by James Barlow
‘I don’t know; but he called at the place where Olwen worked. They would know.’
‘They don’t,’ said MacIndoe bitterly.
‘Why don’t they know?’ Peggy asked. ‘Surely they must know. Oh. Perhaps it was because she attended to him.’
‘According to her employer, Mrs Harper, she would still have to refer him to her.’
‘Well, she didn’t this time. He started his lies from the first moment … Well, you know his name now.’
‘He’s told such a lot of lies, Miss Davis, that I suspect the name is false too.’
‘Oh, God, yes.’ (They always gave a false name, if they gave one at all. They had a horror of affiliation orders.)
‘Did Miss Hughes have any other male friends or acquaintances?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Did she mention anything else about this man Harrison? His address, his car, his employer, his wife –’
‘He had a wife,’ said Peggy. ‘She was in an asylum, Olwen said.’
‘That was a trick to get what he wanted,’ explained MacIndoe. ‘I don’t think there was a wife at all.’
‘Then why should he mention one?’
‘To postpone their own wedding, of course. According to her diary, the wedding was twelve months off – that was when the wife was to die.’
‘It’s absolutely horrible,’ said Peggy. ‘I can’t bear to think of such a terrible thing happening to Olwen. All those lies to obtain – and she such an innocent sort of person. I’ll try to think of every single thing she said that day. I’ll write it down – but if it was all lies anyway –’
‘People lie in their own terms,’ said MacIndoe. ‘He may have mentioned things and places familiar to himself. We could visit them.’
At the Queen’s Hotel in the city of Birlchester. Smoke-encrusted, antique before its time, a façade of stone and gleaming windows at its front, cheaper bricks, the ugliness of piping and the noise of a railway station at its rear. A strictly utilitarian building, ugly outside and too much plush inside. Outside the small, pillared front porch a doorman, an old man looking like a monkey because he’s recently had his teeth out. On his uniformed chest the row of medals. (Why? Did one have to go through the bloody filth of Passchendaele to prove one could operate a lift or open the door of a car?) Inside, a more bulky warrior who tended to be bumptious. He knew his stuff: MacIndoe’s dirty raincoat didn’t belong in here. This was a part of the world that still believed in property.
‘We are police officers,’ said MacIndoe. ‘Will you tell the manager we wish to see him?’
The doorman said, ‘The manager is not available.’ He turned away in arrogant satisfaction – as if he had a personal hatred of the police – and called to a woman, ‘Miss Bartlett, Sir Norman phoned …’ The woman said, ‘How many will be coming?’ The doorman said, ‘About a dozen.’
MacIndoe tapped the man’s chest. ‘Do you always obstruct the police?’
‘My duty is to the hotel. I can’t have people asking for the manager whenever they feel like it.’
‘Obstruct me again,’ said MacIndoe with a smile that took the sting out of his words, ‘and I’ll run you in for it. Now stop playing ceremonials and get on the blower. Tell the manager that we’re from Scotland Yard and we’re investigating a murder …’
‘I see,’ said the doorman, dropping the ceremonials instantly. ‘I thought you was on about the cars outside. They’re always on about it.’
The manager approached at once, a trembling figure in black and white, a portrait in nervous sweat. ‘What’s all this about? A murder? It can’t possibly have anything to do with us.’
I don’t see why not, MacIndoe thought. If adultery and theft can take place here, why not murder? But let us be hypocritical: the results will be obtained more quickly. He said, ‘I’m sure it hasn’t. The problem is this. A man came here to dinner with a girl on March 29th. They may have been again – that I don’t know. The girl is dead. Who was the man?’
‘It’s a long time ago.’
‘Here is a photograph of the girl.’
‘Ah,’ said the manager. ‘It was in this morning’s paper.’
‘Do you remember her?’
‘No. But, then, I don’t always appear in the dining-room. Charlie here has a good memory for faces – it goes with the job.’ He called the bumptious doorman over and showed the photograph to him. ‘Remember her?’
The doorman said at once, ‘Yes. A redhead. Nervous ’cause she wasn’t used to hotels. Is she –’
‘Yes,’ said MacIndoe. ‘She’s dead. Who came with her?’
‘Tall, thin, darkish fella. Officer type. Probably ex-Air Force,’ said the doorman, ‘’cause he had that sorta shirt on – you know, pale blue.’ He grinned. ‘Course, he coulda been a policeman … He’s been in before.’
‘With the girl?’
‘With women.’
‘What sort of women?’
The manager said hastily, ‘I assure you, I didn’t know … We try to maintain the standards of –’
‘You know the sort,’ said the doorman. ‘Good-looking, good manners, politely contemptuous, don’t know what a day’s work’s like, never seen the inside of a bus … Oh, he could pick ’em.’
‘Have you seen any of these women here lately? Not necessarily with him.’
‘No, sir, I haven’t.’
‘Do you know this man’s name?’
‘No.’
‘Where he works?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Do you know of any of the women’s names?’
‘I’ll have to think about it, sir, but I’m doubtful.’
‘I want you to keep an eye open for him,’ said MacIndoe. ‘I want a talk with that young Romeo.’ He turned to the manager. ‘I’ll have to see everybody else he might have encountered when he brought her to dinner. I know it’s a nuisance …’
It was more than a nuisance. It took over an hour and was a waste of time.
They had just had their tea. ‘I’d like to examine the copse again,’ MacIndoe said. ‘I don’t mean search it. I just wish to visit it the way he did – go for a walk, in fact. Will you come?’
‘Of course!’ Baker and Maddocks said. It was agreeable to both officers to have orders issued as requests which, they felt, could quite easily be refused.
A few minutes later they were standing in Almond Vale High Street outside the police station.
MacIndoe pointed down the hill. ‘Let us presume he came in his car. From Birlchester he enters the town up this hill. He doesn’t park the vehicle in the one official car park – at any rate, they don’t remember the car or the girl – and he cannot park it in High Street without being pinched. Correct?’
‘Yes,’ said Maddocks.
‘Therefore,’ said MacIndoe, ‘he parked it in one of the side streets. He then walked with Olwen to the top of the town and along the river bank to the place where she was later found. Now, looking at your map, it would seem that, no matter if he went straight up High Street or if he turned left along a side street and later turned right to reach the river that way – whichever he did he would emerge by the square or whatever it’s called. The date of your map, I noticed, was 1936. Do you know of any short-cuts made subsequently which would permit him to avoid the square?’
‘No,’ said Maddocks. ‘He was bound to emerge by the huts where people hire the boats.’
‘And from there,’ said MacIndoe, ‘he must have proceeded along the river bank. Let us do the same.’
The three detectives walked straight up High Street and turned left towards the square. Most of the shops had closed; a few constables were still visiting premises to inquire about the traveller with the red car. The air, warm and dry once more, had dried the
pavements; people moved slowly in the evening heat, carrying their raincoats. At the river’s edge old people sat in silence, youths were hiring the boats, a child with bread searched for swans to feed, while his mother leaned in tiredness on the handle of his push-chair. It was a typical evening following rain, a peaceful aftermath in the wake of yesterday’s storm: smoke rose in slow, straight columns and there was excellent visibility.
They soon reached the stacked deckchairs, the concrete ornamentation and the lines of boats. MacIndoe pointed to the huts at which the boats were hired. ‘Have inquiries been made there?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Maddocks said. ‘Let’s make them now.’
Inside the hut a man of about thirty in vaguely maritime attire was sitting on an oil-drum looking at a pornographic magazine. He will have noticed her, MacIndoe thought, remembering Olwen’s straight young legs.
‘Oh, it’s you, Carter,’ said Maddocks.
‘What if it is?’ the man said. ‘You’ve got nothing on me.’
‘We want your help.’
‘Ha! After being inside.’
‘A girl has been murdered.’
‘So they tell me. Are you going to pin that on me?’
‘We’ve never pinned anything on to you,’ said Maddocks. ‘If you steal things, we have to send you to prison.’
‘Coppers!’ said the man Carter. ‘Lot of bloody saints they are.’
‘If a policeman steals he goes to prison too. Some of them do.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it.’
‘What about this girl, Carter? She didn’t steal anything. She was innocent.’
‘I’ll bet she was. Three months. D’you think what she done was better than stealing?’
‘She was tricked.’
‘What kind of talk is that? A woman doesn’t have to drop her skirt. They do it ’cause they like it.’
‘She was innocent, Carter.’
‘So you say. I suppose she went to church and believed in fairies.’
The world, thought MacIndoe. The world is always with us. Whatever you did, the world could convert your motives into dirt or conceit or the condition of your body. The world is a cynical old man, satiated himself, who watches closely, eager to see failure, and, when it came, certain that it had been caused by the same old dirty motives that had once actuated himself. The world is an old man whose arteries have hardened, who does not wish to forgive, does not want even to have reason to forgive; who does not desire redemption for others for he is beyond it himself. I’m cynical, too, MacIndoe realized, but bless you, Olwen, I know you didn’t really fail.
Maddocks said, ‘Did you see her on Tuesday afternoon?’
‘How do I know? I see dozens of ’em walking about.’
‘She had auburn hair.’
‘What d’y’mean, auburn? I heard that in the boozer. Auburn. What kind of a disease is that?’
‘It’s a colour. Red.’
‘She had red hair?’
‘Yes, Carter.’
‘Then I did see her. Why don’t they say what they mean?’
‘Didn’t you see her picture in the paper?’
‘I only get the sports edition.’
Maddocks produced a photograph. ‘Is this her?’
The man was startled out of his hostility. ‘D’you mean to tell me them two walked past me and he killed her in them bushes?’
‘Yes, Carter.’
‘But I’d have heard the screams.’
‘She was throttled, Carter. She couldn’t scream.’
‘What d’e want to kill her for?’
‘He wanted to dump her. Who is he, Carter?’
‘Oh, Crise, I’d know him all right. But who is he? I don’t know that.’
‘Ever seen him before?’
‘No. He don’t live in Almond Vale.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘Grey flannels and a brown sorta jacket. I asked him if he wanted a boat. He turned to the girl and said, “Do you?” She said, “No.” I thought, You bitch you; you’re in a hurry for it.’
‘What time was it?’
‘Just after three.’
‘Did he come back alone?’
‘He didn’t come back at all.’
‘We shall get this man, Carter, and we shall want you to come and identify him …’
‘And we’ll want a statement,’ said Maddocks.
‘I can’t write.’
‘We’ll write it for you.’
‘There’s no way out then, is there?’
‘Don’t you want to do it?’
‘She asked for it, di’n’t she?’
The police officers walked on. Not many people were about – an old man walking with a dog; some old ladies peered from seats; half a dozen children fished with string and jam-jars; a young man and woman walked in nervous silence, and a solitary boat on the river was being propelled with precise, sure strokes by a sailor. There were no persons near the murder scene: the novelty had worn off: the entertainment was over. The earth beyond the public footpath was drying, but had not yet re-hardened, and the officers stepped with care over the mud. In the copse the distant sounds were quite abruptly cut off and replaced by the nearer murmur of insects. MacIndoe had a sudden apprehension of how alone Olwen Hughes must have felt in the last moments.
He examined the copse and its surrounding trees. ‘Whether he came by train or by car,’ he said, ‘be had to return into Almond Vale – the station and the only parking places are there. Yet he didn’t return the way he came. How did he know which way to go? Answer: he climbed a tree.’ MacIndoe selected a tree and commenced to climb. ‘Don’t ever tell anyone you’ve seen a portly gentleman from the Yard doing this,’ he said. ‘It would end our reputation.’ He ceased talking as climbing and breathing became more difficult. ‘Ah, yes, he could get back to the main road that way.’
Baker had already climbed a more difficult tree; Maddocks rose behind MacIndoe. ‘It’s very probable,’ said Maddocks. ‘But what does it indicate?’
‘Nothing,’ said MacIndoe, ‘but we’ll walk there too and see what it feels like.’
They all did this, but reached a stile and the main road without finding anything. Walking back towards the town they soon reached a small café and some cottages. MacIndoe asked, ‘Have inquiries been made here?’
‘Yes,’ said Maddocks.
‘How about the cottages?’
‘No. We’ve only dealt with cafés and garages.’
There were three cottages, and at the third a child remembered a man coming by himself over the stile on the Tuesday afternoon about an hour before tea-time. The child’s description fitted the wanted man; in addition, she had seen him enter the café.
In the café were the usual chalked notices about sandwiches; a tea urn; bottles of fizzy lemonade; marble-topped tables; wooden stools, and a lurid advertisement for cigarettes. This showed an auburn-haired girl swathed in highly inflammable coloured gauze. That, thought MacIndoe, was how R. must have visualized Olwen.
A heavy, good-looking girl of about twenty-seven attended to them. ‘We’re police officers,’ said MacIndoe.
‘What, again?’ said the girl. ‘What is all this, anyway? I told them I hadn’t seen a dark, tall man with a redhead.’
MacIndoe said, ‘Did you see a dark, tall man without a redhead?’
The waitress frowned. ‘Are you kidding?’
‘No. I believe the man we wish to meet may have passed here on Tuesday after he’d left the redhead.’
‘They didn’t ask me that.’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘Tuesday afternoon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was that before the storm?’
‘Yes; the day before.’
‘A tall, dark man of about thirty-four came in about four – no, a bit earlier. He bought a drink of tea and some aspirins. Sat there taking them one after the other. Said he had a hangover.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘I’d recognize him.’
‘Did he seem agitated?’
‘No. He was silent. He wouldn’t speak.’
‘Why should he?’
‘Well, he was the sort who would.’
‘You mean he was attractive to women?’
‘You could put it that way. I asked him if he was on holiday, but he said he was just passing through.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘Only that he had a headache.’
‘What was he wearing?’
The waitress’s description of the man’s flannels and sports coat was similar to that provided by the barman at the Dragon. She added, ‘He wore brown shoes – very soft leather, I remember, and they had a fastening like a woman’s.’
MacIndoe remembered the photograph in Olwen’s camera. ‘A buckle fastening?’
‘Yes. I couldn’t think of the word.’
Maddocks said, ‘What sort of a tie did he wear? Birlchester Grammar?’
‘No.’ The girl looked from Maddocks to MacIndoe and then to Baker. She pointed to the detective sergeant. It was almost exactly like that gentleman’s,’ she said.
‘R.A.F.,’ said Baker in some excitement.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Maddocks.
‘Well, it wasn’t quite the same. His had sort of notches.’
‘Like Vs?’ queried Baker.
‘That’s right.’
‘She means the R.A.F.V.R.,’ Baker said triumphantly.
MacIndoe frowned. ‘Why didn’t the waiter at the Dragon recognize your tie? We asked him about ties.’
‘I wasn’t wearing this one yesterday.’
MacIndoe laughed. ‘The vanity of youth! He comes down here for a short time and brings a load of ties!’
Baker said in embarrassment, ‘Well, I’m not married, like you two.’