Who Saw Him Die?

by Sheila Radley

  They waited, in a drizzle of rain. The street was narrow and lined with parked cars, and the combination of this with low cloud and November’s early dusk made him feel hemmed in. He missed the open skies of Suffolk, and when Hilary tried to draw his attention to the finer points of the architecture he said – with truth, though he’d never bothered to take more than passing notice of them – that there were terraces just as good in Saintsbury.

  He knocked again. As he did so, a taxi drew up. The man who got out, carrying a small suitcase, was unmistakably the one in the newspaper photographs.

  Austin Napier paid off his taxi and advanced, frowning, on the detectives. He was high-browed, bespectacled, distinguished-looking, with silvery wings of hair brushed back above his ears and deep lines running from nose to mouth, pulling down the corners of his lips.

  ‘Yes?’ he said haughtily.

  Quantrill introduced himself and his sergeant. ‘We’re making enquiries concerning your former wife’s husband,’ he added.

  ‘I have no “former” wife.’ The barrister’s nostrils flared to emphasise the inverted commas. ‘Marriage is indissoluble.’

  ‘The lady is known to us as Felicity Goodrum,’ said Hilary diplomatically. ‘May we come in and talk to you?’

  The barrister unlocked his front door and walked through, leaving them to follow. ‘I can give you five minutes,’ he said, setting down his suitcase in the narrow hall. ‘You were fortunate to find me. I spent the weekend with my sister in Hampshire, and came back early only because I have a heavy day in court tomorrow.’

  He led them into the dining room, which looked out on to the street. It was a fashionably dark room, with bottle-green velvet curtains, beef-red walls and a mahogany table. The table was laid at one end with silver for one person, but there were two additional table mats, one on either side of the place setting, as though for temporarily absent members of the family.

  Austin Napier did not switch on the lights, nor ask his visitors to sit down, nor take off his dark, slim-fitting city overcoat, though he did undo the buttons. ‘You have something to tell me that concerns my wife?’ he said in his coldly elegant voice.

  ‘Yes.’ Quantrill pushed his hands into the pockets of his old mackintosh, reflecting that he looked no more out of place in London than Austin Napier must have done in Hampshire. ‘It does concern Mrs Goodrum – but more particularly her husband, Jack. He’s dead.’

  The barrister’s face showed no trace of emotion; there was no surprise in his voice, but there was, unmistakably, a note of satisfaction. ‘Is he?’ he said. ‘Is he indeed …?’

  ‘Murdered,’ said Quantrill. ‘At his home in Breckham Market, by a 12-bore shotgun fired from a distance of not more than eight yards.’

  Austin Napier walked to the Adam fireplace and took up a barrister’s courtroom stance with his hands slipped beneath his overcoat, as though it were a gown, and held behind his back. ‘I’m obliged to you for bringing me the news, Chief Inspector. I’m very glad to hear that my wife no longer has an extra-marital attachment. When did the murder take place?’

  ‘On Saturday. Yesterday.’

  ‘Ah. And do you know the identity of the murderer?’

  ‘Not yet. But we’re going through the usual process of elimination, and it would help if you will give us the address of your sister in Hampshire, please.’

  Napier shrugged, and dictated the address to Sergeant Lloyd. ‘I have no objection to being eliminated from your enquiries, of course. I fail to see, though, why you should consider it necessary.’

  ‘You made it necessary yourself, Mr Napier, by expressing your views on marriage,’ said Quantrill sternly. ‘I don’t mean just now, on the doorstep, but in open court at the time of your divorce. You chose to make your views public, and they were reported in the national newspapers. We can’t overlook the fact that you still consider yourself married to the lady who is now Mrs Goodrum – and that makes you a natural opponent of her second husband.’

  One hand emerged from behind the barrister’s back and took hold of the lapel of the overcoat that was substituting for a gown. ‘Do I understand that you’ve been grubbing about in the files of the gutter press?’

  ‘Just making routine enquiries, sir. Tell me, have you ever been to Breckham Market?’

  ‘I believe I’ve visited the town, briefly.’

  ‘As recently as ten days ago?’

  ‘On Wednesday afternoon, November 12th?’ added Sergeant Lloyd.

  Austin Napier looked from one detective to another. His pale eyes, behind his spectacle lenses, conveyed no expression, but the lines on either side of his mouth deepened in scorn. ‘More of your routine enquiries …? The twelfth – yes, I believe that was the date of my visit. I happened to be appearing at Ipswich Crown Court that week. I was prosecuting in a case of attempted murder, and the defendant chose to change his plea to guilty. As I was unexpectedly free on the Wednesday, I went to Saxted to see my son. I wanted to take him out to lunch from his school, and to buy him a motor scooter. Then, in the afternoon, I decided to go on to Breckham Market.’

  ‘Why?’ said Quantrill bluntly.

  ‘Because my wife had recently moved to the town, and I wanted to see where she lived.’

  ‘And did you see her?’

  ‘No. That was not the object of my visit. I wanted to know what her circumstances were – to satisfy myself that she was living somewhere near the standard to which I had accustomed her.’

  ‘Did you see Jack Goodrum?’

  ‘No. That was not the object of my visit either. I had no interest in the man. I simply found the house, formed my opnion of it, and returned to Ipswich.’

  ‘If you had no interest in Jack Goodrum, Mr Napier,’ said Sergeant Lloyd, ‘why did you ask the newsagent where he lived?’

  He looked at her with barely concealed disdain. ‘I should have thought that was obvious, Sergeant. What I really wanted to know was where my wife lived. But I had to ask for the address of the man she co-habited with, because the newsagent might not know her as Mrs Austin Napier.’

  ‘Quite probably not,’ agreed Hilary.

  ‘Then your question is answered.’ He turned to Quantrill. ‘I’ve chosen to give you a full explanation of my movements because I have nothing to hide. But I will add, in the hope of persuading you to waste no more of my time as well as your own, that quite apart from my being in Hampshire yesterday, I have never in my life handled a shotgun.’

  ‘Thank you for the information,’ said Quantrill. ‘But we didn’t come here with the idea that you were in Breckham Market last night, or that you yourself shot Jack Goodrum.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No – we’re working on the possibility that the actual gunman was merely the murderer’s accomplice, hired for the job.’ He gestured Hilary towards the door. ‘Thank you for giving us your time, Mr Napier. We may be in touch with you again.’

  The barrister hurried after them, brushing past Hilary to reach the front door first. Holding it shut, he turned to them with his mouth twisted upwards into a semblance of a smile. His pale eyes glistened in the gloom.

  ‘Then let me save you a pointless journey, Chief Inspector, by making myself absolutely clear. I am not of a homicidal nature.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘But if I were,’ the barrister went on, ignoring the interruption, ‘it would not have been Goodrum who had to die. Oh no – the man’s irrelevant. It would have been my wife who had to take the consequences of breaking her marriage vow. And I wouldn’t have done it by proxy. No, no – if I’d had to kill her, it would have been with my own hands.’

  Chapter Twenty

  The two detectives went back to Liverpool Street Station by bus, and were still in plenty of time to catch the four-thirty to Breckham Market. There was a buffet car on the train, but not even Quantrill could fancy eating a sandwich.

  ‘Austin Napier’s a nutter!’ he declared, as they drank cardboard-tasting tea.

 
; ‘We knew that before we came,’ said Hilary. ‘It was why we came, remember?’

  ‘Can we believe him, d’you think?’ Quantrill asked in a respectful tone. Knowing that his sergeant was a qualified nurse, he regarded her as his psychiatric expert. She had often pointed out, at first patiently and then crossly, that she wasn’t a doctor, still less a psychiatrist; but he knew she’d read textbooks, and that certainly made her more knowledgeable than he was. ‘I mean, do you think that if Napier had been a killer he’d have gone for his ex-wife rather than her new husband?’

  ‘I wouldn’t take his word that he has no homicidal tendencies, for a start,’ said Hilary. ‘From what we’ve read about their marriage Felicity would seem to be his natural victim – but that doesn’t have to mean he’d kill her. A man like Austin Napier might prefer a much more subtle way of punishing her. Let’s suppose that when he went to Breckham Market ten days ago, he saw the Goodrums together and realised how happy they were. If he is homicidal, it might have given him the idea of killing Jack simply as a means of inflicting prolonged suffering on Felicity.’

  ‘Hmm – I can see that Austin Napier would go for something clever,’ agreed Quantrill. ‘He told us that Goodrum was irrelevant, so he might well have thought nothing of wiping the man out. Or of having him wiped out. I’ve no doubt Napier’s alibi will stand up, so we can’t pursue this one until we find the feller who fired the gun. Meanwhile, it’s not a matter of wondering whether anyone else was hostile to Lucky Jack, but of deciding what order to put ’em in. Who’s your choice, after Napier?’

  Hilary took out her notebook, and looked back at the interview with Felicity Goodrum. ‘Taking family first, it could be significant that Jack’s ex-wife didn’t want to be divorced.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Quantrill. ‘It could be a case of jealousy on her part. The first Mrs Goodrum would know that Jack was a man who kept shotguns in his house, and sending someone to steal a gun from him and later shoot him with it might have given her some extra satisfaction. We’d better go and see her first thing tomorrow. If that’s a non-runner – if it wasn’t a domestic murder – then we’ll have to start making lists of Goodrum’s other enemies.’

  ‘Business associates who’d fallen out with him, for whatever reason? And employees who’d been sacked?’ The sergeant made a note, and then pulled a wry face. ‘Jack Goodrum had been in business for over twenty years. And it was a big business, apparently, employing up to a hundred people at any one time. How far back do we go?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Hilary!’ Quantrill chided her gently, liking her all the more for her occasional lapses from efficiency. ‘You know the answer to that as well as I do.’

  ‘Yes, all right, stupid question. We go back as far as we have to. But look – I know I’m only trying to avoid making these horrendously long lists, but Jack Goodrum sold his business something like a couple of years ago. Don’t you think that anyone who had a score to settle with him would have done so before now?’

  ‘Not if Goodrum couldn’t be found. And if he had reason to think anyone was after him, he’d have kept his head well down.’

  ‘Then why should the murder have happened now? Are you suggesting that Jack would have relaxed his guard, after he was married again? Because I can’t believe that. Remember how protective he was towards Felicity –?’

  Quantrill scratched his jaw in thought. ‘Either the marriage itself or the move to Breckham Market could have been the deciding factor,’ he suggested. ‘And I tell you what, Hilary – if Goodrum was trying to keep his head down, he spoiled his own game by running over Clanger Bell and getting his name and address in the newspapers.’

  ‘I’d almost forgotten Clanger,’ said Hilary. ‘His sister’s someone who’ll have to go on the list – she might have felt so aggrieved over our failure to pin murder on Jack Goodrum that she decided to take the law into her own hands.’

  ‘Miss Bell feels aggrieved, all right,’ remembered Quantrill. ‘She was at My Fair Lady last night – I tried to avoid speaking to her, but she made a point of telling me that her opinion hasn’t changed. If she’d wanted to have Goodrum killed, though, she wouldn’t have needed to hire anyone to steal his shotgun for the purpose. There was a gun cabinet in Tower House – I caught a glimpse of it in a corridor when she took us to see Clanger’s old room. A heavy, glass-fronted mahogany job, her father’s or grandfather’s, I suppose, with four shotguns in it. So if she’d wanted a murder done, she could have offered whoever she hired a choice of guns.’

  ‘I didn’t see the cabinet, I must admit – I suppose I was talking to her at the time.’ Hilary stifled a yawn; it had been a long day, and the railway carriage was stuffy. ‘I’m surprised,’ she added with a drowsy grin, ‘that you didn’t take the opportunity, when you saw the guns, to give Miss Bell a lecture on security.’

  ‘Not me,’ Quantrill protested with mock horror. ‘I was terrified of her! And she said she was about to sell up, so it seemed pointless to make an issue of it. I say –’ aware that he was losing Hilary’s attention, he sought to revive it – ‘would you like another cup of tea?’

  ‘No thanks. I don’t know about you, but I’, his sergeant added elegantly, ‘intend to have a kip.’

  She leaned back in her corner and closed her eyes. Frustrated, Quantrill made his way to the buffet car and tried to console himself with a can of beer.

  Hilary dozed uneasily, disturbed by images of violent death. She was not sorry when the train, leaving Stowmarket station, jerked her awake. But when she opened her eyes and saw Douglas Quantrill gazing at her avidly, she promptly closed them again.

  One of the hazards of being a woman in what was predominantly a man’s world was that senior officers so often seemed to think her sex more significant than her job. Rather than treating her according to her rank, and valuing her according to her efficiency, they reacted to her as a woman. Some were smarmy, some were lecherous; some were coldly hostile, some aggressive. Some, like Douglas, were persistently hopeful. Occasionally, as in her previous job with the county scenes-of-serious-crime team in Yarchester, she had been lucky enough to have a really nice boss who treated her with friendly courtesy. But Harry Colman – who was safely through the male menopause and nearing retirement – had been an exception.

  She had, though, become very fond of Douglas Quantrill. She liked working with him, valuing his understanding of Suffolk ways and people, and admiring his dogged pursuit of villainy. And she found his occasional lapses into gloom almost endearing. But she had no intention of establishing a closer relationship with him.

  He was attractive, certainly; he carried his weight well, and though the contours of his face were becoming a little blurred they were still undeniably handsome. In other circumstances, Hilary would have been only too happy to meet his eye. But as things were, she didn’t propose to reciprocate her chief inspector’s interest in her. The only kind of relationship she wanted with Douglas Quantrill was as a colleague and a good friend.

  She had hoped that he would realise this, by now. Instead, his approaches were becoming more open. She disliked the situation, embarrassed on her boss’s behalf as much as on her own. If he couldn’t accept the clear messages she’d already given him, their working partnership would have to be dissolved. And that would be a great pity.

  Hilary opened her lids a fraction. Douglas was still gazing at her; not with love – that at least was something to be thankful for – but with calculating hope. She feigned sleep again, instinctively caressing her eternity ring with the thumb of her left hand.

  She had nothing at all against affairs, as long as they were of the heart. The memory of Stephen hadn’t – after the first numbed months following his death – inhibited desire; but his ring had come to act as a touchstone. Recalling the quality of their love, she had discovered that brief physical relationships had nothing to offer but ultimate emptiness.

  As for marriage, the right man – right not only emotionally and physically, but also in his wi
llingness to support her in her career just as she would expect to support him in his – had never appeared. No, that wasn’t entirely true: there had been another detective chief inspector, an instructor on a CID refresher course that she’d attended just before coming to Breckham Market, who had seemed wonderfully, almost incredibly right.

  Clive had told her, when he first took her out to dinner, that he was separated from his wife. A divorce was on the way, he’d said. And Hilary had believed what he’d wanted her to believe, because she wanted to believe it too.

  It was Clive’s calculating lie, his smooth-tongued readiness to dismiss what she eventually discovered was a stable marriage, that Hilary thought more despicable than his actual infidelity. She had despised herself, too, for being so easily conned.

  There was no danger of a solid countryman like Douglas Quantrill conning her in the same way; but even he had tried to suggest that there was a permanent rift in his marriage. This was another reason why Hilary had no intention of embarking on an extra-marital affair with him. Whenever he had mentioned his wife and son to her it had almost invariably been with gloom or exasperation, but she had not been deceived. She felt sure that he loved them both. It would be a very good thing, she thought, if only there were some way of making him realise that whatever he might imagine, he would be desolate without them.

  She started as something touched her knee. Her eyes flew open and she saw, with a jolt of surprise, that it was his hand.

  For a few seconds he left it there, large and strong, radiating the heat of his blood. Against her will, Hilary felt her own blood begin to respond. She looked up, met his bold eye, almost weakened; then she gave her head a slight shake.