‘My autograph? I’m not a pop star, for God’s sake.’
‘No, I know, ma’am. It’s cheek really. But it’d mean a lot to the kid. Future detective himself perhaps.’
She thought for an instant.
‘Oh, well, future detective. All right.’
Anselm Brent gestured the boy forward, autograph book already open with a choice of virgin green or virgin pink page. After she had signed — she chose the green page — he suddenly blushed.
‘Hope you get whoever killed Bubbles,’ he said hoarsely. ‘The whole school’s mad on her.’
Then, overcome, he silently pushed forward another boy wearing what must be the grammar school blazer, a heavy-built, red-faced lad, who had been lurking behind him.
‘And could you sign for him too, miss?’
‘Nothing to write on,’ the boy muttered.
‘You got a piece of paper in your pocket. Saw you stuff it there.’
Reluctantly the lumpy blob pulled out a sheet, evidently torn from an exercise book. He thrust it forward.
Writing awkwardly on the unsupported sheet Harriet contrived to scrawl down her name, and then on an impulse added Join the Police.
The boy snatched back the sheet and turned at once to go.
Leaving Anselm to have a word with his young nephew, Harriet mounted the steps up to the station, puzzling for a moment about the incident. Had Anselm, in some not altogether clear way, taken advantage of her in demanding his little favour? Had he been setting up, from having somehow intuited that sudden gust of sexual interest of hers, a chain of quiet moral blackmail? Of other favours to be sought? Or was he just a naïve innocent?
And, more, in allowing him that favour, had it been because her own judgement had been affected? By that sudden sight, beside Bubbles Xingara’s vandalized body, of a broad reddish palm dotted with calluses?
*
Brushing it all aside, she decided it would be best to let Anselm, as the local officer, begin questioning Old Rowley. Most likely the shambling mess of a man would more readily let himself be teased, admission by admission, to a final confession by someone he had known for years than by a stranger, and a woman. But, she warned Anselm, he was not to let himself be influenced either by his prejudices or by any contemptuous fondness for the old recidivist.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘Rowley’s got a long record of offences. But just because he’s always liable to succumb to sexual pressure by exposing himself, it doesn’t mean he’s committed a savage sexual killing. So, go carefully. I don’t want there to be anything on the tapes that’ll give the Defence a loophole when we get to court.’
She was pleased to find her warning being strictly heeded as inch by inch the questions approached the crucial time.
‘All right, Timothy,’ Anselm said for the ninth or tenth time, ‘so just what were you doing out there?’
‘Feller can have a kip, can’t he?’
‘You’ve told me that. But why there? Why out in the middle of the countryside?’
Old Rowley took longer to answer this time. Is he trying to concoct some sort of reason now for being out at Adam and Eve House, Harriet asked herself. But at last there came a muttered reply, little different from anything he had said earlier.
‘Like it in the country. Bit o’ peace. No blurry policemen. Blurry chasing you night an’ mornin’.’
‘But we weren’t chasing you, Timothy. You went out that way all on your own. Didn’t you?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘But why should you, Timothy? Why go out to just that part?’
‘What’s it to you where I go?’
‘Well, it has been in the past, hasn’t it? It’s been plenty to us when you’ve gone where you put yourself in the way of girls coming back from the Grammar sports ground, hasn’t it?’
‘Just ’cos once or twice couldn’t help meself ...’
‘More than once or twice, Timothy. A lot more. And was it for the same reason you were out there this morning at Adam and Eve House? You wanting to show someone new what you’ve got inside your trousers?’
‘I wasn’t nowhere near that place.’
Indignation in every growled-out word.
‘Oh, but you were, Timothy. We found you sound asleep not a quarter of a mile from the house.’
‘What if you did? Free country ... Nothing to me, some big house there. I got as much right ...’
But each time that the questions got nearer that savage act down beside the mud-cracked bank of the Leven, Old Rowley backed away. Quietly persistent, Anselm, from time to time chewing the end of a pencil he had picked up — like a damn schoolboy, Harriet had thought in a little blaze of irritation — would begin again.
Fighting off Old Rowley’s pingingly sharp odour that had come to permeate the whole interview room, she felt a growing admiration for her fellow questioner.
All right, my first impression may have been of a country clodhopper risen up by default to detective-inspector rank, but he — but Anselm’s bright enough under that countrified exterior. And I like ––
No, no, no. He’s interviewing our prime suspect. Listen. Listen to him, listen to the replies he gets. Be ready to jump in.
‘Look, Timothy, all I want to know is: why were you out there, all that way from Levenham, at that time of the morning? Come on, tell us that, and then we’ll know where we are.’
‘Don’t see why I gotter.’
Then abruptly Harriet saw there was something — my occasional lapses of concentration? — which she had failed to take into account. Wasn’t it quite probable that no one out at Adam and Eve House had actually told the old man that Bubbles Xingara had been murdered? So was he being obstructive, not out of fear of incriminating himself, but simply from the long-established pattern of his relations with the Levenham police?
She leant forward across the bare wooden table.
‘Timothy, do you know who Bubbles Xingara is?’
She watched him for the least flicker of guilty response.
‘Bubbly what?’
‘Bubbles Xingara, Timothy. She’s a big tennis star.’
“Tennis? Don’t know nothing ’bout that.’
Could that be so? Yes, it could. But ...
‘Listen, Timothy. Bubbles Xingara lives, lived, at Adam and Eve House. It was her house. And early this morning she was found dead there. Murdered.’
It was difficult to make out what exactly Old Rowley’s reaction was. Certainly, there was nothing to indicate he was trying to hide that at six o’clock that morning he had thrust some sharp-pointed instrument –– what was it? what could it be? — into the throat of the young woman whose name he claimed not even to know. Nor was there any obvious sign of a subnormal man not realizing what all this was about. He had blinked once or twice, let his tongue for a moment protrude between his lips. Nothing more.
At last he produced a few words.
‘Don’t know anything ’bout that.’
‘Don’t you, Timothy? Weren’t you there? First thing this morning? There at the back of the house, down by the river?’
‘No, no. Wasn’t.’
‘But you were quite near the house when Mr Brent here found you asleep.’
‘Got a right.’
So it’s back to the beginning, Harriet thought.
What to do? Advance the interrogation to an altogether tougher level? Batter the man towards that confession?
But, before she had come to a decision, there came a heavy tap at the door. A constable put his head in, looking somewhat scared.
‘PC Morton has just entered the room,’ Anselm said into the microphone.
‘Yes?’ Harriet turned to the apprehensive-looking constable.
‘Ma’am, sorry. But there’s a pack of journalists outside, up from London some of them, photographers too. And TV cameras. Inspector Smithers said I should tell you, ma’am.’
She sighed.
It was to be expected. The full might of the story-hun
gry media. Bubbles Xingara Stabbed to Death. The pretty, wonderfully lively star of the much-hyped tennis world. Alive she had been good for column after column, photos splashed across half-pages, hints about boyfriends, speculation about an unflaunted love life. Dead now, what wouldn’t these greedy sex-exploiters do?
No wonder Leven Vale’s Inspector Smithers was feeling unable to cope.
‘Interview suspended at 11.27,’ she said.
She turned to the waiting constable.
‘Take him back to a cell.’
‘Very good, ma’am.’
‘We’ll let him stew,’ she said to Anselm as soon as Old Rowley had been hustled away. ‘He won’t be used to being left in suspense. I imagine with his other offences you used to get a pretty quick cough, yes?’
‘You’re right, ma’am. His efforts to get himself out of trouble don’t usually last more than fifteen or twenty minutes.’
‘But if he’s got something a lot heavier to hide it’s no surprise he’s hanging on. Still, off to the paparazzi. And I think you’d better make yourself scarce. Nobody should have to submit to a battering from that lot, not unless they have to.’
She thought, as he pocketed his much-chewed pencil, that he looked a little disappointed, though it didn’t seem likely that he was the sort of officer who loved the limelight. Perhaps it had been unnecessary to protect him.
And why did I do that? He’s not, he absolutely must not be, any special concern of mine. Or ... is it that he’s aware, damn it, that there’s something there between us, for all he’s shown no direct signs recognizing it? Can he be thinking that he’s the one who should be coming, Sir Galahad, to rescue me from the media dragons?
Blast all sex.
*
Protection was, when she faced the hounds crammed into the station foyer, what she might well have needed. Their questions came banging at her from every side, shouted out one on top of the other, and angled — those she could clearly make out — from every sort of catchpenny direction.
Was Bubbles raped?
Can you tell us what injuries there were?
Where? Where?
This the work of a sex maniac?
A well-known pervert’s been brought in, when are you going to charge him?
Damn, she thought as she caught this last yelled-out inquiry. Been some leak to a local reporter from inside the station here. Wouldn’t have happened in Birchester, not if I’d had anything to do with it. Must make it bloody clear it’s not going to happen again here. Some crafty sod thinking he can earn himself a few drinks dishing out some nice sexy details. Or, be fair, some crafty female sod thinking she can do it. But damage done now.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ standing a couple of steps up the stairs, she sent her voice carrying over the hubbub. ‘I have a statement for you. And it is all you are going to get. So, listen. I am Detective Superintendent Martens, of the Greater Birchester Police —’
‘The Hard Detective,’ a voice called out.
She ignored the interruption. A splutter of photoflashes went dancing across the faces below.
‘I have been seconded,’ she went steadily on, ‘to the Leven Vale force to give what assistance I can in what may well prove to be a long and difficult investigation into the death early this morning of Miss Bubbles Xingara.’
‘But you’ve got a suspect inside,’ came a strident woman’s voice.
‘We have not yet established the full circumstances,’ Harriet continued, ‘and until we do so we will have no other information to give you.’
‘Come on, what about old Tim Rowley?’ One of the Levenham reporters.
She paused then for a moment.
‘Very well, I think I can say that among the many people we may have occasion to interview in the course of our inquiries, we have at present one individual answering some questions. I will not tell you his name.’
She turned on her heel and marched up the stairs behind her, wondering in fact where they might lead to.
Chapter Four
The stairs, it turned out, brought Harriet face-to-face with the Leven Vale Chief Constable. He was there, in all the splendour of his much-braided uniform, looking down at her as, having tramped past framed photograph after framed photograph of his predecessors in, first, the Levenham force and later the Leven Vale Police, she came within sight of the top landing.
‘Superintendent Martens,’ his briskly clipped voice greeted her. ‘Mr Tarlington, Chief Constable. I came down here from our headquarters to have a word, and I happened to hear you putting the media in their place. I’d like to say I thought you did it admirably. We don’t want any half-cock publicity until we can say we’ve charged this fellow.’
Looking up, Harriet saw a neatly small man, tightly embraced in his uniform, his narrow face distinguished by a pair of sticking-out red ears and a sharp smile that revealed a hotch-potch of this-way-and-that teeth.
‘A charge, sir?’ she said, mounting up higher. ‘I’m not sure that it’s come to that yet.’
‘Oh, come on, Superintendent. DI Brent’s just been telling me the circumstances. First-class job, bringing this fellow in. Well done.’
‘Not much of my doing, sir. Except that I saw the importance of making a search of the area as soon as possible. But I think Mr Brent may have given you to understand rather more than our questioning has so far established.’
Or you, she said to herself, have jumped too quickly on the straight facts Anselm gave you.
‘Oh, come, Superintendent, don’t belittle your own quick work. Or Brent’s. It’s plain we have the right man. Found drunk near the scene, known sex offender of the nastiest sort, low intelligence. It all fits.’
‘Yes, sir. But I’d rather wait till we’ve had another crack at him. Without a confession I hardly think charging him would be justified. Not unless other evidence comes to light. I’d give a lot, for instance, to put my hands on the weapon used.’
‘Well, quite right to be cautious, of course, though I must say that’s hardly the approach I expected when I asked for Birchester’s famed Hard Detective. But I don’t think from all I’ve heard we shall have much trouble getting that confession out of Rowley, or finding more evidence. Could well be something under the fellow’s fingernails.’
‘I don’t think so, sir. There were no scratch marks on the girl’s face or anything of that nature. Otherwise, of course, I’d have had samples taken. The killing was effected with just a single blow from some sort of spiked instrument. It’s hard, in fact, to say just what. I’m having a new search of the whole area made, and if we come across whatever it was and find Rowley’s prints on it, then we may have a case we can safely take to court.’
‘Well, perhaps Brent should go back out there and see that progress is being made. Or both of you, if you see fit. I want that man charged before nightfall. We can’t have the station here besieged by those wretched reporters. The public will be up in arms, too, unless we show we’re on the way to getting someone sent down for this.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Harriet thought rapidly.
Should I send Anselm on his own out to Adam and Eve House and stay here myself? Side benefit, putting temptation at a safe distance. Plenty to do here, if I do stay. I’m going to have to get a proper Incident Room set up. Whatever happens with Rowley, there’s going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork generated.
Or, I could leave Ans — leave DI Brent here to establish a proper Incident Room. He’s well up to it. Out there myself, I could see that the weapon search is being properly thorough, and, as important, I could talk to the people in the house. If in the end we get nowhere with Rowley, they’ll have to be questioned. And the sooner the better.
Yes, that’s the answer. And temptation kept at bay.
‘I think I’d better go out to the scene myself, sir,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave Mr Brent here. I can come back and have another go at Rowley later. If he’s going to cough, he’ll do so all the more easily for having sat i
n a cell for a few hours.’
*
Deciding against an early lunch as too much of a complication, after a quick visit to the female toilets, stuck like an afterthought in the car park behind the grave Victorian building — scrawled graffiti: the work of police officers? — she drove swiftly out of Levenham in the Leven Vale Police car she had been given.
Soon she found herself thinking with a smile about something Anselm had said after she had briefed him. With an unexpected touch of sly humour, he had told her that, precious to his nephew though her autograph was, the future detective’s sullen friend, as soon as her back was turned, had scrunched up the sheet she had scrawled on and dropped it in the gutter. Bit of a lesson for the famous Hard Detective, she thought.
Never mind, Hard Detective or just plain Detective Superintendent, it’s got to be full focus on the investigation now. Doing what I’m here to do.
But at once, like a sudden urge to vomit, the thought of Anselm, of his quick smile telling her the story, hit her. I want him, she thought. Just that.
But why is it like this? Why should I have to fight against what — admit it — I actually want so much at this moment? I want to be with that man. With Anselm. And — how strange — I want this however much I ought to be satisfied, if not with that first quick hugger-mugger mating with John, at least with our prolonged love-making this morning. Was it only at break of day this morning? Yes, it was.
But John was right to talk about the lightning flashes from his louring cloud. Because, by God, one came shooting down and struck me. Struck when a country detective inspector I’d never seen before, out of mere friendliness, showed me his right hand marked by hours of wielding a tennis racquet.
And now I somehow want to be existing without anything tugging me away to different loyalties. Why can’t that be?
The lilting words of a once-popular song, just remembered from the radio music of childhood, came reverberating into her head.
You and I, alone in a world for two.
A Detective in Love Page 3