Passion in the Peak

by John Buxton Hilton

  It was the bare facts that he had given Fewter by word of mouth—a condensation, but not the condensation of a man who intended missing anything out. He had been badly at fault—badly enough to ensure his dismissal from the Force—as if he ought to be concerning himself with that now! If he hadn’t put his hand on that car, some unknown woman would still be alive. Why had he had to worry about that bloody handbag? Well—that was how it had happened, and he wasn’t going to say otherwise. Kershaw had an antediluvian attitude to the truth. You told a lie, then had to work up a network to support it. And before you knew where you were, something had slipped that you’d overlooked, and you were in a worse hole than you’d been to begin with. And that was only a rationalization—useful if ever you felt you needed an excuse for telling the truth. Truth was truth. When in doubt, tell it.

  It looked terrible on paper. He screwed up his first three efforts after only a line or two, decided that the fourth was as bad as the others, but that it had to stand. It had to be got on with, finished. Tell it how it happened.

  Old Culver came downstairs in a shabby old dressing-gown.

  ‘What’s happened? What’s going on out there?’

  ‘I don’t know the full story yet. I’m going over there again now, and I may not be back. They’ll probably want me.’

  A lot of villagers were out and about now, swanning round the perimeter of the Square as if the HQ were a travelling fair. ‘They’ve got a body out.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A woman. They’ve taken her to hospital.’

  Then Sergeant Nall was there too. Thank God the DI was not with him.

  ‘Ah, Freddy. The very man. I need to make medicine with thee, my lad. Let’s go over to your billet.’

  As they went into the house, Joan was just coming downstairs. She pulled the kitchen door closed behind her. Kershaw took Nall into the little-used front room and pushed his statement across the table. Nall flicked it to one side. ‘Just talk your way out of it, Freddy.’

  ‘I’m not trying to talk my way out of anything.’

  ‘Freddy—I’ll grant that you have three-quarters of the brains in our office. Me, I have nine-tenths of the experience. And Fewter has rank. Fewter’s not gunning for you. He wouldn’t want the trouble. And nor would I. Play this quietly, and it will go away. Fewter doesn’t want to lose you, and I don’t want to have another rookie to train.’

  Kershaw felt his self-control slipping.

  ‘Look—for God’s sake tell me: who was the woman under the car?’

  ‘Of course, you don’t know yet, do you? Ricarda Mommsen: the little Jewess who liked Larner’s records. It’s a good job she was wearing clothes that people recognized. We might have been a bit stumped by the rest of her. They took her off to hospital—but when you ask how she is, they only shake their heads sadly.’

  ‘She does have some chance?’

  ‘Chance? I don’t think there’s a bone in her body that isn’t broken. I never cease to marvel at the human body’s capacity for survival.’

  Kershaw slid his statement back towards Nall. Nall smoothed it under his fingers and began to read it, cursorily at first; at least, so he tried to make it seem. Then he read a couple of paragraphs twice. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘Very good. Well observed. Well put together. Nice touch of English here and there. Couldn’t hope to match it. It presents a clear picture, draws intelligent conclusions. Some. As between you and me, this would do fine. But it can’t possibly go forward as it is. I wouldn’t even like Fewter to see it as it stands. And Gleed’s coming from Derby, you know, to take charge. Gleed! That’s all we need in the division, a spell of Gleed on the doorstep. If Gleed were to see this—’

  ‘What the hell am I supposed to do with it, then?’

  ‘Cut it down by half its length, for a start. Stick to your facts and forget your theories. And another thing—Furnival and Cantrell invited you into Miss Mommsen’s room. They took on that search on their own responsibility.’

  ‘I thought I’d made that clear.’

  ‘Then make it twice as clear. Say it in more than one way. And this business of getting that article out of the glove compartment: that didn’t happen. The car was all set to slide down of its own accord, any second.’

  ‘Sergeant!’

  ‘Look, Freddy—nobody’s asking you to tamper with the truth. Just miss some of it out, that’s all. Shift the emphasis a bit. There’s no point in begging for the bullet. I know that car went down of its own accord. Fewter knows it went down of its own accord. Why the hell can’t you bloody well say so?’

  ‘I told Fewter last night how it happened.’

  ‘Fewter took nothing in last night—not to be certain. I’ve told you, all Fewter wants—’

  ‘Sergeant, I know perhaps I had a couple too many last night—’

  Sergeant Nall looked at him with a ham-acted mixture of incredulity and fear.

  ‘Well, thank God you haven’t put that into writing. You were as sober as I was last night.’

  ‘Fewter didn’t seem to think so.’

  ‘Never mind what Fewter said. I’ve had a word with Fewter this morning. I’ve told him you spent yesterday evening with me, and I’ll vouch for the state you were in. The day Fewter says anything to me about drinking off duty, he knows what my comeback will be. It’s putting this other stuff on paper that won’t do. Look, Freddy—nobody knows—’

  ‘You’ve got my statement, Sergeant. That’s how it stands.’

  ‘Freddy, I’m trying to keep you out of the mucky end. You could go places in this Force, you could.’

  ‘I’m not doctoring what I’ve written.’

  ‘Then you’ll be out, lad. I can even see you on a manslaughter rap.’

  Somehow the statement had made its way to the middle of the table again. Kershaw had a sudden desire to pick the document up, to remind himself of what exactly he had said. But he resisted: he knew what he’d written.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve ever tried parleying with Gleed, have you?’ Nall asked him.

  ‘That’s my lookout.’

  ‘I can’t give you time to think it over, Freddy. Gleed—’

  ‘Would you like me to wait and hand it to Gleed in person?’

  Nall picked up the statement, folded it, put it away in an inside pocket, stood up and remained for three seconds studying Kershaw.

  ‘Don’t you know how I feel, Sergeant?’

  ‘Of course I know. But there’s no need to jump off your branch, laddie.’

  Nall turned and left him. Kershaw watched him cross the Square, his shoulders rounded.

  Chapter Six

  Fewter had got on the wrong side of Joan Culver from the very beginning. It was one of his few basic working theories that if you got your subject’s back up from the start, you were more likely to unearth the natural man—or woman. Fewter came in just as Nall and Freddy were leaving. He had something to say to Freddy, something nasty, she could tell from the looks on both their faces, though she wasn’t able to catch what they said. It was a pity about Freddy. She hadn’t found a decent word to say to him since she had come back last night. It was partly the way that he had looked at her that had peeved her—as if he were condemning her for having gone out with Wayne. Who was Freddy Kershaw to decide who she should go out with? It had been fascinating at first, having a detective as lodger. She had never seen behind police scenes before. But it soon became a commonplace. It was true that Freddy seemed more intelligent than most of his colleagues, had read more, was altogether more thoughtful. But he was exactly like them in so many other ways. He drank too much, he smoked too much, he swore too much when he did not think she was in earshot. She did not consider herself a prude: it was just that these men were not adult.

  Inspector Fewter would not take an armchair—settled himself facing her at the front-room table. She could feel what store he set by formality.

  ‘Let’s take first things first, Miss Culver. How did that car come to go over the e
dge?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see.’

  She owed it to Freddy to protect him on that point. If she hadn’t mentioned her bag—

  ‘You weren’t looking, I suppose?’

  ‘How could I have seen? It was a filthy dark night. There was only one light and that was Mr Kershaw’s.’

  ‘You had better be telling me the truth, Miss Culver. I want to know everything that happened yesterday. And by everything, if you are in any doubt about the meaning of the word, I mean all that took place—not just those things you consider might be important. All that happened.’

  ‘I can’t think there’s much I can tell you, Inspector. Wayne asked me if I’d like to go to Buxton with him. We didn’t do anything exciting, and I didn’t at any time notice anything sinister.’

  ‘Never mind what you consider sinister. What did you do? Where did you go? Let’s begin at the beginning. Were you and Mr Larner regular friends, or did he just pick you up?’

  ‘He did not just pick me up—though this was the first time I’d been out with him.’

  ‘Doubtless you understand the difference. I don’t.’

  ‘I had been standing in for Mary Magdalene.’

  ‘Ah—your big chance, I suppose?’

  ‘I was never fool enough to think that. They needed to have somebody standing in the right place, giving the cues, until they signed up a professional. Though I admit I was thrilled to bits to be asked. But it was only because I happened to be handy and knew the scenes. I sing in one of the choruses, and when the news came that Madge Oldroyd had walked out on the show, Mr Hajek, the producer, swung round and pointed to me. “Miss I-don’t-know-your-name, will you stand in for a rehearsal or two?”‘

  ‘Chance of a lifetime,’ Fewter said.

  ‘Not really. Of course, I started off with high hopes. Who wouldn’t? But when I heard a playback of one of the tapes, I knew how hopeless it was.’

  She did indeed: disastrous disillusion. Against the backing of the professionals, her voice was too feeble, too uncommercial, and she was shocked by her own High Peak vowels.

  ‘At least it brought you to Larner’s notice.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘And you say this was your first date with him?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘He drove you out of Peak Low in his car?’

  ‘No. He couldn’t. There’s a story behind that. He was not allowed to drive his car for the duration of the show, because he was supposed to be a dangerous driver. There was a clause in his contract. So he’d hired a taxi.’

  Never before in her life had she enjoyed the extravagance of a taxi from Peak Low to Buxton. Half of her wanted to be seen by everybody in the village; the other half wanted to lean back invisible.

  ‘So what did you find to do in Buxton? It was a filthy afternoon.’

  ‘I’d a few odds and ends of shopping to do.’

  A pork pie for her father, who liked them from a particular shop; some blouse buttons to match; the hope of a length of velvet from a remnant shop. There was no need to tell Fewter that Wayne had been bored to death by her shopping. And he had been obsessed about not being recognized, had worn dark glasses despite the gloom of the afternoon, to try to fool the autograph-hunters. And all he could think of was what he could buy for her—ludicrously expensive things in every other shop-window: a quartz watch, a cameo brooch, an original watercolour that she just happened to say was quite nice, even a nylon fur fun coat. She did not tell Fewter any of this: it would only give him the wrong idea. She’d thought about it—she was not quite the idiot she might look—had decided on balance that Wayne was not trying to buy her. He just wanted to give her pleasure. He wanted to give everyone pleasure. And he didn’t seem to have any money sense. It was a long time since Wayne Larner had had to wait until tomorrow for anything he wanted.

  What were they going to do with themselves when she’d bought the few things that she needed? There was no sign that the rain was going to abate. It was more like twilight than mid-afternoon.

  ‘So? You did your shopping—’

  ‘Then went to a hotel.’

  ‘Which hotel?’

  ‘The Badminton.’

  ‘Ah!’

  A wealth of insolence and innuendo.

  ‘How long did you stay there?’

  ‘Long enough to have tea.’

  ‘Where did you have your tea?’

  ‘I told you—in the Badminton Hotel.’

  ‘I mean, where in the hotel?’

  She paused fractionally.

  ‘In the residents’ lounge.’

  She stared the Inspector out, eye to eye, challenging him to say outright that there had been more in the visit to the Badminton than that.

  ‘And after tea?’

  ‘After tea we went and got his car from the garage.’

  ‘Just like that? I would have thought that they’d have been sticky about releasing it.’

  ‘I did not hear all that was said. There was a row about it. I rather think that Wayne ended up by bribing an assistant.’

  ‘So that he could show off to you what a daredevil driver he was?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I was partially responsible for persuading him to go and get the car. It didn’t seem right to me that a man of his fame should be kept under a prohibition like a schoolboy under punishment.’

  ‘So where did he drive you?’

  ‘Into Cheshire.’

  ‘Why Cheshire?’

  ‘He just drove. He just loved driving.’

  ‘And has endorsements on his licence to prove it.’

  ‘He’s a very good driver,’ she said. ‘Fast, it’s true. And I’m not used to fast driving. But his control is superb. I thought I was going to hate it at first, but I ended up enjoying myself.’

  Over the Cat and Fiddle Moors—what a drive! He broke speed limits as a matter of course, seemed utterly confident that he would not be caught. She had never before conceived of eighty-five miles an hour as a man’s idea of relaxation: a certain type of man. Wayne Larner’s skill and confidence communicated themselves. She ought to have been frightened by the risks that he took, but his timing, his judgement of speed and distance put him in absolute control. Style: that was what he had.

  They had gone miles into Cheshire—Alderley Edge, Knutsford, had had dinner in a monumentally nineteenth-century hotel. He had talked to her—talked to her a lot—about his early days, his beginnings, what it was really like to be a slave to Dyer’s machine. She had the feeling, once he had got going, that it was the truth he was telling, that he desperately needed a chance to tell it to sympathetic ears. She did not try to put this across to Fewter. It would be beyond his comprehension—and was in any case irrelevant.

  Over dinner, Wayne casually said that he had half promised to look in at a nightclub between Castleton and Hope, where there was not at all a bad floor show, and he might sing a couple of numbers. She wanted to hear him sing in person, to be seen with him in a fashionable place as his guest. Ten years ago he had had hundreds of thousands of fans—but never one more eager or credulous than Joan Culver. She looked dubiously at the clock on the dining-room wall.

  ‘We’re a safari away from Castleton. We could never make it in time.’

  ‘Time? As long as we get there between midnight and four—I’ll give them a ring, let them know we are coming.’

  She gave Fewter no more than the bare facts. He seemed to think that there must have been something particularly suspicious about going to Knutsford. That dinner had been the zenith of middle-class respectability.

  Then they had had a night ride across the plain and back over the heights. She was agog for speed now—aglow too with the Beni she had had with her coffee—a rare indulgence: as had been a Martini and three glasses of Goldener Oktober at table. The white lines, the cats’ eyes leaping at them round smooth, fast curves, Wayne’s faultless braking at hazards seen a split second in time: it was a symphonic fusin
g of the physical and the emotional, at once soothing and exhilarating. She was aware of the reality of Wayne Larner beside her, the charisma that had galvanized thousands. It was an ecstasy of motion at the call of a man’s will.

  ‘This nightclub near Edale—?’

  ‘The Grey Cat.’

  ‘Did he sing there?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And what time did you leave?’

  ‘About half past two.’

  ‘So what time did you get home?’

  ‘I didn’t look at my watch. I’d say between three and half past.’

  Her most abiding memory at that point was the stench of stale beer vomit when she looked into her father’s bedroom.

  ‘Miss Culver, I want you to be very careful indeed about my next question. Were you under the impression at any time during your outing that you were being followed? Did Larner think that you were being followed?

  ‘I don’t think so. Except by some of Mr Cantrell’s security men, his bodyguard, always on his trail. He said he had come to regard them as part of the landscape.’

  She was not sure why she decided to suppress the next bit: how Wayne had tricked Cantrell’s henchmen in Macclesfield. Surely Fewter was above bothering about a traffic offence? They had shot unexpectedly the wrong way down a One Way Street—and had got away with it. They had lost their tail, stuck at the red two sets of traffic-lights back.

  ‘Did you at any stage run into anyone that Larner knew?’

  ‘Only at the nightclub.’

  ‘Not in Cheshire?’

  ‘Nowhere at all in Cheshire.’

  ‘And who did he know at The Grey Cat?’

  ‘Only the management and the waiters—and a group called The Deviants, who were also singing there—one of the groups from the Passion.’