by Gwen Moffat
‘Sit down,’ Seale said, reaching for the gun. She didn’t nurse it, merely placed it closer to her leg. ‘Only Davies is leaving.’
‘You’re mad!’ He was angry and frightened. ‘That’s a threat! I’ve got four witnesses.’
Miss Pink had sat down stiffly. ‘You’d better go, Mr Davies; you should have gone before but no one had a loaded gun to back them up.’
He glanced wildly at the whisky bottle. His intention was obvious.
‘Don’t push it,’ Seale warned. ‘See him out, Ellen.’
‘And I’ll make sure he drives away.’
‘You don’t have to bother; he won’t come back.’
Davies’s forehead was shining with sweat but he made some attempt at dignity as he got to his feet and moved towards the hall. He paused at the doorway and Ellen, just behind him, put a firm hand on his shoulder. He gasped and shrank away. The women listened to the retreating footsteps and then their eyes returned to Seale. There was an air of intimacy in the room.
‘Why did you come?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Because Pryce has come back to Lloyd; they’re up there with him now—as I would be, except that we heard their car coming up the track and I took his gun and slipped into the trees until I found out who was coming. When I saw who it was I didn’t go back.’
‘Why did you take a gun? Why did you come here?’
‘I took the gun because I feel safer with it. Why shouldn’t I come here?’ She was speaking directly to Miss Pink as if the other women didn’t exist. ‘Pryce is picking candidates with a pin: Anna Waring, just because she was one of the women involved and she was absent from the village that night, and she was jealous. Jealous of me. And Lloyd and me, Lloyd being the jealous party there. What Pryce hasn’t realised is that there are other women involved.’
She looked at Lucy as if she had tossed the woman a cue but Lucy sat bolt upright with her hands in her lap, staring at her knees.
‘I was with Joss that night,’ Seale said quietly. ‘Where were you?’
‘No,’ Miss Pink protested. ‘This has gone altogether too far. Seale, it’s monstrous! Gladys—’ She stopped, remembering the loaded gun, remembering that they were all, except Seale, helpless.
‘She’s in charge.’ Gladys put the thought into words.
‘It’s sadistic.’ Miss Pink was squirming mentally. ‘Seale, whatever you suspect, you can’t say it in Mrs Judson’s presence. Haven’t you any feeling left? I thought you had compassion.’
‘You don’t know me,’ Seale said. ‘And Joss isn’t going inside, not if I can help it. He’s doing his best to put himself there at the moment; he’s raving against Judson—and Evans.’
‘Gladys,’ Miss Pink said, ‘I think you should go to bed; you’re looking very sleepy.’
‘She’s staying,’ Seale said, and Miss Pink sank back in her chair in a state of utmost misery. For a time her mind was blank, but only a very short time, she merely had the sensation of a blank mind and time was relative; at some point the vacuum no longer existed, and the thoughts or thought process which came creeping in to fill the void had an air of familiarity although the context was strange. But for all its strangeness she recognised the situation: from reading, from commentators, from high-ranking policemen and psychologists. They were hostages.
She remembered that the first consideration was to establish a relationship with the gunman—or woman. Since there had been a relationship with Seale prior to this shocking development, although of a different order, one might have a base to build on, one might adjust. She’d be ill-advised to discard it altogether because what she knew of Seale might apply now. Or did it? Miss Pink wouldn’t have said yesterday that the girl was violent, merely that she had quick reactions and didn’t eschew violence when it was a question of survival—as when the dog Brindle attacked her, but yesterday wasn’t now; the evidence of potential violence was here: in the gun; the reality of violence lay in her arrogant orders.
Miss Pink had thought her careless; was there still an element of carelessness? Could that be used? The important thing was to keep talking, to keep her talking—and to keep her mellow. Miss Pink’s eyes strayed to the whisky and, as if the girl had read the thought, she picked up the shot gun and rose, walked round the back of the sofa and poured herself a drink. They watched in silence. They must all be thinking the same thing. It was difficult to credit that she could be running this risk—but she did, and, like Davies, she relaxed visibly as she tasted the Scotch. All expression was wiped from the faces of the other women. She returned to the sofa and placed the gun carefully on the floor at her feet.
‘I knew that Lucy was a friend of Richard’s,’ Gladys said. She looked at Lucy as if with calculation. ‘She’s warm-hearted; it’s cruel of you to frighten her so.’
Seale gave a snort of laughter.
‘Cruel? She was one of his women.’
‘Oh, rubbish, my dear! You’re obsessed with sex.’ Gladys pushed a hand through her hair. ‘As if it matters now.’
‘It matters. The killer had to be someone who knew the cottage existed, and its location, and the only people who knew that were his women.’
‘That’s nonsense too, apart from being bad-mannered.’ Gladys was only gently reproving. ‘Bart and Dewi knew so it wasn’t confidential.’
‘They found out by accident,’ Seale said. ‘They were on those moors one time and they saw a car like Judson’s turn off the main road and take to the forest. Since there was a cottage marked on the map and since they didn’t associate Judson with a property twelve miles from Dinas, they were intrigued. They crept up through the trees and when they reached the place they discovered Anna Waring’s car as well as Judson’s. After that they lost interest—until they thought up the plan to infuriate Judson by stealing his Volvo. But they knew about the cottage so they’d talk. Although Lucy would have known already.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Lucy said. ‘But you did. He’d have told you about it.’
Seale ignored that. She said meaningly: ‘And you were in this combe the night Evans died.’
Miss Pink glanced round in concern.
‘She’s outside the door,’ Seale said, and raised her voice. ‘Will you talk to us about it, Ellen, before you talk to the police?’
The woman came in hesitantly, her eyes on the gun.
‘I’ve talked to them. I don’t know nothing more than I’ve told. The night he were killed Evans said he was coming up to you: you and that Lloyd. He took a torch and a jersey and I heard him start up the back. He come to you and you took him down to the river and drownded him.’
‘You heard him start up the back? What do you mean by that?’
‘I heard him go out the back door.’
‘Go on.’
‘I didn’t hear no more. Our bedroom’s at the front. But he went out the back way.’
Seale asked Lucy: ‘You were waiting for him?’
Lucy’s breath escaped in a hiss.
‘Damn you,’ she said viciously. ‘You were leading up to that. Why would I be there? How would I know he was coming out? He told Ellen he was going up to Lloyd’s cottage and that’s what he did. And you brought him down again, the two of you—probably in the Land-Rover—and you put him in the river.’ She stared intently at Ellen.
The woman nodded. ‘That’s what I say.’ Miss Pink stared in amazement. Ellen misinterpreted the look and said smugly: ‘I heard the Land-Rover pass.’
Seale got up, and taking the gun, poured herself a second large whisky. Miss Pink and Lucy exchanged a glance. Gladys was leaning back in her chair, smiling at the logs in the fireplace.
‘Is everyone warm enough? It gets chilly when the sun goes down.’
Miss Pink realised that Gladys, whether shocked or drugged or withdrawn, was another factor to be considered in this unprecedented situation. She also felt that the conversation was not what psychologists would advocate to establish a sympathetic relationship with a gunman. When Seale returned to
her seat she tried a new tack.
‘Anyone could have talked about the cottage. Anna could have told Waring; Dewi could have told his father.’
Seale giggled and Miss Pink’s eyes sharpened.
‘This was a sex crime,’ Seale said, ‘and Sydney Owen had hysterics when he found out he’d been involved in the death of a dog. Do you see Sydney killing a man? And why should he? There’s never been any suggestion of Noreen Owen being involved with Judson. And as far as Waring’s concerned: the hotel’s his baby. It wasn’t a man’s crime; men are far too cold-blooded—but, as Mrs Judson implied, Lucy is very warm, and violent, and promiscuous. When she doesn’t want a man, she shoots him—like she did the barman at the Bridge—’ Lucy glanced up at this, as if alerted for a blow, ‘—but if she wants a man and he goes after someone else, then the gun comes in handy for that too. There’s not much sex left at Lucy’s age,’ Seale said gravely, ‘but power’s the next best thing. It has to be; there’s nothing else when you’re old. Lucy could allow Richard Anna, because she’s a silly, shallow woman—but Lucy hated me. She came out to his cottage thinking I was there and she must have got all steamed up about it. Probably she meant to kill me too. That’s why I brought the gun tonight.’
Seale’s consonants were slightly slurred. Miss Pink found herself holding her breath.
‘You were there,’ Lucy was saying dully. ‘That’s why you sent Bart and Dewi away. They do know your engine. They did recognise it. They’re protecting you. Where have you sent them? What have you done with them?’
Her voice was rising. Seale looked too careless. Miss Pink said desperately: ‘Let’s talk about Evans.’ And could have bitten her tongue.
‘Evans was after Bart,’ Seale said. ‘He wasn’t after us; don’t you realise that? Bart knew his mother was the village tart—how couldn’t he know, at sixteen?—he knew she was at the cottage—’
‘It was you!’ Lucy shrilled, and suddenly she had launched herself across the carpet. Seale was only a fraction slower but there was movement behind the sofa and a bright gleam as Ellen brought down the whisky bottle in a blow aimed at the girl’s head. But Seale had flung up an arm and in her hand there was, amazingly, a cushion. The blow was deflected and now Gladys: the dreamy, apathetic Gladys, had stooped and lifted the shot gun.
They were all standing now, except Seale who sprawled over an arm of the sofa staring into the gun barrels. For a moment they remained like that, then Seale started to move, her eyes on Gladys’s face. The others watched the trigger finger tighten. Someone gave a faint moan. Seale pulled her feet under her and put her hands on the sofa. Miss Pink watched the trigger come back and closed her eyes.
There was a click. Miss Pink opened her eyes to see Gladys blink in consternation, to see the finger tighten again, the trigger come back. Click.
‘You mad bitch,’ Seale said.
Still holding the gun, Gladys whirled, but Seale leapt across the room and caught one of the woman’s arms in both her hands. Gladys froze.
‘That’s right,’ Seale said. ‘I don’t want to break your arm.’
She took the gun, pushed Gladys into a chair, took two cartridges from her pocket and loaded.
‘Go and telephone Pryce,’ she told Miss Pink.
‘What do I tell him?’
Miss Pink felt helpless. She wasn’t sure of the significance of what had happened; she wasn’t sure what had happened. She looked at the four women, she stared at Lucy.
‘But why—? Did you—?’
‘For God’s sake!’ Seale saw that they were all bewildered and not yet horrified. She looked at Gladys and sighed.
‘Tell him Mrs Judson is ready to talk now,’ she said.
Chapter 15
‘It won’t do,’ Pryce said, addressing his audience generally. ‘If anyone entered my house with a loaded gun and I managed to get it off him, I’d shoot him if it looked as if he might try to get it back. It looks to me as if Mrs Judson acted with common sense, not to speak of a great deal of courage. What’s to say she didn’t?’
‘You didn’t see her,’ Lucy said.
Bewildered by their hostility (except for Gladys who appeared totally uninterested, slumped in her chair) he turned to Miss Pink, who was considering that last remark of Lucy’s. She glanced at Gladys and said flatly: ‘She meant to kill Seale. She tried both barrels.’
Gladys didn’t react. Pryce said: ‘I’ll bet you were all wondering how you could get hold of that gun.’ He turned to Lucy. ‘You would have had a good try anyway.’
‘Too right I’d have tried.’ She was angry. ‘And did. I wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known it wasn’t loaded. But I knew I had to get it before she did.’ She stared at Gladys with loathing.
‘What’s going on here?’ Pryce felt himself losing control of the situation. Williams didn’t help; he’d been in a state of astonishment since their arrival. Pryce glowered at Miss Pink who indicated Seale weakly.
‘Ask her,’ she said. ‘I’m out of my depth.’
‘I was playing it off the cuff,’ Seale admitted, not waiting for Pryce to ask her for an explanation, talking to the women rather than the police. ‘I knew Lloyd couldn’t be the murderer but it looked so black against him that it seemed to me the only way to get at the truth was to make the killer confess. I wasn’t sure who that was; when you looked around, no one seemed to care enough to have killed Judson. But if the police couldn’t get anywhere just by badgering people—what they call investigation—I wondered if a loaded gun might do it, or a gun people thought was loaded.’
Pryce sighed. ‘This isn’t the kind of thing I wanted. Miss Pink has explained your part in the business this evening. But you can answer one question: what was Lloyd doing on Saturday night when Mrs Evans heard the Land-Rover pass?’
‘She made that up,’ Seale said equably. ‘She’ll admit it now.’
Pryce turned to Ellen who said carefully: ‘I was going along with Miss Seale. I didn’t hear no Land-Rover.’
He closed his eyes in disgust.
Seale said, as if there’d been no interruption: ‘I overheard what they were talking about in here before I showed myself. I didn’t know that Bart and Dewi had disappeared. Lloyd and I did know they’d pinched the Volvo, of course—in fact, it was Lloyd suggested their cover story, about climbing Pinnacle Wall on Sunday. They knew the route because he took them up it a couple of months ago—’ she grinned at Miss Pink, ‘—when the sun was lower in the sky. None of us would make good criminals.
‘When I heard them talking about the boys hearing a car engine I was as flummoxed as the rest of them but when I walked in here I pretended to know a lot more than I did. I was trying to set myself up, you see. Initially, the gun was loaded. I unloaded it before I came in. I wasn’t going to get myself shot—and I reckoned someone might try just that. I pushed as hard as I could. I’m sorry, Lucy; I wasn’t trying to break you so much as to break up this circle. If one person went wild, panic would spread. I picked on you as the weak link, and kept hammering.’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Miss Pink: ‘Just as if you were the one dealing with a terrorist!’
That bewildered all of them—except Gladys.
Lucy said: ‘I wasn’t bothered about you calling me names and I didn’t give a damn if you suspected me of being the murderer. What I was terrified of was everyone insisting it was me who sent the boys away. Of course it was me. And I reckoned Gladys killed her husband—and a fat chance I’d have had convincing the police of that—but I knew that once Gladys realised who stole that Volvo from the cottage she was going to come after my boy—’
‘You sent those boys off?’ Pryce was furious.
Her contempt matched his anger. ‘Look where your investigations got you!’
He breathed deeply, getting himself under control.
‘So all you ladies have been suspecting each other.’ He stood up. ‘Mrs Banks, perhaps you’d have no objection in coming down to the Station with us, where we can talk in
private?’
Behind him Seale raised her voice: ‘Why was Evans killed, Mrs Judson?’
Pryce turned reluctantly. Everyone waited for a reply but Gladys said nothing. Ellen came and sat on the sofa and regarded her employer with ghoulish interest.
‘You were the last person to see Evans,’ Seale persisted. ‘The two of you had been discussing us, probably in this room—’ she looked round thoughtfully, ‘—Evans said he was going up to Lloyd’s cottage and he went across to his own place and upstairs and told Ellen where he was going. He left the cottage by the back door and he went to my tent.’ Again she raised her voice. ‘Why did he go to my tent, Mrs Judson?’
Gladys looked up.
‘He went to your tent because you weren’t there. He was coming up to the cottage afterwards.’
The silence was electric until Pryce said softly: ‘It’s the first time you’ve mentioned that, ma’am: that Evans went voluntarily to Miss Seale’s tent. Mrs Evans insists that he said he was going up to Lloyd’s cottage.’
‘He went out of his back door,’ Miss Pink put in. ‘If he’d been going down to the tent he’d have gone out the front.’
‘So?’
‘The only way she could have known he went to the tent voluntarily is because she told him to. She must have been waiting in the woods close to his cottage.’ For a moment no one spoke, then Miss Pink resumed, speaking to Gladys, slowly and carefully: ‘You told him to go up to Lloyd’s and he told Ellen that was where he was going, but when he left the cottage you were waiting outside. You countermanded that order and told him to go to Seale’s tent. You went with him.’
Gladys looked at Ellen. ‘He didn’t suffer,’ she said earnestly. ‘I’m certain of that. He didn’t come round, you know; I watched. He never struggled.’ In the heavy silence she continued, with a faint air of bewilderment: ‘I can’t remember why it had to happen.’
‘It was obvious,’ said Pryce; ‘obvious that Evans had stumbled on something. We only had to wait. She told us everything in the end.’
He was sitting with Miss Pink and Ted Roberts in Ted’s house on the sea cliffs. The two friends had been climbing in the Lake District and on their return they had invited Pryce to dinner. Over the brandy he filled in gaps.
