Buried in the Past

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘Great stuff, this,’ Timothy Parr remarked to no one in particular, ‘in fact, rich. Who says the fuzz have no imagination? What are we supposed to have lifted from Lister’s flat? His bed?’

  Pollard let a tense silence build up. Then he leant a little forward.

  ‘Did you look under the bed?’ he asked quietly.

  There was a sudden convulsive movement by David Tresillian.

  ‘I tell you, Lister wasn’t there!’ he shouted. ‘We never set eyes on him.’

  There was a further pause. Timothy Parr sketched a gesture of humorous resignation, and hummed a few bars of a pop hit.

  ‘I imagine,’ Pollard said, transposing the interview into another key, ‘that when you were obliged to leave Mrs Tresillian’s flat, you took the precaution of keeping a key, and also a key to the front door of the house. You may have had these cut, to avoid difficulties with the agent. You knew that it wouldn’t be at all easy to find anywhere even tolerably comfortable to live in at that late stage in the university term. I rather think that you continued to spend some time in the flat. It was the middle of winter, and some free heating an advantage. You were quite well acquainted with Mr Lister’s daily programme, and if he came home unexpectedly and cut off your line of retreat, there was always the fire escape, and a bit of wall scaling.’

  In the absence of any comment, he went on.

  ‘One of these occasions, I think, was on 14 December. No doubt you made sure Mr Lister was out before you let yourselves into the house. For some reason you decided to take it out on him, wrongly believing that he had been the police tip-off about your drug offences. You went down the fire escape, broke a pane in his bathroom window and got into his flat. There you carried out precisely the sort of damage that you knew would be most infuriating to a man as absorbed in his academic work as he was. Did you’ — Pollard’s tone changed abruptly from the narrative to the authoritative — ‘have a look round the whole place before getting down to your vandalism?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Timothy Parr replied laconically.

  David Tresillian lay on his back, silently pleating and unpleating the hem of a grubby sheet. Pollard formed an opinion about the nature of his hangover before going on.

  ‘Pot-smoking and bloody-minded vandalism are one thing,’ he said, addressing himself to Timothy Parr. ‘Murder is in a different category. Mr Lister was last seen alive — except by his murderer, of course — during the afternoon of 14 December. You have both tacitly admitted breaking into his flat on that date. At the moment the situation is not particularly healthy for you. If you want to be cleared of suspicion, you would be well advised to be cooperative. At what time did you go into the house?’

  ‘About half past four.’

  ‘What made you sure that Mr Lister was not in his flat?’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! The curtains weren’t drawn, and there was no light in the place.’

  ‘All right,’ Pollard replied. ‘We’ll accept for the moment that you were right, and he was out. What time did he come back?’

  The question was shot out with such violence that the prostrate figure on the divan sprang up.

  ‘He didn’t come back, I tell you. But a chap who was gunning for him came. We thought he was going to smash the door down.’

  ‘What door?’

  ‘The door of Lister’s flat,’ Timothy Parr answered, as David Tresillian had slumped down again and relapsed into silence.

  ‘How did this alleged person get into the house? Surely you locked the door behind you when you went in?’

  ‘No, we didn’t. It was never locked during the day.’

  ‘Who locked it at night?’

  ‘When we were in the top flat, I think the Halton bloke on the ground floor did. He was always up very late. I suppose Lister did when he was in the house on his own.’ Pollard registered this point with interest.

  ‘Reverting to this man who Mr Tresillian says was gunning for Mr Lister, he came up to the door of the flat, then?’

  ‘Yeah. We were keeping an ear cocked for Lister, and heard somebody coming up the stairs. We’d left the back door open, and legged it into the kitchen, expecting to hear a latchkey being put in the lock. Instead of that, whoever it was started knocking. We were keeping quiet, of course, but some books or something fell down in the study, and the type at the door hammered like mad, and went berserk, yelling to Lister to come out instead of skulking like a rat, and a lot more. We faded out at this point, and went back to the top flat.’

  Pollard considered.

  ‘Did you have a light on in the study?’

  ‘Nope. Too risky if Lister came back. Anyway, a street lamp shone right into the room.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘As we got back into the top flat the racket suddenly stopped, and we heard somebody belt downstairs and out of the house. We dashed over to the window, and just caught sight of a man beating it out into the street. We thought we’d push off ourselves, all things considered, and went down the fire escape, and over a couple of garden walls into the next street.’

  ‘Do you know if anyone saw you trespassing?’

  ‘We ran slap into a bloke who yelled after us he was ringing the police. He didn’t get much of a look at us, though.’

  ‘Could be unlucky for you that he didn’t,’ Toye remarked. ‘What time was all this?’

  Once again, his sudden speech seemed to have an unnerving effect on the pair. David Tresillian turned his head towards the group by the table.

  ‘There was a clock in Lister’s study,’ he muttered. ‘It struck half past six while we were listening in the kitchen. Made me jump. I hate striking clocks.’

  Timothy Parr looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Mr Parr,’ Pollard said, ‘you’re anything but a fool, and seem to be in full possession of your faculties. From this alleged caller’s voice, and what you saw of him, what age would you give him?’

  ‘Wot, me help the police in their enquiries?’ the young man replied, having recovered his poise.

  ‘Make no mistake. You’re helping to save your own skin, and your friend’s over there.’

  ‘Can it be that the clever Yard sleuths know who the chap is? Not our age group, anyway. More like yours. Definitely a square. Top coat, and believe it or not, soft hat and briefcase.’

  ‘That’s all, then, for the present,’ Pollard said, getting to his feet. ‘Your statements will be typed out, and brought along for you to read and then sign, if you agree they’re a true record of the information you’ve given.’

  David Tresillian flung himself on to his face with a convulsive movement.

  ‘I tell you we never saw Lister. You’re just trying to pin a murder on us. Oh, God! ’

  He began to sob.

  Disregarding him, Timothy Parr made a detaining gesture in Pollard’s direction.

  ‘Hold on a minute. Where do we go from here, now we’ve admitted to breaking and entering? Isn’t it taken into account if you turn Queen’s Evidence, or whatever?’

  ‘Under the circumstances, I haven’t a clue, Mr Parr,’ Pollard replied. ‘Not my problem, I’m glad to say!’

  Chapter 8

  Early on Monday afternoon Adrian Beresford, assistant archivist to the City of Alchester, kerb-crawled along Imperial Road, Warhampton, in his Mini, scrutinising the numbers on the gateposts. Arriving at number 7, he drove in and parked outside the front door which stood open. He collected his briefcase and walked into the house and upstairs to Bernard Lister’s flat, letting himself in with the key entrusted to him at the police station. As Pollard and Toye had done before him, he flung up the study windows.

  He stood looking around him, a lightly built young man in his late twenties, with a narrow face, well-cut features and intelligent grey eyes. In spite of its dusty, neglected appearance and the untidy jumble of books on the floor, the room appealed to him. It was the sort of place you could work in. As he picked up one of the plastic bags filled with torn scraps of paper, his at
tention was caught by the desk, and he bent down to examine it closely. To his astonishment it was the one he had wanted to buy for himself at Baldwin and Young’s Saleroom back in the autumn. There was no doubt about it: his exploring fingers found the chip off the right hand comer at the back, which he had vainly hoped might keep the price within his range.

  Straightening up again, he addressed himself to the practical problem of working space. He cleared the top of the desk, and after a tour of inspection, returned from the kitchen with a Formica-topped table. The job was really a sort of jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box to help, only one’s general knowledge of the contents and wording of medieval borough charters. He extracted some rolls of Sellotape and a pair of scissors from his briefcase, and took a lucky dip from the bag containing fragments of typescript.

  At the sight of words such as ‘inspeximus', ‘Chancery’ and ‘Corburiensis’ he became instantly absorbed.

  Two hours later several oddly-shaped pieces of typescript seamed with Sellotape lay around him. One of these consisted of the opening paragraphs of an article on the Cor- bury charters. There was enough of it to make its tone perfectly apparent. Adrian Beresford was reading it for the third time with raised eyebrows when he was roused by knocking at the front door of the flat.

  He leapt to his feet to answer it, assuming that someone wanted him to move his car. On opening the door he was confronted by a girl in a flowered maxi skirt and white top. She had fair hair, worn long and straight, and blue eyes, but he was immediately struck by her tense expression.

  ‘I’m most awfully sorry if my car’s in your way,’ he said. ‘I’ll come down at once, and shift it.’

  She made a deterrent gesture with her hand, while continuing to stare at him.

  ‘You can’t be,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Not the Scotland Yard man. You’re much too young. Is he — is he here?’

  ‘Good Lord, no,’ Adrian replied astonished. ‘I mean, I’m not Superintendent Pollard. I’m just doing a job for him. I’m Adrian Beresford from the Alchester Record Office. No, he isn’t here, I’m afraid. When I picked up the key at the police station they said they were expecting him back from London this evening. Would you like to come in and ring them to see if he’s shown up yet?’

  As he spoke he realised that the girl was trembling, and on the brink of tears.

  ‘Come on in a minute,’ he said persuasively.

  By the time he had hastily cleared a chair for her, the tears which she could no longer control were running down her cheeks. Adrian took her arm and gently propelled her to the chair, perching himself on one of the arms.

  ‘Why not let up a bit?’ he suggested. ‘There’s nobody else here. Then we could try to sort out whatever it is that’s bothering you.’

  She turned her face away from him, and convulsive sobs shook her whole body. Adrian patted her shoulder at intervals, speculating on the nature of the crisis which had reduced her to such a state, and which apparently tied up with a CID Superintendent from Scotland Yard. Presently she steadied herself with an obvious effort, dried her eyes and blew her nose.

  ‘I’m frightfully sorry,’ she said shakily. ‘Crashing in on you and behaving like an idiot. I’d better tell you who I am, I suppose. Belinda Plowman. You know. Plowman’s Pottery at Corbury.’

  There was an instant link-up in Adrian’s mind. The recent sensational event at Corbury had aroused keen interest in Alchester. But before he could speak the girl was talking again.

  ‘These Scotland Yard men think my father killed Bernard Lister,’ she said with a kind of flat desperation. ‘They were cousins and loathed each other, and as it happens, our back gate’s quite close to the dig where the body was found. They’ve been down to Corbury and grilled Daddy. And my aunt, Daddy’s sister. And they’ve found out that I said I’d seen Blister — that’s what Daddy and Aunt Shirley called him when they were all kids — down in Corbury last summer. That’s why I’ve simply got to see this Pollard person. He’s trying to make out that Blister came to see Daddy, and they had a row. It just isn’t true. Daddy was away all that day, down in Cornwall about clay. He … he hasn’t seen Blister for more than twenty years.’

  Adrian detected a different intonation in her final sentence. She’s covering up something she’s frightened about, he thought. Looking down at Belinda’s bent golden head and unhappily fidgeting hands he felt increasingly protective.

  ‘Of course you must see Pollard, and tell him your father wasn’t there,’ he said, applying himself to the immediate problem. ‘Suppose I ring the police station now, and find out if he’s back? I’ll go round there with you, if it would help.’

  To his astonishment she went rigid.

  ‘I can’t face it. Not that place. Not after that awful night. You wouldn’t know, but I was taken there in a police car. I’ve … I’ve been in court, on a pot-smoking charge.’

  ‘Muhammad can jolly well come to the mountain then,’ Adrian replied with decision. ‘Leave it to me.’

  Without waiting for any further discussion he put the call through.

  ‘All settled,’ he told her, replacing the receiver after a brief conversation. ‘Pollard and his minion are coming along in about half an hour.’ He straddled a chair, resting his arms on its back, and contemplated her thoughtfully. ‘You don’t look to me like a type who’s hooked on pot,’ he remarked.

  ‘I’m not,’ Belinda replied indignantly. ‘I think it’s lousy stuff. It was only that once. I was asked to a party. You know ... one doesn’t want people to think one’s stuffy or anything,’ she finished rather lamely.

  Adrian felt emotively old and experienced.

  ‘Do you think it’s wrong? Pot, I mean,’ he insisted.

  She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘No, I don’t think I do. Not if you don’t overdo it, or go on to hard stuff, any more than reasonable drinking’s wrong.’

  ‘Well, then, why are you so churned up about having smoked the stuff just once? Did the Bench or the police bully you?’

  ‘No. Not the police, anyway. It’s not that. Daddy minded so — I’m awfully fond of him. Oh, hell — it’s that I’m terrified that because of the court case something ghastly happened, and — and it’ll be all my fault if it did.’

  ‘Let’s have it,’ Adrian urged. ‘If something ghastly’s got to be coped with, two people on the job are better than one. And I’m safe as houses, by the way.’

  Belinda slowly raised her head and gave him a long look.

  ‘D’you know, I believe you are. Anyway, I’ll blow up if I can’t talk to somebody. I’m scared stiff. You see, it’s true that Daddy really loathed Blister. He had an absolute thing about him. When the pot case was on, he — Daddy, I mean — came up to hold my hand, although I’d much rather he’d stayed away, of course. Afterwards he took me and the other two girls out to tea at his hotel. I knew that Dave Tresillian, the boy who gave the party in the flat over this one, thought a university don who lived here had brought in the police. But it wasn’t until we were having tea that one of the girls said that the don’s name was Bernard Lister. Well, I saw the look on Daddy’s face, and he knew I’d noticed it, and was jolly careful to say goodbye to us all together. And ever since it came out that Blister had disappeared, he’s been different.... And, well, he was in London on his own on the night of the 14th of December when the police think Blister was murdered.’

  Adrian considered.

  ‘So what’s worrying you is that on paper your father could have come down here to beat up Blister, and might have overdone it by mistake?’

  Belinda nodded, unable to trust herself to speak.

  ‘Did he do this Corbury-London trip by car or train?’ Adrian asked, his mind working quickly.

  ‘Train.’

  ‘Well, then, how could he possibly have got Lister’s body down to the dig at Corbury?’

  There was a tense silence. When she answered, her voice was little more than a whisper and he had to strain
his ears to catch what she was saying.

  ‘Not then, he couldn’t. But — but he drove up to fetch me home for Christmas on 19 December. I’d spent the first weekend of the vac with friends.’

  ‘Look here,’ Adrian said, firmly suppressing his initial shock at the implication of her reply, ‘are you seriously suggesting that your father drove you from here to Corbury with a corpse in the boot?’

  ‘Put like that it sounds crazy, I know,’ she said, miserably. ‘In the middle of the night, though, when you can’t sleep, it doesn’t seem absolutely not on. Daddy’s got a terrific temper. It would have been an accident, of course, and then he might have felt it was better to do absolutely anything to cover it up, because of Mummy and me. He isn’t always very — well, sensible.’

  From below came the sound of a car turning in at the gate and drawing up.

  ‘Pollard, from the look of it,’ Adrian said over his shoulder from the window. ‘Now, not to worry. As soon as you’re through with him we’ll go and have supper, and work out our line. I must nip down and move my bus.’

  Belinda sat on alone, recognising with astonishment how very comforting Adrian Beresford’s use of the first person plural was. She was so absorbed in this discovery that a tall, fair man, fresh-coloured and with a pleasant, unremarkable face, was walking into the room before she surfaced.

  ‘Miss Belinda Plowman?’ he said, coming forward with hand outstretched. ‘I understand you have some information which may help us. I’m Superintendent Pollard, and this is my colleague, Inspector Toye.’

  With a feeling of near panic, she murmured something non-committal as he took a chair pushed forward by Adrian, and sat down facing her. Inspector Toye stationed himself near the desk, and Adrian settled himself in the background with a certain deliberation. Belinda sensed that Superintendent Pollard was aware of the manoeuvre and had decided to accept it.

  ‘Well, Miss Plowman,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘we’re glad to hear anything with a possible bearing on this case, no matter how small it may seem to you.’

  She braced herself to speak.