More Deaths Than One

by Marjorie Eccles

  “I think we have to talk,” he said. “Get things straight between us. It’ll soon be too late.”

  She felt no shock because she’d become used to the idea of what must be during the last few days, but she did feel a sudden, overwhelming revulsion at the thought of facing it. Already regretting what she’d started, panicking, she put down her mug so fiercely that what remained of its contents splashed over the top, and stood up, startling Minty, who growled and got to her feet too. “No, I don’t want to talk. That’s something we should’ve done years ago. It’s too late now. I think I’d much better go home.”

  “Sit down, Georgina. Sit, Minty.”

  And such was the habit of obedience they sat down, the woman and the dog.

  The mellow old clock chimed a quarter to the hour. The dog was restless, knowing it was time for her walk. “I’d better take her,” Culver said. “It won’t take long. But before I do, I want you to listen to me.”

  “Don’t leave me, Father. I’ll come with you.” Anything was better than sitting here alone.

  “No!” The old man’s voice was harsh. “You’ll wait here, girl.” He stroked the bitch’s restless head until she settled on the rug again, then looked at his daughter, his face creased with the effort to find the right words. Lamely, for him, he said, “Everything will be all right, Georgina,” then drew on his pipe and began to speak.

  Outside, rain spattered briefly against the windows and then stopped. Inside the quiet room, his harsh voice rose and fell and soon, mingling with it, her swift, clipped accents.

  Hours later, it seemed, though it was barely half an hour, she heard the sound of tyres hissing on the wet tarmac of the drive. It was with a sense of inevitability that she looked through the window and saw the police.

  She took them into the study, resenting their intrusion into this private place, but having nowhere else other than the kitchen. The two men and the pretty, confidently efficient young policewoman seemed tall and menacing in the close confines of the small room, especially the Chief Inspector, whose grey eyes, steady and watchful, never left her face.

  How, she wondered, was she going to get through this, knowing what she did and being more than a little frightened of him, of that sense of pent-up energy that was no less formidable for being kept severely in check. She wondered if he’d any idea how he affected people, or perhaps it was only those who were guilty who felt as she had at their previous interviews, as if she hardly dare speak for fear of having her words pounced on and only too correctly interpreted.

  “Where’s your father, Mrs. Fleming?” were his first, hardly intimidating, words.

  “He’s taken Minty for her walk. He won’t be long.”

  “Then perhaps we can take the opportunity of a few words with you until he gets back.”

  “I thought we’d said all we have to say.”

  “Oh, not by a long chalk,” he said easily. “And I think you know that, don’t you? Are you going to be honest with me, now that you’ve had time to think it over?”

  She knew that she’d no other choice, after her talk with her father, and after a short struggle with herself, recalling her promises to him, she finally relinquished her defences and gave up. And having given up, it suddenly seemed easier. She asked tonelessly what it was he wanted to know.

  “Begin with the last time you saw your husband, and go on from there.”

  Despite the cold, the daffodil buds were bursting, spreading in a sheet of greeny-gold under the birches. On the bare elms, the buds were fat and red, giving a rosy haze to the trees. As Culver whistled for the dog and turned to make his way over the rough grass in the direction of the quarry, a yellowhammer sang its “little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese” song in the hedge.

  Reaching the rim of the quarry, Culver paused. “Sit.”

  The dog sat, obedient and expectant, head cocked to one side, looking at him with alert, intelligent eyes, the same colour as Georgina’s. Culver closed his own eyes for a moment, then raised the gun and tightened his finger on the trigger.

  “The last time I saw him,” Georgina said rapidly, “was Monday evening, about eight o’clock, but I knew something was wrong before then. I knew as soon as I saw him that Sunday. He was so keyed up, you could almost feel it. His eyes were sort of glittering and he couldn’t keep still. If I hadn’t known Rupert better, I’d have thought he was high on something ...”

  Mayo was shocked by her appearance. When they’d first come into the room, he’d thought she seemed as usual, the rag-doll hair, the pearly-pale face and the drooping poppy mouth. Now he noticed that her nail varnish was slightly chipped, one of her blouse buttons was undone and the flat, scuffed shoes looked as though they were ones she kept for driving and had forgotten to change. There were deep shadows under her eyes. But most of all it was her manner, all the unbending self-control gone.

  “... perhaps he was high on his own excitement,” she went on. “He could hardly contain himself, but it wasn’t until – until late in the evening that he told me what it was all about. He said he was in trouble, terrible trouble, and he’d have to get away. Well, of course, it was money he wanted, it always was, and in the end I promised I’d let him have some, as I always did. I’ve always been a fool where Rupert was concerned.”

  This was at least twice as long as any speech he’d ever heard her make. It was a big admission, too. He said nothing, not wanting to interrupt her now she had at last broken her self-imposed silence, willing her to go on.

  “We agreed that I’d get the money the following day and he’d come and pick it up. But during the day I had time to do some thinking. I didn’t know what kind of trouble he was in, but it seemed to me the time had come for him to face up to things.

  Somebody had always made out for him, usually me, and he never was going to amount to anything if I went on doing so. So when he came, I told him I hadn’t got the money.”

  “How did he react to that?”

  “He went nearly crazy.” She blinked rapidly several times. “I’d never seen him rant and rave like that. He really seemed – quite mad. And then, that was when he told me why he needed the money, and why he had to get away. It seems that” – her voice faltered – “well, it seems he’d been involved with Ashleigh Cockayne down at the Gaiety in some tacky little scheme to make money out of photographs ... which I suppose you know all about?”

  “Some of it. You may be able to fill me in on the details later.”

  She shook her crimped bob. “That was the first I knew of it. But I realized it must have been questionable, because he told me one of your policemen had come snooping around – that was what he called it. And there’d been a fight. And the policeman died. And he and Cockayne had put his body into the river.” She spoke as if she were being driven by some force she couldn’t contain, glossing over the appalling events in a flat, rapid monotone, as if that might make them less appalling. “But Cockayne panicked, he said the body was sure to turn up, and what then? He said he was going to go to the police to report what had happened, tell them it was an accident. Rupert told him he was out of his mind if he thought they’d believe that.”

  Kite said, “It was no accident.”

  Georgina turned to look at him blankly, as though one of the pieces of furniture had spoken. “I know,” she said. “I know, it couldn’t have been. That’s why Rupert was so scared. He was scared, one hundred percent. It seemed to me he’d gone right over the top. He was really wild, he didn’t seem to care anymore what he’d done. Well, we argued for over an hour, but I was determined not to give in, and in the end he left.”

  “And that was the last time you saw him?”

  “Yes.” She avoided his eyes.

  He left it and came back to an earlier point of contention. “You identified the body in the mortuary as your husband’s. Knowing that it was the body of Ashleigh Cockayne.”

  “That was so horrible!” She shivered, drawing herself together. “I knew it wasn’t Rupert, but I saw in a
flash what must have happened, that he must have shot Cockayne. That’s what he’d been planning, that was why he wanted the money to get away. So I said it was Rupert. It couldn’t do Cockayne any harm, he was dead, and Rupert ... well, he was still my husband. Maybe it was partly my fault, what had happened. If I’d given him the money ... maybe I owed him this last thing. I didn’t see any reason why anybody should ever know what I’d done.”

  “A lot of people have thought that in the past, Mrs. Fleming,” Mayo said. “Where is your husband now?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You don’t know?” He knew that to be a lie. “Well, before your father comes back, suppose we talk about the Volkswagen belonging to Ashleigh Cockayne. I must tell you we’ve spoken to Mr. Tim Salisbury, who’s admitted how he got rid of it –”

  At that moment, there was the slam of a shotgun, followed by another.

  For several minutes Culver had kept the gun raised. At last he pressed the trigger. Minty fell but he didn’t look at her. Keeping his eyes on the distant skyline, he prepared to fire the second barrel. And then at the last moment he swung round, releasing into the air the shot intended for himself.

  Too many deaths already, too much grief. Fleming wasn’t going to win that way.

  He dropped the gun and slowly bent to pick up the bitch. Carrying her in his arms, he strode back to the house where Georgina, and the police, were waiting.

  “Mr. Culver, I’ll ask you the question I’ve been asking your daughter, and hope I get a more satisfactory answer. I have to ask you, what has happened to Rupert Fleming?”

  Culver sat in the wing chair by the fire, impassive as an Easter Island statue. “What makes you think I should know that?”

  “For one thing, you sent money to the woman he was living with. A thousand pounds in five-pound notes, which you put into an unsealed letter you found in his pocket and then posted ...”

  “That’s pure guesswork!” But the momentary flicker of his eyes showed him as surprised as he would ever allow himself to be.

  “Ever heard of genetic fingerprinting, Mr. Culver? It won’t be guesswork that proves it’s your saliva on the envelope and stamp, and your prints on the money and the envelope. And I’m satisfied there’s only one way you could have got at that letter. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Culver smiled sardonically, but Mayo thought he detected some subtle change in his attitude. Defeat? No, not yet. “I’m surprised you don’t know, seeing you know so much otherwise.”

  “Don’t get clever with me, Mr. Culver. I want to know what happened on the night Ashleigh Cockayne was murdered.”

  The old man filled his pipe, lit it and said nothing. It seemed evident he was prepared to stall all night, if necessary. He looked tired, though. His heavy shoulders drooped and his sharp eyes had lost some of their alertness. He had cleaned up after bringing the dog home, but there was a smear of blood that he’d missed across the back of his wrist.

  “If you won’t say, then let’s talk about something else. The gun that killed Cockayne belonged to you. You claimed it’d been stolen, but there was no evidence of forced entry.” He spoke to Georgina. “Mrs. Fleming, when you left home on your marriage, did you keep the keys you presumably had to this house?”

  “My father never asked me to return them. Did you, Father?”

  “Of course I didn’t, girl, of course I didn’t. Still your home, wasn’t it?”

  “Did your husband know you had them?”

  “He might have.”

  “Either he did, and used them to obtain the twelve-bore with which he shot Ashleigh Cockayne, or you yourself got the gun for him.”

  “No!” Georgina said, simultaneously with Culver’s harsh “Don’t be a fool!”

  “All right,” Mayo said, “I’m satisfied it was Fleming who took the keys and got the gun. And assuming that was so, it seems logical to me to assume that when Cockayne’s car wouldn’t start – in which Fleming had intended making a break after shooting Cockayne – he would think of yours, not very far away in a garage to which he had the keys. I think he walked up over the hill and through the wood behind the house, intending to take your car and then drive back to pick up his belongings from the Volkswagen. Unfortunately for him, he never did get back. I have to ask you, Mr. Culver, did you kill Rupert Fleming?”

  Georgina jumped up with an exclamation and crossed the room to sit on the arm of her father’s chair. She laid a hand on his sleeve. “It wasn’t as you think,” she began, but her father stopped her with a firm hand over hers.

  “I’d no choice,” he said suddenly. “I did kill him, yes – in a manner of speaking. But I’d no choice and I’ve no regrets. He was a murderer, he’d killed two men, one in anger, one in cold blood. There was no future for him, anyway.”

  P.C.W. Platt looked up from her pad. Her eyes were wide. She’d never been in at a murder confession before. Certainly not one as cold and matter-of-fact as this promised to be. Her pencil began to fly again as Culver went on.

  “He came here at one o’clock in the morning. I was just going to bed when I heard someone moving about outside in the yard at the back. I turned the light out and drew back the curtains on one of the side windows and I saw a man fiddling with the door of the old barn where I keep my car. I got my gun and went out at the back door and round to the side. He heard me and when he turned round I saw it was Rupert Fleming.”

  “Did you shoot him?”

  “No, I did not. I demanded an explanation of what he was doing, though it was pretty obvious he wouldn’t have been there if he hadn’t been intending to make off with my car. He said he had to get away, he was in bad trouble. He asked me for money ... money – from me!” Culver laughed harshly. “I asked him, ‘What makes you think I would give you money?’ ‘You would if you knew the whole story,’ he said. ‘Then you’d better tell it to me.’ ”

  A log fell in the fire. Culver leaned forward and pushed it together, sat back and puffed at his pipe before resuming talking as coolly as though he were telling some mildly interesting anecdote. “He wanted to come inside, but I told him to stay where he was. He was uneasy because I had the gun on him, but he told me the whole sorry tale ... well, I don’t suppose there’s any need to repeat that. The upshot was that he needed money and some means of getting away. He knew I always kept cash in the house and then he got cocky and said if I didn’t give it him he’d take it anyway. ‘You wouldn’t shoot me,’ he said, ‘think of the scandal to your precious daughter.’ The fool, threatening me like that. Didn’t he realize I didn’t need to kill him, I was armed and I could easily have disabled him? But then he made his mistake. He raised his hand to me. He shouldn’t have done that, not with Minty by my side.”

  At the mention of his dog, Culver paused, an involuntary spasm that might have been pain crossing his face, but when he resumed he was as much in control as before. “He put his hands on my shoulders and began to shake me. Minty went for his heels. He staggered and we both fell. I found myself lying on top of him with my hands round his neck. He tried to pull me off but Minty got her teeth into his hand. And then, all of a sudden, I knew he was dead.”

  The sound of Jenny Platt flipping a page of her notebook over was like a whiplash in the silence.

  “Where is he now?”

  “Under the flagstones in the tower. I gave myself a shot of brandy and after a while I dragged him outside. It wasn’t difficult, I’ve always kept myself fit.”

  Georgina got up and faced him. Her voice strangled, she said, “That money they say you sent, Father ... why didn’t you tell me about that?”

  Culver turned in his chair to face his daughter. “I hoped that might not be necessary, girl.”

  “But why? Why did you send it? To – to her!”

  “I went through his pockets and got my keys back and I saw the letter. It wasn’t sealed and I read it. It appeared from what he wrote that he’d been intending to send her money and it seemed hard to me that she shouldn
’t have any. She’d had a bad-enough time with him already, so I left the letter as it was, put some cash in and posted it.”

  “You knew about her?” The bewilderment in her voice, so unlike her, did more than anything to make Mayo feel pity for her.

  “I’ve always,” Culver replied harshly, “made it my business to know everything about Fleming. I knew one day the score would even itself out, though I never intended it to happen the way it did.” He turned from his daughter and spoke to Mayo. “I’m prepared to pay for what I’ve done, but I’d just like to repeat that I don’t regret anything except the sorrow I’ve caused my daughter.”

  With a dry catch in her throat, Georgina tried to speak.

  “Cry, girl, cry, it’ll do you good,” Culver said.

  But now, after all this time, she couldn’t.

  Mayo stood up, ready to make the formal caution. He was surprised at how quickly Culver had given in, but glad of it, knowing that without his confession they could never have proved his guilt, might never have known what had happened to Rupert Fleming. With a plea of self-defence, he might be lucky and get away with manslaughter.

  Father and daughter stood before him, Culver gaunt and ruined, aged by ten years, Georgina looking bereft. It’s bizarre, Mayo thought, sickened. All this sudden disruption to so many lives ... all these deaths.

  But no more so, perhaps, than life itself.