The Night She Died

by Dorothy Simpson

  Two, the girl did not exist. If she did not turn up in the next three weeks Thanet would presume that this was why, and devise a line of attack on Kendon.

  Three, the girl existed, was aware that the police wished to see her, but did not want to come forward for some reason of her own – perhaps she didn’t like the idea of her husband or family knowing where she was that night. Thanet made another note: make sure that the wording of the appeal be altered to make it clear that the police would treat information received from this witness as confidential as far as possible.

  Meanwhile he would arrange that tomorrow evening, Tuesday, exactly one week from the murder, someone would be on duty at the railway station to question regular travellers. The ticket clerk had proved useless, a surly little man so uninterested in his customers that he didn’t even bother to look up as he pushed the tickets across. Yet another note: question Kendon again about other people on the station that evening.

  As far as Parrish was concerned there was one really glaring omission …

  Thanet picked up the telephone again. ‘Send Bentley in, will you?’

  News of Thanet’s mood had clearly travelled. Bentley stood stiffly correct, avoiding Thanet’s eye.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Thanet said, able now to be amused. ‘You can relax. I’m not going to bite this time.’

  Bentley’s mouth twitched at one corner and his shoulders visibly relaxed.

  ‘This man Horrocks, the salesman. I believe you questioned his wife, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And I understand he was due back from his sales trip last night?’

  ‘So she said, sir,’

  ‘Right. I want you to find out where he is and go and see him. Let’s hope he hasn’t flitted off again,’

  ‘His firm said he’d be in this area for three weeks after coming back, sir.’

  ‘Good. Now this really is very important. Horrocks first noticed Parrish’s car parked in front of the shop at seven-fifteen. We know from Carne – that’s the chap who was picking up his daughter from a music lesson – that it was still there at eight-twenty. Mrs Horrocks says that her husband left on his business trip just before nine, but that she doesn’t know whether or not the Triumph was gone by then. ‘The point is that Parrish claims that he was with his mistress from about ten past seven to nine-thirty. She confirms this and if it’s true, of course, he’s in the clear. But she may well be lying to protect him and I want to go and see her again. But first I want you to find out from Horrocks whether or not the Triumph was still there when he left just before nine.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  I must be missing Lineham, Thanet thought as Bentley left. He didn’t usually give long explanations when sending his men out on such simple errands. He stretched, then stood up. Suddenly he felt lethargic, stupefied, almost. The atmosphere in the room, he realised, was so thick with pipe smoke one could almost cut it into cubes. From his favourite position at the window the world outside beckoned to him, fresh and enticing. He glanced at his watch. He had completely missed his lunch-hour and could with justification take some time off. He had promised Joan that he would at some point try to get out to buy the Snoopy for which Sprig was yearning as a birthday present. In any case, his brain felt so addled that if he didn’t have a break he might as well go home, for all the work he would be able to do.

  He left his window open to freshen the room and set off down the High Street. It was good to feel part of the normal world again, to be an ordinary person going shopping for a birthday present for his small daughter. The purchase did not take long. Sprig’s needs had been clearly defined. Thanet accepted the large, squashy parcel and wandered around the toy shop for a while before leaving. What a marvellous selection of toys there was for children these days! Surely toy shops had never been like this when he was young? He hung yearningly for some time over a complex model railway lay-out. Perhaps when Ben was older …

  By the time he left he felt refreshed, with a pleasant sense of duty done. The office smelt sweeter now and Thanet balanced his large parcel on top of the coat rack, so that he would see it without fail when he went home, and sat down at his desk.

  What now?

  He tried without success to get hold of Kendon. He would have to ring again this evening. Then he sat staring at the pile of papers before him, drumming impatient fingers on his desk. Surely Bentley should be back soon? And if Horrocks confirmed that Parrish’s car had still been there at nine? More house-to-house enquiries, he supposed, this time directed exclusively towards finding out if anyone else had seen the Triumph that night, noticed when it left.

  Meanwhile there didn’t seem to be a single thing he could do.

  What about Holmes? Should he perhaps try a reconstruction of the crime, aimed at discovering whether or not Holmes could have committed the murder in those fifteen or twenty seconds that had elapsed between the moment when he and Byfleet parted at the front gate and the moment when Holmes had called Byfleet back?

  But all Thanet’s original objections to the idea that Holmes was the murderer still held. No, a reconstruction would be time-consuming and pointless.

  It was possible, of course, that both Parrish and Kendon were innocent too, that some casual caller or potential burglar had been unlucky enough to have happened to approach the house in Gladstone Road just after Kendon’s departure. Thanet groaned at the thought. If that were so, unless some new evidence turned up of its own accord, it looked as though the chances of catching the murderer were very slim indeed, if not non-existent. And to have to admit failure, particularly in view of his own misguided behaviour …

  A knock at the door, and Bentley entered. Thanet could see at once that he had found something. Could it be a break, at last?

  It was. Horrocks, leaving his house at just before nine o’clock and having to walk to his car, parked two streets away, had been infuriated to find that he was just in time to see the tail lights of the Triumph disappearing up the road.

  ‘He’s certain?’ Thanet asked eagerly.

  ‘Absolutely, sir. He’d been out every quarter of an hour or so all evening, as you know, so he really was mad just to have missed him like that.’

  ‘Good. Excellent. Well done, Bentley.’

  So Parrish had lied again. Thanet’s immediate impulse was to confront the man, but instinct told him to go carefully indeed. Parrish was a very smooth customer. He would no doubt have prepared some tale in case of this very eventuality. Besides, Thanet would like to have some further confirmation of Horrock’s story. If Parrish had lied, so had his mistress.

  Yes, a visit to Phyllis Penge was definitely the next priority.

  Palmerston Row was noisy with the sound of children playing and Thanet prudently drove past, parked his car in front of Dobson’s yard in Gladstone Road and walked back. The girl who answered the door of number 14 was younger than Thanet had expected, not much more than nineteen, he guessed. She had long, elaborately curled blonde hair, heavy eye make-up and wore a pink satin blouse and a tight black skirt slit to the knee on one side. Her welcoming smile slipped a little as Thanet introduced himself, and her eyes slid past him as if assessing the effect of his visit upon the neighbours.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, standing back.

  Thanet had to squeeze past her in the narrow hall, and he was aware of the slither of satin against his sleeve, of a whiff of surprisingly good perfume before she pointed at a half-open door.

  ‘In there,’ she said.

  The room was comfortable, if claustrophobically full. Thanet’s eyes skimmed over a three-piece suite, three strategically-placed coffee tables, a large glass-fronted drinks cabinet well stocked with bottles, an imposing stereo system, an elaborate radio-cassette, a long rack of records and another of cassettes, and one of the largest colour television sets Thanet had ever seen. There was not a book or newspaper in sight.

  She waved him into a chair and perched on the edge of the settee, tugging h
er skirt down over the knees as if conscious that too much exposed flesh was not appropriate to the occasion.

  Thanet wondered if a formal approach might work best. The girl was obviously nervous – as well she might be, having lied to the police – and, he judged, ready to talk. If she had only told the truth when questioned last time Thanet might, he realised ruefully, have been saved from making a fool of himself. He couldn’t feel angry with Lineham, though. Looking at the girl he now understood why Lineham had slipped up. Astute though the sergeant was, girls, especially sexually attractive girls like this, tended to throw him. Thanet found the thought comforting. After his own fiasco it was good to know that Lineham, too, had his Achilles heel.

  ‘Now then, Mrs Penge,’ he said, taking a notebook from his pocket, flipping it open and pretending to consult it, ‘on Wednesday May 7 you made a statement to my sergeant regarding your movements on the evening of Tuesday May 6. Have you anything to add to that statement?’

  She passed her tongue nervously over her lips. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Would you like to alter or amend that statement in any way?’

  A slight shake of the head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d just like me to remind you of what you said in it? You state that on Tuesday May 6 you left this house at seven pm, walked along the footpath at the end of the cul-de-sac and entered the side door of a flat which is situated over the Greengrocer’s shop in Jubilee Street. This flat belongs to Mr Jeremy Parrish. He was waiting for you and you stayed with him until nine-thirty when you left. You then returned home.’

  He glanced at her. She was staring at him as if mesmerised, gnawing at the quick of her little finger.

  ‘Well, Mrs Penge?’

  She lowered her hand from her mouth, tugged again at the hem of her skirt, a jerky, nervous movement. ‘Well what?’ she said, with an attempt at a coquettish smile.

  ‘Your statement.’ Thanet tapped his notebook. ‘We just want to check that it is correct. So often, you see, people get flustered when they are asked to make a statement, and can’t think straight. And then later on, when they’ve had a chance to think it over, they realise they got something wrong. Now I have a feeling that this happened in your case. Am I right?’ There, he had given her a way to back down without losing face or being too afraid to admit it. Would she take it?

  She shook her head slightly, a nervous, ambiguous movement.

  He leaned forward, spoke very gently, reassuringly. ‘Please, Mrs Penge, it really is very important that we should know.’ And then, as she still said nothing, ‘Murder is a very serious business.’

  Her eyes dilated. ‘You’re not saying … You don’t mean Jeremy …?’

  ‘I’m not accusing anybody, Mrs Penge. But we have to know the truth, not just from some people but from everybody. That way we can slowly build up a picture of what happened on the night Mrs Holmes was killed. Did you know her?’

  A quick, tight shake of the head.

  Somehow he had to break through the barrier of her loyalty to Parrish. ‘She wasn’t much older than you, you know. Just a young girl, with all her life before her.’ That was laying it on a bit thick, he knew, but it worked. Phyllis’s identification with Julie lasted just long enough for her to burst out, ‘He said he’d tell …’ and stop, knuckles pressed hard against her mouth, as if to hold the words in by force.

  Thanet understood at once. ‘Mr Parrish said he’d tell your husband about his relationship with you, if you didn’t back him up?’ So it hadn’t been loyalty which had held her back, but fear. The bastard. The out and out bastard.

  She nodded and, burying her face in her hands, began to cry. It was a near-silent weeping, almost a mourning, Thanet thought as he thrust a clean handkerchief into her hand. For the death of love? he wondered, for illusions destroyed? Or was her reaction one of simple fear that now her husband would find out that she had been unfaithful?

  ‘Now, I think you’d better tell me all about it, don’t you? Mr Parrish said he’d tell your husband about your affair if you didn’t back him up. Back him up over what? He knew the answer, of course, but it was sweet to hear her say it.

  ‘Over the time he said we’d stayed together until, that Tuesday evening,’ she said ungrammatically.

  ‘Half past nine, you mean?’ Then, as she nodded, he said softly, ‘So what time did you part?’

  ‘Twenty-five to,’ she said, almost inaudibly.

  ‘Twenty-five to nine?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You left together?’

  ‘No. I always leave first. Jeremy stays behind to lock up and that.’

  ‘And you’re sure about the time?’

  ‘Certain sure.’ Her voice was stronger now. ‘There was something I specially wanted to see on the telly at nine so when I got down to the street I looked at my watch to see if there was time to nip along and pick up some chips before going home. I was hungry.’

  Thanet’s stomach contracted with excitement. ‘The fish and chip shop in Jubilee Road?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did you go?’

  She nodded. ‘There was bags of time.’ Her eyes flickered away from his.

  ‘You saw something, didn’t you?’ he said softly. ‘While you were in the shop?’

  That startled her. ‘How did you …?’ She broke off, twisting his handkerchief nervously, looking miserably down at it as if it could give her guidance.

  ‘How did I know that you saw Mr Parrish go by?’ Her silence confirmed that he had guessed correctly. ‘Did he notice you?’

  An almost imperceptible shake of the head.

  ‘You were in the shop …’ he encouraged.

  She relinquished the handkerchief as she came to her decision. ‘I saw him in the mirror,’ she said. ‘It’s a big one, on the wall behind the counter. Ted – that’s the chap what serves there – he bent down to pick something up and in the mirror, in the space where he’d been standing, like, I saw Jeremy go by. At first I thought, he’s going to his car. But then I knew he couldn’t be. It was parked between the flat and the chip shop, so he’d already passed it.’

  Thanet hazarded another guess. ‘So you went to the door, to see where he was going?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He walked to the end of the road and turned … and turned left.’

  In the direction of Gladstone Road. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She leaned her head against the back of the settee. The strain of the last few minutes was telling on her now.

  ‘Thank you.’ He tucked his notebook in his pocket. ‘Just one other point, Mrs Penge. When, exactly, did Mr Parrish contact you and ask you to back up his false statement about the time he left?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘In the afternoon, before your sergeant came to see me. He rang me at work.’

  After the second visit to Parrish, Thanet thought. He must have been on the phone to Phyllis the minute they left.

  ‘Good,’ he said briskly. He rose. ‘Well now, if you’ll come along with me to make a statement …’

  She shrank back against the settee. ‘You’re arresting me?’ she whispered.

  Thanet laughed. ‘No. No, of course not. All I want is a statement.’ And the certainty that as soon as he had left she wouldn’t be on the phone to Parrish to warn him that the game was up. He didn’t think she would but he had no intention of risking it. ‘All you have to do is tell one of my men exactly what you’ve been telling me, then he’ll type it all for you, you’ll read through what he’s written to check that he’s got it right, and you’ll sign it. And that will be that, you’ll be able to come home.’

  ‘Does … Will my husband have to know?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I really can’t say at the moment. It depends on what happens.’

  She looked so miserable that Thanet couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She was, after all very young.

  ‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘We’d better
be on our way.’

  17

  It was five o’clock by the time Thanet arrived back at the police station. He handed Phyllis Penge over to Carson and told him to take her statement.

  ‘Spin it out, will you? Don’t let her make any phone calls and don’t let her go until I say so. I’ve got to go out again.’

  Then he ran upstairs to his office, taking the steps two at a time. All the way back from Palmerston Row he had been trying to work out the best way to approach Parrish. It could now be proved that Parrish had been lying, but Thanet was well aware that there was still no shred of evidence to tie him in with the murder. Parrish could simply say that he had wanted a breath of fresh air after leaving the flat, had gone for a short stroll before returning to his car and driving off just before nine. He could claim that he had not dared tell the police this before, because he had been afraid that they wouldn’t believe him.

  And let’s face it, Thanet thought, it might well be true. Parrish might yet be innocent – as innocent as Edna Pocock had proved to be. Thanet found himself reserving judgement. Once bitten, twice shy.

  Just as he was parking his car, however, Thanet had had a stroke of inspiration, had suddenly seen a way in which he might, if he were very lucky, trap Parrish into an admission, if he were guilty. It might not work of course, such ploys frequently did not, but in this case there was just a chance and he was determined to take it. For it to work, however, his interview with Parrish – and he would take Bentley as a witness – would have to take place in Parrish’s office, and preferably today. Thanet grabbed the telephone.

  ‘Bentley? Bring Julie Holmes’s effects up, will you? And fast, man.’

  Bentley arrived minutes later, out of breath. Thanet ignored the polythene bag in which Julie’s clothes were shrouded and seized the large brown envelope in which smaller items had been placed. He emptied it over the desk, exclaiming with satisfaction as his fingers closed over the object he sought. He slipped the thing into his pocket. ‘Right. Let’s go.’

  ‘But the effects. Shouldn’t we return them, sir?’