“We can’t,” agreed Brinton slowly. At the back of his mind, an idea was beginning to stir: but he needed time to think it through. “You’re right, we can’t ...” And the look he directed towards Mr. Candell impelled the latter to respect, for once, another’s silence, as the superintendent pondered those preliminary stirrings ...
No. The coincidence was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
He took a deep breath. “Was it—was it the same sale where you had an old wooden box—fancy carving, iron bands, jammed locks—bought by”—he gulped—“an old lady with a blue umbrella?”
As Mr. Candell was on the point of answering him, the telephone rang.
chapter
~ 25 ~
MR. CANDELL HALTED in mid-reply, glanced apologetically at Brinton, and—as the other nodded—reached, with a frown, for the telephone receiver. “I thought it was understood that while—Oh. Yes. It’s for you, Superintendent.”
“Me? Thanks ... Brinton.”
“Sir, I’m at the Yard.” The excitement in Foxon’s voice was evident despite the forty-mile distance. “With Mr. Delphick. He’s had a look at MissEss’s drawings, and—well, sir,” he said as a baritone commentary could be heard in the background, “he says it’s only a guess, with not knowing all the facts because I haven’t had time to explain—but it sounds pretty good to me—”
Brinton broke in with a quickfire burst of what-the-hell-are-you-babbling-about noises. Foxon wasted no time in apology before saying, “Peace Radwinter, sir. That’s who’s suspect number one for our murders, according to the Ora—Ahem! According to Mr. Delphick, sir. And I reckon he could be right.”
“Radwinter? Radwinter.” Brinton frowned, too busy concentrating on the elusive train of thought set in motion by Foxon’s words to spare his immediate thoughts for the continued presence of the fascinated Mr. Candell. “Peace Radwinter ...”
There was a click on the line. “According to Miss Seeton,” came the modest amendment from Chief Superintendent Delphick. “There’s no point in my going into details, Chris: time enough when Foxon makes his full report. We’ll be bringing him back to you in a fast car as soon as possible.” He paused; Brinton, still concentrating, said nothing. “But we—and Miss Seeton, it would seem—strongly recommend that you brook no delay in repairing to the house of one Neville Chamberlain Radwinter. Whose name, from Foxon’s reaction when I first made this tentative suggestion, may be better known to you than it is to the Metropolitan Police. To whom, I might add, it is not entirely unfamiliar ...”
The telephones at the London end of the connection waited in silence for some response from Superintendent Brinton in Brettenden. “Radwinter,” he repeated at last. “Peace Radwinter ... Got it!”
The discreetly mute and intensely curious Mr. Candell was not the only one to jump at the crack of hand on brow as Brinton’s wayward memory lurched at last into action. “That blasted auction!” Mr. Candell uttered a squeak of protest. “He was there! I’d swear to it, Oracle. I only spotted him out of the corner of my eye, and what with MissEss and her brolly going into overdrive, I didn’t pay too much attention, but if I had,” he said as he clumped himself across the forehead again, “I might’ve started to wonder why he was doing his best to keep out of my way—him and his guilty conscience both. He must’ve seen me and got nervous about watching out for who bought what ...
“But why?” After his first flush of enthusiasm for the unexpected lead, the superintendent subsided. “It doesn’t make sense. He can be an ugly customer, yes, but only when he’s panicked, and Peace has never been the sort of bloke to get the collywobbles before he’s done the job—and he hadn’t done a sausage at that stage. As far as we know,” caution made him add. “And where do your lot come into it? What’s it to you if young Foxon comes back by train or—or push-bike? Why the red-carpet treatment and the fast car?”
“Fast cars,” returned Delphick, “may prove rather more apposite than you realise, Chris—but I’ll explain later. I’m serious about urging you to visit Radwinter just as soon as you can—but not alone. Some backup could be essential, and certainly won’t do any harm.”
“Backup? With the manpower I’ve got, I—”
“From what Foxon tells me,” Delphick insisted, “you have no other serious lines of enquiry. If Miss Seeton and I are wrong, you’ll have wasted perhaps half an hour pulling a few men off other aspects of your various cases. If, however, we’re right, you could be putting your hand on the collar of a triple murderer, as well as—”
“A triple murderer?” Brinton gasped; Mr. Candell, still avidly drinking in the sensational scene unfolding in his office, goggled. “Three murders—you mean you reckon he’s our lad for the Quendon killing, too?”
“Explanations in due course, Chris. We’re leaving ten minutes ago, and so should you. Seriously,” he added as Brinton made a faint attempt at a further demand for enlightenment. “But before you and yours descend on friend Radwinter, might I also suggest that you alert the Brettenden fire brigade? And not just because of Miss Seeton,” he said as Brinton uttered a curse which made Mr. Candell blink. “From my own recently acquired knowledge of this case—of these cases—I feel it would do no harm to have the support of a tender or two as you approach the house. As soon as you can,” he reiterated.
And rang off.
Brinton stared for three seconds at the buzzing receiver in his hand, then shook himself awake, sighed, and clicked the cradle up and down. “How do I get an outside line?” he demanded as Mr. Candell nerved himself to ask what might be going on.
“Er—there’s no switchboard. If you—”
Brinton was already dialling. “Mutford? Brinton. Put me through to whoever’s in charge of the chummies’ address-book, will you? Fast.”
Sergeant Mutford had not forgotten his superior’s recent dereliction of duty in the matter of camp beds and catnaps.
“Might I ask from where you are speaking, sir?”
“Candell and Inchpin. Yes, they found me from the Yard, if that’s what you’re getting at—but don’t let’s waste any more time. I need that address yesterday, Mutford!”
“I regret, sir, any disrespect.” The tone in which he said this did not convince. “But how can I be sure this is not an attempt by some fraudulent mimic to obtain highly confidential information under false pretences?”
“Dammit, Mutford—”
“Highly confidential information,” repeated Mutford, with relish, “which it is my sworn and official duty to protect from all unauthorised persons, especially such as use the medium of the telephone rather than applying in person, when their identity might be checked by—”
“Mutford!” Brinton added something which induced his sergeant, gasping with indignation, to recognise his superior with no further delay. Twenty-three seconds after the telephone in the Ashford operations room had been picked up, Brinton was writing down the required intelligence with a pen Mr. Candell had been only too happy to lend him.
“Thank you, sir.” Brinton gave him an old-fashioned look as, having issued quick instructions to a haughty Mutford and broken the connection, he began to dial again. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the need to be discreet. Do I.” He was not asking, but telling.
Mr. Candell looked hurt that anyone, least of all an officer of the law, should feel he needed to be told. “In my business, Superintendent, discretion—”
“Fire station? Superintendent Brinton, Ashford police. Look, this may sound crazy, but we’ve had a tip-off there could be a spot of bother before long, out Les Marys way—no, not that blasted nightclub,” he said, referring to a previous occasion when the Half Seas Over had been burned down by a proprietor with financial problems. He gave the correct address. “No, I can’t tell you any more than that.” Because I haven’t the foggiest myself, he added silently. The only people who can see through this particular fog are the Oracle and—heaven help me—Miss Seeton ... “But I’m heading that way now, and som
e of my blokes are meeting me there. It may be a false alarm, but in this case I don’t believe we ought to take the risk.”
“A tip-off, you say.” There was doubt in the voice at the other end of the line: calling out the Brettenden Fire Brigade was not to be lightly undertaken. As in many country districts, the market town relied heavily on a Retained service, where a large proportion of the crew members had other full-time jobs—mostly on the land, since all crews had not only to be able to reach the fire station within five minutes, but must also be in the peak of physical condition. It might not be as serious in sluggish January as in harvest-home July to summon a farm worker from the fields to attend a false alarm, but serious it undoubtedly was. “Reliable, your source, is it?”
Superintendent Brinton hesitated for only an instant. He could almost swear he heard the Oracle egging him on by saying that perjury, in a good cause, was worth it. Well, he’d meet his friend—and Miss Seeton—halfway. “Pretty reliable, yes. I’m bringing a couple of cars in from other enquiries as backup, and I wouldn’t be doing that if I didn’t feel I’d need ’em more likely than not.”
“One appliance, then,” said the voice. “One to start with—you can have another if the man on the ground thinks you need it. All right?”
“Thanks,” said Brinton, wondering, now he’d burned his boats, whether the Police Benevolent Fund would run to the hefty fine he envisaged for having wasted everyone’s time. If he had. Or would it count as a False Alarm, Good Intent?
Two telephone handsets clattered into their respective cradles in different parts of Brettenden as Brinton and the fire station operator went to Action Stations. Brinton said his farewells to Mr. Candell, promised to be back, and bolted from the sale-room to his waiting car. Foxon usually drove him, but the lad was in London—was, according to the Oracle, on his way back from London, in a Yard car full of Yard men, top speed down the motorway. It wasn’t just that the younger man did all the fast driving that made his superior regret his absence: he had an uncomfortable feeling, nowhere near the back of his mind, that if he hadn’t sent him off to Town with Miss Seeton’s sketchbook in the first place, he could still be living the sort of peaceful, plodding life he hadn’t had nearly enough of over the past seven years ...
“What the—? Buckland!” Brinton took two steps backwards to gaze at the uniformed figure in his driver’s seat. “What the hell are you playing at?”
“Chauffeuring, sir.” PC Buckland leaned across to open the passenger door. “Sergeant Mutford radioed you might fancy a spot of company on the road, seeing as Foxon’s up in Town and missing all the fun, for once. Les Marys, right?” he assumed as Brinton climbed in and fastened his seat belt.
“Right.” And he could trust Mutford, he knew, to have passed on the address.
“Siren, sir? Lights?”
“Not unless you see a pillar of fiery cloud up ahead. Let’s use a bit of discretion and get there without letting ’em know we’re on our way—but don’t take all day about it, either.” To some, this might seem a tall order: but Buckland knew his job. He was, as Brinton was aware, one of Foxon’s cronies: the detective constable had taught his uniformed pal quite a number of his favourite driving tricks. They’d chased each other up and down the police skid-pans more than once, and he himself had turned a tactful blind eye to the book some of the bloods in the station canteen had been running on which of the pair could do the most handbrake turns in a given time in a limited space. He’d been about to risk his money on Foxon when Desk Sergeant Mutford had got wind of the contest and, preaching hellfire and disapproval, had squashed the whole thing ...
“Next turning but one on the left, sir.”
Brinton jumped. His thoughts had been so busy with Foxon and Mutford and the Holdfast Brethren that he’d managed to forget all about Miss Seeton—about his reasons (whatever they were) for rushing off to Les Marys with a fire engine on full alert somewhere or other in the neighbourhood. Somewhere or—
“Fire appliance coming up fast behind.” Buckland had checked in his mirror before signalling the turn.
Brinton didn’t dare look round to confirm the statement. He closed his eyes, thankful that he didn’t—as yet—have to close his ears against the ringing bells and flashing blue lights that would only attract public attention to his growing wretchedness.
“Down here, sir.” Buckland slowed, changed gear, spun the wheel, and set off down the quiet side street. “Looks like another of our lot, coming the other way ...”
Brinton kept his eyes closed. He slumped in his seat, cursing himself for being every kind of fool. Why the hell hadn’t he insisted on waiting for the Oracle to arrive from London? Then the Yard could have gone halves in sharing the blame for whatever fiasco was about to—
“Hey!”
There was a jolt, a swerve, and the stench of burning rubber as Brinton was flung sideways. Juddering, the car came to a halt. His eyes flew open as the breath was driven from his body by the hot diagonal friction of the seat belt, by the jerk of his lowered head upflung by the forces of propulsion. He had not heard the squeal of the burning tyres—he did not hear the screech of mangled metal; Buckland’s breathless gasp was as inaudible to Brinton as the startled braking, the horrified bell of the approaching fire appliance ...
For every sound had been drowned out by the noise of the explosion.
chapter
~ 26 ~
THE SHOCK HAD caused Buckland to steer into the side of the road: into a concrete lamppost which stood six inches from the edge of the footpath, next to a waste-bin. As the front tyres bounced up and over the kerb, the nearside wing and bonnet of the car crumpled against the concrete, and a carelessly aimed drinks can flew up from the gutter to clang with a burst of spider-web cracks across the laminated glass of the windscreen.
It was through the side windows that Brinton, and the hard-breathing Buckland, watched a plume of purple smoke and yellow-green flame erupt from a house halfway down the road. The oncoming police car vanished within seconds, blanketed from view by thick billows of aubergine and black, crested by a scurf of gun-metal grey shot through with speckles of sulphurous chartreuse.
“B-bloody hell.” Buckland’s hands shook as he fumbled at the clasp of his seat belt. An angry bruise branded his forehead where the rim of the steering wheel had caught it. “Are—are you all right, sir? We—we’d better see—if we can help, but ...”
Brinton had to clear his throat twice before answering. “I’m ... all right, thanks.” His neck, shoulders, and spine jangled from the crash; he shook his head; groaned; and the groan became a cough. “How—how about you?” He was struggling with his own buckle. “Just look at—hey!” His hands were suddenly still. He sniffed; he spluttered. “Petrol! Petrol—and I reckon it’s us. Out of here—on the double, lad—blast this door, it’s stuck—get out, Buckland. Stop fussing about me, damn you! Get out before this deathtrap blows us both to kingdom come!”
“Bugger that for a lark—sir.” Buckland knew that his burly superior would find it no easy matter to scramble unaided out of the twisted passenger seat, over the gear lever and under the steering wheel to safety. He reached back in to grab as much of Brinton’s bulk as he could, half pulling, half dragging him by sleeve and collar and—as there came a sudden rip—trouser waistband, towards the driver’s door.
“I told you,” gasped Brinton, kicking furiously as his foot jammed under the clutch pedal, “to get the hell out of this! If”—he kicked again; Buckland, sweating, tugged and heaved—“you’re trying to be noble—”
“Not—me—sir.” Buckland gritted his teeth. “Just—getting—in—a—spot—of—extra—weight—training—”
“Move over, son.” The exhausted constable found himself suddenly plucked out of danger’s way by a dark-blue-uniformed hand. Two other hands, attached to muscled arms attached in turn to a sturdy shape in fireman’s costume, performed with practiced efficiency those miracles of contortion which should liberate Superintendent Brinton
, with barely time to spare, from the wreckage of the car.
“The house,” choked Brinton, staggering to the far side of the road, where Buckland, now white and trembling, waited. “My lads—the other car—”
“All under control.” The fireman, having run an expert eye over the Ashford men, was eager to be off. “You’ll do, so long as you keep away from that tin can of yours until we’ve checked it out. There’s another tender or two on the way, so you’ve no need for heroics—you’re done in. The pair of you,” he added over his shoulder, hurrying to join his colleagues as the fire engine made its steady advance through the eddies of smoke and flame. “Don’t let your boss start trying to win medals, will you?”
Buckland could only grin weakly. From being white, he had turned green; it wasn’t easy to tell whether he was supporting Brinton, or Brinton was supporting him. Various well-intentioned occupants of nearby houses tried to urge the pair indoors for sugared tea and comfortable sit-downs until the ambulance should come. Neither man had any mind to accept these kindly, but misguided, invitations: Brinton, bruised and stiff, agonised over the fate of his men trapped in that hazy purple embrace, while Buckland felt sick, and saw throbbing lights before his eyes that had little to do with the warning beacons on the fire appliance—
Appliances, plural. Bells ringing, lights strobing, two more engines raced to the scene, with an ambulance close behind them, and a panda car bringing up the rear. Brinton, bestirring himself, hailed these reinforcements, and tried his best to issue intelligent instructions even as he and Buckland were swept into the protective custody of the one-hundred-per-cent-fit professionals. Short of bopping the entire medical team on their several noses, the superintendent had to accept that he was destined to play no further part in these proceedings. As a second ambulance, and a fourth police vehicle, appeared around the corner of the street, he sank thankfully into the rough red welcome of woollen blankets, leaned back against the cool metal wall, and closed his eyes upon the reassuring sight of Buckland, on a stretcher, being tended by a fatherly man whose white coat had three buttons missing.
Sold to Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 19) Page 23