Chapter 9 Telephone Man
Eric got up from the sofa and searched all the room. He couldn’t see anything untoward or out of place, yet he knew there must have been some sort of device hidden somewhere with a two way system to allow the conversation that had just occurred. He moved to the rear of the lounge which was accessible by walking up five steps and pressed the button that operated the loft trap-door which opened silently the steps descending onto the carpet. He thought he might find the answer to his problems above, but changed his mind half way up and came down the steps and made his way to where the vacuum cleaner was and just as he going to put away the cleaning gear, the door bell rang it’s usual shrill noise. He did a u-turn, went to the front door Eric and said ’Yes!’
‘Good morning sir! I’m from British Telecom and we are checking all the lines up and down this road and I wonder whether I could test your phone!’
Eric said ‘Have you any ID on you, you can’t be too careful these days?’ The B.T. showed his ID card which appeared to be genuine. Eric said ’You had better come in!’
The man appeared to know where the phone was straight away and by the time Eric got to the kitchen, he had two other independent wires clipped onto the bunch of wires in the phone and was peering at a meter of some sort.
‘This is rather strange, sir! You seem to have a lot of extra wires attached!’ Eric said ’That could be because it is also a monitoring system and whenever the phone rings, it will ring in all the rooms where there is a phone, and also you can use it as an intercom! ‘I’ll show you!’ The B.T. man nodded and Eric disappeared into another room leaving the door open. The next moment he appeared at the door with a phone in his hand. He pressed a button and the phone rang in the kitchen. The B.T. man put the dismantled phone to his ear and Eric’s voice came over crystal clear. His voice pattern seemed to be different, but Eric didn’t notice the change.
‘Right sir! I’ll just check the wiring that feeds the phone, just to see whether you’re getting the correct amount of amps and then I’ll leave you in peace!’ Eric watched with interest as the man checked the rest of the cable.
‘Well! That seems to be in order! The man tucked all the wiring back into the phone and it looked as though there weren’t the same amount of wires as before.
Eric said, ’Will the phone work okay, there doesn’t seem to be as many wires as before when you took it apart!’
The B.T. man said. ‘Just an illusion, sir! It’s the way you pack them in! It will work, I can assure you!’
Eric said ‘Will you test it again for my sake – you see my wife is in hospital and they will need to contact me if there is any change in her condition!’
‘Expecting a baby?’
‘No!’
The man checked the system thoroughly and said it was working perfectly. Eric thanked him for calling as it was imperative that he had a line open to the hospital. He showed the man out. Eric went back into the lounge, picked up a magazine from the small table and sat down on his sofa and started to read it and then remembered that he still had not put the vacuum cleaner away.
Eric said ‘Well that’s that! Better put everything away!
He was just about to put the cleaning equipment away when the door bell rang again. He did another u-turn and headed towards the front door.
Eric opened the door and said ‘Can I help you!’
‘I’m from British Telecom we are checking all the telephones in this area!’
Chapter 10 A Visit From The Police
Eric cogitations were interrupted by the shrill noise of the front door bell. He got up and went to the front door. There were two men at the door. Eric returned to the lounge followed by the two men. One of the men spoke and said ‘I’m Detective Inspector Rothchild and this is D.S. Smart! Both men showed their ID cards. Eric took but scant notice because he was confused and dazed. We’ve come in respect of your wife’s unfortunate accident! In fact we believe it was an attempt on her life!’
Eric already knew that answer as the voice had already spoken to the effect that it was no accident and that he, the voice was the driver. ‘Are you saying it was attempted murder! How can that be! She was walking across the road! A hit and run case! It was just an accident!’
Inspector said ‘Yes! I know that sir! But the vehicle in question is owned by you!’
‘WHAT! HOW!’
Your car does have a dent in the bumper!’
‘I know it does! But that has been like that for ages, it was supposed to be repaired by Jackson Motors and would you believe for how much – £210.02p plus VAT! God only knows what the 2p was for – can you imagine 2p! I suppose you could ask Mr Jackson who owns the Garage.
’We certainly would like to Mr. Todd, but he’s disappeared.’
‘Funny! He was there yesterday, but now he’s gone. His wife said he left for work this morning – but nobody has seen him and the garage is locked and your car as far as we can see into the garage is not there!’
‘Don’t look at me, I’ve been in all morning, being domesticated – cleaning the house, you know!’ Eric pointed to vacuum cleaner by the cupboard. ‘Just in case it has slipped your memory, Inspector, I have been at the hospital and I only came home yesterday!’
‘Ah Yes. Sorry about that. Well – instead of coming down to the police station, perhaps you would care to write out a statement about the events that have happened recently to the best of your knowledge and details about your first wife.’
‘I made a statement about my first wife the last time and that was more than eighteen months ago!’
‘Well I’m afraid you will have to do it again, Sir. The case has been re-opened as we have not found the person responsible for your first wife’s death.’ Detective Sergeant Smart placed a form with pen in front of Eric and said will you please fill in the form?’ He began to write first his name, address and telephone number. He hesitated briefly and then began to write his statement.
He seemed to write volumes, just pausing briefly when he came to the end of a paragraph. One could see a pattern emerging. Eventually Eric pushed the pad towards the Inspector.
Eric said ‘Finished!’
‘Read it then.’ Eric began to read it.
‘Out loud please Sir, and then if you’re satisfied with your statement, please sign it.’
Eric spoke out loud and clear.
* * *
’I’ve finished and I am happy with what I’ve written.’
Eric had noticed that D.S. Smart was roaming round his lounge and kitchen while he had been writing his statement – he seemed to be opening kitchen cupboards, nodding and making clicking noises with his tongue, closing the doors and returning to the table when Eric had finished reading out his statement. He picked up Eric’s form and handed it to the Inspector.
The Inspector said ’What we need is details of the current accident!’
‘I’m sorry Inspector, I can’t give you details, because I wasn’t there at the time or the time before! Now if you find the person who did the running over you could ask him or her or them, if it was more than one person who did both accidents! To say I ran my wife over is too absurd for words. What possible reason could I have had?’
‘You tell us Sir! The dent in your bumper may or may not be from the impact of you hitting the bollard as you have stated or it could be your wife – that has yet to be checked.’
’When will you return my car?’
‘We have yet to locate it. It might be in Jackson’s garage, we might even find Mr. Jackson and then we will have to do DNA testing and when we have completed all the tests, you will be the first to know. Is there anything you would like to add to your statement that you think may help us in our enquiries for this brutal attack on your wife.’
‘Oh yes! This may be of some use to you apparently Barbara had to get the telephone repair man in about a month ago, and he called back this morning to check all the phones in this area.’
’Well I don’t think that’s relevant! But you had better write it down then and initial it!’
Eric told them that the telephone people called twice this morning and he believed that the first caller was a bogus.
‘Didn’t you check his identity?’
‘Of course I did!’ said Eric, ‘and the card he showed was real!’
‘And the second caller, was he genuine as well?’
‘He seemed to be.’ Eric said, ‘He showed me his card and it was real as well, the only difference they were two different persons doing the same check in my road.’
The Inspector wrote a brief note in his pocket book – ‘I’ll get D.S. Smart to check and I’ll let you know what the answer is as soon as I can!’
Eric wrote that down and countersigned the document as requested. The Inspector turned to D S Smart said ‘Better investigate that, ring up the Telephone Company.’
Smart said ’Yes sir’ and nodded.
‘And now on another matter that has cropped up!’ Inspector Rothchild stated…………