Murder at Swann's Lake

by Sally Spencer

  “And that would be . . . ?”

  “Three years now. Of course, he’s not regular in the sense that he comes in every week. We can go a whole month without seeing him.”

  “He’s a keen reader, isn’t he?”

  “Very keen. Sometimes we have to order the books from the central library especially for him. But Miss Noonan doesn’t mind doing that. She says that’s all part of the service.”

  “What kind of person is he?”

  “Oh, he’s very nice. Very soft-spoken. And a little shy,” Miss Jones lowered her eyes, “at least, he is with me.”

  “But not with Miss Noonan?”

  Miss Jones looked as if she wished she could cheerfully have bitten off her own tongue. “And he’s a very smart dresser,” she said, side-stepping the question. “Always has a nice suit on.”

  “What about his shoes?”

  Miss Jones gazed at him in wonder. “You’ve never met Mr Conway, have you?” she asked. “You wouldn’t be asking all these questions if you had.”

  “You’re right,” Woodend admitted. “I’ve never met him.”

  “So how do you know about his shoes?”

  I don’t, Woodend thought. All I do know is that they were the only articles of clothing missing from his flat. But aloud, he said, “Why don’t you tell about the shoes, Miss Jones?”

  “Well, they’re very smart, too. Black leather. And he always keeps them beautifully polished. But—”

  “But he only has one pair?” Woodend interrupted.

  Miss Jones’s awe of the Chief Inspector was growing with every second which passed. “Some of the clothes he wears would go much better with a pair of brown shoes.”

  “You think he’s only got the one pair, don’t you?” Woodend asked.

  “It’s the only explanation.”

  Woodend grinned again. “On the quiet, you’re a bit of a detective yourself, aren’t you?”

  Miss Jones giggled conspiratorially. “I wonder what he does when they need repairing?” she asked. “Does he go around in his carpet slippers all day?”

  “Now that really would look strange,” Woodend agreed. “But let’s go back to what we were talking about earlier, shall we? You said that he was shy with you, but he wasn’t—”

  Behind him, Woodend heard the door swing open. The effect on Miss Jones was immediate. With one hand she opened her desk drawer, and with the other hastily stuffed her true romance magazine into it. Then, smoothing down her hair, she assumed an expression the Chief Inspector supposed she thought was appropriate for an assistant librarian.

  “Is everything all right, Miss Jones?” asked a woman with a brisk, businesslike voice. “Can you handle this gentleman’s problem, or do you want me to take over?”

  Woodend turned round to face the owner of the voice. She was about middle height, wore severe steel spectacles and had her hair in a tight bun – none of which really disguised the fact that with her oval face, almost rosebud lips and wide green eyes, she was a rather attractive woman.

  “I said, can you handle this gentleman’s problem, Miss Jones?” the formidable Miss Noonan repeated.

  “I. . .er. . .he’sa. . .um—”MissJonesmumbled.

  “I’m a policeman,” Woodend said, rescuing the struggling library assistant. “Chief Inspector Woodend.”

  He handed her his warrant card. Miss Noonan studied it carefully and then turned it over, almost as if she expected to see a label from Joe’s Joke Emporium on the other side.

  “I see,” she said, finally handing the card back. “And what possible business can a Chief Inspector all the way from Scotland Yard have in a small branch library such as ours?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Woodend said.

  “Me?” Miss Noonan said.

  “You,” Woodend confirmed.

  “What kind of questions?”

  Woodend glanced meaningfully at Miss Jones, who was pretending to readjust the wheels on her date stamp. “I think it might be better if we talked in private,” he said.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Miss Noonan agreed. “We’ll use my office. It’s this way.”

  It was not so much an office she led him to as a stock cupboard, but there was just enough room for the two of them to sit down without any indecorous rubbing of knees.

  Now that she was sitting still, Woodend had a chance to look at her more closely. His initial impression of her face was confirmed. She was very attractive, despite her attempts to hide it. Her linen suit was severely cut – almost on masculine lines – but it didn’t quite conceal the fact that she had a good figure underneath. She was in her late thirties or early forties, Woodend decided – and she wore her age extremely well.

  “I’m inquiring about one of your customers . . . er . . . patrons,” the Chief Inspector said. “A Mr Alexander Conway.”

  The librarian made a slight adjustment to her spectacles. It did not look like a natural gesture and was designed – Woodend guessed – to give her time to think. “May I ask what all this about?” Miss Noonan said finally.

  “I’m afraid not,” Woodend told her regretfully. “Police inquiries are always confidential, as you’ll appreciate. Believe me, it’s as much to protect the innocent as it is to detect the guilty.”

  “And I’m afraid that without knowing more, I couldn’t possibly consider discussing one of the library’s patrons,” Miss Noonan said.

  Woodend sighed. “You’re an intelligent woman, Miss Noonan,” he said. “You should know that it’s not in your own interests to start making things difficult for the police.”

  Miss Noonan stood up, her face filled with outrage. “Are you threatening me?” she demanded. “In my own library?”

  In your own little kingdom, more like, Woodend thought. “No, I’m not threatening you, Miss Noonan,” he said. “But you must understand that just as you have rules about how you run the library, so we have rules about how we conduct our investigations.”

  The woman sat down again. “Ask your questions,” she said. “But I can give you no guarantee that I’ll answer them.”

  It wasn’t his argument about breaking rules which had made her change her mind, Woodend thought. Nor was she intimidated by him. Her about-face had been brought on by the fact that there was at least a small part of her which wanted this conversation as much as he did. He wondered why that should be.

  “How long has Mr Conway been coming here?” he asked.

  “Just over five years.”

  “Regularly?”

  A pause. “I would say he’s fairly regular, yes.”

  “So he comes in, say, a couple of times a week?” Woodend asked, still not able to guess whether or not she was going to lie to him.

  “When he’s here, he does.”

  “Would you mind explainin’ that?”

  “He’s often away for quite long periods of time. Being a successful businessman, he naturally has to do a considerable amount of travelling around the country – or so I understand.”

  The last four words – the afterthought – were delivered with some style, but just a little too late. Woodend remembered that Miss Tufton had told Bob Rutter about the woman who rang Alex Conway’s doorbell, then waited on the pavement – and he knew he was definitely on to something.

  When Billy Morrison was first starting out in the rackets just after the end of the War, he’d boasted that one day he would be the Sid Dowd of Leeds. And up until that very afternoon, he’d really believed he’d achieved his dream. After all, he had the same outward trappings as Sid had – the nice clothes, the flash cars, the big house with an indoor swimming pool. He owned theatre clubs like Sid did. Other criminals came to him – just as they did to Sid – to ask his permission to pull jobs on his patch. So how was he any different to the Liverpudlian?

  The difference had been made screamingly obvious by the arrival of the two young men in smart blue suits – young men so hard they made his own minders look like lollipop
ladies. And now, sitting in his expensive office – which was probably every bit as good as Sid’s – Morrison realised that he wasn’t Dowd at all, but strictly small fry.

  Morrison looked nervously across his expensive teak coffee table at the two heavies, who had introduced themselves simply as Phil and Jack. Considering they were on his territory, they looked far too relaxed, he thought. Far too confident. Jesus, they scared him!

  “Have a cigar, boys,” he offered, reaching across for the silver box that usually impressed people.

  Phil and Jack shook their heads politely, but said nothing.

  Morrison reached for a cigar himself and lit it. It wasn’t until he had taken a puff that he realised he had forgotten to snip off the end first. He reached for his gold cutter and tried to make it look as if this roundabout route was the way he always lit his cigars.

  “You . . . er . . . mentioned that good old Sid wanted to do a bit of business,” he said shakily.

  “No, we didn’t,” Phil corrected him. “We said that Mr Dowd wanted some information from you.”

  “Information,” Morrison repeated. “Well, I’ll be glad to do whatever I can to help you. Any friends of Sid’s are friends of mine.”

  “We’re Mr Dowd’s employees, not his friends,” said Phil, with just a hint of rebuke in his voice, “but we take your point. What we’d like is information about the contraband whisky and cigarette racket.”

  “Which contraband whisky and cigarette racket?”

  Phil leant forward slightly, somehow managing to make the gesture seem both casual and menacing. “The racket Robbie Peterson was running out of Swann’s Lake,” he said.

  Morrison felt a cold chill in the pit of his stomach. He’d been worried when he read about the murder that the police might connect Robbie with him. But this was worse. Much worse. For all he knew, it was Sid Dowd who had done for Robbie – which meant that he himself could be next on the list.

  “I . . . I don’t know anything about that,” he said.

  A thin, humourless smile came to Phil’s lips. “Mr Dowd doesn’t want to take over anybody else’s business,” he said. “All he needs is the names of all the people involved.”

  “Why should he want that?” Swanson asked. “He’s not turned coppers’ nark, has he?” He realised his mistake the second he’d spoken, and held up his hands defensively. “Just a joke, boys.”

  “But not a very good one,” Phil said severely.

  “Seriously, why should he want the names? I don’t go stickin’ my nose into his business, now do I?”

  “I’m sure he has his reasons,” Phil replied, “and he said I was to be sure to tell you that if you ever want a favour in return, you’ve only to ask.”

  They were throwing him a bone, Morrison thought, but he supposed that was better than nothing. At least this way he might emerge with a shred of his self-respect intact. “Robbie’s people, a couple of lads called Green, have been bringin’ the goods across the Pennines,” he said. “My lads meet them somewhere on the road. From there on in, it’s been up to me.”

  “If the eventual destination is Leeds,” Phil pointed out.

  “That’s right.”

  “What if they were supposed to go somewhere else? Say to Sheffield or Rotherham?”

  “Rotherham’s Maltese Freddie’s patch. Most of Sheffield belongs to Albert Strong.”

  “So they would have made their own arrangements?”

  “I expect so.”

  “One more question,” Phil said. “Did you have Robbie Peterson knocked off, Mr Morrison?”

  “No, I bloody didn’t!” Morrison exploded.

  Phil nodded. “Just checking,” he said.

  “So when Mr Conway’s not travellin’, he makes a great deal of use of this library, does he?” Woodend asked.

  “Yes, indeed. He’s very interested in the arts. As I am myself.”

  “Especially paintin’?”

  “I think you could say that painting is his favourite branch, yes.”

  “The Italian school.”

  “Yes,” Miss Noonan said enthusiastically. “There’s so much breadth and feeling to it, isn’t there?”

  “What I don’t understand is why, if he wanted such specialist books, Mr Conway didn’t go to the central library,” Woodend said.

  “This is much closer to his fl—” Miss Noonan said, before she could stop herself.

  “Oh, you know where he lives, do you?”

  Miss Noonan laughed. “Of course I do. His address is written on his library cards.”

  “So it is,” Woodend agreed. “Still, you’d have thought that if he couldn’t wait to get his hands on a particular book, he would have used a bigger branch.”

  “Perhaps the reason he chose to keep on coming to this branch after his first few visits was because of me,” Miss Noonan admitted.

  “Aye,” Woodend said. “I thought that might be it.”

  “You see,” Miss Noonan continued hastily, “though we share the same interests, I have rather more experience, and I have, in my humble way, been able to guide him in his reading a little.”

  Miss Noonan smiled – and her face became suddenly radiant. But it was not a smile for the man sitting opposite her, and Woodend wondered if she knew what Conway’s business was – or whether she’d ever met his partner, Robbie Peterson, whose idea of a good picture was probably something sent through the post in a plain paper wrapper.

  “What concerns me at the moment,” the Chief Inspector said, “is that Mr Conway appears to have several books from this library which have not been properly stamped out.”

  Miss Noonan was outraged. “You’ve been to his flat. You had absolutely no right—”

  She realised what she was saying, and stopped abruptly.

  “Yes, we did search his flat,” Woodend said mildly, “but if anyone has cause to complain about that, it’s Mr Conway himself, wouldn’t you say, not the someone from the local branch library?”

  “Surely a Chief Inspector from New Scotland Yard is not interested in a few library books,” Miss Noonan said, trying a fresh line of attack.

  “They are pertinent to our inquiries, and all policemen have a responsibility to investigate any crime they encounter – however petty it may seem. Did Mr Conway steal the books?”

  Outrage again. “Certainly not!”

  “Then how did he get them?”

  “He . . . I . . . As I think I explained earlier, Mr Conway is interested in making a fairly extensive study of art. Three or four books are simply not enough for that. I know him to be a responsible gentleman of serious intent, and so I sometimes lend him more books than he is strictly entitled to.”

  “And is this a service you extend to other readers?”

  Miss Noonan put her hands up to her face. “No . . . I . . . that is. . .”

  She took her hands away, and Woodend could see the tears streaming from her eyes.

  “Chief Inspector,” she said, “what, for the love of God, has happened to my darling Alex?”

  Then she buried her head in her hands, and sobbed in earnest.

  Woodend watched the second hand of the institutional clock behind Miss Noonan’s head complete a full circle. If this had been Jenny Clough who’d burst into tears, he thought, he’d have put his arms around her and uttered soothingly meaningless words. But Miss Noonan was a very different sort of person, and he was sure that any contact would only have angered her.

  The second hand had passed twelve again before Miss Noonan looked up. Her eyes were red, but the resolution had returned to her face. “I must apologise, Chief Inspector,” she said. “I rarely give in to public displays of emotion.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” Woodend said sympathetically. “Shall we start again? Right from the beginning?”

  Miss Noonan nodded. “Alex first came here, as I told you, about five years ago. What you must accept, if you’re ever going to understand him at all, is that though he is a very successful businessman, he�
��s had a very limited education. But his thirst for knowledge – for an understanding of the finer things of life – puts me, with my grammar school background, completely to shame.”

  “Understood,” Woodend said.

  “On his initial visit, he didn’t know where to start. He was almost like a child, who realises he wants something, but doesn’t know exactly what.”

  “An’ you recognised that, and decided to help him?”

  Miss Noonan gave him a small, grateful smile. “Exactly. For the first year or so, we had a purely professional relationship – me on one side of the counter and him on the other. But then, as we both seemed to love the same things, it was only natural that we should start going to exhibitions and concerts together. Then we began seeing each other on more purely social occasions, and finally—”

  “You became his lady-friend,” said Woodend, tactfully.

  “I became his mistress,” Miss Noonan answered defiantly. “I know society frowns on such things – I know it could cost my job – but I don’t care. The pleasure Alex has brought me, in every sense of the word, has been more than worth whatever suffering I have to go through as a result of it.”

  “I’m not here to judge you,” Woodend said. “You don’t happen to have a photograph of Mr Conway you could show me, do you?”

  Miss Noonan shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

  “Isn’t that rather a strange thing to have to admit, given the nature your relationship?”

  “You’d never say that if you knew Alex,” Miss Noonan replied. “He’s a very shy man. Whenever we go out, he seems to be nervous that people might be looking at us. And he absolutely refuses to have his photograph taken.”

  In case it falls into the wrong hands, Woodend thought. In case some bright bobby somewhere happens to recognise him from it. “I have just a few more questions and then I’ll leave you in peace,” he said. “If you often don’t see Mr Conway for long periods of time—”

  “That’s not his fault,” Miss Noonan said fiercely. “He has his business commitments.”

  “I understand that. But if he does spend so much time away, why does his absence distress you so much this time?”