20
“I can’t think what’s happened to Eric,” she said. “He’s been gone ages and I need to find the latest electric bill. I’ve looked everywhere.”
I shrugged my shoulders and carried on thinking about the two murders and about the character of Lorraine Terret.
She swept over to the bureau and started pulling out the drawers. Most of the contents she swept onto the floor ruthlessly. I found it agony watching her.
Suddenly, she uttered a cry of triumph. “Found it!”
Delightedly she rushed from the room and I resumed my meditation.
To arrange, with order and precision.
I frowned. The untidy heap of objects on the floor by the bureau distracted my mind. What a way to look for things!
Order and method. That was the thing. Order and method.
Though I had turned sideways in my chair, I could still see the confusion on the floor. Sewing patterns. Credit card bills. Gas bills. Magazines. Photographs. Newspapers.
It was insupportable!
I rose, went across to the bureau and with quick deft movements began to return the paperwork to the open drawers.
My mobile vibrated in my pocket. The sharpness of the ringtone made me jump.
“Hello?”
“John? It’s Paul Silver.” The Detective Inspector’s voice was almost unrecognizable. A distressed man had given way to a confident one.
“We’ve got some new evidence.” He said with reproachful indulgence. “Girl at the post office in Oxmarket Aspal. Eric Bellagamba just brought her in. It seems she was standing practically opposite Clarendon Cottage that night, and she was saw a woman go in, between eight-thirty and nine o’clock, and it wasn’t Chloe Bird. That puts us right back where we were – it’s definitely between the two of them – Helena Brooks –Nunn and Keldine Hogg. The only question is – which?”
I opened my mouth and did not speak. Carefully, deliberately, I ended the call.
I stood there staring unseeingly in front of me and the sound of my mobile ringing again shook me out of my reverie. I answered without checking to see who it was.
“Hello?”
“Mr Handful?”
“Yes?”
“Joanne Burton here. Could you meet me at the post office?”
“I’ll be there.”
I ended the call and left the guest house. On my way down the hill I was hailed by Sergeant Higgins emerging from Clarendon Cottage.
“Morning, John.”
“Morning, Pat,” noticing my friend was looking excited.
“DI Silver sent me over to make sure there was nothing we might have missed,” he explained. “You never know, do you? DI Silver has got a bee in his bonnet and sent me over. And guess what? I found something.”
“Really? What was it?”
He unwrapped from a piece of old newspaper an old and rather decrepit book. He opened it and showed me the fly-leaf. Written across it were the words: Kirsten Brown.
“Bit of a mystery isn’t it, John?”
“It is,” I said with feeling. “The poor old Detective Inspector will be pulling his bloody hair out.”
“Oh God, I hope not.”
I did not reply and carried on down the hill. I had ceased to think. Nothing anywhere made sense.
“You have something to tell me?” I prompted.
“I don’t know whether it’s important, but somebody was trying to get in at the window of Lady Osborne’s room.”
“When?”
“This morning. Lady Osborne had gone out and the daughter was out with the dog as usual. Lord Osborne was locked up in his study as usual. The miserable sod. I’d have been in the kitchen normally – it faces the other way like the study – but actually, it seemed a good opportunity to – you understand?”
I nodded.
“So I slipped upstairs to her bedroom. There was a ladder against the window and a man was fumbling with the window catch. She had everything locked and barred since the murder. Never a bit of fresh air. When the man saw me he slid down and ran off. The latter was the gardener’s – he’d been cutting back the ivy and gone off to have a smoke. Lord Osborne doesn’t allow smoking on the premises.”
“Can you describe him?”
“I only got the merest glimpse, I’m afraid.”
“It is interesting,” I said. “It is very interesting. . . . Anything else?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “The junk that woman keeps! She’s the biggest hoarder I’ve ever come across. She came in without me hearing her and she bollocked me for being bloody nosey. If anyone deserves to be murdered she does. She’s a real nasty bitch.”
I walked back to the Bellagamba Guest House and sat in the easy-chair again and began once more to think. I had by now a lot to think about.
There were things I had missed – little things.
The pattern was all there. It only needed cohesion.
Kirsten Brown . . .
Of course! Kirsten Brown!
21
Helena Brooks-Nunn came into the guest house in the casual way that most people did, using any door or window that was convenient.
She was looking for me and when she found me, she did not beat about the bush.
“Look here,” she said. “You’re a private detective, and I’ve heard that you’re good. I want to hire you?”
“I might not be for hire,” I told her sharply.
“I’ll pay you.”
“For what?”
“Protect me against the police,” she said emphatically. “They’re crazy. They seemed to think I killed Lorraine Terret. They’re nosing around, asking me all sorts of questions – ferreting out things. I don’t like it. They’re driving me mental.”
I looked at her. Something of what she said was true. She looked many years older than when I had first seen her a few weeks ago. Circles under her eyes spoke of sleepless nights. There were lines from her mouth to her chin, and her hand, when she lit a cigarette, shook badly.
“You’ve got to stop them,” she said.
“How?”
“Have a word with them. If my husband was any sort of man he’d put a stop to all this.”
“And he does nothing?”
“I’ve not told him,” she said suddenly. “He just talks pompously about giving the police all the assistance possible. It’s all right for him. He was at some bloody meeting that night.”
“And you?”
“I was just sitting at home watching the television actually.”
“But, if you can prove that -”
“How can I? I offered my neighbours the Kelly’s, a fabulous sum of money to say they’d been in and out and seen me there, but the bastards refused.”
“That was an unwise thing to do,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Once the police find out they’ll be convinced you’re trying to hide the fact that you committed the murder.”
“She asked me to go and see her, you know?”
“Who?”
“Lorraine Terret. On the night she died.”
“Did you go?”
“Of course not. She would have bored me to tears.”
I looked at her. She had lovely wide blue eyes.
“Why don’t you wear glasses, Helena?” I asked quietly. “You need them.”
“What?” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I do sometimes. I did as a child. I hated wearing them. Made me look so ugly.”
“Did your mother tell you that?”
“I don’t remember my mother,” she said sharply. “Anyway, what the hell are you talking about? Will you take on the job?”
“No, sorry.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because I am working for the Suffolk Constabulary, and I’m trying to prove that Marcus Dye is innocent.”
“Marcus Dye? The i***t who murdered Faith Roberts? What has that got to do with Lorraine Terret?”
“Perhaps – nothing.”
“Is it a question of money? How much do you want?”
“Money doesn’t buy you everything you want, Helena.”
“I haven’t always had it, you know,” she told me.
“I thought so,” I nodded gently. “That explains a great deal.”
Helena Brooks-Nunn went out the way she had come, blundering a little in the light as I remember her doing before.
I said softly to myself, “Kirsten Brown.”
“Where the hell have I put the colander of spinach?”
“It’s here,” I said indicating that the colander was beside me on the sofa.
“I’d forget my bloody head if it wasn’t screwed on,” she said snatching it up. “Lunch will be about half-an-hour.”
“I wonder if I could ask you a question, please.”
“Of course, come in.”
She led me into the living room where the television was on and gestured to an armchair opposite her. She seemed paler and more shadowy than she had done. I was almost certain that she was thinner.
“Now, how can I help you?”
“Did Lorraine Terret telephone you on the day of her death?”
She stared at me before nodding slowly.
“At what time?”
“About six o’clock I think.”
“What did she say?”
“She said that Oliver and you and Julie Lawes had gone down the pub, and she was on her own.”
“And what time did she suggest you called round?”
“About nine?”
“And did you go?”
“I meant to. I really meant to. But after a glass of wine with my dinner I fell asleep in the chair, and it was nearly ten o’clock when I woke up, and I just felt it would be too late.”
“Did you tell the police about Faith Roberts giving you a call?”
“No, I didn’t.” she replied, her eyes widening into a rather innocent childlike stare. “Do you think I should have done? As I didn’t go I didn’t think it would matter. And I felt rather guilty because if I had gone, she might still be alive.”
I looked at her and then asked: “What are you afraid of Keldine?”
“Afraid?” She caught her breath sharply. “I’m not afraid.”
“Oh, I think you are.”
“Rubbish,” she said. “What – what should I be afraid of?”
I paused for a moment before speaking.
“I thought perhaps you might be afraid of me . . .”
She didn’t answer. But her eyes widened. Slowly, defiantly, she shook her head.
22
“What a f*****g shambles,” DI Silver said.
“It’s not that bad,” I said soothingly.
“That’s what you think. It’s the day of Lorraine Terret’ inquest and every extra bit of information that comes in makes things more difficult. Now you tell me Lorraine Terret rang up three women and asked them all to call round and see her that evening. Why three? Didn’t she know herself which of them was Jo Pedder? Or isn’t it about Jo Pedder at all? Take that book with the name of Kirsten Brown in it. It suggests doesn’t it that Lorraine Terret and Kirsten Braun are one and the same”
“Which agrees exactly with Marcus Dye’s impression of what Faith Roberts said to him.”
“I thought he wasn’t sure.”
“He wasn’t sure. It is impossible for Marcus Dye to be sure about anything. He admitted he never listened properly to what Faith Roberts used to say. Nevertheless, if Marcus Dye had an impression that Faith Roberts was talking about Lorraine Terret, it may very well be true. Impressions often are.”
“Our latest information states that Kirsten Brown died some twenty years ago.”
“How good is this information?”
“As good as the internet can provide.”
“So what if Lorraine Terret is Kirsten Braun? Is it possible that Faith Roberts found this out and died because of it? If that is the case why did Lorraine Terret die?””
“You tell me.” DI Silver shrugged.
“Kirsten Brown. That’s the key to the problem.”
“Why?”
“It is a secret that everyone can know. For this reason, the people who do not know it never hear about it and for everyone that think you know the secret, never tell you.”
DI Silver looked at his watch exasperated. “We’d better go.”
The inquest lasted about two hours and a verdict had been returned of murder by a person or persons unknown.
After the inquest, at the invitation of DI Silver to those who had attended we went back to the local pub in Oxmarket Aspal for a drink and a chat.
I bought everybody a drink and then took up position at the bar and while Sergeant Higgins and WPC Softly discreetly guarded the exits I initiated proceedings with slightly self-conscious clearing of the throat. Beside me stood the Detective Inspector and Dr Kira Reed stood either side of me. The pathologist held a large jiffy bag which contained the stainless-steel meat tenderizer that I had sent her.
“For our purpose,” I began, “I must go back to the beginning. Faith Roberts was murdered and Marcus Dye was arrested, tried and convicted. For certain reasons DI Silver, was not convinced of his guilt, and I was hired to find out how and why Faith Roberts died.”
Seeing their expressions, I went on.
“I will start by saying that it was as simple a thing as a printer cartridge that gave me the first clue. Faith Roberts read the Oxmarket Sunday Echo on the Sunday before she was murdered and saw four photographs, and you all know the contents of these photographs. I can only say Faith Roberts recognized one of these photographs as a photograph she had seen in one of the houses where she worked.”
There were murmurings among the audience, but I ignored them and carried on.
“She spoke about this to Marcus Dye though he paid her no attention. In fact, he barely listened, but he did have the impression that Faith Roberts had seen the photograph in Lorraine Terret’ house and that when she referred to a woman who need not be so proud if all was known. She was referring to Lorraine. However, I am not depending on Marcus Dye’s statement, but she certainly used that phrase about pride and there is no doubt that Lorraine Terret was a proud and imperious woman.”
“How dare you!” Oliver Terret stood up angrily. “My mother has only just died. How dare you talk about her like that!”
DI Silver moved beside me with his hand held up. “” Sit down, Mr Terret.”
He sat down slowly but the anger on his face was still quite apparent.
“As you all know – some of you were present and the others will have heard – I produced those photographs at Lorraine Terret’ house. I caught a flicker of surprise and recognition in Lorraine’s face and when I questioned her about it, she admitted that she had seen the photographs, but she couldn’t remember where and when. I questioned which photograph, and she immediately pointed to a photograph of a photograph of the child Jo Pedder. I can tell you now, she was lying. For reasons only she would know, she wanted to keep her recognition to herself. She pointed to the wrong photograph to put me off.”
I sipped my drink to lubricate my drying throat and then continued.
“But one person was not deceived – the murderer. One person knew which photograph Lorraine Terret had recognized. The photograph in question was that of Kirsten Braun. A person who paid quite a big part in the famous Michael Porter case.”
Everybody looked at each other in utter amazement.
“On the next evening Lorraine Terret was killed. She was killed for the same reason that Faith Roberts was killed. Faith Roberts stuck her hand out and Lorraine Terret stuck her head out and the result was the same. They both ended up dead.” I turned towards DI Silver. “Detective Inspector?”
DI Silver momentarily took the floor while I finished my pint and ordered another one. “Now before Lorraine Terret died, she made three phone calls. They were to Helena Brook-Nunn, Keldine Hogg and Chloe Bird. Each call asked for those people to come and see her. Julie Lawes, Oliver Terret and Mr Handful came here to this pub, and she was on her own. She wanted to speak to these people privately. Why? Did Lorraine Terret know where she had seen the photograph of Kirsten Braun? Or did she know she had seen but could not remember where? Had these three women anything in common? Nothing, it would seem, but their age. Lorraine Terret wanted to see if any of these women were the daughter of Kirsten Braun.”
DI Silver looked at me and that was the prompt for me to resume.
“So, it would seem,” I started, “that living in Oxmarket Aspal was a young woman who was the daughter of the celebrated murderer Michael Porter and of his mistress Kirsten Braun, and it would seem that this young woman would go at any lengths to prevent that fact being known. Would go, indeed, to the length of twice committing murder. For when Lorraine Terret was found dead, there were two cups on the table, both used, and on the visitor’s cup faint traces of lipstick.”
I noticed Helena Brooks-Nunn, Keldine Hogg and Chloe Bird all exchange accusing glances at each other.
“Now let us go back to the three women who received telephone calls. Helena Brooks – Nunn did not go Clarendon Cottage because she did not want to be bored. Keldine Hogg meant to go but fell asleep and Chloe Bird did go, but the house was dark, and she could not make anyone hear, and she came away again.”
“That’s right,” Chloe Bird confirmed nervously.
“Please, Chloe,” I said. “Let me finish!”
“Sorry.”
“That is the story these three women tell,” I continued, “but there is conflicting evidence. There is the second coffee cup with lipstick on it, and an outside witness. We were told by a good source that they saw a fair-haired woman go in the house. There is also the evidence of scent. An expensive and exotic scent used only by Helena Brooks – Nunn.”
“It’s a lie!” Helena Brooks-Nunn interrupted. “It’s a bloody lie! It wasn’t me! I never went near the bloody place! Richard, can’t you do something about this?”
Richard Brooks – Nunn was white with anger.
“You cannot say slanderous things to my wife!”
“Is it slanderous to say that your wife uses a certain scent and also a certain shade of lipstick?”
“You bastard!” Richard Brooks-Nunn said vehemently.
“This is ridiculous!” Helena Brooks–Nunn shouted at me. “Absolutely ridiculous! Anyone could spray that scent about!”
I smiled at her which she wasn’t expecting.
“Exactly!” I said. “Anyone could. An obvious, not very subtle thing to do. Clumsy and crude. So clumsy that, as far as I was concerned, it defeated the object. It did more. It gave me ideas. Scent and traces of lipstick on a cup. It is so easy to remove lipstick from a cup. Every trace can be removed and wiped clean. Or the cups can be removed and washed up. But they weren’t. Why not? There was no one in the house. But that was not done. I kept on asking myself why? And the answer seemed to be a deliberate stress on femininity, an underlining of the fact that the murder was committed by a woman. Why might you ask? There can only be one answer. And that is the murders were committed by a man!”
I looked around at my audience. They were all very still. Only two people responded.
“Now you’re talking sense!” Helena Brooks–Nunn said with a sigh.
“Of course,” Julie Lawes said, nodding her had vigorously.
“The reason for the murder is still the same. It all hinges on a photograph. But in whose possession was that photograph? That is the first question and the next one is why it was kept? Sentimental reasons? Once Faith Roberts was murdered it need not be destroyed. But after the murder of Lorraine Terret, it was different. The photograph would definitely be connected with the murder, and it is now a dangerous thing to keep. Therefore, you will agree, it must be destroyed.”
I looked round at the heads that nodded agreement.
“But, for all that, the photograph was not destroyed! I know that because I found it. I found it a few days ago. I found it in the Bellagamba Guest House. In the drawer of the bureau. I have it here.”
I held out a faded photograph of a simpering girl with roses.
“Yes,” I said. “This is Kirsten Braun. And on the back of it are written words in pencil. Shall I tell you what they are?”
I paused for effect. I was really enjoying myself.
“My mother.”
My eyes were grave and accusing, and they rested on Karen Bellagamba. She pushed back the hair from her face and stared at me with wild bewildered eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“No, Karen you don’t understand. There can be only two reasons for keeping this photograph after the second murder. The first of them is an innocent sentimentality. You had no feeling of guilt, so you kept the photograph. You told us yourself at the Brooks – Nunn’s that you were an adopted child. I doubt whether you have ever know what your real mother’s name was. But somebody else knew. Somebody else who has the pride of family – a pride that makes him cling to is ancestral home, a pride in his ancestors and his lineage. That man would rather die than have the world know that Karen Bellagamba is the daughter of the murderer Michael Porter and Kirsten Braun. That man, I have said, would rather die. But that would not help, would it? So instead let us say that we have here a man who is prepared to kill.”
Eric Bellagamba got up from his seat. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet, almost friendly.
“You’re talking a load of s**t,” and then his anger broke suddenly in a furious side. “You f*****g two face bastard!”
The swiftness of his rush across the floor took the room unawares and in a blur of movement Eric Bellagamba was rolling about the floor grabbing his stomach and DI Silver was down on his knees, looking up at me accusingly.
“Now, now Mr Bellagamba, take it easy – take it easy -”
Eric Bellagamba gasping for breath, got slowly to his feet, still trying to understand how I had hit him so hard without him seeing it coming. “Anyone can stick a photograph in a drawer.”
“I know,” I agreed. “And the interesting thing about this photograph is that it has no fingerprints on it. But it should have. If Karen Bellagamba had known about it, her fingerprints would have been all over it.”
“I only ever saw this photograph at Lorraine’s one day,” she exclaimed.
“Fortunately, I know you are telling the truth.” I said. “The photograph was put into that drawer only a few minutes before I found it there. Twice that day the contents of that drawer were tumbled on to the ground, twice I replaced them; the first time the photograph was not in the drawer, the second time it was. It had been placed there during that interval – and I know by whom.”
I allowed the tone of my voice to change. I was no longer cheerful. I was now the hunter closing in on my quarry.
“The crimes were committed by a man, and they were committed for the simplest of reasons. Money. In Lorraine Terret’s’ house there was a book found and written in that book was the name Kirsten Brown. Now it is quite a strong possibility that Kirsten Braun christened her child Kirsten and to protect the child changed the surname from Braun to Brown when it was born. But Kirsten is a man’s name as well as a woman’s. Why had we assumed that Kirsten Braun’s child was a girl? Roughly because the Oxmarket Sunday Echo said so! But actually the Oxmarket Sunday Echo had not said so in so many words, it had assumed it because of a romantic interview with Kirsten Braun. But Kirsten Braun left Suffolk before her child was born. So, nobody could say in those days what the s*x of the child would be. That is where I let myself be misled. By the romantic inaccuracy of the Press.”
I focused on my quarry before continuing.
“Kirsten Brown, Kirsten Braun’s son, comes to Suffolk. He is talented and attracts the attention of a wealthy woman and spins her a plausible yarn about his life. A lonely woman has recently lost her son. And the talented young playwright takes her name by deed poll.”
All eyes were now on the one person I was directing my rhetoric.
“Your real name is Kirsten Brown, isn’t it, Oliver Terret?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Oliver Terret asked with a shrill.
“You can’t deny it. There are people who will know you under that name. The name Kirsten Brown, written in the book, in your handwriting. The same handwriting as the words ‘my mother’ on the back of the photograph. Faith Roberts saw the photograph and the writing on it when she was cleaning. She spoke to you about it after seeing the Oxmarket Sunday Echo. Faith assumed that it was a photograph of Lorraine Terret when young, as she had no idea that Lorraine wasn’t your real mother. But you knew that once she mentioned it to Lorraine that would be the end of that. Lorraine Terret wouldn’t have tolerated for one moment an adopted son who was the son of a famous murderer.”
“This is bullshit!” Oliver yelled. Tears running down his cheek.
“Faith Roberts had to be silenced at all costs, and you did it with this . . .”
With a sudden movement, I removed from the jiffy bag that Kira Reed had brought with her, the stainless-steel meat tenderizer and whirled it round and down as though I was going to hit Oliver Terret on the head with it.
So menacing was the gestures that several of my audience cried out.
Oliver Terret screamed. A high-pitched terrified scream.
“f**k me!” He yelled. “It was an accident. I swear. I didn’t mean to kill her. I just got into a blind panic. I swear I did. Anyway it isn’t my fault. . . I’m not responsible. It’s in my blood. I can’t help it. You can’t send me to prison for something that isn’t my fault.”
“Can’t we?” DI Silver muttered under his breath and then allowed in a grave official voice: “I must warn you, Mr Terret, that anything you say . . .”