‘But a clever girl like you must have formed some general impression.’
‘It’s a trading group.’
‘Trading in what?’
‘Anything they can lay their hands on.’
‘Wholesale? Retail?’
‘Both. Cut out the middleman, that’s their motto. Shave the overheads. Pass on the savings to the customer.’
‘Some of them, anyway, I suppose. Does his work take him away from home much?’
‘Often.’
‘Helps, doesn’t it?’
‘Don’t be such a bloody prig,’ she said.
‘I’m not being a prig. I said, it helps. Frequent trips away from home, which are often followed by substantial contributions to the household budget.’
‘Not that you’d notice.’
Kenworthy pencilled a note and passed it to Wright.
Get Heather on to Salamander. Everything, including shareholders if possible.
When Wright came back into the interview room, the woman was pouting, Kenworthy was leaning forward with both wrists on the table, the woman sergeant was watching impassively.
‘All right, Mrs Sturgess. Adultery isn’t a crime in this country. But an adulterous affair with a man just before he’s murdered is a situation which makes me curious. And it’s a situation which might put your husband in a very curious position indeed.’
For the first time, she failed to cover her discomposure with bluster. This was a possibility that had simply not occurred to her.
‘No, no. Brian didn’t know. I’ll swear it.’
‘Didn’t Warren tell him?’
‘No. I’ll admit that Warren came to see me, but——’
‘Did Warren threaten to tell him?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’
‘Well——it’s something to have got you to change your mind about knowing Warren. But let’s continue to leave Warren out of it for the time being. We’ll have plenty to say about him later. Let’s hear first of all what you thought about Barson.’
He looked at her expectantly. She did not know what to say.
‘Come, Mrs Sturgess. His character?’
‘Character?’
‘It is possible for a man to possess one, you know, Mrs Sturgess.’
‘Well, he was gay, witty, knew his way about food and clothes. Powerful in his political circle, I think. Didn’t suffer opposition gladly. Frustrated.’
‘Frustrated?’
‘In his home life.’
‘You’ve not met his wife, Mrs Sturgess?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘Seen her photograph?’
‘He didn’t carry it with him.’
‘I suppose not. Well——let’s recapitulate. Barson came to see your husband on business about six months ago. You took a liking to each other. He appreciated your particular gifts. Where did you start meeting?’
‘There’s a discreet little pub. A Free House. Up on the moors.’
‘And then he started visiting you at home?’
‘He came once or twice to see Brian on business, but Brian was away.’
‘How often did he see you?’
‘Oh——twice most weeks. Sometimes there were gaps——his work or Brian’s.’
‘Where was all this going?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Didn’t Barson ever talk of getting a divorce?’
‘Good God, no. He didn’t want that.’
‘And didn’t you?’
‘Good God, no.’
‘You’re perfectly happy with your husband?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘Didn’t Barson ever talk of making a lot of money and taking you away with him?’
‘Only as a joke.’
‘This big pile that he was going to make——it had to do with the business he was conducting with your husband?’
Mrs Sturgess tried to laugh.
‘Men like Edward Barson and my husband are always on the verge of making a big pile. It never seems quite to come off.’
‘And you have no idea of the nature of this business?’
‘He didn’t discuss it with me. I wouldn’t have understood, anyway.’
‘Was it concerned with Barson’s work as an advertising executive?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Or had it something to do with Barson’s activities as a Fellaby borough councillor?’
‘Edward did say that he could bring a lot of Fellaby Borough business in Brian’s direction.’
‘And yet a moment ago you said he had never discussed it with you. Mrs Sturgess——do you appreciate how dangerous it is for you to be disingenuous with me?’
‘I don’t know what that word means.’
‘Bloody bent!’ Kenworthy said, and thumped the table with his fist. She recoiled, and her fear showed through the surface again.
‘I’d forgotten all about it until you mentioned it. I never really paid attention. Business talk always bores me stiff.’
‘But you must have gathered something about this particular business.’
‘They never went into detail in front of me. And Edward and I had other things to talk about.’
‘Was the word “redevelopment” ever mentioned?’
‘That was one of the things. I do remember that, now. Superintendent——I do ask you to believe me. All this is foreign to me.Brian never talks shop to me. He prefers to leave his work behind in the office.’
‘Try to remember some more.’
‘It was a question of who was going to benefit from wholesale rebuilding of the town centre. But how it was all going to work out, I haven’t the slightest idea. You know how men are when they’re talking about that sort of thing in the presence of a woman——like when they won’t finish a dirty joke because you’ve just come into the room.’
‘Have you ever been in Fellaby before, Mrs Sturgess?’
‘Never in my life. What would anybody want to come to Fellaby for?’
‘To commit a murder, amongst other possibilities. Had your husband ever been here?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘What makes you so certain?’
‘When Edward first mentioned the place, we had to get the map out to find out where it was.’
‘Perhaps he’s been here since———to check up on the redevelopment possibilities.’
‘I’m sure he hasn’t.’
‘You have a habit of feeling sure about certain important features.’
‘I know he hasn’t been to Fellaby. He’d have told me. You see, Fellaby had become a sort of family joke at home. Country hicks, and all that.’
‘Did Barson ever mention the names of any Fellaby people?’
‘If he did, I’ve forgotten them.’
‘Not even, perhaps, Lesueur?
‘That’s right. I remember there was some one with a foreign-sounding name. And there was some one else——a colonel——’
‘Hawley?’
‘That’s right. You know everything already, don’t you, superintendent?’
He ignored these sporadic returns of ebullience.
‘Lesueur and Hawley——what impression did you form of their role in all this?’
Wright looked sideways at the woman sergeant. This was the first firm suggestion that any member of the local force had had that Kenworthy was seriously linking Lesueur’s name with the Barson case.
Her face was inscrutable, but it would not take long for an account of this interview to find its way to the ears of Rhys and Grayling. Presumably this was Kenworthy’s intention.
‘Where did Lesueur come into this?’ he repeated.
‘I guessed he was the brains behind it.’
‘Only the brains?’
‘And the money, I suppose.’
‘You heard some stories about Lesueur being a power in the land?’
‘Edward said that he would make or break anyone who stood in his way.’
‘And the col
onel?’
‘Lesueur’s right-hand man. Edward said that he was the one they had to watch. If the colonel cottoned on to what was happening, the game was up.’
‘And how might the colonel cotton on to things?’
‘Well——Lesueur likes to play landed gentry. The colonel’s less aloof. He gets around on the ground, as it were.’
‘Did it impress your husband, to have a chance to be working with Lesueur and Hawley?’
‘Brian had never done business on that plane before.’
‘Then this was to be a major break-through for him?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Elevenses,’ Kenworthy said. ‘You’re not doing badly, Mrs Sturgess. You’ve deserved a cuppa.’
He let the woman sergeant go out to see about the coffee. Wright wondered whether this were a deliberate attempt on Kenworthy’s part to start a rumour among the senior ranks of the station. Rhys would certainly be waiting to pounce on her.
Mrs Sturgess stood up to stretch her limbs and went to the window that overlooked the transport park. She was not unattractive, Wright thought. Barson might have done worse for himself. And even now she was not averse to letting it be seen where her capital lay.
‘Am I allowed to smoke?’
‘Of course.’
Kenworthy slid a packet of cigarettes across the table.
‘Thank you. I prefer them tipped.’
She opened her handbag. Wright went forward with his lighter. The woman sergeant brought in a tray.
‘Now, Mrs Sturgess——let us come on to Warren. How long since he came to see you?’
‘Two or three weeks.’
‘What put him on to you?’
‘The same thing as your men, I suppose——tittle-tattle.’
‘He must have had you pretty frightened, Mrs Sturgess.’
‘Rigid. When he said he was a private enquiry agent, I thought at first he must be working for Mrs Barson.’
‘He didn’t try to trade on that?’
‘No. Of course, he used it to get his foot in the door.’
‘He didn’t try to ask you for money?’
‘That would have been a laugh.’
‘Did he, or didn’t he?’
‘He didn’t.’
‘Weren’t you afraid that that might come later?’
‘I was afraid of everything. I didn’t know what to expect.’
‘He pumped you pretty hard about your relationship with Barson?’
‘He went over it all, just as you’ve done. But he seemed to know the answers to all the questions before he asked them.’
‘Such as the pub on the moors, Barson’s day for calling, and whatever?’
‘He seemed to know everything. Not that it would have been hard for him to find out, in Kirby-le-Dale, once he’d got on the trail.’
‘And he didn’t threaten to tell your husband?’
‘No more than you have. He used it as a lever to find out what he wanted to know. In the end he promised faithfully he wouldn’t say a word.’
‘In exchange for what——for favours received?’
‘Mr Kenworthy——I find that a bit cheap.’
‘I’m glad you think something is.——In exchange for what, Mrs Sturgess?’
‘He went on, just as you did, to talk about the deal Edward wanted Brian to do.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘More or less what I’ve just told you.’
‘So that’s twice in recent weeks that you’ve had your memory jogged?’
‘Oh, can’t you see, Mr Kenworthy——I’m so lost in all this?’
‘When in doubt, tell the truth. That’s a maxim worth remembering for this kind of trouble.’
‘I’ve told you all I do know. And that’s all I told Warren.’
‘And what aspects of it interested him most?’
‘All of it, I think. But it was hard to tell. Even when it came to business, he seemed to know everything beforehand.’
‘Lesueur?’
‘He knew all about that.’
‘And Colonel Hawley?’
‘I don’t remember that he mentioned him. He certainly didn’t single him out.’
‘Who was the first to mention Lesueur’s name——you or he?’
‘I did.——Oh, Mr Kenworthy——I know I was letting you take me along step by step. But I didn’t want to look guilty. Can’t you understand?’
‘When you confirmed that Lesueur was the big name behind all this, did Warren looked pleased?’
‘Satisfied.’
‘That was the end of the interview?’
‘That was all there was to it.’
‘He didn’t say he would contact you again, or ask you to keep him posted with further information?’
‘No. I was afraid he might come again, but he hasn’t been.’
Wright had come to the end of a notebook and was beginning to scribble on the inside cover. The woman sergeant passed him a small wad of plain quarto paper.
‘Did you tell your husband about Warren’s visit?’
‘Of course not. What do you think?’
‘You could have told him half the story——the business half.’
‘Brian would have found out where Warren’s office was, and would have gone to see him. I’ve been dead scared from the moment Warren first appeared on my door-step. Wouldn’t you have been?’
‘I doubt whether I would ever have found myself in such a complex situation, Mrs Sturgess.——What were your reactions when you read in the papers what had happened to Barson?’
‘Well, of course, I was stunned.’
‘What did your husband say?’
‘That there was another small fortune gone down the drain. Brian misses the chance of a small fortune on an average twice a month.’
‘Even the enormity of this murder didn’t make you want to take your husband into your confidence?’
‘I badly wanted to talk to someone. But I thought it was the best policy in the long run to keep my mouth shut.’
‘In a sense you must have been relieved.’
‘What are you suggesting, Mr Kenworthy?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all, Mrs Sturgess. The thought never entered my head.’
Kenworthy put his tobacco pouch and matches back into his pocket——a sign, Wright knew, that the interview was almost over.
‘There’s just one more question, Mrs Sturgess——and you needn’t answer it if you don’t want to——was your husband using you as bait to hook Barson and Lesueur?’
‘I could report you for saying a thing like that,’ she said.
Kenworthy turned to the police-woman.
‘Tell her where she can get a spot of lunch in Fellaby, and then lay on transport to take her back to Kirby-le-Dale.’
‘Will that be all?’ Mrs Sturgess asked, uncertain of herself.
‘Your guess is as good as mine—better, in fact, because you know the answer to some of the questions that I haven’t asked.’
And as her rear view disappeared down the stairs in the wake of her guide, superintendent Rhys came fortuitously from another office, clutching a dozen questionnaires in his hand. He looked in at the open door of the interview room.
‘Something I ought to know about?’ he asked brightly, without a trace of innuendo.
‘Just been saving you a dollop of extra work. Eliminated a couple of suspects.’
‘Oh?’
The Welshman came into the room and closed the door behind himself.
‘One of Barson’s shadier business contacts,’ Kenworthy said, ‘and his wife, whom you’ve just seen. Barson has been playing around with her.’
‘Did the husband know?’
‘We don’t think so.’
‘But they’ve both got an alibi, I suppose?’
‘As good as,’ Kenworthy said. ‘There are some aspects of any story that you know are fictitious, and some that have the hall mark of naivete about them——a sort of unembroid
ered picturesqueness. In this case, it turns on the certainty that neither Sturgess nor his wife had previously set foot in Fellaby.’
‘They wouldn’t have needed their feet in Fellaby for very long.’
‘But remember, superintendent——whoever killed Barson knew where he could put his hands on the Luger——and armed himself with it the previous night. I’m sure beyond all shadow of doubt that that lets the Sturgesses out.’
‘Nevertheless———you’ll be wanting us to follow up——as a precaution?’
‘Later, Rhys.——Always give apples time to ripen, otherwise they’ll give you belly-ache.’
Rhys took his questionnaires elsewhere.
‘Just think of it, Shiner,’ Kenworthy said. ‘This is pure Lesueur. Salamander Enterprises——a small, multiple company that no one’s heard of. Probably its finances are a bit anaemic, until Lesueur gives them a transfusion. Then Barson and his pals vote them a monopoly of the new High Street——Lesueur’s happy, Barson’s happy, the Fellaby shopper is happy.’
‘But why should they be afraid of Colonel Hawley? Why should the game be up if he rumbles what they’re doing?’
‘I’m not sure, Shiner. I think it’s because as official party agent he’d want to keep the political lines uncrossed. I don’t think Hawley cares much for gerrymandering. But I’m not sure. I think Mrs Sturgess may have got two visits from Barson muddled up.’
‘I don’t follow, sir.’
‘Think it out, Shiner——’
‘Obviously we shall have to question Sturgess.’
‘All in good time, Shiner.——Sturgess didn’t do it——of that you can be dead certain——for the reasons I gave to Rhys, and one other, which I didn’t. Sturgess may have his usefulness to us——but it can wait. His adoring wife will make a clean breast of things——that’s a nice bit of imagery, isn’t it?——when he comes tonight. She’ll have to. As she said——and it was one of the few bare bits of truth she came out with——she’s lost in all this. And now it’s sunk through her thick skull that her husband might be the number one suspect, she’ll be more lost than ever. So Sturgess will come tumbling into our arms——if only to try to find out what we’re thinking. If he were guilty, he wouldn’t, but if he’s innocent, he will. And he’ll be dead scared, too. I only hope he won’t come craving our attention too soon. I don’t want to be confronted with him until I can argue with him from strength about Salamander Enterprises. Otherwise he might palm me off with half a story. But when I’ve digested the report that Heather will send us, he won’t be able to palm me off with anything at all. This is the sort of thing that Heather does rather well——only it’s bound to take him a bit of time.’
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