A Little Local Murder

by Robert Barnard

  He threw the exercise book over to them to look at, and there was silence in the room for a bit. Then Stephen said: ‘Blackmail, I suppose.’ He went on slowly and hesitantly: ‘Try it this way: Alison Mailer saw something which she knew could ruin the people involved – or the man, rather. She recognized him; being much taller than the girl she saw more of him than she did. This was fairly recently, so almost immediately she must have started blackmailing him.’

  ‘Being already in the blackmailing business, presumably,’ said Parrish, ‘and knowing the ropes.’

  ‘Already? Oh yes, the money in the bank. Yes, I suppose this one’s not the only one. And the letters imply there would be others. Then he finds out who it is is milching him, arranges a meeting near the bluebell woods . . .’

  ‘But would she go?’ said Sergeant Underwood.

  ‘Well, follows her, then, and kills her.’

  ‘Him, or one of the others,’ said Parrish.

  ‘True, him or one of the others,’ said Stephen. ‘We’ve obviously got to find out who they might be, if we can. But the point is, he’s the one we do know something about.’

  ‘So far, so good,’ said Parrish. ‘It works out convincingly enough, and Mrs Mailer is the sort who wouldn’t think twice about methods if she needed a constant supply of extra money each month. But I see her as the cautious type, not in the least slovenly about detail. The question is, how did he find out who’d got him on the hook?’

  ‘Well, it happens. There could be some agreed hiding-place, somewhere where the money was hidden each time. He waits there, sees her, and then does her in. You know the sort of thing.’

  Parrish shook his head dubiously. ‘Sounds a bit childish, and not really Alison Mailer. Poste Restante would be easier, and she could be pretty sure there’d be no question of bringing the police in, not in a case of this sort, so it’d be safe enough.’

  ‘Does the way he found out matter terribly at this stage, sir?’ said Stephen, who sometimes found Parrish’s mind too concerned with details and not really alive to the larger strategy.

  ‘Everything matters,’ said Parrish. ‘And there is another possibility . . . as to how he found out, I mean.’

  Stephen looked at him, puzzled. There was silence in the room for a moment.

  ‘The essay,’ said Sergeant Underwood.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Parrish. ‘I wonder who teaches English to the first-year children at Barstowe Grammar.’

  ‘Well, plenty could,’ said Stephen, ‘there wasn’t any one pers . . . Christ! I wonder if you’re right.’

  ‘Who’s the headmaster there?’ asked Parrish. ‘Couldn’t you ring him and find out?’

  ‘Smithson. I’ll get him,’ and Feather darted over to the telephone directories and was flicking through them in a second. Marvellous in a chase, Stephen would be, thought Parrish idly to himself. Pity there hasn’t been a chase in Twytching in living memory. In little more than a minute Feather was on to his man.

  ‘Yes, sir, Feather . . . I finished five years ago . . . No reason why you should, sir . . . Just plodding along . . . I suppose you’ll have heard of the Mailer case, sir? Well, I’m with the police at Twytching, and we’re on the case at the moment . . . yes, very sad, very . . . you know the little girl, do you, sir? . . . Yes, very bright, that was our impression . . . we wondered who her English teacher might be . . . really? That’s terribly helpful . . . no, no, nothing serious . . . just a little thing we picked up from her English essay book, and we wondered how she came to write it . . . one checks everything in a case like this, of course – a terrible lot of routine . . . I’m awfully grateful to you, sir, awfully grateful . . . I’ll hope to see you at Old Boy’s Day . . . Stephen Feather, that’s right . . . yes, goodbye, and thanks.’

  He put the phone down.

  ‘If he swallowed that explanation of why you wanted to know,’ said Parrish, ‘he doesn’t deserve to teach PT in a mission school in Bangladesh.’

  ‘Who cares about that?’ said Stephen. ‘I was too excited to think up anything, and he’ll know there are things we just can’t reveal. The main thing is, we’ve got it in one.’

  ‘Jimson?’

  ‘Takes IA English. Poor little buggers. And likes little girls, the letter said. She should know. She’d seen him at it. What he didn’t show us were the letters asking for money: fifty in April, then seventy-five this month. Going up, and as far as he knew, could go on and on, up and up all the time. Then Cressida wrote this essay.’

  ‘Timothy Jimson,’ said Parrish meditatively. ‘Not a chap I ever cared for. Wouldn’t you agree, Stephen?’

  • • •

  The This is Twytching interview with Timothy Jimson was recorded in the front room after he came home from school. He had ordered the room to be cleared of all toys, games, and other childish impedimenta, and had even, miraculously, made a few feints of assistance himself. He had then scattered books around the room – the odd Folio title, the poems of Philip Larkin, and an American blockbuster detailing the ecological crimes of humanity. There was also a recently printed copy of Troy Weight, inscribed to Hank Nelson, the intimidatingly wholesome interviewer. Hank himself, and most of the production team, were still looking a little frazzled, especially Harold Thring, who didn’t improve with frazzling. Ted Livermore, on the other hand, in spite of bloodshot eyes, had more vivacity about him than at any time since he arrived in Twytching, and seemed from his manner to be distinctly chuffed with himself.

  ‘Then you find a receptive audience in Twytching, do you, Tim?’ Hank was saying expansively, microphone in hand, his eye on the slowly turning tape, ‘and a good atmosphere for your work as a Writer?’

  ‘Remarkably good,’ said Timothy genially, rubbing his hands. ‘A really intelligent interest taken, by everyone in the village really, and the sort of peace and quiet that a Writer simply must have if he is to develop himself fully.’

  Jean Jimson stood ignored in the bay window, and watched her husband unblushingly contradict the opinion he had often expressed to her that the people of Twytching were the closest thing on this earth to a bunch of turnips, and that the last trump itself would have difficulty in arousing in them a spark of intelligent interest or lively anticipation. The thought that anyone was in the room who might remember, and make a connection, did not occur to Timothy. His wife existed, but she did not think. But she watched him quietly as he flowered into ludicrous shapes of conceit under the inept questioning.

  ‘Now, I’d say it was about time we had a musical interlude,’ the interviewer was saying, when he was interrupted by Parrish ringing the doorbell.

  ‘Damn,’ said Harold shrilly. ‘We’ll have to do that again. Let them in, whoever it is, but tell them to be quiet as mouses, PLEASE!’

  Parrish and Feather crept into the hall, like Gilbert and Sullivan constables, and stood by the door, watching, as Harold fussed around the tape recorder, and then said: ‘Once more that last bit, and be quiet, everyone, please.’

  Timothy Jimson hadn’t turned round, being intent on swapping sophisticated chat with his interviewer, and on giving the appearance of being above noticing who had come to see him in his moment of glory.

  ‘Now, I’d say it was about time we had a musical interlude,’ said Hank again. ‘Would you like to suggest a piece that we can play for you and for all our listeners back in Twytching, Wisconsin?’

  Timothy Jimson allowed a fraction of a second to elapse, as if for thought.

  ‘I’d be most grateful if you could play the finale of Haydn’s Military – the number one hundred. Beecham, of course.’ He smirked.

  ‘Right,’ said Ted. ‘That’s in the can.’

  ‘Right,’ shrieked Harold. ‘Back to the Lamb. Careful with that mike, ducky. It’s Swiss, and cost a pretty penny, I can tell you.’

  If Timothy Jimson was terrified at the sight of Inspector Parrish and his sergeant, he disguised it well. Across the dissolving chaos of the Radio Broadwich men and their apparatus he looked no m
ore than disconcerted, though there was certainly no smile of welcome, and he threw a particularly suspicious glance in the direction of Feather.

  ‘Oh, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Does it have to be now?’ The implication of ‘you are spoiling my moment of glory’ seemed obvious, and he looked in anguish at the retreating figure of Hank, whose back had determination written in every padded inch of it. He had forgotten his copy of Troy Weight.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Parrish. ‘These things don’t always arrange themselves as we’d like. I think it might be better, sir, if we had our talk down at the station.’

  Timothy looked outraged. ‘Down at the station? You mean you expect me to come to the police station? Absolutely impossible, Inspector, absolutely impossible. You can see what sort of a day it’s been here, and I’ve a pile of marking I simply have to get done.’

  ‘On a Friday, sir?’ said Parrish. It was Jimson’s first indication that he was not dealing with an idiot. ‘But I’m afraid I shall have to ask you in any case, sir, marking or no marking. We shall all feel much freer if we’re at the station.’

  ‘I’m not going to your damned station in a black Maria like a common criminal,’ said Timothy, getting redder and more petulant, as he did when people disagreed with him in staff meetings. ‘I told you how careful we teachers have to be. You know our position. What are people going to say when they see me with both of you?’

  ‘I think you’ll find, sir,’ said Parrish quietly, ‘that we can do the whole thing with much less embarrassment to you and your family if we go to the station. I’ll thank you to put your coat on.’

  There was a pause as Timothy looked at the Inspector. He seemed to be girding himself up for a further shrill protest. Then he marched out of the room to the coat-stand in the hall, brushing indignantly past the last of the departing technicians. As he noisily and angrily took down a jacket from the hooks, Harold Thring turned to Inspector Parrish, and whispered, in one of his whispers: ‘If you arrest him, I’ll never forgive you, because we’ll have to scrub the whole interview, and then find someone else to represent culture in this god-forsaken little town, and if you think that’s easy, you have my job, and I’ll join the Force!’

  Timothy Jimson marched out of the front door, followed by Sergeant Feather, both of them putting up an unconvincing show of being oblivious of each other. Jean Jimson had come to the sitting-room door, but Timothy had ignored her, though he had seen her. At all moments in their marriage when his ego had received a painful blow, he had preferred not to acknowledge her existence. She went back to the bay window, and watched him open the gate – it stuck as usual – and then get into the car. For once the children round her were quiet, not quite able to take in all that had happened in the last hour, and wondering whether their father had got involved in some sort of radio play. As the car drove away, and she caught a last glimpse of Timothy’s wizened form, attempting a pitiful, self-important show of righteous indignation, Jean realized that she didn’t want her husband to be arrested, not for anything, and not on any account. Because if he was, it would be terribly difficult to leave him. And suddenly she wanted to leave him more than anything on earth.

  CHAPTER XII

  FINANCIAL AND SCHOLASTIC

  ‘I’m leaving him to you,’ said Inspector Parrish to Stephen Feather, after they had dumped Timothy Jimson, pink and protesting, on an uncomfortable upright chair in Parrish’s office.

  ‘To me?’ said Stephen, who was not used to being given much responsibility beyond checking driving licences and reprimanding small boys caught stealing apples.

  ‘Yes, take my chair. But don’t let it give you ideas beyond your station. Range wide, take in all we know, and when he puts up his defences in one direction, come in sideways. Be as sneaky as you know how – provided you keep on the right side of the conventions.’

  ‘It’s very good of you, sir. I’m flattered. But is it wise? You saw for yourself how he looked at me when we went to his house. He’ll be wild right from the start.’

  ‘And rattled. That’s what I want. He’ll be expecting me, and what he gets is one of his ex-pupils. And you needn’t be too tactful about that, either. Enrage him, get his hackles up, make the blood go to his head – and then – ’

  ‘He lets things out?’

  ‘We’ll hope so. It’s a chance. Remember we’ve got less than nothing on him so far, that’s why you’ll have to swerve and dodge as much as possible. The only possible way of closing in on him is by him giving us an opening. He has no alibi, of course: only vouched for till tennish. But then, neither has anybody else, so though we’ll check that road as closely as possible, the best openings are likely to come from the man himself. Here our main advantage is the sort of chap he is.’

  ‘A bit of a shit, you mean?’

  ‘You might put it like that. That pretentious, self-important type is very vulnerable as soon as they’re faced by someone who isn’t impressed by them.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best, sir.’

  ‘And I’ll get Betty to come in and take notes. She’ll see you don’t overstep the bounds and get us hauled up before the PCS people.’

  ‘The who, sir?’

  ‘Prevention of Cruelty to Suspects. If they don’t exist, Jimson will soon found them, if you go too far.’

  And Parrish went off chuckling. Stephen Feather stood in the little corridor, preparing his opening moves, then he squared his shoulders, smiled at Betty Underwood, who had turned up with pencil and pad, and went into Parrish’s office.

  Parrish himself, wondering if he was being quite fair, swapped a word with Constable Lockett in the main office, gave him a couple of things to do, and then went off into the night with the air of a man who is going to get himself a drink.

  • • •

  Timothy Jimson’s first refuge was dignity and monosyllables. But he soon found he had to depart from the latter, and he made a brief statement to no one in particular. It had all the poignancy of an MP protesting to the House that he has not done what everyone knows he has done, and being garlanded with sympathetic wavings of the order papers.

  ‘I must say at this stage that I protest against the manner and timing of my being brought here. I know nothing whatsoever about my late neighbour or her death, and I particularly resent, after the humiliating fuss made at my home in front of my family and the important visitors there, being handed over to an underling for questioning, without so much as a word of explanation. Either this is a matter of importance, in which case the officer in charge of the case should be conducting this interview, or it is not, in which case the behaviour of both of you at my home was deplorable, and will be given the widest publicity. That is all I wish to say, for the moment.’

  And having thus threatened the police with ‘Twytching Tattle’, he pushed up his little chin, gazed into the mid-distance, and pursed his lips in silent disapproval of all around him. He had thought of adding that he wished to call his solicitor, but then the thought of the cost and the calls on his purse in the past few weeks deterred him, and he decided to use that line only as a last resort.

  ‘Mr Jimson, do you remember what you did during the last Easter vacation?’ began Stephen Feather.

  ‘I remember a great many things I did in the last Easter vacation,’ said Timothy. ‘Be more specific.’ He almost added ‘boy’.

  But being more specific was the problem.

  ‘Were you ever, for example, in the vicinity of Croxham woods during that period?’

  ‘Croxham woods? I don’t know. Possibly. I may have taken the family there for a picnic.’

  ‘You may have done,’ said Stephen, struggling to rid himself of a feeling that he was a not very bright IC schoolboy, unable to define what an adjectival clause was.

  ‘Yes, I may have done,’ said Timothy, simulating an easy contempt.

  ‘Easter is – what? – five weeks or so away, and yet you don’t remember?’

  ‘As a family man, with a full-time job and a h
ost of writing commitments, my life is far too full to remember precise dates and exact details,’ said Timothy.

  ‘Do you frequently take your family on picnics?’

  ‘Now and then, now and then,’ said Timothy, who almost never did. ‘Let’s cut this short and say that as far as I remember we have not had any picnics in Croxham woods for the past year. Now, does that satisfy you?’

  ‘It makes things clearer, yes,’ said Stephen, looking down at some wholly imaginary notes to give himself time. ‘Now, forgetting your family for the moment, sir, is there anything else that could have taken you to Croxham woods?’

  Timothy paused before saying, ‘A writer frequently has need for periods of peace and quiet – away from the family.’

  ‘But you don’t recall having been there recently?’

  ‘No. Almost certainly not.’

  Stephen adopted Parrish’s suggestion of an almost complete change of tack.

  ‘Mr Jimson, may I ask you about your financial affairs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you own your house?’

  There was a long pause during which Timothy Jimson seemed to be weighing the consequences of not answering at all. Finally he said: ‘Yes . . . well, it’s on a long mortgage.’

  ‘It’s a fairly large house.’

  ‘I have a family, as you will have observed.’

  ‘The payments on it must be high.’

  ‘You may assume the payments to be what you will. I do not see what they can have to do with the death of – ’

  ‘Do you have any other source of income, apart from teaching?’ asked Stephen, feeling he was getting into his stride now. Certainly Timothy seemed thoroughly disconcerted, for the first time in the interview. There was a pause before he replied.

  ‘I have my writing,’ he said at last.

  ‘Your column in the Barstowe Gazette?’

  ‘For example.’

  ‘Does that bring you in much?’

  ‘No, it does not. Two pounds fifty a week.’ Timothy banged the desk with a dramatic gesture that sent pens and ink-bottles leaping into the air. ‘I do not see where this is leading.’