I wondered what he really knew, and if I could make him talk to me. Are there any secrets of the confessional in the Church of England? I could make a quiet threat, pointing out that people who knew who the killer was seemed to die fast themselves round here lately. I walked back to find him.
But he was nowhere to be seen. Ellen Bean and her partner had disappeared as well.
The church door was locked so I tried the rectory, a neat new bungalow, the old Queen Anne rectory having been sold years ago to a banker. No answer here either. I waited for a few minutes then went back the way I had come.
My breakfast had fuelled my energy. I began to walk fast. I had a map of the village in my head and I followed a route my mind had unconsciously prepared me for.
Everywhere in this village were geraniums and small, furry, toothed creatures. Beyond the church to the edge of the village. Up Ruddles Lane, past the Midden. I paused here for a look round, but there was no sign of anyone at home. A distant barking from the back of the house suggested that a dog had picked up my presence.
I wondered where the Beans kept their ferrets. By standing on my toes, I could see over the top of the garden wall to the roof of a long shed. The barking was closer and louder, so I moved away.
I always carry a notebook with a pen in a pocket somewhere, years of training play their part here; I pulled a page from it.
Called to see you, I wrote. I’ll be in touch.
No overt threat there, I thought, you could read into it what you liked.
I strode on. Out of the village, up a hill and a turn down the lane called Marvell’s Ride. From this lane I could see the roof of Dr Harlow’s house, and more distantly on the Bennington Road where the vet had his establishment.
I walked more slowly down Marvell’s Ride, which was a pretty curving road fringed with trees behind which various large houses hid themselves. It looked opulent and comfortable, making it clearly where the wealthier commuters lived. This land did not belong to the Cremorne estate.
The Harlow house could not be seen from the road so that I had to walk down a short drive. I wanted to look at it just in case Bea Armitage’s money had gone that way.
The doctor had built himself a beautiful small modern house, but it was undeniably expensive. But it was also unfinished. A side wing which looked as if it had been meant to house three cars with a set of rooms above stood bleakly empty, roofed but otherwise a shell. I wondered if the stories of him having extravagant tastes was true. I thought I could believe it. A house like this cost money, money that might have run out.
A shrill burst of barking suggested that the Jack Russells were on the loose. They were dogs with sharp little teeth. Had they bitten Chloe Devon’s dead body?
I must have taken too long on my survey because a figure appeared at the front door.
Not Dr Harlow but young, female, and beautiful. Also unfriendly. ‘Did you want anything? We don’t buy from the door.’
I ignored the attack. ‘I wanted to see the doctor.’
‘This is not where he consults.’ She looked expensively dressed but somehow insecure of tenure. A bit of passing trade, I thought.
‘Just a social call,’ I said. ‘Tell him Charmian Daniels called. He knows me, I live in Bea Armitage’s house.’
If she had not been there I would have prowled round the back to see if I could identify anything interesting where a body might have been hidden for a time and where the dogs could have got at it. The site was very open plan, I would have found it, but I had trailed my coat enough so I gave her a smile and moved away. She stood watching me until I was on the road. I left her still watching my back. A nervous girl all right.
I had a choice now: I could continue down the lane which led I knew to the main road which I could either follow or I could strike off across the fields towards the church and the village. This was probably shorter and quicker than the way I had come. It had begun to rain so I put my head down and walked downhill.
I was intent on my walk and my thoughts; what drove a man to murder when all his training must be the other way? The training gave the knowledge of the use of poison, the handiness with the knife.
But I could be wrong: you could read about poisons and their use, and every housewife knew how to wield a knife. Was I going wrong: without my trained professional back, wasn’t I just a guesser like any lay person?
I was so deep in my perplexity that I almost walked into a car.
There was a scream of brakes. ‘Damn you,’ said a voice. ‘What do you think you are doing?’
It was Tim Abbey, driving his white van with his assistant and girlfriend Lu by his side.
I stared at him. ‘Sorry.’
‘So you bloody well should be. I could have killed you.’
‘Steady, Timmy,’ said Lu, putting her hand gently on his own scarred hand. ‘Don’t blow up.’
I took a deep breath. ‘My fault. I was thinking. Not looking where I was going.’
‘You can say that again …’ He took a deep breath. ‘Right.’
‘Would you like a lift?’ said his girlfriend softly.
‘Thanks.’ I thought she was a good girl and probably deserved all the diamonds he could give her. I climbed in and sat beside them on the long front seat in the van which smelt of chemicals and animals. Lu, however, smelt of Chanel Number 5.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Home,’ I said.
As we drove past the church, we could see that a protective police cordon had been put around Mrs Armitage’s grave.
I needn’t have gone walkies, I thought. Clive Barney was doing my work for me.
‘What’s going on there?’ said Tim.
‘Gardening,’ I said. ‘Tidying up the churchyard.’ I felt sick. The breakfast, probably.
When I got home there was a message from Rewley on the answerphone, replying to the question I had asked.
Yes, there was one other piece of kitchen equipment that could contain methyl bromide, and which could leak out lethal doses. A fire extinguisher, if old and rusty, would do it.
I went into the kitchen and put my hand on the marks on the plaster where something had hung. There had been a nail in the wall from which some object, now missing, had been suspended. There was a similar mark close by.
I went outside again, took those dangerous slippery steps down to the old cellar, on whose door the police seal had never been replaced, and in the light of a torch sought out the two rusty extinguishers. I let the torch play over them and even in that light I could see that rusty as they were the holes punched in the base and sides looked deliberate. Someone had taken care to assure there was a leak.
I telephoned Rewley, who was out, so I left a message of thanks for his work and a request that he ring back.
I tried to speak to Clive Barney, but I was told he had gone to Reading in connection with an exhumation order. I knew what that meant, the whole village probably did by now: Bea Armitage.
The tangled web of deaths was beginning to unravel itself; I could sense it happening.
I fed the animals and let Benjy into the garden. I was glad when he came galloping back. All day I had felt brave and full of energy, but now as darkness came on, I felt very tired.
It was probably all done, but I wanted to be out of it. I could not say for sure who the killer was but I knew the group from which the killer must come.
I made some tea and I was drinking it when the telephone rang. I picked it up quickly. Let it be Clive Barney or Rewley, but it was Mary.
She sounded happy and excited. ‘Darling, my soldier boy has come back and all is forgiven.’
‘He didn’t have much to forgive,’ I said a bit sourly, I wasn’t too sure where I stood on men and their rights just now.
‘He thought so, but he understands now, and we’re happy. I’ve given Billy back his ring. Thank goodness we hadn’t put it in The Times, so no harm done. I don’t think he minds too much, his mother didn’t like me.’
; Billy Damiani, I thought. This is where I came in.
I went up to the bedroom to pack a case. I’d go back to Maid of Honour Row in the morning. I wasn’t sure what would happen about this house. I remembered that I had never found out who had made that telephone call to me advising me to cut my losses and get out, but as I thought about it I decided it was Ellen Bean. Her voice made gruffer and deeper to disguise it.
Maybe she knew something that I didn’t know and that this house would bring me bad luck. Or was it that she had decided I was a threat to David and Crick so I ought to be warned off? She was protective of those she loved.
She had been right on one score: a ghost had walked in Brideswell and perhaps it had been Katherine Dryden’s, who might have killed herself because she missed her twin, working through the grief of her husband, making him act. Could you believe in that sort of thing?
In this mood and this place, it was hard to resist belief.
Then the doorbell rang, softly but insistently. I hesitated but I knew I had to go down.
A figure shrouded in a dark cloak, hood drawn down, stood there.
‘Oh, you.’ I had no difficulty in recognizing who it was. I suppose I had half expected this caller. ‘Can I come in?’
I held the door open and Ellen Bean walked through. A wave of cold, damp air came with her.
She stood there, more aggressive than I had remembered. ‘They’re digging up Bea Armitage. You organized that.’
‘I may have suggested it.’
‘I don’t know what good you think it will do. I don’t hold with digging people up.’
‘Neither do I, as rule.’
‘You think she was poisoned?’
‘I’m sure of it. I think someone she trusted gave her a hot drink or strong whisky and laced it with sedative so she slept.’
‘She didn’t die in her sleep.’
‘No, she was sick and dizzy and went into a coma. I wasn’t here, but I guess that’s a good description of how she died.’ Ellen Bean was quiet. ‘You see I’ve read up what the poison she died from does to you.’
Ellen said: ‘They won’t discover any poison. She’s been dead too long.’
‘We shall have to see, won’t we? Worth a look, I think.’
‘You should let the dead rest,’ said Ellen.
‘Ah, but they won’t, will they? You know that yourself. Ghosts, Ellen, didn’t you say? Ghosts have teeth. From that first killing, the motive for which was money, the two others followed.’
‘You put things … tidily.’
‘I like things tidy.’
Ellen opened the door. ‘I’m going. But I warn you: don’t go to sleep tonight, or you might sleep too long yourself.’
She put one hand on my wrist: a real witch’s grasp, strong and cold and sinewy. She could put on the cold like a garment.
‘You won’t get rid of me that easily, Ellen Bean,’ I said. ‘I am beyond your control.’
I held the door for her to depart, wondering if she would ever come back.
Darkness came early that day. I drew the curtains, put a rug round my shoulders, sitting on the bed to think. The two animals joined me.
It was Benjy who woke me with his soft, insistent growls. I sat up. I could not hear a noise but the dog was sure that someone was in the house.
I got up and crept downstairs where I stood listening. All was dark and quiet. ‘No one here,’ I said to Benjy. ‘Go back to bed.’
The dog stood, foursquare, ears cocked and growled again. This time I did hear something and the noise was coming from under the kitchen floor.
The outside cellar.
I took my torch and went outside, the dog came with me. The garden was quiet and empty. No one around in the street and the lights out at the Red Dragon. I must have slept soundly and long.
The cellar door opened and a masked and hooded figure stood in the opening. Behind me, the dog growled. But tentatively, quietly, doubtfully, as if this was not someone you growled at.
My torch light shone on the mask, floated down over the hand, and on to the feet. There was a moment of recognition.
‘I know who you are,’ I said to the figure. ‘And I know why you’ve come: it’s because you know Bea Armitage is being exhumed and you’ve come to take away the fire extinguishers that you used to poison her with. Bea Armitage to whom you owed money.’
He grabbed me and started to drag me into the cellar. I hung on to the door frame.
‘I don’t know why you killed Chloe Devon, but she must have seen you on one of her trips to the village. Perhaps you were doing something puzzling with those same extinguishers when Bea Armitage died. Moving them out perhaps? Dressed up like that? What did you call yourself?’
I didn’t expect an answer but after a shocked silence, I got one. ‘The fire extinguisher man. She was checking on the house for a London agent on the very day when I was moving them out of the house as a precaution … Then she saw me again, when I gave her a lift the night she left the Dragon …’ He stopped talking suddenly, eyeing me with those cold bright eyes I had thought so beautiful.
‘You should have worn gloves,’ I said. ‘I recognized you by your hands and the scars on them. Chloe Devon recognized you by them and that was why you killed her.’
I looked towards Tim Abbey. Veterinary surgeon, dog lover, and woman killer. But a lover of women too, I guessed blonde Lu meant everything to him. Had he spent the money on her, breeding minks that he couldn’t sell and had probably now killed, and promising her diamonds she would never get?
‘I couldn’t pay Bea, not without losing everything. I owed the VAT man, I’d a mortgage I couldn’t afford on the clinic. We both work there. Lu loves it all. I couldn’t risk losing Lu.’
Sex and money had been Baby’s diagnosis, and she had been right.
‘She didn’t suffer, I gave her a good drink of whisky with a strong sedative in it, she liked a drop. I took one with her and then waited for her to go to sleep …’
‘How did you know to use the extinguishers?’
‘Read an article, famous case, but Kath Dryden put me on to it. Told me one day when she brought the cat in. She died herself just after.’
He started to tell me the story again, but his eyes got colder and colder. I began to edge away.
‘I went back to collect them in a mask and a white apron, so no one would recognize me. Chloe Devon came into the garden, she said she was on a job from the house agent. She asked me who I was and I said I was the fire extinguisher man … She laughed. Then when I gave her the lift from the Dragon that night, she recognized who I was and laughed again. She said it was a good story to tell at dinner … If only she hadn’t said that … She was a good-looking girl, that was why I picked her up. It was how I met Lu, she was hitch-hiking to Bristol. Never got there … I killed Devon in the van and took her back to the barn where I kept the …’ He hesitated. ‘They got out and started on her.’
Not ferrets or Jack Russell dogs or rats, I thought, but minks, just as sharp toothed and vicious and never going to be a profitable investment or to drape the lovely Lu.
‘I couldn’t leave her there because of Louise always looking around, so I brought the body here one night when there was fog and rain and …’ Again he hesitated. ‘ Cut her up and drove around depositing her wherever I could. Once you’ve killed, you see, the rest is easy.’
What a blackness behind that beautiful friendly face, I thought.
‘I don’t know how Dryden got interested, but he did.’ I thought we might never know that, one of the little mysteries that would never be tidied away, but I guessed it had something to do with that extract on methyl bromide that his wife had kept. As he died he had tried to tell me. ‘One of them was murdered,’ he had said. And dying, had tried to shape the words fire extinguisher.
‘He came around, got into the barn, and made the creatures bite him. He wanted it for proof, he said. He was mad. Barking. I calmed him down and put disinfectant on the bites, the
n I hit him on the head and tried to cut the bites away. They would have been evidence, you see … I thought he was dead, so I left him while I did a clinic. But he got away … I knew I was done for then.’
He took a step forward. ‘And now I must do for you.’
He swayed. I kicked him in the groin and he screamed. As he staggered backwards, I pushed him into the cellar and closed the door.
Then I ran to the house and picked up the mobile telephone. I heard the van drive away just as I was dialling the police number.
It was a long night, which I spent in the Incident Room making a statement. The van crashed on the M4 just north of Reading; it caught fire and burnt out before anyone could get there. The traffic police said no other vehicle was involved, it was just mad driving. The motorway was closed for several hours.
It was a village murder after all. If Chloe Devon had not run away from Billy Damiani that night she would still be alive. Thomas Dryden too probably. Only Bea Armitage and her cat would have gone prematurely but perhaps Bea wouldn’t have minded too much. I could imagine her saying: ‘What’s money? I’ll manage somehow.’
But I guessed that Mary would be making a claim on the estate, although I doubted if she would get much back. And what about Lu? But girls like Lu don’t go in want for long.
Clive Barney walked back to the house with me. We had said nothing to each other all the night except about the case.
‘One thing of interest,’ he said in a tired voice. ‘It seems that Chloe Devon had been photographing documents from Damiani’s office about some dicey deals … I think that may have been what they were really quarrelling about that night.’
So Baby had been right again, I conceded. Chloe was a girl who would be looking for a chance to get rich. A girl like that was looking for a death.
‘And by the way, in case it worries you, and I think it did, the real reason the girl had your name and address in her pocket may have been that she admired you.’
I was surprised. ‘That’s hard to believe.’
‘Yes, a girl she worked with said she had seen you in an interview on the local TV talking about your life and work, and she thought a career in the police might be her style.’
Whoever Has the Heart Page 20
