‘Murder.’
There was pause.
Masters went on: ‘Was he queer as a schoolboy?’
She said ‘Yes’ and then bit her lip, as if to recall the slip.
‘Right. Let’s go on from there, shall we? You knew all the five murdered women?’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Please, Mrs Turner. It was simply a matter of finding out which people each one knew. You figured on all five lists.’
‘I can’t have done. I’ve not spoken to some of them for years.’
‘So I guessed. You were friends as schoolgirls and then drifted apart. Was that it?’
She nodded.
‘Tell me about it.’
She curled her legs up under her in the seat of the chair. ‘When we were kids—about the fifth form, we used to go around in a bit of a gang. Not like the Mods and Rockers on scooters. We did ride bikes along the Prom, but we never caused any trouble. We played tennis together, and went in the ninepennies at the cinema and . . . oh, lots of things.’
‘All girls?’
‘Six of us.’
‘The five who died and you?’
She nodded.
‘What about boys?’
‘That’s what we did it for, I suppose. We were always meeting the sixth formers from the boys’ grammar school. We used to congregate. Lord, how we used to play them up. We were real little devils, but when I look back on it, I can’t remember us doing very much but talk in a crowd on the Prom, or go to the bathing pool together, or something like that. When the boys were playing cricket matches we went and cheered. You know the sort of thing.’
‘I think so.’
‘We didn’t take our relationships with boys quite as seriously as girls do these days. We weren’t courting, you know. At sixteen these days they’re frightened of being left on the shelf. In my days we wore summer frocks and blazers, bare legs and girls’ shoes. We none of us had any money except a few bob pocket money. The boys were mostly expecting to go to university, and they didn’t work in holidays like students do now. I expect that’s why we congregated. We hadn’t much else to do. But we enjoyed ourselves, I seem to remember.’
Masters gave her free rein. Let her gabble on to get it all out of her system. He said: ‘The other five and you were in one particular gang.’
‘We came from both Finstoft and Hawksfleet. It’s funny how people drift together. But some of those girls were pretty. Really pretty. These days their looks alone would have got them somewhere. I was the exception that proved the rule. I wasn’t bad looking in an impish sort of way, but I couldn’t hold a candle to Joanna and Barbara, and you’ve only got to see Sara Baker to know what her mother was like.’
‘We’ve seen her. She’s a striking girl. Now let’s talk about the boys.’
‘Well, as I told you, they were sixth formers from Finstoft grammar school. You know, it was a funny thing. That school was—and still is—a maintained school . . .’
‘What’s that?’ Green said.
‘People paid for their children to go, except for about half a dozen scholarship boys each year who got free places.’
Green grunted. He sounded displeased. Mary Turner said: ‘You don’t approve? Well, perhaps you don’t, but I’ll tell you something about it. The boys whose parents paid—or most of them—would have passed the eleven plus. And the parents of the boys who got scholarships there would mostly have been willing to pay to get them in, because it’s such a good school. Anyhow, at the time we’re talking about, the sixth form was mostly made up of scholarship boys—the brilliant ones. The others usually left after taking their GCE, to go into their fathers’ businesses.’
Masters said: ‘So the fifth-form girls congregated with the sixth-form boys?’
‘Well, it seemed natural in those days for a girl to be friendly with a boy a bit older than herself.’
‘I can see that. But what about the sixth-form girls?’
‘Oh, the ones that stayed on to the sixth were swots. Not the sort to want boy friends—or if they wanted them they didn’t get them. All glasses and fringes and Eng. Lit., you know.’
Masters nodded. ‘He was among the boys?’
She said, quietly: ‘Yes.’
‘Why? If he was so queer?’
‘I think the boys had got used to him by then. He got a scholarship at eleven and went up the school with them. By the time they reached the sixth they accepted him as just somebody who’d always been there. He went about with them. He came from a poor home, but he was clever and his parents kept him very neat and clean.’
‘But when he went along with his friends to join the girls?’
‘Girls are little cats. They sense these differences. At least they do round here.’
‘They snubbed him?’
‘Well, I don’t know about snubbed. He was always so serious. I know some of the girls—all of them, in fact—felt he was presuming on the friendship. As I say he was serious, and tried to get each one of us off on our own in turn.’
‘And the girls wouldn’t go with him?’
‘That wasn’t the way we normally did things.’
‘Come now, Mrs Turner,’ said Masters. ‘It’s not so very long ago. Even in those days youngsters used to pair off some of the time.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’
‘I think you went out alone with him, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I did. But it was funny. I think I was the only one of the six of us he didn’t want. I told you the others were very pretty.’
‘I think your kindness in those days saved your life recently.’
She sat up, startled. ‘What?’
‘I think you alone out of the six girls are alive today because you didn’t snub him.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘Oh, yes. In spite of his queerness and poor home, you went out with him. The others turned him down. Why, do you think? Because he was a little odd? Or because of his social standing?’
She said slowly: ‘Well, we were dreadful snobs, I remember.’
‘They. Not you.’
‘I thought he was rather a pet.’
‘Good for you. What happened? All you girls left school?’
‘The usual. As soon as we were out in the world mums and dads started match-making. One or two of the girls were married almost before they could get out of their gym knickers.’
‘Not to the boys they had known.’
‘No. To men five or six years older. Already established in family businesses. It really was sick-making. Beds ready made for virgins to be manœuvred into by their own parents, instead of being left to make their own.’
‘Is that what happened in your case?’
She coloured slightly. ‘I told you I wasn’t quite as pretty as the rest of them and I was a young rip.’
‘I approve of that. At least you’re alive and . . .’ He looked around him. ‘. . . not doing too badly, I’d have thought.’
She smiled for the first time. ‘I’m a happy woman. Always have been.’
‘Until this last month or so?’
‘Yes. It’s been hell.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I guessed. It seemed so obvious.’
‘You didn’t go to the police?’
‘How could I? I hadn’t guessed by the time they started disappearing. It was after all five had gone that I began to think things out. I began to wonder about myself. I was the sixth. The last. But I’d no evidence. Then the bodies started to be found. What could I do?’
‘Had he been in touch with you?’
She shook her head and shuddered.
‘Then why did you think he was involved?’
‘I saw him one day when I was out walking. I knew him but couldn’t place him. It was only when I started to think back to those days that I remembered him. Then I knew. I just knew. That’s all.’ She was near to hysteria and tears.
And with that Masters had to be satisfied. He felt it wa
s useless to press Mary Turner further. As she had said, she had no evidence to give him. Green was entirely lost. He rose from his chair in complete bewilderment as Masters stood over her and said: ‘Don’t worry any more. And don’t talk about it to anyone, please.’
She looked up at him. ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘Thank you, no. But why don’t you make yourself some. It’ll do you a power of good. We can let ourselves out.’
As they walked away from the house, Green said: ‘Who the hell have you been talking about?’
‘You haven’t guessed?’
‘Guessed? All I could guess was that from your questions about her divorce you were trying to find out whether she’d been keeping her hand on her ha’penny or not.’
‘Quite right. She took her hand off it when she was sixteen, I suspect. She’s been taking it off at intervals ever since from the sound of things. And that, I believe, has saved her life.’
Green pondered on this in the car. Neither spoke as Garner drove them to the Estuary. When they arrived at the hotel, Green said: ‘I could have done with that cup of tea she offered us.’
Masters said: ‘Order some here. I’ve a phone call to make. Then I’ll join you.’
‘And tell me what all this is about, I hope. I’m as much in the dark as a black pig’s bottom.’
Masters didn’t answer. He went to the reception desk. ‘Page my two sergeants, Hill and Brant, please. Ask them to report to the lounge.’
While this was being done, Masters went into the telephone booth in the foyer. He called Bullimore and after him, Swaine. When he came out again he said to the receptionist: ‘When phone calls are made in the hotel, how are they booked?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘With S.T.D. you have to know how long and where to. How do you keep a check?’
The girl was unhelpful. ‘Don’t ask me. I just get a chit from our exchange, and put it on the bill.’
‘Where is the hotel exchange?’
Reluctantly she let him through to a small room behind the reception desk. A girl was sitting writing a letter with single earphone on and microphone unclipped and lying beside her.
The receptionist said: ‘Rosie, here’s Detective Masters wants to know how you charge.’
Rosie was pleased to see him. She coloured when she realized who he was. She said: ‘My Dad asked me if I’d seen you. He’d read about you in the paper. He was ever so disappointed when I said I hadn’t. But I never see anybody when I’m cooped up in here. It’s like being in prison. I can hear people ask for numbers and things . . .’
‘Things?’
‘Half of them ask me for early morning tea and papers when they should ring straight through to reception. It clutters me up, sort of.’
Masters grinned at her, and perched on the small table where her handbag and writing pad were. He said to the receptionist: ‘Thank you very much. I mustn’t keep you from your work or the manager’ll be gunning for me. I just want a minute or two’s private chat with Rosie, here.’
The receptionist sniffed to indicate that she wasn’t the one to stay where she wasn’t wanted and left the exchange room, closing the door with unnecessary firmness behind her. Masters said: ‘Now look here, Rosie, anything I say in here is confidential. If you utter a word outside—to anybody—there’ll be trouble.’
Her face fell. ‘My Dad . . .’
‘Tell him I just came in out of interest to see how you work. Nothing more. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s the truth anyway. Now. If I ring from my room, how do you know what charge to make on my bill?’
‘That’s simple. I have the code-book which tells me how much for how long at that distance, and I time you on and off with these.’ She pointed to a row of box-like stop-clocks. ‘I just multiply the number of units by the price of each unit and make out a chit for each call.’
‘Fine. How do you make out the chits?’
She stared, not understanding the question.
‘From beginning to end. Come on, go through the drill. I pick up the phone in my room. What happens?’
‘Well, either the light goes up or the buzzer sounds as well as the light. I’m on the buzzer now, because there aren’t many calls in the afternoon at this time of year and so I’m not watching the board all the time. When we’re busy I am watching all the time so I switch to the lights only, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to hear myself think.’
‘So you hear the buzzer and the light shows you which line. What then?’
‘I put in the jack. Then I want the room number. If the caller doesn’t give it, I ask for it.’
‘And?’
‘I put it on the chit.’ She picked up a small pad of tear-off chits.
‘Then you ask for the number you are to dial?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Do you put it down, too?’
‘I’ve got to, otherwise I wouldn’t remember these all figure-codes. I jot it down.’
‘Good. That’s all I wanted to know. Now, what happens to the chits?’
‘They go to reception for putting on the bills.’
‘What happens to them after that?’
‘They come back in here for the book-keepers. I don’t have anything to do with them. They’re just kept to make up the telephone account which goes into the balance sheet. I think. But I don’t know how they do it. Add them up, I suppose.’
‘I think I know. The hotel doesn’t want the money it takes in for phone calls to be charged as income for tax purposes, so they have to prove that it is money collected on behalf of the G.P.O. They need your chits to support the claim. And now I need them. But I’ll speak to the manager first, so that you’ll be in the clear. Probably my sergeants will collect them shortly.’
Masters left Rosie and made his way to the lounge. The other three were waiting for him. He said: ‘We can’t talk here, so tea first, then my room.’
Chapter Seven
‘I don’t believe it. Not Tintern. He’s harmless,’ said Green.
Masters said: ‘Nevertheless I’m right. Now here’s what’s got to be done. Brant, I want you to check his phone call chits. Get to know the phone numbers of each of the victims, and his room number, and go through all the exchange accounts with a fine toothcomb. Garner’s coming back to help you. He knows nothing about it yet, so grab him when he comes. I’ve spoken to the manager who will give you the chits himself. Examine them in your own room. I don’t want little Rosie and that receptionist to know more than’s necessary.’
‘Right, chief. Start now?’
‘Please. Now, Hill, your job is Tintern himself. From the moment he arrives in the pub until he’s arrested, I want him under your eye—unobtrusively. It’s five o’clock now. He must be about due, so get down there and be ready.’
Green said, when he and Masters were alone: ‘What about me?’
‘I want you to go outside and phone the Yard. I want details of Tintern’s car crash some months ago.’
‘Is that all?’
‘It may be hellish important. After that, wait for Bullimore and Swaine and join me in his room. I’m going to search it.’
‘What for?’
‘Those women wore gloves and had purses. None of them has been found.’
‘And you think they’ll be there?’
‘No. I don’t. But I’ve got to make sure.’
Green lit a Kensitas. ‘I’ll look forward to hearing how you know. It’s the screwiest case I’ve been on in years.’ He got up to go.
‘It’s the nastiest. And the sooner we wrap it up the better.’
Tintern’s room was tidy. There were few possessions in the drawers. Masters went through them carefully and found nothing to help him. In a suitcase on top of the wardrobe he found nothing of interest except an electric soldering iron, flux and solder. Disappointed, in spite of not expecting to find anything of value to him, he stood in the centre of the room and filled his pipe. He smok
ed reflectively. He had finished one pipe and was packing another when Bullimore and Swaine, carrying his bag, arrived with Green.
‘Green tells me it’s Tintern. I hope to God you’re right,’ Bullimore said.
Masters said: ‘I am.’ He didn’t elaborate, and this left Bullimore mentally stranded. He remained uncomfortably quiet for a moment or two and then said: ‘Do you want me to arrest him here?’
‘As you like. Take him to the station if you’d prefer it.’
‘I would prefer it. I want to hear your evidence before I take in a man on a multiple murder rap.’
Masters smiled. ‘Doubting Thomas.’
‘Did you find anything here?’ said Green.
Masters handed him the soldering iron. ‘This.’ Green inspected it. ‘What the hell’s this got to do with it?’
‘It had me foxed for a time. But I think it’s the last link in the chain. Or the next to last. Would you care to ask Brant if he and Garner have turned anything up?’
Green lit a Kensitas, and then remembering his manners offered one to Bullimore who refused it. Swaine took one, and as Green left the room, said: ‘I know you haven’t made a dog’s breakfast of it. Can feel it in my bones. But I can’t for the life of me see how you’ve done it. Dammit, man, I’ve been with you half the time you’ve been here and you haven’t produced a tangible clue.’
‘What about the fifth body?’
‘Was that a clue?’
Masters nodded.
‘Well, that was tangible enough. Stank to glory.’
The phone bell went.
Masters picked it up. Hill’s voice said: ‘He’s here, but he’s gone straight down for a drink.’
‘Right. Watch him.’ He turned back to the others. ‘We’ve got at least fifteen minutes—probably half an hour.’
Bullimore said: ‘In that case give us a rundown on the evidence.’
‘We’d better sit if we can find room.’ Masters remained standing. Bullimore took the armchair. Swaine perched on the case stand.
Masters said: ‘From the outset we were convinced that this crime was carried out by a local man . . .’
‘I told you so the first day,’ said Bullimore. ‘And now you’re going into reverse. Tintern . . .’
Masters and Green Series Box Set Page 51
