by Roy Lewis
It was all there in Crow’s notebook. Three dates in recent weeks when Rosemary Harland had told her parents she would be staying with Sally Woods; three dates when she had in fact stayed elsewhere. But where? And with whom? She had told Sally she had a date; she had a man, a boyfriend, but that was all Sally knew. Or was saying. Because Crow still felt there was something Sally hadn’t said, something she was keeping back. He’d been aware of the tense replies to his questions, the anxiety lurking in her manner, the way her eyes rarely met his. It could have been due to the thought of Rosemary’s death, for it had hit Sally Woods hard, but Crow was sure there was more to it than that. He’d have to see the girl again.
* * *
Crow walked into Wilson’s room and watched the sergeant crouched over a typewriter, painfully picking his way with one finger among the keys. His tongue was clenched between his teeth and his lips writhed back. He looked distinctly anguished.
‘I’m just finishing the report on Fanshaw, sir. I’ll let you have it in a few minutes.’
Fanshaw. Crow stuck his hands in his pockets. He’d intended looking into the civil servant himself, taking Wilson to the Woods’ home with him, but at the last moment he’d decided otherwise.
‘Is he clean?’
‘As a whistle, sir. The night the girl died he was sitting all evening in the Blackbird Inn at Arnleigh village, you know, just outside Sedleigh. He spent much of his time in the company of an old man called Charles Nixon, with whom he had a cup of tea before leaving for home at eleven. No. Robert Fanshaw may have found Rosemary Harland, but he didn’t push her down those stairs.’
‘What do you mean, push her down the stairs?’
‘The unit’s report is on your desk, sir. They found a scored mark on the tiles at the top of the stairs on the first floor which could have been caused by her heel, they found skin and smeared blood, most of it wiped off, on the guardrail below. They concluded that she was thrown down the stairs, struck her head, died there and was dragged to the lift with the cardigan wrapped around her head to prevent blood smears.’
‘Hell’s bells.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Crow frowned at the impassive Yorkshireman.
‘Could she have slipped there, or tripped and fallen accidentally?’
‘Possible, sir. But she wasn’t running away from nothing, and she didn’t drag herself to the lift.’
Crow grimaced and touched his thick underlip with a doubtful finger.
‘Anything else?’
‘The lab now has a number of items of clothing belonging to the dead girl and brought from her home. They’ll be analysing them today and tomorrow.’
‘Good.’
Crow nodded and walked back into his office. There was a pile of papers on his desk, the reports already made by the officers working with him. He sat down and began to read them. The telephone jangled before he’d got through three.
‘Inspector Crow? There’s a young woman to see you, sir. Says it’s connected with the Harland enquiry.’
‘Name?’
‘Mrs Lambert, sir.’
‘Send her in.’
He didn’t know her; her name had not come to light so far but she could be anyone as far as he was concerned. He rose as she entered and managed to keep the surprise out of his face only with difficulty. He motioned her to a seat and signalled to the constable to stay with him. He stared again at the young woman.
Her head was lowered and she did not look at him. He wasn’t surprised. She had fair hair and a good figure, well-rounded and well-proportioned, but something had happened to her face. She had a swelling on her cheek, just below her left eye, and the discolouration extended down to her cheekbone and nose. There was a livid scratch on her throat as though a fingernail had torn at her. A red blotch on the side of her neck was of the kind he had seen made by fingers. He frowned.
‘You’ve been in the wars, Mrs Lambert.’
She flashed an angry look at him and he wasn’t sure the anger arose because of his statement or the memories it aroused. ‘You’re investigating the death of the Harland girl?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve got some information for you.’
‘I see. Your name?’
‘Joan Lambert. I’m a lecturer at Burton Polytechnic — sociology.’
‘And you knew Miss Harland?’
‘No. My husband did.’
‘Ahh . . .’ Crow sat back and stared at the woman facing him. The anger in her eyes, he knew now, was not for the directness of his questions. It was for her husband. ‘It was your husband who did this to you?’ he suggested, motioning towards her face. She nodded.
‘We . . . we had a quarrel last night. He got . . . violent. Later, when I questioned him, he told me about Rosemary Harland.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘That he’d been seeing her . . . going out with her.’
‘Sleeping with her?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose so. We didn’t discuss . . . details.’
‘But you think it’s a possibility.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. Hell, yes, I suppose it is, why should I protect him? Yes, I think he’s been sleeping with her.’
‘And you decided to tell me about it.’
‘We quarrelled.’
‘Did you know, or suspect, he’d been having an affair with this girl?’
‘No. I knew nothing until last night. I suspected nothing. But we haven’t been, well, hitting it off too happily for some time.’
‘Did he tell you how long he’d been seeing her?’
‘No. But I gather it’s been going on for some time.’
Crow hesitated. Rosemary Harland had been pregnant; she had taken a lover. She had made an assignation for the night she died. And Joan Lambert’s husband had been seeing her. To date there had been no whisper that Rosemary Harland went out with a man, no clue, no lead. And suddenly here it was. Crow reached for his notes. In a casual voice he asked, ‘How could he take her out without your knowing? Wouldn’t you have noticed his absence — I mean, did he ever stay away nights?’
Joan Lambert shrugged.
‘We’ve led our own lives to some extent. There are occasions when I’m away from home; and he sometimes attends Economic Conferences. He could have seen someone . . . her . . . then, I suppose. I didn’t question him for details.’
Crow picked out the dates with his forefinger.
‘Were you home overnight on April 15 and 27?’
Joan Lambert frowned. She opened her handbag and almost involuntarily glanced at the mirror inside before angrily rummaging past it. After a few moments she pulled out a small green-backed diary. She consulted it, turning the pages over quickly.
‘On April 15 and April 27 I was in London. On each occasion. I’d gone up to see Professor Kroger — he’s my tutor for the thesis I’m doing. It’s an MA in—’
‘And what about May 14?’
Joan Lambert consulted her diary again and in a slightly offended tone replied: ‘I was home that night.’
‘I see. And your husband?’
‘Was he home, you mean? Er . . . I’m not sure. No, wait a minute, I remember now. He didn’t stay at home that night — he attended a moderating committee meeting in London that afternoon and didn’t return until the morning train. He went straight to college off the train.’
‘How long is the journey from London — only about an hour, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but both of us, if we have reason to go to London, we tend to take the chance to go see a show and then stay overnight. We can then get a train back at seven-thirty, in the morning, which gets us in at Sedleigh in good time for the first classes at Burton. We’ve both done it regularly.’
‘Together?’
‘And separately.’
‘And this is what Mr Lambert did on May 14. What about the night Miss Harland died?’
Joan Lambert’s eyes grew round. She had quarrelled with her husband and she had learned o
f his affair with Rosemary Harland and she’d wanted to tell someone in authority about it all. She had a need to feel hurt, play the part of the wronged wife. Crow could see that; he could appreciate but wasn’t concerned with her other motivations. He could see that his questioning had now shown her the way his mind was working and this was something she’d hardly bargained for.
‘You . . . you don’t think that Bill . . .’
‘Mrs Lambert. I shall be calling a press conference this afternoon, to issue a first statement. I see no reason why I can’t tell you what I’m going to say. I’m going to say that Rosemary Harland was murdered. I’m going to say that she died about ten-thirty. I’m going to say there was no sign of sexual interference. I’m also going to say she was pregnant.’
‘Pregnant! Bill? But he wouldn’t . . . you don’t think Bill would kill her, because of that! He’s not that sort—’
‘From your appearance,’ Crow interrupted quietly, ‘it would seem that your husband is not opposed to violent solutions.’
She shook her head disbelievingly.
‘Where was he the night she died?’ Crow asked in a patient tone. ‘He . . . he was home.’
‘All evening?’
‘No . . . He had an evening class that he . . .’ She paused, and stared at Crow’s face. He saw the doubt begin to spread across her features, saw it turn into conviction, a horrified conviction.
‘He had an evening class that night, but he told me he had a meeting to attend, an advisory committee meeting somewhere in London. So he’d arranged a stand-in for his class that particular night.’ The words came rushing out now, falling over each other in their horrified haste. ‘He went off at teatime and I drove him to the station. I didn’t see him get on the train before I left. Then I heard him coming back home late that night and I was surprised—’
‘What time was it?’
‘About eleven-thirty, I think. I was in bed. I called his name. He came into the bedroom and he didn’t turn on the light. He told me that the meeting had ended sooner than he’d expected and there was nothing much on so he’d decided to come straight back home. He told me he’d got the ten o’clock train back from London and took a taxi from the station.’
Her voice died away into a fascinated whisper. ‘Do you really think he killed her?’
‘You’ve got that?’ Crow asked the constable.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t really think he killed her, do you?’
‘We’ve got some checking to do now, Mrs Lambert. And I’ll have to see your husband. Where can I find him?’
‘I don’t know. He . . . he walked out last night.’
‘Walked out? Where did he go?’
Joan Lambert shook her head dully. She looked tired. Things were moving too fast for her, and in a direction different from that she’d anticipated.
‘I don’t know. He may be at college this morning. But I doubt it.’
Crow turned to the constable.
‘Get Wilson in here! I’ll want someone around to the college as soon as possible!’ He came from behind his desk as Wilson came through the doorway in response to the constable’s call. ‘I want this lady’s husband picked up for questioning. If he’s not home, or at the college, I want a general call put out. Now then, Mrs Lambert, we’ll want a description of your husband.’
She stood up. The blue-black swelling on her face was caught by the sunlight and she averted her head slightly.
‘He’s about five feet eight. His hair is sort of brown and he’s got blue eyes. He’s a bit on the chubby side.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘Last night . . . a dark grey suit and a raincoat. He’d been at an evening class you see, and—’
‘Get that description issued. I doubt whether we’ll catch him at the college. If he’s got any sense he’ll have skipped. Was he distressed when he left you last night?’ Crow asked, turning back to Mrs Lambert.
‘Mad,’ she replied grimly, ‘rather than distressed.’ Crow’s urgency seemed to have made her pull herself together and she opened her handbag again. ‘You might find it useful to have his photograph, as well as his description. If he did kill that poor girl . . .’
Crow glanced at the photograph. It showed Joan Lambert in a bikini on a sunlit beach, seated. Kneeling beside her was a chubby young man with hair that flopped over his forehead. He had a broad smile. One hand was placed possessively on his wife’s shoulder. Crow handed the photograph to Wilson and glanced at Joan Lambert. She had seemed happy in that photograph.
‘You won’t have difficulty recognizing him when you see him,’ she said with quiet malevolence. ‘He’s got scratches all down his face.’
Chapter 4
The hotel was no more than an hour’s drive from Sedleigh, but that had been necessary for their arrangements: it meant they could spend the maximum time in each other’s company and yet not run the risk of their arriving back late at their respective homes, or at work. It was a small hotel, with low ceilinged bedrooms, creaking floors and twisting stairs: there was a funny, ancient atmosphere about the place that gave a romantic tang to it for lovers. As they had been.
Five times they’d stayed there. Five glorious occasions when they kissed and loved and held hands and walked in the sunshine and felt the whole world coming alive for them. The first time had been late autumn, last year, and on that first afternoon at the hotel they had walked out, nervously, hands touching, too aware of each other to be at ease, and they’d gone down to the small stretch of open fenland, treading lightly as shadows between the pools of black gaseous ooze fringed by moss and bleached tassels of horsetails. The pennant leaves of the reeds had been streaked with gold, and guelder rose bushes had reached up like pillars of crimson flame. She had chattered to him, over-anxious to appear natural, and they had brushed past the great seed-heads of water docks, rust-red among the rushes and he had told her that he loved her. He had known then that what he felt for her meant a permanency, a flowering of affection and love. Soon, they went back to the hotel.
They had come again, four times after that; the last occasion had been just recently and they had walked to the fen once more. It had been an exhilarating time and they had wrapped their arms around each other and laughed and kissed away the enforced partings that had occurred during the last weeks. She pointed out the March bedstraw to him: she likened it to their love. When they had first come to the hotel and the fen, the bedstraw had been black with seeds, sprawling in a great confused tangle supported by taller sedges and reeds, but now, in the early summer, it was bright with minute white starry flowers. So had their love been confused and sprawling, disoriented, she had said, where now it was shining and happy and alive. That had been only a week ago, days ago, hours ago in his mind.
But now she was dead.
The white flowers were trampled under his feet and Rosemary was dead. He turned and trudged back across the fen towards the hotel. The air was cool in the late afternoon and the weight in his chest, the dull ache of distress and disillusionment, was heavy to bear. He crossed the field, his hands thrust deep in his pockets and he came out into the lane where he and Rosemary had walked and leaned against the wall and kissed in the spring evening.
She was dead.
On the path the flints moved and scraped under his feet. He came down through the village, a stocky, chubby figure in his raincoat — it had looked a gloomy day when he went out — and turned the corner at the grocery store to head for the hotel. There was a car parked outside the hotel, next to his own, knife blades of sunlight flashing from its polished chrome. It was a police car.
He stopped walking. He hesitated, felt the keys in his pocket. His luggage was still in the room in the hotel, on the second floor. If he went in the receptionist would be certain to point him out to the police: he had no doubt that it would be he the police were looking for. They’d got here faster than he’d expected. Yet he felt he still could not face them, and flight was the obvious answer
. Again and again and again.
The car. Could he get to the car without being noticed? Could he climb into the driving seat and get away before anyone came out to apprehend him?
The alternatives were non-existent. There was a railway station a half-mile away but the services were few and far between, and besides, he had little money and nowhere to go. Not by train, anyway. If he could reach the car, there was the chance of further respite: there was even the possibility that he could get away, sell the car, obtain another job, perhaps a new identity, and hide from the whole dreadful mess of Rosemary and Joan and . . . and that bloody Arab. He walked towards the car.
His luck seemed to be in. There was no one standing on the hotel steps and he could see no one inside the main doors. Casually he walked forward to the car and took the keys from his pocket. It was remarkable the way his hand displayed no tremor in spite of the quickness of his pulse. He inserted the key in the lock and turned it; there was the familiar holding, the resistance which he had sworn for months that he’d see to with a drop of oil, and then the lock clicked and turned and he pulled out the key, opening the car door with the other hand. He slid into the driving seat.
‘Excuse me, sir!’
There was a man in a blue uniform walking down the hotel steps. The key slipped into the ignition hastily and was twisted: the engine coughed and died. ‘One moment, sir, please!’
The blue uniform was hastening down the steps now, only a matter of feet away. He should never have parked so near to the hotel front. The engine coughed again, roared into life and there was a horrible grating scream as he tried unsuccessfully to engage reverse gear. There was a shout, a gloved hand seized the door handle as the gears bit and the car lurched backwards; he heard the policeman yelling and was aware of other men running down the hotel steps but the car was swinging wildly as he tore at the wheel, shooting backwards, and the first policeman was lying in the road, raising an arm. The gears screamed again as he slammed into second; the car stopped, he thrust down the accelerator and let out the clutch with a slow calm that was completely out of tune with the heat in his blood. The car swung around and nosed forward into the street and everyone was shouting and people were coming to their doors and the policeman on the ground was trying to rise, assisted by another, and there were three men waving their arms wildly, barring his progress. Three men in plain clothes.