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

by Paul Charles

  The pine chair, which matched the desk, was draped with Jones’ trademark black suit jacket; all four buttons present and neatly lined up and down one side of the chair. Kennedy was happy to see the jacket. Although it was very cold outside, the chamber was quite warm, thanks to several free-standing radiators. Kennedy took a note to check if they were the same as those used by the Jazz Café. Jones couldn’t be too far away, unless he’d heard them coming and scampered out via the railway track exit. Kennedy thought not, they’d surely have spotted him attempting such an escape.

  In another of the alcoves, the one in the far right-hand corner, was a makeshift bed. It was made up of a double mattress placed over two single camp beds, with two bottle-green sleeping bags lying on top of the blue and (once) white striped mattress.

  In this sleeping area there was an armless chair and a couple of boxes. Kennedy checked the boxes. They had both originally contained Bushmills Whiskey, but from what Kennedy could gather, they were now the home for several different bottles; champagne, red and white wine, some empty, some still sealed. Both cases had felt-tipped on their sides ‘Jazz Café, NW1’. Obviously Jones had been entertaining at the expense of his employers.

  Kennedy tried to figure out what the exact reason was for this place. Why had Josef Jones set up camp here? It could have been for any number of overtly devious reasons. He’d tried to bring Amanza here when she felt he was feeling amorous, so he obviously wasn’t scared of letting his friends know the place existed. Perhaps he’d planned to bring her back for ‘unsanctioned relations’. That was how Kennedy remembered the Portrush clergy describing it in the days of his youth, anyway. Whatever…bring her back here for a bit of the other and murder her as well. Perhaps Jones’ plan had been not to let her live to tell the tale of his secret hiding place. Why had he then? Had she kicked up so much of a fuss at the gate he couldn’t risk attracting other people’s attention?

  Then again, would he really have risked bringing someone down here, down into this chamber, and risked them seeing all the Esther Bluewood paraphernalia, and then let them live to tell the tale? Kennedy thought not. Amanza’s aversion to mice and rats, not to mention her aversion to Jones, had probably saved her life.

  Kennedy’s mind immediately moved on to Jones’ other potential victims. Had he killed anyone down here, behind the doors of his chamber? There were no obvious deadly implements in view. He couldn’t smell anything in the air other than the mixture of disinfectant and the sickly air refresher.

  As Kennedy moved around the chamber as quietly as we possible, he figured the floor plan was like a noughts and crosses skeleton. The central position was the living room. Top right was the bedroom. Bottom right was the study. Centre left was the doorway. Bottom left was a store area, where cardboard boxes, stacks of newspapers, CDs, bottles, and Marks & Spencer plastic shopping bags containing rubbish were scattered around. The secrets of the top left-hand unit were hidden behind hardboard walls, solid walls with no visible doors.

  Jones had clearly decided to give himself breathing space by having all of his units adjoining a free space. Or perhaps these units were for future further developments? What was it with boys and their secret hiding places, Kennedy wondered. He’d been as guilty as the next in his childhood. He and his mates would always be off exploring secret caves, building huts among the sand dunes or even commandeering local farmers’ disused corrugated sheds. But at certain times of the year, the gang would return to the secret place only to find their stash, magazines – Tit Bits was a risqué as it got in those days – spare clothes, tins of baked beans (always popular), bows and arrows, lances, and so forth smouldering in a fire outside the freshly cleared shed, which by then would be housing hay or something equally seasonal.

  Irvine and Kennedy met up at the section walled in by plasterboard. They scanned the entire wall with their hands, trying to find an entrance. None was visible to the eye, but Kennedy gently pushed at each section, hoping he might activate a spring lock. None obliged.

  He moved on to the floor on all fours. There was perhaps a quarter of an inch gap at the bottom, but Kennedy could neither see nor hear anything. He checked the plasterboard once more. He was convinced one of the sections would spring open and they would find Josef Jones sitting within, grinning like a Glamorganshire cat. He put his ear to the smooth walls – he was sure he could hear sounds on the inside, but he couldn’t be convinced that he wasn’t hearing the sounds of water in the distance. Every time he thought he was managing to get a focus on a sound a train would swoosh past causing a major racket and displacing the air in each and every corner of the chamber. Hence, Kennedy thought, the reason the air in the chamber was so fresh.

  Kennedy had an idea.

  He signalled for Coles and Irvine to join him near the external door, appearing to be making as much of a racket as possible as he walked. He winked at them and said loudly, ‘Okay, we’ve obviously missed him!’ Kennedy winked again. ‘Let’s head back to the Jazz Café and see if we can pick up his trail again. DS Irvine, radio in to North Bridge House and have them send a couple of people to Jones’ flat. He’s bound to turn up there sooner or later.’

  Kennedy then ushered his two colleagues out of the chamber and made a big deal out of closing the door behind them, while he remained silently inside the chamber. He tiptoed over to the central living area where he quietly lowered himself into the chair that directly faced the plasterboard walls. His plan was to wait and catch Mr Jones returning through his secret door. He was annoyed with himself for not thinking of such a good tactic before.

  Forty minutes later, he wasn’t sure it had been such a good plan.

  He checked his watch, deciding to give it another ten minutes. Josef was doing a neat impression of his namesake, ‘No Show Jones’.

  Nine minutes after he’d positively decided to leave, Kennedy heard a creaking sound, but just then another train rushed past and he couldn’t be sure what he’d heard, or if he’d heard anything at all. But no, there it was again; a creaking. A smaller creak than the door creak, but a creak nonetheless. He tried to eye every single section of plasterboard on the two walls simultaneously to see which of them was going to give way first.

  There was more creaking, but still no sign of any movement in the walls. The creaking continued. Just a little at a time, but each appearing to be closer to Kennedy than the walls. He figured it must be a natural echo in the chamber.

  Then the strangest thing happened.

  The cups and milk carton on the top of the chest coffee table started to levitate. This was just too spooky for Kennedy. Were his eyes deceiving him? He could have sworn the cups and saucers, the plates of biscuits and the milk carton were rising. They were all moving upwards, albeit at an angle, but heavenwards nonetheless. Kennedy shook his head violently. He’d been sitting in the chair for close to an hour. Perhaps he’d started to drift off.

  Then the penny dropped. Mr Josef Jones had been hiding in the chest. He’d fixed all the bits and pieces to the top of the wooden chest-cum-coffee table, just like at a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, so that no one, such as the members of Camden Town CID for instance, would suspect anyone would be hiding within.

  Fortunately for Kennedy, the lid was rising toward him, so Jones was blindsided. Kennedy sat contentedly in his chair, the smile on his face growing in direct proportion to how far the lid was opening. The lid was now raised to its full height and Jones’ silhouette began to appear over the edge. He was looking away from Kennedy, in the direction of the door.

  ‘Ah, Mr Jones, I presume?’ Kennedy asked loudly, as much for the benefit of Coles and Irvine patiently waiting out in the corridor. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’

  Jones made a wild dash for the door only to be greeted, and apprehended, by Coles and Irvine.

  ‘You shouldn’t be so hasty, Josef,’ Kennedy said, rather pleased with himself. ‘You nearly forgot your classic four-button jacket. You’ll catch your death of cold out there without it!’

>   Chapter 39

  BACK IN North Bridge House, Kennedy wasn’t quite so pleased with himself. Yes, he had his prime suspect ready for questioning in the interview room, but the majority of the detective’s evidence was circumstantial.

  Take for instance, the nanny, Judy Dillon. Any forensic evidence they had against Jones was useless the second he’d admitted he’d had sex with her. It was up to Kennedy to prove that he’d done more. Even the motive, the supposed motive, was as flimsy as a Mills and Boon plot. Jones had supposedly murdered the nanny because she didn’t have Esther Bluewood’s journal. This would have been more believable if he’d killed her because she had the journal (and not just a photocopy) and if the journal had been found on Jones’ person.

  And then there was Esther Bluewood’s murder. Jones had gone out of his way to show that Esther was capable of suicide. This was a matter of public record; she’d even confessed openly on several tracks on Axis. Then he’d supposedly murdered her by gassing her and making it appear a suicide.

  Kennedy supposed if it hadn’t been for Dr Watson, ann rea, Esther’s mother and his own niggling doubts – activated by the sight of the two distressed children standing hand in hand in their pyjamas – he too would have accepted Esther Bluewood’s death as suicide. Kennedy knew, especially after reading the journal, that Esther Bluewood would never have risked the possibility of her children finding her dead body on the kitchen floor.

  Kennedy felt that he was taking on board all of these thoughts and images in much the same way a Roman gladiator would put on his armour to protect him during the battle ahead.

  Kennedy had plenty of arrows to shoot, but it was going to be up to Jones himself to show one of the arrows its target. The detective could not delay any longer. He walked into the interview room.

  DC Lundy was already in position by the door, keeping an eye on Josef Jones. Also present was Jones’ solicitor, Harry Thomas. Thomas was unshaven and wore a grubby white shirt, opened untidily at the collar, no tie, a pair of denim jeans and blue Timberland deck shoes with no socks. His hair was brown and dishevelled and he had a faraway look in his eyes. If a stranger had walked into the room with Kennedy and viewed the two characters sharing the accused’s side of the table, then he might have been forgiven for confusing the accused with his legal representative.

  Looks are often deceptive, but Mr Harry Thomas would not have fooled DI Kennedy for a second. Kennedy knew that Jones had picked his brief very carefully, for there was no one better read on criminal law in Camden Town than Harry Thomas. Few in the legal profession were as shrewd as the scruffy solicitor. He was so committed to his profession that everything else – clothes, looks, personal relationships, socialising and feeding habits – all took second place.

  Kennedy immediately removed his dark blue jacket and carefully placed it on the back of the chair directly across from the solicitor, diagonal to the suspect. Irvine, fully togged in his tweeds and brogues, sat beside his superior and directly opposite Josef Jones.

  ‘Okay,’ Kennedy began, clearing his throat, ‘let’s get started, shall we? This shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘I’d prefer,’ Harry Thomas said, his accent broad Glaswegian, ‘that we put this on record.’

  Without further ado, Kennedy hit the record button, announced the date and time and identified those present. He had Irvine read Josef Jones his rights and the show was ready to hit the road.

  Kennedy sat opposite the solicitor for good reason; he wanted it to appear to Jones that this was all a formality. That in a way, Jones wasn’t so much the suspect as the guilty party and, as such, had little or no role to play in the proceedings.

  Jones, on the other hand, wasn’t one of those detainees who smirked and gave off an air of ‘you’ll never make it stick’. Nor did her appear either scared or guilty. You could almost imagine him putting up his hands and saying, ‘okay, hit me with the best you’ve got’.

  ‘So, Josef,’ Kennedy began, stretching out as much as his chair would allow. He swung his hands up towards his head, used one to comb his fingers through his hair, and then clasped both behind his head. ‘Let’s have a chat about Sunday evening, shall we?’

  No response.

  ‘You went over to Esther Bluewood’s…’

  ‘I was in my flat.’ The evil shrill with which he delivered his reply seemed to shock even his solicitor.

  ‘You told us you were in your flat waiting for Esther, but we both know you were over at her place,’ Kennedy continued unabated.

  ‘Actually, for the record, detective inspector, my client has stated that on Sunday evening he was in his own flat. Now, let’s move on,’ Harry Thomas announced, more for the benefit of the tape than for those present.

  ‘Okay, let me rephrase my observation. Let’s say we can prove that on Sunday evening Josef Jones was in Miss Esther Bluewood’s maisonette and not in his own flat as he stated.’

  This announcement certainly captured the attention of both suspect and solicitor.

  ‘And how, may I ask, can you possibly do that? I was in my flat, as I told you, waiting for her. When she didn’t appear, I rang the Jazz Café to see if I could catch a shift so that the night wouldn’t be a total waste of time. It so happens there was a shift going and I took it. I was working in the Jazz Café at the time Esther Bluewood committed suicide, inspector. Everyone else seems to accept that. Why don’t you?’

  ‘It’s not for us to speculate here and now about how Miss Bluewood died, Mr Jones,’ Thomas cautioned his client.

  Jones seemed totally taken aback by his own solicitor’s reproach. Kennedy felt it was less a reproach and more a case of Thomas wishing to keep the interrogation steadily on the rails.

  ‘Yes. We know you were at the Jazz Café at the precise time of Esther’s death. We also know that you provisionally set up your Sunday shift on the previous evening,’ Kennedy began.

  ‘Not true. I was just covering myself for the eventuality that Esther might not turn up. With Esther there was always a chance that she mightn’t show. Even if she’d have appeared, she would have been finished with me in a matter of twenty minutes or so. So what was I going to do? Hang around my flat like a spare rooster at a hen party?’ Jones said, his high-pitched whine making anything he said difficult to believe. ‘If you check, you’ll find it normal for people to chase last-minute shifts to make up their hours. There’s nothing suspicious about that.’

  Jones stopped and thought for a few seconds. Kennedy could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. The detective knew that Jones had something further to add. He had a very good feeling about what the fanatic was going to say, so he left him the space to say it.

  ‘You’ve just admitted,’ the squeaky voice began, ‘that you knew I was working at the Jazz Café at the time of Esther’s death?’

  ‘I said, I knew you were at the Jazz Café at the precise time of her death,’ Kennedy confirmed.

  ‘Whatever,’ Jones barked impatiently. ‘What does it matter? Maybe I didn’t use your exact words. But the long and the short of it is surely that I was in the Jazz Café in front of numerous witnesses when she died. So my question to you would have to be, what precisely are we doing right now? By your own admission it doesn’t really matter how Esther died. By her own hand or even by someone else’s. We have proof it wasn’t by my hand. I was somewhere else at the time.’

  Jones sat back in his chair. He seemed rather pleased with his deduction. He turned to Thomas and smiled. Thomas didn’t return his client’s smile. He rubbed his unshaved chin, doing his best country bumpkin impression, perhaps suggesting, ‘gee, inspector, he just might have something there’.

  ‘Okay, then,’ Kennedy said, unclasping his hands from behind his head, swinging forward towards the table and re-clasping them in front of him, ‘for the benefit of your brief, DS Irvine, and the vital tape recorder, let me explain exactly how it was that you appeared to be in two places at the same time…’

  Irvine leaned into the table, copyin
g Kennedy’s movement and trying to conceal a little grin, which suggested, ‘well, this should be interesting’.

  ‘Well, this should be interesting,’ Harry Thomas said, as he too leaned over the table.

  Kennedy glanced diagonally across the table, only to find Jones ready, willing and able to lock into direct eye contact.

  Well, this should be interesting, Kennedy thought as he started to speak, ‘Okay. At some time during the early evening on Sunday you visited Esther Bluewood in her maisonette—’

  ‘But…’ Jones started, his shriek easily drowning out Kennedy’s quiet gentle voice.

  ‘Yes, yes, Josef,’ continued Kennedy, ‘we’ve already been around that house a few times so let’s try to move forward this time. You were with her in her accommodation. You were with her for whatever reason, her gratification or your fanaticism, it doesn’t really matter at this stage. All that matters is that you were there. It would be my opinion that you helped and encouraged Esther with her sleeping tablets. Perhaps she wasn’t even aware she was taking them, but they did make her very drowsy.’

  Again Jones made signs of protest. This time Kennedy silenced him merely by raising his hand. Kennedy found it as effective as a lollipop man’s sign on duty outside the local school.

  ‘Pretty soon she passed out. You then burnt off all the gas left on the meter by lighting all the hobs and the oven on the cooker. When the gas burnt off and the meter was in need of feeding, you were careful to turn all the taps back to the off position.’ Kennedy stopped for a moment to take in his audience. Irvine looked intrigued, as did Lundy and Thomas, but Jones’ face gave absolutely nothing away.

  ‘The first thing that made me think something was up was that Esther Bluewood’s fingerprints should have been the last ones on the cooker knobs. That, of course, would have been the case if indeed she had gassed herself.’

  Kennedy paused again, and this time shrugged a ‘what a silly boy I am?’ with help from his shoulders, mouth and chin.