Brinton affected to ignore her reactions. “So, now, I’d like you to tell me whether there’s any of you that doesn’t know the others quite so well as the rest. Or are you all friends together?”
“A sight too well, some of us,” a voice was heard to mutter; and the red-faced woman’s eyes slid sideways towards a tall, thick-browed young man with large hands, who was staring at a girl who tossed her head and carefully ignored him. Everyone else, after a moment or two, agreed that none of them was a stranger to any of his, or her, colleagues.
“Family, friends, and neighbours?” asked Brinton; it was the usual hopping arrangement. A general chorus confirmed it, though the beetling young man was heard to mutter again, and the girl—a pert brunette—once more tossed her head. The older woman had better control of her emotions and her eyes, and pointedly looked the superintendent straight in the face. Brinton made another mental note, even as he enquired:
“Work together mostly, do you?”
“Near enough all the time,” they chorused; and went on to agree that teamwork was the way to get things done.
“The same team every day, of course,” said Brinton. “So how about last week—any different?”
Again that curious, indefinable feeling that those he was questioning knew more than they wished to tell, that the two women and the young man were the most closely involved in whatever . . . conspiracy? No, that was too strong a word . . . in whatever evasive tactics the entire group clearly thought necessary. Brinton knew that he must find out what those tactics were—and just why they had been thought necessary. A few more questions—a better feel for what was going on—and then—
And then everything changed. The woman, still with her eyes fastened in over-innocence upon his face, stiffened—the girl’s eyes gleamed—the angry young man scowled—at the sound of a motor vehicle’s bouncing approach up the long, rutted drive. With a collective movement that was barely more than a thrill, the group signalled to Brinton that here came someone who must be asked the most searching questions of all.
The motor—a large, ramshackle, and aged pickup of a make Brinton did not at once recognise—rattled to a halt just before reaching that part of the drive where the visiting vehicles blocked its way. A tall, well-built young man with wavy brown hair and a smudge of oil on his face climbed out, and waved to the figure of Hezekiah Aythorpe where that large, ramshackle, and aged personage lurked in the shadow of an untrimmed hop bine.
“Got the spares okay—fix the tractor now, shall I?”
Then something about the stillness of the faces turned towards him made him falter in his stride. Brinton looked quickly to the woman: from being flushed and frozen, she was now grey and trembling. He glanced at Foxon, nodded, and advanced, holding out his identification.
“Morning, sir. I’m a police officer. I wonder if you’d mind answering a few quest—”
“Bloody hell!” The young man’s eyes darted from side to side, then back, as if judging the distance to the pickup. He took a deep breath, and rocked on the balls of his feet, swinging his arms.
“Barry!” cried the woman, as his whole body tensed. “Oh no—Barry . . .”
Her cry seemed to anger, rather than calm, him. “Dropped me in it again, haven’t you!” he shouted, spinning round without waiting for a reply. But Foxon was before him, cutting off his line of retreat, standing in front of the aged pickup with his arms folded and an official glare, class one, on his face. Barry hesitated.
“Now, look,” said Foxon, stern but soothing. “There’s no need for any of this—the superintendent just wants to ask you a few questions, and then—”
“Questions be damned!” roared Barry. “I’m bloody sick of questions—poking and prying and never any peace! Why the hell can’t you lot leave me alone?” And, with a scorching oath, he clenched his fists and charged.
Foxon, unfolding his arms, moved with surprising speed to intercept him. Barry swerved—Foxon followed. Barry dodged—Foxon darted—snatched—caught him by the sleeve. Barry swung his arm in a vigorous arc, and narrowly missed the detective’s nose—Foxon, shaken loose, drew himself to his full height, flexed his muscles, and hurled himself in a rugby tackle about his quarry’s knees as Barry once more prepared to run.
Arms and legs flailed, fists flew. Brinton wondered about rushing in as reinforcement, then decided he was a quarter of a century too late for that sort of thing. But Foxon had never shirked a fight, even single-handed, in a good cause; and Barry’s nerve had begun to fail. By the time people had started to dust down both the combatants—Foxon with his tie under his ear, and two buttons torn from his jacket; Barry breathing heavily, his sweatshirt crumpled, his hair over his eyes—there could be no doubt as to the winner.
Nor could there be any doubt that, though his original loquacity had given way to a stubborn silence, Barry Panfield was under arrest.
chapter
~ 17 ~
BY MONDAY MORNING, the only thing which was keeping the blood pressure of Superintendent Brinton under control was the thought of what his wife would say if he ended up in hospital. Old Brimstone wasn’t exactly scared of his wife, but . . .
“If only the silly juggins would agree to a solicitor,” he growled, for the umpteenth time. “I’ve never seen anyone to beat that lad for stonewalling—though you, Foxon, have your moments. Dumb insolence,” he enlarged, as his sidekick looked at him in some surprise. Foxon grinned.
“And you can just stop pulling such horrible faces, laddie! Between you and this Barry character, I’ll be white as a sheet before the day’s out, if not worse,” and he clutched at his hair, groaning quietly to himself.
Foxon was all seriousness now. “If he’s acting so dumb we only know his surname from what his mother told us, poor woman, then we’ve no real hope of finding out whether he’s got a proper alibi for the night of the murder, have we? Unless we try a touch of the rubber hose and truncheons, sir—well, yes, only kidding,” as Brinton turned purple. “But we can’t hang on to him for ever, sir—what about good old Habeas Corpus? I’m surprised our friend Aythorpe hasn’t turned up with a brief in tow, screaming to have his hired hand sprung so’s he can carry on hopping, aren’t you? Knowing how the Brethren like to hold fast to the letter of the law, I mean, sir.”
“Shuttup, Foxon,” said Brinton, with a sigh. “Must you be so damned cheerful, this early in the morning? And don’t tell me it’s past ten—it feels one hell of a lot earlier from where I’m standing!”
There was a thoughtful pause. Foxon, tentatively, broke it. “I’ve been thinking, sir.” Brinton glared, and began to mutter. Foxon hurried on:
“No, sir, no kidding. Look—the main reason we’re interested in Barry Panfield is because he won’t say where he was the other night, isn’t it? Not to mention he fits the description—though as you said yourself, sir, that’s not saying much. And of course, he did take a swipe at me, for no obvious reason,” he added, absently fingering the zigzag kipper tie which had replaced that wrenched out of shape during the previous day’s struggle. Brinton, who did not share his subordinate’s outlandish taste in dress, groaned again, but made no comment.
“Well, sir, perhaps we should try a . . . a process of elimination,” ventured Foxon, after a pause. “I mean—granted he looks like the bloke we think we’re after—wouldn’t it help no end if we could be a bit more sure? We could start chasing his hopping gang for more information—bring his mother in and ask her what she’s hiding—”
“We know what she’s hiding, laddie. All the trouble her precious son’s got up to in the Smoke, over the years, and the way his details are filed away nice and tidy on the computer. Just because all we know about’s the petty stuff, it doesn’t mean he hasn’t been getting up to a helluva lot more we don’t know about yet, does it?”
Foxon murmured vaguely about dogs and bad names; Brinton ignored him. The young man frowned. “If we could bring one or two of those witnesses in for an identity parade, sir . . . well, it’
s not as if we’d be much worse off, is it?”
Brinton, on the point of groaning again, caught himself up and stared, instead. Foxon radiated silent optimism in his chief’s direction, and waited.
“We’ll have to get it out of the way pretty smartish,” said Brinton, at last. “Before that reporter female finds out what we’re doing—I’m surprised she isn’t camped out on the doorstep already.”
“She’ll be off laying one of her false trails, sir, if I know Mel Forby,” said Foxon. “Or writing articles about Why Cockneys Turn to Crime. And you know what they say—while the cat’s away . . .”
“Right, laddie.” Brinton had made up his mind. “I want you on that telephone this minute, rounding up those three witnesses—or as many of ’em as you can find, anyway,” he amended, recalling that it was, after all, Monday morning. “I’ll send Buckland out to collect a bunch of likely decoys—shouldn’t be that hard. With luck, we’ll have the whole thing over in half an hour—once you stop daydreaming round the place and buckle down to some honest work, for a change. Get on with it, Foxon!”
And the superintendent’s final roar showed a gratified Foxon that Old Brimstone was once more back on form.
PC Buckland was accordingly ordered into the streets of Ashford for the purposes of strictly legal procurement; and found it harder than he might have expected to acquire half a dozen men in their middle twenties with thick, wavy brown hair and broad shoulders. Persons of such an age and physique are generally supposed to be in regular, full-time employment: such employment rarely requires their presence out of doors at ten thirty on a Monday morning. PC Buckland made advances to a postman (who rejected them), three drivers of delivery trucks, a shop assistant on his way to the bank, an office worker in his coffee break, and a plumber—this last leaping into his double-parked van and speeding away before the uniformed constable could explain he had no intention of booking him. PC Buckland scratched his head, and sighed.
Then he brightened. Coming out of a side street with a package in his hand, walking with a confident step and a head held high, came a young man on whose thick, wavy brown hair the sunlight gleamed, across whose sturdy shoulders a casual jacket had been flung. PC Buckland strode forward.
“Excuse me, sir—why, it’s Mr. Colveden from Plummergen, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” said Nigel. “Anything wrong?”
“Oh no, Mr. Colveden. It’s just I was wondering if you’d mind helping us out for a few minutes, if you could spare the time. A matter of an identity parade, see, and Mr. Brinton’s told me to find six or seven blokes that look, well, a bit like you, so’s our man gets a fair chance. Would you be able to step along to the station now, sir?”
Nigel nodded. “I’m in no tearing hurry now my father’s back on the farm strength—and I’ve never been in an identity parade before. It’ll be interesting.”
“I’m most grateful, Mr. Colveden.” PC Buckland fell in glumly beside Nigel, and they headed for the police station. “You’d think your kind, begging your pardon, sir, ’d be two a penny, but they’re all at work, of course, this time of day. The others went on ahead. So long’s they’ve not got fed up with waiting, I think we’ll have enough, with you. And,” he added, “if Mr. Brinton’s still not happy, there’s always Foxon, now he’s cut his hair.”
“Good heavens, has he? Hard to imagine him without it touching his collar.” Nigel chuckled. “Don’t tell me, though, that he’s gone over to pin-striped suits as well. My faith in human nature would be completely shattered.”
Buckland grinned. “He hasn’t. Old Brimstone—er, the super—still bawls him out every morning for making such a spectacle of himself, but you know Foxon, sir. Water off a duck’s back, with him . . .”
On reaching the station, they found that would-be Detective Sergeant Foxon of the no-longer-flowing locks had indeed been added to the little group chosen for the identity parade. When he had observed the appearance of Buckland’s first selection, Superintendent Brinton sighed heavily, warned Foxon to keep out of sight just in case, and detailed Desk Sergeant Mutford to accept delivery, so to speak, of the witnesses previously summoned by telephone. Mutford, one of the staunchest of the Holdfast Brethren, duly plied his captive audience with weak tea (too strong a brew being sinfully stimulating), thin biscuits, and a lengthy sermon on Doing One’s Duty from which the recipients could hardly wait to be released.
The arrival of Nigel at last released them. Chatting cheerfully amongst themselves, the half dozen decoys shuffled into line. Nigel, complimenting Foxon on his new look, ended up beside his friend, who remarked that the pair of them together must be a sight for sore eyes, and he’d bear it in mind next time he had a night on the town; to which his neighbour, who drove a laundry van, said he’d never met a housewife who was quite that desperate, and only wished he could. All joking stopped, however, as the door to the yard opened to admit Superintendent Brinton, PC Buckland, and a scowling, silent Barry Panfield.
“You can choose to stand wherever you like, lad,” Brinton told his captive almost kindly. “End of the line, middle—you just please yourself. But I don’t want a peep out of you, mind, if anyone identifies you. All right?”
Barry, glaring sideways, shrugged, hesitated, then walked slowly across the yard to join the rest. He seemed to pay no particular attention to any of them; he almost drifted into place, hardly noticing those on either side of him. There came the clearing of a few nervous throats as everyone realised who he was, then a complete silence, broken only by the voice of the superintendent.
“I’d like to thank you all again for sparing the time to come along to help us this morning, gentlemen. This won’t take long, I hope. In a moment, we’ll bring out the first of three people who are going to walk up and down along the line and look at you all carefully. Perhaps they’ll recognise one of you, perhaps they won’t—but, if they do, all they’ll do is put a hand on your shoulder. They won’t say anything to you—and I’d ask you not to say anything to them, either. Any questions?”
There were only a few, and soon dealt with. Brinton nodded to Buckland, who disappeared indoors, while the young men began to fidget and cough. One even managed a laugh, but stifled the outburst speedily. There was silence.
And then the door opened. A middle-aged man, wearing a trilby hat of a noxious green, marched out beside PC Buckland, his ramrod shoulders back, his jaw set. Barely waiting for Brinton to give the signal, he strutted across to the line of young men, and stood for a moment in front of them, raking the row from right to left, from left to right, with a keen and eager eye.
As his glance passed PC Foxon, he seemed to quiver, and they heard him utter an exclamation. “Just take your time, sir,” warned Brinton at once. “Have a good, long look before you commit yourself, won’t you?”
Green Trilby squared his shoulders still more, and swung round to the far end of the line, striding across to peer into the face of the first man before, with a shake of his head, passing on to his neighbour. He peered, paused, and passed on again—and again . . . and came to where Nigel Colveden stood, next to DC Foxon.
His examination of those remaining—who included Barry—was perfunctory. Having reached the end of the line, he spun round, headed straight back to Nigel, and clapped his had triumphantly on the young man’s shoulder. He turned to face Brinton, and gave a quick, decided nod.
“Thank you very much, sir,” said the superintendent, as Nigel stifled the startled protest he’d been about to make. “You’ve been a great help. If you wouldn’t mind going out through the far door, so as not to bump into the other witnesses . . .”
“Two a penny, as Buckland said,” remarked Nigel, more shaken than he cared to admit. “Let’s hope the next person doesn’t fix on me as well, or I’ll start to think I actually did it—whatever it was,” he added, a note of interrogation in his voice. But Foxon, for all his long acquaintance with Nigel, was giving nothing away.
“You can stand next to someone else, if
you’d rather,” was all he said. “Perhaps I bring you bad luck! But you’d be surprised how many times this sort of thing happens,” in consoling accents. “Witnesses can be notoriously unreliable—that’s why we prefer hard evidence, if we can get it. And when we can’t—well, we have to start somewhere. But don’t worry about it,” in a whisper, as the second witness emerged under the care of PC Buckland. “You’re innocent until proved guilty, remember!” And then Brinton’s glare silenced the entire line.
Though Barry hadn’t bothered to change position, one or two of the others had. The young woman in the flower-sprigged dress moved with less certainty than Green Trilby down the expectant line, and stared at Nigel no harder than she did at anyone else. He found himself sighing in relief as she passed him . . .
And then froze as, having reached the last man, Flowered Frock paused in thought, turned, and walked all the way back along the line as far as the point where he stood—and laid a tentative hand on his sleeve. Beside him, Foxon choked as Nigel gasped. Flowered Frock grew bolder, and ventured to give Mr. Colveden’s arm a little shake.
“Thank you very much, miss—er, madam,” as Buckland muttered that Flowered Frock had left a pushchaired infant under the care of WPc Maggie Laver, grumbling that at such short notice she couldn’t be expected to pay for a baby-sitter, could she? “Thank you, madam,” said Brinton, ushering the witness out with the same warning he’d given Green Trilby about bumping into the others . . .
Nigel was more than half-expecting the plump, elderly widow who now arrived to stake the third claim on him: and his expectation was fulfilled. With almost as much certainty as that of Green Trilby, this final witness paid absolutely no attention beyond the average to Barry Panfield, but seemed to home in on Mr. Colveden as if he were an especially delicious cream cake. “I’m sure of it,” she said, forgetting Brinton’s warning in her excitement. “This is the man I saw talking to that poor girl!”
Miss Seeton Plants Suspicion (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 15) Page 15