Caught In The Web

A tale of dark deeds

Iknow who killed Gerald Limmer. I know why. And everyone knows how. A carving knife through the heart isn’t going to test the deductive powers of a forensic pathologist, even if it’s not her on SilentWitness.

If any man deserved to be murdered, it was Gerald Limmer. Not that he neglected his mother or beat his wife or was unkind to small furry animals. Gerald was more subtle than that. But he was just as effective.

He learned the art of manipulation at his mother’s knee. Maureen Limmer kept him snared in her web for as long as she could. He was nearly thirty when he married and had never spent a night away from home, as far as I know, except when he took his mother to Bournemouth for their holiday.

It was there he met Debbie Clayton. Mrs Limmer was furious.

Debbie worked in the little cafe

Mrs Limmer had ordained was the place for morning coffee. She wouldn’t have expected her Gerald to take any notice of a mere waitress, however pretty, so when he left her alone while he met up with Debbie, she was dumbfounded.

But not, I suspect, dumb.

“Honestly, Miss Beech,” she wailed to me on the day they got married. “My Gerald’s throwing himself away on a waitress! The little tart had her eye on him from the outset. But will he listen to me? Just like his dear father.”

Richard Limmer had given up the unequal struggle and faded into the background so completely I couldn’t even recall what he looked like. He died when Gerald was barely out of his teens.

It was as if Gerald and his mother had sucked him dry and discarded the husk. This had been the first time I’d heard either of them even mention him since his funeral.

However, Debbie was more than a “mere waitress”. She was only working there to put herself through art college.

I’m tempted to say, what on earth did she see in him, but I think she was lonely and there’s no doubt that Gerald could turn on the charm. He was good-looking, too. You’d have thought that, once the holiday was over, they’d go their separate ways without much regret on either side, but Gerald had other ideas.

Mrs Limmer was extremely demanding and played the Declining Health card with great skill. With a wife to dance attendance on her instead of himself, he could make life so much more comfortable for himself.

“Why are you bothering with this course, Debbie? They can’t teach you anything. You’re so talented.”

“It’s lovely of you to say so, but the tutor thinks I should…”

“Oh, well, if the tutor thinks Bournemouth is the best place to sell you as an artist, who am I to differ?”

“You know I respect your opinion, Gerry, but…”

“And if you go back to Cornwall, there’ll be even less opportunity.”

“But those are exactly the sort of places I could sell my work. Lots of people do.”

“That’s the point, darling. The sort of people who like peg dolls and tie-dyed scarves won’t like your sort of thing.”

He had a point. That was Gerald’s forte. You couldn’t laugh and say, oh that’s rubbish. There was always a germ of truth – but one that worked on his side. I wasn’t there, of course, but listening to the things Debbie’s let slip, I think that’ll probably be pretty accurate.

So Debbie came to live with him and his mother. He promised it wouldn’t be for long, but this was a lovely big house, wasn’t it? Plenty of room.

I watched as he set about doing to Debbie what his mother had done to Richard. The friends she made at the office where she worked were given “jokey” nicknames that cleverly undermined any relationship that might have developed. He pretended to believe that she had a crush on her boss. The poor man, kind and generous as he ➙

was, had a face that was definitely never going to be committed to oilpaint! Gerald persisted in calling him Your Boyfriend or Liver-lips and the more she defended him, the more Gerald teased.

Eventually, he wore her down so much she handed in her notice, which was exactly what Gerald wanted. Now she was financially dependent on him. Snared in the web.

“Never mind, darling. You didn’t really enjoy working there, did you?

Now you can spend more time at home, doing your art. You never know, we might be able to mount a little exhibition one day at the library or somewhere. You could end up getting commissions!”

What she really ended up doing was looking after Mrs Limmer. And that continued the erosion of her selfconfidence.

“Isn’t that dress a bit juvenile, Deborah? You’re not an art student now, you know. I’m quite sure Gerald doesn’t want his wife going around looking like a hippy.”

How long – if ever – it would have been before Debbie found enough courage to leave him, I don’t know.

But then Gerald was murdered.

It all kicked off that Saturday morning, Seemed a funny time to me, but the nice police officer who came to ask me to sit with Mrs Limmer said it was a prime time for opportunist thieves.

“Warm sunny day, doors and windows open, wallets and handbags left nice and gettable.” She shook her head with a resigned sigh. She obviously couldn’t go into details, but I gathered the theory was that Gerald had heard a noise, gone to investigate with the knife in his hand and, in the subsequent struggle, was the one the blade ended up in. And then Debbie came back from shopping, found him lying there and screamed the place down.

Mrs Limmer had been on the patio on the other side of the house in her top-of-the-range motorised wheelchair. It was the only place the machine could go without help, except out of the front door. She’d made Gerald buy it because her health was so bad and it meant her not being quite so much of a burden, dear. You’d think she was 103, not a mere 60-something.

Now she crouched in it, shaking, white-faced and grim-lipped and I stayed with her while Debbie was being gently questioned in the other room.

They took the poor girl in under suspicion, of course. I couldn’t blame them, what with being covered in blood where she’d tried to give Gerald the kiss of life, and Mrs Limmer shrieking that Debbie had murdered her precious son. Debbie has an alibi, however. The till receipt will prove she was nowhere near the house when Gerald was getting his comeuppance.

Ispotted the letter tucked down the back of Mrs Limmer’s wheelchair. I knew she could move about when she wanted.

I’d seen her pottering around the garden when Debbie and Gerald were out. I’d happened to glance out of my window and saw the wheelchair empty half an hour before Debbie came back.

The post had just come, you see, and she opened the letter and saw what Gerald was planning. I tucked it into my pocket. It’s not exactly proof, but it might set somebody thinking.

Gerald was going to put his mother in a care home. But he should have remembered what female spiders do to their males… particularly if they’re feeling threatened.

I reckon the burglar will get the blame. Debbie can prove she wasn’t there. Her fingerprints will be on the knife, but they would be, wouldn’t they? Be far more suspicious if they weren’t. So will Gerald’s.

And so will Mrs Limmer’s, and that isn’t so easily explainable. Catch her doing any cooking when she’s got Debbie as kitchen drudge? But the police don’t know that – nor that she isn’t as disabled as she’d like them to think. Unless I tell them.

Just think, if she hadn’t made me cut down my beautiful old apple tree because it shaded that patio of hers, I wouldn’t have been able to see the empty wheelchair. I’ll plant a new one now. A pear, and possibly a cherry too, I think, and I shall make sure

Mrs Limmer behaves generously to Debbie. She deserves some reward, poor love, to help her set up a little workshop in Cornwall.

I don’t normally hold with blackmail. But pass up an opportunity like this? Now that would be a crime!

I tucked the LETTER away; it’s not PROOF but might make them THINK