Vicious Circle

by Douglas Clark

  “That’s only the shop office. The main office is the whole of that house beside the entrance gate. The one with the hanging baskets outside.”

  “Is Josef Kisiel there?”

  “No, Chief.”

  “We’ll go across and have a word with the son.”

  “He’ll know all about us,” said Green. “He’s married to Whincap’s daughter. I bet the phones were ringing last night. In every direction.”

  “They’ll not know whatever it was the Chief was thinking about, though. What we said and did yesterday may now be common knowledge, but they can’t creep into minds.”

  “Trot along, lad,” said Green. “If they’ve got a set of offices as big as that, they’ll have somewhere where you can scrounge us a good cup of coffee. I could have read the paper through that tea I had at breakfast. Lot of old wash, it was. So I’m ready for something better.”

  Reed grinned. “I know when I’m not wanted. Coffee for you as well, Chief?”

  “Yes, please.”

  As soon as there was some distance between Reed and themselves, Green said to Masters: “Any joy last night?”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask quite so soon.”

  “Meaning you got nothing to help.”

  Masters grinned. “Bill, do you really want to know what I did after we got back to HQ last night?”

  “I know you went into the office to phone Wanda. Then I reckon you went to your room to do some reading.”

  “I did phone Wanda. But then I phoned Anderson.”

  “At home?”

  “It was pretty late.”

  “Ten o’clockish.”

  “Are you going to tell me what it was about or was that what I wasn’t supposed to ask you yet?”

  Masters stopped on the pathway that led to the house and took out his pipe. As he started to fill it with Warlock Flake, he said: “It was about you, Bill. A proposition. I’m to ring him later for the answer. I’d rather have waited to have given you his reply. That’s all. No mystery.”

  “I see.”

  “But seeing that you are now aware of what I did, I can see no reason for not discussing it with you. First off, naturally, I asked for a normal extension of service for you.”

  “That sounds as if he turned you down.”

  “He stated categorically that he didn’t want you to go.” Masters took out a box of Swan and, striking a match, applied it between cupped hands to the bowl of the pipe.

  “Nice of him,” growled Green. “But?”

  “He told you himself the pressure he is under, so he held out little hope of keeping you on as you are.”

  “As I am? What in heaven’s name does that mean?”

  “My proposition . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I know that our lords and masters are extremely keen to build up a really first class team of Scene-of-Crime Officers to back up the CID.”

  “Oh no, George, thank you,” said Green. “I’m not becoming an S.C.O.”

  “Listen, Bill, please. I know you wouldn’t want that. Not after what you’ve been and done. But I suggested to Anderson that you should be given a special appointment as Senior S.C.O . . .”

  “There isn’t such a thing in . . .”

  “Listen. S.S.C.O. permanently seconded to this team.”

  “No good, George. Five would be too many and I don’t know much about the technical side of testing for dust transfer and all that sort of thing.”

  “I realize that. To begin with, there wouldn’t be five of us. Anderson said he could envisage our team with only one sergeant and a young D.I., besides the two of us. He’d want the D.I.—your replacement, as it were—to be trained.”

  “So I’d take the place of one of the sergeants?”

  “Hardly that. We’re counting heads, not arranging pecking orders. My proposition was that you and I would continue as we are, but your appointment would be different. That’s all. Anderson wants to bring along a young D.I., so a sergeant goes to make room for him.”

  “If he’s out to save money, how’s that going to help? It’ll cost more.”

  “No, it will save money. You’ll get your pension and your S.S.C.O.’s pay to top it up. But the S.S.C.O’s pay is not likely to be more—or even as big as—that of a senior D.S. They’d have to pay your pension anyway. And they’d have to give me a D.I. So, in fact, they would be saving a few quid a year.”

  “And you thought all this up?”

  “In essence. But we hammered out the details between us. How does it strike you?”

  “We continue as we are?”

  “Absolutely. You know we rarely need the services of an S.C.O. You would be sailing under slightly false colours, but you’d be no worse off financially and the Yard would reap the benefit of your experience.”

  Green grinned. “You old bastard, George. It’s this little plan you’ve been cooking up which caused the lads to think you were coming up with the answer to this case.”

  “I suspect so.”

  “I reckon it’ll work. Anyhow, I’m ready to give it a whirl.”

  “Whoa!” cautioned Masters. “I haven’t got Anderson’s agreement yet. He’s got to get approval from on high.”

  “He’ll swing it,” said Green confidently. “If it’s your idea he’ll be able to say it has your backing and being the jammy bastard you are, you usually get your own way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What? Oh, yes, well . . .” Green seemed at a loss for words.

  “Will Doris approve?”

  “Need you ask?”

  Masters turned towards the door of the house. “I forgot to tell you, Doris dropped in on Wanda for a cup of tea yesterday.”

  “And to see young Michael William,” said Green drily. “She’s nuts about the choker.”

  Reed met them. “Upstairs, Chief. The back bedroom. And the coffee’s coming up.”

  Berger was chatting to Tony Kisiel. The subject was cricket in general, but specifically the merits and demerits of the limited-overs game as opposed to the three-day county matches.

  “Mr Anthony Kisiel, Chief.”

  “How d’you do, Mr Kisiel. I don’t suppose you are unaware of our presence in the area?”

  “I’ve heard of little else since you arrived, Mr Masters. Gwen—my wife—is always in close touch with her parents and brother. And she’s friendly with Marian Whincap, so that brings in Theo and Margarethe. They’ve been playing an animated version of Marjory Move-all, both by personal visits and phoned conversations, for the past forty-eight hours. But I must say I wasn’t expecting to be honoured by a visit from you.”

  “Come to see your dad,” said Green.

  “I thought that must be it, though why he should interest you . . .?”

  “His name’s cropped up from time to time.”

  “In connection with Elke Carlow?”

  “That’s it.”

  “But he and she . . . they were never in each other’s presence. He’ll be able to tell you nothing about her.”

  “You’ve said it all, Mr Kisiel. Why were they never in each other’s presence though their families were closely connected by marriage?”

  “Quite frankly, because they couldn’t stand the sight of each other.”

  “Enemies, in fact?”

  “Yes,” said Tony, without trying to qualify the reply. “They were enemies. But it doesn’t mean he killed her.”

  Green shook his head sadly. “We’re not saying he did. But somebody did her a bit of no-good . . .”

  “Herself, probably.”

  “Perhaps. But she was somebody. Somebody who was her own worst enemy, maybe. And we’ll be investigating all her enemies, herself included. So your dad, also an enemy like you said, will have to be interviewed.”

  “That’s specious,” said Kisiel. “How the hell can you interview a dead woman?”

  “Ah!” said Green. “You’d be surprised how loud the dead can speak and how much they can tell us. Oh, yes, we
’ll be talking to her all right.”

  Kisiel turned to Masters. He was a thick-set, powerful and, one would guess, pleasant-natured young man. He was dressed in grey slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt with a breast pocket, open at the neck. He looked as if he would be as much or more at home in the open air than in this office.

  “Do you subscribe to this nonsense, Mr Masters?”

  “Without reservation. My colleague may have put it slightly differently from the way I’d have put it to you, myself, but I can’t see where he went wrong or could have given you a false impression.”

  “My father is the gentlest of men.”

  “You may know that, Mr Kisiel, but I don’t. To me, as yet, he is just the name of a man known to have been inimical to a woman whose death I am investigating. If you were in my shoes, what view would you take?”

  “I’d try not to upset everybody I met. Some of us must be innocent, you know.”

  “True.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what, Mr Kisiel?”

  “Why upset everybody you meet?”

  “The beauty of conversations like this, Mr Kisiel, is that one invariably learns something. For example, I was unaware I had upset anybody, but no doubt you can put me right on that score.”

  “My father-in-law and Mr Bennett to begin with. You upset them.”

  “But I didn’t, Mr Kisiel. They upset themselves.”

  “Come off it.”

  “They grew very upset because they felt obliged to reveal to me your father’s name when they would have preferred to suppress it. Men in the positions of Dr Whincap and Mr Bennett know full well they should co-operate with the police. When, against that knowledge, they attempt to withhold information, it is their own natures which cause them distress, both because they feel disloyalty to somebody who is a friend and also because they realize they are failing in their duty as responsible citizens. And before you add Mrs Marian Whincap to the list of those I am supposed to have upset, let me assure you that she jumped to the erroneous conclusion that I was accusing her of some crime. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was questioning her closely, but in the presence of her father who is a senior police officer, and asking that she should face an unpalatable truth. Facing that truth upset her far more than I did.”

  Kisiel was not to be mollified by this speech. He countered: “They also said you have a knack of twisting words to mean what you want them to mean. After what I’ve just heard I understand their reasons for saying so.”

  “In that case, Mr Kisiel, it is as well that I did not come to interview you.”

  “What’s this if it isn’t an interview?”

  “Conversation, Mr Kisiel. Not too friendly a conversation perhaps, but nevertheless nothing more than that. Now, could I ask you to tell me where I will find your father?”

  Kisiel relaxed a little. “My father is a Pole. He speaks English, of course—with an accent—but he will not be up to your weight in polemics.”

  Masters smiled. “I’m sure no pun was intended there, Mr Kisiel, and I can assure you that we shall not seek to take advantage of your father’s more limited knowledge of English. But perhaps you would like to be present when we talk to him?”

  “You will allow that?”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s out taking his morning walk.”

  “Where?”

  “Among the plants.” Tony picked up a pair of binoculars from the desk and moved to the window. For a moment or two he scanned the distant fields. “There he is. It’s the roses this morning.”

  He handed the binoculars to Masters and pointed out the direction.

  “The one in the trilby, carrying the bag?”

  “He has twine and ties in one pocket, with a knife and secateurs in the other. He walks slowly round a different area each day, inspecting the plants. He likes to see if they need feeding or watering, or if there are any pests. He cuts out dead and damaged bits, too, and ties back when it’s needed. He drops his cuttings into the bag to bring back to the dump because bits left lying about attract pests. After his inspection he tells the gardeners what he wants them to do in that area, if anything.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “I’ll call him in.”

  “From here?”

  Tony picked up a phone. “I can call the glass house office. One of the lads will take him a message.”

  While the telephone conversation was going on, the office door opened and a girl pushed in a metal trolley laden with coffee jugs, crockery and a plate of biscuits wrapped in plastic clingfoil. Tony put the phone down. “Thank you, Jenny, we’ll serve ourselves. But bring another cup for Mister Josef, would you, please.”

  “No need to hurry over it,” said Tony as he handed round the biscuits. “It will take the old man at least ten minutes to get here.”

  Ten minutes was a gross underestimate. Josef Kisiel took his time, as if to indicate by his tardiness that the arrival of the Yard team was of so little consequence to him that he could finish his previous business first.

  Masters guessed the Pole’s thoughts.

  “You were expecting us to call, Mr Kisiel?”

  “Police are all alike in every country.”

  “Like your friend Theo Rainford?”

  “He is an exception, maybe.”

  “To those whom he knows, or to everybody?”

  Kisiel sat down in his son’s desk chair and removed the trilby. He was dressed in heavy ankle boots with woollen socks turned down over them and holding the bottoms of his trousers in. A navy blue woollen shirt and a disreputable but still serviceable grey jacket clothed the upper portions of the still powerful frame.

  “I would not come running for Theo if he came here in an official capacity. As a friend, I would hasten.”

  “I understand. You mistrust us and prefer to let us know it rather than to hide the fact. That at least is honest, and honesty, however displayed, causes me no concern.”

  Josef looked up at Masters, blue eyes twinkling. “You are a man,” he said. “You do not let things disturb you.”

  “Some things do,” confided Masters, “but not a disinclination on the part of somebody such as yourself to meet me. But that is by the way. What I am here for is to ask you why you and the late Mrs Elke Carlow were enemies.”

  “Why?”

  “If there is a reason you can put into words.”

  “You have not come to ask me if I killed her? To ask me what I was doing every minute of the day on which she died?”

  “That could come, but we haven’t got that far yet.”

  “You ask me why we were enemies. The answer is because we always were.”

  Green said: “From the moment Hitler marched into Poland, you mean?”

  Kisiel nodded. “The Germans! Even now I cannot speak their name lightly.”

  Masters sat on the end of the desk. “Mrs Carlow was married to an Englishman before the war. She lived here. A young woman with a child. Did you blame her for the rape of your country?”

  “She was still a German. Listen, and I will tell you. I was a flyer. I came here before Christmas that first year. I was stationed just a mile or so beyond the fields I now own. I learned to fly Spitfires. By the next summer we were ready. But the British did not trust us. They thought we could not fight. The battle was fought by British flyers until the Few became too few. Then, because they were obliged to do so, they allowed us to join the battle. Your people had not realized that the hatred the Poles felt for the Germans made us capable and eager in action. We were angry. We fought like tigers.”

  Masters nodded. “I know the history of those days.”

  “Then you will know we were coming in for just long enough to refuel before scrambling again. We flyers stayed with our aeroplanes. And that is when they started to send in to us the mobile canteens. The local women—they worked hard. We were grateful. But there was one woman—a woman who had been pressed into service—who had come from Prussi
a.”

  “Mrs Carlow?”

  “The same. The Polish Corridor, our route to Danzig, split Prussia. The peoples who lived near there and in the Free City could understand each other’s tongues. You must imagine my surprise when a conversation with a brother officer—at a canteen truck—was understood and broken into by the woman serving tea. We had been cursing the Luftwaffe—one of our great friends had not returned that day.

  “The comment? It was a tirade against the Poles and full of praise for the Herrenvolk and the Luftwaffe fighters. We were astounded. The words we understood. But the accent was German. A Boche on a British airfield in wartime! A Boche praising the men who had shot down our comrade.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We replied to her.”

  “I’ll bet you did,” said Green.

  “Hatred had been born,” said Kisiel simply. “We were full of hatred before. Now it was running over.”

  “What action did you take?”

  “We had her removed from the airfield.”

  “At gunpoint?”

  “Our commanding officer was not happy that she should have been allowed among us,” admitted Kisiel. “He was not an English gentleman. He was an angry Pole.”

  “And?”

  “Shortly after that, you British woke up. Such people were rounded up and confined on the Isle of Man.”

  “Eighteen B,” murmured Green. “That got her out of your hair, at any rate.”

  Kisiel shook his head. “She blamed me. She believed until her death that it was I who had arranged for your police to take her. She never forgave the lowly Pole who could manage to have a Prussian put behind barbed wire.” He looked up at Masters. “You see, they regarded us as dirt. And we knew it. The hatred on both sides was implacable. When I married and decided to stay in England, I vowed that never would I again appear in her presence. From time to time she tried to damage me in other people’s eyes and in the business world, to take her revenge on me for having sent her to prison. But she never succeeded. I prayed for her death many times when lying awake at night and for her torture in hell fire. Now she is gone. But I am too drained to rejoice.”

  There was a short silence.

  “Thank you,” said Masters at last. “Your son led me to believe that—not unnaturally—your command of the English language was not great. You gave us, however, a description graphic enough to satisfy the most punctilious among us.”