Masters and Green Series Box Set

by Douglas Clark

  Brant and Hill approached carrying two tankards each. ‘Sorry to be so long,’ Brant said. ‘They’re thicker in that bar than protesters in Trafalgar Square.’

  Masters took his beer from Hill, then turned to Green. ‘What you said just now is quite logical and probably the right answer. But we’ll bear other possibilities in mind.’

  Hill drew up a chair and sat down. He drank deep and then asked, ‘Fruitful morning?’

  ‘Hard to tell yet,’ Masters said. ‘What about the occupants of Wye House?’

  Hill made his report on the morning’s work. When he’d finished Green commented, ‘That knocks one of our suspects out. If Brian Dent didn’t go into the flat it makes a porridge of our theory about him having a key.’

  ‘Why?’ Masters asked.

  ‘Well, if he’d wanted to go in for any reason surely it’d have been commonsense to go in to say good night to his bird. A lot more natural and less likely to cause comment.’

  ‘But the girl was feeling sick by the time he got her home,’ Masters objected.

  ‘Maybe she was. But he’d want to get inside to doctor her insulin. That’s commonsen …’ He stopped in mid-word and stared at Masters. ‘By crikey! That carrying case! Her insulin was in a carrying case. She’d been toting it around in her bag and she’d been out with him!’

  Masters smiled at Green’s amazed tones. ‘The penny’s dropped?’

  ‘This gets worse,’ Green complained. ‘The insulin could have been tampered with either in the flat or outside. We’re not getting any closer. We’re getting further away from the answer.’

  ‘Not us,’ Masters said. ‘We’re simply getting more elbow room. Having alternatives is a jolly sight better than being stuck with just one rigid set of possibilities.’

  Green didn’t appear comforted by this philosophy. ‘It’s a set of Sunday undies to a G-string that she and young Dent went cavorting all over the county that day. And we’ll have to follow them up.’

  Masters finished his beer and got to his feet. ‘I’m going to have a salad lunch, and then back on the job.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘I think it’s time you and I saw Dent. The boys can check up on the movements of Clara Breese last Saturday.’

  Green put on his jacket. ‘What about the Ward woman? Aren’t her movements important?’

  ‘They are. They can take her in, too. We’ll give them the score while we eat.’

  The offices of Dent and Blackett were situated in a street leading from the main road to the cathedral close. The waiter they asked for directions told them how to get there. ‘Go past Woolworth’s and turn right where you see an arrow on a lamp-post. You can’t miss it because it’s only a bit of an alley about a hundred yards long.’

  The alley was just wide enough to take a car. The pavements on either side were about two feet wide. Far too narrow for Masters and Green to walk abreast. They passed antique shops and second-hand bookshops with dim interiors and apparently little trade. Going their way were several small parties of sightseers in holiday dress, with cameras and sunglasses. Intent on doing the cathedral, part of the fabric of which Masters could see just beyond the end of their tunnel-like street. So intent was he on seeing as much as he could of the building which loomed ahead that he almost missed what he had come out to find. ‘Come on,’ Green said. ‘Mind your head.’

  A brass plate on old black woodwork. A window, protected by an overhang, with photographs and details of property. A low doorway. Another dim interior. Masters stooped and entered. The floorboards were old, uneven, and over a foot wide, with a patina of age enhanced by O Cedar floor polish, the smell of which gave the place a homely, welcoming atmosphere. The clerk behind the desk asked if he could help.

  ‘Mr Brian Dent, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Mr Dent isn’t here.’

  ‘You mean he’s out?’

  ‘No. I mean he doesn’t work on Saturdays.’

  Green said. ‘Why not, if the office is open?’

  ‘Mr Dent has nothing to do with property sales. He is an architect. His studio and office are upstairs, but his business is entirely separate from ours. No five-day week for us, worse luck.’

  ‘Is he likely to be at home?’

  ‘That I can’t say, but I don’t think you’d better call on him. Monday morning would be better. I can make an appointment for you.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t thank you for going to his house. He’s just … well, his fiancée died rather tragically a few days ago, and I think he’d far rather not be bothered just now by ordinary business.’

  ‘It’s extraordinary business we’re on, brother,’ Green said.

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Police,’ Masters explained. ‘Would you please ring his home and tell him we’re on our way to see him.’

  The clerk picked up the phone as they started to leave the office.

  ‘Why tell him to do that?’ Green asked. ‘Dent’ll be warned.’

  ‘He must know we’ll be getting round to him soon, and that chap in there would have phoned him in any case. He didn’t say so, but he knew we were policemen. We can’t disguise ourselves that easily.’

  Masters turned towards the cathedral. Green, tagging along behind, said, ‘That’s not the right way to Dent’s house.’

  ‘It is unless you want to walk.’

  ‘Taxi?’

  ‘No. If the sergeants are doing their stuff they should be making inquiries here now, or soon should be. If we hang around a bit we’ll see the car and they can give us a lift.’

  As they left the alley, the full splendour of the cathedral opened before them. Green stopped in his tracks. ‘I go to chapel,’ he said.

  ‘So? It doesn’t hurt to look at a church.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. You can feel the power of that place at this distance, can’t you?’

  The precincts had disappeared, to make way for a car park. The surrounding houses, which Masters presumed must once have belonged exclusively to members of the Chapter, were now turned into commercial offices. The place was a right of way for everyday business, and besides sightseers, townsfolk hurried to and fro with shopping-baskets and prams and briefcases, oblivious of the source of sacred power which towered above them, a stone-coloured silhouette against a hot, blue, sky, like a Canaletto original backing a modern populated canvas by Lowry.

  ‘Worth a look, isn’t it?’ Masters said.

  ‘Yes. But does it pay?’

  Masters was a little surprised by this remark. Then he saw the board which had occasioned it. The cost of daily upkeep was there for all to see, in the hope that those who visited would contribute. He said, ‘You yourself said it was a power house. Does Battersea pay?’

  Green grunted. ‘I can’t see the car.’

  ‘In that case we’ll go inside for a few minutes and you can help preserve history by dropping sixpence in the box.’

  In the cool interior, Masters knelt. When he got up, he found Green standing by a model of the cathedral. He had put his sixpence in the box. The windows had lit up and an organ-music record had started to play ‘Holy Night’. Masters saw that Green was completely fascinated. Near him stood two little girls in summer dresses. All three listened intently. Masters went to the door to look for the car. It was drawing in as he stepped out into the sunlight.

  Brant dropped them at Dent’s house. It was a single-fronted modern villa, standing very much alone, but with great width of frontage because the separate garage, level with the building line, had been connected to the main house by a flat-roofed car port. The newness and brilliant whiteness of the paint, in this sunshine, gave an air, not of rural England, but of some sub-tropical play centre. It struck Green as much as Masters. ‘Old Dent must have gone a bust on this,’ Green said. ‘I’ll bet he’s got a swimming pool and tennis court at the back.’

  Masters sent Brant back to the cathedral to pick up Hill. ‘An E-type coupé in the shed?’ he
said to Green.

  ‘That’s it. Pop uses the garage, son the dutch barn. I wonder where mum keeps her scooter?’

  The door opened as they approached. The hall was wide and carpeted all over in plain red. Masters guessed it was Brian Dent waiting to welcome them.

  ‘Mr Brian Dent?’

  ‘That’s me. And you’re the two policemen the office rang up about?’

  Masters introduced himself and Green. He liked the look of Dent. Tall and not too heavily built, he wore a washed-out blue shirt and grey slacks with a pair of well-polished brown leather shoes. His hair was dark brown and fine, falling over his brow on the right: a natural unruliness that Masters thought would have its own attraction for girls. His eyes were brown, and his beard area fairly dark. The bare neck and throat were tanned, and a hint of hair showed inside the V of the shirt.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Mum and Dad are on the terrace, but it’s cooler inside—especially if there’s a lot of talking to be done.’

  He showed them into a sitting-room at the front of the house. Masters didn’t care for it. It was very new and modern, but it was also absolutely rectangular without a break or an alcove anywhere. Where, in Masters’ opinion, there should have been a fireplace, was a glass-fronted cupboard, with green baize-covered shelves on which was laid out a hunt in full cry. Without inspecting them closely it was difficult to say, in the dimness of their prison, whether each of the little china pieces was as exquisite as it gave the impression of being. Seeing him gazing, Dent pressed a switch, and concealed lighting flooded the scene. It took on life. The liver, fawn and white hounds, each scarcely an inch long, the mounts, the habits, and the quarry—a small scrap of a fox, perfectly proportioned, about to go to earth—breathed life and colour. Green said, surprisingly, ‘That’ll be German.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Saw one just like it over there in forty-five. I wanted to loot it, but somebody beat me to it.’

  ‘You? Loot?’ Masters asked.

  Green coloured. ‘Actually I didn’t get anything. But I’d have liked that. It was in a corner cupboard. Like that one over there.’ Green pointed to a corner of the room.

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ Dent said.

  It was modern furniture. Square. Not really big enough for Masters who preferred armchairs that accepted and enveloped him when he sat down: feather-cushioned wing chairs with overstuffed rolling arms and plenty of depth from back to front. A chair that had no head rest was no armchair to him. And this room wasn’t homely. It had everything; but everything was in its place. There were no newspapers lying about, no books left open. He thought Sally Bowker must have felt strange in a house like this after living in farmhouses, overcrowded flats and untidy studios. There was only one piece of furniture that intrigued Masters. It was Green’s corner cupboard: carved oak with leaded panes so old that they scarcely allowed a view of the contents, except where labels were close up to the inside of the glass. Masters could just read some of them: La Ina, Courvoisier, Anisette, D.O.M. He could think of no better use for so fine a piece than to make it serve as a wine cupboard. He imagined the elder Dent had bought it at one of the auctions he conducted. If so, it said much—in Masters’ opinion—for his taste. So much less garish than the modern cocktail bar one might expect to find in a room such as this. Masters thought he would have liked the piece for himself; thought he could just make out—now his eyes were growing accustomed to the dim light—the outlines of other bottles, and tried to guess their contents by their shapes. He was pretty sure of Vat 69 and Gordons when Dent, noticing his interest, said, ‘Would you like a drink? I’m sorry, I should have offered …’

  ‘No, no. Thank you. Not at this time of day. I was just admiring the cupboard.’

  ‘It is rather splendid, isn’t it? We’re going to have an internal light fixed some day.’

  ‘To switch on when the door opens?’ Green asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Right, gentlemen,’ Masters said, ‘shall we get down to business? You know why we’re here, Mr Dent?’

  Dent nodded. ‘Sally.’

  ‘We’d like to know everything that happened last Saturday. So far we have visited her doctor whom she saw in the morning. She left the surgery, I believe, at about half-past ten. What do you suppose she did then?’

  ‘Went shopping. It was her usual Saturday-morning chore, and I know she went last Saturday because she took her prescription to the chemist and got a fresh supply of insulin and she also went on her usual spree looking for suitable foods.’

  ‘Suitable?’

  ‘Sally could eat most things, but all the same she took great care to make sure her diet wasn’t overloaded with fats and other high caloric items. She took a lot of green vegetables and fairly high protein stuff, and she was pretty particular to get the best there was. She’d shop around for it.’

  ‘I see. That would take her up to lunchtime, I suppose.’

  ‘Certainly not later. She ate on time. It helps diabetics if they stick to a very strictly timed routine, you know. One thing I’d learned through being with Sally was that she’d never allow herself to get peckish, and she always carried a sweet or a few sugar lumps in case she did. I think you can safely say she’d have lunch at one.’

  ‘At home? Or in a restaurant?’

  ‘Definitely at home.’

  ‘How can you be sure? Did she tell you?’

  ‘No. But she fought shy of restaurants. There was no real reason why she should have done, but as I told you she was very particular about her ten-gram equivalents … you know what they are?’

  Masters nodded. ‘The diet sheets list all the amounts of the usual foods that give ten grams of carbohydrate. If I remember rightly seven ounces of water melon equal a third of an ounce of sugar and they both yield ten grams of carbohydrate. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes. And in restaurant food—or so Sally said—you never knew what was being used. I mean it takes three-quarters of a pound of tomatoes to give ten grams, but if they make tomato soup with all sorts of thickeners and add sugar to it and so on, a diabetic hasn’t a clue what equivalents he’s being dished up. And Sally said puddings were particularly bad in this respect. So she never went to restaurants if she could help it.’

  ‘Not with you when you were out together?’ Green asked.

  ‘Sometimes. To places where she could be sure of a salad and stewed fruit sweetened with saccharin.’

  ‘That must have cut down your pleasures quite a lot,’ Masters said.

  Dent said simply, ‘A bit. We used to go out to eat very often before Sal knew she was diabetic. But we’d learned to do without since. There’s plenty to do besides eating out, you know.’

  Masters produced his pipe and tobacco. As he rubbed a fill in the palm of his left hand he asked, ‘What were you proposing to do after marriage, Mr Dent? Were you going to live on a diabetic diet? Or would your wife have expected to cook two separate dishes each day?’

  Dent laughed. ‘Nothing like that. Diabetics eat the same food as anybody else, but possibly less of it.’

  ‘No, Mr Dent.’

  Brian Dent looked at Masters for a moment, and smiled in a puzzled way. ‘Take a very common lunch,’ Masters said. ‘Roast beef and Yorkshire. A diabetic won’t tackle Yorkshire pudding. Won’t eat roast potatoes. Won’t eat creamed potatoes because of the butter and milk in them. But he will eat boiled potatoes. Potatoes with no extraneous flavouring and easily measured into equivalents. Rather daunting isn’t it? Boiled potatoes for ever for a man who likes them roast, mashed, chipped, sauté-ed, fried and so on. And no Yorkshire! And no stewed fruit sweetened with sugar. And so on. In an endless list. Hadn’t you thought of all this, Mr Dent?’

  ‘Of course I had. My mother has pointed it out often enough even if I hadn’t thought of it for myself.’

  ‘Your mother? And yet you were contemplating married life with equanimity?’

  ‘Of course I was. Odd as it may seem, I adored Sally.
Wanted her.’

  ‘Before she was diabetic.’

  ‘And after. Only more so. The thought of her having diabetes—her injections, tests and diets—only made me want her more.’

  ‘Out of pity, perhaps.’

  ‘Pity be damned. It was love.’

  ‘Good for you,’ answered Masters. ‘I’m pleased to have heard you say it.’

  ‘You wouldn’t—couldn’t—have expected anything else if you’d known Sally.’

  ‘I’ve seen a photograph of her.’

  ‘Have you? She looked pretty good, didn’t she? But you had to know her to realize what a fantastic girl she was.’

  Masters accepted this superficially, mentally putting most of it down to the protestations of a young man in love—notoriously untrustworthy opinions. Something of this attitude must have communicated itself to Dent, who said, ‘You’re a bit sceptical?’

  ‘Not really. But you were going to marry her.’

  ‘So my judgment about her is suspect?’

  ‘I’d expect it to be—a little.’

  Dent leaned forward earnestly. ‘Let me tell you this, Mr Masters. I’m an only child. And though I think the world of my mother, I’d be the first to admit that she’s possessive as far as I’m concerned. I’ve no illusions about her. She thinks nothing is good enough for me. Nor anybody. Ever since I’ve been old enough to think about marriage, I’ve expected to have a battle royal with Mother about whichever girl I asked to marry me. I knew—really knew—that if I presented the most noble, beautiful creature that ever lived, as my future wife, mother would be critical. And would try to stop it.’

  ‘Go on, Mr Dent.’

  ‘Mother didn’t try to stop my engagement to Sally. Every girl I’d brought home before she came along had been wrong for me. For a variety of reasons. Mother nosed out imperfections in dress, manners, looks, speech, family, character—the lot. But never with Sally. In fact, she encouraged the engagement. Sang Sally’s praises to me. Said how clever, beautiful, gay and kind she was. What a wonderful wife and mother she’d make. And believe me, Chief Inspector, any girl whom I wished to marry who could make my mother say what she did, must have been just about as perfect as they come in every respect.’