by Gwen Moffat
‘Beside the A.5?’ she repeated. ‘But he was supposed to be in Liverpool.’
‘He could be there still, and the car was stolen by someone wanting a free ride to Wales. The odd thing is that it’s been in that same car park under Tryfan at least since yesterday morning. Men in a patrol car saw it last evening; they’d stopped there to cast an eye over the vehicles and a fellow with small children told them that the Volvo wasn’t locked. His kids had discovered that. The family had been camping nearby and they said that the Volvo hadn’t been there on Saturday evening but was there at eight o’clock on Sunday morning—yesterday. In the glove compartment the police found a shopping list on the back of an envelope addressed to Judson. Judson isn’t a climber. The car was surely stolen, but why hasn’t he reported it?’
‘That’s simple,’ Miss Pink said. ‘He doesn’t know. He must have garaged it in a lock-up or a big city car park and he doesn’t need it again until he’s about to leave Liverpool, and that will most likely be this morning, although his wife did suggest that he’d be home last night. However. He’ll report the theft at any moment—probably.’
‘Yes.’ Ted was thoughtful. ‘You’re so reasonable, Melinda.’
‘But surely it’s obvious? Why don’t you come and climb today, Ted?’
‘I’d love to, but I have a meeting at two o’clock. Tomorrow perhaps. I’ll ring you this evening.’
Waring was hovering in the hall when she came out of the office.
‘Mr Judson’s car has been found,’ she told him.
‘I didn’t know it was lost.’
She chuckled. ‘That’s a reasonable comment. The point is, its location: under Tryfan, beside the A.5; the kind of place you’d expect if Judson were a climber.’
‘But he’s not!’
‘And it was unlocked.’ He said nothing. ‘It looks as if it were stolen,’ she added.
He swallowed. ‘No doubt.’ It sounded uninterested but she wasn’t deceived. He was preoccupied.
She spent that day traversing the great horseshoe ridge of Snowdon and its satellites, returning to the hotel so late that there was time only for a bath before dinner. So it wasn’t until after eight that she had the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity. She found Waring in the bar. The dog Brindle had been put down, he told her; its skull had been fractured and evidently nothing could be done. She wasn’t surprised.
‘Mr Judson wouldn’t want the animal to live with a damaged brain,’ she said. ‘No one would.’
‘Er—no.’ He avoided her eye as he placed a brandy in front of her.
‘Unpleasant for him: losing two dogs in one weekend.’
‘Yes.’
‘Has he been in this evening?’
‘No.’ He wiped the counter unnecessarily. ‘I have not seen Mr Judson today.’
Miss Pink regarded him steadily.
‘He is back?’
‘As to that, ma’am—’ he was very stiff, ‘—I wouldn’t know. I’ve enough to do running a hotel without listening to village gossip.’
To Miss Pink a snub was a cover for something else, a challenge, or both. Accordingly and although it was a balmy evening, she didn’t take her brandy out to the terrace but sat in the river room to see if some explanation for Waring’s behaviour might appear. She hadn’t long to wait. On seeing that she was going to stay in an otherwise empty room, he retreated to the kitchen and in a few moments his place was taken by his wife.
Meticulously groomed as always, Anna looked tired. There were smudges under her eyes while her rouge served only to emphasise her pallor. She gave Miss Pink a faint smile and at that moment Handel Evans entered the room and approached the bar. He greeted Anna politely, Miss Pink more distantly, ordered lager and said, without addressing anyone in particular: ‘Where’s Mr Judson then?’
Anna paused in the act of pulling the pump handle, then completed the action. She put the glass in front of him and said icily: ‘Mr Judson, Evans? Isn’t he at Parc?’
He tasted his drink and turned slightly so that he might include Miss Pink in his reply.
‘Madam is deeply distressed. There’s his car been stole since Saturday night and no word from himself. Where can he be?’
‘No word yet?’ Miss Pink emphasised.
‘Not a word, mum.’
Anna’s face was an enamelled mask.
‘Where did he say he was going?’ she asked.
Evans turned to her. ‘He went to Liverpool.’
‘Oh, yes?’ She returned his stare. ‘So the car was stolen in Liverpool?’
‘Well—did he go to Liverpool?’
‘You tell me, Evans. He’s your employer. What makes it so interesting?’
He flushed angrily. As the kitchen door opened to admit Waring, he said: ‘He is my employer, and he’s disappeared.’
Waring’s eyes flickered to Miss Pink, then returned to his wife.
‘Go and lie down if your head’s still bad,’ he told her and, turning back to Miss Pink: ‘She goes to Chester for a quiet weekend—in the middle of a heat-wave, so help me—and finds the Blossoms full of tourists. Can you credit it?’ He was every silly wife’s exasperated husband. He shook his head at Anna. ‘Go and have a sleep, or watch telly. There’s the little portable set. Shall I put it in the bedroom and then you can watch in comfort, or doze—which you like?’
‘I can carry the portable. I’m not an invalid.’
‘You do that.’ He pushed her towards the door. ‘Off you go.’ It was sympathetic and touching. It was also dismissal. Miss Pink watched calmly, observing that Handel Evans hung on every word, his eyes going from husband to wife as if he were afraid of missing some nuance of expression. A stranger might have thought her regard casual, and indeed she was thinking there was little of interest in Evans’s superficial manner but she was wondering if his exhibitionism might cloak a devious mind. Was he, as he appeared, a stupid man trying to be clever, or a cunning one pretending to be stupid? And then she wondered if she would be in Dinas long enough to find out. Not, she thought, unless something happened that might tempt his fugitive mind from hiding. Now what kind of event might that be?
‘It has occurred to me,’ he said, when the door had closed behind Anna, ‘that someone as killed a dog could steal a car.’
Waring’s mouth twitched but not with amusement.
Curious to know what track Evans’s mind was following now, Miss Pink said: ‘That’s possible, but the two incidents were separated by a hundred miles.’
‘That’s if he went to Liverpool.’
Waring leaned his elbows on the bar.
‘Who said he was going there?’
‘He did. That’s not to say he got there. He could have been waylaid. He didn’t have a dog with him. The best dog—the one he should have took—were dead.’ He thought about that. ‘That’s right; I reckon the dog were killed Friday afternoon.’ He looked at Waring without expression. ‘I reckon I heard the shot what killed him.’
‘It took you a long time to find the body,’ Waring said.
Evans wasn’t disconcerted. ‘On Friday I thought it was just illegal shooting. I didn’t realise I were being set up.’
There was a pause, then: ‘Set up?’ Miss Pink repeated.
‘First shots come from up the combe. So I went that way, didn’t I? Next shot come from down the way. That would be the one as killed Satan. There’s more than one person in this. It smacks of conspiracy.’
‘You’re suggesting that the dog got out as soon as you left the house,’ Miss Pink pointed out. ‘Wouldn’t Mrs Judson have seen it go?’
‘Madam left to go shopping soon after me.’
‘All right,’ Waring said. ‘So the dog was killed Friday afternoon. How do you tie that in with the stolen car?’
Evans looked vacant. ‘I don’t know. But it’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it?’ He brightened. ‘I mean, both things is getting at Mr Judson. He’s going to be annoyed when he finds out.’
Miss Pink’s eyes
narrowed behind her spectacles.
‘Why hasn’t he found out?’ Waring asked.
‘Why? He ain’t home yet.’
‘So he doesn’t know about the dog. Why doesn’t he know his car’s been stolen?’
Evans glared at him open-mouthed, then turned on Miss Pink who was waiting for his reply. He drew himself up and his nostrils flared.
‘That’s what I’m going to find out,’ he said, and stalked out of the room.
‘He wants his head looking at,’ Waring said.
It was nine o’clock when Evans presented himself to Mrs Judson in the drawing room and asked for a word. She gave him her flustered attention.
‘What is it, Evans?’
‘Have you had any news, mum? About the master?’
She shook her head dumbly.
‘Have you reported it to the police?’
‘Reported what?’
‘Why, he’s missing, isn’t he?’
She opened her mouth and closed it, then looked away.
‘You need advice, mum.’
‘Yes—’ resignedly, ‘—I’m going to speak to someone tonight.’
‘The police?’
She sighed heavily. ‘What did you want to see me about, Evans?’
‘Well, I been thinking: that dog being killed, and his car turning up stolen; I reckon them things is connected. Now, I want you to cast your mind back: to Friday when we was talking in the yard. How soon after I left did you go off shopping?’
‘Oh, shortly afterwards.’
‘Did you see that Lloyd hanging around?’
‘Lloyd? No-o. Why?’
‘He shot that dog, and I’m going to prove it.’
She looked wary. ‘Don’t make trouble, Evans.’
‘I’ll watch my step, don’t worry about me. Now, concerning the master: have they printed the car?’
‘Have they what?’
‘Fingerprints. He’ll have left prints all over it, unless he used gloves.’
‘Who will?’
‘Why, Lloyd.’
She pushed a hand through her hair.
‘Are you saying that Lloyd stole the Volvo?’
He nodded. ‘Him or that woman what’s up there at the cottage with him. We’ll soon know by the prints, although I reckon they’ll have worn gloves. It’s the television what teaches people how to become criminals.’
‘Why would they steal the car?’
‘Ah now, there’s more to this than meets the eye. What I want to know is, where’s the master? If we could question them, see? If they’d left their prints on the car, I could go up there and pressure them some—like the master said: lean on them.’
‘But he was talking about the dog when he said that.’ She went on in the same tone, as if it had no importance: ‘There were no prints on the steering wheel.’
‘So you have talked to the police! What are they doing about the master?’
‘They didn’t say.’ Her fingers played with her lips.
‘Did you tell ’em about the call from Mrs Waring?’
‘What call?’
‘Saturday. Mrs Evans said as Anna Waring phoned here.’
‘That’s right. I’d forgotten. You’re saying the police should be told? Why?’
His face was a travesty of innocence.
‘Oh, nothing. I just thought—she might know something.’
‘Yes, well—’ She looked round the room helplessly. ‘He’ll see to it when he comes back.’ Evans stared at her. ‘I’m tired,’ she went on, ‘I shall go to bed shortly. There was something I wanted to say but it will keep until the morning.’
He went out and she listened to his footsteps retreating down the passage. A door opened. After a few moments he returned.
‘Where’s the master’s shot gun?’
She looked both startled and stupid. She took the bridge of her nose between her fingers and shook her head from side to side.
‘It’s gone, mum.’
‘You mean: he took it with him!’ She was near the end of her tether.
‘There’s something very wrong,’ he said slowly, taking command.
‘Oh, God! I wish he’d come home.’
Evans sat down. ‘We’ve got to talk,’ he said.
Chapter 7
Ted Roberts arrived at the Bridge the following morning, having telephoned the evening before. The original intention had been to climb—modestly in view of their modest standard—but before they left, a second caller arrived at the Bridge: an elderly man like a brown elephant with the small, careful eyes of an elephant. He was driving an ancient Rover and he had some connection, or intended to have, with Richard Judson. Waring came to the porch to direct him. A few yards away, at the boot of her car, Miss Pink and Ted Roberts sorted gear in silence and noted every word.
‘CID?’ she whispered, when the stranger had driven away and Waring had gone back indoors.
Ted chuckled. ‘Your mind is a sink. He’s a naturalist and lives on the north coast. He’s the new secretary of the Cambrian Environmentalists’ Trust. I’ve seen his photograph in a field magazine but I can’t put a name to the face.’
‘Would even a new secretary need to inquire the whereabouts of one of the Trust’s big landlords?’
‘No. He was fishing.’
Miss Pink opened a map and they turned their backs on the building.
‘Lloyd told me that someone from the Trust would be arriving this week in response to his protests about the Alsatians on the Reserve.’
‘Arriving without an appointment? A spot check?’
‘Not with an influential landlord. Everything would have to be above board with Judson, ostensibly at least. This fellow will have made an appointment.’
‘And he’s not back yet.’
‘The grapevine says not, according to the girl who served my breakfast. She’s not a local but Lucy Banks is.’
‘But Lucy’s not a gossip.’
She didn’t contradict him but regarded him with interest.
‘She’s jolly,’ he went on, ‘but discreet. Garrulous in that she talks a lot, but it’s not about her neighbours.’
‘So you know Lucy.’
‘I handled her divorce. I’ve never known Lucy anything other than cool. She isn’t spiteful or hysterical or silly—’ Miss Pink thought that Ted was curiously intense, ‘—she adores that boy of hers; as for him, he’s intelligent and amoral but he loves his mother. I’m fond of Lucy; I hope she can keep young Bart straight.’
‘There was a story about her peppering a barman with shot.’
He grinned. ‘Lucy’s was a bad marriage. It should never have happened but there, she’s free of him now. She’s a hard worker and a good mother. She also happens to be a full-blooded woman but—once bitten, twice shy, and she’s not getting involved with any more men—seriously, I mean. On that occasion the barman, who was a husky young fellow but not very bright, pushed his luck. He was Spanish and, in Spain, ladies aren’t dab hands with shot guns.’
‘Nor in Britain,’ Miss Pink murmured. ‘But didn’t she shout rape? Did you represent her?’
‘Oh dear, no!’ He was shocked. ‘It never got to court. Cried rape, did she? I heard a bit of gossip—but no, the man didn’t bring a charge.’
Miss Pink sucked in her cheeks as she tried to keep a straight face. Ted asked with gentle curiosity: ‘Incidentally, what’s the construction that Dinas puts on Judson not reporting his car stolen?’
‘The man from the Post Office—Sydney Owen—button-holed me last night. He advanced the kind of theory that you might expect: Judson’s in deep waters financially and has fled the country, so he doesn’t know that the car has been stolen.’
He nodded. ‘Not thought through, is it? He’d have sold the Volvo before he left. Is there any basis for the theory of financial straits?’
‘You’re the legal man.’
He smiled faintly. ‘But you’re on the spot.’
She returned the smile. ‘I wouldn’t
say they’re in straitened circumstances but there’s no real evidence of substance—apart from the land. If he were in trouble he could always sell some land. If Judson had a problem, I’d have expected it to be a woman, or women.’
‘I agree.’
‘But the two women—three if you include his wife—involved with him at the moment, have been left behind. He’s gone away; the women are still here.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve seen them. Maggie Seale is not just here, but appears to have taken Joss Lloyd for her lover. Anna Waring was away for the weekend but came back yesterday and she hadn’t been with Judson because—’ Her voice died away.
‘Yes, Melinda?’
They regarded each other speculatively. ‘Because,’ she concluded, ‘she would have said so if she had.’
‘Would she?’ His tone changed, became airy. ‘When I asked how you knew, I meant how did you know he’d left all his feminine interests here? How do you know there isn’t another woman, elsewhere, even abroad?’
‘I don’t, but there’s his age and physical condition. He couldn’t have gone so quickly from one to the next, perhaps even having relationships with two women at the same time—he couldn’t have lived like that, and survived.’
‘That may be the point.’
Their eyes shifted at the same moment, as both became aware of the likelihood of observation. After a pause during which she folded the map with elaborate care, he said: ‘Let’s stroll up the combe slowly, towards Parc, bird-watching, and see if anything turns up, eh?’
They covered the ground between the Bridge and Parc at a normal pace but as they drew level with the first of Parc’s conifers they stopped, Miss Pink focused her binoculars on an imaginary bird, and they listened. They heard nothing more than birdsong and the hum of insects. They continued quietly but as they approached the entrance to the drive, they heard voices. Exchanging glances they sauntered forward and came into full view of the front door.
Gladys Judson was standing on the step saying goodbye to the secretary of the Trust. Miss Pink waved and smiled. Gladys looked startled, hesitant, and then she lifted a hand in what Miss Pink took to be an invitation. They waited, smiling politely as the stranger drove past, touching his cap, and then they moved up the drive.
