Masters and Green Series Box Set

by Douglas Clark

  Masters got to his feet after the little silence that followed this statement. ‘We’ll do our best, sir. But I take it you have no suspect in mind? No lead you’d like to pass on?’

  ‘Sorry. None. I just can’t help you. Everybody liked Sally.’

  ‘As far as you knew.’

  ‘As far as I knew. And as I said, we couldn’t begin to think of it as murder until yesterday afternoon, so we’ve done nothing at all.’ Hook heaved himself to his feet resignedly.

  ‘If I could have Miss Bowker’s keys?’ Masters asked.

  ‘You can with pleasure. And what little paper-work there is. But won’t you want to clock in at the Bristol?’

  ‘Yes. But after that I’d like a look around. There’s no need for you to bother, sir. Your desk sergeant can give Brant a street guide or directions. We’ll manage.’

  ‘Prefer to work alone, eh? Well, I don’t blame you. But call in and see me. I want to be kept abreast of progress.’

  Masters promised to keep Hook informed of developments, and they left him alone to sweat it out.

  ‘To the pub?’ Brant asked.

  ‘Not yet. I want to look at the flat.’

  ‘The locals will have been over it with a flea comb,’ Green said. ‘Can’t we use their notes?’

  ‘Hook just said they’d done nothing. All I’ve got is a post-mortem report and very little else. And in any case, can you visualize the layout of a building second hand?’

  ‘No. But I don’t have to. There wasn’t a break-in, was there? She wasn’t physically assaulted? There’ll be nothing missing.’

  ‘Somebody tampered with the contents of a bottle of insulin. How do you suggest they managed it?’

  Green’s jaw dropped slightly. ‘You mean you think somebody did go in? Somebody with a key that fitted?’

  ‘I’m keeping an open mind.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. Locked flats! Bottles that have been tampered with without being opened! I reckon our chances of pulling this off are flimsier than a stripper’s knickers. I do, straight.’

  Masters didn’t reply. Brant had manoeuvred them slowly through a shopping centre and turned right along a road that curved past the railway station and then skirted a park. People were sitting and lying on the well-kept grass. Toddlers crawled and played beside their prams. Youngsters, fresh out of school, were swarming over the swings and roundabouts of the playground enclave. Flowers blazed vividly and old men dozed on benches. The car turned left along the Bristol road and then, having diverged from the railway embankment, left again into a modern compound, built haphazardly of rows of maisonettes and blocks of flats, with doors of varying colours and pocket handkerchief lawns. Brant pulled up outside a small block—Wye House—standing like an old-time castle keep inside an outer bastion of up-and-over white-doored garages. Masters got out. There was no greenery just here. No natural beauty. The sun beat down on reflecting concrete. A few geraniums in an unwatered window-box were wilting. He felt the shallow steps to the front door hot through his shoe soles. The contrast in the foyer was so great he had to pause a moment for his eyes to become accustomed to the dim light. An indicator board told him that flat number five was upstairs. He led the way.

  Sally Bowker’s little home was on the left at the back of the block. Just four rooms. A living-room with a tiny kitchen off, a bedroom, and a bathroom-cum-lavatory. As far as Masters could see, on each floor were four of these little flatlets, all L-shaped, to form a box round the central stairwell and landings. Sally’s front door gave on to an L-shaped corridor, on the inside of a similarly shaped arrangement of rooms. Directly opposite the front door were bathroom and kitchen, which together formed the shorter leg of the L. The doors to the living-room and bedroom were in the other leg. At the end of the passage outside the bathroom was an airing cupboard containing the hot-water tank. At the end of the other leg, outside the bedroom, was another, slightly larger, general utility cupboard. The bedroom window was on the end of the block. The windows of the other three rooms faced the rear.

  When all four men were inside, the tiny hallway was overfull. ‘I don’t know what I’m looking for, if anything,’ Masters said.

  ‘I’d have thought they’d have had somebody on duty here,’ Green said wonderingly.

  ‘I’d have expected it. But evidently they thought there was no need. And it’s just as well from our point of view. Now. First of all the living-room.’

  They followed him in. The furniture was contemporary and functional. The only signs of Sally’s business interests were near the window. Here, on a red formica-topped kitchen table, was an artist’s drawing-board with a wheel at the side for adjusting the tilt. Pinned to it was a plan of a window space with various items marked in. A long T-square lay across it. An anglepoise lamp, swung away; a vase with a posy of pencils a shapeless putty rubber; a sharpener like a small green dustbin; a straight edge with a metal ribbon on one side; a french-curve template; a compass and a craft knife. In the waste basket a heap of torn-up card. The pictures on the walls were bright marketing scenes. Masters touched nothing until he saw that the kitchen table had a drawer. He opened it. Photographs of window decorations. He went through them. He was impressed. He thought the Show Off girls certainly had the flair that Hook had claimed for them. In many of these pictures there seemed to be the recurrent theme of what the items displayed would do for the purchaser. Hook had said that in the Baby Shop they showed the effect of having a baby about the house. With electricity they showed the effect of power in the kitchen. Husband half-way through erecting shelves with the help of a power drill. Wife preparing a minute steak on an infra-red grill. Young daughter beating a cake with an electric mixer. Washer looking after itself. And so on. It looked authentic. There were empty food cartons lying about. Sawdust on the floor. Even splashes of paint on the folding steps. Masters realized the appeal. It came from down-to-earth reality. It didn’t stress the value of the various items. It stressed what each item would do to make life easier.

  ‘You concentrate on this room,’ Masters told Hill. ‘Brant can take the kitchen.’ He and Green went through to the bedroom. The bedclothes had been straightened. On the little table was a small aluminium case: a box less than six inches long, three wide, and an inch deep. Masters opened the snap lid gingerly. Inside was a white plastic lining divided into three longitudinal compartments. The near one was empty, but the nesting ridges suggested that it was intended to take two small bottles, on their sides, bottoms to middle. The central channel contained a metal cylinder, the full length of the box. Masters eased it out with a finger nail, and undid the screw cap. Inside was a syringe. He lifted the barrel. A fine needle was still attached. He could smell spirit. ‘A carrying case,’ he said. ‘I suppose it keeps the needle sterilized. Smell.’ He handed it to Green.

  ‘Surgical spirit? No. I’m wrong. It’s industrial.’ He pushed the barrel back into the cylinder. ‘By crikey, it holds the syringe tight. I s’pose that’s to prevent breakage in a handbag.’

  ‘That’s a point. I wonder if she always carried it with her?’

  ‘You mean somebody might have had a chance—while she was out, somewhere—of filling the syringe with something other than insulin?’

  ‘If she kept it charged. It’d be easy, wouldn’t it? Say it was in her handbag. She put it down and took her eyes off it. How long would it take? A couple of minutes?’

  ‘This means we’ve got to trace her movements pretty carefully. When was she last seen alive?’ Green asked.

  ‘Damn! That’s what I intended to ask Hook and I forgot. The old boy got me so involved with his emotional approach it completely slipped my mind. There’s a phone in the living-room. Could you give him a buzz?’

  Green went off. Masters glanced at the third compartment of the metal box. This was divided into two. In one half a pad of cotton wool; in the other a small, capped bottle of urine-testing strips and a spare needle. He turned the box upside down so that the contents slid gently out on
to the table. He examined the lining. It was slightly buckled and just a little discoloured along the tops of the ridges. For a moment he wondered why, and came to the conclusion that it represented nothing more than fair wear and tear on a piece of comparatively fragile equipment that was used frequently and came into contact regularly with industrial spirit and insulin. He took the cap from the bottle of reagent strips. He tipped them on to his hand, and noted the dark brown colour of the impregnated part of each matchstick. He put them back carefully, making sure that the little desiccant pack went in, too. He closed the lid of the box.

  He looked round the rest of the room briefly. Saw nothing to interest him and went to the bathroom. After opening the door he stopped. A momentary, evocative sourness in the air met him. Then it was gone. Imprisoned in the hot room, it had escaped through the newly opened door. For a moment he couldn’t place it. Then it was recalled by his own reactions. He felt slightly nauseated. That was it! Vomit. Somebody had recently been sick in the bathroom. He called Hill.

  ‘Smell?’ Hill answered. ‘I can’t smell anything. A bit stale, perhaps, through being shut up, but all houses and rooms get like that.’

  ‘I think she was sick,’ Masters said. ‘See what you can find.’

  Masters left Hill and met Green in the hall. Green wrinkled his puggy nose. ‘What’s that stink?’

  Green would never know how Masters blessed him for that remark. ‘You smelt it?’

  ‘Just a whiff. As though a little pocket of it passed me. What was it?’

  ‘Vomit, I think.’

  ‘Then for Pete’s sake, light up that pipe of yours.’

  ‘What did Hook say?’

  ‘He wasn’t there. The Station Sergeant says she was last seen, he thinks, by Brian Dent about ten twenty on Saturday night.’

  ‘He thinks?’

  ‘He’s sure, but he didn’t have the facts in front of him.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What if he brought her home and came in with her?’ Green asked. ‘It’s a Chubb lock. He’d only have to pull it to behind him as he went and there’d be no sign of his having been here.’

  ‘Having done what?’

  ‘Changed the insulin. She could have left him alone long enough for all sorts of reasons. While she went for a whizz or changed her clothes, or anything.’

  ‘He was closest to her. We’ll bear him well in mind.’

  Hill joined them, saying, ‘I would say she must have missed the pan when she puked. Just a bit. Probably one splash went on the floor. There’s a rag there—on the U bend—which I think she used for wiping up. Probably didn’t rinse it very well afterwards. Feeling too ill at the time, I expect. Anyhow, it’s all dried out now and smells a bit sour.’

  ‘Could forensic do anything with it, d’you think?’ asked Masters.

  Hill grimaced. ‘Maybe. I’ll bung it off to them if you like. But I’m not all that hopeful because it has definitely been rinsed. It’s not as if there’d be a lot of work on.’

  ‘In that case, hang on to it. If we find we need to know what she ate on Saturday we ought to be able to find out locally. If not, we’ll send the rag off.’

  Brant joined them. ‘There’s not a sign of anything unusual in there, Chief. Nothing to do with diabetes or medicines. Not even an aspirin.’

  ‘Thank you. In that case, we’ll go and clock in at the Bristol.’

  2 |

  After they were installed at the Bristol, Masters felt unable to settle. It was six o’clock. Time to have a bath and a drink before dinner. The unwinding part of the day when most people like to take their ease and enjoy themselves. This evening, with a golden sun tumbling westwards and lengthening shadows, when the world outwardly seemed a good place, he felt he wanted to be up and doing. He sat in his room, smoking reflectively. He supposed the most miraculous organ of murder was playing with all stops out in the case of Sally Bowker. Right on his particular wavelength. Had she been sick? He thought he’d nosed it out. If she had, had it any bearing? To him it seemed it might well be significant. He wished to hell he knew more about the girl’s disorder. Were diabetics more prone to other illnesses than other folk? Did their bodies react more violently to stimuli that in other people would be shrugged off with little or no discomfort? Green had been right. Here, from the outset, he himself was uneasy. No bliss in ignorance for him. He had to know. With a grimace he heaved himself up out of the armchair. There was one person who could tell him. Hook had said that Dr Sisson was up to date on diabetic treatment. Masters picked up the phone.

  Dr Neville Sisson was in the middle of evening surgery. His receptionist was doubtful whether he would wish to be disturbed. Masters said, ‘Please tell the doctor that I insisted you should interrupt him. You know who I am?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t. You’ve said you’re a Chief Inspector Masters …’

  ‘From Scotland Yard.’ Masters was just faintly surprised and disappointed that his name carried neither recognition nor weight. ‘I’m here to investigate the death of Miss Bowker.’

  ‘Oh! That’s different. I’m sure Dr Sisson will talk to you about her.’ Masters thought he detected a note of pique in the receptionist’s tone. Immediately he wondered whether the receptionist was jealous of the attention the doctor had paid to an attractive girl. Of the concern he had shown for her. It was a subconscious suspicion. Without a pause he said, ‘In that case, would you please put me through to him.’

  ‘Sisson.’ The voice was deep. The type of immature deepness that reminded Masters of a boy whose voice has just broken and not yet completely settled down. He guessed it was a cultivated deepness, adopted to impress.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Masters of Scotland Yard. I should like to meet you, doctor.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This evening if possible.’

  ‘Well, I’m free—I hope—after I’ve eaten. By about nine o’clock.’

  ‘Can I see you then?’

  ‘You can. But I’m on call, so there’s no guarantee of an uninterrupted chat.’

  ‘I’ll risk that.’

  ‘As you like. D’you know where I live?’

  ‘If it’s at the surgery I have the address.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll expect you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a dozen patients waiting.’

  ‘Thank you. Sorry to have interrupted you.’

  Masters felt the conversation had been far from satisfactory. Sisson had raised no objections to an interview, but he hadn’t been completely enthusiastic. There had been just a hint of unwillingness in his attitude. And when he got impressions of that sort during a murder inquiry it made Masters want to think. He chose the bath as the best place in which to ruminate. It wasn’t a really comfortable pallet. It was too small for his great size. When he lay back his knees were bent up, out of the water. But he stayed there for a quarter of an hour, apparently doing little more than gazing at the wall opposite. In fact, at one moment he found himself counting the courses of tiles.

  When they were having dinner he told Green of his conversation with Sisson and the coming interview. ‘I’d like to come with you,’ Green said. ‘I want to learn something about diabetes.’

  ‘Right. We’ll walk. Leave here about ten to nine.’

  The sergeants were discussing Double Gloucester cheese. Wondering how it got its name. They agreed on the possibility of double strength but not as to how it was arrived at. Hill said when he got back to London he’d ring the Milk Marketing Board at Thames Ditton for an explanation, because to his mind, double strength or not, the cheese was mild. Masters, unusually for him, took no part in the gastronomic discussion. He’d been paying little attention to what he ate, and still seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts. ‘We’re up the creek, aren’t we?’ asked Green.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. Not just yet.’

  ‘Hook couldn’t suggest a suspect. How does he expect us to?’

  ‘Fresh minds. Emotionally uninvolved. Onlookers seeing more of t
he game. That sort of thing.’

  Green tried to wiggle a strand of meat from between two teeth with his tongue. ‘It doesn’t often work like that in our game. The locals who know the background are more in the picture. Where do we go for honey? Hook says emphatically that the lad she’s engaged to didn’t do it. What other contacts have we?’

  ‘Her partners?’

  ‘You really think two other little artist lasses would know enough about diabetes to pull this off? Or that they’d ruin what sounds like a thriving business by doing in one of the leading lights?’

  ‘If you don’t like them there’s the doctor. According to Hook he’s knowledgeable enough.’

  Green grimaced. ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’

  ‘And his receptionist. I told you I got the idea that she wasn’t one of Sally Bowker’s greatest admirers.’

  ‘That sounds more like it. When a nice bit o’ stuff gets murdered it’s usually by some rival. But we’d have to find out what or who she was rivalling.’

  Masters got to his feet. ‘I know. It could be somebody who thought she had a better right to Brian Dent’s affections. Or somebody who thought her boy friend was too taken up with Sally for the situation to be bearable. We can’t tell. But we will.’

  ‘I’m pleased you’re so confident. Are we going now?’

  They walked from the hotel to the centre crossroads with its one corner oddly embattlemented. By now there were few cars and even fewer people on foot. They could walk abreast down Eastgate to the corner of the side street with an arrow indicating the public library and museum. About here the buildings were of stone, pale grey and crumbling in places. Most of the older dwelling houses were now offices, devoid of any of the external touches—gardens, flowers, curtains—which must at one time have made them attractive homes.