A Cotswolds Murder

by Roy Lewis

  ‘Well, me old son,’ Lindop said. ‘How goes it?’

  He sat there holding his mug in his left hand, his muscular right arm draped along the back of the divan seat he occupied. Chuck Lindop was not a tall man — or at least, he did not give the impression of height, for his body was thick and powerful. He wore a check shirt that was open at the throat and seemed to strain across his chest. The jeans he usually affected on the site were invariably stained and worn; they too emphasized the muscularity of his body. But Andrew’s attention, as always, was drawn to Lindop’s face. Its most striking feature was the hair that seemed to sprout redly from his nose, his ears and down along his jawline. It was thick, matted, flaming hair that seemed to glow, and in a way it was descriptive of the man himself. Inherently coarse, it gave an impression of strength and virility; it was unruly and wild, and yet could glow softly as satin. Like Chuck Lindop it seemed composed of irreconcilable qualities, and Andrew sometimes fancied it reflected Chuck’s moods. It could flare spikily when he was short-tempered; he had seen it soft and tendril-like about Chuck’s brow when he had been talking to a woman over a drink. But while Chuck Lindop’s hair seemed to change with his mood his eyes never did. They were pale in colour and watchful. They never exposed the man, they lacked expression as a snake’s eyes seemed glazed and unmoved. When Chuck was laughing and excited his eyes were still calm; when he was in a rage they remained cool. It was as though they were not part of him, but remained watchful and probing, summing up situations, never panicked, never insecure, never disturbed. They were perhaps the most disturbing thing about the man — they hinted that Chuck Lindop did not exist as a real person. He simply existed as a reflection of the people who surrounded him. Life was one long reaction, the real man would never be discovered, for his motives were buried deep and the surface would never expose them. He took another sip of his coffee and swallowed; his hairy throat was exposed, the red mat of his chest rippling powerfully.

  ‘You not in at Stowford tonight then, Andrew? I thought everyone from the site would be in there for the fun tonight.’

  Andrew shook his head. ‘No, we couldn’t go in really, not with Sara just five weeks off—’

  Chuck Lindop clucked his tongue and grinned. ‘Ah, well, if you young marrieds will go rushing things, that’s what you have to expect. Though I’d have thought a bright young lad like you would have had more sense than to plunge in like that right away.’

  He used his disarming smile but Andrew was not disarmed. Where he had found his anger cooling earlier, the embers now flared. He scowled at his coffee mug.

  ‘Mr Forsyth was at the site this afternoon,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yeah? What did he want?’

  ‘You.’

  Chuck Lindop grinned and scratched his nose. ‘Well, Andrew, I’ll tell you. I make a point of it never to be around when Jack Forsyth comes calling. Life’s pleasanter that way.’

  ‘He pays your wages.’

  ‘Little enough as they are. He hasn’t bought my soul.’

  ‘Or your loyalty?’

  Chuck Lindop cocked an eyebrow and stared quizzically at Andrew. Lindop’s mouth could be brutal; now it was cynically amused. ‘Sharp, sharp,’ he said. ‘You mean you think a man has to be loyal to his employer? You’ll be telling me to ride a white charger next and rescue Ruby from the bottom of the site and whisk her out of friend Samson’s Irish arms. Come on, Andrew, what’s bugging you? Got troubles? Ain’t we all? You can tell Uncle Chuck all about it, believe me.’

  ‘What’s to say my troubles aren’t your troubles?’ Andrew said petulantly.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you. If anyone has troubles on the site, I regard them as my troubles. Take the lass I just mentioned — Ruby. Now I’ve known Ruby a few years and she’s a good screw, if you know what I mean. I won’t deny I haven’t been there often enough myself, though I’m not going to make hot dinner comparisons. But she’s got her problems; she’s maybe told you I moved her down the site, that’s true enough, but what she probably hasn’t told you is that she’s not paid her site rent for two years. She has trouble raising the cash — okay, that’s my problem too and I don’t push things. See what I mean?’

  Philanthropy was the last thing Andrew would have expected from Chuck Lindop and it must have shown in his face for Chuck grinned. ‘You can take it any way you like, old son, but I can tell you this. If I used to bed Ruby some time back I don’t do it no more. If Hoagy Samson gets in there, that’s it as far as I’m concerned. I don’t follow on after any wild Irish tinker. It’s the other way around; he’s the man who takes seconds, not me. I don’t pick up crumbs from his table — he picks them from mine.’

  It was a situation Andrew had already suspected. Hoagy Samson had been on the site for almost a year and had become friendly with Lindop right from the start. They spent a great deal of time together, in Chuck’s van, and drinking in town too, if rumour was to be believed. It was also perfectly clear that Chuck was the stronger, more dominant personality of the two. He was lighter on his feet and quicker of thought; Samson was not slow-witted but he appeared so by comparison with Lindop. To some extent he seemed to want to emulate the site manager, and behaved like a satellite wishing to achieve higher status. But Andrew’s impressions were gained at a distance: he had spoken very little to Samson, and knew him not at all well. Once or twice, while he had been at work, Samson had chatted to Sara it would seem, but when Sara had mentioned the fact to Andrew it had been with an element of contempt in her tone. She had even said, on one occasion, that it was the advent of more people like Samson on the site that worried her, made her feel the sooner they left the better.

  But Lindop’s conversation was diverting Andrew from the main purpose of his visit. ‘I really came to talk to you about Mr Forsyth,’ he said.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘He visited a couple of vans before he came to mine. I don’t know what he was asking those people, but as far as I was concerned he wanted to know if I could put my hands on the receipt.’

  Lindop took a noisy sip of coffee. ‘What receipt is that?’

  ‘The one you gave me when I bought the van from you.’

  The pale eyes stared impassively at Andrew. There was a short silence as Andrew waited for Lindop to reply, but when the site manager said nothing Andrew blurted out, ‘You remember giving me a receipt, don’t you?’

  Lindop put down his mug carefully. ‘You’re losing me, old son.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? I’m asking a simple enough question. You sold me the van down there for eight hundred pounds. You must have given me a receipt for the money. You do remember giving it to me, surely? And you’ll have a copy of your own to show Mr Forsyth.’

  ‘What’s Forsyth got to do with it? Is he questioning your ownership or something?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Andrew said angrily. ‘He just asked me if I could produce it. I can’t. So I’d like to see your copy.’

  Chuck Lindop grinned disarmingly. He shook his head, managing to look rueful even as he smiled. ‘Well, I’ll tell you, Andrew, that’s just a little bit difficult. You say I sold you the van. That’s not strictly accurate.’

  ‘But you did! When Sara and I came to the site you showed us over the van personally. You told us its real price was eight hundred and seventy pounds but since it was near the end of the season and new models would be coming in you could let us have it for eight hundred pounds, if we paid cash. And that’s just what I did — I paid you cash.’

  ‘Not me, Andrew,’ Lindop said softly. ‘You didn’t pay me.’

  Andrew stared at the confident, red-haired man facing him. His mouth was suddenly dry; he was frightened for some indefinable reason, and the fear drove his anger into a dark corner, left it simmering there. Chuck Lindop drained his coffee, took out the whisky flask again and poured a generous amount into his cup. Once more he added some to Andrew’s; this time Andrew hardly noticed.

  ‘I’d better explain the s
ystem in all this,’ Lindop said easily. ‘I took the money from you, sure — but I wasn’t selling you the van. You see, when Forsyth put me on this site the arrangement was that I received a percentage commission on all site owners’ rents, and all overnighters’. That came on top of the basic, skinflint wage he agreed to pay me. In addition, if I sold any vans on the site, I got a rake-off there too. But let’s be clear about this, Andrew. I didn’t sell the vans for myself — I simply acted as an agent for Forsyth. They were his vans, not mine. I took the money on his behalf, not for myself. So I wouldn’t have given you a receipt, you see — I mean, would I have committed myself in that way? It was Forsyth’s job to do that, not mine. Besides, even if I had given you a receipt you couldn’t have used it against me, only against Forsyth.’

  Andrew wet his lips. ‘That isn’t what Mr Forsyth told me this afternoon.’

  The pale eyes were fixed on his. ‘Just what did Mr Forsyth tell you?’ Lindop asked softly.

  ‘He didn’t exactly tell me, it’s more a sort of impression I gained. He as good as said he never arranged for my van to come on to the site at all. He seemed puzzled by the registration number. He suggested he couldn’t remember ever having seen it on his books. He did say he had been away for about a year, after his hernia operation, and the papers might have been processed then, but he wanted to see the receipt so he could check the date and all that.’

  ‘Ahhh,’ Lindop said, clearing his brow as though a great mystery had been solved. ‘Now I’m getting the picture, Andrew. It’s true — I’ve misled you.’

  ‘You’ve got a copy of the receipt?’

  ‘Well, no, it’s the same situation that I explained to you, except it wasn’t Forsyth who owned the van at all.’

  ‘I thought he owned and sold all the vans on this site.’

  ‘He did, in a manner of speaking. But I recall now, about that time he was away with his operation, we were a bit short of vans on the site, the order Forsyth had placed with the coachbuilders hadn’t been fulfilled, and I entered into a temporary arrangement with a company from Reading. They brought two or three vans on to the site for me — and it will have been one of those vans you bought. I’ll have to check, of course.’

  ‘But there were plenty of empty vans on the site at the time,’ Andrew protested. ‘Why didn’t you sell one of Forsyth’s to me?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t have given you the sort of bargain I offered you on one of Forsyth’s vans,’ Lindop said in a nothing tone. ‘He’d given me no authority to knock off seventy quid; the other people had.’

  ‘Maybe there was another reason,’ Andrew said coldly. ‘Maybe you got a better rake-off on the van you sold me.’

  ‘That’s not a nice thing to say, Andrew.’ Lindop grinned confidently. ‘Not a nice thing at all.’

  ‘Either way it makes no difference. I presume there’ll be a record of sale by the people with whom you had this arrangement?’

  Lindop scratched his flaring mop of hair. ‘Well, there’s a slight problem there. I think they’ve gone out of business. They were a bit of a fly-by-night firm, I learned later. That’s how they came to cut profits and give good discounts. You know, they sort of ignored corners and went right through them. Trouble is, they liquidated suddenly.’

  ‘You mean I can’t prove to Forsyth that I bought the van from you?’

  ‘Not from me, certainly — I’ve explained that. But give me time, Andrew, I’ll roust out the name of this firm for you. And don’t get so het up, lad. Drink up, and tell me how things are going at the quarry.’

  Angrily, Andrew swallowed what was left of his laced coffee. He felt helpless, confused and annoyed. In some way Chuck Lindop was making a fool of him again, laughing at him, spinning him around until he was dizzy with all this talk of distant firms and agencies and financial arrangements. What it boiled down to was that Lindop never had given him a receipt. There was a dim recollection in Andrew’s mind now that at the time of the sale Lindop had said the receipt would be forthcoming once his books had been made up — or had he simply given Andrew a scrap of paper naming the price but not stating what the subject of the sale was? Andrew couldn’t remember — Chuck had talked so fast and so confidently and had eyed Sara so boldly that Andrew had been overwhelmed, sold on the idea of taking the van at a bargain price, and anxious too that he and Sara should get out of the van and away from Chuck’s confident, sexual gaze.

  Had that been the reason? Was that why Andrew hadn’t insisted on a receipt? Or was it simply that he was all Sara said he was, incompetent, bumbling, unable to think straight, easily, so easily conned?

  Chuck Lindop was talking, talking, talking. He sat there, so confident, clutching his mug of whisky, smiling at Andrew, on top of his world, able to manipulate, pull strings, make people do, say, understand, accept what he wanted them to. Why was it such men could command? Why was it that a man so transparent as Chuck Lindop, so obviously bent, could charm women and persuade men? He had made a fool of Andrew Keene, that was certain; he had made a fool of Jack Forsyth too. All this talk of firms in Reading was so much eyewash. Chuck Lindop had worked out some fiddle or other to make money for himself and now that Forsyth was suspicious the whole thing was backfiring. But whereas Andrew, in such a position, would have been worried, Chuck Lindop simply didn’t give a damn. He was confident he had covered his tracks, he knew he could wriggle away from this situation as he had done from others. He was a student of human nature, a battener upon other people’s weaknesses. Upon Andrew’s weaknesses.

  But Andrew too could turn. He could turn, worm that he was, when he reached the end of his acceptance of life and strike out blindly, unthinkingly. He had done it once, and it could happen again. In the right circumstances.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to ask you, but that’s the way it is,’ Lindop was saying apologetically, as he leaned forward and slopped the last of the whisky into Andrew’s mug.

  ‘Ask me what?’ Andrew said in surprise.

  Chuck’s eyebrows rose and he leaned back against the divan. ‘I just told you, Andrew. About moving down the site.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean, moving down the site?’

  It came burning out of its corner, the resentment, the anger, the annoyance and the other thing, the part of Andrew that was wounded, bewildered and hurt. He choked on it, unable to speak for a moment, and Chuck Lindop was grinning at him, contemptuously.

  ‘Oh, come on, Andrew. I know I told you when you came on the site that if you bought at once you’d be able to choose your position — and you chose the best one, up under the trees. But I must also have told you that you wouldn’t be able to stay there. I mean, it’s the choicest spot on the site, and I’ve got two big vans coming on next Monday. They’ll be paying twice the rent you are, and I shouldn’t think you can match them. If you can, well and good. But otherwise, I’m afraid you and Sara will have to move down the site.’

  Sara. The name was an obscenity in Chuck Lindop’s mouth. He dared to speak her name. And move them down the site. Just as Ruby had been moved. Andrew rose abruptly, an angry tiger growling in his throat.

  * * *

  ‘You all right, son? You going to be sick?’

  There was no solicitude in the words, just contempt. He had made no move; he sat there grinning at Andrew and the bile rose in Andrew’s throat.

  ‘You bastard!’

  ‘Now go easy, Andy lad, there’s no need to carry on that way. You tell me you’re short of cash right now and maybe we’ll leave it for a couple of weeks. I mean, if it was up to me you could stay where you are anyway. It’s not my doing, after all. It’s just that Jack Forsyth keeps this place as an investment for his old age, and you can’t blame a man for wanting to make the most of an investment, can you? He’s got plans for expansion, you see — he intends having the trees cut back, the site opened up a bit, larger vans drafted in, more permanent resident licences, all that sort of thing. Maybe we’ll then be able to get on with the clubhouse, and the pool�
��’

  ‘Clubhouse!’ Andrew almost spat the word. ‘Clubhouse, pool, receipt, move down the site, you’re a bastard, Lindop, and I’m going to break your neck!’

  Chuck Lindop laughed. It was a loud, brash, easy laugh that held undertones of real amusement but its surface was scarred with contempt. He rose slowly to face Andrew, still laughing, and he shook his head in a long, slow, swinging movement like a bull bemused by the flashing cloak of a matador. But it was all an act, a cynical, vicious parody of surprise.

  ‘You are going to break my neck? You? What with, Andrew? Those thin fingers, those skinny arms, that wide, powerful chest? Are you crazy, son? I could snap you like a twig between finger and thumb. Try laying a finger on me and I’ll pick it off like a butterfly’s wing. You could no more put the boot in me than you could sort out that wife of yours! What she wants is a real man, not a milksop like you. It’s red blood she needs, a kick up the backside from time to time to shut her mouth and something a bit fiercer at night than you could ever give her. Now I could give it to her — but you? I’ve heard her voice evenings, I haven’t heard yours. And you say you’re going to take me apart? Here, hold my bicep, Andrew, and I’ll flex my muscle and break your finger!’

  Andrew roared. It was a deep, painful sound born of frustration and fury, issuing out of his chest but the sound seemed only to cause Lindop further amusement. Andrew swung a wild, half-drunken fist in his general direction but Lindop simply leaned back out of range and Andrew half fell over the table. His knees struck the table legs painfully and then he was prostrate as Lindop leaned forward and pushed, open-handed, at his face. Lying on his back, Andrew stared up at Lindop.