The Night She Died

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘Oh, much better, thanks. I hardly think of it now.’

  ‘Good.’

  The coffee, when it came, was hot and strong. As they sipped in silence Thanet became increasingly uncomfortable under Mallard’s scrutiny. Consciously he avoided meeting his eye.

  ‘Well,’ Mallard said at last, putting his cup down with gesture of finality, ‘if you won’t tell me, I’ll have to ask, though I’m damned if I see why I should. If your back’s all right, what’s the matter? Case going badly?’

  Thanet shrugged. ‘It’s going,’ he said. ‘Which is more than could be said a few days ago.’

  ‘Then why the long face?’

  Thanet looked away, out of the window. High up an aeroplane glinted silver. Some lucky devils off somewhere, he thought irrelevantly. ‘I just don’t like the way it’s going, that’s all.’

  Mallard studied him in silence for moment or two longer, then leaned forward. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but do I understand you to say that although you’re making progress in the investigation, you are unhappy about it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why? Because you think you are investigating along the wrong lines, or because you don’t like what you’re finding out?’

  ‘The latter, I suppose.’

  ‘Well well. So you don’t like what you’re finding out,’ Mallard said sarcastically. ‘How d’you think I’d go on working at all, if I allowed myself to feel like that?’ He heaved himself out of his chair, stumped across to the window. ‘I’ll tell you this, Luke. If I allowed all those corpses to be anything more than specimens to me, I’d go mad at the sheer bloody waste of it all.’ He spun around, pointed a finger at Thanet. ‘And as you know perfectly well, that’s how it should be with you. The minute you let yourself get involved, you’re sunk, finished, kaput.’ He returned to his chair, plumped down in it. ‘So don’t you forget it,’ he said.

  He was right, of course, Thanet thought. And yet … it was so much easier for Mallard. He dealt only with the dead.

  ‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking,’ Mallard said disconcertingly. ‘You’re thinking it’s easier to switch off when you’re dealing with corpses. And you’re right, of course. It is to a certain extent, anyway. But just remember this: you are not here to judge, just to investigate. So don’t try taking over the Almighty’s job. He’s much better at it than you could ever be.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll have to go now.’ He stood up. ‘It is the Holmes case we’ve been talking about?’

  Thanet nodded.

  ‘I don’t know what right I have to go sounding off at you like this. If it’ll make you feel any better, the truth of the matter is that it’s myself I’m angry with, really, for being in the same boat. I’ve just been doing a P.M. on a child. She was only five … It’s a hell of a life sometimes, isn’t it?’

  He and Thanet exchanged a rueful grin before Mallard went out, closing the door behind him with uncharacteristic gentleness.

  Thanet looked after him, thoughtfully, and then picked up the telephone. Mallard was right. He had been becoming positively maudlin. ‘If Carson’s back, send him in.’

  Thanet took the proffered list of Edna Pocock’s classmates and studied it. There were twelve names in all. Quickly he ran his finger down them, noting the addresses, then returned to the second name on the page. Mrs A. Bligh, 14 Upper Mole Road. He reached for his town map and checked. Yes, as he thought, this was the next turning off the Canterbury Road beyond Little Mole Road. If Mrs Bligh travelled by car, she would no doubt take the same route home as Edna Pocock …

  He made up his mind. Not a telephone call this time. He would go and visit Mrs Bligh himself.

  Mrs Bligh was short, plump and thirtyish with a frizz of tightly permed blond hair. She was wearing a flowing smock dress in shrieking greens and orange which merely served to accentuate her generous curves. Her reaction, like that of most people who are unexpectedly faced with a CID man on the doorstep, was puzzled, apprehensive and somewhat wary. She studied his warrant card carefully before inviting him in.

  ‘We’ll have to go into the kitchen, Inspector. My little girl’s in there.’

  In this house Monday was still washing day, Thanet saw as he followed her into a large, light kitchen, well-equipped with mod. cons. A long central table was covered with piles of washing, some dry, some wet, and an automatic washing machine was making an infernal row in one corner.

  ‘Just a minute, I’ll switch it off,’ shouted Mrs Bligh.

  The resulting silence was almost deafening. ‘It makes an awful din.’ she said apologetically, as if she were personally responsible for the machine’s noisiness, ‘but it saves so much work I try not to notice it. Sandra, this is Mr Thanet.’

  Sandra was about the same age as Bridget. She was standing on a chair at the kitchen sink, arms plunged into a froth of bubbles.

  ‘Hullo, Sandra,’ Thanet said. ‘My little girl likes doing that, too.’

  Mrs Bligh, apparently reassured by this evidence of Thanet’s humanity, gave a timid smile. ‘Sit down, Inspector, won’t you?’ She pulled out a chair at the long table, pushed aside a pile of clothes. ‘Sorry about the mess,’ she murmured, seating herself opposite him.

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ Thanet said dismissively. ‘Now then, I expect you’re wondering why I’ve called. There’s nothing to worry about, I assure you. There was an incident last Tuesday evening and we’re trying to trace witnesses.’

  ‘What sort of incident?’ Mrs Bligh said nervously.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Thanet said gently. ‘There really is no need. Now I understand that on Tuesday evenings you attend a pottery class at the Technical College.’

  ‘Yes. But how did you …?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I really can’t give you any more information. Please, Mrs Bligh, just relax. If you can’t help us, I’ll go away and we’ll forget all about it.’

  She did relax a little now, sat back in her chair.

  ‘You attended the class last Tuesday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And stayed the full length of time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you left at nine, as usual?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you came home by your usual route – I’m sorry, I forgot to ask. Do you go by car?’

  ‘Yes I do. And yes, I came home by the same route as usual last week.’

  ‘That would be right at the entrance to the Technical College, left into Wallace Way …?’

  ‘Yes. Then let me see …’ she gave a nervous laugh. ‘I do it so often it’s automatic. Yes, then left into Park Road, left again into Canterbury Road, then straight on all the way until I turn into this road.’

  ‘Good. Now, I want you to think very carefully. On your way along Canterbury Road last Tuesday evening, did you see anything unusual?’ The question, of course, was misleading. To his knowledge Canterbury Road had been as peaceful and well-ordered as Sunday Morning Service last Tuesday, but he wanted to divert Mrs Bligh’s attention from the real purpose of his visit.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Let me think.’ Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she searched her memory. ‘No, I’m sure I didn’t.’

  ‘Right, thank you.’ Thanet stood up. ‘You don’t happen to know of anyone else who regularly travels by that route on Tuesday evenings, do you?’

  ‘Well, there’s Mrs Pocock, she lives in Little Mole Road. She comes to the same class as me.’

  ‘You travel together, you mean?’

  ‘Oh no. My husband works in London, you see, and I’m never quite sure what time he’s going to get home, so it’s awkward to travel with anyone else. I mean, it’s bad enough having to be late yourself, but if you make other people late as well …’

  ‘Yes, of course. But Mrs Pocock? She attended the class last Tuesday?’

  ‘Yes. She works next to me, as a matter of fact. We’re both learning the same technique at the moment, and we tend to compare notes a lot.’

/>   ‘And she comes home by the same route as you?’ Thanet’s palms were beginning to sweat as he approached the crucial question.

  ‘Yes. It’s the most direct way, of course.’

  ‘And last Tuesday. Do you happen to remember if she left before you?’

  ‘No, we left together. In fact, I followed her car all the way home from the Tech. I remember thinking how clean hers was, in comparison with ours, and deciding I really must get my husband to wash it at the weekend.’

  ‘You followed her all the way home,’ echoed Thanet flatly.

  She misread his incredulity as disappointment. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. So that means she wouldn’t have seen anything either – not unless it’s just that I’m completely unobservant and missed noticing something she might have seen.’

  ‘You’re absolutely certain you were behind her all the way?’

  ‘Yes, I told you, her car …’

  ‘I see,’ said Thanet with finality. ‘Well, thank you very much Mrs Bligh. I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time.’ At the front door he paused. ‘I forgot to ask. What time do you usually get home on Tuesday evenings?’

  ‘At about a quarter past nine, give or take a minute or two.’

  ‘And last Tuesday?’

  She shrugged. ‘Same as usual, I suppose. I didn’t really notice. But I wasn’t held up at all, so it must have been about then.’

  Thanet reiterated his thanks and left.

  He drove around the corner and parked. He felt dazed, disorientated. So, he had been wrong about Edna Pocock. That was a relief, but a frustration too. That moment of illumination last night had been a sham, the hours of agonising over her foster children a total waste of time and emotional energy. What a fool he had been!

  He put the car savagely into gear and was half way back to the office before fear began to niggle away at him. Out of the original five suspects only Alice Giddy was now left. If her alibi for the night of Julie’s murder proved as watertight as Edna Pocock’s, if she too were innocent – Thanet shook his head, a tight, angry little shake. No, it wasn’t possible. For in that case his whole beautiful theory would collapse around him like a house of cards. There would be no double murderer and the Dacre painting, the Private View, the fact that Julie had witnessed a murder as a child, none of this would have any relevance to his case.

  He would be back where he started, days ago.

  Back at the station the constable on duty raised a startled face at Thanet’s snapped ‘Baker back yet?’ Thanet was not usually so peremptory.

  ‘Yes sir. Gone up to the canteen, sir.’

  ‘Find him,’ Thanet said. ‘Now. And send him up to my office.’

  The man was already reaching for the phone. ‘Right away, sir.’

  Thanet paced restlessly up and down while he waited. No, he couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it. All that patient, painstaking unravelling of past and present, the beautiful logic, the rightness of it all …

  ‘Sir?’

  News of Thanet’s mood must have travelled. Baker looked distinctly apprehensive. Thanet experienced a pang of compunction. Why should Baker be put through the mill just because he, Thanet, was furious with himself?

  ‘It’s all right, Baker,’ he said, with an attempt at a smile. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong. I just need your help, that’s all.’ He sat down, shuffled through the papers on his desk, selected the one he wanted. ‘It’s to do with those enquiries you made at Maddison House, in connection with Parrish’s alibi for the night of the Holmes murder. Now, in your report you state that a Mrs Barret of Flat 27 spent part of the evening watching television with a neighbour. Do you happen to know which neighbour?’

  Baker had already taken out his notebook and was leafing through it. ‘Ah yes, I remember her,’ he said, as he searched. ‘Couldn’t stop talking. Her set broke down just after The Pacemakers started, and her son’s a fan, wouldn’t give her any peace until she went to ask if they could watch next door. Ah, here it is. They went to Flat 26, occupied by Alice Giddy. I didn’t actually interview Miss Giddy, sir. She …’

  ‘Was out, I know. Then you were pulled off the enquiries because they were no longer considered necessary.’ Thanet was doing his best to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘They stayed until the end of the programme?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did she by any chance say anything to indicate that Miss Giddy was actually there with them all the time, watching the programme?’

  Baker consulted his notes, considered. ‘Not specifically, no, sir. But by implication, yes. I mean, like I said, the woman went on and on and on. I mean, I heard all about Miss Giddy, how stand-offish she is and how she – Mrs Barret, I mean – wouldn’t have plucked up the courage to ask if it hadn’t been for her son going on and on about it. And how Miss Giddy was a Pacemakers fan herself and that Mrs Barret had therefore felt that it might be all right to ask her after all as Miss Giddy would know how she would have felt if her set had gone wrong just after the programme started. I really think she would have mentioned it if after all this Miss Giddy had gone out at all during this programme.’

  ‘So you really don’t think she could have slipped out for say, twenty minutes or so?’ The absolute minimum time necessary to get from Maddison House to Gladstone Road and back again, Thanet considered.

  ‘No, sir, I don’t. Honestly, if you’d heard the way she goes on … she just isn’t the sort to keep anything back.’

  ‘Intelligent?’

  ‘Not particularly’

  ‘Do you think you could find out from her whether Miss Giddy did in fact go out at all during The Pacemakers without arousing her suspicions?’

  ‘I should think so, sir.’

  ‘Good. Do it now. Oh Baker …’

  ‘Yes sir?’ Baker, already on his way to the door, turned back.

  ‘I suppose there’s no doubt in your mind that the woman’s story was genuine?’

  ‘About the set breaking down and going next door to watch? No, no doubt at all sir. Her son was home when I called – he was off school for a dental appointment and from time to time she dragged him into the conversation – you know the sort of thing, ‘Didn’t we, Desmond, wasn’t it, Desmond,’ that sort of thing. I honestly don’t think he was lying, just rather bored with the way she was going on and a bit embarrassed, as kids are at that age. He’s about thirteen, I’d say. And apart from that, the repair engineer had just finished working on the set when I arrived. He was leaving as I came in.’

  ‘Which firm, did you notice?’

  Baker screwed up his face in concentration. ‘I’m not sure. He was wearing an orange overall, I do remember that.’

  ‘White lettering?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Rentaset,’ Thanet said. He used the firm himself. ‘All right, thanks. Go and check now with Mrs Barret.’

  When Baker had gone, Thanet consulted the telephone directory. Until all this was confirmed he wouldn’t allow himself to think …

  It took only a few minutes for Rentaset to check their records and come back with the information that Mrs Barret had left a message on the Ansaphone at 8.35 pm on Tuesday May 6, and that the set had been repaired the following morning.

  A few minutes later Baker returned. Alice Giddy had watched the entire programme with Mrs Barret and her son. So that really was the end of that particular road. Thanet thanked Baker, sent him off and then began to pace restlessly about the room.

  He was a fool, a blind, self-opinionated fool.

  After a while the confusion of anger and self-disgust in his mind settled down into a steady ache of disillusionment. Where had he gone wrong?

  He sat down again, leaned back in his chair and, staring into space, began to work it out. Eventually, after a great deal of heart-searching, he came to the conclusion that he had been led astray by two factors: curiosity and vanity. Julie Holmes had intrigued him. He had wanted to understand her, to know what made her tick. The trail ha
d led back into the past and he had followed it like a hound on the scent of the fox, deaf and blind to all else.

  And vanity … oh yes, there was that, too. Hadn’t he been delighted with his own cleverness in working out this elaborate double murder theory? The truth of the matter was that he was just plain incompetent. Even Lineham had seen it. What had he called Thanet’s idea? Far-fetched, that was it. Far-fetched.

  Thanet made a little moue of self-disgust as he remembered how outraged he had felt at Lineham’s attitude, how he had pretended to take Lineham’s objections seriously when all the while he was mentally discounting them.

  There was something else that Lineham had said, too. What was it? ‘Isn’t it much more likely that Julie Holmes was killed by someone involved with her now, in the present?’

  But of course he, Thanet, in love with his theory, had refused to listen. Well he would eat humble pie. He at least owed Lineham that.

  Meanwhile … meanwhile he would have to begin all over again.

  16

  This time, Thanet swore, he would do things the right way around: facts first, theories afterwards. He began yet again to work systematically through every single report or statement which had been made or taken since the beginning of the case. Anger and self-disgust, he discovered, were wonderful aids to concentration but did not necessarily produce results. He found nothing significant which he had missed before, came across nothing which in any way shed new light on the problem.

  What he did realise was that since setting off like a crazy, blind fool to prove his own cleverness, he had neglected to tie up one or two loose ends which now dangled reproachfully at him. Take the girl Kendon claimed to have seen, for example. Further efforts must be made to trace her. So far house-to-house enquiries had produced nothing, and there had been no response to the radio, television and newspaper appeals. Why?

  There seemed to be three possible explanations: one, the girl did not listen to the radio, never watched television or read a newspaper – unlikely unless she had been out of the country or on holiday, perhaps. Thanet made a note: if necessary the appeals would be repeated at weekly intervals for the next three weeks.