“If you’re so sure,” said Berger, “why don’t you want to talk?”
“Talk to the pigs? You must think I’m crackers.”
“That’s exactly what we think,” said Green. “Now, lad, you’ve one last chance. Either come and talk or risk arrest. And before you answer, let me promise you this. If you choose to talk, I shall tell you just why I could arrest you on suspicion of murder, with every chance of making it stick. And just in case you still want to play it the hard way, we two are not alone. We have a little bit of help all round the building. In fact, your friend Constable Sutcliffe is the one right outside the door. He came with me in my car. Now, lad, the choice is yours. Come and talk or stay in a cell overnight.”
“Let’s do what he wants, Ted. It can’t do any harm.”
Mobb turned to Green. “Come? Where to?”
“Well now, what about having a cosy chat in one of your homes? Mrs Lawson won’t mind, will she? And I know she isn’t out tonight, while Mr and Mrs Mobb are both out.”
“At our house?”
“Yes, Eric. You see, lad, when I promised you a chat, that’s exactly what I meant. Nothing more. And if we’re just going to talk, well, your mum being there and the familiar surroundings will give you a bit of confidence, won’t it? And maybe we’ll be lucky enough to get a cup of coffee.”
“She doesn’t like me,” said Mobb.
“Who’s she, lad? The cat’s mother?”
Mobb didn’t reply. Green turned to Berger. “Nip on ahead, Sergeant, and tell Constable Sutcliffe to go along to the corner and tell the local sergeant to stand his other three men down. Warn Sutcliffe to get back to the car sharpish as I don’t want to hang about.”
Berger replied with a straight face: “Right, sir,” and then went off ahead. By the time Green and his two charges reached the door of the amusement arcade, Sutcliffe was speeding towards the nearest corner.
“In you get,” ordered Green. “And leave room for the constable.” He ushered them into the back seat, and Berger had the surprise of seeing his superior take the—to him—unaccustomed front passenger seat. After a minute or so, Sutcliffe came galloping back.
“All fixed, sir. The sergeant’s withdrawing the other three.”
“Good. Get in with the lads. There’s plenty of room for three at the back of this barouche.”
*
The door was opened by a woman in her early forties. Masters liked the look of her. Wholesome. The sort of woman he imagined Tom Watson would marry—with a nice unlined face, a good—if comfortable—figure and a youthful neatness of dress that suggested a tidy mind, a tidy home and a tidy bit of comfort to go with it.
“Mrs Watson?”
“Yes.”
“I am Detective Chief Superintendent Masters, and this is Detective Sergeant Reed. Would it be convenient to have a few words with you and your daughter, please?”
A faint flicker of worry showed in her kindly eyes. “Tom is at home, Mr Masters.”
“All the better. He isn’t expecting me, but I thought I would like to call for a chat. Is your daughter in, too?”
“Yes. But I shouldn’t be keeping you here on the doorstep . . .”
As they stepped into the hall, Sergeant Watson appeared from a room on the right. “Hello, sir! Is something the matter?” He sounded nervous.
“No, Tom, but I thought I’d better have a word with your daughter—if it is convenient, of course.”
“She’s upstairs. I’ll fetch her,” volunteered Mrs Watson.
“Do that, Freda,” said her husband, “while Mr Masters tells me why he thinks he’d like to speak to Pam.” As his wife went upstairs, he led the way into the room. “Now, sir, what’s it all about? I don’t like my girl tangling with the police—particularly at your level.”
“I don’t really know why I want to see your daughter. I could claim, of course, that I would be failing in my duty if I were not to interview one of Boyce’s closest companions. But I’m not claiming that.”
Tom Watson suddenly reddened angrily. “Just one moment, Mr Masters. You told me that you had virtually eliminated young Sutcliffe and myself as suspects.”
“True enough. I did say words to that effect.”
“So you are looking for somebody else.”
“That’s right.”
“And now you’ve come to see my Pam! Why, you . . .”
“Hold it, Tom! Hold it!” said Reed, stepping in between Watson and Masters. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Have I? I know how he works. Don’t forget I had a session with him myself today. He can prove you’re a criminal for not seeing a coincidence in an Incident Book. What do you think he could do to my girl?”
“Stand aside, Reed,” said Masters quietly. As the detective sergeant did so, Masters continued: “You’re right, Sergeant Watson. I could suggest that your daughter gave Boyce a dose of poison early on Tuesday evening and he took it because he would never suspect any action of hers.”
“There you are! You see?”
“Further, I could suggest that your daughter adopted the classic attitude the following morning of claiming that some other person had murdered Boyce—namely you, her father.”
“You could make black sound like white.”
“A father with whom she had had a bitter argument only a few hours earlier and whom she—temporarily, at any rate—wasn’t too fond of at the time.”
“You make me sick.”
“But I could make out an even stronger case against Mrs Watson. The mother exacting revenge for what had happened to her daughter. And poison is a woman’s weapon. And so on and so on.”
“You’ve got a twisted mind.”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t come here to suggest either of those solutions to my problems.”
“No?”
“If you recall, it was you who suggested that was the reason for my visit. As a matter of fact, it never occurred to me to suspect either your wife or your daughter. I came simply to visit you and your family.”
“You asked for Pam by name.”
“She is the ostensible reason for my visit. But I did ask if it would be convenient to see her. I didn’t force my way in, or, indeed, con my way in. However, I am quite willing to go and leave you in peace if you wish me to.”
“And I suppose you’d put your own interpretation on it if I did ask you to go?”
“Naturally. I should say I’d just met a normally decent man who, because he is so unhappy, is suspicious of everybody and everything.”
“You’ll be trying to tell me you understand next.” Watson sounded less belligerent, more bitter.
“In a way. You could say not so much understanding as fellow-feeling. You see, I have a son. He’s only a little chap yet, nowhere near as old as your Pam, but I confess to you, Tom, that if anybody were to harm him or lead him astray . . . well, I suppose I might stop just short of murder, but not much. And as to what my thoughts might be at such a time . . .”
“You mean you’d be glad if whoever had done it was to die in a police cell?”
“In a police cell or wherever, I’d still be glad.”
“By God, I think you mean it.”
“He does,” said Reed. “And Mr Green would be worse. He’s the boy’s godfather and he and his missus regard him as something . . . something holy, you might say. So don’t run away with the idea that the D.C.I. will be gunning for your daughter either.”
“You swear this is true?”
“I’ve told you,” growled Reed. “What do you want? Me to write it on my shirt-front in blood?”
Watson was suddenly deflated. He sat down like a tired man who has fought hard all day and failed. “They’ll be down in a minute,” he said. “Freda will have told Pam to wash her face and comb her hair.”
“We’ll still go if you want us to.”
“No, sir. Sit down, please. I’d like you to see her.”
“Any beer in the house, Tom?” asked Reed.
“A couple of cans, maybe. Do you want them?”
“I’ll slip out for some. There was an off-licence open just down the road. P’raps he’s got some in a cold cabinet.”
“Aye. Maybe.”
Reed let himself out, and a moment or two later Mrs Watson appeared. “I thought I heard the front door.”
“Just Sergeant Reed slipping out for some beer, Mrs Watson. And this is Pam, is it?” Masters, who had got to his feet, held out his hand to the girl. “Your father told me you were pretty. He should have said you were a smasher.”
The hand was limp, and though Pamela was a pleasant enough girl, she seemed rather insipid to Masters. Watson’s swan was by no means a goose, but Masters sensed a weakness in the character. He mentally chided himself for doing so. Pam was still a school-girl, she had recently discovered she was pregnant, and less than forty-eight hours earlier she had heard that the father of her expected child was dead. He reckoned that any woman—mature or not—would need a bit of stamina to stand up to such blows. Always assuming that she knew the import of events.
“Mummy said you want to ask me some questions.”
Masters smiled. “Sit down, Pam. Alongside me here on the sofa, then your mother and father can have an armchair apiece.”
“These questions . . .?” she said as she obeyed his instructions. “They’re not . . .?”
“Harrowing? Harassing?”
She nodded.
Masters paused a moment, looking at her before replying. Then he replied: “What would you say if I said they were?”
Masters heard Freda Watson gasp, but he didn’t take his eyes from the girl’s face.
She made no reply, so he went on: “I’ll tell you what you should say, shall I? You should say you’ve done nothing criminal. You may have acted foolishly perhaps, but not criminally. So you should say straight away that I can ask any questions I like, because you’ve nothing to hide.”
She paused to think for a moment and then said: “You mean I should separate the two things and not mix them up?”
“Right.”
“What two things?” asked Watson.
“Oh, dad! Mr Masters means Norman’s death and the baby.”
“Oh!”
“Two separate problems,” said Masters, “to be dealt with separately. So . . . I’ll deal with Norman’s death and then we’ll deal with the baby together. Will that suit?”
She nodded her assent.
“Good. Well, there’s only one real question I want to ask you about Mr Boyce. Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Can you ever remember him buying a bottle of wine or even drinking wine at any time?”
She stared at him in amazement. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“He never bought wine. He couldn’t afford it, could he? And he wouldn’t have bought it in a pub or at the Pizza House because he would think that only other people would have wine.”
“Other people?”
“People like . . . well, like you. People with money. Not the working class like him.”
“Thank you.”
“And what does that tell you, sir?” asked Watson.
“Quite a lot. You won’t have heard the pathologist’s report, but I can tell you that Boyce drank a full bottle of white wine before his two beers on the night he died.”
“No wonder Sutcliffe thought he was drunk.”
“A reasonable mistake. The trouble is, the wine was poisoned.”
Watson leaned forward. “I get it, sir. You want to know where the wine came from.”
“Obviously. And if your daughter can assure me that Norman Boyce is unlikely to have bought it, then I must consider the other ways in which it could have come into his possession.”
Watson grunted. It was obvious to Masters that the sergeant had his own ideas about this, but didn’t want to say in front of his daughter that Boyce had, more than likely, stolen the bottle.
“At this moment,” Masters continued, “D.C.I. Green and Sergeant Berger are interviewing Messrs Lawson and Mobb to discover if they know the source of the wine.”
Watson sat forward in his chair. “You’re not going to get me twice with the same trick, Mr Masters. Miss Foulger’s wine store was vandalised some time before she got home last Tuesday. I’ll add two and two together and tell you here and now that it was from there that young Boyce got his wine—or I’m a Dutchman.”
Masters grinned at him. “My thoughts exactly, Tom, but . . .”
He was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell.
Watson got to his feet. “Aye, there’s always a but. That’ll be Sergeant Reed. I’ll go let him in.”
Reed came in with a plastic carrier bag full of cans. “I hope you can drink iced lager, Mrs Watson.” He looked round at Masters. “I brought a can of coke in case there was anybody here who doesn’t drink lager.”
Freda Watson said: “I’ll get some glasses.” As she left the room her husband turned to Masters. “You were saying there’s always a but, sir.”
“So I was. If young Boyce got his wine from Miss Foulger’s outhouse, it presupposes first, that Miss Foulger had poisoned a bottle of wine; second, that she knew Boyce would come to steal it; and third, that he would choose that particular bottle from among however many were there.”
“Unless,” said Reed, “she had poisoned all the bottles.”
“I’m not accepting that,” said Masters, “on two counts. First, the amount of poison needed to treat even two bottles would have been so massive as to be prohibitive. Second, no wine lover would poison a whole rack of bottles on the offchance that some scallywag will break in, steal one and drink it. The idea doesn’t make sense.”
“Then, in that case,” said Pamela Watson, surprisingly, “Norman must somehow have given Miss Foulger a hint that he was going to her home to get the wine.”
“Logical,” agreed Masters. “But is it probable?”
“I can’t see Norman and old Miss Foulger sharing secrets, if that’s what you mean. But couldn’t somebody else have told her?”
“A third party, you mean? Somebody who overheard Boyce’s plans and then split to Miss Foulger. Again, possible. I will make it my business to learn whether Miss Foulger returned to her home that day before she discovered and reported the breakage. But even if she did hear that Boyce was going after her wine, would she poison the wine to kill him? Wouldn’t she just have moved it to greater safety inside her house, or called upon your father for protection? She is a magistrate, you know, and they are inclined to regard the local police as there just to do their bidding.”
Pam opened her eyes wide. “Somebody poisoned the wine. And the same arguments could be used whoever it was who did it.”
“Not quite true, Pam.”
“Somebody had to know that Norman was going there. Then they had to know which bottle he would nick. Then they had to poison it,” said the girl.
“At the moment,” said Masters, “I’ll not argue with you. But may I ask you another question concerning Norman Boyce?”
“If it’s not too . . . you know . . .”
“Personal? I’m afraid it is a bit personal.”
“Oh!”
“Did he know you were going to have a baby?”
“Yes.”
“Did he accept that he was the father?”
“Of course.”
“Unhesitatingly?”
“You mean did he try to say somebody else was? No, he didn’t.”
“What did he say exactly? Did he talk about your going through with it?”
She hung her head. “He wanted me to have an abortion.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” said her mother.
“It’s just too easy, isn’t it?” said Watson bitterly.
Pam looked across at her father. “But isn’t that why there is abortion these days? So that you don’t have unwanted babies?”
Masters said quietly: “That’s all I really came to ask. I think Pam
is right. It might have been different if Boyce had not died and marriage had been a possibility so that the baby would have had a father.”
Mrs Watson looked at him gratefully. “It solves the problem, doesn’t it? Makes it a plausible solution, I mean?”
Masters nodded. He knew that Freda Watson didn’t like the idea of abortion and yet, because it would literally remove a bar to the future happiness of her family, she would accept it. She was grateful her conscience could be at least partly salved by what he himself had said. He felt relief, because here, in this normally happy little family, he sensed that an air of hatred had been dissipated. Watson and his wife had hated Boyce, or his memory. They were pleased he was dead. Not that they would ever admit it to themselves. But they were pleased. And now that Pam, with no prompting, had chosen an abortion, the last remnants of Boyce’s unwelcome intrusion into their world would be eradicated. Boyce’s own expressed wish that the child should never be born which, or so it seemed, had apparently influenced Pam’s decision was probably, in their view, the one decent act of his life. Now that things were settled, relief was flooding into their beings. Masters could not find it in his heart to blame them. In fact, he confessed to himself that it was with some such idea in mind—to achieve just this solution—that he had called on the Watsons. Vaguely, he had thought that his presence would create an atmosphere in which the three members of the family would talk to each other whereas otherwise each might fight shy of such a discussion. He had no means of knowing whether what he sensed was true, but he, too, felt that the Watsons were once again united. It pleased him.
Reed, as if realising the crisis was over, came across to pour the last of the coke from the tin into Pam’s glass. “If I’m free tomorrow night,” he said, “I’d like to come and listen to some of your records.”
She looked up at him. “All you policemen are very nice,” she said.
“That’s right, love. Including your dad.”
*
Mrs Lawson showed very little surprise when she answered the door and found Green once again on her doorstep.
“Me again, love,” he said. “With company. This is Detective Sergeant Berger who’s working with me. Then there’s Constable Sutcliffe, your own lad, and young Ted Mobb.”
“So I see. What’s it all about?”
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