by TP Fielden
‘They’re really worked up about this murder. I think it’s because they’ve got the Archbishop of York coming, and some admiral as well.’
‘Oh yes, Sticks was talking about that,’ said Betty, still only half-concentrating. ‘Said he knew the girl who was killed. Well, didn’t know her, but knew who she was.’
Terry applied the brakes to the Minor very hard. They skidded to a halt so hard the contents of Betty’s make-up bag scattered all over the floor.
‘What was that for?’ she squeaked. ‘Look what you’ve done now!’
‘Betty,’ said Terry. ‘Are you on this planet? Are you a journalist? Do you work for the Riviera Express?’
‘No need to take that tone with me, Terry!’
‘You do realise, don’t you, the woman who was shot at Buntorama last week – that nobody knows who she is? That she gave a false name when she checked in to the camp and the police have failed completely to find out her real name or where she came from?’
‘Then they should have asked the drummer. He knows.’
Terry gaped. ‘Betty, you’re a reporter, don’t you realise this is a breakthrough?’
‘Sorry, Terry,’ she said sharply. ‘I don’t take orders from photographers. I don’t need you to tell me. Of course I was going to mention it when I got back to the office.’
Both knew this was an untruth.
‘Come on then,’ said Terry, shifting into gear, ‘tell me who the mystery woman is. Her name.’
‘No idea,’ snapped Betty, looking in her compact mirror to check all was well before they arrived back at the office. ‘You’ll have to get Judy to have a word with Sticks – it’s her story, after all. But I don’t think she’ll get much, he was pretty vague about it.’
Terry shook his head. Not much good with men, and not much good at her job either. Thank heavens they’d got that wonderful Moomie picture story to bring back. What a gorgeous woman!
NINE
If it’s Tuesday, it must be Magistrates’ Court. Throughout the year, even in the holidaymaking season, justice was dished out from the redbrick building across the market square with a mixture of compassion, eccentricity and sometimes downright brutality. Colonel de Saumaurez, the chairman, was on the side of the angels and always had a softness for a hard-luck story, but some of the other townsfolk who’d wangled their way on to the bench as a means of social advancement were often less attractive than the people standing in the dock.
Betty was on duty this morning, her mind as usual half on the matter in hand and half on the events of last night when she’d accidentally bumped into Dud Fensome.
She was walking home past the Freemasons’ Hall when he came down the steps, little brown attaché case in his hand. Instinctively Betty crossed to the other side of the road but he spotted her and called out.
‘No, Dud, you got my telegram. That’s it,’ called back Betty quite firmly, and walked on. But then something caught her eye in the window of the Home & Colonial and she stopped.
That was the trouble with Betty – indecisive. Nobody else had come forward as a new beau since the hair-dye incident, and it was better to be chased by a Freemason than by nobody at all. The doorway of the Home & Colonial was privy to a sharp exchange of views and some special pleading by the Worshipful Master, together with the promise he would never mention her weight again. The fact that they walked on together to the pub spoke volumes.
This morning in court, as the grumpy magistrates’ clerk Mr Thurleston adjusted his filthy wig and instructed those present to be upstanding for their worships, she realised her mistake in reheating the soufflé – if love with a square-headed insurance salesman could be dignified thus. Things never worked second time around, though heaven knows she’d tried often enough, and this morning in the sobering halls of justice she realised it had all been a mistake.
Now the drummer at the Marine – that was another thing altogether! And wasn’t there something she was supposed to be telling Judy about…?
All thought processes ground to a halt as the familiar figure of Reg Urchward rose from the public benches. He was here to get a licence extension for a party at his pub, the Old Jawbones, normally an open-and-shut case, but things were not going well this morning.
‘And then there’s this letter from the Noise Abatement Society,’ said Colonel de Saumaurez, peering down over his gilt-rimmed pince-nez at the rough-hewn publican. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Urchward, but we do have to listen to the voice of reason.’
‘Bloody buggerrrs,’ growled Reg through his teeth. ‘Ruddy killjoys! The whole point of this town is to have fun.’
Betty was taking notes. She had good shorthand, and while her antennae were not supersensitive to the possibilities of every story, she knew a good one when it was plonked in front of her. The measly little paragraph she’d fashioned out of a reader’s letter from the Society could be built up into something much bigger – ‘THE POINT OF TEMPLE REGIS IS TO HAVE FUN, COMPLAINS PUBLICAN WHO SLAMS TOWN’S “KILLJOYS”.’
This was just the sort of thing to capture the imagination of Rudyard Rhys, who enjoyed lively debates on the forward progress of Temple Regis. And also the kind of story likely to find its way to Page One, rather than grisly details of mystery women being shot in the town’s much-regretted holiday camp. Plus, happily, just the kind of tale to earn Betty an extra-large byline.
‘Sorry, Mr Urchward, on this occasion I am going to say no,’ said the colonel in the gentlest tones.
Reg was a good sort and raised money for the lifeboat.
‘I’m blimmin’…’ started Reg angrily, but then stopped. There was always next time for licence applications and it didn’t do to upset the beak.
Betty quickly scanned down the list of charges being brought before their worships and saw there was nothing newsworthy immediately ahead. She followed Urchward out of court and in time-honoured tradition, stepped in front of him.
‘Reg,’ she said. ‘A quick word.’
‘Blimmin’ noise-abaters,’ he barked in reply. ‘They ’ad their party in my back room a year ago lars Christmas. Made enough noise to blast down the walls of Jericho.’
Betty’s pencil slid across her notebook. Soon she had assisted the publican in ordering his thoughts sufficiently to create a broadside against these johnny-come-latelys who wanted to tell everybody what to do.
‘Bin ’ere all my life,’ he raged obligingly. ‘Done my time on the trawlers. Done my time on the lifeboat. Now I welcomes one and all into my nice little pub and these ruddy spoilsports want the town to – y’know what I mean!’
These were brilliant quotes, albeit helped along by Betty – ‘Do you think the noise-abaters want the town to turn teetotal as well, Reg?’
‘Ur.’
‘Those spoilsports want the town to turn…’ said Mr Urchward.
Regrettable, perhaps, but it’s the way news is made.
‘And just think,’ said Betty, smiling sweetly but twisting the knife, ‘only last week Mr Radipole got his licence for music and dancing and drinking until two in the morning for the whole of the summer season. I’ve heard that band, and their singer, Moomie Etta-Shaw – they make the dickens of a racket.’
‘One rule for the posh, another for us lot,’ said Urchward, watching with growing concern as Betty’s pencil flew across her notebook. ‘’Ere, you’re not going to print any of this, are yer?’
‘Always up to the editor,’ said Betty, pushing onwards quickly before a blanket withdrawal could be issued. She was ruthless when it came to that Page One byline.
And so the newsmaker and newsgatherer parted, one to wait in ignorance until his deeper prejudices about posh folk were given an airing in the local rag, the other to facilitate it.
Betty was feeling pleased with herself as she made her way towards the office, but not quite so delighted to find herself faced with Miss Dimont and Terry, champing at the bit, wanting to find out more about the identity of the dead woman.
‘I told you last
night, Terry, I don’t know – Pat something – go and talk to the drummer. Better still, let me, he gets on well with me!’
‘What are you on?’ said Judy.
‘Reg Urchward telling Colonel de Saumaurez where to get off. In court this morning.’
‘Page One,’ predicted Judy, ‘better get on with it.’
So Betty did. She wasn’t that keen on murders but she did love seeing her name on the front of the paper.
Over in Bedlington the Seagull Café had a ‘Closed’ sign swinging in the window, even though it was midday and people would soon be wanting a pasty and lemonade for their lunch. A couple pressed their noses against the window but there was nothing much to see and so walked on.
Inside Auriol Hedley was in conversation with an occasional visitor whose habit it was to drop in unannounced.
‘I do have a telephone, you know,’ she was saying in a tired voice, ‘I’ve told you before.’
‘Don’t like too many people knowing what we’re doing,’ said the man smugly. ‘Walls have ears, all that.’
‘We used to say that in the war,’ said Auriol, bringing an old cardboard file over to the table and banging it down in irritation. ‘War’s over.’
‘Not this one.’
‘All right, what do you want to know?’
‘Towards the end of 1943 you had your eye on one Cedric Minsell, a lieutenant-commander in submarines. You’ll know of course that he is now Admiral Sir Cedric, in charge of a shore training establishment in Hampshire.’
‘Over-promoted. Put out to grass.’
‘Well, that’s a pretty accurate summation. He hasn’t got long before retirement and he’s been making a nuisance of himself with Whitehall because he will insist on appearing on TV – What’s My Line?, that sort of thing. Pushing himself to the fore when really…’
‘. . . he ought to be keeping his trap shut,’ said Auriol. She got up and brought two lemonades to the table.
‘You remember him.’
‘Very well. Very cocky, extraordinarily handsome.’
‘Ah yes. The boys in the backroom did wonder whether you and he…’
Auriol looked pityingly at her guest. ‘So typical. The boys in the backroom, given a similar task, would take great pleasure in – how shall I say – getting to know a suspect, especially if she was good-looking. When women apply the same technique it’s a cause for a lot of blue jokes.’
The man took out a cigarette case but catching his hostess’s eye, put it away again.
‘Anyway,’ said Auriol. ‘The upshot was that we knew he had Russian sympathies before the war, and we were doing a routine check on him, given his sensitive position in submarines.’
‘The result?’
‘Just that – he had Russian sympathies. Nothing more.’
‘They were, of course, our allies then.’
‘Not really,’ said Auriol with a world-weary smile. The sun through the window brought out secret red strands in her coal-black hair.
‘Well,’ said the man. ‘You may be delighted to hear your boyfriend’s coming your way.’
‘Posted to Devon? I thought he was about to retire.’ She took a sip of lemonade. It needed a little more sugar.
‘Yes, he’s Flag Officer, Hampshire, until the autumn. Somehow he secured that knighthood, heaven knows how, but now he’s accepted a directorship of Buntorama, that nasty holiday camp you’ve got over the other side of the bay. Apparently he and Bobby Bunton were on some TV show together and they got on like a house on fire.’
‘Something to keep him out of mischief, then.’
The man drew in his breath slowly. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘As you know, we’ve just laid the keel of the country’s first nuclear submarine. Up in Barrow-in-Furness.’
‘Dreadnaught.’
‘I see you like to keep up. Yes. Well, donning his celebrity mantle Admiral Minsell managed to get himself invited up to the Vickers shipyard and was given a tour around the place. We’re not terribly keen about that.’
‘Those old Russian sympathies.’
‘Worse than that. He’s still in touch. With the other side.’
Auriol stood up. ‘How long have you known?’
‘Pretty well all along. Certainly since 1950.’
‘And you let him rise to the rank of Rear Admiral? You didn’t think, perhaps, of arresting him and charging him with treason?’
The man cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. ‘Look, we’re asking for your help, Auriol. You knew him – and he liked you a lot. Why, even you thought…’
‘It was nearly twenty years ago. Are you telling me that in all that time, while he’s been under suspicion, you’ve allowed him to be promoted to admiral when he should by rights be in jail?’
The man defied his hostess’s unspoken rule and lit a cigarette. ‘Standard practice,’ he said after a pause. ‘Promote him sideways, away from the sensitive stuff, make him feel that he’s still on an upward career trajectory. Feed him harmless or false material to pass on to his brethren on the other side of the Iron Curtain and hope to catch the others in the chain.’
‘So what do you want me to do – go and seduce him again? I’m nearly sixty, you know!’
‘You’re fifty-five. Just this – if he comes this way, cosy up to him. He’s seen the plans of Dreadnaught as well as the keel, and no doubt the Muscovites are very, very pleased with him just at the moment. You’re on the retired list, and have the perfect cover – a tea shop. D’you make any money out of this, by the way?’
‘None of your business.’ Auriol walked over to the window and pointedly turned the ‘Closed’ sign around.
‘I rather fancy the look of your pasties.’
‘You’re not invited to luncheon, Commander. All ashore!’
The man picked up his briefcase. ‘You’re a very attractive woman still, Hedley. Go and use those wits of yours, and those looks, and bring us home some results.’
‘I don’t work for you any more.’
‘In our branch of the service, there is no such thing as retirement. Do as you’re told!’
TEN
Though Temple Regis recorded more sunshine hours than anywhere else in the country there was always one place where perpetual gloom featured on the weather-map, and that was the coroner’s court.
Overcast, thundery and always with the chance of a stormy outbreak, it was never a healthy place to linger – a view eagerly promoted by its boss, Dr Rudkin. If possible the crotchety old boy would have reduced the number of inquiries into unforeseen death to zero, since they only ever brought unwelcome publicity. And if there was one allergy from which the doctor suffered, it was the Press.
Not long ago there’d been the messy business of Bengt Larsson, the celebrated inventor who brought such lustre to the town with his Rejuvenator. This device had introduced new vigour to many a flagging life, and visitors to the beauteous gardens at Ransome’s Retreat, Ben’s big pile up on the cliffs at the mouth of the estuary, used to come to pay homage.
But then the town’s most famous citizen went and got himself – well, one never wants to say murdered, not in Temple Regis! – got himself done away with.
There’d been such a stink in the gutter press, such accusations of skulduggery – and then on top of it all, the Daily Herald had the cheek to suggest that the Rejuvenator didn’t work, was a piece of outright chicanery, had in fact killed more people than it cured.
It put Dr Rudkin in a tight spot. In his lexicon there was no such word as murder, and to have to utter it in his own court – and to the serried ranks of bumpy-faced hacks who’d turned up from who knows where to hear his verdict – was more than he could bear. It had been a terrible business and one he had no intention of repeating.
All this was known to Frank Topham, who shared the coroner’s resolve of keeping the reputation of Temple Regis clean and unsullied. But it slowed his regulation quick-march from the police station to a saunter while he thought about the conversation ahe
ad. A bullet through the heart is murder, whichever way you look at it, there’s no parlaying that into an accidental, and Rudkin would be forced to utter the hated M word. Meanwhile Topham would have to bear the brunt of the coroner’s wrath for having allowed such a catastrophe to occur on his patch.
Rudkin’s door was open and as Topham marched in, the coroner’s officer, Bill Paddick, scooted away. He could smell trouble in just the way most sailors can smell a storm ahead, and he hopped off to the safety of the kitchen.
‘Morning, doctor,’ said Topham, affably enough. He was a strong man, had won his medals in the desert, was not easily cowed. ‘The matter of this woman Rouchos.’
‘Is that her name?’ snapped Rudkin.
‘So far as we know, sir.’
‘Can’t you do better than that?’
‘The only name we have, sir. The one she booked in to Buntorama with. You’ll see from the note I sent you that she left absolutely no identifying items in her room, and the clothes she possessed were all bought cheaply in chainstores. The items of jewellery on her body denote a different background, but if it was her purpose not to be identified she’s done a very good job of it. At present, we don’t know who she really is.’
‘So we’re going to have the Press baying at our heels again, are we, Detective Inspector? Woman shot dead, police have no clues, coroner forced to declare it murder?’
‘No escaping that, sir, with a bullet through the heart.’
‘The gun?’
‘No gun remained, but it was a .45, probably a service revolver. That might indicate it could have been a former officer who did it – on the other hand there’s a hefty black market in ex-service weapons so, equally, it could have been anybody. The only real clue we found in the room was a small photograph album, but it amounts to very little – there’s no picture of the dead woman among the snaps and no names attached. They’re anonymous people from nowhere.’
The two men eyed each other. Dr Rudkin – a highly educated medical man, after all – looked down on the dirty drear doings which make up the daily routine of a police detective. He was a man who wore starched collars and cuffs and who washed his hands regularly – all in his world was clean, disinfected, ordered. It had been many a year since as a junior clinician he’d had to cut open a body to explore the mysteries within.