The Soft Detective

by H. R. F. Keating

  Doesn’t care the least bit what she says. In front of me, and in front of her father. Or that she’s here being questioned about a murder by a detective chief inspector. No, it’s happily getting at me by using what she sees as Conor’s lack of guts. But, by God, what I see as his strength of mind and sensibleness.

  But forget Conor. Remember I’m the hard man now. Forget Conor. Wherever he is.

  Yet for a moment he faltered.

  ‘That - that’s neither here nor there. I asked you what you were doing down in Sandymount on Monday evening last.’

  ‘Yeah. And I said: how d’you know I was?’

  He jumped in at that. Not bothering to keep from his face the tiger smile he felt leaping to life.

  ‘I know because your friend, Alec Gaffney, has said you were there. And, if need be, he’ll swear to it.’

  ‘His word ‘gainst mine then, isn’t it?’

  All right, all right. But you wait, you little cat.

  ‘Now, listen to me. You’ve got off on the wrong foot, my girl. I’ll give you just one chance to put things right. Let me remind you of the facts. There was a murder in Sandymount last Monday evening. We, the police, are investigating it. So we want to speak to anyone who was in the vicinity when it happened. Nothing bad about that. Anybody who was there may be able to tell us something that will identify the murderer. Now, we have learnt that you were one of those people there. Not just anywhere in Sandymount, but in Percival Road where the killing took place. So, are you going to help us?’

  ‘Don’t see why I should. No business of mine.’

  ‘A fellow human being was killed there, young woman. Not only a fellow human being, but one who in his time did a great deal for humanity. A Nobel Prize winner, a man who discovered things that enabled the medical profession to make people’s lives better. To save lives. So, make no mistake, it is your business.’

  She gave a shrug. An overemphatic, theatrical shrug.

  ‘You say it’s my business. I don’t. What’s it to me, some old man, discovered something years and years ago, gets himself banged on the head? Dies?’

  Oh, the callous little bitch.

  ‘Gets himself banged on the head?’ he snapped out. ‘How do you know he was banged on the head?’

  ‘In the Advertiser, wasn’t it, stupid.’

  Now her father bounced forward.

  ‘Belinda. There’s a senior police officer asking you questions, whether rightly or wrongly. Don’t let me hear you calling him stupid. You need to learn some respect.’

  He came in quickly on top of that, not that her father’s rebuke seemed likely to change her.

  ‘Yes, details of the murder were in the Advertiser. And they did include the fact that Professor Unwala was killed by being struck on the head. It was with a cricket bat, you know. A cricket bat which the person who killed him took away, covered in blood as it was, and hid under a bush beside Seabray Way.’

  A poised pause now. See if at last the recital of what she may have done - what I’m willing to bet she did in fact do - gets to her at last.

  But, no. Not the faintest twitch of a muscle anywhere. Tough little nut. Wrapped up in herself little nut. Like a lot of teenagers, of course. They have to learn as they grow older. But this one’ll take a long time learning, if I’ve got her right at all.

  ‘So why were you so interested in what was in the Advertiser, Belinda?’

  ‘Who says I was? I look at it, don’t I? Sometimes. Saw that about the murder. Why shouldn’t I read about it?’

  ‘Perhaps you read about it because it closely concerned you.’

  But now old Baa-baa slid in his pennyworth.

  ‘Chief Inspector, are you accusing my client of committing this crime? Because if you are I don’t need to remind you that it is your duty to charge her.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Williams. But, of course, I am doing no more than asking someone who was close by where the murder took place whether she can help us with our inquiries.’

  And I said I couldn’t. So can I go now?’

  ‘No. You’re not being very cooperative, Belinda. There are more questions I shall have to ask you.’

  ‘Go ahead then. See if I care.’

  ‘Belinda.’

  Mr Withrington’s round, darkly bearded face went a yet deeper shade of red.

  ‘Oh, Dad, stop interfering, can’t you? I don’t know what you’re doing here. I can look after myself, can’t I?’

  One for me to answer, I think.

  ‘I doubt if you can look after yourself as much as you believe, Belinda. It’s hardly looking after yourself doing your best to antagonize me, for one thing. And it’s not looking after yourself by failing to answer simply and truthfully the questions I put to you.’

  ‘That’s your opinion.’

  All right. More defiance. But defiance of that sort is only there, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, because of what’s underneath. And I am going to get to what’s there underneath. However hard I have to be.

  ‘Yes, that’s my opinion. And it’s an opinion you’d do well to take into account. Now, what time did you get back home on Monday after you’d been down in Sandymount? A simple question. So am I going to hear a simple answer?’

  A momentary greedy glint in those sharp blue eyes. Some unexpected chance about to be grabbed?

  ‘All right. If that’s what you want. It was a few minutes after six.’

  Although he was concentrating on her every fleeting change of expression, just out of the corner of his eye he saw squat, ever-waiting Louis Withrington draw back by just an inch or so. The tennis player anticipating an awkward ball.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, lowering the tension by way of preparing for what was to come, ‘a straight answer. Thank you. And I suppose, when you got in, you had your tea?’

  A little contemptuous cock of the head. Actually we have dinner in our house. At eight.’

  Not good enough, my girl.

  ‘I see. But when you get back from school, you have something to eat then? A snack? Cup of tea and a biscuit?’

  ‘Yeah. Sometimes. And sometimes I just get out of that stinking stupid uniform and into some proper gear.’

  Such as this Peter Andre Makes Me Randy T-shirt I’ve been staring at all this time? Though I doubt if that was what you were wearing on Monday evening in Sandymount. My Mrs Damberry would have had a word to say about that. But we’re on to a useful little line here, I think.

  ‘So, right, last Monday. After school you went home and got into your proper gear?’

  ‘Yeah, gear. If you like to call it that. Yeah, I did.’

  ‘And then you went down to Sandymount, if I’m not mistaken, with both Alec Gaffney and my Conor.’

  ‘You ought to know. Your son.’

  ‘Yes, as it happens I do know. Now, suppose you tell me what happened down there. You had a bit of a barney with Conor, didn’t you?’

  Tiny pause for thought.

  ‘All right, yes, I did. He’s a bloody wimp, your Conor. Know that, do you? You shouldn’t do that, Belinda. On and on, yap-yap-yap.’

  ‘All right, I won’t ask you what it was he thought you shouldn’t do. But I will ask what time it was when you said whatever you did to him that caused him to flare up and leave you.’

  ‘What time it was? How the hell should I know when he got into his silly bate.’

  ‘Listen. I am trying to establish where exactly you were, and at what precise time. We’re interested in finding witnesses, as I told you.’

  ‘Yeah. And I’m not interested. As I told you.’

  Beside her Louis Withrington shifted slightly in his chair. Ready to bang in.

  ‘Right. We’ll leave that. Since you’re unable, or unwilling, to help. But I’d like to go back to when you got home again after your visit to Sandymount. What time did you say that was?’

  ‘I dunno. You got that recorder going, haven’t you? Listen to the tape, if you’re so interested.’

  ‘Without doing that
, I can tell you you said it was a few minutes after six. So you tell me, how did you know that?’

  ‘How did I know? For Christ’s sake, how does anyone ever know what time it is? They look at their watch, don’t they?’

  ‘Very well. Now, what time does that watch of yours say now?’

  Suddenly she looked at the Swatch watch on her wrist.

  ‘Says eleven. Just about.’

  ‘Exactly, please.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  Another look.

  ‘Three minutes past, if you must know.’

  He looked pointedly at the clock over the door.

  ‘The interview-room clock reads eleven-oh-three,’ he said for the benefit of the recorder. ‘Good, your watch seems to keep time, Belinda. Were you wearing it on Monday evening?’

  ‘What if I was?’

  ‘Just this. When you say you got home a few minutes after six by your watch, how many minutes after six was it?’

  He turned to look, as unobtrusively as he could, at her father. And found him doubly tense.

  So, expecting a lie? And rapidly wondering whether to back it or not?

  ‘I dunno. For God’s sake, it was almost a week ago.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Lower the tension again. T can well understand how you can’t be sure to within a minute. But you do say it was only shortly after six?’

  And before answering she paused to think. Longer this time.

  Getting nearer?

  ‘Yeah, just after. Yeah.’

  The brief words. The hopefully safe words.

  ‘And when you got in you spoke to someone? Was your father back from his dental practice by then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what time he gets back. Why should I?’

  And now Louis Withrington lunged forward. Decision taken.

  ‘Belinda, you know perfectly well. I’m almost always back by quarter past five. You know that. We have tea then, your mother and I. You, if you’re there. Listen, you’re in trouble, my girl. Now, answer the chief inspector’s questions, and answer them sensibly.’

  On Belinda’s other side he saw Baa-baa Williams purse his lips. The lawyer not altogether in favour of sensible answers. Not when the client may be getting into real trouble.

  ‘All right, let’s begin again. You got home after six, right? But just how much after? Remember, this may be important. Important for you. We’re trying to establish just how long you were down there in Sandymount.’

  ‘I said, I don’t know. All right, Mum and Dad had had tea, and I wasn’t there then. But I can’t remember if I saw either of them afterwards. Or when I did, if I did.’

  ‘And I’m right in thinking you’ve no brothers or sisters? It’s just the three of you at home?’

  Louis Withrington took it on himself to answer. To give his daughter time to think? To think that she should answer questions truthfully? Or to think what alibi she might concoct?

  ‘Yes, Chief Inspector. There are only the three of us at home. And, I should add, I myself didn’t see Belinda until eight o’clock, when she appeared for dinner.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. So, Belinda, did you see your mother between the time you got in, at six-fifteen or six-thirty, or whatever it was—’

  But here Baa-baa did break in. With more sharpness than usual.

  ‘Chief Inspector, my client has told you she reached home shortly after six. I don’t think you ought to put words into her mouth. It wasn’t six-thirty, she said. Nor was it six-fifteen.’

  ‘But what was it, Belinda?’ he asked quickly. ‘Was it actually six-fifteen? Or was it even later than that?’

  ‘Might have been a bit later than six. I don’t know.’

  ‘And you’ve no one who can help you get it clearer? You didn’t see your mother then?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  The slammed-down answer.

  ‘So, would you like to tell me, having thought carefully about it, exactly what time it was that you did get in?’ Little bit of bluff here. ‘Let me suggest to you - we in the police make very wide inquiries, you know, when it’s a case of murder - that it was a good deal later than six when you actually got home. Well after six-fifteen. Well after six-thirty. Even as late as seven. Yes?’

  And he saw the half-second of fear in her eyes. The guess at some neighbour having seen her. His tricky little hint.

  ‘Yes, Belinda?’

  ‘Oh, hell with you. I dare say it was seven o’clock. More or less. What’s it matter? I wasn’t doing anything down in Sandymount. And you can’t bloody well prove I was.’

  ‘No. And we can’t prove very much else about your movements that evening, can we? You say now you got home at seven. But your father’s just told us he didn’t see you till dinner. At eight. What were you doing, Belinda, between seven and eight?’

  ‘I was in my room.’

  ‘And what were you doing there?’

  ‘My homework, I suppose. It’s what they always say I ought to do.’

  Again Louis Withrington leant forward. But he was no longer the on-his-toes tennis player.

  ‘Belinda,’ he said, an undertow of anxiety in his voice, ‘I don’t think you were doing your homework. You told your mother, when she asked you, that you hadn’t. You said you weren’t feeling well. And I must say you didn’t look well. So I wrote a note explaining that, for you to take to school on Tuesday, didn’t I?’

  ‘All right. So what? A girl feels ill sometimes, doesn’t she?’

  Then - he could see the idea coming to her, being grabbed once again - she added something, plainly hoping to embarrass her all-male audience.

  ‘I had the curse, if you must know. I had the curse.’

  Or was it that you were the girl who sicked up her guts in the garden at twelve Percival Road, and was still pale with shock over what you’d done?

  ‘Very well, Belinda,’ he said. ‘But are you sure you want to persist with that explanation? I suppose your mother will have some idea of when your period was due. Shall I send and ask her?’

  Home.

  He could see it. The last barrier but one broken down. The tough line wins.

  ‘Oh, hell with you. No. No, I didn’t have the curse.’

  ‘So why were you looking so ill when you came down to dinner, Belinda?’

  Would this be it?

  For a moment, a fleeting moment, it looked as if it would. But then, for all that the pink and white complexion was now more a whitish-grey, she could be seen pulling herself together.

  ‘Look, you’ve got it all wrong, Mr Benholme. Yes, all right, I was down in Sandymount later than I told you. And, yes, I was sick. When I got home. But I didn’t kill that old man. The - the reason I was sick was I’d drunk too much whisky. I - I thought I’d show Alec what someone with some guts could do. But that was all. That was all.’

  Is it all? I don’t think so. But neither do I think you’re going to break now.

  But an hour or two to realize just what trouble you’re in. And then another encounter with nasty Detective Chief Inspector Benholme. After that I’ll be very surprised if we don’t get our cough.

  So before Baa-baa could suggest it, he said he thought it would only be fair to let Belinda think about what she had said. And, like Verney the day before with Alec Gaffney, he added that they would resume after lunch.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sitting in the interview room waiting for Belinda, he wondered how well she had managed to eat her Sunday lunch. Presumably Mrs Withrington, however puzzled or fearful she was about her daughter being taken to the police station, would have prepared the customary meal. Or did they usually go out somewhere? To one of the big pubs, either in the town or out in the country, that offered Sunday lunches, roast beef, pork or lamb, or perhaps with Christmas not so far away, turkey? Wherever they ate, he guessed, Belinda, her sparky defiance dinted, would not have had much appetite.

  What would she have been thinking as her father cut away at his beef, scooped on hors
eradish, plunged the forkful between those thick, glossily wet lips? Surely it would have been When I’m hack there, what am I going to be asked? Will I be able to keep on and on fighting him off?

  Because he had no doubt now that he had been questioning the person who, in a sudden fit of baffled rage, had seized that ancient, dried-up cricket bat, raised it, brought it crashing down to kill aged, harmless, tiny Edul Unwala, Nobel Prize winner. For whatever, as yet unemerged, reason.

  Partly, he knew, his confidence was mere instinct. But, in the few murder cases where he had led the investigation - King’s Hampton crimes were usually less dramatic - he had on each occasion at some point become absolutely certain, despite any clinching evidence, that he had been questioning a killer. And it was the same now.

  Not that, he had thought earlier in his office chewing a sandwich, there wasn’t plenty of useful evidence already, even if most of it would never be introduced in court. There was the fact that, though Belinda was down in Sandymount the whole of the time the murder took place, she had evaded all along saying why she was there. Then there was her knowledge of the details. She could, of course, have got them from the paper. But in the ordinary way a self-centred girl like her would look at the Advertiser only at weekends, for what entertainment was on offer.

  Then there were the lies she told about when she’d got back home. She’d grabbed at the chance of getting herself some sort of alibi then, but a bit of bluff had done for that. And why should she have lied unless she’d got something to hide? And finally, there’d been breaking down her silly attempt to throw me by flaunting the fact, which wasn’t at all a fact, that she was menstruating.

  So, he said to himself now shifting round his chair at the interview table, she’s at the edge. I’m sure of that. She’s not going to hold out much longer up against nasty Detective Chief Inspector Benholme. Especially when I slip out of my sleeve the business of the whisky traces in the vomit.

  Then perhaps the one thing missing will come to light. The why. All right, I’m certain now she did it. But I’m still not at all certain why. No need, of course, ever to know. We get a cough, we don’t necessarily need anything more than that to go to court with. But, all the same, I’d like to find out. Why did this wrapped-up-in-herself young woman quarrel with Professor Unwala to the extent of screaming out in rage You black bastard and beating him to death?