Murder Under A Green Sea

by Phillip Hunter

  “Can we call Mr Bacon?”

  “Maybe, but if the police asked him anything, he’d be obliged to tell them. He’s an honest man.”

  “But he’s your solicitor. He can’t divulge information to the police.”

  “He can if that information obstructs an ongoing investigation.”

  Martha sighed. “We can’t stay here, and we can’t go anywhere else. What are we going to do?”

  “We need to figure it out.”

  “Can we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “So am I.”

  They were both quiet for a long time. They could hear a tinny radio, far off in the kitchen. It was playing music from one of the big bands, but it was too faint and distorted to make out. After a while, Max lit a cigarette. Then he looked at Martha and said, “Thank you, by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “For rescuing me.”

  “Any wife would do the same.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  He watched the smoke curl and became lost in the beauty of it. “I remember when I first fell in love with you,” he said quietly, dreamily. “It was at a party. I can’t recall whose, someone rich in St John’s Wood. It was the second time I’d seen you. You moved like the flame of a candle in still air, and as the men fluttered around you, I felt such a sadness, the grief of loss. I watched as you walked past me and then I looked down at my drink. I was smart enough to know how stupid I’d have looked if I approached you. And stupid enough to think I was smart. I’ve never told you that, have I?”

  “You’ve told me lots of times, Max, but always when you’re drunk. And I never quite understand it all. You fell in love with me because I looked like a candle.” She smiled.

  “That wasn’t why,” Max said. “That’s what attracted me to you, certainly – your calm beauty. But that wasn’t why I fell in love with you.”

  “Oh? What was it?”

  “On this night, at this rich person’s party, a small boy came into one of the rooms. It was the child of the hosts, and he’d woken up and come searching for his mother or father, and he couldn’t find them and was crying. You went over to him and crouched down and spoke to him. Then you took him by the hand and left the room. Half an hour later, I wondered where you were so I walked around the place, went from room to room. And I couldn’t find you. Then I went upstairs and I saw a door ajar and I looked in and you were sitting on the end of this boy’s bed, reading to him. And he was fast asleep, but you still kept on reading.”

  He was looking at Martha now and it seemed to her that Max was that boy, lost and alone.

  “I never told anyone that before,” he said. “No one has ever known. You see, everyone thinks I married you because you’re beautiful or rich or elegant, or because you know everyone, or because you’re smart and witty. But I didn’t. I married you because I loved you, and I loved you because you feel pain when you see others hurt, even if you pretend you don’t really care about anything.”

  “I didn’t know whose party it was,” Martha said. “So I couldn’t take him to his parents because I didn’t know who they were and I couldn’t very well ask anyone whose party it was. That would’ve been rude.”

  A police constable entered the tea shop and approached the counter, desperately in need of a strong cuppa. As was his habit upon entering a public place, the bobby scanned the customers, just in case there were fugitive killers among them. He saw the young couple in the corner, and smiled wistfully as he watched them, their foreheads touching each other, the man’s hand on the woman’s cheek. The policeman slid a threepenny bit over to the girl behind the counter and took his tea to a table, far away from the young lovers.

  “It’s my fault you’re involved in this,” Max said.

  “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It was getting dark, and they still didn’t know what to do. They were wandering slowly, arm in arm, along the bank of the Great Ouse, the ancient stone bridge at their backs.

  Max had called Sheridan Lyle, but he’d had nothing new to tell them.

  “It’s all gone quiet,” Lyle had said. “Which scares the hell out of me. The old man has disappeared somewhere, but he left orders to leave the story.”

  “So, they’re keeping out of it,” Max explained to Martha. “Even my own paper thinks I’m guilty.”

  They passed a huddled figure wrapped in a blanket, a fishing rod reaching out to the dark, oily, slow-moving water.

  “I keep thinking about those men who tried to break into the flat,” Max said. “Why? What were they after?”

  “They must’ve thought you had something.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “Well, surely they thought Burton gave you something, and they wanted it.”

  Max thought about that. “Perhaps he intended to, but didn’t have the opportunity. Then there’s Crawford, whoever he is.”

  They continued in silence for a while.

  “There’s something that connects everything,” Max said. “That’s what we need to find. So far, I’m the only link.”

  “Not just you, darling. The past – that’s a link.”

  “Yes. And that scares me. Come on, let’s get a drink.”

  “We’d better find somewhere to stay the night.”

  “Sure, somewhere with a bar.”

  The place they found was an hotel situated alongside the bridge. It was a cosy place with a small pub-like lounge and bar, and those low beams that Martha thought were quaint, but which annoyed Max because he had to keep ducking under them.

  They picked a table in the corner, from which Max could survey everyone who came into the place. They ordered a small meal, neither being in a hungry mood. Afterwards, they sat and smoked and sipped wine, which the young barman was eager to replenish.

  “Let’s go through it again,” Max said. “One thing at a time, everything we know for certain, only now we’ll start way back. We’re going to start with the war. So, first, Burton and I were in the same company, and Rice was in the same battalion. We fought together at a number of battles. I was friends with Burton, but not Rice. I haven’t seen or heard from either of them since the end of the war. Now, for some reason, Rice meets up with Burton, and the two of them go to Peterborough, where they’re supposed to meet a third man, called Crawford, who doesn’t arrive.”

  He considered what he’d just said and sighed. “This is like a labyrinth. The further in we go, the more we get lost.”

  “We need a new approach,” Martha said. “We need to think about things logically. I’m sure we have the information, it’s just that we don’t know how to use it. We need to be like Nick and Nora Charles, remember? Let’s think, Max.”

  Max took a deep breath. “If I’m going to have to think, I’ll need a pint of best.”

  He slid his wine over to Martha and ordered a beer. When it came, he lit a cigarette, leaned back and said, “I think we can assume that Rice went to see Burton with the express purpose of bringing him to Peterborough to meet Crawford. That explains Rice’s visit to Burton’s house and also why Burton intended to be away for only one day. Furthermore, we know it must’ve been an important meeting because Burton wore his silver cufflinks and best suit, and because he didn’t introduce Rice to his wife.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “The idea of introducing Major Rice to Lilly clearly didn’t enter Burton’s head. Thus, the nature of the meeting must’ve been such that something that he would otherwise not fail to do became merely a triviality, which wasn’t at the forefront of his mind.”

  “All right,” Martha said. “But, why Peterborough?”

  “Well, we know it’s close to Burton and en route to London for Rice.”

  “So why didn’t Burton an
d Rice meet at King’s Cross or at the hotel, or wherever? That would’ve been logical for both men.”

  “Um… well…”

  As Max was considering this question, Martha’s face lit up. She said, “Suppose it was Crawford?”

  “What?”

  “We’re thinking about Rice and Burton. But we’ve neglected Crawford. He was supposed to be at Peterborough. So what if it was more convenient, or even safer, for Crawford to meet there? And that would explain why they chose the station hotel. To make it as easy as possible for Crawford.”

  “Yes, that makes sense. We know from Rice’s actions that there was urgency about the meeting, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to Wisbech – he’d have simply wired Burton to meet him at Peterborough.”

  “And Rice booked the hotel rooms,” Martha said, “so he must’ve had a reason for choosing Peterborough.”

  She paused for a moment, her brow scrunched up in concentration. “You said that Rice was logical, even-tempered.”

  “I said he was dull too. But, yes. He was the kind who could’ve formed square and turned it on a pinwheel while screaming Beja hurtled towards them.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “He was logical and calm under pressure.”

  “Good. That means if he booked the hotel in Peterborough for a reason, it was probably a logistical one.”

  “Maybe. So what?”

  “If we use Peterborough as the centre of a circle, and Lincoln as the end of the radius, we can draw an area approximately where Crawford might have been. If Rice was dull and logical like you say, isn’t that the sort of thing he’d do?”

  “Yes.”

  Martha’s eyes were sparkling fire. Her cheeks were flushed. She said, “Let me have a map, Max.”

  Max went to find the hotel receptionist and returned with a tourist map of England with pictures of castles and cathedrals and that sort of thing. “It’s to scale,” he said, “so it’ll do.”

  They cleared the table and unfolded the map. Martha took a pin from the scarf she was wearing around her neck. She untied her shoe and removed a shoelace. Then, holding the end of the shoelace so that it touched the map at the point of Lincoln, she put the pin into the map at the point where it indicated Peterborough. She then moved the shoelace in a circle, scoring the circumference with her fingernail. “There,” she said proudly.

  Max looked at the circle, “It’s too big, Martha. Look at all the places the circle includes: Leicester, Coventry, north London, Cambridge. Half of it’s in the North Sea.”

  “We don’t want what it includes, fool. We only want to know the places on the circumference. It’s the distance to the middle of the circle that matters. If Peterborough was central for Rice, Burton and Crawford, then Crawford’s location must be somewhere around this circumference.”

  She scrutinised the map for a moment, looking at all the places on her circumference, and said, “I admit, this probably doesn’t help us much.”

  “Maybe we’re making too many assumptions.”

  “No, we’re not. We’re making logical deductions.”

  “I stand corrected. I apologise for my earlier comment regarding the female mind. I now see that it’s extraordinarily logical, and brilliant.”

  “Thank you.”

  Now that Martha had again invoked the characters of Burton and Rice to aid deduction, Max was beginning to appreciate that her mind worked, in many ways, much better than his. Yes, perhaps it was true that a man’s mind was better at logic, but if it was equally true that a woman’s mind was more emotionally attuned, it stood to reason that Martha would be able to understand a person’s actions better and, as such, she’d be better able to infer certain facts.

  For some reason, Max now found his mind revisiting Rice’s house. And something was nagging him about it. Something to do with this emotional logic of Martha’s. But the scene was nebulous and refused to cohere.

  “You know,” Martha said, “I’ve been thinking about their clothes.”

  “Huh?”

  “Pay attention, Max. Burton didn’t take a change of clothes to Peterborough, and he told his wife he’d see her first thing. To me, that means first thing tomorrow.”

  “You think he only intended to stay one night.”

  “I’m sure of it. Then there’s his attire. He wore his best suit and Guards cufflinks. That bothers me.”

  “What? Wearing his Sunday suit?”

  “Yes, and the cufflinks.”

  “He probably wanted to impress Rice. After all, Rice was a battalion CO.”

  “No, it’s more than that. Look, when a woman goes out, she likes to dress well, but she’d only ever wear her best dress or a priceless diamond brooch if she were trying to impress someone. A Sunday suit and his silver-plated cufflinks were Burton’s equivalent of a beautiful gown and that diamond brooch. But why would he be trying to impress Rice?”

  “Um.”

  “What if it wasn’t Rice he was trying to impress? Who else was he supposed to meet?”

  “You mean Crawford?”

  “Yes. That’s significant.”

  “I see what you mean. It’s like Rice summoned him to meet Crawford, and Burton took it so seriously that he wore his top clobber. That means Crawford is someone important. And Rice wanted Burton to meet him. And then Burton was to return home the next day.”

  They were both quiet for a while, soaking in the information, trying to make sense of it.

  “You have a Guards tie, don’t you?” Martha said.

  “Yes. And a tie pin.”

  “Well, when would you wear those?”

  “To a ceremony of some sort, I suppose, or a Guards reunion.”

  “Obviously, neither of those is the case here.”

  “You know,” Max said, “about ten years ago I was trying to make my living as a writer, and it wasn’t paying enough. So I decided I’d better get a job of some sort. I looked in the paper and saw a position for a bank clerk. I went into the branch and met the manager and applied for the position, and I got a formal interview. The manager was a stuffy sort, all whiskers and popping veins, but I was determined to impress him. That was the last time I wore my Guards tie and pin.”

  “I didn’t know you worked in a bank.”

  “I didn’t. It turned out the manager was an old navy man, hated the army.”

  “An interview,” Martha said thoughtfully. “So, why book a room for the night?”

  “They must’ve expected the meeting to take some time.”

  Martha said, “It sounds like they didn’t know what they were looking for.”

  “Yes,” Max said decisively. “That’s exactly what it seems like. So, an interview, perhaps, with Crawford, but one in which Crawford wasn’t sure what he was looking for.”

  “That would fit the facts perfectly.”

  “Doesn’t help us, though. I mean, why would Burton have an interview with this Crawford chap?”

  “I thought you were supposed to be some kind of journalist.”

  “I am some kind of journalist. I mean, I am a journalist.”

  “Well, then, don’t journalists interview people who were present at an event?”

  Max frowned and said, “You think Crawford’s a journalist?”

  Martha rolled her eyes. She said, “Often, I think you have the greatest mind of anyone I’ve ever known. And then you say something stupid like that. The point is that both Burton and Rice were present at the same place and the same time, during the war. Now, for what reason would someone want to interrogate those two men, together?”

  “I’ve already given you a reason – Palgrave’s death.”

  “Other than that,” Martha said sternly. “Is there something we can do to try to find out?”

  “Well, I suppose we could find other me
n in my old company. See if they can help us.”

  “Yes, of course. Oh, we’re stupid, Max. We should’ve thought of that ages ago. Now, how do we go about finding them?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  Martha made that throaty growling noise, and Max realised he was close to being in trouble. So he said, “But I know someone who would: Mr Bacon. In which case, we need to get to London.”

  “Can’t we telephone him?”

  “They might be monitoring his calls.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “I don’t know. It’s what they do in the pictures, though. They’d probably be monitoring our home, too.”

  “What about Alwyn?”

  “Alwyn Frost? That stuffed shirt would turn me in quicker than he could sing the national anthem.”

  “Lindsey? No, he’s no good. Um, my father. He’d help. I know he would.”

  “I think he would, but I don’t think we can involve him. He’s too old. Besides, your mother would find out and she’d turn me in faster than Frost would.”

  “You’d be surprised what my mother would do. But, yes, we can’t involve them. What about telephoning Mr Hart?” Martha said.

  “Who?”

  “The chap at the dinner party. He likes you, even wants to talk about your books. He gave you his card, remember?”

  “Yes. But, no. If he’s a friend of Frost’s he’ll be one of those upright blokes, might turn us in.”

  “What about Flora?”

  “No. They might have her under watch.”

  “What about Eric?”

  “Flora’s Eric?”

  “Yes, he’d help. And he has access to a vehicle – his butcher’s van.”

  Max considered this for a moment. Then he said, “Brilliant.”

  So Martha went off to find a telephone box from where she called Mr Stone’s butcher shop. Of course, the butcher shop would be shut, but Mr Stone lived in the flat above.

  While she was gone, Max tried to apply his reason to the situation, but, oddly, it didn’t work for him alone as it did when he was with Martha, which, for a moment, amused him. Then the humour faded and was replaced by a warm feeling, and he wanted Martha to hurry back.