The Skeleton in the Closet

∨ The Skeleton in the Closet ∧

Seven

MAGGIE had a horrible evening. Peter grew progressively more drunk and maudlin, yet she had neither the experience nor the courage to leave him and go home. They ended up at a noisy cellar disco which to Maggie was like a scene from hell with the smoke-filled heat of the room and the strobe lights that hurt her eyes. And then, to her relief, Peter sank down in a chair and promptly fell asleep. Guiltily, feeling that she should at least waken him and help him home, Maggie picked up her handbag and went up the stairs from the disco and took great gulps of fresh air.

She set off in the direction of home. A group of youths shouted at her, “Where you going, love?” and strung across the street, barring her way. She slipped off her high heels and ran in the opposite direction, down towards the central bridge of the town. Only once she had reached the middle of the bridge did she stop, panting. There were no sounds of pursuit. She had saved and saved to buy her little old car to take her to and from work, for Buss, which could look like something out of a Merchant Ivory film during the day, could be a dangerous place for a woman on her own at night. Drugs had crawled into every town and village in England, with the resultant crime.

The night was once more still and quiet. Then she heard a faint sound from the river below and leaned over the bridge. In the light of a security lamp in a house by the river, she saw a head rise above the water, flailing arms, and then the head disappeared. She did not stop to think. She climbed up on the parapet of the bridge and dived in. She surfaced and swam to where she had seen that head just as, with a great gasp, Fell’s white face appeared above the water. She reached him and said, “Don’t struggle. It’s me, Maggie. Turn on your back. No don’t clutch me, or we’ll both go under.”

He did as he was told and Maggie pulled him towards the shore. She ploughed towards a low grass bank. “You’ve got to help me, Fell,” she said. “I’m not strong enough to pull you out.”

With Fell’s last remaining strength he crawled on his hands and knees up the grass and collapsed on his face. Maggie, grateful for all those swimming classes and life-saving techniques she had learned years ago, turned him on his side and began to pump the water out of him. “I’m all right,” spluttered Fell weakly. “I kept my mouth closed nearly every time I went down.”

“Just lie still,” ordered Maggie, sitting back on her heels. She looked around in a dazed way. How quiet it was! Not a soul about to witness the drama. Maggie did not believe in God, but she suddenly remembered a mild preacher saying, “If there is no God, how do you explain coincidence?” Why should she of all people have been at the right place at the right time? If Peter had not passed out, she would still be in the disco.

Fell sat up. “I think I can make it home.”

“I left my bag up on the bridge. Wait here and I’ll see if it’s still there.”

When Maggie walked across the grass and then up the winding path which led to the bridge, she found her legs were shaking. She began to cry, tears pouring out of her eyes and down onto her soaking dress. She found her handbag where she had left it and made her way back to Fell.

He struggled to his feet when he saw her coming. “What happened?” asked Maggie.

“Someone pushed me.”

“Let’s get home quickly,” said Maggie. The dark night was suddenly full of menace. “We’ll need to call the police.”

“No,” said Fell, shivering despite the warmth of the night.

“Why? Someone tried to kill you.”

“I don’t want that Dunwiddy probing into our lives. It could have been some malicious youth, some nutter. I mean, who would know I couldn’t swim?”

“Let’s hurry. I’m frightened.”

Fell put an arm around Maggie’s waist and they hurried homewards. As they reached the town square, Maggie could hear raucous voices quite near and the sound of breaking glass. The youth of Buss, possibly her earlier tormentors, had probably smashed a shop window.

As they reached home, two police cars raced past.

Maggie forced her trembling fingers to deal with the burglar alarm. Only once they were safely inside, with the burglar alarm set, did Maggie’s trembling and shaking stop.

“Let’s get out of our wet clothes,” she said. “Fortunately for us, the river’s unpolluted, so we shouldn’t need tetanus shots. I forgot to switch the hot water on.”

“We’ll put it on now and change into our dressing gowns,” said Fell.

Maggie clutched his arm as he was about to go up the stairs. “Do you believe in God, Fell?”

“I’ve never thought much about it. Why?”

“It seems so odd that I should have been there at the right time.”

“I know. You saved my life and I’ll never forget it.”

“Oh, don’t feel beholden to me in any way,” said Maggie urgently.

Fell smiled at her in a way that made her heart turn over. “Impossible. Let’s get out of these wet clothes.”

“My new dress is ruined and I’ve lost my shoes,” mourned Maggie. “Mind you, I sweated so much in that wretched disco, it’s probably ruined anyway.”

“Which disco?”

“I’ll tell you sometime.”

As Maggie took off her wet clothes in her bedroom and scrubbed herself down with a towel, she decided not to tell Fell that she had endured a miserable evening with Peter. He might feel she was becoming too much a permanent part of his life. She guessed his earlier misery had been caused by disillusionment about Melissa, but was shrewd enough to guess that Melissa might be soon replaced with another dream, another fantasy woman.

Maggie put the old wool dressing gown she had worn since her schooldays on over her nightgown and carefully took out her precious contact lenses, marvelling that they had not been lost in the river, popped on her thick glasses and went downstairs and began to heat up a pan of milk on the kitchen stove.

When Fell joined her, she poured two glasses of hot milk, added a dash of brandy to each, and they carried them into the sitting room.

“It really was the most amazing coincidence,” said Maggie, tucking her legs under her on the sofa. “I mean, I’d left the disco to walk home and there were these youths bothering me. I ran away in the opposite direction and when I knew they weren’t following me, I stopped in the middle of the bridge.”

“Why didn’t Peter walk you home?”

“Oh, he got called out on a story,” lied Maggie quickly.

“Someone must have been following me,” said Fell. “I thought I was the only one by the river. It was all so quiet. I was standing on that wooden jetty when someone gave me a great shove. I struggled to the surface but found myself out in the middle of the river. I’m frightened, Maggie. We’ve got the money. Why don’t we go away for a bit?”

Maggie brightened. With a fantasy as rosy as anything Fell could have concocted, she conjured up a picture of both of them lying on a tropical beach under the palms.

“On the other hand,” said Fell, “there’s a part of me that now knows that if I run away from this, I’ll consider myself a wimp and a failure for the rest of my life.”

The dream burst. “Then we go on,” said Maggie quietly.

“You know, Maggie, I don’t think there can be anyone quite like you.”

Maggie blushed with pleasure.

“I just hope Peter is worthy of you.”

Maggie’s heart sank. She had a sudden vision of Peter when she had last seem him, slumped in a chair under the strobe lights, his mouth hanging open and snoring drunkenly.

“He’s just a date,” she mumbled.

But Fell was not paying attention. “I drew some money out of the bank. I must give you some. You never ask for any.”

“You don’t need to pay me. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Only my life. But I did draw out the money for you before you saved me. Please take some.”

Maggie thought of her dwindling savings and then nodded. “Well, just some for the housekeeping.”

“And a new dress. That pretty one must be ruined.”

“I’ll see if the dry-cleaner’s can do anything with it. Let’s go to bed and then we’ll try that Fred Flint tomorrow.”

They went upstairs and then stood together on the landing. “Good night, then,” said Fell. He had a sudden impulse to kiss Maggie, but turned instead and went into his room. What on earth would Maggie think of him?

Maggie awoke during the night. She heard Fell cry out. She leaped out of bed and went to his room. He was tossing and turning and making those inarticulate strangling cries which people make when they are actually screaming in the middle of a nightmare.

Maggie sat on the end of the bed. “Shhh,” she said. “Maggie’s here.”

The cries ceased and his sleep became calm. She stroked his hair back from his forehead with a gentle hand. She was suddenly engulfed with such a wave of love for him that she felt frightened. How could she maintain an easy, friendly manner towards him with such overwhelming love?

She went back to bed wondering why she should be cursed with such intense feelings. Such love was for poets, not for plain Maggie Partlett.

♦

Every morning they awoke, Fell and Maggie hoped that the stifling weather would have broken, but the next day was as close and muggy as the one before. At least at the beginning of the heatwave there had been days with a slight refreshing breeze.

They had both slept late.

“It seems odd,” said Fell as they set out for the library.

“What does?”

“All last night. Like some awful dream. In fact I had an awful nightmare during the night that men were chasing me to shoot me and then a beautiful woman came into my dream and said, ‘Shhh, it’s all right, Fell’.”

“What did she look like, this woman?”

“Blessed if I remember.”

They walked into the library. Maggie was relieved to see that the pretty librarian was not on duty. Instead there was a middle-aged, motherly woman at the desk. They asked for the voters’ roll and took it over to a desk and sat side by side and began to scan the names, street by street.

“This could take all day,” mourned Maggie, “and I wish it wasn’t bound so that we could take a page each.”

They searched on and then decided to break for a quick lunch.

After buying sandwiches and eating them on a bench outside the library, they returned to the voters’ roll.

It was approaching five o’clock and Fell was just pausing to rub his tired eyes when Maggie cried triumphantly, “Got it!”

“Where?”

“Right here. Jubilee Street. Number ten.”

“I saw a Jubilee Street recently,” said Fell. “I know, it was when we were walking to the railway station. It’s one of those roads just before you get to the station. Shall we go now? Or leave it until tomorrow?”

“May as well get it over with. We’ll take the car.”

They drove in silence towards Jubilee Street, each wanting to forget abut the whole thing now, but not wishing to back down in front of the other. Despite the heat, the nights were drawing in. Maggie no longer relished the idea of being out in the streets of Buss after dark.

“Turn left here,” said Fell. “This is Jubilee Street and there’s number ten.” Maggie stopped the car. The houses had been built for the railway workers in the last century, a row of red brick cottages. They all looked well-kept.

“But no signs of great wealth,” said Fell as they got out of the car.

They knocked at the door. A woman answered it. She had her hair tied up in a scarf. Fell judged her to be about the same age as himself. She had a pleasant open face.

“We’re looking for Mr. Flint.”

“Dad’s in the garden. What’s it about?”

Fell explained, bracing himself for a tirade, for no one else had been particularly friendly. But she smiled and said, “Oh, you’re that pair from the newspaper. I mean, I saw the story about you. Dad’ll be delighted to see you. He kept saying to me, he said, ‘I could tell that pair a thing or two’.”

They followed her through the dark little house and into a long garden at the back which was a blaze of colour. A hosepipe lay on the lawn and the flowerbeds had been recently watered. “Don’t you go telling the authorities I’ve been watering the plants,” she said. “I’m not going to sit by and see all my work ruined.”

There was an abundance of roses, hollyhocks, delphiniums, pansies, and gladioli crammed into flowerbeds, and in a glass-fronted shed at the bottom of the garden they could see an old man looking out at them.

“Dad, this is Dolphin’s son and his girl – you know, the couple you read about in the paper.”

He was a tortoise of a man, with a scrawny neck poking out of his shirt collar. He wore rimless glasses. Despite the heat of the day, his knees were covered by a rug.

“Come in,” he said. “Dottie, get a couple of chairs.”

“Do you mind if we sit just outside the door and talk to you?” pleaded Fell. “The heat is awful.”

“We’ll sit in the garden then.”

The daughter brought two kitchen chairs into the garden and then her father heaved himself to his feet by the aid of two sticks. When they were all seated, Fred Flint said, “So you’re wondering about that there robbery. Well, you’ve come to the right place.”

“You know who did it?” asked Fell eagerly.

“I do that. I know three of ‘em, anyway.”

“Who were they?”

“Dolphin, Johnny Tremp, and Tarry Briggs.”

“You mean my father…?”

“Came into money, didn’t you? Where d’ye think it came from?”

“I’ve been through the accounts and the lawyer can bear me out. My mother and father were misers and saved every penny. They had high-interest accounts and stocks and shares. So what gives you the idea my father was in on it?”

“He was in the signal box when he should have been having a day off, wasn’t he? He was the one that stopped the train.”

“But he wasn’t arrested and you have no proof!”

“Stands to reason he did it.”

“We know about Tarry Briggs. What about Johnny Tremp?”

“He was always an evil, nasty bastard. I never liked working with him. If ever there was a villain it was Johnny Tremp.”

Fell slumped in his hard little chair, suddenly weary. “But you have no real proof.”

The old man tapped the side of his nose. “I know,” he said.

“So who masterminded the whole thing?”

“One of those villains from London. They promised that precious three a cut of the robbery.”

“Why not you?”

“ ‘Cause I was always as honest as the day and they knew it.”

“But weren’t Johnny Tremp and Tarry Briggs at work that day?”

“That’s the thing. They weren’t. Tarry Briggs wasn’t due on duty until later and it was Johnny’s day off. Funny that, hey?”

Fell would have liked to make his escape then and there, but the old man began to reminisce about days on the railway until, after an hour, when Fell thought he couldn’t bear much more of it, Fred Flint fell asleep. Fell signalled to Maggie that they should leave. Dottie was working in the kitchen.

“Your father’s asleep,” said Fell, “and we’ve got another appointment.”

“I’d best go and help him to bed. You will call again, won’t you? The company does him good.”

Feeling guilty, Fell said they would call again although he had no intention of doing so.

“So what now?” asked Maggie.

“It’s dark now. We could go to Bramley-in-the-Hedges and watch Johnny Tremp’s for a little. Watch who comes and goes.”

“All right,” said Maggie, “but let’s find a place where we can’t be seen from his house. Those dogs terrify me.”

♦

They stopped a little away from Johnny Tremp’s house where they could watch the gates. Maggie had parked the car under a stand of trees whose branches all but blocked a view of the house, but the little they could see was enough. There was a bright security light above the door of the bungalow which lit up the front of the house and the drive.

They had been there an hour when suddenly Maggie became aware that Fell had covered his face with his hands and was shaking. “What is it, Fell?”

“I’m falling apart,” he said. “It’s all come down on me, Maggie. My birth, the robbery, Andy Briggs, the attempt on my life, everything.”

“We’re going home,” said Maggie. “It’s delayed shock. Hang on. I’ll soon have us back home.”

♦

Fell had lost his enthusiasm for cooking, so it was usually Maggie, armed with new cookery books, who prepared the meals. After they had eaten, she suggested that Fell go to bed. Just then the phone rang.

“If it’s Melissa, tell her I’m out,” said Fell quickly. “I don’t feel like talking business.”

Maggie picked up the phone. It was Peter.

“I’m sorry about the other night,” said Peter. “Don’t know what came over me, falling asleep like that. Must have been doing too much.”

Doing too much drinking, thought Maggie.

“Anyway,” Peter went on cheerfully, “I’m reporting on a fashion show over in Cheltenham Town Hall tomorrow afternoon. Too far off our track usually for the Courier, but this one’s high-fashion clothes – Versace, Gucci, Armani – all those bods. Like to come? I could pick you up at two o’clock.”

“I don’t think so,” said Maggie. “I think Fell and I are doing something. Wait a minute.” She turned to Fell. “It’s Peter. He wants to take me to some fashion show at Cheltenham Town Hall tomorrow.”

“Then why not go?” asked Fell. “I wouldn’t mind a quiet day here.”

Maggie quickly masked her disappointment. “All right, Peter,” she said.

“Grand,” he said. “The photographer’s making his own way.”

“How long does the show last?”

“An hour and a half.”

And then, thought Maggie, what? If he phones over his story, it will be a tour of the pubs all the way back to Buss.

“I’ve got something to do earlier in Cheltenham, Peter,” she said. “I’ll take my car and meet you there.”

“I’ll wait for you outside. The show starts at three.”

“See you.” Maggie put down the receiver.

“What was that about?” asked Fell curiously. “I mean, what have you got to do in Cheltenham?”

“I thought I could look for a new dress, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course. Have a good time.”

“Off to bed with you and try to get a good night’s sleep.”

“It’s so hot,” mourned Fell.

“This weather can’t last forever. I’ll clear up here. Off with you.”

Fell lay awake upstairs, listening to the domestic sounds from below as Maggie washed and dried and put away the dishes. He would need to pull his weight a bit more, he thought. Maggie was doing everything. She would make a good wife. He supposed if she was keen on Peter, they’d probably get married.

His life stretched out in front of him, empty and bleak. Without Maggie, he would be so very much on his own.

♦

Maggie did go to Cheltenham before she was due to meet Peter and went from shop to shop trying to find a dress which would make Fell look at her as a desirable woman and not as a cosy friend.

She was pleased with her new trim figure, but mourned the fact that nothing could be done to thin her legs, which were thick and stocky below the knee. At last she found a black dress which was cut lower on the bosom than anything she had ever worn before. It fitted her beautifully and was long enough in the skirt to hide her legs. She had taken the money Fell had given her, but felt guilty at paying so much. She could have bought several pretty cotton dresses for the same price.

The sight of herself in the fitting-room mirror when she tried on the black dress had depressed her. Somehow, she felt the new hairstyle and contact lenses might have transformed her a good deal from the old Maggie, but she could not see much of a transformation.

Peter was waiting outside the town hall. He was relatively sober. “You look great,” he said. “That was a good time we had the other night.”

“Is your idea of a good time getting drunk and passing out?” asked Maggie curiously.

He burst out laughing and put an arm about her shoulders. “All I need is the love of a good woman to straighten me out. What does Fell think about you going out with me?”

“He doesn’t mind. He thinks it’s a good idea to have the press on our side,” lied Maggie, who had no intention of telling Peter that Fell did not seem to care at all, and, furthermore, they were not even engaged.

“Couldn’t get front seats,” said Peter. “The bigger papers like the Birmingham Mercury and the Gloucester Echo have those, but here we are in the second row, so it’s not too bad.”

“Is there enough money around Cheltenham to pay for designer creations such as Gucci and Versace?” asked Maggie.

“Lots of money in the whole of Gloucestershire. About the richest county in England. But this show is for charity, Save the Children. Mind you, if any of these women want to buy something, they can mark it down and get it ordered in at that new boutique Femme Fatale on the Parade.” Maggie looked nervously around at all the fashionably dressed women. “How much does a ticket to this show cost?” she whispered.

“One hundred pounds.”

Maggie gulped. “That’s an awful lot of money.”

“It’s all in a good cause.”

There was a long catwalk running down the centre of the main room in the town hall. Just before the lights went down, Maggie thought she saw a familiar face. She scanned the room again but, with a roll of drums, the catwalk was lit up and the faces of the audience sank back into darkness.

The models strutted past. Peter scribbled furiously in a notebook, muttering to Maggie, “I’ll never remember the names of these creations if I don’t take notes.”

“They’re all in the catalogue,” whispered Maggie.

“I need my own descriptions or I’ll never be able to tell one photograph from another when it comes to doing the captions,” said Peter. “I mean, what the hell is faille?”

Maggie sat back to enjoy the show. The outfits were not the outrageous creations usually designed only to catch the headlines at the Paris shows, but beautiful designs which got round after round of applause. The models pouted and swayed. There was one model who looked about fourteen years old. She was thin to the point of emaciation. Her arms and legs were like sticks, and her collarbones jutted out.

What a world, marvelled Maggie, when they are dropping like flies from starvation in Africa, and yet that anorexic little girl is wearing a dress the price of which could probably feed a whole orphanage for quite a time.

At last the show finished. The photographer joined them. “Better get back with this, Peter.”

“No time for a drink?”

“No,” said the photographer.

“What about this evening, Maggie?” asked Peter.

“I’m going out with Fell,” said Maggie, shuddering at the thought of another evening watching Peter getting drunk.

“I’ll phone you.”

Maggie stood on the steps of the town hall blinking in the sunlight. Then she walked towards the Parade. May as well have a look at the boutique, Femme Fatale.

Cheltenham is a Regency town, with one beautiful street of white stuccoed houses after another.

The Parade boasts the most expensive shops.

Maggie found the shop, Femme Fatale, and went inside. She looked at a few price labels and then shot out again. Even if she won the lottery, would she ever contemplate paying that much for one dress?

She walked to the car park and then drove home, wishing she had the courage to persuade Fell to take her out for dinner in the French restaurant so that she could wear her new dress.

But when she got home and had answered Fell’s questions about the show, he said, “I’m getting my courage back. I think we should go to Johnny Tremp’s again this evening and keep watch.”

“All right,” said Maggie weakly.

So they spent a long evening watching Johnny Tremp’s bungalow, but no one came in and no one went out.

“Maybe we’d be better to risk the wrath of the villagers and go back and snoop around during the day,” said Fell as they drove back home.

“I s’pose,” said Maggie. “Did I tell you I bought a new dress today?”

“Nice?”

“Bit of an extravagance, actually. Black and slinky and only to be worn in the evening.”

“Then we’d better give it an airing. We’ll take a break and go to the French restaurant.” The French restaurant was actually called Chez Nous, but the locals had just called it ‘the French restaurant’ ever since it had opened in Buss five years before.

“You are good to me, Fell,” said Maggie.

“You saved my life.”

“I don’t want your gratitude, Fell.”

“But you’ve got it. Something’s happened to me. I’m not frightened any more.”

“That’s good.” Maggie laughed. “If you’re not frightened, then I’m not frightened.”

She parked the car outside the house, feeling, as they went in and reset the burglar alarm, that for the first time in her life she was really coming home. Then the miserable thought struck her that this was only a temporary arrangement. A strangled sob escaped her.

“Why, Maggie!” said Fell. “You’re upset.”

He put an arm around Maggie’s shoulders. She moved quickly away. “I’m all right, really,” she said. “Delayed shock, I think. Let’s take a drink into the sitting room and have a nightcap before we go to bed.”

♦

Jerry Grange and Wayne Baxter were sloping along the road which led past Fell’s house. They were two of the most unsavoury examples of Buss youth.

“You told me the old boy lived alone,” complained Jerry again. Wayne had told him that Fred Flint was an easy target, old and crippled. So they had broken their way in by smashing a glass panel in the garden door, only to be met by the sight of Dottie Flint coming down the stairs with a shotgun in her hand. They had fled in terror and had hidden out under the Mayor Bridge, hearing the sound of police cars racing over their heads.

They had waited until the coast was clear and then had begun to make their way into town.

Wayne moodily tried the handles of parked cars as they walked along. A car radio might get them enough for some drugs. Outside Fell’s house, he tried the handle of Maggie’s car.

To his surprise it opened. He turned to Jerry with a grin on his face. “They’ve even left the keys in the ignition. Let’s go for a spin.”

They both climbed in, Wayne in the driver’s seat and Jerry next to him in the passenger seat. Wayne glanced in the driving-mirror. Down the long road behind them, he saw the flashing blue light of a police car.

“Christ! The filth!” he said, and turned the ignition key.

There was a great roar as the whole car exploded in flames, shattering the night silence, blowing in the windows of Fell’s house and Mrs. Moule’s house next door.

Then all was still again, apart from the occasional sound of tinkling glass as another shard of Fell’s broken windows dropped out.

The police car stopped. A policeman ran up with a fire extinguisher while his partner called for help.

One by one, shocked people began to emerge from the houses. Fell and Maggie in their dressing gowns stood white-faced on the front step.

“That was my car,” said Maggie, turning her face into Fell’s shoulder. “My car. I left the keys in my car. That was meant for us, Fell.”

The street was filling up with fire engines and more police cars.

And then, appearing among the flashing blue lights, the bulk of Dunwiddy emerged.

He walked up to Fell and Maggie and then turned and surveyed the burnt-out shell of the car. He turned back. “Yours?” he asked them.

“Yes, mine,” said Maggie through white lips. “That must have been meant for us.”

“Could be,” he said. “We’ll see. Let’s go inside.” He signalled to another detective. “This is Detective Sergeant Mc-Indoe. Can we go inside?”

“Careful, Maggie,” cautioned Fell, supporting her inside. “There’s broken glass everywhere.”

They went into the sitting room. The thick curtains had been drawn and had stopped most of the window glass from flying into the room.

Dunwiddy began the questioning. Where had they been that evening? Fell and Maggie exchanged a look. “We were just driving around,” said Fell. “We drove over in the direction of Moreton and then around the villages.”

“Why?”

“The heat,” said Maggie. “We had the windows of the car rolled down trying to get a breeze.”

“And when did you get back here?”

“It must have been around eleven o’clock,” said Fell. “We had a drink and then we went to bed.”

“I left the keys in the ignition,” said Maggie. “I’ve never done that before.”

“We think we know who might have been in the car,” said Dunwiddy. “We were looking for a couple of youths who broke into Fred Flint’s. Know Fred Flint?”

“Yes,” said Fell. “We visited him, about the train robbery.”

“So we come back to the train robbery again. Nothing major happens in this town for years and then you pair start poking around in an old crime and all hell breaks loose. What did you get out of Fred Flint?”

“Nothing but a lot of boring railway reminiscences.”

“You sure?” Sharply.

“Look,” said Fell, putting his arm around Maggie, “we’ve both had a bad shock. We need to get someone to board up the windows until we find a glazier. Can’t this wait until the morning?”

“Just a few more questions.”

Dunwiddy plodded on, taking them back through everything again. At last he said, “It seems as if someone thinks you pair are a lot brighter than you really are. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Fell said suddenly, “Do we have to be here?”

“What do you mean? You can’t leave the country.”

“I meant, as long as we give you our address, can we go off to a hotel nearby, not too far away?”

“Don’t see anything wrong with that. Come round to the station in the morning and we’ll take your statements.”

“Right,” said Fell. “I’ll see you out.”

As he opened the door, he was met by the glare of television lights and camera flashes. He quickly retreated and shut the door. Maggie was going through the business phone directory. “What are you doing?” asked Fell.

“There’s emergency repair services in here, glaziers, things like that. I’ll get the windows fixed right away. And I’ll phone the security in the morning to make sure the burglar alarm is still working.”

“That’s the press,” said Fell, listening to the hammering at the door.

Maggie picked up the phone. “Were you serious about going away?”

“Yes, just for a few days, until the fuss dies down.”

Maggie spoke into the phone urgently. Then she replaced the receiver and said with a shaky smile, “One very sleepy glazier on his road round. He has a mobile phone. I told him to call us from outside the house, so we can let him in and not the press.”

♦

It was a sleepless night. The glazier and two assistants put new glass in the windows, and then Fell told him to repair Mrs. Moule’s windows next door and that he would pay for it. “Poor old thing probably doesn’t have insurance,” he said. Fell and Maggie both worked busily, cleaning up glass from the floors. Then they both got washed and dressed and packed suitcases.

“Where are we going?” asked Maggie.

“We’ll find a hotel in Moreton,” said Fell. “We’ll try the White Hart Royal and then we’ll find out more about Johnny Tremp. I’m sure he’s the villain. We check up on him and the next thing you know, someone tries to kill us.”

♦

After the alarm system had been checked in the morning, Fell called a taxi to take them to the police station. They fought their way to the taxi through a barrage of reporters’ questions. “Was it the IRA?” called some. “Come on, Maggie,” yelled Peter. “Give me a break.”

But they finally got into the cab and were driven off.

At the police station, Dunwiddy took them through everything again. “Do you know why the car blew up?” asked Fell.

“They’re still working on it, but they think it might be Sem-tex.”

“But that’s a terrorists’ weapon!”

“Exactly. And I have been answering questions from Scotland Yard as to whether you pair have any connection with Northern Ireland.”

“That’s ridiculous,” exclaimed Fell. “I’ve only been out of Buss once and that was recently when we went to London for the day.”

“So where will you be staying?”

“Only as far as Moreton-in-Marsh. I was hoping the White Hart Royal might have a couple of rooms.”

Dunwiddy pushed a phone forward. “Phone now.”

Fell phoned. He was told he was lucky that they had just received two cancellations.

Separate rooms, thought Dunwiddy. What an old-fashioned couple.

“Now,” said Fell, “is there any way we can get out of here and avoid the press?”

“I’ll get you a driver to take you to Moreton. Hide down in the back seat and he’ll drive you straight out.”

♦

At the Moreton hotel, Maggie left her suitcase on the bed and went to Fell’s room which was next to her own. She sat down on the bed and suddenly burst into tears. “We’re safe here,” said Fell, putting his arms around her. “Poor Maggie. Look, I’ll drop the whole thing. Forget about the damn robbery.”

Maggie dried her eyes. “It’s not that,” she said shakily. “I’m being silly. It’s my little car. When I was living with Mother, it was the only place I felt free and safe. It was my own little tin world.”

“We’ll rent one.”

“It costs so much to rent one, Fell. There’s a garage just outside of town. I saw it when we drove past. They’ve got second-hand cars for sale. I phoned the insurance company before I left. My car wasn’t worth anything, but they are sending an assessor to look at the wreck and they’ll pay up quite quickly.”

“Okay, we’ll go and get a car and then have some sleep.”

They bought an old Rover at a garage which had a range of second-hand cars. “I would have taken something smaller and cheaper,” said Maggie, as she drove off.

“It’s a nice red,” said Fell naively, for he knew nothing about cars. “I like the colour of this one.”

“I hope it lasts. It’s got more than one hundred thousand miles on the clock.”

“We’re mobile, anyway. Let’s go back and get some sleep.”

♦

Fell woke Maggie at seven in the evening. She bathed and changed and then they both went down for dinner.

“Let’s leave our spying on Tremp for tonight,” said Fell.

“All right,” said Maggie, relieved. “But don’t you think we should tell Dunwiddy about Tremp? I mean, why not?”

“We’ve left it a bit late. He’ll say, why didn’t we tell him before?”

“I suppose so,” said Maggie reluctantly. “And we should have told him about the attempt on your life when you were pushed in the river. Aren’t you frightened, Fell?”

“Not yet. It’s odd, but I seem to be moving in a strange world where the unacceptable has become acceptable.”

“So we go on?”

“Yes, we go on.”