Buried in the Past

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  With an effort Gerald roused himself to deal with the contents of the folder which Miss Fletcher had brought in, signing his letters mechanically without reading them through. It was vital to carry on normally. Snatching up some papers, he went to his partner’s room and discussed a client’s affairs for a few minutes. The conversation moved on easily to the weekend’s golf prospects, and John Mundy’s new car. Finally Gerald remarked that it had been one hell of a week, and he was pushing off.

  On returning to his own room he found Miss Fletcher replenishing his stock of the firm’s stationery, and commented casually on the quality of the new batch as he collected some to take home.

  ‘You were most convincing about the Council meeting,’ he told her. ‘I soon shot off the chap: a definite nutcase with a persecution complex. I urged him to see a London solicitor: so much more experienced in handling a difficult case like this than a poor country bloke.’

  Miss Fletcher was discreetly amused. Wishing her a good weekend, Gerald Stanton went downstairs, humming a few bars of a current pop hit, and greeting the receptionist as he passed her desk. As he walked to his car, he realised that he was cold and feeling slightly sick. He drove himself home, turning down the lane by the side of his house to the garage. Shirley, he knew, was out and would not be back until supper time. He switched off the engine and sat on in the car, deliberately assessing the danger of his situation.

  It was unquestionably acute. Blister was basically crude and naive, but anything but a fool in some ways. Even if he was forced to withdraw his allegations by convincingly faked evidence, what guarantee was there that the written evidence he so inexplicably possessed would be destroyed? Even if — most probably — he agreed to hand it over, he could easily have a photostat copy made. And he’d know perfectly well how easily he could start up damaging rumours, even if they couldn’t be substantiated. A solicitor was as vulnerable as a doctor to this sort of thing....

  Shivering now, and dangerously near panic, Gerald pulled himself together with all the strength he could summon up. He must take immediate practical steps. Start on that letter at once — not sit around like this. He got out of his car, locked it, and emerged from the garage. Preoccupied though he was, he was startled to find himself in a world bathed in lurid crimson, and walked the few steps to the gate leading into the excavations. The sunset sky was ablaze almost to the zenith, while to the east a full moon of unnatural size mounted relentlessly. In the foreground loomed ragged mounds and ridges of debris, and partly infilled trial trenches gaped suggestively.

  As he contemplated this eschatological scene, an appalling idea flashed across his mind ... there was only one real solution to a problem like his....

  Sweating, he struggled to push the thought from his mind.

  Part Two

  Chapter 5

  The staff of Warhampton University’s history department began assembling unenthusiastically for their pre-term meeting on the afternoon of 9 January. Outside, the day was raw and still. Inside, the central heating was potent, and the general atmosphere one of Christmas and New Year hangovers, and colds in the head. Small groups stood conversing desultorily while individuals sat aloof, catching up on the weeklies to which they were addicted. Professor Cranford greeted arrivals conscientiously, trying not to be repetitive. He was a short, thick-set man with a massive brow, an acknowledged authority on the Younger Pitt.

  By 2.25 the absence of Bernard Lister was beginning to arouse comment. Finally the minute hand of the electric clock on the wall leapt spasmodically to the half hour. The Professor, with an eye on the door, went on with a conversation about double glazing, aware that impatience was building up. At 2.35 he broke off the discussion and went to his desk. There was a general shuffle as people reorientated themselves.

  ‘Uncharacteristic of Lister to be late,’ he remarked as he sat down. ‘No doubt he’s snarled up in the traffic. It’s getting progressively worse in face of the City Council’s masterly inactivity. We’d better make a start on matters which don’t involve him directly.’

  There was seldom much on the agenda for this particular meeting, and all such items were soon disposed of. The Professor buzzed his secretary, and instructed her to ring Bernard Lister’s flat. Five minutes later she reported that she had been unable to get an answer.

  ‘Well, we can’t hold things up indefinitely,’ Professor Cranford commented. ‘We must make provisional decisions about these students who want to change their programmes, and anybody Lister feels really strongly about will have to be reconsidered, if necessary. None of you knows anything about his vacation activities, I suppose?’

  As he expected, no information on this subject was forthcoming.

  Full term began on the following morning. At eleven o’clock a pugnacious Second Year accosted her tutor, Dr Marcella Wright, the Senior Reader.

  ‘Is Mr Lister ill, Dr Wright?’ she demanded. ‘He never turned up for our lecture, and there was no message. And dozens of people have been trying to see him all morning. There’s no notice on his door.’

  Marcella Wright surfaced from hectic activity to realise that she had completely forgotten about Bernard Lister’s non-appearance at the staff meeting. As she promised to make enquiries, she felt a sudden qualm. Suppose he was in his flat, but had had a coronary, or something? She was officially free for the next hour, and being a kindly and rather impulsive person, decided to go round and put her mind at rest on this matter at least. After looking up the address, she set off in her car.

  She did not expect an answer when she rang Bernard Lister’s bell, but it was disconcerting to get none from the other two flats. She stared at the front of the house. The only open window was one in Bernard Lister’s flat. Otherwise the whole place looked shut up. An attempt to get round to the back of the building was baulked by a locked garden door. There was nothing for it but to return to the University. In transit she made up her mind to report her visit to Professor Cranford.

  After listening to her, he admitted to a growing concern of his own.

  ‘It’s so utterly out of character for Lister not to have contacted us. Even if he’s unconscious in hospital somewhere, he must have had papers of some sort on him, and surely the authorities would have informed the police here? I agree with you,’ he went on, ‘that we ought to make sure he isn’t in his flat, especially as there’s an open window.’

  ‘Will that mean bringing in the police?’ Marcella Wright asked in dismay.

  ‘I’m afraid it probably will. I suppose I’d better get on to the Vice-Chancellor.’

  Initially the undermanned Warhampton police reacted with scepticism to a request to check up on Mr Bernard Lister’s flat. When the address was noted, however, there was an immediate interest. The file of the recent cannabis case was consulted, and Sergeant Flack of the City Constabulary told to get the key of the house from the agent and have a look round.

  On arrival, he rang the bell of each flat in turn, and, on getting no replies, unlocked the front door and entered the communal entrance hall. Mail addressed to Bernard Lister and Dr Halton lay on the mat and more was stacked on a table. The hall floor was immaculate, suggesting that no one had walked over it since it was last cleaned. Going upstairs, Sergeant Flack tried the door of the first floor flat. It was locked, and he satisfied himself that the key was not on the inside. Pushing up the flap of the letter box, he sniffed. No sinister odour was detectable, merely a general stuffiness. After a rapid inspection of the stairs leading up to the top floor, he threw open the staircase window. As he expected, there was an external iron fire escape which linked all three flats with the back garden. The end wall of this garden abutted on to the grounds of a house shrouded in scaffolding, where men were at work. Within a quarter of an hour he had borrowed a ladder from them, climbed over the wall, and was standing at the foot of the fire escape.

  The short winter afternoon was closing in, but as he looked at what was obviously the bathroom window of Bernard Lister’s flat, his att
ention was alerted. A few seconds later he was examining it at close range, to find that it had been broken near the catch. He decided that any reasonably able-bodied chap could have got on to the sill from the fire escape, but before doing so himself he tried the back door of the flat. He found that it was unlocked, and walked into a small neat kitchen.

  ‘Anyone at home?’ he called loudly.

  His voice died away into the silence of an empty house, and he proceeded to the bathroom next door. Here there were unmistakable signs of a break-in. A small bedroom, also at the back of the house, contained no feature of interest, and he crossed the landing to the two front rooms. The bedroom contained a single bed, made up but not slept in. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed, and after glancing under the bed and into the cupboards he moved on again.

  The door of the adjoining room was ajar He pushed it open, and the beam of his torch picked out so bizarre a scene that he quickly wrapped a handkerchief round his hand and switched on the light.

  The floor and much of the furniture were strewn with fragments of white paper. Stooping to look, Sergeant Flack recognised both typescript and lined paper with handwriting on it. A portable typewriter had been flung across the room, and was lying upside down in a corner. Empty bookshelves lined the walls, their former contents in jumbled heaps on the floor. The drawers of a kneehole desk had been emptied out on to the top. Surprisingly, though, various valuable and easily portable objects, such as a transistor radio and a travelling clock, had not been taken.

  Without hesitation he retrieved the desk telephone from the carpet, found that it was live, and dialled his headquarters. While waiting for further instructions he eyed the chaos speculatively. Finally a quack in his ear was followed by a curt order to stay where he was till Inspector Worrall turned up.

  A few minutes later there was a ring at the front doorbell. He went down to answer it, and found on the doorstep a young man in a Burberry, with the expression of a fox terrier on a scent.

  ‘Evening, Sarge. Anything in this for us? Warhampton Evening News.’

  ‘Not unless you think folks’ll be interested in one more small-scale break-in,’ Sergeant Flack replied. ‘I suppose one o’ those builder chaps tipped you off? Haven’t wasted much time, have—’

  He broke off as a police car drew up at the kerb. Inspector Worrall got out and strode forward.

  ‘No comment till I’ve seen the job for myself,’ he told the young man tersely. ‘Ring in later, if you think it’s worth the price of a call.’

  Followed by a detective constable carrying fingerprinting gear, the two police officers went into the house.

  Later, when Sergeant Flack had left, Inspector Worrall prowled from room to room in the intervals of watching the fingerprinting in progress. He opened drawers and cupboards, and peered into the almost empty refrigerator. Pulling away the bedspread he unearthed a folded pair of pyjamas, which had been worn. He satisfied himself that nowhere was there any sign of a struggle. Finally, he sat down on the most comfortable chair in Bernard Lister’s bedroom to sort out his ideas.

  Obviously it was not the ordinary type of break-in for theft. Nor the usual run of mindless vandalism — the damage was too selective for that. In his own mind he was convinced that the students ejected from the flat above were responsible. It looked as though they had wrongly concluded that the tip-off about the cannabis smoking had come from Lister, and had decided to get their own back by mucking up his work. All right, but it was going to be a devil of a job to pin it on them. For one thing, when had it happened? After Lister had left the place, or he would have reported it. By now the chap was said to be missing, or at any rate hadn’t clocked in for the beginning of the university term. Could the two things be connected?

  After some consideration, Inspector Worrall thought not. It was unthinkable that that half-baked lot had murdered Lister, and successfully disposed of his body. At the same time the two things added up to an odd business, all the more difficult to sort out with both the other tenants away. Perhaps there was a working connection, though, because the date when Lister left the flat was the point at which enquiries into the students’ movements would have to begin.

  He took out his notebook and jotted down various leads. The man must have friends up at the University who’d know his holiday plans ... milkman ... newsagent ... cleaner ... dates of postmarks on mail downstairs….

  Having exhausted his ideas for the moment, he returned to the sitting room, where the detective constable remarked that it would take anybody a month of Sundays to do the job properly. He reported finding the same sets of gloved dabs in the bathroom and on various surfaces in the sitting room. Inspector Worrall grunted.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Fix that broken window as best you can, and we’ll knock off for tonight.’

  The investigation got under way again the following morning. The agent for the flats supplied the name and address of the woman who cleaned the hall and stairs but she was of little direct help. She knew the three tenants by sight but did not work for them personally, and could not remember when she had last seen Mr Lister. By a rare stroke of luck, however, her sister-in-law cleaned for him: Mrs Passmore, of 39 Stokes Place.

  When run to earth at a local greengrocer’s, Mrs Passmore proved rather slow-witted, but sure of the basic facts relating to her employer. She told Inspector Worrall that she cleaned for Mr Lister Friday afternoons. Leastways, it was Friday afternoons this year. It had to be when he hadn’t no lectures to give up to the university, so as he could let her in. A key? No, she’d never had no key to the flat. He wasn’t the sort to hand over a key. That was why she always had to go to clean when he hadn’t got no—

  Cutting in ruthlessly, Inspector Worrall asked her if she could remember when she had last cleaned the flat. Without the slightest hesitation she said that it had been on Friday, 8 December. She was quite certain about it, as 9 December was her old Mum’s birthday, and she’d been anxious to get off in good time to finish decorating the cake.

  ‘You’re quite sure you didn’t go to work at the flat on Friday, 15 December?’ he persisted.

  ‘No, I never, not with Mr Lister going on holiday. I couldn’t’ve got in, see? He paid me up on 8 December with two weeks in advance, same as he always does when he goes on holiday, whether I works or no. ’Tis a retaining fee, like. Then I always gets a postcard, telling me when to start work again, soon as he gets back.’

  ‘And you haven’t had one yet?’

  ‘Tha’s right. Any time now, it’ll come.’

  He asked her if she knew where Mr Lister was going for his holiday. She shook her head. Never said much, he didn’t. Lived too much on his own, shut up with all those books, to her way of thinking. But it must’ve been before the Friday after — 15 December that was, or he’d’ve wanted her to clean as usual.

  After impressing on Mrs Passmore that she must let the police know at once if a postcard arrived from Mr Lister, Inspector Worrall returned to police headquarters. Here he found that his subordinates had also covered useful ground. Mr Lister had cancelled deliveries of milk and newspapers as from 15 December until further notice. His car, an Austin Cambridge, had been located in the lock-up which he rented from his garage. It had been brought in for servicing on 14 December, and a note to Mr Lister propped up on the steering wheel had not been removed.

  It now seemed reasonably well established that Bernard Lister had left his flat on 14 or 15 December, and had not returned since. Inspector Worrall put in a report with a feeling of satisfaction. He now had a starting point for the enquiry into the break-in. It would be somebody else’s job to track down Lister.

  In the meantime, Chief Superintendent Norrington, who believed in keeping on good terms with people in a position to make nuisances of themselves, had been in conference with the Vice-Chancellor and Professor Cranford. In default of any known relatives of the missing man, the latter felt it incumbent on them to take the initiative. At the same time they were reluctant to
involve the University in possibly quite unnecessary sensational publicity. There could be a reasonable explanation for Mr Lister’s absence, such as a mistake on his part about the date of the beginning of term. After a lengthy discussion, in the course of which Superintendent Norrington put the police view that the break-in was a separate issue, it was agreed to wait another twenty-four hours before issuing a public appeal for information. In the meantime, Bernard Lister’s file in the Academic Registrar’s office would be consulted, and the referees he had given when applying for his post discreetly contacted.

  This cautious plan, however, was destined to be blown sky-high through the unwitting agency of Mrs Passmore. In common with the majority of Warhampton’s citizens, she knew little and cared less about its University, although she was an avid reader of the local evening paper. While perusing it that same evening, she came upon a paragraph on student affairs which struck her as somehow not quite right. She sat with puckered brow until the penny suddenly dropped. Why, the term had started, and there’d been no postcard from Mr Lister. She reacted indignantly. Given her the push, had he, without a word after four years, and retaining money owing, too? At this moment her husband walked in with his brother, to be greeted with an angry outburst.

  ‘Hold on, Glad,’ her brother-in-law broke in with some difficulty. ‘Where’s he live, this bloke you works for, and the copper’s bin askin’ about?’

  She told him.

  ‘Cor!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s where I lent a copper a ladder so as he could get into the place. I’m orf!’