Shades of Murder (38 page)

‘So you didn’t meet Jan coming out of the back door, as you told Inspector Pearce.’ It was a statement, not a question.

Kenny accepted it as such but sought to split hairs. ‘No, well, not exactly. I did see him go out of the kitchen. That’s right.’

‘Where were you when you saw him?’

‘I was –’ Kenny looked from one to the other of them. ‘I had nothing to do with his death, right? I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t do anything.’ He waited but whatever kind of reassurance he was hoping for, didn’t materialise. ‘Bloody hell!’ he snapped. ‘Why should I kill him? I didn’t even know him. I’d heard about him. Dolores told me – that’s my cousin, Dolores Forbes at The Feathers. He used to eat there in the evening. She reckoned he was a bad lot and Dolores, she knows a thing or two about that. Her husband, Charlie Forbes – well, it don’t matter. The thing is, she reckoned that Jan was up to no good.’

Kenny drew a deep breath and leaned forward, suddenly anxious to tell his story. ‘I was carrying a couple of supermarket bags, the old girls’ shopping. Damaris and Florrie, they were in the hall, taking off their hats and coats and generally messing about. I squeezed past them and went down the hall to the far end. I hadn’t got a hand free to open the kitchen door but it was ajar, so I just gave it a push with my foot. It swung open, but not enough. It’s one of those big heavy old doors. I was going to give it another shove when I saw him, that Jan. I could see him through the open crack of the door. He was on the far side of the kitchen, reaching up into the cupboard.’

Kenny paused and added in explanation, ‘It’s one of those old-style kitchen dressers, if you know the sort of thing. It’s got cupboards below, then an open shelf and more cupboards above. It was the upper bit he was reaching into. Nothing odd about that, you’ll say. But there was something odd about the way he was doing it. Furtive, that’s the word. He’d got something in his hand. He reached up and put it in the cupboard. Then he took something else down. Just at the moment, one of the women said something and he must have heard the voice and thought they were coming. He looked round quick, guilty-like. I nipped back behind the door. When I took another look, he was straightening up. He’d been bending down by the bottom of the dresser, at the back of it. When he stood up, he wasn’t holding anything. I reckoned he’d pushed something out of sight behind the dresser.

‘Then he went into a sort of cloakroom that opens off the kitchen. I’ve been in there and a narrow old staircase starts there and runs up at least as far as the first floor. I don’t know how far it goes after that. The old dears don’t use it. They don’t use the cloakroom really, except to keep Wellington boots in and a pile of old newspapers and junk like that. The only reason I know what’s in there is because they asked me to carry a sack of sand in there for them once. It was winter and they wanted it to sprinkle down outside the door – so’s they wouldn’t slip, you know. Anywhere, that’s where Jan went and I guess he went upstairs that way. Leastways, he wasn’t hanging about in the cloakroom because I checked when I went into the kitchen.

‘I put the shopping on the table. A couple of the frozen things I put in the freezer compartment of their fridge. They’ve got no proper freezer. I keep telling them to buy one. Then I took a quick look behind the dresser and sure enough, there was this little jar.’

Kenny made a round shape with his hands. ‘It looked like the stuff you spread in your sandwiches, got a beefy taste.’ He jabbed his finger at his interrogators. ‘Marmite – that’s what it’s called. I can’t tell you for sure that Jan put it there, because I didn’t actually see him do it. So it’s no use you trying to get me to say I did. But he held something very like it in his hand before he heard voices and took fright. When I looked again, he didn’t have it and he was straightening up, like I say, as if he’d been bending down. Then he took himself off up those back stairs. He didn’t want to be found there, red-handed.’

Minchin heaved a sigh. ‘So what did you do next?’

Kenny shrugged. ‘To tell you the truth – and it is the truth! – I didn’t know what to do about it. I went back into the hall and looked for the elder sister, that’s Damaris, but she was just on her way upstairs. Florrie was still in the hall, fluttering about. I had to make up my mind quick. I’d rather have told Damaris because she’s the one who makes all the decisions, but she wasn’t there, so I told Florrie – I call her that. She don’t mind. I said something like, she ought to watch out for the foreign chap. He’d been messing around in the kitchen cupboards. It looked to me as if he’d hidden something behind the dresser.’

Kenny gave wry smile. ‘She listened, peering up into my face like a little bird. She said, “Did he, Kenny? How very strange. I’ll have a look.” So I thought that was fair enough. She knew. I didn’t really want to worry her so I said something to make her laugh, don’t ask me what. Then I left.’ Kenny sat back. ‘And that’s it.’

Markby said, ‘Thank you, Kenny. You’d have saved us a lot of time
by telling us straight away at the beginning. I think I know why you didn’t, but you were wrong. We have to know.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kenny. ‘Well, I’m fond of the old girls.’

Minchin spoke. ‘You’d better drive us back to the hotel so’s we can pick up our car.’

‘Here,’ said Kenny, ‘is all this on the clock? I mean, I’ve been sitting here twenty minutes with you at least. More like half an hour. I’m a working man, you know. I don’t drive that taxi for my health.’

‘So,’ said Minchin, as they drove out of Bamford, ‘Jan Oakley swopped the jars. He put the contaminated one in the cupboard and hid the safe one behind the dresser when he was disturbed. Then Florence Oakley, tipped off by Kenny Joss, switched them back again. Is that what we think happened?’

They were driving towards Fourways. Markby had turned the car in that direction without comment and Minchin had been sitting silently beside him until now.

‘Funny,’ Minchin continued, ‘I’d have said the other sister was the more likely one. You know, more a woman of action.’

‘Florence couldn’t have known for sure that there was anything wrong with the jar in the cupboard,’ Markby said. ‘But she may have been suspicious enough to swop them back, yes. That’s not murder. I’d call that no more than a tragic error of judgement.’

‘We can decide what it was when we can prove she did it,’ said Minchin sourly. ‘Anyhow, assuming she did, when she and her sister ate some of the spread in the evening, they were unaffected. But later, when Jan retrieved the jar behind the dresser, be believed it was the safe jar. He decided to have a snack using it and poisoned himself. So far, so good,’ Minchin said. ‘But when the police took a jar of spread from the cupboard to test it, there was nothing wrong with it and if there had been a jar behind the dresser, we’d have found it.’

‘Things have been overlooked before,’ said Markby. ‘SOCO isn’t infallible. For all we know, it’s still there.’

‘No, no,’ said Minchin, ‘that’s not my point. Look, this is how it goes, assuming we’re right. Jan puts bad jar in cupboard, good jar behind dresser. Kenny sees him and tips off Florence. Florence replaces good jar in cupboard, bad jar behind dresser. Sisters eat from good jar, no problem. Later that evening when they’ve gone to bed, Jan nips into the kitchen. He puts the good jar (which he thinks is the bad jar) back behind the dresser, right? He puts the bad jar (which he thinks is the good one)
in the cupboard. Then he decides to make himself a sandwich with some of it and poisons himself.
So why wasn’t the bad jar still in the cupboard where he’d put it, the next morning?
’

‘Because,’ Markby said, ‘someone, either Damaris or Florence, realised what must have happened when he was taken so ill and switched them back again – or at least replaced the good jar in the cupboard for us to find and disposed of the bad jar. We don’t know whether Florence told Damaris what Kenny had seen. If she didn’t, then Florence is the one who realised Jan had been poisoned by some substance intended for her and her sister. But because he was poisoned as a result of her switching the jars, she panicked. She thought she’d be accused of deliberately poisoning him. She replaced the good jar and I don’t know what she did with the other one.’

‘You realise,’ Minchin said, ‘that proving all this will turn on finding the bad jar?’

They had passed The Feathers and the house came into view. Markby turned in the gateway and for some reason, perhaps prompted by distant memory, braked. They sat looking down the drive at Fourways.

‘I used to come here as a kid,’ he said.

‘I’ll do the talking when we go in,’ offered Minchin quietly. ‘I’ll go in alone, if you like. You don’t want to be asking awkward questions of the old women. I can understand that. That’s why I’m here, after all.’

‘No, I’ll come with you,’ Markby told him absently. ‘It’ll calm them to see me. I was just thinking of when I first saw this place, as a nipper. It looked like something out of a story book to me, especially with that turret up there. I thought an ogre must live here and I wasn’t far wrong. Old Mr Oakley was a man of strong personality, a domestic tyrant.’

He contemplated the house, glowing like honey in the evening sunshine. It looked its best at this hour of the day. Its unhappy history was disguised by the warmth which seemed to emanate from it. Even its gargoyle waterspouts looked playful. For good or ill, Fourways had been a landmark for a hundred and fifty years. He was sorry to think its days might be numbered.

Then something very strange happened. As from nowhere, thunder filled the air. A huge clap followed by a roaring, rumbling swell as if some great monster were indeed on the loose. The car shook as if struck by an unseen balled fist. The whole east wing of the house rippled and swayed, then ballooned outward. One side of it vanished in a cloud of smoke and dust, through which could be heard the crash of falling masonry. The cloud grew, enveloping the whole structure until it was
completely lost from sight. From out of the swirling mass flew the turret, all in a piece like a giant rocket. It splintered its way through the trees and fell with a mighty rending and cracking on to the old stableblock and more smoke and dust swirled up into the sky. Scarlet streaks of flame spurted up and darted through the whole in a tangle of red, yellow, grey and white like a giant witchball.

Minchin gasped, ‘It’s bloody blown up!’

But Markby was already calling for help.

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul . . .

Hamlet
, Act I, Scene 5

‘Both the gas company’s investigator and the fire service are satisfied the explosion was due to a slow build-up from a leak,’ Alan Markby said. ‘We all know how many gas appliances there were in that house – a gasfire in each main room, a gas boiler to heat the bath water, a small gasheater to heat water in the kitchen. None of the appliances had been overhauled in a month of Sundays. The most likely culprit is the old kitchen stove, although the bathroom geyser was also dodgy, it seems. Almost anything could have set it off.’

‘But how about the sisters?’ Pam Painter asked anxiously.

They were seated on the Painters’ patio and awaiting with some trepidation the results of Geoff’s culinary efforts at his brand-new barbecue stand. The gathering comprised the Painters themselves and Juliet, Markby and Meredith and Doug Minchin, who was due to return to London the following day. Hayes had already departed. Dr and Mrs Fuller had been invited but had regretfully declined owing to a prior engagement. The good pathologist was attending a performance of Schubert’s Trout Quintet at which, it seemed, every instrument was manned by a member of the Fuller clan including Mrs Fuller at the piano and a talented nephew on the double-bass.

‘Damaris, by a stroke of luck, was outside in the garden,’ Markby told them. ‘Although she’s severely shocked and the blast took her off her feet, resulting in extensive bruising, she’s otherwise uninjured, no broken limbs. She’s staying with James Holland in the care of Mrs Harmer his housekeeper.’

Meredith shuddered. ‘Poor Damaris. James sent Mrs Harmer to look after me when I had flu. I don’t mean Mrs Harmer isn’t in her element when tending the sick, but her idea of an invalid diet would turn anyone’s stomach.’

‘James says she’s in seventh heaven now she’s got Damaris at her mercy,’ said Juliet. ‘Poor James himself is being neglected. Mrs H. has no time for him.’

For a moment Pam looked as if the interesting possibilities opened up by this scenario might distract her. Regretfully she put her matchmaking plans for Juliet on hold. ‘But Florence? I heard she was badly hurt.’

‘Trapped in the wreckage,’ Doug Minchin put in unexpectedly. ‘They dug her out alive but things don’t look good.’

Mutterings from the barbecue took their attention. Rather a lot of smoke seemed to be coming from it. The chef, splendidly attired in a scarlet apron and armed with what looked like an assortment of medieval weapons was making feints and stabs at the enemy in the shape of pork chops and sausages.

Pam whispered, ‘We’ve never had a barbecue before, but when we moved here Geoff got it into his head it would be just the thing for the patio.’

‘Won’t be long!’ cried the chef optimistically as another balloon of black smoke wafted skyward.

‘It’s not,’ continued Pam, ‘as if he were a cook normally. He never goes in the kitchen, never has. Now he’s got this new toy . . .’

‘You’ve seen her, haven’t you, Doug?’ asked Alan, taking up the previous subject. ‘Meredith’s hoping to go to the hospital tomorrow.’

‘With Juliet,’ said Meredith. ‘If Florence is fit to have visitors – and it sounds as though she is.’ She looked across to Minchin and raised her eyebrows.

‘Surely she’s not in a condition to be interviewed?’ Juliet, aghast at such an idea, bounced on her chair. ‘Geoff!’ she added irritably. ‘For God’s sake, we’re all being kippered!’

‘Not an interview,’ said the imperturbable Minchin, waving away a ribbon of smoke trailing past his nose. He’d exchanged his suit for chinos and navy sweatshirt stretched across his broad shoulders. It all suggested his profession lay less in policework than in pugilism.