Episode 15 - Deus ex Machina?

Monday cont. then Tuesday, December 22.

Mrs Thomas was quite taken with her room. Her only disappointment was that there was no gin in the minibar. She did not think herehip flask would keep her going until the morning.

“I think it would be wiser if you were sober for the interview, Mrs Thomas,” said Mia.

“I’m always sober,” retorted the woman in her thick Welsh accent. “I need a little gin for my circulation.”

“I’m sure your circulation will last a few more hours, Mrs Thomas,” Mia insisted. “A warder will bring you some supper and a large flask of tea. If you need something, you can go down to the canteen in the basement. The lift will take you there and back again.”

“So I’m not a prisoner?”

"Of course not. You are only here to answer a few questions.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?”

“Don’t get excited, Mrs Thomas. That’s not good for your circulation,” said Mia, wondering about Mrs Thomas’s alcohol level.  She left the woman taking art it a quiz show on TV by shouting out the answers ahead of the contestants. Mrs Thomas had forgotten all about Mia. 

Next morning it became clear that Mia had underestimated Mrs Thomas’s thirst and the woman herself had overestimated her so-called circulation.

“She was all right when I brought her supper, said the warder, who had been accompanied by a colleague who was able to witness that Mrs Thomas was alive and well. “She was quite tame,” was the general consensus. “After all, she wasn’t locked up, was she?”

At seven in the morning a warders who had just come on duty and brought Mrs Thomas an early-morning cuppa found her dead in her bed. Chris, who had only just arrived at HQ, said she was definitely out of this world and would be certified dead as soon as he could verify that she had died of natural causes.

***
“Blast. That means she won’t be able to answer my questions,” said Gary, irate rather than sad.

“I’ll call the services, shall I?” said the receptionist who had received the news and was to do something about it, which involved notifying Gary long before he wanted to be awake.

“Call forensics. Someone will already be there and there’ll have to be an inquest, so we need scientific proof that she died a natural death. They’ll see to the rest.”

“Mr Marlow has already seen the patient, Mr Hurley,” the receptionist said. She had previously worked for a doctor and her definition of anyone not a cop was a habit.

“HQ is not a hospital,” Gary snapped.

The receptionist thought Mr Hurley was heartless and said so.

“You’re right, Mavis – it is Mavis, isn’t it? I’m sorry about that. But I brought her all the way from Cardiff to talk to her, and it was a waste of time.”

“I’m sorry, too,” said the receptionist and hung up.

***
Gary got up to have a cosy first breakfast with PeggySue and anyone else in the queue.

“I wonder if Mrs Thomas had a hipflask, Gary. Was she searched properly?” Cleo asked.

“Not if only men dealt with her. They had experience of women fighting them off. Male cops are not allowed to do body searches of women, understandably.  Anyway, she wasn’t locked in her room. She could have gone down to the canteen and bought herself something.”

“Or she took pills on top of the alcohol she had had the foresight to pack. She could have packed her sleeping pills just in case, drunk her hip flask empty and then swallowed too many sleeping pills. That might be enough to kill her even if she did not buy herself something to replenish her travel supply,” said Cleo.

“We can ask the canteen staff about that and Chris will do an autopsy. It’s really a nuisance. We can’t have witnesses dying left, right, and centre. Can you imagine what Bertie Browne will write about us?”

“I can guess,” said Cleo. “You’d better have some breakfast and drive to HQ. You’re wanted here, but needed there.”

“I’m actually supposed to be above the nitty-gritty,” said Gary.

“But you aren’t, Sweetheart, and never will be.”

“I’m going to delegate.”

“But not today – and we’ll have to ask Dorothy if she has reported everything. She is the only person who has talked with Mrs Thomas about her son.”

“I suppose I’ll have to tell that guy before someone else does.”

“Does anyone know who Mrs Thomas belongs to? She hadn’t been there long enough for speculation to get going, had she?”

“Good question. Same name as one of our prisoners. People jump to conclusions.”

“The Monday Gazette is out, so you have a couple of days to get sorted before Bertie can publish anything,” said Cleo.“I’ll tell him myself and warn him about publishing anything without my permission. I don’t think he knows about Bryn Thomas. He would have asked me about him if he had.”

“Don’t bet on it. Thomas auditioned for Lucky 13. That information will have been leaked and Bertie is notoriously quick on the draw.”

“Meaning that there could be something in today’s edition,” said Gary.

“Want to look? It’s probably waiting on the door mat.”

“You look.”

“I’ll let you know. But there’s something else you will be forced to face and that is that Bryn Thomas is to all intents and purposes the owner of the Bone house. I presume that the ‘Bones’ made some kind of mutual arrangement about the house.”

“And that’s where a chat with Mr Thomas might have come in handy,” said Gary. “We don’t know if the fake Mr Bone knew how many kids he had. Since he was never divorced they are all legally his, so what Mrs Thomas did with her life after he left leaves any offspring legal beneficiaries.”

“Unless Hilda has relatives,” said Cleo.

“Can you find out?”

“I could ask around,” said Cleo as she hugged Gary, wound his scarf round his neck, put the keys of the red car in his hand and sent him on his way.

***

Gary had left Cleo with a tall order to fulfil. Bone was almost an unknown quantity to Cleo except for her curiosity and ambition to be a better sleuth than Dorothy. She had only recently confessed to having lived a double life, if you can so describe the years she spent with a guy using a false name after the original Mr Bone had died, and even sharing her house with him. There was hardly anyone she could ask about Hilda Bone’s past. Jane Barker was dead, and she had apparently only been a recent acquaintance so would probably not have known everything; Hilda had told Cleo that she had no neighbours to mention since the old ones had either died, left or gone to prison and the new residents had not been very friendly except for the Crightons, who had only very recently moved in. They knew that she knew all about them and were at pains not to let anyone else know that their son had been locked away for life in a psychiatric ward. It was no help that the Crightons firmly believed in the imminent release of that son. Mrs Crighton made Betjeman the main topic of every conversation and was brainwashing Mr Crighton to believe what she said. Hilda knew enough to know better, but even Cleo’s reassurance that Betjeman Crighton would not be set free did not stop Hilda Bone from being a bit nervous.

The only clue to possible benefactors might be Hilda`s authentic marriage, so Cleo would start her search there, but not before consulting Dorothy and asking her to come round and talk about the dead woman. Dorothy was not especially prone to gossip, but she remembered it, all the more if she disliked the subject thereof, and she had made no secret of her dislike of Hilda.

***

An hour later, Dorothy was sitting at Cleo’s dining table drinking milk coffee and spreading butter on her breakfast bagel.

“This is terrible,” said Dorothy.

“I thought you liked bagels.”

“Not the bagel, but Mrs Thomas should have survived long enough to talk,” she said.

“I don’t suppose she had a death wish,” said Cleo. “Did she seem weakly?”

“She was a drinker. You could see that. How much of her aggressive talk was booze-induced I can’t say.”

“Can you think of anything to add to your report?”

“No. She was a victim of circumstances. I think Gary got her here because he was curious. There was nothing in the report that can have made him think I was suspicious of her.”

“Were you, Dorothy?”

“Not more than usual.”

“You’re probably right about Gary, and now he will have to tell Bryn Thomas about her death, and that should cause tears of merriment since it means that he will inherit her half of Hilda’s house as well, unless there are others in the queue.”

“It’s all rather grotesque, don’t you think?” said Dorothy. “But surely nothing can be decided about that house yet.”

“Do you know what happened to the first Mr Bone?”

“He fell over and died,” said Dorothy. “I never quite believed that story. They were on holiday at the time.”

“Not another case of being pushed over a cliff,” said Cleo.

“No. This time on a lonely beach. Hilda had walked on ahead, then turned round a few minutes later and Mr Bone had drowned in an inch of seawater. A few more minutes and he would have been gone for ever. The tide was coming in.”

“Awesome,” said Cleo.

“But as I see it, not suspicious. If she had wanted to, she could have left Mr Bone to disappear under the incoming tide. Hilda said it could have happened to her. And she would hardly have tried to help him if she had knocked him about.”

“So she was fancy free after that.”

“The man she later lived with here had moved from Cardiff. She had known him there, intimately, to judge from the way she talked about him, but there’s nothing in what she said to indicate that she had caused the real Mr Bone’s demise.”

“Quite a girl, our Hilda,” said Cleo.

“You might trace a Bone family in Cardiff. There won’t be that many of them. It isn’t a Welsh name or even a common one.”

“Yes. We should find out about Hilda’s past. She might have relatives who have better claims on the house since it was all hers after the fake Mr Bone died.”

“If the fake Mr Bone came originally from Cardiff, it’s possible that Hilda also came from there. But I don’t know what her maiden name was. Supposing the genuine Mr Bone got a job in Middlethumpton rather than her chasing after the fake one?”

“It’s possible,” said Cleo.

“On the other hand, supposing Hilda had her heart set on Mr Thomas and did not want her marriage to Mr Bone?” said Dorothy.

“We only know that the first Mr Bone died on the beach.”

“Exactly! What if she did away with him?”

“Gary would say we are now in the land of fantasy.”

“And I would reply that we have to find out what really happened to the first Mr Bone even if Gary thinks it irrelevant to the present case,” said Dorothy. “He has been wrong before. There has to be a motive for killing Hilda. What if Marble had found out about irregularities in the death of the real Mr Bone and tried to blackmail her?”

“Then she might have wanted to kill him,” said Cleo.

“And he wanted to get in first,” said Dorothy. “You see, Cleo, it’s always the question we have to ask. There must be a reason for the woman to have been left to die in that room. You don’t simply forget the person you have just been talking to.”

“That only makes sense if Marble set fire to the villa, and why would he do that?”

“Exactly. He wouldn’t. I’m sure of that.”

“So what do you think happened?” Cleo asked.

“I want to talk to Jessie Coppins before I decide,” said Dorothy. “She’s in it somewhere and we must clarify her role.”

“Meaning she would have a motive?”

“Exactly.”

“Let’s walk Max and Mathilda as far as Molly’s pub then.”

“Yes. Let’s do that.                                       

***

An hour later, Cleo and Dorothy were drinking Molly’s Irish coffee to warm their insides. The babies were asleep, lulled by the hurried battle against the wind that seemed to want to prevent them getting to the pub. Since it was nearly 11, Cleo and Dorothy did not have to wait very long for Jessie to appear to help in the kitchen. She was surprised to see Cleo and would have scuttled away if Cleo had not called out to her that Miss Price wanted to talk to her.

“Yes Miss?”

“You are going to tell the truth, aren’t you, Jessie?” said Dorothy.

“Yes Miss.”

“Did you smoke in the villa the other night, Jessie?”

“No Miss. I don’t smoke.”

“Did you light a candle in the dark, Jessie? The stairs must haven pitch black.” Dorothy continued, and Cleo wondered where Jessie would get a candle.

“I had a torch with me,” said Jessie.

“So you had planned to go upstairs, had you?” Dorothy continued.

“Sort of.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Before or after?” Jessie said.

“Before Mr Marble came and hurt you,” said Cleo.

“The bedspread Miss. But I didn’t take it.”

“I know that, Jessie`,” said Cleo. The fire did not get to that bedroom and the bedcover is still there. But you came back, didn’t you Jessie?”

“Yes Miss”

“Weren’t you afraid of Mr Marble seeing you?” said Dorothy.

“I’d forgotten him.”

Cleo wondered how someone who had just been raped could return soon after to the scene of the crime. Unless….

“Are you sure it was rape, what he did to you, Jessie?”

“He was like my Dad. Nasty and cruel.”

“So what were you looking for in the house.” 

“Money, Miss.”

“Where did you look?” Dorothy asked. She did not believe the rape story and planned to say so, but not in front of Jessie.

“In the kitchen drawers, Miss.”

“But the villa was not occupied, “said Cleo. “Why would there be money in a kitchen drawer.”

“There usually is, Miss, but there wasn’t any.”

 “What did you do after that?” said Dorothy.

“I found a candle in one of the drawers, so I lit it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“The torch had gone out.”

“Did you leave the candle burning when you left?” Cleo asked.

No, Miss.”

“So it was not still burning when you went home.”

“No, Miss.”

Are you sure, Jessie?”

“I used it to find my way round to where I could get out, Miss,” said Jessie.

“And then you threw it away, did you?” said Dorothy. “Where did you throw it, Jessie?”

“I just put it down Miss. I heard voices and had to get away quick.”

“So you left it burning, did you?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Think, Girl,” said Dorothy in an angry voice.

“I might have done.”

It was obviously pointless trying to get Jessie to say something worth hearing. The candle was irrelevant. It had been outside, not in the room where the fire had started.

“Well, it could have been,” said Dorothy aside to Cleo. To Jessie she said “When you left the villa, did you see anyone?”

“No Miss.”

“Thank you, Jessie. That will be all,” said Cleo for Dorothy, who she thought had been far too heavy-handed at the end.

When she had gone, Cleo felt the need to berate Dorothy for suggesting that Jessie could have started the fire.

“So where did it start, Cleo?”

“I assume it was a burning cigarette thrown onto the floor.”

“So nobody was really responsible,” said Dorothy. “That would clear both Marble and Thomas of deliberate arson and attempted murder, wouldn’t it?”

“No. They left Hilda unconscious in a locked room. They did not know if she would ever regain consciousness. They just left her there. Gary would say that is attempted homicide.”

“This is wild speculation, Dorothy. Gary can get Marble for rape, assuming that’s what Jessie meant when she compared him to her father, but so far there’s nothing to charge Thomas with.”

“Then Gary will have to release him, unless Thomas can be proved to have forced Hilda to go to the villa with the intention of killing her or at least leaving her to die.”

“We can’t force Thomas to admit to that and it can’t be proved,” said Cleo.

“It’s all very frustrating. But Marble can be charged with what he did to me.”

“Whatever happens, it looks as if Thomas is going get away with whatever he did to Hilda and leave Marble to take the rap.”

“I can’t say I’m sorry,” said Dorothy. “Shall we have another coffee before we walk home?”
“So what have you been up to,” said Molly when she brought their second lot of whisky-laced coffee. “Jessie looked quite disturbed.”

“It was all a bit of a wild goose chase,” said Dorothy.

“So you are still looking for the person who set fire to the villa, I suppose,” said Molly.

“We think we know who did it, but we won’t be able to prove it.”

“Why don’t you just leave it to the cops to sort it out?” said Molly.

“Don’t forget that one of them sleeps in my bed,” said Cleo. “And multi-tasking is not his strong point.”                

“I expect you can handle that, Cleo,” said Molly, and Dorothy looked rather shocked and pushed the twins out of the pub so that she would not hear Cleo’s reaction.

“He doesn’t need much persuasion, Molly,” said Cleo. “I’d better go. Dorothy is still embarrassed about supporting Robert. How’s Jack?”

“I’m a bit pregnant, Cleo, and it can’t be Robert’s, can it?”

“Wonderful news, Molly, and no, it can’t!”