Death of an Avid Reader (24 page)

‘At first I wasn't sorry when he took poorly, thinking it would shut him up, thinking at least he won't end up in prison. The farmer sent for a doctor to come to the caravan, but it was no use.' She lifted a hand to her hair. ‘It turned me grey. I was pure dark brown before that. Afterwards, a week after he was buried, I came back to Leeds, spruced myself up and went to see about a job.'

‘I had no idea.'

‘Well, none of us does know another's story, not really. You told me nowt. I worked it out.'

‘What happened to Ronnie's friend, Fred?'

‘Stayed on as a farm labourer, patched up the caravan. He kept the rifle and give me the pistol, said it might come in handy. It was my memento of Ronnie, and his big plans.'

There was a loud knock at the front door. It was a policeman's knock, forceful enough to put the panel through.

Mrs Sugden stood up, almost knocking over her chair. ‘Oh my God, they've found him. He's bled to death in someone's back garden.'

‘You stay here.' I walked along the hall. The knock had startled Percy. He hid behind the hall stand. I held out a hand. ‘Come on.' He let me push him into the safety of the drawing room.

I opened the door. It was PC Hodge, the beat bobby who had come to the infirmary to stand guard over the hapless organ grinder.

‘Mrs Shackleton, if I might have a word.'

The night was too dark and cold to speak on the doorstep. ‘Of course, Constable. Come in.'

He stepped across the threshold. In the hall, he took off his helmet, clutching it to his chest, looking a little sheepish. ‘I've something to collect I believe.'

For a moment I could not think what he meant, and then I remembered. Inspector Wallis had asked for Umberto's sovereigns.

‘I'll get the bag.'

‘Right you are.' He waited in the hall for the moment it took me to fetch the hessian bag.

I handed it to him.

‘Thank you. There's something else, Mrs Shackleton. Can we sit down a minute?'

‘Yes. Come through.'

I led him into the kitchen. Mrs Sugden might as well hear if an injured man had blamed some crazy woman for shooting him in the leg. She was standing by the gas stove, having relit the jet.

The constable nodded to her.

We sat down.

He placed his helmet on the kitchen table. ‘It's about Umberto Bruno. He's took a turn for the worse. He's not long for this world.'

‘Poor man. I'm sorry to hear that.'

‘The thing is, I thought you'd want to know. I'm right sorry, Mrs Shackleton. You did your best for him.'

‘It was too late. Something should have been done for him much sooner.'

‘That's true of a lot of people. It's a sad fact of life, of the world as it is.' He stared at his helmet, waiting for me to stand, to thank him, to let him go.

‘Is anyone sitting with him?'

‘No. I've been stood down. I'm off duty but said I'd call for this bag.'

I glanced at Mrs Sugden. ‘Oh dear, poor fellow.' Showing the makings of a good character actress, she hid her relief that the constable was not here to arrest her for unlawful shooting.

‘Stay and have a cup of tea, Mr Hodge. Mrs Sugden was just making one.'

‘The kettle's on.' Mrs Sugden rewound the handkerchief around her bloody finger.

‘I'm going to the infirmary to see Mr Bruno.'

The constable nodded. ‘I told the sister you might come. The priest has been.'

‘Mrs Sugden, I won't eat, but you should. Perhaps the constable would like egg and chips.'

‘Oh I couldn't,' he said, but his eyes lit up.

‘I'm sure Mrs Sugden will rinse her blood off the potato.'

‘Well as it happens, mi stomach thinks mi throat's cut.'

Mrs Sugden and I exchanged a look. If the constable was here in the kitchen, he would not be bumping into a man with a bullet in his leg.

As I stood in the hall, putting on my coat, Constable Hodge was saying, ‘That finger needs a bandage.'

‘They're in yon cupboard. Can you reach one?'

‘Aye.'

As I left the house, a sense of failure flooded over me, such as I rarely feel. What a great nurse, refusing to face up to the inevitable. What a great detective, to know nothing about her own housekeeper.

*   *   *

Umberto had been given a dose of morphine. His breathing was laboured and loud, but I knew that he would by now be feeling no pain. There would be no last words, but perhaps he could hear me.

I took his hand in mine, and placed my other hand on his brow. ‘Rest. Don't fret about anything. It's all taken care of, and Percy too.'

There was the slightest pressure on my hand. I liked to think he knew I was there.

His rosary was on the bedside cabinet. When I put it in his palm, his fingers curled around it.

He would want to die in his own language. If words were forming somewhere in his brain, they would be in another tongue, a different voice, from faraway and long ago, so I spoke very little, just his name, a few words. But we held hands for hours, until all light fled. Finally, his grip loosened. Still, I held his hand until, when the sky was streaked with dawn, he died. I opened the window for his soul to fly away.

For a long while, I sat by his bed. The accusation of murder still hung over him, and would until Dr Potter's killer was found. During the night, time seemed both endless and still. I wondered about who might have murdered Dr Potter, and left Umberto helpless in a corner. Professor Merton seemed unlikely. It is hard to imagine one's neighbour as a killer. But there was something strange going on, and it would be good to find out who was the intruder into the Mertons' garden.

I left the room before Umberto's body was taken away.

It surprised me to see Sykes, waiting downstairs. We looked at each other and I suppose he did not have to ask about Umberto.

‘Mrs Sugden came to tell me. The desk porter let me sit in his room. I thought I'd drive you home. Saw your car outside.'

We walked to the door. Although the sun had risen so promisingly, it was now hidden. We climbed into the car. For no particular reason, I remembered when Sykes first came to work with me. He was mortified that he had never driven. Now he did so at every opportunity, occasionally far too fast.

I swear he sometimes divines what I am thinking.

He speeded up in the direction of Headingley. ‘Go on, say it.'

‘Say what?'

‘Home James, and don't spare the horses.'

‘Slow down! We're not in a race.'

‘You can't get the help these days. I drive too fast, Mrs Sugden pulls a gun.'

‘She told you?'

‘She did. I could hardly credit it.'

‘I'd like to know who her victim was, and what he was up to. I wonder whether he went somewhere to have his wound dressed.'

‘Don't know about that. He'd be asked awkward questions if he went to the dispensary.'

‘But it's possible.'

‘Worth a try I suppose. One of the dispensary orderlies owes me a bit of a favour.'

‘Then call in the favour.'

‘I'll try.'

We drew close to the end of my street. ‘Keep going, Mr Sykes.'

‘Where to?'

‘I want to see Dr Potter's manservant again.'

‘Why's that?'

‘They were close. Given that Dr Potter mentioned Marian Montague to me, I wonder if he said anything about her to Morgan, that's the manservant.'

‘It's too early to see anyone yet. Normal people are sleeping.'

‘I suppose you're right. Come round for me in a couple of hours and we'll go together.'

Twenty-Three

We drove north from Headingley, along a back lane deserted by all but a milk cart. I gave Sykes impressively good directions to Big Bothy. He parked in the lane, where I had stopped on my previous visit. We walked the path to the strange octagonal house that Dr Potter had called home. Perhaps it was because of knowing its occupant's fate, but it looked strangely forlorn. A bicycle rested by the wall next to the door. Morgan had mentioned that he used it for shopping and that occasionally Dr Potter cycled to work.

Mr Morgan must have seen us walking along the path because he was waiting in the doorway. The poor man looked so lonely, framed in a halo of isolation.

‘Good morning, Mr Morgan. Excuse the disturbance.'

‘It is no disturbance, Mrs Shackleton.'

‘This is Mr Sykes who works with me. I wondered whether we might come in and have a word.'

‘Of course.' The men shook hands. ‘Come you through.'

It seemed heartless to come questioning him. Not only did I want to know about Marian Montague, whom I desperately hoped was Sophia Wells. If I were to clear Umberto's name, I needed to find out what enemies Dr Potter may have made.

Morgan led us into the parlour. I sat down on one of the chintz chairs. Sykes made as if to sit in the opposite chair, but stopped mid-air.

Morgan produced a newspaper. ‘Excuse the cat hairs. Dunce will sleep there and there's nothing to be done about it.' He placed the paper on the chair seat.

‘Where is Dunce now?' I asked.

‘Out for a stroll.'

Polynesia parrot tilted her head to one side and began to recite her two times table. The cage door stood open. She flew out and onto Morgan's shoulder. Sykes stared. I have never before seen him mesmerised.

‘And what can I do for you?' Morgan asked.

‘When we spoke last, you said you thought that Dr Potter had a surprise in store last Friday.' He looked at me with interest but did not muster a reply. ‘I want to tell you what was in Dr Potter's mind. He intended to bring home a clever monkey for enrolment in his arithmetic class.'

Morgan's troubled face lit with sudden understanding. ‘Ah so that was it. I should have guessed he was planning something along those lines. What kind of monkey?'

‘A Capuchin.'

‘I see. I knew he was excited about something. That explains the scheme of work for counting by digits. Where is the creature?'

‘I am taking care of him.'

‘Thank you for telling me. I always would have wondered.' He sighed. ‘Did the purchase of the monkey in any way, shape or form have a connection with my master's death think you?'

‘I do not think so, except that both men were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am trying to form a clear picture of what may have happened. Would you mind if I ask you one or two questions?'

‘Fire away.'

The parrot pecked at Morgan's ear and then began to count.

Morgan said, ‘That is enough of your showing off, Polynesia. Thank you and goodnight.' He turned his shoulder to the cage. She hopped inside and he closed the door. ‘Now what was that you were saying, Mrs Shackleton?'

‘Did Dr Potter ever mention a helpful young library assistant, Miss Montague?'

‘I can't say that he spoke much of his colleagues except that rascally Professor Merton.'

‘Why is he a rascal?'

‘He caused my master no end of grief. If the two of them had agreed to the removal of the library to new premises, they would have swung all the proprietors behind them. But the professor dug in his heels and was all for staying.'

‘I saw some of Dr Potter's arguments for removal. They seemed to me sound.'

‘What arguments?'

‘Oh, Commercial Street being no longer a suitable location, now more appropriate for business and shopping. He mentioned the lack of space in the building and the prospective purchaser being prepared to pay removal costs.'

Morgan gave a small chuckle that changed his whole appearance. For a brief time, something shone in him, a glimmer of admiration for his master. ‘I knew he would come up with something sound.'

‘You mean that was not the real reason?'

‘Heavens, no. None of that mattered to him.'

‘Then what did?'

‘He was all for staying until he knew the full details of the scheme. The building was to be turned into a department store, see you, a grand emporium. In the basement there would be a menagerie, with every kind of exotic creature that graces the face of the earth. There would be an aquarium, a miniature jungle, a tropical world with its own boiler.'

‘Yes, now I do see. I suppose he did not want to tell the professor the real reason.'

‘Certainly not, because that may have given an inkling of the nature of our secret work, teaching the animals. Besides, he and Professor Merton were at each other's throats over the vice chancellorship.'

‘They were rivals, I believe.'

‘That is one way of putting it.'

‘Was there much rancour between Dr Potter and Professor Merton about the post of vice chancellor?'

‘Oh indeed there was. Dr Potter needed all his wits about him to ensure that Professor Merton would not wriggle out of the contest and leave Dr Potter to sup the poison chalice of success and swallow the degradation of drumming up funds for university expansion.'

‘Neither of them wanted the job?'

‘Bless us and save us, no they did not.'

‘But I thought, from what Miss Merton said…'

He chuckled again. ‘My master knew how to play a cunning game. He specially went to eat mutton pie with the Mertons and cleverly drew the sociable sister on his side.'

A cob of coal crackled and split, creating an orange and blue flame. My barely hatched theory that taciturn Professor Merton had murdered his rival for the post of university vice chancellor curled up the chimney with the rising smoke.

I glanced at Sykes, to see whether he had any questions. He stared blithely at the gigantic cat as it strolled into the room.

Morgan rose. ‘I am being a poor host. Will you take coffee? We have a bottle of Camp.'

He spoke with such pride that it would have been difficult to refuse. I agreed to coffee, and so did Sykes.