Learning Curve

by Catherine Aird

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I still don’t understand,’ began Crosby, engaging first gear and starting to move off again.

  ‘Esprit de corps,’ said Sloan. He decided against trying to explain the concept of the honour of the regiment to Crosby and simplified it instead to, ‘Not shopping someone else for the general good.’

  Crosby’s brow cleared. ‘I get you, sir,’ he said immediately. ‘Nobody likes a grass.’

  ‘That,’ said Sloan, ‘is one way of putting it.’

  ‘But it’s not legal, is it? Not helping us with our enquiries.’ The constable had tried to study the law as it related to vehicles on the Queen’s highway because his professional ambition had always been to join Traffic Division. It was unfortunate for him that Inspector Harpe was equally strongly motivated to exploit every possible loophole to make sure that he didn’t do any such thing.

  ‘Nobody has said anything at all,’ pointed out Sloan. That he had had further thoughts on the matter, he kept to himself.

  There was a long silence while Crosby negotiated a country crossroads. Then he said, ‘That could mean that none of them remembers who was at the wheel.’

  ‘True,’ said Sloan. ‘It’s a definite possibility since one way or another they seem to have hit their heads hard but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.’

  ‘Or if they had worked it out since, then they aren’t saying,’ concluded Crosby, turning the car into a road signposted Friar’s Flensant. ‘No way.’

  ‘And if they had always known, then they aren’t saying so either,’ pointed out Sloan.

  ‘Putting her in prison wouldn’t do anyone any good,’ muttered Crosby. ‘If it was her,’ he said under his breath.

  ‘Don’t let Inspector Harpe hear you say that, Crosby.’ Sloan considered explaining to the constable a judicial sentencing policy that embraced the concept of pour encourager les autres as well as making the punishment fit the crime and decided against it. He thought the word ‘exemplary’ might be a difficult one for Crosby to understand.

  The constable had been thinking about something quite different. ‘If it was her and she could drive, why wasn’t she driving all the time anyway? And why isn’t she driving now?’ he added. ‘She’s got an adapted car but she only uses it to go to the hospital.’

  ‘Crosby, when a boy asks a girl out for the evening he likes to do the driving.’ In spite of himself, the memory of his first jejune invitation to his own wife, a young Margaret, came back into his mind. Even now he could still hear the crashing of the gears as he drove away from her parents’ house and the flush that had come unbidden to his cheeks. He chose his next words to Crosby with care. ‘It’s not the same if she takes him. It wouldn’t be romantic.’

  ‘If you say so, sir,’ said Crosby, bringing the police car to a halt outside Legate Lodge in Friar’s Flensant.

  Marion Tridgell answered the door, the blood visibly draining from her face when she saw the two policemen standing there. White-faced, she clutched the edge of the door for support. ‘Paul?’ she gasped, pleading urgently, ‘Please, please don’t tell me something terrible has happened to Paul, Inspector, I beg you. I couldn’t bear it. Not after everything else.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan said that he wasn’t aware of anything else having happened to her son. The police just wanted to talk to him again: that was all.

  ‘You can’t, Inspector. He’s not here,’ she wailed, losing her rigid self-control for the first time in months. ‘That’s why I’m so worried. When I called out to him this morning that his breakfast was ready he didn’t come down so I went up to his room and,’ here she broke down completely, ‘he wasn’t there. His room was empty.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‘What about your daughter?’ asked Detective Inspector Sloan swiftly. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘She’s in bed still and fast asleep, thank God,’ said Marion Tridgell. ‘Dr Browne gave her something to help her settle down after what has happened and she hasn’t woken this morning yet.’

  ‘What about the car?’

  Her face was a picture of misery. ‘It’s not in the garage, Inspector. I looked there as soon as I saw that Paul wasn’t here. It was his father’s car but Paul’s been using it ever since … ever since he came back home.’

  ‘We need to see his room,’ said Sloan at once, telling Crosby to put out a general call for the vehicle.

  ‘But I told you, Inspector,’ said Paul’s mother, ‘that he’s not there.’

  ‘Nevertheless, madam, we must see his room,’ insisted Sloan, stepping past her and making for the stairs. Reaching the bedroom, he crossed to the bed and thrust his hands between the sheets. They were still faintly warm. He glanced quickly round the room and turned to ask Marion Tridgell what her son had been wearing the day before.

  She pointed wordlessly to some garments loosely strewn over a bedside chair.

  ‘So what’s missing from his wardrobe, then?’ he asked.

  Marion Tridgell thumbed rapidly through the clothes hanging there. ‘Only some old things, Inspector,’ she said. ‘His trekking gear. I know that that was all there because I’d washed everything when he got back from Brazil and hung it all up in here.’

  ‘And his shoes?’ Detective Inspector Sloan wasn’t going to let his own wife, Margaret, wait on their son hand and foot like that. When the boy got to Paul Tridgell’s age he could do his own washing. And he, his father, would see that he did.

  ‘His trainers aren’t here.’ She looked unhappy. ‘He wears them all the time.’

  Sloan looked round the room again. ‘Anything else missing?’

  ‘His mobile,’ she gave an anxious smile, ‘but then he never goes anywhere without that. The young don’t, do they?’

  ‘So have you rung him on it?’

  ‘It was the first thing I did, Inspector. I tried again and again but it wasn’t switched on so I left a message.’ She said, ‘I think they call it voicemail but I’m not sure.’

  ‘The number, please?’

  ‘But …’

  They were interrupted by the sound of a knock on the front door. ‘Excuse me, Inspector …’ Marion hurried down the stairs while Sloan took another look round Paul’s room. The only thing that was certain was that he hadn’t left any note there.

  Kate Booth was standing at the door. ‘I’ve come to see Paul,’ she said to Marion. ‘I’ve just heard about the accident …’

  Detective Inspector Sloan came down the stairs just as Crosby came back from requesting traffic to look out for Paul Tridgell and his car. ‘Number recognition are searching for the car now, sir. He can’t have gone far.’

  Kate Booth looked from one man to the other. ‘Paul? Gone where? I thought he’d been injured.’

  Marion Tridgell, looking older by the minute, said tremulously, ‘I think someone hoped he had been.’

  The accountant’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Not me, anyway,’ she said. ‘I’d promised to take him over to Chislet Crags for a bit more abseiling practice this morning.’

  ‘More?’ barked Sloan unexpectedly. ‘You’ve done it before?’

  ‘Rather, Inspector. He’s quite keen these days although I must say he never used to be. He’s still got all his father’s caving gear.’

  Sloan stiffened. ‘His father’s caving gear, did you say? Where is it?’

  ‘In the garage,’ said Marion faintly.

  Kate Booth was still standing on the doorstep when Sloan shot outside past her and wrenched open the garage door. Marion and Kate followed him. It was quite empty save for a large green lawnmower.

  ‘No caving gear here,’ pronounced Sloan flatly, looking round.

  Marion clutched Kate’s arm and said, ‘Look! All Paul’s snorkelling stuff’s gone, too, Kate.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan, Head of CID at the Berebury Division of the Calleshire County Constabulary, had heard other people talk about a light-bulb moment but he had never experienced one himself.

  He did now.

  �
��Crosby, the car,’ he ordered as he snapped into action. He pointed to Kate Booth, ‘You, miss, get in the back. Quickly.’ He turned and called over his shoulder to Marion Tridgell, ‘We’ll be back.’

  The constable was already driving out on to the road before he asked, ‘Where to, sir?’

  ‘Chislet Crags, of course,’ said Sloan swiftly. ‘And hurry.’

  That Saturday morning was different at Elizabeth Shelford’s house, too. For one thing her mother was at home all day, it being the weekend, and thus Mrs Shelford was enjoying a respite from her teaching duties.

  ‘I’m heading for the shops, Elizabeth,’ she said, coming into the kitchen, shopping bags in hand. ‘Why don’t you come with me? It’ll do you good to get out a bit.’

  ‘No, thanks, Mum.’ She said, starting to back her wheelchair away from the breakfast table. ‘Anyway, I haven’t got all that much spending money these days.’

  ‘I do wish you’d get out more. We could have a coffee in town and it’s not difficult to get you into Berebury now that you’ve got that adapted car.’

  ‘I’m fine here, thank you.’

  ‘Strangers don’t stare at people in wheelchairs any more you know if that’s what’s bothering you.’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘Well, what is it then?’

  ‘I’m not ready for it yet.’

  ‘And when will you be?’ demanded her mother. ‘Or aren’t you going to tell me that?’

  ‘Next year, perhaps. I’m not sure. We’ll have to see.’ She braced her shoulders. ‘But you can’t make me and neither can anyone else.’

  Mrs Shelford sighed. ‘I really don’t know what to make of you, Elizabeth. I really don’t. And you’ve been so good about your injuries.’

  ‘I can cope with those.’

  ‘You should always go out when you can,’ said her mother, reverting to her original point.

  ‘I’m always going out to the hospital and that’s quite enough, thank you.’

  ‘It isn’t enough. You know that perfectly well,’ she said, exasperated. ‘You’re not stupid.’

  ‘I can’t choose whether I go to the hospital, can I?’ Elizabeth said mulishly. ‘I can choose whether I go out anywhere else. And I have,’ she added. ‘Chosen, I mean.’

  ‘It’s not good that the only other people you see apart from that are those awful lads who were in the accident with you,’ persisted Mrs Shelford. ‘They will keep coming.’

  ‘They’re my friends.’

  ‘And they’ll soon be your only ones if you don’t make the effort to go out more and meet other people.’

  ‘They’ve been very good,’ said Elizabeth obliquely.

  ‘Are you staying in because they’re coming this morning when I’m not here?’

  ‘No.’

  She wasn’t listening. ‘Who is coming this morning, anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum. Honestly. I never do.’

  Mrs Shelford barely suppressed a snort.

  ‘It won’t be Paul, anyway,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He said he’s got something to do. Something important, but he didn’t tell me what it was. He did say he’d tell me afterwards, though.’

  ‘Him!’ Mrs Shelford’s opinion of Paul Tridgell was not high. ‘And what about the other two or is it three?’

  ‘Two. We didn’t really know Danny Saville before and he doesn’t come. Besides, his leg’s still bad.’

  ‘Them, then.’ said her mother. ‘Those two others.’

  ‘Trevor and Tim?’

  ‘Trevor and Tim,’ Mrs Shelford sighed. ‘I expect they’ll be round here the minute my back’s turned.’

  ‘They’re both working today,’ said her daughter with dignity. ‘Hotels and pharmacies are open Saturdays, remember.’

  ‘They don’t ever come if I’m here.’ It was Mrs Shelford’s continual complaint. ‘They never do.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Elizabeth retorted. ‘They don’t like the way you go on questioning them, Mum, when they do come here.’

  In the ordinary way, the premises of Berebury Pharmaceuticals were deserted on Saturday mornings, save for a caretaker. Not this Saturday. Their new employee, Chris Honley, Chief Scientist, was there. True, he wasn’t wearing a lab coat or giving any other sign of being at work but he was there all the same.

  Waiting for Jonathon Sharp.

  The chairman arrived soon enough and not in a particularly good temper. ‘What is it, Honley?’ he asked impatiently. ‘I’m due on the first tee soon for a four-ball. Saturday mornings on the course aren’t as crowded as they are on Sundays.’

  ‘It won’t take a minute but I didn’t like to ring.’

  Sharp sat up. ‘You’ve had a breakthrough with Project Resurgence?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Like that, is it? Well, what other holy grail have you found? Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s quite the way I would describe it.’ Chris Honley was essentially a humourless man and it showed now.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘More something that Derek Tridgell saw fit to keep in a safe place.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s a memo from you to him, actually. Handwritten.’

  Jonathon Sharp sat very still.

  The other man went on, ‘It was telling Derek Tridgell how you wanted to handle that meeting you were going to have with Ralph Iddon and Michael Linane over at Luston Chemicals.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said the chairman with apparent nonchalance.

  ‘That,’ said Honley.

  ‘And you say that Derek kept it?’

  ‘In a locked file.’

  ‘I don’t see why. It wasn’t all that important. It was just an outline plan for our time there, that’s all. I wanted him prepared.’

  ‘Exactly. It states that you wanted to collar Michael Linane on his own afterwards, assuming that you’d got nowhere with Ralph Iddon.’

  ‘Nobody ever gets anywhere with Ralph Iddon. You’ve worked there and you know that.’

  ‘And Michael Linane worked there, too,’ said Honley. ‘He’d been a friend of mine for ages.’

  ‘What about it? There was a great deal hanging on the outcome of our dialogue with them. You know that, too, Honley. We weren’t talking loss leaders in the grocery aisles.’

  ‘Sure. Not as much as actually hung on it as it turned out.’

  ‘I don’t get you.’

  ‘This memo instructs Tridgell to make himself scarce after the meeting and leave you to have a quiet word with Michael Linane, if you could get hold of him.’

  ‘What if it does? I knew we wouldn’t get anywhere with Ralph Iddon anyway. He’s a tough cookie and Michael Linane would never have talked to me in front of him. Never. It would have been as much as his job was worth anyway to be seen talking to me at all after that sort of meeting, so I thought if I could just bump into him in a corridor I could say my piece.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘I thought he might have been more amenable on his own.’

  ‘A job offer?’

  Jonathon Sharp began to bluster. ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that.’

  ‘How would you have put it, then?’ Chris Honley sounded a very different man today from the dispirited one lurking in the shadows of gardening leave.

  ‘I thought he might just have proved amenable to the odd suggestion about keeping the price of Mendaner up for a while – to give us time to regroup, so to speak. That would have been a great help to Berebury Pharmaceuticals.’

  ‘You must have followed Linane after he left the chairman’s office.’ Chris Honley sounded quite implacable now.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I missed him.’

  ‘That didn’t come up at the inquest.’

  ‘There was no need for it to since I didn’t find him. I thought he’d be going back to his own office but he didn’t go that way and I lost track of him in all those corridors. He must have gone through from the
offices into the works part before we left Iddon’s office.’

  ‘Which wasn’t his territory at all,’ said Honley. ‘He was Head of Sales. There was no call for him to be there at all.’

  ‘True.’ Jonathon Sharp said, ‘You’ll have to believe me. I never saw him after he left Iddon’s office. Now, I must go. I’m late already – and Honley, don’t try making bricks without straw. It could be dangerous.’ At which point the chairman of Berebury Pharmaceuticals got up and left.

  But he didn’t go to the Berebury Golf Course.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Detective Constable Crosby never minded any instruction to get going. He took his latest orders to get a move on quite literally. Soon clearing the minor roads that led away from Friar’s Flensant, he achieved the main road in record time.

  ‘Don’t hang about, Crosby,’ Detective Inspector Sloan told him. ‘We want the Calleford road to begin with and then it’s open country all the way.’

  The constable hadn’t needed telling twice. He soon hit a bigger highway still and bumped up his speed.

  Kate Booth, bouncing about in the back of the police car, asked plaintively if someone could please tell her what was going on.

  ‘We’re going to have a look at the place where Edmund Leaton died,’ replied Sloan over his shoulder.

  ‘Chislet Crags?’ she said. ‘The Baggles Bite?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Sloan tersely. ‘There.’

  ‘You can’t, Inspector. The farmer won’t let anyone go in that particular cave there. Not now.’

  ‘We’ll soon see about that,’ said Sloan.

  ‘Old Bartlett’ll see you coming and stop you,’ she insisted. ‘He’s piled some stones over the entrance and there isn’t any other way up to the opening into that cave except through his farm. You can only get your car as far as his farmyard anyway. After that you’ve got to walk.’

  ‘Then we’ll walk,’ said Sloan grimly, keeping silent after that. It didn’t mean he hadn’t anything to say or that he wasn’t thinking hard. It meant he was busy putting piece after piece of a mental jigsaw into place. In the way of difficult jigsaws where most of the colours seemed much the same there were still some unfilled spaces. The outline of those missing pieces, if not their exact colour, was becoming clearer to him by the minute. One of them was shaped in his mind by something that the clergyman had said at Derek Tridgell’s funeral: ‘where there was death there was hope’. Someone had been hoping for a death and a death had happened. He was pretty sure now that the death in question was that of Edmund Leaton.