Vicious Circle

by Douglas Clark

  “Thank you. Would you mind leading the way?”

  “All four of you going out there?”

  “Yes. For your information, since Mr Dean adjourned the inquest to allow further police inquiries, none of my team is now acting as coroner’s officer, and I propose to treat the case just as one of unnatural death and not necessarily one of murder.”

  “That’s something at any rate.”

  “They are not mutually exclusive.”

  “Maybe. But we all know the death was unnatural, so we accept that. We can still believe it was suicide or an accident. But murder in one’s family takes some swallowing.”

  “I appreciate your point. We’ll try not to distress Mrs Whincap. So if you’ll lead the way . . .”

  After motoring a few miles the cars pulled on to the concrete apron on the front side of Helewou.

  “Cooee.”

  Masters, getting out of the car, saw Rainford waving to a young woman standing at the top of the flight of steps that led up the bank at the end of Adam Whincap’s workshop. She had a scarf round her head, a washed-out cotton dress, bare legs and sandals, was wearing red rubber gloves and had a trowel in one hand.

  “Doing a bit of gardening,” said Rainford.

  “So I see.”

  “Sorry. What I meant was that their garden is up there on the bluff—higher than the house, actually.”

  “Interesting and different. I can see why the house is called Helewou, too. I like the idea of it being end-on to the road. Far better than facing it.”

  “Hello.”

  Marian had removed her headscarf and gloves. Rainford kissed her cheek. “These are the big bad wolves from Scotland Yard.” He introduced them in turn to his daughter.

  “Mummy rang me after you’d visited her this morning.”

  “To say we were ogres, love?” asked Green.

  “Actually, she said you weren’t too bad.”

  Reed and Berger exchanged grins. Masters would love hearing himself described as not too bad. But he seemed to be taking it fairly well. “In that case, Mrs Whincap, our third degree will hold no terrors for you.”

  “Don’t you believe it, Mr Masters. I’m shaking like a jelly.”

  “If you are nervous, love,” said Green, “how about making a dirty great pot of tea to settle your nerves before we begin the conversazione? That’ll give you a chance to get your legs back and we can have a look at the inside of this nice house of yours.”

  “Make yourselves at home,” she said, leading the way through the stable door. “Daddy will act as guide if you need one.”

  “I like it,” said Masters a few minutes later after Rainford had given him a brief conducted tour. “I admire the way youngsters are prepared to take on a property like this these days and literally build a home.”

  “Most people are of the same opinion,” said Rainford. “Of course, the likes of us couldn’t have done it. But young men like Adam . . .”

  “What about Adam?” asked Marian coming in with a tray of tea cups.

  “We haven’t seen him yet,” said her father. “Is he about?”

  “If he’s putting a finish on something you won’t see him until he reaches a stage where he reckons he can stop.” She put the tray down. “If he’s waxing or polishing it would take an earthquake to get him to leave it in the middle.”

  “Understandable,” said Masters. “If one is putting the top coat of paint on a door one is loath to break off before it’s finished.”

  “I won’t be a moment. I’ll just fetch the teapot and milk jug.”

  “Let me help,” offered Berger, following her out of the sitting room.

  “Nice lass,” said Green to Rainford. “Nice and nice looking.”

  “Not bad,” agreed Rainford, striving hard to prevent the parental pride from breaking through. “She’s a hard worker, too.”

  “She goes out to work?”

  “No. She runs the house and garden and does Adam’s accounts, to leave him free to work. But it’s not just ledgers and journals, you know. There’s cost accounting comes into it and VAT and so on.”

  “Quite a job,” agreed Masters.

  “But now she’s started up a part of the job on her own. She’s actually earning money in the workshop.”

  “Helping her old man stain and grain?” asked Green.

  “No. Entirely her own show.”

  “Good for her.” Masters got to his feet to clear some magazines off the low table Marian was approaching with the teapot. Berger was carrying a stand for the pot and a cork mat for the milk jug as well as the jug itself.

  “Was daddy telling you about my industrial venture?” she asked after thanking Masters.

  “He was. I’m very anxious to hear all about it.”

  “I’ve only made a few pounds,” she said modestly.

  “Dammit, Marian,” said her father, “you didn’t start up until well after Christmas.”

  “Tell me,” requested Masters, accepting the first cup of tea poured.

  “It’s very simple really,” she began. “Adam keeps very carefully all his offcuts of wood. But even so, there are hundreds of little pieces of all shapes. Bits about as big as a matchbox or smaller—cubes, rectangles, circles, comma-shaped, every shape in fact. Of all sorts of wood—oak, mahogany, walnut, pine . . .”

  “Marian collects them all,” said Rainford.

  “And all the old bits of glass paper,” continued Marian. “I tear that up into quite small pieces and I put it, with my little bits of wood, into a rotating drum. Adam fixed one up for me. He made it out of an oil drum and the electric motor from a washing machine.”

  “Belt driven?” asked Berger.

  “Yes. All the bits came from a washer. I switch it on for an hour or so, and the little pieces of wood come out as smooth as smooth. It really is amazing.”

  “Like those pebble polishers,” said Berger.

  “Much quicker than those,” said Rainford. “And I think it might be quicker if we could find some really fine sand. We could throw a handful in.”

  So you get highly polished little bricks?” asked Masters.

  “I don’t stop there,” said Marian. “I’ve got a net made of fine chicken wire. I bundle all my bits into it and then dip it in a bath of linseed oil. I only leave it there for a few minutes then I lift it on to a hook above the bath so that the bricks can drain and dry.”

  “Boiled linseed oil?” asked Berger.

  “Oh yes! That leaves a sort of polish on the wood like a varnish. But it isn’t varnish and it’s not dangerous if children put them in their mouths.”

  “You sell them as bricks?” asked Masters.

  “Yes. Children, it seems, like all the odd shapes. Prefer them to regular bricks, in fact. They can build such different things with them. I’ve only sold to infant schools and play schools so far. I just weigh them up and put them in plastic bags.”

  “Sold by weight, eh?” said Green. “And no fancy packing. I reckon the teachers will go for those in a big way.”

  “They appear to,” said Marian.

  “A very good idea,” said Masters. “I hope you are successful with it.”

  “But the idea isn’t new,” admitted Marian. “There’s at least one firm been producing them for years. I’m having to break into the market. But it doesn’t matter, because they cost me next to nothing. The oil has been the only real expense so far.”

  “I still congratulate you,” said Masters.

  “She’s going to buy a press with the money she earns,” said Rainford.

  “What sort of press? Welsh dresser or . . .?”

  “Mechanical,” said Marian. “To press and bale all the wood shavings and sawdust into bricks for burning. We think we’ll be at least able to heat the workshop with it. I sweep it up every day. I’ve got sacks of it to start on when I can afford the press.”

  “I’m impressed,” said Masters, putting his empty cup on the table.

  Marian blushed with pleas
ure. “It seems such a pity to throw it all away.”

  “Too true, lass,” said Green. “And talking of presses, do you mind if I squeeze that pot to see if there’s a drop left in it? Better belly bust than good tea be lost, as my old mother used to say.”

  Marian laughed and rose to take his cup. “We seem to think alike, Mr Green.”

  “I hope so, love, because we’ve got a question or two to ask you.”

  “Oh, yes. I’d almost forgotten what you came for.”

  “Ta.” Green took his refilled cup and sat down again. Masters took out his pipe, looked at it for a moment and then put it away again. Everybody seemed to be waiting for him to speak.

  “Mrs Whincap,” he said at last, “were you aware of a feeling of mutual enmity between your grandmother and Mr Josef Kisiel?” Rainford drew in his breath. “What sort of a question is that to ask her?” he demanded.

  Masters turned a bland face to the Chief Superintendent. “What was wrong with the question?”

  “You’re asking for a young girl’s impression as to a motive for murder.”

  “I am asking a mature married woman for a factual reply to a question which was in no way loaded to provide reason for a motive for anything.” He turned to Marian. “I’d be glad of an answer, Mrs Whincap.”

  “I did know they didn’t like each other. I’ve always known.”

  “You’ve always known that there was a deep-seated hatred between them?”

  “She said dislike,” growled Rainford.

  Green said, “Don’t keep chipping in, chum. You’re making everybody nervous.”

  “Deep-seated hatred, Mrs Whincap?” repeated Masters.

  “I suppose so.”

  “I’ll take that as meaning yes. Now, knowing that they were enemies, why did you invite them both to your Christmas party?”

  “Why?” She seemed amazed by the question.

  “Because they were both family,” snapped Rainford.

  “Why, please, Mrs Whincap?”

  “Well . . . as daddy said . . . though Josef and Alice aren’t really family, Adam’s sister Gwen is married to their only son, Tony, and I thought that they would like . . . oh! don’t you see, it was Christmas and our first party and I wanted everybody to be together and be happy.”

  “You are saying you hoped for a reconciliation between Mrs Carlow and Mr Kisiel?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Did you really think you could bring that about?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Rainford.

  “It’s plain enough,” growled Green.

  “No,” admitted Marian, “I didn’t think that. In fact I knew that one or the other of them wouldn’t come if I invited both.”

  “Then I can only assume that the person you didn’t wish to have here was your grandmother.”

  “How the hell do you make that out?” demanded Rainford.

  Masters turned to him. “If Mrs Whincap had wished to have her grandmother here, she would not have invited Mr Kisiel, knowing that the two refused to attend the same functions. By inviting Mr Kisiel, she was as good as saying to her grandmother that the invitation issued to her was nothing more than a duty invitation which she, your daughter, did not expect to be accepted.”

  “But that . . . that’s monstrous,” protested Marian.

  Green shook his head sadly. “No it isn’t, love. You knew they couldn’t be reconciled, yet you invited both. One had to give way. If you’d really wanted your gran here, you wouldn’t have run the risk of having her refuse for the sake of a distant relative by marriage of your husband’s. But by putting her in the position of having to make a choice—a choice of which you already knew what the outcome was bound to be—you virtually said to the old girl that she wasn’t wanted.”

  “No. No. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Then how was it, love?”

  Marian didn’t answer. She looked unhappily at her father, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say that he had at last realized the logic of the Yard men’s claim.

  “I wish Adam was here,” said Marian.

  Masters looked across at Reed. “See if you can find Mr Whincap, please, Sergeant. He’s probably in the workshop building behind the house. Tell him Mrs Whincap would like him to join her.”

  Reed rose to go on the errand. Marian said: “Daddy, do you really think gran was clever enough to work all that out?”

  “More cunning than clever,” replied Rainford. “She’d probably sense it by instinct rather than by thinking it through.”

  Masters addressed Rainford. “At the end of our talk this morning, you accepted the rejection theory that I put forward.”

  “Aye! You conned me into that.”

  “Did I? I thought you accepted it with relief and a good deal of alacrity.”

  “Well I don’t accept it now if by proving that Marian rejected her grandmother at Christmas you’re somehow going to pin the blame on her.”

  “On whom?” asked a voice from the door.

  “Adam!” Marian ran to him. He held her close.

  “What are they blaming you for?”

  “Gran’s death.”

  Adam Whincap looked across at the other men sitting in the easy chairs and sofa near the empty fireplace. “Who is?” The tone held the beginnings of belligerence.

  Masters stood up. Compared with Whincap, who was himself a very tall young man, Masters appeared huge, almost intimidating when the atmosphere grew tense. “Please tell your husband which of us has accused you, of what, and in what words.” It was a command rather than a request.

  Marian was near to tears. It was her father who answered for her. “Nobody has actually accused Marian of anything, Adam. It was me, shooting my mouth off, who mentioned blame. I said it was not to be attached to her.”

  Whincap looked down at his wife. “Is that right, darling?”

  “Their questions were . . . they were horrible and accusing. They twist everything so.”

  “Not true, love,” said Green, going across to her. “We’ve twisted nothing. All we’ve asked you for is exact meanings of what you’ve said and what you did. Because that’s what we have to do. Don’t forget, either, that we came out here to see you. We didn’t ask you to come and see us. And we let your dad sit in to give you moral support.”

  “I still think you were trying to trap me.”

  “Into what, love?”

  “Into saying something that would make me seem guilty of something.”

  “No,” said Masters sternly. “I won’t have that. The last thing I want is for an innocent person to appear guilty. For one thing it offends my sense of justice, and for another, false ideas like that are a nuisance. They get in the way. So can we please get on? My last question to you, Mrs Whincap, was whether Mrs Carlow could have come to the conclusion that your action in inviting Mr Josef Kisiel here on Christmas Day was as good as saying that you did not wish her to come despite her invitation.”

  Marian looked at her husband, who answered for her. “We felt in duty bound to ask both, knowing that one or the other would not come.”

  “Thank you. So I am right in my belief that you really preferred the presence of Mr Kisiel to that of Mrs Carlow.”

  “I don’t know how you make that out.”

  “Mrs Carlow was more a member of the family than Josef Kisiel. Therefore she had a prior claim on your hospitality at an avowedly family party. Yet you jeopardized her acceptance by inviting a man whom you knew she would refuse to countenance. That indicates that you were not completely enthusiastic about her acceptance, while the fact that you invited an unacceptable man outside the family circle argues that you had hopes he would accept.”

  Whincap wiped floury sawdust from his chin. “You may be right, but I can assure you Marian and I did not think like that.”

  “Thank you. Your thoughts at the time do not concern me, so I will take your word that the outcome of your actions did not occur to you. But I am concerned with
the interpretation Mrs Carlow put on them. Mrs Whincap mistakenly believes that I am accusing her of something. I repeat, I am not. But I should like to know if Mrs Carlow interpreted her action—probably mistakenly—as I have done.”

  Whincap, dressed in dusty, soiled old slacks and sweat shirt, released his wife before attempting his reply.

  “My answer to that is that I believe she would not interpret it at all. She would just be bloody angry that Josef Kisiel had been invited. Reason would not enter into it.”

  “So you don’t think she would feel rejected?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you. That’s all I wished to establish.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I think so.”

  “So I’m wrong in your eyes, am I?” asked Rainford.

  Masters smiled. “Not at all. I think you’re both right—you and Mr Whincap.”

  “How do you make that out?”

  “Mrs Carlow couldn’t have felt immediately rejected by your daughter because she sought on several occasions to come and live with her. That supports Mr Whincap’s belief. But—and before I continue, let me stress I am not laying blame at anybody’s door—these young people quite rightly did all they could in as nice a way as possible to stop her descending on them, bag and baggage. Eventually she must have realized she wasn’t wanted in this house.” Masters turned to Whincap. “It was probably when that particular penny dropped that Mrs Carlow harked back over past grievances and came to the conclusion that she hadn’t been really wanted at the Christmas party either.”

  “A question of timing then?” asked Rainford.

  “Just so. But to set Mrs Whincap’s mind at rest I should add that I think she would have been wrong to have brought her grandmother here.”

  “You can say that again,” said Whincap. “She really was the most objectionable old bird . . .”

  “Adam!”

  “Sorry, darling. But she was.”

  Green said: “You know, love, I think you’ve got this room just right. And I like those little pots of lily of the valley about the place.”

  Marian opened her eyes wide at this sudden and unexpected switch. “Do you like lily of the valley?”

  “Well, now, I have to confess that it’s my missus who’s really gone on them. She uses the scent, you see. When I was courting—and it still happens occasionally—I used to buy her little bottles called Muguet de Bois for presents. The packs always had lilies of the valley on them.”