Catching up with Murder - Chapter 1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior (written) permission of the author. This is a (copyrighted) work of fiction. Names,, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. SYNOPSIS: CATCHING UP WITH MURDER: a novel in three acts  The novel divides itself naturally into three acts.  Act One commences with a young woman, JULIE SIMPSON, asking retired Chief Inspector FRED WINTER to investigate the death of an aunt, RUTH TEMPLE, found dead in her bath. Since a large amount of alcohol was found in Ruth’s body, the coroner records a verdict of accidental death.  Julie thinks otherwise but cannot convince Winter - at first... Once Winter is on the case, he not only embarks on various avenues of enquiry but also finds himself attracted to an old flame CAROL BRADY whose husband had been murdered some years ago.  One potential lead after another leads to the same dead end - a village on the south coast called Monks Tallow. Act Two now takes the reader back twenty years to the early 1980s. A young man, RALPH COTTER, shoots his friend, SEAN BRADY, at Brady's home, witnessed by Brady's young son, LIAM.  Cotter, a married, closet homosexual, is terrified that Brady will expose him. Cotter runs to his lover, Darren “Daz” HORTON for help. They head for a cottage belonging to Horton’s aunt. (The aunt is visiting her daughter in New Zealand so the cottage is empty). En route, they stop to give a lift to a woman, SARAH MANNERS, whose car has broken down in a storm. Shortly afterwards, the car skids and smashes into a tree, killing Sarah.  The two men bury the body and Cotter evades capture by taking her identity.  Darren’s aunt dies and he inherits the cottage. He and Cotter live there, happily enough, as man and ‘wife’ - in an obscure English village called - Monks Tallow. Act Three follows Fred Winter to Monks Tallow where he slowly pieces together this jigsaw of audacious masquerade and murder, putting not only his own life in danger but also but those close to him. Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

CATCHING UP WITH MURDER

A Novel in Three Acts

By

Roger N. Taber

ACT I

The present day

CHAPTER ONE

“I’m telling you, Inspector Winter, my aunt was murdered.”

“And I’m telling you, Miss Simpson, I’m retired.”

A pretty blond woman in her early thirties and a man well into his fifties with a shock of wiry grey hair and beard to match glared at each other across the room.  They were in Fred Winter’s living room. He was sprawled comfortably in a black leather armchair, thinking how Julie Simpson reminded him of Miss Parker, a schoolteacher he’d once had a crush on more years ago than he cared to remember. She sat erect on the edge of a huge leather sofa, also black, wondering why she hadn’t taken her leave of this infuriating man some time ago.

“So you won’t help me?” She made it sound like an accusation.

 Winter warmed to the young woman even more.  Julie Simpson had spunk. He liked that.  “I really don’t see how I can,” he protested, “You’ve given me no reason to doubt the coroner’s summing-up. You’ll forgive me if I say you could have done worse than a verdict of death by misadventure.”

“It should have been murder.”

“It could have been suicide,” he pointed out.

My aunt rarely touched alcohol, Inspector. Besides, she was a very sensible woman. There’s no way she’d have been foolish enough to take a bath even if she had been drinking.”

“Alcohol makes fools of us all, Miss Simpson,” murmured Fred Winter, stroking his beard, “The postmortem confirmed your aunt had consumed a significant quantity, you say?”  His guest pursed her lips, nodding mutely. “So I fail to see why anyone should suspect murder.  Indeed, as I understand it, no one does or ever has… except you.”     

“Auntie Ruth wasn’t stupid,” the crisp voice declared forcefully. “Nor was she suicidal,” it added for good measure. A pair of green eyes flashed at Winter just as Miss Parker’s had, frequently, for appearing less attentive than he might have been.

“We all put on a face, Miss Simpson. Few of us are privy to what goes on behind it. Were you close to your aunt?”  The question seemed to catch her unawares. She started. A faint blush brought a dash of welcome colour to cheeks that were far too pale, he thought. “Would she have confided in you if she had been...?”

“Driven to drink?”           

“Distressed in any way,” he corrected her in the same soft voice that had caught many off their guard in the past, led to expect a more booming sound by the shock of steely hair and strong, angular jaw.

“On the contrary,” Julie Simpson responded evenly, “she was very much looking forward to visiting an old friend in Monk’s Tallow. That’s a village on the coast, near Brighton.” She reminded herself she must expect all these questions. Even so, she had expected … what had she expected?  “To be believed, for a start,” she told herself with growing agitation.

“Monk’s Tallow, you say? I know it,” he said in such a way that made her flesh tingle. A look crossed the tired-looking face that spoke volumes. She couldn’t help but wonder what memories Monk’s Tallow held for Fred Winter and sensed him leave her, briefly, for another time, another place... 

Winter forced himself to get a grip. Even so, he did not believe in coincidences and a suspicion lingered. Could Julie Simpson have taken the trouble to find out that he and Helen were married at the parish church of St Andrew’s in Monk’s Tallow nearly twenty-five years ago?  Is that why she had come to him, not, as she had only vaguely explained, because a friend had suggested she might ask for his help?

It was a few moments before he could speak. Helen’s death had come as a terrible, unexpected blow.  Tragedy had struck out of the blue more than a year ago. Yet he was still reeling from the suddenness of it all; the tumour, the operation, and the awful end that came only days after his official retirement. A lump came to his throat as he found himself reflecting how they would have been celebrating their silver wedding anniversary in a few weeks. They had met in their mid-thirties, both on the rebound from someone or other in a long line of disastrous relationships. It had seemed too good to be true.

“Auntie Ruth wouldn’t have missed going to Monk’s Tallow for the world,” Julie Simpson persisted, “She hadn’t seen her friend for years and, besides...” Her voice tailed off. Winter’s ears pricked up. Curiosity broke into his reverie and demanded he pay due attention.

“Besides?” he prompted more brusquely than he intended.

Julie hesitated. She wished it wasn’t all so complicated. Or was it? Perhaps she should have taken Alan’s advice and left well alone. She had agreed to marry Alan Best only the day before Auntie Ruth’s body was discovered.  Since then, he hadn’t stopped nagging her about how they had enough on their shared plate, sorting Ruth’s affairs and making wedding plans, without the added distraction of a likely wild goose chase.

While conceding Alan’s point, however, Julie still hadn’t been able to shake off the feeling that Ruth Temple’s death was no accident nor that, somehow, it was linked to events in Monk’s Tallow. Alan kept telling her she had read too many crime novels and maybe he was right. But she hadn’t slept well since it happened. More to the point, she was sick and tired of everyone telling her it how was all in her mind, only to be expected, part and parcel of the grieving process.  “It’s all a bit of a muddle,” she admitted without looking up but staring at clenched hands in her lap.

“Take your time,” murmured Fred Winter, smiling encouragingly.  Something about this young woman intrigued him, quite apart from her uncanny resemblance to Miss Parker.  It had been a while since anything other than a sense of being utterly lost had penetrated self-defence mechanisms he’d gone to considerable lengths to keep firmly in place during recent months. A sharp mind that had brought countless criminals to book for offences great and small had been pretty well inactive since Helen’s funeral, closing down shutters on all but the basics.  He had rarely bothered to return calls or even answer the front door. Outgoings were strictly rationed to the bare essentials. Chance alone had brought him home from a trip to the supermarket just as Julie Simpson was about to drive away.  It would have been churlish not to invite her inside, especially since she was plainly agitated and bore such a striking resemblance to Miss Parker.  The latter, he recalled with a warm glow of admiration, had been coolness personified. For Miss Parker to become agitated there had to be a very good reason. As for ‘muddle’, the word simply hadn’t existed in Miss Parker’s vocabulary. “What, exactly, is a muddle?” he tried again.

Julie Simpson shrugged. “If I knew that, it wouldn’t be a muddle, would it?” she retorted with logic that Winter wryly conceded would have done Miss Parker proud. “I suppose it all started at the funeral.”

“That would be your aunt’s funeral?”

“No, but he was an old friend of hers. His name was James Morrissey. He was killed in a car accident nearly two years ago. It happened in Monk’s Tallow,” she added almost as an afterthought.

Winter let out a long sigh, an old habit whenever his interest was aroused against his better judgement.  She hesitated again. This time, he merely waited for her to continue. A sixth sense warned him this conversation would return to haunt him and he grudgingly proceeded to focus.

“Years ago, Auntie Ruth shared a flat with a girl called Sarah Manners. Sarah and James became engaged to be married and started looking for a place of their own. One day, Sarah took off without a word to anyone.  According to Auntie Ruth, James was suicidal. They went through all the usual channels and spent a year or more trying to trace her.”  She shrugged. “I suppose she just didn’t want to be found.  You hear of people like that, don’t you, who up and leave without any explanation?”  She sighed, fidgeted with her hands then sighed again. “It must be a terrible feeling to want to leave everything and everyone you know for...what?” Whatever possesses such people?”

Whatever, indeed…? ”Winter felt not only obliged to ask himself the same question but suspected he may know the answer.  However, not for the first time in recent months, he elected not to go down that particular path.

“In the end,” Julie Simpson continued, “James took a job in Canada after Auntie Ruth promised to let him know if she heard from Sarah. She never did, though, from that day to this.  Then, a couple of years ago, she heard that Sarah was living in Monk’s Tallow. She wrote to James and he flew back to London almost at once. According to Auntie Ruth, he’d never got over Sarah, was determined to find her and get...”

“Revenge..?”

She shrugged. “I imagine he felt entitled to an explanation at the very least. I never met James myself. But Auntie Ruth said he was a lovely man and certainly didn’t deserve the kind of treatment Sarah Manners dished out to him.  She has to be a real bitch, if you ask me.  Not that Auntie would ever be drawn much on the subject. Even so, she reckoned Sarah must have suffered some kind of memory loss to have ever done such a terrible thing to a man like James Morrissey.  It’s possible, I suppose...”

“But being a real bitch has a nicer ring to it,” commented Winter quietly. So quietly, in fact, that Julie couldn’t be sure she’d heard correctly.

Ignoring what she saw as an uncalled for attempt to prevaricate, Julie pressed on.  “Whatever,” she shrugged, “...James hotfoots it down to Monk’s Tallow, determined to do what a man has to do and adamant he must go alone. He was in a bit of a state, by all accounts. Auntie Ruth blamed herself for not insisting she went with him. A few days later, he was dead. Apparently, he crashed his car at the Devil’s Elbow. It’s...”

“A very nasty bend on an otherwise very pretty cliff road,” Fred Winter commented dryly and winced as, unintentionally, he plucked a hair from his beard.

“You do know Monk’s Tallow,” Julie Simpson observed.

“I do indeed, Miss Simpson,” Winter agreed but made no attempt to answer the unasked question that hung in the air between them. “Your aunt would, naturally, have been deeply distressed by her friend’s death...” 

“Well, naturally. But she coped very well, especially considering how she’d always fancied him like mad herself. Auntie Ruth was like that. She’d cope, no matter what.  But when Liam...”

“Liam?”

“Liam Brady. I went to James’ funeral to give Auntie Ruth some moral support and Liam insisted on coming along to do the same for me.”

“He’s your fiancé?”  Winter glanced pointedly at the sparkling diamond on her left hand.

“Good heavens, no!” she laughed. It was the first time Winter had seen her laugh. It did wonders for her appearance.  In an instant, she became more than just a pretty face but delightfully animated, a light in the green eyes that had been missing before.  “Liam and I were just good friends. It is possible got a man and a woman to be just that, you know.”  An impish grin struck him as even more attractive than her smile.

“Were?” picking up on her use of the past tense.

Smile and grin faded. Her whole body tensed. “Liam had a few days off. He offered to fetch some things that belonged to James from a hotel in Monk’s Tallow. When he got back he was...well, different, not the same person at all.  Then he started going down there regularly.”

“It’s a pretty enough village. People have been known to fall in love with such places.”

“Liam certainly wasn’t in love with Monk’s Tallow!”  Her voice shook and the cool composure seemed on the point of disintegrating before his eyes. Winter sat up, leaned forward, rested his chin on his hands and regarded his guest intently.  “I can’t explain. It’s almost as if he became so obsessed with the place that he had to spend time there rather than wanted to.  Every time he came back, he’d go all moody for weeks and be a real pain.  Even when he began to snap out of it, he’d keep on about how Monk’s Tallow was the weirdest place.”

“Weird?”

She nodded. “That’s how he described it. In the end he was proved right.”  She paused and caught her breath sharply. “About eighteen months before Auntie Ruth died Liam crashed his car in exactly the same spot as James Morrissey.” She paused again, for effect. But Fred Winter was a professional and not easily impressed.  He stayed silent and his expression gave nothing away. She, on the other hand, looked at first disappointed then angry. “I don’t believe in coincidences Inspector.”

“But they happen, Miss Simpson, all the time,” Winter felt bound to say although inclined to agree.

“Auntie Ruth was awfully upset. She hardly knew Liam. Even so, she kept saying that, but for her, he’d never have had gone to Monk’s Tallow in the first place.  I know she’d been in touch with Sarah Manners by e-mail and arranged to go down and see for herself.”

“See what, exactly?’

“I don’t know. The place where he died, maybe? I know she’d wanted to visit the spot since James was killed but, well, you know how it is. We mean to do these things but, somehow, never quite get around to them.  Besides, I think she was a bit nervous about seeing Sarah again.”

“Why nervous?”

“I could be wrong, of course. It was just an impression I got. Maybe it had to do with the way Sarah treated James. I think Auntie Ruth loved him very much.”

“Is that another impression?”

“No. She told me that herself. Poor Auntie, I don’t think she ever quite gave up hoping she and James might get it together one day but...” and she gave another little shrug, “...it wasn’t to be.”

Both were silent for a while, lost in their own thoughts. Julie suddenly asked to use the toilet.

“Yes, yes, of course.” Winter gave her directions. Absently, he watched her go, not unappreciative of the trim figure or the best pair of legs he’d seen in ages.  The fiancé, he mused wryly, was a lucky man.

Winter frowned and stroked his beard. He was uneasy. Not one but three deaths played on his mind and demanded attention. Try as he might, he could not turn a deaf ear. Not only had two deaths occurred in Monk’s Tallow, of all places, but that same picturesque village in Sussex appeared to be the common denominator for all three.. True, it hardly added up to murder. Even so, it was an odd little scenario, one that held a greater fascination for him and tugged all the harder at his instincts the more he contemplated its potential.  Not that he suspected foul play, he didn’t. Besides, it was far too early to speculate.

As far as Winter could make out, there was no reason why Julie Simpson should not quite simply be mistaken about her aunt being murdered.  Misguided, perhaps, even melodramatic, but an understandable over-reaction in the circumstances. Nor was it one he hadn’t encountered on countless occasions. Death is always a shock to the emotions, yet less so, somehow, if we can find a reason for it. Murder, he had long since discovered, was as good a reason as any. Ruth Temple’s death was tragic but nothing more sinister than that...surely?  So why was his nose twitching, as it always did whenever he found himself verging on the inarticulate?

Something did not ring true. It might, just might, Winter supposed, be interesting to discover just what was niggling at his basic instincts like an indefinable itch neither hand could quite reach to enjoy a good scratch. By the time Julie Simpson returned, his mind was made up.

“So, will you help me?” she asked bluntly, settling herself down again on the sofa.

“Supposing I did help you, Miss Simpson, what shape or form would you expect my assistance to take?”

“You’ll take the case?” she gave a little squeak of childlike excitement.  Miss Parker, he was sure, would not have approved.

“Did I say that?”  Winter wasted no time squashing that one. “For a start, there is no case and even if there was, I am no longer a police officer and therefore in no position to act in an official capacity.”

“And in an unofficial capacity…?”

Winter could not resist a terse smile. He had to hand it to her. She caught on fast.

“There is no case,” he repeated firmly. “All we have, Miss Simpson, is a troubled young lady and a retired police inspector who will be up shit creek without a paddle if he doesn’t get his finger out pretty damn fast.”  He let his mouth relax, pleased that she responded without dropping her guard, plainly sensing it would be unwise to interrupt and risk alienating him altogether.  Miss Parker would have approved.  “It‘s now how long since your aunt’s friend James Morrissey was killed?”

“It’s coming up to three years.”

“And your friend, Liam Brady..?”

“A year last June 23^rd.”

“A good fourteen months.”

“Yes.”

“Yet you say your aunt had only recently decided to visit Monk’s Tallow.”

“Yes. It’s like I said, I think she was nervous about seeing Sarah Manners again.”

“So what or whom do you suppose suddenly made her less nervous?”

“Might it not help us to find that out?” she put back at him, a wry smile playing about the full, shiny red mouth.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” he murmured then asked, “Did James Morrissey have any family that you know of?”

“I’ve no idea. As far as I can recall, Auntie Ruth never mentioned whether or not James had any family. But why should she?”

“And your friend, Liam Brady, does he have family?”

“His mother lives in Camden Town, it...”

“Used to have an excellent market,” commented Winter, a shade wistfully.

“Used to..?”

“It still has a market,” he agreed. “Do you have an address for Mrs Brady?”

“Yes, it’s in my address book.” She reached for her bag and fumbled inside, eventually producing a book with gilt edged pages bound in red leather about the size of a small diary. He had often wondered how anyone managed to cram names and street addresses into the spaces provided, not to mention telephone/fax numbers and e-mail addresses. 

As he watched, Julie Simpson continued to grow in his estimation. She had answered his questions without, unlike most people, wanting to know why he asked them. It not only saved a lot of time but also demonstrated a touching good faith on her part.  She trusted him. It was not a bad start, he found himself thinking, not a bad start at all.

She tore off part of what looked like a shopping list, copied an address on the back and handed it to him.  “I’ve only met the woman a couple of times. Now and then, Liam stayed there and I’ve been to the flat but she was nearly always at work or out shopping, whatever.” 

Julie flicked through the pages of the address book and began writing again. “My aunt’s best friend was her next door neighbour, Audrey Ellis. She was also the last person to see Auntie Ruth alive.” 

She handed him the rest of the shopping list. He took it, kept hold of her hand and looked her gravely in the eye. “There is no case, Miss Simpson,” he repeated, “and I am making no promises.”

“I understand Inspector.”  She neither flinched from his gaze nor attempted to conceal a gleam of...was it triumph, he wondered?   Well, if Julie Simpson thought she had put one over on him, she was very much mistaken.  Yet he couldn’t deny she had touched a nerve, awakened a near dead curiosity beyond wondering what to throw together for the next meal. It was a rare person who could manage that, he grudgingly acknowledged. Helen his late wife, had been one, Miss Parker another.

“I rather think you do, Miss Simpson,” treating her to a wicked smile that did nothing to lessen her impression that he had been a ladies man in his time. Julie rather wished she could have met Helen Winter. Without a shadow of a doubt, she must have been a remarkable woman.

Julie hesitated, her sureness of manner dented slightly. “About a fee...” she began.

“No case, no fee.” Winter cut her short with a no-nonsense gruffness that brooked no room for argument.

“And no promises,” she echoed teasingly although the green eyes retained an air of weary seriousness.  “I’ve written down my own address and phone number for you too. Can I at least expect to hear from you whatever happens? ”

“Whatever,” he agreed.

“Then I’ll love and leave you till we meet again then, Mr Winter.”

“The name’s Fred.”

A trick of the light on Julie Simpson’s red lipstick gave the appearance of a spot of blood about to trickle down her chin.  A hand in his pocket closed on a handkerchief.  He almost offered it to her. But the illusion had already passed. Winter not only felt foolish but, to his horror, found himself blushing.

“Thank you Fred,” was all Julie Simpson said and sensed she needed to say before gently disengaging her hand.

A few minutes later Winter was waving her off from the front door and watching her drive away. As he closed the door and wandered into the kitchen, it crossed his mind that he hadn’t even offered her a cup of tea. Just as well, he told himself. Far better keep things plain and simple, never a good idea to get too cosy. 

The very idea of getting cosy with Miss Parker made him roar with laughter. It was a good feeling. As he waited impatiently for the kettle to boil, Winter reflected with an unexpected sense of guilt that he hadn’t laughed like that in ages.

           

 To be continued