‘Nothing for three years.’
‘But if something is going to happen in three years’ time, the crucial period for a forward planner is already wearing thin.’
‘There has been abundant speculation.’
‘And some broad decisions must already have been made.’
‘Very broad decisions.’
‘But enough to show which way the cat is going to jump?’
‘In the confidence of committee. Nothing has yet been ratified in open council.’
‘I know you think I’m elevating this to a plane of fantasy,’ Kenworthy said, ‘and I know I’m putting an unfair strain on your code of professional etiquette, but I wish you could see your way to being more precise.’
The town clerk pressed a bell-push.
‘Shall we have coffee, gentlemen? I am not trying to break the thread of your very shrewd argument, but I think we could all do with a breather. Then I will tell you all you need to know on this issue. But it will not fit in with your thesis. The only way in which Lesueur could make money out of our redevelopment plans would have been in a manner which conflicted with the interests of his most influential supporters in this town.’
Coffee was brought by a middle-aged woman in a dark skirt, white blouse and tie that might have been a school uniform. Wright remembered Kenworthy’s description of Warren’s receptionist, and this employee seemed to symbolise the mellowed woodwork and sober nineteenth century corridors of Fellaby town hall. And yet here, from these dusty box-files and the town clerk’s heavy wooden out-tray, were proceeding plans to bring the town vitally into the heart of the times.
When they were left alone again, and Wright’s digestive biscuit was crumbling in his saucer, the town clerk abandoned the wary mood which had marked the last few minutes, and appeared to be taking them more openly into his confidence.
‘In three years’ time, some of the borough’s most valuable leases will fall in. They cover almost three quarters of the property on the south side of the High Street. And it will have to come down. It will be the last act I perform for Fellaby before my retirement, and I propose to leave the town with a decent centre.’
He leaned back in his chair, tired, proud and doggedly determined.
‘Naturally, there are some forces which would like to preserve the status quo, but I think the current of operative opinion is safely won over. The Chamber of Commerce, which represents the town’s trading interests——and, of course, the bulk of Tory money within Fellaby——favours a vast new civic centre, built over an arcade of shops to protect the interests of those who would otherwise be displaced. Lesueur could benefit in a small way from this——as an estate agent, backing builders, and so on. But this would be chicken-feed compared to what he could expect to make through a massive block of supermarkets and chain stores——which Fellaby does indeed lack. I know this is his intention, because the line Barson has been taking in committee is that we can no longer afford to look upon ourselves as a nation of small shop-keepers. Top class mass produced goods, at competitive prices, are the true requirements of the twentieth century customer. Who would buy his socks at Danny Farrow’s prices, when he could save money elsewhere? I can assure you, the undercurrents have been turbulent.’
‘And Lesueur’s money is in the supermarkets?’
‘Obviously. It must be. That’s the way his mind has worked since he invested his first thousand pounds.’
‘And if Labour win control?’
‘I don’t know. They’d like a new C. W.S. Emporium. I don’t know whether they’d get it. Please,’ the town clerk said, ‘don’t let me communicate a cynical attitude to local politics. I have seen so much of it that perhaps I am beginning to turn sour. But they’re not such a bad lot. Barson——well, he was a nasty bit of work——’
He was evidently prompted by bitter personal feeling.
‘And Lesueur is no more honest than any other wealthy man. But you mustn’t interpret him as characteristic of his party. He doesn’t always get his own way. Most of the Tories on this council are decent folk, desperately anxious to be just. Oh they like their little ration of dignity, but that’s not a crime against society. They do what they think’s right, and sometimes get hot under the collar about it. It’s the same with the socialists. Durkin’s ignorance is matchless, but he’s an honest man. Some of his friends are still fighting battles that were won fifty years ago. But, God knows, those battles had to be fought. You’ve only got to look at the death-throes of Hagley Brow to realise that. But for the rest, they are men and women of integrity. They have their principles, and they stick to them.’
Kenworthy changed the subject with dramatic suddenness.
‘Do you really believe that Barson’s wife was born on the wrong side of the blanket?’ he asked.
‘I refuse to trade in gossip,’ the town clerk said, ‘and I mean that.’
Chapter Thirteen
Kenworthy sat at his green metal desk, looking through questionnaires. A clerk brought Wright a sheaf of typescript.
It was the detailed list of the names and home addresses of Barson’s barrack-mates at the time of the Siebenhausen enquiry. Wright started at the word Fellaby in the right hand column, but as his eyes shifted along the line, he saw that it was Edward James Barson, of 11 Kenilworth Street. Someone had gone to the enormous clerical extravagance of typing out the army numbers of each of the two hundred or so men. But there was no one else in the list from within fifty miles of Fellaby. It proved nothing, but it achieved some further degree of elimination.
‘Let’s go back to the Carlton Estate, Shiner——like dogs to our vomit. If you remember, there was another woman who went misère ouvert on Green Hat. She was crowded out by the Oxfam coffee party——’
They were driven out to the estate in a black Ford Zephyr; damn it——they asked Kenworthy whether he wanted transport!
‘House is next door to Barson’s,’ Kenworthy said, ‘so this is going to cause a bit of a flutter. Still——we mustn’t let ourselves become too sensitive, otherwise they’ll never make policemen of us——Mrs Graveney,’ he said, as he pressed the illuminated bell-switch. ‘I wonder if he got her between the sheets, too?’
Muffled chime-bars sounded within. The moment Mrs Graveney opened the door, it was apparent that she was no Mrs Crispin. Tall, slim, her toneless yellow hair was pulled tight over her head and tied with dark blue bands into two short tufts that stuck out at an angle behind her. She was wearing a navy blue tunic dress with a long panel that hung down in front of her to accentuate rather than hide an advanced pregnancy. On the floor a four-year-old boy in dungarees was kneeling in a pile of scattered wooden blocks, playing with a toy breakdown lorry.
‘Oh, but I didn’t see this man. I put that on the form we had to fill in, and I said it again to the detective who came afterwards. You see, it was a Thursday, and I wouldn’t be in. Thursday’s always my day to go and see Grandma Graveney——we love going to see Grandma Graveney, don’t we my poppet?——You know, I think an awful lot of nonsense is talked about the in-law problem. Don’t you agree? I look forward to my Thursday mornings, and so does Grandma Graveney.’
She talked as might one who had been deprived of human society for some weeks.
‘So I’m afraid I’m not going to be much use to you. Though of course if there’s anything I could tell you——’
Kenworthy’s feet were already well established among the child’s bricks, so Wright presumed they would accept an invitation to stay.
‘There are one or two bits of things you might be able to help to clear up for us.’
‘I hope you won’t mind being asked into the living room. I’ve lit a fire in there and——’
The fire was, in fact, nearly out. She threw a hurried shovelful on to the shallow red ashes, which appeared to extinguish it altogether. In what appeared to be one movement she swept up a pile of household litter: an ironing board, a heap of finished linen, the remains of the boy’s breakfast, a
tangle of damp-dried underwear, two newspapers from the floor and a bottle of pills from the mantelpiece. With all this in her arms she swept away into the kitchen. The infant brought his toy to Kenworthy’s knees and thrust the jib of the crane into the superintendent’s face. A reedy cuckoo popped from his door and added elevenfold comment to the confusion. A large picture window looked out on to a pair of brick dustbins in an open brick shelter.
‘I’m sorry if we look lived in, but you see, we are, rather.’
She scooped up the child and swung him, crane and all, in a frightening arc that narrowly missed the imitation candelabra, and deposited him on a dining chair.
‘Now Clive just be a quiet little boy whilst the big gentlemen talk to Mummy about poor Mr Barson.’
‘You must have known the Barsons pretty well, Mrs Graveney.’
‘Well, you know, he lived a very busy life, and her own daily round didn’t leave a lot of time for garden-fencing, what with Bring-and-Buy sales and collecting for National Savings, and Primrose League.’
‘Tell me, Mrs Graveney——do you have much to do with the other women in this avenue?’
‘With the coffee-club, you mean?——That’s what my husband and I always call them——always in and out of each other’s houses. No. For one thing, my husband won’t let me. He says that if ever he came home from his tea and found me out of the house helping Mrs Crispin to tear Mrs Lowther to pieces, he’d divorce me immediately.’
She suddenly caught sight of a family planning booklet, visible behind an ornamental beer-mug on the mantelpiece, leaped and snatched it away and hid it somewhere in the folds of her dress.
‘Was Mrs Barson a regular member of the coffee-club?’
‘Mrs Barson comes in here and cries,’ Clive said.
‘I expect she turned to you for condolence,’ Kenworthy hastened to suggest, but she did not take advantage of the proffered escape-route.
‘Oh, no——that was before this happened. I haven’t really seen her since then, and I haven’t wanted to push myself forward.’
Then she seized the boy by the shoulder and trundled him from the room.
‘Naughty Clive, to mind other people’s business. Clive must go and play somewhere else.’
‘Won’t he catch cold in there?’ Kenworthy asked, when she had returned.
‘Oh, no. It isn’t cold really. I’ve put the electric fire on. To tell you the truth, I just didn’t want you to see in there. It’s a bit untidy.’
‘What made Mrs Barson come to you and cry?’
‘Oh——I shouldn’t talk about it, really. It isn’t fair. It’s like going behind some one’s back.’
‘It isn’t the same thing as talking about her, Mrs Graveney. It’s answering questions.’
‘Oh, well, of course——you are asking questions, aren’t you?’
‘I am.’
‘And I suppose something terrible would happen to me if I refused to answer.’
‘Something shocking, Mrs Graveney. I should have to put in my report that you had been unhelpful.’
‘Oh, but I wouldn’t want to give that impression. Emphatically the contrary. It’s just that it feels all wrong to be talking about Mr Barson——’
‘Mrs Graveney, sergeant Wright and I have it on unimpeachable authority that Mr Barson was a nasty bit of work.’
‘Oh, well, in that case——I do know that he often wasn’t very nice to his wife.’
‘You mean, they used to fall out?’
‘Well——worse than that, really.’
‘You mean, he was playing away from home?’
‘Playing away from home?’
‘Keeping company with other women.’
‘Oh, no——I don’t know anything of that nature, Mr Kenworthy. I mustn’t leave you with any such impression. That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.’
‘Mrs Barson never showed any suspicion that her husband might have a mistress tucked away somewhere?’
‘No. This is a great shock to me.’
‘Well——just make sure that it doesn’t shock anyone else. If a word of this leaks out, it can only come from one source, and Mrs Barson will have you for the juiciest slander action in the annals of Fellaby. And you won’t be able to look to me for protection.’
‘Oh, Mr Kenworthy——I assure you——’
She was flushed, confused. Wright thought that Kenworthy was being unnecessarily tough with her, but a few seconds later the superintendent became the kindly family man again.
‘In other respects, Barson treated her badly?’
‘It must have been pretty bad for her to come and weep to me about it. We hardly knew each other, the first time she came.’
‘He used to keep her short of money, perhaps?’
‘He did, rather. She was always having to play off one tradesman against the other, holding the soft drinks or the fish off until next month. But it wasn’t that.’
‘No?’
‘No——it was, well, sort of personal things——intimate things.’
Kenworthy waited, but she was too embarrassed.
‘The sort of thing you’d only care to talk to another woman about?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well——we could arrange for a woman police officer to talk to you. But it would cause too much of a stir if I were to bring her down here. And equally, if I asked you to call in at the station, it would be all over the town in no time. And yet I must get to the bottom of it——I must know whether this is something that might have affected his relationships with people outside the home.——Just try not to feel awkward about it, Mrs Graveney. Sergeant Wright and I have families of our own. Did you get the impression that Barson was some sort of pervert?’
‘Oh, no, nothing like that. The things he wanted her to do were normal enough, I suppose. It’s just that he hadn’t any respect for her. He demanded too much from her.’
She picked up the poker and stuck it as a lever under the lifeless coal. A few strands of thick, blue smoke welled up from the mountain of black dust, hung still for a moment, then evaporated. The fire was dead.
‘He wouldn’t use things, either——not even a few weeks after their third.’
‘Isn’t there a clinic in Fellaby?’
‘He wouldn’t let her go. He said that in his position he couldn’t afford to have his private life blazoned about the town.’
‘She could easily have had a word with her own doctor.’
‘He didn’t want her to do that, either, though last time she talked to me about it, she said she was going to. And he’d put her off these pill things by frightening her about the side-effects.’
‘Do you think Clive’s all right?’ Kenworthy asked. ‘He sounds abnormally quiet.’
But before the boy could be brought back, the door-chimes rang again.
‘It’s for you, Mr Kenworthy.’
Their police driver told them that a call had come over the car radio.
‘Superintendent Rhys said it was important, sir. Said I was to advise you straight away.’
‘What is it, constable?’
‘They’ve discovered that Warren, sir, paid a call on Hagley Brow. At number 19——’
‘Number 19! Barson’s mother-in-law!——Shiner, we’re in business!’
‘Number 19 Hagley Brow, sir?’
‘No. County Hotel. No point in rushing things, and I don’t want to interfere with Mrs Sawyer’s dinner. Besides, this is one thing I shall tackle better on a full stomach.’
Chapter Fourteen
Up Hagley Brow the houses climbed in steep, uneven terraces, fronting to stone slabs of a much earlier vintage than those in Barson’s garden, many of them sunk in their beds, so that one was in constant danger of stubbing one’s toes. The windows of number 19 were covered with narrow crossed strips of brown gummed paper, as if the precautions of the air-raid years had set a permanent fashion.
Kenworthy and Wright had not announced their visit; they did not
know what kind of reception awaited them. Mrs Sawyer had not come forward of her own accord. Rhys’s detectives had extracted the information by unscrupulous pressure on a neighbour who had previously withheld his information out of sheer reluctance to co-operate with the police on any issue whatsoever. Exhaustive follow-up had not revealed that Warren had called anywhere else in the row.
Kenworthy told the constable to drive away and park the car in a vacant lot they had noticed lower down the slope. Then he raised the knocker, which, like the number-plates, the letter-box and the door-knob, had been vigorously brought up with polish every morning for many years.
Mrs Sawyer came to the door with a walking-stick, a big-boned woman who had been handsome in her time, but who was now beginning to stoop and lose flesh. She was well dressed, in black, with white hair, neatly kept and fairly recently permed.
‘Police? You found out, then?’
Kenworthy introduced themselves.
‘You’d better come in. I’ve been expecting you.’
A heavy curtain had been drawn within the front door, otherwise the room opened directly from the street. She led them in, halting once to rest a painful hip.
‘Arthritis,’ she said over her shoulder.
Her vowel sounds were markedly those of the local dialect, but she spoke with natural precision, her speech a combination of ancient tap-roots and unaffected refinement. The room was small and over full with furniture, but redolent with cleanliness and polish. A thick hearth-rug, of multi-coloured wool clippings, seemed almost new. The television set was small, but modern and expensive. A portable radio receiver on a shelf was at least a quarter of a century old, but had probably been a luxury when it was new. A big coal fire was burning in an old-fashioned kitchen-range, with a boiler built in at one side and an oven at the other, the whole thing meticulously black-leaded. She half raised her stick to draw attention to the crosses of brown adhesive paper on the window.
‘Stops folk looking in,’ she said. ‘One of the few good things that came out of the war. I’ll make tea presently.’
She picked up an enormous copper kettle from its hob and went and filled it, noisily, in what was apparently a small scullery at the back of the house.
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