Death by Indulgence Read online

  ‘It’s a damn good job I took that call,’ Konrad said, taking Lorna to one side. They stood next to an information board that held a patchwork of posters and leaflets about healthy eating. ‘It was the mighty DS Quinn. They’ve located Marcus Carver at his home address, they had a warrant to search the place too and they’re taking him in for questioning.’

  ‘Have they found Harry?’

  ‘No, but they’re on to something.’

  Lorna inclined her head towards the ceiling, her mouth turned down at the corners. ‘God.’

  ‘He didn’t give a great deal of detail. That’s all I know.’

  ‘And?’ Lorna had spotted Konrad’s body language giving a suggestion that more revelations were in the offing. He looked awkward.

  ‘I think there’s been a bit of a balls-up. It seems some evidence was found in his house… They want me in for questioning about the last time we saw Harry with Marcus Carver at Buxham’s club.’

  Lorna scratched at her hairline. ‘I thought you’d answered all their questions about that night. Did he say whether they re-checked the security fingerprints held at the club against those of the thumb found in the refuse lorry on January the fourth?’

  ‘No. Why are you asking about that?’

  ‘Because, if that thumb does belong to Harry then their theory doesn’t make any sense. If Harry left the club with Marcus and if he accompanied him home, why, for goodness’ sake, would Marcus kill him, then chop off his thumb and throw it into a dustcart? And, what’s more, that dustcart provides a service in Lensham, nowhere near Marcus’s home address.’

  ‘Which means that Harry had his thumb cut off on his way there.’

  ‘Yes, before he arrived at chez Carver…’ Lorna’s eyes sharpened. ‘Alternatively, Harry never left Buxham’s with Marcus. His thumb did.’

  ‘Then where the bloody hell is Harry?’ Konrad asked.

  After a short debate, Lorna agreed to keep the latest turn of events a secret and she sidled stealthily back into the hospital room where Mal was chatting animatedly to Valerie Royal about old times. ‘I saw Screw McBride last week,’ Mal said. ‘He was a horrible little scrote. Remember how far we managed to fling him that night?’

  Val’s lips formed a wide slit. ‘Yeah. Right from the top step through the air and into the middle of Archway Road he went. Screamed like a sissy.’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Lorna said. ‘Kon sends his apologies. He’s been called into the office on an urgent matter. I know you are both keen to see that Ella is okay, but I don’t know too much about her, so it might help to have a few pointers before we see her tomorrow.’ Lorna took a seat next to the hospital bed. ‘I know she worked for you and I know from Mal how you met, but can I ask when it was that Ella lost her job at Buxham’s and how? It’s important.’

  37

  Harry is no more

  Standing precariously balanced within the enormous yellow waste container, condensation whooshing from her nose and mouth like a dragon, Ella reached out. With one arm extended she took the secateurs from a tremulous Marcus who held the bin lid open. Even through two pairs of surgical gloves the handles felt slightly warm from his touch.

  ‘Hold the torch still and tell me where to cut,’ she whispered placing the blades either side of Harry’s right thumb.’

  ‘A smidgen lower, on the second joint where it hinges.’ Marcus stared at her as she sited Harry’s dead hand against her own thigh and, with one blue gloved fist encasing the other, she applied downward pressure through the weight of her shoulders onto the grips. It took four cuts to free the digit, after which Ella placed it into a see-through disposable shower cap. She’d had the foresight to salvage one from the bathroom in Harry’s suite, and had quickly rammed it into the pocket of Marcus’s borrowed tweed coat.

  Kneeling amongst the detritus, decorations and grey plastic, she managed to tuck Harry’s arm back inside the bundle. With no heart to pump it, there wasn’t too much blood to be seen, only some gravity-driven leakage. Ella stood on Harry’s grey polypropylene body to lever herself over the rim of the waste container, and with help from Marcus she landed elegantly on top of the beer crates where he stood, the torch held in his teeth.

  ‘Switch that off now. Let’s go. Time’s getting on and we need to prepare for an un-dramatic getaway,’ Ella said in a hushed voice as she removed the outer pair of surgical gloves. She threw them into one corner of the bin and then, having twisted the end and taken the batteries out, she tossed the torch into the container. ‘One broken flashlight, discarded.’ Gingerly they closed the lid, accepting the fact that the overflowing waste prevented it from sealing.

  Gathering their bags Ella and Marcus carried out one final sweep of both hotel rooms and headed in the central lift to reception. Nothing remained to imply that an abnormal night of antics had taken place. The dessert trolley and special hamper were left, ravaged and cluttered with used crockery, cutlery and table linen. Beds were unmade, towels in bathrooms used and placed carelessly back onto heated towel rails.

  ‘Where is Harry’s mobile phone?’

  ‘In my pocket, I turned it off,’ Ella replied.

  ‘Good, his Oyster card is in its case. You can use that when we get to the station.’

  With general chitchat, Marcus distracted the night manager who had been left to man the reception desk on his own. He stood at the desk, barring the view as Ella strode past rolling Harry’s suitcase behind her, in as manly a fashion as she could produce. She made her way to the exit where she stood facing the locked doors, waiting for their release. Watching with intense satisfaction, she witnessed the borough council’s waste disposal lorry as it reversed through the gates to the car park. ‘Beep, beep, beep,’ the alarm sounded, warning stray pedestrians to remove themselves from harm’s way.

  Since her first week at Buxham’s club Ella had become painfully familiar with that sound on a Thursday morning. It would wake her up and disrupt much needed sleep. The imposing wooden main gate slid gracefully closed once the truck had entered.

  ‘My turn to pay for last night’s dinner, I’m sad to say,’ Marcus announced picking up a pen from its onyx holder on the gleaming wooden counter of the reception desk. ‘But we have to forfeit breakfast this week. An early start for both of us. We must catch the next train to London.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Table eighty-eight. On account? Here please.’

  The sallow-faced manager was a model employee; polite, efficient and willing, but, at the tail end of his energy after a long uneventful night, he paid scant notice to the two departing residents other than to request a confirmation signature and fingerprint.

  Marcus obliged by placing his forefinger onto the small screen of a hand-held device offered to him by the manager who thanked him and said, ‘Have a safe journey, gentlemen,’ before pushing a button beneath the desk to release the lock on the entrance doors.

  Ella tripped in her oversized footwear, but somehow managed to catch the handle of the large door to prevent a fall.

  ‘Steady there, sir.’

  Marcus tutted. ‘Mr D may still be suffering from rather too much wine at dinner last night. The fresh air will soon put him right.’

  Ella smirked as Marcus ushered her through the door. She was surprised at how well he was managing his nerves. More amazingly, she had somehow remained silent and been able to stifle the giggles that threatened to escape from her throat when the intense nature of their escape had resulted in childish thoughts. It was as if the whole episode was a fanciful notion come true; a dead body and two desperate fugitives trying to hide from the law. What a caper! What a game to play! Who would win? Who would live and who would die? Who would betray who first?

  They stepped from the doors, down a ramp and towards the pedestrian exit. Knowing that the CCTV was filming her, Ella kept her head down, the large peak of the golf cap pulled low on her brow, squashing her hair. Not wishing to touch her own skin against lifeless flesh, she continued to wear a pair of blue Nitrile glo
ves. With her right hand she felt for Harry’s thumb within the confines of the coat pocket. She manipulated it, partially unwrapped the plastic of the shower cap until she held it in her curled fingers, beneath her own more slender thumb. Approaching the security pad she turned a shoulder to hide her actions as best she could. As she aimed the dead thumb against the pad and pressed firmly but evenly, she was holding her breath. She exhaled long and loud as the mechanism clicked into life and the door swung aside.

  The dark winter morning was icy cold and still. Their passage was lit by a half moon and a series of yellow streetlights that led them to the avenue where the bare branches of the lime trees cast unwavering monster shadows across the pavement.

  Despite the bitter chill, Ella began to feel physically tired for the first time in over two weeks. But, as fatigued as her body was, her mind was still racing with random intrusive connections and she held court with herself through endless internal rhyming bingo dialogue as she walked along.

  All the trees, thirty-three. The trees know, and they’re looking at me. Kelly’s eye, number one. Did anyone see what we have done? Under the thumb, fifty-one. Nobody saw what we have done. We’re clear and free, number three. Nobody knows because they didn’t see me. Garden gate, number eight. The damage is done, and it’s too late.

  Neither of them spoke to each other. The eerie stillness of the morning was peppered by the sounds of early travellers heading to work, by car or bus, interspersed by the endless drumming of suitcase wheels on tarmac.

  They were rounding the final bend to head for the station when a deep rumbling cacophony of engine noise made them turn to investigate. The purple and yellow council waste lorry was passing, accelerating noisily as it made the right-hand turn. Checking rapidly right and left, Ella dashed across the road behind it, heading for the opposite pavement. Her clown shoes flapped like flippers and her suitcase, pulled in her left hand, made the journey skidding on one set of wheels. As she flip-flopped her way across the road and past the open jaws of the heavy-duty rubbish eater, she pulled Harry’s thumb from her pocket and lobbed it. The shower cap floated into the gutter.

  Hopping onto the pavement like a penguin, she turned to see Marcus’s facial expression change from one of admiration to a frown of concern. He ran across the road to join her. ‘It didn’t make it.’

  ‘Yes, it did.’

  ‘No, it didn’t,’ he asserted, pushing her to proceed along the pavement in the direction of the bright station lights. ‘It landed on the footplate. The platform where the workmen stand.’

  ‘Bugger. Really? I was hoping to reunite it with its owner. Never mind.’

  Marcus looked down at his strange companion and shook his head, clearly baffled by her lack of concern.

  The station was brightly lit and Ella caught sight of her distorted reflection in long glass panels of the modern structure as they headed through the automatic sliding doors and into the ticket hall. She resembled a tramp who had happened upon a bag full of expensive clothes, none of which fitted correctly, but she consoled herself with the certain knowledge that she didn’t look like Ella Fitzwilliam.

  She watched as Marcus fiddled with his phone, sending texts and eventually making a call to his wife. ‘Why haven’t you called them? How many painkillers? I’m on my way. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’ He looked across at Ella who was sitting opposite, huddled into his oversized tweed coat. Her nose poked over the top of the burgundy coloured scarf she wore.

  ‘More problems?’ she growled, in an effort to mimic a male timbre.

  ‘Not as bad as some,’ Marcus answered, cryptic in tone. ‘You come home with me, change into your own clothes, I’ll lend you a coat, one of Lydia’s old ones, then you head back.’

  Ella nodded emphatically once. She didn’t need him to tell her what to do. It had been her plan, not his. She wiggled in the train seat forcing herself not to speak more than a few words in case she was overheard by other passengers. She kept her hands wedged into her pockets and played in the depths of the coat where she touched her glove against the leather of the mobile phone case. As she registered its feel between finger and thumb, a series of interlinked notions formed.

  Marcus Carver deserved to be punished. He had led a charmed life; an inherited wealth, a public school education, university, medical school, Royal College of Surgeons, a Harley Street consultancy and he risked it all and abused his power to take advantage of the vulnerable.

  Watching him bite nervously at his fingernails, Ella registered his desperation. He was unprotected. No lawyer to help him evade the consequences, to shelter him from accusations, or to play with. Harry Drysdale was dead and Marcus had instigated the cause of that death. He had tied Harry to the bed. He had groped and prodded Ella as she stood as an offering to Harry for a present. Sexploitation.

  Such a shame Harry had died, because apart from that, the evidence, which she hoped had been captured on film, would have condemned both men as deviant and devious. Members of the press would have been competing with each other to run the story and the lives of two unprincipled men would have been destroyed. Job done.

  However, having been involved in the accidental death of Harry, she convinced herself that she could be accused of manslaughter or at least as an accessory after the fact. What was the expression she had used? ‘The cock-up of all cock-ups.’ It was indeed.

  Only when she stared into her lap did she realise that the blue gloves she was still wearing, inside the pockets of the tweed coat, could be her salvation and the end for Marcus Carver. How ironic. Surgical gloves.

  38

  The Carver residence

  The taxi could be heard pulling away on the gravel at the end of the drive and silence greeted Marcus and Ella as they carefully closed the glossy front door to Marcus’s elegant house. The white hallway was brightly lit by a central chandelier and the black and white squares of the floor tiles helped define the style of the house. It was lavish, traditional Regency, with a sweeping stairway leading to a galleried landing. A show home, clean and neat.

  Hurriedly, he directed Ella into a small sitting room ‘We don’t use this room often. No one comes in here.’

  ‘The cleaning lady?’

  ‘She doesn’t start until eight… er, and she doesn’t do Tuesdays or Thursdays.’ Marcus was thrown by Ella’s ability to think with clarity.

  ‘That’s lucky,’ she replied, surveying the pristine room like someone who was viewing the property with an estate agent.

  ‘Your clothes are in there,’ Marcus said, aiming a hand at his own suitcase. ‘Get changed as quickly as you can and put my clothes back in my bag. I’ll sort them out later.’ He left the luggage with her and closed the door having told her to wait for his return and to remain hidden and, most importantly, to stay quiet. The girl seemed increasingly wired, wild-eyed and prone to emotional excitement. A most incongruous reaction to the predicament they were in, he thought. She was a liability indeed, but his wife was a major catastrophe in the making and thus she took priority.

  Throwing his jacket on top of the oak newel post, he raced up the carpeted stairs, stumbling in his haste, praying that Lydia had already called for an ambulance and left for hospital. He was drained. Nervous energy was the only thing keeping him going. Breathing heavily, he opened the door to the main bedroom and with hollow legs giving way at the knees he launched himself at the bedside telephone.

  Lydia lay in muted sweaty agony. Soft groans emanating from her throat. Hair carpeted to her head, knees tucked up.

  He dialled for an ambulance then retched violently next to the bed.

  ‘Oh, God, what have I done? Lydia. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you last night. I’m so very sorry. Please hang on.’ He touched her shoulder not daring to rouse her, believing his own lies about remorse.

  He had a matter of minutes in which to send packing the mad girl downstairs. She was unhinged. He’d seen her muttering and laughing to herself on the train journey, and what’s more
she’d caused him to kill his friend and had then mutilated him without so much as one fit of the screaming abdabs; no hysteria, nothing. What was wrong with her? This was more than her professed bipolar disorder, surely? She was so bizarre. Whatever it was that ailed her and however odd she became she must return to the club and act as if nothing untoward had occurred. He had no time to think of a different plan of action.

  Marcus flung open each door of the fitted wardrobes in Lydia’s dressing room until he found a brown faux-fur coat, suitable for sending Ella back to Lensham in. Searching wildly, he mumbled insincere prayers, ‘Please, God, don’t let Lydia die. Please don’t let her die. I’ll never sin again, so help me.’ His mouth was dry.

  Lydia hadn’t put on the brown furry coat since the day he informed her that she resembled an obese grizzly bear. She’d lost so much weight the coat didn’t fit her anymore anyway, so she wouldn’t miss it. ‘I’ll tell her a charity auction was looking for donations.’

  Excuses in order, he located a pair of cream leather boots in a long box, tissue paper protecting them. He couldn’t remember Lydia ever having worn them. They had high heels and appeared new. From a hook on the door he snatched a cream shoulder bag that would match the boots near enough and he thundered back downstairs.

  ‘I’ll need money for the train,’ Ella said, stuffing Marcus’s jumper, trousers and suit jacket back into his suitcase. She had removed Harry’s boots and socks and these lay next to his much smaller case on the beige carpet of the sitting room. She was back in her dress, resembling a dishevelled partygoer who had woken up from a drunken slumber behind someone else’s sofa at a house party.

  Marcus tried to absorb the scene. ‘Yes. Good. Here’s a coat.’

  ‘Boots. Thank goodness for that, I’ll freeze in these if I have to walk all the way back to the station. It’s bad enough having to go commando.’ She grabbed at the shoulder bag, opening it she placed her own shoes inside.