Death Comes to Durham

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘No, just gloating. For once I’ve remembered something you forgot. We had two leads to follow up a little while back. George Elliot and …’ I paused invitingly.

  Alan smacked the table. ‘And Colin Grimsby. And you tried to phone him Sunday night and got no answer. Do you think he was on his way to George’s house?’

  ‘I think,’ interposed David, ‘that the police need to know about this immediately. George could disappear again, and we badly need his testimony. There are too many questions. Why did Nathan turn up at his door? Did George ask him there? If so, why? And what exactly happened?’

  I sighed. ‘I wanted to ask all those questions, but George threw me out. Almost literally.’ Alan scowled. ‘No, my dear, he never laid a hand on me, but he was working up a temper. When he roared at me to get out, I stood not upon the order of my going.’

  ‘Someone should teach him manners,’ muttered Alan.

  ‘I can’t imagine who might do that. His mother would certainly not be qualified.’

  David, meanwhile, had taken out his phone and retired to a quiet corner. We heard murmurs, but could distinguish no words. When he came back to us, though, his expression was not joyful.

  ‘The bureaucracy strikes again,’ he moaned, sitting down heavily. ‘Durham can’t act in Hartlepool without permission from the local authority. Which, as I said before—’

  ‘Is too busy and understaffed to pay much attention,’ Alan finished.

  Silence. ‘Are the Durham people going to look for Colin Grimsby, anyway?’ I asked, finally.

  ‘They are. But without George Elliot’s evidence they can’t charge him with anything. He can simply deny it all.’

  ‘And my statement is worth nothing,’ I said bitterly. ‘Hearsay,’ I added before they could get the word out. ‘There are times when I long for the good old days of frontier justice.’

  ‘You wouldn’t like it really, you know,’ said Alan. ‘And even in your country, those days are long gone. The Wild West is paved over with freeways and parking lots, and the OK Corral is a Disneyfied tourist trap.’

  ‘All right. I take your point. And in fact I’m not in favour of settling matters with a gun. But it would be nice if the lawfully appointed police could deal with malefactors without such a lot of pettifogging rules!’

  ‘But we can’t,’ said David. ‘Even before I retired, I longed sometimes to bend the rules.’

  ‘Yes.’ Alan nodded. ‘One did yearn to expedite matters. I never did, but the temptation was often strong. The worst times were when I and my whole force knew quite well who the guilty party was, and could do nothing about it because we hadn’t a case strong enough to stand up in court.’

  We looked at each other and stood in unison. ‘David,’ said Alan, ‘perhaps you’d be willing to wait here, in case the chap returns, while Dorothy and I sweep the town.’

  If you want a thing done right, do it yourself. I didn’t say it aloud. I didn’t have to. We were all of one mind.

  It was quite dark by now, and I realized I was hungry. That interrupted meal of takeout we’d had back in Durham seemed a very long time ago. Adrenaline had kept me going until now, but searching a dark and pretty well deserted city at night provides limited excitement. Alan seemed of the same mind. ‘The man said he was going out for a meal. Shall we take him at his word and explore some restaurants?’

  ‘Given his tastes, I’d think pubs would be more likely.’

  ‘You’re probably right. Let’s pop into the first one we find, the first respectable one, that is, and see if we can get some grub.’

  ‘Thus killing two birds with one stone.’

  ‘Or at least,’ said Alan with a grin, ‘doing a bit of hunting. In the American sense.’

  ‘And hoping it’s not for wild geese.’

  ‘Enough, woman. Let’s find that pub.’

  That part wasn’t hard. We didn’t even have to get the car; the pub was a few steps from the hotel. It was clean and attractive, and had only a few customers. Plainly this part of town went home as soon as office hours were over. We chatted a bit with the barmaid, bought two ham rolls, and sipped a little of the half-pints we felt obliged to order. We didn’t linger. George wasn’t there, and apparently hadn’t been there.

  ‘You know,’ I commented as we went to the car, looking over a pub or two on the way, ‘if we have to drink something everywhere we go, we’re both going to be in trouble. You won’t be safe to drive, and I won’t dare get ten feet away from the loo.’

  ‘Cheer up. Maybe we’ll find him in the next one.’

  But we didn’t. Skipping a few unsavoury dives, there weren’t all that many pubs near the hotel. The two cafés we saw were closed. Daytime only spots, evidently.

  Then there were the actual restaurants. Only two of those were open, except for the takeaway places. If George had opted for Thai, Indian, Chinese, or pizza, we were out of luck. It had been, by that time, over an hour since George left the hotel. He’d have had plenty of time to buy a meal, take it somewhere, eat, and vanish again. And neither the Italian nor the French restaurant had seen anyone who matched our careful description.

  ‘One last possibility,’ said Alan, weary and still hungry, despite the ham roll. ‘There’s bound to be food of one sort or another at the railway station.’

  ‘Do you know where it is?’

  ‘That question, my dear, has become in this day and age more or less irrelevant.’ He held up his phone, gave it a command, and started following its directions.

  The last train of the evening had just left the station, and the small refreshment bar was closing. One look at the offerings told us it wasn’t George’s sort of place.

  We were heading back to the car when Alan’s phone rang. It was David; Alan turned on the speaker.

  ‘You haven’t found him?’

  ‘No. I would have called you. He hasn’t come back?’

  ‘That’s why I called. He isn’t coming back. He called to check out a few minutes ago. When a maid came up to clean the room, I left the alcove where I was lurking. I told her I needed to talk to him and asked her when she expected him back, and she told me.’

  I stifled the exclamation that came to mind. ‘Then your vigil, and our search – all a waste of time.’

  ‘We’ll be there in five minutes to pick you up,’ said Alan, and hung up.

  I made an exasperated noise. ‘Of all the … is that man so stupid that he can’t see his only safety lies in telling the police everything?’

  ‘That’s possible.’ We got in the car. Alan turned it toward the hotel. ‘You might be surprised how many people are exactly that stupid. The other possibility is that he has his own reasons not to go to the police.’

  ‘You mean he’s a villain, too? How could that fit into the pattern?’

  ‘I have no idea. I merely mention it as a possibility. His efforts to vanish seem a bit extreme for the excuses he’s given.’

  I thought about that. ‘Actually,’ I said slowly, ‘he’s said very little by way of excuse, except to say that he thought the man was dangerous and might retaliate in some unspecified way if he, George, talked to the police.’

  ‘Hmm. Not “He said he would kill me” or anything of that sort?’

  ‘No. In fact, I believe I was the one who mentioned that his vandal might be his brother’s murderer. I suppose I shouldn’t have said that, but it seemed at the time to be the only way to pry out a name.’

  ‘It might have been better not to say that, but you did what you thought you had to do. There’s never any point to second-guessing, love. Ah, there’s David, waiting for us.’

  He was not happy. ‘Fool that I am, I should have told them at the registration desk to delay him if he tried to leave.’

  ‘But you haven’t the authority to do that anymore,’ Alan reminded him. ‘The first matter of importance is: have you had anything to eat?’

  He held up a package that had contained a thin cheese-and-chutney sandwich. Half of it was left
. ‘If you don’t mind?’

  ‘Finish it. I wish we could all go somewhere for a proper meal, but everything seems to be closed.’

  ‘Never mind. My house is not much more than a half-hour away, and I’ve plenty of food there. Alan, what’s the plan now?’

  ‘First, we strongly suggest to Durham that they put out an all-points call for George Elliot. They won’t be stepping on Hartlepool toes now that the chap has done us a favour by leaving there.’

  ‘Do we know that?’ I interrupted.

  ‘It’s a safe assumption, and for the purposes of the argument we’ll state it as fact. David, if you’ll make that call, you might also check on any progress they’ve made in finding the unpleasant Mr Grimsby.’

  The highway traffic was light and moving smoothly, so we were nearly halfway home when David ended his call. ‘They’re on the lookout for George. He drives a white Tesla, by the way.’

  Alan whistled. ‘Not a poor man, then.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But he left that behind in Bishop Auckland.’

  ‘He doubled back and got it, apparently. Or sent someone for it.’

  ‘His mother, maybe.’

  ‘Perhaps. One can see why he’d be reluctant to leave it behind. As you say, Alan, it’s an expensive vehicle. And it’s only a few months old. Dorothy, I’ll read you the registration number if you want to write it down. I doubt we’ll see it, but one never knows.’

  ‘If I were George, Durham would be the last place I’d want to go. Or no, the second-to-last. Home is certainly the first place he’ll want to avoid.’ I wrote down the number he read off.

  ‘And Mummy’s house in Birmingham, of course. That leaves a good bit of territory where he can hide out.’

  ‘But how far can he go in an electric car?’ I asked. ‘Don’t they need recharging every couple of hours?’

  ‘Not as often as you’d think, not the new ones,’ replied David. ‘Turn right at this next intersection, Alan. It’ll avoid traffic and get us there sooner. I’ve been reading up on this new Tesla, Dorothy. On a full charge it has a range of over three hundred miles.’

  ‘Oh, that’s not very far.’

  Alan laughed. ‘Every now and then you forget you’re not in America with its vast distances, my love. The United Kingdom stretches only a little over six hundred miles, as the crow flies, from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Farther over the roads, of course. We’re a bit north and east of the middle of the country here, so his possibilities are almost endless. He probably couldn’t get quite to Penzance, but three hundred miles would take him to Scotland, to Wales, to London, to most port cities, to any airport.’

  ‘Oh.’ I sat back, deflated. ‘Well, maybe the Tesla doesn’t have a full charge. Maybe it’ll run out of juice and he’ll have to sit someplace waiting for the AA. A delightful thought!’

  We sped on through the night, looking closely at every car we saw, but none was a white Tesla.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Eileen had gone home by the time we got back to David’s house, but Tim had waited up for us. ‘I’ll heat the curries and all if you want, or make you an omelette, or whatever you like.’

  ‘Tim, if I weren’t already married, I’d try to wrest you away from Eileen. I don’t know about the others, but an omelette sounds perfect for me.’

  David fetched a bottle of a nice white wine from the fridge, and we sat enjoying our late supper in a weary haze. When Tim had offered ice cream, and we had refused, he sat down with us. ‘I don’t want to keep you. You all look tired and I’m sure you’re longing for your beds. But was the trip worth the effort?’

  We told him all we’d learned. ‘So we’re still searching, but at least now we know who we’re searching for.’ I shot a glance at Alan, but he forbore, this time, to criticize my grammar. ‘We’re still not quite sure why George Elliot is behaving so strangely. Alan thinks maybe it’s more than just fear of Colin, that maybe he, George, has something he doesn’t want the police to know about. And Colin – well, we can’t prove Colin is a murderer. Yet.’

  ‘At least Amanda is safe. That’s the main thing.’ Alan yawned hugely, and apologized.

  ‘Go home,’ said David. ‘Shall I drive you, so you won’t have to worry about finding a spot to park?’

  ‘Do you reckon your car will be available tomorrow?’

  ‘It’s at your disposal, now I’m not chasing wild geese, or wild caregivers.’

  ‘Then, yes, we’ll take you up on the offer.’ Alan yawned again. ‘Sorry. And tomorrow I’ll call Enterprise and turn the thing in.’

  We said goodnight to Tim. David brought his car around and we were asleep almost before we reached our room in the castle.

  Find George. Talk to Colin. Those were the two thoughts that popped into my head the moment I woke on Thursday morning.

  I was, for once, wide awake, even though the day was not the sort that prompts one to spring out of bed carolling happily. The sky was heavily overcast, and it was cold enough in our room that the central heating had kicked in.

  ‘I used to think Indiana had widely variable weather,’ I remarked to Alan when I got out of the shower.

  ‘“If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute”,’ Alan quoted. ‘Wasn’t it an American who said that?’

  ‘Sounds like Mark Twain. But it could certainly have been an Englishman. Anyway, I’m grateful this morning for the central heating, though it’s all wrong in a twelfth-century castle.’

  At breakfast in the Great Hall (where they’d turned on the chandeliers against the lowering darkness), we made plans.

  ‘I’m going to walk over to St Jude’s,’ I said, ‘and see what I can find out about Colin Grimsby.’

  ‘They won’t tell you much,’ said Alan, finishing a bite of sausage. ‘Privacy rules, you know.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to talk to anyone official. I’ll bet the students will tell me plenty. I’ll have to call Eileen first, to get the names of the students I talked to before. I only remember their first names. Meanwhile, what are you going to do?’

  ‘As soon as David and I fetch my car and I’ve returned it, he and I will plot out our next step. There’s not a lot we can do, actually. Drat it! It’s frustrating to have no official status!’

  ‘Yes, dear. I know.’

  He grinned. ‘You do, don’t you? But you have that disarming air of innocence in your favour. I can never hope to look anything but official.’

  ‘That “air” didn’t disarm Mrs Elliot, or not for long. It didn’t work for George at all; I had to pull out the dragon-schoolteacher to get anywhere with him.’

  Alan finished his coffee. ‘Let’s hope one persona or the other works its magic on the students at St Jude’s. Don’t go too early, dear. Remember they’re still on holiday and probably went out partying last night, while they still can.’

  David called just then to say he was ready to fetch Alan any time he wanted. He offered to drive me to St Jude’s, but I declined. ‘It’s kind of you, but it’s too early for students, and there’d be a bit of a way to walk, anyway. Unless it absolutely starts to pour, I’ll be fine.’

  I dilly-dallied over a second cup of coffee after Alan had left, wondering how to approach the students at St Jude’s – or just ‘Jude’s’, as I’d noticed it was called locally. Seemed a bit disrespectful to me. After all, a saint deserved … I pulled myself together and went up to my room to make a list of questions.

  Where does Colin live? What is his course of study? Where is he from? Who are his friends?

  I didn’t plan to pose the questions baldly, but if I could get a student talking, or better yet a group of students, I could surely nudge the conversation in those directions.

  At that point in my cogitations Tim called.

  ‘Hi, Dorothy. David tells me you’re planning to talk to some of the students at Jude’s. If you think I might be useful, I’ll come along. I know some of them slightly.’

  ‘And people find it easy to talk to you! Th
at would be an enormous help, Tim. What time, would you say?’

  We settled on early afternoon, leaving me with several hours to try to organize our departure on Saturday. It’s amazing how much stuff one can accumulate on even a brief holiday. Not that this had exactly been a holiday. Amongst the souvenir leaflets and the knick-knacks picked up for reasons I could no longer remember were schedules of services at the cathedral, phone numbers on bits of paper (with no names attached – a truly stupid habit of mine) and an address in Bishop Auckland that I presumed was George’s. Into the bin!

  Alan called to say he was off with David to the police station to check on their progress. And, I guessed, prod them fairly stiffly! Would I be all right left to my own devices for a bit? ‘Tim and I are going to St Jude’s later. Meanwhile, I’m trying to tidy up this place. I’ll see you when I see you.’

  I hung up wondering what I ever did without a mobile phone and went back to my depressing job.

  Alan came back bearing sandwiches but no real news, and shortly after that I dragged myself off to St Jude’s, with little enthusiasm for my chore. I could sympathize more than ever with Alan’s biggest frustration in his days as a policeman. We knew, or at least I was sure we knew, who was responsible for all the recent mayhem, but I could see no way to prove it even when we found the guy.

  There was an unusual amount of vehicular traffic in Bailey Street, where St Jude’s is located, and when I neared the college I saw two police cars standing outside, blue lights flashing. What on earth?

  A sturdy uniformed police officer stood at the foot of the steps up to the front door. ‘Sorry, ma’am. No one is allowed inside.’

  ‘But – but I’m meeting someone here. What’s happened?’

  ‘There’s been a spot of trouble. Move along, please.’

  My phone rang. Shaken, I moved away from the policeman and answered.

  It was Tim. ‘Dorothy! Where are you?’

  ‘Just outside St Jude’s. There are police all over the place and they won’t let me in. Where are you?’

  ‘Inside. I couldn’t call earlier; it’s a huge mess.’