Unhappy Returns

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘I expect Mr Aldridge was the first,’ Pollard hazarded. ‘He had to leave the court early because of his weekly stores delivery, didn’t he?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t,’ Martha Rook replied with a slight sniff. ‘The fuss there’d been, you’d think Pyrford Village Stores was one of those big London shops like Harrods. And he was nearly late for the Snip van, too, and I wonder he didn’t meet with an accident, the reckless way he was driving to get here ahead of it, turning into the village as if he was on one of those motorways. I reckon he’d been round the Marchester wholesale depots after cheap fruit, and ran himself late. Turned the quarter to the hour it was.’

  Toye remarked that it was wonderful how these big delivery vans managed to keep to schedule.

  ‘That’s right,’ Martha Rook agreed. ‘Wednesdays, three o’clock, and near as no matter except in the summer holiday season when the roads are choked up with visitors’ cars. Last Wednesday the church clock had just struck the hour when it drew up. It has to park half on the green, being one of those long vehicles that never ought to be allowed, not in this country. The road over there would be blocked, else. But I’ll say it’s wonderful how quick they unload the stuff with that little platform going up and down, and those big trolleys.’

  ‘It doesn’t take long these days,’ Toye said. ‘I expect the van was soon off again?’

  ‘Quarter to four, it went. Mind you, there are empties of one sort or another to take on, and Mrs Aldridge always has a cup of tea ready for the man. George Aldridge backed his own van into the yard, and slammed the doors shut right away. Very careful none of his stores get pinched, is George.’

  ‘Who did get back first, Miss Rook?’ Pollard asked, harking back to his original question.

  ‘Mrs Redshaw, wife of the writer up at the Old Rectory. She was back about ten minutes before George Aldridge. She didn’t go past here, of course, but turned up Church Lane to the house. Been doing a bit of shopping in Marchester, I daresay, getting some of those foreign things to eat that they’re so fond of. My friend Mrs Tucker who works for her mornings says she wouldn’t touch the stuff, not if you paid her. Mr Redshaw was later. He’d’ve been looking things up in the library at Marchester for his books. Just on five it was, when he turned in. She’s got her own car: petrol’s nothing to them. Writes poetry, she does. Very nice, some of it.’

  When he could stem the flow Pollard managed to elicit the times of return of other residents who had come back from Marchester in their own cars.

  ‘By the way,’ he asked casually, ‘did you happen to notice when Mr Sandford of Ambercombe came home?’

  ‘He never,’ Martha Rook replied categorically. ‘Not Wednesday night. You can’t miss that old rattleshaker of his going by. I reckon he was out on the tiles. I was on the listen for the coach, what’s more, and when a lot of ’em crammed in here it was that hot I opened a bit of window. I’d’ve heard him, right enough, if he’d come back.’

  In reply to further questions they learnt that Mrs Tucker and other cronies of Martha Rook’s had hurried across to her cottage on disembarking from the coach at approximately six-thirty, and she had been regaled with a detailed account of the morning’s astonishing events in the Chapter House.

  ‘What did you make of this story of a jewelled chalice, Miss Rook?’ Pollard asked, as soon as he could get a word in.

  ‘A lot of rubbish,’ she replied robustly. ‘Living up there on her own, and missing old Mr Viney after being his housekeeper all those years, it’s not surprising that she was getting fancies, poor soul.’

  ‘I expect other people off the coach went in to tell Mr Aldridge how things had gone in court during the afternoon?’ Pollard tried tentatively.

  ‘Nobody’d stayed after the end of the morning. Dull as ditchwater it’d got after Ethel Ridd marched out, they all said. Anyway, the Stores shut at six o’clock sharp, and George Aldridge wouldn’t have demeaned himself to come out and hear the news from all the rag, tag and bobtail. He’d reckon it was Rector’s business to let him know, him being churchwarden.’

  Rather reluctantly Pollard decided that it would be unwise to question her further at this stage on George Aldridge’s movements after the departure of the Snip van at a quarter to four. In any case he could easily have slipped out in the gathering dusk, and returned later without her seeing him. There was no street lighting in the village.

  ‘Could Aldridge have slipped out after he put his van away, and somehow made the trip to Ambercombe vicarage without his wife knowing?’ he said, as they walked across the green five minutes later. ‘Impossible, I should think, and the idea of them conspiring to murder Ridd seems a bit melodramatic. We’ll go and have a look at them both though… What’s biting you?’

  Toye had come to a halt beside a small blue van which bore the inscription PYRFORD VILLAGE STORES G. M. Aldridge, in bold white lettering.

  ‘Nice little job,’ he remarked. ‘Get you here from Marchester in forty minutes, easy. You’d think that if getting back for his stock delivery mattered enough to contract out of the court hearing, that he wouldn’t have run it so fine.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Pollard said. ‘If he’s the shrewd businessman Martha Rook hinted, it could hang together all right. Tempting offers for boxes of apples and whatever at the wholesalers, and then getting caught up in a traffic jam. He seems to have got a flourishing little emporium from the look of it.’

  They contemplated the display of groceries in the shop window, most of which carried labels indicating special offers, exceptional bargains and finest quality. A gay poster with a border of holly and robins advertising Christmas goods within recommended an early visit. Useful hardware in the shape of dustbins and gardening implements was grouped on the pavement. As Pollard opened the door the shrilling of an electric bell proclaimed their arrival. A dark man in a white coat who gave the impression of striking an attitude greeted them effusively from behind the counter.

  ‘Only this morning I was saying to Rector that we’d be seeing you gentlemen about the parish again today, and it’s a comfort to every man and woman in the place to know Scotland Yard’s here to clear up this dreadful business. And if there’s anything in the world either Mrs Aldridge or I can do to be of service to you, gentlemen, you’ve only to say the word, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Pollard replied. ‘At the moment we’re just making a routine check on information already received. May we have a word with you in private, if it’s convenient?’

  ‘Certainly, sir, if you’d kindly step this way.’ George Aldridge raised a counter flap, emerged and lowered it again with an economy of movement born of long practice. ‘My office is out at the back. We shan’t be disturbed. My wife’ll take over, won’t you, dear? Not that it’s a busy time, early afternoon midweek. Not at this time of year, that is.’

  Pollard’s good afternoon was echoed by the woman behind the grille of the post office section of the counter, but he noticed that she barely raised her eyes from a form she was filling in as he passed. The office to which he and Toye were conducted was uncomfortably cramped, and fitted up to an extent which struck him as high-powered for so modest a business. With some difficulty they manoeuvred themselves on to the two chairs facing George Aldridge across his flat-topped desk. The latter had already embarked on an unsolicited account of Ethel Ridd’s shopping habits. Letting it flow unchecked, Pollard studied the man’s pale face, black boot-button eyes and faintly ridiculous little waxed moustache. Then, by a trick of the light, he caught sight of the beads of sweat standing out on the forehead.

  ‘When one realises what a secluded life Miss Ridd led,’ he said when a pause presented itself, ‘obviously you and Mrs Aldridge must have known her better than most people. Were you surprised at her behaviour at the Consistory Court?’

  Obviously gratified by this acknowledgment, George Aldridge combined a shrug with an expansive movement of his hands.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, sir, I was and I wasn’t, if
you get me. With all her funny ways I’d have thought she’d have had more sense of what was proper than to create like that in a court of law. But let’s face it, she and old Mr Viney weren’t — well, like other people, living in the past the way they did. Between you and me it was shameful the way things were let go up there, parish and church alike. Why the Archdeacon didn’t take steps, I’ll never understand. And now here we are in Pyrford with Ambercombe tacked on to us, and the church half falling down, and still not free to sell plate there’s not a scrap of use for with only a handful of people ever stepping inside the church door. Nice job we’re landed with, Mr Hoyle and me.’

  ‘We know that Miss Ridd returned here on November the nineteenth by a bus from Marchester getting in at a quarter past one,’ Pollard said, abruptly transposing the conversation into a more official key. ‘The Chancellor rose for the lunch break at one o’clock, I understand, but even so she would, of course, have arrived back here before you?’

  There was a perceptible pause and change of atmosphere.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ George Aldridge replied, his speech gathering momentum. ‘She’d have been up the hill and back home quite a time before me, you see. I took the opportunity of calling at a fruit and vegetable wholesalers in Marchester. Petrol being what it is, you’ve got to make full use of any trip you make these days. I can’t have got away from Marchester much before two. Dreadful, the traffic blocks in the middle of the town. It gets worse and worse, and the City Council…’

  ‘What time did you get back here, Mr Aldridge?’ Pollard cut in.

  ‘Soon after the half-hour, to the best of my recollection.’

  ‘Got that, Inspector?’ Pollard asked Toye, without particular emphasis. ‘And you didn’t, as you’ve already told Inspector Frost, see any stranger around from then on?’

  ‘Not a sign of one. Mind you, what with the Snip delivery van arriving, and checking the stuff and getting the store straight again, I can’t say I had much time for what was going on outside. I was on the go right up to six when we closed, and after that backwards and forwards to the store filling up gaps on the shelves, and then there was the paperwork in here. We never sat down to our meal till gone half past six,’ George Aldridge concluded breathlessly, taking out a handkerchief and refraining in the nick of time from mopping his brow. He blew his nose vigorously.

  ‘Well, I think that covers the ground,’ Pollard said, reverting to a more conversational tone. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Aldridge. Now, just before we go, we’d like a word with your wife to round off the record, if you’d take over in the shop. Ask Mrs Aldridge to join us, would you, Inspector?’

  Toye was already opening the office door. Taken aback by the swiftness of the manoeuvre, George Aldridge found himself being politely but firmly ushered out. A few moments later Toye showed in a short, rather plump woman. She was curiously colourless, with her pale skin, pale yellow hair and spectacles with transparent frames.

  Her replies to Pollard’s questions were equally colourless, incorporating his own words… Yes, she had been in charge of the shop on November the nineteenth… No, she had not seen any strangers about… Yes, her husband had returned in the early afternoon because of the stock being delivered.

  ‘What time did he get back?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘I didn’t notice to the minute. I’d opened up again after the dinner hour.’

  ‘What time is your dinner hour?’

  ‘One to two-fifteen.’

  ‘What did he do after the delivery van had gone?’

  ‘After the delivery van had gone? There’s all the stuff to check.’

  ‘Did he go out again that day?’ Pollard insisted, repressing an urge to seize Mabel Aldridge and shake her.

  ‘No, he didn’t go out again.’

  ‘Just like a cat,’ Pollard remarked, walking with Toye to the car five minutes later.

  ‘Cat, sir?’ Toye stared at him. ‘Ventriloquist’s dummy, I’d call her.’

  ‘She’s got a cat’s utter non-involvement. Look how different they are in the home from dogs. Let’s go up to Ambercombe. I feel we’re under observation on both flanks.’

  They drove up the long hill, already becoming familiar, past the Barton and on to the church gate where Toye pulled off the road. They sat in silence for some moments.

  ‘Let’s have the map out,’ Pollard said. ‘Could Aldridge possibly have got back here from Marchester before Ridd, somehow known that she would call in at the vicarage, killed her, and got home in time to take the goods delivery? Never mind for the moment what possible motive he might have had. He would have had to come along this minor farm road from the east side of these hills. I’m certain Martha Rook parked in her window would have spotted him if he’d gone up through Pyrford, and she saw him drive in from the main road.’

  They spread out the ordnance sheet on the steering wheel and pored over it.

  ‘No,’ Toye said at last. ‘It simply isn’t on. Even if Aldridge had managed to park near the cathedral, and had belted out of the Chapter House, he’d still have to get clear of the city with all the lunchtime traffic. Add to that the fact that the road from Marchester running west and round the north of the Whitehallows is slow. Look how it detours through villages. You couldn’t get up any real speed on it. Then this side road branching off it and coming through Ambercombe here isn’t much more than a lane, as Mrs Gillard said. He couldn’t have made it before two o’clock — if then, even if he’d come straight from the court.’

  ‘And if Ridd was stalking through Pyrford for dear life just after one-fifteen, she’d have been up here easily by a quarter to two,’ Pollard said thoughtfully. ‘Why did Aldridge lie to make out that he got back to Pyrford earlier than he did, though? Funny business of some sort, but what? Probably not our pigeon, but I’d like to make sure. I’ll ring the Super at Marchester from the kiosk along there, and ask if they could check up with possible wholesalers.’

  The call having been made, they turned up the lane to Quarry Cottages, Toye remarking that it was an improvement on the evening before, anyway. Pollard agreed. The blanket of low cloud had vanished, and the sky was a clear turquoise overhead, merging into pure gold in the south-west. The Whitehallows, touched here and there by the last rays of the setting sun, were no longer menacing but majestic. He sniffed the cold sharp air with enjoyment.

  As they had half expected, there was no sign of life in Bill Sandford’s cottage, or his car in the open shed where he apparently kept it. Pollard wrote a brief note on one of his official cards to the effect that he would call immediately after Miss Ridd’s funeral the next morning. If Mr Sandford was unable to be available at this time, would he please ring the Westbridge police station? Pollard added the telephone number, and dropped the card through the letter box.

  They went back to the car. As Toye switched on the lights the noise of a heavy vehicle grinding up the hill from Pyrford became audible.

  ‘Tractor?’ he queried.

  ‘Getting quite the little countryman, aren’t you?’ Pollard remarked.

  A moment later a school bus appeared, and drew up a short distance away. It was apparently the end of the run, as only half a dozen children tumbled out with bags and satchels swinging from their shoulders. The boys, with keen interest, instantly surrounded the Hillman. Pollard’s attention, however, was focused on Rosemary Gillard. The last to leave the bus, she came down the steps chatting with another girl. Suddenly she saw the police car, froze for an instant, and with terror in her face turned and fled in the direction of Barton, her astonished companion staring after her.

  Pollard turned to Toye.

  ‘There’s something a damn sight more than adolescence wrong with that kid,’ he said.

  Chapter 7

  Pending further developments in the investigation of Ethel Ridd’s murder, the Westbridge Evening News was publishing a series of special articles to keep alive its readers’ interest. On their return to the police station Pollard and Toye found a c
opy of the current issue in their temporary office. It featured Barnabas Viney, whose striking face looked out from under the caption THE LONG INNINGS.

  It was the same photograph that the Archdeacon had shown them. Pollard scrutinised it again, subsiding slowly onto a chair as he did so. The body worn almost transparent, he thought, and the spirit or whatever positively blazing through it… Utterly uncompromising…

  The telephone on the table bleeped suddenly. Toye lifted the receiver.

  ‘Marchester,’ he told Pollard, handing it over.

  Pollard introduced himself, exchanged greetings with Superintendent Bosworth of Marchester, and listened at some length. It appeared that there had been no difficulty in picking up George Aldridge’s trail after he left the Consistory Court at one o’clock on Wednesday 19 November. He had arrived in his van at Bablake & Harroway’s wholesale fruit depot just before one-fifteen. The salesman who dealt with him was due to go off to dinner at half past one, and had his eye on the time. Aldridge had bought a crate of apples and another of oranges, and the salesman had remarked that the chap had been in one hell of a hurry, and driven off like a bomb when they’d loaded the stuff into the van. He was well away by the half-hour. There were two other possible wholesale warehouses in Marchester, but enquiries had shown that Aldridge had not visited either of them that day.

  ‘Like us to find out if he called in anywhere else?’ Superintendent Bosworth asked.

  ‘We’d be grateful if you’d discover which road he took out of the town,’ Pollard replied. ‘He was up to something fishy, but at the moment it doesn’t look like tying up with our show. Still, we’d better make sure.’

  After a further brief conversation and renewed thanks for Marchester’s prompt help he rang off, and passed on the information to Toye.

  ‘So exit George Aldridge, I take it?’ he concluded.