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Not a Crime

Reggie Cann wasn’t a detective or a scientist. He turned out to be something in computers. Calvin guessed that made the leather elbow patches ironic. Now he sat on the sofa, with a cup of tea Calvin had made, shaking a little. ‘I can’t get my head round it,’ he kept saying. ‘I only came home for lunch.’

Kirsty King nodded, her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward sympathetically in the easy chair. DC Pete Shapland perched a little more awkwardly in a less-easy chair and took notes. Calvin watched from the hallway while overhead were the creaking floor and muffled voice of his partner, Jackie Braddick, keeping the old man calm. He’d kept trying to get out of bed, but although she was young, Jackie had the cheerful smile and iron will of an NHS nurse, and so far the old chap had been compliant with her, and her alone.

‘Where do you work, Reggie?’

‘CompuWiz. In Bideford.’

‘I know it,’ said King. ‘Up in Old Town, right?’

He nodded.

‘What time did you leave this morning?’

Reggie shrugged. ‘About eight fifteen. It’s not far.’

DCI King started. ‘OK, we had a call mid-morning saying there were intruders in your house.’

‘Intruders?’

‘A man and a woman.’

He frowned. ‘I don’t know who that could be.’

‘No? Does anyone else have a key to the house?’

‘No. Just me and Albert.’

‘Your father?’

‘Yes,’ nodded Reggie. ‘But he doesn’t go out much. And Skipper hasn’t been outdoors for months.’

‘That’s your granddad? Charles?’

‘Yeah, Charles. Skipper, we call him.’

‘He tells us he has cancer?’

‘Yeah. Lung. Late stages, the doctor says.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kirsty King.

‘Yeah,’ nodded Reggie, but he wasn’t thinking of that, Calvin could tell. ‘Who called you?’

‘A woman. She wouldn’t give her name.’

King took her phone from her coat pocket and fiddled about with it for a moment, then held it up for Reggie to hear the recording.

It was muffled, but obviously a woman, and with a strong local accent.

There’s people in the house opposite. The bay who lives there went to work and these people have gone in and—

Do you know the people, ma’am?

No, they’re strangers. An old man and a girl. And they looks a bit dodgy.

How did they get in?

In the front door, but they didn’t knock or ring the bell and I don’t know them—

What’s your name, ma’am?

I’m not saying. I don’t want some nutter after me, you know? But I think you should send someone over here because I never seen ’em round here before and I don’t think they should be in that house . . .

She turned off the recorder. ‘Do you recognize the caller?’

Reggie Cann shook his head. ‘No, but it is quite crackly.’

‘It is,’ said King. ‘But from the information given I’m assuming it’s one of your neighbours . . . ?’

‘Could be Jean across the way, I suppose. She’s super-nosey.’

‘What number is that?’

Reggie looked blank for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I don’t know. The house with the gnomes.’

He sat back in his chair and rubbed his face.

‘Sorry to put you through this right now, Reggie,’ said King kindly, ‘but obviously we need to gather as much information as possible as quickly as we can in this situation.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, of course. I get it.’

‘Thank you,’ King said, and went on, ‘From the call, it sounds like whoever came in had a key, doesn’t it?’

‘There’s a broken window, ma’am,’ said Pete Shapland helpfully, and Calvin winced for him.

‘That wasn’t done today,’ King said, without looking. ‘No glass on the floor.’

Pete reddened.

‘Who else has a key to the house, Reggie?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Not a neighbour? A relative?’

He shook his head.

King went on. ‘Who cares for your grandfather while you’re at work?’

‘Well, Dad was, mostly. He doesn’t work because he’s got emphysema.’ He stopped and grimaced. ‘Had emphysema. But most days he gets up and comes downstairs to watch TV or whatever . . . Make soup or something.’

‘So normally he’d be out of bed?’

‘Yeah. Most days he gets up.’

‘But not today?’

‘Suppose not.’

‘And you do what you can before and after work?’

‘That’s all I seem to do,’ said Reggie. ‘Work at work and then work at home. I mean, a Macmillan nurse comes in a couple of times a month, but I do pretty much everything! Dad says he helps, but it’s not help. Like, he’ll make a meal but he won’t clean up. Leaves everything out on the side or in the sink and thinks he’s done me a favour. Or Skip’ll try to get up and come downstairs and I’m like, Just stay in bed for fuck’s sake – you’re dying of cancer!’

He stopped and there was an awkward silence. He sighed deeply. ‘Sorry. It’s just, I come home for lunch and my house is full of police and my father’s dead . . .’

‘Of course,’ said King. And then, after a moment, ‘So nobody else comes in to help? Social services?’

‘No,’ said Reggie. ‘The cleaner will make them a sandwich or something.’

‘The cleaner?’ Kirsty King somehow resisted looking around at the chaotic room. ‘Does she have a key?’

‘I leave one for her.’

‘Where?’

‘Under the mat.’

King didn’t roll her eyes but even from his post in the doorway Calvin Bridge could tell she wanted to. But she could roll her eyes all she liked. It wouldn’t change the fact that this was Devon and people left their homes and cars unlocked, and keys under doormats.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Hayley.’

King glanced at Shapland, who wrote it down. ‘Do you know her last name?’

Reggie frowned. ‘I don’t know. I just got her from a card in the Co-op.’

‘That’s all right.’

But Reggie was distracted. ‘I never even asked . . .’ he muttered. Calvin knew it was the shock, surfacing inappropriately.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said King. ‘When does she come?’

Reggie took a moment of staring at nothing to remember. ‘Mondays and Fridays.’

‘So yesterday?’

Today was Tuesday. He nodded.

‘Do you have her number?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ he said, and took out his phone and scrolled through while they all waited. Finally he showed it to King, who jotted it down, then tapped the briefcase that lay on the coffee table.

‘Is this yours?’

‘No. Why?’

‘It was on the landing,’ said King, and opened it. She was wearing shiny latex gloves and took out the items one by one. ‘So . . . we’ve got a thermos flask, and a . . . sandwich, and we’ve got this . . .’

She took out a slim steel cylinder with a rubber mask attached. ‘You know what’s in this?’

‘Uh . . . Oxygen?’

‘It’s not a guessing game.’

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Then no.’

‘It’s almost certainly nitrous oxide,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’

‘N2O. Laughing gas.’

‘Oh. OK. Don’t dentists use that?’

‘Yes. In low concentrations, nitrogen is used as an anaesthetic. But kids fill balloons to huff it, and in high concentrations it’s lethal. Fast, painless and untraceable. Unless you leave it at the scene, of course.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Your grandfather – Skipper – told us he was supposed to die today.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Reggie.

‘It seems he had planned to commit suicide.’

‘Suicide!’ Reggie looked about wildly at Shapland and then at Calvin, as if King must be joking and one of them might wink. Nobody did.

‘Seems he’d been in contact with a group who support the right to die. He says they call themselves the Exiteers.’ She watched ­Reggie’s face carefully.

‘Never heard of them,’ he said. ‘I mean . . . he’s been sick for so long and I know it’s getting on top of him. You can’t blame him, can you? I mean . . . but bloody hell!’

‘So you don’t know anything about this?’

‘No! He never said a thing!’

‘What about these?’ She unfolded two documents on the coffee table in front of him.

‘What are they?’

‘His will and what looks like a waiver.’

‘Skipper’s will?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where was it?’

‘Also in the briefcase.’

She tapped the document. ‘Is that your granddad’s signature?’

‘It looks like it, yes. But I’ve never seen Skipper’s will. Didn’t know he’d made one.’

‘Well, he’s very old,’ said King, ‘and he does have terminal cancer.’

‘I just never thought about it, I suppose.’

King moved her finger to the waiver. ‘Have you seen this before?’

‘No.’

‘It appears to be a waiver absolving the Exiteers from culpability in his death.’

Reggie read it, then nodded.

‘And that’s Skipper’s signature too?’

‘It looks like it. As far as I can tell, yes.’

‘So as you can see, the Exiteers say they do not provide the instrument of death. In this case, the nitrous oxide. Do you know where Skipper got it from?’

‘No. Have you asked him?’

‘We will be speaking to him in a minute,’ she nodded. ‘Was there anything unusual about this morning, Reggie? Anything different?’

‘Not that I can think of. I had breakfast and fed the dog and said goodbye to Skip and went to work.’

‘You didn’t say goodbye to your father?’

‘He was still asleep.’

‘Are you sure?’

Reggie nodded. ‘He breathes loud.’

‘I see there’s an oxygen tank in his room. How long has he been using that?’

‘About a year,’ said Reggie. ‘Has it upstairs and downstairs.’ He gestured across the room to where a large black tank stood on a trolley beside the sofa.

‘Reggie, can you think of any reason someone would want to hurt Albert?’

‘No.’ For the first time, Reggie Cann looked truly upset. He stopped talking and King handed him a tissue so he could wipe his eyes and loudly blow his nose.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘We have to ask the question.’ She waited for him to compose himself and when he appeared to have done so, she went on. ‘But if you don’t feel anyone would have wanted to hurt your father then it could be that these Exiteers simply made a mistake. Somehow gave the gas to the wrong person and then panicked and left this case behind. What do you think? Is that possible?’

‘I suppose so,’ he shrugged. ‘I don’t know how, though. I mean, it’s a pretty bloody big mistake to make!’

‘It is.’ King nodded and closed her notebook. ‘Thank you, Reggie. I’ll be back to speak to your grandfather in a minute.’

She got to her feet and Reggie looked up at her anxiously. ‘Is Skipper in trouble? I mean, it’s not a crime to kill yourself, is it?’

‘No, it’s not,’ said Kirsty King. She hesitated, then said, ‘But, of course, he didn’t die . . .’

Calvin and Pete followed DCI King outside.

‘What do you think?’ said King quietly.

‘I think his cleaner’s ripping him off,’ Pete snorted. ‘Place looks like it’s been burgled!’

King raised her eyebrows and turned to Calvin, who hesitated. He felt bad that he’d broken the news of Albert Cann’s death to his son the way he had, and decided to cut him some slack. ‘I think he’s very shaken up.’

‘Understandably,’ King nodded, ‘but we’ll check his story anyway. I don’t think the old man arranged this by himself.’

She looked at her watch. ‘First things first – let’s try to find the caller. The techs should be able to triangulate it but it would be nice if we could get a head start from an eyewitness. You and Pete knock up the neighbours. There’s only a few houses so it shouldn’t be hard to narrow it down. Start with Jean over the road.’

There were only six houses in Black Lane – three either side. The house directly opposite boasted a picket line of gnomes standing shoulder-to-shoulder along the front edge of the lawn. There had been no attempt to arrange them in suitable locations. Those that fished, fished for ants, those that dug, dug pavement. One focused a telescope into the pointy ear of his neighbour.

‘I’ll take the gnomes,’ said Pete, as Calvin had known he would, so he went to the immediate neighbours. The squat woman who opened the door looked vaguely familiar.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Hello, Calvin!’

It took Calvin a moment before the penny dropped. ‘Hello, Mrs Moon!’

Just a few hundred yards from this very spot, Marion Moon’s husband, Donald, had climbed over a gate in a lay-by and stepped on to a murdered woman’s face.

‘How are you and Mr Moon?’

‘Can’t complain, Calvin, and yourself?’

‘Can’t complain.’

‘We heard you broke up with Shirley.’

Calvin blinked in surprise. That was the thing he hated about being a copper in a small town. People he hardly knew knowing things about him that he’d rather they didn’t.

‘Got a couple of quick questions, if you don’t mind, Mrs Moon?’

Her face clouded over and she leaned in and whispered, ‘Police business?’

He nodded.

‘Because Donald’s not up to it,’ she went on. ‘Standing on that woman, you see? It knocked him for six. And then just as he was getting back, one of the sheep broke his leg and that knocked him for another six and he had to retire and sell that little bit of land we’d kept because it was all too much, and move here, and Donald doesn’t like being in the town, you see, and his nerves are terrible, and he’s just getting over a chest infection, so I don’t think he’s up to much.’

‘Of course,’ said Calvin, reeling from the litany of disasters that had befallen Donald Moon since he’d stood on Frannie Hatton’s face. It was too tangled to even start to unravel, so he just pressed on, lowering his own voice in consideration of Donald Moon’s nerves. ‘We had a call from a lady earlier today about two people who were seen going into the Canns’ house. Was it you who called?’

‘Not me,’ said Mrs Moon. ‘I didn’t see anybody.’

Calvin considered for a moment, then asked, ‘Might I ask Mr Moon if he noticed anyone?’

Marion pursed her lips.

‘It’s really very important. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.’

She sighed, and Calvin followed her through a dark hallway and into the back room, where Donald Moon sat in a chair by the ­window with a pair of binoculars in his lap. He’d lost weight and looked ten years older than he had three years ago.

‘You remember Calvin, Donald!’

‘Calvin?’ Donald Moon looked up vaguely. ‘No.’

‘From the police. Remember?’

‘Oh, the police,’ he said, and didn’t smile.

Calvin put on his best cheerful voice. ‘Hello, Mr Moon, nice to see you again.’

‘Mm,’ said Donald.

‘Sounds like you’ve had a bit of a tough time of it since we last met.’

‘Could say that.’

‘Sorry to hear it, sir. But I wondered if you might be able to help me. There were a couple of strangers around the street this morning,’ Calvin said carefully. ‘Did you see or hear anything odd?’

‘No.’

‘Not through the old bins?’ Calvin gestured at the binoculars.

‘They’re for the birds,’ he said, and his wife smiled anxiously at Calvin.

‘We can’t have sheep now, you see? So Donald looks after the birds.’

‘Got to look after something,’ the old man said grumpily and turned and lifted his binoculars to his eyes to look down the long garden.

‘Well, thank you anyway, Mr and Mrs Moon. It’s good to see you again.’

Marion saw Calvin out. ‘You must excuse him,’ she said at the step. ‘He hasn’t been the same since all that happened.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Calvin. Donald Moon had been a simple farmer who’d dutifully reported a gruesome find – whereupon he and his wife had become collateral damage in the quest for a serial killer. He’d been questioned about Frannie Hatton until he’d broken down, and then he and Mrs Moon had wept again as the police had torn apart their old farmhouse on the cliffs. They’d had to, but it had all been for nothing. Donald Moon had had nothing to do with the crime. No wonder he looked guarded now. He would probably never trust the police again, and Calvin couldn’t blame him.

‘Is everything all right next door?’

Calvin knew he should fob Mrs Moon off with police-speak, but felt he owed her some honesty, so he told her that Albert had died.

‘Oh dear!’ she gasped. ‘Poor man. Was it his lungs?’

‘We’re not sure what happened,’ hedged Calvin. ‘How well do you know the Canns, Mrs Moon?’

‘Not well,’ she said. ‘We only moved in eighteen months ago. We knew they were sick, of course. Albert and Skipper. Reggie told us. But he’s a lovely boy. Looks after them a treat and works full-time. And Albert wasn’t an easy man, you know?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just not easy. He and Donald had words soon after we moved in. Over who was supposed to repair the fence between us. It’s their fence, you see? But it was rotten and their little dog kept coming through and doing his business in our garden. Donald fixed it in the end. With his bad leg and all. But then Albert got sick and we didn’t see him much after that.’

Calvin nodded. ‘Did you ask Reggie to fix the fence?’

‘No, no. We could see he was snowed under. I don’t know what they’d do without him. And when we moved in he helped me move furniture about while Donald was in plaster. I gave him some scones to take home and he brought the plate back all washed and dried and everything. Oh dear. Poor Reggie. And now you think these two people might have something to do with it?’

‘Yes,’ said Calvin, ‘but you mustn’t worry about it, Mrs Moon. We don’t know yet what happened but it looks like a one-off in very specific circumstances.’

She nodded, regaining her sensible demeanour. ‘I don’t think I’ll tell Donald,’ she whispered. ‘He hardly gets out any more. Down the garden to feed the birds and that’s about it, and he hasn’t even done that for a week, so he won’t notice anything’s amiss next door for a good while.’

‘That’s probably best,’ nodded Calvin. ‘Would you have any idea who might have called the police? It was a woman.’

‘There’s Jean over the road where the gnomes are. She’s very nosey.’

‘Yes, thank you. My colleague is speaking to Jean.’

‘Other than that the only women are me and Mrs Digby next door.’

Calvin thanked her and said goodbye, and moved on to the next house, where Mrs Digby – a very old woman on a walker – took for ever to reach the glass front door. Then, when she made it, she couldn’t hear Calvin, even when he shouted.

‘I’LL FETCH MY HEARING AID!’ she finally yelled, as if it was something that had to be toted about by Sherpas instead of worn in her ear. Calvin almost told her not to bother, and then – after another five minutes of fruitless conversation on the doorstep – wished he had.

Calvin saw Pete knocking on the door of the middle house and called over, ‘Any luck?’

Pete shook his head.

Calvin crossed the road. The last house in the row had a No Parking sign on the wall, a Keep off the Grass sign on the grass and a No Cold Callers sign on the door. When he knocked, a flurry of angry barking surprised him and he took a small, wary step backwards. Calvin wasn’t scared of dogs but this one sounded big and he’d once been bitten by a Dalmatian. The owner had said it was just playing, but Calvin had seen the intent in its white-walled eye.

The door cracked open on a chain, and the dog stopped barking.

‘Yes?’

The man was middle-aged, with a monobrow. Calvin glanced down but couldn’t see the dog.

‘Good afternoon, sir, I’m PC Bridge from Bideford. Just asking neighbours about an incident in the street. Wondered whether you’d seen or heard anything unusual.’

‘What kind of incident?’

Calvin sidestepped. ‘Somebody called in a report of two suspicious visitors to the Canns’ home earlier today. Was that call made from here, sir?’

‘No,’ said the man. ‘Not me.’

‘It was a woman who called. Could that have been your wife?’

‘I don’t have a wife any more, thank God.’

‘OK,’ nodded Calvin, relieved for womankind. ‘Could I take your name and a phone number, please, sir? In case we have any further questions?’

‘Bob Wilson.’

Calvin jotted it down.

‘Like the goalkeeper.’

‘Yes? Who does he play for?’ Calvin wasn’t a big soccer fan.

‘Bob Wilson!’ said Mr Wilson tetchily. ‘Arsenal, 1963 to 1974!’

‘Before my time, I’m afraid, Mr Wilson,’ smiled Calvin, but Mr Wilson was in no mood to forgive Calvin his age. He gave a big tut of contempt and said his phone number fast, as if he might also catch Calvin not knowing the numbers between one and ten.

‘Well, thanks, Mr Wilson. You just give us a call if you remember anything.’

‘I haven’t forgotten anything!’ he said angrily, and banged the door loudly in Calvin’s face.

He blinked at the door for a moment, then knocked again.

The dog barked, just as hard as the first time – sounding ready to tear his throat out. But when Mr Wilson answered, it stopped again.

‘What?’ said Wilson angrily.

Calvin looked down at the man’s legs. There was no dog. No real dog anyway.

‘Nothing,’ said Calvin.

He turned away and took a shortcut across Bob Wilson’s grass.