The Fox in the Forest

by Gregson, J. M.

  He enumerated each of the points without emphasis, conscious of Hook’s discomfort on his left. Rather to his surprise, the Sergeant, who was staring hard at his notebook, said nothing. It was Rushton who said, “A strong candidate, but only if we assume he’s unbalanced in some way, perhaps. I can’t see what he’s gained by the deaths. We’d have to assume he had endured some real or imaginary insult from these two very different men.”

  He was being consciously fair; Lambert knew that he now fancied Webb for their murderer. And he was right about the unbalance: mentally disturbed young men of Webb’s age were capable of the most absurd over-reactions to insults when their external behaviour seemed perfectly normal. It struck him for the first time that no one knew Charlie Webb really well, apart from his grandmother, whose own mind was faltering alarmingly.

  Hook contented himself with saying, “There’s no previous history of violence.” Then, as if issuing a challenge of social class, he said, “What about Colonel Davidson and the other two people we’ve seen at the Old Vicarage?”

  Lambert smiled. “Colonel Davidson appears to be in the clear for the murder of Peter Barton. He was at home at the time of the murder, on the evidence of other people as well as his wife. He could have hired Sharpe to kill Barton, as you suggested that Crawley and Clare Barton might have done. But he hasn’t any reason at all that we’ve been able to come up with for the murder of the vicar.”

  Hook said obstinately, “But he was out in the car on his own at the time of Sharpe’s death. He says he was in Gloucester, but we haven’t been able to come up with any more sightings of him there, have we?”

  He was looking inquiringly at Rushton, who now said, “No, but the place was crowded, as he said. We know he was there for part of the morning, at least. The gardening shop where he bought a propagator remembers selling it to him, but cannot be at all precise about time. It may be more significant in a negative way that we’ve thrown up no sightings of him around the forest at the time of Sharpe’s death.”

  Lambert said, “There is at least one shotgun around at the Old Vicarage, but no evidence that it has been fired recently. But then if I’d committed a murder, I’d have made sure that if I was retaining the weapon it was thoroughly cleaned afterwards. Colonel Harry Davidson seems to have had the opportunity and the means to commit only one of the murders, and no discernible motive for either of them. Which is exactly the situation with several other of our candidates.”

  “Including, as far as I can see, Mrs Davidson,” said Rushton heavily. “She is as clear as her husband as far as Barton’s murder goes — she was at home with her husband, and both Mrs Jenkins and the maid, Mary Cox, have vouched for that. At the time of the second murder, her husband was out and Mary Cox says she left the house for at least part of the morning. There is a good hour and a half unaccounted for, and we compute that she could have walked to the forest, killed Sharpe and been back in thirty to forty minutes. Why on earth she should wish to do such a thing, of course, is quite obscure, but as you say, sir, the same thing applies to most of our suspects.

  I’m not sure we can even call them that the more I look at the evidence, the more I’m inclined to the idea of some person we aren’t even aware of yet.”

  It was a melancholy, even a desperate thought, for a senior policeman aware of the work that had already gone into the case. Lambert said, “I still think we need a new way of interpreting the facts at our disposal. I don’t think we’re going to come up with many new ones. But we’ve got to connect the two deaths in some way. We still haven’t got satisfactory answers to two big questions: why on earth should anyone want to kill Peter Barton, and what is Ian Sharpe’s function in the whole business.”

  No one felt like answering those questions. Rushton, thumbing through his file, eventually said, “One of the people who had opportunity to commit both murders, like Farr and Webb, seems to be Arthur Comstock, Davidson’s chauffeur-handyman. Barton had his phone number in the pocket of his anorak when he was killed. And he drove away and left Peter Barton to walk home alone through the forest in darkness. It must have struck you that we’ve only his word for it that it was Barton who invited him to do just that. I know we’ve checked that he did in fact pick up his sister in Cheltenham, but he could easily have returned to the woods by the time Barton was shot.”

  Lambert looked at his watch. “Bert and I are going to see both Mrs Davidson and Comstock very shortly. We’ll see what his reaction is to that notion. He still isn’t cleared for Sharpe’s murder, is he?”

  “No. He says he was in his service cottage at the time, busy with his own affairs, but there is no one to vouch for him at around the time of Barton’s death. Like Farr, he lives alone, so there’s really no reason why there should be. He’d have had to walk to the forest of course, but there was plenty of time for him to do that, as there was for Mrs Davidson. Come to think of it, he has a bicycle at the back of his cottage, which would have cut down the time still further. And the route from the Old Vicarage doesn’t pass other houses, so it’s unlikely either he or Rachel Davidson would have been seen.”

  Hook said, “Comstock is an ex-serviceman. Have we turned up any previous connection with Sharpe?”

  Rushton said, “No. We’re still waiting for some of the information you asked for from military records. They had to get security clearance, and the holiday period delayed things as usual. Comstock’s service seems straightforward enough, though we should get the full details in the next twenty-four hours. Sharpe’s past is pretty murky, though, with his aliases and the kind of dubious activity he was involved in. I suppose it’s not impossible they could have met before.”

  Lambert said, “Chris, you’ve been filing all the documentation on this case. What about the house-to-house inquiries? Have you thrown up anyone else, whether from the area or outside, that you would put in the frame for either of the killings?”

  Rushton was immediate and definite. “No. We’ve checked out several that looked likely, but eliminated each one in turn. We didn’t find anyone beyond the people we’ve been discussing who was in the woods at around the time of Barton’s murder. Those who weren’t still at work were generally speaking at home with their families, so we’d have to assume conspiracies in unlikely places. On the morning when Sharpe died, we found two men who were at least in the vicinity of the woods at the right time, but we’ve interrogated them and we’re satisfied they had nothing to do with it.”

  Lambert said, “Right, we’ll be off and see what we can get from Rachel Davidson and Arthur Comstock. By the way, Chris, you might like to listen to the tape of the interview we recorded with Johnny Pickering before you came in today. He should patently be under supervision, but you’ll find he had nothing to do with these killings. But I’ve a feeling I can’t pin down which says he has something to tell us about the case; I’m going to listen to what he said again myself later.”

  As they buttoned up their coats and made ready for the freezing world outside, Rushton said a little desperately, “Any other thoughts before you go?”

  Lambert paused in the doorway. “Just one. Not from me, but from the admirable Sergeant Hook.” Modest Bert looked suitably surprised. “It was Bert who suggested when we last exchanged notes that these killings might not be by the same person. It’s an interesting thought.”

  28

  The service cottage where Arthur Comstock lived was spotlessly clean and almost excessively tidy. Comstock was sawing logs in the small yard at the rear of the place when Lambert and Hook arrived. He directed them indoors and stood framed against the daylight in the rear doorway for a moment, his tall frame stooping a little to pass beneath the lintel. He inspected his dress, picked a few stray fragments of sawdust from his navy anorak, and dropped them on the flags outside; the habits of neatness built in over twenty-two years of service life were second nature to him now.

  He did not offer them tea, and for a minute or so they all remained standing. He was not used to visitors, whethe
r on business or pleasure. They observed his bearing, as their training had taught them to do. This man was stiff, watchful, cautious. But perhaps that was his normal attitude: they had not seen him in other situations, and were not likely to.

  He did not inquire as most people did about the progress of the case. They wondered if he knew rather than surmised that they could not have made much headway; that might be significant. Belatedly, he asked them to sit down, and the two large men perched themselves side by side on the two-seater settee of the cottage suite, in front of the single long, low window of the room.

  Before he sat down, Comstock looked round the small parlour, with its two neatly framed prints and its few carefully placed china ornaments, as if checking that all was in order. His dark hair was slicked straight back in the manner of an earlier generation, his small black moustache looked as if it had just been trimmed. It was bitterly cold in the room, but he did not seem to notice; after his exertions with the saw, he was warm enough, though he did not take off his anorak. All his behaviour implied that this need not take long, if they all behaved as sensible men.

  Lambert said conventionally, “I know that you have been asked about these things before, but we need to go over some details again, now that we have a fuller picture of everyone’s movements at the time of the two murders.” Comstock nodded curtly, but made no other rejoinder. He did not appear particularly nervous. Perhaps he was a man without small talk; Lambert warmed to him a little as a kindred spirit. Then he nodded to Hook, who had his notebook open on his knee.

  Bert said, “We want to check the details of your movements at the time of the Reverend Barton’s murder first of all. You said that you dropped him off in Ashbridge, drove to Cheltenham to pick up your sister, and returned here. Did you then remain in this house for the rest of the evening?”

  Comstock looked at him as if he were trying to set a trap. “No. I went out again, briefly. I drove down to the village stores to pick up an order that Tommy Farr had made up ready for me. I’ve told your people that.”

  Hook said, “Could you tell us exactly when this was?”

  Comstock looked a little nettled, for the first time. “No, I couldn’t. I suppose it must have been some time around half past five. I thought Tommy might be closed, but I knew he’d open up for me. Is it important?”

  Lambert said, “It could be. Peter Barton was killed at about that time.”

  Arthur Comstock looked genuinely shocked at the implication. He said, “But I thought you’d decided that —”

  He stopped abruptly, making no attempt to complete his sentence even in the painfully prolonged pause which they allowed to follow.

  “Decided what, Mr Comstock?”

  “Nothing. I must have been mistaken.”

  Had he been under arrest, they would never have let it go that easily. As it was, he was merely voluntarily helping the police with their inquiries, so that they could not risk him refusing to cooperate. Lambert said, “The fact that you drove to the village store is also important. To put it bluntly, it means that you would have had time to reach the spot in the wood where the vicar was killed and return home afterwards without being away from here for more than twenty to thirty minutes. That is about the length of time your sister says that you were away.”

  Comstock did not look as shocked at the fact that his sister had been questioned up in Yorkshire as Lambert had hoped. Probably she had been in touch with her brother by phone since yesterday and told him about it. Almost everyone had access to phones now: that was one of the differences from when he had started as a constable on the beat. It made it more difficult to surprise them with information like this. He said, “Your employer tells us that your instructions on that day were to leave the car with the vicar in Ashbridge and walk home through the woods yourself.”

  Comstock looked thunderous at the mention of his employer, as if he fancied that Harry Davidson might have been trying to implicate him in this death. But he carefully avoided any mention of the Colonel as he said stiffly, “That is correct. It was the vicar who suggested the rearrangement.” He sounded like the NCO he had once been, making his report to the Orderly Officer.

  Lambert nodded. “You realize that we have only your word for that? I’m not saying we don’t believe you. I’m saying that as policemen it is our job to check every statement we have against the accounts of other people, whenever that is possible. That is how we proceed: when discrepancies arise, they are often significant, you see.”

  Comstock nodded, stretching his long forearms towards them as he closed his fingers over the wooden arms of the chair. “Nevertheless, that is what happened. I argued quite hard with the vicar, but once he found that I had been planning to pick up my sister from the bus station, he was quite insistent. He was very good about things like that, the Reverend Barton. He said he had intended walking both ways to Ashbridge at the beginning of the afternoon, so that I had already saved him one journey.” He sounded as if he had already been over their conversation many times, as a conscientious man might in the light of the death which had followed.

  “Quite. And nothing has occurred to you in the days which have passed since to suggest who might have killed Peter Barton?”

  “I thought you —”Again he stopped. This time he said quickly, “It doesn’t matter. You know more about it than I do, with the number of men you have working on it.”

  Lambert said gently, “It might be useful to us to hear your ideas. It might even be your duty as a citizen to share your thoughts with us, Mr Comstock. Two men have died. There may be more to come.”

  He looked up at them abruptly with the suggestion that there might be more killing yet, searching their faces for what they knew. Hook felt ridiculous on the small sofa, sitting up against his chief, like a fowl perched close to its neighbour for warmth; the small room had the temperature of a fridge. Comstock was too agitated to see anything ludicrous in the picture. He said, “It’s just — well, I thought — I thought the man in the woods might have killed the vicar. The man who was killed himself a few days later.”

  “The tramp, you mean. You think a tramp might have killed Peter Barton?” Lambert was at his blandest.

  “Not if that’s all he was. I thought…he might be something more than that. Perhaps I was mistaken.” Comstock looked as though he bitterly regretted getting into this, but could see no way out of it. He was no expert in bending words to his own purposes, having spent most of his adult life in a system too rigidly defined to leave much room for flexibility of that kind.

  Lambert leaned forward, studying the gaunt, troubled face intently. “You were not mistaken. The man in the forest was not a simple tramp. He was a professional killer. We know that now, because of information stored in police computers all over the country. What interests me, Mr Comstock, is how you managed to deduce that for yourself, without any of our advantages.”

  “I — I don’t know. It’s just that he was the only man around at the time, as far as I could tell, so I thought he might be involved.”

  “It’s a big step from thinking he was the only man around which he patently wasn’t, by the way to deducing that he was a trained killer.”

  Comstock hadn’t deduced anything like as much as that, but he did not trouble to defend himself against the charge. He might have said that he knew the police had taken the man in for questioning after the murder of Barton: that at any rate must have been common knowledge around the village. Instead, he said wretchedly, “I must have read things in the papers, put two and two together, I suppose.”

  “There has been nothing in any of the papers to suggest that Ian Sharpe was anything other than a simple tramp. We’ve taken care to see that there wasn’t.” Lambert thought he got a reaction when he threw in the name, but Comstock committed himself to no more words. He gave a slight, helpless shrug of his square shoulders and stared at the carpet.

  “It’s interesting to us that you should have assumed that a man who was apparently a tramp shoul
d have shot Peter Barton. There were other people around at the time who had the opportunity to kill him, despite what you said a moment ago. You, for one.”

  “I didn’t kill him, whatever you think,” he said sullenly.

  “But he was found with your telephone number in his pocket.”

  “I’ve already explained how that came to be there. I gave it to the vicar in case he changed his mind about walking home from Ashbridge.”

  Lambert regarded him evenly. “What clothes were you wearing that day, Mr Comstock?”

  He looked from one impassive face to the other with real fear for a moment. Perhaps he thought they were closing the net upon him. “It was cold. I think I was wearing this anorak. I don’t have many clothes.” The last sentence fell almost comically into this serious context, and he gave a half-smile of apology, though he was not quite sure why.

  “I see. Where were you at the time when Ian Sharpe was killed, Mr Comstock?”

  It was another abrupt change of gear, and like his previous ones it threw his man for a moment. “I don’t know just when he was killed,” he said cautiously; again he spoke as though he was negotiating a trap.

  “Oh, I think you do, Mr Comstock. But I’ll rephrase the question, if you like. Let us ask where you were on the morning of 27th December?”

  “I was here. I told your people that, already.”

  “Here for the whole of the morning?”

  In the pause which followed the question, a tabby cat came and stood for a moment in the doorway and inspected these rare visitors to its house with baleful yellow eyes. Apparently it did not approve of them, for it gave a leisurely swish of its tail, then disappeared as silently as it had come. Comstock said, “I think I was here for the whole of the morning, yes.”