Murder Among Us Read online

  Meredith draped one of Leah's arms round her neck and encircled Leah's waist with one of her own arms. Gripping the banister rail with her free hand they began the hair-raising descent.

  They didn't get far. Leah lurched down a couple of steps, twisted out of Meredith's grip and sagged in a dead weight to the ground, propped against the banister. Desperately Meredith hauled her up and they tried again. This time Leah toppled forward and there was nothing Meredith could do but let her go or she would have lost her own footing and been carried down with Leah headlong.

  Leah rolled and bumped to the foot of the stair and lay there inert amid a cloud of swirling smoke. Meredith, her heart in her mouth, hastened down and was met by a blast of heat. Spluttering and wincing, she bent over the fallen figure. Leah opened her eyes and moaned before coughing and then closing her eyes again, her head lolling.

  However, as far as Meredith could tell, it seemed that completely relaxed like a drunk, Leah had managed to

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  take a potentially dangerous fall without seriously injuring herself. But the new danger in which they found themselves made short shrift of any relief Meredith might have felt. The bottom of the staircase debouched into a corridor and a little way down it was the guests' entrance to the dining room. Not that Meredith could see it because they had reached the scene of the fire.

  The heat was intense and the smoke swirled ever thicker. She could hear the flames crackling in the dining room and see flickering long tongues of sinuous flame darting in and out of the smoke haze. The corridor leading past the dining room to the front entrance hall of the house was similarly blocked by smoke and flames. But off to the left ran the corridor leading to the kitchens. This, Meredith saw when she staggered to the corner and peered round it, was still free of flames and less smoke-filled.

  Somehow she managed to get Leah to her feet by dint of the kind of superhuman effort only dire emergency calls forth. She began to haul her along, away from the roaring inferno behind the dining-room doors. Sweat ran down Meredith's body. Her eyes wept copious blinding tears from the effect of the smoke and she could hardly draw breath. Her sense of direction was letting her down and for the first time she really began to believe they were not going to make it. She yelled hoarsely, "Leah— come on! You must try and walk!" But Leah slumped down again and this time did not move or make a sound and Meredith's muscles no longer had the strength to wrestle with her.

  Then a voice answered, not Leah's but a man's and it came from the kitchen corridor. "Miss Mitchell!" it roared.

  "Over here!" cried Meredith painfully, her throat feeling as if it were stripped raw.

  A dark shape loomed up and a body crashed into her, knocking her sprawling. Arms seized her and dragged her upright. "This way!" ordered Eric hoarsely. He gripped her forearm and urged her forward.

  "I've got Leah Fulton with me, she's unconscious—" Meredith gasped.

  Eric pushed past her. "I've got her... Hold my sleeve—come on!"

  She stumbled blindly after him, the blood pounding against her temples. As far as she could tell he had slung Leah over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. As they blundered along Meredith could hear the fire gaining strength behind them. This whole wing of the hotel was burning, well alight, she thought. The horror of it seized her and she almost fell.

  "Nearly there!" gasped Eric. "Keep going!"

  A sudden blissfully welcome blast of fresh air hit Meredith's face, its icy cold touch like a slap. She staggered towards its origin and suddenly they were out of the building through the rear entrance.

  Other hands seized her and guided her forward but the tears streaming from her stinging eyes prevented her seeing the faces. Then she found she was sitting on the damp lawn and Leah was stretched on the grass beside her with Eric kneeling over her. Behind them the horrid crackle of the flames and the dull roaring of the fire sounded like a whole pack of wild beasts clawing at their cage for release.

  Eric raised Leah's head and gasped, "She's inhaled the smoke!"

  "No!" Meredith fumbled in her pocket. "She took pills—these! Over-dosed, do you understand? We must get her to hospital!"

  Ulli Richter the chef was a poor sleeper. He lay awake that night in his tiny flat at the top of the building and thought about his kitchens and the next day's menu. He was a man whose entire life revolved around his profession. When Ulli thought about anything, he thought about food, its preparation and presentation, the efficiency of the kitchens, the manifold shortcomings of his underlings.

  He also thought now, as he had done many times,

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  about the murder. A murder committed with one of his knives! His knife! A cherished implement of his trade and now sullied by being used to butcher a stupid woman! He, Richter, the master chef associated with a sordid crime! At the thought of the insult, he sat up in bed and swore aloud in his native Schywzer-deutsch.

  Whenever he couldn't sleep, Ulli got up and made himself a tisane in the tiny kitchenette of the flat. But often he took his herbal infusion downstairs and sat in the hotel kitchens to drink it, calmed by the familiar surroundings. Away from his kitchens, Ulli always fretted. They were his refuge, his place of safety and he crept into them as a hermit crab into a convenient shell and was happy.

  Richter switched on the light, wrapped himself in a voluminous towelling robe and set off downstairs to his beloved domain. He would make a tisane down there. Potter about amongst the shining surfaces of stainless steel, of mottled marble and brightly polished tiles. He would realign all the pots on their shelves, check the store cupboard. He would find peace.

  It was not to be. He was nearly there before he realised something was wrong. A faint odour wafting up the stairs. Smoke? Was it possible? And then the fire alarm bells began to shrill their warning.

  Ulli broke into a clumsy run. Other people might be concerned with the rest of the hotel but he cared only for his kitchens. He descended the stairs at breakneck speed and found himself, as Meredith had done, faced by the smoke and flames from the dining room. What fool had left the doors open?

  Ulli wheeled and darted down the corridor to the left leading to his kitchens, fearing that the fire had taken hold there. Surely it could not have done? Had some idiot left heat under a pan of fat or some such elementary error? No, impossible! He, Richter, always made the final safety check of the day before closing up his kitchens for the night. Not a speck of grease or puddle of water,

  not an unwiped surface or dripping tap escaped his eagle eye.

  But the fire had not begun in nor yet reached his kingdom. Now that he saw the kitchens were blameless and not as yet afire, Richter was at last moved to think of others. With the idea that he might have to smash his way through some barrier to effect a rescue, he took a large, metal-headed meat hammer from a hook and grasping it at the ready, turned back into the corridor and collided with his employer.

  "Out, Ulli!" shouted Eric peremptorily. "Out, dammit! Get out of the building and see how many of the staff you can account for!"

  Richter, still clasping the meat hammer, stumbled towards the back exit and out into the gardens. From this vantage point he was now able to see that only the east wing was ablaze. Nearby clustered the guests who had been sleeping in the west wing and who, together with the staff also lodged there, had made a safe escape through the emergency exit on that side of the house. Missing were the two ladies from the first floor east, the one whose husband had left with the policeman and the other, the policeman's girlfriend. Ulli feared that Schuh-macher had returned to the burning east wing to look for them. Mindful of his orders, however, he made a rapid head count of the staff and was satisfied no one was missing.

  Uneasily he returned his gaze to the flames licking at the east wing's windows and horror at the appalling deed filled his soul. He did not doubt for one moment that some criminal hand had done this. Filled with incoherent rage and lit by the rose glow of the flames, he stood on the lawn, a s
hort, broad, muscular figure in a dishevelled robe, and brandished his meat hammer in the air like a wrathful Thor as he called down imprecations on the rogues and villains responsible.

  "Bloody history people! Bloody Fat-Woman Mapple! All bloody, bloody people! Devils, yes, devils, all of

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  them! I find you, who did this thing, I find you and I kill you, yes, I kill!"

  At this point his eye caught a movement in nearby bushes. He peered into the red-lit murk and growled suspiciously, "Who is there?"

  The dark shape which, like him, had been watching the fire, did not reply but turned and ran, crashing a way through the shrubbery.

  Ulli didn't hesitate. He plunged after the fleeing figure, shaking the meat hammer threateningly and roaring. "You stop! You come back here!"

  Not surprisingly the fugitive ahead of him did not obey. He careered on wildly intent only on escape until his foot caught a trailing root. He stumbled and fell on to his hands and knees. Ulli gave a shriek of triumph and leapt towards the crumpled form. He grabbed a handful of hair and wrenched round the head and the crimson glow was enough to allow him to identify a face he was sure he recognised.

  "Ah! So it is you! You are with that damned history society, I remember!" he yelled. "You try to burn hotel! You try to burn my kitchens! I fix you! You can join that other one, that woman in our cellars!"

  He raised the meat hammer on high and the prostrate and helpless Robin Harding on the ground let out a high-pitched scream of pure terror.

  It was swallowed up by the sound of the fire engines arriving from Bamford.

  Twenty-Four

  Meredith stood looking up at the geometric white shapes of the hospital complex with some apprehension. The breeze ruffled her hair and an empty, crushed cigarette packet bowled a short distance across the surface of the carpark. It was a cool, overcast day. From time to time during the morning the sun had made an effort to squeeze its way between the cloud cover but had now given up and was sulking behind an impenetrable veil. The rows of windows in the architectural blocks gleamed dully and there was an abandoned look to the fandscaped lawns despite the numerous cars parked around hers. Signposts pointed the way to various units, indicating Maternity. Radiology. Casualty and a host of others, but if all these departments were bustling with business it. like the sun, was all well out of sight.

  She wasn't looking forward to making this visit but it had to be done. Get it over with, that was the thing. Meredith set off determinedly towards the nearest plate-glass door.

  •'She's feeling a litle bit iffy." said the young nurse. "Not surprising. It's nasty, being pumped out and. of course, she's been given the standard antidote. You sound a bit hoarse, have you got a cold?" She looked at Meredith dubiously.

  "No. I inhaled a lot of smoke and it's left my throat sore and affected my voice."

  "Oh. I see—like Mrs. Fulton. She's croaking, too. Were you caught in the same fire 0 "

  "Yes. She is all right, though. Mrs. Fulton 0 "

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  "Oh, yes, dear! She didn't take enough to really kill herself! They seldom do, you know."

  "Oh," said Meredith. "I see."

  "So she's just a bit groggy!" The nurse smiled brightly. "And just a teeny bit down in the dumps. She'll be pleased to have a cheerful visitor. You won't tire her, will you?"

  Alerted by the nurse's emphasis on "cheerful," Meredith asked, "Has her husband been to see her?"

  "Oh yes, he's been! But between you and me, he wasn't exactly good for her, if you know what I mean. He was in such a state himself. They're like that sometimes."

  On this cryptic note the nurse ushered Meredith into a small private room. Leah lay propped on pillows wearing a pink bedjacket, its lively hue contrasting grotesquely with the greyness of her complexion.

  "Hullo, there," said Meredith. "How's it going?"

  "All right. I feel lousy. So I should, I suppose."

  "I brought a couple of magazines and some barley sugars. Good for the throat. How is yours? Mine's sore." Meredith set her offerings on the bedside locker and took a seat.

  "It's not too bad. I have to thank you, don't I, for saving my life?" Leah sounded more resentful than grateful.

  "Not if you'd rather not," Meredith told her.

  Leah threw out her hands and exclaimed abjectly. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to be churlish. You were so brave and resolute, hauling me downstairs like that! And so unselfish! You might have been trapped yourself."

  "Eric carried you outside. Without his help neither of us might have made it!"

  Leah burrowed back into her pillows and sighed. "Poor Eric. All his work literally up in smoke!"

  "In fact only the east wing and kitchens were put out of action. But he's got plans for fixing it all up again. Eric's a determined sort."

  "Yes."

  An awkward silence fell. Meredith asked with some hesitation, "Has Alan been to see you?"

  "Not yet. He sent along a nice young policewoman and she said he sent his compliments—very formal, your police chum!—and he'd call on me later when I felt better." Anxiety entered Leah's dark eyes. "Meredith, when you dragged me out of bed, I know you retrieved the pill bottle because the doctor here said so. He said it was very helpful knowing exactly what I'd taken and you were to be congratulated on your presence of mind. But I don't know whether you noticed a—a—" Her voice trailed off and she fixed Meredith with a questioning look.

  "A letter? Yes, I picked that up too. I've still got it. It's here, in my bag."

  "You didn't give it to your boyfriend, then? It's addressed to him."

  "No." Meredith shook her head. "I was going to ask you if you wanted it back. After all, you weren't exactly compos mentis when you wrote it, were you? It was just before you swallowed the pills." She opened her shoulder bag and took out the envelope retrieved from Leah^s bedside table at the hotel. "It's got a bit grubby, sorry about that." She held it out.

  Leah stretched out a hand which appeared incredibly frail, blue veins showing through alabaster skin. She touched the edge of the envelope. "You didn't read it?"

  "Of course not!" said Meredith indignantly. After a moment she added, "I didn't need to."

  Leah raised her eyebrows. "You sound very sure. Do you really know what I wrote?"

  "I think so." Meredith folded her hands in her lap. "Why are we humans so loath to trust our sense of smell? Animals trust theirs. We only use ours when we have to and we only feel it's telling us right if it's really obvious, quite overpowering. The message does register subconsciously, but we ignore it. I mean, if one human tells another he smells, that's an insult. But of course

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  we all smell different. Dogs can tell us apart by our smell, track us cross-country by it, pick one object out of a pile by it." Leah, she noticed, had begun to look wary.

  "You know what I'm getting at, don't you?" Meredith said. "When I came on Ellen's body in the cellar, I dare say shock affected me. I disliked those cellars anyway, I found them claustrophobic and there was a musty smell of old stone and new whitewash. That was strong enough for me to recognise it straight off. But there was another smell too, sweetish and not unpleasant, a bit flowery. I registered that subconsciously but I didn't take proper notice of it. I should have done because it was telling me something very important."

  Leah's gaze was cold. "Yes?"

  "It was telling me a name, giving me an identity. It was your perfume, Leah. Your smell, if you don't mind me putting it like that. It was telling me you had been standing where I was, only a little time before me."

  The woman in the bed said nothing.

  "I should have twigged earlier because only a very little later I smelled it again. I went along to your room to fetch your wrap as Denis asked me. It was while we were all waiting downstairs in the dining room, remember? The same perfume filled your room, very strong. And again in your house when I came to dinner. And in the lounge of Springwood H
all as we sat talking. You even made a reference to it yourself. 'Drenched in French perfume,' you said. I laughed because it sounded so funny. But it jolted my memory. Why did you kill Ellen?"

  "She was Denis's wife."

  Leah spoke the words so calmly that Meredith could only stare open-mouthed until she realised she was gaping and closed it.

  "Yes, really. Your copper boyfriend knows. He's been telling Denis to own up and tell me but of course, poor Denis just hadn't the guts. Nor would he have had the guts to kill her. Oh yes, our marriage was bigamous

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  and now the cat's out of the bag, he admits it."

  4 'Did you, did you know all along?" Meredith whispered.

  "Of course not. Denis said he'd never been married and why shouldn't I believe him? He didn't act like a man who was used to having a woman around. I thought he was a typical middle-aged bachelor until he met me, and at first I put down all his anxiety to that. But I soon realised there was something specific worrying him, something outside our home, and he wasn't going to tell me what it was. I kept giving him the opportunity, creating neat little openings in the conversation, but he utterly refused to take them up. Like all the men in my life, I suppose he wanted to keep unpleasantness from me because he thought I wouldn't cope! It really makes me want to spit!"

  Leah scowled. "So I had to hire a private detective, a very good man whom Marcus used from time to time, and he found out for me."

  Marcus again. Denis was truly doomed to be haunted by the man, even his follies exposed by Marcus's detective. Marcus, guarding his wife from the grave.

  'Those absences I couldn't account for, when I lied and said I was with Lizzie and Denis thought I was with Victor, I was conferring with the inquiry agent. It took him a while but once he got on to Ellen he used his contacts in Australia to trace her background there."