by Roy Lewis
‘Mm. The college heating was on, and the lift itself was relatively warm. The preliminary lab report just says ten to ten-thirty for the murder. Right, so we don’t rule out Svensson entirely. Redman?’
‘Nothing new at all, sir. Don’t see how we can check his story further than we have; there certainly was a Beethoven programme on that night, and though he has no corroboration — I’ve checked, his mother was at Bingo that night — there’s nothing to suggest he might have been lying. He’s very much a home bird too, no whisper of any association with women, no Saturday night drinking, no nothing. Very steady chap.’
Crow asked Gates whether he’d checked on Carliss.
‘His case is rather like Redman’s as far as an alibi goes. He claims he didn’t leave the cinema until ten-thirty but can’t produce corroboration—’
‘Other than a filthy piece of shredded paper.’
‘Beg your pardon, sir? Er — yes, well, no one to back up his story but no evidence to disprove it either.’
‘Any known contact with the girl outside work?’
‘Not as far as Carliss is concerned, sir. It’s possible, of course, but the impression I got was that he’s not exactly a man who’s fond of women. He’s about to get a divorce — on the grounds of his wife’s misconduct — and he’s quite openly malicious about it. I mean, his wife doesn’t really want it; the correspondent has no intention of marrying her apparently, but Carliss is keen to cut her right off. His attitude is quite . . . well . . . nasty, you know, sir? He’s got reason, of course, but he enjoys having the right to do this to her, it seems to me.’
Crow squinted at Gates reflectively.
‘It’s facts we want, not impressions.’ Even as he said it he knew it was an unfair remark to make, for he himself had gained some insight into Carliss’s character that was now being reinforced by what Gates had to say. But he didn’t say this to Gates. Instead, he asked: ‘Did your “impressions” extend to the relationship between Carliss and Stevens?’
Gates’s fleshy face had gained a little colour and he seemed peeved. He sat very upright in his chair and looked Crow in the eye.
‘Yes, sir. It was quite obvious to me that. Carliss didn’t like Stevens and was quite prepared to hint that Stevens might be implicated in the Harland murder. That was my “impression”, sir.’
Crow caught Wilson’s faint nod of approval at the way Gates stuck to his guns. He smiled quietly.
‘All right. Go on. What about Stevens?’
‘Your notes suggested that Stevens’s alibi might not stand up, sir, so I went out to see Mrs Stevens and it’s as Carliss suggested to you. She’s a woman of about forty-eight, older than Stevens, and she’s crippled with osteo-arthritis. She seems to be in considerable pain most of the time and she’s sedated. I believe she also drinks fairly heavily although Stevens didn’t tell me this. I think it’s been one of those situations when a man marries a woman older than himself because he’s attracted to maturity, and the maturity suddenly changes into age.’
‘You fascinate me,’ Crow interrupted ironically with a twitch of his eyebrows. ‘Tell me, what would be the result of this change as far as Stevens was concerned?’
Pinkly, but determinedly, Gates went on. ‘I think Stevens married her for the reasons I state, and perhaps the security of the house she owned — she’d been married before, incidentally, and widowed. Once ensconced in the marriage, he rapidly realised it was turning sour, but accepted its security. It meant he had a base from which to work—’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Stevens is a womanizer, with no great record of success, but a ladies’ man nevertheless. He’s safe: a crippled wife at home, divorce out of the question, the chance to have his affairs kept quiet — if he can get them started. It’s possible there have been one or two and he certainly tries hard enough. A sort of Casanova manque.’
Crow observed the young officer for a moment and then in a serious tone he said, ‘You’re new to this Division. Where did you spend the last few months?’
‘Training school, sir.’
Crow glanced towards Wilson and when he caught the twinkle in the sergeant’s eye he found difficulty in restraining a smile. He was saved by a light knock at the door. Wilson rose and walked across to open it. A young policewoman with a tray entered. Four cups of tea; Crow sipped his reflectively behind his desk while the other three men murmured among themselves. Just once Wilson looked at Crow questioningly but the Chief Inspector ignored the glance. It was unusual for Crow to arrange for tea in the middle of a conference like this, but so what? A privilege of office. He’d just felt that he might need a cup of tea after listening to reports from these young constables.
Crow put down his cup abruptly. It rattled on his desk.
‘All right. A Casanova manque. Did he seduce Rosemary Harland?’
Gates gulped a mouthful of tea and leaned forward to put his cup and saucer on Crow’s desk. Catching sight of the Inspector’s wooden expression he changed his mind and carefully placed them on the floor beside his chair.
‘There’s no evidence to suggest he did seduce her, sir. I’ve spoken to a number of people at the college and they all agree that Stevens gets around — the library staff, the women in the Economics Department, even the kitchen staff have come to his attention. In there,’ he said with a slight smile, ‘it seems to descend to a bit of verbal slap and tickle.’
Crow showed no amusement and Gates hurried on.
‘He had certainly visited the girl more often than other heads of Faculty and I would imagine that this is because of his nature — he would be more than interested in becoming friendly with her—’
‘Did he get her to bed?’
‘There’s nothing to suggest that, no, sir.’ Crow leaned back in his chair. ‘This leaves us still at the starting point. Svensson could have got to the college in time, Carliss, Redman and Stevens all have stories that could be holed, but they haven’t sprung a leak yet. Nothing to connect them with the dead girl, nothing in particular, but we know she was pregnant! Framwell, what did you get out at her home?’
Framwell brushed a nervous hand over a thinning hairline. He was twenty-six and looked ten years older. He had a yellow pustule on his chin and Crow avoided looking at it.
‘I searched her room and belongings, sir, but found nothing that was in any way significant. However, I did send her clothing to the lab for analysis, just in case — the clothing she’d worn that morning, that is.’
‘She’d changed during the day?’
‘Yes, sir. Apparently she’d been given an assignment that involved going to a Trustee Bank — she was involved with the Student Union as Treasurer — and this meant that she was able to slip home for lunch. She changed while she was there before returning to college. It was the last time her parents saw her.’
So she might have arranged to go somewhere that evening. With someone.
‘This student thing — explain it to me.’
‘The Student Union has a committee which is composed almost entirely of students, but there are two officers who are members of the teaching staff -- they act in an advisory and auditing capacity — and two members of the office staff also assist. One does the minuting of official meetings; the other — that was Rosemary Harland — acted as Treasurer. It overcame the problems that would otherwise arise with a shifting student population.’
‘So she would have considerable contact with the students?’
‘No, I don’t think so. This was a possibility that occurred to me, sir, and I followed it up — even though it was beyond your instructions. I interviewed some of the committee and it seems that Rosemary Harland kept very much to herself on these occasions. She did attend two student functions just recently, but on each occasion she arrived and left with a girl-friend — Sally Woods.’
Crow frowned.
‘All right. Tell me more about the Harland girl.’
‘I spoke to her parents, sir, and to some of th
e neighbours. I interviewed the office staff and the student committee. For the record, she was five feet five inches tall, brunette, blue eyes, weight about eight stone, a good-looking girl by all accounts, good-looking without being really attractive. The college office was her first job and her efficiency, backed by secretarial training she had previously undergone, brought her early promotion to the job of the rector’s secretary—’
And that still raised questions in Crow’s mind. Peters had an eye for a woman, he was sure of it.
‘-her parents insist that she was a good girl, and were horrified to learn that she was pregnant—’
Crow could see their middle-class hands raised in unbelieving stupefaction. It would have been a shock almost greater than news of her death.
‘-they can give no lead as to who might have been responsible for her pregnancy. They insist that she had no boy-friends, other than some local lads who occasionally called at the house. 1 checked these sir, and they are pretty obviously not involved — they deny ever having been alone with Rosemary. The Harlands say that she was very rarely away from home overnight, and when she was she always telephoned them before eleven to let them know she was all right.’
Crow pounced on the inference.
‘She didn’t phone the night she died?’
‘No, sir. But they didn’t worry about that. She’d already told them she was staying with Sally Woods and they received a call from Miss Woods earlier that evening to say that Rosemary was with her.’
Crow stroked his blue-shadowed chin and Framwell waited nervously.
‘It didn’t occur to you to ask them why this Woods girl should phone, rather than Rosemary herself?’
‘I thought it better to ask the girl herself, sir.’
‘What did the Woods girl have to say?’
‘I didn’t see her. She was shocked by the news, her mother said over the telephone went away for the weekend. She’ll be back this afternoon. I intend going around there this—’
‘Don’t bother, I’ll do it.’ Crow was interested in Sally Woods. There might be something about the relationship between her and Rosemary Harland that could provide a key to a few problems. ‘What did the neighbours have to say about the dead girl?’
‘Nothing untoward, sir. They regarded Rosemary Harland as a good girl too, quiet, self-effacing, pleasant enough, passed the time of day and so on. No suggestion that she was running around with boys or anything, and I think that in a small middle-class community like that anything of that kind of conduct would very quickly have become the cause for comment. Moreover, I obtained the impression that—’
‘Yes, all right.’ One like Gates was enough. ‘So there were no obvious boy-friends. A brick wall, again. What do you think, Wilson?’
‘About the possibility of Peters having an affair with Rosemary Harland? I don’t know . . .’
‘You think it unlikely?’
‘All we’ve got so far is the fact that Peters took her on when she was still rather inexperienced—’
‘Which could mean he was attracted.’
‘But after that there’s nothing.’
‘Except that she was pregnant when she died, she was murdered in his college, his glove was stained with foundation cream she used, he had a key giving him access to the whole building, his alibi for the relevant time is far from strong—’
‘That deflated tyre,’ Wilson interrupted firmly, ‘was certainly not cut, but the garage say there’s a slow puncture in the valve and it could just have gone down over a period of hours. Peters’s story could be right.’
‘His alibi for the relevant time,’ Crow insisted, ‘is far from strong, and if he had got her pregnant he certainly had enough motive to get her out of the way.’
Wilson’s expression told Crow quite clearly what he thought of that. It was one thing to say that a man might have sold his research findings, might have betrayed industrial confidences to get a better job, might have married a woman for her money and her father’s influence — but it was all stretching the coincidences a bit far along with the suppositions if this was regarded as leading up to murder. Circumstantial evidence could clash the prison gates in a man’s face, but though there was plenty of it pointing towards Peters there was one vital piece missing — the evidence of a clear link between him and the girl.
Wilson was a good man to have around.
He could bring Crow back to earth with a thump.
‘How is Dr Peters, anyway?’
Wilson shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Mouth burns only. If he had swallowed that capsule he could have been dead now. The lab confirmed that it was a corrosive poison. He must have spat it out when the burning started as he put the glass up to his lips. He was released from hospital yesterday; detention was just for shock, really.’
‘And I suppose he has us to thank.’
‘Sir?’
‘For getting him angry in the first instance. Normally he would have swallowed that capsule and it would have dissolved in his stomach, but in his fury at our insinuations he must have bitten at it, instinctively. The burning sensation made him eject the capsule almost immediately.’
‘He was lucky,’ Wilson said stolidly.
‘Or clever.’ A silence fell and the three men looked at Crow expectantly. He pursed his lips and stared out of the window. ‘Let’s look at the facts,’ he continued. ‘Those capsules in the box were ordinary anti-histamine in their contents, but it’s easy enough to open the capsules — they’re made in two gelatin sections, one fitting inside the other. Slide the gelatin sections apart, replace some of the granulated contents with poison, and there you are. But who did this, and how did the capsule get in the box? Accidentally, or deliberately?’
His deep-sunk eyes flickered a glance in the direction of the three silent officers. ‘Peters could have done it himself, or it could have been done by someone else. The result, accordingly, could have been accident, attempted murder, attempted suicide or attempted subterfuge.’
‘I don’t quite follow, sir.’
‘If we rule out mistake — the contents were, after all, a mixture of anti-histamine and a corrosive poison — the capsule was placed there deliberately. If Peters had placed it there it would have been attempted suicide—’
‘But sir—’
‘I agree, we can rule that out. It’s illogical. But think of this . . . if he killed Rosemary Harland, and expected to be questioned, he might have placed that capsule there with the idea of diverting suspicion from himself, casting our attention elsewhere, drawing a lovely red herring across our path. We press him on the Harland murder and he throws a spanner in the works by making us think someone is after him as well. He’d be viewed as a victim then, not a villain.’
Wilson was shaking his head doubtfully. ‘It sounds a bit far-fetched, sir.’
‘I’m propounding it as a possibility, Wilson, just a possibility. After all, he didn’t swallow the capsule, did he? Minor burns of the mouth — that’s all he suffered. And what about the other unlikelihoods, if he didn’t place the capsule there himself?’
‘You mean two murders on the same campus?’
‘Isn’t it pushing coincidences a bit?’
‘Could be the same person.’
‘And the motives for killing both Peters and his secretary?’ Crow smiled suddenly and turned towards the two constables. ‘You see, gentlemen, there are several possibilities. Nothing is what it seems . . . perhaps. But college-trained detectives like yourselves might have some other, psychological suggestions to bring up?’
Gates flushed, and Framwell wriggled but neither spoke. After a moment Crow nodded.
‘All right. It seems to me no one is in the clear yet — Svensson, Redman, Carliss, Stevens and Peters too, they could, anyone of them, be implicated. We’ll not lose sight of the possibility of someone trying to kill Peters, but we don’t just pursue that line. What we do hammer at is the discovery of Rosemary Harland’s lover. If her lover wasn’t one of these men,
we want to find out who he was.’
‘You’ve left out West, sir.’
Crow smiled at Gates.
‘He seems to be clear. I spoke with the hospital registrar and I was shown the cardiograph results. West collapsed all right, and a heart attack is somewhat crippling in its effect. But Fanshaw did suggest that West was lying when he hinted at a possible liaison between Peters and the girl. If he was, I can’t see his motives. I agree, nevertheless, we mustn’t rule West out completely.’
He rose, stretching his long arms.
‘All right, that’ll do for now. Gates, keep checking on Peters’s background and draw up a timetable of the precise movements of these people we’ve been discussing. Framwell, you check the dead girl’s movements through the day and as far as possible her activities during the last few weeks. That’ll do for now.’
Framwell and Gates scuttered out of the room like rabbits. After the door closed behind them Wilson smiled at Crow.
‘You frightened them.’
‘They’ll be all right. Make good officers.’
‘When they stop psycho-analysing?’
‘There’s a lot to be said for it, Sergeant, as long as one doesn’t carry it too far. Anyway, I’ll want you with me this afternoon — we’ll get out to see this Woods girl.’
‘There’s one chap we haven’t looked at, sir. That civil servant, Fanshaw.’
‘You think he’ll repay checking?’
‘We don’t know that he won’t.’
Crow smiled. There were occasions when the direct Yorkshireman could sound like a reproving conscience. And when he did he was usually right.
* * *
Accountants, bankers, solicitors, building society managers, doctors with small practices, and architects employed by local authorities lived in Edgerton Lane, cheek by reluctant jowl with the two actors engaged in television commercials, a self-styled Italian prince, and three brothers with Bermondsey accents and incomes, the sources of which were a complete mystery to HM Inspector of Taxes. The actors, the prince and the Bermondsey brothers provided a splash of scarlet in the even brown tones of Edgerton Lane lives, and the vicarious thrill that sparkled into dull coffee mornings was directly attributable to the presence among the eminently respectable of these slightly, and not so slightly, disreputable.