She shook her head.
‘I was in London with my fiancé. I went up from work on Friday evening, and didn’t get back here until nearly nine on Sunday evening. Shall I give you his name and address?’
‘Please.’ Pollard took out his notebook.
‘The flat is really the top floor of the house, which belongs to a Mr and Mrs Hopewell. They could confirm that we were there.’
Point shrewdly taken, thought Pollard.
‘Mr Strode’s mother lives in Affacombe, I believe?’ he remarked.
‘Yes. And he’s coming down tonight on a flying visit.’ There was a note in her voice which all the anxiety of the present could not stifle. Her face suddenly lighted up with irrepressible happiness. Pollard found the upward curve of the corners of her mouth enchanting.
‘I’m glad to hear that,’ he said, wondering if the young man were coming in a partly professional capacity on his prospective mother-in-law’s account.
Julian turned towards him with a quick decisive movement.
‘Chief Inspector, there’s something I’d like to tell you — if you won’t let on that I have. It’s a small thing really, but it explains a lot. I’m afraid that sounds rather muddly.’
‘Please tell me about it, Miss Wrey, however small a matter it seems to you. I’ll respect your confidence if I possibly can, but I can’t give you an absolute undertaking about it, I’m afraid.’
‘No, I quite realize that,’ she answered, meeting his eyes squarely. ‘The thing is, it’s all my fault that Mummy was blackmailed. It happened like this. I know it sounds incredible, but Sister Roach really had been at the Priory for over a year without either of them realizing who the other one was. It wasn’t until Sister Roach treated a wasp sting that I got at a party last September, and I made polite conversation about a —a place, that she cottoned on to who I was, and realized that she and Mummy had met before, ages ago. Then things — well — linked up in her mind. It’s the truth,’ she added with sudden urgency. ‘I’d state it on oath.’
Pollard made a rapid mental calculation. Julian Wrey looked in her early twenties. Born in the early nineteen-forties, say. Roach would have been rather young to have nursed Barbara Winship through a hushed-up confinement. Still, she could have easily been involved in it in some way.
‘You know,’ he said aloud. ‘I think this may be important —’ He broke off as the door opened to admit Barbara Winship, followed by her husband, and stood up, keyed to the highest pitch of alertness.
His immediate reaction was astonishment that mother and daughter could be so unalike physically. This was a tall, well-built and elegant blonde, who must have been a very pretty girl. In spite of unmistakable signs of strain under her careful make-up she was still decidedly easy on the eye.
‘You want to see me, Chief Inspector?’ she asked, in a quiet, rather languid voice, when Hugh Winship had introduced him.
‘Please, Mrs Winship,’ he replied. ‘And privately, if you don’t mind.’
‘Certainly,’ she said decisively, without looking at her husband and Julian. The ensuing silence was electric with their astonished dismay. She’s going to talk, thought Pollard. He turned to Hugh Winship.
‘You have no reason to worry, sir. I’m well aware of the extent of my authority, and Mrs Winship is perfectly free to decline to answer any of my questions unless her solicitor is present.’
Hugh stared unhappily at Barbara, muttering something inarticulate which included the word ‘unwise’. Receiving no response from her, he turned abruptly on his heel and walked out of the room. Julian, who had been putting some logs on the fire, touched Barbara lightly on the shoulder and followed him. The dogs, uneasy at the dispersal of the family, stood in the middle of the room making small distressed noises.
‘Will this do?’ Barbara subsided into one corner of the sofa, automatically adjusting cushions to give herself greater comfort.
Pollard took the opposite corner, crossed his legs and studied her. Keen on the good things of life, he thought, just starting to put on a bit of weight. But unless I’m greatly mistaken, there’s something pretty tough under this façade of elegant languor.
‘Since you talked to Inspector Dart, Mrs Winship,’ he began without preamble, ‘have you been able to remember anything further that you noticed on your walk along the Monk’s Path last Saturday?’
She looked at him, anxiety in her big blue eyes.
‘I simply can’t. I’ve thought and thought, but it’s hopeless. You see, I was thinking about my — my worries most of the time, and didn’t really notice anything much.’
‘It’s amazing what one’s subconscious mind retains,’ Pollard said easily. ‘I know this will be very tedious, but we’ll try various lines on that walk of yours, and see if anything comes to the surface. I’ve just come from the Monk’s Path myself, so the lie of the land’s quite clear in my mind.’
Over the next ten minutes he tried all the evocative approaches he could think of: near and distant visual impressions, sounds, smells, the topography of the path itself, the aesthetic, but without getting any new reaction. If she’s hiding anything, he thought, she’s damn clever.
‘Are you a fast walker?’ he asked her suddenly.
‘No. I’m very unathletic. Physically rather lazy, in fact.’
‘What about last Saturday afternoon? Would you say that you walked at your normal — perhaps rather below average — pace?’
For the first time Barbara Winship showed signs of agitation, twisting her hands together.
‘Not for the last bit. I expect it tells against me, but I hurried, and I’m telling you I did. It was just starting to rain, and I hate getting wet.’
‘You hurried down from near the Monk’s Leap itself? Is that what you mean by the last bit of your walk?’
‘Yes,’ she said faintly.
‘If you often take the dogs there, Mrs Winship, I expect you know pretty well how long it takes you to get home from the Leap. What would you reckon is your normal time?’
‘Just under ten minutes.’
‘And on Saturday?’
‘Well, say eight. It’s awfully difficult to be exact.’ She spoke almost appealingly. ‘I mean, I wasn’t bothering about time at all.’
Pollard did some quick thinking. His own and Toye’s timing of the walk to the road from the Leap had borne out Dart’s six minutes to the gate. Say a couple more to get back here. He deliberately allowed the pause to elongate, and then plunged abruptly.
‘You know, Mrs Winship —’ he sensed her stiffen — ‘there’s one thing in your statement to Inspector Dart that I find very puzzling.’
‘The time I got home?’ she suggested unconvincingly.
‘Nothing to do with time. I mean your claim that you and Sister Roach had lived in this small village for over a year before she discovered some earlier contact with you which enabled her to blackmail you. Meanwhile you say you hadn’t recognized her either. Would you care to amend your statement about this matter?’
‘I can’t.’ She twisted her hands nervously. ‘It happens to be the truth.’
‘Well, will you add some explanation of this very remarkable situation? I have no authority to insist on your telling me the grounds of Sister Roach’s blackmail, but I think that you should consider whether it wouldn’t be to your advantage to clear up this point we are discussing.’
Barbara Winship turned her head so that he could not see her face. There was another long pause. Then she spoke in so low a voice that Pollard leant forward to catch what she was saying.
‘Would I be prosecuted now for something I did nearly twenty-five years ago? It wasn’t anything really dreadful like — like murder. Or blackmail.’
‘You must know,’ Pollard told her, ‘that if you choose to tell me about it, I can’t give you any undertaking that no action will be taken against you. On the other hand, unless it’s a case of a serious crime or of someone still living having been wronged, there’s a reasonable chance
that the matter would be allowed to rest. The police don’t go around looking for trouble.’
She glanced at him, quickly averting her eyes again.
‘Suppose I could convince you that we hadn’t recognized each other? Would that help to clear me as far as her death goes?’
‘It won’t alter the fact that there exists some circumstantial evidence against you,’ Pollard replied unequivocally. ‘It would certainly remove from my mind the suspicion that you are not being frank about your acquaintance with her.’
With a swift movement Barbara Winship turned and faced him. He saw that her languor had dropped from her like a discarded disguise.
‘I’m going to tell you the whole story,’ she said abruptly. ‘Even if it all comes out it’s better than facing a murder charge. It’s quite simple. Julian isn’t illegitimate, as I’m sure you’re thinking. She isn’t my child at all. I made a false registration of her birth. Sister Roach was at the nursing home where she was born, and discovered what had happened by pure accident one day last September. Then she realized who I was, although she had completely forgotten me, and even then didn’t “recognize” me in the ordinary sense of the word.’
‘I see,’ said Pollard, illumination flooding in.
‘It’s a long story, I’m afraid.’
‘Please take your time, Mrs Winship. And don’t be put off if I make a note from time to time.’
This is her real self, Pollard thought, as the complicated sequence of events unfolded. He resolutely thrust aside his natural compassion. Here was a woman who knew what she wanted of life so clearly that when the incredible eleventh-hour chance came to salvage it from the wreckage, she could make a split-second decision and substitute another child for her own dead baby. And then, when she’d carried through the deceit for nearly twenty-five years, up bobs Roach. Wouldn’t she have grabbed at a chance to silence Roach for good and all? Motive and opportunity reinforced by temperament.
He watched Barbara, her long narrative at an end, sink back wearily against the cushions, as though resuming the lazy grace which had become her habitual bearing.
‘I suppose you think I’m a very wicked woman?’ she asked him.
‘As you yourself realize,’ he said gravely, ‘you acted most illegally. I shall want confirmation of what you have told me. For instance, that your late father-in-law was morally certain that Miss Wrey was not his grandchild when he adopted her. That will involve my asking her to show me the letter you spoke of.’
‘I’m certain Julian will agree to that. She and my husband know everything. At first I meant to pay that woman to keep it from them, but after she was murdered I was too frightened to go on alone. I was sure the police would find out she’d been blackmailing me and suspect me. Shall I fetch Julian?’
Pollard thought quickly. He felt disposed to accept Barbara Winship’s story for the moment as Julian Wrey had confirmed it in part. His immediate job was to find Sister Roach’s murderer.
‘Not just now, thank you,’ he answered. ‘I shall be seeing Miss Wrey later.’
He started to get up, attracting the attention of the Jack Russells who came pattering across from the hearthrug. One of them stood up on its hind legs and pawed his knee, wagging an abbreviated tail.
‘Jolly little chaps,’ he said, glad of an opening to end the interview on an easier note. ‘What are they called?’
‘Rather sweet, aren’t they?’ she replied. ‘This one’s Flash, and the one trying to jump up on you is Streak. They can go like lightning, you see.’
‘Want to come up, old man?’ asked Pollard, picking up Streak.
A piercing yelp of pain rang through the room.
‘Good God, I’m most frightfully sorry!’ he exclaimed. ‘What on earth did I do to him?’
‘I wonder if he hurt himself somehow on Saturday?’ Barbara, startled into sitting erect, stared at Streak with a puzzled frown. ‘I’ve just remembered. They both suddenly dashed into the ruins, and the next minute one of them gave a yelp just like that. I thought they’d gone after one of the school cats and called to them. They came running out and seemed all right then.’
‘Where did this happen?’ Pollard tried to keep the interest out of his voice.
‘I’d just passed the Leap on the way back. How extraordinary. I’d completely forgotten about it till this moment.’
‘Shall we have a look at him?’
Streak was coaxed on to the sofa, and Pollard gently parted his coat.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘A nasty bruise, just behind the shoulder.’ He explored delicately. ‘I don’t think anything’s broken, though.’
Barbara looked, and exclaimed in dismay.
‘But how extraordinary,’ she said again. ‘I suppose he fell and caught himself against one of the old walls or something.’
She relapsed back into her corner, fondling Streak. Pollard realized that she was genuinely exhausted, and that the possible significance of the dog’s injury had not occurred to her.
Toye was waiting patiently in the car outside the drive gate. Getting in, Pollard gave him a condensed account of his interview with Barbara Winship.
‘So there you are,’ he concluded. ‘Death in the blitz, one baby substituted for another, a fortune, and a wasp sting leading to blackmail, and possibly to murder — the lot.’
Toye, who had listened with rapt attention, remarked that it had most films beat.
‘We’ll have to get it checked, but it can wait for the moment. I must say I’m grateful to that dog. Assuming that Mrs Winship was speaking the truth about the yelp on Saturday, it does seem to bear out that somebody was hanging about in those bushes. I’ll swear that bruise was made by a hefty kick.’
‘From somebody who was mighty anxious not to be discovered, and to drive the dog off,’ said Toye. ‘Ties up with that heel print, and the trampled grass. Makes things look a bit brighter for Mrs Winship, too, doesn’t it?’
‘I’d feel a bit brighter myself if there was some news of a stranger seen about last Saturday afternoon after four o’clock. Anyone knowing the ropes could have arrived about 2.30, banking on being taken for a parent who had come to watch the match, but everyone would have cleared off by 3.45, when tea started. Getting away at — say 4.15 — without being noticed by anyone would have been tricky, to say the least of it. Did you have any luck?’
Toye had managed to finish off the house-to-house enquiry in the village, but with entirely negative results. He had also rung Sergeant Murch at the Leeford police station, and reported that no call had come through from the Yard.
‘We’ll go and call on this Mrs Strode, then,’ said Pollard. ‘The lady who tried to teach Inspector Dart his job. As far as I’m concerned all contributions will be gratefully received.’
Olivia Strode came to the door of Poldens and greeted Pollard and Toye with composure. She had obviously been expecting them, and led the way to her sitting-room. Uncomplicated and shrewd, thought Pollard with relief as they followed her.
‘I realize that Inspector Dart regards me with misgivings,’ she remarked with a glint of amusement in her eye, ‘but as I’m presumably not a suspect may I offer you some tea?’
Pollard accepted gratefully and she left them to go to the kitchen. He looked round with interest. This was an attractive room, too, but a study rather than a drawing-room, with well-filled bookcases and a filing cabinet. He got up to examine a beautiful old map of the county which hung over the mantelpiece, and tiptoed over to the paper-strewn desk. Here Olivia had been working on the Affacombe churchwardens’ accounts for the eighteen-sixties. But there were flowers and photographs in the room, too. The young man must be her son, and Julian Wrey’s fiancé.
‘Egghead,’ Toye mouthed at him, looking impressed.
Pollard suppressed a smile as the door opened to admit Olivia and a tea-tray. He watched her as she poured out, interested as always in humanity’s limitless variety. Barbara Winship was pretty, elegant, and rather limited and humourless. A self-in
dulgent woman, yet with remarkable determination and tenacity of purpose. Olivia Strode clearly possessed these two latter qualities too, but there the resemblance ended. She had an intelligent sensible face and physical robustness, but no pretensions to good looks or elegance. Certainly a nice sense of humour, and a directness. As soon as they were supplied with tea and cake he found her glancing at him enquiringly.
‘May I begin?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want to take up more of your time than I must.’
‘Please do.’ She sat back in her chair, relaxed and attentive.
Pollard consulted his notebook.
‘You’ll understand that we’re interested in any strangers who have been seen in the village lately. We have had a report that a man with a beard and wearing dark glasses called at this house a week ago last Saturday.’
He looked up to see her smiling.
‘Dear old Ellen Labbitt. My caller was Professor Plowright of Highcastle University, Chief Inspector. He’s an archaeologist, with an almost obsessive interest in the site of the Saxon victory over the Britons somewhere here in the West Country in 608, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. He’s walking Crownmoor section by section, looking for somewhere geographically and strategically convincing.’
‘Do you know,’ Pollard replied, making a brief note, ‘I had a hunch that it would turn out to be a fellow-worker of yours. Now, I’m afraid this is going to be rather tedious, but it’s only by sifting and resifting statements in a case like this that one gets to what is really significant. Can you think back to the moment when you left here last Saturday afternoon to go to tea at the vicarage?’
As he expected, she was an excellent witness, clear and unhurried. Her account of her progress up the village street and brief glimpse of Barbara Winship was identical in every detail with that already given to Inspector Dart. Had she noticed anything in the least unusual about Mrs Winship on catching sight of her? No, nothing whatever. Pollard listened with interest to the frank admission that she had been glad to avoid stopping and getting involved in conversation: Mrs Winship had been very nervy and upset as a result of the blackmail.
The Affacombe Affair Page 14