The Mask of Memory

by Victor Canning

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Quint stood up and switched on the lights against the growing dark in the room. Kerslake rose and pulled the window curtains. As he turned back, Quint said, ‘What do you think – did Commander Tucker slip or was he pushed?’

  ‘I think he slipped. Nobody in their right senses would push him over so small a drop. Apart from that I don’t see Mrs Tucker in the role of … well, a pusher.’

  ‘How do you see her?’

  ‘A neglected, unsatisfied woman, turned in on herself, who finally got hooked by this Maxie Dougall. It wouldn’t have to be from pity on his part. She’s still a very attractive woman. I’m only surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.’

  Lassiter asked, ‘Why was his name kept out of the inquest?’

  Kerslake gave a minute shrug of his shoulders.

  ‘Her solicitor is a friend of the Coroner and of my Chief. This is a small town comparatively. We don’t like offending our people or embarrassing them unless it is essential.’

  Quint nodded agreement. He was happy to let Lassiter come in with his questions because the switch in attention by Kerslake from one to the other might unsettle him – in which case he would be relegated to no more than a driver and errand boy. He said, ‘Maximilian Dougall?’

  ‘Single, mid or late thirties, lives alone in a cottage out on the dune marshes. Naturalist, bird-watcher, that sort of thing but only in an amateurish way. No known parents. Brought up in a local orphanage. Rumour says he has a small private income from somewhere. Local story that he’s the discarded bastard of some wealthy or aristocratic family. Doubt it myself. Clever. Grammar-school scholarship. Makes a living selling paintings and odds and ends to tourists, casual labours in the off season. Used to poach. No convictions. Attractive to women, but so far as known has always stuck to the willing visiting types. No local scandal until now.’ He paused and then added, ‘Likeable – but a dark horse.’

  Lassiter said, ‘Any other interests? Local politics? Sports or social activities?’

  ‘No. He’s the hermit type in a sense.’

  ‘Sure?’ The question came from Quint.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Kerslake had no idea what they were after. For a moment – despite all his professional gratification at this contact with them – he was seized with the outrageous fantasy that if at this moment it suited their book they could wipe him off the face of the map with never a question being asked. Ridiculous, but coldness centred like a freezing hand between his shoulder blades. And, as the illogical sensation stayed still with him, they added a confusion to it. Only a moment of iron control stayed the show of his surprise.

  Quint said gently, ‘Now tell us about William Ankers.’

  Lassiter gave Kerslake silent credit. He handled himself well. Not far buried in Kerslake was material that Warboys could have shaped and which Quint could not fail to recognize. Kerslake, he thought, would do well to make a mess of firings at some point. He would stay happier that way than any quiet recommendation from Quint to Warboys could ever make him.

  Kerslake, deliberately suppressing the reiteration of the man’s name, said, ‘ He has an office-cum-flat in Allpart Street. Calls himself an enquiry agent. But he’s chiefly a debt collector and tally man for a credit firm. He’s dishonest when it suits him. He has a mistress, woman called Nancy Barcott, who works in the baker’s shop under his rooms.’ He touched his upper lip with the tip of his tongue, not in any slightest token of salacity but to give himself a pause to flatten his voice as he went on, ‘He’s no outside interests, sporting, social or political. He’s thirty-nine and has lived here all his life. No living parents or family, except a brother who’s a river bailiff in South Devon.’

  Quint nodded, noting the performance, filing it against the barest possibility of recall, and said, ‘Andrew Browning?’

  Kerslake answered, ‘Sixty, senior partner in Browning, Rolls and Weare, solicitors. Established here for donkey’s years. Married, wife living. House on Old Quay. Two sons, long grown up and married. One’s army and the other farms in Essex, I think. Solid character, Rotarian, well-liked; knows everybody. Acts for the Tuckers. Plays golf, sails, local councillor. Well-liked, a kind man, but professionally a shade lazy. Second or third-class brain.’

  Lassiter chuckled, but Quint’s face remained unmoved. He said, ‘What car does Mrs Tucker drive?’

  ‘A blue Mini. AMW 993 L.’

  ‘Is that a local number?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When you get back to your office put out a confidential notice on it, countrywide. No action to be taken. Just report location.’

  ‘But why, sir? Isn’t she at Lopcommon—’ Kerslake checked himself.

  Quint allowed himself the edge of a smile. It took time, and training, and a special armouring to curb the brain’s spontaneity. Kerslake was good but little more at the moment. He said, ‘No, she isn’t. We called at the Lopcommon house before we came here. The garage is empty and there’s a note pinned to the back door saying no milk is wanted until further notice.’ Lassiter said, ‘ It’s urgent that we talk to Mrs Tucker as soon as possible.’

  Kerslake, recovered, said, ‘She’s probably gone off for a few days. Either to friends or relations, or maybe just by herself. It would be natural, after what she’s been through this past week. Just wants to get away from it all. However … I’ll check Dougall’s cottage.’

  ‘I want to look around Mrs Tucker’s house. Can we go by Dougall’s place on the way out to Lopcommon?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Kerslake watched as Quint turned and unhooked his hat and coat from the back of the room door. Lassiter caught his eye and winked, smiling. He said, ‘Don’t look worried, lad. Just a simple case of breaking and entering. There won’t be any comeback.’

  Quint said, ‘On second thoughts, you’d better phone your office from here and tell them to put out that call. Just locate and report. No approach to anyone connected with it. Once it’s found I want it tagged and all movement reported.’ He picked up the telephone receiver and handed it to Kerslake.

  Twenty minutes later they were driving down the old military road to Maxie Dougall’s cottage. They walked the last hundred yards. The cottage was in darkness. As they approached it a goose honked from somewhere near the pond. At the door Kerslake hesitated. Because the place was in darkness did not mean that it would be empty.

  Lassiter said softly, ‘Just knock. If anyone is there we’ll deal with it.’

  Kerslake knocked, but there was no reply.

  Quint looked at Lassiter and Lassiter shook his head. ‘ He’s away with her.’

  They went back to the car, drove along the coast road, up over the headland to Lopcommon, and then openly down the drive to the front of the house.

  Lassiter went round to the back. Quint, standing in the porchway with Kerslake, said in impersonal tones, ‘You come in with us. If we decide to take anything, you’ll see what it is. Everything will be listed and we’ll sign for it. For the time being you’re working under direct Home Office instructions.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Quint was thinking, concern for Kerslake’s feelings almost non-existent, that in all the years he had known Bernard Tucker this house had been here and the woman in it. Never once had it occurred to him that there was anything wrong with Tucker, that he had any dangerous secret to hide or private fear or agony to contain. Let it, he told himself, be a sharp lesson. With almost everyone, no matter how absurd the thought might be, there could always be something major or minor to be hidden. At that moment he was free. At the moment he was an exception – and he meant to stay that way.

  The front door opened and Lassiter let them in. They went through the house quickly, establishing its layout. Then they began to go through it room by room. It was clear at once to Kerslake that they were not doing a thorough turning over job. They concentrated on the study downstairs and the Commander’s bedroom. The safe in the study was locked and the flat-topped desk had many of its drawers empty. The cont
ents of the others either Quint or Lassiter flicked through with an almost casual interest. Whatever they wanted was something which they would recognize instantly, something large enough not to be easily hidden.

  There was another safe behind a picture on the wall in Commander Tucker’s bedroom. This, too, was locked.

  Lassiter standing near the fireplace said, ‘He’d have carried the keys with him. Always have them on him. Mrs Tucker could have an enquiring mind.’

  Quint turned to Kerslake. ‘Where are the Commander’s clothes and stuff? At the station?’

  ‘No, sir. Mrs Tucker didn’t want his clothes back. They’ve either gone or are going to Oxfam. All his personal stuff was returned to Mrs Tucker. Among it there was quite a considerable bunch of keys.’

  ‘Tidy woman. Try his dresser,’ said Lassiter. As Quint went to it, he picked up a leather-framed photograph from the mantelshelf. Warboys and Tucker on the bridge of some ship. The faded past, he thought; the bonds of friendship cemented by the trials of war, comrades in arms, and later the other bonds and the other comradeship for a war which brought little honour to anyone.

  In the top left-hand drawer of the dresser was a bunch of keys, lying with a wallet, a silver cigarette case, half-filled with hand-made Dunhill cigarettes, a small lighter with the nickel plating heavily worn, and a slim, ebony-handled penknife.

  Quint exhibited the keys briefly and went to the safe. He opened it. It held nothing except an empty dog-eared box file. He turned to Lassiter and said quietly, ‘This was it.’

  Lassiter, glancing at the box, nodded. He only knew they were looking for a set of documents and a report. What they were about he officially knew nothing. Privately, since he knew the personalities concerned; he had made some broad assumptions.

  He said, ‘Bernard would be the last man to trust a safe. Particularly an old-fashioned job like that or the one downstairs.’

  Quint went out of the room and they followed him down to the study. The safe was empty.

  Lassiter said, ‘When clients die their solicitors get busy because the dead live on for quite a while legally.’ There was a whisky decanter and glasses on the study side table, and it was a long time past his usual hour. For a moment he hesitated and then went to the decanter and lifted it. ‘Anyone else?’

  Both men shook their heads and Quint gave half a frown. The expression left Lassiter untouched. He poured himself a drink and said, ‘She’d have collected all the stuff in the two safes and handed it over.’ There was little doubt in his mind that Mrs Tucker was gone for some time. The sitting-room and study fireplaces were cleared of ash, he had noticed … tidy woman … people burnt things in fireplaces.

  Quint said to Kerslake, ‘Ring Browning. Ask him if Mrs Tucker delivered to him all her husband’s personal and private papers. If she did, wherever they are, at his home or his office, I want to see them. I’ll be with him in an hour’s time. Tell him it’s urgent. A Home Office enquiry of immediate importance and strictest secrecy.’

  Lassiter sipped his raw whisky, smiled, and added, ‘ That’ll bring him.’ He watched Kerslake’s face, gave him high marks for control, and a few more for the almost natural way he went to the study telephone and picked it up. He was a fast learner and, with their backing, quick to assess and use new authority. Andrew Browning would not enjoy being given a directive by a detective-constable in the middle of a Sunday evening … carpet slippers, a glass of brandy and a good book in either hand and a sudden squall of westerly rain hammering at the window. He listened to it now on the study windows.

  Quint said, ‘ Let’s take a look at her bedroom while Kerslake phones.’

  For that intentional or unintentional kindness Kerslake was grateful. Jesus … old. Browning, at this time of night on a Sunday. Then, suddenly, he smiled as he dialled. Why not? As he listened to the dialling tones he found himself wondering how men like these two started … how did you get into that kind of racket? If they stayed long enough he might find out … might even ask; but not Quint, the other would be a safer approach.

  The dialling tones stopped. Kerslake swallowed hard and prepared to give his instructions to Andrew Browning.

  Upstairs Lassiter said, ‘For a woman who’s taken off for, say, a week, even a couple of weeks, she seems to have taken a lot of stuff. Only two pairs of shoes left in the wardrobe, a dozen empty hangers, and the bed stripped down. No towels in the bathroom. She could have gone on a cruise round the world.’

  Quint said, ‘We’ll see what the police call turns up. If the stuff we want isn’t with that solicitor we’ll have to take the place apart. Why the devil did Tucker have to go and slip over a cliff?’

  The last sentence, anger-touched, warmed Lassiter with its human frustration.

  He said, ‘Maybe he didn’t slip. Maybe he jumped – just bored with the whole thing.’

  ‘That’s enough of that bloody kind of talk. And don’t pull that whisky trick again with me when there are people like Kerslake around. It doesn’t look good.’

  Unrepentant, Lassiter said, ‘No, sir.’ And then because he had been saving it for a proper moment – whether it was important or not – and it was fair enough to take a small victory over types like Quint either out of envy or malice – he said stifffaced and in a casual tone, ‘I didn’t feel it wise to mention this in front of young Kerslake, but there’s something missing from Tucker’s personal effects. I understood from you that he was wearing one of our gold recording wrist watches. It wasn’t in the drawer with the other stuff. Maybe—’ he paused; ‘—she’s given it as a present to her boyfriend.’

  A sign on the farm gate had said – ACCOMMODATION. The farmhouse itself lay under the brow of a hill, low and shallow-roofed, walls pink-washed, with a belt of wind-twisted trees flanking the sloping ground which ran down through bracken and gorse-covered waste land to grey, slaty sea-cliffs above a sharp crescent of sand which rimmed a small bay.

  It was not the time of year at which the farmer and his wife expected visitors, but after a certain amount of doubt and consultation they had finally agreed to take them. The car was put in the barn at the far side of the house and they were given a large, low-ceilinged bedroom looking down to the sea. Though neither of them had said so yet, they both felt that this was a place more for them than any hotel. Hotels meant other people, and other people wanted to talk and become friends, and hotels had public dining-rooms, while here the farmer’s wife had offered them their own sitting-room in which they could eat in private.

  They sat now, each in an armchair in front of the log fire. By reaching out her hand Margaret could have touched him. She wanted to do this, but resisted the contact because she drew a strange pleasure from denying herself the small joy, knowing that it was always there to be had. He was reading a book which he had found on the shelves at the back of the room. She watched him, his face still except how and then for a slow pursing of his lips as though savouring the words that flowed from the page to his mind. She remembered – and that life was now so infinitely remote to her, her memory of it was already purged of all emotion – the times she had sat with Bernard like this at home, a silent barrier between them. Two men and so different. Bernard had seldom talked and even less seldom about himself. Maxie, when the mood took him – and she was beginning to understand how to promote that mood – would put his head back and talk freely … about himself as a boy, about his school days and, sometimes, with a frankness that disarmed her and brought no jealousy, about the women he had known.

  In the books she had once read there had been women who had adored their men. She knew now what that truly meant. She worshipped him. Herself and all she could call on were his for the taking. Everything she had ever read about true love she knew now was true. She would have done anything, for him. With Bernard there had been nothing she could do for him. With Maxie, apart from their love, her life had acquired a purpose if only so simple as anticipating his wishes and surprising him by making them come true. To do and be all this would
give her life valid meaning at last.

  As she stared into the fire she suddenly knew he was looking at her. She turned as he dropped his book into his lap and his hand came out to take hers. He grinned and with the bluntness which she accepted now without surprise, he said, ‘ If that little old door had a decent lock on it, love – I’d strip you right down and have you by firelight. And I’d bet it’s not the first time it would have happened in this room. No matter what they say about the Welsh, they’re a people of great passion.’

  She said, ‘Is that all you love me for? Just that?’

  ‘Aye. Why not? The body holds everything, brain, heart and soul. Where else then should a man bring his worship?’

  ‘One day you’ll run out of the right answers.’

  ‘Maybe. Then you’ll have to stop the questions and we can sit in silence which will be no hardship because there’ll still be thinking and loving and a great stack of memories to thresh through.’

  When he awoke in the morning, the bed at his side was empty of her. The wind and rain of the night had gone. Sounds of farm work and animals came from outside. He heard a starling whistle on the roof and the call of the herring gulls down at the cliffs. He sat up in bed, stretched, and ran his hands through his dark hair. The log fire in the bedroom grate was now a pile of frost-coloured ash. He smiled to himself. He had wanted to take her by firelight downstairs, and she had said nothing to him of having already asked the farmwife to put a fire in their bedroom. She had, he realized, a knack for anticipation, for quietly divining his moods and wants and arranging for their gratification. It was natural that it should come out now so strongly. In her own house with her husband she had been no more than part and parcel of the furniture and fittings. Mistress of nothing but an unwanted loneliness.

  As he stirred to get out of bed he saw a long, manilla envelope lying on her rumpled pillow. He picked it up. A message was written in pencil on the outside.