after Velma’s pronouncement no one else would have dared admitting to recognizing the jacket, so we took our leave, with thanks, and went to the elevator, where I trimmed the tags off the jacket before we returned to the main floor and the kitchen.

  Tea was being prepared we saw when we let ourselves in. Cakes had been set out on attractive plates. Bread was being sliced thin and assembled into sandwiches: cucumber, tomato, egg and cress. A large fruitcake had been cut into generous wedges which were also being placed on plates. Trays stood ready with sugar, milk, and thin slices of lemon, along with cups and spoons and fat-bellied china teapots. This time of day might be restful for the caregivers, but not for the caterers. I had no doubt that for many of the elderly residents, tea was the most important and most enjoyable meal of the day. They could doubtless remember the teas of their youth, when it was an important social ritual for people of their class. I had to admit that the sight of all those delightful treats made my insides rumble, despite the huge lunch I’d just finished.

  The woman who had rescued us from the Indian restaurant when David vanished – Kathleen, that was her name – was making dainty tomato sandwiches and carefully trimming off the crusts. She looked up, covered a plateful with a damp tea towel, and came over to us with a smile. ‘Did your friend ever turn up? Mr Tregarth?’

  ‘He did. Quite late, and with an extraordinary tale to tell. Do you have a minute?’

  ‘I’ve nearly finished with these, and then I can sit down with my own cuppa.’ She gestured toward a table in a corner. ‘If you’d like to wait for me?’

  She joined us in only a few minutes, bearing a tray with cups, teapot, and a plate of fruitcake. ‘The cook always makes extra,’ she explained, ‘as it just gets better as it ages.’

  I am immune to fruitcake, a fact my English friends find incomprehensible, so I refused it with thanks, blaming lunch. I was glad of the tea, though.

  ‘Now. You’ve questions for me, I don’t doubt.’

  ‘Only one, actually, but let Alan tell you the story of that night first.’

  He finished by relating our inspection of the outside of George Elliot’s house and the discovery of the button. ‘And then,’ I picked up the story, ‘I came across this jacket on a sale rack in the market, and bought it for a friend of mine, and believe it or not, it has buttons that look identical to the one we found. That makes us think that the man who arranged that dreadful raid on the house might have been wearing a jacket like this. And we think, or anyway I think, that he’s very probably the man who killed Dr Armstrong. It’s a long and complicated chain of reasoning, and I have t
o admit that Alan doesn’t entirely buy it, but the point is we need to know if someone wearing a jacket like this has visited the Milton Home recently.’

  Her face fell. ‘Oh, dear. I don’t think so. I’d remember. It’s quite a nice one, isn’t it? Good colour, well cut. Many of the men who work or visit here are dressed really casually, so it’s unusual to see someone in an attractive sport coat. Oh, I’m really sorry, but I don’t think I can help you.’

  She was near tears. I hastened to reassure her. ‘Oh, don’t worry, dear. There are lots of other people to talk to. If he was here, wearing this, we’ll find someone who saw him. Ask around, will you? Wait, I just got an idea.’

  I gave Alan the jacket and told him to put it on, then took a picture. ‘Give me your phone number.’ She recited it to me; I sent her the picture and waited to make sure she had it. ‘There. Now you can show the others. And it looks like the pace is picking up a bit in here, so I expect you have to get back to work. Hang in there, dear!’

  I have never believed in coincidence. Things happen for a reason. Thus I refuse to call it coincidence that one of the aides, a young, dark-skinned man I’d noticed before, was stepping from the elevator just as we left the kitchen. He looked around quickly and came over to us.

  ‘I didn’t like to say anything before,’ he said quietly. ‘Velma can be … well, you have seen what she’s like.’

  ‘Skin you alive if she’s annoyed, right?’

  He grinned. ‘Something like that. But I had to tell you. I have seen a man wearing that jacket, or I mean one just like it, right here.’

  I gasped. ‘Here? Here in the home?’

  ‘Exactly here.’ He pointed to the floor. ‘He was standing by the kitchen door. This is not a part of the building where visitors come, so I was a bit sharp when I asked if I could help. I thought he had no business here. He was very apologetic, said he was looking for – a room number, I forget what – and he had got lost and thought he needed to go through the door. The kitchen door. I lied and said I was not sure where to find the room he wanted and told him to go back to the reception desk, where they could help him.’

  ‘But that’s exciting!’ I began, but he held up a hand.

  ‘That is not all, Mrs Martin. He pretended he was trying to go into the kitchen, but I am sure he had just come out of the kitchen. The door was just closing behind him.’

  I was ready to jump up and down with glee, but Alan retained his composure. ‘Can you give us a description of this man?’

  Here he hesitated. ‘Young, white. Well-dressed.’ He spread his hands. ‘He looked like anyone.’

  I would have pursued it, but Alan shushed me. ‘Can you tell me when this happened? Day and time, if you remember.’

  Now he was on steady ground again. ‘Yes! I remember very clearly, because of what happened later. It was in the morning, late morning, of the day Mrs Carly was attacked.’

  Alan held out a hand. ‘We thank you very much …’

  He let the sentence trail off, and the man responded with a brilliant smile. ‘My name is Jabulani, but please call me Jabu.’

  ‘Thank you, Jabu!’ I wanted to say much more, but Alan led me away. He managed to restrain my enthusiasm while we asked everyone we came across, but no one we talked to had seen the jacket being worn. That dampened my spirits a little, but only a little. I let loose when we got back to the car. ‘But Alan, this is huge! We have to tell the director!’

  ‘Dorothy, love, calm down. What do we have? One man saw someone wearing a jacket like this. No one else did. We have no proof that there is any connection whatever to any of the other parts of this tangle. And we have no identification of the person.’

  ‘I wanted to press Jabu about that, but you stopped me.’

  ‘Think, love. He is from Africa. He hasn’t been in this country very long, I think. He still speaks the clipped, precise African English. He is surrounded by unfamiliar faces, and he’s had no training in identifying people, as I have, for example. It’s asking a lot to expect him to come up with a clear description of someone he saw for a minute or two, at most.’

  ‘Oh.’ I thought about that. ‘But all the same, we need to tell Williams.’

  Alan started the car. ‘Not yet. Not until we have some proof. We need a strong case to set before him, and as yet we have no case at all.’

  I fumed all the way back to the city. The fact that Alan was right, and I knew it, didn’t help at all. I wanted action!

  We decided to stop at David’s before going to a car park near the castle. Alan had me call to get the address and find out if anyone was home. Tim was; David was not. Satnav got us there easily, though finding a place to park was another question. Alan finally dropped me at the door and went a little farther afield. I was beginning to see another reason why walking was very popular in this city.

  Tim was still riding his riches-induced high. He offered me a choice of coffee, tea, or a nice glass of wine. I was about to decline with thanks, when I saw how pleased he was to be able to play host, and accepted coffee that I didn’t want. ‘Only, where’s the loo? I had a lot of tea just now.’

  ‘I just called Eileen,’ Tim said when I came back to the front room. ‘She wants to hear the latest; she’s coming over straightaway.’

  ‘I’ll wait to tell you anything, then. Anyway, Alan will probably be a while. The parking situation in this town is incredible!’

  Tim grinned. ‘Oh, but you should see it in term time! Just one more reason to ride a bike. Poverty has its points, you know.’ He poured my coffee and offered milk and sugar.

  ‘You’re a fraud, Timothy Hayes! Now you have this great gift from your sister, you’re not poor anymore. Just hard up. There’s a difference. And any man who makes coffee this wonderful can get a job as barista any time.’

  ‘Which would be lovely, except I want a job as a priest.’ He raised his coffee cup in a salute.

  ‘Doesn’t pay as well.’

  ‘Oh, stipends are not bad nowadays. And oh, the perks! Free bread and wine, free housing …’

  ‘In a draughty old vicarage with seventeen rooms and a leaky roof, all to be maintained on a salary that wouldn’t keep the vicarage cat alive, if it weren’t for the bounty of the church mice. Oh, yes, a cushy job indeed! Have you given any thought to where you might like to … er, is “practice” the word?’

  ‘That’s for doctors. Priests serve. At least, I hope to.’ He was serious now. ‘Your ideas about parsons’ living conditions are a bit out of date, you know. There are a lot of perfectly decent livings available. The thing is, though – well, I don’t know if I’ll be of any use to anybody, but I’d like to work in a poor parish somewhere, a place where I might really be able to help.’

  ‘And what does Eileen think about that? Is she willing to scrimp and starve in a good cause?’

  ‘She would be,’ said the lady in question, who had just walked in the door, ‘except I’ll probably be earning enough to keep us in modest comfort, if not luxury. Tim, I haven’t had a chance to tell you. The Hayes-Walsh star is definitely in the ascendant. I got that internship at Kew!’

  ‘Oh, how lovely for you!’ I cheered. ‘Kew is one of my favourite places.’ The Royal Botanic Gardens, just a few miles from central London, are glorious, even though badly damaged by a terrible storm some years ago. Rare two-hundred-year-old trees were uprooted, among other disasters, but the English, who think in centuries rather than years or decades, calmly replanted them, reasoning that in another two hundred years they’d be as good as before. ‘When do you start, Eileen? What will you be doing? All the details, please!’

  We were still hearing all about it when Alan came in, rather hot and tired. ‘Oh, you poor dear. Did you have to park miles away?’

  ‘Bottom of a hill. A long hill.’ He dropped into an armchair.

  ‘Ah, then I expect you’d rather have a beer,’ said Tim. ‘There’s a nice lager just waiting for you.’

  Lager is the only beer that is routinely ser
ved chilled in England, and I find it far more refreshing than ale on a hot day. Tim saw the look on my face, winked, and silently traded my coffee cup for a lovely cold glass.

  ‘All right now,’ said Tim when he had met everyone’s needs. ‘Eileen and I are dying by inches. Tell us the news.’

  I opened my mouth, but Alan forestalled me. ‘Let me give them the basics first, love. Then you can embroider.’

  ‘Ha!’ I devoted myself to my beer.

  ‘We’ve learned that a man wearing a jacket like this one was seen at the Milton Home very close to the time that the woman was attacked.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Eileen. ‘This is the woman who wasn’t badly hurt? But the management blamed her attack on poor Amanda?’

  ‘Yes.’ He waited, but she gestured for him to go on. ‘Further, it appears probable that he entered the building through the kitchen, which would suggest that he didn’t want to pass the receptionist and sign in. He was seen next to the kitchen door.’

  ‘And where else? Near the woman’s room?’

  ‘Nowhere else. That in turn might suggest that he took great care not to be seen.’

  ‘No one else in the kitchen saw him?’

  ‘Not that we know of. It was shortly before lunchtime, when the staff would have been very busy. It’s quite possible that someone could enter then, pretending to be making a delivery, and could pass unnoticed through the busy workspace.’

  ‘In a sport jacket?’ Tim sounded sceptical.

  Alan shrugged. ‘I don’t know what their suppliers usually wear.’

  I’d had enough. ‘All right, I’ve let you have the cautious policeman’s version. He won’t let me tell that director the story, because he says there’s no proof of anything. I admit he’s right, technically, but putting together all the bits and pieces, I think we have plenty to create a reasonable doubt about Amanda’s involvement, and I think we ought to tell him the whole thing.’

  ‘What whole thing? What have I missed?’ David walked in looking exhausted, and certainly not ready to find a party going on in his house.