Suddenly While Gardening

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘I seem to remember from the Kittitoe case that you know this area well,’ he said, ‘so perhaps you can clear up a point that’s puzzling me. Even if the chap was sleeping rough, surely he’d have some sort of overnight shelter in mind? He couldn’t possibly have made Biddle Bay by dark, starting off so late in the day, and all that north coast of Cattesmoor seems uninhabited moorland on the map.’

  ‘My guess is that he made for the old tin workings,’ Henry Landfear replied. ‘They’re marked on the one-inch map, but you probably thought it just meant shafts and bits of rusty old machinery lying around. Actually there are several stone buildings still standing in various stages of decay. They’d give more protection than the lookout, come to that. That’s the sort of thing that gets passed round in footloose circles.’

  ‘How far are they from the lookout?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘About eight or nine miles. After that the path gives out, and there’s nothing till you get to the farms this side of Biddle. He could have made Biddle the next day all right.’

  ‘Farms? They might be worth contacting, perhaps? He could have tried a bit of scrounging. More hopeful than enquiries in Biddle itself after all this time. It would have been full of visitors in Easter week.’

  Henry Landfear agreed, and advised a personal call on Superintendent Pratt at the police station.

  ‘He’s a very decent chap, and I know he’ll do all he can for you at that end. But I agree that it’s not promising, unless your bloke got run in, for instance, or was involved in an accident.’

  Pollard thanked him and went on his way. When Toye reappeared they spent some time studying large-scale maps of the district. Assuming that the youth seen by the Hawkins family had pushed on towards Biddle Bay, the old tin workings seemed a credible — in fact, the only credible — spot for him to spend the night of Easter Monday. However, after an interval of fourteen months it seemed a waste of time to search for any traces of him there. It was possible, of course, that he had been seen by other walkers, either on the Monday afternoon or on resuming his way towards Biddle Bay. After all, it was a holiday season.

  ‘Most likely he’d meet up with somebody nearer Biddle,’ Toye said. ‘Look, there’s a road out to the farms which must be good enough for cars. It goes a bit further, and then there’s a mile or two of footpath marked. People’d take their cars as far as they could, and then park ’em and have a bit of a walk. What about putting out another appeal for information?’

  ‘It’s an idea,’ Pollard replied, ‘but we’d better wait and see if anything more comes in from the first two. We don’t want to muddle the public. And of course there are other possibilities. We don’t know that the chap didn’t think better of it and turn back to Stoneham. And there’s another highly suggestive possibility, isn’t there? Look at the map. If you cut across the moor roughly south from the tin workings, you land up either at or very near Starbarrow Farm, don’t you?’

  ‘You wouldn’t expect a chap like that to have a map,’ Toye propounded. ‘How would he have known where he’d fetch up?’

  ‘The C.C. thinks a certain amount of information about possible pads circulates among the rootless.’

  They sat in silence for some moments, visualising a possible arrival at the farm and its outcome.

  ‘Hold it,’ Pollard said suddenly. ‘What was the date of Easter last year?’

  ‘30 March,’ Toye replied, consulting a pocket diary.

  ‘Remember that Ling said the place was unoccupied for a few weeks at the end of March last year?’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘If it’s true, and it ought to be easy to check up on, could it be that the chap blundered into some funny business? Here, this is the wildest speculation. We’ve no evidence that he didn’t make for Biddle. We’ll go over there after breakfast tomorrow and get some enquiries started.’ Pollard yawned prodigiously. ‘I’m for bed,’ he concluded. ‘This day seems to have been going on for ever.’

  Chapter 4

  While dressing on the following morning Pollard wondered how early they could decently descend on Superintendent Pratt at Biddle Bay. It seemed only fair to let the chap deal with his own immediate problems and the morning’s mail first. Meanwhile he and Toye could profitably fill in time by finding out the exact dates between which Starbarrow Farm had been unoccupied in the spring of 1975. The journey out there was time-consuming, and it seemed worth trying a phone call to Geoffrey Ling, even if the net result was the slamming down of the receiver at the other end. Anyway, the immediate priority was a decent breakfast, which, if he remembered rightly, you could bank on in this particular pub. Going down to the dining room he saw Toye in a far corner engrossed in the menu and was immediately intercepted by a posse of newsmen strategically placed near the door.

  ‘Not a syllable,’ he told them, ‘until I’ve knocked back what hotel brochures call a full, repeat, full English breakfast.’

  Unmoved by their groans and protests he joined Toye, and addressed himself to cereal, bacon and eggs with sausages, tomatoes and mushrooms, toast and marmalade and coffee, while sketching out a proposed course of action.

  ‘Even if we get dates out of Ling,’ he said, ‘they’ll have to be checked. We can probably push that on to the Yard, though.’

  An informal press conference followed in the hotel car park. Pollard listened with enjoyment to an account of an attempt to interview Geoffrey Ling at the farm, and then diverted attention to the Hawkins family, the lookout and the disused tin workings. This handout was received enthusiastically and had the desired effect of a rapid dispersal.

  ‘With any luck,’ Pollard remarked as he got into the car, ‘most of ’em will spend the best part of the day trying to get to the tin workings, weighed down with cameras and wearing town shoes. We’ll make for the station, and I’ll put a call through to Ling. You can listen in and take notes.’

  At the police station they learnt that a report had come in from a man claiming to have seen a youth who corresponded with the broadcast description, in a Stoneham pub on the evening of Easter Sunday, 1975. This report was being further investigated. Several more people had visited the Starbarrow kistvaen recently, and one of these had found it empty on the Friday afternoon of the previous week. This usefully narrowed the time during which the skeleton could have been deposited there.

  Pollard’s telephone call to Starbarrow Farm was answered promptly by a truculent Geoffrey Ling.

  ‘If you’re the Press, then go to hell and stay there,’ he was told.

  ‘Superintendent Pollard speaking, Mr Ling,’ he replied. ‘Good morning. I’m ringing you for further information. What were the actual dates when your house was unoccupied in the spring of last year?’

  He sensed at once that the question was unwelcome. There was a pause followed by an abusive outburst.

  ‘I’m not standing for any more bloody police persecution,’ Geoffrey Ling shouted.

  As he moved the receiver several inches from his ear, Pollard suddenly recalled a remark of the chief constable’s.

  ‘Rather an inexact word in the present context,’ he commented. ‘Not what one would expect from your expertise in making up crosswords.’

  ‘Damn your eyes!’ Geoffrey Ling retorted, his tone conveying, however, a hint of gratification. ‘Oh, all right, since Britain’s become a police state. 20 March to 4 April.’

  Thank you. We shall need confirmation, though. Were you and your wife on holiday?’

  A cackle of laughter further lightened the atmosphere.

  ‘On a relict’s non-stop larder holiday, say.’

  ‘How many letters?’ Pollard asked, making a reassuring gesture in the direction of a startled Toye at the telephone extension, and mentally thanking Providence for recent sessions at The Times crossword with Aunt Is.

  ‘Five.’

  ‘What travel firm did you book your cruise with?’ he asked.

  ‘Wave Wanderers,’ Geoffrey Ling replied, too taken aback for comment. />
  After this Pollard had little difficulty in extracting the information he wanted. Geoffrey Ling, his wife, and their daughter Kate had driven to London Airport on 20 March, and flown from there to Venice, where they had embarked in the cruise ship Triton. On 2 April they returned to London, and spent two nights in an hotel in South Kensington before driving home on 4 April.

  Pollard decided to revert to the subject of the empty farm house.

  ‘And during your absence no one was living at Starbarrow Farm, Mr Ling?’ he asked, and sensed an immediate return to wariness.

  ‘If they were, it was without my knowledge and consent.’

  ‘Did either you or your wife or daughter notice any sign of anyone having been on the premises when you returned?’

  ‘I didn’t. If they did, they said nothing about it to me.’

  ‘Before you went away, did you arrange for anybody to come out and do jobs? A builder, for instance?’

  ‘I’m not such a bloody fool as to invite people to come messing about on my property. Not that some types wait for an invitation.’

  ‘Can you suggest any caller who may have come uninvited, then?’

  ‘No, I can’t,’ Geoffrey Ling roared. ‘And I’m not answering any more blasted questions, that’s that.’ He slammed the receiver down violently.

  Pollard pushed the telephone aside and rested his folded arms on the table.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Why does he get so hot under the collar when any interest’s shown in the time when the house was shut up? Obviously he either knows or suspects something offbeat happened in his absence.’

  ‘Can’t see him fixing up for somebody to murder our chap while he was safely out of the country, can you?’ Toye replied.

  ‘No. Too complicated and dangerous, I should have thought, for anybody who isn’t a professional gangster. I suppose he could be one, though. Appearances can be highly deceptive. I wonder what the Yard are unearthing about him? Let’s hope they’ll get a move on. Could he be shielding someone?’

  Their eyes met.

  ‘AQW 227N?’ Toye suggested.

  ‘The girl’s boyfriend,’ Pollard said meditatively. ‘Then whose was the funny sort of voice? Deep and sort of hoarse. You know, all this is wild speculation, Toye. The job right now is to try to pick up our chap after he left the lookout. We’d better make tracks for the superintendent at Biddle. Why are you looking so put out?’

  ‘That crossword clue Ling had the nerve to try on you. I can’t get there. What’s a relict?’

  ‘A widow. In this case the old girl whose C-R-U-S-E of oil never ran out when she was making little cakes for Elijah. What shameful ignorance of Holy Writ in someone who’s been a churchwarden...’

  Superintendent Pratt of Biddle Bay was gratified by a visit from Pollard, and anxious to give any help he could. At the same time he held out little hope of an individual youth of hippy type being remembered from among the Easter holiday crowd of 1975.

  ‘There are any number of that sort around these days, Mr Pollard,’ he said. ‘Unless he made himself conspicuous in some way, I can’t see any particular one sticking in people’s minds, not after all this time. Still, we’ll make a start by looking up our records. Lads like that can get mixed up in all sorts of trouble, as I’m sure I’ve no need to tell you.’

  The records for the period were unproductive. No youth with the physical characteristics of the skeleton found in the Starbarrow kistvaen had fallen foul of the Biddle Bay police. The chief constable’s idea of making enquiries at the Cottage Hospital was followed up, but again with a negative result.

  ‘Sleeping rough as he was, it doesn’t seem likely that he’d have taken a room here,’ Superintendent Pratt said. ‘I’ll have enquiries made, though, down in what we call the Old Town, where folk aren’t too particular who they take in, as long as it’s cash down in advance. Sheds out at the back, you see, and old caravans and whatever. The district M.O.H. is always on about it.’

  ‘Suppose our chap came all the way along the cliffs and into Biddle on that side,’ Pollard suggested. ‘Your C.C. said something about farms that he might have called at on the chance of a job or a handout.’

  Superintendent Pratt produced a large scale map.

  ‘There are a couple of farms all right,’ he replied, pointing them out. ‘Here, on this minor road. It goes on another mile or so, and then fades out into a path which a hiker coming westward would pick up. But I doubt if the sort of chap you’re after would hang around the farms. The farmers’ve had so much trouble with holidaymakers that they keep pretty fierce dogs, and there are notices warning people off. I’ll send one of my men along, though, just on chance, and he can call at the houses on the outskirts of the town, too. I’ll ring you at Stoneham if we get on to anything.’

  Pollard was suitably grateful for these offers of help, but it was clear that nothing further was to be gained by prolonging his visit. After a short friendly chat he left with Toye, feeling depressed. It was obvious that the chances of picking up the trail of the chap seen at the lookout were extremely poor. And that went for the chance of tracking down a contact between him and some unknown person which might eventually lead to the Starbarrow kistvaen. Of course he might never have come on to Biddle, in which case all the enquiries there were a sheer waste of time. Weighed down by a feeling of frustration, Pollard sat in gloomy silence as Toye waited at the exit from the car park for a chance to edge out into the stream of traffic. Pedestrians hurried past the Rover’s bonnet with faintly curious glances at Toye and himself. Suddenly a brisk grey-headed figure with a full shopping basket in each hand came in sight.

  With an exclamation Pollard rapidly let the window down further and put out his head.

  ‘Aunt Is!’

  ‘Tom!’ Isabel Dennis came up to the car, her face alight with pleasure. ‘What incredible luck! I knew you were at Stoneham, of course, but didn’t think there was a hope of seeing you... And Inspector Toye here too... Where are you off to now?’

  ‘Back to Stoneham.’

  ‘Now listen, my dear boy. It’s after twelve already. It won’t take you any longer to pop up to the cottage for bread and cheese and beer than it would to fight your way into a stuffy crowded bar when you get back. You two go on ahead. The mini’s only a couple of minutes from here, and I’ll follow on.’

  ‘Sounds all right, don’t you think?’ Pollard asked Toye, who replied decorously that it would be most enjoyable, and very good of Miss Dennis.

  ‘O.K., then, Aunt. Be seeing you. This is great,’ he told her.

  As they nosed their way out on to the Stoneham road he was surprised to find that his depression had magically lifted, and decided that it must be because of a temporary escape from his case into normal human relationships. For a few moments he indulged in a fantasy of arriving at the cottage and finding Jane and the twins still there.

  ‘No, old son,’ he said firmly to Toye as they turned left and began to climb up to Holston, ‘you are not, repeat not, going to slope off to the pub for your snack. Aunt would be affronted. You and she absolutely clicked that time she gave you breakfast.’

  ‘I remember that breakfast,’ Toye said reminiscently. He gave Pollard a quick glance. ‘We were properly up against it that time, weren’t we?’

  ‘Point taken,’ Pollard replied with a grin. ‘Funny isn’t it, how the job you’re on always seems the all-time worst? You must admit this one’s a stinker though, and I’ve got a nasty feeling that we haven’t really started to get to grips with it yet... Here we are, and I think I hear the mini. I bet Aunt Is knows a short cut out of the town.’

  They were soon seated at a table in the kitchen window, enjoying a substantial snack which included homemade bread and tomato chutney, and cans of ice-cold beer from the refrigerator.

  ‘This is super,’ Pollard said, munching contentedly. ‘Aunt, in spite of your well-known discretion, I suppose you’re consumed with curiosity about my skeleton, aren’t you?’

 
‘Of course I am,’ Isabel Dennis replied. ‘I’ve got a proprietary interest. After all, if you hadn’t been staying here, you wouldn’t have started off on Possel and got involved, would you?’

  ‘Almost certainly true. Well, I can’t see why you shouldn’t have a preview of today’s evening papers and news on the box. On Easter Monday, 1975, a worthy Stoneham family called Hawkins took a picnic lunch up to the old coastguards’ lookout on the cliffs west of the estuary...’

  Isabel Dennis listened with absorbed attention, at the same time keeping generous supplies of food and drink in circulation. When the narrative came to an end she was silent for a few moments.

  ‘Now let me recap,’ she said. ‘You’ve accepted that the Starbarrow skeleton is the skeleton of the man the Hawkins family saw?’

  ‘Yes,’ Pollard replied, ‘we’re prepared to accept that. Anything else would be quite unacceptably fantastic coincidence because of the tie-up with the pathologist’s report, wouldn’t it, Toye?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Toye agreed. ‘You see, Miss Dennis, it’s the business of the hair, and Linda Hawkins being a hairdresser’s apprentice that clinches it.’

  ‘So there we are,’ Pollard took up, ‘and there we’re stuck at the moment. The chap emerges from the lookout with his clobber on his back and heads for Biddle, where the chances of picking up his trail seem practically nil.’

  His aunt gave him a sharp look.

  ‘He needn’t have gone to Biddle at all. If he camped overnight at the old tin workings, which seems a reasonable suggestion, he could perfectly well have headed south from there. If he did, he would probably have gone round Starbarrow and arrived within sight of the farm, as you’ll have spotted for yourselves.’

  ‘Yes, we have, actually. But at this point we run into something unexpected and interesting. Starbarrow Farm was unoccupied from 20 March to 4 April. The three Lings were on a Mediterranean cruise. We haven’t actually had confirmation from the shipping company yet, but Geoffrey Ling isn’t fool enough to lie about a thing like that.’