Brief Cases Box Set

by Andrea Frazer

  Both pieces of furniture seemed to be stuffed with old envelopes and papers, and Falconer could only consider that Jimmy Carling had wasted no time on having a clear-out before he had moved here, but just stuffed everything he could into the furniture to be moved, with probably a pie-crust promise to himself that he’d go through everything when he was settled. And then hadn’t!

  There were plenty of papers to sort, but most of them were of the junk mail type, virtually nothing being personal. Falconer did think he’d struck gold when he found a couple of small envelopes addressed in an old-fashioned female hand, but these had turned out to be letters from the old man’s mother, and he must have kept them in memory of her.

  At one point, Carmichael gave a yell but this, too, was a false alarm, and produced only a couple of epistles from the man’s sister, keeping him up to date on family news. After an hour they had to call it a day, and left the flat as they had found it, returning to the office glum and defeated.

  Back at their desks, Falconer voiced his resolution to have another go at Abigail Wentworth, and face her with the suggestion that she and Carling had been old lovers. After all, they had nothing to lose, and, maybe, everything to gain.

  Although still a little pale when they arrived, Abigail was in full make-up, and fashionably dressed, when she opened the door to them, at about ten-thirty. She looked surprised to see them again so soon after their call of the day before, but her manners were set in stone, and she asked them in with no demur, showing them once more into the room with the comfy seats, and retreating again to the kitchen, to make tea this time. Carmichael couldn’t face another run-in with such a tiny cup, and had high hopes of a mug this morning, and Falconer couldn’t grudge him his attempt to get his hands on a larger drinking vessel.

  Sadly, the sergeant had misjudged Abigail’s refinement, and the tray she bore in for them today had beautifully painted, but small, teacups on it, however, at least they were bigger than the ones in which she had served coffee yesterday.

  Falconer asked for his with just a tiny splash of milk, but she looked hard at Carmichael when she enquired whether he wanted milk and sugar. ‘Yes, please,’ he gulped, evidently intimidated by this strong woman.

  ‘And how much sugar would you like today, Sergeant?’ she asked, her eyes daring him to give her an outrageous answer.

  ‘Six,’ replied the sergeant, who had been avoiding eye contact, and had not noticed her steely look, but he wasn’t deaf, and he heard her whispered opinion. ‘Ridiculous!’

  When she was settled, Falconer declared that he was going to ask her a very personal question, and promptly did so. ‘Did you, in your youth, or at any time during your marriage, have an affair with a Mr James Carling?’

  Abigail was so startled that she sprayed tea down the front of her pretty mint green frock, and sat with her mouth open in apparent amazement. ‘If you’re referring to that unfortunate man that I ran over yesterday, I have already told you that I had never set eyes on him before yesterday, and I am not one to tell lies. I’d never met him before, and I told you that yesterday. Now, I’d be grateful if you’d finish your tea, then leave my house immediately. I can’t think what put that idea into your head, but I am scandalised that you actually asked me that question.’

  Back in the car once more, Falconer and Carmichael looked at each other, shrugged simultaneously, then burst out laughing. ‘Lord, I put my foot in it that time, didn’t I?’

  ‘Big time, sir, and in size twelve uniform boots!’ confirmed Carmichael.

  They returned to the office, Falconer knowing he was on the right track, but somehow, he had things slightly out of kilter. Somehow, he’d muffed it. ‘We’ll collect those witness statements and call on the three other people who were actually at the scene of the accident. Maybe they’ll have remembered something else,’ decided the inspector, determined that Merv Green’s hunch, and the reflection he had seen of Abigail’s face in the car window, meant something important. That had been no accident, and he knew it.

  As Carmichael gathered the necessary paperwork together, a thought struck him and he asked, ‘Is that chap still upsetting Kerry – the one in Castle Farthing that you said is getting up everyone’s nose?’

  Carmichael stopped scrabbling at his desk and slumped down in his chair. ‘Technically, no, sir. Kerry’s Auntie Marian – you know, Marian Warren-Browne, who used to run the post office? Her godmother. Well, she, apparently ‘had a word’ with him, about upsetting Kerry in her advanced state of pregnancy, but it only seems to have made things worse.’

  ‘How could it?’

  ‘Well, now, when he sees Kerry, he does a fake start of surprise, puts a finger to his lips, then turns around and tiptoes away in the most hammy manner imaginable, which just upsets her even more.’

  ‘The man obviously has no idea what effect he has on her. Why don’t you have a word with him?’

  ‘I thought of that,’ said Carmichael, ‘but I can’t imagine what I’d say. “Stop tiptoeing off when you see my wife?” It sounds so daft. And the most distressing thing is, he seems to think it’s all a huge joke. I’ll be glad when this baby’s born, and Kerry’s hormones return to normal. Maybe she won’t be quite so sensitive, then. I’ve had just about enough of him, I can tell you, sir.’

  ‘It won’t be long now, Carmichael. Just hang on in there. Maybe he’ll get bored.’

  ‘I certainly hope so. I don’t want to have to take him round the back of the pub and give him a punch up the bracket.’

  ‘What quaint phraseology you use. But that course of action is not recommended for your career prospects, Sergeant. Now, let’s get off and speak to these witnesses.’

  Madge Moth lived just around the corner from Jimmy Carling’s flat, in a terraced house that was slightly larger than the ones in Abattoir Street, and she lived in the whole building, not just part of it.

  She was an elderly woman whose hands were gnarled with arthritis. She had a deceptively sweet, high-pitched voice; but she pulled no punches, and the sweetness of her tone belied her nature.

  ‘You can come in if you like, but I’ve got nothing else to add to what I said yesterday. I think there’s tea in the pot, and I’ve got a few biscuits left. Go through that door to your right and sit down, and I’ll be through in a minute. But don’t expect any revelations.’

  Through that door to the right was a parlour almost as grim, but not as grubby, as Jimmy Carling’s living quarters. The furniture was heavy Victorian, the carpet hectically coloured in dull orange and brown swirls. The curtains were only partly pulled open, and little natural light penetrated through the window, which faced north.

  Mrs Moth joined them almost immediately, her grip on the tray unsteady, as she wrestled with her damaged hands, and Falconer got up to take the tray from her. ‘I can manage perfectly well, young man,’ she trilled at him. ‘What do you think I do when you’re not in the house to help me?’

  Embarrassed, Falconer retook his seat, and accepted a cup of tea and a biscuit. Carmichael, too, was intimidated by this fierce, fragile woman, and even refused sugar in his tea – a first since Falconer had known him. It was probably a good move on his part though, as the tea was only lukewarm, and would never have dissolved the six spoonfuls of sugar that Carmichael regularly enjoyed (how?) in his beverages.

  The biscuits proved to be stale, and, after an initial nibble, they both placed the soggy discs in their saucers and decided to get this over with. ‘I wonder if you would be so kind as to read through the statement that you made yesterday and tell us, having had time to sleep on it, if you have remembered anything else that may prove relevant, Mrs Moth,’ Falconer began.

  ‘I shan’t, you know,’ she replied with such haste that he only just managed to finish his sentence.

  ‘Nevertheless, I should be grateful if you would humour me. A man is dead, and I want to know why.’

  ‘Because he was run over by a car. Surely that’s self-evident. No one would be feeling very chipper
after what happened to him.’

  ‘Please,’ Falconer almost pleaded, still holding out the statement, waiting for her to take it.

  ‘Oh, all right. If it’ll get you two out of my hair and out of my house, give it here.’

  She read her statement through thoroughly, then handed it back, commenting, ‘Nothing new,’ almost with relish.

  ‘Another witness mentioned that she might have heard the car accelerating. Have you any memory of that?’ asked the inspector, desperate for any crumb that might come his way.

  ‘My statement stands as it is. I have nothing to add to it,’ she declared, and stood, as a signal that they should leave.

  Katy Cribb’s house, on the other side of Market

  Darley, proved to be on a new development of houses, so recently built that the roads hadn’t even been made up. Hers was a smart but small semi-detached house right near the beginning of the estate. She was in, a fact that became obvious as they reached the front door and heard the cries of her child issuing from inside, and she opened the door to them with an armful of squealing baby.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ she said, her head inclining towards her daughter. ‘She had a bad night, and I’m just going to put her down for a nap. She’s worn out, poor little darling. Come on in, and I’ll be with you in just a minute. It’s about that accident yesterday, isn’t it?’

  With that, she rushed up the stairs to deposit little Cassandra in her cot, where her wails would not be so intrusive. When she re-joined them, she read through her statement of the day before, and said that she’d been thinking about it and, although she’d been absorbed in retrieving Cassandra’s cuddly bunny-wunny, she thought she really had heard the whine of an engine, as in increasing its revs.

  Excellent! That was a tiny step closer to proving that Jimmy Carling was not the victim of an accident, but had been targeted on purpose. Of this, Falconer was absolutely convinced, and nothing would sway him from his belief.

  They went straight to the bank because, even though it was a Saturday morning, they suspected that they would find Arthur Black in his office, and they were right. Banks had had to expand their hours over the years, and now offered a limited service at the weekend.

  Black was absolutely sure that Abigail Wentworth’s car had speeded up just before it hit Mr Carling. He had not only seen it increase its speed, but had heard the revving of the engine, and wondered why the driver had done this, and then had been so tardy in applying the brakes.

  ‘Every little helps,’ Falconer commented, as he announced that they were going to return to Abattoir road and have a final search of the victim’s flat. This time they’d search the other way round. Carmichael could do the bedroom, while Falconer rummaged through the living room. Fresh eyes might see something that hadn’t been spotted before, but, before that, he suggested that they take a short break for lunch, as working on an empty stomach with low blood sugar wouldn’t see them performing at their best.

  Chapter Five

  Saturday 27th November – afternoon

  After lunch in the staff canteen – a chicken salad for Falconer and double fish and chips for Carmichael, with six slices of bread and butter and lashings of ketchup – they set off for the sad little flat in a much more up-beat mood. It was amazing what food could do to the way one felt.

  Once inside, Carmichael headed for the small squalid bedroom and Falconer started on the sideboard, filled with fresh hope. If there was anything to be found, it would be in this seedy little flat, and, what’s more, they were going to find it today. Mrs Wentworth wasn’t going to get away with what he was now convinced was cold-blooded murder.

  He looked at every scrap of paper he could find, and even came across a few dog-eared black-and-white photos, that he presumed were of Carling and his family, but nothing connected to the case came to light, and he was wondering how Carmichael was getting on in the bedroom, when he heard his voice exclaim, ‘Coo! There’s an awful lot of colourful clothes in here!’

  ‘What’s that?’ he called back.

  ‘In this wardrobe,’ replied Carmichael, with respect in his voice, for he loved to dress flamboyantly, although he’d never admit it. ‘Come and have a look, sir!’

  How could he resist such a tempting invitation? The inspector dropped the handful of papers that he was meticulously sorting through and joined Carmichael in the bedroom. The doors of the old walnut wardrobe, which had been held closed with an old sock the day before, now stood wide open, a positive rainbow of shirts and jumpers glowing from its inside. How had he managed to ignore the wardrobe?

  Ignoring Carmichael’s fascinated inspection of the clothes within, one word chimed, over and over again, in Falconer’s mind: pockets! He had to look in the pockets! Here was a whole new world of possibilities.

  Pushing Carmichael aside in his new-found enthusiasm, he started first with the trousers, slipping a hand into each opening, in search of the treasure that would make an arrest for murder a certainty. He didn’t believe that there could possibly have been nothing between victim and murderess.

  Finally, he was rewarded, and pulled out an old, battered wallet which, on being opened, proved to contain a photograph of Carling, with what looked like a very close friend. He whistled with amazement, and called Carmichael over to see what he had discovered. The sergeant’s reaction was equally nonplussed. ‘Wow! What a turn-up for the books.’

  The jacket pockets yielded nothing more. Falconer stared round the little room, hoping for just one more piece of the jigsaw to fit into the picture. His eyes were drawn to the bedside table which he had searched so diligently the day before. On top of it lay an old book, well-thumbed, and evidently much loved, and his heart rate rose. Maybe, just maybe, the last little piece of damning evidence was within its covers.

  Taking it in his hands almost reverentially, he held it by its spine and shook it. A very thin, yellowing piece of paper fluttered to the ground. Slowly, oh so slowly, he bent down to pick it up, and unfolded and held it where both of them could read it. After exclaiming, ‘Well, I’ll be jiggered!’ he placed both items into evidence bags and gave Carmichael a smug smile.

  ‘Got her!’ declared Falconer triumphantly. ‘Come on! Let’s go and arrest her.’

  Abigail was flabbergasted when she opened her front door to find the two policemen from the day before on her doorstep yet again. ‘What do you want now?’ she snapped at them, a look of distaste on her face.

  ‘We need another word with you, Mrs Wentworth,’ explained Falconer politely. No need to feed her hostility at this early stage.

  ‘I suppose you’d better come in then, but I’ve offered you all the refreshments you’re going to get from me.’

  Back in her expensively furnished sitting room once more, Falconer asked her if she had anything more to add to her statement about the ‘incident’ that had occurred the day before. He purposely didn’t use the word ‘accident’, because he knew that this was not appropriate now.

  ‘Absolutely nothing. I told you I couldn’t remember the actual event, and nothing’s come back to me since. Maybe I just shoved my foot down on the wrong pedal.’

  In silence, the inspector removed the evidence bag containing the photograph of Jimmy Carling and her husband, arms round each other, and just watched her face as she looked at it. ‘That is your husband with the victim, isn’t it? I saw several photographs of him on display in this very room just yesterday.’

  Abigail’s face drained of colour, and a look of horror slowly developed across her features. Improvising as if her very life depended on it, she replied, ‘Robert made a good many friends through his work whom I never met. This is obviously one of them.’

  ‘They seem rather intimate to be just friends, don’t you think?’ he asked, referring to the arms-entwined pose.

  ‘He probably did it for a joke. He did have a sense of humour, you know.’ She was on more of an even keel now, her mind working nineteen-to-the-dozen so that she shouldn’t be caught out like tha
t again, but she didn’t know what else Falconer had found.

  Removing another evidence bag from his pocket, he handed the letter across to her, and just waited for her comments. The letter that had been so carefully preserved between the pages of the book for all these years was a ‘dear John’, ending the affair between Abigail’s late husband Robert and James Carling, citing the diagnosis of his cancer, and his very limited time left, as the reason they could not set up home together as they’d planned.

  Alison Fairweather, in her phone conversation, had certainly mentioned a bit of a kerfuffle at about the time that Robert’s illness had been diagnosed, and it looked like this was what they had inadvertently stumbled upon. It also gave them a twenty-four-carat motive for murder.

  Abigail had managed to suppress this scandalous affair all these years, in a bid to preserve her respectability. Now it would become public property when she was prosecuted for the murder of Jimmy Carling.

  There was a sudden change of mood in Abigail as her face turned purple with rage, and she leaned forward and began to thump the coffee table with her fists to punctuate what she was saying. ‘After’ (thump) ‘all’ (thump) ‘these’ (thump) ‘years’ (thump) ‘of keeping’ (thump) ‘this’ (thump) ‘quiet’ (thump) ‘and you’ (thump) ‘have to’ (thump) ‘come’ (thump) ‘along’ (thump) ‘and ruin’ (thump) ‘everything’ (thump).

  Falconer felt his sphincter contract with trepidation, and wracked his brains to try to remember whether there was such an offence as ‘scaring the pants off a police officer’. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Carmichael was so rattled that he had reverted to sucking his thumb.

  ‘Didn’t you know your husband was bisexual?’ he asked, knowing that he risked having his face ripped off by this furious, screeching banshee. Carmichael was silent. His mouth was full of thumb, and he’d been brought up never to talk with his mouth full.