Lisette Rivers & the Crumbling Mansion Affair
by
Brian Sands
Sam and Sally, Panty
Chapter Thirteen: The Mid Point of the Case
“If you would sum up this investigation thus far, please Popp – Detective Sergeant,” continued Detective Inspector Fysshe.
With a flush in her cheeks, Detective Sergeant Poppy Chipps cleared her throat and began reading from her notes.
“Preliminary briefing: At 2100 hours the Duty Sergeant of Corby’s End Central Police received an anonymous call in what was purported to have been a woman’s voice ...”
That must be Regina, thought Lisette. She promised to let us know the next move if she was able to. Maybe she phoned us and when there was no reply she decided to tell the police.
“… The woman advised that within the next hour a covered truck transporting contraband drugs would be on the main road not far from the property known as Weatherstone Hall. All available officers were immediately alerted …”
Disturbing my viewing of that new episode of The Bill, thought DI Fysshe sourly.
“… and rushed to the scene.”
In the middle of a bloody hailstorm, added DI Fysshe darkly to himself. Why can’t villains go out in decent weather? Well, I suppose that’s because they’re villains …
“Police cars were stationed a kilometre from the scene, upon a hilltop at a T-junction with the on-ramp to the A171. The covered truck appeared at 2148 hours from one of the many side lanes that transect the district. At the crest of a hill known as Smuggler’s Knoll the truck appeared to stall. Three figures were observed in the roadway ahead of the vehicle. The sound of gunfire was heard though the storm, which had abated. An ambulance standing by was notified. When the investigating officers arrived at the scene all suspects had vanished except for the driver who was wounded in his right arm …”
Lisette remembered hearing the man’s scream.
“… He was a petty criminal known as Red-Eye Benny, so named because he does odd-jobs for villains no questions asked.”
“Aka ‘Ready Benny,’ because he’s always ready to turn a couple of pounds,” interjected DI Fysshe morosely. “So-named ‘Benny’ because he takes Benzedrine, that is, amphetamines when on the job, also ‘red-eye’ for obvious reasons. Most of the time his mind’s addled by the stimulants. We may not be able to get much out of him.”
“Yes Sir … By his own account he was told to drive the truck to a place on the coast where he was to make a pick-up. He claimed that he was offered the job by a man in a pub he had never met and whose name he could not remember. The people on the coast wore balaclavas, therefore, he said, he could not identify them. Presently the truck is being taken apart by Forensics.”
DI Fysshe shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked suspiciously at the cup of coffee that had just been placed in front of him by the auditing Constable, who until then had been standing unobtrusively by the door. Now we come to you, Miss Rivers, he thought with satisfaction.
“Upon closer inspection of the vehicle,” continued DS Chipps, “two young women, identified subsequently as Lisa Rivers and Sunny Virtue, were found inside the metal drum that was ordinarily used as a bunk by travelling truck drivers. They were bound hand and foot with wide insulating tape. They were gagged also with the same material, a roll of which was found under the driver’s seat, ordinary industrial tape found in most hardware stores. After a medical appraisal they were released into the protective custody of Corby’s End Central Police …”
“You should have been in protective custody earlier,” said DI Fysshe accusingly. “Thank you, Detective Sergeant … Now … Miss Rivers, will you tell us how you and this other young lady found yourselves in such a predicament?”
“Abduction, deprivation of liberty, sensory deprivation,” said DS Chipps almost cheerfully.
Throughout the briefing, Lisette had been wondering how much to tell the two investigating officers, or, conversely, how much she could get away with concealing from them. They knew about the satchel that she had found hanging over the wall separating Swallowtail Cottage from Weatherstone Hall – DS Chipps had investigated the spot and taken a piece of leather for analysis – and they knew about the smuggling operation in general. Did they know about the tunnel near the lighthouse, leading to a cave that opened at the cliff wall? Surely it was local knowledge.
Why am I determined to hide some of the clues? That was easy to explain: professional pride. She was supposed to be a canny private detective but she had slipped up, and each time she slipped up led to being captured by the gang. Her professional pride was hurt. She wanted to have her revenge on the people who had kidnapped her and Sunny and held them bound and gagged. Yes, I can tell them that part. It would also be useful to know about their investigations, for instance results of the forensic report on the piece of leather.
As Detective Sergeant Chipps took notes, Lisette recounted into the tape recorder how she had taken a stroll intending to be back in time for DS Chipps’ visit. She came upon the tunnel and there was seized by masked persons who bound and gagged her and took her into the cave. Two people were packing crates. While the gang members were working on the crates, she managed to free her hands and made her escape via the cave to the cliff wall. By then the storm was picking up. She carefully omitted any mention of Regina Ecuestre.
The double abduction of Lisette and Sunny that took place not long after Lisette’s return to the cottage was described more briefly. The two young women were gagged and bound with tape and stuffed into the metal box behind the seat of the truck. Their captors were masked but Lisette thought they were the same persons who held her in the tunnel.
“The question is,” said DI Fysshe tendentiously, “Why go to all that trouble to recapture you, Miss Rivers, considering that the gang were about to leave the area and would have done so easily had there not been a tip-off?”
“I don’t know,” replied Lisette evasively.
“Ah, but I think you do!” rejoined Fysshe triumphantly. “In fact, knowing is the thing. Obviously, they decided that you knew too much, and kidnapped you in order to keep you quiet. They had to take Miss Virtue as well because she was there, the innocent bystander.”
“But what it is I’m supposed to know?” cried Lisette. She was becoming a little flustered under DI Fysshe’s interrogation.
I know for instance that two members of the gang are the Big Man and that science fiction writer Brick Simenov, and so does Sunny. I can identify that caretaker Mrs Schlüssel and, from the criminal’s point of view, I can also identify Regina Ecuestre, all to their detriment. So should I tell this nice Detective Inspector and his able assistant? But the gang will think that I have told them, and so they will no longer have a motive to kidnap me.
“I think quite a lot, Miss. You’re a detective,” continued Fysshe interrupting Lisette’s train of thought.
“But I’m not investigating this case,” exclaimed Lisette, indulging in what was at best a white lie and at worst a whopping fib. “I’ll leave it happily in your hands,” she added disingenuously.
“Well,” said Sunny Virtue disapprovingly as they walked to the door of Swallowtail Cottage, “You sure led them up the garden path, only they knew it!”
“I know,” replied Lisette guiltily, “I feel really bad about it … Hullo Rasputin Top Cat … But I want to be free to make investigations without the police looking over my shoulder at every turn. I told you about Regina. As far as we know, she’s still with the gang. If a police search started and her name were involved, it could put her in greater danger. I owe her. She helped me escape from that farm.”
“I understand,” said Sunny. “But it’s awfully dangerous branching out on your own.”
“I’m not sure about that, Sunny. I think a lot of the danger to us personally has gone. Because the gang will think I’ve told the police about them anyway, they’ll lie low. In any case, I’m sure the police will keep an eye on us, but not so that I feel obligated to them all the time.”
So the matter rested. In fact, the whole affair was suspended upon an irritating thread of inconclusiveness. There was no word from Regina Ecuestre. Lisette made sure to check in from time to time at Corby’s End Central Police for the latest reports, but there were no further sightings of any gang member in the area. The caretaker, Mrs Schlüssel had disappeared. Red-Eye Benny gave no further testimony of value. He was taken for questioning to London and placed on remand for his part in the drug haul. The piece of leather found by the wall was determined to have come from the inner lining of the satchel, and it did contain traces of heroine. But that only confirmed what they already knew. From time to time Lisette wondered whether she should tell the police about the science fiction writer and his boss the Big Man, and Regina Ecuestre, but those thoughts also went on the backburner. Lisette could not get it out of her mind that the gang had more members than she or the police knew.
Lisette considered that the midpoint of a case was often problematic and that it could remain unsolved during the passage of time when nothing happened or was made to happen. The affair of the crumbling mansion was receding into the background. No, two unrelated affairs, Lisette reminded herself: the drug couriers and Sunny Virtue’s inheritance of the old pile.
Lisette forgot about the drug-running case as the days went by and merged towards spring. She slipped into a more carefree holiday mood, and was often found by Sunny on a deck chair in the back garden reading the lurid novels that had been left in the cottage, Rasputin Thermodux the First purring and sometimes outright snoring in contentment upon her lap.
Sunny Virtue was away frequently on visits to London connected with her inheritance of Weatherstone Hall. It could take months, even a year, for probate to go through, she was told. There was a difficulty concerning the deceased previous owner Sir Albatroyd Merks. A consortium – Sunny had yet to prise their identify from the solicitors’ tight lips – had placed a lien on the property. It demonstrated that having a title before one’s name did not automatically insulate one from debt. Until that matter was resolved, Sunny’s hands were tied. Lisette’s new friend was not enjoying her holiday.
During the days when she did not have Sunny Virtue’s company, Lisette began to take long rambling walks about the countryside: to the village and along the edge of the cliff, and inland to the safe boundaries of the moors that lay only a few kilometres past Greenmoor Farm where, on being abducted, she had met Regina Ecuestre. The farm was closed and silent. The smugglers’ tunnel by the cliff was sealed off by a spider work of police scene of crime tapes. She learnt that the lighthouse had been closed at that time pending the arrival of new lighthouse keepers. She had avoided it on her escape through the cave.
Lisette studied her map and pinpointed where the other artists were living. They had once been a convivial coterie centred on Weatherstone Hall, but now they had isolated themselves from the crumbling mansion after the murder of Spencer Fforbes, the drug running and the police chase. Lisette told herself that she must really drop in on the artist Serge Easel again, and the writers Jeremy Buddington and Lily Woodgreen. But the little back garden had its quiet pleasures, sheltering her from the wind, providing dappled shade under the trees as she read and dozed. For the first time since arriving at Swallowtail Cottage Lisette Rivers was enjoying a real holiday. Her original misgivings, prompted by the images of foetid decay surrounding Swallowtail Cottage and Weatherstone Hall, were dismissed as quite irrational.
An afternoon came when Lisette had read all the trashy novels and was feeling restless. Sunny was still away and, although Rasputin was good company, “fraff” and “merrk” hardly made for stimulating conversation. She decided to take her afternoon walk earlier, following a light lunch of salad and tuna (the latter shared with Rasputin). Lisette wore a light beige top with a pretty V-neck and a dark blue skirt that floated around her knees. She tied a blue patterned silk scarf over her head and under her chin to shield her neck and face against the afternoon sea breeze.
Rodan657, Webfinds Gallery p. 7
Impelled more by curiosity than impulse, Lisette took the narrow path by the dividing wall and passed through the gate into the grounds of Weatherstone Hall. The old building was closed. The double front doors were barred by police tape, as at the cliffside tunnel, but Lisette had no desire to set foot in the place. Instead, she skirted the driveway and walked across the wide expanse of lawn.
Shading her eyes against the early afternoon sun, she looked up at the forbidding façade and crenellated roof. All that stirred was a crow from beneath the eaves of one window, the heraldic corby from which the village had its name. For an instant Lisette thought she saw the glint of something reflecting from one of the upper level windows, but the phenomenon did not recur and she passed it off as sunlight striking aslant a windowpane. She shivered, although it was not cold, and the sense of foreboding began to reassert itself in her breast until, with an impatient shake of her head, she walked on.
Lisette struck towards the further side of the house, passing from the grassed area to a side path bounded by the mansion and, on her left, a belt of trees. At the rear of the building the path divided, one branch leading to the door that Lisette knew opened into the kitchen, and the other continuing into the trees. A wider driveway that led also to the kitchen door was clearly the tradesman’s entrance. Trees separated it from the walkway. From this aspect the mansion looked more hollow and ruined than from its imposing front elevation.
Flickr.com, creepy house pages: Boat House, Coindre Hall, Huntington, New York by Toddland, Decomposition Set
As she trod the path with the gravel driveway to her right, screened by the trees, Lisette remembered that this must have been the route taken by Brick Simenov and his literally Big Boss when she was a trussed and gagged captive in the boot of their car. The thought made her quicken her pace and she did not draw breath until she was out on a sunny country lane with Weatherstone Hall a kilometre behind her. Lisette chided herself: Come on, girl, snap out of it. Old houses don’t hurt you, and the men who kidnapped me are gone. She walked on, and in a few minutes the beauty of the countryside as it changed from coastal trees to moor land heather in a sort of natural alchemy revitalised her spirits.
She walked on. Another week, Lisette mused, and I’ll be back at my desk. I wonder what Chèrie is up to, and Sophie? She experienced a pang of separation that felt very like homesickness and for a moment debated whether to cut her holiday short. No, she decided. I owe it to myself to use this break. There’ll be plenty of work on my desk when I get back. She walked on, directing her mind to the simple pleasures of giving Rasputin his evening meal, Sunny’s return the day after tomorrow, and another sun-dappled morning lazing in the deck chair.
A car approached from behind and she stepped off the road while it passed. Aside from registering that it was a small 4x4 with tinted windows she gave it scant attention. The vehicle disappeared up the lane and turned into a side road that Lisette knew led to the main highway. When she reached that turnoff, land marked by a last belt of trees before the true beginning of the moors, there was no sign of it.
Lisette walked on to the crest of the hill from which she had a sweeping view of the moors. Far off to her right on a narrow horizon was the main road. From time to time she saw the roofs of vehicles as they passed. She had come to this point before though not from the back entrance of Weatherstone Hall, and she decided to take the lane that led to the highway, knowing that another lane branched off from it that would lead her in a circuit to Swallowtail Cottage. Lisette retraced her steps and turned into the lane at the T-junction with the belt of trees to her left.
As she passed close to the trees, a stocky figure dressed in black and with a balaclava masking his head and face burst from the trees and picked her up with one arm as easily as if she was a raggy doll. A huge hand clamped over her nose and mouth, stifling the scream that rose to her throat. Kicking ineffectually in the powerful grasp, Lisette was carried into the trees to a well-camouflaged car, the 4x4 she had seen earlier. A second person opened the side door to the rear seat. The slender figure appeared to be that of a woman, also masked and clad in black. Lisette was set on her feet and while the woman held her arms behind her at the elbows the man packed a thick wad of cotton cloth between her teeth. Her headscarf was whipped off and quickly bound across her mouth to hold the gag in place. It had all happened so quickly that Lisette was too dazed to put up much resistance.
Lisette was thrown onto the back seat upon her face with such force that it drove the breath from her lungs. Her arms were still held back behind her. She tried desperately to fight off her attackers, but she was winded and one of them pressed a knee into the small of her back, pinning her into the seat so that she could barely move. Thick cord burnt her wrists as it was tied viciously, drawing them together. Another rope was passed several times about her chest, pinning her arms. More cord bound her ankles tightly. She was pushed unceremoniously from the seat to the floor and a thick blanket thrown over her. Doors slammed. The motor started into life and with a jerk the vehicle moved off.
The bumping and swaying told her that they were still on the unsealed lane. There was a sharp turn, to the right she thought though she could not be sure, and for some minutes the ride became smoother. We must be on the main highway, or Cliff Road, she thought disjointedly. The suffocating effect of the gag and the heavy blanket sent Lisette into a swoon and she was only vaguely aware of another sharp change in direction and a transition onto another rough surface.
The vehicle stopped. Lisette was lifted out, still wrapped in the blanket, and slung over the man’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She was carried for some distance over what she guessed from the fellow’s gait was broken ground. As her captor paused and the other person fumbled with keys, a corner of the blanket fell away and she gained a glimpse of desolate moors and a plain weather-stained wooden door. They crossed the threshold directly into a small room and Lisette was dumped onto a striped mattress that was the only covering for an iron framed single bed that stood in a corner.
Fighting the grogginess, Lisette rolled and swung her legs over the edge of the bed and managed to sit up. She looked wildly from one captor to the other as the woman locked the door. The only other items of furniture were a chair and a table with a bowl of fruit and telephone. Without preamble, the man sat, lifted the receiver and began to dial. There followed a short pause as the connection was made and someone answered at the other end. Lisette heard a faint, tinny voice but could make out none of the words.
The man at her end of the line, however, had enough to say, though it was laconic and to the point: “We have the girl, no worries. What do we do with her?”
© To be Continued …
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