Miss Pink Investigates Part One

by Gwen Moffat

  “Time to go,” Nell said, “you first. Don’t use your light or they’ll shoot at it.”

  *

  It wasn’t hard to see under the trees, for the path was a white trail. They came to Mrs Wolkoff’s cottage and, at that moment, heard more shots ahead.

  They stopped and in the ensuing silence Miss Pink whispered: “It was you in the woods that morning. You saw me with her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you kill her?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get her body to the cave?”

  The silence stretched and Miss Pink realised that she was alone. She continued down the path. There was an intermittent popping of gunfire from the cliffs.

  She slipped inside the old barn beyond Miss Lupin’s place and looked down to the shore. Lights were bobbing back and forth between the Adams’ cottage and the jetty. She wondered how far the loading had progressed. Cottage and jetty were dark and since she had been working by starlight for what seemed a very long time she was shocked when a sudden glare of light erupted from high on the western rim of the cove and moved, lowering its trajectory to sweep the jetty, the torpedo boat moored alongside, and scurrying figures, then, still moving, the light swung towards her, passed, and she saw headlights descending the road. As other vehicles followed, the jetty was lit and plunged into darkness alternately until one set of lights stayed trained on the scene where the pale decks of the boat gleamed in the light but all the people had vanished.

  Gunfire started again and the leading car stopped. All the lights went out except those of the stationary vehicle on top. Miss Pink could hear men shouting. Up on the cliff the headlights burned implacably and nothing moved on the jetty or the boat. Then from the east side of the cove a rifle spoke methodically. The lights went out and the cove was in darkness again.

  Someone dropped a heavy iron object on stone. It could have been a signal, for soon afterwards she became aware of deep throbbing from the direction of the jetty. The gunfire petered out and there was a lot of shouting from the road.

  Engines exploded to roaring life and again the cove was floodlit by an approaching car to show the sleek black boat starting to move away from the jetty towards the open sea.

  The lights wheeled and there were men running down from the elbow, slowing to a walk, staring seaward.

  Miss Pink left the barn and had just reached the turning-circle when a deep boom sounded beyond the mouth of the cove. There were exclamations from a group of people on the jetty. Out to sea a cold white beam wavered across the tossing water, slipped over something, returned and fastened on the fleeing boat.

  “What’s that with the searchlight?” asked an authoritative voice, “Coastguard?”

  “It’s a patrol boat.” With astonishment and relief Miss Pink recognised Dawson’s breathless voice.

  “How the hell did it get here?” This could be the chief constable.

  “I sent for it,” Dawson explained, “the captain’s a friend of mine.”

  “Where from?” Miss Pink asked, meaning the patrol boat.

  “That’s Miss Pink!” exclaimed Pryce.

  “From Mrs Wolkoff’s cottage,” Dawson said.

  “They’re going to get away!” someone shouted.

  “But she can’t be faster than a patrol boat!” Dawson protested.

  A voice said: “If they’re running that torpedo job on the old engines she can do forty knots.”

  “Hasn’t our chap any firing power?” asked the chief constable.

  “He’s got a forty-millimetre, sir,” Pryce said, “but I don’t think he’ll dare use it — except —”

  Following the line of the searchlight beam but a little below it, a bright spark moved surprisingly slowly towards the torpedo boat.

  “Tracer,” someone said, and at that moment a huge silent sunburst of flame bloomed in the bay — then the roar of the explosion hit them and they threw themselves on the ground.

  Lying there, peering along the stones, then lifting their heads to look over the crumbling parapet, they saw, no longer a boat but a few odd pieces of burning debris on the sea, pale in the searchlight’s glare.

  “That’s the end of that,” Pryce said with a kind of quiet awe, standing up carefully. Miss Pink made her way towards his voice. Torches were being shone.

  “Were they all on the boat?” she asked.

  “No, neither of them. Lithgow’s dead and we’ve got Slade alive. They were the marksmen on the cliff. Blew up the road first and shot a constable before we got there.”

  “I know,” she said, “but Nell Harvey was on the boat.”

  “Nell Harvey? What’s she got to do with it?”

  “Everything,” Miss Pink said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “It’s the duplicity that I can’t accept,” Sir Thomas said, “here she was entrusted with the training of youth; we believed her competent, diligent —” he paused, at a loss. “Wholesome?” suggested Beresford.

  “And all the time,” Sir Thomas continued, ignoring him, “for two years, she had been plotting, stealing . . . Stealing from Global! In effect, from her employers; from us!”

  It was a week after the gun battle at Porth Bach and the directors were again assembled in the library at Plas Mawr. It was Friday evening and the police cadets were attending a film show under the supervision of the duty instructor, Rowland Hughes.

  After the strain of that gruelling search operation (with the missing boys found alive and safe, but miles from Craig yr Adar), after being deprived of three of its staff at one blow, and without a warden, the Centre was struggling on with Sally and Miss Pink in the office, and Ted, Hughes and Wright running the outdoor activities with the help of a man loaned by Outward Bound. Linda, pale and subdued, had stayed on as matron at her own insistence. Afterwards, she said, she might return to Birmingham.

  “I could understand it better if the girl had gone in for demonstrating,” Sir Thomas protested, “or sit-ins, perhaps — but this meticulous subversion over a period of time: it’s inhuman.”

  “She was mad,” Beresford said flatly.

  Miss Pink and Ted had compiled a report. The police had discovered something of the past history of the three instructors, not much, but Slade had filled in a lot of gaps concerning recent events. When he’d learned that Nell had confessed to the murder of Mrs Wolkoff, he talked, for no other reason, it seemed, than to express his feeling for the girl. He adored her.

  Beresford had interrupted Miss Pink there.

  “Ha! So they were lovers.”

  “No.”

  “What? It was Lithgow then?”

  “I don’t know.” Miss Pink was puzzled. “It’s irrelevant anyway. Why do you harp on it?”

  “Well, that’s how it all started: with Lithgow telling Linda he was having an affair with Nell. No, it was Bett first —”

  “That was complete fabrication. As Ted said, they had no time for affairs, although it wasn’t climbing that occupied their minds. Lithgow claimed an affair with Bett only in order to justify those evenings away from home. In fact, his mind was so far divorced from sex that I expect he’d never anticipated Linda suddenly breaking down and demanding to know where he spent his evenings. He was thrown off-balance and quickly thought of Bett, who was the obvious choice, without realising the danger. When he did, or when Nell pointed it out to him, he substituted Nell.”

  “Then Linda must have guessed the truth as soon as Bett’s body was found.”

  “I doubt it,” Miss Pink said comfortably. “In any case,” she added as she saw Beresford wanted to follow that line, “Lithgow didn’t kill Bett.”

  “Then who —?”

  “It would be better to go back to the beginning,” Ted said gently.

  Miss Pink looked to see if she had Sir Thomas’ attention, then she referred to the report in front of her:

  “Nell Harvey was a member of a militant group until about two and a half years ago. The police can find no trace of her between
then and when she turned up here six months later. Slade won’t talk about it, on the other hand he is insistent on her proficiency as a marksman so I think we can take it that she was trained as a terrorist during that time. Where, is a matter for conjecture.

  “She took this post with us and Lithgow followed, then Slade. They made no secret about knowing each other; they didn’t need to: their climbing was an excellent cover. Lithgow was the explosives expert; he was probably trained when Linda thought he was in the Alps for six months. Nell was the leader of the cell, the organiser. Slade was the strong-arm man. He carried out orders. Those are his words. He doesn’t mean them as justification for what he did, they’re a fact.”

  “So he killed Bett,” Beresford said, but Miss Pink was going to tell the story in her own way.

  “I worked backwards from the leg of lamb,” she told them, looking up from the report, “that was when my ideas started to crystallise, when I felt that something had happened to Mrs Wolkoff. I wondered if Bett turned the Jaguar in the cove after all, and Mrs Wolkoff saw her there.

  “At the place on the cliffs where the Jaguar had been parked I tried to identify with Bett’s state of mind, sitting there with the engine running and waiting for Hughes. She was drunk and annoyed and probably thinking of leaving him to walk home anyway. She might have been about to drive on to turn round in Porth Bach — when a vehicle passed. Now suppose she was parked so that the Jaguar was concealed from anything approaching from the west but in such a position that she could see the other vehicle and its rear number plate as it went by. Recognising the Land Rover, knowing that Lithgow took it home, she would follow, perhaps to find out what he was up to, or simply thinking that here was a fresh companion who would be more fun than Hughes in his present state.

  “According to Slade this is pretty well what happened except that there was more than one of them. The Mini, with Slade and Nell, always followed the loaded Land Rover, ready for emergencies. Nell drove with side lights on the cliff and when Bett pulled out to follow the Land Rover, she was trapped — although she wouldn’t know that. Lithgow had Davigdor with him that night and they realised immediately that there was another car between them and the Mini but they weren’t too worried because, although it was an odd time to be there, the Centre had a legitimate excuse to be in the cove and, besides, there were Nell and Slade behind. So the Land Rover drove to the turning-circle followed by the two cars and when they stopped, Nell went to the Jaguar and asked Bett how she came to be alone.

  “Bett told her about Hughes; she suspected nothing — there was no reason why she should suspect anything criminal even if she were sober — and in her state of mind the prospect of a drinking party was irresistible. She went inside the cottage with them and Slade strangled her. Then, leaving Davigdor and Lithgow to unload the explosives, the other two returned to the cliff in the Mini and the Jaguar.

  “Before disposing of the body and the car they looked for Hughes and found him, but when Nell saw that he was dead drunk, she left him. One would like to think that she spared him because, as she told me, they didn’t kill unnecessarily, but that wasn’t the case. Nell hoped the Jaguar would be submerged at low tide but she couldn’t depend on it. If the murder came to light, Hughes was to be the fall-guy.

  “Nell was prudent. Having disposed of the body, she collected the others, dropped Davigdor near Bethel (she wanted no tie-up with him) and rushed the gang to Bontddu in order to establish an alibi for all of them in case it should be needed at any time.”

  “She was also prudent about the canoes,” Ted put in.

  “Ah yes. She planned meticulously but she was also a superb opportunist. By normal standards our canoes went too far west, as the Coastguard pointed out. This was necessary to Nell so that the activity justified the Centre’s vehicles being at Porth Bach so often and at odd times. As with the Army, people have got used to adventure schools and their curious operations. Of course, all those vehicles in the cove on the night of the murder left tracks and this explains the reasoning behind that unseasonal canoe trip which was laid on at the last moment, the purpose of which was to cover or confuse the tracks the Land Rover and Mini had left on Saturday, but above all to erase those made by the Jaguar. Nell didn’t want it known that Bett had been to the cove. It might focus attention too close to the Adams’ cottage.”

  “But Mrs Wolkoff saw them — is that it?” Sir Thomas eyed her askance.

  “Yes,” Miss Pink said, “she was a rather monstrous old lady but she didn’t deserve — that. I doubt if she had any idea of the gang’s true activities although Nell was certainly using her, perhaps even implying that she was engaged on similar work, but secret. She’d certainly get the old lady’s co-operation that way. She kept Nell informed of everything that happened in the cove but she must have become too curious. Perhaps she was in Miss Lupin’s barn and saw Bett go in the Adams’ cottage, or she went down in daylight and found the imprint of the Jaguar on the turning-circle — at all events, Nell saw me with Mrs Wolkoff on Wednesday morning, when the girl was keeping an eye on the cove on her day off, and she couldn’t risk the old lady talking.

  “Mrs Wolkoff was killed after I left Porth Bach, and her body was inside the cottage when Pryce telephoned. Nell typed the letter to the postman, of course. The post mortem findings were that Mrs Wolkoff was stabbed, neatly, through the ribs. It must have been done in the open. There was very little blood but Nell wouldn’t have taken the risk of doing it indoors.

  “That evening, after the party in the Goat, Slade and Nell went to Porth Bach by way of the fields because the police car was still stationed on the cliffs, and they rowed the body to Ogof Lladron.”

  “They were running a fearful risk,” Beresford interposed, “with the police car on top.”

  Miss Pink shook her head.

  “They had reconnoitred the cliffs on foot and they were both well-trained. Neither would make a noise. Slade says the police were smoking in the car with the windows closed and would have heard nothing. They were, after all, under orders to stop anything approaching Porth Bach on the road. They couldn’t be expected to watch the sea and the cliffs — and Ogof Lladron was over a mile away. With muffled oars and no lights, they were fairly secure.”

  “Going back a bit,” Beresford said, “I had a feeling of trouble before I left for the States — not this kind of trouble,” he added hastily as Miss Pink and Ted looked at him with stony eyes, “but once murder had been committed, what focused attention on the Centre? I mean, surely almost anyone could have killed Bett?”

  Ted frowned, thinking back.

  “First,” he said slowly, “they suspected Martin, which is virtually a traditional reaction —”

  “It was the lighter,” Miss Pink put in, “Mrs Wolkoff would phone Nell to say she’d seen the Jaguar in the sea. So, by way of extra insurance, Nell picked up the lighter on Monday morning at breakfast. Slade planted it on the cliffs Tuesday evening after the report of the post mortem came through. That lighter was Nell’s mistake. Once Hughes was eliminated as a suspect, or rather, when he seemed an unlikely murderer, suspicion still stayed at the Centre because the staff had so many more opportunities of stealing the lighter than someone from outside.”

  “I see,” Beresford said with an air of relief, “I find it rather comforting that the girl should make a mistake.”

  “It needn’t have been fatal,” Miss Pink pointed out, “She was only playing for time. Things had got too hot for them and this was the last load they’d get from the area. Nell guessed that on Saturday morning when she saw the activity at the mine. They would have planned to escape themselves on the torpedo boat’s next trip. Nell almost did it, you know. She would have got away if it hadn’t been for Dawson.”

  “He’s the man, apart from Miss Pink, who wins my admiration,” Ted said, laughing. “He showed a most judicious blend of courage and caution.”

  Miss Pink smiled.

  “I thought he didn’t hear my shout and the rockfal
l,” she told them, “but he’d heard, and although he hadn’t guessed the truth but had put the worst construction on the sounds, he decided that the anchorage wasn’t a healthy place, and since I’d told him to look out for himself, he did just that and made all speed to Porth Bach, ripped up his jersey, wrapped the rags round his oars and rowed ashore well east of the beach. He was contouring the cove when the fog cleared and from above Mrs Wolkoff’s place he saw a dinghy leaving his launch. He was too far away to see who it was but, in fact, this was Slade who, as Nell said, arrived too late.

  “Dawson lay low and saw Slade go in the Adams’ cottage. He wanted to stay and watch developments but he also needed to contact the police about what he thought were two murders: mine and Mrs Wolkoff’s. He compromised by going down to the cottage and entering as we did by the broken window and telephoning from there.

  “He couldn’t find Pryce but he did eventually get on to an inspector at Bontddu who was a friend and who told him that I’d phoned through from Glanaber asking for all possible reinforcements at Porth Bach. Then this man made what was, to Dawson, the startling revelation that Ted had come through with a story about the Adams’ cottage being full of explosives.

  “After he’d put down the receiver he was still in the bedroom when he saw Nell go up the ravine carrying a rifle. He didn’t know it was Nell because it was getting dark; all he could distinguish was a figure with a gun. Guessing that a guard was being put on the cove, he started to make his way seaward, going uphill at first to use the trees as cover. Then he saw activity on the water and could just make out a biggish boat coming in. That was when he guessed the explosives were going out that night and suddenly realised that the action was tailor-made for his friend in Holyhead harbour. The Royal Navy boat was keeping a weather eye open for illicit traffic during the Irish emergency.

  “Dawson rushed back and telephoned this gentleman, who jumped at the chance of activity. Then he worked his way up through the trees again until he had a partial view of the cove, but now it was almost dark and he had to go a long way seaward in order to see anything. It was while he was doing this that he saw an explosion on the cliff top. That was Lithgow blowing up the road. Dawson thought it must be some kind of ambush so back he went to the cottage to report but this time the telephone was dead. Nell must have done that; the wires were severed at the top of the wood.”