Masters and Green Series Box Set

by Douglas Clark

  Shirl put the drinks down. She said: ‘Just wave when you’re ready for more if it’s to be the same again.’

  ‘It will be, my dear. It will be.’ Swaine patted her rump as she turned away. The sound was a dull thud, like knocking on wood. He said: ‘My God, she’s got the iron curtain in there. Both sides of it.’

  Shirl turned and grinned. ‘None of your cheek, Doctor.’

  ‘None of mine, old girl. You’ve got enough in there with your own two.’

  ‘You’ve examined Barbara Severn?’ Masters said.

  Swaine nodded: ‘Report’ll be word for word like the others. Asphyxiation through manual strangulation. Nose broken. No scratches. No bruises except those expected from the strangler’s hands. No change. Except this one was a bit further gone.’

  Green offered Swaine a Kensitas; Masters filled his pipe. Green said: ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  Swaine said: ‘Of course it doesn’t. Nothing a madman does ever makes sense.’

  ‘That’s a point. Look here, Doctor. You said madman. What does that mean? I know in the old days it meant anybody with any one of a hundred different neuroses or derangements. They were sent to the madhouse. But what does it mean today?’ Masters asked.

  ‘You’ve answered your own question. Any one of a hundred different states. And I don’t mean straws in the hair or a complex which leads you to think you’re Napoleon.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Oh, lord. Now you’ve got me. I told you I was no psychiatrist. And quite honestly I don’t think I can help you off hand. But if you really think it’s important. . . .’

  Masters said quietly: ‘I think I do. I may be wrong, but I don’t think I am.’

  ‘Right. I could read up a bit, tomorrow. I’ve got a few books.’

  ‘Lend them to me. I can probably satisfy myself at first hand better than you could second hand.’

  ‘Suits me. I’ve got things I’d rather do than plough through worm-eaten text books on psychiatry. When d’you want them?’

  ‘I’ll collect them tonight—when you go home.’

  Swaine stared a moment. ‘Bedtime reading, eh? By cripes you’re keen, or . . .’ He paused. ‘. . . or you’re sure of yourself. I don’t know which. And I don’t care. Ready for more ale?’

  ‘My turn.’ Masters put a pound note on the table to await Shirl, and then said: ‘Don’t run away with the idea that I’m saying we’ve solved the case. We haven’t.’

  Green said: ‘You’re telling the world!’

  ‘It’s a tough ’un. As tough as Billy Whitlam’s bulldog. And until we get more information my nose isn’t itching, so I can’t tell whether I’m kissed, crossed or vexed. But Green’ll tell you there comes a time when you get a feeling about a case.’

  ‘When they start to come sweet. Finding that corpse this morning helped, though I wouldn’t exactly call that sweet, myself. Still, you can’t have it all ways. Finding a woman in any state is pretty bad, but it’s when you find kids battered that your blood boils—or mine does, and I wouldn’t say I was particularly keen on kids, where I am keen on women. Odd, that, isn’t it?’

  Swaine laughed. ‘It’s so normal as to be distinctly odd.’

  Green sucked his teeth. ‘I’m pleased about that. Sometimes I’m made to think that even just being a policeman shows I’ve got some sort of a kink.’

  ‘No doubt. Not that being a policeman normally shows anything but a liking for the work. But some coppers, somewhere, are in their jobs solely for the feeling of power it gives them. And that’s the trouble with complexes and neuroses. They often go unsuspected by the world at large because they affect only part of a person’s psyche. It’s only when that part increases so much as to become noticeable that people begin to look at each other and touch their temples significantly.’

  ‘What brings it on, or causes it to increase? Has it to be there in the first place?’ Masters asked.

  ‘Dunno. Some are born with it, others have it thrust upon them, so to speak. Pressure of modern living, perhaps. Even a single experience, devastating enough, can trigger off all sorts of nasties. Mental shock. You’ve seen horror films. Apparently normal people turn into gibbering idiots at the sight of something outlandish. I’ve never known it happen quite like that. People usually progress towards a neurosis—some more quickly than others.’

  ‘When you’re ready to go, I’ll come with you for those books.’

  Swaine stared in surprise. ‘Hold your water, old boy. There’s a lot of good drinking time left. Half an hour at least.’

  Masters turned to Green. ‘In that case, would you mind going with the doc to pick up his books. I want a word with that lot upstairs.’

  Masters was just about to leave when Bullimore arrived. In a dark, civilian suit the Superintendent looked more chunky than ever. His face was scrubbed and shone glossily red in the lights. His collar looked so tight that Masters expected him to puff at every word he spoke.

  ‘I thought you’d be here. Now we’ve got Mrs Severn we can include her in the inquest tomorrow. I’ve seen the coroner and he wants to know if we’d like an adjournment?’

  ‘No. If he adjourns till we’ve got evidence as to who the killer is, it’ll mean I’ll have to come up here to give it to him, simply so’s he can name the name in the verdict. And I don’t want that. As it is now, because you were with us this morning, you can give evidence about finding all the bodies. Tell him to cut it short. Evidence of identification, medical evidence to show cause of death, and very little else. It’s so obviously murder in all five cases he won’t even need to ask the families any questions other than those necessary to establish dates of death. Then he can bring in a verdict against person or persons unknown and we’ll be left free to play it our way.’

  ‘That’s what I expected you’d want, but I thought I’d better check. You’re not going, are you? Stay and have one with me. Go on, man, fill your boots.’

  Masters sat down again, and joined in desultory conversation until Shirl called time. Bullimore offered to run him and Swaine home for the books.

  Masters was given the freedom of the doctor’s bookshelves. He was interested in all the volumes, but finally concentrated on one group, a series, all similarly bound. Out of these he chose seven titles: Psychosis, Insanity, Behaviour, Disorientation, Temperament, Mind, and Dementia. Put together, the slim books could be held in one hand: each a part of the whole which ran to twenty-four volumes. When he had made his choice, Swaine took them from him and gave him a strong ale in their stead. Swaine said: ‘You know, I nearly slung these out about six months ago. I was conned into buying them when I had a rush of enthusiasm to the head about psychiatry a year or two back. I don’t think I’ve read one of them. I find if I stick to Martindale I don’t go very far wrong these days. However, you might find yourself getting a psychosis of your own trying to plough through this lot without a medical dictionary.’ He turned to the bookcase. ‘Here you are. A little one. Pocket size.’

  Bullimore drove Masters back to the Estuary and dropped him at the door. Masters made his way up to Hill’s room. He found Garner still there, and Green eating a packet of crisps. He said: ‘Finished?’

  Hill picked up a sheaf of papers from the bed. One sheet for every letter of the alphabet that occurred as the initial of a surname in the lists they had collected. Each sheet was divided into five columns, and in each column were the names of each of the dead woman’s contacts in alphabetical order. Hill said: ‘Two pairs. Two Mary Starkeys. Two Mrs Robert Trings.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Except for christian names again. They overlap in scores of places.’

  Masters took the armchair and laid his books beside him on the carpet. ‘Anybody got any ideas?’

  Nobody replied.

  ‘Garner?’

  ‘Well, of course, sir, I recognize a lot of the names, but there’s plenty round here I know by sight without their names.’

  ‘Of course. Now. Mary Starkey
. She was the girl who appeared twice on Frances Burton’s school photograph. She was at the Finstoft girls’ school, so she would also be on Joanna Osborn’s list.’

  Brant said: ‘No. On Cynthia Baker’s.’

  ‘But Joanna Osborn is the other Finstoft woman.’

  ‘Maybe she is now. But was she before she was married? She might be a Hawksfleet woman or, and this is another angle, though Cynthia Baker now lives in Hawksfleet, she may have lived in Finstoft as a girl.’

  Masters began slowly to fill his pipe. ‘Can’t we tell from the lists? We know Frances Burton knew Mary Starkey. If one of the other murdered women knew Frances Burton, it’s likely she’d know Starkey, too.’

  ‘They all knew each other,’ said Brant.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And it doesn’t follow that the friends of friends are friends. So we’re up the creek,’ added Green.

  Masters lit his pipe. When it was going, he said: ‘We’re not, you know. I’ve made a mistake by not warning you all to get christian names and maiden names. We’ve got Mary Starkey twice. And Mrs Robert Tring twice. Couldn’t Mary Starkey have married and become Mrs Tring?’

  ‘She could. But it’s long odds,’ said Green.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘’Course I’m not sure, but it’s a shot I wouldn’t care to bet on. Put it that way.’

  Masters tamped his pipe and said: ‘Tell me where I’ve gone wrong. I consider it logical to suppose that five women in the same stratum of society, of the same age, and living in the same isolated conurbation would have at least one mutual contact.’

  ‘That’s logical enough. They all knew each other. And that means you have five mutual contacts—all dead.’

  ‘But a common factor?’

  Green lit a Kensitas. ‘I know what you mean, and what you want. I’ve no argument with that. It’s routine police procedure to look for common factors in similar crimes. But you’ve got them. Broken noses, no scratches, similar graves. Oodles of them.’

  ‘You’re making me doubt myself,’ said Masters.

  ‘What good would a common contact do us if we found one?’ Hill asked.

  Masters looked across at him and said: ‘Somehow these five women are linked. Right?’

  ‘We’ve agreed they weren’t just picked at random out of the whole female population. But couldn’t they have been picked at random out of one set of women?’

  Masters nodded. ‘They could. And it makes no difference. Those five knew each other. If our man were to kill again, would all six have known each other?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Then probably there’s another woman in this area who is in danger simply because she knew and was known to the other five. I don’t say there is, but we mustn’t assume that a man who has killed five times will stop there. And if there is the slightest chance that his choice is not random, I want to know who the sixth person— presumably an acquaintance of all five previous victims—is likely to be. That’s why I want us to sift and sift and sift again until we either find such a woman or we are positive no such woman exists. In fact, there may be more than one.’

  ‘So we’re out to stop this loony from operating again,’ said Green.

  ‘That, of course. But if we could run such a woman to earth, we might be able to find the link which she may not even suspect exists.’

  Brant said: ‘And the link presumably points to the murderer.’

  ‘It may not point directly, but it should be a help.’

  ‘O.K.,’ said Green. ‘Supposing you’re right about Starkey being Tring. That’s a common contact for only four.’

  ‘Somebody’s forgotten her. It was bound to happen. Who was it?’

  ‘Pogson.’

  ‘The nervous one. He produced the list on his own. All the others had help. I’d expect him to forget more than the others.’ Masters got to his feet. ‘We’ll check tomorrow. Me for beddy-byes.’

  *

  Masters lay propped up, with Swaine’s small books scattered around him. He glanced through at chapter headings, looking for he knew not what. For over an hour he read bits and pieces of information about psychiatric disorders, trying to study behavioural patterns, using his dictionary as he went. Logging the attitudes and fantasies of the insane in a so-called age of reason. He found it heavy going. Nothing to help him. Dementia praecox—he’d heard that before. An old name for general mental deficiency or madness, wasn’t it? Better make sure. He picked up the dictionary and found the meaning. He read it carefully and then reached for the book on Dementia. For more than another hour he read carefully, and then lay back thinking for twenty minutes before turning out the light and settling down to sleep.

  *

  At breakfast the next morning Green said: ‘Well, I suppose we’ve got to go round all these houses again. Are we going to the same places we went to before?’

  Masters had ordered scrambled eggs, fried bacon and mushrooms. He had his mouth full when Green spoke, so there was no answer for a moment. Then: ‘I’d like you to do the lot. If you’re in luck there should be only three places to visit.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I don’t quite know where I shall go. I’ve several places in mind.’

  Hill and Brant exchanged glances. Green said: ‘I could do with a day off, too.’

  ‘You’ll be glad you didn’t take the day off if you see Sara Baker. I wouldn’t mind visiting her on a Monday morning myself,’ Hill said.

  ‘Your trouble is you’re sex-orientated, lover-lugs,’ Green said.

  ‘Thank God.’

  Masters called for more toast. ‘Anybody seen Tintern this morning?’

  Brant told him that Tintern had had fruit juice and toast earlier, and had now left. Green said: ‘What d’you want him for?’

  ‘I wondered if he’d give me a conducted tour of his church. It’s one of the places I’d like to visit. I’m interested in old buildings.’

  Green took Masters’s last piece of toast and spread it savagely with butter and marmalade.

  *

  Masters and Hill waited for Garner. Green and Brant took the car. Masters said to Garner: ‘I want to visit a gymnasium—boxing, wrestling. That sort of place.’

  ‘Feeling like a work-out, chief? If so, choose somebody your own size,’ said Hill.

  Masters didn’t reply. He stood with his hands in his coat pockets, back to the wind, waiting for Garner’s mind to turn over.

  ‘You know, sir, I don’t think there is one.’

  ‘No trainer with a makeshift ring in a shed?’

  ‘There may be one in Hawksfleet, but I’ll have to check up to find out.’

  ‘Slip along then. Use the phone inside the foyer. Tell them to charge it to me.’

  Garner went inside. Masters and Hill crossed the road and stood looking at the gardens, where two council workmen had started to straighten up after the gales of the last week. The sun came out, pale and weak. The tide, ebbing, looked greasily flat and dirty. Masters said nothing. He just stood. Hill guessed he preferred not to be disturbed.

  Garner came out. ‘I rang the Hawksfleet duty sergeant. He says there are two, both backstreet mills.’

  ‘Can you take us there?’

  ‘On a bus, sir. There’ll be a bit of a walk at the far end, though.’

  They recrossed the road and waited at the bus stop. The journey took them past the Prawner where they’d lunched on the first day, and along the main road connecting the two towns. There was no gap, no demarcation line to show the boundary, but where, on the Finstoft section of the road there had been mainly houses, with a few shops, in Hawksfleet there were mainly shops and dingy business premises: a dentist’s sign, a Methodist chapel, a woodyard, garages and empty premises, grimy beyond measure, garnished with auctioneers’ boards screaming out the vacant square footage or telling blatant lies about the desirability of the property.

  As if apologizing, Garner said: ‘This is the road to the docks. It’s not the best part of
the town.’

  From his seat on the top deck, Masters surveyed the scene, unaware of its drabness, of the gossiping women, young and old, but all alike in wearing garish bedroom slippers and dingy headscarves from below which peeped metal hair curlers. He was thinking hard. What was it Swaine had said? One single devastating experience? What had the medical dictionary said? A large group of psychoses of psychogenic origin, often recognized during or shortly after adolescence but frequently in later maturity? He’d learned it off by heart. Could he combine the two? If so . . .

  Garner said: ‘Next stop, sir.’

  Masters got up and led the way downstairs. After a wait for a lull in the traffic they crossed another main road coming in at right angles. Just before a level crossing, Garner turned off left, down a narrow passage. Monday, washday. Already lines in the little back gardens on either side were heavy with grey-looking clothes and linen that would have delighted an ad-man’s heart if he were looking out for ‘before’ shots to advertise washing powders. There was no brightness and whiteness in this laundry.

  Garner turned into a small street, block-ended by sleepers guarding the railway lines. He crossed and entered another passage. The scream of a circular saw seared the brain. The dull thud and chink of shunting numbed the senses. At last, side on, between the passage and the railway, a two-storied wooden shed, leaning slightly, but stoutly built and tarred on the outside to keep it weatherproof. The double door at ground level was padlocked. An outside flight of steps made of treads with no risers led up to a door with a flaking notice: ‘Cyril Cass. Office.’

  They went up. Without knocking, Garner entered. In the green-painted lobby a kettle stood on a gas ring and half a dozen dirty mugs, a milk bottle and an open bag of sugar sat on a beer advertisement tin tray. Faded pictures of boxers, all of whom faced the camera fiercely, lined the walls.

  Three doors led off the lobby. Masters knocked on the one marked ‘Private’ and entered. ‘Mr Cass?’

  He was a little man. Bald. Pink faced. He looked as if he’d been born in the roll neck sweater made of fisherman’s abb with the natural oil still in it. ‘Yes. Who’re you?’