‘Chief Superintendent Pollard knows about our marriage on Tuesday, darling,’ Rodney said. ‘And all the back history.’
She gave Pollard a long clear look. ‘Of course it can be said now that we had an outsize motive to — to eliminate that poor boy, can’t it?’
‘It can,’ he replied. ‘But charges aren’t brought on grounds of motive alone.’
‘Where do we go from here?’ Rodney asked.
‘We shall, of course, see if there is any reliable evidence that either of you knew what Edward Tuke’s movements were going to be on the evening of his death. We shall go on making enquiries about your movements between your return from your lunch party and the discovery of his body. And also about the possible involvement of anyone else in his death... Mrs Kenway-Potter, we shall have to ask you for a statement on your first marriage at some point. Would you be prepared to make one this afternoon?’
‘Yes, I’m quite prepared to here and now,’ she replied calmly. ‘I’ve nothing to tell you that my husband doesn’t know already, so I’d like him to be here, if that’s in order.’
‘Quite in order. Inspector Toye will take notes, and we’ll have what you say typed out for you to read over, and to sign if you agree it’s an accurate version.’
Amaryllis Kenway-Potter sat for a few moments as if assembling her thoughts, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. Normally, Pollard thought as he observed her, she’s so good to look at that you stop there and miss out on the strength of character and latent drive...
‘On my twentieth birthday in 1947,’ she began without circumlocution, ‘I came into an income of three hundred a year. Quite a bit in those days. My home life with rather elderly parents had been very orthodox and conventional, and I kicked over the traces, and went to live in London on my own, and got a job in Harridges. I enjoyed my independence and my untidy bedsitter and the absence of routine immensely. And the — well, classlessness, after years of social segregation. I felt that I was really living for the first time... Is this the sort of information you want?’
‘Yes,’ Pollard told her. ‘Please carry on, Mrs Kenway-Potter.’
‘I met John Tuke and we fell for each other. He was different from any boyfriends I’d had at home, which was part of his appeal, of course. I stood out for marriage because I was green enough to believe that it would make my new lifestyle permanent. We married in a London registry office in December 1947 without telling anybody. In March 1948 I came in rather late one evening and found a note. It said that he had to get out of the country at once as the police were catching up on him as a deserter during the war. He had fixed a passport and was leaving for Canada that afternoon. As rational moderns he was sure that I would agree with him that we must wash out our marriage and make fresh starts. I could absolutely rely on never hearing from him again.’
Silence descended. End of story as far as her personal reactions went, Pollard thought.
‘And did you,’ he asked, ‘ever hear from him again?’
‘No, never.’
‘And do you know that Henry Benchley — for that was his real name, not John Tuke — was killed in a motor accident in U.S.A. in 1953?’
‘Yes, I heard it from James Fordyce when he was telling us about young Edward Tuke’s — Benchley’s — visit to him... May I ask you a question?’
‘Certainly. I’ll answer it if I can.’
‘Shall I now have to face a charge of having made a bigamous marriage in 1950?’
‘Your past history must, of course, be included in my report to my superiors. Other things being equal,’ he went on, speaking with deliberation, ‘I think it is possible that no action will be taken in the matter owing to the lapse of time since Henry Benchley’s death... One more question from me, now. What made you so certain that young Edward Tuke was your first husband’s son? Was there a marked resemblance?’
‘Not marked, but it was his smile ... the name had given me a jolt, and then there was the American accent. And what James Fordyce told us filled in the picture.’
‘Which, incidentally, was not until the day after young Tuke’s death,’ Rodney Kenway-Potter remarked. ‘You can ask him.’
‘Quite an afternoon for a chap as hooked on romance as you are,’ Pollard remarked as soon as the departing Rover was out of earshot of Rodney Kenway-Potter on the front steps of Woodcombe Manor.
Toye, who appeared abstracted, conceded that he’d never come up with a story to equal what they’d just heard, not in his whole time in the Force. Romance and moral principle were obviously contending for mastery in his mind. He asked if the next stop was the Fordyce’s bungalow.
‘Not on your life,’ Pollard replied. ‘I’m not interviewing James Fordyce with his wife outside the door of that box of a study with her ears flapping. I’ll ring him from Littlechester and ask him to come over. The Kenway-Potters may be priming him at this moment about when he told them about Edward Tuke’s disclosures, but we’ll have to risk that, anyway.’
On arrival at the Littlechester police station, however, he found to his surprise that James Fordyce had tried to contact him. A message was handed to him stating that Mr Fordyce had called in person at 15.50 hours hoping to see him, and would be returning at 16.45 hours.
‘So what?’ Pollard passed the message to Toye. ‘At least it’s a change to have somebody else taking the initiative. We’ve just about time for a cuppa.’
James Fordyce was announced punctually at a quarter to five, greeted politely and offered the spare chair in the crowded little room.
‘Thanks,’ he said abruptly, and sat down. ‘I’ve come to say that I want to amend one item of the statement I made to you recently. I —’
‘Just one moment,’ Pollard said. ‘Let’s have out the file copy of Mr Fordyce’s statement, Inspector... Right. Please go ahead, Mr Fordyce.’
‘You commented that I had taken a long time to inspect the outside of Bridge Cottage and cover the short distance to Upper Bridge where I met Bill Morris. I said that on leaving the cottage I sat down by the stream to think over the pros and cons of making an offer for it, and dropped off to sleep. Only the first part of this is true. I did not drop off to sleep.’
These remarks were delivered in a somewhat disjointed fashion which puzzled Pollard... It’s as though the chap’s mind is on something else, he thought.
‘What did you do, then, Mr Fordyce?’ he asked.
‘There’s a low stone wall backed by a hedge between the river bank and Manor Woods. When I heard the Kenway-Potters’ car returning to the Manor I got up and watched their arrival through a gap in the hedge.’
‘Both Mr and Mrs Kenway-Potter have stated that they returned home on the afternoon of April the twenty-third at approximately half-past three. How long did you stay at your observation post, as we’ll call it?’
‘I suppose until about a quarter to four.’
‘Do you want to make a statement about what you observed during this time?’
‘Yes, I do.’ James Fordyce sat looking at the table in front of him, his long face tired and drawn. ‘Mr Kenway-Potter helped his wife out of the car, unlocked the front door and then drove the car round in the direction of the garage. He came back, spoke to her in the hall for a few moments, and finally came out with some newspapers and settled in a deck chair on the terrace. Mrs Kenway-Potter apparently went upstairs to the room over the drawing room which is on the left of the front door, and which is probably her bedroom. She appeared briefly at the window, having taken off the green and white frock she was wearing. I did not see her again.’
‘When you left at about a quarter to four was Mr Kenway-Potter still in the deck chair on the terrace?’
‘Yes. He appeared to be asleep.’
‘Why have you come to amend your original statement in this way?’ Pollard asked after a short pause.
‘My wife tells me that people in the village are pointing out that the Kenway-Potters were very well-placed to remove the warning notice on the footb
ridge. I consider that my observations are evidence that at least for the first part of the time after they came home that afternoon they did nothing of the kind. I’m prepared to swear to the truth of what I’ve just told you.’
‘But of course,’ Pollard went on, ‘this doesn’t explain why you kept watch in the first place, does it? Edward Tuke was alive and well at the time. I think it is reasonable to ask you why you behaved in such an unusual way, to say the least of it.’
James Fordyce gave a smile of remarkable bitterness. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘the psychologists would say I am a masochist. My marriage has been a failure. I was observing their mutual happiness. In short, indulging in envy... I suppose you’ll want me to sign my amended statement?’
‘We’ll let you know when it’s been typed,’ Pollard told him. ‘Thank you for coming in and putting things straight, Mr Fordyce. Inspector Toye will see you out.’
When Toye came back Pollard was sitting reflectively at his desk.
‘Poor devil,’ he said. ‘I think I’m dead right about his being in love with the fair Amaryllis, you know. He went about as near as he could to saying so in plain English. And the way he’s tensed up suggests that he’s got a very strong suspicion — or even knows — that his wife’s responsible for the anonymous letters.’
They agreed that James Fordyce’s evidence narrowed the critical period for the Kenway-Potters in the late afternoon and early evening of April the twenty-third, but to a very limited extent. The only thing to do at the moment was to go over the depressingly familiar contents of the case file yet again. They had begun to write up the day’s notes when Inspector Deeds looked in with a couple of sheets of typescript.
‘Nothing likely to tie up with your job, but we thought you’d better have a copy,’ he said. ‘The forensic lads say the newspapers used to start up the fire at Bridge Cottage were copies of the Daily Chat. Only twenty households in Woodcombe take it in regularly, but of course you can pick it up at every newsagent’s in Wynford and here. Anyway, here’s a list of the Woodcombe regulars.’
‘All contributions gratefully received,’ Pollard replied. ‘In exchange, here’s the latest instalment of the Kenway-Potter saga.’
Inspector Deeds listened to the account of the afternoon’s interview with close attention. ‘You’d have to be a top writer to dream up a yarn like this one,’ he commented. ‘The way they’ve both acted all through’s been unpredictable from the beginning to the end, wouldn’t you say, sir?’
Pollard agreed. ‘But my experience over the years is that a lot of people do act in a way you’d never expect,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the things that makes our job so difficult. You’ve got to have some imagination and be able to get inside the other chap’s skin if you can.’
‘Imagination’s my weak spot,’ Inspector Deeds admitted with engaging frankness. ‘I was quite hot on maths and science at school, but I never got anywhere with Shakespeare and whatever.’
‘Most of the types we deal with are in his plays, you know. You might try another bash at him from this point of view. You’ve got a lot of what’s wanted on the way up: powers of observation and deduction, to start with.’
Patently gratified, Inspector Deeds went off.
‘Good chap,’ Pollard remarked, returning to his notes. It had been a strenuous day and he had to make an effort to keep his mind on the job. Some phrase that Deeds had used was lurking irritatingly just outside the threshold of his consciousness. It was not until he was in bed that night that it came back to him: ‘from the beginning to the end’. A sonorous phrase reminiscent of the Scriptures... Mary, Queen of Scots’ ‘in my end is my beginning’... T.S. Eliot’s ‘in my beginning is my end’... The King of Hearts hectoring the White Rabbit in the Trial Scene: ‘Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end’... Pollard suddenly found himself very wide awake. Had he really begun at the beginning of the grim and incomprehensible sequence of events at Woodcombe? He had a sudden mental picture of a small boy falling from a tree in Manor Woods, and knew in the same instant that he would go and visit the Westbridges the next day. The decision made, he was soon asleep.
The Westbridges had a telephone and Pollard put through a call after breakfast the next morning. A man’s voice answered repeating the number.
‘Mr Westbridge?’ he queried.
‘Jim Westbridge speaking. Who is it?’
‘Detective Chief Superintendent Pollard, Mr Westbridge. You probably know that I’m carrying out the investigation into the death of the late Edward Tuke on the twenty-third of April. I think it’s just possible that you and your wife might be able to give me some help. Would it be convenient if I came over to see you this morning?’
There was a silence lasting several moments. The suggestion was clearly unwelcome.
‘I’d like to know if what you want to see us about is anything to do with the death of our adopted son in 1974. I don’t want my wife upset by going over it all again.’
‘Yes, it is about the boy’s death, Mr Westbridge,’ Pollard replied. ‘I perfectly understand how you feel about your wife. But if there should turn out to be a link between Robin’s death and Edward Tuke’s and Leonard Bolling’s, the sooner the police get on to it the better, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Mr Westbridge said unwillingly. ‘Though how there can be any link I can’t for the life of me imagine. You’d better come over, only don’t distress Mrs Westbridge more than you can help, that’s all. What time do you want to come?’
Half-past ten was agreed upon and Pollard rang off. He had decided to go alone, and managed to persuade Toye to take some time off and sample Matins at Littlechester Cathedral. He borrowed the report of the inquest on Robin Westbridge from the local police archives once again and studied it very carefully before starting off. One had to admit that it was detailed, straightforward and convincing.
It appeared that the Westbridges lived at the eastern end of the village, and he decided to take a roundabout route and come into Woodcombe by the Marycott road. He felt that it would be as well for the visit to be as inconspicuous as possible. After all, his only grounds for making it at all was a rather odd hunch and it seemed hardly fair to expose the Westbridges to unnecessary local curiosity and gossip on such tenuous grounds. In the event the drive along narrow winding roads virtually free of traffic was pure pleasure. The June hedges were still fresh and green and a riot of Queen Anne’s lace, foxgloves and wild roses. He found that the road works had now reached Marycott, and drove on past the place where he had talked to the foreman and got on to the track of the pickaxe and spade ‘borrowed’ by Leonard Bolling. He parked carefully just out of sight of the drive gates of Woodcombe Manor, and finished his journey on foot.
The Westbridge cottage showed a high standard of external maintenance, and its carefully tended front garden had a fine display of roses and annuals. Pollard’s knock was answered by Mr Westbridge, a small man somewhere in his mid-forties, with hair already thinning on the top and an anxious look about him. Mrs Westbridge was a faded blonde who gave an impression of sapped vitality. The atmosphere was defensive to start with, but Pollard exercised his knack of setting people at ease and to his relief they both relaxed. He took the line of enlisting their co-operation over a problem that was greatly disturbing the police. Gradually he worked round to the question of whether they had been satisfied with the verdict of Death by Misadventure at the inquest on Robin’s death.
‘We’ve talked it over times out of mind,’ Mr Westbridge told him, glancing at his wife who nodded her assent. ‘It’s this way, if I can make what we feel sound sensible. What the coroner said added up. You couldn’t fault it: not one single item. But somehow it didn’t add up to Robin. For one thing he climbed like a monkey, didn’t he, Millie? He’d quite frighten us the way he’d shin up a tree. We can’t somehow believe that he’d’ve fallen out of that great oak tree with all its solid branches unless something out of the way had happened.’
Pollard’s grasp of the evidence given at the inquest and the coroner’s summing up clearly impressed the Westbridges. Soon they were talking freely, but in spite of exhaustive questioning on his part little that was new came out. Yes, they agreed, from early on he’d always been happy on his own, but he’d often been rumbustious and naughty like any healthy boy. He got on with other kids and could hold his own. There’d never been any trouble about him being bullied, not even when he moved on to the Middle School in Littlechester. Yes, he’d been quick to read and loved books. Adventure stories were what he’d liked best. They had found some tatty old paperbacks in the box up in the tree house, along with other odds and ends he’d taken up there. A toy pistol and a kid’s telescope, and a catapult and so on. Sweets, of course, and pebbles he’d brought back from the seaside. They’d been to Weymouth the year before and out on Chesil Beach.
‘We’ve kept the box just as it was except for the sweets,’ Mrs Westbridge said. ‘Perhaps you’d like to take a look at it since you’re here?’
Pollard accepted the offer, more to keep up the friendly atmosphere that had developed than in any hope of getting useful information. Mr Westbridge fetched a battered square biscuit tin and opened it with some difficulty.
‘It got a bit rusty up there in the rain,’ he said, handing it over.
Pollard took out the contents one by one, inspecting each carefully. The little room became very quiet. After a protracted pause he looked up to find the Westbridges eyeing him with puzzled expressions.
‘I’m going to ask you,’ he said, ‘to let me take this box away for a time. I shall give you an official receipt for it, and it will be in the care of the police and come back to you exactly as it is now.’
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