The old woman turned to the right, went down some steps, turned left again. They had gone three or four hundred yards and were now approaching another main road, a road which presumably ran parallel with the Rue de Piste.
She stopped and indicated the side door of a house, which stood ajar. It was an undistinguished sort of house, but Nap could see that there were lights in the first-floor windows.
“Monsieur will go up. He will find the door on the left.”
“Thank you,” said Nap.
The stairs were steep and turned twice, and being lit only by an economical blue bulb they were not too easy to negotiate. On the landing were two doors. Nap knocked at the one which showed a light. A voice bade him enter.
There were three men in the room and as soon as Nap was fairly inside one of them moved across behind him and turned the key in the lock. It did not need this gesture to tell Nap that he had come to the right place. As soon as he cast eyes upon the man who seemed to be the leader of the three he knew what he was up against.
This was a big man, thick but not heavy, strong but not clumsy. The coat cut more tightly than was necessary across the shoulders and the biceps. The hair black and well brushed. The twelve hours’ beard across the cheekbones. The brown eyes expressionless. A direct descendant of Patron-Minette. Nap had met his like on many occasions. He had seen him put against walls and shot, blandly defiant, spitting on to the floor with delicate timing a second before the bullets went into his body. He had seen him using a machine gun and he had seen him using a knife. He had seen him during the great retreat, bundling up the bodies of Germans, alive, wounded or dead, like stooks of corn, and tossing them into the back of a blazing oil truck.
“Sit down,” said the man.
“What—?” began Nap.
“And keep quiet.”
At a signal the lights were turned out. The window was opened and they all sat in the darkness and waited. A car or two went past, but none stopped. The bell rang again. No one moved. Nap heard the old woman’s footsteps in the hall below and the front door opening. Steps coming lightly upstairs and a knock on the door.
The window was closed and shuttered, the light turned on again, and the door unlocked. It was the unpleasant youth who had spoken to Nap in the hotel in Rouen.
“He was not followed,” he announced.
“Good,” said the big man. “Get out the car, if you please, and we will go. Ramon will stay behind. Coco to come with me. You will drive.” He nodded to the little man who disappeared again.
It was all perfectly professional, unemphatic, almost casual, and Nap had a cold feeling that he had walked into something which it was not going to be very easy to get out of.
“Where are we going?” he said.
“I know nothing,” said the big man. “I do what I am told. You are going to see those who will be able to talk to you.”
“The chief of the smugglers,” suggested Nap.
There was a tiny check in all their movements.
“If you talk again,” said the man, “I will fill your mouth with sawdust and have your lips strapped with tape. It will not be comfortable.”
Three minutes later they were in the car, an olive-green Citroen. The little man was driving, and driving well. Nap sat in the capacious back seat between the other two men.
The car skirted Angers and turned west.
They were some distance out of the town – it was difficult to judge, in the dark, and at the speed they were going – but he thought they might have gone eight or ten kilometres when the big man touched the driver on the shoulder.
“Slower,” he said, “and cut out your engine.”
In the silence which ensued the big man sat with his eyes closed, his chin on his shoulder.
“We are being followed,” he said at last, “by a car without lights. But we are near the turning now. I think they are too far away to see us.”
The driver nodded. He had switched the engine on again and they were gathering speed.
Ahead of them was a long straight stretch of white road, running slightly uphill. At the top a bend. As the car rounded the bend and started to run down the other side the driver turned out all the lights. The car barely checked, made a sharp turn to the left, and they were in a small road. The surface was poor. Then left again, the engine was cut, and the car came to a standstill.
As it did so Nap heard the noise of two cars on the main road they had just left. They were big cars and they were going fast. They went past.
“Get moving,” said the big man. “They’ll come back as soon as they miss us on the next straight.”
The car bumped forward, forked right, and came out on to what looked like a private drive. They bucketed along for about half a mile, descending gradually. The state of the road combined with the lack of lights to reduce their speed to little more than a crawl.
Nap guessed that the river lay somewhere ahead of them.
The car swung off the road into a field and stopped. No one moved. For a long minute they listened. There was no sound at all.
“All out,” said the big man.
They walked together across the grass with their prisoner a pace or two in front of them. Nap’s mind was obstinately blank of ideas. He realised that the big man had lied to him. He was not being taken to see anybody. That had been said to keep him quiet. He had been taken out to be killed, and killed he would be, quietly and economically, in a very few minutes.
Suddenly he saw the river. Not ten feet ahead of him it winked under the moon, jet and silver. It ran in a great curve through the meadow which they were crossing and Nap guessed why they had come to this precise point. The river there would be deep, with the undertow of the current on the bend.
“Stop now,” said the big man. They closed up on him. Nap saw that Coco was carrying a small sack over his shoulder and from the way it swung he guessed there would be weights in it. The little man had produced a coil of insulated wire.
“Hold out your wrists,” said the big man.
Nap lifted his hands as if to comply. Then, as the big man stepped forward, he jumped. He was jumping for his life and he put all his strength and agility into it. As an athlete clears a vaulting horse, with his hands ahead of him, so Nap went head-first between the two men. He saw the blue glint of a knife coming up to meet him, but he was past and going away from the blow as it landed. A hot and stinging feeling in his side, then his hands touched a tussock of grass and he doubled up and his movement became a forward roll.
Then he was falling, and stars and moon were blotted out together as he went down into the cold black waters of the Loire.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Your name is Charles Edward Younger. You are the doctor attached for police duties to Q Division of the Metropolitan Police?”
“I am.”
“Were you called to a hotel in Pearlyman Street on the night of March fourteenth of this year?”
“Yes.”
“What time did you reach the hotel?”
“Ten minutes after midnight.”
“You were taken immediately to one of the hotel bedrooms and there shown a body that you now understand to be Major Thoseby’s?”
“Yes.”
“You first examined Major Thoseby’s body then at about ten past twelve?”
“Yes.”
“How long, in your opinion, had he then been dead?”
“Well, that is a question I always answer with some caution. Of course, in this case, I was on the scene early enough to be reasonably accurate. I should have said, not more than two hours, certainly not less than one hour. Most probably nearer ninety minutes.”
Doctor Younger then gave, at some length, his technical reasons for arriving at this estimate.
“Thank you, doctor. Would you describe, now, to the court, the wound which you examined – there was no doubt, by the way, that this wound was the cause of death?”
“None at all.”
“Very well, th
en, what sort of wound was it?”
“It was a single deep incision. The point of entry was just below the sternum, three inches to the right of the ensiform cartilage. The wound penetrated the left lobe of the liver, passing upward in the direction of the left shoulder and into the heart. Such a wound would cause death in a matter of seconds.”
“Omitting all technicalities, Doctor Younger, would it be correct to say that the weapon which caused this wound was thrust upward, under the ribs, into the heart?”
“Yes, in a left-handed direction.”
“You are of the opinion that the person who used the weapon held it in their left hand?”
“It is not a question of opinion, I am certain they did.”
“Very well. You have seen this knife.” A black-handled, long-bladed, kitchen knife, sharpened on both edges, one of the exhibits, was handed to the witness. “Was the wound consistent with having been made with a knife such as this one?”
“Yes, I should think that was about right.”
“Would it need great strength to inflict such a wound with such a weapon?”
“Not at all. A heavy, well-ground knife like this would go in fairly easily, particularly in that direction.”
“Could a woman have delivered such a blow?”
“Certainly – even a strong and determined child.”
“You say ‘in that direction.’ Do I understand that it was a skillful blow?”
“Either skillful or lucky. A little lower, it would have caused a nasty wound in the bowel, but would not have killed—or not immediately. A little higher, and the blow might have been turned by the ribs.”
“I want to put to you something that was said by one of the earlier witnesses.” Mr. Summers read parts of Major Ammon’s evidence. “Do you agree that this was the sort of blow that Major Ammon was describing?”
“Yes. This blow was certainly struck by someone standing in front of Major Thoseby, using the knife with its point upward, with a left-handed, underarm swing. I am not an expert on French Resistance work, but that is certainly the sort of blow it was.”
“Doctor Younger,” said Macrea, “I would like to go back to something you said at the beginning of your evidence. You said that you were always cautious in offering an opinion as to how long a person had been dead?”
“Yes.”
“Does the certainty with which you can give your opinion depend on how soon after death you see the body?”
“On that and other factors.”
“Certainly, other factors must count. But is the length of time the chief factor?”
“I cannot answer a purely hypothetical question like that.”
“Very well. Let me offer you a concrete case. If you saw a body within five minutes of death what would be your approximate margin of error?”
“I should know to within a minute or two.”
“Right. Suppose now that you had examined Major Thoseby’s body within half an hour of its discovery. It had not been disturbed. It was in the same room as that in which death took place – or so we are assuming. How accurate could you be then?”
“In those circumstances, you should be able to tell within ten minutes either way.”
“Thank you. I am not going to use these figures against you, doctor, you understand. They are agreed to be approximations. Now actually you saw the body about ninety minutes after it was discovered. And your estimate of the time of death, which you have just given the court, has a margin of error of sixty minutes. ‘Not more than one hour,’ I think you said, ‘and not less than two.’”
“Yes.”
“It is true, then, that the possible margin of error grows rapidly as time is allowed to elapse between death and examination?”
“Certainly. I have never denied it. If you allowed twenty-four hours to elapse you might find it difficult to say within six hours when death took place. It is very important that a doctor should see the body as soon as possible.”
“Yes,” said Macrea. “Then why didn’t he?”
“Really, sir—”
“Don’t misunderstand me, please. I am not imputing anything in the nature of professional negligence to you, Doctor Younger. I happen to know that you were summoned, from your flat, at ten minutes to midnight and you have told us that you were examining the body at ten past – I don’t think that anyone could complain of slowness there. But I would like to know the reason for the delay of more than an hour in fetching you.”
“Well – I can hardly answer that. I understand there was some confusion over the matter between the hotel manager, his waiter and the inspector in charge of the case.”
“I see. We can recall one of those witnesses, if it seems necessary. But no doubt the inspector will be able to enlighten us when he gives his evidence.” Macrea smiled at Mr. Summers, who took the opportunity of making a bad-tempered note on his brief.
“It is true, however, doctor, that if you had been on the spot by, let us say, a quarter past eleven, you would have been able to fix the time of death very much more accurately.”
“Certainly.”
“And if anyone wished to conceal the exact time of death one of the ways of doing so would be to delay the arrival of the medical expert who was to inspect the body?”
“I think that follows.”
“Thank you. Now, doctor, in giving your estimate of the latest time of death you said, if I have you correctly, ‘certainly not less than an hour,’ and then you said, ‘more probably ninety minutes.’ I wasn’t quite clear on that. Did you mean that ninety minutes before your examination was the probable time of the murder – or the probable short limit?”
“I meant the probable short limit.”
“I see. That would take us back to twenty minutes to eleven.”
“Yes – I suppose that’s right.”
“You have heard that the prisoner is alleged to have committed this offense at about a quarter to eleven.”
“Yes. I—”
“In that case, doctor, it is your professional opinion that the murder probably took place before the prisoner’s arrival on the scene?”
“I don’t think you can use these times quite as meticulously as that.”
“I only said ‘probably.’ I believe that was your own word.”
“With that qualification, yes.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
“As I understand it, doctor,” said Mr. Summers, “you established two time limits for the latest possible moment of death. One of them was an hour before your examination, the other an hour and a half?”
“That is so.”
“Then would it not be fair to take the average of your two times and say that the latest probable time of death was an hour and a quarter before your examination?”
“Yes. I think that would be reasonable.”
“That is to say, five to eleven?”
“Yes.”
“Ten minutes after the prisoner visited Major Thoseby?”
“Yes, that is what I meant to imply.”
“I don’t think he knows now what he did mean,” said Macrea loudly to Mr. Rumbold.
Chapter Twenty-Two
We must return to the early afternoon of Monday.
In London, Major Ammon was beginning his evidence for the prosecution. In Angers Nap was listening to Madame Delboise’s views on the state of France. Some way outside Winchester Angus McCann, in an old tweed jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers, was strolling along the Newbury road revelling in the sights and the sounds and the smells which together made up for him the feeling of a perfect autumn day.
St. Augustine’s Preparatory School for Boys stands a mile or two outside Winchester. You either know the turning down to it or you don’t. Gussie’s would never dream of calling attention to it. The idea of some sort of painted notice board would not occur to them. It would have been an advertisement. Gussie’s does not advertise.
Fortunately McCann was able to stop a farm laborer on a bicycle, who
pointed out the inconspicuous entrance, and he turned to the left and made his way down the winding gravel drive: a drive which has been trodden, at one time or another, by the little feet of the sons of some of the people in England who have really mattered.
It was a long drive. But no longer than it needed to be, for it ran back more than fifty years. This was not a matter of personal knowledge. McCann had been brought up in the Scots way at a big Edinburgh day school, but he had read his David Blaize and his Vice Versa, and he knew just what he was heading for. The drive dipped and rose again. On his left he glimpsed a gaunt building of yellow brick. It looked, he thought, uncommonly like a Nazi execution shed and with this thought in his mind as he drew level with it he was startled to hear a volley ring out. On reflection he came to the conclusion that it might be the miniature rifle range.
Another turn of the road, a thicket of eminently Victorian laurels, and St. Augustine’s stood before him in all its peculiar glory of red brick, curly tile, glazed slate and exterior varnished pine.
A few minutes later he was shaking hands with the headmaster, Mr. Hughenden, a youngish but impressively bearded clergyman. “Perhaps you would like to come along to my study,” said the headmaster genially. “We shall not be disturbed.”
He led the way down a dark and echoing corridor where a hundred maroon blazers hung on a hundred pegs, up a short spiral flight of steps and into a turret room with mullioned windows.
“My father’s room,” said the headmaster. “I thought it a pity to change it.”
McCann could not but agree with him. It was a perfect period piece. There were dozens and dozens of photographs of Old Augustans: in scholastic dress, in athletic dress and in the uniforms of four wars. There was a superbly dreary monochrome of the Ruins of the Acropolis. There was a fire screen embroidered with the Arms of Oriel College. There was a tobacco jar embossed with the Arms of Oriel College. There was a rack of pipes. There were glass-fronted shelves of classical authors in half-calf. There was a thin and sinister-looking cupboard in the corner which McCann felt certain contained a hunting crop. There was even a marble bust of Augustus Caesar, the most arresting feature of which was a prominent and – yes, no doubt about it – slightly rubicund nose.
Death Has Deep Roots Page 14