by Alan Hunter
‘I regret that I must take charge of these items. You will of course be issued with a receipt.’
‘And I can’t stop you, can I?’
‘They will be returned if we do not require them.’
Her eyes were large with anger and fear. ‘You think I wrote that letter, don’t you. Well, I didn’t – and I don’t care what you’ve found. Besides, that bureau is never locked up.’
‘Your pen is usually kept in your handbag?’
‘That’s just where you’re wrong, it’s usually in there! But yesterday I had to write a cheque, and that’s the only reason it was in my handbag. So anybody could have used it.’
‘Who, Mrs Tallis?’
‘Anybody – I don’t know! People come here.’ Her eyes went suddenly still. ‘Fiona. Fiona treats the house as though it were her own.
‘Miss Quennell ...?’
‘Yes – Fiona. One day last week she was here by herself. Paul was in Norwich, and I was dressing. She’d have plenty of time to do it.’
‘But why would she, Mrs Tallis?’
‘Why? Who knows what goes on in her mind?’
‘You are suggesting she would plot against her father?’
‘She could have written that letter, that’s all I know.’
For a moment her stare held, trying to compel him with her conviction. Then her face crumpled.
‘Oh my God ... Ray is right. It’s all a nightmare!’
The two DCs returned.
‘Afraid we’ve drawn a blank up there, sir.’
‘Fetch a bag for this stuff.’
One of them went out to the cars to fetch a bag.
Gently scribbled a receipt. Then he took a sheet of the stationery, folded it, sealed it in an envelope and put it in his pocket. He handed the receipt to Tallis.
‘Where else shall we look?’
Tallis’s fearful eyes were watering. The glass he hung on to was at least his third, each one filled to near the brim.
‘What does it matter ... now? I mean, if you find it, or if you don’t! Both ways you’ve got me. I haven’t a leg ... unless someone comes forward who saw me ...’
‘Have you anything to tell me?’
‘What’s the use of that? One day I knew Paul would try to get even. And him you’ll believe, not me. Him and that cocky young Quennell ...’
‘The cottage has been vacant since Sunday.’
‘Do you think I’d hide anything in there!’
‘I’ll take the key.’
‘Go on, have the lot. There’s a loft to the garage ... you mustn’t miss that.’
With a shaking hand he passed over his keys, among which were those of the plum-coloured Daimler. Meanwhile the DCs had packed the items taken from the bureau in a plastic bag.
They left Tallis to his whisky, his wife to her sobs.
‘Right ... first we’ll check the car and garage. And one of you search the garden for evidence of a recent bonfire.’
Bayliss set out down the garden, Hopwood took the keys of the car. Another key let them into the garage, in which stood a Lancia, doubtless Julia Tallis’s. At one end a bench was surrounded by clutter, but most you could take in at a glance: Eyke set a pile of worn tyres rolling, to reveal only a cobwebbed corner.
‘The loft, then ...’
Wooden stairs led to it. It contained the lumber of numerous decades – furniture, boxes, rolls of carpet, even the rusted frame of a motorbike.
‘Hold up, sir, someone’s been this way.’
The planked floor was floury with dust. A trail led through it, dodging in and out of the lumber, towards the far end of the loft.
‘No clear footprints.’
‘Chummie came and went, sir.’
‘So let’s see where he leads us.’
They followed the trail down the loft to a heap in a corner, covered by an old curtain.
‘He trod around a bit here, sir.’
‘Off with that curtain ...’
For a moment all they could see was dusty crockery and piles of books. Then, in shadows at the back, the patched round face of an old straw target ...
‘This is it, sir!’
‘Careful ...’
What they really needed was a light: the loft was lit only by a couple of cobwebbed panes, set one each side at the roof’s centre. Gently struck a match. Beside the target, fluffy with dust, lay a folded tripod; also, half-hidden behind the target, a leather quiver containing arrows. His match went out: he struck another, bending closer over the stacked crockery. In dust alongside the folded tripod lay a ghostly outline: as of a bow.
‘Get a photographer and dabs men out here.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Eyke was almost holding his breath.
Gingerly, Gently leaned forward and withdrew an arrow from the quiver. About a metre long, in lightweight wood, its varnish finish chafed and bruised: at one end flighted with goose-feather, at the other tipped with a blunt brass tip.
‘What we didn’t find down the well ...’
‘He would need to have sharpened it up a bit, sir.’
‘Plenty of files down below.’
They stared at each other, then headed for the trap-door.
And down below you spotted it at once: yellow filings speckling the hinge of a vice, others scattered on the bench-top adjacent, yet more on the concrete floor below. On the tool rack above, an assortment of files: including a six-inch flat with yellowed teeth.
Eyke took it down and turned it to the light.
‘I reckon this about sews it up, sir.’
‘Have the filings collected and sent to the lab along with the file, an arrow and the other stuff.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We want the brass matched, the paper, the ink, the blotter impression. Also expert opinion on the match of writing and nib.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And any dabs going on the handle of that file and the handle of the vice.’
They were interrupted by the entry of Bayliss.
‘Sir, the garden incinerator was used recently. There’s a pile of dry ash under it, mostly wood ash and charred paper.’
Gently nodded to the wall, where a sieve was hanging.
‘Sift every last pinch of it.’
NINE
AT WHICH POINT, as though in obedience to a law as yet unformulated by Professor Parkinson, three press cars arrived and impudently drove in at the gate. Reporters and cameramen piled out, the latter at once going into action: clicking at Gently, the police cars and the house, from a window in which a face hastily vanished. Wrathfully Gently strode among them.
‘Clear out of this, the whole pack of you.’
‘Now, Chiefie, don’t be like that ...’
‘Take your cars and get back on the road.’
But clearly they weren’t going to be satisfied with a brush-off, though they reluctantly shifted the cars. The cameras went on clicking and cassette recorders were held at the ready.
‘There’ll be a statement later – at the station.’
‘Chiefie, the weapon—’
‘Never mind the weapon.’
‘A little bird says Quennell had Tallis in a bind—’
‘Don’t tell me, tell your editor.’
‘Chiefie, it’s a matter of record—’
‘So print the record, and blow.’
‘Now Chiefie, we have to live too!’
‘Some other time – but not here.’
At last he drew a long breath.
‘So get your little boxes switched on.’
Instantly a battery of them were thrust towards him, while lofted cameras clicked overhead.
‘Local people are assisting the police in tracing the movements of the dead man Quennell. Progress is being made but the weapon has not yet been found. Yesterday the police inspected a well in a village property, but this is not now thought to have a connection with the crime.’
‘Chiefie, what well!’ came from all over.
‘A well to wh
ich our attention had been drawn.’
‘Now Chiefie, gives us a break ...!’
‘That’s all for now – and the charge is obstruction if you come back through that gate.’
Muttering, they drew off to the cars, there to hold a huddled conference; then, leaving two scouts, they drove away towards the village, doubtless to start the quest for Archie’s well ...
A comic interlude – but the grey face reappearing in the window was not amused. With dead eyes Tallis stared at the two reporters still posted at the gate. And down there a few bystanders were beginning to loiter, their curiosity roused by the comings and goings: the first trickle of what would become a flood when the lunchtime editions filtered through to the village. What was going through his mind, that stricken-looking man, who an hour earlier had been about to set off to his office? Julia Tallis had gone from the room, probably to get dressed. Of the two, she might prove to be the tougher option ...
Eyke’s dabs team arrived and were directed into the garage. Then Bayliss departed with their haul and instructions to the lab. Gently strolled across to the cottage, which was only thirty yards from the house; he could feel Tallis’s eye following him. Was it just possible that, in there ...?
He let himself in. A dining-hall gave into a kitchen and a lounge, the latter a bright, comfortable room with big easy chairs and cheerful paintings on the walls. Paul Tallis’s belongings lay around: more hi-fi, with an arsenal of cassettes; sailing gear, motoring magazines, binoculars, photographic equipment. A walk-in larder off the kitchen had been converted into a dark-room. Upstairs, one of the bedrooms contained a projector and a screen. Then, in a bedroom with a window facing the harbour, a powerful telescope on a tripod, trained on the sea horizon.
A young man who liked to see and record things ... so what had he seen and recorded just lately?
The projector was loaded; Gently switched it on. But all that flashed on the screen was some shots of yachts. Downstairs, he pondered over the cassettes, among which was a section labelled only with numbers. At a venture he tried the highest number: it was a recording of the last night of the Proms.
Nothing to find ...
But as he replaced the cassette he heard a car draw up outside. Then there was a light step in the porch, and in a moment Paul Tallis’s blue eyes were staring at him.
‘What on earth is going on here?’
The youngster’s gaze was half-indignant, half-alarmed. He stood poised cautiously in the doorway, as though at any instant he might need to take flight.
‘Nothing to be afraid of. Come on in!’
‘But what are all the people doing here? Cars, policemen ... men at the gate. Are you arresting someone or something?’
‘Just more routine.’
‘But ... why are you in here?’
‘Part of the job we have to do. Don’t worry – it’s all in order. What are you doing in Walderness, by the way?’
‘Me? I live here, you know!’ He relaxed a little, part reassured. ‘But I still don’t see why you’re in the cottage. At least, not without letting me know first.’
Gently shrugged. ‘That’s how it goes! But don’t you have any lectures today?’
‘Not till this afternoon. So I thought I’d pop over to see how Fiona was getting on.’
‘Ah yes ... Miss Quennell.’
‘Have you spoken to her?’ His eyes held painfully to Gently’s.
‘No such luck. Have you?’
He shook his head and looked away. ‘I called at the house. Auntie Ruth is in a tizzy because the telephone is going all the time – wretched reporters! But Fiona wasn’t there, and Auntie Ruth says she’s still the same.’ He made an odd little gesture. ‘Will she ever be better?’
‘Perhaps. When the shock has had time to wear off.’
‘I don’t know ... she was never this way before.’ He stood a moment staring at the floor. ‘Anyway, I came on here, hoping I should get mother on her own. Then I find all this going on, and Uncle Ray’s car still in the drive.’ He ventured a look. ‘What is going on?’
‘We have to cover every angle, you know.’
‘Meaning ... Uncle Ray?’
‘Even you. Everyone who might have a connection.’
‘Even me!’
He laughed shakily, glancing around the pleasant room. It too had an outlook towards the harbour and the picturesque group of riverside buildings. Other windows gave a view of the house, and one could see Raymond Tallis staring hard in their direction. Paul Tallis caught sight of him: the blue eyes tightened.
‘He gave you the keys?’
‘I requested them.’
‘So what does he think you’ll find here? That was just a bit of malice on his part, trying to drag me in along with him. He probably thinks I set you on him but you know that isn’t true. I’ve said nothing. And it’s nonsense anyway, as I expect you’re finding out.’
‘What is nonsense?’
‘What ...? That Uncle Ray had anything to do with it. To start with he’d scarcely have the nerve, even allowing he had a reason.’
‘You think it takes nerve to stab someone?’
Paul Tallis winced. ‘W-was it a stabbing?’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘I ... no! Really, only that there’d been foul play. But ... Uncle Freddy was stabbed?’
‘Does that suggest something?’
‘No, of course not.’ He kept shaking his head. ‘Only that I was imagining ... I don’t know. He could have been battered, perhaps. Or shot.’
‘Shot?’
‘People do get shot. But you say it was a stabbing ...’
He’d lost a little colour, standing there, his eyes absent, without focus. Today he was dressed in linen slacks and a blazer and a cream shirt wide open at the throat. He looked younger than nineteen: rather like a schoolboy wrestling with some intractable problem. You wanted to throw him a hint, a glimpse of a possible solution ...
Meanwhile, one of the reporters had shifted round from the gate and was leaning over a wall, quizzing the cottage and the Mini. And the onlookers had increased: they included three fishermen who’d come up from the huts on the river wall.
‘And ... you’re looking for the weapon?’
‘Perhaps we’ve found it.’
‘Found it ... about here?’
Gently said nothing.
‘I mean ... stabbing ... it could have been anything at all. I expect there are plenty of knives about.’
‘Do you have a knife?’
‘Actually, yes! I’ve got a sheath knife about here somewhere ... is that what you’re looking for? I think it’s in a drawer. I bought it for sailing, but it’s scarcely been used.’
The idea seemed almost a relief. He went to forage in drawers in a sideboard, coming up at last with a handsome knife that also embodied a marlin-spike and shackle-spanner.
‘I wonder you didn’t find it ... is it the right sort?’
There was dust between handle and sheath. Gently erected the marlin-spike, then snapped it home and handed the knife back.
‘The weapon may not have been a knife.’
‘Not a knife ...? Then what ...?’
‘I’m open to suggestions.’
Just for an instant Paul Tallis teetered; but he shook his head.
‘Well, if you could tell me what it was I might know if there’s one around the place ...’
Did he know? Perhaps it was only a guess which nothing was going to drag out of him. When the chips were down, the line drawn, Uncle Ray remained family. And there was Julia Tallis of course ... had he done any guessing about her?
Now he had replaced the knife in the drawer and slowly returned into the lounge. He stood for a while staring towards the harbour, ignoring the reporter, who was observing him with interest. He dug hands in the blazer pockets.
‘The letter ... that’s what you’re really here about, isn’t it?’
‘Do you think so?’ Gently asked.
He nodded.
‘You still think it was me who took it to The Uplands.’
The hands were poking at the pockets like ramrods and he kept staring through the window in a sort of desperate defiance: a schoolboy with problems that were too much for him. How long was he going to hold out?
‘Look – you trapped me into telling you about the letter. You made it seem as though you knew. And I honestly don’t know what Fiona had got there, it might have been a pamphlet, something like that.’
‘When did you see her with it?’
‘Well . . . when I got there. I looked for her in the lounge. She was standing by the window with something in her hand, but I couldn’t really see what it was.’
‘A plain envelope was how you described it.’
‘Yes – well, it might have been! But I can’t be certain.’
‘A plain envelope with no writing on it.’
‘None that I saw. I can only say that.’
‘But ... an envelope.’
‘All right, if it was! You’re trying the same game on again. If you’re saying it was an envelope, then it was an envelope. But what I’m saying is, I’m not certain.’
He was getting hot-faced and upset, to the absorbed curiosity of the reporter; the latter was edging closer along the wall, which separated the property from the low-lying marsh.
‘Didn’t you ask her what it was?’
‘No. Why should I?’
‘It seems a natural enquiry to have made.’
‘Well, I didn’t. If she’d wanted me to know, no doubt she’d have told me what it was.’
‘She had it in her hand, and you went to speak to her?’
‘Yes ... no, she put it down somewhere. Now I remember – she put it in a bookcase. That’s why I think it may have been a pamphlet.’
‘In a bookcase?’
‘On top of some books. She just shoved it away as I came over.’
Still the hands were dragging at the pockets and his face was turned obstinately to the window. Across at the house, Raymond Tallis hadn’t budged from his post of observation. Eyke had come out of the garage and was sitting in a car, using the RT; as he talked, he too was gazing towards the cottage and at the variegated Mini parked before it.