Masters and Green Series Box Set

by Douglas Clark

  Nicholson broke the silence. ‘This on the left is the vicarage garden. It stretches from here to the church.’ Masters could just make out, forty or fifty yards away across the end of Church Walk, a lych-gate. Beyond that, a few bare trees silhouetted against a bit of sky a paler grey than the rest; and the heavy blur of a church tower. Nicholson added: ‘The other side’s all school property—or was.’

  Masters crossed to look. The others followed. Behind a four-foot wall was what had once been the school garden. Ill-cared for and drear, even in the gathering gloom, the small plot divisions where children had laboured could still be made out. A wall divided the garden from the school itself. The main building stood about ten feet back from Church Walk, behind high iron railings on a dwarf footing. The narrow path to the playground behind ran between the garden wall and the gable end of the school. Masters stopped at the main gate and looked across at the vicarage opposite: a tall, greyish, nondescript house too big for present-day needs. He walked on, past the remainder of the school railings to the lych-gate. He noted that an unmetalled way, guarded by upright wooden posts to stop vehicles, ran off to the right between the walls of the churchyard and school. The church stood a hundred gloomy feet away. Too big ever to be filled these days. He guessed the churchyard was permanently fuller than the pews could ever be. A hummocky carpet of graves and broken stones with—strangely stark—a few early daffodils, golden in the gloom, being blown to an early death. Between the trunks of bare trees behind the church he could just make out the grey water of an overfull dyke poppling in the wind. He shivered mentally: cheerless and cold. He spared a moment to wonder if the dead vicar’s last view of his church had been as full of foreboding as this.

  He joined the others at the main gate. Brant had arrived in the car. Nicholson led the way round the side alley to the playground. Loads of sand, ballast and bricks were dumped on a still clearly marked-out netball pitch. The lean-to bicycle shed was housing hundredweight bags of cement. The back wall of the school had been roughly holed. A light shone out. Masters saw that two tall windows and the brick courses between and below them had gone. Wooden puncheons supported the gap. Between the puncheons the builders had nailed a crazy wall of old doors and worn floor boards. Some had been levered aside. Just inside the gap, out of the wind, was one of Nicholson’s detective constables. He was standing six inches below the level of the playground. Silhouetted against the light he appeared deformed, with a great body on legs too short to support it.

  Masters peered in. The wooden floor and joists of what had formerly been the school hall had been ripped out. The space below was half filled with hard core, ready for concreting. Nicholson asked: ‘Where’s Sergeant Chapman?’

  ‘In the classroom, sir.’

  There were obviously several classrooms: green doors with spherical brass handles, badly tarnished, led off the hall at both ends. Masters and Green followed Nicholson diagonally across the rubble. Nicholson opened one of the doors and stepped up into the room. Masters half expected to see rows of desks. Instead, the floor was littered with rolls of thermal padding for roofs; a neat heap of six by four plaster boards; and a several hundred foot run of heavy squared timber. Sergeant Chapman was sitting on a form at a makeshift table made from a blackboard resting on saw benches. He hadn’t made it himself. Judging from the brewing gear, Masters guessed it was where the workmen wetted their tea. Nicholson asked: ‘Anything new?’

  Chapman got to his feet. He looked keen, but browned off. ‘Nothing, sir. I’ve written up the workmen’s statements and the doctor’s verbal report. And I had a good scout round outside while it was still light. Nothing there besides building materials and junk. No blood anywhere apart from the wall. And no bullet inside here, either.’

  Green said: ‘These rolls of padding would conceal a bullet.’ He sounded accusing. Chapman didn’t like it. He said: ‘I’ve been through them with a flea comb.’

  Masters was looking round the room. It was just like one he’d known as a kid. He could have described it with his eyes shut. No ceiling. It ran, high roofed, up to an apex with brown painted heavy beams laid across at wall top level, tied by long metal bottle screws to the roof trusses. He remembered thinking how, as a little boy, he’d imagined himself climbing among them: but always his imagination had soared too high for his childish equilibrium, and he’d felt a stab of fear at the thought of the drop even though his feet had been firmly planted on the floor.

  The joiners had already started putting up a false ceiling. Subsidiary struts of raw, white wood were nailed across the beams, waiting for plaster boards and the insulating material. Nicholson said in a whisper: ‘They’re lowering it so’s they’ll be able to keep it warm.’ He was in the presence of death and it constrained him.

  Masters asked, in a normal voice: ‘Why heat a warehouse? Or does dried potato have to be kept warm?’

  ‘Not warm. Dry. But that’s not the point here. This room’s being divided into offices.’

  Green said: ‘That explains those plates on the walls.’

  Masters looked puzzled. ‘Plates?’

  ‘Those planks of wood nailed vertically. See? One plumb in the centre of each wall. They’re there to take the ends of partitions.’

  Nicholson said: ‘That’s right. And the vicar was standing dead in front of one of them when he was killed. Have a look.’ Green opened his mouth to sneer at the unintentional pun and then thought better of it. They followed Nicholson. On the floor, near the wall opposite the door, was the body. It was covered with a sheet of heavy duty, milkily transparent polythene.

  Sergeant Chapman drew the stiff sheet aside. Masters asked: ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Herbert James Parseloe. Known locally as Gobby Parseloe.’

  Green asked why.

  ‘Because he was always either speaking or eating at other people’s expense.’

  Masters asked: ‘Not popular?’

  ‘Not very. He was an outner, of course. Nobody who’s not been born in Rooksby is ever really well received.’

  Masters hitched his new trousers and squatted beside the dead man. He studied him carefully from top to toe. The bloodless face with the beard area covered in stubble. The thin hair, still mainly black, plastered down with solid brilliantine that still glistened, and though awry now, obviously worn dressed into a skimpy covering for the obvious bald patch. The meagre moustache, shaved too narrow for the depth of the upper lip, giving a downward, mean look to the thin mouth. The gold-rimmed spectacles the wrong shape for the face—too wide and too shallow to make them a congruent feature. The dog-collar with a faint rime of grubbiness along the upper edge which suggested it had been worn a day too long. The cassock, unbuttoned as far as the waist, but still held firm by a cord round the middle. Black corduroy trousers, pale grey nylon socks and slip-on shoes, dull and scuffed for want of polish.

  There was blood about. Not much. Masters drew the stiff top of the cassock aside. Green said: ‘Where’s his black front?’

  Because Green had been so pleased with himself about the plates on the walls, Masters said without looking up: ‘Rabats are worn with jackets, not necessarily with cassocks.’

  The shirt had a saucer-sized bloodstain with a small ragged hole near the top edge. Green said: ‘He didn’t bleed much.’

  ‘I’d have thought there would have been more,’ Nicholson said.

  ‘If he died instantly, as he must have done, there’d only be one pump of blood left in the heart. About an eggcupful. It’d be forced down the artery and out. After that, nothing. His vest, shirt and cassock would soak it up easily.’ With great care Masters moved the shirt front. The strands of the string vest were clogged, stiff and dry. A small, bluish, jagged hole showed up almost in the centre of the chest. He examined it closely without speaking. Green squatted beside him, frightened to miss anything. Nicholson said: ‘What’s up? Aren’t you satisfied?’

  Masters didn’t answer immediately. He took a small plastic rule from his pocket and
took a couple of measurements near the entrance wound. Then he asked: ‘Is this the position he was in when he was found?’

  ‘Not quite. The doctor had to examine him, so we had to move him a bit.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘He wasn’t on his back.’ Chapman came over with a photograph. ‘Like this. More on his side. At least his face was. See? And his chest was over frontwards.’

  ‘But still in this spot?’

  ‘Right there. We turned his top half over so that the doctor could get at his chest, but his legs didn’t move much.’

  Masters said: ‘Can you put him back like he was?’

  Chapman stepped forward slowly. He didn’t like the job. Masters helped until Nicholson was satisfied. All they could now see of the features was the left-hand profile. In the middle of the back was a mess of gore, solidified, dark, unpleasant. Masters felt sick. The vomit actually reached his throat. It took conscious effort to keep it down. Green stared and then turned away, heaving. Masters, forcing himself to do it, used his rule to lay bare the crater. Nearly three inches in diameter and an inch deep. Only when he was satisfied he could have missed nothing did he straighten up, the rule dangling between finger and thumb.

  Chapman said: ‘There’s a row of basins in the cloakroom.’

  Masters, said simply: ‘Thank you. Would you mind opening the doors for me?’ He turned to Green. ‘Ask Hill to bring the pHisoHex and nailbrush.’

  Nicholson followed him out. ‘What’s this stuff—what d’you call it?’

  ‘pHisoHex?’ Nicholson nodded. ‘It’s an antibacterial skin cleanser. Surgeons use it in operating theatres. We carry a bottle in our bag for occasions like this.’

  After he had scrubbed up and dried on the towel Hill had brought in, Masters returned to the classroom. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘let’s reconstruct the last few moments of his life. We think he was killed standing on the spot where he is now lying. Correct?’

  Nicholson said: ‘There aren’t any signs that the body was moved after death, and the mess on the wall makes it sure. But there’s no sign of any bullet hole, either.’

  Masters edged round the body to look at the timber nailed to the wall. Just above the height of his stomach was a wide splodge of discoloration. He judged it to be the exact height of the vicar’s wound. ‘This has been wiped.’

  Nicholson said: ‘Of course it has. There was a great dollop of blood and snot there and I wanted to find the bullet.’

  Masters peered closely. The unplanned, rough plank bore no sign of a bullet hole or pock mark of any kind. The bare brick wall on either side was clear and smooth except for discoloration. The blood, tissue, bone and shreds of clothing had been smeared downwards. There was no pattern left: just a few dark runnels of dried blood coursing down to the floor. He said to Green: ‘There should have been two distinct splodges.’

  Green stared for a moment and then said: ‘How do you make that out?’

  ‘If he was standing up close to the wall when he was shot, there would be a sort of recoil. His trunk would be forced a few inches away from the wall and there’d be one great splatter of blood behind him. His knees would have given slightly and he’d then have fallen back again, striking the wall with his wound a few inches lower down. This would leave another spatter—this time imprinted.’

  Green said: ‘That’s right. The back of his cassock’s got a ring of blood above the wound. I wondered where it came from. When he went backwards the second time, the spatter he’d made the first time got him higher up on the back of his shoulders.’

  ‘And after that,’ said Masters, ‘I think his knees gave completely. He fell to the right, almost over on to his front.’

  Nicholson asked: ‘And you say he was dead at the time?’

  Masters nodded. ‘If he hadn’t been dead he’d have staggered forward. But his feet didn’t move from the wall.’

  ‘It sounds right. Now p’raps you can tell me what happened to the bullet.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Masters said. ‘So I’m not going to worry my head about it just yet.’

  ‘Not going to worry about it? When a bullet’s gone right through a man from front to back and then disappeared into thin air?’

  ‘There are plenty of other things to worry about. I’d like to have the body removed now. Can you arrange it?’

  Nicholson nodded to Chapman who went towards the door. Masters called after him: ‘Would you ask my two sergeants to come in, please?’

  Hill and Brant needed no orders. They knew they were to inspect the classroom and everything in it for fingerprints and any suspicious items. They brought in the bags and photographic equipment and began their job. Masters said: ‘I’d like to see the doctor who examined him.’

  ‘Dr Barnfelt. He’s the local G.P. and the police surgeon.’ Nicholson looked at his watch. ‘Half past six. He’ll be in evening surgery now.’

  ‘Good. We’ll ring him.’

  ‘No phone here. What about clocking in at the Goblin and phoning from there?’

  Masters nodded and put on his coat. He said: ‘Only one doctor in Rooksby?’

  ‘Two. Barnfelt and his son in partnership.’

  Green said: ‘Are they outners?’

  ‘No. The old man’s father started the practice. He was born here, and so was his son.’

  ‘So they’re O.K. people round here?’

  ‘The best. The village thinks the world of them both.’

  Masters asked: ‘What do you think of them?’

  Nicholson said, off-handedly: ‘They’re all right.’

  Chapter Two

  They made their way back to the village square and the Goblin. As they went, blown by the wind in the wild half-light of blue street lamps and haloed moon, Masters said to Nicholson: ‘Did you interview the family?’

  ‘There’s no wife. He’s a widower. His youngest daughter’s there but she’s daft, so she was no good to me.’

  ‘How many daughters are there? Three or four?’

  ‘Two. The oldest one works in Peterborough. She’s a teacher. The youngest one’s at home. She’s a cretin or a moron or something.’

  Nicholson’s lack of distinction between comparative and superlative annoyed Masters. He thought no senior policeman could afford to be so imprecise. He said: ‘So we know nothing about the Parseloe family and their reactions. Right! I’ll attend to that myself tomorrow. That leaves us very little more to discuss at the moment. So, sir, I don’t think there’s any great need for you to introduce us at the Goblin. You’ve already done your stint for today, and I don’t think there’s a lot more we can usefully do this evening.’

  ‘I thought you were going to the doctor’s.’

  ‘Alone.’ Masters was quite firm. He wanted to be rid of Nicholson. Free to tackle the problem in his own way. He said: ‘I hope you’ll arrange the inquest and all the etceteras. I shan’t want to interfere with those at all.’

  Nicholson could feel the pressure, but couldn’t counter it. Masters was kicking him out. For a moment he felt angry, then nothing more than a reluctance to sever himself from the case. He’d heard of Masters long before today. Would have liked to watch him in action. Although come to think of it, he had already seen him in action. He’d been pretty sharp over that bit about the body rebounding. And he’d shown he’d got guts when he’d stirred up the gore in that back wound. Nicholson slowed as they neared the police station. He said: ‘Why waste a tanner at the pub? I’ll leave you here and ring Barnfelt to tell him you’re coming.’

  ‘Tell you what, Super,’ said Green. ‘You ring the Doc and then step over to the Goblin to tell us what time he can see the Chief. While he’s gone, you and me can have a jar together.’

  Nicholson said: ‘Thanks. I’ll take you up on that. See you in five minutes.’

  Green grinned to himself in triumph. He’d spiked Masters’ guns. Foiled his efforts to get rid of Nicholson at the earliest possible moment. Green knew Masters would have noted it, and satisfaction warmed him
inside like a shot of neat whisky. Masters, head down against the wind, made for the curtained squares of red light that were the front of the Goblin.

  Binkhorst was fifty, or thereabouts. A nondescript, colourless man. He was in the saloon bar. Masters didn’t like waistcoats and shirt sleeves together. Particularly double-breasted waistcoats with lapels and shirt sleeves with garters. He said: ‘I believe you’re expecting four of us. Two of us are here now. The others will arrive later. Please book me in and arrange for all four of us to have dinner at half past eight.’

  Binkhorst said: ‘It’ll have to be before that. Mrs Binkhorst likes to serve at half past seven. Then she’s free to help in the bars later.’

  Masters said to Green: ‘Ring up the nearest decent hotel and arrange bookings for all four of us. Give them my name and say we’ll be in for dinner at half past eight.’ He turned to Binkhorst. ‘Inspector Green would like to use your phone.’

  Binkhorst said: ‘Whoa! Give me a chance to see what I can do first. She won’t like it, but I can ask.’ Masters was puzzled. For a moment Binkhorst had given him the distinct impression that they were unwelcome. Now he seemed to have changed his mind.

  ‘You mean you’d like us to stay? Good. We’d like to. As long as it’s understood that I shall not be dictated to. The hours my staff and I keep are often irregular, and I like a pub that’s run for my convenience, not vice versa.’

  Binkhorst went through to the kitchen. Green had moved away. He hated standing by when Masters was high-hatting somebody, as he always did when he was crossed or he thought his importance wasn’t fully appreciated. Green had a moment of remorse. If he hadn’t annoyed Masters by inviting Nicholson for a drink, the Chief might have let Binkhorst off a bit more lightly. Not for the first time he realized Masters was not an easy man to get the better of for long. He felt threads of animosity against Masters crawling like spiders over his entire body.

  The saloon bar was empty except for the two of them. Masters looked about him. The floor was uneven red tiles. The fire bright. The furniture reproduction oak, well polished. The brasses modern, but shiny. The ceiling low. No beams, either real or mock. The place appealed. It was snug and warm. It needed more lights in the corners, but it made him feel sorry he had to go out again.