Mosley and Beamish then went, as scheduled, to Priscilla Bladon’s house to bring the three witches down to the churchyard. This was done in a Black Maria under armed escort and their cloaks swirled behind them as they were rushed towards the bell tent. There was no doubting from the imperious billowing of her folds that Priscilla Bladon was queen-pin. Susan Bexwell wore her costume with an over-neatness that tended to spoil the illusion. And Deirdre Harrison was unable to wear even fancy dress as if she had any interest in clothes.
The tent had been pitched so that its entrance-flaps were on the side from which no one but ambushing policemen could see them. A length of dark-painted wattlefencing had been erected for the witches to dodge behind. Lights went on in the tent. The whining of the synthesizers started. The fabricated silhouettes began their macabre dance on the canvas sides. Orders were that Mosley was not to move the women until darkness had had another twenty minutes to complete its hold. He slipped away to the command post to see the state of the operational log.
The trouble with the Assistant Commissioner (Terrorism) was not that he was steeped in military command. He was a military commander manque—had never risen above staff captain. His planning was thorough, his imagination was lively—up to a point and his efficiency was striking—but only as far as concerned what he had foreseen.
His radio-reported tracking of the three from the motel was a model of its kind. He knew that they had settled their accounts after breakfast this morning, that they had then split up about Bradcaster in occupations that made them look very like office-equipment salespersons. The man calling himself Bates and the woman called Sarah Saunders had lunched together. Halfway through the afternoon, the third member of the party, obviously their getaway man, picked up an unobtrusive but souped-up Cortina that he had had garaged on the edge of town, and drove up towards one of the outer and upper flanks of Marldale—where he was to fall foul of one of Traffic’s most impenetrable snarl-ups. Bates and the woman parked in the disused loop of road that harboured Smoky Joe’s. They then went on on foot, the man carrying a sports bag that might possibly contain the parts of a readily assembled firearm. The woman had a black miniature poodle in her arms and was carrying a small transistor-set to which she was hooked up by an earpiece. It seemed that they were going to approach Upper Marldale by Herbert Garside’s—which, as far as Ordnance Survey knew, was still a charming footpath open to the public. The AC(T) sent a message up the Nab that laudable though he had found the interception of Peter Muller, the couple were to be let through unimpeded.
Mosley returned to the bell tent and told Beamish and the women to accompany him in close Indian file through the trees. Beamish in the rear as party whip. They had not gone far before Beamish made his way to the front of the column.
“This is not the way back to Miss Bladon’s house.”
“We’re not going to Miss Bladon’s house.”
“But orders are—”
“Too inflexible,” Mosley said. “That’s my only criticism of the Assistant Commissioner.”
“Really, Mosley—I’ve backed you up in some dubious situations before now, but on an operation of this magnitude—”
“An operation of this magnitude will come to nothing unless someone has a loop-line for alternative events.”
“Really, Mosley, I don’t think I can stay with you on this.”
“You won’t be with me much longer, Sergeant Beamish.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just think of me as Mr. Flexibility,” Mosley said.
He led them up to the Old Tollhouse, whose grounds were one of the most heavily guarded areas. But its guards were a contingent from the Pringle sub-division, all of whom knew Mosley too well to question any on-the-spot order that he gave.
“I want to get these people indoors as quickly and quietly as possible.”
And two men came out of the shadows, one of them carrying heavy professional photographic equipment.
“Mr. Mosley? Morning Herald. We’ve been told to meet you here.”
“I thought they’d see sense. Come in, gentlemen. This is your one big journalist-of-the-year chance.”
He took the party, not into the Tollhouse living-quarters, but into the studio-annexe.
“We are going to secrete ourselves in here. I’m afraid it’s going to be a weird vigil, because very shortly I’m going to insist on our sitting in darkness. Sergeant Beamish—now is the time for you to leave.”
“I think, perhaps, after all—”
“Leave, Sergeant Beamish!”
“No, Mr. Mosley—I’m in this with you.”
“I have another job for you. Why do you think I asked you to find out from Major Hindle how he used to get up here from the village without being seen by any of the gossips? A footpath from the back corner of the garden. I want you to follow that path down. Come outside, and I’ll fill you in.”
Deirdre had taken off her witch’s hat and balanced it on one of the struts of an easel. She was sitting awkwardly on the folds of her cloak.
Mosley went out with Beamish, having first taken from the bag he was carrying a bottle of half-litre size. He was gone some time, and while he was away the women talked desultorily and with only artificial interest in any subject that was brought up.
“News time,” Priscilla Bladon said unexpectedly. “I wonder if Bea Cater’s radio is still here? Let’s see what they’re saying about us.”
She went into the living-room and came back with a portable set tuned in to Radio Bradcaster. When Mosley returned, they were still agog with a news item. On one of the link roads outside Bradburn someone had driven a car at reckless speed into a telegraph-pole. It was difficult to see how such an accident could have happened on an otherwise deserted highway, unless the steering had gone completely out of control. The vehicle was a twisted write-off, the telegraph-pole had emerged through the boot and the driver was unrecognizable.
They were silent to let Mosley hear the repetition of the headlines at the end of the bulletin. There was a stop-press announcement that the car had been identified from its number-plate as belonging to a senior County Council official. His name was not announced, since the vehicle might well have been stolen, and since the next-of-kin had not yet been informed.
So Tod Hunter had gone to his death in the hope that his family would have the advantage of a newly accepted additional life policy?
“I didn’t foresee this,” Mosley said. “No one could have done. Sarah Saunders was carrying a radio, listening to pop music. I expect. If she’s heard that news, they’ll call the murder off. Dead men’s executors don’t settle this kind of contract. The Assistant Commissioner’s waiting for them to come in through his cordon. He won’t even know they’re already on their way out—having no doubt dumped their weapons. So even if they are picked up, there’ll be nothing to identify them with felonious intent: just another pair of sight-seers. However—”
He went out and conferred with the Pringle men on gate and perimeter duty, making sure they put themselves out of sight. Then he went back indoors and asked for lights out, silence, and no movement—whatever he himself might do.
The patrol lying low along Herbert Garside’s footpath were faithful to the AC’s orders. They let Reginald Bates and Sarah Saunders pass, even though the pair came so close that they could hear the faint, tinny sound escaping from the ear-piece of their transistor. A few yards further on, the couple stopped.
“Finished!” the woman whispered. “This is it, Reg.”
“Why?”
“Hunter’s topped himself.”
“What now, then? Back the way we came?”
“Like hell. I’ve had enough of this assault course. And I’m up to my knees in shit and dirt. We’ll go on down into the village, just be two more in the crowd, get up to where Des is parked as best we can. And get rid of that bloody gun.”
Bates threw the sports bag away from him. A constable retrieved it after they had passed out of he
aring.
“My God, Sarge—look what we’ve got here!”
Bates and Saunders emerged into the heart of the village, strolling, looking about them as if they had never been here before—and as if they were not impressed by what they saw. There were a lot of people out of doors, but they were mostly villagers. Very few had walked down from where they had left their vehicles in the tangle that it was going to take hours to sort out. The shadow dance was still going on inside the tent. The electronic music seemed to be playing the background score from a Hammer film. The pair watched for a few minutes, moving gradually from the churchyard wall to the Square, then quickening their pace up the hill towards the Tollhouse.
It was here that the poodle took a sudden flying leap out of her mistress’s arms, furrowed into the overgrown grass of the verge, disappeared into the hedge bottom and was heard to struggle out again higher up. The woman dived after her.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake leave her!” the man said. “Haven’t we had trouble enough with that damned animal?”
But Sarah Saunders continued to chase the bitch up the hill, across the road, into another ditch, then out again, and so in at the gate of the Old Tollhouse. There was no sign of human activity anywhere along its boundaries.
“Oh, God—not here again!”
But she pursued her pet into the house, through the living-room, into the bedroom where Beatrice Cater’s vertebrae had parted at the neck.
“Oh, no! Not here! Come out of it! There’s nobody there. They’ve cleaned it all up.”
Then something brushed against her legs. A cat. Boudicca—released by Mosley from the adjacent studio.
“Not you too! Reg—that bloody cat’s still here! Remember, you couldn’t perform with it watching you? Well old friend, I slung you out once, I’ll sling you out again.”
And she picked up the cat and flung her out through the open front door. At which all was light, men from the Pringle sub-division seemed to be everywhere, and Mosley was prominent.
“Been here before, have you? Slung a cat out, did you? Couldn’t rise to the occasion with her watching, could he? Better take her down to the Assistant Commissioner, Sergeant. Her boy-friend too. Say that if they have any difficulty about what sort of statements we want from them, I’ll be down presently to make a few suggestions.”
But conversation then stopped, even among the uniformed men who had surrounded Bates and Saunders and were fiddling with handcuffs. Something struck across the moist night air: the church clock of Upper Marldale.
“Good old Beamish!” Deirdre said.
“Bugger me! That’s going to cost my management a tidy penny,” said the staff photographer.
“Well, I put it to your boss,” Mosley told him. “Smuggle my sergeant into that church tower, and your reporters can stay with Crafty Jack for the rest of the evening. Besides, as I pointed out: if he’d exposed our witches as frauds, his circulation would have been back to normal the next morning. But a gift of a playing-field to an impoverished community—that ought to gain him at least a dozen new readers up here in Marldale.”
“Have you finished with me?” Deirdre asked. “I don’t know whether your sergeant still fancies me—or whether he ever really did. But I think I owe it to myself to go down and find out.”
Copyright
First published in 1986 by Quartet Books
This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world
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Copyright © John Greenwood, 1986
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Mists Over Mosley Page 19