Shot in Southwold

by Suzette A. Hill

  With a jolt, his mind jumped back to the present as he thought of another cruelty: the fate of the Tildred girl. He doubted whether she had been particularly good (and certainly not masterly), but it was still an unnecessary severance. And what on earth had it all been for? Why should such a silly little baggage inspire that degree of malice – or that risk! He sighed. Presumably, the authorities were wrestling with exactly the same question. And at least this time he and Felix had not been witnesses to the killing itself … merely among its shocked discoverers. With luck the police would not prolong their interviews: one had come to Southwold for a rest not a catechism!

  He frowned, recollecting the scene. Oddly enough, the aspect that lodged most vividly in his mind was not the victim in her red swimsuit, but Felix’s panama. Its presence there, so far removed from the town centre and their usual haunts, had been peculiar. True, Southwold was a windy spot; but if Felix had dropped the thing in the vicinity of their cottage or near one of the hotels, could it really have been blown quite so far? He had an absurd image of the thing merrily bowling its way along the high street, past the Red Lion, traversing South Green, fluttering merrily among the cannons, and then blowing on to the promenade, until finally coming to rest on the dunes and the tussock of grass next to the girl’s body. Quite a marathon. And quite a puzzle.

  Yes, he brooded, Felix was probably right in not wanting its presence noted. It was amazing how such trivial enigmas could lead to endless trouble. There had been enough of that on their previous visit!

  With a final glance at the house opposite, and savouring the illusion of having glimpsed a cigarette’s glow at an upper window, he turned and walked briskly back to the cottage to rally the slumberer.

  Rallied and shaved, Felix indicated that he was moderately ready to undergo more questioning by the police and to be on parade at the allotted ten-thirty. ‘I can’t see why we should be further detained,’ he grumbled, ‘they only do it to annoy! I told them everything I knew last night.’

  ‘Hmm. Not exactly everything,’ Cedric reminded him.

  ‘Everything of any consequence,’ was the quick reply.

  As they were about to leave, Cedric noticed a book lying on the sofa table. He hadn’t noticed it before and it certainly wasn’t one of his own. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, moving to pick it up. ‘Something you’ve been reading?’

  ‘What? Oh, that. No, it’s that one to do with limes or something – the one written by the Ramsgate fellow. I meant to tell you – he called the other day when you were out slurping coffee with Angela in The Crown, and insisted you should have a copy. Apparently he had meant to give it to you the other night when we were there, but was diverted by playing the lavish host all over the place. He said you had expressed a particular interest. Had you?’

  Cedric shrugged. ‘Not specially, though the cover’s pretty.’

  He set it aside, and the two of them left to do battle with the law on the East Cliff.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Early the following morning, with the previous night’s alarm behind them and its initial protocol discharged, Chief Inspector Nathan and Detective Sergeant Jennings had returned to where the body had been found. The day held an aura of serenity and kindly optimism – the tide was out, the sky was blue, children were already building industrious sandcastles and dogs scampered gaily. In short, it was a typical seaside scene with Southwold looking its best.

  Nathan sighed, lit his pipe and contemplated the distant waves. ‘Ten to one it was her young man,’ he announced. ‘She was probably leading him a dance and he couldn’t stand the pace, so he shot her.’

  Jennings considered this. ‘Er, how do you know she had a young man?’ he ventured.

  ‘They all do,’ was the firm answer.

  ‘Hmm … So what was her young man doing with a revolver? I mean, I never had one when I was that age.’ (At nearly thirty, and newly promoted from DC to DS, Jennings was beginning to feel the weight of his years.)

  ‘Ah, well, you wouldn’t, would you? – I mean you being a pillar of the establishment and all that. Not your style at all I shouldn’t think, not at all.’ The chief inspector continued to study the waves while Jennings frowned, unsure whether he was being complimented or mocked. That was the trouble with his boss: some of his observations were what you might call opaque. Jennings liked that word and had used it twice in the last couple of days. He had first encountered it in an Agatha Christie and had docketed it away for future use.

  Turning his gaze from the sea, Nathan scanned the immediate ground knowing that such scrutiny was pretty pointless: the forensics had already examined the area and apparently found nothing. An initialled cigarette lighter would have been handy or a dropped wallet, but such convenient gifts were rarely granted. In fact, he wasn’t really sure why he had bothered to return to the place at all: probably to indulge old Eager-Beaver over there. He glanced to where Jennings was standing, deep in thought.

  What was it the boy had said? Something about it being important to immerse oneself in the ‘essential ambience’ of a crime site, to try to get the ‘subtle feel of the place’ – a sensation that would, allegedly, enhance the intuitive process. As an aid to detection, the chief inspector did not hold with intuition, favouring the solidity of facts and tangible clues to get him the right answers. But in any case, dry sand, shingle and windswept tussocks … what sort of ‘feeling’ was he to get here? None, unless you counted earache from the coastal wind. He sighed bleakly. Those detective novels the lad was so keen on had a lot to answer for. His arthritic knee had started to throb; and signalling to Jennings that they were leaving, he turned to walk back to the car. He had only gone a few steps, when he tripped and fell to his knees.

  ‘Ruddy hell!’ he cursed, getting up and brushing the sand from his trouser legs. He saw there was something sticking up from a mound of dried seaweed: a piece of dark leather or rubber, slightly crescent-shaped.

  ‘What’s that, then?’ he grumbled to Jennings, who had joined him and picked it up. ‘Some sort of kids’ boomerang, I suppose!’

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ the other replied, turning it over in his hand, ‘that’s an orthotic.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘An orthotic – you know, those support things for people with flat feet or bunions. They go inside your shoe. My old granny’s got one.’ He paused, and then added excitedly, ‘You never know, perhaps it belonged to the murderer!’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ Nathan mused, ‘so you think it was your old granny who did her in, do you? Fired the gun and then sat down to rub her bunion, and in the heat of the moment forgot to put the thing back in her shoe … Very likely, I should say, Detective Sergeant.’

  Jennings pursed his lips. Hilarious, he thought grimly.

  ‘Mind you,’ the other conceded more seriously, ‘it could have belonged to the victim herself. We shouldn’t discount that, I suppose.’ He gave Jennings an encouraging nod.

  ‘Oh, I think we can, sir,’ the young man replied quickly. ‘You may not have noticed that this orthotic is obviously a man’s, or at least someone with big feet. Tippy Tildred was small, no taller than five foot, I should guess. It would be unusual for someone so short to wear that size shoe – wouldn’t you say? Though perhaps not beyond the bounds of possibility …’ He fixed the chief inspector with a look of bland enquiry.

  Nathan scowled and gave an indifferent shrug, and Jennings felt so much better. He took the item back to the car with him and placed it safely under the dashboard.

  That evening the chief inspector sat at his desk and ruminated. It had been a hell of a day: officious comments from the super about the Blyford burglary case, the typist scarpered off home with a migraine just when there was a load of reports to do, his front tyre blown – and to cap it all, Jennings incessantly bleating about that sodding orthotic. He would be glad when retirement came. ‘Nice to go out on a tide of glory,’ some smug colleague had once declared. Huh! Currently he would be glad to go out on a tide of sleep
and Blue Label bass. However, with neither in the offing, he lit his pipe and thought more about the corpse on the sand dunes.

  Unless luck had guided his hand, the killer would seem to have known what he was doing as it had taken only one shot. And since the pathologist had found nothing in the flesh the thing must have passed straight through her: through the intercostals, smack into the heart and out the other side. Relatively speaking there had been little mess, which suggested the missile may have been jacketed. Still, there was no means of knowing as there was no sign of the bullet. Combing the immediate terrain, the forensics had found nothing. He had directed them to do it again, but still there was no trace … It would seem there were two possibilities: either the murderer had located the spent bullet and carefully pocketed it or the deed had not been done there at all, but somewhere else and the body randomly dumped.

  Nathan brooded, considering the first scenario. Feasible, but was it likely? It would have been a lucky fluke if the assailant had immediately seen the bullet lying amidst the tangle of scrub and gorse; and to make a deliberate search he would have had to get down on hands and knees and grope about in the semi-dark. With secrecy paramount, would he have risked doing that with the body strewn at his feet, and the chance of some invasive dog-walker appearing at any minute? It seemed doubtful.

  Nathan relit his expired pipe, and to bolster thought, groped for the plastic mug and half-bottle of Scotch in the desk drawer. Then, spiritually fortified and with pipe aglow, he dwelt on the second possibility: relocation.

  If the body had been shifted from A to B it was unlikely to have been from just one part of the immediate area to another. After all, would it have mattered if she had been found on the shore, say, or further along on some similar strip of dune? Hardly. And what about the absence of other clothes or a beach towel? You would expect someone wandering around in a bathing costume to have some bits and pieces nearby. And yet none had been found – unless, of course, the killer had diligently gathered them up … Nathan chewed the stem of his pipe. Yes, he reflected, much more likely that she had been shot in a different spot altogether – somewhere away from the dunes; somewhere like a private garden perhaps, a friend’s house or a swimming pool, even. The sort of place where bathing gear might have been casually worn but from which the task of dumping the body would have entailed transport.

  Transport? Then how about recent tyre marks? Ferry Road was the obvious place to look, but it had rained in the night and thus traces were unlikely. Still, he would get Jennings to look into that aspect; he could make enquiries about any unusual vehicular activity seen in the vicinity at that time of evening. Might keep his mind off the orthotic theme!

  Nathan’s thoughts turned to wider issues: motive. Well, as he had told Jennings, it was bound to have been a crime of passion – some youth spurned by a pretty girl too big for her sexual boots, and driven to a frenzy by jealousy or mockery. It happened all the time … though it had to be admitted that the firearm element was a rarity: Jennings had been right there. Not many youngsters had those – knives occasionally, but not guns. Besides, it suggested an element of premeditation, not some heat-of-the-moment attack, and she had certainly not been ‘interfered with’ as the News of the World still quaintly put it. He cast his mind back to his own youth and thought of ruddy Hilda Birtwhistle: a right little madam she had been. Enough to send anyone berserk! Yes, he would readily have strangled her if he’d had the nerve! A pity he hadn’t, really. Still, he thought maliciously, the minx was already a grandmother now with grizzled hair, slack jowls and running to fat. An altogether more satisfactory conclusion. He toasted the thought with another tot of Scotch; and then locking the office and with a wave to the duty sergeant, set off for the home-stretch down Pier Avenue and to a good supper.

  Like his superior, Detective Sergeant Jennings was also reviewing the evolutions of the day. But in his case this was being done in a spirit of slightly greater optimism than that of his chief. Discrepancy in age and temperament lent an eagerness denied to his jaded colleague, and the recent promotion conferred a zeal waning in the latter.

  For the third time that day he took out the leather insole Nathan had tripped on, and wondered what Christie’s Hercule Poirot would have made of it. Amazing what one could learn from that lady’s pen. Such insights! He thought proudly of the collection of her novels adorning the shelf on his bedroom wall, and mentally gave thanks to the aunt who had presented him with his first volume (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) at the age of thirteen. ‘Here,’ she had said, ‘this’ll keep you quiet, if we’re lucky.’ And it did. It had also inspired him to join the police and become a detective.

  In fact, in terms of personality, Jennings was not entirely enamoured of the Belgian sleuth – a bit of an old ponce, really. But he admired the ‘little grey cells’ bit and his attention to apparent trivia. Thus pondering the piece of leather in front of him, Jennings wondered if it had the significance the great detective would undoubtedly have accorded it. Or was it merely the bit of dross that Nathan had implied? Probably … but you never knew! It might just have a bearing. He returned it to his desk drawer and noted it on the list of other queries he had assiduously compiled that day.

  These related to the interrogation of the film bunch, the victim’s associates. He had been put in charge of that, and liked to think he had conducted the procedure with just the right blend of authority and affable ease. In fact, he had said as much to Nathan. ‘It’s the human touch, sir,’ he had explained, ‘it sort of relaxes them, you know.’ The response had not been encouraging: ‘Ah, the human touch is it, Jennings? That’ll be the day,’ the inspector had snorted, and returned to his sandwiches. For some reason he seemed to be grinning.

  Really, Jennings thought stiffly, a little appreciation wouldn’t go amiss. That was the trouble with the chief inspector, a sound copper all right but with few finer feelings. Not what you would call a man of sensibility: whereas he himself was trying to achieve a fine blend of tact and …

  He returned his mind to the morning’s interviews with the movie people. A peculiar lot, really. And what that film was about was anyone’s guess! In a matey way he had enquired of a cameraman, who had shrugged and said how on earth was he supposed to know – he only shot the bloody thing.

  And what an odd coincidence having to deal with that professor and his sidekick the Felix chap again. He hadn’t liked them the first time around3 (a bit too superior for his liking), and this time they had seemed evasive – well not so much evasive as tight-lipped. Although they hadn’t said anything derogatory, he had the impression they hadn’t much liked the girl. But then from what he could make out, few of those questioned had. In fact, the only one who had said anything complimentary about the victim had been that busty femme fatale woman, Alicia somebody. She had said the girl had been ‘an absolute sweetie and so cute!’ But now he came to think of it, the tone had held so much gush that she was probably lying through her teeth.

  Far less fulsome had been the big fellow with the thick eyebrows and cultivated vowels, who declared he barely knew the girl and that it was all very sad but, alas, such things did happen. For one who had apparently shared a couple of romantic scenes with her, so bland a dismissal seemed curious. Jennings took his pen and carefully underlined the name, Robert Kestrel, and wrote the word OPAQUE next to it.

  He continued to consult his list and paused at one of the key witnesses, Bartholomew Hackle. Evidently, he was the big noise of the outfit, the director or whatever: nice enough in a cheery way and probably more intelligent than he appeared; but not easy to gauge. However, he had obviously been impatient to get on with the job. The chap’s main concern had seemed less for the victim than for the disruption her death had caused to his production schedule. So if the girl was so vital to his plans, presumably he could be ruled out as a suspect. (But then, inevitably, Jennings recalled Agatha Christie; and knowing that presumption was not to be trusted, inserted a tentative question mark.)

  H
is eye came back to the name of Felix Smythe, and he frowned. Shifty, that’s what, and hoity-toity with it! In fact, Smythe’s attitude had been much the same as when questioned about that other murder only two years previously. Still, the chap looked too nervous to be a serial killer – and besides, they had already nailed the culprit for that one. But he would lay ten-to-one that he had been hiding something. When asked if anything had been seen or found near the corpse, he had flinched like a startled rabbit and muttered, ‘No, not really.’ Then when urged to be more explicit he had tensed up and said curtly, ‘Nothing that I recall.’ It hadn’t sounded terribly convincing, but then of course he might just be thick. In Jennings’ estimation there was a lot of thickness about.

  And with that satisfying judgement the detective sergeant, like Nathan, decided to call it a day and cycle homeward to his flat in Walberswick and the benison of fried sausages – plus a happy perusal of Murder in the Vicarage.

  3 See A Southwold Mystery

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It really had been a dreadful shock – appalling, actually, when one came to think of it. Not that one cared to think of it too much, or at least certainly not the details – bizarre to say the least! Of course, the child always had been one for drama, but nobody had expected this kind of thing! What on earth had been going on?

  Ida Carshalton fumbled in her bag for a cigarette, and lit it with the crystal table lighter. For a few seconds she contemplated the flickering flame, and then with a snap extinguished it. Briefly her eyes looked pensive … Tippy’s end had been just like that: one moment vivid and sprightly (too damn sprightly), and the next moment, amid sand and seaweed, snuffed out. Extraordinary.