A Ghost in the Machine (23 page)

There had been so much drama over the past three days, so many practical things that had to be done after Dennis's death, that the process of mourning had passed Mallory by. Now he felt it, a slow paralysis of grief, gradually stealing across his heart.

 

Naturally Benny Frayle's outburst in the coroner's court was all over the village. Most people were sympathetic, especially those who had witnessed her terrible, stumbling progress from Kinders towards Appleby House the evening Dennis Brinkley died. Others were more heartless, pointing out that she'd always been several cards short of a full deck so what was new?

Only Doris Crudge had reacted with genuine distress. The next day she brought Benny over some special chocolates. Really expensive ones that she'd been keeping for her sister's birthday.

Benny was in the kitchen with Kate and Mallory. She took the box, put it aside and carried on talking. Doris was gobsmacked. Though familiar with the saying that someone or other had suddenly become “a completely different person” she had always thought it meant they'd had a sort of makeover, like on the telly. How else could a human being become completely different? Yet here it was happening before her very eyes.

Benny – shy, hesitant, anxious-to-please Benny – was actually arguing with Mallory over Dennis's funeral.

“Honestly, Ben,” he was saying, “does it really matter?”

“Matter? Of course it matters.”

“The vicar thought…space…you know?”

“Dennis
hated
the idea of cremation.” Here Benny actually thumped one of her clenched fists on the table. “He had this terrible dream about being trapped in his coffin and coming round in the furnace.”

Mallory thought that sounded like a typical Benny Frayle dream. Then understood – of course! This is about having a body to exhume and re-examine when the non-existent murderer was finally caught.

But she was so very distressed and had been through a terrible ordeal. What did the way Dennis's mortal remains were disposed of really matter? On the other hand, if a cremation was carried out it might help to put a stop to all these terrible imaginings.

“I'll see what I can sort out, Ben.”

“Thank you,” said Benny. She got up, briskly abandoning the breakfast table. “I'm going over to the flat now to start on my campaign. I think the London papers first, don't you?”

“I'm not sure,” said Kate. “More notice would be taken should your letter be published. On the other hand, they do get a huge amount so the chances of it happening are much less.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” said Benny. “Better start locally. And then after lunch I must talk to the police.”

Kate and Mallory exchanged wary glances. Doris, equally on edge, sat down at the table and poured herself some dregs of coffee.

She said, “I'm not really up to date on things here, Ben. What's actually happening?”

“Kate will explain. We're all working together on this.”

 

The police proved to be a tough option. No difficulty in dropping into Causton station at any time to have a chat. But great difficulty in speaking directly, face to face, with a senior officer in the Criminal Investigation Department. But surely, argued Benny, with the very pleasant-sounding woman on the other end of the telephone, as they were the people who would be dealing with the subsequent inquiry there was little point in her talking to anyone else.

Benny listened to the response for a moment, then switched off for it was plainly negative. Odd phrases filtered through. “…in the first instance…usual procedure…then your statement would be…an interview with…” She hung up. Now, what?

Benny, though normally hesitant, fluttery and somewhat gullible, was not a fool. She knew how she was regarded by those who did not know her well, which would certainly include anyone she spoke to at the police station. The chances were that if she simply turned up prepared to argue and stand her ground they wouldn't take her seriously. They might ask – even force – her to leave.

What she needed was someone to vouch for her. A person who was on her side, obviously. And with some standing in the community. She thought of Dr. Cornwell. He had had a practice in Causton for over twenty years. The chances were high that some of his patients were police personnel. Perhaps one or two might be from the higher echelons.

Benny reached for her address book, then hesitated. She remembered the doctor's last visit to Appleby House when she had practically accused him of incompetence, of misdiagnosing Dennis's cause of death. He had not seemed to take offence but such an incident would hardly prejudice him in her favour. It might be safer to look elsewhere.

What about Hargreaves, Carey's solicitors, an extremely respected and long-established firm in Great Missenden? The senior partner, Horace de Witt, had looked after her legal affairs for over thirty years and knew Benny well. He would be even better than Dr. Cornwell, being familiar to the police from appearances in court.

Pleased at her own cleverness Benny dialled the number, only to find that Horace had just left for a holiday in Guadeloupe and would be back in two weeks, just in time for his retirement party.

Benny sighed, made some tea and sat down to drink it. Who else could there possibly be? There was the vicar, of course. Heaven knew, he was respectable, but he was also new to the parish and so not really knowledgeable as to Benny's finer character traits. She decided it would be kinder not to ask him to vouch for her.

More to give her mind a break than out of a wish to read, she picked up the
Causton Echo.
The murder of that poor old pensioner over at Badger's Drift had still not been solved. The police were urgently seeking the public's help. Two men had been seen getting into a G reg. green Sierra on the outskirts of the village shortly after six on the evening of…

Benny read on. At the end was an emergency phone number. She was about to put the paper down when, with a tremble of excitement, she recognised that she was now looking at a perfect means to an end. She found a Biro, drew a circle round the number and reached for the telephone.

 

Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy was entertaining himself by imagining his chief's response when he showed in the middle-aged woman now trailing along behind him on the third floor of Causton police station. Responding to their appeal for information she had refused to speak to anyone but the officer in charge of the Badger's Drift investigation.

How old she was was anybody's guess. The almost fluorescent pinky orange hair was plainly not her own. It looked like the spun, varnished stuff glued to the heads of little girls' dolls. Her dress was a muddy brown-green colour, swarming with black wriggly things. There was an awful lot of it and it was tied up in the middle with a length of shiny, pink ribbed plastic. She looked like a camouflaged bundle of washing. Troy opened a door inscribed “Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby” and followed her in. This was one interview he was not prepared to miss.

Benny regarded the man getting to his feet behind the large desk. She was not nervous. Her cause was just. But if it had not been she would certainly have been nervous. He was a very large man. Not fat but bulky. Solid in his build and in the way he looked at you. Very straight and direct from beneath thick, heavy brows.

“Miss Frayle, sir.”

The man introduced himself and shook Benny's outstretched hand. “Thank you for coming in. Please sit down. I understand you have some information for us.”

“Yes I do,” replied Benny. She wished the thin, younger man had left them alone. She hadn't taken at all to his weaselly profile and high-standing brush of stiff, red hair. Although he had been perfectly polite she had sensed hidden laughter. Unkindness too.

“Do you have any objection if we tape what you have to say?”

“Of course not,” replied Benny, thinking how encouraging such efficiency was. “But I'm afraid I don't have any information regarding that terrible business at Badger's Drift.”

“But I understood—”

“Yes,” replied Benny. “I do have information about a murder. But it is not that murder.”

“Is it something presently under investigation?”

“Not yet,” replied Benny. “Which is why I'm here.”

“This sounds a bit complicated, Miss Frayle.” Barnaby looked at his watch. “And I'm extremely busy. But if you go along with Sergeant Troy—”

“
Please
hear me out,” cried Benny. “I know it was wrong to get in here under false pretences but this is very, very urgent. No one will listen, you see.”

The chief inspector tried not to let his impatience show, for she was plainly extremely distressed. Out of Benny's sightline Troy was screwing his index finger into the side of his forehead and winking.

This contemptuous display prompted the DCI to say: “Tell me about it then, Miss Frayle. But be brief, if you would.”

So Benny told him about it and tried to be brief, although it wasn't easy. Mainly she looked into her lap but whenever she did glance up Barnaby appeared to be attending closely. Troy had also tuned in but almost immediately tuned out again, recognising the inquest story that Gresham had been circulating round the canteen. He was also somewhat distracted by Benny's belt, which was more and more reminding him of a length of human intestine.

“And he knew something bad was going on,” concluded Benny. “A day or so before he died I found him in the war room in front of that dreadful trebbyshay thing. He looked so worried. I asked what was wrong and then…the most frightening thing. ‘Benny,' he said, ‘there's a ghost in the machine.'”

 

“I can't make out why you're doing this, Chief.” Sergeant Troy returned from his errand and laid the Dennis Brinkley file on Barnaby's desk.

Barnaby was not sure why either except that she had been quite despairing and on the verge of tears and had begged him to look into it, and he had said that he would. If her description of the incident was correct the whole business sounded fairly uncomplicated and shouldn't take more than half an hour, if that.

And so it proved. Sergeant Gresham had been scrupulous as to procedure. The correct forms dealing with continuity of the body's state and position and circumstances of death had been written up. Several photographs had been taken from all angles, showing details of the machinery's disfunction as well as different aspects of the corpse's sorry state. No evidence could be found that any other person had been present in the room during or immediately prior to the incident and a thorough search revealed no suicide note. The death certificate was as straightforward as the paramedics' statement. The last person to see Brinkley alive had reported his state of mind as calm and quiet. He was looking forward to a dinner that evening with friends.

And so Barnaby dictated a brief note to Benny Frayle stating that the inquest verdict seemed to him perfectly correct and he saw no reason for further investigation into the matter or manner of Dennis Brinkley's death.

 

On the Monday following her visit to the police, Benny was watching eagerly for the postman. Not only for their response – though this, of course, was paramount—but also from the editors of the various newspapers to which she had written. None of her earlier correspondence describing a grave miscarriage of justice had been printed and Benny wanted to know why. The reason was simple. Kate, offering to post the letters, had disposed of them. She had not done this without considerable soul searching and consultation with Mallory. At first thought it had seemed an outrageous, shameful thing to do. Benny had handed the letters over so trustingly. And surely, as a capable adult, it was her own business who she chose to write to. But Kate feared not that the letters would be ignored but that they might be printed. She saw Benny encouraged in her hopeless quest, perhaps even interviewed by some local hack anxious to get his or her byline noticed. A feature that could be discreetly slanted to make the journalist look clever and Benny a fool. Even so, the words “it's for her own good” sat uncomfortably at the back of Kate's mind and she had already decided that, were more letters to be written, she would not interfere.

Neither of the Lawsons knew about Benny's visit to Causton CID. Aware that she had cheated her way in, Benny felt it better to keep quiet. When the admirable chief inspector, in whom she had the greatest confidence, vindicated her visit by ordering a new inquiry, then everyone could be told. Not boastfully, of course. That would be extremely ill-mannered.

When the post came, Benny was in the kitchen having tea with Doris. As the letter box flapped she rushed out and rushed straight back, dropping everything on the hall table but for one letter.

“You're in a bit of a state, Ben.” Doris spoke with genuine concern. Benny's cheeks glowed a hectic crimson and her gaze was wild as she ripped at the envelope. It didn't open easily and she tore it practically in half to get the single sheet of paper out. Her face changed as she read it. So quickly it was almost comic, thought Doris. Like when children wipe an expression off their face with their hand. Benny's mouth was a round O and her eyes bolted from her head.

“What on earth's the matter?” asked Doris. “Benny?”

“They're not going to do anything.”

“Who aren't?” Passionately interested, Doris reached out and picked up the letter. “You've been to the police?”

“I haven't told the others,” said Benny. “It was going to be a surprise.”

“Well, they won't hear it from me,” said Doris.

“This is devastating news. He seemed such a nice man. And so intelligent.”

“Then perhaps, now's the time—”

“A chief inspector in the CID.” Benny, profoundly sick at heart, could hardly take in the written words. She read them again. “How could he possibly not have understood?”