More Deaths Than One

by Marjorie Eccles

  “Community Arts Director?” Ernest Underwood said, stacking black plastic bags full of Saturday night’s rubbish outside the budding’s back door. “Wouldn’t pay him in washers, I wouldn’t!”

  What exactly his qualifications were for making such a sweeping statement wasn’t clear. He was a short, muscular man of about sixty-five, with a bald head, a small moustache and a disagreeable air of self-importance. He wore a short brown holland smock over a pair of black dress trousers, a Viyella check shirt and a Lavenstock College tie to which he was almost certainly not entitled.

  Mayo said, “I believe it’s Mr. Cockayne’s practice to collect the keys from you at night before you go home, and to see to the final locking up himself?”

  “Sometimes he does, sometimes he don’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Depends on whether he remembers or not. Careless he is. All the same, these actor types. Airy fairy.”

  “You mean that sometimes doors are left unlocked all night?”

  “No, I don’t!” Underwood replied, scandalised. “Locked every night, they are, because I lock ’em meself. It’s my responsibility. I said to him only last week, ‘Look ’ere,’ I said, ‘who’s responsible for this place at night, you or me? If it’s you, fair enough. But if it’s me, I want everybody out before I lock up and go home, and that includes you.’ He knew what I meant.” He spun one of the bags expertly round and tightly secured the resultant twist with a knot. “Excuse me, got to get these outside.”

  The Council wouldn’t be coming to collect rubbish on a Sunday afternoon, for sure, but Ernest Underwood didn’t appear to be the man to leave undone today what he could eastly do tomorrow.

  “Come on, Mr. Underwood, you can’t expect me to know what he meant,” Mayo said patiently. “Be a bit clearer, won’t you?”

  “He wouldn’t have that, oh no, wouldn’t want me hanging around waiting until he decides to go home. Does he think I don’t know what’s going on when he’s here till all hours, and not by hisself, neither? Does he think I go round with me eyes closed? Does he think I was born yesterday?” Evidently none of these questions required an answer. “ ‘You just lock up every night and give me the keys and your responsibility’s over,’ he says, but it don’t work like that. All that fuss last week about that builder’s stuff what went missing ... well, it was me your lot questioned about it, not him, and I take a dim view of that. I take a very dim view.”

  Sunday or not, there were plenty of activities going on at the Community Centre. A game of Ping-Pong was in process in one of the rooms; from somewhere in the distance the peculiarly tuneless singing of very young children could be heard, accompanied by a piano, some sort of Sunday school class, perhaps.

  “So I decided after that,” Underwood went on self-importantly, as the children reached an uncoordinated end, “that however long Mr. Cocky Cockayne decided to stay of a night, I’d still be here. I’d give him the keys and tell him I was off home, but I wouldn’t go, not me. Not until after he did, any road, and I’d checked everything was safe. I have me little cubby-hole to stay in and I have me pass keys, so that’s what I did.”

  Ernest Underwood was that type of person who takes pleasure in thwarting anybody who stands in higher authority than he does himself. Ashleigh Cockayne would have done better to have kept on the right side of him. A dangerous little man, thought Mayo, not by any means convinced by the reasons Underwood had given for staying on. Men like him didn’t put in voluntary unpaid overtime, not unless they had cogent reasons for doing so – like doing a little bit more snooping on his own account, for instance.

  “What was going on then, after the rehearsals?”

  “Hanky-panky,” Underwood declared, but by the way he blustered when pressed to be more explicit, Mayo knew the caretaker had no real idea.

  “All right, if you’d decided to stay behind, you must still have been here on Monday night when Mr. Cockayne left?”

  Underwood nodded. “And Fleming. Waited till I saw ’em drive off together in that there red Porsche. Put the light off in me cubbyhole and watched them. Ten past eleven it was. I remember thinking good job I’d brought me bike, ’cos I’d missed the last bus while they was upstairs knocking it back, though they wasn’t as late as usual.”

  “Been drinking, had they? Sure about that?”

  Underwood gave him a pitying smile. “Very fond of a drop, our Mr. Ashleigh, always keeps a bottle of Scotch in his cupboard.” So Cockayne was a heavy drinker, was he? This would explain, perhaps, what Lili had meant about not needing sleeping pills. “Besides,” Underwood went on, “they was none too steady on their feet, neither of ’em, when they crossed the car park, I can tell you. Couldn’t hardly stand up.”

  “And you didn’t feel you ought to try and stop them driving?”

  “Not up to me,” said Underwood.

  Fleming, of course, was unused to drink in any quantity, never mind laced with barbiturates, so because he was probably already incapable, Cockayne would have been staggering too as he supported him to the car, before taking the wheel and driving him out to Scotley Beeches. This still left open a large query as to why Cockayne should just happened to have had those sleeping pills handy – not to mention a shotgun. Moreover, there hadn’t been any whisky in Cockayne’s office when it was searched, and Mayo told Underwood so.

  “Because I’d thrown the empty bottle away, hadn’t I?” Underwood retorted, a malicious light of triumph in his eyes. “No use keeping empty bottles. It’s my job to see everything’s cleaned up and left nice and tidy. I do the office meself, can’t trust these women. Lick and a promise, that’s all they’re up to. I threw it in his waste basket before it was emptied, washed the glasses up and took them back.”

  Mayo gave up for the time being. He wasn’t going to get anything more out of Underwood. He knew what he’d seen, and what he thought about it, and you’d never get him to go back on that, even if he were proved wrong. You couldn’t tell a man like this anything. He’d continue to believe that the bomb would never drop, and know that everyone else was wrong, while the crack of doom sounded and the world collapsed around him.

  Mayo spent the rest of the day cramped up over his desk, sifting through the reports, going back over the evidence, and when eventually, at nigh on midnight, he was ready to call it a day, he decided to stretch his legs and expand his mind and lungs with a brisk walk home. He could leave the car in the car park and walk back again in the morning, thereby doubling the benefits. It was a goodish way, through the town and up to the summit of the hill where his flat was situated, although worth it when you got there for the view from his top-floor window, right across the town and the opposite hills beyond. But tonight, instead of going straight home to be met by the companionable ticking of his clocks – seven at the last count, with another spread out in the process of repair, which would make eight if he could find room for it – he found his long strides taking him in the opposite direction, through the meanly terraced streets and back alleys that made up the lower town.

  Any passing police patrol would have recognised him; they were used to coming across him at all hours by now. It was a thing he’d begun when he was new to Lavenstock, prowling the night streets like a tom cat, staking out his territory, getting to know it, until now every nook and cranny was as familiar to him as the map of his own face.

  Here, where he walked now, small factories and dwelling houses and the occasional corner shop run by Asians existed cheek by jowl. Back entries and closed factory gates interrupted the rows of grimy houses. Some of the areas were scheduled for demolition and there were gaps in the streets that showed backyards and neglected garden plots and vacant lots. Dustbins stood on the kerbside and a forsaken air of dereliction prevailed, though here and there was the occasional house with shining windows and bricks painted in colours to bring back reminders of Caribbean sunshine. In the distance the gaunt tower blocks of the Somerville Estate – contemporary successors of the old
brick mill chimneys – rose dark and black, punctured here and there with the floating golden squares of lighted windows, indicating the presence of other night birds like himself.

  Leaving the canal behind him, he turned sharply, leaning into the cold east wind and crossing the bridge over the river and on to Stockwell Street and the beginnings of the smarter part of the town. For the second time that day Mayo found himself outside the Community Centre. It stood in darkness, now closed, its bulky presence dwarfing the row of small shops and the wine bar next to it, also shut.

  Darkness at the back of the building too, except for one small, dim night-lamp that lit the narrow cantilevered terrace jutting out over the river, where on clement summer evenings a few tables and chairs were set out for drinks. He climbed the half-dozen steps to the terrace, resting his elbows on the railings and looking out over the water. The river flowed swiftly, darkly; the sound of the weir came like distant music. Did death come peacefully by drowning? Who could know, except the dead? Ashleigh Cockayne, for instance. Impatiently, symbolically rejecting an idea that he was afraid might easily become an obsession, he turned his back on the dark water and leaned against the railings, facing the theatre.

  All was tidy now at the back of the building. Ron Prosser had evidently finished his work, his building tackle had been taken away, so Lili Anand would have something to be pleased about, at any rate. There was nothing now to be seen except a rough scaly patch in one corner where cement had been mixed. The dim light shone on the water-steps where boats could tie up. He fancied for a moment he saw something which stirred the glimmerings of an idea in his mind, an idea which grew, exciting him. No, it wouldn’t work, not single-handed. Or would it? He walked down the steps of the terrace and onto the walkway alongside the river, towards the water-steps, and once there got down on his knees. He stood up and thought about it for a long time. The idea, bizarre as it seemed, wouldn’t go away.

  “Beware of applying logic and common sense to a situation where logic and common sense don’t exist,” a senior colleague had told him once when he was a very young P.C. And he’d been right. Neither quality had got them very far in this case up to the moment, where neither quality seemed to apply. Right, then. Maybe it was time to see what a bit of intuition and gut feeling could do ...

  ELEVEN

  “So here’s an undertaking well accomplished!”

  THE LOCAL WEEKLY PAPER, the Advertiser, came out on Friday, but it was Monday morning before Kite got around to seeing it. He buried his head in it over breakfast while all around him seethed the usual commotion of his family getting ready for the day.

  “Mum, you haven’t done it yet!” came in an accusing voice from Davey.

  Sheila said, “Now, Davey,” and grabbed a piece of toast on her way to the bottom of the stairs. “Hurry up, Daniel!” she yelled. “Mrs. Barlow’ll be here in a couple of minutes.” She was still in her dressing gown but her face was made up, her curly brown hair brushed and combed so that she’d be ready to leave for the office in ten minutes flat after the boys had left.

  “I can’t find my swimming things,” Daniel wailed back.

  Sheila raced up the stairs. It wasn’t her turn to ferry the neighbourhood children to school, or she’d have made Daniel look for them, but as it was it was quicker to go and look herself.

  Davey was whingeing on, “Dad, she hasn’t written my note yet!” Kite lowered his paper. “What’s the matter with your tie?” he asked, seeing one end somewhere near Davey’s right ear, the other by his left knee.

  “It doesn’t fit me.”

  “Doesn’t what? Here, let’s have a look.” Kite grinned and re-tied the offending garment. “Hopeless, you are, my lad, did you know? And what’s all this about a note?”

  “For not doing my homework yesterday.”

  “Oh? And why didn’t you do your homework yesterday?”

  “I was sick.”

  “You don’t look sick to me.”

  “I’m not now.”

  Kite regarded the insouciant face of his son and sighed. “Pass me that pad. Is there a pen anywhere?”

  “Thanks, Dad, that’s brilliant,” Davey beamed, while Kite scribbled the note, reproaching himself, not for the first time, for being so little involved in his kids’ lives that he didn’t even know when they’d been sick. A motor horn sounded outside, there was a last-minute scramble before the boys at last were off, Sheila came back and began to clear the table around him. Kite put his paper down again.

  “Leave that, love, I’ll do it. Sit down and finish your coffee.”

  She perched for a token moment on the edge of the chair and took a gulp of coffee before jumping up again. “Must get ready.”

  “I wrote Davey’s note.”

  “Oh, you did, did you?” she said, pausing. “And you the great detective! Don’t you recognise a malingerer when you see one? I told him he’d have to confess to Mrs. Pound himself, Martin.”

  In that case, Kite was rather glad he’d saved his son an ordeal he wouldn’t have wanted to face himself. But in all honesty he had to admit he’d maybe given in too easily. It wasn’t an attitude Mrs. Pound herself would have called “supportive.” He was a rotten parent, he told himself, and Sheila often had more than her share to put up with, though she rarely complained. “I’m sorry, love.” He reached for her hand, drew her down and gave her a kiss. “All the same, I wouldn’t wish one of Jennifer Pound’s ‘little talks’ on my worst enemy.”

  “Oh, you’re as bad as Davey!” Sheila said, but he saw he was forgiven. Passing his chair, she bent and rested her cheek briefly on his head. “Bye, love. You’ll be gone when I get down, I expect.” The headlines on the paper he’d put down stared up at her. “Poor Georgina. What a ghastly thing, Martin.”

  The murder was, of course, splashed all over the front page. Kite said, “You know Georgina Fleming?”

  “Knew her at school, only she was Georgina Culver then.”

  “You never told me.”

  “Yes, I did, the other day at breakfast, only you weren’t listening.”

  “How can anybody listen to anything in this morning madhouse?”

  Kite demanded. “What was she like then? She’s a pretty cool character now.”

  “Martin Kite, do you seriously think I can sit down, now at ten past eight, oh God, nearly twenty past, and discuss something you’ve had plenty of opportunity to ask about before? I’ve a job to go to, remember? Not one whose hours I can change to suit myself. Sorry, must go and dress. Talk to you about it tonight – if you’re in.”

  Kite’s attitude, when Mayo told him of the theory he’d formulated at the back of the Gaiety the previous night, was frankly sceptical, though he didn’t actually say so, and he left willingly enough to see Ron Prosser (Lavenstock) Ltd. Albeit with an air of “well, you’re the boss!” about him.

  Prosser’s yard proved to be a space at the side of his house, which was a between-the-wars brick-built semi, the end one of three pairs wedged in between a terrace of Edwardian stucco and a new shopping parade. A dish aerial for Sky Television was set on the house roof; the latest Volvo stood on a short concrete drive. It was another windy day and over the back-garden fence Kite could see washing blowing on the line. Pushing open a pair of double wooden gates with Prosser’s name painted across them, he picked his way across a lunar landscape of heaped red sand, used bricks and piles of reclaimed timber. A chipped enamel bath lay on its side, several battered stainless steel sinks propped against it. Steel scaffolding pipes lay about to trip the unwary, and under a corrugated roof rolls of wire netting, roofing felt and cement in bags were untidily housed. Skirting a cement mixer, standing like some asteroid about to stride forward, Kite made for the office, ramshackle affair in the corner, with Prosser’s pick-up truck outside. As he approached, a Rottweiler appeared from nowhere and, making no sound, walked alongside him with the sleek heavy grace of a prize-fighter, sidling inside with him when he obeyed the instructions to open the door and ente
r.

  The small room was so cluttered with an old-fashioned safe, a battered desk and filing cabinets that there was scarcely room to get inside. Samples of building materials stood around on every surface, including the floor. The temperature was tropical from an electric fire turned up to full blast, and heavy with smoke from the latest cigarettes of the three occupants – a woman clerk, Prosser himself and the peroxided Jason.

  “Seen you somewhere before, haven’t I, squire?” Prosser greeted Kite, and before he could answer, “What can I do you for?”

  “Police,” Kite said, and Prosser raised his eyebrows.

  “Oh, so you’ve finally got round to doing summat about me complaint, then?”

  “Coffee, m’duck?” the woman enquired of Kite. “Kettle’s just boiled.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble, thanks.”

  Crossing to a corner where an electric kettle stood on a shelf, she spooned coffee granules and dried milk powder into a generous-sized mug, added hot water and, without asking, three spoonfuls of sugar from a bag. She was of generous proportions herself, big and comfortable, with Dame Edna spectacles and an easy smile. Kite accepted the coffee from her and sipped, trying to ignore the undissolved milk particles. Leaning against the desk, there being no vacant seat, he slipped his hand into his pocket for his notebook and looked for a space on the desk to put the mug while keeping a wary eye on the dog.

  “Careful of the Amstrad,” Prosser said, “but you don’t have to bother none about the dog. Soft as a boiled swede, he is. Wouldn’t harm nobody, would you Fritz?”

  “Only if he smells bad meat,” Jason put in, sniggering at his own unfunny joke.

  “Watch your lip, lad,” Kite returned, without looking at him. “Mr. Prosser, about those things of yours that went missing. Could you give me a few more details?”

  “How many more times do I have to go through it? I already told your lot when I reported it.”