Hung Out to Die

by Anthony Litton

  “My mother had been ill for a number of years. It was what would now be called Dementia or Alzheimer’s, but then was just thought as someone going senile. It was difficult for us all. There were only the three of us, and we were so close, so happy, that it was doubly cruel. My father was lost. They’d been married over thirty years, most of them without children, which had brought them closer, I think. Then, I came along. They gave me a most wonderful childhood, and then...and then...my mother became ill. It was gradual at first, so we didn’t think anything of her occasional absent-mindedness, even the flashes of a temper, which she’d never had before.”

  Despite what Louise had done – and might still do – Desmond felt a wrenching pity at the overwhelming pain present in the voice as the story unfolded.

  “I was living away by then, in Hampshire. I was doing pastoral work prior to joining the ministry myself, ironically. Can you imagine – I planned to be a priest in the church!” Desmond watched nervously as the concentration of his unwelcome visitor suddenly wavered alarmingly. “Where was I? Oh yes, I only heard much of this when it was too late, much too late, to do anything to stop the destruction. The parish had rallied round, of course, when my mother became ill. Funnily enough, as it turned out, that was the start of our problems. We have them here in Beldon Magna, I’ve seen them. You know what I mean, women of a certain age who seem to get a mild fixation on the vicar.”

  Despite himself, Desmond found himself nodding. Oh yes, we certainly do, he thought, the names of two particularly fixated ladies springing to mind.

  “Well, one of them took things a little further than was usual, even for that benighted coven. She began flirting a little more openly than previously, dressing a little more daringly. Then she began bringing my father cakes and such like, the occasional casserole to heat up later, that sort of thing. Several of the more astute villagers saw what was going on and tried to warn my father. But he was too unworldly to see what was staring everyone else in the face. To be fair, the woman – let’s call her Josephine – didn’t want to harm my father. In fact, had she waited just a little longer, for when my mother was actually dead, she may well have achieved her aim. As it was, she destroyed them both.” She drifted, reliving the time.

  Then, the phone on the table by Desmond’s side rang, bursting into her reverie, and almost giving Desmond himself a heart attack.

  “Leave it,” commanded Louise, now fully alert again and pointing the gun at him.

  “I will if you wish, obviously,” he replied calmly; “but it’ll be Gwilym. He always rings about this time in the evening when he’s working,” he lied. He had no idea who was phoning, just glad someone was. “If I don’t answer, he’ll know something’s wrong and will come over.”

  “Alright then, but say nothing, put him off,” was the curt response after a few moments of nail chewing.

  He did so, and was relieved when the Welshman’s lilting voice filled his ear drum. He listened for a moment, then answered. “Food? You’re bloody joking! You put me on the training programme, so no, forget the pasta!” He then put the phone down. “Sorry, bit of a food junkie is Gwilym,” he said jokingly, and, despite the circumstances, felt slightly annoyed as his captor’s eyes strayed to the slight remains of his own decreasing paunch.

  Then, nodding distractedly, his unwelcome guest continued fretfully. “Where was I up to? Oh yes, I remember.”

  Desmond fought to keep his mind focused, alert to any chance, however small, to be able to get the gun off its increasingly agitated owner.

  “Somehow, the press got hold of what they scented was a story; or rather, a set of circumstances that they felt could be twisted into one. They claimed later that they’d researched everything thoroughly, given my father and ‘Josephine’ ample opportunity to explain things. They hadn’t, of course, not properly.” Her voice was now overloaded with yet more helpless bitterness. “Then, a couple of Sundays later, The Sunday Voice published a story.”

  Desmond kept silent, fervently praying that Gwilym had picked up his hidden message. Use of the word ‘pasta’ was an old, but never used, emergency code they’d instigated when, for a brief period, both their lives had been under serious threat. Once, he’d have had no doubt that the Welshman would be swiftly onto it and what it implied. Once, though, was the time before his partner’s last severe illness, from which he’d only recently recovered. How many of the old, long unused memories he could still easily access was something he himself would find out, one way or another, very soon, he thought grimly.

  “A story! Hardly that!” The words almost shot out, heavily laced with a arising hysteria. “It was a mishmash of innuendo and smear. The upshot of it, though, was that any reader was left with the absolute ‘fact’ that my father and this woman were having an affair, even whilst my mother lay dying! Two paragraphs of seedy titillation for them – utter destruction for my parents.”

  Her voice broke again, and, more worryingly from Desmond’s point of view, her hand holding the gun now began to shake almost uncontrollably. “They had rung and asked him for his comments, and, though surprised, he’d answered them honestly, saying that nothing had happened between him and ‘Josephine’, and nothing would, he was a married man. He was so simple-minded that he thought they would take his word, honourably given. Though upset, he thought little more about it. What he didn’t realise was that innocent remarks he’d made about her being ‘a great support’, ‘a lovely, lovely woman’, ‘we feel very close to each other’ and so on – were taken entirely out of context, and quoted in a way that seemed to confirm that they had been having an affair!”

  *

  Gwilym’s face was grim as he put the receiver back onto its rest. Unlocking a reinforced drawer he’d had installed under the bar, he quickly took out and checked its contents. Nodding in satisfaction, he moved casually but quickly from behind the bar, and walked down the narrow corridor to the incident room.

  Relieved to see that Calderwood and Bulmer, though obviously on the verge of leaving for the day, were still there, Gwilym spoke quickly and urgently. “Desmond’s in danger; someone’s over at Eleanor’s house.”

  Knowing his man, Calderwood wasted no time on unnecessary questions, asking only, “Are you absolutely certain?”

  “Yes. I don’t know who or how many but the threat’s immediate and in the house with him.”

  Calderwood nodded at Bulmer, who’d already picked up the phone, and the DS activated the county Emergency Response Team to go onto full alert.

  “They’re mobilising now. They’ll be with us in around forty five minutes,” the DS said tersely as he put the phone down. “I’ve given them my mobile to call us when they’re near,” he added, carefully putting it onto ‘vibrate’.

  Neither of the other two men commented. Beldon Magna was too isolated a village to be reached any quicker from the county town. Their minds were already focused on what to do in the short-term. That they themselves would have to take some action before the team arrived, they were all already silently agreed on.

  “Another phone call to Mr. Appleby may cause whoever it is to act?” It was scarcely a question from Calderwood, and, on the Welshman’s emphatic nod, he stood. “Right,” he nodded to Bulmer. “Let’s get over there then. You’ll wait here, of course, Mr. Owen,” he added for form’s sake, and was unsurprised at the very Anglo-Saxon wording of Gwilym’s response. “Is he alone in the house?” the DI asked, wasting no further time. “What about Mrs. Blaine-Appleby?”

  “She’s out,” responded Gwilym. “She’s not due back for another hour or so,” he added, looking at his watch as they left by a side door of the pub, out of view of the large house across the Green. “Oh shit!” he added. “She’s back already! Look! She’s almost at the front door!” he said, grabbing his phone and speed-dialling her.

  “Head her off,” Calderwood said urgently, as he and Bulmer kept well back. “She may be in danger if she goes in,” and certainly be in the way if she did, he thought
privately.

  Gwilym nodded, and cursed as she seemed to be ignoring the ringing of her phone as she searched for her keys. “Ah!” he said with relief as she answered. “Eleanor, don’t, I repeat, don’t go into the house. There may be someone dangerous inside. Calderwood and Bulmer are with me and more back-up is coming. The three of us are going in via the back door,” he added, ignoring Calderwood’s look of resignation. “Yes. Yes, he is,” he answered, the reluctance obvious in his voice. “We don’t know who’s in there with him, which is why we’re at least going into the house without the back-up team.”

  He listened for a few moments, then, “Eleanor, no! You can’t! Shit!” he said as his phone went dead. “She’s going in!” In truth, he’d known that once she knew Desmond was in danger, nothing would have stopped her. God help anyone who threatened her young, he’d thought more than once over the years, as he’d watched her fiercely protect her offspring from anything she perceived as a threat to them. It was, indeed, a protection that he himself had also benefited from, as he was, he knew, regarded very much as another of her children.

  “She has a point, though,” he added, cutting across both policemen’s very unprofessional oaths. “We don’t know where he is, or what we’ll find. If whoever is there hears us, we could end up making things worse for Desmond. Her going in will distract them, if we’re quick and time our entry right. She said she’ll not get in the way of whatever we need to do, so get on and do it,” he added with a reluctant smile. “She also,” he continued, excitement now in his voice, “may have given us the edge we need!” And he explained how as they quickly made their way, not directly to the house itself, but at a tangent to its far corner.

  *

  “Apparently, he was so innocent, that he mentioned the call to one of the parish church council, who, I gather, nearly choked on the sandwich she was eating. She also clearly saw a danger that my father, in his innocence, didn’t, and she tried, again, to warn him.” The shrug accompanying this, made it clear how little the unworldly cleric had listened to the warning.

  “Anyway, the paper came out the following Sunday without the article, so everyone thought everything was fine and forgot about it. Then, the next Sunday rolled around and it was published. It was only a small article, no more than a couple of paragraphs, that’s all. We found out later that they’d had too much ‘proper news’ for the previous week, but were slightly short the week following. That was what made everything even more tragic. They used an article which they knew would destroy at least two people as mere space filler! Even they didn’t dignify it as ‘newsworthy’ or ‘in the public interest’ or any of the other weasel phrases they usually trot out.”

  “Appalling,” agreed Desmond with genuine outrage, “but how does this involve Debra Addison? She didn’t write the story, surely? Wasn’t she a big journalist, even back then?”

  Louise blinked, as though becoming aware again of another person in the room. Bloody hell! thought Desmond in growing alarm, and keeping very still indeed as he saw the signs of his captor’s increasingly rapid mental deterioration.

  “Oh, it has very much to do with Ms. Addison!” The name was spat out as if it was contaminated. “She came across the ‘snippet’ – her word – when she was researching a ‘proper story’ - again, her words.”

  *

  “She reminded me that there’s an old passageway, an unused corridor that runs along the back of three of the downstairs rooms,” explained Gwilym as they hurried down the little lane at the back of the pub. It ran parallel to the Green itself, and would get them unseen to the corner of ‘The Plovers’, as Eleanor had named the resulting capacious and gracious old house she’d bought, and then extended, when she’d married. “There’s a small door leading into it at the corner of the house.”

  Calderwood nodded, quickly realising the edge it would give them in entering unseen. An edge that he hoped would justify Gwilym’s presence should things go wrong. If they did go wrong, he knew with grim certainty that his career’s present rapidly upwards trajectory would come to a sudden, and very painful, stop. “Can we get into any room that Mr. Appleby may be in from the passage?” he asked.

  Gwilym nodded. “Hopefully,” he then said aloud, realising the other men couldn’t see him in the darkness of the little lane. “Two of them, definitely. The dining room and the large drawing room have small doors set into the panelling. Though whether they’ll open quietly enough to be of use, I’m not sure,” he added unhappily. Emerging from the lane and, keeping to the shadows of the huge beech trees edging the eastern end of the Green, they hurried to the house dominating its southern side.

  “Here it is,” said Gwilym quietly, as, pushing aside the wisteria covering the house, his questing fingers found the edge of the little doorway. “Now just let’s hope Eleanor has managed to open it,” he added, sending up a fervent prayer.

  *

  “Apparently, she was after a young new reporter; a pretty girl, apparently. Sweet, innocent, very vulnerable, but also very ambitious. I gather from the ‘cat that got the cream’ look on the woman’s face when she bragged about it to me that it had worked. She passed ‘the snippet’ on, with full details on how to ensure it got published, and that’s how she got into the girl’s bed – and brought my father’s life crashing down around him.”

  Desmond, engrossed in the story, commented quietly. “And you found out enough of this when you confronted her in her office,” he said, not even making it a question.

  “Yes, you were right there, too. I met her very shortly after the article appeared. Two days after, to be precise,” she added coldly.

  Desmond’s next question stayed stillborn in his throat as he heard the key turn in the front door. Dear God! Don’t let Gwilym have come over without backup, he prayed. If he had, and anything happened to him as a result of his coded plea for help, Desmond knew he himself would not want to go on living, the guilt and loss would be unbearable.

  Then, unbelievably, he heard his mother’s voice and – equally unbelievably – heard her talking fondly to Huffny.

  “Don’t hurt her!” Louise recoiled at his voice; indeed, it had surprised Desmond himself. What he’d intended as a plea came out as a cold warning.

  She blinked, asking in seemingly genuine confusion. “Why would I do that, Desmond?”

  “For the same reason you may be planning to do the same to me,” he replied succinctly.

  “Oh, yes,” she murmured, increasingly frail and disembodied. “But, I...”

  His prayer that his mother would do her usual thing of leaving him to work without interruption and go off to bed went unanswered. After several increasingly tense seconds, a light knock on the sitting room door heralded her arrival, and Desmond prepared to do whatever would be necessary to protect her.

  Her entry – with Huffny under her arm, noted her son with amazement – was the opposite of threatening.

  “Oh, hello dear,” she said casually, apparently not seeing the gun held in Louise’s lap. “I’m sorry, Desmond, I didn’t realise you had company. I hope he’s offered you coffee or something. He’s a terrible host, he really is,” she went on, looking casually towards the visitor. “Anyway, it’s lovely to see you, dear. If he hasn’t offered you anything, can I? It’s coffee, I think, isn’t it, Louise?”

  Chapter 18

  Outside the house, Gwilym grunted with relief as the small door, half-smothered in the fragrantly scented wisteria that cloaked the house, swung partly open. He pushed it fully open with great care, in case rusty hinges betrayed their presence. He needn’t have worried, though. Eleanor, punctilious in her housekeeping as in everything else, had ensured they were kept well-oiled in the years of the door’s disuse.

  Calderwood and Bulmer quietly followed the Welshman as he stooped under the low doorway and moved into the narrow passageway, the air of which was surprisingly fresh.

  “The floor is very uneven in parts, so tread carefully,” Gwilym whispered as he himself moved f
orward slowly, testing each surface before he put his weight down.

  *

  Louise, thrown at first by the older woman’s appearance, swiftly recovered.

  “No coffee, thank you, Eleanor. This is scarcely a social visit,” she said, her voice again clear, crisp, totally in control – and utterly cold. “I suggest you sit down,” she added, her tone making it quite clear that it was anything but a suggestion. “Over there,” she added, gesturing to a chair near Desmond as Eleanor moved to take one to her extreme right.

  *

  The three men in the narrow unlit passage made their way very slowly along its length. Gwilym was fairly sure that Desmond would have been in the side sitting room before whatever happened, had happened. Whether he was still there remained to be seen. Part of the Welshman hoped not. He could remember that the passage had doorways into both the dining room and large drawing room, but couldn’t for the life of him remember if there was access into the small room which had once been a little-used parlour. Even if it did, he doubted it would be unlocked for them to get into it directly. But, he realised, once they’d found which room Desmond was in, they could at least access inside the house. That in itself would, hopefully, knock whoever was threatening Desmond off-balance. With some good fortune, it would be long enough for them to take the initiative, should they need to, prior to the arrival of the Emergency Response Team.