Vicious Circle

by Douglas Clark

  “Your presence will interest them. Because of your rank and because you’re from Scotland Yard.”

  Masters grinned. He could sense what was coming next. He wasn’t wrong.

  “In that case,” said Green, “Sergeant Reed or Berger could appear before you to say what I would have said. That gets rid of the rank bit. As for Scotland Yard, need it be mentioned? Can he not describe himself as belonging to a neighbouring force? Your local reporters are not likely to know the names of CID sergeants at the Yard, so they won’t jump to any conclusions there.”

  Green was obviously attempting to wriggle out of the job of temporary coroner’s officer. Not that Masters blamed him. A detective of Green’s standing and reputation could hardly welcome the appointment, however impermanent.

  Dean turned to Masters as if seeking his approval of the suggested course.

  “If those of us not directly involved did not attend the court, Mr Dean, the idea could work. Everything would be open and aboveboard. You would not be deceiving the press or the public, but neither would you be presenting them with a stick with which to lambast the people you wish to protect. If Sergeant Reed were to act for you, I personally guarantee that before your court sits, he will be given no facts concerning our investigation. He could, however, work directly for you should there be any inquiries you wish him to make between now and two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

  Dean made up his mind on the spot. “I’ll go along with Mr Green’s suggestion. And there is something I want Sergeant Reed to do for me.”

  “What’s that, sir?” asked Reed.

  “To check the bottle of digoxin tablets held by Mrs Rainford, and to establish whether the number that should be there is there and generally to check that there has been no jiggery-pokery with prescriptions.”

  “Right, sir. I’ll attend to that tomorrow morning.”

  “That is the most obvious move to make,” agreed Masters. “If the bottle is short, the source of the poison becomes obvious.”

  “Would the case then fall flat on its face, Chief?” asked Berger.

  “Be your age, lad,” grunted Green. “We’d then have to discover who gave the old dame the excess dosage or whether she’d managed to trick one of them and had saved up the means to commit suicide.”

  “But at least we’d know where the stuff came from.”

  “Which fact,” said Masters, “could be more of a hindrance than a help.”

  “How come, Chief?”

  “If the toxic material came from some other source, then simply by discovering the other source we ought to get a pointer to the person who administered it.”

  Dean got to his feet. “Can I get you gentlemen another drink?”

  Masters shook his head. “It’s getting late. Tomorrow will be a busy day for us. I’d like an early start.”

  “Of course. I’m indebted to you for coming, and for your help. If you dispose of the rest of this business as easily as you seem to have disposed of my little fears, the full inquest should not be long delayed.”

  “I hope not,” said Green. “If it were to hang over the people involved for too long it could become a bit of a strain.”

  “Now,” said Dean, with a laugh, “you’re knocking the sensitivities of those of us who live out in the sticks.”

  “Never let it be said,” retorted Green. “I was talking about the effect it would have on us living in that police HQ building. It’s like being back in barracks again.”

  *

  As they drove home, Masters said: “You’re a humbug, Bill.”

  “Who? Me? Here, young Berger, I’ll have one of those fags you’re not handing round.”

  Berger turned to offer the packet to Green who was sitting in his accustomed rear, nearside seat. “I notice you haven’t contradicted the Chief,” he said.

  “Unsubstantiated accusations,” said Green airily, “need no denial. One can only refute them when they are given in detail. Nice fags, these. Somebody give you them for your birthday?”

  “Give him chapter and verse, Chief,” pleaded Berger. “He’s dying to argue the toss.”

  “Very well. Bill, you swore you knew nothing about the functions of a coroner’s officer, yet you managed to give Dean—and us—the impression that you know everything there is to know about it.”

  “Well,” said Green, sounding highly pleased. “I’d be a mug if I let a deputy coroner get hold of the idea that he was dealing with a rookie, wouldn’t I? I mean, he might try to manipulate me.”

  “So you boned up on the subject before we set out?”

  “Shall we say I took a couple of minutes’ advice? I hadn’t time for more.”

  “In that case you’re a quick learner.”

  “A moment ago I was a humbug.”

  “So you are. You were determined to get rid of that job and you did so, very nicely, by offloading it on to Reed.”

  “Hark who’s talking. Who was it came up with all that drivel about the general public not caring about tragedies half as much as case-hardened but sensitive coppers? Dean doesn’t know you, George, but I do. You trotted out that load of bilge just to prepare the ground for me to do exactly what I did. And now you say I’m a humbug because I took advantage of it.”

  “Ah! I hadn’t realized I was being quite so obvious.”

  “You weren’t to me, Chief,” said Berger.

  “You?” snorted Green. “You’re like a kitten, lad. Not old enough yet to have your eyes open.”

  “Maybe not. But I know all about big mouths. As a kitten, I’m carried about in one.”

  Chapter Four

  At breakfast the next morning, Green asked: “Where do we start, George?”

  Masters viewed his plate. “The baked beans are, I think, a mistake. I definitely shall not start with them. The sausage and egg . . .?”

  “It’s going to be one of those days, is it?”

  Masters looked up. “Sorry. But then this is a sorry mess.”

  “Look, Chief,” said Reed, “forget that food. You know your appetite hasn’t recovered from the hepatitis, so why sit playing with what’s there? Put it aside and eat some toast. Then the rest of us won’t feel we’re eating pigswill.”

  Masters, surprised, looked straight and hard at Reed as though about to blast him for impertinence. But the outburst didn’t come. After a moment, he said: “I apologize. I had no intention of putting you off by belittling the fare, but . . .” He shrugged.

  “It’s not too bad,” said Green. “Not the right combination of course. And they haven’t basted the eggs, so they’re like leather underneath and not cooked on top. The beans are a bit watery, too, with all this jizzer-rizzer running about the plate, but I happen to like sausages that are baked so hard you can’t get the fork in, so that’s all right.” He turned to Reed. “You were a bit outspoken, lad. Didn’t make proper allowances.”

  “I did,” replied Reed hotly. “I said the Chief hadn’t recovered from his hepatitis.”

  Green shook his head. “That’s not it, son. His wife gives his nibs a nice white linen napkin, a Royal Doulton plate and cutlery from Mappin and Webb. You could lob up a dog’s dinner with that lot and it would look appetizing. But when you see what his missus does give him . . . well, when I remind you that his ma-in-law lives in Wiltshire and keeps his household supplied with locally home-cured ham and the like, you’ll realize that it all boils down to the old business of comparisons being nauseous.”

  “Odious,” said Reed.

  “Not in this case, chum. If you eat this stuff you’re liable to get nausea or a pain—somewhere about the lower region of the bowels.”

  “Now you’ve put me off completely.”

  “Remember what Gandhi said.”

  “What?”

  “When he felt nausea—which he often did, apparently—it was usually overcome by sipping water.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me, try this tea, it’s a good substitute for water. What my old dad u
sed to call clover tea.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Usually made with only three leaves. Four leaves and you were lucky.”

  Reed put his knife and fork down in disgust. Green, watching him over the rim of the cup, took a noisy slurp of the despised liquid. Masters, still smiling at Green’s humour, said: “All this babbling gossip of the air brings me to the business of the day.”

  “Shakespeare always had a word for it,” said Green, “but I’d like to have heard what he would have had to say about baked beans.”

  “We shall never know,” replied Masters. “But to gossip. You asked where we were to start, Bill. This is the hardest part—breaking in, as it were. There are obvious characters we must interview, but it struck me that in a case where we have so many interwoven family branches, there is bound to be gossip. Not necessarily malicious, but just talk about each other. Titbits that could help us.”

  “Get a pattern of relationships that way,” agreed Green. “Could be useful. Pass the marmalade, young Berger.”

  “Reed,” continued Masters, “I want you to take Berger along with you this morning. And wherever you go, keep your ears open. The D.C.I. and I will not see you until after the inquest—for obvious reasons. For equally obvious reasons we shall not attend the inquest.”

  “Where shall we see you, Chief?”

  “We’ll leave a message here nearer the time. Ring in to the desk after the coroner adjourns.”

  “Right. You’ll be driving the Rover?”

  “You take it. I’ve asked for a local car.”

  Reed got to his feet. “In that case, Chief . . .”

  “Sit down, lad,” said Green. “You can’t go round asking questions before half-past eight in the morning.”

  “I’m not intending to. I’m going to try and get breakfast somewhere.”

  *

  Theo Rainford was at his desk in the HQ building when Masters and Green called on him. The newcomers introduced themselves.

  “Come to grill me?” grinned Rainford.

  “Not so’s you’d notice,” said Green. “But then, we never do.”

  “What then?”

  “Background, mainly,” replied Masters, taking the chair he had been offered. “Who would want to kill Mrs Carlow?”

  “Just about everybody who ever met her.”

  “She was that unpopular?”

  “All her time here as far as I can make out.”

  “Yet you married her daughter.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “You tell me.”

  Rainford’s cheerfulness had already gone. “If you insist.”

  “I think I do.”

  “Margarethe is a good woman. I met her when I was a young copper. I married her, not her mother.”

  “But you must have come in contact with Mrs Carlow.”

  “No more than I had to.”

  “Why was that? Because of her reputation as an unpleasant woman, or because she gave you cause to dislike her?”

  Rainford paused before replying. “That’s a loaded question.”

  “Give me a loaded answer.”

  “Both.”

  “Thank you. As a young man, presumably in love with her daughter, you steered clear of Mrs Carlow because of hearsay evidence that she wasn’t nice to know. I find that a strange attitude in any young suitor, let alone a policeman taught to mistrust hearsay evidence and—as we all are at such a time—anxious to make a good impression on the parents of the girl we wish to marry. So though your reply was loaded, I shall put less weight on that part of the answer than on the other which means that I incline towards the view that she gave you cause to dislike her.”

  “Do you honestly mean to say you’re sitting there trying to dredge up some sort of motive for me having seen the old woman off?”

  “Why not?” asked Green. “You said that just about everybody she ever met would want to kill her. You’ve been a copper long enough to know that in cases like this the first place we look is among the family. Who’s in the family? You, your wife, your daughter and the elderly sister. All prime suspects at this stage in the game, chum. So, among you lot, who has the biggest motive? Your wife? Your daughter?”

  “Neither of them has any motive at all,” growled Rainford.

  “The sister?”

  “She’s a frail, little old woman, as sweet-natured as her sister was nasty.”

  “So that leaves you.”

  “And you said you didn’t grill people.”

  “Has anybody threatened you, leaned over you, raised his voice to you?” asked Masters quietly.

  “No, and they’d better not.”

  “Much better not, I agree. But I wonder how many times your subordinates—or even you, yourself—have used just those tactics with a suspect?”

  Rainford was on his feet. “What are you accusing me of?” he grated.

  “Avoiding giving me direct answers. I find that reprehensible in a senior police officer. And please sit down, Mr Rainford. You’re being guilty of using one of the tactics you claim never to have used.”

  “I’m not putting up with this. You people come here from the Yard and think you’re God Almighty . . .”

  “Please sit down, and tell me what cause Mrs Carlow gave you to earn your dislike.”

  Rainford sat down slowly. He stared hotly at Masters for a moment and then gradually the anger seemed to drain from him. The choleric reply did not come. Masters waited, realizing that this was a watershed in the emotions of a man striving to overcome wrath and to replace it with moderation and sanity. At last—

  “I’m sorry,” mumbled Rainford.

  “Please don’t apologize.”

  “It’s just . . . well you don’t know what it’s like to have your wife and daughter as suspects in what is being treated as a murder case.”

  “He does, you know,” replied Green quietly. “His wife . . . she was more than just a suspect, she was damn’ near taken in for murder.”

  Rainford opened his eyes, wide. “Mrs Masters was?”

  “Shortly before I married her,” corrected Masters. “And it was Bill Green who saw us through. So, if you would please tell us . . .”

  “The old trout tried to stop Margarethe from marrying me. She reckoned a lowly copper wasn’t good enough for her daughter. You can imagine how I felt at the time.”

  “And how you have felt ever since?”

  “If you mean did I feel murderous then, the answer is yes. But not since. I’ve never really liked her, but we’ve got by for twenty-five years.”

  Masters grinned. Green said: “That’s about par for the course with mothers-in-law. And for my money, if you didn’t see her off in the old days, you’re hardly likely to have had a go at her now.”

  “Thanks. Is that how you decide?”

  “Decide?”

  “Solve your cases?”

  “Very often,” admitted Masters, seriously.

  Rainford, for a moment looked astounded and then he, too, grinned. “You hadn’t the slightest interest in me,” he accused. “You came in here to get a cop’s personal view of the deceased’s character.”

  “And we got one, didn’t we? Not a considered one. A gut-feeling exposure of a rather unpleasant old woman.”

  Rainford shrugged. “You could have asked.”

  “I did. I asked you who would want to kill her. If you’d said you didn’t know . . .”

  “You’re clever, Mr Masters. You got me to talk.”

  Masters nodded. “Silences sometimes speak, but words usually tell me more.” He got to his feet. “I shall want to speak to Mrs Rainford and Mrs Adam Whincap.”

  “And get them to talk, too?”

  “I hope so. But you can be present at both interviews if you wish.”

  “You’re not bringing them in here, I hope?”

  “I’d prefer to see them in their own homes.”

  “In that case . . . yes, I’d like to be there.”

  �
�Right. They will obviously be expecting us to call on them, but when you ring to confirm that we shall be coming, please don’t counsel them to avoid some things and to stress others.”

  “You think I’d do that?”

  “It’d be natural, chum,” said Green. “And if you don’t offer, they’ll ask. All his nibs is saying is for you to stop short after telling them what we’re like—or what you think we’re like. Instructing them about what to tell us will only make them nervous and won’t achieve much else.”

  “By God, you’re sure of yourselves.”

  “No,” said Masters, firmly. “We are so unsure of ourselves that we don’t know for certain exactly what we are investigating. But it has been postulated that nothing in this world can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. I know I pay my taxes. And we have a death on our hands. Nothing more. So . . . and I think this applies to everybody who falls under the slightest suspicion in any sort of criminal case . . . I always have doubts about people I am about to interview.”

  “Doubts about what?”

  “Everybody and everything to begin with. It’s the way we play it. The philosophy is not a new one, because again it has been said that if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” He smiled again. “And so I regard even Mrs Rainford and Mrs Adam Whincap as doubts.”

  “And if we have doubts,” said Green, airily, “how can you say we are sure of ourselves?”

  Rainford laughed aloud. “You two are an eye-opener to me. You’re a couple of . . .”

  “Con men?” suggested Green.

  *

  The receptionist was businesslike but kind and helpful.

  “I’m terribly sorry, but Dr Whincap’s surgery list is full for this morning. But I could fit you in this evening.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “But if it’s urgent . . .”

  “We’re not sick,” said Green.

  “Are you with this other gentleman?”

  “We’re together, love.”

  “Are you patients of Dr Whincap?”

  “No, love. Nor are we reps or insurance salesmen.”