Losing Ground

by Catherine Aird

  ‘Running away?’ suggested Detective Constable Crosby, a young man brought up on a diet of war films. ‘Or dodging conscription?’

  She shook her head. ‘Neither. I understand that the then owner of Tolmie Park – Sir Edward Filligree – was at one time in the Territorials but was found to be suffering from tuberculosis and invalided out. He was sent to a sanatorium in Switzerland for his health.’

  ‘The White Plague,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan. ‘There was a lot of it about then.’

  Hilary Collins said, ‘Both the house at Tolmie and the land there were sold and it seems very little was heard from him after that.’

  ‘There was a war on,’ said Crosby, echoing a lot of film dialogue.

  ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Whilst I am sure some mail got through it wouldn’t have been easy for him to keep in touch with Calleshire during hostilities.’

  ‘Perhaps he wanted to shake the dust of the old country off his feet,’ said Crosby, who had also watched every film there ever was about the French Foreign Legion.

  ‘Possibly.’ Hilary Collins sounded doubtful.

  ‘Perhaps he died there, then,’ suggested Crosby. ‘People often died of tuberculosis, didn’t they?’

  ‘People only die once,’ Sloan corrected him crisply. ‘Not often.’

  Hilary Collins hurried on. ‘The house was requisitioned – that is to say, commandeered – by the Army, which didn’t do a lot for it or for the trees in the park.’

  ‘Firewood?’ groaned Sloan, a great garden man himself.

  ‘Tanks on the lawn?’ said Crosby.

  ‘Very probably,’ said Hilary Collins to both suggestions. ‘In any case the family would not have been rich by the time the house came to be sold. They’d lost almost everything by then.’

  ‘Gambling?’ suggested Sloan.

  ‘Death duties,’ said the museum assistant repressively. ‘They called them fines in the old days, which I suppose is what they are.’

  ‘Punishment for dying?’ Crosby sounded astonished.

  ‘In medieval times they were a form of compensation to the Crown for the loss of an adult male worker,’ said Hilary Collins.

  ‘The good old days, Crosby, let me remind you,’ said Sloan. ‘Now, miss, can you tell us something about this wild club his ancestors belonged to? The Crustaceans, I think you said it was called.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘I don’t know exactly what sort of goings-on they went in for, Inspector, but I do know they had a very bad reputation locally at the time. I expect they were pure braggadocios, and proud of it.’

  ‘Impure, probably,’ put in Crosby automatically, not having met the word before.

  ‘High jinks, anyway,’ said Hilary Collins. ‘Playing card games for very high stakes, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Dicing with death,’ said Crosby, who wasn’t above cutting a corner on the high road himself, betting the ranch on there being no one coming the other way.

  ‘Young men like taking risks,’ said Sloan, who had often suffered bruises when trying to stop them. ‘Hence Russian roulette.’

  Hilary Collins, spinster, gave both men a look of total lack of understanding. ‘Think of their poor wives and children! Riches to rags at the throw of a dice or the turn of a card. Disgraceful.’

  ‘Rites of passage are common to all tribes,’ said Sloan. That had come straight from the lips of one of the unfortunate lecturers at adult education classes attended by Superintendent Leeyes. The sentiment hadn’t gone down at all well with the superintendent.

  ‘If that’s what you call wagering everything you owned on barouche racing down the drive at Tolmie Park…’ began Hilary Collins, who obviously wasn’t struck on the idea of rites of passage either.

  ‘Nothing changes,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan. Even now there were bikers using the common over at Cullingoak for purposes for which it had not been intended, no doubt with bets on the side.

  ‘Showing off is what I call it,’ said the museum assistant unsympathetically. ‘Think of the horses.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan, who had learnt from an older generation that as a matter of good practice it was as well not to do anything to frighten the horses, let alone the magistrates, merely said, ‘Quite so, miss. So, tell me, where does the Crustacean bit come in?’

  ‘It was their – well, sort of trademark,’ she said. ‘They used to eat lobsters at their dinners and scatter the shells wherever they went.’ She looked disapproving. ‘Especially when they’d been up to no good. Then,’ she said with lemon lips, ‘there were their masked balls…’

  ‘Dangerous,’ agreed Sloan without hesitation. Masked balls weren’t quite as dangerous for a young woman, in his opinion, as walking home unescorted down a remote country lane at two o’clock in the morning, but still dangerous. Knowing thine enemy – as the ancients had it – was important. The fact that this wasn’t always easy in the detective branch either, he kept to himself. Instead he said to Hilary Collins, ‘Now, miss, about your Anglo-Saxon artefacts…’

  ‘It’s about the Anglo-Saxon items taken from the museum, sir,’ began Sloan as he and Crosby walked into Superintendent Leeyes’ office in Berebury Police Station.

  ‘Stolen from the museum, you mean, Sloan.’ The superintendent was not a man to mince his words.

  ‘Missing, anyway,’ said Sloan. That was as far as he was prepared to go for the time being.

  ‘Not there,’ contributed Detective Constable Crosby helpfully.

  Leeyes glared across his desk at his two subordinates. ‘Well?’

  ‘Not a great deal more to say about them at this stage, sir, I’m afraid.’ Duty bound, Sloan had reported back to the superintendent in Berebury as soon as he could. ‘It would seem,’ he went on carefully, ‘that the items that aren’t there were small pieces of no great intrinsic value.’

  ‘In theft, Sloan,’ thundered the superintendent, sounding very like Lady Bracknell, ‘the value of the goods taken is immaterial. Let me remind you that there are no such things as unconsidered trifles in police work.’

  ‘Quite so, sir,’ said Sloan, ‘but in my opinion the significant thing in this instance is that items of greater – much greater – value in the same display cabinet were left and we know that the thief was undisturbed and didn’t have to leave in a hurry.’

  Detective Constable Crosby flicked his notebook open and began to read. ‘The famous Almstone Brooch is still there…at least,’ he added dubiously, ‘Hilary Collins says it’s famous.’

  ‘Jewelled,’ put in Sloan. ‘Found by Professor Michael Ripley and part of the Almstone hoard which he excavated – and still there in the display cabinet.’

  ‘A quoit brooch,’ went on Crosby. ‘And some gold bracteates.’

  ‘A wafer-thin leaf of metal,’ explained Sloan swiftly, before the superintendent could draw breath, ‘used in the manufacture of embossed pendants.’

  ‘Still there,’ chimed in Crosby. ‘That is, not taken. Also a sword-hilt with silver and niello inlay…’

  Sloan had seen a piece there that could have come straight from his wife’s dressing-table – a garnet brooch of cast silver. Perhaps nothing changed…

  ‘Suppose you just tell me what isn’t there,’ suggested Leeyes.

  ‘Just some small bronze pins and a type of button, sir. Oh, and some little pieces of bone…’

  The superintendent’s head came up on the instant. ‘Bone?’

  ‘There was nothing missing from the Paleolithic Room, sir,’ said Sloan hastily. ‘The auroch remains are still there.’

  The superintendent subsided back in his seat.

  ‘Nothing else appears be missing from that cabinet, sir, not even some fragments of reindeer antlers thought to have been used until recently in the Cullingoak Horn Dance. They’ve been carbon-dated to before the Norman Conquest.’

  ‘Nothing of monetary value taken, you say,’ murmured Leeyes thoughtfully. ‘But perhaps worth someone’s while to break in and take them all the same,
would you say?’

  ‘The display cabinet might just have broken under the weight of whoever took the portrait, sir.’

  Superintendent Leeyes leant back in his chair. ‘So, what we have so far is a case of arson…

  ‘The fire people think so,’ said Sloan.

  ‘And one definite case of theft,’ the superintendent ticked off his fingers. ‘A portrait of undoubtedly some – but not startling – value and one doubtful case of theft: a handful of Anglo-Saxon artefacts presumably of no commercial value at all that may have merely gone missing in the breakin…’

  Detective Inspector Sloan pointed in the direction of Crosby’s notebook. ‘I’m not entirely sure about that yet, sir.’

  ‘On the police principle of everything having its price?’ enquired the superintendent, quite mildly for him.

  ‘On the presumption that there was a reason for the theft or thefts,’ said Sloan. He coughed. ‘There is also, sir, a fairly strong rumour going the rounds, which may or may not be relevant, that the firm of Calleford Construction has it in mind to take over Berebury Homes.’

  The superintendent considered this. ‘So they have a fire with a view to hitting a man when he’s down?’

  ‘It’s easier,’ said Sloan. Sportsmanship was not to be presumed in police work.

  ‘No smoke without fire,’ observed Crosby from the sidelines.

  Superintendent Leeyes favoured Crosby with a baleful look. ‘Arson is one thing, constable. Bones are quite another.’

  ‘Now thought to be animal ones,’ interposed Sloan. He thought it better not to mention the supporting evidence of the sniffer dog. ‘The remains have gone to forensics and they’re being examined now. As have the shells they were sitting on. Lobster ones, almost certainly.’

  ‘So we don’t know why the portrait and the other bits and pieces were stolen from the museum, or why the fire was set or why some bones were left sitting on the floor on some old shells when it was lit. That right, Sloan?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You haven’t got very far, have you?’

  ‘Jonathon Ayling’s shoes are a bit suspect,’ said Sloan, deciding to neither apologise nor explain. ‘They’ve gone to forensics, as well.’

  The superintendent steepled his fingers, ‘That apart, I think we can have what you might call an educated guess about the lobster shells, can’t we?’

  ‘I think so. Someone somewhere wants the connection made between the missing portrait and Tolmie Park,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan.

  ‘But by whom? Tell me that, Sloan.’

  ‘I’m seeing another interested party next, sir. Berebury Homes. They must come into this somewhere but I don’t know where yet.’

  Superintendent Leeyes growled, ‘In my time in the force I think I’ve seen every crime in the book except Morris dancing but there’s something going on here that even I don’t understand.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Sloan – but under his breath.

  Detective Constable Crosby consulted a street map and then counted the numbers down from the junction until he came to the fourth house on his left. He stopped the car in front of a neat detached dwelling half way down a road comprised of similar small and neat detached dwellings. There was nothing to distinguish number 8, Acacia Avenue from any of its neighbours in what was essentially a very ordinary road but it was, he hoped, the home of Stuart Bellamy.

  As far as Crosby was concerned it did not look like a house at which seven figure cheques would be written as a matter of course – and seven figures was what he had been told Tolmie Park would be worth with planning permission. What it was worth without planning permission was something no one was prepared to tell him. ‘It might even be a white elephant,’ was what Detective Inspector Sloan had said as he had sped him on his way. ‘A downright liability, I would have thought, Crosby, except that this Stuart Bellamy, whoever he is, wants to buy it whatever it’s like.’

  And if that wasn’t suspicious, then Crosby didn’t know what was. He approached the front door, noting that the car parked in the drive was the same one that had been at Tolmie Park during the fire. With a bit of luck, its owner should be at home.

  He was.

  Moreover, Stuart Bellamy recognised Crosby from the scene of the fire. ‘Come in,’ he said, leading the way to the sitting room.

  ‘Just checking on one or two little matters, sir,’ Crosby began his spiel.

  ‘Sure,’ said Bellamy easily.

  ‘We gather that you’re interested in buying Tolmie Park,’ said Crosby.

  ‘Not a crime,’ said Bellamy.

  ‘No, sir, that’s very true, but as you were there at the time of the fire…’

  ‘Not a crime either,’ pointed out Bellamy. ‘Or is it?’

  ‘No, not in itself,’ agreed Crosby, forbearing to add what he had been taught during his training about those who cause a fire often being among the crowd watching it, ‘but as the fire was almost certainly a crime scene…’

  ‘Arson, I thought it was called,’ supplied Bellamy pithily. ‘But as you must appreciate, I wanted to buy it, not burn it to the ground.’

  ‘Tolmie Park could well be worth more burnt to the ground,’ said Crosby, who had had this spelt out to him by Inspector Sloan.

  ‘Very possibly, but as it happens should that have been the case, Constable, then I wouldn’t have wished to buy it.’

  ‘Might I therefore ask,’ enquired Crosby delicately, ‘for what purpose you do wish to buy it?’ He allowed his glance to encompass the décor of number 8’s sitting room in which chintz figured prominently: the carpet was good without being outstanding, the wallpaper attractive but understated.

  Stuart Bellamy waved a hand. ‘Seeing as you ask, Constable, and seeing that we’re not yet quite a police state, I can tell you that it is being bought for residential purposes. You know, to live in.’

  ‘That’s what we’d heard, sir.’ The two vases on the mantelpiece would have fitted in at Tolmie Park all right but the scale of the furniture was definitely more Acacia Avenue than any old and stately home.

  Bellamy’s head came up on the instant. ‘Heard from whom?’

  ‘A gentleman called Lionel Perry whose firm owns it at the moment. He told us you wanted to make him an offer. I take it, sir, that it wasn’t an offer he couldn’t refuse?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, Constable, he did refuse it without even telling us what he would take for the place.’

  ‘Us?’ Detective Constable Crosby pounced on the word.

  ‘I was making enquiries on behalf of myself and another,’ said Bellamy smoothly.

  ‘I think that’s what Mr Perry was afraid of,’ said the detective constable.

  ‘That I’d be a man of straw? Well, you can tell him from me that I’m not one of those in the sense he probably has in mind.’

  ‘You did use the word “us”, though,’ said Crosby mildly.

  Stuart Bellamy remained unperturbed. ‘My boss merely wishes to live there and asked me to undertake some preliminary enquiries on his behalf. Which I accordingly did.’

  ‘I understand your approach was not successful, sir,’ said Crosby.

  ‘Too right. It wasn’t even welcome. I got a first class brush-off but I don’t suppose he told you that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Lionel Perry said that Berebury Homes’ plans were far too advanced to consider change of direction – or words to that effect.’

  ‘And who,’ asked Crosby, ‘is your employer?’ From Crosby’s standpoint any name was better than no name.

  ‘Mr Burke,’ said Stuart Bellamy readily enough. ‘Mr Jason Burke. I tell you this in confidence. He doesn’t want the whole wide world to know that he is in the market to buy the place, though, so we would be very grateful if his interest could be treated as commercially sensitive.’

  ‘I quite understand, sir.’ Detective Constable Crosby dutifully took down the name and the address of a house in the far north of Calleshire. It was not in his manor a
nd the name of Jason Burke meant nothing to him. He snapped his notebook shut and got to his feet. ‘Thank you, sir, you’ve been very helpful.’

  As he drove back down Acacia Avenue in his unmarked police car, Crosby spotted the approach of a car with a man at the wheel. He waited and watched as it pulled up opposite number eight and the engine killed, while the driver surveyed the house without getting out. After a minute or two the engine was switched on again and the car driven away. Crosby automatically took down its number before driving back to the police station.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘My name,’ Jason Burke’s manager spoke slowly and clearly down the telephone, ‘is Stuart Bellamy and I would like to talk to the chairman of the Berebury Preservation Society.’ Stuart Bellamy had sat in his sitting room for quite a long while before taking any action, Jason’s valedictory threat still ringing in his ears and Detective Constable Crosby’s visit fresh in his mind. ‘I understand your society is very concerned about the future of Tolmie Park.’

  Actually it would have been quite difficult to avoid the Society’s well-publicised attempts to save the building but he did not say so.

  ‘We certainly are,’ Wendy Pullen trilled, happily preparing to deliver her usual lecture on the subject. ‘We’d do anything we could to save it – anything legal, that is,’ she added hastily, since she didn’t know to whom she was speaking.

  ‘And my principal,’ said Stuart Bellamy incautiously, ‘is prepared to do anything to buy it. Well, almost anything.’ That last caveat only applied to him: Jason would probably be prepared to go a great deal further than he, Stuart Bellamy, was. But then it was Jason who not only wanted to own Tolmie Park but who was the one who had the money with which to buy it.

  ‘It wasn’t you who stole the painting from the museum, was it?’ enquired Wendy Pullen curiously. Since Jonathon Ayling, their very own activist and prime suspect for the burglary had denied doing this, she was at a loss to think of anyone else who might have done.

  ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Our only involvement so far has been with Lionel Perry, the chairman of Berebury Homes…’