Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories Read online

  ‘Of course I knew him. He was a fellow trustee. We were working together on the restructuring plan.’

  Now Vera seemed to wake up. ‘What did you make of Gilbert? Got on alright, did you?’

  ‘Of course we got on. He was a charming man. He had plans to make the library more attractive to the public. His research into the archives had thrown up a variety of ideas to bring in a new audience.’

  ‘What sort of ideas?’

  ‘He wanted to develop a history group for young people. History was his passion and he was eager to share it, especially since he retired from the university. He thought we could run field trips to archaeological sites, invite guest lecturers.’

  ‘Aye,’ Vera said. ‘He tried something like that once before. I remember an outing to Hadrian’s Wall. My father thought it would be good for me. It was bloody freezing.’

  ‘It’s not so easy to set up field trips these days,’ Cath said. ‘There are implications. Health and safety. Risk assessment. I wasn’t sure it was worth it. Or that we could justify the cost.’

  Joe sensed that this was an argument that had played out many times before. He was surprised at Vera allowing the conversation to continue. Today, it seemed, she had no sense of urgency.

  ‘Perhaps we should go upstairs,’ he suggested, ‘and talk to the other witnesses.’

  ‘Aye,’ the inspector said, ‘I suppose we should.’ But still her attention was fixed on the dead man. It was as if she were fascinated by what she saw. She bent forward so she could see Wood’s face without approaching any closer. Then Joe led them away, a small solemn procession, back to the body of the library.

  They sat around a large table with the vacuum jug of coffee and a plate of digestive biscuits in the middle. There were six of them now. Sebastian Charles had been called in from the landing and Zoë had emerged from the counter. Joe Ashworth thought she looked hardly more than a child, her face bare of make-up. He saw now that she was tiny, her bones frail as a bird’s. The pink hair looked as if she was in fancy dress.

  ‘This is where the old ones sit,’ Vera said. ‘The retired men and the batty old ladies, chewing the fat and putting the world to rights. Well, I suppose that’s what we’re doing too. Putting the world to rights. There’s something unnatural about having a murderer on the loose.’ She looked at them all. ‘Who was the last person to see him alive?’

  ‘I saw him at lunchtime,’ Zoë said. ‘He went out to buy a sandwich, and for a walk, to clear his head, he said. Just for half an hour.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Between midday and twelve thirty.’ Zoë wiped her eyes again. She made no noise, but the tears continued to run down her face. Like a tap with a dodgy washer, Joe thought, only leaking silently. No irritating drips. ‘He brought me a piece of cheesecake from the bakery. A gift. He knew it was my favourite.’

  ‘Any advance on twelve thirty?’

  Joe found it hard to understand his boss’s attitude. She’d known the victim yet there was this strange flippancy, as if the investigation were a sort of game, or a ritual that had to be followed. Perhaps it was this place, all these books. It was easy to think of the murder as just another story.

  ‘We had a brief discussion on the back stairs,’ Alec Cole said. ‘Just after Gilbert had come back from lunch, I suppose. He was on his way down to the Silence Room to continue his work on the archives. I’d just gone to the gents’. I asked how things were going. He said he’d made a fascinating discovery that would prove the link between one of the early curators of the Lit and Phil Museum and the archaeology of Hadrian’s Wall. Esoteric to the rest of us, I suppose, but fascinating to him.’

  ‘Did you notice if anyone else was working in the room?’ Vera asked.

  ‘I couldn’t see. The door was shut and I was on my way upstairs when Gilbert went in.’

  ‘And if there were anyone inside he wouldn’t greet Gilbert,’ Vera said, ‘because of the rule of silence. So you wouldn’t hear anything either way.’ She paused. ‘What about you, Cath? Did you see him?’

  ‘Just first thing when he arrived. He must have passed the office when he went out to lunch and I always have my door open but I didn’t notice him. I’m snowed under at the moment and I only left my desk to go to the ladies’ or to pour myself a coffee.’

  ‘And then you found him, Sebastian.’

  The poet gave a slow, cat-like smile. ‘I went down to start work and there he was, just as you saw him. It was a shock, of course, and rather horrible even though I’ve felt like killing him a few times.’

  ‘You don’t seem very shocked!’ At last Zoë’s tears stopped and now she was angry. ‘I don’t know how you can sit there and make a joke of it.’

  ‘Not a very good joke, sweetie. And you all know I couldn’t stand the man. It would be stupid to pretend otherwise just for the inspector.’

  ‘Why didn’t you like him?’ For the first time Vera seemed mildly interested.

  ‘He was creepy,’ Sebastian said. ‘And self-serving. All this work with the archives was about making a name for himself, not raising funds for the library.’

  They sat for a moment in silence. They heard the insect buzzing of the central heating system in the background. Joe waited for Vera to comment but again she seemed preoccupied. ‘Is the only access to the Silence Room through here?’ he asked. Again he felt the need to move things on. The library was very warm and he found the dark wood and the high shelves oppressive. It was as if they were imprisoned by all the words.

  ‘Yes,’ Cath said. ‘The doors downstairs are locked from our side when the music exams are taking place.’

  ‘So the murderer must be one of you,’ Vera said.

  She looked slowly round the table. Joe thought again that it was as if she were playing a parlour game, though there was nothing playful in her expression. Usually at the beginning of an investigation she was full of energy and imagination. Now she only seemed sad. It occurred to Joe that the victim would have been just ten years older than her. Perhaps she’d had a teenage crush on him when he’d led her on the field trip to the Roman wall. Perhaps the earlier flippancy had been her way of hiding her grief. Vera continued to speak.

  ‘You’d better tell me now what happened. As I said before, it’s unnatural having a murderer on the loose. Let’s set the world to rights, eh?’

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘Then I’ll tell you a story of my own,’ she said. ‘I’ll make my own confession.’ She leaned forward so her elbows were on the table. ‘I was about twelve,’ she said. ‘An awkward age and I was an awkward child. Not as big as I am now, but lumpy and clumsy with large feet and a talent for speaking out of turn. My mother died when I was very small and I was brought up by my father, Hector. His passion was collecting: birds’ eggs, raptors. Illegal, of course, but he always thought he was above the law. Had a fit when I applied to the police…’ Her voice trailed away and she flashed a smile at them. ‘But that was much later and perhaps Gilbert had something to do with that too. Gilbert was kind to me. The first adult to take me seriously. He was a PhD student at the university. A geek, I suppose we’d call him now. Passionate about his history. Alec was quite right about that. He listened to me and asked my opinion, more comfortable with a bright kid than with other grown-ups maybe. He bought me little presents.’ She looked at Zoë. ‘Some things don’t change it seems.’

  Vera shifted in her seat. Joe saw that they were all engrossed with her story and that they were all waiting for her to continue.

  ‘These days we’d call it grooming,’ she said. ‘Then we were more innocent. Hector saw nothing wrong with entrusting me to the care of a virtual stranger for days at a time while we scrambled around bits of Roman wall. He couldn’t believe, I suppose, that anyone could find me sexually attractive. And to be fair, he assumed that other kids would be there too. At first I revelled in it. The attention. Gilbert had a car and sitting beside him I felt like a princess. He brought a picnic. Cider. My first taste
of alcohol. And the arm around my shoulder, the hand on my knee, what harm could there be in that?’

  She came to a stop again.

  ‘He sexually assaulted me.’ Her voice was suddenly bright and brittle. ‘One afternoon in May. Full sunshine and birds singing fit to bust. Skylarks and curlew. We’d climbed onto the moors beyond the wall, to get a proper view of the scale of it, he said. There was nobody about for miles. He spread out a blanket and pulled me down with him. There was a smell of warm grass and sheep shit. I fought back, but he was stronger than me. In the end there was nothing I could do but let him get on with it. Afterwards he cried.’ She looked up at them. ‘I didn’t cry. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.’

  For a moment Joe was tempted to reach out and touch her hand, but that of course would have been impossible.

  ‘I never told anyone,’ Vera said. ‘Who would I tell? Hector? A teacher? How could I? I refused to go out with Gilbert again and Hector called me moody and ungrateful. But I should have told. I should have gone to the police. Because the man had committed a crime and the law is all we have to hold things together.’

  Vera stood up.

  ‘I don’t believe he’s changed,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t stopped, you see. He got away with it. My responsibility. We’ll find images of children on his computer, no doubt about that.’ She turned to Sebastian Charles. ‘You were right. He was a creepy man.’

  She paused for a moment. ‘So who killed him?’ Her voice became gentle, at least as gentle as a hippo’s could be. ‘You look like a twelve year old, Zoë. Did he try it on with you?’

  ‘No!’ The woman was horrified.

  ‘Of course not. It wasn’t a child’s body he wanted as much as a child’s mind. The need to control and to teach.’

  Vera turned again, this time to the middle-aged librarian, who was sitting next to her. ‘Why don’t you tell us what happened?’

  Cath was very upright in her chair. She stared ahead of her. For a moment Joe thought she would refuse to speak. But the words came at last, carefully chosen and telling.

  ‘He befriended Evie, my elder daughter. When my husband left last year she was the person most affected by our separation. She’s always been a shy child and she became uncommunicative and withdrawn. Gilbert had been part of our lives since I first took over here. I invited him to family parties and to Sunday lunch. I suppose I felt sorry for him. And I thought it would be good for Evie to have some male influence once Nicholas left. He made history come alive for her with his stories of Roman soldiers and the wild border reivers. On the last day of the October half term he took her out. Like your father, I assumed other children would be present. That was certainly the impression he gave. Like your father, it never occurred to me that she could come to harm with him.’

  ‘He assaulted her,’ Vera said.

  ‘She won’t tell me exactly what happened. He threatened her, I think. Made her promise to keep secrets. But something happened that afternoon. It’s as if she’s frozen, a shell of the child she once was. The innocence sucked out of her. I should be grateful, I suppose, that she’s alive and that he brought her home to me.’ Cath looked at Vera. ‘The only thing she did say was that he cried.’

  ‘So you killed him?’

  ‘I went to the Silence Room to talk to him. I knew he was alone there. Zoë was busy on the phone and didn’t notice that I left the office. I closed the heavy door behind me and asked him what he’d done to Evie. He put his finger to his lips. “I think you of all people should respect the tradition of the Silence Room," he said in a pompous whisper, barely loud enough for me to hear. I shouted then: “What did you do to my child?"’ Telling the story Cath raised her voice so she was shouting again.

  She caught her breath for a moment and then she continued: ‘Gilbert set down his pen. “Nothing that she didn’t want me to do," he said. “And nothing that you’ll be able to prove.” He was still whispering. Then he started work again. That was when I picked up the book he was reading. That was when I killed him. I left the Silence Room, collected a mug of coffee at the top of the stairs and returned to my office.’

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘Oh pet,’ Vera said. ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’

  ‘What would you have done, Vera? Dragged Evie through the courts, forced her to give evidence, to be examined? Don’t you think she’s been through enough?’

  ‘And now?’ Vera cried. ‘What will happen to her now?’

  Joe sat as still as the rest of them but thoughts were spinning round his mind. What would he have done? I wouldn’t have let my daughter out with a pervert in the first place. I’ll never leave my wife. But he knew that however hard he tried he could never protect his children from all the dangers of the world. And that he’d probably have killed the bastard too. He stood up.

  ‘Catherine Richardson, I’m arresting you for the murder of Gilbert Wood.’ It was Vera, pre-empting him. Taking responsibility. Putting the world to rights.

  Martin Edwards

  * * *

  The People Outside

  * * *

  The shouting began at midnight.

  Ellie turned over in bed, pulling the blanket tight against her chin. Screwing her eyes shut, she prayed they soon would go away. Impossible to sleep in this heat. Even in her thin summer pyjamas, she was sweating under the covers. The weather was to blame, she told herself, it brought out the worst in people. They didn’t have enough to occupy their minds. When she was in her teens and early twenties, she and her friends would never have indulged in rowdiness and vandalism. Things were different now, time moved on, but not all change was for the better. People these days lacked respect, they lacked a sense of shame. This was a favourite theme, and it distracted her for several minutes.

  But the shouting did not stop.

  She refused to strain her ears in an attempt to make out the words. Barry’s dogs were barking and the jumble of sounds was impossible to disentangle. Six months earlier she’d invested in a pair of digital hearing aids, so tiny that you scarcely remembered you were wearing them, and nobody else would notice unless they were really looking. Last thing at night, before she climbed into bed, she tucked the little gadgets away into their smart leather carrying case. She wasn’t deaf, just hard of hearing, but for years she’d lived in a quiet world. Usually, nothing disturbed her slumber until she woke in the small hours to answer a call of nature.

  Tonight her hearing loss was a blessed relief. She would not like to know what the people outside were shouting. Drinking didn’t only loosen their tongues, it fouled their language. Even when they were not picking on a helpless victim, they stood around on street corners up and down the council estate, swigging from cans and abusing anyone who had the misfortune to pass by. Ellie had never witnessed this, but she’d heard talk of it in the Centre. Little ones as young as eleven or twelve were out all night, bingeing on drink and drugs, or so her neighbours said. People from the estate hated the residents of Canaan, assuming them to be better off, with a bit of money put away. Canaan was hardly Mayfair, it didn’t even compare with the select parts of Colwyn Bay, but more than a fence and a narrow lane that divided it from the estate. Whether the stories she heard in the Centre were true, or embroidered by folk who had too much time on their hands, Ellie was never sure. She was an intelligent woman, well-educated, but now she was out of touch, too old to find it easy to distinguish between knowledge and rumour.

  The shouting grew louder. Poor Norman, he’d done nothing to deserve such cruelty. He was a decent fellow who always kept himself tidy. Even though he suffered dreadfully with arthritis, his caravan was spick and span. You could eat your dinner off the floor. He was a private man, kept himself to himself and although their caravans were only a stone’s throw apart, Ellie would describe him as an acquaintance rather than a friend. One day, they’d got talking and he confided that he’d spent ten years in the army, though he’d never seen a shot fired in anger. So he wouldn’t come out of his carava
n with all guns blazing, literally or metaphorically, and that’s what it might take to shift the wretched crowd out in the road, hurling abuse and threats. The previous night, they’d given up after ten minutes, but this time the noise was as insistent, as menacing, as rolls of summer thunder.

  Glass crashed and Ellie heard boozy cheering. She flinched. One of the youths must have thrown a stone through Norman’s window. Why didn’t that idle so-and-so Barry do something? His dogs were barking furiously, they sounded beside themselves with rage. For once, Ellie wished they weren’t tethered so securely in Barry’s back garden.

  For all she knew, Barry was scared to show his face, although with those ugly, vicious dogs at his side, surely he had nothing to fear. But what about Jess? Ellie found it impossible to conceive that Jess would ever be afraid of anyone or anything.

  All of a sudden, she heard a woman shouting, screaming, making herself heard above the noise of the crowd.

  ‘Go home!’

  If Jess was frightened, she gave no hint of it. Ellie disliked the woman, but she couldn’t help admiring her courage. The hubbub continued. Never mind drink and drugs, Ellie sensed that the people outside were overdosing on a sense of power. Perhaps nothing and nobody could control them, not even Jess.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Jess screeched. ‘The police are coming!’

  Boos and cat-calls. Ellie heard wood splintering. Had someone wrecked the fence? Might they even attack Jess herself?

  ‘Go home! That’s right, go home!’

  Slowly, slowly, the racket subsided into an ill-tempered grumble. Ellie heaved her ageing limbs and sat upright in bed. The hooligans were retreating to where they belonged. She closed her eyes and uttered a silent prayer of gratitude.

  ‘Why?’ Norman shook his head slowly from side to side. He had a conspicuous bald patch, but what little white hair he had left was neatly trimmed. ‘I don’t understand.’