Unhappy Returns

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘I’d better come clean, I suppose. I’d seen the thing. The east window of the church is plain glass, and I happened to cut through the vicarage garden and the churchyard one morning just when he was — elevating, I believe the expression is — the chalice at one of his weekday services. I know a bit about church plate, and saw at once that it wasn’t the Victorian or Georgian one. And when the old boy dried up when I asked him about it, well, I got curious. But you’ve nothing on me. I took the bloody box back with its contents intact, didn’t I? And —’

  ‘You were abroad on the morning when Mr Viney died, and the chalice Miss Ridd spoke of had been in use,’ Pollard cut in quickly, once again depriving Bill Sandford of playing the ace of trumps. He changed his tactics abruptly. ‘What do you think has happened to it, Mr Sandford?’

  He got a sulky but astonished glare. ‘Pretty obvious, isn’t it? Ridd nicked it and stowed it away as a holy relic. She was nuts on Viney. I don’t mind admitting that I’ve managed to get inside the vicarage and her cottage once or twice, and had a look round, but she’d got a half-wit’s cunning. Why the hell don’t you take her place to pieces instead of hounding me?’

  Taken aback by a possibility which had never occurred to him, Pollard rallied quickly.

  ‘You’re in a very dicey position, Mr Sandford,’ he observed.

  ‘Don’t I know it? That’s why I thought I’d better keep my mouth shut and try to find the thing on my own. Now you know what’s happened, for God’s sake do something about it. It may be deteriorating in some filthy damp hole. It’s a genuine medieval chalice, and I swear the stones in it are rubies, not glass. Here’s my key. Search my place, if you like.’

  He flung down a latch key and banged out of the room. Pollard made no attempt to stop him.

  ‘How much of that do you swallow?’ Toye asked.

  ‘Not the Ridd bit necessarily, although it’s a possibility, I suppose. But I don’t think he’s got the chalice, you know. Let’s go to Ambercombe, old man,’ he added, as Toye looked interrogative. ‘We’ll pick up Ridd’s key and a few tools at the station. We’ve done some pretty effective search jobs before, haven’t we? And if we end up with nothing by tonight, we’ll drop the blasted chalice and start all over again.’

  Toye tactfully forbore to ask what the new starting point would be. After a brief call at the police station they set out for Ambercombe once more.

  Pollard leant back in the car, feeling that his brain was impossibly congested with uncoordinated data. He shut his eyes, hoping that a sifting process might sort things out. To his surprise he found himself at once trying to visualise in detail the back of the church, but without success. On impulse, when they drew up at the gate, he told Toye that they’d better have a look round inside first before going on to the cottage.

  Two minutes later he was standing at the top of the tiny aisle looking towards the west wall. Yes, there was the locked cupboard in the recess under the belfry, and there was a table with magazines or something on it on the right. The font was in the angle between the west and south walls. Very little spare space. He stared at the cupboard. Suddenly a stab of excitement went through him.

  ‘Here,’ he said abruptly. ‘Just take up the position of Viney’s body, will you? By the cupboard, and your head and shoulders in the aisle.’

  Toye complied.

  ‘No. That won’t work. Mrs Gillard couldn’t have opened the cupboard door more than an inch or two. It opens from right to left. Try the other side, with your feet by the font… Toye, what was he doing coming away from the font? He’d already put everything away in the cupboard and locked it.’

  Pollard lifted off the oak font cover and put it on the floor, peered into the dusty uncommunicative stone bowl, innocent of everything but dust, a dried leaf or two and a scurrying spider. He stooped and picked up the dark oak cover again. It was dome shaped, with carved external ribs running up to a small turret-like erection at the top. This was surmounted by a cross.

  ‘Outside,’ Pollard said briefly.

  In the churchyard they inverted the cover. It was very dusty, and spiders’ webs had collected under the top. Toye produced a tissue and removed them. A circular piece of wood had been carefully inserted about four inches below the opening of the turret.

  ‘We want a knife with a thin blade,’ Pollard said. ‘Remember that the Archdeacon said old Viney went in for carpentry?’

  Toye, skilful with his hands, removed the piece of wood without difficulty.

  ‘All yours, sir,’ he said a little breathlessly.

  Pollard cautiously withdrew something wrapped in tissue paper.

  It was a small chalice of silver gilt with a shallow bowl. A tiny crucifix was beautifully engraved on the circular foot. The metal was a little dulled by months of neglect, but the rubies, set in the form of a cross on one side of the bowl, caught the sunlight and flashed it back. A piece of writing paper had fallen to the ground.

  ‘Found in Ambercombe vicarage garden in Holy Week 1960,’ it said laconically, in the handwriting of Barnabas Viney…

  After a short interval Toye characteristically raised the question of practical action.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose we start hunting for that hiker for want of a better lead. All the same, I can’t for the life of me see how it ties up with this chalice. If he was after it why did he come back all set to murder Ridd? It didn’t even look as though he was trying to get her to talk.’

  ‘This is it,’ Pollard said, carefully wrapping the chalice in a clean handkerchief.

  Suddenly he gave an incoherent exclamation and stared at Toye.

  ‘My God, I’ve only just seen it! We’ve been on the wrong tack the whole time. She was done for blowing the gaff about the hiker, not the chalice.’

  Chapter 9

  ‘So you propose making a television appearance, Pollard?’

  The Assistant Commissioner’s ironic inflexion was a well-known sign of satisfaction with progress made.

  ‘I feel it’s probably the most effective way of getting a line on Ethel Ridd’s hiker, sir,’ Pollard replied tactfully. ‘The chalice having turned up will get local people interested, and when they’re asked if they noticed a hiker around on June the eleventh, 1974, they’ll be readier to make the effort to think back. We’re collecting facts to bring the day to their minds. For instance, there was a bad car smash on the Westbridge side of Pyrford at about six that morning, and the road was blocked for a couple of hours and normal traffic held up. People remember having their plans and routine disorganised.’

  The AC grunted and relapsed into silence. ‘You seriously think you’ve uncovered a second murder?’ he asked, after a lengthy pause.

  ‘I think the odds are that this hiker chap was murdered on or soon after June the eleventh, 1974, and vanished without trace until inconveniently resurrected by Ethel Ridd in the Consistory Court on November the nineteenth this year. The theory I’m working on at the moment is that his killer was present, and decided that her mouth had to be shut before an interested press started probing. You see, sir, she’d mentioned him almost in the same breath with a valuable missing chalice: an absolute gift to newsmen on the look-out for a story.’

  ‘Since the chalice has turned out to be a red herring in the investigation of Ethel Ridd’s murder, presumably the same applies in relation to the hiker’s — if this took place,’ the AC said thoughtfully. ‘You argue — convincingly, in my opinion — that her killer had the sort of detailed knowledge of her movements that only a local resident could possess. You’ve interviewed quite a number of these. Have you formed the slightest suspicion of anyone being involved in something that would lend itself to blackmail, for instance?’

  ‘There’s a chap called Aldridge, sir, who runs the village shops, and who lied about his movements in the early afternoon of November the nineteenth, but on grounds of timing it doesn’t seem possible for him to have murdered Ethel Ridd. Of course we don’t know whether he, or anyone else with an ali
bi for that matter, also has one for the morning of June the eleventh, 1974, and it’s not going to be easy to find out at this distance of time. And I suppose one can’t entirely rule out the possibility of two murderers acting in collusion. Anyway, as I said just now, I feel the immediate step is to try and find out if and where and when anybody saw a hiker around at that time.’

  The AC commented incisively on the time and manpower that the new stage of the enquiry would take up.

  ‘And don’t overlook the spate of irrelevant and lunatic letters and telephone calls that your TV act will produce,’ he added grimly. ‘Am I to understand that this Archdeacon Lacy has agreed to appear with you?’

  ‘Not with me, sir. It’s really his show. The story of the chalice and so on. He’ll have it on view, and touch indirectly on Ambercombe’s repair problems. Not a formal appeal, of course, but he thinks some unsolicited contributions might come in.’

  ‘I always maintain that the children of this world have nothing on the children of light, given a promising opening. Then you follow on, I take it?’

  ‘That’s the idea, sir. We thought he could bring me on as the chap who actually found the chalice. I’d then touch on old Mr Viney’s death being the result of heaving the font cover about, and say we’d like to talk to the hiker who looked in during the service. Would he come forward, or anyone who remembers seeing him around that morning.’

  The AC pressed a switch on his desk and summoned his secretary, indicating that the interview was at an end.

  ‘Well, Pollard, you’d better go ahead. I only hope something will come out of it over and above increased publicity for yourself.’

  Pollard hastily extricated himself with thanks as the secretary materialised.

  ‘And keep me posted,’ the AC called after him as he reached the door.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ he replied, suppressing a grin as he went out to join Toye, who was engaged in studying the record of persons reported missing in the early summer of 1974.

  There proved to be a daunting number of these of possible hiking age, and at the moment all that could be done was to compile a list. Pollard looked at it gloomily.

  ‘How about the blokes whose disappearances weren’t reported?’ he asked. ‘Here, let’s push off home for a few hours. See you on the train.’

  Jane Pollard’s reaction to her husband’s forthcoming television venture took him aback.

  ‘What tie will you wear?’ she demanded.

  ‘Tie?’

  ‘Of course. The chaps who read the news have made the whole country tie-conscious. Kenneth Kendall and Richard Baker and all that crowd. Why, people round here are keeping records of individual totals, and I know several families who’ve gone over to colour because they felt they were missing half the fun. And by the way, you could do with a haircut.’

  ‘Fortunately,’ he told her, ‘you won’t see me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ll only be on the Regional News, you know.’

  ‘Tom! What an absolute swindle! Couldn’t I write to the BBC or whatever and ask if I might take the twins along and have a run-through of the film?’

  ‘If you do. I’ll leave you… Oh, God, they’ve woken up!’ he added, as thumps were audible overhead.

  ‘It must have been quite a moment when you realised that you’d found the chalice Miss Ridd had spoken about in the Consistory Court,’ the television interviewer suggested helpfully.

  ‘It certainly was,’ Pollard agreed, feeling unexpectedly at ease under the powerful lighting of the studio. ‘In fact, I could hardly take it in for a second or two. Unfortunately, though, I’m down here on a much less pleasant job than discovering missing treasure. My assignment is to track down the killer of the late Miss Ethel Ridd, who was brutally murdered on November the nineteenth in Ambercombe vicarage, and I’ve come along this evening to ask for help from you people —’ turning his head to address his invisible audience — ‘who are viewing this programme. We want to talk to the hiker who came into Ambercombe church at about a quarter past eleven on the morning of Tuesday, June the eleventh, 1974. If he was a local man, will he, please, contact us, either by ringing Westbridge 4321 Extension 4, or through any police station. A service was going on, and he went out again almost at once. He could have been a visitor on holiday, of course, and in this case he probably won’t be viewing at this moment, and this is where some of you may be able to help us contact him. Will you try to put your minds back to June the eleventh last year? It may sound a tall order, but for residents in the Pyrford and Ambercombe area it was a memorable day. It started off with the pileup on the Westbridge road, which was blocked with wreckage for nearly two hours. Later in the morning the Reverend Barnabas Viney, vicar of Ambercombe, collapsed and died in his church. These events may help you to remember what you were doing, and if you noticed a hiker around, or a strange car parked anywhere. Did you travel on the Westbridge bus and happen to notice a hiker among your fellow passengers?

  ‘If you can remember anything that may be helpful to us, please ring me, Detective Superintendent Tom Pollard, at Westbridge police station. I’ll just give you the number again…’

  This interview, recorded at the television studios on Tuesday morning, was screened during the Regional News programme at 6 p.m. the same evening, following Archdeacon Lacy’s lively account of the history, and discovery by Pollard, of the Tadenham chalice. By half past ten some twenty calls had been made to the Westbridge police, not one of which offered a viable lead. Those which were not patent hoaxes or crackpots were too vague to follow up, and Pollard decided to call it a day. It was not until he and Toye were finishing their breakfast on the following morning that a call came through from the police station, telling him that a woman had rung from North Pyrford to say that she had sold a packet of cigarettes to a hiker on the morning of 11 June in the previous year.

  ‘Funny she’s so sure of the exact date after all this time,’ Pollard remarked, gulping down the last of his coffee. ‘I said we’d go round to the station right away.’

  In the Hillman they consulted the inch-to-the-mile ordnance survey map of the district. North Pyrford turned out to be a small hamlet in a valley running down to the Westbridge road from the Whitehallow Hills, about four miles north of Pyrford.

  ‘Can’t be much of a shop in a place that size,’ Toye commented, ‘so a stranger turning up would’ve been noticed.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that,’ Pollard replied, poring over the map. ‘Look, the minor road to North Pyrford becomes a sort of farm track higher up the valley, and leads to prehistoric monuments. Hut circles, and a standing stone called The Hollow Man. What price T. S. Eliot, but I expect it’s a corruption of Hallow. Seriously, though, quite a lot of people would come up to see these things, and buy crisps and sweets and fags to keep themselves going. Hence the unlikely shop, I expect.’

  Toye agreed cautiously that it could be.

  At the police station they were told that the woman who had rung in, a Mrs Hayball, was short of breath and a bit hard of hearing into the bargain.

  ‘Asthma, from the sound of it,’ the sergeant reported, ‘and not all that easy to make out what she was saying. Still, she was quite definite about the date when she sold a hiker chap a packet of fags, sir. She’s not on the phone herself, but there’s a call box next to the shop.’

  ‘We’ll go over,’ Pollard decided after deliberating briefly. ‘Unless anything more promising has come in?’

  ‘Nothing so far this morning, sir. Only a kid trying it on. I blasted the little perisher good and proper.’

  ‘Nice work,’ Pollard approved. ‘We’ll be off, then, Sergeant. Try ringing the call box if we’re wanted.’

  It was a wretched morning of drizzling rain. As Pollard sat watching the windscreen wipers coping with mud splashes from passing cars, he mentally reviewed the inhabitants of Pyrford and Ambercombe already known to him. There would be talk following his broadcast. Suppose an unguarded remark by so
mebody were to lead to a third murder, once again with the aim of shutting a dangerous mouth for good? Suddenly the burden of his responsibility became almost intolerable. They were running into Pyrford now, and as they passed the rectory and Dr Jarvis’s surgery he wondered why on earth he had elected to go into the police.

  Just beyond the entrance to the village green Toye halted at the tail of a gaggle held up by the clumsy manoeuvring of the school bus. After several boss shots it succeeded in turning by backing into a gateway beyond the Pyrford Garage on their right, and finally lumbered into an adjacent lay-by, nose to Westbridge in readiness for the afternoon run. Toye swept ahead by a skilful outflanking movement, uttering caustic comment.

  The road ran northwards along the foot of the Whitehallow Hills, the tops of which were shrouded in mist. On their left were level fields, lifeless except for an occasional herd of Friesians sheltering from the persistent light rain in the lee of a hedge, patient, with drooping heads.

  ‘About another half-mile,’ Toye said presently, breaking a long silence.

  Pollard surfaced, and almost at once a road sign came into view. They slowed for a sharp right turn, and passed a substantial farmhouse and its outbuildings before beginning to gain height. After a quarter of a mile the gradient flattened out slightly, and a cluster of cottages appeared, with a few modern bungalows on its outskirts. In the general greyness a post office telephone kiosk’s cheerful red shone out like a beacon, and Toye parked on an unoccupied patch of rough grass beside it.

  Over the front door of a cottage close to the kiosk was a white board, with the barely perceptible legend C. HAYBALL, NEWSAGENT in black lettering. The door stood open. Inside, on the left, another door was labelled SHOP. Pollard turned its handle, set an old-fashioned bell on a strip of metal jangling, and stepped down into a musty dimness redolent of paraffin.

  ‘Anyone at home?’ he called.

  An electric light bulb suspended from the ceiling at the back of the shop was switched on. Standing in a doorway behind a counter was the fattest woman he had ever seen, her torso suggesting the trunk of a massive oak tree. A cascade of chins descended from her enormous good-humoured red face. She surveyed Pollard with little black eyes peering out between rolls of flesh.