Bill said ‘Well I think that just about clears your name off the list of suspects – obviously this person, whoever he is has not thought this out at all if he is trying to implicate you in Jenny’s murder and Barbara’s accident, but then again you were lucky the morning of Barbara’s accident. Had it not been for the other accident that you witnessed, you could have been in queer street, although not being able to get your car from the garage does seem rather strange. Perhaps he has planned something else for you!’
Eric said, ‘That’s what I’m afraid of!’
The telephone rang and Eric answered. He paused and looked round at everyone in the room. ‘It’s the police! Yes I’m listening! Oh dear! Is he alright? You found my car! No! No! Well that’s right! The front bumper was taken off! Oh, I see and thank you!’
‘Well that seems conclusive enough. When Mr. Jackson was working on my car he took off the front bumper and had removed the distributor Cap because he thought the engine needed some attention, so my car was in the garage all the time and another thing.’ Eric said, ‘Before the police arrived I had another visitation from “The Voice.” He talked about Jenny and how Jenny was his girl-friend until I showed up. Jenny never said she was going out with anyone special, in fact she was afraid that someone was stalking her and she kept getting telephone calls to say that she belonged to him and she better not go out with anyone else.’
Pat said ‘Did she ever meet this man?’
‘Not to my knowledge!’ Eric said. ‘We had a short engagement period before getting married and nothing more was heard from him for a long time. We had the two boys, John is the eldest now 18 and James is 17 and they were without a mother for such a long time until Barbara came into our lives and now it seems we are going through the same agonizing problems as before!’
Bill said ‘This man has got to be stopped somehow!’
‘Yes! I know all that, but how are we going to tackle this person when we don’t know who he is, where he is or for that matter where he is speaking from. I’ve looked everywhere in this house and I can’t find a thing that looks out of place.’
Peter said, ‘It’s quite feasible about the voice as long as there is proof of some machinery or contrivance that was somewhere in this room at that time.’
‘I know the voice comes through the telephone system but I’m not really sure how. We had a visit from B.T. and a visit from a bogus caller on the same day. Which one was which I have no idea, because they both showed their id’s and they both looked in order!’
Peter moved towards the telephone and picked it up and listened, replaced the receiver, and checked the wiring.
He said, ’I don’t know much about phones but that one seems to be normal.’
Pat said ’Have you tried using it since the telephone man called?’
Eric said ’No! I have received calls, but not phoned out.’
Bill said ‘Better give it a ring a ding, ding!’
Winona gave Bill a really hard stare, which Bill ignored
Eric moved to the phone, picked it up and rang the Hospital.
Eric said ‘I’m ringing up to find out how Barbara Todd is.’
’Yes! I’m her husband! Oh! Oh I see! Yes I understand! Thank you!’ He replaced the receiver very slowly and returned to his chair. He said, ‘They wanted to know why I was ringing them up again to find out about my wife, as they have already told me – she’s still in a coma! They will ring me if there is any change in her condition. They also informed me that a police officer is on guard outside the unit!’
Bill said ’It’s obvious that our friend is aware of our movements and it looks like he has rung the hospital pretending to be you – this is serious!’
Peter said, ’Yes It is!’
Pat said, ‘At least the phone is working.’
Eric said, ‘Apart from the obvious with our friend, he knows he can’t make a move against Barbara while the police are on guard because as soon as she wakes up, they will want to talk to her.’
Bill said, ‘That makes you now the prime target!’
Eric said, ‘That doesn’t matter, as long as Barbara’s safe! Anyway according to our last conversation he wasn’t interested in killing me, he was out to make me suffer!’
‘That’s before he’s realised that Barbara was being guarded, so they must know her life is in danger and you know how police manpower is stretched these days, so now your life is on the line, he’s finished toying with you and he has to make a move and show himself.’
Eric said, ‘I firmly believe he must have something else up his sleeve, surely it can’t be as simple as that!’
Bill replied ‘In my job you get all kinds of weirdo’s and sometimes you get to know how they react when in a tight corner and your man sounds like the weirdest yet!’
Eric said, ’He might be! But apart from everything that has happened over the past week or two, that day when you came to dinner, in the evening we had a brief skirmish in the afternoon with the voice again, although we think it might have been a pre-arranged message, although I am not sure how it was done.’
Peter said, ‘Don’t keep us in suspense.’
’I finally activated the telephone that afternoon and now it will receive and record all messages. We decided to test the machine to see what would happen and we both thought that if you should you ring and the answer phone was on, you would think we were out, so I was just about to turn the answer phone to normal when we received another funny message. I’ll play it back to you.’
Voice said, ’So you think you are both been very clever, we will see about that!’
Peter said ’Was that it?’
Eric said, ‘That was it!’
Bill said, ‘Hmm! Do you know I am really trying to remember who that reminds me of, the voice sounds so familiar! Remember last year Winona, when we had the garage broken into. We called the police and they sent four men, an Inspector, a sergeant and two other officers, you’d think we had the Crown Jewels stolen. It was one of them, I am almost sure of it. I know one thing, one of them had a very sweet tooth, I kept finding sweet wrappers all over the place!’
Winona said ‘Yes I remember! One of them went to our garage to look round, but for the life of me I can’t remember who that was now. My memory! Honestly! Whoever it was left a few sweet wrappers lying around, he could be very fat by now! Do you know anyone that is fat with bad teeth Eric?’
‘No! I don’t unfortunately.’
Eric wasn’t having any of it and firmly believed there was going to be more “cat and mouse” antics before the weekend – he seemed more concerned about the noise on his telephone than anything else. ‘Regarding the phone, I am not sure but I thought I could hear a faint click in the background, as if someone else was on the line with me.’
Bill said, ’That could have been the switchboard at the hospital.’
Eric said, ’You could be right Bill.’
Winona said, ‘Well Bill we don’t want to outstay our welcome, we had better go home.’
Pat said, ’We had better go as well!’ Everybody stood up to go.
Eric said, ’No! Stay and have something to eat, I could do with some company, that’s if you have nowhere else to go today.’
Winona & Pat said, ’Are you sure?’
Eric said, ’Yes!’
Pat and Winona make for the kitchen area, Eric, Peter and Bill sat down to make themselves comfortable.
Winona said, ‘Bill get off your fat behind and prepare the table!’
Bill said ‘No peace for the wicked!’ and shrugged his shoulders. Eric turned on the radio and music filled the room. When Winona and Pat had prepared the meal, they ate it in silence.