He had been only young when she had said that to him and he had never forgotten it. He freely acknowledged that it was Aunt Gwendoline and her sitting room that had started him on his career in archaeology. She had always shared with him so freely her love and enjoyment of her collected things. Every piece she had ever shown him had only ever been described with an affection that spoke only of the pleasure to be had in its beauty and the skills of its creator, never in its monetary value.
Yet monetary value was there, and he was well into his adult years before he began to wonder how his great-aunt’s sitting room had come about. Her father, his great-grandfather, had been a miner like his father before him, a poorly schooled man who hacked the iron ore out of the Cleveland Hills to feed the blast furnaces of Felderby Iron Works and turn wheels of nineteenth century industry. He was not a man of money or learning. The local village girl he married, his great-grandmother, also had precious little by way of goods or schooling. She was a woman of her day, a good provider of food and warmth for her family as they lived in their rented two-up-two-down, back-to-back terrace house in the company village of Low Felderby. The times through which they lived had not been generous so an education beyond the legal minimum for their three daughters was a luxury they could not afford, and necessity demanded that as soon as the girls left school they should take up jobs in domestic service which was all they were qualified for. So, Gerard could only shake his head and wonder where the knowledge and the money had come from to set Aunt Gwendoline on her path to acquiring such a sitting room full of treasures.
And like his archaeological digs, there was always something new there for him to discover, like the small table in front of him bearing the sherry glasses. He had not seen it before, with its burred walnut veneer and its finely executed marquetry centre panel. This harbour of a room which had so many times offered him shelter and secure anchorage only appeared static. It did change with time. The only constant seemed to be the aspidistra with its shiny leaves sitting in its ornamental pot in the corner. It alone was forever present and only it never seemed to grow any bigger or alter in any way. Unthinkingly, and without knowing why, he grinned at it and winked as he turned to carry the two glasses of sherry out to the kitchen.
“There you are,” Aunt Gwendoline greeted him. “I was beginning to think you had got lost. I have the grill on and a pan of water for the peas, so if you would like to shell them, I will just clear these tea things away. Your health.”
She took one of the sherry glasses and raised it while he did likewise with the other.
Chapter 14
They talked about all manner of distracting things over dinner, the ancient city of York and the Romans and the Vikings who settled there, the discovery of gunpowder by the Chinese, the relative merits of the waters of Bath and Harrogate and possibly Lourdes for curing arthritis, and the fine quality of the pottery produced by the women potters of southern Thailand millennia before the names of Wedgwood, Spode, Worcester or Meissen came into being.
“Or Chatterwood,” added Aunt Gwendoline as they settled back into the sitting room with a tray of green tea.
“Yes,” agreed Gerard. “Or Chatterwood, like Aunt Alice’s vase which is now broken.”
He had appreciated the interlude brought about by the meal but it was time to return to the events of Janet Brinsley’s murder and he wanted to tell his story through to its end. He could not explain why he could recall so clearly all the details of the events, of his break-up with Sue and why the emotional turmoil he still felt seemed out of all proportion to the way their relationship ended. Perhaps Sue had been more important to him that he realised. On the other hand, she did smash his family vase, which led to him pestering his dearest old aunt with the story of how Mark Brinsley coped with his wife’s death. But his thoughts were calmer as he settled into his chair, and he felt the sitting room wrap its peace around him while the insanities raging in the world outside were consigned to impotence beyond its walls.
“With great fanfare Billy and George Crater were arrested for Janet’s murder,” he recounted. "Like most of the law-abiding public, neither Mark nor Sue nor I had ever heard of the Crater gangland family until their names were blasted out in the news after they were arrested. We had the impression that most of the press were also ignorant about them and had to go scuttling through their archives for information in short order. But the Crater family was well known to the police which is why Billy’s and George’s arrests came only four weeks after Janet’s killing.
“Background stories started to emerge. Apparently, the Craters are a dynasty of gangsters sired by an immigrant grandfather of unpronounceable surname who anglicised it to Crater. He staked out a criminal territory in his adopted country and that territory was subsequently expanded into a minor empire by his son, the present head of the clan. He, the son, in turn has three sons, Frank, Billy and George, and between them they are said to control all drugs, people trafficking, gambling, night clubs, prostitution, racketeering and anything else with an illegal edge to it in the east end of the city. Assuming that at least half of it is true then we can only conclude that the Craters are a very nasty bunch of characters.”
Aunt Gwendoline sipped her tea and listened. The twin circles of light thrown out by two small table lamps were sufficient for her to see every expression in her grand-nephew’s face and only the sound of his voice and the ticking of her clocks disturbed the quietness of the room.
“I am surmising an awful lot,” he continued, "but I gather that the police had been trying to build up a case against the Crater family for a long time. According to Sergeant Chak, the Craters had proved very clever at staying out of any line of evidence that might lead directly to them, just like the gangsters in crime fiction. Whenever the police got on to something likely to incriminate them they always managed to escape prosecution using all the devices that could be bought by their vast, criminal wealth. They employed the best, extra-smart legal teams, witnesses and evidence disappeared at unfortunate moments during police investigations, alternative witnesses were found to provide them with unassailable alibis, and the widows of victims and former associates suddenly found themselves with a house and a healthy bank balance and life style in another, sunnier country from which they could not be extradited. It all sounds unbelievable but from what Sergeant Chak told me it is all true. Then suddenly, out of the blue and quite out of pattern, Billy and George Crater murder Janet Brinsley. The police could not believe their luck. At last, they had a case against the Craters that could not be sunk.
"The arrest of Billy and George Crater had a big impact on Mark. Here were the faces of the two men who had so sadistically abused his Janet and then killed her and their unborn child. It gave him something to focus on, something for his scientific mind to analyse and try and understand, and I suppose it helped him. I can only imagine that the spectre of revenge, justice, an eye for an eye and all those sort of thoughts was suddenly delivered to him, even though he is not in his deeper parts a vengeful person. He was noticeably recharged, up on his toes, intense in a way I had never seen him before.
“Sue and I continued to look after him. He came around for dinner on a number of evenings, more often than not if I really want to add them up, and he usually ended up staying the night. Sue was tense and cautious in his company and always more relaxed after he left, but she did a good job of hiding her feelings and of putting up with him. I know I was spending a lot of time with him and maybe Sue felt I was neglecting her, although I don’t believe I was. Mark’s problems were huge and I don’t think that offering him the odd meal and bed for the night was unreasonable. He still had a lot to deal with. But even though I could see he wasn’t himself I can honestly say there was nothing about him that gave either of us any inkling of what was to come. That surprised us both.”
He paused and shook his head, as if still disbelieving the story himself. Aunt Gwendoline waited but no reaction came from her surroundings. Rani lay quietly watchfu
l at her feet with her chin on her crossed paws, and the aspidistra remained unmoved in its pot.
“It was inevitable that the arrest of the Crater brothers sparked renewed press and media interest in the three of us all over again,” Gerard continued. “Again, they became a nuisance with their microphones and cameras and their relentless pursuit of us whenever we stepped outside the house. It made life very difficult. Sue in particular found it a strain, especially when Mark stayed with us. I worried about her, so much so that at the height of the renewed press frenzy I suggested she might like to go and stay with her brother until all the attention blew over. She had a married brother on the other side of town near her work, so it would not have been an impossible arrangement for her.”
“And how did she take your suggestion?” Aunt Gwendoline asked.
“Her reaction was extraordinary. She looked at me with an expression I could only at first describe as horror. It then quickly faded into disbelief that I should even make the suggestion, and then she rejected the idea furiously. She became tearful and acted hurt, but also shocked as if she was frightened. I tried to reassure her that I only wanted to take the pressure off her but I didn’t get the feeling she heard me. She seemed totally confused, as if she was afraid of staying but at the same time afraid of leaving. I couldn’t work out what she was thinking.”
Aunt Gwendoline once again felt the prod of finger in the middle of her back. “But she stayed?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “She stayed, at least for the time being.”
Aunt Gwendoline shifted in her chair to relieve the pressure between her shoulder blades. “Afraid of staying, yet afraid of leaving,” she repeated quietly. She knew the feeling. She had learned it the night Mother had carried her to stumble in the dark along the workmen’s path to the dugouts above Low Felderby. Home was solid, warm and familiar. Outside there was the Zeppelin blazing in the night sky. More certain safety might indeed reside within the dugouts on the hillside but to reach them required a walk in the dark along a path under the threat of whatever the skyfire might drop on them. To stay or to leave? That night everyone in Low Felderby faced the question, and in the end they had all left. But Susan had not left. When offered the more certain safety of leaving she had stayed.
Aunt Gwendoline reached out into her surroundings with every sense she had but found nothing to tell her what it was that had held Susan back. She left her thoughts to puddle themselves in the back of her mind while she returned her attention to her grand-nephew.
Chapter 15
Gerard had paused in his story to give his emotions a brief rest. He sighed and looked up at his great-aunt, smiled, and then continued as if there had been no break.
“Billy and George Crater were refused bail at the preliminary hearing,” he resumed. "A trial date was set for four months later. Sergeant Chak and his team remained very confident they would be convicted. He told us the police had collected a substantial body of evidence and that it was all very solid. It was almost entirely forensic, so short of a mass assassination of all the expert witnesses and a burning down of all the laboratories that did the analyses, it was unassailable. For once there were no witnesses to be intimidated, bought off or made to disappear. There was no question that Billy and George Crater were the two who had murdered Janet Brinsley and this time there was no way out for them. They were going to face the judgement and retribution of a justifiably shocked and angry society.
"We were very relieved. Then, as he was leaving us, he turned to us and said, ‘I’ll probably not be seeing you again.’
"We were stunned. ‘Why not?’ we asked.
"‘A new set of officers will be carrying the investigations forward from now on.’
"As he began to explain what he meant, we all felt that he was trying to appear more confident than he really was.
“‘The Craters are a big crime family,’ he told us, ‘and keeping tabs on them and all that they are up to is beyond the resources of a local murder squad like ours. So, the pursuit of Janet Brinsley’s murder case has been handed over to the Major Crime Division to finish off. I want you to have every confidence in them, as much as you have had in us. We have done all the work anyway so there is not much for them left to complete. I’m sure you’ll get along with them fine and that they will get the result you want. So good luck, and keep your chins up.’ He shook hands with us and left.”
Rani stood up, not to stretch or yawn but to stand immediately on the alert, looking at something in the distance, ready to point or defend as the circumstance demanded. Aunt Gwendoline could see nothing herself. She leaned forward to put her cold teacup on the low table and gave Rani a pat of acknowledgement.
“What happened next?” she asked.
“Everything went back to normal,” Gerard replied. "The new police team had two meetings with Mark in the days that followed and asked him some vague questions about how he had found Janet. Then, in his words, ‘they dismissed him’. They didn’t bother with Sue and me. We all had the feeling of anti-climax.
“Mark went back to his chemistry laboratory and his lecturing. He was not very focussed and there were occasions when he drifted off into nowhere while talking with one of his students or a colleague. But everyone was forgiving. He kept in touch with his parents in Canada and with Janet’s parents too. He came round to dinner with us on a few evenings while we all waited for the big day in court, and on those occasions he was sociable enough, although quiet. Sue remained tense in his company, but she covered it well and I doubt that he noticed it. Sue and I became a bit closer, something like we had been before Janet’s murder, although not quite. At least we felt we could once again go about our daily lives without being under the threat of murderous harm. But all three of us were in a hiatus where we could only wait for the trial to begin. Sue worked, and I began drafting my report on my Thailand dig, but by and large we just drifted.”
“And your Chatterwood vase remained safe on its pedestal in your hallway?” asked Aunt Gwendoline.
Gerard felt a flash of annoyance run through him. He had forgotten about Aunt Alice’s vase. It was irrelevant, but he looked at his elderly aunt and collapsed his impatience. She was an old lady, living out the last of her days in gentleness and quietude, and like all old people her horizons were narrowing down to the closely familiar.
“Yes, Aunt Alice’s vase was not in any danger at this point,” he answered her gently. “But I would have to say that a sense of doubt about what was happening had closed in around the three of us. I certainly felt it, although Mark was the first to voice it. ‘Something’s wrong,’ he said, and we could only agree. Ever since Sergeant Chak had said goodbye to us, we had felt uneasy. The team of officers who knew by heart every detail of Janet’s murder, whose instincts had been present at every interview with every person questioned since Mark’s first telephone call, had been replaced by a new group who knew nothing about what had happened except what was written in the files. We were certain that Janet’s killers would be brought to justice while the investigations were in the hands of the men and women who had been eating, sleeping and breathing the case from the start. But suddenly they were not there. Maybe it was sensible to hand everything over to officers who were more skilled in the pursuit of organised crime. And maybe those who made the decision did look at the case and conclude that the surest way to convict the Crater brothers was to bring the full resources of the Major Crime Division against them. Or maybe, as Mark said, the Craters were such a big crime family, and the police had been after them for such a long time, that the desire for success and the political and promotional rewards that went with such a victory stirred the ambitions and muddied the visions of those whose job it was to run things from the top. I suppose we will never know, but I do know we were not comfortable.”
Aunt Gwendoline tuned in to her own instincts. Rani had relaxed and, for the moment, in the dugout of her sitting room, there was safety and reassurance against the terror in the night outside
just as there had been in the hillside above Low Felderby all those years before. But outside the skyfire was still burning and five, fiery, five-pointed stars were still falling to their deaths. The comfort and warmth left her and the coldness of a wet sandbag pressed itself against her back.
“And if I remember correctly, you were right to feel uneasy about the new arrangements, isn’t that so?” she commented.
“Yes, in hindsight, we were absolutely right,” he confirmed.
Chapter 16
“The four months to the trial were very difficult for Mark,” Gerard continued. "I used to see him walking out across the university campus at various times during the day and, if it was around lunchtime, I would join him and we would sit out in the sun and eat our sandwiches, feed the ducks and listen to the cacophony of the students as they raced around the ‘ant heap’ as we call the university during term time. We didn’t talk about anything much and many times we didn’t talk at all. We had some work we were doing together. An archaeologist pal of mine from Shanghai had been impressed by Mark’s analysis of the Thailand honey and had sent over some fabric that had been wrapped around a mummified body from around 50 BC, found in some old salt mines on the Silk Road. Mark was analysing the dyestuffs in it. But overall there was nothing we could do but wait.
Skyfire Page 5
