As Olivia Strode came out of her cottage two leather-clad figures tore up the street on screaming scooters, and a few moments later she had to squeeze between two parked cars to allow another to pass. It was a relief to turn in at the gate of Crossways, the home of her daughter-in-law’s parents.
In her handbag she was carrying a collection of little yellow boxes containing the first consignment of the colour slides from Charles Moreton-Blake’s photographs taken during the cruise. She did not possess a projector herself, and had been invited to view the slides on Colonel Winship’s.
Charles Moreton-Blake was an enthusiast, and had recorded the holiday fully from the moment of arrival at Heathrow on the day of departure. There were excellent shots of the journey from the airport into Venice by the motor launch, especially those taken along the Grand Canal. To Olivia they brought back the sheer delight of this early stage of her holiday, and to her relief she saw that the Winships were enjoying them almost as much as she was.
‘That must be the last of the Grand Canal,’ she said. ‘Here’s the San Marco boat station where we went ashore. The next lot must be San Marco itself, and the Piazza.’
This set, she thought, was even better than the last. Charles had taken the splendid facade of the basilica from many angles, and in the course of the afternoon had found most attractive subjects in the Piazza among the holiday crowds and the ubiquitous pigeons. A tiny dark-eyed child waved from the back of a porphyry lion. A balloon seller with his load of brilliant colour grinned with a delighted flash of white teeth. An old man dozed on the ledge at the foot of the campanile, a pigeon perching on the toe of his boot.
At the tables in the front row of Florian’s people were…
Olivia fell silent as she stared, suddenly alerted.
‘OK for the next?’
Hugh Winship’s voice roused her.
‘So sorry,’ she said. ‘I recognized those two people on the right. They were at our table on the cruise.’
‘The couple where the man’s writing something on a newspaper?’ Barbara Winship asked. ‘No, he’s drawing, isn’t he? I like the woman’s hair-do.’
‘That’s the couple,’ Olivia replied absently. ‘Yes, he’s drawing, very competently. They left the paper behind.’
At ten minutes past eleven Pollard drove thankfully into his garage, having noticed with pleasure that there was a light in the sitting-room. Jane was still up.
A few moments later, as he put his latchkey in to the lock, he was astonished to hear a male voice through the curtained but open window. He let himself in, speculating with exasperation about the visitor’s identity. As he opened the door of the sitting-room a vaguely familiar youngish man got up.
‘Darling, this is David Strode,’ Jane said. ‘You’ve met before, I gather?’
‘Of course!’ Pollard exclaimed. ‘I remember you perfectly well now. It was only yesterday that I ran into your mother in Highcastle, and she told me that you and your wife live quite near.’
‘We’re in Uplands Rise,’ David Strode said. ‘I do apologize for turning up at this hour, but my mother’s been on the line with a message for you which she says may be very important. She thought your number probably wasn’t in the book, and the simplest thing was to get on to you through me.’
Jane Pollard murmured something about the children, and slipped away.
‘Do sit down,’ Pollard said. ‘I see Jane’s produced some beer. Join me in another, won’t you?’
‘Thanks, I will. Well, here’s to your case, which I gather is a snorter. Cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ Pollard replied, raising his glass.
‘Now, about this message,’ David Strode went on. ‘I must say it sounds a bit cryptic to me, but my mamma has a clear way of putting things, and I think I’ve got it right. You’re interested in a certain couple who were on the cruise, I take it? She didn’t name them, of course.’
Pollard assented.
‘Well, it appears that she saw them for the first time in Venice, where the party had an afternoon for sightseeing before they embarked. She was with friends, the Moreton-Blakes, and they were heading for one of the open-air cafes in St Mark’s Square. Just as they arrived this couple got up from a table in the sun and walked away, and my mother and the Moreton-Blakes took it over. They — the couple, that is — had left quite a bit of debris behind, including a copy of the day’s Express. The space at the top above the headlines was covered with clever little sketches of tourists and pigeons and what-have-you. I say, is this making any sense?’
With barely credible illumination flooding into his mind, Pollard nodded without speaking. David Strode glanced at him and went on.
‘Charles Moreton-Blake’s keen on photography, and among other things he took various shots of the holiday crowds during the afternoon. He sent the colour slides down for my mother to see, and they arrived this morning. This evening my father-in-law put them through his projector for her. One of them turned out to be this couple sitting at the cafe table, and the man was sketching on the Express. She thought it might be relevant, as she suddenly remembered your asking if she’d seen either of the couple painting.’
There followed a pregnant silence.
‘My God,’ said Pollard slowly, ‘so that was why they couldn’t risk Audrey Vickers turning up at the house and running into John Bayley. She —’
The telephone rang clamorously. He swore briefly and got up.
‘Excuse me, will you?’ he said, going out of the room.
Still slightly bemused by the revelation he had just received, the news that James Bayley had been located at Sirmione came as an anti-climax. The message, telephoned through from the Yard, went on to say that the Englishman had taken a room in the town, and appeared to be spending his time in painting. He was being kept under observation pending instructions.
‘OK,’ Pollard said. ‘Thanks.’
He stood in the hall for a few moments, mechanically registering the fact that Jane was running a bath. Then he returned to David Strode, who looked up with interest.
‘I take it this is a matter of identification?’ the latter said.
‘Yes,’ Pollard replied, ‘but I can see that it’ll have to be absolutely conclusive to satisfy you legal chaps. Do you know, I think we may be asking Mrs Strode to fly out to Italy on Monday?’
13
On Sunday morning a series of telephone calls resulted in a meeting between Pollard and his Assistant Commissioner at the Yard. The latter, back-tilted in his chair and contemplating the ceiling, listened to the account of the latest developments in the case without interruption.
‘Interest in this absorbing drama continues to be well maintained,’ he remarked when Pollard came to an end. ‘Let us assume for a moment that Mrs Strode agrees to fly out to Italy and identify James Bayley as the man she knew on the cruise as John Bayley, how are you going to handle the encounter?’
‘My idea is to confront him with her, sir, so that he can’t dispute the identification convincingly. I think it should be possible to take him off his guard. Then, when he hears that a murder was committed in connection with the arson, I’m convinced he’ll come back voluntarily. Of course he’ll realize that he faces a charge of conspiracy to commit arson, but consider his sister’s position. Her husband is going to be charged with murder, and she herself as an accessory, in addition to the arson charge.’
The Assistant Commissioner thought this over. ‘Why are you so sure that James doesn’t know about the Roccombe murder, Pollard? All three Bayleys may have been in contact in Venice on 28 April, when James and John resumed their real identities.’
‘In my opinion, sir,’ Pollard replied, ‘John’s attitude to James is a key factor in the whole affair. It would have been so much simpler for James to fire the house while John and his wife were on the cruise. Because of James’s unpredictable comings and goings he’d have had a very good chance of clearing the country before Highcastle got on to his trail — if they ever did. And
this way, the complicated and risky identity swop wouldn’t have been necessary. The fact that John Bayley decided that he must do the job himself shows that he and his wife felt that James would make a mess of it. When I saw them at Trafalgar Terrace, it stood out a mile that John had no use for James, and that while Mrs Bayley was obviously very fond of her brother, she had no illusions about his vagueness and casualness. Because of this, I can’t believe that John would tell James about the Roccombe murder, even if they all three met in Venice at the end of the cruise, which I think is unlikely. It would have been very dicey with all the Penelope crowd milling around sightseeing. A murder isn’t the sort of thing you’d confide to a chap you considered unreliable. But as far as the impersonation went, James sounds the type who’d consider it a good joke, and no doubt he was going to get his whack from the insurance and the ultimate sale of the site to the supermarket people.’
‘I think all that’s an interpretation which could pass muster,’ the AC remarked cautiously after a further pause.
‘Reverting to John Bayley’s opinion of James, sir,’ Pollard said, ‘I want to make it clear that Sergeant Toye should have the credit for getting on to this almost at the start. After we’d interviewed the John Bayleys he remarked that you wouldn’t expect an artist chap to be what you’d call dependable on a job like arson.’
The AC nodded. ‘He spotted that photograph of Mrs Bayley, too, didn’t he? Always a sound chap, Toye, and working with you, Pollard, seems to have put a spark into him. We’ll bear him in mind. Now, then, let’s accept for purposes of argument that James Bayley rallies to his sister’s support and comes straight home, where do you propose to go from there?’
‘I suggest confronting all three Bayleys with each other, sir, and in the resulting tension over the Roccombe murder, charge the John Bayleys with the murder of Audrey Vickers. I feel pretty confident that this further shock will produce some useful admissions.’
‘And you feel justified in asking the taxpayers to foot the bill for this jaunt to Italy?’ the AC enquired with an apparent irrelevance which Pollard rightly interpreted as acceptance of his plan.
‘Well, yes, sir. I doubt if it’ll cost more in the end than letting the enquiry run on.’
‘All right, then, you can go ahead, Pollard. But if the whole thing misfires, on your head be it, remember. We’ll expect you to contact us from Italy about getting things lined up at this end.’
Olivia Strode found that she had boarded a plane for Milan and become airborne almost without realizing it. Once again she had a window seat, but this time a thick layer of cotton wool clouds cut off all view of the earth beneath and increased the sense of isolation. She turned to Pollard, who caught her eye and smiled back.
‘Not feeling too unhappy about it all, are you, Mrs Strode?’ he asked.
‘It’s like being in a worrying sort of dream which began when you rang me at lunch-time yesterday,’ she told him. ‘I’ve been trying to clear my mind. Right down inside me I know I’m glad to be helping to get the whole horrible business sorted out. It’s the cold-blooded precautionary killing of Audrey Vickers that I find so intolerable, worse than the murder of the poor old drunk at Roccombe, because that obviously wasn’t planned. Hideously ruthless, of course, but somehow not quite so repulsive.’
‘Ruthlessness has a nasty habit of increasing by geometrical progression,’ Pollard said. ‘Look at the Nazis, for instance. I wish you hadn’t to go through this sort of experience for a second time in your life, although a bit of me is quite glad for a layman to know what hunting down another human being feels like, whatever crime’s involved… I’d like you to tell me some more about James Bayley, if you will.’
‘I liked him,’ Olivia said slowly, ‘while right from the first I rather took agin Mrs Bayley. I felt there was something so hard about her — hard as nails was the phrase I used to myself. I remember wondering how they had come to marry. He’s a relaxed, good-humoured sort of man, essentially carefree. I’m quite sure he could be tiresomely inconsiderate in everyday life, but it would be from sheer thoughtlessness. Mrs Bayley was always polite to people, but now that I look back, I can see that there was a lot of underlying tension about her. Of course, she must have been on pins the whole time in case James lost grip, and said or did something which might give the show away. One realized that she was very much the dominant partner. But one thing I’m certain about is that she was sincerely fond of him, and he was of her, though to a lesser degree. The relationship between brother and sister can mean a lot, can’t it?’
Pollard agreed. ‘It’s certainly a strong emotional link between our assorted twins,’ he said, diverting the conversation into more enjoyable channels.
Dinner was served on board the aircraft, and the flight seemed to pass quickly. It was late when they landed at Milan, however, and Olivia was glad to get to their hotel in view of a very early start for Sirmione the next morning. She was tired, and fell asleep almost as soon as she got into bed after a pleasantly relaxing hot bath.
She was awakened by a waiter with rolls and coffee, and looked at her watch in alarm, but there was plenty of time to breakfast, dress and meet Pollard in the hotel lounge. He was already waiting for her as she stepped out of the lift, and the sight of him was reassuring. She would have been astonished to learn that reassurance was mutual: her composure quietened any remaining qualms he was feeling about the day’s programme.
‘At any rate you can get a fleeting glimpse of one of the wonders of Milan,’ he said in the taxi. ‘Look at that!’
Olivia gasped at a soaring skyscraper, ethereal in its slenderness.
‘I wish I could have taken you to the cathedral,’ he told her, ‘but if James Bayley’s painting, he’ll be out in the morning light, and easy to track down. He may pack it in later, and go off somewhere.’
‘Not to worry,’ she replied. ‘I’d rather get it over. I don’t think I could sightsee very intelligently at the moment.’
Later, when the train had at last cleared the industrial sprawl of the city, she was fascinated to see at ground level the ancient ordered landscape which she had gazed down on during the flights to and from Venice. Here it all was: the endless, endless plain, the silver lines of irrigation canals, and the rows of poplars. Files of women were at work with their hoes in the assiduously cultivated fields. Clusters of farm buildings with an air of immemorial antiquity flashed past as the train roared ahead. Once again the sky was cloudless, and far away to the north she thought she could detect the Alps in the blue mistiness of the horizon.
After a time she felt anxious about the part she was to play at Sirmione, and began to question Pollard.
‘I’m sure you must think it’s extraordinary to me not to have the whole thing sewn up,’ he said, ‘but I feel it’s going to be wiser to play it by ear. You know the chap at first hand, and I don’t. Much the easiest thing will be if he recognizes you spontaneously. Let’s hope for that, and if it doesn’t come off, then I’ll weigh in. We’re getting along, and ought to be at Desenzano in about twenty minutes now.’
On arrival they were given an enthusiastic welcome by a senior member of the local Questura. When congratulated on his command of English, he assured them that his regiment had been the first, the very first to go over to the Allies in 1944, and he had many good English friends… He had visited England, too, several times…
Olivia was ceremoniously ushered into the back of a waiting car, and they drove off at breath-taking speed. Pollard, in the passenger seat in front, was soon being given a voluble account of the tracing of James Bayley, in the course of which his informant frequently removed both hands from the steering-wheel in expressive gesture. They must drive on quite a different principle here, she thought, as the car overtook another with reckless abandon and furious horn blasts, missing an oncoming vehicle by inches.
Snatches of the monologue in front floated back to her. James Bayley, she gathered, was out painting, at somewhere called La Grotta di Catullo. Th
is sounded like a cave, and she felt puzzled. By this time, however, they had reached the outskirts of Sirmione. She received a series of rapid impressions: a castle with crenelated towers, cascades of roses, glimpses of the azure blue of Lake Garda, bronzed holidaymakers, hotels, cafes, more and more roses. Beyond the little town they overtook fantasy, a little brightly painted train with open carriages and striped awnings, incredibly running along the road. Then the car shot to a standstill outside the gates, not of a cavern but of an ancient olive grove, grey-green, silver and gnarled in the sunlight.
‘La Grotta di Catullo,’ their escort announced with sweeping gesture and evident pride. ‘Ver’ fine. All tourists come ’ere. First we take a coffee, yes?’
At this point a younger man in uniform emerged from a small cafe just inside the entrance. There was a rapid exchange in Italian, and Pollard learnt that the Englishman was painting over there … a little distance only, by the antiquities.
He thanked them, and contrived to bypass the taking of a coffee without giving offence.
‘Shall we go along, then?’ he said to Olivia.
She had been waiting in the background with the feeling of unreality that the imminence of a strongly anticipated moment brings. The place itself enhanced the feeling: the incredible blueness of sky and sea, the blazing pools of poppies under the olive trees, the broken colonnade witnessing to some long-forgotten aspiration. It was a stage-setting for a small human drama in which she must play her part.
Cyanide With Compliments Page 18