The Irish Connection

by Norma Hanton

  “Right, now we can all relax and chat about the two women. Perhaps we could start with Caroline Johnston?”

  “According to my records, Inspector, Caroline Johnston at first moved into apartment five with Dawn Peters and then took over the tenancy of apartment six when it was vacated by the couple who lived there. She had lived there on her own since, according to my agent.”

  Doyle moved his chair closer so he was able to see the file. The closeness seemed to bother her. She swiftly covered the file with a newspaper.

  “We found nothing in the apartments to identify them,” Seamus looked her in the eye, “No bills, no bankbooks, address books, or phone books - nothing. Don’t you find that a little strange, Miss Bell? Everyone has at least the number for their doctor, dentist or gas man, or even a book to prove they’ve paid you the rent.”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “What they had in their apartment was no concern of mine, Inspector Doyle. As long as they kept the place in good condition I couldn’t care less. If we’re here to discuss their domestic arrangements I can be of no help to you whatsoever. I didn’t see them; I had no cause to see them. They would have been given a tenancy agreement and a rent book. How would I know where they kept it?”

  Bell sipped her coffee which had been delivered by a silent Miss Brown who placed the cup on the desk and left. The two men were not offered any refreshment.

  “So you wouldn’t be able to tell me anything about Dawn Peters either. For example, could you say what her source of income was?”

  “No, I am afraid I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  Bell sighed.

  “I just presumed she had a private income. Maybe she received help from her parents, how should I know? It was none of my business, Mr Cotton. What they did, where they went, or where they kept their rent book, was their business, not mine. Nor anyone else’s for that matter.”

  “That’s Detective Inspector Cotton, Miss Bell, and I’m getting the feeling you’re giving me the proverbial run around. You rent an expensive apartment to two women that you say you don’t know from Adam. You have no way of knowing if they can afford the rent but you don’t ask for references? You don’t know where they moved from, or even if they held a British passport. I don’t think so, Miss Bell.” Cotton stood up and glancing at the solicitor who had just entered the office, “If you wish to continue to decline answering my questions we will continue this interview down at the station.”

  He waited. She hesitated only for an instant.

  “Very well, Inspector, but I assure you that I am being totally honest with you. Why won’t you get it into your head that I’m telling you the truth? Neither of these two women ever informed me of the details of their income. Mulberry Court is my father’s property and, as manager, I’ll let the apartments to who the hell I like. I do not need your permission.” She put on her coat and grabbed her handbag from the desk. “However, Detective Inspector Cotton, if you wish to interview me at the police station, again, let’s get on with it.” Holding up a hand to silence Hampton, she smiled up at Cotton. “Time is money, Inspector. At least to me it is.”

  Interview over, Ann Bell left the station and was driven back to her office by Hampton. D.I. Cotton sat facing his superior, Superintendent Samuel Mulhern.

  “Do you think, in all honesty, that she’s telling you the truth, Ed?” he asked.

  “About as much as I believe in fairies, sir, but I’ve nothing to go on. She’s right of course, she can let the place to anyone she likes; there’s no law that says she has to ask for references. I just feel it in my bones that she’s hiding something, but what I couldn’t say. She seems such a heartless bitch that I believe she would have made damn sure they could afford the rent for that place before letting them put one foot over the threshold. As for her other tenants, they must be blind as well as deaf because no one saw anything.”

  Cotton gave a tired sigh and dragged his hand through his thick hair.

  “We’ve tried all the usual routes and have come up with nothing. We’ve tried Ministry of Labour, Inland Revenue, and Ministry of Transport, checked the files and got absolutely nowhere. It’s a dead end, if you will pardon the pun, sir.”

  “So what Bell is saying is that although they’ve rented her property for years she only knew them by the names they gave her and that she did no checking on them whatsoever. This female is seriously pulling somebody’s plonker.” Giving Cotton a long, cool stare he went on, “Bring her in again in the morning. I’ll interview her myself. Maybe I’ll be able to see past the big tits and fluttering eyelashes.”

  A very angry Detective Inspector left Mulhern’s office.

  Mulhern sat looking at the woman in front of him. She was stunning; there was no doubt about it. No wonder Cotton had a problem keeping his mind on the job.

  Miss Bell’s solicitor, sat next to her.

  Cotton had not been surprised to see him.

  “Now Miss Bell,” began Mulhern, with an avuncular grin, “I have to inform you that this is purely a voluntary interview and you are free to end it at any time and leave. Do you understand?”

  “My client understands perfectly, Superintendent,” interrupted Hampton, “Please carry on. Miss Bell has a business to run and a sick father to look after. Although trying to be of as much help to the police as possible, she wishes this interview to be as brief as possible.”

  “I‘ve asked you to come today,” began Mulhern, totally ignoring the last remark, “to try and help us find out all we can about the deceased so that we can find the killer or killers before someone else dies. But there seems to be a strange reluctance on your behalf to assist us.”

  Ann Bell sighed. “Your Inspector has been informed of everything I know about the tenants, twice in fact. For the last time of saying this,” she spoke as if she were talking to a simpleton, spelling it out. ”I - do - not - know - anything - else, and I am not about to invent information just to please you.”

  “How was the rent paid?” Mulhern asked.

  “As far as I’m aware both rents are, or were, paid quarterly, in advance, and paid punctually. They paid for minor repairs themselves and let my workmen in when necessary. I know nothing of their private lives or where they or their money came from, and,” she brushed something from her skirt before continuing, “as far as I know, Superintendent, they were both unmarried, and were no problem whatsoever. So why the hell should I want to go and see them.”

  “They’d rented the apartments from you for about five years and that’s all you claim to know about them? Surely, Miss Bell, you checked them out carefully before leasing the properties?” He lent toward her. “How did they know the property was to let? How did they approach you? Where did you first meet them?” Mulhern snapped at her.

  Ann Bell stared back at him. “They were, A - highly recommended by the former tenant who was only too eager to act as referee. So, no, I didn’t ask for reference. B - They knew it was to let through the former tenant. He was the one that approached me. C- I met them all briefly in my office. Our first and only meeting took place on the day they signed the new tenancy agreement.”

  “Did they mention family or friends?”

  “No”

  “Past employment?”

  “No.”

  “Illness?”

  At this Bell paused.

  “I seem to remember one of them saying that they had recently had their appendix removed and so would be going for a couple of weeks’ vacation, convalescence, or something, before moving in. It was too long ago, Superintendent. I really can’t remember.”

  Cotton remembered the scar on the post mortem results. It had been the one they now believed to be Dawn Peters.

  “Did she say which hospital operated on her?” he asked Bell.

  “Somewhere overseas I believe,” Bell turned to him. “She’d been on holiday when it happened.”

  “Where could we contact the former tenant?” Mulhern asked,
giving Cotton a look that said ‘will you leave this to me’.

  “He moved abroad, I believe, before the girls moved in.”

  “Where abroad, Miss Bell?”

  “New Zealand, Australia. Somewhere like that. I really don’t remember, Superintendent.”

  “Try to remember, Miss Bell, it is important that we interview him as quickly as possible. In fact, it is vital that we talk to him. Damn it all, he must have left a forwarding address.” Mulhern was starting to raise his voice.

  “I was away on business when he left, Superintendent. I’m unaware of any forwarding address.”

  “Are you sure Miss Bell? Could you perhaps, check it out with your office?”

  Before Bell could answer the solicitor stood up.

  “My client has told you all she knows and has given you a lot of her time. I’m calling a halt now” said Mr Hampton, “my client and I have other appointments.” He opened the door, “So we will bid you good day, gentlemen.”

  Ann Bell rose and picked up her handbag.

  “You will realise of course that further questioning may be necessary in the future,” Mulhern informed them. “Thank you for your co-operation. Goodbye.” He watched Hampton whisper something to Bell as the pair hurried down the corridor.

  “Flash git!” he muttered. Without making eye contact he added, “I owe you an apology, Cotton, that female is the original iceberg. She wouldn’t give you a drink of water if you were dying of thirst, never mind information. Care for a cuppa, Cotton?”

  Cotton was happy to let Mulhern grovel for a while and let the interview sink in.

  Once again he felt sure Bell was being evasive and obstructive for some reason best known to her. He’d watched her closely during the interview and saw that she was in total control of her emotions at all times during the questioning. He had not noticed one flicker of uncertainty on her face, but still he had a gut instinct that she was hiding something.

  Did she know who did this terrible thing? If she did she would slip up sometime soon and he hoped he would be around at the time. It would give him great pleasure to knock the cockiness out of her voice.

  There was nothing he could do about it at the moment but he would find a way to flush out her secrets.

  Chapter Ten

  As Ann Bell wearily climbed the curved stone steps to the front of the house, the door was opened and Mathews, her father’s ‘man‘, stood waiting.

  “Good evening, Miss, your father is in the drawing room. He‘s expecting the doctor in thirty minutes but wishes you to join him beforehand.”

  Not for the first time in her life Ann wondered what Mathews Christian name was. He’d been with the family since her mother’s death and yet she’d never heard it.

  He was a tall, soft spoken man, gentle and kind and not for the life of her could she understand why this man had never been snapped up by some lucky woman. She had, long ago, fantasized about being his ‘special girl’. Mainly because that was what he had called her when out of earshot of her father.

  As she’d grown older she dreamt of marrying him and running away to some exotic land, having lots of children and living happily ever after. Then she had grown older still and she’d found there was no such thing as happiness. It was all a myth.

  Mathews helped her off with her jacket and then discreetly disappeared.

  Ann made her way to the drawing room where a huge log fire was burning in the very ornate, grate.

  Even in the middle of August her father felt the cold and would order that a fire be lit, not caring if the rest of the household felt as though they were being slowly cooked alive.

  Her father, Nathaniel Jacob Bell, lay recumbent on a red chaise longue, his bald head and thin shoulders supported by fluffy white pillows. He looked grey, drawn, and shrunken now, but he could still bring terror to her heart.

  Ann stood beside him, refusing to meet his gaze.

  “Good evening, Father. No one informed me that you were feeling worse. Why did you not have Mathews call me?”

  “Be quiet girl. I didn’t have anyone call you because I don’t need you. The doctor wasn’t sent for, it’s just his regular night to call in and make a flaming nuisance of himself. He gets me to strip bare while he checks me out because he knows I can’t stand the cold air. Then the blasted fellow has the nerve to drink my whisky before he leaves.” He waved a feeble hand at a chair. “Now stop wasting my time. Sit your bloody arse down there and tell me about these murders.”

  Ann, as she had all her life, did as she was told.

  She told him how she didn’t know the women personally and repeated what the Inspector had said. She added that as far as she was concerned that was the end of it.

  He said, “You will stand no nonsense from that uppity police officer. Tell him from me that, unless he comes up with the name of the killer, he can go to hell. The business of my firm is no business of his and has nothing to do with the deaths. Do you hear me, girl?”

  She was saved from answering by a tap at the door as Doctor Jackson - Brown was shown in.

  Jackson - Brown had been her father’s General Practitioner since he and her mother moved into Bullock Hall after their wedding ceremony. He was a large framed man, cheerful, hearty and very blunt. He had no time for shirkers. He would tell her father time and again to get up, get outdoors and let the fresh air into his lungs instead of sitting hugging the fire in misery.

  ‘It would do you the world of good to get out there, Nathaniel, roll up your sleeves and get stuck into the garden. Do you a damn sight better than all the pills and potions you throw down your neck,’ he’d remarked more than once.

  Everyone knew Doctor Jackson - Brown loved his garden. Since the death of his wife it wasn’t just a hobby, it was a passion. Joanne loved the one place they could be together, in peace. She’d spent most of her last summer of life sitting on the stone bench quietly watching him work.

  “Well! Hello, young lady, what a pleasant surprise,” he kissed Ann on the cheek, “We don’t see enough beauty around here.” He gave her a broad grin. “Been summoned by the invalid, eh? Wants you to hold his hand while I’m here, is that it, eh?”

  “No she bloody well hasn’t. Take that stupid grin off your face and let’s get on with it.” Her father turned his face to her. “You - wait in the dining room until this quack has finished manhandling me and then you can bring me my dinner.”

  She was being dismissed as if she was still a servant but, though she certainly did not appreciate the fact. She gritted her teeth and obeyed, if only out of a lifetime of doing so.

  Ann waited in the dining room for almost an hour before Doctor Jackson - Brown appeared to tell her he’d finished his examinations and she was free to re-join her father

  “Just how ill is he, Doctor Brown?” she asked. “And please be frank, I am not a child.”

  The Doctors face became shadowed. “I’m afraid he hasn’t much longer, Ann. At the rate of decline he is experiencing at present I would surmise your father has less than six months.” He touched her arm. “He seems to have given in to it now. Accepted it, if you see what I mean.” His quiet announcement was not a surprise and Ann showed no sign of grief on hearing the news.

  He looked into her face. What she and her beautiful mother, Marion, had endured from Nathaniel Bell had been monstrous. Neither of the two women would brook any interference from him, even though he was the only other person in the outside world who knew the true personality of Nathaniel. He, himself had been totally in love with Marion and had told her so. He would have given up everything to be with her, but she wouldn’t leave Ann behind and she knew her husband would never let her take her daughter with her.

  One day Nathaniel had telephoned him to say Marion had fallen from a step ladder and seemed to be badly hurt. He’d rushed to the house to find her unconscious on the study floor; a stepladder lay next to her body.

  “She’ll need to go to hospital” he’d told her husband. “She’s got a broken arm an
d, if I’m not mistaken a couple, of cracked ribs as well.”

  “Well you know what these women are like, Brown, they won’t be told. I warned her not to try and hang the damned curtains herself.”

  Jackson Brown found himself called out on many other occasions when Marion had ‘fallen’ or ‘walked into a door’.

  Jerking himself back to the present he asked Ann,

  “What will you do when he dies, Ann? Your mother asked me to look after you, you know, and I want you to know I will always be here for you. The pain she must have suffered at his hands, yet all she ever thought of was your safety.”

  “Thank you for being honest, Doctor. I don’t need looking after by anyone. I can look after myself. Let me show you to the door.”

  After waving to Doctor Brown as he drove down the drive Ann could not suppress a smile. She stood rooted on the doorstep trying to get her feelings under control. She had a terrible urge to throw her arms above her head and scream, ‘Thank you God’. The man was finally dying and she would, like her dead mother, be free of him at last. She would be able to get up in the morning and run her own life, without fear.

  Ann knew the first thing she would do after his funeral, because she’d dreamt of it so many times. She would put his bloody house and his bloody business up for sale and move abroad. She so much wanted to be rid of them as well as him. Never again would she be controlled by the man. She wanted to laugh out loud and tell him exactly what she thought of him, before it was too late. But she knew in her heart that the coward she’d become would make her shrink from it.

  All her young life she had wanted to go to university then into the fashion industry. She dreamt of nothing else. As a child she would design stunning new outfits for her dolls and imagine them being paraded by top models along glittering catwalks. While her father was at work, her mother would often give her garments to parade about the house in, pretending to be a model. As she grew older she had made a decision that she’d be a designer one day, but her father soon scuttled any plans she may have had.