The Haunted Lady (23 page)

Hardy was waiting outside the house. ‘We can’t go inside yet until our forensic people have finished. Tom’s already been taken to the hospital.’

‘Any news of his condition?’ I asked.

‘Touch and go, so I was told, and it might be a long time before he’s able to describe what happened here, even if he pulls through.’

‘Where was he found?’

‘He was sitting in his armchair, as if he was waiting for his favourite TV show to start. The cleaner thought he was asleep until she saw the blood. His shirt and trousers were soaked in it and there was a trail all the way from the front door to the lounge. I think he was stabbed by the door and dragged himself to try and summon help, but passed out before he could reach the phone.’

‘Didn’t the cleaner see the blood in the hallway?’ Eve asked.

‘No, she let herself in by the back door so she didn’t notice it until she walked into the sitting room.’

‘What makes you think he tried to summon help?’

‘The side table alongside his armchair was overturned. The phone was on the floor as if he’d knocked it over while reaching for it. You can see the blood smear on the side.’

‘This wasn’t quite like the other murders then, if Tom survived that long. Those deaths were instantaneous.’

‘Tom’s would have been too if it hadn’t have been for that cigarette case.’

We had to wait a further hour before being allowed into the cottage. Once inside, Hardy led us to the lounge. It was a comfortable room; that of a man at ease with himself and the world.
If ever a room reflected the character of its owner
, I thought,
this one does
. The centrepiece of the far wall was a brick built fireplace surrounded on either side by shelved recesses that were crammed with books.

Close to the armchair where Tom had been found, the side table had been replaced, presumably the act of the forensic officers. In addition to the phone there was a small reading lamp and a book entitled
Observations of Wildlife
marked with a bloody fingerprint. I found this mildly surprising as I hadn’t been aware that Tom was at all interested in the subject. I dismissed this thought as irrelevant and tried to concentrate on the rest of the scene.

‘It’s a bit early to form theories,’ Eve suggested.

‘I realise that,’ Hardy responded, ‘and normally I’d agree but for the comments you made when Johnny and I came to your house. You told us that Tom Fox had made some sort of cryptic remark that intrigued you, and that it might be connected with Andrew Kershaw, the chap who died years ago.’

‘That’s all we know,’ I spoke quickly to prevent Eve blurting anything out regarding our house guest or the contents of our garage. ‘We were talking about Andrew Kershaw who was a boyhood friend of Tom’s and he told us that Kershaw worked in intelligence and that there was someone else in this area with a similar background. That’s as far as it goes.’

‘You didn’t ask him to explain that statement or expand on it?’

‘I’m not certain whether he would have been able to, given the Official Secrets Act, but in any case the situation didn’t arise. We did try to contact him, more than once, but without success.’

‘That’s probably because he was away.’ The interruption came from Johnny. ‘My missus was talking to him on the railway platform the same day that we came to see you. She was on her way to Leeds shopping and he told her he was going to London for a few days on business.’

I was struck by a sudden, strange thought. Was it coincidence that Tom had chosen that point in time to go to London at the very same moment that David and Valerie Kershaw were in the capital?

Before leaving home, I had phoned the vicarage both to update Michael on the terrible event and to postpone their visit to Laithbrigg. While I was on the phone Eve had gone into the lounge to explain the reason for our departure to Jäger. She related the gist of their conversation to me as we drove back home. ‘Herr Jäger was asking about you. He seemed very impressed by your grasp of things. I told him all about your career as a correspondent and that you only gave it up because your first wife had died. Then he said a really curious thing that I didn’t understand.’

‘What was that?’

‘He said, “So Adam has been married before, has he?” and when I told him yes, he said, “I do hope her name wasn’t Lilith”. What do you think that means?’

‘It means that Jäger has a deep knowledge of the Talmud and Jewish folklore.’

‘Now it’s your turn to baffle me. Explain, please.’

‘According to the Talmud, Lilith was Adam’s first wife until she was dispossessed by Eve, and according to Jewish folklore she is a female demon who preys on babies and very young children. There is also some mystic legend in Judaism that suggests the name Lilith is the symbol of sexual lust.’

‘Where on earth did you learn all that?’

‘We had a lesson at school examining the origin of names, both given and family ones. Naturally the teacher was keen to concentrate on mine given the biblical connection, and went into great detail about it.’

‘Sometimes I think you have a mind like a sponge.’

We had been absent for about three hours, possibly slightly less, but by the time we returned Jäger was in a highly agitated state of mind. We managed to calm him down, principally by Eve explaining that we were regularly consulted by the local police force. Whether he believed her or not I can’t be sure. However our safe return coupled with the fact that nothing sinister had happened during our absence seemed to settle his nerves somewhat. My comment that a further twenty-four hour delay before Chloe came to Eden House would be a good idea also helped ease his mind. ‘If someone is watching Chloe and she doesn’t dash straight here they will be less inclined to believe we’re hoarding something meaningful.’

––––––––

I
t was one thing feeling certain that the box, or table as we now knew it to be, contained something of value, but finding those contents was quite another matter.

Having parked the car on the drive to give us room to work, we opened the box and removed the diptych. We stared at the two halves of the table so cunningly wrought by Chloe’s grandfather. Despite the far superior illumination provided by the neon lights in our garage, there was no indication of a hidden compartment of any description, no matter how small.

We examined the two leaves that formed the top surface of the table minutely, both before and after removing the end and side pieces which formed the legs. They provided no clue, so we then assembled the component parts to form the object they had been designed as. The result was an exquisite piece of furniture, but nothing more than that. Our inspection would have revealed even something the size of a postage stamp. The disappointment was clearly visible in everyone’s expressions.

‘Where do we go from here?’ Michael asked.

‘I think we ought to look at the facts that we know, or at least those that we believe to be accurate. We assume that Andrew and Devorah must have brought the works of art to this country, otherwise Bennett could not have found a buyer for the two Bellini miniatures. That leaves the other two miniatures and the Vermeer paintings unaccounted for.’

‘Perhaps my parents hid the other paintings somewhere inside Elmfield Grange,’ Chloe suggested.

Her theory was the logical answer and, as we stared at the table, everyone was convinced this had to be the solution. ‘I think we ought to search the house,’ Chloe continued, ‘because there are parts of the building that have been closed off for years. I don’t think anyone apart from me has been in some of the rooms for as long as I can remember. I used to explore them when I was a child.’ She paused and gave a mischievous grin. ‘There are even a couple of rooms that nobody else but Uncle David and I know exist. I found them by accident one day when I was about eight years old. When I mentioned them he told me the story behind them. Apparently my ancestor was a very jealous man and was married to a much younger woman. He suspected she was carrying on with a neighbour so when he had the house built he ordered those two secret rooms so he could spy on her.’

‘What happened?’ Eve asked, her curiosity distracting her from the main subject.

‘Apparently he was totally wrong – about his wife, that is. All he discovered was that his son was sleeping with one of the housemaids.’

The story provoked some very unsympathetic chuckles from her audience, which died away as Chloe continued, ‘I always thought that part of the buildings was where I would see ghosts.’

‘Did you find any?’

‘No, just a lot of furniture covered in dust sheets and that musty, closed-up smell you get when a place hasn’t been used for a long time.’

I recalled a time recently when Eve and I had helped search an empty dwelling for treasure. That hunt had cost us many fruitless hours when the truth had been staring us in the face all along. Had I or any of my companions the sense to realise it, history was about to repeat itself.

‘Why don’t we wait until your aunt and uncle are back from London,’ Eve suggested. ‘If your father took anyone at all into his confidence about the hiding place of those paintings it must surely have been his brother?’

‘They’ll be back tomorrow so I could ask them then.’ Chloe paused and looked at each of us in turn. ‘Would you please come along when I ask them? I’d rather you were present because you have been so helpful that I feel you have a right to know the outcome. Also,’ she looked at Jäger and smiled, ‘I’d like them to meet my mother’s brother.’

Jäger returned his niece’s smile even before getting the translation. At the time, I thought nothing of that expression other than a normal exchange of friendly gestures.

In one sense the meeting with David and Valerie Kershaw was a great success. In another, it was totally frustrating. After hearing the outline of Jäger’s past they greeted him like a member of the family which, in a way, I suppose he was. Even the language problem proved no barrier to the warmth of their welcome. As a detached observer I was struck by the more relaxed attitude they both exhibited. Somehow, their fears, if fears they were, had been eased. Had their trip to London something to do with that, I wondered, and if so what reassurance had they gained from their visit to the capital.

The first demonstration of this came when David apologised for their lack of frankness when Eve and I had questioned them about Chloe’s parents. ‘The truth is that we had no hard evidence to give you. Certainly nothing we felt would help in your search. What little we did know or suspect was strictly taboo. Andrew insisted on that but I can now explain some of the lies we had to tell you.’ He turned to Chloe, pausing to allow Eve to translate before continuing. ‘We didn’t like deceiving you, but it was for your own protection. We
did
know your mother; she was devoted to you and loved you very much. Your father asked us to consider returning here to help him. He needed us to assist with looking after your mother in her final days and then to act as your parents. He was very persuasive, and although we knew that his occupation was secret, he told us enough to prove he wasn’t being paranoid when he said that if the truth about his activities came out and “certain people” discovered his true identity he would be dead within weeks.’

‘Was that why he drank so much?’ Eve asked.

David smiled rather sadly. ‘Did anyone tell you what he drank?’

The question was odd enough to make us stare at him. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Eve managed after a while.

‘If you asked anyone who remembered Andrew they’d all tell you the same thing, that his only tipple was gin and tonic. Except that more often than not there was only tonic water in the glass.’

‘The drunkenness was an act?’

‘Pretty much, although he did drink a bit. His argument was that if someone thought they were dealing with a man who was virtually legless they would be off guard. In the end it didn’t help, though. The heart attack would have happened whether he’d been drinking or not.

‘Debbie’s condition deteriorated far faster than anyone anticipated. We’d only been here a matter of weeks when she died. After that, Andrew was a broken man. He had lost the one thing he loved in life. Despite having you, Chloe, things were never the same.’

‘Did he tell you what he suspected was the cause of Debbie’s death?’

Kershaw looked for a moment as if he was going to refuse to answer that, so I gave him a prompt. ‘Did he tell you he knew she had been poisoned and was suffering from radiation sickness?’

‘Yes, he soon spotted the cause from her symptoms. That was due to his work. He told me there had been other cases of radioactive material being leaked that had led to several deaths and that agents were warned how to spot the signs.’

‘I’m surprised those cases didn’t get reported.’

Michael’s comment caused David to smile rather sadly. ‘They might have done if the authorities hadn’t covered them up by ascribing the causes to various infectious diseases.’

‘Did Andrew guess how Debbie contracted the poison?’

‘Yes – at least, he thought it was the letters smuggled out of East Germany that were the source. I found him burning them in the grate,’ David gestured to the end of the room, ‘and I was curious as to what he was doing because he was wearing gloves even thought it was a warm autumn day.’

‘He surely can’t have believed that her mother was involved?’ The horror in Eve’s voice was obvious enough to cause Kershaw to smile slightly.

‘No, he thought that it was either the East German secret police, or possibly the Russians, who had tampered with the letters. He guessed it must have been the notepaper, because there would have been collateral damage if the envelopes were radioactive.’

‘We came to a similar conclusion,’ I told him, ‘but we still don’t know why they believed it necessary to go to such extreme lengths.’

‘Andrew told us he believed that he was the real target, not Debbie. To them, he said, she was expendable as long as they could get to him.’

‘His tale must have been difficult to swallow,’ I suggested.

‘You would think so, wouldn’t you, but we had the evidence in front of us, in the shape of poor Debbie’s condition. Andrew also told us that the information he’d found wasn’t intended to be seen by anyone, let alone an agent of a foreign power such as Great Britain. He told me, “If the facts I learned in that file were to be made public they would cause a shock wave equivalent to a nuclear explosion. They might even precipitate another World War. Apart from the immediate damage, as with a nuclear blast, the contamination would last a lifetime”. Naturally I pressed him for more details, who wouldn’t have? But he refused to tell me. He said, “Dave, I love you too much to expose you to the danger this knowledge brings with it. Luckily the Communists don’t know my true identity. If they did, everyone connected with me would perish. Be aware at all times that the danger is ever-present. Even years from now, when you believe the threat must have passed, unless that information has been made public, the peril remains as potent as the day I found that file. Apart from all that, if you knew the truth you would never get another good night’s sleep”. That was the last meaningful conversation I had with Andrew.’