Deadly Pattern

by Douglas Clark

  Chapter Two

  Masters kept them for ten minutes. ‘I’ve read their files,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot in them, but it’s uncoordinated, so we’ll consider we’re starting from scratch.’ He spread out the large scale map of the dune area. ‘See this?’

  Green said: ‘It’s a village. Huts all over the place.’

  ‘Bungalows,’ said Masters. ‘Summer bungalows. Hundreds of them. Some laid out in rows. Others all higgledy-piggledy, but each with its piece of garden.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘They’ll have been empty in the winter. Nobody to question about mysterious goings on in the dunes. Our friend’ll have had a free hand.’

  ‘Did the locals say whether any of the bungalows had been broken into?’ Brant asked.

  Masters looked down his nose. ‘What d’you expect in this day and age? Into the teens have been forced open since last autumn when they were locked up for the winter.’

  Green said: ‘So there’s been a lot of stuff pinched.’

  ‘Surprisingly little. Evidently the owners have learned their lesson by now. About the only things they leave are iron-framed bedsteads. The rest goes home for the winter.’

  They bent over the map. Green said: ‘These crosses, marking the graves. All except Mrs Baker’s, which is on the foreshore, are dotted about among the bungalows. Were any of the ones near the graves broken open?’

  Masters shook his head. ‘I’d thought of that. As far as I can tell nothing matches. Of course the graves are a long way apart, and there are two break-ins within the triangle formed by the bodies of Osborn, Burton and Pogson. But plotting them on the map doesn’t seem to suggest anything to me.’

  ‘It might,’ said Hill, ‘after we’ve seen the area itself.’

  Masters tapped out his pipe. ‘Take a tape, protractor and compass with us tomorrow. We’ll measure up, to see that the graves are correctly plotted and not just map-spotted. Now, if we’re all ready, what about that drink?’

  ‘Take your choice,’ said Green. ‘There’s an American bar with a pansy behind it serving crème de menthe to a couple of old women, or the Sundowner bar in the basement that looks like a pub and has a barmaid who looks like a barmaid to go with it.’

  Masters opted for the Sundowner.

  What had been a cellar, approached by a very narrow flight of new, light oak stairs, had been panelled throughout in mock linenfold. There was no window in the room, but the effect was pleasing. The atmosphere was warm and air conditioned. The tables were limed oak and the chairs and wall benches had red seats. The bar was well stocked and, as Masters was pleased to see, had several batteries of beer pumps. There were four people present when they entered. A man sitting alone, on a stool, at the far end of the bar, drinking either gin or vodka, and a middle-aged couple sitting on the bench in a corner. The fourth, the barmaid, was—as Green had said—typical. She was busty, with hair too gold to be true. Her black frock was tight and cut low enough to show the beginnings of emphasized cleavage. Her face was heavily powdered over pleasant, rounded features, the skin of which was coarsened by an over-liberal use of poor cosmetics in the past. On her left hand she had wedding and engagement rings. On the right a stone of indeterminate type, mottled green and big as a glass alley. She was leaning against the jutting main shelf of a Welsh dresser-type cabinet behind her. The metal foil cork covers of several small bottles had been opened out, and stood in a rank behind her head, giving the impression of a tiara of golden fan shells. She came forward as they approached. Masters thought her perfume reminded him of stale currant buns. She said ‘Good evening’ pleasantly enough in a gin and fags voice and waited for them to name their individual poisons.

  Masters turned to the man at the end of the bar. He said ‘Good evening’ and getting no response except a brief glance, directed his attention back to his own drink.

  Green said: ‘Quiet this evening, Mrs . . . er . . .?’

  ‘Shirley Moffat. Known as Shirl, love. And we’re always a bit quiet on Fridays about now. All the commercials have gone for the weekend, you see. And who’d want to come out on a night like this? It’s not fit to send a fiddler’s bitch out in, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

  ‘I’ll pardon it all right. If you’ll tell me why a fiddler’s bitch.’

  ‘They’re the ones that always get drunk, aren’t they?’

  ‘I see. So everybody in here’s resident?’

  ‘Everybody, including you.’

  The conversation lapsed. The man at the end of the bar ordered another drink. He was on gin. With water. Masters shuddered mentally. It was a taste he loathed. He wondered what sort of a character this man was, toping gin and water alone in Finstoft on a Friday night in mid-February. His feet on the rung of the stool, hooked in by the heels, were in black pre-polished Chelsea boots. The suit a dark one, with a faint hint of reddish-purple about it, the shirt well-cut round the neck, reminding Masters very much of the Golden Rapides he always wore himself. The tie a nondescript blue, with what looked like a tier of three white sabres just below the knot. The hands were big but fine, with pronounced joints and strangely bold veins. They appeared never to be still—twirling the glass or tracing a pattern on the side of it. The dark hair was thinning, but not flattened. Seen from in front he appeared to have quite a good head still left. Masters guessed that a photograph from above would show the scalp through the thatch. The face was pale, long and narrow, with deep set brown eyes, ringed by an unhealthily dark surround. The beard area was already dark. The ears without lobes lay flat against the head. Masters guessed his height to be little short of six feet, and thought the man looked far from well.

  The new drink was placed in front of the stranger. Shirl said: ‘Five an’ four, Mr Tintern.’ Tintern handed over three florins and, when he got it, dropped the eightpence change into a glass ashtray discreetly placed near one of the rows of beer handles. Masters guessed that the two or three sixpences already in it were bait, put there by Shirl herself. He glanced along the bar to prove his theory. Each array of handles had its ashtray with reminder coins. He wondered what Green’s comment would be when he realized he was expected to tip this typical barmaid. A movement from Tintern caused Masters to glance at him again. The gin had disappeared and Tintern had already got down from the stool. The empty glass was there. Its contents must have been taken in one swig: coughed back like vodka at a Kremlin banquet. Tintern passed behind them and out of the Sundowner without a word. Green, grasping a half empty pint pot said: ‘Matey sort of chap, isn’t he? Like a secret drinker. I’m suspicious of secret drinkers.’ He lifted his pot and drank noisily.

  ‘There’s no need to be suspicious of him,’ remarked Hill.

  ‘And why not?’ said Brant.

  ‘Because Shirl said we’re all residents here. And if he’s a resident he’s not likely to be local. And if he’s not a local he can’t be implicated in this job.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  Green said: ‘You’ve decided it is a local then?’

  Hill plonked his pot on the bar and nodded. ‘All the signs point to it.’ He turned to Masters. ‘Don’t they?’

  ‘We can’t afford to be dogmatic, but . . . yes, I must confess I’d say we’re looking for a local. A man unfamiliar with the area would be unlikely to sort out five women with such common factors of age and class. But even more important, he would be unlikely to be able to carry out the mechanics of the crime.’

  ‘Mechanics? Throttling them, you mean?’ said Green.

  ‘No. Any man with sufficient strength could do that. I’m talking about inveigling what I take to be a bunch of highly respectable women to a place or places where he could murder them. Doesn’t it occur to you that these are not Jack the Ripper crimes? Committed at the point of meeting, wherever that may have been? This man has done one of two things in every case. He’s managed to attract his victims to the bungalow village in winter, and there killed them. Or he’s attracted them to some house or other private
spot, killed them there, and then transported the bodies to the bungalow village. We don’t know which, but I’d say that in order to do it he’d have to be really well known to each of his victims. That suggests he is a local man and, what is more, a man of middle class.’

  ‘Are you sure, chief?’ said Brant. ‘Couldn’t he have jumped them in a quiet spot, bundled them into a car and away?’

  ‘Of course I’m not sure. But I would think your theory more feasible if he’d clobbered them over the head first. But he didn’t. He strangled them—and nothing more. No head wounds or bruises. And I don’t think that any man could throttle five women in any street this crowd was likely to use, without at least several of them being able to cry out or somebody else noticing the incident.’

  Green grunted and put down his empty mug. The clatter on the bar attracted Shirl’s attention. She moved down and without a word started to draw the refills. Green said: ‘That chap—Tintern, I think you called him—he’s a funny one.’

  ‘He’s very quiet.’

  ‘Where does he come from?’

  Shirl held the mug close under the tap so that the nozzle was actually in the beer before making the final half pull for topping up. She paused, as if using all her strength on the handle, before saying: ‘It’s funny you should ask that, because I should think he comes from the same place as you gentlemen.’

  ‘Oh? Where’s that?’

  ‘London. I thought you might know him.’

  ‘There’s a lot of people in London, Shirl.’

  ‘I know that, you barmy ha’porth. But he’s famous.’

  Green didn’t like being called barmy. He said ‘How much?’ in the sort of voice that denoted displeasure.

  ‘Twelve shillings, love.’

  Green didn’t like the bar prices either. He felt in his pocket for a florin to add to the ten shillings he’d had ready. Masters said: ‘Famous at what?’

  As she put the money in the till, with her back to him, Shirl said: ‘He’s an architect. He does cathedrals and that sort of thing.’ Immediately, Masters remembered the name. Ashbury Cathedral, consecrated two years before, furbished and decorated by famous artists and sculptors, but designed and built by Derek Tintern, the man who had made a name for himself by way of rebuilding wartorn churches and saving others from collapse. A name that had appeared often enough in the Press, but seemingly always overshadowed by some bigger name that had made a lesser contribution to gild the lily he had planted. Masters recalled reading some news item about him. Not just recently. Before Christmas. In November perhaps. What had it been about? Not architecture. Oh, yes. He remembered. A car crash. That was it. One of those motorway pile-ups. The newsmen had mentioned it. He couldn’t recall all the details but he seemed to recollect it had been serious. He said: ‘What’s a chap like Tintern doing in Finstoft?’

  Shirl laughed, throatily. ‘There’s no need to say it as though you thought we were heathens, love. We have got some churches round here, you know.’

  ‘Sorry. He’s rebuilding them?’

  ‘One. I don’t suppose he’d look at the others, but St Botolph-le-Toft’s one of those ancient monuments. It’s got all sorts of things people like him’s interested in. In the old days it used to be right at the river’s edge, but it isn’t now.’

  ‘They’ve moved it?’ said Green.

  ‘Don’t be daft, lad. The river’s moved. No. In the old days, hundreds of years ago—would it be when the Saxons were here?—it had an old stone tower where they kept a look-out for those Norsemen coming. I think he said there was a wood church there then that got burnt down. Then William the Conqueror came and they built a stone church. Or something of the sort.’

  Masters said: ‘Saxon tower and Norman nave. That must be a rare combination. No wonder Tintern’s interested. What’s he doing?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, love. Pumping cement into the walls or something. I know he said he was like a dentist trying to save a bad tooth. Drilling and filling, he called it.’ She moved away as a small group of newcomers came down the stairs. Masters looked at his watch. ‘We’d better have dinner now if we’re going to be ready and waiting for Dr Swaine when he comes. Come on. Drink up.’

  Green led the way up the stairs. ‘That barmaid’s getting too big for her ham bags. Something about her’ll have to be taken down a bit.’

  ‘As long as it isn’t the ham bags,’ Masters said. ‘And talking of ham, doesn’t this part of the world produce beech-fed ham? A good steak of beech-fed gammon would go down well for dinner.’

  ‘Beech-fed?’ said Brant.

  Masters waited to see if Green would, or could, explain. To his great surprise, Green did so. He said: ‘Haven’t you ever read Ivanhoe, lad? Honestly, the money we waste in this country on so-called education.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve read it.’

  ‘Then you should remember how it opens. The swineherd—Garth, I think—was feeding his pigs on beech mast in the forest. And why? Because it’s good pig food, that’s why. And good pigs give good ham.’

  ‘But that was in Nottingham.’

  This time Green was stumped. Masters said: ‘Beech trees like limestone, and there’s limestone round here. You take a drink of water and you’ll find it hard as Old Nick.’

  Masters didn’t get his ham. Instead he took the head waiter’s recommendation—baked latchet. A fish he’d never heard of before. He was interested to learn that these brightly coloured, fleshy fish rarely reach any tables but those of the fishermen who catch them. So highly prized are they as food. He chose a lemon pudding to finish off with, and sat back, fuller than he’d felt for a long time. He said to Green: ‘I feel more like going to bed than entertaining a boozy doctor.’

  ‘You fixed the time.’

  ‘I know. I’d like you with me. The others can do as they like.’

  *

  Dr Eric Swaine was short, stout, and very red faced. He wore a bristling military moustache and his dark hair was carefully brushed close to his head. His suit was impeccable, and his tiny shoes—a deep, dark tan—polished like mirrors. The spotless turn-ups of his shirt sleeves showed an inch below his jacket cuffs, which were folded back double, with rounded corners and matching braid edgings. At some time in the past he had lost an upper right incisor, and the gap showed dark against the whiteness of the rest. It also caused him to lisp slightly. And a lisp, added to his military tones, robbed them of any offensiveness there might otherwise have been. He talked a lot, but never wasted words, except when swearing, which he did unashamedly throughout every conversation.

  ‘Strong ale,’ he said in answer to Masters’ invitation. ‘Shirl knows.’ He waited courteously until all three were served and then said: ‘Here’s to the health of your blood.’ His glass was half empty when he lowered it. He turned to the bar and said: ‘Same again, Shirl, girl. At the table in the corner, please.’ He looked up at Masters. ‘A bit of privacy won’t come amiss. The folks round here grow ears as long as those on the donkeys they run on the sands in summer.’ He led the way. Green looked at Masters and raised his eyebrows. Masters nodded. For once he and Green were agreed. Dr Eric Swaine was an interesting character.

  Swaine edged round the table into the corner seat, carefully holding the glass high in one hand away from his body as if afraid of spattering himself. He said: ‘Bloody nice to meet you chaps. This job needs fellers who know what they’re about. Locals are all right, but they’ve not known whether they’ve been on their arses or elbows this last week. And as for old Scratch-me-backside—Bullimore—he gets goose-pimples if I mention a woman’s knickers. Calls them underwear or nether garments or some such humbug. As far as I’m concerned what’s what is what, and I hope it is with you, too.’

  Masters grinned. The turkey-cock air, the seriousness of the little doctor amused him. He said: ‘We like plain speech, Dr Swaine. But please remember that we have to write official reports, so keep the plain speech printable, otherwise we shall be in difficulties.’

  ‘S
ee what you mean. Ah! The drinks. Thanks, Shirl. Nine bob? Keep the change. And keep your eye open, too. When I give you the nod, make it the same again.’ He turned to Masters. ‘Now these women. All two point seveners . . .’

  ‘What?’ said Green.

  ‘Average, middle class. Average number of kids in average middle-class families is two point seven. These five had thirteen between them. Three twos, a three and a four. Works out at two point six each.’

  Green nodded. Masters said: ‘Did you know any of the murdered women personally?’

  ‘All of them, casually. One of them, Joanna Osborn, was a patient of mine.’

  ‘Superintendent Bullimore says you have a theory about them.’

  ‘Theory? Look, Mr Masters, I was asked to say whether they’d been sexually assaulted. That’s not what was meant, but it’s how it was put. What Bullimore wanted to know was whether these women had gone off into the dunes for a bit on the side—of their own free will—and if so, whether they’d got what they’d gone for.’

  ‘And had they?’

  ‘How could I tell? They were all married women, living with their husbands, and all still bedworthy—or nubile—if you prefer it and so, presumably, living normal married lives. And they’d been buried, some of them for weeks. All the indications would have perished long before they were dug up. But even if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to supply an answer.’

  ‘And there were no signs of assault?’

  ‘Not a bra strap out of place among the lot of them. They were done to death for some reason other than sex. After all, it stands to reason that a man mad enough to kill for that purpose would choose younger women.’

  ‘All cats look grey in the dark,’ commented Green.

  ‘Maybe they do. But it would be stretching the long arm of coincidence from here to Vladivostok and back to pick haphazardly and yet get five women all of an age, all married, all the same type five times out of five.’