by Gregson, J M
Hook had his pie and pint in the snug of the White Lion hotel which was adjacent to the Oldford CID section. The fare was no better than average, but the room had a television set, and he timed his visit carefully to get half an hour of the test match. The England seamers were being put to the sword and the pub’s armchair experts were suitably scathing in their assessments. Bert, who had rarely overrated the opposition in his own playing days, thought privately that the Australian strokeplay was rather impressive.
When he returned to the station, he rang Brooke Office Services and tried to make an appointment to see Sue Hendry with Lambert during the afternoon, but the receptionist was at first evasive and then defensive of her employer. Hook was polite but determined: he had pinned down reluctant citizens too often to be easily turned aside. Eventually the woman allowed a little of her irritation to slip through her loyalty.
‘Miss Hendry rang in only a few minutes ago. Said she couldn’t quite say when she would be in. It’s very inconvenient, especially now that Mrs Pritchard isn’t around to help out. She has some important appointments this afternoon. I’ll just have to try to see them myself, but they won’t be very pleased to be dealt with by an underling.’
‘Men, are they?’
She giggled briefly. ‘Yes, they are mostly. Rather pompous men, actually, two of them.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be more than a match for them. Behave like the newest director of the firm, not an underling.’
‘H’m. I’m paid as an underling… Actually, I’m a bit worried about Sue — Miss Hendry.’
‘Did she seem upset?’
‘Yes, I suppose she did, a little.’ She spoke reluctantly, as if to reveal so much was in some way unfair to a woman for whom she felt both friendship and a great professional respect.
‘Distraught, even?’ Hook prompted quietly.
There was a silence while the receptionist assessed the word. ‘Ye-es, I suppose so… You don’t think there’s anything wrong, do you?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. But we’ll probably check, just to be certain. So don’t worry about her.’
‘I only noticed she was upset because it’s so unusual. There’s no one calmer as a rule, you see. She never brings her home problems to work.’ It was a belated attempt to defend her sex against the tiresome male charge of emotionalism.
Hook rang off quickly. Then he tried Sue Hendry’s home number immediately. He let the phone ring on for a long time when she did not answer. The regular tones seemed suddenly ominous, as though they were informing him and only him that the woman was in some kind of danger. He was glad to hear Lambert’s voice speaking to Rushton in the corridor outside. It was not only receptionists, he reflected, who sought the comfort of a higher rank to take responsibility.
*
Lambert moved with relief from a morning spent discussing the generalities of police crime-solving strategy to the sharp focus of a particular criminal investigation. He listened with only two sharp questions to Rushton’s account of his meeting with Jim Pritchard, then asked the DI to stay with him whilst Hook came in to discuss his interview of Peter Brooke.
After many years of practice, Hook was an expert in assessing his chief’s mood. He took one look at him and delivered his facts briskly, with a minimum of speculation. But at the end he did say, ‘Brooke had the opportunity for both murders, though he denies being at The Beeches on the Monday when Smith said he saw him there.’
Rushton said, ‘And do you see him as a killer?’
A little flick of irritation passed across Hook’s rounded features. He suspected — quite wrongly in this case — that Rushton was trying to probe his reputed preference for the underdog. There was an old barrier between the two of them, erected at the time when Bert had years ago turned down the promotion to Inspector which Rushton had chased so eagerly. Integrity, whatever its roots, has a habit of making colleagues uneasy.
Bert said stiffly, ‘I have an open mind about Brooke. He has clearly been very disturbed, though he seems to me to be coming out of the phase. But I don’t think he has been going through the kind of emotional upset that finds its outlet in violence. And I don’t think he’s a natural liar. But we need to stick to the facts; and the facts say that Brooke’s a suspect.’
It was always a safe ploy to stress the importance of facts with Lambert, who could be a positive Gradgrind when it came to establishing the framework of a case. It was Lambert who now grunted, ‘We only have Smith’s word for it that Brooke was at The Beeches on that Monday, of course. No one else has reported seeing Brooke, though a couple of people in the village think they recall seeing Smith’s motorbike on that day.’
Lambert pushed himself back in his chair and shut his eyes. For five seconds, his ageing face was as still and unrevealing as a lizard’s. Then he sought out another fact. Opening his grey eyes and switching them swiftly to Rushton, he asked, ‘Did you get that information from the Firearms Licences section, Chris?’
Rushton could not suppress a small smile of satisfaction at his own efficiency. ‘There is only one firearm recorded among our chief suspects. A Smith and Wesson .38 pistol. Not new, but quite adequate to kill a man. There may of course be shotguns among the others without any record, especially if they’ve been held for a few years.’
Hook said, ‘What is the significance of a firearm, when both of our victims were garrotted?’
Lambert grinned; it lasted no more than a second, but perhaps he had been hoping for the query. ‘There may be none at all, Bert. But if I’m right about the manner of Everton Smith’s dying, someone must have forced him to put that rope around his neck: it’s not a thing you could kid a man into doing. The easiest form of threat is a firearm, where one is readily available.’ He turned back to Rushton. ‘Which of our suspects is the proud and legal possessor of a Smith and Wesson, Chris?’
The DI smiled grimly. It seemed that for once his own choice of killer might be justified. He said quietly, ‘It’s registered in the name of James Pritchard.’
*
Lambert drove with uncharacteristic urgency on this last journey to The Beeches. Twice the wheels of the old Vauxhall squealed in protest as he threw it round tight bends in the lanes.
They were almost halfway to the house when Bert Hook, catching his breath at this frantic new rhythm, thought to mention that he had not succeeded in arranging the planned interview with Sue Hendry.
Lambert’s eyes narrowed, but did not stray from the tarmac which was flying beneath his wheels. ‘Where is she, Bert?’
‘The girl at the office didn’t know. She was a bit put out about it, actually. Miss Hendry apparently had some important clients booked in for this afternoon. But she rang through about half an hour ago to say she wouldn’t be coming in.’
‘Why?’
‘The girl couldn’t say. She thought her boss sounded rather upset. I tried to get her myself, but there was no reply.’
‘Try her now on that thing.’ Lambert gestured towards the car phone for which he always professed such distaste. Hook, averting his eyes resolutely from the flying hedgerows, concentrated on tapping out Sue Hendry’s home number. There was again no reply.
If anything, Lambert seemed to drive even more quickly. Hook was relieved when they screeched to a stop amid flying gravel at the door of The Beeches. That gravel and the manner of their arrival meant that there was no chance of taking Pritchard by surprise. But greater stealth would not have produced a different result. The house was empty.
Hook was out of the car as it lurched to a halt, hurrying away to the garage as bidden in search of the evidence which might imprison a murderer for life. Lambert made a swift tour of the outside of the house, satisfying himself that neither Pritchard nor anyone else was within it. He had the Vauxhall turned and revving beside the garage when Hook emerged from it, panting but grimly successful.
*
The shortest route to Sue Hendry’s home, using the intricate network of minor roads which were the prod
uct of an earlier agrarian age, was no longer than eight miles. With Hook holding the map book in trembling fingers and issuing directions more calmly than he would have believed possible, they covered the distance in eleven minutes.
Miss Hendry’s home would have brought forth the automatic adjective of ‘charming’ from any estate agent. It was in fact one of a pair of cottages fashioned from the conversion of a small stable block. The Victorian house which had once been the centre of the little complex had long disappeared, and there appeared to be no one at home in the other cottage which adjoined that of the manager of Brooke Office Services.
There was only one vehicle in sight as the old Vauxhall halted abruptly at the entrance. But it was one which sent Lambert through the low wooden gate and up the garden at a run. For it was Jim Pritchard’s blue Jaguar.
The porch door was open. The inner door was shut but not locked. Lambert and Hook passed in quick succession into the house: neither of them even considered ringing the bell which was clearly visible amongst the clematis which clambered over the porch in innocent profusion.
After the June day outside, the room they entered was suddenly dark. The lightest things in it were the two white faces which swung towards them with their entry. Jim Pritchard stood at one side of the empty fireplace, his elbow upon the mantelpiece. It was a casual pose, but the tension of his body seemed to deny its informality; it looked as though it had been hastily assumed with the noise of their entry into the house.
On the other side of the fireplace, Sue Hendry sat with her hands grasping the wooden arms of her fireside chair. Her face was the colour of ivory, but relief rushed into it even as the two policemen stopped, breathing heavily in the silent room.
It was Jim Pritchard who was the first to move. He took a pace away from the fireplace and seated himself in the corresponding armchair to the one occupied by the woman whose eyes stared unblinkingly at his face. He leaned back determinedly, clasping his arms over the ends of the chair’s arms, but again gave the impression of a man simulating relaxation rather than a genuinely relaxed one.
But his self-discipline was impressive. He looked up at Lambert, who now towered above him as he held himself steady in the high-backed armchair, and measured his words as he said, ‘I’m glad you’ve arrived, Superintendent. Miss Hendry has become a little hysterical, I’m afraid. She’s made accusations which I’m sure would bring me handsome libel payments if she chose to repeat them in public. I accept that she was a close friend of my wife’s, and thus has some excuse to be overwrought.’ He switched his attention from Lambert to the widening eyes of the woman who sat opposite him. ‘But you really must learn to keep a rein on that tongue of yours, my dear.’
The last phrase was even more of a mistake than the smile with which he accompanied it. It transformed the fear which had held Sue Hendry rigid into anger. And with rage came a new animation, as if someone had set a torch to dry timber. Colour sprang back into her face: in seconds her cheeks were almost as bright as the red hair above them. Beneath the sandy eyebrows, her green eyes flashed with a wild challenge; her whole body trembled with passion as she shifted to the very edge of her seat. For a moment, Hook thought she was going to spring across the room at Pritchard; he took two swift paces to her side, ready to restrain her if necessary.
She reminded Lambert no longer of the sturdy hockey player but of a wounded tiger. But she made no move towards her prey. Whilst she addressed her words to Lambert in a surprisingly even tone, she kept her gaze unblinkingly upon the face of Pritchard. ‘He killed Laura, Superintendent. I don’t know all the details yet, but he killed my Laura.’
‘Your Laura? She wasn’t your Laura, you perverted little cow!’ The equanimity which Pritchard had so carefully assumed was shattered in a flash with her assertion of possession. He glanced up at the man whose restraining hand was now upon his shoulder and attempted too late to regain his composure. ‘Laura was my wife. If you had the slightest sensitivity you’d curb your wild accusations at a time like this.’
‘You killed her, and we both know it.’
Pritchard forced himself to smile at her. ‘May I remind you that I was not even in the country when Laura was killed. Superintendent Lambert at least knows that, even if you aren’t able to see things straight.’ He looked up at Lambert, spreading his hands wide in a gesture that was meant to say, ‘Lord preserve all of us from emotional females!’ It had the air of a bad stage gesture, for his limbs were too stiff to allow him the relaxation the thought needed.
Sue Hendry was not diverted. The arrival of the two policemen had released her from all fear. Her gaze still fixed upon Pritchard’s face, which seemed in this subdued light to have lost all its holiday tan, she said through lips which scarcely opened, ‘I haven’t worked out how he did it yet, but I know he did. Perhaps you hired someone to kill her whilst you were safely out of the way.’
Pritchard tried righteous indignation. ‘I’ve really had quite enough of these preposterous suggestions. I’ve tried to be patient because you were a trusted employee of my wife. Now I realize that it was useless to come here and try to calm you down. I think it is time I went.’
‘You came here to threaten me! To shut me up.’ A new horror flashed into her revealing features. ‘I expect you killed the gardening boy as well. And you came here today to shut me up —’ Her fist, clenched tight with the full impact of his wickedness and her danger, flashed up against her mouth; her knuckles were almost as white as the teeth which closed upon them to prevent any sound issuing.
Lambert decided he had waited long enough for his man to make false moves. He said calmly, ‘I don’t think he employed anyone else to kill his wife, Miss Hendry. I’m quite sure he killed her himself.’
Probably Pritchard knew at that moment that it was over. If so, he gave little sign of it. Perhaps he whitened a little beneath that fading tan; perhaps there was just too long a pause before he gathered himself to say, ‘Now I am going to get annoyed, Superintendent. This woman has some excuse for her wild accusations, but you on the other hand —’
Lambert cut through his words, continuing to speak over the head of the sitting man to the woman opposite him. ‘He killed her, you see, before he left. Garrotted her with a cord, took her body to the Severn in her own car, tied weights to her ankles, and dumped her in the river.’ He was at his most ruthless now; in his anxiety to provoke an indiscretion from the man to complete his case, he did not spare the feelings of the woman as he saw her gasping with shock at the details.
For the first time since they had arrived, Pritchard’s voice lurched as he delivered the stage villain’s desperate line, ‘You’d better have some proof for this!’
There was the slightest nod from Lambert to Hook, which all but the keenest observer would have missed. The sergeant took a quick look at Sue Hendry, decided she was no longer in danger of springing upon her adversary, and moved upon silent feet into the hall. A moment later, he reappeared with the thing he had left there as he and Lambert made their precipitate entry into the cottage. He stood there a little self-consciously as all the eyes in the room turned upon him.
Had the stakes not been so high, it might have been a moment of bathos. He held aloft nothing more sinister than a sturdy blue wooden stool. He clutched it gingerly by one of its feet, round which he had wrapped a piece of polythene, in preparation for the time when it was produced for the jury’s inspection as an exhibit in a murder trial. Standing in the doorway with the stool held in front of him, he looked, as Pritchard half-rose at the sight, incongruously like a lion-tamer.
The effect upon Pritchard was visible. As he sank back into the armchair, he said, ‘What on earth are you doing with that? And who the hell gave you permission to lay your hands upon my property?’ But it was no more than bluster, and all four people in the room suddenly knew it.
Lambert placed his hand firmly on the shoulder beneath him and said, ‘James Pritchard, I am arresting you for the murders of Laura Jane Pritchard and Ev
erton Smith. You are not obliged to say anything. Anything you do say may be used in evidence.’
The ritual words of the arrest rang like a knell in the sudden heavy silence. Pritchard looked from one to the other of the two CID men, who were watchful now against any attempt at escape. He did not even glance at the woman he had come here to silence. For a moment the harshness of his breathing was magnified by the silence of the others in that low-ceilinged cottage room. Then his shoulders dropped and he said simply, ‘How did you know?’
It was the sort of phrase Lambert was anxious to hear. It seemed that he had got his caution in just in time. As Hook went into the hall to radio for a squad car to come out and pick up their man, his chief said quietly, ‘I didn’t know for certain until you killed young Smith. Violence breeds more violence, as people like us have come to know better than most. You should never have gone on to a second murder.’
‘I had no choice. He was scared. He was going to tell you. I had to get rid of him.’ One by one, the staccato sentences dropped horribly into the room. This was the pragmatism of evil, with all morality thrust aside.
Lambert fed him the questions, giving him the rope to hang himself, wishing at that moment that that could be more than a metaphor. ‘Did he know that you were going to kill your wife?’
Pritchard stroked his moustache, a gesture with which he unconsciously accompanied cogitation. He appeared to be considering the matter for the first time. ‘No, I don’t suppose he did. He should have done, but he wasn’t too bright. If he had been, he’d have made sure you didn’t find out about the money as easily as you did.’
‘You paid him to say your wife was still alive on the Monday after you’d gone to Spain.’
‘Yes. He’d have had the second half of the payment when everything was safely over, but he was running scared. Said he didn’t realize that there was any plan to kill Laura when he agreed to take the money. Did he think I’d pay that sort of sum to scum like him if I wasn’t up to something serious? He had to go.’ He nodded his head sharply several times, as if confirming the perfect logic of his actions to himself. Then, for all the world as if he was discussing the key to an innocent puzzle, he said, ‘What made you think it was me in the first place?’