The Silent Killer

by Hazel Holt

  “Good heavens!”

  “I mean, I know she’s a bit vague – not to say dim! – but you would have thought that would have been the first thing she would have told me.”

  “Carbon monoxide poisoning, that’s terrible,” Thea said. “I wonder how long it was before Mrs Harrison found him? She doesn’t go in every day, does she?”

  “Oh, don’t! I can’t bear to think of him lying there for days.”

  “I expect he just drifted away, just became unconscious. I don’t imagine he suffered. It’s not like smoke, you don’t choke or anything.”

  “Still. If he’d been discovered soon enough he might not have died. They could have taken him to hospital, given him oxygen, things like that.”

  “Bridget didn’t say anything about that?” Thea asked.

  “No, all she wanted to talk about was the boys being taken out of boarding school.”

  “I expect she was really thrilled about that.”

  “Oh yes, she was. And that’s another peculiar thing. Why has David suddenly decided to bring them home? I can’t believe he did it to please her!”

  “Perhaps he was missing them, too?”

  “That’s what Bridget said, but that doesn’t seem like David. From what I can gather he didn’t spend much time with them when they were at home. And I know that Sidney was sad that he didn’t get to see much of them. Oh dear, poor Sidney! I really am upset about him. I do wish we knew what happened.”

  “Perhaps Michael will know a bit more.”

  We were unable to continue this conversation since Alice, newly awoken from her afternoon nap, demanded our presence at the seemingly never-ending dolls’ tea-party that currently occupied most of her waking moments.

  “There’s not much more that I can add,” Michael said when he rang that evening. “There was a post mortem and they established that he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. There’ll have to be an inquest, to see what caused it, though it seems most likely to be that stove. He always sat in the kitchen in the evenings, of course, and that’s where Mrs Harrison found him.”

  “Did they say how long he’d been dead?”

  “They said about a day – well, two nights and a day, presumably.”

  “How awful! If only someone had gone in the morning after it happened they might have saved him.”

  “I don’t know. He was old and a bit bronchial, anyway. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  “Did Mrs Harrison notice anything? I mean, what about the fumes when she went in?”

  “She had no idea – thought it was a heart attack, like we all did. The stove had gone out by then, of course, been out for quite a while, so the fumes had more or less dissipated, and anyway there was no smell or smoke or anything.”

  “How horrible. No wonder they call carbon monoxide poisoning the silent killer!”

  “He should have had one of those alarms. We all should, really. I’m going to get some for us and I’ll get a couple for you, shall I?”

  “Oh yes, please. I do sometimes have a fire in the sitting-room now the weather’s so dismal. Which reminds me, I must get Reg to come and sweep the chimney before I light it again.”

  Reg Burnaby is our local chimney sweep and general handyman – he’s brilliant at dealing with old and difficult chimneys, but that’s not the only reason why his services are so much in demand. He is an inveterate gatherer and general clearing house for news and gossip throughout the district. If anyone knew more details about Sidney’s death I was quite sure it would be Reg.

  When I was a child “having the sweep in” was a major and unpleasant operation. All the smaller items of furniture had to be huddled into the centre of the room and covered up, the larger pieces were likewise swathed in dust-sheets, while the grate and the surrounding hearth was cleared of all impedimenta and still more cloths put down. After it was all over, after the brushes had been pushed up the chimney and appeared satisfactorily poking through the top, there was much sweeping up and a fine film of grime clung to all the fittings while the acrid, unmistakable smell of soot hung in the air for what seemed like weeks afterwards. It’s all quite different now, of course, it’s all done with vacuums and such like and you really don’t have to cover anything up at all. Reg did the job in no time and then, as always, he washed his hands at the sink and we both settled down at the kitchen table with a large pot of tea and some shortbread biscuits (his favourites) while he prepared to fill me in on all the local news.

  I didn’t even have to raise the subject of Sidney’s death since it was obviously at the forefront of his mind.

  “A dreadful thing about Mr Middleton, then,” he said, spooning sugar into his cup and stirring it vigorously. “I can’t understand it at all.”

  “About the stove being faulty?” I asked.

  “There wasn’t nothing wrong with that there stove,” he said firmly. “I checked ’un myself not three weeks ago, took ’un all to pieces and did a proper job.”

  “Really?”

  “And the chimney too. Clean and sweet as a nut that chimney were, and folks have no right to go saying otherwise!”

  “You cleaned the chimney as well?”

  “That I did. Cleaned ’un proper, same as I always do.”

  “How extraordinary. But then, if it wasn’t the stove or the chimney, what on earth could have caused it?”

  “That I couldn’t say, but there’s no call to go blaming that stove or that chimney and so I’d tell anyone who asked.”

  “Have the police spoken to you? I expect they’ve got to investigate it.”

  “That Bob Lister, police sergeant he calls himself now, he come round to see me and I told him what I’ve just told you and he says I’ve got to tell it to that there coroner at this inquest they’m having.”

  “Oh yes,” I said, refilling his cup, “I heard there was going to be one. But it’s all very odd.”

  “You may well say there’s something odd about it,” Reg said, waving his teaspoon to emphasise his point. “If that stove and that chimney wasn’t to blame – and I’d take my bible oath as they wasn’t – then there’s only one way of looking at it.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Then it wasn’t no accident. Someone did it a’purpose.”

  “But how could anyone?”

  “There’s ways of doing things.”

  “But who on earth would want to do such a thing? I mean – Sidney was the sweetest man, everyone loved him.”

  “That’s as maybe. Folks will talk.”

  “What are they saying?”

  But Reg proved unexpectedly uncommunicative and, finishing up his tea and taking the remaining handful of biscuits (“Didn’t get no breakfast”), he departed, leaving me puzzled and confused.

  “You mean,” Rosemary said, “that he was implying that Sidney was killed deliberately? Surely not. Everyone liked him so much!”

  “I agree, it’s pretty unlikely. But, then, if Reg really did take the stove to pieces and sweep the chimney – and Reg is totally reliable about any job he does – then how could Sidney have died of carbon monoxide poisoning?”

  “But he did.”

  “That’s what the post mortem said. Perhaps the inquest will make it a bit clearer.”

  But the inquest, perhaps because of Reg’s evidence or maybe for other reasons – I didn’t go myself so I didn’t hear the details – was adjourned for further enquiries.

  “Whatever that may mean,” I said to Rosemary. “Still, it does mean they can go ahead with the funeral. Are you and Jack going?”

  “Jack can’t, he’s got to be in Bristol that day. So shall we go together?”

  Rosemary and I were waiting our turn to go into the church, while Chris Brown from the local paper was taking the names of people there for his report, when Ernie Shepherd and Fred Pudsey came up behind us.

  “Dreadful thing about Sidney,” Fred said. “Damned stupid way to go.”

  “I know,” I said. “
It’s awful. He’ll be greatly missed.”

  “Still,” Fred said, looking at the queue of people in front of us with some satisfaction, “we’re giving him a good send-off, quite a decent turn-out.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed. “Is Bill coming?”

  “I didn’t speak to him myself but Betty said he couldn’t make it,” Fred said. “Which is a pity. There are not so many of us left.”

  Still, the church was full. As well as the old friends from his schooldays and from his days in the army there were many others, younger friends, who had only known him since he had come back from London when he retired.

  “I’m so glad there are a nice lot of people,” Rosemary said, looking round the church. “It’s always so sad when there’s only a handful of relations and nobody else.”

  The organist, who had been playing very softly something vaguely Elgarish, struck up a voluntary as the coffin with its single wreath was carried into the church, followed by the vicar with David and Bridget walking slowly behind him. David looked very pale and strained, more upset than I thought he would be. Bridget looked nervous and uncertain and David had to take her by the arm and lead her into the right pew.

  It was a good traditional service with the 23rd Psalm, a reading from Pilgrim’s Progress and ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended’ (which always makes me cry), the sort of service that Sidney would have liked. I gave David full marks for that.

  “I don’t really want to go to the cemetery, do you?” Rosemary said as the coffin was carried out and people began to disperse.

  “No, I don’t think so. Come back with me and have some tea.”

  As I got up to go I turned and looked round and to my surprise, at the back of the church, still sitting in his pew, I saw Brian.

  “I’ll see you outside,” I said to Rosemary. “There’s someone I want to have a word with.”

  I walked up to where Brian was sitting and said, “Hello. I didn’t know you knew Sidney. It was good of you to come.”

  He looked at me blankly and, for a moment, I thought he hadn’t recognised me. Then he slowly got to his feet.

  “I came,” he said, and his voice was cold and expressionless, “to make sure that the old devil was really dead.”

  He moved past me down the aisle and was gone.

  Chapter Six

  * * *

  “I simple couldn’t believe it,” I said to Rosemary for the umpteenth time. “I mean, what an extraordinary thing to say at a funeral, and about someone like Sidney!”

  “Very odd,” Rosemary agreed. “Was he all right? I mean, he wasn’t ill or anything?”

  “No, he seemed perfectly normal. That is, he looked very white and strained.” I picked up another scone and buttered it. “I mean, I didn’t even know that he knew Sidney.”

  “Perhaps he did some work for him and there was a disagreement.”

  “I suppose,” I said doubtfully. “But even so, it’s a pretty extreme thing to say about anyone. And,” I continued as I spooned the jam into a dish, “it’s so unlike Brian. He’s always seemed to be to be such a mild-mannered man, you know, quiet and reserved.”

  “Oh well,” Rosemary said, “people do behave oddly at funerals. I remember Millicent Edwards making very loud derogatory remarks about Cousin Ian all through the vicar’s address at his funeral.”

  “At least she was a relation.”

  “Talking of relations,” Rosemary said, “I thought David looked quite ill, and as for Bridget, well, I thought at one moment she was going to faint.”

  “Yes, that was odd, wasn’t it? I really didn’t think either of them was particularly fond of Sidney, in fact I’m sure David wasn’t, and Bridget told me just the other day that she didn’t really know him that well.”

  “Well, as I say, funerals affect people in funny ways. I must say, this jam is delicious. What is it?”

  “Raspberry and gooseberry – the gooseberries help it to set. Straining the raspberries is a bit of a bore but I can’t manage the pips nowadays!”

  “I know,” Rosemary agreed. “They’re all right in fresh raspberries, it’s when they’re cooked they get all hard and wooden.” She spread jam on another scone. “I suppose David will sell Lamb’s Cottage. I mean, I don’t expect they’d want to live in it. Unless, if the boys are coming home, they might want to keep horses and there is that big paddock.”

  “I wouldn’t think so, really. David’s work’s in Taunton and Lamb’s Cottage is the wrong side of Taviscombe, so that would add miles to his journey every day. If they wanted more land they’d probably buy something in the Quantocks.”

  Michael confirmed that the house was being put up for sale.

  “It’s a very peculiar will,” he said.

  “Really? In what way?”

  “Sidney didn’t leave anything at all to David.”

  “What!”

  “Apart from a few minor legacies and one other bequest, everything goes into a Trust for the boys.”

  “Good heavens. No wonder David looked so peculiar at the funeral!”

  “Sidney left a few antiques to Dick and Marjorie Croft – you know, his friends in the village. And he left you that little Victorian table inlaid with mother of pearl, the one you always admired so much.”

  “Oh, that was kind!”

  “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “And what about the other bequest? You did say there was another one, didn’t you?”

  “Oh yes, and that’s the most peculiar thing of all. He left a cottage in Withycombe – Rose Cottage – together with quite a large sum of money, to an Emily Thorpe.”

  It took a moment for me to make the connection.

  “Withycombe? Thorpe? You don’t mean…”

  “Brian’s mother.”

  “But why?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “So that’s the connection…” I began. Then I told Michael about Brian’s strange remark at the funeral. “So,” I said, “there must have been something pretty nasty going on somewhere.”

  “You’re right. Definitely peculiar. But – well – not the sort of thing you’d associate with someone like Sidney!”

  “Did you draw up the will? Did you know about all this?”

  “No, Sidney was Edward’s client, so I had no idea. But Edward’s had to go to Spain to sort out some property deal, and he left me to deal with the probate and so on.”

  “Didn’t Edward think it was all a bit odd?”

  “No, not really. As far as he was concerned it was just a business arrangement. And if you didn’t actually know Sidney you wouldn’t think much of it. After all, people set up Trusts and make slightly odd bequests all the time.”

  “It must have been something really awful,” I said, reverting to my earlier theme. “Brian sounded so bitter. And there’s this odd thing about his mother, too. Something very strange there, don’t you think? How many middle-aged men live with their mothers these days anyway?”

  “Well, if she’s ill…”

  “And what sort of illness is it? That time I rang him up, I heard someone shouting in the background.”

  “Oh, come on! You’re not thinking mad women in attics like the woman in that book?”

  “The first Mrs Rochester. No, well, perhaps nothing as dramatic as that, but peculiar all the same.”

  “Anyway,” Michael said, “I’ve given the pieces they were left to Dick and Marjorie. I know we haven’t got probate yet, but I think it’s safer if the cottage is being left empty until it’s sold. So would you like to come and collect your table?”

  “Of course. When?”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday, so how about then? About eleven o’clock suit you? Mrs Harrison said she’d come about eleven-thirty to give me her set of keys.”

  Lamb’s Cottage didn’t have that stale, shut-up smell that empty houses sometimes have. I remarked on this to Michael.

  “Oh well, it all had to be thoroughly aired out after the carbon monoxi
de, and then Mrs Harrison’s been coming in to keep an eye on things so the heating’s been left on.”

  It was all right in the sitting room. I’d hardly ever sat in there with Sidney in recent years so it didn’t feel strange without him.

  “I’d better have a quick look round,” Michael said, “to see that everything is all right.”

  He went upstairs and I went into the kitchen to wait for him. It was different there. With no Sidney it seemed a bleak and miserable place. It was colder, too, than the rest of the house. The woodburning stove looked dead and somehow sinister – I could almost persuade myself that I felt a chill emanating from it. Some of the plants had dropped their leaves and they lay in untidy heaps on the windowsill. The china on the dresser no longer shone and the screen of the television standing there looked like a blank, expressionless face. Worse of all, the calendar still displayed the picture and the name of the month before, a reminder that no one would now turn the page as the days went by.

  Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to sit down, so I went over to the window and stood looking out at the dismal winter landscape. The garden was tidy but the monochrome of browns and greys and blacks – the soil of the empty flower beds, the bare branches of the trees – was depressing. The hills beyond the garden, wreathed in mist and low cloud, added to the melancholy of the scene. The door behind me opened and a voice said,

  “Oh, Mrs Malory, you did give me a turn, standing there like that!”

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs Harrison. I didn’t hear you arrive. I was just thinking how sad everything looks.”

  “Sad isn’t the word, really shocking! Such a dreadful thing to happen to poor Mr Middleton. I still haven’t got over it!”

  “It must have been awful for you, finding him like that.”

  “Oh, it was dreadful. My John said I was white as a sheet when I got back home. To tell the truth, I’m still not right.”

  “Was it the carbon monoxide?” I asked. “Did it get to you?”