13

He slept late next morning. It was nearly ten o’clock when he went downstairs.

Irene Ford was in the living-room reading one of the Sunday papers. Her eyes looked tired.

She asked him what he would like for breakfast and protested weakly when he said he’d get something for himself. As he went into the kitchen her anaemic voice was still complaining.

“… Oh, you shouldn’t really. I think it’s a shame.”

Then she said in a brighter tone, “Michael hasn’t come down yet. I think he must’ve got to bed very late. I didn’t hear him come in.”

Quinn said, “Where’s your husband? Is he still in bed, too?”

“Oh, no. He and Carole have gone out for a stroll. They said it was too nice a day to stay indoors … Are you sure I can’t get anything for you? I feel I shouldn’t be sitting here while you make your own breakfast. It doesn’t seem right for a man to do that sort of thing … if you know what I mean.”

He didn’t bother to tell her that coffee and toast presented no problem. In any case she wouldn’t have heard him above the rustling of the newspaper.

While he was pouring out his coffee the phone rang. Irene Ford said, “I wonder who that can be? If it’s for Michael I suppose you’ll have to go upstairs and waken him. I never like to … well, you know what I mean.”

Through the open door, Quinn saw her pick up the receiver. She said, “Yes? … Oh, yes, I’m a lot better now, thank you … well, he’s upset, naturally. You wouldn’t expect him to be anything else …”

As she listened she gave a little wriggle and felt the neck of her dress. Quinn saw the suddenly altered look on her face.

Then she said, “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about and I don’t believe it, either … when? … No, it’s not true.”

The voice on the phone made scratching distant noises. Irene said, “You shouldn’t say things like that. It’s not right to talk about her now she’s dead. Whatever she may have done, it’s nobody’s business —”

There the phone whispered again. When it stopped, she said, “Please, Ariadne, we’ve had enough trouble already … you’re wrong … no one poisoned her. I’ve thought about it ever since Friday night and I’m sure she did it herself … no, it isn’t true.”

She listened, her hand fumbling with the neck of her dress as though it were tight. Then she said, “I don’t know. But whatever reason he had I’m sure it was all quite proper … Michael wouldn’t do a thing like that … no … no, he’s still in bed.”

Moments later, the nervous, frightened look on her face changed. In a voice that Quinn had never heard her use before, she said, “I don’t understand why you should want to make trouble. If you’d only let well alone … all right, if you insist … then I think you’re a horrible person. Michael’s never done you any harm and you’ve no reason —”

Quinn heard the phone click. With her mouth open, Irene turned to look at him.

“She’s hung up. I was in the middle of talking to her and she hung up. I’ve never met such a nasty woman in all my life — not really.”

“What was it all about?”

“Something I’d never have thought possible. She’s got the cheek to say Adele was a friend of hers and yet she comes out with the most filthy suggestions. Tells me Dr. Bossard was Adele’s lover and he used to come here often … and eventually Michael found out —”

“— and killed her,” Quinn said.

Irene Ford put down the receiver. With a wriggle of her bony shoulders, she said, “Yes. That’s what she says must’ve happened. Isn’t it outrageous? Wants me to believe she’s got proof, too.”

“What kind of proof?”

“According to her, she saw Michael returning home quite a bit before half past three on Friday and so he’d have had time to drug Adele. Do you know what she means?”

“Yes … but I don’t necessarily believe it. When you said ‘ … if you insist,’ what had she asked you to do?”

“Wants me to tell Michael she’s coming here this afternoon with Dr. Bossard so as to bring the whole thing out into the open. Why she wants to do this to Michael, I just don’t know — not really. Perhaps it makes her feel important … or perhaps she was jealous of Adele all the time … if you know what I mean.”

Quinn said, “Only too well. There’s no stopping a woman like Ariadne Wilkinson once she gets started.”

Irene wriggled again. The old nebulous, fearful look was back in her eyes.

“I wish I knew what to do. Even if Adele was carrying-on with Dr. Bossard it wasn’t his fault. He’s a bachelor and she was very beautiful … and I can see how he’d be tempted … especially if she wouldn’t leave him alone. Now it’ll all come out and he’ll be ruined because he’ll have to give evidence … won’t he?”

“If Michael Parry is tried for the murder of his wife,” Quinn said.

She touched the phone, drew her hand away, and shivered. “Are you going to tell Michael what she’s threatening to do?”

“Why not? It’s only fair to warn him.”

“Do you think” — she faltered and her eyes lifted reluctantly to Quinn’s face — “do you think he did it — really?”

“I’m not a judge and jury,” Quinn said.

He told himself she didn’t care a brass button for Michael Parry. The fear he could see in her eyes was for her husband.

… Might be a good idea if Elvin checked up on Neil Ford’s whereabouts on Friday afternoon. Maybe he picked her up at Salisbury and brought her home. Maybe she’d finished with Bossard and had dug her claws into Ford, instead … and he wanted to be free because he’d got someone new. And that’s where I came in …

Carole … She’d had the time and the opportunity. But not to protect her ex-husband. Ford was now the best bet. Either he’d done it himself … or Carole had done it for him. And if Ariadne Wilkinson could be persuaded to tell a lie in the cause of justice, the right one might be bluffed into an admission of guilt.

Irene Ford said, “You’re hiding something from me … aren’t you?” In the sunlight from the long panoramic window she looked cold.

“Only a passing thought,” Quinn said.

“Won’t you tell me?”

“It’s not worth the telling. Maybe I’ll explain later. Meantime, you go and do some sunbathing until Carole and your husband get back.”

“What about you?”

Quinn said, “I’m going to finish my breakfast. Then I’ll rouse Michael and give him the glad news that he can expect visitors this afternoon.”

Dr. Bossard’s housekeeper took the call. She told Miss Wilkinson that the doctor was upstairs but she would go and fetch him if it were urgent. Miss Wilkinson said it was very urgent.

The housekeeper was present when Dr. Bossard spoke on the telephone. She heard him say he would do his best to call on Miss Wilkinson at twelve-thirty, but he might be a little late as he had another visit to make. His housekeeper also heard him tell Miss Wilkinson to do nothing hasty until he got there.

Ten yards short of the gate he backed off the road and reversed into a cart track overgrown with tufts of grass and weeds and straggling hedges. When he was as close to the nearside as possible, he got out and collected his medical bag from the front passenger seat and made sure he had a pad of prescription forms in his pocket.

With the bag pulling at his arm he trudged along the narrow road to Rose Cottage. The wicket gate was unlatched. He pushed it open with his knee and walked heavily up the tiled path and through a rustic arch smothered in flowers which screened the front door from the sun.

There was nothing to be heard inside the cottage. All around him lay the quiet of the countryside on a hot summer’s day interwoven with the grumbling drone of a bee, the chirping of crickets in a cornfield across Northwood Lane, the far-off barking of a dog up on the hillside. Overlaying the sounds that he knew so well he could hear a car engine idling at a fast speed somewhere behind the house.

When he had tugged at the old-fashioned bell pull without result he rapped on the door. After he had waited another ten seconds he rapped again. Then he tried the knob.

The door opened. He saw an empty hall, a table with a vase of red roses, a doorway through which sunlight spilled from a window at the back of the house.

He took a step inside and called out, “Miss Wilkinson! Are you there. Miss Wilkinson?”

The house was as silent as though it had been unoccupied for a long time. There was only the bubbling noise of a car exhaust, muffled and yet amplified behind closed doors.

He looked in another room, found it also empty, and glanced at his watch. It was just after twelve-thirty. As he stood listening, all he could hear was the persistent murmur of a car.

His bag was heavy and he realised he had no need to carry it from room to room. He placed it on a chair, massaged his fingers, and again called out, “Are you there, Miss Wilkinson?”

His voice seemed to linger in the stillness. If she had been anywhere in the cottage she would have been bound to hear him.

He told himself he had spent enough time. With the noise of the car growing louder and louder inside his head he went into the tiny sunlit kitchen and opened the back door.

A cinder path cut through the well-tended vegetable garden, turned at right-angles past an apple tree in blossom, and ended outside a brick garage. From there the cart track wound its way between high, overgrown hedges to Northwood Lane.

He could see his own car at the foot of the track, its rear bumper flashing in the sun, when he reached the garage. There was no sound from Northwood Lane, no sound from anywhere except the drumming of a car exhaust behind the double doors of the garage.

The doors were locked. With his mouth close to the leading edge, he shouted, “Are you in there, Miss Wilkinson? This is Dr. Bossard. Open the door.”

For half a minute he stood listening to the rhythmic beat of the exhaust, his mind filled with the knowledge that he would get no answer. Then he sprinted round to the rear of the garage.

There were two windows. He had to make a cowl with his linked hands to shut out the reflection of the sky before he was able to see inside.

The glass was dirty and his own reflection kept getting in the way but he could see the radiator grill and the head-lamps of Miss Wilkinson’s Morris Oxford, a glimpse of the windscreen. The bonnet was raised and a piece of yellow cloth lay on one of the front wings. Every few seconds the vibration of the idling engine caused the cloth to tremble as though it were fluttering in a current of air.

Against the left-hand wall of the garage stood a lawn mower. Near it the grass box rested end up on top of a wooden crate with compartments for bottles. Above the mower some garden tools hung from nails driven into the brickwork.

He leaned nearer and cupped his hands more closely around his eyes. Now he got a view of something else. Between the offside front wheel of the car and the wall a woman lay huddled on the floor, her head resting on the roller of the lawnmower.

She was a plumpish, fair-haired woman dressed in blue jeans and a yellow sweater. Her eyes were shut, her mouth was a gaping hole in her discoloured face.

That much he saw in the few seconds that he stood looking down at her from the dusty window. Then he ran round to the front of the garage.

There was nothing at hand to force the door. After he had tried to get his fingertips under the moulding alongside the lock he went hurrying down the track to his car.

All he found in the boot was the starting handle, the jack, and a spare fan belt. He never carried any tools. In the event of a breakdown he wouldn’t have known what to do with them.

What he did know right then was that the end of the starting handle would be too thick to get between the leading edge of the garage doors — but he had to do something. So he ran back and made a dozen attempts to lever the handle into the narrow gap.

It was hopeless. He struggled with it for a couple of minutes, battering at the edge of the door until the moulding was chipped and scarred, and then he threw the handle on the ground and set off at a run down the track to Northwood Lane.

The nearest house was a quarter of a mile from Rose Cottage. He got into his car, fumbled in every pocket for the ignition key, and then at last bumped and jolted his way out of the cart track.

That was when he caught sight of Quinn less than a hundred yards from the cottage. Bossard scrambled from the car and shouted, “I need your help! Hurry, man, hurry!”

Quinn broke into a run. As he reached the car, he asked, “What’s the trouble? Why all the excitement?”

“Miss Wilkinson asked me to call at half-past twelve. When I got here I found her lying on the garage floor … and the engine of her car is running. Can’t get the door open. Tried using my starting handle but it won’t work.”

“Aren’t there any windows?”

“Yes, but they’re fitted with wired glass. Take a long time to get in that way. Maybe between us we can force the door.”

“What kind of tools have you got?”

“Only this thing and a jack. But there’s no time to waste and we must try.”

Quinn said, “All right, I’ll take the jack. Let’s go.”

As they ran side by side, Bossard asked, “What’re you doing here, anyway?”

“I was going to call on Miss Wilkinson, too.”

“Why?”

“She phoned Elm Lodge this morning and in view of what she said to Mrs. Ford I thought I’d like to chat with her.”

“What did she say?”

“Something to the effect that she knew who killed Adele Parry.”

Dr. Bossard slowed momentarily and took a deep breath. “Did she, indeed? Now that is interesting.”

They reached the garage. Quinn said, “Let me have a go …”

He used the jack as a hammer and smashed blow after blow at the strip of moulding close to the lock until part of the wood tore off and left a space wide enough to take the end of the starting handle. Then he said, “Stick the handle in there, Doctor, and I’ll bash it farther in so as to give us plenty of leverage … that’s right.”

Two or three blows were enough. Bossard took hold with both hands and set himself.

He said, “Stand back out of the way in case this thing flies open suddenly.”

Quinn moved aside as the door creaked and groaned. Bossard used every ounce of his strength in one tremendous final effort — an effort that brought the sweat out on his face. He saw the gap widen … the edge of the door bulge outwards … the wood begin to split vertically …

Then the tongue of the lock broke free with a report like a pistol shot and the door sprang open. It flung him back, his arms upraised to protect himself, and he’d have toppled over if Quinn hadn’t caught hold of him.

Quinn said, “We’d better open the other side and let some of the fumes out.”

As he unfastened the top and bottom bolts, he added, “Don’t go rushing in yet. Give it a few seconds for the air to clear.”

Dr. Bossard said, “We can’t afford the time. Take a good breath and cover your nose and mouth with your handkerchief. While you’re switching off the engine I’ll drag her out. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t loiter.”

He waited outside until Quinn was reaching into the car for the ignition key. Then he rushed past him to the spot where Miss Wilkinson lay sprawled on the floor beside the lawnmower.

He heard the drumming noise of the engine stop. With the stench of burned oil stinging his eyes, he got his hands under her armpits, lifted her clear of the mower, and dragged her backwards to the doorway, her feet scraping on the concrete.

When he stumbled outside, Quinn took her by the legs and they carried her over to a rectangle of lawn behind the garage. Bossard said, “While I’m attending to her you get on the phone and dial 999. Tell them I want an ambulance here as quickly as possible … oh, and emphasise that they’re to bring both oxygen and carbon dioxide. Got that?”

Quinn said, “Sure, I’ll tell them. You carry on.”

He trotted along the cinder path and went in by the back door of the cottage. As Dr. Bossard began artificial respiration he told himself it was a waste of time … but he had to go through the motions.

She had no pulse and her colour was bad. Another case of a stupid person who’d started the engine of her car while the garage doors were shut. That, more or less, was what the Coroner would say — unless it came out that she’d said she knew who had poisoned Adele Parry. Then he might ask some more questions … which could be embarrassing.

… Not that it will make much difference in the end. Everybody knows she wallowed in malicious gossip whether it had any basis in fact or not. She was a mean woman all her life. Now she looks mean even in death. I doubt if anyone will shed a tear. And a few people with something to hide will feel a lot easier in mind …

Quinn came back. He said, “Ambulance is on its way. How’s she doing?”

“Too early to say yet. In a case like this you just keep on working and hope for the best.”

“If you get tired, show me what to do and I’ll take over for a while.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary,” Bossard said. “I hope the ambulance will be here before then. But thanks all the same.”

As he rocked to and fro, compressing Miss Wilkinson’s chest in a regular rhythm, he added, “If you want something to do, take a look in the garage and see if you can find any reason for her being in there … but don’t touch anything. Just look around.”

“O.K.”

“And make sure the air’s fit to breathe. Swing the doors backwards and forwards to get rid of the carbon monoxide. No need to go rushing in — unless you fancy getting what she got.”

Quinn looked down at Ariadne Wilkinson’s blotched and lifeless face. It could have been an accident … but for someone it might be a very fortunate accident.

… Even if she didn’t realise the danger of letting the engine run in an enclosed place without ventilation, why were the garage doors shut, anyway? It’s a hot day — a damned hot day. Assuming she actually was messing about with the car, why should she have locked herself in? You’d imagine she’d want all the fresh air she could get …

“No, I don’t,” Quinn said. “I can think of better ways of dying. And if you ask me she’s had her chips.”

The ambulance arrived fifteen minutes later. Miss Wilkinson still showed no sign of response.

When they had taken her away, Dr. Bossard asked, “Have you found anything that explains how this happened?”

Quinn said, “Well, it could be she was checking the oil in the automatic transmission. The long dipstick had been taken out and wiped clean and there was an empty oil-can standing on the battery with the cap off.”

“Is it the kind of thing a woman would do?”

“If she was interested in the mechanical side of her car — yes. Not that you have to be clever. You set the lever on the steering column in position P and let the engine idle fairly fast for several minutes to warm up. Then you check the dipstick and top up as required. That’s the whole job.”

“How do you come to be so knowledgeable?”

“I’m not. Just interested. How long would it take for her to be overcome by the fumes?”

“In a closed garage, not long. Five or six minutes might’ve been enough. She’d almost certainly not realise what was happening until it was too late.”

“But, if she’d left the doors open, she’d have been all right?”

“Probably. The exhaust gets away and so there’s no dangerous build-up of carbon monoxide.”

Quinn said, “Wonder why she locked herself in? On a cold day you’d expect it, but not on a day like this.”

“Maybe she did it from force of habit,” Bossard said. “Women sometimes feel nervous unless the door’s locked. And this place is fairly isolated.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

While Bossard watched him Quinn walked over to the garage door and studied the lock. It was hanging loose.

When at last he looked round, he said, “Yes, it might’ve been that.”

“Might’ve been what?”

“She could’ve got locked in accidentally, if the door had swung shut, because it’s a spring lock. Not that she couldn’t have got out again without any trouble … but she might not have bothered if she was busy with the car.”

“That’s probably the answer,” Bossard said. “However, it’s not our problem. A Coroner’s jury will decide … If you want to go, don’t wait for me. I’ll have to stay here until the police arrive.”

Quinn said, “Then I’ll be off. May see you later.”

He’d got as far as the wicket gate when he stopped and looked back. “There’s just one thing …”

“What’s that?”

“Well, it would take a fair gust of wind to swing that door shut and there hasn’t even been the slightest breeze all morning. So either she did it herself because she liked the hot stink of oil and petrol in a stifling garage … or someone else shut it. What do you think?”

With a look of disapproval, Dr. Bossard said, “I think you should leave this sort of thing to people who are more qualified. And didn’t you yourself say she was checking the oil in the automatic transmission of her car?”

“I said she could have been,” Quinn said. “I didn’t say she was. If she’s dead her death will have come as a merciful release — for several people in and around Castle Lammering.”

Bossard shook his head. “That’s a wild allegation. You’re suggesting —”

“No, I’m not. I’m making a plain statement of fact.”

“You shouldn’t listen to gossip.”

“What’s happened to her isn’t gossip. It’s a very convenient accident.”

“There’s no evidence to show it was anything more than that.”

Very hastily, Bossard went on. “And don’t twist my words. I didn’t mean it was convenient. From all I’ve seen she was overcome by exhaust fumes. Perhaps she realised her danger and tried to get out but hadn’t enough strength to do so. Carbon monoxide causes extreme muscular weakness. When she fell she struck her head on the lawnmower … and that finished any chance she might’ve had of escape.”

Quinn said, “That’s your version. I’ll admit it’s very plausible, too.”

He opened the wicket gate and went out. When he’d fastened the latch he looked back again.

“Now I’ll tell you mine. Ariadne Wilkinson knew too much. What was worse, she talked too much. So she had an accident that stopped her talking any more. Simple, Doctor, isn’t it?”

Dr. Bossard shook his head again. In a tone of dismissal, he said, “That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true.”

“You’re entitled to your own opinion,” Quinn said. “But I’m sticking to mine. I always prefer a simple explanation.”