Masters and Green Series Box Set

by Douglas Clark

  They collected the bag from beside the sizing belt. Hill carried it to the car. April refused payment, but as she said goodbye reminded Masters that he had promised her some advice. He looked at her gravely, liking what he saw. She had brightened up. Out in the open, her hair shone—rivalling the sunlight. Her shoulders were straighter, emphasizing a figure that even a sloppy-joe sweater could not diminish. He wondered how Peter Barnfelt could ever have discarded this girl for Pamela Parseloe. He felt it confirmed his opinion that Pamela had offered much in the way of inducement. ‘Just one little piece of advice. Never play bridge again.’

  She looked astonished and coloured under his gaze. He guessed she had misread him. Thought he was referring to the mistaken call that had caused the open rift between herself and Peter. He didn’t elaborate. Hill had already started the car.

  *

  The niggle at the back of his mind. Masters found it there again on the way home. He gave it full rein. With no luck. Hill pulled up behind a white Triumph G.T.6 coupé in front of the Goblin. ‘It looks as though the doctor is visiting Maria again.’ Masters got out and walked forward. Because the sun was out, Peter Barnfelt had lowered his hood. Masters noted the twin big-bore tail pipes: copper blued by exhaust heat. Looked inside the cockpit. A dashboard full of instruments and a supplementary switch panel installed above the hump of the transmission housing. Black toggles, two inches long, banked neatly and skilfully. Hill said: ‘He’s souped this up. He’s got everything. Vacuum gauge, parking light, car compass, twin flasher unit . . .’

  He was interrupted. ‘Looking for something?’ Peter Barnfelt had come out of the front door of the Goblin. Hill said: ‘Admiring it, you mean. I could do with a job like this myself.’ Peter Barnfelt didn’t reply. He stepped over the door into the driving seat. Then he said, offensively: ‘They’re for sale in all the dealers’. They might even give you a leaflet if you were to ask nicely.’ Hill’s face flushed and his hands clenched. The doctor started up. Revved unnecessarily hard: a mechanical raspberry, petrol flavoured. Went away with too much accelerator, so that the back wheels spun before gripping the road. Burnt rubber smell on top of exhaust gas. Hill said: ‘The miserable bastard. And that’s the chap we went out of our way to do a good turn to this morning.’

  Masters grinned. Hill, glowering, wondered why. He was pretty sure Masters wouldn’t grin at his discomfiture. Unexpectedly Masters said: ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘Half eleven.’

  ‘Right. Come on. To the station.’

  Hill kept pace. He said nothing. But this was Masters cheerful. More cheerful than he’d been for months. His face was lifted to the sun, his pipe cocked up at an angle between his teeth. He took the steps up to the office at a run—light and lithe, two steps at a time. Vanden jumped to his feet. Masters said: ‘Take a pew and tell me everything you know about young Dr Barnfelt’s car.’

  ‘How d’you mean, sir?’

  ‘It’s got everything but the kitchen sink.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But no car radio that I could see. That’s funny, isn’t it?’

  Vanden smiled crookedly. ‘Not really, sir. There’s no room. He’s got a two-way radio for urgent calls when he’s away from the surgery.’

  Masters smiled. ‘That’s what I thought it had to be.’ He turned to Hill. ‘That’s the answer to your pick-up this morning. I’ll bet the Barnfelts’ frequency is very close to ours, and whichever one of them was asking for an ambulance this morning would be so nearby that you picked him up loud and slightly distorted—by induction.’

  ‘Could be. They do interfere when they’re sited close to each other.’

  Vanden said: ‘I’m sorry if they were a nuisance, sir. I could get H.Q. to check their frequency allotment.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Have you heard from Superintendent Nicholson?’

  ‘He’ll be in this afternoon, sir. The inquest’s at two thirty in the Parish Hall.’

  Masters got to his feet. ‘I shan’t be there. But if the Superintendent wants me I’ll be around Rooksby somewhere.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Hill followed Masters down the stairs. Masters said: ‘After lunch I want you to contact Peterborough and find out at exactly what time Pamela Parseloe reached her digs on Sunday night. Discreetly. I’ll give you the address, and do it while the locals are at the inquest.’

  Unconsciously Hill kept pace with Masters. Across the square and up the High Street.

  ‘Where now, Chief?’

  ‘The vicarage. You can do something for me.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Chat up the elder daughter, Pamela, while I have a short word in private with Cora.’

  ‘Will she like it?’

  ‘She’ll try to stop it.’

  Hill said: ‘Let her try. I can question her about that story of the headmaster’s. About her father trying to get her a job in the school.’

  Pamela was not pleased. She and her sister were intending to eat an early lunch before the inquest. Masters saw it laid out on the kitchen table. A faded seersucker cloth, holed in places. A segment of Dutch cheese with red plastic rind. A glass ovenware plate with half a pound of butter. A coburg on a board and four apples laid in a heap. Cora said: ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mr Masters?’ Masters declined, and Hill said: ‘Can I take Miss Parseloe off to another room and get the statement, sir? I’ll try to be quick and not hold up their lunch.’

  Masters said: ‘Good idea. Make it snappy.’

  Pamela demanded: ‘What statement?’

  Hill said: ‘Sorry, I haven’t explained. I’m the shorthand writer. Mr Baron gave us some information which we’d like you to confirm. So if we could step into another room, Miss . . .’

  Pamela went. Unwilling and ungracious.

  Masters said to Cora: ‘Now, perhaps you can help me.’ She folded her hands and looked at him trustingly. ‘Do you remember Inspector Green coming here for the school key?’

  ‘He said you sent him.’

  ‘I did. He’s my chief assistant. You told him the key had gone and then it came back again.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s got it now.’

  ‘It’s quite safe. Now, try to remember. Did you make the phone call to Dr Barnfelt before or after you saw the key had gone?’

  She said simply: ‘After it was gone. Pam said she felt the flu coming on again so would I ring and ask the doctor to come.’

  ‘She didn’t seem ill to me.’

  ‘I didn’t think she was, but she told me to say it was urgent.’

  ‘Did the doctor give her some medicine?’

  ‘I think he must have done. She went out just before Mr Green came. I thought she must have gone to the chemist.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Cora. Don’t say anything about this to your sister. Keep it our secret. And now let’s talk about something else. I’ve been talking about you to Dr Frank Barnfelt. He’d like you to visit him. Can you go this evening? About six o’clock?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Because he tells me you’ve never been to see him although he’s your doctor. And he’d like a talk. Will you go?’

  ‘I’d like to—if you think it will be all right.’

  ‘I’m sure it will. Mrs Barnfelt wants to see you, too.’

  Pamela, from the doorway, said: ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘I was giving your sister a message from Dr and Mrs Barnfelt. They would like to see her. Miss Cora is on his list of patients, you know, though I understand she has never consulted him professionally. He thinks it would be a good thing if she were to call.’

  ‘Does he? What if Cora doesn’t want to go?’

  ‘She’s under no compulsion, of course. But just in case she’d like to—and she has already said she would—I’ll have my car, with Sergeant Hill to drive it, outside the gate at five to six.’ He turned to Cora. ‘You can ride in style. How will that suit you?’

  ‘I’ll love it.’

  Masters turned his back on Pa
mela and winked at Cora. He then said: ‘We won’t hold you up any longer. Goodbye.’

  When they were outside, Hill said: ‘Just for the record, she confirmed Baron’s story about the job.’

  ‘Thanks. Let’s have a jar before lunch.’

  *

  Green, with a pint of draught Worthington in his hand, said: ‘You didn’t expect me to find the weapon in one morning, did you?’

  Masters felt happy. Green had been nagging about the weapon for two days. Now he’d discovered for himself just how difficult that part of the problem was, and how they would have made no progress at all had they concentrated on it exclusively from the beginning. He said: ‘No, I didn’t. But you’ve obviously covered a lot of ground in cultivating that thirst. All useful routine stuff, eh?’

  Green said: ‘Routine’s the backbone of investigation.’

  ‘Quite. That’s why I asked you to exhaust all the possibles you could think of. No whisper of a weapon gone missing, I take it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘No suggestion from anybody as to what it could have been?’

  ‘Nobody’s saying a word.’

  Masters said: ‘Tough titty. Have another.’ He was at the bar when Peter Barnfelt came fast through the door and stopped to look around. With malice aforethought, Masters said: ‘I’m in the chair. Let me get you a drink, doctor.’

  Barnfelt said: ‘I’ve come to warn you . . .’

  Masters turned his back on him and called along the bar to Binkhorst: ‘And a whisky for the doctor, please.’ He turned back to Peter. ‘You were saying?’

  Barnfelt looked hot and cross. A vein in his left temple was doing a belly dance. In, out. In, out. He looked at Masters with angry eyes. ‘I’ve just had a phone call from Miss Barrett.’

  Masters played it cool. ‘I was hoping you had.’

  ‘What have our private affairs to do with you?’

  ‘Nothing. But I’m a nosey-parker by profession. And sometimes I try to make up for my shortcomings by explaining to interested parties some of the things I ferret out. You’d be surprised how often good comes of it.’ He took the glasses from Binkhorst. ‘Here, drink this. I hope you weren’t too short with Miss Barrett?’

  ‘I repeat, it’s no business of yours.’

  Masters shrugged. He didn’t want a row in the bar. He would have liked to shake Barnfelt till his teeth rattled. He restrained himself from doing it—just. Instead he said: ‘I promise not to interfere directly in your love-life again. Now let’s talk about something else. Have you inspected the carpenter’s thumb lately?’

  Barnfelt stared at him as though he were mad. ‘Carpenter?’

  ‘The chap who got a chisel cut last week.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. If I did, I wouldn’t answer. I’ve told you before, my patients’ affairs are their own business—and mine. Not yours.’

  ‘Sorry. Just trying to find common ground for a chat.’ He lifted his glass. ‘Cheers.’ Barnfelt sulkily followed suit.

  *

  Spaghetti Bolognaise for lunch. Gina serving. Masters said: ‘How’s Maria? I saw the doctor was here earlier.’

  Gina said: ‘She is well. Very well. And she seems so happy. After the death of the father.’

  ‘It seems unkind to say so, but isn’t it just possible that she is feeling relieved.’

  ‘At this murder that is done?’

  ‘Not by the murder. By the fact that everything is now out in the open.’

  Green said: ‘Perhaps she’s talked to the doctor about an abortion.’

  Gina dropped the plate she was carrying. It clattered on the table. ‘That is wicked.’

  ‘Are you going to encourage her to keep the baby?’

  ‘Of course. It shall not be murdered like its father.’

  ‘Good. I’m sure you’ll make a first-class grandmother.’

  ‘It will be what I have to pay for not being a good mother.’ She left the room blindly. They finished the course in silence.

  After they rose from the table Green said: ‘Now what? More legwork?’ It was a challenge, Masters thought. A dare. So he answered: ‘Yes.’ Green stared in disbelief. Masters went on. ‘I’ve given Hill the job of checking Pamela Parseloe’s timings on Sunday night. I’d like you and Brant to come with me.’

  They set out across the square. Rooksby was quiet. The shops closed for half day. Green said: ‘Where to?’

  ‘As far as the schoolroom.’

  Green grunted. Half in pleasure at the short distance. Half in scorn. ‘What the hell d’you expect to find there?’

  Masters replied airily: ‘I don’t know. But even if it’s nothing it won’t be worse than your score this morning.’

  ‘Why go? The lads have been over it with a small-tooth comb. Not a flea.’

  They turned into Church Walk. Masters said: ‘There’s been something bothering me. I can’t tell you what it is, but I’m positive it’s something to do with the schoolroom. If I can just get in there and think and look . . .’

  They used the front door. The back entrance had been reboarded when the sergeants had finished their inspection and the duty constable relieved. The classroom was as they had first found it, with the exception of the corpse.

  *

  They’d been there two hours. Green’s cigarette ends littered the floor. Brant was prowling round. Masters was sitting on a bench, feet resting on the blackboard table. The present silence had lasted nearly twenty minutes. Brant was whistling soundlessly through his front teeth. Green said suddenly: ‘Face up to it. We’ve been all over this room a dozen times. We’re getting nowhere.’ He stopped in front of Masters. ‘You’ll never hit the nail on the head sitting here. And I could do with a cup of tea.’

  Masters lowered his feet from the table and stood up slowly. He looked at Green for a moment, not seeing him. Then, absentmindedly, he said: ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Thank you? What for?’

  Masters walked across to the upright plank nailed to the wall and stained with Parseloe’s blood. He looked at it carefully for a time and said quietly: ‘That’s it. By God, that’s it.’

  Green was beside him. ‘What is?’

  ‘I remember now. We scoured this plank, looking for a bullet hole, didn’t we?’

  Green looked enquiringly at Brant and then said: ‘We did. And we didn’t find a single mark.’

  ‘Exactly. But we should have done.’

  ‘Of course we should have done. That’s what the rest of us have been pointing out for days.’

  Masters said: ‘Don’t you see? If I’d fixed that plank to the wall there would be marks. Hammer marks, all round every nail head.’

  Brant was holding his breath. Green said: ‘Yes. There would. If you did it. But they’re professional carpenters. They don’t bodge jobs like do-it-yourself amateurs.’

  Masters said: ‘Even when driving masonry pins into bricks and mortar? Of course there should be hammer marks—that is, if they used a hammer.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  Masters turned from the wall. ‘Think,’ he said. ‘What was it Dan Coulbeck said about Harry Pieters? When he put up Parseloe’s shelves? “He used a bolt-setting tool on the plates”.’ He turned to Green. ‘You called these, plates. Remember?’

  Green nodded.

  Brant said: ‘And when Sarn’t Hill and I asked Pieters for a list of his tools . . .’

  Masters snapped his fingers: ‘There was a bolt-setting tool among them. Right. What is a bolt-setting tool? In my ignorance, I assumed it was some sort of spanner. But it begins to look as though I was wrong. Does either of you know? No? Then we’d better find out. But before we do, just one more thing.’

  He left them and walked round the room, inspecting the plates on the other three walls. He came back and reexamined the stained one. He said: ‘That’s it. There are nine nails in each of the other three. One every four courses. About a foot apart. There are ten here.’ They counted for themselves. Brant said: ‘
And the one near the blood is only about seven inches from the one above and five from the one below.’

  Masters nodded. ‘An extra nail. And that, I think, is our projectile. Nicely hidden by being driven home in a plank of wood.’

  Green let out an involuntary sigh. ‘It takes some believing.’

  Brant said: ‘I suppose you want Harry Pieters?’

  Green said: ‘And his tools.’

  Masters said to Brant: ‘Collect the car and Hill and get Pieters. Try to be back here in half an hour. Remember Pieters will have been at the inquest, so I can’t say where you’ll find him.’

  Brant went off at a half run. Masters sat down again. He felt momentarily weak. Green said: ‘There’s a transport caff on the High Street. I don’t expect it shuts on early closing day.’

  They went out without another word. The café was grubby. Decorated in fly-blown dark green paint. Green said to the proprietor: ‘A pot for two. No. Make it for four, and strong enough for eight.’ He got his way. They were obviously known. The tea was like tar. Masters drank it like nectar. The afternoon had drained him. The caffeine and tannic acid restored him. They were back in the schoolroom before the half hour was up.

  Green said: ‘A quarter to five.’

  ‘I want Hill to take Cora to see Dr Frank Barnfelt in about an hour’s time,’ Masters said.

  Green stared at him. Unable to understand. Masters knew Green couldn’t appreciate how he—Masters—could think of what he—Green—considered to be an irrelevance at a time like this. It gave Masters a feeling of superiority—the sweet, better feeling of giving rather than receiving. He took out his pipe. Then sadly put it back in his breast pocket. He’d forgotten. The Warlock Flake tin was now empty, and he’d failed to pick up another from his bag at the Goblin. Green said: ‘Have a Kensitas. Go on. You’re on edge.’ Masters wondered how Green knew. But somehow, at times like this, Green seemed to grow more perceptive: more human. Masters took the cigarette so as not to disappoint him. He felt it was no substitute for a pipe, but it kept him busy until Pieters was ushered in.

  The carpenter was nervous but, Masters felt, unafraid. He was in washed-out bib overalls. Where the braces should have buttoned, he had made do with inch long wire ovals. Under the overall a fair-isle jumper. Over it an old brown suit jacket; the side pockets overfull and sagging; the breast pocket loaded with flat pencils and a steel rule. He stood just inside the door and faced Masters. By his side, Brant. Behind him, carrying a brown canvas tool bag, Hill.