This Way Out

by Sheila Radley

  ‘You’re insane!’ said Derek. ‘Get out of my sight or –’

  Packer was already standing up, though not at Derek’s insistence. Instead, with charming courtesy, he was handing an elderly woman – limping arthritically, but game in her swimsuit and floral bathing cap, and dripping after coming out of the pool – down into the jacuzzi.

  ‘One more step,’ he was saying to her, while she murmured delightedly in response to his concern. ‘Steady! There you are, have my seat, I’m just going anyway. All right? Comfy? Perhaps this gentleman wouldn’t mind moving his feet …’

  Derek shifted them, mumbling an apology to her. He stared with hatred at Packer’s extraordinarily hairy back as the man swaggered off. At that moment, Derek felt that he would give anything to see him locked away for what he had done. It would mean confessing his own part in the planning of Packer’s crime, of course; but it was such a very small part, and now that he had lost Christine the prospect of being tried for it hardly seemed to matter.

  Except that he still couldn’t believe that he had lost her, not for good. And as long as there was some hope of their getting together again, he’d be a fool to do anything to discredit himself in her eyes. No: let the evil little bastard go, and good riddance to him.

  Derek stayed in the Jacuzzi, enduring the conversation of the arthritic woman and a retired couple who had joined them, until he felt sure that Packer would have gone. Then he showered, dressed, and went cautiously into the foyer-bar of the hotel. There was no sign of the man, thank God. With luck, he would never see him again.

  He decided to leave the Post House immediately; for anywhere, it didn’t matter. Running through a drizzle of rain to his car, he unlocked the door.

  He was in the act of getting in – his head bent, his left knee raised – when he heard a slap of footsteps from behind and felt a violent shove on his right shoulder. Caught off balance, he pitched sideways across the driving seat. At the same time his keys were snatched from his right hand.

  He was in no doubt who had done it. Beyond protest, he watched Hugh Packer letting himself into the front passenger seat.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said dully, staring straight ahead.

  ‘What do you think I want?’ said Packer, surprised. ‘You must know what I’m here for. I’ve carried out my part of our bargain, and now it’s your turn. I’ve come to tell you what arrangements I’ve made for you to kill my father-in-law.’

  Derek was so shocked that for a few moments he said nothing at all.

  He’d forgotten. In all his anxiety and trouble, he had completely forgotten that a bargain had ever been made. And now that his life had been ruined by Packer, he had absolutely no intention of carrying out the part that had been allotted to him.

  ‘Go to hell,’ he said.

  Packer shrugged. ‘Say what you like, but you’re going to do it.’

  ‘I am not! I couldn’t, for one thing. I couldn’t bring myself to kill anyone, let alone a helpless old man.’

  ‘But this’ll be easy. No violence, no physical contact of any kind.’ Packer unfolded a large-scale map and pointed out an isolated rural property near Newmarket. ‘This is where we live, Winter Paddocks. There’ll be a Pony Club meeting going on just up the road, here, next Sunday afternoon, so that’ll be an ideal time for the job. You’ll be able to park your car with the others without being noticed. The field they’re going to use as a car-park adjoins our wooded grounds, and you can slip in through a back gate in the wall, here.

  ‘Belinda and I will be out, spending the day with a cousin of hers in Ely. Normally she’d hire a trained nurse to sit with her father, but I’ve fixed it so that the woman who’s coming on Sunday is an untrained nursing assistant. They’ll be together in the sun-room from about one-thirty onwards – the old man always has a sleep there after lunch. You can approach it on this side, from a shrubbery at the foot of the terrace, without being seen.

  ‘At two-fifteen I’ll make a telephone call to draw the woman out of the sun-room. I’ll pretend I’m someone else, and persuade her to write down a complicated message for me. While she’s away, you’ll nip into the sun-room and open an old croquet box that you’ll find just behind the garden door. Inside it there’ll be a lidded plastic cup, identical to the one my wife will have left beside Sidney – but the orange juice in this one will be laced with insulin.’

  Derek had been listening with an unwilling fascination as the man went through the details. Packer had planned it well – just as he’d planned Enid’s murder. But Derek wasn’t going to do it.

  ‘No!’ he said.

  ‘What could be simpler?’ protested Packer, sounding almost injured. ‘All you have to do is swap the cups, and then clear off. The woman will give Sidney the drink during the course of the afternoon, and he’ll rapidly go into a diabetic coma. Belinda’s been trained to recognize it, just as a nurse would, but this woman will think he’s having a good sleep. By the time we get home, Sidney will have died of natural causes. A nice peaceful end for him, no suspicion devolving on me, no trouble for you. All right?’

  ‘Wrong!’ said Derek angrily. ‘I won’t have any part in this, or anything more to do with you.’

  ‘That’ll suit me perfectly,’ said Packer, folding up his map. ‘We shan’t see each other after this morning, anyway. I’m driving a Jag up to Scotland for a customer tomorrow, and I’ll be away until Saturday night – that’s why I’m giving you your instructions now. Do you understand them? Any questions?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Derek exploded. ‘I tell you, I am not going to do it. You can’t make me.’

  ‘No?’ said Packer. His brown eyes hardened and his mouth took an ugly line. Seizing Derek’s bandaged hand, he slammed the palm against the knob of the gear lever. Derek gasped as the pain stabbed up his wrist and through his forearm.

  ‘Just you remember this,’ Packer said, thrusting his face so close that Derek caught the tainted heat of his breath. ‘I’ve already killed once, and I found it very stimulating. I wouldn’t at all mind having another go. If you don’t get rid of the old man for me – this coming Sunday, exactly as I said – then I’ll get rid of you.’

  Chapter Twenty One

  At Breckham Market police headquarters, Detective Chief Inspector Quantrill and Detective Sergeant Lloyd were assessing house-to-house reports and witness statements.

  The reports revealed that no one had seen or heard anything untoward at or near the Brickyard on the night of the murder. The only significant statements were those of four local drivers, who had all noticed what they thought was a bird-watcher using binoculars to survey the village from the back road between Wyveling and Doddenham on the morning of the day before the murder. Their descriptions differed in detail, but they were agreed that the man’s car was old and light-coloured, and that he was short and swarthy. He had not come forward in response to the chief inspector’s television appeal, and identifying him had now become a matter of urgency.

  ‘If he’s our man,’ said Quantrill, ‘we’ve got to revise our thinking, haven’t we? We’ve been assuming that the murder was done by an opportunist burglar, and that the Brickyard was a random target. But this man was sussing out the territory a day in advance. No doubt he could see that the field path would make an ideal way of approach to the properties that back to it, but why should he pick out the Cartwrights’place? Even if he decided in advance that it was the most likely target, when it came to Saturday night he’d have had to pass the back gardens of a dozen other houses, one of which would have been in complete darkness because the occupants were away, in order to reach the Brickyard. No opportunist would do that.’

  ‘It certainly suggests that he knew what he was after,’ agreed Hilary. ‘He doesn’t seem to have found it, though, does he?’

  She picked up the list of missing items, and read through it with a deepening frown. ‘There’s nothing here that’s of any serious value or interest – a camera, a couple of very small silver trophies, a che
quebook, credit cards, £200 in cash … He must have expected to find something more substantial than this. Come to think of it, though, I don’t remember having seen anything in the house that looked as though it would be of particular value, apart from the audio and video equipment that most households have.’

  ‘Perhaps the Cartwrights were known – or suspected – to have something valuable hidden away, and the old lady disturbed him before he found it,’ said Quantrill.

  ‘Yes … But if he murdered the poor old soul because she interrupted his search, why did he bother to take away with him the bits and pieces on this list? You wouldn’t think he’d lumber himself with inscribed trophies, and potentially incriminating items like the chequebook and credit cards.’

  ‘At least if he tries to use them we’ll have a good chance of catching him. If he actually took them, that is,’ said Quantrill. ‘What I’m beginning to wonder is whether Derek Cartwright’s list of missing items isn’t a cover-up.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For whatever it was the man set out to burgle the Brickyard for. Perhaps he found what he wanted, and Cartwright isn’t prepared to own up to having had it in his possession.’

  ‘Then it would have to be something serious,’ said Hilary. ‘Seriously criminal, I mean, if Cartwright isn’t prepared to confess it in order to help us find his mother-in-law’s murderer. What do you think? Drugs?’

  ‘No,’ said Quantrill decisively. ‘He’s a family man, and no one who’s gone through the anxiety of bringing up children could contemplate dealing in drugs.’

  ‘His children didn’t seem all that fond of him, when we met them in the Five Bells,’ said Hilary. ‘In fact they were ganging up on him, weren’t they? It was obvious that they didn’t believe a word of his story about what he’d been doing on Saturday afternoon, and I don’t blame them. Derek Cartwright isn’t at all the pleasant, ordinary, decent man I took him for.’

  ‘Why do you say that? Because he dumped his dog in the forest?’

  Hilary shook her head. ‘That simply reinforces my opinion of him. No, what bothers me is something we both noticed when we first talked to Cartwright. There seemed to be something disordered about his thinking. Do you remember how enraged he was because his mother-in-law had been raped? His anger was perfectly understandable, up to a point – but his moral priorities seemed to be all wrong. The real horror, for any normal man, would be the fact that she’d been murdered.’

  Quantrill had a great respect for his sergeant’s opinions on human behaviour. She had qualified as a nurse before changing careers to join the police, and although she often pointed out that she wasn’t a psychiatrist he continued to regard her as his expert on the subject. When it came to mothers-in-law, though, he considered himself his own expert.

  ‘There’s nothing abnormal’, he said sharply, ‘if your mother-in-law lives with you, in not being sorry when she dies. But you can certainly regret the manner of her death, and that was probably what Cartwright was doing. He couldn’t grieve over losing her, but he was angry because of the terrible way it happened. What’s odd about that?’

  ‘It would be less odd’, argued Hilary, ‘if we had any evidence that Derek Cartwright shared your feelings about mothers-in-law. But from what his wife said in our policewoman’s hearing, he’d always got on better with her mother than she did. Apparently that’s why Christine has been so shattered by her mother’s death. Because the two women didn’t get on – and in fact quarrelled on their return from Southwold, parting without a kind word – Christine’s full of remorse as well as grief.’

  ‘Her husband seems to think she’d have got over her mother’s death soon enough, if only it hadn’t been so horrifying,’ said Quantrill.

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean about his thinking being disordered. He told us that Christine would “get over” her mother’s death more easily because theirs wasn’t a loving relationship, but of course the opposite is far more likely to happen. The guilt of having been less than kind to her mother will probably eat away at Chrstine for the rest of her life – and would do even if the old lady had died of natural causes. That’s something her husband seems incapable of understanding.’

  Douglas Quantrill, who knew all about the persistence of feelings of guilt, didn’t propose to discuss the subject. ‘It’s not the Cartwrights’ relationship I’m interested in,’ he said, ‘it’s what Derek is trying to conceal from us. Once we know why his house was targeted, we may know where to look for the man who broke in. I think we’d better borrow the keys of the Brickyard again and search it thoroughly, including the attics, cellars and outbuildings.’

  ‘And if whatever-it-is has already gone? If the man found what he was after, and Cartwright – as you suggested – made this list as a cover-up?’

  ‘Then we’ll probably come across these so-called missing items hidden away somewhere on the property.’

  Hilary agreed, and studied the list again. ‘The more I look at it, the more suspicious this seems. Cartwright must think we’re idiots to believe that a murderer would take these away with him. Or else he’s desperately anxious for us not to discover the truth because it would incriminate him in some way.’

  ‘Perhaps he guesses who broke in,’ said Quantrill, ‘and now that a murder has been committed he’s afraid we’ll have him as an accessory. Come to think of it, perhaps he was an accessory to the break-in. What about that business of dumping the dog? Perhaps his object wasn’t to get rid of an unwanted animal, but to make the break-in easier.’

  ‘But why should he want to do that?’ said Hilary. ‘We can hardly accuse him of planning a fraudulent claim on his insurance, on the strength of this pathetic list of stolen items.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Quantrill scratched his jaw. ‘It looks as though we’re not going to make any headway on this case until we can find out what Derek Cartwright’s been up to. We’ve got no information on him, I suppose?’

  ‘Nothing at all. He’s a model citizen, as far as we know.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Back at work in Cambridge, and staying in a hotel there. Do you want me to keep an eye on him?’

  ‘Not until we’ve given his house a thorough going-over. And after that, I’d like you to see what information you can get out of Mrs Cartwright.’

  ‘I rather think that she’s a loyal wife,’ said Hilary. ‘Loyal wives don’t usually give much away about their husbands.’

  ‘Doesn’t that depend’, said Quantrill, ‘on what the man has actually done?’

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Derek Cartwright was afraid. He had no doubt that Packer would carry out his threat to get rid of him if he didn’t assist in the killing of the man’s father-in-law.

  He hated the thought of doing so, of course: what decent man wouldn’t? And yet, as Packer had reminded him before they parted, Sidney was so handicapped as a result of his stroke that his life had become a burden to him. Remembering the frustration in the old man’s eloquent single eye, Derek conceded privately that to give him a massive overdose of insulin might well be an act of mercy.

  But he wanted no part of it. True, the role that Packer had allotted him was simple, even inoffensive; but so had been his part in Enid’s death, and look what had resulted! He and Christine had already suffered enough from that, and all he wanted now was to be left in peace to sort out his problems with her and restore their former happiness.

  Time, though, was not on their side. The possibility that her cancer might recur was Derek’s basic fear, more potent than Packer’s threat. If Christine were to fall ill, she would need him. He had to stay alive for her sake; and if that meant doing as Packer had said, then he would do it.

  Still sitting where Packer had left him, in his car in the Cambridge Post House car-park, Derek looked at his watch. Now that he had made up his mind to do the job, he longed to get the old man out of the way as soon as possible. But Sunday was the appointed day – and here it was only eleven-twenty on Tuesday morning!
How was he going to get through such an eternity of time here in Cambridge on his own, without the support of the woman he loved?

  There was no way. It couldn’t be done. Derek took another decision, started the engine, and turned his car in the direction of home.

  Home was where Christine was. He drove along the village street with hardly a glance at the Brickyard, and stopped outside the thatched house on Church Hill. Sylvia Collins, who was taking advantage of a fine April day to repaint her yellow back door with more will than skill, greeted him cheerfully and told him that his wife had just gone out for a walk.

  Knowing that Christine was unlikely to have gone through the village, where she would have had to encounter people she knew, Derek set out along the path that ran below the churchyard wall. Although it was no more than two days since he had last walked there with the family, it seemed more like weeks; certainly the vegetation had shot up to knee height, and the lime trees overhanging the wall were in much fuller leaf. There was no sign of Christine there, or on the field path, or in the spinney behind the Five Bells, or on the Doddenham road, but as he returned, walking along the top of the churchyard bank for a better view, he saw from the corner of his eye a movement in the church porch. Christine was there, apparently wandering restlessly from one side to the other.

  Derek scrambled over the low wall and hurried towards her, up the gravelled path between the leaning gravestones and the cypresses. It was unfamiliar territory. In all the years they had lived in Wyveling he had been to the flint-built medieval church only once, for the Hardings’daughter’s wedding. Christine had been an occasional attender, usually at the major festivals of the Christian year; but religion was one of the things they had never discussed.

  As she saw him approach she composed herself and stood still. ‘The door’s locked,’ she greeted him distantly, as though he were a passing stranger who had come to look at the monuments in the church.

  Derek entered the porch and tried to turn the iron handle. The massive silver-grey oak door remained firmly closed.