The Mother's Day Mystery

by Peter Bartram

  "What a strange question," she said.

  "It's a strange crime," I said.

  Clothilde arched an eyebrow. "Strange crime?"

  "Hit-and-run," I said. "Strange and despicable."

  Clothilde looked down at her teacup. Moved the spoon from one side of the saucer to the other. "I suppose you’re right," she said softly.

  "Will you be able to ring the bells on Mother’s Day now that you’re a ringer short?"

  "Mr Burton from the butcher’s is always willing to stand in when someone is away. In fact, we're having a practice this evening at seven o'clock."

  "Spencer is away permanently," I said.

  Clothilde nodded. "Yes, he is."

  I took a last bite of the cake. If I ate any more of it, I was going to end up with a stomach like the soup tureen on the Welsh dresser.

  I said: "Thanks for answering my questions. You've helped me understand a little more about Spencer Hooke."

  I stood up and moved towards the door.

  Clothilde shot a disapproving glance at my plate. "Aren't you going to finish your cake?"

  "Sorry. It was delicious but you were too generous by far."

  For the first time, Clothilde smiled. It was a wide hungry grin like when a wolf closes in on a lamb.

  "Too generous? That's exactly what Spencer told me a couple of days before he died," she said.

  But generosity for what, I wondered. Helping out a lad with no parents? Handing out giant-sized slices of cake?

  Or paying up like a patsy to keep a dreadful scandal secret?

  ***

  Clothilde waved me off as though I were heading on a round-the-world voyage.

  I returned the waves as I ambled down the road towards the railway station. I kept on walking away from the house after she'd shut the front door. I had a feeling that she'd be twitching the net curtains to spy on me.

  Clothilde had mentioned she'd offered to drive Hooke to Chichester in her old Morris Minor. I'd spotted a car parked across the road from her cottage when I'd stepped outside. But I didn't want to show too much interest in it if she was peering at me from behind the window drapes.

  After I'd vanished for a few minutes, she'd conclude I'd left the street. She'd leave the window and head back to her kitchen. Probably to bake another monster fruit cake. I'd sneak back to the Morris Minor and take a quick peek to see if it had any damage consistent with a hit-and-run. It seemed unlikely as Clothilde had left it parked on the street. But Clothilde struck me as a wily old bird who didn't always take the expected course of action.

  To kill a few minutes, I strode into the railway station and sat in the waiting room to think about what to do next.

  I was mulling over some advice a barrister once gave me. He'd just sprung an old lag with a string of previous convictions from the dock.

  "Always visit the locus in quo," the barrister told me when I asked him how he'd pulled off the acquittal.

  The lag had been accused of climbing through the lavatory window of a house in Ovingdean and stealing the owner's jewellery box. His lawyer had told the jury he couldn't have done it, because he was more than six feet tall and weighed twenty-two stone. The window was only eighteen inches wide.

  If my barrister friend hadn't visited the locus in quo, the place in question - where it happened - he wouldn't have realised his client couldn't possibly have climbed through the window.

  I decided it was time I visited the locus in quo - the place on the Bostal Road where Spencer Hooke had died.

  But first I had to check out Clothilde's Morris. There was no sign of twitching curtains in her cottage when I walked back up the street. The car was one of the older Morris Minors, the kind that were around in the nineteen-fifties. It was shabby but there were no dents or bumps consistent with a hit-and-run.

  I strolled around the car taking a close look. The old jalopy needed some vigorous action with a wet chamois leather. The wheel arches were encrusted with dark yellow sandy mud. But I was convinced the car hadn't been used to run Hooke down.

  I walked back to my MGB, climbed in, and headed for the Bostal.

  ***

  The sun was shining but a brisk wind was blowing in from the west by the time I pulled the MGB into the verge on the Bostal road.

  I'd taken care to park a few yards away from the place where Shirley and I had originally found Hooke's bike. Not that I needed to bother. There was no police tape around the scene - another sign of Holdsworth's sloppy investigation.

  I climbed out of the car and shivered. The wind was cold up here. I buttoned my jacket and thrust my hands into my pockets.

  It had been raining hard on the night of the accident. But the sun and the wind had dried out the mud in the grass verge. There was a churned-up area where the bike had crashed. But it had been trampled by the clod-hopping footprints of the cops.

  But about ten yards further back, there was a depression from car tyres. The car had evidently driven off the road. The tyre track extended towards the trampled area and disappeared into it.

  I walked in the opposite direction, past the churned up stuff. And there it was again. The tyre track extended for about three yards as the car must have swerved back onto the road.

  I stood there feeling cold and thinking about that. Surely, even Holdsworth would have seen the tracks and deduced they came from the car that hit Hooke. Perhaps he'd taken a plaster cast impression of them - but I wasn't placing a big bet on that.

  I walked back along the road in the direction the car would have come from. There was a copse of trees about a hundred yards away. It would provide some shelter from the wind while I considered what to do next. By the side of the copse there was a muddy lay-by which led into a field. The lay-by would have been hidden from the road to anything coming from Steyning - as Hooke did on the fateful night.

  Like the grass verge, the lay-by would have been slick with mud on the night of the killing. And there were tyre marks of a car in the dried mud. I trotted back along the road verge and took a closer look at the tracks there. They had a distinctive zigzag marking. Then I hurried back to the lay-by, knelt down and looked closely at the tracks. The same zigzag pattern. I was as certain as I could be that both sets of tracks came from the same car.

  I stood up and looked at the shape of the tracks in the lay-by. One set swept back in a curve, while a second set headed straight out into the road. It was as though the car had reversed into the narrow lay-by and then accelerated out of it.

  I had a good think about that. If the killer - or killers - knew Hooke planned to cycle across the Bostal, they'd want to lie in wait for him. They'd want to choose a spot where the car wouldn't be seen. So as Hooke cycled towards it, he would never have known that death lurked behind the trees. Perhaps that was just as well.

  If my reasoning was right, Holdsworth should open a murder case. A random hit-and-run driver wouldn't have parked just yards from the accident spot. Generally, they were tearaways who drove too fast.

  I was about to walk back to my car, when I noticed another mark. About a foot outside the tyre tracks on the driver’s side of the car, there was a series of small holes in the ground. They advanced in two lines, rather as though a large bird with stumps for feet had been walking. Right foot, left foot, right foot - and so on. I followed the line of holes alongside the tyre tracks towards where the back of the car would have been. The holes looped around where the tyre tracks ended. Then they came up on the other side of them - what would have been the passenger side as the car was parked. They ended as abruptly as they'd started.

  I couldn't make anything of it. I stood there as the cold wind chilled me and tried to think of an explanation. But I couldn't come up with anything that made sense.

  I still couldn't think of a reason for the holes as I drove back to Brighton.

  Chapter 13

  An hour later I was back in the newsroom at the Chronicle.

  I sat at my desk and leafed through messages which had come in while I'
d been out. There was the usual nonsense - improbable leads from contacts eager to earn some tip-off cash. Nothing that matched the headline potential of the Hooke killing. Nothing to touch the drama of a drugs ring bust.

  There was no news from Bill Freeman in Adelaide about Shirley's mum. But perhaps he hadn't had managed to find her yet. Or perhaps he had and couldn't bring himself to tell me the dreadful truth about what he'd discovered.

  My telephone rang. I lifted the receiver.

  Frank Figgis said: "Come in here for a minute."

  I asked: "Will the sixty seconds run from the moment I knock on your door or the time I enter the room?"

  He said: "If you don't watch out, it'll run from the moment I boot your bum out of the building."

  "In that case, perhaps I should meet you downstairs in the lobby. Not so far for me to fall when I hit the pavement."

  The line went dead.

  I strolled round to Figgis's office, knocked once and entered.

  Figgis was emptying his ashtray into his wastepaper basket. A small cloud of dust billowed above the rim of the basket, like a minor volcano erupting.

  I said: "Are you sure all those fag-ends were out?"

  Figgis slammed the ashtray back on his desk. "Of course they were," he snapped. "Anyway, you're the one playing with fire."

  I gave Figgis my innocent-eyed look and said: "I can't think what you're talking about."

  "This hit-and-run incident which you claim is a murder. The cops say they haven't got a shred of evidence to back that up."

  "That's because they haven't looked. Besides, if I'm playing with fire, it's because you handed me the matches. You gave me two days to look into the case. The second day hasn't ended yet."

  "And what have you got to show for it?"

  I told Figgis about Georgina Staples aka Fifi Le Bonbon. But I had no evidence to challenge Georgina's denial that she'd killed Hooke in revenge for blackmail.

  I told him about my meeting with Clothilde Tench-Hardie, the dotty old dear who'd shown kindness to Spencer Hooke. And who may have been repaid with blackmail. Again, no proof.

  I told him about the tyre tracks I'd seen on the Bostal road. I described the curious line of holes around the tyre marks in the lay-by.

  He said: "You've got no evidence for a murder, only a theory based on a bunch of facts which are open to different interpretations."

  "So how do you explain the car tracks in the lay-by? Who parks up in a lonely spot on a filthy night?"

  "A courting couple. For them, it wasn't only a filthy night outside the car."

  "And what about the holes around the tyre tracks?"

  "Made by a walking stick I'd say. Perhaps one of them got out of the car during their love making."

  "In the pouring rain?"

  "It was obviously steamed up in the car."

  "So, in a fit of passion, one of the lovers jumped out and went for a stroll, leaning so heavily on the walking stick it made lasting impressions in the mud. That's the most improbable theory I've ever heard."

  "That's what the cops say about your murder idea."

  I shrugged. I had to admit it to myself - I wasn't going to make the Hooke murder story stand up.

  But I did have a potential story on a drug smuggling ring. Owen Griffiths had to be testing drugs when I spied on him in the school chemistry lab.

  I told Figgis what I knew about Griffiths and the mystery man who'd driven away in the van.

  Figgis lit up a Woodbine and asked: "Have you tackled Griffiths about what he was doing in the lab?"

  "No. He'd cook up some plausible excuse and he'd know I was on to him. He'd be extra careful in the future. I need more evidence before I question him again. Like finding the driver of the mystery van."

  Figgis glanced at his watch. "Your sixty seconds seem to have been up some time ago," he said.

  "According to Albert Einstein, time is a relative concept anyway."

  Figgis sucked on his fag and blew out a long stream of smoke.

  "What's not relative is that the deadline for you producing a story expires at midnight tonight. In just over seven hours. You'll never do it in time. I said you were playing with fire."

  I stood up and headed for the door.

  "And I'm not the only one," I said as I opened the door. "I said you shouldn't have tossed those dog-ends in your waste basket. It's burning."

  I stepped smartly outside and closed the door behind me.

  ***

  When I got back to my desk, I found Cedric had left a copy of the night final edition draped over my typewriter.

  I glanced at the front page. The paper led with a story about a row in Brighton Council. That may have fascinated the people who worked there, but it would bore most readers. What they wanted was human interest - like a good murder story.

  But, if Figgis was right, I didn't have one.

  With the night final on the streets, the newsroom was winding down for the day.

  Most reporters had already quit their desks. Sally Martin finished a telephone call and put down the receiver. Phil Bailey collected up an untidy pile of papers and shoved them in a drawer. Susan Wheatcroft tucked her chair under the desk and slung a shawl around her shoulders.

  She sidled up to me: "Hiya, honeybunch. Would you let a big girl show you a good time?" she said in voice loaded with laughter.

  I grinned. "What had you in mind?"

  "Well, we'd start by taking our clothes off and then hold a vote on the next move." Her two chins wobbled as she chuckled.

  "By proportional representation, I hope."

  "If you've got the representation, I've got the proportions, honeybunch."

  "At least that doesn't need a recount," I said. "But, on second thoughts, I think I’d better spend the evening at church."

  Susan pulled a disappointed face at that. "Well, if your knees get sore from too much kneeling, you just let Susan kiss them better."

  She pushed through the newsroom doors and I could hear her laughing as she clattered down the stairs.

  But I hadn't been joking about the church.

  With so little time left, I'd decided the best chance of making my story stand up was to visit St Andrew's. Clothilde Tench-Hardie had told me the bell-ringers were holding a practice this evening.

  It would be the first time they'd met without Spencer Hooke. I wanted to see their reactions.

  ***

  It was twilight by the time I drove into Steyning.

  I'd used the journey from Brighton to think of the best way to approach the evening. The bell-ringers were arriving to practice for the Mother’s Day service. They wouldn't want a journalist hanging around.

  They'd know I was on the prowl for scandal, so I'd be as welcome in the church as Old Nick himself. Besides hanging around in the nave - a knave in the nave, I thought - wouldn't get me anywhere. The bell-ringers would be in the bell tower. No admittance to non-ringers. Especially crime reporters.

  So my only option was to fall back on the old reporters' trick of door-stepping. But that wasn't going to be easy. When I'd looked around the church in the afternoon, I'd noticed at least two doors in. I had no idea which one the bell-ringers used.

  In the end, I parked my car about fifty yards down the street from the church so it wasn't too obvious. And waited.

  Clothilde had told me the practice began at seven o'clock. I glanced at my watch. Twenty to seven. I guessed they'd turn up a bit before. Did bell-ringers wear special kit like Morris dancers? I had no idea.

  I sat in the car and gazed at the church. Its grey flint walls and brown tiled roof stood as a stark outline against the darkening sky behind. The Normans had knocked up the place after they'd invaded the country in 1066. Good of them, as if we couldn't have built our own churches. Still, they'd made a solid job of it. It was still standing nine hundred years later. Mind you, they'd had to add a couple of buttresses on the outside of the bell tower to stop it falling down.

  I was thinking about this when I
spied Georgina Staples hurrying down the street. She was wearing a three-quarter length coat over a brown pleated skirt with a hem just below the knee. This was not the time to speculate whether there was exotic underwear beneath the modest outfit. For all I knew, she had a pair of bottle-green bloomers especially for bell ringing.

  The wind had blown her hair over her face and she brushed it back as she stepped inside the church porch.

  We'd said our piece to one another earlier in the afternoon, so I kept my head down in the car. I didn't want to attract her attention.

  A couple of minutes later Owen Griffiths appeared, walking eastwards along the street. He raised his hand to wave and, for a moment, I thought he'd spotted me in the car. But I glanced over my shoulder through the back window. Clothilde Tench-Hardie, dressed in a tweed jacket and skirt, was striding along from the opposite direction. I slunk down in my seat as I didn't want to speak to either of them just yet.

  The pair met at the church gate. Griffiths gallantly kissed Clothilde on both cheeks. Clothilde took Griffiths's arm and the pair walked up the path and into the church. Griffiths said something. Clothilde nodded and laughed. Perhaps Griffiths had told a joke. Or perhaps he was offering her drugs at a knock-down price. It seemed unlikely but I was getting to the point where I thought anything could be true.

  I was musing on this when there was movement at the end of the road. A large grey Bentley moved silently up the street like it owned the place. There'd only be one bell-ringer with a Bentley. Charles Fox. The merchant banker with the ethics of a back-street bookie, Susan had told me.

  The car nosed into the side of the road outside the church and pulled up. The driver's door opened and a tall man stepped into the street. He stood by the Bentley and looked about as though he was expecting a round of applause. He had deep-set eyes, a beaky nose and thin lips. His dark brown hair was swept back from his forehead, cut around his ears, and fell to his collar in an upturned curl. The sort of haircut which looked like he'd done it himself but probably cost ten pounds in Trumper's of Mayfair.

  He was dressed in an open-necked shirt with blue stripes fastened with gold cufflinks. He wore a pair of pillar-box red moleskin trousers. A tweed jacket completed the ensemble. He could have modelled for one of those fancy fashion catalogues you see with clothes you can never afford. And wouldn't buy even if you could. He had a thick cigar - a real Winston Churchill job - wedged between his lips.