Episode 7 - Chambers of Horror

Wed. cont.

Over lunch, Cleo confronted Gary and Roger with a barrage of questions about Bryn Thomas and was not entirely disappointed with the answers. He’s a rat, she decided.

“He must have been disconcerted to see Nigel sitting at the back of the room looking dapper in his uniform,” she said. “I’d like to have seen the look on his face.”

“He was gobsmacked. Nigel offered him participation in Lucky 13 rehearsals after the Saturday show. Perfect! On his way back to the arrest cell, Thomas told Nigel that he would keep him to his offer.”

“Poor Nigel.”

“Assuming Thomas is not behind bars next week.”

“Not that demanding a lawyer is always a sign of guilt, but did he?” Cleo asked.

“Eventually, but if I’m honest, I’m no longer convinced that he set fire to the villa.”

“I wonder…” said Cleo.

“I don’t think he connected me with the ownership of the villa, but I can’t be sure about that, either.”

“It isn’t so important, Gary. It might give him a motive to issue threats, but I think he is the type of arsonist who takes delight in secret fires; he prefers mysteries he has created that usually remain unsolved.”

“What bothers me is the connection between Thomas and Harry Marble. I know the villa was taken over by the bank after Harry Marble was convicted of theft and crimes not necessarily all connected with the villa, and Thomas was probably told about it he shared a cell with Marble.”

“But they would not have access to a deal made by the bank once Marble did not have any claim on it,” said Cleo.

“Of course not. I bought the villa from the bank. I think they were glad to get it off their hands, but Harry Marble and the Riddle ladies were not informed through normal channels” said Gary. “The debts on the villa were so large that when the estate was wound up and various debts paid, the villa belonged to the bank. I never asked. The bank may have been the sole executor if Dr Marble didn’t trusted anyone else.”

“Why was he in such debt?”

“Who knows? Blackmail? Gambling? Women?”

“You didn’t tell me all this at the time,” said Cleo. “I thought he was an old, retired advocate.”

“Age does not play a role when a young woman gets her hands on an old guy and old guy spends a fortune on the woman.”

“I don’t suppose he spent it on Mrs Riddle, but her daughter may have found a way of fleecing the guy,” said Cleo.

“I could investigate, I suppose, but I can’t see the point.”

“Are you sure Marble and Thomas shared a cell?”

“I brought it up at the questioning and Thomas did not deny it. I’ll get proof a.s.a.p. Jailbirds tell one another things for want of a listener, so it is important to know.”

“OK. So but what will happen about the villa if we can’t live there?”

“What do you want to happen?

“I haven’t had much time to get my thoughts straight, but if only parts are irreparably damaged, I think they should be pulled down and a new building integrated into what is left. We own the land, too. Let’s not forget that.”

“You also own the land surrounding Monkton Priory, Cleo.”

“Do you?” Roger asked. “I did hear a rumour, but I didn’t quite believe it.”

“I’m keeping quiet about it. If some speculator finds out that land is freehold, we’ll have them wanting to buy sites and build on them; a supermarket, for instance. They’ll get building permission. Mr Cobblethwaite will see to that. Think of all the extra taxes that will flow in.”

“They’d flow into your bank account, too, Cleo,” said Roger.

“But do we want that, Roger? Do we need to sell our souls?”

“I suppose not,” said Roger, and did not sound convinced. He exchanged glances with Gary, who simply shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s sheer coincidence that I found out that my reprobate ancestor had won the Priory in a wager. It’s been common land for centuries. I’d only sell in aid of a good cause or if we were on the verge of insolvency.”

“I do believe you are a philanthropist,” said Gary.

“But I’m also a sleuth, Gary, and we need to change the subject back to finding the arsonist.”

“Are you referring to your hint about Harry Marble?”

“Sure.”

“What if he did turn up at the villa?” Gary said. “If he was in prison with Thomas, maybe they had a pact going in a completely different direction, but involving the villa as a place to meet, where Marble was presumably thinking of dossing down. They met there on the night of the fire and Thomas told Marble that he no longer had any claim on the villa because the bank had sold it, so he could no longer redeem the villa even if he could afford it. Hilda will have told him it had been sold and he isn’t dumb.”

“You sound like Dorothy,” said Roger.

“I’ve learnt a lot from those Ladies,” said Gary.

“So then Marble decided that if he can’t have the villa, no one else can,” said Cleo. “Quite a rock-solid motive, I’d say.”

“Something like that,” said Gary. “But the villa is now ours – signed and sealed.”

“You’d better find out where Marble was last night. If he was in prison, he can’t have been at the villa.”

“And that’s what I’m going to check this afternoon. If he was out of prison, it does not mean he was at the villa, but he could have been.”

“So if he was not in prison, he’s a suspect. I wonder how Hilda came to be there. Did the two guys plot her downfall and get there to kill her?”

“Mr Thomas had a wonderful story ready to explain that. She was going to do the cleaning and wanted to check up on the house before anyone moved in.”

“Neat. In the middle of the night Mrs Bone wants to inspect an empty house.”

“She even took Thomas upstairs and they found an unmade bed. Suppose Thomas wanted to see the villa Marble had described to him.”

“Dorothy would say the plot was being threaded by Thomas with Marble in mind. Marble would pay Thomas to get rid of anyone who tried to move into the villa, and Thomas would do the same if Marble got rid of Hilda.”

“But that’s definitely absurd,” said Gary. “Marble must have known that he no longer has a claim on the house because the bank will have told him at the time and told him they now held the proceeds and they would be used to settle his debts. Whatever the situation, setting the place on fire was not the answer to Marble’s problem and disposing of Hilda by locking her in a burning room wasn’t either.”

“Thomas was helping Marble with a view to helping himself. We don’t know if murder was part of the plan,” said Cleo.

 “As I see it, the guy had a back door key and could let himself in. It would explain why the door was not locked according to Thomas. Hilda was rendered unconscious, but Thomas got cold feet and fled. Marble either set fire to the office deliberately or dropped a cigarette end accidentally before he left the office, locked the door and left the villa. In which case he knew Hilda Bone was trapped.”

“That’s murder, of course,” said Roger.

“Chris might find cigarette ends if the little group of intruders spent time in the office,” said Cleo.

“The fire was probably too intense to find much, but it’s worth looking into,” said Roger.

“So what now?” said Cleo.

“Read Nigel’s report, Cleo. He should send it soon. I’ll get onto Harry Marble’s whereabouts and we’ll play it from there.”

“OK.”

“By the way, Bryn Thomas’s mother still lives in Cardiff,” said Gary.

“We should get onto her,” said Cleo.

“Another job for Dorothy, I think,” said Gary. “Knowing a bit about his background would help the questioning along.”

“I’ll brief Dorothy.”

***

Gary decided to bypass Colin Peck, who was in charge of HQ case archives. The reports of the Harry Marble case were still on Cleo’s cloud storage and could be called on, but they could not provide Gary with enough up-to-date information. How long did Marble actually spend time in prison? If he was only recently set free, probably on probation, where had he gone to and where was he now?

***

Meanwhile, Chris phoned. Hilda had died of a lethal cocktail of head injury and toxic fumes. She had died clutching a cigarette that had burnt the palm of her left hand. The woman had been a heavy smoker judging by the stains on the fingers of her right hand, so she must have grabbed the cigarette with her left one.

“She might have started the fire herself, Chris,” said Gary.

“Hard to say. Fire is usually the result of the smoker going to sleep and dropping a burning cigarette onto flammable material.”

“Were there any other cigarettes?” Gary asked.

“It’s in the evidence. One cigarette has Harry Marble’s DNA on it. He had only half smoked it and put it in one of those metal ashtrays you press down. The other cigarette in the ashtray end could not be assigned to anyone. The cigarette end on the floor was too charred.”

“Thank goodness for metal ashtrays,” said Gary. “You have Bryn Thomas’s tabs. Aren’t they his? It certainly confirms one of our theories, being that Harry Marble visited the villa recently.”

“The unknown tabs are not registered. Hilda Bone’s are on record from the time she assisted Cleo and they’re not hers.”

“Does that mean we have another person to consider?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll have to try the Polish guys who renovated, Chris.”

“Where would they be now?”

“They took over Cleo’s old office.”

“I hope they don’t kick up a fuss.”

“They’re OK, Chris. Cleo can explain the problem to them. Cleo had this hunch that Harry Marble returned to the villa and started the fire. We’ll have to catch up with him.”

”So you don’t know where he could be, do you?” said Chris.

“Unfortunately not.”

“That woman is a witch, conjuring Marble up,” said Chris.

“I know you meant that affectionately,” said Gary.

“Of course. After all we did find Marble’s DNA in the villa.”

“But Cleo’s agency does not do fingerprints so her hunch was purely theoretical. You need to know how long the cigarettes were there, Chris.”

“That’s obvious,” said Chris. “If Cleo’s hunch is on the mark, it might indicate when the cigarettes got into that ashtray.”

“Bryn Thomas is on a sticky wicket not least for bullying Hilda and entering the villa without permission.”

“A weak reason for incarcerating Mr Thomas,” said Chris. “Hilda drew the short straw.”

“Another thought: Marble might have disposed of his half-smoked cigarette on some other clandestine visit to the villa.”

“Meaning he’d been there previously, of course. Not surprising if he was trying to find a way of getting the house back. How long has the ashtray been at the villa, Gary? Did Cleo move it there? That would give us a time-frame for Marble’s visits.”

“Cleo moved her stuff from her old office at the weekend, so that makes 4 days altogether.”

“He might have had the weekend off prison if he hasn’t been released,” said Chris. “Maybe I have the solution to that unmade bed upstairs. I’ll go back and look for Marble’s DNA in it. He may have done a spot of camping and the bed can’t have been there very long.”

“About 2 weeks, Chris. Do you want to talk to Cleo?”

”Hasn‘t she been listening, Gary? She usually chips in.”

Cleo answered.

“Yes Chris, the witch is still on her broomstick, listening carefully to what you two wizards had to say. This case is getting more complicated by the hour.”

“Or it’s all the idle speculation, Cleo,” said Chris. “I’ll get back to the villa now. Can I get in?”

“I’ll meet you there then we can do some more cauldron-stirring. Is half an hour long enough for you to get there?” said Cleo.

“Of course. And Ned’s coming along. Mainly out of curiosity.”

“The more the merrier. See you then.”

***

Cleo went to hug the little ones before leaving. She had phoned Dorothy about going to Cardiff. Grit would be in charge that afternoon at the cottage.

***

“I’m glad you aren’t accusing me of negligence, Gary,” said Chris.

“I didn’t spend much time upstairs, either, Chris.”

“I expect it was too dark.”

“Not the day we took delivery of that bed.”

“Point taken, Romeo.”

“Cut along, Chris. Cleo is on her broomstick.”

“Cheers then,” said Chris and hung up.

***

Cleo heard what Gary said. Rather inappropriate under the circumstances, she thought as she came back into the living-room.

“Well Romeo, spilling the beans about our sex life again?”

“I did not suggest anything. Chris is a romantic.”

“You did so! And talking of romance, I can hear some infants coming up the path. I should be on my way now you have announced me, but…”

Gary took a key off his key ring.

“You’ll need the back door key, Cleo. Strange how the back of the villa survived.”

“My office was on the wrong side,” said Cleo. “The kids get bananas if they’re hungry. Not chocolate!”

“Take some more photos please.”

“Sure.”

After exchanging hugs and kisses with everyone in sight, Cleo left and Gary explained to Grit where she had gone. He was glad that he would not have to see the villa again that day. Charlie would be home from school in half an hour and Toni would be back from her shift at the nursery soon after. Gary would have a blissful afternoon being a perfect father without any of the work.

***

Charlie was very upset about the villa.

“All those lovely wallpapers and colours, Daddy. I’m broken-hearted.”

“Not for ever, Sweetheart. We’ll get a different house and you can choose the décor again.”

“But it won’t be the same, Daddy.”

“Nothing stays the same,” said Gary.

“But I want it to.”

“If everything stayed the same, you would still be in Spain, and you wouldn’t want that, would you.”

“If everything had stayed the same, I wouldn’t have had to go to Spain.”

Right. But it all happened in our old life and is over. In our new life we have Cleo, Charlie, and you have  all those lovely brothers and sisters. I couldn’t go back to before that. It would break my heart, Sweetheart,”

“And mine, Daddy.”

Charlie put her arms round Gary and they commiserated for a moment. Then the sly little fox (as Gary liked to call her) announced that she had maths homework and could he explain why A plus B equals C brackets X times Z or words to that effect.

Back to normal, Gary decided. There was nothing to beat algebra for soothing someone’s nerves.

***

A fireman was inspecting the remains of the villa when Cleo arrived.

“Just making sure there are no small fire-pockets anywhere,” he said.

“And are there?” said Cleo.

“No, Miss. You’re in luck.”

“I suppose you could put it that way.”

“It’s a pity about the house, Miss.”

“It’s devastating,” said Cleo.

“You’re not going to cry, are you?” the fireman said anxiously. “My wife always cries even when she has no reason to.”

“No, I’m not going to cry, Mr …”

“Hodge, Miss. I’ll get going now. The house has finished smouldering.”

“That’s cold comfort, Mr Hodge.”

“No, it isn’t cold; the fire’s only just gone out.”

“Have a nice evening,” said Cleo for want of something to say that would send him on his way fast.

“I’m going to the pub now. The wife won’t go there so I get a bit of peace and quiet.”

Mr Hodge took his leave and Cleo wondered how Mrs Hodge referred to her husband. Was he ‘the husband’? What did she do while Mr Hodge enjoyed his quiet beer? Cleo was deep in thought when Chris and Ned arrived.

***

The two forensic experts went through the bedroom in which the bed stood with the proverbial toothcomb. It was not really unmade up. It just had a counterpane to keep the dust off and no bedding. Whoever had slept there must have frozen. Mid-December is hardly the time for dossing down without blankets, but Chris did not think anyone had actually slept there at all, just tossed the counterpane back, seen that the bed was not hospitable and probably decided not to sleep on it. But the person already identified from the cigarette end as Harry Marble had definitely been there and seen from the moonlight shining into the un-shuttered upstairs rooms that they had been decorated. He had probably already been into the office, too, and was aware that people were going to move in soon.

But Cleo could think of no reason why Marble would know who was moving in, or if he did, why he should bear a grudge against them. After all, Gary had found the uncle’s real murderer, though he had mixed feelings about how Harry Marble had reacted. The smaller crimes, for which Marble had gone to prison, were nothing compared with a sentence for murder.

Cleo took another look at her studio. Almost nothing was left of her filing system and equipment, and the sturdy office furniture had been severely charred. She was startled when Pavel came in and gasped at the damage to the room.

“Do you want your office back, Cleo?” he asked, aware that that was the thing to say in the circumstances.

“Heavens no,” Cleo replied.

“Who did it?”

“We don’t know.”

“Was it that guy I saw wandering around a few times last week?"

“What guy. Did you talk to him?”

“No.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Quite heavily built; red face; bad-tempered scowl.”

“Not short and fat?”

“No. Taller than me. Looked evil, I thought.”

“If I get a photo of him to show you, would your recognize him?”

“Probably.”

“OK. Give me a few minutes.”

Pavel looked around the whole house shaking his head most of the time. All that labour gone up in smoke. He went outside and lit a cheroot. Chris saw that from an upstairs window in the bedroom that had survived the fire. He opened it.

“Who are you?“ he shouted.

“Who are you?”

“Forensics. Does Miss Hartley know you are here?”

“I came to see the damage. I’m Pavel, the decorator. Now tell me what you are doing here.”

“I’ll come down.”

Pavel explained who he was all over again and Chris asked him for the cheroot end so that he could compare fingerprints. He did not want to go so far as to go through the tab-collecting ritual.

“Did you come here after Saturday?” Chris asked.

“Yes, of course,” said Pavel. “Yesterday I still had the kitchen to paint.”

“Did you go into the study?”

“Once, I think.”

“So you didn’t smoke in there,” said Chris.

“Look Mr., I don’t know why you are giving me third degree. I never smoke in the house and I never smoke cigarettes, so don’t waste your time looking for one I smoked. That’s why I’m out here, and Cleo is phoning through for a photo that she hopes I can identify. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

Chris reflected that the anonymous DNA on the second cigarette in the ashtray was a complication,

 “Sorry,” said Chris. “I’m a bit nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?” said Cleo, joining them outside the kitchen door. “I see you’ve been talking to Pavel.”

Rehabilitated, Pavel took one look at the photo of Bryn Thomas and said he’d never seen him before.

“OK,” said Cleo. “How about this one?”

Cleo showed him a photo of Harry Marble and Pavel identified him as the guy who had been stalking the villa.

“Wow, Pavel. You have got us a lot further on the road to solving the arson that burnt down my beautiful house. It would be helpful if you could describe those sightings in more detail.”

“I’ll come to the cottage this evening, shall I?” said Pavel.

“Great. Around 8 suit you?”

“Perfectly.”

“Bring an invoice with you. We need to know how much we owe you.”

“Not a lot. Gary paid me handsomely last week.”

“We will ask you to work on the house we have not yet bought to replace this one.”

“I’ll be glad to help,” said Pavel, and left.

***

“Nice guy. I gathered that he painted the house,” said Chris.

“That’s Pavel. He and his Polish family work as a team and are brilliant.”

“Give me his phone number, please, and I’ll get him to paint my flat. He probably had you booked for a few more days and will be glad to fill the gap.”

“He’ll be grateful, Chris. Did you come to any conclusions? Did Pavel have more to say?”

“He spotted Marble hanging around for days before the weekend.”

 “Ominous. Why didn’t he tell me?

”He did not know who it was until just now, Cleo. Give him a break!”

“He was plotting with Bryn Thomas. They shared a cell in prison.”

“Is that what made Marble stalk the house?” said Chris.

“His half-sister and her mother had entitlements to the inheritance, didn’t they? But they are in prison so he would not find them here, however many times he came stalking. But he may not have been clear on that.”

“Nasty.”

“This whole business is nasty, Chris. When I think of that poor woman dying in that inferno, I’m horrified all over again.”

“A real hell-hole. We’ll examine that room again, but I don’t think there’ll be anything more to find there.”

“I’ll go home now,” said Cleo. “The family is congregating there without me and we need to discuss what we are going to do if we have to stay in the cottage for a while. Maybe I should not have had so many kids.”

“Rubbish,” said Chris. “The more the merrier. I’d like kids.”

“You need a woman for that, Chris, and you aren’t keen on women.”

“Michael Jackson solved the problem, and so will I.”

***

Pavel’s visit to the cottage was brief. He was upset about the villa, of course, and about moving into Cleo’s office and leaving her with none now hers had burnt down. He described Marble’s snooping around the villa again and emphasised that he had made sure he locked up after every working session.

Cleo explained who the man was and that he had probably retained a back-door key, which he presumably used to get into the villa after Pavel and his team had gone home, and carelessly left open for his prison mate and the woman who had died in the flames to get in. Another person, as yet unidentified, had probably been there, smoked in the study and possibly been responsible for the fire.

“Are you quite sure you didn’t smoke in the study, Pavel?” Cleo asked.

“Yes, Mrs Hurley, and I have witnesses to being at home all evening and Monday night. We had a little birthday party for my eldest daughter, and we sat around drinking slivovitz and then coffee for half the night. And I never smoke inside. Those cheroots are quite strong.”

“What’s slivovitz?” Gary asked. “Should I know it?”

“Not in Upper Grumpsfield. It’s plum brandy and very popular where I come from. Would you like some? Home-brewed, of course.”

“Wow!” said Cleo. “Is that legal?”

“I don’t sell it,” said Pavel, looking slightly worried.

“Then it would be moonlighting, Cleo. Prohibition fortunately never got as far as this country.”

“We start with vodka, but it’s the plums that make it so good,” said Pavel.

“I can’t wait to try it,” said Gary.

The visit was only remarkable for the slivovitz and the possibility left open by Pavel’s renewed insistence that he never smoked in the house. A comparison of fingerprints would confirm what Pavel had said. The only hope was that the unknown tabs on the second cigarette in the ashtray or its smoker’s DNA could be assigned to someone, though that did not clarify what that person was doing in the villa.

The day finished for Cleo and Gary with the usual pot of coffee enjoyed in front of a blazing log fire, sitting on the sofa with a plaid over their knees and lit only by the flames. The other fire was, however, still uppermost in their minds; the disappointment at such a dramatic and tragic turn of events was affecting them deeply.

“We aren’t going to be defeated,” Cleo insisted. “When one door closes another opens.”

“Let’s get some sleep,” said Gary.

***

At three in the morning the fire siren was again heard in Upper Grumpsfield.”

“Whoever started that fire, it can’t have been Bryn Thomas because he’s behind bars,” said Gary. “Let’s ignore it, shall we?”

“Harry Marble is not behind bars,” said Cleo.

“He probably should be,” said Gary. “Let’s some more shut-eye, shall we?”

But it could not be ignored. Whoever had wanted Hilda out of the way had decided that Jane Barker had to go, too, unless the two fires were unconnected, of course. But that seemed like too much of a coincidence.

“I’ll phone the fire brigade and find out what’s going on,” said Gary.

***

“It’s Jane Barker’s house, Cleo.”

“I heard. The speaker’s on.”

“I’ll phone Chris,” Gary proposed. “I’d rather he got there before the fire brigade can cause more chaos than they have to.”

“It will probably be too late to avoid it,” said Cleo. “What about Dorothy?”

“Leave Dorothy out of it, Cleo.”

But she lives next door, Gary. She’ll be scared out of her wits. She knows who threatened her and he may have threatened Jane, too.””

The fire brigade will make sure Dorothy is OK,” Gary insisted.

Cleo reluctantly accepted that she could do nothing.

***

By breakfast time Mr Hodge, who was leading the fire brigade team, had reported that the lady of the house had not survived.

“I had better tell Dorothy,” Cleo said

“She probably knows,” said Gary.

“I wonder if Jane knew about Hilda,” Cleo mused.

Chris phoned from the Barker house. He had not taken long to draw his conclusions.

“The fire did not get anywhere near the upstairs rooms,” he reported. “It was confined to the living room. I think the woman committed suicide.”

“That’s all we need,” said Cleo. “Who called the fire brigade?”

“Maybe she did. Got frightened and did not want to die after all. I’ll call an ambulance and have her taken to Middlethumpton General,” Chris continued. “I already have two junkies on the slab. There’s severe overcrowding in the lab. It’s time they built me a bigger one. The hospital can do a blood test. If there’s any doubt about the cause of death, I’ll be called in. I’ll send the empty bottle of diazepam and almost empty vodka bottle along with the corpse. Otherwise, end of story.”

“We’ll still need evidence of arson even if Jane Barker started the fire,” said Gary.

“You’ll get it, or at least an explanation of how the fire started.”

“Could it really have been Jane herself?” said Cleo.

“I can’t rule that out,” said Chris. “A bit drastic, however, and a waste of good sleeping pills if she was planning to burn to a frazzle in a bonfire.”

“It takes all sorts,” said Gary.

“She lit candles against evil spirits, Chris. If one of them toppled over…”

“At least it was accidental death. Coroners like accidental deaths,” said Chris.