Murder Strikes Pink

by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  Christina Scott hadn’t known Helen Farrell’s address but Jackson sent Roper to ring the secretary of the Upshott Show, while he recovered from the strain of interviewing Christina over a pint of ale. The show secretary told Roper that the address she gave them was of her father’s London house, but it was common knowledge she was staying at the George Hotel at Hamberley, for what purpose he wouldn’t like to say.

  Jackson received this news with pleasure. He had expected to find himself trekking half across England, for how could you ask another police force to find out the things he needed to know about Helen Farrell? But the George with its dark Victorian panelling, its coaching prints, faded red carpets and warm beer was a favourite haunt of his.

  ‘We’ll see her at two,’ he told Roper.

  *

  Helen Farrell, her thick, shining golden hair hanging almost all over her face, which apart from vast quantities of eye shadow was practically devoid of make-up, was so delighted by the notoriety of a visit from the police that she wanted to be interviewed in the public lounge bar. Jackson refused stiffly. He was far from amused by the knowing winks and grins he was already receiving from Stan the barman and, very conscious that he had a reputation to keep up in his home town, he hurried Helen Farrell upstairs and, finding the residents’ T.V. lounge uninhabited for once, he bustled her and Roper inside and locked the door.

  ‘Now, Mrs. Farrell,’ he said, averting his eyes from the body-clinging green silk shirt and the pale yellow pants, which were the tightest he’d ever seen, ‘your full names, please,’ and he pulled violently at his nose.

  Helen turned the lovely child-like face with eager gaze and half-parted lips upon him and answered, ‘Helen Mary Alexandra Elizabeth Lomax Farrell.’

  Jackson allowed Roper a few moments to write this down before he asked, ‘You knew Miss Thistleton?’

  ‘Yes, she was a horrible old woman, mean, disagreeableandalways bullying thosedreary secretaries,’ answered Helen with energetic candour. ‘I’m sure there were dozens of people queuing up to murder her.’

  ‘Really, Mrs. Farrell.’ Jackson was frankly shocked. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Helen innocently. ‘I thought you were supposed to tell the truth to the police. I asked Laurence — Mr. Keswick — what to say if you came to see me and he said tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  ‘Well yes, but — oh well, never mind.’ He looked angrily at Roper, but there was a suitably shocked expression on the constable’s pink and white face and no suspicion of a grin. ‘Anyway, you were at the Upshott Show on Friday and Saturday; did you speak to Miss Thistleton at all?’

  ‘No, you could see she was in a stinking mood a mile off; she always was if her horses didn’t win. Actually I’m surprised that she didn’t murder Christina Scott — she looked as though she’d like to.’

  ‘Why should she murder Miss Scott?’ asked Jackson stiffly.

  ‘Because Christina wouldn’t let those wretched horses jump. She was hanging on to their heads for grim death. I never thought her particularly brilliant even in her hey-day, but honestly on Friday she looked like pony rides on the beach. I’d heard she’d gone to pieces but when I saw her I wasn’t at all surprised that she’s been having such crashing falls and that all the horses were stopping. Of course she’s getting on, she must be thirty-five.’

  ‘Right, that’s Friday; now on Saturday —’

  ‘Oh, Saturday that ghastly Brown boy jumped them. He’s enough to make you sick; I can’t think why the B.S.J.A. doesn’t ban him. And I can’t imagine why T.T. asked him to ride her horses unless it was to humiliate Christina; they had a flaming row, you know.’

  ‘Did you overhear the quarrel?’ asked Jackson sternly. ‘No, but everybody seems to know about it.’

  ‘I only want first-hand information, Mrs. Farrell. Now, still on Saturday, did Mr. Keswick spend much time with you?’

  The ingenuousness of Helen’s expression faded a little as she considered her reply. ‘All his spare time,’ she answered, ‘but there wasn’t a great deal of it. You know how it is at shows, you’re for ever boxing and unboxing the animals, fiddling about with tack and studs and bandages; we were kept busy, especially Laurence, who was coping with two horses on his own. I had persuaded a girl I know to come with me and act as groom.’

  ‘Did you go near Miss Thistleton’s horse-box?’

  ‘No. You see Marion Keswick, Laurence’s wife, was there helping with T.T.’s horses and when you’re on the loose again, like I am now, you’re never exactly popular with your girl friends. As soon as they see you coming they all snatch up their husbands and run. Not that Marion could snatch up hers since they’ve already parted, but she looked as though she’d like to, so I avoided her.’

  ‘Did you know of the existence of this “emergency basket” that Miss Thistleton had taken round with her?’

  ‘No, I knew those dreary secretaries were always groaning under loads of stuff T.T. thought she might need, but I never bothered to find out exactly what it all was.’

  ‘Right, Mrs. Farrell,’ said Jackson with relief. ‘That’s all for now, but if you decide to leave the George would you let us know your next address in case we need to get in touch with you again? Just ring the Hamberley police station.’

  Promising that she would, Helen saw them downstairs and then insisted on shaking them both warmly by the hand as she said goodbye in the lounge bar. Jackson observed with relief that Stan had gone off duty.

  The detectives returned to the police station and having set Roper to deal with a backlog of small administrative matters, Jackson sat down heavily at his desk. Doodling on his blotting paper and sucking the last remnants of lunch from his teeth he pondered on the case. He was roused and revived by the afternoon cup of tea and went to collect Roper from the next-door office. ‘We’re going over to Whittam House again to have a chat with that Miss Hemming and a bit of a look round,’ he explained.

  The secretaries, relieved of their day-long attendance on T.T. and now recovered from that state of tiredness when simply to sit still is a pleasure, were finding each other hard to amuse. Led to the lawn by the sound of bickering voices the detectives found them sitting in deck chairs. Joy, knitting what she called a ‘woollie’ in pastel blue, looked pleased by the diversion, but Molly, overcome with embarrassment at having been caught in the act of repairing a brassiere, fled red-faced to the house, muttering incoherent excuses. Jackson, observing gratefully that her chair was the straight-backed sort, sat down in it and said, ‘All right, Roper, you needn’t take notes. I just want an unofficial chat with Miss Hemming. Now, Miss Hemming,’ Jackson went on, trying to conceal his dislike by the heartiness of his voice, ‘I suppose that living here with Miss Thistleton you must have seen a good deal of Mr. and Mrs. Keswick and as I want to get a true picture of how things stood between them, I thought you might be able to help me.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say I was in their confidence, Superintendent, but of course I’ll help you if I can.’

  ‘I’ve heard a lot of different stories, and I’ve talked to this Mrs. Farrell,’ Jackson went on in tones of distaste, ‘and I can’t quite make out what to believe. Now what do you think the trouble was? Did Miss Thistleton know, being a relation?’

  Joy Hemming knitted a few stitches thoughtfully and then laid down her needles. ‘I think I can help you there,’ she answered. ‘One way and another we’ve seen quite a lot of them. Miss Thistleton always asked them to dinner regularly once a month and they almost always came; I suppose Laurence Keswick knew which side his bread was buttered because no one would have come for the conversation and certainly not the food. Then whenever T.T. bought a new horse she liked Laurence to come over and give his opinion. Not that she thought anything of his opinion, mind you, she was quite sure that she knew a great deal more about horses than he did.’

  ‘And when did this trouble start between the Keswicks?’ Jackson prompted her.<
br />
  ‘Oh, it was only about a month ago that it became obvious to outsiders, I remember, it was the last time they came to dinner. Mrs. Maggs had excelled herself, we had white fish in a lumpy cheese sauce and Marion Keswick nearly snapped Laurence’s head off. We were very taken aback because they’d always seemed — well, rather a devoted couple before that.’

  ‘And what did she snap his head off about?’ asked Jackson wearily.

  ‘Money.’ Joy lowered her voice. ‘It was all over money. I think that’s partly why T.T. was so angry about it; she knew very well that it was in her power to help them, but she hated doing anything for anyone, so she wouldn’t. Marion Keswick worked like a black on that little farm and did all the household work as well, but Laurence was always going off show-jumping; she used to go with him, but gradually she stayed at home more and more; she always seemed to have to pick the fruit or feed the pigs or something. I know, you see, because we went to so many of the same shows.’

  ‘And you don’t think,’ said Jackson, heaving himself to his feet, ‘that Mrs. Farrell had anything to do with it?’

  ‘No, I’m sure she didn’t; she’s only just come on the scene.’

  ‘Right, Miss Hemming. Roper.’

  *

  Brenda Dix, attired in a bikini top and the briefest of shorts, was sweeping the stable yard in a very languid manner; by turning her charges out to grass she had saved herself the trouble of grooming, exercising, mucking out and tack cleaning and she was concentrating on acquiring a suntan. One glance was enough for Jackson, who directed his gaze to the stable clock, which was five minutes slow, and asked stiffly, ‘Where is the horse-box garaged, Miss Dix?’

  ‘Hullo, you again!’ cried Brenda Dix, flashing her smile at Roper. ‘You want to see the horse-box, do you? Come along then.’ The muck heap, a long open shed with wheelbarrows and a few jumps in it and the building which housed the horse-box were all discreetly hidden behind the red-brick Victorian stables.

  ‘Here you are,’ said Brenda. ‘These two ramps are where the horses get in and out and this is the groom’s compartment. Do you want to go inside?’ She opened the door and as Jackson climbed inside she began to chatter to Roper.

  There was nothing much to see; the box had evidently been swept out since Saturday. Jackson, visualizing all the saddles and bridles and rugs and buckets he had been told horses had to have, could see the groom’s compartment would be full without the addition of T.T.’s miscellaneous collection. But the box was well fitted up, he thought, observing saddle brackets and plenty of hooks. On one hook a forgotten mackintosh still hung. Idly he took it down. He looked for a name inside and not finding one he felt in the pockets. He drew out a number of greyish-green fruits; some of the hulls were splitting to reveal almond-shaped kernels. He looked at them for a moment or two and then, quite suddenly, his mind identified them.

  ‘Who does this mackintosh belong to?’ he demanded. His voice was so sharp that Roper jumped to attention and Brenda gaped at him with horrified surprise.

  ‘Oh, it’s Mrs. Keswick’s,’ she said. ‘It’s been there since Saturday; she must have forgotten it, but with no chauffeur I couldn’t send it back.’

  ‘I’ll take it with me,’ said Jackson grimly. ‘I shall be seeing her presently.’

  Jackson dropped Roper in Hamberley, instructing him to find Sergeant Caley and get some tea as he’d be wanting them both presently, and drove on to the local nursery gardens whose proprietor he knew. When he returned to the police station there was a jubilant gleam in his small eyes.

  ‘You two pop up and fetch Mrs. Keswick,’ he told Caley and Roper. ‘Say I want another word with her about Saturday.’

  He then sent for some more tea and for Inspector Craker to whom he told, in depressingly unequivocal terms, exactly what he thought of the lack of progress in the arson case.

  He had just finished with Craker when the telephone rang and Sergeant Caley’s voice explained apologetically that they’d be a little time yet as Mrs. Keswick refused to come until she’d fed the dog and the pigs and the chickens.

  ‘Well, hurry her up as much as you can, I want to get home tonight. And you mind she doesn’t give you the slip; she’s probably nipping off now while you’re standing there talking to me,’ Jackson began to shout as the thought occurred to him.

  ‘I left Roper to keep an eye on her,’ answered Caley defensively.

  ‘Fat lot of good he’ll be if she does make a run for it,’ said Jackson, contemptuous but mollified. ‘All right, Caley, bring her along as soon as you can.’

  It was seven o’clock when Caley and Roper escorted an obviously nervous Marion Keswick up to Jackson’s office, and the note of doom in the Superintendent’s voice as he said, ‘Sit down, Mrs. Keswick, and tell me if this is your mackintosh?’ did nothing to reassure her.

  Marion looked at the mackintosh anxiously. ‘Yes, I think so,’ she answered.

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  ‘Well, it’s the same make and it’s got a yellow lining.’ She stood up and shook it out to examine it better. ‘Yes, it’s minus this button and there’s the colic drench stain on the arm; yes, I’m sure it’s mine. Where did you find it?’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ said Jackson. ‘The point is what were these doing in the pocket?’ and he produced the handful of greyish-green fruits.

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ Marion looked at them nervously. ‘I didn’t put them there.’

  ‘No? And I suppose you don’t know what they are, either,’ said Jackson with heavy sarcasm.

  ‘No,’ Marion agreed, ‘I don’t think I do.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you. They’re almonds, bitter almonds, Mrs. Keswick. And do you know what they contain? No, I thought not,’ he went on when Marion shook her head. ‘Well, I’ll tell you that too. Hydrocyanic acid — prussic acid if you like — the stuff that killed Miss Thistleton; the stuff that someone put in that thermos of milk shake.

  ‘Now then, Mrs. Keswick,’ he went on after a pause; ‘perhaps you’d like to tell me what these almonds were doing in your mackintosh pocket?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Marion answered. ‘I didn’t put them there.’ She sounded frightened.

  ‘It’s no use your lying to us; if you didn’t put them there, then who did? It’s your mackintosh, you said so yourself. And another thing, you told me you didn’t touch that basket; we know that’s a lie. We can prove you handled the thermos, Mrs. Keswick, it had your fingerprints on it.’

  Seeing that Marion was completely crushed by this revelation Jackson opened the door and shouted for Roper to come and take down a statement. But taken backwards and forwards through her previous statement, confronted alternately with the almonds and the fact of the fingerprint on the thermos, Marion refused to admit that she had lied. She received Jackson’s suggestion that she had poisoned T.T. so that Laurence might inherit, with horror and when he persisted in this theory she asked at last if he thought she would commit murder so that her husband could afford to go off with another woman, and subsided into tears. Revolted by the sight of tears Jackson told Caley to take over. But Caley’s Latin charm, his cigarettes and cups of tea had no more effect on Marion than Jackson’s noisy sarcasm. She hardly noticed when Jackson came back and sitting down wearily, began all over again with the almonds in her mackintosh pocket. Jackson was already looking for an escape from the situation when his telephone rang and the policewoman on the switchboard said, ‘The Chief Fire Officer for you, sir.’ Immediately Jackson’s ear was assailed by a storm of words. ‘What’s that?’ he demanded testily. The angry voice of the Chief Fire Officer became coherent. ‘I said that the new Woolworths is on fire; it’s gone up like a bloody paint store, which means it’s arson again and what are you police doing? Bugger all!’

  ‘Len, Len,’ said Jackson urgently, but the infuriated fire officer had already slammed down his receiver. Jackson sat for a few moments staring straight in front of him, then, suddenly, he saw his way clear. With one stro
ke he would be rid of this obstinate, tearful woman, the horse-jumping gossips and bikini-clad girls.

  ‘Mrs. Keswick,’ he asked, ‘have you a passport?’ And when Marion admitted that she had, he went on, ‘Well, Constable Grant will take you home now. I want you to give him your passport.’ Taking Grant, who’d relieved Roper, on one side, he told him to stay at Down End Farm and see that Marion stayed there until further notice. When they had gone he gave a great sigh of relief and, picking up his telephone receiver, he dialled the Chief Constable’s number. As he waited for Murray to answer, the look on his face was that of a man determined to have his own way.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DETECTIVE Chief Inspector James Flecker had barely entered his office on Wednesday morning when he received a summons from the Assistant Commissioner.

  Flecker took a guilty glance at his watch and mentally thanked God that he was on time, for Lestrange’s violent views on punctuality were well-known and only the week before all hell had been loosed over the late arrival of a very newly promoted Detective Superintendent. A dark, dyspeptic man of tremendous drive and immense capabilities, the A.C. Crime was not generally popular in Central Office, but Flecker, who’d suffered more from the bureaucratic bumblings of his immediate superiors than from the A.C.’s inability to suffer fools, admired and rather liked him.

  ‘Ah, something right up your street, Flecker,’ said Lestrange cheerfully. ‘Very macabre; hydrocyanic acid in the pink milk shake. Really, these horse lovers! I can’t give you much information because I haven’t got it. Flowever, you’ll be glad to know that the local people have the case “practically sewn up” — curious how often Chief Constables tell us that when they ask for help — but as some maniac is systematically burning down the town of Hamberley they’ve no time for the “loose ends”. Well,’ Lestrange looked up at him thoughtfully, ‘no doubt you’ll find out about that for yourself. You’d better take Browning and I should prefer, if possible, that you refrain from being burned in your beds.’