The Protagonists

by James Barlow

  The barman said, ‘She was in here yesterday. She come in with a bloke.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Oh, about one, say. They been in before.’

  ‘Often?’

  ‘About once a week. I remember her ’cause of her ginger hair. She seems a nice kid, not used to boozers. He always gets her coked up for it on sherries, see? Funny, that – it made me notice. They usually have gin … They only come in for lunch. I never seen ’em in here at night.’

  ‘Who did she come in with?’

  ‘Now you’re askin’. He’s a big ’un. Speaks posh.’ The barman grinned and in an exaggerated high tone imitated the man he had seen: ‘“May God, you don’t rally say so.” He talks like that. Officer class.’

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where he lives or works?’

  ‘No. Shouldn’t think he does work. He used to bring her for lunch on a weekday – Tuesdays was usual, now I come to think of it – and stay for an hour and a half. And even then I heard him say once as they left: “Where now, may dear?”’

  ‘Did you see his car at all?’

  ‘No. When I’m on duty I don’t go out.’

  ‘Has he been here before with anyone else?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘What I mean is, does anyone here know him? Did he speak to any of the other diners, for instance?’

  ‘No. Always had a corner table and tried to keep others away.’

  ‘If I send a man here tomorrow at one o’clock, will you point out the regulars? Somebody might know something.’

  ‘Yes, sir, of course. Will you speak to the manager about it?’

  ‘I will. I shall see him, anyway, and the others of the staff. What was this man wearing yesterday?’

  ‘Flannels and sports coat. You know how hot it was.’

  ‘What colour flannels and coat?’

  ‘The flannels were a pale brown. Beige, do you call it? The coat was a tweed. It had a lot of colours running through it. He’s worn it before. Looked brown from a distance, but when y’get close y’can see grey, red and blue running through as well.’

  Maddocks said, ‘What sort of tie did he wear? Birlchester School or University or anything you could recognize?’

  ‘He did wear a school tie sometimes, but I don’t know which. Not Birlchester. Nor St Alban’s. Nor the Rovers. Nor the cricket club. I know all them.’

  ‘Can you tell us the colours?’

  ‘Red, white and blue, I think. Or maybe just red and blue. Oh, hell.’

  ‘Perhaps it was a regimental tie. Have a look at an outfitters when you go into the city,’ urged Maddocks. ‘You might help us there. Can you give us a physical description?’

  ‘A physical description?’

  ‘What he looked like.’

  ‘Um. Tall, brown hair, about thirty-five. Educated like. Small head shaped like a parsnip. Beak nose.’

  ‘What about his complexion?’

  ‘Yella. Like he’d been in the Pacific and got malaria. Well, not quite as bad as that, but like he’d been on his holidays.’

  ‘Did he have any characteristic gesture or walk?’

  ‘He waved his arms about – you know, like the bloody Poles and Wogs used to do.’

  ‘Has he ever been in with any other woman?’

  ‘No. I’ve only seen him with the one. I bet he has her on a line. She laps it all up. Seems a shame really – he isn’t new to the game, but she is – well, you know, she’d stare at me all shy like. Still, y’can’t blame him. Someone’s got to give her the chop; she’s a lovely bit of stuff. Hey, what about the girl? Suppose she comes in.’

  ‘She won’t. She’s been killed.’

  The barman winced, took a long drink, and said, ‘Jesus, that’s rough. She was nice. Hell, that’s going too far.’

  MacIndoe said, ‘Listen, Robert. You must have waited on them many times. Did you ever hear what they talked about? Did they discuss places or mention names?’

  The barman said, ‘She was killed. I can’t believe it. If he comes in here again I’ll – Look. I heard something yesterday. Maybe you can make sense out of it.’

  ‘Something he said?’

  ‘No. Something she said. They was on edge yesterday, I think. I brings the lamb, see, and instead of stopping talking she goes on, queer, all unhappy-like.’ The barman looked down at a puddle of beer. It doesn’t make sense to me and yet it sort of made me uncomfortable. She says, “Don’t you remember anything at all? Aren’t you starting to collect memories against the day I’m sweating fat with child, or old and thin? (or something like that). There’s absolutely no guarantee with my body (I think she said body: it didn’t make sense). It may last a long time for you. But there’s absolutely no guarantee.” I went away then. Was it poetry, d’you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ said MacIndoe. ‘I believe it was.’ (What a day ye had, what a terrible day. I didn’t know it was as bad as that.) ‘Did you hear anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about your pal? Let’s talk to him.’

  They talked to two other barmen and the landlord. Only one new detail emerged: ‘R.’ wore a thick gold ring on a finger of his left hand. It didn’t seem much.

  Travelling back to Almond Vale, Baker driving, MacIndoe sitting in the rear of the car. Occasionally they discussed a point with Maddocks, but in truth MacIndoe was too tired to talk. He still had duties to perform at the police station, the Chief Constable to see, inquires to set in motion. It was about eight-fifteen at night, but with the deceptive appearance of afternoon, because still light; he had been on duty for nineteen hours. Plenty of cars and buses were still on the move, couples strolled along with the slowness of their own infinity, sagging into each other’s sides.

  People. How many, MacIndoe thought, have I met today? How many almoners did I question? Was it two or three? It was three hospitals, anyway. How will all these people spend the evening? What are Mrs Wilson and Miss Murphy doing? How did one spend the hours when one’s friend had been killed? That’s a part of my profession I shall never know. Sooner or later, feeling guilty, they will have to eat. The blood must circulate, the bowels move, there must be an obedience to the cursed flesh which had been the cause of this problem. It was such a busy day I remember them all but vaguely. She was the most real of them all. Alive, I would never have known her. At the most I could have said, ‘She has an honest face.’ Dead, I know her as well as do her parents. Better perhaps. With most people one knows the ordinary actions and opinions, but never the secret thoughts that matter. With Olwen it has been largely the other way round. One wondered sometimes what the dead poets would say about the biographies others have written about them. The opinions, memories and letters were collected and made into a chronological pattern, and assumptions and deductions made as a result. But correctly? Hardly. Not that the poet’s own opinions and recollections would necessarily be more truthful than the accumulation of third-person evidence. They could only be a part of the whole evidence. It was a proof that each human being is too complicated to be completely known. And if no one person can be known by himself or others, wasn’t it presumption to conclude anything at all? Leave it to God. What are you trying to say, MacIndoe? Nothing. I’m tired. It’s just that I can’t help making conclusions, and I like the girl. Perhaps what I want to say is that damnation has spread from that man’s one act. It has spread resentment, despair, anger, fear and cynicism: all bad qualities. It isn’t just murder the man has committed. Damage would be done to the parents, the brother, the landlady, the friends, the employer; and it would spread to others – it was impossible that the act could cause anything that was good. Did he know that, I wonder? Did he know that the girl’s life had impinged on so many others? They were all benefited
as a result of meeting her. As far as one knew, that is. One must make the qualifying remark. But he didn’t bother to analyse her like that. He thought to himself: Here’s an ordinary sort of girl – nothing’s ever happened to her, but she’s got good legs and unusual hair. I must have them. Nothing will be changed if I seduce her. She herself will be grateful and will see that I, R., the tall, dark man who has been a bomber pilot, am a more worthy person than she. I must move freely through the world having what I require. I must not be repressed. It’s written in a book somewhere. But you – you’re only a shop-girl. You’re just a fool with a body that I want. (There are a thousand million women in the world; all of them are fools; I’ve proved it.) You know nothing of moral emancipation, scientific proofs, significant modern literature, political trends. Don’t you know that the world of intelligence has proved that you only exist for me? And, since for some reason I am careless and you have become pregnant, you must be killed. You must be discarded a little more permanently than your predecessors. It’s all quite obvious and unimportant. There’s nothing more to be said. Don’t you read the intelligent books and papers? Surely you understand it’s all a question of glands and things. There are no things of the emotion and the spirit; merely movements and rearrangements of the flesh; what you think is a touching faith in God is merely your hydraulics out of order. (Of course, you could be pedantic and insist that your God made the glands and hydraulics to create the emotions, but that hardly vouches for life beyond the grave, does it?) The old sins have new labels, my dear. It’s you who are sentimental, not the God you believe in. The joke, once you’ve undone the buttons, is on you.

  Maddocks, sitting by Baker and guiding him as he drove, said in astonishment, ‘Good heavens! What’s going on here?’

  They were in Almond Vale High Street, and outside the police station hovered about a dozen men and two women. MacIndoe thought bitterly: here they are; the world has arrived; here’s an end to all of Olwen’s integrity. ‘Hell,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten them. The gentlemen of the Press.’

  As he stepped out of his car they crowded round. Someone said, ‘It’s MacIndoe of the Yard.’ A battery of questions began at once:

  ‘Caught anybody?’

  ‘Was it rape?’

  ‘Was she on the stage?’

  ‘Can we have a picture?’

  ‘Not of me,’ said MacIndoe. As he said it someone took one.

  ‘Of the girl.’

  ‘Probably. I’ll see the Chief Constable.’

  ‘Good God. Have they got a Chief Constable in this dump?’

  ‘Do you expect to arrest anybody soon?’

  ‘Is it the work of a madman?’

  ‘Is this chap a prisoner?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. That’s Inspector Maddocks.’

  ‘Who’s the other b--?’

  ‘Where did the girl live?’

  ‘Who are her parents?’

  ‘Where did she work?’

  ‘I’ll have all the available information provided for you,’ said MacIndoe. ‘But lay off for ten minutes, will you? I’m tired and I would like –’

  ‘You’re tired. Christ, I had to come to this dump by train. It took years.’

  Someone said something vulgar about the victim, and a woman reporter said, ‘I’m sure I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘You give me ten minutes while I see the Chief Constable,’ said MacIndoe. ‘You’ve got hours before you go to press,’ he added with some small satisfaction.

  ‘This is going to go on all bloody night,’ said one reporter. ‘I wish to God I worked for The Times. Let’s go and have a drink.’

  Forty minutes later MacIndoe was able to have dinner with Baker and Maddocks at the George Hotel. They were the last persons to eat, but the waiters did not seem to resent it. They had found out who MacIndoe was, and they too asked questions. At about ten o’clock MacIndoe retired in relief to his bedroom. It was still quite light, but he could scarcely keep awake. He wrote a letter to Janet. She hated telephone calls; they frightened her; besides, a letter was something permanent; it could be enjoyed again. In bed MacIndoe realized that he had not said any prayers. He was too overwhelmed by exhaustion to climb out again. ‘Oh, God,’ he prayed, ‘look after her’; but whom he meant he did not specify. It was intended to be Janet, but as he fell asleep, the prayer unfinished, he realized that it included Olwen.

  Chapter Seven

  Day Two began in Maddocks’ office. They sat about on hard chairs, reading letters, making decisions, waiting to proceed to the Coroner’s inquest. People were beginning to come in with scraps of information and to telephone. Olwen Hughes’s photograph had appeared in the local morning papers and in a few national dailies as well. A detective constable would shortly be proceeding to the Dragon. Even at this moment uniformed constables and plain-clothes detectives – every man available – were calling on chemists’ shops, garages, cafés, and would later visit Almond Vale’s few pubs with photographs of Olwen to ask if she had been seen, if the man with her had been seen, if his red car had been seen, the direction in which they had been moving (and whether on foot or in the car), when they were seen, and so on. A woman named Penelope Johnson, waitress at a café called the Choc-Box, 1658 Almond Vale Road, Birlchester, had telephoned to say that Olwen had been in that café some time on Tuesday morning; she believed it had been between ten-thirty and ten forty-five. No, the girl hadn’t said anything. On the contrary, she’d seemed very quiet. Subdued? No, well, she wouldn’t say that. What would she say? Well, sad. Honestly, she wasn’t making it up after the event – the girl had appeared sad … Similarly, a Mr William Benson, chemist, 1253 Almond Vale Road, had telephoned to inform that Olwen Hughes had bought a camera (Veronica Mark I) on Tuesday morning. She had also purchased a 127 film which he had inserted for her. The satchel he had given her – she had seemed nice; now, he’d seen in the papers that – The time was about twelve-fifteen, and he’d never seen her before. It all confirmed what the pathologist had decided – that the girl had died in the afternoon.

  The 127 film had been developed. Most of it had been destroyed by exposure to sunlight, but something interesting had remained. The girl had evidently taken the first photograph and it had been of her male companion. She had wound on the film, and the part that had rolled round the spool into darkness, although pale, had not been beyond development. Only half of the picture was available – and it was the wrong, lower half: no face, but the lower half of a tweed jacket, a pair of flannels, and his shoes which had buckle fastenings. They were not black shoes. In view of the fact that R. dressed well, they were hardly likely to be yellow; MacIndoe was quite certain that they would prove to be brown. In addition, as a confirmation which could also become evidence, the girl’s handbag was in the picture. The copse itself was not identifiable as such.

  One of the two telephones on Maddocks’ desk shrilled suddenly. The inspector picked up the instrument at once, speaking his own name so quickly that he turned it into one syllable.

  The gaunt doctor sat on a chair, using a toothpick on a back tooth. He had been telling MacIndoe about the autopsy, and now sat listening to what MacIndoe had to say. ‘It took about six weeks to seduce her,’ explained MacIndoe. ‘He eventually talked marriage – marriage when a sick wife was dead. It was only talk, of course. There was no wife – I’m damned if I can understand that part of the man’s story. The girl was asked to keep quiet about their association, not to write, or, at any rate, only to send letters in envelopes provided by him. Then she found herself with child. It took her some time to pluck up courage enough to tell him – that’s significant I think – and the rest you know. What worries me is that he may have intended to kill her from the very beginning. So many lies from the very start – what were they for?’

  ‘He lied because he wanted to possess the girl,’ said Dr Baxter. ‘Now,
I’ve told you that there’s nothing more to be said about the girl, physically, beyond her pregnancy and that she died by strangulation. But I have a kind of proof that the man’s intentions were physical. He isn’t mad, but he is passionate. Among the marks on the girl’s throat are some made, not by his hands, but by his teeth. These are so deep that we’ve been able to make an impression for you. Find your man, MacIndoe, and ask him who is his dentist.’

  ‘Good,’ said MacIndoe. ‘That’s the sort of evidence I can go to court with.’

  Maddocks said in some excitement, ‘Someone to see us. Wants to make a confession.’

  The others stared in astonishment. MacIndoe said calmly, ‘Well, let’s see him.’

  ‘I’m getting out of here,’ said the pathologist.

  Two constables entered as the doctor left. Between them walked a man of about thirty-five, unshaven, tall, thin in tension, trembling now in a condition of considerable excitement. ‘Are you the Chief Constable?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I am Superintendent MacIndoe.’

  ‘I’ve got to see the Chief Constable.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘The murder of this girl.’

  ‘What about the murder of the girl?’

  ‘I did it.’

  ‘You’d better tell me,’ said MacIndoe. ‘I’m the officer who’s investigating the crime.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not a crime.’

  ‘Well, let’s say that it’s a crime technically,’ said MacIndoe. ‘What’s your name?’

  The man gave it.

  ‘And your address?’

  It was a local one.

  ‘When did you kill the girl?’

  ‘Tuesday afternoon.’

  ‘Why did you kill her?’

  ‘She tempted me.’

  ‘Tempted to kill?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ the man said, waving his arms about. ‘She tempted me with her apple.’