Death of an Alderman

by John Buxton Hilton

  ‘He used to fight people politically, but it would be wrong to call them enemies. I always thought they enjoyed it, really, under the surface. It always made me feel a little sick. But certainly there was no one who would——would have hurt him. Sometimes they even had a drink together after the most bitter committee meetings. It never seemed to me to make sense.’

  ‘We’re interested in this man who was asking questions about him from house to house. But of course, he wouldn’t have come here——’

  ‘Oh——but he did.’

  She went to the mantelpiece, and from a letter-rack brought out a religious pamphlet, decorated with the silhouette of a pair of lovers in the shadow of an oblique cross.

  ‘We get these people down here from time to time——Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and that kind of thing. I never encourage them.’

  ‘But this one was a bit more persistent than most, was he? A bit nosy——trying to get a good look round while you had the door open?’

  ‘He said he thought he knew Edward. He said he had served in the same army unit, but in a different company, so Edward wouldn’t remember him.’

  ‘You told your husband about this?’

  ‘I mentioned it.’

  ‘Did it interest him?’

  ‘No. He just brushed it off. He said he didn’t know the man, but that there must be hundreds who knew him. We didn’t talk about it any more.’

  ‘Tell me, Mrs Barson——was your husband at all keen on keeping up his former army contacts? Did he go to regimental reunions, or anything like that?’

  ‘No. He always said there was no point in living in the past. He went to a British Legion dinner once a year, but that was usually in an official capacity.’

  Kenworthy looked with a sudden jerk at the radiogram——the last and most expensive word in stereophonic equipment.

  ‘Fond of music, Mrs Barson?’

  ‘I love it. So did Edward. Not this modern stuff. We like Mantovani, and Friday Night is Music Night.’

  Kenworthy settled back in his chair.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Barson. There are just one or two other little questions, and then we’ll leave you to yourself.——You knew your husband during his army days, but you were not married till afterwards——is that right?’

  ‘Yes. We wrote to each other, but we were not engaged until his twenty-first birthday.’

  ‘And he was a corporal?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did he write often?’

  ‘Well——you know what men are. Sometimes it would go three weeks or a month. But I don’t see——’

  ‘Did he tell you a lot about his army life?’

  ‘Not a great deal. He liked Germany, and sent some lovely descriptions. Superintendent——do you really think that what’s happened goes back to those days?’

  ‘Do you?’ he asked, with sudden harshness.

  She was too surprised to answer. He softened his tone at once, but offered no apology.

  ‘We’d better get a description of this man who called, just to make sure it tallies. Then we’ve done.’

  But she had evidently read her morning newspaper, for involuntarily she spoke only in its phraseology. Nevertheless, Wright recorded punctiliously all she said, and then they took their leave.

  ‘Right!’ Kenworthy said, looking at his notebook. ‘Mrs Crispin, Mine-an-ers. Wonder where the hell that is? They wouldn’t have anything as plebeian as house-numbers, would they?’

  The house was a smaller, less opulent, but nevertheless expensively regimented home on the opposite side of the avenue. There was no imitation well in the garden, but bulbs were beginning to sprout in a diminutive green and yellow wheelbarrow. The Mexican inside the door was smaller than Barson’s, and his less intricate handcart carried fewer succulents. The tiles on the wall depicted a series of fair-ground traction-engines, and instead of a Tretchikoff there was a cubist group of red and blue horses.

  Mrs Crispin was a chubby woman in her early twenties, with impudently up-tilted nose and buttocks swelling out of her royal blue slacks.

  ‘I told the other officers——there’s nothing I can tell you.’

  ‘We’re simply interested in the man who came with religious tracts.’

  ‘He didn’t come here.’

  ‘Mind if we come in?’

  Kenworthy was well into the house before she could protest. Wright followed. In the front room, cups, side-plates, bowls of brown sugar and plates of fancy biscuits were laid on a multitude of side-tables.

  ‘We’re having an Oxfam coffee morning at eleven. I hope this isn’t going to take long.’

  ‘That’s up to you.’

  Kenworthy picked up a folded letter from the mantelpiece.

  ‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing to the nerve I’ll have if I come back here with a search warrant.’

  He put back the letter.

  ‘What’s your husband do for a living, Mrs Crispin?’

  ‘He’s a company director.’

  ‘That tells me nothing.’

  ‘Wait till he comes home. Then you can ask him.’

  ‘About this door-to-door evangelist——’

  ‘How many more times?——He didn’t call at every house in the avenue.’

  ‘There are five of your neighbours prepared to swear on oath that he called at this one——’

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘——and in ten minutes they’ll be here contributing to world famine.——What did he do?——Take you up for a tumble on the bed?’

  She was speechless.

  ‘Doesn’t worry me,’ Kenworthy said. ‘That type takes it where he can find it. And I expect you get a bit tired of mine-an-ers from time to time. It’s all right, Mrs Crispin——there’s no need for your husband to find out. Although he might get a little inquisitive, if I have to take you in for questioning.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, it strikes me that in exchange for favours received, he’d want to know a lot more than most of your neighbours would have told him——about alderman Edward Barson.’

  ‘He asked me an awful lot of questions. I couldn’t tell him much.’

  It was heavy going. She had seen no significant pattern in Green Hat’s inquisition, and her memory was woolly. Wright knew intuitively when Kenworthy expected him to join in the prompting.

  Had Barson held many private committee meetings at his house? Did he entertain a lot? What sort of people came to see him? Were they local big-wigs, or were there often strangers from outside the town? He had a pretty expensive home, hadn’t he? Was he always taking delivery of something new? Was it all on hire purchase? Did H.P. collectors often call on the Barsons? Did Mrs Barson sometimes pretend she was out when she wasn’t?

  ‘And did she?’ Kenworthy asked.

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘No. I should think you were too busy keeping out of sight yourself, if that sort of laddie was in the road.’

  ‘You ought to try keeping house on ten quid a week.’

  ‘I’ve lived on less in my time.’

  ‘There was one thing that interested him specially. He wouldn’t leave it alone.——Mrs Barson’s garden.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘He wanted to know whether Mr Barson did it himself. Who mowed the lawn? Who did the autumn digging? Who made the well?’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘The men from the Parks Department.——Oh, there’s nothing wrong in that. They’ll contract to do your garden for you, provided it doesn’t interfere with their official work. Only it’s terribly expensive. And, of course, there’s a waiting list. We wouldn’t stand an earthly chance, even if we could afford it. But with Mr Barson being an alderman——’

  ‘The council workmen came to his garden regularly?’

  ‘That’s what this man wanted to know. And he kept on about the paving-stones on Mr Barson’s drive——which are t
he same as those on the pavements in the town——’

  ‘I noticed that,’ Kenworthy said.

  ‘Well, that’s all above board. The council will do your drive for you, when their own work’s slack. Several people in the avenue have had it done. But it’s expensive. My husband worked out that it costs more than a private firm.’

  ‘The stones were delivered by corporation lorry, were they?’

  ‘Of course. What would you expect them to use? Bakers’ vans?’

  ‘What time of day was this delivery made? Morning? Afternoon?’

  ‘This man asked that, too. In the evening. I expect they were working overtime. That would be more expensive still, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It might,’ Kenworthy said, and looked at the eight-day clock. It was already ten past eleven. There was no sign of her guests. Mrs Crispin looked suddenly haggard.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Kenworthy said. ‘They’ll come. Wild horses wouldn’t keep them away, now we’ve been. You’ll see the corners of their curtains shifting delicately as the sergeant and I go up the road. And remember this, Mrs Crispin——I don’t want a word to leak to a soul about the turn this conversation’s taken, or I’ll have an article on your moral stamina headlined in the Gazette, the Herald and Old Mother Shipton’s Weekly. Understand?’

  He did not speak again until he and Wright were well away from the estate.

  Chapter Five

  Kenworthy fixed an appointment with the town clerk for two o’clock that afternoon.

  ‘And for the rest of this morning, we’ll find ourselves a cosy corner in the Public Library, and run through every available copy of the two local rags for the last ten years. I know this will have been done for us, and I seem to remember there was a digest on the file, but there’s nothing like our own sweet eyes.’

  This involved another meeting with the curator of the museum, this time in his role as Borough Librarian. Gill still presented the same restless, obsequious figure which Wright had observed on the previous afternoon——not exactly hopping from foot to foot, not quite wringing his hands, but it would not have seemed out of character if he had begun to do either at any moment.

  ‘I would gladly give you the use of my own office, gentlemen——but there’s a lot of coming and going, besides the telephone. So——’

  He took them to a long, narrow room which was used for bookbinding, cataloguing and pasting in labels. And he brought in personally, looking as if he would crack under their weight, enormous files of bound newspapers, those of the last few months still between cardboard covers.

  ‘I’ll see to it that you’re not disturbed in here.’

  They settled down to scan the long, dated sheets, occasionally drawing each other’s attention to some particular item. It soon became apparent that the Gazette and the Herald were poles apart in the aims and achievements of journalism. The Herald, smaller in format and circulation, went in for blatant sensationalism, often taking speakers’ high-lights unashamedly out of context. The Gazette, on the other hand, was a family paper of stern reserve. Both publications proclaimed themselves independent.

  It also became clear that Barson had been a consummate master of vituperation. He could work himself into a frenzy over a triviality and could pursue a hatred to the last ditch of reason. He would attack an opponent’s scheme simply because the man was an opponent, and with total disregard for the merits of what was being put forward. At the same time, he was uninhibited by considerations of conscience or consistency. He felt, apparently, under no obligation to remember from week to week what he had said.

  ‘If my name were Durkin,’ Wright remarked, ‘I certainly wouldn’t be choking back my tears at the grave-side. Durkin seems to have been one of his favourite whipping-boys.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. You’ll find some of these people get a queer kick out of this kind of thing.’

  But it was not only politicians who fell foul of Barson’s displeasure. Officials were often flailed, including juniors, who were in no position to hit back. One of his cultivated images had evidently been as a guardian of the public purse. He regularly opposed expenditure, sometimes on obvious essentials, and the county rate, particularly the cost of education, for which the borough had no responsibility, was an opportunity for his voluble wrath at frequent intervals.

  ‘Look at this,’ Kenworthy said. ‘Three years ago there was a salary increase for local government clerical workers. A national award, properly negotiated, Whitley Council, and the whole creaking machine. He even had a go at that. Lord knows, he’d no chance there, and he must have known that as well as anyone else, but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.’

  ‘He must have been an embarrassment to his own side.’

  ‘Not necessarily so. Probably now and then they’d have a quiet word with him in a corner, to calm him down. But you’ve got to admit, Shiner, this stuff makes good reading. Fearless Barson! What’s he said this week? It sells newspapers. It also sells votes. And, like it or not, there are voters who think and feel as Barson did. Vote for Barson, and let’s put an end to all kinds of nonsense. What about lunch, Shiner? I’m famished.’

  Early in the afternoon they paid their call on the town clerk, an elderly, quiet, capable but tired man, who smiled readily, but seldom with his eyes. There were formal courtesies, and grave condolences over the shock that had smitten Fellaby. Then Kenworthy came bluntly to his point.

  ‘Mr Belfield——I want to know whether alderman Barson paid properly and officially for the work your Park gardeners did at his own home.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he did. It is by no means unusual, you know, although, of course, they can’t do as much as people would wish. Our municipal claims on their time must be met first.’

  ‘Of course. And I don’t really expect there to have been any fiddle. But I think that the matter is going to be raised before long in a quarter which neither you nor I can control.’

  ‘Quite so. Well——this is easily looked into. And I don’t doubt the outcome of the enquiry.’

  ‘There’s also the question of a delivery of paving-stones, sand and cement at Barson’s home, one evening between April and June last year.’

  The town clerk looked troubled.

  ‘The civic funeral tomorrow, and innuendoes of corruption today.’

  ‘And one of your aldermen who may have been shot dead by someone who was trying to blackmail him.’

  The town clerk took on fresh, brisk tones.

  ‘Of course, gentlemen, if there’s anything in the nature of a malpractice within this borough, there shall be no hesitation in ferreting it out. I’ll bring in the Borough Engineer; this is his pigeon.’

  He spoke on the house telephone, and then there was desultory conversation about the architectural show-pieces of Fellaby until the Borough Engineer came in. The town clerk explained the nature of the suspicions in a couple of economical sentences, and the Engineer was away again, looking at the two detectives with covert curiosity. It was some time before he returned, and then it was with a file under his arm from which papers were spilling.

  ‘The receipts for the gardeners’ time and labour are all in order. The other matter doesn’t seem to be quite so easy. I shall need a little more time. It may be necessary to have a word with the yard foreman.’

  Kenworthy nodded.

  ‘We’ll not waste any time over this,’ the town clerk said. ‘I’ll telephone you the moment we’ve made sure.’

  When the Engineer had left them again, he stood up and went over to his window, which overlooked the wintry trees of the park.

  ‘Probably the dockets have been misfiled, or something.’

  ‘In any case, the Borough Engineer will want to discuss it with you first, as the Borough’s principal legal adviser.’

  The town clerk brought his fist into the palm of his hand.

  ‘I must confess, gentlemen, I’m not very hopeful. And if Barson were alive, I can tell you, this moment would be bringing me little pain. As it is,
what can come of it? Even more misery for Enid Barson. The high jump for one or three of our employees, who probably had little effective choice in the matter. And there you are, you see——I’m already prejudging the whole issue.’

  ‘You could tell us a lot about Barson,’ Kenworthy said.

  ‘I could, I can and I will. In good time. At the moment I’m longing for you two to go out of that door so that I can have a tête-à-tête with my own Borough Engineer.’

  Kenworthy took his hat from the stand.

  ‘Sergeant Wright——we have other fish to fry.’

  Chapter Six

  When they left the town hall, Kenworthy sent Wright back to the library, saying that he himself had-better ‘sit and mess about with telephones and look scientific’ for an hour or two.

  Wright sat down in an atmosphere of ink, paste and buckram and continued to turn the pages of effete newsprint. At half-past three, the girl from the borrowing desk brought him a cup of tea and a few minutes later the nerve-racked Mr Gill tapped the door and came in carrying his own cup.

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting.’

  He perched himself on a corner of one of the work-benches.

  ‘No. Glad of a break, to tell you the truth. This study gets a bit wearisome.’

  ‘I trust you’re finding what you’re looking for.’

  Wright looked down at his wad of accumulated notes.

  ‘Yes, sir. Three bags full. With all due reverence, the late departed was no introvert.’

  Gill smiled pathetically.

  ‘I could tell you a thing or two.’

  ‘Yes. You certainly don’t seem to have escaped his attentions.’

  Gill slid his diminutive back-side off the bench and picked up one of the bound volumes.

  ‘Look at this!’

  Barson had moved that Gill’s salary be reduced by five pounds a year, ‘as a token, marking our dissatisfaction at the sub-standard services provided.’ The motion had not found a seconder.

  ‘I was at fault there,’ Gill said. ‘I suppose any administrator can trip up over a detail now and then. A technical college student had asked for some particularly recondite volume to be borrowed from the central library, and one of my assistants had overlooked it.——Not, mind you, that I am trying to shelter behind a subordinate; a responsible officer must be prepared to answer for the weaknesses in his department.——At any rate, the student mentioned it in the hearing of alderman Barson, and this was the outcome.’