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

by Paul Charles

  ‘No! I thought,’ Kennedy continued, ‘of course not. The last prints on the knobs would of course be those of the person who’d found Esther. They would surely have turned the gas off when they entered the flat and discovered the body. When I checked this, the gasman told me that when he came on to the scene, the knobs had already been turned off. Judy Dillon had not been into the maisonette before raising the alarm, so she couldn’t have turned the gas off. She had even fainted from the shock of finding Esther’s body when she entered with the gasman.’

  Jones looked like he was about to say something. He glanced at Thomas and seemed to think better of it.

  ‘So,’ Kennedy went on, ‘I wondered how anyone could possibly gas themselves without a supply of gas. Dr Taylor assured me that Miss Bluewood had died from gas poisoning. Yes, he’d also found traces of her sleeping bills in her blood, but not enough to kill her, just enough to send her into a deep sleep. That set me thinking about another supply of gas.’

  Irvine appeared lost. Kennedy smiled at him briefly before continuing, ‘The whole thing was brilliantly set up to look like a suicide, you know. The towel in the mouth of the oven so Miss Bluewood would feel comfortable. I’m told that the discomfort of a severe crick in the neck can divert would-be suicides from their objective. The other towel was strategically positioned behind the kitchen door, apparently displaying Esther’s concern for her children’s welfare. A mother as loving as Miss Bluewood would most definitely have ensured her children were protected from escaping gas, had she decided to end her own life…’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Jones squeaked dismissively. ‘That’s all very well. She was a wonderful person and a great mother and it would no doubt be a great plot for Miss Marple, but we’re all agreed I was elsewhere when all of this was going on.’

  ‘True, true, Josef,’ Kennedy said, a smile creeping across his face. He took much comfort from the fact Jones continued to assert that he was absent during the death, rather than saying he hadn’t been involved in it. ‘I’m getting on that now, and a very ingenious idea it was, too. Two points gave me the clues as to what you were up to. In Miss Bluewood’s journal she made reference to how handy you were around the house – always fixing things, soldering this, gluing that, nailing the other, and so on. It seems you’re every bit the wee handyman with your tool bag. The second thing was the marks on the oilcloth in Esther’s kitchen. You know, Josef, where you pulled the cupboard out from the wall?’

  Josef laughed, or tried to laugh. He was quite convincing, Kennedy thought. His whine made the laugh sound more like a wheeze, but he’d made the point.

  ‘What on earth are you on about, inspector?’ Jones said, and then glared at his solicitor as if to say, ‘do we really have to put up with all of this?’

  Either Harry Thomas didn’t pick up the look or he chose to ignore it. Kennedy gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided that the solicitor had decided to ignore his client.

  ‘At first I dismissed the marks on the oilcloth as marks made by someone who had moved the cupboard out from the wall for cleaning purposes. I even thought that might have been caused when the cupboard was originally being positioned against the wall,’ Kennedy said quietly.

  Everyone at the table considered that for a few seconds before Kennedy continued.

  ‘Then I noticed the pipe from the gas meter and a second pipe parallel to and half an inch below it disappeared along the wall behind the cupboard. The second pipe supplied water to the radiator in the kitchen. When I moved the cupboard out from the wall and saw…’ Kennedy paused this time for effect before admitting, ‘well, not a lot really. Just two pipes running parallel along the wall about half an inch apart. One, as we said, to carry the gas supply from the gas meter to the cooker and the other, the bottom one, to take the hot water from the electric boiler to the radiator.’

  Although he hoped he wasn’t showing it, Kennedy was growing perplexed by Jones’ apparent indifference to these revelations.

  ‘Under the pipes, however, was a little…’ Kennedy resumed his narrative, using his thumb and forefinger to demonstrate how little he meant, ‘dirt and amongst the dirt were a couple of tiny specs of candle wax. Initially I thought maybe there’d been a repair, but on closer examination I found that the repair was in fact a piece of gaffer tape wrapped around the pipe. I thought someone had been careless about the repair but I bet you if we went back there now and removed the tape we’d find a hole, probably made with a large nail. My guess would be that you made that hole with the nail then used candle wax to fill up the nail hole and seal the pipe again. You would have used hot candle wax but would have allowed it to cool so it would just be malleable enough to fit the hole.

  ‘The rest was simple. You fed the meter with several fifty pence pieces, just enough to allow sufficient gas through to kill her. Sadly, Esther herself probably supplied enough details of how much gas it would take to kill a human. You set the timer on the central heating to come on at the time you knew you’d be in the Jazz Café.

  ‘At the designated time the central heating system sprang into action, pumping hot water through the pipes in the direction of the cold hungry radiators. The hot water pipe behind the cupboard would have heated up the gas pipe next to it and the combination of the heat and the pressure of the gas would have melted the wax, clearing the hole. The gas would have escaped into the air in the kitchen. I believe when we carry out our investigation more fully, we’ll find some deposits of wax inside the pipe, as well.

  ‘As I say, the candle wax melted, the gas escaped, filling the kitchen, where by now you’d placed the comatose Esther Bluewood. The gas does its job and kills her. Then the meter runs out and conveniently stops the supply of gas. You returned briefly in the middle of the night to seal the pipe with the gaffer tape and do any tidying up you felt was necessary. You missed a couple of specs of candle wax though, Josef,’ Kennedy said finally.

  He’d completed the theory part of his presentation. Only one of the four present seemed unimpressed with his story.

  ‘That’s all fine and grand, inspector,’ said Thomas, much to Jones’ relief, ‘and as good a tale as I’ve ever heard. However, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that ties my client into any of it in any way and so…if that is all you have…’

  ‘Oh,’ Kennedy said, dissipating the relief totally, ‘there’s a wee bit more. A wee bit more in fact that ties your client directly to the scene of the crime.’

  ‘And that is?’ Jones felt compelled to ask.

  ‘And that is, the fifty pence pieces in the gas meter. Remember I was telling you about feeding the meter with enough coins to ensure that Esther would be killed? Four of the coins used to feed the meter were found to have Josef’s fingerprints on them…’

  ‘But they couldn’t possibly! I was wearing gloves…’ the words fell out of Jones’ mouth in that classic way a suspect traps and convicts himself with his own big mouth. The way it happens, contrary to popular opinion, as much in real life as it does in the movies.

  ‘Thanks for your affirmation of that fact, Josef. Just in case your solicitor has any ideas about trying to have evidence excluded for whatever reason, can I just advise you both that, yes, you probably did wear gloves when you were doing your dirty work, but you forgot to wipe the coins prior to putting on the gloves, leaving one clear fingerprint which I’ll bet, when we check it with your prints, comes from your earlier usage of the coins.’

  *

  A few minutes later, Josef Jones was charged with the murder of Esther Bluewood and locked in a cell. Kennedy was sure that the ongoing Judy Dillon investigation would be fruitful and that it wouldn’t be long before Jones confessed to that murder, too, either out of guilt or – more likely – pride.

  ‘He was a cool customer, sir.’ Irvine said, back in Kennedy’s office. They were enjoying a cup of tea and starting to sift through the existing evidence on the Judy Dillon case.

  ‘Mmmm, James, I’m not sure “cool” is quite the adjective.
More like shell-shocked, I’d say. I genuinely think he thought he’d committed the perfect crime and was going to get away with it. The sad thing for me, James, is that he is showing absolutely no remorse.’

  ‘But why did he kill Esther Bluewood, sir?’

  ‘Well, ironically, I’d say it was because he was such a big fan of hers. A fanatic, in other words,’ Kennedy said.

  ‘But surely he already had the biggest possible scalp on his belt? He was sleeping with her, wasn’t he?’ Irvine said, simply and honestly, for he knew no other way.

  ‘Yes, but he also had an ego,’ Kennedy began energetically. ‘Look how well he dressed. It must be extremely difficult to continuously dress in fine designer clothes on what he earns, but he does it. Esther said in her house that she was using him – she never let him get to the point of his own sexual relief. This probably drove him mad. To add insult to injury, she stood him up. Perhaps that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Perhaps he’d heard she was leaving, perhaps his parents beat him, perhaps a lot of things…whatever…he was cold and calculating about it all. I don’t like to dwell on why people commit the crimes they do, or get preoccupied with all that mitigating social circumstances stuff. I don’t like feeling sorry for people who have just committed murder. Especially when it leaves behind two motherless children.’

  ‘God, if you hadn’t picked up on it, you know his plan of execution… I mean, I’ve got to hand it to him, sir, that was pretty amazing really – and to yourself as well, sir, for piecing it all together. Incredible, just incredible,’ Irvine gasped.

  Kennedy had a problem dealing with compliments. Yes, he was a proud man; proud of how he did his work. But when it came down to it he preferred people to think, rather than voice, their praise.

  ‘Oh, we were in it together, James. I’m just fortunate to be the one who gets the glory of putting it all together,’ Kennedy said as modestly as he could, hoping his DS would drop the subject. He’d much rather be discussing the intricacies of the case than how clever he was at solving it.

  ‘But with the Dillon murder, sir, didn’t you find that surprising? I mean, Jones’ involvement, particularly after how clean and tidy he’d been with Bluewood’s murder, to then go to the other extreme and be so downright careless.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, James, really,’ said Kennedy, replenishing their tea cups. ‘Remember, we still don’t have anything positive to tie him to her murder,’ Kennedy said.

  ‘Yeah. But he did admit he had sex with the nanny on the evening she was brutally murdered,’ Irvine protested.

  ‘Aye, true,’ Kennedy replied, returning to his seat. ‘But don’t you see, again he may think he’s been very, very clever! I think he believes it was a crime of passion. I don’t happen to believe that it was. I think he believed that Judy Dillon had the original copy of the journal and he was desperate to get it just in case Esther had written something that might have incriminated him down the line. I believe he was trying to protect himself, to hide anything that might have lead us to the original murder. He wasn’t to know that there was nothing incriminating in the journal.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Irvine conceded.

  ‘I think he went to Judy Dillon’s flat with the intention of securing the journal and murdering her so that she couldn’t spill the beans on him. Let’s consider this again, James,’ Kennedys said as he reopened the Judy Dillon file.

  Irvine thought, but said nothing.

  ‘He goes around there, has sex with her and kills her. By admitting to us that he had sex with her it means that there was no need to wear gloves or to tidy up after himself. His logic works, you see. He knows his sexual involvement with her will have made it very difficult to identify him as her killer. In effect, what he’s saying to us is, ‘yes, I had sex with her. But prove I killed her’. No one saw them. He didn’t knife her and leave a chance of us finding the knife. He didn’t shoot her with a gun. He didn’t bludgeon her over the head with a blunt object leaving fingerprints and the chance that specks of blood might turn up on his clothes or body.’

  ‘So how do we prove he killed her, sir?’ Irvine asked.

  ‘Well, number one, we don’t really need to. He’s going to be going away for quite some time for the murder of Esther Bluewood. Number two, I wouldn’t mind betting you a few bob that his ego will encourage him to sing in the end. There are only two reasons to commit the perfect crime. The first is so you can get away with it, scot-free. The second is so others will admire your handiwork. He’s been caught for a different crime, but that stops him getting clean away with the murder. So really, there’s no reason for him to deny the nanny’s homicide. He can stand back and bask in the glory he no doubt believes he deserves.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t, sir?’

  ‘And if he doesn’t, James,’ Kennedy replied, passing half the files on the Judy Dillon case to his colleague on the other side of the desk, ‘then, I’m afraid that’s where you and I will have to step in. You see, the perfect crime only exists in theory. In practice, there’s always going to be something, some little thing left behind or something said, something that will eventually catch the perpetrator out. I bet you if we look closely at these files, James, we’ll find that little something that will prove that Mr Josef Jones wasn’t quite as clever as he thought he was. So, if you get stuck in, I’ll get another brew started.’

  Chapter 40

  SATURDAY MORNING; the first Saturday morning of the rest of their lives, and Kennedy and ann rea were woken up before daylight by the dawn chorus. Kennedy was convinced that a bat led the Primrose Hill chorus. The logic being that it seemed to matter not a lot that darkness still covered the area, the birds were up before daylight and causing a racket every single morning of the year. In spring and summer it was good to be woken up, so as to experience the breathtaking sunrises. But these cold, dark and wet wintry mornings were different.

  The truce between Kennedy and ann rea had got off to a great start. Kennedy was slightly (but only slightly) worried that they’d been in conflict for so long now that maybe without that edge, their relationship would lose its focus. It would be just great, he thought, to be allowed to melt away into the relationship and enjoy it.

  ann rea interrupted the racket outside their window, ‘This is good.’

  Kennedy couldn’t argue with that. He had what he’d been looking for. She, for her part, had lost the doubts that had clouded both their lives for so long. He responded with, ‘Yeah, this is good.’

  Sorry, he thought. This is good?

  He thought back to the first time he’d met ann rea, at Heathrow Airport. He recalled how attracted he was to her, how she literally left him breathless. He thought of the very slow start to their relationship. Her discouragement. The (what seemed to him, at least) ages it took to get their relationship off the ground and then the numerous seas of stormy waters they’d had to sail through.

  Now here they were, survivors of all that fate had thrown at them and he thought of the lyrics of a Jackson Browne song:

  See – I always figured I was going to meet somebody here

  He mentally fast-forwarded to another part of the same lyric:

  Anyway…

  I guess you wouldn’t know unless I told you

  But…

  I love you

  Well just look at yourself –

  What else would I do?

  Kennedy did look at ann rea and in that moment he agreed, why on earth wouldn’t he love her?

  And then they wrapped themselves around each other and fell asleep again.

  Could this be true happiness? Enjoying a Saturday morning lie-in? It had been such a long hard climb and with such little respite.

  An hour later the phone beside the bed rang.

  Kennedy came round slowly and managed to answer on the seventh ring.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir.’

  It was Detective Sergeant Irvine, as apologetic as it was possible to be.

  ‘Yes, J
ames?’

  ‘I’m at the Free House near the Royal Hospital. You’d better get over here quick. We’ve just found the body of a young girl.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘She’s a nurse, sir.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘We found a photograph in her wallet, sir.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s a photograph of the same nurse and Dr Ranjesus, sir.’

  ‘I’ll be right over, James.’

  THE END

  Inspector Christy Kennedy returns in I’ve Heard The Banshee Sing also published by Fahrenheit Press.

  About the author

  Paul Charles is an agent, promoter, author and fan of The Beatles, he was born in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland.

  Acknowledgements

  For the music, I thank Mary Margaret O’Hara for her ground-breaking work, Miss America, which I used as a template for Esther Bluewood’s Axis. Other albums which helped put the leaves on the trees were Jackson Browne’s I’m Alive, Blue Nile’s Peace At Last, and last, but by no means least, Nick Lowe’s evergreen Dig My Moody.

  The lyrics quoted on the final page are from Jackson Browne’s ‘Hold On Hold Out’. The song was written by Jackson Browne and Craig Doerge and appears on the Hold Out album, and a very fine work it is too. The lyrics are reproduced by kind permission of Swallow Turn Music and Fair Star music – thanks a million to Buddha and Clee.

  Thanks also to the team at Fahrenheit Press, especially to Monica Green who transcribed these books from the original editions.

  It’s important to note that this is a work of fiction and I thank you for reading it.

  Paul Charles

  Camden Town

  The Inspector Christy Kennedy Mysteries by Paul Charles, published by Fahrenheit Press