The Midden

Chapter 9

By the time he had seen all the guests leave, Sir Arnold's exhaustion was almost total. Only terror kept him going terror and black coffee. But during the afternoon a new stimulant entered the picture. It came with the realization that whoever had brought that filthy lout to the house and his bed must have had an accomplice on the inside. All the facts, in so far as he could marshal them, pointed to that incontrovertible conclusion. Sir Arnold in his awful condition certainly couldn't controvert it. He clung instead to certain facts, the first of which was that someone, and if he could lay his hands on that someone...some shit had unlocked the iron gates to let some other shits in with the young bastard now in the cellar and, when they had left, had locked the gates again. There was no other way they could have got in. The walls and the steel-shuttered windows on the reservoir side of the house made any other route impossible. When it came to self-protection, the Chief Constable did himself well.

That was the first point and it was confirmed by the second, the pitiful state of the Rottweiler. If Sir Arnold felt awful and he did the dog was in an even worse state. True, its legs had recovered and it could walk well, at any rate hobble but in nearly every other respect it had the look of an animal that had made the mistake of taking on a thoroughly ill-tempered JCB. Its jaws were in a particularly nasty state and, when once or twice it tried to bark or make some sort of audible protest, it merely achieved what looked like a yawn. No sound issued from its massive throat, though when it hobbled, it wheezed. In more favourable circumstances Sir Arnold would have got his wife to call the vet, but that was out of the question. Circumstances were the least favourable he had ever known and he had no intention of allowing any damned vet to come poking around the place. He had even less of allowing Lady Vy or that beastly Bea to go anywhere. Genscher would have to suffer in silence. All the same, the dog provided further evidence that Bea had helped the swine who had put that lout in his bed. The dog knew her and had evidently come to like the cow. In his disgusted opinion it ought to have savaged her the first time she set foot on the premises. Instead it had trusted her. Sir Arnold wasted no sympathy on the animal. It had only itself to blame for its present condition. The damned woman must have taken a crowbar to the brute.

Following this line of reasoning, he wondered what she had taken to Lady Vy. Probably a near-lethal dose of anti-depressants. Like twice her normal dose. And this on top of her usual bottle of gin. Well, two could play that game, and he wasn't going to have anyone interfering with his plans for the disposal of the bloke in the sheets.

He was now left with the practical problem of getting the bloke out of the cellar and depositing him somewhere else. Once that had been achieved successfully any attempt to blackmail him would be a right give-away. That bloody Bea wouldn't be able to say a thing. The opportunity would have passed. It was a nice thought.

Sir Arnold applied his mind to the solution of this problem. First the place would have to be somewhere near enough for him to be able to get there and back in an hour. Sometime between 2 a.m. and 3 would be ideal. And this time Auntie Bea would be the one to have something to make her sleep. Say 80 mg of Valium in her tonic. That would undoubtedly do the trick. Or in the gin? No, tonic was better. She would drink more of the tonic. He went through to the sitting-room and got a bottle and made up the potion. And it wouldn't hurt if Vy got a dose too. He didn't want her interfering in his plan or even knowing what it was. He knew his wife. She had an infinite capacity for forgetting the unpleasant facts of her experience and for concentrating on only those things that gave her pleasure. With the help of enough gin she could forget any sort of crime. He wasn't going to worry about Vy.

His thoughts, such as they were, reverted to the Middenhall. If only he could be absolutely sure Miss Midden had gone away and the old farmhouse was unoccupied it would make the ideal spot to dump the bastard. It was close enough to be convenient and at the same time far enough away to remove all suspicion from the Old Boathouse. Best of all was the proximity of all those very dubious Midden family eccentrics in the Hall itself. In a way it would be easier to dump the fellow in the garden there but there was always the danger he might die of exposure in the night air. No, he'd have to go inside a building, preferably a house, where he'd definitely be found fairly quickly. And the farmhouse was sufficiently close to the Middenhall proper to cast suspicion on its strange inhabitants. Let Miss Midden come home and find that little lot in her bed and it would be very interesting to get her reaction.

In spite of his fatigue the Chief Constable almost smiled at the thought. Once again he phoned the farm and got no reply. He tried the Middenhall itself and asked for the Major. 'I'm afraid he's away for the weekend,' a woman told him.

Sir Arnold took his courage in his hands. 'Then perhaps Miss Midden is available,' he said.

'She's not here either. They won't be back till Monday or even Tuesday.'

'Oh well, it can wait,' said the Chief Constable and, before the woman could ask who was calling, he put the phone down.

Now all that remained was to move the Land Rover down to the old byre so that he wouldn't be heard from the house when he started it up. Having done all the essential things, Sir Arnold settled down to get some rest.

In fact there was no need to wait until 2 a.m. to make the move. At ten o'clock Auntie Bea said she was dead tired and wandered off to bed and Lady Vy followed, looking very weirdly pink. Sir Arnold hoped he hadn't overdone the Valium in the tonic. Well, it couldn't be helped now. He went down to the cellar and gave the unwanted visitor his final shot of whisky before trying to move the body up to the ground floor.

It was at that point that he realized he was dealing with a dead weight. It had been easy enough to get the fellow down to the cellar. For one thing Vy had helped him and for another it had all been downhill. Getting the brute up again was another matter altogether. Sir Arnold tugged Timothy Bright halfway up the cellar steps, and dropped the load twice to avoid having a heart attack. After that he changed his mind about the route out. If he dropped the blighter again he might well kill him, and if he went on trying to get him up the steps he would almost certainly kill himself.

Having got his racing pulse almost back to normal, Sir Arnold stood up and went over to the hatch. Originally it had been used to roll beer barrels down into the cellar. He would have to use it now to get the bloke up. Sir Arnold pulled the ropes and undid the bolts. Then he went upstairs and round to the yard and opened the hatch from above. Beside him Genscher wheezed strangely and sniffed. The poor creature was still in a bad way. But Sir Arnold hadn't got time to worry about the Rottweiler's problems. He had far more important ones of his own to consider.

He fetched a rope from the garage and dropped one end down the hatch into the cellar. Then he went back down into the cellar and dragged the body over to the beer ramp under the hatch. Here he tied the rope round the fellow's waist. So far so good.

He was about to go up the steps when to his horror he heard footsteps on the floor above. Switching off the light, he stood in the darkness sweating. What the hell was happening? That bloody Bea couldn't be prowling round the house now. It wasn't possible. He had watched her sink three gin and tonics and there'd been all that Valium in the tonic bottle. The woman must have the constitution of the proverbial ox to stay awake with that lot inside her. Or perhaps the cow had realized her drink had been doctored and had taken something to counteract it. She was obviously far brighter than he had supposed. And the door of the cellar was open. She was bound to spot it.

Upstairs, Aunt Bea blundered across the kitchen in search of some bicarbonate of soda, anything to stop her head spinning. She hadn't felt this drunk in a long time, and to make it all the more peculiar she'd only had three small gin and tonics and had drowned the gin in tonic too. At this rate she'd have to give up drinking altogether. There must be something terribly wrong with her liver. As she blundered into the kitchen table and clutched at the back of a chair and finally sat down, she was an extremely puzzled woman. She was even more puzzled by an over-riding desire to sing. She hadn't had that urge for ages and usually did it in the privacy of her own flat, and in the bathroom at that. It was all very well being a powerful woman and generally rather masculine in many ways, but it was no great help having the voice of an extremely bad soprano. But now for some unknown reason she felt like singing 'If you were the only girl in the world and I was the only boy.'

As the sounds reached the Chief Constable in the cellar and were translated into an overture, a new and frightful thought occurred to him, that the ghastly Auntie Bea was making some disgusting proposition to him one that he rejected out of hand. She evidently knew he was in the cellar but, if she thought he was going to play the girl to her being the boy, she had another thing coming. And she couldn't possibly be singing to anyone else in the house. Mrs Thouless was as deaf as a post and Vy was without question dead to the world. As if to confirm him in this insane notion that he was being courted by an unabashed lesbian, and if she had looked any different the normally passive Sir Arnold might have welcomed the experience, Auntie Bea got up and crossed to the cellar door and peered down the steps. 'If there is anyone down there, you can come up now to Auntie Bea and give me the tongue of day,' she whispered. The Chief Constable curdled in the corner. He had many fantasies in his life, but that was definitely not one of them. 'All aboard the Auntie Bea. Last orders and rites. The rest is silence.' And having uttered these ominous words, she shut the cellar door and locked it.

In the darkness Sir Arnold Gonders listened to her retreating footsteps and cursed the day his wife had brought the beastly woman into their life. Either she was taking the piss out of him or she was clean out of her skull. Whichever she was he had to get himself out of the fucking cellar, one, and two, drag the blighter up after him. The only way out now was up the planks of the beer-barrel ramp. By the light of the moon shining occasionally through the scudding clouds he tried climbing the plank by gripping the edge with his hands and moving one of his feet at a time. Halfway up he slipped and was left clutching the plank to himself like a mating toad. With infinite care to avoid splinters he let himself down and considered the problem again. What he needed were some non-slip soles or, since they weren't available, something he could attach to the plank that wouldn't slip. For a minute he thought of using Timothy Bright as a temporary ladder and had got so far as to prop him against the plank when he decided that wasn't very clever. Unless he tied the fellow on...

Sir Arnold cancelled the project and went back with his torch to look for something to stand on. He found it at the back of one of the stone wine racks in the shape of a battered suitcase which contained ancient copies of La Vie Parisienne and which had once belonged to a waterworks employee who had evidently whiled away his spare time with photographs of unclad French women of the thirties. Sir Arnold had kept them for his own amusement but now the suitcase was going to be put to a better purpose.

Five minutes later he was out into the cool night air and grasping the rope attached to the body in the cellar. He stood for a moment to consider the problem. It was amazing how quite simple tasks became problematical when they had to be put into effect. One thing he wasn't going to do was have the rope slip back through the hatch if he had to let go. Walking across the cobbled yard he tied the end to the leg of a bench in his workshop. As he straightened up he began to realize that pulling the body wasn't going to be at all easy. He wished now he hadn't left the bottle of whisky in the cellar. He could do with a stiff dram before attempting the big pull. He went round to the French windows and was grateful to find that Auntie Bea hadn't locked them too. In his study he poured himself a large Chivas Regal and drank it down. Yes, that felt better.

Back in the yard he grasped the rope and began to pull. Slowly, the body crept up the planks and Sir Arnold was beginning to think he had done it when his feet slipped on the cobbles and with a nasty thud Timothy Bright fell onto the floor of the cellar again. As the Chief Constable fought to get his breath back Genscher whined beside him. Sir Arnold looked down at the huge dog and was inspired. He had found the perfect method of getting the damned lout up and out. He went into the workshop and found several rolls of insulating tape.

'Genscher old boy, come here and make yourself useful,' he called softly. 'You're going to be my dumb chum.'

Five minutes later the Rottweiler was. With twenty metres of insulating tape strapped tightly round its jaws and the back of its head it was incapable of whining and its breathing had taken on a new and stressful wheezing.

'Now then,' said Sir Arnold, 'just one more thing.' And he tied the rope to the dog's collar. Then he stepped back and took a deep breath before unleashing all the rage against circumstance that had built up in him since he had been hounded by the press at the Serious Crime Squad celebrations. As he kicked Genscher's so far unscathed scrotum the great beast bounded forward, desperately trying to come to terms with this appalling visitation and the changed relationship with a master who had previously treated it almost kindly. In the cellar, happily oblivious to the fate waiting for him, Timothy shot up the ramp and through the hatch onto the cobbles and was dragged across the yard by the desperate dog. As Genscher hurled himself away from his own backside, Timothy followed and was dragged into the workshop where he collided with the leg of the bench, bounced off it and was finally wedged under the front off-side wheel of Lady Vy's Mercedes.

Outside Sir Arnold tried to undo the rope. The Chivas Regal had got to him now and he was conscious that the family pet no longer trusted him. 'It's all right, Genscher old chap,' he whispered hoarsely but without effect. The Rottweiler was not a very bright dog and it certainly wasn't a fit one but it knew enough and was fit enough to keep out of the way of owners who muzzled a dog's jaws with half a mile of insulating tape and then kicked it in the balls. As the Chief Constable stumbled about the yard in pursuit, Genscher made for the only bolt-hole it could find and shot through the hatch. Behind it the rope tautened and for a moment it seemed as though the body in the sheets would follow it. But Timothy Bright was too tightly wedged under the Mercedes and the rope had wound itself round an upright in the garage. As the Rottweiler began to strangle to death halfway down the chute, Sir Arnold acted. He wasn't going to lose the fellow whatever happened. Groping among the tools on the bench he found a chisel and, kneeling on the ground, stabbed at the rope. Most of his attempts missed but in the end the rope parted and a dull thud in the cellar indicated that the Rottweiler had dropped the remaining five feet to the floor. Sir Arnold got to his feet and began to haul the body from below the Mercedes.

He collected a wheelbarrow and, wedging Timothy across it, slowly wheeled him down to the Land Rover in the byre. Twice the body fell off and twice he replaced it, but in the end he was able to heave it up into the back of the vehicle. Then he checked his watch. It was almost one o'clock. Or was it two? It didn't matter. He didn't give a fig what time it was any longer so long as that old bitch Miss Midden was well and truly away from the farm. The Chief Constable was pissed and mentally shagged out and only his sense of self-preservation kept him going. He wasn't going to waste time getting the wretched fellow out of the sheets here. He'd do that once he'd unloaded the bugger at the Midden. Sir Arnold climbed back into the driving seat and eased the handbrake off. The Land Rover coasted slowly down the hill away from the Old Boathouse and the reservoir. When he was out of sight he let in the clutch and started.

Twenty-five slow minutes later, still driving without lights, he turned up towards the Midden and got out to open the gate. For a moment he hesitated. There was still time to dump the bugger somewhere else. Once in through the gate there could be no turning back. And a little way down the road to his right was the Middenhall itself. The entrance to the estate was only a quarter of a mile further on. Sir Arnold could see the beech trees that marked the wall of the estate. No, even at this late hour there might be weirdos up and about in the grounds. It was here or nothing. He pushed the gate open and drove up into the back yard and then under the archway to the front of the house. There he sat for a moment with the engine running but no lights came on in the house. Ahead of him was another gate and the track that had once been the old drove road to the south. It was unpaved and led across the fell but it would provide a very useful route away from the house when he had finished. The Chief Constable switched off the engine and got out and listened. Apart from the hissing in his right ear, which he attributed to too much whisky, the night was silent.

He went round to the back of the Land Rover and put on a pair of washing-up gloves. Then, moving with what he supposed was stealth, he crossed to the front door and shone his torch on the lock. It wasn't, he was glad to find, a Chubb or even a complicated Yale-type lock. It should be easy enough to break in.

In fact there was no need. The door was unlocked. Typical of a woman, thought the Chief Constable, before realizing that the door might be unlocked but it was also on a chain and he still couldn't get in. Another thought struck him. Perhaps Miss Midden was still there. It was possible she had changed her mind about going off for the weekend. He should have thought of that earlier. Sir Arnold backed away from the front door and went back through the archway to the back yard. It was here Miss Midden garaged her car. He looked in the old barn across the yard and was relieved to find it empty. After that he tried the back door, but that was locked and with a Chubb too. No chance of breaking in there. He went round the windows, trying them all. They were of the old-fashioned sash type and on one the catch was broken. Sir Arnold Gonders slid the window open and clambered through. His torch showed him that he was in the dining-room. A large mahogany table with chairs all round it and a bowl of faded flowers in the middle and a large old sideboard with a mirror above it. To his left a door. He crossed to it and found himself in a room with a bed, a desk, an armchair and a bookcase. A pair of men's shoes and slippers and a dressing-gown. He was evidently in Major MacPhee's room. Nothing could be more convenient. With renewed confidence he opened the window and returned to the Land Rover. Ten minutes later Timothy Bright was out of the bedsheets and the Chief Constable had dumped him, with some difficulty, through the open window into the Major's bedroom.

It was at that moment he saw headlights bridge the rise on the road. He wasn't waiting to find out who was coming up from Stagstead at that time of night. Acting with surprising swiftness for a drunk and exhausted man, he rolled the unconscious Timothy under the bed and climbed out of the window and shut it. Then he hurried round to the Land Rover, opened the gate onto the drove road, went through and shut the gate again before remembering he'd left the front window open. For a moment he hesitated, but the headlights were much closer now. As they turned up towards the farmhouse Sir Arnold drove slowly and without lights across the fell, guided by the bank of old wind-bent thorn trees on one side. Only when he reached the Parson's Road and was out of sight of the Midden did he turn the lights on and drive normally back to the Old Boathouse. Behind him the night wind fluttered the curtain in the open window.