A Cotswolds Murder

by Roy Lewis

  Crow drove on to the site.

  He noted a twitch of the curtains at the Sharkey van, and Mrs Williams peered from her window as he got out of the car. He ignored them. They’d given statements, and there was nothing to suggest they had been implicated in any way in the fiddles or amours or death of Chuck Lindop. The Keene van seemed to be empty, though the door was ajar. Crow walked to Ruby Sanders’s van but there was no one inside. He turned around, stared across the site and then he saw them.

  The woods were perhaps twenty yards wide at their narrowest point, forty at their broadest. They ran along the length of the site, effectively screening it from the main road beyond. The trees themselves were sorry enough — scrub alder, rowan, a scattering of silver birch, bent away from the prevailing wind and tangled with undergrowth, nettles, tins and broken bottles. They were certainly not thick enough to effectively screen the couple at work among them. Crow walked slowly across the site, over the gravel path and up to the edge of the trees. Andrew Keene was straightening, leaning on a shovel. He put a hand out, touched Ruby Sanders on the shoulder as he saw John Crow. Ruby started, turned, and looked towards Crow.

  She was crying.

  The bounce and the confidence seemed to have deserted her. She seemed smaller, her lacquered hair had succumbed to her grief, and her nose was red, her eyes swollen with weeping. She made no attempt to control it; she sobbed as she scrambled through the undergrowth with Andrew just behind her, and as she drew near Crow heard her say one word.

  ‘Patch.’

  She could take the end of an affair with a careless shake of her hip; she could endure snide remarks and come back with a few of her own; she could be used and conned, and grin at her own foolishness; but she couldn’t take the loss of her dog.

  ‘What happened?’ Crow asked.

  She shook her head and pushed her way past him, to run all the way to her van. The sexuality was gone from her; she looked small, and pathetic, and suddenly middle-aged. Crow turned and looked at Andrew Keene. The young man stood diffidently holding the shovel. He seemed unable, or unwilling, to meet Crow’s glance.

  ‘You’ve just buried the dog?’ Crow asked quietly.

  Keene nodded, saying nothing.

  ‘How did it die?’

  Keene raised his head, stared around the site with a frown on his face. He thudded the shovel against the turf impatiently, and shrugged. ‘Run down by a car.’

  ‘Here? On the site?’

  Keene looked at Crow angrily, as though asking whether it really mattered now that the dog was dead. He had been fond of the animal, Crow guessed, and he was upset also at Ruby’s distress. He shook his head.

  ‘On the road, I think. Ruby came over this morning, after I returned from the hospital, told me Patch had been run over, and she’d collected him. Herself. She had him in a wooden box. I just carried the box and buried it. Ruby’s very upset. I didn’t question her too much about it. I’d better go down to see her. She’ll need a drink, I reckon.’

  ‘Do you think—’ Crow began, then stopped. This was no time to ask Ruby questions, and Keene’s eyes told him so. He was a little surprised at the determination in the young man’s eyes, and also at the positive way in which he strode down towards Ruby’s caravan. He had not thought of Andrew Keene as a man a woman could rely on, but given the right circumstances perhaps Andrew could be strong . . . There could be steel in the dreamer. In an odd way the thought did not comfort Crow. Andrew Keene was not Crow’s idea of a killer, but if there really was steel in him . . .

  Carefully, Crow walked into the woods. He found the mongrel’s grave easily enough. He stood near the freshly turned earth and stared at it thoughtfully. Dogs died every day and people mourned them. And they died in different ways. More than a few got knocked down by cars. But Patch knew his way around. He had lived on the site for several years with his mistress. That wouldn’t prevent him getting knocked down on the main road, but there were accidents . . . and accidents.

  Indecisively, Crow walked back through the trees and looked down towards Ruby’s van. It was ridiculous, really, a policeman holding back from questioning someone because a scruffy little mongrel had died. But a man couldn’t help the way he was made, and if there were traits in John Crow that made him less efficient as a policeman but more human as a person, well, that was no bad thing. Besides, his journey would not be wasted — he could always go to see the man in the bungalow. Hartley.

  Crow left his car where it was and walked up through the site. The rain had drifted lower now and he could feel its damp hand on his bald head. He walked out into the lane, turned in at the bungalow gate where Andrew Keene would have run that night to phone for the ambulance for Sara, and rang the bell at the front door. There was a shuffling sound inside, after an interval, and Crow saw the figure of a man behind the glass panel of the door. A lock clicked, the door opened, and the two men stared at each other in surprise.

  John Crow was the first to recover. His journey certainly had not been wasted. He grinned, in a wicked delight.

  ‘Well, hello, Fred! I didn’t know you were Mr Hartley! Can I come in?’

  CHAPTER 5

  It rained heavily during the night and John Crow woke twice to the violent drumming of rain against his window. When he looked out at seven in the morning it was to a pale sun, and the Broadway looked as though it had been swept clean. There were no gipsy caravans, the street itself gleamed wetly in the sunshine and the woodland on the hill beyond was dark, bright green. Crow breakfasted well — kidneys and bacon crisped as beautifully as Martha could ever do — and drank three cups of coffee before he made his way across to the operations room at Stowford Police Station. There was every sign that the sun would continue to shine all day — it was to be no early morning brightness followed by dark clouds of rain — and it gave a corresponding lift to his spirits. He wished the startled constable inside the door a hearty good morning and made his way to his office. He sat down with his files and began to go through them painstakingly. When George Stafford arrived some twenty minutes later he nodded to him, then went on reading. Stafford went out, and came back in a half hour later.

  ‘That salesman we’ve been looking for has arrived. And did you send a squad car for Mr Hartley?’

  ‘I did. But he can wait. Will you ask a constable to cheer him up with a cup of coffee? I’ve no doubt he’s wearing his best hangdog expression.’

  Stafford grinned. ‘He isn’t looking too happy, that’s for sure. I gather you know him?’

  ‘Of old,’ Crow said grimly. ‘But we’ll come to that. First of all, settle him down. Then I’d be grateful if you could let me have the file on that recent burglary you told me about—’

  ‘Cobham Park? Well, that’s hardly recent—’

  ‘That, and anything you have on the tipoffs about Northleach Hall being given the once-over. There has been an informer, hasn’t there?’

  Stafford nodded, obviously somewhat puzzled as to why Crow should be interested in mere burglaries when he should be more concerned about the murder investigation he was conducting. ‘Do you think I need to tell Inspector Edwards you’re looking at the files? He’s in charge of the cases.’

  ‘Not necessary. I just want some information, that’s all. But if he does ask, tell him I might have something for him later. That’ll cheer him up, no doubt.’

  Stafford went out, and a few minutes later a chubby constable came in with a file which he handed to John Crow. It contained several papers, a number of statements, and it made fairly interesting reading.

  Cobham Park was a fifteenth-century mansion house set in about twelve acres of ground. It was owned by a retired major who used it as a summer retreat and a place where he could entertain friends. It contained a number of not very valuable paintings, and a certain number of rather more valuable items of jewellery which for some curious reason the major had thought would be more safe in the vault in the house than in London. There was an inventory of the baubles in the file �
� about a year previously they had been valued by a local agency with a view to sale when the major had lost rather a lot on a grey mare called Chester Lady — and the total value came to a little over twenty-five thousand pounds.

  The burglary had taken place eight months ago. It had been a botched, bungled job. They had been lucky with the alarm system — it was inefficient and rang only when the police entered. The burglars had smashed in a door panel, broken three windows and generally rampaged through the house when they found themselves unable to break into the vault where the valuables were kept. No fingerprints had been left — at least they had taken the precaution of wearing gloves, but in every other way the break-in showed signs of having been an amateur affair. It had all been very crude, unprofessional — and a waste of time. No arrests had been made, and after the attempt to steal the jewels they had been removed by the major to London.

  ‘Not before time,’ Crow murmured to himself.

  A brief note, a carbon copy from another file, was appended, dealing with Northleach Hall. A call had been made from a public telephone box six weeks ago; the caller refused to give his name but said that ‘the police might be interested to know that Northleach Hall had been cased, and a job was likely in the near future.’ The second call had come after an interval of a month. It gave no new information, but simply reiterated the previous information. The Stowford police had followed the matter up, kept a watch on the premises and had warned the owner. He was a local magistrate who had bought the Hall some nine months previously, found his wife didn’t like its draughty corridors, and was putting it up for sale again. To date, although the property was in the hands of several agents, no offers had been made. When Crow saw the price being asked he wasn’t surprised.

  The only other note on the file recorded that the two calls from the phone box had not been traced to any known informer. They could have been a hoax, but in view of the burglary at Cobham Park it was as well to be safe.

  As Crow finished reading the file there was a tap on the door and Stafford returned. He held the door wide. ‘Mr James Glanville,’ he announced.

  The man who entered was big across the shoulders but bigger around the stomach. He had wavy hair of a uniform blackness that suggested it owed not a little to art. His eyes were bright, his nose strong, his mouth weak, his chin cleanly shaven and deeply indented. He was smiling a smile of utter insincerity; it had edges of nervousness and suggested he really wanted to be liked but there were occasions, incredibly, when he was not.

  ‘Did you drive up this morning?’ Crow asked.

  ‘I did. But no harm. I was on my way to Cheltenham anyway, and Stowford isn’t too far out of my way. Besides, anything to help.’

  Crow waved him to a seat, and asked him if he would like some coffee. Glanville replied affirmatively so Stafford went out and arranged for three cups to be brought in. They talked in desultory fashion about the route Glanville had taken up to Stowford until the coffee arrived and then Crow came to the point.

  ‘You’ll have been told by the local police that we’re making enquiries into the death of Charles Lindop at Lovesome Hill Caravan Park.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Glanville took a hasty sip of coffee and managed to hide his distaste with a rapid smile that came and went like sunlight on a shadowed hill. ‘Not that there’s much I can tell you.’

  ‘We appreciate your coming along to talk to us. I imagine it could be somewhat . . . embarrassing for a man in your position.’

  Glanville glanced at Crow, then at Stafford. He took a quick decision, was prepared to regard them both as men of the world. ‘I’ve got a wife — who understands me only too well. But I believe the police can be souls of discretion in these situations. So, that’s the way I’d like it. She doesn’t know I’m coming here to . . . help in enquiries.’

  ‘There’s no need she should,’ Crow murmured. ‘Now then . . . you went to Lovesome Hill that night you were in the area?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Glanville hesitated. ‘But I didn’t go on the site at all. Just parked in the lane for a while, then set out on the drive home. My wife was surprised to see me, but not displeased. I’d told her I wouldn’t be back that night, but in the circumstances there seemed to be no point in hanging around Stowford any longer. So I went home. Got in about three in the morning.’

  ‘I think it would be best if you started from the beginning,’ Crow suggested. ‘You were with a woman called Ruby Sanders . . .’

  Glanville tightened his stomach muscles, pulled his stomach in as though expecting her to walk into the room. He nodded. ‘That’s it. I’d finished my business at four so drove down to Stowford. I thought with the fair on there’d be . . . something going, you know what I mean. As it happened, I hung around after a meal and saw nothing worthwhile, you know, and was regarding it as a wasted evening when Ruby walked in.’

  ‘You’d met her before?’

  ‘Hell, no!’ Glanville looked indignant at the thought he should ever meet the same woman twice on a night out. ‘I was getting a drink at the bar, it was crowded, she came up behind me, fumbled in her purse and asked me if I could catch the barman’s eye for her, but I knew she was really trying to catch mine. I didn’t mind; she’s a bouncy little bit, and I got her a drink, refused her money and took her company instead. This was in that pub across the way. We had a few drinks there, got chatting, she was happy enough and quite prepared for a bit of nuzzling in the pub, so I knew I was on to a good thing.’ A puzzled frown touched his brow. ‘At least, I thought I was on to a good thing.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, that was it. Nothing.’

  ‘You took her out to your car?’

  ‘Yes, sure. She told me she had a van out at the caravan site and she directed me. We pulled into the lane and she told me to stop. She said she didn’t want to go on the site because the neighbours might talk — though I’d have thought they would have had plenty to talk about before then. No sweat, I didn’t mind. I got reclining seats in the car so what the hell, and it was dark—’

  ‘The lights at the gate were out, then?’

  Glanville nodded. ‘I suppose so, ‘cos it was dark in that lane.’

  ‘What time was it then?’

  ‘Can’t be sure. After ten, certainly. But I didn’t check. I just switched off the lights, turned on the radio for some sweet, soft music — and it gives a nice glow as well, kind of romantic, you know — and got stuck in. Great, I thought, because she was . . . well, enthusiastic, you know?’ He shook his head uncertainly. ‘And then she just cooled, just like that.’ He snapped his fingers disgustedly.

  ‘She told us she had a bit of a tussle with you,’ Crow said quietly.

  ‘Now she can’t come that one. All right, maybe her blouse got wrenched a bit, but I was . . . niggled, you know? But I’ve never had to fight for it before, and I wasn’t going to start then.’ He glanced at the two detectives and his face became heavier, duller. ‘So I just let her out, had a fag and sat there for a while, then pushed off.’

  ‘Did you see anyone in the lane while you were parked there?’

  Glanville shook his head slowly. ‘No . . . but there was someone coming out of the site when I left. I remember, I’d wound down the window, flicked my fag out, reached to turn on the radio and I heard someone running into the lane. I started the car and drove off — I just had the vague feeling maybe someone was after me, you know?’

  Crow looked at Stafford. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why should you think that, Mr Glanville?’

  Glanville was quiet for a moment. His eyebrows drew together in a protective ridge and he breathed heavily like a bull considering a charge. ‘Now look,’ he said, with a defensive tone in his voice. ‘I’m not admitting I roughed up that woman. She led me on, I thought I was away, maybe I got insistent, but I didn’t rough her up. Other fellers might have done so in the same circumstances, I tell you. But I didn’t. Even so, when I heard someone running I thought it was time to leave. So I left
.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Crow said flatly.

  Glanville expelled his breath gustily. ‘I’ll put it plain. She as good as told me, without words, that I could lay her. I was headed for it. Then she changed her mind. Okay, but I was burning! So I pushed her a bit, gave her a few choice words and off she went. Then I thought maybe her man was coming after me.’

  ‘Why should you think that? Didn’t she say she lived alone?’ Stafford asked.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Glanville said, turning to look at Stafford. ‘But she started to change her mind just after that guy passed us in the lane—’

  ‘Someone passed you?’

  Glanville was taken aback by the sharpness in Crow’s tone. ‘Didn’t I say someone passed us? Someone did, but I didn’t see who it was, I mean I was head down burrowing away and I wasn’t worrying about other people outside the car. I’d locked the door, we had a fug going—’

  ‘But Ruby cooled?’

  ‘She did. She didn’t say it was because she’d heard someone in the lane, but believe me, she was no longer interested in what I had to offer. We sat and argued maybe five minutes but she wanted out. I called her a few nasty names but I let her go, and I had a fag to get rid of my frustration. Then there was the running . . . and off I went.’

  ‘What time would that be?’ Crow asked.

  ‘Eleven . . . maybe a few minutes earlier. I switched on the radio when I hit the main road and I got the time then. It was eleven o’clock.’

  Crow grunted. He picked up his coffee and sipped at it. ‘I thought you already had the radio on.’

  For a moment Glanville looked puzzled, then the doubt faded from his eyes. ‘That’s right, I did . . . the soft music, to get Ruby in the mood. Ah, yeah, I did put it on but that was for just a couple of minutes. You see, some joker broke across the music with nonsense about a battle in Stowford so I switched off. Besides, it wasn’t really necessary, you know? Ruby didn’t need the sweet music. She was hot for me, I could tell.’

  ‘Until someone passed you in the lane.’