Salisbury’s eyes flickered. “Who says I did that?”
“They weren’t there when the car was towed into the scrapyard. Nor was the log book, for that matter.” Pity he hadn’t checked the boot too, but Mayo didn’t feel it necessary to say so. “What happened to them?”
“I don’t have to answer these questions.”
“It would be in your own interests to do so.”
“I think I may be the best judge of that.”
“Do you? I don’t believe you are, you know. Perfectly reasonable questions, Mr. Salisbury. But since you won’t answer, you’ll have to allow us to put our own construction on events. I suggest you had the vehicle towed away because you knew who’d left it there, first removing the identification because you’d very good reasons indeed for not wanting it to be known who it belonged to.”
“I refuse to be badgered like this!”
“Nobody’s badgering you, sir, and you’re quite at liberty to refuse to answer, but the owner of that car has been murdered, and like it or not you’re involved in the enquiries, if only as a result of your having his car towed away.”
Salisbury had removed his cap on entering the room and now he undid the zip on his jacket. Perspiration stood on his forehead and his colour was high, his pale, prominent eyes bulging like marbles. He pulled out his handkerchief, wiped off the sweat. “Is that who it belonged to, that man Cockayne?”
“Are you telling me you didn’t know that?”
A telephone rang insistently in the distance. No one answered it for some time. “I didn’t know,” Salisbury admitted at last. “But I suppose I guessed it did.”
“Does that mean you’re prepared to make a statement?”
“I’m prepared to tell you what I know, if that’s what you mean.” Mayo gave the go-ahead to Jenny Platt, whom he had asked to be present with her notebook, sitting in a corner by the window. She was an expert shorthand writer, far speedier and more accurate than Kite, who sometimes had trouble deciphering his own cryptic notations.
“Go on, Mr. Salisbury. Just tell me in your own words what happened.”
Salisbury fidgeted for a while, gaining time, and then said, “Well, I was coming home that evening –”
“Which evening are we talking about?”
“The Monday evening, as I recall, the night before you came to the farm. I’d been to an N.F.U. meeting, as I told you then, which had gone on rather late, and I’d stayed on, talking to friends –”
“Just a minute. Let’s be clear about the time.”
“It was well after midnight, I suppose, I wouldn’t like to swear to the exact time.”
“All right, carry on.”
“I was just coming out of the corner round by the lower coppice, going slowly because I was tired and the roads were icing over – you remember how frosty it was that night – when my headlights showed somebody moving about in the corner of the field, just behind the trees. I thought it was somebody poaching. We’ve had a lot of trouble lately, so I took my gun and got out to see. It was Fleming. Actually, 1 didn’t recognise him at first, I hardly knew him and it must’ve been twelve months since I’d last seen him anyway, but he recognised me, immediately I think. He said, ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing with that gun? Put it down for Christ’s sake, it might go off.’ ” He paused to mop his forehead again.
“You look warm, Mr. Salisbury. Why not take your jacket off?” He didn’t appear to have heard, but put his handkerchief away and carried on. “I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing on my land, which was more to the point.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He laughed and said he’d be only too happy to get off it if he could get the damn car started and then he said, very offensively I thought, ‘Why don’t you see if you can help instead of just standing there?’ I told him I was no mechanic, cleaning the plugs is about my limit, and actually it was such a pathetic old wreck it looked as though it’d never start again, anyway. So I suggested he leave it and come up to the house to ring for a taxi, which I thought was pretty generous in the circumstances, considering his tone.”
“Did he accept?”
“He did not! He’d the blasted cheek to say he’d a better idea ... why didn’t I push off and leave him alone if that was the best I could do. He actually,” Salisbury went on, his face becoming so suffused that his collar looked tight, “put his hand on my shoulder and shoved so that I staggered backwards.”
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing happened, except that I did just that,” Salisbury said shortly. “I pushed off and left him to it.”
“Really? Are you quite sure that’s all you did?”
Salisbury looked down his patrician nose. “You can please yourself whether you believe me or not, I’ve told you what happened,” he said coldly.
Mayo considered him. “You just walked away. Now I wonder why?” He didn’t think Salisbury in the least likely to take kindly to having his offer of help thrown back in his face. To shrug off the snub and simply walk away in circumstances like that was out of character.
“I’ll tell you why,” Salisbury said suddenly, leaning forward. “He looked bloody dangerous, that’s why. It wasn’t a suggestion he made, it was a threat. If I’d refused, he was just as likely to have knocked me down and made off with the Range Rover. I’ve a wife and children, Mr. Mayo, I’d no right to start thinking of playing the jolly old hero. And besides, strange as it may seem, I value my own skin. I think even you might have thought twice about arguing with him.”
Mayo listened to this and felt that if this was the true reason, he was inclined to like Salisbury better for it than at any time during their short acquaintance. “So, what happened next?”
“What happened next was that Susan found him dead in his car the following day, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“No, I’m not likely to have forgotten that,” Mayo answered evenly. “I’m sorry for it, finding a body isn’t a very pleasant experience, one I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but it’s somewhat beside the point at the moment. Why didn’t you mention what had happened between you and Fleming when we spoke to you that night?”
“I panicked, like anybody else would. Wouldn’t have looked very good if I’d said we’d quarrelled just before he was murdered, would it? While we were arguing, at least two cars passed and I was afraid their headlights might’ve picked us out. I was holding my shotgun, remember? And Fleming had pushed me so that I staggered.”
Mayo considered him. “But you know by now that it wasn’t Fleming who was murdered.”
“Yes,” Salisbury said shortly, “and I think myself lucky not to have met the same fate, all things considered.”
“All right, but when you first heard about Fleming’s death, when you thought he’d committed suicide in Scotley Beeches, apparently shortly after you’d encountered him with the Volkswagen, you must surely have thought that very odd. What did you think had happened?”
“My God, what a question! I didn’t know what to think, except that he must’ve gone back into the forest for some reason after I’d spoken to him. There’s a footpath that would’ve taken him there in about fifteen minutes – and I assumed that’s what he’d done.”
“What did you think he’d been doing with the Volkswagen?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t want to know. All that bothered me was to get it off my land, pronto, and that’s what I told her ...”
“Her?” Mayo said quickly.
There was a measurable silence. Jenny Platt’s hand remained poised over her book. Salisbury suddenly picked up the despised, now cold tea and drank it off at one swig. “Georgina,” he said. “Georgina Fleming.”
Mayo sat back. “So, you and Mrs. Fleming were in this together.”
“No, we were not!” Stung, Salisbury’s voice had risen. “Not like that, not as you put it!”
“How would you put it, then?”
“I know nothing about this murde
r ... at first, when I heard about Fleming – when you told us it was supposed to be Fleming who’d shot himself – I rang Georgina to offer my condolences.” His prominent pale eyes were wary. “We used to know each other rather well some time ago, and though we hadn’t seen each other for ages, I felt it was the least I could do.”
“Very commendable, sir.” And no doubt he had also wanted to know how the land lay, what line the police were taking and how much they knew and what his own course of action ought to be. “And I suppose you talked about the Volkswagen.”
“Of course we did. I wasn’t too happy, to put it mildly, at the idea of leaving it where it was under the circumstances.”
“And Mrs. Fleming?”
“She knew nothing about it, until I told her. She was as mystified as I was as to why her husband was there messing about with that old banger when he had a perfectly good car of his own. And then, when he was found dead in the Porsche ... well, whatever, I didn’t want the VW leaving where it was, and Georgina saw my point. I told her I’d dispose of it and we both agreed it would be better all round to say nothing to anyone else about it. And I might say,” he added bitterly, “I paid that scrapyard over the odds to do the same.”
“Shouldn’t be so trusting. And afterwards, when you learned it wasn’t Rupert Fleming, but another man who’d been killed?”
“I realized then, of course, that he’d probably been trying to get away, but the car had been destroyed by then so there was no point in saying anything at that stage.”
“Not even when we put out an appeal for information on the Volkswagen?” Salisbury said nothing and Mayo’s gaze on him was hard. “I wonder if you’re telling us the whole truth?”
Salisbury’s face was stiff with dislike. “I’m not in the habit of lying –” He broke off, looking discomfited, as if wondering whether evasion came under the same heading and then deciding to brazen it out. “Take it or leave it, I’ve told you what happened. If you don’t choose to believe me, that’s your pigeon.”
“I don’t think you quite realize the situation you’re in. What you’ve been at pains to show as nothing more than a bit of an argument with Fleming might well have been something much worse. On your own admission, you had a gun with you. Fleming was in a vicious mood that night, he may have just killed one man and he’d nothing to lose by having a go at another. Are you quite sure he didn’t? Have a go? Or try to take your Range Rover, and did you then perhaps use your gun? Is that perhaps why he hasn’t been seen since?”
Salisbury scraped back his chair and stood up. “I think you’re exceeding your authority, Chief Inspector,” he said, hauteur in his bulging blue eyes, gathering his forces but by no means as confident as when he’d first come in.
Mayo could see what was coming and before Salisbury had the chance to invoke friends in high places – the name of the Chief Constable was hanging tangibly in the air – he stood up, too. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Salisbury,” he said. “We’ll be in touch. I shall want to see you again.”
The two detectives sat for some time in silence after the door had closed behind Jenny Platt, who had escorted Salisbury downstairs to where his statement would be prepared for signature.
His departure left behind a sense of anti-climax. It wasn’t within the character of either man to want to admit that Fleming had got away, but a realistic assessment of the situation had to allow that it was possible he had – for the time being. To think of him permanently free, cocking a snook at them from somewhere out there, was untenable to a degree. Finding him and bringing him to justice was a top priority. A man who was capable of committing two murders of such brutality had forfeited any right to freedom. Mayo was short on sympathy for Fleming and others like him. He’d seen too much of the other side.
“We know the car was in the coppice at any rate,” Kite said, “and we also know Fleming didn’t get away in it as he’d planned. I suppose it’s safe to assume he was in Coventry two days later, because of the letter being posted there.”
“The old Volks could only have been a means of getting away in the first place. He must’ve had better arrangements in view for later.”
“And if that was kaput, he’d either have to thumb a lift into Lavenstock, or maybe the opposite direction, or walk, before getting himself over to Coventry one way or another. Or even sleep in the car until next morning and then do likewise.”
“Leaving behind, fortunately for us, his holdall, his typewriter, his briefcase and the things he’d been at so much trouble to steal from Lois French ... it won’t do, old lad, it won’t do.”
Kite thought for a moment. “He has to be somewhere around still.”
Considering the situation, Mayo sat back, physically relaxed, but with an expression on his face with which Kite was familiar, that he knew boded no good for anyone on the wrong side of him. Stubborn, bloody-minded even, it also reflected his own inclinations at that moment.
“There is, however,” Mayo said suddenly, “another alternative.” And ten minutes of conversation later, he pushed the telephone across the desk to Kite.
It was half past three when Kite rang Culver Dixon Associates, and when he asked to speak to Mrs. Fleming he was told she had already left. It was her night at the squash club, but she’d asked her secretary to cancel the game she’d arranged to play, saying she had another appointment.
“Never mind, Martin.” Mayo pushed back his chair with a sudden access of energy and shrugged himself into his jacket. “It won’t matter in the long run, will it?”
EIGHTEEN
“ ’Tis time to die when ’tis a shame to live.”
“YOU WANTED TO SEE ME. Well, here I am, Father.”
“Come in, girl, come in to the front.”
In the cave of his study, Culver poked the fire to a blaze before lowering himself into his old wing chair while Minty, still wary of Georgina, turned around several times before curling on the hearthrug at his feet. She was a one-man dog, Culver’s and no one else’s. She’d been brought to Upper Delph as a puppy seven years ago, a few weeks after Georgina had gone, never leaving his side since. She would take neither food nor orders from anyone other than him.
So little had anything changed in this room that Georgina felt she might have been back in her childhood, on this dark afternoon of flickering firelight – watching Andy Pandy on the television maybe, or later, when she was older, toasting crumpets at the fire with the long-handled brass fork, and her father puffing at his old pipe in the chair opposite. She was surrounded by objects well loved and familiar from her childhood ... the wall clock, the Victorian watercolour she’d always loved of the house, and the old brown sofa that was a piece of her life. She remembered cuddling into the sofa’s soft velvety comfort to read, or to watch her father draw pictures for her. Remembered too, hiding her face against the back and fighting to control tears she mustn’t ever show.
“Don’t ever let anybody know what you’re thinking or feeling, girl. That way you’ll always have the advantage.” That’s what he’d drummed into her, so that although they were never physically very far apart, he never knew what she really felt and thought as she was growing up – about him, about Rupert. He’d taken it for granted that since he’d always been careful to show an interest in what she did, had been there for advice and encouragement, and since she’d never gone materially short of anything, she must be happy. And she had been happy, or at least she hadn’t been unhappy. Until she met Rupert, and found out what unhappiness really was.
Don’t cry. Don’t show it when you’re hurt. Control yourself, even when you fed you’re going to burst with happiness, and love ...
“God, you’re a cold-hearted bitch!” Rupert had accused her, not having the nous or the sensitivity or whatever it needed to see that she couldn’t, however she tried, lay herself open by admitting how he could set her on fire.
But now the dam had burst. The murky waters of emotion boiled and swirled around her. She felt she was drowning in them a
nd had to fight to come to the surface. She’d begun to shiver, uncontrollably, feeling premonitions of further disasters to come, and she said suddenly, “I’m so cold, I’ll make some tea. Do you want some?”
“I’d rather have hot cocoa.”
It was a funny old time of day for cocoa. But yes, why not? What did the usual conventions matter? “Yes, cocoa, that’s a good idea.”
So she went down the familiar draughty passage to the kitchen Mrs. Stretton had left neat as a new pin and boiled milk and made some in the old blue jug, putting mugs on a tray and carrying it back carefully. A physical comfort that could do nothing to allay the rapidly mounting terror inside. That they should sit calmly drinking cocoa while the catastrophic happenings of the last few days hung between them was as unreal as everything else about the afternoon, irrational as the things one did in dreams. But this was a nightmare from which she would never wake up.
Without looking directly at him, she was aware of him observing her from under his heavy brows, his knotted hands busy with his pipe. When she’d seen him the other day on his birthday after so long an interval, she’d been shocked and dismayed to see how old he looked, how gaunt the intervening years had made him. But he’d lost none of his disciplined severity, and knowing that she was still, as always, overawed by his forcefulness, she had to make herself speak.
“You know – about Rupert, Father, don’t you?” She couldn’t bring herself to be more plain, but there, it was out. And his answer, when it came, was as indirect as her question. He reached into his pocket for his rubber pouch, refilled and lit his pipe, his actions deliberate and unhurried, before he spoke, calm and apparently unworried.
“It’s all one now. Water under the bridge. Don’t worry, we’ll make out, yet.”
We. The two of them, together again, but now linked by death. What had she done, what had she brought on them? She knew by her father’s face that he knew – and didn’t blame her for it, either.
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