‘What’s biting you in all this?’ he asked.
‘You’ll think I’m crazy, I expect,’ she replied unwillingly, ‘or a sensation-monger or something, but I can’t help remembering that Geoff Boothby attached himself to her that evening we went up to Uncharted Seas, and I’ve seen her out in his car since, and he did go out after the film show last night.’
‘True.’ Michael frowned slightly. ‘Come to think of it, I’ve seen them out in his car, and in the pub together. What time did Eddy ring you?’
‘Five minutes to twelve.’
‘I went up to bed about ten past. There was no light showing under his door or Susan’s: I assumed they’d already turned in. I’m a light sleeper, too, and I’m pretty sure I’d have heard anyone coming in later. Anyhow, Geoff can’t possibly have gone off with the girl, or he wouldn’t be around this morning.’
‘No, but do you think Wendy might have told him something about some other boyfriend who was coming down to see her, or whatever? What I really mean is, ought I to have told Constable Pike that she and Geoff had been seeing something of each other?’
Michael took her hand and held it.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t, darling. If Geoff had vanished into the blue as well, it would be a different kettle of fish. But as things are, it would start an unnecessary hare and be tough on Geoff. I think you’re probably right about her having fixed for some chap to look her up at a time when she knew she’d be alone last night. Then he’d suggest a short run in his car, and they went off, had a breakdown, and she funked going back late to face Eddy and Penny Townsend. I expect she’s making for home. If the police were taking it seriously, you know, they’d have been on the trail at first light instead of waiting until scores of people have pushed off. If you like, I’ll just have a word with Geoff before he goes… Damn and blast all these people! Let’s forget them, and concentrate on ourselves for a few minutes.’
A little later they returned to the entrance hall and ran into Janice King.
‘Oh, there you are,’ she said. ‘Geoff couldn’t find either of you, and said he simply had to get off. He asked me to say goodbye, and thanks a lot, Marcia, and good luck to you, Mike. Paul and I are nearly through now. He’s just done clearing his stuff from the lab.’
‘Are you heading for London?’ Marcia asked.
‘Oh no, it just isn’t worth grinding along in the Saturday traffic jams for only two nights at home. The Crowncliff Fortnight starts on Tuesday, you see, so that means clocking in on Monday evening. We’re going to make our way there in slow stages, camping in the bus near somewhere where we can get a meal. You can’t run to hotels on what Horner pays.’
‘I don’t think I’ve left the lab in too bad a mess,’ Paul King said, coming up and joining them. ‘Blimey, this is the best moment of the whole bloody Fortnight, isn’t it? How on earth can you stick a resident job for a whole term on end, Marcia?’
‘I get completely browned off at times,’ she admitted, ‘but there are points. The holidays, for instance, and the money. Residence pays hand over fist these days, with the cost of living rocketing.’
‘All the same, a couple of weeks of community life’s about our limit,’ Janice said. ‘Not that we don’t appreciate all you’ve done for us here, Marcia. It’s been positively lush compared with what we usually get.’
‘Hear, hear,’ agreed her husband. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Marcia. It’s just that I’m not the gregarious type. Goodbye, and the best of luck.’ He wrung her hand warmly, and swung himself into the driver’s seat of the dormobile. ‘See you all too soon at Crowncliff, Mike.’
Janice got in beside him, and they drove off, waving as they rounded the corner of the school buildings.
‘You ought to be getting a weekend off, too,’ Marcia said to Michael Jay. ‘Considering your status in Horner’s, it seems a bit much that you’ve got to hare down to Cornwall to see how some wretched holiday camp is ticking over.’
‘Comes of being an executive. It’s our hectic time of year, you know.’
‘Will Geoff be at Crowncliff?’ she asked, her mind reverting to Wendy Shaw.
‘No. He only does the Fortnight in this area in his summer holidays because he lives near, and knows it so well. I wish I’d had a word with him, just to set your mind at rest over this business, darling, but honestly, you know, we can wash him right out. He may be a bit uncouth, but he’s a decent lad and sensible, too. He would never have risked queering Wendy’s pitch with Eddy…’
Susan Crump was the next to leave, and finally Michael himself drove off, leaving Marcia feeling desperately blank. At the same time she recognized that she was grateful for a breathing space. So much had happened that she knew she needed to take her bearings. Also, there was a lot of work to be done before she could resume her interrupted holiday. With this in mind, she went purposefully up to the linen room, and was not best pleased to be tracked down there by Andrew Medlicott, looking tense.
‘They’ve all cleared off, I take it?’ he said. ‘I expect you’ve heard about that girl disappearing from the Horner establishment. George Bond told me Pike had been here. Did you gather any details? This sort of thing’s so bad for a school, happening right on our doorstep.’
Marcia unwillingly gave a third resumé of her telephone conversation with Eddy Horner.
Andrew was appalled. Anxiety furrows etched themselves deeply between his eyes as he listened.
‘I hope to God nobody from the crowd who’ve been staying here was mixed up in it,’ he exclaimed.
‘I don’t see how anyone from here could have gone off with her,’ Marcia replied. ‘They were all present and correct this morning, and she hadn’t come back. She may have by now, of course.’
He continued to sit on the edge of the linen table, his hands in his pockets, and not looking at her. ‘Suppose she’s been murdered,’ he said at last.
‘Really, Andrew, you’re absolutely morbid,’ Marcia exploded, reacting with anger to cover her discomfort at hearing her own secret fear put into words. ‘If she took her coat and handbag, obviously she went off with someone she knew. A boy she knows at college, or at home, I expect. It looks as though she meant to be back before the family, and something went wrong, like a car breakdown, and she felt too ashamed to face them.’
She seized a pile of pillow cases and began to count them, embarrassed by her outburst.
‘I heard another bit of bad news this morning,’ Andrew volunteered after a pause.
‘You’re a positive ray of sunshine today, aren’t you? What was it?’
‘Don Glover’s got an option on that big field that slopes up behind his caravan site, and is applying for planning permission to put up permanent chalets and a shop, and God knows what. Just imagine what it would look like.’
Marcia groaned. ‘How utterly ghastly! He mayn’t get planning permission, though. The Residents’ Association will fight like mad.’
‘It’s the wire-pulling behind the scenes. I suppose he’s up to the neck in it. I wondered why we’d been spared the usual barging in during the holidays.’
‘You’re probably right there. Look here, Andrew, shall we go round the place now, and check up on any damage we can claim for from Horner’s? The cleaners are coming in on Monday morning.’
This diversionary tactic worked. They went together to inspect all rooms used by the Fortnighters. An enthusiastic preserver of specimens had upset a bottle of spirit over a table, taking off the polish, but apart from this lapse, the recent inmates seemed to have been a careful crowd. Andrew went off to compose a claim, and Marcia hurried back to the linen room.
During the morning the Bonds had moved back into the school, and at lunchtime she learnt that Mr Horner had gone up to some place near Stoneham, to see Wendy Shaw’s mother, and that the coastguards had been alerted. There were no further developments during the afternoon. She worked energetically to keep her mind off her anxieties, and finally went to bed in a more tranquil mood after Michael h
ad rung her from Cornwall at extravagant length.
Sunday also passed peacefully. The rain had stopped at last, and during the afternoon she put her accounts aside, and went for a brisk buffeting walk along the beach. The sky was clearing, and the return of the sun diverted her thoughts to her own future with its incredible prospects of happiness.
Monday morning dawned clear and calm, with the first nip of autumn in the air. As she went downstairs after an early breakfast, the morning’s mail came through the letterbox with a clatter. Sorting it in the hall, she came on a letter addressed to herself in Michael’s clear firm handwriting. She paused with it in her hand with a sense of emotion. How different from Stephen’s hasty scrawl, and yet bringing just that same warmth of knowing you mattered… Moved by a sudden impulse she took the letter out into the garden to read. It was little more than a note, brief but loving, written in the car soon after he had left, and posted locally to ensure its arrival this morning. Marcia read it through several times, and then stood gazing out over the sea, marvelling at her happiness. Once again a spring tide was racing up the beach, the tumbling creaming breakers an aftermath of the weekend’s rough weather. After a time she became aware that something was lacking. The next moment she realized that in spite of the state of the tide, Sir Toby Belch was completely silent. Astonished, she walked towards the small hollow, partly filled with fragments of rock and encircled by a low railing. What on earth could have stopped the familiar booming of the waves as they broke in the cave below, and the watery hiccups?
An appalling idea occurred to her.
‘It isn’t the sort of publicity we want for the school, I agree,’ Philip Cary said, ‘but the situation could be far worse. Mercifully, there isn’t the remotest possibility of the body having been put into the cave from our end of the blowhole shaft: as you know, it’s a mere crack in the rock. Obviously the poor girl was washed round the headland and into the cave by the rough seas we’ve had over the weekend — it’s the normal set of the current. What the police are on to is how she came to be in the water.’
‘Will the inquest be here, in the village?’ Andrew Medlicott asked.
‘Yes, it has to be. It’ll be adjourned, of course. The PM’s being done in Winnage this afternoon, and they’ll fix the time of the inquest afterwards. I hope very much we’ll be able to keep you out of it, Mrs Makepeace, but that rests with Superintendent Crookshank, the Stoneham CID chap. I’m going over this afternoon — to Winnage, I mean — and I’ll try to have a word with him, and look in here on my way back.’
‘I suppose it’s only a matter of hours before the Press get on to us, Mr Cary?’ Marcia said, visited by unpleasant memories of events at the time of Stephen’s fatal car accident.
‘I’m afraid it is, either in person, or by telephone. When they do, simply say that the girl was nothing whatever to do with the school, and try to push them off on to Mr Horner. He’s had plenty of experience of newsmen. If they’ve cottoned on to the fact that the blowhole opens into our grounds, better take them along to see it for themselves. They’ll soon realize that there’s no access from our end. If parents ring up, you can be a bit more expansive. I suggest that you and Bond are around this afternoon, Medlicott, in case anything crops up. And now I’d better be off.’
When he had gone, Andrew Medlicott, taking his responsibilities seriously, asked if he could be given some lunch and went off to telephone his wife and find George Bond. Marcia was still feeling shaken by the events of the morning, and quite glad at the prospect of male support. If only Michael were not on the road to Crowncliff and inaccessible, she thought, as she went towards the kitchen. He was going to ring her in the evening, but it seemed a long time to wait.
The afternoon dragged intolerably. A couple of local press representatives arrived, and were successfully diverted to Uncharted Seas. A few members of the public appeared in the grounds, and were summarily ejected by George Bond. The crowd which had gathered outside the cave to watch the police taking photographs gradually dispersed.
It was after six when Philip Cary returned. As she came downstairs Marcia saw that he looked grave, and felt a chill of apprehension. At the same moment Andrew appeared from his office. Philip Cary indicated the library.
‘I’m afraid there’s been a very serious development,’ he told them. ‘She had been strangled — manually — before going into the water.’
Marcia gave an uncontrollable gasp.
‘Had she —’ Andrew began.
‘No, she hadn’t been sexually assaulted or robbed. A gold chain and cross hadn’t been taken from her neck, at least. So far there’s no sign of the handbag. She was wearing her coat, which possibly suggests that she went out voluntarily. All rather odd features, added to which there’s the complication of so many people having cleared out on Saturday. They had a short conference, and the Chief Constable’s calling in Scotland Yard. There’s not much hope of keeping the school’s name out of the papers now, I’m afraid, so it’s fortunate for us that the Yard’s sending Miss Dennis’s nephew down.’
Andrew Medlicott exclaimed. Marcia looked blankly at Philip Cary.
‘Why, Detective-Superintendent Pollard,’ he said. ‘One of the Yard’s aces. Didn’t you know?’
5.
This line of scarlet thread.
Book of Joshua. Chapter 2 verse 5
On this Monday evening the train from Paddington arrived at Stoneham station punctually at 10.10 pm. Among the couple of dozen passengers who alighted were Detective-Superintendent Tom Pollard and Detective-Inspector Gregory Toye of New Scotland Yard. They joined the small straggling procession to the barrier. Here a dark man with a prominent nose and saturnine cast of countenance came forward and introduced himself as Superintendent Crookshank of the Glintshire CID.
Pollard instantly smelt caginess. This impression built up during the short drive to police headquarters, and the opening stage of the conference with Henry Landfear, Chief Constable of Glintshire, a massive man whose light grey suit gave the impression of being under strain. He sat poker-faced, while Superintendent Crookshank made a bleakly factual statement. Names which would soon fill out into flesh and blood, bricks and mortar, flickered in and out of it. While Pollard’s retentive mind registered these, he cast about for a means of making a breakthrough in communication.
‘Hold on a minute, Super,’ he interrupted. ‘Remember Inspector Toye and I are poor ignorant Londoners. What in heaven’s name is a blowhole?’
Henry Landfear showed his first sign of animation, and entered the conversation.
‘Interesting coastal feature. Several examples in these parts. Rocks have planes of weakness — joints, to the trade — running roughly vertical and horizontal. Under stress the rocks fracture along ’em. On coasts the fractures get enlarged through compression of air when waves smash against cliff faces. Now and again you get a horizontal passage leading to a vertical shaft opening out at the top of the cliff. Then at high tide air’s blown clean through, and you hear splashing and booming noises, and sometimes jets of spray are thrown out.’
‘Thanks, that couldn’t be clearer,’ Pollard said. ‘What’s the diameter of these shafts in the Kittitoe specimen?’
‘Nowhere more than six inches,’ Crookshank replied, in response to a nod from Henry Landfear. ‘So that rules out the body having been put into the cave from the top of the cliff. Judging from the PM report, there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that it was washed up on this morning’s high spring tide, and lodged at the back of the cave, where it blocked the blowhole affair and stopped the thing making its usual row. That’s what struck this Mrs Makepeace at the school — the blowhole opens into their grounds, you see — and she had the gump to get on to Constable Pike.’
‘I get you,’ said Pollard. ‘Sorry to have butted in. Do carry on.’
When the catalogue of facts came to an end he leant back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head.
‘Well, one thing,’ he remarked, ‘at least yo
u’ve had us in at the start.’
There was a brief astonished silence, followed by a perceptible thaw. Henry Landfear grinned unexpectedly, and ceased to be a formidable hulk.
‘Glad you see it that way,’ he replied, reaching for a box of cigarettes and circulating it. ‘We expected you’d react as if we were a bad smell. I know it looks as though we dragged our feet at first. It’s nearly seventy-two hours since Wendy Shaw was reported missing, but what the hell? You can’t start up a murder hunt every time a bird walks out on her job.’
Pollard agreed heartily. ‘I’ve had a case involving a disappearance from a holiday area in August before,’ he went on. ‘It adds enormously to the difficulties when you’ve got masses of people on the move. Constable Pike seems to have acted very sensibly. You say that he went up to the Horner bungalow at once, although it was the middle of the night, and checked that there were no signs of forcible entry or a struggle, and that the girl’s coat and handbag were missing. Then, when she hadn’t returned by first thing on Saturday morning, he contacted his superiors at Winnage, and was ordered to get going on local enquiries, which he promptly did. Meanwhile her home was contacted, and the coastguards alerted. All in order. I suppose,’ he added a little cautiously, aware of getting nearer the bone, ‘the body was too knocked about after a rough weekend in the sea for the signs of strangulation to be obvious from the start?’
‘This is it,’ replied Henry Landfear a shade hastily. ‘It’s a savage sort of coast round there, as you’ll see for yourself. Reefs like the teeth of a saw, colossal cliffs, loose shingle — the lot. And, as you say, a rough weekend with a big sea running. The poor kid took a fearful bashing, Crookshank says.’
‘Multiple injuries, including fracture of the skull and facial bones, and lacerations and heavy bruising,’ Superintendent Crookshank reeled off. ‘The police surgeon — that’s Dr Luke of Winnage — was suspicious about the bruising in the region of the throat right away, but under the circumstances he felt an expert should be brought in.’
No Vacation From Murder Page 4
