Pieces of Fate
A Collection of Short Stories
by
David P Elliot
RED CAP PUBLISHING
Pieces of Fate
by
David P Elliot
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © David P Elliot 2010, 2011
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, events and places are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used totally fictitiously.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Cover Artwork by DARE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Story Five - The Thief in the Waiting Room
For Thomas, Erin & Joshua
‘Pieces of Fate’ is a collection of six short stories by David P Elliot, which may be described as of the ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ genre.
Only ‘Caroline’ has been published before having been originally written as an entry for the BBC Short Story competition for 2010; it did not win, but was subsequently released as an e-book.
‘Medusa’ is a story that has its genesis in the author’s previous career in the IT industry. From an original idea the author had in the 1980s, before the modern computer games industry became the massive global business it currently is.
‘The Cottage’ is the first of two tales in this anthology, which explores an investigation into a modern day, alleged haunting incident. Although the name of the house has been changed, the cottage of the story is based on a local Oxfordshire property where the author once lived, and was purported to be haunted.
The title of the fourth tale, ‘Shark’, is derived from the occupation of the main protagonist, a loan shark called Gary Bowler who preys on the weak and vulnerable.
‘The Thief in the Waiting Room’ was the response to a challenge thrown out to the author to come up with a story which included ‘a thief’, ‘a waiting room’ and ‘a flat tyre’ in ten minutes. This was the result. Whilst the idea was established in the 10 minute time scale, the actual writing took a further 60 minutes to actually put down on paper.
The final story, ‘Long Alley’ is also local to the author and uses real locations and an actual historical event as the backdrop for another modern day haunting. Readers may wish to read ‘The Cottage’ first, as a prologue to this story.
ONE
Detective Chief Inspector Matthew Richards stood looking through the one way mirror into the interview room, observing the man sat at the table fixed in place against the far wall.
The man had hardly moved, as far as Richards could tell, since he had been led into the interview room by the desk sergeant George Brown, who had placed him in the seat.
The room was sparsely furnished. Apart from a small shelf fixed to the wall alongside the table, upon which sat a tape machine for recording interviews, a printed plastic notice pinned to the wall, explaining prisoners’ rights and the unoccupied chair directly opposite the man, it was empty.
Empty that is, save for the rather bored looking, uniformed police constable leaning with arms folded across his chest against the door to the room, ostensibly guarding the - ‘What was he?’ Richards thought, ‘Prisoner? Witness?’
Without turning his gaze away from the man in the room, Richards spoke to Sergeant Brown who was now standing alongside him. ‘Tell me again what he said, George.’
‘He came in alone, 30 minutes ago, walked up to the desk and just said, ‘He’s dead. I killed him. He’s dead. I asked him who was dead, but he didn’t answer, he just kept repeating over and over, ‘He’s dead, I killed him.’’
Richards studied the man again as he sat motionless, both hands flat on the table before him, with his head bowed, staring at a spot between his hands on the table. For some reason, Richards thought he looked like a medieval aristocrat awaiting the fall of the axe that would decapitate him.
‘And he has said nothing else?’
‘Nope. I asked, had he knocked someone down in his car, stabbed him, shot him, what did he mean he’d killed him. But he hasn’t said anything else.’
Richards nodded, ‘Does he have a car outside, have we checked?’
‘Yes, we’ve checked, and no - no car that we can find. I sent someone out to look in case it was damaged, I thought he may have knocked someone down and was so traumatised by it, he hadn’t stopped. It happens. Sometimes people can’t face up to what they’ve done. Thought there might be some damage, some forensics, but we can’t find a car. Looks like he just walked in here.’
’Well, at least we know who he is; that’s a start,’ Richards said. He recognized the man in the room as Jeremy Carlton, just about the town’s most prominent citizen. A solicitor by trade, he was rich, powerful and very influential.
If there was a committee somewhere, he chaired it; a charity that needed help, he supported it. In fact, if you wanted anything done - a license granted, planning permission approved, even a new swing in the local playground. If he supported it, it happened, if he opposed it, it didn’t.
Richards knew him reasonably well. As a senior police officer, he could hardly avoid regular encounters with the most prominent legal and political person in the town. He had never warmed to him. Perhaps it was just some kind of inverted snobbery. Richards hated privilege, earned or otherwise and Carlton was certainly privileged. It was for others to decide whether he had earned it or not.
‘He’s on the Police Committee, isn’t he?’ Sergeant Brown suddenly sounded a little concerned. ‘Should I have cautioned him? Don’t want to make any mistakes with this guy.’ He turned to Richards, looking for reassurance.
‘Caution him for what?’ Richards finally turned his gaze away from Carlton. ‘We have no evidence he has committed a crime or even that one has occurred. He says he has killed someone but we don’t know who, whether it’s true, whether it was by accident or design, or even if someone is actually dead. We just do our job, Sergeant, makes no difference who it is; we treat them all the same.’
Even as he finished the statement, Richards knew how naïve it would sound to the cynical desk sergeant. The truth is, Richards wanted things to be that way, and he often fell foul of his own senior officers by his reluctance to compromise or to play the political games he so despised in his own bosses.
‘I’d better talk to him,’ he said at last.
TWO
Carlton didn’t look up as Richards entered the room and took the seat opposite him at the table. He remained resolutely staring at a spot between his hands as if fixed in that position.
Carlton was wearing a very expensive suit but it occurred to Richards that this was the first time he had seen Carlton without a tie or unshaven. Clearly, there wasn’t more than a few hours beard growth on him, but it was enough to give a slightly dishevelled appearance to a man who was usually immaculate.
Some people can never look smart, regardless of how they dressed; Richards was one of those people, it seemed no matter how well his suit was pressed or shoes were polished, within minutes of dressing he always looked as though he had slept in his clothes.
His dark brown hair usually needed cutting and, as a consequence, tended to curl up and was impossible to keep under control. His only striking feature was his steely blue eyes which he knew people often found discomforting. He seemed to have an ability to see through lies, which, although not entirely accurate, he was certainly able to use to advantage in interviews.
Carlton, on the other hand, was one of those irritating people, as far as Richards was concerned, who always looked like he’d been dressed by a valet, shaved at least twice a day and never had a hair or a crease anywhere where there should not have been one.
But not today it seemed.
‘You remember me, Mr Carlton? Detective Chief Inspector Richards? We last met a week ago at the ‘Local Policing’ event you arranged as chair of the police committee?’ Richards had been obliged to attend the event at the insistence of the Chief Constable who was also there, amongst a host of other prominent local dignitaries.
There was no response to Richards’ questions, and he showed no signs even that he had heard him, let alone ever met him before.
‘Look, Mr Carlton, I need to know why you are here. You told the desk sergeant you killed someone. Who did you kill? When? Where? What is this all about?’
‘He’s dead, I killed him.’ came the quiet reply, which seemed to be directed at the table or to himself, rather than as a direct response to Richards’ question.
‘Who? Who did you kill?’ Richards repeated. Again, there was no response.
This one-sided interview continued for the best part of two hours, interspersed briefly with short breaks that were more for Richards’ benefit than Carlton’s.
Despite the fact that suspects were regularly advised to ‘say nothing’ by their defence solicitors, Richards was well aware that, if you talked long enough to a suspect, whilst he may not directly incriminate himself or admit to whatever transgression he was accused of, mostly they would say something, eventually. It was, he knew, actually very difficult to sit for hours and not say anything.
Usually, totally unconnected to the crime, the suspect would open up some form of dialogue, and once they were talking, the flood gates would eventually open.
Any seemingly unrelated conversation would lead to a slow and painstaking teasing-out of information. Soon, inexorably and despite a determined effort to ‘say nothing,’ the suspect was singing like a bird!
But not this bird and not this time.
Eventually, frustrated, Richards gave up. ‘I need you to sit here and think about what you’re doing, Mr Carlton. You don’t need me to tell you that at the very least you’re wasting police time, and I can’t afford to sit here any longer to indulge...,’ he paused as if searching for the right word, ‘your problem - any longer. If you decide you want to tell me anything then speak to the officer, but I have better things to do with my time.’
He had decided Carlton had had some kind of breakdown. He would get a psychiatrist to talk to him, maybe he could find out what was going through this obviously disturbed man’s mind.
He started to leave, and as he opened the door, his back to Carlton, he heard a quiet voice, so quiet he was not quite sure he had heard anything at all.
‘Terry Belling.’
Richards turned to face Carlton who, for the first time since he had entered the room, had raised his head and turned to look at him; his haunted eyes, heavy, tired and lifeless sent a chill down Richards’ neck.
‘Terry Belling.’ Carlton repeated quietly. ‘I killed Terry Belling. He is at The Blue Boar.’
Carlton slowly turned away, returning to his previous position, head hanging, hands palm down in front of him, staring at the table.
Despite Richards returning to his chair and continuing to question Carlton for a further hour, not a single additional word passed Carlton’s lips.
THREE
‘The Blue Boar has been derelict for 7 years,’ George Brown said to Richards as he returned to the canteen table with a mug of tea and a rather unappetising looking sandwich. He peeled back the top slice of the thin bread, staring suspiciously at the content which was allegedly bacon.
‘There was a fire there,’ he continued, ‘started in the kitchen, apparently. It was just about the last straw for the place. It was already losing money. The landlord had had enough, I guess, moved on. It never re-opened. Been boarded up ever since.’
Richards sipped his coffee. ‘Get a car out there, tell them to look around. Get Detective Sergeant Willis to go with them, see what they can find – and tell them to be careful. If it is a crime scene I don’t want the evidence destroyed, especially when the suspect is a bloody solicitor. And find out who owns the place now. I assume it’s one of the breweries, but we’d better check.’
‘Aren’t you going out there?’ Brown said as he stood up to leave.
‘I’ll go if they find something. I’m going to his house, see his wife. I met her at the ‘do’ last week; she seemed like a nice enough lady. A lot younger than Carlton. Maybe she can throw some light on what the hell is going on. What about this Terry Belling - what have we got on him?’
Brown shrugged, ‘Bit of a tearaway, it seems; couple of minor convictions for possession of cannabis, personal use, nothing heavy, and one for criminal damage following a fight. Apparently, more of a drunken punch-up really, broken window in the pub, that sort of thing. Oh! And one for handling stolen goods, bought an ‘iffy’ iPod, apparently, that had ‘fallen off the back of a lorry’ – not exactly a master villain. Most of this was a few years back. Doesn’t seem to have been in any bother, recently.’
‘Do we have an address for him?’ Richards asked.
‘Last known address was from his last conviction over seven years ago. Local Panda has been round there; it’s all small bedsits, mostly students and the like. The residents change every 5 minutes. There’s nobody there now who remembers him, and no luck so far with a current address. One interesting thing, though - his last conviction, one of the possessions of cannabis. His occupation was down as an office clerk. Guess where he worked?’
‘I don’t guess, Sergeant.’ Richards was irritated by anything he considered flippant or unprofessional where a potentially serious crime was concerned.
Brown cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed by the implied criticism before continuing. ‘He worked at ‘Carlton & Messenger’, our local solicitors. Messenger died 30 years ago; the practice is owned by our guest downstairs.’
It was four hours after Jeremy Carlton had walked into the police station that Richards climbed into his car and drove off in the direction of Manor Lane.
Presumably named after the Manor House owned by Carlton, it was one of a small number of very expensive properties in an extremely expensive part of town, but before Richardson had got out of the centre where the police station was situated and into the suburbs, the radio crackled into life and he heard the familiar voice of Detective Sergeant Willis.
‘Gov, we’re at the Blue Boar,’ Willis said, ‘the place was pretty securely boarded up, but we’ve managed to find a way in. We’re in the cellar. We’ve found a body. I’ve called Scenes of Crime and the pathologist. I think you’d better get over here.’
‘Do we know who it is?’ Richards asked.
‘Sorry Gov, no way of telling without forensics. But it’s not natural causes, that’s for sure, his face is completely crushed, no way it could be accidental or a fall.’ And as if to reinforce the point, he added, ‘Somebody smashed his face in.’
FOUR
It was 3.00pm by the time Richards and Willis left what Richards had now designated a murder scene, in the cellar of the Blue Boar, and it had begun to rain as they climbed into the front of the car.
Richards turned on the ignition without starting the engine, putting the windscreen wipers on intermittent and watching the build-up of the increasingly heavy rain on the glass before it was wiped away by the sweep of the wiper blade.
He sat, running through the facts they had accumulated so far before he eventually spoke.
‘Hand me the file on Belling,’ he said, holding out a hand towards Willis.
Willis reached over into the back of the car to retrieve the file and handed the buff folder to Richards who paged through the assortment of loose pages before speaking again.
‘Okay. We wait for the forensic report and the PM, but I think it is a fair assumption that the body is Belling. The face is too badly damaged for any identification and that has probably put paid to dental records as well. According to his file we have no DNA sample, but we do have fingerprints, so hopefully we can identify him from that. He seems to be the right height, weight and age and, unless we’ve missed another body, we also have Carlton telling us it’s Belling. So, subject to confirmation of identity and cause of death, it looks like we have a murder, a victim and a probable culprit.’
‘Nobody could have survived that amount of facial trauma,’ Willis offered, ‘But I guess we need the PM to confirm that it was the cause of death. I suppose it’s just possible that a frenzied attack like that could have been post mortem.’
‘Base to DCI Richards, over’. The two detectives’ conversation was interrupted as the radio crackled into life and Richards picked up the handset, ‘DCI Richards here; go ahead, over.’
‘Yes sir, message from Sergeant Brown, apparently you wanted to know who the owners of the Blue Boar are. We got the name of the agents from the board outside. It seems the building is owned by a commercial property group, Minster Investments plc. They’ve been pretty active over the last few years, buying up failing pubs. They don’t seem to be interested in the pub business, more like long-term property investment. The whole site recently got planning permission for conversion to new homes. Apparently, they are planning to put up 65 apartments and houses on the land. Sergeant Brown says you will be interested to know that the majority shareholder of Minster Investments and the Chairman is one Jeremy Carlton.’
‘Okay. Thank Sergeant Brown for me. How is the psychiatrist getting on with Carlton, do we know?’
‘Apparently, he’s getting less out of him than you did,’ the radio operator responded, ‘he says he’s suffering some deep psychological trauma that could take months to untangle, if ever. It’s unlikely we are going to get anything useful from him in the near future.’
‘Okay, thanks.’ Richards replaced the microphone and turned to Willis. ‘Okay, it’s unlikely any confession from Carlton is going to be taken seriously, given his mental state. But the fact that he owns the property the body was found at and that he told us it was there is pretty conclusive. But we also need a motive here. We know Belling worked for Carlton years ago. Let’s get to his offices and interview the staff. Someone will remember him, and I wouldn’t mind betting if there is any whiff of a scandal someone will be only too pleased to tell us.’
‘What about Mrs Carlton?’ Willis asked. ‘You were on your way to see her. Should we get over there?’
Richards thought for a moment and then responded. ‘No. Send a panda over there. Tell her we have her husband at the station and that I will be over to talk to her as soon as I can. In the meantime tell her the doctor is with him, and once we have the all clear we will be talking to him again, but in the meantime she should wait to hear from me.’
‘What if she insists on going down to the station to see him?’
‘We can’t stop her, I guess, but tell her she will be wasting her time. She won’t be able to see him, as after the medical examination he will be helping us with our enquiries. We’ll let her know if and when she can see him.’
‘Seems a bit harsh.’ Willis said.
‘Why do most people kill each other, Willis?’ Richards said, and without waiting for a reply continued, ‘Sex or money. Sometimes both. If Carlton killed Belling I want a motive before I question his wife. Let’s get to his office and see if we can find one.’
FIVE
The offices of Carlton & Messenger were comfortable and quiet, with a subtle air of both efficiency and money. There were around 30 staff in total, but only two, apart from Carlton himself presumably, had any direct recollection of Terry Belling.
Paul Brice and Hilda Burning had been with Jeremy Carlton for 25 and 23 years, respectively.
Hilda Burning was a formidable lady of indeterminate age, with an air of superiority and a permanent look on her face that suggested to Richards that she spent most of her time sucking lemons. She was the Office Manager and appeared to revel in her authority, with a clear attitude of disdain to the many younger staff that she seemed keen to correct even before they had given her cause.
Paul Brice didn’t seem to fit at all. 6 feet tall and stocky, he wore a suit like an army sergeant major, and a severe crew-cut and broken nose suggested he had been a boxer in his youth. Richards thought he would have fitted better standing on the door of a nightclub as a bouncer rather than working in a provincial solicitor’s office.
His job description seemed unusual, as well. Apparently, he was Carlton’s ‘Personal Assistant and driver’.
Hilda Burning organised an office for them to conduct their interviews; she seemed insistent on talking to him rather than to Willis. Richards suspected she considered him of too low a rank for someone of her importance.
He organised things so that he and Willis would interview Brice and Burning, who he felt were most likely to have useful information. ’Get the uniformed officers to get statements from all the other staff. Particularly, did they know Terry Belling but more importantly have they heard anything about him. Tell the uniform boys we’re not talking evidence here, I don’t care if it’s rumour, hearsay, gossip or any sort of tittle-tattle. If they have heard anything that might be useful I want it put down in writing. We’ll worry about its evidential value later.’
Richards sat himself at the desk and nodded to Willis, ‘We’ll have Hilda Burning in first. While we talk to her, get someone back at the nick to check up on Paul Brice’s background. If that guy’s a ‘personal assistant’, I’m a bloody prima ballerina.’
Caroline’s Story
Caroline hated these events and wished wholeheartedly that Jeremy would not be so insistent that she should attend. Not naturally gregarious, attending any event was stressful, but these office Christmas parties were her ultimate nightmare.
She was absolutely certain that Jeremy’s staff would enjoy themselves a lot more if Jeremy and she weren’t there. It seemed to her that the event amounted to a terribly boring cocktail party, with champagne that nobody really liked and canapés that were not a reasonable substitute for the real food these people would be eating from choice.
It was not until her and her husband left, usually about 9.00pm, that the staff seemed to get on with enjoying themselves when, by all accounts, the ‘office party’ degenerated into a kind of bacchanalian orgy with the staff drinking beer & Bacardi Breezers and lunging lasciviously at colleagues who, in normal circumstances, they wouldn’t pass the time of day with, let alone a night of passion.
For her, it was an ordeal. Jeremy could talk about work, be magnanimous about how well they’d all done this year, knowing nobody would jeopardise their job by saying anything controversial or vaguely interesting. She, on the other hand, had to smile kindly and nod thankfully when members of staff congratulated her on what a wonderful boss Jeremy was, before sidling off to gossip about her, interspersed with sly glances in her direction, as they assessed her clothes and jewellery, makeup and figure.
Caroline knew they thought she was a gold-digger living a privileged life with a rich man twice her age. They were, she thought, not altogether wrong. She enjoyed Jeremy’s money, she knew she could never live without the lifestyle he indulged her with, and although he was not strictly ‘twice her age’, the age gap was as much psychological as anything else. Jeremy was, in outlook, clearly closer to her father’s generation than hers.
She had everything – except sexual passion, and that was so deeply buried that mostly she didn’t even realise she was missing it.
That was until Terry Belling. Belling was in his twenties and was exactly the kind of young lout who, Caroline imagined, spent his weekends at football matches, followed by binge drinking sessions and fighting outside town centre pubs that she would not be seen dead in.
He was loud, uncouth, uncultured and, from what she could see, not even a terribly useful employee. But when he ‘hit on her’, as she understood the expression to be, rather than the anticipated revulsion, something seemed to click inside her like a switch that had been turned off for a long time.
She felt breathless and an excitement not experienced since her first clumsy fumblings at the age of 16. Somehow, he had awoken feelings and fantasies in her that she had almost forgotten; feelings that frankly she had never felt with the rather perfunctory, dutiful and very infrequent sex with her husband.
On this first encounter at the office Christmas party, her sense of excitement seemed accentuated by the proximity of her husband, and she had not resisted when Belling had pulled her unceremoniously into a stationery cupboard no doubt often employed for Belling’s encounters. With no pretence at foreplay, they had violent sex; she sat on the photocopier, skirt around her waist and her legs around his.
Far from any sense of guilt, disgust or shame afterwards, she found herself yearning for more and it was the beginning of a short but torrid affair that lasted for around 3 weeks, in which time she met with Belling more and more frequently.
There was no pretence at anything involved in this relationship, other than a driving need to indulge themselves sexually. Conversation beforehand was non-existent; no drinks, meals, overnight stays in hotels. Their encounters took place in cars, fields, public toilets, even lifts; their need seemed insatiable and immediate; a fire that needed to be quenched as quickly and as violently as possible, and no sooner had they sated themselves than they separated. No small talk, conversation, even arrangements for the next liaison; a moment or two to adjust hastily removed clothing, and they both returned to their own, quite different lives.
When Caroline was not with Belling, she was fantasising about him, imagining what would happen the next time they met.
Then, no sooner had the affair started, it was over.
The danger of these encounters, which seemed to be an integral part of the excitement for her, inevitably lead to what, had she not been totally blinded by this fantasy, she would have seen coming.
Jeremy discovered the affair.
At first, she was terrified that her indiscretion would lead to her losing everything. She knew enough about Jeremy to suggest that, where money was concerned, he would be clever enough to minimise anything she might claim from the marriage, should he divorce her.
Jeremy was not an overtly mean man, but it was obvious to Caroline that he never spent money which did not somehow reflect well on him. Philanthropy and charitable giving and support were a means to an end for Jeremy. They all reinforced his personal status or were good for business. He did not spend money unless it furthered those aims. Even the beautiful clothes and fine jewellery he bought for Caroline were really to enhance his reputation and standing in the community. She was, she knew, a trophy wife who needed to be on display and beautiful for Jeremy’s sake rather than her own.
The minute she ceased to be an asset to him then she also ceased to be a worthwhile business expense, and like any unnecessary business expense she would be ruthlessly cut.
Jeremy’s reaction, however, came as a complete surprise and what actually happened was, in many respects it seemed to Caroline, even worse. He said nothing. Well, almost nothing.
He did not get angry, threaten her, or call her any of the many names she no doubt would have used to describe any of her friends who had behaved in a similar fashion. He simply came home from work one evening and told her that he had sacked Belling and he had left immediately with three months pay, on the understanding he left the area and never came back.
His response was a directive rather than a discussion. She would not embarrass him any further by trying to make any further contact with him. The affair was over, and he never wanted to discuss the matter again.
That had been seven years ago and from that moment on Jeremy never, ever mentioned it again. But somehow, it sat resolutely in the back of Caroline’s mind, a niggling thought that sneaked into her consciousness and then retreated as she was constantly aware that something here had never quite been resolved.
At first, she was grateful Belling had not contacted her or even sent her a note to say goodbye. But she did not fool herself into believing that she meant anything more to Belling than a sad, middle-aged and bored woman who he could use for his own purposes.
He would have known that he was lucky to get money out of Jeremy, and there were always other women. But now, lately, she had begun to find that in almost every waking as well as dreaming moment she found herself fantasising about him.
At first, there was anger at him leaving without even a hint that she meant slightly more to him than a quick sexual thrill. Then, as more and more of her time was taken up with images and memories of their times together, she found herself fantasising not only about all the things that they had done, but all that they might have done had the affair continued.
At night she would awaken, body drenched in sweat, reaching out to her imaginary lover. There were hours spent half dozing in the bath, as she allowed her thoughts to drift to him. Sometimes, it seemed she could feel his breath on her neck or the touch of him. She wanted him. More than anything else she wanted him. Her head told her she was obsessing, infatuated, but her body hungered for his touch.
Then, without warning, seven years after the affair had ended, on this quiet Wednesday morning, he returned.
She had been sitting in her favourite place, the conservatory at the rear of Manor House. The warm sun through the glass soothed her as she lay nestled in the high-backed wicker chair, enjoying the warmth and soft breeze from the open window that caressed her face deliciously. She felt a familiar feeling in the pit of her stomach as her mind drifted once again to her lost lover, when suddenly she was shaken from her reverie by the sound of the front doorbell ringing.
Stopping to adjust her hair and clothing in the mirror in the hallway, as if her innermost thoughts would somehow be reflected in her outward demeanour, she coughed nervously before composing herself and opening the front door.
She felt her head swirl and her legs almost collapsed beneath her, as there, standing on her doorstep, was Terry Belling.
Caroline stood, open-mouthed, as she stared at the lover she had not seen or even heard from for seven years, and now here he was, standing before her.
He had changed very little, although he looked pale and was unshaven, perhaps a little thinner, with dark rings below his eyes. He looked dishevelled, and his clothes were crumpled and dirty, as if he had been sleeping rough. He smiled. ‘Hello Caroline,’ he said as without being asked. He stepped into the hallway and stood before her.
As if the preceding seven years had not existed and without any conversation, they came together hungrily, kissing passionately and tearing at each other’s clothes. Caroline frantic, afraid she might be dreaming and that at any moment she would awaken and unable to control the passion of their coupling; they collapsed, half on the floor, half on the stairs as they hungrily fed their respective desires.
Finally, lying half naked and panting, Caroline looked across at Belling, as if checking it was not her imagination and that he was really there. ‘Why are you here, Terry?’ she asked eventually.
‘I came back for you,’ he answered, ‘I want to be with you.’
Perhaps now, her desire having been fed, Caroline began to realise what a dangerous game she was playing. What if Jeremy caught them? He surely would not forgive her again. She would lose everything, and as if her sanity was returning after weeks of obsessive longing, she began to panic.
‘This is stupid, Terry. You must go, you can’t be here. You can’t just come back into my life after seven years without a word. You must go before you are seen. If Jeremy finds out you are back I will lose everything. You must go.’
Belling looked at her longingly. ‘I have nowhere to go. I have no money, no clothes, nowhere to live.’
‘I can’t help you Terry. Look, you can stay long enough to take a shower and clean yourself up a bit. I’ll see if I can find some clean clothes you can have. I don’t have much money, but what I have I will give you. But you must go.’
Belling looked helpless, but Caroline’s fear of Jeremy, or more accurately, the fear of losing everything she had, was now uppermost in her mind. It seemed the weeks of obsession and fantasy had been somehow exorcised, and the reality of her situation had become more important than her desires.
She forced herself to be strong. She did not want to give Belling any small hope that further begging would weaken her resolve. ‘If you want to clean up, Terry, do it quickly, otherwise leave now. I must have been mad to let you in. Please go, and go quickly.’
He opened his mouth as if to argue, but seeing the sudden coldness in her eyes, he seemed to accept that it would be useless. ‘I’ll take that shower,’ he said as he rose stiffly to his feet and climbed the stairs to follow Caroline to the en-suite bathroom off the master bedroom.
Whilst Belling showered, Caroline hunted through the endless rack of expensive suits in her husband’s wardrobe. Finally, she settled on a dark-grey suit, covered by a see-through plastic dry cleaning cover that she had collected the week before. There had been a small tear above the left elbow of the jacket where Jeremy had caught it on a nail during a visit to one of his building sites.
Unable to cope with even the slightest defect in his dress, Jeremy had returned home immediately to change, throwing the expensive hand-made suit into the rubbish bin in the bathroom from where she had rescued it. Her frugal upbringing had come into play and rather than throwing it out, she had taken it to the dry cleaners who had ‘invisibly mended’ the small tear before dry cleaning it.
As Belling came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, she handed him the suit. ‘Take this, I don’t know why I bothered getting it mended, you can hardly see the tear on the sleeve, but Jeremy will never wear it again, he can’t stand anything that is not perfect, even if he is the only person who can see it.’
As Belling dressed himself in the suit, Caroline searched her handbag. ‘If he notices the suit is gone, which I doubt, I’ll tell Jeremy I took it to the charity shop. He clearly has no intention of wearing it again, and I haven’t got much money but you can have what I’ve got.’
She handed Belling £300 in new £20 notes. ‘That is all I have. Now you must leave.’ She led Belling back down the stairs and hurried him to the front door, opening it. Belling turned, leaning forward to kiss Caroline who turned away from his advance. ‘Just go, please hurry,’ she said
Belling stepped outside, turned towards Caroline and started to speak. Without waiting to hear what he had to say and without a word, she closed the door in his face. She leaned her back on the closed door, standing in that position for a few seconds, eyes closed. Finally, she took a deep breath and held her hand out in front of her. It was shaking uncontrollably.
It was five hours later, just as she was finally beginning to recover fully from Belling’s visit, that the doorbell rang again and she panicked again as she approached the window to look outside, terrified that Belling had returned.
Surprisingly, at the door stood a uniformed police officer, a panda car parked in the drive behind him. The officer looked at her as she stared out of the window at him, and she realised her initial instinct not to answer would seem odd, so trying to suppress her feelings of panic, she opened the door.
She felt the tremor return to her hand as the officer explained that Jeremy was at the police station. He was being interviewed by a doctor and would then be helping the police with their enquiries. Apparently, a Detective Chief Inspector Richards would explain in due course. In the meantime she should wait.
SIX
It was not until the next day, Thursday afternoon, when the panda car called for Caroline.
The evening before, after the unexpected visit from the police and when she realised Jeremy was apparently not coming home that night; she had telephoned the police station for news, only to have the same story repeated. He was ‘helping the police with their enquiries’ and would not be released. Unable to sleep, she had tossed and turned most of the night, wondering why her husband had apparently been arrested and fearing it might have something to do with the unexpected visit of Terry Belling.
The policeman, however, had explained that, apparently, the Detective Chief Inspector was ready to talk to her about her husband; he was there to give her a lift to the police station.
At the police station, she was shown into an interview room by a female police officer who offered her tea which she declined, and the officer then took up position by the door. Ten minutes or so later the door opened, two men entered and took seats across the table from her.
Richards introduced himself and DS Willis, as he placed a folder on the table in front of him, opened it and then read for a few seconds, before speaking.
‘There is no gentle way of doing this, Mrs Carlton, so forgive me if I seem abrupt. We have charged your husband with the murder of Terry Belling. Mr Carlton will go before the Magistrates tomorrow morning and will be remanded for trial. Given the serious nature of the crime, we will be opposing bail and, given his mental state as well, I suspect the Magistrates will remand him in custody.’
Caroline stared, uncomprehending as she tried to make sense of what she was hearing. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘I realise this is a shock, Mrs Carlton, but there is no doubt here. I need to clarify a few points with you, but I have rarely come across a case where the evidence is so clear cut and this, coupled with your husband’s confession...’
‘Confession?’ Caroline said, ‘I’m not sure I understand what you are telling me - what confession?’
Richards could see that she still did not fully comprehend what he was saying to her. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Carlton, this must be confusing. Let me clarify things a little. I realise this is difficult to get your head around. Maybe I can make it a little easier. Your husband walked into this police station yesterday, Wednesday. He was obviously in a very disturbed state. He kept repeating that he had killed somebody. Eventually he told us he had killed Terry Belling, and he also told us where we could find the body. You know Terry Belling, I believe.’
Caroline sat stunned, and Richards’ voice seemed to be coming from a long way away.
Richards continued, ‘He said we could find Belling’s body at The Blue Boar, a derelict pub in the town, owned by your husband’s company, Minster Investments. The body was in the cellar; it was not a pretty sight. Belling’s face was smashed beyond recognition.’
Caroline latched on to the doubt, this had to be some terrible mistake ‘So how are you sure it was Terry?’ she asked.
‘We’re sure,’ Richards said with emphasis. ‘Belling had a criminal record. We have his fingerprints on file. They match. That has been reinforced by dental records. I thought originally, the severe damage to his face would exclude dental records, but apparently his rear teeth were relatively undamaged. We found the last dentist in town to treat Belling and the x-rays match. Look, Mrs Carlton, I realise this is difficult, and under normal circumstances I would not be giving you all this information. But frankly, the evidence is water tight and your husband’s defence will have access to all the evidence, anyway. We are not looking for anyone else in this case; the matter is quite clear. We have the murder weapon, a mallet used for tapping barrels in the pub cellar. And the pathologist has confirmed the cause of death as a massive trauma caused by a frenzied attack. In excess of 30 individual blows were identified. The mallet has been forensically confirmed as the murder weapon and it has your husband’s fingerprints on it.’
Richards paused to check that what he had said so far had sunk in. He didn’t want Mrs Carlton to be in any doubt as to the strength of the evidence. The more convinced she was that the facts were unavoidable, the more cooperative he expected her to be. As if to reinforce the fact he continued, ‘As I said, I have rarely been involved in a serious case with so much evidence. We just have a couple of issues I need to clarify with you, primarily concerning your husband’s motive for this attack. It is true you had an affair with Belling, isn’t it?’
The statement was made with such conviction and authority that it brooked no contradiction. Richard’s eyes bore deeply into Caroline’s as he sat silently, waiting for a response.
Uncomfortable with the eye contact, Caroline lowered her gaze to the surface of the table. ‘Yes,’ she replied quietly.
‘This started when?’ he continued.
Still avoiding Richards’ eyes, Caroline continued, her head bowed, ‘Seven years ago. It started at my husband’s office party, Christmas, seven years ago.’ Then, as if to justify herself to Richards, she continued, ‘I don’t know why it happened, perhaps I was a little drunk, I don’t know, it lasted just a few weeks and then it ended.’
Richards nodded in confirmation. ‘Your reasons are not important in this, Mrs Carlton. As far as I am aware, adultery may be frowned upon in some circles, but the last time I looked it wasn’t a matter for the police. But murder is. I’m interested in motive, not morals. It stopped why?’
‘I regretted it. It was not something that I am proud of. I wanted it to stop before it ruined my marriage.’
Richards frowned, it was clear to him this was not the entire truth. ‘Look, I realise this is an ordeal, Mrs Carlton, and as far as I am aware, up to now you have committed no offence that is of interest to the police. However, if you lie, and that lie interferes with my investigation of this murder, then that could change very quickly. If I feel you are attempting to pervert the cause of justice, for whatever reason, I will charge you.’ He let the threat sink in before adding, ‘The whole truth please,’ he said, emphasising each word.
‘It stopped because Jeremy found out about it,’ Caroline said quietly.
‘Very well, thank you,’ Richards responded. ‘What was your husband’s reaction to finding out?’
Caroline felt a burning sensation behind her eyes, and she rifled in her handbag for a tissue, dabbing below her eyes to staunch the combination of tears and mascara that threatened to cascade down her cheeks.
‘Jeremy was Jeremy. He told me he had sacked Belling. Paid him off. He said I was not to try and contact him again. That was it really. He said he never wanted to talk about it again.’
‘How did he pay him off, do you know?’
‘I don’t know. He said he’d given him three months pay, I think. That’s all I know.’
‘Okay, thank you Mrs Carlton, I realise this is difficult for you, now, did he mention Paul Brice’s involvement in any of this?’
‘Paul?’ Caroline said, ‘I don’t understand, what has Paul got to do with this?’
‘That’s what I’m asking you, Mrs Carlton. You know Paul Brice well?’
‘Of course,’ Caroline answered. ‘Paul has been with Jeremy for longer than I have known him. He is a good friend, not just an employee. Why would Paul have anything to do with this?’
‘That is exactly what I am trying to establish, Mrs Carlton. Look, we interviewed all of your husband’s staff, yesterday. Everyone in the office seems to have known about your affair with Belling. In fact, it seems Belling boasted about it to other staff members, including Paul Brice. Brice says it was him who broke the unpleasant news to your husband.’
‘I thought he was a friend,’ Caroline said.
‘Don’t be naïve, Mrs Carlton. Brice was always going to put his and your husband’s interests first. Did you know Brice also had a criminal record? It seems he had a bit of a reputation for violence when he came out of the army. Apparently, he did a little more for your husband than what you would expect of your everyday ‘Personal Assistant.’ Look, let me explain.’ Richards leaned forward onto the table. ‘One of the major things I need you to help me with is to establish exactly the extent of Brice’s involvement in this.’
Richards continued, ‘According to Brice, it was him who ‘paid off’ Belling. This was not a case of three months pay in lieu of notice, you know. Brice went to see Belling and paid him off in a far more literal way. He went to see Belling on your husband’s behalf, gave him a choice. He could take £6,000 and leave forever or get sacked and leave with two broken legs. Not surprisingly, Belling took the first option.’
Richards was beginning to realise that Caroline Carlton had absolutely no idea of the nature of the relationship between Paul Brice and her husband. ‘Brice says he took Belling to the train station, bought him a first class ticket to London, one way, handed him an envelope with £6,000 and made it clear what he could expect if Brice ever saw his face again.’
Richards played with a large brown envelope and then said ‘It seems he didn’t stay away, though. Rather, it seems, after having time to think about it, Belling thought that £6,000 was not sufficient payment for keeping your husband’s reputation and dignity intact. He obviously felt it was worth more. So he came back to town and arranged to meet your husband at the Blue Boar, a safe and quiet place to meet; it was unlikely anyone would see them there. It is likely Belling knew your husband owned the property from his time with Carlton & Messenger, and it seems he demanded more money. No one knows exactly what Belling said to your husband. But according to Brice, he pushed pretty hard. Threatened to expose everything to the papers, his affair with you, lots of details, just the sort of thing the tabloids love, you know: a rich and bored wife, prominent businessman. Seems he gave chapter and verse on what the pair of you got up to. It would certainly sell a lot of papers and ruin your husband’s reputation at the same time.’
Caroline sat stunned as Richards continued, ‘It seems your husband snapped. The mallet was to hand. He picked it up and hit Belling in the face. The injuries suggest he lost it completely and just kept hitting him, over and over. According to the pathologist, he was probably dead after the third blow, the rest were just, well, frenzy I suppose is as good a word as any.’
Caroline’s face was ashen and she swayed slightly as if close to fainting. Richards turned to Willis. ‘Get Mrs Carlton some water.’ And he paused as Willis left the room, returning quickly with a plastic cup full of water. He handed it to Caroline who sipped it. Slowly, a little colour returned to her cheeks.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Carlton. A dreadful business, but murder is never neat and tidy.’ Richards paused and then tipped the large brown envelope he was holding upside down.
Three clear plastic bags spilled out onto the table, and Richards arranged them neatly in a row before her. ‘Do you recognise this?’ he said as he held up one of the plastic bags. It contained a single sheet of A4 paper. ’This seems to be a receipt for the dry cleaning of a suit and an invisible mend to a tear on the jacket. It’s dated last week.’
Caroline knew exactly what it was. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘It is the receipt for a repair and clean on one of Jeremy’s suits.’
He then held up another envelope inside which was a small yellow cardboard label with a safety pin through it. ‘This was on the trousers of the same suit. Looks like the kind of label a dry cleaner would put on both items to tie them together, in case they got separated.’
The final envelope contained a small pile of mint condition 20 pound notes. ‘There is 300 pounds in there. Found in the inside pocket of the jacket. All these things were in the suit taken from Belling’s body.’
The sight of these mundane objects was just too much for Caroline and she could maintain her composure no longer. As she sobbed uncontrollably she recalled Belling, dressed in Jeremy’s suit and the perfunctory way she had sent him away the previous day. Why had Terry not told her he intended meeting Jeremy? He must have planned it before he had come to see her. She would have perhaps been able to dissuade him. She knew, Jeremy would never submit to blackmail, she could have convinced him not to try. Maybe promised to send some money on to him later. If she had known, perhaps she could have prevented this tragedy. Terry would still be alive and her husband would not be facing a murder charge.
Richards’ voice shook her from her thoughts, ‘I think that is about it, Mrs Carlton,’ he said as he placed the plastic bags, one at a time, back into the envelope. ‘Thank you for coming in, I will get a car to drive you home. I am happy you had no part in this. I’m also sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.’
Both he and Willis stood, and as they turned to leave, Caroline spoke, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What happens now?’
Richards turned back to face her. ‘As I said, we have already charged your husband with murder. It seems we have nothing more on Brice than assisting your husband in concealing a body, concealing evidence, possibly conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, but no way of connecting him to the actual murder. That seems to be a clear crime of passion on the part of your husband. We’ll take advice from the CPS on what exactly to charge Brice with, but it looks like he told us the truth.’
He paused, before continuing, ‘Your husband called him after he had killed Belling. Seems Brice drove straight over and helped your husband conceal the body under debris from the pub. He brought your husband a change of clothes and took away his blood-stained ones with the murder weapon. For some reason he kept them. Maybe he thought they might be useful if he was ever linked to the crime at a later date. Or possibly, he might have thought to blackmail your husband with them at a later date. Anyway, we have them now. They’ve been examined. The blood and other body matter on your husband’s clothes and the mallet is definitely Belling’s. That seems to be pretty much it. There are only two major questions we can’t get an answer to. Probably never will, unless your husband recovers from whatever trauma he is currently suffering from. I have no doubt the psychiatrists will tell the judge what they think. Personally, I’m pretty sure he will be declared insane.’
Caroline interrupted ‘Why insane? What questions? I have no idea what you are talking about.’
Richards continued, a little puzzled by Caroline’s apparent continuing confusion, ‘Well, the first question is: Why did he walk into the police station and confess yesterday? Why then? Possibly it was all part of the beginning of a breakdown that had been developing for years and was only now coming to a head. Brice told us he received a phone call from your husband, yesterday. Apparently, he told Brice he was on his way home and he saw Belling leaving your house. Obviously, that was impossible, and clearly it shook him up. Seems he drove straight to the Blue Boar and uncovered Belling’s body and dressed it in one of his suits. Does that seem like the behaviour of a sane man to you? Anyway,’ Richards continued, ‘Apparently he then walked to the police station and gave himself up, finally cracked I suppose.’ Caroline’s mind was racing, unable to make any sense of what Richards was saying to her.
‘I don’t understand,’ Caroline said, ‘You say Jeremy killed Terry after he had been to our house yesterday; Jeremy must have seen him, gone after him and...’
‘Mrs Carlton,’ Richards interrupted abruptly. ‘Let’s just put this down to over-tiredness, shall we? I think you have been through enough, don’t you? Belling was killed seven years ago, by your husband, when he returned from the train station to try and blackmail some extra money from him. His body, with Brice’s help, was buried in that cellar and has been there ever since. There is no doubt here. A few more weeks and Belling’s body would have disappeared forever under 65 new apartments. It has obviously been preying on his mind every day for the last seven years, and it seems his mind or conscience couldn’t take it anymore. Obviously, the hallucination yesterday, when he imagined seeing Belling leaving your house, tipped him over the edge.’
Caroline sat open-mouthed as Richards continued, ‘So, second question: Unless a seven-year-old corpse dressed itself, the only other possible explanation is that your husband dressed him in it, probably yesterday, but clearly, anyway, from the evidence of the dry cleaning receipt, sometime in the last week.’
Richards and Willis left the interview room as the full horror began to crystallise in Caroline’s mind, and a terrified scream began to build in her throat.
Karl Hudsucker hated this shit.
The countryside was for wild animals, not for humans. In fact, he saw no point in it, whatsoever - wild animals or the countryside for that matter.
There was nothing he wanted out here that he couldn’t have in his apartment in Manhattan or in any decent five star hotel anywhere in the World.
Nothing, that is, except Seamus Underling.
Underling lived in, what Hudsucker considered a shack in the middle of woods in New Hampshire.
It had taken him hours to drive here, and as he stepped out of the car, feeling his expensive Italian shoes sinking into vile, clinging mud, he looked at the dark, semi-derelict wooden cabin, surrounded on all sides by trees and darkness.
The cabin was a silhouette against a sky lit by a full moon, its light made milky by the thin, scudding clouds that passed across its face, riding on some slight breeze not present at ground level.
A pale, flickering orange/yellow light emanated from the windows and was so weak that, rather than being a welcoming sign of warmth inside, it gave the impression that they were the last flickering embers in a fire that was slowly dying in the wood.
A thin, wispy plume of smoke trailed from the chimney, suggesting the remnants of an open fire inside would provide very little in the way of comfort in this scene of rural decay that Underling chose to inhabit.