Died and Gone to Devon

by TP Fielden

  Judy stepped back to allow Topham to move off but just as she did so, a young constable raced up to his boss with an urgent look on his face.

  ‘Sir! Sir! We’ve found the knife, sir!’

  Topham’s lip curled as he looked down at Miss Dimont. ‘There’s your first clue,’ he said in a surly fashion. ‘I wonder if you can work out what happened now.’

  ‘Run over by a double-decker?’ quipped Judy, but her heart lurched and she suddenly felt terribly sick.

  She watched the corpse disappear on its stretcher and with a flood of relief glimpsed Terry, discreetly framing his shots while keeping a respectful distance. It was at moments like this that she recognised he could, when he wanted, show tact and diplomacy. She caught up with him just as he was changing film.

  ‘Just going to go down to the lighthouse and get a couple there,’ he said briskly. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any visible evidence?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Judy, ‘I didn’t get that far. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Get a move on, then.’

  ‘Where’s Renishaw?’

  ‘Gone to see the editor. He’s got some theory about this killing.’

  ‘Has he now!’ said Judy, struggling to keep up with the photographer’s swift pace. ‘I wonder what that can be!’

  ‘No idea,’ said Terry, crossly. ‘He wouldn’t dream of sharing anything like that with an ’umble photographer. Come on!’

  They rounded a corner to be confronted by a lone constable, barring the way and generally ready to make a nuisance of himself. ‘It’s OK,’ they chorused, ‘Inspector Topham said we could.’

  A trick that had worked before and, as it turned out, worked again now. They walked on up to the foot of the great white tower, and Terry pulled open the door. ‘No point in waiting for an invitation,’ he said, and in that moment Judy saw him afresh.

  Terry was strong, he was resolute, he didn’t do The Times crossword, but in every other respect he was just a bit of a miracle.

  She gave him a rapturous smile.

  The thought that had formed in Miss Dimont’s mind – who on earth would want to kill such an upright citizen, one with such a promising future? – had seemingly taken hold of David Renishaw, too.

  ‘It can only be him,’ he said to Rudyard Rhys.

  ‘I don’t see why,’ grunted the editor. He hated being confronted with anything awkward, and the idea that his newspaper knew the identity of a killer before the police did created yet another problem that would probably never go away; relations between the Riviera Express and the local police being tricky, even at the best of times.

  ‘Don’t get involved,’ he advised his reporter. ‘If you feel that strongly about it, I suggest you go and see Inspector Topham. There are procedures.’

  ‘The way the police work around here, it’ll take a month of Sundays before they do anything about it – you know that. Let me go up to Hatherleigh and see what Sirraway has to say.’

  Rhys took out his filthy old pipe and started scraping away at it. ‘You didn’t actually distinguish yourself last time you were up there. Terry told me all about it. I didn’t say anything because you were still very new on the staff, and I put it down to overenthusiasm. But I don’t think I can let you go there again.’

  ‘Look,’ urged Renishaw, ‘first of all, it was Sirraway who started it. Second, he’s a dangerous lunatic – look at those attacks he made on Freddy Hungerford – and third, he was seen hanging round one of Mirabel Clifford’s political meetings only a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Who saw him?’

  ‘Denise.’

  ‘Denise who?’

  ‘One of your sub-editors, Mr Rhys. You know, the one with dark hair.’

  ‘Ah yes, the fish out of water.’

  ‘If you say so, but she told me…’

  Rhys struck a match so forcibly it broke in his fingers. ‘She’s no longer part of the staff, David.’

  ‘She still has eyes and ears.’

  ‘Rr… rrr. I want you to go and relieve Miss Dimont over at the lighthouse. Use your outstanding reporting skills to see what you can find out there. Go on, off with you.’

  ‘You’ve got this all wrong,’ replied Renishaw, angry now. ‘Here we have the chance to have a real scoop, not some second-hand piece of information processed through the dim brain of the local constabulary! Judy’s perfectly capable of covering that end of things.’

  Rhys rose out of his chair. ‘Defying your editor and refusing to cover a story is a sackable offence,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m sorry, David, things haven’t turned out as I hoped they would when you first came here.’

  ‘Come on, old boy. You sit at your desk and you make decisions, and they’re usually the wrong ones. You’re a decent enough fellow but you’re hesitant and easily distracted. You’re motivated by fear more than curiosity, and you don’t seem to have the capacity to see that the people who work for you may have talent, may actually know something. I’d be tempted to ask whether you’ve ever covered a news story yourself, but if I rose to that temptation the answer would certainly be “no”. The story’s Sirraway – Sirraway, Mr Rhys, don’t you see!’

  The editor was suddenly very calm. ‘You’re an exceptionally good reporter, Renishaw, but despite your talent you’re no good if you won’t do as you’re told. I expect my staff to obey me!’

  Renishaw looked mildly at the bewhiskered fellow in his tweed suit. ‘Are you firing me?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘You’re firing yourself. Do as I say, or go.’

  Renishaw looked at him for a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and walked out.

  The telephone on the editor’s desk rang. ‘Mr Rhys, it’s Freddy Hungerford.’

  ‘Ah, Sir Frederick. What a terrible business.’

  ‘And just when I’d come down from London to offer dear Miriam a helping hand.’

  ‘Mirabel, Sir Frederick.’

  ‘Mm? Ah yes, yes… Anyway, I’m ringing up to let you know that, with the full support of the constituency party, I’m taking up the cudgels on Miriam’s behalf and will stand for re-election in her place.’

  ‘Really? She’s been dead less than forty-eight hours.’

  ‘I know, but it’s as well to get these things settled quickly. Don’t want our opponents taking advantage of a political vacuum.’

  ‘Surely they’ll delay the election? There’s very little doubt that a candidate for political office in Westminster has been murdered. Surely a ballot can’t go ahead until that’s been cleared up?’

  ‘I think you’ll find,’ said Sir Freddy smoothly, ‘that parliamentary statute dictates that if such a tragedy were to take place at a by-election, the ballot could be stopped. But when it’s a general election, you can’t have the death of a single candidate, no matter the circumstances, upset the whole apple cart. No, we fight on!’

  Rhys stood awkwardly over his desk, trying to take notes from a standing position. It would be nice to say his shorthand was a bit rusty, but he’d never actually bothered to learn it.

  ‘Well, good luck,’ he said. ‘But there’s just one thing. It’s been widely discussed in the town that you were to take a seat in the House of Lords as a reward for your many years’ service. What will happen to your peerage?’

  ‘It’ll have to wait for me. I’m not ready to give up the ghost just yet.’

  ‘Well, as I say, good luck. I’ve made a note of what you’ve said – when will you make your first speech?’

  ‘Tonight. Outside the Town Hall. Have a reporter there, there’s a good chap.’

  Rudyard Rhys did not reply, but gently replaced the receiver just as Miss Dimont walked in. He glared at her.

  ‘You know it’s a sackable offence, disobeying your editor?’ He omitted to say he had used the same phrase not ten minutes before – people might assume he’d lost control of his staff.

  Judy looked at him. ‘I bring news from Templeton Rock. Mirabel Clifford was knifed to death.’

  ‘Good G
od. And now I have news for you – Sir Freddy is stepping into her shoes.’

  ‘What? He can’t do that! Surely they must postpone the election out of respect?’

  ‘He says not. He’ll be making his first speech tonight and I’d like you to be there.’

  ‘The peerage we’ve all been waiting for him to announce?’

  ‘It’s on hold. He’s got the backing of the local committee to stand for one more term.’

  Miss Dimont snorted. ‘Well, that’ll give a boost to Lilian Smee – and the Liberal candidate, too!’

  ‘On the contrary. When news gets out about Mrs Clifford being killed, I quite expect that people will rally to her cause. I imagine Freddy will increase his majority, if not double it.’

  ‘We’ll see. Meanwhile, what’s going on with David Renishaw? I passed him in the street and he was fuming. You’ve sent him out to Templeton Rock, I gather, but I got all there is to be had from the crime scene when I was out there. Terry’s got some excellent pictures, by the way – including the body being carted away.’

  ‘Can’t use those.’

  ‘You might think again when you see them.’

  ‘Rr… rrr.’

  ‘David said he needed to go up and find Professor Sirraway but you told him he couldn’t.’

  ‘You know what happened up there last time.’

  ‘Well, yes. On the other hand, David may have a point. I didn’t tell you this at the time, because there wasn’t any way we could print it – but Mirabel Clifford told me that Sirraway had been blackmailing her.’

  ‘Blackmail?’

  ‘He sent her a huge file on Sir Freddy alleging a large number of illegal business dealings, but also some damaging personal matters too. He said if she didn’t make them public, she would in effect be withholding important information on a public figure – she, a solicitor – and all because she hoped to inherit Hungerford’s seat in Parliament.

  ‘Sirraway then said that when he finally exposed Hungerford, he’d publicly accuse her of being complicit in the cover-up. Making sure Sir Freddy got his peerage, and she got his seat.’

  ‘The man must be mad.’

  ‘That’s what David says.’

  ‘Hmm. Are you sure it wasn’t Sirraway who attacked David?’

  ‘Well, Terry was there. At the time he said he was certain that David started it, but as we were coming back from Templeton Rock just now I asked him again, and he said he wasn’t sure any more – it was very dark, and both men were behind a five-barred gate. He could see what was going on, but the gate was in the way. He said it was more from the sound of Sirraway’s voice that he worked out who’d started it – but by the time he got there, they were each giving the other as good as they got.’

  ‘So you’re saying this professor is unbalanced, with a grievance against politicians, and prone to violence?’

  ‘That of itself doesn’t give us a murder suspect. But in the absence of anything else I’d go along with David’s idea of putting some tough questions to Sirraway.’

  ‘No, no, no! We mustn’t get involved! We’re a local newspaper, we’re here to serve the community, not to catch criminals! I advise you to go and talk to Inspector Topham – let him know about Sirraway’s blackmail attempts. Leave it to the professionals, for heaven’s sake, Judy! Let’s stay out of it!’

  ‘Oh yes? Who do you want to win this election? The Labour woman? The Liberal? Or Sir Freddy?’

  Rhys squirmed in his chair. ‘You know we’re impartial. Our stance is may the best man win.’

  ‘Man? For heaven’s sake, Richard!’

  ‘Rr… rrr… you know what I mean.’

  ‘Do I? My guess is that however awful Hungerford is, you’d rather him than one of these other candidates. If that’s the case, ask yourself what are the consequences of going to the police with Sirraway’s blackmail attempts. If you tell Inspector Topham about Hungerford stealing people’s land and buildings, and the extortion racket he ran on ladies of high birth pre-war, he’ll be duty-bound to investigate.

  ‘If Sirraway’s right in his accusations – and even if he did kill Mirabel Clifford – Freddy Hungerford would have to be brought to court. Then, if he’s found guilty, you’d find yourself with a by-election here, with the absolute guarantee of a Labour or Liberal woman representing Temple Regis. Is that what you want?’

  ‘Rr… rrr,’ said Rhys. He sounded as though he’d swallowed a fish bone.

  ‘I think, of the options available, you should let David Renishaw loose on Sirraway.’

  Rhys was wondering whether it was another sackable offence, offering your editor advice which he was forced to take, even though he’d ordered the opposite.

  ‘Get him back from the lighthouse, and brief him,’ he sighed. ‘And don’t let me see you for at least the next twenty-four hours.’

  Twenty

  Betty was putting on her make-up – Angel Face foundation, Maybelline mascara, pink Revlon non-smear lipstick – and singing the lines of her favourite song:

  ‘Hey hey, set me free

  Stupid Cupid

  Stop picking on me…’

  She’d been thinking about Dud and the surprise success of his new business venture. He looked somehow different – not the grizzly bear who’d forced her to go platinum blonde just because he had a thing about Kim Novak. He seemed more alert, more focused – and richer!

  And you could tell from the soppy look on his face the other day he was as smitten as ever. But as she applied the finishing the touches, Betty kept coming back to those sombre, wise words, Never look back, that she’d read in Athene’s column last week. No matter they were directed at the Scorpios of this world, and Betty was Aquarius – still they rang true. Athene always hit the target dead-centre.

  As Terry pointed out, Dud was on his way. It was brave of him to open a launderette when the snobs in town said it would lower the tone – bringing your dirty washing out in public was a backward step in the town’s social advancement, they said. They did not care for Dud and his lofty ambitions.

  Though it was too soon to be absolutely certain, it looked like he had a hit on his hands. Shrewdly he’d put piped music in, so that his clientele could listen to Craig Douglas and Tommy Steele while being driven dizzy by the many revolutions of his machines, and he’d opened up the back room with nice tables and chairs so there was an Espresso machine with lovely frothy coffee.

  She could do worse. And yet, and yet… it only took a decent story on the front page of the Express, with the nice big byline Mr Rhys always awarded her, to set her mind racing to Fleet Street and fame.

  Her thoughts slid to David Renishaw, who’d become something of a hero figure. They had walked out a few times, and though nothing much had come of it – beyond discovering there was no longer a Mrs Renishaw – they would still occasionally meet, two singletons in a world that seemed filled with couples. Over supper at The Chinese Singing Teacher, Betty confessed her thirst for fame and Fleet Street in the hope David could offer some advice.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Renishaw. ‘When the time is right, they’ll come and find you.’ Meaning, I don’t think you’ll make it, Betty, though I could be wrong.

  ‘I don’t want to wait any longer, David. The jobs are going to younger and younger women these days and…’ She didn’t finish, because it would only lead to her blabbing how old she was. She always did that with a man; no wonder her love life was such a rocky path.

  ‘Well, I…’ began Renishaw.

  ‘…and I’ll be twenty-seven next birthday.’ She paused. Here the more intuitive of her dates would jump in to assure her she didn’t look a day over twenty-four, but David wasn’t like that. He was tough, steely, deeply absorbed in his own thoughts. And obviously I look every day of twenty-seven to him.

  ‘You don’t think I should write in with a few ideas? I mean, this whole Professor Sirraway business would definitely make something for The Sunday Times, don’t you think? With your help we—’

 
; ‘Betty, the man’s mad. Don’t go near him – he’s going to kill somebody one of these days!’

  She thought about this as she blotted her lipstick – despite Revlon’s promises, it did smear, all over your coffee cups and fags and chaps’ collars – but it was hard to see what Renishaw was getting at; she’d spent time chatting to the professor all that time ago and though he certainly had something to get off his chest, he struck her as a talker, not a doer.

  Betty was an expert there, when it came to men and their talk. Maybe she would settle for Dud, though a large part of her would prefer to run away with Renishaw and fight to the last ditch for the rights of the underdog.

  He’d ordered her not to tell anybody about what she’d found in his desk drawer, and she’d agreed – but, being Betty, she then had to whizz back and take a second look. This time she found a file on Freddy Hungerford which hadn’t been there before, together with lots of notes in a shorthand she couldn’t decipher – Gregg, she supposed.

  No question, Renishaw was a mystery and, she had to confess, a disquieting one. It was his secretiveness, and the bees in his bonnet – Sirraway, and now Freddy Hungerford – and the way he pushed all other pleasures and pastimes aside. It made him uncomfortable company, but was that any surprise, when you hung around with the champion of the underdog?

  She stared into the mirror then tilted her head slightly, which had the rewarding effect of levelling the perm up. Satisfied with her preparations for the day, she strode out into the newsroom.

  ‘Who’s doing the Austerity Lunch?’ hollered John Ross, keen to shovel the dreary event into one of his early pages.

  ‘Not me!’ chorused Betty and Judy simultaneously. It was possibly the worst job in the diary: a bunch of earnest do-gooders giving up the price of a meal to sit down with a celebrity speaker and eat gruel. The people were dull, their sense of martyrdom insufferable, and the food was abysmal.

  ‘I did it last time,’ said Betty, looking daggers at Judy.

  ‘Only because you owed me one. It’s your turn, Betty, and anyway I have to go and see Frank Topham.’

  ‘Oh Lord. Who’s the guest bore this time, then?’