by Joyce Porter
Dover gazed dully at Mr Lickes and offered no comment.
‘Well,’ continued Mr Lickes, giving the toes of his right foot a vigorous work-out, ‘Wing Commander Pile and I got to where North Street crosses East Street and it was utter chaos. People were rushing about and shouting and screaming and there was this sort of awful gap where the top side of North Street had been. I can’t tell you how dreadful it was.’
‘Good,’ said Dover briskly. ‘Don’t!’
Mr Lickes blinked. He was all for cutting things short but one does like one’s efforts to be appreciated. He thought that detectives were supposed to bornbard you with questions and demand the most detailed accounts. This specimen didn’t even seem mildly interested in anything. ‘Well,' he asked uncertainly, ‘what is it you want to know?’
Dover blew his cheeks out with an air of hopelessness. ‘Oh, who you saw and what you did,’ he advised. ‘Just cut out the hearts-and-flowers stuff.’
Hearts-and-flowers stuff? Mr Lickes supposed that included any description of the horrors and the suffering he had witnessed that terrible night. Oh well, if that’s what Chief Inspector Dover wanted, he could have it. ‘As far as I can remember, the first person I saw after I’d met up with Wing Commander Pile was one of those artist types from the place they call the Studio. That’s the house in East Street opposite Mr Chantry’s place.’
‘Name?’ said Dover.
‘Oliver, Jim Oliver. He’s the painter. The other man’s a sculptor and the woman does pottery. Well, Jim Oliver was just coming out of their house. He’d got a spade he’d come back for. We were just asking him what was happening when young Hooper loomed up out of the darkness.’ Mr Lickes glanced at Dover doubtfully. ‘Colin Hooper is Mr Chantry’s son-in-law,' he said.
‘I know that!’ snarled Dover. ‘Get on with it!’
‘Well, he told us that the worst part seemed to be over by the pub. He and Mr Chantry had been doing what they could in that area but they needed help. I volunteered to go back with him, and Wing Commander Pile said he’d join us as soon as he’d collected some clothes. Jim Oliver, though, said he and Lloyd Thomas had been trying to rescue a woman at the other end of North Street – that’s why he’d come back for the spade – and so he’d have to get back there. Well, we split up then. Colin Hooper and I went off in the direction of the pub but, when we got as far as the cottages, I found young Mrs Jenkins trying to free her husband from a pile of bricks and things that had fallen across his legs. I stopped off to help her and Colin Hooper went on. I think he said something about joining his father-in-law. After that, I honestly don’t remember noticing anybody much. We got Mr Jenkins free and his wife and I dragged him clear and then carried him off to the Studio. They’ve got a big sort of kitchen there and it sort of developed into a casualty clearing station. When I’d got Jenkins settled I went back to the cottages. I knew the people who lived in the middle one – the girl helps out in the kitchen for us when we’re busy – and . . .’
‘All right, you’re a hero,’ said Dover sourly. ‘Me, I’m interested in Chantry.’
‘I didn’t see Mr Chantry.’
‘Not at all?’
'Not at all.’
‘But you were working in the same area.’
‘Yes, but you’ve no idea what it was like. Everything had just slipped down the side of the hill. All you could do was scramble down in the dark and start pulling the debris away and shouting to see if there was anybody trapped underneath. It was heavy work and it took simply hours. You’d no time to bother about what anybody else was doing. I just got on with my bit and I suppose everybody else was the same.’
‘Didn’t you notice anybody?’
‘Only the poor devils I was trying to pull out – and none of them was in any state to go around committing murder, I can tell you.’
Dover scowled. It was going to be one of those cases, all right. It’d take a miracle to sort this lot out and Dover knew, none better, how very few miracles had ever smiled on him. ‘Did you see Chantry’s son-in-law?’ he asked, since Mr Lickes appeared to be waiting for him to say something.
Mr Lickes shook his head. ‘Not until it was light and the police and everybody’d got up here. When they arrived and took over, most of the rest of us packed it in. We’d just about had it, you understand. My wife had set up a sort of canteen in Chantry’s front garden and she and some of the other ladies were serving tea and sandwiches. I stopped off for a cup and I seem to remember that Colin Hooper was there, too. After that I came back to the hotel and had a quick bath and changed and then it was time to start dealing with the breakfasts. Life must go on, mustn’t it?’ Mr Lickes raised his arms above his head and drew in a deep breath.
Dover had a mind like a jumping bean and Mr Lickes’s peculiar antics had been irritating him for some time. ‘What do you keep wriggling about for?’ he demanded.
‘Isometrics,’ replied Mr Lickes, delighted that they’d now moved on to a mutually interesting topic of conversation.
‘You should see a doctor, laddie.’
Mr Lickes giggled. Fancy this surly-looking policeman having an impish sense of humour! ‘A fellow likes to keep fit,’ he explained, ‘and this isometric system, suitably modified to meet my own personal requirements, does pretty well.’
‘I should have thought you got enough blooming exercise just doing your own job,’ observed Dover. ‘I know I do.’
‘Ah, I’m afraid a lot of people delude themselves into thinking that. It’s a great mistake.’ Mr Lickes ran a discerning eye over Dover’s bulging form. ‘I’ve got a few books I could lend you, if you like.’
‘Don’t bother,’ growled Dover.
Mr Lickes understood his attitude perfectly. ‘No, well it’s not everybody’s idea of the perfect system,’ he agreed. ‘It’s not even mine, come to that. I’m really a great believer in jogging. You know, out in the fresh air in all weathers with the wind and the rain in your face, just jogging happily along. I used to find that a steady five or six miles a day kept me in perfect condition. However, in the circumstances, I thought it better to give it up for a while.’
‘In what circumstances?’ asked Dover who’d already classified Mr Lickes as a chronic nut-case some time ago.
Mr Lickes’s mouth twisted bitterly. ‘There were complaints,’ he said. ‘Well, only one really. You wouldn’t think people would be so narrow-minded in this day and age, would you? My apparel may have been scanty but it was not indecent. And to be accused of being a Peeping Tom into the bargain!’ Mr Lickes drew himself up with a fastidious shudder. ‘A man in my position has no defence against that kind of slander.’
‘A Peeping Tom?’ Dover found this sort of thing much more diverting than any lousy old murder investigation. ‘Who called you that, eh?’
‘You may well ask! As a matter of fact, it was Wing Commander Pile. As I explained to him, I’d been jogging around this village after supper for more years than I can remember without a single complaint from anybody. Then he moves down here and I’m accused of being an exhibitionist and a voyeur of a particularly nasty kind.’
‘No!’ said Dover encouragingly.
‘I thought you’d find it hard to credit,’ agreed Mr Lickes. ‘It was his daughter, you see. I used to go via Cherry Lane and West Street and out through the old Sally Gate, down the main road and back round through Sidle Alley. Well, by that time I was usually feeling a bit puffed and I used to stop for a few moments to get my second wind. Miss Pile’s bedroom was at the back of the house, overlooking Sidle Alley, and Wing Commander Pile had the infernal cheek to accuse me of pausing there to watch her undress. I ask you! Of course, one understands his concern for the poor girl but, even so . . .’ Mr Lickes shuddered again and looked at his watch. ‘Good heavens, is that the time? Well, if you have no further questions, Mr Dover, I really have rather a lot to do downstairs so . . .’
Unlike her husband, Mrs Lickes was only too glad to sit down and have a bit of a rest. She was a frail, tired
looking woman who accepted, perhaps a little too readily, the dictum that the customer is always right.
‘I put her in one of the spare bedrooms,’ she told Dover, referring to Wing Commander Pile’s daughter. ‘She’d a few bruises and cuts but I thought the best thing I could do was to get her settled and off to sleep as soon as possible. Of course, if she’d been a normal sort of girl, you could have perhaps found something for her to do to take her mind off things – I’ve always found there’s nothing like hard work to stop you worrying – but with her being like she is – well, I didn’t quite know what to do. I mean, I’ve never had any experience of people like that before. I wasn’t too happy about just leaving her all on her own in a strange bed but things looked such a mess round North Street that I really felt I ought to go back there and help out. I did wonder about asking one of our ladies to look after her but, well, you don’t like to trouble your guests, not with a thing like that, do you? In the end I gave her a couple of my sleeping tablets. That put her out like a light and she slept right through until gone lunch time. By the way, before I forget, what time would you like your afternoon tea?’
‘Four o’clock,’ said Dover promptly, grateful to find somebody at last who’d got their priorities right.
Mrs Lickes nodded and went on with her story. How she’d made a gallon or so of sweet tea and put it in an old milk chum they happened to have, and how she’d lugged that plus an enormous pile of sandwiches, another torch and a couple of old sheets for bandages all the way back to North Street. She reckoned that, what with one thing and another, she must have been away for about an hour.
‘I saw them taking some of the wounded into the Studio so that’s where I went first of all. It was terrible in there. All these poor people lying about on the floor, bleeding and moaning. This Wittgenstein woman – she makes vases and things – she was doing the best she could but there is a limit, isn’t there? I mean with first aid. I’m always afraid you might be doing more harm than good, fiddling around.
‘Well, I suppose it must have been about half past four when some proper medical people turned up and I thought they could manage without me for a bit and so I went back outside again. To tell you the truth, I was worried about Mr Lickes. He’s got to be awfully careful, you know. Any heavy work and he ricks that back of his before you can say knife. I know people think he’s awfully strong with his physical fitness and all those muscles and every things but I’ve learned better than to take any chances with him. Oh – that reminds me – I haven’t got the coal in for the lounge fire yet. Coal fires look ever so nice but they do make a of work, don’t **hey?’
There was a pause and Dover opened his eyes to find Mrs Lickes gazing expectantly at him. He made a valiant attempt at bridging the hiatus. ‘Oh, quite,’ he said.
Mrs Lickes appeared to be awaiting more.
Dover silently damned the stupid cow to all eternity and tried again. ‘Now then – er – when you were doing this Florence Nightingale stuff . . .’
‘In the Studio? Yes?’
‘Er – did you see What’s-his-name?’
‘Mr Chantry? No, I don’t think so.’
‘Oh, ’strewth!’ snapped Dover crossly, ‘You’re worse than your blooming husband! Can’t you remember, for God’s sake?’ Mrs Lickes, more than a little taken aback by this onslaught, couldn’t. She began making excuses. It had been dark in the Studio – did Mr Dover realize that the electricity had all gone off and they had to manage with a couple of old oil lamps? – and then, of course, people had looked such a mess that it was almost impossible to recognize anybody. The men in particular had their faces and clothes absolutely caked in mud.
A sideways peep at Dover’s implacable visage warned Mrs Lickes that she would have to do better than this. She managed a few more feeble remarks about being fully occupied with the frightened and injured victims of the earthquake and then let her voice trail guiltily away.
Dover emitted an elaborate sigh of exasperation. ‘Oh, all right,’ he snarled,’ though, if you ask me, there’s none so blind as those trying to conceal evidence from the police. Now, get on with it! I’ve got something better to do with my time than listen to you imitating a babbling brook. You left this Studio place. Then what?’
Mrs Lickes gulped back her tears and told herself it was probably just his way of putting things. ‘Well,’ she resumed, ‘I thought I’d better go into what was left of North Street. Everybody had been saying that’s where the worst damage was and I knew I’d find Mr Lickes right in the thick of things. Well, when I got round the comer, I saw that there were a lot of people gathered in Mr Chantry’s front garden. I went in to ask if any of them had seen Mr Lickes and then I found that Millie Hooper was there, making cups of tea and things. They have Calor gas, you see, so they were all right. Well, somebody said they’d seen Mr Lickes only half an hour or so earlier so I thought he was all right and I decided to stay and give Millie Hooper a hand. Poor girl, she was looking so peaked. She’s expecting, you know, and with all that standing around . . . Well, it started getting light and more and more police and demolition men and first-aid people kept arriving, so our local people began knocking off. I caught sight of Mr Lickes and I insisted that he came straight back here to the hotel. He catches cold so easily and he was absolutely soaked to the skin, poor thing. I meant to follow him in a few minutes, of course, because the WVS had got a proper canteen going in the Church Hall and we were running out of food and things anyhow. But, it was Millie Hooper, you see. She’d only just begun to think about what her father was going to say when he got back and found she’d given away every scrap of food and drink they had in the house. Mr Chantry wasn’t a mean man, not really, but he was what you might call careful. I know Millie Hooper had to account to him for every last penny of her housekeeping allowance. Well, the more she thought about it, the more upset she got. In the end I decided to hang on for a bit so I could put a good word in for her when he finally turned up.’
A violent creaking of the bed springs warned Mrs Lickes that Detective Chief Inspector Dover was rousing himself to put a question.
‘Frightened of her father, was she?’
‘Frightened?’ Mrs Lickes gave a rather uncharitable laugh. ‘She was terrified of him! Just like her poor dead mother, if you really want to know.’
‘Why?’
‘He was a hard man. Hard in business and hard in his private life. He never accepted excuses. He’d got very high standards and he expected other people, especially his family, to live up to them. Millie Hooper’s twenty-one, you know, and right up to the time site got married she had to be home every night by ten o’clock. The poor girl was the laughing stock of the village. There isn’t another teenager in the place who was treated like that. It meant she couldn’t go to the pictures in Beccles or dances or anything. She’d no life at all, poor kid. We all thought she’d finish up an old maid, waiting on her father hand and foot until he passed on but then, all of a sudden, Colin Hooper appeared on the scene. I wouldn’t exactly call him a knight in shining armour but at least he was a bit of support for Millie’s side.’ Mrs Lickes glanced at Dover slyly. ‘Well, that’s what we thought he was going to be. They’ve been married nearly six months now and, I must say, he’s not put up all that much of a show so far. Mind you, he’s in a very difficult position. He was working for Mr Chantry when he met Millie and now he’s a junior partner in the business. That was Mr Chantry’s wedding present to them. Naturally, they had to pay for it. No question of a house of their own, you see. Mr Chantry insisted on them living with him. Well, it’s a big house, isn’t it? Plenty of room for everybody.’
Dover was now beginning to sit up and take notice. His fat, pasty face assumed an almost happy expression as, for the first time on this lousy case, he felt solid ground beneath his feet. A disgruntled, down-trodden daughter! Now, that was something a chap could get his teeth into!
Dover’s approach to murder cases was crudely simple. Husbands were murdered by their w
ives and wives by their husbands. If they weren’t, he rapidly lost interest in the face of the additional work likely to be involved in pinning the crime on somebody else. Occasionally, of course, even Dover was forced to adjust his ideas. Some murder victims hadn’t got a spouse to cop it for them and the chief inspector was obliged to look elsewhere. That’s when children proved such a blessing.
He addressed Mrs Lickes with unaccustomed delicacy. ‘This fellow Chantry was rolling in it, was he?’
‘I believe he was quite nicely off,’ admitted Mrs Lickes, who had more than an inkling of where Dover’s thoughts were wending. ‘He wasn’t short of the odd shilling, that’s for sure. He was the biggest builder round these parts and those property deals of his in the village must have brought in quite a pretty penny.’
‘And his daughter’s the sole heir, eh?’
‘I should imagine so. She was his only child and his wife’s been dead for a long time now. Millie Hooper will come in for the lot, if you ask me – the business and everything.’
‘Who’ll run the business now?’
Mrs Lickes avoided Dover’s eye as she put the boot in. ‘Well, Colin Hooper will, won’t he? That’s what everybody in the village is assuming. There were only two partners, you see. Him and poor Mr Chantry.’
‘It’s an ill wind,’ said Dover with patent cunning.
Mrs Lickes was forced to agree. ‘Young people are so impatient these days,’ she sighed. ‘They don’t want to wait for anything. Of course,’ she added hurriedly, ‘I don’t for one moment believe that Millie Hooper would have harmed a hair of her father’s head. She was quite fond of him, really. Besides, she wouldn’t have been up to it physically, would she?’