‘I’m not saying they did. But their dads and mams did, you can bet your life. They’re all in about the same income group now; and they came from the same sort. Like married like round here until a few years back.’
‘Thank you,’ said Masters. ‘It’s been an enlightening discussion. We’ll at least know we’ve to wear our best caste marks, and we’ll be on the look-out for untouchables, pariahs and the like.’
Bullimore looked at him suspiciously, but Masters proceeded quietly to relight his pipe. Outside the rain was still slashing down and the wind had started to moan. Suddenly a long blast found a crack round the window frame and came in noisily, rattling the venetian blind like a Gatling-gun going full lick. Hill said: ‘Are they still looking for the fifth body, sir?’
‘In this? Be your age, sergeant.’ Hill blushed. Bullimore softened his tone. ‘No, lad. When the wind starts to moan like that you’ll know it’s come in with the tide, And the beach out there’ll be under water, and the dunes most likely.’ He grinned suddenly and turned to Masters. ‘Besides, there’s no use in having a dog and barking yourself. Now you’re here we’ll leave you to it.’
Masters stopped opposite to him and looked down at him. ‘That’s what we want—normally. But just to begin with I’d like a bit of help.’
‘What sort? C.I.D.?’
‘No. A man to act as a guide mostly. I don’t want to have to waste my time looking for houses and places in Hawksfleet and Finstoft. Haven’t you got some old P.C. who knows the place like the back of his hand who’ll be glad to gossip to us?’
Bullimore sat back in his chair, his head sunk in his collar. ‘Old P.C.? I’ve got one that’s just recovering from flu and’s due to retire at the end of April. He’s a bit slow on his feet and in the head, but he’s a right old Tofter. Been here since he was born and never been out of the place as far as I can make out. If you’ll see he keeps wrapped up so’s we don’t have to pay him a disability increment to his pension for the rest of his natural, I’ll see if I can let you have him. If you’re sure you wouldn’t rather have one of the so-called bright young ’uns.’
‘I’ve got plenty of those. I’ll take the old boy. What’s his name?’
‘Garner. Fred Garner. When d’you want him?’
‘Tomorrow morning. At our pub at nine.’
‘Right. Talking of pubs. There’s only one decent one open at this time of the year. The Estuary. It’s on the front. I’ve booked you in and I’ll take you there when you’re ready to go.’
Masters looked at his watch. ‘It’s getting on for four, so we’ll call it a day. I can’t see us doing anything useful outside in this weather and what’s left of the daylight.’
Bullimore reached for his cap. Masters went on: ‘There’s no need for you to turn out. If you’ve such a thing as a road map of the town. . . .’
Bullimore picked up his internal phone. Shortly afterwards the clerk came in with a road map and a six-inch-to-the-mile plan of the dune area where the bodies had been discovered. Bullimore handed this latter straight over to Masters and pointed out the ink crosses where the women had been buried: each cross marked with a name. ‘I had that prepared for you. When you get out there you’ll find the places marked well enough on the ground. Now for your hotel. You’re here.’ Bullimore put a thick forefinger on the map and traced the route from the Police Station. ‘Go the same way as we went to the Prawner. Up the hill that was. Turn left along the High Street and right when you come to the T-junction. After that it’s plain sailing. This road runs right along the front, you see, but inside the promenade. There’s only houses on one side. That’ll be your right. Go on until you come to the floral gardens with the low, hoop-topped railings on your left. You’ll see shelters in the gardens. When you get to the second one you’ll see the Estuary just ahead on your right. It’s bang on the road, but there’s a car park at the back.’
Masters folded the map. ‘Thanks. We’ll be off then. I’ll keep in touch, but I hope you’ll attend to the inquests. All I’ll want to know is the verdict.’
‘It’s all laid on. Not until Monday.’
‘And we’ll want to know if they were sexually assaulted. Might as well know the type we’re looking for,’ added Green.
Bullimore got to his feet ponderously, and rubbed one forefinger round the inside of his already overtight collar. Masters, watching him, was amused to see he appeared slightly embarrassed by the question. Finally he said: ‘I think the doctor’d better tell you. He’s been working on it and he’s got some fantouche theory that you’ll want to speak to him about. I’ll tell you what. I’ll ask him to contact you at the Estuary tonight—if that’s all right with you.’
Masters said: ‘Ideal. I’d rather he didn’t phone. D’you think he’d mind calling?’
‘If I know Eric Swaine he’ll come if there’s the ghost of a chance of being offered a Taddy Strong Ale.’
‘He’s a soak?’ asked Green.
Bullimore grinned. ‘Well, now, you’re asking me. I’d have said that anybody else who took what he does would be an alcoholic, but he’s never affected by it. He’s got some theory about that, too. He had ulcers or something and had half his stomach removed. He reckons that you take in alcohol through the stomach, and as he’s only got half a one he only soaks up half of what he drinks. How true it all is I don’t know, but it seems to work in his case.’
Green stared in disbelief but said nothing. Masters took his coat from the row of pegs on the wall. ‘Tell him he shall have his whatever-it-is strong ale if he’s got to have an inducement. Try and get him to make it about nine. That’ll give me a chance to read your reports and have dinner before he comes.’
*
Although it was still an hour before sunset as they set off for the hotel, the daylight was going. Brant was driving. Masters sat behind him with the map on his knees. As they passed along the High Street and came to the T-junction he said: ‘Turn right.’
‘And straight ahead,’ said Brant.
‘No. We’ll take a different route. Just here. Turn left now.’
Brant obeyed. The car was running down a short, wide road straight for the sea. Green said: ‘Just look at those bloody waves.’
‘Right,’ said Masters. He spoke up to make his voice heard above the screaming of the wind. As Brant turned the car on to the exposed roadway running alongside and level with the promenade at this point a blanket of spray curled over the sea wall and carried on to the car. The heavy drops thudded on the roof. The nearside windows and windscreen were covered in a dirty green, cascading film.
Green flinched. ‘We’ll be drowned along here.’
‘Not us,’ said Masters and touched Brant on the shoulder. ‘That sign says the speed limit’s eight miles an hour along here.’
The heavy car, side on to the wind, rocked as it went. Water swirled over the roadway. Brant used the crown to avoid the worst of it. Nothing was coming the other way. Ahead of them the spray leapt high and broke into big white gobbets of water, like fiery rain crackers on bonfire night. Signboards outside ice-cream kiosks shut for the winter swung frenziedly on their hooks. And all the time the rain came down. It poured from the felted roofs of shuttered shops in inverted, twisted triangular sheets that sometimes fell straight for a moment and were then whirled away in mid-air by the gusts. Masters rubbed his hands. He couldn’t decide whether it was because he felt cold or because he was enjoying himself on two counts. First, his own natural delight at braving the elements in a big, comfortable car; secondly, because he was revelling in Green’s obvious dislike of the situation.
Green was muttering. Hill had turned up his collar as if to give himself extra protection, but Masters noted he was interested. The estuary, seven miles wide at this point, a heaving mass of grey-brown, murky, viscid matter, blending with a smoked glass horizon, had a fascination. A hundred yards out the swell would break into an almost continuous white line, thin as a cable at first, but lifting and creaming as it swept in to me
et the concrete with a slap of gargantuan force.
The road jinked, turned away slightly from the promenade. Floral gardens nosed in between the two. The evergreen bushes dripped. The soil in the beds looked soggy and flattened. The grass crouched, turning its back on the wind. An unlit shelter of wood and glass—four open-fronted boxes under a roof of mock tiles—came into view, just discernible against the grey-green backcloth. Four seats, of long slats on cast-iron frames, painted rural green, and intended for the comfort of those taking the sun and air, added glumness to depression. A few lighted shop windows on the landward side threw cloaks of light across the puddles. The street lamps, their rays refracted by rain, twinkled. A double-decker bus, empty of passengers, splashed towards them, taking more than its fair share of the road. Finstoft appeared dead. Dead from exposure to biting wind and rain. Green said: ‘Give me Torquay any day. They’ve got palm trees there.’
Almost without them realizing it, they drew abreast of the Estuary. Flat-fronted, it gave the impression of leaning into the wind. Masters thought it needed a portico and area railings to give it an appearance of having a solid footing. Brant drew the car up. No doorman or porter ventured across the pavement to meet them. Masters shouldered his way through a swing screen door that the wind was keeping open permanently a few inches. The inner door was opened by a porter. Masters said rather brusquely: ‘Bags for four outside. And tell the driver where to park the car, please.’ He wanted to see the doorman go out. He felt that at least a gesture should have been made to greet them. He turned to the reception desk on the right. A girl in a black dress with a gold lamé belt, and peroxided hair piled up like a cottage loaf, got up from a small table and sauntered the pace or two towards him. She was not interested. Without looking at him, she drawled: ‘Yes?’
‘No!’
This brought him her attention. At least this time she said: ‘What?’ and looked perplexedly at him.
He said: ‘I’m Chief Inspector Masters. Superintendent Bullimore has booked four single rooms in my name. Could we have them, please?’
He turned round. Green was with him. Hill and Brant were helping the porter. The receptionist was consulting a booking list. She said: ‘Oh, yes. Sign in, please. And how long will you be staying for?’
Green said: ‘No longer than we can help.’ He picked up a chained biro and signed in. The girl opened her eyes when she saw the address given as Scotland Yard. She said: ‘Have you come about the murders?’
‘No,’ Green said. ‘To inspect the drains. Now, where’s my key?’
Their attitude seemed to have galvanized the Estuary into some sort of life. A manager appeared and offered afternoon tea in the lounge. Masters said they would forgather for it in ten minutes.
*
As they sat over tea in a corner of the lounge, well out of earshot of the few others who were sharing it with them, Green said: ‘It’s going to be a bastard. Who’s for the beach in this weather?’ He opened a sandwich to look at the filling. Evidently decided that anchovied egg would be to his taste and went on: ‘From what the Super said we’ve got nothing more than a list of names and dates to go on. They don’t spark very fast in these parts, do they?’
‘Five women murdered’s going some, I’d have thought,’ Hill said. ‘I’d call it sparking hard and fast.’
‘You would. But they haven’t thought up the names of any nutcases to suggest, have they? We’re strangers here, but we’ll be expected to sort ’em out in no time. Make yourself useful and pour me a cup more tea.’
Masters said evenly: ‘And I’ll have another, please.’ He passed the cup across: ‘One line of investigation leaps instantly to mind.’
‘That’s what I think,’ agreed Brant. ‘It could be one of the husbands of the dead women. We’ll have to consider it.’
Masters nodded and thanked Hill for the tea. ‘That’s what I meant.’
‘Unlikely. What would one chap who wants to get rid of his missus go and strangle four more for?’ Green asked.
‘Camouflage. Murder two, knock off the real victim, and then murder two more,’ explained Brant.
Green said: ‘And provide yourself with five alibis? You’ve got to be good to do it.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ said Brant. ‘If you bury the bodies so that they’re not found for weeks, who’s to say exactly when they were bumped off—to within hours of the actual time? Alibis don’t come into it.’
Green took another sandwich and said: ‘I don’t believe it. I’ve never come across anybody who’s got any sense doing in more than one victim.’
Masters took out his tin of Warlock Flake. The black, trade mark sphinx stood out against the brassy background. He contemplated it for a moment, then looked up. He said: ‘I agree with you both. But there are two points to be settled empirically. First, has the murderer of five women—or any murderer, if it comes to that—got any sense, as Inspector Green puts it? Second, would we be justified in ignoring the obvious, just because it is obvious? On the traditional grounds that in any murder the investigator must look closely at the victim’s next of kin, we’ve got to put all five husbands through the hoop. It’s the natural—and obvious—starting point.’
‘Which,’ said Green, trying to use a cake fork on a meringue, ‘is exactly what the local bobbies will have done. It’ll be in their case notes.’
‘But will they have done it to our satisfaction?’ Masters said. ‘No matter how well they’ve done their job will we be happy not to cover the same ground? I know that unless we do these things for ourselves I always have a faint niggle at the back of my mind: an uneasy feeling that maybe we would have got just some little extra fact that would make all the difference.’
Green had given up the unequal struggle with the cake fork and had wisely picked up the meringue. There were faint traces of cream and sugar round his mouth which he wiped away with the back of his hand before saying: ‘It’s not that I don’t trust local bobbies. It’s their notes. They can’t put everything in. And it’s always the important bits they miss out.’
Masters made no comment on this volte-face, but it wasn’t lost on Hill and Brant. Hill said: ‘I suppose we’re lucky it’s the weekend. All these characters should be at home when we call.’
‘If the weather lets up, we’ve got to visit the burial ground tomorrow morning. Have we got gum boots?’
Hill nodded. ‘Two pairs. None to fit you, though.’
Masters got to his feet. ‘Then you’ll have to carry me across the dunes.’ Before they could reply he went on. ‘Come to my room at seven o’clock. We’ll have earned a drink by then. So somebody had better do a recce of the bars in this chalet as soon as they take the shutters down.’
Chapter Two
Masters kept them for ten minutes. ‘I’ve read their files,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot in them, but it’s uncoordinated, so we’ll consider we’re starting from scratch.’ He spread out the large scale map of the dune area. ‘See this?’
Green said: ‘It’s a village. Huts all over the place.’
‘Bungalows,’ said Masters. ‘Summer bungalows. Hundreds of them. Some laid out in rows. Others all higgledy-piggledy, but each with its piece of garden.’
‘So what?’
‘They’ll have been empty in the winter. Nobody to question about mysterious goings on in the dunes. Our friend’ll have had a free hand.’
‘Did the locals say whether any of the bungalows had been broken into?’ Brant asked.
Masters looked down his nose. ‘What d’you expect in this day and age? Into the teens have been forced open since last autumn when they were locked up for the winter.’
Green said: ‘So there’s been a lot of stuff pinched.’
‘Surprisingly little. Evidently the owners have learned their lesson by now. About the only things they leave are iron-framed bedsteads. The rest goes home for the winter.’
They bent over the map. Green said: ‘These crosses, marking the graves. All except Mrs Baker’s, whi
ch is on the foreshore, are dotted about among the bungalows. Were any of the ones near the graves broken open?’
Masters shook his head. ‘I’d thought of that. As far as I can tell nothing matches. Of course the graves are a long way apart, and there are two break-ins within the triangle formed by the bodies of Osborn, Burton and Pogson. But plotting them on the map doesn’t seem to suggest anything to me.’
‘It might,’ said Hill, ‘after we’ve seen the area itself.’
Masters tapped out his pipe. ‘Take a tape, protractor and compass with us tomorrow. We’ll measure up, to see that the graves are correctly plotted and not just map-spotted. Now, if we’re all ready, what about that drink?’
‘Take your choice,’ said Green. ‘There’s an American bar with a pansy behind it serving crème de menthe to a couple of old women, or the Sundowner bar in the basement that looks like a pub and has a barmaid who looks like a barmaid to go with it.’
Masters opted for the Sundowner.
What had been a cellar, approached by a very narrow flight of new, light oak stairs, had been panelled throughout in mock linenfold. There was no window in the room, but the effect was pleasing. The atmosphere was warm and air conditioned. The tables were limed oak and the chairs and wall benches had red seats. The bar was well stocked and, as Masters was pleased to see, had several batteries of beer pumps. There were four people present when they entered. A man sitting alone, on a stool, at the far end of the bar, drinking either gin or vodka, and a middle-aged couple sitting on the bench in a corner. The fourth, the barmaid, was—as Green had said—typical. She was busty, with hair too gold to be true. Her black frock was tight and cut low enough to show the beginnings of emphasized cleavage. Her face was heavily powdered over pleasant, rounded features, the skin of which was coarsened by an over-liberal use of poor cosmetics in the past. On her left hand she had wedding and engagement rings. On the right a stone of indeterminate type, mottled green and big as a glass alley. She was leaning against the jutting main shelf of a Welsh dresser-type cabinet behind her. The metal foil cork covers of several small bottles had been opened out, and stood in a rank behind her head, giving the impression of a tiara of golden fan shells. She came forward as they approached. Masters thought her perfume reminded him of stale currant buns. She said ‘Good evening’ pleasantly enough in a gin and fags voice and waited for them to name their individual poisons.
Masters and Green Series Box Set Page 39