False Alarm (19 page)

‘Good thinking. Shall we take the lift?'

He stepped into the lift after her. ‘I don't see what we can do except break the door down, except that that will get up the nose of the caretaker. I don't know if you've met him, but he's a surly so-and-so employed directly by Sir Lucas, and no one wants to offend him.'

‘So I understand. You know this Mr Harvey?'

‘Yes, of course. That is, I see him around and about. My wife sees more of him, being at home at the moment. She says he's an amusing neighbour. “Guess what Harvey's up to this week” sort of thing. I'm off early in the morning, back late at night.' He looked at his watch. ‘We've got an important date this evening. I hope Helen isn't too knocked up to attend. I told her to take it easy, but . . .' A shrug.

He wasn't a bully – as Bea had thought – but a caring, slightly fussy husband, worried about his wife.

The third-floor landing was crowded with people. Oliver and Maggie. Lucy Emerson and her buddy Carrie Kempton. The dark-haired girl from the ground floor with her shaven-headed partner.

No Lady Ossett. No Professor. No Carmela.

No Helen McIntyre, who was presumably holding Harvey's hand at the moment.

Every face turned to Bea as she emerged from the lift.

‘You have ten minutes to find him,' said Eliot McIntyre, looking at his watch. ‘Or I call in the police.'

‘Ridiculous,' said Oliver. ‘He's only dropped out for a few minutes.'

A babble of different voices, each holding their own opinion.

Bea cut through the noise. ‘Who saw the caretaker last?'

Oliver said, ‘Well, he locked Harvey in and got into the lift, saying he'd got work to do, even if I hadn't. That was the last I saw of him.'

‘Did he go up or down?'

A shrug from Oliver. ‘How should I know?'

‘Had anybody else asked him to call in?'

‘No. Not me.'

‘Haven't seen him since . . . dunno.'

‘Not this morning, anyway.'

‘What does he usually do on a Saturday?'

A grin or two. ‘Watch football on satellite TV. You can always hear his telly out back on a Saturday afternoon because he leaves his window open.'

‘Did anyone hear his television this afternoon? No? He told Oliver that he had work to do. Does anyone know what that might have been?'

No. Heads were shaken all round.

Bea looked at Carmela's closed door. No use asking her for help till her client had gone. ‘Mrs Emerson, may I go out on to the fire escape from your flat? Perhaps you can show me the way. And Mr McIntyre, would you come, too, please?' He seemed to have the coolest head, and it would be good to have a disinterested witness to what happened next. ‘Let's go up and talk to Harvey.'

‘Of course, dear; if you think it will do any good.' Lucy Emerson's eyes were bright with excitement. ‘I know it's all very dreadful, dear, but there's no denying that dear Harvey can be a bit, well, awkward, and between you and me, it's only a bit of a graze on the back of his hand and he really doesn't need a doctor.'

Eliot ushered the two of them into the lift. ‘I must get my wife to go and have a rest, or she'll be no good for anything this evening.' He pressed the button for the next floor.

Mrs Emerson let them into her flat. The air smelled stale. Windows weren't often opened here. She led the way into the kitchen, neat and tidy with some chicken pieces defrosting on the side, ready for cooking that evening. She opened the door on to the balcony and closed it behind them, to keep the heat in.

‘We're directly above Harvey's flat now?' said Bea. ‘And the other flat on this floor is for the Muslim family who seem to be invisible. Is that right?'

‘They're probably in, dear,' said Mrs Emerson, ‘but they don't usually come to the door.'

‘This way to Harvey's flat,' said Eliot, impatient of delay. He started down the stairs, calling out, ‘Helen; it's me. You really ought to be resting. Here's Mrs Abbot to take charge now.'

Mrs Emerson fluttered down the stairs after him, and Bea followed.

‘Hello there.' Helen was huddled into a coat which looked too big for her, but there was a little colour in her cheeks. She'd been a pretty woman once and would be so again if the treatment worked. ‘Harvey's been telling me how he ran a ship aground in the war.'

Eliot said, ‘Humph!' in a quiet voice.

Bea grinned to herself. Harvey wasn't old enough to have served in the Second World War, and she didn't think he'd served in the Falklands either. He'd thrown his kitchen window open and was sitting on a chair on the far side of the sink below it, sipping a cup of tea. He looked to be in his early forties. He had ginger hair in a quiff above a plump, petulant face, unremarkable except for a pair of very bright blue eyes. Harvey was as gay as a flock of parakeets, and if he'd ever been nearer government headquarters than passing through Gloucester in a car, Bea would be very much surprised.

‘Ah-ha, the cavalry arrives!' He had a high, light tenor voice. ‘I've been hearing all about you, Mrs Abbot, from my neighbours. They say you're a proper little heroine and will get me out of here in next to no time. I shall have to go online and tweet about meeting you.'

No hysteria. Harvey enjoyed being the centre of attention.

Bea smiled because he was smiling. ‘Did you get any idea where the caretaker was going when he left you?'

‘I'm afraid I threw something of a tantrum when he departed. The shock, you know; he lifted my keys off me, calm as you please, and threw me across the room when I objected. Because I did object, my word I did. There I was, lying half on and half off the sofa, quite at his mercy, and he storms out muttering to himself. That long lad with the black hair that I don't know what he has to do with anything though he said he'd come direct from Sir Lucas Ossett, which I cannot believe, but anyway, he apologized to me very nicely, that I will say, and off they both went, locking my own front door behind them. Naturally, I called them back, and perhaps I did lose my temper and thump the door, but to no avail.'

He took a deep breath. ‘So I opened my window at the back here, and I hollered and I hollered for help, and Lucy very kindly came down, and Carrie, too, and Lucy went back up to see if she could raise the caretaker on his mobile phone, but she couldn't. Carrie went back up to look for him, too, and that's when I tried to get out of the kitchen window and gave myself a nasty scratch on the catch, but it's no good thinking I'm the slender little thing I used to be, because those days are long since gone.'

‘Would you like another cup of tea?' said Lucy.

‘Thank you. I don't mind if I do. And perhaps a little shortbread biscuit? Must keep my strength up. Then Mr McIntyre came up, which I hadn't expected, but then dear Helen is always so concerned about me, and she came up as well, and then there was such a coming and a going, I've quite lost count of the number of people trying to release me from durance vile.'

Lucy took his empty cup and saucer and disappeared up the stairs. Eliot McIntyre looked at his watch. ‘Your ten minutes are up, Mrs Abbot. I don't want to keep Helen out here in the cold any longer.'

Bea made up her mind. ‘Helen, would you be so good as to check that Harvey doesn't need medical attention for his scratch? Harvey, can you somehow put your arm out of the window so that she can see . . .?'

While Helen attended to Harvey, Bea swivelled round and, since her head for heights was not wonderful, grasped the balcony railing with both hands before she looked over into the yard below. Nothing. Look to the right. Yes. Oh dear.

Was she going to be sick?

No. Breathe deeply. Stand upright.

Eliot treated her to a disapproving look.

Bea didn't want Helen to look and be upset, too. She said, ‘Mr Eliot, would you care to walk a little way along the balcony with me? Right to the end. We're outside Carmela's flat now, aren't we? I'm not good at heights. Would you look over the balcony and down into the yard for me?'

He looked. Gagged. Coughed. Said, in a strangled voice, ‘That's torn it.'

‘Don't let Helen look.'

‘No.' He ran the back of his hand across his mouth.

Bea steadied herself and had another look. Straight down, past the McIntyre flat and the now empty flat of the old woman who'd died some months before. He'd been a big man, that caretaker. One arm was outflung, and beyond it a mobile phone. Smashed. There was a considerable pool of blood under the body, and beside it, half under the body, there was a large, flattened cardboard box.

A high-pitched cry. A seagull?

‘Helen!' Eliot dashed back to his wife's side, pulling her away from the railing. She'd looked because she'd seen them do so. Bea cursed herself. She ought to have sent Helen back inside before she'd tested her suspicions.

Someone would have to go down and check to see if the caretaker were dead or badly injured. Probably her. Who else got all the dirty jobs around here?

‘S
o,' said Bea, looking at the menu without seeing it, ‘I went down to the ground floor and out into the yard and checked. He was quite dead. Cold. I called the police, who called the paramedics, who called the doctor, and they all agreed that it was a tragic accident. No one had liked the man, everyone was suitably shocked and a perfectly splendid time was had by Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.'

The menu in this new restaurant was huge, and the dishes seemed to combine foods which were not usually eaten together. The evening would be expensive, but at least she didn't have to pay. Her host, that grey man, CJ Cambridge, liked to be among the first to try out a new restaurant, and no doubt this place would live up to his high standards.

CJ beckoned the waiter over. ‘You sound as if you need a drink before we eat. Scotch for shock? Gin and something?'

‘I have no intention of reeling out of the restaurant in these high heels. I've ruined one pair this weekend already. I'll have one glass of wine with the meal, as usual.' She put the menu down. ‘You choose what we should eat. Anything but shellfish for me.'

CJ scanned the menu. ‘It's lobster that upsets you, isn't it? We'll play safe with some game, shall we?'

Normally, Bea would have resented his choosing for her, but tonight she'd had enough of being independent and clear-thinking and saving everyone else's bacon.

‘I would like,' she said, ‘to wipe today out of my memory banks. It's a Saturday, and it ought to have been a time for recuperation from the day-to-day worries of running a business. I ought to have spent an hour going over the accounts and dealing with any problems that might have arisen in the office. Then I would have gone shopping, or taken a walk in Kensington Gardens, or perhaps even gone to bed with my Kindle this afternoon.'

CJ was amused. ‘Instead of which, you kept your head while others were losing theirs, and were ready on time – looking as charming as ever, if I may say so – when I called for you.'

Bea shot him a glance which ought to have skewered him to the wall. ‘You think I kept my head because I didn't bring Sir Lucas's name up when the police came? I'm not sure I was right to do so.'

He smiled, the all-powerful alpha male indulging the frail female's quite unnecessary fears. ‘Now what possible good could have been achieved by dragging his name into what was clearly, as you say, a tragic accident?'

‘Pull the other one. How long had the caretaker worked there? Years. He was as familiar with the fire escape as he was with the lift. Judging by the way he was lying and the shape of the pool of blood beneath him, he'd fallen from one of the balconies on the right-hand side of the building. A higher floor, rather than a lower one.

‘It's impossible to access the fire escape from outside the building unless someone inside opens a door to let you in. The same applies to getting into one of the flats from the fire escape. You can't, unless someone lets you in. However, the caretaker had keys to all the flats and could get out on to their balconies at any time by letting himself in through one of their front doors and leaving through the kitchen. Are you following me?'

‘I am.' Humouring her.

‘The police asked which flat, and we all chipped in to tell them which one it must have been. We worked from the bottom up. The ground floor flat where the old woman used to live is empty. True, the ground slopes away a bit at the back, but if he'd fallen off that ground floor balcony, the drop wouldn't have been sufficient to kill him; to break a limb perhaps, but no more.

‘Directly above him were the McIntyres. They say the first they heard of something amiss was when Maggie and Oliver knocked on their door to see if they knew where the caretaker might be. They say they did not go out on to their balcony at any time that afternoon. I believe them.

‘Above them is Carmela, who had a client with her all afternoon. Knocking on her door failed to rouse her. She only came to the door, fully dressed and immaculate, when her client was ready to leave. They alibi one another.'

CJ was amused. He steepled his fingers and looked at her over them. ‘You really think she needs an alibi?'

Ignore that. ‘Above Carmela is the Muslim family. The father did come to the door eventually. He said they'd been in all afternoon. They'd been scared when they heard all the shouting but hadn't dared to look out and hadn't seen anything. See no evil, hear no evil. The police believed him. I'm not sure I did. To me, he looked like a man determined to avoid trouble.'

CJ raised one eyebrow. ‘Perhaps, if you'd been through what they've suffered, wherever they've come from,
you'd
be frightened when a policeman knocked on your door.'

Bea grimaced. ‘I know. I'm being uncharitable. Take no notice. I'll feel better tomorrow. Now, directly above the Muslims is the empty flat once occupied by Tariq. I understand he left the place in a mess and, from my own observation, he'd dumped a pile of cardboard and other packing materials out on his balcony before he disappeared. The caretaker had told Oliver that he had some work to do after he left Harvey. I think he went into Tariq's messy, unoccupied flat, let himself out on to the balcony from the kitchen and started to throw all the rubbish down into the yard, so that he could dispose of it in one of the wheelie bins. The police agree with me that this was what must have happened.'