by Roy Lewis
‘Get in. I want you to guide me there.’
* * *
John Crow drove swiftly and expertly. The ache that had been plaguing him was now forgotten. The suspicions that had been drifting through his mind, the doubts that had been raised by Andrew’s nervousness, those were now washed away as the more imperative need for action arose.
The rounded, wooden hills were all about them in the grey afternoon; they drove through little villages and across narrow bridges under Andrew’s direction, but John Crow hardly noticed the countryside. He concentrated on his driving, and on the images that flashed through his brain.
He should have stayed at the station to speak to Mrs Lindop when she phoned through. She must have heard from Samson then — been uncertain what to do. The delay in speaking to George Stafford had given her the chance to change her mind, decide on a course of action. Crow’s journey to see Dixon and Andrew Keene had been a waste of time anyway; he would have been better employed questioning Honey Lindop. ‘How much farther?’ he asked harshly.
‘About two miles,’ Andrew replied.
Crow glanced at his watch. It had been closer than he realized. Filkins lay below them now as they began to climb and he guessed the squad cars wouldn’t get there before him. The problem that arose now was Andrew. First chance he got, Crow would drop Andrew, keep him well away from trouble.
‘What’s happening?’ Andrew asked.
‘The end of it all, I hope,’ Crow said shortly. ‘Where’s the quarry?’
‘Just up ahead,’ Andrew said. ‘But who are you expecting to see up there?’
‘Hogarth Samson,’ Crow said grimly. ‘The call I had in the car was to tell me that Samson’s gipsy friend has been picked up and the word murder has made him burst into song.’ He shot a quick glance in Andrew’s direction and saw the puzzlement in his face. ‘There’s no time to explain now, but I want to pull in somewhere, let you out, and then when the squad cars come you can wave them down, tell them I’ve gone up ahead and will be waiting for them. Here this’ll do.’
He swung the car violently, braking hard, and it brushed the bushes overhanging the narrow layby under the cliff. John Crow almost pushed Andrew out.
‘When they come, tell them I’m up ahead.’ He slammed the door shut, drove out of the layby and accelerated fiercely into the bend. The engine whined as the car moved into the steep slope, there was a momentary lull as though the world were suspended and then Andrew heard the sound of the crash.
* * *
The road was steep and narrow. It twisted up the hillside like a slow snake, flanked by bushes, alder, silver birch, and the hill itself seemed to merge with the dark, sullen sky. After the sound of the rending metal there had been silence, as though the hill was shocked by the violence of the crash, and as Andrew ran up the hill the only sound seemed to be the crunching of his feet on the old, crumbling roadway that led to the deserted quarry, and the harsh rasp of his breath against the late afternoon air.
The quarry itself was disused now. Its heyday was over, and the steep cliffs where the stone had been torn away to build the houses that made the Cotswolds famous for their beauty were stark and stiff with regrets, naked and harsh, forbidding in their severe wounds. Andrew had come up here often enough as a boy but it had been some years since he had visited it last. But he remembered how the road twisted upwards, and finally levelled out into an open area at the foot of the last hilltop. It was there that the last lorries had completed their final turning circles, laden with stone; it was there that the last huts had stood, now deserted and fallen into crumbling decay.
The cars stood some fifty yards from the broadening of the road.
Andrew’s step slowed. He approached the cars, heard the slow ticking of heated metal as it cooled, heard the slow gurgle of spilled petrol. The squad car must have met the older hired car as it came out of the quarry; Crow must have tried to block the other car by swinging the police vehicle directly into its path. The manoeuvre had obviously failed to intimidate the other driver; from the state of the two cars he had driven hard into Crow and the impact had crushed the bonnets of both vehicles.
Feeling slightly sick, Andrew steeled himself to look inside the cars. They were both empty. In spite of the force of the crash, both drivers would seem to have escaped. Andrew looked around him; he could see no one, near no one. He walked forward quickly towards the quarry itself.
In the fading light the quarry was an eerie, stark place of dark shadows, broken stone, the littered debris of a dead industry. Scattered bushes fringed the cliff-like edge of the drop; the fence was broken in places, the iron stanchions that barred the edge to the public were rusted and leaning at crazy angles.
‘Inspector Crow!’ Andrew shouted, and the quarry picked up the sound, converted it into a rumble of discontent at being disturbed from its twenty-year sleep, and sent echoes growling down into the raw places where stone had been ripped away by chisel and saw and dynamite.
Andrew tried again, and moved across the empty clearing towards the last of the tumbledown huts, and then he stopped, rooted to the spot as the echoes died away, lingering regretfully in the darkness that crept up over the quarry.
The woman was lying on her face, one arm crumpled under her. She was wearing a dark windcheater and blue slacks that were tight across her body. He had the feeling he had seen her before but he could not be sure; certainly, her hair — the colour of tin was familiar, though when he had last seen her it had not been matted with the slow seep of blood. He knelt on the ground beside her, put out a tentative hand and touched her shoulder as though fearful that she might not really be there, but was rather a figment of his imagination. She was real. He slipped his hand inside the front of her windcheater, under her blouse, and her flesh was still warm. But suddenly she was changing, and it wasn’t a woman he saw there but a man, and he recoiled as the picture of the woman lying in front of him became blurred with another mental image, the image of Lindop, who had died from a blow to the head.
The rattling of stones brought Andrew back to the present with a start. He looked wildly around him in the gathering darkness, intensely conscious of the injured woman at his feet and the presence somewhere in the quarry of the man who had attacked her.
But where was Inspector Crow?
A boulder crashed on the quarry face, skittered away into the echoing darkness. Andrew turned and picked his way past the rusted stanchions, under the broken wire and moved to the edge of the quarry. It was a great black hole in the ground; above his head the bruised, darkening sky made it almost impossible to see anything in the quarry, but he could hear the scrambling, panting sound interspersed with running, rattling, bouncing rocks. There was someone in the quarry, making his way up over the lip, painfully and with difficulty.
Andrew stood still, his heart hammering against his ribs. He was a child again, confronting the unknown on the bend of the stairs and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. A few moments later he saw the movement on the lip of the quarry.
‘Inspector Crow?’
A sound came, a wheezing, grunting sound. Andrew stepped forward gingerly. The crumbling, rain-rotted rock at the edge of the quarry was unsafe; years of exposure to the wind and rain after a period when the tools had dug and split and hacked away at its face had left it perched, ready to fall under pressure, collapse under the weight of a man’s foot.
‘Andrew . . .’
The head seemed almost white in the darkness except for the dark stain across the brow where the blood ran. It was a death’s head rising out of the darkness of the quarry, a staring face, mouth open with effort, gasping, a bony hand grasping at tufts of tough grass, pulling upwards, painfully, inch by inch.
‘Andrew . . .’
The fingers were lean and hard and powerful. Lying on his stomach with legs braced apart and arm extended Andrew felt the bony fingers grasp at his wrist, take fierce purchase, drag at him until he thought his arm was going to be pulled out of his socket.
He wriggled backwards as the second hand took hold of his elbow and he could see Crow’s glaring features, twisted with effort, just below him. He strained, pulling, and there was a lurch as Crow found a foothold, took some of his own weight and lifted himself up over the crumbling edge of the quarry.
He lay there for several minutes, panting hoarsely. Andrew sat beside him, saying nothing. At last Crow raised his head, looked across to the roadway where the woman lay.
‘She alive?’
Andrew nodded. Painfully, Crow got up to a sitting position. ‘How can we get down into the quarry itself? Is there a pathway?’
‘The far side. But it’s dangerous.’
Crow nodded. They sat there silently for a moment, just six feet from the edge of the drop, but somehow the thought of moving back seemed not to occur to them. The danger in which Crow had found himself was now over, and he simply sat there thoughtfully, staunching the blood flowing from his cut brow with a handkerchief as though this were all a mundane affair. The shudders that occasionally racked Andrew’s body brought home to them both the realities of their surroundings, however, and as the first squad car came up the hill, headlights glancing whitely across the quarry, Crow rose to his feet, helped Andrew to rise. They walked across to the woman and Crow removed his jacket, placed it gently over her. Her eyelids were fluttering. He knelt beside her, holding her shoulders.
All at once the quarry seemed to be full of people. Police officers got out of the three cars, Andrew recognized Inspector Stafford and one or two constables he had seen from time to time in Stowford. He stood to one side, waiting, as they spoke to Crow, and after a while a group of policemen made their way across to the far side of the quarry and began the scramble down the pathway to the bottom. Their flashlights danced and lifted against the crumbling rock; they disappeared from view and then there was only the fading glow arising from the depths.
An ambulance came klaxoning its way up the hill, and the blue lights flashing around the clearing added a macabre touch to the scene. Inspector Crow walked across to Andrew.
‘I’m going back now, to get this attended to,’ he touched his bloodied brow. ‘You’d better come as well. You don’t look too good.’ He spoke softly, a father to a son, quiet, sympathetic. Andrew nodded and together they went to the police car. Only when they were seated inside did Andrew look across to Chief Inspector Crow.
‘Who’s down there?’ he asked.
The squad car lurched and turned, bearing them away from the site. Crow’s sad eyes stared at Andrew, and then were hooded. ‘Hogarth Samson,’ he said in a tired, defeated voice.
* * *
Everything was so bright. The walls were painted a bright, pale green. The flowers were bright red; the curtains shone, the sheets on the bed were dazzling and as the sun poured a golden light through the window even the nurse on the ward seemed to sparkle.
Sara looked beautiful.
‘I don’t really know why I still need to stay in bed,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s been days, and I feel fine now.’
Andrew squeezed her hand. She didn’t look fine; she was beautiful but it was a new kind of beauty for her. There was a transparency about her skin that had never been there before, a delicacy about her complexion that was new. Her eyes had changed; he had seen panic in them often enough in the old days but since the baby had arrived it was as though she had acquired a new wisdom, a new realization of life that transformed her. And the way she held his hand denoted, to him, a new dependence — not the greedy, demanding dependence he had resisted before for its selfishness, but a dependence based upon trust.
‘You’re looking well, anyway,’ he said. ‘And I’ve got some news that’ll perk you up further. I applied for a job at the weekend, in Oxford. Had a letter this morning. I think I stand a chance of getting it. Ten quid a week more than I’m getting. Maybe we’ll be able to get a house.’
‘Oh, Andrew,’ she said and squeezed his hand. There was the glint of tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry about—’
‘Hush,’ he interrupted her, rather more sharply than he had intended. There was an awkward silence for a moment. To break it, he said, ‘They’ll be bringing the baby back in soon, won’t they?’
‘It’s near feeding time,’ she said. Her eyes searched his face, anxiety flickering deep in her glance. ‘Her breathing is fine now and she’s putting on weight. Are you going to wait?’
He did not meet her glance but looked away down the ward. There were a number of men there, sitting with their wives, a couple of grandmothers and relatives, most seemed happy and bright. And in the far doorway was a figure he recognized. His stomach lifted and dropped. He half rose from his seat as the tall bony figure moved into the ward. Detective Chief Inspector Crow looked around, caught sight of Andrew, and came forward. He had a piece of sticking plaster above his left eye, otherwise he seemed none the worse for the encounter at Horse Bottom Quarry two nights previously. He nodded to Andrew and smiled at Andrew’s wife. He stood beside the bed. ‘Hello, Mrs Keene. This is the first time we’ve met. I’m John Crow.’
Sara sat stiffly in bed, her face frozen into a nervous mask, her mouth slightly open. Crow put out his hand and after a moment she shook hands with him.
‘Do you mind if I sit down for a moment?’ he asked. ‘I just came in for a few minutes, to pay my respects to Mrs Keene, and to offer a more . . . formal thank you to Andrew, for the way he helped me the other evening. I didn’t really explain what had happened.’
‘There was something about it in the papers,’ Sara managed.
‘Ah, well, not the full story . . . What actually happened was that after I dropped Andrew I drove up the hill and met Samson driving out. I tried to block him, he crashed into me, scrambled out and ran back towards the quarry.’ Crow smiled ruefully and touched the sticking plaster on his forehead. ‘It’s axiomatic that detective chief inspectors of a somewhat advanced age do not go running after younger criminals, on the assumption that youth is more likely to get the upper hand. And chief inspectors are not exactly ten a penny. But . . . well, rather foolishly, I gave chase. And since my legs are longer than his and over about fifty yards I can manage a reasonable sprint — though after that I’m done — I caught him by the shoulder and spun him around. It was then that he hit me. I hung on, we staggered through the fence, and before I knew where I was I was hanging grimly on to his leg at the edge of the quarry. He overbalanced, we both went over the edge. I let go . . .’ His sad eyes lingered over Andrew. ‘I was pretty near the end of my tether when you came along. I couldn’t really see too well. I’m grateful for your help.’
‘Samson fell to his death,’ Andrew muttered uncomfortably.
‘Broken neck,’ Crow said. His eyes were clouded. ‘I didn’t want things to happen that way . . . Still, I shouldn’t talk about the case when I come visiting a beautiful woman who has just produced a daughter—’
‘Have . . . have you closed the case then?’ Sara asked in a subdued, hesitant tone.
Crow stared at her thoughtfully, and then nodded. ‘The local police, Inspector Stafford and the rest, they’re all agreed it’s over. It ended with Samson’s death.’
‘The woman at the quarry—’
‘That was Honey Lindop, Chuck Lindop’s widow. I thought she was dead when I got there, but apart from a nasty blow on the head she’ll be all right now.’
‘But what was she doing there?’
Crow took a deep breath. ‘Well, it was like this. Chuck Lindop was a small-time crook, but he could fascinate women. And Honey was still . . . wanting him, I suppose. Even after they separated she was still on reasonable terms with him, and after she started working for the estate agents Chuck came to her with a proposition. If she could feed him inside information, he could carry out some burglaries and they’d split the proceeds. I think she went along with it in the first instance in the hope it would somehow weld them back again — later, I imagine she just enjoyed the extra money. Not that there was much of it. As
far as I can gather Chuck didn’t even play fair on the split.’
‘She’s told you this?’
Crow nodded. ‘And a little more. She undertook a valuation at Cobham Park and gave Chuck the layout of the place. She took no other direct part in it, but Fred Hartley wouldn’t get involved so it was bungled by Lindop and Samson. They needed a pro like Hartley. Later, when Honey gave Lindop information on Northleach Hall Lindop tried to force Hartley in — but he adopted his own way of wriggling out of it successfully. Lindop called off the job.’
Crow glanced at Andrew, who failed to look at him.
‘Since both Samson and Lindop are now dead,’ Crow continued, ‘some of the rest must be guesswork. But it seems as though Lindop and Samson quarrelled. Samson wanted to continue, Lindop wanted to call Northleach off. The upshot of it all was that in a rage Samson came back to the site, continued the quarrel, killed Lindop, hid for a while at Hartley’s and then put the pressure on him again. He recruited his gipsy friend Billy to collect the money from Lindop’s hotel deposit box and just beat Honey to it. She was mad as hell.’
‘How . . . how much of this can be proved?’ Andrew asked huskily. ‘The . . . the murder, I mean.’
‘We’ve got statements that fix timings. We’ve got a speck of blood on a shoe of Samson’s that proves at the very least that he stood near Lindop’s corpse, even if we can’t prove he killed him. It’s all very circumstantial—’
‘But you said—’ Sara bit back the words as Crow stared at her. After a moment, he continued.
‘Circumstantial, but it fits. Anyway, we were running around in circles and for a few days Samson felt safe. The money from the hotel wasn’t as much as he’d expected, and he was obsessed with Northleach Hall, but when he heard we had pulled Hartley in for questioning he decided we were getting too close. He went to earth. He hired a car, drove to his gipsy friends and brooded.’
‘You can’t mean he still wanted to break into Northleach?’
‘I told you. It was an obsession. He’d killed Lindop over it. He was angry at Hartley’s refusal. But he could still do it alone, and cock a snook at us all. Better, he could do it and others, if he got the same sort of assistance Chuck had.’ Crow smiled sadly. ‘I think you have to remember how Samson was. He had followed Lindop in everything. In this way, maybe, he’d be going one better. And that was important.’ He hesitated, then went on. ‘When I was with Andrew at Foxholes I had a call from headquarters. They’d pulled in the gipsy Billy, and mention of the word murder had started him talking fit to bust. He told us that Samson had phoned Honey Lindop, arranged to meet her. Now she had already called in to speak to me — I’d handed her over to my colleague and she dried up. I think she changed her mind. At that point she intended coming clean, but when she couldn’t speak to me she changed her mind, decided to go through with it and meet Samson. She thought she could handle him; threaten him perhaps, get back some of Lindop’s money, because she was still furious that Samson had got there first. All we knew when I got that call at Andrew’s quarry at Foxholes was that they were meeting at Horse Bottom Quarry, of course, but Honey has filled in the rest. The fact was, she couldn’t handle him. He wanted to start the whole thing going again, get her to feed information to him — he even suggested they shack up together, she tells me. And all she wanted was a share of the money he’d lifted from that deposit box. As you might imagine, they didn’t see eye to eye. And her contempt for him, her threats, got him into a blind rage.’