“Heddle’s given us a start and some background detail, sir. I’m thankful for that. It’ll give me a basis for working on.”
“You’ll be visiting the cottage?”
“Probably this afternoon.”
“I’d make it definitely this afternoon. Not only to see the place for yourself, but to make your number with the West Sussex people. I’ll get in touch to tell them to expect you.”
“Right, sir.” Masters got to his feet. “We’ll go now, before lunch. It will give us a bit more daylight to play around in.”
When he got back to his office, he rang his home. He told Wanda he might be late for supper.
“Will you get lunch, darling?”
“Perhaps.”
“Only perhaps?”
“I’ve got to scoot off to West Sussex.”
“When do you expect to get back?”
“I really can’t say. Seven maybe, or eight.”
“That’s a pity.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought we’d have that beef pie you’ve been asking for for so long and I haven’t given you because of your no-fat diet . . .”
“That’s over, now.”
“Only just. I stewed the beef all yesterday afternoon ready for supper tonight. But I can’t keep a pie hot. The crust would burn. So if you don’t know when you’ll be back . . .”
“I’ll ring you. It will take an hour and a half to get home after that. Does that give you time?”
“Plenty.”
“White sauce on the cauliflower?”
“Men and their stomachs! You’re getting to be as bad as William.”
“I hope not.”
“Is it that murder you’re investigating?”
“Which murder?”
“I’ve been shopping. The early edition placards say ‘Double tragedy in seaside cottage. Murder feared’.”
“That’s it.”
“I heard somebody say it’s Rhoda Carvell, the one who writes for the View. Mrs Cartwright will be upset. You know how she adored that column.”
“I know. She’ll be cut up, but she’ll have her new coat to console her.”
“She won’t, you know. She rang me to say she couldn’t find any material she liked anywhere.”
“Not in the whole of Oxford Street and its environs?”
“Well, she only had two hours . . .”
Masters felt a lightening of his spirits as he put the phone down. Even Mrs Cartwright could be worsted—even if it took half a dozen of the biggest stores in the world to do it.
Chapter Two
Reed was driving and driving fast. For once Green did not complain.
“Did anybody get lunch?” asked Masters.
“In the time it took you to make a phone call to your missus?” demanded Green. “Come off it.”
“There wasn’t time and it wasn’t time, Chief,” said Berger. “Ten-to-twelve is a bit early and we had to put the bags in the car.”
“Good.”
“Good?” demanded Green, “What’s good about it?”
“I was thinking I could do with a drink. That’s a good idea, isn’t it?”
“Chief,” said Reed, “we’ve all been too long with you to be fooled.”
“Meaning?”
“Why tell us now that you would like a drink? Don’t bother to answer that. I’ll answer it myself. We’re about three miles from the Inn where young Heddle claims he ate last night. It’ll be open for lunches till two or half past and it will have a bar. As it is now coming up for one o’clock we find ourselves, seemingly by chance, just where you want to be when you want to be—at drinkies time.”
“Clever lad,” said Green. “If you thought his nibs was trying to be smart, that’s your pigeon. But if he’s anything like me, he simply wants a drink. He talked too long to young Heddle. Of course, after the first drink on you, I shall want a sandwich.”
“With your second drink?”
“That’s right.”
“These Inn places don’t serve sandwiches. They have set meals.”
“No matter,” said Masters. “We’ll manage.”
“You’re sounding a bit more chirpy, George.”
“I feel it. That call to Wanda . . .”
“Caused you to perk up a bit, did it? I’m not surprised.”
“She gave me a bit of good news.”
“Oh, yes? What?”
“Mrs Cartwright can’t find any material for her new winter coat in the whole of Oxford Street and Regent Street. I have visions of her chilling her beef this winter at all sorts of outdoor rallies in aid of . . .”
“Of what?”
“All those protest groups she supports.”
“And that cheers you up?”
“Yes. I think do-gooders should suffer for their causes. A bit of cold might stiffen up their soft centres. The idea pleases me.”
“Like deep-frozen ice cream. I know. Or rather I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” asked Berger.
“Why they’re all as soft as Joe Soap.”
“What do you want them to be? Hard hearted?”
“Like Icicle Joe, lad.”
“Should I know him?”
“No,” replied Green. “He’s staunchly teetotal. Not your type at all.”
“I see.”
“Heddle’s Inn coming up, Chief. I take it you want me to pull in.”
“Yes, please.”
“This Icicle Joe . . .” began Berger. “Do you know him, Chief?”
“He’s not one of my acquaintances nor, I suspect, is he very friendly with the SSCO if he’s a total abstainer.”
“You mean to say you don’t know him, George?”
“No. Who or what is he?”
“An Eskimo.”
Reed pulled on the parking brake. “I know scads of Eskimos. The road where I live’s full of them. The trouble is they’re forever taking their blasted polar bears for walks. I have to be very careful where I plant my snow shoes or . . .”
“Cut it out,” growled Green. “And let’s get on with mixing business with pleasure.”
*
The manager of the Inn was a man of indeterminate age. He looked youngish. Thirty-five or so? But Masters had the impression that the positively young styles he affected should by now have been left behind. Too much heavy black hair—albeit carefully trimmed and lacquered into place with, one supposed, one of the stronger strength hair sprays produced for women. And a pale blue denim, two-piece suit cut on battle-dress lines. In the evening he would, no doubt, be in a dinner jacket with a cascade shirt front, but he obviously thought this less formal attire more suitable for lunchtime. Probably because he felt that it lopped five years off his age at a casual glance. But Masters read faces rather more than clothes. This one had been browned under a sun lamp and looked superficially healthy enough, but it was beginning to show the ravages wrought by too much rich food and strong drink—presumably on the house.
“My name is Masters. I am a detective chief superintendent from Scotland Yard.”
“Glad to meet you, Mr Masters. And your colleagues. My name is Brice. You’re not here on business, I hope?”
As he spoke, he looked about him to see if there was anybody to overhear. But the bar was almost empty. The man behind the counter was polishing glasses and the only other two occupants were seated at a small table in the window. The dining room, of which the bar was merely an extension, showed more signs of activity. The tables were in chest-high alcoves, the partitions just low enough to show at a glance that a number of places were still occupied.
“I wouldn’t bother to tell you who I am if I weren’t here on duty, Mr Brice,” replied Masters.
“I see. Or at least I think I do.”
“Meaning what exactly, chum?” asked Green.
“Well, I mean . . . Scotland Yard! That sounds to me as if whatever you’re doing here isn’t just concerned with local village crime.”
“It
isn’t. We’ve come to see you.”
“Can we have a drink?” interrupted Masters. “Best bitter for all of us?”
“Certainly. On the house.”
“No, thank you. But I’ll be glad to take one off you some time when we’re not making enquiries.”
“You think I’m trying to . . . to influence you?” He’d nearly said bribe, but had thought better of it. Influence was more delicate. “I honestly haven’t a clue what you’re here for, so I don’t see how buying you a drink could affect anything any way.”
“Let’s have the drinks, chum,” grated Green. “Then we’ll enlighten you.”
Brice himself rounded the bar to serve. His hand was noticeably unsteady as he held the tankards. Reed said quietly to Berger: “I wouldn’t back him in an egg-and-spoon race. I wonder what he’s been up to that’s giving him nerves?”
“Probably nothing except a bit of VAT dodging. It’s the Chief’s presence.”
“You reckon he intimidates them? Even the innocents?”
“Everybody’s bound to wonder what they’ve done when he arrives and announces he’s on an official visit.”
Masters paid for the round and lifted the last of the tankards. After a sipped tester, he put it down again. “I’m sure you don’t know why I’m here, Mr Brice. Nor am I suggesting, either by my presence here or by my refusal to accept a free drink, that I think you are in any way implicated in crime.”
“I’m glad to hear it. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll join you gentlemen.” He busied himself pouring a lager and lime. “But you did introduce yourselves as police officers and you did say you were here on business, so what can I do for you?”
“Help me, I hope. I want a few words with you and a plate of sandwiches for four.”
“Sandwiches? We don’t . . . oh, wait just a minute. If a couple of dinner rolls with a steak in each would do you, you can have those immediately.”
“Capital,” said Masters.
“Just the jobbo,” added Green. “And don’t forget the mustard.”
Brice nodded and went to the end of the bar to call into the dining room. “Helga! Helga!” When the waitress arrived he gave her his instructions and then returned to Masters to await the food.
Helga was a pretty blonde. Brice explained she was a Norwegian who had come over as an au pair, but had found working as a waitress more to her liking and more lucrative. When she arrived, carrying two oval platters with the unusual looking fare, she glanced curiously at Masters with large, blue, bold eyes.
“The mustard pot, love,” reminded Green.
“French?”
“Proper mustard, love. English.”
She jiggled away. Masters turned to Brice. “A young man we’re interested in claims he called here last night for a meal. He says he had a steak and a half bottle of red wine.”
“Then he’d have eaten in this dining room. We’ve got just the three restaurants—Steak, Duck and Fish. What time did he say he came?”
“He reckons about nine, and that he stayed until ten or thereabouts.”
“Alone?”
“So he says.”
“Excuse me.” Brice picked up an internal phone below the bar counter. “Jessie? A tab last night for one steak, one half bottle of red of some sort. Somewhere about the middle of the invoice numbers. Let me know right away, love, please.” He put the phone down and turned to Masters. “He’d get his bill as soon as he was served. That would be about a quarter past nine if he arrived when you said. All the bills are numbered and that time is about half-way through the dining period—half-past six to eleven, but the rush is from eight to ten.”
“That’s all very clear, Mr Brice, thank you. I take it that if you find the invoice we shall know who served him?”
Brice nodded. “If he came we will,” he said confidently. “We don’t get all that many eating alone. No more than two or three a night, so it will be a case of . . .”
The internal phone interrupted him.
“Yes? Only one for a steak and half a bottle. Two singles for scampi . . . no, just the steak. Who served him? Helga? Thanks, Jessie.”
“Did I hear you say Helga served him? The girl who brought our sandwiches?”
“Yes. Perhaps a relief if Helga was away having a whizz at the time, but reliefs don’t usually do bills. Tips, you know. But the regular girls do have to sneak a couple of minutes to powder their noses now and then. I tell them to do it while the chefs are cooking the orders.”
“Thank you. I’d like to speak to Helga, please.”
“And she to him, I’ll bet,” said Berger in a whisper to Reed. “Those eyes—she gave the Chief the old green light with them.”
“Give me a couple of minutes to arrange a relief.”
“You’re not expecting to get anything here, are you, Chief?” asked Reed. “It’s ten to one Heddle was telling us the truth about this place.”
Masters merely shrugged. Green said to Reed. “It’s always a mystery to me why young jacks, like yourself and Berger here, most of you good at your jobs as far as it goes . . .”
“Thanks.”
“. . . can never be content unless they’re scrabbling around trying to unearth material clues. You never take time to immerse yourself m a case like me and his nibs here to soak up atmosphere until there’s a feel—almost a texture—to the job.”
“Hark who’s talking! Rabbiting on about Icicle Joe! What; had that got to do with the case?”
“With the case, nothing. With the business in hand, everything.”
“I’m listening.”
“We wanted a drink didn’t we?”
“You said this Joe was a teetotaller.”
“That’s right. But he was always in the right place at the right time.”
“So?”
“As I said, you lads aren’t happy unless you’re finding material clues or collating circumstantial evidence. But take this case for instance. Have you two appreciated the fear young Heddle must have felt? His experience probably didn’t panic him, exactly, but it drove him to this place to recover.”
“So?”
“For his nibs this place still reeks of the nervousness young Heddle shed here. He can feel it, or the results of it. For me, its stealthy. Yes, stealthy is the word. His nibs is beginning to feel a creepiness about the crime. But do you lads feel that? Or is murder just murder to you, whether it is open assault or murder by craft and stealth?”
“You’re making all this up.”
“I’m not. To feel the difference is everything to his nibs. It changes his viewpoint, if not his approach.”
Masters had not been privy to this conversation. He had been down the other end of the bar examining the prints on the walls. He turned to join them as Brice returned. “Here’s Helga,” the manager announced, “and she’ll be cross if she sees you haven’t eaten the sandwiches she prepared for you.”
Green picked up one of the doorstep sandwiches. “You talk to her, George. I’ve got a sore hand.”
“So it would seem.” Masters turned to Helga who had donned a clean white overall for the interview. It was held in so tightly at the waist that the size of her large bust was even more accentuated. Berger whistled almost silently through his front teeth at the sight and Reed whispered. “She’d make Marilyn Monroe look undernourished.”
“Do you speak English, Helga?” asked Masters.
A smiled affirmative.
“Last evening, about nine o’clock, a young man came into your dining room alone. He ordered a half bottle of red wine with his steak.”
“He sat there.” She pointed to a cubicle that held a table for two.
“You remember him?”
“A little bit. He was upset. I think he was angry because his girl had not come with him.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“No, but what else could there be to upset him?”
“You said he was angry.”
“Maybe angry. Maybe something else.
Not happy.”
“Could he have been afraid—frightened?”
“He had a white face. Very white. That is frightened?”
“What else did you notice about him?”
“He had hair like this—nearly.” She flicked the cascade of fair hair at the side of her neck. “But not so pretty,” she added hastily.
“Can you remember what he was wearing?”
“It is not easy. We have not big lights. Only little lights on the tables to see faces.”
“Sweater and jeans, perhaps?”
“Oh, no, a suit and a tie.”
“What colour?”
“I don’t know. It had white lines in it I think.”
Green, who had been munching away quietly in the background, but never taking his eyes off the girl’s face, emptied his mouth and asked. “After he gave his order, how long did he have to wait?”
Helga pouted. “Ten minutes for his steak. But I took his wine to him before it.”
“And you passed him several times?”
“Oh, yes. When I was serving other diners.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was thinking. He was not here, you know. When I showed him the wine he was . . . he jumped a bit.”
“Startled, was he?”
“Yes. And again when I brought his steak.”
“Thank you.” Green picked up the remains of his sandwich. Masters looked round to make sure Green had finished his interruption and then turned again to Helga.
“He came in about nine o’clock, you think?”
She shrugged, as if to convey that she would be too busy at that time of night to notice the comings and goings of customers.
Brice said: “Judging by the number on the bill you can reckon that’s not far out—give or take a quarter of an hour.”
“Thank you, Mr Brice. How long did the customer stay, Helga?”
“A long time. When people come in pairs they sit and talk or smoke together or hold hands. But when a man comes without his girl he gobbles up fast and goes quick. This one did not. He was thinking, like a man with a big problem. I thought he had had a quarrel perhaps with his girl and he was thinking about that.”
“Thank you, Helga. That’s all. While I have my sandwich, would you fetch my bill, please?”
The Monday Theory Page 5
