A Woman Unknown Read online

  Her lower lip trembled. ‘There’s every reason. How was the deed done?’

  ‘He would not have felt anything. He died while sleeping.’

  ‘How? Gun, dagger, poison? What did the bastards do to him?’

  ‘He was strangled.’

  ‘Then it was King, under her orders.’

  ‘Why would they? Mr Runcie was doing what Mrs Runcie wanted, agreeing to a divorce, giving her grounds.’

  ‘At a price. She didn’t like his price. She’s had grounds for years, if she wanted to make use of them.’ She took a deep drag on her almost burned-out cigarette before letting it fall to the ground. One arm crossed her middle. She lifted the other hand to her brow and rubbed at the slight frown mark on her forehead.

  She looked at me, her bright blue eyes large with horror. ‘Is that why you were asking me about the shoot? You think someone may have tried to take a pot shot that day, and kill him?’

  The clouds flitted across the sky with such speed that I felt half dizzy. She was so quick to pick up on my suspicion. She did not shift her gaze, but waited for my answer.

  ‘I saw the photograph of the two of you together at the shoot. I was merely …’

  ‘You were not merely doing anything. I know you now. You’re a policeman’s daughter and you do investigations and things. I’ve heard about it. And now you think Philippa killed Everett.’

  ‘No!’

  She was nodding rapidly. ‘That’s it. That’s what happened. Everett and I were in the same butt when I was shot. I made a joke about it at the time. I said Pipsqueak Philippa had me in her sights, but she’d missed my heart.’

  It seemed ironic that the first person Miss Windham accused was Philippa Runcie, and that Philippa Runcie had accused Caroline Windham.

  She rested her elbows on her thighs and put her head in her hands. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it’s true. How dare someone kill him?’ She looked up quickly. ‘Who, apart from me, knew he was at the Metropole?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She knew.’ She made a bitter sound, like a catch in her throat. ‘Everett was finally giving her what she wanted, but it wasn’t enough.’

  ‘Miss Windham, do you know whom Mr Runcie was with at the hotel on Friday night?’

  She shrugged. ‘Someone of no importance. Was the woman there? Did she see anything?’

  Now it really was time for me to shut up, but I said, ‘So you have no idea who might have been with him?’

  She shook her head. ‘I wish it had been me. If anyone had tried to hurt him, I’d have killed them myself.’

  I looked at her hands. She would have been capable of that, I felt sure.

  ‘Do you know how he came to meet the woman he was with in the hotel? Might she be part of your circle?’

  She shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I had a sudden thought that the news could be all around Yorkshire within the hour. ‘Will you confide in Lady Fotheringham?’

  ‘Certainly not!’

  I stood up. ‘I’m very sorry, Miss Windham.’

  She did not answer. I had walked a hundred yards or so from the bandstand when she called to me to wait.

  With the stride of a colossus, she caught up. ‘Where are you going now?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Did you come in a carriage?’

  ‘A motor.’

  ‘I saw it. A blue affair.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Take me somewhere will you? You’ll have to wait until I change, and make my excuses for Sunday dinner.’

  As the clock on the stable block touched half past noon, a harassed young maid appeared, viciously swinging a carpet bag.

  ‘Mrs Shackleton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Miss Windham asks will you come to the front of the house.’

  The cheek of the woman! I did her a service and now she chose to treat me like a chauffeur.

  I hid my annoyance, politely thanked the maid and opened the car door for her to put the bag in.

  ‘Would you like a lift?’ I asked.

  She laughed. ‘I’m not allowed to go in the front door, madam.’

  I drove to the front of the house and parked opposite the door.

  Moments later, Caroline Windham appeared.

  Without a word, she clambered in, showing none of the grace of her earlier horseback riding. I glanced at her. In the short time it had taken her to change and pack a bag, she had grown heavier and forlorn with bereavement.

  ‘Which way?’ I asked, softening a little towards her.

  She waved an arm. ‘Just out of here, and then I’ll give you directions.’

  I drove back the way I had come, and through the gates.

  She sighed. ‘Sorry about that, but I wanted them to see me leaving. Said I’d been called away. Couldn’t face them.’

  ‘Which way now?’

  ‘Left, then straight along.’

  ‘Are we going far?’

  ‘No. Staying on the estate. Hence the subterfuge. Let them think I’m miles away when the news comes.’

  We drove in silence for a mile, along a leafy lane. Following her directions, I slowed.

  ‘Right here.’ She pointed to a dusty track. Around a bend in the track appeared a fenced off area the size of a field, filled with strangely shaped figures. Nearest was a circle of tall, slender human shapes that cast long shadows. It was as though a magician had cast a spell on Stone Henge and turned the circle of stones into human beings.

  ‘Keep going, and then you can hide the motor behind the barn. There’s another way out.’

  Following her directions, I stopped the motor between a barn and a disused pig sty.

  For a long moment, we sat in the afternoon sun, listening to a thrush. Finally, she sighed. ‘It was good of you to come and tell me. Will you come and meet someone? He’ll have to know. He’ll ask questions, and I can’t …’ She turned those blue eyes on me. I wondered if her Civil War ancestor had looked at his enemies with such sadness before he ran them through.

  Curiosity made me follow her from the car. At the side of the barn were more sculptures. Two seated Roman figures formed a bench, their spread togas offering space, and gracefully touching the ground.

  ‘This looks like Rupert Cromer’s work.’

  She nodded. ‘Lord Fotheringham lets Rupert have these outbuildings and the cottage, grace-and-favour.’

  My footsteps slowed as I looked about me at a strange collection, some of which I had seen at Cromer’s exhibition last year. His pieces looked so different in the open air. Some were miniature. A creature half horse, half human reared up before me, but pint-sized, like the offspring of a Shetland pony and a dwarf.

  At the front of the building, huge doors stood open to a space that was both barn and studio. We negotiated our way in, avoiding a square block of stone, tree trunk, a motorbike and strips of metal.

  The tap of a hammer and chisel punctuated the humming silence.

  The man wore a leather apron, like a shoemaker. He was standing back from a nymph-like figure, his head tilted to one side.

  She called, ‘Rupert, darling!’

  He turned, wiped his hands on baggy trousers, and stared at us. ‘I wondered where you’d got to, Caroline.’

  So he had been the man out riding with her. Had I seen him dismount, I would have recognised him.

  Caroline said, ‘I had to come. I couldn’t face the Fotheringhams and their sherry after what I’ve just found out.’

  So she was going to tell him. But at least he seemed remote here. With luck, the news of Runcie’s death would go no farther.

  ‘What’s the matter, Caroline?’ He came closer.

  She half fell into his arms. ‘Oh Rupert, Rupert.’

  He closed his eyes as he held her. It was time for me to go. The two of them were in a world of their own. Suddenly he opened his eyes, looked at me in surprise and across Miss Windham’s right shoulder said, ‘W
hat has happened?’

  ‘I brought Miss Windham some bad news.’

  She broke away from his embrace and said in a choked voice, ‘Everett is dead.’

  ‘No! No.’

  As I walked away, he called, ‘Wait!’ Keeping an arm around Miss Windham, he came across to me. ‘Come inside. Please.’

  I did not want to be cross-questioned, but he placed a friendly arm around me also, leaving me with the alternative of an undignified wriggle out of his grasp or acceptance of his invitation. The three of us walked together to the ramshackle house.

  A boss-eyed housekeeper glared as we emerged into the shabby hallway from a dilapidated porch. Rupert Cromer left dusty white footprints on the tiles. He opened a door into a dimly lit parlour. The first thing that caught my eye was the bust that stood on a plinth in the corner of the room, lit by a shaft of sunlight. It was Caroline Windham.

  I remembered it from his exhibition. It was the piece that had caused a stir, and allowed the connection of Caroline to the abstract nude. It was executed with great delicacy and subtlety. I looked from it to her, and back.

  ‘That’s beautiful, and such a good likeness.’

  Cromer bowed and then kissed Caroline’s cheek. ‘Great things are possible with such a regal sitter.’ He said quietly, ‘Everett commissioned the bust’

  She sank into a chair. ‘You can’t let anyone else take it, Rupert.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  He glanced at the piece with admiration, which could have been for his own handiwork, or for his sitter.

  Caroline said, ‘I’m staying the night, Rupert. Is that all right?’

  ‘I’ll have a bed made up.’

  ‘I don’t want to be at Somersgill tomorrow when they hear about Everett’s death, I couldn’t bear their pity.’

  He knelt before her, put his arms around his waist and his head in her lap. ‘You’ve lost the love of your life. I’ve lost the best friend a man could have.’

  I paid attention to a sketch pad pinned to an easel. It was covered in tiny drawings that may have been ideas for larger pieces of work. One was the sculptor himself, an odd little self-portrait of man and motorbike. Another was drawings from different angles of a Venus figure.

  The strange thing about this figure was that it had Deirdre Fitzpatrick’s face. Or was I, like Sykes and Fitzpatrick, becoming obsessed with the woman?

  I was about to turn away and slip from the room unnoticed, when Cromer came over to me. ‘I’m so sorry. It was kind of you to come.’

  ‘Not at all, but I’ll go now. Goodbye, Mr Cromer. Goodbye, Miss Windham. I’m very sorry.’

  A moment later, I was walking back to my car.

  My visit had not gone as intended. Had the same person who fired the shot that grazed Caroline Windham’s arm strangled Everett Runcie? It was possible. The perpetrator may have preferred a gun, but that would not be a very good method in a hotel, where there would be no excuse of accident if a bullet was matched.

  There would be a list of shooters who were here on the estate on Monday 13th August. Where? And how would I get my hands on it?

  Newly commissioned Special Constable Sykes felt a mounting excitement as he waited in the alley at the side of the Metropole, admiring the Clyno motorbike, checking its tyres. Hardly anyone walked up the alley on Sunday, when the hat shop and tobacconist that adjoined the hotel were closed. It was the perfect spot to wait for the signal to tail his quarry. Dapper Hartigan, Leeds Irish lad turned New Yorker, was probably still pomading his hair.

  When he was in the force, Sykes had always wanted to go undercover. Once upon a time, he fancied himself as a lamplighter, or a knife grinder, pushing a cart, knocking on doors, looking through windows. The motorbike knocked those ideas into a cocked hat.

  The chief inspector had asked Mrs Shackleton’s permission to swear in Sykes as a special constable. He knew the area, could ride a motorbike, would be able to follow Hartigan and report on his movements.

  Sykes did not know why the man was being followed. He was a person of interest before the murder. There was no obvious motive for Hartigan to have murdered Runcie, but there was opportunity and proximity. He could be the killer.

  Just when the motorbike tyres would stand no more checking, a constable came out of the hotel’s back door and gave him the nod. Sykes climbed on the motorbike and fired the engine into life. He edged towards King Street, holding back as he glanced to his right. Hartigan’s hired Rolls-Royce stood at the kerb, motor running. Nattily dressed in dark suit, felt hat and bow tie, Hartigan tipped the commissionaire who opened the car door for him. They were off. Sykes kept a discreet distance. He risked dodging up a side street once the car entered Briggate. He zigged and zagged, to come out further along the road and not make himself obvious. The street was less busy on a Sunday, with strolling pedestrians and the traffic more sparse than on weekdays.

  It was a twisting journey, with several wrong turns, and a stop while the driver leaned out and asked directions. When they crossed Richmond Road, Sykes did a little detour, and fell back. He rode along a parallel street, just in time to see the Rolls cross Church Road. The car came to a halt by a Roman Catholic church. Sykes waited by the school building, which offered cover. He watched through the railings, keeping his distance. Since boyhood, he had disliked being too near a Catholic church. It was something bred in him that he could never shake, as if dreaded idolatry and superstition would ooze from the forbidding edifice and overpower him.

  Hartigan did not go into the church. He went to the presbytery and knocked on the door. The priest must have been waiting. He emerged in his long black cassock, funny little hat on his head, and wearing a narrow scarf around his neck. The clergyman carried a small bag. It would not in the least surprise Sykes to find that they were in cahoots over some deadly deed.

  Hartigan held the car door open for the priest, and then climbed in beside him.

  Sykes followed, beginning to worry that he would be spotted. The driver showed fewer hesitations now. They picked up speed.

  The journey led out of the city, into the leafy suburbs where trees grew in large gardens and on the broad pavements. They passed Roundhay Park, and then turned left. Sykes kept the length of the street between them.

  The Rolls entered the grounds of a nursing home. Sykes glanced at the sign: Ashville Nursing Home. He cycled past and parked his bike in the ginnel that bordered the nursing home grounds. There was a side gate that creaked as he opened it.

  The gardens blazed with colour. If the nursing staff’s capabilities matched that of the gardeners, the patients would be fortunate indeed.

  Who are you visiting, Mr Hartigan? Sykes asked silently.

  Sykes watched from the shrubbery as Hartigan and the priest went inside. The driver lumbered out of the car, stretched, and lit a cigarette. He began to plod about the grounds. For a moment, Sykes wondered had he been spotted. The man found his way to a bench in the shade of an ash tree. The fellow might look a little on the dopey side, but he knew how to choose a vantage point that gave him a view of the path and the house while keeping an eye on his precious motor.

  Like a man with legitimate business, Sykes strode to the front door that was open to the sunshine. A table in the tiled entry hall held a huge vase of roses. Beyond the wide oak staircase was a goods lift, large enough to carry wheelchairs. He looked up. At the top of the stairs, the two visitors were with a uniformed man who Sykes guessed had left the entry desk to escort them. They disappeared into a corridor.

  Sykes quickly nipped behind the tall counter. A visitors’ book lay open, its neat column headings conveniently recording, date, time, name of visitor and person visited. Mr Hartigan and Father Daley were visiting Mrs Hartigan.

  The man was visiting his mother. Sykes felt a twinge of disappointment. But he had done his job. He checked his watch, so as to be able to report how long the visitors stayed.

  Sykes left by the side gate, back into the ginnel, out of sight. After about forty
minutes, he heard the purr of the Rolls-Royce engine. He mounted his bike and followed.

  The car returned the way it had come, back towards the park.

  By the tram stop nearest the park, Sykes stopped, to avoid running down a child who had jumped off the tram ahead of his parents and dashed into the road. People were teeming off the tram, children hurrying towards the gates, a woman carrying a picnic basket. I should come here with Rosie and the kids on the next free Sunday, Sykes decided. And then he saw them.

  Cyril Fitzpatrick stepped off the tram. He held out his hand and helped his wife alight. When they stepped onto the pavement, Fitzpatrick did not let go of Deirdre’s hand. She was looking up at him, smiling and talking. He smiled back.

  Typical, Sykes thought. After all Fitzpatrick’s moans and complaints, he and his wife had turned completely lovey-dovey. It was only five days ago that Fitzpatrick wanted a twenty-four watch kept on her. Mrs Shackleton was right. Leave them to sort out their own troubles. Deirdre Fitzpatrick was looking at her husband with something like adoration, as if he were the most handsome of film stars. He looked back at her with a doting gaze.

  Damn! Sykes had let himself be diverted. The motor carrying Hartigan and the priest was well out of view.

  It was with relief that Sykes caught up with the Rolls and watched it enter King Street. He did not wait to see whether Hartigan’s burly driver left it in the road or in the charge of a porter to be taken to the hotel’s garage. Sykes drove past the hotel and into the deserted alley where he secured the motorbike.

  Moments later he was in the suite on the third floor that the Scotland Yard men had taken over. The bed and wardrobe had been moved out to make way for trestle tables. Sykes reported to the sergeant who kept the log book. The man was a dead ringer for the dentist Sykes visited last year. His wavy hair was the colour of a ginger nut, his skin ruddy and his eyes a washed-out blue. It was the none-too-clean hands and nicotine-stained fingers that most reminded Sykes of the dentist. He could feel the taste of the fat fingers in his mouth even now. Sergeant Wilson at least had the benefit of knowing his stuff, unlike the dentist whose only certificates, framed and placed prominently on the walls, were for tidiest allotment of 1920, and special mentions for marrows and carrots.