by TP Fielden
Topham had seen many a corpse – in the desert, and now here in Temple Regis. Sailors seemed to top the list, they were always getting themselves dead, but farm workers and reckless drivers came a close second. There were suicides and a fair few manslaughters; in fact, there seemed to be no end of ways of bringing life prematurely to a close.
All of these sad departures had a place in Dr Rudkin’s court – despite his pathological hatred of publicity, he had a fine way about him when delivering sympathy to the poor bereaved, those left behind to scrape up the remains of a broken life and try to piece together their own shattered existence. He knew instinctively how to combine soft words and firm judgements and many were touched by his air of condolence, leaving his court feeling as if they’d been personally blessed by a bishop.
Such was the way in Temple Regis. It was a little piece of paradise which had no place for murder, and sensational murder at that. So why then did newspapers send in their attack-dogs to disrupt the calm of the coroner’s court, chewing over every juicy morsel which emerged, relishing the opportunity to tell the world that Temple Regis was not the serene idyll it claimed to be?
‘Murder, I’m afraid, sir. No escape.’
The coroner’s hand shook slightly as he picked up his fountain-pen to make a note. He sniffed and looked abruptly out of the window. The interview was over, the case would be heard this afternoon, and Topham wanted his lunch.
As he emerged blinking into the sunlight of the market square a small person in a hurry bumped into him.
‘Inspector! The very man! A brief word, if you please!’
Topham had borne the anguish and ratchet-dry response of the coroner with relative ease. Encounters with Judy Dimont were somehow more unendurable.
‘Ah, Miss Dimont.’
‘Hope you’ve got a good potato crop this summer. It was awful last year, wasn’t it? My leeks too, ruined, you know, with all that rain just at the wrong moment.’
Like all good reporters Judy squirrelled away personal information along with the professional when in conversation with her subjects, and cheerily deployed it as an icebreaker when necessary. She had a voluminous memory, her brain like the reference shelves of some ancient county library.
‘You’ll be trying for the cup again this year?’ Mrs Topham had been runner-up in the Regis and Bedlington Flower Festival two summers ago and was known to be keen to bring home a trophy.
‘I doubt it. Maud has developed a bad back. Now I know you want something, Miss Dimont, but I want my lunch. So be quick about it.’
The sun was hot and the pair moved to stand in the shade of a horse chestnut. Its shadow somehow had the effect of making their conversation more private.
‘I know you’re not a mean man, Inspector, but you’re tight-fisted when it comes to information, you always have been. So let me tell you what you won’t tell me.’ She rolled out a beautiful smile but it could not disguise the determination in her voice.
‘She’s a woman of thirty. Probably came down from London – or possibly abroad. Certainly not local. She almost certainly knew the person who killed her and made no attempt to escape – unless she was asleep on the bed, which is always possible, though in the middle of the day? And sitting up?
‘There was one shot, no commotion, the murderer just walked away. There’s so much noise over at Buntorama – especially now they’ve got that new helter-skelter, it’s the perfect place to commit a murder.
‘In fact,’ she said, flapping her notebook, ‘you could commit half-a-dozen murders in that camp and nobody would turn a hair.’
The detective looked down at the reporter and wondered where she got it all from. So far she was spot on.
‘What I want to know, Inspector, is this. We have the inquest this afternoon and I’m going to be writing a big piece about the mystery death in Temple’s latest attraction. What else do you know that you can share with me? The clothes? The photo album, for example?’
‘Oh,’ said Topham, ‘you know about that! D’you pay for information, is that how you get it? Well, I can tell you that the album is hopeless, no names in it, a group of people smiling at the camera, unidentifiable backgrounds, nothing to be had there. It’s a clue but it’s not a clue.’
‘Tantalising,’ said Judy, thinking. ‘Maybe if the Express printed a couple of the photos, might that be of use?’
‘Can’t see how it would. She’s not local. Your paper only sells locally, how’s that to help?’
There followed a brisk conversation where the dread prospect of Fleet Street was raised. Miss D reminded the policeman of the vicious remarks cast by the crime reporters who’d come down for the murders of Gerald Hennessy and Bengt Larsson. Allow the Express sole right to photograph the album, and disseminate the pictures as the editor saw fit – that way, Fleet Street’s finest would be kept away from the police station, but the pictures would appear in the national press and if anybody recognised the snaps, job done!
Topham paused only for a moment. On the one hand his complicity would bring down the wrath of Dr Rudkin, and probably that of the mayor, Sam Brough, as well – put all that together and it would ensure the next meeting with the Chief Constable would be a bumpy one. On the other hand, Fleet Street was sure to get involved sooner or later, given Bobby Bunton’s thirst for publicity, so to that extent his options had narrowed decisively.
‘Go on then,’ he said in an exasperated voice. He felt somehow he’d been outmanoeuvred by Miss Dimont, not for the first time. ‘Get Terry to come round this afternoon. He can take a nice picture of the roses Sergeant Gull has been rearing while he’s at it. Now, those are going to get the cup this year or you can watch me eat my hat.’
Hugh Radipole swung elegantly round in his seat and looked out to sea. The morning’s work was done, soon he would take his private lift down to the ground floor, wander out to the Primrose Bar, and accept the congratulations of all around for the joy his hotel brought them. Despite the ruinously high prices – from having your shoes cleaned to the ten-course dinner – people were indebted to him for having created this rare oasis of civilisation. They offered him drinks, clapped him on the back, whispered secrets to him they would not even tell their wives.
For Radipole, this was a necessary moment of calm. Since the war’s end he had dedicated himself to creating a Mayfair-class hotel and resort in this unlikely spot at the unfashionable end of Temple Regis. A dozen years on and he had turned fashion on its head – the Rolls-Royces and Bentleys parked in the garage stood testament to that – and recouped his sizeable investment. While the oldsters in TR still laughed at the sudden fashion for Ruggleswick Sands, Londoners and people from the posher shires did not.
Perhaps it was the fact that he never drank or had married which gave him the room in his life to devote to this monument to good taste and style. The rooms he occupied at the top of the Marine Hotel were the reflection of a man of culture and refinement, draped in subdued colours and hung with pictures and drawings from the Bauhaus. The furniture was tubular steel, the carpets a zigzag of browns and buffs, the mirrors encased in chrome. The music which gently wafted from a walnut box at one end of the room was gypsy jazz played by Django Reinhardt, the books which lined the walls were Huxley, Kafka, Eliot and Wyndham Lewis.
On a side table next to his desk stood the only reference to his previous life – a shining heavy silver reproduction of a Bentley S3 racing car, enamelled in British racing green, whose patina was dulled by the constant caress of his fingers. For a man who spoke, and behaved, like an aristocrat, it would be hard to believe that he started out life covered in oil leaking from the undersides of such a beast, but so it was.
Deekins, his man, popped his head round the door. ‘Someone to see you, sir.’
‘I’ll be down in a few minutes.’
‘No, they’d like a private word.’
Radipole smoothed his sleek hair and stood up. ‘Who?’
‘Reporter, sir. From the local paper.’
‘Who?
‘Miss Dimont.’ He pronounced it ‘Dy-mont’.
‘Dammit, I had to put up with that grizzled old bore Rudyard Rhys at lunch the other day – what more do they want?’
‘Didn’t say, sir.’
‘OK, tell them five minutes only.’ He wandered over and gazed into the mirror as Miss Dimont was ushered in.
‘Only take ten minutes of your time,’ said Judy by way of introduction. She wasn’t going to allow a manservant to dictate the length of her visit.
‘I saw your editor Rhys only the other day. I can’t think there’s anything…’
‘Just a couple of questions, Mr Radipole – you may remember we met at the Rotary.’
‘Mm.’ But Radipole didn’t remember people who weren’t important to him. This woman – flowery dress, unkempt hair, glasses down the end of her nose – didn’t look like the sort of person you’d come across in the Primrose Bar. He looked out to sea again.
‘Mr Rhys asked me to write a piece about the, er, death across the road,’ lied Miss D. He hadn’t – if anything Mr Rhys had ordered the opposite. Ask him what business he was in and the right answer would not be Press, but suppress.
‘Better get over there, then, there’s nothing much I can help you with here. It really has nothing to do with the Marine.’
‘I think there was a bit of a dust-up the other night involving Mr Bunton.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that.’
‘He and his companion Miss, er, Janetti, were asked to leave after an incident. Told not to come back.’
‘Well, that’s not true, is it? I saw him in here last night.’
‘But on the night he was thrown out…’
‘Listen, Mrs… er… – we don’t “throw out” people from the Marine. We’re not that sort of place, we don’t attract the sort who need to be “thrown out”, as you put it.’
‘But I’m told it was you who did it.’
The stately Radipole was unaccustomed to being challenged. ‘I really don’t think…!’
Miss Dimont pushed her spectacles up her nose. ‘I’m not going to write anything derogatory about the Marine, Mr Radipole,’ she said. ‘It’s the murdered woman I am interested in. Since the event took place somewhere else, I don’t think there’s any need to drag the Marine into it.’ Without invitation, she had seated herself on a sofa. Radipole’s long rangy body towered over her.
‘I have no recollection,’ he began.
‘Then let me help. Mr Bunton and his companion Miss Janetti were in the Primrose Bar. It might not be unreasonable to suppose Miss J had participated liberally in the Marine’s hospitality, indeed I gather the waiting staff were rushed off their feet looking after her.’
‘They’re not the sort of people I generally encourage.’
‘But you let them in.’
‘Better the devil you know.’
‘Well, not quite. I gather that matters between you and Mr Bunton are not exactly tickety-boo.’
Radipole looked down at her. ‘What do you want?’ His eyes seemed to be focusing quite hard on the tip of her nose.
‘Mr Bunton spent some time that evening, not with Miss Janetti, but up at the bar with a woman we only know as Patsy Rouchos – the woman who was murdered two days later. Mr Bunton told me she was a prostitute.’
Radipole went white. ‘I’ve… never… heard… anything… so… ridiculous,’ he hissed. ‘She’s – she was – that’s to say, that man is a coarse, vulgar, self-opinionated oaf who would naturally assume that any woman standing alone in a bar was a…’
‘Prossie is the word he used.’
‘I’m appalled you should be talking such talk, and with such people,’ said Radipole. ‘I was led to believe that the Express was a respectable paper!’
‘It’s a newspaper, Mr Radipole. If you look in any newspaper, you’ll find the good alongside the bad. If it isn’t a terrible cliché, that’s life. We at the Express concentrate on the good things people do, but we don’t ignore the bad.’
‘You should try harder.’
‘It’s not the way things work. Anyway, this lady, Miss Rouchos shall we call her, was in the Primrose Bar every night since she arrived in Temple Regis. For someone who was staying across the way at Buntorama, that seems – let’s say, unusual.’
‘We’re not snobs, we welcome everybody – as long as they behave themselves.’
‘Not what you said a minute ago – “not the sort of people who come here.” And odd, don’t you think, that she had the money to pay for your expensive drinks?’
‘I think you’ll find there’s an outstanding bill.’
‘I wonder why you would extend credit to someone staying at a holiday camp,’ said Miss Dimont. Radipole did not seem unwilling to fence with her, but her epée had yet to find its target.
‘Ask the barman.’
‘I did. He told me to ask you.’
‘Ah. Well there you are, then. I think it must be time for lunch, and I feel sure that Mr Rhys must keep you awfully busy. If you’ll excuse me I really must be…’
‘Don’t you find the whole thing a trifle strange?’ persisted Miss Dimont. ‘The drinks. The fact she was in the bar so often. I don’t know, it almost seems as if there was some connection between you.’
Radipole just looked at her.
‘We’ve never really done a proper interview, have we, the Express, I mean?’
‘You’re always most generous with your publicity.’ He didn’t mean it.
‘I was just wondering about your story – you know, how you managed to create this magnificent place. Against all the odds, you might almost say.’
‘Mm.’
‘The determination, the vision – the money. You were in the car trade, I believe?’
‘My story begins and ends with the Marine,’ said Radipole harshly. He was clearly on the back foot.
‘It’s just that my uncle knew you before the war. You sold him a Lagonda.’
‘Which model?’ The hotelier’s fascination with man’s automotive machine overcame his shyness about his background.
‘The L3, I seem to remember. He wasn’t awfully happy with it.’
‘Tricky machines.’ Radipole was gathering up his keys with rather too much display and heading towards the door. ‘I really think it’s time to…’
‘A very successful business in Hampstead, uncle told me. Carriages for the gentry.’
‘All so long ago. I look only to the future.’
Miss Dimont got up. ‘It may seem rude to say this, Mr Radipole, but however successful you were, the money you made could never have bought this place and refashioned it in the enviable way you’ve done. Or kept it going until the rich and famous finally discovered it.
‘So where did the money come from? And what’s the dead woman’s connection with it?’
ELEVEN
From the hills above you could see at a glance why people loved Temple Regis so much – why they resisted the new fad to holiday abroad, and kept returning to this idyllic corner of Devon’s prettiest resort. The small bay at North Sands was perfectly situated to catch every last one of the sun’s rays, its sands flat and wide, its rocks so climbable, and the whole thing flanked by hilly crags decorated with pine trees where the sun-weary could take sanctuary, and still view the clear blue water below.
It seemed a completely private spot, away from the hustle and bustle of the main beaches, and yet it was as if every primary-school age child had been told the secret. They played in their dozens with their buckets and spades, their puppies, and their kites. Joe, the one-armed ice-cream salesman, made them form an orderly queue up to his tricycle.
It was Sunday afternoon, the tide was out, and across the beach against the rocks stood a group of perhaps twenty or thirty people singing in unison to a small harmonium. The Church Mission for Christ’s Resurrection saw no reason not to take advantage of God’s sunshine, and whenever weather and tide permitted during the summer months, they
transported their worship to the water’s edge.
Stripped of the formal surroundings of a church building, the congregation looked overdressed, their movements too stiff, their expressions too serious when compared with the joyous holidaymakers further down the beach. But the music they made, funnelled up into the skies by the gentle onshore breeze, seemed wholly appropriate. It imposed nothing on the non-believers, but it was so beguiling that many a guilty parent promised themselves they would be in church next Sunday.
A figure of authority hoisted himself onto a small rock and waited for the final strains of ‘Eternal Father, Strong To Save’ to flutter away on the breeze.
‘Today,’ he began, opening his arms, ‘we remind ourselves of the words of that great commission Jesus left us: “Go and make disciples of all nations…”’
Two figures unobtrusively detached themselves from the congregation and walked slowly away towards the waves. The casual observer might deduce they had heard these words too often, and preferred a short stroll before the hymn-singing began again in earnest. In fact their purpose was very different.
‘So, Richard,’ Auriol Hedley said to Rudyard Rhys as they scrunched through the drying sand, ‘there it is. We never seem to escape the grip of Whitehall.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Rhys grumpily, fishing in his pocket for his pipe. ‘Really, Auriol, it’s Sunday afternoon, my day of rest, and I usually like to…’
‘Spare me,’ replied Auriol crisply. Her foot irritatedly kicked a small puddle.
‘As for all this subterfuge – what’s wrong with phoning me at home if you want to know something?’
‘Walls have ears.’ Apparently Miss Hedley had finally seen the light of day on this point.
‘What d’you want to know?’
‘Bobby Bunton. What’s he about? What’s he doing? Why are we seeing the Archbishop of York in his terrible little holiday camp? Why the sudden influx of dignitaries onto the board of directors?’