Pollard stared at a landscape. Who would have imagined that the smoothness of terylene masked such diversity? The quilting formed a ravine, from which a precipice rose to an undulating plain with a host of minor topographical irregularities. A blue flower of convolvulus type dominated the scene by its vastness. The central area of faint discolouration was a huge lake, fretting at its shores. And there was a deep hole suggesting the mouth of a cave, with a savage fissure radiating from it.
He roused himself to attend to the experts from the forensic laboratory, and ask some intelligent questions.
‘The chap must have been startled, and accidentally dropped the syringe just as he was going to give the kid a shot,’ one of them was saying. ‘The jolt as it landed on the quilt, or the involuntary pressure of his thumb would account for the spill.’
‘Then when he picked the thing up, the tip of the needle caught in the stuff, I suppose, and tore it?’ Pollard asked, pointing to the mouth of the cave with the point of a pencil.
‘This is it.’
‘What was the stuff?’
‘Paraldehyde. Because the quilt had been screwed up, the stink was still unmistakable before we got going on tests.’
‘Where do people — lay people, I mean — get paraldehyde from?’
The expert shrugged his shoulders.
‘Manufacturing pharmaceutical chemist? Dispensary of big hospital? Of course you’d have to know the safe dose to give a baby of that age.’
This conversation was the main event of Tuesday morning. Thereafter, there was nothing to do but wait for the information being gathered about Paul and Janice King, and for Eddy Horner’s return to London with information about when the Fortnight Film would be available. Michael Jay, Susan Crump and the Kings would have left Crowncliff by now and be heading Londonwards. Pollard had a mental picture of the blue Hillman, the battered estate car and the green dormobile borne along in a rising tide of traffic, advancing in a series of sweeps and checks like the sea on Kittitoe beach.
‘That dormobile,’ he said aloud to Toye. ‘We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the original plan was kidnapping, not murder. The Kings must have made preparations for hiding the baby. If everything had gone according to plan, a terrific hue and cry would have started up as soon as the Horner-Townsend lot got home late on the Friday night. Unless, of course, there had already been a phone call to Wendy, warning against calling in the police, and stating the ransom terms.’
‘Or a note made up out of newspaper type for her to find,’ Toye suggested. ‘All the same, the Kings couldn’t absolutely bank on there not being a search. As we know they were both in the school building from 9.40 to about 11.00, the idea must have been to stow the kid away in the dormobile, safely doped to keep it quiet.’
He eyed Pollard speculatively, but drew no response beyond a resigned remark about getting down the overflowing In tray.
It was mid-afternoon before Sergeant Longman materialized with the eagerly awaited preliminary report on the Kings. He had often worked with Pollard before, and possessed an exceptional flair for nosing out the right kind of information about the past lives and present circumstances of suspected persons.
‘It’s all in my mind, as the doctors keep telling you these days,’ he said. ‘Will you have the gist of it, sir, or wait till I’ve got it all down on paper?’
‘Have either of the Kings got a record?’
‘Not as far as I can trace at the moment. No dabs yet.’
‘Then go ahead right now. Never mind about their past histories.’
‘They’re chronically broke,’ Longman began, going straight to the root of the matter…
The Kings’ landlady had told him what a struggle it was to get the rent out of them, and that a chap from some moneylending concern had called to see Mr King several times lately. Discreet enquiries had revealed debts to local tradesmen in Mowstead, the outer suburb where they lived. There were no children, and they both had jobs, but splashed the lolly around when the pay packets came in, and Mr King was said to frequent the dogs. He worked full time with Horner’s Holidays, often taking parties abroad.
‘That may explain the shortage of money,’ Pollard remarked. ‘He mixes with people with more cash than he has, and both of them try to keep up with the Joneses. Is she full time with Horner’s, too?’
‘No, she only works for them during the summer. She goes back to her old job in the winter — the one she had before she married him, six years ago. She’s a qualified dispenser.’
‘What?’ Pollard shouted. ‘Say that again!’
Longman expanded the statement. Janice King worked in the dispensary of the South Metropolitan Hospital, which was glad of additional qualified staff during the busy winter months.
‘Have I brought home the bacon, sir?’ he asked.
‘The whole hog, from the look of it. Listen, and I’ll put you in the picture.’
He had just finished doing so when the expected telephone call from Eddy Horner came through, who had now arrived back in London.
‘Horner here,’ came the now familiar voice. ‘The goods will be delivered to you during tomorrow morning. I didn’t consider an earlier delivery practicable.’
‘Thanks very much,’ Pollard replied. ‘Where do I contact you after delivery?’
‘The office, if before five. I’ve got a private line for personal calls. Otherwise at my flat here. I’m in the book. All right?’
‘Fine.’
The line went dead.
‘Cold steel, that little guy,’ Pollard remarked, as he put down the receiver. ‘In a highly emotive situation like this, he can forget he’s the boss of Horner’s Holidays, do what he’s asked, use his judgement, and ask no questions. Single-minded to a degree I find a bit disconcerting… What sort of a joint do the Kings live in, Longman?’
‘They’ve got a so-called flat in a ropey old Victorian house, Number Twenty, Dunsland Road, Mowstead. The lease of the whole place runs out in a couple of years, and the speculators can’t wait to get the demolition gangs in. The old girl who lives there is cashing in for all she’s worth, by letting bits out while the going’s good. Furnished flats, she calls them, but I reckon she’s sailing pretty near the wind, and that’s why she doesn’t try to evict the Kings, although they’re such bad payers. I went along as a prospective tenant, who’d heard that someone was moving out, and got all the gen about the Kings without even trying.’
‘Are there garages for the tenants?’
‘No. I made a point of asking that. Their cars have to stand out. There’s what was a small lawn affair in front — it was a good class house once.’
Pollard did not miss the fleeting glance exchanged between Longman and Toye. He sat doodling on his blotter, his mind moving rapidly. How he detested this stage of a case, when there was nothing to do but hang around. Or was there? A money motive behind the attempted kidnapping could obviously be established now, but what else was there to justify an arrest? No proof that King had rung the coach office to alter the time of return from Starbury, nor that he had not been fully occupied in editing film during the critical period on the evening of August 20 — not so far, anyway. It’s thin, he told himself. Bloody thin. Suppose they did have a bash at looking inside the dormobile, as Toye and Longman were obviously raring to do? How did the chance of discovering preparations for hiding the Townsend baby weigh against the risk of alerting someone in the house, and perhaps having to make a premature arrest, with the case against King incomplete? On the other hand, mightn’t any tell-tale evidence in the dormobile be removed during the next day or two? All told, there was ample justification for a search warrant, wasn’t there?
The silence was eventually broken rather tentatively by Toye.
‘It’s a Roamhome B Type,’ he ventured. ‘I could easily put my hand on a plan of one.’
Pollard grinned suddenly.
‘All right. Go and get it, blast you!’
Longman grabbed a sheet of paper, and
began sketching rapidly.
‘It’s like this,’ he said. ‘Here’s the front of the house, with about a forty foot depth of lawn here. Low stone wall with the railings gone on the road side, here. The wall’s been broken down by the gate, so that cars can drive straight in. There’s some tatty shrubs giving a bit of cover from the road.’
Pollard contemplated the rough plan.
‘A lot would depend on whether the dormobile’s parked just inside the wall, or bang up next to the house.’
‘The local chaps could check up on that for us, sir.’
‘Us?’
‘Something to be said for including Our Man Who’s Been There in the party, don’t you think, sir?’
‘You and Toye seem to be getting the bit between your teeth,’ Pollard remarked, picking up the telephone receiver. ‘Of course, anything to do with a car goes straight to his head… Get me the HQ of the Mowstead area, will you?’
He waited, conscious of having burnt his boats.
In the event, the operation mounted at 02.00 hours on the following morning was quite substantial. Pollard, Toye, Longman and Boyce drove down from the Yard to Mowstead police headquarters, arriving simultaneously with a patrol car, whose occupants reported all quiet at 20 Dunsland Road, and the Roamhome parked the second vehicle in, between two others.
A map was produced, and it was decided to approach the house from the upper end of Dunsland Road, which, Pollard learnt, sloped gently downhill. The patrols had noted several gaps among the cars parked along the kerb at the top. The Yard party would proceed to the spot on foot, Boyce being equipped with camera and flash bulbs. Behind them the Mowstead police car would coast down in neutral, and draw up outside Number Twenty, keeping in touch with their station by radio.
‘If you’re spotted, and a 999 call comes in here, we pick it up, and come forward, and say we’re on a job, and not to worry if they see or hear anything. How’s that?’ Inspector Hallett asked.
‘Fine,’ Pollard replied. ‘I don’t see what better cover we could have. Well, I suppose we may as well get cracking.’
Ten minutes later the four Yard men were walking quietly down a deserted suburban road. There was no moonlight, but the clouds were patchy, and visibility surprisingly good. The air was chilly, but still stuffy: the pre-dawn freshness was yet to come. A light breeze rustled some dry leaves in the gutter, the sound almost indistinguishable from the hiss of tyres on tarmac as the Mowstead police car glided past, and came to rest twenty-five yards ahead. They came up to it, and passing through the gap in the wall of Number Twenty, approached the Roamhome with infinite caution.
As expected, it was locked. Toye got to work with an assortment of keys. The delay, actually only a couple of minutes, seemed an eternity, during which Pollard had ample time to visualize the complete and humiliating failure of the expedition. There was a faint click. Toye opened the door of the Roamhome, holding it until it rested against the side of the vehicle, revealing the shadowy interior. Then, by previous arrangement, he stepped inside, and Pollard mounted the steps.
He halted by the passenger seat to allow his eyes to become acclimatized. Even before this happened he sensed instinctively that the floor space in the rear was not clear. Very tentatively he switched on a small torch, pointing it downwards. To his dismay he saw an untidy heap of boxes, folders and various unidentifiable objects, and something large and shrouded which suggested a film projector. How in hell, he wondered, were they to get at the double seats along the sides, which pulled out to form the bed, and under which were the storage compartments forming the most likely hiding places for a small baby? They’d have to risk shifting some of the junk. Reluctantly, he reversed down the steps again, and broke the news to the others in a low tone.
‘If anyone can get at those bunkers, you can,’ he mouthed into Toye’s ear. ‘At any rate, you’ve had some experience of a contraption like this. But no risks — that’s final. I’d rather pack it in.’
Toye vanished into the Roamhome.
An interminable wait ensued. Faint sounds and occasional glimmers of light came intermittently from the interior. Pollard realized that he was painfully taut, and tried to relax. He shuffled his feet, trod on a twig which snapped with a sound like a pistol shot, and swore picturesquely under his breath. Then silence descended for another aeon.
Close at hand an ear-splitting yell suddenly rent the night from top to bottom, and was immediately taken up and surpassed in volume by another. The two rose to an ever heightened pitch, fell, interwove on a still rising note, and were merged in a chorus of eerie screams. Pollard held his breath. To his horror a lighted rectangle sprang out of the blank bulk of the house. Toye instantly switched off his torch. There was a wild scuffle past the Roamhome, and a low moaning started up. The lighted window was thrown open, and a swish of falling water resulted in a stampede at ground level. There was a pause. At last the window was slammed down again, and a few moments later the light went out.
Pollard expelled a huge pent-up breath. Longman performed a realistic pantomime of neck-wringing, and Boyce’s shoulders were eloquent. There was an interval during which Toye’s activities seemed to be suspended. Finally the faint sounds of movement and the occasional gleams of light began again.
The wait was so long that it began to seem quite impossible that anything could ever happen. Then Toye was coming down the steps.
‘Got it,’ he breathed. ‘I’ll tell you where to plant your feet.’
Pollard edged in behind him towards the double seat on the off side. Its upholstered base had been raised. Toye directed his torch into the storage space underneath. It was empty, except for folded blankets, and half a dozen tins of baby food. The ray of the torch shifted to the side of the bunker, and Pollard saw that two holes had been cut for ventilation.
‘Not part of the original outfit,’ Toye murmured, ‘but nobody’d think anything of it, as they were keeping stores there. On the floor, on my right…’
Pollard found himself looking down at a curiously familiar collection of objects: tinned meat, fruit and vegetables, packets of tea and sugar, and other groceries, all neatly packed together, but apparently in nothing. He bent down, and discovered that they were in a transparent tray of some plastic material, about four inches deep.
‘Fits the top of the compartment like a glove,’ Toye said very quietly. ‘Foxed me at first. It wasn’t till I stuck my finger through one of those holes and, found a space that I tumbled to it.’
‘I’ll send Boyce in. Make him keep down the number of flashes.’
There were three. Pollard stood anxiously watching the house, but there was no sign of life. Six feet of Boyce came down the steps in reverse. From inside the Roamhome came the sounds of Toye restoring the, status quo. Then he, too, emerged, closing and relocking the door. As the Yard party appeared on the pavement, there came the sound of a brake being released, and the Mowstead support began to coast downhill, gathering momentum as it went.
‘One of your finest hours, my old and bold,’ Pollard remarked to Toye when they were safely embarked. ‘Let’s hope they won’t notice their gear has been shifted, that’s all.’
‘Not them,’ replied Toye with mingled gratification and disapproval. ‘Using the inside of a nice little job like that Roamhome as a junk heap.’
Sergeant Boyce had the photographs ready and blown up by the time Pollard arrived at the Yard after a few hours’ sleep at home.
‘Good show,’ he remarked, studying one of the virtually invisible tray packed with groceries. ‘Of course, a chap used to a fiddling job like editing films would be nippy with his hands. He could have easily put this affair together out of some sort of cellophane material. And there was plenty of room for the kid underneath,’ he added, inspecting the shot of the interior of the storage compartment, ‘and air, too, for short periods.’
‘You don’t think it would have been discovered if the Roamhome had been searched?’ Toye asked.
‘It depends on how a
nd when it was searched — if at all. We can assume a ransom demand, backed up with the usual threats. I can see Penny Townsend absolutely refusing to have the police brought in before they’d got the baby back, can’t you? I think—’ He broke off as the Fortnight Film was brought in, and deposited on his desk.
Thereafter the centre of operations shifted to the forensic laboratory, where it was made clear to Pollard that his presence was not desired. He returned reluctantly to his room, and made a pretence of catching up on other cases. Before going to lunch he rang the laboratory, only to be sworn at by the expert investigating the film. It was not until mid-afternoon that he was invited to come along.
‘Quite interesting,’ the expert grudgingly admitted, after a routine protest about being expected to carry out rush jobs with scientific accuracy. ‘Except for the last 150 feet — a usual length for a cine film — the film is homogeneous, and has been very recently edited. We’ve done various tests on the transparent adhesive tape used in the splicing. The greater part of the last 150 feet was edited some time ago, and there are curious features. Sections have recently been cut out, and others inserted, which seem identical with the earlier part of the film, as far as the splicing tape goes. These insertions — there are three of them — seem to be primarily shots of people. Like a run-through of this last part? Boyce seems to be hovering.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Pollard replied.
The projector whirred, and a length of film was run through at speed. Then the confused imagery on the screen resolved itself into a caption, which stated that the historic town of Winnage summarized 2000 years of human occupation.
Trying not to be distracted by the excellence of the photography, Pollard watched with painful concentration in the hope of detecting discrepancies. There simply must be some, he thought, if most of this film was taken last year. Or even two years ago. Of course King would have chosen one with much the same sort of weather as this year…
A cheerful group came across a medieval bridge. These would be 1971 Fortnighters, of course.
No Vacation From Murder Page 19