by Roy Lewis
Just before five-thirty Crow rang the Lendon office and spoke to Cathy Tennant. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’ve been busy, Inspector. It’s helped. Have you found Mike yet?’
‘No. You’ve heard nothing from him?’
‘We’ve . . . we’ve not been in touch for days.’
Not since the night in the woods, Crow thought grimly.
‘Inspector, I, don’t want to sit at home all night; I can’t face it. I’m thinking of going to see Mrs Bell. Did . . . did she expect much from . . . Lendon?’
Crow told her what Alex Bell had said about the arrangement she'd made with Lendon. Cathy was silent for a moment.
‘I must see her,’ she said suddenly. ‘I can’t let things stand like this. I can’t accept everything from the estate. He . . . he was wrong, leaving so much to me. I must see her, tell her the house must be hers. I couldn’t take it away from her . . . I must tell her, before she hears the details of the will from other sources.’
‘It’s up to you, Cathy.’ He understood the other unspoken need that she felt. The need to make some contact, reach for something or someone that Charles Lendon had known and touched, possibly loved. She wanted to break through the barriers of her own experience and know Lendon as someone close to him had known him. The old, shadowy existence that he had had for her as an employer was no longer enough. She wanted to know more of him as a person.
‘I think I’ll go out there tonight. You have no objection?’
‘There’s no objection at this end, Cathy. But I say again, don’t be too late home. It’s been a rough day for you. You need rest. And Enson . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘When we find him, I’ll let you know.’
She made no reply but he guessed that she would have appreciated the reasons that motivated him. After she rang off he prowled uneasily around the room for a while. Something bothered him. Nothing he could put a finger on. But the Enson situation bothered him, Cathy bothered him, and there was something else. Chords; chords on a piano, too many false chords. The whole investigation was out of tune: he knew it, but he could not detect where the tunelessness lay. He went down to the canteen for a cup of tea.
He was interested to note that, like himself, Simpson was staying late at HQ. Wilson took a break about six and Turner came in and out: the young detective-sergeant seemed to be in no hurry to leave. Crow brooded, hunched in his chair like a great black bird. He was aware of the simile that would be bandied about the station: he’d lived too long with it to be bothered by it. But he was bothered about something.
At eight-thirty the door opened suddenly and Simpson stood there with a sour expression. ‘It’s getting to look like no race at all.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Your bloody intuition! Barnes was in the nursing home that night. There’s an old porter who substantiates it . . . night and morning. So much for your theories!’
His heavy brows drew together.
‘But your suspect, young Enson. One of my boys just picked him up, causing a disturbance in a club in Canthorpe.’
‘But—’
‘He’s drunk as a flaming newt. Now which of us can see the winning-post, Crow?’
Chapter 18
Chief Inspector Crow contemplated the young man lolling indolently in the chair in front of him. He was aware of Wilson’s impassive countenance behind Enson: the detective-sergeant sat with a notebook on the desk in front of him.
‘Well?’
Mike Enson cocked a cool eyebrow and smiled a lop-sided smile.
‘Never felt better,’ he said and the smile expanded into a grin and a hiccough. The bruise on his cheek seemed to bother him in no way. Perhaps he was hardly aware of it.
‘I think you should tell me all about it,’ Crow suggested.
‘You do? All about it? Hell’s bells, it’s a long story.’
‘I’ve plenty of time.’
‘Where do we start?’
‘Wherever you think it’s relevant.’
‘Revel . . . revel . . . relevant. Hell, what you talking about? Whatsit you want me to talk about it . . . this blasted room.’
Enson suddenly leaned forward, lurching in the chair, and Crow stood up. ‘Coffee, Wilson, and streams of it.’
‘Coffee . . .’ Enson muttered. ‘Bliss . . .’ It was likely to be a long evening.
Yet in the event, it wasn’t. Enson was young, and his powers of recuperation were considerable. He had obviously taken what he described as a ‘skinful’, but three cups of coffee drained in quick succession seemed to place his head more securely on his shoulders and his mind more firmly on his situation.
‘I got out of here once, didn’t I?’ he asked thickly.
‘Why don’t you start with that?’
‘With my leaving the station?’ Enson’s slate-grey eyes were narrowed against the smoke of the cigarette that Wilson had provided at his request. It gave his face a lean, wary expression that was not in accordance with the elements of inebriation that Crow had observed to date.
‘Why did I leave the station, that’s what you wanted to know? Hell, why else? I wanted a drink. And I took one. Boy, did I took one.’
He was sobering, but still having trouble with his tenses.
‘All right,’ Crow said, sitting down behind the desk. ‘You wanted a drink, you went out to get one, you had another, you stayed in the club most of the day, you drank yourself almost into a stupor this evening, and you got involved in a fight with the barman after he refused to serve you anymore. And you did not, of course, know I was looking for you.’
Enson grinned again, wickedly. ‘Why? Did you want a drink too?’
‘Games,’ Crow said with quiet deliberation, ‘are over.’
Silence fell. Enson’s face became calm and he drew on his cigarette. His eyes were still narrowed and watchful. He was very much in command of himself in spite of his foolish remarks and, no doubt, his pounding head. A young man, thought Crow, of some quality of temperament. But he suddenly submitted.
‘All right, games are indeed over. The day started badly, went like a bomb thereafter but here I am back in the fold. Okay, get it over with.’
‘Get what over with?’
‘The muck-spreading, the digging, the smearing, the kicking, the knifing, hell, call it what you will! Just get it over with so I can get out of here. I can take it now. I’m lined; my stomach has got a thick protective coating of alcohol and I just don’t give a damn for you or your long police nose.’
‘From which I gather the reason why you left here this morning was that you wanted to get what is commonly called Dutch courage.’
‘Sneer away, friend, and call it what you will. Didn’t you realize I was a tender plant? Didn’t you realize that when I’m down I’m kickable? Okay, then kick. I’ll squeal a little but not too much. Not now.’
‘Did Lendon’s conduct towards your father mean that much to you?’
The slate-grey eyes widened, flickering. Enson shrugged.
‘All right, don’t question sensibly, just needle. Yes, it meant a lot to me. It meant to me the loss of an old man who had made his mistakes and paid for them, an old man who got pushed thereafter right over the edge. A man who got stripped of his pride and his self-respect and, in the end, of his life. By Charles Lendon, an unprincipled egotist who skated on the edge of legitimacy and used a lawyer’s cunning to get what he wanted out of life. Hell, like Shakespeare had Dick the Butcher say, let’s kill all the lawyers!’
‘Your father had surely brought things on himself,’ Crow said mildly. For a moment anger flashed across Enson’s handsome features and then he restrained himself with an effort.
‘He’d paid the price, but Lendon rubbed it in, twisted the knife, hell you produce the metaphor and it fits.’
‘That still doesn’t explain—’
‘Why I left this morning? It does for me. I knew you’d get round to this filthy probing. I knew it would get dragged o
ut. I came back to Canthorpe seven years ago—’
‘I’m surprised.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re an able young man, professionally qualified. If reference to your father hurts you now, it must have done then. Why did you come back to Canthorpe at all? Why didn’t you just go where your name meant nothing?’
Enson’s mouth was set in a grim line.
‘You don’t run away from things like that. I was determined that the name Enson shouldn’t remain one to be sneered at, and if I stayed away, I knew there’d be some who would sneer, at me. So I came back and I faced it out and I stayed and I made people forget that Sam Enson had made a mistake.’
‘But that wasn’t the only motive behind your return.’
‘All right, I admit it! Seven years ago I came back to Canthorpe and I had a go at Lendon.’
‘There were three occasions, I understand.’
‘You’ve obviously done your homework. Yes, I came back and I tried to punch it out of my system years ago and it didn’t work, I couldn’t touch Lendon so I sublimated, you know? 1 worked. I drove it under, I buried it. I hated Lendon’s guts but I wasn’t going to let it rule my life. I didn’t get over it, I just shoved it under and let it simmer and I got on with my life. And the sneering stopped and people forgot. But once this whole thing started up with the Old Mill I knew it would come out again, you’d come after me, you’d dig and you’d spread the old story and my father’s name would be out in the papers once more and the muck-raking would start. And it started this morning, didn’t it? I was called here to talk about my feelings for Lendon and his conduct towards my father. And I sat here, and I blistered, man, I blistered, and in the end I thought the hell with it and when that copper walked out I walked out too, straight out, straight to the club and I got soused, good and proper. And that’s that. I’ve finished.’
Crow sat silently, staring at Mike Enson. A little colour had crept into the young man’s cheeks and he was no longer slouching in the chair. But in spite of his outburst, Mike Enson’s eyes remained cool, as the man did himself. Cool, and controlled. Anger came easily to Mike Enson, but control remained.
‘It won’t wash, Mr Enson.’
‘Eh?’
‘We have too much information already available. I think you might just as well tell us the whole story.’
Enson’s lips were set tightly.
‘What story? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve told you—’
‘You’ve told me why you left the station this morning. Nothing more than that. What about the rest?’
If it was an act, it was well presented. Incomprehension. Dawning realization. Crow watched it impassively. Enson said, with an incredulous laugh:
‘You’re actually doing it! You’re trying to link me to Lendon’s murder! I didn’t really think it possible, didn’t think even the police could be that thick, but you’re trying to make out I had something to do with Lendon’s murder!’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘I hated his guts,’ Enson replied feelingly, ‘but I didn’t kill him. Seven years ago it wasn’t outside my contemplation, but I’m seven years older now. If not then, why now, do you think?’
‘Because of Cathy.’
There was silence in the room. Wilson’s head came up to look at the profile presented by Mike Enson. The young surveyor’s face was immobile, the jaw set hard. After a moment he spoke, but his tone had changed: it held a low note, a note of suppressed anger.
‘Spell it out, Inspector Crow. What do I have to do with Lendon’s murder? And what the hell are you talking about, dragging Miss Tennant’s name into it?’
‘You were very fond of her, I gather.’
‘I asked you to spell things out.’
‘Lendon didn’t like the . . . association developing between you.’
‘It had nothing to do with Lendon. He was her employer, not her keeper. It wasn’t his concern. You’re not making sense, Inspector.’
‘But I am. Charles Lendon knew Cathy’s mother.’
No violent reaction occurred; Enson’s face remained stiff, though his eyes flickered briefly. Again, Crow admired his control. After a moment Mike Enson expelled his breath gustily.
‘So what?’
‘Over twenty years ago Charles Lendon seduced his cousin. She later married Arthur Tennant. She gave birth to a child three years later. From what we can gather, Lendon saw in her a way of atoning for the wrong he had done his cousin. He grew fond of Cathy. That’s why it was his concern. That’s why he didn’t like the association with you. That’s why he tried to stop it. And . . .’ Crow paused, weighing the moment ‘. . . and that’s why you killed him.’
The eyes jumped now, shifting in colour greyly, and a muscle twitched in Enson’s cheek.
‘Now I know you’re nuts,’ he said, but without conviction.
‘You asked me to spell it out so I will. You met Cathy Tennant: I have reason to believe the two of you fell in love. She didn’t appreciate Lendon’s feelings, she didn’t know of the enmity that lay between yourself and Lendon. Then Lendon discovered the liaison between you and he was angry. He didn’t want his cousin’s daughter associating with a man who had personally attacked him and who was the son of a convicted man to boot. He had to try to break up the association. When the chance came to do it, he went to the Old Mill. You were confronted by him there and you plunged into his heart the first thing that came to hand: a skewer. It wasn’t premeditated, because you didn’t expect him there. It wasn’t premeditated, but it was still murder.’
Enson was shaking his head.
‘Crazy . . . crazy . . . You can’t possibly prove . . . dammit, Inspector, I was never near the Old Mill that night.’
‘You will no doubt think of an alibi.’ Enson stared at him in amazement.
‘You really believe this rubbish? You really think . . .’
‘Doesn’t it fit? Can’t you see we know? Even Cathy knows: she fought against the reality but she knew in her heart. She knew that you’d killed Lendon, and she loved you and all she could do was to try not to see you, to hope against hope she was wrong, but when she saw innocent people being suspected, and then, finally, when she discovered how Lendon felt about her she had to accept the truth and tell us.’
‘You’re losing me, you’re absolutely losing me.’
A curious irritation crept over Crow.
‘For God’s sake!’ he snapped. ‘Don’t prolong this. You must have realized Cathy knew the truth. You must have guessed it, when she refused to see you, when she ran away from you through the woods—’
‘Inspector, I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to say but—’
‘Don’t make it worse for her, don’t string it out, not when you profess to love her.’
‘Wait!’
Enson was holding up his hand. He was leaning forward in the chair and there was a new line in his body, a new hardness. Moreover, his eyes had changed yet again. The brightness of anger flashed through, the anger that Charles Lendon must have seen. It was an anger that caused Crow some discomfort and increased his irritation. Irritation boded ill for him: it meant he himself was losing control of a situation.
‘Enson—’
‘No! Wait! I want this straight! I said spell it out, but you’re just throwing wild words at me. What on earth are you talking about?’
Crow placed his fingers on the desk and glared at Enson. He was playing a game and he was losing and he’d been stupid and foolish and blind and he had to play the cards he had, even if they were wrong cards.
‘You asked Cathy to meet you at the Mill. Lendon came instead. You killed him. Cathy found out; it broke things up between you. I think you even chased her at one point, in a cold rage, with the idea of silencing her. But it’s done now, Enson, it’s finished. We know, man, we know!’
Mike Enson was shaking his head, slowly and then more vehemently, his eyes never leaving Crow’s face. His expression was o
ne of disbelief, an utter disbelief that anyone could be so homicidally stupid as to say the things Crow was saying. When he saw Enson’s expression the chief inspector rose angrily to his feet, angry for Cathy and angry for himself.
‘For God’s sake, Enson, we’ve got the letter!’
It was then that Crow’s heart sank, when he saw the expression of genuine bewilderment on Enson’s face and heard the scornful contempt in his voice.
‘My dear man, what are you talking about? What bloody letter?’
Chapter 19
She was unable to escape from Charles Lendon.
He filled her mind; she couldn’t see his face or his sardonic smile or the lifting, scarred eyebrow, but he was there: he dominated her thoughts. She felt she should have been more aware of him when he was alive, but now he was dead.
And she had given the letter to the police.
It was a knife in her heart. She couldn’t weep for Charles Lendon the man she hadn’t really known, and she couldn’t weep for Mike Enson, the man she loved, for her mind was patterned with doubt and incomprehension, a cicatriced amorphous mass criss-crossed with questions and uncertainty.
She was in a world that drifted, but she needed to see Alex Bell, for Mrs Bell knew Lendon, had been close to him, and Cathy wanted to know about Charles Lendon. And there was the house too — Crow had told her that Alex Bell had expected the house to be left to her, as part of a ‘bargain’. Cathy had to tell Mrs Bell personally, tell her about the will, tell her that she, Cathy, could not morally retain the house, and make a gift of it to Lendon’s mistress and housekeeper.
She sat in the bus and stared out of the back to the cold glittering surface of the road, marked darkly by wheels slashing along its surface. A heavy whitening frost had fallen and the night air caught at the throat with its sharpness. The headlights of a car far behind the bus rose and dipped and glanced along the distant curves, moving with care, making no attempt to pass the bus on the slippery road. It drove past only when Cathy alighted and walked towards Kenton Lane.