‘And he bumped his head, too, on the way?’
‘Not necessarily. We need the doctor to say if he suffered that before or after death,’ said Patrick. ‘I think he was struck on the head and left in the snow. At the rate it was falling on Saturday night, his attacker would know he would soon be buried and would die from suffocation or exposure, or both.’
‘But, Patrick, if you’re right, it’s the most terrible, callous thing and someone should be trying to discover who did it,’ Liz cried.
‘I am trying to discover who did it,’ said Patrick, grandly.
‘I don’t mean you. I mean the police.’
‘They can’t, until a helicopter can get in. There isn’t a copper in Greutz, it’s administered from outside. And the powers-that-be won’t like it anyway. They’d much rather it was an accident – bad for the carefree holiday image.’
‘But justice would have to be done.’
‘It will be anyway,’ said Patrick grimly. ‘I shall see to it.’
‘Can’t a helicopter come in now? It seems colder to me, and it’s almost stopped snowing.’
‘No. There are huge masses of snow piled up on the mountain tops just waiting for a bit of turbulence to bring them down. The burgomeister told me it will have to get much colder to fix the snow before they can come in,’ said Patrick. ‘But meanwhile our man or woman will have had a severe shock. He – we’ll assume it was a man for argument’s sake, but it could as easily have been a woman – will have expected Bernard to be lost without trace indefinitely, till the thaw, so he’ll be putting on a big act now. With luck, he’ll make a slip and give himself away. Now, come along, Liz. I’ve got one little job you can help me with before you cook the lunch. What are you going to wear, to keep warm on the way, since you’ve sacrificed your anorak in the interests of forensic science?’
‘I’ve got a coat,’ said Liz. She hung her anorak over the towel rail in the bathroom and put the bathmat under it to catch the worst of the drips, and took the sheepskin coat she had travelled out in from the cupboard. She put it on, and her warm ankle boots, and tied a scarf over her head.
‘What’s the job, besides cooking the lunch? If ever there was a back-handed invitation—’
Patrick broke in.
‘You brought June Foster’s skis back from the clinic, didn’t you? Would you know them again? Are they still here or have they been handed in?’
‘As far as I know they’re still here. I should think everyone’s forgotten about them, I certainly had,’ Liz said. ‘Yes, I think I’d know them. I remember where I put them.’
‘Thank goodness for an orderly female with a trained mind,’ said Patrick. He set down one of his parcels. ‘These are Bernard’s clothes. They’re dry but grubby. I’ll leave them here for now. There was nothing interesting in his other pockets, just some coins and his front-door key.’
‘Oh dear, must you?’ Liz eyed the parcel in a resigned way.
‘There’s no point in carting it up to Max’s. It’ll have to be packed up with the rest of his things, after all. You’ll probably end up in charge of the sad suitcase, if you aren’t careful.’
Liz, warned, resolved that she would dodge this duty. Francis should undertake it. But Francis might be—no, she would not admit such a thought. How could Francis have any grudge against Bernard? There were limits to how far she would follow Patrick with his theories, and some people must be absolutely free of all suspicion. Unbidden, the thought of Freddie Derrington and Barbara sprang into her mind, but could they be linked with Bernard?
‘There was no little book?’ she asked. ‘No blackmailer’s diary, full of scandal?’
‘No. But the murderer would have taken it away, out of Bernard’s pocket, if there had been,’ said Patrick.
‘What’s in that other parcel?’
‘June’s ski-boots. Come along.’
Patrick led the way through the hall, past the dining-room and down to the ski-room by the indoor route. Then he undid the parcel. One of the boots had been cut to get it off June’s foot on the injured leg; the other was intact.
‘Now, which are her skis?’
The racks were full, for no one was out today, but Liz, with very little hesitation, lifted out a pair.
‘I know these are hers, I put them in next to mine, and I noticed the number on them,’ she said.
Patrick took them from her, undid them, and laid them on the ground. Then he pushed forward the levers which closed the clips over the toes of the boots, and placed the boots in position. He was able to fasten the undamaged one without much effort, but the damaged one needed considerable force.
Liz watched him.
‘Well?’ he said to her.
‘Patrick, for God’s sake, I’m not one of your wretched pupils, tell me what you’re driving at,’ she said.
‘Isn’t it obvious? One of the bindings was much too tight. If she fell, her ski wouldn’t come off and if she fell in an awkward place, there would be a good chance ofher getting hurt. As she was a total beginner, she was certain to fall eventually, particularly if she got too tired.’
Liz stared.
‘You mean Roy – you mean he wanted her to break her leg? But they’d only just got married.’
‘I suppose that isn’t really what it sounds like, the non-sequitur to beat all,’ said Patrick. ‘He may not have intended her to hurt herself as badly as she did – a sprain or wrench might have been enough.” He unfastened the boots, lashed the skis together and gave them to Liz to replace in a spot where she could find them again.
‘I was afraid he might have adjusted the binding again by this time. He will, I expect. That will prove his guilt,’ he said.
‘But I don’t understand,’ Liz said. ‘Couldn’t it have been just a bad bit of fitting by the shop?’
‘I know they’re not always marvellous about adjusting skis in sportshops, but they make them fit so that you can do them up, and thereafter it’s up to the wearer,’ said Patrick. ‘Roy could have screwed that clip up when June had got it on, she wouldn’t have known any better, and no one else would have thought of looking at it. A lehrer might have, but they had no lehrer with them.’
‘Well, I still don’t see why he should want to do such a thing,’ Liz insisted.
‘Neither do I, yet. But I’m going to understand it all soon,’ Patrick promised. ‘Pop these boots up to your room with the rest of the stuff, will you, old girl? I’ll wait here for you.’
It was a waste of breath to protest. Liz silently took the boots from him, carried them up to her room, locked them into her suitcase with Bernard’s papers, since they seemed to be some sort of evidence, and returned to him. He was standing in the ski-room, staring round at the heaps of stacked skis and the stored toboggans, as if his mind were totally blank. They left together by the door that led to the lane.
As they walked through the village, Liz told him about her excursion to the annexe.
‘I don’t know why I did it, or what I meant to do, in fact,’ she said. ‘I seem to have caught the prying habit from you. I never used to listen at doors.’
‘Liz Morris, I’m proud of you,’ he said. ‘Do you suppose they’re both still in there?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen either of them.’
‘Maybe he wanted his little wife out of the way because Fiona seemed more exciting,’ Patrick mused.
‘Oh, Patrick, no! When he’d only just got married!’
‘I wonder what the background is to that marriage. It seems a most unpromising alliance, doomed already. Do you think you could find out?’
Liz sighed a little.
‘Sue already has. You know how soft-hearted she is. In the intervals of carrying on with Jan – I suppose they must come up for air sometimes – she’s been having tea and sympathy with June. Roy’s hardly been near her since the accident. It seems her father’s a tycoon of some sort, very rich. She’s an only child. Her mother and Roy’s were at school together, the kids saw
a lot of one another through the years and apparently drifted into the marriage. Roy farms somewhere in the Cotswolds. His father’s dead and his mother’s moving into a small house nearby, part of his farm. June loves riding and country life and she’s a Cordon Bleu cook.’
‘Hm. Miss Moneybags, eh?’
‘Sounds like it.’
‘Noticed anything funny about any of the others?’
‘Not really. That is—’ Liz hesitated.
‘What? Tell uncle. Is it about your Francis?’
‘He’s not my Francis,’ said Liz, furiously. ‘And it isn’t him, it’s his wife. It’s nothing really, and yet – I don’t know.’
‘Well, come on, then. Tell me.’
‘It’s Barbara and Freddie Derrington. They haven’t met before, at least they haven’t said so; and if they have they’re superb actors, they carried it off marvellously on Saturday night. But there is something between them, I can sense it. And they were both in Malta last summer.’
‘I remember them chatting about Malta. There was something odd about that conversation, I agree, but I don’t know what exactly. They didn’t start any of that “Did you meet old Joe?” stuff, seeking for mutual chums which one usually does on these occasions.’
‘No, they didn’t. And I thought Barbara definitely didn’t want to pursue it.’
‘It could be just coincidence. However, I’m a staunch believer in intuition, providing one can use it to discover facts,’ Patrick said. ‘What do you know about friend Francis that I don’t?’
‘Very little. You were there when he said he’d been married before. He told me he’d been a prisoner during the war and I told you. He hid somewhere near here after he escaped, I don’t know where exactly. But none of us had met Bernard before.’
‘It may not be anything like that. Bernard may have stumbled on something here in Greutz.’
‘You mean he might have seen Roy fixing June’s skis?’
‘Not that. I doubt if anyone would have noticed that if Roy did it when June put them on. But some such thing, yes. Some shady business going on here under our noses.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Liz. ‘I do wish I could prove that you’re wrong, but I’m beginning to feel there is something in this idea of yours.’
‘Well, bend your intellect towards helping me to discover what it is,’ Patrick urged.
The priest came out of the little church as they went past it. He said to them, ‘Gruss Gott,’ and walked on, hands thrust into the wide sleeves of his brown cassock, his woolly cap on his head and his beard curling on to his chest.
‘Could it be a local thing?’ Liz suggested, desperately. ‘Could Bernard have stumbled on some village feud? He spoke no German, or hardly any, but no one would know that.’
‘Maybe,’ Patrick conceded. ‘It could be something like that, but if so I doubt if we’ll ever get to the bottom of it.’
‘Seeing the priest gave me the idea,’ Liz said, relieved that Patrick had not instantly shot it down in flames. ‘He’s quite old. He must have been here during the war. Something may have happened then that they don’t want to be reminded about.’
‘I should think plenty of things did,’ said Patrick thoughtfully. ‘I get your point.’
The snow was much deeper on the road to the professor’s chalet than in the main street, for fewer people had passed this way, but most householders had made some attempt at clearing it from their own pathways.
‘It doesn’t look as if Max will ever get his car out again,’ said Patrick. ‘And I’ll be here for days.’ Against the professor’s garage door, huge drifts of snow had collected. A narrow track led from the road to the front door. Patrick said he had cleared it before breakfast, but though the snow had slackened off during the morning, it was coming down harder again now, in tiny stinging flakes.
‘It’s much colder,’ Liz said. The glass has gone up, too. Did you notice?’
Patrick had. He inhaled deeply, standing on the front doorstep. Their twin tracks were sharply outlined in the soft new snow on the path behind them.
‘The wind has changed direction,’ he said. ‘Perhaps an anti-cyclone’s on its way.’ He opened the door and they went in. Patrick took off his boots and anorak and put them in the cloakroom which led off the hall. ‘Put your things in here, Liz,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell Max you’ve come.’
Liz brushed her boots so hard that she could keep them on without risk of polluting Helga’s polished floor. It was such a relief to walk around in ordinary sheepskin boots instead of heavy, unyielding ski-boots. Patrick went through to the study. The professor was sitting at his desk, papers spread all round him.
‘Ah, Patrick, is it snowing again?’ he asked.
‘Yes, but not hard. Had a nice, peaceful morning? I’ve brought Liz back to cook the lunch. Pork chops, I took them from your freezer earlier.’
‘Splendid. What time is it?’
‘It’s just after twelve.’
‘Good gracious, is it? I thought it was only about eleven o’clock.’ The professor gathered together a sheaf of papers. ‘I’ve just been amending those footnotes in the final chapter. Have you had a satisfactory morning?’
‘It depends how you define satisfaction,’ Patrick said. ‘The missing skier has been found.’
‘Oh?’ The professor looked at Patrick over the top of his glasses and then said ‘Oh’ again on a different note. ‘I see by your face that the news is not good,’ he said. ‘Where was he?’
‘In the river. He’d been washed down to the bridge.’ Once again, Patrick described how the body had been found.
‘How very sad,’ said the professor. ‘I’m so sorry. What a tragedy.’
‘I’ll leave you to wind up your chapter and tell you the rest at lunch,’ said Patrick.
‘Yes, indeed,’ the professor agreed. ‘Do that. Poor man. Ah well.’ He picked up his pen, half his attention still with his sources.
Patrick found Liz already in the kitchen peeling potatoes. She wore a large yellow apron she had found on a hook behind the door. It was big enough to go round her twice.
‘You look quite enchanting,’ Patrick told her. He got the rum from the cupboard and poured out two tots. ‘You can knock off drink when you get home,’ he said. ‘You need it now to keep you going through this crise. Now then, while you cook, I’ll cogitate.’
‘Do it aloud, please.’
‘All right.’ Patrick raised his glass. ‘To justice,’ he said, swallowed half its contents, and began.
‘We have here a group of British holiday-makers, as far as we know none of whom had met before except for those who came in couples, namely the Whittakers, the Derringtons, the Fosters, and you and Sue.’
‘I hope you’re not casting us in the role of suspects?’
‘Not at present. Sue’s been far too busy.’
‘Jan—’ Liz hesitated.
‘Well?’
‘No. Nothing. Jan couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it. And he hasn’t tried to hide his frolic with Sue, so that’s no motive, though he is married.’
‘I imagine the frolic, as you so charmingly describe it, is pretty harmless,’ Patrick observed, dryly.
‘I refuse to give an opinion.’
‘Don’t be so prim. But it’s possible that if some local feud were involved, as you suggested, connected with the war, there could be a link with Jan.’
‘Not very likely, is it? We’re a long way from Holland, and he’s too young.’
‘I agree it’s far-fetched, but he must have had a father, brothers possibly – relations who could have been deported. And physically he’s very strong; he could easily have carried Bernard’s body before dumping it.’
‘Don’t you think he was killed down by the river?’
‘Not really. From the impression I have of his character I think it unlikely that he would have walked there voluntarily, and particularly without his galoshes. Anyway, to return to our list, in addition to our three British couple
s and you two, we have Fiona, a sexy piece if you like them angular and pixilated; Penny, who is adorable; Sam Irwin, who is complicated; and Bernard. They were all together that night when Bernard was last seen alive.’
‘Surely it must have been the Derringtons or the Fosters?’ said Liz.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because he disappeared as soon as they arrived. If it was anyone else, they’d have done it sooner.’
‘Not necessarily. You say he was always scuttling about. If he was a sort of peeping Tom and petty blackmailer, it may have taken him a week to find out something he could act on.’
The chops were sizzling nicely now, and Liz was making a sauce to pour over them before finishing them in the oven.
‘Smells good,’ said Patrick. ‘You’re wasted in single life.’
Liz ignored this.
‘I don’t see how you can possibly find out any more. It’s all just theory,’ she said. ‘Maybe he did have a scuffle with someone he was spying on, but they can’t have meant to kill him.’
‘I do know some more,’ Patrick informed her. ‘I had an interesting telephone conversation this morning with Colin Smithers. You know who I mean.’
‘That’s your copper pal, isn’t it? He’s at Scotland Yard now, you said.’
‘The same. And he’s been promoted, too. He’s a Detective Inspector now. I asked him to check what he could from the addresses on those postcards Bernard had written, and what I knew about everyone else.’
‘Patrick! You mean you got him ferreting about into the affairs of all of us? The Whittakers and the Derringtons? You go too far.’
‘Oh, it was all done very discreetly. He hasn’t had time to turn up much so far, but now we know Bernard’s dead there really is something to investigate. He was very interested in what I told him this morning.’
Silent Witness (Dr. Patrick Grant) Page 12