A Ghost in the Machine Read online

  “We have a lot of business to get through this morning,” said the coroner. “If you can’t keep quiet, madam, you’ll be asked to leave.”

  Written evidence from the ambulance staff was then read out by the clerk, as was a letter from Dr. Jim Cornwell, who had identified the body.

  Finally Leo Fortune of Brinkley and Latham, thought by the police probably to have been the last person to talk to the deceased, was called.

  Asked about the dead man’s state of mind at this point, around five thirty on the evening that he died, Fortune replied: “Dennis seemed his usual self, calm and quiet. We’d just finished discussing a new account and were about to leave the office. This was about five thirty. It was a beautiful evening. I asked if he was doing anything special and he said having dinner with some friends. I got the impression he was very much looking forward to it.”

  Fortune was thanked and stood down. He was the last witness. An air of disappointment possessed the assembly. The whole business had taken no more than fifteen minutes from start to finish. The coroner expressed his sympathy for the friends and relatives of the deceased before bringing in a verdict of Accidental Death.

  That night Kate and Mallory sat companiably together in their big four-poster drinking real hot chocolate – dark squares of Valrhona melted in water and whipped up with cream.

  Kate said, “What are we going to do?”

  “God knows. I give up.”

  “Mal…”

  “What do you expect me to say? She’s immovable.”

  “There must be something.”

  “There’s nothing. You heard Cornwell’s opinion.”

  “But where has it all come from?”

  “She’s had an absolutely appalling experience.” The green fuse, its contents squeezed out into a grey and white and scarlet puddle seared his memory. “A terrible shock. And it’s left her very…unbalanced.”

  It had taken them ten minutes to get Benny out of the coroner’s court and ten more to persuade her into the car. The moment the verdict had been announced she had got to her feet, pushed her way to the coroner’s table and begun to harangue him with great urgency. Her face was flushed and angry and there was lightning in her eyes.

  “You have made a terrible mistake. Dennis’s death was not an accident. He was deliberately killed.”

  Immediately Kate clambered out of her seat. Attempting comfort, she took Benny’s arm but was shaken off.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind,” cried Benny.

  “The verdict was justly arrived at—”

  “Justice! I’m telling you the truth. Why are you believing everyone else?”

  The ushers were trying to clear the room with little success. At last people had got what they came for and they were not going quietly. Some were even sitting down again.

  Mallory said, “Stop shouting, Ben, please.”

  “He won’t listen.” She was struggling for breath.

  “Let’s find somewhere to talk about this on our own.”

  “Then it’ll be too late.”

  “Not at all.” The coroner’s voice was low and insincerely serene. He sounded like an undertaker. “Inquests can always be reconvened should any reasonable doubt arise.” He caught Mallory’s eye, making it clear what he thought of the chances in this case while also blaming him for introducing a rogue element into the court. He nodded his head in the direction of the ushers and one of them moved firmly forward.

  “You see?” said Kate, gently persuading Benny away from the table. “We can always come back.”

  “Can we, Kate?” urged Benny. “Can we really and truly?”

  In no time at all Kate was sorry she had said that. In the car Benny started asking how soon coming back could possibly be arranged. And what had to be done to bring about this happy state of affairs. How quickly could they start? Where did they start? What could she, personally, contribute? What was the legal situation? Should they have a solicitor? Would any solicitor do or must they engage a specialist in criminal law? Should they perhaps use Dennis’s own solicitor?

  After two or three hours of this Kate felt she wanted to run and hide. She kept going to the lavatory just to shut the sound out. At one point she pretended to go to the Spar and took a book and hid in the orchard, only to find, coming back, that Mallory had become worried and gone all over the village looking for her. At least they then had a short break. Left alone, Benny had returned to her flat.

  In despair Mallory had rung Jimmy Cornwell and the doctor promised to make yet another visit to Appleby House on his way home from afternoon surgery. Prepared to comfort and tranquillise a grief-stricken woman suffering from post-traumatic stress, his expectations were immediately confounded. He found himself confronting blazing determination and a barrage of accusing questions.

  How was it he had not grasped the real situation at the time of Dennis’s death? Did he understand that his evidence helped to bring in a shamefully wrong verdict? A re-examination was urgent. There was no time to be lost. Could a police doctor be used next time – someone more experienced in matters of unnatural death?

  “She’s thrown her tablets from the hospital away,” said Mallory, walking Cornwell to his car. “Says she can’t afford to be only half awake when there’s so much work to be done.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “We simply can’t get through.”

  “You won’t. Obsessives don’t respond to reason. Or common sense.”

  “So – what happens now?”

  “I can arrange for some counselling. Bit of a wait on the NHS—”

  “We’ll pay, of course.”

  “But as things are at present I doubt if she’d agree.”

  “You don’t think she’ll just…give up?”

  “From Benny’s point of view there’s nothing to give up. It’s everyone else who’s wrong.” Cornwell got into his car. “I’ve left another prescription with Kate. You might be able to slip her something by stealth.”

  “I hate that idea.”

  “Sorry, but that’s about it.”

  Now, recalled to a miserable present, Mallory put his empty chocolate mug down and knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Through the window moonshine poured, washing the walls and furniture with pale light. All this tranquillity, which should have been soothing, seemed somehow an affront, totally inappropriate to the turmoil that was presently containing them all. He could see Benny’s flat through the window. All the lights were on. Mallory checked his luminous clock. Half-past two.

  Kate, heavy against his chest, had drifted off. He couldn’t move without disturbing her. So he sat on, worrying about Benny, worrying about Polly, worrying about moving house, worrying about the new business. He remembered the day, now seemingly years ago, when he and Kate and Polly had sat in the offices of Brinkley and Latham for the reading of his aunt’s will. How excited and happy they had all been.

  Dennis too, for entirely selfless reasons. Mallory remembered how spontaneously he had offered to help. How thrilled he was by the very idea of the Celandine Press. Mallory’s thoughts slid even further back. He recalled times when he was quite young and Dennis had come to his aunt’s house. And how he, Mallory, was always politely included in any non-business conversations. Mostly, of course, he wasn’t interested and ran off to play. But he never forgot the kindness, the serious attention paid by Dennis when he did attempt to join in.

  There had been so much drama over the past three days, so many practical things that had to be done after Dennis’s death, that the process of mourning had passed Mallory by. Now he felt it, a slow paralysis of grief, gradually stealing across his heart.

  Naturally Benny Frayle’s outburst in the coroner’s court was all over the village. Most people were sympathetic, especially those who had witnessed her terrible, stumbling progress from Kinders towards Appleby House the evening Dennis Brinkley died. Others were more heartless, pointing out that she’d always been several cards short of a full deck so what was ne
w?

  Only Doris Crudge had reacted with genuine distress. The next day she brought Benny over some special chocolates. Really expensive ones that she’d been keeping for her sister’s birthday.

  Benny was in the kitchen with Kate and Mallory. She took the box, put it aside and carried on talking. Doris was gobsmacked. Though familiar with the saying that someone or other had suddenly become “a completely different person” she had always thought it meant they’d had a sort of makeover, like on the telly. How else could a human being become completely different? Yet here it was happening before her very eyes.

  Benny – shy, hesitant, anxious-to-please Benny – was actually arguing with Mallory over Dennis’s funeral.

  “Honestly, Ben,” he was saying, “does it really matter?”

  “Matter? Of course it matters.”

  “The vicar thought…space…you know?”

  “Dennis hated the idea of cremation.” Here Benny actually thumped one of her clenched fists on the table. “He had this terrible dream about being trapped in his coffin and coming round in the furnace.”

  Mallory thought that sounded like a typical Benny Frayle dream. Then understood – of course! This is about having a body to exhume and re-examine when the non-existent murderer was finally caught.

  But she was so very distressed and had been through a terrible ordeal. What did the way Dennis’s mortal remains were disposed of really matter? On the other hand, if a cremation was carried out it might help to put a stop to all these terrible imaginings.

  “I’ll see what I can sort out, Ben.”

  “Thank you,” said Benny. She got up, briskly abandoning the breakfast table. “I’m going over to the flat now to start on my campaign. I think the London papers first, don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Kate. “More notice would be taken should your letter be published. On the other hand, they do get a huge amount so the chances of it happening are much less.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” said Benny. “Better start locally. And then after lunch I must talk to the police.”

  Kate and Mallory exchanged wary glances. Doris, equally on edge, sat down at the table and poured herself some dregs of coffee.

  She said, “I’m not really up to date on things here, Ben. What’s actually happening?”

  “Kate will explain. We’re all working together on this.”

  The police proved to be a tough option. No difficulty in dropping into Causton station at any time to have a chat. But great difficulty in speaking directly, face to face, with a senior officer in the Criminal Investigation Department. But surely, argued Benny, with the very pleasant-sounding woman on the other end of the telephone, as they were the people who would be dealing with the subsequent inquiry there was little point in her talking to anyone else.

  Benny listened to the response for a moment, then switched off for it was plainly negative. Odd phrases filtered through. “…in the first instance…usual procedure…then your statement would be…an interview with…” She hung up. Now, what?

  Benny, though normally hesitant, fluttery and somewhat gullible, was not a fool. She knew how she was regarded by those who did not know her well, which would certainly include anyone she spoke to at the police station. The chances were that if she simply turned up prepared to argue and stand her ground they wouldn’t take her seriously. They might ask – even force – her to leave.

  What she needed was someone to vouch for her. A person who was on her side, obviously. And with some standing in the community. She thought of Dr. Cornwell. He had had a practice in Causton for over twenty years. The chances were high that some of his patients were police personnel. Perhaps one or two might be from the higher echelons.

  Benny reached for her address book, then hesitated. She remembered the doctor’s last visit to Appleby House when she had practically accused him of incompetence, of misdiagnosing Dennis’s cause of death. He had not seemed to take offence but such an incident would hardly prejudice him in her favour. It might be safer to look elsewhere.

  What about Hargreaves, Carey’s solicitors, an extremely respected and long-established firm in Great Missenden? The senior partner, Horace de Witt, had looked after her legal affairs for over thirty years and knew Benny well. He would be even better than Dr. Cornwell, being familiar to the police from appearances in court.

  Pleased at her own cleverness Benny dialled the number, only to find that Horace had just left for a holiday in Guadeloupe and would be back in two weeks, just in time for his retirement party.

  Benny sighed, made some tea and sat down to drink it. Who else could there possibly be? There was the vicar, of course. Heaven knew, he was respectable, but he was also new to the parish and so not really knowledgeable as to Benny’s finer character traits. She decided it would be kinder not to ask him to vouch for her.

  More to give her mind a break than out of a wish to read, she picked up the Causton Echo. The murder of that poor old pensioner over at Badger’s Drift had still not been solved. The police were urgently seeking the public’s help. Two men had been seen getting into a G reg. green Sierra on the outskirts of the village shortly after six on the evening of…

  Benny read on. At the end was an emergency phone number. She was about to put the paper down when, with a tremble of excitement, she recognised that she was now looking at a perfect means to an end. She found a Biro, drew a circle round the number and reached for the telephone.

  Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy was entertaining himself by imagining his chief’s response when he showed in the middle-aged woman now trailing along behind him on the third floor of Causton police station. Responding to their appeal for information she had refused to speak to anyone but the officer in charge of the Badger’s Drift investigation.

  How old she was was anybody’s guess. The almost fluorescent pinky orange hair was plainly not her own. It looked like the spun, varnished stuff glued to the heads of little girls’ dolls. Her dress was a muddy brown-green colour, swarming with black wriggly things. There was an awful lot of it and it was tied up in the middle with a length of shiny, pink ribbed plastic. She looked like a camouflaged bundle of washing. Troy opened a door inscribed “Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby” and followed her in. This was one interview he was not prepared to miss.

  Benny regarded the man getting to his feet behind the large desk. She was not nervous. Her cause was just. But if it had not been she would certainly have been nervous. He was a very large man. Not fat but bulky. Solid in his build and in the way he looked at you. Very straight and direct from beneath thick, heavy brows.

  “Miss Frayle, sir.”

  The man introduced himself and shook Benny’s outstretched hand. “Thank you for coming in. Please sit down. I understand you have some information for us.”

  “Yes I do,” replied Benny. She wished the thin, younger man had left them alone. She hadn’t taken at all to his weaselly profile and high-standing brush of stiff, red hair. Although he had been perfectly polite she had sensed hidden laughter. Unkindness too.

  “Do you have any objection if we tape what you have to say?”

  “Of course not,” replied Benny, thinking how encouraging such efficiency was. “But I’m afraid I don’t have any information regarding that terrible business at Badger’s Drift.”

  “But I understood—”

  “Yes,” replied Benny. “I do have information about a murder. But it is not that murder.”

  “Is it something presently under investigation?”

  “Not yet,” replied Benny. “Which is why I’m here.”

  “This sounds a bit complicated, Miss Frayle.” Barnaby looked at his watch. “And I’m extremely busy. But if you go along with Sergeant Troy—”

  “Please hear me out,” cried Benny. “I know it was wrong to get in here under false pretences but this is very, very urgent. No one will listen, you see.”

  The chief inspector tried not to let his impatience show, for she was plainly ext
remely distressed. Out of Benny’s sightline Troy was screwing his index finger into the side of his forehead and winking.

  This contemptuous display prompted the DCI to say: “Tell me about it then, Miss Frayle. But be brief, if you would.”

  So Benny told him about it and tried to be brief, although it wasn’t easy. Mainly she looked into her lap but whenever she did glance up Barnaby appeared to be attending closely. Troy had also tuned in but almost immediately tuned out again, recognising the inquest story that Gresham had been circulating round the canteen. He was also somewhat distracted by Benny’s belt, which was more and more reminding him of a length of human intestine.

  “And he knew something bad was going on,” concluded Benny. “A day or so before he died I found him in the war room in front of that dreadful trebbyshay thing. He looked so worried. I asked what was wrong and then…the most frightening thing. ‘Benny,’ he said, ‘there’s a ghost in the machine.’”

  “I can’t make out why you’re doing this, Chief.” Sergeant Troy returned from his errand and laid the Dennis Brinkley file on Barnaby’s desk.

  Barnaby was not sure why either except that she had been quite despairing and on the verge of tears and had begged him to look into it, and he had said that he would. If her description of the incident was correct the whole business sounded fairly uncomplicated and shouldn’t take more than half an hour, if that.

  And so it proved. Sergeant Gresham had been scrupulous as to procedure. The correct forms dealing with continuity of the body’s state and position and circumstances of death had been written up. Several photographs had been taken from all angles, showing details of the machinery’s disfunction as well as different aspects of the corpse’s sorry state. No evidence could be found that any other person had been present in the room during or immediately prior to the incident and a thorough search revealed no suicide note. The death certificate was as straightforward as the paramedics’ statement. The last person to see Brinkley alive had reported his state of mind as calm and quiet. He was looking forward to a dinner that evening with friends.