Authors: Angela Dracup
‘You’re Christian Hartwell’s mother, aren’t you?’ the man asked, his voice perfectly steady and polite.
Ruth told herself to stop thinking wildly about women who got assaulted or murdered on their doorsteps. She had never been fearful about people coming to the house. Well, it would be a different story if they were pointing a gun at her. But this man was outwardly mild-mannered and as far as she could see without the company of a gun. And she would not be intimidated. ‘You want to talk about Christian, is that it?’
He nodded.
‘Come in, then.’ She took him through to the kitchen. ‘Do you want coffee?’ she asked with her automatic politeness.
‘Yes, that would be nice.’ He sat down at the table and folded his hands in front of him. The dog got into her basket and sat bolt upright, regarding the visitor with disapproval.
Ruth switched on the kettle. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked, schooling herself to sound unruffled and polite.
‘Mac.’ He spun the word out, laying emphasis on the last letter which sent out a loud clicking sound. His eyes, whilst cool and expressionless, seemed to challenge her.
Ruth felt the chill in the atmosphere. Was this man trying to tell her something very unpleasant?
‘Look,’ she said, shrewd enough to know when she was on the sharp end of menace, ‘just tell me how I can help you. I’m rather busy, I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in half an hour.’
‘Oh, dear. Are you not well?’ he asked. He smiled a chilly smile.
‘Flu jab for the over sixties,’ she lied.
‘Better safe than sorry,’ he said. ‘OK, I won’t trouble you more than I need. I used to work with Christian. On the
Echo
. It’s a long while ago, now. We got together recently and he talked about his ideas for a new book and I talked about my own ideas. We decided it might be a smart move to collaborate. He’d do the text and I’d do the photos.’
‘I see,’ Ruth said, ignoring the kettle’s coming up to boil. She’d changed her mind about giving this man refreshment. She couldn’t wait to get rid of him. And yet, quite why, she couldn’t say.
‘The idea was for one of those books where you capture people in certain settings, then think up snappy captions. I’d already done the photos, sent them on to Christian.’
‘But?’ her voice was meant to be steely, but came out weary.
‘I’ve lost the originals, made a mistake and deleted them from my camera.’ He stared right at her, his eyes like those of a deadly snake. ‘So I’d be grateful to have the copies back.’
‘I haven’t got them,’ she said, wondering if that was the very worst thing she could have said. As pathetic as pleading a doctor’s appointment.
He spread his hands in a gesture of disappointment. His eyes were suddenly drawn to the kitchen window. ‘You have got a visitor,’ he said.
Ruth followed his gaze. Craig stood outside the kitchen window, peering in with anxious eyes. She could not have been more pleased to see him if he had been the Angel Gabriel. She went to the kitchen door and unlocked it. ‘Craig!’ she exclaimed, ‘come in.’
Craig’s bulk filled the doorway; the sheer size of him equally as menacing as Mac’s snake eyes, in Ruth’s book. ‘Go sit down,’ she told him, her voice warm with welcome and affection.
Mac looked from Ruth to Craig then held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Craig,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
‘Good,’ Craig muttered.
‘I’m Mac,’ he said. ‘Mac the Knife,’ he added, as though it were a joke. He began to hum the famous tune from
The Threepenny Opera
.
Ruth froze. She noted that Craig didn’t appear to register either the tune or the song title; she assumed because he was too young. ‘Mac was just leaving,’ she told Craig with a sideways glance at the unwelcome visitor.
‘I thought you were going to give me some coffee,’ said Mac, shooting her a look that made her feel like rushing to the phone in the hall and dialling 999.
Getting no response from Ruth, Mac turned to Craig. ‘Are you one of Mrs Hartwell’s family?’ he asked.
‘Aye.’ Craig stared hard at Mac, then turned away. ‘I’ve got a job,’ he told Ruth. ‘At the pub down the road. The boss said I had to go on Friday for a trial.’
‘Well done!’ said Ruth. ‘Look, Craig, I have to go the doctor. I won’t be long.’ She looked meaningfully at Mac. ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ she said.
He followed her down the hall. ‘Chill, Mrs Hartwell. I only wanted to talk to you.’
‘I can’t tell you anything about Christian,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve not been much involved with him for a long time now.’
‘But you’re his mother, aren’t you? His next of kin?’
She bit on her lip, judging that silence was best.
‘And his sister is called Harriet, is that right? He used to talk about her.’
Ruth swallowed.
‘I really must get to my appointment,’ she said, unlocking her old Ford Escort and praying it would start.
He shut the driver’s door for her. His eyes bored into her. A smile slithered over his face as she let in the clutch.
She drove down the road, not knowing where she was heading, her hands shaking. She knew that he knew she had been lying.
And he knew that she had a daughter, he knew her name. And if things didn’t work out with Mrs Hartwell she could be the next lever.
As soon as he heard Ruth’s car start up Craig, who had been standing behind the door listening carefully to the final exchanges between her and the man who called himself Mac the Knife, moved softly down the hallway. Mac the Knife was sauntering down the path. He glanced back once, but Craig had hidden himself in the shadow behind the door. He stepped out of the door as the creepy guy rounded the gate post. He pushed at the latch to click it in open position, but drew the door against the frame so that the dog would not get out, and he would be able to get back in.
When he reached the road he kept well back, watching every step Mac the Knife took as he walked along the road. Quite soon he paused at a bus stop just as a bus approached, hopped on and was swallowed up into the bus within seconds.
Craig stood still, waiting until the bus was out of sight. ‘Smart move,’ he muttered in grudging admiration of the creepy guy’s efforts to render himself untraceable.
He looked up and down the road, hoping he would see Ruth’s car. She’d been upset by the guy, he could tell. And she was an old lady. He hoped she wouldn’t do anything daft. He made his way back to the house and sat on the kitchen floor, dipping his head and resting his hands between his knees. The dog came out of her basket and sat beside him, leaning her weight against his ribs. And then he waited.
Swift found the landlord of the Black Sheep Inn serving at the bar and joking with a small, all male, clientele. He was a man in his fifties, of a chunky build, and with gnarled weather beaten features. He immediately broke off his banter with his customers on seeing Swift. ‘Now sir, what can I get you?’
Swift looked at the array of bitters on offer and pushed away the temptation of ordering half a pint of ale. The current zero tolerance on drinking was not to be taken lightly. Instead, he showed his warrant card and was instantly rewarded by the landlord’s suggestion that they should go and sit somewhere quieter to talk. ‘Aye, Tom,’ he called out to one of his customers, ‘just take over serving on for a few minutes while I go and persuade this gentleman I’ve no wicked deeds to answer for.’
He led Swift through to the parlour where he had spoken with Charles Brunswick the previous day.
‘Albert Smart, licensee of this hostelry,’ the landlord said. ‘How can I help you, Detective Chief Inspector? Was it you that came yesterday?’
‘It was. I spoke to one of your residents, Mr Charles Brunswick.’
‘Oh, aye. And now you’ve come again; one of the top brasses. Which makes me think something important must be up?’
‘I’ve come in connection with a murder enquiry,’ Swift told him. ‘We were hoping Mr Brunswick would be able to help us further.’
‘Well now, you’re going to be disappointed. Mr Brunswick left earlier this morning, with his lady wife. You’ll have to catch up with him elsewhere. Probably down in the capital.’
‘I was hoping you might be able to help me, Mr Smart.’
‘Were you now? I’ll do me best.’
‘We’re interested to know where Mr Brunswick was on Tuesday last between the hours of 2 and 8 a.m.’
Smart laughed. ‘You don’t go for the easy questions, do you Chief Inspector? The fact of the matter is I sleep like the dead between those hours you mention. However, my wife wakes at the sound of a feather dropping so why don’t I go get her and see if she can throw any light on the matter.’
He went off and very soon returned with a plump, attractive blonde woman dressed in a navy and white summer frock, its neat belt accentuating her curves.
‘This is Iris,’ the landlord said. ‘The lady of the house.’
Iris smiled at Swift. ‘You’re asking about last Tuesday night,’ she said. ‘What do you want to know?’
Being accustomed to a good deal of ducking and diving when being questioned, Swift was impressed by the couple’s directness. ‘I’d like to know if Mr Charles Brunswick, one of your residents, was here during those hours?’
‘Monday,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘That’s the day they arrived.’
‘Did they have dinner here, love?’ her husband asked.
She held up her hand. ‘Don’t interrupt, I’m just trying to get the pictures in my mind. Monday. Right, Monday is one of my days for serving in the dining room. And, yes, they had dinner here that night. I could check it in the book, but I’m totally sure. We had roast duck on the menu that evening and she was very complimentary about it, which was nice of her. They had coffee and then they ordered a second bottle of wine and sat talking. They didn’t come into the bar and they went to bed around 10.15.’
Albert shook his head. ‘I don’t know how she remembers all this stuff. I can hardly remember what happened this morning. But she’s invariably spot on, even going back years.’
Iris shrugged. ‘It’s just a knack.’
‘Where was Mr Brunswick’s car parked?’ Swift asked.
‘Oh, out on the front,’ Iris said, straightaway. ‘I kept eyeing it up; it was a real swanky motor. Fancy number plate too.’
‘And was it there all night – between Monday and Tuesday morning?’ Swift asked.
‘Oh, yes. I’d have heard if it had started up. I’m a very light sleeper. But Mr Brunswick would have had a job on if he’d wanted to use it in the night. Our son got in late on Monday and parked behind it and blocked him in. He sometimes does that if everywhere else is parked up. If there’s an emergency he’ll move it right away, or we will. But most customers here sleep like babies, it’s so quiet and the air’s very enervating for people not used to the countryside.’
‘You sound pretty sure of your details, Mrs Smart,’ Swift remarked.
‘I am, yes,’ she said.
Swift believed her. She struck him as all capability and common sense and blunt straightforwardness.
‘What time did your son move the car the next morning?’ he asked.
‘About a quarter past seven. That’s his usual time to set off to work. It was just as well, because Mr Brunswick came down a few minutes later and went out in the car. He wasn’t gone long, came back with some newspapers. They ordered breakfast in bed and I didn’t see either or them till lunchtime.’
‘They seemed a very happily married couple,’ Albert Smart remarked with meaning, giving Swift a man-to-man glance. ‘Iris had quite a job most days finding a slot to get in the room to tidy up.’
Iris’s lips tightened. ‘That’s true. But you have to live and let live. It’s none of our business.’
‘No, love,’ Albert agreed, slightly chastened. ‘Does that fit the bill, Chief Inspector?’ he asked.
‘Thank you both; it was very useful.’
‘Are you investigating the death of this man Christian Hartwell who was found at Fellbeck Crag?’ Mrs Smart asked. ‘I saw a report in the
Echo.
’
‘You see,’ her husband exclaimed, ‘she knows everything.’
‘I used to know Mrs Hartwell just after she had Harriet,’ Mrs Smart said. ‘We were both members of the Mother’s Union. She was one of those people who would help anyone in trouble, and, do you know, I never heard her say an unkind word about anyone. I used to wish I had it in me to be such a genuinely good person. I’d never have had the courage to take on someone else’s child like she did. Christian was a bit wild in his teens. Well, that’s what I thought, but Ruth and her husband simply accepted him for what he was and dealt with whatever came up.’
‘Did you know him personally?’
‘No, only what Mrs Hartwell told me. But Albert and I moved away from the area when he was about sixteen and I lost touch then. I’m presuming he opted to take the Hartwell’s name.’
Swift nodded.
‘Well, you can’t get a bigger compliment than that, can you.’ She sighed. ‘Poor Ruth, this death will have hit her hard.’ She paused. ‘Do you really think Mr Brunswick might have had something to do with Christian’s death?’
‘We’re simply eliminating people from our enquiries, Mrs Smart.’
She smiled. ‘I’ve heard that one before.’
Albert cleared his throat. ‘Well, I hope Mr Brunswick is off the hook, he seemed a nice bloke. Are you sure you won’t have one for the road?’ he asked Swift as they moved back into the bar. ‘On the house, of course. Our Black Sheep bitter is like nectar.’
Swift smiled. ‘Not in the rule book,’ he said. ‘I’ll come another time when I’m not on duty.’
‘Bring the wife,’ Albert said. ‘We keep a very nice Chardonnay for the ladies.’
Swift manoeuvred his car out of the tiny parking area, thinking that Charles Brunswick had a lot for which to thank Iris Smart and her careful observation of her residents.
Craig heard Ruth’s footsteps in the hallway and jumped to his feet.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked her.
‘I’ve just been driving around. I’m fine.’ She sank down on a chair and unwound the long scarf she was wearing round her neck.
Craig watched her with concern. ‘I was worried about you.’ She gave him a grateful smile.
He sat down at the table opposite her, having no clue of what he might say next. He just wanted her to be all right.