The Silent Killer

by Hazel Holt

  Chapter Eleven

  * * *

  I went back slowly and sat down again, opposite Bill. “I don’t know what to say. It’s all so awful.”

  He nodded. “There’s times I can’t really believe it,” he said. “Times I can’t believe anyone could be such a – such a hypocrite. How could he live with himself after that? And to keep quiet all these years. Everyone thought so highly of him. More fools us!”

  “Not quite everyone,” I said, and I told him about Brian and his mother. I didn’t mention their names, of course, but simply told him their story.

  “Even then, even before the war – what sort of man was he!”

  “A pretty rotten one, obviously,” I said, “and we might never have found out… When did you read the letter, was it before he died?”

  “Yes, it was. When I read it I was all for going round there and having it out with him but Betty stopped me, said wait till I’d calmed down a bit. I wish I had now – I wish I’d been able to tell him somebody knew what sort of person he really was. Well, I can’t do that now, but I can tell everyone else, let them know what he did. I’d have done it before, only this bronchitis kept me indoors. But as soon as I’m better I’m going down to the Legion and I’m going to tell Emie and Fred and those of us who’re left, who remember him.”

  “It’ll be a shock to them,” I said.

  “It certainly will,” Bill agreed grimly. “There’ll be some hard things said when this gets out.”

  I thought about David. Had he known any of these terrible things about his father?

  “What about David,” I asked Bill. “What are you going to do about telling him?”

  Bill shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Seems to me he ought to know. I never liked the lad, thought he bullied his father – well, perhaps we got that wrong too.”

  I thought of the painting. “Perhaps we did.”

  On my way out I had a word with Betty as she came out of the kitchen. “I was sorry to see Bill looking not himself,” I said. “But I can quite see that this thing has upset him very much.”

  “He wanted to tell you,” Betty said, wiping her hands on her apron. “He thought you ought to know seeing as you were a friend of that man. I hope it didn’t upset you too much.”

  “It was upsetting,” I agreed, “but I’ve been hearing a few things about Sidney in the last few weeks that have really surprised me. Poor Bill. It must have been such a dreadful shock, learning about it like that!”

  “I’ve been really worried about him,” Betty said, drawing me into the sitting room and lowering her voice. “He came home from Vera’s that day and just handed me the letter to read. Well, you can imagine how I felt, not just about the letter but seeing him like that. He’d worked himself up into a terrible state, wanted to go round to Sidney Middleton’s straight away, calling him all sorts! It was awful, I was really afraid of what he might do.”

  “It must have been.”

  “I managed to get him calmed down a bit, but he didn’t sleep a wink that night – nor did I, for that matter – and the next day he went out for a long walk, didn’t say where he was going, just that he needed to clear his head. He went out several days after that, one day he didn’t get back till after dark. I was really worried about him by then, I can tell you.”

  “Poor Betty, what did you do?”

  “It had got to such a state I was going to get the doctor to him, I thought he was having a breakdown or something. But then he got this chill. The weather was quite bad some of the days he was out and that turned to bronchitis – he’s always had this chest – so I got Dr Macdonald in to see him anyway and he put him on antibiotics and he’s gradually getting better.”

  “Did you tell Dr Macdonald anything?”

  “No, Bill had to stay in the house, being ill and everything, and he was gradually getting to be a bit more his old self, so I thought I’d leave it for now. But I am glad he told you, when I said you were coming he said he’d tell you. He needed to tell someone.”

  As I was leaving the bungalow I met Myra Norton coming up the road. As usual she was full of chat.

  “Hello, have you been to see Mr and Mrs Goddard? Poor souls. He’s been quite seedy. They had to have the doctor in, it might easily have turned to pneumonia at his age. I went and got the prescription for him. Well, poor Mrs Goddard didn’t like to leave him and what are neighbours for? Still, this weather isn’t very kind to old people, is it? I was saying to Jim the other day, just you wrap up warm, you don’t want to get a bad chest like poor Mr Goddard.”

  “I think he’s making a good recovery,” I said.

  “That’s nice. Oh well, once we get Christmas over it’ll soon be Spring and then we’ll all feel much better!”

  As I went on my way I thought that even the promised Spring wouldn’t do much to make Bill Goddard feel better, nor Betty for that matter. This further discovery of Sidney Middleton’s appalling behaviour, emphasising just how wrong we had all been about him, depressed me dreadfully.

  “‘There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face’,” I said to Thea when I told her what had happened. “How does it go on? ‘He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust’. That certainly applies to Sidney!”

  “We all did,” she said. “After all we had no reason to think otherwise. He had a lot of charm, he was always so sympathetic, such a good listener, that’s how he deceived us.”

  “I suppose we just took him at his face value. But that’s what you do with people, isn’t it? Unless you have a reason to think otherwise, and we had no reason.”

  “If Bill Goddard tells people about the letter then soon everyone will know how awful Sidney was,” Thea said thoughtfully. “What will that do to David, I wonder?”

  “He certainly looked peculiar at the funeral,” I said, “and Bridget even more so. Perhaps they’d found out something about Sidney by then.”

  “Well they’d certainly have heard about the will and Brian’s mother. That must have shaken them. It’s all so extraordinary. What I think is…”

  We were interrupted by Alice, newly awoken from her afternoon rest in the neighbouring room, who appeared clutching her comfort blanket and demanding a drink of milk and our undivided attention. So I never did get to hear Thea’s theory.

  I did, however, see Bridget a few days later. Just for a change I took Tris up onto the hill for his afternoon walk. There is a sort of plateau half-way up the hill, surrounded by woodland and sheltered from the wind, but with good paths and a nice view of the sea down below. It is very popular with dog walkers and, as usual, there were several cars parked on the bit of hard standing. On this particular day, though, the wind, coming in from the sea, made it less than pleasant. I got out of the car reluctantly and even Tris, usually eager to be out and about, had to be lifted from the back seat and set on the path, where he cowered a little as the wind blew his ears back. Still, his natural enthusiasm to investigate the delicious smells all around soon had him straining at his lead and pulling me along. I steered him towards the trees out of the worst of the wind and we ambled along on the path, our feet sinking into the soft covering of pine needles. I inhaled appreciatively the woody smell of the conifers and began to enjoy the walk. In the distance I saw another dog walker who had braved the brisk weather and as we approached I saw that it was Bridget with her spaniel. She didn’t see me immediately, but when she did see me and appeared to recognise me, to my surprise, she veered off sharply and took another path that ran off at an angle round the side of the hill, and by the time I had reached it she was out of sight. It was perfectly obvious that, for some reason or another, she had wanted to avoid me. I wondered if it was just me she wanted to avoid, or just anyone who knew her. I also wondered why.

  When I got back to where the cars were parked there was no sign of her. Apparently she’d already made her escape. I sat for a while in the car thinking about what had happened. Bridget had never been what you might call a forthcom
ing person, but usually she was prepared to chat about things in general when we met. Obviously something had occurred that she didn’t want to talk about – or something that David had told her not to talk about – and it had to be about Sidney. I wondered how long it would be before the gossip started.

  “What’s all this about Sidney Middleton, then?” Anthea demanded as we were sorting out the toys donated to the local children’s home for Christmas. It was cold in Brunswick Lodge because there was something wrong with the heating and I was concentrating on trying to keep my hands warm while sorting through a box of picture books.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I saw Mrs Pudsey at the Red Cross coffee morning yesterday and she said there was some sort of scandal about him. She said Fred was full of it.”

  “Really?”

  “Apparently Fred went to see Bill Goddard – he’s had bronchitis and can’t get out – and he told him the whole story. Something to do with the war, somewhere abroad I think, I didn’t get the details. Mrs Pudsey was a bit vague about what actually happened, but it seems that Sidney behaved very badly and people were killed. It all sounded most peculiar. Do you know anything about it?”

  “I had heard something, but I don’t really know,” I said mendaciously. Somehow I couldn’t quite bring myself to be the one to bring the truth out into the open. Ridiculous, really, since Sidney had been a vile person who certainly didn’t deserve any sort of consideration. He fully deserved to have his memory blackened, it was just that I didn’t want to be the one who actually did it.

  “Oh.” Anthea was clearly disappointed in me. “I thought that since you knew him so well you might know what it was all about.”

  “It seems that we none of us knew him,” I said.

  “That’s nonsense,” Anthea said firmly. “People can’t hide what they are. I’d trust my judgement any day. Anyway, think of what he did for this place. Brunswick Lodge owes him a great deal. Not only the money he gave – and he always gave very generously to any appeal – but think of all the garden parties we had at Lamb’s Cottage every summer, they raised a lot of money.”

  “Giving money and things like that doesn’t necessarily make you a good person,” I said. “Especially if you’re as well off as Sidney was. He must have made an absolute fortune in the City, so it wouldn’t mean all that much to him.”

  “Sorry to interrupt you, but I’m going to have to switch off the electricity.” Jim Norton had come in while we were talking. “Can you manage without for about half an hour?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said, ignoring Anthea’s immediate protest. “We don’t really need the light on – it’s quite light enough for us to see what we’re doing.”

  “I suppose so,” Anthea said grudgingly. “We’ll just have to wait for our cup of coffee.”

  “I’ll make one for all of us when you’ve finished,” I said, with what I hoped was a conciliatory smile. “It’s really good of you to be doing all this. I don’t know how we’d have managed without you!”

  Jim Norton went away and we got on with what we had been doing.

  “Oh dear, a jigsaw puzzle,” Anthea said, holding it up. “A big one of Tower Bridge. That will never do!”

  “Won’t it?” I enquired, wondering what it was about one of our most popular landmarks that made it unsuitable for children.

  “Secondhand jigsaws are never a good idea,” Anthea said. “There’s always a piece missing and you can imagine what problems that causes.”

  “Yes, of course. Oh look, isn’t he sweet?” I exclaimed, fishing out a woolly lamb from one of the boxes. “Such a lovely expression.”

  Anthea gave a non-committal smile but the lamb appeared to send her mind back to our earlier conversation.

  “I wonder what will happen to Lamb’s Cottage?” she said. “I suppose David won’t live there. Such a shame, that garden was ideal for open air functions.” She straightened up and lifted her empty box off the trestle table and put it on the floor. “It must be worth a pretty penny,” she said thoughtfully, “with house prices as they are and it stands right back from the road. Oh well, I suppose someone will buy it as a second home. It really is a disgrace.”

  She was off on one of her favourite subjects and, although I made suitable noises of agreement as required I abstracted my mind and thought about the effect a full revelation of Sidney’s misdeeds would have. Not that anyone else would know about Brian and his mother, except David, oh and Michael, Thea and me, but we’d never say anything. I wondered if David had told Bridget, if she knew what sort of person her father-in-law had been. It was strange, now I came to think of it, that Bridget had apparently seen so little of him. The more I thought about it the stranger the whole Middleton set-up seemed.

  “So what do you think?” Anthea said impatiently. It was obviously not the first time she’d asked the question, whatever it was. “Should we include computer games or not? Do concentrate, Sheila, or we’ll never get done.”

  “Oh yes, I think so,” I said, snatching a thought out of the air. “I believe they’ve got several computers at St Mary’s.”

  “Oh well, if you say so,” Anthea said grudgingly.

  The lights came on suddenly and Jim Norton appeared. “All done,” he said. “It should be all right now.”

  “Oh marvellous,” I said. “I’ll go and make us that coffee.”

  * * *

  I saw Bridget in the post office when I called in there on my way home, but I deliberately turned away as I stood in the queue so that she didn’t notice me as she went past. I didn’t want her to have to pretend she hadn’t seen me, which would have been embarrassing for us both. Still, I was curious to know why she was avoiding me.

  I thought about it all as I drove home. Thanks to Reg, the police now knew that Sidney’s death was not an accident. Obviously someone had removed the inspection plate on the chimney in order to kill him. The fact that somebody had hated Sidney enough to murder him, which seemed so unlikely at the time, now seemed very possible. Both Brian and Bill had reason enough to hate him, though I found it very difficult to think of Bill as a murderer. Brian, on the other hand, had a double motive – his mother’s condition and his own unhappy childhood and now this chance of happiness that seemed to be denied him. As a handyman he would probably have been familiar with flues and chimneys and would have known how to sabotage them.

  But then, Bill had been out, after dark too, just about the time of the murder, and, although he was an old man and a bit frail now, it wouldn’t have taken much strength to unscrew that plate. I still found it almost impossible to imagine Bill, however horrific the circumstances, actually murdering someone. But Bill had been a soldier too and seen action in France. Presumably he’d killed people then. Perhaps if he’d thought of it as a sort of extension of a war situation, then perhaps he just might have been in the frame of mind to avenge his brother’s death – and, indeed, the death of all those other soldiers (Frank’s mates) in the section.

  It was such a simple way to kill someone. As Anthea said, Lamb’s Cottage stood well back from the road, there were quite a lot of shrubs to provide cover for an intruder, and, besides, not many people went down that lane, especially after dark. All the murderer had to do was to unscrew the plate when he knew the stove was lit – most of the time in the Winter – leave the chimney to do its work and then come back early next morning and replace it before anyone was about. The fact that Sidney hadn’t been found straight away had helped, of course, but he was an old man and it wasn’t very likely that he would have survived a whole evening of carbon monoxide poisoning. He’d just have lost consciousness and that would have been that. As Mrs Harrison said, he’d just slipped away. Not a bad way to go, really. Better than he deserved, some people might say.

  I put the car away, went in and fed the animals, still turning over in my mind the whole extraordinary business. I wondered if Roger would hear the gossip about Sidney – what Bill had to say would soon be common kno
wledge. And what about Brian’s story? Something told to me in confidence. But should Roger know? They were both motives for Sidney’s murder, so should I tell him? My instinct was to keep quiet. I was very fond of Bill and deeply sorry for Brian. After all, I had no evidence that either of them was actually involved.

  It would be unkind to expose them to suspicion and questioning just because…

  My mind went round and round until with a conscious effort I put it all to one side and concentrated on getting supper. To cheer myself up I thought I’d make a special fruit salad. The unripe mango I’d bought that day I’d seen Betty in the supermarket should be just about ready by now. But when I picked it out of the fruit bowl I found it was over-ripe, mouldy down one side and had to be thrown away.

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  “Sheila,” Rosemary said, when I went round there the next day to take a pot of hyacinths I’d planted for her, “what’s all this about Sidney and Bill Goddard? Anthea was going on about it and I couldn’t make head or tail of what she was getting at.”

  I told her Bill’s story and then, because Rosemary is my oldest and dearest friend and I always tell her everything, I told her about Brian and his mother too.

  “Brian told me that in confidence,” I said, “so don’t tell anyone else. Well, I suppose it would be all right if you mentioned it to Jack.”

  “He wouldn’t say a word. But Sheila, what an extraordinary thing – we thought Sidney was such a nice person. How could we have been taken in like that!”