Episode 12 - Quandaries

It hadn’t taken long for the forensic team consisting of one individual sticky-taping finger-prints and the other stabilizing the ladder against the frame of the wide shop window to declare that they had seen enough. Forensics had had long experience of smirches on walls. The only way real graffiti could be identified was by their style or when they had actually been signed by the perpetrators. But this wasn't a graffito by any stretch of the imagination. This was a mess of white paint smeared across a shop front by someone vindictive.

The rest of Saturday had been as usual for Robert. Cleo had spent the afternoon at the vicarage discussing Laura and the funeral.

Then, while Dorothy went to the bathroom, Edith whispered to Cleo that if she and Gary wanted to meet alone, she would be glad to let them have her utility room. They could be alone there for as long as they wanted.

“Is it that obvious?” Cleo had said.

“I’m happy for you,” Edith had said. “I wish a nice man would hold me that tightly.”

“I should not meet him, Edith, but I really want to be with him. Apart from being a truly nice guy he is a wonderful lover.”

“Why don’t you leave Robert?” said Edith.

“It would hurt him too much.”

“But staying with him and loving a different man is also hurtful,” said Edith.

“I’m torn between love and loyalty,” said Cleo.

“I know what you mean,” said Edith looking wistful.

Dorothy came in and that put an end to the conversation between Cleo and Edith, but it stayed with Cleo for the rest of the day.

***

"The worst kind of criminal is the inconsistent one," Cleo told Robert at breakfast next morning. "At least a serial murderer does the same thing over and over again, usually using the same method, but in Laura’s case we have a stabbing followed by attempted hit and run probably aimed at me, and two cases of wall smirches, one aimed at Dorothy and one aimed presumably at you."

"It doesn’t all have to be the work of one person, Cleo.”

"All the more reason for finding out who it is. No one who does anything like that stuff should running around scot free."

"Do you realize that if the hit and run was deliberate, you are really in danger?” said Robert.

"I can't rule that out. It goes with the job. Gary thinks that someone wanted me out of that office, Robert. The stunt with the corpse was a convenient mechanism, but a temporary one. I think it could indicate that something happens in that yard that I can see from my utility room window. The Norton brothers know how good a view there is from that window, and they park white limousines in the garages behind my office."

“Mr Morgan parks in my garage,” added Robert. “Someone should be looking at what goes on in that yard. He might be getting silence money, or someone else might."

Cleo nodded approvingly and phoned Gary to pass on these ideas, especially Robert’s.

Can we meet. I hate these phone-calls, Cleo.”

“Sure. Romano’s? But only in the restaurant.”

“A reluctant yes,” said Gary.

Cleo explained that there was new evidence and she would meet Gary to get it. Robert was quite glad to have time for his accounts, he told Cleo, and drove her to Middlethumpton HQ.

“I’ll get the bus home,” she told him.

“Or get Gary Hurley to drive you,” said Robert.

“He may not have time,” said Cleo. “He has a family, you know.”

“Does he? I never realized….”  

Meanwhile Gary was annoyed at the idea that the butcher guy was also one step ahead. Gary had not yet had time to give the yard a thought.

Romano was glad to see Cleo and Gary.

“Do you want the key?” he asked.

“No,” said Cleo.

“Yes,” said Gary.

“Make up your minds, children,” said Romano, dropping his apartment key on the table.

“There’s no escape, Miss Hartley,” said Gary.

“I don’t want to escape, Mr Hurley,” said Cleo.

“What are you going to tell the butcher?” Gary asked two hours later.

“I’ll tell him you are a cover for my lover,” said Cleo. “He won’t believe me.”

“I’ll drive you home, shall I?”

“Please.“

After some minutes deep in thought, Cleo said  “Do you know what I really want?”

“Go on!”

“I want you both.”

“That might be difficult logistically.”

“That’s why it should not happen at all!”

“I agree,” said Gary.

“That’s also why we should not meet for sex,” said Cleo.

“You mean a tick beyond platonic? That’s all it was. Friendship. Love. Devotion. Call it what you will, it was just a bit of fun.”

 “No it wasn’t. I’m ashamed of how I feel about you.”

“How stupid, Cleo. Lovers don’t talk like this. Get Robert out of your hair and we’ll go on from there.”

“Edith has offered us her utility room so she has noticed what is going on. Dorothy has not yet said anything, but it would not surprise me if she had guessed.”

“So what’s the real problem, Cleo?”  

“I told Edith that it was a choice between love and loyalty.”

“And what did she say?”

“That she had the same dilemma.”

“How come?”

“Love of her kids and loyalty to the vicar, Gary.”

“We’ll take her up on that offer of her room,” said Gary. “Tomorrow. Every day.”

“It will only prolong the agony.”

“What agony? I never noticed any, Cleo.”

Cleo was silent.

“OK,” said Gary finally. “I won’t bother you anymore. Let’s get moving.”

“It’s not a bother, Gary, but we have to solve crime now, not make love to seal our friendship.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“It’s the way I have to think about it just now.”

“But please not for ever.”

“I don’t think I’d have the strength of character for that,” said Cleo.

The idea of going to Laura’s bungalow was to see how Jessica and Jason were getting on, but in truth they needed to check that they were still there.  Cleo and Gary were at least agreed on that.

The two Jays had gone. The back door was unlocked and Gary led the way in. Nothing was out of place. There was a note written entirely in capital letters on the kitchen table.

'Sorry about this,' it said. 'We got an anonymous phone call telling us to get out before we were forced out.'

"I'm not surprised that they've left," said Cleo.

"Got a hunch where to find them?"

"At a guess, I'd say they were back in London," said Cleo.

"Always supposing the note isn't a pack of lies."

"What difference would that make?” said Cleo. “There’s no evidence to support Laura’s or even these two guys’ movements. All we know is that Laura went out for some reason or other – maybe to meet someone – and she was killed and left in my office. Writing a note like this one is irrational unless it was written hastily by someone scared out of their wits. And that means it might have written by one  Jay without the other’s knowledge."

"Or by someone wanting us to think that, Cleo.”

“Who would do that, Gary?”

“What about that guy Betjeman?  It sounds like his sort of reaction. Jessica might have turned him down."

“But he’s illiterate. He can’t have written that note.”

“Maybe he can read and write and just pretends he can’t to save having to work for a living.”

“Gary, we are speculating!”

"Whatever! The handwriting on this note needs to be checked."

Gary stuffed the note into a plastic bag he had taken out of his pocket. His fingerprints would be on it, but Cleo hadn't touched it.

"Let's go now," said Cleo." This place gives me the creeps."

"We don’t know what really happened here and we still don't know who Jessica is," said Gary.

"I thought she sounded genuine," Cleo said. "It’s crazy that Laura Finch didn't even mention her to anyone. She didn’t trust anyone, not even Dorothy."

"It does happen. Laura apparently didn't mention a lot of things about her life," said Gary. “And the person who got nearest to her seems to have been that nutty vicar.”

"Awesome, don’t you think? If Jessica’s passport is genuine and this person we know as Jessica is a fake, what happened to the real Jessica? Was she done away with?"

"It's a long shot, but couldn’t she be Jason's wife, Cleo?"

Cleo wondered if she could confirm that, but she didn't know if Jessica had been telling the truth. She now wished she had been open with Gary in Jessica’s presence.

"I'm going to pass the identity problem on to Scotland Yard because apart from anything else there's the question of who inherits."

"Did Laura Finch make a will, Gary?"

"We didn't find one among all those papers we took away."

"The only thing we know for certain is that Jason was her son. There were enough witnesses at the village hall contest to verify that. It was a public embarrassment for Laura Finch to be found out, though that was only the tip of the iceberg, as we know now. And…"

Cleo hesitated.

"And what, Cleo?"

"It's possible that Laura passed Jessica off as Jason's sibling back in the Bahamas so that she could extort more financial support from the man or men to whom she had assigned the father role."

"Now you're talking. I won’t ask you when or how you reached that conclusion.”

“Brain-storming with Dorothy.”

“I thought you’d say that. In other words, whatever is on those documents in Bermuda – if there are any - could have been invented to suit the situation in which Laura found herself."

"Which would make the Bermudan authorities corrupt, wouldn’t it?”

“It would only take one guy who was paid for his trouble!”

Maybe Jessica and Jason really are married to one another," Cleo added.

"If Jessica is another of Laura’s illegitimate offspring, that would be incest."

"Surely Jessica would have told me if they were blood relations,” said Cleo. “The person we know as Jessica is married to a guy called Jim and fled from him to London on Jason’s advice.”

“That’s new to me, Cleo.”

“All we need now is a corpse in a motorboat with manmade holes for it to sink and a deranged woman setting fire to a villa and going up in flames with it.

“Don’t exaggerate, Cleo.”

“I thought you’d read Rebecca!"

"Women’s stuff,” said Gary, who did not care for romantic fiction. “Mrs Finch claimed to be Jason's aunt, didn't she? Why would anyone do that? There's no shame in having an illegitimate son these days."

"She had a massive identity problem, Gary. She wasn't married, but had simply called herself Mrs and told Dorothy the unlikely story that she had married someone with the same name. If it had been Smith I would probably have believed her, but how many Finches are there?”

“Do you want me to answer that?”

“Exactly. I thought that was far-fetched at the time, but had no reason to think she was fabricating the rest of her biography to match. She might have simply kept her own name and not wanted to disclose the identity of the man she was married to. But now we know there was no Mr Finch, that makes sense, except that we never found out who she associated with."

"I’m not surprised if they were paying for her services."

"I simply don’t know when Jessica was telling lies," said Cleo.

"I need to know everything, even stuff you don’t believe."

"I’ve just thought of something else Jessica said.”

Go on!”

“She did not know if two infants had been rescued from the boat she thought she had been born on.”

“Good God. How the hell would we be able to follow that up.”

“We can’t follow it up.”

"Tell me all you know about Laura Finch. There may be a clue in there somewhere."

"She was a strange woman. You'd have thought she'd want to start her new life in Lower Grumpsfield by ditching the burden of telling lies all the time," said Cleo.

"Force of habit. Understandable with a past like hers."

"I wonder how much she knew about the lives of Jason and Jessica."

"Telling lies was obviously a survival strategy with Mrs Finch,” said Gary. “The Jays may have found it necessary to continue the tradition."

"I should have asked Jessica straight out if she was telling the truth. Sometimes a straight question gets a straight answer or a reaction one can interpret."

"One thing we do know for certain,” said Gary. “Mrs Finch was a woman with a past she was anxious to forget. She probably could not tell the difference between what had really happened and what she wished had happened. That's often given as an explanation or justification for a crime or for becoming the victim of one."

"One road we have not yet been down is to look for people who knew Laura before she settled in Lower Grumpsfield.”

“Private eye stuff, Cleo, but you don’t have anyone to do it, do you?”

“Not if you count me out, but I could try to track her movements working backwords in time.”

“That’s feasible, but we could start by looking at Dorothy’s list of suspects in the chorus. Did Laura Finch have social contact with any of them? What did they know about her? Did someone know her from the past?"

"We?" said Cleo.

"Have you got a better idea?"

"Shirley Temple, for instance," said Cleo.

"OK We can go to Dorothy’s cottage and see how she’s getting on there. Then you can invite her to take on the task."

“I thought she had left, Gary.”

“She is hovering, Cleo. We still don’t know who defaced that mirror.”