Murder at Swann's Lake

by Sally Spencer

  “He sounds like he’s big enough to take care of himself,” Woodend said.

  Miss Tufton gave the man in the hairy sports coat a look of mild dislike. “Mr Conway is a very gentle man,” she said.

  “I’m sure he is,” Woodend agreed.

  “Far too gentle for the wicked world which seems to have grown up since the War,” Miss Tufton added.

  “I’m . . . er . . . afraid we are going to have to have a look around his flat,” Rutter said. “We’ll try not to make too much noise.”

  “Oh dear,” Miss Tufton said. “Have you got a search warrant?”

  Woodend shot Rutter a questioning look, as if to ask how the old girl knew about anything as technical as a search warrant. “Miss Tufton’s a big fan of No Hiding Place,” the Sergeant explained.

  “Yes, we do have a warrant,” the Chief Inspector said. “Would you like to see it?”

  “Good heavens, no,” Miss Tufton replied. “But I’d quite like it if you’d wave it in front of my face, like they do on television.”

  “Anything to oblige, madam,” Woodend said, thinking to himself that if he was running some kind of criminal activity, he couldn’t think of a better person to live above than an innocent, confused old dear like Miss Tufton.

  It took the police locksmith a good five minutes to pick the lock on the door to Alex Conway’s flat. “Beautiful workmanship,” he said when he’d finished. “Almost a pity to mess about with it.”

  The main door opened straight into the lounge. It was a square room, with a leather three-piece suite dominating the centre of it. A radiogram stood against one wall, and even a cursory glance was enough to tell Woodend that Conway had quite a collection of records. Facing the radiogram was a bookcase, and it seemed that in addition to being a music lover, Conway was a voracious reader. The Chief Inspector looked around and took in the rest of the details. The carpet had a muted floral pattern, and the curtains were plain, and corn gold. It was a pleasant room – a restful room with a definite feminine touch – and Woodend, who had been half-hoping to find several thousand cartons of stolen cigarettes stacked up against the wall, felt vaguely disappointed.

  “Where shall we start, sir?” Rutter asked.

  “You an’ me’ll take the record collection,” Woodend said. “Sergeant Dash, check to see if any of them books is stuffed full of used fivers.”

  Woodend and Rutter knelt down beside the radiogram. The Chief Inspector flicked through the records. They were all classical. He went through them again, more slowly this time, noting the titles. “What do you make of this, Sergeant Rutter?” he asked.

  “Not a great deal,” Rutter admitted. “What should I have made of it?”

  “How about the way they’re filed?”

  “They’re not alphabetical,” Rutter said, “so judging by the wear and tear on the sleeves at the left hand, and the shininess of the ones on the right, I’d say they were filed according to when he bought them.”

  “You’re gettin’ there,” Woodend said, “but you’ve missed the main point, which is the order he chose to buy them in.”

  “You’ve lost me again, sir,” Rutter confessed.

  “Look at the records he bought first. Strauss and Rossini. Now go to the other end. Bruckner and Sibelius.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  Woodend sighed. “Rock ‘n’ roll is here to stay,” he said, with mild contempt. “I don’t know much about classical music – jazz is more my sort of thing – but I do know enough to realise that Strauss is what they call light classical, an’ Sibelius is much heavier stuff. Now do you get it?”

  “He’s been educating himself,” Rutter said. “Starting with easy pieces, then moving on to the more difficult ones.”

  “Go to the top of the class.” Woodend stood up. “I don’t think there’ll be anything hidden in the record sleeves,” he said. “But you’d better check anyway. I’ll go an’ see how Sergeant Dash is gettin’ on with Conway’s book collection.”

  Dash was holding a large book by the spine, and shaking it to see if anything fell out. When nothing did, he replaced on the shelf, picked up the next one, glanced briefly at the title, then gave that a good shaking, too.

  “Found anythin’ interestin’?” Woodend asked.

  “There’s nothing hidden between the pages of the books, if that’s what you mean, sir” the Sergeant replied. “But the books themselves might be of interest.”

  “Oh? In what way?”

  “Go through most people’s bookcases an’ you’d be bound to find Zane Grey, Ellery Queen an’ Dennis Wheatley,” Dash said. “But there’s none of that here. They’re all what I suppose you might call ‘quality’ books.”

  “Quality books?”

  “Yes, sir. History, literature, stuff like that. He seems especially enthusiastic about paintin’. There are a lot of books about Italian artists.”

  “Canaletto, Titian, fellers like that?” Woodend asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Dash said, with a hint of surprise in his voice. “Know about art, do you?”

  “Oh, I like a good picture,” Woodend said. “Thing is, Sergeant, apart from tellin’ us that Conway’s more cultured than your average villain, I don’t see where this is leadin’ us.”

  “About a dozen of the paintin’ books are from one of the sub-branches of the Doncaster library, if that’s any help,” Dash said.

  “About a dozen?” Woodend repeated. “How many books are you normally allowed to take out of your library, Sergeant?”

  “Three or four I think,” Dash said. “But most of these books haven’t been taken out in the normal way.” He opened one and showed it to Woodend. “See, it’s still got its little card inside. That should have been filed back at the library when Conway withdrew the book.”

  “Now that is interesting,” Woodend reflected.

  Alexander Conway’s kitchen was well equipped with pots and pans, but there was no evidence of food, in either the fridge or the cupboards.

  “Seems our Mr Conway isn’t much of a one for throwin’ dinner parties,” Woodend said.

  There were two bedrooms. The wardrobe in the smaller of the two was empty and the bed was stripped down to the bare mattress.

  “Still, it must be handy when he has a visitors – like his mate Robbie Peterson, from Cheshire,” the Chief Inspector commented.

  The larger bedroom was very tidy, but obviously lived in. Woodend opened the wardrobe and saw that it was full of suits. “He won’t have bought any of these down at the fifty-shillin’ tailors,” he said to his sergeant.

  “No,” Rutter agreed, running the cloth of one of the jackets through his fingers. “These are expensive. Tasteful, too. The sort of clothes a chief inspector might be seen wear—” He stopped, suddenly. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to suggest—”

  “I know exactly what you meant,” Woodend assured him. “An’ you’re quite right. It’s the sort of clobber you’d wear if you were tryin’ to impress somebody. Now let’s put all this stuff on the bed, so we can see exactly what we’ve got.”

  They spread all the clothes out over the counterpane. In addition to the suits there were over a dozen shirts, three ties, underwear, socks, two pairs of casual trousers and a couple of pullovers. Rutter checked through every garment which had pockets and came up empty-handed.

  “There’s two things that bother me about this lot,” Woodend said thoughtfully.

  “And what are they, sir?”

  “First of all, wouldn’t you say that wardrobe was almost full to burstin’ when we first opened it?”

  “Yes, I would,” Rutter agreed.

  “An’ that Conway would be really pushed to fit much more inside?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “So where does he keep the clothes he takes with him when he’s off travellin’?”

  “Maybe he usually stores them in the wardrobe in the guest room,” Rutter speculated.

  “Maybe he does,” Woodend agreed. “But would
n’t that suggest, since he chooses to separate them like that, that they’re not the same kind of clothes.”

  “How would they be different?”

  Woodend shrugged. “I’m not sure. Like you said, what he keeps in this room is all top-quality stuff. Perhaps he dresses down when he’s away from Doncaster.”

  “Most people take their best clothes with them when they go away,” Rutter pointed out.

  “You’re right,” the Chief Inspector said. “It’s all a bit of a mystery, isn’t it?”

  “You said there was something else bothering you,” Rutter reminded him.

  “Oh aye,” Woodend said. “This bloke Conway’s got a lot more clothes than I have – he could go a fortnight without doin’ any washin’ if he wanted to – but there’s one thing he hasn’t got multiples of.”

  “His shoes!” Rutter said.

  “Exactly. Where are his spare pairs of shoes?”

  Maria was aware of time passing since the doctor had put something over her mouth and told her to take short, deep breaths, but whether that was an hour earlier, or a day – or even a year – she had no way of knowing. What she did know was that she was lying flat on her back.

  She reached out and ran both hands along the edges of the bed. Her palms brushed against the cold metal and her fingers touched the ends of the familiar bolts which held the frame together.

  For a second, she was shocked at how quickly she learned to use touch as a substitute for seeing. And then that thought was swept aside by the realisation that if she wasn’t under anaesthetic any more, the operation must be over.

  She listened carefully, and thought she heard someone else breathing. “Is anybody there?” she asked.

  “I’m here,” said a familiar voice.

  Joan Woodend! Of course she’s here, Maria thought. She’s hardly left my side since this nightmare began. “Have the doctors told you anything?” she asked.

  “They said there were no complications,” Joan replied. “Everything went just about as smoothly as it possibly could have done.”

  But was it a success? Maria wondered in anguish. Will I able to see again? “When do the bandages come off?” she asked.

  “On Sunday.”

  How long it seemed until Sunday. How much darkness lay ahead before then. And there was always the possibility – the strong possibility – that once the bandages were removed, the darkness would remain.

  Maria contemplated a bleak future. To be blind! To be constantly aware that there were obstacles lurking out there in the darkness, waiting to bang against her shins or trip her up. To be helpless in the face of tasks which caused absolutely no problem for normal people. She thought of the life she’d been half-planning with Bob. What would happen to that now? How could she have the children she’d so looked forward to, when she wouldn’t be able to look after them?

  “I’m sure it will be all right,” Joan Woodend said comfortingly.

  But how could she be sure, if even the surgeons didn’t know?

  Sitting at a table in the pub closest to Number 7, Hatton Gardens, Woodend took a generous slurp of his pint and then smacked his lips contentedly. “There are some good things about Yorkshire after all, Bob,” he said. “Mind you, if you ever quote me on that, I’ll deny I ever said it.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Rutter said.

  Woodend put his glass down. “What exactly is it you’re thankin’ me for, Sergeant?”

  “Most bosses I’ve worked with would already have asked me three or four times how I was bearing up under the strain. You haven’t mentioned Maria since we left Swann’s Lake.”

  Woodend looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Aye, well, I figured that when you want to talk about it, you will,” he said.

  “So what do you make of Alex Conway?” Rutter asked, indicating that time had not yet arrived.

  “He’s not your average villain, is he?” Woodend replied. “He might not exactly be as well educated as a grammar school boy like you – but he certainly wants to better himself.”

  “Maybe he’s not a villain at all,” Rutter suggested, picking up the double Scotch which he’d chosen in preference to his usual half of bitter.

  “I’d agree with you on that, but for one thing – his flat,” Woodend said. “It’s like he’d never been there.”

  “Never been there?” Rutter repeated. “He’s got his records, his books, his clothes—”

  “Listen, lad, if you were ever to break into my house, you’d come away knowin’ a lot about me,” Woodend interrupted. “I don’t mean you’d know I liked Dixieland jazz or the Italian school of paintin’ – though you’d have a fair idea about that. No, what I’m sayin’ is, you’d know when I was born, when I was married, where I bank whatever’s left of my miserable salary, how much my life is insured for – all kinds of details.”

  “Documentation,” Rutter said, grasping the point.

  “That’s right. Bloody hell, I think I’ve still got my old army pay book. But this feller Conway has bugger all in the line of papers, which suggests to me that he’s been anticipatin’ the day when a couple of nosy bobbies like us would get a search warrant and turn his flat over. An’ to think things through like that, you’ve simply got to be a villain.”

  “You could be on to something there,” Rutter admitted.

  “Add to that what your Miss Tufton said about him bein’ away for rather longer than usual, and you’ve got the finger of suspicion in the death of Robbie Peterson pointin’ straight at Mr Alex Conway.”

  “You think they had an argument and Conway decided Peterson had to go?” Rutter asked.

  “Not necessarily. Maybe Conway goes down to the club on Friday night just to talk. Then he finds Peterson asleep at his desk. ‘Hang on,’ he says to himself, ‘with Robbie out of the way, I could be in charge of the whole racket.’ It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to pick up the hammer and nail, and bam! Peterson’s dead. Now all Conway has to do is lie low while the murder investigation’s goin’ on, an’ then he’s back in business – this time on his own.”

  Rutter looked distinctly dubious. “You think that Conway has gone into hiding?”

  “That’s what it looks like to me.”

  “But why should he have done that? You said yourself that the only thing which connected him with Robbie Peterson – as far as we know – is an envelope. And what reason would he have had for thinking we’d get our hands on it? Does he even remember it? I know I’d probably have forgotten it, if I’d been in his place.”

  Woodend gave his sergeant a look which could almost have been mistaken for dislike. “I hate it when you shoot down my theories with logic,” he said. “I bloody hate it. But if you’re right, how do you explain the fact that Alex Conway has been away from his flat for so long?”

  “We don’t know he has,” Rutter argued. “Miss Tufton thinks he might have been gone for an unusually long time, but even she admits that she’s very vague about such matters.”

  “You’re right again,” Woodend admitted reluctantly. “But I still think Alex Conway is our man.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Rutter asked.

  “I’m goin’ to find him, of course.”

  Rutter drained his whisky and signalled to the waiter that he’d like another one. “It’s all very well to say you’re going to find him,” he told his boss. “But where, exactly, do you plan to start looking?”

  “Well,” Woodend said, “I could do worse than begin with the public library.”

  Fifteen

  Woodend’s local library in Kilburn was similar to ones he remembered as a child, a grey, intimidating place presided over by a grey, intimidating woman who seemed to take it as a personal insult whenever anyone wished to check out a book. The library Alexander Conway made frequent use of, on the other hand, was a completely different story. It was light and airy. Selected books were displayed enticingly, instead of being confined to the shelves. There were paintings – mainly from the Italian
school – on the walls, and pot plants which the Chief Inspector was willing to bet had not been provided by Doncaster Council. Someone had worked very hard to make this a pleasant place to be.

  A plump young woman with a jolly red face and long, undisciplined brown hair was sitting behind the main desk reading a true romance magazine. When Woodend coughed she looked up, smiled and said, “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I’m looking for the librarian,” Woodend told her. “The chief librarian, I mean.”

  “Then you’ll be wanting Miss Noonan,” the girl said, still smiling. “I’m afraid she’s out on her coffee break. I’m Miss Jones, the assistant librarian. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Very possibly,” Woodend said. “I’m a policeman.” He produced his warrant card and held it out for her to see.

  The girl’s eyes widened and her smile disappeared. “A chief inspector,” she said. “Has somebody done something wrong?”

  “If somebody somewhere hadn’t done something wrong, I’d be out of a job,” Woodend said, grinning reassuringly. “But it probably isn’t anybody you know.”

  Miss Jones relaxed slightly. “What do you want to ask me?” she said.

  “I’m interested in one of your customers—”

  “Patrons. Miss Noonan doesn’t like the people who come into the library being called customers. She says we’re running an institution for enlightenment – not a shop.”

  “Patrons, then,” Woodend agreed. “The one I’m interested in is probably a regular. He’s about my height, somewhere around fifty, has blond hair and a moustache, which he always keeps well trimmed—”

  “Oh, that’d be Mr Conway,” the assistant librarian said. “You’re not telling me that he’s—”

  “I’m sure he’s as pure as the driven snow,” Woodend lied. “But I’d still like to find out a little more about him. Would that be all right?”

  The girl nodded doubtfully. “I suppose so.”

  “How long has Mr Conway been coming here?” Woodend asked, starting with an easy one.

  “Well, he’s certainly been a regular patron for as long as I’ve been working here.”