Unhappy Returns

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘Mrs Hayball?’ he asked, recovering from initial shock and walking forward.

  ‘That’s me. Clara Hayball, the North Pyrford heavyweight, they calls me round ’ere. You’ll be the gentleman from Scotland Yard on the telly last night. My, you came over beautiful. I’d’ve rung sooner, but I was over to me son’s…’

  A fit of wheezing and coughing interrupted her narrative. When it subsided, Pollard hastily thanked her for contacting the police, wondering how long it was going to take to get any coherent information from her at this rate.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Proper old nuisance, me asthma, and they don’t seem to be able to do nothin’ about it. Please to come through: ’tis warmer and more private, like.’

  She lifted the counter flap, and Pollard and Toye followed her into a snug living room with a good fire on the hearth. Sinking into a vast armchair she waved her visitors to seats.

  ‘How is it you remember so clearly selling a packet of cigarettes to a hiker on the date I was talking about last night, Mrs Hayball?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you for why,’ she replied without hesitation. ‘’Twas the morning Mrs Morley up the road got a letter in the post to say she’d won a hundred-pound Premium Bond prize. ’E’d hardly gone off when the ’ole village came packin’ in to clack about it. Then tea-time it got round about Reverend Viney droppin’ dead in Ambercombe church. Proper day, it was.’

  Further questions established the hiker’s arrival at the shop at a few minutes after nine, after the newspapers had been dropped off the van, but just before the mail arrived, which was never more than a minute or two on either side of a quarter past.

  ‘It come when ’e was makin’ a phone call,’ Mrs Hayball added.

  ‘Who was? The hiker?’ Pollard metaphorically sat up.

  ‘That’s right. Asked me for small change, ’e did, when ’e paid for the Players.’

  ‘It must have been a local call if he wanted small change,’ Toye observed. ‘Did he say he’d got friends or relatives round here?’

  She shook her head, sending ripples through her double chins.

  ‘Didn’t say nothin’ about that. Combinin’ business and pleasure, ’e said.’

  Pollard proceeded to question her with all his skill about the hiker’s appearance and characteristics, but without much success. Like most people, she found it almost impossible to give a recognisable description of another human being. The man had been medium tall, looked like somebody who had an outdoor job, not young, but not old either. He’d worn scruffy old fawn jeans, a brown and white check shirt open at the neck, and had a pack on his back. He’d said he was having a walking holiday, sleeping rough at night. How old? Getting along. Say fifty.

  ‘Do you think you’d recognise him if you saw him again?’ Pollard asked her.

  ‘I don’t know as I should,’ she replied doubtfully, ‘not unless ’e was togged up the same, that is. A lot comes in summer time, goin’ up top to see they old stones. I might reckernise ’is voice though.’

  ‘Why? Was there something special about it, Mrs Hayball?’

  ‘’E wasn’t a foreigner, nor yet a Welshman or from up north, but it didn’t sound quite right. More like an American, only not so much.’

  Before Pollard could pursue the subject, a strident ringing sound penetrated to the room. Mrs Hayball began to lumber to her feet but was anticipated by Toye.

  ‘Could be a call for us,’ he said.

  ‘You cut along and see, love,’ Mrs Hayball replied thankfully, sinking back again. ‘I can’t get around the way I used to. It ain’t my son’s time for ringing the box.’

  He was absent for several minutes before returning and beckoning Pollard into the shop.

  ‘It was Frost, ringing on chance from Ambercombe. That kid Rosemary Gillard has tried to drown herself in the quarry pool, and they found threatening notes on her. He wants us to go over right away.’

  Pollard, momentarily immobilised, swore violently. He swung round and went back into the living room.

  ‘We’re wanted at Ambercombe, Mrs Hayball,’ he said, ‘so we’ll have to cut along. Later on, you’ll be asked to sign a statement of the facts you’ve given us. You’ve been very helpful, and we’re grateful to you for getting on to us so quickly.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ she wheezed, leaning forward with avid curiosity in her small eyes. ‘Wanted over to Ambercombe in a ’urry, are you?’

  ‘What else did Frost say?’ Pollard demanded as soon as he and Toye were clear of the cottage. ‘What about the kid?’

  ‘She’s been taken to Westbridge Hospital by ambulance. They think she may have hit her head on something when she went in, and concussed herself.’

  ‘What were these threatening notes about?’

  ‘Frost didn’t say,’ Toye replied, unlocking the car. ‘He was short and cagey. I took it he was speaking from the Gillards’ place, and people were milling around. But it seemed clear enough that he thought there was a tie-up with our case,’ he added, as they moved forward on to the road.

  For a time Pollard sat tensely silent.

  ‘If that kid’s had it, I’ll never forgive myself,’ he said suddenly, as Toye slowed down at the road junction. ‘There was obviously something seriously wrong: you must have seen it yourself. I ought to have tried to get her to open up.’

  They were now heading for Pyrford at a speed which attracted astonished stares from the occupants of overtaken cars.

  ‘It didn’t look like a priority lead,’ Toye reasoned. He went on to employ a diversionary tactic. ‘It was Sandford who got her out.’

  ‘Sandford? My God, if he’s been up to any funny business where she’s concerned, I’ll have his guts out.’

  Toye persevered in his efforts to lower the temperature.

  ‘He could have heard her go in. It’s quiet as the grave up by the quarry, and his cottage is the end one.’

  Pollard gave a non-committal grunt. His mind had already discarded Bill Sandford, and was back at the possibility of a third murder which had occurred to him so disturbingly earlier that morning, on the way out to North Pyrford. Was a botched attempt at this the real explanation of Rosemary Gillard’s landing up in the quarry pool? Or had somebody relied on intimidation through a series of threatening letters to get the girl to kill herself? And was it vital to get her out of the way in case her nerve broke and she let out that she had seen the hiker?

  In his impatience to get at the facts the journey to Ambercombe seemed endless. The drizzle had developed into a relentless downpour, and a streaming road surface and poor visibility compelled Toye to reduce speed. At last they passed through Pyrford, took the Ambercombe hill and swept in at the gate of the Barton. A police car was at the door, and a knot of onlookers huddled under umbrellas had materialised in hopes of witnessing further sensational events.

  There was a tense atmosphere in the farm kitchen where Matthew Gillard, whom Pollard identified from Ethel Ridd’s funeral, was heatedly confronting Inspector Frost, with the outraged expression of a man involved in an incredible and unprovoked disruption of his normal life.

  ‘…tell me that!’ he bellowed, as Pollard and Toye walked in. ‘The whole place’s lousy with cops, an’ all you do is find some bloody old chalice while folks gets their heads bashed in, and my girl’s driven to drown herself by threats. What’s going on round here? What the hell are you people paid for?’

  ‘Why wasn’t Rosemary at school today, Mr Gillard?’ Pollard enquired.

  The deliberate banality of the question had the desired effect. Matthew Gillard, struck silent, stared at him blankly for a moment.

  ‘Far as her mother and I knew, she was,’ he replied curtly.

  ‘I want all the facts about what happened here this morning,’ Pollard told him. ‘Repeat, all. I suggest we sit round this table. Please hang on, Inspector Frost. You’ve the pull over us of getting here first. Now, Mr Gillard, the school bus picks up the Ambercombe children outside the ch
urch, doesn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right,’ the farmer replied. He drew the back of his hand across his forehead in a gesture of exhaustion, but had got himself under control. ‘Our two board it there, but this morning the boy’d gone ahead on his bike down to Pyrford, to drop in a model aeroplane he’d been working on at a friend’s house, and get the bus outside the Stores, so Rosemary was on her own.’

  In reply to Pollard’s questions it appeared that neither of the Gillard parents had seen Rosemary leave the house. Her father had gone out to the yard at the back before she had finished her breakfast, and her mother, an early riser, was already in the poultry house collecting up the morning’s eggs. When Mrs Gillard returned to the kitchen the school bus was just passing the gate, and she had assumed as a matter of course that Rosemary was in it. It was not until half an hour later that she had been startled by the sound of the front door bursting open, and Bill Sandford had rushed in with water dripping from his clothes, to say that he had just got Rosemary out of the quarry pool, and left her wrapped in a blanket in front of the fire in his cottage. The appalled parents had found her semi-conscious, and bleeding from a cut in her head. They rang for an ambulance, and began stripping off her wet clothes. It was then that they found a small packet wrapped in cellophane, fastened inside the top of her tights with a safety pin. While waiting for the ambulance they had opened it.

  At this point Inspector Frost broke into Matthew Gillard’s narrative to hand Pollard an envelope. Its contents were two pieces of white paper, each of which had been folded and refolded to the smallest possible size, one being much more creased and discoloured than the other.

  ‘The cellophane seems to have kept them dry,’ Pollard said, ‘but they’ve been handled so much that there can’t be anything in the way of useful dabs, I’m afraid. However, we’ll get the forensic people to go over them.’

  Toye produced forceps, and the notes were carefully opened out. The paper was of poor quality, and the ink of the ball pen used in each case had run slightly. The messages had been carefully printed in characterless block capitals. The more discoloured and obviously older note read:

  NEVER TELL ANYBODY YOU MET ME YESTERDAY OUTSIDE THE CHURCH OR YOU’LL BETAKEN AWAY FOR GOOD.

  The other message was on the same theme:

  WHAT HAPPENS TO GIRLS WHO TALK? IT COULD BE YOU NEXT TIME.

  There was a violent crash as Matthew Gillard brought his fist down on the table.

  ‘I’d spend the rest o’ my life in quod just to get my hands on him… For Chrissake, can’t you get crackin’?’

  The telephone rang loudly in the passage leading to the front door, and he made to spring up from his chair.

  ‘Easy,’ Pollard said, restraining him. ‘We know how you’re feeling, but for the moment we’re taking any calls.’

  An uneasy silence descended. Matthew Gillard breathed heavily, as though he had been running. Toye’s voice was faintly audible. His head came round the kitchen door and Pollard was summoned. Going out he braced himself and looked at Toye interrogatively.

  ‘The girl’s OK, sir. Shocked, of course, and under treatment, but the head injury was only superficial.’

  Releasing a long breath, Pollard strode towards the telephone.

  ‘Tell Gillard,’ he said over his shoulder.

  A few minutes later he came back to the kitchen.

  ‘Your wife’s on the line, Mr Gillard, and would like a word with you.’

  Matthew Gillard went out quickly. Pollard propped himself against the kitchen table.

  ‘No hope of seeing Rosemary until tomorrow morning,’ he told the other two. ‘They say her condition’s satisfactory, but she must be kept quiet, and only the parents allowed in. Your chap’s there behind a screen, Frost. Can you send in a relief later? I want anything relevant she says taken down. Meanwhile, we’d better search her room here, Toye, and see Sandford.’

  Matthew Gillard reappeared and agreed without demur to having his daughter’s bedroom temporarily locked and later searched.

  ‘Take the whole place to pieces if it’ll help you get the bastard who wrote those notes,’ he said. ‘Like me to lend a hand, or would you —’ He broke off at the sound of footsteps in the passage. There was a bang on the kitchen door.

  ‘The Scotland Yard blokes in here?’ a man’s voice demanded.

  ‘Come in,’ Pollard called.

  Bill Sandford appeared on the threshold muffled in an old coat, white-faced and taut.

  ‘Come in and welcome,’ Matthew Gillard told him. ‘There’s no paying the debt you’re owed here.’

  Bill Sandford made a disclamatory gesture, his eyes on Pollard.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ll believe me till you’ve seen for yourself, but there’s a body in the quarry pool.’

  Chapter 10

  Rain was still falling relentlessly as the five men left Ambercombe Barton for the old quarry in the two police cars, Pollard, Toye and Inspector Frost in rubber boots and oilskins from the Gillards’ assortment of wet weather clothing.

  Pollard’s immediate reaction to Bill Sandford’s announcement had been one of scepticism and outrage, but this had evaporated in seconds. Through long experience of people’s behaviour in crisis situations, he had learnt to recognise shock. For the moment, at any rate, coat trailing was out, and past encounters could be conveniently forgotten. He turned his head and spoke to the occupant of the Hillman’s back seat.

  ‘This body you saw. Did you get the idea that it had been in the water long?’

  ‘I didn’t see it clearly enough to say. It was lying on the bottom, you see. I —’

  ‘Lying on the bottom?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Pollard exchanged a lightning glance with Toye. The next moment the cars came to a halt outside Quarry Cottages.

  ‘Can we all get under cover somewhere, Mr Sandford? I want you to tell us exactly what happened this morning.’

  ‘Sure. Come into my place.’

  They crowded into the living room of the cottage, where wet clothes were drying in front of the fire, and a damp patch on the hearthrug showed where the semi-conscious Rosemary Gillard had been deposited. Bill Sandford indicated his car port facing the front door.

  ‘It was about a quarter to nine. I was just going over to get some exam scripts which I’d left in the car when I heard an almighty splash over in the old quarry, and I supposed a chunk of rock had got loose and fallen into the water. It happens sometimes. But then I heard a different sort of splashing — continuous — and belted along to see if a sheep had fallen over the edge. There’s a railing, but it’s pretty ropey in places. When I got there I saw it was a person thrashing about, so I kicked my shoes off and went in, yelling that I was coming. Luckily I’m a reasonable swimmer. When I’d taken a few strokes I saw it was young Rosemary. She panicked and struggled a bit, but I managed to get her on my back and grab her wrists, and started off for the side where I’d gone in. It’s where the cart track ends, and isn’t steep. After I’d been swimming with my legs for a bit, we seemed to be getting there, and I felt with a foot to see if I could touch bottom, and stepped on something that gave in a queer sort of way. I looked down, but I’d churned up muck, and could only see that it was a human body — not any details, I mean. I swam on till I could carry the kid out and cart her along here. You know the rest.’

  ‘You did a damn good job,’ Pollard said sincerely, to the accompaniment of gruff inarticulate sounds of assent. ‘If you’re reasonably warm by now, I’d like to go along and have a look at the place.’

  Beyond the cottages the rutted cart track led through a short dark tunnel of trees into the old quarry. Although it was midday, the scene struck Pollard as even more gloomy and derelict than when he had first seen it at nightfall. A sinister note was struck by the continuous appearance and disappearance of countless small circles on the surface of the livid water, giving the impression of some secret activity in progress. He ran his eye over sh
eer rock faces and abandoned working ledges. On one of these, facing the entrance where he was standing, was a school satchel, tiny, incongruous and pathetic.

  ‘How did she get up there?’ he asked Matthew Gillard, who pointed out a steep overgrown path on the right.

  ‘You can get up this way with a bit of a scramble, and about half way round. Far as she got, that is.’

  Toye offered to retrieve the satchel and have a look along the ledge. Pollard nodded, and watched him set off up the path.

  ‘If Rosemary went in from where that satchel is, can you work out roughly where you came on the body?’ he asked Bill Sandford.

  ‘Very roughly about fifteen feet out from here, I’d say, and about six or eight feet from the rock face on the left.’

  Pollard made a quick assessment of these distances and glanced up the almost sheer rock face to the top of the quarry. He saw that at this point the railing had partly collapsed, and that behind it was a thicket of bushes and silver birches. He asked Matthew Gillard if the water level fell much during the summer.

  ‘Not so you’d notice it: not even last summer. It’s spring fed, see? Line of springs along the bottom o’ the face, over on the left. That’s why they didn’t work that side much.’

  ‘Want me to rustle up a couple of frogmen?’ Inspector Frost asked.

  After a brief discussion he went off to ring his headquarters at Westbridge. As the others waited for Toye to return, Matthew Gillard jerked his head in the direction of the water.

  ‘You think the bloke out there wrote those notes?’

  ‘It depends how long he’s been there,’ Pollard told him. ‘One of the notes was pretty recent, from the look of it. We can’t tell till we’ve got him out. Don’t think we’re dragging our feet, Mr Gillard. The one thing I’m sure about is that finding the body is an important step forward in a very complicated business.’