The Hissing of the Silent Lonely Room (The Christy Kennedy Mysteries Book 5)

by Paul Charles

  ‘I’m afraid it’s too small in here for two,’ Dillon began. ‘I’ll bring the tea and coffee through when it’s ready.’ Then she had a little chuckle to herself as she continued, ‘Oh, and if you’re worried about Esther’s books, they’re over there in that blue bag by the bread bin.’

  So much for safe-keeping, Kennedy thought, as he reached over and took hold of the Regent’s Bookshop carrier bag that was folded around its contents. Kennedy muttered something about looking forward to the tea and returned to the sitting room, journals safely in hand.

  The thing about Nash houses, or at least this particular Nash house, is that although they look very pleasing from outside, on the inside they are divided up into too many small units. The effect created is more of a Southbank Cardboard City than the special elegance Nash had intended for his Regent’s Park masterwork. Judy Dillon had succeeded spectacularly in making the small room appear and feel even tinier by packing every inch of space with books. They were mostly paperbacks and they were crammed rather than packed onto various makeshift shelves. There was just one print on all the walls and that was over the fireplace. It was from a painting of Virginia Woolf in a very dignified Bloomsbury-type pose and it seemed somewhat appropriate in a room filled with books.

  ‘I just love reading,’ the nanny enthused, killing the silence as she burst, subtle as a baby elephant, back into the room.

  ‘Really?’ Kennedy said, gazing once more around the shelves.

  The sarcasm was lost on Judy, who replied, ‘Oh yes. I just love the other worlds they take you to. I’ve spent many a day in here travelling around the world on one adventure or another. I much prefer books to television or movies.’

  Except for a small radio-cassette recorder, Kennedy noted the lack of electrical appliances in the living room. The furnishings consisted of a small wicker coffee table; a floral patterned, coffee-stained sofa; a battered leather armchair with a free-standing reading light nearby; a black bar-stool; a fawn carpet; the Woolf print; the fireplace; and books, books, and then some more books.

  ‘Have you always enjoyed reading?’ Coles enquired, as she added milk, first to Kennedy’s tea and then to her own coffee.

  ‘Yes. My mother used to tell that was all I ever did. From when I was about three years old, she’d read me to sleep every night and I’d follow what she was saying with the pictures. I always wanted her to read just one more story. I don’t know where she got the patience from but she always did. Then, as soon as I learned to read at school I was in heaven. I just adore books. My father left us when I was young and I suppose in a way I was escaping into a fantasy world. My mum and I were very close, she loved books as well, you know, but never as much as me,’ Dillon proclaimed proudly as she looked about her room.

  ‘What sort of books do you like?’ Coles continued.

  ‘Oh, absolutely everything,’ Dillon gushed. ‘Let’s see, I like romance, horror, biography, thrillers, even some crime novels. I suppose my favourite authors would have to be Woolf, the Brontë sisters and Edna O’Brien.’

  ‘Did Esther Bluewood share your passion for books?’ Kennedy enquired. His tea was positively vile, marginally better than dishwater. He returned the blue mug to the table after one swig. It was terrible to be gagging for a good cup of tea and to be so desperate for your first mouthful you take a large swig, so by the time you realise how terrible the liquid is it’s too late and it leaves a foul taste in your mouth for the rest of the day.

  ‘Well, she did in a way. But you know, with the children and her songwriting and all the time spent writing in her journals, she didn’t really have a lot of time for it. She was a big poetry fan though. I’ve never really gotten into that, poetry. But I’ve always supposed it’s a bit like classical music, you’d have to have an ear for it.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ Kennedy replied. ‘Tell me,’ he continued, appearing somewhat absent-minded, ‘did you ever get a chance to read any of her journals?’

  ‘Oh no. She always kept them under lock and key. As I said earlier, that’s why I was surprised they were lying around the kitchen.’ The nanny took a swig of her coffee and helped herself to another Marks & Sparks spicy fruit bun.

  ‘So you’ve no idea what’s in these?’ the detective said, taking the journals from beside him and raising them to eye level.

  ‘Well, you have to believe that they’re going to be at least as confessional as her songs. I mean if she’s prepared to be that honest in public, goodness knows what she’ll admit and commit to paper in private,’ Judy replied, as the remainder of the bun disappeared in a single munch.

  ‘Interesting,’ Kennedy said. ‘Tell me, did she ever discuss her journals with you?’

  ‘No. Never. We didn’t really enjoy that kind of relationship. I mean I’ve nannied before for families where the mother really becomes your best mate and you kinda hang out together. But with Esther it wasn’t that, it was a master-and-servant thing, but it was getting that way.’

  ‘Mistress-and-servant,’ Coles offered.

  ‘Whatever,’ Dillon replied.

  Kennedy could tell she was itching for another bun. He further surmised that within a few minutes of the police’s departure, the remaining three buns would disappear as quickly as you could say ‘Billy Bunter’. He had this flash of her sitting there in her leather armchair, book in one hand, with the other continuously offering various delights to her eager mouth.

  There was a lot more information to be gained from the nanny, Kennedy felt, but perhaps not in her current mood. They’d got what they’d come for, they’d retrieved the precious journals. Questioning could continue at a more appropriate time.

  Chapter 6

  AS KENNEDY and Coles entered North Bridge House, Desk Sergeant Timothy Flynn greeted them with a heart-warming smile. The fifty-eight-year-old Belfast man was weather-beaten to the extent that he had an all-year-round tan, probably a result of his early years on the beat. His brown skin was brilliantly complemented with a full head of snow-white hair. He was, without exception, popular with his colleagues and, whereas Superintendent Thomas Castle might be the captain of the ship, Flynn was most definitely the one who kept order below decks. He accomplished this with a combination of his strictness, fairness and a dry sense of Ulster humour. He was the kind of man who offered respect to all, no matter their rank or sex, as long as they earned and deserved it.

  ‘DS Irvine told me to tell you he’s waiting up in your office, sir, He’s got that Paul Yeats with him. Yeats kicked up a fair bit of dust as he entered the station,’ Flynn advised Kennedy, who’d stopped by the desk.

  ‘Anything physical?’ Kennedy asked as he unbuttoned his coat. He felt embarrassed, here he was feeling the cold and Flynn was dressed in his uniform – black trousers, white shirt, black tie and black boots. The detective suspected Flynn had a two-bar electric fire placed strategically at his feet, hidden from view behind the desk. It was either that or thermal underwear, for every time the door to North Bridge House was opened the wind blowing up Parkway took a detour through the station rather than continuing the scenic route up to Regent’s Park. Kennedy thought that Flynn surely must have been wearing thermals. But he never dressed any different, winter or summer. On the rare occasion he visited an incident, or the scene of a crime, he would complete his uniform with a jacket.

  ‘Nah, just a bit of prancing for the benefit of a member of the local press who was visiting Castle,’ Flynn replied half-distracted, apparently writing something in his book; his normal pose. He looked over his gold-framed glasses at Kennedy and continued, ‘Yes, your…ah…your friend, ann rea in fact.’

  ‘Really?’ Kennedy replied, more than a little intrigued. ‘What was that all about? Anything to do with this case?’

  Coles had stood around for a little of this exchange but, without saying a word, vanished through the swinging doors.

  ‘I don’t know, I doubt it though. She came in, said she had an appointment with Castle, he came down for he
r and showed her out about half an hour later, when Irvine was accompanying Yeats on to the premises. Are you and her, still…ah, you know?’

  Kennedy felt Flynn’s awkwardness. They’d known each other a good eighteen years but could barely be classed as friends. At the same time, however, Kennedy realised Flynn was the kind of man who would genuinely care about people but not feel a need to go blabbing about it all the time. The discreet desk sergeant’s question had just naturally evolved out of the conversation as opposed to sending a line out into the wilds in the hope of hooking some gossip.

  ‘You know what, Timothy, and this is the truth, I just haven’t a clue, I haven’t a clue any more.’

  And at that, Kennedy too melted through the swinging doors, leaving Flynn with a look of bemusement and bewilderment upon his face.

  Chapter 7

  ‘IF ONLY Ferguson could make his team hungry again, United could win everything.’

  Kennedy found Irvine and Yeats involved in an apparently civil conversation as he entered his office.

  ‘No, no, that’s not the problem,’ Yeats said enthusiastically. Glancing over his shoulder at Kennedy, he continued unabated, ‘The problem with English football is all these foreign players and managers. It shouldn’t be allowed. If you are to play at or manage Manchester United, then you should have to be born in the Greater Manchester area. No, for the sake of English football we need to get back to basics. No wonder the English football team is so poor, there are hardly any English players on the park on Saturdays any more. I blame the FA, bunch of tos—’

  By this point Kennedy was behind his desk and seated. Yeats stopped mid-flow. Kennedy couldn’t discern anything from the crazy eyes but he thought Yeats might just have felt guilty talking football when his wife had just been found dead. Either way he visibly changed gear with a shrug of his shoulders and announced unprompted, ‘We all deal with our grief in our own way, you know.’

  ‘Indeed we do, indeed we do,’ Kennedy replied, sighing slightly.

  ‘I never thought she’d actually do it, though, take her life,’ Yeats said, as he dragged his fingers through his hair. The last three words of the sentence were spoken in a near whisper. Kennedy couldn’t figure out if it was said in reverence or staged for effect.

  ‘We’re not entirely sure yet that’s what happened,’ Irvine said.

  ‘Yes, it’ll be a time before we can state quite categorically what occurred,’ Kennedy said, rising from his desk.

  ‘You can take my word for it, inspector, she committed suicide, just like she said she would ages ago.’

  ‘Really?’ Kennedy said, surprised.

  ‘Really!’ Yeats replied as though annoyed anyone would question his authority on the matter. ‘She tried to kill herself before, you know. It was years ago. Before we met. She was still in America and she took an overdose of pills.’

  ‘A cry for help perhaps?’ Irvine offered generously.

  ‘An amateur psychologist as well as a detective,’ Yeats sniggered.

  ‘Tea? Anyone for tea?’ Kennedy offered, hoping to defuse the conversation.

  ‘That would be splendid,’ Yeats replied immediately with a smile. ‘Thanks.’

  Irvine nodded positively and Kennedy began his tea-making ritual by turning on the electric kettle.

  ‘How long ago did you meet?’ he said as he removed three white bone-china cups and saucers from the eye-level cupboard.

  ‘Mmmm, now there’s a question…’ Yeats began expansively. ‘Let’s see now…’

  Irvine discreetly removed a notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket and opened it at a clean page, fountain pen at the ready, waiting for Yeats’ words.

  ‘Esther and I met…’ Yeats began with a quick glance at Irvine’s book, ‘it would have been early nineteen ninety-two. It was a bit of a whirlwind romance, as they say. We met in February and were married in June. We were both with partners at the time we met. But we just clicked, it just happened. You know when it’s right. You don’t know why, but you just know it’s right. We both felt we’d known each other in a previous life, we felt we were destined for each other. She would have been twenty-four, I was thirty-two.’

  Kennedy’s kettle had now boiled and the sounds of it being turned off and the detective pouring boiling water into the awaiting teapot did nothing to distract Yeats from his reminiscences. He was staring at the ceiling of Kennedy’s office, a hint of a smile on his face as he continued, ‘I’d already had three albums out at that stage and was a bit of a veteran of the music business. Esther’s first record, Axis was just about to come out, I believe it was released in March of that year. She’d just moved to England from Boston. She’d suffered a troubled childhood. Her father hadn’t really shown her any love and had died when she was young. On top of which her mother was completely dysfunctional. Esther just wanted to leave it all behind and start a new life. She might have been here for about eighteen months to two years when we met. She’d been writing for a couple of magazines in America – I think she said she’d edited one of them as well – anyway, she was still doing some freelance work for one of them and they asked her to interview me.’

  Kennedy showed Yeats the sugar bowl and milk. Without breaking his narrative, he nodded ‘yes’ and displayed two fingers (polite way around) to the sugar and none to the milk.

  ‘Something happened during the interview, we connected spiritually. We both knew it. It happened. Some people go through their entire life without making that special connection. Some people make the connection but just aren’t aware of it, nor know what to do about it, but as creative people I always thought Esther and I were already receptive to each other on one level. It’s like John and Yoko, I think; that was a spiritual meeting, they were bound for each other.’

  Kennedy saw that particular situation differently. To him Yoko was an opportunist with her claws freshly sharpened, ready, willing and able to grab the gullible Beatle. Lennon was said to have been her second attempt at the songwriting section of the band. But Kennedy felt that this might not be the best time to offer such thoughts, so he kept shtoom and delivered the tea to Irvine who smiled, and to Yeats who continued unabated.

  ‘After the interview we went out to dinner, had a few drinks and spent most of the night walking around Primrose Hill. That’s where I got the idea and inspiration for my song. “Together, Forever on a Hill”. We committed ourselves to each other that night on the hill. We didn’t talk about marriage or anything silly like that, we just committed our souls to each other. We ended up at my place at daybreak.’ Yeats noticed Irvine take a break from his writing and missed a beat before stating, ‘There was nothing smutty or anything like that going on. In fact we didn’t sleep together for about a week.’

  Kennedy knew his DS was probably thinking something like – you showed incredible self-restraint. Neither policemen spoke as the baritone narrator took them on the next part of the journey.

  ‘After a time, on the first morning, Esther found the confidence to pick up one of the guitars and, with a lot of encouragement, she sang me a song. Now I have to admit here and now that I’m a cynic. You know everyone claims to be a singer-songwriter. I’ve been propositioned everywhere with songs. The famous Nashville handshake is worldwide, believe you me. Taxi drivers, waitresses, waiters, window-cleaners, record company employees, people who work for my management. Hell, even my bleeding dentist tried to lay a song on me. I swear to you he was just about to start the drilling and he goes on about this girl he’s found who’s got a great voice and okay songs and great tits – his words not mine – and he goes to his surgery music-centre and takes off the soothing Mozart and puts on this girl’s cassette. Incredible racket it was. I couldn’t tell you what was the most unpleasant – his drilling, her music or his bad breath. There should be a law that dentists, at least, should be forced to have good breath. Anyway, I was prepared to deal with Esther having terrible songs, hell, maybe even okay songs. This is the baggage that goes with being a successful
songwriter and you never hear Elton John bitch about it, do you? He bitched about everything else but not that,’ Yeats offered with a chuckle.

  Kennedy thought it was quite funny but Irvine remained stone-faced. Kennedy could tell Irvine had taken an instant dislike to Yeats, and he felt this might be a little unfair. They were meeting and dealing with someone in a pretty unreal situation. But when Irvine’s hatches came down, no amount of logic or reasoning could pull them back up.

  ‘So she sings me a song. The first song was called “New Way, New Day” and it absolutely floored me. But I’m still acting the tight-ass cynic and I’m thinking, okay, she is in the presence of a successful singer-songwriter so she’s going to give it her best shot to start with, all the rest are bound to be crap. But no, twenty-two songs later, my jaw is still on the floor as she performs “Resurrection” and that song, I can tell you, just did me in totally. Still does every single time I listen to it. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was like I personally had discovered the missing link between Joni Mitchell and Suzanne Vega. Obviously I wasn’t the first on the block because, as I said, all the songs on the first album had been written and recorded and she was just waiting for it to come out.’

  As he spoke, Yeats’ enthusiasm was building. Kennedy had a feeling that Yeats was a fan of his wife in spite of himself. In his self-centred world (perhaps a little harsh, Kennedy thought) he’d have liked to ignore her, but her work was so outstanding that his prejudices were useless. Yeats continued talking, Irvine continued writing.

  ‘You see, Esther’s work succeeds on three levels. Firstly,’ Yeats lectured holding up his index finger, ‘you have the music. To me it’s as brilliantly crafted as any of Paul Simon’s melodies. I get the feeling Paul Simon slaves over his music until it’s perfect. The result, in his case, may be lacking a little soul but they are perfect modern pop songs. Esther has the same gift, but she manages to retain the soul. Next you have the lyrics. As a writer, Esther has a beautiful flow. She has such a command of the English language. It appears effortless, but it’s not. She sweats over her craft. She’s as economical in her lyrics as any of the great poets – Seamus Heaney, for instance. He’s probably the most successful person with words that there is. Then he’s a visionary as well as a wordsmith, something Esther shares, but with an obviously different insight. And finally, you have the combination of the words and music together. It just makes her better work totally irresistible; lethal in fact.’