But it was a problem I would have to wait to deal with. Until eight-ten or eight-fifteen, if my calculations were right.
I walked the length of the narrow street and took a right turn, which meant I was now walking parallel to the one I had originally come down. My orienteering was right and I came back onto the street the Ellis house was on, but a block farther away on the other side, now looking at the back of the unmarked police Cambridge.
I checked my watch. Eight-fifteen. Maybe I was out of luck.
With a lot of time on my hands, I had lain in the barge and thought over every detail and every moment of the last three weeks. I remembered the only time I had visited the Ellis house, catching Pamela Ellis on her way out to her religiously-observed bridge night. And that was when I had gotten the idea.
But, as I stood cooling my heels on the street corner, she was yet to leave the house. There was always the chance that her current state of grief and fear had curtailed Pamela Ellis’s bridge-playing activities. But, even at a time like this, a rubber or two of bridge would be the one distraction I would put my money on Pamela Ellis indulging in.
I waited another five minutes, then ten, and decided I was not going to get the opportunity I had hoped for. My other concern was that hanging around on a dark street corner in Bearsden was a whole lot more conspicuous than in other parts of the city — like neighbouring Maryhill, where it was positively encouraged — and I had already been there for ten minutes.
I was just about to give up when I saw the maroon gleam of Ellis’s Daimler Conquest glide out of the drive. The big question now was whether the coppers in the Cambridge had been told to keep eyes on the house or on its occupant.
‘Come on, boys…’ I urged them near silently and through tight teeth. After what seemed an age, they started up and peeled off from the kerb, following the Conquest along the street and out of sight.
I decided against the high rear wall, instead striding confidently along the street, not slowing my pace as I reached the open drive gate of the Ellis house, where I wheeled breezily into and up the drive. Nothing tentative.
Without breaking pace I walked along the path at the side of the house and into the back garden. The high wall that I had checked out at the end of the garden shielded me from being seen from the large house across the way, but the neighbouring house to my left had a much better view of the rear garden. Fortunately, there were no exterior lights left on which, while encumbering my progress and colouring my language as I tripped over a plant pot, offered me added concealment.
A largish lean-to shed was doing its leaning-to against the boundary wall between the Ellis home and its immediate neighbour. I remembered what Pamela Ellis had said about the shed being her husband’s refuge and his constant complaining about her leaving it unlocked. I tried the handle. Without her husband to reproach her, she had left the door unlocked and I slipped into the shed, using my penlight to check its contents. Even if I found nothing to help me break into the house, the way every screw, nail and tool in the shed was boxed, jarred, arranged by size and labelled gave me hope for my ultimate mission. It was the rigorous, all-or-nothing organization of someone afraid of their own internal chaos, just as Pamela Ellis had described her husband.
Ellis had been an ordnance handler and bomb-disposal NCO in the army, and had then worked his way up the commercial ranks of the demolition business. Exactitude wasn’t just a quirk that gave you an advantage; absolute precision was essential and Ellis had obviously applied it to every aspect of his life.
An old, heavy, double-pedestal desk was used as a workbench with the shelves above it. To one side was a massive-looking chest, made of the same dark wood as the desk. I rummaged through tools in the desk drawer until I found a long, narrow chisel.
Before I headed back out, I cast my torch around the shed once more. I was about to break into a house, a home, yet I felt a greater sense of having intruded here, in this lean-to garden shed. This confined environment was the extension of one man’s personality, of his mind, of his particular way of seeing the world. Right at the start of all of this nonsense, I had quizzed Pamela Ellis to try to get a handle on her husband’s character; I would have been better rummaging through these drawers and shelves.
Then I thought of Ellis’s eyes searching mine, just before the light went out of them. About his final moment being shared with me.
I stepped out of the shed just as a figure walked past the mouth of the drive. I ducked around the side of the shed and into the shadows just as a dog began to bark in my direction. For a split second I wondered if the ever- vigilant Maisie McCardle and her ugly pug had a city-wide beat, before a male voice ill-temperedly told his dog to shut up and come on. I waited a moment to make sure the dog-walker was well along the street before crossing the path to the back of the house.
I found two doors into the rear of the building, both locked. The first looked like it led into some kind of pantry or boot room, so I gave up on that one, fearing that it may lead to a second time-consuming locked door. The other door led directly into the kitchen. It too was locked, so I eased the chisel in between the door and its jamb, slowly and steadily leaning my weight against the chisel until I was rewarded with a splintering crack and the door flew inwards. I shot an arm out and caught it before it crashed into something and made more even noise than I had already made. I paused for a moment, listening so hard I thought my ears would bleed, watching the house next door for lights coming on.
No lights, no dogs barking, no footsteps on the drive. Once I was convinced that no one had heard me, I slipped into the kitchen and drew the door closed behind me. Laying the chisel down on the kitchen table, I made a mental note to pick it up on the way out and return it to the garden shed. The damage to the back door would make it obvious that the house had been broken into, or at least someone had attempted to break in, but I wanted to leave as few traces of my presence as possible. After all, the police would be able to hazard a pretty good guess at who the burglar had been.
I started with a quick survey of the whole house, just so I would know what I was dealing with. Downstairs there was a large kitchen, a cloakroom and WC, a laundry room attached to a small vestibule — which had its own separate door to the back garden, the one I had discounted as a way into the house — the large flock-wallpapered lounge I had been in before, a dining room, the hallway leading to the front entrance vestibule and Ellis’s study. I marked the study for special attention later, once I had checked out the upstairs. The upper floor had a bathroom, two double bedrooms and a single bedroom that was little more than a large closet with a window. From what I could see in the small pool of light cast by the penlight, everywhere was furnished with the same predictable conservatism as the lounge.
The study was definitely my best bet. But there was nothing to say that Ellis hadn’t secreted information about Tanglewood somewhere less obvious; somewhere his wife wouldn’t think of looking. But I didn’t have time to turn over mattresses, dip into toilet cisterns or rifle through sock drawers. I had been accused of all kinds of crap over the last few days, none of which I had done, but this time I really had committed a crime by deliberately breaking into the Ellis home. If I were caught, it would give Dunlop all the excuse he needed to keep me locked up while he took his own sweet time to pin on me anything else he could dream up.
I was jumpy. This wasn’t the first time I had broken and entered, and the last time I had very nearly been caught in the act. Speed was of the essence and I would have to concentrate on the study. Then, if I didn’t find anything worthwhile, and I had time to spare, I would maybe look elsewhere in the house.
I came down the stairs as quickly as I could. It was a detached house, and empty, so I didn’t have to worry too much about sound, but I had to make sure the light from my penlight didn’t scan across the drawn curtains.
At least that’s what I thought.
I heard the key in the front door.
I was half way down the stairs and froze. The stairway led into the hallway that fed from the entrance vestibule; there was no way I could get down into the hall and through to the kitchen before whoever was unlocking the front door came into the hall. I had to go back up. Which meant I would be trapped. I had closed the door from the kitchen to the garden behind me and only close examination would reveal that it had been forced, all the damage being on the outside, but if anyone tried the door handle, then it would be obvious that an unwanted guest had gained entry. And could be still in the house.
Killing the penlight, I backed up the stairs, keeping my eyes fixed on the glass panel door that led into the hall. Just as the hall light was switched on, I reached the small stair landing, where the staircase turned on itself and couldn’t be seen from the hall. I let out a long, slow, quiet breath, realizing I had held it since hearing the key in
