‘Why?’
‘For marrying her. I understand you’re not a married man, Chief Inspector, but you’ll probably realize how it is. My God, I wanted Barbara at twenty. Not just sex, you understand, though I must admit that she was so clean limbed and . . . and desirable that I couldn’t ever see myself living without her. I put every pressure on her I knew to marry me.’
‘Are you saying she didn’t marry you willingly?’
‘Oh, she did. Apparently. But I’ve since thought her willingness was superficial. It was the thing to do. Get married—among your own set. You know how it is. But Barbara should have been a sort of super social worker. One of those great women who grow old helping others in out-of-the-way places of the world.’
‘Instead she got a comfortable home, a fairly wealthy husband and three children.’
‘Right. And they weren’t enough, or they were the wrong things.’
‘You’re a solicitor, I believe, Mr Severn?’
‘Senior partner.’
‘Of a flourishing firm?’
‘Very flourishing.’
Masters took out his pipe. ‘Is it your considered opinion that your wife went out of her own free will to a pre-arranged meeting?’
Severn nodded. ‘It wasn’t a bit like Barbara really. I was certain she was as open about her affairs . . .’
‘Everyday ones?’
‘Oh, yes. I didn’t mean affairs of the heart, because I’m as sure as a husband can be that she never had any.’
‘And she wasn’t being blackmailed—mentally or otherwise?’
‘Certainly not otherwise. Her money and expenditure generally show no unaccounted-for amounts paid out. But mentally? Well, I suppose she could have been blackmailed mentally by anybody. I told you. Her overlarge social conscience.’
‘Thank you, sir. Now I think all I want from you is a list of Mrs Severn’s contacts from as far back as you can remember—from before your marriage if possible. Maybe the children can help to compile it.’
‘My two eldest are away at school. The one that’s here is only ten.’
‘In that case, perhaps old photographs will help you recall some of the people your wife knew in the past.’
‘I can do that for you straight away.’
‘Could we call back for the list a bit later? In, say, an hour or an hour and a half?’
*
Green and Brant were driven, in their turn, to Hawksfleet to visit Henry Pogson. The door was opened by a small boy, whom Green thought would be seven or eight. An engaging small boy, with black hair and blue eyes and the air of a rogue. He was in brown corduroy slim fitting slacks and a fawn roll-neck sweater. He said, in a surprisingly deep voice: ‘Good afternoon. I’m Tom. Who’re you?’
‘A policeman.’
‘Are you going to bring my Mummy back?’
‘Sorry, Tom, I can’t. I wish I could. But I’d like to talk to Daddy if he’s in.’
‘He’s in. He just sits in there.’ Tom pointed at a door down the hallway. ‘He doesn’t play any more and my engine won’t go.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Tom. Will it be a big job to repair it?’
‘I think it needs new . . . new . . .’
‘New carbon brushes?’ Brant said.
‘That’s right. I’ve only got silly sisters who can’t mend engines.’
‘Have you got any new brushes?’
‘Yes. In a little bag.’
‘Would you like me to put them in for you?’
‘Yes, please.’
Green said: ‘Right, Tom, can we come in? I’d like to talk to your father, and Sergeant Brant will do what he can for your engine before we go.’
‘Come in. I’ll tell Daddy.’
Tom walked away, leaving them to close the door. They followed him. They heard him say: ‘Here’s two big policemen. They want to talk to you.’
Henry Pogson came to the room door. His son had suggested he was bowled over with grief. His face and bearing seemed to underline this. A big man, formerly full faced—one would have thought—but with the flesh now hanging limply, a poor colour. The dark hair going grey. Green wondered how dark it had still been six weeks ago. The bagginess of the suit he wore indicated a sudden and great loss in weight. The eyes, however, still held some appearance of life. He said: ‘Forgive me, gentlemen. I must have been dreaming. I didn’t hear the door.’
‘That’s all right, sir. Tom did the honours,’ Green said.
‘The sergeant is going to mend my engine,’ said Tom.
‘You mustn’t bother the sergeant, Tom.’
Tom said reproachfully: ‘Well you wouldn’t when I asked you.’
‘Run along, Tom, and find Liz.’
The room was a comfortable study, with a desk in the bow window overlooking the garden. Three odd armchairs and a bookcase completed the furnishings, except for photographs of cricket teams around the walls, a packed cricket bag in one corner and a bat standing in a wide tin of oil. The fire was an open one, blazing well. Pogson said: ‘Please sit down, gentlemen.’
‘I think I’d better tell you who we are. I’m Detective Inspector Green of Scotland Yard, and this is Detective Sergeant Brant.’
‘Good heavens. Have they brought the Yard in?’
Green thought it was a fair indication of Pogson’s state of mind. He, one of the most concerned, was probably the only grown male in Hawksfleet and Finstoft who hadn’t either read or heard that Masters and his team were there.
Green conducted the interview gently, along the same lines as before. Brenda Pogson had gone out on Sunday the nineteenth of January to play bridge. She was a bridge fan and played on an average two nights a week. This time she had left home at half past seven to join a bridge four at a house in the road parallel to the one in which she lived. She would have a walk of something more than a quarter of a mile to get there.
‘Didn’t the people she was supposed to play with ring up to say she hadn’t arrived?’ said Green.
‘No. There was a fifth one there. Some old dear’s sister had arrived, and she’d taken her along, so they didn’t really worry about Brenda.’
‘You mean nobody even thought to inquire?’
‘They started without her. Then they got immersed in the game. If you knew these bridge fiends you’d realize that once the fever’s on them everything but the game is driven from their minds, and nothing on earth would prise them loose from the table.’ He sounded bitter. Green guessed he was blaming the bridge four for not phoning. Probably, Pogson thought, that had they reacted to her non-appearance, something might have been done to save her. Though what could have been done, Green couldn’t imagine.
‘You’re sure your wife intended to go to the bridge party?’ said Green.
‘She said so, and they were expecting her.’
‘Did the woman whose sister arrived ring your wife, by any chance?’
‘Miss Ingoldby? Yes, she did. That afternoon. Brenda took the call in here and I can remember her saying she was sure the Slades wouldn’t mind the sister going along.’
‘Thank you. Now, Mr Pogson, what time did you expect your wife back?’
‘About eleven. Not earlier. They’d play till their eyes popped out.’
‘And it was only after that that you began to get worried?’
‘I rang the Slades at half past eleven. Brenda had then been gone four hours. I phoned the police immediately, put my eldest daughter—she’s fifteen—to phone everybody we knew to find out if they’d seen Brenda, and then set off myself, on foot, to look for her.’
Green thought that Pogson must have idolized his wife. He certainly wasn’t the one to worry about impressions where her safety was concerned. He said to Pogson: ‘You were baby-sitting?’
‘In a way. I was combining that duty with pleasure.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’m a member of the cricket club . . .’
‘So I gathered.’
‘I’m also an accountant, so it�
�s almost inevitable that I should be appointed treasurer.’
Green nodded.
‘Our A.G.M. was fixed for Tuesday the twenty-first, and I had to present the accounts. The club does an internal audit, you know. I’d arranged to have that done on the Sunday night, here. Our secretary, Harry Burn and another committee member, George White, were the board. They came round here—just before Brenda set out, actually—and were here until after ten. The accounts didn’t take more than an hour, but we sat down over a drink to have a chat.’
‘Replaying old matches?’
For the first time there was a slight smile from Pogson. ‘Yes. I suppose we’re every bit as bad as the bridge players in that respect.’
‘Just one more question, sir. Did your wife get another telephone call that Sunday afternoon?’
Pogson didn’t have to think. ‘Yes. But who from, I don’t know. You see, Inspector, I’ve been over all this again and again in my mind. Searching for some reason, some clue. But I missed that call. I was playing trains with Tom by then—up in his bedroom. I heard the phone and knew Brenda answered it. It was obviously a private one for her, because she didn’t call me, and the kids say nobody rang them that afternoon. But naturally I didn’t ask Brenda, and in any case I’d forgotten about it when she called us down to tea. Now I’m left wondering whether that call could have had any bearing on her disappearance; and I suspect you are, too.’
‘We like to consider all possibilities, sir.’ Green didn’t expand his statement. He went on to ask for a list of Mrs Pogson’s contacts, and while it was being prepared, Brant went off to find Tom and renew the carbon brushes.
*
Christopher Baker himself admitted Masters and Hill. He was a pleasant man. Fair haired, brown eyed, with healthily tanned skin and a fair moustache. He gave an impression of being well washed. His leisure clothes were old, but obviously of good quality and well cared for. He was nearly as tall as Masters, but much slimmer built. There was the air of an athlete about him. He smoked a pipe with a curly stem. It was in his hand as he greeted them at the door of the detached villa in Roche Close.
He said, cheerfully: ‘Come in and join the family. We’re home-birds, these days, but the kids are beginning to champ at the bit. Now you’ve come they’re hoping this business will be cleared up and we’ll be able to get back to normal as far as possible without Cynthia.’
‘Your children are taking their mother’s disappearance well?’ asked Masters.
‘Better than I could have hoped. They’re twenty and nineteen, you know, so I suppose I ought to have known.’
‘And you?’
‘Me? I’m doing my best—for them. Every so often it gets a bit much, but Cyn and I—and the kids for that matter—didn’t wear our hearts on our sleeves. We understood one another, you see, so we could pretend to be a bit blasé. It’s best in the long run, otherwise we’d be moping now. Instead, d’you know what we’re doing? Playing three-handed Ludo and waiting for Sara’s boy friend to come along to make a fourth.’ He ushered them across the hall and into the sitting-room. The Ludo board was on a stool in front of the fire. ‘Meet Sara and Royce.’
Sara Baker, at twenty, was a girl who at a first meeting struck one as knowing that she looked good without much effort on her part. It had all been done for her at birth. She was ash blonde with a beautiful face and eyes put in with sooty fingers. She wore a simple black frock. The unembroidered purity of its line must have exercised a master in the art, and had he seen Sara in it, he would have wept at the perfection he had created. Her voice had just a trace of huskiness—a drawl that might—if disembodied—have sounded supercilious, but which, backed by her smile and gay eyes was devastatingly attractive. Masters could tell that her father, as he introduced her, worshipped her. His son, Royce, was a fine specimen, too. Nearly six feet tall, nearly as fair as his sister, with hair that waved, god-like, above his ears. His nose was straight, his eyes humorous, and his handshake firm. Unlike his sister, he was dressed casually, in almost white slacks and a fair-isle patterned sloppy joe.
Baker said in reply to Masters’ question: ‘We’re civil engineers specializing in land reclamation, though we’ll build you anything you like, won’t we, Royce? Strictly between ourselves, Mr Masters, Royce has ideas about bridges, but nobody seems to be buying many these days. Still, he’s learning fast.’
‘Land reclamation?’
‘There’s a host of it to be done within striking distance of here. From the Yorkshire coast, down through the fens to the Wash. These are our main stamping grounds.’
Sara said: ‘I’ll ask Clarice to bring some tea. She’s our very present helpmeet, Mr Masters, and one of your fans. She told me in the kitchen this morning that now you’re on the job it won’t be long before it’s cleared up.’
‘I hope I justify her trust in me.’ Masters turned to Baker. ‘Now, sir? What happened here on the evening of . . . when was it? Saturday the twenty-fifth?’
‘I honestly don’t know. I was out. I’d been to have a haircut in the afternoon. Latish. It was half past five when I left the chair. There was a friend of mine there—Bishop’s his name—at the same time. As we left, the barber locked up behind us. Bishop said: “One door closes, another opens. The Ace of Spades is open. How about a quickie?” Nothing loath, I agreed, and we were there drinking for over an hour. It was after seven when I got home. The kids had gone off somewhere. Sara with her fiancé and Royce with a nice bit of homework I wouldn’t mind myself . . .’ He winked at Royce as he said it. Royce grinned. His father went on: ‘Cynthia was putting on her coat and hat. She told me Clarice would give me my meal. She, Cynthia, was going off to visit a friend of hers whose daughter’s getting married at Easter. Cynthia was a bit of a designer—hats and things—millinery or whatever it’s called—as a hobby, you know—and she’d promised to think up some snazzy sort of headgear for the bridesmaids.’
‘Was your wife’s visit to her friend pre-arranged? Had she mentioned it to you earlier?’
‘Not a word, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone with Bishop to the Ace of Spades. And as for pre-arrangement—well, you can make what you like of it. When Cynthia didn’t return, I rang up, and she’d never arrived. Said they weren’t expecting her specifically that night. There was just a vague arrangement that Cynthia should drop in sometime, as and when she liked.’
Masters thanked him. Sara had returned, and close behind her Clarice, with the tea. Sara introduced Clarice to Masters. It was clear the middle-aged woman was thrilled to meet him and she asked if there was anything she could do to help bring the murderer of her mistress to book. She was delighted when Masters said that there was something she could do. Make a list—in conjunction with the family—of all Cynthia Baker’s contacts.
*
It was past six o’clock when, the party complete with their lists of names, returned to the Estuary. Masters said to Garner: ‘I’m not inviting you in for a drink just now.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘Your wife will be expecting you, won’t she?’
‘Yes, sir. Kippers for tea every Sunday at our house. They’ll be waiting for me.’
‘That’s what I thought. But could you return later? Say at half past eight?’
Garner seemed only too willing to come. Masters said: ‘Those lists. I want some local knowledge. My two sergeants will be collating them. I want you present, just in case. Your wife won’t mind?’
‘She’s been a copper’s wife for long enough, sir. She’ll probably pop out to her sister’s anyhow. She usually does, Sunday nights.’
When Garner had gone, they walked into the foyer. Tintern was standing by the reception desk, complaining to the manager. Masters overheard a little of it and halted to hear the rest. Tintern was saying: ‘. . . and she wouldn’t allow me to use it. She refused to unlock it.’
‘Because the washer had gone on one of the hot taps, sir, and we’d had to turn the water off in that bathroom, otherwise the whole hotel woul
d have been out of hot water.’
‘Because the washer had gone on one of the hot taps? Last week I couldn’t use one of the lavatories.’
‘I explained that too, sir. We have to do our decorating in the winter. We only put one lavatory out of action at a time. There are more than thirty in the hotel.’
‘More than thirty in the hotel? I had to walk a mile to find one.’
Masters and his party moved on. Green said: ‘He’s always grousing. A real crabby arse.’
‘Artistic temperament,’ said Hill.
‘Artistic? He’s just plain mardy.’
‘Who’s for a drink?’ Masters asked.
The Sundowner was empty except for Shirl. She said: ‘You found the fifth ’un, then? When’re you going to get the bloke who did it?’
‘Give us a chance,’ said Green.
‘To do what?’
Green grinned: ‘If we hadn’t company present I’d tell you.’
At that moment Tintern came down the stairs. Masters noticed that he had changed his shirt and was very spruce and well shaven. To their surprise, he said gaily: ‘Ah! There you are, Chief Inspector. I understand I have to congratulate you.’
‘Thank you, Mr Tintern.’
This was the first time he had spoken to them. Yet he was treating them like old pals. ‘Always knew you’d do it. Professionals, that’s what you are. Come along, gentlemen, drink up. I must buy you a celebratory drink.’
‘Well, Mr Tintern, we’ve already got pints,’ said Green.
‘Already got pints? Never mind. There’ll be plenty of room where that’s going to. Or if not, what about a gin? Foursome’s gin. That’s what I always have.’
‘Foursome’s gin? I don’t think I know it. Is it London or Plymouth?’ said Masters.
Tintern clapped him on the back, and said with a laugh: ‘Is it London or Plymouth? There’s a joke. It’s Hawksfleet. Pure Hawksfleet.’ He pointed to the far end of Shirl’s shelves. ‘There it is, look. One, two, three, four, fifth from the end, second shelf, between those two red bottles.’
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