Died and Gone to Devon
Page 20
‘He sounds jolly – the Reverend Tubby Clayton. He founded Toc H, you know – a bit god-squad, but the time should sail by. Look, here’s the leaflet for this month’s talk.’ She plunked down a roneo’d sheet which set out Tubby’s talking points:
Friendship (To love widely)
Service (To build bravely)
Fair-mindedness (To think fairly)
The Kingdom of God (To witness humbly)
‘Fun, fun, fun!’ taunted Judy.
‘I can’t eat what they dish out, it’s foul.’
‘Have a sandwich before you go.’
To stifle further protest, Judy picked up her bag and marched purposefully out of the newsroom. The walk through the town was, as usual, a complete delight and she arrived at the police station with her spirits lifted, if not her expectations.
‘Nothing really to add,’ said Topham, predictably. ‘Mrs Clifford was killed, you know that. With a knife, you know that. Day before yesterday, you know that. The killer is still at large and police are using every effort within their powers to identify and detain him.’
‘Him?’
‘We assume so.’
‘Motive?’
‘Ah, there you are driving me into the arms of speculation, Miss Dimont. We are following up several leads.’
‘Meaning you haven’t a clue.’
‘If I hadn’t known you as long as I have, I’d call that impertinent.’
Better than incompetent, which is what you lot are, thought Judy. ‘Can I just establish that Mrs Clifford was due to make an appearance at the Templeton Light as part of her election campaigning?’
‘Correct.’
‘But that was one or two days ahead – why would she go there in advance, when she must have had her hands full elsewhere?’
‘That I cannot say.’
‘The murder weapon?’
‘A professional fish-gutting knife, probably stolen from the dockside.’
‘Oh,’ shuddered Judy the woman, not the reporter, ‘how horrible!’
‘Very upsetting,’ conceded Topham. ‘That’s not for publication, by the way.’
‘And there was nobody manning the Light when she arrived, no witness?’
‘Doesn’t take a genius to work out that their job is at night, Miss Dimont. The two men were both in town.’
‘What’s happened to her children?’
‘Leave them out of this,’ warned Topham. ‘Again not for publication, they’re with their aunt in Surrey.’
‘Inquest?’
‘Next Thursday.’
‘Anything else I should know?’
‘As you can imagine, I’m rather busy,’ said Topham absently, gathering up his papers and rising from his desk. ‘I think you know the way out by now.’
Judy wandered slowly back to the office trying to piece together what had happened, if not why. Mirabel Clifford had planned to go to the lighthouse for a photo-opp – a way of displaying her interest in the lives of others while giving photographers the opportunity to picture her somewhere more attractive than sitting at her office desk.
These events take a few minutes only, and need little preparation – why did she come out to the lighthouse two days prior to the event? And who was with her?
As she strolled into Fore Street she could see ahead a crowd standing in a semi-circle round a tall individual, and as she drew closer she could make out the brilliantined head of Sir Freddy Hungerford, talking nineteen to the dozen and pumping his fist to emphasise each point.
Rudyard Rhys had ignored the MP’s instruction to send a reporter to his hustings, and told his staff he was in no hurry to oblige the politician, but her innate curiosity led Judy to join the crowd. She hadn’t seen Hungerford since he’d double-crossed her in the house of his mistress before Christmas. She was curious to see what effect he was having on the electorate – could the Hungerford magic weave one last spell after all the years of neglect?
The answer was yes and no. The old faithfuls cheered him, but the younger voters were tossing him some sharp questions.
‘And that’s about it, my friends,’ Hungerford was saying. ‘I’m expected at another meeting down by the lifeboat, if anybody wants to come along. I say the same thing over and over again, but it improves with the telling.’
A few laughed politely. ‘But I can’t finish without paying tribute again to Miriam… er… er… and the tireless work she put into preparing for this election. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than if she was standing here.’
‘And you was warming your arse in the House of Lords,’ shouted an unbeliever. Hungerford was far too smooth an operator, and bowed his head as if in deference to the oafish interruption.
Judy had her notebook out but there was little to report, she’d arrived too late. As the MP shook some hands and separated himself from the crowd, she was approached by a pink-cheeked man in a striped suit.
‘Local press, is it?’
Judy looked him up and down. ‘In a manner of speaking.’ She always regarded with caution men who wore pinstripes in the country.
‘Hamish Madden, what a pleasure to meet you.’
I’m not sure that’s mutual. ‘Judy Dimont, Riviera Express. You’re with Sir Freddy, I take it.’
‘With Sir Freddy, and for Sir Freddy! Look at him – younger than springtime, I don’t know how he does it!’ The way he said it, she wondered if he’d been drinking.
‘You didn’t waste much time getting down here.’
‘We came down to support Mirabel.’
‘He calls her Miriam.’
‘Ha! Ha!’ cried the man, ‘Freddy’s pet name for her!’
‘Pet name? Not so long ago he didn’t even know who she was.’
‘Ha! Ha!’ whooped the man. ‘You are funny! I hope you’re going to give him a good write-up, he relies on the local press you know – he’d be nowhere without it!’
‘Nor we without him.’
‘Ha! Ha! It’s so good to meet you, Miss er…’ There were flecks of spittle at the corners of his mouth. ‘Are you coming on to the lifeboat station? A few words, press the flesh, then we’ll all go for a jolly good lunch somewhere.’
‘An excellent idea,’ replied Judy, nodding. ‘We need to keep up with what’s going on in Sir Freddy’s campaign. But before we do, there are a couple of questions I’d like to ask, just to catch up with the changeover of candidate.’ She looked at his pink cheeks. ‘I don’t know if you know it, but the Fortescue Arms here has a lovely little upstairs bar overlooking the square. You can spare ten minutes, I take it?’
The pinstripe man’s eyes looked greedily at the inn sign. ‘My treat,’ he said winningly. ‘Sir Fred’s given me an unlimited budget.’
‘To bribe the local press?’
‘What? Oh! Ha, ha!’
From where Judy sat, while Hamish Madden busied himself with the drinks, she could look down on the Market Square where only months before Mirabel Clifford had sought her out, taken her back to her office, and shared the secrets of genial Sir Freddy’s vast fortune. Now she was dead, and the great wheel of the body politic had rolled over her corpse, leaving her memory crushed and, all too soon, to be forgotten.
‘Cheer-ho!’ said Madden as he brought the drinks back. He’d had an extra one at the bar.
‘So you’re part of the hustings team, taken on to steer him round the constituency?’
‘Yes indeed!’
‘Just as well – it’s been so long since Sir Frederick was here he’ll need reminding where the Town Hall is.’
‘Oh, ho ho! You are funny.’
‘No, Mr Madden, I merely repeat what a lot of people in Temple Regis feel – that he’s a rotten MP who can’t be bothered to come and meet the people who elected him. They expect better.’
‘Well, they’re wrong. I work with Sir Freddy in the Commons. It’s often a fractious relationship because he cares very much about the constituency but there are so many other calls on his time – business,
diplomacy, and so forth. He travels a great deal and devotes himself – devotes himself – to charitable work. There aren’t enough hours in the day, and it’s my job to keep him on the straight and narrow, balance up his workload.’ He took a satisfied gulp.
This is nice for you, thought Miss Dimont, for a moment in your life you’re allowed to talk about yourself. How you help to make the MP into the great figure he appears in public. And how many more of you are there in the House of Commons?
‘I don’t know about you,’ said Judy, eyeing his glass, ‘but the heat out there is making me thirsty. Let me get you a refill.’ If he continues drinking at this rate, my purse will be empty in no time.
‘Well, if you insist. I’ve got a slate going, just put it on that.’
‘Well, that’s very kind.’ He was obviously in no rush to join his master and the lifeboatmen, or indeed ever move from his seat again. We could be here for some time, thought Judy.
She returned from the bar to find Madden looking thirsty and careworn – she noticed for the first time that the shirt he was wearing was not fresh, and the knot in his tie was awry.
‘Must be hard work, keeping up with Sir Freddy,’ she said encouragingly.
‘Well, he’s an unforgiving taskmaster but I feel I owe it to him. I went through a bad patch a couple of years ago and he helped me out. So now I’m his slave. Ha! Ha!’
Judy was thinking of Mirabel. ‘Do you know the name Hector Sirraway?’
‘Do I not. He’s been pursuing this vendetta against Sir Freddy for the past few months, it’s terrible. Sending letters, talking to people, turning up to meetings and disrupting them – what a ghastly fellow. They really ought to lock him up.’
‘Have you been to the police?’
Madden drew back, looking at her sideways. ‘I thought we were talking about the smooth transition of the candidacy from Mirabel Clifford back to Sir Freddy. What’s this about?’
‘Well, there are certain things going on here… it’s difficult, Hamish. I may call you Hamish?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. What things?’
‘I happen to know Sirraway was attempting to blackmail Sir Freddy. I know certain things which haven’t come out into the open and which I feel sure Sir Freddy wouldn’t want, either. But since the issue is between him and the professor, surely the simplest solution would be to call in the police? It might help clear up one or two other things as well.’
‘Well, since you know these things, I’ll be frank. No point in going to the police because what Sirraway claims isn’t – how can I put it? – it isn’t exactly wrong.’
‘The land deals? The acquisition of other people’s property?’
‘All I will say is, may not be wrong. Another?’
Crikey, we’ve only been here fifteen minutes and he’s on his third. Or is it fourth?
‘Yes, please.’ This man Madden is going to make me very drunk and I’m going to regret it, but he’s slowly opening up – who knows where this may go?
Miss Dimont thrilled at the challenge – can I get him to say enough before I get so drunk I forget it all? I can’t make notes, after all.
‘There! Doubles!’ cried Madden, returning. ‘Saves the tiresome business of getting up every five minutes.’
‘Shouldn’t you be down at the lifeboat station?’
‘Freddy’s got his secretary there to hold his hand. Delia. And here I am working hard on his behalf, doing my duty chatting up the local press. Ha! Ha!’ He sniffed his glass and looked at Judy over its rim. ‘We were saying?’
‘So Professor Sirraway won’t leave him alone. Tell me, was it him who hit Sir Freddy outside the House of Commons? Nobody ever got to the bottom of that.’
‘It was me, actually.’ Madden’s cheeks had, if anything, grown pinker and he seemed rather proud of his confession.
‘What? You assaulted your own employer in the street?’
‘We’re not on the record, are we? You’re not going to print this?’
‘Just background,’ said Judy reassuringly. ‘In-fill. You know, it’s wonderful to hear what life’s like at Westminster behind the scenes. Usually all we get is what the politicians want us to hear. This is fascinating – do go on!’
‘Well,’ said Madden, rising to the bait, ‘as long as we’re off the record… It was all a bit of a stunt which didn’t quite come off.’
‘But you’re still working for him?’
‘Oh yes, he couldn’t get by without me. Actually, he paid me to do it – to hit him and run away. Outside St Stephen’s Entrance. I had to make sure there was no policeman patrolling around before I did it, but there had to be witnesses.’
Judy leaned forward. ‘I’ve never heard anything remotely like this in the whole of my career. A distinguished MP actually pays one of his staff to assault him?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘Tell me, please, what on earth’s behind it.’
Madden looked tremendously pleased with himself. Once again they were talking about him, not the man in whose shadow he had long walked. ‘I need two promises from you first.’
‘What are they?’
‘That you’ll write something nice about him so I can say I set it up. And that you promise not to repeat the next bit until the day you die.’
‘I will – I’ll do both.’ And I’ll uncross my fingers under the table before they stick together.
‘I hit him too hard. I suppose I then got carried away and knocked him about a bit.’
‘I saw the evidence. You broke his nose.’
‘He’d just had some terribly bad news and he wanted some sympathy. So it was arranged that he would walk out of St Stephen’s Entrance, I would come up and biff him, the press would get to hear about it and then they would write nice things about what a wonderful old trouper he was.’
‘Sorry,’ said Judy, shaking her head slightly, ‘I don’t follow.’
‘He’d decided to stay on as MP for Temple Regis, and he wanted the press behind him.’
‘But his successor had already been announced! Mirabel Clifford!’
‘I don’t think he ever took that seriously. Women – in Parliament?’ Madden emitted a heehawing noise.
‘But she’d been selected! Chosen! Announced! She was ready to get going the moment the election was called!’
‘Freddy has been MP for this constituency since the Norman Conquest. A word or two in the right ear would have sorted that out – Mrs Clifford would have withdrawn on health grounds or some such, with the promise she could stand again next time.’
‘That’s a disgrace!’
‘Politics, my dear,’ said Hamish Madden, leaning across the table and staring at her unevenly, ‘is the art of the possible. It’s what you can get away with that counts – and make no mistake, Sir Freddy would have got away with it.’
‘So why didn’t he?’
‘Ah, as I said. This is where I hold up my hand and say mea culpa. The plan was that after I floored him he would get up, jump in a taxi, go home, and call the Press Association. They would come round and he would describe the assault, while making sure everyone understood he was such a devoted MP he wouldn’t take a day off work, and he would be in Westminster, taking care of his constituents, the following day.’
Madden took a long gulp of whisky and put down the empty glass.
‘That’s when it really went wrong. I gave him what for, and he went down pretty hard. I think he must have been a bit concussed because instead of giving the taxi driver his home address, he gave him the address of Mrs… oh, I won’t say the name… a friend.’
Judy looked at him shrewdly. ‘Mrs Baines of 35 Ebury Street.’
‘How… how do you know that?’
‘I dropped in to see them both quite soon after your fisticuffs. He didn’t tell you?’
‘Not a dickybird.’
‘He gave me his exclusive account of what’d happened in front of the House of Commons in Mrs Baines’ parlour. I wen
t away to write it up for the Riviera Express, but the moment I left he hopped in a cab and went home to Lady Hungerford. From there he went back to Plan A, calling the Daily Herald and giving them his sob-story. That got him the sympathetic press he’d hoped for.’
‘It certainly did – page one everywhere!’
‘So why didn’t he go ahead with his plan to grab the seat back from Mrs Clifford?’
‘Ah,’ said Madden. ‘His mistake. He called the party chairman from Mrs Baines’ house and he wasn’t available, and so he left Mrs Baines’ number. When the chairman called back and Mrs Baines answered – and with what followed in the press the next day – the chairman put two and two together. There’s been a nationwide hunt on for Sir Freddy, and there he was, hiding in his lady friend’s house. The local branch took rather a dim view of that and told him they were sticking with Mrs Clifford.’
‘But why? Why this extraordinary rigmarole? Why did he want to hang onto his position when he had a seat in the House of Lords waiting for him?’
‘Ah,’ said Madden, his words slurring now. ‘What I told you, about his having had bad news. A certain person in a certain Palace spreading ridiculous ideas about him, making life very difficult for the poor chap. Apparently to do with something that happened pre-war, I don’t know the details.’
‘Let me guess. He had a hand in the violent death of a married woman.’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ said Madden, without turning a hair. ‘I say, this is awfully jolly – shall we have another? Only could you get it? My legs feel a bit wobbly.’
Twenty-One
Dickie Valentine was on the radio. His cloying tones did nothing for Miss Dimont’s king-sized hangover.
‘Just as soon as they can make the guilty one confess I know exactly what I’m gonna do…
‘Who’s bound to be the guilty one, who?
The finger of suspicion points at you…’
The trouble is, she thought as she switched the radio off, the finger of suspicion points at nobody. Yesterday, as she sat in the Ladies at the back of the Fort desperately trying to scribble down everything Madden had told her, the revelation had come in a blinding flash.
Sir Freddy Hungerford had killed his political rival in order to keep his seat at Westminster.