‘I’m a police officer.’
‘Are yer? And a big ’un, too. Dreadnought class I shouldn’t wonder, which ’ud make it tricky to match yer. Whatcher want?’
‘A little help, I hope.’
‘Thass a change. Although I’ll say this, I ain’t had much trouble from your mob. Help?’
The office was brown varnish all over, like the inside of a chapel cloakroom. The air was compounded of rancid emulsion, sweat, smoke, and coke fumes. The tortoise stove in the corner was glowing red at the top. The windows appeared to be nailed up and blacked out with grime.
‘Help?’
‘Yes, Mr Cass. Can we all come in?’
‘Well, count me out! You’ve brought your seconds wi’ yer, I see.’
Masters sat on a high square stool with a leathercloth top polished black by generations of backsides. ‘Mr Cass, if you wanted to knock somebody out, what would you do?’
‘Uppercut to the point.’
‘Would that leave a bruise?’
‘As like as not.’
‘If you were wearing ordinary civilian gloves. Not four ouncers.’
‘Then it would for sure. Nasty bruise.’
‘Right. But what if you didn’t want to leave a bruise?’
Cass considered this for a moment. He put his feet up on his cluttered desk. He was wearing thick-soled, blue deck shoes. Then: ‘Can’t be done.’
‘It can. It has.’
‘Not under Queensberry rules.’
‘Maybe not. But consider foul play.’
Cass thought again. ‘You’ve come to the wrong place, mister. You want Shen.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a he. Judo boy—black belt or summat he calls hisself. Over in Acre Yard.’
‘Judo? Thanks. I thought it might be that.’ Masters turned to Garner. ‘Know Acre Yard?’
‘Never heard of it, sir.’
Cass directed them.
Shen Ma Pang was courteous, but wary. Unlike the Cass office, his gymnasium was clean. Spotless, but small. There was a heap of sponge rubber fall mats in one corner. But the bare floor shone. Shen was in a navy blue suit and cream shirt. It was difficult to tell his age, because he was so sparely built, but Masters thought he must be at least sixty.
When he had been ushered in, Masters explained who he was. Shen bowed in assent when asked for help. Masters said: ‘I want you to tell me if it is possible to make an opponent unconscious without leaving a bruise.’
Shen looked at him very steadily.
‘You have seen this done?’
‘Not witnessed it being carried out.’
‘But it has happened?’
Masters nodded.
‘It is a hold nobody should use,’ said Shen.
‘But it can be done?’
Shen nodded. ‘But not when opponent wears correct clothing.’
‘You mean the blouse and loose trousers the wrestlers wear?’
‘That is what I mean.’
‘Mr Shen, do you teach judo?’
‘For forty years I teach ju-jitsu. During war I teach under secrets in Hampshire.’
‘So that if somebody round here were to use this particular hold he would most likely be a pupil of yours?’
Shen bowed.
Masters said: ‘You teach this hold to all your pupils?’
‘No. It is for black belt only.’
‘Could you tell me what the hold is?’
‘For attacker wearing coat. I show you.’
Shen approached Hill, who manfully stood his ground. Shen said: ‘Please, do not struggle.’ The next moment, Hill was being lowered to the ground unconscious. Shen said: ‘Please do not worry. He will be all right soon.’
Though it seemed like minutes to Masters, Hill was out for less than thirty seconds. He sat up, none the worse, but unaware of exactly what had happened to him. As soon as Masters was satisfied that he had suffered no harm, he turned to Shen who said: ‘No bruises.’
‘Where?’
‘Anywhere.’
‘I didn’t see exactly what you did. Would you demonstrate slowly, please.’
Shen shook his head. ‘It is forbidden.’
‘I think you may have shown this hold to somebody in the past.’
‘Not shown.’
Masters ignored the denial. ‘And the person to whom you demonstrated it has killed five women.’
Shen held up his hands, palm foremost. ‘He would not kill without bruising.’
‘Let’s stop arguing, my friend. I have a killer to catch. Please show me the hold.’
‘Very well.’
Shen again stepped up to Hill who took a step back. ‘I will not make you unconscious this time.’ Hill stood. Shen went through the motions slowly. First he crossed his hands at the wrist. He then reached up until he could grasp Hill’s coat collar on either side of the neck below the ears. ‘This is the grip. The only strength needed is in the fingers to maintain the grip. It is the wrist bone of each hand which flicks the nerve on each side of the neck. It has to be known where the nerve is. A jerk of the wrist jars the nerves and brings unconsciousness but leaves no bruises. Long, hard pressure brings death and leaves bruises.’ Shen dropped his arms. Masters examined Hill’s neck. There was no sign of a bruise: possibly a slight redness, but Masters could not even be sure of that.
Shen refused further information. He would not point out the exact run of the nerves, pleading that to show this hold was dangerous and forbidden. Masters was satisfied. He asked to see the lists of Shen’s pupils for years back. He spent forty minutes going through the lists, while Shen made pale tea for them. As they left he said to Shen: ‘You never teach that hold, you say?’
‘Never to Englishmen.’
‘Then how . . .?’
‘Some people may get more than cold in the eye from peeping through keyholes.’
‘I see. Thank you.’
On the way back, Hill said: ‘Well, now we know how it was done, but do we know who?’
Masters refused to be drawn. He merely said: ‘Back to the Estuary.’
He was still preoccupied. They were on the bus bound for home when he said: ‘Is there a registrar in Finstoft?’
Garner replied: ‘If we get off a few stops before the Estuary, we can cut through the old bit of the town. He’s not got a proper office. What I mean is, he works from his own front room.’
‘Does he keep his records there?’
Garner scratched his head. ‘Now you’ve got me, sir. But I don’t think he can do. It’s a bare old room he’s got. Just a table and a typewriter and a hell of a lot of dust. I shouldn’t think his missus has been in to clean him up these last twenty years.’
‘Probably she’s not paid to.’
‘That’s about the size of it. D’you want to see him?’
‘Yes.’
Hill stayed out of the conversation. He knew the signs when Masters went broody. Interruptions to his thoughts at such times sent the chief up the wall. Hill wondered whether piecing the final bits of a case together worried Masters. It seemed to. Hill thought that if he, himself, could sew up cases as well as Masters, he would be elated every time he did it. He thought that Green, in the same place, would carry a flag.
‘This is it,’ said Garner, and led the way downstairs. Masters understood why this would be the old part of Finstoft. It was higher than the rest. The place that would be chosen because it was above the flood-water level. They cut inland from the sea front. Dropping down a narrow street flanked with shops. The sort of shops Masters liked. The family butcher, the old established greengrocer, the cluttered newspaper shop, a real tobacconist’s with brown varnished front and fascia board carved with the owner’s name. A pub that looked like a pub, not a supermarket. A grocer who roasted his own coffee, with the smell coming out of a wide pipe above the shop doorway. He appreciated them all, subconsciously. Even the barber’s shop, which had a proper pole and a display of old-fashioned, twin-funnelled sha
ving mugs.
The pavements were narrow and flagged with uneven stone, not concrete slabs. The kerbs were worn shallow, and the traffic had difficulty in edging its way past the parked lorries discharging their wares into the shops. They walked in single file, rounding other pedestrians and avoiding push chairs. Then they were clear of the bottleneck. Garner turned left at the cross roads, passed the Salvation Army Hall and an interesting smelling ironmonger’s, and halted opposite a terrace of Victorian houses with wooden bays and small asphalted front gardens. The door plate announced that Charles Summerhead, Registrar for births, deaths and marriages was present for business between nine and one, and two and five every day except Saturday, when one o’clock was his finishing time.
They crossed the road. Garner led the way in. He said: ‘Morning, Charlie, this here’s Detective Chief Inspector Masters of Scotland Yard. He wants to talk to you.’
The room was as bare as Garner had said it would be. A gas-fire sputtered on the uncurbed hearth of cracked, grass-green tiles. Behind it the old period-piece cast iron fireplace still stood to harbour dirt and top-off the air of dejection in the room. Summerhead was very bald, with a soft, pinkish face that reminded Masters of a carnival mask. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles and a stiff, round-cornered collar. His suit was shiny blue. Masters thought that Summerhead must have stopped being a human being the moment he became a registrar, but had continued to live like a performing cabbage capable of filling in four or five different proformas only because the information given on each was roughly the same, but put down in a different order.
Summerhead looked over his spectacles at Masters. ‘And what can I do for you?’ It was querulous: hopeful that he wouldn’t be asked to do too much.
‘Save me a trip to Somerset House.’
‘It will cost you a search fee.’
‘Will it? Send the bill into the local Superintendent.’
‘Cash. One and ninepence. If I help you. What d’you want to know?’
Masters turned to Hill and Garner. ‘We passed a good tobacconist’s just now. That sort of place will stock Warlock Flake. Get me two ounces.’
Having got rid of the other two, Masters said: ‘I’d like to see your register of births for forty to forty-five years back, please.’
Summerhead grumbled, but obviously thought it better to humour Masters. A metal cupboard was opened and the relevant volumes found. Two books, wider than they were long, covered the period. Summerhead said: ‘Who is it you want to know about?’
‘D’you mind if I look myself? There can’t be so many births each year in Finstoft.’
‘Best part of five hundred,’ said Summerhead, bridling as if Masters had accused him of having no work to do; no happy events to record.
Masters knew what he was looking for. He sped through. Even so it took him nearly twenty-five minutes to find what he wanted. A brief glance was all he needed, but to put off the watchful Summerhead he continued thumbing through for another five minutes. Then he paid his one and ninepence and left. Hill and Garner were waiting outside. Hill handed him his tin of tobacco and the change. Garner led them back to the Estuary.
*
The two of them were in Masters’s room. Green said: ‘I’ve had one hell of a time getting it. All those men were at work.’
‘So?’
‘Julia Osborn told me. Starkey is Tring.’
‘Good. That’s what I like to hear. Did you get hold of Pogson and ask him if his wife knew her?’
‘No need. I called on Sara Baker.’
‘How could she tell you whether Brenda Pogson knew her?’
‘Evidently that Starkey dame’s a bit of a flighty piece. She was divorced about six months ago, and married a chap called Michael Turner. Mrs Michael Turner appears on Pogson’s list.’
Masters sighed with relief. ‘Did you get her address?’
‘From the phone book.’
‘We’ll see her this afternoon. Just you and I.’
Green grunted. ‘Are we going for a drink? Or is there something else you’re going to tell me?’
Masters stretched his legs. Green, sitting on the upright chair, lit a Kensitas. Masters said: ‘Both. I want a drink as much as you, so I’ll make it snappy. I had an idea about how a murderer might knock somebody out without bruising them. Judo.’
‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
Masters told him of the demonstration.
‘So it’s a local bloke who knows judo. That cuts the numbers down a bit,’ said Green.
‘Considerably. Shall we have that drink now?’
*
Garner waited in the car outside. Masters and Green walked up the path to the house, which stood, end on, to Alexander Avenue. It was large, with two bays to the front, overlooking a narrow rose garden. As they stood by the front door they could see extensive lawns and flower beds beyond the house. Green said: ‘For the second mate of a Finstoft drifter, she’s done pretty well for herself. The rates alone on this place would make my pay look sick.’
Masters rang the bell.
Mrs Turner herself answered. Master knew as soon as he saw her that she was the type Green liked. On the plumpish side. By no means fat, but, as Green had often expressed it, she filled her stockings well, which was only another way of saying that she had a good leg, shown off to advantage by the classic court shoes she wore, the thin, medium heels of which emphasized the slimness of the ankle and tautened the calves into an erotic firmness. She was dressed well. The navy-blue skirt, well cut, gave just a hint of roundness to her stomach. Not enough to require artificial hold-ins, but sufficient to give a suggestion of homeliness and warmth to the figure. Under the jacket of her suit her bosom, slightly too large, was provocative in a pale blue sweater. The thin gold chain round her neck hung over the protuberance and dangled like a climber’s rope over an overhang. She was still dark-haired, and Masters could recognize the face from the picture of the Mary Starkey of a quarter of a century before. Plumper now, it was still impish and full of fun. But despite the careful make-up, there was something wrong. It took Masters a second or two to realize it was her eyes. Instead of being alight and mischievous, they were now wary and questioning. The eyes of a person bewildered and unsure.
‘Mrs Turner?’
‘Yes?’
‘My name is Masters. I’m a police detective.’
‘The one who’s come to investigate the beach-hut murders?’
‘That’s me. May we come in and talk to you?’
‘Talk to me? What about?’ She was obviously puzzled. Masters guessed that it was not the fact that they wished to interview her that was causing her concern, but the fact that they had managed to pick her out for questioning. She was, he thought, wondering what they knew that had led them to her. It helped him. It gave him the unknown card, which was always so useful in interviews of this kind where probably the conversation might not be of material fact but simply an elicitation of opinion or an awakening of old memories.
‘About the old days, mostly,’ said Masters in a kindly voice. ‘We should appreciate your co-operation.’
She held the door open wide. ‘Come in, please. Will it take long? I was going shopping.’
Masters stepped in, followed by Green. It was a family home. Though scrupulously clean, it was friendly, with just a hint of untidiness to suggest that happy-go-lucky people lived there. The hall was square, and large enough to take several pieces of furniture, on all of which were odd-man-out articles. On a rosewood chair with mother-of-pearl inlay and pale pink upholstery was a riding crop and one small, yellow string glove. In the umbrella stand was a broken mashie, and on the bottom step of the lovely curving staircase a heap of freshly laundered linen which Masters guessed was waiting to be carried upstairs to an airing cupboard. Under the chandelier was a mobile, obviously the work of a child who had misjudged the balance, so that it hung lop-sided and motionless. But the chandelier itself was the sort that would have graced an embassy.
Ma
ry Turner showed them into a sitting room on the left, at the back of the house. It had three windows, one on either side of the fireplace overlooking the garden, and a third looking out onto another small enclosure with a central pond and fountain. The carpets and curtains were good. They caressed Masters as he followed Mrs Turner in. The armchairs were the enveloping kind, big enough even for Masters, and upholstered in very pale grey and soft pink stripes separated by a gold thread.
They sat down. Mary Turner said: ‘When you say you want to talk about the old days, what do you mean?’
‘I think perhaps it will become clearer as we go along.’
She sat with her legs and feet together, her elbows on the chair arms, hands linked, her body slightly forward. Masters couldn’t decide whether her attitude denoted expectancy or despair.
Masters said: ‘How long have you been married—to Mr Turner?’
‘Five months.’
‘You married as soon as your divorce from Mr Tring became absolute?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who got that divorce? You or your previous husband?’
‘I did.’
‘Did you, during the case, ask for discretion to be exercised by the court in respect of your own adultery?’
She said, calmly: ‘As a matter of fact, I did. But what has my divorce to do with the murders you are investigating?’
Green, too, was looking puzzled. This was not the line he had expected Masters to take. Still, Green thought, Masters always was devious, darting off down side-channels that a cop brought up to reverence the value of routine investigation would avoid like the plague.
‘That’s all I want to ask about that, Mrs Turner.’
‘Maybe it is. But why ask any of it? Five women are killed and you suddenly appear on my doorstep and start asking questions like that. It doesn’t make sense.’
Masters said quietly: ‘It does—to me, Mrs Turner. And my advice to you is to stop being frightened. The danger’s over.’
‘Frightened?’
‘Yes. You’re covering up very well, but the worry has been there for some time now. How long? Six or seven weeks?’
She laughed. Rather too short and too shrill a laugh to be convincing. She said: ‘What have I to be frightened of?’
Masters and Green Series Box Set Page 50