Episode 8 - Betjeman

Gary left the forensic team to finish off and drove the few yards to Cleo's cottage. Chris had left the cottage and driven back to Laura Finch’s bungalow, where the other forensic team was working intensively but failing to find anything suspicious.

Cleo was glad to see Gary, though Jessica’s presence would make any kind of intimacy impossible.

"Jessica's taking a shower," she said.

"Then we have two minutes to talk,” he said.

“OK. What about?”

“For a start, they've probably nearly finished at Mrs Finch's bungalow," he told her. "Miss Finch can go back there shortly."

Cleo told Gary that Jessica had broken her silence and become quite talkative about Laura Finch's past. Could she report on that later in the day? She would go with Jessica to the bungalow and make sure she had enough to eat for a day or two and then take the bus into Middlethumpton.

“I could collect you.”

“No need,” said Cleo. “The more I ride the bus, the more likely I am to get a car.”

“Get your house-guest to buy you one,” said Gary sarcastically.

“I might just do that,” said Cleo.

“Ironic. You would then visit your lover in the car bought for you by that butcher guy.”

“It hasn’t happened yet. Can we get back to Jessica now?”

"Good idea."

"She's waiting for Jason to arrive," Cleo told Gary. “I don’t know if they are siblings or a pair. Jessica did not seem particularly happy that Jason was coming.”

"So you don't think she's going to scarper."

"I doubt it."

"I'll just have a word with her and be getting back to HQ after that. Forensic teams are combing through Laura’s bungalow and Dorothy Price’s cottage right now. Chris is commuting between the two investigations.“

“At Dorothy’s cottage? Is there something Dorothy hasn’t told me about?”

"Don’t you know about the toothpaste on Miss Price’s mirror?"

"No. Dorothy phoned, but only dropped hints. She said you would fill in the details and she had to do something about the Parsnips’ marriage."

“There’s nothing much she can do, Cleo. That marriage is doomed.”

Gary told her briefly about the warning on Miss Price's bathroom mirror and how Edith Parsnip and Miss Price, having found the front door wide open, had called the police.

“Didn’t Dorothy call you direct?”

“No, but I caught the message because they are relayed to me if they come into the crime department.”

"Writing on a mirror sounds like a prank," said Cleo.

"Whoever did it bears a grudge against Dorothy."

“Very childish. I hope the ladies didn't go in alone."

"Fortunately they were too scared."

"The plot thickens," said Cleo. "Why on earth would anyone want to threaten Dorothy?"

"Perhaps someone has it in for her – one of her piano kids, for instance."

That set Cleo thinking.

"Is Dorothy OK?” she asked. “I feel responsible for her. I sent her investigating those chorus women."

"Yes. She's safe at the vicarage, though the vicar and his wife are definitely in the throes of a marriage crisis."

"That's been going on since Edith's amnesia."

"Amnesia?"

"The case of the lecherous bishop, Gary. Sounds like a good title for a whodunit. I’m surprised that you’ve forgotten."

“That must have been about the time I had burnout. I’ve blotted out a lot of memories from round that time.”

“Jessica has finished with the shower, Gary. She’ll be her any time now.”

"I got the impression from Miss Price that the vicar was besotted by Laura Finch," Gary said.

“Wow.”

“He definitely carried a torch for her. Some men get a kick from imagining sex with such women.”

“He has Edith.”

“I doubt it,” said Gary. "He’s the sort of guy who would fall for aggressive sex. He probably isn’t getting his share at home.”

“It isn’t always the men who are aggressive, Gary.”

“Do you think the vicar and Mrs Finch were really … how shall I put it?”

“Try a direct approach, Gary. No, I’m sure they didn’t, but I expect the vicar would have liked it judging from the way he behaved at entertainment committee meetings,” said Cleo. “I just hope Dorothy doesn't give him the third degree in the name of friendship. That might spoil him for talking to you, Gary."

"I'll have to risk that."

"Not that Frederick Parsnip would smell a rat, but Dorothy should not be indulging in ad lib investigations. I'd better warn her."

"Do that, lease."

"On the other hand, Dorothy Price's meddling is always with method, Gary. I'm restricted by my skin colour, but accepted because I otherwise look … homely. In fact, I'm starting to think I should steer away from investigating and get into less muddy waters. I'll turn the office into a bookshop."

"You're in the thick of a murder case now, Cleo, but it might all just be a series of mishaps. We don't know if the persons who pushed Mrs Finch through your office window even knew the place had a new tenant. Could Mrs Finch’s deposit in the office be connected with the Norton brothers, or was their antique business just a harmless cover-up?"

“Since when has a cover-up been harmless, Gary? It was all a bit weird. I often went past the shop, but it was always shut, there were no lights on inside, and the stuff in the window didn't change from week to week, so there was probably no business going on at all, except business no one else was meant to know about. I can remember thinking it would make a good office. Then one morning the place had been completely cleared and Robert immediately contacted the house owner about renting the place as an office for me."

"Great minds thinking alike,” said Gary, thinking that Robert was a creep, tying Cleo to him by encouraging her to go into business. It would not last, he decided.

"I never when in the shop, so it was only when I got the leasing contract, I discovered that the house is owned by the guy who owns the Dog and Whistle. No wonder he could settle in Mallorca."

“The whole antique palaver was probably a blind, knowing what the Norton brothers usually got up to,” said Gary. “And they are as slippery as eels. There’s an encyclopaedia of the crimes they got away with."

“I hope that won’t apply to Laura’s case,” said Cleo.

“Between you and me, Roger does not take things seriously enough,” said Gary.  “The Norton brothers are a good example.”

“I suppose that’s one reason they are criminals rather than cops,” said Cleo. “Would you like some coffee, Gary?"

Jessica appeared, dressed in jeans and a sweater.

"Hi! Can I go to the house now?" she asked.

“I’ll check,” said Gary, and phoned Chris on his mobile.

“I was about to phone you, Gary,” he said. “We’re leaving now.”

"It's all yours, Jessica.  The forensic team is just leaving."

"I wish it was," she replied enigmatically.

“Wish it was what?”

“All mine, Mister.”

“That’s a legal issue, Miss Finch. We’ll have to get the murderer and the rest is up to whatever legal provision Laura Finch made.”

Gary got up and embraced Cleo over the back of her chair. Cleo thought the gesture was exaggerated, but Gary was deliberately putting an end to Jessica’s speculation. The young woman was smirking and nodding.

“See you later,” said Gary, moving towards the front door..

“Do we have a date?” Jessica said.

“No. I meant Cleo.”

“I thought you did, Mister” said Jessica, winking.

“Don’t tell Robert,” he said.

“As if I would,” said Jessica.

***

“What a guy!” Jessica sighed.

“That performance was for your benefit, Jessica. He doesn’t want you to think I prefer Robert.”

“You don’t, do you.”

“Heavens, no!”

“So why does he live here?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you some other time.”

***

Jessica put the few belongings she had brought along into her backpack and Cleo walked with her to Laura Finch's bungalow. The forensic team had left everything tidy. The furniture was not modern, but at least everything was in its place. Laura had never managed to organize herself as the forensic team had now done for her. For Cleo, the unanswered question was whether Laura had gone to her death of her own accord.

Leaving Jessica to make herself a cup of tea, Cleo told Jessica she would ask around a bit about Laura’s movements during the last few days. She would use the excuse of Jessica moving in and being too sad to introduce herself. She hoped someone had seen something.

***

The bungalow next door in Lavender Drive was occupied by a retired couple, who kept poultry enclosed in an area taking up almost the whole of their back garden, and their only son, the infamous Betjeman.

The Crightons were set in their ways. Mr Crighton went out at nightfall, counted the hens to see if they were all there, and shooed them together with the old rooster into their hut. They found their sleeping spaces and ruffled their feathers before obediently falling into their nightly reveries.

While Mr Crighton was seeing to the poultry, Mrs Crighton made cocoa, and when they had drunk it they went to bed. Since it was July, their bedtime was fairly late, as they virtually went to bed with the poultry when it got dark. Mr Crighton said he had been woken up by a scuffle in the hen hut, but it had only lasted a minute or two and he hadn't spotted anyone through the bedroom window so it might have been a fox. Mrs Crighton had slept through the noise.

Mr Crighton said the hens were neurotic so it didn’t have to have been a fox. If the rooster had got his hormones going and started to chase the hens round the confined space, that would also have caused a panic. Mr Crighton would have preferred to keep rabbits, but Mrs Crighton liked her fresh boiled egg every morning and rabbits don't deliver anything except one Sunday lunch and a fur collar. Cleo wondered if that was the only difference of opinion.

Betjeman was the shining star in the Crightons' life. He had been an unexpected addition to the family after the Crightons had long since buried their hopes of having children. Nobody was quite sure if he was really their son or had been acquired in some other way. Tall, lanky and with an unhealthy pallor, Betjeman could not find a job to suit his lack of qualifications. He lived at home on benefits and the devoted care and attention given him by his mother while Mr Crighton looked on resentfully.

Betjeman always wore leather gloves, even when his outfit consisted otherwise of jogging pants and a T-shirt. He went for long bike rides or walks and caused speculation through his stalking activities and exhibitionism, but the police had not actually received any official complaints about him, possibly because that would have meant the accuser having to confront him. Betjeman put what the locals called ‘the fear of God’ into them.

Betjeman didn't talk much and had developed a strong dislike of anyone who interfered in his way of life, including Laura Finch during the few weeks she had lived next door. Seeing he was at a loose end, she had asked him if he would like to tidy up her garden and been rewarded with a stream of expletives. If he had also exposed himself to her, she had not reported it. Betjeman’s expletives had also been heard by the woman across the road, but she was used to it.

The truth is that Betjeman not only had no job, he did not want one. The neighbours thought he was just lazy. They did not know that he had been uneducable at school and subject to what Mrs Crighton described as funny turns. He wasn't openly aggressive, unless you count the hens he strangled during one of those funny turns. Betjeman would have done away with the poultry altogether had not Mr Crighton convinced him in a man to man talk of their usefulness as providers of fresh eggs for his breakfast and the occasional Sunday dinner. The Sunday dinners coincided with Betjeman’s murderous attacks on the livestock.

Betjeman did not have any friends, though he sometimes spent an evening in the saloon at the bistro, where Mitch kept an eagle eye on him. Delilah Browne, who ran the Dog and Whistle, had introduced karaoke, wine and bistro food, but kept up the supply of beer in barrels for those who came for it, so the former pub was a popular venue for the homeless and loners, most of whom had never tasted wine except out of cartons from the supermarket. She justified welcoming the waifs and strays of the district by explaining that she felt she was doing something positive for society. That kind of bloke sat peacefully in a corner eating a freebie special of chips and something or noodles and something. She charged them only nominally for the beer. It was her way of nurturing the needy. She included Betjeman in her category of those needing better understanding.

Betjeman wasn't homeless, but you could hardly say he was in the swim of things. Girls wouldn't have anything to do with him, saying he undressed them with his eyes. Most men thought he was peculiar since he also undressed them. He should be banned for indecency, they claimed, but Delilah was sure it was better to have him where she could keep an eye on him. Betjeman especially revelled in the sight of Delilah's fulsome figure, but he was careful not to show any lewdness in case he was shown the door.

Cleo stood on the doorstep of the Crighton bungalow while Betjeman hovered warily behind Mr and Mrs Crighton, who took care to conduct conversations with strangers outside rather than inviting them in. Cleo told them that Jessica Finch, who had just moved into next door, was too sad about her mother to introduce herself that day. Her brother Jason would be arriving shortly.

Mr Crighton made out that he wasn't really interested. Mrs Crighton made no audible comment, but pulled her husband backwards into the hall muttering that it was his turn to take the rubbish out. Cleo thought the woman was nasty and the poor guy was definitely henpecked, but that neither of them was likely to have had anything to do with Laura's fate.

In the meantime Betjeman had feigned disinterest and gone out through the back door. He was standing stock still at the fence dividing the Crightons' and Laura's bungalows when Cleo walked back down the drive.

On the other side of Laura's bungalow, at No. 5, the wooden shutters were closed. Cleo went back to the Crightons and this time Mrs Crighton answered the door on her own. Cleo asked her if the shutters at No. 5 were always closed like that and Mrs Crighton informed her begrudgingly that the occupant was on holiday somewhere like Portugal or was it Portmadoc? The occupant was an unmarried, middle-aged woman who wrote books apparently, though Mrs Crighton had not read any of them in case they were naughty. Then she changed her tune and told Cleo it was no business of hers what the woman wrote. The door was slammed in Cleo's face.

Cleo, who had managed Middlethumpton library for some time, did not recognize the author's name, Cora Costello, which she presently read on the letterbox of No. 5. She suspected that the author’s books might be paperbacks stacked on rolling tables between the supermarket shelves. They would have heroines such as nurses in uniforms with implants revealed by open uniform buttons and designed to seduce the doctors.

Next to Number 5 was a field the size of the plot of land the bungalows stood on, but occupied only by a horse that she learnt later belonged to someone from Middlethumpton. Then the road made a curve, so the residents in houses further up the road could not possibly see what went on at No. 3.

Cleo crossed the road to the houses opposite. No. 2 was occupied by someone with two children. Cleo deduced that from the two kiddies' bikes propped up against the fence. The resident, Mrs Silver, said the children were at school and her husband was at work. Cleo asked the woman about any goings-on in the neighbourhood. Mrs Silver said she had not noticed anything unusual except Betjeman, and they were all used to his antics. Mrs Finch had been quite pleasant, she said. They had not struck up a conversation of any depth in the few weeks she had lived across the road, so she did not know much about her except that she was a retired singer. After all, it took months if not years to get to know anyone anywhere these days, even if they were locals. She told Cleo that Betjeman had shouted at Laura once, but she did not say why.

"Mrs Finch wasn't a local, was she?" said Cleo.

"Neither are we," said Mrs Silver. "We only moved here three years ago and we're starting to regret it," she added. "We thought village people were friendly, but they aren't. The Crightons are typical. They'd rather talk to their hens, and that son of theirs gives me the creeps. I watch my girls like a hawk when they are out playing in the garden. Such men often have an appetite for little girls."

"You're very wise to protect the kids," agreed Cleo.

"I'm not accusing him of anything," said Mrs Silver, "but he looks like a pervert."

Cleo pressed on with what she had come for.

"You know that Mrs Finch was murdered, don't you?"

"Yes. I was curious about the police activity across the road and went over to ask what they were doing. A dreadful business, but they said she wasn't killed there."

"And that's what I was wondering about," said Cleo. "Jessica Finch, Laura's daughter, has moved in for the time being, and it would be nice to know that no one had been stalking Mrs Finch, or otherwise behaving suspiciously."

"No one except Betjeman, but he stalks everyone," said Mrs Silver. "We'd have phoned the police immediately. Sometimes Betjeman Crighton stands around in the road, but you can’t report an imbecile for peeing over the hedge, can you?"

“You can, Mrs Silver. What if all the men did that? It’s obscene and antisocial.”

“I’d be scared what he do to us,” said Mrs Silver.

"And you've no idea when or how Mrs Finch left home the night before last, I suppose."

"None at all."

"And your husband?"

"He came in late again, but he would have said something. I'm sure. No. this road is as silent as the grave once the cars are in."

"It's a mystery why she left the bungalow."

"I hope they find out soon. It's a bit scary knowing there's a murderer on the loose."

"That's true. You must be on your guard. But why don't you and your husband come over one evening for a meal? Robert and I would enjoy an evening entertaining you and the police are sure to have solved the crime very soon. Didn’t Robert buy his delivery van at your husband’s car showrooms?"

"Did he? That would be nice - the invitation, I mean," said Mrs Silver.

Cleo gave her a business card.

"Call me when you know what evening you can come. We are usually at home, and Robert can organize some really good steaks if we know beforehand."

"That sounds marvellous."

"I'll just ask next door if they saw or heard anything."

"Don't bother. They're taking their annual break. They have a cottage somewhere in Scotland. They've been away for at least a fortnight."

"No point in going there, then. Bye for now, Mrs Silver. I'd better see how Jessica is getting on."

Cleo turned to go.

"Just a minute, Miss Hartley," Mrs Silver called after her. "On your card it says private investigator not police."

"I never said I was from the police, Mrs Silver, but I do occasionally work with the police."

"Do you also work without them?"

"I've only just opened my office – that is, I would have opened it if I hadn't fallen over Mrs Finch's corpse there yesterday morning."

“How creepy…. It's just that…."

Mrs Silver hesitated.

"It's just that…my husband has been spending a lot of time at work recently, and I'd like to know why. He never used to work such long hours."

"I'll tell you what, Mrs…."

"Sylvia. Call me Sylvia."

"And I'm Cleo, but you can see that on the card."

"Could I talk to you privately somewhere?"

"Yes. I can't use my office, but you could come over to my cottage tomorrow morning."

"Thanks. I’d like that. Normally the children are at home on a Saturday, but this term they are there on Saturday mornings for extramural activities. Nice things like painting and music."

"That must be really great for them, Mrs Silver."

"It is. I walk there with them to the part of the school building near the top of Thumpton Hill. I'll call on the way back if that's all right."

"What time?"

"Soon after nine. Is that too early?"

"That'll be fine."

"See you then."

"OK."