by Colin Watson
“Where are you speaking from, Mr Payne?”
“Where? Oh, I don’t think that matters, does it? You can hear me all right, I suppose.”
“Yes, I can hear you...” Purbright looked up to see Mrs Crispin, hatted and mildly Guinness-glad, closing the front door behind her. He beckoned and began writing quickly on the pad by the phone. She came and stood amiably at his side, like a lama waiting for a sugar lump.
“You know what happened, of course,” Payne was saying. “Those questions of yours last night were far too inspired to be passed off as what I believe policemen call routine inquiries. It was decent of you to give me a start like that, but I don’t want to get away. I don’t think I ever did, really. All that elaboration...oh, I can’t think why I bothered.”
“It was rather well done,” Purbright said quietly. He pulled the sheet from the pad with his free hand and gave it to Mrs Crispin. Her grin faded as she read the message. Then she glided with surprising speed off to the kitchen and squawked for Phyllis.
“The notice in the paper was silly, wasn’t it,” Payne said. He sounded tired and the words had a flat clumsiness like those of a man whose tongue is thickened with thirst. “I’m rather ashamed of it now. Pure exhibitionism. Criminals are supposed to find that sort of thing irresistable. Does justice become a crime when it’s put on a do-it-yourself basis? I don’t know...”
Purbright could hear fast, interrupted breathing, as if Payne was opening and closing his mouth, trying to find the right way to say something. Then, almost conversationally, Payne spoke again. “You know about Celia, I expect?”
“A certain amount. I’ve guessed, too. There was that photograph in your room.”
“It’s the only one I have. Old Grope took it a long time ago and let me have a print. He’s always been very decent to both of us. He used to send the kid along to the shop on some specious errand or other so that I could keep seeing her.”
Purbright glanced at his watch. “Tell me, Mr Payne...”
In the house next door Phyllis had replaced a phone and was trying to explain to its anxious owner the reasons (which she did not understand herself) for the 999 call she had just made.
At Fen Street Chief Inspector Larch was demanding from a night operator at Chalmsbury exchange the location of the kiosk connected with Chalmsbury 4116.
Within that kiosk, which Larch was about to be told was a few yards from the entrance to the municipal cemetery, a tall man clutching a parcel under his left arm bowed his head wearily as he listened to the question that was being put to him.
“How did I know?” he repeated. “By much the same process as Kebble’s young reporter adopted, I suppose. It wasn’t too difficult to establish Biggadyke’s habits. They were”—he smiled faintly in the dusk—“remarkably regular in their way.”
Again he listened. The man at the other end of the wire was asking something else and taking his time in doing so. Two minutes went by. Payne leaned against the side of the kiosk. Now and again he glanced at the parcel he held.
“You’re quite right,” he said. “Hilda told you about that call, did she? It seemed the most effective means of keeping her away that night. I only hope...”
He broke off and stared through the glass. The headlamp beams of an approaching car swept the roadside colonnade of trees fifty yards away, swung round and bore upon the kiosk. He heard the plunging tone of the engine as the driver braked.
Payne slammed the receiver clumsily on its rest, heaved open the door and ran for the cemetery drive. Larch and a uniformed constable raced after him.
The pursuit was short. After two turns along paths that he seemed to know well, Payne leaped a low box border hedge, took a few staggering steps across turf in which buttercups glimmered, and sank down upon a year-old grave. He clutched the parcel high up against his chest...Purbright was still holding the dead phone when the sound of the explosion reached him.
FB2 document info
Document ID: e9c40310-bcfd-4430-9577-d7a2199572ce
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 11.12.2012
Created using: calibre 0.9.9, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Colin Watson
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