04 - Carnival of Criminals (19 page)

“I can’t believe this.” Bob trembled, “All this time… all
the help I have given you, and it was you who killed him all along!”

Clara slipped back to the front door and opened it.
Outside she caught a glimpse of the constable the inspector had sent to
accompany her. She gave him a nod and he came to the house.

“Mrs Grimes, this policeman is here to arrest you.” Clara
said.

“Why?” Mrs Grimes declared in genuine astonishment.

“You killed your son.”

“It was an accident!” Mrs Grimes suddenly turned and made
a dash for the kitchen, but Bob was in the way and caught her in his arms, “Let
me go! Let me go!”

The constable moved forward and there was a struggle
between him, Mrs Grimes and Bob as he tried to make the arrest. Mrs Grimes
kicked out with her feet yelling at the top of her lungs “Murder! Murder!” Bob
wrestled with her, torn between holding her tight and not hurting her. In the
end the constable managed to calm her enough to put on the handcuffs. Mrs
Grimes swore at him, at Clara, and above all at the late Mervin as she was led
to the door.

“He was a damn awful son!” She shrieked at them, “Look
what he has brought me to!”

It was quite a relief when she was finally out the door.

“What now?” Bob asked. His face had split into a picture
of misery, as though his world had fallen apart around his ears.

Clara gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder, not really
knowing what to say.

“I need to look upstairs.” She said.

She headed up the narrow staircase and found Mervin’s
room at the back of the house. A small, simply made cupboard stood against the
wall, a thin rim of dust on its round handles. It had been built directly onto
the wall to make the most of the limited space in the room. Clara opened it and
was not entirely surprised to feel it was warm, a result, no doubt, of the fire
burning in the grate downstairs wafting hot air up the connecting flue to this
room. It was a perfect spot for mummification.

“No wonder she wouldn’t let me paint this room. If I had
opened that cupboard…” Bob said softly as he came up behind her, “To think he
was here all along.”

“She got the idea from her husband.” Clara was muttering
to herself. She stared at the cupboard a moment longer, then marched across the
hall to the room normally occupied by Mrs Grimes.

This room also contained a built-in cupboard, slightly
bigger due to the larger dimensions of the room and squeezed once more against
the fireplace. Clara, rather gingerly, pulled the narrow double doors open. No
grim, ghoulish mummy fell out at her. She was relieved, but it destroyed a
notion she had just had. Clara shut the doors and stood back from the cupboard.

“What was that all about?” Bob gave her a curious look,
but Clara said nothing because something had caught her eye.

“You are a carpenter Bob, if you were building a cupboard
into a narrow space would you waste any inch of the room you had?”

Bob found himself struggling with this sudden change in
direction.

“No?” He answered uncertainly.

“Exactly. But I would say that this cupboard has lost a
good foot from the inside to the outside. See this portion here? When I open
the doors there should be a niche behind it, instead…” Clara opened the doors
and reached tentatively inside, “Black velvet, there is a sheet of black velvet
masking off a section of the cupboard. Very clever, because it is so dark in
this room you don’t notice it.”

Clara found one edge of the velvet and gave it a good
tug. It was fastened by wood pins and ripped as she pulled. Pins popped across
the cupboard and loose strands of black velvet coated Clara’s hands like shorn
bristles. Then the top pins groaned and the sheet fell away. Clara stared into
a hole revealed behind the cloth. In the space where the cupboard joined with
the wall of the fireplace a body lay.

“Hello Mr Grimes.” She said to the corpse, “So you were
here all the time too.”

The body of what, Clara assumed, had once been Mr Grimes
was semi-mummified, sitting against the wall, the head tilted outwards. There
was a rather obvious crumpled section of bone in his almost fleshless skull, as
though someone had clobbered him hard with a hammer. Sitting just by his feet
was a small pot of grout or plaster, rock solid, and lying across his lap a
messy palette knife. It seemed he was in the process of neatening up the
fireplace brickwork when he met his end. Clearly he had been Mrs Grimes’ first
victim and she stowed him where he had fallen, thus, twenty years later, giving
her the idea of where she might hide her son’s corpse.

“What’s in there?” Bob called.

“Oh nothing, just Mervin’s dad.” Clara responded, “Looks
like he didn’t leave his wife and son after all.”

The summer had come to its end. August was slipping into
September and children were returning to school as the last of the harvest
cleared the fields. Clara made her way to the seafront to watch the fair
dismantle itself and move on. They still had several more weeks of
entertainment ahead before the icy days of January and February made them all think
of finding a safe field to roll the caravans into and hibernate until Spring
arrived. Clara walked unnoticed through the entrance, watching out for Bowmen.
She doubted he would be best pleased to see her. The Brighton Gazette had been
the first to break the news to the public that a murder victim had been hanging
around the funfair, masquerading as an Egyptian Pharaoh. It had caused quite a
scandal and more than one Puritanical local had decried the fair as the source
of all evil. The Gazette’s letter page had been abuzz with correspondents
either defending or berating the funfair. Clara doubted Bowmen had appreciated
this publicity, though it had at least drawn new punters to the fair under the
misapprehension that Mervin Grimes’ body had been reinstalled in the House of
Curios for viewing. Someone had spread the rumour that because the body had
been deceased for more than ten years it was no longer legally necessary to
bury it and Bowmen was going to carry his corpse all across the country to
regale crowds with the story of its origins and discovery. Naturally that was
absurd, but quite a few people believed they would see the real body of Mervin
Grimes at the fair.

Clara could only hope that Bowmen would forgive her
interference and not refuse to return the following year. According to Brighton
council the fairground had given a welcome boost to trade in the town and
attracted almost as many visitors as in the days before the war. Surely Bowmen
had done equally as well? Clara decided he was best avoided if she saw him.

She found her way to Jane Porter’s caravan, past the
semi-dismantled carousel. The Gallopers removed from their positions and tilted
on their sides, glowered at her with their wild eyes. Never more frightening looking
a creature had children been encouraged to ride; Clara sometimes had to wonder
at British sensibility.

Jane Porter was standing at the door of her caravan
beating a small rug with a broom handle.

“Good morning Clara. Off we go again!” She waved her arms
at the fairground in the process of being broken down, “I believe we have a
spot at Morecombe next.”

Jane gave the rug a good whack. Her chin was dark with a
five o’clock shadow many a man would have been proud of.

“Things seem to be improving.” Clara said, giving her own
chin a rub.

“Oh thank you. The medicine man gave me a tonic for
baldness, seems to have worked a treat.” Jane gave the rug another whack and
then considered it sufficiently battered, “Sand gets everywhere.”

“I just thought I would see you all off. I take it you
know the news about Mervin Grimes?”

“Oh yes, utterly fascinating!” Jane shook her head at the
madness of it all, “What is it they say? Truth is stranger than fiction?”

“I hope it hasn’t caused too much disruption.”

“I hadn’t noticed anything.” Jane shrugged, “Bowmen might
be of a different opinion, but ignore him. What will become of the mother?”

“It looks like they are aiming to claim insanity.”

“And she killed her husband too? Goodness!” Jane
considered the strangeness of the world as she perched on her caravan step,
“You think you have seen every sort of crazy in a place like this, then you
learn of something completely new.”

“I hope it doesn’t put Mr Bowmen off coming back to
Brighton.”

“Derek?” Jane laughed, “The profits he has seen here, you
could hold a gun to his head and he would still come back!”

By late afternoon the fair was all gone, just odd patches
of dead grass illustrating where it had been. Steam engines and horses were
hitched to their loads and the caravans, rides and sideshows began another
journey to their next stop. The seafront looked alarmingly barren with everyone
gone. Clara felt a little shudder run down her spine, the year was turning.

Yesterday she had attended a funeral as one of only two
mourners. The deceased had been Mervin Grimes, aka Dog-face Harry, aka King
Hepkaptut, finally laid to rest in a pauper’s grave. There had been no money
for anything else; his mother did not have a penny to her name and the cash
found in the hidden security box was from ill-gotten gains and could not be
used for Grimes’ benefit. Though exactly what was going to become of it was
another dilemma. Inspector Park-Coombs was suggesting it go to the orphans’
fund.

Bob Waters had stood beside Clara staring at the open
grave, loyal to the bitter end. He looked like a kicked dog, his whole world
turned upside down. Clara offered to buy him a cup of tea, but he had declined.
He had a lot of thinking to do, or so he said. He stayed long enough to watch
the unfortunate Mr Grimes snr end up in his own earthly abode; it was thirty
years late, but better than being propped in a cupboard. It still boggled
Clara’s mind how Mrs Grimes had been able to sleep at night with her husband
hidden in one cupboard and her son hidden in another. Perhaps she really was
insane – or cold-blooded.

As for the murdering mother, her hearing was due in the
autumn quarter and everyone was expecting her to be sent to London for her
trial, the case being too scandalous and strange to remain local. Besides,
popular opinion in Brighton was very against her. Mrs Grimes apparently still
failed to see she had done anything wrong and denied all knowledge of her
husband being buried in a wall. He had died from a heavy blow to the head,
according to Dr Deáth, probably inflicted by a hammer. Mrs Grimes’ neighbours
were very disturbed to know they had been living next to rotting corpses all
these years.

Then there was Billy Brown and Gregory Patterson. Brown
was facing a long prison sentence for a string of crimes, everything from his
activities with the Black Hand and onwards. The authorities seemed rather
delighted to have him in their grasp. After so long thinking he was dead and
safe from justice, they were rather rejoicing. Brown’s trial was likely to be
filling the newspapers all over Christmas, at least he was finally safe behind
bars. It was still unknown how Brown had escaped from the Brighton police
station to attack Clara and that troubled her. Park-Coombs wasn’t saying much
on the matter, but Clara sensed something was wrong, she just hoped it wasn’t
what she feared it to be.

Clara had heard less about Gregory Patterson, largely she
suspected as he was rather dull in comparison to Mrs Grimes and Billy Brown.
Aside from trying to steal a ring off a corpse and threatening the local
coroner with a gun, his crimes were rather mediocre. The old bookseller was
likely to get off with a lenient sentence taking into consideration his age and
health. Still, it was unlikely he would ever be able to run a shop in Brighton
again. He would find himself retired after all, just not in the manner he had
anticipated. Clara found herself feeling a tad sorry for him, but only a tad,
he had waved a gun at her after all.

“Hello Miss Fitzgerald.”

Clara spun around from where she stood by the sea wall
watching the fair roll away and found herself facing Mrs Smith.

“Hello Mrs Smith, are you well?”

“As can be expected.” Mrs Smith gave a half-hearted
smile, “I’m glad I spotted you, I want to give this to Tommy. To express my
gratitude.”

She unclipped her handbag and delved inside. Shortly her
hand returned with a silver pocket watch, delicately engraved with flying
birds.

“Mrs Smith…”

“Please don’t refuse it.” Mrs Smith pressed the watch
into Clara’s hands, “I want it to go to a good home. My husband engraved the
birds upon it to symbolise hope and freedom.”

Clara looked at the watch. It was truly a masterpiece of
the watchmaker’s art; the birds intertwined around each other and seemed alive
with flight.

“I shall give it to him.”

“Thank you.” Mrs Smith managed that odd smile again, “I
should get going, I am trying to put my life together at last and I have
volunteered at the local library. I help stack and sort the returned books. It
is a pleasing task and I don’t have to speak to anyone.”

“I really wish the best for you, Mrs Smith.” Clara
reached out and squeezed the woman’s arm, “You always know where I am if you
need anything.”

“I’ll remember that, good day.” Mrs Smith walked away, a
forlorn figure on the promenade.

Clara felt as though her breath had caught. The world
seemed suddenly so dull and awful. She looked at the watch in her hands again,
at the tiny birds cavorting on the silver. Each one a symbol of hope. She
carefully clasped her fingers around the watch, so tight she could feel the
faint tick of the mechanism. It was time summer came to an end; it had
outstayed its welcome. It was time for a new season and a new case. Maybe this
one would have a happier ending. Clara slipped the watch into her pocket and
set off for home. Life, she decided, had a strange way of organising itself.