Lady With a Cool Eye

by Gwen Moffat

  “I want to go there,” he said, “will you take me?”

  “Go where?”

  “To the cliffs — where it happened.”

  She frowned. “I’ll take you if you’re sure you want to go.”

  “I haven’t a car, you see.”

  “You’re quite sure you want to go?”

  “It’s a nagging feeling. I’ve got nothing to do. They want me to stay here: in the locality. They’re not sure of me, I suppose; I’m the obvious person but they don’t know how I could have got from the Centre and back without transport. They seem to think Sally’s mixed up in it. So I can’t go away — and there’s the inquest this afternoon, just informal, they say. They said I should get some sleep but I don’t think I could sleep. There’s nothing I want to do except that on Sunday I looked everywhere and couldn’t find her and never caught a glimpse of the car: a blue Jag; you couldn’t miss it, could you? Not in this part of the world at this time of year? I want to see it. There must be something. Your eyes will be better than mine.”

  She realised he was referring more to her state of mind than her vision. Olwen had come in during this rambling discourse but he didn’t notice her. The two women stared at him while the words tipped out as if of their own volition. Olwen put a second pot of coffee and a rack of toast on the table.

  “We’ll go as soon as I’ve had my breakfast,” Miss Pink assured him, taking a piece of toast.

  When she had finished eating she excused herself and went to the kitchen where she learned that a police car had brought Martin to the Goat shortly before she came down. Ted had been in the hall at that moment. He had gone outside to speak to someone in the car, returned for his coat and to leave the message, then been driven away. The police were staying at a hotel on the main road.

  Miss Pink left a message of her own for Ted saying that she had gone to Puffin Cove with Martin.

  “Do you think you should?” Olwen asked, eyeing her anxiously.

  Miss Pink smiled vaguely and left the kitchen.

  *

  Martin lost some of his stiffness on the drive. The cold light of morning emphasised his sunken features cruelly but he was more alive now. He had held the door for her as she got in the Austin and on the way to the coast he glanced at landmarks with occasional interest. When she turned off the main road towards the headland he said with a sudden revelation of feeling:

  “Oh, here?”

  “Didn’t they make it plain to you?”

  “I don’t expect I listened. The place didn’t matter then.”

  Again she turned left. Martin said wonderingly: “This is the way to Porth Bach: where we start the canoe expedition.”

  As they approached Puffin Cove they saw police cars parked on the verge, the occupants moving purposefully among the gorse. Miss Pink stopped in a passing-place about two hundred yards west of the cars and they continued on foot. Now she could distinguish the solid figure of Pryce, who was talking to his sergeant. The superintendent looked up as they approached and waited. Miss Pink, thinking that perhaps Martin should speak first, glanced at him and saw that he was staring at the marks in the turf below the road. His jaw was clenched and a muscle moved in his cheek. He started down the slope but Pryce moved with surprising speed, taking the other’s arm and leading him diagonally towards the cliff and the place from which she had tried to see the Jaguar yesterday.

  They stood back a little way from the edge of the cliff but it was Pryce who appeared to be doing the talking. Martin stared downwards with his hands in his pockets. After a while they returned, walking slowly up the line of gouges in the turf. She heard Martin say: “I wonder if it kept on its wheels; I think it did.”

  “Why?” Pryce asked, watching him.

  “I used to rally — before I started drinking; I’ve seen plenty of cars leave the road, and the marks they made.”

  He smiled bitterly and Miss Pink thought that he must once have possessed considerable charm: when he was in the Army and there was always someone above to make the big decisions.

  “No, it didn’t turn over,” he said with more certainty, studying the slope, “it would have been pointing straight at the sea when it took off, virtually at right angles to the road.”

  “Well,” Pryce said genially, “I’ve work to do. I’ll leave you in this good lady’s charge. I’ll be sending a car for you this afternoon. The inquest’s at three, ma’am; only identification and so on, of course. It’ll be adjourned.”

  “One of us will be there,” she assured him, “by the way, where is Mr Roberts?”

  “Back at your hotel having breakfast.”

  He turned away and crossed the road. Martin suddenly sat down on the turf. “God, I’m tired,” he sighed.

  “I’ll take you back and you can get some sleep.”

  “I don’t feel like going back.”

  “Come along,” she said firmly, “we shall be in the way here.”

  *

  “Do you think I did it?” he asked as they walked along the road.

  “If you did, you’re a genius at acting.” There was no necessity to add that she didn’t think he could have faked the wretchedness and the shock which he had portrayed throughout right back to Sunday afternoon, particularly that last crazy gesture of claiming he was more interested in his car than his wife. Aloud she said: “Have you any idea who it could have been?”

  “She didn’t name him.”

  “So you knew there was someone.”

  “Oh yes. She told me on Saturday morning. I wasn’t ill — at least, it wasn’t liver or hangover. I was just — I couldn’t face going on the hill with all of you and being polite. I wanted to lie down and go to sleep.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Yes, you all thought I was drunk. But the reality was worse. Having lived with my wife for four years I should have built up a resistance to shock. In fact it worked the other way: shock was cumulative. Saturday was the crunch.”

  “Have you told the police this?”

  “Yes, and the details, except that I don’t know much. Only that there was a man and he was going to marry her and she was leaving me next week — that is, this week.”

  “She told you this on Saturday morning?”

  “At breakfast — what passed for breakfast with us. They — were not pleasant times. I’d pointed out that in a decently run Centre the warden and his wife would have entertained the directors: given them dinner on Saturday night. It developed into a slanging match as any remark could — and did, at the end — and she told me, in detail, what she would be doing that Saturday night.”

  His mouth twisted in disgust but it passed and left his face vulnerable. “Poor kid,” he said with deep feeling. The term puzzled Miss Pink momentarily until she realised that there must be about twenty years difference — had been — between him and his wife.

  “But,” she put in, hoping that technical matters might get them away from thoughts that for him must be unbearable: “As it turned out, it looks as if she was mistaken in thinking he was going to marry her.”

  “I expect it was just a taunt.”

  “Did you tell the police that?”

  “I told them the lot. I’m too tired to try to hide anything, and I don’t care any longer. All the dirty washing’s going to be put on exhibition.”

  To her surprise, when they reached the Austin, he insisted on getting in the back where he went to sleep immediately. She didn’t enter the car herself but stood watching him through the glass. Eventually she wound down a window to give him air, pocketed the keys and walked back to Pryce.

  “A combination of shock and fatigue, don’t you think?” she asked, guessing he had watched every move.

  He nodded. “Don’t you worry ma’am, we’ll keep an eye on him. It’s a nice day for a stroll.”

  “I’m going to the cove,” Miss Pink said, “and you?”

  “Ah, we’re just looking.”

  She noticed that they were concentrating on an area of turf
and gorse inland of the passing-place. Was that where the Jaguar had been parked? She continued towards Porth Bach wondering how many local men had known Bett Martin, speculating if Pryce had another lead after rejecting Martin, if indeed he had rejected him. He’d been watching the ex-warden very closely on the cliff.

  She had not gone far when she was aware of a black figure ahead which she was overtaking. At first she thought it was a policeman, then she saw that the person was wearing a skirt. Where had the woman come from? Certainly it wasn’t from the direction of the Schooner Hotel. This must be Mrs Wolkoff. Had she been spying on the police from behind the gorse?

  As Miss Pink approached, the woman looked round in apparent surprise. She wore a black coat and hat, a mauve dress and lace-up shoes with low heels. A pair of field glasses was slung across her flat chest. Her face was beaky with pale eyes behind steel-rimmed spectacles. She moved well but her lined face put her nearer eighty than seventy. She stopped.

  “It’s a pleasant day for the time of year,” she said, peering at Miss Pink.

  “It is. Are you Mrs Wolkoff?”

  “You’re a tec!” The other beamed in triumph.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “A detective,” Mrs Wolkoff repeated uncertainly.

  Miss Pink introduced herself but she was listened to with scant attention. She had the impression that the old woman already knew who she was.

  “What a terrible time this is for you,” Mrs Wolkoff said with feeling, “I think you’re showing great courage, my dear. Tell me, why isn’t he under arrest?” She glanced back along the road.

  “Who?”

  “Why, the husband, of course.”

  “Innocent until proved guilty?” Miss Pink suggested with her vague smile, wondering where else she had heard that recently.

  “Oh quite. Quite. British justice is the envy of the world, although even that is not above being rigged on occasion. Back-handers, you know.”

  She had a delightful voice, expressive and musical. Every phrase caricatured the feeling it was intended to convey and in those mellifluous tones the curiously dated slang sounded like an obscenity.

  “Have you been interviewed by the police?” she asked Miss Pink.

  “On occasions.”

  “I was referring to our murder.” She waited, her head on one side like a reproachful heron.

  “I’m not sure I can help them. Have they been to you?”

  Mrs Wolkoff said with gentle reproof: “I started it all, didn’t you know? Perhaps you don’t know; they don’t seem to have taken you into their confidence. A constable called on Monday evening. He was, I regret to say, round the twist. I had assumed at first that it was merely another case of disposing of an unwanted car but his training should have made him suspicious. The tec was a different calibre altogether: very polite and appreciative.”

  “Superintendent Pryce?”

  “Is that his name? It had slipped my memory. Yes, he called on me this morning.”

  She stopped as if waiting for a cue so Miss Pink asked if the police had been interested in the events of Saturday night. A look of cunning appeared on Mrs Wolkoff’s face. Miss Pink guessed that she was enjoying herself but she realised, not without surprise, that morbid curiosity didn’t appear to be at the bottom of the enjoyment.

  “Saturday night is what they’re interested in, of course,” she agreed, “but they’ve drawn a blank. I don’t go out after dark.”

  “Not at all?”

  “No. No one in their right senses would walk this path after dark.”

  “What are you afraid of? And if it’s there in the dark, where is it in the daytime?”

  “It’s not a joking matter,” she reproved sharply, “the track’s dangerous, lethal. Look at it! If you strayed off the tar macadam in the dark, there’s nothing to stop you tumbling in the drink. I’m out a lot in the daytime; I watch birds, d’you see. But in the evenings I look at television or I work. I’m a very busy woman.”

  As they walked along the road Miss Pink learned that her companion had married a White Russian in Paris during the twenties. He was, according to his widow, a charming and cultured nobleman who possessed a few family jewels salvaged from the revolution, but no business sense. His projects lost money, he went bankrupt — and sold another gem to finance the next enterprise. They had lived in the United States, Morocco, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro. There were no children. Mrs Wolkoff didn’t elaborate on her husband’s projects. Miss Pink was sorry and wondered if they were too colourful for even his widow to do justice to them.

  From the top of the hill where the road started to descend she looked at Porth Bach with fresh interest.

  “How lonely is it?” she asked, aware that even in this context appearances might be deceptive, as her companion confirmed.

  “There is your own organisation,” she pointed out, twinkling girlishly at the other, “I know them all — all the instructors, that is,” she corrected herself quickly, not wanting her listener to think she associated with people like the Martins, “and then almost every weekend there are the skin drivers —”

  “Have you a sunken ship here?”

  The woman looked arch and put a finger to her lips.

  “My dear, underwater exploration is cloak and dagger stuff. Another club might steal a march on you. It’s the same in the world of climbing and first ascents.”

  Miss Pink was startled. Mrs Wolkoff might be eccentric but she was unusually well-informed.

  “Your house is rather isolated at the top of the cove,” she observed, and was intrigued to catch a sharp glance from the other.

  “Yes, we’re fortunate in that respect. The trees hide us from each other. None of us knows what’s going on in the other houses.”

  “Are they pleasant neighbours, when the houses are occupied?”

  “Very pleasant, on the whole. You understand that in the high season there is a constant coming and going: short lets, you know. Usually I see the owners of the properties in spring and autumn only although some run down during the season to see that the cottages have been left in good condition for the next visitors, or carry out some repairs.”

  “I suppose you keep an eye on the places when they’re empty.”

  “Certainly not. I am not a caretaker.”

  Miss Pink made no rejoinder. They had reached the elbow and now the old woman left the road and led the way down a path to the stream which they crossed by planks with an iron handrail. The path ended at the gate of her cottage. The garden was wild even for late autumn and there was no sign of cultivation other than two or three straggling bushes of Michaelmas daisies.

  The key was produced (it was round her hostess’s neck on a piece of black tape) and Miss Pink was ushered into a dark interior that smelt of dead ashes and damp. The light was switched on and she saw a living room so cluttered with old furniture that any progress between the pieces had to be in the nature of a sidle. On every flat surface there were books and files, journals, newspapers, and letter racks crammed with papers. Two huge hardboard panels hung on one wall, trellissed with tape: the kind used in country hotels for residents’ mail. These were covered with what Miss Pink took to be letters.

  There was an old and dirty range with an iron kettle on a gantry, and the mantelshelf was covered with a brown velvet cloth fringed with bobbles. There were two good china King Charles spaniels on the shelf. A television set was on an occasional table by the range. A tall filing cabinet and a smaller one for card indices stood against one wall.

  On the large round mahogany table which took up all the centre of the room Mrs Wolkoff was working on a project. An ancient standard typewriter was surrounded by tracing and drawing paper, maps, files, coloured pencils.

  Miss Pink was looking at the books when her hostess came in from the kitchen with cups of coffee.

  “I’m afraid it’s only powder.” She glanced at the book in her guest’s hands. “Have you read the Protocols?”

  “Yes.” Miss Pink r
eturned the book to its shelf.

  “And what did you think of it?”

  “Horrifying.”

  “Yes. And it’s all coming true. The Zionists have infiltrated every profession: politics, industry, finance, particularly finance.”

  “Short-term profits,” Miss Pink murmured.

  “Exactly: a world-wide conspiracy for world government. Society is riddled. The Enemy is within the gate. But a few people are aware of what is happening, and we disseminate information. It isn’t all that difficult to uncover the evidence, given a good agent and the knowledge that it’s there.”

  “Evidence?”

  “We hear a great deal by way of leaks, you know, from behind closed doors. The devil hasn’t all the best tunes.” She chuckled. “D’you know what I mean by that?”

  “No.”

  “Bugging! Line tapping! Telephoto lenses! We infiltrate too. But it’s dangerous work. There’s no hope for anyone if he’s caught. No praise if they succeed, disowned if they fail.”

  “Where do you recruit them?”

  “That I can’t tell you. I don’t really know myself. I can guess. I have a shrewd idea but, no, you shouldn’t ask.”

  “I’m sorry. But your work here can’t be secret; you’ve shown it to me — that is, I can see it.”

  As she said this Miss Pink was acutely aware of her vulnerability: no other person nearer than the cliff top — or was there? No telephone. But there was a telephone somewhere: Mrs Wolkoff had used it to contact the Public Health inspector. Was it upstairs or had she gone to the hotel?

  She was saying: “My work isn’t secret. I’m going to publish it.” She gestured at a row of box files on a massive sideboard. “Those are my dossiers.”

  “Yes?”

  “I compile dossiers on all those in the conspiracy or in any way related to it, knowingly or unwittingly. And all this information is available to the police or Interpol at any time they may need it. We have names and addresses and even ex-directory telephone numbers. We know, to a great extent, the exact movements at any given time of all those in the plot.”