A Scandal of Sorts - Ch 8

The Range Rover braked to a halt in front of No 13, Cameron Beeches at 5 in the evening. The sun was just about to set, and No 13 stood sheathed in silence. There was a knock on the door.

A short, bald man with a beard opened it and smiled with an air of care, but etchings of anxiety were, nonetheless, visible on it. ‘Ah! Pat, my boy! So good you arrived!’

‘Greetings, Uncle James. This is my friend and acquaintance, Ralph White.’ I leaned forward and whispered, ‘his brother was wrongly hanged.’

‘Nice to meet you, Mr White. My brother shared a fate similar to your brother’s. My nephew must have told you that?’

‘That’s how we met, Mr Calverton. In fact, we were on our way to Madrid when you called. We were looking forward to meeting you. However, we are grateful to solve your problem first.’

All of us entered the house and took our seat on the sofa.

Uncle James spoke. ‘This morning, I was chilling out in my bed and having a cup of tea, when I heard a muffled scream. It seemed trivial and unreal when I heard it for the first time, but when it recurred, I strode outside into the garden and found… I found a dead body.

‘I was shocked, so I started off to do a bit of investigation. My bench was in a shattered state. One plank of the bench was kept just beside the dead body. On looking closer, I sensed and smelled blood on it. This made me look at the dead man. He had died with his head smashed in (pity, I tell you). So, of course, the obvious assumption was that he had been murdered by this plank of my bench.

‘I looked around in the bushes, hoping to find some evidence. I found out some queer footprints, which on closer observation turned out to be those made by heels. This clarified that the murderer was a woman. The matter was growing more and more serious, while I was growing rather tense.

‘I started walking to the police station, hoping to find a taxi in the way. To my surprise, a taxi voluntarily stopped in front of me. I was in a hurry, and I had to get inside. Maybe it was a coincidence, but surprisingly again, the driver was a woman. My eyes hovered over her seat.

‘You know what I found? She was barefoot. It was pretty obvious. Isn’t it difficult to drive in heels? She had no other option than to remove them. This was the same woman. I wish I had deduced these details beforehand; I wouldn’t have let her go. However, the situation was so tense then that I even forgot to note down the number of the taxi.

‘So till here, it has become clear that someone has been following me.’

‘I am awed at your deduction skills, Uncle.’

‘Forty five years as a judge made me get acquainted with the functioning of criminals and detectives alike. 

This was the benefit. Anyways, what made you come here other than to protect me?’

‘Well, Uncle, I wanted to talk about my father.’

‘I knew one day you’ll wonder about it, Pat. Then I must tell you. Your father, my brother, Joseph Calverton, was murdered.’