“Perhaps the cash deals you mentioned earlier.”
She shook her head. “Not when he didn’t tell me. He was a sucker for any hard-luck story, and he’d help any of his mates who asked him. And that involved him in all manner of activities ranging from painting a bedroom to an excursion to the continent to rescue and bring back the motor car of an acquaintance who had fallen foul of the Dutch police and was to be kept in jail in Holland for heaven knows how long.”
“On such occasions you were always told what was afoot?”
“Usually by telephone, after he’d got roped in.”
“But no message reached you this last time?”
“No. And I didn’t suspect a woman that time.”
“Why not?”
“He wasn’t in the mood for one.”
“I’ll take your word for it. When did you really start to worry?”
“By mid-afternoon. By then, in the past, he had always either returned or he had phoned. This time he had done neither.”
“So you began to worry?”
“Yes?”
“What about, specifically? His whereabouts? Or his health?”
“Both.”
“Why his health?”
“His attitude, ever since he had learned that his offer for the church had been outbid, made me think there was something seriously wrong.”
“More seriously wrong than you would have expected at just being outbid?”
“Yes. After his offer had been turned down, he was angry. Very angry. That surprised me because he was never angry. He laughed everything off, usually.”
“But you must have been glad his offer was turned down.”
“I was. I tried not to let it show, though, because I didn’t want to make him more angry.”
“Did you succeed?”
“Yes. He went very quiet after that. And thoughtful. As though he were thinking through some complicated plan.”
“Did he tell you what it was?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“No. I daren’t. You see, he had stopped laughing and that made me realise that I’d be silly to poke my nose in.”
“Did he do anything?”
“Not until the next afternoon. He went out in the car and was away for about two and a half hours. He came back for supper and then went out again without any explanation. I didn’t ask any questions because, though I felt satisfied that the business of buying the church was over with no real harm done, I didn’t want to upset him. But because I didn’t ask him and he didn’t tell me, I was totally unaware of what his movements were or what he was thinking about so deeply.” She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Can’t you understand? I didn’t like his mood. He was so quiet he was either threatening or—if I was wrong about that—morose. I couldn’t decide because I’d never seen him like it before. But whichever it was it made me worry like hell when he didn’t come home that night.”
Berger came in with a wooden tray on which were five mugs of black coffee, a milk bottle and a sugar bowl. With great courtesy he offered it to Happy first, asked if she would like milk and on being told that she would, poured it in for her. Green got up. “You may fancy yourself as a French waiter, lad, but it’ll be quicker if we help ourselves. I’m clammed. I could drink a gallon of this.”
Masters waited until everybody was settled again and Goliath had chosen a patch of carpet full in the sun, and then asked: “What did you do after the middle of the afternoon of the day on which he did not come home? You said that was when you really started to worry.”
“At about four o’clock I rang Rex Belton. Or tried to.”
“Please explain.”
“Rex was a commercial traveller for an agricultural implements firm. Johnny always told me that Rex cheated. He never worked in the afternoons. He was always at home watching telly. But if the phone rang, his wife, Carol, always answered it so she could say he was out, unless it was Johnny, and then she’d put Rex on.”
“Mrs Belton answered your ring and told you her husband was not at home?”
“That’s right.”
“She knew who it was calling?”
“I told her. She didn’t even say when he’d be back or ask if she could take a message. It seemed funny to me that on the one day I wanted him, Rex was not at home, because Johnny rang him most days.”
“Did you and Mrs Belton know each other well?”
“Very well. Johnny and Rex were the great friends, but the four of us were out together at least once a week and we visited each others’ houses.”
“So Mrs Belton’s attitude over the phone seemed strange.”
“So strange I said I thought Rex was always at home in the afternoons and she said usually, in a tone which would have frozen me if I hadn’t been at the other end of a phone line. But I went on. I said I wasn’t after her husband. I only wanted to know if he had seen Johnny. And she asked me if I meant today. I said or last night as I hadn’t seen Johnny since half past seven and she said Rex was at home last night.
“It seemed funny to me. Rex doesn’t stop at home. If nothing else he goes out to the pub, so I asked her if she meant he hadn’t gone out and she said she meant he had come home in time to go to bed and he hadn’t mentioned Johnny. So I asked her if something was wrong as she seemed so strange and upset, but she said there was nothing the matter. When I asked when she was expecting Rex she said she had really no idea.”
“What then? Did you ring off?”
“Of course not. I asked her—when he came in—to ask him to ring me. She didn’t like that because she thinks Rex goes for me, which he does, but only because I’m not married to him. Only she can’t see that. So she asked me why I wanted him to ring. I told the silly cow I wanted to ask him or tell him about Johnny. After all, they were great mates. She said she would tell Rex, but she didn’t expect he’d know where John was. And then she said that by now I ought to know what John was and her advice to me was to leave him.
“Then she went on about how she and Rex had known Johnny far longer than I had and he’d always been the same with women. Of course, I was angry by then so I asked her how she knew. Did he have a tumble with her—or worse—wouldn’t he have one with her? She went all hoity-toity and said she would forget I’d said that now that Johnny had left me and then she rang off.”
“Did you wonder what she’d meant by that remark about Mr Melada leaving you?”
“Did I not! I was left with a very strong feeling that Carol had been aware of Johnny’s disappearance before I phoned her. She could only have got such information from Rex, so it meant the two of them had been talking since the night before even though Rex had only got home in time to go to bed and he’d been out all that day. I know I was worried at the time and probably a bit too sensitive but I couldn’t help wondering whether they’d been speculating that Johnny had gone . . . gossiping . . . or speaking from sure knowledge.”
“So what did you do?”
“I looked to see if Johnny had taken anything with him. The car had gone. I knew that. But nothing else. So he hadn’t intended to stay away. At eight o’clock I rang the Beltons again. Carol answered and said Rex wasn’t home yet but I didn’t believe her because there was none of the worry in her voice that there would have been if Rex had been hours overdue on his selling area which is within a thirty miles radius. I mean she would have been worried, wouldn’t she, if she hadn’t known where he was, in view of the fact that his best friend was missing?”
“Good point, that,” said Green approvingly.
“There could have been a link-up—a connection that any woman whose husband was overdue would never miss.”
“So,” said Masters, “you were convinced that Mr and Mrs Belton knew more than they were prepared to reveal.”
“I guess I was. I went to bed at midnight, but I didn’t go to sleep. I had lots of facts to juggle with. Johnny had never gone away for so long before without letting me know. Rex Belton had
never been unavailable before. And in view of the fact that I had asked him to call me, I’d have expected him to ring.”
“What if his wife hadn’t told him?”
“Even if Carol didn’t tell him I wanted to speak to him, she would have talked about Johnny’s latest escapade. And Rex would have rung to see if there was any news. Rex would have rung anyway, because the two of them were so close I never remember a day on which they didn’t get in touch with each other. And as none of this had happened, I was certain Rex and Carol had something to hide. Something serious.”
“So what did you do? Go to their house?”
“I remembered it was Friday coming up and Friday is Carol’s shopping day in Lincoln. As regular as clockwork. Rex knew all the farmers round about, so he kept her deep freeze stocked with meat and vegetables, so she only went in for other things. She could always get them all into a wheeled shopper which she took with her on the bus.
“So I made a decision. I knew where Carol would be at precisely what time. I decided to waylay her and demand to know what she and Rex were keeping from me. Face to face with me, I thought, she’d be a lot more vulnerable than on the end of a phone line.
“I had to cycle in. It’s less than three miles. I was in good time to park the Chopper and take up a position in a shop doorway from which I could see the bus stop. But she wasn’t on the bus and there wouldn’t be another for an hour. And that made me think even more. Was there any significance in the fact that Carol had broken an unbreakable habit on that particular day? Anyhow, I walked away, thinking about it. Then I saw Rex’s car. The only reason I noticed it was because the driver was having difficulty in manoeuvring it into the last remaining space on the other side of the road. I thought my chance to get hold of Rex had come, but I suddenly saw it wasn’t Rex driving. It was Carol. And I knew that was odd, because Friday morning was a busy morning for Rex, and he couldn’t do his work without his car.
“I followed Carol. She went into Boots and straight to the medicines counter. She had to wait a bit because the early patients at surgeries were waiting with prescriptions. So I was able to get up close. I heard her ask for tincture of Arnica, Witch Hazel, sticking plasters and some brand of ointment. And that was something for me to chew over. Rex and Carol have no kids and there was nothing wrong with Carol, so the medicines had to be for Rex who, remember, wasn’t at work. So I knew that the chemist’s run had been made on Rex’s behalf, and Carol’s purchases were all for the treatment of sprains and contusions and bruises. Which meant that Rex had either been in an accident or a fight. I ruled out accident, because I’d just seen the car and that was all right, so I had no hesitation in assuming it had been a fight. And I guessed I knew who with.”
“With your husband?”
“Yeah! With Johnny. Only Johnny hadn’t come home and the Beltons were hiding things. Do you wonder I thought Johnny was hurt or—seeing he hadn’t got in touch with me—dead?”
There was a silence.
At last—
“Did you approach Mrs Belton?”
“No. I wanted to think, so I let her go.”
“And have you spoken to her since?”
“No. I didn’t ring them. I reckoned I’d wait to see what Rex would do. I reckoned if he didn’t ring, he’d killed Johnny.”
“And he didn’t ring?”
“No.”
*
“But, Chief,” said Berger, “she accused Belton of murdering Melada.”
“So she did. But even if I knew she was right, what could I do about it? Belton is dead, too.”
The car turned out of the lane in the direction of the Beltons’ house. Berger said: “So he is. You know, I’d forgotten that for the moment.”
“I’m not surprised, lad,” said Green. “I nearly did myself. I was so taken up with that lass’s clever thinking I forgot everything else.”
“And I’m guilty, too,” said Masters. “I forgot to ask her what happened to Melada’s car. He had it with him when he went out that last night. Reed, remember to ask Mr Webb what became of it.”
“And Belton’s and Heberden’s, Chief?”
“Yes. We’re half asleep, not to have asked where they are before this.”
“Homer nods,” said Reed. “You can’t ask every question and get an answer inside forty-eight hours in a case like this.”
“We haven’t answered any questions,” said Green.
“I thought you just agreed that what we’ve just been told answers the question of who killed Melada.”
“It probably does, but we didn’t answer it. She did. And even she couldn’t tell us why two good mates had a fight which ended in one being killed by the other.”
The journey was less than a mile and took only a minute or two. The Belton house was a traditional semi-detached, as neat and well-painted as one could have wished.
“I bet he got his rose bushes free,” said Green as they went through the iron gate. “Just look at them. Peace, Alamein and Carnival. Some garden centre proprietor came up with those for favours received, I’ll bet.”
The door had a dolphin knocker besides a bell push which gave a two-tone signal when Masters touched it. The door opened and a woman of what Masters judged to be about thirty-five years of age answered the door. She had carefully coiffeured, brassy hair, blue-tinted rimless spectacles and long, dangling earrings. She wore a navy blue linen dress with a frilly blouse beneath it, and matching high-heeled shoes. She was not a big woman, but well built with a long face and longish nose, carefully coated with too-pink a powder to be natural, while the prim mouth was over reddened with lipstick.
“Mrs Belton? We are policemen.”
“You’d better come in. I don’t want the neighbours staring.”
She turned and went ahead. Berger whispered to Reed: “I should think after being married to that, Belton would prefer young Happy.”
The sitting-room held a three piece suite, a piano and a stool. Berger got the stool. Green and Reed shared the settee.
“Have you got whoever killed my Rex?” demanded Carol Belton for starters.
“Madam,” said Masters firmly, “there are three deaths to investigate. They only came to light within the last forty-eight hours. We are making progress. The discovery of the other two bodies after that of your husband shows that.”
“I shall want whoever murdered my Rex properly punished.”
“Murdered, Mrs Belton? We’re not sure about that.”
“Not sure? How else did he die?”
“That’s just the point, ma’am, we don’t know how he died.”
“Don’t know. They told me he’d been pushed down a well.”
“His dead body was. But that isn’t what killed him.”
“Rex was a healthy man.”
“Mr Melada was a big man. Perhaps he killed Mr Belton.”
“John Melada? But he was dead before. . . .”
“Before your husband, ma’am? Now how would you know that?”
“I wouldn’t . . . I mean, I didn’t. . . .”
“Of course not. Mr Melada disappeared before your husband, so you automatically assumed he died first. A very natural mistake. And you’re probably right. So if not Mr Melada, then who would want to kill Mr Belton?”
“Nobody I know of. Mr Belton was a well-thought-of man.”
“I feel sure he was. But as we policemen know to our cost, even respectability has its enemies these days.”
Green joined in. “That’s true enough ma’am. Even to look respectable like—well, like you do—causes some people a great deal of envy these days. They don’t know how to behave and live like you obviously ma’am. Your neat house with its tidy garden and beautifully pressed curtains . . . they rouse enmity in certain quarters.”
Berger was staring at Green open-mouthed. Masters caught his eye and frowned a warning to play up. Mrs Belton was warming to flattery. “Ah, yes! There are no standards these days. Nobody wants to help themselves.”
; “Unless it’s to other people’s property,” added Masters.
“That’s what I always said to Rex.”
“About John Melada, perhaps?”
“Well, he’s dead now, but John was naughty. He never kept a job for long.”
“And he lived with a woman who wasn’t his wife.”
“Yes.”
“It must have been very difficult for you to accept them as friends, Mrs Belton, even if only for your husband’s sake.”
“Yes, I had to tolerate them because they were, as you say, Rex’s friends.”
“Well, now, Mrs Belton, as you can’t tell us who might have wanted to harm your husband, perhaps you will be able to tell us something of what he did during those last days. Now I understand that Mr Melada tried to buy the church where the bodies were found and that he took Mr Belton along to see it.”
“He did. Rex came back and told me all about it.”
“Fine. Now, Mrs Belton, I’m sure you will appreciate that as the church is where the bodies were found, it plays an important part in our investigation, so I’m going to ask you to tell us as exactly as you can what your husband told you about that visit. It could be very important.”
Mrs Belton smoothed her skirt and settled herself. “Where shall I begin?”
“It was in the afternoon, wasn’t it?”
“Oh yes, that’s right. It was about a week after John had made a bid for the church. He’d asked Rex to go along to see the property and to tell him what the things inside were worth.”
“Your husband was a valuer, Mrs Belton?”
“No, but he was a good business man and had so many contacts, you see. Rex knew everybody worth knowing. All the big land-owners and farmers, and he was always doing bits of business for them.”
“I’m sure he was and it shows he was trusted in the community.”
“So he went along with John. I remember he told me John was awfully pleased because some legal notices to do with the sale had been put up.
“Rex said he wasn’t very impressed by the church. Well, he wouldn’t be, would he? Not a draughty old church after a nice home. It would be different for John—after living in that old shack, I mean.
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