Blood on the Happy Highway

by Sheila Radley

  But it wasn’t merely a question of who fetched the drinks. He fretted at the absence of masculine company. He wanted to talk the enquiry over with a man who had a pint in his fist, a copper he could understand, not with this self-contained young woman who sat with such straight-backed grace on the wooden pub bench, and proposed to lunch off toast, pâté and a glass of white wine. CID work in Breckham Market was never, he realised glumly, going to be the same again.

  If Sergeant Lloyd had heard the Chief Inspector’s rebuke, let alone taken it to heart, she gave no sign. But he required some response; quiet thinking was evidently not encouraged in this division. She stirred, and began her meal. ‘I see …’ she said with lively interest, breaking up a slice of cold, imitation leather toast. ‘But what makes you so sure it was the husband?’

  Quantrill explained with confidence. ‘It seemed likely, as soon as you told me about the dampness on his trouser legs when you first saw him. When I questioned him about it, he admitted that he did go out this morning, somewhere about eight o’clock. He says he walked across the common to his mother’s house to make sure that she was all right, and he didn’t think to mention it to you because it’s something he does every morning. So he certainly had the opportunity to pick up the dead cat, and I don’t think he’d have mourned its death, either. He doesn’t like cats. Did you see all the scratches on his hands, and his nervousness when his wife told him to catch the kitten? He took very good care not to get hold of it.’

  Hilary had made the same observation, without modifying her original conclusion. ‘But if you’re right, I don’t understand why he should deny it,’ she said. ‘After all, you’d told him that no crime had been committed. Oh, he’d deny it in front of his wife, of course. But why didn’t he admit it when you spoke to him on his own?’

  ‘Ah. Masculine pride,’ explained Quantrill, mug in fist. ‘I thought we might have difficulty with that, as soon as I saw the age difference between him and his wife. Arrowsmith’s denying that he was responsible because he doesn’t want to acknowledge that he was a fool ever to marry her. Silly young idiot … Any young man tying himself to a middle-aged woman is bound to wake up one day and regret it.’

  Hilary winced as her first sip of wine soured her mouth; acid stuff, brewers’plonk, almost as unpalatable as the gritty lump of pâté that accompanied the toast. If this was her new boss’s idea of a good pub, the sooner he left her to work on her own, the better.

  She very much missed Inspector Harry Colman’s company and conversation. Harry was an open-minded man, aware of new ideas and social changes, whereas Douglas Quantrill seemed to be stuck with the attitudes of twenty years ago. It would take a long time to civilise him; and would it be worth going to the trouble?

  She couldn’t resist a try. If she didn’t enjoy a challenge, she would never have joined the police. ‘Bound to regret it …? I wonder what makes you say that?’

  ‘Well, it’s obvious.’ He lowered his mug. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘I should think that depends on whether you’re proposing it as a general rule,’ she said pleasantly. ‘But then, it would have to apply equally to the sexes, wouldn’t it? Oh dear – do you think Patsy Hopkins is a fool to tie herself to a man so much older than she is? Poor Patsy – I do hope she isn’t bound to wake up one day and regret it.’

  ‘Ah, that’s different.’

  She said nothing, but looked at him with composure as she ate a piece of sparingly buttered toast.

  Quantrill put his mug on the table. ‘Having a go at me, Miss Lloyd?’ he demanded.

  ‘Just registering a protest. I don’t see why it should be regarded as perfectly natural for a younger woman to be in love with an older man, and to want to marry him, but not the other way round. You seem to think that Simon Arrowsmith must be feeling trapped in his marriage. That he’s desperate to get out. But that’s not the way it looked to me at all.’

  Quantrill flung a handful of breadcrumbs at, rather than for, the sparrows that hopped on the gravelled forecourt near their feet.

  ‘Come off it,’ he said. ‘If you’re trying to persuade me that I’ve misjudged Angela Arrowsmith, you’re wasting your time. The woman’s a menace, totally self-centred and demanding. She must make her husband’s life hell.’

  ‘I’m afraid she probably does. But it’s all down to character and temperament, not to relative ages. He’s too weak ever to say “No” to her, and she’d be just as much of a menace if she were married to a man of fifty. But Simon Arrowsmith isn’t disenchanted with his wife. Far from it. I’m sure he’s genuinely in love with her, and much too soft-hearted to upset her. I don’t believe that he was responsible for what happened this morning.’

  Quantrill was irked into silence. He’d allowed the woman detective to bait him into making a thoughtless generalisation that, on reflection, was untenable; but that was beside the point. They weren’t having a social discussion about what he’d heard his daughter Alison describe darkly as ‘sexism’. They were discussing the relationship between the Arrowsmiths and the reason why the husband wouldn’t admit to having a domestic dispute – and whatever his new sergeant said, he was still right. Simon Arrowsmith had been a fool to marry the woman, but masculine pride made him unwilling to admit it even to himself.

  As to whether the man was in love: yes, Quantrill had to admit that Sergeant Lloyd could be right about that. But that, too, was beside the point. Love didn’t preclude domestic disputes, it made them worse, and a police sergeant ought to know enough about human nature to understand that.

  He glared sideways at her, resenting the detached air with which she fed not breadcrumbs but pâté to the sparrows. For a moment, he wondered disparagingly whether she knew anything about real life at all. But then he saw the scar on her forehead and remembered that, having had the misfortune to meet one of its more unpleasant manifestations literally head on, she knew quite as much about real life as he did.

  ‘So who do you think was responsible for this morning’s incident?’ he asked in a more friendly voice. ‘You’re surely not still maintaining that Mrs Arrowsmith is frightened, are you?’

  ‘No, I agree with you there, sir. But I don’t withdraw what I first told you. I’m sure there’s someone – or something – in her background that she’s extremely anxious to hide. As far as this incident’s concerned, though, I’ve come round to your conclusion that it’s almost certainly domestic. Angela thinks she knows who was responsible, and it’s someone she isn’t afraid of. I’ve been wondering about her brother – he must be worried sick about the restaurant.’

  She saw Quantrill’s blank look. ‘Didn’t either of the men tell you about Angela’s scheme?’

  They hadn’t. Hilary told him. Quantrill boggled.

  ‘The woman must be out of her mind,’ he said.

  ‘I think she probably is, on this subject. But I’m sure she intends to go ahead with it.’

  ‘It’d cost no end to set up a place like that. Where’s she getting the money from?’

  ‘She refused to say. But she denied all connection with the Black Bull mob.’

  ‘Bridge Street, Breckham Market, eh? I think I know the place she must mean. It was built as a Methodist chapel, but it was disused when I first came to Breckham. Then a local builder bought it, and leased it out for commercial use. First it was a carpet showroom, then a roller-skating rink, then a coffee bar and disco. None of the ventures made any money because the overheads are too high. Last year it was opened as a fried chicken restaurant and take away, but it didn’t keep going for more than six months. Only a fool would pour money into commercial premises with that kind of history. Well it’s an interesting piece of information. We’ll keep an eye on the place. As you say, some villain may be making use of Mrs Arrowsmith’s ambitions to provide himself with a cover.’

  ‘And may be putting pressure on her already,’ suggested Hilary. ‘I know it’s an off-chance, but it could account for this morning’s threat. Perhaps she was trying to alter o
ur hypothetical villain’s plans in some way, and he wanted to keep her in line.’

  Quantrill got up from the bench and stretched his legs. ‘It’s a possibility, yes. But I still think the problem’s simpler, and nearer home. The woman’s husband is sick with worry and misery. I thought it was hardly surprising, when he was tied to –’ he caught sight of Sergeant Lloyd’s quizzical eye ‘– married to a wife like that. But with this crazy restaurant scheme of hers, the pressures on the poor devil must be intolerable. And if she’s as obsessive as you say, that applies whether her plans are fact or fantasy. Her husband probably took the opportunity to upset her this morning in the hope of frightening her off the idea.’

  ‘The same argument could apply to Harold Wilkes.’

  ‘Yes. Her husband and her brother could be in it together. And there’s your explanation as to why Arrowsmith refuses to admit it. The threat didn’t work. Mrs Arrowsmith isn’t frightened, and from what she told you she’s going ahead with her scheme. So if they want to stop her, they’ll have to try again.’

  Hilary wondered for a moment whether she had been right to conclude that Angela Arrowsmith wasn’t in any danger. ‘They’ll have to try a lot harder, if they want to stop a woman like that.’

  ‘I don’t see why you’re worrying,’ said Quantrill, feeling that honours were at last even. ‘If you’re prepared to agree with me that we can put this morning’s happening down to Simon Arrowsmith, I’ll go along with your estimate of his character. If you’re right about him, you can be sure that he’ll draw the line at cutting up anything other than dead cats.’

  They abandoned the remains of their meal to the attendant sparrows, left Wickford and turned their combined attention to the A135 murder.

  Chapter Nine

  When Angela Arrowsmith had an idea, she wanted to put it into practice immediately. Immature still, at 40, she could never bear to wait.

  As soon as the police left the house, she made several telephone calls. Then she changed into a sharply feminine suit, went down to the kitchen, informed her brother that he was going to be the chef in the restaurant she intended to open, and told him not to wait lunch. She went outside, kissed her husband, who was hovering worriedly beside the Austin Princess that he’d just backed out of the garage for her, tugged his beard and told him not to be a silly boy, and drove off to Breckham Market.

  The town was busy with Saturday shoppers. Bridge Street was crowded. She drove slowly past a detached grey brick building, in shape like a giant dog kennel, and savoured the handwritten TO LET notice in its wide, modern plate-glass window. The window was topped by a heavy pediment, above which was a stone incised with the words Primitive Methodist Chapel 1863; but all that Angela saw was in her mind’s eye, the glitter of a flourishing restaurant club.

  There were snags, certainly: no parking space, for one thing. But there was access for delivery vehicles from the rear, and plenty of room for evening off-street parking in the market place, just a few minutes’walk away.

  Her eyes reflecting the glitter of her dream, Angela went to make her arrangements with the owner, a local builder. A stranger to the town, she had had great difficulty in finding the address that had been given on the TO LET notice when, earlier in the week, she went to borrow the keys so that she could view the empty property. Even now, having been there once before, she took two wrong turnings before she arrived at the builder’s yard down by the river, in a huddled old-town area of dirt roads, dilapidated sheds, makeshift garages and long-dead cars.

  At the entrance to the yard was a board with faded lettering: C. Mutimer, Builder and Undertaker, Estimates Free, No Job Too Small. The yard was disorganised, and largely disused. In the centre was what had once been a farmhouse; the great barn still stood beside it, its timbered interior used for storing a small quantity of building material and for making coffins, one of which was propped up just inside the open doors. The house itself, once plastered in traditional Suffolk style, had been weatherproofed with pebble-dashed mortar. The thatched roof was covered with corrugated iron. Its owner, like many old-fashioned small builders, seemed disinclined to spend either time or money on his own property.

  Angela parked her car beside C. Mutimer’s pick-up truck and went round to the back of the house, having learned on her previous visit that the front door was boarded up. The builder, who had heard her car, was at the back door to greet her. He was a stout man of sixty, give or take a decade, with sparse hair, round, thick-lensed spectacles, and the bland features and lucky-horseshoe smile of a contented baby.

  He led her into a silted-up office that smelled of dust and cold bacon fat, cleared a chair of papers, and wiped it over with the free end of the window curtain. Angela sat down, arranging her short but shapely legs at their most flattering angle, and thanked him for having agreed, when she telephoned, to stay at the yard until she arrived.

  ‘My pleasure, Mrs Arrowsmith. Besides, where else could I go? I’m a bachelor, you see … I’ve no Mrs Mutimer to go home to, more’s the pity. This is where I work, and this is where I live. Here I am, and here I have to stay.’

  Cyril Mutimer forced the corners of his mouth momentarily downwards as he invited his visitor’s sympathy. He looked, in his dusty black jacket, tight waistcoat and absurdly formal striped trousers – once his best undertaker’s suit, now demoted to working wear – rather like a chubby orphan. The fact that his life style suited him completely, and that his various properties scattered on prime sites throughout the town gave him total assets of several hundred thousand pounds, was nobody’s business but his own.

  ‘What a shame,’ said Angela. His lenses were too thick for her to see that his eyes were moving with interest from her own hair to the similarly dark gold hair of the girl exposing herself provocatively on the Penthouse calendar that hung on the back of the door.

  ‘– shame,’ he echoed sorrowfully, though his mouth had resumed its happy curve. ‘Well, now, Mrs Arrowsmith – by the way, if you don’t mind my asking: any relation?’

  She knew what he meant. It was a question she’d become accustomed to, since her marriage to Simon Arrowsmith. When she answered, ‘Sister-in-law’, it was with a sense of reflected prestige; and yet she was infuriated, too, that the only Arrowsmith who seemed to count for anything in Breckham Market was Ross. This was one of the things she intended to alter.

  Cyril Mutimer looked impressed by the nearness of the relationship. ‘A very clever man, Mr Ross Arrowsmith,’ he said. ‘Thinking of diversifying, is he? A restaurant, I believe you said?’

  ‘It’s nothing whatever to do with my brother-in-law,’ said Angela sharply. ‘Or with my husband, come to that. This is entirely my own project.’

  ‘– own project,’ agreed Mutimer immediately. ‘Very suitable, for a lady. Morning coffees, light lunches, dainty afternoon teas –’

  Angela told him what he could do with dainty afternoon teas. She had at first intended to keep her vocabulary polite, but it seemed that the only way to persuade the builder to treat her as a serious businesswoman was by getting it out of his head that she was a lady. Cyril Mutimer’s eyes gleamed behind the lenses as her language ripened, but his smile remained cherubically innocent. He beamed and nodded as she told him her plans, and he agreed with every word she said.

  ‘– big name cabaret acts. Of course. Just what Breckham Market needs. You’ll have a gold mine there, Mrs Arrowsmith, a real gold mine. And when were you thinking of taking over the lease?’

  ‘Right away. I want to open in November, and there’s a lot to do.’

  ‘– lot to do. Of course. But you know what lawyers are. I don’t want to disappoint you, but they could take weeks over drawing up the lease. I wouldn’t hold out much hope of a November opening if I were you – unless …’

  He paused, guileless as a baby who knows perfectly well that he has his mother in his power. Angela, obsessed, urged him on.

  ‘Well … I’d be taking a risk. Not that I don’t trust you, Mrs Arrowsmith, of
course I do, but it isn’t good business to give a potential lessee access to a property before the lease is signed. You might back out after a week or two, and then where would I be?’

  Angela assured him that she would do no such thing. Cyril Mutimer allowed himself to be persuaded into agreeing to let her have the keys of the property as soon as she paid him the ingoing premium.

  ‘You did realise there’d be a modest premium? Standard business practice, as you know. Let me see – four thousand square feet, and on a prime site …’ he went through the motions of consulting his account books before mentioning the figure he had already decided on, one that would give him a fat profit without being so high as to deter her. ‘Ah yes: five thousand pounds down, and the keys are yours.’

  Angela knew nothing about standard business practice, but during the past week she had consulted the Business Premises column of the local newspaper, and she had seen premiums mentioned; in comparison with what was being asked for some considerably smaller retail premises in Yarchester, five thousand sounded reasonable. But she wanted to make it clear to him that she knew what she was doing.

  ‘That’s too steep, Mr Mutimer,’ she told him. ‘For four thousand square feet, in a small town like Breckham Market, I don’t expect to pay more than four thousand pounds. After all, my customers will be coming by car, so the site’s no advantage. I’m not paying five thousand for the use of a building without a car park.’

  Cyril Mutimer’s chin quivered with hurt. ‘But the potential, Mrs Arrowsmith … It’s the potential you must look at. And you get the use of all the fixtures and fittings.’