‘What the hell are you talking about?’ said the voice. ‘What do you think a police station’s for?’
‘The first thing it’s for in my view,’ I said, ‘is to lock Inspector Kedward up in, and that’s where he’ll end up by the time I’ve finished with him.’
‘Oh Christ, is he really bent?’
‘I haven’t the proof yet, but I’m convinced of it. It’s the only way to explain his behaviour over Mrs Mardy that I can see.’
‘The whole thing’s very confusing the way you’re telling it,’ said the voice, ‘and I don’t like the Kedward part of it at all.’
‘It’s not my fault the man’s bent,’ I said, ‘and any case is confusing no matter who’s telling the story, especially if you’re in the middle of it.’
‘All right,’ said the voice, ‘what else have you got?’
‘There’s this blackmail angle.’
‘Any names there in the fairy tale?’
‘Yes, I’ve got one good fairy and one very bad one, apart from Kedward and Sanders. The good one’s a very interesting man called Colonel A’Court Newington; he knows a lot about the Mardys and I’ve a message here asking me to contact him. The naughty one’s a man called Walter Baddeley and he runs a company whose finances I want checked out – Wildways Estates, with registered offices in Thornhill.’
‘Tell me more about Baddeley.’
‘He’s a man of many activities,’ I said. ‘He has political ambitions, he’s an estate agent, a property dealer, and guess what else he is? An undertaker. Have you put Kedward on the computer yet? Because while you’re at it I want every payment made to or by Wildways Estates checked. And talking of Wildways, the computer can go through Baddeley’s personal account as well.’
‘You’ve got an obsession about banking in this case, Sergeant, it seems to me.’
‘Yes, and with some reason,’ I said, ‘because money, murder and blackmail often jingle happily along together hand in hand; they make a sweet little nursery tune together – it’s called motive. Sometimes another pretty little instrument joins in too,’ I added. ‘It’s called greed, and I certainly think it’s joined in here.’
‘I just hope you’re not giving the computer a lot of work for nothing.’
‘It’s no work for the computer,’ I said irritably. ‘They link it to the appropriate bank terminal and it’ll whip through that lot in a few seconds. Tell them to search back to January eighty-four and then ask them to get me the photostats of any cheque made out for more than a hundred pounds – and how soon can I have it, five minutes ago could be too late.’
The voice sighed. ‘I’ll have it sent down by courier.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Once I’ve found what I think I’m going to find in there I’ll get along a lot faster.’
‘I’ll say this much for you, Sergeant, you usually do get on fast,’ said the voice. ‘Tell me another thing, now – what about this man Newington, where does he fit?’
‘Newington’s a retired colonel, served throughout World War Two in the artillery; he was at Dunkirk. He was also a magistrate and a man whose word I would accept without thinking twice, and that’s something I very seldom say about anybody, you know me. He’s old and very sick and lives on his own in a big house. His fiancée was killed in 1940, machine-gunned by a German fighter outside the south coast hospital where she was working as a nurse.’
‘I’ve never heard you be so poetic over anyone before,’ said the voice. ‘You seem to think a lot of him.’
‘I do,’ I said, ‘he’s the kind of man I’d like to be when I’m old.’
‘All right,’ said the voice, ‘leaving all that aside, what makes him so interesting?’
‘First, because he knew the Mardys very well and liked them. Second, it was Newington who went to the Chief Constable about Mrs Mardy. It was not, I repeat not, Inspector Kedward.’
‘How do you know it was Newington?’
‘It’s ridiculously simple,’ I said. ‘He told me. You’ve got to remember,’ I added, ‘how popular Mrs Mardy was in the area, particularly with her concerts. Everybody liked and respected them. But it needed a man with Colonel Newington’s authority to take action when the local police did nothing about her, and he took it.’
‘Quite irregular.’
‘Yes, but it worked,’ I said, ‘because here I am.’
‘Yes, all right.’ The voice paused. ‘You feel this case is right for A14, do you?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ I said. ‘I believe the Mardy case is an unexplained death all right. You get a nose for—’
‘Keep going,’ said the voice. ‘I’m not interested in your nose,’ it added, and rang off.
I looked at my nose in the mirror; I wasn’t interested in it either. There was a fridge bar in a corner of the room. I opened it and found a make of dark beer I didn’t like but no lager. Still, there were some miniatures. I got a Bell’s and added ice and water to it. I stared into the drink for a while, then rang Records and asked for Sergeant Harrison. ‘Hello, Barry,’ I said, ‘how’s things?’
‘I was just going to ring you,’ said Harrison. ‘To start with, there’s nothing at all on Marianne Mardy.’
‘I’d be surprised if there had been,’ I said. ‘OK, then, what about him?’
‘Ah, William Mardy’s more interesting. Born 1921, medical student. The war interrupted that. Joined the Medical Corps at the end of thirty-nine, qualified with them. Went on active service – North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Austria, finished at a military hospital, Potsdam, in forty-five. Practised in London till nineteen forty-seven as a GP, then started to train as a surgeon. So far, fine. But then things went wrong.’
‘How?’
‘He carried out an operation on a woman patient while he was still a student.’
‘When was this?’
‘October forty-nine.’
‘What happened?’
‘The patient died.’
‘What was the operation?’
‘An abortion. Illegal here in those days, which is why she went to Mardy. Also, they were cousins. She was a Miss Dorothy Martens; he operated on her in her flat. He performed a D & C. It didn’t come off, because the girl had some sort of gynaecological abnormality – I forget the medical details. When he realized this he did rush her to hospital, but too late. She died of septicaemia.’
‘Christ,’ I said, ‘he should have known better than to do that.’
‘He doubtless did, but he equally knew he was breaking the law operating at all.’
‘Why did they go to such lengths to get rid of the child?’
‘In his evidence at the inquest Mardy merely stated that he carried out the operation because she begged him to. There were family reasons too – her dad was a vicar – bringing shame on her parents etcetera.’
‘Any suggestion that the child might have been his?’
‘Well, of course the coroner put the question to him, but he denied it. Blood samples were taken of Mardy and the foetus, but the results weren’t conclusive. I don’t think the coroner thought he was.’
‘Did she have a reputation for jumping in and out of bed? Vicar’s daughters sometimes behave like that.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ said Harrison. ‘I’m married to one, or was. But there was nothing definite.’
‘Criminal proceedings?’
‘Of course,’ said Harrison. ‘But he got off lightly – eighteen months at Ford Open. He had good counsel, and the judge remarked during his summing-up that he’d already been sufficiently punished by the death of the girl and a wrecked career.’
‘Anything known of him after he got out?’
‘He’s never turned up here again.’
‘He wasn’t short of money until I think recently,’ I said. ‘Only child, old local family, inherited this barracks of a place down here. His wife seems to have had money too, from France.’
‘Well, I hope some of this has been helpful.’
‘Of course it has,
Barry,’ I said. ‘Thanks a lot. Everything I can find out helps. Remind me to buy you a drink when I get back.’
‘That’s fourteen you owe me,’ Harrison said. He added: ‘What sort of a case is it?’
‘Nasty.’
I had hardly put the phone down when it rang again. ‘Reception here. There’s a Colonel Newington waiting to see you in the bar.’
‘Has the bar got a phone?’
‘Of course it has.’
‘Then put me through.’ I said to the barman: ‘Ask Colonel Newington to come up and see me in Room 21.’
When he arrived I said: ‘I hope you didn’t mind my asking you to come up, but we can be private in here. As for bars there’s one in the corner here; what can I get you to drink?’
‘Whisky.’
I made the drink for him and said: ‘Is there something you wanted to tell me?’
‘About the Mardys, yes.’ He was sober but looked dreadfully grey, very frail. He said: ‘I drink a lot because I’m in pain most of the time.’ He finished half his whisky at a swallow, put it down and lit a cigarette. ‘I’m not supposed to smoke or drink as far as the doctors are concerned.’ He smiled absently. He stared up at the ceiling for a time before looking at me – when he did it was a look out of eyes the colour of gun-metal. ‘Since we met in Goodinge’s pub,’ he said, ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.’ With the edge of his thumb he pushed his cigarette from the edge of the ashtray into the middle. Without looking away from the cigarette he said softly: ‘What do you think of Kedward?’
‘Probably what you think,’ I said, ‘but I haven’t enough facts to back my opinion yet.’
‘Very good,’ said the colonel. ‘What do you know about Walter Baddeley?’
‘Not as much as I shall do in a few hours’ time.’
‘One fact I’ll bet you haven’t got,’ said Newington, ‘is that Kedward’s wife is Baddeley’s sister.’
‘Ah, really?’ I said. ‘That’s golden information, that is.’
‘I hate that whole pack of bastards,’ he said.
‘Does the name Wildways Estates mean anything to you?’
‘It does.’
‘Would you care to tell me exactly what it means to you?’
‘It means rackets,’ he said. ‘There are two directors – I mean working directors – the third’s just a broke peer on the letterhead. Wildways pays his bar bills. Sometimes.’
‘Would you tell me who the working directors are?’
‘Certainly. Walter Baddeley and Anne Kedward. But she uses her maiden name.’
‘This Anne Kedward’s a new piece in the game.’
‘She’s a bitch,’ said the colonel, ‘Kedward’s completely under her thumb. Mind,’ he added, ‘it’s his own fault; he’s weak and greedy and just does what she tells him.’
‘They don’t make good police officers.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘but you get them just the same.’ He added: ‘Any more whisky in that fridge of yours?’ I got it for him and he remarked: ‘It was difficult for me to start talking to you. I had to balance giving people away against what I thought to be right.’
‘You’d already started when you contacted the Chief Constable over Mrs Mardy.’
‘I didn’t give Kedward away,’ said Newington, ‘I want you to realize that. But I decided that the inquiry into Mrs Mardy’s disappearance needed, what’s the word I want? A boost, and I know the Chief Constable well; we used to play billiards together, and of course I saw a good deal of him as a magistrate.’ He added savagely: ‘Now I wish I’d gone and seen him before; Marianne Mardy might still be alive.’
‘You think she’s dead?’
‘I’m sure of it.’
‘So am I,’ I said, ‘but try not to blame yourself. If you hadn’t gone to the Chief Constable it would have been an age before anyone else did. Now look, would you tell me how you found out that Walter Baddeley and Anne Kedward were on the board of Wildways Estates?’
‘Yes, they wrote to me with a proposition. I’ve got the letter.’
‘The proposition was what?’
‘I have no heir,’ said Newington. ‘You know that; I told you I wasn’t married. The substance of what they wanted to know was whether I had enough capital to keep my house and two farms going and whether I was fit enough to do it and, if not, whether I would be prepared to accept a piddling annuity from Wildways on condition that my entire estate reverted to them on my death.’
‘And did you reply?’
‘Yes,’ said the colonel, ‘I told them to fuck off, though I didn’t put it quite like that.’
‘And was that the end of it?’
‘It was as far as I was concerned,’ he said, ‘but one or two other cases turned out differently. Lady Eleanor Crosby of Wood Hall, for instance, had neither a husband, a penny, nor an heir. She needed to go into hospital for her chest, but wouldn’t unless she could afford private treatment. She couldn’t, so she accepted Wildways’ annuity.’
‘And?’
‘And she went into a London nursing home and died there, so that now Wildways owns Wood Hall, everything in it, and the land – they got the whole lot for practically nothing. And that’s not the only example.’
‘It’s very strange, I know,’ I said, ‘but legally there’s nothing wrong about Wildways, as you must realize yourself. You and I find it ghoulish, but it isn’t against the law.’
‘I’m not saying it is,’ said Newington. ‘It’s like any successful racket. What I’m saying is, that it is a racket. Wildways specializes in old, sick, lonely people with property to leave. He manages them, he cheats them, and as often as not he buries them too.’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘let’s go a little further now. Have you any reason to think – I’m not asking for proof – that Wildways have overstepped the line anywhere?’
‘Well, they’re greedy,’ he said, ‘very greedy.’
‘Getting careless? Annuity-holders not dying off fast enough, so give them a push?’
‘I don’t know what’s happened to Marianne Mardy,’ he said, ‘so I can’t be positive. But I believe it’s possible.’
I had a desire to tell him about the dry ice delivery, but I knew I couldn’t – I wasn’t far enough on yet.
‘Yes, I think they’ve made a mistake somewhere,’ I said, ‘and I’m here to find it.’
‘Now we’ve got on to the Mardys,’ he said, watching the smoke of his cigarette drift up to the ceiling, ‘there’s something you’d better realize. She came to see me.’
‘On her own? When was this?’
‘This is the most difficult and painful part. Yes, I can tell you exactly. It was July 22nd last year.’
‘At your house?’
‘Yes, I was having a drink before going in to dinner. I detest meals,’ he added inconsequentially, ‘I’ve no appetite. Well, I was just facing up to the idea of eating when the lady who looks after me in the evenings came in to say that there was a Mrs Mardy to see me. I told Mrs Whittington to show her in at once; I was in the library.’
‘And how did Mrs Mardy seem?’
‘Not at all well, I’m afraid, and carelessly, poorly dressed, which was unheard of with her, though for months before I had noticed how she was letting herself go.’
‘Money problems?’
He shook his head. ‘Marianne would still have looked smart, no matter how badly off they were. She would have kept up appearances. No, it wasn’t that.’
‘Was she wearing her veil?’
‘Yes, she never went anywhere without it.’
‘She didn’t even take it off when you and she were alone together?’
‘Oh no.’
‘Can you describe to me how she spoke to you? I mean, what did her voice sound like?’
‘She didn’t speak,’ he said, ‘she would only whisper. She came quite close up to me, but even so I had great difficulty in making out her words, and I’m not deaf.’
‘Can you be more precise?�
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‘It’s hard,’ he said. ‘The nearest I can get to it – it was an indistinct whisper.’ He said, looking straight at me: ‘I can’t describe to you how bad it was to listen to her, remembering the other times when she used to sing and be so happy.’
‘Can you tell me what she whispered to you?’
‘I must,’ he said, ‘that’s why I’m here. She asked me for help, and yet when I asked her how I could help her she began to cry and said she was beyond help.’
‘And then?’
‘Well,’ said the colonel, ‘then she clung to my sleeve for a while, and I made out that what she wanted most was just to be with someone she knew and could trust for a little while. I offered her a sherry, not knowing what else to do, but she stepped back and shook her head with a horrified look which surprised me, because she always enjoyed a dry sherry in the old days.’
‘Perhaps it was because she wouldn’t, or rather couldn’t take off her veil to drink the sherry,’ I said slowly.
‘I’m afraid so,’ said the colonel, ‘yes.’
‘I’m sorry my questions are so painful,’ I said.
‘It can’t be helped,’ he said. ‘I had got myself ready for them.’
‘Did you ask her why she didn’t remove the veil?’
‘That’s where I feel so culpable,’ said Newington, ‘no, I didn’t. I felt I couldn’t. I daresay if I’d been anything but British I would have done. But I felt it would have been an intrusion.’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘I understand.’ There was a moment’s silence.
Then suddenly he said: ‘She smelled funny.’
I said: ‘I’ll have to ask you this, but could you put a name to the smell?’
‘I could,’ he said, ‘but I’d rather not. It’s something I haven’t smelled since the war.’
I said: ‘There’s no need to go any further.’ I knew it was the same smell as we found when we broke a door down to find a body that had been behind it for several weeks.
‘I’m glad I don’t have to talk about it,’ he said, ‘I don’t know that I could. I’ve hardly slept since that evening and for the first time in my life I’ve grown afraid of the dark.’
How the Dead Live (Factory 3) Page 12