The third mention of the Birleys came from a man called Arthur Raymond.
He called on Charmian about a Mr Fox.
Arthur Raymond was a decent quiet man, genuinely worried and anxious about what he thought of as his problem. It wasn’t, in fact, exclusively his problem but he couldn’t know that. He saw it from his own special place in the picture, and from there it looked like his alone. Specially done up and packaged for him with his name on it: a personalised, pre-packaged kick in the teeth. You have a taxi, not yet paid for, and every penny counts. You have a taxi, and you are hired. Hired by the Birleys, who were in company with Charlie Fox.
‘They had me drive all round the town,’ he told Charmian wretchedly. ‘Seemed as if they were talking something. Then they paid me-paid me,’ he added bitterly, ‘with a five pound note, which I duly gave them change for. And it was a forgery.
‘Oh, they didn’t know,’ said Arthur wearily. ‘I don’t think so. Their bad luck. But it landed on me.’
Yes, he thought it was all his problem. But it was no more all his problem than it was Alfy Nicklin’s, than it was old Mrs Uprichard’s, than it was young Johnny Lombard’s.
And now the Birleys were in real trouble.
Charmian drove straight down to the town centre. The police officers were gathered together for an emergency meeting in Pratt’s office. No one was smoking. Pratt didn’t like it.
Before she went in Charmian spoke to the young constable who was still on duty at the desk to ask him if he would get some coffee.
The constable (it was he who had got in touch with Kathy about reporting her car missing, and who now had a bad conscience about it) got to his feet smartly. He was all the smarter for the feeling that he would never now make a real policeman. Real policemen (Pratt was a real policeman) did not ring up with panic-stricken messages. At this moment he was hard put to it to know exactly what had made him do it. Possibly a feeling that events were building up for Kathy and he ought to help. And also a very slight feeling of guilt. He had lost Kathy all his mother’s custom by laughing at the figure she cut in a tweed skirt. It hadn’t been true either – he’d done it out of a sense of idle sport that he now repented. So he was guilty about Pratt, and guilty about Kathy and guilty about being such a rotten policeman. Accordingly he hurried for the coffee.
Pratt spoke to Charmian at once.
‘You saw the sister? Well?’ Charmian knew the content of this question. It meant: How was she, what sort of a person is she, what did you make of her, is there anything there for us?
‘I’d seen her before,’ said Charmian, ‘remembered her face. I think she came in with a lost child or something.’
‘She’s the sort that finds lost children, is she?’ said Pratt. The type that found children and dogs and cats and brought them into the police station were a definite category in his mind. Kind-hearted, eccentric, edging towards loony, was roughly how he would have summed them up.
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Charmian. ‘She seems to have lost a sister pretty thoroughly, anyway she was definite. Gave me the same story that she reported over the telephone.’
‘Oh yes,’ said the Inspector grimly. ‘Well, let me put you in the picture there. What there is of it.’ The reports that were coming in to Pratt were negative, negative, negative.
‘The girl was reported missing as from this afternoon. Sister reported she last saw her at the bus station when they changed for Deerham Hills. But no bus driver admits to seeing her. No one saw her, it is vital to break this front down.’ He looked at Charmian. He was handing the job to her.
She sat and thought for a moment and then got to her feet. The obvious place would be to go back to the bus station. But the employees there were bound to be tired, thinking of bed, and hostile to further police questioning. If she must go back then she must go back forearmed.
She got up. She would follow her own technique.
‘Charmian,’ called Pratt, seeing her intent abstracted face. ‘Bring ’em back alive, won’t you?’
Afterwards people were going to say: For you it was easy, there was no case, you knew. But it was never easy. Things had to be proved even if you knew. The Director of Public Prosecutions worked on facts not hearsay.
She drove herself rapidly out of Deerham Hills through the smart section and the comfortable section and the less smart section and the downright uncomfortable section. She was getting near to the part of Deerham Hills where Alfy Nicklin lived.
She stopped outside a small modern factory. It was a furniture factory and produced kitchen and office furniture. It was a popular place to work among the women of the neighbourhood. Few men were employed there.
Next to the railway there was a cafe which stayed open all night. It was much used by all the long-distance bus drivers. The proprietor was an old friend and business acquaintance of Charmian’s. He looked up as she came in and immediately started to pour her out a cup of tea.
‘Here you are, have a cup of char.’
Sparky gave information because he liked doing it, he had his darker side of course. If he gave information to her it was certain he gave it to others. Charmian suspected him of giving information about the wages car to the men who had robbed the furniture factory only last month and thought that eventually he would let something about this slip out in his conversation: fundamentally he despised Charmian and would reveal himself to her carelessly. She had therefore a double motive for seeking him out; he had information to give her and might incriminate himself. She felt no compunction: it was her job.
All the same it was a genial relationship: there was no hard feeling because he despised her. He despised Charmian because his life had conditioned him to despise women and Charmian was a woman and a policewoman at that, but he quite liked her. And Charmian, although she didn’t trust him and had hopes of committing him to prison, would do her best to see he was looked after when he came out and didn’t return. She appreciated his motives: they might not be noble but they were human. He was a short, grubby little man smelling slightly but steadily of frying oil as was natural enough. He had a rough kind of dignity. You did not go too far with him.
Charmian accepted the tea and gave the cup an unobtrusive rub with her handkerchief before she drank.
‘Go on,’ he said watching. ‘Won’t give yer trench mouth.’
‘Thought that was feet.’
‘Spreads. Mouth is worse.’ He leaned forward, about to embark on his experiences.
Charmian looked down at him sceptically, she was considerably taller than he. ‘Those feet were never in a trench.’
‘Started in my mouth,’ he said hastily. ‘Then travelled down to my feet.’ He was never at a loss for convincing detail. ‘ My, they itch.’
‘Talking of itches,’ said Charmian, ‘which of the bus drivers on the Lintown – Deerham Hills run is a man with an itch, a man who will take money, or a man who will give way under pressure? Something to hide.’
‘There’s only the six,’ he said, after a pause for thought. ‘With a couple of reliefs. Don’t run many buses. Two a day each way, morning and afternoon. Which times are you working on?’ He had a quite professional expertise.
Charmian ignored this. ‘ Or is perhaps not quite reliable where young girls are concerned? Has shown himself capable of violence?’
‘Hey, that’s a nasty thing you’re suggesting,’ cried Sparky.
‘Well, go on.’
They made a list: Red Filler, Monty Todd, Thomas Simmonds, Alfy Nicklin, Jakey Frost, Peter Jacobsen.
He shook his head. ‘Can’t be Red Filler: he’s a decent sort and I’ve never known him in any trouble. He’s near retiring age too. ’Course, I know that’s no barrier. Still I don’t fancy Red in any sort of trouble. Besides he’s been in bed with flu.’
‘Cross off Red then, especially if he’s ill.’
‘Young Simmonds isn’t my cup of tea, a lardy dartly boy you know, not what I like, but I doubt if he’s got the guts to st
ep off the straight and narrow. Besides, what with learning French and keeping his shoes polished I doubt if he’s got time. He’s a bachelor though and that’s always suspicious.’ … Sparky took a depressing view of the inevitability of matrimony. It was like measles, everyone had to have it. If you didn’t there was something worse wrong with you.
‘Jakey and Monty Ladd are violent boys all right. Had this here commando training. I don’t know much about Pete.’
Charmian wrote down the names.
He was thinking. ‘Here, wait a minute. Tell you someone who’s got something on his mind. He was in here last night on his way home. Stopped for some cigarettes. Old Alfy Nicklin.’
Charmian looked interested.
‘Nothing against Alfy. He’s an innocent. Never done a soul a bad trick in his life.’ Sparky spoke with reluctant admiration. ‘Don’t hardly know he’s born.’
‘If he came in here yesterday afternoon he must have done the afternoon run?’ said Charmian, getting up.
‘Mind you look after Alfy,’ said Sparky shouting after her. ‘He’s decent. Wouldn’t like to see him come to any trouble.’
Alfy Nicklin slept badly, fussing in his sleep. His wife watched him tossing and muttering in his patched pyjamas. She put a red rough hand on his thick toughened one, which closed round hers automatically. There had been a time when the hand had been that of a piano player. She had played the violin, but indifferently. She was glad she had given up also; there had at least been an equality of sacrifice.
She wondered what he was dreaming about now. The road they lived in was a road that went to bed early because it got up early. Even the family next door had given its last thud against the wall and flushed the lavatory for the last time and retired for the night.
She was surprised to hear a car come slowly down the road and stop, its engine quietly turning over. She lay there listening, her hands clenched. She had never been easy about late night calls since the war. Since then the sound of cars moving through the dark had symbolised unrest and alarm and fear.
The front door bell rang. Softly. Once, then again.
‘It’s the bell,’ she said, nudging her husband.
‘Time to get up?’ he muttered sleepily. ‘No cup of tea this morning? Are we late?’
‘It’s the bell,’ she hissed urgently. ‘Not morning.’
He opened his eyes and listened. The bell rang again.
‘It’s the police.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The engine of the car.’ He spoke confidently, the expert.
‘You couldn’t have heard. You were asleep.’
‘I did, though. I was asleep but I heard. I remember now.’
He was dressing, pulling on his trousers and an old grey pullover.
‘It must be bad trouble,’ said his wife.
‘Not so very late,’ he said, looking at the clock. ‘Nearly one. Not late at all by some people’s standards.’ But his hands trembled.
The bell rang again.
‘Impatient,’ he muttered.
‘We shall have the neighbours hearing,’ said his wife.
When he opened the door he was surprised to see a girl standing there. The light fell straight on to Charmian’s face and she stood there blinking for a moment. She looked young and awkward in a grey loose coat, her face tired and colourless. Her fatigue was emphasised by the too bright orange lipstick she went in for and which clashed so badly with her reddish fair hair. She was the caller, she was the police, but momentarily she was the ill-at-ease one.
Almost as soon as she saw Alfy she dismissed any idea that he could have any real connection with the crime she was investigating.
She came with the Nicklins into the kitchen and apologised for disturbing them so late.
‘They let you out alone?’ asked Alfy gruffly, but he saw already that she was older than he had thought.
‘They do sometimes,’ said Charmian. ‘ If it’s not dangerous, you know.’
‘You’re not a London girl,’ said Alfy. ‘A Scots lassie?’ He was gaining confidence. ‘What is it you’re wanting. It’ll be serious, I suppose, seeing that you’ve come so late?’
‘A young girl was reported missing this afternoon,’ said Charmian. ‘There is reason to believe she disappeared off your bus.’
Alfy looked serious. He thought for a moment. ‘A young woman came up to me and said’ she’d lost her sister. Missed her somewhere. So she never came home? Well, you can never tell, can you?’
‘Did you see her?’ asked Charmian.
‘No.’
But Charmian pressed him. She was almost sure he had something to tell her. ‘You’re sure you didn’t see her?’
‘No. I didn’t see her. I honestly didn’t see her. And I should have.’ He was worried and puzzled. He heaved a sigh: the hundredth sigh since Kathy had spoken to him that afternoon. ‘Old Mrs Uprichard swore she saw her get off one end of the bus and on the other. I didn’t set much store by what she said seeing there’s only one door on the bus.’ The wide brown eyes stared anxiously at Charmian.
‘There must be something in it.’
Charmian said nothing.
‘Maybe the kid wanted to go,’ he said helplessly.
He saw Charmian to her car, looking in surprise at the little car.
‘Here. You’ve had the engine doctored, haven’t you? That’s never got a baby Austin engine.’
Charmian nodded.
‘You’ve got good ears.’
‘I notice about cars.’ He watched her drive away, then he went back into the house.
‘Mother,’ he said, relapsing into a way of speech they had not used for twenty years. ‘I’m afraid there’s trouble for that young lady on the bus. I wouldn’t like to be a bad friend.’
‘You’d never be that,’ said Mother with dignity.
‘But somehow I don’t think I’ve done her much good.’
Mrs Nicklin was getting ready to go back to bed and did not immediately answer. Then she said, ‘Don’t worry.’
‘But Mother,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t tell the police-lady everything.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ He leaned forward urgently. ‘The day before we had a bus with two doors. One each end.’
A bird called, another echoed him, across the Birleys’ garden.
Pale green light was filtering in the windows of the kitchen. There
were faint noises outside.
‘Going out to get a breath of fresh air,’ muttered Rob, getting
to his feet.
Kathy, sleeping head on the kitchen table, didn’t answer.
‘What makes you think it’s so fresh?’ he said to himself as he
opened the door and a breath of damp air blew at him. The weather
had changed: today would be rain.
He was gone quite a long while and when he returned he felt
unexpectedly refreshed. Meanwhile Kathy had been in her brief troubled doze.
She stirred as he came back into the room and shivered. Rob went over to the sink and drank a long draught of cold water.
‘I’m sorry I went to sleep,’ said Kathy.
‘Best thing for you.’
‘There’s going to be so much to do.’ Kathy looked as if she found the day too much for her already. Robert sat down in front of her.
‘Did the police line take you in? Did you believe all that stuff? Didn’t her story seem fishy to you?’
Kathy stared.
‘Formal identification,’ said Rob softly. ‘And later.’
He dropped his voice still more but every word came across.
‘Supposing they’re not dead?’
Kathy still stared. Whose side was he on?
Chapter Eight
‘My God, why should they go camping?’ Jim Carter, now thoroughly awake and bad tempered, sat hunched over a cup of coffee in the kitchen. ‘Emily, you’re crazy.’ (He said this several times more but he said it with less and less convict
ion. Emily would beat him down in the end: she always did. It wasn’t that Emily was cleverer than he was, or better informed, he told himself furiously, it was just that she was more often right.)
Emily looked obstinate, as she well could. The resemblance between her and her own son was at its most striking when she did this.
She poured out a cup of coffee. She had decided to use the good coffee whether she was hard up or not. Bleary-eyed and angry though he was, her husband noticed this and held out his cup for more. He calculated mutely that it was a Saturday and therefore a holiday (he was a school teacher) for him, and that he could always rest later in the day. No need therefore to be too cross with Emily … And there might even be something in what she was talking about. Emily had a nose for trouble all right.
‘Supposing they were just going somewhere they didn’t want to be seen,’ said Emily, brooding away over her coffee. ‘Supposing they were sort of hiding?’
‘Sort of hiding, sort of camping, be your age, Emily,’ said Jim sternly. ‘I ask you: Why should they?’
‘Well, because they want to do something they don’t want connected with them or don’t want anyone to know about,’ continued Emily with a magnificent dottiness of logic. ‘They’re against Kathy. I swear that, and they mean to do her harm. They hate her.’
‘How do you know?’
Emily drained her coffee. ‘Heard them say so. You know the way Janet talks sometimes. “ Hate’s rolling around in our house,” she said once. “Just rolling around.” Well, you know what they mean. Can you imagine that little Kathy hating anyone?’
Her husband thought. ‘She doesn’t always love,’ he said.
‘No, they hate her. Over the house, I daresay. I always thought it was a bad plan, them all living together.’ Emily drank her coffee dreamily. ‘Women, you know.’
‘You’re one yourself.’
‘We don’t quarrel. Not much anyway …’
‘Emily, if you’re right, and heaven help me I’m beginning to believe you are, then you’d better go to the police.’
‘Yes,’ said Emily screwing up her eyes, ‘I might do just that.’ She looked round the kitchen and then at her watch. ‘Well, seeing it’s so late we might as well have breakfast,’ she said cheerfully. ‘After all, we’re well awake, aren’t we?’
Come Home and Be Killed Page 9