A Cotswolds Murder

by Roy Lewis

  She hesitated, then reached for the top button of her blouse. She undid it, moved on to the other buttons. Crow watched her. It was a curious performance, devoid of sexuality; he could have been a doctor, her movements were meaningless. She pulled the blouse off her shoulders, unhooked her brassiere to partly expose her left breast. ‘Look,’ she said flatly.

  The bruises were perhaps a week old, yellowing and fading, but clearly imprinted by the fingertips that had caused them. The marks on her upper arm were bad enough but there was a long bruise running down to the side of the breast that showed the deliberateness of Samson’s viciousness.

  ‘Never my face,’ she said. ‘But my body . . .’ She dressed again quickly, as though she were suddenly aware that Crow was a man and she had regained some of her lost innocence. ‘Oh, he didn’t love me or anything mushy like that but I was here, easy, convenient, regular. I was his woman, he owned me and he’d call it a day, not me. But there was another side to it as well: the funny thing is, Hoagy knew he was different from Chuck, and knew Chuck was . . . well, superior. Hoagy wanted to be like Chuck. You said Lindop was small — well, maybe he was. But he was bigger than Hoagy and Hoagy wanted to grow. That’s one of the reasons why he picked me up when Chuck dropped me. Call it stupid, but you’ve said he is — the fact of the matter is that he scared the hell out of me, I did what he wanted, when he wanted, and there was no more running off — while he seemed to think that by having me he was following Chuck and some of Chuck would rub off on him. At the same time, he seemed to feel he was getting one up on Chuck too, having the woman Chuck had thrown aside, though Chuck didn’t see it like that — and Chuck didn’t touch me after Hoagy came around. Like I was tainted or something.’

  There was no bitterness in her tone. She was being factual, and honest.

  ‘Anyway, to cut a long story short, there I was with Hoagy coming down like a randy bull whenever he felt like it . . . One thing he did have in common with Chuck was he’d talk in bed. Boast, is a better word. I knew about Cobham Park soon enough and I heard about Northleach too. Chuck and Hoagy, they were going to strong-arm their way into the money by breaking in at Cobham and they were going to get Fred Hartley to help them. There was someone else involved too, but I never quite got to know about that. Anyway, Hoagy told me Chuck and he had it all worked out—’

  ‘Did he ever talk about money that Chuck Lindop had hidden away?’

  Ruby nodded. ‘From time to time, when he was drunk, he’d moan about the fact he reckoned Chuck had a mint stashed away and he’d like to get his hands on it. I thought it was just talk. I couldn’t see Chuck ever building up a real pile.’

  ‘All right, now tell me about the night Lindop died.’

  Ruby shook her head as though she had some difficulty in clearing it. ‘You know, there’s not a lot I can tell you about it. I still don’t understand what got into me — any more than I can understand this last day or so. That night, Hoagy had pushed off into town to meet some of his gipsy friends — he has a streak of Romany himself, you know? I sat back here, and I had a few drinks, and there was hardly anyone on the site and I got bloody resentful. Was I supposed to sit there while everyone was off having a good time? Anyway, fortified by some Dutch courage I took the bus into Stowford. It was there I picked up this Jimmie guy Glanville you called him? He was all right. He brought me back. I wasn’t fussy — I’d had a few drinks and he seemed harmless enough and I guessed Hoagy would be in town till the early hours. He usually was. Anyway, there we was for a while and he was just getting down to business when I heard someone in the lane. I looked out — couldn’t see too well because of the fug on the windows, but I got to thinking it could be Hoagy. And that scared me. I’d asked Jimmie about the time earlier and he’d seemed a bit vague, said his watch was playing up; so right now I began to get worried. The thing was, I could have been wrong, Hoagy could have come back earlier and found my van empty. That scared me. I had visions of that barman and I could see Hoagy spreading this chap Jimmie all over the lane. And worse — he’d lay into me too, good and proper. That sobered me up rapidly, I can tell you. So as Glanville fumbled away I took a good look out and saw this man — and it looked like Hoagy — entering Hartley’s bungalow. The light shone from the doorway, I saw that much. And it was enough for me. I guessed I was best off back at the van I felt I’d be safer there. So I hopped out after Jimmie had done a bit of swearing, torn my blouse and got clobbered with my shoe; I made my way back, heard Sara crying and sort of forgot my own problems then. Well, by going in to Sara I guess it also helped provide me with a sort of alibi too — if Hoagy had been looking for me at my van I could say I’d been with the Keenes.’

  ‘Can you tell me what time it was when you saw Samson going to Hartley’s bungalow?’ Crow asked.

  Ruby hesitated, biting her lip thoughtfully. ‘Not really. It would be about ten thirty-five or ten-forty. I mean, I was anxious to get the hell out of there with that salesman trying still to crawl over me and time was the last thing I had on my mind. But I was with the Keenes for about ten minutes and then Andrew went up to the bungalow to make the phone call and he made it about eleven, wasn’t that so?’

  Crow nodded in agreement. ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s not a great deal more to tell. At first, I was sensible. Your people came around, and I didn’t say anything, except the straightforward stuff. Hoagy didn’t let on that he’d been at the site that evening and Hartley wasn’t on the point of saying so either, so I shut up. I mean, in my position, what would you have done?’

  ‘Maybe I would have done the same thing, Ruby,’ Crow said quietly. The momentary defiance that had started to sparkle in her eyes faded and she shrugged.

  ‘Fact is, I was scared. If I had said anything to you people the burglaries would come out, and then I didn’t know what the hell Hoagy had been doing on the site that night, and there could be bad trouble in it all. So I kept quiet. But then . . . well, like I said, I still don’t understand what got into me. I mean, charging off to Stowford that night was bad enough — asking for trouble. But then—’

  Fear was staining her eyes again and she began to shake lightly, tremulously. After a moment Crow put out his hand, held hers tightly. There was a brief hesitation, then her fingers gripped his in return.

  ‘I must have been crazy,’ she said, in a voice dropping almost to a whisper. ‘But there were so many things buzzing around in my head. Hoagy scared the pants off me, but I wanted to know. Was it him in the lane? What was he doing on the site? And maybe most of all I wanted to know if he had hammered Chuck. Funny thing, Mr Crow, I never had a down on Chuck, even after the way he treated me. He could make you feel . . .’

  She released Crow’s hand suddenly and turned away.

  ‘The other night Hoagy came back slewed. He came to the van, tried to make it but he was too damned drunk. I sat there looking at him and I was so scared but so disgusted too. And suddenly I felt so bloody clever. I thought I could get it over the big oaf, maybe use it as a lever to get away from him. It was stupid and mixed up, but it seemed right at the time. He was half-asleep and very drunk and I asked him some stupid questions. He didn’t really answer them, just mumbled, turned over and went to sleep. But next morning he was pretty quiet. I caught him looking at me oddly. And I felt as though my guts had been kicked in; I was shivering. But it was worse when he showed me . . . showed me Patch.’ Her face was stiff but her eyes were deep pools of horror. ‘He’d broken his neck. Just like that. And he said he’d do the same to me if he ever had cause. And then he walked away.’

  Stupid and dangerous, Crow thought as the horror in Ruby’s eyes found a reflective movement in his stomach.

  ‘You said you asked him some stupid questions. What were they?’

  ‘The obvious ones. What time did he get back to the site the night Chuck was killed? Did he come on the bus? Did he and Chuck have a quarrel? Was the lift at Northleach Hall still on now that Chuck was dead? Like I said, he didn’t answ
er them.’

  Crow watched Ruby carefully. She did not seem to be disseminating, and shaken as she was it was likely she was now being candid, holding nothing back.

  ‘What do you think happened that night, Ruby?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I’ve told you what I saw. It’s your job to make something of it, not mine. All I want is for you to promise me you’ll keep Hoagy away from me. If he ever found out that I’d talked to you—’

  ‘He won’t find out . . . Ruby, tell me this. Chuck Lindop dropped you months ago. There was nothing of the monk in his makeup. He found another woman?’

  ‘He always found another woman,’ she said, with a shrug. ‘He needed women; when he dropped one there was always another being hunted. For a while, here on the site I wondered . . .’ She frowned. ‘Sometimes they lasted a week, sometimes months. Me, I lasted three months. But there was always someone.’

  ‘One woman was called Dixon.’

  Ruby stared at Crow woodenly. ‘I live and let live.’

  ‘Did you know about her?’ Crow persisted.

  She lifted a reluctant shoulder. ‘I knew about her. Her old man kicked her out after he found out Chuck had been messing around with her.’

  ‘How did Lindop come to meet Mrs Dixon?’

  ‘Stowford. In a pub, with her old man, I think. Chuck and Sam Dixon were playing darts, he met her then.’

  ‘Did Dixon and Lindop often play darts together?’ Crow asked.

  A slight frown creased Ruby’s brow. She shook her head. ‘No, of course not. Chuck wasn’t a darts man. I think he had a game with Dixon just so’s they could get talking, he could buy Mrs Dixon a drink, make her acquaintance. Why do you ask?’

  ‘They didn’t spend much time in each other’s company — Sam Dixon and Lindop?’

  ‘I don’t know. He never came out here, that’s for sure. But whether Sam Dixon was ever tied in much with Chuck, I wouldn’t know. Is it important?’

  Crow shrugged non-committally. It was not something he could really discuss with Ruby Sanders. But the fact was that it had probably been Sam Dixon who had blown the generator. It was likely to have been an act of revenge against Lindop for seducing his wife. But it could have been more: it could have been a way of getting darkness to the site, of luring Lindop up to the gate for an attack in the dark . . . but then why was Lindop killed at his van? Apart from that, there was the other thought drifting around in his head. It was possible Sam Dixon had more than just one motive for getting at Chuck Lindop. Ruby and Hartley both said there had been another person involved with Samson and Lindop — Hartley to help with the break-in, and someone else. Could it have been Dixon? Did Lindop have something on Sam Dixon to force him to procure explosives, for instance? If he did, the pressure point was still there, because whatever Lindop had known, someone else knew now too. Hogarth Samson.

  ‘You asked Samson what time he got back from town, Ruby. His statement said it was about midnight. You — and Hartley — put it much earlier. But how much earlier?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I just saw him leave the site, go up to Hartley’s bungalow.’

  ‘Why did he return early anyway? You obviously didn’t expect him back that soon.’

  Ruby hesitated, looked uneasy. She was more reluctant now than she had been earlier. Perhaps she was thinking she had already talked too much. ‘. . . I don’t know. Usually, when he got to drinking in town he stayed there till late. Last bus gets out here by midnight or thereabouts. That was his way. But maybe it was something to do with Chuck and him having—’

  Ruby stopped suddenly. The look on her face told Crow quite plainly that she now considered she had said too much. He leaned forward, put his bony hand on her shoulder, gripped her hard.

  ‘Tell me, Ruby.’

  The words trickled out reluctantly. ‘I . . . I don’t know the truth of it . . . just talk, perhaps, I can’t tell. It’s just that . . . well, when I was in the pub with Jimmie — that salesman chap — I was sitting by myself as Jimmie got some drinks and one of the gippoes came in. He saw me, knew I was Hoagy’s woman. Came across, tried it on, you know, when he thought I was alone. I told him to shove off. Then Jimmie came back.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well. . .’ Ruby wriggled uncomfortably. ‘It’s just that the gippoe started off by saying he was glad to see me alone, he’d try his luck, because it looked as though Hoagy was going to have his hands full that night. That’s all.’

  ‘No,’ Crow said, watching her eyes carefully. ‘There’s more.’

  ‘Honest, there isn’t,’ Ruby protested. ‘It’s just . . . well, we had a word, and I just got the impression that what he meant was that Hoagy was boiling up trouble for himself.’

  ‘In another pub?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘With . . . Chuck Lindop. They were sat in a corner, apparently, pretty intense, pretty private. Hoagy was getting mad, but Chuck was ugly. Quite ugly, if you know what I mean.’

  Crow knew. ‘What was the quarrel about?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Really. Hoagy hasn’t mentioned it — and I ain’t going to ask.’

  But John Crow could guess. It was something that had been puzzling him already. Witnesses had already stated that Lindop had been in Stowford that night, but there had been no apparent reason why he had returned to the site early. But if he and Samson had been together in the pub, quarrelling . . .

  ‘What time do you expect Hoagy at the site tonight?’ Crow asked.

  * * *

  John Crow’s back was aching. The sunshine of yesterday had gone, the skies were grey and leaden, the bacon had been swimming in grease that morning, and the sandwich he had had at lunchtime had been stale. It was one of those days, and now his back was aching. He had first had trouble years ago, lifting that damned bag of cement, and now it plagued him from time to time. The physiotherapist he visited told him driving-seats of cars were bad for him, and tall men often had weak backs anyway. But a car seat sometimes gave John Crow relief; hard-backed chairs, that had not been made to accommodate either his long back or his long legs, did not.

  ‘Any news of Samson yet?’ he asked, as George Stafford came into the room and dropped some papers on his desk.

  ‘Not a lot. He just seems to have gone to earth. We have a report here that he hired a car forty-eight hours ago and hasn’t returned it. We’ve got a call out for the car — and for him.’

  ‘His gipsy friends might be a possibility.’

  ‘Yes, but they’ve dispersed across two counties and it’ll take some checking. Still, it looks as though we’ve got our man.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ John Crow eased his lean buttocks on the hard chair and thought about the blessed board that normally gave him relief at home. It never bothered Martha when he put it in the bed, but then, she was the most complacent and accommodating of wives. ‘You think we can present a case, then?’

  ‘Enough to convince the magistrates.’

  ‘Let’s try it on for size.’

  ‘Right.’ Stafford stooped over the desk and riffled through the papers he had deposited there. ‘First of all, by using the statements made by all the parties we’ve questioned, I’ve drawn up this timetable.’

  ‘Now using this timetable — which, incidentally, does not contain Samson’s statement since his statement does not tally with Hartley’s and Ruby’s — we can present a case to the beaks which goes roughly like this,’ Stafford said. ‘Lindop and Samson tried to persuade Hartley to rob Cobham Park and failed, so they went ahead with the job and bungled it. They cased Northleach Hall some time later and again Lindop tried to “persuade” Hartley, who responded fearfully by agreeing to come in with them but also by grassing anonymously to us, so we’d put a watch on the Hall.’ He paused. ‘We get that much from Hartley.’

  ‘Not the most reliable of witnesses, in view of his past record, but go on.’

  ‘The next stag
e is reached when Lindop begins to realize Hartley’s condition is a bit dicky, and the Hall itself is coming under police surveillance.’

  ‘We don’t know he ever realized that,’ Crow murmured.

  ‘No, sir, but it’s a reasonable supposition. Because our case will be that Lindop began to realize the game wasn’t really on, with a lukewarm Hartley and a Hall crawling with coppers. So he wanted to pull out. We have it in the statement of Mrs Lindop, and others, that he was rough and wild — but he also knew when to call a halt.’

  ‘But Hogarth Samson did not?’

  ‘Exactly. The night he died, Lindop met Samson in Stowford. He told Samson he intended calling Northleach Hall off. Samson remonstrated with him, they argued, things got tense. We have Ruby Sanders’s evidence for that—’

  ‘Hearsay.’

  ‘—and once we get our hands on Samson’s gipsy friend we’ll be able to support it.’

  ‘You hope we’ll be able to support it.’ Stafford cleared his throat noisily and sniffed. ‘Right. The upshot of the argument was that Lindop went back to the site in a nasty frame of mind. Keene can vouch for that — it accounts for part of Lindop’s loss of temper in his fracas with Keene. Anyway, Lindop was at the site by nine-thirty, having driven back. Keene arrived at his van at ten, the generator was blown about twelve minutes after ten, there was the brief struggle between Keene and Lindop, and Keene returned to his wife. Almost immediately, Samson arrived.’

  Stafford leaned forward, took another sheet of paper from the desk. ‘Normally, there’s only one bus out at that time, but the ten-twenty, the regular bus, was preceded by a relief bus -laid on for the fair. That one arrived at twelve minutes after ten — just about when the generator went up — and was followed by the regular service bus at ten-twenty. Samson couldn’t have been on the ten-twenty, or Ruby would have seen him walk down the lane to the site, since she and her salesman were parked in the lane about ten-fifteen or shortly afterwards. We’re still trying to get hold of the people who were on those buses, and with a bit of luck we’ll get the evidence we need again that Samson was on the ten-twelve.’