by J F Straker
“Well, sir, I —”
“Why do you think I had Inch keeping tabs on Sinclair? Why the devil didn’t you get cracking as soon as he warned you the man had left the house?”
“But he didn’t, sir. That’s why I —”
“You mean you got no message from Inch at all?”
“None, sir. But —”
“Good grief!” The superintendent’s frame almost quivered with fury. “The damned, incompetent, disobedient young bastard! I’ll have his bloody guts for this. I — I —” He sucked in his breath. “I need a drink. Get me a whisky.”
Nicodemus brought two. He needed one himself; the sudden outburst of rage had shaken him. Sherrey’s long fingers were pale yellow at the tips as he gripped the glass. Nicodemus hoped it would withstand the pressure.
“Where’s Inch now?” Sherrey asked. He had himself under control again, but there was still tension in his voice.
“I don’t know, sir. I haven’t seen him all afternoon. But I gather he was there.”
“Where?”
“At the Wheelers’. Or so Mrs Wheeler said. She didn’t see him, but the kids did. They told her he was sitting in a van out in the lane. That’d be Sinclair’s van. It was while he and Brown were there.”
Glass in hand, Sherrey stared at him.
“Impossible. The kids must have been mistaken.”
“I don’t think so, sir. Oddly enough, they’ve taken quite a fancy to Johnny.”
“Odd, indeed!” The superintendent’s tone was acid. “Did you check at Sinclair’s house on the way back?”
“Yes, sir. He wasn’t home. Neither was Mrs Bute, unfortunately. Apparently it’s her Bingo night. I got that from another neighbour, but he couldn’t help me with Sinclair.”
“He’s probably miles away by now.” Sherrey fumbled in his pockets for a pipe. The search was unsuccessful. “Why was the time changed? Did Mrs Wheeler say?”
“Apparently they just arrived early, without previous notice. Incidentally, sir, it was Brown who sold the dogs to Wheeler in the first place. Mrs Wheeler recognized him. So presumably he’s on the level.”
“When you’ve been at this game as long as I have, Nicodemus, you’ll learn not to presume so easily.” Sherrey finished his whisky. “See if you can find Inch. He’s probably up in his room with that girl.”
He was standing at the counter when Nicodemus returned with the information that Johnny was not in the hotel.
“Did you try the nick?” he asked, frowning.
“Yes, sir. No luck there either.”
“He was talking to Mr Cooper in the foyer around three o’clock,” the manager said, when consulted. “I haven’t seen him since.”
“Would your sister know?”
The manager shook his head. “She went out about an hour ago, after receiving a telephone call. Asked me to mind the bar.” He gave a rueful smile. “She said she wouldn’t be long, but unfortunately time means little to Karen. I’ll be lucky if I see her back before closing-time. Are you having dinner, Mr Sherrey? It’s getting late.”
No dinner, Sherrey said. But they would like sandwiches. When the manager returned from placing the order Nicodemus, despairing of getting a drink out of his superior (the Boozer was notoriously mean in such matters), ordered a whisky. Sherrey coughed, drained an already empty glass, and slapped it back on the counter.
Nicodemus capitulated. “Sorry, sir. Another whisky, please.” Sherrey watched the manager pour it. “I believe there’s a place called Elmstead near here,” he said. “Do you know it?” From the doorway came the thin treble of Lucinda Bollender.
“Elmstead? That’s Frank Gislap’s place. He’s my next-door neighbour.” She walked a few paces into the bar. “My apologies for eavesdropping, Superintendent, but your voice carries. Why does Elmstead interest you?”
“I’ll know that when I’ve seen it,” he told her.
“It’s just another farm,” she said.
She looked at him thoughtfully, unspoken questions in her almond-shaped eyes. He wondered if she were about to reopen the subject of Charlie Goodwin’s death. But she left them then, and presently they heard her voice on the telephone ordering a taxi.
Fifteen minutes later they had eaten the sandwiches and were on their way, with Chief Inspector Cole leading in another car.
“Why Elmstead, sir?” Nicodemus asked. “A new lead?”
“The extension of an old one.”
Sherrey had been to Brighton that afternoon, hoping he might learn more from Miss Shotter than Johnny had managed to do. But Miss Shotter had been out when he arrived, and he had sat in his car outside the flat, his impatience mounting as the afternoon passed. When eventually she returned he had wasted no time on preliminaries. It was the telephone call from the Co-operative that interested him in particular. What had the caller said? Miss Shotter could not remember exactly. But it had been a man’s voice — “Very polite. He had a sort of rural accent, if you know what I mean” — and he had asked that Miss Ellingwood should ring back on her return. But as she had explained to the sergeant, said Miss Shotter, she could not be sure that Lorna had done so. She had not been sufficiently interested.
“Did he give you his number?” Sherrey asked.
Miss Shotter nodded. “But don’t ask me what it was. I haven’t a clue. Except that the exchange wasn’t local. I do remember that.”
“Perhaps you wrote it down?”
“Perhaps I did.” She went to the telephone, picked up a pad. A number was written on the top sheet, and she frowned. “Sorry, but your luck’s out. This is my boss’s number while he’s on holiday.”
Sherrey looked over her shoulder. “When did you write this?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“What happened to the previous sheet?”
“Burnt, I’m afraid. I tidied up last night.”
He took the pad from her. “Do you use a ball-point?” She nodded. “May I take this sheet with me?”
“I’ve read about that,” she said brightly. “You bring up the indentations by means of photography. Or is it chemicals? No — infrared, isn’t it? Something like that, anyway.”
“Something like that,” he agreed.
He had taken the paper to the Forensic Science Laboratory. “Thanks to the ball-point and Miss Shotter’s heavy fist, most of the writing was legible,” he told Nicodemus. “There were three telephone numbers. Two were on the Brighton exchange. The other was Bresne.”
Nicodemus whistled. “So that’s it.”
“That’s it. The number was either 243 or 248. And 243 is a Mr Frank Gislap, of Elmstead.”
“And 248?”
“The local midwife.”
From the nick Sherrey had learned something of Frank Gislap. A big man in his early fifties, married, and with a son farming in Canada, where Frank had spent most of his early youth: a strong, positive character who stuck close to his farm, who didn’t visit much, but who kept open house for those who chose to visit him. A man who knew what he wanted, Sherrey’s informant had said, and an efficient farmer. Elmstead was good land, largely arable, but with enough pasture for a small dairy herd. Under the previous tenant it had not flourished. Under Frank Gislap it had become one of the most prosperous and best-run farms in the district.
“He doesn’t sound a promising subject for crime,” Nicodemus said.
“He’s all we’ve got. Or would you prefer the midwife?”
Isolated from the village, the lighted windows of the farm-house looked pleasantly inviting from the road. A gravel drive led up to it, a tall yew hedge separated house and garden from the outbuildings. Joined by Chief Inspector Cole, they picked their way by torchlight to the front door.
“I’m afraid you’re betting on a non-starter here, sir,” Cole said, as they waited in the porch. Resigned by now to the presence of SIN on his patch, he was still reserved in his attitude towards them. “Frank Gislap’s no criminal. If someone telephoned the woman from here, then either t
he call was perfectly innocent or it was made without Frank’s knowledge.”
Sherrey frowned at the use of the Christian name. If Cole and Gislap were buddies this could be awkward.
“It was made,” he said. “That’s what matters.”
Mrs Gislap did not conform to the accepted image of a farmer’s wife. Above medium height and slimly built, she was attractive in a severe fashion. The blue woollen suit she wore was obviously expensive, her tinted grey hair lacked nothing that the art of the hairdresser could provide. She had a hard, rather worn face, with a bitter droop to the corners of her mouth.
She looked apprehensively from one to the other of the three men. Then she recognized the chief inspector, and smiled thinly.
“Why, Harry! What brings you out here at this hour?”
Cole introduced his two companions. “We’d like a word with Frank, Claire, if it’s convenient,” he said, with more than a hint of apology in his voice.
“Of course. Come in.”
She led them into a low-ceilinged, L-shaped room, where a television set was booming out a Western. The furniture was modern: tastefully modern, but not quite right, thought Nicodemus, for the dark beams of the ceiling and the vast open fireplace with its magnificent copper hood. A full-sized grand piano stood in the corner of the L, long damask curtains hid the windows. Beyond them Nicodemus imagined smooth lawns and beds gay with flowers — a rose walk, perhaps a lily pool — and sighed, remembering his adolescence. Home had been something like that before his father’s bankruptcy.
Mrs Gislap switched off the television. “Please sit down. I’ll fetch Frank.”
They sat down. Sherrey stretched out his legs, taking the weight off his injured toe.
“Obviously prosperous,” he said. “Did Gislap have capital when he started?”
Cole shrugged. “I doubt it. But he’s worked hard. A real go-getter.”
“He must be.”
Frank Gislap was certainly big: well over six feet, and broad. Balding, with a neatly trimmed beard and startling blue eyes, he wore breeches and a hacking jacket, with a plain yellow stock at his throat and carpet slippers on his feet. He exuded vigour and vitality as he came into the room, and if the unexpected arrival of the police worried him he did not show it. He clapped Cole on the shoulder, grasped the hands of Sherrey and Nicodemus in a bone-shattering grip, offered drinks which all three refused, sat down on a vast settee, and swung his feet to rest on an arm. Settled, he inquired how he could help them.
Sherrey told him about the telephone call. Gislap frowned, sucked at his lower lip, made a clicking noise with his tongue, and slowly shook his head.
“Afraid I don’t know the lady.” His voice had a faint West Country burr, not the transatlantic twang Sherrey had expected. “Funny, though — the name sounds familiar. Lorna Ellingwood. Now where —” He slapped his knee. “Got it! Isn’t that the woman who was killed in a road accident last weekend? Out Aysford way, wasn’t it?”
Sherrey agreed that it was, and asked politely whence the farmer had got his information.
“Radio, was it? No, more likely the local rag. Does it matter?”
It did. So far as Sherrey was aware, neither radio nor Press had published the dead woman’s name. But for the present he let it pass.
“You didn’t telephone her Monday morning?” he asked.
“I didn’t telephone her any time. I told you, I don’t know the lady.” He swung his feet to the ground and leaned forward, scratching his cheek. “The call came from here, you say? What time?”
“Around ten-thirty.”
“Then it wasn’t one of the men. They’d be out on the farm.” He sat up. “Wait a minute! There was a chap called in about that time. A stranger to these parts, he said he was. Got himself lost. And he asked if he might use the phone. It could have been him.”
“Did you listen to his conversation?”
“Certainly not.”
“How long did he stay?”
“Five — ten minutes. Not more.”
The superintendent smiled grimly. The caller had asked that Lorna Ellingwood should ring back on her return. It was not the request of a brief and casual visitor.
He said as much to the farmer. The latter shrugged.
“Then I’m afraid you’re out of luck, Superintendent. They must have given you the wrong number.”
The brrr-brrr of the telephone interrupted Sherrey’s reply. With a muttered “Excuse me” Gislap reached for the receiver. For a few moments he listened. Then he said, with a sideways glance at his audience, “No, not now. I have visitors.” A pause, and then, sharply, “I can’t discuss it now. I’ll ring you when I’m free.” Another pause, during which his brow contracted into a frown. Then, with an explosive “No!” he put down the receiver. “Sorry about that.” He sounded breathless. “Well, now. Anything else, Superintendent?”
“Yes, sir. I’d like your permission to look round the house and outbuildings.”
Gislap stared at him, the colour mounting in his cheeks. There was a look of pained incredulity on Chief Inspector Cole’s face.
“You mean — search it?”
“Yes. Of course, you’re at liberty to refuse. I’ve no authority for a search, although I could probably obtain one.”
It wasn’t true. No magistrate would issue a warrant on such flimsy evidence. But then Gislap did not know the extent of the evidence.
“What the hell is this?” To Sherrey his indignation did not sound genuine. The tone was too thin, his facial muscles too still. “What am I supposed to have done? Just because some damned fool gives you my number —” He turned on Cole. “You know about this, Harry? What’s going on?”
“I’d advise you to agree, Frank.” Caught between two fires, Cole looked and sounded unhappy. “It might save unpleasantness later.”
“But what the hell do you expect to find, man? A corpse? Stolen property? Don’t I get to know?”
“To be honest, Mr Gislap, we don’t know ourselves,” Sherrey told him. “But someone telephoned this woman from your house, and we have reason to believe it was in connection with a serious crime.” He shrugged. “Just routine investigation, sir.”
“Routine my foot! Damned persecution, that’s what it is. But go ahead, gentlemen. Turn the bloody place inside out; you’ll find nothing that hasn’t a right to be here.” The settee reeled back on its castors as he threw himself on to it. “Only don’t expect me to act as guide. Ask Harry Cole here. He knows his way around.” He took a pigskin case from his pocket, selected a cigar, and rolled it slowly between thumb and forefinger. “And let me give you a word of advice. If you bump into my wife, watch out. She doesn’t share my tolerance of despotic officialdom.” He bit the end off the cigar with a savageness that made Nicodemus wince. “Not one little bit she doesn’t.”
Recalling the tightness of Mrs Gislap’s smile, Nicodemus believed him.
They searched the ground floor first, calling in two of Cole’s men to help. The house was large and rambling, and with no clear idea of what they were looking for the search took time. But they found nothing suspicious, and met no-one until they came to the kitchen, where an elderly woman was busy at the sink. She glanced at them briefly, showing neither curiosity nor alarm, before continuing with her work.
“Must be used to strangers invading her kitchen,” Sherrey said. “Odd thing about this house, Mr Cole. Have you noticed the chimneys?”
Cole looked at him bleakly. “Chimneys?”
“Chimneys. Some are bricked up, others aren’t. Why the disparity?”
Cole said he didn’t know. Something to do with the central heating, he supposed.
Nicodemus was by the back door, staring at the floor. “Take a look at this, sir,” he said.
There was suppressed excitement in his voice. Sherrey looked. Muddy footprints soiled the pale-green tiles.
“Someone forgot to wipe his feet,” he said. “It happens. Particularly in farmhouse kitchens.”
; “Yes, sir. But look at that one.” Nicodemus bent to point. “Recognize it?”
“Should I?”
“You saw it at the bank, sir. It’s Johnny’s home-made sole.”
5
There was no rough-house. Startled by the sudden light and the sound of Dennis Cooper’s voice, by the speed with which he found himself surrounded, Johnny attempted neither to run nor to offer resistance. At one moment he was apparently alone by the gate; seconds later he was engulfed by a posse of five powerful-looking men. Although the hand gripping his upper arm was the only physical contact, the hint of force was too strong to be ignored.
“I’m a police officer, as Mr Cooper knows,” Johnny said loudly. “You’d do well to remember that.”
“They will,” Cooper told him. “You’re a fool, Inch. You should have stayed out of this. But now you’re in —” He waved the torch in the direction of the farm. “Take him up to the house, boys.”
A second hand gripped his other arm, and he was jerked forward through the gate. Rather than suffer the indignity of being dragged, Johnny decided to walk. The track was un-made and muddy, but the hands propelled him steadily forward, supporting him when he stumbled.
Cooper led the way. Arrived at the back door, they went through the large kitchen into a passage, through another door, and down worn steps to the cellars. There, in a compartment used as a wine store, Johnny waited with one of the men while Cooper and the others conferred.
He was still waiting when a gap appeared in the far wall, and part of the brickwork swung slowly and silently outward. Contrived so that its perimeter followed the line of the pointing, the door would have been hard to detect when closed; nor did Johnny see what had caused it to open.
“Neat, eh?” Cooper said. “Welcome to Crime Co-operative H.Q.”
“Bloody melodramatic,” Johnny told him. “Too much James Bond, that’s your trouble.”
Cooper gave his rabbity grin.
“Maybe. But we’re security-minded. We keep our records down there. If your lot got hold of them they’d choke the assizes for months. We wouldn’t like that.”
“Considerate of you.”