Philip Gooden - The Durham Deception

Now, alone in the rented house in the early afternoon, she grew frightened. She went round drawing the thin curtains and bolting the front and back doors. Ambrose had a key but he could not get past a bolt. She was standing in the kitchen when out of the corner of her eye she suddenly noticed a shadowy movement in the tiny backyard. Heart in mouth, she crouched down below the sink. There was a tap at the back door.

‘Kitty, are you there? I know someone’s there. Kitty, open up.’

It was Ambrose.

Later, when they’d made everything up, Kitty ventured to ask a question. The only question that mattered. She and Ambrose were lying in their bed, the one in the back room with its view of the gaol. Not so spacious or comfortable as the mahogany one in the better bedroom but that was associated with Flask and, besides, there was still the stench of burnt feathers in the room. It was late afternoon. Kitty stretched. She felt warm and relaxed — and hungry. She’d hardly eaten that day, what with her visit to the police station (which she was tactful enough not to mention). In a moment she’d go down to the kitchen and see if there was anything to cook.

It was strange, she reflected, that a few hours before she had been hoping never to see Ambrose again. It was good riddance as far as she was concerned. Yet here they were, snugged up tight together, like nothing had happened. Except something had happened. Eustace Flask was dead. Hence the question.

‘Ambrose, did you do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘You know. Did you do Eustace?’

‘What do you think, Kitty?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.’

‘You think I’m a murderer,’ said Ambrose, gripping her throat not hard but not so playfully either.

‘Leave off, Ambrose. ’Course I don’t. Otherwise I’d hardly be lying here with you, would I? I’m not stupid.’

‘I don’t know ’bout that. It takes someone pretty stupid to think they could get away with lying with a molly like Flask.’

‘Oh that. That was just a — ’ Kitty searched for a word that would not offend him ‘ — a ’speriment. I was curious.’

‘You know what they say about curiosity and the cat. The cat, remember, Kitty Kitty.’

Ambrose was sufficiently amused by his own joke to move his hand from the area of Kitty’s throat and to start stroking the inside of her thigh instead. She was encouraged. She ran her own hand — her left one, not the bandaged one — down his body and said, ‘If I’m a cat, Ambrose, look at what I’ve found here. Why, it’s a mouse, a very large mouse. Don’t you worry your head about Eustace. He couldn’t even get it up.’

‘Not true from what I saw.’

‘Not properly up anyway, not for more than a mo. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud. Not like you, Ambrose. You can always get it up. But, serious, where’ve you been the last few days? Have you been sleeping rough?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘I missed you.’

Ambrose pulled away from her hand. He looked slightly uneasy. Not really guilty but a bit uncomfortable.

‘Where’ve I been? Here and there. But not sleeping rough, no.’

In fact, Ambrose had prudently invested in a widow, not too old a widow, who lived in a neighbouring street. His investment had taken the form of a few knowing words and suggestive grins over the last couple of months and she was more than receptive when he went knocking on her door round the corner. It was the night when he’d stormed out the house after discovering Kitty in bed with Flask. Being round the corner had been convenient too since he was determined to keep a close eye on Flask and Kitty. On the subject of the widow, he might have said to Kitty that a wise mouse needed more than one hole to creep into but the thought did not occur to him. He was split between wanting to boast about the other woman to Kitty — except that the widow would lose a few years in the telling — and wanting to keep quiet. Truth was, he was a little bit nervous of Kitty’s reaction. So he said nothing except to repeat that he had not been sleeping rough.

Kitty had a fair idea that something of the widow-variety might have occurred. It didn’t bother her. They were quits in a way. But Ambrose still hadn’t answered the question about the murder of Flask, not right out. She had to know. So she approached the problem less directly.

‘What were you up to while I was missing you? You with someone?’

‘You sound like a police jack with all this quizzing. No, I wasn’t. If you want to know, I was keeping an eye on you and Eustace. I went to that theatre like you did. I saw Flask vanish. That was a good trick. Take my hat off to the magician.’

‘He came back afterwards,’ said Kitty.

‘I know he came back, more’s the pity,’ said Ambrose. He hesitated for a moment before continuing. ‘I had a glimpse of him, didn’t I? He was a long way off. I recognized his coat.’

Kitty stiffened. Was Ambrose saying that he had been following Flask on the morning of his death? Was this his way of edging towards a confession? As though he could read her mind he said, ‘But I didn’t get no closer to Flask. I kept my distance. Next I knew there was some big kerfuffle, the crushers coming and blowing their whistles and shaking their rattles and all that. I made meself scarce.’

She wasn’t sure whether to believe him. Not the bit about making himself scarce but whether he really hadn’t got close to Flask, close enough to kill him.

‘Tell you who I did see, though,’ said Ambrose suddenly. ‘That old fellow who was at Miss Howlett’s. He passed me in a right state. If he weren’t so old I’d say he’d been running.’

Septimus was not usually at Colt House at teatime since he tried to put in a full working day in the cathedral library. But he had not been back to the library for two days now. Like the rest of the household, he had been unsettled by the murder of Eustace Flask and so these two old friends, Septimus and Julia, naturally turned to each other for comfort. Septimus had something else on his mind which he had yet to reveal to his landlady. First, though, he had to establish how Miss Howlett was bearing up. He commiserated with her on the death of the medium.

‘Oh, it is terrible, Septimus, terrible. But I have hardly given the unfortunate Eustace a thought because I have been so worried about Helen. What happened to my niece is a disgrace, it is an outrage.’

‘I expect the police thought they were acting for the best. Perhaps they had no choice in the matter because Mrs Ansell was found near the… because she was…’

‘How dare they arrest my niece! How dare they suspect her of having a hand in Mr Flask’s demise! Helen would not hurt a fly. She is not robust, you know.’

‘I never like to disagree with you, Miss Howlett, but from what little I have seen of Mrs Ansell she strikes me as being quite the opposite. She is robust, she is capable. She even hinted to me that her experience might be useful to her in her writing. For she is writing a novel, one of those novels they call a three-decker.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Julia, ‘but there are some experiences which a lady ought never to have, whatever the length of the novel she is writing.’

‘I was there,’ said Septimus, putting his teacup down in the saucer with particular care.

‘Where? Where were you, Septimus?’

‘I was near the river when Eustace Flask was… was murdered. I saw him.’

‘You saw him what, Septimus? You saw him alive, you saw him dead?’

At once Julia Howlett looked very alert, especially bird-like.

‘Both.’

‘I am afraid I do not quite follow you.’

‘I was visiting St Oswald’s. I do sometimes, when I want peace and quiet to think. I was walking in the graveyard and looking at the view of the cathedral over the river and through the trees. All at once, I heard a noise below me, from among the trees. And I saw someone making his way in haste through the branches and the undergrowth…’