Bump in the Night f-2

by Colin Watson

  Kebble told him at some length about the sight testing, the belladonna, the collision.

  “Rather a murderous trick,” commented Purbright, a fraction more censoriously than he had intended. The editor looked surprised, then pained.

  “Well, rather ill-advised, shall we say?”

  Kebble accepted the amendment with a shrug. “Mind you,” he said anxiously, “I only told you for your own amusement. Barry would be very upset if he thought that I’d let a confidence slip into the police files.”

  “It doesn’t seem terribly important now that the man’s dead. I shouldn’t worry about it, Mr Kebble.”

  Kebble nodded gratefully. “Trouble is, old chap, we’re used to the gendarmerie here being a bit on the heavy-handed side. They don’t enjoy it, but Larch pushes them, you know. I can’t get used to a policeman who isn’t for ever holding a cell door open, as you might say.”

  “I don’t want to spoil my holiday, that’s all,” Purbright said. “Let’s go out and get sunburned, shall we? Then perhaps you can show me where Mr Pointer might be found.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  As it happened, there was no need to seek out Councillor Pointer. When Purbright and Kebble rose from their table they saw him framed in the narrow, raised doorway, peering about him like an angry little sea captain disturbed by voices in the hold.

  Spotting them, he nodded curtly. “They told me I’d find you in here.”

  Purbright marvelled once again at the omniscient ‘they’ without whom, it seemed, all channels of information in Chalmsbury would dry up. To Pointer he said: “Won’t you stay and have a drink, sir?”

  The courtesy elicited only a sharp stare and “Aren’t you on duty?”

  “Not rigidly so, sir. No.”

  Pointer grunted. “I never drink outside my own place and even there it’s only in the way of business. Doesn’t do, you know,” he explained in a slightly more conciliatory tone. He turned and led the way to the street.

  In the sunshine Purbright was able to gain a clearer impression of Larch’s father-in-law. He saw a short, angrily energetic man, whose restless and inflamed eyes had a faint smile about them even when he was being offensive. His moustache, though diminutive, was eloquent: it could bristle furiously, twitch to an angle expressive of sceptical amusement, or, most rarely, lie straight and sad in the shadow of the councillor’s cavernous nostrils and testify to its master’s essential simplicity.

  “I’d like a word with you, Mr er...”—Purbright supplied his name and rank—“if you’ve time. You are the chap the Chief Constable sent over, I suppose? Oh, you needn’t look coy, man. I know all about it.”

  Kebble, of whom Pointer seemed inclined to take no notice at all, decided that he was not going to be invited to share whatever frankness the wine merchant had in mind. He glanced at an imaginary sky-clock, appeared to note that it was much later than he had thought, said “Ah well,” and strode off cheerfully.

  Pointer led Purbright to his car, a large and costly pale blue affair. “I don’t suppose,” he said, “that you want to sit in a stuffy office on a day like this. We’ll just have a ride round.” He climbed in stiffly, stretched what he had in the way of neck until he could just see between the spokes of the steering wheel, and switched on the engine.

  They left the town by the coast road, passed swiftly through the flat, intensively cultivated acres from which Chalmsbury drew most of its prosperity, and began to climb the gentle incline of the spine of hills on the town’s eastern side.

  Pointer kept silent save for an occasional terse comment on some feature of the landscape. He drew his companion’s attention to several churches of a massiveness at odds with the obvious sparsity of population in these sleepy folds of pasture, trimmed with dark, narrow woods; and urged him once or twice to look back at a view of the receding plain, its patchwork of fields now obscured by the blue-grey haze of noon.

  After about half an hour, Pointer slowed and drew the car on to a patch of turf on the brow of a hill more steep and rugged than the rest. Below them was the great scoop of a sandstone quarry. Behind lay the falling undulations of fields and woodland, ribboned with the yellowish lanes that linked hidden hamlets.

  Almost immediately the car came to rest, it filled with the oppressive scents of hot leather, rubber and steel. Purbright stepped out gratefully upon the short, springy grass.

  “They say you can see both Chalmsbury steeple and Flaxborough Cathedral from here,” Pointer informed him. They tested the theory but could discern neither. “Perhaps they mean with a telescope,” added Pointer, sourly. “Still, it’s as good a spot as any for a private chat. And I mean private, mind.”

  Purbright met his sharp, challenging stare with his own mild gaze. “You’ve no need to say anything at all if you don’t wish to, sir. I’ve not sought this interview and I think you ought to remember that I’m not a private confidant, even if I have no official status here as a policeman.”

  Pointer shrugged and looked down at a handful of change he had taken from his pocket. “You’re perfectly right, of course, Inspector. I realize I can’t impose conditions on you: that was silly of me. The fact is that I’m rather worried.”

  “About the Biggadyke case, sir?”

  “That comes into it, yes.” Pointer cupped his hand and gently rattled the coins.

  “But the affair’s closed now. You don’t disagree with the verdict, do you?”

  “No, certainly not. It was what everyone expected. We went as near as we decently could—the council deputation, I mean—to telling the Chief Constable that Biggadyke was the fellow he ought to be after.”

  “The fellow your son-in-law ought to be after.”

  Pointer accepted the correction with a scowl. “Don’t you worry: I’d already made sure that Hector knew the risk he’d be running if he ignored Stan Biggadyke, for all he was a personal friend—because of that, in fact.”

  “And he acted on your advice?”

  “He certainly questioned Biggadyke officially. And with a witness. I don’t think that any stories—malicious stories, mark you—about protection or turning a blind eye would stand up after that.”

  “A timely demonstration, was it, Mr Pointer?” Purbright’s tone was guileless.

  “If you like to put it that way. I’m quite sure that Hector was doing his duty without prejudice.”

  “Prejudice occasioned by friendship?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, Mr Pointer: did you approve of that friendship?”

  Pointer answered without hesitation. “No, I did not. Biggadyke was a scoundrel. He was the last man in the town anyone in my son-in-law’s position should have mixed with.”

  Purbright said nothing. His companion regarded the coins that he still shuffled irritably in his hand and finally thrust them back in his pocket. “Look here,” he said, “what exactly did you come over here to find out?”

  “Oh, come now, sir...”

  “No, don’t dodge, man. You weren’t sent to help a bunch of country bobbies catch a joker who couldn’t even work his own tricks properly. I’m not fool enough to believe that.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “I’m not sure. Unless it’s politics—is that it?”

  Purbright smiled.

  “You might well smile, Inspector, but I wouldn’t put it past that Special Branch lot, or whatever they’re called, to believe the blatherings of that poor idiot Mulvaney. He confessed, you know.”

  “Yes, sir. There was something mentioned about a Mr Mulvaney.”

  “Don’t let him hear you call him mister. It’s lieutenant. He thinks he’s in the I.R.A. We’ve all known him for years, though. The poor fellow wouldn’t know a bomb from a baby’s bottle.”

  The inspector seemed preoccupied with the prospect of the opposite hill.

  “Do you mind telling me, sir, if your daughter was friendly with Mr Biggadyke?”

  Pointer stiffened. “My daughter?”

  “Yes. si
r. Mrs Larch.”

  “Both Hector and Hilda saw a good deal of him, I believe.”

  Purbright turned to face him. “Did you know that Mrs Larch was seen, on one occasion at any rate, to visit Biggadyke’s caravan on her own and late at night?”

  Pointer’s expression changed, but not as Purbright had expected. Instead of furious disbelief, it registered bitter resignation. He shook his head slowly. “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Do you suppose Mr Larch may have been aware of it?”

  “It’s very difficult to say. Hector keeps his feelings to himself. Some people think he hasn’t any, but they’re wrong. When there’s something on his mind it just smoulders away until he can do something positive about it.”

  “At all events, he gave no sign?”

  “Oh, no. Not the slightest.”

  “I don’t want to intrude into your family’s private affairs. Mr Pointer, but if I could have a word with your daughter...perhaps on your introduction and in your presence, if you wish...”

  Pointer frowned. “Talk to Hilda? But what about?”

  “About Mr Biggadyke, for one thing.”

  “Do you mean to say you’re prepared to come over into another’s man’s police division and start snooping into his family affairs just because you’ve heard some unsavoury gossip about his wife? Damn it all, man, I think it’s high time you told me exactly what you have been sent here to ferret out!” Pointer looked as if he had just swallowed a heavy draught of his own port.

  “Very well, sir,” replied Purbright patiently, “I’ll tell you. We wish to find where Biggadyke obtained his fireworks. Also, if at all possible, the real reason for his using them.”

  He hesitated. “You see, sir, there are three disturbing things about this case—disturbing, that is, when considered in association. One is the disappearance from a Civil Defence store in Flaxborough of a quantity of explosive. The second is the fact that Mr Larch is an instructor who has access to that store. Thirdly, as you’ve told me yourself, Mr Larch was a close acquaintance of the man we now know to have been addicted to blowing things up.”

  “Are you saying that the theft of that explosive has been traced to my son-in-law?”

  “Not at all. The Chief Constable believes that one of the instructors must have taken it because they have keys to the store, but he might be adopting too narrow a view. From what I know of the place, almost anyone of moderate initiative could lift what he liked if he waited for an opportunity. The point is, though, that this Biggadyke affair lays Larch open to ten times as much suspicion as could possibly have attached to him otherwise.”

  “But why on earth should he have wanted to pass the stuff to Biggadyke—even if he did steal it?”

  “I’ve wondered a good deal about that, Mr Pointer. I suppose you can see how serious some of the possibilities are?”

  Pointer gave no sign of seeing anything of the kind.

  “Your son-in-law,” Purbright went on, “is an expert in the handling of explosives. Biggadyke, to the best of our knowledge, was not. But he couldn’t resist spectacular jokes. It is conceivable, you know, that he might have been encouraged to dabble in what he didn’t understand in the hope that he’d make a fatal mistake. Long odds, perhaps, but they could have been shortened by a wrong instruction. Detonators, now...they’re extremely tricky little things, I understand.”

  “But that would be a wicked thing to do,” exclaimed Pointer. “Absolutely wicked. Hector would never have thought of anything so dreadful.”

  “Not even if he’d learned of his wife’s relationship with his friend?”

  “I’m certain he didn’t know of that. Hilda gave no one the slightest excuse for suspecting.”

  “You suspected, though, Mr Pointer.”

  “I happen to be the girl’s father. Naturally I...” He faltered.

  “What about her mother? Did she know?”

  “Her mother? Good God!”

  Purbright saw the wrinkled flesh around the councillor’s little eyes constrict suddenly with bitter contempt. The revelation of marital loathing shocked him, but he repeated his question. “Did Mrs Pointer know of her daughter’s affair?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Pointer sullenly. “She...she doesn’t discuss things with me.”

  Purbright waited. Pointer’s earlier air of officiousness had gone. He seemed depressed and nervous. When finally he spoke, the edge to his voice was occasioned, Purbright thought, not by irritation but by fear.

  “There’s something I wanted to tell you before we got on to this business about Hilda. It’s something that happened a year ago, but I’ve been thinking it over and I can’t help feeling it might have had some connection with...with what you’ve been hinting.”

  He paused and continued more resolutely.

  “I’m not going to give you any details, but this is roughly how things went. Last summer—it was just about this time of year—a girl was knocked down and killed by a car in Watergate Street. It was Stan Biggadyke’s car, a great powerful sports thing, and Biggadyke was pretty drunk. He was arrested and taken to the police station. Hector was there and he took charge. He sent the sergeant out to fetch a doctor he said Biggadyke had chosen to examine him. The doctor was out of town. There were some more delays and by the time a doctor did arrive Biggadyke was dead sober. A case went to the assizes but although the policeman who made the arrest stuck to his story that Biggadyke had been drunk at the time the fellow was acquitted. The lack of medical evidence and a good bull-shitting barrister saved him.

  “What puzzled everyone who knew Biggadyke and his habits was how he’d managed to sober up so quickly in the cells. There were rumours of pep pills and cold douches and so on, but I knew that no drunk would have been able to get up to tricks like that while an experienced policeman was keeping an eye on him.”

  Pointer gave a short, mirthless laugh. “That’s what I thought, anyway. Then about a couple of months after the trial I happened to be in the White Hind on business when I heard Biggadyke braying away just behind me at the bar. He was pretty far flown and I was just about to scoot out of range before the damn fellow spotted me. Then something he said caught my ear.

  “I’ll never forget it. ‘Payne, old man’, he said—he’d buttonholed that blackguard who lodges at your place—‘Payne, old man’, he said—and these were his exact words—‘if ever you get pulled in for being drunk, just ask for a bucket of Larch’s luscious larrup.’ That’s what he said. Payne asked him what he meant but I couldn’t hear any more after that.”

  “You drew your own conclusions, though?”

  “I did, Mr Purbright. And I think I was right, too. You see, I once asked Hilda whether she packed supper for Hector when he stayed late at the station. She said no, nothing to eat, because if he wanted it the caretaker’s wife would make him a few sandwiches. But he often took a big flask of coffee, she said. Strong and black was how he liked it.”

  Pointer was silent. Then he looked with anxious appeal at Purbright. “You’ll not take this any further, will you? I mean...well, nothing could be proved now, anyway.”

  “Why have you told me this, Mr Pointer?” Purbright asked quietly.

  “It’s worried me. That’s one reason. I have public responsibilities and I’ve always liked to have a clean conscience. You’ve no idea what an ordeal it was for me when I was pushed on that deputation to the chief. I’d been told that people here suspected Hector of covering up for Biggadyke. But theirs were only suspicions. I knew damned well he’d protected him once before and got him off one of the most serious charges in the book.”

  “Can you suggest why, sir?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It may matter a great deal.”

  Pointer shrugged. “Well, Hector owed Biggadyke money, for one thing. Quite a lot, I believe. And Biggadyke had helped him in other ways. Socially and so forth. He was generous enough to anyone he palled up with, I’ll say that for him.”

  “I see. So you don’t th
ink it likely that Mr Larch could have wished him any harm? You reject that rather fanciful theory of mine about Biggadyke’s accident?”

  “That Hector kidded him on to play with explosives, you mean.”

  Purbright nodded and waited.

  “No,” said Pointer in a low voice, “I don’t reject it, and that’s the truth. Just now when I said that Hector wouldn’t be capable of doing such a thing, it was because...”—he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness—“Oh, I don’t know: he’s a member of my own family. But of course he’s capable. It’s just the sort of method he’d choose.”

  “And are you still convinced that Mr Larch never found out about his wife’s meetings with Biggadyke?”