Saturday 31 October 2015

Episode 13 - The flesh is weak


It was well into the afternoon, when Gary drove Cleo back to Upper Grumpsfield.
“I should call in on Dorothy,” Cleo said.
“I’ll come with you,” Gary proposed and parked the car in front of Dorothy’s cottage. To his surprise. Shirley’s little Italian  car was parked across the road.
“Has Shirley come back to roost?” Cleo said, when Gary told her who’s car it was..
“We’ll soon see,” said Gary.
***
Shirley was spending her Sunday afternoon making sure that Dorothy was OK.
“Gary needs more detail about that chorus of Laura’s,” Cleo explained. “He phoned me and I invited him to come here with me.”
Dorothy looked askance. Cleo was flushed and excited, and not by the idea of chorus ladies being investigated. So they had been carrying on again, had they? Or was it jealousy because Gary was now in the presence of a very attractive lady cop?
“You’re just in time for the low-down, Gary,” said Dorothy.
“I’m all ears.”
***
"Well, there were 23 singers in Laura's choir," Dorothy said. "We had a chance to observe them at the rehearsal for her concert in the church hall, and then at the concert, which as you know turned out to be a disaster because the bell tower caved in."
"During the concert?” said Shirley. “Had God been listening to the singing?"
Dorothy smiled faintly. How near the truth Shirley was.
"I should explain that the tower is a few hundred yards away, behind the church. It was built later. The bell-ringing had disturbed the steel supports."
Cleo had also found Shirley’s comment amusing, but it was rather unfitting in the circumstances.
"The girders built into the structure were no longer stable, Shirley,” Cleo explained. “It was a catastrophe waiting to happen, and the only good thing about it was that no one was hurt. Shortly before the concert the bell-ringers had gone through a frenzy of peals ready for the Sunday service next day. The vibrations must have made cracks in the walls and half the tower collapsed as a result."
“Goodness,” said Shirley. “What a drama"
“It’s just as Cleo said,” said Dorothy. “The girders had continued to vibrate after the bell-ringing had stopped, an architect told us. The vibrations turned into shudders and the shudders dislodged the brickwork."
***
"I think we should get back to the business in hand," Gary said. He’d heard it all before. That bell-tower had been news for weeks.
"So what's the connection, Miss Price?" Shirley asked, smoothing over the rather abrupt tone Gary had adopted.
"Well, after observing the reactions of the chorus ladies, my first thought was that some of them had actually helped the bell tower to collapse," said Dorothy.
“Motive, Dorothy?” said Cleo.
“To ruin Laura’s reputation, of course.”
“But you don’t seriously think that those women brought the tower down, do you?” said Gary.
“Of course not, but their singing was excruciating,” said Dorothy.
That certainly brought the house down," Gary joked. “Sorry. Carry on with the story.”
Shirley noted that Gary’s mood was mercurial. Was he like that in bed?
***
"To continue,” said Dorothy, looking sternly at Gary. “After that event, it became very obvious that Laura had lost her grip on the choir. Running away from the calamity was the women's way of dealing with the catastrophe, but it also got rid of Laura, which was presumably in the pipeline anyway. The collapse of that bell tower was a godsend to those women, I am quite sure that the Finch Nightingales had already disbanded behind Laura's back even before the concert. The concert probably only went ahead at all because Mr Morgan still had a vestige of loyalty to Laura, who was paying him to accompany her nightingales on the piano. But he may already have promised to take over the choir as soon as Laura was eliminated.”
“Who is Mr Morgan,” Shirley asked.
“God’s gift to women, in his opinion,” said Cleo.
“He sounds like a skunk,” said Shirley.
“He smells like one, too,” said Dorothy.
“Can you please stick to the facts, Ladies,” said Gary, who regretted not leaving Cleo to her own devices in Upper Grumpsfield.
***
“Why don’t you leave if you’re not interested, Gary?” said Dorothy.
“But I am interested,” said Gary. “Carry on!”
“We decided to focus on four of the singers who had been acting strangely. Maybe they'd choreographed the downfall of the choir – but not of the tower, of course."
"So those four are the women you visited, are they?" Gary said.
"Yes," said Dorothy. "Cleo thought it would be less suspicious than if she went."
“You should point out that it was only an informal investigation, Dorothy,” said Cleo. “We had no proof that those women had anything to do with anything. For all we knew Laura was being blackmailed or our suspicions were just a flash in the pan. Anyway, if there was something to hide, they’d hide it, wouldn’t they?"
"Did you say blackmailed, Cleo? That’s a new twist.”
"I was waiting to see if anything showed up in those documents or bank statements you confiscated from Laura’s bungalow, Gary," said Cleo.
"Oh, well…." Gary had been caught on the hop. He'd been keeping the information about the bank statements to himself. He had not been straight with Cleo. Had he really expected her to lose interest in the investigation after he had warned her off?
"Come clean, Gary Hurley," interpolated Dorothy.
Gary indeed owed them an explanation.
"Well…Laura withdrew regular amounts during the weeks before her death. We don’t know what she did with the money."
"In other words, she might have been at the mercy of a blackmailer."
"It’s possible, Ladies. She would not want her former life to be exposed. Had someone recognized her? Now I've heard all about this chorus business, I'm inclined to think someone wanted her out come what may, and would use her chequered past to achieve that end."
"In other words, getting her to give the chorus up in return for not being exposed," suggested Shirley.
"Something like that," said Gary.
"As simple as that?" said Dorothy.
"Yes. And if we knew who else knew about her past, we could clear that mystery up quickly. But now Mrs Finch is dead, there's no way. She obviously paid cash."
“The only person she told about her past was the vicar,” said Dorothy.
“Did he have more money than usual during the last weeks of Laura Finch’s life?”
That question had come from Shirley. Gary would have liked to ask it himself.  Dorothy thought the very idea was in the worst possible taste.
“The vicar would never do anything like that,” said Dorothy. “He loved Laura,” she added reluctantly.
"The blackmail might have been a bluff," suggested Cleo.
"It might even explain the wig somehow,” said Dorothy.
“Wig?”
“Yes, Shirley. Laura wore a wig for a few weeks, as if she didn’t want to be recognized,” said Cleo.
“But she gave up wearing it eventually,” said Dorothy.
“If she was being blackmailed, her secret was out anyway,” said Cleo.
“The cash withdrawals continued up until her death,” said Gary.
“The wig might just have been some kind of dressing-up game,” said Dorothy. “Laura was a bit eccentric.”
“And irrational,” said Cleo. “But maybe she was saving on hairdresser visits, if cash flow was bad due to the cash payments she was making to someone. Laura was vain.”
“So my list of suspects might include the person responsible for the blackmail and perhaps even the murder," said Dorothy.
"It's possible," said Gary.
"I looked up the four women I thought might be involved in intrigues," Dorothy continued. "I tried to get them to say something about the chorus. I even asked them if they knew of a chorus I could join."
Cleo took over.
"We figured that if they could be persuaded to talk they would either give themselves away or betray someone else,” said Cleo. “And remember, Gary, we weren't investigating a murder, just trying to find out what had happened to the chorus."
***
"The first woman I visited was called Meg,” said Dorothy. “The ladies all had a badge with their first name on it. I could see them clearly through my opera glass."
"Meg turned out to be Margaret McKenzie," said Cleo.
"Yes, and she works at a bakery in Middlethumpton. She was a thoroughly unpleasant, common person. When I asked her about Laura, she told me to mind my own business and - pardon me – remove my arse," said Dorothy.
"She might have been feeling guilty," said Shirley, laughing at the incongruous vocabulary.
"That's what we thought, too," said Cleo. "Dorothy couldn't get anything out of her."
"The second one was a very large lady with 'Baby' written on her name badge,” said Dorothy. “Inappropriate for such a large person, I thought."
"And she turned out to be a Miss Barbarella Knowles," Cleo said. "You traced her to a butcher's shop, didn't you, Dorothy?"
"Yes, complete with striped apron and straw hat. I would not want to get between her and the hatchet she was using to smash through a saddle of lamb."
"She presumably also sent you on your way,” said Gary, who was more amused than anything else by the vision of that encounter.
“I bought 3 lamb chops as a cover-up,” said Dorothy. “They weren’t a patch on Robert’s, incidentally. The third person was Mary B - presumably there was also a Mary A in the chorus, but I didn’t see one. Mary Busby works in a chip shop and looked as if she tucked liberally into the menu. She was quite chatty, but she didn't say anything of any consequence. I think she had been roped in to perform some deceitful role, like singing wrong notes deliberately, which would have annoyed Laura no end."
Cleo chipped in. She did not think the chorus ladies were conscious of any wrong notes. They did not need to sabotage the music since they were doing so every time they sang it.
“Anyway, when everyone dashed out of the church hall after hearing the crash of the bell tower collapsing, those four women stuck together and were deep in conversation, undeterred by the panic. They looked furtive, too, as if they were plotting something.”
"Who was the fourth, Miss Price?" said Shirley.
"She was a young woman named Eileen Norton who had straggly blond hair and a gaunt face. According to Laura, she had just joined so she must immediately have been roped into the little group I've just told you about - a group Laura had called the three witches before this one joined, by the way."
" Did you say Norton, Dorothy?"
“Yes, Gary.”
***
Gary started awarding the matter his undivided attention. Eileen Norton could belong to the Norton clan who were notorious for mafia-like crimes in the district. They were also elusive.
“Laura told me things about the chorus in the days we had more contact,” said Dorothy. “She enjoyed a gossip now and again, and she laughed at the vocal efforts of some of those chorus women. Laura was no fool. She suspected plotting was going on behind her back, though she could not put her finger on who and why. But when she moved to Upper Grumpsfield, she was playing into those women's hands."
“How, Dorothy” Gary asked.
"Because she gave them an excuse to abandon her. It was too far to travel, they told her. Basta!"
Gary followed  a different train of thought. He knew from past experience that wherever a member of the Norton family turned up, things happened.
"Laura became very depressed, drank well over the eight, and didn't seem to want to retaliate. She didn't fall about, or anything, but sometimes her speech became dislocated. Cleo and I assumed she was disconsolate about the three witches' plus one’s bad behaviour, but what if other dilemmas were also troubling her?
"I'd like to know more about those other dilemmas, Miss Price," said Gary.
“Laura was not aware of her effect on people, Gary. I visited the Norton woman. She works at the news agent's next to Baby's butcher's shop, which is probably how she came to be in the chorus. She seemed frightened of Laura, but she was also very cagey about Baby and the others. I wonder if they had told her to keep her mouth shut, for I believe she realized that those other three women were plotting against Laura Finch."
“That would make her innocent, though,  wouldn’t it?” said Gary.
***
Gary wondered if this Norton person was related to the Norton brothers. Of course, not all the Nortons were crooks, even if he had not met a Norton who was not a crook, one way or another. What Dorothy was telling could be her imagination running riot, but not necessarily. Dorothy was cute. She observed people and often drew the right conclusions.
***
"We believe Eileen Norton was used as a decoy to get at Gareth Morgan,” said Cleo. “I know that sounds odd, but when you’ve experiences Mr Morgan in full throttle as a ladies’ man, you realise that he was open to any kind of flattery, and Eileen might have  got at him that way.”
“Tell me about Mr Morgan,” said Shirley.
“He is the local church organist who also accompanied Laura Finch’s chorus,” Cleo explained. “We believed he wanted to form his own ladies chorus with the help of the women Dorothy later targeted, said Cleo.
“The guy admired Laura Finch to a certain extent, but he fancied himself wielding power over those chorus women,” said Dorothy.
“Ludicrous,” said Gary.
“But it happened, Gary!” said Dorothy.
***
"So where does Phyllis come into this?" Gary wanted to know. He couldn't think when he had last come across such an unattractive female.
“Who’s Phyllis?” Shirley asked.
“She sang – or tried to – in Laura’s chorus,” said Dorothy.
“She’s Robert’s assistant,” said Cleo.
“And Robert is the love of Cleo’s life,” said Gary.
“I thought … oh never mind,” said Shirley.
“That Phyllis person can’t sing to save her life,” said Dorothy. “She once auditioned for a part in our Christmas panto. It was a horrible noise and – I hate to be cruel – she has a face to match."
That made everyone laugh, especially Gary, who had watched her antics at the shop and thought how uncouth she was.
"I think what hit Laura the hardest was the lack of loyalty," said Cleo. "You think people are loyal to you until you find out that they were after all only thinking of themselves. It happens all the time."
"But it's not a reason to murder anyone," said Shirley. "I think it's a case of finding out how one or more of those women, or someone else could have found out something that Laura did not want made public at any cost."
"If so, we now know what it probably was, but we don't know who could have known about it and whether it was the murder motive," said Gary. “What about the vicar?"
"He never did anything unethical," said Dorothy, feeling she had to defend the vicar’s integrity.
"Much too cowardly," said Cleo.
"Has it occurred to anyone that we might just have been on a wild goose chase?" said Cleo.
"I rather hope we were," said Dorothy. "We really only wanted to locate the ring-leader of those who ousted Laura from her beloved chorus. It's unthinkable that one of these women caused Laura's death.”
“The ball is now in your court, Mr Hurley," said Cleo.
"We'd better get the women out of the way then, Miss Hartley."
***
Gary put the women’s personal data into his laptop and sent it off to various databanks. It took only a minute or two for information about one of the four women to arrive.
"I can tell you now that our friend Baby could be a prime suspect," Gary told them. "She is on the archive books. She used to be a security officer at an all-female gay club in Sheffield. The club was forced out of business and a Miss Barbarella Knowles alias Baby applied for several jobs before getting one in Middlethumpton. It explains why she was so imposing, Dorothy."
"She had very broad shoulders. I wasn't sure if it was a woman at first. You hear a lot about such cases these days. She looked a bit better at the concert, dressed up for the stage, but in the stained butcher's apron she looked almost super-human and there was nothing feminine about her."
Dorothy shuddered.
"How did she get a criminal record," Cleo wanted to know.
"She chucked a man out of the club, unfortunately with rather too much enthusiasm after his curly blond wig fell off at the bar and his attempt to pass as a woman was frustrated. A male gate-crasher was a persona non grata there. There was no gender-free category. The guy landed in the gutter, broke an arm and his nose and Baby was charged with causing grievous bodily harm. The judge gave her a suspended sentence and told her she frightened the life out of him and should be prevented from attacking people, even if she did think it was part of her job."
"So she didn't actually lose her job."
"No. In fact she got very good press notices for what was described as her courage, though she was a head taller than the intruder and probably double his weight."
"It must have been a battle of self-assertion between her and Laura then," said Cleo. "I'm amazed that she sang in a chorus. That requires a certain amount of self-control, surely."
"I expect she enjoyed being the strongest everywhere," said Dorothy. "She was certainly the loudest."
"But her finances are in a terrible state," Gary continued, after consulting the stream of information appearing on his monitor. "No sign of regular cash payments into her account."
"Presumably Baby already had Gareth Morgan under control," Cleo said.
"She probably scared the living daylights out of him," said Dorothy.
"That would seem to wrap up Baby then," Cleo commented. "What about Margaret McKenzie? There’s no entry here."
"I think she was the brains of the quartet, with Baby as the brawn," said Dorothy. "She was really rude to me at the baker's. I wondered if she had seen me talking briefly to Laura before the concert and recognized me. I didn't see her at the rehearsal I attended."
"You could ask her, Shirley," said Gary. "In fact, you could look up all four of those women and see how they are coping with Laura's murder."
"Will do," said Shirley.
"We’ll get a print-out of any information available,” said Gary.
"I could go now, if I can have that list," Shirley offered.
“I’ll print it,” said Dorothy.
“Blue tooth, Dorothy, if you just switch on your printer. I can see that it does that. We could use them at HQ”
Dorothy purred.
"Thanks," said Shirley. “Anything else I should know?"
"What about Mary Busby, Dorothy?" Gary asked. "What sort of character was she? There’s no police record of her, either."
"I think she was just another hanger-on, quite pretty in a homely sort of way. She was a bit of a dogsbody. No voice, but she jumped up when someone called for help, and she made the refreshments."
“She sounds awful,” said Gary.
“Not your type at all, Gary,” said Dorothy.
"There's always a chance that she was roped in to get round Mr Morgan and failed,” said Dorothy.  “But something worked. We know that Mr Morgan has now started rehearsing with the new chorus, which is identical to Laura's but without Laura."
“You haven’t looked up the Norton woman yet,” said Cleo.
“No mention of an Eileen Norton, Ladies, but that only means she is not registered in a police record.”
"You would have thought some would have been loyal enough to prevent Laura  Finch being humiliated," said Gary.
"Most people take the easiest way out and singing with Laura Finch was no longer really an option," said Dorothy. "She had put everyone's backs up one way or another, including Mr Morgan's by refusing to have Phillis in the chorus any longer."
“So Mr Morgan was already toying with Phillis, was he?” said Shirley.
“I suppose that depends on what you mean by toying,” said Gary. “What do you mean, Dorothy?”
“Don’t answer that!“ said Cleo. “Gary is toying with you now.”
"That chorus sounds like a den of thieves, Ladies," said Gary. “Is Phillis now singing with them under Morgan’s baton?”
“No,” said Dorothy. “I understand that she has been too busy to attend.”
“Busy?”
“She has a new boyfriend,” said Cleo. “Robert said a muscular young man had been calling for her at the shop.”
***
"One thing I'm pretty sure of is that we'll have to look elsewhere for the white paint artist," said Gary.
“Are we back on that, now?” said Gary. “I was enjoying the chorus tittle-tattle.”
“I notice,” said Cleo. “It doesn't have to have been the same person at both sites, does it? I thought we’d already ruled that out.”
"So we had. The writing on the shop window probably has nothing to do with the writing on the mirror. It was just a coincidence," said Gary.
"Bontemps is spiteful and he hates Robert for expanding his range of meats and other foods. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if it were him," said Cleo.
“That’s the guy who serves at the grocer’s isn’t it?” sad Gary. "I'll question him, Cleo. If he bears a grudge, it might have been him."
"He's a creep," said Dorothy. "But I think he's also a coward. If he smeared paint on the window he'll admit it as soon as the slightest pressure is put on him."
"It's certainly time to sort out the suspects we already have. They can't all have committed murder. What’s more, a trivial crime like daubing a shop window does not normally go hand in hand with homicide."
***
Cleo's mobile rang.
“Talk of the devil,” she said after the call.
“Which devil are we talking about now? “Dorothy asked.
"Bontemps did not like it that I had discovered he came from Bristol, not Boulogne. That could be the strongest motive for smirching Robert’s shop window, couldn’t it?"
"How did you find that out, Cleo?" Dorothy wanted to know.
"He had a letter in front of him at the shop the other day. It was postmarked Bristol. I asked him if the letter was from his mother. The handwriting on the envelope looked like that of an older lady and he nodded. He corrected himself pretty fast. But not fast enough. That's the sort of information a private investigator tends to remember."
"I know who you mean, Cleo," said Shirley. "I once tried to buy some Irish cheese there on the way home from some assignment or other, but he was trying to sell off his French Camembert in an atrocious pseudo French accent before it ran away. I spoke to him in French and he looked at me as if I'd just fallen out of the sky. He bluffed his way out by turning sarcastic when I refused to buy the Camembert. He said I shouldn't offend his birth-land by making fun of his mother tongue. In the end I didn’t even get any Irish cheese, either. I don't remember anything about my investigation that day."
"He's the sort of person who pops up when you're least expecting it," added Dorothy. “Do you remember him gate-crashing your party at Delilah’s, Cleo? He's a scheming monkey!"
“So why did he call you, Cleo?” said Gary.
“He wanted to order meat and Robert must still be at his table-tennis match. You heard what I told him.”
***
Gary let the conversation drift. A short interview with the pseudo Frenchman in a cold, starkly lit interview room would soon reveal any misdemeanour. This distraction from the matter in hand was quite entertaining, he thought. Anyway, mourning Laura Finch was hardly productive from a police point of view, and it didn't seem likely that Dorothy Price was going to devote much of her energy to the memory of the late Laura Finch, either. In fact, Cleo seemed to be a good deal more affected.
"It really would be relevant to find out more about Bontemps,” said Gary. “For instance, if he was smitten with Mrs Finch and she told him she wasn't interested, he might have turned nasty. She knew him, after all. It's also possible that she arranged to meet him to put an end to whatever he was doing that annoyed her."
Considering Gary had never met Mr Bontemps, his theorizing was pretty impressive, Cleo thought to herself. Dorothy was less impressed.
"And he plighted his troth, was spurned and drew the knife he just happened to have with him and told her to turn her back on him," Dorothy scoffed with such vehemence that they all laughed.
***
“Time to go, Shirley,” said Gary. “Work to do.”
"You and Cleo will both have to be more cautious about where you go and what you say.” He told the two sleuths. “No interviewing suspects off your own bat."
"Yes, sir, no sir," replied Cleo, who was disappointed and puzzled that Gary had turned hostile and bossy, but she’d seen it all before. Gary wanted to arrest Laura Finch's murderer without two amateurs interfering. He wasn't sure if he could trust Cleo and Dorothy to keep their promise not to interfere with the investigations. Out of earshot, he commented to Shirley that the Cleo and Dorothy were underestimating the situation and that worried him.
***
Gary led the way out.
Shirley was puzzled.
“You aren’t responsible  for them,” she commented.
“In a way, I am.”
“Jason and Jessica will also have to be traced quickly," said Shirley. "Another can of worms. There's something Bonny and Clyde about that pair."
Gary Hurley should have known better. He had left behind him two rather defiant amateur sleuths who were not interested in letting any sleeping dogs lie, even after a brusque warning.
“Where to now, “ Shirley wanted to know.
“I’d like you to talk to those women tomorrow and report back. I’m not sure about Dorothy’s portrayal. It’ll be interesting to compare your impression with hers.”
“I could cook us something,” said Shirley.
“I’m not free,” said Gary.
“Is that in the rulebook?”

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