by Gwen Moffat
Gladys was still making some effort to retain her poise but this morning her voice showed signs of strain although, since Ted was already known to her, it may have been that his presence was actually encouraging her to lower her defences.
‘I’m so glad to see someone we know,’ she said. ‘Now my woman is having hysterics, and that man arrived to see Richard and all the time that I was trying to tell him what had happened, Ellen would keep breaking in and demanding that I call the police, threatening to do it herself. You’ve come at a bad moment, I’m afraid—no, I don’t mean—’
They were standing in the hall and at that the door from the back quarters was flung open and Ellen approached like one of the Furies, her hair awry, her eyes snapping, protesting as she came.
‘I can’t sit alone; I can feel my brain washing round and round—’ she faltered as she caught sight of the visitors and her face was suddenly crafty, ‘—what do they think?’
‘They don’t know.’ Gladys was brittle. ‘If you’ll bring us coffee, Ellen, in the drawing room—’
‘Coffee!’ She stared from one to the other. ‘Coffee! And Evans not come home all night? He had no gun! An unarmed man, but brave as a lion, he was. They’ve done it between them—I know it; he said so, said she handled a gun like a man. Shot the dog, shot the master, shot—’
‘Ellen!’
Gladys’s control had broken at last, but the tirade was checked. Shaky but coherent she turned to her guests and said meaningly: ‘We both need you—as you observe. Perhaps—if we were to have coffee in the kitchen—?’
They moved towards the back of the hall, Ellen retreating before them. In the kitchen the woman dropped onto a chair while Gladys filled a kettle. Ellen stared at the table. Gladys said: ‘Evans hasn’t been home all night. Ellen is worried. You remember Mr Roberts, Ellen; he was the solicitor before he retired.’
‘And the coroner,’ Ellen said darkly.
Gladys looked at Miss Pink in mute appeal.
‘When did you see your husband last?’ Miss Pink asked of Ellen.
‘I’d gone to bed. I had migraine.’
‘It was getting on towards ten,’ Gladys put in. ‘We’d been talking, Evans and I. He went across and I listened to the ten o’clock news before I went to bed.’
‘And Evans came upstairs to bed?’ Ted turned to Ellen.
‘No.’
‘He went up to their bedroom—’ Gladys said, and waited, as did her guests.
Ellen looked up and her eyes brightened. Miss Pink thought that the woman was more excited than worried.
‘He come upstairs,’ she said clearly, savouring their attention, ‘and he took a thick jersey and one of them balaclava helmet things. Dark, they were—them clothes.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Up to that one.’
‘That one?’
‘That Lloyd.’
‘Why?’ asked Ted.
Ellen drew a deep breath. ‘To bring the spade away, as evidence.’
Gladys stared at the woman as if mesmerised. ‘He went to Lloyd’s cottage? You didn’t say that before.’
‘You never let me get that far. Of course he did.’
‘Did he tell you why he wanted the spade?’ Ted asked gently.
‘Evidence! I said. The grave were dug with a spade.’
Miss Pink glanced at Gladys. ‘What grave?’
Ellen said: ‘Why, Satan’s. He was buried, wasn’t he?’
There was a moment of relaxation before Gladys said heatedly: ‘I told him—I ordered him not to go up to Lloyd’s. He came here and asked if he could have a word with me.’ She turned to Ellen. ‘You know what Evans is like: he gets an idea into his head and nothing will shake him.’ Ellen pursed her lips. ‘He insists Lloyd shot the dog,’ Gladys went on. ‘I told him that he was to wait until Richard came home before doing anything that might make trouble; I thought I’d convinced him.… What does it mean? He said Richard’s shot gun is gone too. It is missing.’
No one spoke for a while, then Ted asked quietly: ‘When did you notice it was missing?’
‘I didn’t. Evans wanted to take it with him, for protection, he said. I refused, he went out and he must have looked in the study as he went. He came back and told me it wasn’t there.’
‘Did Judson take it with him?’ Ted asked.
‘I didn’t see him go. Did you see him leave, Ellen?’
‘I saw the car go down the drive. I was vacuuming the drawing room. I couldn’t see if he had a gun with him. I wouldn’t, would I?’
‘Why—’ Ted checked.
Miss Pink’s mind was racing but she waited for him to continue. He was the local man—and had been a coroner.
‘Police,’ Ellen said defiantly.
They all looked at Ted. ‘It’s either that,’ he said, ‘or we—I should go up to speak to Lloyd.’
‘Oh no!’ Gladys was frightened. ‘Not alone, Mr Roberts.’
‘Evans said nothing else?’ he pressed. ‘To you, Mrs Judson, or to Ellen?’
Gladys shook her head dumbly. ‘I ordered him not to go,’ she repeated.
‘He said he might be gone for a while,’ Ellen said. ‘I told him not to go, too. Anything could happen, I said; he’s got that girl up there, I said. She killed Brindle; she’s violent, that one, worse than Lloyd. And what does anyone know about her? She comes here, giving herself airs; she could be—’
‘Yes.’ Ted got up and walked out of the kitchen, followed by Miss Pink. ‘This is a rum do,’ he murmured as they approached the front door. ‘Two men missing is distinctly odd, don’t you agree?’
‘It was odd when one was missing.’
‘Quite. We must have a word with Mrs Judson, alone. Will you fetch her?’
She brought Gladys from the kitchen and the three of them walked down the drive where they couldn’t be overheard.
‘This is distressing for you, Mrs Judson—’ Ted was most considerate, ‘—but have you reported your husband as missing?’
Gladys stared at the wooded slope and twisted her wedding ring. ‘No. I was afraid to.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I thought he’d be back by now.’
‘But he hasn’t reported his car stolen, Mrs Judson.’ He was being patient.
‘I’m terribly worried,’ she confessed. ‘What should I do?’
‘I think the police should be informed,’ Miss Pink said. ‘If he is—elsewhere—on business, and isn’t aware that the car has been stolen, he can only be cross if he’s reported missing. Hadn’t he intended to be home before today? A man was at the Bridge inquiring for him. Surely it was the man who drove away as we were passing?’
Gladys nodded. ‘My mind’s in a whirl. Of course Richard intended—That man was Maynard Vale, the secretary of the Trust. He had an appointment with Richard for this morning: about the dogs on the Reserve. I told him they were both dead. I’m sorry, it’s too much—’ She put her hand to her head.
They led her inside the house and settled her in a chair in the drawing room.
‘We haven’t had coffee,’ she said weakly.
Miss Pink went to the kitchen and told Ellen to make a pot of strong tea. When she returned, Ted was using the telephone. They exchanged glances full of significance. She sat quietly with her hostess until he entered.
‘The police are sending someone,’ he told them casually, as if it were an everyday event. ‘Would you like one of us to stay?’
‘If you both would—please?’
Ellen came in with a tray and would have started to talk again but Ted took her back to the kitchen, leaving Miss Pink with Gladys. Tacitly they kept the two women apart; neither could do the other any good.
The police arrived within twenty minutes: a uniformed sergeant and a constable in a patrol car. They sat in the drawing room and Ted took it on himself to outline the facts, but no sooner had he said that Judson was missing when Ellen stepped in from the hall where it was obviou
s that she’d been listening.
‘And his gun,’ she insisted. ‘His gun’s gone too.’
The sergeant stiffened. The constable looked startled.
‘Yes, Mrs Evans.’ Ted was firm. ‘I’ll tell the officers. His shot gun is missing,’ he went on calmly. ‘And Evans went out last night, in defiance of Mrs Judson’s orders, telling his wife he was going to the cottage where the warden of the Nature Reserve lives. He hasn’t returned.’
‘What does the warden say?’
‘No one’s been up there to ask him.’
‘I see.’ It was obvious he didn’t.
‘They killed our dogs,’ Ellen said.
The rest of it came out then. The police knew about Satan’s having been shot, not that the brindled dog had died.
‘This Lloyd,’ the sergeant said. ‘Is he violent?’
‘The girl is,’ asserted Ellen—and Miss Pink closed her eyes.
‘Excuse me a moment.’ The sergeant stood up and went outside, followed by the constable. Through the window they saw him walk to the patrol car and use its radio.
When they returned, more tea was made, more questions were asked, but Miss Pink knew that this was only a holding operation. Within half an hour two plainclothes men arrived, asked similar questions, and then all the police left, driving up the combe to Lloyd’s track. The people left at Parc looked at each other dumbly. For the moment even Ellen had nothing to say. The visitors were at a loss; there seemed nothing they could do except offer comfort—but a spark of common sense asserted itself.
‘Who attends to your horse?’ Miss Pink asked. ‘Is it stabled?’
‘Why, no. He’s in the meadow.’ Gladys stood up. ‘Ellen, we must do some work.’
‘We can’t work now.’
‘Yes, we can.’
They didn’t. The visitors and their hostess walked round the garden but after a while the heat drove them to a seat in the shade. Ellen brought more tea.
‘I feel you should go for a walk,’ Gladys told Miss Pink, ‘but I dread your going.’ It was a plea.
‘We’ll stay while you need us. We were merely bird-watching.’
They didn’t hear a car arrive and glanced up with resignation as Ellen approached but there were two strangers with her. Miss Pink observed them with interest, reflecting that even detectives were getting younger. This was an inspector and a sergeant, both athletic, sharply dressed, bright-eyed. They were in their thirties, she guessed, and intelligent but slightly out of their depth. The inspector was called Cross, the sergeant: Bowen. Ellen hovered in the background and no one had the heart to send her away. In the circumstances they were more immediately concerned with the whereabouts of her husband than of Judson.
Choosing his words carefully Cross told them that Lloyd and ‘the young woman’ maintained that Evans had not, so far as they knew, been at the cottage last night, that they hadn’t seen him since the day before: Sunday, at about midday, when Lloyd had driven him and Miss Pink down to Parc with the dog Brindle in the back of his Land-Rover.
‘They must have seen him yesterday,’ Gladys said. ‘Evans went up for the body of the dog—the black one. He brought it down and buried it behind his house.’
‘The couple were at the cottage, ma’am,’ Cross said. ‘They heard a car on the track and the girl went down and saw a blue Simca parked halfway up. That belongs to Evans? Yes. She concluded he’d come for the body. After a while they went down and the car had gone.’ There was a lot that he wasn’t saying. What he did say was: ‘We have to get some more men out here for a search.’
Ellen turned without a word and went back to the house. Gladys followed her.
‘Where are you going to search?’ Ted asked.
With the departure of the two women Cross relaxed visibly.
‘Evans isn’t going to be far away, sir. His car’s still here. We’ll have to go through those woods.’
‘Is it impossible that he’s met with an accident?’ Miss Pink asked, without much hope.
They considered the question.
‘What kind of accident?’ Ted asked. ‘There are no cliffs, no water, no mine shafts. A heart attack?’
‘He looked healthy enough,’ she admitted, then sharply: ‘Did you find a spade at the cottage?’
‘Yes, ma’am. We found a spade.’
‘Where else might he have gone?’ Ted asked, more of himself than the company.
‘Giving the couple the benefit of the doubt?’ Cross suggested. ‘We’re new to the situation: coming in cold. We don’t know the man; we haven’t got all the facts—by any means.’ He looked over the garden. ‘We’ve got several crimes—well, crimes and other forms of violence: we’ve got two men disappeared, we’ve got a stolen car and two dead dogs.’ His eyes came back to Ted. ‘But how many cases have we got?’
‘There’s a lot of work ahead of you.’
‘And we’re short-handed. Who isn’t?’
Cross looked at Miss Pink, and Ted interpreted the look correctly.
‘This lady is an old friend,’ he said, adding, with a touch of mischief: ‘She knows a great deal about criminals, one way and another—quite as much as I do.’
‘Is that so?’ Cross regarded her with interest. ‘So you’re that Miss Pink. Connected with the mountain school that the terrorists were working from, stealing explosives? And Ellen Jotti, the gangster’s wife? Well, well; we could do with some background here, couldn’t we sergeant? What do you think of this business, ma’am?’
She blinked but, after a pause, collected herself.
‘Had you asked me that question a couple of hours ago I would have said that the main problem was the reason why Judson hadn’t reported his car stolen. But, with a second man missing, the situation has ramified out of all proportion. One wonders if previous happenings should be viewed in a different light—although no light at all appears to have been shed on Judson’s disappearance nor the theft of his car. Can the dog be connected: the one that was shot? There’s no mystery about the brindled one. We must be thankful for small mercies.’
‘There are connections all the way through,’ Ted pointed out. ‘It’s Judson’s dog that was killed, his car was stolen; it’s even his employee—and neighbour—who’s missing now.’
‘Those are the obvious connections,’ Cross agreed. ‘We have to find out if there are others.’
‘Have they finished printing the car?’
‘Yes, sir. The steering wheel and doors were wiped clean. Can’t find a trace anywhere in fact.’
‘Really?’ Miss Pink was amazed. ‘That doesn’t sound like people using it for a free ride to Snowdonia.’
‘And the petrol tank still half-full,’ Bowen put in gloomily.
‘They needed to go to that particular place,’ Cross hazarded. ‘Could it have been a rendezvous? With another car, another driver?’
‘Judson?’ Miss Pink wondered. ‘Could he have driven the car there himself and had someone pick him up? If he wanted to disappear he’d have wiped his prints off the car in order to give the impression that it had been stolen.’
‘Yes.’ Cross’s tone was heavy. ‘We have to find Judson. Evans too. No doubt about it: we have to get more men on this.’
Chapter 8
A swallow jinked above the shallows, scooping water with its beak.
‘Water,’ Miss Pink said. ‘You were wrong.’
They were sitting on the stream bank below Parc. At the house Cross was taking Gladys through her recital of the last few days, concentrating on her conversations with Evans. Ted and Miss Pink had come down to the stream to be out of the way. Gladys seemed to have struck up some kind of relationship with Cross; it was she who had suggested the walk: ‘So boring for you,’ she’d said. ‘We’ve been over all this so many times. I can cope, I assure you.’
‘Water?’ Ted repeated now. ‘What water?’
‘You said Evans couldn’t have met with an accident because there were no cliffs, no mine shafts and no water.’
<
br /> ‘You couldn’t have an accident here. And this stream isn’t on the way to Lloyd’s cottage.’
They turned and looked at the woods, hazy with a pale bloom, drowsing in the heat. The line of the minor road was marked by straggling hedges, interspersed with wire.
‘There’s someone walking down the lane,’ he said.
She focused her binoculars. ‘It’s Seale. Now, where’s she—She’s going to her tent, of course.’
They looked at each other thoughtfully.
‘Is it safe to go?’ he ventured. ‘Someone ought to stay here, to be on hand if Gladys Judson needs advice, or Ellen.’
‘I’m curious as to what Seale knows.’
‘Where’s her tent?’
‘About a mile downstream. I’ll follow the river.’
‘Have you got a whistle?’
‘My rucksack’s at the house. Don’t be melodramatic, Ted. The girl’s all right.’
‘You’re a reckless woman, Melinda.’
Not reckless, she thought, swishing through the buttercups. I’m taking a calculated risk. I think I’ve judged the girl correctly. Amoral? Well, let’s say she’s got her own principles. Would she kill? Anyone could, given the right circumstances, but I don’t think I’m in danger. Not from Seale.
She didn’t keep pace with the figure on the road. The girl was walking smartly but Miss Pink had to contend with stiles, and spreads of gorse. When she arrived at the camp site Seale had already collapsed her tent and was working it into a bag. She greeted Miss Pink with surprise and a trace of impatience.
‘You’re not leaving.’
Seale took it as a question. ‘I’m going to move in with Lloyd,’ she said coldly.
Miss Pink nodded. ‘He needs you.’
Seale stared at her. ‘What do you know?’
‘I’ve been at Parc all morning. And I’ve met the police.’
‘And on Sunday you were with Evans. What part are you playing in all this?’
‘Well,’ Miss Pink admitted, ‘partly I’ve been drawn into it, but also I think there’s more than meets the eye. One wouldn’t want the wrong people to suffer. For instance, I’m not jumping to the conclusion that Lloyd shot the black Alsatian, nor that he’s responsible for Evans’s disappearance.’
